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




Nonsense   /nˈɑnsɛns/   Listen
Nonsense

adjective
1.
Having no intelligible meaning.  Synonym: nonsensical.  "A nonsensical jumble of words"



Related searches:



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 |





"Nonsense" Quotes from Famous Books



... Ettie, what nonsense—for a violent exercise like bicycling! Where one gets so hot! So unbecomingly hot! You'd be simply stifled, darling." I caught a darted glance which accompanied the words and which made Ettie recoil into the ...
— Hilda Wade - A Woman With Tenacity Of Purpose • Grant Allen

... "Nonsense!" Ludovick was goaded to irritation at last. "How could a robot have that delicate play of expression, that ...
— The Blue Tower • Evelyn E. Smith

... whistling. "I can't undertake to find third parties in common sense; I can only find it for myself. I suppose sense in certain quarters; you suppose mincing bread-and-butter nonsense. It's new to me, but you are ...
— A Tale of Two Cities - A Story of the French Revolution • Charles Dickens

... "This is all nonsense, Socrates," he said. "Balphurios cannot be a democrat: for I am a democrat, and I do not agree with Balphurios. And you have not the least conception of what is meant by democracy: which is, that certain persons are chosen by the majority of the citizens ...
— The Casual Ward - academic and other oddments • A. D. Godley

... keep the girl late now, Moriarty, with love making in the pig-stye or any nonsense ...
— General John Regan - 1913 • George A. Birmingham

... his excellent method of arguing. Corduroy-road, a novel one. Corner-stone, patent safety. Cornwallis, a, acknowledged entertaining. Cotton loan, its imaginary nature. Cotton Mather, summoned as witness. Country, our, its boundaries more exactly defined, right or wrong, nonsense about, exposed, lawyers, sent providentially. Earth's biggest, gets a soul. Courier, The Boston, an unsafe print. Court, General, farmers sometimes attain seats in. Court, Supreme. Courts of law, English, their orthodoxy. Cousins, British, our ci-devant. Cowper, W., his letters ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell

... that happens, Clara, and all we say," Mrs. Dane said in a low tone. "Even if it sounds like nonsense, put it down." ...
— Sight Unseen • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... said David, with a dramatic gesture; "but since we're all of a trade, perhaps our friend will show he doesn't mind my nonsense by ...
— A Day with Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy • George Sampson

... statue, thou hast stood besieged By sycophants and fools, the growth of courts; Where thy gulled eyes, in all the gaudy round, Met nothing but a lie in every face, And the gross flattery of a gaping crowd, Envious who first should catch, and first applaud, The stuff of royal nonsense: When I spoke, My honest homely words were carped and censured For want of courtly style; related actions, Though modestly reported, passed for boasts; Secure of merit if I asked reward, Thy hungry minions thought their rights invaded, And the bread snatched from pimps and parasites. ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Vol. 7 (of 18) - The Duke of Guise; Albion and Albanius; Don Sebastian • John Dryden

... animate objects cannot receive this affix. 'At the rock' (ompsk-ut), 'at the mountain' (wadchu-ut), or 'in the country' (ohk-it, auk-it), is intelligible, in Indian or English; 'at the deer,' 'at the bear,' or 'at the sturgeons,' would be nonsense in any language. When animate nouns occur in place-names, they receive the formative of verbals, or serve as adjectival prefixes to ...
— The Composition of Indian Geographical Names - Illustrated from the Algonkin Languages • J. Hammond Trumbull

... of very vile nonsense talked upon both sides of the matter: tearing divines reducing life to the dimensions of a mere funeral procession, so short as to be hardly decent; and melancholy unbelievers yearning for the tomb as if it were a world too far away. Both sides must feel a little ashamed of their performances ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... "greatest of all observers" seems to talk nonsense, for marriage in the seraglio does not hinge on the submission of one wife to one husband, but on a plurality of wives that English and German women have only endured in certain historic cases. In ...
— Home Life in Germany • Mrs. Alfred Sidgwick

... the nonsense," Harry nodded. "But I don't imagine that any further efforts to destroy the wall ...
— The Young Engineers on the Gulf - The Dread Mystery of the Million Dollar Breakwater • H. Irving Hancock

... "Nonsense!" cried he, laughing. "Self-deception does nothing in the matter, say what one will. A modern diplomatist is only a 'smooth-Bore.' What 'our own correspondent' represents, I leave to ...
— Cornelius O'Dowd Upon Men And Women And Other Things In General - Originally Published In Blackwood's Magazine - 1864 • Charles Lever

... found much to praise. Hanway often went to the root when he dealt with the evils of life. Thus he writes:—'The introducing new habits of life is the most substantial charity.' But he thus mingles sense and nonsense:—'Though tea and gin have spread their baneful influence over this island and his Majesty's other dominions, yet you may be well assured that the Governors of the Foundling Hospital will exert their utmost skill and vigilance to prevent the children under their care from being poisoned, ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell

... arm off, he darted up the steps and began to make a joyous, boyish disturbance at the door under the heavy eaves. "Jewel! O Jewel! Quick! Here's a friend come," . . . and suddenly peering at me in the dim verandah, he mumbled earnestly, "You know—this—no confounded nonsense about it—can't tell you how much I owe to her—and so—you understand—I—exactly as if . . ." His hurried, anxious whispers were cut short by the flitting of a white form within the house, a faint exclamation, and a child-like but energetic little face with delicate features ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad

... into the man's face astonished. "What nonsense, Gomez!" he exclaimed. "Do you know what you are talking about! Why, I'm tired out, and almost starved. Here I am and here I shall stop, unless your mistress is as inhospitable as ...
— A Monk of Cruta • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... protested Ben Zoof emphatically; "that is all nonsense. It is altogether out of the question to suppose that we are not to see Montmartre again." And the orderly shook his head resolutely, with the air of a man determined, in spite of argument, to adhere ...
— Off on a Comet • Jules Verne

... flung her heavy brown hair upon the pillow. This was probably some nonsense on the part of a young Wrottesley, and Jane was not going to ...
— Peter and Jane - or The Missing Heir • S. (Sarah) Macnaughtan

... all nonsense." Prince Andrew again interrupted him, "let us talk business. Have you been to ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy

... "Nonsense, glad to have you. I needed someone like you badly and you have come just in the nick of time. I'll expect ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science July 1930 • Various

... what they could do in reading and recitation in combination with their gymnastics. The chapel was crowded to the doors. A plump little German girl was the star of the evening. She stood perfectly serene, her chubby arms stuck out stiffly from her sides, and in a loud, clear voice she recited this nonsense: ...
— Memories and Anecdotes • Kate Sanborn

... most resolute liar cannot lie more than once in every three sentences. Folly is more engrossing; for we could prove from the present Elegy that it is possible to write two sentences of pure nonsense out of three. A more faithful calculation would bring us to ninety-nine out of every hundred; or—as the present consists of only fifty-five stanzas—leaving about five readable lines in the entire.... A Mr. Keats, who had left a decent calling ...
— Adonais • Shelley

... just as a first class confectioner made a splendid manager of our gas plant, and a successful Hoki-Poki merchant had the required push to keep our trolley systems going, so the Haberdasher had the precise kind of genius to manage the poets. He won't stand any nonsense from them, and any poem that he can't understand is immediately thrown into the Civic Waste-Basket, taken to the Municipal Ferry and used for fuel to run the boats. I guess we burn nineteen tons of refuse verse a ...
— Alice in Blunderland - An Iridescent Dream • John Kendrick Bangs

... The hay! the old man said. Still harping on the hay—the hay which doesn't amount to anything and cannot be of any real help. It's sheer nonsense to think that the hay in that stack is enough to feed the flocks of a whole district. There is no use talking about it I will not throw that tiny mouthful to all the four winds. It will do no good if divided ...
— Seven Icelandic Short Stories • Various

... not talking nonsense now, mamma dear, though I dare say I have been lately," she said. "I felt very ill one night, and I got up and went to Julien's room; there I saw Rosalie lying beside him. My grief nearly drove me mad, and I ran ...
— The works of Guy de Maupassant, Vol. 5 (of 8) - Une Vie and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant 1850-1893

... more I see of our colored regiments, and the more I converse with our soldiers, the more convinced I am that upon them we must ultimately rely as the principle source of our strength in these latitudes. It is perfect nonsense for any one to attempt to talk away the broad fact, evident as the sun at noonday, that these men are capable not only of making good soldiers, but the very best of soldiers. The Third Louisiana Native Guard, Colonel ...
— The Black Phalanx - African American soldiers in the War of Independence, the - War of 1812, and the Civil War • Joseph T. Wilson

... passes all understanding, all seems a chaos of prejudice, superstition, pride, vanity, and stupidity. And yet we catch a glimpse here and there that there was some reason in most of that unreason; we see how sense dwindled away into nonsense, custom into ceremony, ceremony into farce. Why then should this surface of savage life represent to us the lowest stratum of human life, the very beginnings of civilization, simply because we cannot ...
— India: What can it teach us? - A Course of Lectures Delivered before the University Of Cambridge • F. Max Mueller

... woman like her into his calculations. For his part, if he had been desirous of marrying an heiress, and felt that he had a gift that way, he should have looked out a rich German girl; they had less nonsense ...
— Winter Evening Tales • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr

... other. We have already taken up too much space with this subject of witchcraft, else we should be tempted to dwell on Sir Thomas Browne, who far surpassed Glanvil in magnificent incongruity of opinion, and whose works are the most remarkable combination existing, of witty sarcasm against ancient nonsense and modern obsequiousness, with indications of a capacious credulity. After all, we may be sharing what seems to us the hardness of these men, who sat in their studies and argued at their ease about a belief that would be reckoned to have caused more misery and bloodshed ...
— The Essays of "George Eliot" - Complete • George Eliot

... a sledge-hammer!—he will preach out, and prose out, and twaddle out another hour of your golden even-tide, "because he is your friend." You don't care whether he is judge or jury,—whether he talks sense or nonsense; you don't want him to talk at all. You don't want him there any way. You want to be alone. If you don't, why are you sitting there in the deepening twilight? If you wanted him, couldn't you send for him? Why don't you go out into the drawing-room, where are music, and lights, and gay people? What ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various

... Of course not,' he said. 'Miss Peters's is well enough for plain Seacove folk, but don't you be getting any nonsense in your head of setting up to be the same as ladies' children. Mrs. Vane comes of a high family, I hear; there will be a French ma'amselle of a governess as like ...
— The Rectory Children • Mrs Molesworth

... "Nonsense," replied the professor. "Rattlesnakes never attack man unless they are first disturbed. It wouldn't be advisable to go too close, but, as long as we don't molest them, we have nothing to fear from the snakes. I'd like to get a few specimens if I had the proper appliances for ...
— The Motor Boys on the Pacific • Clarence Young

... to her as children might have been! The chief ornament of her parlors! And just ready to bloom! This was really asking too much. "I don't believe it's the plants at all," said Julia. "That's sheer nonsense. Anybody living on this green and vegetating earth to be poisoned by plants in a window! I don't suppose they trouble you any more than your lamp all night does me; but I've never said anything about that. I can't bear lamplight at night; I want ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume IX (of X) • Various

... says Bernard Shaw in his delightful preface to Getting Married, "on which more dangerous nonsense is talked and thought than marriage." And, in truth, it is not easy to avoid such foolishness if we understand at all the complexity of the relationship of the sexes. Sentiment rules our actions in this connection, whereas our talk on the subject is directed by intellect. And the demands ...
— The Truth About Woman • C. Gasquoine Hartley

... you," said Arnold. "Forgive me, Frances, but you are talking nonsense. I came here to be with you, and do you suppose I mind ...
— Frances Kane's Fortune • L. T. Meade

... A desk in a city office; most likely a mercantile job on a third of the pay, and a life to which he was as much suited as a square peg to a round hole. All this, that the babe might be spared the illnesses that mortal flesh, in infancy, is prone to, particularly in the East. It was utter nonsense! For the first five years there would be need for special care and intervals spent in a hill climate. In due time would come the change to England and English environment necessary for the proper physical ...
— Banked Fires • E. W. (Ethel Winifred) Savi

... Protestant women nurses arrived at Alexandria, where they were made unwelcome. Medical directors, surgeons, ward masters objected, bluntly declaring that they wouldn't endure a lot of women interfering and fussing and writing hysterical nonsense to ...
— Ailsa Paige • Robert W. Chambers

... disappointed? Of course I am. I have made up my mind to that, and having just had tiffin, and drank a whole pint of bitter beer, I feel myself quite competent to criticise the Taj with the best of them, and especially well fitted just now to stand no nonsense. We met an American who was travelling as a matter of duty, and had found, as far as travel was concerned, I suspect, that he belonged to the class represented by the grumbler in paradise, whose "halo didn't fit ...
— Round the World • Andrew Carnegie

... mine, but she certainly can't go with a sprained ankle. We'd better get busy—there isn't much time left." And Josephine disappeared into her own cubicle where Judith could hear her opening and closing drawers and singing in her funny boyish voice their new nonsense song: ...
— Judy of York Hill • Ethel Hume Patterson Bennett

... I don't like?—please say that; because I think I dislike what I don't like more than I like what I like," said Gwendolen, finding herself in the woman's paradise, where all her nonsense ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot

... in the country, on the Ganges: now you see him at the waters at Cheltenham; and you will find his letter from that place to comprehend the substance of all his former letters, and to be a digest of all the falsity, fraud, and nonsense contained in the whole of them. Here it is, and your Lordships will suffer it to be read. I must beg your patience; I must acknowledge that it has been the most difficult of all things to explain, but much ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. X. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... "Nonsense! Where is such an aeroplane?" "Within a quarter of a mile from here. To be accurate, young Prescott's—you know ...
— The Girl Aviators' Sky Cruise • Margaret Burnham

... subject of some drunkard's pastime, Guest replied, savagely, "One who has enough of this d—d nonsense, and will stand no more of it from any one, young or old," and turned ...
— Maruja • Bret Harte

... with boys who had not been brought up as gently as I worked an immediate, and, in some respects, a beneficial change in my character. I had the nonsense taken out of me, as the saying is—some of the nonsense, at least. I became more manly and self-reliant. I discovered that the world was not created exclusively on my account. In New Orleans I labored under the delusion that it was. Having neither brother nor sister to give ...
— The Story of a Bad Boy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich

... "Nonsense!" exclaimed Althea. "Don't be so silly. Ten chances to one she'll never hear of it. If ever she does, it will probably be as ancient history. I'll caution the girls again to ...
— Grace Harlowe's Problem • Jessie Graham Flower

... "Nonsense, Cousin Mivers, he may rather desire to be of use and benefit to mankind. You don't deny that there is such a thing ...
— Kenelm Chillingly, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... war and once it was martial law—that's all nonsense, and I'll tell you what it is: our Marczi and the vine-dresser's Bandi were peasants, and Herr von ...
— How Women Love - (Soul Analysis) • Max Simon Nordau

... of nonsense does just as well for them as another: your cousin Sophy bothers me to build an Elizabethan pigsty, and wanted her poor mother to dance with the butler in the servants' hall last Christmas, when the fellow was as drunk as an owl: I hope it ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 349, November, 1844 • Various

... elephant appeared and said "Why are you burrowing here; I will trample all your work to pieces;" the ants answered "Why do you talk like this; do not despise us because we are small; perhaps we are better than you in some ways;" The elephant said "Do not talk nonsense: there is nothing at which you could beat me; I am in all ways the largest and most powerful animal on the face of the earth." Then the ants said "Well, let us run a race and see who will win, unless you win we will not admit that you are supreme." At this the elephant got into a ...
— Folklore of the Santal Parganas • Cecil Henry Bompas

... that the readers of these romances went in the afternoon to the "Globe" to see Shakespeare play his own pieces, and that, admitting their fondness for such dramas, in which, without speaking of other merits, the kitchen is sometimes the place represented, it would be surprising to find only mere nonsense in the whole collection of their favoured romances. Let these suggestions justify us at need in examining one more Arcadia: besides, it is not that of a penniless Bohemian; it is the Arcadia of ...
— The English Novel in the Time of Shakespeare • J. J. Jusserand

... yourself about it, for it only makes your asthma worse, and does no especial good to anybody. Things may be as you say. Certainly I intended nothing irreligious. Yet these extended naps, appropriate enough for saints and emperors, are out of place in one's own family. So, if it is not stuff and nonsense, it ought to be. And that I ...
— The Line of Love - Dizain des Mariages • James Branch Cabell

... of his position, and after a considerable effort he contrived to burst out in a laugh. His laugh was a poor one, however; it rang false, and failed to conceal a sensation of deep anxiety. Growing gradually bolder, he at length exclaimed: "That's nonsense, I had just seen these two women go out by ...
— Monsieur Lecoq • Emile Gaboriau

... assassinated their king and kissed the feet of an adventurer; but they are afraid, and talk of patience. I told His Majesty, one day, of my embarrassments. 'Sir,' he said to me, 'a Fongereues never begs!' and the next day I received four thousand louis. Confound the nonsense!" ...
— The Son of Monte Cristo • Jules Lermina

... over all this ever since your absence, and all you have told me about his cowardly attempts upon that poor boy's life, and his still greater cowardice in believing such stuff as you have made him believe about the lad not being injured by mortal man. Stuff and nonsense! the lad ...
— Snarleyyow • Captain Frederick Marryat

... Nonsense, nonsense. What greater proof could we have of your guilt? This man here who you gave the letter of introduction is a stranger to the town and the piece of cloth that Mr. Cassily found hangin' on a nail in his back porch after the burglary was committed, is the piece ...
— Duty, and other Irish Comedies • Seumas O'Brien

... notice symptoms of stomach-trouble. He had suggested timidly that there might be something wrong with his diet, and that if the doctor would tell him exactly what he ought to eat, and how much and how often, he would be glad to adopt the regimen. But the doctor had only laughed and answered, "Nonsense, boy—don't you get to thinking about your food!" And so Thyrsis had gone away, to follow the old plan of eating what he liked. Health, it would seem, must be a spontaneous and accidental thing, it could not be a deliberate and ...
— Love's Pilgrimage • Upton Sinclair

... one of the other hands followed me up, bringing the same report, he was at length induced to descend the poop ladder and go forward to judge for himself whether we had told the truth or not, muttering the while, though, that it was "all a pack o' durned nonsense!" ...
— The Island Treasure • John Conroy Hutcheson

... Cantankerous Old Lady, who was a shrewd person in her way, must surely see through this obvious patter; but I had under-estimated the average human capacity for swallowing flattery. Instead of dismissing his fulsome nonsense with a contemptuous smile, Lady Georgina perked herself up with a conscious air of coquetry, and asked for more. 'Yes, they were delightful days in Vienna,' she said, simpering; 'I was young then, Count; I enjoyed life ...
— Miss Cayley's Adventures • Grant Allen

... readers will say. I should not dispute it if dramatic poets really were what English public opinion generally assumes them to be during their lifetime: that is, a licentiously irregular group to be kept in order in a rough and ready way by a magistrate who will stand no nonsense from them. But I cannot admit that the class represented by Eschylus, Sophocles, Aristophanes, Euripides, Shakespear, Goethe, Ibsen, and Tolstoy, not to mention our own contemporary playwrights, is as much in place in Mr Redford's office as a pickpocket ...
— Mrs. Warren's Profession • George Bernard Shaw

... step towards cutting off his head) what the next thing should be;—but how they, (bless their Celtic and Petulant and Herulian and Dutch hearts!) told him very plainly that that kind of thing would not wash with them: "Come!" said they; "no nonsense of this sort; be you our emperor, and condemn that old lady your cousin Constantius!—or we kill you right now." Into his bed-room in Paris they poured by night with those terms,—an ultimatum; whether or not with a twinkle in their eyes when ...
— The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris

... number of twenty, but on precipices, banks of rivers and streams, and mountain-passes, and such wands are thrown into the rivers as the boatmen descend rapids and dangerous places. Since my baggage horse fell over an acclivity on the trail from Sarufuto, four such wands have been placed there. It is nonsense to write of the religious ideas of a people who have none, and of beliefs among people who are merely adult children. The traveller who formulates an Aino creed must "evolve it from his inner consciousness." ...
— Unbeaten Tracks in Japan • Isabella L. Bird

... "No nonsense!" declared Bob, quite earnestly now. "We're in for a course of sprouts; it's to come off this very night, and the savage horde which is to begin the hazing operations is that gang of ten who occupy the big ...
— The Boys of Bellwood School • Frank V. Webster

... an apologue from the Sanskrit, or a song from some unheard-of dialect of Hinduee, of which amateur favors the public with a free translation, without understanding the original, as you will immediately be convinced, if you peruse that repository of nonsense, the 'Asiatic Miscellany.'" He makes one exception, however, in favor of Wilkins. "Ihave never yet seen any book," he writes, "which can be depended on for information concerning the real opinions of the Hindus, except Wilkins's 'Bhagvat ...
— Chips from a German Workshop - Volume IV - Essays chiefly on the Science of Language • Max Muller

... not angry with me, are you? It is nonsense to think that we are to go about the world, picking and choosing men and women as if they were fruit and we were to gather the best; as if there was not something in our own hearts which, if we listen to it conscientiously, will tell ...
— The Moorland Cottage • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

... cousin to a pig, and (I suspect) thirteenth or fourteenth cousin to a rabbit, yet he is the wisest of all beasts, and can do everything save read, write, and cast accounts." People would surely have said, "Nonsense; your elephant is contrary to nature"; and have thought you were telling stories—as the French thought of Le Vaillant when he came back to Paris and said that he had shot a giraffe; and as the king of the Cannibal Islands thought of the English sailor, when he ...
— The Water-Babies - A Fairy Tale for a Land-Baby • Charles Kingsley

... Patterson,' so folks can read it, and thump out the rest on a secondhand typewriter. But that 'ere same scrawl will bring five thousand dollars out of the bank any time I want it. If I had as much eddycation as you have, Dan, nobody couldn't keep me in any school in the land another minute. It's all nonsense,—a dead waste of time ...
— Killykinick • Mary T. Waggaman

... "Nonsense! Nobody's been here since, except ourselves, that's perfectly plain. No, the people must have stopped long enough to collect it and put it away,—or take it with them. Cynthia, why do you suppose they left in such a hurry?" But Cynthia, the unimaginative, was equally unable ...
— The Boarded-Up House • Augusta Huiell Seaman

... mind of her own is no credit to the sex; but I am sorry to say there are too many of that class, at least we might readily suppose so by the easy manner in which they are taken captive with soft, silly nonsense, and smooth, flattering words. If you admire such, the best thing you can do is to go and make love to them; you will progress much faster ...
— Eveline Mandeville - The Horse Thief Rival • Alvin Addison

... transfer of them to metaphysical investigation. Opposites, he well observes, are of two kinds, either logical, that is, such as are absolutely incompatible; or real, without being contradictory. The former he denominates Nihil negativum irrepraesentabile, the connection of which produces nonsense. A body in motion is something— Aliquid cogitabile; but a body, at one and the same time in motion and not in motion, is nothing, or, at most, air articulated into nonsense. But a motory force of a body in one direction, and an equal force of the same body in an opposite ...
— Biographia Literaria • Samuel Taylor Coleridge

... I was mortified by such silly nonsense, and wanting to keep up the credit of the family, dropped another five-cent piece in the hat, and nodded toward E. E., as much as to say: "Never mind; ...
— Phemie Frost's Experiences • Ann S. Stephens

... nothing more delightful than the fun of a man of genius. Humor, as Mr. Thackeray observes, is charming, and poetry is charming, but the blending of the two in the same composition is irresistible. There is much nonsense in this book, and some folly, and a little ill-nature; but there is more wisdom than either. They who possess it may congratulate themselves upon having the largest collection ever made of the sportive ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton

... farce when the fancy seized him. At the time when a certain kind of nonsense verse was popular, he, with Sir Noel Paton and others, added not a few facetious sonnets to Edward Lear's book, which lay on Madame Novikoff's table. His authorship is betrayed by the introduction of familiar ...
— Biographical Study of A. W. Kinglake • Rev. W. Tuckwell

... profit, and it is enormous at that rate. I said, 'Why did you not refuse it?' But Omar replied they had pay enough after that reduction, which is always made from them, and that in his opinion therefore, it came out of the master's pocket, and was 'cheatery.' How people have been talking nonsense about Jamaica chez vous. I have little doubt Eyre did quite right, and still less doubt that the niggers have had enough of the sort of provocation which I well know, to account for the outbreak. Baker's effusion is a very poor ...
— Letters from Egypt • Lucie Duff Gordon

... Boyne," she said. I have enough to think of without your nonsense. If this Mr. Trannel is an American, that is all that is necessary. We are all Americans together, and I don't believe it will make remark, Lottie's sitting on ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... that's right. Now that you've left off 'speaking your mind,' as you used to call it, you're becoming quite docile and useful. Perhaps, I'll give Ripon another fifty dollars a year. I'm not a hard man, you know, when people understand that I stand no nonsense. But I always have my own way. No one can get over me. You and I understand each other, Mrs. Ripon, eh? Yet, I doubt if you'd have remained so long, if Ripon hadn't married you. He's made a sensible woman of you. Tell him I'm ...
— The Scarlet Feather • Houghton Townley

... said. "They are precisely two self-satisfied, silly fellows, that have got some ridiculous notions in their heads, and then begin to talk about 'superficial views of duties,' and all such nonsense. My father will set it all right, and the boys ...
— Afloat And Ashore • James Fenimore Cooper

... There is much nonsense talked in the world about 'born' actors, and 'born' artists, and 'born' nurses. No doubt some are 'born' with greater gifts in these matters than others, but the most famous artists or actors or nurses will all tell you that ...
— The Red Book of Heroes • Leonora Blanche Lang

... say to this letter. Will you feel with me that you should live on a housetop and eat cheese? Do you long for a cool stream without flies, and a carpet of golden sand? Do you want a coal fire and a husband home at six-thirty, or a third-class ticket to the realms of nonsense? Are you thinking of Lane's income, or Smith's cleverness, or the ennui of ...
— Literary Love-Letters and Other Stories • Robert Herrick

... of all this nonsense about Grant not being able to stand rude language and indelicate stories! Why Grant was full of humor, and full of the appreciation of it. I have sat with him by the hour listening to Jim Nye's yarns, and I reckon you know the style of Jim Nye's histories, Clemens. ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... prancing movement; but nothing he did was half so laughable as the behavior of his mate, who all this while dressed her feathers without once deigning to look at her spouse's performance. Undoubtedly they had been married for several weeks, and she was, by this time, well used to his nonsense. It must be a devoted husband, I fancy, who continues to offer attentions when they are ...
— Birds in the Bush • Bradford Torrey

... perhaps, "But this is a work that cannot be done. It is too radical and vast to be hopefully attempted." Nonsense! There is no work for the kingdom of God and the glory of His name, which cannot be done! With the Gospel in our hand, we can ...
— American Missionary, Volume 44, No. 6, June, 1890 • Various

... cried Mrs. Burton. "You're talking all this nonsense to detain us. But I won't stay a minute longer. Come, Sadie, we will go to the police station. I'll never rest until I have that monster ...
— Officer 666 • Barton W. Currie

... well.—Mr. Bernage, Mr. Bernage, Mr. Fiddlenage, I have had three letters from him now successively; he sends no directions, and how the D—— shall I write to him? I would have burnt his last, if I had not seen Stella's hand at the bottom: his request is all nonsense. How can I assist him in buying? and if he be ordered to go to Spain, go he must, or else sell, and I believe one can hardly sell in such a juncture. If he had stayed, and new regiments raised, I would ...
— The Journal to Stella • Jonathan Swift

... and his school teach a lot of nonsense on that point," said Mr. Wilson, scornfully, "although none of them truly believe what they say. The equality idea is quite an exploded one, and the black savage, superficially civilised, is no more the equal of the European, ...
— Kafir Stories - Seven Short Stories • William Charles Scully

... Nonsense! Albert, I am only too happy to see you here; it is a pleasant surprise; you are come to kiss your mother before going to the palace—that is all. Ah! if ever a mother found it in her heart to doubt her son, this eager affection, ...
— Vautrin • Honore de Balzac

... asked you to come," declared Queen Coo-ee-oh. "It is my business to settle this dispute, not yours. You say my island is a part of the Land of Oz, which you rule, but that is all nonsense, for I've never heard of the Land of Oz, nor of you. You say you are a fairy, and that fairies gave you command over me. I don't believe it! What I do believe is that you are an impostor and have come here to stir up trouble ...
— Glinda of Oz • L. Frank Baum

... matter upon which a great deal of nonsense has been written by English writers on the early history of Canada, most of whom have been able to see nothing but the spectre of paternalism in every domain of colonial life. It is quite true, as Tocqueville tells us, that the physiognomy of a government can be best judged in ...
— The Seigneurs of Old Canada: - A Chronicle of New-World Feudalism • William Bennett Munro

... left hand, at the head of the table, who is now leaning the other way to talk to my brother. He is a good- tempered, half-informed person, very unreasonably fond of reasoning, and of reasoning people; people that talk nonsense logically: he is fond of disputation himself, when there are only one or two, but seldom does more than listen in a large company of illumines. He made a great fortune in the city, and has the comfort of a good conscience. He is very hospitable, and is generous in dinners; though ...
— Crotchet Castle • Thomas Love Peacock

... "Nonsense, father," said his daughter, with some acerbity. "How can a few people playing lawn tennis hurt you? It is quite useless to shut oneself up and be miserable over things that one ...
— Colonel Quaritch, V.C. - A Tale of Country Life • H. Rider Haggard

... "Nonsense! a man does not imagine any such thing. But what is the meaning of this? Harriet Smith refuse Robert Martin? madness, if it is so; but ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen

... 1st Sol. Nonsense! nonsense! A few of the ringleaders, Schuyler, and Hancock, and Washington, and a few such, they will hang of course,—but for the rest,—we shall have to take the oath anew, and swallow a few duties with our sugar and ...
— The Bride of Fort Edward • Delia Bacon

... want none of yer big words to me. Ef I h'ar any more, b'ars and bufflers, ef I don't crack yer over the head with Sweetlove, my shootin'-iron, so mind what yer say, fur I won't stand no nonsense.' ...
— The Huge Hunter - Or, the Steam Man of the Prairies • Edward S. Ellis

... festivals, as the "Compitalia," the "Saturnalia," "Anna Perenna," the "Hot Baths"; or parodies of mythology, as the "Voyage to the Underworld," the "Arvernian Lake." Apt nicknames and short commonplaces which were easily retained and applied were welcome; but every piece of nonsense was of itself privileged; in this preposterous world Bacchus is applied to for water and the fountain-nymph for wine. Isolated examples even of the political allusions formerly so strictly prohibited in the Roman theatre are found in these mimes.(11) As regards metrical form, ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen

... am good at running away when there is any kind of danger, Hamish? Have you got into the English way? Would you call me a coward too? Nonsense, nonsense, nonsense, Hamish! I—why, I am going to drink a glass of the coal-black wine, and have done with it. I will drink it to the health of ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 5 • Various

... talking nonsense," Philippa insisted. "You say that you saw Major Felstead fifty-six hours ago. You cannot mean us to believe that fifty-six hours ago you ...
— The Zeppelin's Passenger • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... "Nonsense, dear!" and he clasped her hands and smiled at her reassuringly. "You are over-wrought by all the excitement here since yesterday; you are nervous and remorseful over a trifle; you could not wrong me in any way; if you did, I ...
— The Bondwoman • Marah Ellis Ryan

... kraal ran over high, bare country that these animals did not frequent, there was now little prospect of our doing so—all of which, of course, showed what I already knew, that only weak-headed superstitious idiots would put the slightest faith in the drivelling nonsense of deceiving or self-deceived Kafir medicine-men. These things, indeed, I pointed out with much vigour to Saduko before we turned in on the last night of ...
— Child of Storm • H. Rider Haggard

... my state, and in my whole section of the country go to the common schools. Children should start life as equals. There is no snobbery so cruel as the snobbery that marks off childhood into classes! When you women vote here, the first thing to do is to smash that nonsense. But in the meantime keep the ...
— The Martial Adventures of Henry and Me • William Allen White

... knew that all were waiting for her; she instinctively felt the impatience she did not see, and yet could not resist listening to some honeyed nonsense that her "friend" was saying. Ostensibly, Vinton Arnold was at her side to turn the leaves of the music, but in reality to feast his eyes on beauty which daily bound him in stronger chains of fascination. Her head drooped under his words, but only as the flowers bend under the ...
— Without a Home • E. P. Roe

... believe thou art cursed. My view of a presiding demon or divinity runs not in such direction. Gods and goddesses roam not to and fro blasting spirits of mortals in such manner. It is an idea born of older times, and doubtless will survive down the ages until men grow wiser; then such nonsense will be looked upon with ridicule, and become a thing ...
— Saronia - A Romance of Ancient Ephesus • Richard Short

... with that of the higher stages. Nevertheless the civilised man can come to understand the savage's form of speech; and it would be strange to say that the savage's form of speech, or that his form of religion, is unintelligible nonsense. Behind the varieties of speech and of religion there is that in the spirit of man which is seeking to express itself and which is intelligible to all, because it is in all. Though few of us understand any but civilised languages, ...
— The Idea of God in Early Religions • F. B. Jevons

... clearer it became to him that she did. Yes, here was being repeated the old story of the attraction of extremes. "She isn't so refined that appreciation of real manhood has been refined out of her," thought he. "And why shouldn't she love me? What does all this nonsense of family and breeding amount to, anyway?" His mind was in great confusion. At one moment he was dismissing the idea of such delicateness, such super-refined super-sensitiveness being taken with ...
— The Fashionable Adventures of Joshua Craig • David Graham Phillips

... "Oh, no! Nonsense!" exclaimed Uncle Wiggily. "That is some poor animal caught in a trap, and he's afraid of being killed himself. I'm going to see who it is. Perhaps it ...
— Uncle Wiggily's Travels • Howard R. Garis

... phenomena, and refers the reader for further information to Lecons sur le systeme nerveux, faites par J. M. Charcot, and Etudes cliniques sur l'hystero-epilepsie ou grande hysterie, par le Dr. Richer. As a man is always in danger of talking nonsense in dealing with a subject concerning which his knowledge is superficial, I shall not undertake to pronounce upon the validity of the theory which is here advanced. The play is an inquiry into the significance and ...
— Essays on Scandinavian Literature • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen

... Since the inquests were held here on Monday, there have been twenty-four deaths from starvation; and, if we can judge from appearances, before the termination of another week the number will be incredible. As to holding any more inquests, it is mere nonsense; the number of deaths is beyond counting. Nineteen out of every twenty deaths that have occurred in this parish, for the last two months, were caused by starvation. I have known children in the remote districts of the parish, and in the neighbourhood of the town, too, ...
— The History of the Great Irish Famine of 1847 (3rd ed.) (1902) - With Notices Of Earlier Irish Famines • John O'Rourke

... to distinguish the qualities of the thing-in-itself from the qualities of the phenomenon beneath his eyes. Had he winnowed his superficial impressions the underlying thought would probably have been: "No woman with a bosom as flat as that can have any nonsense about her." From the first moment of their meeting he had never doubted that it was this lack of "nonsense" which had attracted him. He liked her evident indifference to his opinion of her, and he liked, too, her listless silence, when she sat, with clasped hands, gazing straight ahead ...
— The Miller Of Old Church • Ellen Glasgow

... due to the troops, and some other smaller matters for the Germans, and the press, &c. &c. &c.; so what with these, and the expenses of my suite, which, though not extravagant, is expensive, with Gamba's d—d nonsense, I shall have occasion for all the monies I can muster; and I have credits wherewithal to face the undertakings, if realised, and expect to have ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. 6 (of 6) - With his Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore

... view, scrap-books are the death of love. Many a very sensible man can "whisper soft nonsense in a lady's ear," when all the circumstances of the scene are congenial. We ourselves have frequently descended to make ourselves merely the most agreeable man in the world, till we unfortunately discovered that the blockheads who could ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 12, No. 338, Saturday, November 1, 1828. • Various

... stood amazed at hearing such nonsense, and relieving him of the visor, already battered to pieces by blows, he wiped his face, which was covered with dust, and as soon as he had done so he recognised him and said, "Senor Quixada" (for so he appears to have been called ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

... the best in all things. They talk science to their readers as they might talk slippers to Baptiste. Kaffir syntax does not shock them. Do not speak to them of the value of a well selected term, set down in its right place, still less of a lilting construction, sounding rather well. Childish nonsense they call all that; the fiddling ...
— The Life of the Fly - With Which are Interspersed Some Chapters of Autobiography • J. Henri Fabre

... nonsense—silly, romantic nonsense, that I'd got out of books. I used to make up stories about myself joining Sir Knight on some expedition, dressed as a boy, and he not recognizing me." She laughed a little. "I constantly ...
— A Soldier of the Legion • C. N. Williamson

... Robinson over their dinner, and was informed in return that he wasn't a prophet, so he needn't think it, and the young men who gave themselves airs and wore smart clothes weren't the ones to get on in the world; and Mrs. Robinson had no patience with such nonsense. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, November, 1878 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various

... "Nonsense, man. How can you be caught? It's I who take the risk. I am responsible for the delivery of the mails, and if anything goes wrong it's I will have to suffer. You do your little bit, and I'll see that you get off scot-free. Here's my hand ...
— The Tale of Timber Town • Alfred Grace

... son to succeed me in the office. But if this consul of their'n keeps up his objections, appeals, and his protests in this way, and finds such men as his honor the district-attorney to second him with his nonsense and his notions, folks of our business might as well move north ...
— Manuel Pereira • F. C. Adams

... "That's sheer nonsense!" he answered sharply. "I'm not going to leave you out here all night, for the sake of your own character. If you won't go without me, ...
— The Village by the River • H. Louisa Bedford

... the former to consult the best models of style in composition, and was the real occasion of his adopting a most critical and thorough plan of self-culture. All this the consequence of conversing properly, instead of spending leisure moments in boyish antics, or uttering nonsense! ...
— The Printer Boy. - Or How Benjamin Franklin Made His Mark. An Example for Youth. • William M. Thayer



Words linked to "Nonsense" :   mummery, jabberwocky, ridiculousness, absurdity, decoration, twaddle, ornament, ornamentation, baloney, bilgewater, hot air, rigamarole, empty talk, gibberish, substance, empty words, crock, message, nonmeaningful, poppycock, tosh, content, rhetoric, stuff, tarradiddle, humbug, cobblers, subject matter, schmegegge, drool, boloney, piffle, fa la, taradiddle, tommyrot, incoherency, palaver, balderdash, shmegegge, absurdness, unintelligibility, fiddle-faddle, cant, meaningless, amphigory, bosh, trumpery, hooey, fal la, flummery, rigmarole, buzzword, gibber, incoherence



Copyright © 2024 Free-Translator.com