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Play   /pleɪ/   Listen
Play

noun
1.
A dramatic work intended for performance by actors on a stage.  Synonyms: drama, dramatic play.
2.
A theatrical performance of a drama.
3.
A preset plan of action in team sports.
4.
A deliberate coordinated movement requiring dexterity and skill.  Synonyms: maneuver, manoeuvre.  "The runner was out on a play by the shortstop"
5.
A state in which action is feasible.  "Insiders said the company's stock was in play"
6.
Utilization or exercise.
7.
An attempt to get something.  Synonym: bid.  "He made a bid to gain attention"
8.
Activity by children that is guided more by imagination than by fixed rules.  Synonym: child's play.
9.
(in games or plays or other performances) the time during which play proceeds.  Synonyms: period of play, playing period.
10.
The removal of constraints.  Synonym: free rein.  "They gave full play to the artist's talent"
11.
A weak and tremulous light.  Synonym: shimmer.  "The play of light on the water"
12.
Verbal wit or mockery (often at another's expense but not to be taken seriously).  Synonyms: fun, sport.  "He said it in sport"
13.
Movement or space for movement.  Synonym: looseness.
14.
Gay or light-hearted recreational activity for diversion or amusement.  Synonyms: caper, frolic, gambol, romp.  "Their frolic in the surf threatened to become ugly"
15.
(game) the activity of doing something in an agreed succession.  Synonym: turn.  "It is still my play"
16.
The act of playing for stakes in the hope of winning (including the payment of a price for a chance to win a prize).  Synonyms: gambling, gaming.  "There was heavy play at the blackjack table"
17.
The act using a sword (or other weapon) vigorously and skillfully.  Synonym: swordplay.



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"Play" Quotes from Famous Books



... sea-level has been lifted to a position from which it can fall; molecules which have been locked together as a liquid are now separate as vapour which can recondense. After condensation gravity comes into effectual play, pulling the showers down upon the hills, and the rivers thus created through their gorges to the sea. Every raindrop which smites the mountain produces its definite amount of heat; every river in its course develops heat by the clash of its cataracts and the friction of its bed. In the ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall

... go into New York to attend a dress rehearsal of his new play, but he promised to write something on the train, and have it ready. His absence left me at once to play hostess and to receive the queer, curious, and inconsequent persons who flock to the door of the successful playwright, ...
— At Home with the Jardines • Lilian Bell

... cried. "Runt! And I'll ask ye why, Mr. Tom Barber? Because ye've kept him shut up in this black place! Because ye've cheated him out o' decent food, and fresh air, and the flirtin' up o' his boy's heels! Does he find time t' play? Has he got friends? Not if ye can help it! Oh, I can read all the little story o' him—the sad, starved, pitiful, lonely, story ...
— The Rich Little Poor Boy • Eleanor Gates

... services, and the cook, who was intensely religious, engaged in preparing dinner, she and her old grandmother played pinocle. However, although Annie played cards very well, it was only with her relatives. She had never been allowed to join the Fairbridge Card Club. She never attended a play in the city, because Aunt Jane considered plays wicked. It was in reality doubtful if she would have been permitted to listen to Lydia Greenway, had that person been available. Annie's sole large recreation was the Zenith ...
— The Butterfly House • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman

... he was taken by Torcy to the King, with whom he remained half an hour, delaying thus the Council of State for the same time, and then returned immediately to Paris. So much trouble had not been taken for no purpose: and Chalais had not prostituted himself to play the part of prevot to a miserable monk without expecting good winnings from the game. Immediately afterwards the most dreadful rumours were everywhere in circulation against M. d'Orleans, who, it was said, had poisoned the Dauphin and Dauphine by means of this monk, who, ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre

... thinks that boys Never ought ter make a noise, Or go swimming or play ball, Or have any fun at all; Thinks a boy had ought ter be Dressed up all the time, and she Hollers jest as if she's hurt At the littlest mite er dirt On a feller's hands or face, Or ...
— Cape Cod Ballads, and Other Verse • Joseph C. Lincoln

... Jose again, my Andres? He loves to play that thou and Teresita are children still, Jose; it serves to beguile him into forgetting the years upon his head! Welcome, Senors. Teresita but told me this moment that you had come. She is ...
— The Gringos • B. M. Bower

... piece of bread which she has kept hidden for him three days in the folds of her dress, he does not respond to the action. She whispers to him with a rather coarse epithet: 'Why don't you take it? Do you want it buttered?' All this time, the audience, ignorant of the by-play, was solely intent on the pathetic situation." This is but one of many instances which could be adduced from the annals of the stage showing how the exhibition of the greatest dramatic passion is consistent with the existence ...
— Great Singers, Second Series - Malibran To Titiens • George T. Ferris

... explanations which they had ingeniously avoided for the last three hundred at least; in a word, Charles Langholm's new novel is being finished while you wait. It is not one of his best; yet a moment ago there was a tear in his eye, and now he is grinning like a child at play. And at play he is, though he be paid for playing, and though the game is only being won after weeks and months of uphill ...
— The Shadow of the Rope • E. W. Hornung

... carelessly at first, there came a surprised look and a sudden change in his manner, as I parried a skilful thrust and touched him lightly on the shoulder. He seemed to realise that he had no ordinary swordsman opposed to him, and quickly brought into play all his skill and fierceness in attack, throwing me on the defensive and ...
— The Tory Maid • Herbert Baird Stimpson

... brought out the pathetic play of Deaf and Dumb, in which he sustains the character of the abbe de l'Epee with ...
— The Stranger in France • John Carr

... lifted a flimsy handkerchief with a very deep black border so as to play the jet bracelet; pushed the tip of her slender foot beyond the lowest of her black flounces; looked up; looked down; looked at Mr. Richard, the very picture of artless simplicity,—as represented in ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 37, November, 1860 • Various

... the room with the vigor and alacrity of a youth, dropped his hands on the keys of the piano, and began to play in full concords the melody of his imperial hymn, "Gott erhalte Franz den Kaiser!" Conrad and Kate stood behind him, singing in a low, tremulous tone; but outside, the booming of artillery continued incessantly, and they heard also the cries of the people who were ...
— Andreas Hofer • Lousia Muhlbach

... latter case only is our enjoyment strictly aesthetic, that is, attached to the bare perception of this particular thing; in the others, it is not this thing that prevails, but the physical or moral qualities, the class to which it belongs. It is true all these qualities play in and influence or even constitute the impression that particular works of Art make upon us. One man admires a picture for its handling, its surface, the way in which the paint is laid on; another, for its illustration of the laws of physiognomy; ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 77, March, 1864 • Various

... case is like that of a man who has been told 'There is a treasure hidden in your house'. He learns through this sentence the existence of the treasure, is satisfied, and then takes active steps to find it and make it his own.— Or take the case of a young prince who, intent on some boyish play, leaves his father's palace and, losing his way, does not return. The king thinks his son is lost; the boy himself is received by some good Brahman who brings him up and teaches him without knowing who the boy's father ...
— The Vedanta-Sutras with the Commentary by Ramanuja - Sacred Books of the East, Volume 48 • Trans. George Thibaut

... the first time it struck Max that he had been inveigled up there through the planning of Kenneth, who knew his dislike to the pipes, and had told Donald that he was anxious to hear him play. ...
— Three Boys - or the Chiefs of the Clan Mackhai • George Manville Fenn

... tell. Not because his handsome features struck me pleasantly, for they did not. There was something in their expression which I did not like, and yet as I looked at them a sudden sensation swept over me that made my apprehensions of a moment back seem like child's play, and I became conscious that if a sudden call of life or death were behind me urging me on the instant to quit the house, I could not do it while that face was before me to be fathomed, and, ...
— The Mill Mystery • Anna Katharine Green

... presuming to play the spy upon us," said he, and drawing my hand through his arm, he led me swiftly towards the porch. "You need not tremble so," he whispered, as we halted an instant between the cedars before mounting the steep steps. "No one in this house ...
— The Mill Mystery • Anna Katharine Green

... younger," said that gratified man, "I can assure you I didn't know my own strength, as the saying is. I used to hurt people just in play like, without knowing it. I used to have a ...
— Short Cruises • W.W. Jacobs

... that," was the answer in a cordial, sympathetic voice. "I hoped to have the pleasure of meeting her and I wanted Mrs. Burrell to know her, too. But I hope you'll come over to the Inn and play with Peggy sometimes. We'll ...
— Georgina of the Rainbows • Annie Fellows Johnston

... Revised Version margin, is incongruous.) Jesus is appealing to the instinctive wish to give immediate help even to a beast in trouble, and implies that much more should the same instinct be allowed immediate play when its object is a man. The listeners were self-condemned, and their obstinate silence proves that ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren

... himself and his lieutenant familiar with the stage upon which he was destined to play his part of the plot, and especially to observe the persons and the habits of the two Medici princes. Furthermore, he was directed to seek a personal interview with Lorenzo, on the pretence of submitting suggestions, propounded by Count Girolamo, with respect to the acquisition ...
— The Tragedies of the Medici • Edgcumbe Staley

... much they may trade upon our ignorance and folly. The most familiar example, perhaps, of acts of imprudence of the kind here contemplated is to be found in the facility with which some people yield to social temptations, as where they drink too much, or bet, or play cards, when they know that they will most likely lose their money, out of a feeling of mere good fellowship; or where, from the mere desire to amuse others, they give parties which are beyond their means. The gravest example is to be found in certain cases ...
— Progressive Morality - An Essay in Ethics • Thomas Fowler

... o'clock, and the Army of West Virginia at last emerged from the defile. To make room for its movement in our rear behind Grover's Division, and to hold the enemy in play until it should have taken its place on the right of the Nineteenth, and perhaps to await there the appearance of Torbert's Cavalry, it was desirable that Grover should advance. Sheridan of course ...
— Lights and Shadows in Confederate Prisons - A Personal Experience, 1864-5 • Homer B. Sprague

... bored, half-hearted observances of most of its protestants, who in turn are not to be blamed for being half-hearted and bored by the dogmas and restrictions and littleness with which the great bare scheme has been enmeshed and clothed. The Methodist Church positively forbids Billy to play poker or drink, but it just as positively forbids him to see Pavlowa dance or Beerbohm Tree play Falstaff or Forbes Robertson incarnate Hamlet. And look at its wretched machinery—they allow a young man to give his life and expect inspiration from him at six ...
— The Heart's Kingdom • Maria Thompson Daviess

... affairs in agitation at present go well for us; Prince Charles in Bohemia, the raising of the siege of Coni, and probably of that of Fribourg, are very good circumstances. I shall be very tranquil this winter, if Tuscany does not come into play, or another scene of invasion. In a fortnight meets the Parliament; nobody guesses what the turn of the Opposition will be. Adieu! My love to the Chutes. I hope you now and then make my other compliments: I never forget the Princess, ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole

... answered the elder lady, stroking her hand. "Yes, run away and make music! When Philip and I have had enough scandal and frivolity, we will come and find you; and you shall play us a little of that strange person Wagner, who fascinates me, though you ...
— A Comedy of Masks - A Novel • Ernest Dowson and Arthur Moore

... venture up here,' said Wahle. 'Don't you know the gout has him in tight grips? why, he can't even stir out of his arm-chair. His people have to play cat's paw for him, and burn their fingers ...
— The Young Carpenters of Freiberg - A Tale of the Thirty Years' War • Anonymous

... be any worse than some of the rest of us, who haven't fallen from grace the least particle, but took our stand at the start just where we are now. A fellow that begins with a handful of trumps has a right to play a risky game." ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 8 • Various

... water on rising in the morning and on retiring at night. 3. Eat generously of fruits and other coarse foods, such as corn bread, oatmeal, hominy, cabbage, etc. 4. Practice persistently such exercises as bring the abdominal muscles into play. These exercises strengthen indirectly the muscles of the canal. 5. Avoid overwork, especially of ...
— Physiology and Hygiene for Secondary Schools • Francis M. Walters, A.M.

... smiling faces and said the same in fewer words, and so I bid them good-morning. I told them, too, that if some of those people who made so much noise didn't look out, they would get turned off the place, just as Venus and her gang got turned off last year. The fact is, they are trying to play brag, as such people often will; but they will all go to work in a ...
— Letters from Port Royal - Written at the Time of the Civil War (1862-1868) • Various

... Phoebe, with much show of innocence; and then she added, "You ought to feel the compliment if I play ...
— Phoebe, Junior • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant

... waited on him and pressed him most urgently to request Prince Leopold to withdraw from the candidature to the Spanish Crown. This the King declined to do in the way that was pointed out to him, rightly considering that such a course would play into the hands of the French by lowering his own dignity and the prestige of Prussia. Moreover, he, rather illogically, held the whole matter to be primarily one that affected the Hohenzollern family and Spain. The young prince, however, on hearing ...
— The Development of the European Nations, 1870-1914 (5th ed.) • John Holland Rose

... resources of the United States play a large part in our industrial life. One fourth of the territory of the United States is still covered with timber. We are abundantly supplied with coal and iron, the two most important industrial minerals. Our ...
— Problems in American Democracy • Thames Ross Williamson

... Grey said, rubbing his hands, and holding them to the bright fire. "Just the night for whist. What do you say?" he continued, turning to Bessie, who, having no objection to the game as she knew they would play it, assented readily, and the round table was brought out and the chairs arranged ...
— Bessie's Fortune - A Novel • Mary J. Holmes

... of, and although the engagement was not to be officially announced until after the New Year it was quite understood, as the tenants had all heard of John's instructions in his will. But perhaps the most supreme joy of all was when they could play with the baby Benedict together alone for half an hour before he went to bed. Then they were just as foolish and primitive as any other two young things with their firstborn. He was a very fine and forward baby and already expressed a spirit and ...
— The Price of Things • Elinor Glyn

... example has been contagious. I've had to play out the farce with you. To-day I won't play. I'm too hurt, angry, wounded, sore. You have always been my bitterest foe. You brought Nan to New York to ...
— The Root of Evil • Thomas Dixon

... aromatic odours breathe; They o'er Castalian plains diffuse perfume, Where round the scene perennial laurels bloom: Fair daughters of the sun, the sacred Nine! Here wake to ecstasy their harps divine, Or bid the Paphian lute mellifluous play, And tune to plaintive lore the liquid lay: Their numbers every mental storm control, And lull to harmony the afflicted soul; With heavenly balm the tortured breast compose, 370 And soothe the agony of latent woes: The verdant shades that Helicon surround, On rosy gales seraphic tunes resound! ...
— The Poetical Works of Beattie, Blair, and Falconer - With Lives, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Rev. George Gilfillan [Ed.]

... propensity to abandon ourselves to admiration of the pleasure-giving talents. The time is at hand, we trust, when we shall not be struck with wonder because a man can make a vigorous speech, or write a good novel, or play Hamlet decently, and when we shall be able to enjoy the talent without adoring the man. The talent is one thing, and the man another; the talent may be immense, and the man little; the speech powerful and wise, the speaker weak and foolish. Daniel ...
— Famous Americans of Recent Times • James Parton

... child's attitude in adapting himself to his environment, they rank from an educational standpoint among the most important of human instincts. These include such tendencies as curiosity, imitation, play, ...
— Ontario Normal School Manuals: Science of Education • Ontario Ministry of Education

... had undoubtedly committed a great error. It is impossible to imagine a tool better suited to his purposes than that which he thus threw away, or rather put into the hands of his enemies. If Newcastle had been suffered to play at being first minister, Bute might securely and quietly have enjoyed the substance of power. The gradual introduction of Tories into all the departments of the Government might have been effected without any violent clamour, if the chief of the great ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... human destinies, had directed him that morning to a man cutting wood on the bank of the river close by that cluster of houses where other men stirred about various tasks, where there must have been wives and mothers, for he saw a dozen children at play by a ...
— The Hidden Places • Bertrand W. Sinclair

... first, period—a simple, pathetic love-story of boy and girl—love that was pure and almost passionless. It was followed by three little plays—"for marionettes," he describes them on the title-page; among them being La Mort de Tintagiles, the play he himself prefers of all that he has written. And then came a curious change: he wrote Aglavaine et Selysette. The setting is familiar to us; the sea-shore, the ruined tower, the seat by the well; no less than the old grandmother and little Yssaline. But Aglavaine ...
— Wisdom and Destiny • Maurice Maeterlinck

... jerk and scanned the smoking peak, from which a new trickle of white-hot lava had broken forth in a threadlike waterfall. He watched its graceful play as if hypnotized, and began babbling to himself in an incoherent prattle. All his faculties seemed suddenly awake, but riveted solely upon the heavy labouring of the mountain. He was chiding it in Malay as if it were a fractious child. When I ventured to urge him back to shore he made ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1920 • Various

... made. What a shame it is! there is no longer any discipline but what we see in the mercenary soldiers. As to ourselves, our conduct is at discretion, and that not of the chief, but every one at his own. The general has a harder game to play within than he has without; he it is who has to follow, to court the soldiers, to give way to them; he alone has to obey: all the rest if disolution and free licence. It pleases me to observe how much pusillanimity and cowardice there is in ambition; by how abject and servile ways it must ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne

... the veranda, cleverly simulating drunkenness. Furious as he was, he was cool enough to play a definite and reasonably safe game. He lost his balance ten feet from Leyden's chair, recovered himself with a damp hiccough and maudlin apology, then darted forward and sprawled among the hilarious group with hands outstretched for the table ...
— Gold Out of Celebes • Aylward Edward Dingle

... speechless, thinking rapidly. There was nothing for it evidently but to play her trump card, which never yet had failed her. She wasted no breath in further argument, but threw herself full-length on ...
— The Fighting Shepherdess • Caroline Lockhart

... cajole the federal officer, Young threw off all disguise, and in reply to an earlier letter of Colonel Alexander, he gave free play to his vituperative powers. After going over the old Mormon complaints, and declaring that "both we and the Kingdom of God will be free from all hellish oppressors, the Lord being our helper," he wrote at great length in ...
— The Story of the Mormons: • William Alexander Linn

... supplement, the divorce courts—what have they left untold? We know the make of car Miss Billboard drives; who her husbands are and were; how much the movies have offered her; what she wears, reads, says, thinks, and eats for breakfast. Snapshots of author writing play at place on Hudson; pictures of the play in rehearsal; of the director directing it; of the stage hands rewriting it—long before the opening night we know more about the piece than does the playwright himself, and are ten times less ...
— Cheerful—By Request • Edna Ferber

... things," she said. "It was silly to play with that foolish Jervaise man this morning. It was silly to offend him this evening. I don't—think. I ought to be whipped." She had apparently forgotten her recent distrust of me, for she continued in the tone of one who makes an ultimate confession. "As a matter of fact, I suppose I'm ...
— The Jervaise Comedy • J. D. Beresford

... naturally—there was no longer any convulsive play of the muscles, and as an infant sinking into slumber, so quietly did Theodore Wilmer sleep the sleep ...
— The Lights and Shadows of Real Life • T.S. Arthur

... this morning near the brow of the hill, leaning against a tree in the sunshine, and looking down the precipice below, when I said something of the lover's leap, and in play, as you will suppose, made a step forwards: we had been talking of indifferent things, his air was till then indolence itself; but on this little motion of mine, though there was not the least danger, he with the utmost seeming eagerness catched ...
— The History of Emily Montague • Frances Brooke

... have their distinguishing marks. In the Lutheran Church these are more difficult to find because of her catholic origin and spirit. While forms and ceremonies are retained, they play only a minor part in the expression of her churchliness. Bishops and presbyters, robes and chasubles, liturgies and orders, "helps, governments and divers kinds of tongues," in the providence of God all of these things have been "set in the church." Lutherans in ...
— The Lutherans of New York - Their Story and Their Problems • George Wenner

... whom directing worlds is play, Thy condescension without bounds must be, If man, the frail ephemera of a day, Be graciously ...
— Heart Utterances at Various Periods of a Chequered Life. • Eliza Paul Kirkbride Gurney

... than a dark and deep coal mine for the freaks of fairies, elves, goblins, and other actors in the fantastical dramas? The scenery was all ready, why should not the supernatural personages come there to play their parts? ...
— The Underground City • Jules Verne

... should be done, not whether it could; our appeals were not to brace a failing courage, but cajole a sturdy sense of honor which found the imposture distasteful so soon as it seemed to serve a personal end. To serve the king he had played the king in old days, but he did not love to play the king when the profit of it was to be his own. Hence he was unmoved till his care for the fair fame of the queen and the love of his friends joined to buffet ...
— Rupert of Hentzau - From The Memoirs of Fritz Von Tarlenheim: The Sequel to - The Prisoner of Zenda • Anthony Hope

... terrible indication of rivalry that the captain felt at liberty to bring his confounded fish to any door he chose; and his very willingness to depart early and leave the field might prove him to possess a happy certainty, Captain Crowe was so jealous that he almost forgot to play his ...
— The Life of Nancy • Sarah Orne Jewett

... refrained, as he had done lately; and again Sarah could not help noticing the change that had taken place since Horatia's coming, though Horatia had not been able to prevent him from doing this latest act. 'I hope not; Clay's Mills sha'n't "play" for them,' he said quietly; but there was a satisfied look on his face that ...
— Sarah's School Friend • May Baldwin

... that property by laying a grievous and enormous tax on it, so as to compel owners to emancipate their slaves rather than pay the tax. He apprehended it would be productive of much stock-jobbing, and that they would play into one another's hands in such a manner as that this property would ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society

... narrow-minded and pitiful as the unknown and humble; you are all weak, vain, envious, and swayed by small passions; and to think that you, Barbarina, are not an exception; that the Barbarina weeps because Marianna Cochois is to play the principal role in the new ballet, ...
— Berlin and Sans-Souci • Louise Muhlbach

... censorship, flourished during this period. A new source of poetry was discovered by Koltsov in the Slavic folk songs. Griboyodov's new comedy, "Gore Ot Ouma" (Too Clever by Half), had already become one of the stock pieces. The success of this play was rivalled by Gogol's comedy, "The Revisor." In 1842, this same writer brought out his celebrated romance, "Dead Souls." Ivan Turgenyev was just entering ...
— A History of the Nineteenth Century, Year by Year - Volume Two (of Three) • Edwin Emerson

... thinks of me, but never a tongue shall wag against you again, or there will be a heavy score to settle with me. Van and I have been good friends, but he's on ticklish ground now. He'll find he can't play fast and loose with two such women as you and Jennie Burton. Curse it all! it isn't like him to do it either. But ...
— A Face Illumined • E. P. Roe

... 'Does your husband play the game?' Maule retorted. 'Is it playing the game to leave you here alone with me, when he must know—or at least, guess—how things have been between us?—Do you think I didn't notice yesterday that he suspected me—suspected us both? I should have been a blind mole not to see by ...
— Lady Bridget in the Never-Never Land • Rosa Praed

... that his hand, that his own hand, had seized the butt-end of his revolver and that his eyes were fixed on the man's back, just below the neck. One movement and the whole play was finished; a touch of the trigger and the life of the strange adventurer had ...
— The Blonde Lady - Being a Record of the Duel of Wits between Arsne Lupin and the English Detective • Maurice Leblanc

... they resolved to go to the castle, as they called it, that was my old dwelling, where the three rogues and the Spaniards all lived together at that time, intending to have a fair battle, and the Spaniards should stand by to see fair play. So they got up in the morning before day, and came to the place, and called the Englishmen by their names, telling a Spaniard that answered, that they wanted to speak ...
— The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe (1808) • Daniel Defoe

... control that Hunter,[149] in December, and Halleck,[150] in the following March, designed to give him. With the second summons to command, came opportunity for Lane's vindictive animosity to be called into play. Historically, it furnished conclusive proof, if any were needed, that Lane had supreme power over the distribution of Federal patronage in his own state and exercised that power even at the cost of the well-being and ...
— The American Indian as Participant in the Civil War • Annie Heloise Abel

... a humiliating condition—a preface written in accordance with the ideas of Father Ricciardi, Master of the Sacred Palace, and signed by Galileo, in which the Copernican theory was virtually exhibited as a play of the imagination, and not at all as opposed to the Ptolemaic doctrine reasserted in 1616 by the Inquisition under the direction of ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White

... return'd, she was so guarded with Friends, her Lover, and Flambeaux, that he could not aim at her without endangering the Life of some other. But one Night above the rest, upon a Sunday, when he knew she would be at the Theatre, for she never missed that Day seeing the Play, he waited at the Corner of the Stadt-House, near the Theatre, with his Cloak cast over his Face, and a black Periwig, all alone, with his Pistol ready cock'd; and remain'd not very long but he saw her Kinsman's Coach come along; 'twas almost dark, Day was just ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume V • Aphra Behn

... and His Aerial Warship." The young inventor perfected a marvelous aircraft that was the naval terror of the seas, and many governments, recognizing what an important part aircraft were going to play in all future conflicts, were anxious to secure Tom's machine. But he was true to his own country, though his rivals were nearly successful ...
— Tom Swift and his Big Tunnel - or, The Hidden City of the Andes • Victor Appleton

... that Eugene used to play upon his wife in those days was that of appearing at some of our rehearsals on a warm evening in a costume that never failed to tease her. He would walk into the parlor and say: 'Well, boys, let us take off our coats and take it easy; it's too hot.' We would all proceed to do so. When ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson

... instruct my ignorance are highly successful. All this is as good as a play. You see you are found out, old humbug; everybody sees through you. You can't delude ...
— A Pessimist - In Theory and Practice • Robert Timsol

... motion is so rapid the eye can scarcely accompany them. Their ordinary manner of travelling is very cheap and very convenient: they sail in covered boats drawn by horses; and in these you are sure to meet people of all nations. Here the Dutch slumber, the French chatter, and the English play at cards. Any man who likes company may have them to his taste. For my part I generally detached myself from all society, and was wholly taken up in observing the face of the country. Nothing can equal its beauty; ...
— A Wanderer in Holland • E. V. Lucas

... one of these links, and when it goes we're both free. See if you can't slip the chain through the holes in your shackles and lay it down without letting the next slave know what is happening. We'll wear these iron cuffs for now, there is no time to play around with them and they shouldn't bother us too much. Do the guards come through here at all during the night to check on ...
— The Ethical Engineer • Henry Maxwell Dempsey

... a picture, writes a play or book Which others read while he's asleep in bed O' the other side of the world—when they o'erlook His page the sleeper might as well be dead; What knows he of his distant unfelt life? What knows he of the thoughts his thoughts are raising, The life his life ...
— The Note-Books of Samuel Butler • Samuel Butler

... she queried meditatively—"I cannot imagine it! I suppose I must have been, but I never remember being a child at all. I had no children to play with me—my father suspected all children of either disease or wickedness, and imagined I would catch infection of body or of soul by association with them. I was always alone—alone!—yet not lonely!" She broke off a moment, and her eyes grew ...
— The Secret Power • Marie Corelli

... questions," Bending said. "But first, I want to tell you that, in the first place, you can get in trouble for impersonating a Federal officer, and, in the second, I don't like being followed. So you just trot right back to the boys at Power Utilities and tell them that if they want to play rough, I am perfectly willing to do likewise. That if they come after me again, I'm going to do some very unpleasant ...
— Damned If You Don't • Gordon Randall Garrett

... he was expected to accomplish, and being often left alone in the office, Richard Swiveller began to find time hang heavy on his hands. For the better preservation of his cheerfulness, therefore, he accustomed himself to play at cribbage with a dummy. While he was silently conducting one of these games Mr. Swiveller began to think that he heard a kind of hard breathing sound, in the direction of the door, which it occurred to him, after some reflection, must proceed from the small servant, ...
— Ten Girls from Dickens • Kate Dickinson Sweetser

... so very clever, Philip, and you can play and sing," she added quickly. "I wish you were my brother. I'm very fond ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IV. • Editors: Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton

... Mess, in the banquet hall, Sat feasting the officers, one and all, Like a sabre blow, like the swing of a sail, One seized his glass and held high to hail; Sharp-snapped like the stroke of a rudder's play, Spoke three words only: "To the Day!" Whose glass this fate? They had all but a single hate. Who was thus known? They had one foe and one ...
— The New York Times Current History: the European War, February, 1915 • Various

... least, the speech was all upon one side! In his leisure moments Antoine had occupied himself with whittling out a rude fiddle of cedar-wood, strung with the guts of a wild cat that he had killed. Every evening that winter he would sit down after supper and play all the old familiar pieces, varied with improvisations of his own. At first, the music and the incessant pounding time with his foot annoyed the bear. At times, too, the Canadian would call out the figures for the dance. All this Ami became accustomed ...
— Old Indian Days • [AKA Ohiyesa], Charles A. Eastman

... playing on the cornet and I was dancing. 2. It was not warm under the trees. 3. I was carrying the cornet to him. 4. Why did he not play? 5. The hypocrite said[1] that he did not know how to play. 6. Nobody used to play like him. 7. We heard that you used to have a pension. 8. I heard so (it.) 9. Come! come! ...
— Novelas Cortas • Pedro Antonio de Alarcon

... command, threw his sword to Crevecoeur, saying, "Take it! and the devil give you joy of it.—It is no dishonour to the rightful owner who yields it, for we have had no fair play." ...
— Quentin Durward • Sir Walter Scott

... serious. Not a smile is provided for in the whole list. There is no element of mystery about them. The passions and sentiments illustrated are of the universal kind. And just as vague, uncanny and bizarre feelings play no part, so there is no resort to verbal tricks, such as meaningless repetitions, or onomatopoetic jingles. The language is dignified and classical. Their great merit is the vivid and strong imaginative coloring with which situations and actions are portrayed. While in no sense ...
— The Life and Works of Friedrich Schiller • Calvin Thomas

... to you to-day, when your note with the Orchids came. What frightful trouble you have taken about Vanilla; you really must not take an atom more; for the Orchids are more play than real work. I have been much interested by Epidendrum, and have worked all morning at them; for heaven's sake, do not corrupt me by any ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume II • Francis Darwin

... the turmoil, but he believed that they would reappear unhurt. They had passed through so many battles now that it did not occur to him that any of the three would be killed. They might be wounded, of course, as they had been already, but fate would play them no such scurvy ...
— The Rock of Chickamauga • Joseph A. Altsheler

... escape a flight of missiles, placed himself behind the jamb of the doorway, and fired his rifle. At that short distance Sweeny would hardly have missed; and the nearest Apache, leaning forward with outspread arms, fell dead. Then the revolver came into play, and another warrior dropped his bow, his shoulder shattered. Glover and the muleteers, steadied by this opportune reinforcement, reloaded and resumed their file-firing. Guns were too much for archery; three Indians were soon stretched on the roof; the others ...
— Overland • John William De Forest

... Giue now attentiue heede, a straunge tale gin I tell, How I this yeare haue bene besteede, scaping the gates of hell, More harde I thinke truly, in more daunger of life, Than olde Orpheus did when he through hell did seeke his wife, Whose musike so did sounde in pleasant play of string, That Cerberus that hellish hounde (who as the poets sing Hauing three huge heads great, which doe continually Still breath out firy flames of heate most horrible to see) Did giue him leaue to passe in at the gates of Hell: Of which ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, - and Discoveries of The English Nation, v5 - Central and Southern Europe • Richard Hakluyt

... is the infinite ideal of perfection. But we are not what we truly are; we are ever to become true, ever to become Brahma. There is the eternal play of love in the relation between this being and the becoming; and in the depth of this mystery is the source of all truth and beauty that sustains ...
— Sadhana - The Realisation of Life • Rabindranath Tagore

... escaping from one question by asking another. But I don't want to escape from anything you hold me to answer. If you can show me that I am wrong, I want you to do so. But," and here the Judge smiled, "I want you to play fair, too." ...
— The Virginian - A Horseman Of The Plains • Owen Wister

... Bodine, having all the dramatis personae about her, was complacency embodied, and not averse to taking a part in the little play herself. She managed at first that the conversation should be general. She serenely indulged in reminiscences which waked others from Mrs. Hunter, and even the captain was beguiled into half-humorous old-time anecdotes about ...
— The Earth Trembled • E.P. Roe

... story, that it was only after having gone through the Critique of Pure Reason five times with the closest and most scrupulous attention that he was able to get a grasp of Kant's real meaning. Now, after the lapse of a century and a half, Kant to many is child's play compared with Bergson, who differs more fundamentally from Kant than the Scoto-German thinker did from Leibniz and Hume. But this need not alarm the general reader who, innocent of any very articulate philosophical preconceptions, may indeed find in the very "novelty" ...
— Bergson and His Philosophy • J. Alexander Gunn

... discusses the rival merits of "Rugger" and "Soccer," speculates on the result of the Hospital Cup Tie, or observes that the British Thoroughbred is not deteriorating when he can win with so much on his back; pronounces that the Opera last night was ripping, or that some much-praised play is undiluted rot. Not thus did Dr. Parker Peps regale Mrs. Dombey, or Sir Tumley Snuffim soothe the shattered nerves of Mrs. Wititterly. The reaction against alcoholic treatment can, I believe, be definitely dated from the 10th of January, 1872, when the heads of the medical profession ...
— Fifteen Chapters of Autobiography • George William Erskine Russell

... pieces, and two large oranges. Pulp and pare them. Slice it thin; add the rind of one lemon, a dozen cloves, and one ounce of coriander seeds bruised: put all these in a bag, hang them in the vessel, and stop it up close. Fill the bottles but a little above the neck, to leave room for the liquor to play; and put into every one a large lump of fine sugar. Stop the bottles close, and let the ale stand a month before you ...
— The Lady's Own Cookery Book, and New Dinner-Table Directory; • Charlotte Campbell Bury

... sooner be hanged!" retorted young John. But the next minute flinging away dull care, he inquired briskly: "Can you play tipcat, Aunt Mary?" And vanquished by her air of kindly interest, he gave her his supreme confidence. "I say, don't peach, will you, but I've got a white rat. I keep it in a locker ...
— Australia Felix • Henry Handel Richardson

... by the Roman forces on Megara, the suburb of Carthage, the first to mount the wall was a young man named Tiberius Gracchus, brother-in-law of Scipio, the commander, and grandson of the famous Scipio Africanus. This young man and his brother were to play prominent parts in Rome. ...
— Historic Tales, Volume 11 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris

... grandeur to which the republic was to attain. All that in vulgar minds took the shape of braggart boasting, was in his idealized and glorified by his lofty conception of the majestic part which his country was to play in deciding the destinies of mankind. In spite of short-comings he deplored, of perils that he feared, firm in his heart was the conviction that here was to be the home of the great new race that was to rule the world. Other lands might look ...
— James Fenimore Cooper - American Men of Letters • Thomas R. Lounsbury

... outer world of bush and the house was a slip of ground called the banana grove, and known in story to both boy and girl, as the play-place of their mother. ...
— An Australian Lassie • Lilian Turner

... life in a manner which will reveal their normal values to the child. There is the friendly policeman who finds the lost boy; the heroic fireman who comes to the rescue of the burning home; the little neighbor who would not play "fair;" the little boy who had to learn to roll his hoop, and to care for the typical baby brother who pulled his hair; there are the animals who entered into the joys and sorrows of the Jones family,—altogether, very real ...
— All About Johnnie Jones • Carolyn Verhoeff

... The play was produced for the first time in London at the Kingsway Theatre, by Granville Barker, on Tuesday, ...
— The Great Adventure • Arnold Bennett

... were naturally an object of greater ambition to the small fry than the approval of the school authorities. For him he performed with much assiduity the various duties of a fag, happy to shine amongst his companions as the recipient of the great boy's favours. To play the jackal without incurring universal dislike is (at school) no very easy task, but he accomplishes it with discretion and with a natural aptitude that many ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, Sept. 27, 1890 • Various

... look out upon the ocean and see which way the ship ought to go. The waves will wet my hair, and the tears will run down my cheeks when the storms are on. My eyes will behold strange things. I shall see the whales spout and the porpoises play, and poke my nose into foreign parts," she ...
— Daughters of the Revolution and Their Times - 1769 - 1776 A Historical Romance • Charles Carleton Coffin

... Hitaishi refers also to the Durga festival, in which the weird and often horrible and obscene rites of Skakti worship not infrequently play ...
— Indian Unrest • Valentine Chirol

... it comes to eating we, as it says in the song, you must play fair and draw lots with the rest ...
— To Win or to Die - A Tale of the Klondike Gold Craze • George Manville Fenn

... her side, jealous of his wife as a lover of his mistress. He gave at the same time as his opinion that it would be necessary to employ the police commissary to arrest the husband when he left the play, under some pretext or other, while some of the friends of Prince Louis took advantage of the confusion to seize the wife, and carry her to his hotel. An order was directly signed by Louis, according to which the police commissary, Chazot, was to arrest the manufacturer Leboure, ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre

... will tell you. I am rich,—immensely rich. That entire fortune which once belonged to Count Ville-Handry, and which he thinks has been lost in unlucky speculations,—the whole of it is in my hands. Ah! I have suffered horribly, to have to play for two long years the loving wife to this decrepit old man. But I thought of you, my much beloved, my Daniel; and that thought sustained me. I knew you would come back; and I wanted to have royal treasures to give you. And I have them. These ...
— The Clique of Gold • Emile Gaboriau

... ceased for the time being. At command, he silently got on the chair and silently sat there. "Which shows, dearest, what a bit of the stick will do," Davis bragged to his wife. Nor did the pair of them dream of the scandalizing part Michael was going to play ...
— Michael, Brother of Jerry • Jack London

... shepherds, back! On the rising of the curtain, the stage is occupied by peasants engaged in a merry dance. Soon after the attendant Spirit enters with the above words. Enough your play, i.e. we have had enough of your dancing, which must now give way ...
— Milton's Comus • John Milton

... rush for grips that Phil anticipated, he found himself faced by a man, strong as a lion, with arms out in the true pugilistic attitude. He guessed it for a ruse and a bit of play-acting, and sprang in. He struck three times for separate parts of the cowpuncher's body, but each time he struck he encountered a guarding arm or fist. This more than surprised him, for it was well known that McGregor's strong and only ...
— The Spoilers of the Valley • Robert Watson

... the members of it were destined to play a considerable part in the history of English science. Five of them received the Royal Medal; three the Copley; one the Rumford, six were Presidents of the British Association; three Associates of the Institute of France; and from ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 1 • Leonard Huxley

... this lazy basking in sunny shallows. Then the head that was lying backwards on the water turned towards him, and he saw a human face—surely, surely it was human!—and a snow-white arm was lifted out of the water as if to play ...
— The Mermaid - A Love Tale • Lily Dougall

... that thy soul was such an excellent thing as by thy practice thou declarest thou believest it to be? What, set more by thy soul than by all the world? What, cast a world behind thy back for the welfare of a soul! Is not this to play the fool in the account of sinners, while angels wonder at ...
— The Riches of Bunyan • Jeremiah Rev. Chaplin

... boys, they ain't nawthin' in quarrelin'. The gent, here, was only kiddin' us a little an' we ain't got no call to raise the hair on our back for that. What do you say we start a little game of stud? Solo ain't no summer game, nohow—too much thinkin'. How about it stranger, d'you play?" ...
— Prairie Flowers • James B. Hendryx

... girls go to a school a few blocks from where they live. In the afternoons, they take long walks with their mother, or play in the garden while she writes. On rainy days, there are books and Mrs. Conkling's piano, which is not just a piano, for Mrs. Conkling is a musician, and we may imagine that the children hear a special ...
— Poems By a Little Girl • Hilda Conkling

... had black hair, worn off by his hat. So have and have not I. He stooped in walking. So do I. His hands were large, and mine. And—choicest gift of Fate in all—he had, not "a strawberry-mark on his left arm," but a cut from a juvenile brickbat over his right eye, slightly affecting the play of that eyebrow. Reader, so have I! My fate ...
— If, Yes and Perhaps - Four Possibilities and Six Exaggerations with Some Bits of Fact • Edward Everett Hale

... in some degree be disappointed, till education becomes a grand national concern. A man cannot retire into a desert with his child, and if he did, he could not bring himself back to childhood, and become the proper friend and play-fellow of an infant or youth. And when children are confined to the society of men and women, they very soon acquire that kind of premature manhood which stops the growth of every vigorous power of mind or body. In order to open their faculties they should be excited to think for themselves; ...
— A Vindication of the Rights of Woman - Title: Vindication of the Rights of Women • Mary Wollstonecraft [Godwin]

... penguins got fairly out of the water, beyond reach of the surf—which broke with a monotonous motion on the beach in a sullen sort of way, as if it was curbed by a higher law for the present, but would revenge itself bye-and-bye when it had free play—they would stand together in a cluster, drying and dressing themselves, talking together the while in their gruff barking voice, as if congratulating each other on their safe landing; and then, again, all at once, as if by preconcerted order, ...
— Fritz and Eric - The Brother Crusoes • John Conroy Hutcheson

... we said before, was not the man to entertain unless he could do it 'properly'; and, as we all have our pitch-notes of propriety up to which we play, we may state that Jawleyford's note was a butler and two footmen. A butler and two footmen he looked upon as perfectly indispensable to receiving company. He chose to have two footmen to follow the butler, who followed the gentleman to the spacious flight of steps leading from the great hall ...
— Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour • R. S. Surtees

... as are suited to the comprehension of the child. Treat nature and her laws always with serious, respectful attention. Treat the holy mysteries of parenthood reverently, never losing sight of the great law upon which are founded all others the law of love. Say it and sing it, play it and pray it into the soul of your child, that love ...
— Searchlights on Health - The Science of Eugenics • B. G. Jefferis and J. L. Nichols

... I have seen her play, as we all have, and oh, that is divine; but I have always wanted to know Madame Bernhardt herself—her fiery self. I have wanted to know ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... a few philosophical whiffs, "to go to America with yonder fellow on my weather beam is quite out of the question: he would be up with me, and in possession, before ten o'clock, and my only play is to bring the wind right over the taffrail, where, luckily, we have got it. I think we can bother him at this sport, for your sharp bottoms are not as good as your kettle-bottoms in ploughing a full furrow. As for bearing her canvas, the ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper

... Claude worked in the head all right. He exulted with delight, and exclaimed that it was the best bit of painting he had ever done; and he was right, never had he thrown such a play of real light over such a life-like face. Happy at seeing him so pleased, Christine also became gay, going as far as to express approval of her head, which, though not extremely like her, had a wonderful expression. They stood for a ...
— His Masterpiece • Emile Zola

... herself to the study of Doctor Robin. In a few days she knew not only the role of "Mary," but had memorized the entire play. So intensely eager was she to play the role, that it seemed as though she were staking her whole life on this performance. Her former dreams that had been subdued a bit by poverty and the feverish life of the ...
— The Comedienne • Wladyslaw Reymont



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