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Stale   /steɪl/   Listen
Stale

adjective
1.
Lacking freshness, palatability, or showing deterioration from age.  "The beer was stale"
2.
Lacking originality or spontaneity; no longer new.  Synonyms: cold, dusty, moth-eaten.  "Stale news"



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"Stale" Quotes from Famous Books



... when Collot d'Herbois lounged before him, with mud-bespattered legs stretched out before him, with dubious linen at neck and wrists, and an odour of rank tobacco and stale, cheap wine pervading his whole personality, the more fastidious man of the world, who had consorted with the dandies of London and Brighton, ...
— The Elusive Pimpernel • Baroness Emmuska Orczy

... best work Shakespeare has more faults than any other poet of England. He is in turn careless, extravagant, profuse, tedious, sensational; his wit grows stale or coarse; his patriotism turns to bombast; he mars even such pathetic scenes as the burial of Ophelia by buffoonery and brawling; and all to please a public that ...
— Outlines of English and American Literature • William J. Long

... meant to get my money's worth. Well—the first one I laid out in a great tall glass of lemonade. Say, that was the first time I came up against the disillusions of life. Nothing but a little sweetened water. The next nickel went for peanuts, and they were too stale for ...
— The Black Pearl • Mrs. Wilson Woodrow

... the woodwork; but she was not sure that they had not been there eleven years before; and there were darnings in the carpets and curtains, which affected her with the same mixture of novelty and familiarity. Certain stale smells about the place (minor smells as compared with the prevalent odour) confused her; she could not decide whether she remembered them of old, or was reminded of the odours she used to catch in passing the pantry ...
— Annie Kilburn - A Novel • W. D. Howells

... of water had seeped into the little kettle; and this they used for their tea, mixing the flour with the stale water from the mud pool. Then, they lighted pipes and lay back ...
— The Freebooters of the Wilderness • Agnes C. Laut

... hash of rags allowed to soak in gravy; sham larks and partridges for pates are constructed out of chopped-up meat, neatly shaped to represent those birds; peddlers of sweet-meats sell marshmallow paste made out of Spanish white; the fish-merchant inserts the eyes of a fresh mackerel in a stale turbot, to trick his sharp customers; and as to drinks, one dyer boldly puts over his door "Burgundy Vintages!" They make marble of pasteboard and diamonds of glass. Adulteration on adulteration, moans M. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII. No. 30. September, 1873 • Various

... after years they must have had in common many pleasant memories of people and places dear to both, so that his ideal of matrimony described in Virginibus Puerisque was realised, and he and his wife had 'many an old joke between them which time cannot wither nor custom stale.' ...
— Robert Louis Stevenson • Margaret Moyes Black

... cynics fail to understand is that the ground has shifted beneath them — that the stale political arguments that have consumed us for so long no longer apply. The question we ask today is not whether our government is too big or too small, but whether it works — whether it helps families find jobs at a decent wage, care they can ...
— U.S. Presidential Inaugural Addresses • Various

... me of paying a visit this summer to the land of the Czar; that I want companions; that I like young ones, who will follow my ways better than old ones, who won't; that I enjoy fresh ideas freshly expressed, and am tired of stale platitudes; in short, if you will entrust your youngsters to me, I will take charge of them, and point out what is mostly worth seeing and remembering at the places ...
— Fred Markham in Russia - The Boy Travellers in the Land of the Czar • W. H. G. Kingston

... have continued, doubtless, had there been no Germans and Persians to break through the frontiers and destroy. The truth seems to be that, during the third and fourth centuries of our era, classical civilization, like an overtrained athlete, had grown "stale." ...
— EARLY EUROPEAN HISTORY • HUTTON WEBSTER

... No, no, Amyras; tempt not Fortune so: Cherish thy valour still with fresh supplies, And glut it not with stale and daunted foes. But where's this coward villain, not my son, But traitor to my name and majesty? [He goes in and brings CALYPHAS out.] Image of sloth, and picture of a slave, The obloquy and scorn of my renown! How may my heart, thus fired with mine [191] eyes, Wounded with shame and ...
— Tamburlaine the Great, Part II. • Christopher Marlowe

... "Imprimatur," but brings his chair into the title-leaf; there sits and judges up or judges down what book he pleases. If this be suffered, what worthless author, or what cunning printer, will not be ambitious of such a stale to put off the heaviest gear?—which may in time bring in round fees to the Licenser, and wretched mis-leading to the people. But to the matter. He approves 'the publishing of this Book, to preserve the strength ...
— The Life of John Milton Vol. 3 1643-1649 • David Masson

... odd Englishman; but he was chiefly won by the dolce far niente of the natives, and the Oriental license of polygamy. In a word, Joseph had the same taste for a full-blooded cuffee, that an epicure has for the haut gout of a stale partridge, and was in ecstasies at my extrication. He neglected his siestas and his accounts; he wandered from house to house with the rapture of an impatient bridegroom; and, till every thing was ready for the nuptial rites, no one at the ...
— Captain Canot - or, Twenty Years of an African Slaver • Brantz Mayer

... door of the dance hall open, and stepped nonchalantly inside. It was the usual scene, there was the usual hilarious uproar, the usual close, almost fetid atmosphere that mingled the odours of stale beer and tobacco. Baldy Jack's was always popular, and the place, even for that early hour, was already doing a thriving business. Jimmie Dale's eyes, from a dozen couples swirling in the throes of the bunny-hug on the polished section of the floor ...
— The Further Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard

... comfort. His servant brought him two letters. The first was from Chesnel. A letter from Chesnel smacked of the stale grumbling faithfulness of honesty and its consecrated formulas. With all respect he put it aside till the evening. But the second letter he read with unspeakable pleasure. In Ciceronian phrases, du Croisier groveled before him, like a Sganarelle ...
— The Jealousies of a Country Town • Honore de Balzac

... Every inhabitant remaining was out of doors. The women, in twos and threes, bareheaded and in white aprons, gossiped in the alley between the blocks. Men, having a rest between drinks, sat on their heels and talked. The place smelled stale; the slate roofs glistered in the ...
— Sons and Lovers • David Herbert Lawrence

... at the entrance dazzled by the effect of the light on her eyes, which were smarting with the fog. She found herself looking into a long, narrow, taproom, smelling of stale beer and tobacco fumes, and lit by oil lamps suspended in wire frames from the raftered ceiling. The windows were curtained in cheerful red rep and the place was pleasantly warmed by a stove in one corner. By the stove was a small door ...
— Okewood of the Secret Service • Valentine Williams

... stated Jennie Stone solemnly, "burned incense upon any and all occasions—red letter days, labor days, celebrating Columbus Day and the morning after, I presume. But we moderns burn gasoline. And, phew! I believe I should prefer the stale smoke of incense in the unventilated pyramids of Egypt to this odor of gas. O-o-o-o, Tommy, ...
— Ruth Fielding Down East - Or, The Hermit of Beach Plum Point • Alice B. Emerson

... the notes of the great organ braying in their ears. They could hear the panting of the man working at the bellows. Marcos led the way and they passed on into the chapel which was dimly lighted by candles. The subtle odour of stale incense hung heavily in the atmosphere which seemed to vibrate as if the deeper notes of the organ shook the building in their vain ...
— The Velvet Glove • Henry Seton Merriman

... occasions, with extraordinary rapidity, and with that cheery appreciation of his labor which to any author is an immense stimulant. But following upon these happy humors came seasons of wearisome depression; the stale manuscript of yesterday lost its charm; the fancy refused to be lighted; he has not the heart to hammer at the business with dull, lifeless blows, and flings down his pen in despair. There are successive months during which this mood hangs upon him ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 80, June, 1864 • Various

... raisins, stoned and cut in half. One pound of currants, picked, washed and dried. One pound of beef suet chopped fine. One pound of grated stale bread, or, half a pound of flour and half a pound of bread. Eight eggs. A quarter of a pound of sugar. A glass of brandy. A pint of milk. A glass of wine. Two nutmegs, grated. A table-spoonful of mixed cinnamon and mace. ...
— Seventy-Five Receipts for Pastry Cakes, and Sweetmeats • Miss Leslie

... orthography which is akin to the subjunctive mood of the Latin tongue."—Booth cor. "To bring him into nearer connexion with real and everyday life."—Philological Museum, Vol. i, p. 459. "The commonplace, stale declamation of its revilers would be silenced."—Id. cor. "She [Cleopatra] formed a very singular and unheard-of project."—Goldsmith cor. "He [William Tell] had many vigilant, though feeble-talented and mean-spirited enemies."—R. ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown

... significance in the history of our city, but also a political one. It has long been the temporal bulwark around the Mormon community. Results which have been seen in Utah affairs, preservative of the Mormon power and people, unaccountable to 'the outsider' except on the now stale supposition that 'the Mormon Church has purchased Congress,' may be better traced to the silent but potent influence of Z. C. M. I. among the ruling business men of America, just as John Sharp's position as one of the directors of U. P. R—-r,—a compeer among such men as ...
— The Story of the Mormons: • William Alexander Linn

... Thou seem'st to be a most venerable pimp, and, I doubt not, hast abundance of discretion. Here is this young whoremaster, a true chip of the old venereal block his father, and myself, come for a comfortable cast of thy function. I don't mean that stale pretence of conjuring—d— futurity; let us live for the present, old Haly. Conjure me up a couple of hale wenches, and I warrant we shall get into the magic circle in a twinkling. What says Galileo? What says the Reverend Brahe? Here is a purse, you ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett

... the Saturday matinee, crowded in. Clinging to the straps and the backs of seats, clutching each other with little gusts and ripples of laughter, they filled the aisle of the crowded car with a fresh and joyous life that touched the tired woman like a breath of spring. In all this work stale, stupidly weary, world there is nothing so refreshing as the wholesome laugh of a happy, care free, young girl. The woman whose heart was heavy with knowledge of life would have liked to take them in her arms. She felt a sense of gratitude as though she were indebted ...
— Their Yesterdays • Harold Bell Wright

... scoffer cries;) "Gull'd by the despot's hireling lie, with lore That gives for Truth a shadow;—life is o'er When the delusion dies!" "Tremblest thou," hiss'd the serpent-herd in scorn, "Before the vain deceit? Made holy but by custom, stale and worn, The phantom Gods, of craft and folly born— The sick world's solemn cheat? What is this Future underneath the stone? But for the veil that hides, revered alone; The giant shadow of our Terror, thrown On Conscience' troubled glass— Life's lying likeness—in the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 334, August 1843 • Various

... bottle of alleged claret included, for an absurdly small sum; but a carton of biscuits, a tin of sardines and a can of condensed milk are usually in evidence on the littered tables of the studios, and, together with the odor of stale coffee, bespeak an economy of diet which is incompatible with the good work which comes of the ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 6, July 1905 • Various

... Russian, against whom we rail; S is a Spaniard, as slow as a snail; T is a Turk with his wife in a veil; U a United States' Student at Yale; V a Venetian in gondola frail; W Welshman, with coal, slate,—and shale; X is a Xanthian—or is he too stale?— Y is a Yorkshireman, bred by the Swale; Z is a ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 104, January 21, 1893 • Various

... back your vows. Elsewhere you trimmed and taught these lamps to burn; You bring them stale and dim to serve my turn. You lit those candles in another shrine, Guttered and cold you offer them on ...
— Red Pottage • Mary Cholmondeley

... continued Lady Harman, "I suppose—I shall join you; but as a matter of fact you see, what I've done to-day has been to come right away.... You see I am still in my garden tweeds.... There it was down there, a sort of stale mate...." ...
— The Wife of Sir Isaac Harman • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells

... plain that among other things they were alluding to the stale and senseless story of the sledge filled with baskets of coin sent by the Spanish envoys on their departure from the Hague, on conclusion of the Truce, to defray expenses incurred by them for board ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... morning something good really did happen. As he folded his blankets in the gray light a hard object rattled along the floor from them. He picked this up before he recognized it as a mutilated fragment from the stale half—loaf of bread he had salvaged. He wondered how he could have forgotten it, even in the plenitude of his banquet. There it was, a mere nubbin of crust and so hard it might almost have been taken for a petrified specimen of prehistoric bread. ...
— Merton of the Movies • Harry Leon Wilson

... chairs stretched off into a circle of darkness. The stage, naked of setting; the actors whose haggard faces looked ghastly beyond the retrievement of make-up; the noisy and belated frenzy of carpenters and stage crew: all these were sights and sounds grown so stale that he found it hard to focus his attention on those nuances of interpretation which would make or ruin his play. He was conscious only of a yearning to find some quiet place where there was shade along a sea beach, and there to ...
— The Tyranny of Weakness • Charles Neville Buck

... government been warned as to the danger of delay. "Your length in resolving;" Wilkes had said, "whatsoever your secret purposes may be—will put us to new plunges before long." The mission of Buckhurst was believed to be "but a stale, having some other intent than was expressed." And at last, the new plunge had been fairly taken. It seemed now impossible for Leicester to regain the absolute authority, which he coveted; and which he had for a brief season possessed. The States-General, ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... wanter pay. I'll tell you what, Amarilly, couldn't you take it out in gum? I hed a hull lot left over when the theayter shut down. It'll git stale ef I keep it much longer, and I'd like to git some of it offen ...
— Amarilly of Clothes-line Alley • Belle K. Maniates

... in its physical aspects, to be typical of the breed and district. It was small, crowded, overheated, underlighted, and stuffy to suffocation with the mingled aromas of stale drink and cheap perfume. As we entered a wrangle was going on among a group of young Frenchmen picturesquely attired as art students—almost a sure sign that they were not art students. An undersized girl dressed in a shabby black-and-yellow ...
— Europe Revised • Irvin S. Cobb

... may equally as well, and indeed much better, preserve both by a due admixture of each sort of malt, and with suitable additions and proper correctives in the process or preparation of porter, both salubrious; as by the subsequent mixture of stale and mild beer, before sending out, or, afterwards, by drawing them from different casks into the same pot, when on draught, to suit the palate ...
— The American Practical Brewer and Tanner • Joseph Coppinger

... port, boxed in the city, changed its aspect according to the time and state of the atmosphere. On calm mornings it was a yellowish green and smelled slightly of stale water,—organic water, animal water. The oyster stands established on its wharfs appeared sprinkled with this water ...
— Mare Nostrum (Our Sea) - A Novel • Vicente Blasco Ibanez

... a boy and girl. Yellow, meagre, ragged, scowling, wolfish; but prostrate, too, in their humility. Where graceful youth should have filled their features out, and touched them with its freshest tints, a stale and shriveled hand, like that of age, had pinched, and twisted them, and pulled them into shreds. Where angels might have sat enthroned, devils lurked, and glared out menacing. No change, no degradation, no perversion of humanity, in any grade, through all the mysteries ...
— A Budget of Christmas Tales by Charles Dickens and Others • Various

... 1592," the year when Nash's "Summer's Last Will and Testament" was performed: "They wrong him much with their epitaphs and solemn devices, that entitle him not at the least the second Toy of London, the stale of Paul's," &c. ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VIII (4th edition) • Various

... ca'd a wee before The stale "three score an' ten," When Joy keeks kindly at your door, Aye bid her welcome ben. About yon blissfu' bowers above Let doubtfu' mortals speir; Sae weel ken we that "heaven is love," Since ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various

... It is, however, highly improbable that he would in the slightest degree care for this letter, though he might suffer some remorse for his spiteful attack on so good-natured a fellow. Cibber says in this letter that people "allow that by this last stale and slow endeavour to maul me, you have fairly wrote yourself up to the Throne you have raised, for the immortal Dulness of your humble servant to nod in. I am therefore now convinced that it would be ill-breeding ...
— Chapters in the History of the Insane in the British Isles • Daniel Hack Tuke

... No sooner had the advertisement appeared than the editor found that everybody believed it to be a sheer invention of his own to "once more boom" the "Clarion." If they had doubted MR. Dimmidge, they utterly rejected MRS. Dimmidge as an advertiser! It was a stale joke that nobody would follow up; and on the heels of this came a letter from ...
— Mr. Jack Hamlin's Mediation and Other Stories • Bret Harte

... we were going out of Town. Of this we were all unfeignedly glad, for London was growing stale. The leaves upon her trees were blown and dingy, odd pieces of paper crept here and there into her parks, the dust was paramount. What sultry air there was seemed to be second-hand. Out of the pounding traffic the pungent reek of oil and fiery metal ...
— Berry And Co. • Dornford Yates

... the grain to a black powder resembling smut: a cirumstance too well known to many farmers. Those who wish to consult the remedies recommended against this, may refer to The Annals of Agriculture, and most other books on the subject. It is usual with farmers to mix the Wheat with stale urine or brine, and to dry it by sifting it with slaked lime, which has the effect of causing it to vegetate quickly, and to prevent the attacks of many insects when the seed is first put into the ground. This is considered as productive of great benefit to the crop; ...
— The Botanist's Companion, Vol. II • William Salisbury

... friendship for very long,' she replied, plucking a glittering firefly from her fan and laying it on his sleeve with her sweet light laugh. 'Like a firefly I shall dance out my short night, and die quickly before life grows stale!' ...
— A Modern Mercenary • Kate Prichard and Hesketh Vernon Hesketh-Prichard

... were not very pleasant ones. He walked round the room, which was reeking of patchouli or some such compound, well mixed with the odour of stale cigar smoke, looking absently at the gee-gar ornaments. On the mantelpiece were some photographs, and among them, to his disgust, he saw one of himself taken many years ago. With something as near an oath as he ever indulged in, he seized ...
— Colonel Quaritch, V.C. - A Tale of Country Life • H. Rider Haggard

... fastening of the shutter and had presently this establishment open for his exploration. He found several sealed bottles of sterilized milk, much mineral water, two tins of biscuits and a crock of very stale cakes, cigarettes in great quantity but very dry, some rather dry oranges, nuts, some tins of canned meat and fruit, and plates and knives and forks and glasses sufficient for several score of people. There was also a zinc locker, but he was unable to negotiate ...
— The War in the Air • Herbert George Wells

... in imitation of tiling, greasy as to its walls and ceiling, and boasting an atmosphere rank with a reek compounded of a dozen elements, in their number alcohol, cheap perfumery, cooked meats, the sweat of unclean humanity, and stale ...
— The Day of Days - An Extravaganza • Louis Joseph Vance

... "Are you hurt bad? Can I bind it up or wash it for you? I've got plenty of hot water here, and it's bad letting a wound get stale." ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... not surprise me this morning when Dinky-Dunk announced that he felt a trifle stale and suggested that the family take a holiday on Tuesday and trek out to Dead-Horse Lake for the day. We're to hitch Tumble-Weed and Tithonus to the old prairie-schooner—for we'll be taking side-trails ...
— The Prairie Child • Arthur Stringer

... whether the man recognized his visitor, Ellerey could not determine, but the door was opened wide, and they were admitted into a small, ill-lighted lobby. The entrance was a private one, not a usual cafe entrance, but the smell of stale liquor and smoke and the reek of highly spiced dishes proved that the cafe was under the same roof, and proclaimed it as a resort of that lower stratum of society which loves its food pungent and highly flavored. That there was such silence in the ...
— Princess Maritza • Percy Brebner

... milestone in her emotional life on the evening of this day, when she said to herself that she loved Rodney Parker. She admitted it with a sort of splendid shame, as she went about her usual household occupations, passing from the hot pleasantness of the kitchen to the cool, stale odours of the dining room; running upstairs to light the bathroom-and hall-gas for her father and brother, and sometimes stepping for a moment into the darkness of the yard to be ...
— Martie the Unconquered • Kathleen Norris

... song, that's stale here, will be new there a twelvemonth hence; and if a man of the town by chance come amongst them, he's reverenced for teaching ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Volume 4 (of 18) - Almanzor And Almahide, Marriage-a-la-Mode, The Assignation • John Dryden

... prospect of large subsidies which would undoubtedly be demanded of her. The jealous Queen could as ill brook the presence of the French in the Netherlands as that of the Spaniards whom they were to expel. She therefore embarrassed, as usual, the operations of the Prince by a course of stale political coquetry. She wrote to him, on the 18th of March, soon after the news of the Grand Commander's death, saying that she could not yet accept the offer which had been made to her, to take ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... demands on the Treasury has been resorted to does not appear. It is not consistent with a sound public policy. If it be done in this case, it may be done in all others. It would form a precedent for the satisfaction of all other stale and questionable claims in the same manner, and would undoubtedly be resorted to by all claimants who after successive trials shall fail to have their claims recognized and ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Polk - Section 3 (of 3) of Volume 4: James Knox Polk • Compiled by James D. Richardson

... down at her, somehow into his memory came the recollection of the first time he ever saw her so—asleep in Casson's rooms, her childish face on the table, the room reeking with tobacco smoke and the stale odour of ...
— Ailsa Paige • Robert W. Chambers

... oil of the machines and the new leather—a combination which, added to the stale odours of the building, was not pleasant even in cold weather. The floor, though regularly swept every evening, presented a littered surface. Not the slightest provision had been made for the comfort of the employees, the idea being ...
— Sister Carrie • Theodore Dreiser

... Wendovers had shown Ida everything. They had opened cabinets, peered into secret drawers, sniffed at the stale pot-pourri in old crackle vases; they had dragged their willing victim through all the long slippery passages, by all the mysterious stairs and by-ways; they had obliged her to look at the interior of ghostly closets, where the ladies of old had stored their house linen or hung their mantuas ...
— The Golden Calf • M. E. Braddon

... "Split me to the chin like a cod! Stood I not abaft of you all day long, packed like a herring in a pickle! 'Twas a pretty kettle of fish in your Noah's ark to-day! 'Tis all along o' goodness gone stale from too much ...
— Heralds of Empire - Being the Story of One Ramsay Stanhope, Lieutenant to Pierre Radisson in the Northern Fur Trade • Agnes C. Laut

... one's whole life is one continual sacrifice of inclinations, which to indulge, however laudable or innocent, would draw down the malice and reproach of those prudent people who never do ill, 'but feed and sleep and do observances to the stale ritual of quaint ceremony.' The charming and beautiful Mrs. Robinson: I pity her from the ...
— Beaux and Belles of England • Mary Robinson

... wonder if young, enthusiastic brains were excited by all sorts of wild hopes—'perfectibility of the species,' 'rights of man,' 'universal liberty, equality, and brotherhood.'—My dear sir, there is nothing new under the sun; all that is stale and trite to a septuagenarian, who has seen where it all ends. I speak to you freely, because I am deeply interested in you. I feel that this is the important question of your life, and that you have talents, the possession ...
— Alton Locke, Tailor And Poet • Rev. Charles Kingsley et al

... woman with the hauteur and detachment of her calling did not speak, but just glanced at a glass dish under a glass cover. There were two stale looking ham sandwiches. ...
— Home Life in Germany • Mrs. Alfred Sidgwick

... proceeds daily, when it has once begun, and the whole ground is carefully cleared off, so that no stale eggs shall remain. Thus if a portion of the ground has been neglected for a day or two, all the eggs must be flung into the sea, so as to begin afresh. As the season advances, the operations are somewhat contracted, leaving a part of the island undisturbed for breeding; and the gathering of ...
— Northern California, Oregon, and the Sandwich Islands • Charles Nordhoff

... thou, Scott! by vain conceit perchance, On public taste to foist thy stale romance. Though Murray with his Miller may combine To yield thy muse just half-a-crown per line? No! when the sons of song descend to trade, Their bays are sear, their ...
— Marmion • Sir Walter Scott

... stove hung a crew of as dirty and disorderly men as ever came out of coal mine or lumber camp. Those who remained sober remained also somewhat aloof against the walls and kept their mouths shut. From the ceiling downward hung the thick, stale cloud of smoke from many strong pipes and the rancid poison of air discharged from many lungs had become a stench in the nostrils. Occasional figures walked with an unsteady lurch, while through the whole chaotic pandemonium ...
— A Pagan of the Hills • Charles Neville Buck

... of the Union"; "our country, our whole country, and nothing but our country";—these are the mottoes, old, stale, hackneyed, and threadbare as they may have seemed when employed as the watchwords of an electioneering campaign, but clothed with a new power, a new significance, a new gloss, and a new glory, when uttered as the battlecries of a nation struggling for ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick

... Stale cigarette smoke, the acrid odors of sweaty clothing, the vapors of alcohol, the breathing of a crowded multitude, worse by far than a trainful ...
— The Underdogs • Mariano Azuela

... sole and surly occupant of the sitting-room, where he had thrown himself at full length upon the sofa, to lie and yawn over the newspaper, which he vowed was as stale as last ...
— The Missing Bride • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth

... to everything can say about the food requisite to breakfast? Those great men Marlowe and Jonson, Shakespeare, and Spenser before him, drank beer at rising, and tamed it with a little bread. In the regiment we used to drink black coffee without sugar, and cut off a great hunk of stale crust, and eat nothing more till the halt: for the matter of that, the great victories of '93 were fought upon such unsubstantial meals; for the Republicans fought first and ate afterwards, being in ...
— The Path to Rome • Hilaire Belloc

... in the narrow streets pert factory-hands come noisily from work. Still he climbs on toward the Cathedral, through tortuous streets and little alley-ways. And in the gloomiest of them all there is no odour of a stale antiquity, but the perfume of a garden-full of roses, of a thousand orange-blossoms, and of locusts, honey-sweet, and he begins to think himself enchanted. He feels the dark, old houses are unreal, as if, instead of cobble-stones beneath his ...
— Cathedrals and Cloisters of the South of France, Volume 1 • Elise Whitlock Rose

... the telegraph. From that point he sent it over the wire to Washington. It was successfully received at the Washington end, and never were human beings more surprised than were the train passengers on alighting at the capital city to find that they brought stale news, and that Clay's nomination was already known throughout Washington. It was the first public proof in America of the powers of the telegraph, and certainly a ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 1 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris

... again for prayer, when I found that ten shillings sixpence more had come in since the morning. With this one pound ten shillings sixpence we were able to buy, even this Saturday evening, the usual quantity of bread (as it might be difficult to get stale bread on Monday morning), and have some money left. God be praised, who gave us grace to come to the decision not to take any bread to-day, as usual, nor to buy anything for which we cannot pay at ...
— The Life of Trust: Being a Narrative of the Lord's Dealings With George Mueller • George Mueller

... came out in groups; the elder ones dressed in black, emitting a stale odor from their innumerable skirts and petticoats; the young ones erect in rigid corsets which crushed their breasts and obliterated the prominent curves of their hips, displaying with stately pride, above ...
— The Dead Command - From the Spanish Los Muertos Mandan • Vicente Blasco Ibanez

... went to brewing A barrel of ale, She put in some hops That it might not turn stale; But as for the malt— She forgot to put that; "This is a brave sober liquor." Said little ...
— Cole's Funny Picture Book No. 1 • Edward William Cole

... shoulder look blue or bright red, it is newly killed; but if black, green, or yellow, it is stale. The leg is known to be new by the stiffness of the joint. The head of a calf or a lamb is known by the eyes; if sunk or wrinkled, it is stale; if plump and lively, it ...
— The American Frugal Housewife • Lydia M. Child

... denied me. So life may run on like a leaden stream, and everything that grows and blossoms on its banks remain scentless and grey. The golden sunshine has hidden itself behind a mist, joy lies fainting in my heart, and all that once pleased me has grown stale and charmless. Do you recognize the happy youth of ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... began to eat, affecting to forget his presence. The logs on the hearth burned sullenly, and gave no light. The poor oil-lamp, casting weird shadows from wall to wall, served only to discover the darkness. The room, with its low roof and earthen floor, and foul clothes flung here and there, reeked of stale meals and garlic and vile cooking. I thought of the parlour at Cocheforet, and the dainty table, and the stillness, and the scented pot-herbs; and though I was too old a soldier to eat the worse because my spoon lacked washing, I felt the ...
— Under the Red Robe • Stanley Weyman

... Mary vaguely. "I don't care so much about first nights. I like the theatre; but I go so seldom. Aunt Marcelle does not care for English plays; she says they are like stale bread-and-butter. I tell her that ...
— A Comedy of Masks - A Novel • Ernest Dowson and Arthur Moore

... room, dim with tobacco-smoke and redolent of stale beer. At the far end a small stage with faded red hangings. The card read No. 7, and the programme informed me that the turn was "A Bouquet of Ballads." A slight, fair-haired girl appeared on the stage. Her cheeks were burning, and she kept her eyes fixed on the floor. The piano jangled, ...
— The Gates of Chance • Van Tassel Sutphen

... used in this process of scouring demand some notice. These comprise soda ash, soda crystals, caustic soda, silicate of soda, potash, caustic potash, soaps of various kinds, stale urine, ammoniacal compounds. Which of these may be used in any particular case depends upon a variety of reasons. Potash is the best alkaline agent to use. It agrees better with the fibre than any other, leaving it soft and elastic. Ammonia is the next best, ...
— The Dyeing of Woollen Fabrics • Franklin Beech

... examined it to find how much it had been cut. He issued them slips, which they added as part of the contributions. "Good work—you, too, Gordon. Best week in the territory for a couple of months. I guess the citizens like you, the way they treat you." He laughed at his stale joke, and Gordon was willing to laugh with him. The credit on the dope had paid for most of the contributions. For once, he had money to show ...
— Police Your Planet • Lester del Rey

... got into a very low, close, swampy country, and our goat's flesh began to be very stale through the heat, not only of the sun, but the muletto's back: however, we pleased ourselves we should have one more meal of it before it was too bad to eat; so, having travelled about three miles from the river, we took up our lodging ...
— Life And Adventures Of Peter Wilkins, Vol. I. (of II.) • Robert Paltock

... of an apostle and the authority of an expert. Dissimulate, but do not simulate, disguise your real sentiments, but do not falsify them. Go through the world with your eyes and ears open and mouth mostly shut. When new or stale gossip is brought to you, never let on that you know it already, nor that it really interests you. The reading of these Letters is better than hearing the average comedy, in which the wit of a ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield

... handling the buttons, and got my shirt all bloody, for I'd been in the drift forty hours, without sleep and breathing powder smoke, till my knees buckled and wobbled under me. To this day the smell of stale powder smoke makes a woman of me; but that morning I sang, for I was going for my bride, and the world was brighter than it has ever been for eighteen years. The little school-house was closed, at which I remembered that the ...
— The Barrier • Rex Beach

... with little indentures; with his Reynard full-face—Judas with his pale almost putrescent fatty body in the douche—Judas with whom I talked one night about Russia, he wearing my pelisse—the frightful and impeccable Judas: take this man. You see him, you smell the hot stale odour of Judas' body; you are not afraid of him, in fact, you hate him; you hear him and you know him. But you ...
— The Enormous Room • Edward Estlin Cummings

... been of that amphibious fry, Bold to prescribe, and busy to apply; His shop the gazing vulgar's eyes employs, With foreign trinkets and domestic toys. Here mummies lay, most reverently stale, And there the tortoise hung her coat of mail; Not far from some huge shark's devouring head The flying-fish their finny pinions spread. Aloft in rows large poppy-heads were strung, And near, a scaly alligator hung. In this place drugs in musty heaps ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury

... am, still, as you know I might find the detention inconvenient, I shall therefore sail early in the speronara. Your letters may be addressed to me as before, but bear in mind that your information is generally too stale. Now I will get a little rest, if you will show me where I am ...
— The Pirate of the Mediterranean - A Tale of the Sea • W.H.G. Kingston

... eager to test the virtues of his new tea, for he put a kettle of cold water on the stove, thereby proving that he was an adept at the art of brewing the fragrant herb, since it requires fresh water, brought to a boil, and not stale stuff, to extract the delightful ...
— Canoe Mates in Canada - Three Boys Afloat on the Saskatchewan • St. George Rathborne

... bare and miserable and the air heavy with the smell of dirt and stale tobacco. Charity's heart sank. Old derided tales of the Mountain people came back to her, and the woman's stare was so disconcerting, and the face of the sleeping man so sodden and bestial, that her disgust was tinged with a vague dread. She was not afraid for herself; ...
— Summer • Edith Wharton

... visit to this beautiful district, which has acquired such a reputation since so many of the best people from town have taken villas here; is his Majesty to make the journey in one of these third-class carriages, with the chance of travelling in company with tradesman stinking of stale cheese?—with folk who, moreover—well, perhaps in common decency I ought not to go on, as ladies are present. (Laughter.) "Economy," I hear some one suggest. That word is in great favour nowadays. But I should like to know what economy there ...
— Three Dramas - The Editor—The Bankrupt—The King • Bjornstjerne M. Bjornson

... Martha. She writhed with shame at the sight of her mother's cajolery of the tyrant she served—and loved. To have spoken out once, recklessly, to have entered a wordy combat without rancor and for the mere zest of tournament, to have let the winnowing winds of satire blow through the house with its stale sentimentalities and mental attitudes, would have reconciled her to any amount of difference in the point of view. But the hushed voice and covertly held position afflicted ...
— The Precipice • Elia Wilkinson Peattie

... cabin was littered up with a variety of things, the wings of birds, feathers of chickens, shells of eggs, bones, bits of tree branches, an old iron chain, a tiny square looking-glass, badly cracked, some stale bread and cake, cores of apples and pears, and a great ...
— Out with Gun and Camera • Ralph Bonehill

... was stupid to stay alone in his chamber. It was some relief even to promenade the hall, for one so nervous as he was at this time. If any of the Orlando's passengers came near him, he could retreat into his room. He walked up and down several times, but this soon became stale amusement. ...
— Up The Baltic - Young America in Norway, Sweden, and Denmark • Oliver Optic

... he had to get through was dying. It was going to be quicker than the way they had of dying in Davos, but it mightn't be quick enough; it might drive him out of his last fight, back to an inconceivable stale world. ...
— The Dark Tower • Phyllis Bottome

... all I, too, could catch the faint odor of stale tobacco. No time was to be lost, however, and while Craig set to work rapidly going through the contents of a desk in the corner, I glanced over the contents of a drawer of a ...
— The War Terror • Arthur B. Reeve

... a vender of printed ballads. These effusions were so stale, atrocious, and unsalable in their character, that it was easy to detect that hypocrisy, which—in imitation of more ambitious beggary—veiled the real eleemosynary appeal under the thin pretext of offering an equivalent. This beggar—an aged female in a rusty bonnet—I ...
— Urban Sketches • Bret Harte

... in a business way!" Mr. Tutt assured him. "Now, if you're feeling stale—and we all are apt to get that way this time of year—why don't you take a run ...
— Tutt and Mr. Tutt • Arthur Train

... spring in our gallop on the racecourse that evening. The horses were stale, and moved as though they had been ...
— Life's Handicap • Rudyard Kipling

... becoming impregnated with the volatile salts of the excrements, it may be rendered brisker, stronger, and more f[oe]tid." It is said to be a fact, that in manufacturing tobacco, it is frequently sprinkled with stale urine. ...
— A Disquisition on the Evils of Using Tobacco - and the Necessity of Immediate and Entire Reformation • Orin Fowler

... received of Mademoiselle Prefere's character, which I was able to see more of later on. A scared-looking servant took my card, and abandoned me without one word of hope at the door of a chilly parlour full of that stale odour peculiar to the dining- rooms of educational establishments. The floor of this parlour had been waxed with such pitiless energy, that I remained for awhile in distress upon the threshold. But happily observing ...
— The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard • Anatole France

... Italian, 'Do you understand?' His young wife laughed heartily at the story of his dressing up in woman's clothes." A dull, garrulous husband, boring people with stories of which they were sick; a childish little wife, trying to make the best of things, and laughing over the stale old jokes; this is what may be called the idyllic moment in the wedded life of Charles Edward and Louise. What would she have felt, that strong, calm lady, growing old far off in the Isle of Skye, had she been able to see what Bonstetten saw; had she heard the Count ...
— The Countess of Albany • Violet Paget (AKA Vernon Lee)

... has long been the temporal bulwark around the Mormon community. Results which have been seen in Utah affairs, preservative of the Mormon power and people, unaccountable to 'the outsider' except on the now stale supposition that 'the Mormon Church has purchased Congress,' may be better traced to the silent but potent influence of Z. C. M. I. among the ruling business men of America, just as John Sharp's position as one of the directors of U. P. R—-r,—a ...
— The Story of the Mormons: • William Alexander Linn

... to have been with you. Next time I'll volunteer. You had action—a run for your money. That's what I enlisted for. Standing still—doing nothing but wait—that drives me half mad. My years of football have made action necessary. Otherwise I go stale in mind and body.... Last night, before you went on that scouting trip, I had been on duty two hours. Near midnight. The shelling had died down. All became quiet. No flares—no flashes anywhere. There was a luminous kind of glow in the sky—moonlight through thin ...
— The Desert of Wheat • Zane Grey

... to the closet and opened the door. On a shelf he saw half a loaf of bread, dry and stale. He took it in his ...
— Mark Mason's Victory • Horatio Alger

... Justice Shallow. Nay, is not there, too, that offensively supercilious creak of the boots with which he enforced his remarks on the war in Europe, when he last caught you at the corner of the street and decanted into your ears the stale settlings of a week of newspapers? Now, did not Shakespeare tell us that the imagination bodies forth? It is indeed the verbum caro factum—the ...
— The Function Of The Poet And Other Essays • James Russell Lowell

... Beef juice and one egg; or, broth and meat; care being taken that the meat is always rare and scraped or very finely divided; beefsteak, mutton chop, or roast beef may be given. Very stale bread, or two pieces of zwieback. Prune pulp or baked apple, one to ...
— The Care and Feeding of Children - A Catechism for the Use of Mothers and Children's Nurses • L. Emmett Holt

... just when the falling off did begin. We were both very much taken up with our work. But when, one morning, I happened to notice that it was a quarter of twelve when we sat down to a breakfast of stale bread and warmed-over coffee, it occurred to me that there was a hitch ...
— The Van Dwellers - A Strenuous Quest for a Home • Albert Bigelow Paine

... mine in my own committee. However, he got himself sold at all points...The Polypterus paper and the Aye-Aye paper fell flat. The latter was meant to raise a discussion on your views, but it was all a stale hash, and I only made some half sarcastic remarks which stopped any ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 1 • Leonard Huxley

... stars are withered with light. The moon is pale with trying to remember something. Light, straining for a stale birth, ...
— Precipitations • Evelyn Scott

... later born, The old world was sure forlorn Wanting thee, that aidest more The god's victories than before All his panthers, and the brawls Of his piping Bacchanals. These, as stale, we disallow, Or judge of thee meant; only thou His true Indian conquest art; And, for ivy round his dart, The reformed god now weaves A finer thyrsus of ...
— The Works of Charles Lamb in Four Volumes, Volume 4 • Charles Lamb

... crimps. This was to us a source of great amusement and singular adventure; for the ingenuity in concealing them was only equalled by the art and cunning exercised in the discovery of their abodes. Cellars and lofts were stale and out of use; we found more game in the interior of haystacks, church steeples, closets under fireplaces where the fire was burning. Some we found headed up in sugar-hogsheads, and some concealed within bundles of hoop-staves. Sometimes we found seamen, dressed as gentlemen, ...
— Frank Mildmay • Captain Frederick Marryat

... to-night? His youth was fast going—nay, had it not indeed gone from him for ever? had not youth left him all at once when he began his commercial career?—and the pleasures that had been fresh enough within the last few years were rapidly growing stale. He knew the German spas, the pine-groves where the hand played, the gambling-saloons and their company, by heart, though he had never stayed more than a fortnight at any one of them. He had exhausted Brittany and the South of France in these rapid scampers; skimmed the cream of their novelty, ...
— Fenton's Quest • M. E. Braddon

... desire to count your young turkeys, and let them alone for twenty-four hours after they get into this world. Remove them to a clean, airy, roomy coop, and give them boiled eggs, stale wheat bread crumbs just moistened with milk or water, "Dutch" cheese, or a mixture of ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 711, August 17, 1889 • Various

... name of the junction, in spite of the ill-natured tones which gave voice to it, sounded sweeter than the chimes of bells. It meant relief from confinement in a few square feet of board; relief from a semi-putrid atmosphere—oil, unwashed men, and stale tobacco-smoke; relief from the delicate attentions of a surly Africander guard, who resented the overcrowding of his van; relief from the pangs of hunger; relief from ...
— On the Heels of De Wet • The Intelligence Officer

... package. She had been presented with a quarter of a stale loaf of baker's bread, and a big ...
— A Girl Of The Limberlost • Gene Stratton Porter

... a worn office chair before a littered desk. In the close air hung the smell of stale cigars and ...
— The Blazed Trail • Stewart Edward White

... Chesterton. One of the latter's comments on a manuscript is still preserved. Writing of a novel by a lady who was the author of many unpublished stories, all marked by perseverance rather than talent, he said, "Age cannot wither nor custom stale her infinite lack of variety." But alas, we hear too little of these gentlemen in their capacity as publishers' pursuivants. Patrolling the porches of literature, why did they not bequeath us some pandect of their experience, some rich ...
— Shandygaff • Christopher Morley

... then—artichoke pickles, tea cakes, pies, and good old healthy lye hominy. There was plenty of meat served, but I was not allowed to eat that, as I was never a very strong child. I was a fool about stale bread, such as biscuit, cornbread, and light bread. Mother was a fine cook and her battercakes would just melt in your mouth. Of course, you know we had no stoves in those days and the cooking was done in open fireplaces, in ovens and pots. Oh yes! We had a garden. ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves: Volume IV, Georgia Narratives, Part 1 • Works Projects Administration

... its stale and drowsy lair, the lair of slaves, Like lightning it leaped forth, half startled at itself, Its feet upon the ashes and the rags—its hands tight to the ...
— Poems By Walt Whitman • Walt Whitman

... and Grace were sitting on the stoop of the boarding-house. On the upper steps, in their shirt-sleeves, were the other boarders; so the bride and bridegroom spoke in whispers. The air of the cross street was stale and stagnant; from it rose exhalations of rotting fruit, the gases of an open subway, the smoke of passing taxicabs. But between the street and the hall bedroom, with its odors of a gas-stove and a kitchen, the ...
— The Boy Scout and Other Stories for Boys • Richard Harding Davis



Words linked to "Stale" :   corrupt, putrescent, pee-pee, spend a penny, unoriginal, hard, bad, limp, old, micturate, dusty, make, addled, flyblown, pass water, moth-eaten, maggoty, spoiled, make water, spoilt, staleness, day-old, musty, fresh, cold, mouldy, piddle, wilted, tainted, moldy, wee, putrid, take a leak, urinate, rotten, pee, puddle, wee-wee, relieve oneself, piss, rancid



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