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Whet   Listen
verb
Whet  v. t.  (past & past part. whetted; pres. part. whetting)  
1.
To rub or on with some substance, as a piece of stone, for the purpose of sharpening; to sharpen by attrition; as, to whet a knife. "The mower whets his scythe." "Here roams the wolf, the eagle whets his beak."
2.
To make sharp, keen, or eager; to excite; to stimulate; as, to whet the appetite or the courage. "Since Cassius first did whet me against Caesar, I have not slept."
To whet on, To whet forward, to urge on or forward; to instigate.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Whet" Quotes from Famous Books



... States," "Story of the Steam Engine," "A Brief History of Science," an "Essay on Early Man," "Great Artists," "Secrets of Success," etc. Each little book contained the evening's programme, the words and music of at least two national hymns, and "Owl Talks," a single page of crisp thoughts, to whet one's wits. At the close of each season the twenty pamphlets, continuously paged, were bound for fifty cents in two volumes with covers of red cloth. Thus the people got much for little, and they were benefited and pleased with their bargain. Encores and the discourtesy of stamping the feet and ...
— The Harris-Ingram Experiment • Charles E. Bolton

... many, although of quarries they are ignorant, neither haue they vse of any store whereupon they should haue occasion to seeke any. For if euery housholde haue one or two to cracke nuts, grinde shels, whet copper, and sometimes other stones for hatchets, they haue ynough: neither vse they any digging, but onely for graues about three foote deepe: and therefore no marueile that they know neither quarries, nor lime-stones, ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques and Discoveries of - the English Nation. Vol. XIII. America. Part II. • Richard Hakluyt

... nears me! It is ARTHUR's pet. Light ladder this; would capsize in a jiffy. His bristles he'd scrape and his tusks he would whet Against it, I wish he were drowned in the Liffey! Whisht! Get away! He's so heavy and big. There! round the ladder he's playing the fooler. Ah! there's the rub. PATRICK scumfish that Pig! If he doesn't mean deviltry ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Volume 102, January 16, 1892 • Various

... the sheriff. He felt that his first duty was to become friends with such an important official. Besides this, he wished to have an interview with the prisoner. He had arranged in his mind, on the way there, just how he would write a preliminary article that would whet the appetite of the readers of the Chicago Argus for any further developments that might occur during and after the trial. He would write the whole thing in the form of ...
— From Whose Bourne • Robert Barr

... vnresolued men, For to shewe causes of the deed decreed, This shall dispute for mee and tell him why, This heart, hand, minde, hath mark'd him out to die: If it be true that furies quench-les thirst, Is pleas'd with quaffing of ambitious bloud, Then all you deuills whet my Poniards point, And I wil broach you a bloud-sucking heart: 1580 Which full of bloud, must bloud store to you yeeld, Were it a peerce to flint or marble stone: Why so it is for Caesars heart's a stone, Els would bee mooued with my Countries mone. They say you furies ...
— The Tragedy Of Caesar's Revenge • Anonymous

... her sleep. Forth swarm Footmen and horsemen, and in wild career Whirl up the dust. "Arm," cry the warriors, "arm!" With unctuous lard their polished shields they smear, And whet the axe, and scour the rusty spear. Their banners wave, their trumpets sound the fight. Five towns their anvils for the war uprear, Crustumium, Tibur, glorying in her might, Ardea, ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil - Translated into English Verse by E. Fairfax Taylor • Virgil

... "You whet my curiosity, monsieur; and, of course, I am a dutiful niece. It follows that I shall be honoured to ...
— Scaramouche - A Romance of the French Revolution • Rafael Sabatini

... mania with him. He had won it once, and would again despite all the Moores, all the Gray Dogs, all the undutiful sons in existence; on that point he was resolved. The fact of his having tasted the joys of victory served to whet his desire. And now he felt he could never be happy till the Cup was ...
— Bob, Son of Battle • Alfred Ollivant

... no more. These words did indeed whet his curiosity to the utmost, but the shame of acting the part of an "eavesdropper" was so great that, by a strong effort of will, he drew back and pondered for a moment what he ought to do. The unexpected tone and tenor of ...
— Gascoyne, the Sandal-Wood Trader • R.M. Ballantyne

... first did whet me against Caesar, 61 I have not slept. Between the acting of a dreadful thing And the first motion, all the interim is Like a phantasma or a hideous dream: 65 The Genius and the mortal instruments Are then in council; and the state of a man, Like to a little kingdom, suffers then ...
— The New Hudson Shakespeare: Julius Caesar • William Shakespeare

... know your places. Let not one man's soul escape you. Appleyard was a whet before a meal; but now we go to table. I have three men whom I will bitterly avenge—Harry Shelton, Simon Malmesbury, and"—striking his broad bosom—"and Ellis Duckworth, by ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 8 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... the woodland wilderness and deserts of the deer Alecto drave the Queen around, with Bacchus' stings beset But when she deemed enough was wrought that rage of hers to whet, And that Latinus' rede and house was utterly undone, Forthwith away on dusky wings is borne that evil one Unto the bold Rutulian's wall: a city, saith the tale, Raised up by Danae for her Acrisian folks' avail 410 When ...
— The AEneids of Virgil - Done into English Verse • Virgil

... I did ever thinke thou durst not fence But at a complement; a glittering vapour, A thing of clothes and fitt for chambermaides To whet their witts upon, but now resolve Either to have your skin flead of or fight wo' me For troubling ...
— A Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. II • Various

... already looked upon them as hors tie combat; and the frequent visits of the whisky bottle to the ugly mouth of their dam I hoped would soon reduce her to a like state. Judge of my astonishment, reader, when I saw this incarnate fiend take a large carving-knife and go to the grindstone to whet its edge. I saw her pour the water on the turning machine, and watched her working away with the dangerous instrument, until the cold sweat covered every part of my body, in spite of my determination to defend myself to the last. ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner

... And the one, when the wolf came by, could scant stand on his legs, and the other was already dead and his skin ripped off and carried away. And as he looked upon them suddenly, he was first about to feed upon them and whet his teeth upon their bones. But as he looked aside, he spied a fair cow in an enclosure, walking with her young calf by her side. And as soon as he saw them, his conscience began to grudge him against both ...
— Dialogue of Comfort Against Tribulation - With Modifications To Obsolete Language By Monica Stevens • Thomas More

... The sight! A burning world! And to be dead and miss it! There's an end Of all satiety: such fire imagine! Born in some obscure alley of the poor, Then leaping to embrace a splendid street, Palaces, temples, morsels that but whet Her appetite: the eating of huge forests: Then with redoubled fury rushing high, Smacking her lips over a continent, And licking old civilisations up! Then in tremendous battle fire and sea Joined: and the ending of the mighty sea: Then heaven in conflagration, stars like cinders Falling ...
— Nero • Stephen Phillips

... the threshold of the billiard room an hour ago, and seem to find in such amusements the same fascination as himself. Your skill in games of chance excels his, as you proved at home where these pastimes lose their disreputable aspect by being openly enjoyed. Therefore I would have you whet this appetite of his by losing freely at first—he will take a grim delight in lessening the fortune he covets—then exert all your skill till he is deeply in your debt. He has nothing but what is doled out to him by Babie's father, I find; he dare not ask help there for such a purpose; ...
— Pauline's Passion and Punishment • Louisa May Alcott

... rewarded by a steady improvement in the general results now attained. Nor is the situation injured by a slight tinge of friendly rivalry among clubs, to lend an additional zest to their labors, and to whet the praiseworthy ambition of each to make every succeeding issue a little better than the last. There are many zealous bibliophiles who belong to two or three book clubs at once, finding it interesting to collect and compare ...
— Book-Lovers, Bibliomaniacs and Book Clubs • Henry H. Harper

... selection, deliberateness, and personality. Good heavens, I reflected, are we mortals so cross-grained that we can thoroughly enjoy things only by contrast, and that a sort of mild starvation is needed to whet ...
— Hortus Vitae - Essays on the Gardening of Life • Violet Paget, AKA Vernon Lee

... Kaiser, and the Fatherland!'" Even Goethe's Wilhelm Meister, who is, according to Bettina, merely a supine hero, fails to elude her electric grasp: "Come, flee with me across the Alps to the Tyrolese. There will we whet our swords and forget thy rabble of comedians; and as for all thy darling mistresses, they must lack ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various

... put upon his voice rippled it, "John, don't tamper with the affections of an old and infirm man. Drive me off the bayou plantation, compel me to acknowledge and to feel that I am a hypercrite and a liar, but don't whet a sentiment and then cut my throat with it. Be merciful unto a sinner who worships ...
— An Arkansas Planter • Opie Percival Read

... story as he had heard it from a bibulous member of the Barred Horseshoe, and then added a little of torture as a sauce to whet ...
— Hopalong Cassidy's Rustler Round-Up - Bar-20 • Clarence Edward Mulford

... will be king, or die.— Brother, thou shalt to London presently, And whet on Warwick to this enterprise.— Thou, Richard, shalt to the Duke of Norfolk, And tell him privily of our intent.— You, Edward, shall unto my Lord Cobham, With whom the Kentishmen will willingly rise. In them I trust; for they are soldiers, Witty, courteous, liberal, full of spirit.— While you ...
— King Henry VI, Third Part • William Shakespeare [Rolfe edition]

... crowded city, the pedestrians jostling each other as they pass and repass; but soon as the hour of six arrives, all is still again, for youths and maidens are alike engaged in discussing that meal for which their long walk has served as a whet. ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol I, Issue I, January 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... The odor is delectable enough to whet the appetite to as keen an edge as the wind hath. Robert, 'tis some time since I ...
— Peggy Owen and Liberty • Lucy Foster Madison

... the sound abate? Lo, the next Hour of Fate Whetting her vengeance due On new whet-stones, for new ...
— Agamemnon • Aeschylus

... hussars taken on board that vessel were those who guarded the scaffold at the execution of the unfortunate Lewis—they are clothed in scarlet jackets trimmed with gold and fur, and wear each the butcher's steel, on which they whet their knives, to whet their swords with. It is reported that Hoche and Reilly (one of the admirals) are gone off to America with seven hundred thousand pounds in specie that was on board their vessel to pay the troops. Others ...
— A History of the Four Georges and of William IV, Volume III (of 4) • Justin McCarthy and Justin Huntly McCarthy

... things—an' whit a wife's portion is, gin he should slip awa. An' ax him tae, whit ma rights 'll be. Ah've got a buggie, ye ken, an' a coo o' ma ain', foreby a settin' o' Plymouths, an' ah'm to have a horse, he says, to drive to Cheemaun—ah got that oot o' him in writin' an' he didna ken whet ah wes up to. But ah'd like to ken jist hoo much ah'm to expact. Ah'm no goin' ...
— 'Lizbeth of the Dale • Marian Keith

... Ward led Bloom by ryebloom flowered tables. Aimless he chose with agitated aim, bald Pat attending, a table near the door. Be near. At four. Has he forgotten? Perhaps a trick. Not come: whet appetite. I couldn't do. ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce

... Serfdom or slavery was abolished from 1861 to 1866; restraints upon newspapers, publishers, and schools were partly withdrawn. Natural resources were developed, factories established, and railroads built. But these measures only served to whet the appetite of the people for more liberal government. The activities of revolutionists and reformers were met by most severe measures on the part of the government. Thousands were transported to Siberia and many were executed. Even as late as 1903 five thousand ...
— A School History of the Great War • Albert E. McKinley, Charles A. Coulomb, and Armand J. Gerson

... but hanging over all our heads already, and always ready to fall on us. Not knowing that it is as true now as it was two thousand years ago, that "God is a righteous judge, strong and patient." "If a man will not turn, He will whet His sword; He hath bent His bow, and made it ready," against those who travail with mischief, who conceive sorrow, and bring forth ungodliness. They dig up pits for their neighbours, and fall themselves into the destruction which they have made for others; not knowing that it is as true now ...
— All Saints' Day and Other Sermons • Charles Kingsley

... precipitation; while the robber, whose horse had run away, mounted Gilbert, and rode off across the country. It was at this period, that two footmen, belonging to the coach, who had stayed behind to take their morning's whet at the inn where they lodged, came up to the assistance of the ladies, armed with blunderbusses; and the carriage proceeded, leaving Timothy alone in distraction and despair. He knew not which way to turn, and was afraid of remaining ...
— The Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves • Tobias Smollett

... characters: the wilder and uglier the better. Try every combination of shaggy mane, and squinting eye, and mouth like a gaping volcano; build mountains upon your shoulders, or fatten yourselves into Falstaffs; and as a whet to your inventions, I hereby promise a kiss from the bride to the figure that would be the likeliest to make her miscarry. A wedding is such a strange event in one's life; the bride and bridegroom are so suddenly plunged, as it were by magic, head over heels into a new, unaccustomed element, ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey, Vol. 2 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey

... tender debt Be paid by those I love in life. Why should the unborn critic whet For me ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier

... "School of Velocity," which make you feel like employing the "velocity" you have acquired to run away as quickly as possible from the "school," whereas the Chopin etudes are so full of melody and of the rarest and the most beautiful musical effects, that to play any one of them suffices to whet the appetite for the others. The pianolist might well go through the entire two sets of twelve. It would open up a new musical world to him. Here I can only point out three. Opus 10, No. 5, is the "Black Key" etude, so called because all the notes of the right hand are on black keys. ...
— The Pianolist - A Guide for Pianola Players • Gustav Kobb

... straightened out, pickets detailed and posted, and the men, too tired even to swear, dropped where they were, and rapidly cooled down in the chilly dew. It was now nearly eleven o'clock, and a half bottle of water was issued, enough merely to whet the consuming thirst which gripped everybody. Tunics were disentangled from the damp congeries on our backs and we had a few ...
— The Fifth Battalion Highland Light Infantry in the War 1914-1918 • F.L. Morrison

... how poor Peterkin would have liked to be with us; and he sometimes expressed much regret at being unable to join us. I used to do my best to gratify him, poor fellow, by relating all the wonders that we saw; but this, instead of satisfying, seemed only to whet his curiosity the more, so one day we prevailed on him to try to go down with us. But although a brave boy in every other way, Peterkin was very nervous in the water; and it was with difficulty we got him to consent to be taken down, for he could never have ...
— The Coral Island • R.M. Ballantyne

... whom ye gave no commission; nor with the Samnites, with whom ye transacted no business. We are sureties to the Samnites; debtors, sufficiently wealthy in that which is our own, in that which we can offer—our bodies and our minds. On these, let them exercise their cruelty; against these, let them whet their resentment and their swords. As to what relates to the tribunes, consider whether the delivering them up can be effected at the present time, or if it must be deferred to another day. Meanwhile let us, Titus Veturius, and the rest concerned, offer our ...
— The History of Rome; Books Nine to Twenty-Six • Titus Livius

... telling only enough to whet his interest. "There's a clue, as I half expected, from New York, too. But we are so far away that we'll have to stick to my original plan. You can ...
— The War Terror • Arthur B. Reeve

... hogs were killed in the celebration of war expeditions — and the old men got the greater part of the meat. The Igorot is a natural head-hunter, and his training for the last sixty years seems to have done little more for him than whet this appetite. ...
— The Bontoc Igorot • Albert Ernest Jenks

... You're welcome to my certain Knowledge; And if you please all Night to stay, My Son shall put you in the way." Which offer I most kindly took, And for a Seat did round me look; When presently amongst the rest, He plac'd his unknown English Guest, Who found them drinking for a whet, A Cask of (h) Syder on the Fret, Till Supper came upon the Table, On which I fed whilst I was able. So after hearty Entertainment, Of Drink and Victuals without Payment; For Planters Tables, you must know, Are free for all that come and go. While (i) Pon and ...
— The Sot-weed Factor: or, A Voyage to Maryland • Ebenezer Cook

... We can scarcely doubt that as certain forms of music tend to raise us above the sensuality of the animal, or the more degrading passion of material gain, and to transport us into the ether of higher thought, so other forms are directly calculated to awaken in us luxurious emotions, and to whet those sensual appetites which it is the business of a philosopher not indeed to annihilate or to be ashamed of, but to keep rigidly in check. This possibility of music to effect evil as well as good I have seen recognised, and very aptly expressed in some beautiful verses by Mr. Keble which I ...
— The Lost Stradivarius • John Meade Falkner

... son Should grudge his sire no days. I would not live To whet ambition's appetite. I'm old; And fit for little else than hermit thoughts. The day that gives my daughter, gives my crown: A ...
— Count Alarcos - A Tragedy • Benjamin Disraeli

... as to their safe-keeping, he went off to forage for the coffee, and presently returned, having been moderately successful. One egg apiece was hardly enough, however, to appease the craving of two strong men ravenous from long fasting. Indeed, it seemed only to whet the appetite, and we both set out on an eager expedition for more food. Before going far I had the good luck to meet a sutler's wagon, and though its stock was about all sold, there were still left four large bologna sausages, which I promptly purchased—paying ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan

... acetylene lamp, candle light, fire light and moonlight, we labored. We used up all our knives, and having neglected to bring our whet-stones, sharpened our blades on the volcanic boulders, about us. By assiduous industry for nine straight hours, we finished him after a fashion. His skin was thick and like scar tissue. His meat was all tendons and gristle. The hide was as ...
— Hunting with the Bow and Arrow • Saxton Pope

... to take their afternoon nap, with their eyes half-closed; here the children come, with Bull, the House-dog; here also come the haymakers, at the hottest time of the day, to sit and take their meal and whet their scythes in the shade of the plane-tree; here the women pass up and down with their rakes, after the hay-harvest, to glean what they can on the niggardly carpet of the shorn meadow. It is therefore a very much frequented footpath, were it only because of the coming and going ...
— Bramble-bees and Others • J. Henri Fabre

... 'tis true; thus was Adonis slain: He ran upon the boar with his sharp spear, 1112 Who did not whet his teeth at him again, But by a kiss thought to persuade him there; And nuzzling in his flank, the loving swine Sheath'd unaware the tusk in ...
— Venus and Adonis • William Shakespeare

... also in the sharpening of a scythe, and it is worth describing carefully. Your blade must be dry, and that is why you will see men rubbing the scythe-blade with grass before they whet it. Then also your rubber must be quite dry, and on this account it is a good thing to lay it on your coat and keep it there during all your day's mowing. The scythe you stand upright, with the blade pointing away from you, and you put your left hand firmly on the back ...
— Hills and the Sea • H. Belloc

... Power. The former faculty exacted approbation of that which it was considered orthodox to admire; the latter groaned forth its utter inability to pay the tax; it was then self-sneered at, spurred up, goaded on to refine its taste, and whet its zest. The more it was chidden, however, the more it wouldn't praise. Discovering gradually that a wonderful sense of fatigue resulted from these conscientious efforts, I began to reflect whether I might not dispense with that great labour, and concluded eventually that I might, ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte

... them had as yet been found anywhere in the known galaxy, but they had left enough material in Centaurus City to satisfy the curiosity of Mankind for years to come, and enough mystery and complexity to whet that curiosity to ...
— Dead Giveaway • Gordon Randall Garrett

... thus those pretious rayes withdraw To whet my dull beams, keep my bold in aw? Or, are you gentle and compassionate, You will not reach me Regulus his fate? Brave prince! who, eagle-ey'd of eagle kind, Wert blindly damn'd to look thine own ...
— Lucasta • Richard Lovelace

... objects made of iron. The material iron embraces the metal contained in them all; but we may say, "The cook made the irons hot," referring to flat-irons; or, "The sailor was put in irons" meaning chains of iron. So also we may speak of a glass to drink from or to look into; a steel to whet a knife on; a rubber for erasing marks; and ...
— An English Grammar • W. M. Baskervill and J. W. Sewell

... degree of hardship and vehemence and conflict into his very sports? Does not life without difficulty become insipid and joyless? Cannot a strong interest turn difficulty into pleasure? Let the love of truth, of which I have spoken, be awakened, and obstacles in the way to it will whet, not discourage, the mind, and inspire a new delight ...
— Harvard Classics Volume 28 - Essays English and American • Various

... he greeted him then with tentative friendliness, and went on with his work. "You lost?" he added carefully. A man walking down out of the barren hills, and carrying absolutely nothing in the way of camp outfit, was enough to whet the curiosity of any one who knew that country. At the same time curiosity that became too apparent might be extremely unwelcome. So many things may drive a man into the hills—but few of them would ...
— Cabin Fever • B. M. Bower

... Me and my wife here, we whet away and stayed two months. Was 5 feet in this house, and if it ever gets in here agin, we're goin down in Kentucky and ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - From Interviews with Former Slaves: Indiana Narratives • Works Projects Administration

... surveillance. But he could not go himself, he had no one to send, and furthermore the delinquent seemed only too willing to escort himself there, free of government expense, as speedily as possible. All I had to do was to whet his perception that the sooner boatmen were got the sooner I should be on the right side of the law again. After some conflict with himself he went in search of ...
— Noto, An Unexplored Corner of Japan • Percival Lowell

... stone of the pavement. He was not thinking at all of the stones when he scrutinized them, still less was he thinking of them when he was accomplishing his task: he was whetting his knife. He was obliged to whet his knife so that he could cut the meat; but to me it seemed as though he were doing something to the stones of the sidewalk. Just so it appears as though humanity were occupied with commerce, conventions, wars, sciences, ...
— The Moscow Census - From "What to do?" • Lyof N. Tolstoi

... to the King And Queene wassailing; And though, with ale, ye be whet here, Yet part ye from hence As free from offence As ...
— A Righte Merrie Christmasse - The Story of Christ-Tide • John Ashton

... piece of bread, and the same of meat, for each of us. This was seized and devoured almost instantly. I had received nothing to eat since breakfast the day before, and the little morsel I got only served to whet my appetite; but there was no more! We asked what time it was, and were told nine o'clock. We were also informed that we would get our meals only twice a day. This was rather discouraging information for persons as hungry as ourselves, but we ...
— Daring and Suffering: - A History of the Great Railroad Adventure • William Pittenger

... State Government; and its leaders were generally, if not always, the spokesmen of the State in national affairs. This position and these advantages were legacies of the constitution of 1776. The fact that they were in the minority in point of population served only to whet their appetites for more power. On the other hand, the leaders of the western section of the State had fought for twenty-five years to reform the constitution and the laws, to create new counties in order to secure proportionate representation, and to expand the ...
— Expansion and Conflict • William E. Dodd

... ancestor had turned me over his knee and lambasted me to his heart's content. In spite of all this discipline, which one would have thought effective enough to take me out of the lists of Parnassus forever, it on the contrary served only to whet my thirst for writing, and from that time until now I have never gotten over my desire to chisel out sonnets, triolets, rondeaux and lyrics of one kind ...
— The Autobiography of Methuselah • John Kendrick Bangs

... avenging himself. A few of the ladies even taxed him with this, and tried, by random reproaches, to put him at least on his defence; but, merrily refusing to be inveigled, he made to all the same answer that when Mademoiselle Paleotti returned they would see. This served only to whet a curiosity already keen, insomuch that the door was watched by as many eyes as if a miracle had been promised; and even MM. Epernon and Vendome, leaving the King's side, pressed into the crowd that they might see the better. I ...
— From the Memoirs of a Minister of France • Stanley Weyman

... old women of all sorts here and at Nice do without such a choice temple of scandal to whet their teeth upon? Well, I suppose you and your precious daughter can take care of yourselves. There are the gardens, or you can tell Gregorio to ...
— Nuttie's Father • Charlotte M. Yonge

... 'em, though begotten By French Valets or Irish Footmen. Nor can the vigorousest course Prevail, unless to make us worse; Who still, the harsher we are us'd, 335 Are further off from b'ing reduc'd; And scorn t' abate, for any ills, The least punctilios of our wills. Force does but whet our wits t' apply Arts, born with us, for remedy; 340 Which all your politicks, as yet, Have ne'er been able to defeat: For when y' have try'd all sorts of ways, What fools d' we make of you in plays! While all the favours we afford, 345 Are but to girt you with ...
— Hudibras • Samuel Butler

... him; he went on to indite, stroke by stroke, the promised terrible article on Chatelet and Mme. de Bargeton. That morning he experienced one of the keenest personal pleasures of journalism; he knew what it was to forge the epigram, to whet and polish the cold blade to be sheathed in a victim's heart, to make of the hilt a cunning piece of workmanship for the reader to admire. For the public admires the handle, the delicate work of the brain, while the cruelty is not apparent; how should the ...
— A Distinguished Provincial at Paris • Honore de Balzac

... I met oncest at Bent's Fort on the Arkinsaw— a odd sort o' a critter he wur, an no mistake; he us't to go pokin about, gatherin' weeds an' all sorts o' green garbitch, an' spreadin' 'em out atween sheets o' paper—whet he called button-eyesin—jest like thet ur Dutch doctur as wur rubbed out when we went into the Navagh country, t'other ...
— The War Trail - The Hunt of the Wild Horse • Mayne Reid

... opposite of the summarizing lead is the informal, or suspense, lead. This type begins with a question, a bit of verse, a startling quotation, or one or two manifestly unimportant details that tell little and yet whet the appetite of the reader, luring him to the real point of interest later in the story. Such leads, sometimes known as "human interest" leads, are admittedly more difficult than those of the summarizing ...
— News Writing - The Gathering , Handling and Writing of News Stories • M. Lyle Spencer

... going to make it a great affair, a real reunion for all of us. Caterina, helped by two stout colored women, has been cooking all the afternoon, and I hope that you two boys have had enough exercise and excitement to whet ...
— The Sun Of Quebec - A Story of a Great Crisis • Joseph A. Altsheler

... fiddle-sticks!" he interrupted. "That's only a tag. The people whose business it is to decide these things—DIE HERREN DICHTER—are not agreed to this day whet it's man who's fickle or woman. In this mood it's one, in that, the other; and the silly world bleats it after ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson

... he had brought the adventure to an end, The duke now sought the noble youths to stir, (Though of themselves that way their wishes tend, Nor they to whet that purpose need the spur) That they the Church from outrage to defend, And rights of Charles, the Roman Emperor, Would cease to war upon that Eastern strand, And would seek ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto

... rose-house. Strangely enough, the thought of his fiancee leaning on the shoulder of another man did not in the least diminish the ardor of Offitt. His passion was entirely free from respect or good-will. He used the story to whet the edge of Sam's ...
— The Bread-winners - A Social Study • John Hay

... laborious and powerful work. Meantime, with every secondary merit which such a work could possess this is replete; while its faults are only such as were inseparable from the conjunction of such ambitions with such powers. He may whet and wield his blade; but he puts no poison on its edge. He may disparage reverence; but he is not himself irreverent. He may impugn the convictions that most men love; but, while withholding no ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 63, January, 1863 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... "To whet his tommyhawk, I make no doubt. Oh, elder, how ye have been deceived in people! Ye believe that every one is as good as one can be, or can be grafted to bear sweet fruit, but, hoe-down-hoe, elder, 'taint so. Yer ...
— In The Boyhood of Lincoln - A Tale of the Tunker Schoolmaster and the Times of Black Hawk • Hezekiah Butterworth

... of the German Government a geographical description of the country has been published,[132] in which every detail of Belgium's wealth in minerals, agriculture, and so on, is described, with no other possible purpose than the desire to whet German Michael's appetite. ...
— What Germany Thinks - The War as Germans see it • Thomas F. A. Smith

... must end, and all the ills of it, The axe of sharp Detachment ye would whet, And cleave the clinging snaky roots, and lay This Aswattha of sense-life ...
— The Bhagavad-Gita • Sir Edwin Arnold

... employ, that an observer would be tempted to quote again from the same scene, 'Ha! Old Truepenny, canst thou mole so fast i' the ground?' Here, however, the comparison ceased; for, when Sir Elijah made his visit to Lucknow 'to whet the almost blunted purpose' of the Nabob, his language was wholly different from that of the poet—for it would have been totally against his purpose ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan Vol 2 • Thomas Moore

... towards them. I see little else for it than to suppose that boys who are bred where they have no companions are prone to make the most of companionship when once attained to. And then, in regard to books, as of these I rarely got more than what might serve as a whet to the appetite, I might have the desire of those whose longings after what they would obtain are increased by the difficulties which interpose between them and the possession. One book which in school I sometimes got a glance of, I would have given ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume IV. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various

... should be well correlated with one another and with the systematic work on the text that guides the study, so that each shall whet the edge of the other and all together accomplish what neither ...
— College Teaching - Studies in Methods of Teaching in the College • Paul Klapper

... have escaped the attentive eye, that I have, on the title-page, omitted those honorary appendages to the editorial name which not only add greatly to the value of every book, but whet and exacerbate the appetite of the reader. For not only does he surmise that an honorary membership of literary and scientific societies implies a certain amount of necessary distinction on the part ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell

... and so, in order that Boadicea and his daughters should enjoy in peace a portion of his stores, he has left half to Nero. The man was a fool as well as a traitor. The peasant who throws a child out of the door to the wolves knows that it does but whet their appetite for blood, and so it will be in this case. I hear Prasutagus died a week since, though the news has come but slowly, and already a horde of Roman officials have arrived in Norfolk, and are proceeding to make inventories of the king's possessions, ...
— Beric the Briton - A Story of the Roman Invasion • G. A. Henty

... proceeding they are pre-eminent, knowing how to oppose arguments by precedents, proofs by assertions, and thus they very often obtain victory in minor matters of detail. They see and know with admirable penetration, when one of them presents to another a weapon which she herself is forbidden to whet. It is thus that they sometimes lose a husband without intending it. They apply the match and long afterwards are terror-stricken ...
— The Physiology of Marriage, Part III. • Honore de Balzac

... collected gold. By now, within the Admiral's chest, in canvas bags, rested not a little treasure for Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand. And though it was forbidden, I knew that many of our seamen hid gold. All told we found enough to whet appetite. But still the Indians said south, and ...
— 1492 • Mary Johnston

... China has come this stately game with the lure of Oriental mysticism to whet jaded appetites and with possibilities for study that challenge the ...
— Pung Chow - The Game of a Hundred Intelligences. Also known as Mah-Diao, Mah-Jong, Mah-Cheuk, Mah-Juck and Pe-Ling • Lew Lysle Harr

... jackets and knee-breeches made of skins, lead shaggy rams and fiercely bearded goats, ready to butt at every barking dog, and always seeking opportunities of flight. Farmers and parish priests in black petticoats feel the cattle and dispute about the price, or whet their bargains with a draught of wine. Meanwhile the nets are brought on shore glittering with the fry of sardines, which are cooked like whitebait, with cuttlefish—amorphous objects stretching shiny feelers on the hot dry sand—and prickly purple eggs of the sea-urchin. Women go about ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds

... very much,' I said. Now, this sort of thing, you know, makes you whet your Barlow on your boot leg. I did thank the suspender man for the tip but I made up my mind that I was going to do business with Andrews anyway. You know there's lots more fun shooting quail flying in the brush than to pot-hunt them ...
— Tales of the Road • Charles N. Crewdson

... Ireland,' is, with due allowance for the difference between the tastes of the twelfth century and those of the nineteenth, just such a series of sketches as a special correspondent in our own day might send from some newly-colonised island in the Pacific to satisfy or whet the curiosity of his readers at home." The description aptly applies to all that Gerald wrote. If not a historian, he was at least a great journalist. His descriptions of Ireland have been subjected to much hostile criticism from the day they were written to our own times. They were assailed ...
— The Itinerary of Archibishop Baldwin through Wales • Giraldus Cambrensis

... move when there is no idea existing of bettering one's self, so here I'll roost until daylight, unless Doctor comes back to hunt me up!" I judged it was not far from 2 o'clock, A. M., and believed it possible that our venison might only whet a grizzly bear's appetite to follow up the pursuit and gormandize me!—A proper site for a roost was the next matter of importance, and a scrubby oak with a thick top, close by, offered an inviting elevation ...
— The Humors of Falconbridge - A Collection of Humorous and Every Day Scenes • Jonathan F. Kelley

... been working at his discoveries for twelve years, with little approbation from the generality of persons; the discovery of these islands, Porto Santo and Madeira, serving to whet his appetite for further enterprise, but not winning the common voice in favor of prosecuting discoveries on the coast of Africa. The people at home, improving upon the reports of the sailors, said that "the land which the Prince sought after was merely some sandy ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various

... been a subject of great controversy almost a century before. The practice had by no means been forgotten in the mean time, but it had gained little public notice. Now the dispossessors of the Devil came to the front again long enough to whet the animosity between Puritans and Anglicans in Lancashire. But this never became more than a pamphlet controversy. The other feature of the period was far more significant. The last executions for witchcraft in England were probably those at Exeter in 1682.[2] For a whole generation ...
— A History of Witchcraft in England from 1558 to 1718 • Wallace Notestein

... not pass the afternoon with them, for the heart of me. There was enough in the persons and faces of the two young ladies to set me upon comparisons. Particular features held my attention for a few moments: but these served but to whet my impatience to find the charmer of my soul; who, for person, for air, for mind, never had any equal. My heart recoiled and sickened upon comparing minds and conversation. Pert wit, a too-studied desire to ...
— Clarissa, Volume 7 • Samuel Richardson

... he, speaking quickly, and raising his gun with a gesture of menace, "pay 'tention to whet I'm 'beout to say. Look savagerous at me, an' make these yeer verming b'lieve you an' me's que'lling. Fo'most tell me, ef they've krippled ye 'beout the legs? I know ye can't speak; but shet yeer ...
— The Wild Huntress - Love in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid

... series of preliminary speeches in the canvass. But they only served to whet the moral and intellectual and political appetite of the public for more. It was generally conceded that, at last, in the person of Mr. Lincoln, the "Little Giant" had met ...
— The Great Conspiracy, Complete • John Alexander Logan

... confesses, conscience-stricken, that, lapsed in time and passion, he has let go by the acting of its command; but he does not plead that his conscience stood in his way. The Ghost itself says that it comes to whet his 'almost blunted purpose'; and conscience may unsettle a purpose but does not blunt it. What natural explanation of all this can be given ...
— Shakespearean Tragedy - Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth • A. C. Bradley

... high noon Brynhild sent for Gunnar and sought to whet him to the slaying of Sigurd, for to such hatred was her ...
— The Story of Sigurd the Volsung • William Morris

... perplexed Cases of Conscience, than the wisest of the most learned Colleges in Italy! That men of the slightest learning, and the most ignorant of the common people, were mad for a new, or super, or re-reformation of Religion; and that in this they appeared like that man, who would never cease to whet and whet his knife, till there was no steel left to make it useful." And he concluded his letter with this observation, "That those very men that were most busy in oppositions, and disputations, and controversies, and finding out the faults of their governors, ...
— Lives of John Donne, Henry Wotton, Rich'd Hooker, George Herbert, - &C, Volume Two • Izaak Walton

... for you to whet your wits as well," Frode's daughter muttered scornfully, and somewhat rashly, since Elfgiva's wits had been sharp enough to guess the significance of her hand-maiden's interview with the young English noble, and the knowledge had given her a weapon ...
— The Ward of King Canute • Ottilie A. Liljencrantz

... shoes, as if a thousand railroads had been made into it. With one impulse we are carried to the cabin of the musk-rat, that earliest settler, and see him dart away under the transparent ice, like a furred fish, to his hole in the bank; and we glide rapidly over meadows where lately "the mower whet his scythe," through beds of frozen cranberries mixed with meadow grass. We skate near to where the blackbird, the pewee, and the kingbird hung their nests over the water, and the hornets builded from the maple in the swamp. How many gay ...
— Excursions • Henry D. Thoreau

... eagles scream on high, They whet their forked beaks: Raise—raise the battle cry, ...
— The Myth of Hiawatha, and Other Oral Legends, Mythologic and Allegoric, of the North American Indians • Henry R. Schoolcraft

... are NOT TO BE ANSWERED, just as to say how delighted I am at the result of the doings of the Council of the Royal Society yesterday. Many of us were somewhat doubtful of the result, and the more ferocious sort had begun to whet their beaks and sharpen their claws in preparation for taking a very decided course of action had there been any failure of justice this time. But the affair was settled by a splendid majority, and our ruffled ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 1 • Leonard Huxley

... been enraged for any strenuous cause, this incident would have operated merely as a preliminary whet to stimulate them to further bloodshed. But, as they were mostly actuated only by a natural desire for mischief, they were about as well satisfied with what had been done as if the Doctor himself were the victim. And besides, the fathers and respectabilities of the town, who had seen this mishap ...
— Doctor Grimshawe's Secret - A Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... And may it never end in bloud as mine hath done. Weep not sweet Navarre, but revenge my death. Ah Epernoune, is this thy love to me? Henry thy King wipes of these childish teares, And bids thee whet thy sword on Sextus bones, That it may keenly slice the Catholicks. He loves me not the best that sheds most teares, But he that makes most lavish of his bloud. Fire Paris where these trecherous rebels lurke. ...
— Massacre at Paris • Christopher Marlowe

... instruction, labor, and study tend to nothing else but to form that.... Conversation with men is of very great use, and travel into foreign countries;... to be able chiefly to give an account of the humors, manners, customs, and laws of those nations where he has been, and that we may whet and sharpen our wits by rubbing them against those ...
— Classic French Course in English • William Cleaver Wilkinson

... friends are rather like old wine, and can never be too old. Yet who does not mark in the calendar those days wherein he has met a new rich soul, that has a physiognomy, a grace and expression, peculiarly its own? Even decided repulsions have also a use. We whet our conscience on our neighbors' faults, as sober Spartans were made by the spectacle of drunken Helots;—though he who makes habitual talk about his neighbors' faults whets his conscience across the edge. If there be sermons in stones, no less is there ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 12, October, 1858 • Various

... fountain, its associations, and even its eatables; for some travellers have dwelt on the subject of its excellent bisque, or crayfish soup, and its eels, a solace, no doubt, to[34] that gentle degree of melancholy, which Fielding affirms to be a whet to the appetite. ...
— Itinerary of Provence and the Rhone - Made During the Year 1819 • John Hughes

... was a wife-hunting, probably from the circumstance of his having formed an extreme rash connection in early life which paved the way to all his after misfortunes, but there is an obstinacy in human nature which such accidents only serve to whet on to try again. Pleasure thus at two entrances quite shut out—I hardly know how to determine of Phillips's result of happiness. He appears satisfyd, but never those bursts of gaiety, those moment-rules from the Cave of Despondency, that used to make ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas

... a pale green gown and a pair of tan-colored shoes were beginning to whet his curiosity. He wanted to see what the stranger was like, at ...
— Teddy: Her Book - A Story of Sweet Sixteen • Anna Chapin Ray

... great experience and your years Would have proved patience rather to your soul, Then with this frantique and untamed passion To whet their skeens; and, but for that I hope their friendships are too well confirmd, And their minds temperd with more kindly heat, Then for their froward parents soars That they should break forth into publique ...
— The Merry Devil • William Shakespeare

... emptied. And there was a perfect massacre of cold meats, all the remnants of the victuals of the day before, leg of mutton, veal, and ham, encompassed by a fallen mass of transparent jelly which quivered like soft glue. They had all eaten too much already, but these viands seemed to whet their appetites afresh, as though the idea had come to them that nothing whatever ought to be left. The fat priest in the middle of the table, who had shown himself such a capital knife-and-fork, was now lingering over the ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola

... Johannes, pausing to whet his curious knife; "but that's how things are. One lives upon another. Birds, beasts, and fishes, they're all alike. But this will make a noble head when the skin's dressed, and a pair of glass eyes put in, and the whole stuffed ...
— Steve Young • George Manville Fenn

... another both in point of wit and judgement. On a ship of war, for instance, [2] the ship is on the high seas, and the crew must row whole days together to reach moorings. [3] Now note the difference. Here you may find a captain [4] able by dint of speech and conduct to whet the souls of those he leads, and sharpen them to voluntary toils; and there another so dull of wit and destitute of feeling that it will take his crew just twice the time to finish the same voyage. See them step on shore. The first ship's company are drenched in sweat; but listen, they ...
— The Economist • Xenophon

... immediately shown that a power of at least equal strength had taken her place, and was prepared to claim her inheritance. War begets war; and the successes of Cyaxares up to the present point in his career did but whet his appetite for power, and stimulate him to attempt further conquests. In brief but pregnant words Herodotus informs us that Cyaxares "subdued to himself all Asia above the Halys." How much he may include in this expression, it is impossible to determine; but, prime facie, it would seem at least ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 3. (of 7): Media • George Rawlinson

... is won—the object of inquiry is found. I suppose it will be admitted that the language which supplies the meaning of a word has the fairest claim to be considered its parent language. What, then, is the meaning of "Hurrah," and in whet language? As a reply to this Query, allow me to quote a writer in Blackwood's Magazine, April ...
— Notes and Queries, No. 209, October 29 1853 • Various

... met us. Sober, aye! But what a light there was in his eyes! He was eager to be at the Huns. Tales of their doings were coming back to us now, faster and faster. They were tales to shock me. But they were tales, too, to whet the courage and sharpen the steel of every man who could fight ...
— A Minstrel In France • Harry Lauder

... not do that. He gazed steadily into the face of the chairman. However, every specimen could not be expected to meet every requirement. No doubt of it—here was the made-to-order creature for clever manipulation; and there followed then the suggestion to visit New Ireland, with artful words to whet a fighting man's appetite for ...
— Sonnie-Boy's People • James B. Connolly

... club another came: Whate'er they catch or find, without their care, Their fury makes an instrument of war. Tyrrheus, the foster father of the beast, Then clench'd a hatchet in his horny fist, But held his hand from the descending stroke, And left his wedge within the cloven oak, To whet their courage and their rage provoke. And now the goddess, exercis'd in ill, Who watch'd an hour to work her impious will, Ascends the roof, and to her crooked horn, Such as was then by Latian ...
— The Aeneid • Virgil

... education and familiar with the history of my case. But this man, who had tried to induce me to speak when delusions had tied my tongue, now, when I was at last willing talk, would scarcely condescend to listen; and what seemed to me his studied and ill-disguised avoidance only served to whet my desire to detain ...
— A Mind That Found Itself - An Autobiography • Clifford Whittingham Beers

... legislation in respect of matters which form the subjects of private Bill legislation at present; in fact, to place them somewhat on the footing of the provinces of Canada, while reserving to the English Parliament the powers vested in the Dominion of Canada. Such a scheme would seem adapted to whet the appetite of the Irish for nationality, without supplying them with any portion of the real article. It would supply no basis on which a system of agrarian reform could be founded, as it would be impossible to leave the determination of a local question, ...
— Handbook of Home Rule (1887) • W. E. Gladstone et al.

... plashy meads, And fens of Scythia green with rustling reeds; From where the Danube winds through many a land, And Mareotis laves the Egyptian strand, To rendezvous they waft on eager wing, And wait assembled the returning spring. Meanwhile they trim their plumes for length of flight, Whet their keen beaks, and twisting claws, for fight; Each crane the pygmy power in thought o'erturns, And every bosom for the battle burns. When genial gales the frozen air unbind, The screaming legions wheel, and mount the wind. Far in the sky they form their long array, ...
— The Minstrel; or the Progress of Genius - with some other poems • James Beattie

... indicative of a desire to do so. For instance, in Mecklenburg on the first day of reaping, if the master or mistress or a stranger enters the field, or merely passes by it, all the mowers face towards him and sharpen their scythes, clashing their whet-stones against them in unison, as if they were making ready to mow. Then the woman who leads the mowers steps up to him and ties a band round his left arm. He must ransom himself by payment of a forfeit. Near Ratzeburg, ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer

... rests, in large measure, on confidence in America's word and in America's protection. To yield to force in Vietnam would weaken that confidence, would undermine the independence of many lands, and would whet the appetite of aggression. We would have to fight in one land, and then we would have to fight in another—or abandon much of Asia to ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Lyndon B. Johnson • Lyndon B. Johnson

... eggs—give me more eggs, or I'll scratch your eyes out,' shrieked the owl, and began to whet its beak on a beam in such a savage manner that the three cocks fled in terror to ...
— Brothers of Pity and Other Tales of Beasts and Men • Juliana Horatia Gatty Ewing

... approval it was plain the captain agreed with every interruption, and they seemed to whet his interest in the story he had undertaken to ...
— The Girl Scouts at Sea Crest - The Wig Wag Rescue • Lillian Garis

... the Second Book, for we can afford but a few extracts; and, to whet you up, shall prate to you a ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 358, August 1845 • Various

... 'O thou of great intelligence, the Rishis and Brahmanas and the deities, led by the authority of the Vedas, all applaud that religion which has compassion for its indication. But, O king, whet I ask thee is this: how does a man, who has perpetrated acts of injury to others in word, thought and deed, succeed in ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli

... able mowers, who would cut the whole in about an hour; and as the plat was nearly circular, set them to mow round, beginning at the outside. And now for sagacity indeed! The moment the men began to whet their scythes, the two old larks began to flutter over the nest, and to make a great clamour. When the men began to mow, they flew round and round, stooping so low, when near the men, as almost to touch ...
— Advice to Young Men • William Cobbett

... exceedingly helpful to me, was very well received, not only on that occasion in Dresden, but later on in other places. Besides this, I made use of the Dresden Anzeiger, by writing all kinds of short and enthusiastic anonymous paragraphs, in order to whet the public taste for a work which hitherto had been ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner

... cakes and biscuits, biiru (beer) and ramune (lemonade) and a distressing sickly drink called "champagne cider" and all manner of vanities. In one corner of the square a theatre was in full swing, the actors making up in public on a balcony above the crowd, so as to whet their curiosity and attract their custom. Beyond was a cinematograph, advertised by lurid paintings of murders and apparitions; and farther on there was a ...
— Kimono • John Paris

... inspiration that made Joseph chorus to a drama that moves above good and evil. "'Thank Hivin for all!'" says Joseph. "'All warks togither for gooid, to them as is chozzen and piked out fro' the rubbidge. Yah knaw whet t' Scripture sez.'" "'It's a blazing shame, that I cannot oppen t' blessed Book, but yah set up them glories to Sattan, and all t' flaysome wickednesses that iver were born ...
— The Three Brontes • May Sinclair

... to have been in the army myself once; but I liked the commission I have better. Come, captain, let not your noble courage be cast down; what say you to a glass of white wine, or a tiff of punch, by way of whet?" ...
— Amelia (Complete) • Henry Fielding

... not only a flock of automobiles but a famous racing stable, rode to hounds, was a good field gun, patronized aviation and motor-boat racing, risked as many maximums during the Monte Carlo season as the Grand Duke Michael himself, and was always ready to whet rapiers or burn a little harmless powder of an early morning in the ...
— The Lone Wolf - A Melodrama • Louis Joseph Vance

... (Running forward from behind.) O lud! he'll murder my poor boy, my darling! Here, good gentleman, whet your rage upon me. Take my money, my life, but spare that young gentleman; spare my child, if you have ...
— She Stoops to Conquer - or, The Mistakes of a Night. A Comedy. • Oliver Goldsmith

... said Teezle, "much as ever that the critter didn't mutton you. She skipped like a painter, and whet up her teeth for a whalin' bite. But don't think on it now. Here, who'll tell a good story, and cheer up Fabens a little? Uncle Walt, tell one of your painter stories. That 'll ...
— Summerfield - or, Life on a Farm • Day Kellogg Lee

... street-corner; a world inhabited by most marvelous men and women,—some amiable, and some detestable, but every one of them very interesting. And now I miss the wonder of it all. You will presently discover, my dear, that youth is only an ingenious prologue to whet one's appetite for a rather dull play. Eh, I am no pessimist,—one may still find satisfaction in the exercise of mind and body, in the pleasures of thought and taste and in other titillations of one's ...
— Gallantry - Dizain des Fetes Galantes • James Branch Cabell

... wilder and uglier the better. Try every combination of shaggy mane, and squinting eye, and mouth gaping like a volcano; pile mountains atop of your shoulders, or plump yourselves out into Falstaffs; and as a whet to your inventions I promise a kiss from the bride to the figure that would be the likeliest to make her miscarry. A wedding is such an out-of-the-way event in ones life; the bride and bridegroom are so suddenly plunged, by a sort of magic, head over heels into a new unaccustomed element, that it ...
— The Old Man of the Mountain, The Lovecharm and Pietro of Abano - Tales from the German of Tieck • Ludwig Tieck

... a woeful path they found, and their sister's son wounded on a gibbet, wind-cold outlaw-trees,[122] on the town's west. Ever vibrated the ravens' whet: there to tarry ...
— The Elder Eddas of Saemund Sigfusson; and the Younger Eddas of Snorre Sturleson • Saemund Sigfusson and Snorre Sturleson

... screwdriver blade; flint blade; guillotine. sharpener, hone, strop; grindstone, whetstone; novaculite^; steel, emery. V. be sharp &c adj.; taper to a point; bristle with. render sharp &c adj.; sharpen, point, aculeate, whet, barb, spiculate^, set, strop, grind; chip (flint). cut &c (sunder) 44. Adj. sharp, keen; acute; acicular, aciform^; aculeated^, acuminated^; pointed; tapering; conical, pyramidal; mucronate^, mucronated^; spindle ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget

... replied by hints of the difficulty or impropriety of summoning the spirits in the presence of a stranger, or of one who might perchance have no other motive than the gratification of a vain curiosity; but they only meant to whet the edge of his appetite by this delay, and would have been sorry indeed if the count had been discouraged. To shew how exclusively the thoughts both of Dee and Kelly were fixed upon their dupe at this time, it is only necessary to read the introduction to their ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay

... situation, in the best Government office in London, had been placed over the heads of a dozen others, who had been there before him, &c., &c., &c. And then Mr. Nogo ended with so vehement an attack on Sir Gregory, and the Government as connected with him, that the dogs began to whet their teeth and prepare for a ...
— The Three Clerks • Anthony Trollope

... The picture of your selfe, but so defac'd And mangled by proud Spanyards it woo'd whet A sword to arme the poorest ...
— Old English Plays, Vol. I - A Collection of Old English Plays • Various

... whet my curiosity, and I favored Miss Brown with more than one glance during dinner. When we returned to the parlor car I took advantage of the opportunity and remarked to Henderson that he might introduce his manager. He complied, but not ...
— The Redheaded Outfield and Other Baseball Stories • Zane Grey

... was one banana to people who were on the very brink of perishing from starvation? It only served to whet their appetite for more. I would not, however, allow them to have any more just then; I was cruel to be kind, and resolutely turned a deaf ear alike to their entreaties and their reproaches, as I did to the cravings of my own ravenous hunger. I insisted that at least half an hour ...
— The First Mate - The Story of a Strange Cruise • Harry Collingwood

... print, or sell any unlicensed matter whatsoever would be liable to fine or imprisonment, and to whet the zeal of discovery one-half of the fine was to go to the informer. Every publication, from a book to a broadsheet, must bear the name of author, printer, and licenser. Neither of Neville's pamphlets of 1647 conformed to the requirements of this act, ...
— The Isle Of Pines (1668) - and, An Essay in Bibliography by W. C. Ford • Henry Neville

... while Wainamoinen was laughing, the dwarf grew all at once into a great giant, whose head was higher than the clouds, and whose long beard fell down to his knees. The giant began to whet his axe on a huge piece of rock, and before he had finished he had worn out six blocks of the hardest rock and seven of the softest sandstone. Then he strode up to the tree and began to cut it down. ...
— Finnish Legends for English Children • R. Eivind

... Death his name; His might from God the highest came. Today his knife he'll whet, 'Twill cut far better yet; Soon he will come and mow, And we must bear ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries: - Masterpieces of German Literature Translated into English, Volume 5. • Various

... adjacent county. To these last, of course, Fontainebleau will seem but an extended tea-garden: a Rosherville on a by-day. But to the plain man it offers solitude: an excellent thing in itself, and a good whet for company. ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 16 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... Letters addressed to bogus firms were indeed forwarded from the offices of delivery to the department as "fictitious" and "undeliverable," and many colluding postmasters were decapitated. Such petty measures of warfare served merely to annoy the vampires and to whet their diabolical ingenuity for the contrivance of new devices. Since the law of 1872 went into effect, however, the scoundrels have been compelled to travel a thorny road. Scores of arrests have been made, and in many cases the criminals have ...
— The Lock and Key Library/Real Life #2 • Julian Hawthorne

... would endanger the stability of the dish by vigorous tugging at the table-cloth, and elicit the reproof suggested by our reading: "You are a veritable Sambation!"—Aristotle, Pliny, Olympia, Cyrene, "Yosippon," and grandam—all unite to whet our ...
— Jewish Literature and Other Essays • Gustav Karpeles

... is not endless discussions of Beethoven's works which the public—at all events, our public—demands. We wish his biography,—the history of his life. What has been given us does but whet the appetite. We wish to have the many original sources, still sealed to us, explored, and the results of this labor honestly given us. None of the writers above-mentioned have been in a position to do this, and their publications are but materials for the use of the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... "This bishop's prose shocks me; I want to eat eggs without being permitted. Your style is the hot and cold; I am amusing myself. Besides, I'm not wasting myself, I'm getting a start; and if I tore down that charge, Hercle! 'twas only to whet my appetite." ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo

... he, "to study only those portions of our holy literature on which they can whet their ingenuity. But from all writings which would promote piety and fear of God he ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill

... is lost to me forever, through the over-conscientiousness of our late conductor, who says there never was a Mena, only several kings they've mixed into one. I seem to be the one who's most mixed up! To whet my appetite for Egypt now, I have to have something tasty. Where's the good of stuffing my mind with a string of names which I couldn't mention to any one at home, because I can't pronounce them? The word Dynasty (he pronounced it Die-nasty) makes me sick! Luckily I feel that nobody else will know ...
— It Happened in Egypt • C. N. Williamson & A. M. Williamson

... and the stakes are set,— Ever sing merrily, merrily; The bows they bend, and the knives they whet, Hunters live so cheerily. ...
— The Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott

... start to talk about drinkin'. In fact, I've forgot what I did start to tell you. My mind is sorter addled now a days, anyhow, and I hav to jes let my tawkin' tumble out permiskuous. I'll take another whet at it afore long, ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VII. (of X.) • Various



Words linked to "Whet" :   stimulate, sharpen, excite



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