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Bespoken   Listen
adjective
bespoken  adj.  
1.
Same as made-to-order; of clothing.
Synonyms: bespoke, custom, made-to-order, tailored, tailor-made.
2.
Bound by an agreement to become married to someone.
Synonyms: affianced, betrothed, engaged, pledged, promised(predicate).






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Bespoken" Quotes from Famous Books



... dry, though there are marshes hidden among the woods on the other side of the river. As neither of the steamers that ply on the Pungwe could come up at neap tides, and with the stream low,—for the rains had not yet set in,—the young superintendent (to whose friendly help we were much beholden) had bespoken a rowboat to come up for us from the lower part of the river. After waiting from eight till half-past ten o'clock for this boat, we began to fear it had failed us, and, hastily engaging a small two-oared one that lay by the bank, set off in it down the stream. Fortunately after ...
— Impressions of South Africa • James Bryce

... Lisbon, which had occurred on that spot; it looked ancient, and was covered with moss, and the greater part of the inscription was illegible, at least it was to me, who could not bestow much time on its deciphering. Having arrived at Vendas Novas, and bespoken supper, my new friend and myself strolled forth to view the palace; it was built by the late king of Portugal, and presents little that is remarkable in its exterior; it is a long edifice with wings, and is only two stories high, though it can be seen afar ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow

... that cost you only ten days' labour." "You forget," said the artist, "that I have been thirty years learning to make that bust in ten days." Once when Domenichino was blamed for his slowness in finishing a picture which was bespoken, he made answer, "I am continually painting it within myself." It was eminently characteristic of the industry of the late Sir Augustus Callcott, that he made not fewer than forty separate sketches in the composition of his famous picture of "Rochester." ...
— Self Help • Samuel Smiles

... where the handsome youth stops his carriage at the gate of the vineyard, and says to the laughing girl carrying a basket of grapes on her head, "My pretty maid, will you marry me?" And the pretty maid, dropping a courtesy, says, "Thank you, sir; I am already bespoken," or "Thank you; I will consider of it when I know ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner

... was James, and that he was a merchant residing at Liverpool; that he would write to his friend at —-, requesting him to make inquiries on the subject; that just at that moment he was in a hurry to depart, having some particular business at a town about ten miles off, to go to which he had bespoken a post-chaise of the landlord; that with respect to the note, it was doubtless a very disagreeable thing to have a suspicious one in his possession, but that it would make little difference to him, as he had plenty of other money, and thereupon he pulled out a purse, containing various ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow

... belike. I am bespoken: And I thought verily thys had bene some token From my dere spouse Gawin Goodluck, whom when him please God luckily sende home to both ...
— Roister Doister - Written, probably also represented, before 1553. Carefully - edited from the unique copy, now at Eton College • Nicholas Udall

... him approach in this menacing attitude, put himself upon his guard; but being informed of his quality, perused his bill of fare, and having bespoken three or four things for dinner, walked out with Mr. Jolter to view both towns, which they had not leisure to consider minutely before. In their return from the harbour they met with four or five gentlemen, all of whom ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett

... guests to tables reserved months in advance. Pages in flame-coloured and gold uniforms lifted the silken rope that stretched its barrier between the impatient crowd and the tables; managers verified offered credentials and escorted laughing parties to spaces bespoken. ...
— The Common Law • Robert W. Chambers

... capture him. Finally he met the fate of many another brave man,—he was betrayed by the woman he loved. He had been smitten with a passion for the daughter of the Torda baker, the beautiful Rosalie; but her affections were already bespoken by the butcher's apprentice, Marczi by name, a youth of courage and activity. However, she deigned to receive the outlawed chieftain's attentions, her sole purpose being to entrap him and deliver him up to his foes. One evening, when she went to keep an ...
— Manasseh - A Romance of Transylvania • Maurus Jokai

... was going too far. Kirke, just returned from his western butchery, swore to stand by the Protestant religion. Even if he abjured the faith in which he had been bred, he would never, he said, become a Papist. He was already bespoken. If ever he did apostatize, he was bound by a solemn promise to the Emperor of Morocco to turn ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 2 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... I commenced my proposed lecture course in Missouri by an appointment at Westport, by arrangement of a gentleman of that place, whose acquaintance I had made in my Kansas campaign. Arrived at the Westport hotel, where my entertainment had been bespoken, I was taken by the landlady to her own cosy sitting-room, and made pleasantly at home. Later in the day I became aware of considerable excitement in the bar-room and street of the town. The landlord held several hurried consultations with his ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage

... phrases have come down to us from the North of England; but before they arrived the thing which they signify was here. "Saturday-to-Monday Parties" they were called. They were not so frequent as now, because Saturday was a favourite night for entertaining in London, and it was generally bespoken for dinners and drums. But, as the summer advanced and hot rooms became unendurable, people who lived only forty or fifty miles out of London began to ask if one would run down to them on Friday or Saturday, and stay over Sunday. Of these hospitalities I was a sparing and infrequent ...
— Fifteen Chapters of Autobiography • George William Erskine Russell

... the horses' feet, and we suddenly draw up at an hotel in the midst of the Forest, its quiet well-lighted interior inviting us through the doorway, left open to the cool summer night air. We are at the Speech House. We had bespoken our rooms by wire in the morning: Senator Hoar had a chambre d'honneur, with a gigantic carved four-post bed that reminded him of the great bed of Ware. His room like my "No. 5," looked out over magnificent bays of woodland to the north. The Speech House is six hundred feet ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar

... the carriage which was to take us back to Perugia. The former was already there, and in a few minutes a small omnibus came clattering down the stony street, and stopping beside us the driver informed us that he had come for us. Our surprise and wrath broke forth. Hours before we had bespoken a little open carriage, and it was this heavy, jarring, jolting vehicle which they had sent to drive us ten miles across the hills. The driver declared, with truly Italian volubility and command of language ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Vol. XV., No. 85. January, 1875. • Various

... with gold-colored silk, was fixed to cover the seats, and the whole gondola was lined and carpeted with white and pale blue. A blue fringe fell over the edge almost to the water, and bouquets of flowers were bespoken. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, Old Series, Vol. 36—New Series, Vol. 10, July 1885 • Various

... shall do better at tea-time," said Miss Barton hopefully. "Mrs. Marsden surely can't go very wrong there. We're going to walk to the woods this afternoon. I've bespoken Jenny, the fourth child, as a guide. She's the most quaintly fascinating person. I hope she won't be long; we're waiting for ...
— The Madcap of the School • Angela Brazil

... hast borne with me, Kenkenes—and having grown bold thereby, I would go further. Return with me to Memphis and come hither no more. She will soon be comforted, if she is not already betrothed. Egypt needs thee—the Hathors have bespoken good fortune for thee—and thou art justified in aspiring to nothing less than the hand of a princess. Come back to Memphis and let her heal thee ...
— The Yoke - A Romance of the Days when the Lord Redeemed the Children - of Israel from the Bondage of Egypt • Elizabeth Miller

... sake And cipher of suffering Christ. Mark, the mark is of man's make And the word of it Sacrificed. But he scores it in scarlet himself on his own bespoken, Before-time-taken, dearest prized and priced— Stigma, signal, cinquefoil token For lettering of the lamb's fleece, ruddying ...
— Poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins - Now First Published • Gerard Manley Hopkins

... were at it all night. The next night, under pretence of fearing to exhaust me, she forced me to retire to my room after two fucks, and locked me in. I had previously been informed by the doctor that he had bespoken her for that night, and he begged me to fuck her first, that the pleasure of gamahuching her might be enhanced. I, therefore, did not do more than make a feigned resistance to her when she told me I must go to my own bed. She said she would let me have one embrace before ...
— The Romance of Lust - A classic Victorian erotic novel • Anonymous

... very edge of my paper. Gabriele has bespoken the other side. I leave you now, in order to write to her who left us with tears, but who, as I cordially hope, will return to ...
— The Home • Fredrika Bremer

... there was trouble with Rome. Julius III., in 1552, had bespoken Lucrezia for his bastard nephew, Fabiano Conte Del Monte—a man without resources and of no recognised position nor of good character—it was just a selfish whim of the Pope—the children never saw each other. Cosimo, with his usual daring, brushed the whole project ...
— The Tragedies of the Medici • Edgcumbe Staley

... of November came a letter that brought matters to a crisis. Claude Martel wrote that he must know immediately the date of her arrival in New York, since the place he had bespoken for her at the Kendall School of Expression could no longer be held open; he must also give a ...
— Quin • Alice Hegan Rice

... strange humour to-night. Do you know he tells me he wishes to marry an English girl? See! he is gone into the balcony yonder to look at the moon." To be sure he was. He came back looking somewhat wild, and, walking in like a modern Prometheus, down he sits, and the new inspiration is presently bespoken for the fly page of virgin scrap-book. Smoothly flows the immortal verse, without care, correction, or halt, for the lines are the result of power that works unerringly, (Pope blotted most disgracefully,) and goes right ahead. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 361, November, 1845. • Various

... into the grain of the tree, and took off his cap to cool his wet forehead. He looked very strong, standing there, equipped with great shoulders, a back as straight as the tree its might was smashing, and the vigor bespoken by red-brown eyes, a sanguine skin, and thick bright hair. He seemed to be regarding the pine trunks against the snow of the hill beyond, and again the tiny tracks nearer by, where a winter animal had flurried; but really all the beauties of the ...
— Country Neighbors • Alice Brown

... years after the plague. He was then nineteen years old, and he was compelled to wait twelve years more before he could marry. You see, there were no unmarried women, and some of the older daughters of the Santa Rosans were already bespoken. So he was forced to wait until my Mary had grown to sixteen years. It was his son, Gimp-Leg, who was killed last year by ...
— The Scarlet Plague • Jack London

... more especially so when the gentleman is such importance in the neighbourhood as Frank was in that locality. It was a matter of moment to every farmer, and every farmer's wife, which bride Frank should marry of those bespoken for him; Mary, namely, or Money. Every yokel about the place had been made to understand that, by some feminine sleight of hand, the doctor's niece had managed to trap Master Frank, and that Master Frank ...
— Doctor Thorne • Anthony Trollope

... my friends and customers, my store was always full. To please all was somewhat difficult, and occasionally some of them were scarcely so polite as they should have been to a perplexed hostess, who could scarcely be expected to remember that Lieutenant A. had bespoken his sangaree an instant before Captain B. and his friends had ordered their ...
— Wonderful Adventures of Mrs. Seacole in Many Lands • Mary Seacole

... young man was in the court-yard, superintending the preparations for departure. The servants, superintended by Coursegol, were fastening the trunks upon the carriage that was to convey the travellers and their baggage to Avignon, where places had been bespoken for them in the coach which was then the only mode of ...
— Which? - or, Between Two Women • Ernest Daudet

... have been all summer in London, is one more reason for which I regret my long stay in the country. I hope that you will not leave the town before my return. We have here only the chance of vacancies in the passing carriages, and I have bespoken one that may, if it happens, bring me to town on the fourteenth of this month; but this ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill

... wished to see no more that night. Nor did the Doctor, of course, propose to stay for the after-piece, so they rose and left the theatre; the Doctor returning to Mrs. Portman, who was on a visit at the Deanery, and the Major walking home full of thought towards the George, where he had bespoken a bed. ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray

... dark complexion of so many of his race, but was rather Saxon in face, with rich curling brown hair. Even in that brave time one might safely have bespoken for him a large career. And even while the Scotsman in the doorway eyed him with distant deprecation, as he eyed all Frenchmen, good and bad, ugly or handsome, he put off his hesitation and entered the governor's ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... issue their mandates from pinched and meager surroundings. Mere pseudo political rulers, such as governors and presidents, are expected to be satisfied with the plain, unornamental official residences provided by the people; thereby they keep up the appearance of that much-bespoken republican simplicity which is part of the mask of political formulas. Luckily for themselves, the financial and industrial rulers are bound by no circumscribing tradition; hence they have no set of buckramed rules to stick close to for ...
— Great Fortunes from Railroads • Gustavus Myers

... to human endurance, and Tom and I have overpassed each other's. I don't blame him, poor man; he wanted raw material to serve as an importer of hides and tallow, but you, the genuine article, were bespoken, and my father was not in a state for ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge

... "we Jews at this time are relying much on the prophets to fight our battles. Behold, our stores will hold out, we say, because it is said; and we shall fight indifferently, because Daniel hath bespoken a Deliverer for us ...
— The City of Delight - A Love Drama of the Siege and Fall of Jerusalem • Elizabeth Miller

... Punctuality.—The celebrated mathematical instrument maker, Mr. Ramsden, was frequently deficient in punctuality, and would delay for months, nay, for years, the delivery of instruments bespoken from him. His majesty, who had more than once experienced this dilatory disposition, once ordered an instrument, which he made Ramsden positively promise to deliver on a certain day. The day, however, came, but not the instrument. At ...
— The Book of Three Hundred Anecdotes - Historical, Literary, and Humorous—A New Selection • Various

... to find how well my book continues to sell. The second edition of three thousand was out of print almost as soon as it appeared, and one thousand two hundred and fifty of the third edition are already bespoken. I hope all this will not make me a coxcomb. I feel no intoxicating effect; but a man may be drunk without knowing it. If my abilities do not fail me, I shall be a rich man, as rich, that is to say, as I wish to be. But that I am already, if it were not for my dear ones. I am content, ...
— Stories of Authors, British and American • Edwin Watts Chubb

... occurred; and their jesting remarks were quickly exchanged for earnest and sympathetic inquiries as to what had gone wrong. Whereupon Lance— having first suggested to his late companion the advisability of immediate retirement to her couch, and bespoken Mrs Staunton's kind services in the preparation of a cup of tea for each of the tired-out wanderers—proceeded to give a succinct account of their day's adventure, the recital of which elicited frequent ...
— The Pirate Island - A Story of the South Pacific • Harry Collingwood

... the farm. But with Frederic Aylmer all discussions seemed to point to some cold, distant future, to which Clara might look forward as she did to the joys of heaven. Will Belton would have bought the ring long since, and bespoken the priest, and arranged every detail of the honeymoon, tour and very probably would have stood looking into a cradle shop with ...
— The Belton Estate • Anthony Trollope

... thus of this: as Little John can tell, I had bespoken quaint comedians; But great John, John the prince, my liege's brother— My rival, Marian, he that cross'd our love— Hath cross'd me in this jest,[165] and at the court Employs the players should have made us sport. This was the tidings brought by Little ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VIII (4th edition) • Various

... there while the twilight deepened and feeling still more finely that the position of this young lady was magnificent. The evening at that height had naturally turned to cold, and the travellers had bespoken a fire with their meal; the great Alpine road asserted its brave presence through the small panes of the low, clean windows, with incidents at the inn-door, the yellow diligence, the great waggons, the hurrying, hooded, private ...
— The Wings of the Dove, Volume 1 of 2 • Henry James

... salvaged from the wreck of patriotic-dinner parties at which his bachelor friends had drunk to the confusion of the enemy till they were themselves confused, were to be sold to his successor and to friends in the District. Mr. Ironsides had bespoken his gun, a local Rajah his ponies; and his dogs were to be distributed among friends. There remained personal treasures, chief among them being a gold napkin ring,—a christening present twenty-two ...
— Banked Fires • E. W. (Ethel Winifred) Savi

... Arnold, is "more than sufficient to signalise him as one of the most marking, interesting, and sympathy-inspiring men of our time." Whatever such a man writes deserves the closest attention. Not, indeed, that this needs to be bespoken for him. He has the qualities that compel it. There is the stamp of power on all his productions. We pause at them involuntarily, as we turn to look at a physical king of men who passes ...
— Flowers of Freethought - (Second Series) • George W. Foote

... boys travelling with him. Besides these, the party included the Reverend Mr. Lansing, the excellent head of the American mission here, the Honorable W.S., a young Englishman, and his tutor, the Reverend Mr. S., whose agreeable company had been bespoken when the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., April, 1863, No. LXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics. • Various

... save the one it had to meet, but wanted the daemonic element, and substitute a statesman who had the precise sort of merit wanted at the moment. But under a presidential government you can do nothing of the kind. There is no elastic element; everything is rigid, specified, dated. You have bespoken your government for the time, and you must keep it. Moreover, under the English system all the leading statesmen are known quantities. But in America a new president before his election ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol XII. - Modern History • Arthur Mee

... plainly that she prohibits the intrusion of which, if suffered, she is really the victim. In other times the Easy Chair has seen the lovely Laura Matilda unwilling to refuse to dance with the partner who had bespoken her hand for the german, although when he presented himself he was plainly flown with wine. The Easy Chair has seen the hapless, foolish maid encircled by those Bacchic arms, and then a headlong whirl and dash down the room, ending in the promiscuous ...
— Ars Recte Vivende - Being Essays Contributed to "The Easy Chair" • George William Curtis

... King awoke, what do you think he saw? The wall stood there before his eyes, exactly as he had bespoken it! ...
— The Yellow Fairy Book • Leonora Blanche Alleyne Lang

... Legislative Assembly in 179-, had to attend at a ball at the Castle St. Louis. Unfortunately she had omitted engaging in time Laforme to arrange her hair for the evening in question; and every hour of the day on which the ball was to take place, being bespoken, the hair-dresser at his wit's ends said that he would guarantee that she would yet go to the ball, but she must place herself entirely in his hands. "Well," said the Grande Dame, "what, then, am I to do?" "Bah!" said the peruquier, "'tis ...
— Picturesque Quebec • James MacPherson Le Moine

... were always signed 'a God speede, a good wind, a faire saile, y'r loving friends'; and the gentlemen of the Committee usually went down to the docks at Gravesend to search lockers for illicit trade, to shake hands and toss a sovereign and quaff drinks. From the point where a returning ship was 'bespoken' the chief trader would take horse and ride post-haste to London with the bills and journals of the voyage. These would be used to check unlading. Next, the sorting of the furs, the payment of the seamen's wages—about ...
— The "Adventurers of England" on Hudson Bay - A Chronicle of the Fur Trade in the North (Volume 18 of the Chronicles of Canada) • Agnes C. (Agnes Christina) Laut

... disagreeable to me, and still more so to mention it to Y.R.H., or to allude to it at all, but "necessity has no law." I only feel grateful to Him who dwells above the stars that I now begin once more to be able to use my eyes. I am at present writing a new symphony for England,[4] bespoken by the Philharmonic Society, and hope it will be quite finished fourteen days hence. I cannot strain my eyes as yet long at a time; I beg therefore Y.R.H.'s indulgence with regard to your Variations,[5] which appear to me very charming, ...
— Beethoven's Letters 1790-1826 Vol. 2 • Lady Wallace

... early from the King's presence. Haply thou art unwell, for thy custom is not to appear until near supper-tide and now thou hast forestalled our meeting-time and hast returned a-morn. I suspect that he hath bespoken thee concerning some matter of urgent matters that thou comest home at this hour; but haply thou wilt finish off such business and hie thee back to the Sultan." Quoth he, "By Allah, O Woman, when I fared forth hence and went to the King I found ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton

... Fix," replied the consul. "She was bespoken yesterday at Port Said, and the rest of the way is of no account to such a craft. I repeat that the Mongolia has been in advance of the time required by the company's regulations, and gained the prize awarded for excess ...
— Around the World in 80 Days • Jules Verne

... Kaili had probably forgotten his opponent, but Oponui bitterly remembered him, for his best friend had been struck down by the spear of the young captain. Another cause for opposing this marriage was that Kaala had been bespoken by a great, hairy, tattooed savage known as "the bone-breaker." It occurred to Oponui that a good way to be rid of the cavalier would be to let him settle his claim with the famous wrestler. He chuckled as he thought of the outcome, for the bone-breaker had never been ...
— Myths & Legends of our New Possessions & Protectorate • Charles M. Skinner

... most charming and kind benefactress! if you could only know, or see into my troubled heart on this subject, you would certainly feel pity and indulgence for me. The unlucky promised symphony has haunted my imagination ever since it was bespoken, and it is only, alas! the pressure of urgent occurrences that has prevented its being hitherto ushered into the world! The hope, however, of your lenity towards me for the delay, and the approaching time of the fulfillment of ...
— Haydn • J. Cuthbert Hadden

... build and endow a hospital for twelve decayed soldiers, and a chapel wherein they were to attend the daily masses he ordained to be said till the end of all time (which eternity lasted rather more than a century, pretty well for an eternity bespoken by a man), for his soul and the souls of those whom he had slain. There was a large division of the quadrangular building set apart for the priest who was to say these masses; and to watch over the well-being of the bedesmen. In process ...
— Sylvia's Lovers, Vol. III • Elizabeth Gaskell

... named regiments, were subsequently assigned to Morgan. One reason why so many enlisted in cavalry (independently of the decided preference of the Kentuckians for that branch of the service), was the fact, that companies and regiments had, in many instances, their men bespoken and ready to enlist with them as soon as a favorable opportunity should occur. Many (also), had made up their minds to join Morgan when he next came through the country. Men who expected to become soldiers (under ...
— History of Morgan's Cavalry • Basil W. Duke

... Exchequer ever had the honor to acknowledge. Still, the sum was very large in proportion to my poor father's income; and what with Jack's debts, the claims of the Anti-Publisher Society's printer, including the very expensive plates that had been so lavishly bespoken, and in great part completed, for the "History of Human Error," and, above all, the liabilities incurred on "The Capitalist;" what with the plant, as Mr. Peck technically phrased a great upas-tree of a total, branching out into ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... acknowledgments; and when I had bespoken good care for Tybee, we took leave of these stout fighters, and of old Ephraim as well, since the borderer was to serve as a guide for the over-mountain men, at least till they were come upon familiar ground ...
— The Master of Appleby • Francis Lynde

... replied his sister, "she really had something to complain of in the present case. The shawl had been bespoken on her account, or very nearly so—she showed me the tradesman's letter—only some agent of yours had come in between with the ready money, which no tradesman can resist.—Ah, John! I suspect half of your anger is owing to ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott

... large, slow-moving, gentlemanly-looking young man of five-and-twenty, who advanced, with the gravity of one of twice that number of years, from the interior of the house, towards its outer door "The winds are bespoken, and here is as fine a day as ever shone out of a clear sky, whether it came from the pure atmosphere of Holland, or of old England itself. Colonies and patronage! If the people on the other side of the ocean had more faith in mother Nature, and less opinion of themselves, ...
— The Water-Witch or, The Skimmer of the Seas • James Fenimore Cooper

... of nothing, but I think it probable that the local girls who wrote to us about situations may now be 'urgently' bespoken for service ...
— The Lady of the Basement Flat • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey

... came to Nazareth, a lonely village amongst the mountains with a single tavern, where he thought to sleep the night. There was but one guest-room, however, which was already bespoken by a Flemish lady, the Countess of Cernes, who had travelled that morning to Innspruck ...
— Clementina • A.E.W. Mason

... good!" Bless Hopeful for that, all you whose deathbeds are still before you. For never was more true and fit word spoken for a dying hour than that. Read, till you have it by heart and in the dark, Hopeful's whole history, but especially his triumphant end. And have some one bespoken beforehand to read Hopeful in the River to you when you have in a great measure lost your senses, and when a great horror has taken hold of your mind. "I sink in deep waters," cried Christian, as his sins came to ...
— Bunyan Characters (Second Series) • Alexander Whyte

... young lady," he had said to Grizel, then but a slip of a girl, whereupon, without waiting to lengthen her frock, she rushed rapturously at her work-basket. "Not at all, miss," he cried ferociously; "you are here to look after this house, not to be preparing for another, and until you are respectably bespoken by some rash crittur of a man, into the drawers with your linen and down with those murderous shears." And she had obeyed; no scissors, the most relentless things in nature when in Grizel's hand, had ever cleaved their way through that snowy expanse; never a stitch had she put into her linen ...
— Tommy and Grizel • J.M. Barrie

... Sleeping Beauty which wakes once a year," she said, "and that is in Horse-Show Week. Time was when I came up every year for the show. Now I think I shall revive the custom for your sake, Bawn. We can bespeak these rooms if they are not already bespoken. I assure you, in Horse-Show Week, Bawn, people are glad to sleep anywhere. Even the bathrooms of houses and hotels are turned ...
— The Story of Bawn • Katharine Tynan

... Liszt went to Rome—as he thought. Really, he was going to Canossa. The priest was bespoken, and the altar of the church of San Carlo al Corso decorated. On the very eve of the wedding, when Liszt was with the princess, they were startled to receive a messenger from the Pope, demanding a postponement of the marriage, ...
— The Love Affairs of Great Musicians, Volume 2 • Rupert Hughes

... cafes of La Valetta have a very gay appearance, and the ingenuity of the inhabitants is displayed in several manufactures; the black lace mittens, now so fashionable, being particularly well made. Table-linen, also of superior quality, may be purchased, wrought in elegant patterns, and, if bespoken, with the coat-of-arms or crest worked into the centre or the corners. In the fashioning of the precious metals, the Maltese likewise excel, their filagree-work, both in gold and silver, being very beautiful: the ...
— Notes of an Overland Journey Through France and Egypt to Bombay • Miss Emma Roberts

... presence that moved toward him from the pine sill, though wholly familiar and intimate and full of kind emanations, had neither wrinkles nor grayness nor any of the attributes and qualities of mortality. He should have bespoken that kindred presence in halting colloquialities, yet the greeting he gave flowed from him in the form of a thought untranslated into any sluggish medium of language. He should have been filled with a vague curiosity ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1919 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various

... midst of his parishioners, whom he knows thoroughly, and whom he also represents against the government. Consequently, it happens that he is the real authority in his district. The position of the priests, in contradistinction to that of the government officials, is bespoken also in their dwellings. The casas reales [i.e., royal buildings]—for the most part small, plain, and often dilapidated—are not in keeping with the rank of the first officials of the province. ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 (Vol 28 of 55) • Various

... friends now at Scarcliffe, the favorite sea-resort of the county people. Greetings met him on every hand, and Bessie was taken note of. "My niece Elizabeth." Her history was known, kindness had been bespoken for her, her prospects were anticipated ...
— The Vicissitudes of Bessie Fairfax • Harriet Parr

... to himself or suspicion of his deficiencies in any way, and his conduct is correctly described in a lisping speech of the "secondary squire" of his parish, "What an ath Barton makth of himthelf!" Yet for this stupid man our sympathy is bespoken, merely because he has a wife so much too good for him that we are almost inclined to be angry with her for ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson

... year came to an end without any consular election. It was for the election expected to have taken place that the services of Curio had been so ardently bespoken by Cicero on behalf of Milo. In order to impede the election Clodius accused Milo of being in debt, and Cicero defended him. What was the nature of the accusation we do not exactly know. "An inquiry into Milo's debts!" Such was the name given to the pleadings ...
— The Life of Cicero - Volume II. • Anthony Trollope

... to growl!" exclaimed the thick-set soldierly fellow who had bespoken me before, whose hostile gaze had never left my face. "I'll have him ...
— Helmet of Navarre • Bertha Runkle

... "I'd bespoken an extra sunny day, but I'll tell the clerk of the weather to change it. He's an obliging fellow, and he'll attend to it, so make yourself easy," said Charlie, who had become quite ...
— Eight Cousins • Louisa M. Alcott

... paused to admire, as seen amid the light and shadow of the blacksmith's shop. Robert Danforth had brought a little anvil of his own manufacture, and peculiarly constructed, which the young artist had recently bespoken. Owen examined the article and pronounced it fashioned according to ...
— Mosses from an Old Manse and Other Stories • Nathaniel Hawthorne



Words linked to "Bespoken" :   attached, committed, custom-made, tailored, betrothed, tailor-made, bespoke, custom



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