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Cherub   Listen
noun
Cherub  n.  (pl. cherubs; but the hebrew plural cherubim is also used)  
1.
A mysterious composite being, the winged footstool and chariot of the Almighty, described in "I knew that they were the cherubim." "He rode upon a cherub and did fly."
2.
A symbolical winged figure of unknown form used in connection with the mercy seat of the Jewish Ark and Temple.
3.
One of a order of angels, variously represented in art. In European painting the cherubim have been shown as blue, to denote knowledge, as distinguished from the seraphim (see Seraph), and in later art the children's heads with wings are generally called cherubs.
4.
A beautiful child; so called because artists have represented cherubs as beautiful children.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Cherub" Quotes from Famous Books



... child, then,—'this sweet little cherub that sits up aloft,'—is the only army that an enlightened country like ours should, I humbly think, deign to oppose to one who reigns in darkness—who trembles at day-light, and whose throne rests upon ...
— Captain Sword and Captain Pen - A Poem • Leigh Hunt

... command a view of all that was passing, improving the opportunity to shake the ashes from his cigar while he spoke; "a fine young fellow, and one who will make an admiral, or something better, I dare say, if he live;—perhaps a cherub, in time. Now, if he pull much longer in the back-water of our wake, I shall have to give him up, Leach, as a little marin-ish: ah! there he sheers out of it, like a sensible youth as he is! Well, there is something pleasant in the conceit of a six-oared ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper

... royal crown, heavily worked in gold braid, guimp, and some coloured silks. Enclosing the initials and crown are scrolls in thick gold twist; these again are surrounded by a curving ribbon of gold, intertwined with roses and leafy sprays. In each corner is a silver-faced cherub with beads for eyes and gold wings, and at the top a small blue cloud with sun rays, tears dropping from it. There are two broad silk ties to the front of each board, heavily fringed ...
— English Embroidered Bookbindings • Cyril James Humphries Davenport

... a palace, tile-floored, cherub-ceilinged and square with the cop. I put my foot on the brass rail and said to Billy Magnus, the best ...
— The Voice of the City • O. Henry

... sword, the helm he laid aside, Nor chose to venture with those arms untry'd, Then took his staff, and to the neighb'ring brook Instant he ran, and thence five pebbles took. Mean time descended to Philistia's son A radiant cherub, and he thus begun: "Goliath, well thou know'st thou hast defy'd "Yon Hebrew armies, and their God deny'd: "Rebellious wretch! audacious worm! forbear, "Nor tempt the vengeance of their God too far: "Them, who with his Omnipotence contend, ...
— Religious and Moral Poems • Phillis Wheatley

... joined him. In the bed against the wall at one end of the room lay Blaise and Denis, the twins, sturdy little fellows six years of age; while in the second bed against the opposite wall was Ambroise, now nearly four and quite a little cherub. And the third bed, a cradle, was occupied by Mademoiselle Rose, fifteen months of age and weaned for three weeks past. She lay there half naked, showing her white flowerlike skin, and her mother had to cover her up with the bedclothes, ...
— Fruitfulness - Fecondite • Emile Zola

... material. The eyes looked into ours with their sad, dreamy, far-away gaze, so full of the pain and suffering of life. Behind him stood his Adonis of a son, the flush of genius making the countenance yet more beautiful. Perched on his shoulder was the cherub. He held out his arms as soon as he saw us, and seemed quite ready to go forth with us and, as Catherine would have said, see the world. Some of the old Louis Quatorze furniture had been transferred from the seclusion of the monastery to the glitter of the outer world, ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 6, June, 1891 • Various

... The foundations of the hills moved and were shaken, Because He was wroth; There went up a smoke out of his nostrils, And fire out of his mouth devoured; It burned with living coal. He bowed the heavens also, and came down, And darkness was under his feet; He rode upon a cherub and did fly, Yea, he did fly upon the wings of the wind. He made darkness his resting-place, His pavilion were dark waters and clouds of the skies; At the brightness before him his clouds passed by, Hail-stones and coals of fire. The Lord also thundered ...
— The Man Without a Country and Other Tales • Edward E. Hale

... embody designs of great beauty. The late George Bancroft's, engraved on copper, represented a winged cherub (from Raphael) gazing sun-ward, holding a tablet with the inscription ...
— A Book for All Readers • Ainsworth Rand Spofford

... finished; and the baby picture—a chubby blue-eyed cherub, at play on a bank of primroses, with a yellowhammer perched on a blossoming blackthorn above his head, and just a glimpse of blue April sky beyond; a dainty little study of colour in which the painter had surpassed ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon

... time—probably a year or two; then I began to have larger ideas, but not very broad or deep. I began to feel that I was just a head, and from this I figured it was all over with me on earth, and I was starting in to be a young angel. At first, I was to be only a small angel, just a cherub, with nothing but a fat head and two little wings about as big as your hand spreading out from under each ear. I tried to bend an ear down or cast an eye to feel or see if the wings had started, for as I thought ...
— Cupid's Middleman • Edward B. Lent

... the ruination of them. I shall never forget a pretty boy we had once; he was called the "cherub," and had been a chorister—sang divinely. He was only four years in the regiment, and his case was brought to me before he was discharged. He came to us an angel, and departed a finished young blackguard. ...
— Teddy's Button • Amy Le Feuvre

... are so fondly playing—whose happy and smiling countenance might serve for the representation of a cherub, and whose merry laugh rings joyously and free—yes! that blooming child, notwithstanding all these pleasing and attractive smiles, has a heart prone to evil. To you is it committed to be the teacher of that child; ...
— Trials and Confessions of a Housekeeper • T. S. Arthur

... a tent which led out of the big tent, where she saw the Chief Jumper in full jumping costume, and the Dwarf, and the Fat Man, and the Clown, and the Flying Cherub; and the Remedy worked so well that the Chief Jumper thought he might jump higher than ...
— Harper's Young People, February 10, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various

... "Ah! cherub! you understand me! My blood is in a fever with these songs of Cuba. I want coolness, icy ...
— Three Margarets • Laura E. Richards

... seven years had wrought but little change in him, whom till now we have only known by the simple designation of Edward Fortescue. Manhood, in his prime, had rather increased than lessened the extreme beauty of his face and form; few gazed on him once but turned to gaze again, and the little smiling cherub of five years, whose soft, round arms were twined round Miss Fortescue's neck, the Lady Ellen Fortescue, promised fair to inherit all her father's beauty and peculiar grace, and endeared her to her young mother's heart with an increased warmth of love, ...
— The Mother's Recompense, Volume II. - A Sequel to Home Influence in Two Volumes • Grace Aguilar

... mangled heap His hurried search had missed, All glowing from his rosy sleep, His cherub boy he kissed. ...
— The Dog - A nineteenth-century dog-lovers' manual, - a combination of the essential and the esoteric. • William Youatt

... this imported culture. The seal-cylinders of the Chaldaeans were imitated, and Babylonian figures and ornamental designs were borrowed and modified by the Canaanitish artists. It was in this way that the rosette, the cherub, the sacred tree, and the palmette passed to the West, and there served to adorn the metal-work and pottery. New designs, unknown in Babylonia, began to develop; among others, the heads of animals in gold and silver as covers for ...
— Patriarchal Palestine • Archibald Henry Sayce

... COVENANT, a chest of acacia wood overlaid with gold, 21/2 cubits long and 11/2 in breadth; contained the two tables of stone inscribed with the Ten Commandments, the gold pot with the manna, and Aaron's rod; the lid supported the mercy-seat, with a cherub at each end, and the ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood

... contained these remarkable figures, and in some places, particularly in Kent, they literally swarm. There is a numerous assortment of them at Meopham, a once remote hamlet, now a station on the London, Chatham, and Dover Railway. I have copied only one—an early attempt apparently to produce a cherub resting with outstretched wings upon a cloud, but there are a good many of the same order ...
— In Search Of Gravestones Old And Curious • W.T. (William Thomas) Vincent

... the innocent firstborn was busily taking its breakfast as the mother walked calmly along, bearing on her well-poised head the family wash. And a mile farther on, as if she had seen her rival and gone her one better, was another woman with a two-year-old cherub perched secure on top of the gently swaying basket, proud as a cardinal about to be consecrated. It was a study in balancing that I have never seen before nor since; and I only ask those to believe it who know things ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 2 of 14 - Little Journeys To the Homes of Famous Women • Elbert Hubbard

... one remains Who well deserves my ablest strains. This is my Alfred—lovely babe A smiling cherub sure art thou, How can I best describe thy charms? How can I write about thee now? Nearly four months have passed away Since thou first saw the light of day; And in that time we've hardly had One tedious night with thee, my lad. By day thy chirruping and smiles ...
— The Emigrant Mechanic and Other Tales In Verse - Together With Numerous Songs Upon Canadian Subjects • Thomas Cowherd

... of the earth, according to Isaiah. With one hand He blesses the world; in the other He holds the Book with the seven Seals. About him, in the oval glory or Vesica, we see the Tetramorph—the four evangelical emblems with closely fretted wings: the winged cherub, the lion, the eagle, and the ox, figuring St. Matthew, St. Mark, St. John, and St. Luke. Above are the twelve Apostles ...
— The Cathedral • Joris-Karl Huysmans

... wrong at headquarters, and Davy resolved to see for himself what it was. Moreover, he had not seen Melbourne for ten years, and he yearned for a change. So, without asking leave of anyone, he left Port Albert and its shipping "to the sweet little cherub that sits up aloft, and takes care of the life of Poor Jack," and went in his boat to Yanakie Landing. Mrs. Bennison lent him a pony, and told him to steer for two bald hills on the Hoddle Ranges; he could not see the hills for the fog, and kept too much to port, but at last he found a ...
— The Book of the Bush • George Dunderdale

... don't I know how I love you?" And his eyes turned with yearning affection upon her face, then back to that of the little one. "Six weeks old to-day, and a very cherub for beauty. Aunt Chloe tells me she is precisely my daughter over again, and I feel as if I had now an opportunity to recover what I lost in not having my first-born with me from her birth. Little Elsie, grandpa feels that you ...
— Elsie's Womanhood • Martha Finley

... All concerning the school. Help me to feel I am a boarder. I catch up an old sympathy I had for girls and boys. For boys! any boys! the dear monkey boys! cherub monkeys! They are so funny. I am sure I never have laughed as I did at Selina Collett's report, through her brother, of the way the boys tried to take to my name; and their sneezing at it, like a cat at a deceitful dish. "Aminta"—was ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... no! hot satyr of the woods, Expect another entertainment now. Behold revenge for injured chastity. This sword heaven draws against thee, And here has placed me like a fiery cherub, To guard this paradise ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume 5 (of 18) - Amboyna; The state of Innocence; Aureng-Zebe; All for Love • John Dryden

... cherub togged in sunburn an' a beard An' duds that shouted "'Ayseed!" fer a mile: Care took the count the minute 'e appeared, An' sorter shrivelled up before 'is smile, 'E got the 'ammer-lock on my good-will The minute that 'e sez, ...
— The Songs of a Sentimental Bloke • C. J. Dennis

... dogmatically, recognizing an old acquaintance, and booking it as one more conquest gained over the past. But there was too much excitement over the cherub to attend to him. So he watched the woman gravely, and began to moralize with all his might. "This," said he, "is what we used to call maternal love; and all animals had it, and that is why the noble savage went for him. It was very good of you, Miss ...
— A Simpleton • Charles Reade

... my Ursula, and where Art thou departed, to what land, what sphere? High o'er the heavens wert thou borne, to stand One little cherub midst the cherub band? Or dost thou laugh in Paradise, or now Upon the Islands of the Blest art thou? Or in his ferry o'er the gloomy water Does Charon bear thee onward, little daughter? And having drunken of forgetfulness Art thou unwitting of my sore distress? Or, casting off thy ...
— Laments • Jan Kochanowski

... knew not why nor whither. Outside the station, round a quiet corner, my steps were arrested by the surprising sight of—Beauty!—the very identical devil himself! There stood the unhangable, undrownable, hurricane-creating beast, looking as serene as a newly-born black cherub, washing his fiendish face! I approached on tiptoe, breathlessly, with the basket behind my back and the half chicken extended as a peaceable card of introduction. He scented it instantly—my aunt always keeping Beauty's tit-bits until sufficiently gamey ...
— The Idler, Volume III., Issue XIII., February 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly. Edited By Jerome K. Jerome & Robert Barr • Various

... drummer-boy. Lew could remember nothing except the Regiment and the delight of listening to the Band from his earliest years. He hid somewhere in his grimy little soul a genuine love for music, and was most mistakenly furnished with the head of a cherub: insomuch that beautiful ladies who watched the Regiment in church were wont to speak of him as a "darling." They never heard his vitriolic comments on their manners and morals, as he walked back to barracks with the Band and matured fresh causes of offence ...
— This is "Part II" of Soldiers Three, we don't have "Part I" • Rudyard Kipling

... be the burden of the first message. President Porter once said that the savage visiting London with Livingstone appreciated everything except the libraries. The poor black man understood the gallery, for the face of his child answered to that of Raphael's cherub and seraph. He understood the cathedral, with its aisles and arches, for it reminded him of his own altars and funeral hymns. He understood the city, for it seemed like many little towns brought together in one. But the great library, ...
— A Man's Value to Society - Studies in Self Culture and Character • Newell Dwight Hillis

... wilderness, but He came down on Sinai, and His glory lit up the peaks of sandstone rock; the Deliverer was never for a moment absent from the side of the Shepherd-King, but in answer to His cry for help He came down riding upon a cherub, flying on the wings Of wind; the Holy Spirit had been in the world from the earliest days of prayer and inspired speech, but He came down from the throne to sit on each bowed head in lambent flame. So Christ is with us all the days, yet He comes. He will come at last to receive His own to Himself, ...
— Love to the Uttermost - Expositions of John XIII.-XXI. • F. B. Meyer

... that particular angel. Saints in general are provided with pinched noses, green eyes, and voices like unto the wailings of a small pig, which is suffering the agonies of death beneath a cart-wheel. And, if there ever was a cherub, my brother was certainly that individual cherub, although, in truth, my pious recollections do not furnish me with the statement that cherubs are remarkable for swelled heads and ...
— My Life: or the Adventures of Geo. Thompson - Being the Auto-Biography of an Author. Written by Himself. • George Thompson

... grace, When, clambering upon the knee, The cherub, smiling, takes his place Upon his mother's lap at tea; Perchance the beverage flows o'er, And leaves a stain there is no aid for, On carpet, dress, or chair—Once more We feel that "Children ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton

... Raphael's clouds of dimly suggested cherub faces to those representations of the angel throngs in which the child forms are more distinctly delineated, we find that the great masters have made use of the myriad figures to express a corresponding ...
— Child-life in Art • Estelle M. Hurll

... undefiled. "Thus saith the Lord God: Thou sealest up the sum, full of wisdom, and perfect in beauty. Thou hast been in Eden the garden of God; every precious stone was thy covering." "Thou art the anointed cherub that covereth; and I have set thee so: thou wast upon the holy mountain of God; thou hast walked up and down in the midst of the stones of fire. Thou wast perfect in thy ways from the day that thou wast created, till iniquity ...
— The Great Controversy Between Christ and Satan • Ellen G. White

... word; but the problem was irretrievably lost. There had been something magnificently daring about the idea of a man walking about like a lost cherub; partly clothed, nobody cared very much what ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, March 15, 1916 • Various

... says or thinks that the Word of God has become like to all heavenly orders, so that for the cherubim He was a cherub and for the seraphim a seraph, in short, like all the superior powers, ...
— A Source Book for Ancient Church History • Joseph Cullen Ayer, Jr., Ph.D.

... to dress! So simply, so slightly sometimes, so perfectly to give a setting—the right setting—to her little self. She wore her heavy dark hair bobbed, and it curled about her small head exquisitely, giving her the look of a Raphael Cherub or a boy page in the court of King Arthur. With a flat band of silver olive leaves about her brow, and the soft hair waving out below, nothing more was necessary for a costume save a brief drapery of silver spangled cloth with a strap of jewels and a wisp of black malines ...
— The City of Fire • Grace Livingston Hill

... of Duerer Portrait of Duerer Albert Duerer the Elder Gswolt Krel Portrait at Hampton Court Portrait of a Lady Michel Wolgemuth Hans Imhof "Jakob Muffel" Study of a Hound Memento Mei Silver-point Portrait Portrait in Black Chalk Cherub for a Crucifixion Apollo and Diana An Old Castle Melancholia Detail from "The Agony in the Garden" Angel with Sudarium The Small Horse The Great Fortune, or Nemesis Silver-point Drawing St. Michael and the Dragon Detail from "The Meeting at the Golden Gate" Detail from ...
— Albert Durer • T. Sturge Moore

... this charming frost-piece, the triumph of Nature over principle, and to have a young Lovelace by such an angel: and then, for its sake, I am confident she will live, and will legitimate it. And what a meritorious little cherub would it be, that should lay an obligation upon both parents before it was born, which neither of them would be able to repay!—Could I be sure it is so, I should be out of all pain for her recovery: pain, I say; since, were she to die—[die! abominable ...
— Clarissa, Volume 7 • Samuel Richardson

... burial-place of the Singleside family. This was a square enclosure in the Greyfriars churchyard, guarded on one side by a veteran angel without a nose, and having only one wing, who had the merit of having maintained his post for a century, while his comrade cherub, who had stood sentinel on the corresponding pedestal, lay a broken trunk among the hemlock, burdock, and nettles which grew in gigantic luxuriance around the walls of the mausoleum. A moss-grown and broken ...
— Guy Mannering, or The Astrologer, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott

... self-reliance at a crisis. It's only making a practical demonstration of our new agricultural course! What's the use of learning if you can't apply it at the right moment? Run and fetch our coats and hats and gloves, that's a cherub, while I go and ...
— A harum-scarum schoolgirl • Angela Brazil

... the prettiest city, on the edge of the tierra caliente, but it's been a horrid day. It started wrong. An unsavory but beautiful cherub of eight or so, smoking a cigarette, tried to sell me a baby lizard. You remember how I've always loved lizards, but I couldn't take it on a day's sight-seeing so I gave him a copper and refused. He said in liquid Spanish, "So, Your Grace will not buy my little lizard? Very well! Behold!"—and ...
— Jane Journeys On • Ruth Comfort Mitchell

... swarmed over us. Man after man dropped his plate and leapt into a dervish-dance, frenziedly slapping his nose and ears. We tried to eat standing; even so, we were festooned. Little Westlake, the 'Cherub,' abandoned all hope of nourishment, and crept wretchedly into a clothes-pile. There was ...
— The Leicestershires beyond Baghdad • Edward John Thompson

... of it, my dear M. Schmucke; we must take things as we find them; Cibot might be at death's door, and I should not take it to heart as you do. Come! the cherub has a good constitution. And he has been steady, it seems, you see; you have no idea what an age sober people live. He is very ill, it is true, but with all the care I take of him, I shall bring him round. Be easy, look after ...
— Cousin Pons • Honore de Balzac

... the Bar C ranch; "Baby" Britt, curly-haired, pink-cheeked, with one innocent blue eye dark from recent impact with a fist, which gave its owner the appearance of a dissipated cherub. ...
— 'Me-Smith' • Caroline Lockhart

... the Evangelist, in 1482, at a cost of twenty-five ducats. Between the heads of the niches little children stand on the capitals, and above the cornice is a space pierced by oculi between pilasters. The ceiling is coffered with a cherub's head in each panel, except the central one, which is four times the area of the others, and contains a half-length of Christ, surrounded by a wreath, holding an orb, and blessing. On the lunette is the Coronation of the Virgin. Above the altar is the ancient tomb of the saint, upon the lid ...
— The Shores of the Adriatic - The Austrian Side, The Kuestenlande, Istria, and Dalmatia • F. Hamilton Jackson

... These stand at the corners of the crossings, or preside over the street lamps. On one of its church towers, over a gas light, is represented a candle stick with the rays emanating from its light. On each side, is a little cherub—one has a cross and the other an anchor. Over them, stand the mystical letters "IHS," the cross being combined with the H after the fashion of a monogram. Beneath is the ...
— The Youthful Wanderer - An Account of a Tour through England, France, Belgium, Holland, Germany • George H. Heffner

... any one save her father and brother; for the page withdrew himself somewhat from the circle, and there was nothing to remind her of him. She gave the reins, therefore, to her enthusiasm; and as the tears glittered in her eye, and her beautiful features became animated, she seemed like a descended cherub proclaiming the virtues of a patriot monarch. The person chiefly interested in her description held himself back, as we have said, and concealed his own features, yet so as to preserve a full view of ...
— Woodstock; or, The Cavalier • Sir Walter Scott

... him of home, though it has antiquity and a proper quaintness. But not for him, not for them of his clime and faith, is the pathos of those simple memorial slates with their winged skulls, changing upon many later stones, as if by the softening of creeds and customs, to cherub's heads,—not for him is the pang I feel because of those who died, in our country's youth exiles or exiles' children, heirs of the wilderness and toil and hardship. Could they rise from their restful beds, and look on this wandering Italian with his plaster statuettes ...
— Suburban Sketches • W.D. Howells

... again 125 Fierce War, and faithful Love, And Truth severe, by fairy Fiction drest. In buskin'd measures move Pale Grief, and pleasing Pain, With Horror, tyrant of the throbbing breast. 130 A voice, as of the cherub-choir, Gales from blooming Eden bear; And distant warblings lessen on my ear, That lost in long futurity expire. Fond impious man, think'st thou yon sanguine cloud, 135 Rais'd by thy breath, has quench'd the orb of day? To-morrow he repairs ...
— Select Poems of Thomas Gray • Thomas Gray

... eternal, and the Son of Heaven, Bright effluence of th'immortal ray, Chief cherub, and chief lamp, of that high sacred Seven, Which guard the throne by night, and are its light by day; First of God's darling attributes, Thou daily seest him face to face, Nor does thy essence fix'd depend on giddy circumstance Of time or place, Two foolish guides in ...
— The Poems of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Volume I (of 2) • Jonathan Swift

... dear. What immense latitude we are allowed! If she prove a meek, sweet cherub, a very saint in bib-aprons,—with velvety eyes brown as a hazel nut, and silky chestnut ringlets,—I shall gather her into my heart and coo over her as—Columba, or Umilta, or Umbeline, or Una; but should we find ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson

... sorrow—the knowledge that he was, after all, an ordinary being, one of themselves, had its consolations, particularly as no lustre from his glorification had shone on them. Mr. Ashburn felt less like an owl who had accidentally hatched a cherub, than he had done lately, and his wife considered that a snare and a pitfall had been removed from her son's path. Cuthbert thought his elder brother a fool, but probably had never felt more amiable ...
— The Giant's Robe • F. Anstey

... her?" said Fan, reddening with pleasure, and quickly stooping she pressed her lips to the little cherub face. ...
— Fan • Henry Harford

... [Beneficent spirits] Angel.— N. angel, archangel; guardian angel; heavenly host, host of heaven, sons of God; seraph, seraphim; cherub, cherubim. ministering spirit, morning star. saint, patron saint, Madonna; invisible helpers. Adj. angelic, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget

... favor of the king none of the household will think of courting him." Were a person to view it with a fastidious eye, the form of a Joseph might seem a deformity; but let him look with desire on a demon, and he will appear like an angel and cherub. ...
— Persian Literature, Volume 2, Comprising The Shah Nameh, The - Rubaiyat, The Divan, and The Gulistan • Anonymous

... little woman in the State than me. I should like to see her, if there is. I go over home pretty often; and Aunt Mimy makes just as much of my baby—I've named him John—as mother does; and that's enough to ruin any child that wasn't a cherub born. And Miss Mimy always has a bottle of some new nostrum of her own stilling every time she sees any of us; we've got enough to swim a ship, on the top shelf of the pantry to-day, if it was all put together. As ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 40, February, 1861 • Various

... don't know how I am ever going to stand that name. Why, a body wouldn't know Sally Sellers in it. It's too large for her; kind of like a cherub in an ulster, and it's a most outlandish sort of a name, anyway, ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... her his manly countenance, with the softest expression of which his large blue eye, which so often gleamed with insufferable light, was capable. Caressing her fair head, and mingling his large fingers in her beautiful and dishevelled locks, he raised and tenderly kissed the cherub countenance which seemed desirous to hide itself in his hand. The robust form, the broad, noble brow and majestic looks, the naked arm and shoulder, the lions' skins among which he lay, and the fair, fragile feminine creature that kneeled by his side, ...
— The Talisman • Sir Walter Scott

... made a brief acquaintance, and his elder sister, now entering into the world, down to the last little ornament of the nursery, in a prodigious new sash, with ringlets hot and crisp from the tongs of a Marylebone hairdresser, We had seen the cherub faces of some of these darlings pressed against the drawing-room windows as our carriage drove up to the door; when, after a few minutes' conversation, another vehicle arrived, away they dashed to the windows ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray

... of fire. In hopes of glory to be quite involv'd! To smile at death! to long to be dissolv'd! From our decays a pleasure to receive! And kindle into transport at a grave! What equals this? And shall the victor now Boast the proud laurels on his loaded brow? Religion! Oh, thou cherub, heavenly bright! Oh, joys unmix'd, and fathomless delight! Thou, thou art all; nor find I in the whole Creation aught, but God and my own soul. For ever, then, my soul, thy God adore, Nor let the brute creation praise him more. Shall things inanimate my conduct blame, And ...
— The Poetical Works of Edward Young, Volume 2 • Edward Young

... must go over and see them again," said Anne Lisbeth. "I must go to my noble friends, to my darling child, the young count—yes, yes, for he is surely longing to see me. He thinks of me, he loves me as he did when he used to throw his little cherub arms round my neck and lisp, 'An Lis!' Oh, it was like a violin! Yes, I must go over ...
— The Sand-Hills of Jutland • Hans Christian Andersen

... feature. His little feet and hands might have belonged to a fairy. His black eyes were bright and full, with long lashes and arched brows. His long curls were blacker than the raven, and while holding him there in my arms, I could think of nothing but a beautiful cherub with folded wings, astray from heaven. After smoothing down his curls awhile, and kissing him many times, ...
— Stories of Childhood • Various

... the musical meditations of some master in harmony. And oftener than she knew, especially in the twilight, when the days had grown shorter, and his mother feared for him the falling dew, would Mark be somewhere in the dusk listening to her, a lurking cherub, feeding on her music—sometimes ascending on its upward torrent to a solitude where only God ...
— Weighed and Wanting • George MacDonald

... many years. Within the walls of that small stone cottage, peeping forth from its screen of young hickory trees, I had left three dear children,—God only could tell whether we should ever meet on earth again: I knew that their prayers would follow me on my long journey, and the cherub Hope was still at my side, to whisper of happy hours and restored health and spirits. I blessed God, for the love of those young kindred hearts, and for having placed their home in such ...
— Life in the Clearings versus the Bush • Susanna Moodie

... orphan or a changeling or stamped with some social stigma. It was impossible to be in fact more exempt from these misfortunes, and yet, as one kissed him, it was hard to keep from murmuring all tenderly "Poor little devil!" though why one should have applied this epithet to a living cherub is more than I can say. Afterwards indeed I knew a trifle better; I grasped the truth of his being too fair to live, wondering at the same time that his parents shouldn't have guessed it and have been in proportionate grief and despair. For ...
— The Author of Beltraffio • Henry James

... listened; but now, as if animated by calm, yet settled, feelings of disapprobation, she rose up, and, extending her hand towards the monk as she spoke, addressed him with a countenance and voice which might have become a cherub, pitying, and even as much as possible sparing, the feelings of the mortal whose errors he ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott

... the five maidens, Meditation, Contrition, Compassion, Cleanness and Fruition, while near by await her seven teachers, Discretion, Devotion, Dilection, Deliberation, Declaration, Determination and Divination, a goodly company of Doctors indeed. Of all these intangible figures one only, Milton's 'cherub Contemplation', speaks, but the rest are quite obviously represented on the stage, though whether all in flesh and blood may be matter for uncertainty. Much more talkative, on the other hand, are similar abstractions in Scene 11. Here, in the presence of God, Contemplation ...
— The Growth of English Drama • Arnold Wynne

... a supernaturally grave bevy of cow-punchers that gathered round the table that morning. Ma Bailey's silence was eloquent of suppressed indignation. Bailey also seemed subdued. Pete was as placid as a sleeping cherub. Only Andy White seemed really overwrought. He seemed to suffer internally. The sweat stood out on Bill Haskins's red face, but his appetite was in no way impaired. He ate rapidly and drank much coffee. Ma Bailey was especially gracious ...
— The Ridin' Kid from Powder River • Henry Herbert Knibbs

... o'er the cradle nest Where she soothed her babe to his smiling rest; She watched the sleep of her cherub-boy, And her spirit throbbed with exulting joy. "Ah, me!" said she, "how happy I'll be, When he reaches manhood, proud and free, And the world bows down, in its rapture wild, It the earnest words of my ...
— Sanders' Union Fourth Reader • Charles W. Sanders

... the perfect physical beauty of the eccentric fiddler only a reproduction, in a larger form, of that sadly depraved young cherub who had danced before me in ghostly habiliments on the way to school. It ...
— Cape Cod Folks • Sarah P. McLean Greene

... invisible. Then the cherub face came peeping out again; and this time the little mouth was laughing, when ...
— A Romance of the Republic • Lydia Maria Francis Child

... head as if she had never worn and never would wear any other covering for it than that so bountifully supplied by nature. She danced gaily, and swung her hat as she flew about the little camp, and called at her chubby cherub of a brother over her shoulder. At last, puffing and blowing, and wiping his forehead, he entered camp and threw himself on ...
— Shadows of Shasta • Joaquin Miller

... presented. A woman came to the ranch-house door with a grinning Portuguese greeting, the air from the kitchen behind her was close, and reeked of garlic and onions and other odors. Susan and Anna went in to look at the fat baby, a brown cherub whose silky black lashes curved back half an inch from his cheeks. There were half a dozen small children in the kitchen, cats, even a sickly ...
— Saturday's Child • Kathleen Norris

... On his great expedition now appeared, Girt with omnipotence, with radiance crowned Of majesty divine: sapience and love Immense; and all his Father in Him shone. About his chariot numberless were poured Cherub and Seraph, Potentates and Thrones, And Virtues, winged Spirits, and chariots winged From the armoury of God, where stand of old Myriads, between two brazen mountains lodged Against a solemn day, harnessed at hand, Celestial equipage; and now came forth Spontaneous, for within them Spirit ...
— The Astronomy of Milton's 'Paradise Lost' • Thomas Orchard

... around, and at times, he with serious looks questioned me concerning the reason of so vast a desolation. But he was only ten years old; and the hilarity of youth soon chased unreasonable care from his brow. Evelyn, a laughing cherub, a gamesome infant, without idea of pain or sorrow, would, shaking back his light curls from his eyes, make the halls re-echo with his merriment, and in a thousand artless ways attract our attention to his play. Clara, our lovely gentle ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley

... it appeared, was very ill. And the baby's father and mother, having left the little cherub sleeping peacefully, were motoring somewhere in the wide spaces of the world. The family doctor was out. She had called up another doctor, and he would come as soon as he could. But in the ...
— The Gay Cockade • Temple Bailey

... the first months of her pain, and never left her until heaven had sent her consolation. A day came—of almost terrified delight and wonder—when the poor widowed girl pressed a child upon her breast—a child, with the eyes of George who was gone—a little boy, as beautiful as a cherub. What a miracle it was to hear its first cry! How she laughed and wept over it—how love, and hope, and prayer woke again in her bosom as the baby nestled there. She was safe. The doctors who attended her, and had feared for her life or for her brain, had waited anxiously for this crisis ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray

... one hot day, while cruising in the Gulf of Mexico, that the news came to us that old Sadler was dead; and sure enough it was so, for the old fellow had quietly slipped his moorings, and, as we all hoped, had at last gone to where the sweet little cherub sits up aloft who looks out for the soul of poor Jack. Then, after the doctors had had a shy at him, to see why he had cleared out so suddenly, his remains were taken in charge by his messmates, who rigged the old man out in his muster ...
— Not Pretty, But Precious • John Hay, et al.

... against him. Strange how Eve could be passionately loyal and basely deceitful simultaneously! The two-faced creature led the doctor forward with a candid smile that partook equally of the smile of a guardian angel and the smile of a cherub. ...
— Mr. Prohack • E. Arnold Bennett

... poverty, had, by industry and exertion, and the kindness of others, step by step progressed to competence and every prospect of mundane happiness. Had I not, therefore, reason to be grateful, and to feel that there had been a little cherub who had watched over the life of Poor Jack? On my bended knees I acknowledged it fervently and gratefully, and prayed that, should it please Heaven that I should in after life meet any reverse, I might bear it without repining, ...
— Poor Jack • Frederick Marryat

... the softness of her sex, Her face had all the sweetness of the devil When he put on the cherub to perplex Eve, and to pave, Heaven knows how, the road ...
— Cruel As The Grave • Mrs. Emma D. E. N. Southworth

... the boy proudly. "Isn't that corking water? Look at it—heavenly cold and clear, or hot as hell, whichever way you're inclined—" turning on a silver spigot chiselled like a cherub. "That water comes from Cloudy Lake, up there on that dome-shaped mountain. Here, stand here beside me, Duane, and you can see it from your window. That's the Gilded Dome—that big peak. It's in our park. There are a few elk on it, not many, because they'd ...
— The Danger Mark • Robert W. Chambers

... factor who quarrelled and prayed; but they found instead a round-faced, clean-shaven youth, with big, good-natured eyes, yellow hair, and a roundness of body like that of a month-old bear's cub. They expected to find a man who, like the factor, could speak their language, and they found a cherub sort of youth who talked only English, French, and Chinook—that common language of the North—and a few words of their own language which he had ...
— Northern Lights • Gilbert Parker

... weathers, all times, tides and ends, Nought's a trouble from duty that springs, For my heart is my Poll's, and my rhino my friend's, And as for my life it's the King's; Even when my time comes, ne'er believe me so soft As for grief to be taken aback, For the same little cherub that sits up aloft Will look out a good berth ...
— Political and Literary essays, 1908-1913 • Evelyn Baring

... antithesis, antitheses; appendix, appendices or appendixes; automaton, automata or automatons; axis, axes; bandit, banditti or bandits; basis, bases; beau, beaux or beaus; cherub, cherubim or cherubs; crisis, crises; datum, data; ellipsis, ellipses; erratum, errata; focus, foci: fungus, fungi or funguses; genus, genera; hypothesis, hypotheses; ignis fatuus, ignes fatui; madame, mesdames; magus, magi; memorandum, memoranda or memorandums; monsieur, messieurs; nebula, ...
— Higher Lessons in English • Alonzo Reed and Brainerd Kellogg

... could not fail to see in what had befallen their sisters a foreshadowing of the fate that they had to expect one day themselves. Beginning with the weakest cities, Assyria would naturally go on to absorb those which were stronger, and Tyre herself, the "anointed cherub,"[14136] could look for no greater favour than, like Ulysses in the cave of Polyphemus, to be devoured last. Luliya, or Elulaeus, the king of Tyre at the time,[14137] endeavoured to escape this calamity by gathering to himself a strength which would enable ...
— History of Phoenicia • George Rawlinson

... is left behind; While we sustain the losse that thou art gone, Un-essenc'd in the separation; And he that weeps thy funerall, in one Is pious to the widdow'd nation. And under what (now) covert must I sing, Secure as if beneath a cherub's wing; When thou hast tane thy flight hence, and art nigh In place to some related hierarchie, Where a bright wreath of glories doth but set Upon thy head an equal coronet; And thou, above our humble converse gon, Canst but be reach'd by contemplation. Our lutes ...
— Lucasta • Richard Lovelace

... Strong took his seat after reading the weekly announcements. The organ began to play softly, necks were craned to catch a glimpse of the singer, and then a buzz of surprise filled the room. Peace, dressed all in white, and looking like a rosy cherub, had mounted to the organ loft where Faith was playing, and at the proper moment, she began to whistle a beautiful bird melody which surprised even those who had heard her the previous Wednesday. The whole audience sat spellbound. ...
— At the Little Brown House • Ruth Alberta Brown

... get into Parliament. Everything the Veneerings had was brand new. They spent a great deal of money entertaining society people at dinners, but Mr. Veneering spent very little on his clerks. Bella's father, though he was always as happy as a cherub, was so poor that he never had been able to buy a whole new suit at once. His hat was shabby before he could afford a coat, and his trousers were worn before he got to new shoes. So he was glad enough indeed to get ...
— Tales from Dickens • Charles Dickens and Hallie Erminie Rives

... prize-fighter. Nevertheless, Braddock's plumpness did away to a considerable extent with his aggressive look. It was certainly latent, but only came to the surface when he fought with a brother savant over some tomb-dweller from Thebes. In the soft lamplight he looked like a fighting cherub, and it was a pity—in the interests of art—that the hairless pink and white face did not surmount a pair of wings rather than a ...
— The Green Mummy • Fergus Hume

... ago, in the last letter that your father, on his return from France, brought me from my wife: she told me that, poor as she was, and with our little growing Agricola on her hands, she had taken in a poor deserted child, with the face of a cherub, and the name of Gabriel—and only a short time since I ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue

... really brought it to pass. The cat in question was a disreputable old scalawag, with tattered ears and a scarred hide, souvenirs of fights innumerable, with no beauty and less morals, and named, with appropriate fitness, "Cherub." ...
— Shavings • Joseph C. Lincoln

... Man's days are mere hardship and labour and task-work, a task-work with no prospect of relief, for the only reward of it is that he returns to the earth from which he was taken. No thought appears of any life AFTER death, and life WITHOUT death might have been, but has been forfeited, now the cherub guards the approach to the tree of life, of which man might have eaten when in Paradise but did not. This actual, cheerless lot of man upon the earth is the real problem of the story. It is felt to be the very ...
— Prolegomena to the History of Israel • Julius Wellhausen

... boast Her strength, her wealth, her site of ancient days, But Cadiz, rising on the distant coast, Calls forth a sweeter, though ignoble praise. Ah, Vice! how soft are thy voluptuous ways! While boyish blood is mantling, who can 'scape The fascination of thy magic gaze? A cherub-hydra round us dost thou gape, And mould to every taste thy ...
— Childe Harold's Pilgrimage • Lord Byron

... There were two cherub-things beside, A gracious girl, a glorious boy; Yet more to swell my full-blown pride, To varnish higher my fading joy, Pleasures were ours without alloy, Nay, Paradise,—till my frail Eve Our bliss was tempted to destroy - ...
— Miscellaneous Poems • George Crabbe

... then her eyes—large, liquid and sleepy—they languished beneath their long black fringes as if they had no business with daylight—like two magnificent dreams, surprised in their jet embryos by some bird-nesting cherub. Oh! it was lovely ...
— Little Masterpieces of American Wit and Humor - Volume I • Various

... knowledge of his dealings with us; to teach us to believe that we are lifted up to him better through our losses than our gains. May it not be that heaven is nearer, the passage from earth less hard, and life less seductive to us, in consequence of the painless passing of this cherub to its true home, lent us but for a moment, to show how pure must be our lives to fit us for such companionship? And thus, although in one sense it would be well for us to put away the sadness of this thought if it would be likely to enervate us, in another sense, if we consider ...
— [19th Century Actor] Autobiographies • George Iles

... door between the two rooms just then, and I could hear nothing more, although I moved my chair quite close. After a discreet interval, I went into the other room, and found Louise alone. She was staring with sad eyes at the cherub painted on the ceiling over the bed, and because she looked tired I ...
— The Circular Staircase • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... of youthful loveliness as they began to descend the stairs—Evelyn, in her snowy white, looking for all the world like a plump and mischievous little cherub, and Jessie in the palest pink, which set off and enhanced her fairness. But it was to Lucile that all eyes instinctively clung. The soft curls framing the lovely, eager face; the color that came and went with each varying emotion; the instinctive grace ...
— Lucile Triumphant • Elizabeth M. Duffield

... sharp action. The "Essex" and "Hornet" were not in company. The first, under the command of Captain David Porter, went on to the Pacific, where she did great injury to British trade, till she was captured off Valparaiso by the British frigate "Phoebe" (38) and the sloop "Cherub" (24) on the 28th of March 1814. In these actions, except the last, the Americans had the advantage of greater size and a heavier broadside, but they showed excellent seamanship and gunnery. The ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... her dreams, like the reverberating strains of a celestial harp, and when the lightning flamed through her room, it only kindled the volume of lace over her head into a cloud of golden tissue, under which she slept like a cherub in ...
— Mabel's Mistake • Ann S. Stephens

... he looked closely at Gervaise; he saw her eyes were red with tears and then, glancing at the bed, discovered that it had not been disturbed. He shook his head and, going toward the couch where the children lay with their rosy cherub faces, he said in a ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola

... uncle, this intelligence brought on a fever, which I struggled to conquer with all the energy of my mind; for, in my desolate state, I had it very much at heart to suckle you, my poor babe. You seemed my only tie to life, a cherub, to whom I wished to be a father, as well as a mother; and the double duty appeared to me to produce a proportionate increase of affection. But the pleasure I felt, while sustaining you, snatched from the wreck of hope, was cruelly damped by melancholy reflections on my widowed state—widowed ...
— Posthumous Works - of the Author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman • Mary Wollstonecraft

... equally lost on his comrade. They then shook hands on it, and Joe, touching his signal-line four times, spurned the ground with a light fantastic toe, and shot to the realms above like a colossal cherub. ...
— Under the Waves - Diving in Deep Waters • R M Ballantyne

... that would never again unclose; and the tiny restless feet were still—oh, God, how still!—while, on the baby-brows that would never know the weight of the crown he was born to bear, the smile of a cherub crowned him with the promise of ...
— The Royal Pawn of Venice - A Romance of Cyprus • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull

... surmounted, at a great height above it, by a huge sun with gilded rays. So far there was nothing to complain of. But when the car moved along, the rays of the sun, by an ingenious mechanism, turned as well; and at the end of each of these rays a poor little brat, dressed like a cherub, and crowned with roses, had been hung, in a sort of fireman's belt, by its barbarous parents. The tortures of the poor little creatures, hanging thus by their middles, under a burning sun, and shaken up by every jolt the machine gave as ...
— Memoirs • Prince De Joinville

... Mrs. Carleton was opening towards—the baby and it was a baby to make its way into any heart. She had forgotten her own weakness—forgotten, in the presence of this wan and wasted mother, with a sleeping cherub on her lap, all about her own ...
— After a Shadow, and Other Stories • T. S. Arthur

... plan. So we wrote our letters and stealthily, but joyously, prepared for our getaway, leaving the house like thieves in the night and bearing the sleeping cherub, Diogenes. ...
— Our Next-Door Neighbors • Belle Kanaris Maniates

... with a finger across his lips to remind her that Mrs. Triplett was still talking; but she was not to be silenced in such a way. Leaning over until her mischievous brown eyes compelled him to look at her, she smiled like a dimpled cherub. Georgina's smile was something irresistible when she wanted her ...
— Georgina of the Rainbows • Annie Fellows Johnston

... the greatest propriety, and her fork in her left hand. Yet even she thawed under Miss Van Harlem's attentions and gentle Mrs. Beatoun's tact, and the winning ways of the last Beatoun baby. She took this absent cherub to her heart with such undissembled warmth that its mother ever since has called her "a ...
— Stories of a Western Town • Octave Thanet

... miss, And he himself one vile antithesis. Amphibious thing! that acting either part, The trifling head or the corrupted heart, Fop at the toilet, flatterer at the board, Now trips a lady, and now struts a lord. Eve's tempter thus the Rabbins have exprest, A cherub's face, a reptile all the rest; Beauty that shocks you, parts that none will trust; Wit that can creep, and pride that licks the dust. Not fortune's worshipper, nor fashion's fool, Not lucre's madman, nor ambition's tool, Not proud, nor servile;—be one poet's ...
— English Satires • Various

... under them for an instant; he had roses in his hair and on his shoulders. The exquisite little laughing shout he uttered was enjoyed on every side, and flowers rained down from all the windows as the cherub passed. In the humming silence of the street one could now only hear the deafened sound of the regular movement of feet in the procession, while flowers by the handful still continued to fall silently upon the pavement. Very soon there were ...
— The Dream • Emile Zola

... mercy-seat of gold, No dead and dusty Cherub, nor carved stone, But his own living works, did my Lord hold And lodge alone; Where trees and herbs did watch and peep And wonder, while the ...
— Spare Hours • John Brown

... the island, not knowin' it to be a island. An' theer's another o' the chances, showin' we've been took care o' by the little cherub as sits up aloft. If it hed been the mainland—well, I needn't tell ye, things would now be different. After landin', we stayed all night on the shore; the men sleeping in the biggest o' the caves, while the ladies occupied a smaller one. I took care 'bout that separation myself, ...
— The Flag of Distress - A Story of the South Sea • Mayne Reid

... operations is the canal, should produce Logs—that is, cunningly devised instruments for ascertaining the speed of ships. Yet if I go to north country ports, such as Leith, and if I go south to Dover, or west to Cardiff, I see the "Cherub," the "Harpoon," and other Logs made by the firm of T. Walker and Sons, Oxford Street, Birmingham. As I have said, it seems a little strange, if not funny, that Birmingham should produce ship appliances. Nevertheless, ...
— A Tale of One City: The New Birmingham - Papers Reprinted from the "Midland Counties Herald" • Thomas Anderton

... lucky thing, Maggie: I hadn't told the ladies' committee that I was to hedge, and so they need never know. Comtesse, I tell you there's a little cherub who sits up aloft and looks after ...
— What Every Woman Knows • James M. Barrie

... did she seem to demand instant homage by the form and step of a goddess; but we found her to be a good-looking woman of some thirty or thirty-three years of age, with soft, peach-like cheeks,—rather too like those of a cherub,—with sparkling eyes which were hardly large enough, with good teeth, a white forehead, a dimpled chin, and a full bust. Such outwardly was Mrs. General Talboys. The description of the inward woman is the purport to which these ...
— Stories By English Authors: Italy • Various

... doctor; "you there!" He stared wildly at the boy, who, with his legs kicking to and fro in the vinery in search of support, looked down from the roof of the building like a sculptured cherub, with arms ...
— Quicksilver - The Boy With No Skid To His Wheel • George Manville Fenn

... flew to my relief, As on a cherub's wing he rode; Awful and bright as lightning shone The ...
— The Psalms of David - Imitated in the Language of The New Testament - And Applied to The Christian State and Worship • Isaac Watts

... to a young man who roused himself from a brown study and looked up. Then he looked down to see whence the voice proceeded. Directly in his pathway stood a wee boy, a veritable cherub in modern raiment, whose rosy lips smiled up at him blandly, quite regardless of the sugary smears that surrounded them. One hand clasped a crumpled paper bag; the other held a rusty iron hoop and a cudgel entirely out of proportion to the size ...
— Phebe, Her Profession - A Sequel to Teddy: Her Book • Anna Chapin Ray

... like those of the Virgins of Raphael, the little mouth was smiling, all the features breathed forth virginity, purity, and innocence. That countenance formed a sweet vision in the midst of the white coverings of her bed like the head of a cherub among the clouds. His imagination went still further—but who can write what ...
— The Social Cancer - A Complete English Version of Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal

... is not much to look at in her either," objected a captain, who commanded Turcos. "I saw her when our detachment went to show in Paris. A baby face, innocent as a cherub—a soft voice—a shape that looks as slight and as breakable as the stem of my glass—there ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]

... the venerable John Eliot, of Roxbury, "are either with Christ or in Christ." Happy, happy man! The little ones, blighted soon by the touch of death, surely are with Christ; "for of such is the kingdom of God." The cherub boy, and the blooming, broken flower, the young daughter,—the young man in his strength, the young maiden in her beauty,—are there. As we commune together, in the pages which follow, on themes touching ...
— Catharine • Nehemiah Adams



Words linked to "Cherub" :   angel, babe, baby



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