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adjective
Dim  adj.  (compar. dimmer; superl. dimmest)  
1.
Not bright or distinct; wanting luminousness or clearness; obscure in luster or sound; dusky; darkish; obscure; indistinct; overcast; tarnished. "The dim magnificence of poetry." "How is the gold become dim!" "I never saw The heavens so dim by day." "Three sleepless nights I passed in sounding on, Through words and things, a dim and perilous way."
2.
Of obscure vision; not seeing clearly; hence, dull of apprehension; of weak perception; obtuse. "Mine eye also is dim by reason of sorrow." "The understanding is dim." Note: Obvious compounds: dim-eyed; dim-sighted, etc.
Synonyms: Obscure; dusky; dark; mysterious; imperfect; dull; sullied; tarnished.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Dim" Quotes from Famous Books



... figures were growing dim on the screen, and the blotches of colors that showed where they were grouped were few. Some there were who left such groups to flee precipitately toward a ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science January 1931 • Various

... mortified, but he began to play. It was not long before Hassler opened his eyes and ears with the professional interest of the artist who is struck in spite of himself by a beautiful thing. At first he said nothing and lay still, but his eyes became less dim and his sulky lips moved. Then he suddenly woke up, growling his surprise and approbation. He only gave inarticulate interjections, but the form of them left no doubt as to his feelings, and they ...
— Jean-Christophe, Vol. I • Romain Rolland

... light of the possibility. But he knew it was something more. He had seen the change in Elizabeth, and in smothered wrath had perceived that this growth which made her every day more interesting seemed to be in some way withdrawing her from him. He struggled against allowing this dim feeling to become a perception. For she might be free; then she should become his wife: she might be already bound; in that case,—again the terrible shadow darkened his face for an instant. Then he recollected himself, and his eyes, seeking a visible object, rested on her face a little ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1 • Various

... grief rather than by years, was walking at midnight along the Rue Gaillon. Having reached a house of modest appearance, and only two stories high, he paused to look up at one of the attic windows that pierced the roof at regular intervals. A dim light scarcely showed through the humble panes, some of which had been repaired with paper. The man below was watching the wavering glimmer with the vague curiosity of a Paris idler, when a young man came out of the house. As the light of the street lamp fell full on the face of the first comer, ...
— A Second Home • Honore de Balzac

... the past day, and anticipations of what the morrow would bring forth. A lantern so closed as to prevent all possibility of contact with the powder that lay strewed about, was placed in the centre of the circle, and the dim reflexion from this upon the unwashed hands and faces of the party, begrimed as they were with powder and perspiration, contributed to give an air of wildness to the whole scene, that found its origin in the peculiar circumstances of the moment. Nor was the ...
— The Canadian Brothers - or The Prophecy Fulfilled • John Richardson

... when more than one thing is possessed such expressions as This heart of mine, That temper of yours are good, idiomatic English. This naughty world of ours.—Byron. This moral life of mine.—Sheridan Knowles. Dim ...
— Higher Lessons in English • Alonzo Reed and Brainerd Kellogg

... thoughtfully, after a while, "as nearly as I can make the thing out with the slender information that we have so far, the weirdest superstitions seem to cluster about that dagger which Norton lost. I wouldn't be surprised if it took us far back into the dim past of the barbaric splendour of the ...
— The Gold of the Gods • Arthur B. Reeve

... had seen nothing; her eyes were getting dim, and she was on the point of giving it up when Natacha's exclamation had stopped her; she did not want to disappoint them; but there is nothing so tiring as sitting motionless. She did not know why she had called ...
— In the Yule-Log Glow, Book I - Christmas Tales from 'Round the World • Various

... different transformations). As the flowers and fruits of a tree, unurged by visible influences, never miss their proper season, so does Karma done in a previous existence bring about its fruits in proper time. With age, man's hair grows grey, his teeth become loose; his eyes and ears too become dim in action; but the only thing that does not abate is his desire for enjoyments. Prajapati is pleased with those acts that please one's father, and the Earth is pleased with those acts that please one's mother, and Brahma is adored with those acts that please one's preceptor. ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli

... to only a part of it. As for what follows, according as it is prosperous or unreturned love, heaven ensues upon this purgatory, or one may attain a middle region, somewhat dim, but serene. You wish ...
— Deerbrook • Harriet Martineau

... speaks her brother to her: "Weep not, weep not, my sister dear! Weep not away thy eyes so clear, Dim not, O dim not thy face so fair, Make not heavy thy joyous heart! Say, for what is it thou weepest so? Is 't for my goods, my inheritance? Is 't for my lands, so rich and wide? Is 't for my silver, or is 't for my gold? Or dost thou weep for my ...
— Historical View of the Languages and Literature of the Slavic - Nations • Therese Albertine Louise von Jacob Robinson

... to breathe so near each other. The sun left the distant fields and hills; soft twilight stole through the woods, down the gap, and over the plain; the grass lost its green; the wall of trees grew dark and dusky; and very faint and dim showed the picture that was so bright a little while ago. As they sat quite silent, listening to what nature had to say to them, or letting fancy and memory take their way, the silence was broken hardly broken by the distinct far-off cry of a whip-poor-will. Alice grasped her brother's ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Elizabeth Wetherell

... answer," she heard. It came from ever so far away, in the dim distance beyond her vague wonderings. Jenny was lost, submerged in the sensations through which she had passed during the evening. She was quite unlike herself, timid and fearful, a frightened girl alone in ...
— Nocturne • Frank Swinnerton

... on her lips and abounded in strange tales of the people who were making up to her. She struck Nick as less strenuous than she had been hitherto, as making even an aggressive show of inevitable laxities; but he was conscious of no obligation to rebuke her for it—the less as he had a dim vision that some effect of that sort, some irritation of his curiosity, was what she desired to produce. She would perhaps have liked, for reasons best known to herself, to look as if she were throwing herself away, not being able to do anything else. ...
— The Tragic Muse • Henry James

... weighed all these arguments and tried to find by some means a possibility of escape, but all lay in the dark and dim distance, exacting heavy payment from ...
— Lady Rosamond's Secret - A Romance of Fredericton • Rebecca Agatha Armour

... first the spirit of an Infinite Intelligence brooded upon the race. It is the appeal of man's immortal unity to the All-Father, from age to age, for knowledge sufficient for its hourly needs, since ever, back in the far dim ages of the earth, primeval man, beetle-browed, furtive and fashioned fearsomely, first felt the faint vibration of a Soul; and, like an awakened giant, that chief of human faculties, a Mind took form which, pressing on along the uncertain way, has scaled the giddy heights ...
— Valere Aude - Dare to Be Healthy, Or, The Light of Physical Regeneration • Louis Dechmann

... them down again,— Down with the theft of their thieving And murder and mocking of men; Down with their barter of women And laying and lying of creeds; Down with their cheating of childhood And drunken orgies of war,— down down deep down, Till the devil's strength be shorn, Till some dim, darker David, a-hoeing of his corn, And married maiden, mother of God, Bid the black Christ be born! Then shall our burden be manhood, Be it yellow or black or white; And poverty and justice and sorrow, The humble, and simple and strong Shall ...
— Darkwater - Voices From Within The Veil • W. E. B. Du Bois

... led the way into the next room. He held the torch up high. The light looked small and dim in the darkness of the big room. They went on and came to room after room and to long halls. Some places were narrow and low, so that they had to crawl on hands and knees to get through; and all the walls and ...
— The Cave Boy of the Age of Stone • Margaret A. McIntyre

... admiration and mysterious pity; no fiend-hag, beyond humanity in malice and in power, but essentially human, even when aspiring most to the secrets of a god. Assuming, for the moment, that by the aid of intense imagination, persons of a peculiar idiosyncrasy of nerves and temperament might attain to such dim affinities with a world beyond our ordinary senses, as forbid entire rejection of the magnetism and magic of old times—it was on no foul and mephitic pool, overhung with the poisonous nightshade, and excluded from the ...
— Harold, Complete - The Last Of The Saxon Kings • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... Ethel crossed the threshold of the home that might have been hers. She shuddered at the thought. The atmosphere of the house was full of fear and gloom, the furniture dark and shabby, and she fancied the wraiths of old forgotten crimes and sorrows were gliding about the sad, dim rooms and stairways. Dora rose in a passion of tears to welcome her, and because time was short instantly ...
— The Man Between • Amelia E. Barr

... to me, Peter. I know you. I can do no harm. Come, I implore! Come quickly! Reassured by the faint, but importunate words, old Peter approached the dark object that lay upon the ground, scarcely discernible in the dim twilight of ...
— Leah Mordecai • Mrs. Belle Kendrick Abbott

... blinded, nerves all shaken, By this fearful storm o'ertaken, As it swept on toward the sunrise; Yet, I chanced to lift my dim eyes Upward, when, O sight entrancing, I beheld, to west advancing, Other clouds, in higher current, Unlike ...
— Gleams of Sunshine - Optimistic Poems • Joseph Horatio Chant

... been a gateway of the dim land we call the Past, looking down in stony sorrow on the follies of those who so soon must cross its portals, and, to the wise who could hear the lesson, pregnant with echoes of the warning voices ...
— Dawn • H. Rider Haggard

... a light, a dim one, but it may be in a house, and the people will give us something to eat. I told you I would lead you right if you ...
— Pixy's Holiday Journey • George Lang

... and one of these Not all the washing of the troublous seas, Nor all the changeful days whereof ye know, Have swept from out my memory: even so Small things far off will be remembered clear When matters both more mighty and more near, Are waxing dim to us. I, who have seen So many lands, and midst such marvels been, Clearer than these abodes of outland men, Can see above the green and unburnt fen The little houses of an English town, Cross-timbered, thatched with fen-reeds ...
— The Cathedral Church of Peterborough - A Description Of Its Fabric And A Brief History Of The Episcopal See • W.D. Sweeting

... eyes quietly and looked at her. He could see a tear running down her cheek. She was staring straight ahead at the wall of the room and by the dim light that came through a window he could see the drawn cords of her little neck and the knot of mouse ...
— Marching Men • Sherwood Anderson

... their eyes. Blanka was surprised, and agreeably so. She had prepared herself to see a face stamped with the melancholy of early disappointment, whereas she now beheld a fresh, rosy-cheeked countenance, golden locks, and blue eyes in which no tears had been able to dim the dancing light of a lively and cheerful temperament. Other women there were also in the family,—Rebecca, Berthold's wife, and Susanna, the helpmate of Barnabas, with a little circle of ...
— Manasseh - A Romance of Transylvania • Maurus Jokai

... shy as it is, does Nature's garden contain a lovelier sight than scores of these deliciously fragrant pink bells swaying above a carpet of the little evergreen leaves in the dim aisle of some deep, cool, lonely forest? Trailing over prostrate logs and mossy rocks, racing with the partridge vine among the ferns and dwarf cornels, the plant sends up "twin-born heads" that seem more fair and sweet than the most showy pampered darlings of the millionaire's conservatory. Little ...
— Wild Flowers, An Aid to Knowledge of Our Wild Flowers and - Their Insect Visitors - - Title: Nature's Garden • Neltje Blanchan

... I was speaking Jeanne's features suddenly became pale, and seemed to shrink into lifelessness; her eyes became all dim; her lips, half open, contracted with an expression of pain. Then her head sank sideways on ...
— The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard • Anatole France

... to the roadside and peered down and how it happened I don't know, but to his dim eyes at least there were the silver tracks ...
— The Laughing Prince - Jugoslav Folk and Fairy Tales • Parker Fillmore

... laugh, and said, "Well, I am going to insist. I believe you are working too hard, and we must not overstrain our faculties. It was bad enough, in the old days, but then it was generally the poor body which suffered first. But indeed it is quite possible to overwork here, and you have the dim air of the pale student. Come," he said, "whatever happens, do not become priggish. Not to want a holiday is a sign of spiritual pride. Besides, I have some curious things ...
— The Child of the Dawn • Arthur Christopher Benson

... heart for fellowship? Whom could he find among earth's sinful creatures worthy of his friendship, or capable of being in any real sense his personal friend? What satisfaction could his heart find in this world's deepest and holiest love? What light can a dim candle give to the sun? Does the great ocean need the little dewdrop that hides in the bosom of the rose? What blessing or inspiration of love can any poor, marred, stained life give to the ...
— Personal Friendships of Jesus • J. R. Miller

... and again wrapped up in their blankets, after Dick had secured his horse with the others. A dim light was now showing in the east, indicating that morning was not far off. But it was cold and cheerless, even with the fire, for it was not a very large blaze, and Dick was glad to follow the example of his brother and cousin and roll up for ...
— The Boy Ranchers at Spur Creek - or Fighting the Sheep Herders • Willard F. Baker

... his eyes, dim with sleep, And old Vlasuchka strikes him. He squeals like a rat 'Neath the heel of your slipper, And makes for the forest 320 On long, lanky legs. Four peasants pursue him, The others cry, "Beat him!" Until both the man And the band of pursuers ...
— Who Can Be Happy And Free In Russia? • Nicholas Nekrassov

... his pony shuffled along the sandy road and over the railway-crossing. The town was soundless and unlighted, save for a dim glow in the telegraph office, and the air was keen and crisp with frost. As he approached the Badger's shack Pierce detected a gleam of light beneath the curtain of the side windows. "If he's awake, so much the better," ...
— They of the High Trails • Hamlin Garland

... He had been a good deal worried the last few days, and had a dim idea that he deserved it, which deprived him of the sense of unmerited suffering—a most valuable ...
— Father Stafford • Anthony Hope

... active duties of life and when in contact with the world, we can scarcely come into that sacred nearness to God that will enable us to feel in our hearts all that God is. We may get slight glimpses of his glory, we may occasionally get a dim view of some of his beauty, we may feel a little warming of his love in our bosoms; but only when alone with him are we awed into wonder at the sight of his glory and great beauty. It is only then that we see him in his purity and feel the warm sunshine of his love. It is only then that our hearts ...
— How to Live a Holy Life • C. E. Orr

... the Peruvian did was to take off all his clothes, and then he came into the dim circle of light mother-naked. He was a little man at best, but Piet said afterwards the muscles stood out under his swarthy skin in knots and ridges. And there he stood, facing them across the lamp, with ...
— Vrouw Grobelaar and Her Leading Cases - Seventeen Short Stories • Perceval Gibbon

... his soul, unsympathetic his nature who can see the forests and mountains of Luzon, Queen of the Eastern Isles, fade away into dim violet outlines on the fast receding horizon without some pang of longing regret. Not the Aegean, not the West Indian, not the Samoan, not any rival in manifold beauties of earth, sea and sky the Philippine Archipelago. Pity that for the Philippines no word limner ...
— The Former Philippines thru Foreign Eyes • Fedor Jagor; Tomas de Comyn; Chas. Wilkes; Rudolf Virchow.

... early hour when the morning brings to the earth no warmth and but a dim and grudging light, that a sharp rap summoned von Rittenheim to his cabin door. Three men stood outside in the grayness, their horses tied to trees behind them. To his surprise, Friedrich recognized his ...
— A Tar-Heel Baron • Mabell Shippie Clarke Pelton

... months which seemed years since he had seen her, the change in him wrought by labor and peril, the deepening friendship between him and Dave, even the love he bore Silvermane—these, instead of making dim the memory of the dark-eyed girl, only made him tenderer ...
— The Heritage of the Desert • Zane Grey

... done, Messieurs!" allowed the guide, who was even more alarmed, it seemed, than Tubby himself, since the prospect of falling into the hands of the dreaded Uhlan raiders began to assume greater proportions, now that the peril no longer lay in the dim distance, but ...
— The Boy Scouts on Belgian Battlefields • Lieut. Howard Payson

... woman's lot who, year by year, Sees, one by one, her beauties disappear; As Time, grown weary of her heart-drawn sighs, Impatiently begins to "dim her eyes"! - Herself compelled, in life's uncertain gloamings, To wreathe her wrinkled brow with well-saved "combings" - Reduced, with rouge, lipsalve, and pearly grey, To "make up" for lost time, as best ...
— Songs of a Savoyard • W. S. Gilbert

... you to your aunt at once," said Krauss, descending heavily from the car, but making no effort to assist his niece. Then he led the way upstairs, striding along the veranda with a heavy, despotic tread, and through a large, dim drawing-room, where Sophy caught an impression of much carved furniture, the figure of a large alabaster Buddha gleaming through the shadows, and a stifling atmosphere of dust and sandalwood. Pushing aside a tinkling bamboo screen, they entered another ...
— The Road to Mandalay - A Tale of Burma • B. M. Croker

... were out of the bay the little Albion plunged into heavy seas. The motion was much worse in her than on board the large vessel we had been so glad to leave, and all my previous sufferings seemed insignificant compared with what I endured in my small and wretchedly hard berth. I have a dim recollection of F—— helping me to dress, wrapping me up in various shawls, and half carrying me up the companion ladder; I crawled into a sunny corner among the boxes of oranges with which the deck was crowded, and there I lay helpless and utterly miserable. ...
— Station Life in New Zealand • Lady Barker

... where the Jew Hermani was murdered, where the bodies of the first five victims of the Russian soldiery were carried after the massacre and there photographed, and, finally, where the great light from the West—Miss Julie P. Mangles—alighted one May morning, looking a little dim and travel-stained. ...
— The Vultures • Henry Seton Merriman

... Still she comes onward bravely. And though the eager multitude crowd thick and fast upon her all the night, and dawn of day discovers the untiring train yet bearing down upon the ship in an eternity of troubled water, onward she comes, with dim lights burning in her hull, and people there, asleep; as if no deadly element were peering in at every seam and chink, and no drowned seaman's grave, with but a plank to cover it, were yawning in ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens

... the horrendous figure stalked forth into the dim light. There it paused for a moment—a figure of steel, larger than most men, yet not so large but that it might have incased a man. And yet its motions, its every action, were like nothing mortal. Even these hardened denizens of the ...
— The Master Mystery • Arthur B. Reeve and John W. Grey

... lighted with jets of gas so artfully as to make every flower translucent as a gem; fountains where the gaslight streams out from behind misty wreaths of falling water and calla-blossoms; sofas of velvet turf, canopied with fragrant honeysuckle; dim bowers overarched with lilacs and roses; a dancing-ground under trees whose branches bend with a fruitage of many-colored lamps; enchanting music and graceful motion; in all these there is not only no sin, but they are really beautiful and desirable; and if they were only used on the side ...
— Household Papers and Stories • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... himself drawn slowly up a long avenue of the ghostly poplar trees. The road was straight, the land was flat, the poplars were upright. The simplicity affected him with the notion that he was coming to an enchanted palace. The pony approached the door of a large house, dim to the sight; its huge pointed tin roof, its stone sides, mantled as they were with snowflakes and fringed with icicles at eaves and lintels, hardly gave a dark outline in the glimmering storm. The rays of ...
— A Dozen Ways Of Love • Lily Dougall

... followed me below. Whether it was from the excitement I had gone through, or from having remained on deck all day, I cannot say; but I fell asleep immediately my head touched the pillow, and slept as soundly as a top. When I awoke, I saw by the dim light coming through the bull's-eye that the day had broken, and I hurried on deck, anxious to know if our pursuer was still in sight Dubois and La Touche were there. I saluted them as usual. They ...
— Paddy Finn • W. H. G. Kingston

... not always fruitful; their hot drops Sometimes but scorch the cheek and dim the eye; Despairing murmurs over blackened hopes, Not the meek spirit's calm and chastened cry. Oh, better not to weep, than weep amiss! For hard it is to learn to weep aright; To weep wise tears, the tears that heal and bless, The tears which their ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge

... their vengeance upon the throne and the nobles, Madame du Barri, terrified by the scenes of violence daily occurring, prepared to fly from France. She invested enormous funds in England, and one dark night went out with the Duke de Brissac alone, and, by the dim light of a lantern, they dug a hole under the foot of a tree in the park, and buried much of the treasure which she was unable to take away with her. In disguise, she reached the coast of France, and escaped across the Channel to England. Here she devoted her immense ...
— Maria Antoinette - Makers of History • John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott

... the bank and the inhabitants of the upland plateau. The latter appeared distinctly more "outlandish" and less sleek and prosperous. The highlands we found veiled in mist, and as I looked back at the dim outlines of horse and man and caisson, it seemed as if I were leading a ...
— War in the Garden of Eden • Kermit Roosevelt

... that Kirk's music—which was the hardest sort of work—absorbed him completely; he lived in a new world. So, almost before they could believe it, September came, filling the distance with tranquil haze, and mellowing the flats to dim orange, threaded with the keen blue inlets of the bay. Asters began to open lavender stars at the door-stone of Applegate Farm; tall rich milkweed pressed dusty flower-bunches against the fence, and the sumach brandished smoldering pyramids of fire ...
— The Happy Venture • Edith Ballinger Price

... remove the idea of His presence far from us, into a region which we can neither see nor know: and gradually, from the close realization of a living God, who "maketh the clouds His chariot," we define and explain ourselves into dim and distant suspicion of an inactive God inhabiting inconceivable places, and fading into the multitudinous formalisms of the laws of Nature. All errors of this kind—and in the present day we are in constant and grievous danger of falling into them—arise ...
— Frondes Agrestes - Readings in 'Modern Painters' • John Ruskin

... beside which my modest risk sinks into very insignificance? Ah, we all play, and with what varied success! How many poor, unlucky wights turn up deuces all their life, while others, born under luckier stars, hold a fistful of kings and queens! How many eyes grow dim over the faint chances of small digits, while others sparkle in the reflected light of those regal robes! Ah, my dear Madam, not only in dank forecastles, in foul taverns, in luxurious club-houses, or elegant saloons, does Fortune deal out her winning or ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 100, February, 1866 • Various

... of the Fourth Monarchy, was probably the largest and most magnificent city of the ancient world. A dim tradition current in the East gave, it is true, a greater extent, if not a greater splendor, to the metropolis of Assyria; but this tradition first appears in ages subsequent to the complete destruction of the more northern city; ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 4. (of 7): Babylon • George Rawlinson

... his frightfulness early. He concentrated on the leader's machine, but the still-dim light spoiled his aim, and many of the bursts were dotted between the craft behind. I heard the customary wouff! wouff! wouff! followed in one case by the hs-s-s-s-s of passing fragments. We swerved and dodged to disconcert the gunners. After five minutes of hide-and-seek, we shook ...
— Cavalry of the Clouds • Alan Bott

... completed—if there are those who would have the great, dim outlines of Emerson fulfilled, it is fortunate that there are Bushnells, and Wordsworths, to whom they may appeal—to say nothing of the Vedas, the Bible, or their own souls. But such possibilities and conceptions, the deeper they are received, the more they seem to reduce their ...
— Essays Before a Sonata • Charles Ives

... that it is no very crushing disappointment not to see what he came to see. Outside sights give something, but inside joys are independent. We enjoyed our dim damp voyage heartily, on that wide loneliness. Nor were our shouts and laughter the only sounds. Loons would sometimes wail to us, as they dived, black dots in the mist. Then we would wait for their bulbous reappearance, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various

... Clustered about the foot of the divide were a dozen alpine lakes; the higher ones blue sheets of ice, the lowest completely melted. Still lower in the depths of the two canons we could see groups of forest trees; but they were so dim and so distant as never to relieve the prevalent masses of rock and snow. Our divide cast its shadow for a mile down King's Canon in dark-blue profile upon the broad sheets of sunny snow, from whose brightness ...
— Little Masterpieces of Science: Explorers • Various

... day was won when she saw that Madame d'Ache and her daughter stayed at Colmar. But what she had more at heart than either my friendship or Madame d'Urfe's was the jewel-casket; but she dared not ask for it, and her hopes of seeing it again were growing dim. By her pleasantries at table which made Madame d'Urfe laugh she succeeded in giving me a few amorous twinges; but still I did not allow my feelings to relax my severity, and she continued to ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt

... gold. I sound myself, and ring clear. Incessant writing is my refuge, my solace—escape out of the personal net. I delight in it, as in my early morning walks at Lugano, when I went threading the streets and by the lake away to "the heavenly mount," like a dim idea worming upward in a sleepy head ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... which burns like fire. In them the power and glory live Which zeal and saintly fervour give. Their constant task, their sole delight Is worship and each holy rite, To chant aloud the Veda hymn, Nor let the sacred fires grow dim. Now through the air like thunder ring The echoes of the chants they sing. The vapours of their incense rise And veil with cloudy pall the skies, And Rakshas might grows weak and faint Killed by the power ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI

... to know more, and especially whether he had seen the Duke. He declared that he had, but it was a dim picture. According to my friend, he saw the Duke and his staff riding by at the back of the square, and heard him say something to an officer, but what he did not catch. If he had only known, he was describing a particular characteristic of the Duke. ...
— The Adventure of Living • John St. Loe Strachey

... If those who habitually swath their scrotums in the heavy folds of their flannel shirts, to which are superadded the cotton shirts, drawers, and outer clothes in which civilized man incases himself, would cast a backward eye into the dim and misty past, and see the priest of some of the old Pagan gods soaking the scrotum in hot water, and then gradually rubbing the testicles within, by gentle but firm friction, to make the testicles disappear, a process by which many of the heathen priests prepared themselves ...
— History of Circumcision from the Earliest Times to the Present - Moral and Physical Reasons for its Performance • Peter Charles Remondino

... never come, and the old people go on sleeping; and the new people walk about the streets, and haggle at the market, and drive their country carts with the great patient white oxen, and crowd on Sunday up the broad Cathedral steps to kneel in the dim light before the lighted altar, as generations ...
— Soap-Bubble Stories - For Children • Fanny Barry

... giraffe, wild ass, lion, ostrich, python, &c., are found; it is chiefly inhabited by nomadic and often warlike Moors, Arabs, Berbers, and various negro races. The greater part is within the sphere of French influence. "When the winds waken, and lift and winnow the immensity of sand, the air itself is a dim sand-air, and dim looming through it, the wonderfullest uncertain colonnades of sand-pillars whirl from this side and from that, like so many spinning dervishes, of a hundred feet of stature, and dance their huge ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood

... thy fumes, 'mid Summer stars, The Orient's splendent pomps my vision greet. Damascus, with its myriad minarets, gleams! I see thee, smoking, in immense bazaars, Or yet, in dim seraglios, at the feet Of blond Sultanas, pale ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers

... gazing absorbedly at the dark rows of family portraits, and speculating always to herself what they had been like, these dead and gone Kynastons, who had once lived and laughed, and sorrowed and died, in the now empty rooms, where nothing was left of them save those dim and faded portraits, and where the echo of her own footsteps was the only sound in the wilderness of the carpetless chambers where once they ...
— Vera Nevill - Poor Wisdom's Chance • Mrs. H. Lovett Cameron

... torment of his heart and head. In Spain. He had forgotten the girl's name but it began with an "I." Now in the dusk he faced gnarled and glimmering boughs of fleece. The wind, fitful and chill since the sunset, speckled the grayness beneath the trees with dim white fragrant rain and stirred the drift of petals on the ground. Stillness and blossoms and the ...
— Kenny • Leona Dalrymple

... now attained deafening proportions; the hanging lamp increased its swing; the silver coins began to strike together with keen and exquisitely fine music. Juventius the Swan, with his dim eyes filled with horror, was looking at them. The peculiar desperate indifference of the wholly hopeless seized him. His long white hands began to move with the motion of the lamp; the music of the meeting ...
— The City of Delight - A Love Drama of the Siege and Fall of Jerusalem • Elizabeth Miller

... with which now and then she dabbed away the hottest tears. The windows of the room were still open, the blinds undrawn, and the street-lamps threw a flickering mesh of light on the wall. In the glass that hung over the washstand, she saw her dim reflection: following an impulse, she dried her eyes, and, with trembling fingers, lighted two candles, one on each side of the mirror. By this uncertain light, she leant forward with both hands on the stand, and peered at herself with ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson

... came again to myself I found that what I should once have called a "phenomenon" had taken place. The city, the dim street, the familiar architecture of my home, the streams of light from the long windows, the leaves of the linden tapping on the glass, the woman's shadow on the wall, and the stirring toward me of the form and face I ...
— The Gates Between • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps

... own. Something of mystery there was in the commencement of the deep and eventful love which took place between this person and Isabel, which I have never been able to learn whatever it was, it seemed to expedite and heighten the ordinary progress of love; and when in the dim twilight, beneath the first melancholy smile of the earliest star, their hearts opened audibly to each other, that confession had been made silently long since and registered in the inmost recesses ...
— The Disowned, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... is stabbed in the front when those are brought into the stalled seats who should slink into the dim gallery. Every stamp of Honor, ill-clutched, is stolen from ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike

... own, each composed, as he thinks, of myriads of suns, clustered like our galaxy into an isolated system—mere islands of matter in an infinite ocean of space. So distant from our universe are these now universes of Herschel's discovery that their light reaches us only as a dim, nebulous glow, in most cases invisible to the unaided eye. About a hundred of these nebulae were known when Herschel began his studies. Before the close of the century he had discovered about two thousand ...
— A History of Science, Volume 3(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams

... an attempt at a light laugh. But there was one motive not yet confessed—a motive which could hardly be called a motive, for it lay dim and half-formed within his brain. He had never, in his moments of self-inquisition, acknowledged its existence to himself. How could he, then, venture to disclose it to another? It was the suppression of this immature motive, that brought ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton

... lovers who had the graces that made them her equals in the sight of the world were without the only great essential that a lonely, hard life had given to Stewart. Nature here struck a just balance. Something deep and dim in the future, an unknown voice, called to Madeline and disturbed her. And because it was not a voice to her intelligence she deadened the ears of her warm and throbbing life and ...
— The Light of Western Stars • Zane Grey

... in the Phrygian cap, and simple garb of a Sicilian mariner. His appearance, as far as it could be judged of by the dim light of the lantern, was anything but prepossessing. A profusion of long, straggling, grizzly locks, once probably of raven hue, which evidently had not felt the barber's scissors for many a year, concealed the greater part of his face which was still further ...
— The Pirate of the Mediterranean - A Tale of the Sea • W.H.G. Kingston

... to make her own way after she lost her husband had made her relish her independence too much to think of ever giving it up again lightly. Of course she wouldn't say that possibly at some time in the dim future a congenial mate that thought as she did on vital topics—and so forth—just enough to give Homer a feeling of security that was wholly unwarranted. ...
— Ma Pettengill • Harry Leon Wilson

... who told you of the young woman, Linda?" He came and knelt beside her as he asked the question, leaving his watch for the moment; and she could see by the dim light of the lamp outside that there was a smile upon his ...
— Linda Tressel • Anthony Trollope

... were all the houses to be found there in the days when the century was young. From afar, when the breeze came from the north, the dull, low roar of the great city might be heard, like the breaking of the tide of life, while along the horizon might be seen the dim curtain of smoke, the grim spray which that tide threw up. Gradually, however, as the years passed, the City had thrown out a long brick-feeler here and there, curving, extending, and coalescing, until at last the little cottages had been gripped round by these red tentacles, ...
— Beyond the City • Arthur Conan Doyle

... that we were alone. But suddenly I realized it was not so. The kitchen adjoined an interior back-garden. I could see it through the opened door oval—a dim space of flowers; a little path to a pergola; an adobe fountain. It was a sort of Spanish patio out there, partially enclosed by the wings of the house. Moonlight was struggling into it. And, as I gazed idly, I thought I saw a figure lurking. ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science September 1930 • Various

... Through the dim long years that have fled, humanity has suffered more than can be conceived. Most of the misery has been endured by the weak, the loving and the innocent. Women have been treated like poisonous beasts, and little children trampled upon as though they had been vermin. Numberless altars ...
— Lectures of Col. R. G. Ingersoll, Volume I • Robert Green Ingersoll

... half-discouraged by the difficulties that beset him. All honor to him! honor to the schoolmen of the Middle Ages! to the men who kept the traditions of wisdom alive, who trimmed the wick of the lamp of learning when its flame was flickering, and who, when its light grew dim and seemed to be dying out, supplied it with oil hardly squeezed by their own hands, drop by drop, from the scanty olives which they had gathered from the eternal tree of Truth! In these later days learning has become cheap. What sort of scholar must he now be, who should be worthy ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, No. 38, December, 1860 • Various

... splendor which characterizes a fine country, lit up by the melancholy light of a winter setting sun. It was, therefore, much more in character with the occasion. Indeed—I felt it altogether beautiful; and, as the "dying day-hymn stole aloft," the dim sunbeams fell, through a vista of naked, motionless trees, upon the coffin, which was borne with a slower and more funereal pace than before, in a manner that threw a solemn and visionary light upon the whole procession, ...
— The Station; The Party Fight And Funeral; The Lough Derg Pilgrim • William Carleton

... us if we ask for help. Of course if we choose to perish without a struggle, we can do that. And my last word of advice to people into whose hands this book may fall, who are suffering from a sense of dim failure, timid bewilderment, with a vague desire in the background to make something finer and stronger out of life, is to turn to some one whom they can trust—not intending to depend constantly and helplessly upon them—and to get set ...
— Joyous Gard • Arthur Christopher Benson

... ash-hopper" (Uncle Remus) clearly intimates to all who know about the old-fashioned ash-hopper that such an individual lies. This saying is a part of another stanza of "Old Man Know-All," but I cannot recall it from my dim memory of the past, and others whom I have asked seem equally unable to do so, though they have once ...
— Negro Folk Rhymes - Wise and Otherwise: With a Study • Thomas W. Talley

... Wingfield been more than a symbol? Had he brought something more than an expression of culture, manner, and ease of a past which nothing could dim? Had he suggested some personal relation to that past which her father preferred to keep unexplained? These questions crowded into her mind speculatively. They were seeking a form of conveyance when she ...
— Over the Pass • Frederick Palmer

... A dim consciousness of something not quite canny in herself seemed to strike her, for she made a vigorous effort to appear composed; and facing Mrs. Scudder, with an air of dignified suavity, inquired if it would not be best to put Jim Marvyn ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various

... death, in her silver chair. A white rose gleamed in her whiter hair, And the tint of a blush was on her face. At sight of the youth she sadly bowed And hid her face 'neath a gracious cloud. She faltered faint on the night's dim marge, But "How," spoke the youth, "have ...
— The Complete Poems of Paul Laurence Dunbar • Paul Laurence Dunbar

... infancy. For her the step was light, the voice hushed, the breath almost suppressed. To minister to her wants the social visit was forborne, and home made the one thought, until the cheek grew pale, and the eye dim for sleeplessness. The sickness of her daughter poured new waters into a cup, that seemed already filled with cares. To clothe and adorn her, every personal comfort was cheerfully foregone. That she might enjoy the best mental and moral culture, this ...
— The Young Maiden • A. B. (Artemas Bowers) Muzzey

... quickly he'd come out and catch him, And with what gusto he'd despatch him! Sir Rat, against the picket-fence Leaned the machine, then hurried hence, And hid himself with glee, And waited breathlessly To see what that Cantankerous cat Would say, when in the twilight dim He ...
— The Jingle Book • Carolyn Wells

... Colonel Gawler the mead of praise due to him, for the display on that occasion of the most liberal and generous feelings. It was an occasion on which the best and noblest sympathies of the heart were roused into play, and a scene during which many a bright eye was dim through tears. ...
— Expedition into Central Australia • Charles Sturt

... is wanted here, not merely or chiefly for the metre, but for the balance, for the aesthetic logic. Perhaps, 'golden' was the word which would set off the 'violets dim.' ...
— Literary Remains, Vol. 2 • Coleridge

... still discussed. But modern scholarship is practically of one voice in maintaining that God hath not left Himself without witness among the many nations of the earth,—a witness that has indeed been comparatively feeble—a revelation that is dim and starlike as compared with the noonday brightness of the Sun of Righteousness in the Christian religion. The day has come when the Christian must accept and believe that God has been dealing directly ...
— India's Problem Krishna or Christ • John P. Jones

... creature, this mocking mind, this alert, cruel wit was actually speaking words of confidence. A great, dim joy welled up in the heart of Bull Hunter. He shook the forelock out ...
— Bull Hunter • Max Brand

... shall leave the world only to find it, hate it only because he loves, attack it only if he serves. At that epoch of his life when the world's gross sources may grow dim, Criticism brings them back. Wherefore, the function of the Critic is ...
— Adventures in the Arts - Informal Chapters on Painters, Vaudeville, and Poets • Marsden Hartley

... to the end of that plain you may find a ridge, a hill or slight elevation, which, however, did not signify much. The enemy could easily outflank and surround us, if we did not abandon it in time. With eyelids "heavy and dim," and bodies "weary and worn," exposed to the dazzling rays of a burning sun, we rode on, driven occasionally as a herd of cattle. At last night fell and we could enjoy ...
— In the Shadow of Death • P. H. Kritzinger and R. D. McDonald

... did not dim her brilliance by reason of their own. There was her own dear husband, whose serious recitation was the one entertaining number. There was a Rabbit Inspector who rapped out "The Scout" in a defiant barytone, and a publican whose somewhat uneven tenor was shaken to its depths by ...
— Stingaree • E. W. (Ernest William) Hornung

... is it thou? my poor eyes are grown dim, Methinks, with ever gazing back upon The glorious deeds of ages long flown by. Welcome, dear friend—most welcome to these arms. Nay! it is kind to seek me thus— Thine eyes Are bright still; ...
— Cromwell • Alfred B. Richards

... These were supported, on the background, by a mirror of ordinary size; which presented unmistakable signs of the household's reluctance to disturb the sacred dust of ages. Its sides and corners had a very dingy appearance, like an opaque coating, which left a circle in the centre of dim translucency; and from this circumstance, a visitor might have assumed that some individual, wishing to gratify his vanity by seeing a reflection of his own visage, had applied his sleeve, at the same time that he exercised his arm in a rotary ...
— Fern Vale (Volume 1) - or the Queensland Squatter • Colin Munro

... of Ercildoune Thompson, Mr. Thomson, James, the poet, his 'Seasons' would have been better in rhyme Thorwaldsen, the sculptor, his bust of Lord Byron 'THOUGH the day of my destiny's o'er' Thoun 'THROUGH life's dull road, so dim and dirty' Thurlow (Thomas Hovell Thurlow) second Lord Thyrza Tiberius Tiraboschi ''Tis done and shivering in the gale.' Lord Byron's stanzas to Mrs. Musters on leaving England Titian, his portrait of Ariosto His pictures at Florence Toderinus, ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. 6 (of 6) - With his Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore

... with great contempt of claret, as so weak, that 'a man would be drowned by it before it made him drunk[1158].' He was persuaded to drink one glass of it, that he might judge, not from recollection, which might be dim, but from immediate sensation. He shook his head, and said, 'Poor stuff! No, Sir, claret is the liquor for boys; port for men; but he who aspires to be a hero (smiling) must drink brandy. In the first place, the flavour of brandy is most grateful ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 3 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill

... of the carriage-wheels below me changed into a jarring whine as the train came to a full stop. I looked out on a dim-lit platform which seemed to be peopled only by a squad of milk-cans standing shoulder to ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, March 3rd, 1920 • Various

... your kingly faith, to set Don Sancho free, But curse upon your paltering breath, the light he ne'er did see; He died in dungeon cold and dim, by Alphonso's base decree, And visage blind, and stiffened limb, were ...
— Mediaeval Tales • Various



Words linked to "Dim" :   dark, blind, focus, dim-sighted, dense, efface, change, slur, dimness, faint, weaken, indistinct, bleak, vague, obliterate, subdued, dimmed, dumb, low-beam, blur, black, hopeless, dull, dip, slow, undimmed, change intensity, shadowy, dim-witted, darken, wispy, dim sum, stupid, obtuse



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