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Giddy   Listen
adjective
Giddy  adj.  (compar. giddier; superl. giddiest)  
1.
Having in the head a sensation of whirling or reeling about; having lost the power of preserving the balance of the body, and therefore wavering and inclined to fall; lightheaded; dizzy. "By giddy head and staggering legs betrayed."
2.
Promoting or inducing giddiness; as, a giddy height; a giddy precipice. "Upon the giddy footing of the hatches."
3.
Bewildering on account of rapid turning; running round with celerity; gyratory; whirling. "The giddy motion of the whirling mill."
4.
Characterized by inconstancy; unstable; changeable; fickle; wild; thoughtless; heedless. "Giddy, foolish hours." "Giddy chance." "Young heads are giddy and young hearts are warm."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Giddy" Quotes from Famous Books



... my little Puff, though I had so much to attend to during the rest of that afternoon, that I could not even look in my glass to see how things were going at the Mouse-trap. A young and giddy Comet had got his tail twisted round one of my mountain-peaks, and could not disentangle it, and this was a pretty piece of work, as you may imagine. He wriggled and flounced about in a truly disgraceful manner, and it was only by making Bmfkgth bite his nose very hard indeed that ...
— Five Mice in a Mouse-trap - by the Man in the Moon. • Laura E. Richards

... dark;" another stopped his nostrils, and exclaimed against the nauseous vapour that ascended from it; all had their different sayings. But, as it is natural for such spectacles to excite some moral reflections, even with the most gay and giddy, they all returned with countenances more serious than those they ...
— Apparitions; or, The Mystery of Ghosts, Hobgoblins, and Haunted Houses Developed • Joseph Taylor

... Raska on his shoulder, but the height made her so giddy that she was glad to come down again and walk quietly ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 2 (of 12) • Various

... you think I cinched my little job When I made meat of Mamie's dress-suit belle. If that's your hunch you don't know how the swell Can put it on the plain, unfinished slob Who lacks the kiss-me war paint of the snob And can't make good inside a giddy shell; Wherefore the reason I am fain to tell The slump that ...
— The Love Sonnets of a Hoodlum • Wallace Irwin

... his pension, but I demur at his being elected for Oxford; which, I conceive, is wholly changed; and entirely devoted to new principles; so it appeared to me the two last times I was there. I find by the whole cast of your letter, that you are as giddy and as volatile as ever: just the reverse of Mr. Pope, who has always loved a domestic life from his youth. I was going to wish you had some little place that you could call your own, but, I profess I do not know you well enough to contrive any one system of life that would ...
— Selected English Letters (XV - XIX Centuries) • Various

... Augusta Goold gather her skirts in her hand, and sweep them swiftly aside lest the man should fall on them. Then the crowd pressing towards the platform swept him off his feet, and he was tossed helplessly forward. A giddy sickness seized him. The pressure slackened for an instant, and he fell. Someone's boot struck him on the head. He felt without any keen regret that he was likely to be trampled to death. ...
— Hyacinth - 1906 • George A. Birmingham

... was constructed by felling great trees across the chasm, the water here running through vertical walls several hundred feet in depth. Over this rude bridge men and horses made their way, only one Spaniard being lost by tumbling down the giddy depth. ...
— Historical Tales - The Romance of Reality - Volume III • Charles Morris

... railway trips, we may smile at the idea of a short visit to London having any great effect upon the character, whatever it may have upon the intellect. But her London—her great apocryphal city—was the "town" of a century before, to which giddy daughters dragged unwilling papas, or went with injudicious friends, to the detriment of all their better qualities, and sometimes to the ruin of their fortunes; it was the Vanity Fair of the "Pilgrim's Progress" ...
— The Life of Charlotte Bronte - Volume 1 • Elizabeth Gaskell

... Easter egg; you see, half hidden behind the shadowed columns of the long portico, an illustrated Sunday supplement in six colors bargaining with a stick of striped peppermint candy to have his best friend stabbed in the back before morning; you see giddy poster designs carrying on flirtations with hand-painted valentines; you catch the love-making, overhear the intriguing, and scent the plotting; you are an eyewitness to a slice out of the life of the most sinister, the most artistic, and the most ...
— Europe Revised • Irvin S. Cobb

... every breath he drew, but he ran with all his might and main. He was too spent and dizzy to keep his direction without that distant light, and he knew it. He was not Tom Slade to be sure of himself in complete darkness. He was giddy—on the verge of collapse. The bee-line of his course loosened and became erratic. But if his legs were weakening his will was strong, ...
— Tom Slade's Double Dare • Percy Keese Fitzhugh

... wants me; and thats about the long and short of it. And I must say youre not very nice to me about it. Ive talked to him like a mother, and tried my best to keep him straight; but I dont deny I like a bit of fun myself; and we both get a bit giddy when we're lighthearted. Him and me is ...
— Fanny's First Play • George Bernard Shaw

... top of her red hair. Well, say, what a diff'rence it does make in them freak bonnets whether they're in a box or on the right head! For Miss Rooney has got just the right kind of a face that hat was built to go with. It's a bit giddy, I'll admit; but she's a stunner in it. And does she notice it any herself? ...
— Odd Numbers - Being Further Chronicles of Shorty McCabe • Sewell Ford

... her eyes from her work. She heard Kit's assurance that help was near and for a second she felt faint again and giddy. ...
— The Merriweather Girls and the Mystery of the Queen's Fan • Lizette M. Edholm

... wall carried on the ends of these, leaving, of course, behind, or within it, a hole between each bracket for the convenient dejection of hot sand and lead. This form is best seen, I think, in the old Scotch castles; it is very grand, but has a giddy look, and one is afraid of the whole thing toppling off the wall. The next step was to deepen the brackets, so as to get them propped against a great depth of the main rampart, and to have the inner ends of the stones held ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume I (of 3) • John Ruskin

... KING [aside].—This is a giddy fellow, and in all probability he will let out the truth about my present pursuit to the women of the palace. What is to be done? I must say something to deceive him. [Aloud to Mathavya, taking him by the hand.] Dear friend, I am going to the hermitage wholly ...
— Hindu Literature • Epiphanius Wilson

... Braunberger; and while my glass was still half full, N. ordered a bottle of champagne. When the first had disappeared, T. ordered a second; then, even before this second battle was drunk, both of them ordered a third in my name and in spite of me. I returned home quite giddy, and threw myself on the sofa, where I slept for about an hour, and only went to ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - KARL-LUDWIG SAND—1819 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE

... stock which we require in good seamen for our navy, and which is acquired in scenes of peril 'upon the high and giddy mast', is as much their property as that which other men acquire in schools and colleges; and we had no more right to seize and employ these seamen in our battles upon the wages of common, uninstructed labour, than we should have had to seize and employ as many clergymen, barristers, and ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman

... a black-visaged, swarthy creature, with coarse hair, and a moustache on her lip; she must certainly be bad-tempered, giddy.... "A gipsy" (Aratoff could not devise a worse expression)—what ...
— A Reckless Character - And Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev

... recall the large-hearted Ben Franklin, when sent to the French court. In his plain gray clothes, unassuming and entirely forgetful of himself, how he captured the hearts of all, of even the giddy society ladies, and how he became and remained while there the centre of attraction in that gay capital! His politeness, his manners, all the result of that great, kind, loving, and helpful nature which made others feel that it was they he was ...
— What All The World's A-Seeking • Ralph Waldo Trine

... o'er her head! Philosophy, that lean'd on heaven before, Shrinks to her second cause, and is no more. Physic of Metaphysic begs defence, And Metaphysic calls for aid on Sense! See Mystery to Mathematics fly! In vain! They gaze, turn giddy, rave and die. Religion blushing veils her sacred fires And unawares Morality expires. Nor public flame, nor private, dares to shine; Nor human spark is left, nor glimpse divine! Lo! thy dread empire, Chaos! ...
— Alexander Pope - English Men of Letters Series • Leslie Stephen

... circles low The sun with fainter, dreamier light, And at a far-off hint of snow The giddy swallows take to flight, And droning insects sadly know That cooler falls the ...
— Songs, Merry and Sad • John Charles McNeill

... so hot as in the prison, the atmosphere of the lower deck was close and unhealthy, and the girl, pausing to listen to the subdued hum of conversation coming from the soldiers' berths, turned strangely sick and giddy. She drew herself up, however, and held out her hand to a man who came rapidly across the misshapen shadows, thrown by the sulkily swinging lantern, to meet her. It was the young soldier who had been that day ...
— For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke

... narrowing to a blue ribbon, winding through the green expanse of fertile Normandy. They threw the pebbles and bits of mortar down that they might hear them fall, and tried which could stand nearest to the edge of the battlement without being giddy. Richard was pleased to find that he could go the nearest, and began to tell some of Fru Astrida's stories about the precipices of Norway, among which when she was a young girl she used to climb about and tend the cattle in the long light summer time. When the two boys came down ...
— The Little Duke - Richard the Fearless • Charlotte M. Yonge

... colts, old broken-down thorough-breds that did wonders when soopled, huge, grave cart horses devouring the road with their shaggy hoofs, wilful ponies, etc. You can imagine the wild hurry-skurry and fun, the comic situations and upsets over a rough road, up and down places one would be giddy to look at. ...
— Spare Hours • John Brown

... between two men who desire to rule in the same sphere. I will make sure that Hosea shall shut his eyes to the other's death; but Pharaoh, whether his name is Meneptah or"—he lowered his voice—"Siptah, must then raise him to so great a height—and he merits it—that his giddy eyes will never discern aught we desire to conceal. There is one dish that never palls on any man ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... far south as Baltimore. Almost all were the daughters of well-to-do parents, almost all had their homes in cities. There were very few who, like Mary-'Gusta, had lived all their lives in the country. Some were pretty, some were not; some were giddy and giggly, some solemn and studious, some either according to mood; some were inclined to be snobbish, others simple and "everyday." In short, the school was like almost ...
— Mary-'Gusta • Joseph C. Lincoln

... the good time coming, when carriages were actually to "travel without horses," the goods train was simply a long line or cavalcade of Pack-horses. This was before the age of "fly waggons," distinguished for carrying goods, and sometimes passengers as well, at the giddy rate of two miles an hour under favourable circumstances! Fine strapping broad-chested Lincolnshire animals were these Pack-horses, bearing on either side their bursting packs of merchandise to the weight of half-a-ton. Twelve or fourteen in a line, they would thus travel the ...
— Fragments of Two Centuries - Glimpses of Country Life when George III. was King • Alfred Kingston

... intelligence, the high animal spirits, the aspiring temper, and the resolute intrepidity, which impel them to the stage and support them under its difficulties, are generally associated with an eccentricity of character and a giddy disregard of prudential considerations, which generate adventure and chequer their lives with a greater variety of incidents and whimsical intercourse with the world than falls to the lot of men of other professions. Hence it follows that the stage ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Volume I, Number 1 • Stephen Cullen Carpenter

... we begged them to be quiet, the more noise they made." La Salle lost reason and well-nigh life; but at length his mind resumed its balance, and the violence of the disease abated. A friendly Capucin friar offered him the shelter of his roof; and two of his men supported him thither on foot, giddy with exhaustion and hot with fever. Here he found repose, and was slowly recovering, when some of his attendants rashly told him of the loss of the ketch "St. Francois;" and the consequence was a critical return of the disease. [Footnote: The above ...
— France and England in North America, a Series of Historical Narratives, Part Third • Francis Parkman

... reassuring to those averse to high altitudes, but they are not a circumstance to those on the downward side. On leaving Summit station the train enters a short tunnel, from which it emerges with startling suddenness upon a light, iron bridge which spans, at a giddy height, a desolate gorge. This spidery viaduct slowly and safely crossed, we skirt, for a while, the mountain side, still overhanging a perilous abyss. Every car has a platform, and at this point many ...
— From Paris to New York by Land • Harry de Windt

... privileged orders willing to see the ominous republic split into two antagonistic forces, each paralyzing the other, and standing in their mighty impotence a spectacle to courts and kings; to be pointed at as helots who drank themselves blind and giddy out of that broken chalice which held the poisonous ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)

... racin' by and so low that they seemed almost as if you could reach up and touch them, flew overhead so fast that you couldn't believe it was a real sky you were lookin' at. It seemed like a painted piece of metal driving across the sky on an aeroplane. It fairly made me giddy to watch them. The winds died down, and suddenly became ...
— The Boy with the U. S. Weather Men • Francis William Rolt-Wheeler

... for Booty in the vestibule), through much darkness and confusion, and always at an immeasurable distance from him, he discerned, glory beyond glory, the things that the Poly., in its great mercy and pity, had reserved for those "queer johnnies." It made him giddy merely to look at the posters of its lectures and its classes. It gave him the headache to think of the things the fellows—fellows of a deplorable physique—and girls, too, did there. For his part, he looked forward to the day when, by a further subscription of ten-and-six, ...
— The Combined Maze • May Sinclair

... Struck by the immensity of the work it accomplishes; giddy, as it were, by the rapidity of the movement which urges things on, it cannot believe that a series of natural causes, combined by Providence with the rise of certain ideas in the human mind, and aided by the coincidence of the times, ...
— History of the Girondists, Volume I - Personal Memoirs of the Patriots of the French Revolution • Alphonse de Lamartine

... ways along the Portway toward their halls, with the throng of women and children that had come out to meet them. And now men came home when it was yet early, and the long day lay before them; and it was, as it were, made giddy and cumbered with the exceeding joy of return, and the thought of the day when the fear of death and sundering had been ever in their hearts. For these new hours were full of the kissing and embracing of lovers, and the sweetness of renewed delight in beholding ...
— The Roots of the Mountains • William Morris

... me the crawberry, ripe frae the boggy fen: He pu'd me the strawberry, red frae the foggy glen; He pu'd me the row'n frae the wild steeps sae giddy, O! Sae loving and kind was ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume II. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various

... dying who had no friends - the men without "townies"; organizing, with banjos and burnt cork, Sing- songs which should allow the talent of the Regiment full play; and generally, as he explained, "playing the giddy garden-goat all round." ...
— This is "Part II" of Soldiers Three, we don't have "Part I" • Rudyard Kipling

... my dear little friends," said Mr. Random, "which I wish you to attend to, because it has a great deal of truth in it: 'The pitcher that goes often safe to the well may come home broken at last.' And so, though the thoughtless and giddy may go on for a long while without danger, it will overtake them sooner or later. Here is a strong instance of escape from the consequences which might have attended Richard's thoughtlessness; besides which, his mother could get no more sleep all night, and I, after running the risk of catching ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 3 (of 12) - Classic Tales And Old-Fashioned Stories • Various

... with greater ease in a larger compass. When the rhyme comes too thick upon us, it straitens the expression; we are thinking of the close when we should be employed in adorning the thought. It makes a poet giddy with turning in a space too narrow for his imagination; he loses many beauties without gaining one advantage. For a burlesque rhyme I have already concluded to be none; or, if it were, it is more easily purchased in ten syllables than in eight. In both occasions it is as in a tennis-court, ...
— Discourses on Satire and Epic Poetry • John Dryden

... them: Sir, no prince Shall ruin Spain; and, least of all, her own. Is any just or glorious act in view, Your oaths forbid it: is your avarice, Or, if there be such, any viler passion, To have its giddy range, and to be gorged, It rises over all your sacraments, A hooded mystery, holier than ...
— Count Julian • Walter Savage Landor

... of romantic love. Sensual love, on the contrary, aims rather at a monopoly of all attractive women—or at least as many as possible. Sensual love is not an exclusive passion for one; it is a fickle feeling which, like a giddy butterfly, flits from flower to flower, forgetting the fragrance of the lily it left a moment ago in the sweet honey of the clover it enjoys at this moment. The Persian poet Sadi, says (Bustan, 12), "Choose a fresh wife every spring or ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck

... Bacchanal Queen, "gay and giddy as I am, I have sometimes moments of reflection, even in the midst of my maddest joy. Happily, ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue

... and the huckleberry bushes were dancing great giddy-go-rounds, a reflection of the whirlpool in my brain. Out of the maelstrom I managed ...
— The Rise of Roscoe Paine • Joseph C. Lincoln

... constantly in social demand to have the leisure for advancing far into culinary lore, and she now found herself dismayed before the elaborate menu that Ellen had planned, for which the materials were gathered together. She was still shaken with the emotions of the day before, and subject to sudden giddy, sick turns, which, although lasting but an instant, left her ...
— The Squirrel-Cage • Dorothy Canfield

... night of drunken revelry hies to his bed, still reeling, but with conscience yet pricking him, as the plungings of the Roman race-horse but so much the more strike his steel tags into him; as one who in that miserable plight still turns and turns in giddy anguish, praying God for annihilation until the fit be passed; and at last amid the whirl of woe he feels, a deep stupor steals over him, as over the man who bleeds to death, for conscience is the wound, and there's naught to staunch it; so, after ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville

... hapless victim, the utmost care being taken, I noticed, to avoid any vital part. Finally, when the dancer had apparently danced himself into a frenzy—when his gyrations had become so rapid that it almost made me giddy to look at him, and when his contortions of body grew so extravagant that it was difficult to say whether he was dancing on his head or on his heels—there flashed a sudden lightning-like gleam of the knife, and the head of the miserable victim fell to the ground, to be snatched up ...
— The Congo Rovers - A Story of the Slave Squadron • Harry Collingwood

... carelessness of a handbill. The man stooped over and looked straight down with an expression at once pleased and perplexed. As coming troubles cast their shadows before, this little memento, coming on ahead of a gay and giddy throng, raised visions of troublous and erratic times. The dog, a genteel, white-ruffed collie, sat down and viewed the infant with a fine look of high-browed intelligence, as if he were the physician in the case. The lamb was an old friend of his—just back ...
— The Wrong Woman • Charles D. Stewart

... good! Just let me off this time. I'm giddy from looking at you!" And before a delighted audience ...
— Andrew the Glad • Maria Thompson Daviess

... thing, Jemmy!" cried Jacqueline, who could bear no criticism of the thing or person she loved. "He's positively giddy sometimes when I have him alone. Anyway, wouldn't you be solemn yourself, if you had a father in ...
— Kildares of Storm • Eleanor Mercein Kelly

... homebody to worship the great, strong, red-blooded men who did the fighting and carried on great industries—not even an athletic girl like those dear things up ahead—and this horse is bobbing up and down like that on purpose, just to make poor little me giddy, and so forth. Holding her bridle rein daintily she was with the lace handkerchief I'd give her that cost ...
— Somewhere in Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson

... Presently Jeff Thatcher hove in sight, and Tom's face lighted; he gazed a moment, and then turned sorrowfully away. When Jeff arrived, Tom accosted him; and "led up" warily to opportunities for remark about Becky, but the giddy lad never could see the bait. Tom watched and watched, hoping whenever a frisking frock came in sight, and hating the owner of it as soon as he saw she was not the right one. At last frocks ceased to appear, and he dropped hopelessly into ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... skill or labour less,) When bent upon some smart lampoon, Will toss and turn your brain till noon; Which in its jumblings round the skull, Dilates and makes the vessel full: While nothing comes but froth at first, You think your giddy head will burst; But squeezing out four lines in rhyme, Are largely paid for all your time. But you have raised your generous mind To works of more exalted kind. Palladio was not half so skill'd in The grandeur or the art of building. ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift

... was awkward for him, you know. He could not go and put his head into the bread-locker. What he did was to take up a position abaft the mizzen-rigging, and stare back as unwinking as the other. So they remained, and I don't know which of them grew giddy first; but the man on the Jetty, not having the advantage of something to hold on to, got tired the soonest, flung his arm, giving the contest up, as it were, ...
— Tales Of Hearsay • Joseph Conrad

... Kaya—dearest. You are well now; your cheeks are like roses. The wine is so strong when one is giddy. Let me put my arms about you—come! I love you. Ah, your hair is like a halo; your lips are trembling. The tears in your eyes ...
— The Black Cross • Olive M. Briggs

... turn giddy. "One thing at a time, sir!" she interposed, with a gesture of entreaty. "The dog sleeps on my bed, and I had a bad night with him, he disturbed me so, and I am afraid I am very stupid this morning. His name is Tommie. We are obliged to call him by it, because he ...
— My Lady's Money • Wilkie Collins

... disgrace by exclaiming, 'Dear mama! how can you be so fond of that stupid woman?' which never failed to bring upon her a sharp reprimand and a lecture against rash judgments, ending with 'Lady Oxford is not shining, but she has much more in her than such giddy things as you and your companions can discern."*— The Letters and Works of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, edited by her great-grandson, Lord Whamcliffe, 2nd ed., ...
— Studies from Court and Cloister • J.M. Stone

... climbing; and either that desire, or the general terror a bad conscience, made him and the Grevilles run helter-skelter the opposite way, leaving poor little John stuck on the top of the gate, quite giddy at the thought of coming down alone, and almost as much afraid of being there caught by Miss ...
— The Stokesley Secret • Charlotte M. Yonge

... me, and caught me by the arms, and shook me in a grip so strong that, giddy as I was, I reeled and staggered like a drunken man. And still her voice hissed: "What do you mean?" And her voice and hands and eyes were ...
— The Broad Highway • Jeffery Farnol

... giddy chatter stopped. It was as if one had announced a death. In that chilly hush there was no sound audible but the panting of the breath-blown boy. When he was presently ...
— Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc - Volume 1 (of 2) • Mark Twain

... grains of pure nitrate of sodium in an ounce of water, and of these, seventeen declared they were unable to take it.... One man, a burly strong fellow, suffering from a little rheumatism only, said that after taking the first dose, he felt giddy as if he 'would go off insensible.' His lips, face, and hands turned blue, and he had to lie down an hour and a half before he dared moved. His heart fluttered, and he suffered from throbbing pains in the head. He was urged to try ...
— An Ethical Problem - Or, Sidelights upon Scientific Experimentation on Man and Animals • Albert Leffingwell

... | | | |Luck is with the boys, usually. The golden sunshine | |usually glints off the gold of braid and buttons. | |The nicest looking girls that ever assembled within | |the confines of any particular area of space turn | |out and smile and put lofty notes into the | |atmosphere with their giddy gowns and hats. There's | |snap and verve and pepperino in the very air. | | | |But for the first time in a long while the weather | |forbade all this sort of thing yesterday. From early| |morning a fog-blanket, wafted in ...
— News Writing - The Gathering , Handling and Writing of News Stories • M. Lyle Spencer

... you. In my day, children of fourteen and fifteen did n't dress in the height of the fashion; go to parties, as nearly like those of grown people as it 's possible to make them; lead idle, giddy, unhealthy lives, and get blas, at twenty. We were little folks till eighteen or so; worked and studied, dressed and played, like children; honored our parents; and our days were much longer in the land than now, ...
— An Old-fashioned Girl • Louisa May Alcott

... that we imagined for a moment this must surely be nothing more than another vivid dream. Our eyes and minds were dazzled, too, by the brilliant sunshine, which almost blinded us after our long confinement to the gloom of our prison, so that we felt giddy with the variety of conflicting emotions that filled our throbbing bosoms; but as we followed the footsteps of our sable friend, and beheld the bright foliage of the trees, and heard the cries of the paroquets, and ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne

... his stick, however, he managed to totter out of the cave. The fresh air of the early morning somewhat revived him, and, followed by Neptune, he made his way towards the curious mound in which he had found the eggs. He felt very giddy, and could scarcely drag his legs along. The necessity of obtaining food, however, compelled him to proceed. Nep kept by his side, looking up into his face, and wondering why he didn't move faster. He had great difficulty ...
— The Rival Crusoes • W.H.G. Kingston

... the defiles in whose depths the torrent rushes noisily, choked by a vegetation as luxuriant as that of a virgin forest. On all sides uprise walls of perpendicular rocks, and on their crests, several hundred yards above your head, are feudal fortresses, among others the Castle of Miranda, more giddy, more fantastic than any which Gustave Dore's fancy ...
— Life of St. Francis of Assisi • Paul Sabatier

... at length, in a rather mollified tone, 'I have no doubt you would all miss me dreadfully; you, especially, Friskarina, as you are so young and giddy, and so little able to take care of yourself; we will see, I don't wish to do ...
— Tales From Catland, for Little Kittens • Tabitha Grimalkin

... actively intermingled. The rather low sound of his voice as he spoke to the horses came velvety to her nerves. How near he was, and how invisible! The darkness seemed to be in a strange swirl of violent life, just upon her. She turned giddy. ...
— England, My England • D.H. Lawrence

... herself for this sinful folly. Wearing that opal, was it not unwomanly and wicked to thrill at the contact with one, who never could be more than her coolly kind, prudent, sagacious guardian? She felt numb, sick, giddy, and her heart—ah! how it ached as she tried to realize fully that some day he ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson

... for some moments longer. Then a dark flush mounted to her face. She became aware that her knees were stiff with kneeling and her cheeks salt with tears. Her head ached and a feeling of nausea made her giddy. She rose and looked about her with ...
— Tante • Anne Douglas Sedgwick

... greatly troubled with it, till Felix coming in, very faint for want of his tea, changes the subject of discourse, and enables her to laugh out boldly and tell Amelia Grey not to be so foolish. Here they all three laugh, and Mrs. Nixon says they are giddy girls; in which stage of the proceedings, Felix, who has by this time refreshened himself with the grateful herb that 'cheers but not inebriates,' removes his cup from his countenance and says with a knowing smile, that all girls are; whereat ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens

... about the search for this other way in a more cheerful spirit; and revolved this plan and that plan in a mind more at ease. The ominous shadow of the night, the sequent gloom of the morning were gone; in their place rode an almost giddy hopefulness to which no scheme seemed too fanciful, no plan without its promise. Betray his country! Never, never! Though, be it noted, there was small scope in the Republic for such a man as himself, and he had received and could receive but a tithe ...
— The Long Night • Stanley Weyman

... over her shoes—and they set out together, in the brilliant light of a sun rapidly declining toward the western horizon, though it had but just passed the low noon. The moment she stepped from the threshold, Joan was invaded by an almost giddy sense of freedom. The keen air and the impeding snow sent the warm blood to her cheeks, and her heart beat as if new-born into a better world. She was annoyed with herself, but in vain she called herself heartless; in vain she accused herself of indifference to the loss of her father, said ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald

... into the dust," continued Mr. Chipperton,—"I would ask them, I say, how they could think of all this, and then deliberately subvert, at the behest of a young and giddy colored hireling, the structure we had upraised. And what could they have said to that, I would like to know?" he asked, looking around from ...
— A Jolly Fellowship • Frank R. Stockton

... interview: he was known to have an objection to the English shaking of hands. 'Good-morning,' he said; adding a remark or two, of which et cetera may stand for an explicit rendering. It concerned the young man's prosperity: my lord's conservative plain sense was in doubt of the prospering of a giddy pate, however good a worker. His last look at the young man, who had not served him badly, held an anticipation of possibly some day seeing a tatterdemalion of shipwreck, a rueful exhibition of ideas put to the ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... she wrote, the day after I got that letter from Frosty, and said that Beryl and Aunt Lodema had just returned and were going to spend the winter in New York and join the Giddy Whirl, I will own that I was a much better—that is, prompt—correspondent. Edith is that kind of girl who can't write two pages without mentioning every one in her set; like those Local Items from little country ...
— The Range Dwellers • B. M. Bower

... perusal, conviction should compel him to retract the ungracious thought. To be plain, he is not desirous of any higher honorary distinction than the good opinion of his readers. And now, sons and daughters of Fashion! ye cameleon race of giddy elves, who flutter on the margin of the whirlpool, or float upon the surface of the silvery stream, and, hurried forwards by the impetus of the current, leave yourselves but little time for reflection, one glance will convince you that you are addressed by an old acquaintance, and, ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle

... the freedom of its saloons. A sainted soul is always elegant, and, if it will, passes unchallenged into the most guarded ring. But so will Jock the teamster pass, in some crisis that brings him thither, and find favor, as long as his head is not giddy with the new circumstance, and the iron shoes do not wish to dance in waltzes and cotillions. For there is nothing settled in manners, but the laws of behavior yield to the energy of the individual. The maiden at her first ball, ...
— Essays • Ralph Waldo Emerson

... but she is able to twist people round her little finger, and I admire that in her, at all events! How mean it all is, and how foolish! We were always middle-class, thoroughly middle-class, people. Why should we attempt to climb into the giddy heights of the fashionable world? My sisters are all for it. It's Prince S. they have to thank for poisoning their minds. Why are you so glad that ...
— The Idiot • (AKA Feodor Dostoevsky) Fyodor Dostoyevsky

... what on earth did they mean to do with me? Now, madame, we must promptly descend and make inquiries as to who was seen to leave your front door just now. There is no time to be lost.... Only I feel so infernally giddy...." ...
— Mystery at Geneva - An Improbable Tale of Singular Happenings • Rose Macaulay

... to speak of Jim, and Jim only. Then hear me. I believe that Miss Preston cares for him as far as lies in her young and giddy nature. I could not, therefore, have crushed HIS hope without deceiving him, for there are as cruel deceits prompted by what we call reason as by our love. If you think that a knowledge of this plain truth would help to save him, I beg you to be kinder to him than you have been to me,—or even, ...
— The Heritage of Dedlow Marsh and Other Tales • Bret Harte

... mystic hearted, Cleaves the quiet dome of light With its black green masses parted But by gaps of blacker night, Which the giddy moth and beetle ...
— What I Remember, Volume 2 • Thomas Adolphus Trollope

... tongue of malice is ever loud against the failings of the unfortunate. When, however, my character is insulted, and my poor reputation attacked, extenuate, I beseech you, the enormity of my crime, by relating the hardships of my sufferings. Tell to the giddy and affluent, that, strangers to the severity of want, they know not the pain of withstanding the almost irresistible calls of nature. The poor will, I trust, commiserate my misfortunes, and shed a sympathetic tear at the mournful tale of my miserable fate. I can say no more. Heaven have ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 10, Issue 285, December 1, 1827 • Various

... could still hear her laughing, and to his utter astonishment with her disappearance the floor seemed to change its level. A giddy feeling seized him; he put his feet to the floor; it was unmistakably wet and oozing. He hurriedly clothed himself, still accompanied by the strange feeling of oscillation and giddiness, and passed though the opening ...
— Mr. Jack Hamlin's Mediation and Other Stories • Bret Harte

... old gentlemen were purple in the face. Long Kirby selected a small man in the crowd, and bashed his hat down over his eyes. While Tammas, Rob Saunderson, Tupper, Hoppin, Londesley, and the rest joined hands and went raving round like so many giddy girls. ...
— Bob, Son of Battle • Alfred Ollivant

... like those of Newport, so far as congruity with a watering-place goes, pains the taste like a false note in music. Atlantic City pauses halfway between the stone house and the tent, and erects herself in woodwork. A quantity of bright, rather giddy-looking structures, with much open-work and carved ruffling about the eaves and balconies, are poised lightly on the sand, following the course of the two main avenues which lead parallel with the shore, and the series of short, straight, direct streets which leap across them and run eagerly for ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - Vol. XI, No. 27, June, 1873 • Various

... hill of which I had taken bearings from Donkia pass, and a few miles further, on rounding a great spur of Kinchinjunga, I arrived in sight of Cholamoo lakes, with the Donkia mountain rearing its stupendous precipices of rock and ice on the east. My pony was knocked up, and I felt very giddy from the exertion and elevation; I had broken his bridle, and so led him on by my plaid for the last few miles to the banks of the lake; and there, with the pleasant sound of the waters rippling at my feet, I yielded ...
— Himalayan Journals (Complete) • J. D. Hooker

... Dublin: here, by the progress he made in his studies, he acquired a considerable reputation[1], but it does not appear, that he there took his degree of bachelor of arts; for his disposition being volatile and giddy, he soon grew weary of a dull collegiate life; and his own opinion of it, in that sense, he afterwards freely enough displayed in several parts of his comedies, and other writings. Besides, the expence of it, without any immediate prospect of returns, might be inconsistent with his circumstances. ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Vol. III • Theophilus Cibber

... thanks to him, the Continent has had to join in a giddy race of armaments, drying up the sources of economic development and exposing our finances to a crisis which we shrank from discussing. We must have done with this crowned comedian, poet, musician, sailor, warrior, pastor; this ...
— History of the American Negro in the Great World War • W. Allison Sweeney

... great Comic poet remains without a fellow. A society of cultivated men and women is required, wherein ideas are current and the perceptions quick, that he may be supplied with matter and an audience. The semi-barbarism of merely giddy communities, and feverish emotional periods, repel him; and also a state of marked social inequality of the sexes; nor can he whose business is to address the mind be understood where there is not a moderate ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... serpent became seriously elongated, but though the beginning was now a grey blotch in the mud, the end was not. I might beat up a little foam with the chain, and see below a giddy dance or at least lively flourishes and swaying. Yet there was something lacking—the end. But for that very commonplace default did there not here exist a very good beginning for another ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield

... there was a wild, giddy rush—a roaring of wind and a sprinkling of fine snow. The sled, freighted with its living burden, was dashing like a meteor down the ...
— The Camp in the Snow - Besiedged by Danger • William Murray Graydon

... the guess extraordinary. He preserved an impenetrable air. But he had spoken enough to set that giddy head spinning. ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... taken up short by the excuses which their sugary explanations seem to furnish. "Weak was that creature, and giddy, and pliable under temptation. She was drawn towards evil by her lust." Alas! in the wretchedness, the hunger of those days, nothing of that kind could have ruffled her even into a hellish rage. An amorous woman, jealous and forsaken, a child hunted out by her step-mother, a mother beaten by ...
— La Sorciere: The Witch of the Middle Ages • Jules Michelet

... "A vain, giddy goose!" was her rapid estimate of Blanche; wherein, if she did Blanche a little injustice, there was some element of truth. "Calm and deep, like a river," she said to herself of Lysken: and ...
— Clare Avery - A Story of the Spanish Armada • Emily Sarah Holt

... to the press with his small morsel of imbecility, his little piece of favourite nonsense, and is not easy till he sees his impertinence stitched in blue covers. Some one possesses the vivacity of a harlequin—he is fuddled with animal spirits, giddy with constitutional joy; in such a state, he must write or burst: a discharge of ink is an evacuation absolutely necessary to avoid fatal and plethoric congestion. A musty and limited pedant yellows himself a little among rolls and records, ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 461 - Volume 18, New Series, October 30, 1852 • Various

... finished the removal of her veil, which the astute Julia had begun. "No more gloomy, ghostly grottos for Emily Elizabeth. Let the past and the future take care care of itself. Hurrah for the glorious present! I hope you giddy, gorgeous creatures can appreciate my noble, self-sacrificing spirit. While you have been engaged in wearing your costliest raiment and eating up a delectable dinner, I've been obliged to lurk like a criminal in J. Elfreda's room, attired ...
— Grace Harlowe's Golden Summer • Jessie Graham Flower

... you know—has some wonderful way of finding out where I go; and he keeps all the time appearing and disappearing in the very strangest manner; and when I saw him on the roof of the Cathedral it really made me feel quite giddy. He is so determined to win me that I'm afraid to look round. He takes the commonest civility as encouragement. And then, you know—there it is—I really can't ...
— The American Baron • James De Mille

... be said about the creative power of gooseflesh. If Shakespeare had been a tinman he could not have felt the giddy height and grandeur of the Dover Cliffs; Ibsen could not have wrought the climbing of the steeple into the crisis and calamity of "The Master Builder"; Teufelsdroeckh could not have uttered his extraordinary night thoughts above the town of Weissnichtwo; "Prometheus Bound" would have ...
— Journeys to Bagdad • Charles S. Brooks

... of sanguine, hopeful youth, Are chiefly dreams alone, Whose falseness often breaks the heart, Or turns it into stone. Fame's or ambition's giddy height Is only seldom gain'd, And often half the pleasure leaves, Just when ...
— Canada and Other Poems • T.F. Young

... ghost looked after him, craning his neck from side to side and twisting it round and round in the vain attempt to follow the rapid movements of the runner. When the ghost was supposed to be quite giddy with this unwonted exercise, the mother's brother made a sudden dart away with the child in his arms, the bearers fairly bolted with the corpse to the grave, and before he could collect his scattered wits grandfather was safely landed in his ...
— The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead, Volume I (of 3) • Sir James George Frazer

... when they are thronged by people ascending and descending, and by vendors of all sorts of Christmas prints and images. On the Octave of the Epiphany there is a great procession, ending with the blessing of Rome by the Holy Child. The Bambino is carried out to the space at the top of the giddy flight of marble steps, and a priest raises it on high and solemnly ...
— Christmas in Ritual and Tradition, Christian and Pagan • Clement A. Miles

... You thought yourself better entitled to your brother's property than this giddy girl. So did I; and it was my duty to see justice done. A matter of conscience with me, upon ...
— Hatchie, the Guardian Slave; or, The Heiress of Bellevue • Warren T. Ashton

... really fine thing about space. It is topsy-turvy. You have only to climb far enough towards the morning star to feel that you are coming down to it. You have only to dive deep enough into the abyss to feel that you are rising. That is the only glory of this universe—it is a giddy universe." ...
— The Ball and The Cross • G.K. Chesterton

... in the name of the Most Holy Trinity, upon an Office, to which Divine Providence has appointed, and the gracious and potent hand of a great King has raised me. Great as is the dignity [giddy height of Mayoralty in Landshut], though undeserved, which the Ever-Merciful has thus conferred upon me, equally great and much greater is the burden connected therewith. I confess"—He confesses, in high-stalking earnest wooden language very foreign to us ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XIII. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle

... feat of daring only performed by reckless boys and young men who were reared on the littoral, and who were strong and spirited craigsmen by inheritance and by familiarity with the dangerous sport of egg-collecting among the giddy heights of precipices on which, if they took but one false step, they might be ...
— Fifty-Two Stories For Girls • Various

... boil up around the glaciers; clouds Rise curling fast beneath me, white and sulphury, Like foam from the roused ocean of deep Hell,[aw] Whose every wave breaks on a living shore, Heaped with the damned like pebbles.—I am giddy.[125] ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron

... most noble Festus!" Have you ever met a perfect character? Do we not sometimes rather exchange faults, than get rid of them? For instance, I am perhaps tired with, and shocked at a life too much the prey of giddy inconsistencies and thoughtless follies; by degrees I grow sober, prudent, and statedly pious—I say statedly, because the most unaffected devotion is not at all inconsistent with my first character—I join the world in congratulating ...
— The Letters of Robert Burns • Robert Burns

... any matrimonial hopes with her, and he thought his fortune as likely to profit from the civility of her friends as of herself. For Morrice, however flighty, and wild, had always at heart the study of his own interest; and though from a giddy forwardness of disposition he often gave offence, his meaning and his serious attention was not the less directed to the advancement of his own affairs: he formed no connection from which he hoped not some benefit, and he considered ...
— Cecilia vol. 2 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)

... made by the unfortunate youth was momentary. Faint from the blood he had lost, and giddy from the excitement of his feelings, he sank back exhausted on his pillow, and ...
— Wacousta: A Tale of the Pontiac Conspiracy (Complete) • John Richardson

... terror to which in his late moment of real peril he had been a stranger; the gilding and mirrors blinded his eyes; even the faint perfume seemed to him an unhallowed incense, and turned him sick and giddy. Accustomed as he had been to disease and misery in its humblest places and meanest surroundings, the wounded desperado lying in laces and fine linen seemed to him monstrous and unnatural. It required all his self-abnegation, all his sense of duty, all his deep pity, and all the instinctive tact ...
— By Shore and Sedge • Bret Harte

... to see the skill with which he took advantage of the slightest irregularities of the bark or obliquity of the stem to aid his ascent, jerking the stiff creeper a few feet higher when he had found a firm hold for his bare foot. It almost made me giddy to look at him as he rapidly got up—thirty, forty, fifty feet above the ground; and I kept wondering how he could possibly mount the next few feet of straight smooth trunk. Still, however, he kept ...
— The Malay Archipelago - Volume I. (of II.) • Alfred Russel Wallace

... heavily upon his hands. He thought the old reaper weary and sluggish, for the scythe flies fast only when we employ or enjoy the moments. The autumn blast was beginning to lend a thousand bright colors to the trees, and the giddy leaves, like giddy mortals, threw off their simple green for the gaudy livery that was but a prelude to their fall—for the beauty that, like the dying note of the swan, was but the beauty of death. It was the season of all others for the chase, that ...
— The Truce of God - A Tale of the Eleventh Century • George Henry Miles

... haven't had a bite to eat since you got here; have you?" She shook her head; she hadn't thought of such a thing as eating. When had she eaten last? Not since she and Gratton, motoring up from San Francisco, had stopped at the wayside lunch-counter? Perhaps that was why this giddy faintness troubled her, why the blood drummed in ...
— The Everlasting Whisper • Jackson Gregory

... havigi. Get (with infinitive) igi, igxi. Get dirty malpurigxi. Get ready pretigi, pretigxi. Ghastly palega. Gherkin kukumeto. Ghost fantomo. Giant grandegulo. Gibbet pendigilo. Gibbous gxiba. Gibe moki. Giddiness kapturno. Giddy, to make kapturnigi. Gift donaco. Gift, to make a donaci. Gifted talenta. Gild orumi. Gill (fish) branko. Gilliflower levkojo. Gimlet borileto. Gin gxino. Ginger zingibro. Gingerbread ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes

... it from its height, closed its wings, and bore it far away, sternly to sleep amid the tumults of rebellion, and the thunder of battle. The first act of war had begun. The long night of four years had set in. While the giddy traitors whirled in a maze of exhilaration, dim horrors were already advancing, that were ere long to fill the land with blood. To-day you are returned again. We devoutly join with you in thanksgiving to Almighty God that he has spared your honored life, ...
— The World's Best Orations, Vol. 1 (of 10) • Various

... him, softened and subdued by habitual contemplation, but in the feverish sense of his own upstart self-importance. By aiming to fix, he is become the slave of opinion. He is a tool, a part of a machine that never stands still, and is sick and giddy with the ceaseless motion. He has no satisfaction but in the reflection of his own image in the public gaze—but in the repetition of his own name in the public ear. He himself is mixed up with and spoils everything. ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt

... feel very giddy yesterday evening," observed Alexander, "but this morning I have no unpleasant sensation whatever. I believe that some people ...
— The Mission • Frederick Marryat

... circumstances; or rather, it will vary much with circumstances. A class of pupils somewhat advanced in their studies, and understanding and feeling the value of knowledge, will need very little of such effort as this; while young and giddy children, who have been accustomed to dislike books and school, and every thing connected with them, will need more. It ought, however, in all cases, to be made a means, not an end;—the means to lead on a pupil to an interest in progress in knowledge itself, which is, after all, ...
— The Teacher - Or, Moral Influences Employed in the Instruction and - Government of the Young • Jacob Abbott

... committed upon his father, when he stole ten cents, and it was upon this occasion that he first experienced the peculiar bodily and mental sensations. He describes these in his own words as follows, "I begin to feel giddy and restless and feel as if I have to do something. This feeling becomes gradually more marked until I feel compelled to enter a house and steal. While stealing I become quite excited, involuntarily, begin to pant, perspire and breathe rapidly as if I had ...
— Studies in Forensic Psychiatry • Bernard Glueck

... down to take vengeance for the past—for they were old enemies, Marcus and they—when, all at once, there was a fierce, deep, growling bark, a rush, a man's deep voice as if encouraging a dog, and Marcus was free, to stand there breathless and giddy, listening to the retreating steps of his foes and the shouts to the dog of Serge, who had come to his help ...
— Marcus: the Young Centurion • George Manville Fenn

... a pity, does it not? at least mamma says so; she thinks I am too young and giddy to know my own mind; and yet she is very fond of Neville—Mr. Sinclair, I mean. She will have it that we are not a bit suited to each other, and I dare say she is right, for certainly we do not think alike on a ...
— Our Bessie • Rosa Nouchette Carey

... enough and to spare. So they wrote to their brother to meet them on the platform, scarcely believing that they could be there in so short a time from London; for they never had travelled by rail before; and they set forth in wonderful spirits, and laughed at the strange, giddy rush of the travelling, and made bets with each other about punctual time (for trains kept much better time while new), and, as long as they could time it, they kept time to a second. But, sad to relate, ...
— Erema - My Father's Sin • R. D. Blackmore

... all his surmises about the sources of the Nile. His discoveries were never mere happy guesses or vague descriptions from the accounts of natives; each spot was determined with the utmost precision, though at the time his head might be giddy from fever or his body tormented with pain. He strove after an accurate notion of the form and structure of the continent; Investigated its geology, hydrography, botany, and zooelogy; and grappled with the two great ...
— The Personal Life Of David Livingstone • William Garden Blaikie

... major, as, giddy and confused, I was swinging my arms about, hitting nothing half the time, and never getting one blow home with any force to signify, and at last, after a few minutes of burning rage and confusion, during which I had received quite a shower ...
— Burr Junior • G. Manville Fenn

... that tainted atmosphere of selfishness, and worldliness, and corruption, into which he had been plunged since his arrival in England. Sometimes the young man's fate, or choice, or weakness, leads him into the fellowship of the giddy and vain; happy he, whose lot makes him acquainted with the wiser company, whose lamps are trimmed, and whose pure hearts keep ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray

... Skimmer and his assistants were visible, in the midst of the gallant gear, perched on the giddy yards. Seen by that light, with his peculiar attire, his firm and certain step, and his resolute air, the free-trader resembled some fancied sea-god, who, secure in his immortal immunities, had come to act his part in that awful but exciting ...
— The Water-Witch or, The Skimmer of the Seas • James Fenimore Cooper

... ladies may I introduce him to, as a partner? He keeps perfect time; he never gets tired; he won't kick you or tread on your dress; he will hold you as firmly as you like, and go as quickly or as slowly as you please; he never gets giddy; and he is full of conversation. Come, speak up for ...
— Novel Notes • Jerome K. Jerome

... (for roads I shall not call them) consisted chiefly of stony moors, bogs, rugged, rapid fords, declivities of hills, entangling woods, and giddy precipices. You will say this is a dreadful catalogue to be read to him that is about to take a Highland journey. I have not mentioned the valleys, for they are few in number, far divided asunder, and generally the roads through them ...
— The Jacobite Rebellions (1689-1746) - (Bell's Scottish History Source Books.) • James Pringle Thomson



Words linked to "Giddy" :   frivolous, light-headed, giddiness, empty-headed, lightheaded, woozy, dizzy, vertiginous



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