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Trimmer   Listen
noun
Trimmer  n.  
1.
One who trims, arranges, fits, or ornaments.
2.
One who does not adopt extreme opinions in politics, or the like; one who fluctuates between parties, so as to appear to favor each; a timeserver. "Thus Halifax was a trimmer on principle."
3.
An instrument with which trimming is done.
4.
(Arch.) A beam, into which are framed the ends of headers in floor framing, as when a hole is to be left for stairs, or to avoid bringing joists near chimneys, and the like.
5.
(Coal Storage) An apparatus used for piling the coal in gradually increasing piles made by building up at the point of the cone or top of the prism.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Trimmer" Quotes from Famous Books



... design of invasion: he had laboured, even when the Dutch were in full march towards London, to effect a reconciliation; and he had never deserted James till James had deserted the throne. But, from the moment of that shameful flight, the sagacious Trimmer, convinced that compromise was thenceforth impossible, had taken a decided part. He had distinguished himself preeminently in the Convention: nor was it without a peculiar propriety that he had been appointed to the honourable office of tendering the crown, in the name of ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 3 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... boy, brother," she said, "to come thus early home; and I have some good news for your reward. The groom has fetched back Trimmer—He was lying by the dead hare, and he had chased him as far as Drumlyford—the shepherd had carried him to the shieling, till ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott

... woman, when she is sure that she is right. And indeed if love had never sped me straight to the heart of Lorna (compared to whom, Ruth was no more than the thief is to the candle), who knows but what I might have yielded to the law of nature, that thorough trimmer of balances, and verified the proverb that the giant ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore

... consequently had seen and done things that more well-to-do travellers are debarred from. He had housed amongst the most iniquitous places on God's earth, from Callao to Port Said; he had wandered from Yokohama to Mandalay; he had been trimmer on a Shaw-Savile boat; he had served as mate on a Genovese ...
— The Recipe for Diamonds • Charles John Cutcliffe Wright Hyne

... if my notions clear though rudely thrown And loosely scattered in my poesie, May lend men light till the dead Night be gone, And Morning fresh with roses strew the skie: It is enough, I meant no trimmer frame Or by nice ...
— Democritus Platonissans • Henry More

... He excites his own intensity of feeling in the jury or audience that he is addressing. His client's cause is emphatically his own. He is equal to any emergency of attack or defence. If he believes in a person or cause, he believes fully and without reservation; thus he is no trimmer or half-and-half advocate. He has great capacity for labor, and immense power of application, extremely industrious habits, and what may be called a nervous intellectuality, which, in athletic phrase, gives him great staying power, a most important quality ...
— Bay State Monthly, Vol. I, No. 3, March, 1884 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various

... that; but some half-starvin' oiler or, maybe, trimmer must ha' opened it awhile to mak' sure o' leavin' the Grotkau. It's a demoralisin' thing to see an engine-room flood up after any accident to the gear—demoralisin' and deceptive both. Aweel, the man got what he wanted, for they went aboard the ...
— The Day's Work, Volume 1 • Rudyard Kipling

... for no critic. I ain't by nater a weigher or trimmer and I don't care a durn for what ain't my business. When I see my business I settle it in my own way!"—there was almost a warning in this. "I'm dead tired, root and branch. I'm goin' ter take a bite an' turn in. I may sleep a couple o' days; ...
— The Man Thou Gavest • Harriet T. Comstock

... scholar, and it was his scholarship which had obtained for him the proud position of secretary to the provident society styled the Queen's Arms Slate Club. His respectability and his learning combined had enabled him to win with dignity the hand of Susie Trimmer, the grocer's daughter, to whom he had been engaged about a year. The village could not make up its mind concerning that match; without doubt it was a social victory for Froyle, but everyone wondered that so sedate and sagacious a man should have seen ...
— Tales of the Five Towns • Arnold Bennett

... days of the Republic. Although Mrs. Quincy made every effort to procure Miss Edgeworth's stories for her family, because, in her opinion, they were better for reading aloud than were the works of Hannah More, Mrs. Trimmer and Mrs. Chapone, she chose extracts from Shakespeare, Milton, Addison, and Goldsmith. Indeed, if it were possible to ask our great-grandparents what books they remembered reading in their childhood, I think we should find that beyond somewhat hazy recollections ...
— Library Work with Children • Alice I. Hazeltine

... not see faces, of course. But the grey coat on the one looked as if its shoulders had been more carefully brushed than had been the case with the other; the spotless pantaloons, which seemed to be just out of the laundress's basket, as I suppose they were, sat with a trimmer perfection in one case than in the other. Preston's pocket gaped, and was, I noticed, a little bit ripped; and when my eye got down to the shoes, his had not the black gloss of his companion's. With that one there was not, I think, a thread awry. And then, there was ...
— Daisy • Elizabeth Wetherell

... of this school and period was very large, and, had we space, would be worth dealing with at length—as in the instances of the famous Sandford and Merton (1783-1789) by Thomas Day, Richard Edgeworth's friend, of Mrs. Trimmer's Story of the Robins, and others. It led up to the definitely religious school of children's books, first evangelical, then tractarian, with which we shall deal later: but was itself as a rule utilitarian—or sentimental—moral rather than directly religious. ...
— The English Novel • George Saintsbury

... day, when eyes are dimmer, Old Death will have his chance to scoff; For up his sleeve he's got a trimmer Bound to come a yard from the off! It'll do me down! But if he's a chap, Sir, Able to tell a job well done, No doubt he'll give his foe a clap, Sir, Walkin' out of ...
— More Cricket Songs • Norman Gale

... treaty which he had negotiated at Basel to conclude the French and Spanish revolutionary wars,—the real ruler, soothing the King's sensibilities and gratifying the Queen's passions. To preserve his ascendancy this trimmer had thrown in his lot with Napoleon; but, faithless and perfidious, he would gladly have rejected that or any other protection to fly to one he believed stronger. In any centralized monarchy the administrative law is the backbone; in Spain the administration was feeble and ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. III. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane

... "You are a trimmer. Cannot you see that if the whole revenue of the States be taken into the power of Congress, it will prove a band to draw us so close together as not to leave the smallest interstice ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton

... His whole life had been one of trimming; he had made his way by trimming; he had gained the governor's chair by yielding to the opinions of others. This training combined perfectly with the natural disposition of a chameleon. He was, or became, a sincere trimmer, taking his colour and his temporary beliefs from those with whom he happened to be. His judgment often stuck at trifles, and his opinions were quickly heated but as quickly cooled. His private morals were none of the best, which gave certain men ...
— The Gray Dawn • Stewart Edward White

... creature of salary, without the conscience of government. Mortified at the discovery, and stung by disappointment, you betake yourself to the sad expedients of duplicity. You try the sorry game of a trimmer in your progress to the acts of an incendiary. You give no honest support either to the government or the people; observing, with regard to both prince and people, the most impartial treachery and desertion, you justify the suspicion of your Sovereign, by betraying ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick

... cried out joyfully, as he rode up to the white paling which separated the trim lawn and trimmer flower-garden from the rough park-like ground in ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

... carried on below. How could he face her, or her mother, or even her maid, now he had cognisance of this naughty calumny? "Of course Hannah had contradicted it?" "Of course I have a done no such indeed," replied Master Clive's old friend; "of course I have set 'em down a bit; for when little Trimmer said it, and she supposed it was all settled between you, seeing how it had been a going on in foreign parts last year, Mrs. Pincott says, 'Hold your silly tongue, Trimmer,' she says; 'Miss Ethel marry a painter, indeed, ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray

... kept us at work for a given number of hours during the day; tatting by our sides as we practised our scales, or roasting her petticoats over the fire, whilst Matilda and I read Mrs. Markham's England or Mrs. Trimmer's Bible Lessons aloud by turns to full-stops. But when lessons were over Miss Perry was quite as glad as we were, and the subjects of our studies had as little to do with our holiday hours as a Sunday sermon with the rest ...
— Six to Sixteen - A Story for Girls • Juliana Horatia Ewing

... he said that the Father had suffered with the Son." [75:3] Hence Ignatius, in these Epistles, startles us by such expressions as "the blood of God," [75:4] and "the passion of my God." [75:5] Callistus is accused by Hippolytus as a trimmer prepared, as occasion served, to conciliate different parties in the Church by appearing to adopt their views. Sometimes he sided with Hippolytus, and sometimes with those opposed to him; hence it is that the theology taught in these letters is of a very equivocal character. Dr. Lightfoot has ...
— The Ignatian Epistles Entirely Spurious • W. D. (William Dool) Killen

... "The Piper," to many groups of Irishmen, for it cut alike at the Parliamentary Nationalists, the Sein Feiner, and the shoneen. Even though one admires the courage of the Piper and Black Mike, one realizes the futility of both, and of Larry the Talker, Tim the Trimmer, and Pat Dennehy, all typical of too many men in Ireland to be endurable to the usual theatre audience. There is a white heat of feeling, however, under the play that to some degree makes one forget its rather indifferent writing, its ...
— Irish Plays and Playwrights • Cornelius Weygandt

... this was not the end of the story. Many readers are doubtless familiar with Halifax's remark when Lawrence Hyde, Earl of Rochester, was removed from the post of First Lord of the Treasury and installed in that of Lord President. "I have seen people kicked downstairs," remarked the great Trimmer, "but my Lord Rochester is the first person that I ever saw kicked up-stairs."[77] In like manner the Lieutenant-Governor's clerk was soon afterwards kicked up-stairs, by being appointed Registrar ...
— The Story of the Upper Canada Rebellion, Volume 1 • John Charles Dent

... tenderer, the hens being careful never to over-fatigue themselves, and the peacocks and the geese not to exhaust themselves in screaming and cackling. All nature, alive and dead, takes upon itself a trimmer and more perfect seeming ...
— Aurelian - or, Rome in the Third Century • William Ware

... down out of sight ag'in; and so she hadn't no ch'ice but just to haul down her colours as soon as you opened fire. Well, you've made a pretty prize, Harry, and I congratulate ye with all my heart. A trimmer model, or one better ballasted with the right sort of feelin's and idees, no man need wish to sail the v'y'ge of life in company with, and as to her being fond of ye, why, she couldn't help showing of it, try all she would. She couldn't talk of nothing else from morning to night but you. ...
— For Treasure Bound • Harry Collingwood

... something Mis' Adkins said to Mis' Amos Trimmer the other afternoon. Mis' Trimmer was calling on Mis' Adkins. I couldn't help overhearing unless I went outdoors, and it was snowing and I had ...
— The Copy-Cat and Other Stories • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman

... day-star with a bolder eye 30 Hath lit each dew-drop on our trimmer lawn! Yet not for this, if wise, shall we decry The spots and struggles of the timid Dawn; Lest so we tempt th' approaching Noon to scorn The mists and painted ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge

... on a Saturday evening the Young Gent would draw down his six dollars worth of salary and chase himself to the barber shop, where the Bolivian lawn trimmer would put a crimp in his mustache and plaster his forehead with three cents worth of hair and ...
— You Should Worry Says John Henry • George V. Hobart

... The solid little building looked so quiet and well cared for in the bright sunshine, which shone on the polished window-panes and on the bright red top of the lantern, where he could see the lamp-trimmer going round on his little gallery, ...
— Garman and Worse - A Norwegian Novel • Alexander Lange Kielland

... have a care and look to thyself; content not thyself with only that which will maintain thee in a profession, for that may be done without saving grace; but I advise thee to go to Aaron, to Christ the trimmer of our lamps, and beg of him thy vessel full of oil, that is, grace for the seasoning of thy heart, that thou mayest have wherewith not only to bear thee up now, but at the day of the bridegroom's coming when many a lamp will go out and many a ...
— The Riches of Bunyan • Jeremiah Rev. Chaplin

... The window-trimmer must not make the mistake of thinking that the showiest stocks are the most salable. The advertiser must not make the mistake of thinking that the showiest ...
— The Clock that Had no Hands - And Nineteen Other Essays About Advertising • Herbert Kaufman

... reached by the scrapers); two gamble-men; one gutter; one hose-boy; one slide-boy; one splitter (who fastens the animal open to facilitate cooling); two attendants upon the cutters; one weigher; two cleaver-men; four knife-men; one ham-trimmer; one shoulder-trimmer; one packer; six ham-salters; one weigher and brander; one lard-man; one book-keeper; seven porters and laborers,—in all, fifty men. The system therefore, enables one man to convert into pork thirty hogs a day. The proprietors of these packing-houses pay the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 118, August, 1867 • Various

... before the nations; and how willing we are to admit that we should rather tomorrow shake the manly hand of the English Joe Sheard of Toronto, open enemy and all as he is, than touch the vile, clammy paw of such repulsive creatures as compose the snake-like breed of which this same paltry and sordid trimmer is a true representative. Of course, Greaves and he understood each other at once—they were both traitors alike; only that the former was lavish of money in attaining his nefarious ends, while the latter would crawl to whatever goal he had in view, through any description of filth ...
— Ridgeway - An Historical Romance of the Fenian Invasion of Canada • Scian Dubh

... and at length the bird, in spite of all his adversary's attempts to the contrary, leads the "greedy game of the deep" to the shore, and delivers it to his master. This is, certainly, a very curious mode of taking pike, and the live trimmer looks very puzzled when the voracious fish is hooked; but the following anecdote, taken from the scrap-book of Mr. M'Diarmid, shows that a Scotchman once adopted the same method, though for a different reason. "Several years ...
— Le Morvan, [A District of France,] Its Wild Sports, Vineyards and Forests; with Legends, Antiquities, Rural and Local Sketches • Henri de Crignelle

... words, "Mr. Fairlegh was doing nothing of the sort; he knows better than to think of such a thing. And if he didn't, do you suppose I should sit here and allow him to take such liberties? But I believe it's all your nonsense—and where you got such strange ideas I'm sure I can't tell; not out of Mrs. Trimmer's Sacred History, I'm certain, though you used to read it with me every Sunday afternoon when you were a good little boy, trying to look out of the window all the time, instead of paying proper attention ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley

... on the farm buildings and large gates, consisted of Venetian red, a dry paint, and oil, five to eight pounds of paint to the gallon of oil. A white trimmer was used on the face boards of ...
— The Choctaw Freedmen - and The Story of Oak Hill Industrial Academy • Robert Elliott Flickinger

... afternoon. I'll spare you a detailed description of my first fast with colonics; you'll read about others shortly. In the end I withstood the boredom of water fasting for 17 days. During the fast I had about 7 colonics. I ended up feeling great, much trimmer, with an enormous rebirth of energy. And when I resumed eating it turned out to be slightly easier to control my dietary habits ...
— How and When to Be Your Own Doctor • Dr. Isabelle A. Moser with Steve Solomon

... varieties Thyroid cartilage, description of the Toes, sore number of Tongue, description of the mode of drinking worming blain Torsion, mode of performing forceps Training of the greyhound of the foxhound of the pointer or setter Trimmer. Mr., description of the Spanish sheep-dog Trunk, bones of the Tumour, phlegmonous, nature and treatment of Turkish dog, description of the greyhound, description of the Turnside, nature and treatment of Turnspit, description of ...
— The Dog - A nineteenth-century dog-lovers' manual, - a combination of the essential and the esoteric. • William Youatt

... are coming round," he said, and as he spoke the door opened to admit these gentlemen. Of the same height, but different appearance, their manner was faintly jocular, faintly supercilious, as if they tolerated everything. The one whose name was Trimmer had patches of red on his large cheek-bones, and on his cheeks a bluish tint. His lips were rather full, so that he had a likeness to a spider. Washer, who was thin and ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... bents which the midstream washes, Or hang in the lift 'neath a white cloud's hem; They need no parasols, no goloshes; And good Mrs. Trimmer she feedeth them. ...
— Fly Leaves • C. S. Calverley

... glance the whole of his voluminous person from his feet to the high crown of his soft black hat, which sat like an absurd flanged cone on his big head. The grotesque and massive aspect of that deck hand (I suppose he was that—very likely the lamp-trimmer) surprised me very much. My course of reading, of dreaming, and longing for the sea had not prepared me for a sea brother of that sort. I never met again a figure in the least like his except in the illustrations ...
— A Personal Record • Joseph Conrad

... Roger Ducos, and Moulin; the first, an elderly respectable advocate; the second, a Girondin by early associations, but a trimmer by instinct, and therefore easily gained over by Sieyes; while the recommendation of the third, Moulin, seem to have been his political nullity and some third-rate military services in the Vendean war. Yet the Directory ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose

... up and seen Lurindy, after all, but his ship was ready for sea just as he was; and I thought it was about as well, for he wasn't looking his prettiest. And so he declared I was the neatest little trimmer that ever trod water, and he believed he should know a Ruggles by the cut of her jib, (I wonder if he'd have known Aunt Mimy,) and if ever he went master, he'd name his ship for me, and call it the Sister of Charity. And he kissed me on both cheeks, ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 40, February, 1861 • Various

... one of fifty people: from a dapper salesman in a New York or Chicago wholesale millinery house; from Otis Cowan, cashier of the First National Bank of Chippewa; from Julia Gold, her head milliner and trimmer; from almost any one, in fact, except a member of her own family. They knew her least of all, as is often true of one's own people. Her three married sisters—Grace in Seattle, Ella in Chicago, and Flora in Chippewa—regarded her with a rather affectionate ...
— Half Portions • Edna Ferber

... faces death soberly and decently in forms far more terrible than were ever dreamt of by his forefathers. When the Calliope steamed out of Apia Harbour in the hurricane of March, 1889, the youngest grimy coal-trimmer, whose sole duty it was to silently shovel coal, even though his last moment came to him while doing it, never once asked if the ship was making way. All hands in this department were on duty for sixteen hours, and during that time no sound was heard, save the ring of the shovels ...
— The Naval Pioneers of Australia • Louis Becke and Walter Jeffery

... not easy to see that much weight should be attached to Geoffroy St. Hilaire's opinion. He seems to have been a person of hesitating temperament, under an impression that there was an opening just then through which a judicious trimmer might pass himself in among men of greater power. If his son has described his teaching correctly, it amounts practically to a bona fide endorsement of what Buffon can only be considered to have pretended to believe. ...
— Evolution, Old & New - Or, the Theories of Buffon, Dr. Erasmus Darwin and Lamarck, - as compared with that of Charles Darwin • Samuel Butler

... views; in his jungle-like garden he grew aquatic plants which he often copied in foregrounds. He kept a boat for fishing and marine sketching; also a gig and an old cropped-eared horse, with which he made sketching excursions. He made at this time the acquaintance of Rev. Mr. Trimmer, the rector of the church at Heston, who was a lover of art, and often took journeys with Turner. While visiting at the rectory Turner regularly attended church in proper form; and finally he wrote a note to Mr. ...
— A History of Art for Beginners and Students: Painting, Sculpture, Architecture - Painting • Clara Erskine Clement

... chargeth the defendant that he was a botcher, cheese-eater, and trimmer of man's flesh embalmed, which in the arsiversy swagfall tumble was not found true, as by the defendant ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais

... God there may be no troubles, lad," he answered; "but you need give me no promise. I would rather see you in the Whig ranks than a trimmer, for the ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... the real author of the Character of a Trimmer, which, for a time, went under the name of his kinsman, Sir ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... diameter, we were immediately greeted by the hippo, who snorted and roared as we approached, but quickly dived, and the buoyant float ran along the surface, directing his course in the same manner as the cork of a trimmer with a pike upon the hook. Several times he appeared, but, as he invariably faced us, I could not obtain a favourable shot; I therefore sent the old hunter round the pool, and he, swimming the river, advanced to the opposite side, and attracted the attention of the hippo who immediately ...
— The Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia • Samuel W. Baker

... another. I hope you will never have the same treatment that I have met with; neither will you. I am single in my circumstances—a species apart in the political society; and they, who dare to attack no one else, may attack me. Chesterfield says, I have made a coalition of Wig, Tory, Trimmer, and Jacobite against myself. Be it so. I have Truth, that is stronger than all of them, on my side; and, in her company, and avowed by her, I have more satisfaction than their applause and their favour ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole

... country of high hills, rich valleys, scattered forests, and swift streams of clear water. Harry liked this Northern land, which was yet not so far from the South. It was not more beautiful than his own Kentucky, but it was much trimmer and neater than the states toward the Gulf. He saw all about him the evidences of free labor, the proof that man worked more readily, and with better results, when success or failure were ...
— The Shades of the Wilderness • Joseph A. Altsheler

... Catholic fanatic; Charles IX of France was a weak mind, of no definite religious conviction, but used by the Catholics to bring about the massacre of seventy thousand Huguenots; Henry IV of France was probably a Huguenot in genuine feeling, but a political trimmer, a daring and brilliant soldier, a frenzied devotee of women, religion giving him small concern, and his change from Huguenotism to Catholicism a circumstance as trifling as the exchange of his hunter's paraphernalia for court apparel; Queen Elizabeth was as nearly devoid of ...
— A Hero and Some Other Folks • William A. Quayle

... years later a new machine made its appearance. This one had a knife held rigidly in the frame of the machine, and the books were clamped into a carriage drawn up by a chain against the edge of the knife. It was the most rapid trimmer that had appeared, and held its position for a good many years; but in the meantime, for general work, the machines with a descending slanting knife ...
— The Building of a Book • Various

... or of the Roman people, he naturally inquires who these people were; some short explanation may be given, so as to leave curiosity yet unsatisfied. The prints of the Roman emperors' heads, and Mrs. Trimmer's prints of the remarkable events in the Roman and English history, will entertain children. Madame de Silleri, in her Adela and Theodore, describes historical hangings, which she found advantageous to her pupils. In a prince's palace, or a nobleman's palace, such hangings would be suitable ...
— Practical Education, Volume I • Maria Edgeworth

... dear friend, are my sentiments, by which you will see I was right in saying, I am neither federalist nor anti-federalist; that I am of neither party, nor yet a trimmer between parties. These, my opinions, I wrote, within a few hours after I had read the constitution, to one or two friends in America. I had not then read one single word printed on the subject. I never had an opinion in politics or religion, which I was afraid to own. A costive ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson

... ancestor of a collateral branch becomes Grand Master of the religious Order of the Teutonic Knights, and this fact induces Master Martin Luther, who was much more of a realist and a time-server and a trimmer than theologians give him credit for, to advise the Hohenzollern Grand Master to secularize his knights, to confiscate the whole Church property of the Order, and to make himself the ...
— German Problems and Personalities • Charles Sarolea

... be busier in about a minute, if I don't see you right now," said the man addressed as Trimmer, a raw, bull-like lumberman from the mountains. "Been waitin' ...
— The Furnace of Gold • Philip Verrill Mighels

... not keep quiet! It's a shame that we have to take our medicine while that trimmer, Tod Boreck, goes free. He ought to have been with us, and he would be, only he's trying to get away ...
— Tom Swift and his Motor-boat - or, The Rivals of Lake Carlopa • Victor Appleton

... the only one of us he seemed to see, or could bring himself to face in his distress. Not that young Garland had the appearance of one who had been through fresh vicissitudes; on the contrary, he looked both trimmer and ruddier than overnight; and in his sudden fit of passionate indignation, twice the man that one remembered ...
— Mr. Justice Raffles • E. W. Hornung

... yer away that yer worthy of her when yer get home. My sweetheart, God bless her! is all the sunlight I have in a voyage of this kind. My little wife is my sweetheart, she is, Mr. Toodleburg. She an' the two little angels are the sunlight of my heart. There ain't nobody sails the sea has a trimmer little craft of a sweetheart nor I have." He paused for a minute, as if to collect his distracted thoughts. "The man that would bring trouble to her door while I'm away—he would'nt be a man, Mr. Toodleburg," he resumed, still preserving a serious countenance. ...
— The Von Toodleburgs - Or, The History of a Very Distinguished Family • F. Colburn Adams

... a fairly true characterization of Sophy Decker from one of fifty people: from a salesman in a New York or Chicago wholesale millinery house; from Otis Cowan, cashier of the First National Bank of Chippewa; from Julia Gold, her head milliner and trimmer; from almost anyone, in fact, except a member of her own family. They knew her least of all. Her three married sisters—Grace in Seattle, Ella in Chicago, and Flora in Chippewa—regarded her with a rather affectionate disapproval from ...
— One Basket • Edna Ferber

... of brick, stone, tile, or concrete, must be supported by a masonry trimmer arch or similar fire-resisting construction. Both hearth and arch should be at least twenty inches wide and not less than two feet longer than the ...
— If You're Going to Live in the Country • Thomas H. Ormsbee and Richmond Huntley

... of strong pig-proof post-and-rail, and divided off by well cared for hedges, or wire fences. There are other and newer clearings beyond the ranges and out of sight, but here all that is visible is very much trimmer and neater ...
— Brighter Britain! (Volume 1 of 2) - or Settler and Maori in Northern New Zealand • William Delisle Hay

... and for the murder of the king and of all Protestants. Titus Oates, a perjurer, was the main witness. Many innocent Roman Catholics were put to death. This pretended plot led to stringent measures shutting out papists from office. Halifax, an able man who called himself "a trimmer," because he did not always stay on one side or with one party, opposed a bill that would have excluded the king's brother from the succession, ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher

... the new state of Columbia in British bottoms should be assessed ten per cent, lower than the products of any other nation, except the United States. Miranda signed a formal agreement to this effect, and sailed for Trinidad, accompanied by H.B.M. ships Lily and Express, and the Trimmer, a transport schooner. Captain Lewis, whose repeated quarrels with Miranda had affected the discipline of the force, resigned at Barbadoes. He was succeeded by Captain Johnson, a daring fellow, who risked and lost life and ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 31, May, 1860 • Various

... news indeed, my dear Caroline, about Mr. Digweed, Mr. Trimmer, and a Grand Pianoforte. I wish it had been a small one, as then you might have pretended that Mr. D.'s rooms were too damp to be fit for it, and offered to take charge of it at the Parsonage. . ...
— Jane Austen, Her Life and Letters - A Family Record • William Austen-Leigh and Richard Arthur Austen-Leigh

... much more indubitable wind, and rain, and frost of wintry nights. A few articles of crockery and some burnished tins decorate the shelves of the lower apartment; which used to be much tidier before the children came, and trimmer still when Grace was sole manager: in a doorless cupboard are apparent sundry coarse edibles, as the half of a huge unshapely home-made loaf, some white country cheese, a mass of lumpy pudding, and so forth; beside it, on the window-sill, is better bread, a well-thumbed Bible, ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper

... she was sitting behind the parlor curtains with Mrs. Trimmer's Roman History, and Grandmamma was sitting, looking very grave in her new black dress, with a pocket handkerchief and book in her lap, and sherry and sponge biscuits on a tray on the piano, for visitors of condolence, when Dr. Brown came in, looking very grave too, and took off ...
— Last Words - A Final Collection of Stories • Juliana Horatia Ewing

... which he took part against the aristocrats, or defended Publius Sulla, in doing which he appeared on the side of the aristocracy. Such a defence of his conduct would be misleading, and might be confuted. It would be confuted by those who suppose him to have been "notoriously a political trimmer," as Mommsen has[270] called him; or a "deserter," as he was described by Dio Cassius and by the Pseudo-Sallust,[271] by showing that in fact he took up causes under the influence of strong personal motives such as rarely govern an English barrister. These motives were in many cases ...
— Life of Cicero - Volume One • Anthony Trollope

... to be recounted in the next chapter shows. Unpopular as his resignation made him with politicians, it was nothing to the storm of abuse which he was forced to endure when he chose, a few months later, to stand—now an imputed trimmer—for the sake of preserving what was best in a policy he had not ...
— Lady John Russell • Desmond MacCarthy and Agatha Russell

... year, two English brigs, the Shannon, Capt. Babcock, and the Trimmer, Capt. Cummings, were on their voyage from Bombay to Bussorah. These were both attacked, near the Islands of Polior and Kenn, by several boats, and after a slight resistance on the part of the Shannon only, were taken possession of, and a part of the crew of each, cruelly put to the ...
— The Pirates Own Book • Charles Ellms

... seven volume treatise on that. It sounds prosy, I know, and very stupid, but let me tell you that it is the wise girl who buys for comfort, utility and wear, instead of style and elaborateness. A plain little fedora, if well brushed, makes a trimmer, neater appearance than a cheap velvet hat ornamented with feathers that have straightened out and flowers that have long since lost their glory in the rains and storms of autumn time. It is the same way with shoes and gloves. If one can possibly ...
— The Woman Beautiful - or, The Art of Beauty Culture • Helen Follett Stevans

... grew neater and trimmer. In her face, now filled out with proper food and rest, there was a look of happiness as if some ...
— The House of the Misty Star - A Romance of Youth and Hope and Love in Old Japan • Fannie Caldwell Macaulay

... joint authors of that poem, two Unknown gentlemen, respectively named Grungers and Scadgingtone. And Prince Arthur, nephew of King John of England, had described himself as tolerably comfortable in the seventh circle, where he was learning to paint on velvet, under the direction of Mrs. Trimmer and Mary Queen ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.

... pyramid for the crucifix; the Virgin was superseded by the goddess Diana—"a woman (for the most part naked), and water, conveyed from the Thames, filtering from her naked breasts, but oftentimes dried up." Elizabeth, always a trimmer in these matters, was indignant at these fanatical doings; and thinking a plain cross, a symbol of the faith of our country, ought not to give scandal, she ordered one to be placed on the summit, and gilt. The Virgin also was restored; but twelve nights afterwards she was ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury

... Birdalone into a very fair chamber, where was presently everything she might need, save a tiring woman, which, forsooth, was no lack unto her, since never had she had any to help her array her body. So she did what she might to make herself the trimmer; and in a while came two fair swains of service, who brought her in all honour into the great hall, where were the three lords abiding her. There were they served well and plenteously, and fair was the converse ...
— The Water of the Wondrous Isles • William Morris

... she was a walking calculation, Miss Edgeworth's novels stepping from their covers, Or Mrs. Trimmer's books on education, Or 'Coelebs' Wife' set out in quest of lovers, Morality's prim personification, In which not Envy's self a flaw discovers; To others' share let 'female errors fall,' For she had not even one—the worst ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron

... mentioned, and represented by selections in the following pages, there were several others whose books are yet accessible and now and then read for their historical interest if not for any intrinsic literary value they may possess. One of these was Mrs. Sarah K. Trimmer (1741-1810), who, associated with the early days of the Sunday-school movement, wrote many books full of the overwrought piety which was supposed to be necessary for children of that earlier time. One of her books, The History ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry

... death, on the part equally of Whig and Tory. Marion knew the character of the person, and disdained it. To the surprise of all, who knew how scrupulous of insult he was,—how indulgent and forbearing,—he turned away from the trimmer and the sycophant without recognition. This treatment was greatly censured at the time, and when Marion rose in the Senate, to speak on the subject of the petition of the man whom he had so openly scorned, it was ...
— The Life of Francis Marion • William Gilmore Simms

... now, Captain, and I will turn you over—not to a firing squad, but to the tender mercies of our old rascal host who is a 'trimmer' of the devil's own school. If he tries to screw a penny's pay out of you, as he is like to, ...
— The Master of Appleby • Francis Lynde

... the vulgar. A wonderful salve for official blunders; since he who perseveres in error without flinching gets the credit of boldness and consistency, while he who wavers in seeking to do what is right gets stigmatized as a trimmer. This much is certain; and it is a maxim well worthy the attention of all legislators, great and small, who stand shaking in the wind, irresolute which way to steer, that a ruler who follows his own will pleases himself; while he who seeks to satisfy the ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. IX (of X) - America - I • Various

... ordinarily rustle for himself. In fact, he never went home except at periods when he was unfortunate in procuring his own food. Petty pilfering and begging along the streets and docks, a trip or two to sea as mess-boy, a few trips more as coal-trimmer, and then a full-fledged fireman, he had reached the top of ...
— The People of the Abyss • Jack London

... light wavy curls, flat upon the letter, as Anne advanced and made a stealthy attempt to profit by the intelligence she was sending to her brother. Edward was standing by Elizabeth, reading Mrs. Trimmer's Fabulous Histories, for, though five years old, he made very slow progress in English literature, being more backward in learning to read than any of the others had been, excepting Helen. He did not like the trouble of spelling, and was in the ...
— Abbeychurch - or, Self-Control and Self-Conceit • Charlotte M. Yonge

... box with a waist-belt for each Boarder, Pikeman, Fireman, Sail-trimmer, and Pumpman; a primed candle for each battle-lantern; a thumbstall and vent-guard for the 1st and 2d Captains of each gun. The belts of Boarders to be furnished with a frog for a pistol, with its cartridges and percussion-caps; those of 1st and 2d Captains of guns with a box containing ...
— Ordnance Instructions for the United States Navy. - 1866. Fourth edition. • Bureau of Ordnance, USN

... then, after shore leave, a drunken trimmer or stoker gets up to the Chief's room and has to be subdued by the power of executive eye or the strength of executive arm. As most Chiefs are Scots, the eye is generally sufficient. So the Chief, mightily ferocious, turned about, eye set, as one may ...
— Love Stories • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... Courtier," and in 1684 Oldham's "Character of a certain ugly old P——." In 1686 followed "Twelve ingenious Characters, or pleasant Descriptions of the Properties of sundry Persons and Things." Sir William Coventry's "Character of a Trimmer," published in 1689, had been written before 1659, when it had been answered by a "Character of a Tory," not printed at the time, but included (1721) in the works of George Villiers, second Duke of Buckingham. In 1689 appeared "Characters addressed to Ladies of Age," and also "The Ceremony-Monger ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various

... Hume. Of Hume there is no particular account, but Welsh we have met before. Though he had been under denunciation as a rebel ever since the Pentland rising (in which he had, indeed, borne no part), he had never given his voice for war; and, though assuredly neither a coward nor a trimmer, had always kept from any active share in the proceedings of his more tumultuous brethren. His plan, and the plan of the few who at that time and place were on his side, was temperate and reasonable. They asked for no more than they were willing to give. Against ...
— Claverhouse • Mowbray Morris

... would be far easier to distract the attention of the children of the State of Ohio from their distinguished fellow-citizens, William H. Taft and John D. Rockefeller, to fix it upon the late Lord Cromer or that Earl of Halifax known as the "Trimmer," than it is to tell a Filipino child that the way to distinction lies through toil and sweat. Children are very patient about listening to talk, but they are going to pattern themselves upon what is obvious. Twenty or thirty years from now, when ...
— A Woman's Impression of the Philippines • Mary Helen Fee

... eye was glued to the glass. "But she's lighter built, trimmer. Some pleasure-craft, like enough. You can see her walk—same as if she was a lady—a-bowin' and bobbin'." He laid down the glass, a look of pleasure in his face. "She's comin' right in, whoever she is. She'll drop anchor by noon-time." ...
— Uncle William - The Man Who Was Shif'less • Jennette Lee

... the grievance. I have no doubt that, in your earlier years, instead of courting your fair friends, as Burns appears to have done, with copies of your own works, you used to present unto them the "Legacy of Dr Gregory to his Daughters"—or "Mrs Chapone's Letters," or Miss Bowdler's, or Mrs Trimmer's, appropriately bound and gilt; and thus apprized of the superabundance of prose provided for their edification, are prepared to feel, with me, that if they have not Mrs Barbauld and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded by the frippery tomes ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 55, No. 340, February, 1844 • Various

... Walker had not locked before his departure. He only found three-halfpence and a bill stamp, and about forty-five tradesmen's accounts, neatly labelled and tied up with red tape. These three worthies, a groom who was a great admirer of Trimmer the lady's-maid, and a policeman a friend of the cook's, sat down to a comfortable dinner at the usual hour, and it was agreed among them all that Walker's ruin was certain. The cook made the policeman a present of a china punch-bowl which Mrs. ...
— Men's Wives • William Makepeace Thackeray

... professor! thou lamp-carrier! have a care and look to thyself; content not thyself with that only that will maintain thee in a profession, for that may be done without saving grace. But I advise thee to go to Aaron, to Christ, the trimmer of our lamps, and beg thy vessel full of oil of him—that is, grace—for the seasoning of thy heart, that thou mayest have wherewith, not only to bear thee up now, but at the day of the bridegroom's coming, when many a lamp will go out, and many a professor be left in the dark; for that will ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... order that it should seize these one chief thing appeared imperative: doctrinal uniformity. The emperor himself, albeit unbaptised and very ignorant of Greek, came and seated himself in the midst of Christian thought upon a golden throne. At the end of it all Eusebius, that supreme Trimmer, was prepared to damn everlastingly all those who doubted that consubstantiality he himself had doubted at the beginning of the conference. It is quite clear that Constantine did not care who was damned or for what period, so long as the Christians ceased to wrangle among ...
— God The Invisible King • Herbert George Wells

... see Jason Stone reading that article at his breakfast table this morning," smiled Mr. Prescott. "Stone is a great sail-trimmer, always afraid of the man who ...
— The High School Freshmen - Dick & Co.'s First Year Pranks and Sports • H. Irving Hancock

... of the British Museum; but the richest collection of these celebrated little rarities of Toy Books is in the venerable Bodleian Library. Among the very interesting block relics of the past are the pretty cuts to Mrs. Trimmer's "Fabulous Histories, or The Robins:" these were designed by Thomas Bewick, and engraved by John Thompson, his pupil, who enriched Whittingham's celebrated Chiswick Press with his fine and tasteful work. A numerous series of ...
— Banbury Chap Books - And Nursery Toy Book Literature • Edwin Pearson

... walls, and were poking about in them constantly. Butterflies also found them pleasant places, and I delighted in butterflies, though I seldom succeeded in catching one. I do not remember that I ever killed one. Heart and conscience both were against that. I had got the loan of Mrs. Trimmer's story of the family of Robins, and was every now and then reading a page of it with unspeakable delight. We had very few books for children in those days and in that far out-of-the-way place, and those we did get were the more dearly prized. It was almost dinner-time before I reached ...
— Ranald Bannerman's Boyhood • George MacDonald

... is almost out of print. Mrs. Barbauld's stuff has banished all the old classics of the nursery; and the shopman at Newberry's hardly deigned to reach them off an old exploded corner of a shelf, when Mary asked for them. Mrs. B.'s and Mrs. Trimmer's nonsense lay in piles about. Knowledge insignificant and vapid as Mrs. B.'s books convey, it seems, must come to the child in the shape of knowledge, and his empty noddle must be turned with conceit of his own powers when he has ...
— The Best Letters of Charles Lamb • Charles Lamb

... allow the Pompeians to beguile him from his allegiance, and at last went over to them. Csar, to show how little he cared for the defection of Labienus, hastened to send his baggage after him; but in Rome he was welcomed with acclamations. Cicero, the trimmer, exclaimed: "Labienus has behaved quite like a hero!" and believed that Csar had received a tremendous blow by his defection. This deserter's act had, however, no effect whatever on the progress of ...
— The Story of Rome From the Earliest Times to the End of the Republic • Arthur Gilman

... Scott, who wrote some of the most delightful tales there are in the world; and three who lived at the lakes—Wordsworth, Southey, and Coleridge. It was only in this reign that people cared to write books for children. Mrs. Trimmer, and another good lady called Hannah More, were trying to get the poor in the villages better taught; and there was a very good Yorkshire gentleman—William Wilberforce—who was striving to ...
— Young Folks' History of England • Charlotte M. Yonge

... in America. But in the main, his prose pen was employed against the crown and the Church, while they still existed; against the king's memory, after the unfortunate monarch had fallen, and in favor of the parliament and all its acts. Milton was no trimmer; he gave forth no uncertain sound; he was partisan to the extreme, and left himself no loop-hole of retreat in the ...
— English Literature, Considered as an Interpreter of English History - Designed as a Manual of Instruction • Henry Coppee

... of the Robins. Mrs. Sarah Trimmer. Cuts designed by Thomas Bewick, engraved by John Thompson, Whittingham's ...
— A Study of Fairy Tales • Laura F. Kready

... of a trimmer to go back on us now," said Joyce. "Public sentiment is all on our side now, and election ...
— A Woman for Mayor - A Novel of To-day • Helen M. Winslow

... Elsie's face, and all was serene again. Her mother seemed somewhat ashamed of her little girl's bad manners, as was shown by her apologetic air when she observed to the trimmer that Elsie was as queer a child as ever lived. When she set her mind on a thing, it was so hard for ...
— Dickey Downy - The Autobiography of a Bird • Virginia Sharpe Patterson

... Natalya was a "trimmer" in the factory. She cut the threads of the waists after they were finished—a task requiring very little skill. But the work of shirt-waist workers is of many grades. The earnings of makers of "imported" lingerie waists sometimes rise as high as $25 a week. ...
— Making Both Ends Meet • Sue Ainslie Clark and Edith Wyatt

... a first-class trimmer, then!" replied Miss Bean, emphatically. "Works in one o' them big houses in New York, I ...
— Queen Hildegarde • Laura Elizabeth Howe Richards

... filled in solid with concrete or brickwork. The flooring in the chimney opening is called the "hearth"; the back hearth covers the space between the jambs of the chimney breast, and the front hearth rests upon the brick "trimmer arch" designed to support it. The hearth is now often formed in solid concrete, supported on the brick wall and fillets fixed to the floor joists, without any trimmer arch and finished in neat cement or glazed tiles instead ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 3 - "Brescia" to "Bulgaria" • Various

... that long, long ago, when the world was young, things were very different from what they are now, very different indeed. The great-great-ever-so-great grandfather of Jimmy Skunk was slimmer and trimmer than Jimmy is. He was more like his cousins, Mr. Weasel and Mr. Mink. He was just as quick moving as they were. Yes, Sir, Mr. Skunk was very lively on his feet. He had to be to keep out of the way ...
— Mother West Wind 'Why' Stories • Thornton W. Burgess

... look shabby. You look much trimmer and prettier in that suit and hat than I in mine, though mine were new this fall. If you knew how I envy you that look you would be quite satisfied with your old clothes," said Martha, generously. "And as for the husband you are getting—well—I ...
— Mrs. Red Pepper • Grace S. Richmond

... accomplished "Trimmer" of the Revolution, about whom you must consult Macaulay; Warren Hastings; Sir Francis Burdett; Sir James Graham; ...
— Harper's Young People, April 27, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various

... four years the number of learners was reckoned at two or three hundred thousand. A Sunday School Association was formed in 1785 with well known men of business at its head. Queen Charlotte's friend, Mrs. Trimmer (1741-1810), took up the work near London, and Hannah More (1745-1833) in Somersetshire. Hannah More gives a strange account of the utter absence of any civilising agencies in the district around Cheddar where she ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume I. • Leslie Stephen

... Garfield Stewart, and Doc Hagen, a ward politician, were not lacking in keen appreciation of his position. And on other civic issues where he made no concealment of his opinions he was, according to Herbert Bigelow, the minister of The People's Church and a former city councilman, "never a trimmer, and those who have seen him in tight places never saw ...
— Frank H. Nelson of Cincinnati • Warren C. Herrick

... no pleasure the modern "grown-up" person envies the youngsters of the hour as he envies them the shoals of delightful books which publishers prepare for the Christmas tables of lucky children. If he be old enough to remember Mrs. Trimmer's "History of the Robins," "The Fairchild Family," or that Poly-technically inspired romance, the "Swiss Family Robinson," he feels that a certain half-hearted approval of more dreary volumes is possibly due to the glamour which middle age casts upon the past. It ...
— Children's Books and Their Illustrators • Gleeson White

... for his health. He pauses seriously to thank them in the midst of his prattle. Both women—MD—are rallied on their politics: "I have a fancy that Ppt is a Tory, I fancy she looks like one, and D a sort of trimmer." ...
— Essays • Alice Meynell

... immediately greeted by the hippo, who snorted and roared as we approached, but quickly dived, and the buoyant float ran along the surface, directing his course in the same manner as the cork of a trimmer marks that of a pike upon the hook. Several times he appeared, but as he invariably faced us I could not obtain a favorable shot; I therefore sent the old hunter round the pool, and he, swimming the river, advanced to the opposite ...
— In the Heart of Africa • Samuel White Baker



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