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Trimming   Listen
noun
Trimming  n.  
1.
The act of one who trims.
2.
That which serves to trim, make right or fitting, adjust, ornament, or the like; especially, the necessary or the ornamental appendages, as of a garment; hence, sometimes, the concomitants of a dish; a relish; usually in the plural.
3.
The act of reprimanding or chastisting; as, to give a boy a trimming. (Colloq.)






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Trimming" Quotes from Famous Books



... kinds of fruit on them, and others had three kinds of apples on them besides the pears. This grafting I did myself, and the trees were considered very fine by Boss. Another part of my work was the trimming of the hedge and the ...
— Thirty Years a Slave • Louis Hughes

... answered No. 6, with her nose flattened against the window- pane. "But please, Aunt Judy, No. 8 won't have the oyster-shell trimming round his garden any longer, he says; he says it looks so rubbishy. But as my garden joins his down the middle, if he takes away the oyster-shells all round his, then one of MY sides—the one in the middle, I mean—will be left bare, don't you see? and I want to keep the oyster-shells ...
— Aunt Judy's Tales • Mrs Alfred Gatty

... of creating new models is always making itself felt, one ingenious manufacturer, Mr. Collin, has turned toward the vegetable kingdom, and brought out an elegant and original style of dress-trimming made of certain indigenous and exotic fruits and seeds that no one would ever have thought of using for such a purpose. Instead of pendants made of wood and covered with silk or velvet, Mr. Collin uses dry fruits or seeds, which he has previously ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 530, February 27, 1886 • Various

... bolder and bolder. In fact, so daring were their crimes that the home governments, stirred at last by these outrageous barbarities, seriously undertook the suppression of the freebooters, lopping and trimming the main trunk until its members were scattered hither and thither, and it was thought that the organization was exterminated. But, so far from being exterminated, the individual members were merely scattered north, south, east, and west, each forming a nucleus around which gathered ...
— Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates • Howard I. Pyle

... In the company of his books, of which he had brought such a fair store that their shelves lined his snug corners to the exclusion of more comfortable furniture, he found his principal recreation. Even his unwonted manual labor, the trimming of his lamp and cleaning of his reflectors, and his personal housekeeping, in which his Indian help at times assisted, he found a novel and interesting occupation. For outdoor exercise, a ramble on the sands, a climb to the ...
— Under the Redwoods • Bret Harte

... beautiful apostrophe to the memory of his son, the gallant Earl of Ossory. The Bishops of London and Rochester; Mulgrave our author's constant patron, now reconciled with Charles and his government; the plausible and trimming Halifax; and Hyde, Earl of Rochester, second son to the great Clarendon, appear in this list. The poet having thus arrayed and mustered the forces on each side, some account of the combat is naturally expected; and Johnson complains, that, after all the interest ...
— The Dramatic Works of John Dryden Vol. I. - With a Life of the Author • Sir Walter Scott

... yours, knowing it to be something new and full of an eternal meaning. It was Dr. Bowdler, rector of an Episcopal church, a man of more influence out of the Church than any in it. He was in the breakfast-room now, trimming the hanging-baskets in the window, while his niece finished her coffee: he "usually saved his appetite for dinner, English fashion; cigars until then,"—poohing at all preaching of hygiene, as ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 74, December, 1863 • Various

... been happily engaged in making a beautiful band of crochet lace which was destined to serve as trimming for Mrs. Jervis Blake's dressing-table. The band was now very nearly finished; there were over three yards of it done. Worked in the best and strongest linen thread, it was the kind of thing which would last, even if it were cleaned very frequently, for years and ...
— Good Old Anna • Marie Belloc Lowndes

... a moderate Doctour at Cripplegate dwells, Whom Smythes his curate in trimming excells; But Bunyan a tinker hath tickled ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... letter with breathless curiosity. In the letter which was also a small snap-shot picture of the girl. Petka looked at the picture and did not know what to say. To judge from her photograph, she was a frail spinster, with high cheekbones, a long neck and a nose like a frozen potato. But the trimming of her hair, her city hat with flowers, and her whole American bearing made her interesting enough to the ambitious tailor. For a long time he was gazing at ...
— Defenders of Democracy • Militia of Mercy

... than of erst. Even our parliamentary orators, with a proper national bias, talk of swamping a measure, danger ahead, taking the wind out of an antagonist's sails, drifting into war, steering a bill through the shoals of opposition or throwing it overboard, following in the wake of a leader, trimming to the breeze, tiding a question over the session, opinions above or below the gangway, and the like, so rife of late in St. Stephen's; even when a member "rats" on seeing that the pumps cannot keep his party from ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth

... know, spoke lately of wicked men as "going out into the darkness, miserable failures." Such trimming fails to command the ...
— Love's Final Victory • Horatio

... to rest. The connection of the laterals with the mains, the laying of the larger sizes of tiles so as to form a close joint, the wedging of these larger tiles firmly into their places, and the trimming which is necessary in going around sharp curves, and in putting in the shorter pieces which are needed to fill out the exact length of the drain, demand more skill and judgment than are often found in the common ditcher. Still, any clever ...
— Draining for Profit, and Draining for Health • George E. Waring

... Don, and meanwhile the master's attention was drawn away by his duty to the visitors. The pie left to Jimmie's care had an unfortunately tempting fringe of loose pieces about it that marred its symmetry. Jimmie proceeded to trim it into shape. So absorbed did he become in this trimming process, that before he realized what he was about, he woke suddenly to the startling fact that the pie had shrunk into a comparatively insignificant size. It would be worse than useless to save the mutilated remains ...
— Glengarry Schooldays • Ralph Connor

... that when we were in cantonments on the Vistula the marshal happened to send Dannel to Warsaw for provisions, and I commissioned him to get the trimming of black astrachan taken from my pelisse, and have it replaced by grey, this having recently been adopted by Prince Berthier's aides-de-camp, who set the fashion in the army. Up to now, I was the only one of Augereau's officers who had grey astrachan. Dannel, ...
— The Red True Story Book • Various

... the roots of lofty bluffs, striped by bands of umber and orange, and topped with out-croppings of rock as though a vanished race had crowned them with now crumbling fortresses. At their feet, sucking life from the stream, a fringe of alder and willows decked the sallow landscape with a trimming of green. ...
— The Emigrant Trail • Geraldine Bonner

... walls and began watching the two boys—little fellows of the cottage class from the village who had come, each with a pair of scissors, to trim the turf on two adjoining mounds. The bigger of the two, who was about ten years old, was very diligent and did his work neatly, trimming the grass evenly and giving the mound a nice smooth appearance. The other boy was not so much absorbed in his work; he kept looking up and making jeering remarks and faces at the other, and at intervals his busy companion ...
— A Traveller in Little Things • W. H. Hudson

... him on his return. Somewhat surprised at this, for he had scarcely seen her, much less spoken with her, since his arrival from Londinium, he followed the man to the door of her apartments. Here he passed a second slave, a tall fellow with a shock of black, unkempt hair, who was trimming a lamp near by. This one turned his head to watch him as he entered, with fierce wolf eyes into which leaped sudden jealous distrust. But a slave was a slave to Marius; and so heedless was he of the man's presence, that later he could not have told whether ...
— Nicanor - Teller of Tales - A Story of Roman Britain • C. Bryson Taylor

... and durable hoofs, but in very sandy countries the hoofs will spread out in a most astonishing way and need constant trimming. ...
— Ranching, Sport and Travel • Thomas Carson

... brothers, whom I never knew since they were infants, and scarcely then, for my early home was truly at a boarding school. Write to him all this, and talk it to every one else. If we succeed I will soon send you enough for a very large supply of trimming material for ...
— Behind the Scenes - or, Thirty years a slave, and Four Years in the White House • Elizabeth Keckley

... interests. First came the funeral with its inevitable depression and fatigue; then came days of vacancy, with no appetite for work and no chance for amusement. She took refuge in trifles, but the needle and scissors are terrible weapons for cutting out and trimming not so much women's dresses as their thoughts. She had never been a reader, and perhaps for that reason her mind had all the more run into regions of fancy and imagination. She caught half an idea in the air, and tossed it for amusement. In these days of unrest she tossed her ideas more rapidly ...
— Esther • Henry Adams

... appearance of copper, and made us suppose that she had procured the real Mambrino helmet. Her dress was trimmed with what we simply mistook for scalps, and supposed it was in honor of the nation; but we blushed at our ignorance on discovering that it was a gorgeous trimming of marten tips. Would that some eminent furrier had been there to wonder ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner

... and Smithson's—Holborn Bars, you know," said Grandmamma. "This is sad news, indeed. But your curtains, my dear, have an extreme pretty trimming." ...
— Out in the Forty-Five - Duncan Keith's Vow • Emily Sarah Holt

... Mademoiselle de l'Enclos, trimming her pen with her trusty knife, wrote to the lady in waiting an agreeable and polished letter, one of those letters, careful without stiffness, that one writes, indulging oneself a little with the intention of ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre

... Edge. — N. edge, verge, brink, brow, brim, margin, border, confine, skirt, rim, flange, side, mouth; jaws, chops, chaps, fauces; lip, muzzle. threshold, door, porch; portal &c. (opening) 260; coast, shore. frame, fringe, flounce, frill, list, trimming, edging, skirting, hem, selvedge, welt, furbelow, valance, gimp. Adj. border, marginal, skirting; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus

... chattering, giggling crowds, of dancing and bridge and theater boxes, was a queen dethroned. She did not read or think. She spent the leisure of her mourning period in long hours before her mirror fussing with her hair, in trimming and retrimming hats, or in the fastidious care of her ...
— The Breaking Point • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... in all this rolling and unrolling of scrolls? To what end the gluing and the trimming, the cedar-oil and saffron, the leather cases and the bosses? Much good your purchases have been to you; one sees that already: why, your language—no, I am wrong there, you are as dumb as a fish-but your life, your unmentionable vices, make ...
— Works, V3 • Lucian of Samosata

... deck'd, should grace the hole. To guide the wounded, who unlopt Could walk, on stumps the others hopt; But, when they ended all their wars, And men grew out of love with scars, Their trade decaying, to keep swimming, They join'd the other trade of trimming; And to their poles, to publish either, Thus ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 335 - Vol. 12, No. 335, October 11, 1828 • Various

... show them to me to-morrow. I expect they are very smart— coming from France. I always wear black, so there was not much to be done. I had the black satin taken off my cashmere dress, and folds of crape put in its place, and some dull trimming, instead of jet, on my cape. I haven't decided about my bonnet. You must give me your advice. Of course, I wish to do everything that is proper, but it's ...
— More about Pixie • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey

... my apples. 2. Herbert expected letters every night. 3. Alice rode to her uncle Robert's. 4. Mr. Allen bought eight lambs. 5. Hattie Arnold reached Rochester yesterday. 6. Even Theodore has eaten little. 7. Every rainy night Eva sews trimming. 8. Ellen's dog is terribly hurt. 9. Florence rides every day. 10. Softly the evening light lingers around. 11. Even dull wits improve, nowadays. 12. Generally, raisins are capital eating. 13. Fido ran after ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, September 1878, No. 11 • Various

... with its rusty lock and broken hinges, brings to mind a rosy-cheeked girl in a poke bonnet, who went a-visiting in the stage-coach. Inside is the bonnet itself—white, with a gorgeous trimming of pink "lute-string" ribbon, which has faded into ashes of roses at the touch ...
— Threads of Grey and Gold • Myrtle Reed

... "abundance." The outfit of clothing comprised underwear for two changes a week, a uniform consisting of a blue cloth coat, faced and trimmed with red, a waistcoat of the same with white revers, and serge breeches either blue or black. The overcoat was of the same material as the uniform, with the same trimming but with white lining. The studies comprised Latin, mathematics, the French language and literature, English, German, geography, drawing, fencing, music, vocal as ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. I. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane

... another world. I hope she is right, yet I fear the radiation level of the ship has become inordinately high. We may well be Eve and Adam, yet an Adam that cannot beget and an Eve that is not fruitful. I am trimming the ship for landing, and we shall leave it immediately after we have landed, taking with us only what we absolutely need. There is too much radiation from the spindizzy and the drive to remain here longer—and God knows how hot the outer hull ...
— The Lani People • J. F. Bone

... attempted an apology for their appearance, but Miss Rebecca seemed rather to glory in the shears which dangled down from her apron-strings as she rose to greet her visitor; they told so unmistakably that she had been enjoying herself trimming vines. Miss Carry—who was still kittenish in spite of her forty years—as she gave one of her hands to Mr. Walker held out with the other a basket of seckel pears she had been ...
— The Law-Breakers and Other Stories • Robert Grant

... haggard face covered to the upper bulge of the jaw-bones with a disfiguring growth of reddish whiskers and inclosed at the temples by shaggy, unkempt strands of red hair which protruded from beneath the black hat. Evidently the man had not been shaved for weeks; certainly his hair needed trimming and combing. But what at the moment impressed Waggoner more even than the general unkemptness of the stranger's aspect was the look out of his eyes. They were widespread eyes and bloodshot as though from lack of sleep, and they glared into Waggoner's with a peculiar, strained, hearkening ...
— The Thunders of Silence • Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb

... apparently. At last I threw down the pencil and gave up the battle for the day. I was not in a writing mood. I lit my pipe, and, moving to the arm-chair by the window, sat there, looking out at the lawn and flower beds. No one was in sight except Grimmer, the gardener, who was trimming a hedge. ...
— Kent Knowles: Quahaug • Joseph C. Lincoln

... other shades which light up well. For the dresses of the richer group in the chancel, sateen is best. It, too, comes in lovely colors and has a very rich glossy finish, though to give variety an occasional piece of cheap velvet or upholstery brocade is very effective. For trimming these richer garments, bits of fur or passementerie can be used, or the material may be stencilled or even painted freehand. Large gold beads sewed on in a simple design gives the appearance of rich embroidery, as do also flowers cut out of chintz ...
— Why the Chimes Rang: A Play in One Act • Elizabeth Apthorp McFadden

... to himself. "And he wouldn't if he had been a gentleman. 'Twas not the language to use to a woman of any niceness. You, so well read and cultivated—how could he expect ye to know what tom-boy field-folk are in the habit of doing? If so be you had just come from trimming swedes or mangolds—joking with the rough work-folk and all that—I could have stood it. But hasn't it cost me near a hundred a year to lift you out of all that, so as to show an example to the neighborhood ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy

... you, I dare say, for which of you ever heard of trimming cows with their own horns and ears? How should you like to see a cow with her ears—poor thing!—cut to the shape of a leaf with notched edges, and horns trained in some queer shape, twisted into curls, or divided into four, ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, May, 1878, No. 7. - Scribner's Illustrated • Various

... style of [women's] dress necessitated by the exigencies of war gave the crowd a very striking appearance. In single suits I saw sleeves of one color, the waist of another, the skirt of another; scarlet jackets and gray skirts; black waists and blue skirts; black skirts and gray waists; the trimming chiefly gold braid and buttons, to give a military air. The gray and gold uniforms of the officers, glittering between, made up a carnival of color. Every moment we saw strange meetings and partings of people from all over the South. Conditions of time, space, locality, and estate were ...
— Strange True Stories of Louisiana • George Washington Cable

... time, badly wounded, and has lately had his leg amputated. It is not doing very well. Right opposite me is a sick soldier boy, laid down with his clothes on, sleeping, looking much wasted, his pallid face on his arm. I see by the yellow trimming on his jacket that he is a cavalry boy. He looks so handsome as he sleeps, one must needs go nearer to him. I step softly over to him, and find by his card that he is named William Cone, of the 1st Maine Cavalry, and his ...
— Whitman - A Study • John Burroughs

... in her plain blue high-waisted gown of Emile's choosing, that had no superfluous bow or trimming, and left free her beauty of outline. She possessed no jewellery now wherewith to deck herself, and there was no trace of artificial red on face ...
— The Hippodrome • Rachel Hayward

... wore her mother's changeable silk made over and a cottage bonnet with pink silk strings and skirt and a white ruche with a wreath of pink flowers in the face trimming. Her brown hair was combed over her ears like a sheet of burnished bronze and held out by puff combs, and she had a wide embroidered collar, shaped like a halo, fastened by a cairngorm in a square ...
— The Wizard's Daughter and Other Stories • Margaret Collier Graham

... search Boscobel Wood; and, after uttering many threats and imprecations, withdrew from Whiteladies. When he considered himself quite alone, Richard Pendrell ventured forth, taking with him a billhook, that if observed he might seem engaged in trimming hedges; and drawing near the spot where his majesty lay, assured him of his safety. Later on he besought an old woman, his neighbour, to take victuals into the wood to a labourer she would find there. Without hesitation the good woman carried some eggs, bread, butter, and milk ...
— Royalty Restored - or, London under Charles II. • J. Fitzgerald Molloy

... now. Bud, you and Tim and Dough-head give them guys a singe, their hair's getting too long. The rest of you boys just content yourselves doing a fancy decoration on the canvas all around 'em. I'll deevote my entire attenshun to trimming them lugshuriant whiskers, Mister Harris is a-sporting. All ready now,—one, ...
— The Black Box • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... and children, were cutting the grass in the perpendicular fields; the woodmen were trimming and felling the trees in the fir-forests; the cattle-tenders were driving their cows along the stony path, or herding them far up on the hillsides. It was a lonely scene, and yet a busy one; and all along the road was written the history ...
— Little Rivers - A Book Of Essays In Profitable Idleness • Henry van Dyke

... coffee. She had seated herself apart, with a somewhat wearied expression on her face. Her black velvet gown, unrelieved by any trimming, gave her an air of austerity. In this small drawing-room smoking was allowed, and several boxes of cigars were placed beside her on the pier-table. The doctor drew near; as he selected a cigar he ...
— A Love Episode • Emile Zola

... frowning child, covering his face and his curly head with kisses, and beseeching him with honeyed endearments, to be a good boy and obey his father. But the little figure seemed to have turned to stone in her arms. In less than the five minutes Mr. Allan was back in the room, trimming a long switch cut from one of the trees in ...
— The Dreamer - A Romantic Rendering of the Life-Story of Edgar Allan Poe • Mary Newton Stanard

... of the State, one J. Neely Johnson, a politician who would long since have been utterly forgotten had not his unlucky star risen just at this unlucky time. A more unfortunate man for a crisis it would have been difficult to find. 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 ...
— The Gray Dawn • Stewart Edward White

... nations. Their hair, like ours, is of many colours, except red, of which I saw none. Some have it long, but the most general custom is to wear it short, except a bunch on each side of the crown, which they tie in a knot. They observe different modes in trimming the beard, which is in general long. Some part it, and tie it in two bunches under the chin, others plait it, some wear it loose, and others ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 14 • Robert Kerr

... mums, she was looking so pretty. She had a brown dress with very soft, fussy trimming, and a brown bonnet, with something pink—just a tiny bit of pink. She generally wears bonnets, except when we're regularly in the country. They suit her, and I like them better than hats for her. I hate those mothers who are always ...
— The Girls and I - A Veracious History • Mary Louisa Stewart Molesworth

... once said to me: "Is it possible that the great God of the universe, the Maker and Ruler of mankind, could or would, as you would make out, take interest in such a trifle as the trimming of a hat! To me it ...
— How I Know God Answers Prayer - The Personal Testimony of One Life-Time • Rosalind Goforth

... was great, but I discovered that even such love as this could not be left to itself. It wanted perpetual cherishing. The lamp, if it was to burn brightly, required daily trimming, for people became estranged and indifferent, not so much by open quarrel or serious difference, as by the intervention of trifles which need but the smallest, although continuous effort for their removal. The true wisdom is to waste no time over ...
— Mark Rutherford's Deliverance • Mark Rutherford

... spent in explorations with Reuben Taylor and Sam Stoutenburgh, and now it was afternoon of a cool June day, with a fresh breeze scouting round to see what sweets it could pick up, and coming in at the open window to report. On the table was a delicate tinted summer muslin spread out to receive its trimming, over which Faith and Miss Linden stood and debated and laughed,—then Faith went back to her low seat in the window and the hem of a pocket handkerchief. So—half looking out and half in,—the quiet street sounds murmuring with the rustle of the many elm leaves,—Faith sat, the ...
— Say and Seal, Volume II • Susan Warner

... and just that second I heard Circus and Dragonfly coming up from the direction of the bayou, which was down pretty close to Sugar Creek itself.... Circus had his knife in his hand and was just finishing trimming a small branch he had in his hand, Dragonfly had a long fierce-looking switch in one of his hands, and was swinging it around and saying loud and fierce, "All right, Bill Collins, you can take a licking for throwing that snowball.... Take that ... and that ... and that...." ...
— Shenanigans at Sugar Creek • Paul Hutchens

... axe for felling or trimming light timber: or as an alternative produce an article of carpentry or joinery or metal work, made ...
— Outdoor Sports and Games • Claude H. Miller

... "quills" of the most beautiful and most interesting unprotected birds of the world. The extent of this cold-blooded industry, supported by vain and hard-hearted women, will presently be shown in detail. Paris is the great manufacturing center of feather trimming and ornaments, and the French people obstinately refuse to protect the birds from extermination, because their slaughter affords employment to a certain numbers of French ...
— Our Vanishing Wild Life - Its Extermination and Preservation • William T. Hornaday

... things most neglected in houses are the trimming of lamps and the care of the books. The condition of many libraries in large country houses is most lamentable. In such neglect are they that it would take months, and in some cases years, working day and night, ...
— The Private Library - What We Do Know, What We Don't Know, What We Ought to Know - About Our Books • Arthur L. Humphreys

... arms as the great Tartarin, Prince Gregory had, over and above that, donned a queer but magnificent military cap, all covered with gold lace and a trimming of oak-leaves in silver cord, which gave His Highness the aspect of a Mexican general or a railway station-master on the ...
— Tartarin of Tarascon • Alphonse Daudet

... American engine, of 100 horse-power, built by the American Engine Co., Bound Brook, N.J. It drives all the machinery of the establishment, including drug mills, pill machines, packing machinery, a large number of printing presses, folding machines, stitching, trimming, and many other machines, located on the different floors, and used in the manufacture of medicines, books, pamphlets, circulars, posters, and other printed matter. On this floor is located steam bottle-washing ...
— The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English • R. V. Pierce

... Don't stir. Sit just where you are." She ran out of the room swiftly—a light-footed, warm-spirited, dramatic little thing, set off so garishly in the bodice with the plush trimming; but she had a big heart, and the man knew it. It was the big-heartedness which was the touch of the man in her that ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... entirely passed away when Miss de Haldimar completed her sad narrative; and already the crew, roused to exertion by the swelling breeze, were once more engaged in weighing the anchor, and setting and trimming the sails of the schooner, which latter soon began to shoot round the concealing headland into the opening of the Sinclair. A deathlike silence prevailed throughout the decks of the little bark, as her bows, dividing the waters of the basin that formed its source, gradually ...
— Wacousta: A Tale of the Pontiac Conspiracy (Complete) • John Richardson

... generous out-of-door feast along the coast then the Bowden family set forth that day. To call it a picnic would make it seem trivial. The great tables were edged with pretty oak-leaf trimming, which the boys and girls made. We brought flowers from the fence-thickets of the great field; and out of the disorder of flowers and provisions suddenly appeared as orderly a scheme for the feast as the marshal had shaped for the procession. I began to respect the Bowdens for their ...
— The Country of the Pointed Firs • Sarah Orne Jewett

... Yet for a whole generation it has been their shibboleth, and, no matter what might be the aims or the virtues of the man who refused to pronounce it, the supporters of the Permissive Bill have regarded him as an enemy. They, at least, have not laid themselves open to the charge of trimming. For more than thirty years the Bill, the whole Bill, and nothing but the Bill, has been their cry; and as a consequence they have seen these years pass without the carrying of any real ...
— Memoirs of Sir Wemyss Reid 1842-1885 • Stuart J. Reid, ed.

... us,— this is fun!" In the house and out of it she was capable of everything. How beautiful her skill was as a dressmaker, the exquisite lines in her own black or gray or white dresses testified to every one who ever saw her. She never wore any other colors, nor was anything like "trimming" ever seen about her; there were only the fine, free outlines, and a white handkerchief folded carefully about her neck ...
— Authors and Friends • Annie Fields

... of contrast the side-walls, the furniture woodwork, wood trimming, cove, ceiling and the curtains ...
— Color Value • C. R. Clifford

... that gay clothing, to please his honour and my young mistress (great folks will have their fancies), he has done naething but dance up and down about the TOUN, without doing a single turn, unless trimming the laird's fishing-wand or busking his flies, or maybe catching a dish of trouts at an orra-time. But here comes Miss Rose, who, I take burden upon me for her, will be especially glad to see one of the house of Waverley at her father's mansion ...
— Waverley • Sir Walter Scott

... was out of sight of the house and the black dog, he went into the woods on the other side of the way and emerged after an interval trimming a very tolerable cudgel with his pocket-knife. Presently he saw an attractive-looking rock by the track and picked it up and put it in his pocket. Then he came to three or four houses, wooden like the last, each with an ill-painted white verandah (that was his name for it) and all standing ...
— The War in the Air • Herbert George Wells

... like it, Cornie," said his elder sister, who sat beside her mother trimming what promised to be a pretty bonnet. A concentrated effort to draw her needle through an accumulation of silken folds seemed to take something off the bloom of the ...
— Weighed and Wanting • George MacDonald

... not disturb you now, Mrs. Fairfax. I was going to say something about the black trimming you recommended. I really think red would suit me better, but, never mind, I will call again as I saw the Doctor come in. He is rather a ...
— Pages from a Journal with Other Papers • Mark Rutherford

... the bows and see after the braces and halyards of the great sails; the two steersmen are below in the steerage; our captain, or the juragan, gives the course, guided partly by the compass and partly by the direction of the wind, and a watch of two or three on the poop look after the trimming of the sails and call out the hours by the water-clock. This is a very ingenious contrivance, which measures time well in both rough weather and fine. It is simply a bucket half filled with water, in ...
— The Malay Archipelago - Volume II. (of II.) • Alfred Russel Wallace

... Jack Curtiss, "if you weren't such a shrimp I'd lick you for that remark, but you're all beneath my notice. All I want to say to you is keep away from my orchard or I'll give you a trimming." ...
— The Boy Scouts of the Eagle Patrol • Howard Payson

... week the "Social Jottings," bubbling from the effervescent Gold Pen, descended like rain upon the parched soil of drouthy Gueldersdorp. To make gossip where there is none is as difficult as making bricks without clay, or trimming a hat when you are a member of the Wild Birds' Protection Society, and plumage is Fashion's latest cry. Under the circumstances a genuine item of general and public interest was a pearl of price. And yet something had told the little lady that the ruthless ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves

... the notices of mail-box universities which taught Short-story Writing and Improving the Memory, Motion-picture-acting and Developing the Soul-power, Banking and Spanish, Chiropody and Photography, Electrical Engineering and Window-trimming, Poultry-raising and Chemistry. ...
— Babbitt • Sinclair Lewis

... was one more visit to be paid and one more farewell to be spoken ere Nigel could leave the moorlands where he had dwelled so long. That evening he donned his brightest tunic, dark purple velvet of Genoa, with trimming of miniver, his hat with the snow-white feather curling round the front, and his belt of embossed silver round his loins. Mounted on lordly Pommers, with his hawk upon wrist and his sword by his side, never did fairer young ...
— Sir Nigel • Arthur Conan Doyle

... time finished trimming the aspen sticks; and by the fading light of day and the red light of the fire they set to work to mend the broken leg. Between them they knew something of surgery: she by recollecting all that she had seen in her father's office, where she had more than once helped Doctor Gaylord with his needles ...
— The Heart of Thunder Mountain • Edfrid A. Bingham

... keeping the consecrated lamp alight. There was an accuracy and a certainty about Hilda's movements, as regarded all matters that lay deep enough to have their roots in right or wrong, which made it as possible and safe to rely upon the timely and careful trimming of this lamp (if she were in life, and able to creep up the steps), as upon the rising of to-morrow's sun, with lustre-undiminished ...
— The Marble Faun, Volume II. - The Romance of Monte Beni • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... practically out of dog. I thought we had her and probably her dog too; but she fell back and was saved by a matter of half an inch or so. I think, though, we got some of the buttons off her shirtwaist and the back trimming of her hat. ...
— Europe Revised • Irvin S. Cobb

... wonderful country, in lavender and pink paper—coming back at last as straight as out of a fairy-tale and with you as an attendant fairy." Milly hereupon replied appreciatively that such a description of herself made her feel as if pink paper were her dress and lavender its trimming; but Aunt Maud was not to be deterred by a weak joke from keeping it up. Her interlocutress could feel besides that she kept it up in perfect sincerity. She was somehow at this hour a very happy woman, and a part of her happiness ...
— The Wings of the Dove, Volume 1 of 2 • Henry James

... fortunes of Philip. The fleet had sailed with a flowing sheet, and bore gallantly down the Zuyder Zee; but they had not been under way an hour before the Vrow Katerina was left a mile or two astern. Mynheer Barentz found fault with the setting and trimming of the sails, and with the man at the helm, who was repeatedly changed; in short, with everything but his dear Vrow Katerina: but all would not do; she still dropped astern, and proved to be the ...
— The Phantom Ship • Frederick Marryat

... bake bread if they will. It is much easier than trimming hats."—"Housewife," in ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, March 29, 1916 • Various

... Bowring had been scared, far more than he liked to own, by the sudden death of his butcher, between half a dozen chops for cutlets and the trimming of a wing-bone. George's own cook had gone down with the order, and meant to bring it all back herself, because she knew what butchers do when left to consider their subject. And Mrs. Tompkins was so alarmed that she gave only six hours' notice to leave, though her husband was far on the ...
— George Bowring - A Tale Of Cader Idris - From "Slain By The Doones" By R. D. Blackmore • R. D. Blackmore

... himself, or order some of the soldiers to kill me. For choice I had rather have been killed by a volley from a platoon of soldiers, but I recognized the fact that the general had a perfect right to kill me. In fact I wanted him to shoot me. I was trimming the limbs off a sapling for a makeshift flag staff, when I saw the crowd open, and the general walked towards me. His face was a trifle pale, except where the red clay from the road covered it, and I felt that the next moment or two would ...
— How Private George W. Peck Put Down The Rebellion - or, The Funny Experiences of a Raw Recruit - 1887 • George W. Peck

... traveller's affair. Now, your English tourists have always a residue of scruple about them which balks their genius. Not satisfied with pleasing, they aspire to be believed; are almost angry if their anecdote is not credited; content themselves with adding graces, giving a turn, trimming and decorating—cannot build a structure boldly from the bare earth. This necessity of finding a certain straw for their bricks, which must be picked up by the roadside, not only impedes the work of authorship, but must add greatly to their personal discomfort throughout the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 53, No. 331, May, 1843 • Various

... crew, as they moved towards the after-part of the deck in the prosecution of their various duties. O'Harrall merely nodded to the two old captains, who stood by her side. The wind was baffling, and he was continually engaged in trimming sails, so that he was prevented for some time from again ...
— The Missing Ship - The Log of the "Ouzel" Galley • W. H. G. Kingston

... and effective rig, and spreading a vast amount of canvas for a vessel of her moderate tonnage. It was quite impossible to take one's eyes off the two vessels. It was a race for life with the slaver, whose people worked with good effect at the sweeps and in trimming their sails to make the most out of the light but favorable wind that was filling them. The larger vessel would have made better headway in a stiff breeze or half a gale of wind, but the present moderate breeze favored the guilty little brigantine, which was every moment forging ...
— Due South or Cuba Past and Present • Maturin M. Ballou

... Friedrich—came to nothing, this year. Prince Karl was 70,000; Britannic George (when once those Dutch, crawling on all summer, had actually come up) was 66,000,—nay 70,000; Karl having lent him that beautiful cannibal gentleman, "Colonel Mentzel and 4,000 Tolpatches," by way of edge-trimming. Karl was to cross in Upper Elsass, in the Strasburg parts; Karl once across, Britannic Majesty was to cross about Mainz, and co-operate from Lower Elsass. And they should have been swift about it; and were not! All the world expected a severe ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XIV. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle

... Blocksberg. Look at this scarlet bodice, with its gold tassels and fringe, at this cap besmeared with the last fee the hag got from Beelzebub or his imps: it will give me a right worshipful air. To match such jewels, there is this green velvet petticoat with its saffron-coloured trimming, and this mask would melt even Medusa to a grin. Thus accoutred I mean to lead the chorus of Graces, myself their mother-queen, toward the bed-chamber. Make all the haste you can; and we will then go in procession to fetch ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey, Vol. 2 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey

... really mustn't stay, and that's the truth.' She rose from her chair. 'Where do you think I've been, Mary? Mrs. Isaacs sent round this morning to ask if I could give her a bit of help. She's going to Margate on Monday, and there we've been all the afternoon trimming new hats for herself and the girls. She's given me a shilling, and I'm sure it wasn't worth half that, all I did. You'll ...
— Thyrza • George Gissing

... expect Mr. Meredith," said Sir John to the butler, who was trimming the library lamp while the footman received his instructions. "Do not bring coffee ...
— With Edged Tools • Henry Seton Merriman

... preceding, born about 1773, was a country laborer, skilled more or less in everything; he possessed a hereditary talent, attested, moreover, by his name, for trimming trees, and various kinds of hedges. Lazy and crafty, Francois Tonsard secured from Sophie Laguerre, Montcornet's predecessor at Aigues, an acre of land, on which he built, in 1795, the wine-shop known as the Grand-I-Vert. He was saved from conscription ...
— Repertory Of The Comedie Humaine, Complete, A — Z • Anatole Cerfberr and Jules Franois Christophe

... Abel should return, and for this reason she left the house by the back door, and chose the small, descending path that led through the willows to Jordan's Journey. As she neared the brook a bow of blue ribbon hanging on a branch caught her eye, and she recognized a bit of the trimming from Blossom's Sunday dress. Releasing it she put it into her pocket, with the resolve that she would reprove her granddaughter for wearing her best clothes in such unsuitable places. Then her thoughts returned to the immediate object of her visit, and she told herself ...
— The Miller Of Old Church • Ellen Glasgow

... [5505]Omnibus rebus, et nitidis nitoribus antevenit amor, they will follow the fashion, begin to trick up, and to have a good opinion of themselves, venustatem enim mater Venus; a ship is not so long a rigging as a young gentlewoman a trimming up herself against her sweetheart comes. A painter's shop, a flowery meadow, no so gracious aspect in nature's storehouse as a young maid, nubilis puella, a Novitsa or Venetian bride, that looks for a husband, or a young man that is her suitor; composed looks, composed ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior

... of Willows, so frequent by the way-side where the road passes over a wet meadow, afford the most common examples of the pollard forms. Some of these willows, having escaped the periodical trimming of the woodcutter, have become noble standards, emulating the Oak in the sturdy grandeur of their giant arms extending over the road. Most of them, however, from the repeated cropping which they have suffered, exhibit a round head of long, slender ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, Issue 35, September, 1860 • Various

... whose fur trimming was well-worn, to slip from her shoulders, exposing her form to the waist; she trembled slightly in her tight-fitting dress, and golden tints played on her bare neck, which was almost hidden under the waves of her ...
— His Excellency the Minister • Jules Claretie

... we have any objection to art," Mrs. Burtwell was wont to explain in a deprecatory tone; "only we should have preferred to have Madge graduate first, before devoting herself to a mere accomplishment. It seems a little like putting the trimming on a dress before sewing the seams up," she would add; "I did it once when I was a girl, and the dress ...
— A Bookful of Girls • Anna Fuller

... all seems, and how beautiful! It's one of the oldest and noblest of the three hundred and sixty-four ancient German principalities, and one of the few that was allowed to retain its royal estate when Bismarck got done trimming them. I know that farm, I've been there. It's got a rope-walk and a candle-factory and an army. Standing army. Infantry and cavalry. Three soldier and a horse. Aleck, it's been a long wait, and full of heartbreak and hope deferred, but God knows I am happy now. Happy, and grateful to you, my ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... showing how Barsad and Cly were even a hundred times better than he had thought them, and the prisoner a hundred times worse. Lastly, came my Lord himself, turning the suit of clothes, now inside out, now outside in, but on the whole decidedly trimming and shaping them into grave-clothes for ...
— A Tale of Two Cities - A Story of the French Revolution • Charles Dickens

... the cook," she said as she came near him and went to trimming the rose bush again. "She understands. Her little boy is going to bring you something to eat. ...
— Tom of the Raiders • Austin Bishop

... kindly motorman as to the dress being white and thinnish and standoutish, with a blue sash and gold bead trimming, the slippers long ...
— The Comings of Cousin Ann • Emma Speed Sampson

... a pink gingham, and when it was nicely finished, aunt Jane gave Rebecca a delightful surprise. She showed her how to make a pretty trimming of narrow white linen tape, by folding it in pointed shapes and sewing it down very flat with ...
— Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm • Kate Douglas Wiggin

... me. I hope we'll suit each other well; For now, thy vapors to dispel, I come, a squire of high degree, In scarlet coat, with golden trimming, A cloak in silken lustre swimming, A tall cock's-feather in my hat, A long, sharp sword for show or quarrel,— And I advise thee, brief and flat, To don the self-same gay apparel, That, from this den released, and free, Life be at last revealed ...
— Faust • Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

... and it contained easy chairs covered in white, with yellow velvet trimming, and a sofa to match; the cushions of which, however, were so full of the wrinkles of old age as scarcely to be cushions any longer. Two portraits hanging on the walls next attracted attention. A candle and a lamp—one placed ...
— The Queen's Necklace • Alexandre Dumas pere

... followed—the mysteries of hemming and stitching, of tucking and trimming, ruffling, embroidering, of all the hurry and delicious confusion of an elegant yet hasty bridal trousseau—let ...
— What Answer? • Anna E. Dickinson

... within, and the finger of the glove is drawn upon this steel finger, permitting the seam to be sewn through and through. The visitor to the factory can see also the minor operations of embroidering, lining—in finished gloves—sewing the facing, sewing the buttonholes, putting on the buttons, and trimming with various kinds of thread. Before the gloves are ready for the boxes one more operation remains. The gloves are somewhat unsightly as they come from the sewers' hands, and must be made trim and neat. To secure these desirable results ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 794, March 21, 1891 • Various

... turned the next corner she met Maudie Ducker. Maudie Ducker had on a new plaid dress with velvet trimming, ...
— Sowing Seeds in Danny • Nellie L. McClung

... the mule and bring my horse! he ordered and they hurried to obey with alacrity born of new respect, Darya Khan attending to the trimming of the mule's load in person instead of snarling at another man. It was a very different little escort from the one that had come thus far. Like King himself, it had changed its very nature in ...
— King—of the Khyber Rifles • Talbot Mundy

... ponderous Scotch Lord of an edacious gloomy countenance; florid Yorkshire Gentleman with important Proposals in his pocket. Costume, frizzled peruke powdered; frills, wrist-frills and other; shoe-buckles, flapped waistcoat, court-coat of antique cut and much trimming: all this shall be conceived by the reader. Tight young Gentleman in Prussian military uniform, blue coat, buff breeches, boots; with alert flashing eyes, and careless elegant bearing, salutes courteously, raising his plumed hat. Podewils in common dress, who has entered ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XIII. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle

... herself be talked with or pitied. She walked resolutely to the house, and went off to the fields to watch Halsey cutting and trimming ...
— Harvest • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... abdicated in the pilot's favor, who proved to be a tiger of a fellow, keeping us hard at work, pulling and hauling the braces, and trimming the ship, to catch the least cat's-paw ...
— Redburn. His First Voyage • Herman Melville

... Peony expanded in breadth rather than height, and rolled along on his short and sturdy legs as substantial as an elephant, though not quite so big. Then the mother resumed her work. What it was I forget; but she was either trimming a silken bonnet for Violet, or darning a pair of stockings for little Peony's short legs. Again, however, and again, and yet other agains, she could not help turning her head to the window to see how the children got on ...
— The Snow Image • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... worked side by side trimming coals and restoring the 'tween decks as cases were shaken and equipment assembled. The scientific staff were soon efficient at handling, reefing, and steering. Every one lent a hand at whatever work was going. Victor Campbell ...
— South with Scott • Edward R. G. R. Evans

... excessive trimming of side branches of shade trees. Planting under the shade of the original ...
— Gold, Sport, And Coffee Planting In Mysore • Robert H. Elliot

... pains with her toilet; she did not wish to startle, but to attract—and the two things were very different. Her dress looked brilliant, being of a silvery texture; the trimming was composed of small fern-leaves; a parure of ...
— Wife in Name Only • Charlotte M. Braeme (Bertha M. Clay)

... was trimming and rolling a field of armistice at Steignton, where they could discuss the terms he had a right to dictate, having yielded so far. Would she be satisfied with the rule of his ancestral hall, and the dispensing of hospitalities ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... that, without the assistance of the officers, servants, and boys, it might have been impossible for us to have reached the island after we got sight of it; and even with their assistance, we were two hours in trimming the sails; to so wretched a condition were we reduced, in a sixty-gun ship, which had passed the Straits of Le Maire only three months before with between four and five hundred men, most of them then ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 11 • Robert Kerr

... of trimming the sails of his bark so that he might sail as convoy to this rich argosy. He had seen that Mrs. Bold was beautiful, but he had not dreamt of making her beauty his own. He knew that Mrs. Bold was rich, but he had had no more ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope

... have been but a clever ruse to discover what was in the minds of the two rulers. Germany probably was not ready to start the war in 1913, but there is abundant warrant for the belief that she was trimming the torch at that time, and, who knows, the deluded Prinzip ...
— History of the American Negro in the Great World War • W. Allison Sweeney

... next day. She was clipping and trimming the late roses in the bright autumnal afternoon, when Lady Laura Armstrong's close carriage drove up to the gate, with my lady inside it, in deep mourning. The visit was unexpected, and startled Clarissa a little, with a sensation that was ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon

... Johnson about the "Fears in Solitude." If he gives them up they are yours. That dull ode has been printed often enough, and may now be allowed to "sink with deep swoop, and to the bottom go," to quote an admired author; but the two others will do with a little trimming. ...
— A Letter Book - Selected with an Introduction on the History and Art of Letter-Writing • George Saintsbury

... replied. "'Tis I should say that to you," and bending gracefully on one knee he kissed the hem of her dress. It was a rich pink gingham check, ellaborately ornamented with white tape trimming. ...
— New Chronicles of Rebecca • Kate Douglas Wiggin

... "Sylva," &c., now first published from the original MS. in the Library at Wotton, with notes by the Rev. R.M. Evanson, is among the books announced by Colburn, for the first of July. The journals, in anticipation, express some curiosity upon the subject, whether it be pedantic, orthodox, and trimming, like the author, or whether it contain any of the Chubb and Toland spirit. Two new and important works, ethically related to this, have just been issued; the one in France, called Qu'est-ce que la Religion, d'apres la Nouvelle Philosophie Allemande, wherein ...
— International Weekly Miscellany Of Literature, Art, and Science - Vol. I., July 22, 1850. No. 4. • Various

... this—all the extra work that occupies me so much, we must do without; you shall be content with clean white linen, and Isabel's frocks and things must go with less trimming—she is pretty enough without them, you know—then I can take in sewing, and earn enough to pay for what the poor little thing will eat. Perhaps she knows how to sew a little; at any rate, she and Isabel will be handy about the house, and give me more time. ...
— The Old Homestead • Ann S. Stephens

... thou King of men, Grasp the needle once again; Making petticoats is far Safer sport than making war; Trimming is a better thing, Than the being trimmed, oh King! Grasp the needle bright with which Thou didst for the Virgin stitch Garment, such as ne'er before Monarch stitched or Virgin wore, Not for her, oh semster nimble! Do I now invoke thy thimble; Not for her thy wanted aid is, ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al

... confine itself to prescribing the size of a lady's sleeves, or the trimming she might wear on her dress: it passed other timely laws to restrain the idle and vicious and preserve good order throughout the community. It was ordered in 1632 "that y'e remainder of Mr. (John) Allen's strong water, being estimated ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1 • Various

... labyrinth, in the easiest manner possible. The knot which you thought a Gordian one, will untie itself before you. Nothing is so mistaken as the supposition, that a person is to extricate himself from a difficulty by intrigue, by chicanery, by dissimulation, by trimming, by an untruth, by an injustice. This increases the difficulties ten fold; and those who pursue these methods, get themselves so involved at length, that they can turn no way but their infamy becomes more exposed. It is of great importance to set a ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson



Words linked to "Trimming" :   trimming capacitor, miniver, cut, clipping, rickrack, braid, pruning, cutting off, ricrac, trim, decoration



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