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Awry   /ərˈaɪ/   Listen
Awry

adjective
1.
Turned or twisted toward one side.  Synonyms: askew, cockeyed, lopsided, skew-whiff, wonky.  "His wig was, as the British say, skew-whiff"
2.
Not functioning properly.  Synonyms: amiss, haywire, wrong.  "Has gone completely haywire" , "Something is wrong with the engine"






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Awry" Quotes from Famous Books



... we sat talking in subdued tones, the noise of a distant commotion arose. We had scarce started to our feet, Mr. Chase and I, when the brass knocker resounded, and Mr. Hammond was let in. His wig was awry, ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... the low wall that separated the churchyard from the road. The old graces, with their tombstones leaning awry, like gapped, uneven teeth, reminded her of her errand, and soon she saw Smith. He had found himself a seat where an old tomb with railings and monument was overrun with ground ivy; he sat among the coarse green of it, staring before him with his chin propped on one hand. All the ...
— The Second Class Passenger • Perceval Gibbon

... kept quiet—Mrs. Tod hoped their noise didn't disturb ME? but Mr. March was such a very fidgety gentleman—so particular in his dress, too—Why, Miss March had to iron his cravats with her own hands. Besides, if there was a pin awry in her dress he did make such a fuss—and, really, such an active, busy young lady couldn't look always as if she came trim out of a band-box. Mr. March wanted so much waiting on, he seemed to fancy he still had his big house in ...
— John Halifax, Gentleman • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik

... Deaf-Chief, too, With head awry, who cannot hear us speak Though thunder shouted for us from the skies, Yet hears the Long-Knives whisper at Vincennes; And, when they jest upon our miseries, Grips his old leathern sides, and coughs ...
— Tecumseh: A Drama • Charles Mair

... bouquet, and hold a hand of each boy so as to keep them from darting into the hedges for grasshoppers, and the gutters for butterflies, was no easy work, but I managed to do it. As we approached Mrs. Clarkson's boarding-house I felt my hat was over one ear, and my cravat awry, but there was no opportunity to rearrange them, for I saw Alice Mayton on the piazza, and felt that she saw me. Handing the bouquet to Toddie, and promising him three sticks of candy if he would be careful and not drop it, we entered the garden. The moment we were inside ...
— Helen's Babies • John Habberton

... in the gallery of the South African Parliament at Capetown, after the House had been sitting continuously for twenty hours. The Speaker had had a stool brought him to rest his legs on, and was fast asleep in his chair, with his wig all awry. Dutch farmer members from the Back-Veld were stretched out at full length on the benches in the lobbies, snoring loudly; in fact, the whole place was a sort of Parliamentary Pullman Sleeping-car. That splendid man, the late General Botha, told me that late hours in Parliament ...
— The Days Before Yesterday • Lord Frederick Hamilton

... that look large enough for the fabled barnacle-goose to emerge from? Observe this fragment a little. Another piece is secured to it, not neatly, as with proper tools, but clumsily, with many nails of different sizes, driven unevenly and with their heads battered awry. Wedged clumsily in between these pieces, and secured by a supplementary nail, is a bit of broken rope. Let us touch that rope tenderly; for who knows what despairing hands may last have clutched it when this rude raft was made? ...
— Oldport Days • Thomas Wentworth Higginson

... were scrambling over the debris; gaunt men with dishevelled hair, practically naked, covered with dirt and the greasy brown dust of the disintegrator ray. In the lead, hardly recognizable, his menore awry upon his tangled locks, was ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science September 1930 • Various

... to the custom that had unwittingly established itself, Ward C was crying itself to sleep. Not that it knew what it was crying about, it being merely a matter of atmosphere and unstrung nerves; but that is cause enough to turn the mind of a sick child all awry, twisting out happiness and twisting ...
— The Primrose Ring • Ruth Sawyer

... that to see him frequently strengthened his hold upon that unhappy man. When they were together, Storri's manner was hideously cheerful; he would talk Credit Magellan and consider Northern Consolidated as though nothing were awry. This was the refinement of cruelty, as when a cat pretends to let the ...
— The President - A novel • Alfred Henry Lewis

... will, there is lawlessness, caprice, chance. The universe, therefore, should be a scene, not of absolute order, but of absolute disorder; and since it is not such, we have nothing for it but to say that either the logic of the universe, or that of Mr. Buckle, is very much awry. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 63, January, 1863 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... spirit would kiss Were not red lips of flesh, But the huge kiss of power? Where yesterday soft hair through my fingers fell, A shaggy mane would entwine, And no slim form work fire to my thighs, But human Life's inarticulate mass Throb the pulse of a thing Whose mountain flanks awry Beg my mastery—mine! Ah! I will ride the dizzy beast of the world ...
— Georgian Poetry 1916-17 - Edited by Sir Edward Howard Marsh • Various

... was a large, discoloured, cream-coloured felt, much battered, with its brown band awry; one was of the type of flat-brimmed silk, known in Paris as the Latin Quartier; another was an enormous sombrero. Gregory stood frowning at these strange signs somewhat as if they had been a drove of cockroaches. ...
— Tante • Anne Douglas Sedgwick

... and her red delicate mouth went awry with dismay and disappointment, and her expression was the half incredulous expression of a child suddenly and cruelly disappointed: "You won't ...
— Soul of a Bishop • H. G. Wells

... soul they talk, but all awry; And in themselves seek virtue, and to themselves All glory arrogate,—to God give none; Rather accuse Him under usual names, Fortune, or Fate, as one regardless quite ...
— Cicero - Ancient Classics for English Readers • Rev. W. Lucas Collins

... twitched up the skirts of his coat, and replaced his awry cushion, and began to think that perhaps, after all, he had been asleep. But Mrs. Geer was too much interested in the subject of her own cogitations to pursue her victory farther; ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... here? This looks as though some part of Schenk's plans had gone awry. Are they dismissed, or are ...
— Two Daring Young Patriots - or, Outwitting the Huns • W. P. Shervill

... sudden light, a strange sight met the eyes. Two ladies had fainted. Mme. Sparmiento, hanging to her husband's arm, with her knees dragging on the floor, and livid in the face, appeared half dead. The men, pale, with their neckties awry, looked as if they had all been in ...
— The Confessions of Arsene Lupin • Maurice Leblanc

... hundred battles, and he has stood presenting arms, and sobbing and howling like a baby, while the young wretch lashed him over the arms and thighs with the stick. In a day of action this man would dare anything. A button might be awry THEN and nobody touched him; but when they had made the brute fight, then they lashed him again into subordination. Almost all of us yielded to the spell—scarce one could break it. The French officer I have spoken of as taken along with me, was in my company, and caned ...
— Barry Lyndon • William Makepeace Thackeray

... often to imagination, reads me a lecture to which I am compelled to bow. To explain: I made the attempt to draw a short time ago; everything in the drawing seemed properly proportioned, but, upon putting it in another light, I perceived that every perpendicular line was awry. In other words I found that I could place no confidence ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume II • Samuel F. B. Morse

... I alone have seen you serve, Disciple of those early springs, With ears awry and tail a-curve You lost yourself ...
— Twenty • Stella Benson

... on a stump, watching. Over an area of many acres the ground was a litter of broken limbs, ragged tops, crushed and bent and broken younger growth, twisted awry by the big trees in their fall. Huge stumps upthrust like beacons in a ruffled harbor, grim, massive butts. From all the ravaged wood rose a pungent smell of pitch and sap, a resinous, pleasant smell. Radiating ...
— Big Timber - A Story of the Northwest • Bertrand W. Sinclair

... from me, sir, as I suppose you see," answered the youth, laughing at the very moment his countenance was a little awry with pain. "But it may be borne. I suppose Graham can spare a few minutes, soon, to look ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper

... spreading dawn the house party had returned from Connachan and had ascended to their rooms, weary with the night's revelry, the men with shirt-fronts crumpled and ties awry, the women with hair disordered, and in some cases with flimsy skirts torn in the mazes of the dance. Yet all were merry and full of satisfaction at what one young man from town had declared to be "an awfully ripping evening." All retired at once—all save the ...
— The House of Whispers • William Le Queux

... fulfilled; if, in place of the elegant, rakish-looking chevalier in florid garb, he had been confronted by an individual awry in body or hideous in feature, he would not have been confused, or stood repeating to himself, "My God, can this be ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 1 • Lew. Wallace

... resolutions about things in general at public meetings. The guests were few, but were, as one might expect at Mrs. Jellyby's, all devoted to public objects only. Besides those I have mentioned, there was an extremely dirty lady with her bonnet all awry and the ticketed price of her dress still sticking on it, whose neglected home, Caddy told me, was like a filthy wilderness, but whose church was like a fancy fair. A very contentious gentleman, who said it was his mission to be everybody's brother but who appeared to be on terms of coolness with ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens

... and through the wood Where the old gray snag of the poplar stood, Where the hammering "red-heads" hopped awry, And the buzzard "raised" in the "clearing" sky And lolled and circled, as we went by ...
— Riley Child-Rhymes • James Whitcomb Riley

... lord, not Lacy stept awry: For oft he su'd and courted for yourself, And still woo'd for the courtier all in green; But I, whom fancy made but over-fond, Pleaded myself with looks as if I lov'd; I fed mine eye with gazing on his face, ...
— The Growth of English Drama • Arnold Wynne

... Nino's debut, Maestro Ercole de Pretis found himself in hot water, and the choristers at St. Peter's noticed that his skull-cap was awry, and that he sang out of tune; and once he tried to take a pinch of snuff when there was only three bars' rest in the music, so that instead of singing C sharp he sneezed very loud. Then all the other singers giggled, and said, "Salute!"—which we always ...
— A Roman Singer • F. Marion Crawford

... deluge of rain, and the camp looked indeed a sorry spectacle with the tents all awry in the hurricane that ...
— Fanny Goes to War • Pat Beauchamp

... he is lean and he is sick, His body dwindled and awry Rests upon ankles swoln and thick; His legs are thin and dry. He has no son, he has no child; His wife, an aged woman, Lives with him, near the waterfall, Upon the ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various

... all ridiculous, my dear." What did any imperfection of raiment matter with a face and head like Deleah's; as exquisitely moulded, as delicately poised on her slender throat as a flower on its stalk? "There's a tiny bit of hair awry," the mother said, caught the girl's little chin in her hand and passed her fingers over the shadowy black hair for the ...
— Mrs. Day's Daughters • Mary E. Mann

... the man of tense, would thrust his hand under his peruke, and rub, rub, rub his polished scalp, which all the while effused a divine ichor—(poets never perspire)—and, when he was gently reminded that his wig was a little awry towards the left side, he would pluck it, resentfully, equally as much awry on the right; and then, to punish the offending and displacing hand, he would commence gnawing off the nails of his fingers, rich with the moisture from above. We have recorded this little personal trait, ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard

... I saw Tony again. He was standing outside a brilliantly lighted grocer's shop, his cap awry as usual, and a reefer thrown over his guernsey. Something in the despondency of his attitude haled me across the road. "Well, Tony? George is there ...
— A Poor Man's House • Stephen Sydney Reynolds

... the nature of this driving-power I first began to appreciate when they had lifted him into the circle of firelight and I saw his face, grey under the tan, terror in the eyes, tears too, hair and beard awry, and listened to the wild stream of words pouring forth ...
— The Empty House And Other Ghost Stories • Algernon Blackwood

... those ills we have Than fly to others that we know not of? Thus conscience does make cowards of us all, And thus the native hue of resolution Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought, And enterprises of great pitch and moment With this regard their currents turns awry And lose the ...
— Shakspere, Personal Recollections • John A. Joyce

... part, I have that worse custom, that if my slipper go awry, I let my shirt and my cloak do so too; I scorn to ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne

... oldest house in the village. It was known as the "old Crane place." It had never been painted, it was shedding its flapping gray shingles like gray scales, the roof sagged in a mossy hollow before the chimney, the windows and doors were awry, and the whole house was full of undulations and wavering lines, which gave it a curiously unreal look in broad daylight. In the moonlight it was the shadowy edifice built ...
— Pembroke - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman

... this patient person's back received, These many years. He has lost friends and money; He has lost his own country; His well-framed enterprises have gone awry. And his heart has gone hungry these many years ...
— Song Book of Quong Lee of Limehouse • Thomas Burke

... louder. It wriggled around in its little, white fur nest, and stretched out imploring pink paws from which the mittens had fallen off. Its little lace hood was awry, the pink rosette was cocked over one ear. Maria herself began to cry. Then Gladys waxed fairly fierce. She paid no attention whatever to ...
— By the Light of the Soul - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman

... They showed, at least, even to the well-meant officiousness of the Hazeldeans, the small account in which the fallen family was held. As he sat still on the moss-grown pales, gloomy and taciturn, his mother standing beside him, with her cap awry, Mr. Leslie shamblingly sauntered up, and said in a pensive, ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... an optical illusion which often seems to be incredible. All the shrubs, fir trees, stables, houses, etc., seem to be bent in a slanting direction, as by an immense pressure of air. They are all standing awry, so much awry that the chalets and cottages of the peasants seem to be tumbling down. It is the consequence of the steep inclination of the line. Those who are seated in the carriage do not observe that they are doing down a declivity of twenty to ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... everybody else. He had gathered up his robe behind, in much the same manner as a slovenly woman would her petticoats on a very dirty day, in order that he might feel the full warmth of the fire. His wig was put on all awry, with the tail straggling about his neck; his scanty grey trousers and short black gaiters, made in the worst possible style, imported an additional inelegant appearance to his uncouth person; and his limp, badly-starched shirt-collar almost obscured his eyes. We shall ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens

... where tens of thousands of impacts against the iron wedges had worn their way, and even the heads of the wedges themselves were rounded outward and downward with an iron fringe where particles of the metal had been forced from place. The huge hook at the end of the log chain was twisted all awry, though no less firm its grip. The fence, the implements and all about showed mighty work, something of mind, ...
— A Man and a Woman • Stanley Waterloo

... position to pass judgment upon Ulster or the unity of the British Empire the moment there was an attack from the outside. The Germans have dealt in materialistic facts. But with the spirit that moulds and makes history they are all awry. With the Germans, individuals are units and are counted from the outside, never from the inside. That is why her diplomacy is not only a failure, but offensive: it never differentiates among nations and peoples according ...
— The Audacious War • Clarence W. Barron

... eminently so, were accepted at once and energetically carried out. A sort of heathen revival took place, for even the ministers and deacons turned Musclemen; old ladies tossed bean-bags till their caps were awry, and winter roses blossomed on their cheeks; school-children proved the worth of the old proverb, "An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure," by getting their backs ready before the burdens came; pale girls grew blithe and strong swinging ...
— On Picket Duty and Other Tales • Louisa May Alcott

... the shoe-strings were missing. Of all that Flemish household, the master alone took the strange liberty of being slovenly. His black cloth trousers were covered with stains, his waistcoat was unbuttoned, his cravat awry, his greenish coat ripped at the seams,—completing an array of signs, great and small, which in any other man would have betokened a poverty begotten of vice, but which in Balthazar Claes was ...
— The Alkahest • Honore de Balzac

... dreams, and she became aware of the dancers that passed and repassed the lighted windows; among them a man in spectacles, guiding and being guided by a determined young person in apple-green, his face flushed and earnest, his grizzled hair somewhat awry. "Why—it's Jim Thorpe!" she thought, with a stab of remorse. "I'd forgotten him. But he's dancing, he's enjoying himself like a boy. Bless that thoughtful girl of mine! She's made him look ten years younger. Dear, ...
— Kildares of Storm • Eleanor Mercein Kelly

... clasped in their hands. Madame Wang was asleep on the cool couch in the inner rooms. Chin Ch'uan-erh was sitting next to her massaging her legs. But she too was quite drowsy, and her eyes wore all awry. Pao-yue drew up to her with gentle tread. The moment, however, that he unfastened the pendants from the earrings she wore, Chin Ch'uan opened her eyes, and realised that it was ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin

... married folk were as are this royal couple of ours. Never are they happy apart, and never has a word gone awry between them. If one speaks of Havelok, one must needs think of Goldberga; and if one says a word of the queen, one means the king also. Happy in their people and in their wondrous fair children are they, and that is all that can be ...
— Havelok The Dane - A Legend of Old Grimsby and Lincoln • Charles Whistler

... rule, however, he did not sleep on the spot. Peasants, climbing to their work on the hillsides in the twilit hour of dawn, were wont to encounter that staggering procession headed by Mr. Keith who, with spectacles all awry and crooning softly to himself, was carried round the more perilous turnings by a contingent of his ...
— South Wind • Norman Douglas

... compliment as it deserved; so I merely bowed stiffly, without speaking. By this time he had succeeded in putting on his great-coat, but still, by some mischance or other, the moment of his leaving-taking was deferred; one time he buttoned it awry, and had to undo it all again; then, when it was properly adjusted, he discovered that his pocket-handkerchief was not available, being left in the inner coat-pocket; to this succeeded a doubt as to the safety of the check, which instituted another search, and it was full ten minutes before ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 2 (of 2) • Charles Lever

... way that the atmosphere of the higher life penetrated to me, so came a knowledge of the sin and sorrow abroad in the world—the cry of the millions oppressed, downtrodden, God-forsaken! The wheels of social mechanism needed readjusting—things were awry. Oh, that I might find a cure and give it to my fellows! I dizzied my brain with the problem; I was too much for myself. A man with these notions is a curse to himself, but a woman—pity help a woman of that description! She is not merely a creature ...
— My Brilliant Career • Miles Franklin

... was shining when we approached Pisa, and for a long time we could see, behind the wall, the leaning Tower, all awry in the uncertain light; the shadowy original of the old pictures in school-books, setting forth 'The Wonders of the World.' Like most things connected in their first associations with school-books and school-times, ...
— Pictures from Italy • Charles Dickens

... showing between, and at the other end of the piano, with his elbows planted on the instrument and his head pressed between his hands, stood or rather leaned a rough-looking man of medium height, his grizzled hair all awry where he had run his fingers through it, and wearing a khaki shirt open at ...
— The Radio Boys with the Revenue Guards • Gerald Breckenridge

... and be not afraid to do thine office. My neck is very short, take heed therefore thou strike not awry.' As he spoke, he drew out a handkerchief he had brought with him, and, binding it over his eyes, he stretched himself out on the platform and laid his head ...
— The Red Book of Heroes • Leonora Blanche Lang

... the careful plans of first-class lynxes go awry sometimes. A waiter came to the table to say that Kenna was ...
— Blue Aloes - Stories of South Africa • Cynthia Stockley

... fires of desire and repine; * And naught I reply when they flare on high: Baghdad-wards I hie me on life-and-death work, * Loving one who distorts my right judgment awry: A swift camel under me shortcuts the wold * And deem it a cloud all who nearhand espy: O 'Amir make haste after model of her * Who would heal mine ill and Love's cup drain dry: For the leven of love burns the vitals of ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton

... dashed up to the cook-wagon, saw two men crawl out and stand for a minute looking. Then, as their hands moved to their hip-pockets like one, he opened fire. At almost the same instant the flames leaped from their guns, and Bud's hat was knocked awry by a bullet that ...
— The Free Range • Francis William Sullivan

... Every drawer was turned upside down, every closet awry, every place, where the jewels could be concealed, bore evidence of having been inspected—nothing, apparently, had been missed. They had gone through the house completely, even into the garret, where every board ...
— In Her Own Right • John Reed Scott

... his lectures, most of us only heard him in the pulpit of St. Mary's. It was rather fun to take ritualistic ladies, who had fashioned mental pictures of the great Tractarian, to Evensong in Christ Church, and to watch their dismay as that very unascetic figure, with tumbled surplice and hood awry, toddled to his stall. "Dear me! Is that Dr. Pusey? Somehow I had fancied quite a different-looking man." Liddon was now a Canon of St. Paul's, and his home was at Amen Court; so, when residing at Oxford, ...
— Fifteen Chapters of Autobiography • George William Erskine Russell

... so rapidly drifting. The doctor still regarded Mr. Everett as his chief friend in the family, and thankfully accepted his hospitality, which broke in so pleasantly upon his solitary life at the boarding-house, where the long table was presided over by his landlady, with her cap awry and her sleeves rolled to her elbows, while she gossiped volubly with her boarders, in the intervals of her skirmishes with the frowsy waiting maid. And Louise? She only knew that she enjoyed the society of the young doctor, ...
— In Blue Creek Canon • Anna Chapin Ray

... back late after lunch, her hat awry and signs of tears on her painted face. Her eyes were more obviously frightened and she whispered a message which was taken up to Mark. Mark lifted a haggard face to hear it, asked a question, bowed his head, ...
— The City of Fire • Grace Livingston Hill

... September. By the thirty-first of August the old Beacon Street homestead facing the Public Garden was in spick-and-span order, with Dong Ling in the basement hovering over a well-stocked larder, and Pete searching the rest of the house for a chair awry, or a ...
— Miss Billy Married • Eleanor H. Porter

... was a brighter, quicker-looking person, with very clear eyes, like two stars, who went continually through the room, putting everything to rights. If a chair was out of its place, or a table turned awry, or a tool put down where it should not be she could not bear to see it for a minute, but put all things straight again, so that nobody was at a loss where to find anything. She ...
— Forgotten Tales of Long Ago • E. V. Lucas

... millions crowded into that teeming area around Manhattan, were jeopardized. The army of men engaged in all the myriad activities by which the great city sustained itself were as terrified as anyone else. They began deserting their posts. And local communication systems went awry. The telephones, the lights, local transportation—all of them began limping, threatening ...
— The White Invaders • Raymond King Cummings

... sent down that grade with a brake deliberately made useless was a horrible thought which she could not put from her mind. She had thought and thought until it seemed to her that she knew exactly how and why the killer's plans had gone awry. She was certain that she and Swan had prevented him from climbing down into the canyon and making sure that her dad did not live to tell what mischance had overtaken him. He had probably been watching while she and Swan made that stretcher and carried her dad away out of his reach. He would not ...
— Sawtooth Ranch • B. M. Bower

... of these sciences, and furnished with ample staffs of instructors will be in existence. Only then will be appreciated to its full magnitude what a world of ambitions and faculties the capitalist system of production suppresses, or forces awry ...
— Woman under socialism • August Bebel

... dwell. I suffer it afresh as I write. There are the cobwebs on the ceiling, a bloated spider crawling in one: a worse monster is gloating over me: those dull eyes of his, and my own pistol-barrel, cover me in the lamp-light. The crucifix pin is awry in his cravat; that is because he has offered it me to kiss. As a refinement (I feel sure) my revolver is not cocked; and the hammer ...
— Dead Men Tell No Tales • E. W. Hornung

... elegance equips it, But how oft on foreign lips it Runs awry; German, tainted, execrated, Is for ages relegated ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, April 25, 1917 • Various

... the air with a long-handled broom, her cap-frills flying, her spectacles awry, the Widow Sprigg was vainly endeavoring to restore peace between Punch, the newcomer, and Sir Philip Sidney, the venerable Angora cat which ...
— The Brass Bound Box • Evelyn Raymond

... was standing there at his side of the table, shaking with violent emotion, his glasses awry, face wrinkled and drawn, hands twitching. His daughter, making no answer to his taunts, sat with the paper spread before her on the table. A wine glass, overset, had spilled a red stain—for all the world like the workers' blood, spilled in war and industry ...
— The Air Trust • George Allan England

... he is lean and he is sick; His body, dwindled and awry, Rests upon ankles swollen and thick; His legs are thin and dry; * * * * * "Few months of life he has in store, As he to you will tell, For still, the more he works, the more ...
— Among My Books • James Russell Lowell

... dozed, and Anna, watching him, made an attempt at flight. He caught her on the rear platform, however, with a clutch that sickened her. The conductor eyed them with the scant curiosity of two o'clock in the morning, when all the waking world is awry. ...
— Dangerous Days • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... inadvertence, but partly also through crafty design, the wave of generous sympathy for the suffering little island of Porto Rico which has been sweeping over the country has come very near being perverted into the means of turning awry the policy and permanent course of a great Nation. To relieve the temporary distress by recognizing the Porto Ricans as citizens, and by an extension of the Dingley tariff to Porto Rico as a matter of constitutional ...
— Problems of Expansion - As Considered In Papers and Addresses • Whitelaw Reid

... and stood there thinking for a time. She was a queer-looking little figure as she stood thus in her short holland overall, her stout bare legs, brown as berries, slightly apart, her head thrown back, her hair awry, a smudge on her ...
— Girls of the Forest • L. T. Meade

... hospitality with more refinement. We were to be at the station before seven, and just as our carriage-door was closing, it was reopened, and a rough but decent country-woman was shoved in, the driver muttering something about there being no other conveyance for her. My father looked a little awry, not with any thought of remonstrating against the procedure—no native American would do that, you know—but he was just lighting his after-breakfast segar, and he shrunk from the impropriety of smoking in such close ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2 No 4, October, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... worthy ancestor spoils her," cried Chia Lien, with eyes awry, "that she behaved as she did and took upon ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin

... roof itself is entire, but has dropped sideways over the ruin below as a drunken cap over the dissolute. The lower floors are heaps of damp mortar and bricks. Very rarely a solitary picture hangs awry on the wall of a house where there is no other sign that it was ever inhabited. I saw in such a room the portrait of a child who in some moment long ago laughed while it clasped a dog in a garden. You continue to gaze at a sign like that, you don't know why, as though ...
— Old Junk • H. M. Tomlinson

... grew more hateful, so it also grew more laughable. They were sure to repeat all awry what little Latin was ever whispered to them. The public found that the devils had never gone through their lower classes. The Capuchins, however, coolly said that if these demons were weak in Latin, they were marvellous ...
— La Sorciere: The Witch of the Middle Ages • Jules Michelet

... comes to them from one side, unwittingly taking the direction of that side; so that their faces ought to be carefully turned toward the light, lest they become squint-eyed, or accustom themselves to look awry. They should, also, early accustom themselves to darkness, or else they will cry and scream as soon as they are left in the dark. Food and sleep, if too exactly proportioned, become necessary to them after the lapse ...
— Emile - or, Concerning Education; Extracts • Jean Jacques Rousseau

... at her bootless mistress: her garments all awry; her sword ill sheathed; her cloak uncaught from the shoulder and half used, petticoat-like, as a covering for her trembling-limbs; her hair dishevelled; her cheeks pale; her wild eyes, ...
— Mistress Nell - A Merry Tale of a Merry Time • George C. Hazelton, Jr.

... again, the gallant Don comforted poor Sancho Panza with hopes of an island, and explained away all their sufferings on the grounds of necromancy. All that had gone awry with them was the work of ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books - Vol. II: Fiction • Arthur Mee, J. A. Hammerton, Eds.

... immortality; and by a son's son's son he shall reach the solar abodes'? Verily it is pleasant to have a boy-butcha in the house,—the heir and lord. So we will even make merry to-day; to-day we will take holiday. Let the buttons wait, and the beard go awry; send the barber away, and tell the tailor to come to-morrow; for one day Sahib, the master of earth, abdicates in favor of Puttro, the 'Deliverer from Hell,' the true king for every pious Hindoo. And here are some rupees to buy him a happy horoscope ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 110, December, 1866 - A Magazine of Literature, Science, Art, and Politics • Various

... bones like that of a mummy, his eyes deep sunken like wells, and his head totally devoid of hair, although about his lean throat there was a copious fringe of iron-gray beard, untrimmed and scraggy. Down the entire side of one cheek ran a livid scar, while his nose was turned awry. ...
— Bob Hampton of Placer • Randall Parrish

... careless of the indifference where her sorrows and her joys fell, her pride and maternal tenderness expressed in a tornado of feeling. And while she was thus exciting herself and struggling—distracted, her bonnet awry—at once grotesque and sublime, as are all the children of nature when brought into civilization, taking to witness the honesty of her son and the injustice of men, even the liveried servants, whose disdainful impassibility was ...
— The Nabob • Alphonse Daudet

... came on duty. He had not followed closely the story about John Wood's loan, and had got it a little awry. ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 9 • Various

... promised the things agreed to might be considered done. In point of fact, then, it was Alick who was really moulding her, in excess of that unconscious plasticity and imitation already spoken of. But this was one of the things which the world did not know, and where judgment went awry ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 17, - No. 97, January, 1876 • Various

... she turned round for his benefit. Her hair was a little awry and the lace at her neck disarranged. The natural bloom had not quite returned to her cheeks. With a look in his eyes that would have mystified Betty for many a day had she but seen it he ran his gaze over the dainty figure. Then reassuring her that she looked as well as ever, he ...
— Betty Zane • Zane Grey

... is one thing to the man who lets the breath out of his companion with a knife, and, leaving his body in the brush, straightway goes about his idleness laughing, and quite another to him who cannot get over the hideous fact that he has tied his cravat awry. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, October 1885 • Various

... rector enters, and there is something in his appearance peculiar, if not suspicious. His disordered dress corresponds with his disordered room. His coat is soiled and torn, his cravat is put on awry, and his linen is none of the cleanest. He salutes Brother Hedge and his fair intended, in an unsteady voice, while his eyes wander vacantly around the apartment, and he leans ...
— City Crimes - or Life in New York and Boston • Greenhorn

... would have dressed the hair all awry, but she was good, and dressed it perfectly even and smooth, and as prettily as ...
— The Fairy Book - The Best Popular Stories Selected and Rendered Anew • Dinah Maria Mulock (AKA Miss Mulock)

... his large hands clasped before him. 'No,' he said at last. 'Of course there's no help in that theory. I rather expect we have some way to go before we find out why a man gets up before the servants are awake, dresses himself awry, and is murdered within sight of his house early enough to be 'cold and stiff ...
— Trent's Last Case - The Woman in Black • E.C. (Edmund Clerihew) Bentley

... not swiftly,—but, as fly The sea-gulls, with a steady, sober flight— And then swung back; nor close—but stood awry, Half letting in long shadows on the light, Which still in Juan's candlesticks burned high, For he had two, both tolerably bright, And in the doorway, darkening darkness, stood The sable Friar ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron

... entirely your own fault. She has never been intimate with any man but yourself, and you have made her believe that all men are like you. How could she harbour suspicion when she did not know what to suspect? Of course she saw everything wrongly and awry. The old life had become impossible to her, and she nearly made a mistake as to what the new one should be, that was all. I know she wavered for a moment, but the weakness was more physical than moral, I think. Her vision was clouded at the time, but as ...
— Ideala • Sarah Grand

... husband, entering from his room. "You are a vision of loveliness, my dear Eliza. Is there a rose too few, or a hoop awry?" ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton

... measure, and to a finer rhythm, than the most delicate clockwork man ever made? The great ocean-lines mark our seas with their paths through the water; the fine brains of the earth are behind the ships that sail from port to port, yet how awry the system goes! When does a ship come to her harbor at an hour determined when she sailed? What is a ship beside the smallest moon of the smallest world? But, there above us, moons, worlds, suns, all the infinite cluster of colossi, move into place to the exactness of a hair at ...
— The Two Vanrevels • Booth Tarkington

... darkness like a spectral dome, and, looking no more upon the ground, the captain ran toward it. By means of the stony projections he quickly mounted to the top, and there the sight he saw almost made him drop his lantern. The great lid of the mound had been moved and was now awry, leaving about one half of the ...
— The Adventures of Captain Horn • Frank Richard Stockton

... addition to that, she was short and thin, while her careless and tasteless way of dressing herself concealed her few small feminine attractions, which might have been brought out if she had possessed any taste in dress. Her skirts were always awry, and she frequently scratched herself, no matter on what part of her person, totally indifferent as to who might see her, and so persistently, that anyone who saw her might think that she was suffering from something like the itch. The only ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant

... longed so for a mirror. She knew her hair was all awry, that her dress was wrinkled and covered with dust, and that her eyes must look funny from ...
— Lucile Triumphant • Elizabeth M. Duffield

... of Secretary of War Stanton are ruffled and awry, and his features are not calm and undisturbed, indicating that he has an idea of what's the matter in that back-yard; the countenance of the officer in the rear of the Secretary of War wears rather an anxious, or worried, look, and his hair isn't ...
— Lincoln's Yarns and Stories • Alexander K. McClure

... guide's lips. Others lay still, in the same attitude in which they had fallen asleep, having made up their minds, apparently, to lie there in spite of all the guides in the world. Not a few got slowly into the sitting position, their hair dishevelled, their caps awry, their eyes alternately winking very hard and staring awfully in the vain effort to keep open, and their whole physiognomy wearing an expression of blank stupidity that is peculiar to man when engaged in that struggle which occurs each morning as he endeavours to ...
— The Young Fur Traders • R.M. Ballantyne

... seiz'd alive, Not scornful virgins who their charms survive, Not ardent lovers robb'd of all their bliss, 5 Not ancient ladies when refus'd a kiss, Not tyrants fierce that unrepenting die, Not Cynthia when her manteau's pinn'd awry, E'er felt such rage, resentment, and despair, As thou, sad Virgin! for thy ...
— The Rape of the Lock and Other Poems • Alexander Pope

... and listless ennui in which he was sunk, the disorder of his library, whose arrangement had never been completed, irritated him. Helpless in his armchair, he had constantly in sight the books set awry on the shelves propped against each other or lying flat on their sides, like a tumbled pack of cards. This disorder offended him the more when he contrasted it with the perfect order of his religious works, carefully placed on parade ...
— Against The Grain • Joris-Karl Huysmans

... earth by a freshet of the spring long past, remained as the waters had cut it. Slowly up the course of this insignificant cicatrice old Jim ascended, his hands still held beneath his arms, his long mustache and his grizzled beard blown awry in the breeze. The pick he ...
— Bruvver Jim's Baby • Philip Verrill Mighels

... with moisture. The ceiling was gone, the windows were out, and the cold rain blew in and the only thing that was left intact was one of those worked worsted mottoes that you always expect to find in the homes of working people. It still hung to the wall, and though much awry the glass and frame were unbroken. The motto looked grimly and sadly sarcastic. ...
— The Johnstown Horror • James Herbert Walker

... The civilian or the imitation soldier who tries to imitate the military salute invariably makes some mistake which shows that he is not a real soldier; he gives it in an apologetic manner, he fails to stand or march at attention, his coat is unbuttoned or hat on awry, or he falls to look the person saluted in the eye. There is a wide difference in the method of rendering and meaning between the civilian salute as used by friends in passing, or by servants to ...
— Manual for Noncommissioned Officers and Privates of Infantry • War Department

... still inclined to break away and run for it; his head hanging down, his big hand moving nervously on the old book-strap which he wore for a belt. The necktie, which presumably Mrs. O'Connor had furnished him, was all awry, and in the half light they could see, too, that his old clothes were faded and torn. He seemed quite indifferent to everybody and everything—even to Mr. Ellsworth—though he smiled ...
— Tom Slade with the Colors • Percy K. Fitzhugh

... lordship; 'I am sure the carriage must be ready. I hear it. Come, Mr. Gertrude, settle your wig; it is quite awry. By Jove! we might as well go to the Pantheon, as you are ready dressed. I have a domino.' And so saying, Lord Cadurcis handed the lady to his carriage, and pressed her lightly by the hand, as he reiterated his promise of calling at ...
— Venetia • Benjamin Disraeli

... with your head awry And your comical twisted smile, You rub your eyes—do you wonder why You've slept such a long, long while? As you lay so still in the cupboard dim, And you heard on the roof the rain, Were you thinking . . . what has become of him? And when will ...
— Ballads of a Bohemian • Robert W. Service

... who had never been tried to his own limit? "We'll have to keep the secret, you and I, or—" No, what was the use? Within Mardikian's small experience, it was so much more natural to believe that one man, Coffin, had gone awry, than to understand a month-by-month rotting of the human soul under loneliness ...
— The Burning Bridge • Poul William Anderson

... lady with a cap awry on her head, green spectacles, and a large shawl flung round her, stood tapping the ground ...
— The Carved Cupboard • Amy Le Feuvre

... time I understood all, for my drugged brain had awakened at last. I ran to the brute upon the ground; grotesque in my woman's garments all awry, I leaped on him and stamped out the last of his life. Then, standing over his dead body, I ...
— Marie - An Episode in The Life of the late Allan Quatermain • H. Rider Haggard

... Thus conscience doth make cowards of us all; And thus the native hue of resolution Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought, And enterprises of great pith and moment With this regard their currents turn awry, And lose the name of action. Shakespeare.—Hamlet, ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey

... too, lay back, with his great, gray eyes staring about him. While the feelings of his friend had moved towards satisfaction, his had undergone a less pleasant change. His plan seemed to be going awry, and he began to think of himself as of a fool. What had he anticipated? What had he expected of this expedition? He had been, as usual, politely waiting on destiny. He had come to the islet in the hope that Destiny would meet him there ...
— A Spirit in Prison • Robert Hichens

... worse! No one can endure that?" and threw his bundle on his back, and went forth. When he came to the hollow tree, he sat down and hung his head. The bees came flying out, and the Queen-bee asked him if he had a stiff neck, since he held his head so awry? "Alas, no," answered the tailor, "something quite different weighs me down," and he told her what the King had demanded of him. The bees began to buzz and hum amongst themselves, and the Queen-bee said, "Just go home again, but come back to-morrow at this time, and bring a ...
— Household Tales by Brothers Grimm • Grimm Brothers

... buggy; and his imagination—that's the unbroken colt. Every day, for a long time, the colt has run away with the wagon, tipping it over and dragging it in the ditch, until every bolt is loose, and every spoke rattling, and every wheel awry. I do hope he's ...
— Darrel of the Blessed Isles • Irving Bacheller

... would have dressed their heads awry, but she was very good, and dressed them perfectly well They were almost two days without eating, so much were they transported with joy. They broke above a dozen laces in trying to be laced up close, that they might have a fine slender shape, and they were continually ...
— The Blue Fairy Book • Various

... called la belle jeunesse, is a confirmation day,—when the bishop drives to Grande Anse over the mountains, and all the population turns out in holiday garb, and the bells are tapped like tam-tams, and triumphal arches—most awry to behold!—span the road-way, bearing in clumsiest lettering the welcome, Vive Monseigneur. On that event, the long procession of young girls to be confirmed—all in white robes, white veils, and white satin slippers—is a numerical surprise. ...
— Two Years in the French West Indies • Lafcadio Hearn

... use! I ain't a-goin' to set on that tottlin' thing one minit longer—not for all the infanties in Ameriky! What more's a furrin infanty than a home-born one, anyhow?' There was a stir next the rope and a break in the wall of humanity about it, and then Mrs. Camp emerged, her bonnet very much awry, and her husband bringing up the rear, puffing and worried, with a little red chair hanging from one shoulder and the faded umbrella ...
— Against Odds - A Detective Story • Lawrence L. Lynch

... long and unkempt and heavily covered with mats of autumn leaves. The bricks of the front walk were sunken and uneven and the steps leading to the high piazza were deeply warped, as by pools of water that had lain and dried on their unswept surface through many seasons. The blinds hung awry and the paint on the great front doors was scaling, and altogether it was a faded magnificence, this of Asbury Fuller. She pulled the handle of the front-door bell and in response to its jangling announcement ...
— The Strange Adventures of Mr. Middleton • Wardon Allan Curtis

... has another section. We start occasionally ten thousand miles awry. We resign the sceptre of reason, and the high dignity that belongs to us as beings of a superior species; and, without authority derived to us from any system of thinking, even without the scheme of gratifying any vehement ...
— Thoughts on Man - His Nature, Productions and Discoveries, Interspersed with - Some Particulars Respecting the Author • William Godwin

... the dark doorway. She could see how the logs of the cabin had moved awry and what a big, dilapidated hovel it was. As she looked in, Colter loomed over her—placed a familiar and somehow masterful hand upon her. Ellen let it rest on her shoulder a moment. Must she forever be repulsing these rude men among whom her lot was cast? Did Colter mean ...
— To the Last Man • Zane Grey

... away such a long, long while. So, little Walter didn't fancy staying in the nursery much, and as he was not allowed to go into the drawing-room, for fear his shirt-collar might be tumbled, or his jacket on awry, or his boots have a mud speck on them, the poor child had nothing left to do but wander round the hall and lobbies, and see the chambermaids sweep the rooms, and hear the waiters swear at each other, and watch the stages and ...
— Little Ferns For Fanny's Little Friends • Fanny Fern

... courage of the troops, for that morning they had displayed valor and over come obstacles which would have baffled and dismayed less bold spirits. Was it for the superior gallantry of the enemy's troops or the superior Generalship of their adversary? The latter was awry, and the former had been routed from their entrenchments by the bayonet of the Confederates. Sheridan did not even hope to stop our victorious march, only to check it sufficiently to enable him to save the remnant of his army. A feeble advance, a panic strikes our army, and all is lost, ...
— History of Kershaw's Brigade • D. Augustus Dickert

... white apron, cap awry, large slippers tied on with string. (During Act 3: changes to grotesque colored dress: orange ...
— Oh! Susannah! - A Farcical Comedy in Three Acts • Mark Ambient

... how, I believe—one devious step at setting out!— that must be it:—which pursued, has led me so far out of my path, that I am in a wilderness of doubt and error; and never, never, shall find my way out of it: for, although but one pace awry at first, it has led me hundreds and hundreds of miles out of my path: and the poor estray has not one kind friend, nor has met with one direct passenger, to help her ...
— Clarissa, Volume 4 (of 9) - History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson

... little bells, clad in silk and gold. Close by, a mat, as pretty as the bayadere who once lay upon it, still gave out a faint scent of sandal wood. His fancy was stirred by a goggle-eyed Chinese monster, with mouth awry and twisted limbs, the invention of a people who, grown weary of the monotony of beauty, found an indescribable pleasure in an infinite variety of ugliness. A salt-cellar from Benvenuto Cellini's workshop carried ...
— The Magic Skin • Honore de Balzac



Words linked to "Awry" :   crooked, haywire, nonfunctional, malfunctioning



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