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Gambol   Listen
Gambol

verb
(past & past part. gamboled or gambolled; pres. part. gamboling or gambolling)
1.
Play boisterously.  Synonyms: cavort, disport, frisk, frolic, lark, lark about, rollick, romp, run around, skylark, sport.  "The gamboling lambs in the meadows" , "The toddlers romped in the playroom"






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"Gambol" Quotes from Famous Books



... say: "Ladies and gentlemen: I will now exhibit to you a marvelous troup of snorting hippopotami. Such graceful carriage has never before been seen in these ponderous animals. They have learned to gambol in our Northern clime with even greater grace than they showed in their native jungles. They show almost human intelligence. Sit up there!" (cracking his whip) "Snort to the right! ...
— Games for the Playground, Home, School and Gymnasium • Jessie H. Bancroft

... up, at times, their monotonous habits, and send them off into new channels of thought and feeling. A lesson may be learned in this direction from the picnic excursion. It is not the little ones alone who, relieved of the confinement of the parlor, gambol in half frantic ecstasy, but the sedate matron and the grave sire renew their youth, and in their exhuberance of spirit, join in the recreations with the zest of childhood. The same law obtains in Camp-Meetings. Why not go out into the woods, ...
— Thirty Years in the Itinerancy • Wesson Gage Miller

... of the older people were scarcely less, though shown after a soberer fashion. But no check was put upon the demonstrations of joy of the younger ones: they were allowed to gambol, frolic, and play, and to feast themselves upon the luscious ...
— Elsie's Motherhood • Martha Finley

... on the bank of the Tigris. No place in all Bagdad is so pleasantly situated. There the mighty river rolls in all the affluence of his waters, pure as the unclouded sky, and speckled with innumerable boats, while the rippling waves, tickled, as it were, by the summer breezes, gambol and sparkle around. ...
— Stories of Comedy • Various

... deciphered thus two or three pages, turning pale when he thought he saw the name he was in search of. Then, at the end, flinging the book on the table with a laugh of triumph, the squat man made a boyish gambol quite extraordinary in one of his bulky shape: "He is not here, ve! he has n't come... And yet he must have stopped here if he had... Done for! Coste-calde... lagadigadeou!.. quick! to our suppers, children!.. "And the worthy Tartarin, ...
— Tartarin On The Alps • Alphonse Daudet

... falls from Cwellyn Lake, they say the Fairies used to assemble, and dance on fair moon-light-nights. One evening a young man, who was the heir and occupier of this farm, hid himself in a thicket close to the spot where they used to gambol; presently they appeared, and when in their merry mood, out he bounced from his covert and seized one of their females; the rest of the company dispersed themselves, and disappeared in an instant. Disregarding her struggles and screams, he hauled her to ...
— Welsh Folk-Lore - a Collection of the Folk-Tales and Legends of North Wales • Elias Owen

... revisit the scene of the last evening's gambol, and if he met with any of the party, to demand his dog and gun. As he rose to walk, he found himself stiff in the joints, and wanting in his usual activity. "These mountain beds do not agree with me," thought Rip, "and if this frolic should lay me up ...
— The Literary World Seventh Reader • Various

... retreat we watch the passing of his Dance of Death, and we know that what they seek, these wanderers upon the wind, is not our Ideal nor our Real, not our Earth or our Heaven, but a strange, fairy-like Nirvana, where, around the pools of Nothingness, the children of twilight gambol and play. ...
— Visions and Revisions - A Book of Literary Devotions • John Cowper Powys

... never knew just how one was going to act. For a very chameleon was this strange Elizabeth, always the color of her surroundings. Being just ten-and-a-half, she would act with the wisdom of an ancient sage when in company with Mrs. MacAllister, and the foolishness of a spring lamb when left to gambol with her little brother. To-night her spirit had caught the joyous note of the wonderful spring evening, and she was like the valley, gay and sparkling and noisy with delight. Besides, this was the first time she had ever been allowed to go home alone from Mother MacAllister's, ...
— 'Lizbeth of the Dale • Marian Keith

... Minerva, armed with trident and spear, seated on either side of a hill crowned with the arms of the Pope and our own illustrious lord, together with your own and those of the Signory of Venice. First Neptune began to dance and gambol and throw balls into the air to the sound of drums and tambourines, and then Minerva did the same. Afterwards they both joined hands and danced together. Next Minerva struck the mountain with her spear, and an olive ...
— Beatrice d'Este, Duchess of Milan, 1475-1497 • Julia Mary Cartwright

... charges against him read. God was supposed to sit upon a golden throne, surrounded by the tallest angels, with harps in their hands and crowns on their heads. The goats would be thrust into eternal fire on the left, while the orthodox sheep, on the right, were to gambol on sunny slopes forever and ever. So all the priests were willing to save the ...
— Lectures of Col. R. G. Ingersoll - Latest • Robert Green Ingersoll

... towards the cottage. There it stood, quaint, time-worn, and old-fashioned, as when he had last seen it,—the little garden in which he had so often played,—the bower in which, on fine weather, Aunt Dorothy used to sit, and the door-step on which the white kitten used to gambol. But the shutters were closed, and the door was locked, and there was an air of desolation and a deep silence brooding over the place, that sank more poignantly into Martin's heart than if he had come and ...
— Martin Rattler • Robert Michael Ballantyne

... me, and displaying an energy and grace of movement that delighted the eye. He leaped, he ran round me in mere glee; he would stop, and look and listen, and seem to drink in the world like a cordial; and then he would suddenly spring into a tree with one bound, and hang and gambol there like one at home. Little as he said to me, and that of not much import, I have rarely enjoyed more stirring company; the sight of his delight was a continual feast; the speed and accuracy of his movements pleased me to the heart; and I might have been so thoughtlessly unkind as ...
— The Merry Men - and Other Tales and Fables • Robert Louis Stevenson

... Beatrice was realizing that the gardens needed a dominating note, as Gay said. During her reading of old fables and romantic legends about superwomen or extremely wicked matrons she had discovered that they nearly all possessed a lion or a bear or a brace of elephants to gambol on the green. Such a pet symbolized its owner's power and fearlessness, and any young woman who could have the Emperor of China's bedroom suite brought post haste into Hanover, U. S. A., was surely entitled to something in the jungle line for her ...
— The Gorgeous Girl • Nalbro Bartley

... when Old Christmas brought his sports again; A Christmas gambol oft would cheer A poor man's ...
— Old English Sports • Peter Hampson Ditchfield

... Sea-Acres felt the attraction and tried to lionize the dark, tall parson with the glowing, indifferent eyes. But the lion would not roar and gambol; the lion was a reserved beast, it seemed, with a suggestion of unbelievable, yet genuine, distaste under attentions. That point was alluring. One tried harder to soften a brute so worth while, so difficult. Three or four girls tried. The lion was outwardly a gentle lion, pleasant when cornered, ...
— August First • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews and Roy Irving Murray

... grace divine! O, innocence and youth and simple faith! O, water and molasses and unsalted butter! O, niceness absolute and godly whey! Would that we were like unto these ewe lambs, that we might frisk and gambol among them without evil. Would that we were female, and Christian, and immature, with a flavour as of green grass and a hope in heaven. Then would we, too, sing hymns through our blessed nose, and contort and musculate with ...
— The Fiend's Delight • Dod Grile

... foreground they do make to the real landscape! The road winding down the hill with a slight bend, like that in the High Street at Oxford; a waggon slowly ascending, and a horseman passing it at a full trot—(ah! Lizzy, Mayflower will certainly desert you to have a gambol with that blood-horse!) half-way down, just at the turn, the red cottage of the lieutenant, covered with vines, the very image of comfort and content; farther down, on the opposite side, the small white dwelling of the little mason; then the ...
— Our Village • Mary Russell Mitford

... And spirits buoyant with excess of glee; The horse, as wanton and almost as fleet, That skims the spacious meadow at full speed, Then stops and snorts, and throwing high his heels Starts to the voluntary race again; The very kine that gambol at high noon, The total herd receiving first from one, That leads the dance, a summons to be gay, Though wild their strange vagaries, and uncouth Their efforts, yet resolved with one consent To give such act and utterance as they may To ecstasy ...
— The Task and Other Poems • William Cowper

... way, and he did not like the change. It seemed to him that his mate no longer cared for him so much as she had cared. She spent more time in lying about in or near the den, and showed no eagerness to accompany him in his excursions, or to gambol with him, or even to lie with him on the warm, flat ledge outside the den. She seemed to prefer her own company, and Finn thought her temper was getting unaccountably short, too. However, life was very ...
— Finn The Wolfhound • A. J. Dawson

... running in the contrary direction," said Canning. "Do you remember my saying long ago that once I began to gambol, I was never satisfied till I had gambolled all over the place? I suppose I need a guardian, but unluckily I have one. Miss Heth, I've some sad news—sad for me, I mean. I must ...
— V. V.'s Eyes • Henry Sydnor Harrison

... together at a sheltered end of the pasture lot when a storm is approaching. Cattle are restless and uneasy before a storm breaks. And cows will fling up their heels, or sheep will gambol as if to make the most of the sunshine just before a prolonged spell of bad weather. Pigs, too, will grunt loudly and cavort about uneasily in their pens, carrying bits of straw from their bedding in their mouths, ...
— Girl Scouts in the Adirondacks • Lillian Elizabeth Roy

... my daring guide Clambers the steps of an old-fashioned stile, And stumbles down again, the other side, To gambol ...
— The Complete Works • James Whitcomb Riley

... food half so delicious. It is true that he got one or two frights, for once the little girl was so delighted at the sight of both birds devouring the crumbs, that she banged her little fat hands against the window-pane, dancing at the same time with delight. This gambol fairly startled their feathered guests, and frightened them away for a minute or two, but they were soon back again, and then the Blackbird saw that the boy was carefully holding his sister's ...
— What the Blackbird said - A story in four chirps • Mrs. Frederick Locker

... sleep as though there was a dark terror upon him; and then, in the light of the dying embers, the Father saw a thing rise upon the hearth, as though it had slept there, and woke to stretch itself. And then in the half-light it seemed softly to gambol and play; but whereas when an innocent beast does this in the simple joy of its heart, and seems a fond and pretty sight, the Father thought he had never seen so ugly a sight as the beast gambolling all by itself, as if it could not contain its own dreadful joy; it looked ...
— Paul the Minstrel and Other Stories - Reprinted from The Hill of Trouble and The Isles of Sunset • Arthur Christopher Benson

... SNAP DRAGON. A Christmas gambol: raisins and almonds being put into a bowl of brandy, and the candles extinguished, the spirit is set on fire, and the ...
— 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue • Captain Grose et al.

... air, perhaps, and the lilacs are all in flower, and the creepers green about the broken balustrade: but no spring shall revive the honour of the place. Old women of the people, little, children of the people, saunter and gambol in the walled court or feed the ducks in the neglected moat. Plough- horses, mighty of limb, browse in the long stables. The dial-hand on the clock waits for some better hour. Out on the plain, where hot sweat ...
— Essays of Travel • Robert Louis Stevenson

... ten, of five years old, or even younger still, have lofty head-dresses and imposing bows of hair arranged on their little heads, like grown-up women. Oh! what loves of supremely absurd dolls at this hour of twilight gambol through the streets, in their long frocks, blowing their crystal trumpets, or running with all their might to start their fanciful kites. This juvenile world of Japan—ludicrous by birth, and fated to become more so as the years roll on—starts in life with singular amusements, ...
— Madame Chrysantheme • Pierre Loti

... was shining, and about nine o'clock in the evening four pumas appeared, two adults with their two half-grown young. Not feeling the least alarm at their presence, he did not stir; and after a while they began to gambol together close to him, concealing themselves from each other among the rocks, just as kittens do, and frequently while pursuing one another leaping over him. He continued watching them until past midnight, then fell asleep, ...
— The Naturalist in La Plata • W. H. Hudson

... to endure Masses of the kind called at Toledo Mussarabes, during which the congregation dance and gambol in the cathedral; but these capers presently lose the pious character that they are supposed to bear; they become an incentive to the revelry of the senses, and ...
— The Cathedral • Joris-Karl Huysmans

... dwelling houses for the pasture folk. Beneath their wide-spreading horizontal branches I see the little folks of the neighborhood at play. Tiny pines sprout there, playing sedately as if already touched with the thought of their coming solemnity. Little brown cedars, just a few inches high, gambol on the green turf, and the barberry bushes that are still too young to wear the gold pendants that will come to them in future springs and the rubies of coming autumns, open their leaves there like the wide starry eyes of ...
— Old Plymouth Trails • Winthrop Packard

... with golden manes and brazen hoofs, who bound over the dancing waves with such wonderful swiftness, that the chariot scarcely touches {103} the water. The monsters of the deep, acknowledging their mighty lord, gambol playfully around him, whilst the sea joyfully smooths a path for the passage ...
— Myths and Legends of Ancient Greece and Rome • E.M. Berens

... off!' said I with a foxy wink. Don't you think because I am a countryman I gambol exclusively on the green. I am not altogether to the emerald by a pailful! I've got you where I want you, and you know it! Quit your fooling and hand over the wallet! There's a cop over there now,' ...
— The Statesmen Snowbound • Robert Fitzgerald

... more than half a second before I leaped to my feet. With a nimbleness quite foreign to my natural habits I detached the encumbering chute and jumped and danced upon the sward. The goat regarded me speculatively through rectangular pupils, but did not offer, in true capricious fashion, to gambol with me. Her criticism did not stay me, for I felt absolutely free, extraordinarily exhilarated, inordinately stimulated. I believe I even went so far as to shout out loud ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore

... courteous to this gentleman; Hop in his walks and gambol in his eyes; Feed him with apricocks and dewberries, With purple grapes, green figs, and mulberries; The honey bags steal from the humble-bees, And, for night-tapers, crop their waxen thighs, And light them at the fiery glow-worm's ...
— A Midsummer Night's Dream • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]

... but the contact with the things of the Church that makes me gambol and frisk, just as the Devil they say is a good enough fellow left to himself and is only moderately heated, yet when you put him into holy water all the world is witness how he ...
— The Path to Rome • Hilaire Belloc

... see a dog perpetually rushing at cats, and then returning from the chase to gambol about in the most friendly manner with another cat. The friendly intercourse with the one never had the slightest effect in changing its animosity to others. The dog's affection even went so far as to cause it to show resentment whenever ...
— Harper's Young People, November 11, 1879 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various

... telephone had brought us. The great cities already knew their fate and so far as we could gather were preparing to meet it with dignity and resignation. Yet here were our golfers and laborers like the lambs who gambol under the shadow of the knife. It seemed amazing. And yet how could they know? It had all come upon us in one giant stride. What was there in the morning paper to alarm them? And now it was but three in the afternoon. Even as we looked some rumour seemed to have spread, ...
— The Poison Belt • Arthur Conan Doyle

... snicker, crow, cheer, chuckle, shout; horse laugh, , belly laugh, hearty laugh; guffaw; burst of laughter, fit of laughter, shout of laughter, roar of laughter, peal of laughter; cachinnation[obs3]; Kentish fire; tiger. play; game, game at romps; gambol, romp, prank, antic, rig, lark, spree, skylarking, vagary, monkey trick, gambade, fredaine[obs3], escapade, echappee[Fr], bout, espieglerie[Fr]; practical joke &c. (ridicule) 856. dance; hop, reel, rigadoon[obs3], saraband[obs3], hornpipe, bolero, ballroom dance; minuet[ballroom ...
— Roget's Thesaurus

... ha!" laughed the eccentric elderly gentleman, as soon as he recovered breath, but without attempting to rise. "This is a Christmas gambol, eh! Master Wag?—eh! my merry little Wags? Needn't ask you all ...
— Tales from Blackwood, Volume 7 • Various

... corner of the shed it made a joyous gambol in the direction of the fire and the steaming kettle, from which point it made for the down-slope of the knoll. Steve Brown, whose legs were none too long for the race, came running after. A moment later the dog arrived on the scene; he made ...
— The Wrong Woman • Charles D. Stewart

... rustic mirth, which precede a cheerful youth! His step is light and airy, his robe is of many colours, roses adorn his flowing ringlets, health and pleasure float on the freshening gale, exercise and mirth gambol before him, age forgets his troubles, quits his arm-chair, and welcomes his approach. The maids of the hamlet assemble and dance round the pole, decked with many a flower and many a streaming pendant. The village lovers loiter at the stile, or wander down the retired ...
— Forgotten Tales of Long Ago • E. V. Lucas

... firm and undaunted, his short tail erect, his body drawn backward on its haunches, and his eyes following the movements of both dam and cub. At every gambol played by the latter, it approached nigher to the dog, the growling of the three becoming more horrid at each moment, until the younger beast, over-leaping its intended bound, fell directly before the mastiff. There ...
— The Pioneers • James Fenimore Cooper

... 'upon this sweet gentleman; hop in his walks, and gambol in his sight; feed him with grapes and apricots, and steal for him the honey-bags from the bees. Come, sit with me,' said she to the clown, 'and let me play with your amiable hairy cheeks, my beautiful ass! and kiss your fair large ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb

... the conventual results, and had planned an attack on matters of more solid learning; but, tricksy as a sprite, Eloise had escaped his designs, broken through his regulations, implored, just out of shackles, a year's gambol in liberty, and had made herself too charming to be resisted in her plea; and if, feeling his health fail, he had at first insisted,—in the fear that there might be left but brief opportunity for him to ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 79, May, 1864 • Various

... till they find one projecting in a line with the trunk or branch of any tree inclining over the water from the opposite side. The larger and stronger members of the tribe now assemble, leaving the younger ones to gambol and frisk about among the boughs, and amuse themselves in juvenile monkey fashion. One monkey— the Hercules probably of the tribe—twisting his tail round the outer end of the branch, now hangs by it with his head downwards, at his ...
— The Western World - Picturesque Sketches of Nature and Natural History in North - and South America • W.H.G. Kingston

... replied Dick, smiling; and then the little group remained watching Jack, who was in full chase of the springbok, which, as he came nearer, began to skip and bound and gambol together, leaping over each other's backs, but all the time watching the ...
— Off to the Wilds - Being the Adventures of Two Brothers • George Manville Fenn

... In the dark-winding eddy the loon sits warily watching and voiceless, And the wild-goose, in reedy lagoon, stills the prattle and play of her children. The does and their sleek, dappled fawns prick their ears and peer out from the thickets, And the bison-calves play on the lawns, and gambol like colts in the clover. Up the still-flowing Wakpa Wakan's winding path through the groves and the meadows, Now DuLuth's brawny boatmen pursue the swift-gliding bark of Tamdoka; And hardly the red braves out-do the stout, steady ...
— The Feast of the Virgins and Other Poems • H. L. Gordon

... barrier coral- reef with its crested breakers. Then we descended to Spouting Cliff, and looked down at the pale-green monster which we had made such fruitless efforts to spear in days gone by. From this we hurried to the Water Garden and took a last dive into its clear waters, and a last gambol amongst its coral groves. I hurried out before my companions, and dressed in haste, in order to have a long examination of my tank, which Peterkin, in the fulness of his heart, had tended with the utmost care, as being a vivid remembrancer of me, rather than out of love for natural history. It was ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne

... escape; for the hut is infested with vermin. Even should he withdraw into a corner, and make a pillow of his saddle, the annoyance pursues him. Add to all this a stifling smoke, and all sorts of mephitic exhalations, and troops of guinea-pigs who run about during the whole night, and gambol over the faces and bodies of the sleepers,—and it may readily be conceived how anxiously the traveller looks for the dawn of morning, when he may escape from the horrors of this miserable tambo. Acchahuari is 13,056 feet above the sea ...
— Travels in Peru, on the Coast, in the Sierra, Across the Cordilleras and the Andes, into the Primeval Forests • J. J. von Tschudi

... The goat looks solemn, yet he likes to run, And leap the rocks, and gambol in the sun: The truly wise ...
— The Poems of Henry Van Dyke • Henry Van Dyke

... and nestled closer to me in the dance. My words pleased her. Next to her worship of wealth her delight was to arouse the passions of men. She was very panther-like in her nature—her first tendency was to devour, her next to gambol with any animal she met, though her sleek, swift playfulness might mean death. She was by no means exceptional in this; there are many women ...
— Vendetta - A Story of One Forgotten • Marie Corelli

... being frightend, like children at a sham ghost who half know it to be a mask, are detestable. Then the letters are nothing more than a transparency lighted up, such as a Lord might order to be lit up, on a sudden at a Xmas Gambol, to scare the ladies. The type is as plain as Baskervil's—they should have been dim, full of mystery, letters to the mind rather than the eye.—Rembrandt has painted only Belshazzar and a courtier or ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb (Vol. 6) - Letters 1821-1842 • Charles and Mary Lamb

... winds whistle around, There is ice on the old miller's dam, And there's snow on the hard frozen ground; But a warm, sheltered stackyard have we, Where all day you may play hide-and-seek: So away, little piggies, my white little piggies, For a gambol and ...
— The Nursery, June 1873, Vol. XIII. - A Monthly Magazine for Youngest People • Various

... no more of either. I keep warily out of the muddy conflict of politics; but I will say that the cries of certain apostles of liberty seem woful and foolish. Unhappy shriekers, whither do they fancy they are bound? Is it to some Land of Beulah, where they may gambol unrestrained on pleasant hills? The shriekers are all wrong, and the best friend of theirs, the best friend of humanity, is he who will teach them—sternly if need be—that liberty and license are ...
— The Ethics of Drink and Other Social Questions - Joints In Our Social Armour • James Runciman

... flipper, made legends of mermaids seem very reasonable; and if I had been an early voyageur, I should assuredly have had stories to tell of mer-kiddies as well. As we watched, the young one played about, slowly and deliberately, without frisk or gambol, but determinedly, intently, as if realizing its duty to an abstract conception ...
— Edge of the Jungle • William Beebe

... novels in a nutshell. One of the guests was, without exception, the most ready-witted man I ever met. His inexhaustible gift of lightning repartee I saw illustrated on another occasion, when he presided at the midnight "gambol" of a Bohemian club, at which it needed the utmost tact and presence of mind to "ride the whirlwind and direct the storm." At the luncheon party, he related several episodes from his chequered journalistic career ...
— America To-day, Observations and Reflections • William Archer

... foliage-vaulted roof, To greet her entrance, radiant all with grace; Ye branches weave a holy tent, star-proof; With lovely darkness, silent, her embrace; Sweet, wandering airs, creep through the leafy woof, And toy and gambol round her rosy face, When with its load of beauty, lightly borne, Glides in the fairy foot, and brings ...
— Adela Cathcart - Volume II • George MacDonald

... with horror of dread little Erotion dear. Now was her sixth year ending, and melting the snows of the winter, Only a brief six days lacked to the tale of the years. Young, amid dull old age, let her wanton and frolic and gambol, Babble of me that was, tenderly lisping my name. Soft were her tiny bones, then soft be the sod that enshrouds her, Gentle thy touch, mother Earth, gently she rested on thee! A. ...
— Post-Augustan Poetry - From Seneca to Juvenal • H.E. Butler

... for an important race is provided with the most wholesome fare. Choice mutton-chops, beef-steaks and similar dainties comprise their daily portion. Of course exercise is a necessity, but it is not considered good policy to allow a dog in training to gambol about either on the roads or in the fields. Indeed, all dogs which are undergoing preparation for a race are practically deprived of their freedom, in lieu of which they are walked along hard roads secured by a lead; and for fear of ...
— Dogs and All About Them • Robert Leighton

... and coarse vegetation which surrounds many of the old-fashioned bungalows in India, the shrill, nor very musical call of the squirrel—half cry and half whistle—may frequently be heard. They gambol about the trees, and run up the walls of the bungalow, and chase each other along the eaves with apparent gaiety and freedom from care. But as you watch them through the chinks of the blinds made of slender reeds, which shade the ...
— India and the Indians • Edward F. Elwin

... half-clothed, and joining with this fact the general healthiness of labouring people, draw the unwarrantable conclusion that the healthiness is the result of the exposure, and resolve to keep their own offspring scantily covered! It is forgotten that these urchins who gambol upon village-greens are in many respects favourably circumstanced—that their lives are spent in almost perpetual play; that they are all day breathing fresh air; and that their systems are not disturbed ...
— Essays on Education and Kindred Subjects - Everyman's Library • Herbert Spencer

... from this city of vapour To bite the salubrious breeze, Do you know why I gambol and caper And plunge with a shout in the seas Twice the lad that I was For a lark? It's because I subscribe to that bountiful paper, The Blare, if ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, July 29, 1914 • Various

... calling to mind some of the beautiful stories of the old religion of his land. He thought of the elves and fairies who were said to dwell in these very forests, and at midnight to creep up from their hiding-places and gambol and play tricks among the flowers and dewdrops with the wild bees and the summer insects, or dance in magic circles on the greensward. And it did his heart good to feel he was not alone, but that these merry little companions were with him, lightening ...
— Boycotted - And Other Stories • Talbot Baines Reed

... long were the tale, Should I linger to say What gambol and frolic Enlivened the way; How they flirted with bubbles That danced on the wave, Or listened to mermaids That sang from the cave; Or slid with the moonbeams Down deep to the grove Of coral, where mullet And goldfish rove: How there, in long vistas Of silence ...
— Poems • Sam G. Goodrich

... it which could scarcely be termed costume at all. Bareheaded and barefooted multitudes of both sexes were present, regardless of appearances, half mad with delight, and exhibiting many a frolic and gambol considerably at variance with the etiquette of fashionable life, although we question whether the most fashionable fete, of them all ever produced half so much happiness. Farmers had come from a distance in the country, mounted upon lank horses ornamented ...
— The Evil Eye; Or, The Black Spector - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton

... was merry England when Old Christmas brought his sports again. 'Twas Christmas broached the mightiest ale; 'Twas Christmas told the merriest tale, A Christmas gambol oft could cheer The poor man's heart through ...
— Christmas Entertainments • Alice Maude Kellogg

... or order, for, hopping to the side rather stiffly, he leaped over the intervening water on to the sand, and bounded to Bruff, chattering and revelling in the sunshine, while the dog ran on along the shore, and the two now began to gambol and roll. ...
— Mother Carey's Chicken - Her Voyage to the Unknown Isle • George Manville Fenn

... Park Avenue were submerged, water running through the main rooms of the hotels and other business places. The waters had a clear sweep of nearly half of the city, and never before had the four streams combined for such a gambol. ...
— The True Story of Our National Calamity of Flood, Fire and Tornado • Logan Marshall

... With dance and song, and lute and lyre, Pure his wing and strong his chain, And doubly bright his fairy fire. Twine ye in an airy round, Brush the dew and print the lea; Skip and gambol, hop and bound, ...
— The Culprit Fay - and Other Poems • Joseph Rodman Drake

... gambol, disport, frisk, skip, caper, romp, revel; wanton, dally, toy, twiddle; impersonate, personate, act; perform, execute; strum, thrum; gamble; ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming

... Cosme, I come to adore At the quoits. thee. At I'm for that. At the lusty brown boy. At I take you napping. At greedy glutton. At fair and softly passeth Lent. At the morris dance. At the forked oak. At feeby. At truss. At the whole frisk and gambol. At the wolf's tail. At battabum, or riding of the At bum to buss, or nose in breech. wild mare. At Geordie, give me my lance. At Hind the ploughman. At swaggy, waggy or shoggyshou. At the good mawkin. At stook and rook, shear and At the dead beast. threave. At climb the ladder, Billy. At ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais

... all the village train, from labor free, Led up their sports beneath the spreading tree; While many a pastime circled in the shade, The young contending as the old surveyed; And many a gambol frolicked o'er the ground, And sleights of art and ...
— The Three Brides, Love in a Cottage, and Other Tales • Francis A. Durivage

... The only way in which art could disallow such criticism would be to protest its irresponsible infancy, and admit that it was a more or less amiable blatancy in individuals, and not art at all. Young animals often gambol in a delightful fashion, and men also may, though hardly when they intend to do so. Sportive self-expression can be prized because human nature contains a certain elasticity and margin for experiment, in which waste activity is inevitable and may be precious: for this license may lead, amid a ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana

... phenomenal stammerer. But in time there happened an aggravated murder—so bad, indeed, that by common consent the citizens decided, as a prelude to lynching, to give the real law a chance. They could, in fact, gambol round that murder. They met—the court in its shirt-sleeves—and against the raw square of the Court House window a temptingly suggestive branch of a tree fretted the sky. No one appeared for the prisoner, and, ...
— American Notes • Rudyard Kipling

... who thus so bravely died Was last of all her honoured name, The only hope that fate supplied To keep alive her house's fame. And then the screeching bird of night Would mope upon the crumbling walls, And chirking whutthroats claim the right To gambol in the ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume XXIV. • Revised by Alexander Leighton

... upon earth were to die, would the flowers, and the water, and the sky be sorry? They believed they would be sorry. For, said they, the buds are the children of the flowers, and the little playful streams that gambol down the hill-sides are the children of the water; and the smallest bright specks playing at hide and seek in the sky all night, must surely be the children of the stars; and they would all be grieved to see their playmates, the ...
— Reprinted Pieces • Charles Dickens

... of it in that shed, my seven brothers and I! It was a sort of palace of rubbish, a mansion of odds and ends, where rats might frolic and gambol, and play at hide-and-seek, to their hearts' content. We had nibbled a nice little way into the warehouse above mentioned; and there, every night, we feasted at our ease, growing as sleek and plump as any ...
— The Rambles of a Rat • A. L. O. E.

... carried in the arms of the gentlemen, and cuddled in the laps of the ladies. But when you get to be a big dog or a full-grown game-cock, take care! If people would but fancy that you still wore your down or silken skin, they might continue to be delighted with every gambol of your fancy. But they suspect pin-feathers and bristles, whether the latter grow or not; and, after doing their best to spoil you, they suddenly demand the utmost propriety of behavior. However, let me not anticipate. I can still call ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 107, September, 1866 • Various

... his wife called, and his children and stepchildren brought a new experience into the life of Rachael. She had been permitted to gambol occasionally with the "pic'nees" of her mother's maids, but since her fourth year had not spoken to a white child until little Catherine Hamilton came to visit her one morning and brought Christiana Huggins of Nevis. ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton

... dog, Change, O change him to a mer-dog! Re-inspire the vital spark; Bid him wag his tail and bark, Bark for joy to wag a tail Bright with many a flashing scale; Bid his locks refulgent twine, Hyacinthian, hyaline; Bid him gambol, bid him follow Blithely to the mermen's 'holloa!' When they call the deep-sea calves Home with wreathed univalves. Softly shall he sleep to-night, Curled on couch of stalagmite, Soft and sound, if slightly moister Than the shell-protected ...
— Wandering Heath • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... desecration. I fancy the poor dog seems to feel the monstrosity of the performance, and, in sheer shame for his master, forgivingly tries to assume it is PLAY; and I have seen a little "colley" running along, barking, and endeavoring to leap and gambol in the shafts, before a load that any one out of this locality would have thought the direst cruelty. Nor do the older or more powerful dogs seem to become accustomed to it. When his cruel taskmaster halts with ...
— The Twins of Table Mountain and Other Stories • Bret Harte

... thing to be a squirrel, and live a life of freedom in the boundless forests; to leap and bound among the branches of the tall trees; to gambol in the deep shade of the cool glossy leaves, through the long warm summer day; to gather the fresh nuts and berries; to drink the pure dews of heaven, all bright and sparkling from the opening flowers; to sleep on soft beds of moss and thistle-down in some hollow ...
— Lady Mary and her Nurse • Catharine Parr Traill

... happy life they lead, over the hill and in the mead! How they sing, and how they play! See, they fly away, away! Now they gambol o'er the clearing,—off again, and then appearing; Poised aloft on quivering wing, now they soar, and now they sing:— "We must all be merry and moving; we must all be happy and loving; For when the midsummer has come, and the grain has ripened its ear, The haymakers scatter ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 12, October, 1858 • Various

... they say the fairies used to assemble, and dance in fair moonlight nights. One evening a young man, who was the heir and occupier of this farm, hid himself in a thicket close to the spot where they used to gambol. Presently they appeared, and when in their merry mood, out he bounced from his covert, and seized one of their females; the rest of the company dispersed themselves, and disappeared in an instant. Disregarding ...
— Welsh Fairy-Tales And Other Stories • Edited by P. H. Emerson

... carpet was his lawn, Whereon he loved to bound, To skip and gambol like a fawn, And ...
— Six Centuries of English Poetry - Tennyson to Chaucer • James Baldwin

... an eternal spring, The garden fears no blight, and needs no fence; For there is none to covet: all are full. The lion, and the libbard, and the bear, Graze with the fearless flocks; all bask at noon Together, or all gambol in the shade Of the same grove, and drink one common stream. Antipathies are none. No foe to man Lurks in the serpent now: the mother sees, And smiles to see, her infant's playful hand Stretch'd forth to dally with the crested worm, To stroke his azure neck, or to receive ...
— A Brief Commentary on the Apocalypse • Sylvester Bliss

... the soda fountain and other fixtures—there was talk and consultation between the houses of Antin and Wilner—and the promising partnership was dissolved. No more would the merry partner gather the crowd on the beach; no more would the twelve young Wilners gambol like mermen and mermaids in the surf. And the less numerous tribe of Antin must also say farewell to the jolly seaside life; for men in such humble business as my father's carry their families, along with their other earthly goods, wherever they go, ...
— Modern Prose And Poetry; For Secondary Schools - Edited With Notes, Study Helps, And Reading Lists • Various

... trees, flinging their branches across a narrow dell, formed a thick canopy overhead, and gave a somewhat gloomy aspect to the sequestered spot. It was one I seldom visited, and I was wondering whether sprites or fairies, good or bad, of whom I had heard the country people speak, really came there to gambol and play their pranks, when a figure started up from behind a bush with a menacing gesture, and before I could make my pony gallop on to escape him, I found the rein seized by a stout man with bushy whiskers, a sunburnt countenance, ...
— Tales of the Sea - And of our Jack Tars • W.H.G. Kingston

... And neither good cheer, Mirth, fooling, nor wit, Nor any least fit Of gambol or sport Will come at the Court, If there ...
— Christmas: Its Origin and Associations - Together with Its Historical Events and Festive Celebrations During Nineteen Centuries • William Francis Dawson

... That I have utter'd; bring me to the test, And I the matter will re-word; which madness Would gambol from. Hamlet ...
— Guy Mannering • Sir Walter Scott

... bushes, disappearing and reappearing with equal suddenness. Presently two girls of their own age, who had returned from the water-fetching, sprang out on them from ambush, and the four joined in one joyous gambol that lit up the hillside with shrill echoes and glimpses of flying limbs. Comus sat and watched, at first with an amused interest, then with a returning flood of depression and heart-ache. Those wild young ...
— The Unbearable Bassington • Saki

... without, but wholly unattended—she drove her little pony-chaise through the village, laughing like a madcap at pranks of a huge Newfoundland dog named Sergeant, the favourite of General Stanley, which, while escorting the young ladies, used to gambol into the cottages, overset furniture and children, and scamper out again amid a general uproar. For though Miss Mary was but sixteen, the starched spinsters decided that she was much too old for such folly; and ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXVI. October, 1843. Vol. LIV. • Various

... rafters gambol all sorts of wretched pests. Underneath the houses roam pigs, goats, and other domestic animals, which sometimes appear in closer proximity than might be wished, owing to the spaces between the logs of the floor. That ...
— In The Amazon Jungle - Adventures In Remote Parts Of The Upper Amazon River, Including A - Sojourn Among Cannibal Indians • Algot Lange

... like little birds, And hop about among the boughs? How can we gambol with the herds, Or chew the cud among the cows? How can we pop with all the weasles Now Christopher ...
— The Farringdons • Ellen Thorneycroft Fowler

... Ecstasy! My pulse, as yours, doth temperately keep time, And makes as healthful music: It is not madness That I have uttered: bring me to the test, And I the matter will re-word; which madness Would gambol from.[140] Mother, ...
— Hamlet • William Shakespeare

... such quarters yet: and God forbid that I should be so unthankful to Him as to hurry away. And now I think on it, Friday is not a day upon which pious people love to commence an enterprise. I will choose the young pig to-morrow at noon, at which time they are wont to gambol; and we will celebrate his birthday by carving him on Friday. After that we will gird our loins, and set forth ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore

... then wails again. The sheep look rather surprised, as they have a right to. They have come to be little Annie's steady company, hers and her fellow-sufferers' in the mixed-measles ward. The triangular lawn upon which they are browsing is theirs to gambol on when the sun shines, but cross the walk that borders it they never can, any more than the babies with whom they play. Sumptuary law rules the island they are on. Habeas corpus and the constitution stop short of the ferry. Even Comstock's authority does not cross it: the one exception to ...
— Children of the Tenements • Jacob A. Riis

... present hour In life, while yet it blooms, my chosen flow'r, For well I know, what Time cannot disown, Amidst this mossy pile of mould'ring stone, That Hospitality was never seen To spread more social joy upon the green; Or, when its noble and capacious hall Rang with the gambol gay, or graceful ball, More beauty never charm'd its ancient beaux Than what its honour'd ruins now enclose. Thanks to the clouds, which from the soaking show'r Preserve the vot'ries of the present hour; For, strange to tell, ...
— Poems • Sir John Carr

... a myth, Chloe danced mid rustic song Indefatigably with Amorous Damon all day long. This was all the joy she knew (Quite enough, no doubt), and yet, Phyllis, when you gambol, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, April 8, 1914 • Various

... old fellow," he said, "better late than never," and the two descended to the street. They walked sedately for an hour. The dog longed to gambol; he was young enough to associate outdoors with license; but being a friend as well as a dog, he felt that this was rather a time for close comradeship, so he pattered along at his master's heels and once in a while pushed his cold nose into ...
— The Man Thou Gavest • Harriet T. Comstock

... the swains I did gambol, I array'd me in silver and blue: When abroad, and in Courts, I shall ramble, Pray, my Lord, how ...
— Life And Letters Of John Gay (1685-1732) • Lewis Melville

... grey ashes, or as a tree in a forest fire, which stands for a little while, a pillar of flame, and then falls with a crash, shaking the woods; and on the otherhand, radiant with the early beams of healing sunshine, in whose sweet morning light the cattle, let out from their pent-up stalls, gambol in glee. But let us not forget while we admire the noble poetry of its form that this is God's oracle, nor that we have each to settle for ourselves whether that day shall be for us a furnace to destroy or a sun to cheer ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St Matthew Chapters I to VIII • Alexander Maclaren

... him go away;" and as she spoke she struck at him with her parasol. But the dog never for a moment supposed that Diana was in earnest, and, supposing that she intended to play with him, as she had often done before, began to gambol round her, ...
— The Champdoce Mystery • Emile Gaboriau

... the swan of snow, Reflecting, in its mirror true, The flowers which o'er its surface grew, The tints of earth—the hues of sky— That in its limpid bosom lie. And groups of happy children played Around the verge of each cascade; Or gambol'd o'er the flowery lea In wanton mirth and joyous glee; Pursuing, o'er the sparkling lawn, The insect in its airy flight, Which still eludes, but tempting on From flower to flower, with plumage bright, The hand that woos to stay its flight— Till soaring high, on pinions wild ...
— The Poets and Poetry of Cecil County, Maryland • Various

... trace, comes Gambol in place; And, to make my tale the shorter, My son Hercules, tane out of Distaff-lane, But an active man, ...
— In The Yule-Log Glow, Vol. IV (of IV) • Harrison S. Morris

... and supple as a tiger, had advanced from the opposite wood, and, unmindful of a bitch and her puppies, seated himself in the middle of the terrace. As he sat tidying his coat the puppies conceived the foolish idea of a gambol with him. The cat continued to lick himself, though no doubt fully aware of the puppies' intention, and it was not till they were almost on him that he rose, hackle erect, to meet the onset in which they would have been torn badly if Jesus had not hopped hastily forward and menaced him ...
— The Brook Kerith - A Syrian story • George Moore

... of the blinking starres, and the wicked and devilish wills-o'-the-wisp, as they gambol among the marshes, ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray

... Peter," broke in Smallbones viciously. "You'll see a vigilance committee right here, if this gambol don't quit. Barnriff don't stand for ...
— The One-Way Trail - A story of the cattle country • Ridgwell Cullum

... return with their present course of life; patched breeches, torn coats, slouched hats, and washed gold rings have taken their places, and ragged garments in place of silk dresses for the poor Gipsy women. The Gipsy men "lollock" about, the women tell fortunes, and the children gambol on the ditch banks with impunity, nobody caring to interfere with them in any way. This kind of thing, as regards dash and show, is to a great extent passed, and those men who put on a show of work at all, it is as a general ...
— Gipsy Life - being an account of our Gipsies and their children • George Smith

... and their kin, Gnomes, elves, and trolls, on blossom, branch, and grass Gambol and dance, and winding ...
— The Poems of Emma Lazarus - Vol. I (of II.), Narrative, Lyric, and Dramatic • Emma Lazarus

... the games and play of animals. Recreation is as common among them as it is among our own children; and they seem always to be artistic and even skilled in their play. Young goats and lambs skip, jump, run races, throw flips in the air, and gambol; calves have interesting frolics; young colts and mules have biting and kicking games; bears wrestle and tumble; puppies delight in biting and tussling; while kittens chase everything from spools of ...
— The Human Side of Animals • Royal Dixon

... mentioned and their huge ungainly lord, seems one of the most inscrutable things in nature. At any rate, it poses poor me to comprehend. That a monster so ferocious, should suffer five or six little sparks, hardly fourteen inches long, to gambol about his grim hull with the utmost impunity, is of itself something strange. But when it is considered, that by a reciprocal understanding, the Pilot fish seem to act as scouts to the shark, warning him of danger, and apprising him of the vicinity of prey; and moreover, ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. I (of 2) • Herman Melville

... out her skirts with each hand, and executed an elephantine gambol, shaking the casket she still held in her hand. Suddenly she stopped; some one had ...
— Jack - 1877 • Alphonse Daudet

... to approach the cruel belle, And to your suit her prompt consent compel, Myself transformed you'll presently perceive; And, as a little dog, I'll much achieve, Around and round I'll gambol o'er the lawn, And ev'ry way attempt to please and fawn, While you, a pilgrim, shall the bag-pipe play; Come, bring me ...
— The Tales and Novels, Complete • Jean de La Fontaine

... second piano, and dwell amid faded grandeur, having for our saloon what seems to have been a ball-room. It is ornamented with a great fresco in the centre of the vaulted ceiling, and others covering the sides of the apartment, and surrounded with arabesque frameworks, where Cupids gambol and chase one another. The subjects of the frescos I cannot make out, not that they are faded like Giotto's, for they are as fresh as roses, and are done in an exceedingly workmanlike style; but they are allegories of Fame and ...
— Passages From the French and Italian Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... then went to bed. Hardship! No. It was very pleasant to see the dying fire, and his books about and his papers; and to dream, half-asleep and half-awake, that the house-fairies were stealing out to gambol for a little in the fire-lighted silence of the room as he slept, and to vanish as the embers turned black. He had not been so happy for a long time as now. The writing of that letter had removed a load from his heart. True, we can never be at peace till we have ...
— David Elginbrod • George MacDonald

... Gringalet, gravely squatting down upon his haunches, seemed perfectly amazed at our efforts. Pricking up his ears and winking his eyes, he quietly surveyed us; no doubt secretly congratulating himself upon being able to run and gambol easily in places where we, less-suitably-constructed bipeds, found it difficult ...
— Adventures of a Young Naturalist • Lucien Biart

... principle: he must see it close! To the more experienced he was one who had not yet learned, wisely fearful of the trampling hoof, to carry aside his oyster with its possible pearl before he opened it. In earnest about everything, he must work out his liberty before he could gambol. A slave will amuse himself in his dungeon; a free man must file through his chains and dig through his prison-walls before he can frolic. Sunlight and air came through his open windows enough to keep Richard alive and strong, but not enough yet to make him merry. He was too ...
— There & Back • George MacDonald

... You gambol over honey meads Where siren bees are humming; But mine the fate to watch and wait For ...
— A Little Book of Western Verse • Eugene Field

... cottage child stands, however, alone in my experience. I have never heard anything else like it in the village. The children romp and squabble and make much noise; they play, though rarely, at hide-and-seek; or else they gambol about aimlessly, or try to sing together, or troop off to look at the fowls or the rabbits. The bigger children are as a rule extremely kind to the lesser ones. A family of small brothers and sisters ...
— Change in the Village • (AKA George Bourne) George Sturt

... sombre, silent wilderness of Baeza. Old aristocrats of the woods are overrun by a gay democracy of creepers and climbers, which interlace the entire forest, and, descending to take root again, appear like the shrouds and stays of a line-of-battle ship. Monkeys gambol on this wild rigging, and mingle their chatter with the screams of the parrot. Trees as lofty as our oaks are covered with flowers as beautiful as our lilies. Here are orchids of softest tints;[128] flowering ferns, fifty ...
— The Andes and the Amazon - Across the Continent of South America • James Orton



Words linked to "Gambol" :   game, foolery, indulgence, teasing, horseplay, flirt, recreation, craziness, folly, lunacy, flirtation, flirting, dalliance, diversion, toying, coquetry, tomfoolery, word play



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