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Ruff   /rəf/   Listen
Ruff

verb
(past & past part. ruffed; pres. part. ruffing)
1.
Play a trump.  Synonym: trump.



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"Ruff" Quotes from Famous Books



... loaded with plaited frills that it "wobbled" no other word will express it ungracefully, both fore and aft. A bunch of folds was gathered up just below the waist behind, and a great bow rode a-top. A small jacket of the same material was adorned with a high ruff at the back, and laid well open over the breast, to display some lace and a locket. Heavy fringes, bows, puffs, ruffles, and revers finished off the dress, making one's head ache to think of the amount ...
— Eight Cousins • Louisa M. Alcott

... largest of the vulture tribe; the monarch of the birds of that region. He may know it by the glossy black colour, tinged with grey, of its body; the greater wing-coverts, except at the base and tips, and the quill-feathers being mostly white. Round the neck is a white ruff of down; the skin of the head and neck is excessively wrinkled, and is of a dull reddish colour with a tinge of purple. Surmounting the forehead is a large, firm comb, with a loose skin under the bill which can be dilated at pleasure. Now it expands its wings, nine ...
— The Western World - Picturesque Sketches of Nature and Natural History in North - and South America • W.H.G. Kingston

... froti—adi. Rubbish rubo, forjxetajxo. Rubric rubriko. Ruby rubeno. Ruby-color rugxa. Rudder direktilo. Rude malgxentila. Rudeness malrespekto. Ruddiness rugxeco. Ruddy rugxa. Rudiment (embryo) embrio. Rudiment (elements) elementajxo. Rue (botan.) ruto. Rue (to grieve) bedauxregi. Ruff krispo. Ruffian malbonulo. Ruffle (agitate) malkvietigi. Rug tapisxeto. Rugged sxtonplena, malebena. Ruin (remains) restajxo, ruinajxo. Ruin ruino, ruinoj. Ruin ruinigi. Ruinous ruina. Rule (to govern) regi. Rule, ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes

... astonishing rise, development, and spread of the chrysanthemum? As a fashion it is not so extraordinary as the hoop-skirt, or as the neck ruff, which is again rising as a background to the lovely head. But the remarkable thing about it is that heretofore in all nations and times, and in all changes of fashion in dress, the rose has held its own as the ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner

... four ministers to the bishop's dwelling, but no sooner had the little party stepped into the street than they were surrounded by 'hundreds of enraged women with fists and staves and peats, but no stones. They beat him sore; his cloak, ruff, hat were rent. He escaped all bloody wounds, yet he was in great ...
— The Red Book of Heroes • Leonora Blanche Lang

... childhood—the life-size stone figure of a man. He lay in a niche in the chancel, peacefully at rest on his side, with closed eyes and one hand under his cheek. He had a short peaked beard and wore an enormous ruff; his face looked very grave and quiet—so quiet that it always filled Mary with a sort of awe. He had lain there for more than three hundred years, undisturbed by pain, or trouble, or joy. Would he be sorry for her, she wondered, if he knew how unhappy she was? But no—he would ...
— A Pair of Clogs • Amy Walton

... shriek with terror. The company, tremulous as the leaves of a tree, when all are shaking together, drew nearer, and perceived that there was an unnatural distortion in the fixedness of Colonel Pyncheon's stare; that there was blood on his ruff, and that his hoary beard was saturated with it. It was too late to give assistance. The iron-hearted Puritan, the relentless persecutor, the grasping and strong-willed man was dead! Dead, in his new ...
— The House of the Seven Gables • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... if in the presence of royalty, and the eccentric statesman was left with his chief valet. The toilet was completed in solemn silence. Then, the count walked to the mirror to take another look at his adored person. He gave a complaisant stroke to his ruff of richest Alencon, smoothed the folds of his habit, carefully arranged the lace frills that fell over his white hands, and then turning to ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach

... the servant of the same name in the Blunderer and the Love-Tiff. The dress in which he acted this part, has not been mentioned in the inventory taken after his death, but in a pamphlet, published in 1660, he is described as wearing an enormous wig, a very small hat, a ruff like a morning gown, rolls in which children could play hide-and-seek, tassels like cornucopise, ribbons that covered his shoes, with heels half ...
— The Pretentious Young Ladies • Moliere

... evenin' and I wuz glad to think that everybody wuz well there, or so as to git about, for they wuz all there at the deepo, excep' them that wuz in the street, but we got safe through the noise and confusion to a big, high tarven, with prices as high as its ruff and flagpole. Miss Meechim got for her and Dorothy what she called "sweet rooms," three on 'em in a row, one for each on 'em and a little one for Aronette. But I d'no as they wuz any sweeter than mine, though mine cost less and wuz on the back of the house ...
— Around the World with Josiah Allen's Wife • Marietta Holley

... built? I didn't see no stun up here that was fit for quarryin'. So I put it to a lot of fellers where they got their buildin' m'ter'ls. Wal, after figurin' round a spell, 'n' makin' signs by the schuner load, found out the hull thing. Every stun in this place was whittled out 'f the ruff-scuff at the bottom of the mounting, 'n' fetched up here in blankets on men's shoulders. All the mud, too, to make their bricks, was backed up in the same way. Feller off with his blanket 'n' showed me how they did it. Beats all. Wust of ...
— Overland • John William De Forest

... grouse and ptarmigan differ very little. In the Cursores, except amongst the bustards, few species offer strongly-marked sexual differences, and the great bustard (Otis tarda) is said to be polygamous. With the Grallatores, extremely few species differ sexually, but the ruff (Machetes pugnax) affords a marked exception, and this species is believed by Montagu to be a polygamist. Hence it appears that amongst birds there often exists a close relation between polygamy and the development of strongly-marked sexual differences. I asked Mr. Bartlett, of the ...
— The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex • Charles Darwin

... a ruff, and some a gown, 'Gainat one another jostling; They flew about like chaff i' th' wind, For haste some left their masks behind, Some could not stay their gloves to find, There ...
— Johnson's Notes to Shakespeare Vol. I Comedies • Samuel Johnson

... favoured with a seat in an advantageous box, between the author and his friend M——. G. sate cheerful and confident. In his friend M.'s looks, who had perused the manuscript, I read some terror. Antonio in the person of John Philip Kemble at length appeared, starched out in a ruff which no one could dispute, and in most irreproachable mustachios. John always dressed most provokingly correct on these occasions. The first act swept by, solemn and silent. It went off, as G. assured M., ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb

... a man; but I think a single woman ought to be able to do more what she likes than a married woman. Suppose Mrs Stumfold found that I had got old Lady Ruff to meet her, what could ...
— Miss Mackenzie • Anthony Trollope

... chamber of the Tremont of the brick edifice, opposite, on the other side of Beacon Street. At one of the lower windows, a woman at work; at one above, a lady hemming a ruff or some such ladylike thing. She is pretty, young, and married; for a little boy comes to her knees, and she parts his hair, and caresses him in a motherly way. A note on colored paper is brought her; ...
— Passages From The American Notebooks, Volume 1 • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... The impression was of value to a cherisher of quaintness, and he must have wondered—not knowing me for such a character—why I stared at him. It wasn't him I was staring at, but some handsome Seymour or Dudley or Digby with a ruff and ...
— Italian Hours • Henry James

... of the household, an esquire of good birth, with a stiff little ruff round his neck, sat in a sort of office inclosed by panels at the end of the hall. He made an entry of Tibble's account in a big book, and sent a message to the cofferer to bring the amount. Then Tibble again put his question on behalf of the two young ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte Mary Yonge

... that a rook by wearing a pied feather, The cable hat-band, or the three-piled ruff, A yard of shoe-tie, or the Switzers knot On his French garters, should affect a humour! O, it ...
— The Alchemist • Ben Jonson

... disfigured by a scar across one cheek that so drew that corner of his mouth downward as to produce a peculiarly forbidding expression. He also wore a bristling iron-grey beard that grew in form of a fringe or ruff, and added an air of ferocity to his ...
— Under the Great Bear • Kirk Munroe

... Granville was born, and grew to be a big boy, and was treated by everybody as the heir to Tilgate. And now the Colonel's difficulties gathered thicker around him. At last, in the fulness of time, the Admiral died, and slept with his fathers, whose Elizabethan ruff's were the honour and glory of the chancel at Tilgate; and then the day of reckoning was fairly upon him. How well he remembered that awful hour. He couldn't, he couldn't. He knew it was his duty to acknowledge his rightful sons and heirs, but he hadn't the courage. ...
— What's Bred In the Bone • Grant Allen

... and description, and gentlemen who looked as if they had just stepped out of a picture-frame. They wear their calling on their sleeves, as it were. The Academician has a different costume from the judge. I noticed a clergyman in his priestly robes, his Elizabethan ruff around his neck, his breast covered with decorations. He was sipping a glass of hot punch and smiling benignly about him. He had a most kind and sympathetic face. I would like to confess my sins to him, but just now I don't happen to ...
— The Sunny Side of Diplomatic Life, 1875-1912 • Lillie DeHegermann-Lindencrone

... the creature with a tail as big as your arm, and a ruff round her neck, and Milly is the pretty little housemaid; I remember and ...
— Name and Fame - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant

... frown, Sir Richard, above your ruff, In the Holbein yonder? My deed ensures you! For the flame like a fencer shall give rebuff To your blades that blunder, you ...
— Ride to the Lady • Helen Gray Cone

... the Queen Marguerite, told her he was astonished how men and women with such great ruffs could eat soup without spoiling them; and still more how the ladies could be gallant with their great fardingales. The Queen made no answer at that time, but a few days after, having a very large ruff on, and some 'bouili' to eat, she ordered a very long spoon to be brought, and ate her 'bouili' with it, without soiling her ruff. Upon which, addressing herself to M. de Fresne, she said, laughing, ...
— Memoirs Of The Court Of Marie Antoinette, Queen Of France, Complete • Madame Campan

... tight-fitting blue-flowered chintz dress. Upon the gray hair, which, parted in the middle, encircled the low forehead, was a cap, which had lost its whiteness and was, therefore, more in harmony with the ruff about her yellow, thin neck. Her sharp, angular features were redeemed by large, dark eyes, flashing with marvellous brilliancy from under the thick, gray eyebrows, and with quick, penetrating glances she sometimes turned them to the ...
— Old Fritz and the New Era • Louise Muhlbach

... and professional fighter. The lower part of the face was swallowed in a bushy beard; the mouth and chin being quite invisible. He was of middle stature, well formed, and graceful in person, princely in demeanor, sumptuous and stately in apparel. His high ruff of point lace, his badge of the Golden Fleece, his gold-inlaid Milan armor, marked him at once as one of high degree. On the field of battle he possessed the rare gift of inspiring his soldiers with his own impetuous and chivalrous courage. He ever led the way ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... binding; and thof he don't enter in caparison with great folks of quality, yet he has got as good blood in his veins as arrow privat 'squire in the county; and then his pursing is far from contentible. — Your humble sarvant had on a plain pea-green tabby sack, with my Runnela cap, ruff toupee, and side curls. — They said, I was the very moral of lady Rickmanstone, but not so pale — that may well be, for her ladyship is my elder by seven good years and more. — Now, Mrs Mary, our satiety is to suppurate — Mr Millfart goes to Bath along with the Dallisons, ...
— The Expedition of Humphry Clinker • Tobias Smollett

... his valiant lieutenant, Michel de la Foret. The river was covered with boats and barges, festooned, canopied, and hung with banners and devices; and from sunrise music and singing conducted down the stream the gaily dressed populace—for those were the days when a man spent on his ruff and his hose and his russet coat as much as would feed and house a family for a year; when the fine- figured ruflier with sables about his neck, corked slipper, trimmed buskin, and cloak of silk or damask furred, carried his all ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... mark, to know next time you saw. His very serviceable suit of black Was courtly once and conscientious still, And many might have worn it, though none did: The cloak, that somewhat shone and showed the threads, Had purpose, and the ruff, significance. He walked and tapped the pavement with his cane, Scenting the world, looking it full in face, An old dog, bald and blindish, at his heels. They turned up, now, the alley by the church, That leads nowhither; now, they breathed themselves On ...
— Robert Browning: How To Know Him • William Lyon Phelps

... retiring habits to escape persecution. In each of the great islands of the Austro-Malayan region there is a distinct species of Tropidorhynchus, and there is always along with it an oriole that exactly mimics it. All the Tropidorhynchi have a patch of bare black skin round the eyes, and a ruff of curious pale recurved feathers on the nape, whence their name of Friar-birds, the ruff being supposed to resemble the cowl of a friar. These peculiarities are imitated in the orioles by patches of feathers of corresponding colours; while the ...
— Darwinism (1889) • Alfred Russel Wallace

... Whelp, with other ruff-island-like curs fetcht from among the Antipodes, which bite and barke at the fantasticall humourist and abuses of the time. ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin

... time hath flung away, Uncouth words in disarray, Trick'd in antique ruff and bonnet, Ode and ...
— Some Diversions of a Man of Letters • Edmund William Gosse

... is of pale-yellow, in the manner of a corselet with wide, up-and-down stripes, a stiff ruff and buttons of topaz. There is a narrow frilled stripe on the edge of the collar, and also on the close-fitting sleeves. The trunks are short, wide-slashed, and of a dead-green color with pale purple in the slashes. ...
— Mogens and Other Stories - Mogens; The Plague At Bergamo; There Should Have Been Roses; Mrs. Fonss • Jens Peter Jacobsen

... the shoulder by an agraffe of superb diamonds. The breeches, reaching to the knee, were of velvet, like the cloak; and the hose, like the doublet, were of cloth of gold. The shoes of purple velvet were fastened with buckles of diamonds to correspond with the agraffe of the cloak. His ruff was of gold lace, his hat was decorated with a long white plume, and on his breast he wore the splendid ...
— Prince Eugene and His Times • L. Muhlbach

... signifying a prince's favourite, one admitted to his privacy (no uncommon word in Jeremy Taylor and Fuller), has quite disappeared; so too has 'quirpo' (cuerpo), the name given to a jacket fitting close to the body; 'quellio' (cuello), a ruff or neck-collar; and 'matachin', the title of a sword-dance; these are all frequent in our early dramatists; and 'flota' was the constant name of the treasure-fleet from the Indies. 'Intermess' ...
— English Past and Present • Richard Chenevix Trench

... half-loaded our boat with different kinds of birds, of which, and seals, there are enough to supply the navy of England. Among the birds one was very remarkable; the head resembled that of an eagle, except that it had a large comb upon it; round the neck there was a white ruff, exactly resembling a lady's tippet; the feathers on the back were as black as jet, and as bright as the finest polish could render that mineral; the legs were remarkably strong and large, the talons were like those of an ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 12 • Robert Kerr

... all the sea-fern tribe of branching polypidoms, and last, but not least, at the glass sponges; first at the Euplectella, or Venus's flower-basket, which lives embedded in the mud of the seas of the Philippines, supported by a glass frill "standing up round it like an Elizabethan ruff." Twenty years ago there was but one specimen in Europe: now you may buy one for a pound in any curiosity shop. I advise you to do so, and to keep - as I have seen done - under a glass case, as a delight to your eyes, one of the most ...
— Glaucus; or The Wonders of the Shore • Charles Kingsley

... being absent from his Station any length of Time; for however necessary it may be, it may be turnd to the Disadvantage of his Character, which if I am not flatterd, he has hitherto kept unsullied. In this virtuous & important Struggle, he will remember that all of us must ruff it as well as we can.——The medical Committee inform me that it is the Duty of the State Cloathier to furnish him without the intervention of the Commander in Chiefe ...
— The Original Writings of Samuel Adams, Volume 4 • Samuel Adams

... shadow. Part of the periwig and cheek of Sir Marcus Brandon still glimmered whitish, as at a little distance did also the dim marble face and arm of the young Countess of Lydingworth, mourning these hundred and thirty years over her dead baby. Sir William Wylder, in ruff, rosettes, and full dress of James I.'s fashion, on his back, defunct, with children in cloaks kneeling at head and foot, was hardly distinguishable; and the dusky crimson and tarnished gold had gone out of view till morning. The learned Archbishop ...
— Wylder's Hand • J. Sheridan Le Fanu

... waited there as though he expected something to happen. Thoughts slipped through his mind quite casually, whether Hamlet were behaving well outside, what the old lady did when she was tired of dusting, who the stone figure lying near him might be, a figure very fine with his ruff and his peaked beard, his arms folded, his toes pointing upwards, whether the body were inside the stone like a mummy, or underneath the ground some-where; how strangely different the nave looked now from ...
— Jeremy • Hugh Walpole

... delicate but insignificant features, with crooked teeth, like a hare's, in a tiny little mouth, with a multitude of finely crimped little yellow curls on her forehead, and painted eyebrows. She invariably wore a pyramidal cap with pink ribbons, a high ruff round her neck, a short white dress, and prunella slippers with red heels; and over her dress she wore a jacket of blue satin, with a sleeve hanging loose from her right shoulder. This was precisely the costume in which she was arrayed on St. Peter's Day in the year 1789! ...
— A Desperate Character and Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev

... the pan, squatting down, and chucked some water from the palm of his hand into the open jaws, upon the swollen tongue. The dog licked his hand, whined again, tried to stand up, failed, succeeded with the aid of friendly fingers in its ruff and eagerly ...
— Rimrock Trail • J. Allan Dunn

... laughing face, and an enormous leg-of-mutton hand, which he now stretched out of the wide sleeve of his gaily-chequered jacket in welcome. Behind him a tall, lean figure showed, or rather, hid itself—the slender neck feathered with a fine white cambric ruff, and the thin, pale face strangely adorned with an incredibly long nose, which peered with ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VI. • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke

... Aunt Kate Sherwood suggesting a softening of her hard lines. Her plain, ugly print dress was cut low at the throat, and had no collar or ruff to hide the scar. Nan's gaze was fastened on that blemish before she was half way to the door, and she could see nothing else ...
— Nan Sherwood at Pine Camp - or, The Old Lumberman's Secret • Annie Roe Carr

... good care to relieve themselves of difficult search after the mere truth. The public who imposed these laws, this exacting public of women who read Plutarch and Plato, who judged the merits of great men as learnedly as the cut of a ruff, found at the very moment they most wanted him the author who could please them in the person of a novel writer, the famous Lyly. At twenty-five years of age, John Lyly, a protege of Lord Burghley, who was at this same time busy with his own architectural ...
— The English Novel in the Time of Shakespeare • J. J. Jusserand

... Portuguese artists, chiefly portraits, amongst which is that of Don Sebastian. I sincerely hope it did not do him justice, for it represents him in the shape of an awkward lad of about eighteen, with a bloated booby face with staring eyes, and a ruff round a ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow

... Portraits of Shakespeare, at my request compared Cooper's engraving of the Croker portrait with those by Dunkarton, Earlom, and Turner, of the Janssen: and he writes: "In the Cooper the face is peaked, the beard more pointed, and the ruff different in the points." After all, such differences may well be the creation of the engravers. I would fain know where the Croker portrait now is; and also that which belonged to the late ...
— Shakespeare's Bones • C. M. Ingleby

... ruff (fraise) was in fashion at the end of Henri IV.'s reign; in the reign of Louis XIII., and in the beginning of Louis XIV.'s, flat-lying collars, adorned with lace were worn, so that those who still stuck to the Spanish ruff ...
— The School for Husbands • Moliere

... bog, merited the epithet of "Slappersallagh," bestowed on their wearers by Terence O'Brien. Their habit-shirts, chitterlings, and cravats, though trimmed with Trawlee lace, seemed by their colour to evince that yellow starch, put out of fashion by the ruff of the murderous Mrs. Turner in England, was still to be had in Ireland. Their large, broad silver watches, pendant from their girdle by massy steel chains, showed that their owners took as little account of time as time had taken of ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 10, Issue 285, December 1, 1827 • Various

... thrust his hand into the ruff of shaggy hair about the neck of one of the collies beside him. There was a low growl from the other dog, who rose and rested his pointed nose on ...
— The Story of Wool • Sara Ware Bassett

... crimped, deep-brown mohair curls of which were bound about her forehead with a bit of black velvet ribbon, while gray hairs straggled from underneath to make the patent sham more transparent still; and over her topknot she wore a rusty black cap that enclosed the keen monkeyish face like a ruff. Her every-day gown was one of coarse brown camlet, any number of years old, darned and patched till it was like a Joseph's coat; and the Rob Roy tartan shawl which she pinned across her bosom hid ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - Vol. XVII, No. 102. June, 1876. • Various

... beard seemed to bristle like the ruff of an angry dog, and his eyes flashed fiercely under their shaggy brows. "Do you mean to tell me that after all you've done and—and gone through, Helen has thrown you over? Do you mean to ...
— Jason • Justus Miles Forman

... broth, or water they were boiling in; he took a dish, and gave me one spoonful of samp, and bid me take as much of the broth as I would. Then I put some of the hot water to the samp, and drank it up, and my spirit came again. He gave me also a piece of the ruff or ridding of the small guts, and I broiled it on the coals; and now may I say with Jonathan, "See, I pray you, how mine eyes have been enlightened, because I tasted a little of this honey" (1 ...
— Captivity and Restoration • Mrs. Mary Rowlandson

... point the door opened and a dejected apparition in a ruff and petticoats, like a rumpled remnant of a pre-war pageant, drifted in and sat down ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, June 7, 1916 • Various

... of a man in middle life, handsomely dressed in black velvet, with hat and ruff. His face was sad, but the bright, dark eyes looked intelligently at the girls, and the whole face had a ...
— Three Margarets • Laura E. Richards

... Claremont tomb was the glory of Ashbourne Church. It was of white marble, and beautifully sculptured. Sir Guy de Claremont lay represented in full armor, with his lady in ruff and coif by his side. Six sons and four daughters, all kneeling, were carved in has relief round the side of the monument. Long, long ago, in the Middle Ages, the de Claremonts had been the great people of the neighborhood. They ...
— The Luckiest Girl in the School • Angela Brazil

... the door of the lift, saluted and went before them along the plain flagged passage to where his comrade stood. Then he saluted again and went back. A Pontifical chamberlain, in all the sombre glory of purple, black, and a Spanish ruff, peeped from the door, and made haste to open it. It really seemed almost incredible ...
— Lord of the World • Robert Hugh Benson

... recognition of their beauty all at once. What contour there was in the turn of arm and shoulder under the close-fitting purple cloth! He was artistically thankful that there was no other trimming of the straight bodice than the line of buttons that descended from the full white ruff of swansdown at her throat, to her delicate, trim waist. Her unconscious stateliness of girlish form, and the conscious shyness of her manner, were the ...
— Theo - A Sprightly Love Story • Mrs. Frances Hodgson Burnett

... Whose face between her forks] I believe that the forks were two prominences of the ruff rising on each ...
— Notes to Shakespeare, Volume III: The Tragedies • Samuel Johnson

... you have not seen Paris, nor those acres of gaudy colouring which Henri's vanity inflicted upon us. Florentine Marie, with her carnation cheeks and opulent shoulders—the Roman-nosed Bearnais, with his pointed beard and stiff ruff. Mon Dieu, how the world has changed since Ravaillac's knife snapped that valiant life! And you have never seen Paris? You look about you with wide-open eyes, and take this crowd, this ...
— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon

... in a Chair, which is set down and open'd on all sides, and on the top represents an Apothecary's Shop, the Inside being painted with Shelves, and rows of Pots and Bottles; Scaramouch sitting in it dress'd in Black, with a short black Cloke, a Ruff, ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. III • Aphra Behn

... at, boss," said Uncle Remus, smiling a feeble smile. "I santered roun' 'bout er half nour, an den I begin fer ter feel sorter squeemish—sorter like I done bin an, swoller'd 'bout fo' poun's off'n de ruff een' uv er scantlin'. Look like ter me dat I wuz gwineter be sick, an' den hit look like I wuzzent. Bimeby a little pain showed 'is head an' sorter m'andered roun' like he wuz a lookin' fer a good place fer ter ketch holt, an' den a great big pain jump up an' take atter de little one ...
— Uncle Remus • Joel Chandler Harris

... revived in the Cinque-cento Renaissance; and again in Adams' "Eighteenth Century Decorations," it became an accepted pattern, called "the shell," losing its original motive, and descending to fill up the panels of tea-caddies and surround keyholes. When thus reduced to the appearance of a little ruff, it needs some thought to recognize it, and give it ...
— Needlework As Art • Marian Alford

... congregation, including their pastor, wore the costume of the middle ages; it was a most curious and interesting sight. I am never a good hand at describing the details of dress, but I know my impression was that the pastor—wearing a ruff, I think, or something like it—might just have walked out of a picture, such as one knows so well of the old Puritans in Cromwell's time. The dress of the peasants, though unlike the English fashion of any period, had an old-world look. The married women wore white kerchiefs ...
— Round About the Carpathians • Andrew F. Crosse

... no less magnificent. She wore a dress, with a train, of silver brocade covered with gold bees; her shoulders were bare, but on her arms were tight sleeves embroidered with gold, the upper part adorned, with diamonds, and fastened to them was a lace ruff worked with gold which rose behind half up her head. The tight-fitting dress had no waist, after the fashion of the time, but she wore a gold ribbon as a girdle, set with thirty-nine pink gems. Her bracelets, ear-rings, and necklace were formed of precious stones and antique ...
— The Court of the Empress Josephine • Imbert de Saint-Amand

... two persons used to wear a sort of ruff round the neck, composed of the longest white hair of the deerskin, hanging down over the bosom in a manner very becoming to young people. It seemed to afford so little additional warmth to persons already well clothed, that I am inclined rather ...
— Journal of the Third Voyage for the Discovery of a North-West Passage • William Edward Parry

... youth and beauty now, but later in the day, when her hair would be taken out of its crimping kids, her sallow cheeks touched with rouge, and her veined neck covered by a high collar, a coral chain, and an ostrich-feather ruff, some traces of her former good looks might be visible. She still affected tight corsets, high heels, enormous hats. But Emeline's interest in her own appearance was secondary now to her fierce pride and faith in Julia's beauty. Drifting along ...
— The Story Of Julia Page - Works of Kathleen Norris, Volume V. • Kathleen Norris

... red tissue-paper flowers in Tonto's wreath, and tied red tissue-paper streamers to the goat's horns. They put a green ruff around the cat's neck, and a red one on the dog; but the dog ran at once to the river and waded in and got it all wet, and the color ran out and dyed his coat, and the ruff fell off, before they ...
— The Mexican Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins

... eyebrows looking down, as it seemed, contemptuously upon this after generation, so incurably lacking in its own supreme refinement. Opposite Lady Laura was a full-length Van Dyck of the Genoese period, a mother in stiff brocade and ruff, with an adorable child at her knee; and behind her chair was the great Titian of the house, a man in armour, subtle and ruthless as the age which bred him, his hawk's eye brooding on battles past, and battles to come, while behind him stretched the ...
— Lady Connie • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... reception dresses. A skirt of light brocade with a dark velvet over-dress is very much worn at these receptions, and if made by a French artist is a beautiful dress. These dark velvets are usually made high, with a very rich lace ruff. ...
— Manners and Social Usages • Mrs. John M. E. W. Sherwood

... I encouraged cook to talk of Ruff, the former black cat, which had been a great favourite of hers, and which she had been nursing when he was dying. "Oh, poor thing, when he was ill, he would creep into dark corners, so I put him in his basket into the cupboard, making it very comfortable for him, ...
— Animal Ghosts - Or, Animal Hauntings and the Hereafter • Elliott O'Donnell

... familiar with the views and doctrines held by Dr. Gerschovius. This Clara we shall hear more of in our history. She was a year older than Sidonia, intelligent, courageous, and faithful, with a quiet, amiable disposition, and of most pious and Christian demeanour. She wore a high, stiff ruff, out of which peeped forth her head scarcely visible, and a long robe, like a stole, sweeping behind her. She was privately betrothed to her Grace's Master of the Horse, Marcus Bork by name, a cousin of Sidonia's; for, as her Grace discouraged all kinds of gallantry ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V1 • William Mienhold

... think of them, Dekko old fellow?" She took him on her wrist, at which he spread his tail, rattled his wings, and puffed his ruff, whereupon the children fled, yelling. "Come now, say something nice to the poor little things. You've frightened them. Ask them if the ...
— The Hawk of Egypt • Joan Conquest

... neighborly. There wuz two hotels there in plain sight, each one on 'em as long as from our house to Miss Derias Bobbettses, all fixed off with piazzas and porticos and pillows and awnin's and handsome colors from the basement clear up—up—up to the ruff, and the grounds laid out perfectly beautiful. Grass plats and terraces and long flights of stairs, and glowin' flower beds and summer houses and long smooth walks and short ones, and everything. And folks all the time santerin' ...
— Samantha at Coney Island - and a Thousand Other Islands • Marietta Holley

... with black flowered damask, turned up above the elbow, from which descended a close sleeve of pearl-coloured satin, puffed out, and buttoned at the wrist; her bosom being covered with a fine flowered linen, gathered close at the neck like a ruff. Her hair, which was of a dark brown colour, was parted from the middle of the forehead; on her head was a plain coifure, surmounted by a gold lace, covered with a small, black, silk cap. In her right hand, which was richly decorated with rings, she held the fatal cup, with ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 14, No. 384, Saturday, August 8, 1829. • Various

... blue (not pendants). The red and black may have slipt in from the preceding description. I incline to believe it to be the Demoiselle, Anthropoides Virgo, which is frequently seen as far north as Lake Baikal. It has a tuft of pure white from the eye, and a beautiful black pendent ruff or ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa

... closed so wearily on the dull December afternoon. The bare wall with its brown spiders no longer confronted her, but the colored print of a little girl dancing to the tune her father was playing on a guitar, while a stately lady, with satin dress, ruff, and powder, stood looking on, well pleased. The quaint figure, in its belaced frock, quilted petticoat, and red-heeled shoes, seemed to come tripping toward her in such a life-like way, that she ...
— Jack and Jill • Louisa May Alcott

... toilet be eminently simple, for you will find the time coming when to button a cuff or arrange a ruff will be a matter of absolute despair. You lie disconsolate in your berth, only desiring to be let alone to die; and then, if you are told, as you always are, that "you mustn't give way," that "you must rouse yourself" and come on deck, you will appreciate the value of simple attire. ...
— Sunny Memories Of Foreign Lands, Volume 1 (of 2) • Harriet Elizabeth (Beecher) Stowe

... inclines him to antique modes. A fellow-student once told me that, after a long vacation spent in touch with modern life, he had hammered at the little gate of Merton and felt of a sudden his hat assume plumes and an expansive curl, the impress of a ruff about his neck, the dangle of a cloak and a sword. I, too, have my Eliza-bethan, my Caroline moments. I have gone to bed Georgian and awoken Early Victorian. Even savagery has charmed me. And at such times I have often wished I could find in my wardrobe suitable ...
— The Works of Max Beerbohm • Max Beerbohm

... recommended him to read Hooker, and he caught the tone and style of the "Ecclesiastical Polity" only too readily, so that much of his work of that winter, the more philosophical part of vol. ii., was damaged by inversions, and Elizabethan quaintness as of ruff and train, long epexegetical sentences, and far-sought pomposity of diction. It was only when he had waded through the chaos which he set himself to survey, that he could lay aside his borrowed stilts, and stand on his own feet in the Tintoret ...
— The Life of John Ruskin • W. G. Collingwood

... south side of the chancel. Under the tower arch is a curious monument to Christopher Blackhall, who died in 1635, and his four wives, who are kneeling one behind the other. The dates of their deaths are very clearly marked by the different fashions of their dresses—a compact and upstanding ruff adds to the stiff precision of the first wife's appearance; while the sloping lines of a 'Vandyke' collar embellish the dress of ...
— Devon, Its Moorlands, Streams and Coasts • Rosalind Northcote

... holding his bauble sceptre-like in his hand, muffling his head with a hood of marten skins, each side whereof had the resemblance of an ape's face sprucified up with ears of pasted paper, and having about his neck a bucked ruff, raised, furrowed, and ridged with pointing sticks of the shape and fashion of small organ pipes, he first with all the force of his lungs coughed two or three times, and then with an audible voice pronounced this following sentence: ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais

... an old person of Bude, Whose deportment was vicious and crude; He wore a large ruff of pale straw-colored stuff, Which perplexed all the people ...
— Nonsense Books • Edward Lear

... cul'iar pan'nier brill'iant re bell'ion un'ion fil'ial dis un'ion sen'ior mill'ion o pin'ion jun'ior pill'ion do min'ion gal'liard pin'ion com mun'ion span'iel trill'ion mut'u al val'iant coll'ier punc til'io bill'iards pon'iard punc til'ious bill'ion ruff'ian ver mil'ion In'dian Chris'tian aux ...
— McGuffey's Eclectic Spelling Book • W. H. McGuffey

... yet you will give me the first which comes.—He's a handsome lord, that Duke of Portland; he was one of the bon—before King William went over and conquered England, and he was made a lord for his valour.—My ruff, Babette. The Dutch are a brave nation. My bustle now.—How much beer did you give the officers? Mind you take care of everything while I am gone. I shall be home by nine, I dare say. I suppose they are going to try him now, that he may be hanged at sunrise. I knew how it would ...
— Snarley-yow - or The Dog Fiend • Frederick Marryat

... came. Nannerl was dressed in her dainty white gown hours before the time, but Wolfgang, who was detained at the opera house until the last moment, had just time to jump into his fine new costume of satin and lace, with the flash of brilliants in his ruff and on his slippers; without a glance in the mirror, but he looked like a proud young prince when he joined his father and sister, although the hand that he slipped through Nannerl's arm was trembling. Who ...
— Ten Boys from History • Kate Dickinson Sweetser

... countess; father, mother; friar, nun; gander, goose; grandsire, grandam; hart, roe; horse, mare; husband, wife; king, queen; lad, lass; lord, lady; male, female; man, woman; master, mistress; Mister, Missis; (Mr., Mrs.;) milter, spawner; monk, nun; nephew, niece; papa, mamma; rake, jilt; ram, ewe; ruff, reeve; sire, dam; sir, madam; sloven, slut; son, daughter; stag, hind; steer, heifer; swain, nymph; uncle, aunt; wizard, witch; youth, damsel; ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown

... stalking down to the wires to inspect you. If you like to walk up and down outside his inclosure he will take a turn with you, walking at your side and turning when you do. He is justly proud of his height and his ruff, but there is nothing objectionably haughty about the emeu; I have always found him ready for a quiet chat. He will eat various things, like the ostrich; so that one regards him with a certain respect, not to say awe, for there is no telling what wonderful ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 25, January 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various

... price of oats, and discussing stale newspapers? There have you got, I hear into an old gallery that has not been glazed since Queen Elizabeth, and under the nose of an infant Duke and Duchess, that will understand you no more than if you wore a ruff and a coif, and talked to them of a call of serjeants the year of the Spanish armada! Your wit and humour will be as much lost upon them, as if you talked the dialect of Chaucer; for with all the divinity of wit, it grows out of fashion ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole

... was a well-known portrait of Henry III., King of France and Poland; a cap on his head, surmounting his long pale face and heavy eyes; a pointed beard, and a ruff round his neck. ...
— The Queen's Necklace • Alexandre Dumas pere

... biscuit or sugar before going to its lair in the underbrush behind the cabin. Everybody knew it along the length and breadth of Hemlock Ridge, as well as the fact of its being a legacy from the fair exile. No rifle had ever yet been raised against its lazy bulk or the stupid, small-eyed head and ruff of circling hairs made more erect by its well-worn leather collar. Consoling himself with the thought that the storm had probably delayed its return, Jack took off his coat and threw it on his bunk. But from thinking of the storm ...
— Tales of Trail and Town • Bret Harte

... Whose names and titles few attempt to read; Old English letters, and those half pick'd out, Leave us, unskilful readers, much in doubt; Our sons shall see its more degraded state; The tomb of grandeur hastens to its fate; That marble arch, our sexton's favourite show, With all those ruff'd and painted pairs below; The noble Lady and the Lord who rest Supine, as courtly dame and warrior drest; All are departed from their state sublime, Mangled and wounded in their war with Time, Colleagued with mischief: here a leg is fled, And lo! the Baron with but half a head: Midway is ...
— The Borough • George Crabbe

... been left alone here while the evening shadows gathered in the tower, I might soon have seen the figure of a man in trunk-hose, doublet, and ruff, with pointed beard and pensive eyes, moving noiselessly between rows of spectral desks covered by spectral books; but, as it was, even in the most shadowy corner I could not detect the faintest outline of a ghost. Nobody knows what has become of all the volumes which were ...
— Two Summers in Guyenne • Edward Harrison Barker

... and looked about her. Close at hand a tall, swaggering fellow was loafing about. He was dressed in yellow from head to foot, save where his doublet and hose were slashed with dirty red at elbows, shoulders, and hips. A dirty ruff was around his neck, and on his head he wore a great shapeless hat peaked ...
— The Panchronicon • Harold Steele Mackaye

... one of them might meet his eyes with a glance of intelligence. He looked at each mask,—harlequin, ape, bulbous-headed monster, or anything that was absurdest,—not knowing but that the messenger might come, even in such fantastic guise. Or perhaps one of those quaint figures, in the stately ruff, the cloak, tunic, and trunk-hose of three centuries ago, might bring him tidings of Hilda, out of that long-past age. At times his disquietude took a hopeful aspect; and he fancied that Hilda might come by, her own sweet ...
— The Marble Faun, Volume II. - The Romance of Monte Beni • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... git a slice I mus' not cease to try, But keep a-movin' fas' es life To hol' my piece ub pie. Dis ruff ol' worl' has little use Fur dem dat chance to fall, An' while youze gittin' up ag'in 'Twill ...
— Twentieth Century Negro Literature - Or, A Cyclopedia of Thought on the Vital Topics Relating - to the American Negro • Various

... absorbed an ample pinch of snuff as if to quicken his reminiscences; he shook his laced ruff with his finger ...
— Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories • Edited by Julian Hawthorne

... up and readjusted her ruff, which in the excitement of the moment had been forced to assume a position about her forehead which gave one the impression that its royal wearer had suddenly ...
— The Pursuit of the House-Boat • John Kendrick Bangs

... brings up the subject of hammicks; show me a guy who can ride one all nite without being turned out, and I'll back him to ride the best tricky mule that P.T. Bamum ever trained. About the only way to do, when the nite is ruff, and the ship is rockin, is to sit down and wait until your hammick comes around, and jump on it and choke it into insensibility. I made out to do this better than the balance of the bunch, as I had had more practice, owing to the fact I used to use this method ...
— Love Letters of a Rookie to Julie • Barney Stone

... from Angora, in Syria. It is much larger than the common cat; its hair is very long, especially about the neck, where it forms a fine ruff, of a silvery whiteness and silky texture, that on the tail is three or four inches long; these cats frequently spread their tails on their backs, as squirrels do. The colour is generally white, but sometimes light brown; they do not catch mice. This beautiful species does not degenerate speedily, ...
— A Trip to Paris in July and August 1792 • Richard Twiss

... help in the world that I receive most gratefully, it is the prompt recognition of a need, and unobtrusive aid for it. A short time before the day appointed for us to go to the city, our Clara came down stairs dressed in a beautiful dark shade of blue Foulard silk, with a lace ruff about her throat, fastened with a ...
— The Harvest of Years • Martha Lewis Beckwith Ewell

... court gates twenty score, but stand for want of clothes, though he win towns, amongst the almsbasket-men! His best reward being scorned to be a fellow to the blackguard. Why should a soldier, being the world's right arm, be cut thus by the left, a courtier? Is the world all ruff and feather and nothing else? Shall I never see a tailor give his coat with a ...
— The Noble Spanish Soldier • Thomas Dekker

... messengers to thy father. King Powhatan," the Englishwoman said as she showed Pocahontas how to adjust a starched ruff that scratched her neck so that she made a grimace. "They will tell him that thou art here, and then surely in his anxiety to see thee again, he will grant what Sir Thomas desires: that he deliver up our men and the arms he hath taken and give us three ...
— The Princess Pocahontas • Virginia Watson

... sign! 'twas once the royal head of James; Some thirsty limner passing made it Charles; I've heard it said 'twas e'en our good Queen Bess, By curious folk that trac'd her high starch'd ruff In the quaint faded back of antique chair, Her stomacher in Charles's shrivell'd vest— Who in his turn is gone. Well, take this letter, See the old knight; but not a word to him. Stay, I forgot, my little rosy cousin Should be a woman now; thus—full of wiles, Glancing ...
— Cromwell • Alfred B. Richards

... Purvis. They had just begun to apply the tar and feathers to him when Curtis had stopped the process. He had only a shaking ruff of long feathers around his neck. They lifted the runaways into their saddles. Purvis started off at a gallop, shouting "Come on, Bart," but ...
— The Light in the Clearing • Irving Bacheller

... with him, was elegant, if not rich.[77] Oldys describes it, but mentions, that "he had a wrought nightcap under his hat;" this we have otherwise disposed of; he wore a ruff-band, a black wrought velvet night-gown over a hare-coloured satin doublet, and a black wrought waistcoat; black cut taffety breeches, and ash-coloured ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli

... top of the head of the Tropidorhynchus has a scaly appearance from the narrow scale-formed feathers, which are imitated by the broader feathers of the Mimeta having a dusky line down each. The Tropidorhynchus has a pale ruff formed of curious recurved feathers on the nape (which has given the whole genus the name of Friar birds); this is represented in the Mimeta by a pale band in the same position. Lastly, the bill of the Tropidorhynchus is raised into a protuberant ...
— Contributions to the Theory of Natural Selection - A Series of Essays • Alfred Russel Wallace

... curlew and crested hern, Kingfisher, mallard, water-rail and tern, Chaffinch and greenfinch, warbler, stonechat, ruff, Pied wagtail, robin, fly-catcher and chough, Missel-thrush, magpie, sparrow-hawk, and jay, Built, those far ages gone, in this year's way. And the first man who walked the cliffs of Rame, As I this year, looked down and saw the ...
— Georgian Poetry 1918-19 • Various

... earlier CECILS stepped out of the frame in the Long Gallery. The stately figure is attired in white doublet, trunks, and hose, embroidered with pearls. On the purple surcoat, lined with red, gold buttons gleam. The white ruff is fastened at wrist and throat with gold buttons: the black cap is solely adorned with a knot of pearls; a golden cord hangs from the neck; the right hand rests upon the head of a large dog, that has, perhaps, a rather stuffed ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, January 25th, 1890 • Various

... one which, from some indications of a face looming out of blackness, might, by a great synthetic effort, be pronounced a Magdalen. Considerably lower down hung the similitude of a hat and feathers, with portions of a ruff, stated by Mrs. Bellamy to represent Sir Francis Bacon, who invented gunpowder, and, in her opinion, 'might ...
— Scenes of Clerical Life • George Eliot

... looking. When one approaches the confines of love, one nears the borders of beauty. Nature sets going a certain work of decoration, of transformation. Had David about this time been a grouse, he would probably have displayed a prodigious ruff. Had he been a bulbul and continued to feel as he did, he would have poured into the ear of night such roundelays as had never been conceived of by that disciplined singer. Had he been a master violinist, he would have been unable to play a note from ...
— The Reign of Law - A Tale of the Kentucky Hemp Fields • James Lane Allen

... keeping his men in perfect order. He sent a present of gloves to the Governor's wife, a lady of the Stafford family. She returned fruit, sugar, and rusks. Not to be outdone he rejoined with ambergris, rosewater, a cut-work ruff, and a picture of the Magdalen. He was in the habit of taking pictures with him on his voyages. This interchange of courtesies was the one gleam of human kindness which lighted up for Ralegh his dismal journey. He dwells upon it gratefully in the journal he kept. ...
— Sir Walter Ralegh - A Biography • William Stebbing

... velvet trimmed with silver. We had not come out of the convent when the King passed through the square on his way to see Quelus, who was then sick. He had with him the King my husband, D'O———, and the fat fellow Ruff. ...
— Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois, Complete • Marguerite de Valois, Queen of Navarre

... lower margin of the lake-line, about a mile and a half to the northwest of Shadow Lake. It is only about 100 yards in circumference. Next the water there is a girdle of carices with wide overarching leaves, then in regular order a shaggy ruff of huckleberry bushes, a zone of willows with here and there a bush of the Mountain Ash, then a zone of aspens with a few pines around the outside. These zones are of course concentric, and together form a wall beyond which the naked ice-burnished granite stretches away in every ...
— The Mountains of California • John Muir

... Nature has made about the forehead. Our women have made themselves into wicked Faustinas and vulgar Anonymas long enough with their frizzes and short curls and "banging," as the square-cut straight lock on the forehead is called. Let us see the Madonna brow once more. The high ruff, the sleeve to the elbow, the dress cut to show the figure, all bring-back the days of our great-grandmothers: the opera is filled with Copley's portraits. The bonnets, too, are delightfully large, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine. Vol. XII, No. 33. December, 1873. • Various

... Lord of Misrule to open the Christmas revels. A fierce and ferocious-looking fellow was he, with his great green mustache and his ogre-like face. His dress was a gorgeous parti-colored jerkin and half-hose, trunks, ruff, slouch-boots of Cordova leather, and high befeathered steeple hat. His long staff, topped with a fool's head, cap, and bells, rang loudly on the floor, as, preceded by his diminutive but pompous page, he led his train around and around the great ...
— Historic Girls • E. S. Brooks

... building in Reykjavik. It is a moderate-sized, unpretending place, capable of holding three or four hundred persons, erected in very ancient times, but lately restored. The Icelanders are of the Lutheran religion, and a Lutheran clergyman, in a black gown, etc., with a ruff round his neck, such as our bishops are painted in about the time of James the First, was preaching a sermon. It was the first time I had heard Icelandic spoken continuously, and it struck me as a singularly sweet caressing language, although I disliked the particular cadence, ...
— Letters From High Latitudes • The Marquess of Dufferin (Lord Dufferin)

... "ruff," is derived from rofe, a wheel,—with the diminutive rouelle, a little wheel or rowel, like that of an ancient spur,—which the verticillate leaves of this herb closely resemble. They serve to remind us also of good Queen Bess, and of the ...
— Herbal Simples Approved for Modern Uses of Cure • William Thomas Fernie

... beyond the prairie-dog town we found a settlement of five white men. They Proved to be the two Clifford brothers, Arthur Ruff, Dick Seymour, and John Nelson. To the last I have already referred. Each of these men had a squaw for a wife and numerous half-breed children. They lived in tents of buffalo skins. They owned a herd of horses and a few cattle, and had cultivated a small piece of land. Their principal occupation ...
— An Autobiography of Buffalo Bill (Colonel W. F. Cody) • Buffalo Bill (William Frederick Cody)

... velvet cap, with a sprig, a short cloak, great yellow ruff, his torch-bearer bearing a rope, ...
— A Righte Merrie Christmasse - The Story of Christ-Tide • John Ashton

... at night Without a light Upon an arc of white. If ruff it was of dame Or shroud of gnome, Himself, himself inform. Of immortality His strategy ...
— Poems: Three Series, Complete • Emily Dickinson

... face was the face of a sentimental dream, the garb was the garb of royalty. Somebody's grandmother was on her way to a costume party. She wore the full court costume of the days of Queen Elizabeth I, complete with brocaded velvet gown, wide ruff collar and bejeweled skullcap. ...
— Out Like a Light • Gordon Randall Garrett

... hair stood up from her forehead in a boyish elf-lock, and its colour matched her auburn eyes flecked with black, and the little brown spot on her cheek, between the ear that was meant to have a rose behind it and the chin that should have rested on a ruff. When she smiled, the left corner of her mouth went up a little higher than the right; and her smile began in her eyes and ran down to her lips in two lines of light. He had dashed past that to reach Lady ...
— The Reef • Edith Wharton

... only two and a half yards around and at another time five and a half or eight yards around. An Elizabethan gentleman might be too poor to dress well, but he would squander his last penny in getting his ruff starched. Lyly's style bristles with extravagances of the starched ruff sort, which only serve to call attention to the intellectual deficiencies in the matter of ...
— The Bibliotaph - and Other People • Leon H. Vincent

... much in her debt, he sent on shore a very courteous letter, and with it two ounces of ambergriece, an ounce of the essence of amber, a great glass of fine rose-water, an excellent picture of Mary Magdalen, and a cut-work ruff. Here he expected courtesies to stay, but the lady must positively have the last word, and as the English ships were starting her servants came on board with yet a letter, accompanying a basket of delicate white ...
— Raleigh • Edmund Gosse

... prize A lover's sigh more dear than mine own pleasure. See, the Signora Julia passed again. She is far too pale for so much white, I find. Donna Aurora—ah, how beautiful! That spreading ruff, sprinkled with seeds of gold, Becomes her well. Would you believe it, sir, Folk say her face is twin ...
— The Poems of Emma Lazarus - Vol. I (of II.), Narrative, Lyric, and Dramatic • Emma Lazarus

... resonant beneath his fervent blows. Have you seen the Partridge drum? It is the next thing to catching a weasel asleep, though by much caution and tact it may be done. He does not hug the log, but stands very erect, expands his ruff, gives two introductory blows, pauses half a second, and then resumes, striking faster and faster till the sound becomes a continuous, unbroken whir, the whole lasting less than half a minute. The tips of his wings barely brush the log, so that the sound is produced rather by the force of the blows ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 104, June, 1866 • Various

... by negroes. The fact is I have made the negro men work, an made them go strait. That is what is the matter, an is the reason why my place is talk of the settlement. I have found among the negro men two or three hard cases an I have had to deal rite ruff, but not cruly at all. Among them Abram has been as triflin as any man on the place. Now, sir, what I have wrote you is truth, and it cant be disputed by ...
— American Negro Slavery - A Survey of the Supply, Employment and Control of Negro Labor as Determined by the Plantation Regime • Ulrich Bonnell Phillips

... shook his neck-ruff and prepared for another spring; but Tilda pushed him back and stood up. "Take me along to him," she commanded, and lifted her face impudently to the clock-face of St. Barnabas above the mean roofs. "Barnabas, are yer? Then give my compliments to ...
— True Tilda • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... importance: of the dress that she wore—russet, as it should be, for country girls, with the loose sleeves folded back above her elbows that she might handle the linen; her apron of coarse linen, her steel-buckled shoes. He told her that he loved her better in that than in her costume of state—the ruff, the fardingale, the brocaded petticoat, and all the rest—in which he had seen her once last summer at Babington House. He talked then, when she would hear no more of that, of Tuesday seven-night, when they would meet for hawking in the lower chase of ...
— Come Rack! Come Rope! • Robert Hugh Benson



Words linked to "Ruff" :   trumping, move, neckband, overtrump, bridge, reeve, external body part, card game, fraise, sandpiper, crossruff, genus Philomachus, play, go, Philomachus, cards, collar, turn



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