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Toy   /tɔɪ/   Listen
Toy

verb
(past & past part. toyed; pres. part. toying)
1.
Behave carelessly or indifferently.  Synonyms: dally, flirt, play.
2.
Manipulate manually or in one's mind or imagination.  Synonyms: diddle, fiddle, play.  "Don't fiddle with the screws" , "He played with the idea of running for the Senate"
3.
Engage in an activity as if it were a game rather than take it seriously.  Synonym: play.  "Play the stock market" , "Play with her feelings" , "Toy with an idea"



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"Toy" Quotes from Famous Books



... give you welcome! Here's room for Englishmen.—Well, die, then, pertinacious senor!—Now, now, Henry Sedley, there are lions yet in your path, but not so many. Have at their golden banner an you prize the toy! No, Arden, no—let him take it single-handed. Our first battle is far behind us.... Now who leads here, since I think that he who did command is dead? Is it ...
— Sir Mortimer • Mary Johnston

... to afford amusement. It may therefore be conceived that this house is much frequented. No people on earth can be more fickle than the French in general, and the Parisians in particular, in the choice of their diversions. Like children, they are soon tired of the same toy, and novelty is for them the greatest attraction. Hence, the Vaudeville, as has been seen, presents a great variety of pieces. In general, these are by no means remarkable for the just conception of their plan. The circumstance of the moment adroitly seized, and related ...
— Paris As It Was and As It Is • Francis W. Blagdon

... the peel! Then he was caught walking! one, two, three steps,— and papa knew that he could walk, but grandpa was [20] taken napping. Now! baby has tumbled, soft as thistle- down, on the floor; and instead of a real set-to at crying, a look of cheer and a toy from mamma bring the soft little palms patting together, and pucker the rosebud mouth into saying, "Oh, pretty!" That was a scientific [25] baby; and his first sitting-at-table on Thanksgiving Day— yes, and his little rainbowy life—brought sunshine to every heart. How many ...
— Miscellaneous Writings, 1883-1896 • Mary Baker Eddy

... the same theme again in "The Angel." A child who also lives in a cellar comes back from a Christmas-tree; he brings with him a toy, and a pretty little wax angel, which he shows to his father. The latter has seen better days, but in the last few years he has been sick with consumption, and now he is awaiting death, silent and continually exasperated ...
— Contemporary Russian Novelists • Serge Persky

... in a fevered state of expectancy. Indeed, some of his inventions have been so wonderful that he might be accredited with supernatural powers. By improvement he brought the telephone of Gray, Bell, etc., from a mere toy to an instrument of great commercial worth. Ten years ago hardly a telephone was in use; now the business of our country would hardly know how to do without it. Of all modern inventions connected ...
— Hidden Treasures - Why Some Succeed While Others Fail • Harry A. Lewis

... A toy which people cry for, And on their knees apply for, Dispute, contend and lie for, And if allowed Would be right ...
— The Devil's Dictionary • Ambrose Bierce

... had no occupants. On the floor lay a skeleton doll, a toy tambourine, a whipping-top, and a wried tin whistle. There was one bedstead, and a bed made up on a mattress laid on the floor. On a round clothless table stood two plates, one with a piece of bread ...
— Thyrza • George Gissing

... it belonged to this girl. She looks as if she were the maid, or possibly the companion, of some woman of wealth or distinction. Her attire also indicates that. Hence so valuable a toy can hardly have belonged to the girl, but more likely was the property ...
— With Links of Steel • Nicholas Carter

... it is true, as a modern Chinese philosopher has said, that the search for knowledge is a form of play, "then the spaceship, when it comes, will be the ultimate toy that may lead mankind from its cloistered nursery out into the ...
— The Practical Values of Space Exploration • Committee on Science and Astronautics

... models. Shall we reverse the poet's line to read "Better fifty years of China than a cycle of the West?" Society proceeds toward betterment, and not catastrophe, as individuals may proceed on stepping-stones of their dead selves to higher things. The troubles of the child, the broken toy, the slight from a friend, the failure of an expected holiday, are mole-hills to be sure, but in his circumscribed horizon they take an Alpine magnitude. His strength for climbing is in the gristle, nor has he philosophy to console him when blocked by the inevitable. When the ...
— The Last Leaf - Observations, during Seventy-Five Years, of Men and Events in America - and Europe • James Kendall Hosmer

... a man, and wished a wife, as many do, merely as an ornament, a silken toy, I would take —— as soon as any I know. Her fantastic, impassioned and mutable nature would yield an inexhaustible amusement. She is capable of the most romantic actions,—wild as the falcon, voluptuous as the tuberose; yet she has not in her the elements of romance, ...
— Woman in the Ninteenth Century - and Kindred Papers Relating to the Sphere, Condition - and Duties, of Woman. • Margaret Fuller Ossoli

... by Mrs. Howitt. It is a lesson for all folks—great and small—from the infant in the nursery to the emperor of Russia, the grand signior of Turkey, and the queen of Portugal—or from those who play with toy-cannons to such as are now figuring ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 12, No. 338, Saturday, November 1, 1828. • Various

... absurdities—skip, scuttle, take exercise, catch birds, improve your figures!" Poppy cried, clapping her hands encouragingly as she stood at the head of the flight of iron steps down which, with her foot, she shot the toy spaniels unceremoniously into the ...
— The Far Horizon • Lucas Malet

... "There's only the toy department," returned Pamela, leading the way with her armful of packages. "I do hope you're not frightfully tired." Of course it seemed ridiculous, but I had not been out of hospital many days, and as yet I had not grown used to stumping about in ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, February 28, 1917 • Various

... said sternly to the girl, who, except for that one word 'Coward!' had never uttered a sound since the beginning of the struggle. 'Put up your toy; my life is in his hand. He has won ...
— Marguerite De Roberval - A Romance of the Days of Jacques Cartier • T. G. Marquis

... men imagined the Earth as the center of the universe. The stars, large and small, they believed were created merely for their delectation. It was their vain conception that a supreme being, weary of solitude, had manufactured a giant toy and put them into ...
— Mother Earth, Vol. 1 No. 1, March 1906 • Various

... phallic monuments. Menhirs in France are quoted in this connection, cut into the form of the phallus; and the same form occurs in some menhirs near Saphos, in the island of Cyprus,[147] and in others found amongst the ruins of Uxmal, in Yucatan. Herodotus relates that Sesostris caused toy be set up, in countries he conquered, monoliths bearing in relief representations of the female sexual organs. These are, however, but exceptions, isolated facts, and it would certainly never do to argue from them that menhirs were ...
— Manners and Monuments of Prehistoric Peoples • The Marquis de Nadaillac

... Egyptian men with dark faces and wonderful eyes or no eyes at all, struggling to sell painted post-cards, strings of blue-gray mummy beads; necklaces of cornelian and great lumps of amber; fans, perfumes, sample sticks of smoking incense, toy camels cleverly made of jute; fly whisks from the Sudan with handles of beads and dangling shells; scarab rings and brooches; cheap, gay jewellery, scarfs from Asiut, white, black, pale green and purple, glittering like miniature cataracts of silver, ...
— It Happened in Egypt • C. N. Williamson & A. M. Williamson

... to marry her up to him?" said Claude. "I don't blame poor January. I suppose none of us, gentlemen, would have refused such a pretty toy, if we could have ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume II. • Charles Kingsley

... thus, Master Varney," said Foster; "the living I fear not, but I trifle not nor toy with my dead neighbours of the churchyard. I promise you, it requires a good heart to live so near it. Worthy Master Holdforth, the afternoon's lecturer of Saint Antonlin's, had a sore fright there the last time he came ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott

... dark-arrayed, pale-faced, ladylike old figure there was a deeply tragic character that contrasted irreconcilably with the ludicrous pettiness of her employment. It seemed a queer anomaly, that so gaunt and dismal a personage should take a toy in hand; a miracle, that the toy did not vanish in her grasp; a miserably absurd idea, that she should go on perplexing her stiff and sombre intellect with the question how to tempt little boys into her premises! Yet such is undoubtedly her object. Now she places ...
— The House of the Seven Gables • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... the pastor's study, Muller sat in the armchair attentively watching the gyrations of a spinning top. The little toy, started at a certain point, drew a line exactly parallel to the scratch on the floor that had excited his thoughts and absorbed them ...
— The Case of The Pool of Blood in the Pastor's Study • Grace Isabel Colbron and Augusta Groner

... King heard of the present which his brave servant was bringing back for him, he was wild with delight. The thought of this new toy was far more to the little eight-year-old, King though he was, than all the rest of the treasure which Herkhuf had gathered; and he caused a letter to be written to the explorer, telling him of his delight, and giving him all kinds of advice as to how careful he should be that the dwarf should come ...
— Peeps at Many Lands: Ancient Egypt • James Baikie

... end, as usual, they won him round, and departed one morning gleefully in the little toy train that runs out across the Gwebi Flats to the Eldorado Gold Mine. And to Diana's joy, they had a luggage-van fitted up as an impromptu saloon for them, and were able to spin along with both doors wide open, enjoying the air and the country. The Eldorado ...
— The Rhodesian • Gertrude Page

... 14th of June a toy whistle sounded shrill above the town, and in puffed a Liliputian "steel-hull" steamer that had actually come "on her own" through the canon and shot the White Horse Rapids. A steamer from the Upper River! after that, others. Two were wrecked, but who minded? And still ...
— The Magnetic North • Elizabeth Robins (C. E. Raimond)

... the tent, but does not bow to the audience. In one hand he carries a fencing foil, well constructed, of European workmanship; in his other hand he holds a number of pretty toy balloons which ...
— A Parody Outline of History • Donald Ogden Stewart

... tell you all the things that happened that day. You see, I have made quite a long story of my first evening, so you must try and fancy all about the walk in the park with Jane, and the drive with Grandmamma to the town, and the toy-shop, ...
— My Young Days • Anonymous

... was shining brightly now, the earlier rain and hint of winter in the air had clothed all ranks in dark gray great-coats and brown leggings. Hence, to the untrained glance, they were singularly alike. Officers, sergeants, privates and bandsmen might have been cast in molds, after the style of toy soldiers. There were exceptions, of course, just as the fat man achieved distinction among the unemployed. The crimson sashes of the officers, the drum-major, with his twirling staff, the white apron of the big drummer, drew the ...
— The Wheel O' Fortune • Louis Tracy

... not. She looked after him sorrowfully. In old times, when his father was alive, Christmas had been a great holiday for his boys. Afterward, John had made it so for Lloyd. Now, she had not a penny to spare to buy him a book or a toy, such as other boys had down in the village, even the poorest. Even the new shoes which she had hoped to be able to buy, to take the place of his broken boots, she ...
— Tom, The Bootblack - or, The Road to Success • Horatio Alger

... contrast to the vastness of the cathedral one may cross into North Street and enter the portal of the toy church of St. Olave, which dates from the 14th century, and is remarkable, not only for its minuteness, but as being one of the churches of Chichester which, in my experience, is not normally locked ...
— Highways & Byways in Sussex • E.V. Lucas

... Joujou is getting on. He was a good prince, Joujou,—oh, so fond of fun! as you may believe, from his choosing the city of Pastime. Oh, that city of Pastime! how unlike the city of dear, dull Lessonland! The walls of the city of Pastime were beautiful toy-bricks, painted all the colors of the rainbow; and the streets of the city were filled with carriages just big enough for child-people to drive in, and little gigs, and music-carts, and post-chaises, that ran along by clock-work, and such rocking-horses! And there was not to be found a book ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 57, July, 1862 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... not deserve to be broken by despair. Apparatus has been devised to supply the missing section of the arm, and such a trade as toy-making offers a livelihood. It is carried on with a sense of fun even in the absence of all previous education. One-armed men are largely employed in it. Let us enter the training shop at Lyon, and watch the work. The wood is being shot out from the sawing-machine ...
— Golden Lads • Arthur Gleason and Helen Hayes Gleason

... I remember it," I exclaimed, pressing passionately the delicate hand which offered the glasses for my inspection. They formed a complex and magnificent toy, richly chased and filigreed, and gleaming with jewels, which, even in the deficient light, I could not help perceiving were of ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 3 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe

... woman! They talk of ambition and of avarice and of self-preservation as the keys of character and action, but what force is there to move us like a woman? A little thing, a weak fragile thing—a toy from which the rain will wash the paint and of which the rust will stop the working, and yet a thing that can shake the world and pour out blood like water, and bring down sorrow like the rain. So! I stand by the boulder. A touch and it will go crashing down the mountain-side ...
— Jess • H. Rider Haggard

... play. However, such an authority as Darwin thought it was play, and Scheitlin said that the cat let the mouse loose many times in order that she might have the experience of catching it each time. No mercy is shown the helpless mouse, which is the same to her as the toy ball—in the same way as a real beetle and a toy beetle are the same to a small child. Evidently the cat does not play with the mouse for the delight in torturing it, but purely for practice that she may become skilled in the art of catching it. The cat also exercises in springing ...
— The Human Side of Animals • Royal Dixon

... evidently gone into the stable, and had come out thence. Her faltering strength could scarcely support her to the door. And then she saw lying in the straw Elnathan Daniel, beginning to babble and gurgle again, and to grow very pink with joy over a new toy—a man's glove, a red woollen glove, accidentally dropped in the straw. She caught it from his hands, and turned it about curiously. She ...
— His "Day In Court" - 1895 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)

... should not like what is naughty: and I think it would be much better if you were in bed too. Come, give me that ugly toy; there is Monsieur quite shocked to see ...
— My Little Lady • Eleanor Frances Poynter

... dear," Mrs. Hockin replied, with provoking acquiescence. "The Major never fails, Erema, in any thing he is so sure about; and this is a mere child's toy to him. Well, dear, have you done it? But I need not ask. Oh, let us see what is ...
— Erema - My Father's Sin • R. D. Blackmore

... act. I can assure you, Monsieur Spencer, that it was with reluctance. The others of whom I have spoken—Sir George Duncombe, Monsieur Pelham, and his toy detective—forgive me that I smile—walk all the time in the palm of our hand. But they remain unharmed. If by any chance they should blunder into the knowledge of things which might cause us annoyance, ...
— A Maker of History • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... gold, for they intended to make Sayang, so that they could find out who the woman was who had been by the river. Soon the liblibayan returned and they said, "We did not get the betel-nuts which you desired for we found a pretty toy among the branches of the tree." Aponitolau took the branch of the tree which shone as if covered with fire and he put a blanket on it and many pillows around it. As soon as they had again commanded ...
— Traditions of the Tinguian: A Study in Philippine Folk-Lore • Fay-Cooper Cole

... were unaltered, they did not look the same. It was as if the focus of her eyes had been readjusted so as to make familiar objects seem strange, and change the perspective of everything; which gave the place a different air, a look of having been swept and garnished and set in order like a toy-town. But the people they passed were altogether unchanged, and this seemed stranger still to Beth. There they had been all the time, walking about as usual, wearing the same clothes, thinking the same thoughts; they ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand

... for business purposes, and a telephone was therefore run up to him from Clarence through the forest, and Spain at large felt proud at this dashing bit of enterprise in modern appliance. Alas! the primaeval forests of Fernando Po were also charmed with the new toy, and they talked to each other on it with their leaves and branches to such an extent that a human being could not get a word in edgeways. So the Governor had to order the construction of a road ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley

... pleasure from her intercourse with this girl, who had so won her heart with her pale delicate beauty and her feeling for nature, than it is possible for a rational being to derive from the companionship of any dumb brute—even of such a paragon among four-footed things as a toy-terrier, or pug, or griffon. All through her walk in the shady woods, and when she sat in a sequestered spot under her favourite tree with her book lying unread on her lap, she could only think of her mother's ...
— Fan • Henry Harford

... in the violence of the movement, knocked over a little toy chair, one of those perfectly useless, and no less ugly, impediments which stand about the floor of a well-furnished drawing-room. Too angry to stoop and set the object on its legs again, he strode towards ...
— The Paying Guest • George Gissing

... out an' addin' on more. I seed 'er git as red as a turkey-cock t'other day beca'se a nigger-wench rung the front-door bell. She made the woman hump 'erself round to the kitchen double quick. She's got a new toy to piddle with, an' it's a whoppin' big un. She says things has to move accordin' to the clock on this gigantic place, an' so far it's doin' it. Wait, I'll shet the gate an' ride to ...
— Dixie Hart • Will N. Harben

... as he caught sight of me. "Ran for three or four miles slick as a whistle—and look at us now!" It entertained him—a kink in a new toy. And he enjoyed the interest ...
— On the Stairs • Henry B. Fuller

... sensible of their extraordinary magnificence. Vast streets of almost interminable length, lined by insignificant two-story houses with green roofs and yellow walls; vast open squares or ploschads; palaces, public buildings, and churches, dwindled down to mere toy-work in the deserts of space intervening; countless throngs of citizens and carriages scarcely bigger than ants to the eye; broad sheets of water, dotted with steamers, brigs, barks, wood-barges and ...
— The Land of Thor • J. Ross Browne

... lov'd the damsel to court, On her shoulder first perch'd with endearment and joy; With his beak he then snapt it's strong silken support, And bore from her bosom the glittering toy. ...
— Ballads - Founded On Anecdotes Relating To Animals • William Hayley

... man of remnants, by dint of supplication and mediation, escaped from the penance, which was likely to equal the inconveniences of his brother artist's equestrian trip to Brentford. But an attendant named Weatherly, who had presumed to bring the young Prince a toy, (after he had discarded the use of them,) was actually mounted on the wooden horse without a saddle, with his face to the tail, while he was plied by four servants of the household with syringes and squirts, till he had a thorough wetting. "He was a waggish fellow," says Lewis, "and would not lose ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott

... forward with the ladders as the storming party moved up to the gateway. And just at that moment there the sentry let off his alarm shot. It set all within the San Vincente bastion moving and whirring like the works of a mechanical toy; feet came running along the covered way; muskets clinked on the stone parapet; tongues of fire spat forth from the embrasures; and then, as the musketry quickened, a flash and a roar lifted the glacis away behind, to the right of our column, so near that the ...
— The Laird's Luck • Arthur Quiller-Couch

... Toy Shop is the center of interest to "Toad" and his friends long before Christmas arrives. They plan a surprise that brings joy to a poor family. The boys erect snow forts and the two sides have a ...
— Christmas Holidays at Merryvale - The Merryvale Boys • Alice Hale Burnett

... all the children of Cincinnati, who gathered around the shop with constantly-renewed acclamations. On all sides might be seen the little people, thronging, gazing, chattering, while anxious papas and mammas in the shops were gravely discussing tin trumpets, dolls, spades, wheelbarrows, and toy wagons. ...
— The May Flower, and Miscellaneous Writings • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... The toy sovereignty began to rattle around in its own conceit, the "people" regarded themselves, and wished to be regarded, as a chartered Democracy. The little gim-crack economic system experienced the joys of reform. ...
— Marse Henry, Complete - An Autobiography • Henry Watterson

... idolatrous rites. Now, indeed, as became a smartened village, there was a perfect little Episcopal church of redstone, stained glass and painted shingles, with a macadam driveway leading under its dainty porte-cochere, and at the base of whose stern little tower an eager ivy already aspired; a toy-like, yet suggestively imposing edifice, quite in the manner of smart suburban churches—a manner that for want of accurate knowledge ...
— The Seeker • Harry Leon Wilson

... may," laughed Hope, and a little curly-pate close by was made happy with the toy, which seemed destined to ...
— All Aboard - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry

... apart, his head poked forward and his lower jaw thrust out, all made him a perfect pillar of Society. He was undisturbed by Shelton's scrutiny, watching the rind coil down below the apple; until in a springing spiral it fell on the path and collapsed like a toy snake. He took a bite; his teeth were jagged; and his mouth immense. It was obvious that he considered himself a most superior man. Shelton frowned, got down slowly, from the wall, and ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... video enim et magnos et eosdem bene longinquos dolores." But the sentiment is adopted by Montaigne (1. xiv.), ed. 1580, p. 66: "Tu ne la sentiras guiere long temps, si tu la sens trop; elle mettra fin a soy ou a toy; l'un et l'autre revient a un." ("Si tu ne la portes; elle t'emportera," note.) And again by Sir Thomas Brown, "Sense endureth no extremities, and sorrows destroy us or themselves" (see Darmesteter, Childe Harold, ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 2 • George Gordon Byron

... differ from him, he smiles at them the benign smile of superior wisdom, and says superciliously, "Ah, I see you don't understand political economy!" Now, your Herr Schurz is a dissenter among economists, I believe—a sort of embryo Luther come to tilt with a German toy lance against their economical infallibilities; and I'm told he knows more about the subject than all the rest of them put together. Of course, if you like him and respect him—and I know you have one superstition left, ...
— Philistia • Grant Allen

... had nations and worlds to conquer—a destiny to fulfill. Not alone because of you, little Elza. I would not make you think that. But for you to share. The great Tarrano, master of the universe, and his Lady Elza! Worlds for you to toy with, like gems on a thread adorning ...
— Tarrano the Conqueror • Raymond King Cummings

... toy, and easily made, is this Waltzing Fairy. It may be familiar to some of our readers, but will be new to a great ...
— Harper's Young People, September 21, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various

... on the head, and, when the humour seized me, would show him my hoard of gold mohurs, even jingle before him a bag of silver rupees, or ask his opinion on the colour and quality of some gem, speaking words of foolishness the while, like a child playing with a toy. And when I lay back on my cushions, sometimes I fancied that the little jewelled eyes in the elephant head of bronze twinkled at me in merry and friendly understanding. All which things I have since remembered ...
— Tales of Destiny • Edmund Mitchell

... Lee, Frank Shennen, M. Paul Martin, and Fred A. Conklin report trouble with the Soapboxticon, but if they persevere, and carefully follow directions, they will soon have a pretty toy. ...
— Harper's Young People, March 23, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various

... houses seem driven upward. There being not enough room on the end of the wedge for the people, they are forced upwards for room, as one would squeeze paint from an artist's tube. They rise up in tall, irregular-shaped shafts of various heights, as a child might stand its long toy bricks on end anyhow. As I write I am looking down from the thirtieth story of one of the highest, feeling as if I had been "set on the pinnacle of the Temple" (of Mammon?). The great city lies below me, but though it is night it does not appear to lie in repose. If it sleeps, it is ...
— Impressions of a War Correspondent • George Lynch

... you can get as far as that, and we'll give you something to eat and drink, and then you'll be stronger. It will really please me, if you'll come; I'm like a child with a new toy, these days, and want to show new-comers all that's going on. Come along, and I'll show you the pretty new hall they are building for our parish; it's such a pleasure to stand and watch the lads at work there, as merry ...
— The Tables Turned - or, Nupkins Awakened. A Socialist Interlude • William Morris

... though he had seldom felt less merry. But that the tiny Lady MacGregor should refer to tall Josette, who was nearly twice her height, as a "little beast," struck him as somewhat funny. Besides, her toy-terrier ...
— The Golden Silence • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson

... them rattles, drums, flags, and dolls, just as you had them. Some of the toys, though, were very peculiar ones—different from anything you ever saw. He had little tasselled umbrellas, just like the big one his father used when he walked out in the sun. He also had little fringed hats and toy chariots with fancy wheels. One of Yung Pak's favourite toys was a wooden jumping-jack with a pasteboard tongue. By pulling a string the tongue was drawn in and a trumpet carried up to ...
— Our Little Korean Cousin • H. Lee M. Pike

... reason for thought and action. He thought a great deal, he worked energetically, he came and went, he read and studied, he obeyed orders and always stood ready for new ones. Her pride in his vigorous initiative and practical determination was a glowing flame in her heart. He meant to be no toy soldier. ...
— Robin • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... on the wooden image of the Virgin. He caught it up in his arms, and heedless of a wail that issued from its worshipper like a child robbed of its toy, ran aft with it. "Come, wife," he cried. "I'll lash thee and the child to this. 'Tis sore worm eaten, but ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade

... human toy should succeed, he must be taken early. The dwarf must be fashioned when young. We play with childhood. But a well-formed child is not very amusing; a hunchback ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo

... was pioneer life. The hospitable table was made on the place—well and strongly made; there are braided rugs, and the wooden chairs have patchwork cushions. There is a corner closet—left rear. A picture of Abraham Lincoln. On the floor a home-made toy boat. At rise of curtain there are on the stage an old woman and a young man. GRANDMOTHER MORTON is in her rocking-chair near the open door, facing left. On both sides of door are windows, looking ...
— Plays • Susan Glaspell

... seven o'clock, and they do this to get more instruction. Most of this class are country boys who cannot stay at school all of the year. In one of the primary rooms, we have the kitchen-garden material. There, with the twenty-four sets of toy dishes, the little ones are taught how to set and clear off table, and a great many useful things in reference to table manners ...
— The American Missionary, Vol. 43, No. 7, July, 1889 • Various

... his face, My all to his pleasure resigned, No changes of season or place Would make any change in my mind; While blest with a sense of his love A palace a toy would appear; And prisons would palaces prove If Jesus would dwell ...
— Poems with Power to Strengthen the Soul • Various

... as lonely as I am," retorted the plump widow, "you would do your best to secure a man toy look after you. I should prefer a young and handsomer husband—such as Sir Frank Random, for instance but, as beggars cannot be choosers, I must content myself with old age, a famous scientist, and the chance of a possible title. Now mind, dear, to-night at seven—not ...
— The Green Mummy • Fergus Hume

... away, absorbed in the horrible preparations which were going on. Then she rummaged deeply within the folds of her loose gown and pulled out a small pistol with two brass barrels and double triggers in the form of winged dragons. It was only a toy to look at, all carved and scrolled and graven with the choicest work of the Paris gunsmith. For its beauty the seigneur had bought it at his last visit to Quebec, and yet it might be useful, too, and it ...
— The Refugees • Arthur Conan Doyle

... assist and take care of me. I had an entire set of silver dishes and plates, and other necessaries, which, in proportion to those of the queen, were not much bigger than what I have seen in a London toy-shop for the furniture of a baby-house: these my little nurse kept in her pocket in a silver box, and gave me at meals as I wanted them, always cleaning them herself. No person dined with the queen but the two princesses royal the elder sixteen years old, ...
— Gulliver's Travels - Into Several Remote Regions of the World • Jonathan Swift

... measure, in the middle, hoping in one of those three general blasts to contact the thing's central nervous system. He was not to know which of those shots did the trick, but the frantic wiggling of the legs slowed and finally ended, as a clockwork toy might run down for want of winding—and at last projected, at crooked angles, completely still. The shell creature might not be dead, but ...
— Storm Over Warlock • Andre Norton

... see the pictures in the fire yourself. Well, he shall be a knight, but he shall not wear any armor and he shall not fight, and all the rest of the people we see shall be quite common people, mere tradesmen, a goldsmith and a tailor and a toy-maker and a cobbler and the like. But whether the young man is a knight or not, he and the pretty girl ought to know better than to look at each other in that way in church, with looks that seem to mean so much and yet to have no connection with the service at all. The service is over ...
— The Wagner Story Book • Henry Frost

... carefully thought-out breakfast and meekly accepted everything presented by the grey-haired turbaned butler who bent over her paternally and offered every dish much as one would tempt a shy child with some amusing toy. ...
— Jan and Her Job • L. Allen Harker

... grand and splendid man you had become, Henry! and I may toy with and caress you now, as when you were a soft and beautiful baby, and you will permit me!" and lifting herself up, she steadfastly gazed at his emaciated face and shrunken temples, and opening ...
— Bart Ridgeley - A Story of Northern Ohio • A. G. Riddle

... to cleanliness, to safety, to modesty, sometimes to roguery. From the thin slip of notched silk (as it were, the emblem and beatified ghost of an Apron), which some highest-bred housewife, sitting at Nurnberg Work-boxes and Toy-boxes, has gracefully fastened on; to the thick-tanned hide, girt round him with thongs, wherein the Builder builds, and at evening sticks his trowel; or to those jingling sheet-iron Aprons, wherein your otherwise ...
— Sartor Resartus - The Life and Opinions of Herr Teufelsdrockh • Thomas Carlyle

... your own bodies to-day, you will find that you each have better joints than any dolls that can be bought at a toy shop. ...
— Child's Health Primer For Primary Classes • Jane Andrews

... was "not in residence," it was open to the public. In point of fact, at such times tickets of admission were to be had at the hotel for fifty pfennige each. There was not, of truth, much to see except a model farm and dairy—the pretty toy of a previous ...
— Selected Stories • Bret Harte

... caustic soda removes the shellac. To make round threads, softened rubber is forced through a die. Rubber bands are made by cementing a sheet of rubber into a tube and then cutting them off at whatever width may be desired. Toy balloons are made of such rubber. Two pieces are stamped out and joined by a particularly noisy machine, and then the balloon is ...
— Makers of Many Things • Eva March Tappan

... occasional visits to "the Farm," (a rustic old house then occupied by my father,) I, a household pet, suffering under an ague, which lasted from my first year to my third, naturally fell into her hands as a sort of superior toy, a toy that could breathe and talk. Every year our intimacy had been renewed, until her marriage interrupted it. But, after no very long interval, when my mother had transferred her household to Bath, in that city we frequently met again; Lord ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey

... well appreciate the pleasure of the queen at an incident which closed one of his audiences. While he was thus receiving her commands, the little dauphin, "beautiful as an angel," as the minister describes him, was capering about the room in high delight, brandishing a wooden sword, a new toy which had just been given him. An attendant called him to go to supper; and he bounded toward the door. "How is this, my boy?" said Marie Antoinette, calling him back; "are you going off without making M. Bertrand a bow?" "Oh, mamma," ...
— The Life of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France • Charles Duke Yonge

... attitude of caterpillars, worms, grasshoppers, and potato-bugs toward him only by assuming that he attracted them as the magnet in the toy ...
— Homespun Tales • Kate Douglas Wiggin

... this toy, Called Love, a little boy, Almost naked, wanton, blind; Cruel now, and then as kind? If he be amongst ye, say? ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 2 (of 4) • Various

... truant sports, I flew a kite, unmatched in shape or size, Over the river—we were at our house Upon the Brenta then; it soared aloft, Driven by light vigorous breezes from the sea Soared buoyantly, till the diminished toy Grew smaller than the falcon when she stoops To dart upon her prey. I sent for cord, Servant on servant hurrying, till the kite Shrank to the size of a beetle: still I called For cord, and sent to summon father, mother, My little sisters, my old halting ...
— Public Speaking • Irvah Lester Winter

... Edison's discoveries were dramatic and amusing. During his telephone experiments he learned the power of a diaphragm to take up sound vibrations, and he had made a little toy that, when you talked into the funnel, would start a paper man sawing wood. Then he came to the conclusion that if he could record the movements of the diaphragm well enough he could cause such records to reproduce the movements imparted to them by ...
— Radio Boys Cronies • Wayne Whipple and S. F. Aaron

... complete the surprises of Elizabeth's new world. Elizabeth fingered the nickled knobs, exclaimed over the reservoir for hot water at its back and the warming closet below, and investigated all its secret places as if it had been a toy. John Hunter gave his mother an approving nod behind the girl's back, and the visit was a success. Elizabeth forgot that she was to share the honours of the home with "Mother Hunter," as she had secretly called her ...
— The Wind Before the Dawn • Dell H. Munger

... as bird-cages and a small aquarium, boxes of games, a big doll's house still in tenantable repair though seldom occupied, implements and materials for wood-carving, and in a corner of the room a toy fort and a surprising variety of lead soldiers on foot or on horseback. Such things as these might undergo variation from time to time. The doll's house might disappear any day, as the rocking-horse had disappeared, for instance, a year before. But the furniture and other contents ...
— The Squire's Daughter - Being the First Book in the Chronicles of the Clintons • Archibald Marshall

... floor-manager called, and the band struck up the Fisher's Hornpipe. At supper, I saw Ben Somers, still with the pretty girl in blue; but he came to my chair and asked me if I did not think she was a pretty toy for a man to ...
— The Morgesons • Elizabeth Stoddard

... and natural, boy and woman, fun and frolic; but always the pride was there, vibrant, tense, intrinsic, the basic stuff of which she was builded. She was a woman, frank, outspoken, straight- looking, plastic, democratic; but toy she was not. At times, to him, she seemed to glint an impression of steel—thin, jewel-like steel. She seemed strength in its most delicate terms and fabrics. He fondled the impression of her as ...
— The Little Lady of the Big House • Jack London

... female slaves; she was given in marriage without her consent; she could be easily divorced; she was valued only as a domestic servant, or as an animal to prevent the extinction of families; she was regarded as the inferior of her husband, to whom she was a victim, a toy, or a slave. Love after marriage was not frequent, since she did not shine in the virtues by which love is kept alive. She became timorous, or frivolous, without dignity or public esteem. Her happiness was in extravagant attire, in elaborate hair-dressings, in rings and bracelets, in a retinue ...
— The Old Roman World • John Lord

... little instrument, which magnified but three times, he carries in triumph back to Venice. It is regarded as a scientific toy, yet everybody wishes to see an instrument by which the human eye indefinitely multiplies its power. The Doge is delighted, and the Senate is anxious to secure so great a curiosity. He makes a present of it to the ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VI • John Lord

... quickly away. He had no doubt of the toy's educational value, but nevertheless—he ...
— The Glory of Ippling • Helen M. Urban

... those who are rejected return home sorrowful and disappointed. The strangers are not permitted to carry away any of these willing damsels, but must restore them faithfully to their parents; and at parting the girl requires some toy or small present, which she may shew as a token of her condition; and she who can produce the greatest number of such favours has the greatest chance of being soon and honourably married. When a young woman dresses herself out to the best advantage, she hangs all the favours she may ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 1 • Robert Kerr

... without fear of contradiction go one step further. Those pigeon-fanciers who believe that all the chief races, such as Carriers, Pouters, Fantails, &c., are descended from distinct aboriginal stocks, yet admit that the so-called toy-pigeons, which differ from the rock-pigeon in little except in colour, are descended from this bird. By toy-pigeons are meant such birds as Spots, Nuns, Helmets, Swallows, Priests, Monks, Porcelains, Swabians, Archangels, Breasts, ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication, Vol. I. • Charles Darwin

... existed, much less been comfortable, in such a diminutive place. Another cottage I know contains but one room altogether, which is about eight feet square; it is inhabited by a solitary old woman, and looks like a toy-house. One or two such places as these may be found in most villages, but it does not by any means follow that because they are small the inhabitants are badly off. The condition they are found in depends entirely upon the disposition of the inmates. ...
— The Toilers of the Field • Richard Jefferies

... think I am, and sometimes not; but it is of no consequence what I am as long as I have you,—you and papa. Tell me more about the little tree, Jarvis. What does it mean? What is that white shining toy on the top? Is there a story ...
— Castle Nowhere • Constance Fenimore Woolson

... next, the load is a mere toy to him, he gets his eight marks a day, but by-and-bye he begins to feel the effects of an empty stomach, to fill which he would require double the allowance of food he receives; and in the long run he too breaks down and is passed into the ...
— Six Years in the Prisons of England • A Merchant - Anonymous

... at the garden wall, Talked with me from fall to fall; Mine the sand-rimmed pickerel pond, Mine the walnut slopes beyond, Mine, on bending orchard trees, Apples of Hesperides! Still as my horizon grew, Larger grew my riches too; All the world I saw or knew Seemed a complex Chinese toy, Fashioned for a ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier

... and confusion of machinery and men. Now they paused before one of those grim monsters to watch its mighty work. Now they stopped to witness the terrific power displayed by another giant that lifted, with its great arms of steel, a weight of many tons as easily as a child would handle a toy. Again, they stepped aside from the path of an engine on its way to some distant part of the plant, or stood before a roaring furnace, or paused to watch a group of men, or halted while John exchanged a few brief words with ...
— Helen of the Old House • Harold Bell Wright

... from over the Rhine destroyed as much as they had time to destroy of the charming old town planned by Francis I, and named for him. All the villages round about the new Huns broke to pieces, like the toy towns of children: Revigny, sprayed from hand pumps with petrol, and burnt to the ground: Sermaize-les-Bains, loved by Romans and Saracens, obliterated; women drowned in the river by laughing German soldiers, deep down ...
— Everyman's Land • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson

... himself lately reached his fifty-second year), and not one found grace in his eyes. Everywhere the same ever-lasting pouring of water into a sieve, the ever-lasting beating of the air, everywhere the same self-deception—half in good faith, half conscious—any toy to amuse the child, so long as it keeps him from crying. And then, all of a sudden, old age drops down like snow on the head, and with it the ever-growing, ever-gnawing, and devouring dread of death ... and the plunge into the abyss! Lucky indeed if life works out so to the end! May be, before ...
— The Torrents of Spring • Ivan Turgenev

... far from apeing that indifference to wealth adopted by most nouveaux riches, were so frankly, transparently enchanted with their new possessions that they were more like a couple of children with a new toy than a steady-going, middle-aged couple. They won first respect, and then affection, and were felt to be a decided acquisition to the well- being of the neighbourhood, since they were never appealed to in vain in the cause ...
— Tom and Some Other Girls - A Public School Story • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey

... the family were interested in the boy's pastime, and while they were indulging in various remarks, he bounded out of the house, with his head filled with bewitching fancies, evidently expecting such a day of joy as he never knew before. Perhaps the toy-shop was first in his mind, into which he had looked wistfully many times as he passed, and perhaps it was not. We say toy-shop, though it was not such a toy-shop as Boston has to-day, where thousands of ...
— From Boyhood to Manhood • William M. Thayer

... augment, if that was possible, the detestation which the court, the aristocracy, and the whole Austrian people felt for France and French ideas. When Marie Louise was a child, and with her little brothers and sisters used to play with toy-soldiers, the ugliest, blackest, and most repulsive of them was always picked out and called Bonaparte, and this one they used to prick with pins and ...
— The Happy Days of the Empress Marie Louise • Imbert De Saint-Amand

... Egypt for the Egyptians! Do you forget that there is a Roman army of occupation here, left by Aulus Gabinius when he set up your toy king for you? ...
— Caesar and Cleopatra • George Bernard Shaw

... young how fair the skies, Such folly of cloud, such blue depths wise, Such dews of morn, such calms of eve, So many the lure and the reprieve— Life seemed a toy to break and mend And make a charm ...
— The Rainbow and the Rose • E. Nesbit

... she said. "This is no paltry Toy to be exhausted and sickened of in a single hour! This is a real Game! Eth-ical! Psycho-psycho—logical! Unendingly diverting! Hour after hour! Day after day!—Once begun, you ...
— Fairy Prince and Other Stories • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott

... to rejoin my comrades at once. But patience was required if the Marne was to be crossed. The bridge appeared to be a delicate sort of toy hovering over the water. How could they dream of sending thousands of men, horses, and guns over a thing so slender that it looked as though it were supported by the fragile meshes of a spider's web? Captain D. gave me the Colonel's precise orders: not to pass more than four troopers at a ...
— In the Field (1914-1915) - The Impressions of an Officer of Light Cavalry • Marcel Dupont

... mother, tell me some more about Atlantis.' Or, 'Mother, tell me some more about ancient Egypt and the little toy-boats they made for their little boys.' Or, 'Mother, tell me about the people who think Lord Bacon ...
— The Magic World • Edith Nesbit

... to one of my domestics, who happened to come into the parlor to ask me some question, "I wish you would run down to the toy store in the next block, and buy Neddy a wagon. His heart is ...
— Trials and Confessions of a Housekeeper • T. S. Arthur

... free hand down into his pocket. He drew out the big pocket knife he carried. It was more of a tool than a whittling toy, for he used it in tinkering ...
— Dave Dashaway and his Hydroplane • Roy Rockwood

... view one gets at each fresh turn of the road, PODBURY! Look at Hinter-rhein, far down below there, like a toy village, and that vast desolate valley, with the grey river rushing through it, and the green glacier at the end, and these awful snow-covered peaks all ...
— Punch, or The London Charivari, Volume 101, October 31, 1891 • Various

... will not," he said, and at that moment a toy man and woman on the table began a vastly amusing conversation ...
— Elsie's Motherhood • Martha Finley

... Hockley-in-the-Hole. We are taken to the Mall at St. James's, or the Ring in Hyde Park, and we study the fine ladies and the beaux, with their red heels and their amber-headed canes suspended from their waistcoats; or we follow them to Charles Lillie's, the perfumer, or to Mather's toy-shop, or to Motteux's china warehouse; or to the shops in the New Exchange, where the men bought trifles and ogled the attendants. Or yet again we watch the exposure of the sharpers and bullies, and the denunciation of others who brought even greater ruin ...
— The Tatler, Volume 1, 1899 • George A. Aitken

... to lead her. The regions of thoughtless gaiety were scarcely separated from the regions of undisguised evil, and Raymond, on his way back from his friend, had fallen on a horrible row, in which a toy-selling woman had been set upon, thrown down and trodden on, and then dragged out by the police, bleeding and senseless. When he brought Rosamond to the spot, she was lying propped against a bundle, moaning ...
— The Three Brides • Charlotte M. Yonge

... train, into the peace and spaciousness of open country. The station was behind them, a little, neat stone station like a toy dropped down on the old-fashioned New England countryside. Joy caught her skirts clear of the car steps and descended, John guarding her. She smiled down at him before she sprang to the platform, and he smiled up at her. To ...
— The Wishing-Ring Man • Margaret Widdemer



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