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Wide-open   /waɪd-ˈoʊpən/   Listen
Wide-open

adjective
1.
Open wide.
2.
Lax in enforcing laws.  Synonym: lawless.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Wide-open" Quotes from Famous Books



... listening to what his mother was saying to his sister, sitting perfectly still with pouting lips and wide-open eyes, just as all good little boys have to sit when they are undressed to go to bed. A little girl, still younger, dressed literally in rags, stood at the screen, waiting for her turn. The door on to the stairs ...
— Crime and Punishment • Fyodor Dostoyevsky

... dominant feature of that arid region. It was like white gold. It had burned its color in a face he knew. It was going to warm his blood and brown his skin. A hot, languid breeze, so dry that he felt his lips shrink with its contact, came from the desert; and it seemed to smell of wide-open, untainted places where sand blew and strange, pungent plants gave a bitter-sweet tang to ...
— Desert Gold • Zane Grey

... turned pale, I saw the confirmation of something which I had only partly realised before: that her life at Cray's Folly was a constant fight against some haunting shadow. Her gaiety, her lightness, were but a mask. For now, in those wide-open ...
— Bat Wing • Sax Rohmer

... he pronounced, "that's all; no cause for alarm; you ever had it?" he asked, turning suddenly around on Polly, who was watching with wide-open eyes for ...
— Five Little Peppers And How They Grew • Margaret Sidney

... street, his head bent in thought, was made aware that he was almost in collision with Swallow and a large man with a look of good-humoured amusement and the wide-open eyes and uplift of brow expressive of ...
— Westways • S. Weir Mitchell

... their parched bodies, lo, would make A goodly shower seem like to scanty drops. Respite of torment was there none. Their frames Forspent lay prone. With silent lips of fear Would Medicine mumble low, the while she saw So many a time men roll their eyeballs round, Staring wide-open, unvisited of sleep, The heralds of old death. And in those months Was given many another sign of death: The intellect of mind by sorrow and dread Deranged, the sad brow, the countenance Fierce and delirious, the tormented ears Beset with ringings, the breath quick and ...
— Of The Nature of Things • [Titus Lucretius Carus] Lucretius

... and when, about eleven o'clock, they cantered up to the midday halting-place in a clump of gums, where the oxen had just been unyoked, Brookes and Leather stopped from their tasks to stare, and the black was so surprised that he forgot to stand on one leg, but watched the horsemen with wide-open ...
— First in the Field - A Story of New South Wales • George Manville Fenn

... had died, and though it was not really because of the serum, but because the man couldn't possibly have lived in any case, the doctor's enemies had blamed him. "That was what broke his heart," Mrs. James explained, still staring at the statue with wide-open eyes, to keep the tears from falling. "That is why he died to the ...
— The Heather-Moon • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson

... awaken her from her sorrowful thoughts, and she straightened herself up and cast her glances about. They fell quite accidentally upon the child which was in the arms of the nurse opposite, and which, with great wide-open eyes, was looking up to the heavens, as its mother ...
— Marie Antoinette And Her Son • Louise Muhlbach

... path wound; at the other the evening star hung over a tide of failing orange that slowly slipped down the earth's broad side to sadden other hemispheres with sweet regret. Walking rapidly now, and with her eyes wide-open, she distinctly saw in the air before her what was not there a moment ago, a winding-sheet,—cold, white, and ghastly, waved by the likeness of four wan hands,—that rose with a long inflation and fell ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 31, May, 1860 • Various

... Elizabeth saw them bowling down the country road in a wide-open barouche, with coachman ...
— Elizabeth Hobart at Exeter Hall • Jean K. Baird

... turned out of Trubnoy Square into Gratchevka, and soon reached the side street which Vassilyev only knew by reputation. Seeing two rows of houses with brightly lighted windows and wide-open doors, and hearing gay strains of pianos and violins, sounds which floated out from every door and mingled in a strange chaos, as though an unseen orchestra were tuning up in the darkness above the roofs, Vassilyev was ...
— The Schoolmistress and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov

... Baptist minister's, and Mr. Sinclair's were all exactly alike, violent-looking preachers with gusts of texts flying from their wide-open mouths, and sly rhymes concerning their denominational differences. The pretty little school teacher's was so mean that she couldn't go to school the next day, she cried so hard; and Mrs. Sinclair said that, of course, ...
— In Orchard Glen • Marian Keith

... utterly confused and bewildered, Nattie placed her hand in the two that clasped it, while Cyn stared with distended eyes, Quimby with wide-open mouth, and Jo gave a long whistle. Cyn was first to recover, and ...
— Wired Love - A Romance of Dots and Dashes • Ella Cheever Thayer

... wide-open welcoming door she stands, peering amid the squall of snow; and there in the center of the blur of light stands Tim the messenger, in aftertime the ruin of ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1919 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various

... fair-grounds. When the work was done they stood awe-stricken, looking at the gorgeous surroundings. Flags waved aloft on each building; yards of bunting roped in exhibits of all kinds. Everywhere persons were walking to and fro. But still the squatter children stood motionless and stared with wide-open eyes at such an array of good things as had never before gladdened their sight. Then, after the strangeness had somewhat worn off, they wandered on, bewildered. Snatchet was hugged tight in Flukey's ...
— From the Valley of the Missing • Grace Miller White

... weeks later, Barbara and Bettina were sitting in their pleasant room in Florence. The wide-open windows looked out upon the slopes of that lovely hill on whose summit is perched Fiesole, the poor little old mother of Florence, who still holds watch over her beautiful daughter stretched at her feet. Scented airs which had swept all the way from distant ...
— Barbara's Heritage - Young Americans Among the Old Italian Masters • Deristhe L. Hoyt

... little dumpling of a girl, with hard round cheeks like red apples, fat dimpled arms, and such wide-open eyes, and she looked very funny now as she drew herself up to her fullest height, which was not much of a height after all, brushed off her pretty blue dress, shook down her clean ruffled apron, and addressed us all ...
— Connor Magan's Luck and Other Stories • M. T. W.

... spectator. Beneath the spreading branches were a host of men, horses and dogs. The gay costumes of the huntsmen showing resplendent in the ice-bespangled light. The horns were lowered, and there was a confusion of tongues between groomsmen and lackeys; and there were shouts of welcome from the wide-open doorway of the servants' hall; for 'twas here the game was brought and laid upon the stone floor or hung upon pegs on the wall for the inspection of the guests. Lord Cedric leapt from his horse, throwing the reins to a waiting groom; strode into the hall with rattling spurs and flung through the ...
— Mistress Penwick • Dutton Payne

... than he cared to show, and the topsy-turvydom of the room made him fidgety. Scraps of his daily life lay scattered all over chairs and chests of drawers; his black portmanteau yawned wide-open like a coffin; his white linen was carefully laid on the top of his black suit, which showed slight traces of wear and tear at the knees and elbows. It seemed to him that he himself was lying there, wearing a white shirt with a starched front. Presently they would close ...
— Married • August Strindberg

... in ambush, he advanced to the main edifice behind the wide-open gate. I saw him shaking hands with the Governor of the Hudson's Bay Company, who seemed on the point of sallying out ...
— Heralds of Empire - Being the Story of One Ramsay Stanhope, Lieutenant to Pierre Radisson in the Northern Fur Trade • Agnes C. Laut

... vaguely, in the broad path of moonlight that poured through the wide-open window, and ran her hands like a blind girl over the warm sill, lifting ...
— While Caroline Was Growing • Josephine Daskam Bacon

... the tiny cabin. The electric fan is an aggravation. You reappear in your fresh "whites" somewhat warm and flustered in both mind and body. A turn around the deck cools you off; and dinner restores your equanimity—dinner with the soft, warm tropic air breathing through all the wide-open ports; the electric fans drumming busily; the men all in clean white; the ladies, the very few precious ladies, in soft, low gowns. After dinner the deck, as near cool as it will be, and heads bare to the breeze of our progress, and glowing cigars. At ten or eleven o'clock the groups begin to break ...
— African Camp Fires • Stewart Edward White

... watering-cans, baskets, and buckets—which dangle from the ceiling to the ground, and sometimes almost hide the floor. The shop signs are like those at Rotterdam—a bottle of beer hanging from a nail, a paint-brush, a box, a broom, and the customary huge heads with wide-open mouths. ...
— Holland, v. 1 (of 2) • Edmondo de Amicis

... a long, narrow, pointed nose; the pale pink lips resembled two thin threads, and the short, nervy chin was attached to the neck by a line that was supple and fat. The body, lost in the shadow, could not be seen. The profile alone appeared in its olive whiteness, perforated by a large, wide-open, black eye, and as though crushed beneath thick dark hair. This profile remained there for hours, motionless and peaceful, between a couple of caps for women, whereon the damp iron rods had imprinted bands ...
— Therese Raquin • Emile Zola

... Poor Bessy's wide-open black eyes began to fill with tears, her great red cheeks and lips became quite pale, and her face was distorted like a little child's before ...
— Adam Bede • George Eliot

... their scarlet tunics were a piercing note of colour. They walked very stiffly, with grim mouths and eyes sternly vigilant under the brims of their Stetsons. Women were everywhere, smoking cigarettes, laughing, chaffing, strolling in and out of the wide-open saloons. Their cheeks were rouged, their eye-lashes painted, their eyes bright with wine. They gazed at the men like sleek animals, with looks that were wanton and alluring. A libertine spirit was in the air, a madcap freedom, an effluence ...
— The Trail of '98 - A Northland Romance • Robert W. Service

... Aileen stared with wide-open eyes and parted lips at these great dames from the fashionable world about which she knew nothing. They were prominent members of the leading school for backbiting in England, and in ten minutes they had talked more scandal than the Highland lass had heard before in a lifetime. ...
— A Daughter of Raasay - A Tale of the '45 • William MacLeod Raine

... and the French have adhered to that name ever since. Doubtless the French of that day, who conversed with these people, and looked at them with very wide-open eyes, had as good reason for calling them Bohemians as they had for calling other men Spaniards, Italians, or Russians. Bohemia then formed too important a part of Europe for Frenchmen to confound men of that country with Hindoos ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 100, February, 1866 • Various

... room opened one night, as he sat late over his work, and Mr Sharnall entered. His face was pale, and there was a startled, wide-open look in his eyes that ...
— The Nebuly Coat • John Meade Falkner

... who had reinforced her eyes with her old piquant pince-nez, but could detect no irony in them. She was prettily imperturbable, that was all. There was an awkward silence. Then it was broken by a bounding step on the stairs, a wide-open fling of the door, and Enriquez pirouetted into the room: Enriquez, as of old, unchanged from the crown of his smooth, coal-black hair to the tips of his small, narrow Arabian feet; Enriquez, with his thin, curling mustache, his dancing eyes set in his immovable face, just as ...
— Stories in Light and Shadow • Bret Harte

... formidable list, the little geese were staring with wide-open, affrighted eyes into the corner where the rustle ...
— Eyebright - A Story • Susan Coolidge

... to the other is through a guarded gateway, since this is hostile territory, and Charin lies far beyond the impress of ordinary Terran law. But the gate stood wide-open, and the guards looked lax and bored. They had shockers, but they didn't look as if they'd ...
— The Door Through Space • Marion Zimmer Bradley

... him, word by word as one spelling out a strange language. "She was like a butterfly that plays among the flowers in the early morning. She had the look of a boy—the wide-open eyes, the fearless way, the freedom, the daring. Her innocence—her loveliness—" Something rose unexpectedly in his throat. He stopped and swallowed hard. "My God! How lovely she was!" he said, ...
— Charles Rex • Ethel M. Dell

... again. He threw back his head and opened his mouth to its widest, and let out a tremendous howl to call his patrol together from their wanderings. Suddenly his howl was interrupted. Taking a most careful aim, Chippy let fly at the wide-open mouth, and put the ball fairly on ...
— The Wolf Patrol - A Tale of Baden-Powell's Boy Scouts • John Finnemore

... aunt to kneel on the edge of the bed, and present her magnificent backside projecting out fair for his birching. This she immediately did, and being directly before my eyes, I had a full front view of her gloriously large wide-open cunt, and all the pinky brown aureola around her charming bottom-hole, over which the little fair ringlets showed in great beauty. I need not say that my own John Thomas was in all the pride and panoply of prickdom, and ready to burst with excitement. ...
— The Romance of Lust - A classic Victorian erotic novel • Anonymous

... amusement half in soft content. Then she turned to Rebecca, who stood with wide-open eyes and mouth contemplating ...
— The Panchronicon • Harold Steele Mackaye

... a little, strange cry that came to her lips, and Jolly Roger saw a quick throbbing in her bare throat, and her eyes were so wide-open and startled as she looked at him that he felt, for a moment, as if the resolution in his ...
— The Country Beyond - A Romance of the Wilderness • James Oliver Curwood

... am sure," said Gavrila Ardalionovitch, turning to Burdovsky, who sat looking at him with wide-open eyes, perplexed and astonished. You will not deny, seriously, that you were born just two years after your mother's legal marriage to Mr. Burdovsky, your father. Nothing would be easier than to prove the date of your birth from ...
— The Idiot • (AKA Feodor Dostoevsky) Fyodor Dostoyevsky

... African lion, Nero, the largest and most ferocious animal of its species in captivity." And under this latter announcement there was a picture of a young and handsome man, literally smothered with medals, lying at full length, with his arms crossed and his head in the wide-open jaws of a snarling, ...
— Cleek: the Man of the Forty Faces • Thomas W. Hanshew

... staircase with its slender mahogany balusters,—here and there a break,—I caught sight of the entrance hall below with its hanging glass lantern, quaint haircloth sofas lining the white walls, and half-oval tables heaped with flowers, and so on through the wide-open door leading out upon a vine-covered porch. This had high pillars and low railings against which stood ...
— Colonel Carter of Cartersville • F. Hopkinson Smith

... to handle, and not the arm of a good-looking youth of twenty-five,—as I fondly hoped I was. And certain remarks which I once addressed to her in regard to her studies and reading in her own apartment were met with that cool, wide-open gaze of her calm gray eyes, that seemed to say, "Pray, what is that to your purpose, sir?" and she merely answered, "Is there anything else that you would like me to do, sir?" with a marked deference that was ...
— Household Papers and Stories • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... had seen them, and she was not far behind when they vanished through the wide-open door. She found Uncle Eb propped up with his cane, standing in a dark corner of a ...
— Frank Merriwell's Son - A Chip Off the Old Block • Burt L. Standish

... few things more inviting than to step up to the wide-open doors and look into the shop. The floor, half of hard worn boards half of cinders, the smoky rafters of the roof, the confusion of implements on the benches, the guns in the corners—how all of these things form the subdued background for the flaming forge ...
— Adventures In Friendship • David Grayson

... uttered these words she sat looking up at him with wide-open, childlike eyes, a hint of ...
— Flint - His Faults, His Friendships and His Fortunes • Maud Wilder Goodwin

... I am," she exclaimed, with wide-open surprise. Then she blushed in turn,—first a little color of half-indignant rebuke, then a warm hue as she thought of her unnecessary earnestness, then a deep crimson as there rushed over her the sudden recollection of the hours she had spent in Buckingham's company, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, September, 1885 • Various

... sleep. The change in her life had come so suddenly that she felt confused and bewildered. It had not needed Joseph Heron's mention of Sir Stephen Orme's name to bring Stafford to her mind; for he was always present there; and she lay, with wide-open eyes and aching heart, repeating to herself the letter he had sent her, and wondering why he who, she had thought, loved her so passionately, had left her. Compared with this sorrow, and that of her father's death, the smaller miseries of her ...
— At Love's Cost • Charles Garvice

... shyly, Julius having announced "two Britisher redcoats" with bated breath and wide-open eyes. She walked ...
— A Little Girl in Old Philadelphia • Amanda Minnie Douglas

... him. He tried to conclude his tirade with his usual laugh, and fell into a husky, broken cough instead. Susanna did not let drop a syllable in reply to him, only she shook her head, raised her face, and clasping her elbows with her hands, stared straight at him. In the depths of her fixed, wide-open eyes the hatred of long years lay smouldering with dim, unquenchable fire. I felt ...
— The Jew And Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev

... lay with wide-open eyes staring up at nothing, listening to the rain and thinking. By and by the rain ceased and he could tell by the dim whiteness of the tent roof that the clouds must have been swept away from before the moon, then just ...
— The Lure of the Dim Trails • by (AKA B. M. Sinclair) B. M. Bower

... and the Wrath in his hand is bare, And he looketh, and Regin sleepeth, and his eyes wide-open glare; But his lips smile false in his dreaming, and his hand is on the sword; For he dreams himself the Master and the new world's fashioning-lord. And his dream hath forgotten Sigurd, and the King's life lies in the pit; He is nought; Death gnaweth ...
— The Story of Sigurd the Volsung and the Fall of the Niblungs • William Morris

... Then a roar from outside, exultant and fierce, and in the wide-open space beyond the hut-door the two lads saw a large body of the enemy in retreat before the serried ranks of British infantry who came on at the double, their bayonets flashing in the sun's rays, and cheering ...
— !Tention - A Story of Boy-Life during the Peninsular War • George Manville Fenn

... They look more dead than alive; their movements are slow, incoherent, and incomprehensible. Can these be the wonderful drops of light he had seen but a moment ago, unceasingly flashing and sparkling, as they darted among the pearls and the gold of a thousand wide-open calyces? ...
— The Life of the Bee • Maurice Maeterlinck

... again they saw Hilma and Mrs. Dyke in the doorway of the little house where the latter lived. They were looking out, bewildered, ignorant of what had happened. But on the porch of the Ranch house itself, alone, forgotten in the excitement, Sidney—the little tad—stood, with pale face and serious, wide-open eyes. She had seen everything, and had understood. She said nothing. Her head inclined towards the roadway, she listened to the faint and distant ...
— The Octopus • Frank Norris

... of that June night poured in through the wide-open casement in the great hall. A single lighted candelabrum scarcely disturbed the mystery of the moonlight, which streamed in like a "milky way." On the table, across some dusty old papers, lay a crucifix of oxydized silver. By the side of the crucifix was a thick broad sheet of parchment, ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various

... looked at the speaker with wide-open eyes, as if to say: "Doesn't my mother know anything ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VIII • Various

... Keineth, with wide-open eyes, was trying to follow Peggy's incoherent description of the camp life they were to begin on the morrow. Back in her mind was a tiny doubt as to whether she would enjoy twenty girls—all strangers! ...
— Keineth • Jane D. Abbott

... her room that night. Katy was feverish. When morning came, and Dr. Carr returned, he found her in a good deal of pain, hot and restless, with wide-open, anxious eyes. ...
— What Katy Did • Susan Coolidge

... mistaken; whether active or passive, there was about him an insinuation of reserve force, subtly felt, of a strong, determined character, impossible to sway or bend. He lay, now, motionless, staring with wide-open eyes into the fire and breathing slowly, ...
— A Breath of Prairie and other stories • Will Lillibridge

... to make sure that the color was becoming, when she was suddenly arrested by the sound of a sob, and she turned to see Harriet throw herself across the bed and clutch the pillow in a storm of weeping. Patty stared with wide-open eyes; she herself did not indulge in such emotional demonstrations, and she could not imagine any possible cause. She moved the pink satin slippers out of reach of Harriet's thrashing feet, gathered up the fallen elephant and scattered chocolates, and sat down to wait ...
— Just Patty • Jean Webster

... and crossed to where the woman was crouching, watching him with wide-open, fearful eyes. He took both her hands and looked grimly into her face. "For seven years I have walked around with a silent tongue and a broken heart. All that is finished. I am going ...
— Fire-Tongue • Sax Rohmer

... make the spectator shiver. The mother, standing on the edge of the nest, with her tail braced against its side, like a woodpecker or a creeper, took a rigidly erect position, and craned her neck until her bill was in a perpendicular line above the short, wide-open, upraised beak of the little one, who, it must be remembered, was at this time hardly bigger than a humble-bee. Then she thrust her bill for its full length down into his throat, a frightful-looking act, followed by a series ...
— The Foot-path Way • Bradford Torrey

... hands over her stomach and looked at her husband with self-satisfaction. But Mr Clinton was awake, staring in front of him with wide-open, fixed eyes; various thoughts confusedly ran ...
— Orientations • William Somerset Maugham

... had a wide-open chance during the last few months to pick up a good deal about the practical end of the business, and between trips now you ought to spend every spare minute in the packing-house getting posted. Nothing earns better interest than judicious questions, ...
— Letters from a Self-Made Merchant to His Son • George Horace Lorimer

... to the past there are three wide-open ways in which one may be a fool. One of the ways is the way of ignoring the past—the way of remaining blankly ignorant of the human past as the animals are blankly ignorant of their past and so of drifting ...
— Manhood of Humanity. • Alfred Korzybski

... exactly the brilliant smile which suited her brilliant, frank face and clear, wide-open eyes. Under her smile she was saying to herself, "If that's so, I wonder—not that I care at all—but I really wonder ...
— The Bent Twig • Dorothy Canfield

... at its throat, tore it to reach the highly smelling flesh that was concealed within the tunic, and the Romans fled, casting away their shields and swords. One of them had a red forked beard and wide-open blue eyes. He brought into Katharine's mind the remembrance of her cousin. She wondered where he could be, and imagined him with that short sword, cutting ...
— The Fifth Queen • Ford Madox Ford

... for such opportunities and vaguely loathe those who had enjoyed them. As for Agatha, she accepted the change of station with serene and philosophic silence until cross-questioned as to her own intentions. "Why, certainly I mean to go with Mrs. Cranston," she replied, with clear, wide-open eyes. "She will have more need of me there than here—and I of her." Mr. Langston, who drove out again to spend Sunday at the post, heard of the decision with grave concern in his soldierly face, but in silence equal to ...
— Under Fire • Charles King

... her straight in the eyes. "Good-by"; and with a muttered good-by to Dr. Locaman, who stood with wide-open eyes gazing at him, he turned and went down ...
— Gordon Keith • Thomas Nelson Page

... fell down, and rose again. The wound that he had under his armor of filth was staining the ground, and when he had spoken, his wide-open eyes looked down at all the blood he had given for the healing of ...
— Under Fire - The Story of a Squad • Henri Barbusse

... up into Horace's face with her wide-open gaze, as if to verify this wonderful assertion; and apparently satisfied that it had been made for the sake of effect, continued her game without ...
— My Little Lady • Eleanor Frances Poynter

... his face seemed to have no relation to each other. His nose was somewhat stubby, and had nothing to do with his mouth or eyes. One of his eyebrows was drawn down as if in days gone by he had been in the habit of wearing a single glass. The other brow was raised over a clear and wide-open light-blue eye. His mouth was large, and attended strictly to its own business. It transmitted his odd ideas to other people, but it never laughed at them. His chin was round and prominent, suggesting that it might have been borrowed from somebody else. His cheeks were a little heavy, and ...
— The Captain's Toll-Gate • Frank R. Stockton

... gazed after him in astonishment. Was the sergeant-major asleep or awake? He had staggered past with wide-open, staring eyes, like a sleep-walker. ...
— 'Jena' or 'Sedan'? • Franz Beyerlein

... shops abreast of the chapel, Marx's on this side, Lichtenstein's on that, their dingy false fronts covered with their same old huge rain-faded words of promise. Yonder, too, behind the blacksmith's shop, is the little schoolhouse, dirty, half-ruined, and closed—that is, wide-open and empty—it may be for lack of a teacher, or funds, ...
— Bonaventure - A Prose Pastoral of Acadian Louisiana • George Washington Cable

... resisted the seductions which always beset solitary men with restless brains overwrought by depressing agencies. He disguised no misery to himself with the lying delusion of wine. He sought no sleep from narcotics, though he lay with throbbing, wide-open eyeballs through all the weary hours of ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. VI.,October, 1860.—No. XXXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... the trembling lip, the changing color, the wide-open, deeply flushed eyes so near his own; then with a slow smile of extraordinary subtlety, if not of comprehension, answered ...
— The Chief Legatee • Anna Katharine Green

... Speaking of men and affairs of state, as I shall do in this opening paper, I felt my earliest political thrill in 1840. I have a distinct vision, the small boy's point of view being not much above the sidewalk, of the striding legs in long processions, of wide-open, clamorous mouths above, and over all of the flutter of tassels and banners. Then began my knowledge of log-cabins, coon-skins, and of the name hard cider, the thump of drums, the crash of brass-bands, cockades, and torch-lights. My powers ...
— The Last Leaf - Observations, during Seventy-Five Years, of Men and Events in America - and Europe • James Kendall Hosmer

... her sweet face, on her wide-open brown eyes, on her smilin' lips. She lay there, rapt, illumined, glorified, apart from us all. For that strange, beautiful glow on her face wrapped her about, separated her from us all, who ...
— Sweet Cicely - Or Josiah Allen as a Politician • Josiah Allen's Wife (Marietta Holley)

... stirring, without even moving her head, she began to stare all about her with wide-open eyes and a joyous air, and she said ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo

... practice. Neither threats nor ingenious devices disturbed him, but with a fidelity as remarkable as it was rare he pushed aside the emissaries of extravagance and corruption as readily as a plow turns under the sod. After two years of such methods, however, the representatives of a wide-open treasury noisily demanded a change. But Olcott, a financier of wide repute, wisely declined to be used for such a purpose, and ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander

... florid description of the Icelandic Sagas as told by my new-found friend and interpreted by Th' Ole Man. My friend had not read the Sagas, but still he did not hesitate to recommend them; and so we passed through the wide-open gates and up the stone walk to the entrance of Kelmscott House. On the threshold we met F.S. Ellis and Emery Walker, who addressed my companion as "Tom." I knew Mr. Ellis slightly, and also had met Mr. Walker, who works Rembrandt miracles with ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 5 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard

... paws are laid on her shoulders, and the wide-open, bloody jaws of an enormous wolf hang over her head. It is the most ferocious beast of the troop, which, having partly missed its leap at the sledge, is dragged along with it, in vain seeking with its hinder legs for a resting-place ...
— Werwolves • Elliott O'Donnell

... Steve Brown looked in vain for any allusion to her secretiveness of the night before. In her bearing there was not the least vestige of arts and airs, nor any little intimation of mutual understanding; she simply looked up with wide-open eyes and told it to him. This honesty, quite as if she owed it, gave Steve a new experience in life; and he gazed into eyes that charmed him by the ...
— The Wrong Woman • Charles D. Stewart

... single stalk might be seen all stages of development—from the ripe, brown boll, parted starlike, with the long white fleece depending, to the bean-sized embryo from which the crimson flower had but just fallen. Indeed, among the wide-open bolls there was an occasional flower, cream-hued or crimson according to its age, for the cotton-bloom at opening resembles in color the magnolia-blossom, but this changes quickly to ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, October, 1877, Vol. XX. No. 118 • Various

... himself on the way home he had arrived back late for Vespers and was tremendously teased by the others in consequence. Brother Walter is a tall excitable awkward creature with black hair that sticks up on end and wide-open frightened eyes. His cassock is much too short for him both in the arms and in the legs; and as he has very large hands and very large feet, his hands and feet look still larger in consequence. They didn't talk about much that was interesting during recreation. Brother Dunstan and Brother Raymond ...
— The Altar Steps • Compton MacKenzie

... Elsa, the shrinking little model came in, hesitating on the threshold. She wore a red woolen jersey over her bodice that fitted her tightly and made her look very slight and shivering. She looked with wide-open eyes at the beautiful girl and dropped a courtesy as she sat in the seat Millar drew out for her. Elsa nodded at her in silence, and Millar, after watching them a few seconds with a smile of amusement, walked out of the room, whistling softly. Mimi was ...
— The Devil - A Tragedy of the Heart and Conscience • Joseph O'Brien

... to be listening with wide-open eyes, as if he did not understand. She went on in a tender, suppliant manner. She came nearer to him, her breast heaving; ...
— Madame Bovary • Gustave Flaubert

... Laddie watched the Indian with wide-open eyes. This was the first one they had ever seen outside of a circus or a Wild-West show, and he was not like the Indians there. They all wore gaily-colored suits, and had many more feathers on their heads than this man did. But that he was a real ...
— Six Little Bunkers at Uncle Fred's • Laura Lee Hope

... Wales. There had been refreshing showers in the morning, giving place to a murky haze through which the late afternoon sun shone red and round. The small kitchen of No. 2 Bryn Street was insufferably hot, in spite of the wide-open door and window. A good fire burnt in the grate, however, for it was near tea-time, and Mrs. Parry knew that some of her lodgers would soon be coming in for their tea. One had already arrived, and, ...
— Garthowen - A Story of a Welsh Homestead • Allen Raine

... barn. Without a word he strode over and emptied a pan of raw meat on the floor in front of the dog. Then he calmly departed, but Crosby could have sworn he heard him chuckle. The captives looked at each other dumbly for a full minute, one with wet, wide-open, hurt eyes, the other with consternation. Gradually the sober light in their eyes faded away and feeble smiles developed into peals of laughter. The irony of the situation bore down upon them irresistibly and their genuine, healthy ...
— The Day of the Dog • George Barr McCutcheon

... staked his very soul—wagered his hopes of paradise against a babiche thread—that what he saw could never have happened between Baree and man. In utter amazement he lowered his gun. David, looking down, was smiling into that one, wide-open, bloodshot eye of Baree's, his hand reaching out. Foot by foot Baree slunk to him on his belly, and when at last he was at David's feet he faced Thoreau again, his terrible teeth snarling, a low, rumbling growl in his throat. David reached down and ...
— The Courage of Marge O'Doone • James Oliver Curwood

... role in the parlor and drawing-room. The electric fireplace throws out a ruddy glow, a perfect imitation of the wide-open old-fashioned fireplaces of the days of our grandmothers. There are small grooves at certain sections in the flooring over which chairs and couches can be brought to a desired position. When the master drops into his favorite chair ...
— Marvels of Modern Science • Paul Severing

... the buck was less than a hundred feet from where Snap was standing. That he was wild with rage could be seen from the look out of his wide-open and bloodshot eyes. He lowered his antlers, as if to pierce poor ...
— Guns And Snowshoes • Captain Ralph Bonehill

... Content lay festering in her shroud. "Fool," cried Life, "why looked ye back like wife of ancient Lot? Now are ye indeed undone!" The voice was harsh and shrill, and starting as from an uneasy dream, he looked on Life with wide-open eyes and soul that understood. He found her far less fair than in the heydey of his youth, when he reveled in her voluptuous charms and loved her well. Her face was hard and stern as that of some hag from Hell; the sunlight had faded from her hair, the cestus of red roses ...
— Volume 1 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann

... foolish, boyish thought that I would walk in suddenly and interrupt an exchange of confidences which I should pretend to have overheard. I do not know what impelled me to play such an antiquated, worn-out trick; however, I was just advancing into the room through the wide-open but curtained doorway, when a chance sentence made me pause, struck as by a blow in the face. Through an interstice, left by an ill-adjusted fold of the portiere, I had a glimpse of the room. My betrothed, in one of her favorite white negligees, was stretched on the Turkish ...
— A Village Ophelia and Other Stories • Anne Reeve Aldrich

... shivering hand. With thy dear name as text, though hidden by thee, I cannot write—I cannot speak or think— Alas, I cannot feel; for 'tis not feeling, This standing motionless upon the golden Threshold of the wide-open gate of dreams, Gazing, entranced, adown the gorgeous vista, And thrilling as I see, upon the right, Upon the left, and all the way along, Amid empurpled vapors, far away To where ...
— Edgar Allan Poe's Complete Poetical Works • Edgar Allan Poe

... some level meadows near the river. It struck me one day as a very fine sight, when an old bird, who looked larger and blacker and greyer-faced than the others, and might have been the father and leader of them all, got up on a low post, and with wide-open beak poured forth a long series of most impressive caws. One always wonders at the meaning of such displays. Is the old bird addressing the others in the rook language on some matter of great moment; or is he only expressing some feeling in the only language he has—those ...
— Birds in Town and Village • W. H. Hudson

... he painfully finished the ascent, and came into the laboratory, where he let himself fall into the Doctor's easy-chair, with an anathema on the chair, the Doctor, and himself; and, staring round through the dusk, he met the wide-open, startled eyes of little Pansie, who had been reading a gilt ...
— The Dolliver Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... up in the pilot's seat, planning and dreaming in the moonlight. The brother of Tomaso lifted his head once and looked at Johnny's head and shoulders, which was all of him that showed. Through half-closed lids he studied Johnny's profile and the look of exaltation in his wide-open eyes. ...
— Skyrider • B. M. Bower

... had been the least bit unscrupulous, I am afraid the relatives at home would have missed their African souvenirs. He went out via freight car, all by himself, seated regally in a steamer chair between two wide-open side doors, one native squatted on either side to see that he did not lurch out into ...
— African Camp Fires • Stewart Edward White

... not matter—they went away," she answered. She was looking at me with wide-open eyes, in which I noticed the sincerest amazement, if not stupefaction. "Syvorotka, you! How perfectly crazy you look with this beard! If you only knew!" and silvery laughter unexpectedly sounded in my poor quarters—in ...
— Rescuing the Czar - Two authentic Diaries arranged and translated • James P. Smythe

... struggled. And again, opening his eyes after a moment of blankness, he found himself kneeling on the sanded floor of the cafe, holding the dead Negro in his arms. He glanced down at the face, astounded by the look of placid satisfaction in those wide-open eyes, the smile of recognition, of gratification, of some nameless and ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1921 • Various

... vigour, of life, a strong desirable creature, but as if she did not care in the least, in the absolute assurance of her safety, what I did or left undone. Our faces brought close together in this storm of haphazard caresses, her big, black, wide-open eyes looked into mine without the girl appearing either angry or pleased or moved in any way. In that steady gaze which seemed impersonally to watch my madness I could detect a slight surprise, perhaps—nothing more. I showered kisses upon her face and there did not seem to be any ...
— 'Twixt Land & Sea • Joseph Conrad

... be made of a beautiful, sparkling white coral with big, wide-open windows through which the tide drifted. The mer-streets seemed to be cobbled in pearl, the sidewalks to be paved in gold. At their sides grew mer-trees, the highest she had ever seen, with all kinds of beautiful singing fish roosting in their ...
— Maida's Little Shop • Inez Haynes Irwin

... looking with wide-open eyes at the girl before her; 'why, bless you! I had a proposal from Lord Freddie two weeks before I ever saw the butler. I see you don't believe a word I say. Well, you ask Lord Freddie. I'll introduce you, and tell him you don't believe he asked me to be Lady Freddie, if that's the title. ...
— A Woman Intervenes • Robert Barr

... the way, there was another sound. It proceeded from the cabin where our three friends lay sleeping on the sofas. The sound was that of snoring, and it issued from the wide-open mouth of Sam Sorrel, who lay sprawling on his back, with Tittles coiled up at ...
— Chasing the Sun • R.M. Ballantyne

... until she awoke next morning and looked out between the posts of her high bedstead through the small, wide-open window overlooking the bay that her heart gave the first bound of real gladness. She loved the sky and the dash of salt air, laden now with the perfume of budding fruit trees, that blew straight in from the sea. She loved, too, the stir and sough of the creaking pines and the cheery ...
— Kennedy Square • F. Hopkinson Smith

... it in rapture for some time, until a low cry from the old man at his side interrupted him. "The Lorelei!" whispered he, startled, "do you see her—the enchantress?" The only answer was a soft murmur which escaped from the youth. With wide-open eyes he looked up and lo! there she was. Yes, this was she, this wonderful creature! A glorious picture in a dark frame. Yes, that was her golden hair, and those ...
— Legends of the Rhine • Wilhelm Ruland

... back against her saddle, a blanket covering her, with wide-open eyes, and despite the presence of that stalking figure and the fact of her mind being locked round one terrible and inevitable thought, she saw the changing beautiful glow of the fire-logs and the ...
— The Border Legion • Zane Grey

... she felt his arms about her, and for a throbbing minute they stood so; Rachael braced lightly, her beautiful breast rising and falling, her breath coming quickly. Her magnificent eyes, wide-open, like a frightened child's, were fixed steadily upon him. He caught the fragrance of her hair, of her fresh skin; he felt the softness and firmness ...
— The Heart of Rachael • Kathleen Norris

... clear stars, such as flare a little when the wind blows. But the wind was not blowing for us. Showers of sparks spangled the crape-like folds of smoke that trailed after us; the engine labored in the hold, and the sea heaved as it is always heaving in that wide-open Bay. ...
— In the Footprints of the Padres • Charles Warren Stoddard

... at her with wide-open eyes and a frank face, and breaking abruptly into a clear, ringing laugh) Oh, you funny girl, what should I be smiling for? I'd rather laugh. (Both laugh) Are ...
— Savva and The Life of Man • Leonid Andreyev

... built yesterday, for all that he could see of ruin or decay. The doors and windows of the larger cabin and two of the smaller ones were closed. The roofs were unbroken. The walls appeared solid. Twice he looked at the fourth cabin, with its wide-open door and window, and twice he looked at the cabin nearest the stream, where had lived ...
— The Hunted Woman • James Oliver Curwood

... Meade to bring about a decisive battle at Mine Run, the Army of Northern Virginia established its autumn and winter headquarters on a jutting spur of the great range called Clarke's Mountain, Orange Court House lying only a few miles to the west. The huge camp was made in a wide-open space, surrounded by dense masses of pines and cedars. Tents were pitched securely, and, feeling that they were to stay here a long time many of the ...
— The Shades of the Wilderness • Joseph A. Altsheler

... and got into bed. But not to sleep. She lay there with wide-open eyes, every sense alert, listening for the least sound which might herald Tony's return. She could hear the loud ticking of the tall old clock on the staircase—tick-tack, tick-tack, tick-tack. Sometimes the sound of it deceived her into thinking it was a footstep on the stairs, and she ...
— The Vision of Desire • Margaret Pedler

... and oh cricky! what do you think I saw? Tearing round Deacon Stiles's corner, lickety-split, was a span of horses and a buggy, with the reins dragging in the dust, and the buggy spinning from one side of the road to the other, and in it was a lady with great wide-open eyes, and a face as white as a sheet, clutching a little girl in her arms ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, January 1878, No. 3 • Various

... wide-open frontier—bustling, wild, hectic, and rich. For the worlds of the Edge were untamed worlds, raw and forbidding, and the policy of the Councils was calculated to attract the kind of men who not only could but would open these frontiers. The roustabouts, the low drifters of the spaceways ... men ...
— Warlord of Kor • Terry Gene Carr

... time, during the night. Even "Tummas" was so thoroughly impressed with a sense of responsibility, that his two hours of watchfulness were passed in a nervous tremble and with hardly a blink of his wide-open eyes. Donald stood the last watch, and at its conclusion he woke the Indians and ordered ...
— At War with Pontiac - The Totem of the Bear • Kirk Munroe and J. Finnemore

... heard the voices, for swift as lightning his black head and forked tongue came hissing among the trees again, darting full forty feet at a stretch. As it approached, Medea tossed the contents of the gold box right down the monster's wide-open throat. Immediately, with an outrageous hiss and a tremendous wriggle—flinging his tail up to the tip-top of the tallest tree and shattering all its branches as it crashed heavily down again—the dragon fell at full length upon the ...
— Myths and Legends of All Nations • Various

... going off again, to wake at last with the sun shining brilliantly in by the curtain. This time I jumped up, with the full impression upon me that I had overslept myself; while there lay Mercer on his back, with his mouth wide-open, and giving vent every now and ...
— Burr Junior • G. Manville Fenn

... with wide-open horror-stricken eyes; for from her nursery she carried with her at the bottom of her mind, half-forgotten but ready to fly up to the top at any moment of panic, an impression that the chief activities and recreations of all those Americans ...
— Christopher and Columbus • Countess Elizabeth Von Arnim

... baying from their dogs and a ripping and crashing in the undergrowth brought them face to face with the quarry—a magnificent ten-point stag. Confronted unexpectedly by these fresh foes, the noble creature came to a terrified halt, and, flanks heaving, nostrils quivering, stared at them with wide-open eyes. But a yelp from the nearest hound and a view "halloo!" from Windybank sent it off again like a bolt from ...
— Sea-Dogs All! - A Tale of Forest and Sea • Tom Bevan

... a large, old-fashioned dwelling, of comfortable aspect; too comfortable, I thought, for the shadow of doom, which, in my eyes, overlay its cheerful front, wide-open doors and windows. How should I tell my story here! What credence could I expect for a tale so gruesome, within walls warmed by so much sunshine and joy. None, possibly; but my story must be told for ...
— The Bronze Hand - 1897 • Anna Katharine Green (Mrs. Charles Rohlfs)

... had known no associates in his crime, or if his aesthetic taste was considerably developed it matters not; he must do the same work and mix in the same company as the most ignorant and most brutal. To utterly disregard these qualities is to ignore the wide-open channels along which the most powerful reformative influences may be transmitted. If his recovery is to be considered these are most substantial assets. They are, as it were, "the general health" of the patient suffering from a local lesion. Yet ...
— A Plea for the Criminal • James Leslie Allan Kayll

... to help. But he hasn't succeeded so far. If he can, then it will be a different story. But I can't stall much longer, Amy. Aarons has a powerful argument. You're psi-high. You're the first full-fledged, wide-open, free-wheeling psi-high that's ever appeared in human history. The first. Others in the past have shown potential, maybe, but nothing they could ever learn to control. You've got control, you're fully developed. You're here, and you're ...
— Second Sight • Alan Edward Nourse

... criticism of literature, music, and pictures, and learned much that was worth knowing. But I came away unsatisfied, and rather dazed. On my way back—it was a singularly warm, clear evening in February—I turned in to see an old lady who lives near me. She was sitting wrapped up at her wide-open window, looking at the light that was still left in the south-west. I said, of course, that I hoped she would not take cold. 'Oh no,' she replied, 'I often sit here, and so long as I keep myself warm I come to no harm. I cannot read by candlelight, and I am thankful that ...
— More Pages from a Journal • Mark Rutherford

... silent;—Mother, thou Hast only arms to cling about thy son.— Who can descry the purpose of a god With eyes wide-open? shut them, every fool Can conjure up a world arriving somewhere, Resulting in what he may call perfection. Evil must soon or late succeed to good. There well may once have been a golden age: Why should we treat it as a poet's ...
— Georgian Poetry 1911-12 • Various

... people began to gaze at the mysterious old gentleman with superstitious fear and wonder. Who could he be? Whence did he come? Wherefore was he standing bareheaded in the market-place? Even the school-boys left the merry-andrew and came to gaze, with wide-open eyes, at ...
— Biographical Stories - (From: "True Stories of History and Biography") • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... of those who disdained any approach to dudishness, or had not yet grasped it as anything that could possibly pertain to themselves, and these—mostly new importations from Poland or Italy—strode dauntlessly up to the wide-open doors in the deep Grecian portico, the men in clumping shoes and the women in little head shawls, jabbering noisily with ...
— Joyce's Investments - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry

... blazed like those of a maniac. In his left hand he held a long, keen-bladed knife. He glanced neither to the right nor the left, but kept straight on, as if he were a ferocious bloodhound in pursuit of human prey. Esperance came to an abrupt pause, and stared with wide-open eyes at the startling apparition. It was old Pasquale Solara! The son of Monte-Cristo shuddered as he thought that the father, with all his Italian ferocity thoroughly aroused, was in pursuit of the man who had abducted his daughter and murdered ...
— Monte-Cristo's Daughter • Edmund Flagg

... the bridal dinner, Anthony snapped out his lights and, feeling impersonal and fragile as a piece of china waiting on a serving table, got into bed. It was a warm night—a sheet was enough for comfort—and through his wide-open windows came sound, evanescent and summery, alive with remote anticipation. He was thinking that the young years behind him, hollow and colorful, had been lived in facile and vacillating cynicism upon the recorded emotions of men long ...
— The Beautiful and Damned • F. Scott Fitzgerald

... beings, with our inward turmoil, feel a certain awe in the presence of a little child, such as we feel before some quiet majesty or beauty in the earth or sky—before a steady glowing planet, or a full-flowered eglantine, or the bending trees over a silent pathway. The wide-open blue eyes looked up at Godfrey's without any uneasiness or sign of recognition: the child could make no visible audible claim on its father; and the father felt a strange mixture of feelings, a conflict of regret and joy, that the pulse of that little heart had no response for the half-jealous ...
— Silas Marner - The Weaver of Raveloe • George Eliot

... her work, and was staring at Pauline with wide-open, terrified eyes. She made no effort to answer her. She was incapable ...
— Miss Merivale's Mistake • Mrs. Henry Clarke

... Boy, or "Carr"—which, as being the diminutive for his second Christian name, Cardross, he was often called now—found a new attraction in his friend. He would listen with wide-open eyes, and attention that never flagged, to the interminable "tories" which the earl told him, out of the same brilliant imagination which had once used to delight his uncles in the boat. And so, ...
— A Noble Life • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik

... looked at him with wide-open eyes. "I have a few faults, Jim, a very few, and very small ones! but truly, ...
— Patty's Social Season • Carolyn Wells

... the strange pair were reaching the precincts of the great dwelling-house, where about the wide-open door loitered gentlemen, grooms, lacqueys, and attendants ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte Mary Yonge

... large, wide-open blue eyes dilated; she was acting no part—her terror and distress were real. A kind of instinct told Arnold ...
— Frances Kane's Fortune • L. T. Meade

... a pellmell dash across the room and her face, with wide-open eyes dancing in curiosity, was pressed ...
— Over the Pass • Frederick Palmer

... margin of the cliff Vocco had had much ado finding his horse. On the road back to Aricia they passed through many parties of belated worshippers. As the torch festival kept up until dawn that town was open all night. Unquestioned they passed in at a wide-open gate, through torch-lit, but almost deserted streets, ...
— The Unwilling Vestal • Edward Lucas White

... in which Le Beau had kept him. But it was made of heavy logs, and the logs were notched so that nothing could knock them down. And these logs, instead of lying closely one on the other, had open spaces six or eight inches wide between them. And there was a wide-open door. From this strange contraption there came a strong odour of over-ripened fish. The smell repelled Miki. But it was a powerful attraction to Neewa, who persisted in remaining near it in spite ...
— Nomads of the North - A Story of Romance and Adventure under the Open Stars • James Oliver Curwood

... a few inches a-jar; it let pass only the round little nose of the round little wife, between two wide-open blue-flowers of eyes. "What are you doing, Goosie?" she repeated in a tone slightly amused but rich with a large tolerance; "what ...
— The Trimming of Goosie • James Hopper



Words linked to "Wide-open" :   unfastened, open, unlawful



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