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Waft   Listen
noun
Waft  n.  
1.
A wave or current of wind. "Everywaft of the air." "In this dire season, oft the whirlwind's wing Sweeps up the burden of whole wintry plains In one wide waft."
2.
A signal made by waving something, as a flag, in the air.
3.
An unpleasant flavor. (Obs.)
4.
(Naut.) A knot, or stop, in the middle of a flag. (Written also wheft) Note: A flag with a waft in it, when hoisted at the staff, or half way to the gaff, means, a man overboard; at the peak, a desire to communicate; at the masthead, "Recall boats."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Waft" Quotes from Famous Books



... are golden once more on the hills of Lagunitas; the early summer breezes waft stray leaf and blossom over the glittering lake in the Mariposa Mountains. Heading the tireless riflemen of his command, Valois throws himself in desperation on the Union lines at Chickamauga. Crashing volley, ringing "Napoleons," the wild yell of the onset, the answering cheers of defiance, ...
— The Little Lady of Lagunitas • Richard Henry Savage

... know'st thou thy poor Queen's distress, And canst thou hear my wailing and my woe? May the soft wind that o'er thy hills doth blow Waft thee these thoughts, ...
— Writings in the United Amateur, 1915-1922 • Howard Phillips Lovecraft

... stood looking over at the new mill, listening to the slight stir within it, apparently the setting to rights by some lingering workman of such odds and ends as remain after finishing the great whole of such a building, suddenly the cool wind, which had shifted to the north, brought on its waft a most portentous roar. We stood still to listen. Nearer and nearer it swelled, crashing and hissing as it approached. Josephine grasped my arm with convulsive energy, and at that instant we perceived Mr. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Number 9, July, 1858 • Various

... with friendship's sacred fire; These charms shall neither wither, fade, nor fly; Pain, sickness, time, and death, they dare defy. When the pale tyrant's hand shall seal your doom, And lock your ashes in the silent tomb, These beauties shall in double lustre rise, Shine round the soul, and waft it to the skies. ...
— Sketches of the Fair Sex, in All Parts of the World • Anonymous

... apparatus—tufts, plumes, fly-wheels—which keep them up in the air and enable them to take distant voyages. In this way, at the least breath, the seeds of the dandelion, surmounted by a tuft of feathers, fly from their dry receptacle and waft gently ...
— The Life of the Spider • J. Henri Fabre

... denounce her as the chief cause of his boy's death? Those hurried journeys by land and sea—that rough shifting to and fro of the pampered son and heir, whose little life until that time had been surrounded with such luxurious indulgences, so guarded from the faintest waft of discomfort—who should say that these things had not jeopardised the precious creature? And out of her sin had this arisen. In that dread hour by her darling's sick-bed, what unutterably odious colours ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon

... Which dwelt so near his heart with all its suns, And moons, and maidens, soon would lie afar Across some unknown, sure-dividing waste. Yet think not, though I fall upon the sad, And lingering listen to the fainting tones, Before I strike new chords that seize the old And waft their essence up the music-stair— Think not that he was always sad, nor dared To look the blank unknown full in the void: For he had hope in God, the growth of years, Ponderings, and aspirations from a child, And prayers and readings and repentances. Something within ...
— A Hidden Life and Other Poems • George MacDonald

... now protects her wives with guardian care? Who saves her infants from the rage of war? Now hostile fleets must waft those infants o'er (Those wives must wait them) to a foreign shore: Thou too, my son, to barbarous climes shalt go, The sad companion of thy mother's woe; Or else some Greek whose father pressed the plain, Or son, or brother, by great Hector ...
— Mosaics of Grecian History • Marcius Willson and Robert Pierpont Willson

... stir the deep water; the Dane-land he left. Then was by the mast there one of the sea-rails, A sail, with rope made fast; thunder'd the sound-wood. Not there the wave-floater did the wind o'er the billows Waft off from its ways; the sea-wender fared, Floated the foamy-neck'd forth o'er the waves, The bounden-stemm'd over the streams of the sea; 1910 Till the cliffs of the Geats there they gat them to wit, The nesses well kenned. Throng'd up the keel then Driven hard by the lift, and stood on the ...
— The Tale of Beowulf - Sometime King of the Folk of the Weder Geats • Anonymous

... flower! who art wont to bloom On January's front severe, And o'er the wintry desert drear To waft thy waste perfume! Come, thou shalt form my nosegay now, And I will bind thee round my brow; And, as I twine the mournful wreath, I'll weave a melancholy song, And sweet the strain shall be, and ...
— Storyology - Essays in Folk-Lore, Sea-Lore, and Plant-Lore • Benjamin Taylor

... cheers to those on board, and they, in return, wave their handkerchiefs, kiss their hands—aye, from the cabin to the steerage-passengers, and the forecastle (those not employed), all waft their good-by greetings to those who are left behind, not knowing whether they may be ...
— The Boy Nihilist - or, Young America in Russia • Allan Arnold

... yield streaming milk, the earth her grain, And may the heaven give never-failing rain, The winds waft happiness to all that breathes, And all that lives, ...
— The Little Clay Cart - Mrcchakatika • (Attributed To) King Shudraka

... pour down in a perfect torrent for several hours; at the end of which the sky gradually cleared. The sea, though still rough, presented none of those mountainous waves that a short time before had threatened to annihilate us at every descent, and there was just sufficient breeze to waft us along at a brisk rate with the ...
— The Little Savage • Captain Frederick Marryat

... water lapped the shores, the fisherman thought that they too were transformed. They began to blossom and waft their perfumes. A soft sheen spread over them and they also took on a beauty which ...
— The Wonderful Adventures of Nils • Selma Lagerlof

... doubted, too, whether the form of Lilias Fay could appertain to a creature of this earth, being so very delicate, and growing every day more fragile, so that she looked as if the summer breeze should snatch her up, and waft her heavenward. But still she watched the daily growth of the Temple; and so did old Walter Gascoigne, who now made that spot his continual haunt, leaning whole hours together on his staff, and giving as ...
— The Lily's Quest (From "Twice Told Tales") • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... lifts up his hand to bless With readiness; yet who needs more such blessing? Is it the free-born bird that makes its nest Wherever its strong wings would waft it, or The flowery plant bound by ...
— Life Immovable - First Part • Kostes Palamas

... I have not the sense, and judgment, and steadiness of a waking, and a disenchanted, and a reasonable man, who knows what he is doing, and wherefore he does it. If one must walk with masks and spectres, who waft themselves from place to place as it were in vision rather than reality, it might shake the soundest faith and turn the wisest head. I sought, since I must needs avow my folly, the same Catherine Seyton with whom ...
— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott

... greater height raises it into a favourable current of air—the glistening balloon sails off. It flies, it soars; no, it is coming down! The children shout at it, as if to drive it up, but it wilfully descends—they rush beneath, they try to waft it on high with their breath—there is a collision between Mary and Blanche—Aubrey perceives a taste of soapy water—the bubble is no more—it is vanished ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge

... winged Faith, her guardian one, alway There hovering nigh. 'Tis morn; dreams she no more; On Fotheringay's black scaffold now she stands, Clasping her cherished croslet in her hands, Anon to die. Her fate the loves deplore; The angel-loves, eke, waft her soul to heaven; Her faults, her follies, to her ...
— Godey's Lady's Book, Vol. 42, January, 1851 • Various

... wind was deep and hoarse like the baying of distant hounds, and beneath it, in plaintive minor, ran the sighing of the leaves before his footsteps. Through the wood came the vague smells of autumn—a reminiscent waft of decay, the reek of mould on rotting logs, the effluvium of overblown flowers, the healthful smack of the pines. By dawn frost would grip the vegetation and the wind would lull; but now it blew, strong and clear, scattering before ...
— The Voice of the People • Ellen Glasgow

... the island nineteen goats, nine hogs, and thirteen pigs. The 16th we saw the island of Ascension, seven or eight leagues to the W.S.W. In the morning of the 28th, the wind westerly and reasonably fair weather, we spoke the Dutch ship, which made a waft for us at his mizen-top-mast head. He told us that he had only eight or nine men able for duty, all the rest being sick, and forty-six of his crew dead. This was a grievous chastisement for them, who had formerly offered to spare me twenty men or more upon ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. VIII. • Robert Kerr

... Leone and Cape Verd the bays are immaterial; but from Cape Verd, sailing north, we pass four tolerable-sized indentations—Tindal, Greyhound, Cintra, and Garnet Bays. Then a brisk wind will speedily waft us to the point from whence we started, viz. ...
— The World of Waters - A Peaceful Progress o'er the Unpathed Sea • Mrs. David Osborne

... with an effect of modesty never meant by the sculptor, but not displeasing. There was an old fountain near, its stone rim and centre of rock-work green with immemorial mould, and its basin quivering between its water-plants under the soft fall of spray. At a waft of fitful breeze some leaves of early autumn fell from the trees overhead upon the elderly pair where they sat, and a little company of sparrows came and hopped about their feet. Though the square without was so all astir ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... throng of men surrounds you. The eyes of life's sphynx glitter in the midst of divine hieroglyphics; decipher the book of life! Courage, scholar, launch out on the Styx, the deathless flood, and let the waves of sorrow waft you ...
— Child of a Century, Complete • Alfred de Musset

... bathycolpian Here—Juno, in Latin —sent down Iris instead. But I was mightily pleased to see that one of the gentlemen that do the heavy articles for the celebrated "Oceanic Miscellany" misquoted Campbell's line without any excuse. "Waft us HOME the MESSAGE" of course it ought to be. Will he be duly ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)

... children, and had been under the delusion that if she could obtain two more, she would be able to fly and to make herself invisible. In the midst of the cellar roof was a little narrow air-hole, but no window. The blooming lindens could not waft a breath of comforting fragrance into that abode, where all was dark and mouldy. Only a rough bench stood in the prison; but "a good conscience is a soft pillow," and consequently Juergen ...
— What the Moon Saw: and Other Tales • Hans Christian Andersen

... monotonous hills, and both before and behind were more lonesome hills, more dreary fields, and black masses of woodland. Not one homely roof was visible in the hard, white moonlight, nor the glimmer of a lamp, nor a waft of chimney-smoke; not even the tinkle of a sleigh-bell or a foot-step was to be heard. The silence seemed whispering to the hills. One star glimmered in the orange after-glow ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, November 1885 • Various

... for some wretch's aid, Some antique, lovesick, North of Ireland maid! They live, they speak, they breathe what age inspires, Preposterous fondness and impure desires! The latent wish without a blush impart, Reveal the frailties of a morbid heart; Speed the neglected sigh from soul to soul, And waft a groan from Indus ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan

... to its wealth, it must be recollected that the labors of the plough are most valuable where the area suitable for its dominion is the smallest. But even the prairies of the West are destined to waft ...
— Personal Memoirs Of A Residence Of Thirty Years With The Indian Tribes On The American Frontiers • Henry Rowe Schoolcraft

... of a summer evening, with neither dust nor insects to be a drawback, with just wind enough to make tremulous the shadows on the lawn, and to waft, from the garden above the house, the odours of a thousand flowers. The garden itself did not surpass, or even equal, in beauty of arrangement, many of the gardens of the neighbourhood; but it was very beautiful in ...
— Janet's Love and Service • Margaret M Robertson

... world Is full of guilt and misery, and hast seen Enough of all its sorrows, crimes, and cares, To tire thee of it, enter this wild wood And view the haunts of Nature. The calm shade Shall bring a kindred calm, and the sweet breeze That makes the green leaves dance, shall waft a balm To thy sick heart. Thou wilt find nothing here Of all that pained thee in the haunts of men, And made thee loathe thy life. The primal curse Fell, it is true, upon the unsinning earth, But not in vengeance. God hath yoked to guilt Her pale tormentor, misery. Hence, these shades Are ...
— Poetical Works of William Cullen Bryant - Household Edition • William Cullen Bryant

... that gleam around Every altar's hallowed ground; Holy flames, whose frequent food Is the consecrated wood, And for whose encircling bed, Sacred Ku[s']a-grass is spread [65]; Holy flames, that waft to heaven Sweet oblations daily given, Mortal guilt to purge away, Hear, oh hear me, when I pray— ...
— Sakoontala or The Lost Ring - An Indian Drama • Kalidasa

... every moment. This world is a bridge of straw over the roaring gulf of eternal fire. Is there leisure for sport and business, or room for science and literature, or mood for pleasures and amenities? No: to get ourselves and our friends into the magic car of salvation, which will waft us up from the ravenous crests of the brimstone lake packed with visages of anguish, to bind around our souls the floating cord of redemption, which will draw us up to heaven, this should intensely engage every faculty. Nothing else can be admitted save ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger

... indifferent to the unheeding oyster. Unobservant even of what passes in its immediate vicinity, its whole soul is concentrated in itself; yet not sluggishly and apathetically, for its body is throbbing with life and enjoyment. The mighty ocean is subservient to its pleasures. The rolling waves waft fresh and choice food within its reach, and the flow of the current feeds it without requiring an effort. Each atom of water that comes in contact with its delicate gills involves its imprisoned air to freshen and invigorate the creature's pellucid ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 5, No. 3, March, 1852 • Various

... with rational affairs—Wall-street, and cent per cent. and dividends. Having become men, we have put away childish things, and among them, the encumbrances of a heart. Who would have one? It makes you dream on autumn days, when the fair sunlight streams upon the sails which waft the argosies of commerce to your warehouse;—it almost leads you to believe that stocks are not the one thing to be thought of on this earth—that all the hurrying bustle of existence is of doubtful weight, compared with the treasures ...
— The Last of the Foresters • John Esten Cooke

... configuration of parts, and so exact a degree of motion, as to make water so fluid, so penetrating, so slippery, so incapable of any consistency: and yet so strong to bear, and so impetuous to carry off and waft away, the most unwieldy bodies? It is docile; man leads it about as a rider does a well- managed horse. He distributes it as he pleases; he raises it to the top of steep mountains, and makes use of its weight ...
— The Existence of God • Francois de Salignac de La Mothe- Fenelon

... Profaning heaven's own air with words unclean Against thy sacred name?—Th' august pure Dead In calm of glory sleep:—like them serene, In virtue firmlier mail'd than they with dust, Wait, Clarkson, on our sorrow-trodden sphere, Until her climes waft promise to thine ear, How each thy proud renown will have in trust: Then call'd, at the life-judging Throne appear On the right hand, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 349, November, 1844 • Various

... flat, Op. 9, No. 2. In fact it is so popular that when any one is asked to play "Chopin's Nocturne," this one is meant. Because it is popular, it is sneered at by some critics, but it possesses a lyric beauty quite its own and "sometimes surprises even the weary teacher with a waft of unexpected freshness, like the fleeting odor from an old and much used school book in which violets have been pressed." A sustained love song, it ends with a cadence that should be played with a rippling delicacy suggestive of moonlight on a lake ...
— The Pianolist - A Guide for Pianola Players • Gustav Kobb

... succeeded, later in the day, by a sharp breathing from the Russian wastes; the cold zone sighed over the temperate zone and froze it fast." "Not till the destroying angel of tempest had achieved his perfect work would he fold the wings whose waft was thunder, the tremor of whose plumes was storm." "The night is not calm: the equinox still struggles in its storms. The wild rains of the day are abated: the great single cloud disappears and rolls away from Heaven, not passing and leaving a sea all sapphire, but ...
— Hearts of Controversy • Alice Meynell

... little man after my ain heart," said she: "I like his knitted brow, and the downward curve of his lips. Knights, lift him gently, set him on a red-roan steed, and waft him ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf (Vol 2 of 17) - Folk-Lore, Fables, And Fairy Tales • Various

... link of shining pearls, A by-gone melody, A shower of tears with smiles between— And this is memory. A thing so light a breath of air May waft its life away; A thing so dark that moments of pain Seem ...
— Love or Fame; and Other Poems • Fannie Isabelle Sherrick

... cultivate orchids, until it blooms and luxuriates in the strangest and gaudiest shapes. Your real face is known of no other abstraction; indeed, you never see it yourself, so well-fitted and so constant is the mask through which you waft the endearments which have caused you to be avoided everywhere. This, I admit, is imagination; but is it very far from the truth? Perhaps I ask in vain, for truth is the very last thing that may be expected of you ...
— Punch, or The London Charivari, Volume 101, October 31, 1891 • Various

... scarcely more substantial than brown paper. Their feet are made for ornament and for dancing. Though they possess a roundness of form that leaves nothing to be desired in symmetry of figure, still they are light as a sylph,—so buoyant, clad in muslin and lace, that it would seem as if a breeze might waft them away like a summer cloud. Passionately fond of dancing, they tax the endurance of the gentlemen in their worship of Terpsichore, stimulated by those Cuban airs which are at once so sweet ...
— Due South or Cuba Past and Present • Maturin M. Ballou

... blink, sun shineth, snow lieth, Finn glideth, fir-tree groweth, falcon flieth the live-long day and the fair wind bloweth straight under both her wings, where Heaven rolleth and earth is tilled, where the breezes waft mists to the sea, where corn is sown. Far shall he dwell from church and Christian men, from the sons of the heathen, from house and cave and from every home, in the torments of Hel. At PEACE we ...
— Grettir The Strong - Grettir's Saga • Unknown

... flesh, silkengowned, gray-haired and grown old, but Becky Thatcher just the same, seated in a chair which once was Mark Twain's and pouring tea at a table on which the author once wrote. And if the aroma of the cup she hands out to each visitor doesn't waft before his mind a vision of a curly-headed boy and a little girl with golden long-tails at play on the wharf of old Hannibal while the ancient packets ply up and down the rolling blue Mississippi, there is nothing whatever in ...
— How To Write Special Feature Articles • Willard Grosvenor Bleyer

... of trees on the common behind the house, is the only spot where on a clear day Windsor may be seen on one side, and Oxford on the other,—looking almost like the domes, and towers, and pinnacles that sometimes appear in the clouds—a fairy picture that the next breeze may waft away! This beautiful residence stands so high, that one of its former possessors, Admiral Fraser (grandfather to that dear friend of mine who is the present owner), could discover Woodcot Clump ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 2, January, 1851 • Various

... thy bread upon the waters, waft it on with praying breath, In some distant, doubtful moment it may save a soul from death. When you sleep in solemn silence, 'neath the morn and evening dew, Stranger hands which you have strengthened ...
— What All The World's A-Seeking • Ralph Waldo Trine

... "are supposed to waft a perfume or incense to reach the nostrils of the god. The glass of propitiatory wine and the aromatic spices ...
— Arcadian Adventures with the Idle Rich • Stephen Leacock

... solitudes of far-off Uist or lonely Donegal may often behold the Golden Eagle sick to death, worn with age or famine, or with both, passing with weary waft of wing from promontory to promontory, from peak to peak, pursued by a crowd of rooks and crows, which fall back screaming whenever the noble bird turns his indignant head, and which follow frantically once more, hooting behind him, whenever he ...
— Birds and Poets • John Burroughs

... arms, more tightly knit Around me than the ivy clasps the oak, Didst breathe a vow—mocking the gods with it— A vow which, false one, thou hast foully broke; That while the ravening wolf should hunt the flocks, The shipman's foe, Orion, vex the sea, And zephyrs waft the unshorn Apollo's locks, So long wouldst thou be fond, be ...
— Horace • Theodore Martin

... last of them you can greet for me, should I fall to-day; and you will do it cordially, for she is Laura's sister-in-law. Tell my beautiful Lucretia that I have been happy in her love; and, although I would not have her mourn for me, I hope she will sometimes waft me a thought or a gentle sigh. And now—to arms, and to victory! You promise to fight at my side, do ...
— Prince Eugene and His Times • L. Muhlbach

... They have been gambling for me," said Lucien; he was quite touched by the letter. A waft of the breeze from an unhealthy country, from the land where one has suffered most, may seem to bring the odors of Paradise; and in a dull life there is an indefinable sweetness ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac

... me be a whole sacrifice. Jesus is near; He is precious; He has my heart: let the union subsist for ever. Never let me leave Thee more; but through all the vicissitudes of life, keep me; and if I am entering upon my last year, let it be the best of all. Let the odours of the celestial world waft upon me, and invigorate ...
— Religion in Earnest - A Memorial of Mrs. Mary Lyth, of York • John Lyth

... calmly setting over the green land of Ireland. The sky was serene, the sea smooth, the wind just sufficient to waft the two vessels steadily and gently. After the first firing and a little manoeuvring, the two ships glided on freely, side by side; in that mild air Exchanging their deadly broadsides, like two friendly horsemen walking their steeds along a plain, chatting as they ...
— Israel Potter • Herman Melville

... (at the mast-head invisible). The wind so wild blows homewards now; my Irish child, where waitest thou? Say, must our sails be weighted, filled by thy sighs unbated? Waft us, wind strong and wild! Woe, ah woe ...
— Tristan and Isolda - Opera in Three Acts • Richard Wagner

... For the smell of burning and the smell of earth are the deepest underlying sensuous bonds of the earth's unity, and the common brotherhood of them that dwell thereon. Now the scent of the larches would steal from the hill, or the wind would waft the odour of the white clover, beloved of his grandmother, to Robert's nostrils, and he would turn aside to pull her a handful. Then they clomb a high ridge, on the top of which spread a moorland, dreary and desolate, brightened by nothing save 'the canna's hoary beard' ...
— Robert Falconer • George MacDonald

... being done, pursuant to orders, the Americans formed pits lined with clay, in which the oil was put till fresh casks could be procured. On this, the Governor of Coquimbo forbade the practice, as the wind might waft an unpleasant smell to Coquimbo, though the trade wind never blew in that direction. The Americans were therefore compelled to abandon the pursuit, and with it several sperm whales which were lying in ...
— Narrative of Services in the Liberation of Chili, Peru and Brazil, - from Spanish and Portuguese Domination, Volume 1 • Thomas Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald

... and fair the light winds blew, As glad to waft him from his native home.... But when the sun was sinking in the sea, He seized his harp... Adieu, adieu! my native shore Fades o'er the waters blue; The night winds sigh, the breakers roar, And shrieks the wild sea-mew; Yon sun that sets upon the sea We follow in his ...
— The Development of the Feeling for Nature in the Middle Ages and - Modern Times • Alfred Biese

... a perfect winter day with a gorgeous sunshine and a crisp air that seemed to bring refreshment in every waft. The leafless trees were penciled against the blue sky like the lines of a fine engraving. The church bells rang out their reverent inspiration, they were harmoniously toned and there was no jangling. ...
— The Girls at Mount Morris • Amanda Minnie Douglas

... Wemyss, in his "Theatrical Biography," refers to Braham's appearance at the National Theatre, Philadelphia: "Who that heard 'Jephthall's Rash Vow' could ever forget the volume of voice which issued from that diminutive frame, or the ecstasy with which 'Waft her, angels, through the skies' thrilled every nerve of the attentive listener? He ought to have visited the United States twenty years sooner, or not have risked his reputation by coming at all. Like Incledon, he was only heard by Americans when his powers of voice were ...
— Great Singers, First Series - Faustina Bordoni To Henrietta Sontag • George T. Ferris

... guests and loungers so quietly press out against its upper balustrades? Why, under its arches, and between balcony posts along the curbstones clear down to Canal Street, was the pathetically idle crowd lining up so silently? From that point why, now, did the faint breeze begin to waft a low roar of drums of such grave unmartial sort? And why, gradually up the sidewalks' edges in the hot sun, did every one so solemnly uncover? Small Victorine stood up ...
— Kincaid's Battery • George W. Cable

... keep the people in the faith, for if they cease to honor the Gods how will they submit to kings? Seti ventured much, his son risks still more, and therefore both have required much succor from the Immortals. Rameses is pious, he sacrifices frequently, and loves prayer: we are necessary to him, to waft incense, to slaughter hecatombs, to offer prayers, and to interpret dreams—but we are no longer his advisers. My father, now in Osiris, a worthier high-priest than I, was charged by the Prophets to entreat his father to give up the guilty project of connecting the north sea by a navigable channel ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... of the Orient does not make a clean sweep of the city's population. The medical officers claim that the malodorous fumes are not dangerous, and experience has taught these officials to locate the compounds, wherein millions of oysters are to decompose, in positions where the trade winds waft the smells seaward or inland, without greatly affecting the camp's health. The British official whose olfactory organ survives a season at the pearl camp deserves from his home government at least the ...
— East of Suez - Ceylon, India, China and Japan • Frederic Courtland Penfield

... forming a wreath of color, and freshening the air with their pure fragrance. Each flower in itself was without much perceptible savor, yet the whole combined exhaled a healthy, clean, and invigorating waft as of summer air ...
— The Broom-Squire • S. (Sabine) Baring-Gould

... farewell I bid to you, Ye prams and boats, which, o'er the wave, Were doom'd to waft to England's shore Our hero chiefs, our soldiers brave. To you, good gentlemen of Thames, Soon, soon our visit shall be paid, Soon, soon your merriment be o'er 'T is but ...
— Memoirs of the Court of St. Cloud, Complete - Being Secret Letters from a Gentleman at Paris to a Nobleman in London • Lewis Goldsmith

... stand, undergo, brook, submit to, suffer, bear with; harbor, cherish, entertain; support, sustain, uphold; carry, convey, transport, waft; render, produce, yield; bring forth, teem; relate, refer, concern; press, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming

... six weeks; then the furnace fires die out, the ships are loaded, the men go to sleep, and the breezes waft them out into the August haze, after which Kalvik sags back into its ten months' coma, becoming, as you see it now, a dead, deserted village, ...
— The Silver Horde • Rex Beach

... winds, and tender-hearted This hermit waft to yonder shore, From which for sordid gold he parted Ten weary years and one before. Ho! there's the pier where last he left her, That dear, loved one, to weep alone, And for that love of gold bereft her Of all the pleasures she ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume XXIV. • Revised by Alexander Leighton

... when the clamor o' Babel's end (All seas were chartless then!) Drove forth the brood, and Solitude Was the newest quest of men. I lay like a gem in a silken sea Unseen, uncoveted, unguessed Till scented winds that waft afar Bore word o' the warm delights there are Where ground-swells sing by Zanzibar ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy

... painfully, at length almost in an agony, persuading him that I would not hurt him, but meant well and friendlily towards him. Again I had just let him go in despair, when the sweetest, gentlest, most refreshing little waft of air came in at the window and just went BEING, hardly moving, over my forehead. Its greeting was more delicate than even my mother's kiss, and yet it cooled my whole body. Now whatever, or whencesoever the link, if any be supposed needful ...
— Thomas Wingfold, Curate • George MacDonald

... with a claw-like hand, then the shoulder followed, and finally the whole body of a slender, emaciated little girl wriggled dexterously, though with much difficulty, through the narrow aperture, and the child dropped down upon the floor as lightly and noiselessly as a feather, a snow-flake, or a waft of thistle-down. She had been deceived by Isabelle's remaining so long perfectly quiet, and believed her asleep; but when she softly approached the bed, to make sure that her victim's slumber had not been disturbed by her own advent, an expression of extreme surprise was depicted ...
— Captain Fracasse • Theophile Gautier

... over and over, Let the winds waft your question on high, Till memory wanes with the ages, Till the stars in eternity die. And out from the bloom and the sunshine, From the rainbow o'erarching the sky, From the night and the gloom and the tempest, Echo ...
— Debris - Selections from Poems • Madge Morris

... through the markets like a hurricane; for it came at a luckless time. Prices tottered and crashed like towers in an earthquake. For two days Wall Street was a clamorous inferno of pale despair. All over the United States, wherever speculation had its devotees, went a waft of ruin, a plague of suicide. In Europe also not a few took with their own hands lives that had become pitiably linked to the destiny of a financier whom most of them had never seen. In Paris a well-known banker walked quietly ...
— The Woman in Black • Edmund Clerihew Bentley

... chorister—the summer's ray, Around her nest, call'd forth a short essay; Now trembling on the brink, with fear she sees This unknown clime, nor dares to trust the breeze. But here, no unfledg'd wing was ever crush'd; Be each rude blast within its cavern hush'd. Soft swelling gales may waft her on her way, Till, eagle-like, she eyes the fount of day: She then may dauntless soar, her tuneful voice May please each ear and bid the ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Vol I, No. 2, February 1810 • Samuel James Arnold

... give to the double the attributes of a man? Did you not make his wife come to bid him good night, bend down to kiss him, waft him a ...
— The Dweller on the Threshold • Robert Smythe Hichens

... gust of icy air swept down on his head, as if winnowed by frozen wings. Then with a backward waft, colder than any wind he had ever known, ...
— The Yoke - A Romance of the Days when the Lord Redeemed the Children - of Israel from the Bondage of Egypt • Elizabeth Miller

... it were, became lighter and simpler from their smile; the strained, unnatural silence was enlivened by their faces and movements. The greasy glitter of gold on the uniforms dimmed and softened. A waft of bold assurance, the breath of living power, reached the mother's heart and roused it. On the benches behind her, where up to that time the people had been waiting in crushed silence, a responsive, ...
— Mother • Maxim Gorky

... loudly, '"Springes to catch woodcock!'" And he shook his head at her and said, "You all-knowing imp! isn't even Shakespeare hidden from you?" But now the voice didn't sound sweet to me at all, because I wanted to get away. We rose at the same minute, Mr. Dane and I, and Lorraine seemed to waft us from the house on a kind little wind. At the foot of the steps we stopped for fear the gravel should crunch, and while we waited for Aunt Elizabeth to go in the other way I looked at Mr. Dane to see if he wanted to laugh as much as I. He did. His eyes were full of fun and pleasure, ...
— The Whole Family - A Novel by Twelve Authors • William Dean Howells, Mary E. Wilkins Freeman, Mary Heaton Vorse, Mary Stewart Cutting, Elizabeth Jo

... place where he speaks of his, passage over the Rhine to Germany, he says that, thinking it unworthy of the honour of the Roman people to waft over his army in vessels, he built a bridge that they might pass over dry-foot. There it was that he built that wonderful bridge of which he gives so particular a description; for he nowhere so willingly dwells upon his actions as in representing to us the ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne

... ghost; Or with your navy seek the Velin coast, And in a peaceful grave my corpse compose; Or, if a nearer way your mother shows, Without whose aid you durst not undertake This frightful passage o'er the Stygian lake, Lend to this wretch your hand, and waft him o'er To the sweet banks of yon forbidden shore." Scarce had he said, the prophetess began: "What hopes delude thee, miserable man? Think'st thou, thus unintomb'd, to cross the floods, To view the Furies and infernal gods, And visit, without leave, the dark abodes? Attend the term ...
— The Aeneid • Virgil

... took her all of an hour—nothing that the morning sun shone on was quite as lovely, and no waft of air so refreshing or so welcome as our beloved heroine when she burst ...
— Kennedy Square • F. Hopkinson Smith

... us, our tears have all Forever ceased to flow." Take from the grave, take from the grave, Those bright, but withering; flowers, The spirit that had loved them once Is now in fadeless bowers; Undying is the fragrance there, Eternal is the bloom; But the next breeze may waft away This perishing perfume. One fearful stamp, "Doomed to decay," Marks all the joys of earth; Oh! what a resting-place for souls Of an immortal birth! Then linger round the grave no more, Lift, lift the eye to Heaven, Till hues of faith shall gild the gloom, ...
— Heart Utterances at Various Periods of a Chequered Life. • Eliza Paul Kirkbride Gurney

... longing heart, no more delight-upbuoyed Let the sweet airy image thee befool! The arms that would embrace her clasp the void This feverish breast no phantom-bliss can cool, O, waft her here, the true, the living one! Let but my hand her hand, the tender, feel— The very shadow of her robe alone!— So into life ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller

... thou no more shalt mourn Beneath the heathen's chain; Thy days of splendor shall return, And all be new again. The fount of life shall then be quaffed In peace by all who come; And every wind that blows, shall waft Some ...
— Hymns for Christian Devotion - Especially Adapted to the Universalist Denomination • J.G. Adams

... Hush-a-bye, baby, The truth it deserves— Hush-a-bye, baby— Even here to be known: We will quiet his nerves By just calming our own! And our baby will feel The sweet hush o'er him steal, That brings with it soothing and comfort and rest; And to slumber so soft, His spirit we'll waft, And then lay him away ...
— Mother Truth's Melodies - Common Sense For Children • Mrs. E. P. Miller

... morning in May, three old women sat together near an open window in the shed chamber of Byfleet Poor-house. The wind was from the northwest, but their window faced the southeast, and they were only visited by an occasional pleasant waft of fresh air. They were close together, knee to knee, picking over a bushel of beans, and commanding a view of the dandelion-starred, green yard below, and of the winding, sandy road that led to the village, two miles away. Some captive ...
— A Country Doctor and Selected Stories and Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett

... thoughts of the wise, that they are vain." It is difficult to find this sin,—which, after Pride, is the most universal, perhaps the most fatal, of all, fretting the whole depth of our humanity into storm "to waft a feather or to drown a fly,"—definitely expressed in art. Even Spenser, I think, has only partially expressed it under the figure of Phaedria, more properly Idle Mirth, in the second book. The idea is, however, entirely ...
— Stones of Venice [introductions] • John Ruskin

... pale purple bloom of thistles and elusively haunted with their perfume. You say that thistles have no perfume? Go you to a brook hollow where they grow some late summer twilight at dewfall; and on the still air that rises suddenly to meet you will come a waft of faint, aromatic fragrance, wondrously sweet and evasive, the distillation ...
— The Golden Road • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... cherubic hardest, never can you waft Flora Le Pettit higher than she now is, at least in the sight of one pair of black eyes, higher, perhaps, than she will ever be again, even in that of ...
— The White Riband - A Young Female's Folly • Fryniwyd Tennyson Jesse

... Before a venerable pile, Whose turrets viewed, afar, The lofty Bass, the Lambie Isle, The ocean's peace or war. At tolling of a bell, forth came The convent's venerable dame, And prayed Saint Hilda's Abbess rest With her, a loved and honoured guest, Till Douglas should a barque prepare To waft her back to Whitby fair. Glad was the Abbess, you may guess, And thanked the Scottish Prioress; And tedious were to tell, I ween, The courteous speech that passed between. O'erjoyed, the nuns their palfreys leave; ...
— Marmion: A Tale of Flodden Field • Walter Scott

... effect than that of producing a moral sentence, or peevish exclamation. He that embarks in the voyage of life, will always wish to advance rather by the impulse of the wind, than the strokes of the oar; and many founder in the passage, while they lie waiting for the gale that is to waft them to their wish. ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume IV: The Adventurer; The Idler • Samuel Johnson

... above shine less brightly or twinkle less gladly because myriads of others do likewise? After all, what vainglory need there be in accidents of birth or fortune. They are not virtually ours, they have been given to us, and rest upon a changing wind that, to-morrow, may waft them far out of our Reach ...
— The Doctor's Daughter • "Vera"

... minutes they were inside the house. The place smelt very musty and uninhabited. Burton delicately avoided the subject of its being still unlet. The little chamber on the right of the hall was as dark as ever. Burton felt his heart beat quickly as a little waft of familiar perfume swept out to him at the opening of the door. Mr. Waddington struck a match and held it over ...
— The Double Life Of Mr. Alfred Burton • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... with a Homeric description of the great battle at the islet, and our heroic defence of the banyan tree. He declares it to be his intention to enclose the manuscript in the hold of the vessel and launch her when half-way to Tewa, in the assured confidence that the winds and waves will waft it to its destination, or to use his own phrase,—"that we shall yet be ...
— The Island Home • Richard Archer

... frati of the church in black, carrying candles and dolorously chanting a hymn. Then comes the bishop in his mitre, his yellow stole upheld by two principal priests, (the curate and subcurate,) and to him his acolytes waft incense, as well as to the huge figure of the Madonna which follows. This figure is of life-size, carved in wood, surrounded by gilt angels, and so heavy that sixteen stout facchini, whose shabby trousers show under their improvised costume, are required to bear it along. With this ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 24, Oct. 1859 • Various

... great Juno's power adore; With suppliant gifts the potent queen constrain, And winds shall waft thee to Italia's shore. There, when at Cumae landing from the main, Avernus' lakes and sounding woods ye gain, Thyself shalt see, within her rock-hewn shrine, The frenzied prophetess, whose mystic strain Expounds the Fates, to leaves of ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil - Translated into English Verse by E. Fairfax Taylor • Virgil

... way across it to the brim of the Weltering Water, and across the water lieth the fair garden of the Face; and I have dight for thee there a little boat to waft us across the night-dark waters, that shall be like wavering flames of white fire where the moon smites them, and like the void of all things where the shadows hang over them. There then shall we ...
— The Roots of the Mountains • William Morris

... peculiar slang was the language of the good Quakers, followers of Elias Hicks, who sheltered runaway slaves and spoke a "thee" and "thou" and "verily," and that strange misapprehension in her ignorant mind the keen dealer had made use of to decoy her into Levin's vessel and waft her into a ...
— The Entailed Hat - Or, Patty Cannon's Times • George Alfred Townsend

... those days that she pondered came a wife of the witch-folk there, A woman young and lovesome, and shaped exceeding fair, And she spake with Signy the Queen, and told her of deeds of her craft, And how the might was with her her soul from her body to waft And to take the shape of another and give her fashion in turn. Fierce then in the heart of Signy a sudden flame 'gan burn, And the eyes of her soul saw all things, like the blind, whom the world's last fire Hath healed ...
— The Story of Sigurd the Volsung and the Fall of the Niblungs • William Morris

... I waft the fresh'ning wind, Low breathing through the woods and twilight vale, In whispers soft, that woo the pensive mind Of him, who loves my ...
— The Mysteries of Udolpho • Ann Radcliffe

... bad headquarters," he said as they came out upon the terrace. "Imagine a semaphore in the place of those monstrous and absurd columns—what are they, by the way? One could waft signals from Rome to Calabria and from ...
— Romance of Roman Villas - (The Renaissance) • Elizabeth W. (Elizbeth Williams) Champney

... this afternoon to "cheer me up". She means well, but her cheering capacities are not great. Her mode of attack is first to enlarge on every possible ill, and reduce one to a state of collapse from pure self-pity, and then to proceed to waft the same troubles aside with a casual flick of the hand. She sat down beside me, stroked my hand (I hate being pawed!) and ...
— The Lady of the Basement Flat • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey

... victor's brow?' Reluctantly and slow, the maid The unwelcome summoning obeyed, And when a distant bugle rung, In the mid-path aside she sprung:— 'List, Allan-bane! From mainland cast I hear my father's signal blast. Be ours,' she cried, 'the skiff to guide, And waft him from the mountain-side.' Then, like a sunbeam, swift and bright, She darted to her shallop light, And, eagerly while Roderick scanned, For her dear form, his mother's band, The islet far behind her lay, And she had landed in ...
— The Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott

... and brood over broken fortunes and the calamities of life? Why tarry in the doldrums of pessimism, with never a breeze to catch your limp and drooping sails and waft you on a joyous wave? Pessimism is the nightmare of the world. It is the prophet of famine, pestilence, and human woe. It is the apostle of the Devil, and its mission is to impede the progress of civilization. It denounces every institution established ...
— Gov. Bob. Taylor's Tales • Robert L. Taylor

... place in the sanctuary, near the door. Behind the pew in which Grandma, Grandpa, and I were sitting there was one more vacant. Presently the door opened, admitting a delightful waft of fresh air, and some one entered that pew, and bowed his head forward on the ...
— Cape Cod Folks • Sarah P. McLean Greene

... with comparative ease because they were legitimate. That of William was felt to be precarious. It was feared by the money-lender that a similar convulsion to the one which had borne him so easily to the throne of a great nation might waft him back to the shores of that Holland he so dearly loved. Thus the very circumstances which made supplies necessary ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 12 • Editor-In-Chief Rossiter Johnson

... like the eagle's, oh, still be it high, Celestial the breezes that waft o'er its sky! God's eye is upon me—I am not alone When onward and upward and ...
— Poems • Mary Baker Eddy

... to us as a corpse, which bit by bit we painfully dissected. We never glimpsed the living, growing thing, never experienced the Spirit, the same spirit that was able magically to waft me from a wintry Lyme Street to the South Seas, the energizing, electrifying Spirit of true achievement, of life, of God himself. Little by little its flames were smothered until in manhood there seemed no spark of it left alive. Many years ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... vanished, and Esther awoke to the knowledge that "Bobby" was not at his post. Then with a flash came the recollection of Bobby's mistress—the pale, unfortunate young seamstress she had so unconscionably neglected. She wondered if she were alive or dead. A waft of sickly odors surged from below; Esther felt a deadly faintness coming over her; she had walked far, and nothing had yet passed her lips since yesterday's dinner, and at this moment, too, an overwhelming terrifying feeling of loneliness pressed ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill

... unnumbered countries, hear! Thine enemy Khum-baba do not fear, My hands will waft the winds for thee. Thus I reveal! Khum-baba falls! ...
— Babylonian and Assyrian Literature • Anonymous



Words linked to "Waft" :   float, blow, penoncel, streamer, drift



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