"Ninny" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... erect, but her voice had an unusual overtone. "Oh, no, I'm not a ninny. But good husbands don't grow on goose-berry bushes. If I'd ever found a man that had the right principles, and the respect of everybody, and not too much tom-foolishness—a good, solid, earnest citizen ...
— Rope • Holworthy Hall
... not overwise, no conjurer, I know full well: but my assistant here, And counselor, and grand controller Chremes, Outgoes me far: dolt, blockhead, ninny, ass; Or these, or any other common terms By which men speak of fools, befit me well: But him they suit not: his stupidity Is so transcendent, ...
— The Comedies of Terence • Publius Terentius Afer
... been a gull and a ninny and a soft Tommy long enough. Time it was done. Here is a good lesson to have nothing to do with that accursed sex, that was the ruin of the man in the beginning, and will be so to the end. God knows I was happy enough before ever I saw her; God knows I can ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 11 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... myself a good man, I am not always an agreeable gentleman, witness what happened to me Thursday last. After having lunched with a lady whom I had called "imbecile," I went to call on another whom I had said was "ninny"; such is my ancient French gallantry. The first one had bored me to death with her spiritualistic discourses and her pretensions to ideality; the second outraged me by telling me that Renan was a rascal. Observe that she confessed to me that she had not read his books. There are some subjects ...
— The George Sand-Gustave Flaubert Letters • George Sand, Gustave Flaubert
... (penknife) Chupaflores (humming-bird) Destripaterrones (navvy) Lavamanos (wash-hand stand) Limpiabotas (boot-black) Matamoros (boaster) Mondadientes (toothpick) Papahueros (ninny) Papamoscas (ninny) Papanatas (ninny) Paracaidas (parachute) Paraguas (umbrella) Pelagatos (ragamuffin) Pintamonas (slap-dasher or bad partner) Sacacorchos (corkscrew) Salvavidas ...
— Pitman's Commercial Spanish Grammar (2nd ed.) • C. A. Toledano
... her with a joy that would amaze you, telling his father what he had done and suffered for her. Then they sent to invite her parents, the King and Queen of Long Field; and they celebrated the wedding with wonderful festivity, making great sport of the great ninny of a fox, and concluding at the last of the ...
— Stories from Pentamerone • Giambattista Basile
... the man; "he can do more than that—I tell you he's fly; he carries a sap about, which would sting a ninny like ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... may be a chronic sufferer from acute Come-Outiveness, but he ain't a ninny. Nobody'll see you, anyway. This fog's like charity, it'll cover a heap of sins. Do come right along. Wait till I get ...
— Keziah Coffin • Joseph C. Lincoln
... There were two other servants who enjoyed it very much. I heard them laughing and I don't blame them. It was a rare treat. A child would have laughed at it. All my fault too. I behaved like a ninny. But my great mistake was in telling my father. I would give the world if I had not. Won't you please send for Mr. Jones? As I told you, I don't know why I ...
— The Paliser case • Edgar Saltus
... put up wi' sich powsement os he! Neaw; when Bess Whitaker, the lonleydey o' Goldshey, weds, it shan be to a mon, and nah to a ninny-hommer." ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... a fool!" Pike snapped, striding toward the door. "I never thought you'd do a thing like that. You are no more like the old Badger than a calf is like a mountain-lion. You had some fire in you once, but you have become as soft as a ninny. The whole thing simply makes ...
— Frank Merriwell's Reward • Burt L. Standish
... fool, rather than an old— A plucky plunger, than a canny crone Who's old enough to ken she doesn't ken. You're right: for doubting is a kind of dotage: Experience ages and decays; while folk Who never doubt themselves die young—at ninety. Age never yet brought gumption to a ninny: And you cannot reckon up a stranger's wits By counting his bare patches and grey hairs: It's seldom sense that makes a bald head shine: And I'm not partial to Methuselahs. Keep your cocksureness, while you can: too soon, Time plucks the feathers ...
— Krindlesyke • Wilfrid Wilson Gibson
... you ninny, stay where you are. Is that chattering girl gone? Didn't I tell you we would have a practice of our dance? they are all ready on the lawn. Mark me; I represent the Count, and you the Baron. [Exit, with affected dignity. ...
— The Stranger - A Drama, in Five Acts • August von Kotzebue
... city, and the deserted portions of Italy be repeopled. But this whole business was interrupted by the war, and has cooled off. Metellus is an exceedingly good consul, and much attached to me. That other one is such a ninny that he clearly doesn't know what to do with his purchase.[130] This is all my public news, unless you regard as touching on public affairs the fact that a certain Herennius, a tribune, and a fellow tribesman ...
— The Letters of Cicero, Volume 1 - The Whole Extant Correspodence in Chronological Order • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... one day her daughter chid; "You never do as you are bid, Have I not told you o'er and o'er, That awkward gait to use no more? Learn, ninny, once for all to know, Folks forward and not backward go." "Mamma," says Miss, "how strange you talk! Have I not learn'd from you to walk? Were I to move the other way, How could I follow you ...
— Aesop, in Rhyme - Old Friends in a New Dress • Marmaduke Park
... damp waves over her hot, square, white forehead; her blue cotton dress was crumpled and limp. How neat, how cool, was this Hobart! Could a man have a Gibson face like that, like a young man on the cover of an illustrated magazine, and not be a ninny? Did he take the Pinkerton press seriously, or did he laugh? Both, probably, like most journalists. He wouldn't laugh to Lord Pinkerton, or to Lady Pinkerton, or to Clare. But he might laugh to Jane, when she showed him he might. Jane, eating jam sandwiches, ...
— Potterism - A Tragi-Farcical Tract • Rose Macaulay
... Morin and smiled. She smiled like a happy woman, with an engaging and bright look, and Morin trembled. Certainly that smile was intended for him, it was a discreet invitation, the signal which he was waiting for. That smile meant to say: "How stupid, what a ninny, what a dolt, what a donkey you are, to have sat there on your seat ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume II (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... "You're a great ninny, Rebecca Thayer," Rose said, laughing, "but I'll go if you want me to. I know William won't like it. You run away from him the whole time. There isn't another girl in Pembroke treats him ...
— Pembroke - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... Delilah was a very great lady, sufficiently high in station to allow herself such compromising caprices,—but even so, she would scarcely have cared to play the role of a coquette in a vaudeville where he himself played the part of ninny,—or she was some noted adventuress who was in the pay of this du Portail and the agent of his singular matrimonial designs. Evil life or evil heart, these were the only two verdicts to be pronounced on this dangerous siren, and in either case, ...
— The Lesser Bourgeoisie • Honore de Balzac
... for their livelihood, and deserve, therefore, not to go in want of the very bread they have sown." Few people at the court, and in La Bruyere's day, would have thought about the sufferings of the country folks, and conceived the idea of contrasting them with the sketch of a court-ninny. "Gold glitters," say you, "upon the clothes of Philemon; it glitters as well as the tradesman's. He is dressed in the finest stuffs; are they a whit the less so when displayed in the shops and by the piece? Nay; but the ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume V. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... Poor ninny, dead so long, And all your pride forgotten like your name. 'One April morn I heard a blackbird's song. And joy was in ...
— Georgian Poetry 1918-19 • Various
... he, what anxiously I wish to get, You've plenty stored, and never wanted yet; You surely know my meaning?—Yes, she cried; I'll turn it in my mind, and we'll decide How best to act. Away she quickly flew, And Blase informed, what Ninny had in view. Zounds! said the cobbler, we must see, my dear, To hook this little sum:—the way is clear; No risk I'm confident; for prithee run And tell him I've a journey just begun; That he may hither ...
— The Tales and Novels, Complete • Jean de La Fontaine
... with her, the idea was preposterous. But, just the same, the confounded servants were beginning to gossip, and back stair scandal is the very worst type. It was wrong for me to encourage it. Like a ninny, I had just given Britton something to support his contention, and he wouldn't be long in getting down to the servants' hall with the latest exhibit in ...
— A Fool and His Money • George Barr McCutcheon
... enough from these others, all right. Even from Mrs. Dwight, who is different herself....I'd rather you'd stayed discontented. The whole scheme's all wrong and you know it. You've suffered from it. You should be the last to tolerate it. When they're jabbering away about their ninny affairs they pay as little attention to you as they do to me. They forget our existence. We don't belong, as they say. There isn't, one of them except Mrs. Dwight that I wouldn't give my eye teeth to see hanging out the wash or running ...
— The Sisters-In-Law • Gertrude Atherton
... play me for a ninny, if you like," she said resentfully. "You'll get a heap more out of me, ...
— Mary Louise • Edith van Dyne (one of L. Frank Baum's pen names)
... was a ninny then, was Cooper, to go and blart it all out to the world that way; for if no Tory visited him, I should like you to ask him the next time you see him, how many gentlemen called upon him? Jist ask him that, and it will stop him from writing ...
— The Attache - or, Sam Slick in England, Complete • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... the forty damsels, "All bright as moons to wait upon him!" It is true, he at first appreciated his snug quarters, for he cried, "Hereupon such gladness possessed me that I forgot the sorrows of the world one and all, and said, 'This is indeed life!'" Then the ninny must needs go and open that fatal fortieth door! The story of Nur al-Din Ali and his son Badr al-Din Hasan has the distinction of being the most rollicking and the most humorous in the Nights. What stupendous events result from a tiff! The lines repeated by Nur ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright
... Prescott. If you'd thought it over before you started—looked before you leaped—this would never have happened. Anybody but a chump could have seen that, on the face of it, the whole thing was a scheme to entice you away. Oh, you bonehead! You ninny!" ...
— The Girl Aviators' Sky Cruise • Margaret Burnham
... when I had finished, "how a man who can read such great and beautiful thoughts with such expression, and interpret them so clearly, concisely, and intelligently, can at the same time be such a visionary and supersensual ninny as ...
— Venus in Furs • Leopold von Sacher-Masoch
... gay and eccentric as Figaro, and so dashing and reckless as the unscrupulous Don Giovanni. That milksop, Germont Junior, known as Alfredo, was adequately played by Signor GIANNINI, whose name, were it spelt GIA-"NINNY," would partly ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., November 8, 1890 • Various
... Sir," cried she, "but who's fool then? no, no, you needn't trouble yourself to make a ninny of me neither, for I'm not so easily ...
— Evelina • Fanny Burney
... you sweet ninny! If the boss grabber is on this ship, we should draw a new nibble from him." He appraised the green dress in the mirror again. His expression grew absent. It might be best, Trigger suspected, a trifle uneasily, to keep Major ...
— Legacy • James H Schmitz
... ninny I am!" she said aloud as she looked at herself, her tongue chiding her apprehensive eyes, her laugh contemptuously adding its comment on her tremulousness. "It was a real nightmare—a waking nightmare, that's ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... POSIDON Oh! you ninny! do you always want to be fooled? Why, you are seeking your own downfall. If Zeus were to die, after having yielded them the sovereignty, you would be ruined, for you are the heir of all the ...
— The Birds • Aristophanes
... him, I warrant you. The man who beats me is a coward; for he knows I won't resist. Let the dastard strike me then, or leave me, as he likes; but, for a choice, I prefer abusing women, who have no brothers or guardians; for, regarding a thrashing with indifference, I am not such a ninny as to prefer it. And here you have an accurate account of my habits, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... been the period in all history when society was the least natural, and perhaps the most dissolute; and I have always fancied that the bloated artificial forms of the architecture partake of the social disorganisation of the time. Who can respect a simpering ninny, grinning in a Roman dress and a full-bottomed wig, who is made to pass off for a hero? or a fat woman in a hoop, and of a most doubtful virtue, who leers at you as a goddess? In the palaces which we saw, several Court allegories were represented, which, atrocious as they were in point of art, ...
— Notes on a Journey from Cornhill to Grand Cairo • William Makepeace Thackeray
... what is the matter? If it is anything serious, I am a man and not a ninny. I am accustomed to hard struggles, and if discretion is needed, I ...
— The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... to avoid these obstacles in its way, and, of course, it is weakened and tortured. Think of a woman paying $1.50 for something that will, in time, destroy her eyesight just as sure as fate! I leave it to you if she's not a ninny? But women do these things in spite of everything—except when the overworked eyes begin to pain, and then they're glad enough to do ...
— The Woman Beautiful - or, The Art of Beauty Culture • Helen Follett Stevans
... determined to display his healing art. He took out his lancet, and forthwith bled everybody in the Kaëd's caravanseria. When his brother begged of him not to bleed any more people unless they paid him something—not to be such a sciocco ("ninny,") he turned round upon him, and indignantly exclaimed "Ancora voglio lasciare il mio nome qui" (Here I will leave my name also!) It was the delight of Gameo to be the grand tabeeb of Tripoli, and even to prescribe for the officers and subordinate bashaws; and yet Gameo and his family many ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson
... her honour, he ever should bed His bloody red hand to her bloody red head. You're proud of your gilding; but I tell you each nail Is only just tinged with a rub at her tail; And although it may pass for gold on a ninny, Sure we know a Bath shilling soon from a guinea. Nay, her foretop's a cheat; each morn she does black it, Yet, ere it be night, it's the same with her placket. I'll ne'er be run down any more with your cant; Your velvet was wore before in a mant, On the ...
— The Poems of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Volume I (of 2) • Jonathan Swift
... I must have acted like a ninny," she concluded. "But isn't he just splendid!" and as Cousin Will's handsome face, with its daring, kind eyes, came to her vision she felt comforted. "I don't believe but what he'll make every allowance for how excited I was," ...
— Red Saunders • Henry Wallace Phillips
... a marriage, you know, contracted between a scion of a ruling house and—and a common mortal. They made Eugenia a Baroness, poor woman; but that was all they could do. Now they want to dissolve the marriage. Prince Adolf, between ourselves, is a ninny; but his brother, who is a clever man, has plans for him. Eugenia, naturally enough, makes difficulties; not, however, that I think she cares much—she 's a very clever woman; I 'm sure you 'll like her—but she wants to bother them. Just ...
— The Europeans • Henry James
... tomorrow at eleven," answered Melita, "and you will be convinced that I am not half-horse, even if my husband is a ninny." ...
— Secret Memoirs: The Story of Louise, Crown Princess • Henry W. Fischer
... knee, which made the second guard laugh so much that the third one who carried the candles had a chance to eat a penny-dip, without any person seeing him. The king rode in his chariot, drawn by two wasps. He was a very warm gentleman, and not only carried a parasol to keep off the sun, but the head ninny-hammer squirted water on the small of his back to ...
— St. Nicholas, Vol. 5, No. 2, December, 1877 • Various
... his usual tokens of kindness consisted in a little rap on the head or a slight pinch of the ear. In his most friendly conversations with those whom he admitted into his intimacy he would say, "You are a fool"—"a simpleton"—"a ninny"—"a blockhead." These, and a few other words of like import, enabled him to vary his catalogue of compliments; but he never employed them angrily, and the tone in which they were uttered sufficiently indicated that they were meant ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... dullard, dolt, numskull, witling, blockhead, coot, lackbrain, ninny, oaf, nincompoop, mooncalf, ignoramus, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... the streets. What is become of those who once lived in these parts? They are all dead, or gone to other parts of the island. The last black near Sydney, used to talk of the old times, and say, "When I was a pick-a-ninny, plenty of black fellow then. Only one left ...
— Far Off • Favell Lee Mortimer
... species of poetical massacre, this rifling of old Etruscan tombs of their honourable spoil, a very pleasant ninny would that poetaster stand forth, whose inanely conceited daring exhibited specimens from his own mint, as medals in fit contrast with those slandered "things of base alloy." No, as with politics, so with poetry; in public I abjure and do renounce ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... Dan. "You must think I'm a ninny. And you have been sleeping sure! Got to keep this sort of ...
— Killykinick • Mary T. Waggaman
... doubt waiting for the rebuttal of his answer from their venerable spokesman. Rafael felt that the swarthy heads above all those dirty blouses and shirt-fronts without collars or neckties were eyeing him with stony coldness. "Now we'll see what this ninny has ...
— The Torrent - Entre Naranjos • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... this. Motor-men don't know much about the hunting field, as a rule, but I wasn't such a ninny that I supposed men hunted ...
— The Man Who Drove the Car • Max Pemberton
... Penelope, as he must, to tell her sister that they were to be married. She was spared from the first advance toward this by an accident or a misunderstanding. Irene came straight to her after Corey was gone, and demanded, "Penelope Lapham, have you been such a ninny as to send that man ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... had not the whole catechism of men at her finger-ends. All who glanced at her glanced again—with sympathy and curiosity; and the second glance pricked Audrey's conscience, making her feel like a thief. But her moods were capricious. At one moment she was a thief, a clumsy fraud, an ignorant ninny, and a suitable prey for the secret police; and at the next she was very clever, self-confident, equal to the situation, and enjoying the situation more than she had ever enjoyed anything, and determined to prolong the ...
— The Lion's Share • E. Arnold Bennett
... his shoulders, and said: "Because the man said that I was a thief." Then looking at Roland with an indefinable expression of raillery and affection, he added: "Ninny!" Then suddenly he burst out: "Oh! by the way, and ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas, pere
... to every eye, and had already decided within himself that the man was just such a fool as might in a moment of vacuity pick up a bow and arrow to test his skill at a given mark. Such things had been and such results had followed. The man was a gawk and the woman a ninny; a few questions and their guiltiness would appear—that is, if they should be found near enough the tapestry to warrant his suspicion. If not—the alternative held an interest all its own, and sent him in haste ...
— The Mystery of the Hasty Arrow • Anna Katharine Green
... Bononcini, Compared to Handel, is a ninny; While others vow that to him Handel Is hardly fit to hold a candle. Strange that such difference should be 'Twixt ...
— The Great German Composers • George T. Ferris
... say, that Signior Bononcini Compared to Handel's a mere ninny; Others aver, that to him Handel Is scarcely fit to hold a candle: Strange ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 237, May 13, 1854 • Various
... this melodramatic nonsense is so amusing that I cannot forbear quoting it. This time the despairing lover is Sir Abraham Ninny, who quotes Kyd to his companions, and they with the cry of "Ha God-a-mercy, old Hieromino!" begin the game of parody, which must have been keenly enjoyed by the audience. Field improves on the original by putting the alternate lines of ...
— John Lyly • John Dover Wilson
... My bonny laddy, Dance to your ninny, My sweet lamb; You shall have a fishy In a little dishy, And a whirligiggy, And some ...
— Harry's Ladder to Learning - Horn-Book, Picture-Book, Nursery Songs, Nursery Tales, - Harry's Simple Stories, Country Walks • Anonymous
... "She had to go and faint, like a ninny, and she cried all the way home, because she had ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces Abroad • Edith Van Dyne
... to sit there for a little while, of course, like a ninny between them; and I wasn't the more comfortable because I thought Knowles looked like a bigger fool than I did. Bella's presence seemed to excite him to a kind of exaltation; he had a dark flush on his face and his eyes were ...
— In the Arena - Stories of Political Life • Booth Tarkington
... disposed of her at once as "a mincing ninny." The phrase aggravated Winn, and his fancy deepened. It was stimulated by the fact that Estelle was the belle of the neighborhood and had a large supply of ardent admirers. It was almost like running ...
— The Dark Tower • Phyllis Bottome
... her patience, and she whispered across Comfort Pease. "You act like a ninny," said she to Rosy, with a fierce pucker of her red lips and a ...
— Comfort Pease and her Gold Ring • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... here is your cradle! Why surely, my Jenny, Such slender dimensions go somewhat to show You were an exceedingly small pic-a-ninny Some nineteen or twenty short ...
— London Lyrics • Frederick Locker
... natural; simpleton, dolt, dunce, defective, witling, dotterel, driveler, blockhead, beetlehead, ninny, ignoramus, numskull, booby, clodpate, nincompoop, ass, wiseacre, dunderhead, halfwit, oaf, dullard, coot, mooncalf; zany, harlequin, buffoon, jester, merry-andrew, droll, clown, scaramouch. ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... blowing out all my illumination, feeling dreadfully guilty, and then he helped me off my chair with such an air of politeness that I could have struck him with pleasure, but I soon gathered my wits again. And, vexed with myself for being a ninny, I just dropped him a little curtsey and said, 'I've been examining my mad cousin.' 'Well, and what do you think of him?' he asked me, smiling (his abominable smile!). But I can keep my thoughts to myself as well as other people. 'I think ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... the same thing as taking me. I'm like an old dragoon's nag, and used to it. You can't make me over, neither with hay nor a stick. But Liubka is a simple girl and a kind one. And she hasn't grown used to our life yet. What are you popping your eyes out at me for, you ninny? Answer when you're asked. Well? Do you want to ...
— Yama (The Pit) • Alexandra Kuprin
... they? What shall I do? I won't go back. I'll jump overboard first. And you do nothing but stand there like a ninny." ...
— Little Miss Grouch - A Narrative Based on the Log of Alexander Forsyth Smith's - Maiden Transatlantic Voyage • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... entreats and implores The weak and incurable ninny, So kicks him at last out of doors, And Georgy soon spends his last guinea. His uncle, whose generous purse Had often relieved him, as I know, Now finding him grow worse and worse, Refused to come down with the rhino. Rum ...
— Rejected Addresses: or, The New Theatrum Poetarum • James and Horace Smith
... Bodinus de Periodis saith of such an one, arrident amici ridet mundus, in English, this man his cronies they cocker him up, they flatter him, he would fayne appear somebody, meanwhile the world thinks him no better than a dizzard, a ninny, a ...
— The Works of Charles Lamb in Four Volumes, Volume 4 • Charles Lamb
... moment the Prefect of Police was condemned. Guy's arrest, which was an act of brutal aggression, was tantamount to a dismissal signed by the Prefect himself. And Marianne! she then made a sport of Sulpice and took him for a child or a ninny! ...
— His Excellency the Minister • Jules Claretie
... say!" roared Ames. "Cable Wenceslas at once to see that those fellows remain permanently in Colombia. He has ways of accomplishing that. Humph! Fools! Judge Harris, eh? Ninny! I guess Wenceslas can block ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... double-doors of the entrance. The mother was dashed, stricken, a little humiliated. But as she arranged the folds of her beautiful dress in the hansom which was carrying her away from Lamb's Conduit Street towards South Kensington, she said to herself firmly, 'I am not a ninny, after all, and I know that Rose will be ill soon. And there are things in that hospital that ...
— Leonora • Arnold Bennett
... shall lose my labour,' he muttered to me. 'Miss Catherine, as the ninny calls her, will discover his value, and send him to the devil. Now, if it had been Hareton!—Do you know that, twenty times a day, I covet Hareton, with all his degradation? I'd have loved the lad had he been some one else. But I think he's safe from her ...
— Wuthering Heights • Emily Bronte
... must appear quite charmed. Also, should you catch me smirking like an infatuated ninny, remember I am only doing my ...
— The False Faces • Vance, Louis Joseph
... lost his senses through blighted love, which proves abundantly that animals have no souls. The employment of a lover is that of a mountebank, of a soldier, of a quack, of a buffoon, of a prince, of a ninny, of a king, of an idler, of a monk, of a dupe, of a blackguard, of a liar, of a braggart, of a sycophant, of a numskull, of a frivolous fool, of a blockhead, of a know-nothing, of a knave. An employment from which Jesus abstained, in imitation of whom folks of great understanding ...
— Droll Stories, Complete - Collected From The Abbeys Of Touraine • Honore de Balzac
... twenty-seven who has knocked about all over the globe, and been in and out of the usual sentimental coils—and who has to ask his parents' leave to get married! Don't let us try: it's no use. We should only end by picturing him as an incorrigible ninny. But there isn't a man in France who wouldn't feel it his duty to take that step, as Jean de Rechamp did. All we can do is to accept the premise ...
— Coming Home - 1916 • Edith Wharton
... are insupportable. Look at Diana Vernon, beloved of Mr. Andrew Lang, I believe! What a creature! Imagine living with her! You can't! Look at Diana of the Crossways. Why did Diana of the Crossways marry? Nobody can say—unless the answer is that she was a ridiculous ninny. Would Anne Elliot have made such an inexplicable fool of herself? Why does Diana Mallory "go to" her preposterous Radical ex-M.P.? Simply because she is tiresomely absurd. Oh, those men with strong chins and irreproachable wristbands! ...
— Books and Persons - Being Comments on a Past Epoch 1908-1911 • Arnold Bennett
... when I arrived at Melanie's, I found the bird had flown. That great ninny of a Ferussac, whom I never had suspected, and had introduced to her myself, had turned her head by making capital out of her love for the stage. As he was about to leave for Belgium, he persuaded her to go there and dethrone Mademoiselle Prevost. I have since learned that a Brussels banker revenged ...
— Gerfaut, Complete • Charles de Bernard
... simpleton is known as a durak, a word which admits of a variety of explanations. Sometimes it means an idiot, sometimes a fool in the sense of a jester. In the stories of village life its signification is generally that of a "ninny;" in the "fairy stories" it is frequently applied to the youngest of the well-known "Three Brothers," the "Boots" of the family as Dr. Dasent has called him. In the latter case, of course, the hero's durachestvo, or foolishness, ...
— Russian Fairy Tales - A Choice Collection of Muscovite Folk-lore • W. R. S. Ralston
... the path was, in many places, quite drifted over. The white cloud-masses were whirled past by the wind, continually enveloping me and shutting out every view. During the winter the path had become, in ninny places, the bed of a mountain torrent, so that I was obliged sometimes to wade kneedeep in snow, and sometimes to walk over the wet, spongy moss, crawling under the long, dripping branches of the stunted pines. ...
— Views a-foot • J. Bayard Taylor
... ninny, mum.' There was no trace of bitterness or passion in Amenda's tones. She spoke in the calm, even voice ...
— The Idler, Volume III., Issue XIII., February 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly. Edited By Jerome K. Jerome & Robert Barr • Various
... agree to it. You know yourself, Bev, how contrary she's been lately over anything I mention. And if she goes against it Peter will too—the ninny!—and it wouldn't be any fun if we weren't ...
— The Golden Road • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... think is that you're a ninny," said the determined Agnetta; "an' I'm not agoin' to wait here while you shilly-shally. Is it ...
— White Lilac; or the Queen of the May • Amy Walton
... She is angry with you, and calls you for some reason an "eloquent gossip." To begin with, she is free and independent; and then she has a poor opinion of men; and further, according to her, everyone is a savage or a ninny—and you dared to give her my address with the words "the being you adore lives at ...," and so on. Upon my word, as though one could suspect earthly feelings in astronomers who soar among the clouds! She talks and laughs all day, is a capital mushroom-gatherer, ...
— Letters of Anton Chekhov • Anton Chekhov
... have the deepest horror of commonplaceness. If I am free, if I am rich (and I know that I am young and pretty), I will never belong to any ninny just because he is the son of a peer of France, nor to a merchant who could ruin himself and me in a day, nor to a handsome creature who would be a sort of woman in the household, nor to a man of any kind who would make me blush twenty times a day for being his. ...
— Modeste Mignon • Honore de Balzac
... "Run yourself, you ninny!" screamed Peace, giving the older girl a push, and then scrambling for the fence with Allee dragging by ...
— At the Little Brown House • Ruth Alberta Brown
... very real and very great respect for Dr. Brandes, I cannot think that he has been fortunate in his treatment of Lovborg's character. It has been represented as an absurdity that he would think of reading abstracts from his new book to a man like Tesman, whom he despises. But though Tesman is a ninny, he is, as Hedda says, a "specialist"—he is a competent, plodding student of his subject. Lovborg may quite naturally wish to see how his new method, or his excursion into a new field, strikes the average scholar of the Tesman type. He ...
— Hedda Gabler - Play In Four Acts • Henrik Ibsen
... tell; perhaps a little of both prevailed; at any rate I heard that my friend and all his family went to Portsmouth, to see the Royal sight, and get a squint at Blucher's whiskers and mustachios. My friend and his family swelled the number of those who suffered at Portsmouth—"ninny nanny, one fool makes many!" It was now all glory, all joy, and all seeming prosperity with John Gull, every thing was military! As a proof that it could not well be otherwise, let us look to a return, which was presented to the House of Commons, of the number of ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 3 • Henry Hunt
... ninny to me," cried Miss Cornelia. "And I don't care who agrees with him. Think—THINK what it means to that ...
— Anne's House of Dreams • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... "The Colonel is a ninny, my dear; because he has two thousand a-year himself, he thinks that nobody else can marry on less. Take my word for it, that, if I am alive, I shall be paying a visit at Delaford Parsonage before Michaelmas; and I am sure I shan't go if Lucy ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... "O thou ninny foe," quoth the fox, "how art thou reduced to humiliation and prostration and abjection and submission, after insolence and pride and tyranny and arrogance! Verily, I kept company with thee only for fear of thy fury and I cajoled thee without one hope of fair treatment ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... such a ninny as to keep them about you!" exclaimed Berkeley, in a fright. "Suppose Pye should go in for a search this morning, and visit our pockets? ...
— The Channings • Mrs. Henry Wood
... reason, "ever to hint that I was coming, as I did, in that foolish letter when we sent Miss Crawley the guinea-fowls. I ought to have gone without a word to the poor dear doting old creature, and taken her out of the hands of that ninny Briggs, and that harpy of a femme de chambre. Oh! Bute, Bute, why did you ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... not. Look at Gerald. He sits on the stairs with a pink and white ninny; and at the next party he does it with another. That's wholesome and natural; and that's the way things really are. Look at Eileen. Do you suppose she has the slightest suspicion of ...
— The Younger Set • Robert W. Chambers
... Blue Grass vernacular, he "didn't take any stock (he called it stawk) in that sort of gush." He knew that there was only one four-legged domestic animal of which Mrs. Turner was more desperately afraid, and that was a cow. She made a ninny of herself when she went out to drive, and the mere pricking up of the horses' ears was to her mind premonitory symptom of a runaway, and excuse for immediate demand to be set down on the open prairie and allowed to walk home. As for riding, she couldn't be induced to try. To her a horse ...
— Marion's Faith. • Charles King
... the Red Sea," says Giglio; at which the Princess burst out laughing at him, and said, "Oh, you ninny! You are so ignorant, you are really not fit for society! You know nothing but about horses and dogs, and are only fit to dine in a mess-room with my Royal Father's heaviest dragoons. Don't look so surprised at me, sir: ...
— The Christmas Books • William Makepeace Thackeray
... made by a ninny On some little song with a popular tune, Not worth a halfpenny, sold for a guinea, And sung in the Strand by the light of the moon. I'd never sigh for the sense of a Pliny, (Who cares for sense at St. James's in June?) I'd be ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 14, Issue 390, September 19, 1829 • Various
... Montriveau, the Grandlieus, La Roche-Hugon, Serisy, Feraud, and Granville, have allied ourselves against the "parti-pretre," as the party-ninny represented by the "Constitutionnel" has ingeniously said. We intend to overturn the Navarreins, Lenoncourts, Vandenesses, and the Grand Almonry. In order to succeed we shall even ally ourselves with Lafayette, ...
— The Marriage Contract • Honore de Balzac
... ninny—I have no doubt of it—if I would listen to your wretched jabber! Enough! if you talk any more I'll go home again. A fine state of things, truly—that I am to have my mind dissipated when I'm in working trim by the ...
— The Last of the Foresters • John Esten Cooke
... a ninny!" she said to Grace; "and has eyes for no one but Kate. Oh, how I wish my darling Jules were here, or even your brother, Grace—he ...
— Kate Danton, or, Captain Danton's Daughters - A Novel • May Agnes Fleming
... not give sixpence for your suit." So much for Mr. Vincent. Now Miss —-'s turn comes to swallow the black bolus, called a friend's advice. Say to her: "Is the man a fool? is he a knave? a humbug, a hypocrite, a ninny, a noodle? If he is any or all of these, of course there is no sense in trifling with him. Cut him short at once—blast his hopes with lightning rapidity and keenness. Is he something better than this? has he at least common sense, a good disposition, ...
— Charlotte Bronte and Her Circle • Clement K. Shorter
... sugar and cotton ground, full sixteen feet deep of river slime—Egypt was a sandy desert compared to it—and as to the climate, the zephyrs that disported themselves there were only to be paralleled in Eldorado and Arcadia. I, like a ninny as I was, although fully aware of the puffing propensities of our newspaper editors, especially when their tongues, or rather pens, have been oiled by a few handfuls of dollars, fell into the trap, and purchased land in the fever-hole ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 349, November, 1844 • Various
... CALIBAN. What a pied ninny's this! Thou scurvy patch!— I do beseech thy greatness, give him blows, And take his bottle from him: when that's gone He shall drink nought but brine; for I'll not show him Where the quick ...
— The Tempest • William Shakespeare [Craig, Oxford edition]
... such a ninny as that," said Beck, with majestic contempt. "I 'spises the flat that is done brown by the blowens. ...
— Lucretia, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... Robert Utie turned blindly about for some implement of revenge. He found it in Tiltock, a fellow-clerk, a novitiate and a ninny, who was ...
— Tales of the Chesapeake • George Alfred Townsend
... them] The deed is, so far, safely accomplished. The slyboots, how she wheedled him! What a helpless ninny is a love-sick man! He is but as a lute in a woman's hands— she plays upon him whatever tune she will. But the Colonel comes. I' faith, he's just in time, for the Yeomen parade here for his execution ...
— The Complete Plays of Gilbert and Sullivan - The 14 Gilbert And Sullivan Plays • William Schwenk Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan
... as large as life. He rolls his eyes, walks with his head on one side, and his toes turned in; but, when the piece is played out, he slips away to the balls of which he is so fond. The girls christened him Ninny Moulin. Add, that he drinks like a fish, and you have the photo of the cove. All this doesn't prevent his writing for the religious newspapers; and the saints, whom he lets in even oftener than himself, are ready to swear by him. You should see his articles and his tracts—only see, not read!—every ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... exact truth to nature. David Copperfield's little wife is called a lap-dog, acts like a lap-dog, and dies like a lap-dog; the lap-dog simile is so much overdone that we are glad to get rid of her, and instead of weeping with Copperfield, we feel disposed to call him a ninny. ...
— Studies in Early Victorian Literature • Frederic Harrison
... happily. After having conceived a hundred different tragic sequels to the accident, she was lifted by the mere creak of the gate into a condition of pure optimism, and she realized what a capacity she had for secretly being a ninny in an unexpected crisis. But she thought with satisfaction: "Anyhow, I don't show it. That's one good thing!" She was now prepared to take oath that she had not for one moment been really anxious about Louis. Her demeanour, as she stated the case to the ...
— The Price of Love • Arnold Bennett
... of the house; the Newcome Sentinel, old county paper, moderate conservative, in which our worthy townsman and member is praised, his benefactions are recorded, and his speeches given at full length; the Newcome Independent, in which our precious member is weekly described as a ninny, and informed almost every Thursday morning that he is a bloated aristocrat, as he munches his dry toast. Heaps of letters, county papers, Times and Morning Herald for Sir Brian Newcome; little heaps of letters (dinner and soiree cards most of these) and ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... too!" laughed the other girl, "But did you notice what a ninny I had in that last waltz-quadrille? Don't you hate partners who stand away off, and barely touch your finger-tips as they dance with you? Upon my word, I'd rather have the straight-as-a-mackerel kind, who hold you so tight you can ...
— Pretty Madcap Dorothy - How She Won a Lover • Laura Jean Libbey
... to where Ninny the goose lived. "Ninny, Ninny," called Jack; "do you want to go to the baker's with us to ...
— Baby Nightcaps • Frances Elizabeth Barrow
... wind of our method of investigation, if he has any notion that you are inspecting the hands of all those who desire to leave the hospital, he won't be such a ninny as to come ...
— The Exploits of Juve - Being the Second of the Series of the "Fantmas" Detective Tales • mile Souvestre and Marcel Allain
... a buck, I thank you, but ere bed-time get under the weather, there is no telling how—so one may wake up wise, and slow of assent, very wise and very slow, I assure you, and for all that, before night, by like trick in the atmosphere, be left in the lurch a ninny. Health and wisdom equally precious, and equally little as unfluctuating possessions ...
— The Confidence-Man • Herman Melville
... club we have at the Rose and Crown. Come now, Alice, it's no use looking like that; you can't expect me to be a ninny. Besides, Waterman's a swell, he is the ...
— Tommy • Joseph Hocking
... mistrust me?" she asked, answering my look. "I have been frank with you. It is not you nor that white-faced ninny I would serve. You may both go hang for me, though I loved you once, Agostino." And the sudden tenderness of tone and smile were infinitely mocking. "No, no, beloved, if I meddle in this at all, it is because my own interests ...
— The Strolling Saint • Raphael Sabatini
... cried. "There's no one alive I despise as much as that detestable ninny. I've a mind to chuck Almo and ask Daddy to offer me, ...
— The Unwilling Vestal • Edward Lucas White
... Cannot to him hold a candle; And Handel swears that Bononcini, Compared to him is a mere ninny. 'Tis strange there should such difference ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 14, Issue 405, December 19, 1829 • Various
... had prevented him from doing so. It was a very different affair from any of Lucas's, and he did not want Lucas to misesteem it; neither did he want Lucas to be under the temptation to regard him as a ninny. ...
— The Roll-Call • Arnold Bennett
... own cousin, and you oughtn't, you know. If it isn't wicked, it MUST be naughty to call her a ninny," ...
— Princess Polly's Playmates • Amy Brooks
... "You ninny, this isn't a circus performance. No; of course they don't climb up on a rope ladder as if they ...
— The Circus Boys Across The Continent • Edgar B. P. Darlington
... believe it of him even yet. I try to think of Walter as a murderer of little children, and it is not possible. Why, it seems but yesterday that I stood plaguing him on the stone doorstep at Guy Park—calling him Walter Ninny and Walter Noodle to vex him. You remember, Euan, that his full name is Walter N. Butler, and that he never would tell us what the N. stands for, but we guessed it stood for Nellis, in honour of Nellis Fonda.... Lord! ...
— The Hidden Children • Robert W. Chambers
... of no use. Mrs. Willard was not fond of little girls, and Mrs. Gray would not take Flaxie; she must stay at home with her sister Ninny. ...
— Lill's Travels in Santa Claus Land and other Stories • Ellis Towne, Sophie May and Ella Farman
... you ever hear the word Prosperity, you ninny? Did you ever hear the word Ambition? Did you ...
— The Turmoil - A Novel • Booth Tarkington
... Silver-Locks went strolling One day, in that pretty wood, With Ninny, the nurse, and all at once They came where ...
— Our Young Folks at Home and Abroad • Various
... drag from you a plum of two hundred thousand francs. And you, who talk of the Marechal de Richelieu, the prototype of Lovelace, you could be taken in by such a stale trick as that! I could get hundreds of thousands of francs out of you any day, if I chose, you old ninny!—Keep your money! If you have more than you know what to do with, it is mine. If you give two sous to that 'respectable' woman, who is pious forsooth, because she is fifty-six years of age, we shall never meet again, and you may take her for your mistress! You could come back to ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... as sunshine, for that must correct itself. You know I am homo unius linguae: in English, illiterate, a dunce, a ninny. ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas
... them. They are dreadful creatures at home in the cities, but doubly dreadful at these resorts. You are young, simple, unsophisticated. I was at your age. But I soon got over such weaknesses. You must very soon, or be a ninny. "Simple," "artless," "unsophisticated," and such terms mean simply softness. Whatever else you are, or are not, don't be soft. The mistake of my fruitless life has been that I believed, in other years, all that was told me by the other sex. They said to my face that I was a beauty; ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 7, May 14, 1870 • Various
... out of fashion long ago. And it's well for women's peace of mind that they don't have to know the worst about the men they marry. I'm ashamed of you, Thomas! To think you've got no more gumption than to stand around like a ninny and let that city man walk off with the woman you've ...
— Other People's Business - The Romantic Career of the Practical Miss Dale • Harriet L. Smith
... A Junior Gentleman of the Emperor's Bedchamber! not interessant! He might marry any Maid of Honour he chose in Petersburg. And I—I had been hoping so! And hast thou changed long toward him? What has sent this cloud drifting hither—it did not come of itself! Can it be that ninny? A pretty ...
— A Nobleman's Nest • Ivan Turgenieff
... there was mamma, looking grieved and surprised,—the dear mamma she hadn't seen for three weeks. And there was "Ninny," her sweet sister Julia, who had come and found out about her actions, and brought her ...
— The Twin Cousins • Sophie May
... glance. Half a dozen words of explanation set him right. 'Never mind.' he said. 'Tell him we didn't mean to have dinner so early, but we flew around and got them a bite—then let's do it.' 'But what will the bite be?' I asked, and I stood looking up at him like a ninny who had never gotten a meal in her life. 'Why, bread, and butter, and coffee, and a dish of sauce, and a pickle, or something of that sort;' and the things really sounded appetizing as he told them off. 'Come,' he said, ...
— The Chautauqua Girls At Home • Pansy, AKA Isabella M. Alden
... smote the board, And filled all pockets from her hoard. A counter, in a miser's hand, Grew twenty guineas at command; She bade a rake to grasp them, fain— They turned a counter back again. The transmutations of a guinea Made every one stare like a ninny; But fair was false, and false was fair, By which ...
— Fables of John Gay - (Somewhat Altered) • John Gay
... rebuked Belle vigorously. "In the first place, Mr. Prescott is here. That means he's here by permission or right. In the second place, you ninny—-he still has the ...
— Dick Prescott's Second Year at West Point - Finding the Glory of the Soldier's Life • H. Irving Hancock
... to be no end to this?" the giant had growled. "Will you spend your days moping and swilling 'cause a white-faced ninny in Port Royal'll have none o' ye? 'Sblood and 'ounds! If ye wants the wench, why the plague doesn't ...
— Captain Blood • Rafael Sabatini
... Niggard avarulo. Nigh proksima. Nigh (time) baldauxa. Night nokto. Nightly nokta. Night, by nokte. Nightingale najtingalo. Night-watch nokta patrolo. Nightmare terursongxo. Nimble vigla. Nimbus glorkrono. Nine naux. Ninny simplanimulo. Nip pincxi. Nippers prenileto. Nitre salpetro. Nobility nobelaro. Noble nobla. Nobleman nobelo. Nobleness nobleco. Nobody neniu. Nocturnal nokta. Nocuous pereiga. Nod (beckon) signodoni. No ne. No one neniu. Noise bruo. Noisome nauxza, malbonodora. Noisy ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... silly Miss Jenny! To be such a ninny, To quarrel and make such a noise! For the very same day Their mama sent away Their dolls with red cheeks ...
— Aunt Kitty's Stories • Various
... a fool; the young one a rascal; the girl a ninny," was Miss Smith's succinct and acid classification of the county's first family; adding, as she rose, "but they own us body and soul." She hurried out of the dining-room without further remark. Miss Smith was more patient with ...
— The Quest of the Silver Fleece - A Novel • W. E. B. Du Bois
... think 'cause my trousers are tarry, And because that I ties my long hair in a tail, While landsmen are figged out as fine as Lord Harry, With breast-pins and cravats as white as old sail; That I'm a strange creature, a know-nothing ninny, But fit for the planks for to walk in foul weather; That I ha'n't e'er a notion of the worth of a guinea, And that you, Poll, can twist me about as ...
— Snarleyyow • Captain Frederick Marryat
... quadrille! Sleepinbuff and the Bacchanal Queen, having opposite to them Rose-Pompon and Ninny Moulin!" ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... to bed, ninny!" Then Coru-hin-Irigod wrinkled his brow. He could remember, clearly enough, the sale of the slaves, but after that—Oh, well, he'd been drinking; it would all come back to ...
— Time Crime • H. Beam Piper
... nursery governess, private tutor, etc., who when he came of age just ran amok, drank, fought with the colliers on his own estate, and then enlisted in an irregular corps and went to fight the Spaniards in Cuba, just to prove to himself that he wasn't the ninny his father had tried to make him. He shocked his neighbours thoroughly, but he's a man today, listened to when he speaks and just adored by the miners on his estate.... I want to make good, and though Mrs. Grundy would chatter if she knew that I had deliberately chosen to remain and nurse a ...
— A Mating in the Wilds • Ottwell Binns
... do, it's on the Red Sea,' says Giglio, at which the Princess burst out laughing at him, and said, 'Oh, you ninny! You are so ignorant, you are really not fit for society! You know nothing but about horses and dogs, and are only fit to dine in a mess-room with my Royal father's heaviest dragoons. Don't look so surprised at me, sir: go and put your best clothes ...
— The Rose and the Ring • William Makepeace Thackeray
... noddies; and such as were foolish, quite mad before he left them. One memorable example he recites there, of Tarascomus of Parma, a musician that was so humoured by Leo Decimus, and Bibiena his second in this business, that he thought himself to be a man of most excellent skill, (who was indeed a ninny) they [2173]"made him set foolish songs, and invent new ridiculous precepts, which they did highly commend," as to tie his arm that played on the lute, to make him strike a sweeter stroke, [2174]"and to pull down the arras hangings, because the voice ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... months, his acquaintance began much to doubt him: For his skin, "like a lady's loose gown," hung about him. He sent for a Doctor; and cried, like a ninny, "I have lost many ...
— Broad Grins • George Colman, the Younger
... you ninny!" growled the cook. "Why, the magic hand is only as big as a baby's hand. I've seen it many times. The master carries it in his pocket, and puts it under his ...
— The Firelight Fairy Book • Henry Beston
... a ninny! Why the devil should you suppose that the powerful divinity of the waters has any fear of long-robed monks? It is they, more likely, who would have cause to tremble in her presence, ...
— The Tiger Hunter • Mayne Reid
... the suggestions of his suspicious brain, it took me fully three months to descend in his bearish estimation from a highwayman to a ninny. There was an incredibility in my apparent lack of motive that puzzled him. His dubious cordiality was doled out under protest. As an exhibitor would clutch a vicious ape, he grabbed at every show of feeling, and almost throttled the most ...
— Trifles for the Christmas Holidays • H. S. Armstrong
... of them," said the court "If you were to roar at every one you meet you'd never have time for anything else. Life would degenerate into one long roar. Everybody knows that Professor Titcombe is a ninny and an idiot, but the decencies of intercourse require you to say, 'How nice!' or 'How ...
— The Motormaniacs • Lloyd Osbourne
... sir, That qualmish folks may cross by land from shore to shore, With sluices made to drown the French, if e'er they would come over, sir, Has long been talk'd of, till at length 'tis thought a monstrous bore. Amongst the many scheming folks, I take it he's no ninny, sir, Who bargains with the Ashantees to fish the coast of Guinea, sir; For, secretly, 'tis known, that another brilliant view he has, Of lighting up the famous town of Timbuctoo with oil gas. Run, neighbours, run, you're just in time to get a share In all the famous ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... thought he was really devoted to the cause, but they saw now he was like all the rest of the men—his head had been turned by one smile on a pretty face. Instead of attending to his work, he was following that Baskerville creature about, gazing at her yearningly, like a moon-calf, making a ninny of himself before the whole room. And he with a wife and three babies at home, waiting for him and thinking he was hustling for the cause. When the meeting adjourned, and the Baskerville creature accepted ...
— Jimmie Higgins • Upton Sinclair
... and be hang'd, good stammering ninny, I think I have set your Redcap's heels a-running, would your pianot-chattering humour could as sa-safely se-set me fr-from the searchers' walks. Yonder comes some one. 'Hem! Skink, to your tricks this titty titty. Ah, the tongue, I believe, will ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VII (4th edition) • Various
... her safe and well," thought Sir Norman, emphatically, "nothing short of an earthquake or dying of the plague will ever induce me to leave her again, until she is Lady Kingsley, and in the old manor of Devonshire. What a fool, idiot, and ninny I must have been, to have left her as I did, knowing those two sleuth-hounds were in full chase! What are all the Mirandas and midnight queens to ...
— The Midnight Queen • May Agnes Fleming
... "Have your fling, bonny lass," this time evidently addressing herself. "For thirty years, wenches, I have thought of nothing but sins and been afraid, but now I see I have wasted my time, I've let it slip by like a ninny! Ah, I have been a fool, a fool!" She sighed. "A woman's time is short and every day is precious. You are handsome, Annushka, and very rich; but as soon as thirty-five or forty strikes for you your time is up. Don't listen ...
— The Party and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... Michael brought his fist down upon the table, till everything in the room danced. "Bah! It's a girl I've got! A ninny. A milk-sop.—I thought so! Your lips—your cheeks—you—a Gregoriev!" But the glittering eyes, striving to fathom those others, were caught in a sudden quiet depth, wavered for an instant, and—were lowered! Then Michael sat in a frown, elbows on the table, ...
— The Genius • Margaret Horton Potter
... the mean time you've "Galley"[86] Whose verses all tally, Perhaps you may say he's a Ninny, But if you abashed are Because of Alashtar, ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Vol. 7. - Poetry • George Gordon Byron
... ninny! you forget you were dead; and he could not help loving her. How could he? Well, but you see she refused him. And why? because he came without a forged letter from YOU. Do you ...
— A Simpleton • Charles Reade
... Ninny is for Innocent, "Innocent, Ninny, a proper name for a man" (Cotgrave). With this we may compare French benet (i.e. Benedict), "a simple, plaine, doltish fellow; a noddy peake, a ninny hammer, a peagoose, a coxe, a silly companion" (Cotgrave). Nickum and noddy are probably for Nicodemus or Nicholas, both of which are used ...
— The Romance of Words (4th ed.) • Ernest Weekley
... your Jacques; I am your confessor, and have come to get you off. Do not be such a ninny as to know me; and speak as if you were making a confession." He spoke with the utmost rapidity. "This young fellow is very much depressed; he is afraid to die, he will confess everything," said Jacques ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac
... would balk at your using the car if he knew the circumstances," piped another boy. "We have got that match to play off, and now that the electric cars are held up by the strike how are we to get to Torrington? Don't be a ninny, Steve." ...
— Steve and the Steam Engine • Sara Ware Bassett
... too trying for anything—holding my foot there like a ninny in the hot sun. You haven't ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan
... helm, you ninny," said Hat, wrapping herself in her arms. She shivered, partly because the night was chill and partly from nervous excitement. There was no ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1919 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... "The miserable ninny never even observed that the foils were buttoned, but, throwing down his, rushed out of the room in the ...
— Major Frank • A. L. G. Bosboom-Toussaint
... he examined it attentively, turning it from side to side to endeavour to decipher the half-effaced post-mark. "What a ninny I am, to waste time in looking at the cover of this, when the contents will, no doubt, explain the whole matter?" Thus soliloquising he opened the letter, and was soon deeply absorbed in its contents. He perused and re-perused it; then opened, one after another, the remainder ...
— The Garies and Their Friends • Frank J. Webb
... Irish ninny. Do you think the captain would board a devil! The fellow's a Tuscarora, and is as well known here as the owner of the ...
— Wyandotte • James Fenimore Cooper |
