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Wince   /wɪns/   Listen
Wince

verb
(past & past part. winced; pres. part. wincing)
1.
Draw back, as with fear or pain.  Synonyms: cringe, flinch, funk, quail, recoil, shrink, squinch.
2.
Make a face indicating disgust or dislike.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Wince" Quotes from Famous Books



... Classics made their rivals wince, despite their affected contempt. To-morrow was the day of the meeting; and between now and then they must decide whether or not they would obey their own seniors and stay away, or revolt and take the consequences. ...
— The Cock-House at Fellsgarth • Talbot Baines Reed

... kittenish young creature all the more because her repartee was often a little cutting. If she had always struck him with a velvet paw, the thing would have grown monotonous, but he occasionally got a scratch that made him wince, cool and brazen as he was. But, after all, he daily saw that he was gaining power over her, and the manner in which the frank-hearted girl took his arm and leaned upon it spoke volumes to the experienced man. While he habitually wore ...
— What Can She Do? • Edward Payson Roe

... a sight for sore eyes!" said Luke Watson, as he gave our hero's hand a grasp that made him wince. "My gracious, it seems to me that I haven't seen you ...
— Dave Porter At Bear Camp - The Wild Man of Mirror Lake • Edward Stratemeyer

... she looked him in the face with a curiosity most cruel to herself; but Georges did not wince, and replied simply: ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet

... impatient fellow! and so sensitive, too! The wound is not healed, then. Pray introduce me to the Zerlina in our little opera. As I know you so well, I can give her some excellent counsel about managing you.—Ah, you wince! I am indiscreet, I fear; I have betrayed a secret; the Zerlina is perhaps still in her rustic seclusion, and this is only—Well, you must submit to your destiny, I suppose. How many are there since? Let me see,—six weeks,—time for three flirtations ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 20, June, 1859 • Various

... You mistake your heart if you think you can write a lampoon. Your whips are rods of roses. [1] Your spleen has ever had for its objects vices, not the vicious,—abstract offences, not the concrete sinner. But you are sensitive, and wince as much at the consciousness of having committed a compliment as another man would at the perpetration of an affront. But do not lug me into the same soreness of conscience with yourself. I maintain, and will to ...
— The Best Letters of Charles Lamb • Charles Lamb

... hand was laid upon his shoulder, and the gripping fingers of that hand caused him to wince and try to tear himself away. A sudden fear smote his heart as he looked up into the blazing eyes of the man before him. He was beginning to respect that towering form with the great broad shoulders and the hand that seemed to weigh a ton and the gripping fingers ...
— The Unknown Wrestler • H. A. (Hiram Alfred) Cody

... pietistic exercises in which he found pleasure did not inevitably produce ecstasy in his son and heir. And when Simon was discovered reading 'The Pirates of Pechili,' dexterously concealed in his prayer-book, the boy received a strapping that made his mother wince. Simon's breakfast lay only at the end of a long volume of prayers; and, having ascertained by careful experiment the minimum of time his father would accept for the gabbling of these empty Oriental sounds, he had fallen back on penny numbers to while away the hungry minutes. The quartering ...
— Ghetto Comedies • Israel Zangwill

... track. A cinder cut into my foot through the broken sole of one shoe. It made me wince and limp. ...
— Tramping on Life - An Autobiographical Narrative • Harry Kemp

... gilding of his Majesty of Spain. No light work it was; suspended betwixt wind and water, groping with lanthorns at our work, rearing and plunging with the waves, and every now and then hearing the boom of a gun behind, which made us wince and wonder whose head was wanted next. Once I thought it was mine; for a great crashing shot came past me out of the darkness, spinning my basket round like a top, and lodging fair in the hole I was mending. Scarce had I time to thank God for my escape, ...
— Sir Ludar - A Story of the Days of the Great Queen Bess • Talbot Baines Reed

... did not wince, though his back stiffened when the men around him grinned; it is a sore point with the Sikhs that Canada does ...
— Winds of the World • Talbot Mundy

... you; but I fancy nothing short of a crowbar would make Dick wince. His soul seems to have been fired ...
— The Light That Failed • Rudyard Kipling

... storm at every change, And each mutation makes me wince, I am not shut to all things strange— I'm rather easy to convince. But hereunto I set my seal, My nerves awry, askew, abristling: I'll never change the way I feel Upon the ...
— Something Else Again • Franklin P. Adams

... wince. He had taken all the revenge he needed. The idea rather pleased him than other wise. He had instincts about art, and he liked pictures; statuary, poetry, romance; but he had no standards. He was keen also to see the life of the artist, to touch that aristocracy ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... have got so involved just now, as to make it necessary for me either to work or have a rich wife. Such eyes too, as Mary's got! Black and fiery one minute, blue and soft the next. Well, any way I'll have a good time flirting with her, just for the sake of seeing Ella wince and whimper, if nothing more. Bah! What a simpleton she is, compared with Mary. I wonder how much Mrs. Campbell is worth, and if ...
— The English Orphans • Mary Jane Holmes

... a wince, did, for G. W. Creamer and the Eureka Paper Mills were his most successful competitors in the manufacture of special-priced high-grade papers. Mr. Cuthbert ...
— The Early Bird - A Business Man's Love Story • George Randolph Chester

... only son, her pride, her darling! How she glorified him, and exulted in him, and rejoiced in every evidence of his beautiful manhood! The sight of the thick-soled boots gave her a positive thrill of joy; she looked unmoved at the mud on the carpet, and did not even wince when he crumpled her best ...
— A Houseful of Girls • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey

... participate, divide. Sharp, keen, acute, cutting, trenchant, incisive. Shore, coast, littoral, beach, strand, bank. Shorten, abridge, abbreviate, curtail, truncate, syncopate. Show (noun), display, ostentation, parade, pomp, splurge. Show, exhibit, display, expose, manifest, evince. Shrink, flinch, wince, blench, quail. Shun, avoid, eschew. Shy, bashful, diffident, modest, coy, timid, shrinking. Sign, omen, auspice, portent, prognostic, augury, foretoken, adumbration, presage, indication. Simple, innocent, artless, ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor

... put that author upon a level with Warburton, 'Nay, (said Johnson,) he has given him some smart hits to be sure; but there is no proportion between the two men; they must not be named together. A fly, Sir, may sting a stately horse and make him wince; but one is but an insect, and the other is a horse still.' BOSWELL. Johnson in his Preface to Shakespeare (Works, v. 141) wrote:—'Dr. Warburton's chief assailants are the authors of The Canons of Criticism, and of The Revisal of Shakespeare's Text.... The one stings like a fly, ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill

... to end with a spark of unusual brightness. The Captain stood erect, awaiting his opportunity; but, alas!—it was one that never came; for the ventriloquist, that caused the rupture between Mr. Potts and the "Spooney," made the "Lion" wince, by observing, "he hoped there would be no cruelty to animals"—a remark that made our "Lion" roar contemptuously, and call the company "bears and monkeys"—he growling, with blood-thirsty pugnacity, about "satisfaction" and "Chalk Farm,"—the declamatory mania causing the irascible monster to mount ...
— Christmas Comes but Once A Year - Showing What Mr. Brown Did, Thought, and Intended to Do, - during that Festive Season. • Luke Limner

... have been out of my mind," growled Aaron, as a twinge of neuralgia made him wince. "But I'll admit that the boys are angels. Heaven forgive me for lying. Go ahead and read ...
— The Rushton Boys at Treasure Cove - Or, The Missing Chest of Gold • Spencer Davenport

... chesty laugh, unqualified by any subtleties, suggesting a trace of the peasantry from which he sprang. It made Cornificia wince. ...
— Caesar Dies • Talbot Mundy

... came on, leaving the fourth to his own devices—and that, too, was quite in keeping with the type of human vultures they were. They kept firing at Bud, and once he felt Sunfish wince and leap forward as if a spur had raked him. Bud shot again, and thought he saw one horseman lurch backward. But he could not be sure—they were going at a terrific pace now, and Sunfish was leaving them farther and farther behind. They were outclassed, hopelessly out of pistol ...
— Cow-Country • B. M. Bower

... to wince or kick with impatience. "Shuck"; to shrug up the shoulders, expressive of ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... would have to adopt made him wince, for he knew the platitudes they entailed; and in preference he thought of the paradoxes with which he would stupefy the House, the daring and originality he would show in introducing subjects that, till then, no one had dared to touch upon. With the politics ...
— Mike Fletcher - A Novel • George (George Augustus) Moore

... remarked, ignoring the unnatural calm with which they greeted his entrance. He shook hands with them in turn, striding from one to another and gripping their hands so heartily that Nathaniel Letton could not forbear to wince. Daylight flung himself into a massive chair and sprawled lazily, with an appearance of fatigue. The leather grip he had brought into the room he dropped carelessly beside ...
— Burning Daylight • Jack London

... Bishop's speech (I composed it myself) you will read in the "Barchester Guardian," which I send you. While approving the END he rebuked the MEANS, and took the opportunity to read a much-needed lesson on JESUITRY and the dangers of worldliness in high ecclesiastical places. Let those wince who feel a sense of their own backslidings. When the Bishop had ended, I determined to walk once through the bazaar just to make sure that there were no lotteries nor games of chance—a desecration of our MITES now too, too frequent. As I was returning through the ...
— Old Friends - Essays in Epistolary Parody • Andrew Lang

... twenty-five-cent cigars and indulge in a ten-cent shine each day, and still not cost the taxpayers so much as they were accustomed to pay for his conviction and jail entertainment. And, as subsequent events proved, it made the taxpayers wince. ...
— Moon-Face and Other Stories • Jack London

... was of some one I had never seen. I raised the lamp above my head and scrutinized it. It was a beautiful face, but one of cold, passive loveliness. There was something in the handsome mouth which made me wince as I looked upon it, and those large speaking eyes. What a depth theirs was, too deep, I thought, too alluring, might not one get lost ...
— The Doctor's Daughter • "Vera"

... "that fellow has been used to horses—once upon a time. Poor devil!" As he spoke he glanced from Billy Button's naked feet and threadbare clothes to his own glossy Hessians and immaculate garments, and Barnabas saw him wince as he turned towards the door of Jasper Gaunt's house. Now when Barnabas would have followed, Billy Button caught him ...
— The Amateur Gentleman • Jeffery Farnol et al

... the 'anchorite,' as old Bunbury names him, who carries his nose in the air, and his fore feet well under him. Woe to the self- willed or hard-hided horse who cannot take the slightest hint of the heel, and wince hind legs or fore out of the way of those jagged points which lie in wait for him. Woe, in fact, to all who are clumsy or cowardly, or in anywise not 'masters ...
— Prose Idylls • Charles Kingsley

... garden she walked across, Arm in my arm, such a short while since; Hark, now I push its wicket, the moss Hinders the hinges and makes them wince! She must have reached this shrub ere she turned, 5 As back with that murmur the wicket swung; For she laid the poor snail, my chance foot spurned, To feed and forget it ...
— Selections from the Poems and Plays of Robert Browning • Robert Browning

... that his shirt sleeve was stained red. Several of the weaker scouts uttered low exclamations of concern, not being accustomed to such sights; but the stouter hearted veterans had seen too many cuts to wince now. ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts Snowbound - A Tour on Skates and Iceboats • George A. Warren

... you? Now you go into the house by whatever back entrance there is, go to your room, wash the blood off your face, and stay there, otherwise, by God, I'll break both of your wrists as you stand here," and he gave the wrists a wrench that made the other wince, big and ...
— Revenge! • by Robert Barr

... formidable; and we, sitting at a table disproportionably large, under the cold, strange gaze of my guardian, talked only what was inevitable, and that in low tones; for whenever Milly for a moment raised her voice, Uncle Silas would wince, place his thin white fingers quickly over his ear, and look as if a pain had pierced his brain, and then shrug and smile piteously into vacancy. When Uncle Silas, therefore, was not in the talking vein himself—and that was not often—you may suppose there was very little ...
— Uncle Silas - A Tale of Bartram-Haugh • J.S. Le Fanu

... with all Mother's genial impatience at useful sewing as opposed to beautiful. Laura's intention had been to shield Mother from criticism, as well as to spare Miss Day's feelings. But to have done it so clumsily as this! To have had to wince under Miss Day's scepticism! It was only a wonder the governess had not there and then taxed her with the fib. For who believed in old nurses nowadays? They were a stock property, borrowed on the spur of ...
— The Getting of Wisdom • Henry Handel Richardson

... truth was not discovered until ten years afterwards, when the old fellow got to be a regular cripple, what between rheumatis', old age, and steaming. One day he had an attack of the first complaint, and in one of its most severe paroxysms, when nature is apt to wince, he roared three times, 'a typhoon! a typhoon! a typhoon!' and the murder was out. Sure enough, the next day we had a regular north-easter; but old Joe got no sign of popularity that time. And now, when you get ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper

... as much dignity as the situation permitted. Few men can feel themselves the target of the scorn of three honest people and not wince, and Justin, whatever his weaknesses, ...
— Other People's Business - The Romantic Career of the Practical Miss Dale • Harriet L. Smith

... hand for a minute in such a close grasp that it hurt her, but she did not wince. Ah! if she might just have this pleasantly satisfying relation with the man whose presence in her life meant warmth and light and even happiness on the hard road of everyday routine, and then have somehow ...
— Under the Country Sky • Grace S. Richmond

... We wince under little pains, but Nature in us, through the excitement attendant upon them, seems to brace us to endure with fortitude greater agonies. A curious circumstance, that will serve as an illustration of this, is told by an eminent surgeon of a person upon whom it became necessary to perform ...
— The Atlantic Monthly , Volume 2, No. 14, December 1858 • Various

... looked dreamily out of the window at the opposite houses. Sometimes her sharp sayings hurt him. But he understood all, in his dim way, and pardoned all. He never allowed her to see him wince. He stood so long silent that Emmy looked up anxiously at his face, dreading the effect of her words. His hand hung by his side—he was near the sofa where she lay. She took it gently, in a revulsion of feeling, kissed it, and, as he turned, ...
— Septimus • William J. Locke

... hands with the three, and the grip that they received from the horny palms made them wince with pain. ...
— Adrift in the Wilds - or, The Adventures of Two Shipwrecked Boys • Edward S. Ellis

... Joe's delight he found that in throwing his swift one, the spitter, and his curves he had no pain. But his celebrated fadeaway made him wince when he twisted his arm into the peculiar position necessary to get the ...
— Baseball Joe in the Big League - or, A Young Pitcher's Hardest Struggles • Lester Chadwick

... soon, with a queer, quick frown, he looked at me, And I looked hard at him; and there we gazed With a strained shame that made us cringe and wince: Then, with a wordless clogged apology That sounded half confused and half amazed, He dodged, — and I ...
— The Children of the Night • Edwin Arlington Robinson

... hands upon his stick, and his face was like the face of a sphinx. Only Lucille, who knew him best of all those there, saw him wince for a moment before this reminder of his ...
— The Yellow Crayon • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... dominated him. Now and then the thought of Mary Thorne came to torture him. Vividly he pictured the scene at the ranch-house which Mrs. Archer had described, imagining the girl's fear and horror and despair, then and afterward, with a realism which made him wince. But always his mind flashed back to the man who was to blame for it all, and with savage curses he pledged himself ...
— Shoe-Bar Stratton • Joseph Bushnell Ames

... called at the tailor's cottage the morning after this, and found Sim suffering under violent excitement, of which Wilson's behavior to Rotha had been the cause. The insults offered to himself he had taken with a wince, perhaps, but without a retort. Now that his daughter was made the subject of them, he was ...
— The Shadow of a Crime - A Cumbrian Romance • Hall Caine

... both time and lives. Instead of this, however, it is thought more advisable to keep every one standing still in order to afford a more satisfactory test of Boer marksmanship. It is very irksome. The air seems full of the little shrill-voiced messengers. Our ponies wince and shiver; they know perfectly well what the sound means. At last the fact that the hills are held is revealed to the sagacity of our commanders, and we are moved aside and the guns once ...
— With Rimington • L. March Phillipps

... Knights-Errant may evince interest grave; that Indian Prince Will alternate swell and wince as they struggle; The young Scottish Knight BALFOUR (who looks callow more than dour) Hopes the Silver Knight may ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 103, December 3, 1892 • Various

... wince under the harangue. He did not, indeed, look at his father at all, but kept ...
— The Four Canadian Highwaymen • Joseph Edmund Collins

... her wince under the words. "Is it not true?" he demanded. "Was it not he who told you to have me ...
— The Moneychangers • Upton Sinclair

... possibly a great deal more than you have ever had, and probably a great deal more than you expect, even with this word of warning. If you have failed to provide yourself with proper shoes and socks, great will be the price of your lack of forethought. You will wince at your own blisters. You will get no sympathy from any one else. It is the spirit of the camp for each man to bear his own burdens. So arrive at camp with hardened legs and broken in shoes. Don't buy shoes with pointed or narrow toes. They ...
— The Plattsburg Manual - A Handbook for Military Training • O.O. Ellis and E.B. Garey

... he caught from the Rectory some years ago. I recollect your telling me not to let him want for anything;" and Lord Hartledon winced at the remembrance brought before him, as he always did wince at the unhappy past. "I never shall forget it. I went in, thinking Pike was ill, and that he, wild and disreputable though he had the character of being, might want physic as well as his neighbours. Instead ...
— Elster's Folly • Mrs. Henry Wood

... malicious desire on Hagar's part to play upon this man—this scoundrel, as he believed him to be—and make him wince still more. A score of things to say or do flashed through his mind, but he gave them up instantly, remembering that it was his duty to consider Mrs. Detlor before all. But he did say, "If you were old friends, you will wish ...
— An Unpardonable Liar • Gilbert Parker

... Laura did not wince. But her eyes filled and her voice was husky as she spoke: "Tom, I want your soul again—the one that used to speak to me in the old days." She bent over him, and rubbed her cheek against his and there she left him, ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White

... patiently enough, but it made the Captain wince all the same. They were his own words. But he did not give in ...
— Children of the Tenements • Jacob A. Riis

... amused and had a good laugh at this naive confession, even Colonel Vereker sharing in the general mirth, in spite of his profound melancholy and the pain he felt from his wounded leg, which made him wince every now and again, I noticed, during the narration of the story Garry O'Neil had thus told, with the utmost good humour, it must be confessed, at his own expense, as, indeed, he had made us understand beforehand that it ...
— The Ghost Ship - A Mystery of the Sea • John C. Hutcheson

... at her, and this time she did not wince from the glance. Indeed, she seemed to be probing him, searching with a peculiar hope. What could she expect to find in him? What that was useful to her? Not once in all his life had such a sense of impotence descended ...
— Gunman's Reckoning • Max Brand

... ruthlessly and thoroughly, but he didn't use his youthful hypnotic periods of persuasive eloquence that had been wont to sway juries and to creep into campaign speeches. His wits had been sharpened in the last few months, and his keen-edged thrusts, hurled rapier-like, brought a wince to even the most hardened of veteran members. It was a complete enlightenment in plain words to a plain ...
— David Dunne - A Romance of the Middle West • Belle Kanaris Maniates

... words were spoken laughingly, there was a sub-sneer about them which made Ernest wince; but he was quite subdued, and so the conversation ended. It left Ernest, however, not for the first time, consciously dissatisfied with Pryer, and inclined to set his friend's opinion on one side—not openly, but quietly, and without telling ...
— The Way of All Flesh • Samuel Butler

... and turning again? Here is his church, and a goodly tower withal, which we, in our turn, have endeavoured to turn to the illustration of our pages. There is no sinister motive in the selection; but if we have hit the white, or rather the black, of such variableness, "let the galled jade wince," and pay the Mirror the stale compliment of veluti ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 17, No. - 482, March 26, 1831 • Various

... and investments that Josiah had ever owned had been sold for the greater glory of Spencer & Son—to buy in other firms and patents—to increase the factory by the river. As her father had once confided to Mary this had taken money—"a dreadful lot of money"—she remembered the wince with which he had spoken—and a safe deposit box which was nearly empty bore evidence to the truth of ...
— Mary Minds Her Business • George Weston

... continued in this strain he stood in dark contrast to Morton, and the girl could not but wince under the revelation he was unconsciously making. "Anthony, you have talked in that strain ever since we came East. Nothing but using people, using people, all the time. You've been constantly running after those who could 'be of use to us!' and I don't like it. Every ...
— The Tyranny of the Dark • Hamlin Garland

... a sum that made even Carl Walraven wince; but he was a great deal too reckless to ...
— The Unseen Bridgegroom - or, Wedded For a Week • May Agnes Fleming

... day before my departure, and I told him not to send me anything here. I cannot send you the Preludes, they are not yet finished. At present I am better and shall push on the work. I shall write and thank him in a way that will make him wince. ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks

... excused for his 'mater.' That was the sort of school; and his mother is rather proud of the phrase, though it sometimes makes his father wince. ...
— Echoes of the War • J. M. Barrie

... the purpose to humble and to punish. Everything was forgotten and silenced by the compelling voice of his blood, which cried out that he loved her. He stooped to her and caught her wrists in a grip that made her wince. His ...
— The Trampling of the Lilies • Rafael Sabatini

... course, They had to get it. Pete and Flos I left To wait on them, but soon they sent them off, Their jugs supplied,—and fell a-talking, loud, As in defiance, of some private plan To make the British wince. Word followed word, Till I, who could not help but hear their gibes, Suspected mischief, and, listening, learned the whole. To-morrow night a large detachment leaves Fort George for Beaver Dam. Five hundred men, With some dragoons, artillery, and a train Of baggage-waggons, ...
— Laura Secord, the heroine of 1812. - A Drama. And Other Poems. • Sarah Anne Curzon

... tell, if I like, but I'm no' gaun to tell ye a thing,' replied Liz flatly; but her candour did not even make Teen wince. She was used to it in the old ...
— The Guinea Stamp - A Tale of Modern Glasgow • Annie S. Swan

... Mr. Randall. It had made him wince even while he pretended not to see it. It had ...
— The Combined Maze • May Sinclair

... what need you be so boist'rous rough? I will not struggle, I will stand stone-still. For heaven sake, Hubert, let me not be bound! Nay, hear me, Hubert! drive these men away, And I will sit as quiet as a lamb; I will not stir, nor wince, nor speak a word, Nor look upon the iron angerly: Thrust but these men away, and I'll forgive you, Whatever torment ...
— The Canadian Elocutionist • Anna Kelsey Howard

... them; they cannot bear it; and they try to make believe that the thing you took for a special distinction was nothing of the kind and was meant in quite another way. Once I was received in private audience by an emperor. Last week I was telling a jealous person about it, and I could see him wince under it, see him bite, see him suffer. I revealed the whole episode to him with considerable elaboration and nice attention to detail. When I was through, he asked me what had ...
— The $30,000 Bequest and Other Stories • Mark Twain

... with the brisk air of a boy who has enjoyed his first ride across country. Surgeon-Captain Emery was a man well over forty, but to-day his eyes glowed with that concentrated fire which burns in the heart at twenty, and he shook de Marmont by the hand with a vigour which made the younger man wince with the pain ...
— The Bronze Eagle - A Story of the Hundred Days • Emmuska Orczy, Baroness Orczy

... slave, I wince at the bite of the dogs, Hell and despair are upon me, crack and again crack the marksmen, I clutch the rails of the fence, my gore dribs, thinned with the ooze of my skin, I fall on the weeds and stones, The riders spur their unwilling horses, haul close, ...
— Whitman - A Study • John Burroughs

... it's a man!" said Father Payne. "Female bloodsuckers are worse still. A man, at all events, only wants the blood; a woman wants the pleasure of seeing you wince ...
— Father Payne • Arthur Christopher Benson

... of animal pain came from the enclosure behind us. Its depth and volume testified to the puma. I saw Montgomery wince. ...
— The Island of Doctor Moreau • H. G. Wells

... States ruled by princes of his own blood. The public rejoicings at Florence, Parma, Modena, and Bologna, and the ardent expression of the populace at such centres for union with Sardinia, made the Emperor wince, and showed him that it was impossible, even with French bayonets, to crush the aspirations of a nation. Napoleon met Francis Joseph at Villafranca, and the preliminaries of peace were arranged on July 11 in ...
— Lord John Russell • Stuart J. Reid

... see for the life of me, Anne, why you selected such an outlandish spot as this, for us, in which to waste a precious summer. Why, it is simply unbearable— nothing but mountains and trails in sight! And no one but just farmers to associate with! Oh, oh!" The accent on "farmers" made Polly wince and Eleanor frown, at the speaker. Anne hastened to change the subject for she feared Mr. Brewster might turn his horses and take them all ...
— Polly of Pebbly Pit • Lillian Elizabeth Roy

... thoughtfully, "he will of course be compelled to use discretion about his patrons. The rabble, of course——" He broke off with a wave of his hand which, although not pointedly, seemed to indicate Cousin Egbert, who once more wore the hunted look about his eyes and who sat by uneasily. I saw him wince. ...
— Ruggles of Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson

... every inch of you!" Mr. Mason said in a loud tone, as he slapped the physician on the shoulder with a force that caused him to wince with absolute pain. "You're a man; an' if the people in this town don't know it already, they shall find it out from yours truly. I reckon we can ante up a little something in this 'ere matter, so the kid won't go home empty-handed; ...
— Dick in the Desert • James Otis

... suggestion, hit the nail of expediency on the head. No sentimental scruple made the blow waver or deflected her resolute aim. She had thought at once of Laura, and Laura was his only, his inevitable, resource. His anxious mind pictured his sister's wonder, and made him wince under the sting of Henley Fairford's irony: Fairford, who at the time of the marriage had sat silent and pulled his moustache while every one else argued and objected, yet under whose silence Ralph had felt a deeper protest than under all the reasoning of the others. It was ...
— The Custom of the Country • Edith Wharton

... the Prince, seizing his hand with a grip that made the latter wince, Mrs. Wellington could not help noticing a veiled expression of contempt in the nobleman's face. She was aware that to him, her husband represented, of course, the highest plane of existence that Americans attain to, and she could see that the ...
— Prince or Chauffeur? - A Story of Newport • Lawrence Perry

... taking their leave by this time. Angelica proceeded to deposit one of her erratic kisses somewhere on the old duke's head, with an emphasis which caused him to wince perceptibly. Then she went up to Father Ricardo, ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand

... other science; and I would pit the little timid hermit of St. Onofre to a march, on the margin of the precipices on this mountain, against the bravest general we have in America. The man that would not wince at the whistle of a cannon-ball over his head, may find his blood retire, and his senses bewildered, at a dreadful precipice under his feet. St. Onofre possesses no more space than what is covered in by the tiling, nor any prospect but to the South. The inhabitant of it says, he often sees the ...
— A Year's Journey through France and Part of Spain, 1777 - Volume 1 (of 2) • Philip Thicknesse

... (with a half-frown and a wince) to play Panurge to your lordship's Pantagruel, on ...
— Alton Locke, Tailor And Poet • Rev. Charles Kingsley et al

... Like to a golden mirror in the sun; Next answer'd: "Conscience, dimm'd or by its own Or other's shame, will feel thy saying sharp. Thou, notwithstanding, all deceit remov'd, See the whole vision be made manifest. And let them wince who have their withers wrung. What though, when tasted first, thy voice shall prove Unwelcome, on digestion it will turn To vital nourishment. The cry thou raisest, Shall, as the wind doth, smite the proudest summits; ...
— The Divine Comedy, Complete - The Vision of Paradise, Purgatory and Hell • Dante Alighieri

... poisoned their blood with the fifth-rate social ideal, the fixed idea of making smart acquaintances and getting into the monde chic, especially when it was foredoomed to failure and exposure? They showed so what they were after; that was what made the people they wanted not want them. And never a wince for dignity, never a throb of shame at looking each other in the face, never any independence or resentment or disgust. If his father or his brother would only knock some one down once or twice a year! Clever as they were they never guessed the impression ...
— The Pupil • Henry James

... shabby house, the dirty little grocery at the corner where he had bought his cigars and their small household supplies, the meals cooked there and eaten there, Denasia's attempts at housekeeping—the whole series of memories made him wince and shiver with shame and annoyance. "Thank God it is over!" he said fervently. And he never once thought what an insult he was offering to eternal mercy and justice, in supposing God had anything whatever to do with his flagrant desertion ...
— A Singer from the Sea • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr

... the biting words with which I ridiculed her. In vain; my bitterest sarcasms and keenest irony never made her wince nor elicited a sign of vexation. She heard me, with the customary smile upon her lips and in her eyes, the smile that she wore as a part of her clothing, and that never varied for friends, for ...
— The Magic Skin • Honore de Balzac

... took as roundabout a route as he could contrive so as to spare the young officers the gruesome sights that he and the other men had encountered; but enough was left to make Murray wince again and again. ...
— Hunting the Skipper - The Cruise of the "Seafowl" Sloop • George Manville Fenn

... Her words made me wince, and I must have shown the wound, for when I looked at her her countenance wore an expression of regret and repentance. "You must forgive me," she declared. "If we were to be thrown together you would have to forgive ...
— A Little Union Scout • Joel Chandler Harris

... and Stephen did not move—did not wince. When Mrs. Halliday, whose mate was exacting, exclaimed, "The greatest apostle of expediency was St. Paul. He preached 'wives love your husbands,'" he even permitted himself the ghost of a smile. At one point he wished himself familiar with the plot; it was when Hamilton ...
— The Path of a Star • Mrs. Everard Cotes (AKA Sara Jeannette Duncan)

... suffers horribly when he moves, and I tried to persuade him to have his dinner sent into the parlor, but in honor of your presence he will come, and he doesn't want us to see him wince ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, April, 1876. • Various

... recollected the origin of our quarrel. Dick first gave me a cut on the shoulder, which so excited my fury that I was not long in returning the compliment by bestowing a slash across his arm, which made him wince not a little, but before I could follow it up he had recovered his guard. In a moment I was at him again, and as we were neither of us great masters of the noble art of self-defence, we kept hewing and slashing away at each other in a most unscientific manner for several minutes, till we were ...
— Hurricane Hurry • W.H.G. Kingston

... parties regretted this, and shook their heads over it, prophesying that no good could come of it. Miss Garscube's will had never been crossed in her life, and she was a "clever" woman: Lord Arthur would not submit to her domineering ways, and she would wince under and be ashamed of his want of intellect. All this was foretold and thoroughly believed by people having the most perfect confidence in their own judgment, so that Lord Arthur and his wife ought to have been, in the very nature of things, a most ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 17, - No. 97, January, 1876 • Various

... fixing his steady eyes upon the man in a way that made him wince. "I have some business to attend to in the town," he added. "Pray make yourself at home so long as it pleases you to remain;" with which he brushed his hand back over his glossy hair, put on his hat, and sauntered out, leaving his ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand

... Bricked up and buried. But you'll have time to think Of how I tread a measure at the masque To-night, with Marian, while her wide eyes wonder Where Robin is—and old Fitzwalter smiles And bids his girl be gracious to the Prince For his land's sake. Ah, ha! you wince at that! Will you not speak a word before I ...
— Collected Poems - Volume Two (of 2) • Alfred Noyes

... taxes—and, if we proceed in our present course, they are much nearer than we imagine-the phrase 'Anti-Reformer' will serve as well as that of 'Malignant,' and be as valid a plea as the former title for harassing and plundering all those who venture to wince under the crowning mercies ...
— Sketches • Benjamin Disraeli

... the worst possible taste to the watching Mrs. Delancy, but she forbore comment, although she saw her niece wince visibly. Cicily's pride, however, came to her rescue, and she contrived to restrain herself from any revelation of her hurt that could make itself perceptible to Hamilton, who now ...
— Making People Happy • Thompson Buchanan

... away from home night after night, and no one knew what had become of him. Poor Jacob began to get very weary, and to dread more and more that he should find his young master becoming a confirmed slave to the drink. Frank's fine temper, too, was not what it once was, and Jacob had to wince under many ...
— Frank Oldfield - Lost and Found • T.P. Wilson

... Before the sudden wince in his daughter's eyes he reverted instantly to an air of semi-jocosity. "So, under all existing circumstances, little girl," he hastened to affirm, "you can hardly blame a crusty old codger of a father for preferring to leave his daughter in the hands of a man ...
— Little Eve Edgarton • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott

... this smooth course of events, came a series of bumps that made Percival wince as he recalled them: protests, evasions, humiliating questions on the part of the public, and then ignominious flight. He shuddered as he thought of the dull, wet days on the Atlantic and his hideous week in America. He had been in a perpetual ...
— The Honorable Percival • Alice Hegan Rice

... of my sacrifice! because Ye have forgotten the sacred places of my childhood, and they have therefore ceased to be, yet may I not forget. Because Ye have done this thing, Ye shall see cold altars and shall lack both my fear and praise. I shall not wince at Your lightnings, nor be awed ...
— Time and the Gods • Lord Dunsany [Edward J. M. D. Plunkett]

... The younger man's wince was purely involuntary. He had been trying latterly to train up to the degree of mental fitness which would enable him to think calmly of Ardea as another man's wife. The effort commended itself as a part of the new broadening process, but ...
— The Quickening • Francis Lynde

... those long winter nights when she lay in that cold room, wrapped in Poe's only coat, he, with one hand holding hers, and with the other dashing off some of the most perfect masterpieces of English prose. And when he would wince and turn white at her coughing, she would always whisper: "Work on, my poet, and when you have finished read it to me. I am happy when I listen." O, the devotion of women and the madness of art! They are the two most awesome ...
— A Collection of Stories, Reviews and Essays • Willa Cather

... was living. By the time M. Merle had rejoined—I won't say his ancestors, because he never had any—her relations with Osmond had changed, and she had grown more ambitious. Besides, she has never had, about him," the Countess went on, leaving Isabel to wince for it so tragically afterwards—"she HAD never had, what you might call any illusions of INTELLIGENCE. She hoped she might marry a great man; that has always been her idea. She has waited and watched and plotted and prayed; but she has never succeeded. ...
— The Portrait of a Lady - Volume 2 (of 2) • Henry James

... with your—er— personality. I saw you a couple of months ago at the Palace and I like the way you get hold of people. I should say that with the right kind of training you ought to go quite a long way: who knows?" he was laughing so good humoredly that he did not see her wince, "some of these days I might pick up a nice little play ...
— Little Miss By-The-Day • Lucille Van Slyke

... has been particularly described in the centre. On a sudden the latter stopped short, as though petrified where he stood. His countenance, naturally sallow, became pale as ashes, and, as if to save himself from falling, he clutched the arm of one of his companions with a force that made him wince again, while he gazed with distended eyeballs on a man who had halted within half-a-dozen paces of the Spaniards. The person whose aspect produced this Medusa-like effect upon the Carlist was a man about thirty years of age, plainly but elegantly dressed, and of a prepossessing ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXII. - June, 1843.,Vol. LIII. • Various

... appreciation, he feels pleasure; not that they exalt him, but that they create in him a natural joy at being so appreciated. It is said by some that sanctified persons are "dead," and the point is illustrated by saying that pins might be thrust into a dead man and he will not wince. If sanctification destroyed the natural feelings, it would be a disaster rather than a blessing. It purifies them, ...
— Adventures in the Land of Canaan • Robert Lee Berry

... touch of her hand Faircloth drew in his breath sharply, seeming to wince. Then, at last, Damaris looked up at him, her eyes full of questioning ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet

... I could expect no other. But when great ends are to be gained, he who would gain them must strip himself of those disturbing atavistic things we call the tender emotions. The pathway to power is not for those who wince at the sight of blood, who weep at the need for death. I hope, for special reasons, that you'll make an effort to understand this before we come to the phase which ...
— The Affair of the Brains • Anthony Gilmore

... it, youngster?" observed Mr Stormcock to me, presently, when we came under fire and I had the pleasant sensation of a jinghal ball passing close to my ear, cutting a bit out the collar of my jacket and making me wince, though I can honestly say I was not frightened at this, my first experience of being really in action. "Keep moving about and there'll be less chance of your being picked off. A lively man who does his work without thinking ...
— Crown and Anchor - Under the Pen'ant • John Conroy Hutcheson

... unshaven, his clothing was soiled, his attitude one of utter dejection. He crouched in the chair breathing hurriedly, with one hand pressed to his right side, as though in pain. Occasionally he coughed: a short, high-pitched cough, which made him wince. ...
— The Hand in the Dark • Arthur J. Rees

... wince. He had now quite forgotten the part selfish ambition had played in his gallant rush to the defense of imperilled freedom—had forgotten it as completely as the now ecstatic Hugo had forgotten his prejudices ...
— The Conflict • David Graham Phillips

... spoke gravely. "That is right, dear. That is youth's metier; to take the banner from our failing hands, bear it still a little onward." Her small gloved hand closed on Joan's with a pressure that made Joan wince. ...
— All Roads Lead to Calvary • Jerome K. Jerome

... is. Smug-faced missionaries grow fat on the spoils they have collected from smug-faced church-and-chapel-goers at home. Labour Members are in the pay of Germany and frequent infamous flats in the West-End. Liberal Cabinet Ministers—sometimes, more shame to them, of decent birth—wince consciously when reminded of the taint of their association with plebeian colleagues. These things, and many more of equal moment, I have learnt from Mr. STANLEY PORTAL HYATT, who in The Way of the Cardines (WERNER LAURIE) describes how Sir Gerald, of that ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, January 28, 1914 • Various

... now? Why don't you let them alone and come straight to the point? What's to be done then? Your system is very, very hard for the poor boy; and he is so quiet too with all his pain and sickness. It tears my heart to see him wince, ...
— The Post Office • Rabindranath Tagore

... superb in its haughty reserve, although I could not say much for her courtesy. As he released her hand she let it drop quietly to her side and stood still, gazing at him with a quiet, disdainful look that would have made almost any other man wince. ...
— Revelations of a Wife - The Story of a Honeymoon • Adele Garrison

... before the country as voting down the words of the Declaration of Independence.... I rise simply to ask gentlemen to think well before, upon the free prairies of the West, in the summer of 1860, they dare to wince and quail before the assertion of the men of Philadelphia in 1776—before they dare to shrink from repeating the words that these ...
— The Life of Abraham Lincoln • Henry Ketcham

... he ever got to Lockerbie's that night. It was part of the Naapu ritual not to drink just before you reached your host's house, and that ritual, it soon became evident, Schneider had not observed. I saw Lockerbie scowl, and Follet wince, and some of the others stare. I could not help being amused, for I knew that no one would object to his being in that condition an hour later. The only point was that he should not have arrived like that. If Schneider had had anything resembling ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various

... the stone flooring. Val turned his head cautiously and tried not to wince. Rupert was coming in with a bowl of water, from which steam still arose. Across his arm lay a towel and in his other hand was ...
— Ralestone Luck • Andre Norton

... the expression of the face that looks at it. To meet hate with hate, and scorn with scorn, is not the way to turn hate into love and scorn into sympathy. Indifferent equilibrium in the presence of active antagonism is not possible for us. As long as we are sensitive we shall wince from a blow, or a sarcasm, or a sneer. We must bless in order to keep ourselves from cursing. The lesson is very hard, and the only way of obeying it fully is to keep near Christ and drink in His spirit who prayed 'Father, forgive them, for they ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: Romans Corinthians (To II Corinthians, Chap. V) • Alexander Maclaren

... as the child was called, was ten years of age, she herself made a preliminary test of his courage by sewing his garment to his skin, and then suddenly snatching it off, and as the brave boy did not so much as wince, but laughed aloud, she confidently sent him to the forest hut. Sigmund speedily prepared his usual test, and ere leaving the hut one day he bade Sinfiotli take meal from a certain sack, and knead ...
— Myths of the Norsemen - From the Eddas and Sagas • H. A. Guerber

... to eager forecasts and combinations. As to individuals—she recalled Tressady's blunt warning with a smile and a wince. But it did not prevent her from falling into a reverie of which he, or someone like him, was the centre. Types, incidents, scenes, rose before her—if they could only be pressed upon, burnt into such a mind, as they had been burnt into her mind and Maxwell's! That was the whole ...
— Sir George Tressady, Vol. I • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... "Ay! wince you may. I have found out everything, thanks to—but I'll not couple his name with yours. And the release ...
— The Galaxy, Volume 23, No. 2, February, 1877 • Various

... that I gazed still more closely at him, and was already resolved not to move aside, even if he drove a coach and four at me. I had trembled before him when he had rebuked me for my violin-playing; but now, when real danger threatened me, I did not wince at his gaze. ...
— Debts of Honor • Maurus Jokai

... wanted to fold him close in her arms. They had been open there for this purpose the last half-hour, and her expectancy, now no longer an ache of suspense, was the reason of Julia's round pace. Yet this very impatience in her somehow made Nick wince a little. Meeting his mother was like ...
— The Tragic Muse • Henry James

... he started back in astonishment. Then he laughed and looked more closely at Lane. It was a look that made Lane wince, for he understood it to ...
— The Day of the Beast • Zane Grey

... even a man wince. It cut the dying woman before me like the blow of a whip. "Please forgive me, Jack; I didn't mean to make you angry; ...
— The Best Ghost Stories • Various

... winged messenger of death, this was his first experience. He now learned that in the music of the empty shell of experiment and the wicked screech of the missiles of war there was an unpleasant difference. He did not wince, but sternly drew himself together, thought of home, begged God's mercy, and awaited the command to advance with an impatience that was ...
— The Story of Isaac Brock - Hero, Defender and Saviour of Upper Canada, 1812 • Walter R. Nursey



Words linked to "Wince" :   shrink back, jump, cringe, pull a face, start, grimace, retract, make a face, facial gesture, facial expression, move, startle



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