Word: keening
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...responds instantly to the photographer's every direction, almost before it is spoken. Her body (bust and hips 34 in.) is so supple that she can pull in her normally 23-inch waist to 18 inches. She has the gift of mimicry every good model needs, and a keen fashion sense. Once, she appeared 103 times in a single issue of a magazine, scarcely looked like the same girl in two pictures. Says she: "The photographer says, 'Look sexy,' and I look sexy. He says, 'Look like a kitten,' and I look like a kitten...
...sits erect before the instrument and in full command of it. His wrists are rigid and his bony fingers strong and sure...Not only does he play such numbers [as the Paderewski Minuet in G] completely and correctly, seldom if ever missing or muffing a note, but he evidences keen insight into the composer's intent by subtle shadings of interpretation...[When] he tackled a bit of Chopin...I was downright floored. I knew he played well-but not that well...
Mystic Meditations. He describes the praying mantis, "or, as they say in Provence, lou Prégo Diéou, the Pray-to-God," with keen observation and lively imagination. "Her long pale green wings, like spreading veils, her head raised heavenwards, her folded arms, crossed upon her breast, are in fact a sort of travesty of a nun in ecstasy." The travesty is complete when the mantis makes her kill: "With the sharpness of a spring, the toothed forearm folds back on the toothed upper arm; and the insect is caught between the blades of the double saw . . . Thereupon...
...postwar, government-aided scholarship students. Once he told the House of Lords why he was so concerned: "They were from poor homes and poor schools; they were boys for whom getting a state scholarship meant absolutely everything. Therefore their headmasters . . . embraced them. Their dear parents embraced them. Keen competition had ruined their health, almost their minds. They could only pass examinations...
Victoria, not keen on racing, always kept up the tradition of royal sponsorship of Ascot meets. She once asked the midget jockey Bell how much he weighed. Staunchly, little Bell replied: "My master says I'm never to tell my weight." (He weighed...