Sentence Examples:
"Come with me, and," as he dragged McNeil to the door and paused there, "if you dare lisp a word of what you've overheard, I'll fire you like a shot!"
This is not only the most elegant but most politic way of writing that a poet can use, for I know no defense like it to preserve a poem from the torture of those that lisp and stammer.
All the energy he had once bestowed on imitating lisps and stuttering, was now engaged in catching the sounds of foreign tongues, and thus taking one step towards the citizenship of the world.
With a calm and deliberate manner therefore, in my feigned voice, one of the characteristics of which was lisping, I asked, "Pray, gentlemen, what may be your pleasure with me?"
The notes are too short and simple for a Song Sparrow or a Thrush, too plaintive for a Wren, and too clear for a lisping Wood Warbler.
From these books the lisping lips of children have learned the tales of beautiful goodness which have nourished all noble aspirations.
Out at the very edge the water washed up against the piles with a thick, inarticulate lisp, as if what it had to say might only be understood from the under side.
Saying this, she crept closer to his side, and knelt there, and by her old trick of love she took his hand in both of hers, and pressed it against her cheek, and then, lifting her sweet face with its motionless eyes she began to tell him in her broken words and pretty lisp what she thought of night.
A group of men was dimly visible behind their chairs, wrapped in a haze of cigar smoke; and in the midst of them stood a lanky young man with red whiskers, talking loudly, with a lisp, in English.
When they sat down to play cards, he, lisping and choking with laughter, said that all that "dear George" wanted to complete his domestic felicity was a cherry-wood pipe and a guitar.
John talked with them in his own way, with chirps and lisping of the lips, and they were no more afraid of him than of a good-natured tree.
The gray town, with its blue film of peat smoke slowly rising into the clear air, was reflected upon the smooth water that lapped and lisped against the stone piers.
For some time there had been a quiet gurgling and lisping down in the grass, but it had meant nothing, until, of a sudden, I heard the rush of a wave along the beach: the tide was coming in.
He recalled one night, shortly before his wife died, when the little Iris was brought into her room to kiss her and lisp her infantile prayers.
She called herself Daisy, in her lisping fashion, and her lovely disposition had won for her the poetical title of "Daisy of the Glen."
It is artifice rather than art, perhaps, to lisp and drawl, that, when you do speak out, your speech may be the more effective.
Children lisp, at first, and stammer; but, in time, their speech becomes fluent, and, if they are well taught, harmonious.
His voice was soft and harmonious, with just a trace of a lisp, or rather of that peculiar intonation which is commonly described as "short-tongued."
Philosophy, as a part of education, is an excellent thing, and there is no disgrace to a man while he is young in pursuing such a study; but when he is more advanced in years, the thing becomes ridiculous, and I feel towards philosophers as I do towards those who lisp and imitate children.
With others who survived the tongue did not remain unaffected, and they lived on either lisping or speaking incoherently and with difficulty.
Halsey's eyes, the touch of his hand, her baby's voice lisping the tenets of their faith in repetition of his father's solemn tones, these were sights and sounds as yet too near her.
While we were dressing, a few hurried drops of rain came lisping down, and we adjourned to the tent to wait the passing of the squall.
The little, lisping girl had evolved a plan; but, that they might not suspect her of any trickery, she screamed the louder.
Often when among his wicked companions, those lips that had been taught to lisp the nightly prayer at his mother's knee were stained with oaths and impure language.
When at last both had told their story, and every question and answer had again and again been renewed, and all its side bearings and suggestions had been satisfactorily explained, the sweet, lisping sounds of the river flooded their souls with its music.
I never knew it myself till yesterday, and then I wrung it from my mother, who charged me, if I valued her life, never to lisp it again.
The Captain lisped with pale nonchalance, giving one of those strong, piercing looks he sometimes afforded, right into the hostess's eyes.
They also, as a rule, lisp for a considerable time, so that the words spoken by them are still indistinct and are intelligible only to the persons most intimately associated with them.
Many of us, studying hard to get our lessons, were very likely to make sounds with our lips, and in the silence of that schoolroom the least little lisp was sure to reach the master's ear.
Several persons began making pretty speeches to their host on his compassion and kind heart, and the young lady next to Roderick lisped about romantic feelings and sentimental magnanimity.
He was about six feet two in his socks, as slim as a bean pole, with a head about the size of an ordinary tin cup and very bald, and he lisped.
"We approach the moment," cried one, a young man with a lisping intonation and great possessions, as I afterwards learned.
The primary youngsters lisping their faltering words, the men lighting the candles that sent forth the glorious message sparkling from the trees, all seemed moved.
From the lisp of little wavelets lapping on the shore below the woods, he knew he was quite close in to the bank, and close also to the place where the invisible boat had been ten minutes before.
He speaks of "the vitreous pour of the full moon, just tinged with blue," of the "lisp" of the plane, of the prairies, "where herds of buffalo make a crawling spread of the square miles."
Perhaps the silence of early light, even on the "field dew consecrate" of the grass itself, is not so tender as the lisp of the sweet belled lips of the clear waves in their following patience.
Even his speech had lost its childish lisp, and he had begun to express himself somewhat in the allegorical language of the American Indian.
Did he lisp in numbers, the boyish rhymes were duly scanned and criticized; had he a turn for painting, lessons were provided.
You were a cad from your cradle; you were a liar as soon as you could learn to lisp, and a sponge from the happy hour when you found the first fool to lend you half a crown.
I fixed myself up in the outfit I just threw off, and, with this English tourist rig and a sissy lisp, I succeeded in deceiving everybody.
Winifred looks delicate, and has an insinuating little lisp; Marion, when amused, has a deep, fat chuckle, which makes one long to hug her on the spot.
I disappeared into the entry amid peals of happy laughter from both old and young, calling, when the door opened again to ask me who I wanted, for the pretty, lisping flirt who had proposed the game.
Patiently she tried to win the child's further confidence, to stimulate the baby memory, to unravel the lisped statements.
And yet these men were no "lisping hawthorn buds," their souls were not in their clothes, or we had not the signers of the Declaration of Independence and the heroes of the Revolution.
The pure moon looks in at the southern window, replacing the ruddier glow; while the fading embers lisp and prattle to one another, like drowsy children, more and more faintly, till they fall asleep.
The blooming child lisps Franklin's name, as with glistening eye and greedy ear it hears of the wonders of the North, and the brave deeds there done.
We went out of doors and saw the surges breaking on the shore, but the waves seemed happy that night, and lisped joyfully like children at their play.
He leans upon his stick, and seldom raises his bent head; but for all that his eyes are on a level with the two little fairy children who come to him in all their small joys and sorrows, and who learned to lisp his name almost as soon as they did that of their father and mother.
One elderly spinster to whom he was presented greeted him with an affected lisp, drooping eyes and an inane remark about the terrible cold.
His great plea was an imaginary dialogue between himself and his little son, that precocious infant asking him in lisping tones, "Father, what country do we live in?"
She learned to talk very early, and so speedy was her improvement in the art of prattling, that, before she was three years old, she could lisp out a tale in very intelligible language.
These Greeks, for instance, though they have adopted this language as their own, and have been accustomed in no other to lisp to their nurses, have altogether discarded the orthography.
She talked in a sweet old treble with a little lisp, caused by the absence of teeth, and her laugh was as clear and joyous as a young girl's.
Old Uncle Tim had been trying to get himself to the point of doing something which it was somehow hard to do, but this tremulous lisping of his own name settled the question.
Van Busch twisted the ring about his little finger, and spoke with a more sluggish lisp and slurring of the consonants than even was usual with him.
I presumed he intended to cross and deliver the pony, which was in a corral on the west side, but he lisped out a hurried excuse.
Jimmy belonged to them by birth, and yet, as he sat amongst them, listening to the lisping voice of the senior curate, he found it hard to realize the fact.
There were times when she used English with an extreme of her lisping accent, but that was when it seemed good business so to do.
He was a manly boy, and when my little friend could hardly lisp his name she would run to him with the unerring instinct of childhood and nestle in his arms or cling to his helpful finger.
They are almost exclusively found in pine woods, either light or heavy growth, where they can always be located by their peculiar, musical lisping trill.
My attention is constantly being distracted to note how prettily she moves, to wonder why it is I never noticed the sweet fall, the faint delightful whisper of a lisp in her voice before.
We have, in fact, heard this very criticism reiterated by various authorities ever since those prehistoric days when we began to lisp in numbers.
She had learned to lisp French with comparative fluency, during the months she and "Angel" had spent in Paris; and now she asked where the people went who had come in on those pretty white ships?
He said the 's' quite plainly, for his lisp was a very changeable one, and already he was on the way to lose it altogether.
If an avaricious character is made to make a miserly speech, a reader will have a clue to his nature; if he is made to make it with a lisp or stutter, there will be a descriptive touch as well.
He was talking with great animation, his jaws moving rapidly like the jaws of a ventriloquist's dummy, which he altogether resembled, and his toothless gums gave out a hissing lisp.
Lisped the little one, and contrived to nestle up so closely to Peregrine, that he could not help embracing her most tenderly in spite of all his good resolutions.
He attempted to lisp and drawl according to the Roman fashion, but, carried away by genuine emotion, soon forgot the affectation.
The angry girl pushed the blackguard from her as he attempted to stroke her cheeks, lisping something about the golden locks of Berenice.
The call of the fledgling is soft, with a lisping quality; that of the adult is much like it but is sharper and more piercing.
The moment he opened his mouth to speak he stood revealed as a Hebrew of the Hebrews, and even before then, for apart from his lisping utterance he had all the bodily peculiarities of his race.
And my man, cringing as if he were going to hide under the women's skirts, got down, as white as if his blood had left him, and lisping as if he were drunk.
"I must be going mad," he thought, and to steady his mind he turned to the book, thinking to follow the old parson as he lisped along.
The memory of his own folded hands, of his timid child's voice lisping prayers, and of his sacred soft baptismal name, Marie, rose in him.
They lisped "Good-evening," and asked her to recommend them a book to read, in a tone of mingled diffidence and self-assurance, while they measured her with the stare of expert judges.
And never have I ceased to offer the prayer I told you of, and my little daughter, although she can scarcely lisp the words, offers petitions to the Blessed Virgin for your health and happiness, for she has learned that it is to your goodness that we owe all that we now have.
While we were dressing, a few hurried drops of rain came lisping down, and we adjourned to the tent to await the passing of the squall.
He merely lisps in sonata accents, it is true, but his lisp is as fascinating as the ingenuous prattle of an attractive child.
He now mixed quite at his ease with Frank's other acquaintances, carefully dressed, agreeable, and entertaining, and lisping English with an affected accent, which he thought elegant.
I was so relieved at not being thrown out of house and home on the instant that I went back to Gladys and her lisping in French almost cheerily.
When he knocked at the door the baroness said "come in," and gave him the tips of her fingers; then, with a wave of her hand towards the basket, she lisped out: "Did you ever see such extravagance!"
Not easy were their names and titles to her lisping Latin tongue, as she greeted the guests graciously and gracefully, her mother by her side.
She would practice making round eyes and an engaging pout as she lisped out: "But, Mother dearest, what is the great big world really, really like?"
Although his retreat was perfectly well known to nearly every inhabitant of the island, neither man, woman nor child ever lisped the secret.
As the dead years babbled, she listened now to echoes of manly tones, and now to a baby's prattling lisp, still dividing as of yore her heart's homage.
He spoke with a lisp and a drawl, and if one could judge by his own confessions, seemed to have no knowledge of any one thing in the whole system of the universe.
Tommy was delightedly dancing about on the barn floor during all this time, uttering a perfect volley of unintelligible lisps and jeering cries.
The face itself was rather tanned and brown, lean in contour and suggesting the explorer and the travelled man; and all this was oddly contradicted by an engaging little button of a mouth, which twitched and lisped and was always rather more jolly than the occasion warranted.
Ted Burgoyne was afflicted with a slight lisp that gave him no end of trouble; though he always insisted that he spoke as correctly as any of his companions.
His moderation swept over into the feverish irritation she knew so well how to kindle in him, and his lisp became so marked that he was almost unintelligible.
He was nervous, which aggravated his lisp, and he spoke so rapidly and in such a low voice that no one but those immediately in front of him, could understand what he said.
The lisping little man with the straw-colored mustache smiled indulgently and pulled out a roll, from which he stripped a five-dollar note.
She said, in that awful, gentle voice so often found in consumptives, and wherein we seem to recognize the lisping of children, the twittering of birds, and the gurgle of the dying.
He is most often seen in May in the apple trees, peeping into the opening blossoms for insects, uttering now and then his slender, lisping, brief song.
She lisped a little, and as she emphasized the word "tho" she shook her head in a little confiding way, and the smirk deepened into a nervous grin.
"You think you can; but you're away off, Ted," grinned Ty, who never grew weary of nagging the other on that lisp, with which he was afflicted. "When did you see them, Adam?"
I have no doubt that at first I encouraged her confidence, so unfailing was my delight in the lisping prattle, interrupted by giggles, with which they were made.
Know that, in my home, I am already joined by the indissoluble tie of marriage to a virtuous wife, and her three tender children lisp their father's name.
The colorless visitor departed with his disobedient dog, and soon a thin pipe was heard in vain whistles upon the twilight like the lisp of reeds along the dreary margin of a December stream.
His little son was being taught English, from a number of picture books written in Chinese and English, and would always put his little hand in mine and lisp, "Good morning, how do you do?"