sober

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sober

(of colours) plain and dull or subdued

References in classic literature ?

Then my heart it grew ashen and sober As the leaves that were crisped and sere -- As the leaves that were withering and sere -- And I cried -- "It was surely October On this very night of last year, That I journeyed -- I journeyed down here

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It takes away the guard of reason, and consequently forces us to produce those symptoms, which many, when sober, have art enough to conceal.

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whispered Rose, as the little troop marched slowly by to the muffled roll of the drums, every flag and sword held low, all the little heads uncovered, and the childish faces very sober as the leafy shadows flickered over them.

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I do not,' sez Peg, 'but dhrunk or sober I'll tear the hide off your back wid a shovel whin I've stopped singin'.

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Bangs came, said Beth had symptoms of the fever, but he thought she would have it lightly, though he looked sober over the Hummel story.

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Sometimes he fell and cut himself; sometimes he lay all day long in his little bunk at one side of the companion; sometimes for a day or two he would be almost sober and attend to his work at least passably.

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But Montgomery was still sober enough to understand my motive in denying Moreau's death.

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For the King of Bekwando, drunk or sober, was a stickler for etiquette.

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And on Monday morning, weary, he began the new week's work, but he had kept sober.

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And presently he came marching back towards the house, with no mark of a sailor's clumsiness, but carrying his fine, tall figure with a manly bearing, and still with the same sober, grave expression on his face.

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He's the best natured- est old fool in Arkansaw -- never hurt nobody, drunk nor sober.

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It was after the early supper-time at the Red House, and the entertainment was in that stage when bashfulness itself had passed into easy jollity, when gentlemen, conscious of unusual accomplishments, could at length be prevailed on to dance a hornpipe, and when the Squire preferred talking loudly, scattering snuff, and patting his visitors' backs, to sitting longer at the whist-table--a choice exasperating to uncle Kimble, who, being always volatile in sober business hours, became intense and bitter over cards and brandy, shuffled before his adversary's deal with a glare of suspicion, and turned up a mean trump-card with an air of inexpressible disgust, as if in a world where such things could happen one might as well enter on a course of reckless profligacy.