love-in-idleness
Britishnoun
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
"It would serve you right," said she, truculently, "if some one were to rub your eyes with love-in-idleness, to make you dote upon the next live creature that you see."
From My Friend Prospero by Harland, Henry
English is all Puck's fairy lore, the cowslips tall, the red-hipt humble-bee, Oberon's bank, the pansy love-in-idleness, and all the lovely imagery of the verse.
From Shakespeare's Christmas Gift to Queen Bess by McMahan, Anna Benneson
Yet mark'd I where the bolt of Cupid fell: It fell upon a little western flower,— Before, milk-white, now purple with love's wound,— And maidens call it love-in-idleness.
From The Canadian Elocutionist by Howard, Anna Kelsey
Apple, crab, chestnut, cypress, hazel, oats, onion, love-in-idleness, mustard, parsley, roses, rush, sedges, walnut.
From The plant-lore & garden-craft of Shakespeare by Ellacombe, Henry Nicholson
Four lovers, two young Athenians of high birth and their sweethearts, are almost inextricably tangled by careless Robin Goodfellow, who has dropped the juice of love-in-idleness upon the eyes of the wrong lovers.
From An Introduction to Shakespeare by MacCracken, H. N.
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
