half-absent

• “For years, she will have the same half-absent look, the same taut expression.”

  The Huffington Post: James Elkins: How Long Does it Take To Look at a Painting?

• “Link with me, Dar-ian, " he ordered, but in a half-absent voice.”

  Fictionaut: Elephant in the City

• “She did most of the talking, her mother listening with a half-absent air, as she picked up fragments of red-hot wood ember with the tongs, and piled them upon the brands.”

  Wessex Tales

• “He continued, looking at her with a half-absent fixity,”

  Lay Morals

• “‘But this is very sad, Jasper,’ said Mrs Milvain, in her half-absent way.”

  New Grub Street

• “This gave him courage, and soon he found himself talking, freely for him, without noticing how Arthur's apparently half-absent questioning led him through all the details, not just of the killing of Gabran, but of his own story from the beginning.”

  The Wicked Day

• “No," said he, in a half-absent tone; "I have just come up, and I've not thought of looking into picture-galleries yet.”

  Master of His Fate

• “But Hepsey's look was now riveted on the chairman, and except for a half-absent smile of pleasure, the keenest anxiety showed in her expression.”

  Hepsey Burke

• “She would watch them, as the maid took off her carriage shoes; pleasantly take her turn at the mirror, exchange a shy, half-absent greeting with the few she knew; wish, with all her heart, that she dared put herself under their protection.”

  Saturday's Child

• “Why?' said Mr. Freddy, sticking in his eye-glass. [hyphen removed] page 36: hyphen added kept watching with a kind of half-absent - [hyphen added] minded scorn page 102: quotation typographical error corrected”

  The Convert

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