shrinkings

The loud weeping, the starts of pain, the bitter yearnings for the past, the sick shrinkings from the future, are put by, like funereal garments: they no longer prove to the casual observer that we have sustained some dear loss.

Stuart of Dunleath: A Story of Modern Times 1851

But there was so much more, so much that transcended these unimportant physical shrinkings and she sat, quietly happy, by his side, grieved for these others with their past pains and their remaining problems, but for herself content.

Tour de Force Brand, Christianna, 1907- 1955

The notion of a gently-nurtured girl being at the mercy of that fiend incarnate, possessed -- as I believed that so-called Arab to be possessed -- of all the paraphernalia of horror and of dread, was one which caused me tangible shrinkings of the body.

The Beetle Richard Marsh

Walden that she saw; Cynthia of the long braids of hair and short patched gingham gown of irregular length -- owing to many washings and shrinkings.

A Son of the Hills

The impulses and the shrinkings of the flesh perish in His Presence alike.

Parables of the Christ-life I. Lilias Trotter

There were dreads, shrinkings, bewilderments, confusions to encounter; the difficulties of pilotage in unknown seas, of self-knowledge, and guidance suddenly needed in new ranges of the soul; fresh temptations, fresh possibilities to deal with; everything untested, the alphabet of worldly experience yet to learn.

The Daughters of Danaus Mona Caird

To him, in his present furious mood, her grief, her fear, her shrinkings, are all so many movements in the game of coquette, at which she is a past mistress.

April's Lady A Novel Margaret Wolfe Hungerford

How many slights, shrinkings, coldnesses she had discerned! the tale of them was hot in her brain, the index heavy on her heart.

Here are Ladies James Stephens 1916

Thus he came reeling down the aisle, thrusting his bottle right and left, to be denied with shrinkings or with bluff excuses.

Desert Dust J. Clinton Shepherd 1911

I was repaid in that moment for all the self-denials and fastidious shrinkings of my youth.

The Jervaise Comedy 1910