wire-drawn

Much of a wire-drawn ingenuity has been conjectured about the probable strains of heredity which met in Ibsen.

Henrik Ibsen 2008

Much of a wire-drawn ingenuity has been conjectured about the probable strains of heredity which met in Ibsen.

Henrik Ibsen 2008

– But to be cajoled, wire-drawn, and ensnared, like silly birds, into a state of bondage or vile subordination: to be courted as princesses for a few weeks, in order to be treated as slaves for the rest of our lives – Indeed, my dear, as you say of Solmes, I cannot endure them!

The Clarissa Report « So Many Books 2005

There, dear readers, Ex pede Herculem; I cannot tire myself or you (especially in this book) with any wire-drawn soul-dissections.

Westward Ho! 2007

But to be cajoled, wire-drawn, and ensnared, like silly birds, into a state of bondage, or vile subordination; to be courted as princesses for a few weeks, in order to be treated as slaves for the rest of our lives.

Clarissa Harlowe 2006

Christopher stammered, with a wire-drawn, radically different smile from the one he had intended — a smile not without a tinge of ghastliness.

The Hand of Ethelberta 2006

True, the rocket bursts; it scatters in a shower of minute, separate particles — curious speculations, wire-drawn comparisons, obsolete erudition; but, winged by the double pressure of mind and heart, of reason and imagination, it soars far and fast into a finer air.

The Common Reader, Second Series 2004

It is only the vague, superfine sensations, and extremely wire-drawn notions, that put me about.

Shirley, by Charlotte Bronte 2004

(For we are not talking of ceremonies and wire-drawn creeds now, but the living heart and soul of what is pretty often only a specter.)

Mark Twain: A Biography 2003

And why should the same expressions used in the Gospel, and many of them aiming directly to declare the fulfilling of the other, be wire-drawn to a large extent, so contrary to the mind of the Holy Ghost?

The Death of Death in the Death of Christ 1616-1683 1967