Pretension

Usage examples of airs.

The table was laid for thirty, but before dinner Madame Goudar seated herself at the piano, and sang a few airs with the voice of a siren, and with a confidence that did not astonish the other guests as they knew her, but which astonished me extremely, for her singing was really admirable.

I therefore replied with all the airs of a doctor of finance that I could say something about the theory of taxation.

The servant sent in my name, and the fop gave himself airs, and pretended that he could not receive me.

The girls of course thought themselves obliged to mimic the airs of men, and they did not accost us like young men accustomed to behave respectfully to ladies.

Sophie went to the piano, played with feeling, and then sang some Italian airs, to the accompaniment of the guitar, too well for her age.

I used to visit her every day, and wrote verses for her to sing to the Roman airs she delivered so gracefully.

I think the reason probably was that she was too natural, too devoid of those assumed graces and coquettish airs which women employ with so much art for the seduction of men.

As for the men, on whose arms they leaned, their careless and lounging airs were intended to give the idea of a surfeit of pleasure, and to make one think that the disordered appearance of their companions was a sure triumph they had enjoyed.

Babet Rangoni, though poor, deserved to become s princess, for she had all the airs and manners of one.

However, Betty's adoring airs irritated me, though I was consoled at the thought of the earnest I had received from her.

Not even all the disadvantage of nasal intonation could prevent the effect of the naturally fine voices, in airs at once wild and spirited.

And Mandy, who had never in her life thought of the meaning of a word she had heard, more than a black cat, now took airs of superior wisdom, and strutted about, forgetting to state that, though actually coiled up among the jugs at the time specified, she had been fast asleep all the time.

She has all her life presumed on her delicacy, and her good looks, and her lady-like airs, till she forgets who she is.

I'll teach her, with all her airs, that she's no better than the raggedest black wench that walks the streets!

Once let them feel that they are to take any airs about delicacy, and all that, and they'll run all over you, just as my servants always have.