fig-leaved

A husband is a charming cloke, a fig-leaved apron for a wife: and for a lady to be protected in liberties, in diversions, which her heart pants after — and all her faults, even the most criminal, were she to be detected, to be thrown upon the husband, and the ridicule too; a charming privilege for a wife!

Clarissa Harlowe 2006

The fig-leaved savage under his bread-fruit tree, the fur-clad Eskimo in his ice-hut, need not be asked: the needed food is in all due supply with little cost of muscle and less of mind -- and he has no mental condition that can disturb the digestion.

The No Breakfast Plan and the Fasting-Cure Edward Hooker Dewey

He could have gone in fig-leaved like Eve, or fig-leafless like September Morn, it being remembered that as between these two, as popularly depicted, Morn wears even less than Eve.

Europe Revised 1910

At the door of the Uffizzi, in Florence, one is confronted by statues of a man and a woman, noseless, battered, black with accumulated grime, -- they hardly suggest human beings -- yet these ridiculous creatures have been thoughtfully and conscientiously fig-leaved by this fastidious generation.

A Tramp Abroad 1879

These works, which had stood in innocent nakedness for ages, are all fig-leaved now.

A Tramp Abroad 1879

These works, which had stood in innocent nakedness for ages, are all fig-leaved now.

1601 Mark Twain 1872

These works, which had stood in innocent nakedness for ages, are all fig-leaved now.

A Tramp Abroad — Volume 07 Mark Twain 1872

From the day when two hairy-naked or fig-leaved Human Figures began, as uncomfortable dummies, anxious no longer to be dumb, but to impart themselves to one another; and endeavoured, with gaspings, gesturings, with unsyllabled cries, with painful pantomime and interjections, in a very unsuccessful manner, -- up to the writing of this present copyright

Past and Present Thomas Carlyle's Collected Works, Vol. XIII. Thomas Carlyle 1838

A husband is a charming cloke, a fig-leaved apron for a wife: and for a lady to be protected in liberties, in diversions, which her heart pants after -- and all her faults, even the most criminal, were she to be detected, to be thrown upon the husband, and the ridicule too; a charming privilege for a wife!

Clarissa Harlowe; or the history of a young lady — Volume 7 Samuel Richardson 1725

-- yet these ridiculous creatures have been thoughtfully and conscientiously fig-leaved by this fastidious generation.

A Tramp Abroad — Volume 07 Mark Twain 1872