verb
definition
(often with up) To make or become sober.
definition
(often with up) To overcome or lose a state of intoxication.
example
It took him hours to sober up.
definition
To moderate one's feelings
adjective
definition
Not drunk; not intoxicated
definition
Not given to excessive drinking of alcohol
example
1890, John Charles, The Godly, Righteous, And Sober Life
definition
Moderate; realistic; serious; not playful; not passionate; cool; self-controlled
definition
Dull; not bright or colorful
definition
Subdued; solemn; grave
definition
Poor; feeble
Examples of sober in a Sentence
She met his sober gaze and smiled.
His eyes were twinkling, but he maintained a sober expression.
She met his sober gaze.
His face was sober, the blue eyes probing her mind again.
Finally her sober gaze came back to Carmen.
In many cases sober convictions or submissive assent supplied the want of spontaneous enthusiasm.
His expression was sober as he placed a hand on the counter on each side of her.
Thus, in a French pseudo-historic romance, Les Faits des Romains (c. 1223), he receives the honour of a bishopric. His name was not usually associated with the marvellous, and the trouvere of Huon de Bordeaux outstepped the usual sober tradition when he made Oberon the son of Julius Caesar and Morgan la Fay.
An unhappy propensity to duelling, the origin in Arkansas of the bowie-knife, - from an alleged use of which Arkansas received the nickname, which it has always retained, of the " toothpick state," - and other backwoods associations gave the state a reputation which to some extent has survived in spite of many years of sober history.
And even amongst the adherents of the left-hand mode of worship, many of these are said to follow it as a matter of family tradition rather than of religious conviction, and to practise it in a sober and temperate manner; whilst only an extreme section - the so-called Kaulas or Kulinas, who appeal to a spurious Upanishad, the Kaulopanishad, as the divine authority of their tenets - persist in carrying on the mystic and licentious rites taught in many of the Tantras.
We are accustomed to find the legendary and the miraculous gathering, like a halo, around the early history of religious leaders, until the sober truth runs the risk of being altogether neglected for the glittering and edifying falsehood.
From the first he showed a sober and grave bearing; he reconciled himself to all his enemies, gave up his youthful follies, and became a model king Hi according to the ideas of his day.
Nothing came of the project, which contrasts strangely with the greater part of Henrys sober and cautious schemes.
One pregnant bride remained stone cold sober while her friends got paralytic.
Often, however, her sober ideas are not to be laughed at, for her earnestness carries her listeners with her.
Only a couple of times a year--when he knew from their valets that they had money in hand--he would turn up of a morning quite sober and with a deep bow would ask them to help him.
Juvenal is no organ of the pride and dignity, still less of the urbanity, of the cultivated representatives of the great families of the republic. He is the champion of the more sober virtues and ideas, and perhaps the organ of the rancours and detraction, of an educated but depressed and embittered middle class.
The fifth is a social picture of the degradation to which poor guests were exposed at the banquets of the rich, but many of the epigrams of Martial and the more sober evidence of one of Pliny's letters show that the picture painted by Juvenal, though perhaps exaggerated in colouring, was drawn from a state of society prevalent during and immediately subsequent to the times of Domitian.
Large bodies of emigrants, chiefly recruited from the sober, hardy and industrious peasantry of the northern provinces, annually leave Portugal to seek fortune in America.
He has made frank confession of his nescience, and in certain passages his critical judgment and sober sense and circumspection are quite striking.
On the other hand, the Serbs and the Greeks, thus kept out of the banquet, were not only exasperated, but sober as well.
Tindal's aim seems to have been a sober statement of the whole case in favour of natural religion, with copious but moderately worded criticism of such beliefs and usages in the Christian and other religions as he conceived to be either non-religious or directly immoral and unwholesome.
Fleury, Rabelais is a sober reformer, an apostle of earnest work, of sound education, of rational if not dogmatic religion, who wraps up his morals in a farcical envelope partly to make them go down with the vulgar and partly to shield himself from the consequences of his reforming zeal.
Le Duchat was a very careful student, and on the whole a very efficient editor, being perhaps, of the group of students of old French at the beginning of the 18th century, which included La Monnoye and others, the most sober, critical and accomplished.
Vinet's Chrestomathie francaise (1829), his Etudes sur la litterature francaise au XIX me siècle (1849-51), and his Histoire de la litterature francaise au X VIII me siecle, together with his Etudes sur Pascal, Etudes sur les moralistes aux X VIme ei X VII me siecles, Histoire de la predication parmi les Reformes de France and other kindred works, gave evidence of a wide knowledge of literature, a sober and acute literary judgment and a distinguished faculty of appreciation.
In his gruesome descriptions of physical sufferings the author offends against good taste even more than the writer of 2 Macc., while both contrast very unfavourably in this respect with the sober reserve of the gospel narratives.
They are frugal, sober, industrious and intelligent, and their sturdiness of character has enabled them to preserve their nationality and religion under the sorest trials.
His smooth bronzed features were sober as he gazed up at her expectantly.
Alex was a romantic lover... while he was sober.
His voice sounded sober, but then, he didn't sound drunk earlier.
Why would they be responsible because Byrne acted like a jerk and decided to go for a midnight swim—drunk or sober?
Like maybe Jeffrey Byrne was just stupid enough to drown himself—half-drunk or sober.
The lecture was delivered with great energy; but it was sober and argumentative, and often eloquent.
Arriving at Scots night stone cold sober at midnight is highly amusing.
Walter Cook, the farm bailiff said deceased was perfectly sober.
The longer a patient took an alcohol deterrent, the researchers found, the more likely he or she was to stay sober.
Conquest of Poverty We can commend Malthus for his sober methodological individualism.
The sober effort to achieve such mastery is, of course, exactly what's needed.
I suddenly felt very middle-aged, very sober, and rather sore.
Instead her now-familiar ritual of alternately preening then appearing petrified conjured up an atmosphere not of sober reflection but juvenile hysteria.
What if, after sober and careful consideration, they have decided that the cons of doing what you ask for outweigh the pros?
And with loads of great drinks promos you're going to have to work pretty hard at staying sober.
Before he can even sober up and see straight, he finds himself posing as the good reverend himself.
I went in to discover him on the bed, stone cold sober, lying back and displaying his freshly shaven bollocks.
Take a drink, by all means, but try to say relatively sober.
Salsa dance is not so easy unless you are fairly sober, so generally not much is drunk.
I do this completely sober with my eyes wide open.
I went very hungry and totally sober for several weeks.
Finally, in order to stay sober he has to witness.
A crate of beer can often make a good incentive, as you'll have kept sober up until the end.