"Adjective" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... torn from our kindly associations with the old Iliad, that once was our most cherished companion, or our most looked-for prize, merely because Buttmann, Loewe, and Liddell have made us so much more accurate as to amphikupellon being an adjective, and not a substantive. Far be it from us to defend the faults of Pope, especially when we think of Chapman's fine, bold, rough old English;—far be it from, us to hold up his translation as what a translation of Homer might ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer
... a Hebrew adjective, means firm, faithful; and, as an adverb, verily, or, as the Catechism explains it, so be it. "Its proper place is where one person confirms the words of another, and adds his wish for success to the other's vows and predictions" (Gesenius). Each of the first four Books of the ...
— The Prayer Book Explained • Percival Jackson
... civil war?' asked Grandpapa, with a gentle emphasis on the adjective, which caused the combatants to calm ...
— Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott
... so charming as her father," replied Lady Laura, with whom that favourite adjective served for everything in the way of praise. To her the Pyramids and Niagara, a tropical thunderstorm, a mazourka by Chopin, and a Parisian bonnet, were all alike charming. "I suppose solidity isn't so nice in a girl," she went on, laughing; "but certainly ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon
... what you ask is impossible," said the young man, taking his adjective for granted in a ...
— The Portrait of a Lady - Volume 1 (of 2) • Henry James
... upper part of the ridge of some elevated and exposed land." As a prefix, its meaning depends upon the fact whether the word attached to it be an adjective or a substantive. If an adjective be attached, it has the second signification; i.e. it is the upper part of some exposed land, having the particular quality involved in the adjective, such as, "Cefndu," "Cefngwyn," "Cefncoch," the black, ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 69, February 22, 1851 • Various
... title of the work, in manuscript, from which the grammatical notices have been elaborated is Arte y Vocabulario de la lingua Dohema, Heve Eudeva; the adjective termination of the last and first name being evidently Spanish, as is also the plural terminations used elsewhere in some of the modifications of those words. We have only the definition of Heve ...
— Grammatical Sketch of the Heve Language - Shea's Library Of American Linguistics. Volume III. • Buckingham Smith
... word (G. T. and Ram.) is in the Crusca Italian transformed into an adjective, "vaselle vernicate d'oro," and both Marsden and Pauthier have substantially adopted the same interpretation, which seems to me in contradiction with the text. In Pauthier's text the word is vernigal, pl. vernigaux, ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... Coleridge for having, I believe for the first time, coupled the name of the President of the United States with that of her Majesty on an occasion like this. I was struck, both in what he said, and in what our distinguished guest of the evening said, with the frequent recurrence of an adjective which is comparatively new—I mean the word "English-speaking." We continually hear nowadays of the "English-speaking race," of the "English-speaking population." I think this implies, not that we are to forget, ...
— Model Speeches for Practise • Grenville Kleiser
... doubts that this adjective "official" can properly be applied to our Capitalist Press to-day, let him ask himself first what the forces are which govern the nation, and next, whether those forces—that Government or regime—could be better served even under a system of permanent censorship than it is in the great dailies ...
— The Free Press • Hilaire Belloc
... formula—"always being begotten, and as instantly perishing, in order to be rebegotten perpetually." They showed a real disbelief in our English statement "begotten, not made." I overruled the objection, that in the Greek it was not a participle, but a verbal adjective; for it was manifest to me, that a religion which could not be proclaimed in English could not be true; and the very idea of a Creed announcing that Christ was "not begotten, yet begettive," roused in me ...
— Phases of Faith - Passages from the History of My Creed • Francis William Newman
... seen so many spoiled votes at any election. The usual way of invalidating the voting paper was to bracket the three names and write "All of them liars" across the paper. Sometimes the word "liars" was qualified by a profane adjective. Sometimes distinctions were made between the candidates and one of us was declared to be a more skilful or determined liar than the other two. O'Donoghue was sometimes placed in the position of the superlative degree of comparison. So was I. But Vittie suffered most frequently in this way. Lalage ...
— Lalage's Lovers - 1911 • George A. Birmingham
... do full credit to amateur journalism and the association which best represents it. To some minds the term conveys an idea of crudity and immaturity, yet the United can boast of members and publications whose polish and scholarship are well-nigh impeccable. In considering the adjective "amateur" as applied to the press association, we must adhere to the more basic interpretation, regarding the word as indicating the non-mercenary nature of the membership. Our amateurs write purely for love of their art, without the stultifying influence of commercialism. Many of them ...
— Writings in the United Amateur, 1915-1922 • Howard Phillips Lovecraft
... l. 36) — the only occasion upon which he seems to have employed it in his 'poems' — affords an excuse for bringing together one or two dispersed illustrations of the rise and growth of this once highly-popular adjective, not as yet reached in the N. E. D. Johnson, who must often have heard it, ignores it altogether; and in Todd's edition of his 'Dictionary' (1818) it is expressly marked with a star as one of the modern words which are 'not' to be found in the Doctor's collection. ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Oliver Goldsmith • Oliver Goldsmith
... brown, suffused with a beautiful pink or rosy tint, the dark shaft lines and pale edges of the feathers of the back giving it a striped appearance. The forepart of the top of the head is blackish, and the cap is brown, from which he gets the qualifying adjective of his name. In the best nuptial plumage the rosy coloring is heightened to an intense crimson, especially on the wings, tail coverts, and the under parts. The female's attire is paler and duller of tint, the pink being sometimes almost obsolete. Oddly ...
— Our Bird Comrades • Leander S. (Leander Sylvester) Keyser
... the Alexandrian Greeks and their Roman imitators, to whom we shall recur in a later chapter, and the mediaeval Troubadours and Minnesingers. To the present day sentimentality in love is so much more abundant than sentiment that the adjective sentimental is commonly used in an uncomplimentary sense, as in the following passage from one of Krafft-Ebing's books ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck
... purge the bowels, a diuretic has the property of exciting the flow of urine, a diaphoretic excites perspiration, and a demulcent protects or soothes irritated tissues, while haemoptysis denotes a peculiar variety of blood-spitting and aphthous is an adjective applied to ...
— The Sacred Formulas of the Cherokees • James Mooney
... Athens with the language of Greek poets in their memory. I was glad to find, on reading a paper by the Dean of Westminster on the topography of Greece, that the same thought had struck him. Ovid, too, gives the adjective purpureus ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... large, cost L360. The Theatre, therefore, built at a cost of L700, could not have been small. It is commonly referred to, even so late as 1601, as "the great house called the Theatre," and the author of Skialetheia (1598) applied to it the significant adjective "vast." Burbage, no doubt, had learned from his experience as manager of a troupe the pecuniary advantage of having an auditorium large enough to receive all who might come. Exactly how many people his building could accommodate we cannot say. The Reverend John Stockwood, in 1578, exclaims ...
— Shakespearean Playhouses - A History of English Theatres from the Beginnings to the Restoration • Joseph Quincy Adams
... of no book published the present season which will more delight the wide-awake, adventure-loving boy. It is, to borrow the adjective from the title, just ...
— Sara Crewe - or, What Happened at Miss Minchin's • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... These men have become specialists in the pecan industry and they know more about it than we do in the North. Consequently they do not need our assistance, even if we were able to give it, and, therefore, without any fear of our being criticised for using the adjective "northern" we can limit our investigations and discussions to nut culture in the northern part of the United States with a full knowledge that our southern brethren can take care of themselves, and, in addition, can render us much ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Fifth Annual Meeting - Evansville, Indiana, August 20 and 21, 1914 • Various
... have made many inquiries into the state of their vocabulary, and do not, as yet, find any word which is more bitter or reproachful than matchi annemoash, which indicates simply, bad-dog. Many of their nouns have, however, adjective inflections, by which they are rendered derogative. They have terms to indicate cheat, liar, thief, murderer, coward, fool, lazy man, drunkard, babbler. But I have never heard of an imprecation or oath. The genius of the language ...
— Personal Memoirs Of A Residence Of Thirty Years With The Indian Tribes On The American Frontiers • Henry Rowe Schoolcraft
... player with pencil and paper. The first thing to write on the paper is an adjective which applies to a man. The paper is then folded over and passed to the right. This time each one writes the name of a man (either present or absent), folds the paper so the next one can't see what is written, and passes it on to the right. ...
— Games for Everybody • May C. Hofmann
... 'All things considered, the present tranquillity of this country is to my mind perfectly miraculous. Already our presence has been infinitely beneficial in allaying animosities and in pointing out abuses.' If it had been the case that the country was tranquil, his adjective would have been singularly appropriate, but not precisely in the sense ...
— The Afghan Wars 1839-42 and 1878-80 • Archibald Forbes
... Fire," "Eternal Fire," "Unquenchable Fire."—All these expressions are used in describing the fiery judgment upon sin and sinners. The effect of the fire is everlasting and eternal, and by a common usage in language the adjective that describes the effect is applied to the agent by ...
— Our Day - In the Light of Prophecy • W. A. Spicer
... of The sun is shining, The sun is a body shining. But in these cases the words 'metal' and 'body' are unmistakable tautology, since 'metal' is implied in gold and 'body' in sun. But, as we have seen, any of these kinds of word, substantive, adjective, or participle, may occur syncategorematically in connection with others to form ...
— Logic - Deductive and Inductive • Carveth Read
... An adjective or term placed upon a person or thing and expressing some quality especially appropriate to that person ...
— Orthography - As Outlined in the State Course of Study for Illinois • Elmer W. Cavins
... chance glimpses in letters and suchlike documents, were it not that he happened to be the first man of affairs in England to imitate the "Republic" of Plato. By that chance it fell to him to give the world a noun and an adjective of abuse, "Utopian," and to record how under the stimulus of Plato's releasing influence the opening problems of our modern world presented themselves to the English mind of his time. For the most part the problems that exercised him are the problems ...
— An Englishman Looks at the World • H. G. Wells
... order a travelling luncheon and to select the warmest railway rug she could find; for the teacher, though she was not a very learned nor judicious school-mistress, had a heart and affections of her own. She had once, it is true, taken the word legibus (dative plural of lex, a law) for an adjective of the third declension, legibus, legiba, legibum; and Margaret had criticised this grammatical subtlety with an unsparing philological acumen, as if she had been Professor Moritz Haupt and Miss Marlett, Orelli. And this had led to the end of Latin lessons at the Dovecot, wherefore Margaret was honored ...
— The Mark Of Cain • Andrew Lang
... musical knowledge and technical skill. It was her mind that helped to enslave her hearers; for without mental originality and a distinct sort of creative force her defective voice would have failed to charm, where in fact it did provoke raptures. She was, in the exact sense of a much-abused adjective, a phenomenal singer, and it is the misfortune of the present generation that she died too young for ...
— Great Singers, Second Series - Malibran To Titiens • George T. Ferris
... that term comprehensive enough to embrace the legitimate desires of a civilized and enlightened people determined in all their relations to pursue a conscientious and religious life. We can not permit ourselves to be narrowed and dwarfed by slogans and phrases. It is not the adjective, but the substantive, which is of real importance. It is not the name of the action, but the result of the action, which is the chief concern. It will be well not to be too much disturbed by the thought of either isolation or entanglement of pacifists ...
— U.S. Presidential Inaugural Addresses • Various
... at Wentworth's desk, and came upon an obstacle at the very beginning. He did not know how to address the young woman. Whether to say 'My dear Miss Longworth,' or 'My dear madam,' or whether to use the adjective 'dear' at all, was a puzzle to him; and over this he was meditating when ...
— A Woman Intervenes • Robert Barr
... much point in describing a really beautiful girl. Each man has his own ideas of what it takes for a girl to be "pretty" or "fascinating" or "lovely" or almost any other adjective that can be applied to the noun "girl." But "beautiful" is a cultural concept, at least as far as females are concerned, and there is no point in describing a cultural concept. It's one of those things that everybody knows, and descriptions merely ...
— Unwise Child • Gordon Randall Garrett
... I nodded, "but 'foolish' is an adjective which in this instance should be an adverb and which we will proceed to make so by the suffix 'ly.' Thus instead of saying, I talk 'foolish,' you must say I ...
— Peregrine's Progress • Jeffery Farnol
... the one she used indiscriminately and on all occasions, sometimes as an interjection, but oftener as an adjective. If a thing suited her it was sure to be jolly—she always insisting that 'twas a good proper word, for MARIE used it and SHE knew. Who Marie was she could not tell, save that 'twas somebody who once took care of her and called her jolly. It was ...
— Darkness and Daylight • Mary J. Holmes
... An adjective is like an infant in leading strings— it cannot go alone. It always requires to be joined to a substantive, of which it shows the nature or quality— as lectio longa, a long lesson; magnus aper, a great boar; pinguis puer, a fat boy; macer puer, ...
— The Comic Latin Grammar - A new and facetious introduction to the Latin tongue • Percival Leigh
... greeted each other affectionately, and momentarily blocked the Dover Street Tube exit in doing so. The adjective "old" was misleading. Their united ages would certainly not ...
— The Secret Adversary • Agatha Christie
... on occasion, a very trivial and ill-considered word or phrase will cling closer and longer than a serious or thoughtful judgment. When Theodore Roosevelt called Thomas Paine "a filthy little Atheist" (or was the adjective "dirty"? I really forget!) he was very young,—only twenty-eight,—and doubtless had accepted his viewpoint of the great reformer-patriot from that "hearsay upon hearsay" against which Paine himself has so urgently warned us. Of course ...
— Greenwich Village • Anna Alice Chapin
... no distinction between the verbal adjective and the present participle; but the Academy lays down one ...
— Bouvard and Pecuchet - A Tragi-comic Novel of Bourgeois Life • Gustave Flaubert
... very much as she did, although he would not have used the same adjective. There was something unusual about this girl. Why it was, he did not understand, but she seemed somehow to belong in a special way to the sweet old garden with its June roses. Maurice had fancies that would have astonished Katherine beyond measure ...
— Mr. Pat's Little Girl - A Story of the Arden Foresters • Mary F. Leonard
... adjective for us that expresses the midnight caterwaul—"ghastful." Bartholomew probably suffered from those two minor curses of humanity—the amorous cat and the wandering cur. But he has preserved for us a noble eulogy of the dog, and has a reference to the tale of the dog of Montargis, ...
— Mediaeval Lore from Bartholomew Anglicus • Robert Steele
... many words, but words that suggest pictures, call up whole scenes, tell entire stories, are needed. And this is particularly true when you are writing to meet the "synopsis only" demand. Don't over-adjective your synopsis, but such qualifying words as you use should be vivid, clear and precise. One specific word outweighs a score of general statements. Consider the difference between "horse" and "broncho;" "house" and "bungalow;" "woman" ...
— Writing the Photoplay • J. Berg Esenwein and Arthur Leeds
... on this fact alone. How much women desire the suffrage, Mr. Editor, you ought to perceive from the conduct of the women of Australia. Carelessly enough, her male legislators omitted the significant adjective from their constitutional amendment, and, without a word of warning, on election day, every woman, properly qualified, was found at the polls. There was no just reason for refusing them the privilege, and The London Times says ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... sights, where, and because, they recall what is pleasing, sublime, pathetic, and set our ideas and emotions flowing in one of these channels. But he does not get fairly on the track of either Alison's or any other decisive and marking adjective, with which to qualify his rapports. He wastes some time, moreover, in trying to bring within the four corners of his definition some uses of the terms of beauty, which are really only applied to objects by way of analogy, and are not meant to predicate the ...
— Diderot and the Encyclopaedists - Volume II. • John Morley
... language is the richest in the world, and yet somehow in moments when words count most we generally choose the wrong ones. The adjective "cross" as a description of his Jove-like wrath that consumed his whole being jarred upon Derek profoundly. It was as though Prometheus, with the vultures tearing his liver, had been asked if ...
— The Little Warrior - (U.K. Title: Jill the Reckless) • P. G. Wodehouse
... which Mr. Weller attached to this last-mentioned adjective, did not appear; but, as it was evident from the tone in which he used it that it was a favourable expression, Mr. Pickwick was as well satisfied as if he had been thoroughly ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... dramatist! But, in the first place, I do not believe that, having regard to the relative scope of the play and of the novel, the necessity for leaving out is more acute in the one than in the other. The adjective "photographic" is as absurd applied to the novel as to the play. And, in the second place, other factors being equal, it is less exhausting, and it requires less skill, to refrain from doing than to do. To know when to refrain from doing may be hard, but positively ...
— The Author's Craft • Arnold Bennett
... sonny,' said he, in response to my salutation. 'Take care of your ——y self.' (His favourite adjective had long ceased to have any meaning whatever for this good fellow. He now used it even as some ladies use inverted commas, or other commas, in writing. And sometimes, when he had occasion to use a word as long as, say, 'impossible,' he would actually ...
— The Record of Nicholas Freydon - An Autobiography • A. J. (Alec John) Dawson
... such as Eva was, I should imagine, in the habit of meeting. It should be added that Eva herself appears in the photograph as well as the simulacra of humanity. The faces are, on the whole, both pretty and piquant, though of a rather worldly and unrefined type. The latter adjective would not apply to the larger and most elaborate photograph, which represents a very beautiful young woman of a truly spiritual cast of face. Some of the faces are but partially formed, which gives them a grotesque or repellant appearance. ...
— The Vital Message • Arthur Conan Doyle
... 119, 192, Oxford, 1891.) is somewhat more specialised—all men do not possess mana—but substantially it is the same idea. Mana is not only a force, it is also an action, a quality, a state, at once a substantive, an adjective, and a verb. It is very closely neighboured by the idea of sanctity. Things that have mana are tabu. Like orenda it manifests itself in noises, but specially mysterious ones, it is mana that is ...
— Darwin and Modern Science • A.C. Seward and Others
... well- brought-up public ought to know by heart. You will do well therefore to reproduce them often. There is no criticism admissible on this subject; and, if you absolutely exact it that I should make one at all, it would only be on the adjective "celebrated," appended to the Schumann Quintet, which would do without it without ...
— Letters of Franz Liszt, Volume 2: "From Rome to the End" • Franz Liszt; letters collected by La Mara and translated
... nothing more than decent. "This word," says Mr. Pickering, in his Vocabulary, "has been in common use at some of our colleges, but only in the language of conversation. The adverb decently (and possibly the adjective also) is sometimes used in a similar manner in some parts ...
— A Collection of College Words and Customs • Benjamin Homer Hall
... lucidity of classic statuary. I suppose the one taste is the offspring of temperament, the other of thought; for intellectually, I admire the Greek ideas, and was glad to hear you correct Sidney's perversion of the adjective. I wonder," she added, reflectively, "if one can worship the gods of the Greeks without ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... a voice from the darkness, 'what did that American-heiress-globe-trotter girl say last season when she was tipped out of her 'rickshaw turning a corner? Some absurd adjective that made the man who picked her ...
— Under the Deodars • Rudyard Kipling
... substantive, meaning 'apparently a drinking vessel with ears or handles.' He quotes from Depredations on the Clan Campbell, p. 80: 'Item, a silver cup with silver acornie, and horn spoons and trenchers.' It seems more probable that the word in both passages is an adjective, applicable to spoons, and descriptive of ...
— Publications of the Scottish History Society, Vol. 36 • Sir John Lauder
... and with an air of anxious simplicity, Doddle began, 'Article, noun, adjective, pronoun, verb, adverb, preposition, conjunction, interjection, outerjection, beginning with ies in the plural—as, baby, babies; lady, ladies; hady, hadies. Please, sir, isn't that ...
— The Gorilla Hunters • R.M. Ballantyne
... interest for Jeremy because, whenever he was mentioned, the phrase was: "Poor little Mr. Dawson!" Why he was to be pitied Jeremy did not know. He looked spruce and bright enough, and generally whistled to himself as he walked; but "poor" was an exciting adjective, and Jeremy, when he passed him, felt a little shudder of drama ...
— Jeremy • Hugh Walpole
... Egypt and Western Asia. Hence the resulting culture is given a special name, Hellenism, which, in Professor Jebbs' language, means,—"not 'being Hellenes,' or Greeks, but—'doing like Hellenes'; and as the adjective answering to Hellas is Hellenic, so the adjective answering to Hellenism is Hellenistic."] It is this which makes the short-lived Macedonian empire so ...
— A General History for Colleges and High Schools • P. V. N. Myers
... mineral or chemical composition. Thus the terms Trachytic porphyry, Trachytic tuff, etc., merely refer to the same rock under different conditions of mechanical aggregation or crystalline development which would be more correctly expressed by the use of the adjective, as porphyritic trachyte, etc., but as these terms are so commonly employed it is considered advisable to direct ...
— The Student's Elements of Geology • Sir Charles Lyell
... things are more extraordinary in the history of our language than the singularly capricious manner in which good and useful words emerge into or disappear from use in "standard" talk, for no very obvious reason. Such a word as yonder is common enough still; but its corresponding adjective yon, as in the phrase "yon man," is usually relegated to our dialects. Though it is common in Shakespeare, it is comparatively rare in the Middle English period, from the twelfth to the fifteenth century. It only occurs once in Chaucer, where it is introduced as being a Northern word; ...
— English Dialects From the Eighth Century to the Present Day • Walter W. Skeat
... The adjective is redundant and "proleptic," as the bird must be "enthralled" before ...
— Select Poems of Thomas Gray • Thomas Gray
... numerous tales,—tales as perfect as the world has ever seen; "La Morte Amoureuse," "Jettatura," "Une Nuit de Cléopâtre," etc., and then the very diamonds of the crown, "Les Emaux et Camées," "La Symphonie en Blanc Majeure," in which the adjective blanc and blanche is repeated with miraculous felicity in ...
— Confessions of a Young Man • George Moore
... to be thought of entirely as a proper name without any meaning, rather than as a common noun explaining the nature of the god to which it was attached, it became necessary to add to the original name some adjective which would adequately describe the god and do the work which the name by itself had originally done. And as the nature of the various deities grew more complicated along with the increasing complications ...
— The Religion of Numa - And Other Essays on the Religion of Ancient Rome • Jesse Benedict Carter
... to guess why Nash employed this Italian word instead of an English one. Lento means lazy, and though an adjective, it is used here substantively; the meaning, of course, is that the idle fellow who has no ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VIII (4th edition) • Various
... generation of grammars and school-books? For instance, is it indispensably necessary that a boy of seven years old should learn by rote, that "relative sentences are independent, i. e. no word in a relative sentence is governed either of verb, or adjective, that stands in another sentence, or depends upon any appurtenances of the relative; and that the English word 'That' is always a relative when it may be turned into which in good sense, which must be tried by reading over the English sentence warily, and judging how the sentence ...
— Practical Education, Volume II • Maria Edgeworth
... from the late premier, I suppose. He merely forgot an adjective—it is cheap bread that the people are ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... who, utterly confounded, stalked up and down the room, kicking away chairs and footstools, and whatever came in his way, and swearing promiscuously at his wife and Wilford, whom he pronounced a precious pair of fools, with a dreadful adjective appended to the fools, and an emphasis in his voice which showed ...
— Family Pride - Or, Purified by Suffering • Mary J. Holmes
... I have taken leave to coin. The Latins have both substantive and adjective. Purpura—Purpureus. We make purple serve both uses; but it seems a poverty to which we have no need to submit, ...
— The Iliad of Homer - Translated into English Blank Verse • Homer
... never have been that, and in the recent past he had managed to acquire a scar that ran from the corner of his mouth half-way across his cheek. Even when his face was in repose he had an odd expression; and when, as he chanced to do now, he smiled, odd became a mild adjective, quite inadequate for purposes of description. It was not an unpleasant face, however. Unquestionably genial, indeed. There was something in it that had a quality of ...
— Indiscretions of Archie • P. G. Wodehouse
... but more frequently in composition. Thus, in Estelan, you will have little difficulty in recognizing East-land: Cape la Hogue will readily suggest the idea of a lofty promontory; its appellation being derived from the German adjective, hoch, still written hoog, in Flemish: the Saxon word for the Almighty enters into the family names of Argot, Turgot, Bagot, Bigot, &c.; and, not to multiply examples, the quaking sands upon the sea-shore are to the present hour called bougues, an ...
— Account of a Tour in Normandy, Vol. II. (of 2) • Dawson Turner
... openly at the adjective "lively" as applied to a child; her belief being that though children might be seen, if absolutely necessary, they certainly should never be heard if she could help it. "We're not much used to noise, Jane and ...
— Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... The cast-off and ill-treated wife returning to the scene of her misery—with the heiress!—grown up—and beautiful: she saw it all; she threw it all into the moulds dear to the sentimentalist. Victoria demurred to the adjective "beautiful"; suggesting "pretty—when we have fed her!" But Mrs. Penfold, with soft, shining eyes, already beheld the mother and child weeping at the knees of the Ogre, the softening of the Ogre's heart, the opening of the grim Tower to its rightful ...
— The Mating of Lydia • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... in his talk, but merely pathological coherence. Can the insulting jumble of ignorance and effrontery, of scientific phrase and French paraphrase, of slang and inspired adjective, which he puts forward with the pretence that it represents thought, be regarded, from any possible point of view, as a philosophy, or a system, or a belief? Is it individualism of any statable kind? Do the thoughts and phrases which float about in it have ...
— Emerson and Other Essays • John Jay Chapman
... and ADJECTIVE RADICALS are formed from the nominative and from the genitive (or possessive) case of words belonging to ...
— New Word-Analysis - Or, School Etymology of English Derivative Words • William Swinton
... shared by all these earlier pictures is their artlessness and often their absolute ugliness. Quaint is the highest adjective that fits them. In books of the later period not a few blocks of earlier date and of really fine design reappear; but in the chap-books quite 'prentice hands would seem to have been employed, and the result therefore ...
— Children's Books and Their Illustrators • Gleeson White
... something which, if not an oath, sounded very like one, and commanded him to attend to his duty. 'You be d—d for a——,' commenced the gallant cavalier; but, looking up in order to suit the action to the words, and also to enforce the epithet which he meditated with an adjective applicable to the party, he recognised the speaker, made his military salaam, and altered his tone. 'Lord love your handsome face, Madam Nosebag, is it you? Why, if a poor fellow does happen to fire a slug of a morning, I am sure ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... took up their battledores. Their gibes and quirks are all printed in my edition, and are better reading than the book itself. Coryat was a cockscomb and scorned a straight sentence. A rule of his was: "Never use one adjective if three will do." So far as I know he was the first Englishman who travelled for the fun or the glory of the thing, unless Fynes Moryson anticipated him in those also, as he certainly did in travelling and writing about it. But I think it more ...
— In a Green Shade - A Country Commentary • Maurice Hewlett
... there are two sides to the question. Let us look at the other. We often hear "shop-girls" spoken of. No such persons exist. There are girls who work in shops. They make their living that way. But why turn their occupation into an adjective? Let us be fair. We do not refer to the girls who live on Fifth Avenue ...
— The Trimmed Lamp and Others • O Henry
... selection of words not only implies that we shall avoid the wrong word, but also that we shall choose the right one. A suitable adjective may give a clearer image than is expressed by a whole sentence; a single verb may tell better how some one acted than can be told by a lengthy explanation. Since narration has to do with action, we need in story telling to be especially careful in ...
— Composition-Rhetoric • Stratton D. Brooks
... that adjective can be justly applied to one who had such strength and energy as his—made no reply. He strode toward the door, the son following, acute to the grins and winks the workmen were exchanging behind his back. The father opened the shut street door of the cooperage, and, when the son came ...
— The Second Generation • David Graham Phillips
... adjective suggests the outcast, isolated condition of lepers. They were permitted no contact with other people. The ten lepers who met Jesus in Samaria "stood afar off and lifted up ...
— The Vision of Sir Launfal - And Other Poems • James Russell Lowell
... especially among infantry and artillery men; they talked and corresponded in his language; behaved with gloomy reserve in society—"with tempest in the soul and flame in the blood" like Lieutenant Byelosov in the "Frigate Hope." Women's hearts were "devoured" by them. The adjective applied to them in those days was "fatal." The type, as we all know, survived for many years, to the days of Petchorin. [Footnote: The leading character in Lermontov's A Hero of Our Time.—Translator's Note.] All sorts ...
— Knock, Knock, Knock and Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... for the best printed English Essay, 8vo. containing 500 pages, on the Superstitions, Ghosts, Legends, &c. of all parts of the principality, to be delivered before February 3, 1831. Now when the limited period proposed for the collection of 500 pages of matter, and the above little adjective all is considered, it must appear obvious that such an Herculean labour is not capable of being accomplished by one individual alone.—Imagining it, therefore, to be a matter of impossibility to perform what the very reverend gentleman requires, I cannot consistently ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 17, No. - 481, March 19, 1831 • Various
... more simply do this than by considering the proper collocation of the substantive and adjective. Is it better to place the adjective before the substantive, or the substantive before the adjective? Ought we to say with the French—un cheval noir; or to say as we do—a black horse? Probably, most persons of culture ...
— The Philosophy of Style • Herbert Spencer
... quality, (2) the form or essence, (3) the end or design (in the sense of intention) of the act being performed, that is to say, at bottom, the design (in the sense of drawing) of the act supposed accomplished. These three aspects are those of the adjective, substantive and verb, and correspond to the three essential categories of language. After the explanations we have given above, we might, and perhaps we ought to, translate [Greek: eidos] by "view" or rather by ...
— Creative Evolution • Henri Bergson
... (said he) to seek Father, with whom I found him an hour later in the great chamber, and both right deep in public matter, whereof I do love to hear them talk at times, but Milly and Edith be no wise compatient [the lost adjective of compassion] therewith. Anstace came with me to our chamber, and said she had list for ...
— Joyce Morrell's Harvest - The Annals of Selwick Hall • Emily Sarah Holt
... indispensable. And over ground deliberately wrecked and obstructed such artillery must take time to bring up. And yet—to repeat—how rapidly, how "persistently" all difficulties considered, to use the King's adjective, has the British Army pressed on the heels ...
— Towards The Goal • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... of sense or sound to the word. It is like a piece of dead wood in a tree, and is better lopped off. Nor does the use of "bully" prove a wholesome respect for the past. It is true that our Elizabethans used this adjective in the sense of great or noble. "Come," writes Ben Jonson in "The Poetaster," "I love bully Horace." {*} But in England the word was never of universal application, and was sternly reserved for poets, kings, and heroes. In modern America there ...
— American Sketches - 1908 • Charles Whibley
... shady awnings of palm leaves, drawn by oxen with yokes fastened to the points of their horns. The drivers probe them with long iron-tipped lances, and further goad them by shouting their names and adjective titles. But they move slowly, and are soon left miles behind. In their rear are about a dozen mules with well-filled panniers, linked together in line by their tails and rope reins, and led by a mounted driver with a long whip, who grasps the end of the cord by which ...
— The Pearl of the Antilles, or An Artist in Cuba • Walter Goodman
... very poor conversationalist, feasted his eyes alternately on his plate and on the pretty faces, whispering to his neighbour remarks about the viands and the feminine guests, whose artless simplicity—they consisted chiefly of a noun and a laudatory adjective—showed a profoundly satisfied and comfortable mood. At her left sat a highly esteemed friend of the family, Dr. Bergmann, a young physician, a tutor in the Wurzburg university, who, during the past three years had twice had the opportunity of saving Frau von Jagersfeld and her eldest daughter, ...
— How Women Love - (Soul Analysis) • Max Simon Nordau
... any sense in it or no. Now, your reading play is of a different stamp, and must have wit and meaning in it. These latter I call your substantive, as being able to support themselves. The former are your adjective, as what require the buffoonery and gestures of an actor to be joined with them to shew ...
— Miscellanies, Volume 2 (from Works, Volume 12) • Henry Fielding
... "H'm, the adjective appears to be an afterthought," grumbled the bachelor; then, when she merely laughed teasingly after the manner of women, he ...
— The Green Mummy • Fergus Hume
... answer to a query about this alleged derivation of the name of the city, a competent Hebrew scholar writes to me: "The nearest approach to Nauvoo in Hebrew is an adjective which would be transliterated Naveh, meaning pleasant, a rather rare word. The letter correctly represented by v could not possibly do the double duty of uv, nor could a of the Hebrew ever be au in English, nor eh of the Hebrew be oo in English. Students of theology at Middletown, ...
— The Story of the Mormons: • William Alexander Linn
... or old Reformers, who have been taught by experience, and are willing now to adopt the word 'Conservative,' at least in its adjective sense. ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 2, August, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... Futunan(s), or Wallis and Futuna Islanders adjective: Wallisian, Futunan, or Wallis ...
— The 1998 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... modest adjective away, Mr. Lorry replied, "No, no, no. Surely not. To return to business:—Is it not remarkable that Doctor Manette, unquestionably innocent of any crime as we are all well assured he is, should never touch upon that question? I will not ...
— A Tale of Two Cities - A Story of the French Revolution • Charles Dickens
... gentleman, that, in our American political grammar, CONSTITUTION is a noun substantive; it imports a distinct and clear idea of itself; and it is not to lose its importance and dignity, it is not to be turned into a poor, ambiguous, senseless, unmeaning adjective, for the purpose of accommodating any new set of political notions. Sir, we reject his new rules of syntax altogether. We will not give up our forms of political speech to the grammarians of the school of nullification. By the Constitution, ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster
... moment when he comes into this story (as a mere passing event we shall soon forget without regret) he is engaged in the fulfilment of a previous promise to his unhappy wife—a promise we cannot transcribe literally, because of the free employment of a popular adjective (supposed to be a corruption of "by Our Lady") before or after any part of speech whatever, as an expletive to drive home meaning to reluctant minds. It is an expression unwelcome on the drawing-room ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... was a tall, thin woman of fifty-eight or sixty, wearing a white cap perched upon her grey hair, and an expression of frosty propriety on her thin, pointed features. Frosty is the adjective which most accurately describes her appearance. One felt a moral conviction that she would suffer from chilblains in winter, that the long, thin fingers must be cold to the touch, even on this bright May day; that the tip of her nose was colder still, ...
— Flaming June • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... "Sulphite" as applied to psychological rather than chemical analysis have already become, among the illuminati, so widely adopted that these denominations now stand in considerable danger of being weakened in significance through a too careless use. The adjective "bromidic" is at present adopted as a general vehicle, a common carrier for the thoughtless damnation of the Philistine. The time has come to formulate, authoritatively, the precise scope of intellect which such distinctions suggest ...
— Are You A Bromide? • Gelett Burgess
... established; but beds of exotics cannot be raised by keeping the gardeners in greenhouses while the young plants are in the open air. The 'Liberal Catholic' Church, accordingly, would shed, by degrees, the very large number of Churchmen who still call themselves Protestant. Nor would the adjective 'Liberal' secure the adhesion of the 'intellectuals.' Bishop Gore's Liberalism would exclude most of them as effectually as the most rigid Conservatism. It would also be a disestablished and disendowed Church; for surely it is building castles in the air to think of episcopal courts recognised ...
— Outspoken Essays • William Ralph Inge
... And to emphasize the adjective she indelicately patted the region of her body in which she believed her stomach to be located. "There's a slice for you on the dining-room table," ...
— Seventeen - A Tale Of Youth And Summer Time And The Baxter Family Especially William • Booth Tarkington
... universe, therefore, the only principle which is indifferentiable is this "I am that I am" and the manifold modes of manifestation can only exist in reference to it. The eternal ignorance consists in this, that as there is but one substantive, but numberless adjectives, each adjective is capable of designating the All. Viewed in time the most permanent object or mood of the great knower at any moment represents the knower, and in a sense binds it with limitations. In fact, time ...
— Five Years Of Theosophy • Various
... poverty of feeling, but because, in a different way, he was, as much as Lily, the victim of his environment. There had been a germ of truth in his declaration to Gerty Farish that he had never wanted to marry a "nice" girl: the adjective connoting, in his cousin's vocabulary, certain utilitarian qualities which are apt to preclude the luxury of charm. Now it had been Selden's fate to have a charming mother: her graceful portrait, all smiles and Cashmere, still emitted a faded scent of the undefinable ...
— House of Mirth • Edith Wharton
... and more interested in him. It is not, I am sure, his—do you know any noun corresponding to the adjective "handsome"? One does not like to say "beauty" when speaking of a man. He is handsome enough, heaven knows; I should not even care to trust you with him—faithful of all possible wives that you are— when he looks his best, as he always does. Nor do I think ...
— Stories by Modern American Authors • Julian Hawthorne
... the backwoods of Harding County, Kentucky, there stood years ago a rude cabin within whose walls Abraham Lincoln passed his childhood. An "unaccountable" man he has been called, and the adjective was well chosen, for who could account for a mind and nature like Lincoln's with the ancestry he owned? His father was a thriftless, idle carpenter, scarcely supporting his family, and with but the poorest living. His mother was an uneducated woman, but must have been of an entirely ...
— Memories of Childhood's Slavery Days • Annie L. Burton
... movement had been begun before Dr. Cairns left Berwick, and he supported it with voice and pen till the close of his life. He did so, it need not be said, without bitterness, endeavouring to make it clear that his quarrel was with the adjective and not with the substantive—with the "Established" and not with the "Church," and under the strong conviction that he was engaged "in a ...
— Principal Cairns • John Cairns
... favourite "district." Such a position would scarcely have been otherwise than agreeable to any young man. Dear old Miss Wodehouse was the gentlest of chaperones. Old Miss Wodehouse people called her, not knowing why—perhaps because that adjective was sweeter than the harsh one of middle age which belonged to her; and then there was such a difference between her and Lucy. Lucy was twenty, and in her sweetest bloom. Many people thought with Mr Wentworth that there were not other two such eyes in Carlingford. ...
— The Perpetual Curate • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... use a noun and then an adjective that crosses out the noun. An adjective qualifies, it cannot contradict. Don't say, "Give me a patriotism that is free from all boundaries." It is like saying, "Give me a pork pie with no pork in it." Don't say, "I look forward to that larger religion that shall have no special dogmas." ...
— A Miscellany of Men • G. K. Chesterton
... very singular. All clever boys are. He knows already his five declensions, and the four conjugations, active and passive. Come, Master Rattlin, decline for the lady the adjective felix—come, begin, nominative hic et haec ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... outlets it exhausts itself in the constructions of bits, each more peculiar in form or more torturing in effect than that which has preceded it. I have seen collections of these instruments of torments, and among them some of which Marlowe's curious adjective would have been highly descriptive. It may be, however, that the word is 'ring-led,' in which shape it would mean guided by the ring on each side ...
— The Works of Christopher Marlowe, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Christopher Marlowe
... can't say that I am unselfish enough not to bear you a grudge for seeking to decoy away from me an invaluable servant,—faithful, steady, intelligent, and" (added Riccabocca, warming as he approached the climacteric adjective) "exceedingly cheap! Nevertheless go, and Heaven speed you. I am not an Alexander, to stand ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... adjective formed from Peleus, the name of the father of Achilles.] *[Footnote: Fore-right means straight forward.] *[Footnote: The Scamander was a famous river that flowed near the city of Troy. According to the Iliad, its source was two springs, one a cold and one a hot spring.] ...
— Journeys Through Bookland - Volume Four • Charles H. Sylvester
... an adjective referring to Balaklava. Does any one of you remember that word? You've had ...
— The Secret Wireless - or, The Spy Hunt of the Camp Brady Patrol • Lewis E. Theiss
... adjective robust as applied to myself is, I think, a trifle misplaced. I suggest the word ...
— Peregrine's Progress • Jeffery Farnol
... his career he had won a rich prize in an architectural competition, and afterwards commissions and rewards and honors had flowed in upon him in constantly increasing measure. While he did not yet quite merit the adjective which Isabella Marne had applied to him, there was every promise that he would soon be, in truth, ...
— The Fate of Felix Brand • Florence Finch Kelly
... a common name of women. It means one who has no vala or strength or power. The word is also used as an adjective. ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa Bk. 3 Pt. 2 • Translated by Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... will, however, admit that this misleading adjective comes as a boon in the discourse I am now meditating. Since, returning to my old theme of the Garden of Life, I find that the misapplication of that word Hanging, and its original literal suggestion, lends added significance ...
— Hortus Vitae - Essays on the Gardening of Life • Violet Paget, AKA Vernon Lee
... many words to express the ideas embraced in mental science. In ancient times "pneuma" signified both mind and wind, or air. In later times it lost its physical currency, and no longer signifies, in its general currency, breath or air. The adjective, "pneumatikos," is never used in a physical sense. It came ...
— The Christian Foundation, April, 1880
... "accosting?" "Accost her, knight, accost!" in the Twelfth Night. Yet there sounds a something so Shakespearian in the phrase—"give a coasting welcome" ("coasting" being taken as the epithet and adjective of "welcome"), that had the following words been, "ere they land," instead of "ere it comes," I should have preferred the interpretation. The sense now is, "that give welcome to a salute ...
— Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher • S. T. Coleridge |
