"Adjective" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... rather this woman, Aunt Maria being merely the adjective of that very determined substantive, Aunt Henrietta. She braced ...
— Christian's Mistake • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... The adjective robust as applied to myself is, I think, a trifle misplaced. I suggest the word ...
— Peregrine's Progress • Jeffery Farnol
... unceltiferous portion of these islands employ the adjective un-English you may be sure there is something serious on the carpet. It is valedictory, expressive of sorrow and contempt rather than anger. All the other old favourites of vituperative must have missed fire before this almost sacred, disqualifying Podsnappianism ...
— Masques & Phases • Robert Ross
... 'awful' is rather a big adjective to use for so small a duty," interposed Alan, and the moonlight showed the flicker of a smile upon his face. Then he continued, gravely, "I doubt whether you yourself realize the full import of the words. The ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.
... 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 ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... each other affectionately, and momentarily blocked the Dover Street Tube exit in doing so. The adjective "old" was misleading. Their united ages would certainly ...
— The Secret Adversary • Agatha Christie
... valuable reference to Knox proves the etymology from the Latin. Terrene, as an adjective, occurs in old English. See ...
— Notes and Queries, No. 28. Saturday, May 11, 1850 • Various
... deny that we may say that man is good, for man, they said, means only man, and good means only good, and the word is can't be construed to identify such disparate meanings. Mr. Bradley revels in the same type of argument. No adjective can rationally qualify a substantive, he thinks, for if distinct from the substantive, it can't be united with it; and if not distinct, there is only one thing there, and nothing left to unite. Our whole pluralistic procedure in using subjects and predicates ...
— A Pluralistic Universe - Hibbert Lectures at Manchester College on the - Present Situation in Philosophy • William James
... (Sanskrit, daru, a tree), and da, good. It is worth remarking that this idea survives in the personal name, Holyoak; for who ever heard of "Holyelm," or "Holyash," or a similar form compounded of the adjective and the name of any other tree than the oak. If there is an exception it is in the name of the holly. The Cornish Celtic word for holly was Celyn, from Celli (or Kelli), a grove; literally a grove-one; so that the holly was probably planted as a grove or screen round the sacred oak. Such a ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar
... already been made to this famous production in the early portion of our discussion of Greene's work. The reader will recall what was said there of its contents, its popularity and influence, and of the meaning of the term Marlowesque, an adjective referring more directly to Tamburlaine than to any other of Marlowe's plays. It is in this play that our ears are dinned almost beyond sufferance by the poet's 'high astounding terms', that the hero most nearly 'with his uplifted forehead strikes the sky': incredible ...
— The Growth of English Drama • Arnold Wynne
... my companion and I acquiesced, while we extolled the character of the warlike Typees. To be sure our panegyrics were somewhat laconic, consisting in the repetition of that name, united with the potent adjective 'motarkee'. But this was sufficient, and served to conciliate the good will of the natives, with whom our congeniality of sentiment on this point did more towards inspiring a friendly feeling than anything else that could ...
— Typee - A Romance of the South Sea • Herman Melville
... conveys only the general idea "above" as opposed to "below." According to its place in the sentence and the requirements of common sense, it may be a noun meaning "upper person" (that is, a ruler); an adjective meaning "upper," "topmost" or "best"; an adverb meaning "above"; a preposition meaning "upon"; and finally a verb meaning "to mount upon," or "to go to." [Ch] is a character that may usually be translated "to enter" as in [Ch][Ch] "to enter a door"; yet in the ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 2 - "Chicago, University of" to "Chiton" • Various
... was haunted by that abominable bugbear which often takes possession of the minds of young men when they find themselves in the presence of those who are adepts in the arts of vice—a fear of being thought "green," "verdant," or being measured by some other adjective used in fast circles to caricature the innocence of a soul unsullied by contact with the vices and follies of the city. He half expected that some of the dissolute young wretches who were drinking, swearing, and pouring the filth of a poisoned mind from ...
— The Young Lieutenant - or, The Adventures of an Army Officer • Oliver Optic
... questions about it so that he might be told no lies, but he searched it in vain for a trace of the suffering Machin. It was, however, full of typographical traces of himself and his family. The description of the reception was disturbingly journalistic, which adjective, for Mr. Prohack, unfortunately connoted the adjective vulgar. All the wrong people were in the list of guests, and all the decent quiet people were omitted. A value of twenty thousand pounds was put upon the necklace, contradicting ...
— Mr. Prohack • E. Arnold Bennett
... this respect resembling poetry, which to Quintilian, seems to have no visible aim but pleasure.[54] Occasional speeches relied much more on style than did those of the law court and senate, thus meriting Aristotle's adjective "literary," that is written to be read instead of spoken to be heard.[55] Cicero, like Quintilian, considers these less practical, as remote from the conflict of the forum, written to be read, "to be looked at, as it were, like a picture, for the sake of giving pleasure." Consequently ...
— Rhetoric and Poetry in the Renaissance - A Study of Rhetorical Terms in English Renaissance Literary Criticism • Donald Lemen Clark
... like ours, is becoming sated with cleverness, it is a delight to read the unvarnished story of Champlain. In saying that the adjective is ever the enemy of the noun, Voltaire could not have levelled the shaft at him, for few writers have been more sparing in their use of adjectives or other glowing words. His love of the sea and of the forest was ...
— The Founder of New France - A Chronicle of Champlain • Charles W. Colby
... this complaint, I 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 to this allegoric dictum: Of all the Gardens of Life the ...
— Hortus Vitae - Essays on the Gardening of Life • Violet Paget, AKA Vernon Lee
... 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 ...
— Great Singers, Second Series - Malibran To Titiens • George T. Ferris
... of adjectives.—In Anglo-Saxon each adjective had two forms, one definite and one indefinite. There is nothing of this kind in English. We say a good sword, and the good sword equally. In Anglo-Saxon, however, the first combination would be se ...
— A Handbook of the English Language • Robert Gordon Latham
... never in the noun which they modify; and, by the help of a process no less simple than ingenious and profound, he has made the deaf and dumb comprehend the most arduous difficulty, the nature of abstraction; he has initiated them in the art of generalizing ideas by presenting to them the adjective in the noun, as the quality is in the object, and the quality subsisting alone and out of the object, having no support but in the mind, for him who considers it, and but in the abstract noun for him who reads the ...
— Paris As It Was and As It Is • Francis W. Blagdon
... adjective, my little partizan, but you're troubling yourself for me more than you need. I don't mind, really. It's all in a life-time, and I knew when I went in for this business, that I should have to take the rough with the smooth. I was down on my luck, and glad to ...
— The Motor Maid • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson
... The separation of adjective and noun by a phrase (cf. v. 1118) being very unusual, some scholars have put 'earme on eaxle' with the foregoing lines, inserting a semicolon after 'eaxle.' In this case 'on eaxe' (i.e., on the ashes, cinders) ...
— Beowulf - An Anglo-Saxon Epic Poem • The Heyne-Socin
... conditions. In criticism there is no worse error, or one more often made, than that of blaming Haydn because he was not Beethoven; or, in our times, Tchaikowsky because his music does not resemble that of Brahms. Blase pedants often call Haydn's music "tame"; we might as well apply that adjective to the antics of a sportive kitten. As for the "amiable prattle" of his style we do not speak in a derogatory way of the fresh, innocent voices of children, though we need not listen to them continually. ...
— Music: An Art and a Language • Walter Raymond Spalding
... kirkyard, and there is only one historical instance in which judgment was reversed. It was a strong proof of Lachlan Campbell's individuality that he impressed himself twice on the parish, and each time with a marked adjective. ...
— Beside the Bonnie Brier Bush • Ian Maclaren
... a silly little girl," she said. She was always very angry when anyone else called her a little girl, even if the adjective that went first was not "silly" but "nice" or "good" or "clever." And it was only when she was very angry with herself that she allowed Roberta to use that ...
— The Railway Children • E. Nesbit
... 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 ...
— A Miscellany of Men • G. K. Chesterton
... Assistant Secretary of the Treasury on "Finance," the art critic of a Philadelphia paper on "Raphael," and as a fitting climax to the course we were to listen to the famous Armenian scholar and philosopher, the Reverend Valerian Harassan in a discourse on "Life." The adjective is not mine. I had never heard of the famous Armenian until Doctor Todd in chapel announced his coming, and made it clear that it was a special privilege to listen to the eloquent preacher, and that we owed a tremendous ...
— David Malcolm • Nelson Lloyd
... which is less polite than "Banu Israil" Children of Israel. So in Christendom "Israelite" when in favour and "Jew" (with an adjective or a participle) when nothing ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... student in grammar is first presented with the problem of interpreting the grammatical value of the word driving in the sentence, "The boy driving the horse is very noisy," he is compelled to apply to its interpretation the ideas noun, adjectival relation, and adjective, and also the ideas object, objective relation, and verb. In this way the child secures the mental elements which he may organize into the new experience, or knowledge (participle), and thus gain control of the ...
— Ontario Normal School Manuals: Science of Education • Ontario Ministry of Education
... forced to ask some very pointed ones, which only succeeded in making her laugh. The conversation proceeded something as follows: "I am charmed that I have fallen to your Highness." "Equally charmed," I replied; "but my rank does not admit the adjective you do me the honor to apply." "No?" was the answer. "Well, I'll wager you anything that when the butler pours your wine in the first course he will call you Count, and in the next Prince. You see, they become exhilarated ...
— As A Chinaman Saw Us - Passages from his Letters to a Friend at Home • Anonymous
... 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 ...
— Memories of Childhood's Slavery Days • Annie L. Burton
... various interpretations of the Chinese adjective for this type of ground. Ts'ao Kung says it means "ground covered with a network of roads," like a chessboard. Ho Shih suggested: "ground ...
— The Art of War • Sun Tzu
... sensible girl,' exclaimed the old gentleman the moment I entered the room.' (You will notice I put no comma after 'plain.' I am taking it he did not intend one. You can employ one adjective to qualify another, can't you?) 'And I will put it to her, What difference can it make to the Almighty whether I go to church in ...
— They and I • Jerome K. Jerome
... "The adjective," replied my interlocutor, "should always precede the substantive, for we should never utter the name of God without first ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... foreign kinds; but they are so far improved through years of careful selection and cultivation, that, as a rule, they appear quite distinct from the originals when grown side by side with them, and this distinction is more or less recognized, in both English and American catalogues, by the adjective "American" or "English" being added after ...
— Cabbages and Cauliflowers: How to Grow Them • James John Howard Gregory
... The very adjective! Felix and I recognized its beautiful fitness at once. Yes, the Story Girl WAS fascinating and that was the final word to be ...
— The Story Girl • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... like the adjective. "I am one of them," wondering what the effect of this admission would be. "I am not English, but of the brother race. Forgive me if I have imposed on you, but it was your fault. You said that I was English, and I was too lonesome ...
— The Puppet Crown • Harold MacGrath
... spreading lower one. The flowers are set opposite each other at the end of the smooth stem, which rises from one to two feet high in the woods throughout a southerly and westerly range. As several other skullcaps have distinctly saw-edged leaves, this plant might have been given a more distinctive adjective, thinks one who did not have the naming of ...
— Wild Flowers, An Aid to Knowledge of Our Wild Flowers and - Their Insect Visitors - - Title: Nature's Garden • Neltje Blanchan
... period Viewed these imposing structures with as much astonishment as do we, and attributed them (of at least those in Argohs) to the Cyclopes, a mythical folk, conceived in this connection as masons of superhuman strength. Hence the adjective Cyclopian or Cyclopean, whose meaning varies unfortunately in modern usage, but which is best restricted to walls of the Tirynthian type; that is to say, walls built of large blocks not accurately fitted together, the interstices being filled ...
— A History Of Greek Art • F. B. Tarbell
... The expression to which Dio here refers is doubtless the adjective quinquefascalis, found in inscriptional Latin. All the editions from Xylander to Dindorf gave "six lictors", erroneously, as was pointed out by Mommsen (Romisches Staatsrecht, 12, p. 369, note 4). Boissevain is the first editor to make the correction. ...
— Dio's Rome, Vol. 4 • Cassius Dio
... said Gerald, with modest pride. "I can 'gleek upon occasion.' I can also sling a syllable with the next man. It is only at monosyllables that I draw the line. When I call him Ape, I have to tack an adjective to it, or things happen. Miss Montfort, you don't know how glad I was to come. It was awfully kind of Mr. Montfort to ask us. I've always wanted to come again, and I didn't know when I should have a chance. There—there isn't any other place like this in the world, I believe. ...
— Fernley House • Laura E. Richards
... bears the name of the buffalo or bear, lightning or some dread natural force. Another of more peaceful nature may be called Swift Bird or Blue Sky. A woman's name usually suggested something about the home, often with the adjective "pretty" or "good," and a feminine termination. Names of any dignity or importance must be conferred by the old men, and especially so if they have any spiritual significance; as Sacred Cloud, Mysterious Night, Spirit Woman, and the like. Such a name was ...
— The Soul of the Indian - An Interpretation • [AKA Ohiyesa], Charles A. Eastman
... was plainly town-bred; there was a certain difference in the cut of their clothes and the way they wore them. Then she saw two or three whispering together, and the next moment came a brutal shout. She could not catch the sentence, but she heard the word "Papist" with an adjective, and caught the unmistakable bullying tone of the man. The next instant there broke out a confusion: a man dashed up the step from the crowd beneath, and she caught a glimpse of Dick Sampson's furious face. Then the group bore back, ...
— Come Rack! Come Rope! • Robert Hugh Benson
... capable of making—what love had he shown during these last years that he should choose carefully and well? From among what class of man, of the society into which he had sunk, would he select one to give his daughter? He had written of "my old friend, Barry Craven." The name conveyed nothing—the adjective admitted of two interpretations. Which? Day and night she was haunted with visions of old men—recollections of faces seen when driving with her friends or visiting their homes; old men who had interested her, old men from whom she had instinctively shrunk. What type ...
— The Shadow of the East • E. M. Hull
... books of Samuel and the Kings, one might take some fine specimens of the peculiar quality distinguishing the heroic style, in prose that is very near poetry. Nothing can be more simple than the narrative, it is cool and quiet: there are whole chapters without an unnecessary adjective; and yet it is most impressive, both in the drawing of such characters as Saul, David, and Joab, who stand out dramatically, like Homeric heroes, and in the stories of their deeds ...
— Studies in Literature and History • Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall
... all the refugees arrived. I may mention that I saw and spoke to every one of the refugees who came down, and to many of the women and children. Their references to your brother were invariably couched in language of affection and gratitude, and the adjective most frequently applied to him was 'just.' In sending away the people from Khartoum, he sent away the Governor and some of the other leading Egyptian officials first. I think he suspected they would intrigue; he always had more confidence in the people than in the ruling Turks ...
— The Life of Gordon, Volume II • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... of the three, with distinct yet rapid motion. The phrase would be a strange one, but not unlike Shakspere. Compare Cymbeline, act v. sc. 5: 'And your three motives to the battle,' meaning 'the motives of you three.' Perhaps, however, it is only the adjective for the adverb: 'having concealed it hitherto, conceal it trebly now.' But tenible may be the word: 'let it be a thing to be ...
— The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark - A Study with the Text of the Folio of 1623 • George MacDonald
... precipitated salts as soon as the latter were formed, and all would be precipitated together as one complex compound. Just such peculiar quasi-acid, or phenolic substances are Alizarin, and most of the natural adjective dyestuffs, the colouring principles of logwood, cochineal, Persian berries, etc. Hence these substances will be combined and carried down with such precipitated basic salts. The complex compounds thus produced ...
— The Chemistry of Hat Manufacturing - Lectures Delivered Before the Hat Manufacturers' Association • Watson Smith
... her, knight, accost!' in the Twelfth Night. Yet there sounds a something so Shakspearian 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 ...
— Literary Remains, Vol. 2 • Coleridge
... synonyms through "rag-time," etc., to an almost subliminal thought—an adjective resembling "verisimilitudinarious," perhaps, qualifying the "con" or confidential talk that proved useless to bring Mame back to ...
— The Love Sonnets of a Hoodlum • Wallace Irwin
... words, for example 'tchelo' ([Russian]) is the Russian for forehead, 'tal' is Welsh for the same; 'iasnhy' (neuter 'iasnoe') is the Russian for clear or radiant, 'iesin' the Welsh, so that if it were grammatical in Russian to place the adjective after the noun as is the custom in Welsh, the Welsh compound 'Taliesin' (Radiant forehead) might be rendered in Russian by 'Tchel[o]iasnoe,' which would be wondrously like the Welsh name; unfortunately, however, Russian grammar would compel any one wishing to Russianise 'Taliesin' to say not 'Tchel[o]iasnoe' ...
— George Borrow and His Circle - Wherein May Be Found Many Hitherto Unpublished Letters Of - Borrow And His Friends • Clement King Shorter
... 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 ere ...
— Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher • S. T. Coleridge
... itself pleased as being in some sense classical, though she could not see why that adjective should occur to her. There was no white cloth, and the bright silver and delicate wineglasses, and the little dishes of coloured glass piled with wet green olives, stood among their images on a gleaming table. The food was all either very hot or very cold. She had two helps of ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West
... invited to call her "Patty," or "Pat," both of which names were in use at the French convent school she has lately left. But I think she will have to be "Patsey" for me, as to my mind it's more endearing. And "endearing" is a particularly suitable adjective for her. Constantly, when looking at the creature, I find myself wanting to hum, "Believe me, if all those endearing young charms," etc. There are simply crowds of them—charms, I mean. Big blue eyes under those eyelashes, and above them, too, for the under ...
— The Lightning Conductor Discovers America • C. N. (Charles Norris) Williamson and A. M. (Alice Muriel)
... means "a state or condition of doing well; prosperous or satisfactory course or relation; exemption from evil;" in other words, well-being. This is the primary meaning of the word. But, to-day, it is used so often as an adjective, to describe work which is being attempted for the good of industrial workers, that any use of the word welfare has that fringe of meaning ...
— The Psychology of Management - The Function of the Mind in Determining, Teaching and - Installing Methods of Least Waste • L. M. Gilbreth
... adjective is made emphatic by being put before its noun; in 4, 14 the same effect is gained by putting horribili ...
— Ritchie's Fabulae Faciles - A First Latin Reader • John Kirtland, ed.
... 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 me," she ...
— The Flag-raising • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... Wort, "The Last Rose of Summer." If given, no one can say how successful it might have been, but while the subject implied a compliment to Wort and those preceding him, the adjective "last" was ominous. There were several boys struggling to look through the curtain, one through the old rent Wort had used, and the others through new rents that they had ingeniously made with their fingers. But what curtain could hold up against the continued pressure of three stout boys? ...
— The Knights of the White Shield - Up-the-Ladder Club Series, Round One Play • Edward A. Rand
... special characteristic of certain periods, like that of 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 (Psch. ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck
... Afterwards he was cast for the less important role of Sempronius, which proved in every way a better disposition of affairs, for Mills was a plodder rather than a genius. He belonged to the order of actors to whom, in the present day, we apply the charitable word of painstaking, an adjective which shows very plainly the nature of the man, while it likewise allows the critic to escape the charge of unkindness. We all know the painstaking player, and always cheerfully acknowledge his virtues, but who shall blame us if, after giving him the benefit of his ...
— The Palmy Days of Nance Oldfield • Edward Robins
... AFTER. A comparative adjective, applied to any object in the hind part of a ship or boat; as, the after-cabin, the after-hatchway, &c.—After sails, yards, and braces—those attached to the main and mizen masts. Opposed ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... imply the great age, not to say antiquity, of the rock and its supposed tenant. The impartial observer, after an examination of the evidence presented, will be inclined to doubt greatly the justification for inserting the adjective "solid"; for usually no evidence whatever is forthcoming as to the state of the rock prior to its removal. No previous examination of the rock is or can be made, from the circumstance that no interest can possibly attach to ...
— Young Folks' Library, Volume XI (of 20) - Wonders of Earth, Sea and Sky • Various
... difficulty and danger of maintaining similar sentiments in a slaveholding community, and a slave State. Mrs. Gage spoke boldly whenever her thought seemed to be required, and soon found herself branded as an "abolitionist" with every adjective appended that could tend ...
— Woman's Work in the Civil War - A Record of Heroism, Patriotism, and Patience • Linus Pierpont Brockett
... respects, roughly speaking is rhythm in which the recurrence of stressed syllables or of feet with definite time-values is regular. There is no proper connection either in spelling or in meaning between rhythm and rime (which is generally misspelled 'rhyme'). The adjective derived from 'rhythm' is 'rhythmical'; there is no adjective from 'rime' except 'rimed.' The word 'verse' in its general sense includes all writing in meter. Poetry is that verse which has real literary merit. In a very different ...
— A History of English Literature • Robert Huntington Fletcher
... and [Greek: nomos], law), in general, freedom from external restraint, self-government. The term is usually coupled with a qualifying adjective. Thus, political autonomy is self-government in its widest sense, independence of all control from without. Local autonomy is a freedom of self-government within a sphere marked out by some superior authority; e.g. municipal ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 1 - "Austria, Lower" to "Bacon" • Various
... 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 ...
— The Story of the Mormons: • William Alexander Linn
... blew everything into its proper place should have burst with its first note, for there would be such ample opportunity nowadays for the display of its peculiar functions. Why, for instance, should modern novel-writers turn the patient adjective into an overworked little drudge, and compel it to do thrice the labor that it can effectually perform? Fifty years ago it led a life of respected ease, and was only called on when it could be of some real use to the author; now it knows no respite ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, Old Series, Vol. 36—New Series, Vol. 10, July 1885 • Various
... those officious neighbors keep on talking; and when they have talked themselves blind, you may tell them, for me, that what money we have is safe," said Marcy, with a good deal of emphasis on the adjective. "If you want to see what mother brought back from the city, go and look at the servants. Every one of them is dressed in a new suit. Now go on and tell me the bad news. I'm ...
— Marcy The Blockade Runner • Harry Castlemon
... Duff," said he, "I happened to overhear your voice, which is singularly, I may say vulgarly, penetrating. You were speaking of me, your house-master, as 'Dick.' But you used an adjective before it. What ...
— The Hill - A Romance of Friendship • Horace Annesley Vachell
... more women would have the courage to remain unmarried were there so euphonious a title awaiting them as that of "bachelor," which, when shorn of its accompanying adjective ...
— The Love Affairs of an Old Maid • Lilian Bell
... An adjective is a word used to qualify, limit, or define a noun, or a word or phrase which has the value of a noun. Nouns are ordinarily very general and indefinite in meaning, for example, man conveys only a very general idea. To make that idea definite ...
— Word Study and English Grammar - A Primer of Information about Words, Their Relations and Their Uses • Frederick W. Hamilton
... hence, perhaps, leer horse, a horse without a rider; leer is an adjective meaning uncontrolled, hence 'leer drunkards'" (Halliwell); according to Nares, a leer (empty) horse meant also a ...
— Sejanus: His Fall • Ben Jonson
... pet word, 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 in vain that ...
— Darkness and Daylight • Mary J. Holmes
... window we looked out on the distant sacred mountain, Fujiyama, which is revered by all Japan. Sometimes the clouds rested lovingly on its crest, and sometimes almost veiled it, but twice we saw the entire snow-covered space and no adjective can describe the matchless glory of that view. Poets have sung of it, and legend has woven fantastic tales around it, which the natives ...
— Travels in the Far East • Ellen Mary Hayes Peck
... your mind on the adjective 'blunt' and the substantive 'pistol-shot'; they will do you ...
— The Story of My Life - Recollections and Reflections • Ellen Terry
... man, 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 he meant what ...
— Family Pride - Or, Purified by Suffering • Mary J. Holmes
... atmospheres of Venus, the Moon, etc. It was not only an account of phenomena which had been seen; it was accompanied by measures, and the computations based on these led to heights and dimensions for mountains on Venus which were, to say the least, extravagant. The adjective will not seem too strong when we say that the very existence of the mountains themselves is ...
— Sir William Herschel: His Life and Works • Edward Singleton Holden
... adjective or term placed upon a person or thing and expressing some quality especially appropriate ...
— Orthography - As Outlined in the State Course of Study for Illinois • Elmer W. Cavins
... If this is an allusion to his own love, the adjective 'despised' is significant. But I doubt the allusion. The other calamities mentioned by Hamlet, 'the oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely, the law's delay, the insolence of office, and the spurns that patient merit of ...
— Shakespearean Tragedy - Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth • A. C. Bradley
... 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 ...
— Games for Everybody • May C. Hofmann
... 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
... mother. She had been beautiful, a gentle, lovable daughter of generations of social refinement. Her father and grandfather had lived "pretty high." In truth, had the doctors dared, "alcoholic," as an adjective, would have appeared in both their death certificates; and the worm must have been in the bud, for she died suddenly at twenty-five, following a short, apparently inadequate illness. Thus, three-year-old Francis was left ...
— Our Nervous Friends - Illustrating the Mastery of Nervousness • Robert S. Carroll
... 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 disadvantage. ...
— Letters of Franz Liszt, Volume 2: "From Rome to the End" • Franz Liszt; letters collected by La Mara and translated
... virtuosi. The great violinists are not to be found every day. In the past twenty years, perhaps, not more than two can be recalled who have visited the United States as mature, great artists,—Wilhelmj and Ysaye. Many violinists of excellent ability have been heard, and to some of them some day the adjective great may be applied. The fact that they have devoted their energies to concert work, and have been favourably received by the most important musical organisations, makes them celebrated, but the word great can apply but ...
— Famous Violinists of To-day and Yesterday • Henry C. Lahee
... having convinced the author that most of what has been written about "corrupted" surnames is nonsense, and that no nickname is too fantastic to be genuine.[5] Two slight contemplated alterations have not been carried out. The adjective applied (p. 156) to a contemporary ruler seemed to need reconsideration, but the author was baffled by the embarras du choix. A word mentioned on p. 48 might gracefully have been omitted, but it is likely that the illustrious man alluded to would, if the page should ever accidentally meet his eye, ...
— The Romance of Words (4th ed.) • Ernest Weekley
... beautiful, wonderfully lovely?" cried Jessie, getting more excited with each adjective, and when the others laughed merrily at the extravagance of her description, she added, defiantly, "I don't care; it is! I'll leave it ...
— Lucile Triumphant • Elizabeth M. Duffield
... are "rams of heroes." Rationalistic interpreters now differ in their attempts at getting rid of the troublesome fact. Hitzig says, "Strong God"—he erroneously views [Hebrew: gbvr], which always means "hero," as an adjective—"the future deliverer is called by the oriental not strictly separating the Divine and human, and He is called so by way of exaggeration, in so far as He possesses divine qualities." A like opinion is expressed by Knobel: ...
— Christology of the Old Testament: And a Commentary on the Messianic Predictions. Vol. 2 • Ernst Hengstenberg
... the other, helplessly, "I wish you would not always refer to Mrs. Dale with that adjective; she is ...
— King Midas • Upton Sinclair
... the English language are divided into nine great classes. These classes are called the Parts of Speech. They are Article, Noun, Adjective, Pronoun, Verb, Adverb, Preposition, Conjunction and Interjection. Of these, the Noun is the most important, as all the others are more or less dependent upon it. A Noun signifies the name of any person, place or thing, in fact, anything of which we can ...
— How to Speak and Write Correctly • Joseph Devlin
... also signifies "the 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
... regulation of this aesthetic instinct. Art, therefore, is art whenever any object or any action, or any arrangement, besides being such as to serve a practical purpose or express an emotion or transfer a thought, is such also as to afford the sui generis satisfaction which we denote by the adjective: beautiful. ...
— Laurus Nobilis - Chapters on Art and Life • Vernon Lee
... Neottia with Ladies'-Tresses, Uvularia with Bellwort and Strawbell, Potentilla with Cinquefoil, and Sanguinaria with Bloodroot. Hepatica may be bad, but Liverleaf is worse. The pretty name of May-flower is not so popular, after all, as that of Trailing-Arbutus, where the graceful and appropriate adjective redeems the substantive, which happens to be Latin and incorrect at the same time. It does seem a waste of time to say Chrysanthemum leucanthemum instead of Whiteweed; though, if the long scientific name were an incantation to banish the intruder, our farmers would ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 7, Issue 42, April, 1861 • Various
... out. A very rare adjective, perhaps only here. The N.E.D. quotes this passage with a reference to the adjective 'flaberkin' puffed out, puffy, and a suggestion that it is akin to the substantive 'flab' something ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. III • Aphra Behn
... this sound advice to his pupil, Guy de Maupassant: "Whatever may be the thing which one wishes to say, there is but one word for expressing it, only one verb to animate it, only one adjective to qualify it. It is essential to search for this word, for this verb, for this adjective, until they are discovered, and to be satisfied with ...
— The Art of Public Speaking • Dale Carnagey (AKA Dale Carnegie) and J. Berg Esenwein
... noun Filipinos to designate collectively the eight civilized, Christianized peoples, called respectively the Cagayans, Ilocanos, Pangasinans, Zambalans, Pampangans, Tagalogs, Bicols and Visayans, or any of them; the adjective Filipino to designate anything pertaining to these peoples, or any of them; the noun Philippines to designate the country, and the adjective Philippine to designate anything pertaining to the country as distinguished ...
— The Philippines: Past and Present (vol. 1 of 2) • Dean C. Worcester
... and anon to keep itself afloat are most of them but the sometimes unrecognisable wreckage of the old systems drifting about under very inappropriate names. Such terms as Realism and Idealism are freely used (generally prefixing the adjective "new") by writers in philosophic periodicals in a sense which might make Plato, Aquinas, or ...
— Essays Towards a Theory of Knowledge • Alexander Philip
... The adjective "mystical" is technically applied, most often. to states that are of brief duration. Of course such hours of rapture as the last two persons describe are mystical experiences, of which in a later lecture I shall have much to say. Meanwhile here is the abridged record of another mystical or semi-mystical ...
— The Varieties of Religious Experience • William James
... could like that gerr'l, Christian Lowry," he said to Father Greer. "She's a good gerr'l enough. Decent! Civil!" Each adjective of approval was launched on a snort that indicated some co-existing irritation; "but I have me own opinion of ...
— Mount Music • E. Oe. Somerville and Martin Ross
... neighborhood, no two people in exactly the same line. Thus it happened that, on the west side of the block, there was only one drygoods dealer, whose shop front and awning posts were festooned with calicoes and other fabrics, ticketed with ingeniously deformed figures, and bearing some attractive adjective, expressing the owners private and conscientious opinion of their excellence. There was one boot-maker, who strung up his products in long branches, like onions; and, although his business was not at all flourishing, ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton
... Bernard. 'She never gives one anything fit to eat. There was that beastly lamp out there went and got broke, and what does she do but crib it out of our grub! Now, Lance, was any living soul served like that before? She gave us only that beastly stir-about at breakfast' (Bernard worked his single adjective hard),' no butter nor sugar at tea, and no pudding, except when there's ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge
... came to conceive as her oppressors, sitting in gauds and finery, and taking lessons which had better befitted their Cinderella—the figure of Mary Ann definitely reassumed some of its antediluvian poetry, if we may apply the adjective to that catastrophic washing of the steps. And Mary Ann herself had grown gloomier—once or twice he thought she had been crying, though he was too numbed and apathetic to ask, and was incapable of suspecting that Rosie had anything to do with her tears. He hardly noticed that Rosie ...
— The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes • Israel Zangwill
... "Vegetarianism" implies a judgment of the qualities which such a diet entails. This word is derived, in fact, from the Latin adjective "Vegetus" (strong). The word "Vegetalism," which we oppose to the preceding one, admits only the establishing of a fact, that of the choice—exclusive or preferred—of the nutritious matters in ...
— The Healthy Life, Vol. V, Nos. 24-28 - The Independent Health Magazine • Various
... Haeckel uses and which, moreover, is in current use, "survival of the best or of the best fitted," ought to be corrected. We must suppress the adjective best. This is simply a persisting relic of that teleology which used to see in Nature and history a premeditated goal to be reached by means of a process ...
— Socialism and Modern Science (Darwin, Spencer, Marx) • Enrico Ferri
... This word is an adjective, formed with the proper termination from the noun, batture, which means a bank upon which the sea beats, reef or sand-bank. Cap Batturier may therefore be rendered sand-bank cape, or the cape of the sand-banks. Batturier does not appear ...
— Voyages of Samuel de Champlain, Vol. 2 • Samuel de Champlain
... a trembling white chalice upon the virginal bosom of which one small touch of color burned like a flame. And thus, little step after little step, they went from little wonder to little wonder. Dolly liked small things; it was the microscopic aspect of Nature that touched her heart; she had an adjective all her own for such: they were "baby" things—baby flowers, baby brooks, baby stars. This appealed less to Charles-Norton, hungry for big sweeps. And even now, he caught himself yawning once, and casting a look ...
— The Trimming of Goosie • James Hopper
... abuse of the adjective little; I am quite aware of it, but how can I do otherwise? In describing this country, the temptation is great to use it ten times in every written line. Little, finical; affected,—all Japan is contained, both physically and ...
— Madame Chrysantheme Complete • Pierre Loti
... distinction. It is in the Songs of the Pixies that the young man "heaves the gentle misery of a sigh," and the sympathetic interest of the reader of today is chilled by the too frequent intrusion of certain abstract ladies, each preceded by her capital letter and attended by her "adjective-in-waiting;" but, after all deductions for the conventionalisms of "white-robed Purity," "meek-eyed Pity," "graceful Ease," etc., one cannot but feel that the Songs of the Pixies was the offspring ...
— English Men of Letters: Coleridge • H. D. Traill
... the Rabbis answered, 'To prevent putrefaction,' which would set in soon on that harvest day. Others say that the intention was to 'prevent more life escaping from him.' But 'dead' is not usually supposed to be an adjective admitting of comparison. Others find the reason in the wish to deliver Israel from the superstitious veneration of such things as the staff, by showing that it was powerless. But verse 31 plainly implies that ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... looking unusually well, and even those who had dubbed her "The Beautiful Yankee" added another superlative adjective. A spot of bright red burned in either cheek and she held her head very high. "How haughty she is!" Prescott heard some one say. Her height, her figure, her look ...
— Before the Dawn - A Story of the Fall of Richmond • Joseph Alexander Altsheler
... high pressure passed quickly; years named by the promoters the period of development. In the Year One the very heavens smiled and the rainfall broke the record of the oldest inhabitant. Thus the region round about lost the word "arid" as a qualifying adjective, and the picturesque fictions of the prospectus makers were miraculously justified. In Year Two there was less rain, but still an abundant crop; and Jethro Simsby, drifting in from some unnamed frontier of a newer cow-country, saw what he had missed, took ...
— The Grafters • Francis Lynde
... off their coats and 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 ...
— In a Green Shade - A Country Commentary • Maurice Hewlett
... 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, not that it would be well for us to ...
— Model Speeches for Practise • Grenville Kleiser
... henceforth do eschew their company, For what is written irksomely, will be Read in like manner. What did I say last In my late canto? Something, I believe Of gratitude. Now this same gratitude Is a fine word to play on. Many a niche It fills in letters, and in billet-doux,— Its adjective a graceful prefix makes To a well-written signature. It gleams A happy mirage in a sunny brain; But as a principle, is oft, I fear, Inoperative. Some satirist hath said That gratitude is only a keen sense Of future favors. As regards myself, Tis my misfortune, and perhaps, my fault, Yet I'm ...
— Man of Uz, and Other Poems • Lydia Howard Sigourney
... reading other than that through which he kept himself acquainted with every movement, and as far as was humanly possible with every fact, that seemed to bear upon the wide range of subjects handled by him. So prodigious was his industry, however—only Dominie Sampson's adjective will serve—and so quick his faculty for detecting at a glance the quality of a book and extracting from it the pith and marrow, that even in the busiest periods of his life he contrived to keep abreast of the things best worth knowing, not only in English, but also in French ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke, Vol. 2 • Stephen Gwynn
... adjective which does duty on all occasions in Sussex. A countryman will scarcely speak three sentences without dragging in this word. A friend of mine who had been remonstrating with one of his parishioners for abusing the parish clerk beyond the bounds of neighbourly expression, received the following ...
— Highways & Byways in Sussex • E.V. Lucas
... words in a sentence is not dissimilar from that in English. The adjective precedes the noun it qualifies, and sentences usually follow the ...
— The Maya Chronicles - Brinton's Library Of Aboriginal American Literature, Number 1 • Various
... natural resources and what is being done with them to-day. As a people, we have been in the habit of declaring certain of our resources to be inexhaustible. To no other resource more frequently than coal has this stupidly false adjective been applied. Yet our coal supplies are so far from being inexhaustible that if the increasing rate of consumption shown by the figures of the last seventy-five years continues to prevail, our supplies of anthracite coal will last but fifty years and of bituminous coal less than two hundred ...
— The Fight For Conservation • Gifford Pinchot
... jointly used, the first serving as a qualifying adjective to the second, a hyphen should be inserted between them. Writers and printers frequently omit the hyphen in such cases, causing an unnecessary obscurity to the reader; thus, "Colonel Baden-Powell, when ...
— The Importance of the Proof-reader - A Paper read before the Club of Odd Volumes, in Boston, by John Wilson • John Wilson
... Wallisian(s), Futunan(s), or Wallis and Futuna Islanders adjective: Wallisian, Futunan, ...
— The 1997 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... Liberals, 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
... classed among these beneficently uprooting agencies, he kept his thoughts to himself. Lydia's marriage had been eminently free from disagreeable shocks or surprises, and amply deserved to be called successful in the usual reasonable and moderate application of that adjective to matrimony; but there had been nothing in it, certainly, to destroy even temporarily anyone's grasp on what are known as the realities ...
— The Squirrel-Cage • Dorothy Canfield |
