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Accent   /əksˈɛnt/  /ˈæksˌɛnt/   Listen
Accent

noun
1.
Distinctive manner of oral expression.  Synonym: speech pattern.  "She had a very clear speech pattern"
2.
Special importance or significance.  Synonym: emphasis.  "The room was decorated in shades of grey with distinctive red accents"
3.
The usage or vocabulary that is characteristic of a specific group of people.  Synonyms: dialect, idiom.  "He has a strong German accent" , "It has been said that a language is a dialect with an army and navy"
4.
The relative prominence of a syllable or musical note (especially with regard to stress or pitch).  Synonyms: emphasis, stress.
5.
A diacritical mark used to indicate stress or placed above a vowel to indicate a special pronunciation.  Synonym: accent mark.



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"Accent" Quotes from Famous Books



... stopped at Lockerbie. All was dim and dark outside, but we soon became conscious that there was quite a number of people collected, peering into the window; and with a strange kind of thrill, I heard my name inquired for in the Scottish accent. I went to the window; there were men, women, and children gathered, and hand after hand was presented, with the words, "Ye're ...
— The Life of Harriet Beecher Stowe • Charles Edward Stowe

... family, and wagers were laid that neither the one nobleman nor the other looked for more than a few months' amusement with the two loveliest girls in England. Mrs. Gunning was openly called the Adventuress, and it was a favourite sport with some ladies to imitate her Irish accent and carnying ways with those she would please; and doubtless Maria angled a little too openly for her lord. They were, in short, easy game for the mockers, and Elizabeth shrunk daily more into the shade. It appeared as if it would be the ...
— The Ladies - A Shining Constellation of Wit and Beauty • E. Barrington

... of our own country dwells in our hearts as well as on our tongues." Ah! never may I lose the Border accent! "Love's Miracle! To cure a coquette." "Most honest women are tired of their task," says this unbeliever. And the others? Are they never aweary? The Duke is his own best critic after all, when he says: "The greatest fault of ...
— Letters on Literature • Andrew Lang

... think archery was a great bore," Grandcourt began. He spoke with a fine accent, but with a certain broken drawl, as of a distinguished personage with a distinguished cold on ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot

... and fearless, as well as patient and strong. I had many acquaintances among them already. I felt they were good people to stay with, and they were congenial. To be sure, a few spoke English with an accent, and there were no small, white hands among them; but if the hearts and lives were clean and true, and so far as I could judge they ...
— A Woman who went to Alaska • May Kellogg Sullivan

... schoolmates considered necessary discipline for a novice. She had to go through an ordeal of chaff and banter. She was known by the sobriquet of "Stars and Stripes", or "The Yank", and good-natured fun was poked at her transatlantic accent. She took it good-temperedly, but with a readiness of repartee that laid the ...
— A harum-scarum schoolgirl • Angela Brazil

... like timorous[116] accent and dire yell As when, by night and negligence, the fire ...
— Shakespearean Tragedy - Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth • A. C. Bradley

... she is "Amur'can," and her accent is alarming; Her birthplace has an awful name you pray you may forget; Yet, after all, we own "La Belle Americaine" is charming, So let us hope she'll win at last ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., September 20, 1890 • Various

... very dear father, how do you find yourself?" said he to him, in a honeyed tone, which his Italian accent seemed to render still more hypocritical. Rodin pretended not to hear, breathed hard, and made no answer. But the cardinal, not without disgust, shook with his gloved hand the arm of the Jesuit, and repeated in a louder voice: "My reverend and very dear father, ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue

... himself above the majority of people, he could not have given an answer; the life he had been living of late was not particularly meritorious. The fact of his speaking English, French, and German with a good accent, and of his wearing the best linen, clothes, ties, and studs, bought from the most expensive dealers in these goods, he quite knew would not serve as a reason for claiming superiority. At the same time he did claim superiority, ...
— Resurrection • Count Leo Tolstoy

... as much as I can be, as you may say. I've been a member in good and regular standin' this fifty-five year—and I hain't arrived at my age without seeing there's somethin' in life beside livin'." He paused, then added with an accent of pride, "I don't owe any man a cent, nor never cheated a man of one. Wall, I've had quite a spell to think of things in, durin' my sickness, and I don't know but what I've enjoyed it considerable. Thought of things all along back ...
— McClure's Magazine, March, 1896, Vol. VI., No. 4. • Various

... right," the man said, and it struck her that his accent was not quite English. She wondered if he were Canadian or American. Not that she knew much about either. "A woman like you would think right!" he went on. "Only one woman out of ten thousand would ...
— The Second Latchkey • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson

... discussing politics and business, the whole press of Europe at their disposal. Your waiter brings your coffee and automatically at the same time the "Daily Telegraph," or "Figaro," or the "Chicago Tribune," or the "Berliner Tageblatt," or "Obshy Delo," according to your accent and appearance. Time seems to cease to have real value in a cafe; it is easy to spend hours over one cup of coffee and the newspapers—the difficulty is at last to ...
— Europe—Whither Bound? - Being Letters of Travel from the Capitals of Europe in the Year 1921 • Stephen Graham

... white sheet. Slanderers and evil speakers he clapped into the Peel, or perhaps the whipping-stocks, with tongue in a noose of leather, and when after a lapse of time the gag was removed the liberated tongue was obliged to denounce itself by saying thrice, clearly, boldly, probably with good accent and discretion, "False ...
— The Little Manx Nation - 1891 • Hall Caine

... bluff person with a strong, hard face, piercing grey eyes, and very prominent, bushy eyebrows, of about fifty or sixty years of age. Add a Scotch accent and a meerschaum pipe, which he smokes even when he is wearing a frock coat and a tall hat, and you have Jorsen. I believe that he lives somewhere in the country, is well off, and practises gardening. If so he has never asked me to his place, and ...
— The Mahatma and the Hare • H. Rider Haggard

... after our arrival at Port Essington, where we learned that they meant "Very good, no good, Malays very far." Their intonation was extremely melodious, some other words, the meaning of which we could not make out, were "Kelengeli, Kongurr, Verritimba, Vanganbarr, Nangemong, Maralikilla;" the accent being always on the first syllable of the word, and all the ...
— Journal of an Overland Expedition in Australia • Ludwig Leichhardt

... moral point of view, with their manifold applications to life, were as yet hidden from me. I judged men and women by their speech, even by their pronunciation, and thought that I could detect the accent of the educated. In short, education became all in all to my mind; the one desirable possession, and its end the writing of books, its reward fame. As was natural I tried to write, but my rude penmanship, my inability to spell the words, ...
— Confessions of Boyhood • John Albee

... Sanine, who till now had walked behind them in silence. His voice sounded calm and pleasant, in strange contrast to the harsh accent of the disputants. ...
— Sanine • Michael Artzibashef

... giant. A giant bronzed by unknown suns, talking French indifferently well, and with a foreign accent. An interesting person, indeed, but a being quite beyond his ...
— The Pools of Silence • H. de Vere Stacpoole

... an accent of great sincerity, a series of facts which I am quite willing to admit. Unfortunately, you have forgotten a point of the first importance: what became of Mathias de Gorne? You tied him up here, in this room. Well, this morning ...
— The Eight Strokes of the Clock • Maurice Leblanc

... was constantly carried on. This gentleman's name was S.S. Prentiss, Esq.; and the barking, it was now evident, consisted of calling out Prentiss! —Prentiss!—Prentiss! with all their might, on the top of the voice, and with an accent, sharp and rising, ...
— American Scenes, and Christian Slavery - A Recent Tour of Four Thousand Miles in the United States • Ebenezer Davies

... of your being suspected, now; and you might really go about safely without a guard, unless you were to enter into conversation with anyone. You speak the language very well, but your accent is not quite the same as ours, here, though in Aracan it would ...
— On the Irrawaddy - A Story of the First Burmese War • G. A. Henty

... Duncan, and that's all about it," Elsie replied, sulkily, only she said it in a broad Scottish accent which you would hardly have understood had you heard it, and certainly could make nothing of if I were to try ...
— Little Folks (July 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various

... says the little girl, capering about, laughing, and dancing, and munching her bun; and as she ate it she began to sing, 'Oh, what fun to have a plum bun! how I wis it never was done!' At which, and her funny accent, Angelica, Giglio, and the King and Queen began to ...
— The Rose and the Ring • William Makepeace Thackeray

... to the bible for a name, these sentimental parents will pore over filthy novels, or catch at some foreign accent, to get a name which may have a fashionable sound, and a claim upon the prevailing taste of the times, and which may remind one of the battles of some ambitious general, or of the adventures of some love-sick swain, or of the tragic ...
— The Christian Home • Samuel Philips

... stole on the still charmed air, Like the first gentle accent of Eve, Thus spake from her chariot the Fairy so fair: "I come at thy call ... but, oh Paint-King! beware, Beware ...
— Translations of German Poetry in American Magazines 1741-1810 • Edward Ziegler Davis

... at him a little surprised. "At least, for the present! But how—" she broke off. "I suppose, though, you could tell by my accent. I've lived nearly all my life ...
— Half A Chance • Frederic S. Isham

... scuddeth along on high, Silent and swift as the angel Death, Led by Euroclydon through the sky Unto its victim with bated breath, Whilst only God and the Petrel seeth The path by which the Avenger fleeth, And with shrill accent of wail and mourning Riseth the ...
— Eidolon - The Course of a Soul and Other Poems • Walter R. Cassels

... far,' said a cynical politician about one of his rivals; 'he believes every word he says.' And that is the condition always of getting other people to believe us. Faith is contagious; men catch from other people's tongues the accent of conviction. If one wants to enforce any opinion upon others, the first condition is that he shall be utterly self- oblivious; and when he is manifestly saying, as the Apostles in this context did, 'Do not fix your eyes on us, as though we were doing anything,' then ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: The Acts • Alexander Maclaren

... fashion of the time, the short-waisted coat of many lapels, the double waistcoat and billows of delicate lace. Unlike Droulde he was of great height, with fair hair and a somewhat lazy expression in his good-natured blue eyes, and as he spoke, there was just a soupon of foreign accent in the pronunciation of the French vowels, a certain drawl of o's and a's, that would have betrayed the Britisher to ...
— I Will Repay • Baroness Emmuska Orczy

... a strong Teutonic accent, the voice of Van Klopen, the Hollander, caught up the refrain. "Yes, strict necessities, one can swear to that. And if, before flying into a passion, Monsieur le Baron had taken the trouble to glance over my little bill, he ...
— Baron Trigault's Vengeance - Volume 2 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau

... without a trace of foreign accent. He stood in the middle of the room, facing Rivington, in a ...
— The Swindler and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell

... door opening into the kitchen was opened; and all stood up in both rooms, while the minister, tall, large, one hand resting on the spread table, the other lifted up, said, in the deep voice that would have been loud had it not been so full and rich, but without the peculiar accent or twang that I believe is considered devout by some people, 'Whether we eat or drink, or whatsoever we do, let us do all ...
— Cousin Phillis • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

... Italian. My uncle was never satisfied with our accent; and we must advertise French acquired on the Continent now-a-days, if we want to succeed in Edinburgh. The things I could teach best—English grammar and composition, writing and arithmetic, history, and the elements of science—are monopolized by men; but I must make an effort. ...
— Mr. Hogarth's Will • Catherine Helen Spence

... begin with "and furthermore," and conclude with "at least," with a strong local accent. Hence, on this occasion more than upon others, these peculiarities rang out ...
— Tartarin of Tarascon • Alphonse Daudet

... answered in a soft voice, speaking English with a slightly foreign accent, or so at least it seemed to the Sleeper's ears. "You are quite safe. You were brought hither from where you fell asleep. It is quite safe. You have been here ...
— The Sleeper Awakes - A Revised Edition of When the Sleeper Wakes • H.G. Wells

... that you give just as much time to one foot as to another, and where there are three syllables they are short and can be pronounced quickly. Some syllables take more time to pronounce than other syllables; and to accent a syllable simply means to give it more time in pronouncing. In music, time is accurately represented by notes, and a bar of music always contains exactly the same amount of time, no matter how it is divided by the notes; ...
— Four Famous American Writers: Washington Irving, Edgar Allan Poe, • Sherwin Cody

... men of letters whom he saw. He describes Carlyle as 'tall and gaunt, with a cliff-like brow, self-possessed, and holding his extraordinary powers of conversation in easy command; clinging to his northern accent with evident relish; full of lively anecdote, and with a streaming humour, which floated ...
— Victorian Worthies - Sixteen Biographies • George Henry Blore

... one evening, and as we were getting supper there came along a man pushing a light handcart, loaded with traps and provisions, and asked permission to camp with us, which was readily granted. He was a stout, hearty, good-natured fellow, possessed of a rich Irish accent, and in the best of humor commenced to prepare his supper. Just about this time there came into camp another lone man, leading a diminutive donkey, not much larger than a good-sized sheep. The donkey, on halting, gave us a salute that simply silenced the ordinary mule. The ...
— In the Early Days along the Overland Trail in Nebraska Territory, in 1852 • Gilbert L. Cole

... understood, your Excellency," said Mudara, with the inimitable accent of respect. "Let good be done and let evil be avoided, is the sum total of the Government's desires. But whenever I can see clearly, I shall know how to act. When right and truth are plain, time and experience are the best allies. We have at least sufficient evidence to institute ...
— Robert Orange - Being a Continuation of the History of Robert Orange • John Oliver Hobbes

... but there was no doubt that she was sincere. She had received him with an air of grievance, and a hard accent in her voice. But she was entering now into a comprehension of the regrets which must be ...
— The Summons • A.E.W. Mason

... hands, he looked not so far from a hobo. However, the French maid who came to the door was evidently accustomed to strange-looking visitors. She didn't order Peter to the servant's entrance, nor threaten him with the dogs; she merely said, "Be seated, please. I will tell madame"—putting the accent on the second syllable, where Peter had never heard ...
— 100%: The Story of a Patriot • Upton Sinclair

... said he, putting the remains of a crust into his wallet—and this should have been thy portion, said he, hadst thou been alive to have shared it with me.—I thought, by the accent, it had been an apostrophe to his child; but 'twas to his ass, and to the very ass we had seen dead in the road, which had occasioned La Fleur's misadventure. The man seemed to lament it much; and it instantly brought into my mind Sancho's ...
— A Sentimental Journey • Laurence Sterne

... you uneducated people and villagers often fall into the opposite extreme. They almost always speak too loud; their pronunciation is too exact, and leads to rough and coarse articulation; their accent is too pronounced, they ...
— Emile • Jean-Jacques Rousseau

... flimsy parcel had been taken within, Mrs Budd brought in Mrs Perkins and the baby to introduce them to Mavis. Mrs Perkins sat down and assumed a manner of superfine gentility, while she talked with a Cockney accent. Her mother remained standing. The dust-cloak lived in Kensington, it informed Mavis, "which was so convenient for the West End: it was only an hour's ...
— Sparrows - The Story of an Unprotected Girl • Horace W. C. Newte

... or what not? I smirk and go through the history, giving my admirable imitations of the characters introduced: I mimic Jones's grin, Hobbs's squint, Brown's stammer, Grady's brogue, Sandy's Scotch accent, to the best of my power: and, the family part of my audience laughs good-humoredly. Perhaps the stranger, for whose amusement the performance is given, is amused by it and laughs too. But this practice continued is not ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray

... away through jealousy of his sister, and by and by she said, with a faint smile, "I have a present for you, laddie." In the great world without, she used few Thrums words now; you would have known she was Scotch by her accent only, but when she and Tommy were together in that room, with the door shut, she always spoke as if her window still looked out on the bonny Marywellbrae. It is not really bonny, it is gey an' mean an' bleak, and you must not come to see it. It is just a steep wind-swept street, old ...
— Sentimental Tommy - The Story of His Boyhood • J. M. Barrie

... passed many a pleasant hour in the realms of civilisation. The recognition was not mutual, for a week of real Siberian travel will render any man unrecognisable. "Pardon, M'sieu," began the stranger, and I at once recognised the familiar British accent; "Je reste ici seulement une heure." "Faites, monsieur," was my reply. But as I spoke the fur-clad giant looked up from the valise he was unstrapping and regarded me curiously. "Well, I'm d——d," he said, after a long pause, "if it isn't Harry de Windt." But Talbot ...
— From Paris to New York by Land • Harry de Windt

... Hampden," she exclaimed, with a suspicion of a pretty foreign accent "don't speak of it, please, I realized your trying situation, and thought I knew something of ...
— The Doctor's Daughter • "Vera"

... Barbarismus is, when a worde is either naughtely wrytten or prono[un]ced ctrary to the ryght law & maner of speakynge. And it is done by addicion, detracci, chaunging, transposynge, eyther of a letter, asyllable, tyme, accent or aspiraci. Hereof we haue shewed exampels partly wher they be called figures, and partly, doute ye not, but both the speakynge and wrytyng of barbarouse men wyll gyue you inow. Hytherto be referred the fautes of euil pronouncing certein ...
— A Treatise of Schemes and Tropes • Richard Sherry

... quick temper found vent in sarcasms that blistered and words like swords, who could declare during the time of the engagement, to which in spite of warnings manifold she clung, "I will not marry to live on less than my natural and artificial wants"; who, ridiculing his accent to his face and before his friends, could write, "apply your talents to gild over the inequality of our births"; and who found herself obliged to live sixteen miles from the nearest neighbour, to milk a cow, scour floors and mend shoes—when we consider all this we are constrained ...
— Thomas Carlyle - Biography • John Nichol

... house Of a gentle spirit, now dead— Wordsworth's son-in-law, friend— I saw the meeting of two Gifted women.[22] The one, Brilliant with recent renown, Young, unpractised, had told With a master's accent her feign'd Story of passionate life; The other, maturer in fame, Earning, she too, her praise First in fiction, had since Widen'd her sweep, and survey'd History, ...
— Poetical Works of Matthew Arnold • Matthew Arnold

... out of the traffic, Desmond's thoughts were busy with the extraordinary mission entrusted to him. So he was to sink his own identity and don that of an Anglo-German business man, his appearance, accent, habits, everything. The difficulties of the task positively made him cold with fear. The man must have relations, friends, business acquaintances who would be sufficiently familiar with his appearance and manner ...
— Okewood of the Secret Service • Valentine Williams

... will please keep quiet," said the preacher sternly, "and if the widow and orphans wouldn't grin so, I'd be glad. You'd better be thinking about how you'd feel to be buried, and you are likely to be in this family," she continued with an offensive accent on this. ...
— What Two Children Did • Charlotte E. Chittenden

... and dissipate doubts by the inimitable certainties of Faith. In fine, this sentiment of paternity, which gave his pen a delicately feminine quality, lent to his prose a characteristically individual accent discernible among ...
— Against The Grain • Joris-Karl Huysmans

... the bairns had to shut their eyes to recall their father's face, as it gleamed down upon them from that strange high pulpit, the old people used to talk to them of this first sermon in Merleville. There was a charm in the Scottish accent, and in the earnest manner of the minister, which won upon these people wonderfully. It was heart speaking to heart, an earnest, loving, human heart, that had sinned and had been forgiven, that had suffered and had ...
— Janet's Love and Service • Margaret M Robertson

... and Japan, is still to be heard, in its home country, in half a hundred varying stages of transition. You may go all over the States, and - setting aside the actual intrusion and influence of foreigners, negro, French, or Chinese - you shall scarce meet with so marked a difference of accent as in the forty miles between Edinburgh and Glasgow, or of dialect as in the hundred miles between Edinburgh and Aberdeen. Book English has gone round the world, but at home we still preserve the racy idioms of our fathers, and every county, in some parts every dale, has its ...
— Memories and Portraits • Robert Louis Stevenson

... and accent may be due to consciousness of roll. The French word will never make itself comfortable in English if it is ...
— Society for Pure English, Tract 3 (1920) - A Few Practical Suggestions • Society for Pure English

... along, they were met by another servant, who said in hurried tones, but with a glad accent in ...
— Iola Leroy - Shadows Uplifted • Frances E.W. Harper

... zeal for the mating of mankind which animated Sugarman, the professional match-maker. In fine, he was a witty old fellow and everybody loved him. He and his wife spoke English with a strong foreign accent; in their more intimate causeries they dropped ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill

... of 'Familiar [that is, Friendly] Letters' as models for inexperienced young people. Complying, Richardson discovered the possibilities of the letter form as a means of telling stories, and hence proceeded to write his first novel, 'Pamela, [Footnote: He wrongly placed the accent on the first syllable.] or Virtue Rewarded,' which was published in 1740. It attained enormous success, which he followed up by writing his masterpiece, 'Clarissa Harlowe' (1747-8), and then 'The History of Sir Charles Grandison' (1753). He spent his latter years, ...
— A History of English Literature • Robert Huntington Fletcher

... shawl around her, and led her to the carriage. After he had assisted her in, he touched lightly the hand he had just released, and said "Good-night," his very accent a blessing. ...
— The Fatal Glove • Clara Augusta Jones Trask

... Archy, in a broad Scotch accent. "My cousin, that is my father's sister's son, Alick Murray there, is lieutenant of a ship they call the Tudor, and I'm to go ...
— The Three Lieutenants • W.H.G. Kingston

... an AEolian of Lesbos, and the other a Hebrew belonging to the Jewish community, but who was not distinguishable by dress or accent from his Greek fellow-citizens, greeted each other on the quay opposite the landing-place for the king's vessels, some of which were putting out into the stream, spreading their purple sails and dipping their prows inlaid with ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... know the particulars of her life with her aunt and the strange training she had had, he could not possibly have guessed what was going on in her mind, and how much effect his stories were having. The beautiful little face touched him very much, and the pretty French accent with which the child spoke seemed very musical to him, and added a great charm to the gentle, serious answers she made to the remarks he addressed to her. He could not help seeing that something had made little Mademoiselle ...
— Little Saint Elizabeth and Other Stories • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... father placed every confidence in him, and often declared that he had the best idea of business he had ever met with. This may very likely have been the fact; but to me he appeared simply a tall, grave, taciturn man, of cold manners, speaking with a slight German accent, which I disliked. I suppose he was about thirty-seven years of age, but I always thought of him as older than my father, who was fifty. Another and more valid reason for my disliking Koerner was that he was in the habit of paying a great deal of attention to my ladylove, ...
— David Poindexter's Disappearance and Other Tales • Julian Hawthorne

... her no longer. That voice would have drawn me had she spoken in the language of the Toltecs or the lost Zamzummin. To describe it would of course be impossible. The novelty of her accent, the way in which she gave the 'h' in 'which,' 'what,' and 'when,' the Welsh rhythm of her intonation, were as bewitching to me as the timbre of her voice. And let me say here, once for all, that when I sat down to ...
— Aylwin • Theodore Watts-Dunton

... to extinction. So we got into our wagon, with the fish, and drove to Robinson's tavern, almost five miles off, where we supped and passed the night. In the bar-room was a fat old countryman on a journey, and a quack doctor of the vicinity, and an Englishman with a peculiar accent. Seeing B——'s jointed and brass-mounted fishing-pole, he took it for a theodolite, and supposed that we had been on a surveying expedition. At supper, which consisted of bread, butter, cheese, cake, doughnuts, and gooseberry-pie, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 101, March, 1866 • Various

... so as to make the words open themselves with a more spreading and sonorous fluency. With this he mingled the Attic contractions, the broader Doric, and the feebler AEolic, which often rejects its aspirate, or takes off its accent, and completed this variety by altering some letters with the licence of poetry. Thus his measures, instead of being fetters to his sense, were always in readiness to run along with the warmth of his rapture, and even to give a further representation of his notions, ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer

... purpose of improving and enlarging it, will doubtless do much toward converting it into one of the great commercial stations of Europe. But as, after leaving my hotel the afternoon I arrived, I wandered for a long time at hazard through the tortuous by-ways of the city, I said to myself, not without an accent of private triumph, that here at last was something it would be almost impossible to modernise. I had found my hotel, in the first place, extremely entertaining—the Croce di Malta, as it is called, established in a gigantic palace on the edge of the swarming and not over-clean harbour. It was ...
— Italian Hours • Henry James

... a broken nose?" Mr. Longdon demanded with an accent that for some reason touched in the others the spring ...
— The Awkward Age • Henry James

... entertainment. They form a contrast which gives rise to the most absurd jokes, and most unforeseen situations. He brings into this fragile little paper house, his sailor's freedom and ease of manner, and his Breton accent; side by side with these tiny mousmes of affected manners and bird-like voices, who, small as they are, rule the big fellow as they please; make him eat with chopsticks; teach him Japanese "pigeon-vole,"—and cheat him, and quarrel, and almost die ...
— Madame Chrysantheme • Pierre Loti

... quick step along the matting, the handle of the door turned in Marguerite's resisting grasp, and Mrs. Purcell's light muslins swept through. Mr. Raleigh advanced to meet her,—a singular light upon his face, a strange accent ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 39, January, 1861 • Various

... and if you knew all, you would, I know, be the first to try to help me out of my difficulties, instead of striving to increase them.' 'I would do anything to help you,' exclaimed Alice, deceived by the accent of sorrow with which Mrs. Barton knew how ...
— Muslin • George Moore

... bank under the hedge and in such deep shadow that I had not noticed him. Nor could I see much of him now, though I observed that he seemed to be taking some kind of refreshment; but the voice was not a Kentish voice, nor even an English one; it seemed to engraft an unfamiliar, guttural accent on the dialect of ...
— The Uttermost Farthing - A Savant's Vendetta • R. Austin Freeman

... was a singularly agreeable voice which aroused him, soft and well-bred, but with a faint foreign accent. The speaker was his employer, a slender dark man, with a finely carved face, immobile as the Sphinx. He had laid aside his Inverness and top hat, and showed himself in evening dress with a large—perhaps a thought too large—buttonhole ...
— The Secret House • Edgar Wallace

... the generic and specific names have been divided into syllables, and the place of the primary accent has been indicated, with the single object of securing a uniform pronunciation in accordance with the established rules ...
— Studies of American Fungi. Mushrooms, Edible, Poisonous, etc. • George Francis Atkinson

... and put under the care of the best instructors which the country afforded, he was a considerable time before he could tell his letters, and much longer before he could read with tolerable accuracy: and even then he pronounced every thing with such a clownish accent and such a drawling tone, that any stranger would have taken him for a young country bumkin, who had been used to follow the plow tail, and not for the son and heir of a wealthy gentleman. He was equally ...
— Vice in its Proper Shape • Anonymous

... speaking for the first time in an accent of reproach, and seeming, by the sound of his voice, to have covered his face with his hands, 'I have been, since then, a useful foil to you. You have trodden on me freely in your climbing up. Don't spurn ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens

... he was resolved should be his last. As he approached the thick curtain of deer-skins that hung over the aperture between the two apartments, he thought he heard a strange sweet voice speaking the Indian language with a foreign accent; and hastily drawing aside the heavy drapery, he was astonished to see his prisoner, and intended victim, liberated from the cord that had bound him, and reclining on the furs and cushions that formed Oriana's usual ...
— The Pilgrims of New England - A Tale Of The Early American Settlers • Mrs. J. B. Webb

... end," concurred the magical echo, its accent and intonation eerily reproducing those of the gamekeeper. Then: "Whose wife stole the key of the poor-box?" inquired the spirit voice, and finally: "When are they ...
— The Orchard of Tears • Sax Rohmer

... accent the words of the speaker a heavy gust of wind at that moment shook the long light wooden structure which served as the general store of Sidon settlement, in Contra Costa. Even after it had passed a prolonged whistle came through the keyhole, sides, and openings of the closed glass front ...
— A First Family of Tasajara • Bret Harte

... room; the market carts; the hour; the very moment of history. Then consider the effect of sex—how between man and woman it hangs wavy, tremulous, so that here's a valley, there's a peak, when in truth, perhaps, all's as flat as my hand. Even the exact words get the wrong accent on them. But something is always impelling one to hum vibrating, like the hawk moth, at the mouth of the cavern of mystery, endowing Jacob Flanders with all sorts of qualities he had not at all—for though, certainly, he sat talking to Bonamy, ...
— Jacob's Room • Virginia Woolf

... Banner was tolerable. The Collector, consulting with him, forgot the pertness of his address, the distressing twang of his accent. He had dismounted, and the pair were busy with a tape, calling out and checking measurements, when from the southward there was borne to the Collector's ears the distant crack ...
— Lady Good-for-Nothing • A. T. Quiller-Couch

... wretchedness. He despised himself as much as he despised her. Then he made plans for the future, the same plans over and over again, interrupted by recollections of kisses on her soft pale cheek and by the sound of her voice with its trailing accent; he had a great deal of work to do, since in the summer he was taking chemistry as well as the two examinations he had failed in. He had separated himself from his friends at the hospital, but now he wanted companionship. There ...
— Of Human Bondage • W. Somerset Maugham

... "Diplodocus, with the accent on the plod; one of the hugest animals that ever walked the earth. They found the bones of this monster almost complete in Colorado and wired them together so you can get an idea of what really 'big game' was like ...
— Ethel Morton's Enterprise • Mabell S.C. Smith

... have preferred—preferred—" Maria, don't you see that child has got the scissors? "He would have—" There now, let mamma put on its little socks. Now it's all dressed so nice and clean. Don'ty ky! No, don'ty! Leonora! Put more accent on the first beat. "Harold gazed moodily into—" His bottle, Maria! Quick! He'll ...
— The Wit of Women - Fourth Edition • Kate Sanborn

... I could desire. I was able, consequently, to take the part of many of the weaker or less courageous boys who were bullied by the rest. Among others, there was a delicate boy called Henri de Villereine, and who, because he spoke with a foreign accent, was nicknamed Frenchy. Though a year or two my senior, he was not nearly so strong, and was ill able to defend himself against much smaller boys. He seemed a gentle, well-disposed boy, and when others, on my first going to school, had attacked me, he had always stood aloof. Though ...
— Charley Laurel - A Story of Adventure by Sea and Land • W. H. G. Kingston

... the remarks of others, and tried to gain some idea of the character of the speakers. Two other persons were at first as silent as myself. One of them at length began to ask a few questions, speaking with a strong French accent. He appeared far more interested in what was said than the other. I heard him addressed as Monsieur Lejoillie. On inquiring about him from the gentleman who ...
— In the Wilds of Florida - A Tale of Warfare and Hunting • W.H.G. Kingston

... names in -ius, and /filius, end in -i: in the vocative singular, and the accent rests on the ...
— Latin for Beginners • Benjamin Leonard D'Ooge

... notice that I have acquired a slight foreign accent," he said, and with that he slipped behind the curtain. A moment later the sound was heard of the window being quietly opened and ...
— Malcolm Sage, Detective • Herbert George Jenkins

... black-haired, thick-set youth with heavy features in a heavy, pasty face, a face oddly decorated by immense and slightly prominent blue eyes, a face where all day long the sensual dream brooded heavily. His black eyebrows gave it a certain accent and distinction. It was because of his dream that Leonard ...
— The Combined Maze • May Sinclair

... a chat, which interested Monsignor deeply, a soft voice floated down from the upper distance, calling, "Judy! Judy!" in a delicate and perfect French accent. ...
— The Art of Disappearing • John Talbot Smith

... standpoint, than when he throws scorn and indignation upon his country's sins and frailties. "But who is he that prates of the culture of mankind, of better arts and life? Go, blind worm, go—behold the famous States harrying Mexico with rifle and with knife! Or who, with accent bolder, dare praise the freedom-loving mountaineer? I found by thee, O rushing Contoocook! and in thy valleys, Agiochook! the jackals of the negro- holder.... What boots thy zeal, O glowing friend, that would indignant rend the ...
— Confessions and Criticisms • Julian Hawthorne

... the fire, and Sophia went for the letters. She was a good reader, and could give the county peculiarities with all their quaint variations of mood and temper and accent. She was quite aware that the reading would exhibit her in an entirely new role to Julius, and she entered upon the task with all the confidence and enthusiasm which insured the entertainment. And as both Professor Sedgwick and Joe Bulteel were well known to the ...
— The Squire of Sandal-Side - A Pastoral Romance • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr

... said with a strong Cockney accent, as he came up out of the fog, and the flare of the match gave him a full view of her, standing there with her lips shut hard, and, the hand-bag clutched up close to her with both hands. "You wot called, was it? Wot price me for arnswerin' ...
— Cleek: the Man of the Forty Faces • Thomas W. Hanshew

... Opportunity, in a high, decided way, as if to make sure of an audience "The Virtue; La Solitude," pronouncing the last word in a desperately English accent, "The Solitude; La Charite, The Charity. It is really delightful, Mary, as 'Sarah Soothings' would say, to meet with these glimmerings of taste in this ...
— The Redskins; or, Indian and Injin, Volume 1. - Being the Conclusion of the Littlepage Manuscripts • James Fenimore Cooper

... accent, too, was wiped out as if by magic. Probably he had forgotten for the instant that he had used it in Locking. At any rate, he did not use it now. But his English was perfect, in word and tone—the English of ...
— The Wolf Patrol - A Tale of Baden-Powell's Boy Scouts • John Finnemore

... with so much graceful ease, and beauty, and propriety of accent, as would have made ...
— Clarissa, Volume 5 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson

... interfere," said Steinberg fiercely, but without taking his eyes off his adversary. Then in French, with a very peculiar accent, he cried, "En garde!" and stepped forward to cross swords with ...
— In Honour's Cause - A Tale of the Days of George the First • George Manville Fenn

... Miss Rose, Miss Rose, Miss Rose." The words beat hard in his ears like a clock ticking loudly. The accent was on the "Miss"—the last word was much fainter. "Rose Miss" was wrong, so the other must be right, except for the misplaced accent. Did the accent always come on the first beat of a measure? He had forgotten, but he would ask the man ...
— Old Rose and Silver • Myrtle Reed

... course it's mother keeps me at it," he said, relapsing into the same accent of a sulky child that he had ...
— Helbeck of Bannisdale, Vol. I. • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... own cot. For an hour the young lieutenant lay musing on the events of the day. The remark of Barnstable would occur to him, in connection with the singular comment of the boy; and then his thoughts would recur to the pilot, who, taken from the hostile shores of Britain, and with her accent on his tongue, had served them so faithfully and so well. He remembered the anxiety of Captain Munson to procure this stranger, at the very hazard from which they had just been relieved, and puzzled himself with ...
— The Pilot • J. Fenimore Cooper

... this should be so difficult; for of selfishness we should say that we all dislike it. In its grosser forms we repudiate it. The very word is one which we articulate with a certain accent of contempt. ...
— Sermons at Rugby • John Percival

... just mentioned an acquaintance of Sepia's, who attracted the notice and roused the peculiar interest of Mr. Redmain, because of a look he saw pass betwixt them. This man spoke both English and French with a foreign accent, and gave himself out as a Georgian—Count Galofta, he called himself: I believe he was a prince in Paris. At this time he was in London, and, during the ten days that Sepia was alone, came to see her several times— called early in the forenoon first, the next ...
— Mary Marston • George MacDonald

... over and the girls found themselves liking the gay young strangers immensely. Their English accent and the way they said, "Bah Jove!" and "Beastly hot weather, what?" fascinated the uninitiated girls, and they were soon imitating their new-found friends ...
— Lucile Triumphant • Elizabeth M. Duffield

... that accent which removes from the compassion of a woman all that is mortifying in human pity, "ought we not to feel ashamed of our happiness in presence of ...
— A Drama on the Seashore • Honore de Balzac

... not understand him, however, and their intelligence did not seem to be awakened until he uttered foul words and broad expressions, which were mangled by his accent. Then they all began to laugh at once like crazy women and fell against each other, repeating the words, which the baron then began to say all wrong, in order that he might have the pleasure of hearing them say dirty ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant

... in the direction you have been," said the other horseman, who spoke English with a proper accent. "Will you please tell us ...
— The Giraffe Hunters • Mayne Reid

... class is asked to bid you "Good morning," and the familiar greeting comes to you in the soft Italian accent, mingled with the higher-keyed voices ...
— Home Missions In Action • Edith H. Allen

... by jingo!' ejaculated Toole, in an accent of thankfulness amounting nearly to rapture. Nutter seemed relieved, too, and advanced to be presented to the man who, instinct told him, was to be his friend. Cluffe, a man of fashion of the military school, eyed the elegant stranger ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu

... carriage was arriving. He alighted from horseback, and the Pope came out of his carriage. Rapp was with the Emperor, and I think I yet hear him describing, in his original manner and with his German accent, this grand interview, upon which, however, he for his part looked with very little respect. Rapp, in fact, was among the number of those who, notwithstanding his attachment to the Emperor, preserved independence ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne

... respect Dora Milburn, the only child, was said to be her mother's own daughter. The shoulders, at all events, testified to it; and the young lady had been taught to speak, like Mrs Milburn, with what was known as an "English accent." The accent in general use in Elgin was borrowed—let us hope temporarily—from the other side of the line. It suffered local modifications and exaggerations, but it was clearly an American product. The English accent was thoroughly affected, especially the broad "a." The time may come when ...
— The Imperialist • (a.k.a. Mrs. Everard Cotes) Sara Jeannette Duncan

... breathless relief, with a rather foreign accent] Oh! it's you, Larry! Why did you knock? I was so frightened. Come in! [She crosses quickly, and flings her arms round his neck] [Recoiling—in a terror-stricken whisper] ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... Thessalian crops and the occupation of the Isthmus of Corinth. Agreeably surprised at demands which fell so far short of the objects with which rumour had credited the High Commissioner, the Premier raised no difficulties; and M. Jonnart, in order "to gain his confidence," spoke to him with his usual "accent of loyalty and frankness" about the magnificent future the Protecting Powers had in store for Greece. Then, under the pretence that he was awaiting {191} fresh instructions that night, he made another appointment for ...
— Greece and the Allies 1914-1922 • G. F. Abbott

... natives, we could discover that they were metre. Mr Banks took great pains to write down some of them which were made upon our arrival, as nearly as he could express their sounds by combinations of our letters; but when we read them, not having their accent, we could scarcely make them either metre or rhyme. The reader will easily perceive that they are of very ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 13 • Robert Kerr

... K. (in a mixed accent). Lyties and Shentilmans, pefoor I co-mence viz my hillusions zis hevenin', I 'ave, most hemphadically to repoodiate hall hassistance from hany spirrids or soopernatural beins vatsohever. All I shall 'ave ze honour of showing you will be perform by simple ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, November 15, 1890 • Various

... deevil," answered his guest, his Scottish accent predominating when in anger though otherwise not particularly remarkable,"ye donnard auld crippled idiot, what have I to do with the session, or the geese that flock to it, or the hawks that pick ...
— The Antiquary, Complete • Sir Walter Scott

... to the lowest form; rough in looks, and dress, and manners (I knew it, but it requires some self-respect even to use a nail-brush, and self-respect was next door to impossible at Crayshaw's); and with my north-country accent deepened, and my conversation disfigured by slang which, not being fashionable slang, was as inadmissible as thieves' lingo; it was hard, I say, to come back thus, and meet dear old Jem, and generally one at least of his school-fellows whom he had asked to be allowed to invite—both of them well ...
— We and the World, Part I - A Book for Boys • Juliana Horatia Ewing

... School for Girls was probably no better and no worse than schools of its kind. It bestowed a superficial training upon its pupils, with an accent upon the social graces. Its graduates were always easily identified by their English a's, their good diction, their charming manners, and their intensely conventional point of view. Any departure from the Vantine "norm" ...
— The Cricket • Marjorie Cooke

... than I possessed. After concluding my last service about ten o'clock that night, a poor man asked me to go and pray with his wife, saying that she was dying. I readily agreed, and on the way to his house asked him why he had not sent for the priest, as his accent told me he was an Irishman. He had done so, he said, but the priest refused to come without a payment of eighteenpence, which the man did not possess, as the family was starving. Immediately it occurred to my mind that all the money I had in the world was the solitary half-crown, and that ...
— A Retrospect • James Hudson Taylor

... religion, his attendant might be no other than his chaplain from Bruxelles; hence, if he took his meals in my lord's company there was little reason for surprise. Frank was further cautioned to speak English with a foreign accent, which task he performed indifferently well, and this caution was the more necessary because the prince himself scarce spoke our language like a native of the island; and John Lockwood laughed with the folks below stairs at the manner in which my lord, after five years abroad, sometimes ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray

... sharply upon him. The accent was indescribable. And with a fierce hand she arranged the folds of her own thick silk dress, as though, for some relief to the stormy feeling within, she would rather have ...
— Lady Rose's Daughter • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... Cree's granddaughter. Clethera had been Honore's playmate since infancy. She was a lithe, dark girl, with more of her French father in her than of her half-breed mother. Some needle-work busied her hands, but her ear caught every accent of the conference at the gate. She flattened her lips, and determined to tell Honore as soon as he came in with the boat. Honore was the favorite skipper of the summer visitors. He went out immediately after the funeral to earn money ...
— The Mothers Of Honore - From "Mackinac And Lake Stories", 1899 • Mary Hartwell Catherwood

... screwed up into a ball like a hedgehog as he was. The gentleman shut to the door at length, without having seen anything strange inside it; and then he talked long and low with the tradesmen, and, as his accent was different from that which August was used to, the child could distinguish little that he said, except the name of the king and the word "gulden" again and again. After a while he went away, one of the dealers ...
— Bimbi • Louise de la Ramee

... These two children went through, all unknown to themselves, many more emotions than go to the make-up of a dozen ordinary loves. This moment in the market-place left in their souls a well-spring of passionate feeling. Sylvie, who did not recognize the Breton accent, took no notice of Brigaut, and Pierrette went home ...
— The Celibates - Includes: Pierrette, The Vicar of Tours, and The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac

... wife turned her foot on the steps here. I was coming into the house, and caught her from falling. It's only a swoon." She spoke with the pseudo-English accent of the stage, but with a Southern slip upon the vowels here and there. "Get ...
— The Story of a Play - A Novel • W. D. Howells

... he exclaimed, in a strong Hibernian accent, "are ye ready to go to work? By the powers! if I don't see ye sailed to-morrow on the shopboard, I'll discharge ye without a character—and ye shall starve on the ...
— The Three Brides, Love in a Cottage, and Other Tales • Francis A. Durivage

... friend, George Hinde, met John at Euston Station. He was a stoutly-built, red-haired man, with an Ulster accent that had not been impaired in any degree by twenty years of association with Cocknies. "How're you!" he said, going up to John and seizing ...
— The Foolish Lovers • St. John G. Ervine

... I die, fair Licia, with disdain, Or heartless live surprised with thy wrong, Then heavens and earth shall accent both my pain, And curse the time so cruel and so long. If you be kind, my queen, as you are fair, And aid my thoughts that still for conquest strive, Then will I sing and never more despair, And praise your kindness whilst I am alive. Till then ...
— Elizabethan Sonnet Cycles - Phillis - Licia • Thomas Lodge and Giles Fletcher

... satisfaction of both parties. In their general intercourse they speak the English language commonly; and even the old Otaheitan women have picked up a good deal of this language. The young people, both male and female, speak it with a pleasing accent, and their voices ...
— The Eventful History Of The Mutiny And Piratical Seizure - Of H.M.S. Bounty: Its Cause And Consequences • Sir John Barrow

... story in his soft Somersetshire accent, just the plain tale of the fate that has overtaken thousands of our fellow-countrymen since the war began. His name was Maggs, Sapper Ebenezer Maggs, of the Royal Engineers, and he was captured near Mons in August, 1914, when out laying a line with a party. With a long train of British prisoners—"zum ...
— The Man with the Clubfoot • Valentine Williams

... all the arts that helped to make men's fortunes. He was tall and very handsome, a splendid swordsman, and a wit who could hold his own with poets and with statesmen. He still spoke with the strong broad accent of Devon, and when he learned that the Queen liked his unusual accent he was very careful to see that he never lost it. He studied each chance ...
— Historic Boyhoods • Rupert Sargent Holland



Words linked to "Accent" :   bang, diacritic, sentence stress, forwards, focus, enunciate, non-standard speech, frontwards, forward, language, pronunciation, frontward, inflection, underline, spang, euphonious, eye dialect, word stress, set off, say, ague, re-emphasise, sound out, ram home, stress mark, downplay, point up, background, drawl, underscore, enounce, acute, prosody, articulate, grave, press home, patois, diacritical mark, evince, bear down, show, forrad, bring out, grandness, linguistic communication, drive home, play down, re-emphasize, topicalize, forrard, importance, express, pronounce



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