"Figuratively" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... metaphors. Still, I must prove with them, since there is nothing in our language to replace them. Deaf-blind metaphors to correspond do not exist and are not necessary. Because I can understand the word "reflect" figuratively, a mirror has never perplexed me. The manner in which my imagination perceives absent things enables me to see how glasses can magnify things, bring them nearer, ...
— The World I Live In • Helen Keller
... consider yourselves as fairly landed in Corea, and having tried to describe to you what things and people that are not Corean are like in Corea, I must provide you—again of course only figuratively—with a tiny little pony, the smallest probably you have ever seen, that you may follow me to the capital of the kingdom, which I am sure will be interesting to you as being thoroughly characteristic of the country. First of all, ...
— Corea or Cho-sen • A (Arnold) Henry Savage-Landor
... standing lost in thought for several moments after his departure. As he had stood earlier in the day, with one foot in the Foreign Concession, and the other on Chinese soil, considering the different standards that obtained in each, so he stood now, figuratively, on the boundary line of an ethical problem and swayed mentally first towards one side and then the other. The irony of it, the humour of it, appealed to him. It seemed so insanely just—just what you might ...
— Civilization - Tales of the Orient • Ellen Newbold La Motte
... do so. If in such a case the conductor does not see to it that a copy of the music is placed in the accompanist's hands several days before each rehearsal, he will simply be digging his own grave, figuratively speaking, and will have no one but himself to blame for the poor results that are ...
— Essentials in Conducting • Karl Wilson Gehrkens
... very plain language, I resolved to bully Charlie off his hobby. He had thrown his mother at my head (figuratively speaking, of course) until, if she had been present in propria persona, I should have been tempted to try Hiawatha's remarkable feat with his grandmother, and throw her up against the moon. But as I could not revenge myself upon her personally, I began to lay ...
— Not Pretty, But Precious • John Hay, et al.
... the west of the bridge, and might have lived at ease, if personal comfort had not been distasteful to him. Personal comfort entered into no part of Lear's. To be alone filled the little pint-measure of his desire. He ensconced himself in a wretched shanty, and barred the door, figuratively, against all the world. Wealth—what would have been wealth to him—lay within his reach, but he thrust it aside; he disdained luxury as he disdained idleness, and made no compromise with convention. When a man cuts himself ...
— An Old Town By The Sea • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... after, they were talking as lively as two young magpies. They had figuratively kissed ...
— A Little Florida Lady • Dorothy C. Paine
... of it," Angelica interrupted again, "figuratively, too, it was most appropriate. I call it poetical justice, whichever way you look at it, and"—she burst into a sudden squall of rage—"if you nag me any more I'll throw Bibles about until there isn't a whole one ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... off to the far end of the mantel, and began, figuratively, to kick himself. He had often declared that a man in love was the biggest mule on earth, and now here he was, the king of them all, a genuine descendant of Balaam's mount with all his asinine qualities, but lacking his common ...
— Captain Pott's Minister • Francis L. Cooper
... frequently put when their predictions were not verified. Great winds at one time were predicted by a famous adept in the art, but no unusual storms having happened, to save the reputation of the art, the prediction was applied figuratively to some revolutions in the state, of which there were ...
— Thaumaturgia • An Oxonian
... who live at opposite points on the globe so that their feet are directly toward each other are antipodes. Figuratively, things ...
— Orthography - As Outlined in the State Course of Study for Illinois • Elmer W. Cavins
... her diplomatic, military, and naval representatives did participate in every measure of coercion and intimidation as a matter of policy, they (if we except the Secret Service gentry) never forgot the dictates of decency: they never, figuratively, kicked the person whom they deemed it necessary to knock down. The ordinary British soldiers, too, for all the relaxation of moral rules natural in war, maintained throughout the campaign a standard of behaviour which contrasted so favourably with their comrades' that it earned them among ...
— Greece and the Allies 1914-1922 • G. F. Abbott
... days of shiptime, and they were readying for Acceleration Two, before he came, figuratively, down to earth. To pick one star out of trillions—and not even in his own galaxy? It would take a lifetime and he didn't even know which of the four or five spiral nebulae in the skies of the human worlds was the Lhari Galaxy. ...
— The Colors of Space • Marion Zimmer Bradley
... down to the little house to greet the bride and groom. Doctor Dave was a big, jolly, white-whiskered old fellow, and Mrs. Doctor was a trim rosy-cheeked, silver-haired little lady who took Anne at once to her heart, literally and figuratively. ...
— Anne's House of Dreams • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... may be gifted with energy, but deficient in knowledge and business tact, and he wastes his force in tremendous efforts at the accomplishment of small matters. He puts as much mental force into opening a can of oysters as would suffice to destroy a building. Figuratively speaking he loads a cannon to kill a mosquito, the result is a great waste of energy and vitality. By proper cultivation of knowledge, and adaptation to pursuits employing his splendid energies with large enterprise, a character of this description ...
— How to Become Rich - A Treatise on Phrenology, Choice of Professions and Matrimony • William Windsor
... down upon him then—figuratively speaking—and reminded Mike that they were not talking about crooked sticks ner no kind of sticks, ner they didn't give a dom what happened in Minnesota fifty year ago—if it ever had happened, which Murphy doubted. So Mike ...
— The Lookout Man • B. M. Bower
... have applied these things figuratively, brothers, to myself and Apollos on your account, that you may learn by us not to [go beyond] what is written, that you may not be puffed up for one against another. [4:7]For who made you to differ? And what ...
— The New Testament • Various
... to deliver himself of everything in him—doubts, fears, passions—no matter whether he does harm thereby or good, the Misses Ponsonby would be considered intolerably dull and limited. They did not walk about without their clothes—figuratively speaking—it was not then the fashion. They were, on the contrary, heavily draped from head to foot, but underneath the whalebone and padding, strange to say, were real live women's hearts. They knew what it was to hope and despair; they knew what it was to reflect that ...
— Catharine Furze • Mark Rutherford
... a young lady of great literary taste, and of exquisite sensibility, torn to pieces (figuratively) and trampled upon by a great scholar for venturing to make a comparison between those two poems. Its invocation to the Muses, and the general classical air which pervades it, had destroyed for her the pathos of 'Lycidas,' whereas to her antagonist those very imperfections ...
— Some Private Views • James Payn
... we are to consider it as the strength of the parties brought man to man, and contending for the issue. The Bastille was to be either the prize or the prison of the assailants. The downfall of it included the idea of the downfall of despotism, and this compounded image was become as figuratively united as Bunyan's Doubting ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine
... were a matter of one," spoke up the big man, striking his breast in a way to make it perfectly apparent whom he meant by that word one. And having (if I may judge by the mingled laugh and growl of his companions) thus shown his hand both figuratively and literally, he relapsed into the calculation which seemed to absorb ...
— Room Number 3 - and Other Detective Stories • Anna Katharine Green
... he not heard the roaring of hungry lions, or angry lions, or love-sick lions. Such sounds affected Tarzan as the tooting of an automobile horn may affect you—if you are in front of the automobile it warns you out of the way, if you are not in front of it you scarcely notice it. Figuratively Tarzan was not in front of the automobile—Numa could not reach him and Tarzan knew it, so he continued deliberately to choke the entrance until there was no possibility of Numa's getting out again. When ...
— Tarzan the Untamed • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... actors and actresses of his time. In those early days Booth used to come to rather formal luncheons, and at all such functions Richard and I ate our luncheon in the pantry, and when the great meal was nearly over in the dining-room we were allowed to come in in time for the ice-cream and to sit, figuratively, at the feet of the honored guest and generally, literally, on his or her knees. Young as I was in those days I can readily recall one of those lunch-parties when the contrast between Booth and Dion Boucicault struck ...
— Adventures and Letters • Richard Harding Davis
... comfort the child. It never occurred to him to reproach himself with showing more than he felt, for he had no occasion. The feeling he had given expression to was entirely genuine, and possibly deeper than he knew, although he shook his head, figuratively, at ...
— A Red Wallflower • Susan Warner
... prophecy, psalmody, morality, apologue, allegory, legislation, ethics, carried through different books by different authors at different ages, for different ends and purposes. It is necessary to sort out what is intended for example, what only as narrative, what to be understood literally, what figuratively—where one precept is to be controlled and modified by another—what is used directly and what only as an argument ad hominem—what is temporary and what of perpetual obligation—what appropriated to ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... does our Savior alter His language when He finds His words taken in the literal sense? Does He tell His hearers that He has spoken figuratively? Does He soften the tone of His expression? Far from weakening the force of His words He repeats what He said before, and in language more emphatic: "Amen, amen, I say unto you, Unless ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink His blood, ye shall not ...
— The Faith of Our Fathers • James Cardinal Gibbons
... besides, as it turned out, I was to have the care of his memory. I've done enough for it to give me the indisputable right to lay it, if I choose, for an everlasting rest in the dust-bin of progress, amongst all the sweepings and, figuratively speaking, all the dead cats of civilization. But then, you see, I can't choose. He won't be forgotten. Whatever he was, he was not common. He had the power to charm or frighten rudimentary souls into an aggravated witch-dance in his ...
— Heart of Darkness • Joseph Conrad
... through his priests dominion over the whole world. She bent the bow, and let fly the arrows towards the four cardinal points, which she thereby symbolically delivered to him as wounded prisoners; the king, on his part, hurled against them bullets of stone, and by this attack figuratively accomplished their defeat. His wars in Africa were crowned with a certain meed of success,* and his achievements in this quarter won for him in after time so much popularity among the Egyptians, that they extolled him to ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 8 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... and left him hanging, more than once, by one hand. For fully five minutes his life hung by a thread apt to be severed at any time. But—he made it. Helped by the decreased gravity of the red spot, and released from inhibiting fear by the fact that he was already, figuratively, a dead man, he performed ...
— The Red Hell of Jupiter • Paul Ernst
... xxii. seems to say, that in Arabic there is the like metaphor, of the sun's rays to a deer's horns. R. adds, that the Jews also attributed horns to Moses in another sense, figuratively for power, as elsewhere. ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 26. Saturday, April 27, 1850 • Various
... wine, as at the marriage of Cana in Galilee; for how much soever you shall draw forth at the faucet, so much shall I tun in at the bung. Thus shall the barrel remain inexhaustible; it hath a lively spring and perpetual current. Such was the beverage contained within the cup of Tantalus, which was figuratively represented amongst the Brachman sages. Such was in Iberia the mountain of salt so highly written of by Cato. Such was the branch of gold consecrated to the subterranean goddess, which Virgil treats of so sublimely. It is a true cornucopia ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... friendly and jolly, that I believe I'm getting the hang of the new ways pretty well. There are no square dances at all and very few waltzes or two-steps, but two newer ones, the one-step and fox-trot, hold the floor, literally and figuratively! I wish I could describe the girls' dresses to you, they're so, pretty, but I can't a bit, except to say that they rather startled me at first, too; they appear to be made out of about one yard of material, and none of that yard goes to sleeves, and not much to waist. A very lively ...
— The Old Gray Homestead • Frances Parkinson Keyes
... bead or quarter round. Stairways and mantels are not strictly a part of the essential structure, and may be treated more liberally. The doors, too, should be of richer design than the frames in which they are hung; while on the sideboard, bookcase, or other stationary furniture you may, figuratively speaking, spread yourself, always provided you do not make, in the operation, a greater display of ignorance ...
— Homes And How To Make Them • Eugene Gardner
... 'Isla de Cuba' was crumbling to pieces like a falling building in an earthquake. We turned, and the starboard guns did equally good work, and when the Spanish flag came tumbling down we let out a yell that was heard around the world, figuratively ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 2 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... to have wrought mines in his kingdom, and, as the entrance into it was over a river called Acheron, that prince has often been confounded with Pluto; Epirus too, which was situate very low, may have been figuratively described as the Infernal Regions; for which reason, the journeys of Theseus and Hercules into Epirus may have been spoken of as descents into the Stygian abodes. Le Clerc supposes that Ceres was reigning in Sicily at the time when Aidoneus was king ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Vol. I, Books I-VII • Publius Ovidius Naso
... lieutenant in his Majesty's navy, but acting-commander under Captain Mackenzie, was alongside in the first cutter. He was not alone, for several other officers were with him, and among them our old friend M'Hearty. Jack welcomed the latter, figuratively speaking, with open arms, then went to his private cabin, accompanied by Tom, who had been on shore on duty since ...
— As We Sweep Through The Deep • Gordon Stables
... could he have done; what can any man do when his lady-love deserts him, save to make the best of it? But he found his consolation in a pipe; not a pipe of tobacco, nor yet a pipe of old madeira, which, figuratively, most disappointed lovers seek; but a pipe of melody, a pipe of flowing tunes and stirring marches; a pipe of three holes, vulgarly termed by those who know not its high classic origin from the Grecian reeds and its relation to the Pandian pipes, a tin whistle! ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham
... produced also many good and sound fruits. An uncommon vigor, joined to the hardy virtues of a masculine race, marked the New England type. The sinews, it is true, were hardened at the expense of blood and flesh,—and this literally as well as figuratively; but the staple of character was a sturdy conscientiousness, an undespairing courage, patriotism, public spirit, sagacity, and a strong good sense. A great change, both for better and for worse, has since come over it, due largely to reaction against the ...
— Montcalm and Wolfe • Francis Parkman
... quite frank!" Genevieve urged eagerly. "Tell them that of course you were only speaking figuratively. Nobody ever means that a woman really can't get along without a man's protection, because look at ...
— The Sturdy Oak - A Composite Novel of American Politics by Fourteen American Authors • Samuel Merwin, et al.
... they did throughout the length and breadth of the land. And the young men left shop and trade and counting-house. And young parsons fretted, and some obtained the Bishop's permission to become Army chaplains, and others, snapping their fingers (figuratively) under the Bishop's nose, threw their cassocks to the nettles and put on the full (though in modern times not very splendiferous) panoply of war. And in course of time the brigade of artillery rolled away and new troops took ...
— The Rough Road • William John Locke
... prophecies," said I, "but they are generally interpreted figuratively. Do you really think they will be literally fulfilled ...
— Daybreak: A Romance of an Old World • James Cowan
... which England has not thanked us. Of the tragedy in South Africa it has retained in mind only one incident, the so-called "Kruger Message," which it regarded as an interference with its right to do violence to a weaker power, figuratively speaking, as a slap ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 4, July, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... glittering shops of the jewelers, the milliners, the confectioners, the florists, the picture-dealers, the furriers, the makers of rare and costly antiquities, retail traders in luxuries of life, were beneath the notice of a house that had its foundations in the high finance, and was built literally and figuratively in the ...
— The Mansion • Henry Van Dyke
... plain and simple reasons, an 'interview' must, as a rule, be an absurdity. And chiefly for this reason: it is an attempt to use a boat on land, or a wagon on water, to speak figuratively. Spoken speech is one thing, written speech is quite another. Print is a proper vehicle for the latter, but it isn't for the former. The moment 'talk' is put into print you recognize that it is not what it was when you heard it; you perceive that an immense something has disappeared from ...
— The Americanization of Edward Bok - The Autobiography of a Dutch Boy Fifty Years After • Edward William Bok (1863-1930)
... the flood gates of the skies had all been opened at once. It rained not only cats and dogs, as the old expression has it, but lizards, scorpions, snakes, and I don't know what else, at least it did figuratively. The gutters of the streets were filled, and then we were able to see how easy it was for a man, and especially for a child, to be drowned in them. I have seen it rain hard in a good many places, but am sure ...
— The Land of the Kangaroo - Adventures of Two Youths in a Journey through the Great Island Continent • Thomas Wallace Knox
... great coming earthquake," said Carker, "you know I'm talking figuratively. But you haven't answered my question. Where did ...
— Frank Merriwell's Son - A Chip Off the Old Block • Burt L. Standish
... Katharine felt this beneath the roughness of his manner; and a world entrusted to the guardianship of Mary Datchet and Mr. Basnett seemed to her a good world, although not a romantic or beautiful place or, to put it figuratively, a place where any line of blue mist softly linked tree to tree upon the horizon. For a moment she thought she saw in his face, bent now over the fire, the features of that original man whom we still recall every now and then, although we know only the clerk, barrister, Governmental official, ...
— Night and Day • Virginia Woolf
... course, in Hebrew means more than merely the supposed seat of the affections. It is figuratively the centre of the spiritual life, just as physically it is the centre of the natural. Thoughts and affections, purposes and desires are all included, and out of it are 'the issues of life,' the whole outgoings of the being. It is the fountain and source of all the activity of the man, ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Isaiah and Jeremiah • Alexander Maclaren
... king situated. Will it be believed that the first thing he did was to destroy his Established Church, root and branch? He did indeed do that. To state the case figuratively, he was a prosperous sailor who burnt his ship and took to a raft. This Church was a horrid thing. It heavily oppressed the people; it kept them always trembling in the gloom of mysterious threatenings; ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... never has it been more felicitously and more gracefully expressed than in a little composition by Lucas Cranach, where the Virgin and her Child repose under a tree, while the angels dance in a circle round them. The cause of the Flight—the Massacre of the Innocents—is figuratively expressed by two winged boys, who, seated on a bough of the tree, are seen robbing a nest, and wringing the necks of the nestlings, while the parent-birds scream and flutter over their heads: in point of taste, this significant allegory had ...
— Legends of the Madonna • Mrs. Jameson
... Memoriam.—The word star applies in poetry to all the heavenly bodies; and therefore, to the crescent moon, which is often near enough to the sun to be within or to be encircled by, the crimson colour of the sky about sunset; and the sun may, figuratively, be called father of the moon, because he dispenses to her all the light with which she shines; and, moreover, because new, or waxing moons, must set nearly in the same point of the horizon as the sun; and because that point of the horizon in which ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 73, March 22, 1851 • Various
... was in the woods, Nick quickened his pace. He realized now that, figuratively, he had burned his bridges behind him, and that he must see the thing ...
— A Woman at Bay - A Fiend in Skirts • Nicholas Carter
... the General as the Emperor's representative, a high position and great responsibility for so young a soldier. They made a hasty breakfast and broke camp. Indeed, there was little to break. The words are only used figuratively, since they had no tents. In half an hour after Marteau had left the Emperor's headquarters, the squadrons were formed. Nansouty, attended by his staff and the young officer, galloped to the head of ...
— The Eagle of the Empire - A Story of Waterloo • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... of the case, I could not look at their white kids without feeling sick at heart; white waistcoats became a terror; the sight of an august neckcloth, bowing its solemn attentions to me, depressed my very soul. The folding-doors, on golden hinges turning,—figuratively, at least, if not literally, like those of Milton's heaven,—grated as horrible discords on my secret ear as the gates of Milton's other place. It was my gold that helped to make those hinges. And this I endured merely for the sake of enjoying the society, not of my dear newly-found cousins, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 • Various
... "Only figuratively, papa," she replied with a pensive smile stealing over her fine intellectual features. "Have no fear for me on that score, for depend upon it, with so much natural beauty to interest, it will be my own fault, ...
— Hardscrabble - The Fall of Chicago: A Tale of Indian Warfare • John Richardson
... the poorest Brazilian thinks much of is his affectionate wife who literally and figuratively is often in the same boat with her husband, pulling against the stream. Family ties are strong in Brazil and the sweet flower of friendship thrives in its sunny clime. The system of land and sea breezes ...
— Voyage of the Liberdade • Captain Joshua Slocum
... word], in the most ancient, and at the same time most precise, definition of the word, signified 'ornament' (as an adornment for a man, a woman, or a horse); taken figuratively for [Greek word], it implied the order or adornment of a discourse. According to the testimony of all the ancients, it was Pythagoras who first used the word to designate the order in the universe, and the universe itself. ...
— COSMOS: A Sketch of the Physical Description of the Universe, Vol. 1 • Alexander von Humboldt
... miserably, and was laid in a pauper's grave—the man whom Haydn called the greatest composer of the time was buried by the parish, and in 1792 Haydn returned triumphantly from England, his brow wreathed with laurel, figuratively, and his pockets crammed with English notes and gold, literally. There are a few other odds and ends worth mentioning. His opera, Orlando Paladino, written in 1782, made a great hit, and under its German name of Ritter Roland was the last of his stage ...
— Haydn • John F. Runciman
... from Appendix 3, Appendix 4, and the sentences listed in Activity 9 for EXERCISE - Abstract above, that a thing meant to be concrete is likely to be stated figuratively. ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... GENTLEMEN:—When Colonel Fellows concluded his speech and sat down next to me, after he had by his matchless oratory electrified this audience and had immersed me in the flood of his eloquence, both literally and figuratively, for in the graceful swing of his gestures, he turned over a goblet of water in my lap [laughter], I felt very much as the little boy did who had stood at the head of his spelling-class for three weeks, and then was stumped by the word kaleidoscope. He thought for a moment ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol III, After-Dinner Speeches P-Z • Various
... word Palangana signifies a wash-hand-basin; but more especially the kind of basin used by barbers. Figuratively the term is used to designate ...
— Travels in Peru, on the Coast, in the Sierra, Across the Cordilleras and the Andes, into the Primeval Forests • J. J. von Tschudi
... few years ago there were Americans deploring loudly the shabby financial treatment we gave Dickens, and figuratively and literally passing round ...
— Fifth Avenue • Arthur Bartlett Maurice
... up. To the time of Anthony's arrival in the arena he had been making steady progress. She treated him rather well—except that she had called him always by an invidious nickname—perceiving, meanwhile, that he was figuratively following along beside her as she walked the fence, ready to catch her if she ...
— The Beautiful and Damned • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... up with a start to find the work completed. There was a tremendous scandal, of course; it was found that the city records had been falsified and other crimes committed, and some of Chicago's big capitalists got into jail—figuratively speaking. The aldermen declared that they had had no idea of it all, in spite of the fact that the main entrance to the work had been in the rear of the saloon of ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair
... keep eyes on, both figuratively and literally. The only thing that kept her from being a thionite dream was the Pittsburgh stogie that she insisted upon smoking, and the only thing that kept her from being some man's companion in spite of the stogie was the fact that he'd have to keep his mouth ...
— The Big Fix • George Oliver Smith
... in good time at their destination, and Mrs. Church received them figuratively with open arms. And now began the real fuss and the real preparation. Tom took a brush and kicked up, as Aunt Church expressed it, no end of a shindy. The little sitting-room was a cloud of dust. The table, the chairs, and the little ...
— The Rebel of the School • Mrs. L. T. Meade
... Talleyrand, became very grave, and took his leave, that he might make up his mind whether he should not emigrate at once. Hostile witnesses reported the particulars to the press next day, and it was stated, figuratively or literally, that the Royal Guards had trampled the national colours under foot. Marat came over to inquire, and Camille Desmoulins says that he hurried back to Paris making as much noise as all the trumpets of ...
— Lectures on the French Revolution • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton
... fancies about the merchants; got my cards and price-book handy; stuck four revolvers (samples) in my pockets; pulled my hat down solidly on my head, and started out. And every step I took I, figuratively, kicked myself for being there, and for being a blasted fool generally. "JOHN O. JORDAN, GUNS ...
— A Man of Samples • Wm. H. Maher
... and screened, figuratively and literally, with bush and trees of his own selection, setting out and cultivation—shelters of the familiar, ...
— The Metal Monster • A. Merritt
... CHOAK PEAR. Figuratively, an unanswerable objection: also a machine formerly used in Holland by robbers; it was of iron, shaped like a pear; this they forced into the mouths of persons from whom they intended to extort money; and on turning a key, certain interior springs thrust forth a number of points, in all ...
— 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue • Captain Grose et al.
... kennel in Tunis, she had figuratively and literally fought her way to the upper reaches of the gutter, sleeping in filth, eating it, listening to it, living it; dancing for a meal, selling her strangely seductive body for a piastre or so, settling her quarrels with a knife she carried in her coarse, ...
— Desert Love • Joan Conquest
... spirit that will rise upon occasion. I had thought 'twas long since quelled. But I fear no man is always and altogether his own master. I saw even General Washington, at Monmouth—but no matter for that. Especially of late, I have found my demon of wrath—to speak figuratively—too much for me. 'Twas too violently roused, maybe, that night your General Grey and his men fell upon us as we slept, yonder across the Hudson, and slaughtered us like sheep in the ...
— Philip Winwood • Robert Neilson Stephens
... of a mountain group of Palestine, celebrated for its balsam or balm made from herbs. It is here used figuratively. ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... were trotting past the lake at Maloja when this came upon me, and when I reflected that I owed it about equally to poppa and to Dicky Dod I felt that I could have personally chastised them—could have slapped them—both. What I longed to do with Mr. Mafferton was to hurl him, figuratively speaking, down an abyss, but that would have been to send him into Mrs. Portheris's beckoning arms next morning, and I had little faith in any floral hat and pink bun once its mamma's commands were laid upon it. I thought of my cradle companion—not tenderly, I confess—and told Mr. Mafferton ...
— A Voyage of Consolation - (being in the nature of a sequel to the experiences of 'An - American girl in London') • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... twenty years ago, the Skye terrier awaited confidently his summons to the sphere of rank and fashion. About that time, the day, which, as the proverb figuratively informs us, it falls to the lot of each individual of the canine race to enjoy, began to shine out brightly for the dog of Skye, the first rays of it that reached him being reflected from no less a luminary than the Crown ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various
... Olelo. To speak, to converse; here used figuratively to mean that the place is lonely, has no view of the ocean, looks only to the sky. "Looks ...
— Unwritten Literature of Hawaii - The Sacred Songs of the Hula • Nathaniel Bright Emerson
... of Grey Abbey and all belonging to it was to be dull, solemn, slow, and respectable. Fanny alone had ever given any life to the place, or made the house tolerable; and her secession to the ranks of the sombre crew was therefore the more remarked. If Fanny moped, all Grey Abbey might figuratively be said to hang down its head. Lady Cashel was, in every sense of the words, continually wrapped up in wools and worsteds. The earl was always equally ponderous, and the specific gravity of Lady Selina could not be calculated. It was ...
— The Kellys and the O'Kellys • Anthony Trollope
... edge of "town," a contrast to the desert was presented by nature. It was a mere step, figuratively, from that land from which came the whisper of death, to a wild, virgin section where the hills, the green-brown ridges, the wide sweeps of plain, and the cool shadows of timber clumps breathed of the promise, ...
— 'Drag' Harlan • Charles Alden Seltzer
... "Literally and figuratively, my friend Roland has me on the hip, for my hip-pocket contains no money, and it is impossible for me to refund. I imagine, if the truth were told, we are all more or less in the same condition, for we have had equipment to ...
— The Sword Maker • Robert Barr
... wallowing in a pool of blood at his own door. The seat of the martyr was still vacant at the fireside; and every child could point out his grave still green amidst the heath. When the people of this region called their oppressor a servant of the devil, they were not speaking figuratively. They believed that between the bad man and the bad angel there was a close alliance on definite terms; that Dundee had bound himself to do the work of hell on earth, and that, for high purposes, ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 3 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... stick in the hand of a Brahmana. Figuratively, it implies the chastisement inflicted by a Brahmana in the form of a curse. As such it is more effective than the thunderbolt in the hands of Indra himself, for the thunderbolt blasts only those objects that lie within its immediate range. The Brahmana's curse, ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... moment Aileen's tongue was suddenly arrested, and, figuratively speaking, Miss Pritty's blood curdled in her veins and her heart ceased to beat, for, without an instant's warning, the woods resounded with a terrific salvo of artillery; grape and canister shot came tearing, hissing, and crashing ...
— Under the Waves - Diving in Deep Waters • R M Ballantyne
... marry him. But then, perhaps, she might refuse him, and that was a contingency which he did not quite appreciate. After their first youth few men altogether relish the idea of putting themselves in a position that gives a capricious woman an opportunity of first figuratively "jumping" on them, and then perhaps holding them up to the scorn and obloquy of her friends, relations, and other admirers. For, unfortunately, until the opposite is clearly demonstrated, many men are apt to believe that not a few women are by nature capricious, shallow, and ...
— Jess • H. Rider Haggard
... Figuratively speaking, the surprise on the Promenade des Anglais meets you every day in your study of Nice. The city charms: and it repels. You have been drinking in its beauty and its fascination. Suddenly something sordid, ...
— Riviera Towns • Herbert Adams Gibbons
... to Steve. Every time that lame shoulder of his gave him a more severe twinge than usual he could, figuratively speaking, of course, shake hands ...
— With Trapper Jim in the North Woods • Lawrence J. Leslie
... their own armor in which he clothes himself for the attack. For example, he takes passages of scripture from their context (which would give them a very different meaning), strings them together, and makes them point towards what object he pleases; he interprets them figuratively, typically, analogically, hyperbolically; he calls in the aid of emendation, transposition, ellipsis, metonymy, and every other figure of rhetoric; the name of one man is taken for another, one place for another, days and weeks for months and years; and finally he avails himself of ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... without at least two or three officers in full uniform. Among the latter was a certain Captain Trevelyan, the heir-apparent of an English nobleman, who was, of course the eligible young gentleman of the season. Most of the ladies openly courted Captain Trevelyan and, figuratively speaking, laid themselves at his feet; but Lillian D'Alton was too little versed in such matters to know the triumph she had achieved in being sought after as a partner by the much-admired Captain, and, when he asked her to dance although she complied readily with his request, yet she ...
— The Mysteries of Montreal - Being Recollections of a Female Physician • Charlotte Fuhrer
... figuratively called the intruder (ulsg[/e]ta), is regarded as a living being, and the verbs used in speaking of it show that it is considered to be long, like a snake or fish. It is brought by the deer chief and put into the body, ...
— The Sacred Formulas of the Cherokees • James Mooney
... be violating every canon of good taste if he did not wear garments which might be described as a cross between the garb of a bishop, an undertaker, and a hangman. The judge on the bench, in fact, was always supposed to be putting on the black cap figuratively, and, therefore, was obliged to bear with him the outward sign of his damnable trade. The late Lord Cairns was the first to break through this tradition, and affect the style of the prosperous stockbroker. Sir Charles Russell is different, for he dresses in thorough taste; ...
— Sketches In The House (1893) • T. P. O'Connor
... little patience; our parliamentary war, like the last war in Germany, produces very considerable battles, that are not decisive. Marshal Pitt has given another great blow to the subsidiary army, but they remained masters of the field, and both sides sing te Deum. I am not talking figuratively, when I assure you that bells, bonfires, and an illumination from the Monument, were prepared in the city, in case we had the majority. Lord Temple was so indiscreet and indecent as to have fagots ready for two bonfires, ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole
... pity is sympathy for another's distress, it is directed, properly speaking, towards another, and not to oneself, except figuratively, like justice, according as a man is considered to have various parts (Ethic. v, 11). Thus it is written (Ecclus. 30:24): "Have pity on thy own soul, pleasing God" [*Cf. Q. ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... hurled a dynamite bomb at him the result could have been no more surprising. The lank, sallow man went up into the air, figuratively. He went up a mile or more, and on the way down he reached his hand inside the kitchen door and brought it forth enveloping the ...
— The Oakdale Affair • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... too. Mrs. Bellairs had resumed her chair on deck, but some of the elder ladies were gathered round her; Bella and Lucia sat together in one corner. Dr. Morton, the most desirable parti in Cacouna, was literally, as well as figuratively, at Bella's feet, and Maurice leaned on the railing beside them. Mr. Percy was happier than he had been all day; he had been taken possession of by a pretty young matron—an Englishwoman, who still talked of "home," and they had found out some mutual acquaintance, of whom ...
— A Canadian Heroine, Volume 1 - A Novel • Mrs. Harry Coghill
... Mr. Hopewell, "how did the ten commandments save her? Do you mean that figuratively, or literally. Was it her reliance on providence, arising from a conscious observance of the decalogue all her life, or was it a book containing them, that caught against some thing, and stopt her descent. It is very interesting. Many a person, Sam, has been ...
— The Attache - or, Sam Slick in England, Complete • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... You don't know your Bible, and you don't know the special force of figurative language. I'm sorry for you, Julius, but having begun I'll see it through. Having put my hand to the plough, which is also figuratively speaking, it's the eleventh hour, but if you'll get into your working clothes and whirl in, I'll give you full time and ...
— Blue Goose • Frank Lewis Nason
... state of learning the tradition was kept up. St. Gregory the Great, whose era, not to say whose influence, is often considered especially unfavourable to the old literature, was himself well versed in it, encouraged purity of Latinity in his court, and is said figuratively by the contemporary historian of his life to have supported the hall of the Apostolic See upon the columns of the Seven Liberal Arts. In the ninth century, when the dark age was close at hand, we still hear of the cultivation, with whatever success (according of course to the opportunities ...
— The Idea of a University Defined and Illustrated: In Nine - Discourses Delivered to the Catholics of Dublin • John Henry Newman
... the plough is the typical instrument of industry, so the fetter is the typical instrument of the restraint or subjection necessary in a nation—either literally, for its evil-doers, or figuratively, in accepted laws, for its wise and good men. You have to choose between this figurative and literal use; for depend upon it, the more laws you accept, the fewer penalties you will have to endure, and the fewer punishments to enforce. For wise laws and ...
— The Two Paths • John Ruskin
... of the neutrality theory of the Border States. "This," he said, "would be disunion completed. Figuratively speaking, it would be the building of an impassable wall along the line of separation,—and yet not quite an impassable one, for under the guise of neutrality it would tie the hands of the Union men, and freely pass supplies to the insurrectionists.... At a stroke it would ...
— Abraham Lincoln, Vol. I. • John T. Morse
... becoming manifest in the attitude of her fellow boarders. The worst, she felt sure, had already overtaken her. In reaction to the sensitive, shrinking mood of the previous day, a spirit of defiance had taken possession of her. Figuratively she declared that the world could go to the devil, and squared her shoulders with ...
— North of Fifty-Three • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... allegory, legislation, ethics, carried through different books, by different authors, at different ages, for different ends and purposes. It is necessary to sort out what is intended for example, what only as narrative,—what to be understood literally, what figuratively,—where one precept is to be controlled and modified by another,—what is used directly, and what only as an argument ad hominem,—what is temporary, and what of perpetual obligation,—what appropriated to one state and to one set of men, and what the general duty of all ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VII. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... tried ever so much. A long silence now ensued, during which the clack of seven pairs of active jaws was the only sound that broke upon the ear. It might have been observed, however, that all eyes were fixed more or less wonderingly on the stranger. Big Waller in particular looked him, figuratively speaking, through and through. He did not remove his eyes off him for an instant, but devoured his food with somewhat the expression of a dog that expects his bone to be ...
— The Wild Man of the West - A Tale of the Rocky Mountains • R.M. Ballantyne
... to the palace of the sultan. The principal one opens on the square of St. Sophia, and is very magnificent in its architecture. It is this gate which is called the Sublime Porte—a name figuratively given to the court of the sultan, in all histories, records, and diplomatic transactions. It was within the inclosure of the seraglio that Alessandro Francatelli, whom we shall henceforth call by his apostate name of ...
— Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf • George W. M. Reynolds
... a groom from the rest of the other children. He steps into the centre of the ring, joins hands and kisses her, after which, collecting a posy from each of the others, he decorates her with flowers and green leaves. A fresh ring is now formed—figuratively the wedding ring; the whole of ...
— A History of Nursery Rhymes • Percy B. Green
... Figuratively, they licked each other's wounds awhile. Yorke had grown very silent. Chin in hands and rocking very slightly to and fro, all huddled up in his fur coat, he gazed unseeingly into the beyond. His face ...
— The Luck of the Mounted - A Tale of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police • Ralph S. Kendall
... than conflagrations, and as the river had made a bend to the N.N.W., I doubted not that they were upon its banks. From this hill, which was of compact granite, we struck away to the W.N.W., and shortly afterwards crossed some remarkable sand-hills. Figuratively speaking, they appeared like islands amidst the alluvial deposits, and were as pure in their composition as the sand on the sea-shore. They were generally covered with forest grass, in tufts, and a coarse kind of rushes, under banksias and cypresses. We found a small ...
— Two Expeditions into the Interior of Southern Australia, Complete • Charles Sturt
... spectacle as I meditated upon the opposite bank. The more I meditated the better I liked the idea of tarrying in a spot where Arcadian simplicity of life was so unaffectedly cultivated. I resolved that I, too, would take a house at Beynac if there was one to be had, and that I would have what I figuratively termed my 'caravan' brought up here. At the auberge—the only one in the place—I learnt that there was but a single house still vacant, and that it was not a very beautiful one. A young fisherman started off barefoot to fetch the owner from his village, four ...
— Two Summers in Guyenne • Edward Harrison Barker
... (1) (A.S. byrthen, from beran, to bear), a load, both literally and figuratively; especially the carrying capacity of a ship; in mining and smelting, the tops or heads of stream-work which lie over the stream of tin, and the proportion of ore and flux to fuel in the charge of a blast-furnace. In Scots and English law the term is applied to an encumbrance on real ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... Baskets and berries had, figuratively, fallen to the ground; literally too, in Mr. Knowlton's case, for certainly both his hands were free, and had been employed while these words were spoken in gently and slowly gathering Diana into close bondage. There she ...
— Diana • Susan Warner
... sensibilities, little as you would think it, being very lively and intense. "To work, however!" This King can shake away such things; and is not given overmuch to retrospection on the unalterable Past. "Like dewdrops from the lion's mane" (as is figuratively said); the lion swiftly rampant again! There was manifold swift ordering, considering and determining, at Nimburg, that day; and towards night Friedrich shot rapidly into Head-quarters at Prag, where, ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XVIII. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Seven-Years War Rises to a Height.—1757-1759. • Thomas Carlyle
... Formerly the judges need not be lawyers. A trial was an informal affair. The judge would line up both the parties at the rail. One side would tell their story, the other side would interrupt and finally get a chance to tell theirs. The judge would figuratively pat them on the head, decide the case, and tell them to go home ...
— The Man in Court • Frederic DeWitt Wells
... acknowledge that she did not, and under a hot volley of questions from Donna admitted further that not a soul in San Pasqual had even hinted to her of such a contingency. Too late the spinster realized that she had, figuratively speaking, placed all of her eggs in one ...
— The Long Chance • Peter B. Kyne
... caprices he lessened a respect which he could have retained only at the expense of a blow. With all Arthur Fenton's soft and caressing ways toward Ninitta, there was always an instinctive masterfulness in his attitude toward any woman and especially since he had tired of her did he keep Mrs. Herman figuratively at his feet. The more strongly her appealing attitude seemed to press upon him claims which he could not satisfy and had no mind to acknowledge, the more harsh he became, and the more she bent before him. The language of brutality was one which ...
— The Philistines • Arlo Bates
... "had their synonym in Mr. Moore's name;" and it was another form of the same liking when he took to himself the character and title of a Traveller Uncommercial. "I am both a town traveller and a country traveller, and am always on the road. Figuratively speaking, I travel for the great house of Human-interest Brothers, and have rather a large connection in the fancy goods way. Literally speaking, I am always wandering here and there from my rooms ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... zenith of his fame, and the great men of the day sat at his feet, figuratively speaking, and would literally have done so had not his growl been so fierce that it kept them at bay. Of those who did "beard the lion in his den, the Douglas in his hall," many were immolated in his diary; ...
— Home Life of Great Authors • Hattie Tyng Griswold
... the sinner is the appointed condition of salvation to him. Thus also when he says, "I am the true vine" John xv. 1; or "The field is the world," "The seed is the word," &c., he evidently is speaking figuratively and communicating important moral truth, by images drawn from physical nature, as is naturally done by nearly all writers and speakers of all ages and in ...
— American Lutheranism Vindicated; or, Examination of the Lutheran Symbols, on Certain Disputed Topics • Samuel Simon Schmucker
... Figuratively, Blizzard's tongue went into his cheek at the mention of Dr. Ferris, but the expression of his face underwent no change. "Of course," he said simply, as if it was the most natural thing in the world, "I have forgiven your father. He ...
— The Penalty • Gouverneur Morris
... reason against authority and rejected the Jewish ritual law as indifferent. Whatever is spurious in Christianity is a remnant of Judaism, all its mysteries are misunderstood and falsely (i.e. literally) applied allegories. Out of regard for Jewish prejudices Christ's death was figuratively described as sacrificial, as in earlier times Moses had been forced to yield to the Egyptian superstitions of his people. Morgan looks for the final victory of the rational morality of the pure, Pauline, ...
— History Of Modern Philosophy - From Nicolas of Cusa to the Present Time • Richard Falckenberg
... Je suis bien tente de te bailler une quinte major. Quinte major is a term of piquet. It is here employed figuratively. Compare its use in 'Les ...
— The Jealousy of le Barbouille - (La Jalousie du Barbouille) • Jean Baptiste Poquelin de Moliere
... so on. The powder [149] once formed part of the stock, or capital, of a powder-maker: and it is not only certain natural bodies which are collected and stored in the gunpowder, but the labour bestowed on the operations mentioned may be figuratively said to be ...
— Evolution and Ethics and Other Essays • Thomas H. Huxley
... had closed this Letter when a person of confidence came in [the fact being, my Grumkow's Missive of instructions came in, or figuratively speaking, my Grumkow himself], and undertook to give me in a few days a thorough insight into the intrigues which are concealed under the sending of this new Minister,' Hotham, 'to Berlin; which, and how they have been concocted, he says, it will astonish ...
— History of Friedrich II of Prussia V 7 • Thomas Carlyle
... versa—whatever has been or is to be narrated by me about low people, may be ennobled by being considered a parable; so that if any bad habits and ugly consequences are brought into view, the reader may have the relief of regarding them as not more than figuratively ungenteel, and may feel himself virtually in company with persons of some style. Thus while I tell the truth about loobies, my reader's imagination need not be entirely excluded from an occupation with lords; and ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... to do with the case. Yet it may have been this irrelevant, human little touch that settled it. For after a little more talk Mr. Austin gave in and, figuratively speaking, turned his face to the wall and hoped to die. And the minister went off to persuade Seth Curtis that his church ...
— Green Valley • Katharine Reynolds
... every necessary for clothing, if possible, be crammed into the saddle-bags attached to one's saddle, as ammunition, guns, &c. &c., must be placed on the other horses. Well did the Romans call baggage by the appellation of impedimenta. In this country it is so literally, not figuratively. It is absolutely necessary to have an interpreter who can talk Arabic; for though in Algeria there are many natives who jabber broken French or Italian, even this lingua Franca is so disguised that it ...
— Notes in North Africa - Being a Guide to the Sportsman and Tourist in Algeria and Tunisia • W. G. Windham
... thoughtful man there will be no tinge of superstition in what we figuratively express, by affirming that the ghost of a dead progenitor—perhaps as a portion of his own punishment—is often doomed to become the ...
— The Tale of Terror • Edith Birkhead
... couple of minutes become aware of this, it counted somehow for help. He couldn't have spoken, the tone of his voice would have scared him, and the common conceit or resource of "whistling in the dark" (whether literally or figuratively) have appeared basely vulgar; yet he liked none the less to hear himself go, and when he had reached his first landing—taking it all with no rush, but quite steadily—that stage of success drew from him a ...
— The Jolly Corner • Henry James
... very nature stupid. It is stupid because the aim of life (I use the expression only figuratively, and I could just as well speak of the essence of life, or of the world) is to gain a knowledge of our own bad will, so that our will may become an object for us, and that we may undergo an inward conversion. Our body is itself our will objectified; it is one of ...
— The Essays Of Arthur Schopenhauer • Arthur Schopenhauer
... big car was waiting for them: and as the door slammed, Mr. Mix sat back luxuriously, and beamed at the chauffeur. Yes, virtue had its compensations; and as soon as he had money to his own credit, he would figuratively take Mirabelle by the scruff of the neck, and he would tell her just exactly how to behave, and he would see that she did it. But for ...
— Rope • Holworthy Hall
... appointed, the King, plac'd in a Balcony belonging to the House of the Earl of Peterborow, appear'd ready to honour the Show. The Ceremonial, to speak nothing figuratively, was very fine and grand: Those of the first Rank made their Appearance in decent Order, and upon fine Horses; and others under Arms, and in Companies, march'd with native Gravity and Grandeur, all saluting his Majesty as they pass'd by, after the Spanish ...
— Military Memoirs of Capt. George Carleton • Daniel Defoe
... tells the young people that the books of the Old Testament have no divine worth or character for us, except so far as they agree with the spirit of the gospel. As to the New Testament, much must be figuratively understood, since many things have no immediate relation to our times. Christ is a mere man. Dinter was a voluminous writer on theological subjects, and in his books tells children of imperfect notions of former times as to God, angels, and ...
— History of Rationalism Embracing a Survey of the Present State of Protestant Theology • John F. Hurst
... time. And lo! advancing to me eagerly along the causeway seemed the very sprite of Alastor himself! There was a star upon his forehead, and around his young face there glowed an aureole of gold and roses—to speak figuratively, for the star upon his brow was hope, and the gold and roses encircling his head, a miniature rainbow, were youth and health. His longish golden hair had no doubt its share in the effect, as likewise the soft yellow silk tie that fluttered like ...
— The Quest of the Golden Girl • Richard le Gallienne |
