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Manner of speaking   Listen
noun
manner of speaking  n.  The characteristic style or manner that a person uses to express himself orally.
Synonyms: delivery.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Manner of speaking" Quotes from Famous Books



... quite know how, Charley, but I do.' In spite of her unchanged manner of speaking, and her unchanged appearance of composure, she scarcely trusted herself to look at him, but kept her eyes employed on the cutting and buttering of his bread, and on the mixing of his tea, and other such little ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens

... at her manner of speaking, which I would not have allowed to her, but more than all about her children, which she could only have been dreaming yet, for nobody else came nigh her except only me, miss, and you, miss, and for you to breathe words was impossible. All you did ...
— Erema - My Father's Sin • R. D. Blackmore

... an implied blame running through this speech, that Molly felt like needle-points all over her. Lady Cuxhaven came up at this moment. Her tone was as deep, her manner of speaking as abrupt and authoritative, as her mother's, but Molly felt ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

... voice and manner of speaking are decidedly feminine; all the little mannerisms and affectations of a society woman being faithfully reproduced. I understand from his associates that he is a splendid business man, and that not a breath of scandal has ever tarnished his good ...
— Religion and Lust - or, The Psychical Correlation of Religious Emotion and Sexual Desire • James Weir

... face and in her manner of speaking seemed to make an impression upon the young roisterer. Tom was not drunk, although he had been spending the day with comrades who seasoned every sentence with an oath, and flavoured every pastime with strong drink. A man with a weaker ...
— Tom Tufton's Travels • Evelyn Everett-Green

... not suffer that; and finding she could not move him, she brought her aunt out into the kitchen. Mrs. Rossitur's manner of speaking, and thanking him, quite charmed Seth, and he went away with a kindly feeling towards those gentle, bright ...
— Queechy, Volume I • Elizabeth Wetherell

... not make the soul after the body, although we are speaking of them in this order; for having brought them together he would never have allowed that the elder should be ruled by the younger; but this is a random manner of speaking which we have, because somehow we ourselves too are very much under the dominion of chance. Whereas he made the soul in origin and excellence prior to and older than the body, to be the ruler and mistress, of whom the body was to be the subject. And ...
— Timaeus • Plato

... traits,—an instinctive, unreasoning, and unreasonable jealousy of any mark of attention or consideration shown to any other person than herself, even if it did not in the smallest way interfere with her comfort; and this cold, sarcastic manner of speaking was, of all the forms of her ill-nature, the one he found most unbearable. He made no reply, but stood still at the window, watching Mercy's light and literally joyful movements, as she helped her ...
— Mercy Philbrick's Choice • Helen Hunt Jackson

... "In a manner of speaking, honey, it is a hand-organ in the sense of shutting you off from asking questions. You learn to distinguish the sauces of speech as you gets older. Out in the big world, people don't say this or that according ...
— Lahoma • John Breckenridge Ellis

... possible; and yet, notwithstanding the homely plainness of her dress, there was something about her that impressed both my mother and me with an idea of cultivation and refinement above her apparent station,—there was a composure and quiet decision in her manner of speaking which produced the ...
— Household Papers and Stories • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... very useful member of the mission because of his youth and complete inexperience. And apparently all his time in Paris was his own. The use he made of it was to fall in love, to remain in that state, to cultivate it, to exist only for it in a manner of speaking. ...
— Tales Of Hearsay • Joseph Conrad

... be any remedy for the neglect and ignorance here spoken of, it must be found in the more effectual teaching of English grammar. But the principles of grammar can never have any beneficial influence over any person's manner of speaking or writing, till by some process they are made so perfectly familiar, that he can apply them with all the readiness of a native power; that is, till he can apply them not only to what has been said ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown

... round the hard letter of it without damage to its fine spirit. Yet, strictly speaking, it was not the conduct of a good citizen; and in retrospect there is an unfilial flavour about that early sin of mine. For this Act of Parliament, the Merchant Shipping Act of the Victorian era, had been in a manner of speaking a father and mother to me. For many years it had regulated and disciplined my life, prescribed my food and the amount of my breathing space, had looked after my health and tried as much as possible to secure my ...
— Notes on Life and Letters • Joseph Conrad

... what defects I have discovered in Sir Percival, I could only point out two. One, his incessant restlessness and excitability—which may be caused, naturally enough, by unusual energy of character. The other, his short, sharp, ill-tempered manner of speaking to the servants—which may be only a bad habit after all. No, I cannot dispute it, and I will not dispute it—Sir Percival is a very handsome and a very agreeable man. There! I have written it down at last, and ...
— The Woman in White • Wilkie Collins

... dictate of our highest and most nobly trained reason, and if we can establish the fact that every deed of cruelty, of shame, of lust, or of selfishness, is essentially contrary to our nature—then we may say with Bishop Butler, that the precept to "follow Nature" is "a manner of speaking not loose and undeterminate, but clear and distinct, strictly just and true." But how complete must be the system, how long the preliminary training, which alone can enable us to find any practical ...
— Seekers after God • Frederic William Farrar

... coldly awaited the arrival of the orator. Everything was chilly and unfavorable. But the spirit of the obstinate debater seemed to rise with the difficulties by which he was surrounded. At first even his manner of speaking operated to his disadvantage. The sharp, syllabic emphasis, which he was accustomed to adopt in addressing large assemblages in the open air, grated harshly on ears accustomed to the smooth and carefully modulated ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 3 No 3, March 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... days she continued to live in the exultation of the void. There was nothing to fear any more. The worst had happened to her that could happen, and so, in a manner of speaking, she was safe. Never since she had begun to think had she been so free from misgiving and foreboding as to what each new day would bring forth. No day could bring forth anything now ...
— The Side Of The Angels - A Novel • Basil King

... made a kind of general report of his position, enumerating with much minuteness the slender rights so hardly won. Ronquerolles burst into a peal of laughter so heartless, that it would have cost any other man his life. But from their manner of speaking and looking at each other during that colloquy beneath the wall, in a corner almost as remote from intrusion as the desert itself, it was easy to imagine the friendship between the two men knew no bounds, and that no power on earth could ...
— The Thirteen • Honore de Balzac

... especially considering the ill state of her health, a circumstance that seldom adds to a woman's beauty or good-humour; besides, she was always a pert minx, that affected singularity, and a masculine manner of speaking, and many of them had foreseen that she would, some time or other, bring herself into such a premunire. At all gossipings, where the apothecary or his wife assisted, Fathom's pride, ingratitude, and malpractice were canvassed; in all clubs of married men he was mentioned with marks ...
— The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom, Complete • Tobias Smollett

... Gloomy-deaniness, though salutary for brief intervals, should be sparingly indulged in; but you are at it all the time. There is a Chinese proverb which says, "If you can't smile don't open a shop;" and, after all, St. Paul's Cathedral is in a manner of speaking a kind of shop, isn't it?—the goods, at any rate, should be obtainable there. The phrase "there is no health in us" does not constitute the whole liturgy. Down with facile optimists by all ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 159, November 24, 1920 • Various

... me, I will undertake to bring the marechal and his nephew to approve of your proceedings; and as for the rest of his family, let them go where they will; for the empire of the world I should be sorry to bear them company." This manner of speaking pleased the king; and, turning to M. de Sartines, "Lieutenant of police," said he, "you have heard my fair chancellor; you will act in strict conformity with the orders she will transmit you from me." "Then take these orders now, sir," said I: "in the first place, this ill-treated young ...
— "Written by Herself" • Baron Etienne Leon Lamothe-Langon

... Dragoons which wrung his heart as much in the telling as it did Bob's to hear, and which showed that John had been temporarily cruel to be ultimately kind. Even Bob, excited as he was, could discern from John's manner of speaking what a terrible undertaking that night's business had been for him. To justify the course he had adopted the dictates of duty must have been imperative; but the trumpet-major, with a becoming reticence which his brother at the time was naturally unable to appreciate, ...
— The Trumpet-Major • Thomas Hardy

... interest, and became the day-dreaming of romantic and rebellious youth. At that point he was beyond my depth. I had forgotten long ago, though but half Pascoe's age, what my ship was to be like, when I got her at last. Knowing she would never be seen at her moorings, I had, in a manner of speaking, posted her ...
— London River • H. M. Tomlinson

... His manner of speaking, when he had the purpose to make himself distinctly understood, was energetic and forcible, though neither graceful nor eloquent. No man could on such occasion put his meaning into fewer and more decisive words. But when, as it often happened, he had a mind to play the orator, for the ...
— Woodstock; or, The Cavalier • Sir Walter Scott

... listened with the dread of losing a single word: but however brief his expressions, the general's manner of speaking, notwithstanding the intensity of his emotion, was so distinct that every word was audible, except the name of Lord Beltravers, which was not familiar to her. She asked again the name of Mr. Beauclerc's second? ...
— Helen • Maria Edgeworth

... the high priests or chief priests (for the name in the original is the same) in the plural number, when in strictness there was only one high priest: which may be considered as a proof that the evangelists were habituated to the manner of speaking then in use, because they retain it when it is neither accurate nor just. For the sake of brevity, I have put down from Josephus only a single example of the application of this title in the plural number; but it ...
— Evidences of Christianity • William Paley

... and superior." His very virtues become a fault, for men and women love best those who are human like themselves, however they may respect. Among the troopers Blakely was as yet something of an enigma. His manner of speaking to them was unlike that of most of his fellows—it was grave, courteous, dignified, never petulant or irritable. In those old cavalry days most men better fancied something more demonstrative. "I like to see an officer flare up and—say things," said a veteran sergeant. "This here ...
— An Apache Princess - A Tale of the Indian Frontier • Charles King

... before God, I must say that the variety of his knowledge, the acuteness of his observations, the solidity of his understanding (not dazzling wit), his grand and comprehensive views, filled me with astonishment, and his manner of speaking to me with love for him. By his genius and his disinterested goodness, he has also conquered me."[14] The remarkable testimony of Wieland and Mueller, both men of distinction, is of more than ordinary value, seeing that they were ...
— The Tragedy of St. Helena • Walter Runciman

... One of the Indians of the Cherokee nation, being come down, the Governor told him that "he need fear nothing, but might speak freely," answered smartly, "I always speak freely, what should I fear? I am now among friends, and I never feared even among my enemies." Another instance of their short manner of speaking was when I ordered one of the Carolina boatmen, who was drunk and had beaten an Indian, to be tied to a gun till he was sober, in order to be whipped. Tomo Chichi came to me to beg me to pardon him, which I refused to do unless the Indian who had been beaten should also desire ...
— Biographical Memorials of James Oglethorpe • Thaddeus Mason Harris

... find Sir Francis Burdett an uncommonly mild and gentlemanly-looking man. I had pictured somehow to my imagination a dark and morose character; but, on the contrary, in his appearance, deportment, and manner of speaking, he is eminently qualified to attract popular applause. His style of speaking is not particularly oratorical, but he has the art of saying bitter things in a sweet way. In his language, however, although pungent, and sometimes even eloquent, he is singularly incorrect. He cannot utter ...
— The Ayrshire Legatees • John Galt

... "Your affectionate manner of speaking of your relatives is only surpassed by your good taste in describing the probabilities of my marriage," ...
— Saracinesca • F. Marion Crawford

... Choiseul. Madame said, "She always says the right thing in the right place." Madame de Grammont was not so agreeable to them; and I think that this was to be attributed, in part, to the sound of her voice, and to her blunt manner of speaking; for she was said to be a woman of great sense, and devotedly attached to the King and Madame de Pompadour. Some people pretended that she tried to captivate the King, and to supplant Madame: nothing ...
— Memoirs And Historical Chronicles Of The Courts Of Europe - Marguerite de Valois, Madame de Pompadour, and Catherine de Medici • Various

... lord; but ask him whether I am suspicious of him, and whether I seek to keep him close tied to my apron-string; he will tell you nothing of the kind; but that, on the contrary, I always allows him an agreeable latitude, permitting him to go where he pleases, and to converse with any one to whose manner of speaking he may take a fancy. But I have had the advantage of keeping good company, and ...
— Isopel Berners - The History of certain doings in a Staffordshire Dingle, July, 1825 • George Borrow

... Chloe's confused manner of speaking, and frequent hesitation, as unwilling to pronounce her friend's condemnation (which, as being unused to falsehood, was really unaffected) he imputed to tenderness and concern for Caelia; but he did not in the least doubt, but on his application to her he should soon be convinced of ...
— The Governess - The Little Female Academy • Sarah Fielding

... about in St. George's Fields till evening, and then crossing the bridge, walked on towards St. James's. However dirty and despicable her dress, yet as she had a very pretty face and a very engaging manner of speaking at first sight, she drew in a merchant's book-keeper, as she walked down Cornhill, to carry her to a certain tavern at the corner of Bishopsgate Street; where, after a good supper and a bottle or two ...
— Lives Of The Most Remarkable Criminals Who have been Condemned and Executed for Murder, the Highway, Housebreaking, Street Robberies, Coining or other offences • Arthur L. Hayward

... subjects of religion. Let us take things as the sons of men have always found them, and not presume to oppugn Providence, who has decreed that there shall be, every where, men of different colours, countenances, voices, manner of speaking, of different feelings and views of things, and also of different languages and of different opinions, as it regards the Deity, and his government of the world; and that among this great and doubtless necessary diversity of the views of him, we may have the most ...
— A Journal of a Young Man of Massachusetts, 2nd ed. • Benjamin Waterhouse

... second, or the third; for it has to do with facts, since it tells of the Self-subsisting; it has to do with relations, for it tells of the Creator; it has to do with signs, for it tells of the due manner of speaking of Him. There was just one head of the division to which I could not refer it, viz., to sentiment; for, I suppose, music and poetry, which are the writer's own examples of sentiment, have not much to do with Truth, which is the ...
— The Idea of a University Defined and Illustrated: In Nine - Discourses Delivered to the Catholics of Dublin • John Henry Newman

... Nobby was even more morose. "It belonged to that 'orror Bendigo Jones, and 'e went and give it to the General." The speaker swallowed once or twice. "Then the General, 'e gives it back, in a manner of speaking. Only Bendy had gone by the time it come, and—I 'adn't. Lumme! wot ...
— No Man's Land • H. C. McNeile

... a manner of speaking," Anthony quibbled, plausible and unperturbed. "I meant that I knew of its existence—which, after all, is relatively a good deal, being vastly more ...
— The Lady Paramount • Henry Harland

... as his figure was absolutely at variance with the bearing of the old gentleman which he sought artificially to assume, so too his lack of repose and inward stability constantly contradicted it. He seemed merely to have borrowed the old gentleman's diplomatic manner of speaking in order to show his own superficiality and emptiness. Then at times he would suddenly lapse from the stiff demeanor of the wearer of the blue coat into his own patronizing joviality and onto a plane where joking rubs out with dirty fingers the line between superior and subordinate as if ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IX - Friedrich Hebbel and Otto Ludwig • Various

... to be carried on either by induction, or by ratiocination. Induction is a manner of speaking which, by means of facts which are not doubtful, forces the assent of the person to whom it is addressed. By which assent it causes him even to approve of some points which are doubtful, on account of their resemblance to ...
— The Orations of Marcus Tullius Cicero, Volume 4 • Cicero

... blackness woven on each side into a heap of stiff little curls, which pushed up her cap border in rather a bristling and decisive way. In all her movements and personal habits, even to her tone of voice and manner of speaking, Miss Roxy was vigorous, spicy, and decided. Her mind on all subjects was made up, and she spoke generally as one having authority; and who should, if she should not? Was she not a sort of priestess and sibyl in all the most awful straits and mysteries of life? How ...
— The Pearl of Orr's Island - A Story of the Coast of Maine • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... imperceptible, crept in a dislike to her home;—not to those who owned it, far from it. To her parents she was still loving and dutiful, but she began to conceive that her own attempts to improve her appearance, her manner of speaking, and her general carriage, were strangely at variance with her humble home and its belongings. Happily, those precepts most potent to restrain any waywardness or wickedness, had been early instilled into her by her mother, whose quiet christian life had been her daily example. Her religion was ...
— Yorksher Puddin' - A Collection of the Most Popular Dialect Stories from the - Pen of John Hartley • John Hartley

... miss," said Spikeman, who had gradually assumed his own manner of speaking, "that he had ever rejected the thoughts of matrimony—that he rose up every morning thanking Heaven that he was free and independent—that he had scorned the idea of ever being captivated with the charms of a woman; but that one day he had by chance ...
— The Poacher - Joseph Rushbrook • Frederick Marryat

... though to weave a spell; and when that was firmly rejected, he decided that we must take up house with the Hansons. Mrs. Hanson had been, from the first, flustered, subdued, and a little pale; but from this proposition she recoiled with haggard indignation. So did we, who would have preferred, in a manner of speaking, death. But Kelmar was not to be put by. He edged Mrs. Hanson into a corner, where for a long time he threatened her with his forefinger, like a character in Dickens; and the poor woman, driven to her entrenchments, at last ...
— The Silverado Squatters • Robert Louis Stevenson

... no thoughts of plying my trade at Lucerne,' replied Benedict. 'And now, as I see you are a German man, Lieber Herr, and as I like your countenance and your manner of speaking, I will tell you in confidence that I know very little of my trade, and have already been turned out of several fabriques as an evil workman; the two wash-balls that I carry in my pocket are not of my own making. In kurtzen, I know little more of ...
— George Borrow - The Man and His Books • Edward Thomas

... M'Killop, awa' wi' this Raadical gigot - tak' it to the French, man, and bring me some puddocks! It seems rather a sore kind of a business that I should be all day in Court haanging Raadicals, and get nawthing to my denner." Of course this was but a manner of speaking, and he had never hanged a man for being a Radical in his life; the law, of which he was the faithful minister, directing otherwise. And of course these growls were in the nature of pleasantry, but it was of a recondite sort; and uttered as they ...
— Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson

... to Miss Trevor's odd ways and manner of speaking; but to Lena they were a novelty, as she had never seen her before, although she had heard of her from her aunt and from her schoolmates, who often made merry over the recollection of her peculiarities when she had been their teacher in writing ...
— Bessie Bradford's Prize • Joanna H. Mathews

... Mount-Rhyswicke interrupted in the loud, tired monotone which seemed to be her only manner of speaking, "I like more light. I like all the ...
— His Own People • Booth Tarkington

... thought suddenly, "I might have been the chosen instrument of Providence. This is a manner of speaking, but there may be truth in every manner of speaking. What if that absurd saying were true in ...
— Under Western Eyes • Joseph Conrad

... pair!—She the pink of flirtation, he the essence of everything that is outre and gloomy.—I think I have completely deceived Charlotte by my manner of speaking of Mr. Dimple; she's too much the friend of Maria to be confided in. He is certainly rendering himself disagreeable to Maria, in order to break with her and proffer his hand to me. This is what the delicate fellow hinted in ...
— The Contrast • Royall Tyler

... the Scythians reckon those who have gold in their own skulls to be the happiest and bravest of men (that is only another instance of your manner of speaking about the dog and father), and what is still more extraordinary, they drink out of their own skulls gilt, and see the inside of them, and hold their own head in ...
— Euthydemus • Plato

... 30: What! I to her?)—Ver. 65. Donatus remarks that this is an abrupt manner of speaking familiarly to persons in anger; and that the sentences are thus to be understood, "I, go to her? Her, who has received him! Who has excluded me!"— inasmuch as indignation loves to ...
— The Comedies of Terence - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Notes • Publius Terentius Afer, (AKA) Terence

... Kate upon her voice and manner of speaking, assuring her that she should never have suspected her of being Scotch, or even English. She was so obliging as to add that she would have taken her for an American, anywhere: which she (Kate) was no doubt aware was a very great compliment, as the Americans were admitted ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster

... put a question, sir?" Carthew suggested. "Having regard to all the circumstances—I say having regard as it were to all the circumstances, in a manner of speaking, what should you have done ...
— Mr. Prohack • E. Arnold Bennett

... way of influencing children for good, lies in the manner of speaking to them, treating them and living with them. Affection, truth, persuasion and perseverance should be manifest in the acts and manners of parents, for these qualities only can awaken sympathy and confidence in the breasts of children. It is not cold moral ...
— The Sexual Question - A Scientific, psychological, hygienic and sociological study • August Forel

... the anti-Unionists, who happened not to know my father personally, imagined from his accent, style, and manner of speaking, that he was an Englishman, and accused the Government of having brought a new member over from England, to impose him upon the House, as an impartial country gentleman, who was to make a pretence of liberality by giving a vote against the Union, while, by arguing in its favour, he ...
— Richard Lovell Edgeworth - A Selection From His Memoir • Richard Lovell Edgeworth

... straighter, but also in most instances completely fails of that very object, and even produces oftener than not, effects the very reverse of what was designed." Reprobating very emphatically all systematic attention to elocution as an art, this eminent author advocates what he calls the natural manner of speaking, for the attainment of which he prescribes the rule, "not only to pay no studied attention to the voice, but studiously to withdraw the thoughts from it, and to dwell as intently as possible on the sense, trusting to nature to suggest spontaneously ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick

... do not know! His name is unknown to me, but I could tell he was English from his manner of speaking. The Colonel had an English friend who spoke so—one engaged in the ...
— In Kedar's Tents • Henry Seton Merriman

... the liberty, I'll interdooce meself, in a manner of speaking." He touched his cap with a bob of mock humility. "I'm Bob Ford," he said, "come back out o' kingdom come so to say. Me as went down with the Mooltan—safe dead five year gone. I come to see ...
— Stories By English Authors: London • Various

... I remarked that his manner of speaking was different from that of any people with whom I had been in the habit of associating. It was quite as strange as his appearance, and yet it nothing resembled the foreign English which I had been in the habit of hearing through the palisades of the prison; he ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow

... from 'the barrier of our teeth'. If there were any one present here to-day with like command of the grand style, he might say after his fashion that those above all men who have any care for their manner of speaking, should pay closer attention to their mouth than to any other portion of their body, for it is the soul's antechamber, the portal of speech, and the gathering place where thoughts assemble. I myself should say that in my poor judgement there is nothing less ...
— The Apologia and Florida of Apuleius of Madaura • Lucius Apuleius

... well satisfied with his manner of speaking, and felt certain that we should be kindly treated. Fortunately for us, our mules had managed to get out of the way of the troops as they passed by. With much sagacity they had, when we jumped off their backs, crept into a wide crevice in the cliffs, ...
— Manco, the Peruvian Chief - An Englishman's Adventures in the Country of the Incas • W.H.G. Kingston

... rather like Aunt M'riar said, for Uncle Moses. Those two young Turks didn't allow their uncle no latitude, in the manner of speaking. He couldn't ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan

... truth, ladies," he began, "I had not expected this— this audience. It finds me, in a manner of speaking, unprepared." He ran a finger around the edge of his saucer after the manner of one performing on the musical glasses, and threw a hunted glance at the window, as though for a way of escape. "My name, ladies, is Branscome. I was once well-to-do, and commanded a packet in the service of his Majesty's ...
— Poison Island • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)

... sentimentality as "a tame, cold, or small and inadequate manner of speaking about certain matters which demand very large and ...
— The Art of the Story-Teller • Marie L. Shedlock

... narrow defile, greatly to his own annoyance, if not the discomfort of the people. To me the task was exceedingly disagreeable. My thin, feminine voice seemed to spend its volume before it had reached the middle of the line. Then, my rapid manner of speaking seemed to send the words in wild confusion into the distant part of the hall. But I soon learned to gauge my voice to the place, and, thereafter, I enjoyed unusual freedom ...
— Thirty Years in the Itinerancy • Wesson Gage Miller

... His manner of speaking was nervous, eager, explosive. He used many gestures, some of which were strongly reminiscent of his father, of whom he, unlike most English lads, who shy at mentioning a distinguished parent, ...
— Real Soldiers of Fortune • Richard Harding Davis

... brimstone yellow sheets, worn like Roman togas. A nearer view displays bridgeless, patulous noses, suggesting a figure of [Symbol: Figure-8 on its side.]; cheek-bones like molehills, and lips splayed out in the manner of speaking-trumpets: often, indeed, the face is a mere attachment to the devouring-apparatus. Throughout the day sexes and ages keep apart. The nude boys perch upon stones or worn-out canoes. Their elders affect the shade, men on one side of the village and women on the other. All the settlements are ...
— To The Gold Coast for Gold, Vol. II - A Personal Narrative • Richard Francis Burton and Verney Lovett Cameron

... simple. Clem was—after a manner of speaking—a literary agent. Apparently the Galactic system of book publishing didn't work quite the way the Terrestrial system did; Clem took his commission from the publisher instead of the author, but was considered a representative of the author, not the publisher. ...
— A World by the Tale • Gordon Randall Garrett

... Ryn, is awfully inquisitive, Mr Blackburn. He was chaffing me to-day upon the difference in my manner of speaking now from what it was when he first knew me, and I said: Yes, I had to thank you for it, for you had insisted I should study and improve my education every evening since we had been cast away. Then ...
— The Strange Adventures of Eric Blackburn • Harry Collingwood

... and other things under the monk's robe, looked much larger across the shoulders than usual. His beard was of the same color as Gorenflot's, and he had so often amused himself with mimicking the monk's voice and manner of speaking that he could do it perfectly. Now, everyone knows that the beard and the voice are the only things which are recognizable from under the depths of a monk's hood. Chicot exhibited his coin, and was admitted without difficulty, and then followed two other monks to the chapel of the convent. ...
— Chicot the Jester - [An abridged translation of "La dame de Monsoreau"] • Alexandre Dumas

... him. "But," he exclaimed, "how mistaken I was about that man—I am convinced of it now—O he was a good man—a noble philanthropist!—if there is a chair in heaven, Wilberforce is in it!" Colonel A. is somewhat sceptical, which will account for his hypothetical manner of speaking about heaven. ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society

... This manner of speaking somewhat surprised the Father. He well enough understands the rules of suspension, which is not executed on such things. ...
— The Autobiography of Madame Guyon • Jeanne Marie Bouvier de La Motte Guyon

... in a vehement fume, began to cry out that never prince was handled as she was. "I have," said she, "borne with you in all your rigorous manner of speaking, both against myself and against my uncles; yea, I have sought your favors by all possible means. I offered unto you presence and audience, whensoever it pleased you to admonish me, and yet I cannot be quit of you. I avow to God I shall be ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to prose. Volume III (of X) - Great Britain and Ireland I • Francis W. Halsey

... distributing great sums to them for their prayers and ghostly council, so satisfied them, that they satisfied others; was brought at his suit to the bar of the House of Commons on on the 4th of July 1643, where being a man in truth very powerful in language, and who, by what he spoke, and the manner of speaking it, exceedingly captivated the good will, and benevolence of his hearers, with such flattery, as was most exactly calculated to that meridian, with such a submission as their pride took delight in, and such a dejection ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Volume II • Theophilus Cibber

... His manner of speaking was a quiet announcement to Hunt that his plans were for the present a closed subject. Hunt felt balked, for this lean, alert, much-talked-of adventurer piqued him greatly; but he switched to other subjects, and during ...
— Children of the Whirlwind • Leroy Scott

... not nearly so effective as Angelina's. She was never very fluent, and cared little for the flowers of rhetoric. She could state a truth in clear and forcible terms, but the language was unvarnished, sometimes harsh, while the manner of speaking was often embarrassed. She understood and felt her deficiencies, and preferred to serve the cause through her pen rather than through her voice. Writing to Sarah Douglass, in ...
— The Grimke Sisters - Sarah and Angelina Grimke: The First American Women Advocates of - Abolition and Woman's Rights • Catherine H. Birney

... ideas of it, and from one another, has tended to confound our ideas of beauty, and left us no standard or rule to judge by, that was not even more uncertain and fallacious than our own fancies. This loose and inaccurate manner of speaking has therefore misled us both in the theory of taste and of morals; and induced us to remove the science of our duties from their proper basis (our reason, our relations, and our necessities), to rest it upon, foundations altogether visionary ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. I. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... Burr's manner of speaking; Albert Gallatin appointed a senator of the United States; objections to the legality of his appointment; Burr ardent in support of Gallatin; note of John Taylor, of Virginia, to Burr, on the subject of replying to Rufus King; Senate decide against Gallatin; Burr offers ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis

... manner of speaking when there was something she wanted to conceal but not to deny. The question must have been embarrassing therefore. Moreover, these interrogatories were based on a good store of facts either true or false; and in the questions addressed ...
— The Life of Joan of Arc, Vol. 1 and 2 (of 2) • Anatole France

... it. She was not accustomed to be answered, except by excuses and apologies; and Mrs. Whitney's independent manner of speaking came upon her almost as an act of rebellion, in her own kingdom. She was too fair, however, to withdraw her custom from the shop; but from that time she had not, ...
— A Final Reckoning - A Tale of Bush Life in Australia • G. A. Henty

... manner of speaking I do. But I've been a-thinking," continued Swan, taking the nails out of his lips and leaning in at the window, "I've been a-thinking as it ain't noways fair, if all men is ekal—which you're allers upholding—that you should say Swan, and I should ...
— Fated to Be Free • Jean Ingelow

... the preface of the Latin translator: "I have translated with great travail into open understanding of Latin out of the language of Araby ... sometimes expounding letter by letter, and sometimes understanding of understanding, for other manner of speaking is with Arabs and other with Latin."[40] Lydgate ...
— Early Theories of Translation • Flora Ross Amos

... a pass with this emphasizer that where the truth would require us to acknowledge our exaggeration with, "not literally, of course, but in a manner of speaking", we do not hesitate to insert the very word that we ought to be at pains to repudiate; such false coin makes honest traffic in words impossible. If the Home Rule Bill is passed, the 300,000 Unionists of the South and West of Ireland will be literally thrown to the wolves. The strong "tte-de-pont" ...
— Tract XI: Three Articles on Metaphor • Society for Pure English

... stolen anything," Freddy explained. "She says he was only staying with us, in a manner of speaking, and was quite right to take his poor old dog and donkey under cover during that rotten weather, she says—so that's ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Oct. 10, 1917 • Various

... of you! Really, I shall be too charmed!' (This is the orthodox fashionable manner of speaking. Let us be ...
— The Love Affairs of Pixie • Mrs George de Horne Vaizey

... Gabriel, which gives all these qualities. Even then, however, the fullness in the eyes was somewhat excessive. Afterwards her ill health took a peculiar form, the effect of which was that the eyes were, in a manner of speaking, pushed forward, and although this protuberance was never disagreeable, it certainly took a good deal of ...
— Old Familiar Faces • Theodore Watts-Dunton

... little girl get home all right? She was pretty safe with El, but I didn't know as your aunt mightn't hev been oneasy, seeing they was just two children. You tell her she needn't hev no fear of El; he can handle a boat as good as I kin.'" Molly unconsciously imitated Parker's manner of speaking. ...
— Three Little Cousins • Amy E. Blanchard

... so as to give it an appearance of justice, and this to such a degree, that they themselves saw what was unjust as just, and on the other hand what was just as unjust. Such persuasions respecting the points to be decided upon, appeared from their countenances, and were heard from their manner of speaking. I then received illustration from heaven, from which I perceived how far each point was grounded in right or not; and I saw how industriously they concealed what was unjust, and gave it a semblance of what was just; and how they selected some particular statute which favored their ...
— The Delights of Wisdom Pertaining to Conjugial Love • Emanuel Swedenborg

... As the neighbours were going to their homes, after the woman's return, they were, naturally enough, talking of the matter, regarding it as a cause of deep thankfulness that no harm had befallen her. Mr. G., one of the number, although a very kind hearted man, had an odd dry manner of speaking which often provoked a laugh. It so happened that the woman who was lost was very small, her stature being much below the medium height. Laughter was far enough from the mind of any one, till old Mr. G., who had not before made a remark, suddenly ...
— Stories and Sketches • Harriet S. Caswell

... Risler loved best in the world was Madame Georges Fromont, whom he called "Madame Chorche," the wife of his partner and the daughter of the late Fromont, his former employer and his god. He had placed her beside him, and in his manner of speaking to her one could read affection and deference. She was a very young woman, of about the same age as Sidonie, but of a more regular, quiet and placid type of beauty. She talked little, being out of her element in that conglomerate assemblage; but she ...
— Fromont and Risler, Complete • Alphonse Daudet

... face,—a very pale face it was, too. His hat was off, and I noticed that his hair was rather short. As for his age, I could not have told about that,—it might have been twenty-five or fifty, or any age between. He was quick in his movements, but his manner of speaking ...
— The Voyage of the Hoppergrass • Edmund Lester Pearson

... His very manner of speaking seemed to have such a kind of idea with it; for it was courteous, and yet forcible; pleasant, yet overwhelming; facetious, yet austere; sententious, and yet vehement: like Socrates, in the description of Plato, who seemed outwardly ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough

... speech,—therein lay the true cause of his taking her to England. When she came home to him, after four years, there was no trace of Edward Crown in her voice or manner of speaking. She was almost as English as Alix the First. But her eyes had not changed; he ...
— Quill's Window • George Barr McCutcheon

... agents. Just for what? That de Mersch may be the richest man in the world and a philanthropist. Well, then, where's Slingsby, if that's philanthropy? So Mr. Churchill comes along and says, in a manner of speaking, "That's all very well, but this same Mr. Mersch is the grand duke of somewhere or other, and we must bolster him up in his kingdom, or else there will be trouble with the powers." Powers—what's powers to me?—or Greenland? ...
— The Inheritors • Joseph Conrad

... one of his philosophic feints: he prepared for himself some loophole, as when for instance he discovered a trick for denying the movement of the earth, while he was a Copernican in the strictest sense. I suspect that he had in mind here another extraordinary manner of speaking, of his own invention, which was to say that affirmations and negations, and acts of inner judgement in general, are operations of the will. Through this artifice the eternal verities, which until the time of Descartes had been named an object of the divine understanding, suddenly became an ...
— Theodicy - Essays on the Goodness of God, the Freedom of Man and the Origin of Evil • G. W. Leibniz

... half like the marriage, I know that," said Mr. Chichely. "He wouldn't do much. How the relations on the other side may have come down I can't say." There was an emphatic kind of reticence in Mr. Chichely's manner of speaking. ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot

... relishes the savoury tid-bits that fall from the rich table of the family life. Thus you saw that Mr. and Mrs. Gideon Gory, Jr., have returned from California where Mr. Gory had gone for the polo. Mr. and Mrs. Gideon Gory, Jr., announce the birth, in New York, of a son, Gideon III (our, in a manner of speaking, hero). Mr. and Mrs. Gideon Gory, Jr., and son Gideon III, left to-day for England and the continent. It is understood that Gideon III will be placed at school in England. Mr. and Mrs. Gideon Gory, accompanied by Madame ...
— Gigolo • Edna Ferber

... inclined to resent this "tough" familiarity. Then he realized that the language of the man was in his natural manner of speaking, and he said: ...
— The Air Ship Boys • H.L. Sayler

... send Johnson, sir? I don't old with telephones. They buzz at you or makes you jump. And the young person keeps on saying ave you got them? before you've ad time to breathe, in a manner of speaking." ...
— The Limit • Ada Leverson

... and Pauline Montier looked at their daughter with the most profound surprise when she spoke thus. Not merely her words, but her manner of speaking, caused this not agreeable perplexity. Her emotion was not only too obvious, it was too deep for their understanding. The mother was ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 12, October, 1858 • Various

... brought me into this honorable company;" answered the Herr Mueller, whom no kindness of tone, however, could win from his timid and subdued manner of speaking. ...
— The Headsman - The Abbaye des Vignerons • James Fenimore Cooper

... himself in the long course; so it happened to Demosthenes, that he first appeared at the bar for the recovery of his own fortune, which had been so much embezzled; and having acquired in that cause a persuasive and powerful manner of speaking, he contested the crown, as I may call it, with the other orators before the ...
— Stories of Achievement, Volume III (of 6) - Orators and Reformers • Various



Words linked to "Manner of speaking" :   paralinguistic communication, delivery, tongue, modulation, inflection, address, speech, prosody, tone of voice, style, paralanguage, shibboleth, catch, expressive style, elocution



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