"Neuter" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... was no longer a young woman, but there seemed to be something almost sexless about her. It was as though her secondary sex characteristics were no longer feminine, but—for want of a better word—neuter. ...
— The Treasure-Train • Arthur B. Reeve
... Curtius, by this account of a worship of such simplicity as to amount almost to poverty. But I must tell you that never have I been so overwhelmed by emotions of the noblest kind, as when sitting in the midst of these despised Nazarenes, and joining in their devotions; for to sit neuter in such a scene, it was not in my nature to do, nor would it have been in yours, much as you affect to despise this 'superstitious race.' This was indeed worship. It was a true communion of the creature with the Creator. Never before had I heard a prayer. How different from the loud and declamatory ...
— Zenobia - or, The Fall of Palmyra • William Ware
... "yammerschooner," which means "give me." After pointing to almost every object, one after the other, even to the buttons on our coats, and saying their favourite word in as many intonations as possible, they would then use it in a neuter sense, and vacantly repeat "yammerschooner." After yammerschoonering for any article very eagerly, they would by a simple artifice point to their young women or little children, as much as to say, "If you will not give it me, surely you will to such ...
— A Naturalist's Voyage Round the World - The Voyage Of The Beagle • Charles Darwin
... Bed of Fire, A new-found way to cool desire, Lay wrapt in Smoke, half Cole, half Dido, Too late repenting Crime Libido, Monsieur AEneas went his waies; For which I con him little praise, To leave a Lady, not i'th'Mire, But which was worser, in the Fire. He Neuter-like, had no great aim, To kindle or put out the flame. He had what he would have, the Wind; More than ten Dido's to his mind. The merry gale was all in Poop, Which made the Trojans ...
— The Lives of the Most Famous English Poets (1687) • William Winstanley
... exclaims Sigismund, intent on having the Bohemian schism well dealt with—which he reckons to be of the feminine gender. To which a cardinal mildly remarking, "Domine, schisma est generis neutrius (schisma is neuter, your Majesty)," Sigismund loftily replies: "Ego sum Rex Romanus et super grammaticam (I am King of the Romans, and above Grammar)!" For which reason I call him in my note-books Sigismund Super Grammaticam, to distinguish him in the ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... repeat the elegant philippics with which I was greeted. Suffice it to say that I found all the big ones against me, and the little ones neuter; the caterer supposing I had received suitable admonition for my future guidance, and that I was completely bound over to keep the peace—turned all the youngsters out of the berth. "As for you, Mr Fistycuff," said he, addressing himself to me, "you may walk ...
— Frank Mildmay • Captain Frederick Marryat
... learned body might control it, public opinion in Bohemia, was guided not by native scholars, but by foreigners. In the religious controversy which now agitated the minds of men it was impossible that the university should stand neuter. The nations met,—Bohemia declared for the Wickliffites, Bavaria, Saxony, and Poland against them; and numbers, of course, prevailed. But the triumph of Popery was short-lived, even in the university. Huss exerted himself with such vigour, that the foreigners were deprived of their preponderancy, ...
— Germany, Bohemia, and Hungary, Visited in 1837. Vol. II • G. R. Gleig
... either masculine, feminine, or neuter. Masculine are such as end in {nu}, {rho}, {sigma}, or in some letter compounded with {sigma},—these being two, and {xi}. Feminine, such as end in vowels that are always long, namely {eta} and {omega}, and—of vowels that admit of ...
— Poetics • Aristotle
... the Gentile world and among the Pagans.[21] Joseph Addison was equally unwilling to take a radical view. "There are," he wrote in the Spectator for July 14, 1711, "some opinions in which a man should stand neuter.... It is with this temper of mind that I consider the subject of witchcraft.... I endeavour to suspend my belief till I hear more certain accounts.... I believe in general that there is, and has been, such a thing as witchcraft; but at the same time can give no credit to any particular instance ...
— A History of Witchcraft in England from 1558 to 1718 • Wallace Notestein
... simple business of going from one place to another be labelled "transportation"? And these words are apt and lucid compared with "proposition." Now "proposition" is America's maid-of-all-work. It means everything or nothing. It may be masculine, feminine, neuter—he, she, it. It is tough or firm, cold or warm, according to circumstances. But it has no more sense than an expletive, and its popularity is a clear proof ...
— American Sketches - 1908 • Charles Whibley
... a neuter noun, and in the Rig-veda it means something that can only be fully translated by a long circumlocution. It may be rendered as "the power of ritual devotion"; that is to say, it denotes the mystic or magic force which is put forth by ...
— Hindu Gods And Heroes - Studies in the History of the Religion of India • Lionel D. Barnett
... adopted, were called, the one, Gluckists; and the other, Piccinists. Their inveteracy was great, somewhat like that which, forty years before, existed between the Molinists and Jansenists: and few persons, if any, I believe, remained neuter. Victory seems to have crowned the former party. Indeed the music of GLUCK possesses a melody which is wonderfully energetic and striking. PICCINI is skilful and brilliant in his harmony, as well as sweet and varied in his composition; but this style of beauty has been thought ...
— Paris As It Was and As It Is • Francis W. Blagdon
... not the most severe corrector of folly. They are the rival follies which mutually wage so unrelenting a war, and which make so cruel a use of their advantages, as they can happen to engage the immoderate vulgar, on the one side or the other, in their quarrels. Prudence would be neuter; but if, in the contention between fond attachment and fierce antipathy concerning things in their nature not made to produce such heats, a prudent man were obliged to make a choice of what errors and excesses of enthusiasm ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. III. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... return. "Sophia is going to Aix-la-Chapelle, and thence to Paris," Lady Mary wrote to Lady Mar. "I dare swear she'll endeavour to get acquainted with you. We are broke to an iremediable degree. Various are the persecutions I have endured from her this winter, in all of which I remain neuter, and shall certainly go to heaven from the passive meekness ...
— Lady Mary Wortley Montague - Her Life and Letters (1689-1762) • Lewis Melville
... of correctness, particularly in an Errata page, the alteration of the couplet I have just sent (half an hour ago) must take place, in spite of delay or cancel; let me see the proof early to-morrow. I found out murmur to be a neuter verb, and have been obliged to alter the line so as to make ...
— The Works of Lord Byron: Letters and Journals, Volume 2. • Lord Byron
... of honour are not cut so short; they may give themselves a little rein, and relax a little without being faulty: there lies on the frontier some space free, indifferent, and neuter. He that has beaten and pursued her into her fort is a strange fellow if he be not satisfied with his fortune: the price of the conquest is considered by the difficulty. Would you know what impression your service and merit have made in her heart? Judge of it by her behaviour. ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... old language there was no neuter gender, the gods must always appear either as female or male. For apparent reasons, in all the translations, through the pronouns and adjectives used, the more important ancient deities have all been made to ...
— The God-Idea of the Ancients - or Sex in Religion • Eliza Burt Gamble
... find Louise; inform her of the plot against us; do not let her be ignorant that Madame will return to her system of persecutions against her, and that she has set those to work who would have found it far safer to remain neuter." ...
— Louise de la Valliere • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... give my opinion of the word, I hold it is to be taken neither in the sense of the neuter nor of the passive, but of the active, inasmuch as the word "naphal" is often used in the sense of the active, though it does not belong to the third conjugation, in which almost all transitive verbs are found. ...
— Commentary on Genesis, Vol. II - Luther on Sin and the Flood • Martin Luther
... father is variously Latinised in the Latin Lives. The Irish lives call him Beoit, a name analysed in the Book of Leinster, p. 349, into Beo-n-Aed, which would mean something like "Living Fire." The -n- is inserted, according to a law of Old Irish accidence, because aed, "fire," is a neuter word. Thus arises the Latin form Beonnadus. By metathesis the name further becomes transformed to Beodan or Beoan. The Latharna were the people who dwelt around the site of the modern town of Larne, which preserves their name; Mag Molt ("the plain ...
— The Latin & Irish Lives of Ciaran - Translations Of Christian Literature. Series V. Lives Of - The Celtic Saints • Anonymous
... gives them to understand, that though he might justly reject them, yet he would not, but bids them not once to think that he would accuse them to the Father. Now, not to accuse, with Christ, is to plead for: for Christ in these things stands not neuter between the Father and sinners. So then, if Jesus Christ would not have them think, that yet will not come to him, that he will accuse them; then he would not that they should think so, that in truth are coming to him. "And him that cometh to me ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... alone, or, if not, who were his council; and that the others were so disposed that there remained no doubt of their joining as soon as the first blow should be struck. He added that my friends were a little surprised to observe that I lay neuter in such a conjuncture. He represented to me the danger I ran of being prevented by people of all sides from having the merit of engaging early in this enterprise, and how unaccountable it would be for a man impeached and attainted under the present Government to take no share in ...
— Letters to Sir William Windham and Mr. Pope • Lord Bolingbroke
... to a crest from which the view reached off for leagues over the valley and beyond that over ridge upon ridge of hilltops. There she thought of many things and was very lonely. She could not have worded it but, deep in her heart, she felt the outcry of the Spring voice: "Make me anything but neuter when the sap begins ...
— A Pagan of the Hills • Charles Neville Buck
... Lo de la cita: That about the appointment. The neuter article lo, thus used instead of a word or phrase unexpressed, is equivalent to 'the affair,' 'the thing,' 'the fact,' 'the ...
— Ms vale maa que fuerza • Manuel Tamayo y Baus
... negative post. When the cords are of equal length, this point will always be in the person of the patient, about midway between the parts where the two electrodes are applied. This central point, or "point of centrality," is practically neuter—neither positive nor negative; and upon the two opposite halves of the circuit, the positive and negative qualities of the current are in greatest force nearest to the posts, and in least force nearest to the central point. At this point they cease altogether, ...
— A Newly Discovered System of Electrical Medication • Daniel Clark
... Earl himself wisely and patriotically deemed it right to remain neuter in the approaching decision between Tostig and the young earls. He could not be so unjust and so mad as to urge to the utmost (and risk in the urging) his party influence on the side of oppression and injustice, solely for the sake of his brother; nor, on ...
— Harold, Complete - The Last Of The Saxon Kings • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... speaking of a goldfield a colonist says 'on.' Thus you live 'on Bendigo,' but 'in' or 'at' Sandhurst—the latter being the new name for the old goldfield town. To 'shout' drinks has no connection with the neuter verb of dictionary English. A 'shicer' is first a mining claim which turns out to be useless, and then anything that does so. There is room for a very interesting dictionary of Australianisms. But I have no time to collect such a list. The few words which I have given will serve as an indication ...
— Town Life in Australia - 1883 • R. E. N. (Richard) Twopeny
... dominate an adversary's will both physically and psychologically. Physical dominance includes the ability to destroy, disarm, disrupt, neutralize, and to render impotent. Psychological dominance means the ability to destroy, defeat, and neuter the will of an adversary to resist; or convince the adversary to accept our terms and aims short of using force. The target is the adversary's will, perception, and understanding. The principal mechanism for achieving this dominance is through imposing sufficient conditions of "Shock ...
— Shock and Awe - Achieving Rapid Dominance • Harlan K. Ullman and James P. Wade
... been proposed to his own father, who, as hath been already observed, stood always neuter in everything that concerned his eldest son; and as for Mrs. Pickle, she had never heard his name mentioned since his departure with any degree of temper or tranquility, except when her husband informed her that he was in a fair way of being ruined by this indiscreet ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... fingers and arms, like human attachments to typewriting machines. There was a something not in the least mannish, but still not appealingly womanly, in these self-reliant, quiet business beings. Was it a sort of neuter gender, a sexless being that was there in course of development? Somehow, they did not strike one as beings who would bear and suckle and nurse children. Was this severe struggle and necessity of existence to eliminate the supreme joy ...
— Impressions of a War Correspondent • George Lynch
... earnestness; anorexy^, anorexia, inappetency^; apathy &c (insensibility) 823; supineness &c (inactivity) 683; disdain &c 930; recklessness &c 863; inattention &c 458. anaphrodisiac^, antaphrodisiac^; lust-quencher, passion-queller^. V. be indifferent &c adj.; stand neuter; take no interest in &c (insensibility) 823; have no desire for &c 865, have no taste for, have no relish for; not care for; care nothing for, care nothing about; not care a straw about, not care a fig for, not care a whit about &c (unimportance) 643; not mind. set at naught &c (make ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... it was not on that account you asked Percerin for those patterns of the king's costumes. Oh! Aramis, we are not enemies, remember—we are brothers. Tell me what you wish to undertake, and, upon the word of a D'Artagnan, if I cannot help you, I will swear to remain neuter." ...
— The Man in the Iron Mask • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... hold myself neuter—will that satisfy you? You shall have a clear stage and no favor, which, if you be a man of ...
— The Emigrants Of Ahadarra - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... of Nations that rest neuter and at Peace with the World during a War with other Nations, have a Right to navigate freely on the Seas as they navigated before that War broke out, and to proceed to and enter the Port or Ports of any of the Belligerent Powers, with the consent of that Power, without being seized, searched, ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine
... true peace which derogateth not from the truth, we may not, we dare not, leave off to debate with them. Among the laws of Solon, there was one which pronounced him defamed and unhonest who, in a civil uproar among the citizens, sitteth still a looker-on and a neuter (Plut. in Vita. Solon); much more deserve they to be so accounted of who shun to meddle with any controversy which disquieted the church, whereas they should labour to win the adversaries of the truth, and, if they ...
— The Works of Mr. George Gillespie (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Gillespie
... down, thou art a neuter, she a foe. Thy love we doubt; her heart too well we know. [Aside. What suitors are without? let them ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VII (4th edition) • Various
... signification. Now it is true that, by means of the feminine termination, adjectives are changed into abstract nouns, but never into such as indicate an action; but always into such only for which, in Latin and Greek, the neuter of the adjective might be used. This, however, is here inadmissible. 2. To this must be added the constant use; as in Is. xxxvii. 31, 32: "And that which has escaped ([Hebrew: pliTt]) of the house of Judah, the remnant, taketh ...
— Christology of the Old Testament: And a Commentary on the Messianic Predictions, v. 1 • Ernst Wilhelm Hengstenberg
... is, however, not acceptable. Many women of the character described undoubtedly exist, but they are better placed in some other occupation. It is wholly undesirable that children should be reared under a neuter influence, which is probably too common ...
— Applied Eugenics • Paul Popenoe and Roswell Hill Johnson
... 'Verb neuter, not to care. Indicative mood, present tense. First person singular, I do not care; second person singular, thou dost not care; third person singular, she ...
— Hard Times • Charles Dickens*
... adjective used as a noun, equivalent to ceteris rebus 'the other matters'; i.e. the political troubles hinted at above. The best writers do not often use the neuter adjective as noun in the oblique cases unless there is something in the context to show the gender clearly, as in 24 aliis ... eis quae; we have, however, below in 8, isto ista re; 72, reliquum; 77, caelestium rerum caelestium; and in 78, praeteritorum futurorumque; ...
— Cato Maior de Senectute • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... personal enemy of the great duke; nor could time, or death, or his own retreat to a monastery, extort a feeling of sympathy or forgiveness. Ducas is inclined to praise and pity the martyr; Chalcondyles is neuter, but we are indebted to him for the hint ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 6 • Edward Gibbon
... the Self of all that moves and rests (Rv. I. 115, 1), and still more frequently self becomes a mere pronoun. But Atman remained always free from mythe and worship, differing in this from the Brahman (neuter), who has his temples in India even now, and is worshipped as Brahman (masculine), together with Vishnu and Siva, and other popular gods. The idea of the Atman or Self, like a pure crystal, was too transparent for poetry, and therefore was handed over to philosophy, which afterwards ...
— Chips From A German Workshop - Volume I - Essays on the Science of Religion • Friedrich Max Mueller
... mow lightly over: applied to pastures which have been summer-eaten, never to meadows. In a neuter sense, to move along quickly, and slightly touching. Hence, ...
— The Dialect of the West of England Particularly Somersetshire • James Jennings
... of learning! Even in love you tote your grammar along with you, and arrange a divine passion under the active, passive, and neuter!" ...
— A Brace Of Boys - 1867, From "Little Brother" • Fitz Hugh Ludlow
... the poor diabolic writer's head as if it had been a tennis-ball. Coleridge, the yet unknown criminal, absolutely perspired and fumed in pleading for the defendant; the company demurred; the orator grew urgent; wits began to smoke the case, as active verbs; the advocate to smoke, as a neuter verb; the "fun grew fast and furious;" until at length delinquent arose, burning tears in his eyes, and confessed to an audience, (now bursting with stifled laughter, but whom he supposed to be bursting with fiery indignation,) "Lo! I am he ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 57, No. 351, January 1845 • Various
... THE DIVINE SPIRIT.—His personality is unmistakable; though the Greek word for Spirit is neuter, a masculine pronoun is used in conjunction with it when Jesus says, "He, the Spirit of Truth." The personal Christ sent as a substitute for Himself no mere breath or influence, but the personal Spirit. ...
— Love to the Uttermost - Expositions of John XIII.-XXI. • F. B. Meyer
... more correctly than the ordinary peasant, others use the Gaelic idioms continually and substitute 'he' or 'she' for 'it,' as the neuter pronoun is not found in ...
— The Aran Islands • John M. Synge
... as dazzled and fascinated the imagination of those knights in whom the true spirit of chivalry found rest. Pre-eminent amongst these was the noble Earl of Gloucester. His duty to his sovereign urged him to take the field; his attachment for the Bruce would have held him neuter, for the ties that bound brothers in arms were of no common or wavering nature. Brothers in blood had frequently found themselves opposed horse to horse, and lance to lance, on the same field, and no scruples of conscience, no pleadings of affection, ...
— The Days of Bruce Vol 1 - A Story from Scottish History • Grace Aguilar
... Terence—classically managed—as it could be done in Oxford—and well acted, would be more unbecoming the gravity of our collected wisdom, or more derogatory to the dignity of our noble "theatre," than the squalling of Italian singers, masculine, feminine, and neuter—is a question which, when I take my M.A., I shall certainly propose in convocation. Thus much I am sure of, if a classical play-bill were duly announced for the next grand commemoration, it would "draw" almost as well as the Duke; the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 54, No. 338, December 1843 • Various
... much light the principle of gradation throws on the admirable architectural powers of the hive-bee. Habit no doubt often comes into play in modifying instincts; but it certainly is not indispensable, as we see in the case of neuter insects, which leave no progeny to inherit the effects of long-continued habit. On the view of all the species of the same genus having descended from a common parent, and having inherited much in common, we can understand how it is that allied species, when placed under widely ...
— Little Masterpieces of Science: - The Naturalist as Interpreter and Seer • Various
... vegetable and the animal kingdoms. It is seen in bone and muscle and fibrous tissue, and protoplasm may be said to contain within its cells the principles of both sexes. It is not sexless, but bi-sexual; not neuter but masculine-feminine. Every form of life has sex, and in some rare instances both sexes are present in one form. This does not mean that there is another phase of sex unclassified, but rather it proves the union in one Whole ...
— Sex=The Unknown Quantity - The Spiritual Function of Sex • Ali Nomad
... for retracting his promise to stand neuter, is as curious as his doing so is natural. The unfortunate John of France was wont to say, that, if truth and faith were banished from all the rest of the universe, they should still reside in the breast and the mouth ...
— Minstrelsy of the Scottish border (3rd ed) (1 of 3) • Walter Scott
... Russia had not contributed in any shape to the common cause; that Denmark and Sweden had coalesced to defend themselves against any attempt to force them into it; that Venice and Switzerland remained neuter; that Sardinia was subsidized merely to act on the defensive; and that Great Britain was loaded with a subsidy which ought properly to be borne by Prussia; and, finally, that the time was now come when peace might be secured on a permanent ...
— Memoirs of the Court and Cabinets of George the Third, Volume 2 (of 2) - From the Original Family Documents • The Duke of Buckingham
... Tim; he was small, very small—not in stature, for he was a six-footer, but small in mind and small in heart; his soul was no bigger than a flea's. "Zeb, my boy," says he to me one day, "always be neuter in elections. You can't get nothing by them but ill-will. Dear, dear! I wish I had never voted. I never did but oncest, and, dear, dear! I wish I had let that alone. There was an army doctor oncest, Zeb, lived right opposite to me to Digby: dear, dear! he was a good friend to ...
— Humour of the North • Lawrence J. Burpee
... antecedent is a neuter noun not personified, a writer should prefer of which to whose, ...
— Practical Exercises in English • Huber Gray Buehler
... is occasionally used for tal cosa, i.e. as a sort of neuter. Cf. note ni es tal tierra, p. ...
— Novelas Cortas • Pedro Antonio de Alarcon
... In Sonnets, I, 12, occurs 'niggarding'. In Elizabethan English "almost any part of speech can be used as any other part of speech. Any noun, adjective, or neuter verb can be used as ...
— The New Hudson Shakespeare: Julius Caesar • William Shakespeare
... editors of Shakspeare (Second Part of Hen. IV., Act I. Sc. 1.) are at fault for an example. Mr. Halliwell gives one in his Dictionary of the passive participle, which see. In Shakspeare it occurs as a neuter verb: ...
— Notes and Queries, No. 181, April 16, 1853 • Various
... betwixt the protestors and resolutioners, Mr. Blair was at London, and afterward for the most part remained neuter in that affair; for which he was subjected to some hardships; yet he never omitted any proper place or occasion for the uniting and cementing these differences, none now in Scotland being more earnest in this than he and the learned and pious Mr. James Durham minister at Glasgow. These ...
— Biographia Scoticana (Scots Worthies) • John Howie
... day that the neuter larvae inhabit an invisible, neutral territory, something like a little island, which is beseiged on all sides by the good and evil spirits. The larvae cannot long hold out and are soon forced into one or the other camp. Now, because it is these larvae they evoke, ...
— La-bas • J. K. Huysmans
... the very opposite of his non-castrated brother, the bull. The bull is the symbol of irritability and unteachableness, who will not be easily yoked or led and who is the incarnation of lust and passion. One is the male transformed into neuter gender; and the other is rampant with the fierceness of ...
— The Foundations of Personality • Abraham Myerson
... observe, we personify our new name; but as we give it no distinction of sex, and though it will be active in its vocation, yet we apply to it the neuter gender. ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... fertile blossoms, and these are used to reproduce the double variety. These single and fertile plants correspond "to the males and females of an ant-colony, the infertile plants, which are regularly produced in large numbers, to the neuter ...
— Evolution in Modern Thought • Ernst Haeckel
... the genders feminine, masculine, and neuter as Latin does. There are, however, certain nouns which are feminine or masculine because of their meaning. Other nouns are common to both these genders. For things which do not have a proper gender vo is placed before masculine ...
— Diego Collado's Grammar of the Japanese Language • Diego Collado
... rhynchos, Gr., neuter, nostril; priscus, L., ancient. Delorhynchus is masculine because of the ending that it acquires when ...
— Two New Pelycosaurs from the Lower Permian of Oklahoma • Richard C. Fox
... the tail, the support,' and does therefore not intimate that the Self of bliss is Brahman. And, on account of its referring to the passage last quoted ('it desired,' &c.), the later passage also, 'That is flavour,' &c., has not the Self of bliss for its subject.—But, it may be objected, the (neuter word) Brahman cannot possibly be designated by a masculine word as you maintain is done in the passage, 'He desired,' &c.—In reply to this objection we point to the passage (Taitt. Up. II, 1), 'From that Self sprang ether,' where, likewise, ...
— The Vedanta-Sutras with the Commentary by Sankaracarya - Sacred Books of the East, Volume 1 • George Thibaut
... us incorrectly used: mumbling (23) used of wings; the word is confined to the mouth whether as a manner of eating or of speaking: crunch (28) where the frosts crunch the grass: whereas they only make it crunchable. maligns (54) used as a neuter verb without precedent, chinked (58) of light passing through a chink: and note the homophone chink, used of ...
— Society for Pure English, Tract 5 - The Englishing of French Words; The Dialectal Words in Blunden's Poems • Society for Pure English
... guidance of wisdom, and with the permission of fortune.) Luck gave him nothing: in her most generous moods, she only worked with him as with a friend, not for him as for a fondling; but more often she simply stood neuter, and suffered him to work for himself. Ah! how could I be otherwise than affected by whatever reminded me of that daily and familiar intercourse with him, which made the fifteen months from May, 1804, to October, 1805, in many respects the ...
— Confessions of an Inquiring Spirit etc. • by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... femino-masculine honor demands that I refrain from any manoeuvers in his direction to attract his thoughts and attention to the feminine me. I can only meet him on the ordinary grounds of fellowship. And I suppose the glad-to-see him coming up the street was of the neuter gender, but it ...
— The Tinder-Box • Maria Thompson Daviess
... structure or habit. Thus we see that certain changes in food (and domicile), from those with which its ancestors have been familiar, will disturb the memory of a queen bee's egg, and set it at such disadvantage as to make it make itself into a neuter bee; but yet we find that the larva thus partly aborted may have its memories restored to it, if not already too much disturbed, and may thus return to its condition as a queen bee, if it only again be restored to the food and domicile, ...
— Life and Habit • Samuel Butler
... case of Happy Fear, refusing to discuss either in any terms or under any circumstances, but he also declined to speak of Ariel Tabor or of Joseph Louden; or of their affairs, singular or plural, masculine, feminine, or neuter, or in any declension. Not a ...
— The Conquest of Canaan • Booth Tarkington
... Day-break, or else two young Men took the Maiden by the Arms, and run her round the Market-place, till she was ashamed of her Laziness. And what was worse than this, she must not play with the Young Fellows that Day, but stand Neuter, like a Girl doing penance in a Winding-sheet ...
— Christmas: Its Origin and Associations - Together with Its Historical Events and Festive Celebrations During Nineteen Centuries • William Francis Dawson
... not to involve himself or the Pope in any untoward consequences that might ensue,—Rienzi motioned to two heralds that stood behind upon the platform, and one of these advancing, proclaimed—"That as it was desirable that all hitherto neuter should now profess themselves friends or foes, so they were invited to take at once the oath of obedience to the laws, and subscription to the ...
— Rienzi • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... subject at all before your mind. I remember well how many long years it was before I could look into the faces of some of the difficulties and not feel quite abashed. I fairly struck my colours before the case of neuter insects. ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume I • Francis Darwin
... with which this poem was constructed, I have italicized an identical rhyme (of about the same force in versification as an identical proposition in logic) and two grammatical improprieties. To lean is a neuter verb, and 'seizing on' is not properly to be called a pleonasm, merely because it is—nothing at all. The concluding line is difficult of pronunciation through excess of consonants. I should have preferred, ...
— International Weekly Miscellany, Vol. I, No. 6 - Of Literature, Art, And Science, New York, August 5, 1850 • Various
... dying in 383, the schism of Antioch must have ended, had not his abettors kept open the breach by choosing Evagrius in his room; though it does not appear that he had one bishop in communion with him, Egypt and the West being now neuter, and the East all holding communion with Flavian. Evagrius dying in 395, the Eustathians, though now without a pastor, still continued their separate meetings, and kept up the schism several years longer. St. Chrysostom being raised to the see of Constantinople, in 398, labored hourly to abolish ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... agricultural clearing, and whose control of her actions was evidently limited by the doctor,—for the doctor's sake alone. Nor was Mr. Hoskins inclined to exceed those limits. He looked upon her as something abnormal,—a "crank" as remarkable in her way as her patron was in his, neuter of sex and vague of race, and he simply restricted his supervision to the bringing and taking of messages. She remained sole queen of the domain. A rare straggler from the main road, penetrating this seclusion, might have ...
— Mr. Jack Hamlin's Mediation and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... year is his period of puberty and the changes which he undergoes physically and psychically are closely parallel to the changes which the human subject undergoes during his period of puberty. The gelding, on the other hand, develops into an animal that is in every respect a neuter. Physically this animal develops a body almost identical with that of the female of the same species. Temperamentally the gelding is a patient, plodding, beast of burden, and though under good grooming he may show considerable life, ...
— The Biology, Physiology and Sociology of Reproduction - Also Sexual Hygiene with Special Reference to the Male • Winfield S. Hall
... said, "you are so certain sure of the righteousness of your side in this quarrel that you cannot, for your life's sake, for your love's sake, consent to stand neuter ...
— The Lady of Loyalty House - A Novel • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... seems to have discovered in "Estrades' Memoirs" the real occasion of Richelieu's conduct. In 1639 the French and Dutch proposed dividing the Low Country provinces; England was to stand neuter. Charles replied to D'Estrades, that his army and fleet should instantly sail to prevent these projected conquests. From that moment the intolerant ambition of Richelieu swelled the venom of his heart, and he eagerly seized on the first opportunity of supplying the Covenanters ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli
... kingdom at this period exhibited a most melancholy spectacle. No man was suffered to remain neuter. Each county, town, and hamlet was divided into factions, seeking the ruin. of each other. All stood upon their guard, while the ...
— The History of England from the First Invasion by the Romans - to the Accession of King George the Fifth - Volume 8 • John Lingard and Hilaire Belloc
... neighbour's bosom. Glendinning had proved what Murray expected of him, a steady friend, strong in battle, and wise in counsel, adhering to him, from motives of gratitude, in situations where by his own unbiassed will he would either have stood neuter, or have joined the opposite party. Hence, when danger was near—and it was seldom far distant—Sir Halbert Glendinning, for he now bore the rank of knighthood, was perpetually summoned to attend his patron on distant expeditions, or on perilous ...
— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott
... class they may belong) are either masculines, feminines, or intermediates (neuter). All ending in N, P, S, or in the two compounds of this last, PS and X, are masculines. All ending in the invariably long vowels, H and O, and in A among the vowels that may be long, are feminines. So that there ...
— The Poetics • Aristotle
... decry science, but it should be cried on the housetops of education, the world around in this twentieth century, that science is in a rut of dealing solely with things and that the pronoun of science is It. While it is obvious that neuter knowledge should have its place in any real scheme of life, it is also obvious that most of us, making locomotives, playing with mist, fire and water and lightning, and the great game with matter, should be allowed to have sex enough to be men and women a large part of the time, the ...
— The Lost Art of Reading • Gerald Stanley Lee
... is a more far-reaching concord between noun, whether subject or object, and verb. Every noun is classified according to five categories—masculine, feminine, neuter,[89] dual, and plural. "Woman" is feminine, "sand" is neuter, "table" is masculine. If, therefore, I wish to say "The woman put the sand on the table," I must place in the verb certain class or gender prefixes that accord with corresponding noun prefixes. The sentence ...
— Language - An Introduction to the Study of Speech • Edward Sapir
... hesitatingly, never very sure of herself under Rebecca's fire; "but though we often speak of a baby, a chicken, or a kitten as 'it,' they are really masculine or feminine gender, not neuter." ...
— The Flag-raising • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... Marlborough; but Marlborough was always as fortunate in having continually unforeseen accidents in his favor, as Prince Eugene was unlucky to have them against him to thwart and cross the execution of the best-combined projects, which extorted admiration, and seemed to have only need of Fortune's standing neuter to be successful. The fate of an army,—can it depend upon the personal good fortune of the General who commands it? Cardinal Mazarin seemed to be of this opinion, since he never failed to ask those who recommended persons to him to head expeditions, "is he lucky?"—est-il heureux? ...
— The Campaign of 1760 in Canada - A Narrative Attributed to Chevalier Johnstone • Chevalier Johnstone
... he was convinced that the teacher was an active verb," said Nat. "He found out that he was neither neuter nor passive." ...
— The Bobbin Boy - or, How Nat Got His learning • William M. Thayer
... was clear. The first on the look-out were, of course, the smugglers; they, and those on board the revenue cutter, were the only two interested parties—the yacht was neuter. ...
— Peter Simple and The Three Cutters, Vol. 1-2 • Frederick Marryat
... of civil discord I have already told you it was seriously my opinion that you could not remain neuter; and that you would be obliged in self defence, to take part on one side or the other, or withdraw from the continent. Your friends are of the same opinion; and I believe you are convinced that it is impossible to have more disinterested or zealous friends, than those ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 4 (of 5) • John Marshall
... single individual, but such was not the case, the whole tribe participated in the same feeling, for we learnt from them, that the thief had been punished and expelled their camp. Could anything have been more noble than the conduct of the native, who remained neuter, and separated himself from them, when the tribes attempted to surprise my camp on the Murrumbidgee, because I had made him presents as I went down that river, vol. ii. page 212. On the other hand, could anything have been more just than the punishment inflicted on ...
— Expedition into Central Australia • Charles Sturt
... at all usual contractions in a string of words which are all neuter. Nor should I much like to say armum judicium, though the expression ...
— The Orations of Marcus Tullius Cicero, Volume 4 • Cicero
... 125.).—"G.P." thinks that the verb "endeavour" takes a middle voice form in the collect for the second Sunday after Easter, in the preface to the Confirmation Service, and in the Form of Ordering of Priests: but in these instances is it any thing more than the verb neuter, implying that we should endeavour ourselves ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 18. Saturday, March 2, 1850 • Various
... a different word. These are mostly those which denote relationships and familiar animals, and there are in some cases, as in English, further words to denote the young of both sexes, or the neuter. ...
— A Handbook of the Cornish Language - chiefly in its latest stages with some account of its history and literature • Henry Jenner
... contradictory to his own public protestations. Paul himself was so imprudent as to reveal the secret, and it enabled the Protestants to raise a formidable army in defence of their religion and liberties. But the Electors of Cologne and Brandenburg, and the Elector Palatine, resolved to remain neuter. Notwithstanding this secession, the war might have been ended at once, had the confederates attacked Charles while he lay at Ratisbon with very few troops, instead of wasting time by writing a manifesto, ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 3 of 8 • Various
... myself to study him, I must confess, to my shame, that his real nature was impenetrable up to the very last. I even felt doubts at times as to his sex. If all usurers are like this one, I maintain that they belong to the neuter gender. ...
— Gobseck • Honore de Balzac
... make the following observations:—The word "this" does not belong to the word "bread," that is, it does not mean that this bread is my body. For the word "bread" in the original Greek is of the masculine, and the word "this" is of the neuter gender. But it alludes to the action of the breaking of the bread, from which the following new meaning will result. "This breaking of the bread, which you now see me perform, is a symbol or representation of the giving, or ...
— A Portraiture of Quakerism, Volume II (of 3) • Thomas Clarkson
... anybody'll tell you The Pidgings, as soon as look at you. Small 'ouse, by the river. Kep' by Miss Horkings, now her father's kicked. Female party." This was due to a vague habit of the speaker's mind, which divided the opposite sex into two genders, feminine and neuter; the latter including all those samples, unfortunate enough—or fortunate enough, according as one looks at it—to present no attractions to masculine impulses. Micky would never have described his great-aunt as a female party. She was, though ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... the Course of my Papers, to do Justice to the Age, and have taken care as much as possible to keep my self a Neuter between both Sexes. I have neither spared the Ladies out of Complaisance, nor the Men out of Partiality; but notwithstanding the great Integrity with which I have acted in this Particular, I find my self taxed with an Inclination to favour my own half ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... of the chapel royal; and, the year afterwards, received the last proof of his master's confidence, by being appointed one of the commissioners for ecclesiastical affairs. On the critical day, when the declaration distinguished the true sons of the church of England, he stood neuter, and permitted it to be read at Westminster; but pressed none to violate his conscience; and, when the bishop of London was brought before them, gave ...
— Lives of the Poets, Vol. 1 • Samuel Johnson
... instincts of woman which has led to the attempt to establish what has been called a "third sex,"[317] a type of woman in whom the sexual differences are obscured or even obliterated—a woman who is, in fact, a temperamental neuter. Economic conditions are compelling women to enter with men into the fierce competition of our disordered social State. Partly due to this reason, though much more, as I think, to the strong stirring in ...
— The Truth About Woman • C. Gasquoine Hartley
... days and the Laws of Nature; and declare for us against France, in case of the worst. What an attempt! Imperial Majesty has no money; Imperial Majesty remembers recent days rather, and his own last quarrel with France (on the Polish-Election score), in which you Sea-Powers cruelly stood neuter! One comfort, and pretty much one only, is left to a nearly bankrupt Imperial heart; that France does at any rate ratify Pragmatic Sanction, and instead of enemy to that inestimable Document has become friend,—if only she ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... same author, considering the problem of the women of the common type that are classified as a "third sex," that of temperamental neuter, says: ...
— Sex-education - A series of lectures concerning knowledge of sex in its - relation to human life • Maurice Alpheus Bigelow
... worked his wantonness in form of law; Long war without and frequent broil within Had made a path for blood and giant sin, That waited but a signal to begin New havoc, such as civil discord blends, Which knows no neuter, owns but foes or friends; 810 Fixed in his feudal fortress each was lord, In word and deed obeyed, in soul abhorred. Thus Lara had inherited his lands, And with them pining hearts and sluggish hands; But that long absence from his native clime ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Vol. 3 (of 7) • Lord Byron
... soon burst forth in a furious attack on this provisional arrangement. The Whigs have nearly in a body joined Government, with the exception of Lord Grey in the House of Lords, who in a speech full of eloquence attacked Canning's political life and character and announced his intention of remaining neuter. In the meantime it was understood that there was a reason for Lord Lansdowne not joining Government immediately, which was not to be made public till that event took place, and this secret was only imparted to a very few people; it was even concealed ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William - IV, Volume 1 (of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... combat[Fr], spike the guns; take the wind out of one's sails, scotch the snake, put a spoke in one's wheel; break the neck, break the back; unhinge, unfit; put out of gear. unman, unnerve, enervate; emasculate, castrate, geld, alter, neuter, sterilize, fix. shatter, exhaust, weaken &c. 160. Adj. powerless, impotent, unable, incapable, incompetent; inefficient, ineffective; inept; unfit, unfitted; unqualified, disqualified; unendowed; inapt, unapt; crippled, disabled &c. v.; armless[obs3]. ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... The neuter pronoun, it might be well to state, signified the prairie; its melancholy personality having penetrated the very marrow of their train existence, they had come to refer to it by the monosyllable, as in certain nether circles ...
— Judith Of The Plains • Marie Manning
... reasons, human and divine, as evident to common sense as to conscience, decided the response of the Pope. He was moderate, tender, prudent; but he replied categorically to the requirements of the emperor. Pius VII wished to remain neuter, and not to drive from his states the English or the Russians; he did not admit the claim of the emperor to exercise over Rome a supreme protectorate. "The Pope does not recognize, and never has recognized, any power superior to himself. Your Majesty ...
— Worlds Best Histories - France Vol 7 • M. Guizot and Madame Guizot De Witt
... a presumption, the Hollandish "Nieuws" occurs, as a neuter substantive, in the sense of "niewe tijding," or "nouvelles," and, of course, the English "news," as perfect as can be wished. It is true that the "Nieuws-Boek" now circulates under the modest name of ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 54, November 9, 1850 • Various
... To rush is a neuter verb, here used in an active sense;—'precipitateth' gives the ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... neuter form of the active verb pa, to break in pieces; it means "to go to pieces, to fall in ruins, to be depopulated or deserted." Applied to a city it is often translated "to be destroyed," but it does not convey quite so positive a meaning. Kuyan ...
— The Maya Chronicles - Brinton's Library Of Aboriginal American Literature, Number 1 • Various
... me over, April, When the sap begins to stir! Make me man or make me woman, Make me oaf or ape or human, Cup of flower or cone of fir; Make me anything but neuter When the ...
— Songs from Vagabondia • Bliss Carman and Richard Hovey
... wise regulations, should catch the morbus, there is only one antidote, the name whereof is Vismuthum. Vismuthum, vismuthi, neuter gender, second declension. In Hungarian viszmuta, in Slovak vismuthium, in ...
— The Day of Wrath • Maurus Jokai
... then, do ye boast of your free-will, and thereby ascribe your deeds to your own hearts? But ye are all saints while there is nothing to tempt ye. No, Faustus; I will remain neuter, and merely offer delights to his senses; for the Devil has no need to creep into ye when you are already ...
— Faustus - his Life, Death, and Doom • Friedrich Maximilian von Klinger
... milk, and at night the immense desolation of a world lit by a sun that was long dead, and by a light that was gloom. It was like Night blanched in death then; and wan as the very kingdom of death and Hades I have seen it, most terrifying, that neuter state and limbo of nothingness, when unreal sea and spectral sky, all boundaries lost, mingled in a vast shadowy void of ghastly phantasmagoria, pale to utter huelessness, at whose centre I, as if annihilated, seemed to swoon in immensity of space. Into ...
— The Purple Cloud • M.P. Shiel |
