"Figure of speech" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... I saw what I had not noticed before: that at the belt of each of the tall, silent young backwoodsmen hung one or more wet, heavy, red and black soggy strips. The scalping had been no mere figure of speech! Thank heaven! none of our own people were ...
— Gold • Stewart White
... subject with the Symposium is the Phaedrus. As Professor Jowett observes: "The two dialogues together contain the whole philosophy of Plato on the nature of love, which in The Republic and in the later writings of Plato is only introduced playfully or as a figure of speech. But in the Phaedrus and Symposium love and philosophy join hands, and one is an aspect of the other. The spiritual and emotional is elevated into the ideal, to which in the Symposium mankind are described as looking forward, and which in the Phaedrus, ...
— A Short History of Greek Philosophy • John Marshall
... and there are indications that those who enjoyed an exceptional popularity may have occupied a high social standing. Ezekiel, whose characterizations of the false prophets are remarkably striking, uses about them a significant figure of speech. He says that, while a true prophet was like a wall of fire to his country, standing in the breach when danger threatened and defending it with his life, the false prophets were like the foxes that burrow among the ruins of fallen cities. What mattered it to them that their country was degraded, ...
— The Preacher and His Models - The Yale Lectures on Preaching 1891 • James Stalker
... text of Mathilda is improved in style. Mary adds concrete, specific words and phrases; e.g., at the end of the first paragraph of Mathilda's speech, the words "of incertitude" appear in Mathilda for the first time. She cancels, even in this final draft, an over-elaborate figure of speech after the words in the father's reply, "implicated in my destruction"; the cancelled passage is too flowery to be appropriate here: "as if when a vulture is carrying off some hare it is struck by an arrow his helpless victim entangled in the same fate is killed ...
— Mathilda • Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
... weathercocks, pay my compliments to the bells, inspect the fire-alarm, and pick up information by listening at the telegraph wires. People often talk about "a little bird" who spreads news; but they don't know how that figure of speech originated. It is the sparrows sitting on the wires, who receive the electric shock, and, being hollow-boned, the news go straight to their heads; they then fly about, chirping it on the housetops, and the air carries it everywhere. That's the way ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag • Louisa M. Alcott
... but he had not the faculty for generalization and analysis, nor the nice discrimination in the application of general principles to particular instances, which must be combined in a great lawyer. He cannot by any figure of speech be called a statesman. As a politician, he was one of the first to discover and one of the most skilful in the use of those unworthy arts which have brought the pursuit of politics into disrepute; but we doubt whether ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 5, March, 1858 • Various
... ink-distributing roller were not as yet in general use in small provincial printing establishments. Even at Angouleme, so closely connected through its paper-mills with the art of typography in Paris, the only machinery in use was the primitive wooden invention to which the language owes a figure of speech—"the press groans" was no mere rhetorical expression in those days. Leather ink-balls were still used in old-fashioned printing houses; the pressman dabbed the ink by hand on the characters, and the movable table on which the form of type was ...
— Two Poets - Lost Illusions Part I • Honore de Balzac
... print there in the dark. W'y don't you go over to the light?... I'll 'ave to 'ave them shutters tyken off the winders." This was Stryker's amiable figure of speech, frequently employed to indicate the coverings of ...
— The Black Bag • Louis Joseph Vance
... this expression, has inserted 'Jesus' for the initials 'I. H. S.,' and so has given a profane interpretation to the passage. By a figure of speech the friar is called an I. H. S., from these letters being conspicuously wrought on his robes, just as we might call a livery-servant by his master's motto, because it was stamped ...
— Ancient Poems, Ballads and Songs of England • Robert Bell
... performance so much the more interesting. And now, as the conjurer says when he begins, observe that there is no deception. That is the figure of speech called lying, because there is to be nothing but deception from beginning to end. Did you ever consider the nature of a lie, Unorna? It ...
— The Witch of Prague • F. Marion Crawford
... civil judge. He must consider the rights of others. It was this which brought Grotius and the rest, with the New England theologians down to Park, to feel that forgiveness could not be quite free. If we acknowledge that this symbolism of God as judge or sovereign is all symbolism, mere figure of speech, not fact at all, then that objection—and much else—falls away. If we assert that another figure of speech, that of God as Father, more perfectly suggests the relation of God and man, then forgiveness may ...
— Edward Caldwell Moore - Outline of the History of Christian Thought Since Kant • Edward Moore
... these experiences more than once, and fully realised the peculiar sensation of helplessness, confusion, and brain numbing which follows. Dark as pitch is mostly a figure of speech, for the obscurity is generally relieved by something in the form of dull light which does enable a person to see his hand before him; but the blackness around, when Archibald Raystoke began to come back to his senses, would have left pitch far behind ...
— Cutlass and Cudgel • George Manville Fenn
... says:—'First the addressing of our virtuous withes and desires to the Deity, since the address has no influence on him, is only a kind of rhetorical figure, in order to render these wishes more ardent and passionate. This is Mr. Leechman's doctrine. Now the use of any figure of speech can never be a duty. Secondly, this figure, like most figures of rhetoric, has an evident impropriety in it, for we can make use of no expression, or even thought, in prayers and entreaties, which does not imply that these prayers have ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 5 • Boswell
... this particular roadway I never fully comprehended the nicety and the force of the phrase "to drive in." I had heard people say that they had driven into such and such places, and I had wondered why they employed this figure of speech when, it seemed to me, it would have been more exact to say that they entered upon or drove over. But I know now that it is no figure of speech when one says that he drives into the old Schmittheimer place. No other phrase could more exactly express ...
— The House - An Episode in the Lives of Reuben Baker, Astronomer, and of His Wife, Alice • Eugene Field
... repetition of the same words in a different sense)—that I laughed and my mother smiled. But she smiled reverently, not thinking of the Antanaclasis, as, laying her hand on Roland's arm, she replied in the yet more formidable figure of speech called Epiphonema (or exclamation), "Yet, with all your economy, you would ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... power which he had once let fall, he only received another lesson from Jan Steenbock, teaching him that a placid man was not necessarily one who would quietly put up with insult and rough treatment, and proving that the tables of life are frequently turned in fact as they sometimes are in figure of speech! ...
— The Island Treasure • John Conroy Hutcheson
... thus clearly saw, and distinctly asserted, that the factors of organic evolution are the concrete actions, inner and outer, to which every organism is subject, Mr. Darwin, by habitually using the convenient figure of speech, was, I think, prevented from recognizing so fully as he would otherwise have done, certain fundamental consequences of ...
— Essays: Scientific, Political, & Speculative, Vol. I • Herbert Spencer
... visit the transgressions of their masters on these victims of circumstance and dynastic mendacity, since the conventionalities of international equity will scarcely permit the high responsible parties in the case to be chastised with any penalty harsher than a well-mannered figure of speech. To serve as a deterrent, the penalty must strike the point where vests the discretion; but servile use and wont is still too well intact in these premises to let any penalty touch the guilty core of a profligate dynasty. Under the wear and tear ...
— An Inquiry Into The Nature Of Peace And The Terms Of Its Perpetuation • Thorstein Veblen
... ideas by modern painters or sculptors, of wealth, of commerce, of health, for instance, shocks, in most cases, the aesthetic sense, as something conventional or rhetorical, as a mere transparent allegory, or figure of speech, which could please almost no one. On the other hand, such symbolical representations, under the form of human persons, as Giotto's Virtues and Vices at Padua, or his Saint Poverty at Assisi, or the ...
— Greek Studies: A Series of Essays • Walter Horatio Pater
... Massachusetts and South Carolina. The lion and the lamb lay down together—every man in the Senate and House from Massachusetts and South Carolina, I think, voted for it, as did my honorable friend himself. And if it be true, to use the figure of speech of my honorable friend, that every man in the North that works in iron, and brass and wood, has his muscle strengthened by the protection of the Government, that stimulant was given by his vote and I believe (that ...
— The Great Conspiracy, Complete • John Alexander Logan
... which this writer treats his subjects. In external forms he is indeed varied enough, but throughout he makes too much use of direct irony; namely, in praising the blameworthy and blaming the praiseworthy, whereas this figure of speech should be used but extremely seldom; for, in the long run, it becomes annoying to clear-sighted men, perplexes the weak, while indeed it pleases the great middle class, who, without any special expense of mind, can fancy themselves ...
— Autobiography • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
... other must become purely mechanical. It is amusing to see the puzzled expression of countenance of some Swiss student who takes his notes in French, when one of those long German compounds, involving some bold figure of speech, is uttered. What circumlocutions must he not use, if he wish to give the full force of ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 7, Issue 41, March, 1861 • Various
... a new day was added to the calendar. The glory is his of having called Arbor Day into being. Touched by his magic wand, millions of trees now beautify and adorn this magnificent State. It is no mere figure of speech to say that the wilderness—by transition almost miraculous—has become a garden, the desolate places been made to blossom as the rose. 'Tree-planting day' is now one of the sacred days of this commonwealth. Henceforth, upon its annual recurrence, ...
— Something of Men I Have Known - With Some Papers of a General Nature, Political, Historical, and Retrospective • Adlai E. Stevenson
... make meanings lucid. Thus when Burke near the close of his discussion (Appendix 2) wishes to make it clear that by a law of nature the authority of extensive empires is slighter in its more remote territories, he has recourse to a figure of speech: "In large bodies, the circulation of power must be less vigorous at the extremities. Nature has said it." More often, however, the function of the figurative is to drive home a thought or a mood of which a mere statement would leave us unmoved—to make us feel it. Thus Burke said of the Americans ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... better back out of that figure of speech," suggested Jonathan. "Go back to your princess. Say, 'every man his ...
— More Jonathan Papers • Elisabeth Woodbridge
... not also be represented." In replying to the anti-suffrage arguments of Prof. Goldwin Smith, she says: "Do sex relations depend upon acts of Parliament or constitutional amendments? Can women marry a ballot, or embrace the franchise, otherwise than by a questionable figure of speech? Must adultery and infanticide necessarily be favored by the decisions of female jurors? Is divorce legislation, as arranged by the exclusive wisdom of men, now so satisfactory that women—who must perforce be involved in every case—should ...
— Woman and the Republic • Helen Kendrick Johnson
... Mrs Pipchin, shaking out her black bombazeen skirts, and plucking up all the ogress within her. 'If she don't like it, Mr Dombey, she must be taught to lump it.' The good lady apologised immediately afterwards for using so common a figure of speech, but said (and truly) that that was the way ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... The figure of speech or of thought by which we transfer the language and ideas of a familiar science to one with which we are less acquainted may be called ...
— Five of Maxwell's Papers • James Clerk Maxwell
... in this respect that they scarcely credit each other's testimony. Some who had practically zero imagery held that the "picture before the mind's eye" spoken of by the poets was a myth or mere figure of speech; while those who were accustomed to vivid images could not understand what the others could possibly mean by "remembering facts about the breakfast table without having any image of it", and were strongly tempted to accuse them of poor introspection, if not worse. It is true that in attempting ...
— Psychology - A Study Of Mental Life • Robert S. Woodworth
... from the train (a figure of speech merely; we were covered with dust), had just arrived at the home of Ananta, recently transferred from Calcutta to the ancient city of Agra. Brother was a supervising accountant for the ...
— Autobiography of a YOGI • Paramhansa Yogananda
... Revolution had not been provoked by oppression, violence, and massacre. The 'chains and slavery' of revolutionary orators was only a figure of speech. The real causes were constitutional and personal; and the actual crux of the question was one of payment for defence. Of course there were many other causes at work. The social, religious, and political grudges with which so many emigrants ...
— The Father of British Canada: A Chronicle of Carleton • William Wood
... was no figure of speech. In those days men were but too well accustomed to hewing off heads. Leif meant to have his orders attended to, and the men ...
— The Norsemen in the West • R.M. Ballantyne
... man, a thing of tints and faint lines. Their gorgeous colouring has effaced me altogether. People forget how much mode of expression, method of movement, are a matter of contagion. I have heard of stage-struck people before, and thought it a figure of speech. I spoke of it jestingly, as a disease. It is no jest. It is a disease. And I have got it badly! Deep down within me I protest against the wrong done to my personality—unavailingly. For three hours or more a ...
— The Country of the Blind, And Other Stories • H. G. Wells
... comparatively late date when the arbitrary arrangement of the letters of that alphabet had become fixed, the initial and concluding letters might readily have been used to represent respectively the beginning and the end of any series or number of things, and this figure of speech was employed in the book of Revelations. In the attempted interpretation of the inscription mentioned, which was hawked about to many scientific bodies, and published over the whole country, the supposed alpha and omega were assumed to constitute ...
— Sign Language Among North American Indians Compared With That Among Other Peoples And Deaf-Mutes • Garrick Mallery
... still remain. Therefore it might be said that as the Father was unbegotten, so the man was unbegotten, inasmuch as "man" stood for the Person of the Father. But if one were to go on to say, "The man is unbegotten; the Son is man; therefore the Son is unbegotten," it would be the fallacy of figure of speech or of accident; even as we now say God is unbegotten, because the Father is unbegotten, yet we cannot conclude that the Son is unbegotten, although He ...
— Summa Theologica, Part III (Tertia Pars) - From the Complete American Edition • Thomas Aquinas
... "days" mentioned in Genesis as "periods of time"; or of the "firmament" as not meaning a solid vault over the universe; or of the "waters above the heavens" as not contained in a vast cistern supported by the heavenly vault; or of the "windows of heaven" as a figure of speech?(134) ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... he gave up practising in the forum, partly from shame, partly from fear. For, in a certain trial before the court of the One Hundred [923], having lashed the defendant as a man void of natural affection for his parents, he called upon him by a bold figure of speech, "to swear by the ashes of his father and mother which lay unburied;" his adversary taking him up for the suggestion, and the judges frowning upon it, he lost his cause, and was much blamed. At another ...
— The Lives Of The Twelve Caesars, Complete - To Which Are Added, His Lives Of The Grammarians, Rhetoricians, And Poets • C. Suetonius Tranquillus
... after him wonderingly. He had never said it to her before. Perhaps it was a figure of speech which people reserved for travelling. She supposed there was always the danger of a possible accident. Ah! if they could only have started off together, as he said, and never gone back ...
— A Princess in Calico • Edith Ferguson Black
... by a steamship, become more and more notably a fact—that the oceans which separate frontiers for certain purposes, connect them for other purposes and especially for purposes of transit and transportation. The term "Ocean Highway" is no mere figure of speech. The millions of troops that have passed by water from England into France have made the passage with infinitely less difficulty than has been connected with the further passage by land to the fighting lines; and the hundreds of thousands from England, France, India, and Australia, which ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume I (of 8) - Introductions; Special Articles; Causes of War; Diplomatic and State Papers • Various
... unselfish at the same time, his glance is projected downwards; and all things that are illumined by this double ray of light, nature conjures to discharge their strength, to reveal their most hidden secret, and this through bashfulness. It is more than a mere figure of speech to say that he surprised Nature with that glance, that he caught her naked; that is why she would conceal her shame by seeming precisely the reverse. What has hitherto been invisible, the inner life, seeks its salvation in the region of the visible; what has hitherto been ...
— Thoughts out of Season (Part One) • Friedrich Nietzsche
... of this, gentlemen,' said Mr. Serjeant Buzfuz, 'it is difficult to smile with an aching heart; it is ill jesting when our deepest sympathies are awakened. My client's hopes and prospects are ruined, and it is no figure of speech to say that her occupation is gone indeed. The bill is down—but there is no tenant. Eligible single gentlemen pass and repass—but there is no invitation for them to enquire within or without. All is ...
— Bardell v. Pickwick • Percy Fitzgerald
... of the line we must take in studying the comic in words. On the one hand, indeed, we find there is no essential difference between a word that is comic and one that is witty; on the other hand, the latter, although connected with a figure of speech, invariably calls up the image, dim or distinct, of a comic scene. This amounts to saying that the comic in speech should correspond, point by point, with the comic in actions and in situations, and is ...
— Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic • Henri Bergson
... for another.] Substitution — N. substitution, commutation; supplanting &c v.; metaphor, metonymy &c (figure of speech) 521. [Thing substituted] substitute, ersatz, makeshift, temporary expedient, replacement, succedaneum; shift, pis aller [Fr.], stopgap, jury rigging, jury mast, locum tenens, warming pan, dummy, scapegoat; double; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... you be kind enough to suggest some ordinary figure of speech that will give an idea of my situation? Plain language is quite useless. At least, ...
— The Lady of the Ice - A Novel • James De Mille
... poet, waving his heavy white hand, "is a figure of speech, Mr. Wayne. Only by the process of elimination can one arrive at the exquisite simplicity of poverty—care-free poverty. Even a single penny is a burden—the flaw in the marble, the fly in the amber of perfection. ...
— Iole • Robert W. Chambers
... metaphysics can alone charm away metaphysical illusions, which are always reappearing, formerly in the fancies of neoplatonist writers, now in the disguise of experience and common sense. An analogy, a figure of speech, an intelligible theory, a superficial observation of the individual, have often been mistaken for a true account ...
— Cratylus • Plato
... This figure of speech employed by the sailor exactly expressed the changes going on at the mouth of the volcano. Already for three months had the crater emitted vapours more or less dense, but which were as yet produced only by an internal ...
— The Secret of the Island • W.H.G. Kingston (translation from Jules Verne)
... them. For when we say the Father and the Son are one principle, this word "principle" has not determinate supposition but rather it stands indeterminately for two persons together. Hence there is a fallacy of "figure of speech" as the argument concludes from the indeterminate to ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I (Prima Pars) - From the Complete American Edition • Thomas Aquinas
... a mere figure of speech. You fully believed, I suppose, that perpetual total-abstinence was absolutely ...
— The Lights and Shadows of Real Life • T.S. Arthur
... exclamation at the end, his summary of modern society, a solemn grandiose figure of speech found in the legendary souvenirs of a glorious antiquity, a classic reminiscence ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 5 (of 6) - The Modern Regime, Volume 1 (of 2)(Napoleon I.) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... knowing what you know, you have not yet begun to act according to the immensity of the knowledge that is in you, then he who builds his house and lays up his treasure on the edge of a crater of molten lava is a sane, sensible person in comparison with yourselves. I say this as no figure of speech or bugbear with which to frighten you, but as an unvarnished unexaggerated statement which will be no more disputed by yourselves ...
— The Way of All Flesh • Samuel Butler
... said she knew Mr. Trollop, "and was aware that he had a Blank-Blank;"—[**Her private figure of speech for Brother—or Son-in-law]—but Mr. Buckstone said that he was not able to conceive what so curious a phrase as Blank-Blank might mean, and had no wish to pry into the matter, since it was probably private, he "would nevertheless venture the blind assertion that nothing would answer in this ...
— The Gilded Age, Complete • Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner
... say mine?" repeated Strachan, looking somewhat embarrassed. "It was a mere figure of speech: you always take one up so uncommonly short.—Nothing remained for her but flight, or submission to the Cruel mandate. Like a heroic girl, in whose veins the blood of the old crusaders was bounding, she preferred the former alternative. The only ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, No. 382, October 1847 • Various
... light word, spoken at first as a figure of speech by the Knight von Rochow, had grown into a charge against him, heavy enough to wreck the honor and freedom of a man who had no friends, and even to bring him to the stake; and I know full well that many an one rejoiced beforehand to think ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... but my dear lady, please understand, that in all matters concerning these little dances I must consult the powers that be. I am their humble servant; I must take orders from them.' All of which was a figure of speech on my part." The arbiter would then diplomatically suggest the possibility of a friend of social influence, and make some allusion to family. That always started the fair visitor. The family always went back to King John and, in some instances, ...
— Fifth Avenue • Arthur Bartlett Maurice
... was prepared to sacrifice St. Elmo and the lives of its entire garrison to attain his end. He did not, however—to continue the simile of La Cerda—prescribe for others a medicine which he himself was not prepared to take, and when he said that he would go to the fort of St. Elmo it was no mere figure of speech. The council of the Knights, however, would not hear of the Grand Master thus sacrificing himself; well did these noble gentlemen know that there was none among them like unto him, that his name and his influence were worth an army in themselves. The ...
— Sea-Wolves of the Mediterranean • E. Hamilton Currey
... said to be enslaved to another, or a right of way was said to be a quality or [383] incident of a neighboring piece of land, men's minds were not alert to see that these phrases were only so many personifying metaphors, which explained nothing unless the figure of speech was true. ...
— The Common Law • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
... contended that this phrase about a man who does wrong breaking a law, is only a metaphor and figure of speech, unless it be used with reference to the enactment of some civil community. Thus John Austin says that a natural law is a law which is not, but which he who uses the expression thinks ought to be made. At this rate sin is not a ...
— Moral Philosophy • Joseph Rickaby, S. J.
... completely routed, the Emperor returned to the palace in a frightful condition. From the time he mounted his horse, at six o'clock in the morning, the rain had not ceased a single instant, and he was so wet that it could be said without any figure of speech that the water ran down into his boots from the collar of his coat, for they were entirely filled with it. His hat of very fine beaver was so ruined that it fell down over his shoulders, his buff belt was perfectly soaked with water; in fact a man just drawn out of the river would not be wetter ...
— The Private Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Constant
... would conduct themselves in a most circumspect and caballeroso manner—"but," he concluded, "in the most public street of Panama city the first time we meet those three dogs—we shall spit in their faces—that's all, nada mas," and the blazing eyes announced all too plainly what he meant by that figure of speech. ...
— Zone Policeman 88 - A Close Range Study of the Panama Canal and its Workers • Harry A. Franck
... commencing with the senior in years, cast in three shovelfuls, a typical number in their religious system, of which the first had relation to the Great Spirit, the second to the Sun, and the third to Mother Earth When the grave was filled the senior sachem, by a figure of speech, deposited "the horns" of the departed sachem, emblematic of his office, upon the top of the grave over his head, there to remain until his successor was installed In that subsequent ceremony "the horns" were said to be taken from the grave of the deceased ruler and placed upon ...
— Houses and House-Life of the American Aborigines • Lewis H. Morgan
... is evidently a mere figure of speech: so is it in the other instances which picture the rephaim as employed and in motion. "Why," complainingly sighed the afflicted patriarch, "why died I not at my birth? For now should I lie down and be quiet; I should slumber; I should then be at rest." And the wise man says, in his preaching, ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... addition; nor that the thorns could never be uprooted and their former habitat be rendered fit to support good plants. The parable is to be studied in the spirit of its purpose; and strained inferences or extensions are unwarranted. A strong metaphor, a striking simile, or any other expressive figure of speech, is of service only when rationally applied; if carried beyond the bounds of reasonable intent, the best of such may become meaningless ...
— Jesus the Christ - A Study of the Messiah and His Mission According to Holy - Scriptures Both Ancient and Modern • James Edward Talmage
... were the corner posts, and sometimes the worshipper presenting a living creature would tether it with a cord to the altar's horn, so that the gift could be used either for sacrifice or service. In both cases the figure of speech seems to imply the possibility of the consecration being reversed by the withdrawal of the offering, or broken by its loss, the sacrifice slipping off or away from the altar, or being loosened by the person who had presented ...
— Standards of Life and Service • T. H. Howard
... portion of St. Thomas's skull. One window contains old glass, and in the centre of the floor is placed the chair of Purbeck marble in which the Archbishops are enthroned. As it is no longer considered as old as the days of Augustine the title St. Augustine's Chair must be regarded as a figure of speech. ...
— Beautiful Britain • Gordon Home
... myself among its topmost branches. The atmosphere was luckily still quite clear, a fresh breeze from the eastward having prevailed during the whole of that day; but a purplish haze was gathering on the western horizon, and my heart leapt into my mouth—to make use of a well-worn figure of speech—when, standing out in clear relief against this soft purple-grey background, I saw, far away in the south-western board, the gleaming white sails of a ship stretching in toward ...
— The Congo Rovers - A Story of the Slave Squadron • Harry Collingwood
... question" (Vol. viii., p. 640.).—This phrase is identical with that of "petitio principii," a figure of speech well known both to logicians and mathematicians, i. e. assuming a point as proved, and reasoning upon it as such, which has in ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 233, April 15, 1854 • Various
... mighty lucky thing for her that the Red Cross was ready to take it off her shoulders, and she has turned to us (How does that sound? Can you imagine me doing anything useful?) with tears of appeal and gratitude. That isn't a figure of speech. I have actually seen the Prefect of this Province, who would rank with the governor of one of our states, and who is a brave, capable man, cry like a woman over the seeming hopelessness of the ghastly problem. I have heard him say that he—that France—was ...
— 'Smiles' - A Rose of the Cumberlands • Eliot H. Robinson
... are numerous allegories and symbolical stories. To understand Hawthorne's method of allegory [Footnote: An allegory is a figure of speech (in rhetoric) or a story (in literature) in which an external object is described in such a way that we apply the description to our own inner experience. Many proverbs, such as "People who live in glass houses should not throw stones," are condensed allegories. So also are fables ...
— Outlines of English and American Literature • William J. Long
... opinion of some one else, which strikes our fancy; or perhaps, with the vaguest enunciation possible of any opinion at all, we are satisfied with ourselves if we are merely able to throw off some rounded sentences, to make some pointed remarks on some other subject, or to introduce some figure of speech, or flowers of rhetoric, which, instead of being the vehicle, are the mere substitute of meaning. We wish to take a part in politics, and then nothing is open to us but to follow some person, or some party, and to learn the commonplaces and the watchwords ...
— The Idea of a University Defined and Illustrated: In Nine - Discourses Delivered to the Catholics of Dublin • John Henry Newman
... career as cook and cabin-boy on board a "horse-jockey;" one of those vessels which carry horses, mules, and other cattle to the West Indies; a title bestowed upon them by sailors, who are very much in the habit of indulging in that figure of speech called by rhetoricians metonymy; in this instance applying the genuine name of all Connecticut men, and some Rhode Islanders, to a fore-topsail schooner, or hermaphrodite brig, as the case might be. He ...
— An Old Sailor's Yarns • Nathaniel Ames
... a current" is now understood to be mere figure of speech; it is thought that a wire does little else than give direction to electric energy. Pulsations of high tension have been proved to be mainly superficial in their journeys, so that they are best conveyed (or convoyed) by conductors ...
— Little Masterpieces of Science: - Invention and Discovery • Various
... mother had entailed upon her son. He was detestably poor, and this was the reason, no doubt, that his expletive expressions about betting, seldom took a pecuniary turn. I will not be bound to say that I ever heard him make use of such a figure of speech as "I'll bet you a dollar." It was usually "I'll bet you what you please," or "I'll bet you what you dare," or "I'll bet you a trifle," or else, more significantly still, "I'll ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 5 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... secrets, tenderness, bitterness, duty, disobedience, truth, falsehood, gratitude, humbug, and all sorts of such things, pass through it or wait till called for; they "are thar." All these are dispersed by railways, expresses, fast and slow coaches, and carriers. By a figure of speech all these things are sumtotalized, and if put on paper, the depository is called the post-office, and the place where they are conceived and hatched and ...
— Nature and Human Nature • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... reply was much softer than she intended, especially as she could have told anybody that the Baron's compliment was the merest figure of speech. ...
— The Lunatic at Large • J. Storer Clouston
... who escaped on the Roddam or were brought away by the Suchet, talked of a "hurricane of flame" that had come upon them. That phrase was no figure of speech, but a ...
— Complete Story of the San Francisco Horror • Richard Linthicum
... graces of later Sanscrit poetry. The poetry of Kalidasa, for instance, is ornate and beautiful, and almost scintillates with similes in every verse; the poetry of the Maha-bharara is plain and unpolished, and scarcely stoops to a simile or a figure of speech unless the simile comes naturally to the poet. The great deeds of godlike kings sometimes suggest to the poet the mighty deeds of gods; the rushing of warriors suggests the rushing of angry elephants in the echoing jungle; the flight of whistling ...
— Maha-bharata - The Epic of Ancient India Condensed into English Verse • Anonymous
... those cases, when want of the money cannot and is not pleaded, the proceeding seems all the stranger and the more discreditable. The late Lord bought at the right time, and his son sold at the right time. The prices realised were not merely high, but outrageous. Yet, after all, prices are a figure of speech and a relative term. To a wealthy Manchester manufacturer a thousand pounds are nothing more than four figures on a piece of paper instead of one or two, and the sole difference between L1000 and L2000 is the substitution of one numeral ...
— The Book-Collector • William Carew Hazlitt
... little story, but, for the life of me, I can not tell you which one is to be the hero and which the villain—but, let that go, for I am sure of one thing at least: this story has no villain. But it followed just as naturally as day follows night—for which figure of speech, my thanks to Mr. Shakespeare—that when Father Ilwin failed to do well, he grew gloomy and sad; and just as naturally—God help us—there was enough of human nature in Father Tom to say, "I told you ...
— The City and the World and Other Stories • Francis Clement Kelley
... tradgic to think that, after having so long anticapated that party, I am now here in sackcloth and ashes, which is a figure of speech for the Peter Thompson uniform of the school, with plain white for evenings and ...
— Bab: A Sub-Deb • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... money for Ts'ain would so soon be in his possession, 'yet this person fails to perceive how you could act otherwise after the decision of the omens. He now understands, moreover, that the loss you referred to on his part was in the nature of a figure of speech, as one makes use of thunderbolts and delicately-scented flowers to convey ideas of harsh and amiable passions, and alluded in reality to the forthcoming departure of his daughter, who is, as you so versatilely suggested, the comfort and riches of ...
— The Wallet of Kai Lung • Ernest Bramah
... term is used, secondly, by a figure of speech, and in a collective sense, to designate the body of persons who, having neither capital nor land, come into the industrial organization offering productive services in exchange for means of subsistence. These persons are united by community of interest into a group, or class, or interest, ...
— What Social Classes Owe to Each Other • William Graham Sumner
... his spurs, in his little red bantam way. Was I too much of an idiot to see the connection? As soon as the Carlisle business became known, this young scoundrel flies the country. Couldn't I see an inch before my blind nose? Forbearing to question this remarkable figure of speech, I asked him how so confidential a matter could have ...
— The Red Planet • William J. Locke
... paused momentarily here and viewed the earnest young faces before him. In this poetic figure of speech he saw fit to present to them the hardships of the life they had chosen to embark upon. It was a hot June morning, and the heavy scent of syringa came in through the high uncurtained windows of the lecture-hall. All the students stared with reverence ...
— Life at High Tide - Harper's Novelettes • Various
... expect me to believe you?" she demanded. "You tell me you are in earnest. But you know as well as I do that that is a mere figure of speech. You are never in earnest. You play all day long. You will do it all your life. You never do anything worth mentioning. Other people do the work. You simply skim the surface of things. You are ...
— The Tidal Wave and Other Stories • Ethel May Dell
... utterly rejected, as an ordinary device to elevate the style, and raise it above prose. My purpose was to imitate, and, as far as is possible, to adopt the very language of men; and assuredly such personifications do not make any natural or regular part of that language. They are, indeed, a figure of speech occasionally prompted by passion, and I have made use of them as such; but have endeavoured utterly to reject them as a mechanical device of style, or as a family language which Writers in metre seem to lay claim to by prescription. ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... ara heteron ti dynamene hekatera auton pephyke? ouk enchorei gnoston kai doxaston tauton einai?) and thirdly, to illustrate that opposition, the figurative use, so impressed on thought and speech by Plato that it has come to seem hardly a figure of speech at all but appropriate philosophic language, of the ...
— Plato and Platonism • Walter Horatio Pater
... to separate them." ... "To distinguish this motion from others, and to signify the causes of our sensations of heat, etc., the name repulsive motion has been adopted." Here we have a most important idea. It would be somewhat a bold figure of speech to say the earth and moon are kept apart by a repulsive motion; and yet, after all, what is centrifugal force but a repulsive motion, and may it not be that there is no such thing as repulsion, and that it is solely ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 460, October 25, 1884 • Various
... the elements at such times is no figure of speech. What has so disturbed the peace in the electric equilibrium, as to make possible this sudden outburst, this steep incline in the stream of energy, this ethereal Niagara pouring from heaven to earth? Is a thunderstorm a display ...
— The Breath of Life • John Burroughs
... cloven hoofs, innocent ways and edibility are well known. When we apply to anything the term 'sheep,' we imply that it has these qualities: 'sheep,' denoting the animal, connotes its possessing these characteristics; and, of course, it cannot, without a figure of speech or a blunder, be used to denote anything that does not possess all these qualities. It is by a figure of speech that the term 'sheep' is applied to some men; and to apply it to goats would ...
— Logic - Deductive and Inductive • Carveth Read
... point, but the height of our affirmation is taken with it. It is a figure of speech and intensifies ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon
... a glance at the mountain, drew upon his memory for sundry squalls and gales which he had seen himself, and thought the boatman's figure of speech less extravagant than it ...
— The Headsman - The Abbaye des Vignerons • James Fenimore Cooper
... Drazk's philosophy was that the end justifies the means. And if the end would win the approval of Y.D.—and of Y.D.'s daughter—then any means was justified. Had not Linder said, "Burn the grass on the road?" Drazk knew well enough that Linder's remark was a figure of speech, but his eccentric mind found no trouble in ...
— Dennison Grant - A Novel of To-day • Robert Stead
... of life, this accumulating amount of ill health, causes an annual loss, in each of our great cities, of productive capacity to the value of millions of dollars, as well as an unnatural expense of millions more. This is no figure of speech. The community is poorer by millions of dollars each year through the waste which it allows of health and life. Leaving out of view all humane considerations, all thought of the misery, social and moral, which accompanies this physical degradation, and looking simply at its economical ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 32, June, 1860 • Various
... was a dagger, not a sword, that Cassius stabbed Caesar with. But by a common figure of speech the same weapon is put for the same owner. The 'sword' is taken from Plutarch. "For he, being overcome in battle at the journey of Philippes, slew himself with the same sword with the which he strake Caesar."—Plutarch, ...
— The New Hudson Shakespeare: Julius Caesar • William Shakespeare
... unexpected caresses on the most cavalier of her wooers, Poetry. This world, the child of Sense and Faith, shy, wild, and provocative, for ever lures her lovers to the chase, and the record of their hopes and conquests is contained in the lover's language, made up wholly of parable and figure of speech. There is nothing under the sun nor beyond it that does not concern man, and it is the unceasing effort of humanity, whether by letters or by science, to bring "the commerce of the mind and of things" to terms of nearer correspondence. But Literature, ...
— Style • Walter Raleigh
... action on their part.[108] Letisimulation (from letum, death, and simulare, to feign) is not confined to any particular family, order, or species of animals, but exists in many, from the very lowest to the highest. The habit of feigning death has introduced a figure of speech in the English language, and has done much to magnify and perpetuate the fame of the only marsupial found outside of Australasia and the Malayan Archipelago. "Playing 'possum" is now a synonym for certain kinds of deception. Man himself has known ...
— The Dawn of Reason - or, Mental Traits in the Lower Animals • James Weir
... two witnesses were the same as the olive-trees and the candle-sticks to prevent our being led astray with the supposition that they were actually intelligent agents. (I speak humanly.) Accepting this statement, the actions of these witnesses here described can be explained only by the figure of speech known as Personification, by which it is proper, under certain conditions, to attribute life, action, and intelligence to inanimate objects. Thus, the blood of Abel is said to have cried from the ground. ...
— The Revelation Explained • F. Smith
... Lord Fareborough expressed a wish about his son-in-law and host that was probably only a figure of speech. ...
— Prince Fortunatus • William Black
... on account of her native originality of thought, and somewhat peculiar culture. I say peculiar, because her thinking and reading seemed to be in the byways rather than the highways of ordinary culture. If she made a figure of speech, it was something noticeably original; if she quoted an author, it was one unfamiliar though forcible. And so she constantly supplied my mind with novelties which I craved, and became like a new education to me. One forenoon, a misty one, we were out on the beach alone, wrapped up in water-proofs, ...
— The New Penelope and Other Stories and Poems • Frances Fuller Victor
... still remained loyal hastened to assure the Gov.-General that "the enemy should not land in Manila without passing over their dead bodies." Subsequent facts, however, proved these pompous vows to be merely a figure of speech. From the city walls, the terraces of houses, the church towers, and every available height, thousands of curious sightseers witnessed the brave defence and the complete defeat of the Spaniards. As the American fleet advanced in line of battle ...
— The Philippine Islands • John Foreman
... our figure of speech; for only the pitifulness of the defeat is the Great Mogul's; the sublimity of suicide is proper to ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 4, February, 1858 • Various
... This was undoubtedly a figure of speech, for the old woman's skin was altogether too black not to have given a trifle of its shading to the complexion of her children. It was not only black, but blue black, and of that peculiar hue which is seen only on ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 3 No 3, March 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... variety of subjects which are interesting to children, to which we may apply Bacon's principle; for instance, a child is eager to hear a story which you are going to tell him; you may exercise his attention by your manner of telling this story; you may employ with advantage the beautiful figure of speech called suspension: but you must take care, that the hope which is long deferred be at last gratified. The young critics will look back when your story is finished, and will examine whether their attention ...
— Practical Education, Volume I • Maria Edgeworth
... and subduing. He saw the vital relation of prayer to holiness, and perpetually sought to impress it upon both his hearers and readers; and, remembering that for the purpose of persuasion the most effective figure of speech is repetition, he hesitated at no frequency of restatement by which such truths might find root in the ...
— George Muller of Bristol - His Witness to a Prayer-Hearing God • Arthur T. Pierson
... assume the right positive mental attitude, and will flood your aura with the vibrations of the mental orange-yellow, the mental efforts of other persons will rebound from your aura, or, to use another figure of speech, will slip from it like water from the back of the proverbial duck. It is well to carry the mental image of your head being surrounded by a golden aura or halo, at such times—this will be found especially efficacious ...
— The Human Aura - Astral Colors and Thought Forms • Swami Panchadasi
... alone. One couldn't swear he hadn't. Bolted he certainly has, but if she will hope I can't say that I know he has gone with Miss Nash. Though I am sure he has: how else would he undertake to repay me in a few days? Unless that is only a figure of speech." ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, November, 1878 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various
... "Oh, as a figure of speech," she said, impatiently. "Our language is full of barbaric figures left over from the dark ages. But, oh, Ramsey!"—she touched his sleeve—"I've heard that Fred Mitchell is saying that he's going to Canada after Easter, to try to get into the Canadian ...
— Ramsey Milholland • Booth Tarkington
... side, upon those opinions in religion and government, which both parties daily buffet each other about, he shall hardly find one material point in difference between them. I would be glad to ask a question about two great men[9] of the late ministry, how they came to be Whigs? and by what figure of speech, half a dozen others, lately put into great employments, can be called Tories? I doubt, whoever would suit the definition to the persons, must make it directly contrary to what we understood it at the time ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IX; • Jonathan Swift
... of their household labor, breakfast, dinner, and supper revolve in ceaseless course, and they must step forward to meet them. And, when more of her vitality is expended daily than is daily renewed by food and rest, woman does, actually and without any figure of speech, use herself up. Yes, she burns herself for fuel, and goes down a wreck,—not always to death; often it is to a condition made wretched by suffering, ...
— A Domestic Problem • Abby Morton Diaz
... herself would in such a matter act so simply in accordance with the advice of some one else, that the pardon, if given, would not in the least depend on her Majesty's sentiments. To call it the Queen's pardon was a simple figure of speech. This was manifest to him, and he was driven to endeavour to make it manifest to her. She spoke of a petition to be sent direct to the Queen, and insinuated that Robert Bolton, if he were anything like a real brother, would force himself into her Majesty's presence. ...
— John Caldigate • Anthony Trollope
... that Mary's first month at Herons' Holt was uneventful, we use the term as a figure of speech that must be taken in its accepted sense; not read literally. For it is impossible that life, in whatever conditions, can be eventless. The dullest life is often with events the most crowded. In dulness we are thrown back upon our inner selves, and ...
— Once Aboard The Lugger • Arthur Stuart-Menteth Hutchinson
... Somebody might be dead or dying. So summoning all her courage, she cleared her throat. Then she gave a bashful little cough. Betty looked up with an absent-minded stare. She had been so busy polishing a figure of speech to her satisfaction that she had forgotten where she was. For an instant the preoccupied little pucker between her eyebrows smote the timid freshman with dismay. She felt that she had gained her idol's everlasting displeasure ...
— The Little Colonel: Maid of Honor • Annie Fellows Johnston
... agile policeman was climbing up to his balcony for the purpose of decorating it with an Italian flag. The old gentleman protested, and was thereupon taken to the barracks, where he remained for one day. The Yugoslavs told us that the state of things was worse than in Africa—but that was a figure of speech; the facts were that the different societies and clubs had been closed, that all persons going down to the harbour had been forbidden to speak their own language to their friends on board ship, that three Croat teachers had fled to escape being interned, while ...
— The Birth of Yugoslavia, Volume 2 • Henry Baerlein
... seek us but wisdom must be sought. 4. The race is not to the swift nor the battle to the strong. 5. Occidental manhood springs from self-respect Oriental manhood finds its greatest satisfaction in self-abasement. [Footnote: In this sentence we have a figure of speech called Antithesis, in which things unlike in some particular are set over against each other. Each part shines with its own light and with the light reflected from the other part. Antithesis gives great force to the thought expressed by it. Sentences containing it furnish us our best examples ...
— Higher Lessons in English • Alonzo Reed and Brainerd Kellogg
... he continued, in a hard voice, "that Vyner and Son are not anxious to dispense with your services. That is, in a way, a figure of speech. Mr. Robert knows nothing of this, and I may tell you—as an old and trusted servant of the firm—that his share as a partner is at present but nominal, and were he to do anything seriously opposed to my wishes, such as, for instance—such as a—ha—matrimonial alliance of which ...
— Salthaven • W. W. Jacobs
... figure of speech; pretty, perhaps, but vague. If you mean that Mr Lessingham has been killing someone, your surest and most effectual revenge would be gained by an appeal to ...
— The Beetle - A Mystery • Richard Marsh
... may be the worst of that sad business,' said the Rev. Archibald Duke, in a tone implying that his wish was a strong figure of speech. ...
— Scenes of Clerical Life • George Eliot
... this is becoming apparent enough. The literary "Boom," for example, affected the entire reading public of the early nineteenth century. It was no figure of speech that "everyone" was reading Byron or puzzling about the Waverley mystery, that first and most successful use of the unknown author dodge. The booming of Dickens, too, forced him even into the reluctant hands ...
— Anticipations - Of the Reaction of Mechanical and Scientific Progress upon - Human life and Thought • Herbert George Wells
... my soul that I would try to secure your happiness. I know what you want, need, and deserve, and here is this perfect child—the one woman for you, snatched from under your nose by Clive Cameron who will—" Emily Tweksbury sought for a figure of speech—"who will, without ...
— The Shield of Silence • Harriet T. Comstock |
