"Monosyllable" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the name of the other daughter; her mother had fancied that name; but the single monosyllable it had been shortened into somehow suited the proud-looking girl better than the whole name, with ...
— The Quality of Mercy • W. D. Howells
... himself knew what wild rage lay back of that monosyllable. He was sure now; that diagram brushed away any lingering doubt. The lock had been trifled with, but the man who had done the work had not ...
— A Splendid Hazard • Harold MacGrath
... seem to derive its name from the plant Quicken, by which, Scottice, we understand couch-grass, dog-grass, or the Triticum repens of Linnaeus, and the common English monosyllable Bog, by which we mean, in popular language, a marsh or morassin Latin, Palus. But it may confound the rash adopters of the more obvious etymological derivations, to learn that the couch-grass or dog-grass, or, to speak scientifically, the Triticum repens of Linnaeus, does not grow within a ...
— The Antiquary, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... gorged themselves like vultures; they danced or played ball naked among the snow-drifts from morning till night. At a medical feast, some strange or unusual act was commonly enjoined as vital to the patient's cure: as, for example, the departing guest, in place of the customary monosyllable of thanks, was required to greet his host with an ugly grimace. Sometimes, by prescription, half the village would throng into the house where the patient lay, led by old women disguised with the heads and skins of bears, and beating with sticks on sheets of dry bark. ...
— The Jesuits in North America in the Seventeenth Century • Francis Parkman
... heat has made the men silent, for scarcely a word is spoken; if it were, in the stillness it must be heard, though they are at some distance. The wheels, well greased for the heavy harvest work, do not creak. Save an occasional monosyllable, as the horses are ordered on, or to stop, and a faint rustling of straw, there is no sound. It may be the flood of brilliant light, or the mirage of the heat, but in some way the waggon and its rising load, the men and the horses, ...
— Nature Near London • Richard Jefferies
... in his phraseology at times. The not very refined monosyllable in the text may, however, be tolerated as having a technical relation to ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 459 - Volume 18, New Series, October 16, 1852 • Various
... in the language that conveys so little endearment as the word "dear." But though the saying itself, like most truths, be trite and hackneyed, no little novelty remains to the search of the inquirer into the varieties of inimical import comprehended in that malign monosyllable. For instance, I submit to the experienced that the degree of hostility it betrays is in much proportioned to its collocation in the sentence. When, gliding indirectly through the rest of the period, it takes its stand at the close, ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... blessed nothingness of Gautama and Meister Eckhart. But the loss of the feeling of personality and the sense of possession by a divine spirit are the same. How, then, is this state reached? By means, I believe, which recall the general formula for the Disappearance of self-feeling. To repeat the monosyllable OM (Brahm) ten thousand times; to circle interminably, chanting the while, about a sacred ire; to listen to the monotonous magic drum; to whirl the body about; to rock to and fro on the knees, vociferating prayers, ...
— The Psychology of Beauty • Ethel D. Puffer
... and said no more, but the little monosyllable was more eloquent than any disclaimer. Lady Hayes flushed, and knitted ...
— A College Girl • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... being republics, were the more truly inheritors of the Roman grandeur?—With my conjecture, the sense would be;—"let higher, or the more northern part of Italy—(unless 'higher' be a corruption for 'hir'd,'—the metre seeming to demand a monosyllable) (those bastards that inherit the infamy only of their fathers) see," &c. The following "woo" and "wed" are so far confirmative as they indicate Shakespeare's manner of connection by unmarked influences of association from some preceding metaphor. This it is which makes his style so peculiarly ...
— Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher • S. T. Coleridge
... met it was only to be parted. Mary's subjects, outraged by her conduct, rose against her. As she passed through the streets of Edinburgh the women hurled after her indecent names. Great banners were raised with execrable daubs representing the murdered Darnley. The short and dreadful monosyllable which is familiar to us in the pages of the Bible was hurled after ...
— Famous Affinities of History, Vol 1-4, Complete - The Romance of Devotion • Lyndon Orr
... dinner she hardly spoke. If she said nothing to Leeds, neither would she address the man on her other side, only giving such monosyllable answers as were necessary. The evening dragged slowly. Leeds did not approach her. Once or twice she looked toward him, but he did not appear to notice her. Indeed, he only came late from the smoking room and returned after a brief appearance ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 5, June 1905 • Various
... monoplane, monopoly, monocle, monarchy, monogram, monomania; (2) monosyllable, monochrome, monogamy, monorail, monograph, monolith, ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... His power of articulation was slowly returning, but his breath as yet was only equal to the monosyllable. ...
— Australian Writers • Desmond Byrne
... island on which we were, and of which he was a native, was the best in the whole groupe, and the most populous, except that of Chu-san; the number of its inhabitants being ten thousand souls. It was discovered, however, before we had been long in the country, that when a Chinese made use of the monosyllable van, which in his language signifies ten thousand, he was not to be understood as speaking of a determinate or precise number, but only as making use of a term that implied amplification. A state criminal, ...
— Travels in China, Containing Descriptions, Observations, and Comparisons, Made and Collected in the Course of a Short Residence at the Imperial Palace of Yuen-Min-Yuen, and on a Subsequent Journey thr • John Barrow
... they would allow one of their boys, who could speak English, to accompany me, as our loads were heavy; and his being known to belong to their establishment I thought might be some protection; but the short answer of the monosyllable "No" soon made me repent having asked it. I spread my bed in one of their empty rooms; and started at daybreak next morning, with my two native slaves. I could not banish from my remembrance the inhospitable conduct ...
— A Narrative of a Nine Months' Residence in New Zealand in 1827 • Augustus Earle
... consonant, and confound three vowels, (h i u,) and several diphthongs. Such was the vulgar pronunciation which the stern Gardiner maintained by penal statutes in the university of Cambridge: but the monosyllable bh represented to an Attic ear the bleating of sheep, and a bellwether is better evidence than a bishop or a chancellor. The treatises of those scholars, particularly Erasmus, who asserted a more classical pronunciation, are collected in the Sylloge ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 6 • Edward Gibbon
... the letter greatly surprised him. It had originally commenced with DEAR SIR; but these words had been carefully erased, and the monosyllable, SIR, substituted in their place. The rest of the contents shall be given ...
— Waverley • Sir Walter Scott
... his hand across his wet eyelids. His lips were growing numb, and he bungled over the monosyllable "Why?" ...
— The Moccasin Maker • E. Pauline Johnson
... of contemptuous mono-syllables uttered in a deep bass voice. She married, some twelve years ago, an Englishman, a member of the diplomatic corps, Lord A——, a personage equally handsome and impassive as herself. He addresses at intervals to his wife an English monosyllable, to which the latter replies imperturbably with a French monosyllable. Nevertheless, three little lords, worthy the pencil of Lawrence, who strut majestically around this Olympian couple, attest between the two nations a secret intelligence which ...
— Led Astray and The Sphinx - Two Novellas In One Volume • Octave Feuillet
... the monosyllable reply. She had had to deal with men of no compromise more than the majority of villa-dwelling women have the opportunity of doing, and she knew, perhaps, that such are the backbone ...
— The Vultures • Henry Seton Merriman
... observed that the congregations made no responses and showed no signs of reverence. Soon in all the coffeehouses was handed about a brutal lampoon on the courtly prelates whose pens the King had employed. Mother East had also her full share of abuse. Into that homely monosyllable our ancestors had degraded the name of the great house of Este which reigned at ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 2 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... rejoices in a two-gender, one-case article with a distinct form for the plural. The ripe product of tendency, the infant heir of the eloquent ages, to whose birth the law of Aryan evolution groaned and travailed until but now, the most useful, if not the "mightiest," monosyllable "ever moulded by the lips of man," the "the," one and indeclinable, was born in the Anglo-Saxon mouth, and sublimed to its unique simplicity ...
— International Language - Past, Present and Future: With Specimens of Esperanto and Grammar • Walter J. Clark
... position that what should be objected to in the interests of society, is not egoism, a man's being interested in himself, but the lack of egoism, a man's having a self that does not include others. The trouble would seem to be—not that people use their own private special monosyllable overmuch, but that there is not enough of it, that nine times out of ten, when they write "I" it should be ...
— The Lost Art of Reading • Gerald Stanley Lee
... for the first time. Fanny Brandeis would have given everything she had, everything she hoped to be, to be able to take back that monosyllable. She was gripped with horror at what she had done. She had spoken almost mechanically. And yet that monosyllable must have been the fruit of all these months of inward struggle and thought. "Now I begin to understand you," Fenger ...
— Fanny Herself • Edna Ferber
... and his ways. The talkative fit was evidently over, and he might sit and talk, if he would, from then till evening, and get no more than a monosyllable here and there ...
— Aunt Rachel • David Christie Murray
... great lack of expression in Garton's monosyllable, but as he swung about upon his stool, bending over the box of cigarettes which he swept up, Conniston thought that he saw a little twitch as of pain about the sensitive lips. Not understanding, feeling ...
— Under Handicap - A Novel • Jackson Gregory
... the woods, the birds are trilling among the trees. It is their merry morning lay, but it gives him no gladness. There is still ringing in his ears that harsh monosyllable, "no." The wild-wood songsters appear to echo it, as if mockingly; the blue jay, and red cardinal, seem scolding him for ...
— The Death Shot - A Story Retold • Mayne Reid
... form of practical force, compounded of strong will, strong sense, and strong egotism, which long waited for a strong monosyllable to announce its nature. Facts of character, indeed, are never at rest until they have become terms of language; and that peculiar thing which is not exactly courage or heroism, but which unmistakably is "Grit," has coined its own word to blurt out its own quality. If the word has ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 90, April, 1865 • Various
... drove forth from my mouth a 'Yea,'" a monosyllable of confession which showed the depth of ...
— Dante: "The Central Man of All the World" • John T. Slattery
... "Yes." The monosyllable fell slowly but quite convincingly. "Why hasn't he been to see me lately?" she added after ...
— The Moon out of Reach • Margaret Pedler
... face forward and peering at us. I could see that she was pretty, and from the gloss with which the light shone upon her dark dress I knew that it was a rich material. She spoke a few words in a foreign tongue in a tone as though asking a question, and when my companion answered in a gruff monosyllable she gave such a start that the lamp nearly fell from her hand. Colonel Stark went up to her, whispered something in her ear, and then, pushing her back into the room from whence she had come, he walked towards me again with ...
— The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... Scup. But to the excursionists and fishermen of New York he is known only as Porgy, or Paugie, a form as obviously derived from the last syllable of his Indian name as the emphatic "siree" of our greatest orators is from the modest monosyllable "sir." Porgy seems to be the accepted form of the word; but letters of the old, unphonetic kind are poor guides to pronunciation. And a beautiful, clean-scaled fish is Porgy,—whose g, by-the-by, as I learned ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 40, February, 1861 • Various
... whole, we have to answer the questions, 'Does God love any? Does not God love all? Does God specially love some?' with the one monosyllable, 'Yes.' ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: Romans Corinthians (To II Corinthians, Chap. V) • Alexander Maclaren
... and got short answers and long answers, pleasant ones and some that were not so pleasant; but all could be summed up in the single monosyllable: ...
— Hiram The Young Farmer • Burbank L. Todd
... hardy and of great courage at home, that is; in his own mind and heart, soul and body, that is. Young Captain Self-denial was a perfect hero at saying No! and at saying No! to himself. It is a proverb that there is nothing so difficult as to say that monosyllable. And the proverb is Scripture truth if you try to say No! to yourself. It takes the very stoutest of hearts, the most noble, the most manly, the most soldierly, and the most saintly of hearts to say No! to itself, and to keep on saying No! to itself ...
— Bunyan Characters - Third Series - The Holy War • Alexander Whyte
... "Yes." The monosyllable was uttered indifferently. "And, while the two of you were talking," Demarest continued in a matter-of-fact manner. He did not conclude the sentence, but asked instead: "Now, tell me, Dick, just what ...
— Within the Law - From the Play of Bayard Veiller • Marvin Dana
... Weller burst at once into the following wild and beautiful legend, which, under the impression that it is not generally known, we take the liberty of quoting. We would beg to call particular attention to the monosyllable at the end of the second and fourth lines, which not only enables the singer to take breath at those points, ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... to pass her with that monosyllable, but Perrote was not to be thus baffled. She laid a ...
— The White Lady of Hazelwood - A Tale of the Fourteenth Century • Emily Sarah Holt
... to rise from their chairs and stamp about the street in ecstasy; and I looked on upon their mirth in a faint and slightly disagreeable bewilderment. 'Bread,' which sounds a commonplace, plain-sailing monosyllable in England, was the word that most delighted these good ladies of Monastier; it seemed to them frolicsome and racy, like a page of Pickwick; and they all got it carefully by heart, as a stand-by, I presume, for winter evenings. I have tried it since then with every sort ...
— Essays of Travel • Robert Louis Stevenson
... contrast to these lines whose effectiveness springs from a lack of the normal quantity of stress are those which are metrically overweighted. A single stressed monosyllable, supported or unsupported by a pause, may occupy the place of a whole rhythmic beat, or it may be compressed to the value of a theoretically unstressed element. Thus Milton's ...
— The Principles of English Versification • Paull Franklin Baum
... version, I do not know. But one unaccountable error was forced on one's notice. Thebes, which, by Milton and by every scholar is made a monosyllable, is here made a dissyllable. But Thebez, the dissyllable, is a Syrian city. It is true that Causabon deduces from a Syriac word meaning a case or enclosure (a theca), the name of Thebes, whether Boeotian or Egyptian. It ...
— The Notebook of an English Opium-Eater • Thomas de Quincey
... She has never changed her name and rather mournfully adds that she has no prospect at present of doing so. She is literally I. SOLA, or single, at present. Therefore she begs that the obnoxious monosyllable may be omitted on future Phials,—an innocent syllable enough, you'll say, but she has no claim to it. It is the bitterest pill of the seven you have sent her. When a lady loses her good name, what is to become of her? Well she must swallow it as well as she can, ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb (Vol. 6) - Letters 1821-1842 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... Gor-wah the Old One, and said in the language of monosyllable and gesture: "We must ...
— The Beginning • Henry Hasse
... his long life. From childhood our hearts have been intertwined, and death only has the power to tear them apart. We sat together long hours, and talked of the past—alternately, as their memories floated up, asking each other, "Where is this one? and this?" and to each inquiry the sad monosyllable, "Dead!" was the reply, of all who were with us at school when we were boys. ...
— The Memories of Fifty Years • William H. Sparks
... For heretofore, Henry Phipps had been an humble worshipper. She permitted several of his condescending remarks to pass without notice, but finally when he answered a question put by another groom with a bored monosyllable, the girl flew ...
— Prince or Chauffeur? - A Story of Newport • Lawrence Perry
... upheaval of primal emotions; and perhaps he saw in her answer, if not sympathy, for she was too impersonal for that, a candid understanding of the little scene and an appreciation of its dramatic quality. "Then," said he, after his monosyllable, "there is nothing left me but to go." When he had risen, he stood looking down at his wife's beautiful dusky head. Incredible to think it had ever lain on his breast, or that the fact of its cherishing there made no difference to her embryo heart! A tinge of irony came into ...
— The Prisoner • Alice Brown
... together in the private room at Halfpenny and Farthing's office, Mr. Halfpenny, who had seemed somewhat mystified by the happenings at the bank, looked inquiringly at Professor Cox-Raythwaite and snapped out one suggestive monosyllable: ...
— The Herapath Property • J. S. Fletcher
... who had opened the door only a few inches, kept in the background, and I could see nothing of him, but I heard his grim, monosyllable reply: ...
— A Monk of Cruta • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... the long, sweet-sounding drawl of the last monosyllable, which seemed formed out of all the five vowels rolled into one. It was said in such a pleasant voice, with such a simple, child-like air of delighted astonishment, that Agatha, conquering her shyness at this first meeting ...
— Agatha's Husband - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik (AKA: Dinah Maria Mulock)
... plain import of the word, imagined that Phutatorius, who was somewhat of a cholerick spirit, was just going to snatch the cudgels out of Didius's hands, in order to bemaul Yorick to some purpose—and that the desperate monosyllable Z...ds was the exordium to an oration, which, as they judged from the sample, presaged but a rough kind of handling of him; so that my uncle Toby's good-nature felt a pang for what Yorick was about to undergo. But seeing Phutatorius stop short, without any attempt or desire to go on—a third ...
— The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman • Laurence Sterne
... His monosyllable was sharp and incisive. His face was grey and anxious. She herself remained lifeless. All that there was of emotion between them seemed to have become vested in his ...
— The Great Prince Shan • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... any reason arising from the nature of the language, which has properly but one conjugation, such as has been exemplified: from which all deviations are to be considered as anomalies, which are indeed, in our monosyllable Saxon verbs, and the verbs derived from them, very frequent; but almost all the verbs which have been adopted from other languages, follow the ...
— A Grammar of the English Tongue • Samuel Johnson
... and death, could have but one brief holiday! Who can wonder that men swing themselves off from beams in hempen lassos?—that they jump off from parapets into the swift and gurgling waters beneath?—that they take counsel of the grim friend who has but to utter his one peremptory monosyllable and the restless machine is shivered as a vase that is dashed upon a marble floor? Under that building which we pass every day there are strong dungeons, where neither hook, nor bar, nor bed-cord, nor drinking-vessel from which a sharp fragment may ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... preferable for many reasons; not least because the actual Marguerite appears nowhere in the poem, and, except in the opening monosyllable, can hardly be said to be even rhetorically addressed. The poet's affection—it is scarcely passion—is there, but in transcendence: he meditates more than he feels. And that function of the riddle of the painful earth which Lucretius, thousands of years ago, put in ...
— Matthew Arnold • George Saintsbury
... "sea-waist," "strait." There are, besides, a number of phrases which are harder to classify. Thus, [Ch] hu means "tiger." But in any case where ambiguity might arise, lao-hu, "old tiger," is used instead of the monosyllable. [Ch] (another hu) is "fox," and [Ch] li, an animal belonging to the smaller cat tribe. Together, hu-li, they form the usual term for fox. [Ch][Ch] chih tao is literally "to know the way," but has come to be used simply for the ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 2 - "Chicago, University of" to "Chiton" • Various
... sport in my pearl venture, but no man likes to be "done," so I joined the guard over the pearl fishing. I could see little indication of success on the part of the two clammers, who went on in their work steadily, exchanging no more than a monosyllable now and then, but who were animated, it seemed to us, by the same excitement which governs the miner washing gravel in his pan. They scarce could rest, but went on from shell to shell, opening each as eagerly as though it meant a fortune. ...
— The Lady and the Pirate - Being the Plain Tale of a Diligent Pirate and a Fair Captive • Emerson Hough
... The monosyllable was curt. Telford was vainly seeking to nip Galletly's gossip in the bud. The name of Palmer conveyed no especial meaning to his ear. He knew where the Palmer homestead was, and that the plaintive-faced, ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1902 to 1903 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... The monosyllable was drawn out rather faintly. For the first time since they had met on the pass she felt she was mistress of the situation. This time she had not to plead with him in fear for his life. She could regard him ...
— Over the Pass • Frederick Palmer
... the affirmative monosyllable), "I was used most scurvily: faith I was. I bear 'em a grudge for it still, I can tell 'em that; for I have hardly been able to hold up my head like a man since—but am forced to go and come, and to do as they bid me. By my troth, I never was so ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson
... shadowy woodlands. With these were to be seen at intervals some of maturer years, full-blown flowers among the opening buds, with that conscious look upon their faces which so many women wear during the period when they never meet a single man without having his monosyllable ready for him,—tied as they are, poor things! on the rock of expectation, each of them an Andromeda waiting for ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 5, No. 28, February, 1860 • Various
... monosyllable not only sounded clear, but had the quiet and determined quality of tone at which he had striven, and as it sounded the other wheeled, flinching as if the word ...
— The Roof Tree • Charles Neville Buck
... formed of three letters, of which the first, a, signifies the principal of all, the creator, Brama; the second, u, the conservator, Vichenou; and the last, m, the destroyer, who puts an end to all, Chiven. It is pronounced like the monosyllable om, and expresses the unity of those three Gods. The idea is precisely that of the Alpha and Omega mentioned in the ...
— The Ruins • C. F. [Constantin Francois de] Volney
... lost upon Bruno, who had run out of the room, even while the great feat of The Unpronounceable Monosyllable was being ...
— Sylvie and Bruno • Lewis Carroll
... This monosyllable was expressive. It proved to me that Bonaparte was conscious how ill he had treated me; and, suspecting that I was actuated by the desire of vengeance, he was afraid of my going to England, lest I should there take advantage ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... was bartered and its elect betrayed—by the questioner or by the mocker? Patience. Remember Epictetus. It is probably in his character to ask such a question at such a moment in such a tone and to pronounce the word SCIENCE as a monosyllable. ...
— A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man • James Joyce
... emphasized the monosyllable with marked emphasis,—"if I asked you to marry me, what would ...
— A Woman's Will • Anne Warner
... of that simple monosyllable expressed so perfectly, through such a trained larynx, all the sudden lack of interest!) "It never happened, then? So of course it does not matter. But why do you call ...
— Margarita's Soul - The Romantic Recollections of a Man of Fifty • Ingraham Lovell
... applause with an impressive monosyllable. "Wine," he said to Martine, who had peeped in to see if her services were needed, and in a twinkling the pannikins were filled again and lifted to eight thirsty mouths, and set down again empty of ...
— The Duke's Motto - A Melodrama • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... suddenly and with such meaning in the monosyllable that Kate blushed as she turned. "Say! is that fellow still writing to you—the one with the ...
— The Readjustment • Will Irwin
... os ceann, the noun has almost {124} always been written cionn. Yet in all other situations, the same noun is uniformly written ceann. Whence has arisen this diversity in the orthography of a simple monosyllable? And is it maintained upon just grounds? It must have proceeded either from a persuasion that there are two distinct nouns signifying top, one of which is to be written ceann, and the other cionn[88]; or from an opinion ...
— Elements of Gaelic Grammar • Alexander Stewart
... or pronoun to which the participle relates is a passive subject, it should not have the possessive form; as, "The daily instances of men's dying around us remind us of the brevity of human life." "We do not speak of a monosyllable's having a primary accent." Change men's to men, ...
— Slips of Speech • John H. Bechtel
... monosyllable voiced disillusionment. With a partial return to the academic calm of his normal life Bernard Graves candidly told himself that the actual basis of his resentment against Shelby was trivial; that the editor's outlook on politics was Quixotic, not to say Micawberesque; and ...
— The Henchman • Mark Lee Luther
... talked of, and hurt at his brusque way of mentioning it, she was just going to give a sharp answer, when he added: 'Shall we make it true?' With characteristic straightforwardness she replied by the monosyllable, 'Yes,' and so they were engaged. Before her marriage she translated Niebuhr's 'Greek Legends,' which were published under ...
— Letters from Egypt • Lucie Duff Gordon
... "Halt!" The monosyllable came from the yellow glare that the headlights dropped upon the changing road. The taxi-driver threw out his clutch and a sentry walked up, carrying his rifle at the port. With him, by an ill chance, was ...
— The Beautiful and Damned • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... The monosyllable seemed to lack Elkin's usual confidence. It sounded as if he had been making up his mind what to say, yet faltered ...
— The Postmaster's Daughter • Louis Tracy
... the same angry monosyllable, which I had received from my mother before; and then arose, and walked about the room. I arose too, with intent to throw myself at his feet; but was too much overawed by his sternness, even to make such an expression of my duty to him as my heart ...
— Clarissa, Volume 1 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... able to repeat: "I am not in love with Georgiana!" There was one question which I put severely to Mrs. Walters: Had she told Georgiana of my foolish talk? She shook her head violently, and pressed her lips closely together, suggesting how impossible it would be for the smallest monosyllable in the language to escape by that channel; but she kept her eyes wide open, and the truth issued from them, as smoke in a hollow tree, if stopped in at a lower hole, simply rises and comes out at a higher one. "You should have shut your eyes also," I said. "You have told ...
— A Kentucky Cardinal • James Lane Allen
... will take their women and children, and lead them into captivity. The warriors shall fall by our war-clubs—we will give them no quarter. Our tomahawks we will dip in their brains! with our scalping knives we will scalp them." At each period comes on the chorus, which consists of one monosyllable only, that is sounded a number of times, and articulated like a faint, stifled groan. This word is "eh," and signifies "we will," or "we will go," or "we will do." While singing, they perform the ceremony of killing and scalping, with a great degree ...
— A Narrative of the Life of Mrs. Mary Jemison • James E. Seaver
... amongst them now, very drawn and pale in the dim halo of light thrown down from the hanging lamp. His answering monosyllable was cold ...
— The Devil's Paw • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... chebec of the least flycatcher, though much less emphatic, as well as much less frequently uttered, while his twee, or tuwee, is quite in the voice and manner of the wood pewee's clear, plaintive whistle; usually a monosyllable, but at other times almost or quite dissyllabic. The olive-sided, on the other hand, imitates nobody; or, if he does, it must be some bird with which I have yet to make acquaintance. Que-que-o he vociferates, with a strong emphasis and drawl upon ...
— The Foot-path Way • Bradford Torrey
... still, staring vaguely at the dial as in a trance. And as the next hour creeps stealthily up, it starts all at once, and cries aloud, Gone!—Gone! The sun sinks lower, the hour-hand creeps downward with it, until I hear the thrice-repeated monosyllable, Gone!—Gone!—Gone! Soon through the darkening hours, until at the dead of night the long roll is called, and with the last Gone! the latest of the long procession that filled the day follows its ghostly companions into the stillness and ...
— Over the Teacups • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... very beautiful and pathetic in the simple brevity of the unhesitating answer, 'Yea, Lord.' Sincerity needs few words. Faith can put an infinite deal of meaning into a monosyllable. Their eagerness to reach the goal made their answer brief. But it was enough. Again the hand which had clasped the maiden's palm is put out and laid gently on the useless eyes, and the great word spoken, ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Matthew Chaps. IX to XXVIII • Alexander Maclaren
... at first set forth in this Work with the Character of a silent Man; and I think I have so well preserved my Taciturnity, that I do not remember to have violated it with three Sentences in the space of almost two Years. As a Monosyllable is my Delight, I have made very few Excursions in the Conversations which I have related beyond a Yes or a No. By this Means my Readers have lost many good things which I have had in my Heart, though I did not care ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... somewhat raised voice the squatting figure in the corner moved and rose slowly. Reb Moshe, with open mouth and stupid, glaring eyes, came into the light, and in his hoarse voice uttered the monosyllable "Hah!" ...
— An Obscure Apostle - A Dramatic Story • Eliza Orzeszko
... She made frequent use of that monosyllable. It generally gave the Babe the same sort of feeling as he had been accustomed to experience in the happy days of his childhood when he had been caught ...
— Tales of St. Austin's • P. G. Wodehouse
... up in a thick great-coat, though it was a warm day in June—a clear-eyed, small-featured, diminutive old man, who had sat the whole time, taking no apparent interest in the proceedings. All eyes were turned upon him in a moment, and he quietly repeated the awful monosyllable—"eight!" Mr Gillingham Howard looked at the old gentleman with detestation in every feature, for he felt that the person, whoever he was, was actually robbing him of a thousand pounds; and he would have had ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 57, No. 351, January 1845 • Various
... insurance broker and general shipping agent, was a very polite man, and extremely soft-spoken; but he was of an extremely inquisitive disposition, I thought, for he asked my father numberless questions about himself and me, to all of which he returned the short monosyllable "H'm," which did not inform us whether he was satisfied or not. I found all the time that he was merely trying to discover what amount of premium my father was likely to be able to pay, that he might ...
— Peter the Whaler • W.H.G. Kingston
... lovely and so spirited to look upon, so radiant with youth, animation, and innocence, that the eyes of the poor young officer were dazzled and sought the floor; completely intoxicated and bewildered, he could not join in the conversation, uttering here and there only a trembling monosyllable. ...
— Berlin and Sans-Souci • Louise Muhlbach
... expressed herself in the monosyllable. No words came to her lips, but to her eyes many tears, through which the pearls were visible. They whirled in her bewildered brain as a token that she was loved—loved by HIM, though but yesterday he had loved another. It was all so sudden, so beautiful. You might have knocked ...
— Zuleika Dobson - or, An Oxford Love Story • Max Beerbohm
... on Whist) could not make up her mind to use the word 'Go.' Mounsey, from long practice, has got over this difficulty, and uses it incessantly. It is no matter what adjunct follows in the train of this despised monosyllable,—whatever liquid comes after this prefix is welcome. Mounsey, without being the most communicative, is the most conversible man I know. The social principle is inseparable from his person. If he has nothing to say, he drinks your ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt
... syllables, in both of which the rhyme is engaged; and an English version of the above verses, however faithful in other respects, which should omit to use the same species of double termination, and content itself with the monosyllable rhyme, would indubitably lose some of the harmony of the original. These double rhymes are far from abundant in our monosyllabic language; but we venture to affirm, that their conscientious employment would be found so valuable, as to amply repay the labour and difficulty attending ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol 58, No. 357, July 1845 • Various
... as he uttered this meditative monosyllable, and continued to regard his niece with keener scrutiny, if that were possible, than before. 'It is John's temper—a very firebrand. My dear, you are very young, and you should not be above taking advice. Let me advise you to control that fiery ...
— The Guinea Stamp - A Tale of Modern Glasgow • Annie S. Swan
... way out to the club she sat between them, miserably indifferent to the glory of the spring day and refusing to contribute more than an occasional monosyllable to the conversation, which needed all the encouragement it could get ...
— Quin • Alice Hegan Rice
... after he has submitted himself to the process, the experiments made upon him prove successful. He is naturally a fluent talker, but now cannot, without difficulty and stammering, pronounce his own name, an easy monosyllable—cannot strike the lecturer's hand—cannot rise from a chair, &c. We may add, that he cannot be made ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 446 - Volume 18, New Series, July 17, 1852 • Various
... halting monosyllable Joe judged that something was amiss. Observation had never been a slow or painful ...
— Then I'll Come Back to You • Larry Evans
... greatly surprised him. It had originally commenced with 'Dear Sir'; but these words had been carefully erased, and the monosyllable 'Sir' substituted in their place. The rest of the contents shall be given in ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... horrified monosyllable broke in on the smug recital. She caught Lad protectingly by the ruff and stared in mute dread at the lanky and red-whiskered officer. Lad, reading her voice as always, divined this nasal-toned caller had said or done something to make her unhappy. ...
— Further Adventures of Lad • Albert Payson Terhune
... alert, self-contained little riverman trudged along in almost entire silence, his keen chipmunk eyes spying restlessly on all there was to be seen. When Bob ventured a remark or comment, he answered by a grunt or a monosyllable. The grunt or the monosyllable was never sullen or hostile or contemptuous; merely indifferent. Bob learned to economize speech, and so got along well with ...
— The Rules of the Game • Stewart Edward White
... Latin grammar but with a new standard of English pronunciation, was a very difficult business, made all the more obscure by a thick mist of bash fulness. Tom, as you have observed, was never an exception among boys for ease of address; but the difficulty of enunciating a monosyllable in reply to Mr. or Mrs. Stelling was so great, that he even dreaded to be asked at table whether he would have more pudding. As to the percussion-caps, he had almost resolved, in the bitterness of his heart, that he would throw them into a neighboring pond; for not only was he ...
— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot
... Saxham; and the monosyllable seemed to drop from his grim lips like a stone. Her bosom heaved with short, ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves |
