"Adjective" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... that gerr'l, Christian Lowry," he said to Father Greer. "She's a good gerr'l enough. Decent! Civil!" Each adjective of approval was launched on a snort that indicated some co-existing irritation; "but I have me own opinion of ...
— Mount Music • E. Oe. Somerville and Martin Ross
... note the fourth word in the second title of this book. The common talk is of a "League of Nations" merely. I follow the man who is, more than any other man, the leader of English political thought throughout the world to-day, President Wilson, in inserting that significant adjective "Free." We western allies know to-day what is involved in making bargains with governments that do not stand for their peoples; we have had all our Russian deal, for example, repudiated and thrust back upon our ...
— In The Fourth Year - Anticipations of a World Peace (1918) • H.G. Wells
... small touch of color burned like a flame. And thus, little step after little step, they went from little wonder to little wonder. Dolly liked small things; it was the microscopic aspect of Nature that touched her heart; she had an adjective all her own for such: they were "baby" things—baby flowers, baby brooks, baby stars. This appealed less to Charles-Norton, hungry for big sweeps. And even now, he caught himself yawning once, and casting a look ...
— The Trimming of Goosie • James Hopper
... taught you to look upon the Suburban Furnace as part of the machinery or property of a merry jest; and you will be shocked to discover that to the new-comer it is a stern and cold reality. I use the latter adjective deliberately and advisedly. There will surely come an awful night when you will get home from New York with Mrs. Modestus in the midnight train, too tired for anything but a drowsy chat by the lingering embers of the ...
— Jersey Street and Jersey Lane - Urban and Suburban Sketches • H. C. Bunner
... events, as of any process of Nature, possesses an innate attraction for the inquisitive element of which few intelligent minds are devoid. Unfortunately, technical men are prone to delight in their technicalities, and to depreciate, with the adjective "popular," attempts to bring their specialties within the comprehension of the general public, or to make them pleasing and attractive to it. However it may be with other specialties, the utility of which is more willingly ...
— Lessons of the war with Spain and other articles • Alfred T. Mahan
... marvel that God's hand has wrought. It can never be pictured. It can never be described. Only those who have stood as Patricia Doyle stood that morning and viewed the sublime masterpiece of Nature can realize what those homely words, "The Grand Canyon" mean. Grand? It is well named. Since no other adjective can better describe it, that much abused one may well be accepted to ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces and Uncle John • Edith Van Dyne
... satin from cardinals' beds and the rest." Before long Browning amused himself in picking up for a few pauls this or that picture, on seeing which an accomplished connoisseur, like Kirkup, would even hazard the name of Cimabue or Ghirlandaio, or if not that of Giotto, then the safer adjective Giottesque. ...
— Robert Browning • Edward Dowden
... orchards cannot be made profitable. I am of the opinion that reasonable sized orchards in proper locations and proper soil, of proper varieties, with proper care in handling, are good investments, and, as proof of my confidence, I am planting orchards both in the north and south. The adjective "proper" which I have used here may seem insignificant at the start but, believe me, before you have begun to clip the coupons off your orchard bonds this adjective will loom up as important as Webster's Unabridged Dictionary. In fact you will wonder how it has been possible for anyone to ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association, Report of the Proceedings at the Third Annual Meeting • Northern Nut Growers Association
... down at Wentworth's desk, and came upon an obstacle at the very beginning. He did not know how to address the young woman. Whether to say 'My dear Miss Longworth,' or 'My dear madam,' or whether to use the adjective 'dear' at all, was a puzzle to him; and over this he was meditating when Wentworth ...
— A Woman Intervenes • Robert Barr
... account of all that was done; for it was so many and sundry ceremonies that my weak head will not hold them. I know only there was kneeling and courtesying and bowing and censing, and holy water, and a deal more of the like trumpery, wherewith I am no wise compatient [the lost adjective of compassion]; and going up unto the altar, and coming down from it; and five several times was she led thereto, once to offer there her pall of baudekyn and twenty shillings, and once, leaving her crimson velvet mantle behind the travers, she was ...
— Robin Tremain - A Story of the Marian Persecution • Emily Sarah Holt
... important role of Sempronius, which proved in every way a better disposition of affairs, for Mills was a plodder rather than a genius. He belonged to the order of actors to whom, in the present day, we apply the charitable word of painstaking, an adjective which shows very plainly the nature of the man, while it likewise allows the critic to escape the charge of unkindness. We all know the painstaking player, and always cheerfully acknowledge his virtues, but who shall blame us if, after giving him the benefit ...
— The Palmy Days of Nance Oldfield • Edward Robins
... writes a book] writer, author, litterateur[Fr], essayist, journalism; pen, scribbler, the scribbling race; literary hack, Grub-street writer; writer for the press, gentleman of the press, representative of the press; adjective jerker[obs3], diaskeaust[obs3], ghost, hack writer, ink slinger; publicist; reporter, penny a liner; editor, subeditor[obs3]; playwright &c. 599; poet &c. 597. bookseller, publisher; bibliopole[obs3], bibliopolist[obs3]; librarian; bookstore, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget
... up his shoulders. This is the shrug. The shrug requires special attention. The shrug is a gesture used by the Latin race for expressing a multitude of things, both objectively and subjectively. It is a language of itself. It is, as circumstances require, a noun, adverb, pronoun, verb, adjective, preposition, interjection, conjunction. Yet it does not supersede the spoken language. It comes in rather when spoken words are useless, to convey intensity of meaning or delicacy. It is not taught, ...
— The Dodge Club - or, Italy in 1859 • James De Mille
... which look like huge hay-cocks,—those, for instance, which rise in the rear of Cap Haytien. The aspect of the higher hills in the interior might mislead an etymologist to derive the word morne from the French adjective which means gloomy, they are so marked by the ravages of the hurricane and earthquake, so ploughed up into decrepit features by the rains, the pitiless vertical heat, the fires, and the landslides. The soft rock cannot preserve its outlines beneath all these influences; its thin covering of ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 56, June, 1862 • Various
... daughter understood in the adjective applied to her a hint which the wily lady would not have dared to make direct to the high-spirited old soldier, namely, that the continuance of his livelihood might depend on his consent. Betty knew likewise enough of the terrible world of the early eighteenth century to be ...
— Love and Life • Charlotte M. Yonge
... sentiment. After the demise of the duke she had found it so depressing to be invariably addressed with suave deference by every male voice she heard. If the butler could have snorted, or the rector have rapped out an uncomplimentary adjective, the duchess would have felt cheered. As it was, a fixed and settled melancholy lay upon her spirit until she saw in a dealer's list an advertisement of a prize macaw, warranted a grand talker, with a vocabulary ...
— The Rosary • Florence L. Barclay
... Anne Boleyn. More's philosophy is best reflected in his Utopia, the description of an ideal commonwealth, modeled on Plato's Republic, and printed in 1516. The name signifies "no place" (Outopos), and has furnished an adjective to the language. The Utopia was in Latin, but More's History of Edward V. and Richard III., written in 1513, though not printed till 1557, was in English. It is the first example in the tongue of a history as distinguished ...
— Brief History of English and American Literature • Henry A. Beers
... distinguishing excellence of Hawthorne's imaginative writings in the union of profound, keen, psychological development of characters and problems with the most lucid objectivity and a joyous modern realism. Occasionally there appears a light and delicate humor, sometimes hidden in a mere adjective, or little phrase which lights up the gloomiest situation with a gentle ray of hope. Far from unimportant do I rate the charm of his language, its purity, its melody, its graceful flexibility, the wealth of vocabulary, the polish which rarely betrays the touch of the file. After, ...
— The Life and Genius of Nathaniel Hawthorne • Frank Preston Stearns
... "arretez-vous" The French have, in fact, borrowed "halte" from us or from the German, for their tactics. For the same reason, you want to prune out the unnecessary words from your sentences, and even the classes of words which seem put in to fill up. If, for instance, you can express your idea without an adjective, your sentence is stronger and more manly. It is better to say "a saint" than "a saintly man." It is better to say "This is the truth" than "This is the truthful result." Of course an adjective may be absolutely necessary. But you may often detect extempore speakers in piling in adjectives, ...
— How To Do It • Edward Everett Hale
... work is not compounded because the word color, by usage common in English, has the force of an adjective, and the words are used in their accepted sense. In other languages it would be differently expressed, for example, in French it would be oeuvre, or imprimerie en couleur, work, or, ...
— Compound Words - Typographic Technical Series for Apprentices #36 • Frederick W. Hamilton
... rule, rounded, and the slopes gentle. The culminating points are in the centre of the range: Yumrukchal (7835 ft.), Maraguduk (7808 ft.), and Kadimlia (7464 ft.). The Balkans are known to the people of the country as the Stara Planina or "Old Mountain," the adjective denoting their greater size as compared with that of the adjacent ranges: "Balkan" is not a distinctive term, being applied by the Bulgarians, as well as the Turks, to all mountains. Closely parallel, on the south, are the minor ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... is the name of Mr. Heathcliff's dwelling. 'Wuthering' being a significant provincial adjective, descriptive of the atmospheric tumult to which its station is exposed in stormy weather. Pure, bracing ventilation they must have up there at all times, indeed: one may guess the power of the north wind blowing over the edge, by the excessive slant of a few stunted ...
— Wuthering Heights • Emily Bronte
... "Amphibious. Adjective, derived from two Greek words, amphi, a fish, and bios, a beast. An animal supposed by our ignorant ancestors to be compounded of a fish and a beast; which therefore, like the hippopotamus, can't live on the land, ...
— The Water-Babies - A Fairy Tale for a Land-Baby • Charles Kingsley
... avait l'air gne, 'seemed very uneasy.' With the expression avoir l'air the adjective may agree indifferently with the subject or with air when it refers to either; but if it cannot refer to one of them it must agree with the other, e.g. cette pomme a l'air mre, not mr, because ...
— Le Petit Chose (part 1) - Histoire d'un Enfant • Alphonse Daudet
... then the adjective French became in Federal mouths an epithet of abhorrence and abuse; up went the flag of dear Old England, the defender of the faith and of social order. The opposition party, on the contrary, saw in the success ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 21, July, 1859 • Various
... and favour] The favour of your leave granted, the kind permission. Two substantives with a copulative being here, as is the frequent practice of our author, used for an adjective and substantive: an adjective sense is given ...
— Hamlet • William Shakespeare
... "There's a [adjective] body here," replies Ogg, with gloomy sarcasm, "flingin' bricks through this yin!" He picks up the red-and-white flag for the fourth time, and unfurls it indignantly to ...
— The First Hundred Thousand • Ian Hay
... "empty, hence, perhaps, leer horse, a horse without a rider; leer is an adjective meaning uncontrolled, hence 'leer drunkards'" (Halliwell); according to Nares, a leer (empty) horse meant also a led ...
— The Poetaster - Or, His Arraignment • Ben Jonson
... much of a type, being either shop-girls or lady clerks, with a sprinkling of maid-servants and board school teachers. They were pale-faced, hard-working, over-dressed young women who read Marie Corelli, and considered her "deep"; who had one adjective with which to express appreciation of things, this "artistic"; anything they condemned was spoken of as "awful"; one and all liked to be considered what they called "up-to-date." Marriage they desired more than anything else in the world, not so much that they wished to live in an atmosphere ...
— Sparrows - The Story of an Unprotected Girl • Horace W. C. Newte
... had sought their favorite pine parlor, and were deep in talk. High would be a more descriptive adjective; for Viola Vincent was the principal talker, and her shrill, clear treble quivered up to the very tree-tops, startling the birds in their nests, and sending the squirrels scampering to and fro ...
— The Merryweathers • Laura E. Richards
... 217.) is partly right and partly wrong; he adopts the anglicised spelling of the second syllable, although he seems aware that the first syllable ought to be Ard; and he admits also that this word is a substantive, signifying a height, not the adjective high. "A high plain," in Irish, would be, not Ardmagh, or Ardmoy (as it would have been anglicised), but Magh-ard (Anglice Moyard). Great light will be thrown on the whole subject of the etymology of Irish typographical names, when the Index to my friend Mr. O'Donovan's edition of ...
— Notes and Queries 1850.02.23 • Various
... you for the adjective, though. I got the contract from him. By the way, he's not my uncle, of course; he was simply a great friend of my mother's. I inherited the friendship, and in these last five years he and I have somehow ...
— Captivating Mary Carstairs • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... now go to Italian, and look at the word nicchia. Both from Alberti and from Baretti we find it to bear the meaning of "a charge, a duty, or an employment;" and if before this word we place the adjective piccola, we have piccola nicchia, "a small task, or trifling service to be performed." Now I think no one can fail to see the identity of the meanings of the expressions piccola nicchia and pique-nique; but it ...
— Notes and Queries, No. 181, April 16, 1853 • Various
... was only now, when the tide was just on the turn, that the limpets there got a sprinkling. Mr. Tryan was the first Evangelical clergyman who had risen above the Milby horizon: hitherto that obnoxious adjective had been unknown to the townspeople of any gentility; and there were even many Dissenters who considered 'evangelical' simply a sort of baptismal name to the magazine which circulated among the ...
— Scenes of Clerical Life • George Eliot
... (avowedly based upon Webster's American work, which I cannot at this moment refer to in its original form), the word in question is given both as an adjective and as a verb, and the derivatives "sparsed," "sparsedly," "sparsely," and "sparseness," are also admitted. The reference given for the origin of "sparse" is to the Latin "sparsus, scattered, from spargo;" and the definitions are, ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 16, February 16, 1850 • Various
... part of their poor mansion, till it was reduced to ashes. Together with the cottage (a sorry antediluvian makeshift of a building, you may think it), what was of much more importance, a fine litter of young pigs, no less than nine in number, perished. China pigs [Footnote: China pigs. What adjective would we use now?] have been esteemed a luxury all over the East from the remotest periods ...
— Short Stories and Selections for Use in the Secondary Schools • Emilie Kip Baker
... reasons, and ours may best appear as we proceed, less than a brief seven seeming insufficient, and more, superfluous; again, so mystical a number has a staid propriety, and a due double climax of rise and fall. Now, as to our adjective "classical:" Why not, in heroic drama, have something a-kin to the old Greek chorus, with its running comment upon motives and moralities, somewhat as the mighty-master has set forth in his truly patriotic 'Henry the Fifth?'—However, ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... descent from de Bohun. While, if he holds that kind hearts are more than coronets, he has an alternative descent from some medieval le bon. This adjective, used as a personal name, gave also Bunn and Bunce; for the spelling of the latter name cf. Dance for Dans, and Pearce for Piers, the nominative of Pierre (Alternative Origins, Chapter I), which also survives in Pears and Pearson. Swain may go back to the father of ...
— The Romance of Names • Ernest Weekley
... the foundation was thus laid for a government which should act directly upon individuals, it obviously became necessary to abandon the articles of confederation, and work out a new constitution in all its details. The plan, as now reported, omitted the obnoxious adjective "national," and spoke of the federal legislature and federal courts. But to the men who were still blindly wedded to the old confederation this soothing change of phraseology did not conceal their defeat. On the very day that the compromise ...
— The Critical Period of American History • John Fiske
... known about him. In the course of time as the original name of the deity began to be thought of entirely as a proper name without any meaning, rather than as a common noun explaining the nature of the god to which it was attached, it became necessary to add to the original name some adjective which would adequately describe the god and do the work which the name by itself had originally done. And as the nature of the various deities grew more complicated along with the increasing complications of daily life, new adjectives were added, each one expressing some ...
— The Religion of Numa - And Other Essays on the Religion of Ancient Rome • Jesse Benedict Carter
... An adjective is a word used to qualify, limit, or define a noun, or a word or phrase which has the value of a noun. Nouns are ordinarily very general and indefinite in meaning, for example, man conveys only a very general idea. To make that idea definite ...
— Word Study and English Grammar - A Primer of Information about Words, Their Relations and Their Uses • Frederick W. Hamilton
... instinct thus far could equally well be said of reflex action. A reflex is a native reaction, and it is taken care of by a team of neurones in the way just stated. We might speak of a reflex as "instinctive", using this adjective as equivalent to "native"; but we should shrink for some reason from speaking of the pupillary reflex to light as an instinct, or of the "knee jerk instinct", or the "swallowing instinct", or the "flexion instinct". There is some ...
— Psychology - A Study Of Mental Life • Robert S. Woodworth
... ones, which only succeeded in making her laugh. The conversation proceeded something as follows: "I am charmed that I have fallen to your Highness." "Equally charmed," I replied; "but my rank does not admit the adjective you do me the honor to apply." "No?" was the answer. "Well, I'll wager you anything that when the butler pours your wine in the first course he will call you Count, and in the next Prince. You see, they become exhilarated as the dinner progresses. But tell me, how many wives ...
— As A Chinaman Saw Us - Passages from his Letters to a Friend at Home • Anonymous
... outpouring from two or three throats at once instead of one, expressing his rapture somewhat after the manner of the canary, although his song lacks the variety and the finish of his caged namesake. What tone of sadness in his music the man found who applied the adjective tristis to his scientific name it is difficult to imagine when listening to the notes that come bubbling up from the ...
— Bird Neighbors • Neltje Blanchan
... live in a tree and eat nuts?" she asked, hoping that the use of the adjective "large" might be ...
— Reginald in Russia and Other Sketches • Saki (H.H. Munro)
... loudly. "He is certainly that, and more. Indeed, the English language does not supply us with an adjective that ...
— Jane Cable • George Barr McCutcheon
... Maggie?" answered the peace-officer, smiling and shaking his head with an ironical emphasis on the adjective, and a calmness calculated to provoke to ...
— The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... commentaries, the Northern reader probably needs to be informed that the phrase "peerten up" means substantially 'to spur up', and is an active form of the adjective "peert" (probably a corruption of 'pert'), which is so common in the South, and which has much the signification of "smart" in New England, as e.g., a "peert" horse, in antithesis to a "sorry" — i.e., poor, ...
— The Poems of Sidney Lanier • Sidney Lanier
... An adjective or term placed upon a person or thing and expressing some quality especially appropriate to that ...
— Orthography - As Outlined in the State Course of Study for Illinois • Elmer W. Cavins
... an adverb instead of an adjective. Thus on page 332, speaking of a tame frog on the bar at ...
— The Shirley Letters from California Mines in 1851-52 • Louise Amelia Knapp Smith Clappe
... that what you ask is impossible," said the young man, taking his adjective for granted in a ...
— The Portrait of a Lady - Volume 1 (of 2) • Henry James
... new substantial, but mean-looking cloister, on the other side rose the church of polished white marble, a splendid specimen of pure Byzantine architecture, if I dare apply such an adjective to that fantastic middle manner, which succeeded to the style of the fourth century, and was subsequently re-cast by Christians and Moslems into what are called ...
— Servia, Youngest Member of the European Family • Andrew Archibald Paton
... music-case under his arm. He had an eternal interest for Jeremy because, whenever he was mentioned, the phrase was: "Poor little Mr. Dawson!" Why he was to be pitied Jeremy did not know. He looked spruce and bright enough, and generally whistled to himself as he walked; but "poor" was an exciting adjective, and Jeremy, when he passed him, felt a little shudder of drama run down ...
— Jeremy • Hugh Walpole
... 8vo. containing 500 pages, on the Superstitions, Ghosts, Legends, &c. of all parts of the principality, to be delivered before February 3, 1831. Now when the limited period proposed for the collection of 500 pages of matter, and the above little adjective all is considered, it must appear obvious that such an Herculean labour is not capable of being accomplished by one individual alone.—Imagining it, therefore, to be a matter of impossibility to perform what the very reverend gentleman requires, I cannot consistently ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 17, No. - 481, March 19, 1831 • Various
... bravery, amounting even to rashness, there can be no reasonable question. He is a patriot of the most zealous sort; a hot, impulsive man, who meant what he said, when he started with the gun to go and shoot some of the Rebels qualified with the strong adjective. A thoroughly honest man, too, I think; although some of his remarks are to be taken with considerable allowance. His temper causes him to form immoderate opinions and to make strong statements. "He always goes beyant," said my landlord, a ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 97, November, 1865 • Various
... natives of the adjoining valley. In all these denunciations my companion and I acquiesced, while we extolled the character of the warlike Typees. To be sure our panegyrics were somewhat laconic, consisting in the repetition of that name, united with the potent adjective 'motarkee'. But this was sufficient, and served to conciliate the good will of the natives, with whom our congeniality of sentiment on this point did more towards inspiring a friendly feeling than anything else ...
— Typee - A Romance of the South Sea • Herman Melville
... Taiwan (singular and plural) note: example - he or she is from Taiwan; they are from Taiwan adjective: Taiwan ...
— The 2007 CIA World Factbook • United States
... ground-hog, a rodent that can climb, destroy vegetables, and bite hard if necessary; dried bats and rats, which the African as well as the Chinese loves, and fish cuits au soleil, preferred when 'high,' to use the mildest adjective. From the walls hung dry goods, red woollen nightcaps and comforters, leopards' and monkeys' skins, and the pelt of an animal which might have ...
— To the Gold Coast for Gold - A Personal Narrative in Two Volumes.—Vol. I • Richard F. Burton
... the condition of our natural resources and what is being done with them to-day. As a people, we have been in the habit of declaring certain of our resources to be inexhaustible. To no other resource more frequently than coal has this stupidly false adjective been applied. Yet our coal supplies are so far from being inexhaustible that if the increasing rate of consumption shown by the figures of the last seventy-five years continues to prevail, our supplies of anthracite coal will last but fifty years and of bituminous ...
— The Fight For Conservation • Gifford Pinchot
... old man, who, utterly confounded, stalked up and down the room, kicking away chairs and footstools, and whatever came in his way, and swearing promiscuously at his wife and Wilford, whom he pronounced a precious pair of fools, with a dreadful adjective appended to the fools, and an emphasis in his voice which showed he meant what ...
— Family Pride - Or, Purified by Suffering • Mary J. Holmes
... 'imperator', but it was first 'empereur'. It will often happen that the substantive has past through this process, having reached us through the intervention of the French; while we have only felt at a later period our want of the adjective also, which we have proceeded to borrow direct from the Latin. Thus, 'people' is indeed 'populus', but it was 'peuple' first, while 'popular' is a direct transfer of a Latin vocable into our English glossary. So too 'enemy' is 'inimicus', but it was ...
— English Past and Present • Richard Chenevix Trench
... forgiven, when they serve to vivify truth, to quicken or to widen the moral judgment, but Macaulay's hardy and habitual recourse to strenuous superlatives is fundamentally unscientific and untrue. There is no more instructive example in our literature than he, of the saying that the adjective is the enemy ...
— Critical Miscellanies, Volume I (of 3) - Essay 4: Macaulay • John Morley
... State, failed and failed lamentably, in spite of the noble lives that were spent in labouring for such a compromise. For it is the whole essence of a Supernatural Religion to be supreme in it own province—the very adjective asserts it; and any endeavour to compromise on this entirely vital point is in itself a denial of the principle, For a while this was not perceived. Men regarded the Christian Church—or rather, that which they took to be the Christian Church—merely, on its earthly side, as an ...
— Dawn of All • Robert Hugh Benson
... noun Algonkin, meaning an Indian, is also spelled Algonquin. But the adjective from this noun is spelled Algonquian when applied to Indians, and Algonkian when applied to a time or period ...
— Boys' Book of Indian Warriors - and Heroic Indian Women • Edwin L. Sabin
... probably know anything about "Mystics;" know even what the term means: but as it is plainly connected with the adjective "mystical" they probably suppose it to denote some sort of vague, dreamy, sentimental, and therefore useless and undesirable personage. Nor can we blame them if they do so; for mysticism is a form of thought and feeling now all but extinct in England. There ...
— Literary and General Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley
... this sound advice to his pupil, Guy de Maupassant: "Whatever may be the thing which one wishes to say, there is but one word for expressing it, only one verb to animate it, only one adjective to qualify it. It is essential to search for this word, for this verb, for this adjective, until they are discovered, and to be ...
— The Art of Public Speaking • Dale Carnagey (AKA Dale Carnegie) and J. Berg Esenwein
... evidence derived from a more careful analysis of the words of the inscription itself. Niba, which Lassen translated as pomoerium, occurs in three other places, where it certainly cannot mean suburb. It seems to be an adjective meaning splendid, beautiful. Besides, niba is a nominative singular in the feminine, and so is the pronoun hya which precedes, and the two words which follow it—uvaspa and umartiya. Professor Holtzmann ...
— Chips From A German Workshop - Volume I - Essays on the Science of Religion • Friedrich Max Mueller
... shining brown hair. It frizzled like a furze-bush about her tiny face, and curled over her forehead. Her white even teeth showed prettily between her lips. She was not without points, but notwithstanding these it could not be said that she deserved the adjective pretty; and he was already convinced that it was not good looks that prejudiced her in Father Peter's eyes. Nor was the excuse that her singing attracted too much attention an honest one. What Father Peter did not like about the ...
— The Lake • George Moore
... with a double signification,—a literal and narrow meaning, and a general and rather undefined application. It signifies not only physical remedies and the art of using them, but second-sight, prophecy, and preternatural power. As an adjective, it embraces the idea of supernatural ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 105, July 1866 • Various
... was an elder of the kirk, but because he was a good-tempered, kindly, honest man; or to sum up all in one word—a douce chield—by which word douce is indicated every sort of propriety of behaviour—a virtue greatly esteemed by the Scotch. This adjective was ...
— Alec Forbes of Howglen • George MacDonald
... shrilled. "Look! GOOD!" And to emphasize the adjective she indelicately patted the region of her body in which she believed her stomach to be located. "There's a slice for you on the dining-room ...
— Seventeen - A Tale Of Youth And Summer Time And The Baxter Family Especially William • Booth Tarkington
... an instrument of production," they say. That is true. But when, changing the noun into an adjective, they alter the phrase, thus, "The land is a productive instrument," ...
— What is Property? - An Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of Government • P. J. Proudhon
... passed the actress' lips when a howl of execration rose from the devotees of Racine, outraged by the author's heresy in permitting an adjective to stray into the second line of verse. The Romanticists, led by Theophile Gautier, answered in withering blasphemies; the ...
— The Story of Paris • Thomas Okey
... meaning of "I am well," and may be called a substitute for our verb "to be." By incorporating yalu with this expression, it makes it more emphatic, as, Yalu murrung nginyadhu, "Really I am well." Any adjective describing a human attribute may be taken as a predicate, as, good, bad, strong, sleepy, and employed with the modifications ...
— The Wiradyuri and Other Languages of New South Wales • Robert Hamilton Mathews
... Dante gives to his trilogy and posterity has added the prefix adjective divine. The term comedy however is not used in the modern sense which suggests to us a light laughable drama written in a familiar style. "Comedy" Dante himself explains in his dedication of the poem, "is a certain kind of poetical narrative which differs from all others. ...
— Dante: "The Central Man of All the World" • John T. Slattery
... regarded with aversion; a word used often in the Bible to denote evil doctrines or ceremonial practices which were impure. An incorrect derivation was ab homine (i.e. inhuman), and the spelling of the adjective "abominable'' in the first Shakespeare folio is always "abhominable.'' Colloquially "abomination'' and "abominable'' are used to mean simply excessive in ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... as "the castled crag" in relation to the Rhine, since no commonplace mind of the present day acquainted with his works but has fallen back on "the castled crag" to describe Drachenfels or Marksburg or Rheinfels, because, forsooth, its own English is too limited to supply a better adjective. So it is that conventional and inadequate English is perpetuated and individual force and expression are lost because people accept the ideas of others and will not seek language to convey ...
— A War-time Journal, Germany 1914 and German Travel Notes • Harriet Julia Jephson
... Answer. - There is not. Principle and its idea is one, 465:18 and this one is God, omnipotent, omniscient, and omni- 466:1 present Being, and His reflection is man and the universe. Omni is adopted from the Latin adjective signifying all. 466:3 Hence God combines all-power or potency, all-science or true knowledge, all-presence. The varied manifesta- tions of Christian Science indicate Mind, never matter, ...
— Science and Health With Key to the Scriptures • Mary Baker Eddy
... his friend the Duke of Rutland. It may, however, be doubted whether the epithet "unconstitutional" could be properly applied to the bill on either ground. There is, indeed, a certain vagueness in the meaning, or at all events in the frequent use of this adjective. Sometimes it is used to imply a violation of the provisions of the Great Charter, or of its later development, the Bill of Rights; sometimes to impute some imagined departure from the principles ...
— The Constitutional History of England From 1760 to 1860 • Charles Duke Yonge
... Philadelphian, I am not sure if the nights that succeeded have yet lost for me their novelty. As a consequence, if, in looking back, my days appear to be wholly monopolized by work, my nights seem consecrated as wholly to amusement. The poet's "hideous" is the last adjective I could apply to the night my ...
— Nights - Rome, Venice, in the Aesthetic Eighties; London, Paris, in the Fighting Nineties • Elizabeth Robins Pennell
... carefully tailored Abstractions bombinating mellifluously in a void. The precision of logic was in them. The precision of even tempers. The precision of aloof eyes fastened upon finalities. Theoretical radicals. Theoretical conservatives. Theoretical philosophers. Any appellation preceded by the adjective theoretical fitted them snugly. Of contact with the hurdy-gurdy of existence which he as a journalist felt under the ideas of the day, there was none. Life in the minds of the intellectual staff of the New Opinion ...
— Erik Dorn • Ben Hecht
... Mrs. Mencke, remarking the adjective for the first time, and looking somewhat annoyed. "How old ...
— His Heart's Queen • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... stretching down amid the sunless roots of Being and Consciousness, mock the plummet; scarce one but could speak with condescending approval of that prodigious intelligence so utterly without congener that our baffled language must coin an adjective to qualify it, and none is so audacious as to say Shakesperian of any other. And yet, in the midst of our impatience, we cannot help thinking also of how much healthy mental activity this one man has been the occasion, how much good he has ...
— Among My Books - First Series • James Russell Lowell
... very sing-song voice, and with an air of anxious simplicity, Doddle began, 'Article, noun, adjective, pronoun, verb, adverb, preposition, conjunction, interjection, outerjection, beginning with ies in the plural—as, baby, babies; lady, ladies; hady, hadies. Please, sir, isn't that last one a ...
— The Gorilla Hunters • R.M. Ballantyne
... I would not give, For all their plotless plays, One round Flagstaffian adjective Or ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VI. (of X.) • Various
... because, they recall what is pleasing, sublime, pathetic, and set our ideas and emotions flowing in one of these channels. But he does not get fairly on the track of either Alison's or any other decisive and marking adjective, with which to qualify his rapports. He wastes some time, moreover, in trying to bring within the four corners of his definition some uses of the terms of beauty, which are really only applied to objects by way of analogy, ...
— Diderot and the Encyclopaedists - Volume II. • John Morley
... Dun Cow described it, was a bitter pill to him. "Who could have foreseen this?" said he. "It's devilish." We did not ourselves intend our readers to feel it so, or we would not have spent so much time over it. But as regards that one adjective, Mr. Monckton is a better authority than we are. He had a document with him that, skillfully used, might make mischief for a time between these lovers. But he foresaw there could be no permanent result ...
— A Perilous Secret • Charles Reade
... and which, moreover, is in current use, "survival of the best or of the best fitted," ought to be corrected. We must suppress the adjective best. This is simply a persisting relic of that teleology which used to see in Nature and history a premeditated goal to be reached by means of a process of continuous amelioration ...
— Socialism and Modern Science (Darwin, Spencer, Marx) • Enrico Ferri
... there unopened; I knew I ought to look at the news, but I was too busy just then trying to find an adjective for the Moon—the magical, unheard of, moony epithet, which, could I only find or invent it, what then would matter the sublunary quakes and conflicts of ...
— More Trivia • Logan Pearsall Smith
... ship out of soundings, Deaf to verbs, and all their compoundings, Adjective, noun, and adverb, and particle, Deaf to even the definite article - No verbal message was worth a pin, Though you hired an ...
— Playful Poems • Henry Morley
... to note how the old adjective "whoreson" bothers M. de Chatelain, who seems to consider it a word of weight and meaning. The "whoreson dead body" of the gravediggers' scene is turned into "le cadavre des enfants de nos meres;" and in like manner that "whoreson mad fellow Yorick" is presented to us as "un fou ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 12, No. 32, November, 1873 • Various
... it. Let those officious neighbors keep on talking; and when they have talked themselves blind, you may tell them, for me, that what money we have is safe," said Marcy, with a good deal of emphasis on the adjective. "If you want to see what mother brought back from the city, go and look at the servants. Every one of them is dressed in a new suit. Now go on and tell me the bad news. I'm getting impatient to ...
— Marcy The Blockade Runner • Harry Castlemon
... environment and properly corseted and gowned would have been set down unquestionably as "a voluptuous beauty." Here in the laundry, in stocking-feet and an unbelted black shirt-waist turned far in at the neck, she was merely "mushy," to use the adjective of her detractors. The queen owed her nickname to the boss, with whom she was said to "stand in," being "awful soft after him." She was a sort of assistant to the foreman, bossing the job when he was ...
— The Long Day - The Story of a New York Working Girl As Told by Herself • Dorothy Richardson
... men have become specialists in the pecan industry and they know more about it than we do in the North. Consequently they do not need our assistance, even if we were able to give it, and, therefore, without any fear of our being criticised for using the adjective "northern" we can limit our investigations and discussions to nut culture in the northern part of the United States with a full knowledge that our southern brethren can take care of themselves, and, in addition, can render us much valuable assistance ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Fifth Annual Meeting - Evansville, Indiana, August 20 and 21, 1914 • Various
... carry no charm of womanhood,—nothing that can draw from sweater or general employer more than a sneer at the quality of the labor of those waiting always in numbers far beyond any real demand, until for both the adjective comes to be "superfluous," and employer and employed alike wonder why the earth holds them, and what good there is in an existence made up ...
— Prisoners of Poverty Abroad • Helen Campbell
... the use of words in the wrong parts of speech, as a noun for a verb, or an adjective for an adverb. Sometimes newspapers are guilty of such faults; for journalistic English, though pithy, shows here and there traces of its rapid composition. You must look to more leisurely authorities. The speakers and writers on whom you may rely will not say "to burglarize," "to ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... usually bears the name of the buffalo or bear, lightning or some dread natural force. Another of more peaceful nature may be called Swift Bird or Blue Sky. A woman's name usually suggested something about the home, often with the adjective "pretty" or "good," and a feminine termination. Names of any dignity or importance must be conferred by the old men, and especially so if they have any spiritual significance; as Sacred Cloud, Mysterious Night, Spirit Woman, and the like. Such ...
— The Soul of the Indian - An Interpretation • [AKA Ohiyesa], Charles A. Eastman
... I will, however, admit that this misleading adjective comes as a boon in the discourse I am now meditating. Since, returning to my old theme of the Garden of Life, I find that the misapplication of that word Hanging, and its original literal suggestion, lends ...
— Hortus Vitae - Essays on the Gardening of Life • Violet Paget, AKA Vernon Lee
... (2) the form or essence, (3) the end or design (in the sense of intention) of the act being performed, that is to say, at bottom, the design (in the sense of drawing) of the act supposed accomplished. These three aspects are those of the adjective, substantive and verb, and correspond to the three essential categories of language. After the explanations we have given above, we might, and perhaps we ought to, translate [Greek: eidos] by "view" ...
— Creative Evolution • Henri Bergson
... ever to be absolutely ours (and it is an impoverishing desire that she should be), we have beaten out the golden sentence—the essential she and we in one. But is it so precious after all? A suspicious ring of an adjective drops us on ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... to exist unnaturally that he has invented the adjective sane. But here and there in the streets of cities walk the damned—creatures denied the miracle of sanity and who move bewilderedly through their scene, staring at the flying days as at the fragments of another world. They are conscious of themselves only as vacuums within which life ...
— Fantazius Mallare - A Mysterious Oath • Ben Hecht
... peoples. LAKI in Malay means a male. The name is possibly connected with the Kayan word TENANG which means correct, or genuine. The termination AN is used in several instances in Malay (though not in Kayan) to make a substantive of an adjective. The name then possibly means — he who is correct or all-knowing; but this is ...
— The Pagan Tribes of Borneo • Charles Hose and William McDougall
... Quantitative Infinite with the Qualitative Infinite—the totality of existence with the infinitely perfect One. "Qualitative infinity is a secondary predicate; that is, the attribute of an attribute, and is expressed by the adverb infinitely rather than the adjective infinite. For instance, it is a strict use of language to say, that space is infinite, but it is an elliptical use of language to say, God is infinite. Precision of language would require us to say, God is ...
— Christianity and Greek Philosophy • Benjamin Franklin Cocker
... pleasant to record that this man, who had the moral hardihood to send a profane adjective over the wires, with the name of this noble girl, lost his election. While all other districts went strongly Republican, his was lost by a large majority. When the news came that the Republicans had carried the State, due credit was ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... Pelian is an adjective formed from Peleus, the name of the father of Achilles.] *[Footnote: Fore-right means straight forward.] *[Footnote: The Scamander was a famous river that flowed near the city of Troy. According to the Iliad, its source was two springs, one a cold and one a hot spring.] ...
— Journeys Through Bookland - Volume Four • Charles H. Sylvester
... man can not talk and eat at once. It was true that he was hungry, that hunger is a piquant sauce, and that artist was an adjective too mild to apply to the cook. But the other reason was his chief one. Yasmini ate daintily, as if only ...
— King—of the Khyber Rifles • Talbot Mundy
... the forms were too common and therefore too deeply imbedded in language entirely to drop out. The same verbs in the same meaning may sometimes take one case, sometimes another. The participle may also have the character of an adjective, the adverb either of an adjective or of a preposition. These exceptions are as regular as the rules, but the causes of them ...
— Cratylus • Plato
... Roget's[816] Thesaurus gives more than fifty synonyms—colleagues would be the better word—of "celebrated," any one of which might be applied, either in prose or poetry, to Newton or to his works, no one of which comes near to the meaning which Conduitt's adjective immediately suggests. ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume I (of II) • Augustus De Morgan
... democratic at heart, Mackworth laid it on in theatric outward appearance, in true line with the Kansas tradition of a sockless Jerry Simpson, who went without socks, as the adjective implies, and made Congress on that one platform of his sartorial lack ... of William Roscoe Stubbs, who rode into the office of governor partly on the fact that his daughter could make salt-rising bread ... a form of bread-making cultivated by the hardy pioneers of the state, and now ...
— Tramping on Life - An Autobiographical Narrative • Harry Kemp
... addresses the crowd, over and over again, exhorting, apostrophizing, preaching, elevating his soul to the Supreme Being, and with what oratorical combinations! What an academic swell of bombastic cadences, strung together to enforce his tirades! How cunning the even balance of adjective and substantive![31166] From these faded rhetorical flowers, arranged as if for a prize distribution or a funeral oration, exhales a sanctimonious, collegiate odor which he complacently breathes, and which intoxicates him. At this moment, he must certainly be in earnest; ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 4 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 3 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... is derived from a Greek verb employed to describe the dawn, and the adjective derived from the Greek verb was applied in classic Greek, to the appearances of the gods bringing help to men. In Christian liturgy, the feast was instituted to celebrate the appearance, the manifestation of ...
— The Divine Office • Rev. E. J. Quigley
... could have impelled Jack to apply the adjective "wild" to that ill-behaved and disreputable river, which, tipsily bearing its enormous burden of mud from the far North-west, totters, reels, runs its tortuous course for hundreds on hundreds of miles; and which, encountering the lordly ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 6 • Various
... returned to the same place, nor did he go to the same restaurant twice. Most carefully did he read the newspapers, but nothing appeared in their columns to alarm him; merely an occasional perfunctory paragraph about the Cornwall murder. The favourite adjective in the journalistic etymological garden was culled for the heading, and it was described as an amazing case. Charles felt that the definition was correct enough. Early developments were faithfully ...
— The Moon Rock • Arthur J. Rees
... my mind perfectly miraculous. Already our presence has been infinitely beneficial in allaying animosities and in pointing out abuses.' If it had been the case that the country was tranquil, his adjective would have been singularly appropriate, but not precisely in the sense ...
— The Afghan Wars 1839-42 and 1878-80 • Archibald Forbes
... too, or, as we ought to write it, salvage,[9] is nothing more grim or terrible than one who dwells in sylvis, in the woods—a meaning we can appreciate from our still comparatively pure application of the adjective sylvan. A 'backwoodsman' is therefore the very best original type of a savage! 'Savage' seems to be hesitating between its civil and its ethical applications; 'villain,' 'pagan,' and 'heathen,' however, have become quite absorbed in their moral sense—and ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No IV, April 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... take in the last chapter, and its comparative giants, with the present and its heroes, ordinary folk, and pygmies, we shall scarcely find more than one great master, Fielding, and one little masterpiece, Vathek, deserving the adjective "consummate." No doubt the obvious explanation—that the hour was not because the man had not come except in this single case—is a good one: but it need not be left in the bare isolation of its fatalism. There ...
— The English Novel • George Saintsbury
... exhibits a fine and bold peculiarity—a double declension of its Adjectives, depending on a condition of syntax. The Anglo-Saxon adjective, in its ordinary (or, as grammarians have called it, Indefinite) declension, makes the nominative plural for all the genders in E; and this remains as the regular plural termination of the adjective to Chaucer. Thus we have, in the more ancient language—eald; plural, eald-E; ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 57, No. 356, June, 1845 • Various
... ravine to the other are of great interest. This must have been a prosperous place at one time. The whitish clay soil has been quaintly corroded by the action of water, and one finds curious grottoes and deep, contorted, natural channels. A mosque and several impressive buildings—the adjective only applies when you do not get too near them—stand high up against the cliff side. The whole ...
— Across Coveted Lands - or a Journey from Flushing (Holland) to Calcutta Overland • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... persons and even professional philosophers speak of reason as if it were a jewel that can be placed in a drawer or in a human skull, they are simply myth-makers. It is precisely in this ever recurring elevation of an adjective or a verb to a noun, of a predicate to a subject, that this disease of language, as I have called mythology, has its deepest roots. Here lies the genesis of the majority of gods, not by any means, as it is generally believed ...
— The Silesian Horseherd - Questions of the Hour • Friedrich Max Mueller
... chic is always a little different. Not different in being behind fashion, but always slightly apart from it. "Chic" is a borrowed adjective, but there is no English word to take the place of "elegant" which was destroyed utterly by the reporter or practical joker who said "elegant dresses," and yet there is no synonym that will express the individuality of beautiful taste combined ...
— Etiquette • Emily Post
... be reckon'd the placing the Adjective after the Substantive, the Transposition of Words, the turning the Adjective into a Substantive, with several other Foreign Modes of Speech which this Poet has naturalized to give his Verse the greater Sound, and ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... others that he will walk three miles for it. Surely every one will admit that this is lamentable. It is not even a good mixture, for I used to try it occasionally; and if there is one man in London who knows tobaccoes it is myself. There is only one mixture in London deserving the adjective superb. I will not say where it is to be got, for the result would certainly be that many foolish men would smoke more than ever; but I never knew anything to compare to it. It is deliciously mild yet full of fragrance, and it never burns the tongue. If you try it once you ...
— My Lady Nicotine - A Study in Smoke • J. M. Barrie
... invert this order, and to express what is unimportant by some word indicating the mere fashion or external manner of an object as opposed to its substance. This is effected by the word modal or modern, as the adjective from modus, a fashion or manner; and in that sense Shakspeare employs the word. Thus, Cleopatra, undervaluing to Caesar's agent the bijouterie which she has kept back from inventory, and which her treacherous steward had betrayed, describes ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... apron should be napron (Fr. naperon), and adder should be nadder (A.-S. nddre). An amusing confusion has arisen in respect to the Ridings of Yorkshire, of which there are three. The word should be triding, but the t has got lost in the adjective, as West Triding became West Riding. The origin of the word has thus been quite lost sight of, and at the first organisation of the Province of Upper Canada, in 1798, the county of Lincoln was divided into four ...
— Literary Blunders • Henry B. Wheatley
... two pieces L'Allegro and Il Penseroso, and Lycidas. He was probably in the early stage of acquiring the language, when he superscribed the two first poems with their Italian titles. For there is no such word as "Penseroso," the adjective formed from "Pensiero" being "pensieroso". Even had the word been written correctly, its signification is not that which Milton intended, viz. thoughtful, or contemplative, but anxious, full of cares, ...
— Milton • Mark Pattison
... been looked upon as an adjective; and the passage has been rendered Talis Tirynthius indefessus, which is scarce sense. Callimachus was very knowing in mythology, and is here speaking of the Cyclopian God Acmon, whom he makes the [Greek: theos propulaios], ...
— A New System; or, an Analysis of Antient Mythology. Volume II. (of VI.) • Jacob Bryant
... a staff officer, when Napoleon gave directions for a daring plan. "Impossible!" thundered the great commander, "impossible is the adjective of fools!" ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden
... The adjective did double duty; but the tone was unmistakeably tender and anxious. Hazel had met her with both hands stretched out; now she drew her along gently ...
— The Gold of Chickaree • Susan Warner
... literature has laboriously mastered the adjective, wherever it may be in relation to ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... with all his three livings no more than seven hundred a-year, and seeing no way of keeping his splendid mother and his sickly sister, not to reckon a second sister, who was usually spoken of without any adjective, in such ladylike ease as became their birth and habits, and at the same time providing for a family of his own—he remained, you see, at the age of eight-and-forty, a bachelor, not making any merit of that renunciation, but saying laughingly, ...
— Adam Bede • George Eliot
... call my works "symphonies," "arrangements," "harmonies," and "nocturnes"? I know that many good people think my nomenclature funny and myself "eccentric." Yes, "eccentric" is the adjective they ...
— The Gentle Art of Making Enemies • James McNeill Whistler
... often called him "old Stewart," and others "ce vieux Stewart." Indeed, at a first glance he might have passed for anything up to sixty, for his face was a good deal more lined and wrinkled than it should have been at his age. Ste. Marie's adjective had been rather apt. The man had a desiccated appearance. Upon examination, however, one saw that the blood was still red in his cheeks and lips, and, although his neck was thin and withered like an old man's, his brown eyes still held their fire. The hair was almost gone from the ...
— Jason • Justus Miles Forman
... blundered as hard and as heavily as it was possible to blunder; going to the wrong people; despising the subtly powerful; paying court to the more advertised and less controlling of the English public men, and in a word behaving themselves after that fashion for which we have coined the adjective "newspaper." ...
— The New York Times Current History: the European War, February, 1915 • Various
... field artillery—furnished special occasions for organized—or disorganized—upheavals of animal spirits. For these exercises we then had scant respect. They were "soldiering;" and from time immemorial soldier had been an adjective to express uselessness, or that which was so easy as to pass no man's ability. A soldier's wind, for example, was a wind fair both ways—to go and to return; no demands on brains there, much less on seamanship. The curious irrelevancy ...
— From Sail to Steam, Recollections of Naval Life • Captain A. T. Mahan
... To some minds the term conveys an idea of crudity and immaturity, yet the United can boast of members and publications whose polish and scholarship are well-nigh impeccable. In considering the adjective "amateur" as applied to the press association, we must adhere to the more basic interpretation, regarding the word as indicating the non-mercenary nature of the membership. Our amateurs write purely for love of their art, without the stultifying influence of commercialism. Many ...
— Writings in the United Amateur, 1915-1922 • Howard Phillips Lovecraft
... perhaps he's crossed to Akimiski Island. The fleet have been mostly round that way this week past. Shall I show you round a bit, sir? I'm the acting manager, formerly sole manager." Oily Dave contrived to throw a withering emphasis on the latter adjective, and roiled up his eyes in a manner meant to imply injured innocence, which, however, only expressed ...
— A Countess from Canada - A Story of Life in the Backwoods • Bessie Marchant
... the Treasury on "Finance," the art critic of a Philadelphia paper on "Raphael," and as a fitting climax to the course we were to listen to the famous Armenian scholar and philosopher, the Reverend Valerian Harassan in a discourse on "Life." The adjective is not mine. I had never heard of the famous Armenian until Doctor Todd in chapel announced his coming, and made it clear that it was a special privilege to listen to the eloquent preacher, and that we ...
— David Malcolm • Nelson Lloyd
... the ill-favoured and uncouth, so he liked to make men feel that even in a disordered intellect all kindly virtues might find a home, and a happy one. M. Taine may call this "horrible" if he likes. I think myself it would be possible to find a better adjective. ...
— Life of Charles Dickens • Frank Marzials
... of obscure origin, but may have been an adjective meaning wild. Elk is derived from the same root as eland, and the history of the latter word is an interesting one. It meant a sufferer, and was applied by the Teutons to the elk of the Old World on account of the awkward gait and stiff movements of this ungainly animal. ...
— The Log of the Sun - A Chronicle of Nature's Year • William Beebe
... smooth stem, which rises from one to two feet high in the woods throughout a southerly and westerly range. As several other skullcaps have distinctly saw-edged leaves, this plant might have been given a more distinctive adjective, thinks one who did not have ...
— Wild Flowers, An Aid to Knowledge of Our Wild Flowers and - Their Insect Visitors - - Title: Nature's Garden • Neltje Blanchan
... 20. horribili. Here the adjective is made emphatic by being put before its noun; in 4, 14 the same effect is gained by putting ...
— Ritchie's Fabulae Faciles - A First Latin Reader • John Kirtland, ed.
... translated here, quite correctly, 'transgression,' and intensified by that strong adjective attached, 'a great transgression,' literally means rebellion, revolt, or some such idea; and expresses, as the ultimate issue of conscious transgression prolonged and perpetuated into habit, an entire casting off of allegiance to God. 'No man can serve two ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... thing I ever liked about Frances Andrews was that she got into bigger scrapes than I did and made my misdemeanors seem small in comparison. She was clever enough, I'll grant you that, but peculiar is a kind adjective to use in describing that girl. Why, Molly, she was the most unpopular girl at Wellington. Even her own class did not stand by her. She was crooked, as crooked ...
— Molly Brown's Orchard Home • Nell Speed
... was looking unusually well, and even those who had dubbed her "The Beautiful Yankee" added another superlative adjective. A spot of bright red burned in either cheek and she held her head very high. "How haughty she is!" Prescott heard some one say. Her height, her figure, her look lent colour ...
— Before the Dawn - A Story of the Fall of Richmond • Joseph Alexander Altsheler
... French adjective meant 'valiant.' At the present time the word is only used in the phrase preux chevalier. Preux as a noun is rare, but de Vigny has 'Charlemagne ...
— La Legende des Siecles • Victor Hugo
... out on the distant sacred mountain, Fujiyama, which is revered by all Japan. Sometimes the clouds rested lovingly on its crest, and sometimes almost veiled it, but twice we saw the entire snow-covered space and no adjective can describe the matchless glory of that view. Poets have sung of it, and legend has woven fantastic tales around it, which the natives ...
— Travels in the Far East • Ellen Mary Hayes Peck
... is said to be a corruption of Mondongue, the name of an African coast tribe who had the reputation of being cannibals. A Mondongue slave on the plantations was generally feared by his fellow-blacks of other tribes; and the name of the cannibal race became transformed into an adjective to denote anything formidable or terrible. A blow with a stick made of the wood described being greatly dreaded, the term was applied first to the stick, and afterward to ...
— Two Years in the French West Indies • Lafcadio Hearn
... from one another either in mineral or chemical composition. Thus the terms Trachytic porphyry, Trachytic tuff, etc., merely refer to the same rock under different conditions of mechanical aggregation or crystalline development which would be more correctly expressed by the use of the adjective, as porphyritic trachyte, etc., but as these terms are so commonly employed it is considered advisable to direct the student's ...
— The Student's Elements of Geology • Sir Charles Lyell
... have used the word, it occurs to me that "childlike" is an adjective the best applied to this man, in spite of his portliness, and his ...
— Ancient and Modern Physics • Thomas E. Willson
... was being reduced, but perhaps not with the same rapidity as at first when Mr Barelli was at the top of enthusiastic—if the adjective was applicable—vigor. Oftener and oftener and oftener he paused to sharpen his implement and I thought the cropped shocks were becoming smaller and smaller. As the movement of the scythe swept the guillotined grass backward, the trailing stolons entangled themselves with the uncut stand, ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore
... many Russian and Welsh words, for example 'tchelo' ([Russian]) is the Russian for forehead, 'tal' is Welsh for the same; 'iasnhy' (neuter 'iasnoe') is the Russian for clear or radiant, 'iesin' the Welsh, so that if it were grammatical in Russian to place the adjective after the noun as is the custom in Welsh, the Welsh compound 'Taliesin' (Radiant forehead) might be rendered in Russian by 'Tchel[o]iasnoe,' which would be wondrously like the Welsh name; unfortunately, however, Russian grammar would compel any one wishing to Russianise ...
— George Borrow and His Circle - Wherein May Be Found Many Hitherto Unpublished Letters Of - Borrow And His Friends • Clement King Shorter |
