"Equivoke" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... why dost thou use expressions which will not be understood? If thou dost, thou takest pleasure in abusing us: if thou dost not, be informed of us, and learn to speak more clearly. I tell thee, that if thou intendest an equivoque, the Greek word whereby thou affirmest that Croesus should overthrow a great empire, was ill-chosen; and that it could signify nothing but Croesus conquering Cyrus. If things must necessarily come to pass, why dost thou amuse us with thy ambiguities? What dost thou, wretch as thou art, at Delphi, ...
— Thaumaturgia • An Oxonian
... reflected that the jailer, who had taken the advantage of the equivoque betwixt the two Sir Geoffreys, must have acted as his assistant had hinted, and cheated him from malice prepense, since the warrant of committal described him as the son of Sir Geoffrey Peveril. It was therefore ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... found him a good workman. Equivoque erotique, apparently founded on the to-and-fro movement of ...
— Tales from the Arabic Volumes 1-3 • John Payne
... said the captain, "it is not easy to argue with Paddy; the rascals are so ready with quip, and equivoque, and queer answers, that they generally get the best of it in talk, however fallacious may be their argument; and when you think you have Pat in a corner and escape is inevitable, he's off without your knowing how he ...
— Handy Andy, Volume One - A Tale of Irish Life, in Two Volumes • Samuel Lover
... features; is never at a loss—aliquando sufflaminandus erat—has continual sportive sallies of wit or fancy; tells a story capitally; mimics an actor, or an acquaintance to admiration; laughs with great glee and good-humour at his own or other people's jokes; understands the point of an equivoque, or an observation immediately; has a taste and knowledge of books, of music, of medals; manages an argument adroitly; is genteel and gallant, and has a set of bye-phrases and quaint allusions always at hand to produce a laugh:—if he has a fault, it is that he does not listen so well as ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... prevailed among his flock, that attachment to their own communion which the Roman Catholics are never ashamed to avow, even though it may subject them to the charge of bigotry. One of the first questions put to us was, whether we were Catholics? and on our taking advantage of the equivoque, and replying in the affirmative, the tongues of the whole family seemed to be loosed. They had no predilection for the creed, or the worship, or the persons of their evangelical neighbours. How different, in this respect, has been the bearing of all among the Protestant population ...
— Germany, Bohemia, and Hungary, Visited in 1837. Vol. II • G. R. Gleig
... more natural, for fear the piece should run till Christmas). The Duchess overhears the entire plot, but fails in frustrating it. Hence we find Henrico, Felicia, and the Queen together, going through a well-contrived and charmingly-conducted scene of equivoque—the Queen questioning Henrico touching the state of his heart, and he answering her in reference to Felicia, who is leaning over the embroidery frame behind the Queen, and out of ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, October 30, 1841 • Various
... machinations being dismissed from our thoughts, and the rest of the dramatis personae assembled together at Belmont, all our interest and all our attention are riveted on Portia, and the conclusion leaves the most delightful impression on the fancy. The playful equivoque of the rings, the sportive trick she puts on her husband, and her thorough enjoyment of the jest, which she checks just as it is proceeding beyond the bounds of propriety, show how little she was displeased by the sacrifice of her gift, and are all consistent with her bright and buoyant ...
— Characteristics of Women - Moral, Poetical, and Historical • Anna Jameson
... the monkey who had seen the world, "full of wise saws," and strange assertions. His hairbreadth escapes, the unlucky scrapes he gets into, the blunders he is incessantly committing from his imperfect knowledge of the languages of the various nations among whom he is thrown, the continual equivoque and play upon words, his absurd misconceptions of the orders he receives, his buffetings, bastinadoes, feasts, imprisonments, and escapes, the odd satirical remarks elicited by the different objects, places, and strange fashions he encounters,—all ...
— Journal of a Visit to Constantinople and Some of the Greek Islands in the Spring and Summer of 1833 • John Auldjo
... double sense] Equivocalness.— N. equivocalness &c adj.; double meaning &c. 516; ambiguity, double entente, double entendre[Fr], pun, paragram[obs3], calembour[obs3], quibble, equivoque[Fr], anagram; conundrum &c (riddle) 533; play on words, word play &c. (wit) 842; homonym, homonymy[Gram]; amphiboly[obs3], amphibology[obs3]; ambilogy[obs3], ambiloquy|. Sphinx, Delphic oracle. equivocation &c. (duplicity) 544; white ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... instrument. He became astonishingly subtle, dealt in images like a modern poet, had the same art of meaning more than he said to those who had the misfortune to understand him. He never declared what he knew, though she could not but guess it; did not betray her to the others; seemed to enjoy the equivoque, content to wait. So he kept her on tenterhooks; she felt a cheat, and what is worse, a detected cheat. This filled her deep with shame. It made her more coy and more a prude than she had ever need to be had she gone among them kirtled and ...
— The Forest Lovers • Maurice Hewlett
... answered Harley, with a compassion for Randal that was almost over-generous, and yet with an equivoque on the words, despite the compassion,—"I think whoever has served Audley Egerton never yet has been a loser by it; and if Mr. Leslie wrote this pamphlet, he must have well served Audley Egerton. If he ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton |
