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Interrogative   Listen
adjective
Interrogative  adj.  Denoting a question; expressed in the form of a question; as, an interrogative sentence; an interrogative pronoun.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Interrogative" Quotes from Famous Books



... book?" Her eyebrows went up, interrogative. "I expect, as you know the man, you think rather ...
— The Cardinal's Snuff-Box • Henry Harland

... interrogative tone of a man who was waiting to hear more. "I'm listening, though I may not ...
— The Fallen Leaves • Wilkie Collins

... cousin's mild, interrogative face peered out around the black panel of the covered wagon at Barney's poor house; her spectacles glittered at it in the sun. "I want to know!" said she, with the expression of strained, entertained amiability which she ...
— Pembroke - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman

... out of my stateroom with an interrogative "Mr. Jacobus?" I was met by a quiet "Yes," uttered with a gentle smile. The "yes" was rather perfunctory. He did not seem to make much of the fact that he was Mr. Jacobus. I took stock of a big, pale face, hair thin ...
— 'Twixt Land & Sea • Joseph Conrad

... neighbor. Palmerston watched the good woman's departure, and awaited her return, taunting himself remorselessly meanwhile for the curiosity which prompted him to place a decoy-chair near his tent door, and exulting shamefacedly at the success of his ruse when she sank into it with the interrogative glance with which fat people always commit ...
— The Wizard's Daughter and Other Stories • Margaret Collier Graham

... ground. be in question &c adj.; undergo examination. Adj. inquiry &c v.; inquisitive &c (curious) 455; requisitive^, requisitory^; catechetical^, inquisitorial, analytic; in search of, in quest of; on the lookout for, interrogative, zetetic^; all searching. undetermined, untried, undecided; in question, in dispute, in issue, in course of inquiry; under discussion, under consideration, under investigation &c n.; sub judice [Lat.], moot, proposed; doubtful &c (uncertain) 475. Adv. quaere? [Lat.], what?, why?, wherefore?, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget

... becomes causative, and the meaning is "to put into a coffin." It would puzzle grammarians to determine the precise grammatical function of any of the words in the following sentence, with the exception of [Ch] (an interrogative, by the way, which here happens to mean "why" but in other contexts is equivalent to "how," "which" or "what"): [Ch][Ch][Ch][Ch] "Affair why must ancient," or in more idiomatic English, "Why necessarily stick to the ways of the ancients in such ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 2 - "Chicago, University of" to "Chiton" • Various

... do not find any thing in the Scripture, out of which, directly or by consequence can be gathered, that Adam was taught the names of all Figures, Numbers, Measures, Colours, Sounds, Fancies, Relations; much less the names of Words and Speech, as Generall, Speciall, Affirmative, Negative, Interrogative, Optative, Infinitive, all which are usefull; and least of all, of Entity, Intentionality, Quiddity, and other significant words of ...
— Leviathan • Thomas Hobbes

... a grammatic process only to a limited extent—simply to assist in forming the interrogative and imperative modes. Its use here is almost rhetorical; in all other ...
— On the Evolution of Language • John Wesley Powell

... interrogative; wherefore with admirable address, he replied: "An Ottoman would see in me an Arab wholly unrelated to him, except as I am a Moslem. Let it pass, O Princess—he forgave me. The really great are always generous. When I took the ring, I ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 1 • Lew. Wallace

... will long remember that sultry afternoon in Funchal Roads. All hands were called on deck: what they thought of I do not know, but it was hardly Antarctica and the South Pole. Lieutenant Nilsen carried a big rolled-up chart; I could see that this chart was the object of many interrogative glances. ...
— The South Pole, Volumes 1 and 2 • Roald Amundsen

... him, leaving his body heavy, unalert. He seemed puzzled, awed; there were dark lines under his eyes, his cheeks were pale and his mouth had lost its tendency to smile, its lines were heavy; but, above all, his expression was interrogative. Finally, ...
— The Prelude to Adventure • Hugh Walpole

... of her. Something in the interrogative yet fearless beauty of her upward gaze checked the torrent of indignant eloquence under which he was labouring, and, presently, left him even mentally mute, ...
— The Gay Rebellion • Robert W. Chambers

... semi-circle, and at their verge was the driveway. The glow of the afternoon, the purity of the air, and the glancing metal on the rolling carriages made a gay picture for the artist. But he was not long at ease, though his eyes rested gratefully upon the green foliage. The interrogative note in the music betrayed inquietude, even ...
— Melomaniacs • James Huneker

... a trifle shrilly. The tone of that laugh pierced her hearer's armour of egoism. He stared at her in interrogative surprise—observing which she hastened to retreat ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet

... however, in our estimate of the superior advantages which children of both sexes enjoy in the present day, from the improved and extended views of the authors of school-books. She was warm in her praises of the Interrogative System of some recent authors; and I found she was no stranger to the merits of the Universal Preceptor, and of the elementary Grammars of Geography, ...
— A Morning's Walk from London to Kew • Richard Phillips

... the room, inspecting the furnishings and knickknacks. Finally, he turned, and, with an interrogative note in ...
— The Easiest Way - A Story of Metropolitan Life • Eugene Walter and Arthur Hornblow

... finished his meal, drew the embers of the fire together, disposed his limbs comfortably on the ground, lay back on his saddle, and prepared to enjoy a contemplative gaze at the cheering blaze and an interrogative ...
— The Settler and the Savage • R.M. Ballantyne

... his face broadened and made more good-humoured. Sam's face in b is made much more like the ideal Sam; that in a is grotesque. Perker's face and attitude are altered in b, where he is made more interrogative. Mr. Pickwick in b is much more placid and bland than in a, and he carries his hat more jauntily. Top-boots in b are introduced among those which Sam is cleaning. He, oddly, seems to be cleaning a white boot. A capital dog in b is sniffing ...
— Pickwickian Manners and Customs • Percy Fitzgerald

... her being there! And she could only helplessly blink at him. Was ever anything so stupid as to be caught in tears over nothing! For the next moment he had caught her. She knew by the change of his look, interrogative, amused, incredulous. He ...
— The Coast of Chance • Esther Chamberlain

... Finally, ye know sufficiently well that it cannot be of any consequence if YE just carry your point; ye know that hitherto no philosopher has carried his point, and that there might be a more laudable truthfulness in every little interrogative mark which you place after your special words and favourite doctrines (and occasionally after yourselves) than in all the solemn pantomime and trumping games before accusers and law-courts! Rather go out of the way! Flee into concealment! And have your masks and your ruses, that ye ...
— Beyond Good and Evil • Friedrich Nietzsche

... in his arguments on tariffs and cognate questions, the champion of the North, as Mr. Calhoun was of the South; and this opposition and antagonism gave great force to Webster's eloquence at this time. His sentences are short, interrogative, idiomatic. He is intensely in earnest. He grapples with sophistries and scatters them to the winds; both reason and passion ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XII • John Lord

... Wolfstein's eyes looked over-dressed—devoured Lady Holme, and her large, curving features were almost riotously interrogative. ...
— The Woman With The Fan • Robert Hichens

... slanting line (/). A reversed semicolon was used as a question mark. Wynkyn de Worde, Caxton's successor in the printing business in London, used five points in 1509. They were the period, the semicolon, the comma, the "interrogative," and the parenthesis. ...
— Punctuation - A Primer of Information about the Marks of Punctuation and - their Use Both Grammatically and Typographically • Frederick W. Hamilton

... eyed the Rector. "Yes?" he said in so marked an interrogative that Mr. Hudson stopped short and flushed. He had been talking ...
— The Marriage of Elinor • Margaret Oliphant

... Rig-veda, indulge in the most frivolous and ill-judged interpretations. When the ancient Rishi exclaims with a troubled heart, 'Who is the greatest of the gods? Who shall first be praised by our songs?'—the author of the Brahmana sees in the interrogative pronoun 'Who' some divine name, a place is allotted in the sacrificial invocations to a god 'Who,' and hymns addressed to him are called 'Whoish' hymns. To make such misunderstandings possible, we must assume a considerable ...
— Chips From A German Workshop - Volume I - Essays on the Science of Religion • Friedrich Max Mueller

... little forward from his position of obscurity to where the strong afternoon sunlight found its subdued way through the Holland blinds. The politely interrogative smile faded from her lips. She seemed to pass through a moment of terror, a moment during which her thoughts were numbed. She sank into the chair which her visitor gravely held out for her, and by degrees she ...
— The Box with Broken Seals • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... declined as adjectives—masc. ος, fem, η, neut. ο; often compounded, one or both parts being declined; but, with the exception of τις, (interrogative τίς, indefinite τὶς,) neut. τι, Gen. τινος, of the third declension, the article (definite only) and the demonstrative alone are very ...
— Greek in a Nutshell • James Strong

... but when serious affairs were on hand, sent out of the way. Was it not so, that he, as the child of the party, was dismissed to bathe while his elders fought out their deadly quarrel? I put it in the interrogative; but he himself smarted under the answer to it, and although he never formulated the thought, and made no plans, and could make none, I have no doubt but that his wounded self-esteem, seeking a salve, found it in the assurance that he would protect Manuela from ...
— The Spanish Jade • Maurice Hewlett

... bride herself crowns. It all falls strangely on the ears of one not a Nuremberger. "The master-singer?..." he falters. "Are you not one?" Eva asks incredulously, wistfully. And when in his effort to grasp the situation exactly he continues asking questions, she answers his interrogative: "The bride then chooses?..." with complete forgetfulness of every maidenly convention, by an ardent, honest "You, or no one!"—"Are you gone mad?" Magdalene grasps her arm, shocked and flustered. She has, and feels no shame. "Good Lene, help me to win him!"—"But ...
— The Wagnerian Romances • Gertrude Hall

... alien's name is appended that of the monarch whose subject he calls himself, but a republic is outside the experience of one constable, who leaves an interrogative blank after Cristofer Switcher, born at Swerick (Zuerich) in Switcherland. The surname so ingeniously created appears to have left no pedagogic descendants. In some cases the harassed Bumble has lost patience, and substituted a plain English name for ...
— The Romance of Names • Ernest Weekley

... manner the imperative mood; self, first person singular; mind, imperfect tense; eyes, positive; voice, in the superlative degree; nose, the interrogative point. ...
— The Boarding School • Unknown

... without heeding her question; but, face to face as they were, something had none the less passed between them. It was this that, after an instant, made her again interrogative. "What do ...
— The Wings of the Dove, Volume II • Henry James

... Jessie, replying to her sister's half-interrogative, half-amused glance with a frank, ...
— Devil's Ford • Bret Harte

... Messina, so the chasseur at the hotel tells me, is stopping there en suite," the stranger added, with an interrogative air of one who volunteers an interesting fact, and who asks if it is true at the ...
— The King's Jackal • Richard Harding Davis

... young men took their departure; after which Catherine, with her blush still lingering, directed a serious and interrogative eye to Mrs. Penniman. She was incapable of elaborate artifice, and she resorted to no jocular device—to no affectation of the belief that she had been ...
— Washington Square • Henry James

... he said, with a considering interrogative sound, 'I mind her well, and old Bunce too, that taught me ...
— The Herd Boy and His Hermit • Charlotte M. Yonge

... Mirabeau, "M. de Malouet has assured me that you understood and approved of the grounds for the explanation I desire to have with you." "Sir," replied M. Necker, "M. Malouet has told me that you had proposals to make to me; what are they?" Mirabeau, hurt at the cold, interrogative tone of the minister and the sense he attached to the word proposals, jumps up in a rage and says: "My proposal is to wish you good day." Then, running all the way and fuming all the while, Mirabeau arrives at ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume VI. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot

... and she sent me a little sad interrogative smile that asked me why I walked the decks thus savagely and alone? And I paid no attention to her or to her smile. In the very arrogance of isolation I continued to walk the decks. I meant her to see that I could be alone and ...
— The Belfry • May Sinclair

... you have it. For note you, all these interrogative categories must be met, faced, resolved and answered exactly—or you have no more knowledge of the matter than the Times has of economics or the King of the Belgians of thorough-Bass. Yea, if you miss, overlook, ...
— On Nothing & Kindred Subjects • Hilaire Belloc

... assumption of either, which prove that the Platonic as well as the Eleatic doctrine must be remodelled. The negation and contradiction which are involved in the conception of the One and Many are preliminary to their final adjustment. The Platonic Ideas are tested by the interrogative method of Socrates; the Eleatic One or Being is tried by the severer and perhaps impossible method of hypothetical consequences, negative and affirmative. In the latter we have an example of the Zenonian or Megarian dialectic, which proceeded, not 'by ...
— Parmenides • Plato

... five little grimy-faced boys on the bench before him, showing wide unblinking eyes turned up in coldly rational interrogative stares, with a figuratively bulging she-bear in the retina of each, and it was too much ...
— A Circuit Rider's Wife • Corra Harris

... lady-love," she mused. He nodded, but the slight interrogative emphasis caught him, and he looked up at her. ...
— The Yoke - A Romance of the Days when the Lord Redeemed the Children - of Israel from the Bondage of Egypt • Elizabeth Miller

... an interrogative sentence ends with a quotation which is itself interrogatory, the point of interrogation is ...
— "Stops" - Or How to Punctuate. A Practical Handbook for Writers and Students • Paul Allardyce

... not unlike Dorothea's, and calculated on that effect. She divined his start of astonishment on catching sight of her by the abrupt jerk of his head and the way in which he half threw up his hands. When he began coming forward, it was with a slow, interrogative movement, as though he were asking how she had come there, in disregard of their preconcerted signals. Some exclamation was already on his lips, when, by the light streaming from the windows of the hotel, he saw his mistake, ...
— The Inner Shrine • Basil King

... gracious inclination of the head, and an interrogative brightening of the eyes, "Mr. Marchdale ...
— The Cardinal's Snuff-Box • Henry Harland

... remember edging along the sunless side of the small mouldy houses and pausing very often to look at nothing in particular. It was all very hot, very hushed, very resignedly but very persistently old. A wheeled vehicle in such a place is an event, and the forestiero's interrogative tread in the blank sonorous lanes has the privilege of bringing the inhabitants to their doorways. Some of the better houses, however, achieve a sombre stillness that protests against the least curiosity as to what may happen in any such century as this. You wonder, ...
— Italian Hours • Henry James

... Miriam made interrogative signs, which Pelagia understood as asking her whether she was alone; and the moment that an answer in the negative was returned, Miriam rose, tossed over to her feet a letter weighted with a pebble, and then ...
— Hypatia - or, New Foes with an Old Face • Charles Kingsley

... him," the young man said finally. "The psycho-integrator isn't any standard interrogative technique; it's dangerous and treacherous. You never know for sure just what you're doing when you dig down into a man's brain tissue with those ...
— The Dark Door • Alan Edward Nourse

... is hardly to be over-estimated; his standards being the most definite in the world, the most easily and promptly appealed to, and the most identical with what happens to be the practice of the French genius itself. The Englishman is not-quite so well off, but he is better off than his poor interrogative and tentative cousin beyond the seas. He is blessed with a healthy mistrust of analysis, and hair-splitting is the occupation he most despises. There is always a little of the Dr. Johnson in him, and Dr. Johnson would have had woefully little patience with that tendency ...
— Hawthorne - (English Men of Letters Series) • Henry James, Junr.

... very subtle, and everyone might have noticed it. He wore an air of preoccupation that spoke to me of an uneasy mind. He was unhappy about something; some doubt, some secret dread oppressed him, and more than once I thought he wished to keep out of sight and avoid my searching interrogative eyes. ...
— The Passenger from Calais • Arthur Griffiths

... and not adjectives. Which and what, with their compounds, whichever or whichsoever, whatever or whatsoever, though sometimes put before nouns as adjectives, are, for the most part, relative or interrogative pronouns. When the noun is used after them, they are adjectives; when it is omitted, they are pronouns: as, "There is a witness of God, which witness gives true judgement."—I. Penington. Here the word witness might be omitted, and which would become a relative pronoun. Dr. Lowth says, ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown

... but the point with which I am now concerned is this—When in plain reason the question is seen to be irrational, why in intuitive sentiment should it not be felt to be so? The answer, I think, is, that the interrogative faculty being usually occupied with questions which admit of rational answers, we acquire a sort of intellectual habit of presupposing every wherefore to have a therefore, and thus, when eventually we arrive at the last of all possible wherefores, which itself supplies ...
— A Candid Examination of Theism • George John Romanes

... with happier tourists and, leaning on a rail, watched enviously the preparation, the agitation of foreign travel. It was for some minutes a foretaste of adventure; but, ah, when was he to have the very draught? He turned away as he dropped this interrogative sigh, and in doing so perceived that in another part of the pier two ladies and a little boy were gathered with something of the same wistfulness. The little boy indeed happened to look round for a moment, upon ...
— Sir Dominick Ferrand • Henry James

... to make me talk by well-concerted questions. Children are best approached through the interrogative mood. It offers just so many nails set in a sure place upon which to hang conversation. He was a handsome, well-set-up young fellow, and, if somewhat graver by nature and habit than most of Cousin Molly Belle's beaux, suited my taste best of them ...
— When Grandmamma Was New - The Story of a Virginia Childhood • Marion Harland

... his examination steadily. He did not say much, and he never was seen to laugh, but he kept a note-book, and he seemed to contemplate in his own mind, The Ideal American, and to try to live up to that standard. When he did speak, it was in the interrogative, and he pastured his intellect ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 104, January 14, 1893 • Various

... appearance, accompanying the lady of the house to church. Subsequently, as I came in one evening rather earlier than usual, the same person was leaning against the railings by the hall-door, smoking a cigar. He greeted me as I passed in, addressing me in an interrogative manner with one word, the only one ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... second capacity, I desired to make the acquaintance of the adjoining partie carree. He had bowed to them familiarly in passing, and when the old gentleman said, "Will you not join us, Herr ——?" I answered my friend's interrogative glance with a decided affirmative, and we ...
— Beauty and The Beast, and Tales From Home • Bayard Taylor

... said the captain, turning to expectorate on the pavement, after the manner of far-sighted sailors who are about to find themselves on carpet. The man made a slight grimace, and craned forwards with an interrogative ear held ready ...
— The Vultures • Henry Seton Merriman

... homage he received. His figure was strong and muscular, his complexion dull, and almost swarthy. His lips were full, and his aspect rather coarse than sensual. His brows were high, and unusually arched; but his eyes were downcast, and seldom raised towards the speaker. In speech he was brief and interrogative, but impatient under ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby

... at their height and Hugh still on the interrogative line when there came from behind the curtain a voice skilfully thrown to reach ...
— Gideon's Band - A Tale of the Mississippi • George W. Cable

... whose feet he sits, and is silent. More and more Plato seems to have felt in his later writings that the character and method of Socrates were no longer suited to be the vehicle of his own philosophy. He is no longer interrogative but dogmatic; not 'a hesitating enquirer,' but one who speaks with the authority of a legislator. Even in the Republic we have seen that the argument which is carried on by Socrates in the old style with Thrasymachus ...
— Laws • Plato

... form of interrogative in the third person. It is, of course, entirely due to the ...
— Frederic Mistral - Poet and Leader in Provence • Charles Alfred Downer

... silent. She moved away from the window and stood by the fireplace. Fielding crossed to her. 'Drake gave me one other piece of advice,' he said hesitatingly,—'not about business. It concerned me and just one other person.' He pitched the remark in an interrogative key. ...
— The Philanderers • A.E.W. Mason

... with Antecedents Person Gender Rules Governing Gender Number Compound Antecedents Relative Interrogative Case Forms Rules Governing Use of Cases Compound Personal Compound Relative Adjective ...
— Practical Grammar and Composition • Thomas Wood

... would run his glance speculatively over the assortment and select that individual who promised to be the most companionable. He was a philosopher. Usually his charges bored him with their interrogative chatter, for he knew that his information more often than not went into one ear and out of the other. To-day he selected the girl, and gave her the lead-chair. He motioned the young man to the rear chair, because at that hour the youth appeared ...
— The Ragged Edge • Harold MacGrath

... frequenters of Sancho's place, but they were silent, observant and unusually abstemious. To say that Nevins had astonished everybody by an exhibition of feeling and an access of conscience would be putting it mildly. But the fact was indisputable. He himself, after adjournment, exhibited to the interrogative major two long letters, recently received from San Francisco, in graceful feminine hand, and signed "Your sad but devoted wife, Naomi." One of these referred to Lieutenant Loring, "whom Geraldine met at West Point and saw frequently the summer and ...
— A Wounded Name • Charles King

... shirt, trimmed with blue, and ornamented with a wide and flapping collar. His black stockings covered frisky legs, and his mind at present was mainly occupied with surmises as to the curate's little boys, with whom Mrs. Windsor had promised that he should play. He was a sharp child, interrogative in mind, and extremely loquacious. Mrs. Windsor found him rather trying. But then she was not accustomed to children, possessing, as she often boasted, ...
— The Green Carnation • Robert Smythe Hichens

... Australian mutton for Scotch beef; on the face of it an extraordinary allegation, although it had to find its way for the interpretation of a jury as to its meaning. Amidst this costly international wrangle the Judge kept his temper, occasionally cheering the combatants by saying in an interrogative tone, "Yes?" and in the meanwhile writing the following on a slip of paper which he handed to ...
— The Reminiscences Of Sir Henry Hawkins (Baron Brampton) • Henry Hawkins Brampton

... silence. As we streamed out of the laboratory, aglow with his electric fire, Sebastian held me back with a bent motion of his shrivelled forefinger. I stayed behind unwillingly. "Yes, sir?" I said, in an interrogative voice. ...
— Hilda Wade - A Woman With Tenacity Of Purpose • Grant Allen

... another element, they actually could not see or fairly sense anything outside. He looked from them to the two older women of the same race with their children, and again his pessimistic attitude, evolved from his own misery, set his mind in a bitterly interrogative attitude. He looked at the bride and the mistakenly happy mother caressing the evil-looking child, and a sickening disgust of the ...
— The Debtor - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman

... regaling ourselves, the old signalman came into the piazza, and with several most remarkable obeisances, gave us to know that there were flags hoisted on the signalmast, at the mountain settlement, of which he could make nothing, the uppermost was neither the interrogative, the affirmative, nor the negative, nor in fact any thing that with the book ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott

... How does the interrogative form of the sentence give it vividness? Contrast the effect of saying, "Who would willingly linger on the hideous details?" with "No one would willingly linger", etc. The author does not expect an ...
— Ontario Teachers' Manuals: Literature • Ontario Ministry of Education

... interrogative form of the parable. The question is the sharp point which gives penetrating power, and suggests Christ's high estimate of the worth and difficulty of such conduct, and sets us to ask for ourselves, 'Lord, is it I?' The servant is 'faithful' inasmuch as he does his ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Matthew Chaps. IX to XXVIII • Alexander Maclaren

... minutes he had quietly turned the conversation, and repressed, as much as it was in man's power to do, Mrs. Bunting's interrogative propensities. ...
— Cedar Creek - From the Shanty to the Settlement • Elizabeth Hely Walshe

... else survives with the vividness of my summers in the Adirondacks with Emerson. The last sight I had of him was when, on his voyage to Egypt, he came to see me at my home in London, aged and showing the decay of age, but as alert and interrogative as ever with his insatiate intellectual activity. And as I look back from the distance of years to the days when we questioned together, he rises above all his contemporaries as Mont Blanc does above the intervening peaks when seen from afar, not the largest in mass, but loftiest in ...
— The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume I • Stillman, William James

... ejaculation was interrogative, Hunterleys hesitated for a moment. Then he continued with a ...
— Mr. Grex of Monte Carlo • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... religion; another was woman. His punctuality at church at the head of Rosemont's cadets was so obviously perfunctory as to be without a stain of hypocrisy. Yet he never vaunted his scepticism, but only let it exhale from him in interrogative insinuations that the premises and maxims of religion were refuted by the outcome of the war. To woman his heart was as hard, cold, and polished as celluloid. Only when pressed did he admit that he regarded her as an insipid necessity. ...
— John March, Southerner • George W. Cable

... changed accentuation turning the former words into the well-remembered name of my landing-place, with the interrogative syllable annexed. ...
— Across the Zodiac • Percy Greg

... the half darkened library, sitting with his back turned to the light, and his eyes fixed with a curious stare into vacancy, when the door opened, and Rochester entered unannounced. Saton rose at once to his feet, but the interrogative words died away upon his lips. Rochester's fair, sunburnt face was grim with angry purpose. He had the air of a man stirred to the very depths. He came only a little way into the room, and he took up his position with ...
— The Moving Finger • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... rightly focused. This was a matter somewhat difficult of achievement, as its owner had to his mind a heedless habit of dodging, and his remarks, instead of being didactic and improving in their nature, were necessarily exclamatory and interrogative, in order to gain the attention of his fair vis-a-vis. Being a young gentleman of literary tastes he thought of Addison's dissertation upon the fan, and its great adaptability to the purposes of the coquette. To the mind of this impartial critic, ...
— An Algonquin Maiden - A Romance of the Early Days of Upper Canada • G. Mercer Adam

... nobody else here." It was Amy who gave the answer, though her statement ended in an interrogative upward note as if ...
— Peggy Raymond's Vacation - or Friendly Terrace Transplanted • Harriet L. (Harriet Lummis) Smith

... concurrence of ten members should be required even to put a public question. The leader of the Opposition, in himself a host, would not be encumbered with such a formality, but everyone else would have to procure ten signatures to an interrogative: the question would be sent in, and answered; while question and answer would simply appear in the printed proceedings of the House, and not occupy a single moment of the legislative time. This is a provision that would stand to be argued on its own merits, everything else remaining ...
— Practical Essays • Alexander Bain

... uttered the single word in an ejaculatory and interrogative tone, as only a certain number of old-fashioned Americans can. Spoken in that peculiar way it can mean a good deal, for it can convey suspicion, or approval or disapproval and any degree of acquaintance ...
— Fair Margaret - A Portrait • Francis Marion Crawford

... leave them with me, I should be so happy,' at length gasped Honora, meeting an inquiring dart from the captain's eyes, as he only made an interrogative sound as though to give himself time to think, and she proceeded it broken sentences—'If their uncle and aunt did not so very much ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge

... for the most part, words used instead of nouns. They may be arranged under the following divisions: Personal, Possessive, Relative, Demonstrative, Interrogative, Indefinite, Compound. ...
— Elements of Gaelic Grammar • Alexander Stewart

... Bonaventure and Sidonie go, they went, Claude and Marguerite, away from all windings of disappointment, all shadows of doubt, all shoals of misapprehension, out upon the open sea of mutual love. Not that the great word of words—affirmative or interrogative—was spoken then or there. They came no nearer to it ...
— Bonaventure - A Prose Pastoral of Acadian Louisiana • George Washington Cable

... may be of an exclamatory nature, and then the sentence is said to be an exclamatory sentence: [How happy all the children are! (exclamatory declarative). "Who so base as be a slave?" (exclamatory interrogative). "Heap high the farmer's ...
— Composition-Rhetoric • Stratton D. Brooks

... these reassuring conditions that, some ten days after her arrival at Hillbridge, Miss Day was introduced to the master's studio. She found him a tall listless-looking man, who appeared middle-aged to her youth, and who stood before his own pictures with a vaguely interrogative gaze, leaving the task of their interpretation to the lady who had courageously contrived the visit. The studio, to Claudia's surprise, was bare and shabby. It formed a rambling addition to the small cheerless ...
— Crucial Instances • Edith Wharton

... returned abruptly into the parlor. I remained for some time uncertain as to what course to pursue. I thought first of following Madame de Palme and explaining to her that she was mistaken—which was true—as to the interrogative answer which had offended her. She had applied that answer to some thought that pervaded her mind, which I did not understand, or at least which her words had revealed to me much less clearly than she had imagined; but after thinking over it, I shrank from the new and formidable ...
— Led Astray and The Sphinx - Two Novellas In One Volume • Octave Feuillet

... Cahors wine he was emptying near the window-ledge. The first movement of him to whom this proposal was made was negative; nevertheless, after a second's reflection, the elder of the two travellers, as if he had reconsidered his first decision, made an interrogative sign to his companion, who replied with a look which signified, "You know that I am at ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas

... monkeys, Nigel went forward to fondle him, and Spinkie being equally fond of fondling, resigned himself placidly—after one interrogative gaze of wide-eyed suspicion—into the stranger's hands. A lifelong friendship was cemented then ...
— Blown to Bits - The Lonely Man of Rakata, the Malay Archipelago • R.M. Ballantyne

... quick to avail themselves of even its scant shelter from the overpowering sun. They had not proceeded far, before Johnson, who was walking quite rapidly in advance, suddenly brought himself up, and turned to his companion with an interrogative "Eh?" ...
— Mrs. Skaggs's Husbands and Other Stories • Bret Harte

... although the equivalent of affirmative or negative statements, nevertheless retain enough of their interrogative effect to be used advantageously for ...
— How To Write Special Feature Articles • Willard Grosvenor Bleyer

... sunt gerenda praescribo et quo modo. — FOEDUS: this seems opposed to pacem as a formal engagement is to a mere abstention from hostilities. — NON DUBITAVIT DICERE: when dubitare means 'to hesitate' (about a course of action), and the sentence is negative, or an interrogative sentence assuming a negative answer, the infinitive construction generally follows, as here; but the infinitive is rare in a positive sentence. When dubitare means to 'be in doubt' (as to whether certain statements ...
— Cato Maior de Senectute • Marcus Tullius Cicero

... tecouli[na]. Badki (lit. after thee) is here used in the modern sense of "still" or "yet." The interrogative prefix A appears to have dropped out, as is not uncommon in manuscripts of this kind. Burton, "After thou assuredst me, ...
— Alaeddin and the Enchanted Lamp • John Payne

... indulgent, condescending attention, or with a broad grin of mingled incredulity and admiration; expressing the latter sentiment by such exclamations as "I yi!" "Oho!" "U-gooh!" "Hoo-weep!" [with a whistle]; the former sentiment by such interrogative phrases as, "See here now!" "Ain't you lettin' on?" "Ain't de little man gwine leetle too fur jes' dar?" "Hadn't my little man better rein up his horses now?"—just by way of keeping his juvenile imitator in ...
— Burl • Morrison Heady

... used as correlatives: this one... that one. Cual... cual are used in the same way. They then bear the accent— which otherwise is used only when quien and cual are interrogative or exclamatory. ...
— Novelas Cortas • Pedro Antonio de Alarcon

... you what you Now, Sir? (and an have had to eat, Sir? interrogative look.) St'k, Sir? Yezzir! shill'n, Sir! 'taters, Sir? I have had a beef-steak, with boiled Yezzir! twop'nce, that's one-and-three, and potatoes; I have also had a fried sole, bread a penny, one-and-three and some bread, and two is one-and-five, with Cheshire cheese, and sole, you said, Sir? Yezzir! ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 2, No. 12, May, 1851. • Various

... moved inland, working his interrogative way along the Big Ditch to Panama. He even slipped back over the line to San Cristobel and Ancon, found nothing of moment awaiting him there, and drifted back into Panamanian territory. It was not until the end of the week that the first glimmer of ...
— Never-Fail Blake • Arthur Stringer

... The interrogative "see?" that Murphy used to punctuate his sentences was invariably accompanied with a gesture of his hand that resembled a baseball umpire's gesture in calling a runner safe at a base more than ...
— Spring Street - A Story of Los Angeles • James H. Richardson

... though so casual in its form, fairly drew from Lady Sandgate, as she took it in, an interrogative wail. "Her Longhi?" ...
— The Outcry • Henry James

... believed that he was no great talker. His eyes were more eager than was his tongue, and seemed to betoken a vivacity of spirit which he could not, perhaps, show forth in words. The conversation at first was mainly between Hermione and Artois, with an occasional word from Delarey—generally interrogative—and was confined to generalities. But this could not continue long. Hermione was an enthusiastic talker and seldom discussed banalities. From every circle where she found herself the inane was speedily banished; pale topics—the spectres ...
— The Call of the Blood • Robert Smythe Hichens

... answer. Neither were they to be illumined by Holy Writ, for he had offered that loophole of exit, and Caddie had shaken her head at him disconsolately, and implied that the prophets would not do. But when she had seemed to forget that interrogative attitude toward life, he had settled down to unquestioning content in knowing he had the best housekeeper in the neighborhood. Now here it was again, the spectre of her ...
— Country Neighbors • Alice Brown

... to feel quite grieved at this intelligence," I answered consciously, "but, dear me," with an artificial sigh, "I cannot bring myself to study people's opinions; that is probably one feature of my eccentricity?" I added in an interrogative tone, looking aimlessly ...
— The Doctor's Daughter • "Vera"

... Miao (or Black Miao, so called from their dark chocolate-coloured clothes) treasure poetical legends of the Creation and of a deluge. These are composed in lines of five syllables, in stanzas of unequal length, one interrogative and one responsive. They are sung or recited by two persons or two groups at feasts and festivals, often by a group of youths and a group of maidens. The ...
— Myths and Legends of China • E. T. C. Werner

... unrecognizable; she was unrecognizable at the moment he entered because on that face whose eyes had always shone with a suppressed smile of the joy of life, now when he first entered and glanced at her there was not the least shadow of a smile: only her eyes were kindly attentive and sadly interrogative. ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy

... wide open. Even in respect to the principles of liberty and justice, which were the animating life of the bill, Fox's terse sentences contrast strangely with the somewhat more lumbering and elaborate paragraphs of Burke. "What," he exclaims, putting his argument in his favorite interrogative form,—"what is the most odious species of tyranny? Precisely that which this bill is meant to annihilate. That a handful of men, free themselves, should exercise the most base and abominable despotism over millions of their fellow-creatures; that innocence should be the victim of oppression; ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster

... she had been reading, to welcome her son, startled at seeing him followed by a tall, fair girl in a black mantle and hood, and a little slip of a thing, with bright dark eyes and small determined face, pert, pointed, interrogative, framed in swansdown—a small aerial figure in a white cloth cloak, and a scarlet brocade frock, under which two little red shoes ...
— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon

... by Socrates in this particular instance, may be regarded as implying a reflection upon the Socratic mode of reasoning. And here, as elsewhere, Plato seems to intimate that the time had come when the negative and interrogative method of Socrates must be superseded by a positive and constructive one, of which examples are given in some of the later dialogues. Adeimantus further argues that the ideal is wholly at variance with facts; for experience proves philosophers to be either useless or rogues. Contrary ...
— The Republic • Plato

... not forgotten one. I recalled Mr. Dalton's steady look, even Miss Nibbs' funny little personality rode upon the embers, and brought a faint smile to my pensive countenance. I teazed myself with interrogative conjectures of every kind, now leaning towards one, and now towards another. Somehow the vagaries of our hope or of our fancy, like ourselves, look their best by gas-light, and show a very disappointing ...
— The Doctor's Daughter • "Vera"

... her knees, laid a paw upon her lap and whined an interrogative sympathy. The three American ladies gathered near and gazed in silence upon the great woman, and Beatrice, carefully adjusting her camera, again took a snap. The picture of Madame von Marwitz, with her hand before her eyes, her anxious dog at her ...
— Tante • Anne Douglas Sedgwick

... proud moment for me when, in response to my interrogative "Yes?" my companion said "That is all" and closed the book. We had extracted the pith and marrow of six considerable volumes in ...
— The Vanishing Man • R. Austin Freeman

... glance at Annie Day. Annie raised her eyebrows, looked interrogative, then her face subsided into a satisfied expression. She asked no further questions, but she gave Rosalind an affectionate ...
— A Sweet Girl Graduate • Mrs. L.T. Meade

... "like" at the end of an interrogative sentence, in the Five Towns, is a subject upon which a book ought to be written; but not this history. The essential point to observe is that Helen got up from the bench ...
— Helen with the High Hand (2nd ed.) • Arnold Bennett



Words linked to "Interrogative" :   declarative, interrogate, grammar, declaratory, mode, interrogation, interrogative mood, sentence, mood, question, interrogatory, cross-question, modality, leading question



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