"Vocabulary" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Arabic (widely spoken in Zanzibar), many local languages note: Kiswahili (Swahili) is the mother tongue of the Bantu people living in Zanzibar and nearby coastal Tanzania; although Kiswahili is Bantu in structure and origin, its vocabulary draws on a variety of sources including Arabic and English; it has become the lingua franca of central and eastern Africa; the first language of most people is one of the ...
— The 2008 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... was, however, very brief. Before many weeks had passed there was no vituperative epithet that Leicester was not in the daily habit of bestowing upon Paul. The Earl's vocabulary of abuse was not a limited one, but he exhausted it on the head of the Advocate. He lacked at last words and breath to utter what was like him. He pronounced his former friend "a very dangerous man, ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... grandmother, nee Vaughan, took charge of the establishment, and I soon became the terror of the house, developing a most violent temper and acquiring the vocabulary of the roughest market porter. My wilfulness was probably innate (nearly all the Vizetellys having had impulsive wills of their own), and my flowery language was picked up by perversely loitering to listen whenever there happened to be a street row in Church Lane, ...
— My Days of Adventure - The Fall of France, 1870-71 • Ernest Alfred Vizetelly
... fetching water for them from the river or wells in the neighbourhood, paying him for his trouble in victuals, or whisky, of which he was very fond. He seldom spoke; and the sentences he could utter were few; yet the tone, and even the words of his limited vocabulary, were sufficient to express gratitude and some measure of love towards those who were kind to him, and hatred of those who teased and insulted him. He lived a life without aim, and apparently to no purpose; in this resembling ...
— The Portent & Other Stories • George MacDonald
... wrote so miserably and slowly, that this consumed a great portion of valuable time. Observing that they were ignorant of the signification of a great number of French words, of constant use and recurrence, I made a selection from the vocabulary, and I set them to write down in little copy-books,[14] words which were in most frequent use; but the explanations contained in the dictionary were not enough, and I was obliged to rack my brain for new and brief definitions which they could understand, and to make them transcribe ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, - Issue 566, September 15, 1832 • Various
... stop here to explain more fully what is the spiritual soul. I should call it, using a term that seems to me more natural to our vocabulary, the transcendental sense. In the reality of such a sense I am a firm believer. It was once fashionable to ridicule whatever was thought, or nicknamed, transcendental. Yet transcendentalism seems to me the only complete bar to modern scepticism. Faith, in the highest Christian sense, ...
— Bay State Monthly, Vol. I, No. 3, March, 1884 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various
... yet another caveat. I did not, of course, as a child, use or even know of the vocabulary of the metaphysicians. I did, however, entertain thoughts which I could not then express, but which the words given above most nearly represent. There is one exception. In talking about "a naked soul" I am not interpreting ...
— The Adventure of Living • John St. Loe Strachey
... in his belief; it had not only liberated him from the bonds of the Calvinistic theology in which his youth was trammelled, but it had secured him against the conscious ethicism of the prevailing Unitarian doctrine which supremely worshipped Conduct; and it had colored his vocabulary to such strange effects that he spoke of moral men with abhorrence; as more hopelessly lost than sinners. Any one whose sphere tempted him to recognition of the foibles of others, he called the Devil; but in spite of his ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... awareness, as though in dream, of his efforts. Some capacity of thinking has to unfold before the first glimmer of true self-consciousness is kindled. (Note that the word 'I' is the only one that is not added to the child's vocabulary by way of imitation. Otherwise he would, as some mentally inhibited children do, call all other people ...
— Man or Matter • Ernst Lehrs
... indicating the distinction to be kept in view. In the tongues of existing inferior races, only concrete objects and acts are expressible. The Australians have a name for each kind of tree, but no name for tree irrespective of kind. And though some witnesses allege that their vocabulary is not absolutely destitute of generic names, its extreme poverty in such is unquestionable. Similarly with the Tasmanians. Dr. Milligan says they "had acquired very limited powers of abstraction or generalization. ...
— Essays: Scientific, Political, & Speculative, Vol. I • Herbert Spencer
... you like, you know. There is no need to do it a second time.' And when you have done it, he changes his note, and says, 'Ah! you are in, and you cannot get out. You have done it once; and in my vocabulary once means twice, and ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... as the limited space of the cabin would allow, stood with his shoulders against the mouldy logs of the wall, his eyes like peep-holes to a volcano, gulping and gurgling, while he swallowed back a fire of amazed excitement and defeated anger, for which his backwoods vocabulary was too cheap. ...
— Camp and Trail - A Story of the Maine Woods • Isabel Hornibrook
... thing indeed for Mrs. Dennistoun's guest—who, indeed, was to all intents and purposes the master of the house, and had probably quite forgotten by this time that he was not in reality so—to pay a visit "down-stairs." "Down-stairs" had a distinct meaning in the Compton vocabulary. It was spoken of with significance, and with a laugh, as something half hostile, half ridiculous. It meant a sort of absurd criticism and inspection, as of some old crone sitting vigilant, spying upon everything—a mother-in-law. ...
— The Marriage of Elinor • Margaret Oliphant
... Tahiti had been on parade, kings and queens of the island had pleaded and submitted, admirals and ensigns had whispered love to dusky vahines, and the petty wars of Oceanic had been planned between waltzes and wines. Here Loti put his arms about his first Tahitian sweetheart, and practised that vocabulary of love he used so well in "Rarahu," "Madame Chrysantheme," and his other studies of the exotic woman. A hundred noted men, soldiers, and sailors, scientists and dilettanti, governors and writers, had walked or ...
— Mystic Isles of the South Seas. • Frederick O'Brien
... do something reasonable, or when you have a duty to perform, always think that it is easy, and make the words difficult, impossible, I cannot, it is stronger than I, I cannot prevent myself from. . . , disappear from your vocabulary; they are not English. What is English is: "It is easy and I can ". By considering the thing easy it becomes so for you, although it might seem difficult to others. You will do it quickly and well, and without fatigue, because you ...
— Self Mastery Through Conscious Autosuggestion • Emile Coue
... 'Cheer up then,' says he, 'my dear Nessy; cherish your hope, and I will exercise my patience.' Indeed so perfectly calm was this young man under his dreadful calamity, that in a very few days after condemnation his brother says, 'While I write this, Peter is sitting by me making an Otaheitan vocabulary, and so happy and intent upon it, that I have scarcely an opportunity of saying a word to him; he is in excellent spirits, and I am convinced they are better and better ...
— The Eventful History Of The Mutiny And Piratical Seizure - Of H.M.S. Bounty: Its Cause And Consequences • Sir John Barrow
... collection of linguistic material among the Catawba Indians of South Carolina, and was struck with the resemblance of many of the vocables to Siouan terms of like meaning, and began the preparation of a comparative Catawba-Dakota vocabulary. To this the Tutelo, cegiha, {LATIN SMALL LETTER TURNED T}{LATIN SMALL LETTER OPEN O}iwere, and Hotcangara (Winnebago) were added by Dorsey, who made a critical examination of all Catawba material extant and compared it with several Dakota dialects, with which he was specially ...
— The Siouan Indians • W. J. McGee
... over. Like Peter the Great, of Russia, whose word had set in motion the exploration of the northwest coast of America, Cook's character consisted of elements that invariably lead to glory or ruin; often, both. The word "impossible" was not in his vocabulary. He simply did not recognize any limitations to what a man might do, could do, would do, if he tried; and that means, that under stress of risk or temptation, or opposition, a man's caution goes to the winds. With Cook, it was risk that caused ruin. With the Czar ...
— Vikings of the Pacific - The Adventures of the Explorers who Came from the West, Eastward • Agnes C. Laut
... childishly feminine. Both mother and stepdaughter spoke a musical infantine English, which the daughter supplemented with her eyes, her eyebrows, her little brown fingers, her plump shoulders, a dozen charming intonations of voice, and a complete vocabulary in her active ...
— The Bell-Ringer of Angel's and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... backs and smoke Canteen-plug and swear at the punkah-coolies. They enjoyed a fine, full flesh meal in the middle of the day, and then threw themselves down on their cots and sweated and slept till it was cool enough to go out with their "towny," whose vocabulary contained less than six hundred words, and the Adjective, and whose views on every conceivable question they had ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... of Medical Jurisprudence at Dartmouth and various other colleges and medical schools, was another erudite scholar, who made a permanent impression on all he met. While yet at college, his words were so unusual and his vocabulary so full that a wag once advertised on the bulletin board on the door of Dartmouth Hall, "Five hundred new adjectives by ...
— Memories and Anecdotes • Kate Sanborn
... were what they were known as—and while we were stopped taking stock I happened to catch sight of a good-sized bedding-roll behind. "Some one's out of luck," said I to the driver; "whose roll is it?" "The corps commander's, sir," was his reply. After exhausting my limited vocabulary, I realized that it was far too late to stop another motor and send this one back, so I just kept going. Across the bed of one more ravine, the sand up to the hubs, and we were in the Daur camp. I managed to rank some ...
— War in the Garden of Eden • Kermit Roosevelt
... sofa, and sipping her chocolate, had heard nothing but the low word business, for which she had a mortal aversion, insomuch that she had long banished it from her vocabulary, and had gone nigh, in a charming manner and with an immense amount of heart, to say nothing of soul, to ruin divers milliners and others in consequence. Therefore Mrs Skewton asked no questions, and showed no curiosity. Indeed, the ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... hand, that we could not refrain from attempting to imitate it in our English version; for we considered that it is impossible to say how much of the peculiar character of a poet's writings depends upon the colouring, or rather the touch—if we may borrow a phrase from the vocabulary of the critic in painting—of the metre. Undoubtedly a poet is the best judge not only of the kind, but of the degree of the effect which he wishes to produce upon his reader; and there may be, between the thoughts which he desires ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol 58, No. 357, July 1845 • Various
... teachers, the greater part of whose time was passed in discussions over their pipes, the smoke from which soon became so thick that they could neither see nor hear. They talked loudly, contradicted each other with vehemence in a vocabulary of their own, where art, science, and literature were picked into fragments as precious stuffs might be under the application ...
— Jack - 1877 • Alphonse Daudet
... value, had been inaccessible to all but students of the difficult and faded MS. in the British Museum: they have been now made public by the Society's edition, with their large additions to our vocabulary, and their interesting dialectal formations. The Sir Gawayne, from the same MS., could only have been had before in Sir Frederick Madden's rare and costly edition, printed by the Bannatyne Club. And the Lauder has restored, as it were, to Scotland, a Poet whose name had found no place in the ...
— Of the Orthographie and Congruitie of the Britan Tongue - A Treates, noe shorter than necessarie, for the Schooles • Alexander Hume
... how the fishermen of The Labrador catch cod. It may be worth while also to explain that when the Labradorman or Newfoundlander speaks of "fish" he means cod in his vocabulary. A trout is a trout, a salmon is a salmon and a caplin is a caplin, but a cod is a fish. He never thinks of anything as fish ...
— The Story of Grenfell of the Labrador - A Boy's Life of Wilfred T. Grenfell • Dillon Wallace
... did not last, and their disappearance was a disaster. Party, as the term is used in the constitutional vocabulary, was not yet developed; and no organisation possessed the alternate power of presenting ministers to the Crown. The main lines that divided opinion came to light in the debates of September, and the Assembly fell into factions that were managed by their ...
— Lectures on the French Revolution • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton
... language of "honest people." It is fashioned not merely for them, but by them, and Vaugelas,[3211] their secretary, devotes himself for thirty years to the registry of decisions according to the usages only of good society. Hence, throughout, both in vocabulary and in grammar, the language is refashioned over and over again, according to the cast of their intellects, which is ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 1 (of 6) - The Ancient Regime • Hippolyte A. Taine
... haunts you for days and nights, it leaves a kind of stain on the memory. It is a possibility of character of which the healthy, the pure, the unthinking have never dreamed. Such a portrait is not art, that is true; but it is science, and that delivers the critic from the necessity of searching his vocabulary for the cheap superlatives of moral censure. Whether it be art or science, however, men cannot but ask themselves how Diderot came to think it worth while to execute so painful a study. The only answer is that the irregularities of human ...
— Diderot and the Encyclopaedists - Volume II. • John Morley
... Note.—The word immortality—Unsterblichkeit—does not occur in the original; nor would it, in its usual application, find a place in Schopenhauer's vocabulary. The word he uses is Unzerstoerbarkeit—indestructibility. But I have preferred immortality, because that word is commonly associated with the subject touched upon in this little debate. If any critic doubts the ...
— The Essays of Arthur Schopenhauer; Studies in Pessimism • Arthur Schopenhauer
... pause came, he patiently waited for the missing word, and rarely failed to find a phrase which was expressive if not technically correct. He often said afterward that his sole preparation for these lectures consisted in shutting himself up for hours and marshaling his vocabulary, passing in review, that is, all the English words he could recall. As the Lyells had prophesied, his foreign accent rather added a charm to his address, and the pauses in which he seemed to ask the forbearance of the audience, while he ...
— Louis Agassiz: His Life and Correspondence • Louis Agassiz
... as Scythians, and to the Hebrews and Arabians as Gog and Magog, who travelled in cars, occupying first one territory with their flocks, but not cultivating the land, then leaving it to nature and taking up another resting-place. It is certain that the Russians have many Asiatic words in their vocabulary, which must necessarily have occurred from their being for more than two centuries sometimes under Tatar, and sometimes under Mongol domination; and the origin of this word tsar or car may leave to be sought ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 201, September 3, 1853 • Various
... Socialist, too," she murmured, "whatever that may be. But he—he didn't look it! On the contrary, he looked remarkably clean and intelligent. And the words he used were the words of an educated man. Far better vocabulary than Waldron's, for example; and as for poor little Van Slyke, and that set, why this man's mind seems to have towered above them as the Palisades ...
— The Air Trust • George Allan England
... warm the rooms. In the corner by the door the Eskimo bench is the regular institution. Sometimes my door opens, a native enters, sits down and smiles at me. When we have exchanged the usual greetings, "Aksunai" (be strong) and "Ahaila" (yes), my Eskimo vocabulary is nearly at an end, and I have to fetch an interpreter. A cupboard and a stool complete the inventory of my furniture. Do my readers wish to look into the bedroom about fourteen feet by six? Two little bedsteads and another ...
— With the Harmony to Labrador - Notes Of A Visit To The Moravian Mission Stations On The North-East - Coast Of Labrador • Benjamin La Trobe
... symbols—of the uttermost secret of words in their power to express the soul of a writer—when one attempts to analyse the child-like simplicity of William Blake's style. How is it that he manages with so small, so limited a vocabulary, to capture the very "music of the spheres"? We all have the same words at our command; we all have the same rhymes; where then lies this strange power that can give the simplest syllables so ...
— Suspended Judgments - Essays on Books and Sensations • John Cowper Powys
... and staircase, on my dinner-card. He was distinctly ungrateful; in fact, he remarked that he had been born in this very house, but would not trust himself to find his way upstairs with my plan as a guide. He also said the American vocabulary was vastly amusing, so picturesque, unstudied, ...
— Penelope's Progress - Being Such Extracts from the Commonplace Book of Penelope Hamilton As Relate to Her Experiences in Scotland • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin
... sufficient reason why the man of science in him was fascinated. True, those discoveries which he made were new only to him; yet one might say the same of America and Columbus. For one thing, it dawned on him that here was a new and excellent technical vocabulary; he stored away in his brain strange words as a squirrel sticks nuts and acorns into a hole. Hondo, tapaderos, bad hombre, tecolote, bronco, maverick, side-winder—rapaciously he seized upon them as bits of the argot of fairyland. He watched the expert roll the brown tube of ...
— The Desert Valley • Jackson Gregory
... secured in the laboratory of an English scientist in Sierra Leone, and long association with that learned man had endowed him with a vocabulary at once impressive ...
— Bones in London • Edgar Wallace
... dinner—a dinner at which Evan Blount, once more calling himself all the hard names in the hypocrite's vocabulary, made the fourth—Mrs. Honoria proposed an adjournment to the hotel parlors, which were in the mezzanine lounge. Later, she found herself alone on the divan which had been drawn up to command a view ...
— The Honorable Senator Sage-Brush • Francis Lynde
... of such force and genius, unique in Danish letters, should have been forgotten for three hundred years, and have survived only in an epitome and in exceedingly few manuscripts. The history of the book is worth recording. Doubtless its very merits, its "marvellous vocabulary, thickly-studded maxims, and excellent variety of images," which Erasmus admired long afterwards, sealed it to the vulgar. A man needed some Latin to appreciate it, and Erasmus' natural wonder "how a Dane at that day could have such a force of eloquence" is a measure of the rarity both of the ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... times without number curled up under Ulick's desk. Mr. Goldsmith growled hints about hanging him, and old Mr. Johns, who really was fond of his bright young fellow clerk, gave grave counsel; but Ulick only loved his protege the better, and after having exhausted an Irish vocabulary of expostulation, succeeded in prevailing on him to come no farther than the street; except on very wet days, when he would sometimes be found on the mat in the entry, looking deplorably beseeching, and bringing on his master an irate, ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Mac-vaistir-Alaister, or Alexander the parson's son. The precise date of his birth is unknown, but he seems to have been born about the first decade of the last century. He was employed as a catechist by the Society for Propagating Christian Knowledge, under whose auspices he afterwards published a vocabulary, for the use of Gaelic schools. This work, which was the first of the kind in the language, was published at Edinburgh in 1741. Macdonald was subsequently elected schoolmaster of his native parish of Ardnamurchan, and was ordained ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... meditation and continued effort at description I have exhausted my vocabulary and worn to tatters the oft-repeated phrases with which I have sought with heart full of adoring enthusiasm to announce the wonders of ...
— Why I Preach the Second Coming • Isaac Massey Haldeman
... they were ready sale in the upper country, and in good demand for breaking prairie. I reckon there must have been a dozen yoke of work-steers in our herd that year, and they were more trouble to me than all the balance of the cattle, for they were slothful and sinfully lazy. My vocabulary of profanity was worn to a frazzle before we were out a week, and those oxen didn't pay any more attention to a rope or myself than to the buzzing of ...
— The Outlet • Andy Adams
... prone to underrate French poetry, while we are equally disposed to render to German poetry even more than its due share of merit. The reason is to be sought in the verbal associations established in our minds by the peculiar composition of the English language. Our vocabulary is chiefly made up on the one hand of indigenous Saxon words, and on the other hand of words derived from Latin or French. It is mostly words of the first class that we learn in childhood, and that are associated with our homeliest and deepest emotions; while words of the second class—usually ...
— The Unseen World and Other Essays • John Fiske
... design Against the creed and morals of the land, And trace it in this poem every line: I don't pretend that I quite understand My own meaning when I would be very fine; But the fact is that I have nothing planned, Unless it were to be a moment merry— A novel word in my vocabulary. ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... assert; but that he constantly approached such an ideal, and that he sometimes seized its vital principle, the varied and expressive forms yet conserved in his studio at Rome emphatically attest. He had obtained command of the vocabulary of his art; in expressing it, like all men who strive largely, he was unequal. Some of his creations are far more felicitous than others; he sometimes worked too fast, and sometimes undertook what did not greatly inspire him; but when we reflect on the limited period of his artist-life, on ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various
... vocabulary of the language spoken by the natives on the Darling with other vocabularies obtained by various persons on different parts of the coast I found a striking similarity in eight words, and it appears singular that ...
— Three Expeditions into the Interior of Eastern Australia, Vol 2 (of 2) • Thomas Mitchell
... Badi—gonta, and ouk han g' eramenos ton ekeinou helle boron as verses. A too apparent use of these licences has certainly a ludicrous effect, but they are not alone in that; the rule of moderation applies to all the constituents of the poetic vocabulary; even with metaphors, strange words, and the rest, the effect will be the same, if one uses them improperly and with a view to provoking laughter. The proper use of them is a very different thing. To realize the difference one ...
— The Poetics • Aristotle
... men while he listened. Of the blanket-vending, depot-haunting type was this young man, with a ready smile and a quick eye for a bargain and a smattering of English learned in his youth at a mission, and a larger vocabulary of Mexican that lent him fluency of speech when the mood to talk was on him. Half of his hair was cut so that it hung even with his ear-lobes. At the back it was long and looped up in the way a horse's tail is looped in muddy weather, and tied with a grimy ...
— The Heritage of the Sioux • B.M. Bower
... Edition, illustrated by Forty Plates, and Selections from the Notes of Dr. Paxton, with additional Notes, original and selected, for this Edition, with a Vocabulary of Scientific Terms. Edited by an eminent Physician ...
— A New Guide for Emigrants to the West • J. M. Peck
... Wall Street man is only like the burglar who, after working for weeks to loot a second story, is astounded to find, while lugging his swag by the police station, that the bag he thought full of dead sealskins contains a live parrot with a lusty vocabulary, ...
— Frenzied Finance - Vol. 1: The Crime of Amalgamated • Thomas W. Lawson
... the boy said about the milk-and-water character of native Welsh oaths, the Welsh have some very pungent execrations, quite as efficacious, I should say, to make a horse get on as any in the English swearing vocabulary. Some of their oaths are curious, being connected with heathen times and Druidical mythology; for example that Cas Andras, mentioned by the boy, which means hateful enemy or horrible Andras. Andras or Andraste was the fury or Demigorgon of the Ancient Cumry, ...
— Wild Wales - Its People, Language and Scenery • George Borrow
... investigate the various kinds of pets owned by the troopers. Cats, dogs and monkeys were common, whilst one Poilu was the proud possessor of a parrot which he had purchased from a refugee obliged to fly from his home. He hastened to assure us that the bird had learned his "vocabulary" from his former proprietor. A study in black and white was a group of three or four white mice, nestling against the neck ...
— The White Road to Verdun • Kathleen Burke
... mean necessarily profane. I wonder what your vocabulary will do to the secret I'm going to tell you." The sweet-peas had reached the desired height and profusion of blossoms, thanks to the pails and pails of water Val had carried and lavished upon them, and she was gathering a handful of the prettiest blooms for him. Her cheeks ...
— Lonesome Land • B. M. Bower
... the cause of learning, we recognize the diligence of Prof. W. W. Turner. Those who have never tried this kind of work have but an inadequate idea of its demands on the brain, and on the conscience too. Reading through a dictionary is an after-dinner pastime in comparison. The vocabulary is more extended than in other lexicons. But the peculiar and highest merit of this work appears in definitions, remarkable for clearness, fulness, and distinction of the subtle shades of meaning. Colloquial, technical, and other special uses of words, here receive their ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 3, February, 1851 • Various
... contents were speedily carried to the summit. The whole trouble was at once revealed: the oxen had been broken and trained by a man who, when they were in a pinch, had encouraged them by his frontier vocabulary, and they could not realize what was expected of them under extraordinary conditions until they heard familiar and possibly profanely urgent phrases. I took the wagon to its destination, but as it was not brought back, ...
— The Memoirs of General P. H. Sheridan, Complete • General Philip Henry Sheridan
... passion—that for getting and saving. The ancient thrift of his race had pinched him small and narrow as a foot is stunted by a tight shoe. His mind was a bit out of register as we say in the printing business. His vocabulary was rich and vivid ...
— Eben Holden - A Tale of the North Country • Irving Bacheller
... beat it." Although Jerry was earnestly endeavoring to eliminate slang from her vocabulary, she could not resist ...
— Marjorie Dean - High School Sophomore • Pauline Lester
... intolerable, so she took a by-path to the left called "Unchastity" where she found a whole vocabulary of speech more ...
— Mr. World and Miss Church-Member • W. S. Harris
... arithmetic, like those performed by the horses, included finding the square root in the most difficult problems; yet it was in the matter of spelling answers that he excelled. Indeed, he seemed to command a particularly rich vocabulary, and applied the same with the greatest accuracy and continuity, even in long answers. These replies, when collected in their proper sequence should provide us with a wealth of insight into an animal's life of feeling. Such ...
— Lola - The Thought and Speech of Animals • Henny Kindermann
... those more commonly used in referring to the houses and their leading features. A more exhaustive vocabulary of architectural terms, comprising those especially applied to the various constructional features of the kivas or ceremonial rooms, and to the "kisis," or temporary brush shelters for field use, will be found near the ...
— A Study of Pueblo Architecture: Tusayan and Cibola • Victor Mindeleff and Cosmos Mindeleff
... even of a possibility of tarnish—such things are sufficient to poison the tranquillity, and, unless met by prompt vindication, to ruin the character of a public man; but in America, it is thought necessary to have recourse to other weapons. The strongest epithets of a ruffian vocabulary are ...
— Diary in America, Series Two • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... coats and socks in snowy, exquisite order; when Timmy, trim, sweet, and freshly clad, appeared for breakfast every morning, his fat hand in Belle's, and "Dea' Booey"—as he called her—figuring prominently in his limited vocabulary, Molly ...
— Poor, Dear Margaret Kirby and Other Stories • Kathleen Norris
... reached across the bed to lift the child out of his mother's lap, the little fellow was struggling to communicate, by help of a limited vocabulary, some wondrous intelligence of recent events that somewhat overshadowed his little existence. "Puss—dat," many times repeated, was further explained by one chubby forefinger with its diminutive finger-nail pointed to the fat back of ...
— A Son of Hagar - A Romance of Our Time • Sir Hall Caine
... she was more or less haunted with this new feeling for Toyner—a feeling which did not in her mind resemble love or liking, which would have been perhaps best translated by the word "reverence," but that was not a word in Ann's vocabulary, not even an ...
— The Zeit-Geist • Lily Dougall
... from actual observation. I look out of the windows of my house in Fukui. Here is a peasant who comes back after the winter to prepare his field for cultivation. The man's horizon of ideas, like his vocabulary, is very limited. His view of actual life is bounded by a few rice-fields, a range of hills, and the village near by. Possibly one visit to a city or large town has enriched his experience. More probably, however, the ...
— The Religions of Japan - From the Dawn of History to the Era of Meiji • William Elliot Griffis
... "ideals" had grown out-of-date and priggish—we had substituted for it the more robust word "ambitions." Today ideals have come back to their place in our vocabulary. We have forgotten that we ever had ambitions, but at this moment men are drowning for ideals in ...
— The Glory of the Trenches • Coningsby Dawson
... public, "Why, I have said all that once or oftener in my books or essays, and here it is again; the same old thought, the same old image, the same old story!" it irritates him, and is likely to stir up the monosyllables of his unsanctified vocabulary. He sees in imagination a thousand readers, smiling or yawning as they say to themselves, "We have had all that before," and turn to another writer's performance for something not quite so stale and superfluous. This is what the writer says to himself about ...
— Over the Teacups • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... burst into explosive speech. Those beasts had got hold of Caesar. The Caterpillar stared; he had never heard John let himself go. John's vocabulary surprised him. ...
— The Hill - A Romance of Friendship • Horace Annesley Vachell
... words, if briskly communicated. Most boys are responsive to the pleasure of finding a familiar word concealed under a variation of shape; but this should be conveyed orally. What is really requisite is that boys should be taught how to read a book intelligently. In dealing with classical books, vocabulary must be always a difficulty, and I myself very much doubt the advisability in the case of average boys of attempting to teach more than one foreign language at a time, especially when in dealing, say, with three kindred languages, such as Latin, French, and English, ...
— Cambridge Essays on Education • Various
... societas totius humani generis; for international law in any true sense. What really exists is the exclusive state—der geschlossene Staat—and in another sense than that of Fichte. This state is rigorously national: it excludes all foreign words from its vocabulary, and it would fain exclude all foreign articles from its shores in order to found a real 'national' economy such as List preached. Further, in the teaching of Treitschke this exclusive state is, 'as Machiavelli first clearly saw', essentially power: der Staat ist Macht. It ...
— Why We Are At War (2nd Edition, revised) • Members of the Oxford Faculty of Modern History
... Manila in the old days exhausted his vocabulary in praise of the Luneta, the old Spanish city's pleasure ground, which overlooked the bay and Corregidor Island. It was an oval drive, with a bandstand at each end, inclosing a pretty grass plot. Here, as evening came on, all Manila congregated to hear the band play ...
— The Critic in the Orient • George Hamlin Fitch
... gazed, dumbfounded, the other went on as if she were chatting about the weather: "You can't realise what a stir you are making in our little frog pond. Come, see me, and let me tell you the gossip! Do you know you've enriched our vocabulary?" ...
— Sylvia's Marriage • Upton Sinclair
... characters; and Mr. Gayarre has, to a considerable extent, succeeded in this difficult and delicate task. The work evinces a mind full of the subject; and if defective at all, the defect is rather in style than matter. The author evidently had two temptations to hasty composition—a copious vocabulary and complete familiarity with his subject. There is an occasional impetuosity and recklessness in his manner, and a general habit of tossing off his sentences with an air of disdainful indifference, which characterizes ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 1 July 1848 • Various
... has been so long meditated, the approaches to its final consummation have been so steadily made, and the schemes of the principal traitors have been so well planned and carefully matured, that they have almost succeeded in making the vocabulary of treason a part of the vernacular of the country. We all talk of the States which have seceded or are going to secede,—of a fratricidal war,—of the measures which this or the other State is determined or likely ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 46, August, 1861 • Various
... gentle reader, is a work of such colossal force that to render justice to its abysmal greatness we have ransacked the vocabulary of superlative laudation in vain. SWINBURNE, compared to the needs of the situation, is as a shape of quivering jelly alongside of the Rock of Gibraltar. And here, O captious critic, is a Wonderwork which not only disarms but staggers, paralyses and annihilates all possibilities ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Feb. 26, 1919 • Various
... object is, then, in Schiller's vocabulary, not to beautify it, or to make it in any way other than it is, but to portray the 'idea' of it, that is, its essential truth, apart from all that is accidental or individual. He lays down the general rule that poetry is only ...
— The Life and Works of Friedrich Schiller • Calvin Thomas
... word "breakfast" (which had temporarily slipped from his vocabulary) the famished professor wheeled so quickly that his knee twisted. Miss Farr smiled, ...
— The Window-Gazer • Isabel Ecclestone Mackay
... specimens we have already given are sufficient to mark wherein the variation chiefly consists, and to shew, that, like the manners of the inhabitants, it has become soft and soothing. During the former voyage, I had collected a copious vocabulary, which enabled me the better to compare this dialect with that of the other islands; and, during this voyage, I took every opportunity of improving my acquaintance with it, by conversing with Omai, before we arrived, and by my daily intercourse ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 16 • Robert Kerr
... voice and set to work blackguarding him with her Billingsgate vocabulary. All the bystanders laughed; they drew near him; they raised themselves on tiptoe in order the better to see him. He remained dumbfounded under this downpour of filthy abuse. It appeared to him that these words, which came from that mouth ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume IV (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... breast—like a black collar worn very low down. It was a spring-like morning, the thermometer rapidly rising toward forty-five, and Mr. Blue Jay was in one of his imitative moods. There is hardly a limit to his vocabulary, and it would not be surprising if some of his imitative stunts should be mistaken for the call of an early robin. Among these calls is a liquid gurgle, like hard cider coming out of the neck of a big brown jug. Another, and a ...
— Some Winter Days in Iowa • Frederick John Lazell
... had succumbed to the charms of a slant-eyed little Celestial at the tender age of seven. He had always had a girl, just as he had always had a job; but both had varied with time and place. With a vocabulary of a dozen words and the sign language, he had managed to flirt across France and back again. He had frivoled with half a dozen trained nurses in as many different hospitals, and had even had a sentimental round with a pretty young stewardess on the ...
— Quin • Alice Hegan Rice
... these great men lived and had their being. Everywhere we turned, and we turned everywhere, there were statues, busts, autographs, writing-desks, beds, and wash-stands which had belonged to them. I admired everything until my vocabulary of exclamations was ...
— In the Courts of Memory 1858-1875. • L. de Hegermann-Lindencrone
... the different foods; and it did not take long to learn what "Yes" and "No" meant, and when handed anything particularly appetizing it was finally associated in his mind with "good." Thus step by step he acquired a small vocabulary of words. ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: The Tribesmen • Roger Finlay
... beyond me to say what he is. A good man at the ropes, but a da—a Dutchman for company. 'Twixt he and the bog-trotters we shipped at Cork Harbour 't was the dev—'t was the scuttiest lot I ever took aboard ship." The rum was getting into the captain's tongue, and making his usual vocabulary ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... The Tech Model Railroad Club at MIT, one of the wellsprings of hacker culture. The 1959 "Dictionary of the TMRC Language" compiled by Peter Samson included several terms that became basics of the hackish vocabulary (see esp. {foo}, ...
— The Jargon File, Version 4.0.0
... writers often used a vivid form of warning and invective is not a reason why we should keep on doing it. The Hebrew writer was a primitive speaking to primitives. Meaning what we mean, he required a stronger, fiercer vocabulary than we ever need. In saying this I am not dodging the issue; I am stating a fact which rules in all historical interpretation. To make the phraseology of two thousand years before Christ the literal expression ...
— The Conquest of Fear • Basil King
... phrase, they have gained a new thought. The danger is great in proportion to the breadth of the gulf which separates the new dialect from the old language of common life in which we are accustomed to estimate things. Many a philosopher would be bereft, indeed, were he robbed of his vocabulary and compelled to express his thoughts in ordinary speech. The theories which are implicit in certain recurring expressions would be forced to come out into the open, and stand criticism ...
— An Introduction to Philosophy • George Stuart Fullerton
... splendid lie, and she told herself as well as Brother Spencer that she believed it. "Samson would come back in a minit ef we sent fer him. He's smart, an' he's got a right ter l'arnin'! He hain't like us folks; he's a—" She paused, and groped for the word that Lescott had added to her vocabulary, which she ...
— The Call of the Cumberlands • Charles Neville Buck
... well; that a day's manoeuvring had resulted in a faulty disposition of its parts, a blind diffusion of its strength. The men felt insecure and talked among themselves of such tactical errors as with their meager military vocabulary they were able to name. Field and line officers gathered in groups and spoke more learnedly of what they apprehended with no greater clearness. Commanders of brigades and divisions looked anxiously ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Vol. II: In the Midst of Life: Tales of Soldiers and Civilians • Ambrose Bierce
... Chamberlain[3] estimates that our language contains more than two score as many words as all those left us from the Latin. Many savage languages contain only a very few thousand, and some but a few hundred, words. Our tongue is essentially Saxon in its vocabulary and its spirit and, from the time when it was despised and vulgar, has followed an expansion policy, swallowing with little modification terms not only from classical antiquity, but from all modern languages—Indian, African, ...
— Youth: Its Education, Regimen, and Hygiene • G. Stanley Hall
... justification, to deny the existence of an American, as distinguished from an English, literature. Yet, despite the subtle psychic bonds that link identity of speech to similarity of thought, the environment (which helps to shape pronunciation as well as vocabulary and the language itself) is, from the standpoint of literature, little removed from language as a determining factor. Looking at the question, however, from the purely linguistic standpoint, it is important to remember ...
— Brazilian Tales • Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis
... he said, and the tone, in its disgust and its attempt to laugh off the incident, gave the simplicity of an exclamation from his limited vocabulary its character. "Oh, h—l! I was just trying you out ...
— Over the Pass • Frederick Palmer
... whether he would like to be called "Father, papa, Uncle George or what" awed him. He couldn't help feeling like a clumsy piece of modern pottery in the presence of an exquisite specimen of porcelain. His hands and feet multiplied themselves, and his vocabulary seemed to contain no more than a dozen slang phrases. He was conscious of the fact that his collar was too high and his clothes a little too bold in pattern, and he was definitely certain for the first time ...
— Who Cares? • Cosmo Hamilton
... got some vocabulary!" laughed Dick. "Think a lot of your team, don't you—sometimes! Yes, you got here in ...
— The Boy Ranchers on Roaring River - or Diamond X and the Chinese Smugglers • Willard F. Baker
... the "Tiers," the "Constitution"—these, too, soon to be effaced by more Republican appellations. For on the abolition of the monarchy and the inauguration of the Religion of Nature, the words "royal" and "saint" disappear from the revolutionary vocabulary. A new calendar is promulgated: streets and squares are renamed: Rues des Droits de l'Homme, de la Revolution, des Piques, de la Loi, efface the old landmarks. We must now say Rue Honore, not St. ...
— The Story of Paris • Thomas Okey
... recited, with the exception of Chapter III. on leaves. The object of this chapter is not to have the definitions recited (the recitation of definitions in school work is often useless or worse than useless), but to teach the pupil to use the terms properly and to make them a portion of his vocabulary. The figures on pages 38-43 are designed for class description, and for the application of botanical words. The first time the chapter is studied the figure illustrating the term should be pointed out by the pupil; then, as a review of the whole chapter, ...
— Trees of the Northern United States - Their Study, Description and Determination • Austin C. Apgar
... said Elaine, who was permitted to read it, "of a little coloured boy we used to know. A playmate quarrelled with him and began to call him names, using all the big words he had ever heard, regardless of their meaning. When his vocabulary was exhausted, our little friend asked, quietly: 'Is you froo?' 'Yes,' returned the other, 'I's froo.' 'Well then,' said the master of the situation, calmly, turning on his heel, 'all those things what you called me, ...
— At the Sign of the Jack O'Lantern • Myrtle Reed
... not religious, for I don't look down on folks like you at all," said Janetta, calmly adopting Mrs. Brand's vocabulary. ...
— A True Friend - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... simply means possessing the admirable and essential quality of sentiment. Such phrases are all parts of one peddling and cowardly philosophy, and remind us of the days when 'enthusiast' was a term of reproach. But of all this vocabulary of unconscious eulogies nothing is more striking ...
— The Defendant • G.K. Chesterton
... tree, a sleek squirrel was filling the air with his noisy chattering and scolding. His bright little eyes sparkled with anger at the big strange intruder into his domain, causing him to pour forth all the vitriol of the squirrel vocabulary. Suddenly his noisy commotion ceased, and he lifted his head in a listening attitude. Presently down the trail leading to the main highway the sound of bells could be distinctly heard. As they drew nearer their music filled the air, reverberating from ...
— The Fourth Watch • H. A. Cody
... Fritz," for long years keeper of the fluviograph that measures and gives warning of the rampages of the Chagres. Fritz will talk to you in almost any tongue you may choose, as he can tell you of adventures in almost any land, all with a captivating accent and in the vocabulary of a man who has lived long among men and nature. Nor are Fritz' opinions those gleaned from other men or the printed page. So we fell to fanning ourselves this January afternoon on the screened and shaded veranda above the Chagres, and "Old ...
— Zone Policeman 88 - A Close Range Study of the Panama Canal and its Workers • Harry A. Franck
... him a bumper of green usquebaugh with ten drops of Daffy's Elixir therein, which was her sovereign recipe against the effects of a soaking. There was no event in life, from a christening to a marriage, but had some appropriate food or drink in my mother's vocabulary, and no ailment for which she had not some pleasant cure in her ...
— Micah Clarke - His Statement as made to his three Grandchildren Joseph, - Gervas and Reuben During the Hard Winter of 1734 • Arthur Conan Doyle
... only by talking with the business leaders of that time could we have understood the changes that have taken place in fifty years. For the most part we speak a business language which our fathers and grandfathers would not have comprehended. The word "trust" had not become a part of their vocabulary; "restraint of trade" was a phrase which only the antiquarian lawyer could have interpreted; "interlocking directorates," "holding companies," "subsidiaries," "underwriting syndicates," and "community of interest"—all this jargon of modern business would ...
— The Age of Big Business - Volume 39 in The Chronicles of America Series • Burton J. Hendrick
... with the strength and somberness of Anglo-Saxon poetry. During the three centuries following Hastings, Normans and Saxons gradually united. The Anglo-Saxon speech simplified itself by dropping most of its Teutonic inflections, absorbed eventually a large part of the French vocabulary, and became our English language. English literature is also a combination of French and Saxon elements. The three chief effects of the conquest were (1) the bringing of Roman civilization to England; (2) the growth of nationality, i.e. a strong centralized government, instead of the loose ...
— English Literature - Its History and Its Significance for the Life of the English Speaking World • William J. Long
... in so far as Betty herself was concerned, I should find no trouble, but I also knew that I might find difficulty in persuading her to leave her father, for duty was a tremendous word in Betty's vocabulary. ...
— The Touchstone of Fortune • Charles Major
... counties; and particularly the seats of country-gentlemen, leaving an alias to solve all difficulties in point of law. But I would by no means trust these alterations to the owners themselves; who, as they are generally no great clerks, so they seem to have no large vocabulary about them, nor to be well skilled in prosody. The utmost extent of their genius lies in naming their country habitation by a hill, a mount, a brook, a burrow, a castle, a bawn, a ford, and the like ingenious conceits. Yet these are exceeded by ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Vol. VII - Historical and Political Tracts—Irish • Jonathan Swift
... downstairs." Similarly, to lie down was "downstairs," to get up "upstairs." Anything involving violent motion was "shoot," by which single word to fall, to kick, to bite, to drop, to jump, to throw away, were defined. He possessed a good vocabulary of swear words—which he had learnt from sailors at Bushire—and these served him well when anything went wrong; but I forbade him to use them in my presence as I wished to have the monopoly myself, and thus his English vocabulary was very ...
— Across Coveted Lands - or a Journey from Flushing (Holland) to Calcutta Overland • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... difference in rank. In fact, when a person can read intelligently and with appreciation such selections as appear in this volume he can read anything that is set before him. There may be some things that will require effort and perhaps explanation, but it is merely a question of vocabulary and parallel information. Besides the stories, there are selections in every department of literature except those that have been passed in the progress of the plan of grading. The legendary heroes, the myths and the stories of classic literature are no longer to be found. ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 10 - The Guide • Charles Herbert Sylvester
... true tragic spirit, for exquisitely melodious versification, for that faculty of song which is the flower of the lyric genius, Beddoes was pre-eminently distinguished. Nor for these alone. His style is based upon the rich vocabulary of the old dramatists, and is terse, pregnant and quaint, without any trace of affectation. There was a sturdy genuineness about the man that forbade him to assume, and his phraseology was the natural outgrowth of his ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 12, No. 32, November, 1873 • Various
... evidence, historical or otherwise, tending to show that the mass of speech elements and speech processes has evolved out of the interjections. These are a very small and functionally insignificant proportion of the vocabulary of language; at no time and in no linguistic province that we have record of do we see a noticeable tendency towards their elaboration into the primary warp and woof of language. They are never more, at best, than a decorative edging to the ...
— Language - An Introduction to the Study of Speech • Edward Sapir
... sprung from the Lutheran reformation. The effect of these synodical covenants, conventional articles of belief, and rules of ecclesiastical polity, has been the introduction of a new nomenclature,—a human vocabulary of religious words, phrases, and technicalities, which has displaced the style of the living oracles, and affixed to the sacred diction ideas wholly unknown to ...
— The Book of Religions • John Hayward
... this certainly un-English sensation, which we are obliged to borrow from our friends across the channel. They repay themselves with "comfortable," which is quite as characteristically wanting in their vocabulary: so they lose nothing by the exchange. Were we disposed to supply the gaps in our language, by using our own native words (which is much to be desired), we might find a sufficient (and I believe the only) synonyme in the Bedfordshire folk-word unked: at any rate, it is near enough for us, for ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 207, October 15, 1853 • Various
... now, with the varying uses of "harsh" as exemplified in the notes to Shakespeare as guides, can one hope better to understand the bare statement that the diction of Lycidas is "harsh." Similar investigation of other important words in Johnson's critical vocabulary is possible through a close study of his commentary on Shakespeare's plays. Words such as "elegant," "inartificial," "just," "low," "pathetic," "proper," "vicious," and others used in criticism of specific lines and passages ...
— Johnson's Notes to Shakespeare Vol. I Comedies • Samuel Johnson
... is only in the vocabulary of very careless thinkers that the words truth and fiction are regarded as antithetic. A genuine antithesis subsists between the words fact and fiction; but fact and truth are not synonymous. The novelist forsakes the realm of fact in order that he may better ...
— A Manual of the Art of Fiction • Clayton Hamilton
... in the supposed interest of Scripture, to discredit the new learning. Even such a man as Dugald Stewart declared that the discovery of Sanskrit was altogether fraudulent, and endeavoured to prove that the Brahmans had made it up from the vocabulary and grammar of Greek and Latin. Others exercised their ingenuity in picking the new discovery to pieces, and still others attributed it all to the ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... Egyptian Reading Book. London, 1888. Second edition, with transliteration into italics and vocabulary, London, 1896. Contains the most convenient transcript of the P.P. Follows throughout that of Virey (see below). For some amendments see Griffith in Proc. S.B.A. (below). The first edition is more accurate (for this text) than the second. The ...
— The Instruction of Ptah-Hotep and the Instruction of Ke'Gemni - The Oldest Books in the World • Battiscombe G. Gunn
... gestures irrelevant to their language. Wherefore the matter was received with approbation, and by frequent use was much improved. To the native performers the name of histriones was given, because hister, in the Tuscan vocabulary, was the name of an actor, who did not, as formerly, throw out alternately artless and unpolished verses like the Fescennine at random, but represented medleys complete with metre, the music being regularly adjusted for the musician, and with appropriate gesticulation. Livius, who several years ...
— The History of Rome, Books 01 to 08 • Titus Livius
... commendation of a man or a woman has come to be, "He plays the game," or "She plays the game." Another phrase, often upon our lips, is "according to the rules of the game." We Americans talk of the most sacred things of life in the vocabulary of children at play. May not this be because the children of our Nation play so well; so much better than ...
— The American Child • Elizabeth McCracken
... disappeared. Some of the early Jesuit missionaries, men of great natural ability who steeped themselves in Oriental learning, have left very different opinions on record. Chinese appeared to them as admirable for the superabundant richness of its vocabulary as for the conciseness of its literary style. And among modern scholars there is a decided tendency to accept this view as embodying a great deal more ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 2 - "Chicago, University of" to "Chiton" • Various
... are a burgess of the gardens (which have a vocabulary of their own), the faces of these quaint mothers are a clock to you, in which you may read the ages of their young. When he is three they are said to wear the knickerbocker face, and you may take it from me that Mary assumed ...
— The Little White Bird - or Adventures In Kensington Gardens • J. M. Barrie
... existed, with whose records I am not in some degree acquainted, from Herodotus down to Gibbon. Of the classics, I know about as much as most schoolboys after a discipline of thirteen years; of the law of the land as much as enables me to keep 'within the statute'—to use the poacher's vocabulary. I did study the 'Spirit of Laws' and the Law of Nations; but when I saw the latter violated every month, I gave up my attempts at so useless an accomplishment;—of geography, I have seen more land on maps than I should wish to traverse on foot;—of ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. I. (of VI.) - With his Letters and Journals. • Thomas Moore
... to check the contemptuous note that crept into his voice, he certainly ought not to have uttered those two concluding words. Had he ransacked his ample vocabulary of the French language he could scarcely have hit upon another set of syllables offering similar difficulties to the foreigner. It was quite evident that his accurate pronunciation startled the accomplices. Each arrived at the same conclusion, though by different channels; ...
— Cynthia's Chauffeur • Louis Tracy
... me how you like the pictures when you have examined them. I shall search in Edmondson's new Vocabulary of Arms for the coat which contains three bulls' heads on six pieces; but the colours are either white and black. or the latter is become so by time. I hope you are not going out of town yet; I shall probably be there some day in ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... Alphonse at the Hotel Beau-Site? Did we not agree that Villeneuve-Loubet was superb? Perhaps we were artists? So many artists came here to paint and sketch the old houses. What was our impression of her country? We knew that she meant by "country" not France but Villeneuve-Loubet, and mustered our best vocabulary to admire the town, the solid foundations, the houses, the protecting castle, and above all, the ...
— Riviera Towns • Herbert Adams Gibbons
... bound, leaving me to learn the declensions as we went on. The advance I had made in Bengali[27] stood me in good stead. My father also encouraged me to try Sanskrit composition from the very outset. With the vocabulary acquired from my Sanskrit reader I built up grandiose compound words with a profuse sprinkling of sonorous 'm's and 'n's making altogether a most diabolical medley of the language of the gods. But my father ...
— My Reminiscences • Rabindranath Tagore
... he voluntarily gave much of his time to the instruction of missionaries going forth to preach the Gospel to eastern tribes in their own tongue. He also made translations of the Bible into several Asiatic dialects; and having mastered the New Zealand language, he arranged a grammar and vocabulary for two New Zealand chiefs who were then in England, which books are now in daily use in the New Zealand schools. Such, in brief, is the remarkable history of Dr. Samuel Lee; and it is but the counterpart of numerous similarly instructive examples of the power of perseverance in self-culture, ...
— Self Help • Samuel Smiles
... the coat. The pockets were filled with various articles known in the vocabulary of a schoolboy. Mr. Headley thrust his hand in, and Tony confidently waited the result. Several things were taken out and returned. It was not ...
— The Boat Club - or, The Bunkers of Rippleton • Oliver Optic
... no more, but there is no word in any vocabulary that represents as much in the way of sustained argument ...
— Mr. Bingle • George Barr McCutcheon
... contains a Narrative of the Voyage to the West Coast of Corea, and the Great Loo-choo Island; an Appendix, containing Nautical details; and a Vocabulary of the Language spoken ...
— Account of a Voyage of Discovery - to the West Coast of Corea, and the Great Loo-Choo Island • Captain Basil Hall
... a time in European history when the mass of people thought so little for themselves, and depended so much (for the ultimate form of their society) upon the conclusions and vocabulary of a restricted ...
— The Free Press • Hilaire Belloc
... softly and stood up, ticking off the items on her fingers. "I did have a good time, I did remember to take my tonic, and this heavenly coat has kept me as warm as pie—Nina Atherton taught me that. That nice family considerably enlarged my vocabulary," she added with enjoyment, slipping out of a heavy fur coat and coming back to perch on the arm ...
— The Shadow of the East • E. M. Hull
... all nationalities, and their descendants, but the English and Irish elements predominated. They had an argot peculiar to themselves. It was partly made up of the "flash" language of the London thieves, amplified and enriched by the cant vocabulary and the jargon of crime of every European tongue. They spoke it with a peculiar accent and intonation that made them instantly recognizable from the roughs of all other Cities. They called themselves "N'Yaarkers;" we came to know them ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy
... talk at one year. He early learns to say "mamma" and "papa," and gradually adds nouns to his vocabulary, so that at eighteen months the normal child should have a vocabulary of one hundred to one hundred and fifty words. As he nears the two-year mark, he has acquired a few simple verbs and he can possibly put three words together, ...
— The Mother and Her Child • William S. Sadler
... the principal topic of conversation on the Retenue was about the beatings that Patin gave his wife and his manner of cursing at her for the least thing. He could, indeed, curse with a richness of vocabulary in a roundness of tone unequalled by any other man in Fecamp. As soon as his ship was sighted at the entrance of the harbor, returning from the fishing expedition, every one awaited the first volley he would hurl from the bridge as soon as he ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... the Great which shows the philosophic warrior and king in a new light. There is a touch of bitter irony in the inflated eulogy of Guibert, who gave the too-loving woman a death blow in furthering his ambition, then exhausted his vocabulary in laments and praises. Perhaps he hoped to borrow from this friendship a fresh ray ...
— The Women of the French Salons • Amelia Gere Mason
... you she died. She did not die. There is no such word as death in my vocabulary. She did not sleep even. She passed from a crumbling, falling building into an enduring and beautiful temple, not made with hands. But to me, then, as I have told you, it was all dark; and it was not a wonder ...
— Town and Country, or, Life at Home and Abroad • John S. Adams
... Trehayne and spoke in French: "German I can't abide, but French I love. My vocabulary is extensive, but my accent abominable—incurably British. You can hear it for yourself how ...
— The Lost Naval Papers • Bennet Copplestone
... in language. Our timbre of voice, our articulation, and our vocabulary, like our physiognomy, have about them something individual, and error often arises from overlooking this, and hastily reading common interpretations into exceptional cases. The misunderstandings that arise even among ...
— Illusions - A Psychological Study • James Sully
... "You sure got your vocabulary all warmed up," observed Little Joe, so-called because of two hundred pounds of iron-hard sinew and muscle. Slim was wandering towards the door to execute his mission, but he kept his head cocked towards his prostrated friend to learn as much ...
— Alcatraz • Max Brand
... order to be more out of our view. He kept his word pretty well, but not altogether faithfully, with the gentlemen; and though he had no money, for his treasury was empty, he gave obligations which are known by the name of jeeps—(the Indian vocabulary will by degrees become familiar to your Lordships, as we develop the modes and customs of the country). As soon as he had done this, he began to rack and tear the provinces that were left to him, to get as much from them as should compensate him for the revenues of those great provinces he ...
— The Works Of The Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. IX. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... association with "Black Republicans," Douglas found his vocabulary inadequate to express his scorn. Like most Democrats he was sensitive on the subject of party nomenclature.[525] "Republican" was a term which had associations with the very father of Democracy, though the ...
— Stephen A. Douglas - A Study in American Politics • Allen Johnson
... cases and three genders; and as the latter are dependent upon no definite principle whatever, but are purely arbitrary, it is almost impossible for a foreigner to learn them so as to give nouns and adjectives their proper terminations. Its vocabulary is very copious; and its idioms have a peculiarly racy individuality which can hardly be appreciated without a thorough acquaintance with the colloquial talk of the ...
— Tent Life in Siberia • George Kennan
... who speak English have taken up their abode in Australia, Tasmania, and New Zealand. Hasty inference might lead to the remark that such addition is only slang, but the remark is far from being accurate; probably not one-tenth of the new vocabulary could fairly be so classified. A great deal of slang is used in Australasia, but very much less is generated here than is usually believed. In 1895 a literary policeman in Melbourne brought out a small Australian Slang Dictionary. In spite of the name, however, the compiler confesses that "very few ...
— A Dictionary of Austral English • Edward Morris
... absurd onomatopeic word to describe what is brilliant, startling and remarkable. The most striking feature of this elaborate book is that, although it contains almost words enough to constitute the vocabulary of a miniature language, yet the vast majority of these words would be as unintelligible to an educated Frenchman as to an Englishman. The bulk of French slang is never heard by the ears of educated people nor uttered by their lips: it circulates among the classes which create it; and ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, April 1875, Vol. XV., No. 88 • Various
... Marguerite d'Angouleme was the first to write prose that can be read without the aid of a vocabulary; in verse, she excels all poets of her time in sympathy and compassion; her poetry is "a voice which complains—a heart which suffers and which tells us so." "It is not so much her own deep sentiment that is reflected, but her emotion, which is both intellectual ...
— Women of Modern France - Woman In All Ages And In All Countries • Hugo P. Thieme
... of the sort in my vocabulary, so must return to my usual style, gentlemen," said Tom. "The long and the short of it is, when I was a prisoner at Trullyabister, I discovered that I was not the only poor wretch whom the ogre had ...
— Viking Boys • Jessie Margaret Edmondston Saxby
... and meaning are identical in the two languages are generally omitted from this vocabulary. Nouns ending in o are masculine; those in a, feminine. The gender is indicated only in the case of nouns that ...
— Ms vale maa que fuerza • Manuel Tamayo y Baus
... paper announced the death of Henry Johnson. It contained a long interview with Edward J. Hannigan, in which the latter described in full the performance of Johnson at the fire. There was also an editorial built from all the best words in the vocabulary of the staff. The town halted in its accustomed road of thought, and turned a reverent attention to the memory of this hostler. In the breasts of many people was the regret that they had not known enough to give him ...
— The Monster and Other Stories - The Monster; The Blue Hotel; His New Mittens • Stephen Crane
... given cause for any part of my conduct to her to wear the least aspect of compulsion or force. The word command, on my side, or obedience on hers, I would have blotted from my vocabulary. For this reason I should have thought it my duty to have desired nothing of her, that was not significant, reasonable, or just; and that then she should, on hers, have shewn no reluctance, uneasiness, or doubt, to oblige me, even at half ...
— Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded • Samuel Richardson
... are pointed with a fine and delicate raillery; and his descriptions of natural beauty breathe the gushing cordiality of one who is equally at home in field and forest. With a rare facility of expression, obtained by dallying with every form of phrase that can be constructed out of the English vocabulary, and a beautiful freedom of spirit that makes him not ashamed to unfold the depths of his better nature, Mr. Ik. Marvel has opened a new vein of gold in the literature of his country. We rejoice that its early working gives such noble promise that its purity ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 8, January, 1851 • Various
... clearness of conception and resource of vocabulary must come a certain eagerness of mood. When all three qualities are present, the result is good work, however rapidly it may be produced. If one of the three is lacking, the work sticks, hangs, and grates; and thus what I feel that the word-artist ...
— The Thread of Gold • Arthur Christopher Benson
... a buzz and an attempt to sting from my old friend S. B. Brittan, the ex-Universalist minister—the very surprisingly efficient "man Friday" of Andrew Jackson Davis, in the production of the "Revelations" of the said Davis, and also ghost-fancier in general; who has gently aired part of his vocabulary in a communication to the "Banner of Light," with the heading "Exposed for Two Shillings." I can afford very well to expose friend Brittan and his spiritualist humbugs for two shillings. The honester the cheaper. It evidently vexes the spiritualists to have ...
— The Humbugs of the World • P. T. Barnum
... until now life had chosen to confront him with no problem more pressing than one of cricket or hunting. He was therefore troubled by an unwonted confusion of feelings. For he felt that his ordinary vocabulary—made up of such substantives as lark, cheek, and bounder, and the comprehensive adjective "rum"—fell short of coping with this extraordinary speech. He even felt that he might possibly have answered in a different way, but for that unspeakable offer of money. And the rumble of Magin's ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... from their birth in high place, and used to respect themselves and to be respected by others. It is not easy for a generation accustomed to find chivalrous sentiments only in company with liberal Studies and polished manners to image to itself a man with the deportment, the vocabulary, and the accent of a carter, yet punctilious on matters of genealogy and precedence, and ready to risk his life rather than see a stain cast on the honour of his house. It is however only by thus joining together things seldom or never found together in our own experience, that we can form ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... the moment—so greatly was my own anger aroused—I thought his observations exceedingly appropriate to the occasion that called them forth, and I even was disposed to envy him the command of a technical vocabulary that enabled him to express so adequately his righteous wrath. However, I was for once well pleased that Fray ...
— The Aztec Treasure-House • Thomas Allibone Janvier
... As soon as a hen becomes a mother her new relation demands a new language; she then runs clocking and screaming about, and seems agitated as if possessed. The father of the flock has also a considerable vocabulary; if he finds food, he calls a favourite concubine to partake; and if a bird of prey passes over, with a warning voice he bids his family beware. The gallant chanticleer has, at command, his amorous phrases, and his terms ...
— The Natural History of Selborne • Gilbert White
... wife's advancement in the world. He had often groaned over these in midnight conversations with Rebecca, although as a bachelor they had never given him any disquiet. He himself was struck with this phenomenon. "Hang it," he would say (or perhaps use a still stronger expression out of his simple vocabulary), "before I was married I didn't care what bills I put my name to, and so long as Moses would wait or Levy would renew for three months, I kept on never minding. But since I'm married, except renewing, of course, ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... of the book would be rather restricted by the employment of new words and symbols, which, as the author himself felt, "are always a most unwelcome addition to a science already burdened with an enormous vocabulary." But the work itself is largely original, and its arrangement and style are, perhaps, as attractive as the nature of the subject will allow. Such a book as this has little interest for the general reader, yet, amongst the leisured few who are able ...
— The Life and Letters of Lewis Carroll • Stuart Dodgson Collingwood |
