"Figuratively" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... are masculine words; lebanah is feminine. But nowhere throughout the Old Testament is the moon personified, and in only one instance is it used figuratively to represent a person. This is in the case of Jacob's reading of Joseph's dream, already ...
— The Astronomy of the Bible - An Elementary Commentary on the Astronomical References - of Holy Scripture • E. Walter Maunder
... perpetually change." "Capability" in the sense of "undeveloped faculty or property; a condition physical or otherwise, capable of being converted or turned to use" (N. Eng. Dict.), appertains rather to material objects. To apply the term figuratively to the forces inherent in national character savoured of a literary indecorum. ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 2 • George Gordon Byron
... rather a long story—a question of getting ahead of another party, in a certain particular way, in the stock-market. This other party had once played me a very mean trick. I owed him a grudge, I felt awfully savage at the time, and I vowed that, when I got a chance, I would, figuratively speaking, put his nose out of joint. There was a matter of some sixty thousand dollars at stake. If I put it out of his way, it was a blow the fellow would feel, and he really deserved no quarter. I jumped into a hack and went about my business, and it was in this ...
— The American • Henry James
... in Hebrew means more than merely the supposed seat of the affections. It is figuratively the centre of the spiritual life, just as physically it is the centre of the natural. Thoughts and affections, purposes and desires are all included, and out of it are 'the issues of life,' the whole outgoings of the being. It is the ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Isaiah and Jeremiah • Alexander Maclaren
... none too great; they would cease entirely could the Assembly have its own way in the matter. The system of communications, so well begun and already so productive of happy results, would come to an end. To turn the destiny of the highlander over to the lowlander is, figuratively speaking, simply to write his sentence of death; to condemn as fair a land as the sun shines on to renewed barbarism. We are shut up to this conclusion, not by theoretical considerations, but by experience. The matter is worth examining a ...
— The Head Hunters of Northern Luzon From Ifugao to Kalinga • Cornelis De Witt Willcox
... heart sink, figuratively speaking, to his shoes. How could a fellow hope to play and win with his girl cutting him like that? But then of a sudden he shut his ...
— The Rover Boys at College • Edward Stratemeyer
... selecting that character which is most in accord with the player's own character. This is so important that it cannot be overemphasized. And when finally the correct part is chosen for him, he must learn his lines so thoroughly that he will be able, figuratively, to ...
— Book of Etiquette • Lillian Eichler
... information about all these things, and, besides, as it turned out, I was to have the care of his memory. I've done enough for it to give me the indisputable right to lay it, if I choose, for an everlasting rest in the dust-bin of progress, amongst all the sweepings and, figuratively speaking, all the dead cats of civilization. But then, you see, I can't choose. He won't be forgotten. Whatever he was, he was not common. He had the power to charm or frighten rudimentary souls into ...
— Heart of Darkness • Joseph Conrad
... conferences of God with Moses on Mount Sinai were in the Spanish language. If a Japanese become the friend of a foreigner, he is considered as committing treason to his emperor, and rejected as a false brother in a country which, we are told, is figuratively called Tenka, or the Kingdom under the Heavens. John Bullism is not peculiar to Englishmen; and patriotism is a noble virtue when it secures our independence without depriving ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... they had put in at the junction of my pipe with the main in the street did not need attention. They had found that a new connection was necessary. They would see that a new one was put in at once. They were obliged to do it for nothing, he said; and then, slipping (figuratively speaking) thirty-five dollars into my pocket, he bowed gravely and ...
— Crowds - A Moving-Picture of Democracy • Gerald Stanley Lee
... question is too much for me to handle, and this thesis will ultimately have to be given up as the big fish is. In fact, I cannot say that I succeeded in getting ANY fish out of the water and, therefore, I shall never succeed at anything I undertake, but will land figuratively, if not actually, in the ...
— The Journal of Abnormal Psychology - Volume 10
... off a rose with her big shears and dropped it into her basket. It rather looked as if she were meaning to snip off Alan Massey figuratively in much ...
— Wild Wings - A Romance of Youth • Margaret Rebecca Piper
... Solomon's rod any more literally than she does the Savior's cross? We are bid, on a higher authority than Solomon's proverbs, to take up our cross and follow Him. This we all interpret figuratively. Would you dream, for instance, of binding heavy crosses of wood upon the backs of your children because you felt yourselves so enjoined in the literal sense of the Scriptures? Why, then, take the rod literally? It is as clearly used to designate any form of orderly discipline ...
— Study of Child Life • Marion Foster Washburne
... University. In every man of the seventy the sage saw the logarithm of a possible La Place, of a Sturm, or of a Newton. It was a delightful task for him to lead them through the pleasant valleys of conic sections, and beside the still waters of the integral calculus. Figuratively speaking, his problem was not a hard one. He had only to manipulate, and eliminate, and to raise to a higher power, and the triumphant result of ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 5 • Various
... said, without any confirmatory oath, that he should hang Adhemar of Limoges and the Count of Saint-Pol, all who heard him believed it. The Abbot Milo believed it for one. Figuratively, you can see his hands up as you read him. 'To hang two knights of such eminent degree and parts,' he writes, 'were surely a great scandal in any Christian king. Not that the punishment were undeserved or the executioner insufficient, God knoweth! ...
— The Life and Death of Richard Yea-and-Nay • Maurice Hewlett
... the fourth time. And lo! advancing to me eagerly along the causeway seemed the very sprite of Alastor himself! There was a star upon his forehead, and around his young face there glowed an aureole of gold and roses—to speak figuratively, for the star upon his brow was hope, and the gold and roses encircling his head, a miniature rainbow, were youth and health. His longish golden hair had no doubt its share in the effect, as likewise the soft yellow silk tie that fluttered like a flame in the speed ...
— The Quest of the Golden Girl • Richard le Gallienne
... and such circumlocutions as the Kalamistic "Living without life," and so on, do not help matters, for they are contradictory, and take away with one hand what they give with the other. The Biblical expressions must be taken figuratively; and the most important point to remember is that God's essence cannot be known at all. The manner in which we arrive at the divine attributes is by transferring them from God's effects in nature to his own essence. All ...
— A History of Mediaeval Jewish Philosophy • Isaac Husik
... very nature stupid. It is stupid because the aim of life (I use the expression only figuratively, and I could just as well speak of the essence of life, or of the world) is to gain a knowledge of our own bad will, so that our will may become an object for us, and that we may undergo an inward conversion. Our body is itself ...
— The Essays Of Arthur Schopenhauer • Arthur Schopenhauer
... views as to the proper form of the parachute before the Society of Arts, who, as a mark of approval, awarded him a medal. This parachute, however, having never taken practical shape, and only existing, figuratively speaking, in the clouds, seemed unlikely to find its way there in reality until the success of the Nassau adventure stirred its inventor to strenuous efforts to give it an actual trial. Thus it came about that he obtained Mr. Green's co-operation ...
— The Dominion of the Air • J. M. Bacon
... lost between Paulus and "Gentleman Jim"—not that there had ever been an open rupture, but Paulus despised the dandified Zulu, and "Jim" looked down (figuratively speaking, for he was quite a foot shorter in stature) ...
— The Petticoat Commando - Boer Women in Secret Service • Johanna Brandt
... headway. By retaining the tenet of the divine authority of the Vedas, Dayanand made it possible for educated Hindus to join his sect without absolutely cutting themselves adrift from their old faith. But Dayanand's contention that the Vedas should be figuratively interpreted, and are so found to foreshadow the discoveries of modern science, will naturally not bear examination. The following instances of the method are given by Professor Oman: "At one of the anniversary meetings of the society a member gravely stated that the Vedas mentioned pure ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India—Volume I (of IV) • R.V. Russell
... the rest of the other children. He steps into the centre of the ring, joins hands and kisses her, after which, collecting a posy from each of the others, he decorates her with flowers and green leaves. A fresh ring is now formed—figuratively the wedding ring; the whole of ...
— A History of Nursery Rhymes • Percy B. Green
... appropriate; and never has it been more felicitously and more gracefully expressed than in a little composition by Lucas Cranach, where the Virgin and her Child repose under a tree, while the angels dance in a circle round them. The cause of the Flight—the Massacre of the Innocents—is figuratively expressed by two winged boys, who, seated on a bough of the tree, are seen robbing a nest, and wringing the necks of the nestlings, while the parent-birds scream and flutter over their heads: in point of taste, this significant allegory had been better ...
— Legends of the Madonna • Mrs. Jameson
... the poorest Brazilian thinks much of is his affectionate wife who literally and figuratively is often in the same boat with her husband, pulling against the stream. Family ties are strong in Brazil and the sweet flower of friendship thrives in its sunny clime. The system of land and sea breezes prevail on the coast from Cape Frio ...
— Voyage of the Liberdade • Captain Joshua Slocum
... a fraud, and, for all his lumbering bulk and "MOLINEAUX-like" capacity of "tatur-trap," never could train-on soundly, or—figuratively speaking—"spank a hole in a pound of butter." Many cleverish trainers, and still more ambitious backers of the "Corinthian Jay" species, have had a shy, professionally or monetarily, at the "Woolwich Whopper," and invariably with disastrous results. The ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100. March 7, 1891. • Various
... one of reaching out for ultimate relations. She wanted to know the worst; and for her, as she saw in a flash, the worst of it was the core of fatality in what had happened. She shrank from her own way of putting it—nor was it even figuratively true that she had ever felt, under faith in Denis, any such doubt as the perception implied. But that was merely because her imagination had never put him to the test. She was fond of exposing herself ...
— Sanctuary • Edith Wharton
... through the Academy building, which, as it was vacation, was now being cleaned and made ready for the fall term. Globes, maps, blackboards, collections of minerals, electric machines, patent desks, dining-room, and dormitory passed before them in rapid succession, figuratively speaking; afterward they went up to the cupola to see the view, and finally settled themselves on the large ...
— Donald and Dorothy • Mary Mapes Dodge
... silence now ensued, during which the clack of seven pairs of active jaws was the only sound that broke upon the ear. It might have been observed, however, that all eyes were fixed more or less wonderingly on the stranger. Big Waller in particular looked him, figuratively speaking, through and through. He did not remove his eyes off him for an instant, but devoured his food with somewhat the expression of a dog that expects his bone to be ...
— The Wild Man of the West - A Tale of the Rocky Mountains • R.M. Ballantyne
... The more I meditated the better I liked the idea of tarrying in a spot where Arcadian simplicity of life was so unaffectedly cultivated. I resolved that I, too, would take a house at Beynac if there was one to be had, and that I would have what I figuratively termed my 'caravan' brought up here. At the auberge—the only one in the place—I learnt that there was but a single house still vacant, and that it was not a very beautiful one. A young fisherman started off barefoot to fetch the owner from his village, four ...
— Two Summers in Guyenne • Edward Harrison Barker
... unexpected reply, the boys slunk away to the college schoolroom, their buoyant spirits sunk down to dust and ashes—figuratively speaking. They could not understand it; they had not the most distant idea what their offence could have been. Gaunt entered, and the rest trooped in after him. The head-master sat at his desk in stern state: the other masters were in their places. "What is the meaning of ...
— The Channings • Mrs. Henry Wood
... is another, and must be our last reference to this symbolism of the world or the universe. The mere mention of the fact that this covering is figuratively supposed to be "a clouded canopy," or the firmament, on which the host of stars is represented, will be enough to indicate the continued allusion to the symbolism of the world. The lodge, as a representative ...
— The Symbolism of Freemasonry • Albert G. Mackey
... Aunt Nettie's; a piece of Chantilly lace which had once been draped on mother's skirt but was destined, to-day, to become a "mantilla"; and a magnificent "willow plume" snipped from Aunt Nettie's Sunday hat. This plume, when tacked to Missy's broad leghorn, was intended to be figuratively as well as literally the ...
— Missy • Dana Gatlin
... consider yourselves as fairly landed in Corea, and having tried to describe to you what things and people that are not Corean are like in Corea, I must provide you—again of course only figuratively—with a tiny little pony, the smallest probably you have ever seen, that you may follow me to the capital of the kingdom, which I am sure will be interesting to you as being thoroughly characteristic of the country. First of all, however, we had better ...
— Corea or Cho-sen • A (Arnold) Henry Savage-Landor
... evident that the manufacture of soap is of very ancient origin; indeed, Jeremiah figuratively mentions it—"For though thou wash thee with natron, and take thee much soap, yet thine iniquity is ...
— The Art of Perfumery - And Methods of Obtaining the Odors of Plants • G. W. Septimus Piesse
... the patriots in both Houses nevertheless, succeeded in redeeming the pledge which the name of America gives to the expansive progress of humanity. The patriots of both Houses, as the exponents of the noble and loftiest aspirations of the American people, whipped in—and this literally, not figuratively—whipped Mr. Lincoln into the glory of having issued the Emancipation Proclamation. The laws promulgated by this dying Congress initiated the Emancipation—generated the Proclamation of the 22d September, and of ...
— Diary from November 12, 1862, to October 18, 1863 • Adam Gurowski
... my life, my first fall,—for it is a moral fall after all, in the arms of Venus. Oh! I am not going to tell you my first—what shall I call it?—my first appearance; certainly not. The leap over the first hedge (I am speaking figuratively) has nothing interesting about it. It is generally rather a disagreeable one, and one picks oneself up rather abashed, with one charming illusion the less, with a vague feeling of disappointment and sadness. That realization ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Vol. 1 (of 8) - Boule de Suif and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... Renaissance character: Fra Lippo Lippi breaking his own vows and breaking a nun's for her; Perugino leading his money-grubbing, morose life and painting ethereal saints and madonnas in his bottega, while the Baglioni filled the streets outside with slaughter; Lorenzo de' Medici bleeding literally and figuratively his fellow-citizens, going from that occupation to his Platonic Academy and disputing on the immortality of the soul, winding up with orgies of sensual depravity with his boon companion Pulci, and ...
— The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne • William J. Locke
... fill the dimly-lighted doorway opposite and disappear, of two minds whether or not to turn tail and run. Suspicious enough in the beginning, the affair had now an exceeding evil smell—as repulsive figuratively as was the actual effluvium of the premises. He hung hesitant in doubt, with a heart oppressed by those grim and silent walls of blackness that loomed above him. With feet slipping on slimy flags he might be pardoned for harbouring suspicions of some fouler treachery. The yawning ...
— The Bronze Bell • Louis Joseph Vance
... so, like the twinkle in a pair of keen blue eyes that were supposed to be figuratively weeping for her fate in far-off New York. But ...
— The Perils of Pauline • Charles Goddard
... speculator, the political parasite, the clever schemer, and those who—whilst following the fortune of the great man who rules France—are nothing better than harpies. Most of these pretended devotees of imperialism have, speaking figuratively, their portmanteaus perpetually packed, ready for flight. The Emperor's good nature, as regards his entourage, has never allowed him to get rid of men who, perhaps, ought not to be seen so near the Imperial ...
— Reminiscences of Captain Gronow • Rees Howell Gronow
... boy had hurled a dynamite bomb at him the result could have been no more surprising. The lank, sallow man went up into the air, figuratively. He went up a mile or more, and on the way down he reached his hand inside the kitchen door and brought it forth enveloping the ...
— The Oakdale Affair • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... pensive mood. He vividly recollected when the occurrence alluded to took place as well as yesterday, roughly some score of years previously in the days of the land troubles, when it took the civilised world by storm, figuratively speaking, early in the eighties, eightyone to be correct, when ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... should be feudally subject to him henceforth. This is the third Hohenzollern whom we mark as a conspicuous acquirer in the Hohenzollern family, this Friedrich IV., builder of the second story of the House. If Conrad, original Burggraf, founded the House, then (figuratively speaking) the able Friedrich III., who was Rudolf of Hapsburg's friend, built it one story high; and here is a new Friedrich, his Son, who has added a second story. It is astonishing, says Dryasdust, how many feudal superiorities the Anspach and Baireuth people still have in Austria;—they ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol, II. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Of Brandenburg And The Hohenzollerns—928-1417 • Thomas Carlyle
... whole five called him names behind his back, figuratively speaking, for being such an early riser on such a day. Not one of them asked him any questions about his reasons for leaving the Acme; reasons, in the motion-picture business, are generally invented upon demand ...
— The Phantom Herd • B. M. Bower
... church, there is a fine old bronze bell that exists as a relic of Culdee times. Some profane person once laid hands on this bell and carried it off to Perth; but it would not ring away from Speyside. To speak figuratively, the bell was broken-hearted: from its metallic tongue, night and day, came the mournful wail, "Tom Eunan, Tom Eunan." I am happy to say that it was brought ...
— Literary Tours in The Highlands and Islands of Scotland • Daniel Turner Holmes
... upon the threshold) was by the ingenious device of a young monk, who lifted her over in his arms. These peaceful women of Methodism are finding no obstacle now as did Hadwig of old; they do not need even figuratively to be lifted over the entering threshold; they are gladly welcomed, and are introducing a new element into the life of the ...
— Deaconesses in Europe - and their Lessons for America • Jane M. Bancroft
... with God's aid, should succeed in freeing themselves from the burden of sin which had encumbered all the children of Adam. The end of the world was at hand, and they who would live with Christ must figuratively die with Christ, must become dead to sin. Thus to the pure and spiritual ethics contained in the teachings of Jesus, Paul added an incalculably powerful incentive to right action, and a theory of life calculated to satisfy the speculative necessities ...
— The Unseen World and Other Essays • John Fiske
... profoundly miserable man. Of that I am assured. It amuses me when I meet him in pompous society to address him lightly as "DAB," and remind him of the dear old Balham days, and the huge amount of bird's-eye we used to smoke together. For his motto now is, "Delenda est Balhamia"—I speak of course figuratively—and half-crown havannahs have usurped the place of the honest briar. I know the poor wretch is making up his mind to cut me, but I must bear it ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, July 11, 1891 • Various
... be defined as that process of adjustment or accommodation which occurs between the members of two different races, if their contact is prolonged and if the necessary psychic conditions are present. The result is group homogeneity to a greater or less degree. Figuratively speaking, it is the process by which the aggregation of peoples is changed from a mere mechanical ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... to acknowledge that she did not, and under a hot volley of questions from Donna admitted further that not a soul in San Pasqual had even hinted to her of such a contingency. Too late the spinster realized that she had, figuratively speaking, placed all of her eggs in one bucket and ...
— The Long Chance • Peter B. Kyne
... slow exasperating step, lifting his large boots very high and putting them down again softly as if he were afraid of some insecurity in the floor, or figuratively recognized the fact that the pathways of knowledge were thorny and difficult. Reaching the master's desk and the ministering presence above it, he stopped awkwardly, and with the rim of his soft felt hat endeavored to wipe from his face the meek smile it had worn when he entered. It chanced ...
— Cressy • Bret Harte
... was the new king situated. Will it be believed that the first thing he did was to destroy his Established Church, root and branch? He did indeed do that. To state the case figuratively, he was a prosperous sailor who burnt his ship and took to a raft. This Church was a horrid thing. It heavily oppressed the people; it kept them always trembling in the gloom of mysterious threatenings; it slaughtered them in sacrifice before its grotesque idols of wood and stone; ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... sing, the flowers have lost their fragrance. What she needs is a good dose of common sense, but we don't seem to be able to administer it. If only we could put a cannon cracker under her chair, maybe it would rouse her. Oh, I was just speaking figuratively; I didn't mean the real article," he hastened to assure his small audience, as a gasp of ...
— At the Little Brown House • Ruth Alberta Brown
... present instance does our Savior alter His language when He finds His words taken in the literal sense? Does He tell His hearers that He has spoken figuratively? Does He soften the tone of His expression? Far from weakening the force of His words He repeats what He said before, and in language more emphatic: "Amen, amen, I say unto you, Unless ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink His ...
— The Faith of Our Fathers • James Cardinal Gibbons
... don't you stay in New York?" He figuratively spat upon the proprieties, and Milly was bewildered. "An apartement meublee au cinquieme, near the Boul' ...
— One Woman's Life • Robert Herrick
... main speaks for itself and does not need a special report. It has its seamy side, however, and little as people want to believe it, it is not merely the literary branch of the work. On the contrary, the editorial work of the Woman's Journal is, figuratively speaking, divided into sevenths. It is one part literary or journalistic, two parts ...
— The Torch Bearer - A Look Forward and Back at the Woman's Journal, the Organ of the - Woman's Movement • Agnes E. Ryan
... don't do nothin' which isn't your Fort, for ef you do you'll find yourself splashin' round in the kanawl, figuratively speakin." ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden
... have to make it clear that for the purpose of Human Engineering the old concepts of matter, space and time are sufficient to start with; they are sufficient in much the same way as they have been sufficient in the old science of mechanics. Figuratively speaking Human Engineering is a higher order of bridge engineering—it aims at the spanning of a gap in practical life as well as in knowledge. The old meanings of matter, space and time were good ...
— Manhood of Humanity. • Alfred Korzybski
... endowed that youth with a fund of vitriolic repartee. When Millett, one of Leicester's juniors, evolved some laborious sarcasm on the subject of Farnie's swell friends, Farnie, in a series of three remarks, reduced him, figuratively speaking, to a small and palpitating spot of grease. After that his actions came in for no further, or at ...
— A Prefect's Uncle • P. G. Wodehouse
... Quilp spoke figuratively, and meant to imply that the air breathed by Miss Sally Brass was sweetened and rarefied by that dainty creature, he had doubtless good reason for what he said. But if he spoke of the delights of the atmosphere of Mr Brass's office in a literal sense, he ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens
... precipices in rich abundance. Then, again, to see the caution observed in taking up their resting or abiding places for the day, where they may be warmed by the sun, listening to the roar of many waters, and figuratively, we may say, chewing the cud of contentment, and giving themselves up to the full enjoyment of their nomadic life and its romantic haunts. Usually before reposing one of the herd, generally an old doe, may be observed intently ...
— Natural History of the Mammalia of India and Ceylon • Robert A. Sterndale
... clauses of my text figuratively point to two different classes of operation on the rejecters of the Gospel. What are these two classes? 'Whosoever shall fall on this stone shall be broken: but on whomsoever it shall fall, it will grind ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Matthew Chaps. IX to XXVIII • Alexander Maclaren
... small, both as regards the size of physical objects or figuratively, as of a small degree of talent, affection, or the like. It is made either by the point of the thumb placed under the end of the index (a), or vice versa (b), and the other fingers held at will, but separated from those mentioned. The intention is to exhibit ...
— Sign Language Among North American Indians Compared With That Among Other Peoples And Deaf-Mutes • Garrick Mallery
... these new Mess-Johns in robes and coronets should keep some sort of bounds in the democratic and levelling principles which are expected from their titled pulpits. The new evangelists will, I dare say, disappoint the hopes that are conceived of them. They will not become, literally as well as figuratively, polemic divines, nor be disposed so to drill their congregations, that they may, as in former blessed times, preach their doctrines to regiments of dragoons and corps of infantry and artillery. Such arrangements, ...
— Selections from the Speeches and Writings of Edmund Burke. • Edmund Burke
... Memoriam.—The word star applies in poetry to all the heavenly bodies; and therefore, to the crescent moon, which is often near enough to the sun to be within or to be encircled by, the crimson colour of the sky about sunset; and the sun may, figuratively, be called father of the moon, because he dispenses to her all the light with which she shines; and, moreover, because new, or waxing moons, must set nearly in the same point of the horizon as the sun; and because that point of the horizon in which a heavenly ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 73, March 22, 1851 • Various
... me while speaking lines of force or sound waves which affect more or less each one of you. But there are also in addition to, and quite independent of, the lines of force just mentioned, magnetic lines of force which are too subtle to be recognized by human beings, consequently, figuratively, we are both blind and deaf to them. However, they can be made manifest either by their notion on a suspended magnet or on a conducting body moving across them; the former showing its results by attraction and repulsion, the latter by the production of an electric current. For instance, ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 417 • Various
... to the slavery of working in mines, but to the circumstance of their digging up iron, the substance by means of which they might acquire freedom and independence. This is quite in the manner of Tacitus. The word iron was figuratively used by the ancients to signify military force in general. Thus Solon, in his well-known answer to Croesus, observed to him, that the nation which possessed more iron would be master ...
— The Germany and the Agricola of Tacitus • Tacitus
... 3, Appendix 4, and the sentences listed in Activity 9 for EXERCISE - Abstract above, that a thing meant to be concrete is likely to be stated figuratively. ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... of that day and the morning of the next, everybody in the camp worked hard and did what could be done to help the captain prepare for his voyage, and even Ralph, figuratively speaking, put his hand to ...
— The Adventures of Captain Horn • Frank Richard Stockton
... suffer sickness or death, though they are not revealed with sufficient perspicuity to ascertain their meaning: To interpret his dream, therefore, he taxes his wits to the uttermost, and if, by taking it literally or figuratively, directly or by contraries, he can put no explanation upon it that perfectly satisfies him, he has recourse to the cawin, or priest, who assists him with a comment and illustrations, and perfectly reveals ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 13 • Robert Kerr
... They had never tried harder. But a spell seemed to have fallen upon them. They were like a lion whose spine has been grazed by a hunter's bullet so that it can barely drag its deadened body along. In vain the coach fumed and stormed, and figuratively beat his breast and tore his hair. They winced under the whip, they strained in the harness, but they couldn't pull the load. And at length "Bull" Hendricks realized that what he had been dreading all ...
— Bert Wilson on the Gridiron • J. W. Duffield
... yacht from up the Sarawak, they learned that she was going to the Simujan, one of the officials had given him a letter of introduction to the Chinese half-cast government official, who was the magnate of the place. Figuratively, he took the "Big Four" in his arms, and there was nothing he was not ready to ...
— Four Young Explorers - Sight-Seeing in the Tropics • Oliver Optic
... might refuse him, and that was a contingency which he did not quite appreciate. After their first youth few men altogether relish the idea of putting themselves in a position that gives a capricious woman an opportunity of first figuratively "jumping" on them, and then perhaps holding them up to the scorn and obloquy of her friends, relations, and other admirers. For, unfortunately, until the opposite is clearly demonstrated, many men are apt to believe that not a few women are ...
— Jess • H. Rider Haggard
... people under the whole heaven." What? "Speak in England on religion and keep still on slavery, and the North and the South?" When an engine is full of steam, it is a bad thing to sit on its safety-valve. Figuratively speaking, the chairman and the hundred and fifty ministers, who were trying to get Beecher to speak on religion and keep still on slavery, sat passively and serenely on the safety-valve for about five minutes, ...
— The Battle of Principles - A Study of the Heroism and Eloquence of the Anti-Slavery Conflict • Newell Dwight Hillis
... a tour must be like having your horse shot under you. One minute you're en route and the next minute you're rooted, if the reader will forgive a very lame pun. And the spot where the Striped Beetle had been (figuratively) shot from under the girls could not have been selected better if it had been made to order for a writer of melodrama. There was not a house in sight nor a telephone wire. The dust in the road was three inches deep and the temperature must ...
— The Campfire Girls Go Motoring • Hildegard G. Frey
... Nayland Smith for the remainder of that day. Presumably he was following those "promptings" to which he had referred, though I was unable to conjecture whither they were leading him. Then, towards dusk he arrived in a perfect whirl, figuratively sweeping ...
— The Hand Of Fu-Manchu - Being a New Phase in the Activities of Fu-Manchu, the Devil Doctor • Sax Rohmer
... stood in the porch for a moment to collect his faculties. The time was five minutes of ten, and he had been married about an hour and a half. He had just finished his second dinner, and for the guerdon of companionship with the charming and gracious girl whom fate had figuratively thrown into his arms he would cheerfully have tackled a third meal without any personal qualms as to ...
— One Wonderful Night - A Romance of New York • Louis Tracy
... a subsequent period; and we have a glimpse of this same Roucoulles, gliding about among the royal young-folk, "with only one tooth left" (figuratively speaking), and somewhat given to tattle, in Princess Wilhelmina's opinion. Grown very old now, poor lady; and the dreadfulest bore, when she gets upon Hanover and her experiences, and Queen Sophie Charlotte's, in that stupendously magnificent court under Gentleman Ernst. ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Volume IV. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Friedrich's Apprenticeship, First Stage—1713-1728 • Thomas Carlyle
... intolerably meager. Disguise it with every artifice, a paucity of resource—or plain niggardliness—betrayed itself at every meal. Thompson discarded the theory of niggardliness. And proceeding thence on the first conclusion stood his two aunts in a corner—figuratively, of course—and wrung from them a statement of ...
— Burned Bridges • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... a few years ago there were Americans deploring loudly the shabby financial treatment we gave Dickens, and figuratively and literally ...
— Fifth Avenue • Arthur Bartlett Maurice
... a model to mine, and his dear daughter profited by the lesson her father had taught me. We err grievously in disesteeming our women: they should be our comrades not our slaves, and our soul-ascensions—to speak figuratively—should be made in their ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... the manuscript) I wore it only figuratively—I am wearing it now. And it always makes ...
— King Arthur's Socks and Other Village Plays • Floyd Dell
... Thalvogt, Ruler of the Valley—the name given figuratively to a dense gray mist which the south wind sweeps into the valleys from the mountain tops. It is well known as the ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... no satisfactory evidence. We are in similar doubt as to the place from which it was written. The Church at Babylon is named in the last chapter; but there was a Babylon in Egypt, and another in Assyria, and Rome itself is thus figuratively designated. ...
— The Wesleyan Methodist Pulpit in Malvern • Knowles King
... its wearer a very efficient clergyman. By the aid of his mysterious emblem—for there was no other apparent cause—he became a man of awful power over souls that were in agony for sin. His converts always regarded him with a dread peculiar to themselves, affirming, though but figuratively, that before he brought them to celestial light they had been with him behind the black veil. Its gloom, indeed, enabled him to sympathize with all dark affections. Dying sinners cried aloud for Mr. Hooper and would not yield their breath till ...
— Twice Told Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... mistranslation in the Vulgate. I send you an extract from Coleridge which suggests something more profound the such an accidental cause; and explains the statement of Rosenmueller (p. 419.), that the Jews attributed horns to Moses "figuratively ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 36. Saturday, July 6, 1850 • Various
... bordered and screened, figuratively and literally, with bush and trees of his own selection, setting out and cultivation—shelters of the familiar, the ...
— The Metal Monster • A. Merritt
... fainted away, and, being revived by potions from his own pails, survived only long enough to administer a forcible dose in revenge. The Well-Meaner's fate differed from that of her companions in that she was insidiously poisoned by each actor in turn, so that, figuratively speaking, the curtain descended upon a row of corpses, in the midst of which the Greek Chorus intoned ...
— A College Girl • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... Wellington Channel; and he, after some trouble, succeeded in catching the "Assistance," and, on going on board of her, learnt all they had to tell him, and saw what traces they had discovered. Captain Penny then returned—as he figuratively expressed it—"to take up the search from Cape Riley like a blood-hound," and richly was he ...
— Stray Leaves from an Arctic Journal; • Sherard Osborn
... time the weather had been as gloomy as war and dripping clouds could make it. Having (figuratively) pitched our tents in Boylston Hall, the discipline of camp-life was at once established, and communication with the world outside, was largely cut off. This however did not interfere with the free admission of many tokens of regard from friends outside, ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 5 • Various
... declared, was legalized murder, and the soldier little better than a hired assassin. Napoleon Bonaparte was far more roughly handled than at Leipsic or Waterloo; and a long list of conquerors, ranging back to Alexander the Great, were, figuratively speaking, torn from their graves and hung in chains. At length, having dwelt on the enormous cost of standing armies, and other more practical aspects of the subject, the speaker concluded with a vivid picture ...
— Soldiers of the Queen • Harold Avery
... doing, be lost his popularity with the many, though these were evils he might perhaps have conquered (but still speaking figuratively); his crew (his great inward aid) had differed too seriously among themselves, and were under the ...
— The Life of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - 1838 • James Gillman
... under obligations to Steve. Every time that lame shoulder of his gave him a more severe twinge than usual he could, figuratively speaking, of course, ...
— With Trapper Jim in the North Woods • Lawrence J. Leslie
... this rather astonishing conclusion. I have no doubt that all of his kind—and it is not a stupid kind, by any means—think the same. I tried to tell him about America, where we were all equals in theory (I omitted "theory"), and yet where some of us still "drive other people," figuratively speaking. But he only laughed and shook his head, and said he did not believe that all men were equal in such a land any more than they were in Russia. That was the sort of wall against which I was always being brought ...
— Russian Rambles • Isabel F. Hapgood
... used to come to rather formal luncheons, and at all such functions Richard and I ate our luncheon in the pantry, and when the great meal was nearly over in the dining-room we were allowed to come in in time for the ice-cream and to sit, figuratively, at the feet of the honored guest and generally, literally, on his or her knees. Young as I was in those days I can readily recall one of those lunch-parties when the contrast between Booth and Dion Boucicault struck my youthful mind most forcibly. Booth, with his ...
— Adventures and Letters • Richard Harding Davis
... moment Aileen's tongue was suddenly arrested, and, figuratively speaking, Miss Pritty's blood curdled in her veins and her heart ceased to beat, for, without an instant's warning, the woods resounded with a terrific salvo of artillery; grape and canister shot came tearing, hissing, and crashing through the trees, and ...
— Under the Waves - Diving in Deep Waters • R M Ballantyne
... which might stand in the way of his own will or his private advantage. When he came upon a text condemning riches, for instance, or definitely bidding him to forgive a debtor, he told himself that Christ was speaking figuratively, or was, at any rate, not to be taken literally, and with that he passed on to something more comfortable. He did not, of course, really believe this, but he had to tell himself so; for otherwise he would ...
— Shining Ferry • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... noticed a change in the weather? A storm is blowing up. I'm speaking figuratively ... I might as well out with it, Johnnie,—there's a report, growing in strength, that a mob of townspeople is scheduled to come your way to-night, some time, and treat you to a serenade of protest and the traditional yokel hospitality of ...
— Tramping on Life - An Autobiographical Narrative • Harry Kemp
... being bored. So lofty and forbidding had been his manner that no one had ventured to intrude even a casual good morning. A bachelor under thirty, with a competence of such dimensions that it had entailed incompetency, and a doting family that danced attendance upon his every whim, he was figuratively as well as literally at sea in this new environment. At times he faltered in his stern determination not to allow any one to become acquainted with him. It was only the fear that any leniency might result in undue liberty on the part of some aggressive American that caused him to preserve ...
— The Honorable Percival • Alice Hegan Rice
... of his father Aigeus; and with many more such myths. They can be traced, without room for doubt, back to simple expressions of the fact that the morning and the evening of the one day can only come when the previous day is past and gone; expressed figuratively by the statement that any one day must destroy its predecessor. This led to the stories of "the fatal children," which we find so frequent ...
— American Hero-Myths - A Study in the Native Religions of the Western Continent • Daniel G. Brinton
... past not these doores; Sir, I shift my oathes, as I wash my hands, twice in the artificial day; for in dialoguising, tis to be observ'd, your sentences, must ironically, metaphorically, and altogether figuratively, [be] ...
— A Collection Of Old English Plays, Vol. IV. • Editor: A.H. Bullen
... after the death of their parents, had undertaken the job of "bringing up" her brother, did not sympathize with these ambitions. Consequently, when Kyan ran away she followed him to Boston, stalked aboard the vessel where he had shipped, and collared him, literally and figuratively. One of the mates venturing to offer objection, Lavinia turned upon him and gave him a piece of her mind, to the immense delight of the crew and the loungers on the wharf. Then she returned with ...
— Keziah Coffin • Joseph C. Lincoln
... effort, and thenceforth pursued my difficult way with a subjective discontent which, I fear, did little honour to my philosophy; thinking, to confess the truth, what an advantage it would be if man, figuratively a mopoke, could become one in reality when all the advantage lay in that direction; also, feeling prepared to wager my official dignity against a pair of —— that Longfellow would never have apostrophised the welcome, ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy
... have just such prophecies," said I, "but they are generally interpreted figuratively. Do you really think they will be literally ...
— Daybreak: A Romance of an Old World • James Cowan
... collect from the roads, and hence comes the saying, 'Bhar men dalna', 'To throw into the oven,' meaning to throw away something or to make ducks and drakes with it; while Bhar-jhokna signifies to light or heat the oven, and, figuratively, to take up a mean occupation (Platts). Another proverb quoted by Mr. Crooke is, 'Bharbhunja ka larki kesar ka tika,' or 'The Bharbhunja's slut with saffron on her forehead,' meaning one dressed in borrowed plumes. Another saying is, ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume II • R. V. Russell
... are thus operative in all the higher as well as in all the lower phases of human life and character. Metaphorically, but only metaphorically, we speak of the sub-conscious as a vast zone, an indefinable margin, surrounding the narrow focus of attention, and we may {xxix} figuratively, but only figuratively, call it the subliminal "region" where all our life-gains, and often the gains of the race, are garnered. The contributions from this mental underworld are inestimable—we could not be men without them—but this subconscious zone is a source of things bad as well as good, ...
— Spiritual Reformers in the 16th & 17th Centuries • Rufus M. Jones
... these things figuratively, brothers, to myself and Apollos on your account, that you may learn by us not to [go beyond] what is written, that you may not be puffed up for one against another. [4:7]For who made you to differ? And what have you that ...
— The New Testament • Various
... wool dressed outwards, worn on the edge of the hoods of bachelors of arts, etc. Therefore, if both budge and fur be taken literally the line is tautological. But 'budge' has the secondary sense of 'solemn,' like a doctor in his robes; and 'fur' may be used figuratively in the sense of sect, just as "the cloth" is used to denote the clergy. The whole phrase would thus be equivalent to 'solemn doctors of the Stoic sect.' It is possible that Milton makes equivocal reference to ...
— Milton's Comus • John Milton
... an admiring audience in the stable-yard. By-and-by he was left severely alone, and for the impudence of him, and his courage, and his endurance, and his general cockiness, and his extraordinary ingenuity in mischief, he was called "Speug," which is Scotch for a sparrow, and figuratively expressed the admiration ...
— Young Barbarians • Ian Maclaren
... I," replied the lady, letting her eyes rest upon him with a certain intentness. This was true enough, physically speaking; the handsome boy was now a superb young man; but Archibald chose to interpret her words figuratively, and ...
— Archibald Malmaison • Julian Hawthorne
... he would have questioned me further, but the Skeptic at that moment turned my way, and I laid hold upon him—figuratively speaking—and did not let go again till all danger of a discussion with the Philosopher on the subject of my loneliness ...
— A Court of Inquiry • Grace S. Richmond
... parabolical sense is contained in the literal, for by words things are signified properly and figuratively. Nor is the figure itself, but that which is figured, the literal sense. When Scripture speaks of God's arm, the literal sense is not that God has such a member, but only what is signified by this member, namely operative power. Hence it is plain that nothing false can ever underlie the ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I (Prima Pars) - From the Complete American Edition • Thomas Aquinas
... everything in him—doubts, fears, passions—no matter whether he does harm thereby or good, the Misses Ponsonby would be considered intolerably dull and limited. They did not walk about without their clothes—figuratively speaking—it was not then the fashion. They were, on the contrary, heavily draped from head to foot, but underneath the whalebone and padding, strange to say, were real live women's hearts. They knew what it was to hope and despair; ...
— Catharine Furze • Mark Rutherford
... man there will be no tinge of superstition in what we figuratively express, by affirming that the ghost of a dead progenitor—perhaps as a portion of his own punishment—is often doomed to become the ...
— The Tale of Terror • Edith Birkhead
... designates intention figuratively, not because intention has reference to knowledge, but because it presupposes knowledge, which proposes to the will the end to which the latter moves; thus we foresee with the eye whither we should tend with ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I-II (Pars Prima Secundae) - From the Complete American Edition • Saint Thomas Aquinas
... might comfort the child. It never occurred to him to reproach himself with showing more than he felt, for he had no occasion. The feeling he had given expression to was entirely genuine, and possibly deeper than he knew, although he shook his head, figuratively, at ...
— A Red Wallflower • Susan Warner
... all seemed empty—not figuratively but literally empty. None of them has suffered from the German invasion, save by the destruction, here and there, of a single house on which some random malice has wreaked itself; but since the general flight in September all have remained abandoned, or are provisionally ...
— Fighting France - From Dunkerque to Belport • Edith Wharton
... several of the strangest, and some of them were a great success. For instance, there was "succotash," which sounds as if it might be a guttural insult flung at the mouth of one Red Indian Brave by another; but when it was (figuratively speaking) flung at mine by a black waiter, it turned out to be something more in the nature of a compliment. It looked like beryls mixed with pearls, though it was really only green beans stirred up with American corn; and the two got on so well together you ...
— Lady Betty Across the Water • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson |
