MW Quotations and Authors: What shall I need to draw my sword? The paperHath cut her throat already. No, ’tis slander,Whose edge is sharper than the sword, whose tongueOutvenoms all the worms of Nile, whose breathRides on the posting winds…
Category: Word of the Day
Febrile
MW Quotations and Authors: Now, Pierre, if you were in any profession, or in any business at all; nay, if I were a farmer’s wife, and you my child, working in my fields; why, then, you and Lucy should still…
Ragamuffin
MW Quotations and Authors: Why don’t you snap your oars, you rascals? Bite something, you dogs! So, so, so, then:—softly, softly! That’s it—that’s it! long and strong. Give way there, give way! The devil fetch ye, ye ragamuffin rapscallions; ye…
Sere
MW Quotations and Authors: And so doth it480 apere,For481 the grene bare thredes 60Loke lyke sere wedes,Wyddered lyke hay,The woll worne away;And yet I dare sayeShe thynketh herselfe gayeVpon the holy daye,Whan she doth her aray,And gyrdeth in her gytes482Stytched…
White-livered
The OED The colors and shapes of ‘-liveredness‘ white-livered milk-livered lily-livered pidgeon-livered chicken-livered hot livered Quotations and Authors: Let the two edged sword of Gods holy word there asunder the sinowes of worldly respects, euen to the very marrow of…
Absolve
MW Explore absolve and absolved in D. H. Lawrence. Examples of usage by other authors: I felt my soul receding into some pleasant and vicious region; and there again I found it waiting for me. It began to confess to…
Septentrion
The OED Quotations and Authors: Yet he, as telleth us Swetonius, 3655This wyde world hadde in subieccioun,Both Est and West, South and Septemtrioun;Of rubies, saphires, and of perles whyteWere alle his clothes brouded up and doun;For he in gemmes greetly…
Prepossessing
MW Explore Prepossessing in the context of the full text in the works of Austen Dickens Melville James Some examples of usage, including by other authors: …yet the degree of harshness inseparable from Galliclineaments was, in his case, softened by…
Esoteric
MW Quotations and Authors: With an easy condescension, and kind forbearance towards our stupidity,—which, to his order of mind, must have seemed little short of crime,—would he forthwith, by the merest touch of his finger, make the incomprehensible as clear…
Gadabout
MW Quotations and Authors: “Then must I hew a passage,” cried the stranger, with his shoulder braced round and his hand upon his hilt. “I am not to be stopped on the king’s service by every gadabout.” “Should you be…