MW From Lawrence: “I am a fool,” said Richard Lovat, which was the most frequent discovery he made. It came, moreover, every time with a new shock of surprise and chagrin. Every time he climbed a new mountain range and…
Tag: Merriam-Webster
Shibboleth
MW Shibboleth – from the Bible, via Milton (“Without Reprieve adjudg’d to death, For want of well pronouncing Shibboleth.“) and Byron (“Nay, it is their brotherhood, Their Shibboleth–their Koran–Talmud–theirCabala–their best brick-work, wherewithal They build more—“, “Juan, who did not understand…
Emprise
MW Wherefore? Through lack of arms to fight the foe: We had no arms or merely lawful ones, An unimportant sword and blunderbuss, Against a foe, pollent in potency, The amasius, and our vixen of a wife. Well then, how…
Nonplus
MW As obscure and imperfect ideas often involve our reason, so, upon the same ground, do dubious words and uncertain signs, often, in discourses and arguings, when not warily attended to, puzzle men’s reason, and bring them to a nonplus.…
Cataract
MW The best education in the world is still to seek, and while he had been getting such scraps of second best for them as he could, the world itself, nature, tradition, custom, suggestion, example and accident, had moulded them…
Mulct
MW Frequencies of Mulct: The Anatomy of Melancholy Burton, Robert 1621 – 448833 words; 9 occurence(s) Leviathan Hobbes, Thomas 1651 – 211574 words; 7 occurence(s) The Ring and the Book Browning, Robert 1869 -165978 words; 6 occurence(s) Other authors hardly…
Incumbent
MW He had now a horror of vast super-incumbent buildings. They were a nightmare. Even the cathedrals. Huge, huge bulks that are called beauty. Beauty seemed to him like some turgid tumour. Never again, he felt, did he want to…
Deter
MW One of the effects of the free introduction of foreigners into any Navy cannot be sufficiently deplored. During the period I lived in the Neversink, I was repeatedly struck by the lack of patriotism in many of my shipmates.…
Gourmandize
MW One day as they all three together wentTo the greene wood, to gather strawberies,There chaunst to them a dangerous accident;A Tigre forth out of the wood did rise,That with fell clawes full of fierce gourmandize,And greedy mouth, wide gaping…
Hale
MW Coole violets, and orpine growing still,/Embathed balme, and chearfull galingale,/Fresh costmarie, and breathfull camomill, /Dull poppie, and drink-quickning setuale*,/Veyne-healing verven, and hed-purging dill,/Sound savorie, and bazil hartie-hale,/Fat colworts, and comfórting perseline**,/Colde lettuce, and refreshing rosmarine. [* Setuale, valerian.][** Perseline,…