a. thoroughly soaked; expressionless, stupid, or dull, especially from drink
They became sodden, stupid, ugly or obscene.
Long lines of soldiers were passing, dust covered, sodden with weariness.
In the middle of it, clearly marked on the sodden soil, was the track of a bicycle.
The Return of Sherlock Holmes By Arthur Conan DoyleContext Highlight In V. THE ADVENTURE OF THE PRIORY SCHOOL n. state of being alone; seclusion; lonely or secluded place
At these moments I took refuge in the most perfect solitude.
Frankenstein By Mary Wollstonecraft (Godwin) ShelleyContext Highlight In Chapter 18 They are dead, and but one feeling in such a solitude can persuade me to preserve my life.
Frankenstein By Mary Wollstonecraft (Godwin) ShelleyContext Highlight In Chapter 24 Having parted from my friend, I determined to visit some remote spot of Scotland and finish my work in solitude.
Frankenstein By Mary Wollstonecraft (Godwin) ShelleyContext Highlight In Chapter 19 a. able to pay all debts; capable of meeting financial obligations
The opinion of all the commercial men was that, under the reverses which had successively weighed down Morrel, it was impossible for him to remain solvent.
The Count of Monte Cristo By Alexandre DumasContext Highlight In Chapter 30. The Fifth of September. a. gloomy; depressing or grave; dull or dark in color
When he came into the parlor, his eyes were somber.
His face was quiet, almost somber, and there was no mocking in his eyes.
These twin lines of somber trees were his, his the abandoned lawn, waist high in weeds under white-starred young magnolia trees.
n. involuntary and unnatural contraction of one or more muscles or muscular fibers
That bloodless lip quivered to a temporary spasm.
Danglars felt a dreadful spasm dart through his heart.
The Count of Monte Cristo By Alexandre DumasContext Highlight In Chapter 116. The Pardon. A sudden and horrible spasm of fear had come over him.
a. arising without external cause; growing without cultivation or human labor
Everything about him was warm and spontaneous.
On the contrary, he was burningly, poignantly grateful for a piece of natural, spontaneous kindness: almost to tears.
It seems, on the contrary, to have been a perfectly spontaneous, untaught feeling on his side, and this surprises me.
v. spend wastefully; fail to take advantage of; lose a chance for
You, for example, May, you squander half your force with women.
He squandered too much in the heat of personal communication.
He had left her, when only eighteen; robbed her of jewels and money; gambled, squandered, forged, and fled to London: where for two years he had associated with the lowest outcasts.
n. the quality or state of something that is not easily changed or likely to change
Here was something of stability, thought Scarlett, something of the old life that was unchanging.
But now all desire for change had vanished, and the sight of the little enclosure gave him a warm sense of continuance and stability.
It was an age when what we call talent had far less consideration than now, but the massive materials which produce stability and dignity of character a great deal more.
The Scarlet Letter By Nathaniel HawthorneContext Highlight In XXII. THE PROCESSION n. attitude or position of a standing person or animal; posture; mental posture; point of view
a. barren; infertile; incapable of reproducing; free of or using methods to keep free of pathological microorganisms
To the sterile winter air the wood gave a scent of March sap.
And your nasty, sterile want of common sympathy is in the worst taste imaginable.
The bitter waters of life surged high about him, their sterile taste was on his lips.
n. symbol of disgrace; small mark, as scar or birthmark; mark made with red-hot iron
Do not return to your families with the stigma of disgrace marked on your brows.
Frankenstein By Mary Wollstonecraft (Godwin) ShelleyContext Highlight In Chapter 24 The stigma gone, Hester heaved a long, deep sigh, in which the burden of shame and anguish departed from her spirit.
The Scarlet Letter By Nathaniel HawthorneContext Highlight In XVIII. A FLOOD OF SUNSHINE Others contended that the stigma had not been produced until a long time subsequent, when old Roger Chillingworth, being a potent necromancer, had caused it to appear, through the agency of magic and poisonous drugs.
v. encourage; motivate; arouse; spur; excite or invigorate with a stimulant
They stimulate him to greater watchfulness, and enhance his power to capture his slave.
And she used all her aroused cheerfulness and satisfaction to stimulate Clifford, so that he wrote his best at this time, and was almost happy in his strange blind way.
But there was something stimulating about him, something warm and vital and electric.
a. dull; impassive; having or revealing little emotion or sensibility
The regiment fell back to the stolid trees.
But so few of these stolid worlds wanted to be moved.
The guns, stolid and undaunted, spoke with dogged valor.
v. make senseless or dizzy; be mystery or bewildering to
He was stupefied with happiness.
The maid, stupefied, carries in their messages.
The arguments, and his audacity, perfectly stupefied me.
The Count of Monte Cristo By Alexandre DumasContext Highlight In Chapter 44. The Vendetta. n. state of reduced or suspended sensibility; daze; lack of awareness
A kind of pleasant stupor was stealing over me as I sat by the genial fire.
She lay in that heavy stupor, alike unconscious of hope and joy, doubt and danger.
It would be difficult to describe the state of stupor in which Villefort left the Palais.
The Count of Monte Cristo By Alexandre DumasContext Highlight In Chapter 111. Expiation. a. smoothly agreeable and courteous with a degree of sophistication; having a sophisticated charm
There was a suave, almost teasing note in his voice and she took heart.
She had been attracted only by hands that were fine and suave, like those of her father.
He looked as if he were enjoying himself and when he spoke there was suave brutality in his voice.
v. settle down; sink to a lower level or form depression; wear off or die down
Then these agonies began swiftly to subside, and I came to myself as if out of a great sickness.
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde By Robert Louis StevensonContext Highlight In CHAPTER HENRY JEKYLL'S FULL STATEMENT OF THE CASE A moment was allowed for the first thrill to subside, then Hugo, the villain, stalked in with a clanking sword at his side, a slouching hat, black beard, mysterious cloak, and the boots.
Mr. Bhaer stood by, watching her blush and blunder, and as he watched, his own bewilderment seemed to subside, for he was beginning to see that on some occasions, women, like dreams, go by contraries.
a. various; miscellaneous; separate; distinct; diverse
Her woolly hair was braided in sundry little tails, which stuck out in every direction.
Mr. Haley pulled out of his pocket sundry newspapers, and began looking over their advertisements, with absorbed interest.
Into this twilight apartment sundry nimble hands keep coiling away the long blanket-piece as if it were a great live mass of plaited serpents.
v. place over something else; place on top of
n. an exaggerated expression, usually of praise; the highest level or degree attainable; the highest stage of development
Their table was superlatively stupid.
Or, if for any reason thought to be corporeally incapacitated for that, yet such an one would seem superlatively competent to cheer and howl on his underlings to the attack.
But the housekeeper had served Sir Geoffrey for many years, and the dried-up, elderly, superlatively correct female you could hardly call her a parlour-maid, or even a woman.
a. secret; done or made by stealth, or without proper authority; made or introduced fraudulently
The couple seated themselves on the opposite side, and intently but surreptitiously scrutinized her clothes.
And the fingers of William's left hand closed firmly, surreptitiously, as the hero approached.
But it was the part she did not read that tormented Scarlett, that drove her to surreptitious reading of her sister-in-law's mail.
n. arrangement of parts so that balance is obtained; congruity
There was a glamor to it, a perfection and a completeness and a symmetry to it like Grecian art.
But an inner strenuousness was preying upon an outer symmetry, and they rated his look as singular.
Return of the Native By Thomas HardyContext Highlight In BOOK 2: 6 The Two Stand Face to Face There was a fecklessness, a lack of symmetry and order in the clouds, as they thinned and thickened.
a. artificial; involving or of the nature of synthesis as opposed to analysis
v. arrange or enter in tabular form; shape or cut with a flat surface
v. contaminate; cause to lose purity; affect with or as if with a disease; corrupt morally
The gloomy taint that was in the Murdstone blood, darkened the Murdstone religion, which was austere and wrathful.
David Copperfield By Charles DickensContext Highlight In CHAPTER 4. I FALL INTO DISGRACE Bounderby and Gradgrind now walked, was a triumph of fact; it had no greater taint of fancy in it than Mrs. Gradgrind herself.
The atmosphere seemed tainted with the smell of coffins.
n. ratio of the opposite to the adjacent side of a right-angled triangle
Please stop flying off at tangents, Carrie.
v. tease; torture with disappointment; bait someone by showing something desirable but leaving them unsatisfied
Steerforth was considerate, too; and showed his consideration, in one particular instance, in an unflinching manner that was a little tantalizing, I suspect, to poor Traddles and the rest.
David Copperfield By Charles DickensContext Highlight In CHAPTER 7. MY 'FIRST HALF' AT SALEM HOUSE Gently he insinuates his vast bulk among them again and revels there awhile, still in tantalizing vicinity to young Lothario, like pious Solomon devoutly worshipping among his thousand concubines.
Moby Dick By Herman MelvilleContext Highlight In CHAPTER 88. Schools and Schoolmasters. "Soon's Ah kick dis black trash outer mah way," answered Mammy loudly, swinging the carpetbag at a black buck who loitered tantalizingly in front of her and making him leap aside.
n. a species of small open pie, or piece of pastry, containing jelly or conserve; a sort of fruit pie
He wondered why she sounded tart.
Smoke became tart on the roof of her mouth.
I closed the book, which I dared no longer peruse, and put it on the table, beside the untasted tart.
a. cheap in nature or appearance; tastelessly showy; shameful or indecent
A pitiful and tawdry love-affair.
She pitied herself that her romance should be pitiful; she sighed that in this colorless hour, to this austere self, it should seem tawdry.
In the cold slant of light reflected from the back wall of a neighbouring building, she saw her evening dress and opera cloak lying in a tawdry heap on a chair.
a. restrained; self-controlled; moderate in degree or quality
The count was, it may be remembered, a most temperate guest.
The Count of Monte Cristo By Alexandre DumasContext Highlight In Chapter 40. The Breakfast. I had thought, now, that at your temperate North the generations were cold and holy as the hills.
Moby Dick By Herman MelvilleContext Highlight In CHAPTER 54. The Town-Ho's Story. Mr. St. Clair is now thirty-seven years of age, is a man of temperate habits, a good husband, a very affectionate father, and a man who is popular with all who know him.
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes By Arthur Conan DoyleContext Highlight In VI. THE MAN WITH THE TWISTED LIP n. an idea accepted as a demonstrable truth; a proposition deducible from basic postulates
n. a relative position or degree of value in a graded group; one of two or more layers one atop another
The cells were in tiers, opening upon galleries.
Old London Bridge was soon passed, and old Billingsgate Market with its oyster-boats and Dutchmen, and the White Tower and Traitor's Gate, and we were in among the tiers of shipping.
The latter looked out with three tiers of vacant melancholy windows, which were blank and dreary, save that here and there a "To Let" card had developed like a cataract upon the bleared panes.
A Study In Scarlet By Arthur Conan DoyleContext Highlight In PART I: CHAPTER III. THE LAURISTON GARDEN MYSTERY a. being or occurring in good time; sufficiently early; seasonable
This momentous pocket-book was a timely reminder to him of another transaction.
David Copperfield By Charles DickensContext Highlight In CHAPTER 57. THE EMIGRANTS By her next speech, Jo deprived herself of several years of pleasure, and received a timely lesson in the art of holding her tongue.
The boy grew more daring, and Mrs. Pontellier might have found herself, in a little while, listening to a highly colored story but for the timely appearance of Madame Lebrun.
n. extended scolding; long angry or violent speech
'It's not of him I want to hear; I've heard enough of him,' said the stranger, stopping Mr. Bumble in the outset of a tirade on the subject of poor Oliver's vices.
a. capable of being borne or endured; supportable, either physically or mentally.
I am a wretched being, cut off from everything that makes life tolerable.
David Copperfield By Charles DickensContext Highlight In CHAPTER 49. I AM INVOLVED IN MYSTERY The Dashwoods were now settled at Barton with tolerable comfort to themselves.
How Wickham and Lydia were to be supported in tolerable independence, she could not imagine.
a. passionate; hot or scorching; hurried or rapid
He had detected the latent sensuality, which unfolded under his delicate sense of her nature's requirements like a torpid, torrid, sensitive blossom.
n. body excluding head and neck and limbs
His thickset torso was supported by short sturdy legs, always incased in the finest leather boots procurable and always planted wide apart like a swaggering small boy's.
v. advertize in strongly positive terms; praise excessively; show off
But the matter is of such importance, that one must passer pardessus toutes ces finesses de sentiment.
v. copy; write over again in same words
From this point onward I will follow the course of events by transcribing my own letters to Mr. Sherlock Holmes which lie before me on the table.
The Hound of the Baskervilles By A. Conan DoyleContext Highlight In Chapter 8. First Report of Dr. Watson v. substitute one for the other of; reverse or transfer order or place of; interchange
You have only knowledge enough of the language to translate at sight these inverted, transposed, curtailed Italian lines, into clear, comprehensible, elegant English.
n. branch that flows into the main stream; tending to bring about; being partly responsible for
She might be firm, but only by relationship, and in an inferior and tributary degree.
David Copperfield By Charles DickensContext Highlight In CHAPTER 4. I FALL INTO DISGRACE Entering at the open door of one of these, and releasing my arm, she beckoned me to follow her up the common staircase, which was like a tributary channel to the street.
David Copperfield By Charles DickensContext Highlight In CHAPTER 50. Mr. PEGGOTTY'S DREAM COMES TRUE It was the sterile and rugged district which separates the tributaries of Champlain from those of the Hudson, the Mohawk, and the St. Lawrence.
The Last of the Mohicans By James Fenimore CooperContext Highlight In CHAPTER 21 n. noise, as made by a crowd; riot or uprising
A dusky tumult would flap its wings from one house to another.
The Scarlet Letter By Nathaniel HawthorneContext Highlight In XII. THE MINISTER'S VIGIL Frankenstein, who was dozing, awoke and asked the cause of the tumult.
Frankenstein By Mary Wollstonecraft (Godwin) ShelleyContext Highlight In Chapter 24 The tumult of cessation from lessons was already breaking forth, but it sank at her voice.
a. final; being the last or concluding; fundamental; elemental; extreme
Confidence in ultimate victory never wavered.
She shared her ultimate nakedness with a man, another being.
Her need of money was too pressing, too desperate, for her to bother about his ultimate fate.
n. last offer; final statement of terms made by one party to another
a. lacking refinement or cultivation or taste
He was a little wild, uncouth and proud.
He was an uncouth man, but deeply imbued in the secrets of his science.
Frankenstein By Mary Wollstonecraft (Godwin) ShelleyContext Highlight In Chapter 3 He ate in a ravenous way that was very disagreeable, and all his actions were uncouth, noisy, and greedy.
a. not liable to error; always right or accurate
The wise, unerring Faria could not be mistaken in this one thing.
The Count of Monte Cristo By Alexandre DumasContext Highlight In Chapter 23. The Island of Monte Cristo. In our councils of war before Troy he was always first to speak, and his judgement was unerring.
The unerring feeling of nature for a moment prevailed and the old warrior hid his eyes in sorrow.
The Last of the Mohicans By James Fenimore CooperContext Highlight In CHAPTER 27 a. untidy; dirty; uncared for in appearance
She did not feel exalted, but unkempt and furious.
But it looked forlorn and unkempt under the gray sky.
Collar and shirt bore the grime of a long journey, and the hair bristled unkempt from the well-shaped head.
The Return of Sherlock Holmes By Arthur Conan DoyleContext Highlight In V. THE ADVENTURE OF THE PRIORY SCHOOL n. the act of using; accepted or habitual practice; the customary manner in which a language is spoken or written
Long usage had, for this Stubb, converted the jaws of death into an easy chair.
Moby Dick By Herman MelvilleContext Highlight In CHAPTER 27. Knights and Squires. But now, after such dishonorable usage, who can tell what were his designs on her.
He was a native of Cape Cod; and hence, according to local usage, was called a Cape-Cod-man.
Moby Dick By Herman MelvilleContext Highlight In CHAPTER 27. Knights and Squires. v. seize and hold power or rights of another by force or without legal authority
This usurpation, it is well known, he afterwards effected.
And here be it said, that the Greenland whale is an usurper upon the throne of the seas.
Sire, the usurper is arming three ships, he meditates some project, which, however mad, is yet, perhaps, terrible.
The Count of Monte Cristo By Alexandre DumasContext Highlight In Chapter 10. The King's Closet at the Tuileries. n. factor; something that is likely to vary; changeable; inconstant
Certainly the weather was variable.
The light but variable breeze, foretold by the weather expert, flapped the yellow curtain, tossing light, then shadow.
They were bringing up nets full of fish from the sea; but Isa was seeing--the garden, variable as the forecast said, in the light breeze.
v. treat with great respect and deference; consider hallowed or be in awe of
A good evening to you, venerable Father Wilson.
The Scarlet Letter By Nathaniel HawthorneContext Highlight In XII. THE MINISTER'S VIGIL Our venerable instructor was a great deal older, and not improved in appearance.
David Copperfield By Charles DickensContext Highlight In CHAPTER 61. I AM SHOWN TWO INTERESTING PENITENTS Nothing could exceed the love and respect which the younger cottagers exhibited towards their venerable companion.
Frankenstein By Mary Wollstonecraft (Godwin) ShelleyContext Highlight In Chapter 12 n. trace; remains; indication that something has been happened
I have not yet seen the vestige of a clue.
The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes By Arthur Conan DoyleContext Highlight In VII. The Adventure of The Reigate Squires And the little people displayed no vestige of a creative tendency.
He sprang round, and I could see in the gas-light that every vestige of colour had been driven from his face.
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes By Arthur Conan DoyleContext Highlight In VII. THE ADVENTURE OF THE BLUE CARBUNCLE v. annoy; disturb, especially by minor irritations; be a mystery or bewildering to
Hereafter, we must be cautious how we vex her.
Ah, yes, I hear these naughty ones go to vex you, Mees Marsch.
She is the best friend I have, and that is why I mind having to vex her.
n. a purposeful surveillance to guard or observe; a period of sleeplessness
It was a most melancholy vigil and ended by each of us falling asleep in our chairs.
The Hound of the Baskervilles By A. Conan DoyleContext Highlight In Chapter 9. The Light upon the Moor [Second Report of Dr. ... So this was the explanation of the unlocked door and of the nocturnal vigil of Milverton.
The Return of Sherlock Holmes By Arthur Conan DoyleContext Highlight In VII. THE ADVENTURE OF CHARLES AUGUSTUS MILVERTON About noon he went to the police station to make inquiries, and then came back again for another anxious vigil.
a. attentive to discover and avoid danger, or to provide for safety; wakeful; watchful; circumspect; wary
But the watchfulness of these vigilant protectors neither tired nor slumbered.
But the wary and vigilant leader of the Hurons was not so easily disconcerted.
The Last of the Mohicans By James Fenimore CooperContext Highlight In CHAPTER 12 Not a single indication of the future intentions of his hosts, however, escaped his vigilant eyes.
The Last of the Mohicans By James Fenimore CooperContext Highlight In CHAPTER 28 v. debase; degrade; spread negative information about
v. make visual, or visible; see in fancy; form a mental image of
Behind the mask of winter-stripped vines and a wide porch only a foot above the ground, the cottage was so impersonal that Carol could never visualize it.
A curious and most puzzling question might be started concerning this visual matter as touching the Leviathan.
Moby Dick By Herman MelvilleContext Highlight In CHAPTER 74. The Sperm Whale's Head—Contrasted View. Despite all Frank had told her about the town burning to the ground, she had never really visualized complete destruction.
n. energetic style; being able to survive and grow; capacity to live, grow, or develop
They seem to radiate a force and vitality that made her feel smaller and weaker even than she was.
The intense vitality that had been so remarkable in the garage was converted into impressive hauteur.
He took her arm in a strong grasp and some of the vitality which animated him seemed to flow into her body.
a. tending to vary often or widely, as in price; inconstant or fickle; tending to violence
Her volatile spirits shot up from deepest depression to excited happiness.
Raymond is a witness what ginger and sal volatile I am obliged to take in the night.
In the universal decay this volatile substance had chanced to survive, perhaps through many thousands of centuries.
n. homeless person, especially orphaned child; abandoned young animal
And they had fed and clothed any number of waifs who slept in their cellar.
Gradually their talk died out and drowsiness began to steal upon the eyelids of the little waifs.
The Elder to whose care the two waifs had been committed, led them to his waggon, where a meal was already awaiting them.
A Study In Scarlet By Arthur Conan DoyleContext Highlight In PART II: CHAPTER I. ON THE GREAT ALKALI PLAIN a. having a pale or sickly color; unnaturally pale, as from physical or emotional distress
Her wan, scornful mouth smiled and so I drew her up again, closer, this time to my face.
There was a very dirty lady in his little room, and two wan girls, his daughters, with shock heads of hair.
David Copperfield By Charles DickensContext Highlight In CHAPTER 11. I BEGIN LIFE ON MY OWN ACCOUNT, AND DON'T LIK... Her grey sun-strained eyes looked back at me with polite reciprocal curiosity out of a wan, charming discontented face.
a. unrestrained; willfully malicious; immoral or unchaste
To have imposed any derogatory work upon him, would have been to inflict a wanton insult on the feelings of a most respectable man.
David Copperfield By Charles DickensContext Highlight In CHAPTER 21. LITTLE EM'LY Do not think yourself excused by any weakness, any natural defect of understanding on her side, in the wanton cruelty so evident on yours.
They felt it might be a being partially benighted in the vale of ignorance, but it could not be one who would willingly devote his rich natural gifts to the purposes of wanton treachery.
v. go in a specified direction, typically slowly or by an indirect route
And she bade the Welshman wend his way.
We entered the wood, and wended homeward.
The youth wended, feeling that Nature was of his mind.
v. sharpen, as knife; make more keen; stimulate
I knew the steely ire I had whetted.
The poor morsel of food only whetted desire.
He glanced at the sky in the interval for whetting the scythes.
a. full of wishful yearning or longing; sadly thoughtful
She looked so lovely and warm and wistful, his bowels stirred towards her.
I ordered him to set me down, and lifting up one of my sashes, cast many a wistful melancholy look towards the sea.
Gulliver's Travels(V1) By Jonathan SwiftContext Highlight In PART 2: CHAPTER VIII. Before quite leaving her he threw upon her face a wistful glance, as if he had misgivings on the generosity of forsaking her thus.
Return of the Native By Thomas HardyContext Highlight In BOOK 4: 6 A Conjuncture, and Its Result upon the Pedestrian a. enthusiastic; filled with or motivated by zeal
Nor was Eva less zealous in kind offices, in return.
Sam was there new oiled from dinner, with an abundance of zealous and ready officiousness.
Lady Russell was most anxiously zealous on the subject, and gave it much serious consideration.