"Monosyllable" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... voice said plainly that he knew, and Raffles faced him with the monosyllable of confession and assent. I did not count the seconds until the next word, but it was Captain Bellingham ...
— Raffles - Further Adventures of the Amateur Cracksman • E. W. Hornung
... lady of importance, whose friendship means perdition, yet without whom nothing can be done, and who plays an immense part in the world. The monosyllable which designates her has a vague and extended signification; it means both reward and bribery. Disinterestedness, the virtue of noble minds, being rare in this world, scarcely anything is undertaken without hope of recompense, and what man, toiling ...
— A Literary History of the English People - From the Origins to the Renaissance • Jean Jules Jusserand
... answer that question, I should like to know what meaning Mrs. Felix Lorraine attaches to that important monosyllable, friend." ...
— Vivian Grey • The Earl of Beaconsfield
... in the books, and I do not know how to improve upon it) resembles the chebec of the least flycatcher, though much less emphatic, as well as much less frequently uttered, while his twee, or tuwee, is quite in the voice and manner of the wood pewee's clear, plaintive whistle; usually a monosyllable, but at other times almost or quite dissyllabic. The olive-sided, on the other hand, imitates nobody; or, if he does, it must be some bird with which I have yet to make acquaintance. Que-que-o he vociferates, with a strong emphasis and drawl upon ...
— The Foot-path Way • Bradford Torrey
... the young fellow. Why, Bob could not imagine, for the alert, self-contained little riverman trudged along in almost entire silence, his keen chipmunk eyes spying restlessly on all there was to be seen. When Bob ventured a remark or comment, he answered by a grunt or a monosyllable. The grunt or the monosyllable was never sullen or hostile or contemptuous; merely indifferent. Bob learned to economize speech, and so got along well with ...
— The Rules of the Game • Stewart Edward White
... no more than an occasional monosyllable in reply, he poured forth a flood of information about his estate: The architectural features of his house—the cost; the loveliness of his trees—the cost; the coloring of his flowers—the cost; the magnificence of his view, And all the while he studied his caller's face with sharp, ...
— Helen of the Old House • Harold Bell Wright
... asked one of us. 'No,' said our friend, briefly. He seemed almost disagreeable. There was a long pause. One of us, with a nod and a forced smile at the traveller, said 'Well!' The nod, the smile, and the unmeaning monosyllable, were returned conscientiously. Another pause was broken by one of us with a fit of coughing. It was an obviously assumed fit, but it served to pass the time. The bustle of the platform was unabated. There was no sign of the train's departure. ...
— Yet Again • Max Beerbohm
... climbs in search of the insects which there congregate. We shall frequently hear its voice, especially before rain, for it is a noisy creature. It has a liquid note, sounding like "el" frequently repeated, and then ending with a sharp, short monosyllable. ...
— The Western World - Picturesque Sketches of Nature and Natural History in North - and South America • W.H.G. Kingston
... so suddenly and with such meaning in the monosyllable that Kate blushed as she turned. "Say! is that fellow still writing to you—the one with the Eastern education ...
— The Readjustment • Will Irwin
... appeared to have need of the monosyllable in order to collect and arrange his ideas. "'Tain't lack of sand exactly, either, for most of the fellows about here thinks it is ...
— The Burglar and the Blizzard • Alice Duer Miller
... the pool. This native was a quiet and sensible fellow—he steadily pursued the course he recommended for the wheelbarrows, as he termed our carts; and answered all my queries briefly and decidedly, either by a nod of assent, or the negative monosyllable Bel, with a shake of the head. His walk was extremely light and graceful; his shoulders were neatly knit, and the flowing luxuriance of his locks was restrained by a bit of half-inch cord, the two ends hanging, like a double queue, ...
— Three Expeditions into the Interior of Eastern Australia, Vol 1 (of 2) • Thomas Mitchell
... is no instance so striking as this of the immense difference that sometimes lies in the mere accent given one monosyllable. Until Mrs. Siddons revealed the real Lady Macbeth, every actress had replied, "We fail?" interrogatively, and then encouragingly, "Screw your courage to the sticking-point and we'll not fail." Such ...
— James Watt • Andrew Carnegie
... a moment's pause, lengthening out the monosyllable, taking a slow pinch, and looking up at Maynard with ...
— Scenes of Clerical Life • George Eliot
... The monosyllable fell from her like a whisper of despair. But the utterance of Grail's name had brought Egremont the last ...
— Thyrza • George Gissing
... venture, but no man likes to be "done," so I joined the guard over the pearl fishing. I could see little indication of success on the part of the two clammers, who went on in their work steadily, exchanging no more than a monosyllable now and then, but who were animated, it seemed to us, by the same excitement which governs the miner washing gravel in his pan. They scarce could rest, but went on from shell to shell, opening each as eagerly as though it ...
— The Lady and the Pirate - Being the Plain Tale of a Diligent Pirate and a Fair Captive • Emerson Hough
... Chump. It was wickedly clever. Arabella resolved to put it by; but morning after morning she saw her father's anxiety for the reply mounting to a pitch of fever. She consulted with Cornelia, who said, "No; never do such a thing!" and subsequently, with a fainter firmness, repeated the negative monosyllable. Arabella, in her wretchedness, became endued with remorseless discernment. "It means that Cornelia would never do it herself," she thought; and, comforted haply by reflecting that for their common good she ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... an influential form of practical force, compounded of strong will, strong sense, and strong egotism, which long waited for a strong monosyllable to announce its nature. Facts of character, indeed, are never at rest until they have become terms of language; and that peculiar thing which is not exactly courage or heroism, but which unmistakably is "Grit," has coined its own word to blurt out its own quality. If the word ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 90, April, 1865 • Various
... the malformation, before described, shocked the propriety of the breakfast-table by a loud utterance of three words, of which the two last were "Webster's Unabridged," and the first was an emphatic monosyllable.—Beg pardon,—he added,—forgot myself. But let us have an English dictionary, if we are to have any. I don't believe in clipping the coin of the realm, Sir! If I put a weathercock on my house, Sir, I want it to tell which way the wind blows up aloft,—off from the prairies to the ocean, or off ...
— The Professor at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes (Sr.)
... Ratcliffe," said the procurator; "you must speak out—out—out," tapping the table emphatically, as he repeated that impressive monosyllable. ...
— The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... The monosyllable seemed to lack Elkin's usual confidence. It sounded as if he had been making up his mind what to say, yet faltered at ...
— The Postmaster's Daughter • Louis Tracy
... congregations made no responses and showed no signs of reverence. Soon in all the coffeehouses was handed about a brutal lampoon on the courtly prelates whose pens the King had employed. Mother East had also her full share of abuse. Into that homely monosyllable our ancestors had degraded the name of the great house of Este which reigned at ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 2 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... pronoun to which the participle relates is a passive subject, it should not have the possessive form; as, "The daily instances of men's dying around us remind us of the brevity of human life." "We do not speak of a monosyllable's having a primary accent." Change men's to men, ...
— Slips of Speech • John H. Bechtel
... The single monosyllable—from Sara Van Decht—was the only speech which broke the amazed silence. She was leaning forward in her chair, gazing eagerly at the three men, her beautiful eyes eloquent with excitement—a crown of fire gleaming in her brown-gold hair. No one noticed her. Hassen, who had regained his composure, ...
— The Traitors • E. Phillips (Edward Phillips) Oppenheim
... together mingled, drove forth from my mouth a 'Yea,'" a monosyllable of confession which showed the ...
— Dante: "The Central Man of All the World" • John T. Slattery
... pat his boy's knee with loving taps of admiration, prouder of him than ever. His own pleasures so absorbed him that he continued to sit almost silent, except for a word now and then to Nathan or a monosyllable to Fred. ...
— The Fortunes of Oliver Horn • F. Hopkinson Smith
... syllable, is termed a Monosyllable; a word of two syllables, a Dissyllable; a word of three syllables, a Trisyllable; a word of four or more syllables, ...
— English Grammar in Familiar Lectures • Samuel Kirkham
... narrow streets, a vulgar palace, and crowds of boats and wheelbarrows." The native word for the country was something like Keugu, which the Chinese (as they still do with foreign words, as, for instance, Ying for "England") promptly turned into a convenient monosyllable Ngu, or Wu. The semi-barbarous King was delighted at the opening thus given him to associate with orthodox Chinese princes on an equal footing, and to throw off his former tyrannical suzerain. He annexed a number of neighbouring barbarian states hitherto, like himself, belonging ...
— Ancient China Simplified • Edward Harper Parker
... petitioning Cons, have in right Of the said monosyllable ravaged the lands And embezzled the goods and annoyed, day and night, Both the bodies and souls ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... been intertwined, and death only has the power to tear them apart. We sat together long hours, and talked of the past—alternately, as their memories floated up, asking each other, "Where is this one? and this?" and to each inquiry the sad monosyllable, "Dead!" was the reply, of all who were with us at school when we were ...
— The Memories of Fifty Years • William H. Sparks
... This monosyllable was expressive. It proved to me that Bonaparte was conscious how ill he had treated me; and, suspecting that I was actuated by the desire of vengeance, he was afraid of my going to England, lest I should there take ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... their ears to the plain import of the word, imagined that Phutatorius, who was somewhat of a cholerick spirit, was just going to snatch the cudgels out of Didius's hands, in order to bemaul Yorick to some purpose—and that the desperate monosyllable Z...ds was the exordium to an oration, which, as they judged from the sample, presaged but a rough kind of handling of him; so that my uncle Toby's good-nature felt a pang for what Yorick was about ...
— The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman • Laurence Sterne
... with the door open, watching them go down the corridor. Then he came slowly back into his room. Once more the telephone bell began to ring. He picked up the receiver. The indifference of his opening monosyllable vanished in a second. Something amazing crept ...
— The Profiteers • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... of the other daughter; her mother had fancied that name; but the single monosyllable it had been shortened into somehow suited the proud-looking girl better than the whole name, ...
— The Quality of Mercy • W. D. Howells
... The monosyllable was drawn out rather faintly. For the first time since they had met on the pass she felt she was mistress of the situation. This time she had not to plead with him in fear for his life. She could regard him without any sense of obligation, this invader of ...
— Over the Pass • Frederick Palmer
... that Mr. Soames did not, after this monosyllable, pass along. He stood patiently there, rather like a dumb animal, rather like a donkey looking over a gate. A sad figure, his. It occurred to me that "hungry" was perhaps the mot juste for him; but—hungry for what? He looked as if he had little appetite for anything. I was sorry ...
— Enoch Soames - A Memory of the Eighteen-nineties • Max Beerbohm
... Saxon stock, which yields him almost all his store of invective and vituperation. The resources of his Latinised vocabulary enable him to rise by successive gyrations to a point of vantage above his prey, and then the downward rush that strikes the quarry is a Saxon monosyllable. In this cardinal point of art for those who have to do with the English speech he became the teacher of Burke, who, with a lesser wealth of Saxon at his command, employed it with a more ...
— Milton • Sir Walter Alexander Raleigh
... The simple monosyllable was strangely expressive, but Dug McFarlane had no understanding of the thought that prompted it. It would have been difficult indeed, even with understanding, to have probed the depths of feeling prompting it. But Whitstone was incapable of seeing the broader aspect of anything pertaining to himself. ...
— The Forfeit • Ridgwell Cullum
... the woods, the birds are trilling among the trees. It is their merry morning lay, but it gives him no gladness. There is still ringing in his ears that harsh monosyllable, "no." The wild-wood songsters appear to echo it, as if mockingly; the blue jay, and red cardinal, seem scolding him for intrusion on ...
— The Death Shot - A Story Retold • Mayne Reid
... Miss Beezley. She made frequent use of that monosyllable. It generally gave the Babe the same sort of feeling as he had been accustomed to experience in the happy days of his childhood when he had ...
— Tales of St. Austin's • P. G. Wodehouse
... water-clerk. Afterwards, when his keen perception of the Intolerable drove him away for good from seaports and white men, even into the virgin forest, the Malays of the jungle village, where he had elected to conceal his deplorable faculty, added a word to the monosyllable of his incognito. They called him Tuan Jim: as ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad
... much was implied in that monosyllable. He knew it, for a little faint colour came up, as he, shyly, laughed ...
— Chantry House • Charlotte M. Yonge
... The monosyllable came simultaneously from each. The little woman got to her feet in alarm. There was inquiry as well as terror in her face—inquiry to which her ...
— The Wild Olive • Basil King
... the telegram she had not noticed the little monosyllable 'us,' which was now affecting her so powerfully. Of course it meant a wife and possibly children, and her day was surely over at Tracy Park. It was in vain that her husband tried to comfort her, ...
— Tracy Park • Mary Jane Holmes
... range for his bow, Vasuke for the string, Vishnu for his arrow, the earth for his chariot with the sun and moon for its wheels and the Vedas for its horses, the starry canopy for his banner with the tree of Paradise for its staff, Brahma for his charioteer, and the mysterious monosyllable Om for his whip reduced them ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... together in the private room at Halfpenny and Farthing's office, Mr. Halfpenny, who had seemed somewhat mystified by the happenings at the bank, looked inquiringly at Professor Cox-Raythwaite and snapped out one suggestive monosyllable: ...
— The Herapath Property • J. S. Fletcher
... signified by the words life, sense, and spontaneous motion, needed but use the word ANIMAL to signify all which partaked of those ideas, and he that had made a complex idea of a body, with life, sense, and motion, with the faculty of reasoning, and a certain shape joined to it, needed but use the short monosyllable MAN, to express all particulars that correspond to that complex idea. This is the proper business of genus and species: and this men do without any consideration of real essences, or substantial forms; which come not within the reach ...
— An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding, Volume II. - MDCXC, Based on the 2nd Edition, Books III. and IV. (of 4) • John Locke
... Godfrey tried to pass her with that monosyllable, but Perrote was not to be thus baffled. She laid a detaining ...
— The White Lady of Hazelwood - A Tale of the Fourteenth Century • Emily Sarah Holt
... and bite his lip, and then leave the room; and whole days would sometimes pass with barely a monosyllable being exchanged between this parent and child. Cadurcis had found some opportunities of pouring forth his griefs and mortification into the ear of Venetia, and they had reached her mother; but Lady Annabel, though ...
— Venetia • Benjamin Disraeli
... &c (writing) 590; type &c (printing) 591; capitals; digraph, trigraph; ideogram, ideograph; majuscule, minuscule; majuscule, minuscule; alphabet, ABC^, abecedary^, christcross-row. consonant, vowel; diphthong, triphthong [Gramm.]; mute, liquid, labial, dental, guttural. syllable; monosyllable, dissyllable^, polysyllable; affix, suffix. spelling, orthograph^; phonography^, phonetic spelling; anagrammatism^, metagrammatism^. cipher, monogram, anagram; doubleacrostic^. V. spell. Adj. literal; alphabetical, abecedarian; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... had existed with regard to these particulars, it would have been removed by a deliberate and equally distinct repetition of the same monosyllable, "No." The voice was my sister's. It appeared to come from the roof. I started from my seat. Catharine, exclaimed I, where are you? No answer was returned. I searched the room, and the area before it, but in vain. Your brother was motionless in his seat. I returned to him, and ...
— Wieland; or The Transformation - An American Tale • Charles Brockden Brown
... Irish tongue was reduced to the use of a simple monosyllable, but into the word there was thrown as much venom as would have taken a hundred of the snakes St. Patrick banished from the ...
— The Rider of Waroona • Firth Scott
... open windows I saw the green folk squatting upon their sleeping silks and furs, grunting an occasional monosyllable, which, in connection with their wondrous telepathic powers, is ample for their conversational requirements. As I drew closer to listen to their words a warrior entered the ...
— The Gods of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... shadow of a boulder. I was carrying a pea rifle more for company than for anything else; for "Paddy," though of a most cheerful disposition, never made remarks. His conversation for the most part was compounded of eloquent looks and expressive gestures. A monosyllable to him was a laborious sentence; four or five words a speech. Once upon a time, it is said, a youthful German inadvertently blundered into a railway carriage reserved for Moltke. The glare of the great man brought three words of respectful apology for the intrusion. The great ...
— The Confessions of a Beachcomber • E J Banfield
... but one thing for which he was not grateful to her. She had fixed the name of Herbert Strange upon him in such a way that he was unable to shake it off. His own first name was the unobjectionable monosyllable John—though he had always been known by his less familiar middle name, Norrie—and as John Ford he could have faced the world with a certain amount of bluff. He meant to begin the attempt immediately ...
— The Wild Olive • Basil King
... circumflex accent properly indicates a rise and fall of voice-pitch on a vowel-sound such as almost makes a disyllable of a monosyllable (e.g. in Milton's verse the word power may fill either one or two places in the line) I will adopt it here to denote this fuller and differentiating ...
— Society for Pure English, Tract 2, on English Homophones • Robert Bridges
... been perfectly able to repeat: "I am not in love with Georgiana!" There was one question which I put severely to Mrs. Walters: Had she told Georgiana of my foolish talk? She shook her head violently, and pressed her lips closely together, suggesting how impossible it would be for the smallest monosyllable in the language to escape by that channel; but she kept her eyes wide open, and the truth issued from them, as smoke in a hollow tree, if stopped in at a lower hole, simply rises and comes out at a higher ...
— A Kentucky Cardinal • James Lane Allen
... his mouth trembled, widened, his eyelids crinkled, and then he smiled delightfully, straight into the eyes of the nurse, stretched up a wavering pink hand, and patted her cheek. A soft, gurgling monosyllable, difficult of classification but easy ...
— While Caroline Was Growing • Josephine Daskam Bacon
... the subtle phrasing of the second line this poem is noteworthy because it is cast in the classic form. All the best Limericks are about a young man, or else an old one, who said some short sharp monosyllable in the first line. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, June 9, 1920 • Various
... The monosyllable came very dryly and unimportantly, as if to a perfectly commonplace inquiry. Then Lady Nottingham, in her turn, got up. Jeannie's restlessness and disquiet seemed to ...
— Daisy's Aunt • E. F. (Edward Frederic) Benson
... nothing to add to the sympathetic little monosyllable. Twilight was reaching even the hilltop, the canyons were rilling with violet shadows; the sweet, pungent odour of the first dew, falling on warm dust, crept ...
— Sisters • Kathleen Norris
... reluctant monosyllable, the girl had really no conception of the degree of hostility expressed in her manner. Instead she was hating herself for ...
— Marcella • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... Knox's thoughts were similar to those of Deck's, for as the Confederate artillerist advanced, he looked inquiringly at his companion, and uttered the monosyllable, "Well?" ...
— An Undivided Union • Oliver Optic
... request a favour from them, which was, that they would allow one of their boys, who could speak English, to accompany me, as our loads were heavy; and his being known to belong to their establishment I thought might be some protection; but the short answer of the monosyllable "No" soon made me repent having asked it. I spread my bed in one of their empty rooms; and started at daybreak next morning, with my two native slaves. I could not banish from my remembrance the inhospitable conduct of these missionaries; they never even inquired whether I ...
— A Narrative of a Nine Months' Residence in New Zealand in 1827 • Augustus Earle
... inheritors of the Roman grandeur?—With my conjecture, the sense would be;—"let higher, or the more northern part of Italy—(unless 'higher' be a corruption for 'hir'd,'—the metre seeming to demand a monosyllable) (those bastards that inherit the infamy only of their fathers) see," &c. The following "woo" and "wed" are so far confirmative as they indicate Shakespeare's manner of connection by unmarked influences of association from some preceding metaphor. This it is which makes his style ...
— Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher • S. T. Coleridge
... it Kaskisoon moved. He looked at the half-breed. His breath came in a low monosyllable of understanding. Over the top of the windfall he poked the barrel of his gun. Then he looked again at Jean. And Jean turned. Their eyes met. They were eyes red and narrowed by the beat of storm. Jean Croisset knew what that silence meant. He might have spoken. ...
— God's Country—And the Woman • James Oliver Curwood
... not the only name, nor is Aylmer. The adaptrix, however, must be careful that the Christian name is a monosyllable ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, August 26th, 1914 • Various
... requires. The poorest logic is the soundest reasoning—if it conclude for him. The visits to the parsonage were, meanwhile, continued. Upon my return, I gained no news. I asked if all were well there, and the simple, monosyllable, "Yes," answered with unusual quickness and decision, was all that escaped the doctor's lips. He did not wish to be interrogated further, and was displeased. I perceived this and was silent. For some days, no mention was made of his dear friend the minister. He was accustomed to ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 53, No. 331, May, 1843 • Various
... the loss of the feeling of personality and the sense of possession by a divine spirit are the same. How, then, is this state reached? By means, I believe, which recall the general formula for the Disappearance of self-feeling. To repeat the monosyllable OM (Brahm) ten thousand times; to circle interminably, chanting the while, about a sacred ire; to listen to the monotonous magic drum; to whirl the body about; to rock to and fro on the knees, vociferating prayers, are methods which enable the members of the respective ...
— The Psychology of Beauty • Ethel D. Puffer
... three-gender, four-case article; France rejoices in a two-gender, one-case article with a distinct form for the plural. The ripe product of tendency, the infant heir of the eloquent ages, to whose birth the law of Aryan evolution groaned and travailed until but now, the most useful, if not the "mightiest," monosyllable "ever moulded by the lips of man," the "the," one and indeclinable, was born in the Anglo-Saxon mouth, and sublimed to its unique ...
— International Language - Past, Present and Future: With Specimens of Esperanto and Grammar • Walter J. Clark
... it greater flexibility and feeling. The effect which he produces is irresistible and universal. Throughout the house the most profound silence is rigidly, but sympathetically enforced; so great is the apprehension of losing a single monosyllable in these interesting moments, which always appear too short. To this silence succeed shouts of acclamation and bursts of applause. I never knew any performer command the like but Mademoiselle SAINVAL ...
— Paris As It Was and As It Is • Francis W. Blagdon
... ran through shadowy woodlands. With these were to be seen at intervals some of maturer years, full-blown flowers among the opening buds, with that conscious look upon their faces which so many women wear during the period when they never meet a single man without having his monosyllable ready for him,—tied as they are, poor things! on the rock of expectation, each of them an ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 5, No. 28, February, 1860 • Various
... said, majestically. All the glories and grandeurs of the Fourth Estate were concentrated in that haughty monosyllable. Heaven itself is full of journalists who have overawed St. Peter. But the ...
— The Big Bow Mystery • I. Zangwill
... heat has made the men silent, for scarcely a word is spoken; if it were, in the stillness it must be heard, though they are at some distance. The wheels, well greased for the heavy harvest work, do not creak. Save an occasional monosyllable, as the horses are ordered on, or to stop, and a faint rustling of straw, there is no sound. It may be the flood of brilliant light, or the mirage of the heat, but in some way the waggon and its rising load, the men and the horses, have an unreality ...
— Nature Near London • Richard Jefferies
... grandmother's forehead, and that which you bestow on the sacred cheek of your mistress; but the same four letters, and not one of them a labial. Do we mean to hint that Mr. Arthur Pendennis made any use of the monosyllable in question? Not so. In the first place it was dark: the fire-works were over, and nobody could see him; secondly, he was not a man to have this kind of secret, and tell it; thirdly and lastly, let the honest fellow who has kissed ...
— The History of Pendennis, Vol. 2 - His Fortunes and Misfortunes, His Friends and His Greatest Enemy • William Makepeace Thackeray
... word, for, maddened by the continual recurrence of that odious monosyllable, I shouted to her to 'hold tight by my waist,' and, giving Daisy the spur, in a minute sprang with Nora over the parapet into the deep water below. I don't know why, now—whether it was I wanted to drown ...
— Barry Lyndon • William Makepeace Thackeray
... successful soldier taking his ease at his club. He felt inclined to break his promise, to tell the whole truth, to answer both the questions which Durrance had first asked. And again the pitiless monosyllable demanded his reply. ...
— The Four Feathers • A. E. W. Mason
... and finally, at some odd evasion of his, accomplished by a monosyllable, I laughed outright—and he did, too! He joined cachinnations with me heartily, and with a twinkling quizzicalness that somehow gave me the idea that he might be thinking (rather apologetically) to himself: "Yes, sir, that old Beasley ...
— Beasley's Christmas Party • Booth Tarkington
... Sedley, not having an instinct like Mademoiselle Panache for a gentleman, did not, till Lord Moira entered the room and received my father with open arms, feel sure that he was worthy of more than monosyllable civility. Lord Moira took the utmost pains to show my father that he was pleased with his visit, said he must have the pleasure of showing him over the house himself, and finished by giving him a letter to the Princess Joseph de Monaco, who is now at Paris. ...
— The Life And Letters Of Maria Edgeworth, Vol. 1 • Maria Edgeworth
... I looked upon that little book as in any sense the result of inspiration, whether what is called spiritualistic, or of any other sort. I have always promptly said "No," to this question. Yet sometimes I wonder if that convenient monosyllable in deed and truth ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. 6, No. 5, April, 1896 • Various
... amongst them now, very drawn and pale in the dim halo of light thrown down from the hanging lamp. His answering monosyllable was cold and restrained. ...
— The Devil's Paw • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... provocation, Mr. Smallweed's favourite adjective of disparagement is so close to his tongue that he begins the words "my dear friend" with the monosyllable "brim," thus converting the possessive pronoun into brimmy and appearing to have an impediment in his speech. Once past this difficulty, however, he exhorts his dear friend in the tenderest manner not to be rash, but to do what so eminent a gentleman requires, and to do it with a good grace, ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... gorged themselves like vultures; they danced or played ball naked among the snow-drifts from morning till night. At a medical feast, some strange or unusual act was commonly enjoined as vital to the patient's cure: as, for example, the departing guest, in place of the customary monosyllable of thanks, was required to greet his host with an ugly grimace. Sometimes, by prescription, half the village would throng into the house where the patient lay, led by old women disguised with the heads and skins ...
— The Jesuits in North America in the Seventeenth Century • Francis Parkman
... difference there is between the styles. Or read Paul's noble praise of charity in the two versions. By substituting love for charity, the revisers have vitiated the sense, and destroyed the balance of the style. Their mincing monosyllable is too weak to bear the structural weight of the clauses. A closer analysis shows that they have spoiled the passage throughout. They had no ear: in other words, no style. The old translators had ears, and knew other people had. Their work was meant to be ...
— Flowers of Freethought - (First Series) • George W. Foote
... that monosyllable in a sliding scale, ranging from low to high and back to low again, which was peculiarly suggestive; "I beg your pardon, I quite misunderstood you; well, you may tell Mr Welton that I will befriend Billy to the utmost of ...
— The Floating Light of the Goodwin Sands • R.M. Ballantyne
... that men swing themselves off from beams in hempen lassos?—that they jump off from parapets into the swift and gurgling waters beneath?—that they take counsel of the grim friend who has but to utter his one peremptory monosyllable and the restless machine is shivered as a vase that is dashed upon a marble floor? Under that building which we pass every day there are strong dungeons, where neither hook, nor bar, nor bed-cord, nor drinking vessel from which a sharp fragment may be shattered, shall by any ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 20, July, 1891 • Various
... before him. As his voice died away, Lylda rose to her feet and facing the judge bowed low, with hands to her forehead. Then she spoke a few words, evidently addressing the women before her. Each of them raised her hands and answered in a monosyllable, as though affirming an oath. This performance was repeated by ...
— The Girl in the Golden Atom • Raymond King Cummings
... Mr. Dart putting much eloquence Into the monosyllable. "That's a bum monniker out of a French love story. It's the Roosian princess. It's Helga, ...
— The Short Cut • Jackson Gregory
... grief. Perdita's name was for ever joined with his; their conjugal felicity was celebrated even by the authentic testimony of facts. They were continually together, nor could the unfortunate Evadne read the monosyllable that designated his name, without, at the same time, being presented with the image of her who was the faithful companion of all his labours and pleasures. They, their Excellencies, met her eyes in each line, mingling an evil potion that ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley
... peculiarly fertile in this sort of phrases, which spring up suddenly, no one knows exactly in what spot, and pervade the whole population in a few hours, no one knows how. Many years ago the favourite phrase (for, though but a monosyllable, it was a phrase in itself) was Quoz. This odd word took the fancy of the multitude in an extraordinary degree, and very soon acquired an almost boundless meaning. When vulgar wit wished to mark its incredulity and raise a laugh at the same time, there was no resource so sure as this popular piece ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay
... aneath trees, and at the gable-end of farm houses, 'tween lads and lasses as laigh in life as the servants in her father's ha'. That's the puzzle, and that's the praise. But ae word explains a'—Genius—Genius, wull a' the metafhizzians in the warld ever expound that mysterious monosyllable.— ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... pronounced the monosyllable alone, and then he walked away from her as though that one little word settled the question for him, now and for ever. He walked away from her, perhaps a distance of two hundred yards, as though the interview was over, and ...
— The Belton Estate • Anthony Trollope
... monoplane, monopoly, monocle, monarchy, monogram, monomania; (2) monosyllable, monochrome, monogamy, monorail, monograph, monolith, monody, ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... conceit or covetousness which seeks to obtain, from mere grandiloquence, reputations and rewards to which it is not entitled. Being a gardener, I like to call a spade as spelt; and if any one terms it an horticultural implement, or a mattock, I do not expect him to dig much. I have used the monosyllable "shop," and I will not recall it, though a thousand pairs of gleaming scissors were pointed at my breast, and I was told by an angry army of apprentices to talk shop no more—the word was vulgar, or rather obsolete, superseded ...
— The Bed-Book of Happiness • Harold Begbie
... must be read with a slight accentuation of the last syllable (permissible then), in order to chime with delice. In the first line I have put here instead of hether, which (like other words where th comes between two vowels) was then very often a monosyllable, in order to throw the accent back more strongly on bring, where it belongs. Spenser's innovation lies in making his verses by ear instead of on the finger-tips, and in valuing the stave more than any of the single verses that compose it. ...
— Among My Books • James Russell Lowell
... who day and night bring their comrades into the house, which is none too large: for which reason it might not be done there, unless we were minded to make ourselves, as it were, dumb and blind, uttering never a word, not so much as a monosyllable, and abiding in the dark: in such sort indeed it might be, because they do not intrude upon my chamber; but theirs is so near to mine that the very least whisper could not but be heard." "Nay but, Madam," returned the ...
— The Decameron, Vol. II. • Giovanni Boccaccio
... to comprehend in his own person the essence of the Hindu Trimurti; and hence the tri-literal monosyllable Om or Aum is applied to him as being essentially the same as Brahma-Vishnu-Siva. He is the same as Hermes, Thoth, Taut, and Teutates. One of his names is Heri-maya or Her-maya, which are evidently ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... hardly spoke. If she said nothing to Leeds, neither would she address the man on her other side, only giving such monosyllable answers as were necessary. The evening dragged slowly. Leeds did not approach her. Once or twice she looked toward him, but he did not appear to notice her. Indeed, he only came late from the smoking room and returned after a brief appearance in the ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 5, June 1905 • Various
... The monosyllable came out emphatically. Again the Inspector darted one of his quick, shrewd glances at the girl. She met his scrutiny with her habitual serene and candid gaze. The Inspector dropped his eyes and scribbled in ...
— The Yellow Streak • Williams, Valentine
... of the letter greatly surprised him. It had originally commenced with DEAR SIR; but these words had been carefully erased, and the monosyllable, SIR, substituted in their place. The rest of the contents shall be given in Rose's ...
— Waverley • Sir Walter Scott
... accident fascinate misspelled accommodate mischievous possession accordance miscellaneous accuracy muscle recollection succeed susceptible dispelled occasional miscellaneous occur existence monosyllable experience intellectual across sentence parallel amount embellishment apart foregoing wholly arouse forehead woolly village already forty villain all right foreign till forfeit amateur formally perpetual grandeur formerly ...
— Practical Grammar and Composition • Thomas Wood |
