"Monosyllable" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... period is that of MODERN ENGLISH, or the period of lost inflections. E.g. stones, care, will, bind, help, each being a monosyllable. Modern English extends from A.D. 1500 to the present time. It has witnessed comparatively few grammatical changes, but the vocabulary of our language has been vastly increased by additions from the classical languages. Vowels, too, have ...
— Anglo-Saxon Grammar and Exercise Book - with Inflections, Syntax, Selections for Reading, and Glossary • C. Alphonso Smith
... daughter—Margaret. She was the most beautiful woman in the world...." I suspect my voice broke a little just there, for there was a shade of respectful sympathy in the monosyllable with which he filled the pause. "He swore she should never marry a Northerner, but she did; I guess, being a Bohun, she had to, after hearing she must not. There were two of us that loved her, but ...
— The Fortune Hunter • Louis Joseph Vance
... at once, and the tones in which the monosyllable was uttered and the glances accompanying it held volumes of hidden meaning. 'I haven't seen you since the Governor arrived,' Joan went on. 'Where have you been ...
— Lady Bridget in the Never-Never Land • Rosa Praed
... monosyllable, so soberly, so seriously uttered, challenged Desmond's attention. He stared for a moment at John's face—not an attractive object. Blood and mud disfigured it. But the grey eyes met ...
— The Hill - A Romance of Friendship • Horace Annesley Vachell
... 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 ...
— The Death Shot - A Story Retold • Mayne Reid
... 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's Christmas Party • Booth Tarkington
... cabins. It was impossible, to be sure, that in one's amused researches one had not missed a cupboard ingeniously disguised somewhere. And the multiplicity of mirrors, and the message of the laconic monosyllable "Hot" on silver taps, and the discretion of the lighting, all indicated that the architect and creator of these marvellous microcosms had "understood." The cosy virtue of littleness, and the entire absurdity of space for the sake of space, were strikingly proved, and the demonstration amounted, ...
— The Lion's Share • E. Arnold Bennett
... and shows of truth are few that love 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 ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 53, No. 331, May, 1843 • Various
... said; and with that monosyllable dismissed the subject from his mind for matters that gave him savage delight. "Say, we've had a good round-up," he went on—"a dandy haul. But we're going to do better—Oh yes, much better." Then his smile died out. He had almost forgotten the woman in the contemplation of what ...
— The Twins of Suffering Creek • Ridgwell Cullum
... monosyllable indicated as much anger as the young man might have expected gratitude. ...
— Ten Years Later - Chapters 1-104 • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... pleasing sound to the words, though they are all of one syllable. It is true, I have been sometimes forced upon it in other places of this work, but I never did it out of choice: I was either in haste, or Virgil gave me no occasion for the ornament of words; for it seldom happens but a monosyllable line turns verse to prose, and even that prose is rugged and unharmonious. Philarchus, I remember, taxes Balzac for placing twenty monosyllables in file ...
— Discourses on Satire and Epic Poetry • John Dryden
... 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
... little presents, lost decoys, that had cost hard money, all for nothing—less than nothing—to be laughed at and postponed to his Methodist sister Scott? The impudence of deliberately telling him he "didn't want it, and was rich enough!" as if "enough" could ever be good grammar after such a monosyllable as "rich;" and "want it" indeed! of course he wanted it; if not, why had he slaved so many years? want it, indeed! if to hope by day, and to dream by night—if to leave no means untried of delicately showing how he longed ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... not make up her mind to use the word 'Go.' Mounsey, from long practice, has got over this difficulty, and uses it incessantly. It is no matter what adjunct follows in the train of this despised monosyllable,—whatever liquid comes after this prefix is welcome. Mounsey, without being the most communicative, is the most conversible man I know. The social principle is inseparable from his person. If he has nothing to say, he drinks your health; and when you cannot, from the rapidity ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt
... 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 solely with a view to recompense, is ...
— A Literary History of the English People - From the Origins to the Renaissance • Jean Jules Jusserand
... 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
... The roar of the monosyllable echoed through the empty house, while Thor strode forward, the devil in him loose. With the skill of a toreador in throwing his cloak into the eyes of an infuriated bull, Claude snatched the calico strip from the table beside which he ...
— The Side Of The Angels - A Novel • Basil King
... 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 simplicity ...
— International Language - Past, Present and Future: With Specimens of Esperanto and Grammar • Walter J. Clark
... 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 advantage of that liberty of the press which he had so effectually ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... sung in a low undervoice, not looking up. Beyond her in the shade Daddy John mended a piece of harness. Daddy John was not a garrulous person and when she paused in her sewing to speak to him, he answered with a monosyllable. It was one of the old man's self-appointed duties to watch over her when the others were absent. If he did not talk much to his "Missy" he kept a vigilant eye upon her, and to-day he squatted in the shade beside her because ...
— The Emigrant Trail • Geraldine Bonner
... of them, to exhibit a certain power of speech. Nor is it indifferent to expression when people in an apparently nowise comfortable fashion give approximate circumlocutive figures, e. g., half-a-dozen, four syllables, instead of the monosyllable six; or "the bell in the dome at St. Stephen's has as many nicks as the year has days,'' etc. It must be assumed that these circumlocutive expressions are chosen, either because of the desire to make an assertion ...
— Robin Hood • J. Walker McSpadden
... member of the supper party to develop symptoms of shock. The gilded and stalwart youth on her left, following her glance, stared at the amateur servitor with protruding eyes, ceased to eat or drink, and fell into a state of semi-coma, muttering at intervals an expressive monosyllable. ...
— From a Bench in Our Square • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... his knee as he uttered this meditative monosyllable, and continued to regard his niece with keener scrutiny, if that were possible, than before. 'It is John's temper—a very firebrand. My dear, you are very young, and you should not be above taking advice. Let me advise you to control that fiery passion. Temper doesn't ...
— The Guinea Stamp - A Tale of Modern Glasgow • Annie S. Swan
... 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 ...
— The Forfeit • Ridgwell Cullum
... 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 ...
— Milton • Sir Walter Alexander Raleigh
... direction as much as possible. Formerly, a direction was an academy of compliments: "To the most noble and my singularly respected friend," &c., &c.—and then, "Haste! haste, for your life, haste!" Now, we have banished even the monosyllable To! Henry Conway,[1] Lord Hertford's son, who is very indolent, and has much humour, introduced that abridgment. Writing to a Mr. Tighe at the Temple, he directed his letter only thus: "T. Ti., Temple"[2]—and it was delivered! Dr. Bentley was mightily flattered on receiving ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume II • Horace Walpole
... First printed from the Bodleian manuscript by Mr. C.D. Locock. In the space here left blank, line 231, the manuscript has manhood, which is cancelled for some monosyllable unknown—query, spring? ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... The warriors shall fall by our war-clubs—we will give them no quarter. Our tomahawks we will dip in their brains! with our scalping knives we will scalp them." At each period comes on the chorus, which consists of one monosyllable only, that is sounded a number of times, and articulated like a faint, stifled groan. This word is "eh," and signifies "we will," or "we will go," or "we will do." While singing, they perform the ceremony of killing and scalping, with a ...
— A Narrative of the Life of Mrs. Mary Jemison • James E. Seaver
... her only in monosyllable, making small distinction between yes and no. He simply sat watching her with eyes in which there were two little covetous ...
— Active Service • Stephen Crane
... Richard Steele to the publick, to be used and treated as they should think fit; he must go on in the same indifference, and allow the TOWN their usual liberty with his name, which I find they think they have much more room to sport with than formerly, as it is lengthened with the monosyllable SIR." ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli
... draw my fair companions into a little chat, but found my vis-a-vis—the daughter of my successor outside—most impracticable; a monosyllable was the extent of her exertion: whilst her companion, who was a lively, intelligent-looking girl, and very pretty withal, was necessarily chilled by the taciturnity of her senior. I note this as being an unusual case, since, when once properly introduced, the ladies of America ...
— Impressions of America - During the years 1833, 1834 and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Tyrone Power
... 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, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... 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 ...
— The Traitors • E. Phillips (Edward Phillips) Oppenheim
... into Nan's face, and she glanced at Peter with startled—almost frightened—eyes. She could not conceive why the sudden recollection of Rooke should have sprung into her mind at this particular moment. With difficulty her lips framed the monosyllable "Yes." ...
— The Moon out of Reach • Margaret Pedler
... pale, 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 she sympathised with this interesting ...
— Venetia • Benjamin Disraeli
... 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 ...
— The Short Cut • Jackson Gregory
... man named James Booth, of 3, Dog Dungeon, Hurst polling district, was objected to by the Conservatives, and Mr. Booth, their solicitor, announced that the man was deaf and dumb, but just able to utter a monosyllable now and then. Mr. Chorlton, the Liberal solicitor: What can I do (laughter)? Mr. Booth first by writing asked what the man's name was, and then began to talk to him with his fingers, but being an indifferent chirologist he made very poor progress. He had merely elicited that the man was the owner ...
— Anecdotes & Incidents of the Deaf and Dumb • W. R. Roe
... to the answer, subservient to his touch, to his words, and, to the full, conscious of her subservience. She felt the big breath he drew in answering her monosyllable. He held her unresisting, passive in his arms, watching her cheeks fire. She realised, in a kind of detached way, that he was holding her so that the tips of her toes only touched the floor, and somehow that seemed of a piece with the rest. Then he set her down, ...
— The Philanderers • A.E.W. Mason
... like Skrzynecki, Czartoryski, Rozyski, Kaminski, were choking the trump of Fame with their complicated patronymics. These are all forgotten now; and this poor negro, who did not even possess a name, beyond one abrupt monosyllable,—for even the name of Turner was the master's property,—still lives a memory of terror and a symbol of ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 46, August, 1861 • Various
... curious sight. The little shop-girl there, what is she but a roll of pink ribbon?—nay, she is but half-a-yard. And the poor infinitesimal porters and guards, how pathetically small seems their share in the great monosyllable Man, animalcules in that great social system which, again, is but an animalcule in the blood of Time. Still more infinitesimal seems the man who is a subdivision, not of a form of work even, but merely of a form of taste; the man who collects foreign stamps, say, or book-plates, or arrow-heads, ...
— Prose Fancies • Richard Le Gallienne
... 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, ...
— The Psychology of Beauty • Ethel D. Puffer
... twenty-two monosyllables to three of greater length, or rather to the same dissyllable thrice repeated; and that too in common parlance proncounced as a monosyllable. The passage in the Book of Ezekiel, which Coleride is said to have considered the most sublime in the ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 50. Saturday, October 12, 1850 • Various
... 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 ...
— English Grammar in Familiar Lectures • Samuel Kirkham
... giving up my curacy (for I have given it up), and only giving the outward, but equally true reason, that I found it on the whole an ineligible and distressing post. . . . I know you will apply to such an act that disgusting monosyllable of which Protestants are so fond. He felt with me and for me—for my horror of giving pain to my father, and for my wearied and excited state of mind; and strangely enough—to show how differently, according to the difference of the organs, the same object may appear to two people—he quoted in ...
— Yeast: A Problem • Charles Kingsley
... not the answer for which she had hoped and her eyes dropped at the curt monosyllable. She put the cup back on the tray and folded her hands in her lap with a faint little sigh of disappointment, her head drooping pensively. Craven knew instinctively that he had hurt her and hated himself. It was like striking a child. But presently she looked up ...
— The Shadow of the East • E. M. Hull
... slip his hand under the table and 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
... face. I'll bribe Helen to find out for me. It may be some unfortunate love affair—who knows? I think I would like to put any fellow out of the way that might be seeking her hand. I believe I would kill him, if necessary. Perhaps, dear Journal, I should not have written that terrible monosyllable, but as you tell no ...
— Leah Mordecai • Mrs. Belle Kendrick Abbott
... what effect the monosyllable had upon him. The mask which he carried always with him fell suddenly away. He turned upon her with an abruptness almost disconcerting. His eyes were lit with fire, and there was a strange flush upon ...
— The Survivor • E.Phillips Oppenheim
... and took the pack from her. As he lifted it there was a clanging of pots and pans. Dick, pouring out a mug of whiskey, paused long enough to pass the wink across her body. Tommy winked back. His lips pursed the monosyllable, "clothes," but Dick shook his head reprovingly. "Here, little woman," he said, after she had drunk the whiskey and straightened ...
— The God of His Fathers • Jack London
... opportunity for 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, ...
— Helen of the Old House • Harold Bell Wright
... gave him only the crisp monosyllable and changed the subject immediately. "What about this stage robbery? Have you been able to make anything ...
— Brand Blotters • William MacLeod Raine
... the world, where her king's court was, and a vast kingdom. I asked her twice or thrice more to name the country to me, but not all the art we could use, hers in dictating, and mine in endeavouring to pronounce it, would render me conqueror of that her monosyllable (for as such it sounded from her sweet lips); so I relinquished the name to her, telling her whenever she had any more occasion to mention the place, I desired it might be under the style of Doorpt Swangeanti, ...
— Life And Adventures Of Peter Wilkins, Vol. I. (of II.) • Robert Paltock
... 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 ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... a little from her group and dropped a single monosyllable. "Well?" she said in an inflexible, ...
— Angel Island • Inez Haynes Gillmore
... both were enlightened the following week, when the real author caused it to be published in the Cistula Literaria—an interesting journal, edited by a committee of the junior class—with a capital "N" and a superfluous "t" in the monosyllable referred to, as it appears in the present memoir. The conceit was Nott thought a bad one, and those who were not in the secret gave my hero more credit for his metrical skill, than he ...
— Ups and Downs in the Life of a Distressed Gentleman • William L. Stone
... 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 the same name as Hermes and Khirm or ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... This freezing monosyllable notwithstanding, Sir Terence pursued his course fluently. "The golden Venus!—sure, Miss Nugent, you that are so quick, can't but know I would apostrophize Miss Broadhurst that is—but that won't be long so, I hope. ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. 6 • Maria Edgeworth
... if men answered you: No! Go yourself and spin in a factory, for you have shown clearly enough that your thinking and brooding are futile. All your fine phrases amount to nothing but the one dread monosyllable—Die! Are you so wicked as that, and know it? or so stupid, ...
— The New Society • Walther Rathenau
... fabrications;" again, of the inaccuracy of the author's maps; and, lastly, of his inserting an island at the southern entry of the Channel between Cephalonia and Ithaca, which has no existence. This observation very nearly approaches to the use of that monosyllable which Gibbon[1], without expressing it, so adroitly applied to some assertion of his antagonist, Mr. Davies. In truth, our traveller's words are rather bitter towards his brother tourist: but we must conclude that their justice ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. 6 (of 6) - With his Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... and got short answers and long answers, pleasant ones and some that were not so pleasant; but all could be summed up in the single monosyllable: ...
— Hiram The Young Farmer • Burbank L. Todd
... 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, ...
— Nature Near London • Richard Jefferies
... stand for devil, then eale may in the same edition be taken to stand for evil. It is hardly necessary to suspect a Scotch printer; evil is often used as a monosyllable, and eale may have been a pronunciation of it half-way towards ...
— The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark - A Study with the Text of the Folio of 1623 • George MacDonald
... wit." He was born on the borders of Wales about the beginning of the twelvth century, and having studied at the University of Paris became a favourite of Henry II., and was made a Canon of St. Paul's, and Archdeacon of Oxford. It may be worth notice that his name was really a monosyllable, "Map," a man's appellation being not always without influence in determining his character and conduct. From being a man of humour he obtained the credit of being a man of pleasure, but as far as we can ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 1 (of 2) - With an Introduction upon Ancient Humour • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... "twins!" He repeated the monosyllable, converting it into a clarion-call that made me ...
— The Prairie Mother • Arthur Stringer
... kind and affectionate, but the antagonism in that one monosyllable dispersed all his good resolutions. He was sick of scenes, tired of being held at arms' length; reluctantly he had grown to see that this marriage had been the greatest mistake of his life, that he had been a fool to imagine he could mould this girl to his own wishes and desires, ...
— The Beggar Man • Ruby Mildred Ayres
... wonderingly up to her. The corner of 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 ...
— While Caroline Was Growing • Josephine Daskam Bacon
... formal meal, disturbed now and then by a curt monosyllable from one or the other of us. We had not much to say to each other, considering that it was our last repast around that family board, the dishes and cutlery had all the chat and confusion among themselves. When it was over, I went back to my own quarters ...
— The Doctor's Daughter • "Vera"
... 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 persuade perspiration appal fulfill apparatus willful police appetite ...
— Practical Grammar and Composition • Thomas Wood
... monosyllable and the ascending red increased the beauty of her face. "I have a brother who is condemned to die," she continued. "Condemn the fault, I pray ...
— Beautiful Stories from Shakespeare • E. Nesbit
... 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 have ...
— Daisy's Aunt • E. F. (Edward Frederic) Benson
... 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
... a morose old seaman, grumbled out his commands to the two sailors who managed the craft, in such a dogged, sulky tone, that it attracted the attention of the elder Hawke, and being naturally fond of fun, he endeavoured to draw him out. An abrupt monosyllable was the sole reply he could obtain to any ...
— Flora Lyndsay - or, Passages in an Eventful Life • Susan Moodie
... 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
... Brice's monosyllable smashed into the current of her scarce-started narrative with the jarring suddenness of a pistol shot. She stared up at him in amaze. For, seen through the starlight, his face was working strangely. And his voice was vibrant with ...
— Black Caesar's Clan • Albert Payson Terhune
... eyes—the 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 ...
— The Four Feathers • A. E. W. Mason
... admitted that she had picked up a very little, and when she awoke would probably have another spell of brightness. But.... Speaking with Gwen alone on his way out, he ended on this monosyllable. ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... Ellis's lips seemed about to form the reproachful monosyllable "young." Without further greeting the visitor took off his hat and overcoat and hung them on a peg. "You make yourself ...
— The Clarion • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... 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
... the lecturer's purpose. However, after he has submitted himself to the process, the experiments made upon him prove successful. He is naturally a fluent talker, but now cannot, without difficulty and stammering, pronounce his own name, an easy monosyllable—cannot strike the lecturer's hand—cannot rise from a chair, &c. We may add, that he cannot be made to ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 446 - Volume 18, New Series, July 17, 1852 • Various
... 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 ...
— Society for Pure English, Tract 2, on English Homophones • Robert Bridges
... do not know. But one unaccountable error was forced on one's notice. Thebes, which, by Milton and by every scholar is made a monosyllable, is here made a dissyllable. But Thebez, the dissyllable, is a Syrian city. It is true that Causabon deduces from a Syriac word meaning a case or enclosure (a theca), the name of Thebes, whether Boeotian or Egyptian. ...
— The Notebook of an English Opium-Eater • Thomas de Quincey
... 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 all ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... than 'sprites,' which has a different association by custom? 'Spirits' is quite short enough, it seems to me, for a last word—it sounds like a monosyllable that trembles—or thrills, rather. And, do you know, I agree with yourself a little when you say (as did you not say?) that some of the speeches—Domizia's for instance—are too lengthy. I think I should ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett
... pay their debts.—Let no one weep to-day. Come, Dollallolla; [1] curse that odious name! It is so long, it asks an hour to speak it. By heavens! I'll change it into Doll, or Loll, Or any other civil monosyllable, ...
— Miscellanies, Volume 2 (from Works, Volume 12) • Henry Fielding
... as many sorts of mind as moss." Pope could not have known the hundredth part of the number of 'sorts' of moss there are; and I suppose he only chose the word because it was a monosyllable beginning with m, and the best English general expression for despised and minute structures of plants. But a fate rules the words of wise men, which makes their words truer, and worth more, than the men themselves know. No other plants have so endless variety on so similar a structure as the mosses; ...
— Proserpina, Volume 1 - Studies Of Wayside Flowers • John Ruskin
... and the monosyllable seemed to drop from his grim lips like a stone. Her bosom heaved ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... Haswell did not vouchsafe even a monosyllable in reply, and the tactless Kirk assumed the double burden ...
— Destiny • Charles Neville Buck
... hour to read what follows, I pray thee pardon the frequent use of that unwelcome monosyllable I. It could not well be avoided, as will be seen in the sequel. In February 1820 I sailed from the Clyde, on board the Glenbervie, a fine West-Indiaman. She was driven to the north-west of Ireland, and had to contend ...
— Wanderings In South America • Charles Waterton
... monosyllable; "it's quite as important as all that. I don't wish to be overheard. Besides," she added with nonchalant irrelevance, "I do ...
— The Bandbox • Louis Joseph Vance
... "No." The monosyllable was spoken quietly, but the gleam in Whitney's eyes was a silent warning. "We will leave my daughter's name out of the discussion. Was there anything else you wished to see me about? If ...
— I Spy • Natalie Sumner Lincoln
... chapter, where it 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 Andromeda ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 5, No. 28, February, 1860 • Various
... 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
... 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 the commonplace reciters. ...
— James Watt • Andrew Carnegie
... again heavily on the rail. The monosyllable was eloquent. Impulsively she bent toward him, then caught herself. For a moment she looked out at the water undulating under the moon like mother-of-pearl on a waving fan. "But it was all right to say I loved you then," she went on reflectively, after a pause. "I had a ...
— The Lighted Match • Charles Neville Buck
... 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 ...
— An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding, Volume II. - MDCXC, Based on the 2nd Edition, Books III. and IV. (of 4) • John Locke
... with 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 ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 3, No. 16, February, 1859 • Various
... the printer of the Universal Register has added to its original name that of the Times, which, being a monosyllable, bids defiance to the corruptions ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... 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
... majority is the supreme law, how comes it that a settlement can be maintained where the rights of the majority can be ignored and suppressed at the point of the bayonet? For an answer to this question, comes the monosyllable—Trusts! ...
— The Transgressors - Story of a Great Sin • Francis A. Adams
... the auxiliary Verb added Strength to the Expression, as indeed it does. I own where the auxiliary Verb is brought close to its principal, and that a thin monosyllable, as in the Line just now referred to, the Verse is very rude and disagreeable. But to prove that the auxiliary Verb may be employed properly, I will produce an Instance in rhym'd Verse, as strong as that of ...
— Letters Concerning Poetical Translations - And Virgil's and Milton's Arts of Verse, &c. • William Benson
... 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, with its suggestion ...
— The Quality of Mercy • W. D. Howells
... understand little of it. The first smile (for the convulsive movement in sleep that is popularly adorned by that name is not a smile) is an uncertain sketch of a smile, unpractised but unmistakable. It is accompanied by a single sound—a sound that would be a monosyllable if it were articulate—which is the utterance, though hardly the communication, of a private jollity. That and that alone is the ...
— The Children • Alice Meynell
... in that monosyllable of good cheer throughout the United States Army, and with Indian-like solemnity they said it, tin cup ...
— Crittenden - A Kentucky Story of Love and War • John Fox, Jr.
... expressed herself in the monosyllable. No words came to her lips, but to her eyes many tears, through which the pearls were visible. They whirled in her bewildered brain as a token that she was loved—loved by HIM, though but yesterday he had loved ...
— Zuleika Dobson - or, An Oxford Love Story • Max Beerbohm
... that I have two brothers, both young men, 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 rector, "let not this stand in our way for a night or two, until ...
— The Decameron, Vol. II. • Giovanni Boccaccio
... Mr. Piper. His power of articulation was slowly returning, but his breath as yet was only equal to the monosyllable. ...
— Australian Writers • Desmond Byrne
... of delicate and complex machinery to superintend, and a mistake will tell fearfully in the result; but, never mind, we'll trust luck." "Do we not," as Horace Mann once asked, "do we not need some single word where we can condense into one monosyllable the meaning of ten thousand fools?" Some deny the power of early training. "Look!" they say, "there is a family of children brought up just alike, and see how differently they all turn out." But a family of children should not be ...
— A Domestic Problem • Abby Morton Diaz
... "well" with its uptilt of question had been on George's tongue. It was a monosyllable that demanded an answer. Penny had got ahead of him, forced him, as it were, into the witness chair, ...
— The Sturdy Oak - A Composite Novel of American Politics by Fourteen American Authors • Samuel Merwin, et al.
... her eyes for an instant, and bashfully meeting the eager look of her companion, though she uttered the monosyllable firmly. ...
— The Wept of Wish-Ton-Wish • James Fenimore Cooper
... prey of the genus Morphnus, called Spizaetus by Vieillot; but it is added that the word never came into English use. See Eagle. There is a town in Victoria called Eaglehawk. The Bendigo cabmen make the name a monosyllable, "Glawk." ...
— A Dictionary of Austral English • Edward Morris
... one fearful monosyllable, and then she added in a low condensed whisper, "or if you do, ...
— The Emigrants Of Ahadarra - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... 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
... 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
... cried suddenly in a terrified voice. Then out of sheer fright she made an enormous effort over herself, and laughed aloud. Under the influence of that mortal dread, in the supreme exertion she made to destroy the effect of the monosyllable that had escaped her lips, the laugh sounded natural. It was well done, for it was done for life or death, and if it failed she was betrayed. That single 'No' had been almost enough to ruin all, but her laugh saved her, though ...
— Greifenstein • F. Marion Crawford
... Gerald and Boots were discussing the huge house-party, lantern fete, and dance which the Orchils were giving that night for the younger sets; and Selwyn, too, seemed to take unusual interest in the discussion, though Eileen's part in the conference was limited to an occasional nod or monosyllable. ...
— The Younger Set • Robert W. Chambers
... scorn. For heretofore, Henry Phipps had been an humble worshipper. She permitted several of his condescending remarks to pass without notice, but finally when he answered a question put by another groom with a bored monosyllable, the girl ...
— Prince or Chauffeur? - A Story of Newport • Lawrence Perry
... forced to believe that he pronounces "poem" as a monosyllable, "pome". "My Favorite Amateur" is a good specimen ...
— Writings in the United Amateur, 1915-1922 • Howard Phillips Lovecraft
... for the first time. Fanny Brandeis would have given everything she had, everything she hoped to be, to be able to take back that monosyllable. She was gripped with horror at what she had done. She had spoken almost mechanically. And yet that monosyllable must have been the fruit of all these months of inward struggle and thought. "Now I begin ...
— Fanny Herself • Edna Ferber
... "No!" is the monosyllable shouted, almost shrieked, by him so menaced. "No!" he repeats; "never shall I consent to that. I am in your power, Gil Uraga. Put your pistol to my head, blow out my brains, as you say you can do with impunity. Kill me any way you wish, even torture. It could not be more painful than to see you ...
— The Lone Ranche • Captain Mayne Reid
... 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 husband felt prompted ...
— The Wild Olive • Basil King
... Mr. Schmarck," he said, rubbing his hands on an oil-rag. I gruffly agreed with him in a monosyllable. "But it is lovely to-day, ...
— A Fool and His Money • George Barr McCutcheon
... happened to the heart and brain and tongue of Morris Monk so that he could not speak the thing he wished. He meant to answer a monosyllable "Yes," but in its place he ...
— Stella Fregelius • H. Rider Haggard
... thus far into Orientalism, we can hardly expect to get out again without some slight entanglement in philology. Lily-pads. Whence pads? No other leaf is identified with that singular monosyllable. Has our floating Lotus-leaf any connection with padding, or with a footpad? with the ambling pad of an abbot, or a paddle, or a paddock, or a padlock? with many-domed Padua proud, or with St. Patrick? Is the name derived from the Anglo-Saxon paad or ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 11, September, 1858 • Various
... trollop? If she had been a gentlewoman, like myself, it had been some excuse; but a beggarly, saucy, dirty servant-maid. Get you out of my house, you whore." To which she added another name, which we do not care to stain our paper with. It was a monosyllable beginning with a b—, and indeed was the same as if she had pronounced the words, she-dog. Which term we shall, to avoid offence, use on this occasion, though indeed both the mistress and maid uttered the ...
— Joseph Andrews Vol. 1 • Henry Fielding
... for it. Silence respectful and profound appeared to him the sole course open; any other would only have led to an increase of precautions. The King avoided all discourse with him upon this matter; M. du Maine the same. M. d'Orleans was contented with a simple approving monosyllable to both, like a courtier who ought not to meddle with anything; and he avoided conversation upon this subject, even with Madame la Duchesse d'Orleans, and with anybody else. I was the sole person to whom he ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... The monosyllable fell from her like a whisper of despair. But the utterance of Grail's name had brought Egremont the ...
— Thyrza • George Gissing
... upon Bruno, who had run out of the room, even while the great feat of The Unpronounceable Monosyllable ...
— Sylvie and Bruno • Lewis Carroll
... taking some chocolate, began to read the newspapers, quite at my ease, and delighted to see that everybody was puzzled. A bold individual, in the hope of getting me into conversation, came to me and addressed me; I answered him with a monosyllable, and I observed that everyone was at a loss what to make of me. When I had sufficiently enjoyed public admiration in the coffee-room, I promenaded in the busiest thoroughfares of the city, and returned to the inn, where ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... The monosyllable had served Mark well in its time; but even as he fell back upon this stale resource he knew it had ...
— The Altar Steps • Compton MacKenzie
... solely on mutton; hence they are familiarly and vulgarly termed "mutton-tugs," abbreviated to "tugs," which homely monosyllable they themselves derive from togati, on account of their wearing the toga—had they not better trace their origin at once from that mysterious and secret society of the Thugs of India? But their internal economy should be treated with diffidence, for between them and the oppidans there ...
— Confessions of an Etonian • I. E. M.
... There is some malformation or defect of the vocal organs, which either prevents our uttering it at all, or gives it so thick a pronunciation as to be unintelligible. A mouth filled with the national pudding, or watering in expectation thereof, is wholly incompetent to this refractory monosyllable. An abject and herpetic Public Opinion is the Pope, the Anti-Christ, for us to protest against e corde cordium. And by what College of Cardinals is this our God's-vicar, our binder and looser, elected? Very like, by the sacred conclave ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... him was furtive; the hand which laid his hat upon the table was shaking; there was a gleam almost of terror in his eyes. The woman remained impassive, inscrutable, simply watching him. After a moment or two, however, she spoke—a single monosyllable. ...
— The Tempting of Tavernake • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... of the triumvirate was broken in upon by Tom, who, with his usual suavity of manners, politely addressed himself to the unknown, on the common topic of weather, et cetera, without eliciting in reply more than an assenting or dissenting monosyllable, "You have seen ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... language—admitted by a clever and satirical author to have "the softness and harmony of the Italian, with the majesty and expression of the Greek"—than the term crack, adopted from the Dutch. There is no Welsh monosyllable that contains, like the Saxon strength, seven consonants with only one vowel. There is no Welsh proper name, like Rentzsch, the watchmaker of Regent Street, that contains six consonants in succession in one syllable; and yet the Welsh have never accused their younger ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 238, May 20, 1854 • Various
... 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 ...
— The Foot-path Way • Bradford Torrey
... was calm as a cabbage, still as a mushroom in a storm. She claimed the entire discussion somehow as her own. Yet she had merely exercised her prerogative of being herself. Having gone into the root of the matter with a monosyllable, she retired again into her eternal centre. She had nothing ...
— The Extra Day • Algernon Blackwood |
