"Expletive" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... that the room was empty, then suddenly I heard another violent expletive and became aware of a man sitting close beside the iron stove. He turned to stare at us as we entered, but to my surprise it was not Theodore's ugly face which confronted us. The man sitting there alone in the room where I had expected to see Theodore ...
— Castles in the Air • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... expletive Peter Ascott had been heard to use for long. "Ascott Leaf, is that you? I thought you were in ...
— Mistress and Maid • Dinah Craik (aka: Miss Mulock)
... Monica for a moment, but she remembered that it was an unmeaning expletive much used by people of Miss Eade's education. However, the story did not win her credence; by this time her disagreeable surmises had too ...
— The Odd Women • George Gissing
... received this tribute with a joyous expletive. "By God, no, he's sure of me, as you say! He and his tribe know that I'll starve in my tracks sooner than make a concession—a single concession. A fellow came after me once to do an angel on a tombstone—an angel leaning against a broken column, and looking as if it was waiting ...
— The Hermit and the Wild Woman and Other Stories • Edith Wharton
... dress close about her, perhaps half an inch below a knee that Artemis might have been proud to display. I let the wasp reach the dark blue cloth. Then I seized him. As I put him out of the window, he naturally stung me. Before I had time to apologize for the expletive which escaped me, she had ...
— The Brother of Daphne • Dornford Yates
... to regain the use of his tongue. He says, "My eye!" (oh, dear and familiar expletive, for a whole calendar month I have not heard you!)—"my eye! what a ...
— Nancy - A Novel • Rhoda Broughton
... of Piper's monumental Terro-Human Future History; the first story where we encounter the Terran Federation. In it we learn about Odin, the planet that will one day be the capital of the First Galactic Empire; and humble Niflheim, which in more decadent times will become a common expletive, a word meaning hell. This is also where Piper introduced and explained the Atomic Era dating system (A.E.). Uller Uprising is set in the early years of the Terran Federation's expansion and exploration, an epoch of great vitality. In "The Edge of the Knife" Piper compares this time of discovery ...
— Uller Uprising • Henry Beam Piper, John D. Clark and John F. Carr
... then fled like a wild boar pursued by a pack of hounds, amid the hisses and laughter of the youths, only turning his head from time to time to repeat the strong expletive. ...
— The Grandee • Armando Palacio Valds
... to rise to the occasion. He was one of those men who are usually too slack to burthen their souls with a refreshing expletive. ...
— The Slave Of The Lamp • Henry Seton Merriman
... Gallery in Berlin. The figure, pensive and poetic, resembles a mediaeval Saint rather than a Sibyl. The painter afterwards found a more congenial theme in The Marriage of the Virgin. The treatment is wholly traditional, the style austerely pre-Raphaelite; the only expletive in the way of an idea comes with attendant angels, lyres in hand. The work was not delivered till 1836, in the meanwhile the first fire had died out, and nature was thrust into the distance. The technique had not improved, the material clothing becomes ...
— Overbeck • J. Beavington Atkinson
... expletive till it sounded ferocious, "That ain't quare feelin's. That's just plain old-fashioned laziness. You git yo'self back thar and tend them frames, ...
— The Power and the Glory • Grace MacGowan Cooke
... a conspicuous place and retired to rest. The following morning his efforts were applauded with much picturesque expletive, and even criticism was evoked by a lean puncher who insisted "that the tall guy might be a good cook all right, but he sure didn't know how to spell 'calf.'" Naturally the puncher's erudition leaned ...
— Sundown Slim • Henry Hubert Knibbs
... of what she wants; she is lively and sarcastic, and, worse than all, abandons the rounded periods of her brother and Miss Byron for free, not to say slang, expressions. "Hang ceremony!" she often exclaims, with much reason, while "What a deuce!" is her favourite expletive. ...
— Letters on Literature • Andrew Lang
... if his vocabulary was so inadequate to voice his emotions that the one expletive would do as well as any to cover his meaning; and sat down heavily in a ...
— The Gringos • B. M. Bower
... It is often brought into play, especially in its plaintive sense, in situations, where, poor thing, it scarcely knows itself, and where there is not the slightest provocation to account for the use of it. It is degraded to the condition of a mere expletive; and, where there is a real good call for it, how often is it thrust upon the wrong person, the one who, were he consulted, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, No. 577 - Volume 20, Number 577, Saturday, November 24, 1832 • Various
... have a wheel-barrow; Hank swears by a mulching iron; Bill is all for cold frames. All three say that hellebore is the best thing for sucking insects. We echo the expletive, ...
— Mince Pie • Christopher Darlington Morley
... attempting to get on the top of them by rolling on them; others with tent-poles for part of their loads would manage to run a tent-pole on one side of a sapling while they would take the other. I am not aware of ever having used a profane expletive in my life; but I would have the charity to excuse those who may have done so, if they were in charge of a train of Mexican ...
— Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant, Complete • Ulysses S. Grant
... earnest and musical—if melancholy—exchange of salutations, the almost imperceptible drawing nearer, with the slightly waving tail the only sign of excitement, and at last the instantaneous dash, the slap or scratch (so rapid one can never tell which), the fiery expletive and retort, and the instant retreat, to sit down again. There seems to be some canon of feline etiquette which forbids two to meet and pass without solemn formalities of this sort, reminding one of the ceremonious greetings of ...
— Upon The Tree-Tops • Olive Thorne Miller
... adds nothing to the meaning of the sentence, but helps to fill out its form or sound, and serves as a device to alter its natural order. Such a word is called an EXPLETIVE. In the following sentence there is an expletive: THERE are ...
— Practical Grammar and Composition • Thomas Wood
... seek in the greater length and less poetical subject of The Civil Wars of York and Lancaster. The fault of this is that the too conscientious historian is constantly versifying what must be called mere expletive matter. This must always make any one who speaks with critical impartiality admit that much of Daniel is hard reading; but the soft places (to use the adjective in no ill sense) are frequent enough, and when the reader comes ...
— A History of English Literature - Elizabethan Literature • George Saintsbury
... under the tan. Don Diego crossed himself and muttered a prayer. Juan Gonzalvo uttered an expletive and half smothered it in a gasp as the face of Tahn-te caught the ...
— The Flute of the Gods • Marah Ellis Ryan
... whatever for this good fellow. He now used it even as some ladies use inverted commas, or other commas, in writing. And sometimes, when he had occasion to use a word as long as, say, 'impossible,' he would actually drag in the meaningless expletive as an interpolation between the first and second syllables of the longer word, as though he felt it a sinful waste of opportunities to allow so many good syllables to pass unburdened by a single enunciation of ...
— The Record of Nicholas Freydon - An Autobiography • A. J. (Alec John) Dawson
... Hollander nevertheless had an eye open for other things. A cloud passed over his shiny face as the stern touched; he stepped swiftly to the rail and peered over; two natives stood by, and he sent them hurrying forward with a Low Malay expletive that made them jump in fright. Then he peered over the side again, his face cleared, and he returned to his post at the stern fair-lead, shouting to his men to carry along the sternfasts. Barry turned at the shout, as if just awakening from ...
— Gold Out of Celebes • Aylward Edward Dingle
... to the landlord for counsel. He was a short, squab man, with a bulbous excresence growing out from between his shoulders, that I suppose passed for a head, though it looked like a wen; a kind of expletive, to wear a hat on, or to fill up the hollow of a shabby wig. 'What shall we do with him?' said I. 'Hustle him out!' cried he; 'hustle him out! he didn't get his liquor here: I've no room for such company!' I then endeavored to put my companion upon his feet, but ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, January 1844 - Volume 23, Number 1 • Various
... is no parlor game that you and I are playing, and desperate circumstances sometimes necessitate desperate measures. As for the blows I struck you—that is too bad, because you're old enough to be my father, but you displayed excessively bad taste in your choice of expletive. Even then I merely slapped you. But I'm sorry it had to come ...
— The Long Chance • Peter B. Kyne
... them greatly to the young people, and recommends them to the acquaintance of their honored parents, if these happen to accompany them. The other boarders commonly call our diminutive companion That Boy. He is a sort of expletive at the table, serving to stop gaps, taking the same place a washer does that makes a loose screw fit, and contriving to get driven in like a wedge between any two chairs where there is a crevice. I shall ...
— The Poet at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... Christian minister. He was, indeed, a liberal priest, sometimes even too free and easy. He brings in the sacred name perhaps more often than any other writer, and he does so not always in a devout way. He seemed at last to use the word "God" as if it were an expletive or mere intensive like a Greek ge [gamma epsilon], meaning "very much" or "very good," as where he so oddly calls the North-East wind "the wind of God." And he betrays a most unclerical interest in physical torture and physical voluptuousness (Hypatia, The Saint's Tragedy, Saint ...
— Studies in Early Victorian Literature • Frederic Harrison
... now suggest a standard ball for England and America. The question of a standard long-distance expletive ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, October 6, 1920 • Various
... good of doing anything? I only know if I was not—not condemned to—to this—this life,' (had it not been for a sort of involuntary respect to the gentle compassion of the softened hazel eyes regarding him so kindly, he would have used the violent expletive that trembled on his lip;) 'if I was not chained down here, Master Philip should not stand alone as the paragon of the family. I've as much mother ...
— The Heir of Redclyffe • Charlotte M. Yonge
... sweet sonsie lass. The third stanza has a little of the flimsy turn in it; and the third line has rather too serious a cast. The fourth stanza is a very indifferent one; the first line, is, indeed, all in the strain of the second stanza, but the rest is most expletive. The thoughts in the fifth stanza come finely up to my favourite idea—a sweet sonsie lass: the last line, however, halts a little. The same sentiments are kept up with equal spirit and tenderness in the sixth stanza, ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... figure that was familiar to her turn in from the avenue, a tall man in an Inverness with a wide black hat pulled down over his eyes. For the moment she could not remember who he was, but by the time he had stopped in front of the big gate, giving utterance to a well delivered expletive, she knew him perfectly, and stood waiting, motionless, for him to turn and speak to her. She was sure that he would have no recollection of her. He turned, but it was some seconds ...
— Outside Inn • Ethel M. Kelley
... Dicky uttered his favorite expletive. "It takes one woman to dissect another. She looked like the readiest kind of ready money to me. Why, say, if what you say is true, she ought to be glad to earn the money I could pay her for posing. I could get her ...
— Revelations of a Wife - The Story of a Honeymoon • Adele Garrison
... searching expletive by way of concluding the sentence fittingly. After which he slipped back and slammed the door, leaving Fenn waiting outside like the Peri at the ...
— The Head of Kay's • P. G. Wodehouse
... on his aversions for her. She had once used an expletive in his presence that had sickened him, and, noting its effect, she had not reiterated. The unfastidious brunette roots to her light hair. That sink with the grease-rimmed old beer! But then: her eyes where the brows slid down to make them heavy-lidded. That bit of blue vein in ...
— The Vertical City • Fannie Hurst
... Expletive syllables in the beginning of lines where the tune is sharp and gay are often an improvement, but they should ...
— Thomas Davis, Selections from his Prose and Poetry • Thomas Davis
... the inelegant expletive whereby a Frenchman most adequately expresses his scorn of circumstance. "Zut! If I have lost a fortune, I have gained two devoted friends, so I am the winner on the ...
— The Joyous Adventures of Aristide Pujol • William J. Locke
... favorably situated for making philological observations. I observe that the Cree, although essentially the same language as the Chippewa, yet drops, or never had, many of the suffix expletive particles of the latter, though the prefix particles are pretty much the same in both. The Cree has not, I believe, the double negative nor the adverbial and plaintive forms of verbs, as I have termed them. This renders the language less complex, ...
— Personal Memoirs Of A Residence Of Thirty Years With The Indian Tribes On The American Frontiers • Henry Rowe Schoolcraft
... a vigorous expletive, and growled, "One thing Mr. Gregory has done for me, he's opened the flood-gates that have been so long dammed—yes, ...
— Fran • John Breckenridge Ellis
... a glass of wine, they were flogged for smoking; if they swore, they received eighty lashes for every expletive; and after eighty lashes it was a common thing to die. Before long, flogging grew to be so everyday an ...
— Eminent Victorians • Lytton Strachey
... alien to the brimstone of the Lord, he became quite used to strong language on the part of other men, even in the most genial conversation. Carthey, a little Texan who went to work for him for a while, opened or closed every second sentence, on an average, with the mild expletive, "By damn!" It was also his invariable way of expressing surprise, disappointment, consternation, or all the rest of the tribe of sudden emotions. By pitch and stress and intonation, the protean oath was made to perform every function of ordinary speech. ...
— A Daughter of the Snows • Jack London
... another moment the fire of two rifles would have been concentrated on that moving splotch of blackness, whence had come the sneeze, except that the guttural German expletive was followed by a tense whisper. And the words came ...
— The Khaki Boys Over the Top - Doing and Daring for Uncle Sam • Gordon Bates
... "When I say a thing, I mean a thing. The sooner you understand that, the better. How dare you argue with me! Fiddle-de-dee!" For two pins Peter would have employed an expletive even stronger, so determined was ...
— Tommy and Co. • Jerome K. Jerome
... The expletive there is not expressed, but the verb will precede the subject, as ...
— Latin for Beginners • Benjamin Leonard D'Ooge
... sir! I'll fix him;' and with that, and a heavy expletive in regard to the old fellow's eyes, the bow oarsman slammed his boarding-pike right into the ghost, just abaft his left leg, and as the sharp steel touched the body, a whizzing sound, like the escape ...
— Not Pretty, But Precious • John Hay, et al.
... from me; and learn right. From the first go off." He was silent for a few seconds, and then he broke out in a kind of ecstasy. "My Gawd, 'e'll be a bowler such as 'as never been, never in this world. He'll start where I left orf. He'll ..." Words failed him, he fell back on the expletive he had used, repeating it with an ...
— The Wonder • J. D. Beresford
... "O oranges, to the right!" or "O eggs, out of the way!" This, which sounds so odd, is meant in good faith, and answers the desired purpose. No one calls out in Arabic, addressing another, without prefixing some expletive. Thus the dealer of sweetmeats drawls out: "In the name of the Prophet, comfits." Even the beggar says: "O Christian, backsheesh!" as he leans upon a crutch and extends his trembling hand. If you respond, all is well; if not, your ears will be assailed by a jumble ...
— Due West - or Round the World in Ten Months • Maturin Murray Ballou
... a rapid expletive, and reproached her with not having been to see him. She hesitated a moment; then she simpered the least bit and bridled. "He comes to see me—without reproach! But it would not be the same for ...
— The Madonna of the Future • Henry James
... from him angrily, leaving him still standing in his pet attitude, taking mental stock of all the fast-looking fair ones who might come under his notice. "Oh, bother?" I am not prepared to assert positively that I did not use a much stronger expletive. He ought to have seen them! What the deuce was the use of his sticking star-gazing there, unless to observe people, I should like ...
— She and I, Volume 1 • John Conroy Hutcheson
... drew forth a paper, and handed it to her uncle, who opened it, read it with a stare, and uttered his usual expletive. "Soul of a crow!" in ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books - Vol. II: Fiction • Arthur Mee, J. A. Hammerton, Eds.
... unheard-of enormity; cards and dice were prohibited; and stronger expletive than the elegant ones invented for the special use of the King of Navarre was expiated either by the purse or the skin; Marot's psalmody was the only music, black or sad colour the only wear; and, ...
— The Chaplet of Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge
... light on an author than the concurrence of a contemporary writer, I am inclined to be of Hiccius' opinion, and to consider the "All" as an elegant expletive, or, as he more aptly phrases it elegans expletivum. The passage therefore must ...
— English Satires • Various
... on the floor, and walked with his hands behind him to the window, out of which, still faintly whistling, he gazed with eyes that saw nothing. Once his lips opened to emit mechanically the Englishman's expletive of sudden enlightenment. At length he turned to the shelves again, and swiftly but carefully examined every ...
— Trent's Last Case - The Woman in Black • E.C. (Edmund Clerihew) Bentley
... future tendencies toward the Wildmere type. He never could think of this hope without smiling to himself. He had at last obtained the explanation of Madge's effort and success. By the superb result he measured the strength of the love which had led to it. "Great Scott!"—his favorite expletive—he had thought; "what a compass there is in her nature! I had long suspected her secret, but when I touched upon it last night she made my blood tingle by her magnificent resentment. I would sooner have ...
— A Young Girl's Wooing • E. P. Roe
... is a couple of field pieces; zounds, sir!'—(the major has found this expletive in Lever's novels, and adopted it as particularly becoming ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No. V, May, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... so exactly like the young Englishmen pictured in Punch, and she waited to hear him say "Bah Jove!" But he didn't say it, he contented himself with "My word!" by way of expletive, and though it didn't seem to mean anything, it was apparently useful ...
— Patty's Friends • Carolyn Wells
... has some abatements. He uses the expletive do very frequently; and, though he lived to see it almost, universally ejected, was not more careful to avoid it in his last compositions than in his first. Praise had given him confidence; and finding the world satisfied, he ...
— Lives of the Poets, Vol. 1 • Samuel Johnson
... form, Alisande. Sir Marhaus the king's son of Ireland talks like all the rest; you ought to give him a brogue, or at least a characteristic expletive; by this means one would recognize him as soon as he spoke, without his ever being named. It is a common literary device with the great authors. You should make him say, 'In this country, be jabers, came never knight since it was christened, ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... And again the expletive of disillusion burst from between Mallory's teeth as he saw the front-page double-column spread, a type-specialty of the usually conservative Ledger upon which it prided itself, dwindle to a carefully handled inside-page three-quarter ...
— Success - A Novel • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... he adjusted the glass and levelled it at the road, Pike gave vent to an expletive that need not be recorded here, but that indicated in him a most unusual degree of excitement. No wonder. The Tontos were now in plain view—only two miles and a half out there on the plain,—and though they were spread out, as a rule, to the right and left of the road, ...
— Sunset Pass - or Running the Gauntlet Through Apache Land • Charles King
... good trying to get anything out of him. Better split with him at once," said the guest who had used the expletive. ...
— The Honorable Peter Stirling and What People Thought of Him • Paul Leicester Ford
... reported to have said, "I have over a dozen sons, and not one is worth a damn." I fear me that every father with sons grown to manhood has at some time voiced the same sentiment, curtailed, possibly, only as to numbers, and softened by another expletive, which does not mitigate the anguish of his cry, as he sees the dreams he had for his baby boys fade away into a ...
— Little Journeys To the Homes of the Great, Volume 3 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard
... An expletive smacking more of Montmartre than of the Boulevard Capucines, fell from the nobleman's lips. He brushed the ash fiercely from his cigar. "It is not so—it won't explain anything," he returned violently. "Didn't I once have it ...
— A Man and His Money • Frederic Stewart Isham
... The mildness of the expletive was proof that the full horror of the situation had not immediately come home to him. His mind in the first few moments was occupied with the problem of how the door had got that way. He could not remember shutting it. Probably he had done it unconsciously. ...
— Indiscretions of Archie • P. G. Wodehouse
... gained the camp its infelicitous title, were not permitted within hearing distance of Stumpy's. The men conversed in whispers or smoked with Indian gravity. Profanity was tacitly given up in these sacred precincts, and throughout the camp a popular form of expletive, known as "D—n the luck!" and "Curse the luck!" was abandoned, as having a new personal bearing. Vocal music was not interdicted, being supposed to have a soothing, tranquilizing quality; and one song, sung by "Man-o'-War Jack," an ...
— Selected Stories • Bret Harte
... at Cleveland; and, "by the powers of Mercury"—this expletive originated, I believe, with a proud barometer,—it is raining cats and dogs and a host of inferior animals. Everybody seems very impatient, for all are getting out, and yet we have not reached the station,—no; and they don't mean to get there at present. Possession is nine ...
— Lands of the Slave and the Free - Cuba, The United States, and Canada • Henry A. Murray
... from the ground where they had been lounging to hear him read the list of those who were to return immediately to the front. As the names were called each one summoned turned without comment or exclamation or expletive, picked up his kit dumped in a corner, slung on the heavy equipment, saw that the huge loaf of bread was secure—the extra shoes—refilled his canteen and moved over to the barred gate. Occasionally one shook hands with a comrade and ...
— Defenders of Democracy • The Militia of Mercy
... what a dangerous article it is," promptly replied Jesse, with a fierce expletive. "Ripley and Barker had a taste of it, though, when the machine chased them on Siroc and Jim Malone. It was awful the way the electric engine overhauled them, I can tell you. Our only salvation now lies in leading them to places where the ...
— Jack Wright and His Electric Stage; - or, Leagued Against the James Boys • "Noname"
... greater light on an author, than the concurrence of a contemporary writer, I am inclined to be of Hiccius's opinion, and to consider the "All" as an elegant expletive, or, as he more aptly phrases it "elegans expletivum." The passage therefore ...
— Parodies of Ballad Criticism (1711-1787) • William Wagstaffe
... expletive that had risen to his lip when he saw who the unwitting offender was, and asked, "What are they doin' to ...
— Thoroughbreds • W. A. Fraser
... Hai, "yes," has been pronounced He, Chi, Na, Ne, to Ito's great contempt. It sounds like an expletive or interjection rather than a response, and seems used often as a sign of respect or attention only. Often it is loud and shrill, then guttural, at times little more than a sigh. In these yadoyas every sound is audible, and I hear low rumbling of mingled voices, ...
— Unbeaten Tracks in Japan • Isabella L. Bird
... he broke the silence with an expletive which expressed something of the enthusiasm he ...
— The Triumph of John Kars - A Story of the Yukon • Ridgwell Cullum
... wench. Gotsch, a stone jug. Holl, a dry ditch. Anan? An? an interrogation used when the speaker does not understand a question put to him. To be muddled, to be distressed in mind. Together, an expletive used thus: where are you going together? (meaning several persons)—what are you ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 44, Saturday, August 31, 1850 • Various
... olive-green back, and yellow belly. From his habit of keeping near the ground, even hopping upon it occasionally, I know him to be a ground warbler; from his dark breast the ornithologist has added the expletive mourning, hence the mourning ...
— In the Catskills • John Burroughs
... thereupon Reuben, though somewhat maudlin with wine, yet with the generous spirit not wholly quenched in him, had entered upon a glowing little speech in praise of the old gentleman and of his profession,—a speech which, if it were garnished with here and there an objectionable expletive, was very ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 97, November, 1865 • Various
... another form, and yet in the same form, in that grotesque expression, when it was ejaculated as his sole expletive when he caught his thumb that frightful crack while hanging a picture in what was to be his study in their newly ...
— This Freedom • A. S. M. Hutchinson
... hear it," answered Michael, "for with such a flock of geese to say it to, the horrid expletive might be constantly on her lips. For my part, I simply refuse to let things be done in this light and airy style. I appeal ...
— Manalive • G. K. Chesterton
... a hass," he nodded, "an' I may be a fool—but I don't go a-fallin' in love wi' ladies as is above me, an' out o' my reach, and don't chuck away a 'undred guineas for one as ain't likely to look my way—not me! Which I begs leave to say—hass yourself, an' likewise fool—bah!" With which expletive he set his thumb to his nose, spread out his fingers, wagged them ...
— The Broad Highway • Jeffery Farnol
... previous promise to his unhappy wife—a promise we cannot transcribe literally, because of the free employment of a popular adjective (supposed to be a corruption of "by Our Lady") before or after any part of speech whatever, as an expletive to drive home meaning to reluctant minds. It is an expression unwelcome on the drawing-room table. But, briefly, what Mr. Salter had so sworn to do was to twist his wife's nose off with his finger and thumb. And he did not seem unlikely ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan |
