"Inflection" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... mistaken," she said gravely, with that quaintest inflection of the English he had ever heard, "yes, mistaken. He mais—but it is just that the complaint. You ...
— The Missourian • Eugene P. (Eugene Percy) Lyle
... hastened to assure her. "I don't think there is anything for you to be uneasy about, except that his influence is always evil—" he paused on a raised inflection and looked at her admiringly. "One of the reasons," he went on regardless of the abrupt change, "why I like you and feel so sure that you are sound and good and strong clear through is because you have not yielded in the least to the subtle influence he has over most people. You ...
— The Fate of Felix Brand • Florence Finch Kelly
... was about to go." She turned to give Bailey her hand, smiling involuntarily in her relief. With a glance, an inflection, Lestrange had stripped their former meeting of its embarrassment and unconventionality, how, ...
— The Flying Mercury • Eleanor M. Ingram
... on the left bank of the Seine, and there I found, peering at the old wood-carvings, the Baron R., one of the wealthiest and most shabbily dressed men in Paris. It was now or never. Putting a strong American inflection into the French which I usually talked with an unmistakable British accent, I catechised the Baron as to the date of the church's building, its dimensions, and other details which an American tourist would be certain to want to know. Having acquired such information as the Baron was able to impart ...
— Reginald in Russia and Other Sketches • Saki (H.H. Munro)
... and the heathen are the instruments whereby the Lord hath willed to chastise them," said the messenger, with that peculiar nasal inflection of voice, so characteristic of the "unco' guid." "The great sachem, Miantonimo, chief of the Narragansetts, hath plotted to cut off the Lord's people, just after the time of harvest, to slay utterly old and young, both ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... once, Betty's heart seemed to stop still. She heard a voice, familiar in a sense, and yet so unlike the voice of which she had once known every inflection. ...
— What Timmy Did • Marie Adelaide Belloc Lowndes
... slip of cardboard with its Boston address made unnecessarily prominent, while Rutherford, after scanning the card he held, bearing simply the name of W. E. Houston, remarked with a decidedly upward inflection, ...
— The Award of Justice - Told in the Rockies • A. Maynard Barbour
... belts, and sometimes even our moccasins. We pretended to offer them as gifts to one another. We delighted in impersonating our own mothers. We talked of things we had heard them say in their conversations. We imitated their various manners, even to the inflection of their voices. In the lap of the prairie we seated ourselves upon our feet, and leaning our painted cheeks in the palms of our hands, we rested our elbows on our knees, and bent forward as old women were most accustomed ...
— American Indian stories • Zitkala-Sa
... uttered the foregoing without pause or inflection of voice from beginning to end, came to an abrupt stop. Whether from want of breath or ideas it is difficult to say; perhaps ...
— The Lifeboat • R.M. Ballantyne
... follies," Kitty said, and it is impossible to tell you what a disagreeable inflection there was to her voice. "Mother, I am sorry that the poor child has to associate with such volatile creatures as you and I. She ought to have ...
— The Chautauqua Girls At Home • Pansy, AKA Isabella M. Alden
... knew that none of these troubles afflicted Lady Maud, and when he spoke to her now and then, between the acts, she felt his sympathy for her in every word and inflection. ...
— The Primadonna • F. Marion Crawford
... take him seriously. A fellow named Galloway relocated us one night last month, but he didn't allege any grounds for doing so, and we could never find trace of him. If we had, our title would be as clean as snow again." He said the last with a peculiar inflection. ...
— The Spoilers • Rex Beach
... on her knee and her chin on her hand and took that problem under deep consideration. Presently she looked up and answered, with a rising inflection implying ...
— A Horse's Tale • Mark Twain
... Songs of the United States" may be found an exposition of Daddy Jack's dialect as complete as any that can be given here. A key to the dialect may be given very briefly. The vocabulary is not an extensive one—more depending upon the manner, the form of expression, and the inflection, than upon the words employed. It is thus an admirable vehicle for story-telling. It recognizes no gender, and scorns the use of the plural number except accidentally. "'E" stands for "he" "she" or "it," and "dem" may allude to one thing, or may include a thousand. The dialect is laconic ...
— Nights With Uncle Remus - Myths and Legends of the Old Plantation • Joel Chandler Harris
... of you, I don't see all of you, but instead a particular gesture, or I hear an inflection of voice that is too familiar to be borne. Now I see mother's hands and they ...
— Trapped in 'Black Russia' - Letters June-November 1915 • Ruth Pierce
... she begins, "to all that you have said." (The devil himself could not deny this. "Patience" hardly seems the word. "Enthusiastically" she might almost have said). "Now"—with rising inflection—"you listen to me." ...
— They and I • Jerome K. Jerome
... likewise neither conjugation nor inflection; and the tenses, or times of action or passion, are limited to three; the present, the past, and the future. The present is signified simply by the verb, as go lai, I come; the past, is expressed ...
— Travels in China, Containing Descriptions, Observations, and Comparisons, Made and Collected in the Course of a Short Residence at the Imperial Palace of Yuen-Min-Yuen, and on a Subsequent Journey thr • John Barrow
... am going on to"—Bruce stopped to gather strength to project the word with the large and cadenced inflection he had enjoyed in the hill farm people,—"going ...
— Sally of Missouri • R. E. Young
... with an inflection of command in his voice. "Go to the other section of the ship if you don't want to listen. He has to keep going over it, just like Ross has ...
— Homesick • Lyn Venable
... had a slight frail figure, very carefully dressed, and one of those thin-lipped faces which seem, to wear a perpetual sneer of superiority over commoner humanity. The movements of his white hands, the inflection of his voice, the double eyeglass which dangled from his vest by a ribbon of black silk, revealed the type of human being which considers itself something rarer and finer than its fellows. The thin face, narrow white ...
— The Moon Rock • Arthur J. Rees
... plural, so that one cannot with propriety use the singular form, mean, to signify that by which an end is attained; Second, That the subjective mood, to which he himself had previously given all the tenses without inflection, is not different in form from the indicative, except in the present tense. With regard to the later point, I have shown, in its proper place, that he taught erroneously, both before and after he changed ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... interrupted by loud bursts of applause. Words drop from his lips in strains of such impassioned eloquence that they go directly to the hearts of the audience, and his actions are so well suited to his words that you can not remember a gesture. You try in vain to recall the inflection of the voice that moved you to smiles or tears, at the speaker's will. Mr. Benson is a young man and has only been in the lecture field a little over one year; yet at one leap he has taken the very front rank, and is already measuring strength with the oldest ...
— Fifteen Years in Hell • Luther Benson
... through the day, and shortly after he awoke Sherburne and two other officers, their horses splashed with mud, rode up to the hunting lodge. Jackson was standing in the door, and with a rising inflection he uttered ...
— The Star of Gettysburg - A Story of Southern High Tide • Joseph A. Altsheler
... one of the mounted artillerymen, with a negative inflection. "You'll get a hell of a long ways without us. If you doughboys start anything without the artillery, you'll see Berlin through the bars ...
— "And they thought we wouldn't fight" • Floyd Gibbons
... to meeting with me this afternoon, Mabel? Come; this is your last day here; do go once before you leave the White Mountains." "What do you do in 'meeting'?" asked the gay, beautiful, "High Church" New York belle, with just a shade of contemptuous inflection in her voice. ...
— Choice Readings for the Home Circle • Anonymous
... his persistence in thought are denoted by the number of tone units he habitually employs when speaking. The genuineness of a statement is suggested or disproved by the tone intervals in the statement. "Yes" spoken in one unit without inflection means unqualified assent. "Y-es" in two tones may mean doubtful assent, or false agreement, or even a contradiction. The middle-of-the-mouth tone proves a well balanced mind, in contrast with the unreliable mind that is denoted by the lip tone, and the secretive ...
— Certain Success • Norval A. Hawkins
... coughed. His audience neglected the opportunity for applause, but he had their undivided attention. They were looking at him and listening to him, these Canadian farmers, with curious interest in his attitude, his appearance, his inflection, his whole personality as it offered itself to them—it was a thing new and strange. Far out in the Northwest, where the emigrant trains had been unloading all the summer, Hesketh's would have been a voice from home; but here, in long-settled Ontario, men had forgotten the sound of it, ...
— The Imperialist • (a.k.a. Mrs. Everard Cotes) Sara Jeannette Duncan
... yards away, or a little more perhaps, for by contrast all the other songs within hearing seemed strangely inferior. Its voice was singularly clear and pure, the last note greatly prolonged and with a slightly falling inflection, yet not collapsing at the finish as such long notes frequently do, ending with a little internal sound or croak, as if the singer had exhausted his breath; but it was perfect in its way, a finished performance, artistic, and, by comparison, brilliant. After once hearing ...
— Birds in Town and Village • W. H. Hudson
... have taken office, and eventually have been one of the shapers of his country's destiny. The phraseology of their current talk to one another and to outsiders reflected this belief. "If I had continued in the House," Sir William would say, with a manner and inflection which conveyed that he had left it of his own free will and not attempted to return to it, "I should have——" or, "If I had taken office——" or even sometimes, "If I were leading the Liberal party——" and no ...
— The Arbiter - A Novel • Lady F. E. E. Bell
... no! never! Every lineament of his face, every inflection of his voice, as well as every act of his life, and every trait of his character, ...
— The Missing Bride • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... There was a wistful inflection on the query. It put forth at one and the same time a request for corroboration and a challenge to a contrary opinion. If there could be no contrary opinion, he would have been glad of some sign of approval or applause. He ...
— The Street Called Straight • Basil King
... invited, as usual, discussion and questions when I had finished. We all waited in silence for a long time; at length a middle-aged man, with a broad-brimmed hat, arose and responded in a sing-song tone: "All I have to say is, if a hen can crow, let her crow," emphasizing "crow" with an upward inflection on several notes of the gamut. The meeting adjourned with mingled feelings of surprise and merriment. I confess that I felt somewhat chagrined in having what I considered my unanswerable arguments so summarily disposed of, and the serious impression ...
— Eighty Years And More; Reminiscences 1815-1897 • Elizabeth Cady Stanton
... double set of trigeneric inflexions, Definite and Indefinite, Strong and Weak, just like that which makes the beginner's despair in German."[404] Verbs were conjugated without auxiliaries; and as there was no particular inflection to indicate the future, the present was used instead, a very indifferent substitute, which did not contribute much to the clearness of the phrase. Degrees of comparison in the adjectives were marked, not by adverbs, as in French, but by differences in the terminations. In short, ...
— A Literary History of the English People - From the Origins to the Renaissance • Jean Jules Jusserand
... bearing. Matchless the mingled strength and beauty of His life, yet gentleness was the flower and fruitage of it all. For in Him the lion and the lamb dwelt together. Oak and rock were there, and also vine and flower. Weakness is always rough. Only giants can be gentle. Tenderness is an inflection of strength. No error can be greater than to suppose that gentleness is mere absence of vigor. Weakness totters and tugs at its burden. When the dwarf that attended Ivanhoe at the tournament lifted the bleeding sufferer he staggered under his heavy burden. Weakness made him stumble ...
— The Investment of Influence - A Study of Social Sympathy and Service • Newell Dwight Hillis
... noted also amongst the Guycurus and other peoples of Brazil.[258] Amongst the Arawaks the difference between the languages of the sexes is not in regard to the use of words only, but also in regard to their inflection.[259] The two languages are sometimes differentiated by a constant change, e.g. where in the man's language two vowels come together the woman's language intercalates a k.[260] The Arawaks have words which only men may speak, and others which only women may speak.[261] ...
— Folkways - A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals • William Graham Sumner
... pitch is that which in the rhetorics is usually called inflection. A question is uttered with rising inflection, that is, with a higher pitch at the end. Declarative sentences usually have a falling inflection just before the final period, that is, a lower pitch. Exclamations often have ...
— The Principles of English Versification • Paull Franklin Baum
... of anything that has pleased you one will, with a gay rising inflection of the voice and a smile, say: "Ah! c'est gai la-bas—and monsieur was well amused while in that beautiful country?" "ah!—tiens! c'est gentil ca!" they will exclaim, as you enthusiastically continue to explain. They never dull your enthusiasm by short ...
— The Real Latin Quarter • F. Berkeley Smith
... the long dim line of girls engaged in preparation of the sweets of life. She was wondering what she would have thought it worth to go over there and work all day. "Then each of those girls made a dollar today?" she asked, and her inflection was curious. ...
— The Visioning • Susan Glaspell
... mine, too," she said, and the man overlooked the inflection which, as plainly as words, was intended to convey the impression that his ways were effeminate. "If every man used up his time gentling his string he'd never have a day off to work ...
— The Settling of the Sage • Hal G. Evarts
... room, talking! Perhaps he had not been asleep more than an hour, and it was natural that they should lie awake a while, talking about the coming of this young stranger or any other event of the day that interested them. Then he caught a tone or an inflection that he did not remember to have been used by either of the Leffingwells. A third signal of alarm was promptly registered on ...
— The Guns of Shiloh • Joseph A. Altsheler
... the instinct born of her own rejected passion, which caused her to read in the beautiful girl's face all that lay hidden behind the pale, impassive mask. That same second sight made her understand Merlin's hints and allusions. She caught every inflection of his voice, ...
— I Will Repay • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... before. Themistocles thought that the same sounding epithets could not suit all subjects, as the same dress does not fit all persons. The style of our modern prose writers is very fine in itself; but it wants variety of inflection and adaptation; it hinders us from seeing the differences of the things it ...
— Lectures on the English Poets - Delivered at the Surrey Institution • William Hazlitt
... kind of jumble between reading and acting, staring, and bending his brow, and twisting his face, and gesticulating as if he were on the stage, and dressed out in all his costume. My father's manner is quite different—it is the reading of a gentleman, who produces effect by feeling, taste, and inflection of voice, not by action or mummery. Lucy Bertram rides remarkably well, and I can now accompany her on horseback, having become emboldened by example. We walk also a good deal in spite of the cold—So, upon the whole I have not quite ...
— Guy Mannering • Sir Walter Scott
... was always too quick for him, and this reply held him in puzzled silence while she extended her hand and added, with the faintest inflection of sadness in her voice: "Before we bid each other goodbye, I want at least to thank you for having once thought ...
— House of Mirth • Edith Wharton
... quality of paramount importance to the arguer is sincerity. This he must really possess if he is to be eminently successful. To feign it is almost impossible; some word or expression, some gesture or inflection of the voice, the very attitude of the insincere arguer will betray his real feelings. If he tries to arouse an emotion that he himself does not feel, his affectation will be apparent and his effort a failure. There are few things that an audience resents more than ...
— Practical Argumentation • George K. Pattee
... infernal machine set to music." His method was practically the memoriter method. A gentleman, who heard him give his "Daniel O'Connell" four times in succession, found that the lecture was repeated without the slightest variation whatsoever, in ideas, sentences, inflection of the voice, or even gesture. Phillips prepared his lectures with the greatest care, and then repeated them hundreds of times. From the moment when he came upon the platform his presence filled the eye and satisfied it. His very ease and poise ...
— The Battle of Principles - A Study of the Heroism and Eloquence of the Anti-Slavery Conflict • Newell Dwight Hillis
... met with a writer of some deep learning and research, who, amongst other topics, entered into the subject of musical inflection by orators, &c. Now, unfortunately, the title and preface of the book is absent without leave, nor is there any heading to it, so I can do no more than say, the author refers to ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 218, December 31, 1853 • Various
... differences would be apparent in real life. Indeed, the aim today is to mimic reality in externals, precisely as the real characters themselves are impersonated in every shade of thought and artistic inflection of speech. There are, to be sure, exceptions to this ...
— Writing for Vaudeville • Brett Page
... examines the map, it will be seen that by his inflection toward Meaux and Coulommiers General von Kluck was exposing his right to the offensive action of the French left. This is the starting point of the victory of ...
— History of the World War - An Authentic Narrative of the World's Greatest War • Francis A. March and Richard J. Beamish
... people, with the end of approximating it to the sounds farmliar and significant to their ears. Is it not also to be feared that in this case the editor, in entire good faith, may lend some slight inflection to the text, so as to find in it the sense that he desires, or ...
— Literary and Philosophical Essays • Various
... there had been a blind person in the canoe with the Lockwood sisters, that unfortunate person could never in this world have told which girl spoke at each time. Their voices were exactly alike—the same inflection, the same turning ...
— The Girls of Central High on Lake Luna - or, The Crew That Won • Gertrude W. Morrison
... door at Amber's elbow that had escaped his cursory notice, so cunningly was it fitted in the wall, swung open, and a remembered voice boomed in his ears, not without a certain sardonic inflection: "Welcome, my lord, welcome ...
— The Bronze Bell • Louis Joseph Vance
... of queries with a gradually rising pitch and inflection in the ringing tones of her clear, musical voice. With figure erect, eyes flashing, cheeks glowing and hands uplifted, she seemed the personification of some priestess of science. Fillmore Flagg and George Gaylord ...
— Solaris Farm - A Story of the Twentieth Century • Milan C. Edson
... he sat there, while over and over again she shuffled and dealt and played her game and started another at a speed which dazzled his eyes; until she rose and said indifferently, "Let's go to bed. It must be past four." There was an upward inflection in her naming of the hour that showed she believed it later than she said, that she felt that this long agony must have brought her quite close to the dawn, but she had not dared to say so for fear of the disappointment which she knew followed always ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West
... occupied with tumultuous reflections, not seeing the beauties of Millville which, but a short time before, he had been enthusiastically celebrating. He was, in fact, a young man walking in a dream. Every word the girl had uttered, every inflection of her voice, the involuntary confession of affection won from her by his own no less sudden avowal of love, projected themselves against his excited mind with all the vividness of kinetoscope pictures. He was very happy with these reflections that come ...
— Little Lost Sister • Virginia Brooks
... be better than Homer, or what worse than almost any translation of him? And this holds even of languages so closely allied as the Indo-European, which, after all, have certain correspondences of syntax and inflection. If there could be a language with other parts of speech than ours, — a language without nouns, for instance, — how would that grasp of experience, that picture of the world, which all our literature contains, be reproduced in it? Whatever beauties that language ...
— The Sense of Beauty - Being the Outlines of Aesthetic Theory • George Santayana
... happy, don't they?" she reasoned, with a rising inflection at the end of the phrase that surprised and a trifle disquieted her. "Don't they?" she asked herself, thoughtfully, as she crept in at the side door of the magnificent, cumbersome old house that ...
— The Beloved Woman • Kathleen Norris
... an' you know what girls is for gettin' speed out of a dog. 'You poor tired little doggie, you can stop right here an' rest if you want to; I don't care if they do get ahead of us,'" and Danny finished his remarks in the high falsetto and mincing inflection he attributed to the youthful members of a sex that in his opinion, as well as in George's, has no right to engage in the masculine occupation ...
— Baldy of Nome • Esther Birdsall Darling
... observation of order. Whilst Mr. Gladstone and other members of old standing were content to preface their speeches with the monosyllable "Sir," nothing less than "Mr. Speaker, sir," would satisfy Mr. Biggar. No one who has not heard the inflection of tone with which this was uttered, nor seen the oratorical sweep of the hand that launched it on its course, can realize how much of combined deference and authority the phrase is capable of. Mr. Biggar, having ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 27, March 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... after laying the matter before the proper authorities, such a formality is deemed necessary," said the girl, with a scornful inflection that cut ...
— The Masked Bridal • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... A man has to love a nice girl or two as an educative process." Her voice trailed into the rising inflection of a question. "Then the right girl ought to thank me for helping to prepare Mr. Yeager for ...
— The Pirate of Panama - A Tale of the Fight for Buried Treasure • William MacLeod Raine
... might be indicated by straight lines, thus [2 dashes, square root symbol, high dash]; the first two marks representing two sweet, silvery notes, in the same pitch of voice, and quite unaccented; the latter marks, the concluding notes, wherein the tone and inflection are changed. The throat and breast of the male are a rich black like velvet, his face yellow, and his ...
— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs
... him Mr. Ryan and addressed him as Casey Ryan instead, with a little teasing inflection in her voice. Once Casey happened to mention Lund, and when he saw her look of surprise he explained that he drove a stage ...
— Casey Ryan • B. M. Bower
... the Coptique or AEgyptian, which is but a remainder of the famous government of the Ptolomies in AEgypt: for although in its idiome there be something yet remaining of an originall stamp, either in that its words seem to touch upon the auntient Language of the Pharaohs, or that its inflection no way resembles the Greec, yet the Empire of Alexander and his successors induc'd such a confusion, that the Greec hath almost got the better, and involv'd all the lesser remains ...
— A Philosophicall Essay for the Reunion of the Languages - Or, The Art of Knowing All by the Mastery of One • Pierre Besnier
... He recognizes a Great Spirit, he loves his home, he is passionately devoted to his people, and believes in a future life. The Ojibway language is a marvel. The verb has inflections by thousands. If an Indian says "I love" and stops, you can tell by the inflection of the verb whether he loves an animate or inanimate object, a man or a woman. The nicest shade of meaning in St. Paul's Epistles could be conveyed in Ojibway, and I have heard a missionary say, "A classic Greek temple ...
— The American Missionary Vol. XLIV. No. 2. • Various
... is your affair!" Madame Piriac finished, with a peculiar inflection of her well-controlled voice. "I mean," she added, "you cannot afford ...
— The Lion's Share • E. Arnold Bennett
... oldest of the Onondagas, walked back and forth in the space between the two groups, chanting a welcome. Like all Indian songs it was monotonous. Every line he uttered with emphasis and a rising inflection, the phrase "Haih-haih" which may be translated "Hail to thee!" or better, "All hail!" Nevertheless, under the moonlight in the wilderness and with rapt faces about him, it was deeply ...
— The Scouts of the Valley • Joseph A. Altsheler
... inviting Langford to make a proposal, and the latter smiled evilly. "Still," he said, repeating Dakota's word with a significant inflection, "you don't refuse to listen to me. It would be worth a thousand dollars to me to have Doubler out of ...
— The Trail to Yesterday • Charles Alden Seltzer
... as he steadied himself with the aid of the banister, "coming home! coming home!" There was a different inflection in his voice each time he repeated the phrase. Tenderness crept into the words, and tears streamed down his cheeks, as he passed slowly into his study. "Coming home! Mary ...
— The Scarlet Feather • Houghton Townley
... tense; hun "to sell," sin "to hide," tin "to see," and numerous other radical elements, if low-toned, refer to past time, if high-toned, to the future. Another type of function is illustrated by the Takelma forms hel "song," with falling pitch, but hel "sing!" with a rising inflection; parallel to these forms are sel (falling) "black paint," sel (rising) "paint it!" All in all it is clear that pitch accent, like stress and vocalic or consonantal modifications, is far less infrequently employed as a grammatical process than our own habits of speech ...
— Language - An Introduction to the Study of Speech • Edward Sapir
... piano—an instrument she remembered Mrs. Conant kept in the house exclusively as an ornament, being unable to play it. Then, as the girl reached the porch, the melody suddenly stopped, a merry laugh rang out and a fresh, sweet voice was heard through the open window talking rapidly and with eager inflection. ...
— Mary Louise • Edith van Dyne (one of L. Frank Baum's pen names)
... an unabashed and unassuming lady. If in Paris, she differs from the Parisiennes only in the greater delicacy of her lithe beauty, her innocence which is not ignorance, and her French pronunciation; if in London, she differs from English girls only in the matter of rosy cheeks and the rising inflection. Should none of these fortunate transplantings befall her, she always merits them by adorning with grace and industry and intelligence the narrower sphere to which ...
— The Stillwater Tragedy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... quite conscious. Thus, a correspondent tells me that he not only finds sexual pleasure in cruelty toward the woman he loves, but that he regards this as an essential element. He is convinced that it gives the woman pleasure, and that it is possible to distinguish by gesture, inflection of voice, etc., an hysterical, assumed, or imagined feeling of pain from real pain. He would not wish to give real pain, and would ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 3 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... walking, madam, and to go alone. He ordered us—I say, he ordered us not to come. Surely we are right to obey him?" The sarcastic inflection of his voice conveyed his opinion of ...
— Rupert of Hentzau - From The Memoirs of Fritz Von Tarlenheim: The Sequel to - The Prisoner of Zenda • Anthony Hope
... curvity^, curvation^; incurvature^, incurvity^; incurvation^; bend; flexure, flexion, flection^; conflexure^; crook, hook, bought, bending; deflection, deflexion^; inflection, inflexion^; concameration^; arcuation^, devexity^, turn, deviation, detour, sweep; curl, curling; bough; recurvity^, recurvation^; sinuosity &c 248. kink. carve, arc, arch, arcade, vault, bow, crescent, half-moon, lunule^, horseshoe, loop, crane neck; parabola, hyperbola; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... And Sir Percy himself was surprised at the marvellous way in which he had caught the very inflection of Heriot's voice. ...
— The League of the Scarlet Pimpernel • Baroness Orczy
... inflection and syntax represent anything in the subject-matter of discourse? In what measure are they an independent play of expression, a quasi-musical, quasi-mathematical veil interposed between reflection and existence? One who knows only ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... Countess, with a heart-rending inflection in her voice. She drew a chair to the table as if to strengthen her illusions and ...
— Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories • Edited by Julian Hawthorne
... just out, "Predestined." "He [the author] is one of our [Sun] men, you know." Fraternal pride and affection in inflection, though he said he did not know Mr. Whitman. "Thank you very much indeed," he said ...
— Walking-Stick Papers • Robert Cortes Holliday
... the sheriff's recounting of "a highly desirable piece of property." His loud, flat voice had not changed by an inflection since he had "called out" Gordon's home; the merely curious or materially interested onlookers were the same, the dragging bidding had, apparently, continued unbroken from the other occasion. The dun, identical repetition added to the overwhelming sense of universal monotony in Gordon ...
— Mountain Blood - A Novel • Joseph Hergesheimer
... curious inflection to her voice that the candidate exclaimed, "Why, what do you mean, Anna?" and she merely replied, "Oh, nothing!" which meant everything. The candidate, understanding, looked more attentively, and his eyes contracted a little, ...
— The Candidate - A Political Romance • Joseph Alexander Altsheler
... plunge and said her say, but the last words are spoken with sinking inflection, followed instantly by a sinking heart. He makes no answer whatever. She dares not look up into his face to see the effect of her stab. He stands there silent only an instant; then raises his cap, turns, and ...
— Starlight Ranch - and Other Stories of Army Life on the Frontier • Charles King
... level manner, almost without inflection, and with his eyes again closed—very much as if he were ...
— Donal Grant • George MacDonald
... was the greatest master of the anecdote this generation has known. He claimed the humorous story as an American invention, and one that has remained at home. His public speeches were little mosaics in the finesse of their art; and the intricacies of inflection, insinuation, jovial innuendo which Mark Twain threw into his gestures, his implicative pauses, his suggestive shrugs and deprecative nods—all these are hopelessly volatilized and disappear entirely from the printed copy of ...
— Mark Twain • Archibald Henderson
... one side and hands crossed over their breasts, and he begins to "line out," dividing the words rhythmically into spondaic measure, with the accent strongly on every second syllable and the falling inflection invariably on ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 17, - No. 97, January, 1876 • Various
... eventful one to Ann Wales, so was the week following. The next Tuesday, right after dinner, she was up in a little unfinished chamber over the kitchen, where they did such work when the weather permitted, carding wool. All at once, she heard voices down below. They had a strange inflection, which gave her warning at once. She dropped her work and listened: "What is the matter?" ...
— The Adventures of Ann - Stories of Colonial Times • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... spoke in a light tone with a whimsical inflection, but Robert saw that he was intensely in earnest, and that it was not worth while for him to say more. The great storm passed on to the southward, the rain sank to a drizzle, but it was very cold in the forest, and Robert's teeth chattered, despite ...
— The Masters of the Peaks - A Story of the Great North Woods • Joseph A. Altsheler
... two hours every morning and afternoon little Miss Hitty worried her innocent soul over conjugations and declensions and particles, as perseveringly as any professor could have desired. But the dreadful part of the lessons to Hitty was the recitation after tea; no matter how well she knew every inflection of a verb, every termination of a noun, her father's cold, gray eye, fixed on her for an answer, dispelled all kinds of knowledge, and, for at least a week, every lesson ended in tears. However, there are alleviations ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... moment he saw her, "is it thou? Welcome, descendant of a line of kings. Would'st like some cider?" He spoke the word "cider" like the Indians, with a rising inflection on the last syllable. It was an offer no Indian could resist, and the squaw answered simply in the affirmative. From a pitcher of the grateful beverage, which shortly before had been brought into the room, and which, indeed, suggested the offer, the doctor filled a foaming ...
— The Lost Hunter - A Tale of Early Times • John Turvill Adams
... "I thought the nasal inflection made it more forceful, so I said, 'No, I won't haul no rubbish for no dollar and a half, and you can tell old Skinflint I ...
— Sunny Slopes • Ethel Hueston
... be enough produced by the sale of the estate to clear off every liability,—to the last shilling. You feel with me in this matter?" he went on, confidently appealing to his brother; yet with a certain inflection of anxiety in his voice. It would have wounded Everett cruelly, had he been misunderstood or rebuffed in this. "You have your commission, and Uncle Everett's legacy, and the reversion of my mother's fortune, which will not be touched. This act of justice, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 5, No. 28, February, 1860 • Various
... you are." Her expression and inflection indicated to him that he had been caught up in the cogs of a sizable machine, and that he was to be put through it. Everybody who came was entertained—or helped entertain others. Entertainment, in fact, was the one object ...
— Bertram Cope's Year • Henry Blake Fuller
... saying yes was one of his chief weapons of annihilation. He had a peculiar, taunting inflection which he could give to it, upon occasion, which caused prickles of flesh upon the victim. To say that Miss Whitmore was not utterly quenched argues well for her courage. She only gasped, as though treated to an unexpected dash of cold water, ...
— Chip, of the Flying U • B. M. Bower
... if he were perpetually exposed to sun and wind, rain and hail; sharp of movement, evidently of more than ordinary intelligence, and, in spite of his rough garments and fur cap, having an indefinable air of gentility and breeding about him. Brereton had already noticed the pitch and inflection of his voice; now, as Harborough touched his cap to the Mayor, he noticed that his hands, though coarsened and weather-browned, were well-shaped and delicate. Something about him, something in his attitude, the glance of his eye, seemed to indicate that he was the social superior of ...
— The Borough Treasurer • Joseph Smith Fletcher
... she returned with a warning inflection of literalness, when he would have welcomed satire, anger, or any reprisal of words as something live and warm; something on which his mind ...
— Over the Pass • Frederick Palmer
... Sir Charles caught the inflection. "You stand in need of rest," he said courteously, "and, this matter settled, our farther intrusion upon you is as unnecessary as it must be unwelcome. Had we not best ...
— Prisoners of Hope - A Tale of Colonial Virginia • Mary Johnston
... not to say ladylike, elocution of the Highland chief and the indescribable rising inflection and ...
— Shavings • Joseph C. Lincoln
... Give Rule 1 for falling inflection. Propositions which make complete sense require the ...
— 1001 Questions and Answers on Orthography and Reading • B. A. Hathaway
... thickly and wild," he replied, with some inflection of sadness in his voice; "long, long ago, before my father's father lived, there was a great town here. That was long before we of this land had ever seen a white man. And now we who are left are but as ...
— "Martin Of Nitendi"; and The River Of Dreams - 1901 • Louis Becke
... this furnace you call a city, Mr. Renault," she said, with a pretty inflection of voice that flattered; and so I went over beside her, and, leaning there on the cupola rail together, we explored the damaged city from our bird's perch above it—the city that I had come to care for strangely, nay, to love almost as ...
— The Reckoning • Robert W. Chambers
... mean to one!—The delight of that exquisite sound of refinement in the pronunciation. Miss Sharp never misplaces an inflection or slurs a word, she never uses slang, and yet there is nothing pedantic in her selection of language—it is just as if her habitual associates were all of the same class as herself, and that she never heard coarse ...
— Man and Maid • Elinor Glyn
... with large, dark eyes, a profusion of dark hair, a low forehead, and healthy strawberry-and-cream complexion, she was personally attractive, and wonderfully effective. Every movement, gesture, and inflection of voice had been carefully studied, and when making an ordinary remark in conversation she would deliver her words with a deliberate attempt at stage effect. Her Juliet with her father's Romeo, was her best character, but they failed signally as Lady Teazle and ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore
... collection of shells; and since then every noon and night he found her waiting here by her gate to speak to him; and she invariably asked the same question about his wife, always in the same tone, always with the same inflection. The meeting with her had become one of the frightfully unvarying things of his day. As he walked on now, he saw stretching before him an interminable vista of days, weeks, years—one deadly sameness of hard work, long hours, scanty pay, poor ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol 31, No 2, June 1908 • Various
... The inflection of his tone was instantly noticed. "Oh, I say, Weeden, how do you know? Do tell me. I won't say a word, I promise." But the Head Gardener kept his one eye—the other was of glass—upon the spout of his watering-can, and answered in a ...
— The Extra Day • Algernon Blackwood
... that," he answered, "and there seems to me only one of two things to do—either move into civilization, or import a pedagogue." A pause, and a whimsical inflection came into his voice. "Unfortunately, however, neither plan seems ...
— Ben Blair - The Story of a Plainsman • Will Lillibridge
... spoke with a peculiar inflection of the voice, for though he could forgive the woman now, he could not forget his resentment towards the man who had supplanted him. "For your sake, I ...
— Thurston of Orchard Valley • Harold Bindloss
... Then the music came, and La petite Elise. Grey drew back where she could not see her. Blecker peered through his glass at every line and motion, as she came out from the eternal castle in the back scene. Any gnawing power or gift she had had found vent, certainly, now. Every poise and inflection said, "Here I am what I am,—fully what God made me, at last: no more, no less." God had made her an actress. Why, He knows. The Great Spirit of Love says to the toad in your gutter,—"Thou, too, art my servant, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. July, 1863, No. LXIX. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... old one!" said the General. "I had a fear of this. You are not alone—other officers in other divisions have the same hard duty," and there was no inflection in the voice to tell Fevrier what his General thought of the duty. But a hand was laid soothingly upon his shoulder, and that told him. He took heart to whisper that he ...
— Ensign Knightley and Other Stories • A. E. W. Mason
... had stood up and recited the multiplication table up to twelve times twelve, the remarks would have been just as relevant and informing as those he read from the paper. Moreover, the gravity of his aspect and the solemn inflection of his voice, would have compelled Members to listen to the end of the recitation with a sort of dim consciousness that they were really being informed as to the details of an understanding come to between Her majesty's Secretary of State for Foreign ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, July 18, 1891 • Various
... colour and bloom, the cream and roses, of Devon. Her eyes were very large and of a deep violet All these charms of dress and face and colour I could have gallantly withstood, but the voice of her settled my business at once. Its rich, full tone, its soft, appealing inflection, the pretty foreign accent with which she then chose to speak English—I can hear them now. I have always been sensitive to beautiful voices, and Madame Gilbert's voice is beyond comparison the most beautiful voice ...
— The Lost Naval Papers • Bennet Copplestone
... her; and save that, by the fire, perfectly inattentive to the event about to take place within the chamber, and to which we of the biped race attach so awful an importance, lay a large gray cat, curled in a ball, and dozing with half-shut eyes, and ears that now and then denoted, by a gentle inflection, the jar of a louder or nearer sound than usual upon her lethargic senses. The dying woman did not at first attend to the entrance either of Dummie or the female at the foot of the bed, but she turned herself round towards the child, and grasping his arm fiercely, she drew him ...
— Paul Clifford, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... the father and daughter together was evidence enough of the strong affection that bound them. The tone in which he had spoken to his son had been brusque and crisp, but when he addressed her, his voice took on a softer inflection, his eyes betrayed the place she held in ...
— The Sheriff's Son • William MacLeod Raine
... Strange as it may appear at first sight, it has a deep foundation in the grammatical sentiment, if I may say so, of the Arabic language, which always ascribed a more or less nominal character to the aorist. Hence its inflection by Raf' (u), Nasb (a) and Jazm (absence of final vowel), corresponding to the nominative, accusative and oblique case of the noun. Moreover in the old language itself already another preposition ("li") was joined to the aorist. The less surprising, therefore, can it be to find that the use of ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... When, through the development of the sentence, all the offices of the different parts of speech are mastered, the most natural thing is to continue the work of classification and subdivide the parts of speech. The inflection of words, being distinct from their classification, makes a separate division of the work. If the chief end of grammar were to enable one to parse, we should not ...
— Higher Lessons in English • Alonzo Reed and Brainerd Kellogg
... voice had a stinging inflection. 'Don't talk to me of our geniuses; it is they that have betrayed us. Every other people has its great men; but our great men—they belong to every other people. The world absorbs our sap, and damns us ...
— Ghetto Comedies • Israel Zangwill
... learned to connect this sound with food and comfort, and at once turned to the spot from which it proceeded. Later, when the same note was used as a call, they recognised that its meaning was varied; in turn it became, with subtle differences of inflection, an entreaty, a command, and a warning that it would be folly to ignore; but, whatever it might indicate, they instinctively remembered its first happy associations, and hurried to their mother's side. Hardly ...
— Creatures of the Night - A Book of Wild Life in Western Britain • Alfred W. Rees
... with sarcastic inflection. "What's the sense in exaggerating like that, Ethel? I suppose that she is fond of me in a way; the way ...
— 'Smiles' - A Rose of the Cumberlands • Eliot H. Robinson
... this willingness to dispense with inflection, of this endeavour on the part of the speakers of a language to reduce its forms to the fewest possible, consistent with the accurate communication of thought. Of our adjectives in 'en', formed on substantives, and expressing the material or substance of a thing, some have gone, others ...
— English Past and Present • Richard Chenevix Trench
... he began, with that soft inflection that seems so much a part of some men of rough manners, "I want you to listen careful to a yarn I'm goin' ...
— The Twins of Suffering Creek • Ridgwell Cullum
... Glistonbury, with the same inflection of voice, and the same bridling and smiling. "Very different," continued her ladyship, "very different from what you have been accustomed to see on some ladies' tables, no doubt, Mr. Vivian! Without mentioning names, or alluding to transactions that ought to be buried in eternal oblivion, and ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. V - Tales of a Fashionable Life • Maria Edgeworth
... thirty of these signs and the ideas which they were supposed to embody, he had before him only the skeleton of a sentence, from which the flesh and sinews had disappeared; the tone and rhythm of the words were wanting, as were also the indications of gender, number, person, and inflection, which distinguish the different parts of speech and determine the varying relations between them. Besides this, in order to understand for himself and to guess the meaning of the author, the reader was obliged to translate the symbols which he deciphered, by means of ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 1 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... Yet this is not all. You will find some at perfect ease in conversation who, touching pen to paper, exhibit the affected primness commonly ascribed to the maiden aunt. They have not learned that this is a place where words must speak for themselves without comment of inflection, gesture of the hand, or interpreting smile. Here to be unaffected one must take thought. As on the stage a natural hue must be obtained by unnatural means, so in the writing of letters one must a trifle overdo in order to do but ordinarily. A word which ...
— A Williams Anthology - A Collection of the Verse and Prose of Williams College, 1798-1910 • Compiled by Edwin Partridge Lehman and Julian Park
... not see," he began, and then deliberately allowed his voice to take on an injured and plaintive inflection—"I do not see why you should adopt this tone ...
— The Damnation of Theron Ware • Harold Frederic
... could stand—or, rather, sit. Leaped to feet, and, with thrilling energy, repudiated gross imputation. Prince ARTHUR taken aback; hadn't meant anything particular. To call a thing or a person a buffer not necessarily a term of opprobrium. Everything depends on inflection of tone. Suppose, now, leaning across the table, he had addressed Mr. G. as "old buffer," that would perhaps have been a ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, 1890.05.10 • Various
... that he might elect to accompany her to Cavloccio. She would willingly have paid him for loss of time. Her ear was becoming better tuned each moment to his strange patois. Though he often gave a soft Italian inflection to the harsh German syllables, she grasped his meaning quite literally. She had read so much about Switzerland that she knew how Michel Croz was killed while descending the Matterhorn after having made the first ascent. That historic accident happened long before she was born. ...
— The Silent Barrier • Louis Tracy
... speeches, to herself. She only felt a slight shock, such as a word or a look from one we love too often gives us,—such as a child's trivial gesture or movement makes a parent feel,—that impalpable something which in the slightest possible inflection of a syllable or gradation of a tone will sometimes leave a sting behind it, even in a trusting heart. This was all. But it was true that what she saw meant a great deal. It meant the dawning in Myrtle Hazard of one of her as yet unlived secondary lives. Bathsheba's ...
— The Guardian Angel • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... There is an elusive quality to Pascal's style, and in losing this you seem to lose something of Pascal's thought. For with Pascal the thought and the style penetrate each other inextricably and almost indistinguishably. You cannot print a smile, an inflection of the voice, a glance of the eye, a French shrug of the shoulders. And such modulations of the thought seem everywhere to lurk in the turns and phrases of Pascal's inimitable French. To translate them ...
— Classic French Course in English • William Cleaver Wilkinson
... significance, the inflection which Philip gave to it as he gazed at Pierre, stood for the one tremendous question which, for a space, possessed the mind of each. Pierre shrugged his shoulders. He could not answer it. And as he shrugged ...
— The Golden Snare • James Oliver Curwood
... them are for men to read and struggle with for the sake of the women," said Robert. His voice had a tender inflection. They were passing a garden full of old-fashioned flowers, bordered with box. The scent of the box seemed fairly to clamor over the garden fence, drowning out the smaller fragrances of the flowers, like the clamor of a mob. Even the sweetness of the ...
— The Portion of Labor • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... after tea the two sat down together while Mrs. Strong was busy in the kitchen. A part of this conversation was afterward related by the minister to his wife; a part of it he afterward said was unreportable——the manner of tone, the inflection, the gesture of his remarkable guest ...
— The Crucifixion of Philip Strong • Charles M. Sheldon
... give him his medicine. She stood beside him while he swallowed it. "Enid Royce is a real sensible girl—" she said as she took the glass. Her upward inflection expressed not ...
— One of Ours • Willa Cather
... the choice between two suggested possibilities is also fruitless so far as demanding thought is concerned. In a question like, Was Paul a Gentile or was he a Jew? the bright child can usually tell from the teacher's inflection how to answer. In any case he will run an even chance of giving the right answer ...
— How to Teach Religion - Principles and Methods • George Herbert Betts
... lived our natural life, there was much singing of war songs, medicine, hunting and love songs. Sometimes there were few words or none, but everything was understood by the inflection. From this I have often thought that there must be a language of ...
— Indian Boyhood • [AKA Ohiyesa], Charles A. Eastman
... man?" asked a young lady passenger of the steward, with the imperious inflection which tells of riches able to force obedience from menials who labor ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science April 1930 • Various
... Mrs. Churchill," protested the girl. Her voice showed that she was very tired, but her inflection was as cheerful as ever. With a hot soapstone at her feet, a hot-water bag in her lap and Charlotte's arm about her, she leaned back on the fur-clad shoulder beside her and rejoiced. One thing was certain. She had had a real Northern good time, ...
— The Second Violin • Grace S. Richmond
... is its first reawakening instinct. It was drowned in less than a moment, yet many people turned their startled heads towards the rows of back seats. Matravers, one of the first to hear it, was one of the most interested—perhaps because his sensitive ears had recognized in it that peculiar inflection, the true ring of earnestness. For it was essentially a human cry, a cry of sorrow, a strange note charged in its very hoarseness and spontaneity with an unutterable pathos. It was as though it had been ...
— Berenice • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... then, with a curious inflection of her voice, as though she were not quite certain of the tone she wished to strike, ...
— The Emancipated • George Gissing
... sincere manhood which he represents; but it is a dangerous business, this attempting to define the character and disposition of people by the turn of an eyelid, the curve of a lip, or a particular vocal shade and inflection. Not only has Art learned to imitate Nature very closely, but Nature herself plays many a trick upon our credulity in matters of this kind. Upon a woman who owns no higher motive than low and selfish cunning she bestows the musical tones of a seraph, as she sheathes the sharp claws ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, December, 1885 • Various
... found only on long vowels, and (in words of more than one syllable) only on the penult, and then only in case the ultima is short. Thus, spes, but dux; luna, but lun[long a]; legatus, but legati. In these examples the length of the syllable is the same and of course remains the same in inflection, but the quality of the accent changes. In the one case the voice is both raised and depressed on the same syllable, in the other it is only raised. As Professor Ellis puts it: "If the last syllable but one is long, ...
— The Roman Pronunciation of Latin • Frances E. Lord
... world of song!" responded Heliobas, with a tender inflection in his rich voice. "A genius such as the earth sees but once in a century! But he has been smitten with the disease of unbelief and deprived of hope,—and where there is no hope there is no lasting accomplishment." He paused, and with a touch as gentle as a woman's, ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... either forward or back. His voice was again a surprise. Absolute total clarity, almost without inflection as if the words reached the mind without needing a voice. "If you're going to throw me out, this is the best time to do it." Dark brown skin of one of the dark races, jet black straight hair, a dark pair of eyes that were merry and watchful and had the impact of something ...
— The Man Who Staked the Stars • Charles Dye
... accents of love, it may lure us from paths of rectitude to shameful ignominy and wreck our life with sorrow and remorse, or it may spur us on in noblest efforts to acquire glory and honor, here or hereafter. According to the inflection of the voice a word may strike terror into the bravest heart or lull a timid child to peaceful slumber. The word of an agitator may rouse the passions of a mob and impel it to awful bloodshed, as in the French Revolution, ...
— The Rosicrucian Mysteries • Max Heindel
... girl's was charming. She had a peculiarly sweet, soft voice, that somehow matched the sweetness and softness of the long, straight-lashed eyes under the low, level brows, so delicately yet clearly pencilled. Max guessed at first that she was English; then from some slight inflection of tone, wondered if she were Irish instead. It was a name which sounded like "Sidi-bel-Abbes" that made the girl start and blush, and turn to her neighbour with sudden interest. Again and again they mentioned "Sidi-bel-Abbes," which meant nothing for ...
— A Soldier of the Legion • C. N. Williamson
... in job; his whole speech, indeed, had the engaging inflection of the Scandinavian tongue overlaid ...
— Adventures In Friendship • David Grayson |
