"Monosyllabic" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... God. She answered, "Yea." Then he bade her speak on: and she not being forward, weightily pondering what she might say. "Should he dismiss his attendants and let her speak with him in the presence of fewer listeners?" the Grand Turk asked her kindly.' Again came an uncourtly monosyllabic 'No,' followed by ...
— A Book of Quaker Saints • Lucy Violet Hodgkin
... height, slender, dark. He was taciturn to the point of monosyllabic conversation, and the perpetual, smiling sneer on his face had gotten ...
— The Range Boss • Charles Alden Seltzer
... what was Donnegan to him? What was Donnegan but a worthless tramp? Without any answer to that last monosyllabic query, the brakie hunched forward, and began to work his ...
— Gunman's Reckoning • Max Brand
... suppressed with some difficulty the strong feeling of irritation that seized him at these monosyllabic answers. He knew that it would have been highly unreasonable on his part to have displayed annoyance, for had he not himself taught her to give a simple "Yes" and "No" when possible ...
— The Rebellion of Margaret • Geraldine Mockler
... morning when she came down to breakfast. He was evidently ill at ease, and turned away his eyes when she looked at him, though he glanced at her furtively from time to time. His father chatted with him upon City matters, but the young man's answers were brusque and monosyllabic. His sleep had been troubled and broken, for the conversation of the night before had obtruded unpleasantly ...
— The Firm of Girdlestone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... his remarkable statement in a voice which he strove to divest of a triumphant inflection. No one said "Rats," though Clovis's lips moved in a monosyllabic contortion which probably invoked those rodents ...
— The Chronicles of Clovis • Saki
... into the presence of The Prophet. The Seer, seeing me discomposed, said in a kind tone, "Gheem," (sit down). Now there was profoundest silence, not a murmur was heard amongst a hundred people crowded together. The Seer stood up before me, and, assuming an imposing attitude, spoke in monosyllabic style, the usual address adopted by North African and ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson
... of the host are lost in mute speculation as to the future price of indigo or Ionian Bank shares, while their wives seem to be mentally summarising the exact cost of each other's toilettes. Their daughters, or somebody else's daughters, are desperately jerking out monosyllabic responses to feeble remarks concerning the weather, lawn tennis, operatic dbutantes, the gravel in the Row, the ill-health of the Princess, and kindred topics from a couple of F.O. men. Little Snapshot, ...
— Facts About Champagne and Other Sparkling Wines • Henry Vizetelly
... that they are not whip-cords. He pokes his gold-headed cane in among your treasures, blind to the fact that you are clutching both arms around them, that no gleam of flashing gold may reveal their whereabouts to him. You draw yourself up in your shell, projecting a monosyllabic claw occasionally as a sign of continued vitality; but the pachyderm does not withdraw, and you gradually lower into an ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume IV. (of X.) • Various
... Chou if you want to be exotic. It's still pronounced Joe and that's his name. The language is monosyllabic and tonal. I happen ...
— Blessed Are the Meek • G.C. Edmondson
... von Kessel remained highly monosyllabic in everything pertaining to the management of the vessel and the prospects for a ...
— Atlantis • Gerhart Hauptmann
... using accented syllables at regular intervals compels us to recognize the swing of his lines. When he reduces this to a system he has established the meter of his production. The poetical accents sometimes fall on unaccented syllables and sometimes on monosyllabic words that are not emphatic, but usually the metrical accent of any given word corresponds to its logical accent. The accentuation of a syllable tends to lengthen the time used in the pronunciation of that syllable, and so we call it long, although the sound ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 10 - The Guide • Charles Herbert Sylvester
... what vital portion of the doomed island was immediately below us. Not so my host, the Captain Sigismund von Muenchhausen, who suddenly snapped together the stethoscope through which he had been gazing and rapped out a monosyllabic order down the speaking tube at his ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. CL, April 26, 1916 • Various
... that a couple of big old calf-bound books had to be placed on his chair to make him sit high enough. Phoebe and the Parson were at either side, and the foot of the table was taken by Annie, Archelaus, defiant and monosyllabic, on her left, and Lawyer Tonkin, glossy with black broadcloth, on her right. The lawyer had a haunting air as of cousinship to things ecclesiastical, and, indeed, he was lay-preacher at a Penzance chapel. Tom, who had taken care to set himself on his other hand, kept a careful ...
— Secret Bread • F. Tennyson Jesse
... length succeeding one another at different distances above or below a fixed horizontal line. In a similar notation for speech utterance the lines would all be curved, to represent the concrete passage through the various intervals. It is the concrete intonation of every syllable and monosyllabic word which gives to speech its distinctive character from music. Each syllable and monosyllabic word is called a concrete, and it is with the concrete in all its various possibilities of utterance that voice culture ...
— The Ontario Readers: The High School Reader, 1886 • Ministry of Education
... came. He had been tolerably well informed of everything that had taken place. In the hall he met Agnes. Though generally quite monosyllabic, Agnes was now inclined to be extremely communicative, but she could merely confirm ...
— The Goose Man • Jacob Wassermann
... or else the words wherewith fitly to clothe their thoughts were denied them. The girl seemed very weary, and sat with head drooping and hands clasped idly in her lap. To Maitland's hesitant query as to her comfort she returned a monosyllabic reassurance. He did not again venture to disturb her; on his own part he was conscious of a clogging sense of exhaustion, of a drawn and haggard feeling about the eyes and temples; and knew that he was keeping awake through main power of will ...
— The Brass Bowl • Louis Joseph Vance
... eyes regarded him, every one wished for the honour of his friendship. Humplebee looked uncomfortable. He had the sniffy beginnings of a cold, the result of yesterday's struggle in icy water, and his usual diffident and monosyllabic inclination were intensified by the position in which he found himself. Clappings on the shoulder from bigger boys who had been wont to joke about his name made him flush nervously; to be addressed as 'Humpy,' or 'Beetle,' or 'Buz,' even though in a new tone, seemed to gratify him as little ...
— The House of Cobwebs and Other Stories • George Gissing
... stalwart, able-bodied seaman, and as smart a "hand" as could be found in a day's cruise, did not appear at all convinced by what his chum Bill, the boatswain, had said, for he returned again to the conversation after the latter had apparently ended it with his monosyllabic "aye." ...
— The Penang Pirate - and, The Lost Pinnace • John Conroy Hutcheson
... Angela had become aware of the increased vision afforded him by the felled trees, and was careful to keep her strange friend away. He noticed some slight change in her disposition—a queer light in her eye and a mocking ring in the monosyllabic replies which she gave to any questions he found it necessary to put ...
— Colorado Jim • George Goodchild
... a medley of words, largely English, but with a considerable admixture from other tongues, combined in the framework of Chinese construction. It is current in ports all over the East, and is by no means confined to China. The principle is that roots, chiefly monosyllabic, are used in their crude form without inflection or agglutination, the mere juxtaposition (without any change of form) showing whether they are verbs, adjectives, etc. This is the ...
— International Language - Past, Present and Future: With Specimens of Esperanto and Grammar • Walter J. Clark
... restive from the moment of her arrival, and, when a monosyllabic comment from the taciturn group threatened to reveal to the girl the threatened outbreak of the feud, he went over to ...
— The Call of the Cumberlands • Charles Neville Buck
... carriole soon overtook me, and asking him in the most grammatical and simple manner I could, if he were returning to Larvig, he made me a long speech in reply; but beseeching him in my second address to give me a monosyllabic answer, either affirmatively or negatively, as I was a foreigner, the man bowed his head till his chin came in contact with the bone of ...
— A Yacht Voyage to Norway, Denmark, and Sweden - 2nd edition • W. A. Ross
... a moment before, she had been oppressed with the heat. Her monosyllabic question was low and indistinct. She wondered whether Giovanni could hear the beatings of her heart, so slow, so loud they ...
— Saracinesca • F. Marion Crawford
... "T'ank you," and nothing else. And next day, rigged out in dry clothes and despatched toward Ipswich on the carrier's cart, he would shake hands awkwardly with any standing near and bob his head and say "T'ank you" again, and go away, monosyllabic, mystic, never to be heard of more. But the ocean, as it is called at Farlingford, seemed to have an inexhaustible supply of such Titans to throw up on the rattling shingle winter after winter. And, after all, they were seafaring men, and therefore brothers. ...
— The Last Hope • Henry Seton Merriman
... ran on and on, its only vehemence induced by the muddy ruts in the road. Mistress Benton, using every force to keep awake, interjected monosyllabic exclamations and questions. The two maids, exerting all their powers to fall asleep, gave little heed to ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 6, July 1905 • Various
... that he ought to cultivate the solitary sister-in- law, began asking about Miles; but unlike the typical colonist, she was very silent, and her replies were monosyllabic, till Rosamond created a diversion by talking to Frank; and then Raymond elicited that Glen Fraser was far up the country—King Williamstown nearer than any other town. They had sent thither for a ...
— The Three Brides • Charlotte M. Yonge
... white-eyes, the fluting of the wood-shrikes, the tinkling of the bulbuls, the chattering of the mynas, the screaming of the green parrots, the golden-backed woodpeckers and the white-breasted kingfishers, the mingled harmony and discord of the tree-pies, the sharp monosyllabic notes of the various warblers, the melody of the sunbirds and the flycatchers. The green barbets also call spasmodically throughout the month, chiefly in the early morning and the late afternoon, but the only note uttered by the coppersmith is a soft wow. The hoopoe ...
— A Bird Calendar for Northern India • Douglas Dewar
... freedom of the domestic circle, Clarence forgot Susy's capricious commands of yesterday, and began to address himself to her in his old earnest fashion, until he was warned by a significant knitting of the young lady's brows and monosyllabic responses. But in his youthful loyalty to Mrs. Peyton, he was more pained to notice Susy's occasional unconscious indifference to her adopted mother's affectionate expression, and a more conscious disregard ...
— Susy, A Story of the Plains • Bret Harte
... being as monosyllabic as possible; but it was not her natural attitude toward the world, and by the time the veal had arrived (it was Wednesday night) she was laughing whole-heartedly at Kid's ingenuous conversation. Miss McCoy's vocabulary was rich in the vernacular of the plains, and in vacation she let herself go. ...
— Just Patty • Jean Webster
... they seem alike insensible to emotions of pleasure and of pain; and rarely give vent to feelings of either. The most ludicrous scenes scarcely ever cause them to laugh, or the most interesting recitals draw from them more than their peculiar monosyllabic expression ...
— Chronicles of Border Warfare • Alexander Scott Withers
... theretofore employed. This is undoubtedly an event of the highest importance in the history of culture, little though it may interest the Western world to-day. At the same time, as a philologist by profession, I agree with a continental authority[42] who holds that, owing to the monosyllabic character of the Chinese language and to the further disadvantage that it lacks wholly or partly several consonants,[43] it will be practically impossible, as the Japanese have already found, to apply the new alphabet to the traditional literary ...
— The Inside Story Of The Peace Conference • Emile Joseph Dillon
... the monosyllabic reply, and there was just that shade of hesitation about it that made me wish we had the apparatus we used in the Bond case for registering association time. Kennedy noticed it, and purposely dropped the line of inquiry in order not to ...
— The Silent Bullet • Arthur B. Reeve
... them what he had heard: the footfalls, below and above, the extraordinary conversation which had broken for a moment the silence of the inner hall. The account was bare, the phrases monosyllabic. He reported only what had been registered on the sensitive tympanums of his ears, to the last whisper of footfalls stealing past the dark wall of the shop. Of all the formless tangle of thoughts, suspicions, interpretations, and the special and personal knowledge given to the blind which moved ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1920 • Various
... to get at him?—One day it occurred to me to try talking to Miss Vard. She was a monosyllabic person, who didn't seem to see an inch beyond the last remark one had made; but suddenly I found myself blurting out, "I wonder if you know how extraordinarily paintable your father is?" and you should have seen ...
— The Greater Inclination • Edith Wharton
... interview with Doubler at Doubler's cabin, Langford had been strangely silent regarding his plans. Not once had he referred to the nester, and his silence had nettled Duncan. Langford had ignored his hints, had returned monosyllabic replies to his tentative questions, causing the manager to appear to be an outsider in an affair in which he ...
— The Trail to Yesterday • Charles Alden Seltzer
... the stiffest, most unwieldy manner, stuck together, as it were, with nothing to join them, wherefore this kind of language has been called agglutinative. Chinese belongs to the former class of languages, the "monosyllabic," Turkish to the latter, the "agglutinative." Further, the Turanians were probably the first to invent writing, but never went in that art beyond having one particular sign for every single word—(such is Chinese ...
— Chaldea - From the Earliest Times to the Rise of Assyria • Znade A. Ragozin
... Mr Pickering sank back in his chair in a punctured manner. And Claire, making monosyllabic replies to her friend's remarks, was able to bend her mind to the task of finding out how she stood on this important Pickering issue. That he would return to the attack as soon as possible she knew; and the next time she must have her attitude clearly defined one way ...
— Uneasy Money • P.G. Wodehouse
... remaining languages of Asia, and counts among its principal members the Tungusic, Mongolic, Turkic, Samoyedic, and Finnic, together with the languages of Siam, the Malay islands, Tibet, and Southern India. Lastly, the Chinese language stands by itself, as monosyllabic, the only remnant of the earliest ...
— Chips From A German Workshop - Volume I - Essays on the Science of Religion • Friedrich Max Mueller
... to her at dinner she would be very silent. If he stayed at home on a morning she was not visible. During the short evenings he could never get her attention. And he made no progress with the Duke. The Duke had been very courteous to him at Richmond, but here he was monosyllabic and almost sullen. ...
— The Duke's Children • Anthony Trollope
... picked acquaintance with Link. They asked him all sorts of questions as to his dog. Link made monosyllabic and noncommittal replies to all of these—even when the great Col. Cyrus Marden himself deigned to come over to the collie section and stare at Chum, accompanying his scrutiny with a ...
— His Dog • Albert Payson Terhune
... was obliged to fetch a cup. When he returned, it was to find her talking monosyllabic English ...
— The Nest Builder • Beatrice Forbes-Robertson Hale
... Charles sat down on a log to rest. He sat down very slowly and painstakingly what of his great stiffness. Hal did the talking. John Thornton was whittling the last touches on an axe-handle he had made from a stick of birch. He whittled and listened, gave monosyllabic replies, and, when it was asked, terse advice. He knew the breed, and he gave his advice in the certainty that it would ...
— The Call of the Wild • Jack London
... 289. Most monosyllabic adverbs add -er and -est to form the comparative and superlative, just as adjectives do; as, high, ...
— An English Grammar • W. M. Baskervill and J. W. Sewell
... since these consist in certain quaint, playful inflections and elisions, which, like the speech of children, have a fresh, natural, simple charm of their own. The changes of pronunciation, in German words, are curious. K becomes a light guttural ch, and a great number of monosyllabic words—especially those ending in ut and ueh—receive a peculiar twist from the introduction of e or ei: as gut, frueh, which become guet, frueeih. This seems to be a characteristic feature of the South-German dialects, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 54, April, 1862 • Various
... to the center of the glade. McFann had been looking down the valley from the sentinel rock. She did not hear him come into camp, as the half-breed always moved silently through underbrush that would betray the presence of any one less skilled in woodcraft. She heard his monosyllabic answers to Talpers's questions. Then Bill himself pushed his way through the underbrush and climbed the rock. When he returned to the camp he ...
— Mystery Ranch • Arthur Chapman
... was placed in his mouth. Habits were very untidy; involuntary evacuation of bladder and bowels were present. His mental content could not be determined at the time, as his replies were indistinct and monosyllabic, and were obtained only after much effort. He appeared to comprehend what was wanted of him, although this was not absolutely certain. His perception was very dull, ideation slow and laborious. His attention could be gained only after considerable difficulty, and ...
— Studies in Forensic Psychiatry • Bernard Glueck
... means an impression of melancholy or despair; on the contrary it is the impression of strength, power, courage, and unassailable allegiance to truth. He is careless of appearance because he has something far better worth the while of his attention; he is aloof and remote, monosyllabic and sometimes even inaccessible, because he lives almost entirely in the spiritual world, seeking Truth with a steady perseverance of mind, Goodness with the full energy of his heart, and Beauty with the deep mystical passion of ...
— Painted Windows - Studies in Religious Personality • Harold Begbie
... speech the old man made during his visit, unless an occasional monosyllabic reply to a question could be thought so. He remained, by Sir Edward' positive order, until the following day; for having delivered his message, and receiving its answer, he was about to take his departure that evening, thinking he might get a good piece on his road homewards, as it wanted ...
— Precaution • James Fenimore Cooper
... and the simplicity of style which he described as "one of the greatest perfections in any language," which seemed to him best exemplified in the English Bible, and which he himself practised so brilliantly, has in English a very marked monosyllabic character. ...
— An Apology For The Study of Northern Antiquities • Elizabeth Elstob
... in many respects that some anthropologists suppose it to have a separate origin. Phlegmatic and matter-of-fact by nature, exact and careful in practical matters, and to a high degree imitative and industrious, the Chinese are singularly devoid of imagination and indisposed to philosophy. Their monosyllabic and uninflected language, belonging to one of the earliest strata of human speech, and ill fitted to express abstract or poetical ideas, is an index to their whole nature. If an awakening, as various signs appear to ...
— History of Religion - A Sketch of Primitive Religious Beliefs and Practices, and of the Origin and Character of the Great Systems • Allan Menzies
... dinner on the Sunday, and was well entertained with a fat chicken and a bit of bacon, for the Laffans were well-to-do people. She thoroughly enjoyed her dinner, though she spoke little and that little monosyllabic; but Margret was taciturn even as a girl, and her solitary habit for years seemed to have made speech more difficult for her. Mrs. Jack heaped her plate with great heartiness and made quite an honoured guest of her. But outside enjoying the dinner Margret did not seem ...
— An Isle in the Water • Katharine Tynan
... observing that, in the order of ideas, the simple precedes the complex, they necessarily ended by thinking that the smaller physical facts were the more simple. Hence the imaginary necessity that the most antique, primitive languages, had been monosyllabic, and that the progress of historical research must lead to the discovery of monosyllabic roots. But (to follow up the imaginary hypothesis) the first expression that the first man conceived may also have had a mimetic, not a phonic reflex: ...
— Aesthetic as Science of Expression and General Linguistic • Benedetto Croce
... the Yajus, and the Samans are thy abode. Thou art the five kinds of sanctified libations (used in sacrifices). Thou art the seven woofs used in the Vedas. Salutations to thee in thy form of Sacrifice.[145] Libations are poured on the Homa fire in accompaniment with the seventeen monosyllabic sounds. Thou art the soul of the Homa. Salutations to thee! Thou art that Purusha whom the Vedas sing. Thy name is Yajus. The Vedic metres are thy limbs. The sacrifices laid down in the three Vedas are ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... that she was by herself with one of her forlorn ones, had vanished, and she prattled happily for some time, putting as many mistakes into her sentences as they would hold, before she became aware that the baroness's replies were monosyllabic, and that she was examining her from head to foot with so much attention that there was obviously none left over for the ...
— The Benefactress • Elizabeth Beauchamp
... his feet, obeying the monosyllabic summons, and followed Mr. Boner around the partition. Mr. Boner rated a private office, where he could worm information, trade secrets, and occasional concessions from travelling salesmen. There was nothing social about the place. As Joe turned the partition corner and stood in the doorway, ...
— Stubble • George Looms
... objects, verbs and movements were used. The words were always concrete, not abstract, by which it is meant that their meaning was capable of demonstration to the senses. With the exception of a few later specified series they were monosyllabic words. The nouns might denote objects of any size perceptible to the eye; the objects, however, were all of such a size that they could be shown through a 14x12 cm. aperture and still leave a margin. Their size ...
— Harvard Psychological Studies, Volume 1 • Various
... not similarly engrossed with her beloved Tommy. Of Monck she stood in considerable awe. He did not take much notice of her. It seemed to Stella that he had retired very deeply into his shell of reserve during those days. Even with herself he was reticent, monosyllabic, obviously absorbed in matters of ...
— The Lamp in the Desert • Ethel M. Dell
... in the silvery tone in which Mrs. Argenter uttered it, was the last monosyllabic epithet she would have selected as applying to grave, ...
— The Other Girls • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... because Miss Constance Dickenson, however improbable it may seem, had wanted to say all this and a great deal more, and could not see her way to any of it, that she had become dry and monosyllabic. It was because of this compulsory silence that she felt that even her brief:—"Why?" in answer to Mr. Pellew's suggestion that an Orlando must have come on her stage though no Rosalind had come on his, struck her after it had passed her ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... presence of a talkative, pretty girl, but a hero and a conqueror when with a suffering, anxious human being, beseeching his aid. His left-hand neighbour, the wife of a Frankfort banker, who chatted rapidly about the architecture of the dining-hall and the Wagner performances at Bayreuth, received monosyllabic, hesitating replies, while he talked eloquently to the lady on his right, the hostess, upon the influence of modern nervousness upon ...
— How Women Love - (Soul Analysis) • Max Simon Nordau
... justified in considering the main portion of the Malayan as original, or indigenous, its affinity to any Continental tongue not having yet been shown; and least of all can we suppose it connected with the monosyllabic, or Indo-Chinese, with which ...
— The Expedition to Borneo of H.M.S. Dido - For the Suppression of Piracy • Henry Keppel
... notwithstanding all her efforts to second Mr. O'Brien's attempt at cheerfulness, she felt that she failed most signally. Neither of them could induce Mat O'Brien to enter into conversation; his gloomy silence or brief monosyllabic replies compelled even his brother at last to ...
— Lover or Friend • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... returned, tired and monosyllabic. He admitted they had mopped things up a bit—outside; and left a detachment, in support of the police, guarding the Mall. But—the city was in open rebellion. No white man could safely show his face there. The anti-British poison, instilled without let or hindrance, was taking ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver
... on Mr. Vernor's sour countenance grow deeper as I led her away. My perseverance was not rewarded by any very interesting results, for my partner, who was either distressingly shy, or acting under constraint of some kind, made monosyllabic replies to every remark I addressed to her, and appeared relieved when the termination of the set enabled her to ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley
... attending, the opening of a new atelier in North London by a well-known Academician, the successes at the current 'Academy,' the fame of certain leading artists. At least Cuningham talked; Fenwick's contributions were mostly monosyllabic; he seemed to be ...
— Fenwick's Career • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... my second selection, and proved it right on my uncle's person, the parallelism of things struck me, and I skipped back to my aunt's door and tapped. I got a low wailing "Yes?" for answer—a monosyllabic substitute for the "How long, O Lord?" of a saint in difficulties. When I called through the keyhole, "Are your psalms written in gold?" she became really angry:—I suppose because the miracle so well earned had not come ...
— An Englishwoman's Love-Letters • Anonymous
... two, three, or more explanations. This is especially true of some of our commonest monosyllabic surnames. Bell may be from Anglo-Fr. le bel (beau), or from a shop sign, or from residence near the church or town bell. It may even have been applied to the man who pulled the bell. Finally, the ancestor may have ...
— The Romance of Names • Ernest Weekley
... place a bunch of chrysanthemums on her baby's grave, are the only manifestations of sensibility that I have discovered in her. From the second of January to the second of November she is a human creature tied to a bell-rope, with an immovably stolid face and a monosyllabic vocabulary in which politer terms occur ...
— The Ink-Stain, Complete • Rene Bazin
... up the stairs, murmuring monosyllabic sympathy, and regulating his pace by hers. Arrived at the fifth floor, the concierge drew a key from her pocket and opened the door of ...
— Fantomas • Pierre Souvestre
... the jostlings of stubborn matter bent on going its own way, attracted him as the subtle compliances of air appealed to Shelley; and he runs riot in the vocabulary (so abundantly developed in English) which conveys with monosyllabic vigour to the ear these jostlings ...
— Robert Browning • C. H. Herford
... clouds made the atmosphere dark, though it was as yet only early afternoon; and the wind howled dismally over the hills of the heath—not improbably the same heath which had witnessed the agony of the Wessex King Ina, presented to after-ages as Lear. Gertrude Lodge talked most, Rhoda replying with monosyllabic preoccupation. She had a strange dislike to walking on the side of her companion where hung the afflicted arm, moving round to the other when inadvertently near it. Much heather had been brushed by their feet when they descended upon a cart-track, beside which stood the house of ...
— Wessex Tales • Thomas Hardy
... it was difficult to say what its colour would be if it were allowed to grow. He always arrived in his tarantass just in time for the zakuska—the appetising collation that is served shortly before dinner—grunted out a few congratulations to the host and hostess and monosyllabic greetings to his acquaintances, ate a copious meal, and immediately afterwards placed himself at a card-table, where he sat in silence as long as he could get any one to play with him. People did not like, however, ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace
... pupils, she rarely saw the other members of the household, and though Mr. Chilton now and then sauntered into the schoolroom and frolicked with Hattie, his visits were coldly received by the teacher; who met his attempts at conversation with very discouraging monosyllabic replies. ...
— St. Elmo • Augusta J. Evans
... Crisp morning made her mother feel particularly well and happy at breakfast-time. She talked on, planning village kindnesses, unheeding the silence of her husband and the monosyllabic answers of Margaret. Before the things were cleared away, Mr. Hale got up; he leaned one hand on the table, as if ...
— North and South • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... between economy and emphasis in its succinct yet touching train of incidents. Furthermore, it is also, in the English version of the King James translators, a little masterpiece of style. The words are simple, homely, and direct. Most of them are of Saxon origin, and the majority are monosyllabic. Less than half a dozen words in the entire narrative contain more than two syllables. And yet they are set so delicately together that they fall into rhythms potent with emotional effect. How much the story gains from this ...
— A Manual of the Art of Fiction • Clayton Hamilton
... But in the first place a special feature of the situation has to be noted. The Japanese language was then undergoing a transition. In order to fit it to the Chinese ideographs for literary purposes, it was being deprived of its mellifluous polysyllabic character and reduced to monosyllabic terseness. The older words were disappearing, and with them many of the old traditions. Temmu saw that if the work of compilation was abandoned solely to princely and official litterateurs, they would probably sacrifice on the altar of the ideograph ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... General Grant took desk room in Victor Newcomb's private office in New York. There I saw much of him, and we became good friends. He was the most interesting of men. Soldierlike—monosyllabic—in his official and business dealings he threw aside all formality and reserve in his social intercourse, delightfully reminiscential, indeed a capital story teller. I do not wonder that he had constant and disinterested friends ...
— Marse Henry, Complete - An Autobiography • Henry Watterson
... prisoners. Marguerite, however, observed complete silence in his presence: she acknowledged his greeting with a slight inclination of the head, and in reply to certain perfunctory queries of his—which he put to her in order to justify his appearance—she either nodded or gave curt monosyllabic answers through partially ...
— The Elusive Pimpernel • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... side. The first emotion of their meeting having passed away, he found it easier to talk to her, and he did so in an odd monosyllabic way which she yet found interesting. All her life she had been somewhat peculiarly situated with regard to companionship. Her father, having once taken her abroad and once to London for the season, considered that he had done his duty to her, and having himself long ago settled down to the life ...
— The New Tenant • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... head. From the moment of his entrance he had kept his face carefully averted from Hamil's view; had neither looked at him nor spoken except in monosyllabic answer to ...
— The Firing Line • Robert W. Chambers
... I gathered, and the young woman wished to go alone. I drank three cups of coffee, which accounted for my wakefulness later, and shamelessly watched the tableau before me. The woman's protest evidently went for nothing: across the table the man grunted monosyllabic replies and grew more and more lowering and sullen. Once, during a brief unexpected pianissimo in the music, her ...
— The Man in Lower Ten • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... greeting was a "sai" and a nod to include us both. Her pleasure was undisguised, however, and as we rode down the valley she chattered volubly between the business of driving in half a dozen horses and a herd of sheep. The monosyllabic replies of the hunter were delivered in a voice which seemed to come from a long way off or from out of the earth beneath his pony's feet. I was interested to see what greeting there would be upon his arrival at the yurt. His two daughters and his infant son were waiting at the door but ...
— Across Mongolian Plains - A Naturalist's Account of China's 'Great Northwest' • Roy Chapman Andrews
... bank and discovered that Morley had not reported for work. Having presented his card to a chilly, monosyllabic little man, he was shown, after a short wait, into a private office where, surrounded by several tons of mahogany, Mr. ...
— The Winning Clue • James Hay, Jr.
... bowed. They resumed their conversation—at least, she did, talking volubly; satisfied with monosyllabic answers. ...
— John Halifax, Gentleman • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... dinner, and was not quite so monosyllabic in her replies. Her netting was a great resource when she went into the drawing-room after dinner, and she began to feel a little less rigid and confused, made some progress in acquaintance with Clara, and when she went to bed was not ...
— The Two Guardians • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... condescension on his part? Would it not be familiar? and would he not thereby lose his importance?" And in consequence of such reflections he always remained in the same dumb state, uttering from time to time a few monosyllabic sounds, and thereby earning the name of the most ...
— Taras Bulba and Other Tales • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... she thought of Percival Benson. "Ah lak heem," she calmly admitted in her majestic, monosyllabic way. "He is a fonny leetle man." And the "fonny leetle man" who isn't really little, seems to like Olga, odd as it may sound. They are such opposites, such contradictions! Percy says she's Homeric. He says he never saw eyes ...
— The Prairie Wife • Arthur Stringer
... to himself even at the break between two sentences or two paragraphs; nor did he permit himself ever to use the same word twice, either in the same sentence or in two consecutive sentences, though belonging to different paragraphs: with the exception of the monosyllabic auxiliaries.[27] All this is well enough, especially the first two precepts, and a good way of breaking through a bad habit. But M. Comte persuaded himself that any arbitrary restriction, though in no way emanating ...
— Auguste Comte and Positivism • John-Stuart Mill
... traveling. The editors of the latest edition find no occasion to revise this rule, and report that other lexicographers advise a conformity to it, but they record a large number of exceptions to satisfy "the prejudice of the eye." His corresponding rule is "that monosyllabic verbs, ending in a single consonant, not preceded by a long vowel, and other verbs ending in a single accented consonant, and of course not preceded by a long vowel, double the final consonant in all the ...
— Noah Webster - American Men of Letters • Horace E. Scudder
... my dear, that I have brought men—fluent conversationalists—round here for a pleasant evening's debate only to see them become abstracted and monosyllabic directly ...
— Our Elizabeth - A Humour Novel • Florence A. Kilpatrick
... ages. It does not compel us to dote upon the advantages of savage life. We would not forego the hard-earned gains of civil society because there is something in most of them which tends to contract the natural powers, although it vastly aids them. We would not, for instance, return to the monosyllabic utterance of barbarous men, because in any formed language there are a thousand snares for the understanding. Yet we must be most watchful of them. And in all things, a man must beware of so conforming himself as to crush his nature and forego the purpose of his being. We must look ...
— Friends in Council (First Series) • Sir Arthur Helps
... translated two of Virgil's Eclogues with a good deal of spirit and harmony. Ascham, in his "Schoolmaster" (1570), had already suggested the adoption of the ancient hexameter by English poets; but Ascham (as afterwards Puttenham in his "Art of Poesie") thought the number of monosyllabic words in English an insuperable objection to verses in which there was a large proportion of dactyls, and recommended, therefore, that a trial should be made with iambics. Spenser, at Harvey's instance, seems to have tried ...
— The Function Of The Poet And Other Essays • James Russell Lowell
... chief accent affects also combinations of two monosyllabic words which make an iambus, and combinations like ego illi, age ergo, in which the second syllable of the second word is elided. ...
— The Student's Companion to Latin Authors • George Middleton
... store at all upon rhyme. I am tempted to-day to go farther, and to maintain that, the larger, the sublimer, your subject is, the more impertinent rhyme becomes to it: and that this impertinence increases in a sort of geometrical progression as you advance from monosyllabic to dissyllabic and on to trisyllabic rhyme. Let me put this ...
— On The Art of Reading • Arthur Quiller-Couch
... will blaze and run, scorching all things; and, from Cadiz to Archangel, mad Sansculottism, drilled now into Soldiership, led on by some 'armed Soldier of Democracy' (say, that Monosyllabic Artillery-Officer), will set its foot cruelly on the necks of its enemies; and its shouting and their shrieking shall fill the world!—Rash Coalised Kings, such a fire have ye kindled; yourselves fireless, your fighters animated only ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... the pageant of the sky and paid tribute of sad thought before an infinity of dying cloud splendours. But the antiquary repeated his remark. It related to Will Blanchard, and upon Clement dropping a monosyllabic reply his companion continued: ...
— Children of the Mist • Eden Phillpotts
... water quickly and sent its peculiar vibration through the vessel as she sped along in the quiet night. The Duke was extended on a transom, and Claudius on the one opposite, while Barker tipped himself about on his chair at the end of the table. The Duke was talkative, in a disjointed, monosyllabic fashion. ...
— Doctor Claudius, A True Story • F. Marion Crawford
... once. Then a monosyllabic voice sounded, sharp, low, nervous; she recognized the voice of the executioner, whose name she had heard but could not remember. There was ...
— The Old Wives' Tale • Arnold Bennett
... certainly, that the Captain said, and then relapsed into his usual good-tempered monosyllabic state; from which all the eager talk of the men, who took up the cudgels naturally enough for their own class, and talked themselves before the wine broke up into a renewed consciousness of their natural superiority, failed again to ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... were busied; they showed me, among other grim relics, C.'s broken machine gun and perforated cartridge tray. They told me many stories of daring deeds performed by other members of the squadron, but when I asked them to describe their own experiences, I found them diffident and monosyllabic. ...
— Great Britain at War • Jeffery Farnol
... of which I want particularly to speak, no sooner had the clock made his monosyllabic utterance than "I am probably unique," the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Oct. 10, 1917 • Various
... these details lies not in the scholarship or the historical truth or even the local colour, so much as in the art. The naivete of the thought is repeated by the simplicity of the verse. Word and thought are equally monosyllabic. Nothing ever matched it. The words bubble like a stream ...
— Mont-Saint-Michel and Chartres • Henry Adams
... they had been conspicuous by their absence. According to my experience in Spain, France, and Germany, such dinners had been dreary or noisy and vapid. If the guests were English, they were chillingly silent, or surlily monosyllabic: to their neighbors they were frigid; amongst each other they spoke in low undertones. And if the guests were foreigners, they were noisy, clattering, and chattering, foolish for the most part, and vivaciously commonplace. I don't know which made me feel most dreary. ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.
... be to spare in a few minutes," answered Barebone, and the monosyllabic Jean gave an ...
— The Last Hope • Henry Seton Merriman
... decision on knotty point, must needs make mistake sometimes. If he does, unless it be very serious, he should stick to it. For Chairman of Committees, better to be in the wrong and uphold authority of Chair, than to wriggle into the right at its expense. MELLOR should be more monosyllabic in his style, more ruthless in his dealing with disorderly interruption, more wary about putting his foot down, but, being planted, it should be immovable. It would make his fortune if he could only name CHAMBERLAIN. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 104, May 20, 1893 • Various
... embarrassment accompanied Dominie Graves to the breakfast table the next morning after the triumphant victory of Augusta Hall. He made no remark upon the disagreeable episode of the previous night, and ate silently amid the chatter of Babe and the monosyllabic answers of her mother. Teola to break the strain spoke of the sleigh-ride and dance coming off ...
— Tess of the Storm Country • Grace Miller White
... strange capers, with faces of earnest gravity. People smiling whenever spoken to, and without hearing what was said; and on-lookers smiling, by a sort of photographic process, at fun in which they had no concern. Introductions, where the lady was self-possessed and bewitching, the gentleman monosyllabic and poker-like; others, where he was off-hand, ogling, and facetious; she, timid, credulous, and blushing. All kinds of costumes, from the solitary dress-coat, and low-necked ball-dress, worn respectively by Mr. and Mrs. Van Brueck ...
— Bressant • Julian Hawthorne
... her words and her manner were kind; nevertheless, Bessie found it difficult to respond; even when Mrs. Sefton had established her in the corner of the couch, and was questioning her with polite interest about her journey, she found herself answering in almost monosyllabic replies, as though ...
— Our Bessie • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... little surprised at the last accusation: but as he had long been drilled, he laughed assent. A tedious half-hour—during which the lady had all the conversation to herself, for the curate answered only in monosyllabic compliance, and Rainscourt made no answer whatever—elapsed before dinner was announced by the German mercenary who ...
— The King's Own • Captain Frederick Marryat
... were seated Perkins plied Diotti with all manner of questions; "How did it happen?" "How did you escape?" and the like, all of which Diotti parried with monosyllabic replies, finally saying: "I was dissatisfied with my playing ...
— The Fifth String, The Conspirators • John Philip Sousa
... her exciting calling. The new-comer is well worthy the rank, by general acclaim, of "Queen of the El Dorado." In no way does she notice the eager crowd. She is an impartial priestess of fortune. Maxime waits only to hear her speak. She is silent, save the monosyllabic French words of the game. Is she Cuban, Creole, French, Andalusian, Italian, or a wandering gypsy star? A jewelled dagger-sheath in her corsage speaks of Spain or Italy. Maxime notes the unaccustomed eagerness ...
— The Little Lady of Lagunitas • Richard Henry Savage
... correspondents who have sent you specimens of monosyllabic poetry, I have seen no one who has quoted this very singular passage from Phineas Fletcher's Purple Island. It is far more striking than anything you have yet ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 70, March 1, 1851 • Various
... man, his heart was behind him, and he had much difficulty in resisting the desire to turn round when he heard Hilda's voice—which, by the way, was heard pretty constantly, for Glumm was so uncommonly gruff and monosyllabic in his replies that she had most of ...
— Erling the Bold • R.M. Ballantyne
... principles of structure, which may be compared to those discoverable between the individual members of two other great classes of languages, by no means connected among themselves by what is called family relation. I allude to the monosyllabic and the polysynthetic languages, the former prevalent in Eastern Asia, the latter throughout the vast regions of the New World. If we have sufficient evidence for constituting such a class of dialects under the title of African languages, we have likewise reason—and it is equal ...
— History of the Negro Race in America From 1619 to 1880. Vol 1 - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George W. Williams
... to me almost a sinister personage. Yet the signs of a sombre fanaticism were not more immediately striking in her than before; it was only after a while that her air of incorruptible conformity, her tapering monosyllabic correctness, began to affect me as in themselves a cold thin flame. Certainly, at first, she resembled a woman with as few passions as possible; but if she had a passion at all it would indeed be that of Philistinism. She ...
— The Author of Beltraffio • Henry James
... time Ferdinand breathed right into Adele's translucent Listener those three Words which hold all Records as monosyllabic Trouble-Makers. ...
— Ade's Fables • George Ade
... toll-bar, said to the keeper, "How do you like your eggs dressed?" Without waiting for the answer, he rode off; but twenty- five years later, riding through the same bar, kept by the same man, the traveller looked steadfastly at him, and received the monosyllabic answer, "Poached." A long parenthesis is twenty-five years; and we, gazing back over a far wider gulf of time, shall endeavor to look hard at the Sphinx, and to convince that mysterious young lady,—if our voice can reach her,—that she was too easily satisfied ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... days to happen—ten days which were rather disagreeable, of course, but which Dolly, sure of the trumps in her little hands, bore with jolly fortitude. All that time, Charles-Norton glowered constantly. He was monosyllabic and ostentatiously unhappy. This more than was necessary, and very deliberate. It had to be deliberate; for, as a matter of fact, on the outside Charles was not having at ...
— The Trimming of Goosie • James Hopper
... burst unrestrained from his hairy lips. Hawes and Willis sat white-faced, bent forward anxiously over the table, their fingers shaking as they handled the fateful cards, but Hampton played without perceptible tremor, his utterances few and monosyllabic, his calm face betraying not the ...
— Bob Hampton of Placer • Randall Parrish
... but made no reply. Indeed, Paul found it very difficult to start a conversation of any sort with his new neighbour. To all his remarks she returned only monosyllabic answers, looking at him steadily all the while out of her full, dark eyes in a far-away, wistful manner, as though she saw in his face something which carried her thoughts into another world. It was a little uncomfortable ...
— A Monk of Cruta • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... fall, in his hesitating, monosyllabic way, some observation which I considered of value. Of the purely commercial side of the industry he knew next to nothing, but then he could tell me a thing or two concerning the psychology of popular ...
— The Rise of David Levinsky • Abraham Cahan
... and monosyllabic. He refused to discuss the situation or Mrs. Sherwood, returning with an obvious effort to commonplaces. Mrs. Morrell exerted all her fascination to get him back to the former level. A little cold imp sat in the ...
— The Gray Dawn • Stewart Edward White
... to live on laughter, as they appeared to be, so presently turning to my acquaintance, who had told me his name was the plain monosyllabic An, and clapping my hand on his shoulder as he stood lost in sleepy reflection, said, in a good, hearty way, "Hullo, friend Yellow-jerkin! If a stranger might set himself athwart the cheerful current of your meditations, may such a one ask how far 'tis ...
— Gulliver of Mars • Edwin L. Arnold |
