"Monosyllable" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... This freezing monosyllable notwithstanding, Sir Terence pursued his course fluently. "The golden Venus!—sure, Miss Nugent, you that are so quick, can't but know I would apostrophize Miss Broadhurst that is—but that won't be long so, I hope. My Lord Colambre, have you seen much yet ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. 6 • Maria Edgeworth
... and up and down, some, squatted Upon their hams, were occupied at chess; Others in monosyllable talk chatted, And some seem'd much in love with their own dress. And divers smoked superb pipes decorated With amber mouths of greater price or less; And several strutted, others slept, and some Prepared for supper ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron
... to pass her with that monosyllable, but Perrote was not to be thus baffled. She laid a detaining hand upon ...
— The White Lady of Hazelwood - A Tale of the Fourteenth Century • Emily Sarah Holt
... greatly surprised him. It had originally commenced with DEAR SIR; but these words had been carefully erased, and the monosyllable, SIR, substituted in their place. The rest of the contents shall be given ...
— Waverley • Sir Walter Scott
... posxtmandato. Mongrel hibrida. Monitor avertulo, avertanto. Monk monahxo. Monkey simio. Monograph monografo. Monogram monogramo. Monologue monologo. Monomania monomanio. Monopolise monopoligi. Monopoly monopolo. Monosyllable unusilabo. Monotonous (of form) unuforma. Monotonous (of tone) unutona. Monster monstro. Monstrous monstra. Month monato. Monthly (adj.) cxiumonata. Monument monumento. Mood modo. ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... complicated not only with the Latin grammar but with a new standard of English pronunciation, was a very difficult business, made all the more obscure by a thick mist of bash fulness. Tom, as you have observed, was never an exception among boys for ease of address; but the difficulty of enunciating a monosyllable in reply to Mr. or Mrs. Stelling was so great, that he even dreaded to be asked at table whether he would have more pudding. As to the percussion-caps, he had almost resolved, in the bitterness of his heart, that he would throw them into a neighboring pond; for not only was he the solitary ...
— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot
... slapped his knee as he uttered this meditative monosyllable, and continued to regard his niece with keener scrutiny, if that were possible, than before. 'It is John's temper—a very firebrand. My dear, you are very young, and you should not be above taking advice. Let me advise you to control ...
— The Guinea Stamp - A Tale of Modern Glasgow • Annie S. Swan
... was no purist in his phraseology at times. The not very refined monosyllable in the text may, however, be tolerated as having a technical relation ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 459 - Volume 18, New Series, October 16, 1852 • Various
... observed that the congregations made no responses and showed no signs of reverence. Soon in all the coffeehouses was handed about a brutal lampoon on the courtly prelates whose pens the King had employed. Mother East had also her full share of abuse. Into that homely monosyllable our ancestors had degraded the name of the great house of Este which ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 2 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... and she is so patient and so energetic," said Grace, using her favourite monosyllable in peace, out of ...
— The Clever Woman of the Family • Charlotte M. Yonge
... view through life. Mrs. Battle (it is recorded in her Opinions on Whist) could not make up her mind to use the word 'Go.' Mounsey, from long practice, has got over this difficulty, and uses it incessantly. It is no matter what adjunct follows in the train of this despised monosyllable,—whatever liquid comes after this prefix is welcome. Mounsey, without being the most communicative, is the most conversible man I know. The social principle is inseparable from his person. If he has nothing to say, he drinks your health; and when you cannot, from the rapidity and carelessness ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt
... Without a word he took finished work from various drawers and put it on the table for my inspection. I praised it, asked questions to draw him out, but failed to get more than a lift of the eyebrows, or an occasional monosyllable. It was not exhilarating, and as soon as I could I took ...
— The Master Detective - Being Some Further Investigations of Christopher Quarles • Percy James Brebner
... answer that question, I should like to know what meaning Mrs. Felix Lorraine attaches to that important monosyllable, friend." ...
— Vivian Grey • The Earl of Beaconsfield
... precedence. Then soon from behind the wooden shutters came a growl of "Next!" and two moments later I was standing in the reputed costume of Adam on the scales within. At about ten-second intervals a monosyllable fell from the lips of the morose American as he delved into my personal make-up from crown to toe with all the instrumental circumspection known to his secret-discovering profession. Then with a gruff "Dress!" he sat down at a table to scratch a few fantastic marks on the blank ...
— Zone Policeman 88 - A Close Range Study of the Panama Canal and its Workers • Harry A. Franck
... meant to be kind and affectionate, but the antagonism in that one monosyllable dispersed all his good resolutions. He was sick of scenes, tired of being held at arms' length; reluctantly he had grown to see that this marriage had been the greatest mistake of his life, that he had been a fool to imagine he ...
— The Beggar Man • Ruby Mildred Ayres
... of dinner she hardly spoke. If she said nothing to Leeds, neither would she address the man on her other side, only giving such monosyllable answers as were necessary. The evening dragged slowly. Leeds did not approach her. Once or twice she looked toward him, but he did not appear to notice her. Indeed, he only came late from the smoking room and returned after a brief appearance in the ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 5, June 1905 • Various
... The monosyllable was drawn out rather faintly. For the first time since they had met on the pass she felt she was mistress of the situation. This time she had not to plead with him in fear for his life. She could regard him without any sense of obligation, ...
— Over the Pass • Frederick Palmer
... mistress, which became in French ma dame, and in English madam; and the last of these has been further shortened to mam, and even to 'm, as in the phrase "Yes, 'm." This shows how nine letters may be reduced to one. Similarly, our monosyllable alms is all that is left of the Greek ele{-e}mosyn{-e}. Ten letters have here been ...
— English Dialects From the Eighth Century to the Present Day • Walter W. Skeat
... to the answer, subservient to his touch, to his words, and, to the full, conscious of her subservience. She felt the big breath he drew in answering her monosyllable. He held her unresisting, passive in his arms, watching her cheeks fire. She realised, in a kind of detached way, that he was holding her so that the tips of her toes only touched the floor, and somehow that seemed of a piece with the rest. Then he set her down, and stood apart, keeping ...
— The Philanderers • A.E.W. Mason
... "the world was made; then, as a matter of course, snobs; they existed for years and years, and were no more known than America. But presently,—ingens patebat tellus,—the people became darkly aware that there was such a race. Not above five-and-twenty years since, a name, an expressive monosyllable, arose to designate that case. That name has spread over England like railroads subsequently; snobs are known and recognised throughout an empire on which I am given to understand the sun never sets. Punch appears at the right season to chronicle ...
— Thackeray • Anthony Trollope
... gentleman with the malformation, before described, shocked the propriety of the breakfast-table by a loud utterance of three words, of which the two last were "Webster's Unabridged," and the first was an emphatic monosyllable.—Beg pardon,—he added,—forgot myself. But let us have an English dictionary, if we are to have any. I don't believe in clipping the coin of the realm, Sir! If I put a weathercock on my house, Sir, I want it to tell which way the wind blows up aloft,—off from the ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 3, No. 16, February, 1859 • Various
... this recommendation with such an extraordinarily abrupt, short, and loud utterance of the monosyllable 'Oh!' that even the unwieldy Patriarch moved his blue eyes in something of a hurry, to look at him. Mr Pancks, with a sniff of corresponding intensity, ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... once, and the tones in which the monosyllable was uttered and the glances accompanying it held volumes of hidden meaning. 'I haven't seen you since the Governor arrived,' Joan went on. 'Where have you ...
— Lady Bridget in the Never-Never Land • Rosa Praed
... he uttered this monosyllable, he made a feeble effort to rise from his seat, but sunk back, and again fixed his eye upon ...
— Confession • W. Gilmore Simms
... off our hundred. There are several boyish voices which reply, several comic voices, a few mean voices, and some so earnest and manly and alert that one says to himself, "Those are the men for me, when work is to be done!" I read the character of my comrades every morning in each fellow's monosyllable "Here!" ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, Issue 45, July, 1861 • Various
... that the impertinence of her monosyllable would be lost upon her elderly protege. "I'll make it clear to you, if I can. Millicent, you ...
— Life at High Tide - Harper's Novelettes • Various
... Venison."—What is the name in this poem beginning with H, which Goldsmith makes to rhyme with "beef?" The metre requires it to be a monosyllable, but there is no name that I have ever heard of that would answer in this place. Is the H a mistake for K, which would ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 218, December 31, 1853 • Various
... books, and I do not know how to improve upon it) resembles the chebec of the least flycatcher, though much less emphatic, as well as much less frequently uttered, while his twee, or tuwee, is quite in the voice and manner of the wood pewee's clear, plaintive whistle; usually a monosyllable, but at other times almost or quite dissyllabic. The olive-sided, on the other hand, imitates nobody; or, if he does, it must be some bird with which I have yet to make acquaintance. Que-que-o he vociferates, with a strong emphasis and drawl upon the middle syllable. This is his song, or ...
— The Foot-path Way • Bradford Torrey
... at it, and got short answers and long answers, pleasant ones and some that were not so pleasant; but all could be summed up in the single monosyllable: ...
— Hiram The Young Farmer • Burbank L. Todd
... or body which is not the involuntary effect of the influence of natural sensations," slowly repeated Vivian, as if his whole soul was concentrated in each monosyllable. "Y-e-s, Mr. ...
— Vivian Grey • The Earl of Beaconsfield
... clothespin, and turned his blue eyes wonderingly up to her. The corner of his mouth trembled, widened, his eyelids crinkled, and then he smiled delightfully, straight into the eyes of the nurse, stretched up a wavering pink hand, and patted her cheek. A soft, gurgling monosyllable, difficult of classification but easy ...
— While Caroline Was Growing • Josephine Daskam Bacon
... plural. The ripe product of tendency, the infant heir of the eloquent ages, to whose birth the law of Aryan evolution groaned and travailed until but now, the most useful, if not the "mightiest," monosyllable "ever moulded by the lips of man," the "the," one and indeclinable, was born in the Anglo-Saxon mouth, and sublimed to its unique simplicity by ...
— International Language - Past, Present and Future: With Specimens of Esperanto and Grammar • Walter J. Clark
... syllable, is termed a Monosyllable; a word of two syllables, a Dissyllable; a word of three syllables, a Trisyllable; a word of four or more ...
— English Grammar in Familiar Lectures • Samuel Kirkham
... the same angry monosyllable, which I had received from my mother before; and then arose, and walked about the room. I arose too, with intent to throw myself at his feet; but was too much overawed by his sternness, even to make such an expression of my duty to him as ...
— Clarissa, Volume 1 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... you can say? Other people have said very complimentary things!" said Leonore, pretending to be grieved over the monosyllable, yet in reality delighting in its expressiveness as ...
— The Honorable Peter Stirling and What People Thought of Him • Paul Leicester Ford
... This monosyllable was expressive. It proved to me that Bonaparte was conscious how ill he had treated me; and, suspecting that I was actuated by the desire of vengeance, he was afraid of my going to England, lest I should there take advantage of that liberty of the press which he had so ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... the second accented. In rehui, for example, the e and u might be in the same syllable by a (1), or in separate syllables by dieresis by a (1) (a), and the u and i might be in separate syllables or not by b (3) (b). Therefore, rehui might be a monosyllable, a ...
— Legends, Tales and Poems • Gustavo Adolfo Becquer
... the name of the other daughter; her mother had fancied that name; but the single monosyllable it had been shortened into somehow suited the proud-looking girl better than the whole name, with its ...
— The Quality of Mercy • W. D. Howells
... Besides, there was the story of the brandy-flask, in which Calvert saw much less of honor either to John Cross or his neophyte. But the old man did not express his doubts to his young friend, and they sat together, watching, in a silence only occasionalry broken by a monosyllable, the progress of ...
— Charlemont • W. Gilmore Simms
... exquisite, falling melody of that simple monosyllable expressed so perfectly, through such a trained larynx, all the sudden lack of interest!) "It never happened, then? So of course it does not matter. But why do you call it a lesson, ...
— Margarita's Soul - The Romantic Recollections of a Man of Fifty • Ingraham Lovell
... livid, his eyes staring wide open with terror, so that the pupils were contracted almost to nothing, with a large circle of white around them. He held in his hand a tankard full of a dark substance, and approaching the gleam of light shed by the lamp he uttered this single monosyllable: "Oh!" with such an expression of extreme terror that Mousqueton started, alarmed, and Blaisois was near ...
— Twenty Years After • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... two brothers, both young men, who day and night bring their comrades into the house, which is none too large: for which reason it might not be done there, unless we were minded to make ourselves, as it were, dumb and blind, uttering never a word, not so much as a monosyllable, and abiding in the dark: in such sort indeed it might be, because they do not intrude upon my chamber; but theirs is so near to mine that the very least whisper could not but be heard." "Nay but, Madam," returned the rector, "let not ...
— The Decameron, Vol. II. • Giovanni Boccaccio
... impossible ... the endless duet of the marble and the water, the enervation of burning odours, the baptismal whiteness of women, light, ideal tissues, eyes strangely dark with kohl, names that evoke palm trees and ruins, Spanish moonlight or maybe Persepolis. The monosyllable which epitomises the ennui and the prose of our lives is heard not, thought not there—only the nightingale-harmony of an eternal yes. Freedom limitless; the Mahometan stands on the verge of the abyss, and the spaces of perfume ...
— Confessions of a Young Man • George Moore
... Anna's face was half turned from him, but her expression, and the tone of her monosyllable puzzled him. He stepped quickly towards her. Her eyes seemed to be looking backwards. She distinctly shivered as he forced her to look at him. He ...
— Anna the Adventuress • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... at his chill monosyllable and the ascending red increased the beauty of her face. "I have a brother who is condemned to die," she continued. "Condemn the fault, I pray you, ...
— Beautiful Stories from Shakespeare • E. Nesbit
... Meed, a lady of importance, whose friendship means perdition, yet without whom nothing can be done, and who plays an immense part in the world. The monosyllable which designates her has a vague and extended signification; it means both reward and bribery. Disinterestedness, the virtue of noble minds, being rare in this world, scarcely anything is undertaken without hope of recompense, and what man, ...
— A Literary History of the English People - From the Origins to the Renaissance • Jean Jules Jusserand
... Eliphaz, unimpressed. The monosyllable was packed with emotion. It said, "Have you really the face to come to me again with an ...
— Stories By English Authors: London • Various
... had not noticed the little monosyllable 'us,' which was now affecting her so powerfully. Of course it meant a wife and possibly children, and her day was surely over at Tracy Park. It was in vain that her husband tried to comfort her, saying ...
— Tracy Park • Mary Jane Holmes
... her conduct, rose against her. As she passed through the streets of Edinburgh the women hurled after her indecent names. Great banners were raised with execrable daubs representing the murdered Darnley. The short and dreadful monosyllable which is familiar to us in the pages of the Bible was hurled after ...
— Famous Affinities of History, Vol 1-4, Complete - The Romance of Devotion • Lyndon Orr
... is called a monosyllable; a word of two syllables, a dissyllable; a word of three syllables, a trissyllable; a word of four or more syllables, ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... influential form of practical force, compounded of strong will, strong sense, and strong egotism, which long waited for a strong monosyllable to announce its nature. Facts of character, indeed, are never at rest until they have become terms of language; and that peculiar thing which is not exactly courage or heroism, but which unmistakably is "Grit," has coined its own word to blurt ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 90, April, 1865 • Various
... Every monosyllable was uttered with a desperate, wrathful deliberateness and flinging away of all pretense ...
— The Other Girls • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... his hand under the table and pat his boy's knee with loving taps of admiration, prouder of him than ever. His own pleasures so absorbed him that he continued to sit almost silent, except for a word now and then to Nathan or a monosyllable to Fred. ...
— The Fortunes of Oliver Horn • F. Hopkinson Smith
... well, for I held the winning cards. Qui minus propere, minus prospere. And then, as her voice rose crescendo into a bawl, so that all the Romanys around laughed aloud to see the green Gorgio so chaffed and bothered, I bent me low, and whispered softly in her ear a single monosyllable. ...
— The Gypsies • Charles G. Leland
... superintend, and a mistake will tell fearfully in the result; but, never mind, we'll trust luck." "Do we not," as Horace Mann once asked, "do we not need some single word where we can condense into one monosyllable the meaning of ten thousand fools?" Some deny the power of early training. "Look!" they say, "there is a family of children brought up just alike, and see how differently they all turn out." But a family of children should not be brought ...
— A Domestic Problem • Abby Morton Diaz
... belong to the fourth root-race. They have reached the height of their possible intellectual advance. They have been stationary for untold centuries. Query: Does this account for their apparent inability to develop their language beyond the monosyllable? ...
— Bay State Monthly, Vol. I, No. 3, March, 1884 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various
... and bon vivans of the day graced the dinner-table of the late Dr. Kitchiner, and, inter alios, the late George Colman, who was an especial favourite; his interpolation of a little monosyllable in a written admonition which the doctor caused to be placed on the mantel-piece of the dining-parlour will never be forgotten, and was the origin of such a drinking bout as was seldom permitted under his roof. The caution ran thus: "Come at seven, go at eleven." Colman briefly altered ...
— The Book of Anecdotes and Budget of Fun; • Various
... your petitioning Cons, have in right Of the said monosyllable ravaged the lands And embezzled the goods and annoyed, day and night, Both the bodies and souls of the sticklers ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... figures of life and death, could have but one brief holiday! Who can wonder that men swing themselves off from beams in hempen lassos?—that they jump off from parapets into the swift and gurgling waters beneath?—that they take counsel of the grim friend who has but to utter his one peremptory monosyllable and the restless machine is shivered as a vase that is dashed upon a marble floor? Under that building which we pass every day there are strong dungeons, where neither hook, nor bar, nor bed-cord, nor drinking-vessel from which a sharp fragment may be shattered, shall by ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... it. Silence respectful and profound appeared to him the sole course open; any other would only have led to an increase of precautions. The King avoided all discourse with him upon this matter; M. du Maine the same. M. d'Orleans was contented with a simple approving monosyllable to both, like a courtier who ought not to meddle with anything; and he avoided conversation upon this subject, even with Madame la Duchesse d'Orleans, and with anybody else. I was the sole person to whom he dared to unbosom himself; with the rest of the world he had an open, an ordinary manner, ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon
... as how they comes to take up the nets in the morning, why then I think I may hold on; but if so be they waits, why they'll then find me dead as a fish," said Smallbones, who seldom ventured above a monosyllable, and whose language if not considered as pure English, was certainly amazingly Saxon; and then Smallbones began to reflect, whether it was not necessary that he should forgive Mr Vanslyperken before he died, and his pros and cons ended with his thinking he could, ...
— Snarley-yow - or The Dog Fiend • Frederick Marryat
... Hetty, and Harry and George, among these young people, then; and I dare say the reason why General Lambert chose to apply the monosyllable "Bo" to the mother of his daughters, was as a rebuke to that good woman for the inveterate love of sentiment and propensity to match-making which belonged to her (and every other woman in the world whose heart is worth a fig); and as a hint that Madam Lambert was a goose if she fancied the two ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... he was too short, as he said, to afford a belly. He rode and fenced and practiced gymnastics with unremitting zeal, and if you greeted him with a "How well you are looking" he started and turned pale. In your WELL he read a grosser monosyllable. He had a round head, high above the ears, a crop of hair at once dense and silky, a broad, low forehead, a short nose, of the ironical and inquiring rather than of the dogmatic or sensitive cast, and a mustache as delicate as that of a page in ...
— The American • Henry James
... spoke her reluctant monosyllable, the girl had really no conception of the degree of hostility expressed in her manner. Instead she was hating herself for her ...
— Marcella • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... fishermen of New York he is known only as Porgy, or Paugie, a form as obviously derived from the last syllable of his Indian name as the emphatic "siree" of our greatest orators is from the modest monosyllable "sir." Porgy seems to be the accepted form of the word; but letters of the old, unphonetic kind are poor guides to pronunciation. And a beautiful, clean-scaled fish is Porgy,—whose g, by-the-by, as I learned from a funny man in the heterogeneous crowd, is pronounced "hard, ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 40, February, 1861 • Various
... snow-drifts from morning till night. At a medical feast, some strange or unusual act was commonly enjoined as vital to the patient's cure: as, for example, the departing guest, in place of the customary monosyllable of thanks, was required to greet his host with an ugly grimace. Sometimes, by prescription, half the village would throng into the house where the patient lay, led by old women disguised with the heads and skins of bears, and beating with sticks on sheets of dry bark. Here the ...
— The Jesuits in North America in the Seventeenth Century • Francis Parkman
... was a great lack of expression in Garton's monosyllable, but as he swung about upon his stool, bending over the box of cigarettes which he swept up, Conniston thought that he saw a little twitch as of pain about the sensitive lips. Not understanding, feeling at once that he would like to say something and not knowing what to say, he went slowly ...
— Under Handicap - A Novel • Jackson Gregory
... was bartered and its elect betrayed—by the questioner or by the mocker? Patience. Remember Epictetus. It is probably in his character to ask such a question at such a moment in such a tone and to pronounce the word SCIENCE as a monosyllable. ...
— A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man • James Joyce
... nothing—to be laughed at and postponed to his Methodist sister Scott? The impudence of deliberately telling him he "didn't want it, and was rich enough!" as if "enough" could ever be good grammar after such a monosyllable as "rich;" and "want it" indeed! of course he wanted it; if not, why had he slaved so many years? want it, indeed! if to hope by day, and to dream by night—if to leave no means untried of delicately showing ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... who appeared to have need of the monosyllable in order to collect and arrange his ideas. "'Tain't lack of sand exactly, either, for most of the fellows about here ...
— The Burglar and the Blizzard • Alice Duer Miller
... he emphasized the monosyllable with marked emphasis,—"if I asked you to marry me, what ...
— A Woman's Will • Anne Warner
... monosyllable was strangely expressive, but Dug McFarlane had no understanding of the thought that prompted it. It would have been difficult indeed, even with understanding, to have probed the depths of feeling prompting ...
— The Forfeit • Ridgwell Cullum
... an appreciable fraction of a minute ere she answered, and when she did, it was in the monosyllable—"Yes." ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume XXI • Robert Louis Stevenson
... it climbs in search of the insects which there congregate. We shall frequently hear its voice, especially before rain, for it is a noisy creature. It has a liquid note, sounding like "el" frequently repeated, and then ending with a sharp, short monosyllable. ...
— The Western World - Picturesque Sketches of Nature and Natural History in North - and South America • W.H.G. Kingston
... was. For on the morning of the following day, I went up to his tent on the roof and found nothing of Khalid's belongings but a pamphlet on the subject, 'Is Suicide a Sin?' and right under the title the monosyllable LA (no) and his signature. The frightfulness of his intention stood like a spectre before me. I clapped one hand upon the other and wept. I made inquiries in the city and in the neighbouring places, but to no purpose. Oh, that dreadful, dismal day, ...
— The Book of Khalid • Ameen Rihani
... She made frequent use of that monosyllable. It generally gave the Babe the same sort of feeling as he had been accustomed to experience in the happy days of his childhood when he had ...
— Tales of St. Austin's • P. G. Wodehouse
... made the men silent, for scarcely a word is spoken; if it were, in the stillness it must be heard, though they are at some distance. The wheels, well greased for the heavy harvest work, do not creak. Save an occasional monosyllable, as the horses are ordered on, or to stop, and a faint rustling of straw, there is no sound. It may be the flood of brilliant light, or the mirage of the heat, but in some way the waggon and its rising load, the men and the horses, ...
— Nature Near London • Richard Jefferies
... monotonous, monoplane, monopoly, monocle, monarchy, monogram, monomania; (2) monosyllable, monochrome, monogamy, monorail, monograph, monolith, monody, monologue, ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... the door open, watching them go down the corridor. Then he came slowly back into his room. Once more the telephone bell began to ring. He picked up the receiver. The indifference of his opening monosyllable vanished in a second. Something amazing crept into ...
— The Profiteers • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... together in the private room at Halfpenny and Farthing's office, Mr. Halfpenny, who had seemed somewhat mystified by the happenings at the bank, looked inquiringly at Professor Cox-Raythwaite and snapped out one suggestive monosyllable: ...
— The Herapath Property • J. S. Fletcher
... the auxiliary Verb added Strength to the Expression, as indeed it does. I own where the auxiliary Verb is brought close to its principal, and that a thin monosyllable, as in the Line just now referred to, the Verse is very rude and disagreeable. But to prove that the auxiliary Verb may be employed properly, I will produce an Instance in rhym'd Verse, as strong as that ...
— Letters Concerning Poetical Translations - And Virgil's and Milton's Arts of Verse, &c. • William Benson
... that he was resolved to try whether or not I was capable of talking upon any subject. This put so great a restraint upon my thoughts, that I was unable to go further than a monosyllable, and not ever so far, when I could possibly ...
— Evelina • Fanny Burney
... each new word there was a new explosion of laughter, and some of the younger ones were glad to rise from their chairs and stamp about the street in ecstasy; and I looked on upon their mirth in a faint and slightly disagreeable bewilderment. "Bread," which sounds a commonplace, plain-sailing monosyllable in England, was the word that most delighted these good ladies of Monastier; it seemed to them frolicsome and racy, like a page of Pickwick; and they all got it carefully by heart, as a stand-by, I presume, for winter evenings. I have tried it since then ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 1 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Willet, turning his eyes from the ceiling to the face of his interrupter, and uttering the monosyllable in capitals, to apprise him that he had put in his oar, as the vulgar say, with unbecoming and irreverent haste; 'IF, sir, Natur has fixed upon me the gift of argeyment, why should I not own to it, and rather glory in the same? Yes, sir, I AM a tough customer that way. You ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... syllables Richard Steele to the publick, to be used and treated as they should think fit; he must go on in the same indifference, and allow the TOWN their usual liberty with his name, which I find they think they have much more room to sport with than formerly, as it is lengthened with the monosyllable SIR." ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli
... cried suddenly in a terrified voice. Then out of sheer fright she made an enormous effort over herself, and laughed aloud. Under the influence of that mortal dread, in the supreme exertion she made to destroy the effect of the monosyllable that had escaped her lips, the laugh sounded natural. It was well done, for it was done for life or death, and if it failed she was betrayed. That single 'No' had been almost enough to ruin all, but her laugh saved her, though ...
— Greifenstein • F. Marion Crawford
... chocolate, began to read the newspapers, quite at my ease, and delighted to see that everybody was puzzled. A bold individual, in the hope of getting me into conversation, came to me and addressed me; I answered him with a monosyllable, and I observed that everyone was at a loss what to make of me. When I had sufficiently enjoyed public admiration in the coffee-room, I promenaded in the busiest thoroughfares of the city, and returned to the inn, where I had dinner ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... No more exasperating monosyllable can fall from a woman's lips than that one word "why," and Curtis felt its full force then ...
— One Wonderful Night - A Romance of New York • Louis Tracy
... first time Jimmy had ever heard that remarkable monosyllable proceed from human lips. He took it—rightly—to be intended to convey disapproval, scepticism, and annoyance. He was convinced that this mission was going to be one of ...
— Piccadilly Jim • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... (printing) 591; capitals; digraph, trigraph; ideogram, ideograph; majuscule, minuscule; majuscule, minuscule; alphabet, ABC^, abecedary^, christcross-row. consonant, vowel; diphthong, triphthong [Gramm.]; mute, liquid, labial, dental, guttural. syllable; monosyllable, dissyllable^, polysyllable; affix, suffix. spelling, orthograph^; phonography^, phonetic spelling; anagrammatism^, metagrammatism^. cipher, monogram, anagram; doubleacrostic^. V. spell. Adj. literal; alphabetical, abecedarian; syllabic; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... came down to one hundred ducats, receiving always the same melancholy monosyllable ...
— Eastern Tales by Many Story Tellers • Various
... formal meal, disturbed now and then by a curt monosyllable from one or the other of us. We had not much to say to each other, considering that it was our last repast around that family board, the dishes and cutlery had all the chat and confusion among themselves. When it was over, I went back to my own quarters and attended to my final preparations, the ...
— The Doctor's Daughter • "Vera"
... the answer for which she had hoped and her eyes dropped at the curt monosyllable. She put the cup back on the tray and folded her hands in her lap with a faint little sigh of disappointment, her head drooping pensively. Craven knew instinctively that he had hurt her and hated himself. It was like striking ...
— The Shadow of the East • E. M. Hull
... perform on your grandmother's forehead, and that which you bestow on the sacred cheek of your mistress; but the same four letters, and not one of them a labial. Do we mean to hint that r. Arthur Pendennis made any use of the monosyllable in question? Not so. In the first place, it was dark: the fireworks were over, and nobody could see him; secondly, he was not a man to have this kind of secret, and tell it; thirdly and lastly, let the honest fellow who has kissed a pretty girl, say what would have been his own conduct ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... water and laid it on the bank, bottom up, in which position it formed a rough and ready tent for his companion, who, meanwhile, carried up the provisions. Seated on the grass beside it they ate a little dried venison, which required no cooking—uttering only a monosyllable now and then with half-closed eyes, and sometimes with an imbecile smile, which terminated occasionally in an irresistible nod. The feebleness of the light, too, as well as the quietness of the hour, contributed not a little ...
— The Walrus Hunters - A Romance of the Realms of Ice • R.M. Ballantyne
... preferable for many reasons; not least because the actual Marguerite appears nowhere in the poem, and, except in the opening monosyllable, can hardly be said to be even rhetorically addressed. The poet's affection—it is scarcely passion—is there, but in transcendence: he meditates more than he feels. And that function of the riddle of the painful earth which Lucretius, thousands of years ago, put in his grim ...
— Matthew Arnold • George Saintsbury
... difficulty. Our driver was a lively intelligent young fellow, having a civil word of inquiry or of greeting for every Indian we encountered: these were by no means numerous however, and they seldom replied by more than a monosyllable, hardly appearing ...
— Impressions of America - During The Years 1833, 1834, and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume II. • Tyrone Power
... them now, very drawn and pale in the dim halo of light thrown down from the hanging lamp. His answering monosyllable ...
— The Devil's Paw • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... The single monosyllable—from Sara Van Decht—was the only speech which broke the amazed silence. She was leaning forward in her chair, gazing eagerly at the three men, her beautiful eyes eloquent with excitement—a crown of fire gleaming in her brown-gold hair. No one noticed her. Hassen, who had regained his ...
— The Traitors • E. Phillips (Edward Phillips) Oppenheim
... survey the immense extent of the city. The door of the cathedral stood invitingly open. My destiny prevailed. I entered the ominous archway. Where then was my guardian angel?—if indeed such angels there be. If! Distressing monosyllable! what world of mystery, and meaning, and doubt, and uncertainty is there involved in thy two letters! I entered the ominous archway! I entered; and, without injury to my orange-colored auriculas, I passed beneath the portal, and emerged within the vestibule. ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 4 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... not 'spirits' rather than 'sprites,' which has a different association by custom? 'Spirits' is quite short enough, it seems to me, for a last word—it sounds like a monosyllable that trembles—or thrills, rather. And, do you know, I agree with yourself a little when you say (as did you not say?) that some of the speeches—Domizia's for instance—are too lengthy. I think I should like them to coil up their strength, ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett
... throwing such a depth of expression into the brief monosyllable, that it seemed to convey a whole ...
— The Nicest Girl in the School - A Story of School Life • Angela Brazil
... requires. The poorest logic is the soundest reasoning—if it conclude for him. The visits to the parsonage were, meanwhile, continued. Upon my return, I gained no news. I asked if all were well there, and the simple, monosyllable, "Yes," answered with unusual quickness and decision, was all that escaped the doctor's lips. He did not wish to be interrogated further, and was displeased. I perceived this and was silent. For some days, no mention was made of his dear friend the minister. He was accustomed to speak ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 53, No. 331, May, 1843 • Various
... and bite his lip, and then leave the room; and whole days would sometimes pass with barely a monosyllable being exchanged between this parent and child. Cadurcis had found some opportunities of pouring forth his griefs and mortification into the ear of Venetia, and they had reached her mother; but Lady Annabel, though she sympathised ...
— Venetia • Benjamin Disraeli
... had ever realised the crass stupidity of that remarkable young person—dense and impenetrable as a London fog—until her first introduction in these Readings, with "Please, Mister Sawyer, Missis Raddle wants to speak to you!"—the dull, dead-level of her voice ending in the last monosyllable with a series of inflections almost amounting to a chromatic passage. Mr. Justice Stareleigh, again!—nobody had ever conceived the world of humorous suggestiveness underlying all the words put into his mouth until the author's utterance of them came to the readers ...
— Charles Dickens as a Reader • Charles Kent
... analysis of its contents, mistake the number of pages devoted to one head. As to the higher literary virtues, too, his sentences were all carefully balanced in a pair of logical and rhetorical scales of the most sensitive kind; and he never perpetrated the atrocity of ending a sentence with a monosyllable, or using the same word twice within the same five lines, choosing always some judicious method of circumlocution to obviate reiteration. Poor man! in the pride of his unspotted purity, he little knew what a humiliation ...
— The Book-Hunter - A New Edition, with a Memoir of the Author • John Hill Burton
... I would have done, and have thought the most honourable mode of proceeding; I should have turned my back upon him, and have merely thrown him a monosyllable now and then ...
— Marriage • Susan Edmonstone Ferrier
... and then with slow deliberation, and an occasional pause for thought, he walked towards me. When within half a dozen yards he stopped and took good stock of me, with brown eyes overhung by thick grizzled eyebrows. Then he offered a short, interrogative, authoritative bark, a mere monosyllable of inquiry. ...
— Schwartz: A History - From "Schwartz" by David Christie Murray • David Christie Murray
... The Mistress's horrified monosyllable broke in on the smug recital. She caught Lad protectingly by the ruff and stared in mute dread at the lanky and red-whiskered officer. Lad, reading her voice as always, divined this nasal-toned caller had said or done ...
— Further Adventures of Lad • Albert Payson Terhune
... inaccuracy of the author's maps; and, lastly, of his inserting an island at the southern entry of the channel between Cephalonia and Ithaca, which has no existence. This observation very nearly approaches to the use of that monosyllable which Gibbon [3], without expressing it, so adroitly applied to some assertion of his antagonist, Mr. Davies. In truth, our traveller's words are rather bitter towards his brother tourist; but we must conclude that their ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Letters and Journals, Vol. 1 • Lord Byron, Edited by Rowland E. Prothero
... her only in monosyllable, making small distinction between yes and no. He simply sat watching her with eyes in which there were ...
— Active Service • Stephen Crane
... public,[84] but, forgetting the subject which they have undertaken to criticise, they push the author out of his seat, quietly sit in it themselves, and fancy they entertain you by the gravity of their deportment, and their rash usurpation of the royal monosyllable 'Nos.'[85] This solemn pronoun, or rather 'plural style,'[86] my dear Philemon, is oftentimes usurped by a half-starved little I, who sits immured in the dusty recess of a garret, and who has never known the society nor the language of a gentleman; or it is assumed by a young graduate, ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... prayer-meetings, somewhat indignantly complains, that "so long as they can get to heaven, they don't care who goes to ——," a place that Virgil and Tasso have taken much pains in describing, but which the old gentleman sufficiently indicates by one emphatic monosyllable. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXIX. - March, 1843, Vol. LIII. • Various
... derision in the monosyllable, but a thoughtful expression in the hard gray eyes indicated that Varr had found food for reflection in Nelson's story. What direction his thoughts were taking he did not choose to reveal at the moment, but shot another question ...
— The Monk of Hambleton • Armstrong Livingston
... involuntarily he infused so much triumph into the simple monosyllable that even old Robert felt it. Mrs. Williamson, who was cutting bread at the end of the table, laid down her knife and loaf, and looked at the young man with a softly troubled expression in her eyes. She wondered if he had been back to the Connors orchard—and ...
— Kilmeny of the Orchard • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... with regard to these particulars, it would have been removed by a deliberate and equally distinct repetition of the same monosyllable, "No." The voice was my sister's. It appeared to come from the roof. I started from my seat. Catharine, exclaimed I, where are you? No answer was returned. I searched the room, and the area before it, but in vain. Your brother was motionless in his seat. ...
— Wieland; or The Transformation - An American Tale • Charles Brockden Brown
... anxious to understand, if indeed her English ear detected all the hidden meaning of the monosyllable. ...
— Fair Margaret - A Portrait • Francis Marion Crawford
... ears to the plain import of the word, imagined that Phutatorius, who was somewhat of a cholerick spirit, was just going to snatch the cudgels out of Didius's hands, in order to bemaul Yorick to some purpose—and that the desperate monosyllable Z...ds was the exordium to an oration, which, as they judged from the sample, presaged but a rough kind of handling of him; so that my uncle Toby's good-nature felt a pang for what Yorick was about to undergo. But seeing Phutatorius stop short, without any ...
— The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman • Laurence Sterne
... should be. There are peculiarities in the vocal organization of every person, tending to produce peculiarities of pronunciation; for example, it has been stated that each child in a family of six gave the monosyllable, fly, in a different manner, (eye, fy, ly, &c.) until, when the organs were more advanced, correct example induced the proper pronunciation of this and similar words. Such departures from orthoepy are only to be checked by the ...
— Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation • Robert Chambers
... putting much eloquence Into the monosyllable. "That's a bum monniker out of a French love story. It's the Roosian princess. It's ...
— The Short Cut • Jackson Gregory
... died away, Lylda rose to her feet and facing the judge bowed low, with hands to her forehead. Then she spoke a few words, evidently addressing the women before her. Each of them raised her hands and answered in a monosyllable, as though affirming an oath. This performance was repeated ...
— The Girl in the Golden Atom • Raymond King Cummings
... for the alert, self-contained little riverman trudged along in almost entire silence, his keen chipmunk eyes spying restlessly on all there was to be seen. When Bob ventured a remark or comment, he answered by a grunt or a monosyllable. The grunt or the monosyllable was never sullen or hostile or contemptuous; merely indifferent. Bob learned to economize speech, and so got along well ...
— The Rules of the Game • Stewart Edward White
... uttered the monosyllable so often it seemed to come unconsciously from his lips. But he recognized almost as soon as we did that it was not a natural reply to the last question, and, making a gesture of apology, he added, ...
— The Filigree Ball • Anna Katharine Green
... letter greatly surprised him. It had originally commenced with 'Dear Sir'; but these words had been carefully erased, and the monosyllable 'Sir' substituted in their place. The rest of the contents shall be given in ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... not do, Ratcliffe," said the procurator; "you must speak out—out—out," tapping the table emphatically, as he repeated that impressive monosyllable. ...
— The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... monosyllable; "it's quite as important as all that. I don't wish to be overheard. Besides," she added with nonchalant irrelevance, "I ...
— The Bandbox • Louis Joseph Vance
... her bonnet and shawl, and joined him. They had reached the summit of the hill before either of them broke silence, and then Oriana mechanically made some commonplace remark about the beauty of the western sky. He replied with a monosyllable, and sat down upon a moss-covered rock. She plucked a few wild-flowers, and toyed ...
— Fort Lafayette or, Love and Secession • Benjamin Wood
... His monosyllable was sharp and incisive. His face was grey and anxious. She herself remained lifeless. All that there was of emotion between them seemed to have become vested ...
— The Great Prince Shan • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... out the affirmative monosyllable), "I was used most scurvily: faith I was. I bear 'em a grudge for it still, I can tell 'em that; for I have hardly been able to hold up my head like a man since—but am forced to go and come, and to do ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson
... expressed by just that abrupt and insignificant monosyllable!" he cried, his solemnity swept away by a mood of extravagant banter. "Now, you know, since we have elected a professional baseball player to the mayor's office, I foresee great possibilities unfolding ...
— The Mayor of Warwick • Herbert M. Hopkins
... my best to draw my fair companions into a little chat, but found my vis-a-vis—the daughter of my successor outside—most impracticable; a monosyllable was the extent of her exertion: whilst her companion, who was a lively, intelligent-looking girl, and very pretty withal, was necessarily chilled by the taciturnity of her senior. I note this as being an unusual case, since, when once properly ...
— Impressions of America - During the years 1833, 1834 and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Tyrone Power
... and s at the end of a monosyllable after a single vowel are commonly doubled. The exceptions are the cases in which s forms the plural or possessive case of a noun, or third person singular of the verb, and the following words: clef, if, of, pal, sol, as, gas, has, was, yes, gris, his, is, thus, us. L is not doubled at the ...
— The Art Of Writing & Speaking The English Language - Word-Study and Composition & Rhetoric • Sherwin Cody
... not know. But one unaccountable error was forced on one's notice. Thebes, which, by Milton and by every scholar is made a monosyllable, is here made a dissyllable. But Thebez, the dissyllable, is a Syrian city. It is true that Causabon deduces from a Syriac word meaning a case or enclosure (a theca), the name of Thebes, whether Boeotian or Egyptian. It is probable, ...
— The Notebook of an English Opium-Eater • Thomas de Quincey
... Mr. Samuel Weller burst at once into the following wild and beautiful legend, which, under the impression that it is not generally known, we take the liberty of quoting. We would beg to call particular attention to the monosyllable at the end of the second and fourth lines, which not only enables the singer to take breath at those points, ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... sound of the somewhat raised voice the squatting figure in the corner moved and rose slowly. Reb Moshe, with open mouth and stupid, glaring eyes, came into the light, and in his hoarse voice uttered the monosyllable "Hah!" ...
— An Obscure Apostle - A Dramatic Story • Eliza Orzeszko
... I have given it up), and only giving the outward, but equally true reason, that I found it on the whole an ineligible and distressing post. . . . I know you will apply to such an act that disgusting monosyllable of which Protestants are so fond. He felt with me and for me—for my horror of giving pain to my father, and for my wearied and excited state of mind; and strangely enough—to show how differently, according ...
— Yeast: A Problem • Charles Kingsley
... lath-and-plaster partition. The boys looked with longing eyes at the gun in his hand, and the half-frozen compound of black and red mud on his gaiters; but they were shy, and their enmity added to their shyness, so that even when he shook hands with them, and spoke good-naturedly, they did not get beyond a monosyllable. ...
— The Heir of Redclyffe • Charlotte M. Yonge
... indirection of the Japanese was incomprehensible to him. He was not good at picking up strange tongues, and the Japanese equivalent for the Saxon monosyllable for what the Japanese was to him he never learned. For only one other word did he have more use and I believe it was the only one he knew, "hyaku—hurry!" Over there I was in constant fear for him because of his knight-errantry and his candor. Once he came near being involved ...
— Appreciations of Richard Harding Davis • Various
... workman opportunity for no more than an occasional monosyllable in reply, he poured forth a flood of information about his estate: The architectural features of his house—the cost; the loveliness of his trees—the cost; the coloring of his flowers—the cost; the magnificence ...
— Helen of the Old House • Harold Bell Wright
... The monosyllable came very dryly and unimportantly, as if to a perfectly commonplace inquiry. Then Lady Nottingham, in her turn, got up. Jeannie's restlessness and disquiet seemed to ...
— Daisy's Aunt • E. F. (Edward Frederic) Benson
... want to know is," said the largest of the three, a big man with a very square face and blue eyes,—"wot I want to know is—is that there feller to go walkin' about naked?" The last word was pronounced as a monosyllable. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, March 15, 1916 • Various
... Vishnu for his arrow, the earth for his chariot with the sun and moon for its wheels and the Vedas for its horses, the starry canopy for his banner with the tree of Paradise for its staff, Brahma for his charioteer, and the mysterious monosyllable Om for his whip reduced them all ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... continuing to wear her father's name instead of assuming her husband's, I never could understand. She did not share the name she gave her child. And there is another distinction between the nameless Cuffy and the trebly-named Saxon woman. The husband's name was not thrust upon her. By uttering the simple monosyllable "No," she could decline to wear it. It was only as she consented to be mistress of a husband's heart and home that she passed from the condition of femme sole and acquired a title and an additional name. "Cuffy has no right to his earnings." ...
— Woman and the Republic • Helen Kendrick Johnson
... pronounced the monosyllable alone, and then he walked away from her as though that one little word settled the question for him, now and for ever. He walked away from her, perhaps a distance of two hundred yards, as though the interview was over, and he were leaving her. She, as she saw him ...
— The Belton Estate • Anthony Trollope
... a singularly kind man, and he did his best perhaps for reasons of his own, to convey nothing by the monosyllable beyond the simple negation of a fact. But the effort was not altogether successful. There was an almost imperceptible shade of surprise in the tone which did not escape Giovanni. On the other hand it was perfectly clear to Gouache that ...
— Don Orsino • F. Marion Crawford |
