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Epithet   Listen
noun
Epithet  n.  
1.
An adjective expressing some quality, attribute, or relation, that is properly or specially appropriate to a person or thing; as, a just man; a verdant lawn. "A prince (Henry III.) to whom the epithet "worthless" seems best applicable."
2.
Term; expression; phrase. "Stuffed with epithets of war."
Synonyms: Epithet, Title. The name epithet was formerly extended to nouns which give a title or describe character (as the "epithet of liar"), but is now confined wholly to adjectives. Some rhetoricians, as Whately, restrict it still further, considering the term epithet as belonging only to a limited class of adjectives, viz., those which add nothing to the sense of their noun, but simply hold forth some quality necessarily implied therein; as, the bright sun, the lofty heavens, etc. But this restriction does not prevail in general literature. Epithet is sometimes confounded with application, which is always a noun or its equivalent.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Epithet" Quotes from Famous Books



... comparatively later times. Annual festivals, called Veneralia, were held in her honour, and the month of April, when flowers and plants spring forth afresh, was sacred to her. She was worshipped as Venus Cloacina (or the Purifier), and as Venus Myrtea (or the myrtle goddess), an epithet derived from the ...
— Myths and Legends of Ancient Greece and Rome • E.M. Berens

... D'ORLEANS, Duchess de Montpensier, whom history distinguishes by the epithet of La Grande Mademoiselle, after telling us in her memoirs, at least twenty times, in order to make herself better known, that she was fond of glory, adds—"The Bourbons are folks very much addicted to trifles, with very little ...
— Political Women, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Sutherland Menzies

... that "Bloody Mary" "had been harshly judged by the verdict of popular tradition." So have most characters to whom popular dislike affixes the popular epithet—"Bloody Claverse," "Bloody Mackenzie," "Bloody Balfour." Mary had the courage of the Tudors. She "edified all around her by her cheerfulness, her piety, and her resignation to the will of Providence," in her last days (Lingard). ...
— Alfred Tennyson • Andrew Lang

... the epithet vesanus, because in his time (the first century after Christ) it was still supposed to form one of the ingredients of philters or love-potions. The superstitious ideas attached to the mandrake were indeed so current throughout Europe during the middle ages, that one ...
— Aphrodisiacs and Anti-aphrodisiacs: Three Essays on the Powers of Reproduction • John Davenport

... a better time than that of the primroses and violets? I never remember (and for such gauds my memory, if not very good for aught of wise or useful, may be trusted) such an affluence of the one or such a duration of the other. Primrosy is the epithet which this year will retain in my recollection. Hedge, ditch, meadow, field, even the very paths and highways, are set with them; but their chief habitat is a certain copse, about a mile off, where they are spread like a carpet, and where ...
— Our Village • Mary Russell Mitford

... prudent mother to an instant departure from India, had made a timid and charming child of eighteen the talk of Simla, Lady Blanche, excited and dishevelled—was it her personal untidiness which accounted for the other epithet of "quaint," which had floated to the Duchess's ear, and been by her reported to Julie?—refused to break her daughter's heart. Warkworth, indeed, had begun long before by flattering the mother's vanity and sense of possession, ...
— Lady Rose's Daughter • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... and doors of Stacy's Bank in San Francisco, and spreading a film of rain between the regular splendors of its mahogany counters and sprucely dressed clerks and the usual passing pedestrian. For Stacy's new banking-house had long since received the epithet of "palatial" from an enthusiastic local press fresh from the "opening" luncheon in its richly decorated directors' rooms, and it was said that once a homely would-be depositor from One Horse Gulch ...
— The Three Partners • Bret Harte

... some food. Then his wrists were lashed again and his ankles loosened, and he was allowed to walk around the room for an hour or so, two of the men watching him closely. The one to whom the masked man had applied the epithet, "dog," appeared surly. ...
— The Brand of Silence - A Detective Story • Harrington Strong

... to clothe my words with all the desired power. With so much to enliven, to encourage, it was as if I were sitting at the very feet of Nature, so thrilled by her wonderful stories that I was utterly unconscious of the storm of ridicule and epithet to which ...
— The No Breakfast Plan and the Fasting-Cure • Edward Hooker Dewey

... some, and rejects more; and those he accepts are such as he wants for his ulterior purpose, which will not admit the appearance of art; hence he will have none that do not grow out of his feeling and harmonize with it. All this passes in an instant, and the apt simile or the happy epithet is created,—an immortal beauty, both in itself and as it occurs in its place. It was put there by an art; the poet knew that the way to make expressions come is to assume the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 20, June, 1859 • Various

... virtuous oath by which simple people, who are improving their habits, cure themselves of a stronger epithet, as men take to flagroot ...
— The Man Without a Country and Other Tales • Edward E. Hale

... taken her flight before them towards the sea. And he often urged them with the oracle which bade them trust to walls of wood, showing them that walls of wood could signify nothing else but ships; and that the island of Salamis was termed in it, not miserable or unhappy, but had the epithet of divine, for that it should one day be associated with a great good fortune of the Greeks. At length his opinion prevailed, and he obtained a decree that the city should be committed to the protection of Minerva, "queen of Athens;" that they who were of age ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough

... States: 1st, that which related to the payment of debts; 2d, the provision for no future confiscations; 3d, the restitution of estates already confiscated. The first could not be denied. "Those," he said, "might be branded with the epithet of disorganizers, who threatened a dissolution of the Union in case the measures they dictated were not obeyed; and he knew, although he did not ascribe it to any member of the House, that men high in office and reputation had industriously spread an alarm that the Union would be ...
— Albert Gallatin - American Statesmen Series, Vol. XIII • John Austin Stevens

... in the island of Thera in the Aegean sea there are many which record in deeply graven letters the friendship and devotion to each other of Spartan warrior-comrades; it seems strange at first to find how often such an epithet of praise occurs as Bathycles DANCES WELL, Eumelos is a PERFECT DANCER ([gr aristos orcestas]). One hardly in general expects one warrior to praise another for his dancing! But when one realizes what is really meant—namely the fitness of the loved comrade ...
— Pagan & Christian Creeds - Their Origin and Meaning • Edward Carpenter

... Wakefield remarks: "Some readers, keeping in mind the 'narrow cell' above, have mistaken the 'lowly bed' in this verse for the grave—a most puerile and ridiculous blunder;" and Mitford says: "Here the epithet 'lowly,' as applied to 'bed,' occasions some ambiguity as to whether the poet meant the bed on which they sleep, or the grave in which they are laid, which in poetry is called a 'lowly bed.' Of course the ...
— Select Poems of Thomas Gray • Thomas Gray

... *Sophia wisdom philosophy, sophomore *Techne art technicality, architect *Tele far, far off telepathy, telescope {*Temno cut } {*Tomos that which is } epitome, anatomy, tome { cut off } *Theos god theosophy, pantheism *Therme heat isotherm, thermodynamics {Tithenai place } epithet, hypothesis, {Thesis a placing, } anathema { arrangement } *Treis three trichord, trigonometry *Zoon animal zoology, ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor

... offence; but remembering his sole dependence for subsistence was in the power of Mr. Payne, he concealed his resentment; yet could not refrain from speaking freely behind his back, and saying 'he thought him a d——d dull fellow;' though, indeed, this was an epithet he was pleased to bestow on every one who did not think as he would have them. His frequent demands for a supply obliged Mr. Payne to tell him he must pursue some other line of life, for he was sure Colonel Martyn would be displeased with him for having done so much. This resource being stopped, ...
— The Poetical Works of William Collins - With a Memoir • William Collins

... obvious irritation. "I don't pretend to be a Christian, as you know, but if there is one element in Christianity that distinguishes it, it is the brotherhood of man. That's pure nitroglycerin, though it's been mixed with so much sawdust. Incendiary is a mild epithet. I never read the sermons you refer to; I dare say they're crude, but they're probably attempts to release an explosive which would blow your comfortable social system and its authority ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... tongue, you howling jade!" he cried—and the epithet sufficed to destroy every possible remnant of forbearance in the ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald

... magnificent of the starry phenomena, is the Milky Way or Whey; and, indeed, the epithet seems superfluous, for all whey is to a certain extent milky. The Band of Orion is familiar to all of us by name; but it is not a musical band, as most people are inclined to think it is. Perhaps ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, August 7, 1841 • Various

... text which cannot be reproduced], the divine swine-herd; he could have done no more for Menelaus or Agamemnon. And Theocritus (a very ancient poet, but he was one of our own tribe, for he wrote nothing but pastorals) gave the same epithet to a husbandman [Greek text which cannot be reproduced]. The divine husbandman replied to Hercules, who was but [Greek text] himself. These were civil Greeks, and who understood the dignity of our calling. Among the Romans, we have in the first ...
— Cowley's Essays • Abraham Cowley

... certainly have regarded them with more interest. He was profoundly indifferent to the character of the people with whom he had to do, whether they were catalogued in the "book of snobs" or not. It is generally people who are themselves snobs who call their intimates by that offensive epithet, attributing to them the sin they fall into themselves. The Duke distinguished between gentlemen and cads, when it was a question of dining at the same table, but in matters of business he believed the distinction of no importance. He came ...
— Doctor Claudius, A True Story • F. Marion Crawford

... triumph, condemned the expensive style in which my father had reared his children, the studied elegance which had characterised my mother's dress and habitation, and the hospitality, which was now marked by the ungrateful epithet of prodigal luxuriance, but which had evinced the open liberality ...
— Beaux and Belles of England • Mary Robinson

... him in the field. Few recruits had yet joined them, and they were still substantially the old body. They voted Caesar the name of Liberator. They struck medals for him, in which he was described as Pater Patriae, an epithet which Cicero had once with quickened pulse heard given to himself by Pompey. "Imperator" had been a title conferred hitherto by soldiers in the field on a successful general. It was now granted to Caesar in a ...
— Caesar: A Sketch • James Anthony Froude

... against himself; he talked about "that dwarf, Poinsinet;" "that buffoon, Poinsinet;" "that conceited, hump-backed Poinsinet;" and he would spend hours before the glass, abusing his own face as he saw it reflected there, and vowing that he grew handsomer at every fresh epithet that ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray

... wander about the island, the neighbours speak of it by its Christian name, followed by the Christian name of its father. If this is not enough to identify it, the father's epithet—whether it is a nickname or the name ...
— The Aran Islands • John M. Synge

... Capitol and the White House. Built by a man of wealth, it bears to this day the impress of the large ideas and quiet elegance of colonial times; but the shadow which speedily fell across it made it a marked place even in those early days. While it has always escaped the hackneyed epithet of "haunted," families that have moved in have as quickly moved out, giving as their excuse that no happiness was to be found there and that sleep was impossible under its roof. That there was some reason for this lack of rest within walls ...
— The Filigree Ball • Anna Katharine Green

... have ceased to think some of the most affecting passages in Shakespeare ridiculous. . . . Yet the English themselves, no great while since, half blushed at these criticisms, and were content if the epithet 'bizarre' ('votre bizarre Shakespeare') was allowed to be translated into 'a wild, irregular genius.' Everything was wild and irregular except rhymesters in toupees. A petty conspiracy of decorums took the place of what was becoming to humanity." In the summer of 1822 Hunt went by sailing vessel ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Nineteenth Century • Henry A. Beers

... along up the stairs, Pat. I will show you where to put the—" and Mr. Arnot again seemed to hesitate for a term, but the blank was more expressive of his contempt than any epithet could be, since his tone and ...
— A Knight Of The Nineteenth Century • E. P. Roe

... he has gathered in the fruits of it, and so on from year to year; and this enjoyment forming a continued possession is easily transformed into a property. The ancients, says Grotius, by giving to Ceres the epithet of Legislatrix, and to a festival celebrated in her honour the name of Thesmorphoria, insinuated that the distribution of lands produced a new kind of right; that is, the right of property different from that which results from the law ...
— A Discourse Upon The Origin And The Foundation Of - The Inequality Among Mankind • Jean Jacques Rousseau

... indebted to Mr Grey for an epithet more expressive of the original (Marmarygas) than any other, perhaps, in all our language. See the Ode on the Progress ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer

... one knee, trembling from head to foot. Some endearing epithet, uttered in French, which converted the laugh on his lips into a smile, broke as it were, unconsciously from her; and he felt the arm upon his shoulder shiver like the wing of a bird just as it ...
— Mabel's Mistake • Ann S. Stephens

... epic was called by him a comedy because its ending was not tragical, but "happy"; and admiration gave it the epithet "divine." It is in three parts—Inferno (hell), Purgatorio (purgatory), and Paradiso (paradise). It has been made accessible to English readers in the metrical translations of Carey, Longfellow, Norton, and others, and in the excellent ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various

... and with good reason. An officer belonging to a British man-of-war would call you out for questioning his claim to the epithet. But I think you underrate your skill with the small-sword. I've seen you doing very well ...
— The Flag of Distress - A Story of the South Sea • Mayne Reid

... are said to have been the produce of long and patient labour. The epithet of "slow" was early given to him by Rochester, and was frequently repeated. In truth his mind, unless we are greatly mistaken, was naturally a very meagre soil, and was forced only by great labour and outlay to bear fruit which, after ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... was hustled by the mob, the surging masses roared her name and accompanied it with every species of insulting epithet; they thronged after the carriage, hooting, jeering, cursing, and even assailing the vehicle with missiles. A stone crushed through a blind, wounding Laura's forehead, and so stunning her that she hardly knew what further transpired ...
— The Gilded Age, Complete • Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner

... dear Friend, that your letter by Mr. Williams afforded me great pleasure in the perusal, and it should most undoubtedly have been answered 'ere now had not I been deprived of opportunities; and at all events I must write by the good Man! I think the epithet you bestowed a very judicious one—but I really believe, Chloe, you have made a conquest there—when he delivered me your letter, 'It is from Miss Chloe,' said he with a (methought) ...
— The Story of Cooperstown • Ralph Birdsall

... viewing the busts of Caracalla, both here and in the Capitol at Rome; there was a certain ferocity in the eyes, which seemed to contradict the sweetness of the other features, and remarkably justified the epithet Caracuyl, by which he was distinguished by the antient inhabitants of North-Britain. In the language of the Highlanders caracuyl signifies cruel eye, as we are given to understand by the ingenious editor of Fingal, who seems to think that Caracalla is no other than the ...
— Travels Through France and Italy • Tobias Smollett

... calculated to soothe an angry man, but Thorward reflected that the epithet was figurative, and bore a peculiar signification when uttered by a woman; he therefore continued his self-restraint and ...
— The Norsemen in the West • R.M. Ballantyne

... to the style and versification of the Monody, the heroic couplet in which it is written has long been a sort of Ulysses' bow, at which Poetry tries her suitors, and at which they almost all fail. Redundancy of epithet and monotony of cadence are the inseparable companions of this metre in ordinary hands; nor could all the taste and skill of Sheridan keep it wholly free from these defects in his own. To the subject of metre, he had, nevertheless, paid ...
— Memoirs of the Life of the Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan V1 • Thomas Moore

... scrambling behind her was immediately followed by a smothered epithet. Beatrice turned in time to see Sir Redmond ...
— Her Prairie Knight • B.M. Sinclair, AKA B. M. Bower

... epithet "base" echoed in his heart; the young man shuddered, and felt that he had deserved it; he felt that he had inflicted a great wrong on Telimena; his conscience told him that she had reproached him justly: yet he felt that after ...
— Pan Tadeusz • Adam Mickiewicz

... (the epithet is over-coloured!) being the William Bulmer who, in 1795, issued the Poems of Goldsmith and Parnell. "I" (says the writer of the note) "was chiefly instrumental to this ingenious artist's [Bewick's] excellence ...
— De Libris: Prose and Verse • Austin Dobson

... and since breakfast the young men had been drinking, smoking, telling tales, and writing paragraphs; from time to time the page-boy brought in proofs, and the narrators made pause till he had left the room. Frank continued reading Mike's manuscript, now and then stopping to praise a felicitous epithet. ...
— Mike Fletcher - A Novel • George (George Augustus) Moore

... consecrated," was but an epithet, and the mountain had other and more special names of its own. The Sidonians, we are told (Deut. iii. 9), called it Sirion, and another of its titles was Sion (Deut. iv. 48), unless indeed this is a corrupt reading for Sirion. ...
— Patriarchal Palestine • Archibald Henry Sayce

... sceptic of the twenty-first century raising serious doubts as to whether parts of it were not late interpolation." Mr. Gilbert Keith Chesterton in his "Crimes of England" applied to the "Anglo-German Problem" the epithet "almost magical." ...
— German Problems and Personalities • Charles Sarolea

... the work done by Fathers Ortega and Filds* had borne some fruit. Perhaps not quite after the fashion that the Jesuits believed; but when Maceta and Cataldino arrived at Guayra and founded the Reduction of Loreto, their success at first was of a nature that almost justified the epithet 'miraculous', an epithet which indeed all men apply to any enterprise of theirs which meets success. Almost from the first inception of the missions, the Jesuits found themselves in the strange position of, though being hated by the ...
— A Vanished Arcadia, • R. B. Cunninghame Graham

... cussedness of the bovine race is centred in the cow. In Australia the most opprobious epithet one can apply to a man or other object is "cow". In the whole range of a bullock-driver's vocabulary there is no word that expresses his blistering scorn so well as "cow". To an exaggerated feminine perversity the cow adds a ...
— Three Elephant Power • Andrew Barton 'Banjo' Paterson

... was scurrying down the street of the Radical village where he lived, with a score of men after him. Clods and stones were flying, and the Old Tory had his hand up to protect his head. Yet ever as he fled, he turned him about to cry an epithet injurious to the good name of some great Radical leader. It was a time when the political atmosphere was prickly with electricity, and men's passions easily flared up—specially the passions of those who had nothing whatever to do with ...
— Bog-Myrtle and Peat - Tales Chiefly Of Galloway Gathered From The Years 1889 To 1895 • S.R. Crockett

... recovered from the error—to put for the moment no worse epithet to it—of the death of Barneveldt. He had killed his best counsellor; thenceforward his power diminished; and with every rebuff he who had abandoned his first adviser complained that God had abandoned him. Davies sums up the case thus: "The escutcheon of Maurice is bright with the record ...
— A Wanderer in Holland • E. V. Lucas

... "revolt," which some fiery spirits among these young men are to raise before I dare express my real opinions concerning questions about which we older men had to fight, in the teeth of fierce public opposition and obloquy—of something which might almost justify even the grandiloquent epithet of a Reign of Terror—before our excellent successors ...
— Collected Essays, Volume V - Science and Christian Tradition: Essays • T. H. Huxley

... cowardly French,—sinner ye," said the Elder, struggling for an epithet not unbecoming his cloth. "Did you think you was goin' to get me out o' yer way's easy's that, 's I dare say ye have better folks than me, ...
— Saxe Holm's Stories • Helen Hunt Jackson

... subtle foxes; your dens are in darkness, and your mischief is hatched upon your beds of secret whoredoms.' He says, 'I own the words but I deny thy voice.' Such was the unhallowed spirit of controversy in that age. A harsh epithet was called faithful dealing: thus, a learned clergyman, writing upon Baptism, entitled his work—'The Anabaptists ducked and plunged over head and ears—washed and shrunk in the washing'; to which an equally learned Baptist replied, in his 'Baby Baptism ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... expanded into its wider meaning of general benevolence. So under another phase of its primary sense we find the epithet used to express the excellence and characteristic qualities proper to the idea or standard of its subject, to wit, genuine, thrifty, well-liking, appropriate, not abortive, monstrous, prodigious, discordant. In the Litany, "the kindly fruits of the earth" ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 188, June 4, 1853 • Various

... he whom Ganganelli called the "beautiful" Braschi, well deserved that epithet. No nobler or more plastic beauty was to be seen; no face that more reminded one of the divine beauty of ancient sculpture, no form that could be called a better counterfeit of the Belvedere Apollo. And it was ...
— The Daughter of an Empress • Louise Muhlbach

... Sabbatius, which is an epithet given to the god Bacchus, whose nocturnal festivals were celebrated in debauchery. Arnobius and Julius Firmicus Maternus inform us that in these festivals they slipped a golden serpent into the ...
— The Phantom World - or, The philosophy of spirits, apparitions, &c, &c. • Augustin Calmet

... is fried as "porgie." And apropos of him, let us note a curious instance of the tenacity of associated ideas. The street boys of our day and early home were wont to term the hetairai of the public walks "scup." The young Athenians applied to the classic courtesans the epithet of [Greek: saperdion], the name of a small fish very abundant in the Black Sea. Here now is a bit of slang which may fairly be warranted to ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, No. 38, December, 1860 • Various

... strong-minded goddess, and insisted upon her right to adopt the habits of the other sex. Among them was the practice of hunting, of which she was passionately fond. Indeed, it was from her devotion to the pleasures of the chase that she obtained the epithet of the "Chased" DIANA—wild boars, and such like ungallant brutes, sometimes annoying her by refusing to be chased themselves, and by chasing her instead. There are those who pretend to think that "chaste," instead of "chased," was really the original epithet, and that ...
— Punchinello, Vol.1, No. 12 , June 18,1870 • Various

... and are distinguished for nicety of epithet and elaborate scholarly finish. He has feeling, a rich imagination, and ...
— The Swiss Family Robinson; or Adventures in a Desert Island • Johann David Wyss

... Egyptians made the emblem of intellectual power; or like the path of sound through the air, at every step he pauses and half recedes, and from the retrogressive movement collects the force which again carries him onward. Praecipitandus est liber spiritus, says Petronius Arbiter most happily. The epithet, liber, here balances the preceding verb, and it is not easy to conceive more meaning condensed ...
— English literary criticism • Various

... must allow myself to be changeable and uncertain—though hitherto having steered through life a fairly straight course—and that sometimes I can even doubt as to my politics, whether they should be defined Whig or Tory; as to my religion, whether it is most truly chargeable by the epithet high or low; as to my likings, whether I best prefer solitude or society; as to literature, whether gaieties or gravities please me most. In fact, I recognise good in everything, though sometimes hidden by evil, right (by intention, at least) ...
— My Life as an Author • Martin Farquhar Tupper

... now seized him: his late difficulties had impressed him; and the parson of the place, who subsequently married Schubart's sister, was friendly and skilful enough to turn the impression to account. Had poor Schubart always been in such hands, the epithet 'poor' could never have belonged to him. In this little village-school he introduced some important reforms and improvements, and in consequence attracted several valuable scholars. Also for his ...
— The Life of Friedrich Schiller - Comprehending an Examination of His Works • Thomas Carlyle

... allegories. In execution it is almost perfect. Don Juan is in scope and magnitude a far wider work; but no considerable series of stanzas in Don Juan are so free from serious artistic flaw. From first to last, every epithet hits the white; every line that does not convulse with laughter stings or lashes. It rises to greatness by the fact that, underneath all its lambent buffoonery, it is aflame with righteous wrath. Nowhere in such space, save in some of the prose of ...
— Byron • John Nichol

... learning produce excellence. But a poet is formed by the hand of nature; he is aroused by mental vigor, and inspired by what we may call the spirit of divinity itself. Therefore our Ennius has a right to give to poets the epithet of Holy, [11] because they are, as it were, lent to mankind by the ...
— The Pleasures of Life • Sir John Lubbock

... who, without being a physician, had some knowledge of medicine, and took no fees — who cured both rich and poor, and took no money from either, he confessed that he was such a man, that he was an empiric. She had also called him a mean alchymist. Whether he were an alchymist or not, the epithet mean could only be applied to those who begged and cringed, and he had never done either. As regarded his being a dreamer about the philosopher's stone, whatever his opinions upon that subject might be, he had been silent, and had never troubled ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay

... disreputable character of Peiraeus. Police officers of the city. Favourite epithet of the city. The Athenian orators. Excellence to which eloquence attained at. Dr Johnson's contemptuous derision of the civilisation of the people of. Their books and book education. An Athenian day. ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 4 (of 4) - Lord Macaulay's Speeches • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... energetic connection among its particles, and that the idea of foulness is essentially connected with dissolution and death. Thus the purity of the rock, contrasted with the foulness of dust or mould, is expressed by the epithet "living," very singularly given in the rock, in almost all languages; singularly I say, because life is almost the last attribute one would ascribe to stone, but for this visible energy and connection of its particles: and so of water as opposed to stagnancy. And I do not think that, ...
— Modern Painters Volume II (of V) • John Ruskin

... misery there was, however, in my school experience. The boys nicknamed me "Martin's pet," and sometimes called out that dreadful epithet to me as I passed along the street. I did not know all that it meant, but it seemed to me a term of the utmost opprobrium, and I know that it kept me from responding as freely as I should otherwise have done to that excellent teacher, my only schoolmaster, to ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Carnegie • Andrew Carnegie

... actually called Lady Rochester, but "La Triste Heritiere." A similar falsification had been practised in Edwards's edition of 1793, but a different portrait had been copied. It is needless, almost, to remark how ill applied is Hamilton's epithet.—B.] ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys

... lessons from the patriots of the Revolution. They met wrong promptly, and defended right against the first encroachment. To sit here and hear ourselves and constituents, and their rights and institutions (essential to their safety), assailed from day to day—denounced by every epithet calculated to degrade and render us odious; and to meet all this in silence,—or still worse, to reason with the foul slanderers,—would eventually destroy every feeling of pride and dignity, and sink us in feelings to the condition of the slaves they would emancipate. And this the Senator advises ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 7 • Various

... in the upper regions of the air affect the colour and brilliancy of the flowers? Simply thus. Bees, as we are all aware on the authority of the great Dr. Watts, are industrious creatures which employ each shining hour (well-chosen epithet, 'shining') for the good of the community, and to the best purpose. The bee, in fact, is the bon bourgeois of the insect world: he attends strictly to business, loses no time in wild or reckless excursions, and flies by the straightest ...
— Science in Arcady • Grant Allen

... transport of rage the Prince sprang up from his chair. He hurled an abusive epithet into the Colonel's face, and his right hand sought the dagger in his belt. The attendant, who was about to serve up to his master a ruddy lobster on a silver dish, recoiled in alarm. But the Colonel, without moving an inch from his place, placed the silver hunting whistle that hung ...
— The Coming Conquest of England • August Niemann

... the same longitude as the north of Sumatra; and I merely wish to mention some peculiarities connected with the Burmese. The government is entirely despotic, and the sovereign almost deified. When anything belonging to him is mentioned, the epithet 'golden' is invariably attached to it. When he is said to have heard anything, 'it has reached the golden ears:' the perfume of roses is described as grateful to the 'golden nose.' The sovereign is sole proprietor ...
— The World of Waters - A Peaceful Progress o'er the Unpathed Sea • Mrs. David Osborne

... chimed in, "give her this abusive epithet? But however much she may make allowance for this, can she, when there are so many others who tell idle tales on her account, put up with your coming and ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin

... are to be met with in most poets, and I am very much tempted to incline to Forsyth's opinion that Homer himself was neither more nor less than an improvisatore, the Greek language affording nearly as many poetic licences as the Italian, and the faculty of heaping epithet on epithet ...
— After Waterloo: Reminiscences of European Travel 1815-1819 • Major W. E Frye

... became overbold and halted for a moment—at least six feet from this prostrate monster—with her white skirts gathered in her hand, ready for flight. But neither sound nor motion came from the bush. With one little foot she then overturned the satirical headboard, and muttered "Beasts!"—an epithet which probably, at that moment, conveniently classified in her mind the entire male population of Red Gulch. For Miss Mary, being possessed of certain rigid notions of her own, had not, perhaps, properly appreciated ...
— Short Story Classics (American) Vol. 2 • Various

... which the epithet of cunning may be best ascribed, is, I think, the flea. If you doubt this, try to catch one. What double backsprings he will turn, what fancy dodges he will execute, and how, at last, you will have to give up the game and acknowledge yourself beaten ...
— Round-about Rambles in Lands of Fact and Fancy • Frank Richard Stockton

... euphemisms for fairies and for the devil are too familiar to quote." [117] Similarly the name of a god was considered as part of him and hence partaking of his divine nature. It was thus so potent that it could not be mentioned on ordinary occasions or by common persons. Allah is only an epithet for the name of God among the Muhammadans and his True or Great Name is secret. Those who know it have power over all created things. Clearly then the divine power is held to reside in the name itself. The concealment of the name of the tutelary ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India—Volume I (of IV) • R.V. Russell

... empire: I had not even with me, by a succession of disagreeable chances, a single servant who could speak Russian, and had it not been for a German physician (Dr. Renner) who in the most handsome manner volunteered his services as our interpreter as far as Moscow, we should have justly merited the epithet of deaf and dumb, applied by the Russians to persons unacquainted with their language. Well! even in this state, our journey would have been quite safe and easy, so great is the hospitality of the nobles ...
— Ten Years' Exile • Anne Louise Germaine Necker, Baronne (Baroness) de Stael-Holstein

... blur this distinction and to raise The Dunciad very nearly to the level of genuine epic. The term "Epic Satire" (p. 6) certainly seems to refer to the wedding of two disparate genres in The Dunciad, lifting it above satire that is merely "rugged" or "mischievously gay" (p. 8). (The epithet is also, perhaps, a thrust at Edward Ward, who had pinned it on The Dunciad with a ...
— An Essay on Satire, Particularly on the Dunciad • Walter Harte

... increased to fourteen. Large open spaces were set apart in the city, called Campi, for assemblies of the people and martial exercises, as well as for games. Of nineteen which are mentioned, the Campus Martius was the principal. It was near the Tiber, whence it was called Tiberinus. The epithet Martius was derived from the plain being consecrated to Mars, the god of war. In the later ages it was surrounded by several magnificent structures, and porticoes were erected, under which, in bad weather, the citizens could go through their ...
— Conversion of a High Priest into a Christian Worker • Meletios Golden

... to move by fire and blood, and beyond any war in human annals to command the interest of mankind through their sterner affections. We have said that it was eminently a romantic war; but not in the meaning with which we apply that epithet to the semi-fabulous wars of Charlemagne and his Paladins, or even to the Crusaders. Here are no memorable contests of generosity; no triumphs glorified by mercy; no sacrifices of interest the most basely selfish to martial honor; no ear on either side for the pleadings ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey

... the compiler of "Beowulf's Lay", 2025) had, in the Dane's eyes, almost eclipsed Sciold as conqueror and lawgiver. His name Frode almost looks as if his epithet Sapiens had become his popular appellation, and it befits him well. Of him were told many stories, and notably the one related of our Edwin by Bede (and as it has been told by many men of many rulers since Bede wrote, ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")

... of their history, both in England and Scotland, beggars were generally of such a description as to entitle them to the epithet of sturdy; accordingly they appear to have been regarded often as impostors and always as nuisances and pests. "Sornares," so violently denounced in those acts, were what are here called "masterful ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 12, No. 336 Saturday, October 18, 1828 • Various

... formerly, and, perhaps, more narrowly observed. A lieutenant of the foot guards, who was a public Ganymede, and against whom I had that natural antipathy and abhorrence I have for all such wretches, having indulged himself in some very impertinent jokes on the secret of my amour, I bestowed on him the epithet he deserved: we drew our swords, and he was wounded. On the Sunday following I presented myself to pay my respects to his Majesty on the parade, who said to me as he passed, "The storm and the thunder shall rend your heart; beware!" {1} ...
— The Life and Adventures of Baron Trenck - Vol. 1 (of 2) • Baron Trenck

... the pig I lived with." Tinilau called out from his room, "Had the fellow you lived with such a fowl?" "Yes, the pig had one just like it." "Tell us more about him," and so Ae went on chattering, and still using the abusive epithet pig when speaking of his master, and talked about the turtles, what a fine feast they had, etc. As it got lighter, he looked up to the roof and said, "This too is just like the house the pig lived in." By-and-by he woke ...
— Samoa, A Hundred Years Ago And Long Before • George Turner

... called, which had immortalised his own name. Need he say he alluded to the legend of "Little Jack Horner"? (Cheers.) Some commentators are of opinion that "HORNER." was a typographical error for "HOMER." But the prefix; and the epithet combined to militate against this ingenious and plausible, but specious, theory. "HOMER" was not in any sense "Little," nor was his Pagan name "JACK." Again, "Corner," in the second line, could not in any language have ever rhymed with "HOMER." He knew that ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101. October 10, 1891 • Various

... neither then nor before," returned Senor Perkins gravely. Seeing Hurlstone's momentary surprise, he went on, "The late Mrs. M'Corkle and I never met—we were personally unknown to each other. You may have observed the epithet 'unmet' in the first line of the first stanza; you will then understand that the privation of actual contact with this magnetic soul would naturally impart more difficulty into ...
— The Crusade of the Excelsior • Bret Harte

... human heart in all its changes, is the first requisite of the Dramatic Poet. The power of condensed expression—the faculty of giving vent to "thoughts that breathe in words that burn"—the art of painting, by a line, an epithet, an expression, the inmost and most intense feelings of the heart, is equally indispensable. The skill of the novelist in arranging the incidents of the piece so as to keep the attention of the spectators erect, and their interest undiminished, is not less necessary. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 363, January, 1846 • Various

... after the First Empire style, hung and furnished in yellow satin, whose high white panels were decorated with trophies of antique weapons carved in wood and gilded. A dauber from the Ecole des Beaux-Arts would have branded with the epithet "sham" the armchairs and sofas ornamented with sphinx heads in bronze, as well as the massive green marble clock upon which stood, all in gold, a favorite court personage, clothed in a cap, sword, and fig-leaf, who seemed ...
— A Romance of Youth, Complete • Francois Coppee

... words so certainly denoted THAT Caesar?—or so certainly connoted HIS individual attributes? To fill out the complete measure of what the epithet 'true' may ideally mean, my thought ought to bear a fully determinate and unambiguous 'one-to-one-relation' to its own particular object. In the ultrasimple universe imagined the reference is uncertified. ...
— The Meaning of Truth • William James

... in Wood Street, destroyed by the Great Fire, stood on the north side of Oat Lane, in the Ward of Aldersgate Within. "The additional epithet of staining," says Maitland, "is as uncertain as the time of the foundation; some imagining it to be derived from the painters' stainers, who probably lived near it; and others from its being built with stone, to distinguish it from those in the City that were built with wood. The advowson of the ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury

... about speaking to Mr. Turner and seeing that I did the work I was brought on board to do, and, seeing Turner's eye on us, finished his speech with an ugly epithet. My nerves were strained to the utmost: lack of sleep and food had done their work. I was no longer in command of the Ella; I was a common sailor, ready to vent my ...
— The After House • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... solving the insoluble, and knowing the unknowable. His clear and fearless utterances upon these points place him in the rank of intellectual heroes. But his own soul, compact of human faith and love, was far too religious and too sanguine to merit either epithet as vulgarly applied. ...
— Percy Bysshe Shelley • John Addington Symonds

... (specially imported) in their garters? I didn't care much for it myself, you remember. I think I must have been thinking of other things when I wrote it. But you, I recollect, consoled me by refusing to regard it as other than 'ripping.' 'Clinking' was, as I recall it, Oswald's consolatory epithet. You'll weep with me, I feel confident, when you hear that my Editor does not share your sentiments. He writes me that it is not up to my usual form. He fears that the public, &c., and he trusts that in the next chapter, &c. Let us hope that the public will, in this matter, take your views, and ...
— New Treasure Seekers - or, The Bastable Children in Search of a Fortune • E. (Edith) Nesbit

... gone Nevil and the chief remained alone in the bare room. Little Black Fox rose from his pile of skins and stood erect. He was a mere youth, but of such shape and appearance that one could easily understand the epithet "romantic" Rosebud had applied to him. He stood at least four inches over six feet, and dwarfed even Nevil's height. But it was in the perfect symmetry of his lithe, sinuous body, and the keen, handsome, high-caste face where his ...
— The Watchers of the Plains - A Tale of the Western Prairies • Ridgewell Cullum

... feet. They shake the full hand (I was reproved for offering the fingers only); and when politely disposed, the inferior wraps his fist in the hem of his garment. They have nothing corresponding with the European idea of manners: they degrade all ceremony by the epithet Shughl el banat, or "girls' work," and pique themselves upon downrightness of manner,—a favourite mask, by the by, for savage cunning to assume. But they are equally free from affectation, shyness, ...
— First footsteps in East Africa • Richard F. Burton

... who had also been brought forward before the Emperor's eyes to complete the show of prisoners, could not fail to attract his attention. Napoleon apparently remembered seeing him on the battlefield and, addressing him, again used the epithet "young man" that was connected in his memory ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy

... chaotic scene at this juncture. All in the cool of a white "sailor suit," he turned aside from the path of duty—which led straight to the house of a maiden aunt—and paused to hop with joy upon the sidewalk. A repeated epithet continuously half panted, half squawked, somewhere in the nest of gladiators, caught his ear, and he took it up excitedly, ...
— Penrod • Booth Tarkington

... plan succeeded admirably. Whitbread asked for information about the proposed marriage of the Princess Charlotte to the Prince of Orange. Stephen instantly sprang up and rebuked the inquirer. Whitbread complained of the epithet 'indecent' used by his opponent. The Speaker intervened and had to explain that the epithet was applied to Mr. Whitbread's proposition and not to Mr. Whitbread himself. Stephen, thus sanctioned, took care to repeat ...
— The Life of Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, Bart., K.C.S.I. - A Judge of the High Court of Justice • Sir Leslie Stephen

... after Motherwell, although his version is entitled The Jolly Goshawk. The epithet Gay has the sanction of Scott and Jamieson. Buchan gives a rendering of this ballad under title of The Scottish Squire. Whin, furze. Bigly, spacious. Sark, shroud. Claith, cloth. Steeking, stitching. Gar'd, made. Chive, morsel. ...
— Ballad Book • Katherine Lee Bates (ed.)

... here obliges many of them to enlarge their incomes by taking farms and grazing cattle. This, in my opinion, diminishes their respectability, nor can the farmer be supposed to entertain any great reverence for the ghostly advice of a pastor (they literally deserve the epithet) who perhaps the day before overreached him in a bargain. I would not have you to suppose there are no exceptions to this character, but it would serve most of them. I had been fishing with my uncle, Captain Scott, ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume I (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart

... have had enough of the Sparrow (Passer domesticus), and the mildest epithet reserved for him seems to be ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100. February 14, 1891. • Various

... latter part of August, a trip to Niagara or Saratoga or Cape May or Lake George, or some of those simple, old-fashioned resorts whose mere mention brings a sense of pre-existence, with a thrill of fond regret, to the age which can no longer be described as middle and is perhaps flattered by the epithet of three-quartering. No doubt people go to those places yet, but Florindo and Lindora have not been to any of them for so many summers that they can hardly realize them as still open: for them they were closed in the earliest ...
— Imaginary Interviews • W. D. Howells

... over on both sides, I first desired to know what name she went by before I found her: "For," says I, "having only hitherto called you madam, and my lady, besides the future expression of my love to you in the word dear, I would know your original name, that so I might join it with that tender epithet."—"That you shall," says she, "and also my family at another opportunity; but as my name will not take up long time to repeat at present, it is Youwarkee. And pray," says she, "now gratify me with the knowledge of yours."—"My dear Youwarkee," says I, "my name was Peter Wilkins when I heard it last; ...
— Life And Adventures Of Peter Wilkins, Vol. I. (of II.) • Robert Paltock

... fitted to prize a man, could he find one to match his mood. He finds such, but only in the past. He sings rather than talks. He pours upon you a kind of satirical, heretical, critical poem, with regular cadences, and generally catching up near the beginning some singular epithet, which serves as a refrain when his song is full, or with which as with a knitting-needle he catches up the stitches, if he has chanced now and then to let fall a row. For the higher kinds of poetry he has no sense, and his talk on that subject ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin

... courageous author, is the last that remains to be made, when nothing else can be urged against a poet. If you are true in your portrayal, if, by dint of working night and day you succeed in writing the most difficult language in the world, the epithet immoral is cast in your face. Socrates was immoral, Jesus Christ was immoral. Both were persecuted in the name of the societies they overthrew or reformed. When the world wishes to destroy any one, ...
— Balzac • Frederick Lawton

... and buttermilk." "How chances it they travel?" inquires Hamlet concerning "the tragedians of the city"—"their residence both in reputation and profit were better both ways." John Stephens, writing in 1615, and describing "a common player," observes, "I prefix the epithet 'common' to distinguish the base and artless appendants of our City companies, which oftentimes start away into rustical wanderings, and then, like Proteus, start back again into the City number." The strollers were of two classes, however. First, the theatrical companies protected ...
— A Book of the Play - Studies and Illustrations of Histrionic Story, Life, and Character • Dutton Cook

... Kabinga go wrote us a letter of thanks, and his wife asked for an Emden armband and a button. They all gave us three cheers as they steamed away. 'Come to Calcutta some time!' was the last thing the Captain said, 'and catch the pilots so that those [unprintable seaman's epithet] fellows will feel something of the ...
— World's War Events, Vol. I • Various

... the Commissioners, proclaimed a general amnesty to the planters who had fled during the revolutions, earnestly invited their return to the possession of their estates, and, with a delicate regard to their feelings, decreed that the epithet "emigrant" should not be applied to them. Many of the planters accepted the invitation, and returned to the peaceful possession ...
— Masterpieces of Negro Eloquence - The Best Speeches Delivered by the Negro from the days of - Slavery to the Present Time • Various

... social state are by no means so flattering; but it is remarkable, and, perhaps, explanatory, that the most unfavourable accounts are the more modern ones. All without the pale of Roman civilization were considered "barbarians," and the epithet was freely applied. Indeed, it is well known that, when Cicero had a special object in view, he could describe the Celtae of Gaul as the vilest monsters, and the hereditary enemies of the gods, for whose wickedness extermination was the only remedy. ...
— An Illustrated History of Ireland from AD 400 to 1800 • Mary Frances Cusack

... of Noah,—Shem, Ham, and Japhet,—I have called Japhet the youngest (because he is always named last), and have supposed that, in the genealogies where he is called "Japhet the elder," he may have received the epithet because by that time there were ...
— Poems by Jean Ingelow, In Two Volumes, Volume II. • Jean Ingelow

... that Helen could be embosomed in its hallowed shades. Young as he was, he felt a kind of fatherly interest in the child—she had been so often thrown upon him for sympathy and protection. (His youth may be judged by the epithet attached to his name. There were several young physicians in the town, but he was universally known as the young doctor.) From the first, he was singularly drawn towards the child. He pitied her, for he saw she had such deep capacities of suffering—he loved ...
— Helen and Arthur - or, Miss Thusa's Spinning Wheel • Caroline Lee Hentz

... of which I have read a part, and have been much interested about the "inspired idiot." (175/2. In reference to Oken (op. cit., page 282) Huxley says: "I must confess I never read his works without thinking of the epithet of 'inspired idiot' applied to our own Goldsmith.") If Owen wrote the article "Oken" (175/3. The article on Oken in the eighth edition of the "Encyclopaedia Britannica" is signed "R.O.": Huxley wrote to Darwin (April 18th, 1864), "There ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin - Volume I (of II) • Charles Darwin

... perpetuus, and semper Augustus belong to the customary titulature. Constantine I, for example, is called on one stone invictus et perpetuus ... semper Augustus, on another perpetuus imperator, semper Augustus. That Philip should have been the first to have applied to him, even once, the direct epithet, is probably a mere accident. One might have wished to connect it with his Secular Games, celebrated in 248. But by that time his son was no longer Caesar but full Augustus (since 246), and our stone must fall into ...
— Roman Britain in 1914 • F. Haverfield

... has called me "an unimpeached traitor." I ask why not "traitor," unqualified by any epithet? I will tell him; it was because he durst not. It was the act of a coward, who raises his arm to strike, but has not courage to give the blow. I will not call him villain, because it would be unparliamentary, and he is a privy counsellor. I will ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick

... when speaking of the countess to the cousin who was so fond of her, but she was angered by the application of that odious word respectable to her own prospects; and perhaps the more angered as she was somewhat inclined to feel that the epithet did suit her own position. Her engagement, she had sometimes told herself, was very respectable, and had as often told herself that it lacked other attractions which it should have possessed. She was not quite pleased with herself in having accepted John Grey,—or rather perhaps was not ...
— Can You Forgive Her? • Anthony Trollope

... off her veil and says:—"Believe me still Sagarika, my good lord; your heart is so fascinated by her, you fancy you behold Sagarika in everything." The king replies, "forgive me, dearest." The queen remarks, "Address not this to me, my lord—the epithet is another's property." The king falls at her feet. The queen observes, "Rise, my lord, rise! that wife must be unreasonable indeed, who, with such evidence of her lord's affection, can presume to be offended. Be happy, I take my leave." She ...
— Tales from the Hindu Dramatists • R. N. Dutta

... the crowd went well-nigh mad. But amid the cheering for the city's favourite, some one shouted the name of Doctor West and with it coupled a vile epithet. At once Doctor West's name swept through the crowd, hissed, jeered, cursed. This outbreak made clear one ominous fact. The enthusiasm of the multitude was not just ordinary, election-time enthusiasm. Beneath it was smouldering a desire of revenge for the ills they had suffered and were suffering—a ...
— Counsel for the Defense • Leroy Scott

... by our Continental neighbours. I suppose we reserve our best for ourselves. I expressed a wish to look at some of the new buildings, and a young gentleman of prepossessing exterior became my unaffected cicerone. He was not one who dealt in adjectives; his highest epithet of praise was "pretty decent," but one detected an honest and unquestioning pride in ...
— At Large • Arthur Christopher Benson

... content with asserting that her "able government and her wise measures had proved her to be alike the mother of the sovereign and of the state." Louis, acting under the advice of the wily minister, lavished upon her every epithet of honour and respect; apparently forgetting that he had previously exiled her from the Court, taken up arms against her, and that he even then believed her to be in secret correspondence with his enemies; while at the same period Richelieu records in his Memoirs that the Pope ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe

... about to die, refused to accept this offer of his life from the enemy. Into the very muzzles of the British cannon the sergeant hurled back the offer of his life with one word. That word was the vilest epithet in the French language. The cannons roared and the old sergeant and his survivors died with the word on their lips. Hugo wisely devoted an entire chapter to that ...
— "And they thought we wouldn't fight" • Floyd Gibbons

... coming up in hoists. Barrels are rolling out of wagons. Crates are being lifted in. Is the exchange never to stop? Is no warehouse satisfied with what it has? English, which until now you judged a soft concordant language, shows here its range and mastery of epithet. And all about, moving and jostling the boxes, are men with hooks. One might think that in a former day Captain Cuttle had settled here to live and that his numerous progeny had ...
— There's Pippins And Cheese To Come • Charles S. Brooks

... we do mean when we talk about that of which we can know nothing," said the doctor, less gallantly than usual, for he resented that epithet of "old-fashioned," as applied to ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... from the Hebrew canon, i.e., to the books which were read in the church, the ecclesiastical ones(29) occupying a rank next to the canonical. In doing so he had respect to the corresponding Hebrew epithet. This was a misuse of the word apocryphal, which had a prejudicial effect on the character of the books in after-times.(30) The word, which he did not employ in an injurious sense, was adopted from him ...
— The Canon of the Bible • Samuel Davidson

... of meaning and allusion make it worthy of the minutest study. In these early poems, Milton, merely as a poet, is at his best. Something of the Elisabethan style still clings to them; but their grave sweetness, their choice wording, their originality in epithet, name, and phrase, were novelties of Milton's own. His English masters were Spenser, Fletcher, and Sylvester, the translator of Du Bartas's La Sepmaine, but nothing of Spenser's prolixity, or Fletcher's effeminacy, or Sylvester's quaintness is found in Milton's pure, ...
— Brief History of English and American Literature • Henry A. Beers

... marriage than this. To old age, he never sat near her without holding her hand in his. He never spoke to her nor of her without some tender epithet. He attributed the great happiness of his life and most of his success to her admirable qualities. He used to say that she was "the day-star, the solace, and the inspiration" of his life. She seconded every good ...
— Captains of Industry - or, Men of Business Who Did Something Besides Making Money • James Parton

... commemorate the preservation of the Three Estates. The Church of Rome has pronounced his works accursed things. Nor have our own countrymen been backward in testifying their opinion of his merits. Out of his surname they have coined an epithet for a knave, and out of his Christian name a ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... high-sounding title "beautiful and good," in order to find out what conduct on their part justified their adoption of this title, I found my soul eager with desire for intercourse with one of them; and first of all, seeing that the epithet "beautiful" was conjoined with that of "good," every beautiful person I saw, I must needs approach in my endeavour to discover, [12] if haply I might somewhere see the quality of good adhering to the quality of beauty. But, after all, ...
— The Economist • Xenophon

... views on these subjects were enunciated with a uniformity of emphasis implying complete unconsciousness of any difference in their interest and importance. She always applied to the French race the distant epithet of "those people", but she betrayed an intimate acquaintance with many of its members, and an encyclopaedic knowledge of the domestic habits, financial difficulties and private complications of various persons of social importance. Yet, as she evidently felt no incongruity in her attitude, ...
— The Reef • Edith Wharton

... meaning, but not the language, of a sentence in Aristotle's "Nicomachean Ethics" (i. 8). Aristotle there declares passionate youth to be unfitted to study political philosophy; he makes no mention of moral philosophy. The change of epithet does, however, no injustice to Aristotle's argument. His context makes it plain, that by political philosophy he means the ethics of civil society, which are hardly distinguishable from what is commonly called "morals." The maxim, in ...
— Shakespeare and the Modern Stage - with Other Essays • Sir Sidney Lee

... Phedre and none of her grandeur. She breaks herself to pieces against the huge difficulties of the conception and does not succeed in moving us.... Rachel was the mouthpiece of the gods; no longer a free agent, she poured forth every epithet of adoration that Aphrodite could suggest, clambering up higher and higher in the intensity of her emotions, whilst her audience hung breathless, riveted on every word, and dared to burst forth in thunders of applause only after she had vanished ...
— Women of Modern France - Woman In All Ages And In All Countries • Hugo P. Thieme

... that can only end in bloodshed, appears to me deserving of the epithet," said the Doctor, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 379, May, 1847 • Various

... suppose poor Rosa's muse, so fair and so fervid in Rosa's day, would seem a trifle fatigued now; but what allowances one would make! Lord Steyne said of WALTER LORRAINE that it was 'very clever and wicked.' I fancy we should apply neither epithet now. Indeed, I have always suspected that Pen's maiden effort may have been on a plane with 'The Great Hoggarty Diamond.' Yet I vow would I not ...
— And Even Now - Essays • Max Beerbohm

... on the part of other dogs. There is a heedless, reckless pluck about the Irish Terrier which is characteristic, and, coupled with the headlong dash, blind to all consequences, with which he rushes at his adversary, has earned for the breed the proud epithet of "The Dare-Devils." When "off-duty" they are characterised by a quiet, caress-inviting appearance, and when one sees them endearingly, timidly pushing their heads into their masters' hands, it is difficult to realise ...
— Dogs and All About Them • Robert Leighton

... the usual reserves, and after declaring war upon my doctrines, he vowed my prose to be "fascinating," and complained of being so bewitched as to believe, at times, that he was converted to the cause of the throne and of the altar. This epithet, "fascinating," in turn fascinated me; and I thought that my prose was, like some serpent, about to fascinate all the butcher-birds and ducks of the democratic marsh. A year passed away; these fine friendships ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 83, September, 1864 • Various

... is very much awake, and of aspect mostly modern, though not without some very curious and charming relics of antiquity embedded in the heart of much recent stone and mortar. Perhaps it will be well to visit one of these at once, taking the tram direct from the magnificent Gare de l'Est (no lesser epithet is just) to the Place Verte, which may be considered the real centre of the city; and making our way thence by a network of quieter back-streets to the Musee Plantin-Moretus, which is the goal of our immediate ambition. I bring you here at once, not merely because ...
— Beautiful Europe - Belgium • Joseph E. Morris

... look of things, I fancy the epithet fits us both, Salig Singh. You refuse to take my word for it that I know nothing of your infamous Gateway and have no intention of ever approaching it, that I have not a drop of Indian blood in me and am in no way related to or connected with Har ...
— The Bronze Bell • Louis Joseph Vance

... overalls and his shirt in front, and pulled his waistcoat over it. He might have been combing his hair for all the attention any one paid to this, except myself. Then the two friends went out, and I bethought me of that epithet which Steve again had used to the Virginian as he clapped him on the shoulder. Clearly this wild country spoke a language other than mine—the word here was a term of endearment. Such ...
— The Virginian - A Horseman Of The Plains • Owen Wister

... Jesuits of 1688. The Toleration Act had done for the Dissenters quite as much as was compatible with her dignity and security; and nothing more ought to be conceded, not the hem of one of her vestments, not an epithet from the beginning to the end of her Liturgy. All the reproaches which had been thrown on the ecclesiastical commission of James were transferred to the ecclesiastical commission of William. The two commissions indeed had nothing but the name ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 3 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... he thought: he had certainly not shown himself an affectionate husband to her for many years. But there was truth in the epithet: little as she might believe it, or as it might appear. He would not stop to re-read the letter: he had said what he wanted to say, and she could read his meaning easily enough. He had held out the olive branch. It was for her to accept or reject ...
— Brooke's Daughter - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant

... with the geographical relations of Mr Paxton's building, but rather with that sober and leisurely-moving mass—the pendulum. Even in the seventeenth century, old Graunt was shocked when some irreverent babbler spoke of one of its honourable race by the rude epithet of 'a swing-swang;' and he penned an indignant protest on the subject to the Royal Society. Since that time the pendulum has done much more to merit the reverence of the world. Plain and simple as its outward bearing is, it really ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal Vol. XVII. No. 418. New Series. - January 3, 1852. • William and Robert Chambers

... The epithet aristocrat may become odious and fatal on the banks of the Mississippi as it was on the banks of the Seine. Let no man deceive himself! These are fearful times. Thousands of our population, by the sudden stoppage of business, ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... upper bill was beaked like a hawk's, his lower was sharp as a lance, and between them issued that infuriated melody and cadence and epithet that old Patrick Henry's spirit might have migrated into from his grave in the Virginia woods. He suddenly flung himself from his vortex of song upon the bed of the sick man, with a twitching hop and rapid opening and shutting of the tail, like the fan ...
— The Entailed Hat - Or, Patty Cannon's Times • George Alfred Townsend

... "good" man is the "admirable" man. In this sense, Homer's gods are certainly "good"; every epithet he gives them—Joyous-Thunderer, Far-Darter, Cloud-Gatherer and the rest—proclaims their unapproachable "goodness." If it had been said to Homer, that his gods cannot be "good" because their behaviour is consistently cynical, ...
— The Epic - An Essay • Lascelles Abercrombie

... This epithet was applied to the work of some of his contemporaries by Southey in the preface to his Vision of Judgement, 1821. It has been generally assumed that Byron and Shelley are meant. See Introduction ...
— The English Mail-Coach and Joan of Arc • Thomas de Quincey

... The epithet agnostic, as applied to a certain attitude of scientific mind, is just, as over against excessive claims to valid knowledge made, now by theology and now by speculative philosophy. It is hardly descriptive in any absolute sense. Spencer had coined ...
— Edward Caldwell Moore - Outline of the History of Christian Thought Since Kant • Edward Moore

... reason, or mere speculation is concerned."—Sheridan cor. "And therefore he should be spared from the trouble of attending to anything else than his meaning."—Id. "It is this kind of phraseology that is distinguished by the epithet idiomatical; a species that was originally the spawn, partly of ignorance, and partly of affectation."—Campbell and Murray cor. "That neither the inflection nor the letters are such as could have been employed ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown

... Her ladyship used to go on in the carriage to Henderson's nursery ground, to get flowers. I had not the honor of knowing her, nor ever saw her but once, when I caught a glimpse of her at the door. I thought she had a pretty, earnest look, with her "pippin" face; an epithet by which ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, July, 1850. • Various

... unaccountable in the eccentricity of their arrangement, except when explained by the requirements of the EUSEBIAN Canons. I say—That particular sectional subdivision, in other words, to which the epithet "AMMONIAN" is popularly applied,—(applied however without authority, and in fact by the merest license,)—proves on careful inspection to have been only capable of being devised by one who was already in possession of the Canons of EUSEBIUS. In plain terms, ...
— The Last Twelve Verses of the Gospel According to S. Mark • John Burgon

... number, a slight youngster of twelve years, much better clothed than the rest, who had adventurously strolled in from a neighbouring manufactory. This child answered their jibes in an amiable, silly, drawling tone which seemed to justify the epithet 'Loony,' frequently applied to him. Now and then he stammered; and then companions laughed loud, and he with them. It was known that several years ago he had fallen down a flight of stone steps, alighting on the back of his head, and ...
— Tales of the Five Towns • Arnold Bennett

... Maxwell, his passions roused by the severity of her epithet, "do you forget your condition? You are a slave! Your supposed uncle is not here. You have no free papers, and are liable to be ...
— Hatchie, the Guardian Slave; or, The Heiress of Bellevue • Warren T. Ashton

... Spotted Snake!" the girls from Roselawn heard the children shrieking, and without doubt this opprobrious epithet ...
— The Campfire Girls of Roselawn - A Strange Message from the Air • Margaret Penrose

... because they won't go into a picture, or, to put it more fairly, because no picture: can in the faintest degree imitate them. But without quarrelling about words, I think that, even if "beautiful" be not the most correct epithet, they have a marvellously stimulating effect upon the imagination. Let us look round from this wonderful pinnacle in mid air, and note one or two of the most ...
— English Prose - A Series of Related Essays for the Discussion and Practice • Frederick William Roe (edit. and select.)

... gentry of Mansoul as Paul was to get the right name for sin in the seventh of the Romans. In that profoundest and intensest of all his profound and intense passages, the apostle has occasion to seek about for some expression, some epithet, some adjective, as we say, to apply to sin so as to help him to bring out to his Roman readers something of the malignity, deadliness, and unspeakable evil of sin as he had sin living and working in himself. But all the resources of the Greek language, that ...
— Bunyan Characters - Third Series - The Holy War • Alexander Whyte

... Urry Scurry!" said Uncle Mo, drawing on his imagination for an epithet. "Let me do a bit of listening.... What was it the party said again, Davy—just precisely?..." Dave was even less audible than before in his response to this, and Uncle Mo evidently softened it for repetition:—"Said if ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan

... strange if he had remained entirely outside of the sphere of its influence. As a matter of fact, he took some interest in Persian poetry almost from the outset of his poetical activity, as his letters clearly show. As early as 1821, he mentions Sa'di with the epithet herrlich, calls him the Persian Goethe and cites one of his couplets (Gul. ii. 48, qit'ah; K.S. p. 122) in the version of Herder.[198] In April, 1823, he writes from Berlin that during the preceding ...
— The Influence of India and Persia on the Poetry of Germany • Arthur F. J. Remy

... epithet was less applicable to the affair than that of "Athenian Vespers," with which the Parisian press christened it. Admiral Dartige protests indignantly against the grotesque exaggerations of his imaginative compatriots. Apart from the tragic features ...
— Greece and the Allies 1914-1922 • G. F. Abbott

... Eleanor, the terrors on which you have so often rallied me are become REALITIES, and your Catherine is in the midst of those circumstances to which we may, without exaggeration, give the epithet "horrible." I write, as I firmly believe, from the mansion of a maniac! On a visit to my Aunt Ingram, and carried by her to Thornfield, the seat of her wealthy neighbour, Mr. Rochester, how shall your Catherine's trembling pen unfold ...
— Old Friends - Essays in Epistolary Parody • Andrew Lang

... was removed, and the table replenished with bottles and glasses. Then followed the usual round of toasts—"the health of the king,"—"the invincibility of British arms,"—"success to the present expedition,"—and, with many a deriding epithet, "confusion to the rebels and ...
— The Rangers - [Subtitle: The Tory's Daughter] • D. P. Thompson

... less explicit, was not less evidently profound. But the maternal instinct is less attractive to an onlooker, because he takes it more for granted than the paternal. What endeared poor Mrs. Pethel to me was—well, the inevitability of the epithet I give her. She seemed, poor thing, so essentially out of it; and by "it" is meant the glowing mutual affinity of husband and child. Not that she didn't, in her little way, assert herself during the meal. But she did so, I thought, with the knowledge that she didn't count, and never would count. ...
— James Pethel • Max Beerbohm

... I want to do now is to say as far as possible without offence, and without hurting the feelings of the many members of Christian churches who have come amongst us to-night, that it is to be our privilege to listen here in what has been recently called the head-quarters of infidelity—an insulting epithet which I, with you and all true rationalists indignantly repudiate—a man, a Christian clergyman, a priest of the Church of England who has, as you already know, raised a hurricane of criticism throughout this ...
— The Missionary • George Griffith

... a paradox. There is another relation in human society to which this epithet has more emphatically been given: but, if we analyse the matter strictly, we shall find that all that is most sacred and beautiful in the passion between the sexes, has relation to offspring. What Milton calls, "The rites mysterious of connubial ...
— Thoughts on Man - His Nature, Productions and Discoveries, Interspersed with - Some Particulars Respecting the Author • William Godwin

... as just as Tennyson's descriptive epithet almost invariably proves to be. For at Allington the Medway, which from Aylesford Bridge to Allington Lock has dwindled to a narrow stream, swells out into a broad expanse, where many boats can easily move abreast. If the Cloisterham Weir of Edwin ...
— Dickens-Land • J. A. Nicklin

... me fat, Mrs. Wingfield? If the play was not opportunely over I should be obliged to tear myself away from your fascinating presence, in grief, at such an epithet hurled at my devoted head, I—I mean body. I may well exclaim, 'save me from my friends' when these are the unctuous compliments they pay me," the victim exclaimed with averted face ...
— A Heart-Song of To-day • Annie Gregg Savigny

... the most original member of the Wittenagemot was a young man of the name of Wilson, to whom the epithet of "Long-Bow" was soon applied on account of the extraordinary stories he retailed concerning the secrets of the upper ten. Just as he appeared to be established in the unique circle at the Chapter he disappeared, ...
— Inns and Taverns of Old London • Henry C. Shelley

... expressed in opposition to it, and his arguments as often repelled by the young braves, who could not endure his invectives. The reply was easily made, and hence in more frequent demand, than if it had imposed a greater tax upon their intellects. The epithet has often been applied to him since, and though his tastes did not lead him to seek the fame of a warrior, still it is believed he was not so devoid of courage, as has sometimes ...
— An account of Sa-Go-Ye-Wat-Ha - Red Jacket and his people, 1750-1830 • John Niles Hubbard

... admiration, on the score of her personal qualifications. Her complexion was bad, and her features were indifferent, and these characteristics were not rendered less uninterestingly conspicuous by, what makes an otherwise ugly woman quite the reverse, namely, a pair of expressive eyes; for certainly this epithet could not be applied to those of Mrs. Felix Lorraine, which gazed in all the ...
— Vivian Grey • The Earl of Beaconsfield



Words linked to "Epithet" :   calumniation, defamation, hatchet job, depiction, characterisation, word picture, calumny, picture



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