Somebody told me I looked pasty. Does that mean I've eaten too many sweets? I started taking private bassoon lessons. Is anomalous the same as anonymous? I know that a fathom is a unit of measure used by sailors, but how long is a fathom? What is a joss from Victory, by Joseph Conrad? What does eschew from The Pickwick Papers mean? What does excrescence from The Call of the Wild mean?
What does the word covert mean? In Shakespeare's Sonnet , what is an oblation? In Moby-Dick , what does vitiate mean?
In War and Peace , what does bane mean? In Jane Eyre , what are chilblains? Does mendacious refer to something that is fixable mendable? Is kickshawses one of those weird words that Shakespeare coined? What is renege , in Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra?
What is maxim? I think it's a female name but I'm not sure. Last Valentine's Day, this guy I barely know gave me a rose and said something about ardent love. What does ardent mean? What kind of literature is a picaresque novel? What does culpable mean? What's a cenotaph? What does gallimaufry mean in The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo? My vocabulary is pretty good, but that one has me stumped! What does it mean to genuflect? Someone told me I was looking wistful.
What is wistful? In David Copperfield, what does superannuated mean? Does the word syllogism have something to do with biology? I see the word benefactor a lot in my reading assignments. Is that somebody who benefits from something? I found a funny word in The Glass Castle.
Where did skedaddle come from and what does it mean? Does sinuous mean something like full of sin"? I saw the word in The Devil in the White City. What are characteristics of Modernist literature, fiction in particular? What does my brother mean when he says he's too ensconced in his studies to look for a girlfriend? My grandpa complained about a bunch of politicians making what he called chin music.
Did he mean they were in a loud band? What is melodrama? In Dracula, what's a missal? In the terms abject poverty and abject misery, what does abject mean? In Moby-Dick, what does craven mean? What does cicatrize mean? What is a noisome smell" in Tolstoy's War and Peace? In Jane Eyre, what's syncope? I just read Dracula. What's the forcemeat in Jonathan Harker's journal? Can the word stern mean more than one thing?
Where is Yoknapatawpha county? What does smouch mean? How do you pronounce quay? And what does it mean, anyway? What are some examples of paradox in the novel Frankenstein? In Ivanhoe, what does mammock mean? What does rummage mean? Is a mummer some type of religious person? Some guy I don't like told his friend I was acting all demure. When I complained about our cafeteria food, my biology teacher told me he wished they'd serve agarics.
Was he talking about some kind of dessert? Where did the name Of Mice and Men come from? What genre would you consider the book, The Outsiders? In Fahrenheit , why would a society make being a pedestrian a crime? What does the phrase, a worn-out man of fashion" mean from Jane Eyre?
My teacher told me I was being obdurate. Was that a compliment? What motives inspired Iago to plot revenge against Othello? Who was the first king of Rome? What does enervate mean? What is a parvenu? Is salubrity somehow related to being famous? Do capers have something to do with cops? What's the difference between a soliloquy and a monologue? What's a pandybat? Does the word inexorable have something to do with driving demons out of a person?
Do people who prognosticate have some sort of special power? What is a hegemony, from James Joyce's Ulysses? What are fallow fields? I'm a city gal who heard the term at a 4-H fair and just read it in Anna Karenina. What's the difference between parody and satire?
Lord of the Flies uses the word inimical. I saw vertiginous in Madame Bovary. What does mean the word mean? What does overweening mean, in Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes? Can you hear a dirge anyplace but a funeral? Does imperturbable refer to something you can't break through? What are the seven ages of man? What's dross? What is an injunction? For school I had to make a Napoleon hat, which called for a cockade.
What is that? If someone studies assiduously, does it mean they're working really hard or really slowly? Define mood as it relates to a work of fiction.
Distinguish mood from effect. My sister calls me the Princess of Prevarication. This biography I'm reading about Queen Victoria says that she refused to remove the hatchment she had for her husband Prince Albert. What does that word mean? What does sine qua non mean? What's lugubrious mean? What's impugn mean, from Ivanhoe? What does postprandial mean?
I love reading fashion magazines and occasionally come across the word atelier. What does King Lear mean when he says that ingratitude is a marble-hearted fiend"? In Mary Shelley's Frankenstein , what are disquisitions? What's shrive? My neighbor said she's been unshriven for years, but I think her skin looks quite shriveled. What's a dobbin? What's polemic? Over winter break, my uncle told me I was polemic and asked if I was on the debate team at school.
I came across a list of homonyms: mu, moo, moue. I know mu is Greek for the letter m , and moo is the sound cows make, but what's a moue? What does trow mean? In Far from the Madding Crowd , what does cavil mean? Where can I find the word naught in The Scarlet Letter?
I found an old diary from the s where the writer describes how he almost died but was saved by a sinapism. I know what mulch is, but what's mulct? When our teacher was introducing the next reading assignment, he said we'll be using the unexpurgated version.
What did he mean? For some reason, the word dingle sticks in my head after having read Treasure Island years ago. I never did discover what it meant. How about it, Cliff? In Dracula , what's stertorous breathing? What does philippic mean? I'm usually pretty good at guessing what words mean, but have no clue about exigence. What is it? What's doughty? How do you pronounce it? What's sharecropping?
I'm kind of embarrassed to ask, because it's one of those words everyone assumes you know what it means. I'm working on my summer reading list with Kafka's The Trial. The very first sentence uses traduce , and I don't know what that means. What does the cormorant bird symbolize in mythology? I saw the word badinage in the book Uncle Tom's Cabin. Do you think that's a typo that really should be bandage? On a TV modeling contest, a judge said, Her simian walk is unbelievable. In Oliver Twist , Dodger refers to Oliver as flash companion.
Can't find a definition of this anywhere. Do elocutionists kill people? For my English homework, I have to write a love poem. I'm only 13 and I haven't had my first love yet.
How would I go about writing about feelings that I haven't felt yet? Where on the body would I find my sarcophagus? What's stolid? It sounds like someone who's stupid and built solid like a wall. What's a wonton person?
In which play did William Shakespeare state that misery loves company? What's comfit? Is it a different way of saying comfort? Where did the story Frankenstein by Mary Shelley take place? What kind of person would a shallow-pate be? What are myrmidons of Justice" in Great Expectations? What did I do?
In The Red Badge of Courage , what's an imprecation? The word portmanteau shows up in a lot of the literature I read for school assignments. It sounds French. I did something really stupid yesterday, and my grandfather told me I was hoist with my own petard.
And what's a petard? What's a bourse? I read it in my finance class. In The House of Mirth, what are oubliettes? In Tess of the d'Urbervilles, what are thimble-riggers? In Wuthering Heights , what's a thible? Which Hemingway story references the running of the bulls" in Spain?
My dad mentioned that his granddad was there for a long time during World War I. If somebody is toady," does it mean they're ugly? In the movie Failure to Launch , there's a line that goes, Well, she certainly is yar," in reference to a yacht.
What's yar? I got detention because a teacher said I was being contumacious. What's that? What are encomiums? What are billets in The Three Musketeers? In Orwell's , what is doublethink? What are orts? That's a weird word that reminds me of orcs from The Lord of the Rings. What are alliteration and assonance? What's quinsy? What is New Historicism?
I found the word unwonted in a book I'm reading. Is that a typo, you think? In Heart of Darkness , what does cipher mean? In the play The Glass Menagerie, would you describe Tom as selfish? What does Kantian mean, from a philosophical perspective? What's a colonnade? My girlfriend is freaking me out with stories of her dream wedding where she walks down a colonnade. I know this is the least of my problems, but I'm curious.
My grandma says she knows how I feel when I knit my brows. Is she crazy? I know bier has something to do with dead people, but what is it exactly?
My brainy brother owns a Harley and says his girlfriend is the pillion. Is he insulting her or just showing off? I ran across the word mien in a book. Is it a typo? Is a younker a person or a place? Does precipitancy have something to do with the weather? Any suggestions? A friend says she suffers from ineffable sadness. What's ineffable? What's a scow? Is a maelstrom some kind of dangerous weather? What is the meaning of this saying, The cat will mew and dog will have his day"?
The Picture of Dorian Gray mentions a panegyric on youth. In Madame Bovary , what's a mairie? In The Kite Runner, what's palliative mean? So what's oligarchy? In government class, my teacher mentioned that word when we were talking about the Blagojevich scandal in Illinois. Is intrepidity a good thing or a bad thing? My grandmother told me that she thinks grandpa should see an alienist.
Does she think he's from another planet or what? Do you have to have licentiousness to get your driver's license? I ran across the word hardihood in something I read the other day. Is it some kind of clothing? I saw mention of haversack in my history book. I'm guessing the word quadroon is four of something. But what's a roon? I'm trying to understand Shakespeare's play, King Lear.
Can you explain these quotes from Act 1, Scene 1? In Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment , what's a samovar? I came across a music channel that featured tejano," and then I saw the same word when I was reading Bless Me, Ultima. But what the heck is prunella? Is it a purplish color like prunes? In Chapter 2 of Jane Eyre , what are divers parchments? A friend of mine said she hopes to get a counterpane for Christmas. In Wuthering Heights, what does munificent mean? The other day, my dad called my friends a motley crew.
Is that his way of saying I should hang out with a different crowd? Why is there an authorship problem with Shakespeare? What is it called when something is out of place in time, like a jet stream in a movie about ancient Rome?
In , does Winston die from a bullet at the end of the book or is he in a dream-state? I saw some old guy in a soldier's uniform selling fake red flowers. He said it was for Veterans Day. What's the connection? I was kind of flirting with this really cute boy when my teacher told me to stop palavering. Did she want me to stop flirting or stop talking?
My grandmother says when she was a kid in China, she became Catholic because of the Mary Knows nuns. I tried to look that up on the Internet but couldn't find anything. Can you help? In The Count of Monte Cristo , does cupidity mean love? I'm guessing that because of, you know, Cupid. Valentine's Day. My theater teacher called me a name the other day.
I don't think it was supposed to be a compliment. What's a somnambulist, anyway? Why was Tartuffe such a jerk? To Kill a Mockingbird has this word fey in it, but I don't know what it means.
Does it mean short lived or fleeting? Then I saw that word in Frankenstein. What's a hovel? I thought it was like a place that had room service. I have a friend who said something about phantasmagoric. It's voice and pacing and dialogue Email Address. The reader will focus on what stands out. Turn the reader's attention where you want it to go. Thank you for reading The Editor's Blog, an Internet resource for fiction writers, freelance editors, and everyone who loves words.
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Bored by her husband and desperate for a passionate love affair like the sort she reads about in romance novels, Emma Bovary gets involved with a notorious womanizer. Flaubert highlights Emma's foolishness for falling for such an obvious hack, who sees her as no different from any other mistress:. Emma was just like any other mistress; and the charm of novelty, falling down slowly like a dress, exposed only the eternal monotony of passion, always the same forms and the same language.
He did not distinguish, this man of such great expertise, the differences of sentiment beneath the sameness of their expression. Flaubert sets the cynical tone in part by describing, using figurative language , how the charm of novelty, for Madame Bovary's lover, fell down "slowly like a dress," suggesting that what she experiences as romance, her lover experiences only as an extended prelude to sex.
First and foremost, tone clues readers into the essence and the purpose of what they're reading. It wouldn't make sense to use a wordy, poetic tone to write a simple set of directions, just like it wouldn't make sense to use a dry, unfeeling tone when writing a love poem. Rather, writers set the tone of their work to match not only the content of their writing, but also to suit the purpose they intend for it to serve, whether that is to convey information clearly, to make people laugh, to lavish praises on someone, or something else.
Additionally, tone can serve the following purposes:. Simply put, establishing the tone of a work is important because it helps writers show readers what the work is trying to accomplish, and what attitude the work takes toward its own subject matter. Tone Definition. Tone Examples. Tone Function. Tone Resources. LitCharts Teacher Editions. Teach your students to analyze literature like LitCharts does. Detailed explanations, analysis, and citation info for every important quote on LitCharts.
The original text plus a side-by-side modern translation of every Shakespeare play. Sign Up. Already have an account? Sign in. From the creators of SparkNotes, something better. Literature Poetry Lit Terms Shakescleare. Download this entire guide PDF. Teachers and parents! Struggling with distance learning? It may not be his or her actual attitude as authors can certainly express an attitude other than their own. It's very different from the author's purpose!
The tone of the article, essay, story, poem, novel, screenplay, or any other written work can be described in many ways. The author's tone can be witty, dreary, warm, playful, outraged, neutral, polished, wistful, reserved, and on and on. Basically, if there's an attitude out there, an author can write with it.
To better understand tone, you should practice. So, now that you know what it is, how can you determine the author's tone when you get to a reading comprehension test? Here are a few tricks to help you nail it every time. On most major reading comprehension tests , the test makers will give you a little snippet of information along with the author's name prior to the text itself. Take these two examples from the ACT Reading test :.
Atkinson and Richard C. Without reading any portion of the text itself, you can already determine that the first text will have a more serious tone. The author writes in a scientific journal, so the tone will have to be more reserved.
The second text could be anything at all, so when you're reading, you'll need to use another trick to determine the author's tone. Word choice plays a major part in the tone of a piece. If you look at the examples given in the "What is Author's Tone" article, you'll see how very different an identical situation can be by just the words an author chooses to use.
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