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More "Expletive" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... used in a burlesque or ludicrous manner, the pronoun ye is sometimes a mere expletive; or, perhaps, intended rather as an objective governed by a preposition understood. But, in such a construction, I see no reason to prefer it to the regular objective ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... Inverness with a wide black hat pulled down over his eyes. For the moment she could not remember who he was, but by the time he had stopped in front of the big gate, giving utterance to a well delivered expletive, she knew him perfectly, and stood waiting, motionless, for him to turn and speak to her. She was sure that he would have no recollection of her. He turned, but it was some seconds before he ...
— Outside Inn • Ethel M. Kelley
... liberal priest, sometimes even too free and easy. He brings in the sacred name perhaps more often than any other writer, and he does so not always in a devout way. He seemed at last to use the word "God" as if it were an expletive or mere intensive like a Greek ge [gamma epsilon], meaning "very much" or "very good," as where he so oddly calls the North-East wind "the wind of God." And he betrays a most unclerical interest in physical torture and physical voluptuousness (Hypatia, ...
— Studies in Early Victorian Literature • Frederic Harrison
... "view the landscape o'er," the earnest and musical—if melancholy—exchange of salutations, the almost imperceptible drawing nearer, with the slightly waving tail the only sign of excitement, and at last the instantaneous dash, the slap or scratch (so rapid one can never tell which), the fiery expletive and retort, and the instant retreat, to sit down again. There seems to be some canon of feline etiquette which forbids two to meet and pass without solemn formalities of this sort, reminding one of the ceremonious ...
— Upon The Tree-Tops • Olive Thorne Miller
... the Midi," cried the woman, recognising the expletive—for no one born north of Avignon says "Tron de l'air"—"I too am from Marseilles. My husband was a Savoyard. That ...
— The Beloved Vagabond • William J. Locke
... They think me an idle dog; but where's the good of doing anything? I only know if I was not—not condemned to—to this—this life,' (had it not been for a sort of involuntary respect to the gentle compassion of the softened hazel eyes regarding him so kindly, he would have used the violent expletive that trembled on his lip;) 'if I was not chained down here, Master Philip should not stand alone as the paragon of the family. I've as much mother wit ...
— The Heir of Redclyffe • Charlotte M. Yonge
... leave, and means, "I am your very obedient servant." Thus, if one has been talking to a small child, its mother will tell it to say "chow" before it goes away, and will then nod her head and say "chow" herself. The other use is a kind of pious expletive, intending "I must endure it," "I am the slave of a higher power." It was in this sense I first heard it at Rossura. A woman was washing at a fountain while I was eating my lunch. She said she had lost her daughter in Paris a few weeks earlier. "She was a beautiful woman," said the bereaved mother, ...
— Alps and Sanctuaries of Piedmont and the Canton Ticino • Samuel Butler
... the trimmest, nattiest, most punctilious of our captains who stood in front of the silent ranks, listening in apparently absorbed attention to the furious tirade lavished on him by the spokeswoman of the mob, a street drab of uncommon stature and powers of expression and command of expletive. Winding up a three-minute speech with the remark, "I could pick ye up and ate ye, only the taste would turn me stomach, you white-livered, blue-bellied son of a scut," the lady had to pause for breath, and the soldier looked up from under his hat-brim and mildly remarked, "Madam, you're ...
— A Tame Surrender, A Story of The Chicago Strike • Charles King
... searching expletive by way of concluding the sentence fittingly. After which he slipped back and slammed the door, leaving Fenn waiting outside like the Peri at the ...
— The Head of Kay's • P. G. Wodehouse
... fittingly describe the way Elder Butts delivered his discourse. The sentences were whined, howled or sung, ending always in the vocal expletive—"ah—ah." ...
— The Bishop of Cottontown - A Story of the Southern Cotton Mills • John Trotwood Moore
... endears them greatly to the young people, and recommends them to the acquaintance of their honored parents, if these happen to accompany them. The other boarders commonly call our diminutive companion That Boy. He is a sort of expletive at the table, serving to stop gaps, taking the same place a washer does that makes a loose screw fit, and contriving to get driven in like a wedge between any two chairs where there is a crevice. I shall not call that boy by the monosyllable referred to, because, ...
— The Poet at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... Wildmere type. He never could think of this hope without smiling to himself. He had at last obtained the explanation of Madge's effort and success. By the superb result he measured the strength of the love which had led to it. "Great Scott!"—his favorite expletive—he had thought; "what a compass there is in her nature! I had long suspected her secret, but when I touched upon it last night she made my blood tingle by her magnificent resentment. I would sooner have trifled with an enraged empress. Look at her ...
— A Young Girl's Wooing • E. P. Roe
... with a start of astonishment, and went into a fit of laughing, re-echoed by all the young ones, who were especially tickled by hearing, from another, the abbreviation that had, hitherto, only lived in the favourite expletive, "As sure as my name ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge
... Paddy there, but associate you, my poor boy, with what he will consider about the most outrageous piece of impudence he ever had addressed to him. Then suddenly he'll spring up and say—No, I will not spoil the purity of the atmosphere this beautiful evening by repeating a favourite expletive of his—he'll say something you will not at all like, and then almost kick you out ...
— Charge! - A Story of Briton and Boer • George Manville Fenn
... with a rising inflection, implying by the expletive that her child's buoyant spirit be not ...
— American Indian stories • Zitkala-Sa
... glass of wine, they were flogged for smoking; if they swore, they received eighty lashes for every expletive; and after eighty lashes it was a common thing to die. Before long, flogging grew to be so everyday an ...
— Eminent Victorians • Lytton Strachey
... it," answered Michael, "for with such a flock of geese to say it to, the horrid expletive might be constantly on her lips. For my part, I simply refuse to let things be done in this light and airy style. I appeal to Mrs. ...
— Manalive • G. K. Chesterton
... the Vowels in the second Line, the Expletive do in the third, and the ten Monosyllables in the fourth, give such a Beauty to this Passage, as would have been very much admired in an Ancient Poet. The Reader may observe the following Lines in the ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... till after that date. In any case, please understand I am unable to attend to money matters at present. It may interest you to know that the tutor is under notice to leave," (here the reader uttered a not very complimentary expletive), "also that I am on the best of ...
— Roger Ingleton, Minor • Talbot Baines Reed
... sworn; and we have known worse; but with none of them had the word any meaning, nor has it any, ever, except in the pulpit; where it is a pity (as many an excellent clergyman has thought) that it is heard at all. Treat it lightly elsewhere, as an expletive and a mere way of speaking, and it will come to nothing as it deserves, and follow the obsolete "plagues" and "murrains" ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1, April, 1851 • Various
... crimson blanket was for a moment over the head of Mr. Garvace, and his voice, muffled for an instant, broke out into unwonted expletive. ...
— The History of Mr. Polly • H. G. Wells
... right. From the first go off." He was silent for a few seconds, and then he broke out in a kind of ecstasy. "My Gawd, 'e'll be a bowler such as 'as never been, never in this world. He'll start where I left orf. He'll ..." Words failed him, he fell back on the expletive he had used, repeating it with an awed fervour. ...
— The Wonder • J. D. Beresford
... and, "by the powers of Mercury"—this expletive originated, I believe, with a proud barometer,—it is raining cats and dogs and a host of inferior animals. Everybody seems very impatient, for all are getting out, and yet we have not reached the station,—no; and they don't mean to get there at present. Possession is nine points ...
— Lands of the Slave and the Free - Cuba, The United States, and Canada • Henry A. Murray
... Bob smothered the expletive that had risen to his lip when he saw who the unwitting offender was, and asked, "What are they doin' to the mare ...
— Thoroughbreds • W. A. Fraser
... gave him a patriarchal look and added to the effect of his fervid eloquence and his withering sarcasm. A man of iron heart, he was ever anxious to meet his antagonists, haughty in his rude self-confidence, and exhaustive in the use of every expletive of abuse permitted by parliamentary usage. In debate he resembled one of the old soldiers who fought on foot or on horseback, with heavy or light arms, a battle-axe or a spear. The champion of the North, he divided the South and thrashed ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore
... mind was too truly pious for a wicked expletive to cross it; but a bad man expressing the curate's feeling would have said that Mr ...
— Orientations • William Somerset Maugham
... Kaiser, using his usual expletive. "She's flying the White Ensign and an admiral's pennant, and, ...
— The World Peril of 1910 • George Griffith
... who spoke first, and it is possible that he did not quite intend to use the expletive which broke from him. But he was remembering things also. Here were eyes he, too, had seen before—twelve years ago in the face of an objectionable, long-legged child in New York. And his own hatred of them had been founded in his own opinion on the best ...
— The Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... few lines when he exclaimed, with a strong expletive, "Boys, I would give a month's pay if we had ...
— Raiding with Morgan • Byron A. Dunn
... but as yet undeveloped talent. The repeated use of the expletive "do" in such phrases as "I do sigh", or "I pray and do pine", mars the verse somewhat. As Pope remarked and humorously illustrated in his ...
— Writings in the United Amateur, 1915-1922 • Howard Phillips Lovecraft
... for making philological observations. I observe that the Cree, although essentially the same language as the Chippewa, yet drops, or never had, many of the suffix expletive particles of the latter, though the prefix particles are pretty much the same in both. The Cree has not, I believe, the double negative nor the adverbial and plaintive forms of verbs, as I have termed them. This renders the language less complex, ...
— Personal Memoirs Of A Residence Of Thirty Years With The Indian Tribes On The American Frontiers • Henry Rowe Schoolcraft
... sake of Hetty's young ears could the old Squire mention the British rascals without his favorite expletive. Here, also, came in another lesson which sank deep into Hetty's heart. It was for his country that her grandfather had lost that leg, and would have gladly lost forty, if he had had so many to lose, not for himself; for something which he loved better than himself: ...
— Hetty's Strange History • Helen Jackson
... the shoes on the floor, and walked with his hands behind him to the window, out of which, still faintly whistling, he gazed with eyes that saw nothing. Once his lips opened to emit mechanically the Englishman's expletive of sudden enlightenment. At length he turned to the shelves again, and swiftly but carefully examined every ...
— The Woman in Black • Edmund Clerihew Bentley
... text, restored in the foregoing translation by conjecture. Probably the lost sentence, like the intrusive one, ended with the word trocuire, "mercy," which, indeed, may have suggested the interpolation; this might easily have caused the scribe's eye to wander. An habitual expletive is also attributed to St. Patrick (modebroth, apparently "My God ...
— The Latin & Irish Lives of Ciaran - Translations Of Christian Literature. Series V. Lives Of - The Celtic Saints • Anonymous
... is equivalent to for me. This expletive use of the dative is conveniently called ...
— A Handbook of the English Language • Robert Gordon Latham
... a terrific oath, and stamped furiously on the floor as he rose to his feet. It was evident to him that Akulina had out of spite concocted the letter, and had managed to have it posted by some friend in Russia. He was not satisfied with one expletive, nor with many. The words he used need not be translated for the reader of the English language. It is enough to say that they were the strongest in the Cossack vocabulary, that they were well selected and applied with ...
— A Cigarette-Maker's Romance • F. Marion Crawford
... a wild boar pursued by a pack of hounds, amid the hisses and laughter of the youths, only turning his head from time to time to repeat the strong expletive. ...
— The Grandee • Armando Palacio Valds
... Bridge: is Bishop's Bridge.—85. Sword of Cordova, in Guild Hall, is a mistake for the sword of the Spanish General Don Xavier Winthuysen.—90. Vone banished priest: Rev. Thomas d'Eterville. The MS. gives the following inedited account of D'Eterville. I omit the oft-recurring expletive sacre (accursed):— ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... Hai, "yes," has been pronounced He, Chi, Na, Ne, to Ito's great contempt. It sounds like an expletive or interjection rather than a response, and seems used often as a sign of respect or attention only. Often it is loud and shrill, then guttural, at times little more than a sigh. In these yadoyas every sound is audible, and ...
— Unbeaten Tracks in Japan • Isabella L. Bird
... fired at close range, and the sound would make everybody look up to "see where the —— that came from." The discovery of the culprit would bring out a chorus from the working parties: "Give him a popgun, give him a popgun!" "Popgun" was preceded by the usual Australian expletive. ...
— Five Months at Anzac • Joseph Lievesley Beeston
... volumes—not that which her nephew had been reading—and opened it at random, dashing it to the floor the next instant with a cry of disgust as a earwig fell from between the pages. Mr. Denton picked it up with a smothered expletive and said, "Poor book! I think you're rather hard on Mr. Poynter." "Was I, my dear? I beg his pardon, but you know I cannot abide those horrid creatures. Let me see if I've done any mischief." "No, I think all's well: but look here what you've opened him ...
— A Thin Ghost and Others • M. R. (Montague Rhodes) James
... allow. And Ben told his adventure on Pike island, as we have heard him tell it, pretty much in the same words, for the judge and Mr. Grantly let him take his own courses; and then he added (with a characteristic expletive, which we may as well omit, seeing it occasioned a cry of "order" in the court), "There, if that there white-livered little villain warn't the chap that brought the crocks, ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... into play, especially in its plaintive sense, in situations, where, poor thing, it scarcely knows itself, and where there is not the slightest provocation to account for the use of it. It is degraded to the condition of a mere expletive; and, where there is a real good call for it, how often is it thrust upon the wrong person, the one who, were he consulted, would ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, No. 577 - Volume 20, Number 577, Saturday, November 24, 1832 • Various
... Living Tinker!" asseverates Captain Bingo, jerked out of his reclining attitude by vigorous utterance of the expletive, "you could have bowled me over with a scent-squirter when I came back to brekker and found her gone, and a cocked-hat note of farewell left for me on the dressing-table pincushion, in regular elopement style; and another for the Chief, sayin'—he read it ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... of thy bairn; rue thou; all is only expletive Thou wash away the bloody tern; wash thou; tears. It doth me worse than my ded." hurts me more; death. "Son, how may I teres werne? turn aside tears. I see the bloody streames erne flow. From thy heart ...
— England's Antiphon • George MacDonald
... helps as she liked, he would pay for them and welcome; but Ellen would have to stay where she was. He had promised Miss Alice; and he wouldn't break his word "for kings, lords, and commons." A most extraordinary expletive for a good Republican—which Mr. Van Brunt had probably inherited from his father and grandfather. What can waves do against a rock? The whilome Miss Fortune disdained a struggle which must end in her own confusion, and wisely kept her chagrin to herself, ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Susan Warner
... of the vowels in this line, the expletive do in the next, and the ten monosyllables in that which follows, give such a beauty to this passage as would have been very much ...
— Six Centuries of English Poetry - Tennyson to Chaucer • James Baldwin
... expressed the same opinion in rather stronger terms; Mr. Simpson, after having let a variety of expletive adjectives loose upon society without any substantive to accompany them, tucked up his sleeves, and began to wash the ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... for a moment over the head of Mr. Garvace, and his voice, muffled for an instant, broke out into unwonted expletive. ...
— The History of Mr. Polly • H. G. Wells
... this tribute with a joyous expletive. "By God, no, he's sure of me, as you say! He and his tribe know that I'll starve in my tracks sooner than make a concession—a single concession. A fellow came after me once to do an angel on a tombstone—an angel leaning against a broken ...
— The Hermit and the Wild Woman and Other Stories • Edith Wharton
... poem shows great but as yet undeveloped talent. The repeated use of the expletive "do" in such phrases as "I do sigh", or "I pray and do pine", mars the verse somewhat. As Pope remarked and humorously illustrated ...
— Writings in the United Amateur, 1915-1922 • Howard Phillips Lovecraft
... "When I say a thing, I mean a thing. The sooner you understand that, the better. How dare you argue with me! Fiddle-de-dee!" For two pins Peter would have employed an expletive even stronger, so ...
— Tommy and Co. • Jerome K. Jerome
... ought to have a wheel-barrow; Hank swears by a mulching iron; Bill is all for cold frames. All three say that hellebore is the best thing for sucking insects. We echo the expletive, ...
— Mince Pie • Christopher Darlington Morley
... he yelled to Captain Cromwell as the Tuckahoe was nearing the wharf. "Blazes" is a mild translation of the expletive actually employed. ...
— The Mermaid of Druid Lake and Other Stories • Charles Weathers Bump
... in another futile attempt to escape, and cursed his captors with gifts of expletive ...
— Mystery Ranch • Arthur Chapman
... are fine passages by any means to seek in the greater length and less poetical subject of The Civil Wars of York and Lancaster. The fault of this is that the too conscientious historian is constantly versifying what must be called mere expletive matter. This must always make any one who speaks with critical impartiality admit that much of Daniel is hard reading; but the soft places (to use the adjective in no ill sense) are frequent enough, and when the reader comes to them he must have little appreciation of poetry if he does not ...
— A History of English Literature - Elizabethan Literature • George Saintsbury
... always known her as a woman who was quite active on her pins, but I had never suspected her of being capable of the magnificent burst of speed which she now showed. Pausing merely to get a rich hunting-field expletive off her chest, she was out of the room and making for the stairs before I could swallow a sliver of—I think—banana. And feeling, as I had felt when I got that telegram of hers about Angela and Tuppy, that my place was by her side, I put down ...
— Right Ho, Jeeves • P. G. Wodehouse
... to hear it," answered Michael, "for with such a flock of geese to say it to, the horrid expletive might be constantly on her lips. For my part, I simply refuse to let things be done in this light and airy style. I appeal ...
— Manalive • G. K. Chesterton
... trumpets, but the men recognized the paper and rose from the ground where they had been lounging to hear him read the list of those who were to return immediately to the front. As the names were called each one summoned turned without comment or exclamation or expletive, picked up his kit dumped in a corner, slung on the heavy equipment, saw that the huge loaf of bread was secure—the extra shoes—refilled his canteen and moved over to the barred gate. Occasionally one shook hands with a comrade and all saluted the women of the little flower-bedecked ...
— Defenders of Democracy • The Militia of Mercy
... precisely those by which alone she could have come into any sort of sincere human contact. In the radiance of these discoveries, and the tumult of their reaction, she made a fool of herself as freely and conspicuously as when she so rashly adopted Eliza's expletive in Mrs. Higgins's drawing-room; for the new-born Wellsian had to find her bearings almost as ridiculously as a baby; but nobody hates a baby for its ineptitudes, or thinks the worse of it for trying to eat the matches; and Clara lost no friends by her follies. They laughed at her to her ...
— Pygmalion • George Bernard Shaw
... little of the flimsy turn in it; and the third line has rather too serious a cast. The fourth stanza is a very indifferent one; the first line, is, indeed, all in the strain of the second stanza, but the rest is most expletive. The thoughts in the fifth stanza come finely up to my favourite idea—a sweet sonsie lass: the last line, however, halts a little. The same sentiments are kept up with equal spirit and tenderness in the sixth stanza, but ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... And again the expletive of disillusion burst from between Mallory's teeth as he saw the front-page double-column spread, a type-specialty of the usually conservative Ledger upon which it prided itself, dwindle to a carefully handled inside-page three-quarter ...
— Success - A Novel • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... his only, expletive, but his thunder was only a single boom without reverberations. His four auditors understood him perfectly, however. Fosdick was always "starting" something. He had even attempted to organize a new cemetery association, ...
— Otherwise Phyllis • Meredith Nicholson
... "agent" by which the "due effect" of the stimulus, which gives rise to sensation, is "wrought out"? Suppose somebody runs a pin into me. The "due effect" of that particular stimulus will probably be threefold; namely, a sensation of pain, a start, and an interjectional expletive. Does the Quarterly Reviewer really think that the "sensation" is the "agent" by which the other two phenomena are ...
— Critiques and Addresses • Thomas Henry Huxley
... masculine, contemptibly feminine, ridiculously intellectual, repulsively athletic, and revoltingly frivolous. In appearance they are either lank, gaunt, flat-footed lamp-posts, or else over-dressed, unnaturally-shaped, painted dolls. Their extravagance exhausts expletive! When they belong to the class of society generally denoted with a capital S, they invariably smoke, drink, gamble and swear. They neglect their homes and their children. They have little principle and less sense, no morals, no heart and absolutely ...
— Modern marriage and how to bear it • Maud Churton Braby
... Reggie, a confirmed babbler off the links, became while in action a stern, silent, intent person, his whole being centred on the game. With the exception of a casual remark of a technical nature when he met George on the various tees, and an occasional expletive when things went wrong with his ball, he eschewed conversation. It was not till the end of the round ...
— A Damsel in Distress • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... qui s'en prendre, 'on whom to lay the blame.' Note the expletive use of en and cf.— en vouloir qn., 'to have a grudge against some one.' en venir aux mains, 'to come to blows.' il en est de mme de . ., 'it is ...
— Le Petit Chose (part 1) - Histoire d'un Enfant • Alphonse Daudet
... to see a Captain of Rural Police challenging you for being without a passport; whereupon you stake your all upon a single throw. 'To whom do you belong?' asks the Captain, probably adding to his question a forcible expletive. 'To such and such a landowner,' stoutly you reply. 'And what are you doing here?' continues the Captain. 'I have just received permission to go and earn my obrok,' is your fluent explanation. 'Then ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... to disarrange their loads by attempting to get on the top of them by rolling on them; others with tent-poles for part of their loads would manage to run a tent-pole on one side of a sapling while they would take the other. I am not aware of ever having used a profane expletive in my life; but I would have the charity to excuse those who may have done so, if they were in charge of a train of Mexican pack mules at ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... expletive. "I'll tell you what it is, Fry, if somebody doesn't knock this thundering Legree on the head, I'll put ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade
... earnest and musical—if melancholy—exchange of salutations, the almost imperceptible drawing nearer, with the slightly waving tail the only sign of excitement, and at last the instantaneous dash, the slap or scratch (so rapid one can never tell which), the fiery expletive and retort, and the instant retreat, to sit down again. There seems to be some canon of feline etiquette which forbids two to meet and pass without solemn formalities of this sort, reminding one of the ceremonious greetings of the Orient, where time ...
— Upon The Tree-Tops • Olive Thorne Miller
... was a coarse and violent expletive, and a blow with a thick heavy stick, aimed right at Sir Philip's head. The magistrate put up his arm, which received the blow, and was nearly fractured by it; but at the same moment, the younger traveller spurred forward his horse upon the ruffian, and with one sweep of ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 2, January, 1851 • Various
... forth a paper, and handed it to her uncle, who opened it, read it with a stare, and uttered his usual expletive. "Soul of a ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books - Vol. II: Fiction • Arthur Mee, J. A. Hammerton, Eds.
... Mr. Wendover stood a minute looking after him; then, with some vehement expletive or other, walked up to his writing-table, drew some folios that were lying on it towards him, with hasty maladroit movements which sent his papers flying over the floor, ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... his aversions for her. She had once used an expletive in his presence that had sickened him, and, noting its effect, she had not reiterated. The unfastidious brunette roots to her light hair. That sink with the grease-rimmed old beer! But then: her eyes where the brows slid down ...
— The Vertical City • Fannie Hurst
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