"Neuter" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... they were all prepared to acquiesce in any cause which the British Government might adopt for the sake of order. They would rather that it should adopt that of the Begum and the boy than that of Nuseer-od Dowlah; but in either case were resolved to remain neuter, and let the representative of the British Government take his ...
— A Journey through the Kingdom of Oude, Volumes I & II • William Sleeman
... that mamma is a noun of the feminine gender and singular number; men is a noun masculine and plural; table is neuter and singular. ...
— A Week of Instruction and Amusement, • Mrs. Harley
... old, men and children, never ceased repeating the word "yammerschooner," which means "give me." After pointing to almost every object, one after the other, even to the buttons on our coats, and saying their favourite word in as many intonations as possible, they would then use it in a neuter sense, and vacantly repeat "yammerschooner." After yammerschoonering for any article very eagerly, they would by a simple artifice point to their young women or little children, as much as to say, "If you will not give it me, surely you will ...
— A Naturalist's Voyage Round the World - The Voyage Of The Beagle • Charles Darwin
... myself neuter—will that satisfy you? You shall have a clear stage and no favor, which, if you be a man of spirit, ...
— The Emigrants Of Ahadarra - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... passages, and himself gave the signal for applause. It was acted upon from some of the boxes, but the impassible pit was more silent than ever; leaving the affair entirely between the stage and the upper regions, they obstinately remained neuter. The master of Europe and France then cast a furious look at this handful of men who dared not to admire his work, feeling in his heart the wish of Nero, and thought for a moment how happy he should be if all those men ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... satanist, isn't he?' she drawled to Ursula, in a queer resonant voice, that ended on a shrill little laugh of pure ridicule. The two women were jeering at him, jeering him into nothingness. The laugh of the shrill, triumphant female sounded from Hermione, jeering him as if he were a neuter. ...
— Women in Love • D. H. Lawrence
... This substantival use of a neuter adjective is confined in classical Latin to the nominative ...
— Selections from Erasmus - Principally from his Epistles • Erasmus Roterodamus
... When the sap begins to stir! Make me man or make me woman, Make me oaf or ape or human, Cup of flower or cone of fir; Make me anything but neuter When the sap begins ...
— Songs from Vagabondia • Bliss Carman and Richard Hovey
... confesse, Because my power is weake, and all ill left: But if I could, by him that gaue me life, I would attach you all, and make you stoope Vnto the Soueraigne Mercy of the King. But since I cannot, be it knowne to you, I doe remaine as Neuter. So fare you well, Vnlesse you please to enter in the Castle, And there repose you for ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... had been proposed to his own father, who, as hath been already observed, stood always neuter in everything that concerned his eldest son; and as for Mrs. Pickle, she had never heard his name mentioned since his departure with any degree of temper or tranquility, except when her husband informed her that he was in a fair way of being ruined by this indiscreet amour. It was then she ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... a. To indent; to make an irregular impression on a solid body; to bruise. It is also used in a neuter sense. ...
— The Dialect of the West of England Particularly Somersetshire • James Jennings
... the Laws of Nature; and declare for us against France, in case of the worst. What an attempt! Imperial Majesty has no money; Imperial Majesty remembers recent days rather, and his own last quarrel with France (on the Polish-Election score), in which you Sea-Powers cruelly stood neuter! One comfort, and pretty much one only, is left to a nearly bankrupt Imperial heart; that France does at any rate ratify Pragmatic Sanction, and instead of enemy to that inestimable Document has ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... These are mostly those which denote relationships and familiar animals, and there are in some cases, as in English, further words to denote the young of both sexes, or the neuter. ...
— A Handbook of the Cornish Language - chiefly in its latest stages with some account of its history and literature • Henry Jenner
... Louise; inform her of the plot against us; do not let her be ignorant that Madame will return to her system of persecutions against her, and that she has set those to work who would have found it far safer to remain neuter." ...
— Louise de la Valliere • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... suffixed pronouns gu, mu, na. incl., inclusive (of personal pronouns, including the person addressed). interj., interjection. interr., interrogative. metath., metathesis. n., noun. na, marks a noun as taking the suffixed pronoun in the third singular only. neg., negative. neut., neuter. obj., object. part., particle. partic., participle. pers., person, personal. pl., plural. poss., possessive. pr., pronoun. pref., prefix. prep., preposition. S, Sa'a language. See Sa'a and Ulawa dictionary. sing., singular. sub., subject. suff., suffix, suffixed. term., termination. ...
— Grammar and Vocabulary of the Lau Language • Walter G. Ivens
... believes himself bound to act conformably to the laws, which he has sworn to observe, or which he cannot violate without wounding his justice. The theologian is a man who may be very fairly estimated neuter; because he destroys with one hand what he establishes ...
— The System of Nature, Vol. 2 • Baron D'Holbach
... Krantz, that it was the soldiers and the most indifferent seamen who had mutinied on the night before, and cut away the other raft; and that all the best men had remained neuter. ...
— The Phantom Ship • Frederick Marryat
... his Roman dignity is almost ashamed of it. "I grieve", he says, "more than I ought for a mere slave". Just as one might now apologise for making too much fuss about a favourite dog; for the slave was looked upon in scarcely a higher light in civilised Rome. They spoke of him in the neuter gender, as a chattel; and it was gravely discussed, in case of danger in a storm at sea, which it would be right first to cast overboard to lighten the ship, a valuable horse or an indifferent slave. Hortensius, ...
— Cicero - Ancient Classics for English Readers • Rev. W. Lucas Collins
... used as a noun, equivalent to ceteris rebus 'the other matters'; i.e. the political troubles hinted at above. The best writers do not often use the neuter adjective as noun in the oblique cases unless there is something in the context to show the gender clearly, as in 24 aliis ... eis quae; we have, however, below in 8, isto ista re; 72, reliquum; 77, caelestium rerum caelestium; ...
— Cato Maior de Senectute • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... creating was construed as a blemish on the splendour of the Supreme. It was held that the Soul of Things could but loll, majestic and inert, on a lotos of azure. Then, above Brahma, was lifted Brahm, a god neuter and indeclinable; neuter as having no part in life, indeclinable ...
— The Lords of the Ghostland - A History of the Ideal • Edgar Saltus
... quarrel broke out between the troops of the phalanx and the officers, his companions, Eumenes, though in his judgment he inclined to the latter, yet in his professions stood neuter, as if he thought it unbecoming him, who was a stranger, to interpose in the private quarrels of the Macedonians. And when the rest of Alexander's friends left Babylon, he stayed behind, and did much to pacify the foot-soldiers, and to dispose them towards an accommodation. ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... you. Small 'ouse, by the river. Kep' by Miss Horkings, now her father's kicked. Female party." This was due to a vague habit of the speaker's mind, which divided the opposite sex into two genders, feminine and neuter; the latter including all those samples, unfortunate enough—or fortunate enough, according as one looks at it—to present no attractions to masculine impulses. Micky would never have described his great-aunt as a female party. ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... responds, even as did our Master: "You were a murderer from the beginning. The truth abode not in you. You are a liar, and the father of it." Here it appears that a liar was in the neuter gender,—neither masculine nor feminine. Hence it was not man (the image of God) who lied, but the false claim to personality, which I call mortal mind; a claim which Christian Science uncovers, in order to demonstrate the falsity of ...
— Unity of Good • Mary Baker Eddy
... as became common friends, they should wish for peace to both parties, and not intermeddle in the war." Archidamus, ambassador of the Aetolians, made nearly the same request: that, as was their easiest and safest way, they should stand neuter; and, as mere spectators of the war, wait for the decision of the fortunes of others, without any hazard to their own interests. He afterwards was betrayed, by the intemperance of language, into invectives, sometimes against the Romans in general, sometimes against Quinctius ...
— History of Rome, Vol III • Titus Livius
... said, "you are so certain sure of the righteousness of your side in this quarrel that you cannot, for your life's sake, for your love's sake, consent to stand neuter and ...
— The Lady of Loyalty House - A Novel • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... Latinised in the Latin Lives. The Irish lives call him Beoit, a name analysed in the Book of Leinster, p. 349, into Beo-n-Aed, which would mean something like "Living Fire." The -n- is inserted, according to a law of Old Irish accidence, because aed, "fire," is a neuter word. Thus arises the Latin form Beonnadus. By metathesis the name further becomes transformed to Beodan or Beoan. The Latharna were the people who dwelt around the site of the modern town of Larne, which ...
— The Latin & Irish Lives of Ciaran - Translations Of Christian Literature. Series V. Lives Of - The Celtic Saints • Anonymous
... correctness, particularly in an Errata page, the alteration of the couplet I have just sent (half an hour ago) must take place, in spite of delay or cancel; let me see the proof early to-morrow. I found out murmur to be a neuter verb, and have been obliged to alter the line so as to make it ...
— The Works of Lord Byron: Letters and Journals, Volume 2. • Lord Byron
... the judgment of God, and of the different rewards of infidelity and obedience?" "Alas!" replied Harmozan, "I feel them too deeply. In the days of our common ignorance, we fought with the weapons of the flesh, and my nation was superior. God was then neuter: since he has espoused your quarrel, you have subverted our kingdom and religion." Oppressed by this painful dialogue, the Persian complained of intolerable thirst, but discovered some apprehension lest he should be killed whilst he was drinking a cup of water. "Be of good courage," said ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 5 • Edward Gibbon
... mostly masculine, and so on. From such a system as this two results are reasonably sure to follow. Where the gender of a noun in literary Latin did not conform to these rules, in popular Latin it would be brought into harmony with others of its class. Thus stigma, one of the few neuter nouns in -a, and consequently assigned to the third declension, was brought in popular speech into line with sella and the long list of similar words in -a, was made feminine, and put in the first declension. In the case of another class of words, analogy ...
— The Common People of Ancient Rome - Studies of Roman Life and Literature • Frank Frost Abbott
... warm. But as soon as the name svar or surya was formed, it became, through the irresistible influence of language, the name, not only of a living, but of a male being. Every noun in Sanskrit must be either a masculine or a feminine (for the neuter gender was originally confined to the nominative case), and as surya had been formed as a masculine, language stamped it once for all as the sign of a male being, as much as if it had been the name of a warrior or a king. In other languages where the name for sun is a feminine, ...
— Chips From A German Workshop, Vol. V. • F. Max Mueller
... that the name "Brahman" is identical in this connection with Brahma or Iswara, the personal God. The Upanishads—the Vedanta Scriptures—mention no such God, and one would vainly seek in them any allusions to a conscious deity. The Brahman, or Parabrahm, the absolute of the Vedantins, is neuter and unconscious, and has no connection with the masculine Brahma of the Hindu Triad, or Trimurti. Some Orientalists rightly believe the name derived from the verb "Brih," to grow or increase, and to be in this sense the universal expansive force of Nature, ...
— Five Years Of Theosophy • Various
... stationary passive, with its little auxiliary its's and was's, and its participles getting into the light of your adjectives, which should be few. For, as a rough law, by his use of the straight verb and by his economy of adjectives you can tell a man's style, if it be masculine or neuter, ...
— On the Art of Writing - Lectures delivered in the University of Cambridge 1913-1914 • Arthur Quiller-Couch
... James, Duke of York; the Character of a Noble General; a true English Protestant; an Antinomian, or Anabaptistical Independent; a Jesuit; the true Character of a Northern Lady, as she is Wife, Mother, and Sister; the Politique Neuter; the Citie Paragon; a Sharking Committee-man; Britannicus his Pedigree —afatall Prediction of his end; and last, the Phoenix ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various
... father and grandfather; both traitors and enemies to their country. His sarcasms roused in Leicester an animosity which he did not attempt to disguise: with the exception of Cecil and his friends, who stood neuter, the whole court divided into factions upon the quarrel of these two powerful peers; and to such extremity were matters carried, that for some time neither of them would stir abroad without a numerous ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
... as the decisions of that learned body might control it, public opinion in Bohemia, was guided not by native scholars, but by foreigners. In the religious controversy which now agitated the minds of men it was impossible that the university should stand neuter. The nations met,—Bohemia declared for the Wickliffites, Bavaria, Saxony, and Poland against them; and numbers, of course, prevailed. But the triumph of Popery was short-lived, even in the university. Huss exerted himself with such vigour, that the foreigners were deprived of their ...
— Germany, Bohemia, and Hungary, Visited in 1837. Vol. II • G. R. Gleig
... is a neuter noun not personified, a writer should prefer of which to whose, unless euphony ...
— Practical Exercises in English • Huber Gray Buehler
... 'nugget'—pace Archbishop Trench—was a Californian importation. When speaking of a goldfield a colonist says 'on.' Thus you live 'on Bendigo,' but 'in' or 'at' Sandhurst—the latter being the new name for the old goldfield town. To 'shout' drinks has no connection with the neuter verb of dictionary English. A 'shicer' is first a mining claim which turns out to be useless, and then anything that does so. There is room for a very interesting dictionary of Australianisms. But I have no time to collect such a list. The few words which I have given will serve as an indication ...
— Town Life in Australia - 1883 • R. E. N. (Richard) Twopeny
... which the man replied, "What is raining?": which question was the beginning of a violent quarrel and a lasting friendship. I will not touch upon any heads of the dispute, which doubtless included Jupiter Pluvius, the Neuter Gender, Pantheism, Noah's Ark, Mackintoshes, and the Passive Mood; but I will record the one point upon which the two persons emerged in some agreement. It was that there is such a thing as an atheistic literary style; that materialism may appear in the mere diction of a man, though ...
— Eugenics and Other Evils • G. K. Chesterton
... the Captain of Salvation, to his cause, as elucidated by his providence,—the signs of the times; for so shall he "keep his garments," when others are "found naked."—"And he gathered them" or rather "they gathered," (for the singular verb agrees with its nominative plural neuter as usual,)—the "unclean spirits gathered the kings of the earth" to the destined place. This hinders not but that these antichristian enemies of the church are brought together by the Almighty. Just so he ...
— Notes On The Apocalypse • David Steele
... However, as he knew not what the true cause might turn out, he deemed it most prudent in the situation he was in at present, to bear it, if possible, like a Stoick; which, with the help of some wry faces and compursions of the mouth, he had certainly accomplished, had his imagination continued neuter;—but the sallies of the imagination are ungovernable in things of this kind—a thought instantly darted into his mind, that tho' the anguish had the sensation of glowing heat—it might, notwithstanding that, ...
— The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman • Laurence Sterne
... the same author, considering the problem of the women of the common type that are classified as a "third sex," that of temperamental neuter, says: ...
— Sex-education - A series of lectures concerning knowledge of sex in its - relation to human life • Maurice Alpheus Bigelow
... their distribution Lull'd even the savage hunger which demanded, Like the Promethean vulture, this pollution; None in particular had sought or plann'd it, 'T was nature gnaw'd them to this resolution, By which none were permitted to be neuter— And the lot ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron
... patriotic services during the Revolution would far transcend the prescribed limits of this sketch. The principles of civil and religious freedom which he received in his parental, as well as in his collegiate training, would not allow him to remain neuter or indifferent, when a cruel, invading foe was trampling on the just and ...
— Sketches of Western North Carolina, Historical and Biographical • C. L. Hunter
... view reached off for leagues over the valley and beyond that over ridge upon ridge of hilltops. There she thought of many things and was very lonely. She could not have worded it but, deep in her heart, she felt the outcry of the Spring voice: "Make me anything but neuter when the sap begins ...
— A Pagan of the Hills • Charles Neville Buck
... are not cut so short; they may give themselves a little rein, and relax a little without being faulty: there lies on the frontier some space free, indifferent, and neuter. He that has beaten and pursued her into her fort is a strange fellow if he be not satisfied with his fortune: the price of the conquest is considered by the difficulty. Would you know what impression your service ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... the idea of God or mind is both personal and impersonal. Nor in ascribing, as appears to us, both these attributes to him, and in speaking of God both in the masculine and neuter gender, did he seem to himself inconsistent. For the difference between the personal and impersonal was not marked to him as to ourselves. We make a fundamental distinction between a thing and a person, while to Plato, by the help of various intermediate ...
— Philebus • Plato
... of rising in opposition to these nefarious attempts was felt by the entire country. Not a man would remain neuter. ...
— Memoirs of the Private Life, Return, and Reign of Napoleon in 1815, Vol. I • Pierre Antoine Edouard Fleury de Chaboulon
... potentate, was never obliged to engage in quarrels which did not concern him, and accordingly lived in peace with his neighbours, whom he never pretended to frighten. Moreover, in spite of courtiers and counsellors, statecraft and politics were unknown in Yvetot; thus the king remained neuter during the various wars that raged around him, though he could bring an army of one hundred and twenty royal troops into the field. The seriousness of these disquisitions has been occasionally enlivened by a spice of pleasantry. We are told how the king of Yvetot kept his own seals, and was ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 458 - Volume 18, New Series, October 9, 1852 • Various
... I by myself can noun substantive stand, Impose on my Owners, and save my own land; You call me masculine, feminine, neuter, or block, Be what will the gender, sirs, hic, ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole
... called the Self of all that moves and rests (Rv. I. 115, 1), and still more frequently self becomes a mere pronoun. But Atman remained always free from mythe and worship, differing in this from the Brahman (neuter), who has his temples in India even now, and is worshipped as Brahman (masculine), together with Vishnu and Siva, and other popular gods. The idea of the Atman or Self, like a pure crystal, was too transparent for ...
— Chips From A German Workshop - Volume I - Essays on the Science of Religion • Friedrich Max Mueller
... almost as brief as a certain clause in one of the election laws of the State of Texas, which says: "The masculine gender shall include the feminine and neuter." ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... gradation throws on the admirable architectural powers of the hive-bee. Habit no doubt often comes into play in modifying instincts; but it certainly is not indispensable, as we see in the case of neuter insects, which leave no progeny to inherit the effects of long-continued habit. On the view of all the species of the same genus having descended from a common parent, and having inherited much in common, ...
— Little Masterpieces of Science: - The Naturalist as Interpreter and Seer • Various
... strange about her looks. It is difficult to describe. It was not that she was no longer a young woman, but there seemed to be something almost sexless about her. It was as though her secondary sex characteristics were no longer feminine, but—for want of a better word—neuter. ...
— The Treasure-Train • Arthur B. Reeve
... Dearborn answered hesitatingly, never very sure of herself under Rebecca's fire; "but though we often speak of a baby, a chicken, or a kitten as 'it,' they are really masculine or feminine gender, not neuter." ...
— The Flag-raising • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... have discovered in "Estrades' Memoirs" the real occasion of Richelieu's conduct. In 1639 the French and Dutch proposed dividing the Low Country provinces; England was to stand neuter. Charles replied to D'Estrades, that his army and fleet should instantly sail to prevent these projected conquests. From that moment the intolerant ambition of Richelieu swelled the venom of his heart, and he eagerly seized on ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli
... problem, Where to Plant What, may become for a moment, Where to Plant Shrubbery; and the response of the free-line garden will be, of course, "Remember, concerning each separate shrub, that he or she—or it, if you really prefer the neuter—is your guest, and plant him or her or it where it will best enjoy itself, while promoting the whole company's joy." Before it has arrived in the garden, therefore, learn—and carefully consider—its likes and dislikes, habits, manners and accomplishments and its friendly or ...
— The Amateur Garden • George W. Cable
... these and many more voluminous engines are now virtually epitomized in the cannon. And though some say that the finding of guns hath been the losing of many men's lives, yet it will appear that battles now are fought with more expedition, and Victory standeth not so long a neuter, before she express herself on one side or other."—Fuller's ...
— Palestine or the Holy Land - From the Earliest Period to the Present Time • Michael Russell
... so forth among the Selenites, I have as yet been able to learn very little. With the steady progress of Phi-oo in English, however, my ignorance will no doubt as steadily disappear. I am of opinion that, as with the ants and bees, there is a large majority of the members in this community of the neuter sex. Of course on earth in our cities there are now many who never live that life of parentage which is the natural life of man. Here, as with the ants, this thing has become a normal condition of the race, and the whole of such eplacement as is necessary ...
— The First Men In The Moon • H. G. Wells
... in barbarous baby language, which was enough, Ralph said, to drive a man distracted. They asked it various questions—were delighted with its replies—called its attention to the chickens—and evidently labored under the impression that it understood. They addressed the baby uniformly in the neuter gender, and requested to know whether it was not their darling. To all which the baby replied with thoughtful stares, only occasionally condescending to laugh. The feet having been examined again—there is much in babies' feet—the ...
— The Last of the Foresters • John Esten Cooke
... is very peculiar and surprising, which disfranchises all who stand neuter in a sedition; for it seems he would not have any one remain insensible and regardless of the public good, but at once join with the good party and those that have the right upon their side, assist and venture with them, rather ...
— The Boys' and Girls' Plutarch - Being Parts of The "Lives" of Plutarch • Plutarch
... for the fisherman, who was a man of wit and discernment, and said to him, 'Is this fish male or female?' The fisherman kissed the ground and answered, 'It is of the neuter gender, neither male nor female.' The King laughed and ordered him other four thousand dirhems. So the fisherman went to the treasurer and taking his eight thousand dirhems, put them in a bag he had with him. Then, throwing the bag over his shoulder, he was going away, when he dropped a dirhem; ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume IV • Anonymous
... his neighbour's bosom. Glendinning had proved what Murray expected of him, a steady friend, strong in battle, and wise in counsel, adhering to him, from motives of gratitude, in situations where by his own unbiassed will he would either have stood neuter, or have joined the opposite party. Hence, when danger was near—and it was seldom far distant—Sir Halbert Glendinning, for he now bore the rank of knighthood, was perpetually summoned to attend his patron on distant expeditions, ...
— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott
... perfectly neuter and call the tough proposition which the Victory Bond salesman is visiting, somebody by the name of a competitor like Leon ...
— Potash and Perlmutter Settle Things • Montague Glass
... as before said, a young man of about thirty. His countenance of that neuter sort, which, in repose, is neither prepossessing nor disagreeable; so that it seemed quite uncertain how he would turn out. His dress was neat, with just enough of the mode to save it from the reproach of originality; in which general respect, though with ...
— The Confidence-Man • Herman Melville
... are scrupulous even to pedantry in their Latinity, and will not admit a word into their compositions, which has not the sanction of the first age. The word demento is of no authority, either as a verb active or neuter.—After a long search for the purpose of deciding a bet, some gentlemen of Cambridge found it among the fragments of Euripides, in what edition I do not recollect, where it is given as a translation of a Greek Iambick: [Greek: ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 4 (of 6) • Boswell
... its whole course from the positive post around to the negative post. When the cords are of equal length, this point will always be in the person of the patient, about midway between the parts where the two electrodes are applied. This central point, or "point of centrality," is practically neuter—neither positive nor negative; and upon the two opposite halves of the circuit, the positive and negative qualities of the current are in greatest force nearest to the posts, and in least force nearest to the central point. ...
— A Newly Discovered System of Electrical Medication • Daniel Clark
... this effect,—that when society is in the last stage of depravity—when all parties are alike corrupt, and alike wicked and unjustifiable in their measures and objects, a good man may content himself with standing neuter, a sad and disheartened spectator of the conflict between the rival vices. But are we in this wretched condition? It is fearful to see with what avidity the worst and most dangerous characters of society seize on the occasion of obtaining the countenance of better ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various |
