Fiction  |  Jane Austen  |  Sense and Sensibility  |  Vocabulary

Sense and Sensibility — Vocabulary (Part 10 of 20)

hand: P P 90 his application for her hand (asking her to dance); N A 134 ‘after aspiring to my hand’.

have with personal object and complementary active verb—the use now so common in the U.S.A.: E 45 ‘she was in such a hurry to have me draw her four children’; 209 ‘so very desirous to have dear Emma dine with them’.

have one’s health E 105 ‘ we all had our health perfectly well there’.

hence and hither, thence and thither, are much commoner than now, e.g. M P 408 they all walked thither together.

here is, &c., where we now say there : P P 138 ‘Here are officers enough at Meryton to disappoint all the young ladies in the country’. M P 312 ‘here must be some mistake.… Here is some great misapprehension’; 146 [Mrs. Norris] ‘What a piece of work here is about nothing’.

high: P P 106 ‘not brought up high’. N A 129 [Isabella Thorpe] ‘had long suspected the family to be very high’. (Johnson, defining gentleman, writes ‘it is used of any man however high’.) P 18 ‘in… high order’.

an hour and half : M P 103, 291, 439, E 173; an hour and a half occurs E 231.

ill: P P 225 ‘the knowledge of your ill opinion’; E 225 ‘You do it very ill’.

illaudable: S S 53.

imaginist: E 335.

improved = cultivated : S S 127 deficiency of all mental improvement. P P 186 ‘Her understanding excellent, her mind improved’. E 163 no advantages of connection or improvement.

improver (of houses, gardens, &c.) : M P 244 ‘such a capital improver’.

in is very often used where we should now use another preposition : P P 245 entered (the park) in one of its lowest points ; 304 ‘In the very beginning of our relationship’; 205 would never look in it again; 262 In seeing Bingley, her thoughts…flew to her sister; 283 ‘sense of decency … in such a point’; 367 in her return ; 185 ‘in one journey’; 357 ‘in every possible method’; 364 ‘admit them in your sight’.

Also in a variety of phrases, chiefly with the verb to be, denoting a state: S S 164 her eyes were in constant inquiry; 275 ‘She is not in anger against us’. P P 82 ‘be in friendship with such a man’. M P 392 The doors were in constant banging; 312 a step in regular approach; 394 ‘Then she will be in beauty’.

in-betweens: E 24 in the in-betweens.

inconsiderate: E 67 of an imprudent, inconsiderate disposition as to money-matters.

inconsideration: E 448 ‘faults of inconsideration and thought-lessness’.

indeed has an asseverative sense in contexts in which it would now be superlative: N A 134 ‘being such a smart young fellow, I saw every eye was upon us’. ‘He is very handsome indeed’ (= certainly).

induce with impersonal object : M P 427 Tom’s…impatience to be removed to Mansfield … had probably induced his being conveyed thither too early; 464 her feelings for him so like hatred, as to … induce a voluntary separation; 467 Maria’s guilt had induced Julia’s folly.