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Accent   Listen
verb
Accent  v. t.  (past & past part. accented; pres. part. accenting)  
1.
To express the accent of (either by the voice or by a mark); to utter or to mark with accent.
2.
To mark emphatically; to emphasize.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Accent" Quotes from Famous Books



... labour in sinking the trenches is ruination. And then the gates—they should be hung to stone posts, otherwise there's no keeping them up through harvest.' The Squire's voice was strongly toned with the local accent, so that he said 'drains' and 'geats' like the rustics ...
— A Changed Man and Other Tales • Thomas Hardy

... country to finance some important Korean concessions—that's what he is. His real name is Geltmann. Here's his pedigree in a nutshell: Born in Russia of mixed German and Swiss parentage. Educated in England, where he acquired his accent and the monocle habit. Perfected himself in scoundrelism in the competent finishing schools of the Far East. Speaks half a dozen languages, including Chinese and Japanese. Carries gilt-edged credentials made in the Orient. That, briefly, ...
— From Place to Place • Irvin S. Cobb

... answered a voice from the beach in English, but with a strong German accent. "Can you ...
— Under the Great Bear • Kirk Munroe

... youthful foppishness and pretension. He was a tall man, with beard and moustache slightly silvered; his aquiline features were sharpened and drawn; his bold searching eyes sunken. He was a gentleman, even an accomplished and refined gentleman in manner and accent—and yet there was about him a nameless coarseness, the brutishness of self-indulgence and low aims and ends, which no ...
— Girlhood and Womanhood - The Story of some Fortunes and Misfortunes • Sarah Tytler

... by his manner of speaking Spanish. Everybody along the border spoke the language a little; but Harboro's wasn't the canteen Spanish of most border Americans. Accent and enunciation were singularly nice and distinct. His mustache bristled rather fiercely over one or ...
— Children of the Desert • Louis Dodge

... Saxon verse was regulated by syllabic accent or emphasis, and not by quantity, like the classical metres. Alliteration, or the use of several syllables in the same stanza beginning with the same letter, takes the place of rhyme. The alliterative ...
— Handbook of Universal Literature - From The Best and Latest Authorities • Anne C. Lynch Botta

... write one word made of mo: 4.Deriuation, which examineth the ofspring of euerie originall: 5.Distinction which bewraieth the difference of sound and force in letters by som writen figure or accent: 6.Enfranchisment, which directeth the right writing of all incorporat foren words: 7.Prerogatiue, which declareth a reseruation, wherein common vse will continew hir precdence in our En[g]lish writing, as she hath don euerie where else, both for the form ...
— Early English Meals and Manners • Various

... kind that fortunately is not common. He was stout and flabby in face, with a smug, self-satisfied air I did not like. Leaning against a paddock rail, he looked me over while I told him what had brought me there. Then he said, with no trace of Western accent, which, it afterward ...
— Lorimer of the Northwest • Harold Bindloss

... wishes to know if certain men whose names he has seen and whose reputations he knows took part in these amusements! He may be sure that the "Professor" (Dana) was there, for those charming black eyes and raven hair, and the quick, nervous, volatile, lovely owner of them, with her southern accent, was there to charm him. And he may be sure that the "Poet" (Dwight) was there, for the man of music and song could not despise the poetry of motion, neither could his social soul neglect the opportunity of seeing ...
— Brook Farm • John Thomas Codman

... in a blue serge gown, of eyes brown, now sunny with laughing light, now soft with unshed tears, of hair that got itself into a most bewildering perplexity of waves and curls, of lips curving deliciously, of a voice with a wonderfully soft Highland accent; the vision and memory of Moira, Cameron's sister, as she had appeared to him in the Glen Cuagh Oir at her father's door. Had Cameron known of this tormenting vision and this haunting memory he might have questioned the perfect sincerity of his ...
— The Patrol of the Sun Dance Trail • Ralph Connor

... together they had come to New York where she began her career as a lecturer in 1836 when speaking in public branded women immoral. She spoke easily and well on education, woman's rights, and the evils of slavery. Her slight foreign accent added charm to her rich musical voice, and before long she was in demand as far west as Ohio and Michigan. With a colleague as experienced as Ernestine, Susan dared arrange for meetings even in the capital of ...
— Susan B. Anthony - Rebel, Crusader, Humanitarian • Alma Lutz

... version of "La jeune Femme colere," called "The Day after the Wedding;" the little burlesque of "Personation," of which her own exquisitely humorous performance, aided by her admirably pure French accent, has never been equaled; and a play in five acts called "Smiles and Tears," taken from Mrs. Opie's tale of ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble

... dialects at all, having nothing dialectic in them, and all phrases developed in states of rude employment, and restricted intercourse, are injurious to the tone and narrowing to the power of the language they affect. Mere breadth of accent does not spoil a dialect as long as the speakers are men of varied idea and good intelligence; but the moment the life is contracted by mining, millwork, or any oppressive and monotonous labour, the accents and phrases become debased. It is part of the popular folly of the day ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin

... in Paris—Monsieur must excuse me if I speak plainly—a disappearance of this sort is never regarded seriously by them. You know the life here without doubt, Monsieur! Your accent proves that you are well acquainted with the city. No doubt their conclusions are based upon direct observation, and in most cases are correct—but it is very certain that Monsieur the Superintendent regards such disappearances as these as due to ...
— A Maker of History • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... confidential clerk, curate, or what not? I smirk and go through the history, giving my admirable imitations of the characters introduced: I mimic Jones's grin, Hobbs's squint, Brown's stammer, Grady's brogue, Sandy's Scotch accent, to the best of my power: and, the family part of my audience laughs good-humoredly. Perhaps the stranger, for whose amusement the performance is given, is amused by it and laughs too. But this practice continued is not moral. This self-indulgence on your part, my dear Paterfamilias, ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray

... between the growls and the movements of the man's hands. The growl rose in the throat with the culmination of each forward-pushing movement, and ebbed down to start up afresh with the beginning of the next movement. The end of each movement was the accent of the rhythm, the movement ending abruptly and the growling rising with ...
— White Fang • Jack London

... for gallantry, and preserved some traces of it in his address. His grandfather had married a French lady, and although this union had not sensibly diluted the Westcote blood, Endymion would refer to it to palliate a youthful taste for playing the fiddle. He spoke French fluently, with a British accent which, when appointed Commissary, he took pains to improve by conversation with the prisoners, and was fond of discussing heredity with the two most distinguished of them—the Vicomte de Tocqueville ...
— The Westcotes • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... rather have me than her for your wife, which merely proves that you don't think it necessary to love your wife; you are satisfied if she can keep your house, and take care of your child. But I'm not cross; I'm only sorry; for,' added she, in a low, tremulous accent, withdrawing her hand from his arm, and bending her looks on the rug, 'if you don't love me, you don't, and it can't ...
— The Tenant of Wildfell Hall • Anne Bronte

... a preparation of wheat; and his plaintive way of talking of his disease, as if he were someone else, was droll in the extreme. "What do you suppose President Davis made me a major-general for?" beginning with a sharp accent, ending with a gentle lisp, was a usual question to his friends. Superbly mounted, he was the boldest of horsemen, invariably leaving the roads to take timber and water; and with all his oddities, perhaps in some measure ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson

... said Miss Levering, promptly, with an accent that brought down a laugh on the young ...
— The Convert • Elizabeth Robins

... Australia, and so he had never happened to get interested in the matter. But there was no need to be ashamed. The most of us have his defect. We take a natural interest in novelties, but it is against nature to take an interest in familiar things. The gorse and the broom were a fine accent in the landscape. Here and there they burst out in sudden conflagrations of vivid yellow against a background of sober or sombre color, with a so startling effect as to make a body catch his breath with the happy surprise of it. And then ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... Tooterson, a foreign damsel, who landed in this country Nov. 7, this present year. She does not understand our language, apparently, especially when we refer to pie. The only thing she does without a strong foreign accent is to eat pumpkin pie and draw her salary. She landed on our coast six weeks ago, after a tedious voyage across the heaving billows. It was a close fight between Tootie and the ocean, but when they quit, the heaving billows were one heave ahead by ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye

... pronunciation. The accented character and the symbol representing the accent are surrounded with square brackets. Symbols in this text have been placed in front of the character as the accents all appear ...
— A Field Book of the Stars • William Tyler Olcott

... been ordered to the second at Boulogne, my place in the malle-poste taken, and these and other services announced in a letter, which, by way of doing its part also in the kindly work of preparation, broke out into French. He never spoke that language very well, his accent being somehow defective; but he practised himself into writing it with remarkable ease and fluency. "I have written to the Hotel des Bains at Boulogne to send on to Calais and take your place in the malle-poste. . . . Of course you know that you'll be ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster

... had dealings with the Evil One, she meant to observe. The elderly cook when she arrived warned us away from the door with a dialect we did not recognise. Her name (Lizzie reported) was Deborah, and in our haste we set her down for a Jewess; but I seem to have detected her accent since, and a few of her pet phrases, in the ...
— The White Wolf and Other Fireside Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... another garb on the Tour. He is wholly ravished with his voice, it being absolutely the same, that had charmed him that day in the park; the more he gazed and listened, the more he was confirmed in his opinion, that he was the same, and he had the music of that dear accent still in his ears, and could not be deceived. A thousand times he is about to kneel before her, and ask her pardon, but still is checked by doubt: he sees, he hears, this is the same lovely youth, who lay in bed with him at the village cabaret; and then no ...
— Love-Letters Between a Nobleman and His Sister • Aphra Behn

... can't," returned Milly's voice; hers, but with an accent of coldness and decision in it which struck strangely on his ear. He paused, bewildered. Then he remembered how often he had read that women were capricious, unaccountable creatures. Milly had made him forget that. Her attitude towards him had been one of unvarying gentleness and devotion. ...
— The Invader - A Novel • Margaret L. Woods

... difficultes semblent etre des choses fort simples, et que sa main n'a point l'air de se mouvoir. Il n'est d'ailleurs pas mains etonnant dans l'art d'attaquer la note et de varier a l'infini les diverses nuances de force, de douceur et d'accent. Un enthousiasme impossible a decrire, un veritable delire s'est manifeste dans le public a l'audition de ce concerto plein de charme rendu avec une perfection de fini, de precision, de nettete et d'expression qu'il serait impossible de surpasser et que bien peu de pianistes ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks

... much; for, I must confess, I felt rather nettled at the national conceit and prejudice of these French. But the wretch, in the impetuous utterance of his invective, must somehow—though I was not aware of it at the time—have mimicked my gestures and imitated the very tones and accent of my voice so closely as to deceive even some of my English companions: or how else to account for the fact of their calling me a noisy brawler and a pestilent nuisance? me, the gentlest and ...
— A Stable for Nightmares - or Weird Tales • J. Sheridan Le Fanu

... flounder about; thrice one of them, load and all, goes down with a squidge and a crash into the side grass, and says "damn!" with quite the European accent; as a rule, however, we go on in single file, my shoes giving out a mellifluous squidge, and their naked feet a squish, squash. The men take it very good temperedly, and sing in between accidents; I do not feel much like singing myself, particularly at one awful spot, ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley

... Lombard, of harsh accent and strange face, come to live in the most cultured city in the world. Florence was then in the full flowering of literature and art; and in her overripe perfections the poison was distilling of greed and cruelty and ...
— The Young Man and the World • Albert J. Beveridge

... helmet, and other things considered no doubt by her as suited to Egypt rather than to herself, remarked in my hearing, with a Scotch accent and an air of summing up, that Karnak was "very nice indeed." There she was wrong—Scotch and wrong. Karnak is not nice. No temple that I have seen upon the banks of the Nile is nice. And Karnak cannot be summed up in a phrase or in many phrases; ...
— The Spell of Egypt • Robert Hichens

... to help me?" She had resumed her seat on the gun-carriage and, drawing Sergeant Barboux's tunic off its gun, began with her embroidery scissors to snip at the shanks of its breast-buttons. His cheeks were burning now; she spoke with a trained accent of levity. "I called you, monsieur, to say that I cannot, of course, copy these buttons, and to ask if you consent to my using them on your new tunic, or if you prefer to put up with plain ones. But it appears that I have wandered to some distance from my question." ...
— Fort Amity • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... speak, Arnold spoke. The unmistakable accent of truth was in every word that he uttered. He gave a fairly coherent account of events, from the time when Geoffrey had claimed his assistance at the lawn-party to the time when he found himself at the door ...
— Man and Wife • Wilkie Collins

... the child of wealthy parents, who is turned over to hirelings, chosen more for their accent of a foreign tongue than for their knowledge of child life and of the laws which govern the growing mind and body. Such children not infrequently become as depraved as the most neglected and exposed child of the slums, later poisoning the minds or shocking the sensibilities ...
— The Renewal of Life; How and When to Tell the Story to the Young • Margaret Warner Morley

... moment opened quietly, and Van Klopen appeared on the threshold. He was about forty-four, and too stout for his height. His red, pimply face had an expression upon it of extreme insolence, and his accent was thoroughly Dutch. He was dressed in a ruby velvet dressing-gown, with a cravat with lace ends. A huge cluster-diamond ring blazed on ...
— Caught In The Net • Emile Gaboriau

... a blow of the shoulder that was as violent as a blow from a battering-ram, he dashed open the door. Then the horror-stricken accent of the man who had been peering through the shutters was explained. The room presented such a spectacle that all the agents, and even Gevrol himself, remained for a moment rooted to the threshold, shuddering ...
— Monsieur Lecoq • Emile Gaboriau

... child of truth, looks to us, by any such measure, comparatively plated over with the impenetrable rococo of his own day. I speak, I hasten to add, not of Byron's volume, his flood and his fortune, but of his really having quarrelled with the temper and the accent of his age still more where they might have helped him to expression than where he but flew in their face. He hugged his pomp, whereas our unspeakably fortunate young poet of to-day, linked like him also, for consecration ...
— Letters from America • Rupert Brooke

... experience was another revelation to her, for service at Westfield had been eminently severe and unadorned. Mr. Glynn was an Englishman; a short, stout, strenuous member of the Church of England with a broad accent and a predilection for ritual, but enthusiastic and earnest. He had been tempted to cross the ocean by the opportunities for preaching the gospel to the heathen, and he had fixed on Benham as a vineyard where he could labor to advantage. ...
— Unleavened Bread • Robert Grant

... text, accented or special characters have been discarded. The following is a pretty complete list of the words in the text which were originally accented. They appear more or less in the order in which they first appeared with the accent—often the accents were dropped in the original. In each case, the accent follows the appropriate letter, the "ae" and "oe" combinations are represented as (ae) and (oe), [], [/], [], [^] and [-] represent the accent that looks like them which would appear above the preceding letter. ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone

... contains much Greek text which is often relevant to the point of the book. In the ASCII versions of the e-book, the Greek is transliterated into Roman letters, which do not perfectly represent the Greek original; especially, accent and breathing marks do not transliterate. The HTML and PDF versions contain the true Greek text of the original book. In the ASCII e-book, the markings such as (M1) indicate marginal notes, which were printed in the margins of the original book, ...
— On The Structure of Greek Tribal Society: An Essay • Hugh E. Seebohm

... influence was also making itself felt, faintly and dimly, in Scotland. The Death-Wake is the work of a lad who certainly had read Keats, Coleridge and Shelley, but who is no imitator of these great poets. He has, in a few passages, and at his best, an accent original, distinct, strangely musical, and really replete with promise. He has a fresh unborrowed melody and mastery of words, the first indispensable sign of a true poet. His rhymed heroic verse is no more the rhymed heroic verse of Endymion, ...
— The Death-Wake - or Lunacy; a Necromaunt in Three Chimeras • Thomas T Stoddart

... balancing poles and pistols,' said Mr. Random in a stern accent to his son, 'is very well in a proper place, but quite inadmissible in a room full of company. Now, sir, what business had you to take this ...
— Forgotten Tales of Long Ago • E. V. Lucas

... the Midgan is dark and somewhat stunted; he is known to the people by peculiarities of countenance and accent. ...
— First footsteps in East Africa • Richard F. Burton

... blue or orange sashes, are too pretty fellows to be dismissed so easily, when once you have acquired an interest. But Mistress Alice, so pretty, and who wishes the restoration of the King with such a look and accent, as if she were an angel whose prayers must needs bring it down, must not be allowed to retain any thoughts of a canting roundhead—What say you—will you give me leave to take her to task about it?—After all, I am the party most concerned in maintaining ...
— Woodstock; or, The Cavalier • Sir Walter Scott

... cropped in the very hideous fashion of the present day; he wore the ostentatiously high collar now in vogue; and he tried to be sedulously English in every respect. But in spite of his wonderfully fluent speech and almost perfect accent, there lingered about him something which would not harmonise with that ideal of an English gentleman which is latent in most minds. Something he lacked, something he possessed, which interfered with the part he desired to play. The something lacking showed ...
— The Autobiography of a Slander • Edna Lyall

... have the children of our working-classes growing up ill-educated and with imperfect manners. Their spelling will become phonetic. They will cease to speak grammatically. They will lose their pleasing accent. Their lack of instruction in arithmetic may even lead them into errors savouring of criminality. Worse, they will fall back in their appreciation of music, art and poetry. They will be reading trashy and sensational ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, February 18, 1914 • Various

... Romances. Havelok the Dane. King Horn. The prosody of the modern languages. Historical retrospect. Anglo-Saxon prosody. Romance prosody. English prosody. The later alliteration. The new verse. Rhyme and syllabic equivalence. Accent and quantity. The gain of form. The "accent" theory. Initial fallacies, and final ...
— The Flourishing of Romance and the Rise of Allegory - (Periods of European Literature, vol. II) • George Saintsbury

... To this I assented, and, while he was gone, a party of gentlemen approached also to the entrance. One of them, having heard the discourse between the sentinel and myself, addressed me. Perceiving that he was a foreigner, I asked him if he spoke English. He replied with a slight accent, 'Yes, a little. You are an Englishman, sir?' 'No,' I replied, 'I am an American from the United States.' 'Indeed,' said he, 'that is much better'; and, extending his hand, he shook me cordially by the hand, adding, 'I have a great respect for your country and I know many of your countrymen.' He ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Samuel F. B. Morse

... among some of the good people that he never had a word to say to a Christian soul, while others declared that though he spoke beautifully when he chose to, there was something wrong in his accent. A tidy man, too, they called him, all but for having that scandalous green pond alongside of his factory, which wasn't deep enough for an eel and was "just a fever nest, as sure as ...
— Hans Brinker - or The Silver Skates • Mary Mapes Dodge

... discussing with Dr. Hubbell the possibility of getting the United States Signal Corps man in the telegraph office to signal our steamer for a boat, regardless of the high surf, when the long white figure on the floor rose, with an unmistakably masculine grunt, and remarked, with a slight English accent, that he did not think there was any possibility of getting off to a ship in a small boat, inasmuch as he had been trying for twenty-four hours to get on board of his own vessel and had not succeeded yet. The figure proved to be that ...
— Campaigning in Cuba • George Kennan

... be natural, my boy," answered the Cardinal slowly and with a slight accent of melancholy,—"But for many of us in these days I fear it is more natural still to forget than to remember. Too often we take gifts and ignore the giver. But come now and breakfast in my room;—for the present you shall remain with me, and I will see what ...
— The Master-Christian • Marie Corelli

... again—not in my time." That was the tragedy of the war for him. Our universities will recover faster than he thinks, and resume the care of our particular "Kultur," and cap the products of our public schools with the Oxford accent and the ...
— Another Sheaf • John Galsworthy

... impression. Laurier could perform obvious tricks with a consummate grace. And he performed many. There never was a moment of his waking life when he could not have been lifted into a play. His movements, his words, his accent, his clothes, his facial lineaments were never commonplace, even when his motives often may have been. He was Debussy's Afternoon of a Faun; poetry and charm all the days ...
— The Masques of Ottawa • Domino

... to Valmiki, bird of charming song, Who mounts on Poesy's sublimest spray, And sweetly sings with accent clear and strong Rama, aye ...
— Hindu Literature • Epiphanius Wilson

... the power of that melancholy; but what I wish to point out is, that no nation of Europe so caught in its poetry the passionate penetrating accent of the Celtic genius, its strain of Titanism, as the English. Goethe, like Napoleon, felt the spell of Ossian very powerfully, and he quotes a long passage from him in his Werther. But what is there Celtic, ...
— Celtic Literature • Matthew Arnold

... out. Will you wait? He will return in a very few minutes." Her voice was clear and low, her accent charming. The smile in her eyes somehow struck him as sad, even fleeting in its attempt at mirth. As she spoke, it disappeared altogether and an almost sombre expression came ...
— Truxton King - A Story of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon

... troubled her for a year or two longer," added I; "strictly speaking, this accent, derived from the Italian, has nothing disagreeable in it; while the English, Polish, Russian, and German accent is inharmonious in itself, and is ...
— The Memoirs of Madame de Montespan, Complete • Madame La Marquise De Montespan

... to pronounce the word according to any authorized orthography, as it was never my good fortune to see the word in print. I am not informed whether or not the acute accent is placed ...
— Freaks of Fortune - or, Half Round the World • Oliver Optic

... trick of cadgers and beggars. I mind weel a time when I was leaving a hall, and a rare looking bird collared me. He had a nose that showed only too plainly why he was in trouble, and a most unmistakably English voice. But he'd taken the trouble to learn some Scots words, though the accent was far ayant him. ...
— Between You and Me • Sir Harry Lauder

... here?" asked Nick Schmouder, with scarcely a trace of German accent, as he and the other prisoners stood with upraised hands, though one of the survivors had to drop his as he fell in a heap because of ...
— Ned, Bob and Jerry on the Firing Line - The Motor Boys Fighting for Uncle Sam • Clarence Young

... observation. Only two phenomena are susceptible of accurate and sufficient study. For three summers a man used to ride through the long street in which I live. The man used to sell ice and would announce himself by crying out, "Frozen,'' with the accent on the Fro. This word was distinctly audible, but if the man came to a definite place in the street, there were also audible the words "Oh, my.'' If he rode on further the expression became confused and gradually ...
— Robin Hood • J. Walker McSpadden

... friend, tried and leal friend, speak! speak!" exclaimed the priest, in an accent that ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... Yes; now that you mention it," cried the other, with an accent of despair. "And you said her name was Hester, too. The adorable little Rothsay to whom I had even proposed to propose. If this is a sample of her family though! But, of course, it can't be. It would be too incredible. She is an angel; while he—well, he isn't, and therefore cannot ...
— At War with Pontiac - The Totem of the Bear • Kirk Munroe and J. Finnemore

... greatness in Paris, for fear at last there won't be room to bury him. After this we were marched to a place where our guide made a long speech about a stone in the floor—very instructive, doubtless, if I had known what it was: my Parisian friend said he spoke with such a German accent she could not understand; so we humbly took the stone on trust, though it looked to the eye of sense quite ...
— Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands V2 • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... lady, so commandingly, that her companion looked at her, as if to warn her to be more guarded. Indeed, Madame de la Motte had been struck with this imperious accent, and stared at ...
— The Queen's Necklace • Alexandre Dumas pere

... and Tchampa. It seems safer to use Ch for C in names which though of Indian origin are used outside India. The final a though strictly speaking long is usually written without an accent. The following are the principal works which I ...
— Hinduism and Buddhism, An Historical Sketch, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Charles Eliot

... in the big arm-chair, Would spin for us yarns unending, Your voice and accent and pensive air ...
— The Scarlet Gown - being verses by a St. Andrews Man • R. F. Murray

... lad," said the courtier removing his pipe, and speaking in the broad soft accent of Devonshire, "I have not marked thy face before. Art new to ...
— In Doublet and Hose - A Story for Girls • Lucy Foster Madison

... very devout in that religion, his attendant might be no other than his chaplain from Bruxelles; hence, if he took his meals in my lord's company there was little reason for surprise. Frank was further cautioned to speak English with a foreign accent, which task he performed indifferently well, and this caution was the more necessary because the prince himself scarce spoke our language like a native of the island; and John Lockwood laughed with the folks below stairs at the manner in which my lord, after five years ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray

... the quire in heaven And warbles peacefull Anthems to the earth? It is her voyce, that to all eares speakes health, Only to mine. Come charitable mist Hide me, or freindly wherlewind rap me hence, Or her next accent, like the thunderers, will Strike ...
— A Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. II • Various

... She had a peculiarly harsh, grating voice, so that any but a very competent judge would have turned her away. But M. Choron, whose experience was great, noted the correctness of her accent and the feeling which made itself felt in every line. He accepted her as well as her sister, but urged her to study ...
— Famous Affinities of History, Vol 1-4, Complete - The Romance of Devotion • Lyndon Orr

... regard to sentences as in words. The emphasis or force of voice is for the most part laid upon the accented syllable; but if there is a particular opposition between two words in a sentence, one whereof differs from the other in parts, the accent must be removed from its place: for instance, The sun shines upon the just and upon the unjust. Here the emphasis is laid upon the first syllable in unjust, because it is opposed to just in the same sentence, without which opposition it would lie in its proper place, that is, on the last ...
— A Museum for Young Gentlemen and Ladies - A Private Tutor for Little Masters and Misses • Unknown

... soul. The Norman French language of the nobles in England was no longer that of their more refined cousins over the water; but though his tongue betrayed him for an Englishman, Gilbert had the something which was of more worth among his equals than a French accent—the grace, the unaffected ease, the straightforward courtesy, which are bred in bone and blood, like talent or genius, but which reach perfection only in the atmosphere to which they belong, and among men and women who have them in ...
— Via Crucis • F. Marion Crawford

... strange accent, that Dick didn't recognize. But he was pleasant and made it easy ...
— Wanted—7 Fearless Engineers! • Warner Van Lorne

... mean. Suppose a bunch of ripe nuts high up and almost out of reach; by dint of pressing into the bushes, pulling at the bough, and straining on tiptoe, you may succeed in "scraambing" it down. "Scraambing," or "scraambed," with a long accent on the aa, indicates the action of stetching and pulling downwards. Though somewhat similar in sound, it has no affinity with scramble; people scramble for things which have been thrown on the ground. In getting through hedges the thorns are ...
— The Life of the Fields • Richard Jefferies

... must 'a' fell down the well," she remarked, with an accent of despair that was not all caused by ...
— Treasure Valley • Marian Keith

... un morsow de bong.' Monkey copied his accent, using a sentence from a schoolboy's letter in Punch. 'It's not a bit of good.' Mother squelched her with a look, but Daddy, even if he noticed it, was not offended. Nothing could offend him to-night. Impertinence turned silvery ...
— A Prisoner in Fairyland • Algernon Blackwood

... of informant—Tall and straight. He is blind. Clean in appearance, dressed in slightly faded overalls. He has short, clean, grey beard. Speaks with a clear accent. ...
— Slave Narratives: Arkansas Narratives - Arkansas Narratives, Part 6 • Works Projects Administration

... traces its slender golden path through the minds of readers. It settles itself comfortably into the literary landscape, incorporates itself subtly into the unconscious thought of men, becomes corpuscular in the blood of the language. It comes down to us in the accent of those who have loved and quoted it, invigorated by our subtle sense of the permanent rightness of its phrasing and our knowledge of the pleasure it has given to thousands of others. The more it is ...
— Plum Pudding - Of Divers Ingredients, Discreetly Blended & Seasoned • Christopher Morley

... Mr. Macgregor," returned Alan; "and in the meantime" (laying a strong accent on the word) "I take back the lie. I ...
— Kidnapped • Robert Louis Stevenson

... with an accent of great sincerity, a series of facts which I am quite willing to admit. Unfortunately, you have forgotten a point of the first importance: what became of Mathias de Gorne? You tied him up here, in this room. Well, ...
— The Eight Strokes of the Clock • Maurice Leblanc

... much to be pitied," proceeded Valentine. "That isn't all"—he sighed again—"I was born with a bad French accent, and without a single tooth in my head, or, out of it, while such was my weakness, that it took two strong men, both masters of arts, to drag me through the rudiments of the ...
— Fated to Be Free • Jean Ingelow

... arm round the shoulders of the young lord and gave him a playful roll. Then he said with good accent and pronunciation, but with a certain rough quality of voice, and louder than English gentlemen usually speak, "Your money is as safe as ...
— Cashel Byron's Profession • George Bernard Shaw

... with him. Not by personal appearance, but by voice, he came to a conclusion that the man was not wholly a stranger to him,—a peculiar voice with a slight Norman breadth of pronunciation, though a Parisian accent; a voice very low, yet very distinct; very masculine, yet very gentle. My colleague was puzzled till late one evening he observed the man coming out of the house of one of these rich malcontents, the rich malcontent himself accompanying him. My colleague, availing himself of the dimness ...
— The Parisians, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... on the mother and the child, and, taking a chain and jewel from her neck, she clasped it round the boy's neck, and said, in musical German with a foreign accent: ...
— St. Nicholas, Vol. 5, No. 4, February 1878 • Various

... my lord," continued the Jew with his strong Hebrew-German accent, "be so good as to favor me by saying whether ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]

... melody with which the Typee girls carry on an ordinary conversation, giving a musical prolongation to the final syllable of every sentence, and chirping out some of the words with a liquid, bird-like accent, was singularly pleasing. ...
— Typee - A Romance of the South Sea • Herman Melville

... now deserted pavement, exhorting and cheering him, a loud contralto voice vulgarised by an Italian accent ...
— Artists' Wives • Alphonse Daudet

... ain't one of your fine lady cooks with a nime out of the -> nime occurs elsewhere in the text as well and indicates an accent ...
— Captain Jim • Mary Grant Bruce

... Will no one speak for my life?" These words were ejaculated with the ghastly accent and volubility ...
— Cudjo's Cave • J. T. Trowbridge

... come up, captain?" said the strong clear voice of the young man above him, speaking excellent French, but in an accent which fell strangely upon the ears of the ...
— The Refugees • Arthur Conan Doyle

... clans, septs, and families, each under its own Shaykh. All are Moslems, after the Desert pattern, a very rude and inchoate article. Wellsted knew them by their remarkably broad chins: the Bedawi recognize them by their look; by their peculiar accent, and by the use of certain peculiar words, as Harr! when donkey-driving. The men are unwashed and filthy; the women walk abroad unveiled, and never refuse themselves, I am told, to ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 2 • Richard Burton

... occasionally mentioned, and then his features, struck Ochiltree, and awakened recollections of former times. The rest of the assembly were now retiring, when the domestic, again approaching the place where Edie still lingered, said, in a strong Aberdeenshire accent, "Fat is the auld feel-body deeing, that he canna gang avay, now that he's gotten baith meat ...
— The Antiquary, Complete • Sir Walter Scott

... fiddling and recognised it as that of Sandy McQuean, the half-breed son of a famous Orkney man. He had learnt his art from his father. They were all Scotch airs that he played. He could sing, when he chose, with a Highland accent, and had caught the knack of imbuing what he ...
— Murder Point - A Tale of Keewatin • Coningsby Dawson

... he whom we called Diccon Bend-the-Bow?" said Isaac; "I thought ever I knew the accent ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott

... she placed a scornful accent on the last word. "What good will that do? And can't any one in Greenwald or Lancaster, even, learn her to sing? Anyhow, she don't need no lessons, she hollers too loud already. If she takes lessons ...
— Patchwork - A Story of 'The Plain People' • Anna Balmer Myers

... look of supreme disdain which brings on riots in Trafalgar Square. Behind the patriotic, the national note: 'How can a people be civilised that eats jam with its meat?' I heard the deeper, the oligarchic accent: 'How can a people be enfranchised that eats meat with its fingers?' Ah, you are right! How you do hate the poor! What bores they are! You aristocrats—the products of centuries of culture, comfort, and cocksureness—will never rid yourselves of your conviction that you are ...
— Merely Mary Ann • Israel Zangwill

... there who believed he had successfully mastered all the most difficult modern languages except that which is spoken by the brake-men on the elevated railroads. When he spoke French the only departure from the accent of the Parisian was that nuance of difference arising from the mere accidental circumstance of one having learned his French in Paris and the other in Boston. The French give much praise to Moliere ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol III, After-Dinner Speeches P-Z • Various

... was the fortunate one to obtain this flower?" he asked, in an accent indifferent enough to deceive a ...
— The Mill Mystery • Anna Katharine Green

... with a slight accent. A thousand pities, thought Henry, that such a delightful person should be a heretic—such a heretic as to have been unfrocked. Why, indeed, should any one be a heretic? Atheism was natural enough, but heresy seemed strange. For, surely, if one could believe anything, one could believe ...
— Mystery at Geneva - An Improbable Tale of Singular Happenings • Rose Macaulay

... at her when she spoke. He flushed when he heard her place a slight accent on the we. She glanced at him and then looked into the fire. But in their glances which met, they both saw that ...
— The Bishop of Cottontown - A Story of the Southern Cotton Mills • John Trotwood Moore

... himself. At a local social function he took the prize one day for being the most unpopular man in the community; and this caused him to sit up nights, and study himself as others saw him flitting across his unattractive and uneventful stage. The winning of this prize spoke to him with greater accent than could the exploding of a sixteen-inch German gun, and it sent a quiver through his entire avoirdupois. It was not only an appalling revelation to him to know that he was unpopular, but it was a disgrace to his pedigree right back to the days of Samuel De Champlain, ...
— Skookum Chuck Fables - Bits of History, Through the Microscope • Skookum Chuck (pseud for R.D. Cumming)

... a case, and carried the key to the case in his pocket. On rare occasions he had shown bits of this music to Sebastian, who read music like print when it is easy. The boy devoured all the music he could lay his hands on, and hummed it over to himself until every note and accent was fixed in his memory. He dearly wanted to examine that music in the locked-up case, but his brother declared his ambition nonsense—he was too young. But the boy contrived a way to pick the lock—for a music-lover ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Musicians • Elbert Hubbard

... in," said a voice in a foreign accent. A native appeared at the door with a light in his hand. "Mynheer Van Wijk will see you," said he, as he conducted Owen into a room where a white man was reclining in a hammock, with a huge pipe in his mouth, whom he supposed to be Mynheer Van Wijk, ...
— Owen Hartley; or, Ups and Downs - A Tale of Land and Sea • William H. G. Kingston

... stanzas in the poem, one hundred and six are the ordinary four-lined stanzas of popular poetry. The language, too, is not obtrusively archaic as it is in Chatterton and some of the Spenserians; at most an occasional "wist" or "eftsoons"; now and then a light accent, in ballad fashion, on the final syllable of a rime-word like mariner or countrie. There is no definite burden, which would have been out of place in a poem that is narrative and not lyrical; but the ballad ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Nineteenth Century • Henry A. Beers

... progress of some massive force gaining its momentum; but as she felt her way, and moving in a congenial element, the sweep of her speech became grand. The style of her eloquence was sententious, free from prettiness, direct, vigorous, charged with vitality. Articulateness, just emphasis and varied accent, brought out most delicate shades and brilliant points of meaning, while a rhythmical collocation of words gave a finished form to every thought. She was affluent in historic illustration and literary allusion, as well as in novel ...
— Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, Vol. II • Margaret Fuller Ossoli

... corner of the street when into the now dissonant "hole in the wall", amid the scene of wreck and disaster, stepped a tall dark man, with a closely cropped beard, who spoke English with an accent and who regarded the erstwhile proprietor and the minions of the law with ill-concealed ...
— A Man and His Money • Frederic Stewart Isham

... but as members of a sentence, and parts of a connected discourse: including every thing necessary to the just expression of the sense. Accordingly, it demands, in a special manner, attention to the following particulars; viz., ARTICULATION, ACCENT, EMPHASIS, INFLECTION, ...
— Sanders' Union Fourth Reader • Charles W. Sanders

... single generation, can possibly represent the working of that machinery which, in the course of many centuries, has given rise to such mighty revolutions in the forms of speech throughout the world. Everyone may have noticed in his own lifetime the stealing in of some slight alterations of accent, pronunciation or spelling, or the introduction of some words borrowed from a foreign language to express ideas of which no native term precisely conveyed the import. He may also remember hearing for the first time some cant ...
— The Antiquity of Man • Charles Lyell

... another Turkish Kaed of Sockna. The continual jealousies and rivalries in these towns prevent the Pacha from appointing them one of their native Sheikhs. The Mudeer has been four years in Barbary, but, like all the Turks, speaks Arabic very badly, with a most detestable accent. The apartment of the Kaed is a portion of the Castle, the passages to which are a mass of ruins, and you are afraid of the walls or ceilings of dilapidated rooms tumbling on your head. Sockna, like Mourzuk, has its Castle, separated from the town. ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson

... Southey throws the accent on the first syllable, and Spenser on the second. One of the suite of Brute. He overthrew the giant Goem'agot, for which achievement he was rewarded with the whole western horn of England, hence called Corin'ea, and ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol 1 - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook • The Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D.

... as she knelt, then looked at the keen glittering steel, and, with a solemnity of accent which showed how deeply she was in earnest, ...
— Cord and Creese • James de Mille

... it possible, madam," said Mr Arnott, in an accent of surprize and delight, "that you can deign to be interested in what may become of me! and that my sharing or escaping the ruin of this house is not wholly indifferent ...
— Cecilia vol. 2 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)

... Roundabout Sammy is a very promising horse, by Engineer, out of Little Joker. He was not bred in France, for, though there is a Parisian accent about some of his neighs, there is a distinctly British look about his nose. He is a trifle cobby, no doubt, but he is a capital feeder, and should go well in a double harness, with 84 'Pommery, his ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 104, April 22, 1893 • Various

... so loudly to me now and then; as though I were tired of sitting alone, and looking up the valley and down the valley. I know it all by heart. It would be fresh life; the stir, the movement; other people, fresh ideas, beautiful new things to see. But, indeed, you must not tempt me." There was an accent of yearning in her tone, a hint of eager anticipation, as of a good time coming; a dream postponed, which she would nevertheless be willing one day to enjoy. "I mustn't go anywhere; I couldn't—until my boy comes home, if he ever comes ...
— Peter's Mother • Mrs. Henry De La Pasture

... and turned up my cuffs, than if dressing for the President's levee, I fell to work on board the hospital-ship in Hilton-Head harbor. The scene was most familiar, and yet strange; for only dark faces looked up at me from the pallets so thickly laid along the floor, and I missed the sharp accent of my Yankee boys in the slower, softer voices calling cheerily to one another, or answering my questions with a stout, "We'll never give it up, Ma'am, till the last Reb's dead," or, "If our people's free, we can ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 12, No. 73, November, 1863 • Various

... indications, however, that the common people did not observe the rules of quantity in their integrity. We can readily understand why that may have been the case. The comparative carelessness, which is characteristic of conversation, affects our pronunciation of words. When there is a stress accent, as there was in Latin, this is especially liable to be the case. We know in English how much the unaccented syllables suffer in a long word like "laboratory." In Latin the long unaccented vowels and the final syllable, which was never protected by the ...
— The Common People of Ancient Rome - Studies of Roman Life and Literature • Frank Frost Abbott

... Europe is awakening to the fact that it sentenced itself to ruin when it gave great privileges to his kind of folk in return for the guidance of what it thought was a finer culture, but was no more than a different accent. It was, we are now aware, the mere Nobodies who won the War for us; and yet we still meekly accept as the artistic representation of the British soldier or sailor an embarrassing guy that would disgrace pantomime. And how the men who ...
— Waiting for Daylight • Henry Major Tomlinson

... after marrying a noble who was perfectly honorable, but neither a man of the world, nor the owner of much property. She desired for her only son a better fate than she herself had had, and prepared him for it long beforehand. He spoke French with a Parisian accent, and English quite well; he was versed in the literatures of Western Europe; he was a famous dancer; he was obliging; he had an inborn instinct of kindness toward people; he was popular, sought after, petted; ...
— The Argonauts • Eliza Orzeszko (AKA Orzeszkowa)

... and astonish me in two ways ... by the versification, mechanically considered; and by the successful evolution of pure beauty from all that roughness and rudeness of the sin of the boar-pinner—successfully evolved, without softening one hoarse accent of his voice. But there is to be a pause now—you will not write any more—no, nor come here on Wednesday, if coming into the roar of this London should make the pain worse, as I cannot help thinking it must—and you were not well yesterday morning, you admitted. You will take care? And if ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett

... breaks in his manner of a Western cowboy, breaks that startled Sheila like little echoes from her life abroad and in the East. There was a quickness of voice and manner, an impatience, a hot and nervous something, and his voice and accent suggested training. The abrupt question, for instance, was not in the ...
— Hidden Creek • Katharine Newlin Burt

... gentleman who speaks our language correctly but with some accent, told me that he found it impossible to get served in our stores, the shop-girls bursting with laughter before he could make ...
— Worldly Ways and Byways • Eliot Gregory

... turned pale. It is evident that he must have been in great financial need before he would have come to make such a request. But he quite forgot this in the face of the words he had just heard. For, without pressing his claim further, he arose, took his hat and said, with an accent of solemn dignity: ...
— Honor de Balzac • Albert Keim and Louis Lumet

... accent may be due to consciousness of roll. The French word will never make itself comfortable in English if it is homophonous ...
— Society for Pure English, Tract 3 (1920) - A Few Practical Suggestions • Society for Pure English

... pardon, sir, but your pronunciation of my name shows that you do not quite understand the way it is divided. It is Van der Donk, with an equal emphasis upon each syllable, not Vanderdonk, with the accent on the first. I am most particular about the pronunciation of the name, which is that of one of the earliest settlers of the Hudson valley, and a very distinguished one, I may say. I am exceedingly proud of my origin, pardonably so, ...
— The Hilltop Boys on the River • Cyril Burleigh

... appeal to their mercy through their cupidity. Money was not scarce with me then, and I was able to offer them a rich reward (which they ultimately received as I had promised) if they would take me to any place where I could get shelter and medical help. I supposed they inferred by my language and accent—perhaps also by the linen I wore, which they examined closely—that I belonged to the higher ranks of the community, in spite of the plainness of my outer garments; and might, therefore, be in a position to make good my promise to them. I heard one say to the other, 'Let us risk ...
— After Dark • Wilkie Collins

... the delivery of the message this pity must find its way and have expression, if not always in word, certainly in tone. In tone, we say, for the tone of the preacher's utterance is almost, if not quite, as important as its words. Lacking the accent of pity, the accusations of the preacher will degenerate into scolding, and of all scolds the pulpit scold is the most objectionable. Without a pitiful heart his exposure of human nature will become mere fault-finding, ...
— The Message and the Man: - Some Essentials of Effective Preaching • J. Dodd Jackson

... prince said with a strong Italian accent, "you will pardon me, I hope, for making the simple observation that my age authorizes: you ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet

... called David and me into his cabin and asked us about our schools, handed us books to read, and seemed surprised to find that Scotch boys could read and pronounce English with perfect accent and knew so much Latin and French. In Scotch schools only pure English was taught, although not a word of English was spoken out of school. All through life, however well educated, the Scotch spoke Scotch among their own folk, except at times when unduly excited ...
— The Story of My Boyhood and Youth • John Muir

... with a savage accent. "I hate him, and he shall die this horrid death. Ah! how the little fellows will leap upon him, when I bring him in, bound and helpless, and give their beautiful wicked souls to them! How they will pierce him in ten thousand spots with their poisoned weapons, until his skin turns ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 24, Oct. 1859 • Various

... gone in a moment, kicked off with the second boot, and the child goes shouting to complete the landscape with the lacking colour of life. You are inclined to wonder that, even undressed, he still shouts with a Cockney accent. You half expect pure vowels and elastic syllables from his restoration, his spring, his slenderness, his brightness, and his glow. Old ivory and wild rose in the deepening midsummer sun, he gives his colours to his ...
— The Colour of Life • Alice Meynell

... with an accent on every word. I did not question him about it, as I was accustomed to the mystery of this country of the mysteries of good ...
— Beasts, Men and Gods • Ferdinand Ossendowski

... consonant, with a vowel: [o]f th(i)s (e)pistle, but not [o]f th(i)s d(i)saster, still less [o]f th(i)s d(i)rection. The other element of quantity is less rigidly defined; for (1) syllables strictly long, as I, thy, so, are allowed to be short; (2) syllables made long by the accent falling upon them are in some cases shortened, as r(u)[i]ne, p(e)r(i)sh[e]d, cr(u)[e]l; (3) syllables which the absence of the accent only allows to be long in thesi, are, in virtue of the classical ...
— The Poems and Fragments of Catullus • Catullus

... quiet drawl are heard everywhere as he strolls round the tables; Roumanian boyards, Parisian swindlers, Austrian soldiers, Hungarian plutocrats, flashy and foolish young Englishmen—all gather in a motley crowd; and the British bookmaker's interesting presence is obtrusive. His very accent—strident, coarse, impudent, unspeakably low—gives a kind of ground-note to the hum of talk that rises in all places of public resort, and he recruits his delicate health in anticipation of the time when he will be able to howl once more ...
— Side Lights • James Runciman

... festoons along the ancient ceilings of the porticoes; the roofs of the new, shiny modern bungalows dotting the gentle slopes below—could forget even that the brown-cowled, rope-girthed father who served as guide spoke with a strong German accent; could almost forgive the impious driver of the rig that brought one here for referring to this place as the Mish. But be sure there would be one thing to bring you hurtling back again to earth, no matter how far aloft your fancy soared—and ...
— Roughing it De Luxe • Irvin S. Cobb

... country gives him, we think, an advantage over any English translator, which more than counterbalances the trifling inaccuracies of phraseology that here and there betray the foreigner, and amount to nothing more than an accent, which is not without its merit of piquancy. In one respect we think he has acted with great discretion, namely, in now and then curtailing the reflections which Guerrazzi has interpolated upon the story to the manifest detriment of its interest and consecutiveness. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 5, March, 1858 • Various

... above us on the lard. side of the Columbia, at the entrance of a small river. they do not differ much in their dress from those lower down and speak nearly the same language, it is in fact the same with a small difference of accent. we saw a great number of snakes on this island they were about the size and much the form of the common garter snake of the Atlantic coast and like that snake are not poisonous. they have 160 scuta on the abdomen and 71 on the tail. the abdomen near the head, and jaws as high as the eyes, ...
— The Journals of Lewis and Clark • Meriwether Lewis et al



Words linked to "Accent" :   euphonious, idiom, frontward, press home, drawl, diacritical mark, tonic accent, forrad, bear down, acute, acute accent, articulate, grave accent, non-standard speech, evince, patois, bring out, accentuation, language, emphasise, prosody, accentuate, dialect, accentual, bang, spang, inflection, background, importance, pitch accent, point up, focus, word accent, eye dialect, ram home, linguistic communication, play down, express, diacritic, show, enunciate, sound out, stress, frontwards, speech pattern, topicalize, enounce, drive home, forward, underline, grandness, accent mark, re-emphasise, re-emphasize, forrard, pronounce



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