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Accent   /əksˈɛnt/  /ˈæksˌɛnt/   Listen
Accent

noun
1.
Distinctive manner of oral expression.  Synonym: speech pattern.  "She had a very clear speech pattern"
2.
Special importance or significance.  Synonym: emphasis.  "The room was decorated in shades of grey with distinctive red accents"
3.
The usage or vocabulary that is characteristic of a specific group of people.  Synonyms: dialect, idiom.  "He has a strong German accent" , "It has been said that a language is a dialect with an army and navy"
4.
The relative prominence of a syllable or musical note (especially with regard to stress or pitch).  Synonyms: emphasis, stress.
5.
A diacritical mark used to indicate stress or placed above a vowel to indicate a special pronunciation.  Synonym: accent mark.



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"Accent" Quotes from Famous Books



... thin, elderly American gentleman to whom Godfrey was introduced, named Colonel Josiah Smith, and a big, blond Dane, who talked English with a German accent, called Professor Petersen. All of these studied Godfrey with the most unusual interest as, overwhelmed with shyness, he was led by Miss Ogilvy to make their acquaintance. He felt that their demeanour portended he knew not what, more at any rate than hope of ...
— Love Eternal • H. Rider Haggard

... man is outside the King's law; his goods are forfeit, and to confiscate them as legal as loyal. I thought you might choose to serve the King and please me." This last was said with an accent of disdain which made the unhappy squire shiver. "I was in error, so no more words of it. Good-day ...
— The Lady of Loyalty House - A Novel • Justin Huntly McCarthy

... and sound, producing corresponding diversities of effect, having been thoroughly studied, much more perceived, by very few poets in the language. While the classic tongues, especially the Greek, possess, by power of accent, several advantages for versification over our own, chiefly through greater abundance of spondaic: feet, we have other and very great advantages of sound by the modern usage of rhyme. Alliteration is nearly the only effect ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 5 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe

... 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 owing to the way he took it. There was a marvellous light ...
— A Prisoner in Fairyland • Algernon Blackwood

... lights strung in globular 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 that would ...
— Roughing it De Luxe • Irvin S. Cobb

... was a lever. But—was he deeply in love with her? How was it that he could not at this moment recall her features, or the tone of her voice, while of deplorable Miss Dobson, every lineament, every accent, so vividly haunted him? Try as he would to beat off these memories, he failed, and—some very great pressure here!—was glad he failed; glad though he found himself relapsing to the self-contempt from which Miss Batch had raised him. He scorned himself for being alive. And again, he scorned ...
— Zuleika Dobson - or, An Oxford Love Story • Max Beerbohm

... another. The sentiments of the preacher I heard were just and vigorous; and if that suffices not to content a foreign ear, woe be to me, who now live among those to whom I am myself a foreigner; and who at best can but be expected to forgive, for the sake of the things said, that accent and manner with which I am obliged ...
— Observations and Reflections Made in the Course of a Journey through France, Italy, and Germany, Vol. I • Hester Lynch Piozzi

... in Racine—they miss in him no less suggestions of the mysterious and the infinite. No doubt this is partly due to our English habit of associating these qualities with expressions which are complex and unfamiliar. When we come across the mysterious accent of fatality and remote terror in ...
— Books and Characters - French and English • Lytton Strachey

... Arab steeds and elephants, Cis's room serving admirably as the cage which contained these various quadrupeds. And, naturally, there was a deal of growling and roaring and kicking and neighing, while the camels barked surprisingly like Boof, and the elephants conversed with something of a Hebrew accent. All of which greatly delighted Grandpa, and he cackled till his scraggly beard was ...
— The Rich Little Poor Boy • Eleanor Gates

... fashionable drawl in two seasons; and after they have been presented to Royalty they all roll their R's as vigorously as a young equerry or an old lady-in-waiting. Still, they never really lose their accent; it keeps peeping out here and there, and when they chatter together they are like a bevy of peacocks. Nothing is more amusing than to watch two American girls greeting each other in a drawing-room or in the Row. They are like children with their shrill staccato ...
— Miscellanies • Oscar Wilde

... one before me with an accent of concentrated aversion; "yes, spirits; impalpable, civilised, genuine spirits, who manifest themselves through recognised media, and are conformable to the usages of the best drawing-room society—yes. But not demons, sir; not Chinese devils in the Camden Road—no. Truth and Light at any ...
— The Mirror of Kong Ho • Ernest Bramah

... eyes instinctively. There was a new accent to the inquisition, different from all the other questions he had run. He looked at Tough McCarty's stocky frame and battling eyes, and suddenly knew that he was face to face with a human being between whom and himself there could never ...
— The Varmint • Owen Johnson

... language is so guttural that no one can ever hope to pronounce it aright who has not been brought up within hearing of the grunting of camels, a steady course of sneezing being, consequently, the only way by which a European can acquire anything like the proper accent; the Sultan does not know how much he is married, but he unquestionably is so to a very large extent: on the principle that you cannot have too much of a good thing a woman is valued in proportion to her ...
— Reviews • Oscar Wilde

... of versifying there are two sorts, the one ancient, the other modern; the ancient marked the quantity of each syllable, and according to that framed his verse; the modern, observing only number, with some regard of the accent, the chief life of it standeth in that like sounding of the words, which we call rhyme. Whether of these be the more excellent, would bear many speeches; the ancient, no doubt more fit for music, both words and time observing quantity; and more fit lively to express divers passions, by the low ...
— A Defence of Poesie and Poems • Philip Sidney

... if the doctors had told him that there was nothing the matter that a little careful nursing would fail to put right. William had faith in the warm weather, and she resolved to put her trust in it. It was hard to see him wasting away before her eyes and keep cheerful looks in her face and an accent of cheerfulness in heir voice. The sunshine which had come at last seemed to suck up all the life that was in him; he grew paler, and withered like a plant. Then ill-luck seemed to have joined in the hunt; he could not "touch" a winner, and their fortune drained away ...
— Esther Waters • George Moore

... he carried his head a little thrust forward, as though, even with the aid of his glasses, he was still short-sighted. He had the air of a foreigner, although his tone, when he spoke, was without accent. He held out his hand a little tentatively, an action, however, which Hunterleys ...
— Mr. Grex of Monte Carlo • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... with such a racy admixture of her Irish "brogue," which always became more "pronounced" with her when she was at all excited in any way, that the Captain, even while showing every sympathy for her distressed condition, could not help chuckling as he imitated her tone of voice and accent—much to the amusement of Master Bob and Miss Nellie, you may ...
— Bob Strong's Holidays - Adrift in the Channel • John Conroy Hutcheson

... peacock, and lo! cannot get through a glass. Lord! lord! what is man? If my fat friend and his grandfather would but come down stairs again, here is liquor enough to make wine and water of the Danube; for he comes from thence by his accent. No, I'll have none of your wine; keep it to throw on the sandy floor, that the dust may not hurt your delicate shoes, nor dirt the hand of the gentleman in green and gold when he cleans them for you in ...
— Vivian Grey • The Earl of Beaconsfield

... Englishwomen, from that look of peculiar untidiness which belongs to dark-skinned persons who take no trouble about their appearance or personal adornment. In spite of thirty-three years of residence in Rome, she spoke Italian with a foreign accent, though otherwise correctly enough. But she was nevertheless a great lady, and no one would have thought of doubting the fact. Fat, awkwardly dressed, of no imposing stature, with unmanageable hair and prominent teeth, ...
— Sant' Ilario • F. Marion Crawford

... also in English and she spoke without the slightest accent. Chester and Colonel Anderson looked ...
— The Boy Allies in the Balkan Campaign - The Struggle to Save a Nation • Clair W. Hayes

... The year 1222 was drawing to a close. Far away up in the tallest of the castle's towers a single light glimmered. A secret council was being held there. The stern old lord of Klugenstein sat in a chair of state meditating. Presently he, said, with a tender accent: ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... was the first time he had heard an Arab pronounce this word, so characteristically African; and he asked him to say it again for the pleasure of hearing it, liking the way the Saharian spoke it, with an accent at once tender and proud, that of a native speaking of his country to one who has ...
— Sister Teresa • George Moore

... that he was about to leave the room; and, moving away from the marble against which she had been leaning, with a smile radiant with the joy of a recovered pride, she held out her hand to Yanski, and, in a voice in which there was an accent of almost terrible gratitude for the act of justice which had been accomplished, she ...
— Prince Zilah, Complete • Jules Claretie

... for my daughter,' said the woman. She had been a domestic servant, and had but little north-country accent. 'You're welcome, I'm sure, and she'll take it kindly. Take a seat,' and she led them into the little kitchen, tidy and clean, though encumbered with some pieces of treasured furniture decidedly too big for it. 'Yes, ...
— Robin Redbreast - A Story for Girls • Mary Louisa Molesworth

... 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 turned into the correct, ...
— Robin Hood • J. Walker McSpadden

... 590., for "not in the New Testament" read "or of the New Testament;" and for "read this with an accent on the antepenultima" read "read this with an accent ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 217, December 24, 1853 • Various

... exceptional in the ideas and attitudes of the greater ones, as we know them, was not at all the outcome of the struggle toward an affected naivete such as we have heard so much about, but was, on another hand, a real phase of their originality, the other swing of the pendulum, so to call it. It was the "accent" of their minds and tempers, it was a true part of their personal gesture, and was something they could not, and need not, do anything about, as if it were the normal tendency in them in their several ways. We all of us know that modern art ...
— Adventures in the Arts - Informal Chapters on Painters, Vaudeville, and Poets • Marsden Hartley

... his hat upon the table. Maraton, glancing across the room at him, was instantly conscious that this newcomer was no ordinary person. He had a strong, intellectual forehead, a well-shaped mouth. His voice, when he spoke, was pleasant, although his accent was ...
— A People's Man • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... and gazing earnestly on the two liquid pearls that trickled down Julie's cheeks, "had Lord Wilmore seen what I now see, he would become attached to life, for the tears you shed would reconcile him to mankind;" and he held out his hand to Julie, who gave him hers, carried away by the look and accent of the count. "But," continued she, "Lord Wilmore had a family or friends, he must have known some one, ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... have preferred—preferred—" Maria, don't you see that child has got the scissors? "He would have—" There now, let mamma put on its little socks. Now it's all dressed so nice and clean. Don'ty ky! No, don'ty! Leonora! Put more accent on the first beat. "Harold gazed moodily into—" His bottle, Maria! Quick! He'll scream ...
— The Wit of Women - Fourth Edition • Kate Sanborn

... was allowed to give lessons to the lowest form; rough in looks, and dress, and manners (I knew it, but it requires some self-respect even to use a nail-brush, and self-respect was next door to impossible at Crayshaw's); and with my north-country accent deepened, and my conversation disfigured by slang which, not being fashionable slang, was as inadmissible as thieves' lingo; it was hard, I say, to come back thus, and meet dear old Jem, and generally ...
— We and the World, Part I - A Book for Boys • Juliana Horatia Ewing

... on the shores of Lake Winnipeg during the midnight hours, for the voices of the frogs served rather to accent than to disturb the calm. Stars twinkled at their reflections in the water, which extended like a black mirror to the horizon. They gave out little light, however, and it was not until the upper edge of the full moon arose that surrounding ...
— The Red Man's Revenge - A Tale of The Red River Flood • R.M. Ballantyne

... attended with embarrassments. William Holton had married, a little late, a Memphis woman he had met on a trip to Mexico to inspect the plantations in which he and his brother Samuel were interested. She was "a Southern woman," with a charming accent, as every one admitted. The accent was greatly admired. Several young girls sought to soften the vowels of their native Hoosier speech in conformity with the models introduced by Mrs. Holton. The coming of this lady, the zest with which she entered into the social life of the town, the vacillations ...
— Otherwise Phyllis • Meredith Nicholson

... new pause. The course of his thoughts seemed now to become once more tranquil. Sadness, rather than fury, overspread his features; and his accent, when he spoke to me, was not ...
— Arthur Mervyn - Or, Memoirs of the Year 1793 • Charles Brockden Brown

... uncertain age; he might be sixty, he might be seventy-five. While rather under medium height, he was active and perfectly his own master. He sat in the shade of the awning cross-legged. His rug was a marvel of sheeny silk. He talked Arabic, but with an Indian accent. His dress was Indian—a silken shirt, a short jacket, large trousers, and a tremendous white turban on a red tarbousche, held by an aigrette in front that was a dazzle of precious stones such as only a Rajah could own. His attendants were few, but they were gorgeously attired, ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 1 • Lew. Wallace

... he answered, his tongue thick-burred with the accent of Alsace, his shifting eyes flashing toward the huge window behind the bar, where, in the moonlight, the narrow passage leading down to the door of "The Twisted Arm" gaped evilly between double rows of scowling, thief-sheltering houses. "Name of the fiend! ...
— Cleek, the Master Detective • Thomas W. Hanshew

... endowed you with: I'll lend you more. Here, take my snakes among you, come and eat, And while the squeez'd juice flows in your black jaws, Help me to damn the author. Spit it forth Upon his lines, and shew your rusty teeth At every word, or accent: or else choose Out of my longest vipers, to stick down In your deep throats; and let the heads come forth At your rank mouths; that he may see you arm'd With triple malice, to hiss, sting, and tear. ...
— The Poetaster - Or, His Arraignment • Ben Jonson

... gathering of denizens at the house of Madame Flamingo. She has a bal-masque to-night. Her door is beset with richly-caparisoned equipages. The town is on tip-toe to be there; we reluctantly follow it. An hundred gaudily-decorated drinking saloon are filled with gaudier-dressed men. In loudest accent rings the question—"Do you go to Madame Flamingo's to-night?" Gentlemen of the genteel world, in shining broadcloth, touch glasses and answer—"yes!" It is a wonderful city-this of ours. Vice knows no restraint, poverty hath no friends here. We bow before the shrine ...
— Justice in the By-Ways - A Tale of Life • F. Colburn Adams

... the man said, and it struck her that his accent was not quite English. She wondered if he were Canadian or American. Not that she knew much about either. "A woman like you would think right!" he went on. "Only one woman out of ten thousand would have the nerve and presence of mind and the humanity ...
— The Second Latchkey • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson

... said, "To makee te great wonder look." Here it is to be observed that all those natives, as also those of Africa when they learn English, always add two e's at the end of the words where we use one; and they place the accent upon them, as makee, takee, and the like; nay, I could hardly make Friday leave it off, though at last ...
— The Further Adventures of Robinson Crusoe • Daniel Defoe

... in a low, thrilling voice; free from all harsh accent or intonation. "I am the only one she seems to know always. Yes, darling, Mad'len is here—right beside you. She will ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1896 to 1901 • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... nervously. "He was buried only yesterday—and they say there are ghosts sometimes. This avenue, too—I wish we had not come here—it was his favorite walk. Besides," she added, with a slight accent of regret, "after all he was the father of my ...
— Vendetta - A Story of One Forgotten • Marie Corelli

... specialists have been enabled to ascertain the regular recurrence of the same successions of facts, and these results have been expressed in formulae which are sometimes called laws (for example, the law of the tonic accent); these are never more than empirical laws which merely indicate successions of facts without explaining them, for they do not reveal the efficient cause. But specialists, influenced by a natural metaphor, and struck by the regularity of these ...
— Introduction to the Study of History • Charles V. Langlois

... without even the faintest trace of a foreign accent, and this fact as well as his charmingly cordial manner caused the young soldier immediately to feel ...
— Monte-Cristo's Daughter • Edmund Flagg

... parties that they would become acquainted, and the girls seemed mutually pleased. As they chatted, I listened to the tones of their voices, and fancied, on the whole, that Emily had slightly the advantage in intonation and accent; though it was scarcely perceptible, and it was an advantage that was attended by a slight sacrifice of the charm of natural utterance. She was a little more artificial in this respect than her companions, and insomuch ...
— Afloat And Ashore • James Fenimore Cooper

... strains of music had spent its force and a general interchange of silly speeches had been made, the young man once more rose to go, but a youth with broad Scotch accent seized him by the arm exclaiming: "Don't go yet, Tracy dear; for if ye do, ye need'nt ...
— Marguerite Verne • Agatha Armour

... Crusader and the Craven. The one lady and two gentlemen who took part in this were, from a prompter's point of view, nearly perfect. Mr. R. HENDON as Sir Rupert de Malvoisie (the Crusader) suggested, by his accent and gestures, that he must have come from the East—how far East, it boots not to inquire. Miss FLORENCE DARLEY was a good Lady Alice, and Mr. J. A. SHALE an efficient "Craven." Later on an operatic performance ...
— Punch, or, the London Charivari, Volume 98, March 8, 1890. • Various

... kind permission of Mr. PINERO, departed from the conventional Adelphi and Drury Lane type of comic Hebraic money-lender, he would have done better. The piece is played with the burlesque earnestness that characterised the first performances of Engaged at the Haymarket, which piece the Scotch accent recalls to the playgoer's memory. No one can possibly feel ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, May 3, 1890. • Various

... with a strangely careful accent, as if his mind were concentrated upon being absolutely intelligible to his listener. "That was not ...
— The Tidal Wave and Other Stories • Ethel May Dell

... behind the angle of the jaw enlarge and become tender, and may suppurate from superadded infection. There is pain on swallowing, and often earache; and the patient speaks with a nasal accent. He becomes weak and anaemic, and loses his appetite. There is often albuminuria. Leucocytosis is usually well marked before the injection of antitoxin; after the injection there is usually a diminution in the number of leucocytes. The false membrane may separate and be cast ...
— Manual of Surgery - Volume First: General Surgery. Sixth Edition. • Alexis Thomson and Alexander Miles

... conversation an undercurrent of thought kept running through my mind thus: "Who knows but they have sent a dispatch to the Union Bank of London, merely as a matter of business precaution, and that they are delaying me to get a reply? In that case I shall have a good opportunity to learn the pure French accent while passing my days in the Bagnio at Toulon." At last, however, the amount was paid over to me in French bank notes. I deliberately counted them and took leave, lighter in mind and heavier in ...
— Bidwell's Travels, from Wall Street to London Prison - Fifteen Years in Solitude • Austin Biron Bidwell

... Hart, in whose courtyard a round-faced man-servant was cleaning boots. This servant, whose name was Sam Weller, wore a coat with blue glass buttons, a bright red handkerchief tied around his neck and an old white hat stuck on the side of his head. He spoke with a quaint country accent, but he was a witty fellow, with a ...
— Tales from Dickens • Charles Dickens and Hallie Erminie Rives

... one's patrons. The lady also, they tell me, is consumptive, like Antony himself, and like to die. And he, who has always lacked either the money or the spirits to make that long-pondered, much-desired journey to Italy, has found in her work the veritable accent and colour of those old Venetian masters he would so willingly have studied under the sunshine of their own land. Alas! How little peace have his great successes given him; how little of that quietude of mind, without which, methinks, one fails ...
— Imaginary Portraits • Walter Pater

... dangerous enemy our glorious revolution has had," he said, with an accent of triumph which he ...
— The League of the Scarlet Pimpernel • Baroness Orczy

... Pierre Soule took the floor and made the speech of the convention, fascinating all who saw and heard. An eye-witness speaks of his rolling, glittering, eagle eye, Napoleonic head and face, sharp voice with a margin of French accent, and piercing, intense earnestness of manner. "I have not been at all discouraged," he said, "by the emotion which has been attempted to be created in this body by those who have seceded from it. We from the furthest South were prepared; ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander

... woman, or one of the Sphinx's children?" said a stormy, thrilling, imperious accent, from the wild purple and scarlet flower of the Strelitzia, that gradually shaped itself into gorgeous Oriental robes, rolled in waves of splendor from the lithe waist and slender arms of a dark woman, no more young,—sallow, thin, but more graceful than any bending bough ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various

... softened considerably at that; and for the moment I think he almost approved of me, in spite of the foreign accent that must have grated on his ears, and his national dislike of any one who hailed from India. He actually told both of us to be seated, and clapped his hands again. Another woman came, looking ...
— The Lion of Petra • Talbot Mundy

... and barbarism and fierceness of men's minds; but indeed the accent had need be upon fideliter; for a little superficial learning doth rather work a contrary effect. It taketh away all levity, temerity, and insolency, by copious suggestion of all doubts and difficulties, and acquainting the mind to balance reasons on both sides, ...
— The Advancement of Learning • Francis Bacon

... girl's accent, or in L——'s look, when she pronounced the words, or in mine, or in all three together, I cannot exactly describe; but Leonora felt it. She turned as pale as death. I looked as unconscious as I could. ...
— Tales And Novels, Vol. 8 • Maria Edgeworth

... confus'd: Oldham rush'd on, impetuous, and sublime, But lame in Language, Harmony, and Rhyme; These (with new graces) vig'rous nature join'd In one, and center'd 'em in Dryden's mind. How full thy verse? Thy meaning how severe? How dark thy theme? yet made exactly clear. Not mortal is thy accent, nor thy rage, Yet mercy softens, or contracts each Page. Dread Bard! instruct us to revere thy rules, And hate like thee, all Rebels, ...
— An Essay on Satire, Particularly on the Dunciad • Walter Harte

... one of the guards with a slight accent. "We shall say who shall do what—passing this lock. Difficulties? Very well. Names, and space-fitness cards, please, from everybody. And where you will ...
— The Planet Strappers • Raymond Zinke Gallun

... began, and I noted that the accent was slightly foreign, Italian perhaps, or it might be French. "I am glad always to show the visions I have under my control to those who will ...
— Tales of Fantasy and Fact • Brander Matthews

... proclaimed King of Spain and the Indies, with all the solemnities usual upon such occasions; not hesitating to declare himself the enemy of eleven millions of people, the object of a whole nation's hatred; calling, with a strange accent, from the midst of foreign bands, upon that fierce and haughty race to accept of a constitution which they did not understand, and which few of them had even heard of; his only hope of success resting on the ...
— The History of Napoleon Buonaparte • John Gibson Lockhart

... Stella, in an accent almost of relief. "Oh, is that all? I was afraid something dreadful had happened." She could not help the feeling, she had been so frightened by a nameless fear she could scarcely have put into words. But when the first relief was over the disappointment came home to her ...
— Paul the Courageous • Mabel Quiller-Couch

... manner and the cockney accent disappeared when Smith sat down. He talked to Donovan as one man ...
— The Island Mystery • George A. Birmingham

... prepared for things that will strike you as crude, for a certain difference of accent and dialect that you may not like, and you must be prepared too to hear what may strike you as the clumsy statement of my ignorant rediscovery of things already beautifully thought out and said. But in the end you may incline to forgive me some of this first offence.... It is quite unavoidable ...
— A Modern Utopia • H. G. Wells

... "Al-malikhulya," proving that the Greeks then pronounced the penultimate vowel according to the acute accenta; not as we slur it over. In old Hebrew we have the transliteration of four Greek words; in the languages of Hindostan many scores including names of places; and in Latin and Arabic as many hundreds. By a scholar-like comparison of these remains we should find little difficulty ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton

... old man with the Yorkshire accent was no other than Mr. Inspector Brown, who was disguised so perfectly, that we should not have recognized ...
— The Gold Hunter's Adventures - Or, Life in Australia • William H. Thomes

... not greatly attracted by his visitor, whose nose struck him as large for a woman. She said that she had spent her youth in Lyons, but her accent was distinctly Parisian. The lady gave her name as Madame de Lamotte, and asked for a power of attorney by which she could give her husband the interest due to her on a sum of 30,000 livres, part of the purchase-money ...
— A Book of Remarkable Criminals • H. B. Irving

... Archy, in a broad Scotch accent. "My cousin, that is my father's sister's son, Alick Murray there, is lieutenant of a ship they call the Tudor, and I'm to go alang ...
— The Three Lieutenants • W.H.G. Kingston

... before he left London, and the delights of the Bar. But he returned to the Capital in rude health, and may now often be seen and heard, topping into the Pond at Wimbledon, and talking in a fine Fifeshire-accent. It must be acknowledged that his story about his drive at the second hole, "equal to BLACKWELL, himself, TOM MORRIS himself told me as much," has become rather a source of diversion to his intimates; ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 103, November 19, 1892 • Various

... imperceptibly, amused, but asserting her dignity. "Yes?" she led him on, though in no accent of encouragement. ...
— The Brass Bowl • Louis Joseph Vance

... English verse is built up through accent alone, but, though this principle differs entirely from that of the ancients, who depended on the length of the syllable, we still cling to the names with which they distinguished the different feet. It will be discovered that ...
— Rhymes and Meters - A Practical Manual for Versifiers • Horatio Winslow

... arrival at Port Essington, where we learned that they meant "Very good, no good, Malays very far." Their intonation was extremely melodious, some other words, the meaning of which we could not make out, were "Kelengeli, Kongurr, Verritimba, Vanganbarr, Nangemong, Maralikilla;" the accent being always on the first syllable of the word, and ...
— Journal of an Overland Expedition in Australia • Ludwig Leichhardt

... own factious oppositions to his government; and many an ancient burgher, whose phlegmatic features had never been known to relax, nor his eyes to moisten, was now observed to puff a pensive pipe, and the big drop to steal down his cheek; while he muttered, with affectionate accent, and melancholy shake of the head, "Well, den!—Hardkoppig Peter ben ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving

... congregation stare, but would appear very pedantic to a learned ear. The safest mode is to examine the Greek of the Septuagint, or of the New Testament (if the reader does not understand Hebrew), and observe the place of the acute accent. On that place, if it be on the penultimate or antepenultimate, the accent should be laid in English. But if the accent be on the last syllable, though it is strictly right to place it there also in English, it is not worth while ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 216, December 17, 1853 • Various

... the detective, who from the beginning had broken up his English, and imparted a strong French accent to it. ...
— Fighting for the Right • Oliver Optic

... separated, Raymonde going a little in advance, and Morvyth following, as if they had no acquaintance with each other. It was perhaps as well for their mutual composure that they visited separate shops, for Morvyth's provincial accent and Raymonde's cold might have been mirth-provoking to a fellow conspirator, though they passed muster well enough with strangers. At the end of ten minutes the two girls were hurrying back, each ...
— The Madcap of the School • Angela Brazil

... guest of the Lady Catharine. Three captains and a squire, to say nothing of a gouty colonel, had already fallen victims, and had heard their fate in her low, soft tones, which could whisper a fashionable oath in the accent of a hymn, and say "no" so sweetly that one could only beg to hear the word again. It was perhaps of some such incident that these two young maids of old London conversed as they trundled slowly out toward the suburb ...
— The Mississippi Bubble • Emerson Hough

... but with a decidedly foreign accent (which sounded very pleasant to me, more so as he had a very musical voice), and was a plain spoken man, one who called a spade a spade, and made ...
— Jethou - or Crusoe Life in the Channel Isles • E. R. Suffling

... were "feeling out" popular sentiment, they need no longer doubt what it was. Columns of vituperation appeared in the anti-German newspapers, crowds began to form and shout in the streets. "Traditore," hissed with every accent of hate and scorn, filled the air. Giolitti's life was seriously in danger—or the Government preferred to think so. The great apartment house on the Via Cavour in which he lived was cordoned off by double lines of troops. Cavalry kept ...
— The World Decision • Robert Herrick

... from foreign lands was a great butt for the satirists. In Elizabethan times his bows and tremendous politeness, his close-fitting black clothes from Venice, his French accent, his finicky refinements, such as perfumes and pick-tooths, were highly offensive to the plain Englishman. One was always sure of an appreciative audience if he railed at the "disguised garments and desperate hats" ...
— English Travellers of the Renaissance • Clare Howard

... inseparable from the romantic style; they are to be found in Scott's metrical tales, which have much redundancy and some weak versification; while his chiefs and warriors often talk a stilted chivalrous language which would now be discarded as theatrical. Byron's personages have the high tragic accent and costume; yet one must admit that they have also a fierce vitality; and as for the crimes and passions of his Turkish pashas and Greek patriots, he had actually seen the men and heard of their deeds. The fact that he also portrayed more unreal characters in dismal drapery—Lara, ...
— Studies in Literature and History • Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall

... her husband Cannot equal her with honors liverie. What does she care if, for to deck her brave, Hee's carryed from the Gate-house to his grave! Another in a rayling pulppet key, Drawes through her nose the accent of her voice, And in the presence of her good-man Goate Cries 'fye, now fye, uppon these wicked men That use such beastly and inhumane talke,' When being in private all her studies warne To make him enter into Capricorn. ...
— A Collection Of Old English Plays, Vol. IV. • Editor: A.H. Bullen

... was so uncommon to have Italians innocently come out with their whole slender stock of English to him, for the sake of practice, as they told him; but there were peculiarities in Don Ippolito's accent for which he could not account. "What," he exclaimed, ...
— A Foregone Conclusion • W. D. Howells

... you come here to blame me for the fact that she does not return his love?"—with an accent of ...
— The Hermit of Far End • Margaret Pedler

... danse, au theatre, Ou, d'un plaisir plus doux annoncant le retour, Du moment fortune vient avertir l'amour, Il est seul; ... en un long et lugubre silence, Pour lui le jour s'acheve, et le jour recommence; Il n'entend point l'accent de la tendre amitie, Il ne voit point les pleurs de la douce pitie: N'ayant de mouvement que pour trainer des chanes, Un coeur que pour l'ennui, des sens que pour les peines, Pour lui, plus de beaux jours, de ruisseau, de gazon; ...
— A Visit to the Monastery of La Trappe in 1817 • W.D. Fellowes

... The perfect colloquial English was gently murmured at me with a French accent as the ...
— The Matador of the Five Towns and Other Stories • Arnold Bennett

... said Cameron, whose heart warmed at the accent that might have been transplanted that very day ...
— Corporal Cameron • Ralph Connor

... astonishment, wept profusely. Still later, he got very maudlin indeed, and was heard to murmur, looking at his scarred knuckles, that "he was afraid he must have hurt some one that night," with an accent of heartfelt sorrow and contrition ...
— Guy Livingstone; - or, 'Thorough' • George A. Lawrence

... after him. Somehow the note on the desk did not seem to fit any one of the gentry whom I could see so distinctly from my window. The name, too, did not have the customary Tombs sound—De Nevers? De Nevaire—I repeated it slowly to myself with varying accent. It seemed as though I had known the name before. It carried with it a suggestion of the novels of Stanley J. Weyman, of books on old towns and the chateaux and cathedrals of France. I wondered who the devil Charles Julius ...
— True Stories of Crime From the District Attorney's Office • Arthur Train

... and that's all about it," Elsie replied, sulkily, only she said it in a broad Scottish accent which you would hardly have understood had you heard it, and certainly could make nothing of if I were to try ...
— Little Folks (July 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various

... nation who are numerous and reside about seventeen miles 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, ...
— The Journals of Lewis and Clark • Meriwether Lewis et al

... take me away, now at once?" Saidie murmured in a soft, passionate whisper close to his ear, and the accent of joy and delight went quivering down through the deepest ...
— Six Women • Victoria Cross

... fight.”—“Alcibiades, can’t you sit still?”—“Socrates, put down the cup.”—“Oh, fie! Aspasia, don’t. Oh! don’t be naughty!” It is true that the names were pronounced Socrahtie, Aspahsie—that is, according to accent, and not according to quantity—but I suppose it is scarcely now to be doubted that they were so sounded ...
— Eothen • A. W. Kinglake

... looked over the speaker with a quiet glance of conscious superiority. However much he might have come down in the world, he still retained the manners of a well-bred and educated man, and Brent was not surprised to hear a refined and cultured accent when he ...
— In the Mayor's Parlour • J. S. (Joseph Smith) Fletcher

... said with an accent we will for want of a better word call dry, Sweetwater, hardy as he was, flushed to his ears. But then any prick from Mr. Gryce ...
— The Mystery of the Hasty Arrow • Anna Katharine Green

... shook his head, smiling sarcastically. "Hah!" he said, approaching Flor. "I know that accent. It stinks of the scullery. Tell me, Serf, where did you ...
— Millennium • Everett B. Cole

... other nation, who are very careful not to omit the minutest circumstances of time or place; which kind of discourse, if it were not a little relieved by the uncouth terms and phrases, as well as accent and gesture peculiar to that country, would be hardly tolerable.—Hints towards an Essay ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb

... himself bowed a reply. His client was evidently well-known to him. He answered her in French—French, with a very guttural accent. ...
— Peter Ruff and the Double Four • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... repeated, rolling the word under his tongue with an accent that was a clue to the psychology of the popular drama; and Granice, perversely, said to himself: "If I could only have struck that note I should have been running in six theatres ...
— The Early Short Fiction of Edith Wharton, Part 1 (of 10) • Edith Wharton

... authority in the court of Lynwood Keep; the references to himself short, brief, and rapid, and only made when ignorance of the locality compelled the stranger to apply for information. The French accent and occasional French phrases with which the Squire spoke, made him contract his brow more and more, and at last, just as Eustace came up, he walked slowly away, grumbling to himself, "Well, have it e'en your ...
— The Lances of Lynwood • Charlotte M. Yonge

... I no longer count on anything, the whole world is mine." Abel Larinski recited these lines with a purity of accent that would have ...
— Samuel Brohl & Company • Victor Cherbuliez

... They're always frying onions. And the star-boarder is a haberdashery clerk. He looks like an advertisement of ready-made clothes and talks out of the side of his mouth in what he thinks is an English accent. He's always talking to me about the squabs ...
— The House of Toys • Henry Russell Miller

... who could never have existed outside the imagination of an American. I make no complaint of the fact that in a chequered past she had married both Carter's man-servant and the antiquated poet; but I do complain that her Cockney accent was imperfectly consistent both with her rustic origin an apple-cheeked lass, we were told, from somewhere in Kent) and her situation as maid to a very ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, September 8th, 1920 • Various

... feet, In rapture hung upon His word: His language flow'd in accent sweet, Such language mortal ...
— The Poets and Poetry of Cecil County, Maryland • Various

... snake—the figure started slightly, but did not obey. After some silence she spoke again, "Wa-ain (white soul) get up and eat, our people will soon be here." Still no motion nor reply. At length the woman, in a sharper accent, resumed, ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 1 July 1848 • Various

... there's anything you could do that would shock me now,' he replied. It was rather a peculiar retort, especially as he laid a faint accent on the 'you.' Evidently he wished to have his revenge for what she had said ...
— Our Elizabeth - A Humour Novel • Florence A. Kilpatrick

... far forgot herself as to let Jane sob out some of the fullness of her heart on a sympathetic shoulder. My Euphemia, thank Heaven, has never properly grasped the importance of "keeping up her position." And since that fit of weeping, much of the accent of bitterness has gone out of Jane's scrubbing ...
— The Country of the Blind, And Other Stories • H. G. Wells

... far resembles that of Greece and Rome that the value of syllables depends upon the "quantity" or position of their consonants, not upon accent as in English and the Neo-Latin tongues. Al-Khalil was doubtless familiar with the classic prosody of Europe, but he rejected it as unsuited to the genius of Arabic and like a true Eastern Gelehrte he adopted a process devised by himself. Instead of scansion by pyrrhics and spondees, ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 10 • Richard F. Burton

... found it was still in the possession of the enemy. The Americans were holding the line, and an American sentry stopped us at a barrier in the road and said that no motorcycles were allowed to go any further in that direction. (p. 289) It was strange to hear the American accent again, and I told the lad that we were Canadians. "Well", he said, with a drawl, "that's good enough for me." We shook hands and had a short talk about the peaceful continent that lay across the ocean. There was nothing for us to do then but ...
— The Great War As I Saw It • Frederick George Scott

... not know which was the most irresistible: she had a slight Irish accent when she spoke English, a less slight English accent when ...
— Peter Ibbetson • George du Marier et al

... his delay. His English was without accent, but at times suddenly entangled itself in curious ...
— The Pit • Frank Norris

... resorts of gaiety. A club was the delight of Johnson. We lose some of our awe for him, when we contemplate him as mimicked by his old scholar Garrick, in the act of squeezing a lemon into the punch-bowl, and asking, as he looks round the company, in his provincial accent, of which he never got entirely rid, "Who's for poonch?" If there was any thing likely to gratify him more than a new club, it was the public testimony of respect from a learned body; and this he received from Trinity College, Dublin, in a diploma for the degree of ...
— Lives of the English Poets - From Johnson to Kirke White, Designed as a Continuation of - Johnson's Lives • Henry Francis Cary

... and lasses!" he cried in a shrill, cracked voice of strange accent. "Hither, hither quickly, and make ready to give your pennies. For the tumbling is about to begin,—the most wonderful tumbling ...
— John of the Woods • Abbie Farwell Brown

... name—it is Harry Hedles. He was clerk to a toothbrush-maker in London, but it seems he made a little too free with a portion of the brush money: he accordingly brushed off to our celebrated Irish metropolis, ycleped Dublin, where, owing to a tolerably good manner, a smooth English accent, and a tremendous stock of assurance, he insinuated himself into several respectable families as a man of some importance. Among others, it is said that he has engaged the affections of a beautiful creature, daughter and heiress to an Irish baronet, and that they are betrothed to each other. ...
— The Black Baronet; or, The Chronicles Of Ballytrain - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton

... her features that Marthe felt a longing to console her, as was her habit in such cases. Nevertheless, she said nothing. Suzanne had wounded her, not so much by her questions as by her attitude, by a certain sarcasm in her accent and by an air of defiance that mingled with the ...
— The Frontier • Maurice LeBlanc

... stranger than fiction, which Mr. Smiles's biography of the projector has given in so attractive a form to the world, I then heard from his own lips. He was rather a stern-featured man, with a dark and deeply marked countenance: his speech was strongly inflected with his native Northumbrian accent, but the fascination of that story told by himself, while his tame dragon flew panting along his iron pathway with us, passed the first reading of the Arabian Nights, the incidents of which it almost seemed to recall. He was wonderfully condescending and kind, in answering all the questions of ...
— Railway Adventures and Anecdotes - extending over more than fifty years • Various

... arrived at Civita Vecchia about three o'clock. As he descended from the coach, a pleasant-looking man, in a sort of official costume, accosted him, asking him if he was going to Leghorn in the steamer that afternoon. The man spoke in English, though with a foreign accent. ...
— Rollo in Rome • Jacob Abbott

... what has not been an object of direct endeavor; in the pursuits of trade, he incidentally gains some knowledge of foreign countries; he acquires by association with others a correct or incorrect accent; he acquires a bronzed complexion by exposure to a tropical sun; in such use, what he gains is viewed as desirable, what he acquires as slowly and gradually resulting. A person earns what he gives ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald

... on with his work for some time in silence, then he tried again. 'You say I speak good English, and I flatter myself I have the accent very well, but what avails if I cannot make you understand? Was it a good doctor who said mademoiselle's heart was ...
— A Dozen Ways Of Love • Lily Dougall

... costume; and that his dress was rich and costly, as were the ornaments on a dagger and brace of pistols which still were fixed in his sash. We were not, therefore, a little astonished to hear him speak Italian with a pure accent, the reason of which he soon explained, by stating that he had been educated in our country, which he had, indeed, only lately left. At first it had struck me that he seemed restless and uneasy when he heard that our men were still out for the purpose of assisting ...
— The Pirate of the Mediterranean - A Tale of the Sea • W.H.G. Kingston

... Orator should be elevated, that he might be heard. But as it unluckily happen'd there was nothing at hand but an old Beer-Barrel, which the Doctor with much good-nature mounted; and in the midst of his Oration, beating Time to the Accent with his Foot, the Head broke in, and his Feet sunk to the Bottom, which occasioned the malicious Report of his Enemies, "That he was turned a Tub-Preacher." However, he finished the Oration with a superior grace and genius, to the loud Acclamations of Mirth, which inspir'd the mix'd ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 1 • Grace Wharton and Philip Wharton



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



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