All 5 Uses of
positive
in
The Scarlet Letter
- No aim that I have ever cherished would they recognise as laudable; no success of mine—if my life, beyond its domestic scope, had ever been brightened by success—would they deem otherwise than worthless, if not positively disgraceful.
Chpt Intr.positively = absolutely (used for emphasis)
- If the children gathered about her, as they sometimes did, Pearl would grow positively terrible in her puny wrath, snatching up stones to fling at them, with shrill, incoherent exclamations, that made her mother tremble, because they had so much the sound of a witch's anathemas in some unknown tongue.
Chpt 6
- "He did not send me!" cried she, positively.
Chpt 6 *positively = with certainty
- To Hester's eye, the Reverend Mr. Dimmesdale exhibited no symptom of positive and vivacious suffering, except that, as little Pearl had remarked, he kept his hand over his heart.
Chpt 16positive = certain
- All his strength and energy—all his vital and intellectual force—seemed at once to desert him, insomuch that he positively withered up, shrivelled away and almost vanished from mortal sight, like an uprooted weed that lies wilting in the sun.
Chpt 24positively = absolutely (used for emphasis)
Definition:
-
(positive as in: I'm absolutely positive!) certain (having no doubt; or used for emphasis)