All 5 Uses of
maternal
in
Moby Dick
- His father was a High Chief, a King; his uncle a High Priest; and on the maternal side he boasted aunts who were the wives of unconquerable warriors.†
Chpt 10-12 *
- And for Radney, though in his infancy he may have laid him down on the lone Nantucket beach, to nurse at his maternal sea; though in after life he had long followed our austere Atlantic and your contemplative Pacific; yet was he quite as vengeful and full of social quarrel as the backwoods seaman, fresh from the latitudes of buck-horn handled bowie-knives.†
Chpt 52-54
- He was a little frisky; though as yet his body seemed scarce yet recovered from that irksome position it had so lately occupied in the maternal reticule; where, tail to head, and all ready for the final spring, the unborn whale lies bent like a Tartar's bow.†
Chpt 85-87
- Not seldom in the rapid vicissitudes of the chase, this natural line, with the maternal end loose, becomes entangled with the hempen one, so that the cub is thereby trapped.†
Chpt 85-87
- As for the sons and the daughters they beget, why, those sons and daughters must take care of themselves; at least, with only the maternal help.†
Chpt 88-90
Definition:
-
(maternal as in: maternal grandmother) relating to a mother; or characteristic of parents -- such as to care for and help to develop