All 28 Uses of
content
in
Moby Dick
- At that time in the morning any Christian would have washed his face; but Queequeg, to my amazement, contented himself with restricting his ablutions to his chest, arms, and hands.†
Chpt 4-6 (definition 1)
- He leaves all his deliverance to God, contenting himself with this, that spite of all his pains and pangs, he will still look towards His holy temple.†
Chpt 7-9 (definition 1)
- I looked round me tranquilly and contentedly, like a quiet ghost with a clean conscience sitting inside the bars of a snug family vault.†
Chpt 49-51 (definition 1) *
- Finally, though, as will soon be revealed, its contents partly comprise the most delicate oil; yet, you are now to be apprised of the nature of the substance which so impregnably invests all that apparent effeminacy.†
Chpt 76-78 (definition 1)
- As in decapitating the whale, the operator's instrument is brought close to the spot where an entrance is subsequently forced into the spermaceti magazine; he has, therefore, to be uncommonly heedful, lest a careless, untimely stroke should invade the sanctuary and wastingly let out its invaluable contents.†
Chpt 76-78 (definition 1)
- Not at all, but I have ye; for at the time poor Tash fell in, the case had been nearly emptied of its lighter contents, leaving little but the dense tendinous wall of the well—a double welded, hammered substance, as I have before said, much heavier than the sea water, and a lump of which sinks in it like lead almost.†
Chpt 76-78 (definition 1)
- She has a whole lake's contents bottled in her ample hold.†
Chpt 85-87 (definition 1)
- When the proper time arrives for cutting up its contents, this apartment is a scene of terror to all tyros, especially by night.†
Chpt 94-96 (definition 1)
- Think you I let that chance go, without using my boat-hatchet and jack-knife, and breaking the seal and reading all the contents of that young cub?†
Chpt 100-102 (definition 1)
- And yet, I've sometimes thought my brain was very calm—frozen calm, this old skull cracks so, like a glass in which the contents turned to ice, and shiver it.†
Chpt 133-135 (definition 1)
Uses with a very common or rare meaning:
- Nothing will content them but the extremest limit of the land; loitering under the shady lee of yonder warehouses will not suffice.†
Chpt 1-3 (definition 2)
- Well, then, however the old sea-captains may order me about—however they may thump and punch me about, I have the satisfaction of knowing that it is all right; that everybody else is one way or other served in much the same way—either in a physical or metaphysical point of view, that is; and so the universal thump is passed round, and all hands should rub each other's shoulder-blades, and be content.†
Chpt 1-3 (definition 2)
- Here was a man some twenty thousand miles from home, by the way of Cape Horn, that is—which was the only way he could get there—thrown among people as strange to him as though he were in the planet Jupiter; and yet he seemed entirely at his ease; preserving the utmost serenity; content with his own companionship; always equal to himself.†
Chpt 10-12 (definition 2)
- But like Czar Peter content to toil in the shipyards of foreign cities, Queequeg disdained no seeming ignominy, if thereby he might happily gain the power of enlightening his untutored countrymen.†
Chpt 10-12 (definition 2)
- But I am one of those that never take on about princely fortunes, and am quite content if the world is ready to board and lodge me, while I am putting up at this grim sign of the Thunder Cloud.†
Chpt 16-18 (definition 2)
- Queequeg thought he knew what he was about, I suppose; he seemed to be content; and there let him rest.†
Chpt 16-18 (definition 2)
- Yet as of late the Sperm Whale fishery had been marked by various and not unfrequent instances of great ferocity, cunning, and malice in the monster attacked; therefore it was, that those who by accident ignorantly gave battle to Moby Dick; such hunters, perhaps, for the most part, were content to ascribe the peculiar terror he bred, more, as it were, to the perils of the Sperm Whale fishery at large, than to the individual cause.†
Chpt 40-42 (definition 2)
- I care not to perform this part of my task methodically; but shall be content to produce the desired impression by separate citations of items, practically or reliably known to me as a whaleman; and from these citations, I take it—the conclusion aimed at will naturally follow of itself.†
Chpt 43-45 (definition 2)
- No: the reason was this: that from the fatal experiences of the fishery there hung a terrible prestige of perilousness about such a whale as there did about Rinaldo Rinaldini, insomuch that most fishermen were content to recognise him by merely touching their tarpaulins when he would be discovered lounging by them on the sea, without seeking to cultivate a more intimate acquaintance.†
Chpt 43-45 (definition 2)
- But I must be content with only one more and a concluding illustration; a remarkable and most significant one, by which you will not fail to see, that not only is the most marvellous event in this book corroborated by plain facts of the present day, but that these marvels (like all marvels) are mere repetitions of the ages; so that for the millionth time we say amen with Solomon—Verily there is nothing new under the sun.†
Chpt 43-45 (definition 2)
- For even the high lifted and chivalric Crusaders of old times were not content to traverse two thousand miles of land to fight for their holy sepulchre, without committing burglaries, picking pockets, and gaining other pious perquisites by the way.†
Chpt 46-48 (definition 2)
- For the most part, the English and American whale draughtsmen seem entirely content with presenting the mechanical outline of things, such as the vacant profile of the whale; which, so far as picturesqueness of effect is concerned, is about tantamount to sketching the profile of a pyramid.†
Chpt 55-57 (definition 2)
- But I must be content with a hint.†
Chpt 73-75 (definition 2) *
- It became imperative to lance the flying whale, or be content to lose him.†
Chpt 82-84 (definition 2)
- "Won't the Duke be content with a quarter or a half?"†
Chpt 88-90 (definition 2)
- …boats for breakers, mistaking them for Sperm Whale spouts; yes, and sometimes sailing from their port with their hold full of boxes of tallow candles, and cases of snuffers, foreseeing that all the oil they will get won't be enough to dip the Captain's wick into; aye, we all know these things; but look ye, here's a Crappo that is content with our leavings, the drugged whale there, I mean; aye, and is content too with scraping the dry bones of that other precious fish he has there.†
Chpt 91-93 (definition 2)
- …boats for breakers, mistaking them for Sperm Whale spouts; yes, and sometimes sailing from their port with their hold full of boxes of tallow candles, and cases of snuffers, foreseeing that all the oil they will get won't be enough to dip the Captain's wick into; aye, we all know these things; but look ye, here's a Crappo that is content with our leavings, the drugged whale there, I mean; aye, and is content too with scraping the dry bones of that other precious fish he has there.†
Chpt 91-93 (definition 2)
- But not content with this good deed, the indefatigable house again bestirred itself: Samuel and all his Sons—how many, their mother only knows—and under their immediate auspices, and partly, I think, at their expense, the British government was induced to send the sloop-of-war Rattler on a whaling voyage of discovery into the South Sea.†
Chpt 100-102 (definition 2)
Definitions:
-
(1) (content as in: content with how things are) satisfied
-
(2) (meaning too common or rare to warrant focus) The word forms content and contents are also commonly used to refer to what is inside something else.