All 4 Uses of
refrain
in
Moby Dick
- I observed, however, that one of them held somewhat aloof, and though he seemed desirous not to spoil the hilarity of his shipmates by his own sober face, yet upon the whole he refrained from making as much noise as the rest.†
Chpt 1-3
- Queequeg patted their foreheads; Starbuck scratched their backs with his lance; but fearful of the consequences, for the time refrained from darting it.†
Chpt 85-87
- But the captain, for some unknown constitutional reason, had refrained from mentioning all this, and not till forced to it by Ahab's iciness did he allude to his one yet missing boy; a little lad, but twelve years old, whose father with the earnest but unmisgiving hardihood of a Nantucketer's paternal love, had thus early sought to initiate him in the perils and wonders of a vocation almost immemorially the destiny of all his race.†
Chpt 127-129
- But if these suspicions were really his, he sagaciously refrained from verbally expressing them, however his actions might seem to hint them.†
Chpt 130-132 *
Definition:
-
(refrain as in: refrain from laughing) avoid or resist doing something