All 23 Uses of
spectacle
in
David Copperfield
- To see Miss Mowcher standing over him, looking at his rich profusion of brown hair through a large round magnifying glass, which she took out of her pocket, was a most amazing spectacle.†
Chpt 22-24 (definition 1)
- But oh! when I DID find the house, and DID dismount at the garden-gate, and drag those stony-hearted boots across the lawn to Dora sitting on a garden-seat under a lilac tree, what a spectacle she was, upon that beautiful morning, among the butterflies, in a white chip bonnet and a dress of celestial blue!†
Chpt 31-33 (definition 1)
- If I had seen an Ape taking command of a Man, I should hardly have thought it a more degrading spectacle.†
Chpt 34-36 (definition 1)
- He was mad for the moment; tearing out his hair, beating his head, trying to force me from him, and to force himself from me, not answering a word, not looking at or seeing anyone; blindly striving for he knew not what, his face all staring and distorted — a frightful spectacle.†
Chpt 37-39 (definition 1)
- After which, he invited the company generally to the contemplation of that affecting spectacle.†
Chpt 52-54 (definition 1) *
Uses with a very rare meaning:
- Take him for all in all, we ne'er shall — in short, make the acquaintance, probably, of anybody else possessing, at his time of life, the same legs for gaiters, and able to read the same description of print, without spectacles.†
Chpt 10-12 (definition 2)
- With that he took his trembling hands, which were like the claws of a great bird, out of my hair; and put on a pair of spectacles, not at all ornamental to his inflamed eyes.†
Chpt 13-15 (definition 2)
- You see the truth is,' said Traddles, in a whisper, 'he had changed his name to Mortimer, in consequence of his temporary embarrassments; and he don't come out till after dark — and then in spectacles.†
Chpt 34-36 (definition 2)
- I had a good mind to ask an old man, in wire spectacles, who was breaking stones upon the road, to lend me his hammer for a little while, and let me begin to beat a path to Dora out of granite.†
Chpt 34-36 (definition 2)
- Under the temporary pressure of pecuniary liabilities, contracted with a view to their immediate liquidation, but remaining unliquidated through a combination of circumstances, I have been under the necessity of assuming a garb from which my natural instincts recoil — I allude to spectacles — and possessing myself of a cognomen, to which I can establish no legitimate pretensions.†
Chpt 34-36 (definition 2)
- …Murdstone's heavy eyebrows followed me to the door — I say her eyebrows rather than her eyes, because they were much more important in her face — and she looked so exactly as she used to look, at about that hour of the morning, in our parlour at Blunderstone, that I could have fancied I had been breaking down in my lessons again, and that the dead weight on my mind was that horrible old spelling-book, with oval woodcuts, shaped, to my youthful fancy, like the glasses out of spectacles.†
Chpt 37-39 (definition 2)
- The more my aunt looked at him, the more he reproached her; for she had lately taken to spectacles, and for some inscrutable reason he considered the glasses personal.†
Chpt 46-48 (definition 2)
- 'No?' said my aunt, taking off her spectacles.†
Chpt 46-48 (definition 2) *
- Thoroughly tired, I went to bed too, at midnight; passed the next day on the Dover coach; burst safe and sound into my aunt's old parlour while she was at tea (she wore spectacles now); and was received by her, and Mr. Dick, and dear old Peggotty, who acted as housekeeper, with open arms and tears of joy.†
Chpt 58-60 (definition 2)
- 'Twenty Eight,' said a gentleman in spectacles, who had not yet spoken, 'you complained last week, my good fellow, of the cocoa.†
Chpt 61-62 (definition 2)
- It appeared to me that the gentleman in spectacles backed his Twenty Eight against Mr. Creakle's Twenty Seven, for each of them took his own man in hand.†
Chpt 61-62 (definition 2)
- 'What is your state of mind, Twenty Eight?' said the questioner in spectacles.†
Chpt 61-62 (definition 2)
- We found her, in her spectacles, sitting by the fire.†
Chpt 61-62 (definition 2)
- She darted a hopeful glance at me, when I said 'Agnes'; but seeing that I looked as usual, she took off her spectacles in despair, and rubbed her nose with them.†
Chpt 61-62 (definition 2)
- My aunt put on her spectacles twice or thrice, to take another look at me, but as often took them off again, disappointed, and rubbed her nose with them.†
Chpt 61-62 (definition 2)
- My aunt, with one clap of her hands, and one look through her spectacles, immediately went into hysterics, for the first and only time in all my knowledge of her.†
Chpt 61-62 (definition 2)
- Here is my aunt, in stronger spectacles, an old woman of four-score years and more, but upright yet, and a steady walker of six miles at a stretch in winter weather.†
Chpt 63-64 (definition 2)
- Always with her, here comes Peggotty, my good old nurse, likewise in spectacles, accustomed to do needle-work at night very close to the lamp, but never sitting down to it without a bit of wax candle, a yard-measure in a little house, and a work-box with a picture of St. Paul's upon the lid.†
Chpt 63-64 (definition 2)
Definitions:
-
(1) (spectacle) a notable or unusual event that attracts attention
-
(2) (meaning too rare to warrant focus) The term spectacles is also used to refer to eyeglasses.