Both Uses of
brief
in
Mansfield Park
Uses with a very common or rare meaning:
- Nobody else could be interested in so remote an evil as illness in a family above an hundred miles off; not even Mrs. Price, beyond a brief question or two, if she saw her daughter with a letter in her hand, and now and then the quiet observation of, "My poor sister Bertram must be in a great deal of trouble."†
Chpt 44
- …sermon, had cried herself to sleep, it was impossible not to speak; and so, with the usual beginnings, hardly to be traced as to what came first, and the usual declaration that if she would listen to him for a few minutes, he should be very brief, and certainly never tax her kindness in the same way again; she need not fear a repetition; it would be a subject prohibited entirely: he entered upon the luxury of relating circumstances and sensations of the first interest to himself, to…†
Chpt 47 *
Definition:
-
(meaning too common or rare to warrant focus) Brief is most commonly encountered as an adjective meaning "of short duration." Other meanings derive from the idea of short--as when making a long story short by summarizing it, or when wearing briefs (underwear).