All 12 Uses of
poise
in
Atlas Shrugged
- His posture had a limp, decentralized sloppiness, as if in defiance of his tall, slender body, a body with an elegance of line intended for the confident poise of an aristocrat, but transformed into the gawkiness of a lout.†
Chpt 1.1
- "Don't you think it would be better to pick one of our more distinguished young men, somebody from a good family, with more social poise and-"†
Chpt 1.7
- The line of her shoulders looked taut, yet thrown back easily, as if poised for flight.†
Chpt 1.7 *
- The woman who opened the door had graying hair and a poised, distinguished look of grooming; it took Dagny a few seconds to realize that her garment was only a simple cotton housedress, "May I see Mr. William Hastings?" asked Dagny.†
Chpt 1.10
- At such moments as he remembered her presence, he noticed that she sat efficiently straight, almost flaunting the perfection of her poise; she seemed alertly awake and contented, as if she were starting out on a purposeful journey of early morning.†
Chpt 2.3
- On his last trip to Washington, he had pleaded with Mr. Weatherby that a cut in the rates of the railroads would be a deathblow; the wage raises had been granted, but the demands for the cut in rates were still heard in the press-and Taggart had known what it meant, if Mr. Mouch still permitted them to be heard; he had known that the knife was still poised at his throat.†
Chpt 2.5
- He knew that something was ominously wrong in the tone of his voice, because he saw the heads of the newsmen go up, as at the sound of an alarm; he saw them waiting, their pencils poised.†
Chpt 3.3
- He knew-the moment he saw Cherryl's silent, poised figure as she rose at his entrance into her room-that this was more dangerous than he had allowed himself to know and that he would not find what he wanted.†
Chpt 3.4
- It was her poise that irritated him most; she was no longer an incongruous little freak, dwarfed by the luxury of the residence which a famous artist had designed; she matched it.†
Chpt 3.4
- She shifted her body, sliding lower in the armchair, stomach forward, as if relaxation were ugliness, as if she were granting him the kind of intimacy that required no poise and no respect.†
Chpt 3.4
- Lillian's head was poised to bow in greeting, with the tentative hint of a smile on her lips, half-timid, half-brash.†
Chpt 3.6
- …of lightness, of rising without effort or doubt or fear, of feeling the twisting installments of stairway dropping down beneath her unhesitant feet, as if the momentum of her irresistible rise were coming from the straightness of her body, the poise of her shoulders, the lift of her head and the solemnly exultant certainty that in the moment of ultimate decision, it was not disaster she expected of her life, at the end of a rising stairway she had needed thirty-seven years to climb.†
Chpt 3.8
Definition:
-
(poise) calm and in control -- as in "shows poise under pressure"
and/or:
prepared for action -- as in "poised for action" -- (sometimes suspended or hovering as in "a finger poised over the mute button")
and/or:
confident and graceful in movement -- as in "the poise and balance of a dancer"