All 5 Uses of
poise
in
Catch-22
- Yossarian had so many ailments to be afraid of that he was sometimes tempted to turn himself in to the hospital for good and spend the rest of his life stretched out there inside an oxygen tent with a battery of specialists and nurses seated at one side of his bed twenty-four hours a day waiting for something to go wrong and at least one surgeon with a knife poised at the other, ready to jump forward and begin cutting away the moment it became necessary.†
Chpt 17
- He was dashing and dejected, poised and chagrined.†
Chpt 19
- Nately was unnerved by her torpid indifference to him, by the same sleepy and inert poise that he remembered so vivdly, so sweetly, and so miserably from the first time she had seen him and ignored him at the packed penny-ante blackjack game in the living room of the enlisted men's apartment.†
Chpt 23
- He had never witnessed such heroic poise before.†
Chpt 26 *
- The colonel lifted the box of matches, took one out and held it poised against the striking surface, watching with glowering eyes for the chaplain's next sign of defiance.†
Chpt 36
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"