All 19 Uses of
accustomed
in
The Scarlet Letter
- My children have had other birth-places, and, so far as their fortunes may be within my control, shall strike their roots into unaccustomed earth.
Chpt Intr.unaccustomed = unfamiliarstandard prefix: The prefix "un-" in unaccustomed means not and reverses the meaning of accustomed. This is the same pattern you see in words like unhappy, unknown, and unlucky.
- They spent a good deal of time, also, asleep in their accustomed corners, with their chairs tilted back against the walls; awaking, however, once or twice in the forenoon, to bore one another with the several thousandth repetition of old sea-stories and mouldy jokes, that had grown to be passwords and countersigns among them.
Chpt Intr.accustomed = usual
- It was carelessly at first, like a man chiefly accustomed to look inward, and to whom external matters are of little value and import, unless they bear relation to something within his mind.
Chpt 3accustomed to = used to (adapted to something, so it seems normal)
- There he stood, with a border of grizzled locks beneath his skull-cap, while his grey eyes, accustomed to the shaded light of his study, were winking, like those of Hester's infant, in the unadulterated sunshine.†
Chpt 3
- Dames of elevated rank, likewise, whose doors she entered in the way of her occupation, were accustomed to distil drops of bitterness into her heart; sometimes through that alchemy of quiet malice, by which women can concoct a subtle poison from ordinary trifles; and sometimes, also, by a coarser expression, that fell upon the sufferer's defenceless breast like a rough blow upon an ulcerated wound.†
Chpt 5
- But then, again, an accustomed eye had likewise its own anguish to inflict.†
Chpt 5
- For, though bred a lawyer, and accustomed to speak of Bacon, Coke, Noye, and Finch, as his professional associates, the exigencies of this new country had transformed Governor Bellingham into a soldier, as well as a statesman and ruler.†
Chpt 7
- But it is an error to suppose that our great forefathers——though accustomed to speak and think of human existence as a state merely of trial and warfare, and though unfeignedly prepared to sacrifice goods and life at the behest of duty——made it a matter of conscience to reject such means of comfort, or even luxury, as lay fairly within their grasp.†
Chpt 8
- But the child, unaccustomed to the touch or familiarity of any but her mother, escaped through the open window, and stood on the upper step, looking like a wild tropical bird of rich plumage, ready to take flight into the upper air.
Chpt 8unaccustomed to = not used to (not adapted to something, so it seems normal)
- Thus Roger Chillingworth scrutinised his patient carefully, both as he saw him in his ordinary life, keeping an accustomed pathway in the range of thoughts familiar to him, and as he appeared when thrown amidst other moral scenery, the novelty of which might call out something new to the surface of his character.
Chpt 9 *accustomed = usual
- He felt his limbs growing stiff with the unaccustomed chilliness of the night, and doubted whether he should be able to descend the steps of the scaffold.†
Chpt 12
- It showed the familiar scene of the street with the distinctness of mid-day, but also with the awfulness that is always imparted to familiar objects by an unaccustomed light.†
Chpt 12
- Little accustomed, in her long seclusion from society, to measure her ideas of right and wrong by any standard external to herself, Hester saw——or seemed to see——that there lay a responsibility upon her in reference to the clergyman, which she owned to no other, nor to the whole world besides.†
Chpt 13
- As her mother still kept beckoning to her, and arraying her face in a holiday suit of unaccustomed smiles, the child stamped her foot with a yet more imperious look and gesture.†
Chpt 19
- "I see what ails the child," whispered Hester to the clergyman, and turning pale in spite of a strong effort to conceal her trouble and annoyance, "Children will not abide any, the slightest, change in the accustomed aspect of things that are daily before their eyes.†
Chpt 19
- The excitement of Mr. Dimmesdale's feelings as he returned from his interview with Hester, lent him unaccustomed physical energy, and hurried him townward at a rapid pace.†
Chpt 20
- He entered the accustomed room, and looked around him on its books, its windows, its fireplace, and the tapestried comfort of the walls, with the same perception of strangeness that had haunted him throughout his walk from the forest dell into the town and thitherward.†
Chpt 20
- Her face, so long familiar to the townspeople, showed the marble quietude which they were accustomed to behold there.†
Chpt 21
- There was his body, moving onward, and with an unaccustomed force.†
Chpt 22
Definition:
-
(accustom) to make someone used to something
(used to is an expression that means someone has adapted to something, so it does not seem unusual)editor's notes: In professional environments, you may make a better impression by saying one is accustomed to something rather than one is used to something.