4 uses
(click/touch triangles for details)
Definition
avoid or resist doing something
- During her illness many arguments had been urged to persuade my mother to refrain from attending upon her.Chapter 3 (5% in)
refrain = resist
- As the circumstances of his marriage illustrate his character, I cannot refrain from relating them.Chapter 1 (6% in)
- "No one could love a child more than I loved your brother"—tears came into his eyes as he spoke—"but is it not a duty to the survivors that we should refrain from augmenting their unhappiness by an appearance of immoderate grief?"Chapter 9 (15% in)
- I could have torn him limb from limb, as the lion rends the antelope. But my heart sank within me as with bitter sickness, and I refrained.Chapter 15 (99% in)
refrain = avoid
refrain = avoid or resist
refrained = resisted
There are no more uses of "refrain" in Frankenstein.
Typical Usage
(best examples)