All 6 Uses of
refrain
in
Ulysses, by James Joyce
- He caught himself in the act: looked at all: refrained.†
Chpt 9refrained = avoided or resisted (doing something)
- The presence even for a moment among a party of debauchees of a woman endued with every quality of modesty and not less severe than beautiful refrained the humourous sallies even of the most licentious but her departure was the signal for an outbreak of ribaldry.†
Chpt 14 *
- An acclimatised Britisher, he had seen that summer eve from the footplate of an engine cab of the Loop line railway company while the rain refrained from falling glimpses, as it were, through the windows of loveful households in Dublin city and urban district of scenes truly rural of happiness of the better land with Dockrell's wallpaper at one and ninepence a dozen, innocent Britishborn bairns lisping prayers to the Sacred Infant, youthful scholars grappling with their pensums or model young ladies playing on the pianoforte or anon all with fervour reciting the family rosary round the crackling Yulelog while in the boreens and green lanes the colleens with their swains strolled what times t†
Chpt 15
- By the provost's wall came jauntily Blazes Boylan, stepping in tan shoes and socks with skyblue clocks to the refrain of My girl's a Yorkshire girl.†
Chpt 10 *
- In vain the voice of Mr Canvasser Bloom was heard endeavouring to urge, to mollify, to refrain.†
Chpt 14
- Why did Bloom refrain from stating that he had frequented the university of life?†
Chpt 17
Definitions:
-
(1)
(refrain as in: a repeated refrain) something repeated regularly -- especially a word, phrase, line, or idea repeated in music, poetry, or speech
-
(2)
(refrain as in: refrain from laughing) to stop oneself from doing something -- especially something tempting, impulsive, or inappropriate