6 uses
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Definition
a high point of land or rock that overlooks land at lower elevation — often a rocky one that juts out into the sea
- It had the same long regularly graded retreating slope from above the brows, which were likewise very projecting, like two long promontories thickly wooded on top.Chapters 10-12 — A Bosom Friend; Nightgown; Biographical (13% in)
- —"There Leviathan, Hugest of living creatures, in the deep Stretched like a promontory sleeps or swims, And seems a moving land; and at his gills Draws in, and at his breath spouts out a sea."Extracts (29% in)
- So close behind some promontory lie The huge Leviathan to attend their prey, And give no chance, but swallow in the fry, Which through their gaping jaws mistake the way.Extracts (30% in)
- Next was Tashtego, an unmixed Indian from Gay Head, the most westerly promontory of Martha's Vineyard, where there still exists the last remnant of a village of red men, which has long supplied the neighboring island of Nantucket with many of her most daring harpooneers.Chapters 25-27 — Postscript; Knights and Squires; Knights and Squires (77% in)
- Those narrow straits of Sunda divide Sumatra from Java; and standing midway in that vast rampart of islands, buttressed by that bold green promontory, known to seamen as Java Head; they not a little correspond to the central gateway opening into some vast walled empire: and considering the inexhaustible wealth of spices, and silks, and jewels, and gold, and ivory, with which the thousand islands of that oriental sea are enriched, it seems a significant provision of nature, that such...Chapters 85-87 — The Fountain; The Tail; The Grand Armada (46% in)
- For they are only being driven from promontory to cape; and if one coast is no longer enlivened with their jets, then, be sure, some other and remoter strand has been very recently startled by the unfamiliar spectacle.Chapters 103-105 — Measurement of The Whale's Skeleton; The Fossil Whale; Does the Whale Diminish (86% in)
There are no more uses of "promontory" in Moby Dick.
Typical Usage
(best examples)