All 50 Uses of
grave
in
Middlemarch
- Mr. Casaubon gravely smiled approval, and said to Mr. Brooke, "You have an excellent secretary at hand, you perceive."†
Chpt 1gravely = in a serious and solemn manner
- Celia knelt down to get the right level and gave her little butterfly kiss, while Dorothea encircled her with gentle arms and pressed her lips gravely on each cheek in turn.†
Chpt 1
- "You make me feel very uncomfortable, Mary," said Rosamond, with her gravest mildness; "I would not tell mamma for the world."†
Chpt 1gravest = most important or most serious
- Mr. Casaubon gravely hoped that Will was passing his time profitably as well as pleasantly in Rome—had thought his intention was to remain in South Germany—but begged him to come and dine to-morrow, when he could converse more at large: at present he was somewhat weary.†
Chpt 2gravely = in a serious and solemn manner
- She had returned from her brief pacing and stood opposite Will, looking gravely at him.†
Chpt 2
- "I must give you the ninety-two pounds that I have put by for Alfred's premium," said Mrs. Garth, gravely and decisively, though a nice ear might have discerned a slight tremor in some of the words.†
Chpt 3
- "Don't fear for me, father," said Mary, gravely meeting her father's eyes; "Fred has always been very good to me; he is kind-hearted and affectionate, and not false, I think, with all his self-indulgence.†
Chpt 3
- "You are alone, I see, my dear," she said, as they entered the drawing-room together, looking round gravely.†
Chpt 3
- "Brother Peter," he said, in a wheedling yet gravely official tone, "It's nothing but right I should speak to you about the Three Crofts and the Manganese.†
Chpt 3
- "Because this is one of a dozen, and without it there would only be eleven," said Mary, with a grave air of explanation, so that Letty sank back with a sense of knowledge.
Chpt 4grave = serious and solemn
- "It wouldn't make me happy to do such a nasty duty as that," said Alfred—at which Mary and her father laughed silently, but Mrs. Garth said, gravely— "Do find a fitter word than nasty, my dear Alfred, for everything that you think disagreeable.†
Chpt 4gravely = in a serious and solemn manner
- His face had an expression of grave surprise, which alarmed her a little, but he did not like to be questioned while he was reading, and she remained anxiously watching till she saw him suddenly shaken by a little joyous laugh as he turned back to the beginning of the letter, and looking at her above his spectacles, said, in a low tone, "What do you think, Susan?"
Chpt 4grave = serious and solemn
- "No," said Caleb, gravely; "I am thinking that I could do a great turn for Fred Vincy.†
Chpt 4gravely = in a serious and solemn manner
- "The soul of man," said Caleb, with the deep tone and grave shake of the head which always came when he used this phrase—"The soul of man, when it gets fairly rotten, will bear you all sorts of poisonous toad-stools, and no eye can see whence came the seed thereof."
Chpt 4grave = serious and solemn
- "It is the grandest profession in the world, Rosamond," said Lydgate, gravely.†
Chpt 5gravely = in a serious and solemn manner
- "Very well, Doctor Grave-face," said Rosy, dimpling, "I will declare in future that I dote on skeletons, and body-snatchers, and bits of things in phials, and quarrels with everybody, that end in your dying miserably."
Chpt 5grave = serious and solemn
- With Rosamond, on the other hand, he pouted and was wayward—nay, often uncomplimentary, much to her inward surprise; nevertheless he was gradually becoming necessary to her entertainment by his companionship in her music, his varied talk, and his freedom from the grave preoccupation which, with all her husband's tenderness and indulgence, often made his manners unsatisfactory to her, and confirmed her dislike of the medical profession.
Chpt 5
- Her face being, from her entrance, towards the chancel, even her shortsighted eyes soon discerned Will, but there was no outward show of her feeling except a slight paleness and a grave bow as she passed him.
Chpt 5
- The most innocent echo has an impish mockery in it when it follows a gravely persistent speaker, and this echo was not at all innocent; if it did not follow with the precision of a natural echo, it had a wicked choice of the words it overtook.†
Chpt 5gravely = in a serious and solemn manner
- "Fly, Fly, I am ashamed of you," Mary was saying in a grave contralto.
Chpt 5 *grave = serious and solemn
- Mary in her turn was silent, wondering not at Mr. Farebrother's manner but at his tone, which had a grave restrained emotion in it.
Chpt 5
- He went straight from Mr. Garth's office to the warehouse, rightly feeling that the most respectful way in which he could behave to his father was to make the painful communication as gravely and formally as possible.†
Chpt 6gravely = in a serious and solemn manner
- Moreover, the decision would be more certainly understood to be final, if the interview took place in his father's gravest hours, which were always those spent in his private room at the warehouse.†
Chpt 6gravest = most important or most serious
- He was alarmed, but at a loss to know what Mrs. Garth meant, and added, in an apologetic tone, "Mr. Farebrother has always been such a friend of ours; and Mary, I knew, would listen to him gravely; and he took it on himself quite readily."†
Chpt 6gravely = in a serious and solemn manner
- No, no, I am a grave old parson.
Chpt 7grave = serious and solemn
- "Can you not see, Rosamond," he began again, trying to be simply grave and not bitter, "that nothing can be so fatal as a want of openness and confidence between us?"
Chpt 7
- It was a strange reversal of attitudes: Fred's blond face and blue eyes, usually bright and careless, ready to give attention to anything that held out a promise of amusement, looking involuntarily grave and almost embarrassed as if by the sight of something unfitting; while Lydgate, who had habitually an air of self-possessed strength, and a certain meditativeness that seemed to lie behind his most observant attention, was acting, watching, speaking with that excited narrow…
Chpt 7
- For should not grave and learn'd Experience That looks with the eyes of all the world beside, And with all ages holds intelligence, Go safer than Deceit without a guide!
Chpt 7
- "Why, yes," said Caleb, looking up gravely, "there is something wrong—a stranger, who is very ill, I think.†
Chpt 7gravely = in a serious and solemn manner
- "Oh," said Caleb, bowing his head and waving his hand gravely.†
Chpt 7
- When the invitations had been accepted, she would tell Lydgate, and give him a wise admonition as to how a medical man should behave to his neighbors; for Rosamond had the gravest little airs possible about other people's duties.†
Chpt 8gravest = most important or most serious
- Lydgate at last seated himself, not in his usual chair, but in one nearer to Rosamond, leaning aside in it towards her, and looking at her gravely before he reopened the sad subject.†
Chpt 8gravely = in a serious and solemn manner
- But there were various subjects that Dorothea was trying to get clear upon, and she resolved to throw herself energetically into the gravest of all.†
Chpt 8gravest = most important or most serious
- "I did not believe that you would let any circumstance of my birth create a prejudice in you against me, though it was sure to do so in others," said Will, shaking his head backward in his old way, and looking with a grave appeal into her eyes.
Chpt 8grave = serious and solemn
- Then, after a little pause, she said, more gravely, bending her face before her father's, "If you are contented with Fred?"†
Chpt 8gravely = in a serious and solemn manner
Uses with a meaning too common or too rare to warrant foucs:
- Celia colored, and looked very grave.†
Chpt 1
- "I should not wish to have a husband very near my own age," said Dorothea, with grave decision.†
Chpt 1
- "Celia," said Dorothea, with emphatic gravity, "pray don't make any more observations of that kind."†
Chpt 1 *
- He has one foot in the grave.†
Chpt 1
- "In the first place," said the Rector, looking rather grave, "it would be nonsensical to expect that I could convince Brooke, and make him act accordingly.†
Chpt 1
- Celia had those light young feminine tastes which grave and weatherworn gentlemen sometimes prefer in a wife; but happily Mr. Casaubon's bias had been different, for he would have had no chance with Celia.†
Chpt 1
- Partly it was the reception of his own artistic production that tickled him; partly the notion of his grave cousin as the lover of that girl; and partly Mr. Brooke's definition of the place he might have held but for the impediment of indolence.†
Chpt 1
- Poor Mr. Casaubon had imagined that his long studious bachelorhood had stored up for him a compound interest of enjoyment, and that large drafts on his affections would not fail to be honored; for we all of us, grave or light, get our thoughts entangled in metaphors, and act fatally on the strength of them.†
Chpt 1
- Mr. Lydgate had the medical accomplishment of looking perfectly grave whatever nonsense was talked to him, and his dark steady eyes gave him impressiveness as a listener.†
Chpt 1
- "Are you beginning to dislike slang, then?" said Rosamond, with mild gravity.†
Chpt 1
- Nothing escaped Lydgate in Rosamond's graceful behavior: how delicately she waived the notice which the old man's want of taste had thrust upon her by a quiet gravity, not showing her dimples on the wrong occasion, but showing them afterwards in speaking to Mary, to whom she addressed herself with so much good-natured interest, that Lydgate, after quickly examining Mary more fully than he had done before, saw an adorable kindness in Rosamond's eyes.†
Chpt 1
- The notion of murder was absurd: no motive was discoverable, the young couple being understood to dote on each other; and it was not unprecedented that an accidental slip of the foot should have brought these grave consequences.†
Chpt 2
- Most of those who saw Fred riding out of Middlemarch in company with Bambridge and Horrock, on his way of course to Houndsley horse-fair, thought that young Vincy was pleasure-seeking as usual; and but for an unwonted consciousness of grave matters on hand, he himself would have had a sense of dissipation, and of doing what might be expected of a gay young fellow.†
Chpt 3
- This was rather too much for poor Mary; sometimes it made her bilious, sometimes it upset her gravity.†
Chpt 3
- He had even desired that female relatives should follow him to the grave, and poor sister Martha had taken a difficult journey for this purpose from the Chalky Flats.†
Chpt 4
Definitions:
-
(1)
(grave as in: Her manner was grave.) serious and/or solemnThe exact meaning of this sense of grave can depend upon its context. For example:
- "This is a grave problem," or "a situation of the utmost gravity." -- important, dangerous, or causing worry
- "She was in a grave mood upon returning from the funeral." -- sad or solemn
- "She looked me in the eye and gravely promised." -- in a sincere and serious manner
-
(2)
(meaning too common or rare to warrant focus) meaning too common or too rare to warrant focus:
Better known meanings of grave and gravity:Less common meanings of grave:- grave -- a place where a dead body is buried
- gravity -- in the sense of physics to refer to the force of attraction between all masses in the universe--especially the force that causes things to fall toward the earth
- death -- as in "A message from beyond the grave."
- describing a color as dark
- to sculpt with a chisel
- to clean and coat the bottom of a wooden ship with pitch
- grave accent -- a punctuation mark (`) that is used in some non-English languages, and that is placed over some letters of the alphabet to tell how they are pronounced.
- grave musical direction -- in a slow and solemn manner