All 3 Uses of
reprove
in
Middlemarch
- And this particular reproof irritated him more than any other.†
Chpt 2 *reproof = criticism
- But where Caleb's feeling and judgment strongly pronounced, he was a ruler; and in spite of his mildness and timidity in reproving, every one about him knew that on the exceptional occasions when he chose, he was absolute.†
Chpt 6reproving = criticizing or critical
- The quick vision that his life was after all a failure, that he was a dishonored man, and must quail before the glance of those towards whom he had habitually assumed the attitude of a reprover—that God had disowned him before men and left him unscreened to the triumphant scorn of those who were glad to have their hatred justified—the sense of utter futility in that equivocation with his conscience in dealing with the life of his accomplice, an equivocation which now turned venomously upon him with the full-grown fang of a discovered lie:—all this rushed through him like the agony of terror which fails to kill, and leaves the ears still open to the returning wave of execration.†
Chpt 7reprover = someone who criticizes
Definitions:
-
(1)
(reprove) express disapproval or criticism -- typically in a mild manner & sometimes even in a friendly manner
-
(2)
(meaning too rare to warrant focus) meaning too rare to warrant focus:
More rarely (though often from Shakespeare), the form reproof describes punishment rather than merely criticism.