All 50 Uses of

approach
in
War and Peace

This head, with its remarkably broad brow and cheekbones, its handsome, sensual mouth, and its cold, majestic expression, was not disfigured by the approach of death.†
Chpt 1

approach = coming

It looked as if by that slight motion the army itself was expressing its joy at the approach of the Emperors.
Chpt 3 *

approach = coming near

He was in a state of suppressed excitement and irritation, though controlledly calm as a man is at the approach of a long-awaited moment.
Chpt 3

But as a youth in love trembles, is unnerved, and dares not utter the thoughts he has dreamed of for nights, but looks around for help or a chance of delay and flight when the longed-for moment comes and he is alone with her, so Rostov, now that he had attained what he had longed for more than anything else in the world, did not know how to approach the Emperor, and a thousand reasons occurred to him why it would be inconvenient, unseemly, and impossible to do so.
Chpt 3 *

approach = begin communication with

Night and day, hardly sleeping at all, she watched him and, terrible to say, often watched him not with hope of finding signs of improvement but wishing to find symptoms of the approach of the end.
Chpt 10

approach = coming

News of the approach of the French came from all sides, and in one village, ten miles from Bogucharovo, a homestead had been looted by French marauders.
Chpt 10

At the approach of danger there are always two voices that speak with equal power in the human soul: one very reasonably tells a man to consider the nature of the danger and the means of escaping it; the other, still more reasonably, says that it is too depressing and painful to think of the danger, since it is not in man's power to foresee everything and avert the general course of events, and it is therefore better to disregard what is painful till it comes, and to think about what…
Chpt 10

The expression on all faces showed the tension people feel at the approach of those in authority.
Chpt 14

At the approach of the commander in chief the buzz of talk ceased and all eyes were fixed on Kutuzov who, wearing a white cap with a red band and a padded overcoat that bulged on his round shoulders, moved slowly along the road on his white horse.
Chpt 15

approach = coming near

As the foreman of a spinning mill, when he has set the hands to work, goes round and notices here a spindle that has stopped or there one that creaks or makes more noise than it should, and hastens to check the machine or set it in proper motion, so Anna Pavlovna moved about her drawing room, approaching now a silent, now a too-noisy group, and by a word or slight rearrangement kept the conversational machine in steady, proper, and regular motion.†
Chpt 1

She kept an anxious watch on him when he approached the group round Mortemart to listen to what was being said there, and again when he passed to another group whose center was the abbe.†
Chpt 1

Prince Hippolyte approached the little princess and, bending his face close to her, began to whisper something.†
Chpt 1

Pierre, who had been growing more and more agitated as he listened to all this, rose and approached the princess.†
Chpt 1

"First-rate," said Pierre, looking at Dolokhov, who with a bottle of rum in his hand was approaching the window, from which the light of the sky, the dawn merging with the afterglow of sunset, was visible.†
Chpt 1

She was already growing impatient, and stamped her foot, ready to cry at his not coming at once, when she heard the young man's discreet steps approaching neither quickly nor slowly.†
Chpt 1

Seeing Anna Mikhaylovna and her son, Prince Vasili dismissed the doctor with a bow and approached them silently and with a look of inquiry.†
Chpt 1

"Allow me to inform you...But, don't be uneasy," he added, noticing that the count was beginning to breathe heavily and quickly which was always a sign of approaching anger.†
Chpt 1

Pierre approached, looking at her in a childlike way through his spectacles.†
Chpt 1

It was one of those sumptuous but cold apartments known to Pierre only from the front approach, but even in this room there now stood an empty bath, and water had been spilled on the carpet.†
Chpt 1

He now approached the sick man with the noiseless step of one in full vigor of life, with his delicate white fingers raised from the green quilt the hand that was free, and turning sideways felt the pulse and reflected a moment.†
Chpt 1

She approached Pierre with slow, quiet steps.†
Chpt 1

After a few more turns of the lathe he removed his foot from the pedal, wiped his chisel, dropped it into a leather pouch attached to the lathe, and, approaching the table, summoned his daughter.†
Chpt 1

The general looked the captain up and down as he came up panting, slackening his pace as he approached.†
Chpt 2

"Att-ention!" shouted the regimental commander in a soul-shaking voice which expressed joy for himself, severity for the regiment, and welcome for the approaching chief.†
Chpt 2

Everyone got up and began watching the movements of our troops below, as plainly visible as if but a stone's throw away, and the movements of the approaching enemy farther off.†
Chpt 2

Looking down at the waters of the Enns under the bridge, Nesvitski suddenly heard a sound new to him, of something swiftly approaching... something big, that splashed into the water.†
Chpt 2

The last of the infantry hurriedly crossed the bridge, squeezing together as they approached it as if passing through a funnel.†
Chpt 2

"How's this, Colonel?" he shouted as he approached.†
Chpt 2

Meanwhile Nesvitski, Zherkov, and the officer of the suite were standing together out of range of the shots, watching, now the small group of men with yellow shakos, dark-green jackets braided with cord, and blue riding breeches, who were swarming near the bridge, and then at what was approaching in the distance from the opposite side—the blue uniforms and groups with horses, easily recognizable as artillery.†
Chpt 2

Throughout the whole army and at headquarters most joyful though erroneous rumors were rife of the imaginary approach of columns from Russia, of some victory gained by the Austrians, and of the retreat of the frightened Bonaparte.†
Chpt 2

Prince Andrew's joyous feeling was considerably weakened as he approached the door of the minister's room.†
Chpt 2

The officer sends for Auersperg; these gentlemen embrace the officers, crack jokes, sit on the cannon, and meanwhile a French battalion gets to the bridge unobserved, flings the bags of incendiary material into the water, and approaches the tete-de-pont.†
Chpt 2

Marching thirty miles that stormy night across roadless hills, with his hungry, ill-shod soldiers, and losing a third of his men as stragglers by the way, Bagration came out on the Vienna-Znaim road at Hollabrunn a few hours ahead of the French who were approaching Hollabrunn from Vienna.†
Chpt 2

Since early morning—despite an injunction not to approach the picket line—the officers had been unable to keep sight-seers away.†
Chpt 2

By this time they were all approaching Tushin's battery, and a ball struck the ground in front of them.†
Chpt 2

As he approached, a ringing shot issued from it deafening him and his suite, and in the smoke that suddenly surrounded the gun they could see the gunners who had seized it straining to roll it quickly back to its former position.†
Chpt 2

Bagration called to him, and Tushin, raising three fingers to his cap with a bashful and awkward gesture not at all like a military salute but like a priest's benediction, approached the general.†
Chpt 2

Officers who approached him with disturbed countenances became calm; soldiers and officers greeted him gaily, grew more cheerful in his presence, and were evidently anxious to display their courage before him.†
Chpt 2

"What is this?" thought Prince Andrew approaching the crowd of soldiers.†
Chpt 2

The staff officer joined in the colonel's appeals, but Bagration did not reply; he only gave an order to cease firing and re-form, so as to give room for the two approaching battalions.†
Chpt 2

He looked at the approaching Frenchmen, and though but a moment before he had been galloping to get at them and hack them to pieces, their proximity now seemed so awful that he could not believe his eyes.†
Chpt 2

One ball after another passed over as he approached and he felt a nervous shudder run down his spine.†
Chpt 2

"What, are you wounded, my lad?" said Tushin, approaching the gun on which Rostov sat.†
Chpt 2

Of these plans he had not merely one or two in his head but dozens, some only beginning to form themselves, some approaching achievement, and some in course of disintegration.†
Chpt 3

Prince Vasili approached first, and she kissed the bold forehead that bent over her hand and answered his question by saying that, on the contrary, she remembered him quite well.†
Chpt 3

From the direction of Olmutz in front of them, a group was seen approaching.†
Chpt 3

It seemed as though not the trumpeters were playing, but as if the army itself, rejoicing at the Emperors' approach, had naturally burst into music.†
Chpt 3

Rostov, standing in the front lines of Kutuzov's army which the Tsar approached first, experienced the same feeling as every other man in that army: a feeling of self-forgetfulness, a proud consciousness of might, and a passionate attraction to him who was the cause of this triumph.†
Chpt 3

Rostov was not far from the trumpeters, and with his keen sight had recognized the Tsar and watched his approach.†
Chpt 3

Not daring to look round and without looking round, he was ecstatically conscious of his approach.†
Chpt 3

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Best Example Sentences
From Other Sources
Grouped by 3 Meanings

Definitions:

(1) (approach as in: approached the city)
to get closer to (near in space, time, quantity, or quality)
(2) (approach as in: use the best approach)
a way of doing something; or a route that leads to a particular place
(3) (approach as in: approached her with the proposal)
to begin communication with someone about something -- often a proposal or a delicate topic
(4) (meaning too rare to warrant focus)
meaning too rare to warrant focus:

More rarely (and typically only in classic literature), the phrase nearest approach to as used in "her nearest approach to an apology" or "her nearest approach to a smile" typically means that "something is as close to something else as it ever gets." "As near an approach to" can have a similar meaning.

Page Numbers by Book Edition

approach in War and Peace

approach
in
War and Peace