All 3 Uses of
surmount
in
Anna Karenina
- His face all at once took an expression of anger from the effort he was making to surmount his shyness.†
Part 1 *surmount = overcome
- At that moment the wind, as it were, surmounting all obstacles, sent the snow flying from the carriage roofs, and clanked some sheet of iron it had torn off, while the hoarse whistle of the engine roared in front, plaintively and gloomily.†
Part 1surmounting = overcoming
- Living the old life, she was horrified at herself, at her utter insurmountable callousness to all her own past, to things, to habits, to the people she had loved, who loved her—to her mother, who was wounded by her indifference, to her kind, tender father, till then dearer than all the world.†
Part 5insurmountable = not able to be overcomestandard prefix: The prefix "in-" in insurmountable means not and reverses the meaning of surmountable. This is the same pattern you see in words like invisible, incomplete, and insecure.
Definitions:
-
(1)
(surmount) overcome (to successfully deal with an obstacle)
-
(2)
(meaning too rare to warrant focus) meaning too rare to warrant focus:
More rarely, surmount may mean to get on top of, be on top of, or reach the highest point of.