8 uses
(click/touch triangles for details)
1 —1 use as in:
was direct in my instructions
Definition
straightforward (uncomplicated or simple — perhaps also indicating openness and honesty)
- It was not in his manner to obtain information by indirect methods, and it never even occurred to him to question the servants.Chapter 8 (29% in)
indirect = not straightforward (complicated)
(Editor's note: The prefix "in-" in indirect means not and reverses the meaning of direct. This is the same pattern you see in words like invisible, incomplete, and insecure.)
(Editor's note: The prefix "in-" in indirect means not and reverses the meaning of direct. This is the same pattern you see in words like invisible, incomplete, and insecure.)
There are no more uses of "direct" flagged with this meaning in Washington Square.
Typical Usage
(best examples)
? —7 uses
exact meaning not specified
- He told me to tell you—to tell you very distinctly, and directly from himself, that if I marry without his consent, I shall not inherit a penny of his fortune.Chapter 20 (66% in)
- Mrs. Penniman was a tall, thin, fair, rather faded woman, with a perfectly amiable disposition, a high standard of gentility, a taste for light literature, and a certain foolish indirectness and obliquity of character.Chapter 2 (45% in)
- Dr. Sloper's interest in this phenomenon was only indirect—though, seeing that, as the years went on, half his patients came to be overworked men of business, it might have been more immediate—and when most of his neighbours' dwellings (also ornamented with granite copings and large fanlights) had been converted into offices, warehouses, and shipping agencies, and otherwise applied to the base uses of commerce, he determined to look out for a quieter home.Chapter 3 (47% in)
- For the second time in her life she made an indirect answer; and the beginning of a period of dissimulation is certainly a significant date.Chapter 4 (82% in)
- With this the two young men took their departure; after which Catherine, with her blush still lingering, directed a serious and interrogative eye to Mrs. Penniman.Chapter 5 (81% in)
- Instead of letting her sob out her misery on his shoulder, he simply took her by the arm and directed her course across the threshold, closing the door gently but firmly behind her.Chapter 18 (93% in)
- It was idle to attempt to ascertain the state of her affections without direct inquiry, because, if she had not had an expressive manner among the familiar influences of home, she failed to gather animation from the mountains of Switzerland or the monuments of Italy.Chapter 24 (3% in)
There are no more uses of "direct" in Washington Square.
Typical Usage
(best examples)