All 8 Uses of
pious
in
Main Street, by Sinclair Lewis
- Pious families in Minnesota, Iowa, Wisconsin, the Dakotas send their children thither, and Blodgett protects them from the wickedness of the universities.
Chpt 1pious = highly religious
- He was, in fact, a museum specimen of what a small town, a well-disciplined public school, a tradition of hearty humor, and a pious mother could produce from the material of a courageous and ingenious mind.
Chpt 9pious = highly religious and moral
- It was impossible to sit on it without folding the hands and listening piously.
Chpt 11piously = in a manner that appears religious
- Mrs. Bogart spoke of the eloquence of the Reverend Mr. Zitterel, the coldness of cold days, the price of poplar wood, Dave Dyer's new hair-cut, and Cy Bogart's essential piety.
Chpt 15piety = highly religious and moral behavior
- I goes in, pious as Widow Bogart, and sits still and never cracks a smile while the preacher is favoring us with his misinformation on evolution.
Chpt 26pious = highly religious and moral
- The congregation had doffed their piety. Children tumbled under the tables, and...
Chpt 30piety = religious (or worshipping) behavior
- Dear, don't speak so bitter about 'pious' people.
Chpt 32 *pious = highly religious and moral
- A rich farming-center in New Jersey, off the railroad, furiously pious, ruled by old men, unbelievably ignorant old men, sitting about the grocery talking of James G. Blaine.
Chpt 37pious = highly religious
Definitions:
-
(1)
(pious as in: a good, pious woman) religious or highly moral
-
(2)
(pious as in: a pious hypocrite) self-righteous (acting as though one is, or believing one is highly moral when it is not true)
-
(3)
(pious as in: cling to the pious hope) (describing a hope or wish as) sincere, but highly unlikely
-
(4)
(meaning too rare to warrant focus) meaning too rare to warrant focus:
Much more rarely, piety can refer to devotion or faithfulness as Proust used it in the book, Swann's Way:
"...but when, as had befallen me, such an anguish possesses one's soul before Love has yet entered into one's life, then it must drift, awaiting Love's coming, vague and free, without precise attachment, at the disposal of one sentiment to-day, of another to-morrow, of filial piety or affection for a comrade."