34 uses
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Definition
absurd, outrageous, silly, or completely unreasonable
- Then, preposterously, the first thing he said, his voice anxious, was, "But who will run Taggart Transcontinental in the meantime?"1.7 Part 1 Chapter 7 — The Exploiters and the Exploited (58% in)
- Just say yes or no. "That's a preposterous, high-handed, arbitrary way of—"1.1 Part 1 Chapter 1 — The Theme (87% in)
- Mrs. Taggart had expected her to look like a preposterous contrast.1.5 Part 1 Chapter 5 — The Climax of the D'Anconias (37% in)
- First, I don't think that Taggart Transcontinental will recover from its loss on that preposterous San Sebastian Line.1.5 Part 1 Chapter 5 — The Climax of the D'Anconias (97% in)
- A battle against a thing such as that bill seemed preposterous and faintly embarrassing to him, as if he were suddenly asked to compete with a man who calculated steel mixtures by the formulas of numerology.1.6 Part 1 Chapter 6 — The Non-Commercial (11% in)
- "Man's metaphysical pretensions," he said, "are preposterous.1.6 Part 1 Chapter 6 — The Non-Commercial (15% in)
- His only mark of distinction seemed to be a bulbous nose, a bit too large for the rest of him; his manner was meek, but it conveyed a preposterous hint, the hint of a threat deliberately kept furtive, yet intended to be recognized.1.7 Part 1 Chapter 7 — The Exploiters and the Exploited (30% in)
- I know it's preposterous and I gave them hell for it.1.8 Part 1 Chapter 8 — The John Galt Line (36% in)
- Among the stories, there was one so preposterously out of character that Dagny believed it to be true: nothing in Mulligan's nature could have given anyone ground to invent it.1.10 Part 1 Chapter 10 — Wyatt's Torch (56% in)
- Through the blank seconds of recapturing her mind, she kept telling herself: You're hysterical .... don't be preposterous .... it's just a coincidence of names-while she knew, in certainty and numb, inexplicable terror, that this was the Hugh Akston.1.10 Part 1 Chapter 10 — Wyatt's Torch (87% in)
- It was preposterous, he thought, this growing intrusion of the accidents of nature into the affairs of men: it had never mattered before, if a winter happened to be unusually severe; if a flood washed out a section of railroad track, one did not spend two weeks eating canned vegetables; if an electric storm struck some power station, an establishment such as the State Science Institute was not left without electricity for five days.2.1 Part 2 Chapter 1 — The Man Who Belonged on Earth (1% in)
- By what right did you use my work to make an unwarranted, preposterous switch into another field, pull an inapplicable metaphor and draw a monstrous generalization out of what is merely a mathematical problem?2.1 Part 2 Chapter 1 — The Man Who Belonged on Earth (18% in)
- "Hank, that's preposterous"-she laughed-"it's not my kind of thing!"2.1 Part 2 Chapter 1 — The Man Who Belonged on Earth (76% in)
- It's I who've produced that wealth and it's I who am going to let it buy for me every kind of pleasure I want-including the pleasure of seeing Row much I'm able to pay for-including the preposterous feat of turning you into a luxury object.2.1 Part 2 Chapter 1 — The Man Who Belonged on Earth (81% in)
- It's the most preposterous event of the season, and everybody's been looking forward to it for weeks, all my friends.2.2 Part 2 Chapter 2 — The Aristocracy of Pull (15% in)
- It might sound preposterous, but I think it's true...... What?2.3 Part 2 Chapter 3 — White Blackmail (43% in)
- That is why I find your attitude preposterous.2.4 Part 2 Chapter 4 — The Sanction of the Victim (6% in)
- But this is preposterous!2.7 Part 2 Chapter 7 — The Moratorium on Brains (31% in)
- Any more preposterous than Directive 10-289?2.7 Part 2 Chapter 7 — The Moratorium on Brains (31% in)
- Oh, hell, Dagny, it's preposterous!3.1 Part 3 Chapter 1 — Atlantis (15% in)
- She remembered suddenly where she had seen as expert and preposterous a performance.3.1 Part 3 Chapter 1 — Atlantis (21% in)
- I .... oh, it's just that it's preposterous!3.1 Part 3 Chapter 1 — Atlantis (45% in)
- She could make no guess; none seemed to fit; she caught herself in the preposterous feeling of wishing that he had no profession at all, because any work seemed too dangerous for his incredible kind of beauty.3.2 Part 3 Chapter 2 — The Utopia of Greed (3% in)
- But the feeling seemed the more preposterous, because the lines of his face had the sort of hardness for which no danger on earth was a match, "No, Miss Taggart," he said suddenly, catching her glance, "you've never seen me before."3.2 Part 3 Chapter 2 — The Utopia of Greed (3% in)
- You looked preposterously out of place on a railroad platform-and it was not on a railroad platform that I was seeing you, I was seeing a setting that had never haunted me before-but then, suddenly, I knew that you did belong among the rails, the soot and the girders, that that was the proper setting for a flowing gown and naked shoulders and a face as alive as yours-a railroad platform, not a curtained apartment-you looked like a symbol of luxury and you belonged in the place that was...3.2 Part 3 Chapter 2 — The Utopia of Greed (42% in)
- When she turned her face to Dagny, the amusement was still there, but its shading was now different: it seemed to suggest that they shared a secret, which would make her presence here seem preposterous to the world, but self-evidently logical to the two of them.3.3 Part 3 Chapter 3 — Anti-Greed (66% in)
- It's perfectly preposterous," she said, in the tone of a challenge to the space at large.3.4 Part 3 Chapter 4 — Anti-Life (68% in)
- It's preposterous that I should have to think of it, but what am I going to live on?3.4 Part 3 Chapter 4 — Anti-Life (72% in)
- Because you were a cheap, helpless, preposterous little guttersnipe, who'd never have a chance at anything to equal me!3.4 Part 3 Chapter 4 — Anti-Life (87% in)
- Then she felt a stab of desolate loneliness, much wider a loneliness than the span of an empty streetand a stab of anger at herself, at the preposterous contrast between her appearance and the context of this night and age.3.5 Part 3 Chapter 5 — Their Brothers' Keepers (75% in)
- Then she remembered what she wore, and thought that it did look preposterous-and then, at the sudden stab of some violent impulse that felt like defiance and like loyalty to the full, real meaning of the moment, she threw her cape back and stood in the raw glare of light, under the sooted columns, like a figure at a formal reception, sternly erect, flaunting the luxury of naked arms, of glowing black satin, of a diamond flashing like a military cross.3.5 Part 3 Chapter 5 — Their Brothers' Keepers (83% in)
- He was seeing the progression of the years, the monstrous extortions, the impossible demands, the inexplicable victories of evil, the preposterous plans and unintelligible goals proclaimed in volumes of muddy philosophy, the desperate wonder of the victims who thought that some complex, malevolent wisdom was moving the powers destroying the world-and all of it had rested on one tenet behind the shifty eyes of the victors: he'll do something!3.6 Part 3 Chapter 6 — The Concerto of Deliverance (65% in)
- It's preposterous!3.8 Part 3 Chapter 8 — The Egoist (68% in)
- Her glance moved slowly down the line-up of his table: Mr. Thompson, Wesley Mouch, Chick Morrison, some generals, some members of the Legislature and, preposterously, Mr. Mowen chosen as a bribe to Galt, as a symbol of big business.3.8 Part 3 Chapter 8 — The Egoist (92% in)
There are no more uses of "preposterous" in Atlas Shrugged.
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