Both Uses of
eccentric
in
The House of the Seven Gables
- Being of an eccentric and melancholy turn of mind, and greatly given to rummaging old records and hearkening to old traditions, he had brought himself, it is averred, to the conclusion that Matthew Maule, the wizard, had been foully wronged out of his homestead, if not out of his life.†
Chpt 1 *
- It was one of his eccentricities, however,—and not altogether a folly, neither,—to conceal the amount of his property by making distant and foreign investments, perhaps under other names than his own, and by various means, familiar enough to capitalists, but unnecessary here to be specified.†
Chpt 15eccentricities = unconventional or strange behaviors
Definitions:
-
(1)
(eccentric) unconventional or strange; or a person with such traits -- often in a way that seems interesting or harmless
-
(2)
(meaning too rare to warrant focus) meaning too rare to warrant focus:
Much more rarely, in technical usage, eccentric can mean "not concentric".