Please enable javascript to see: All 13 uses | Through the cloth film, I saw the shadow approach. – approach = coming near – p.97 | He continued speaking directly to the dead woman, and I...

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All 14 Uses of

approach

in

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

But Reverend Thomas didn't intend to wait for that eventuality, so as Sister Monroe approached the pulpit from the right he started descending from the left.
p. 43..1 (definition 1)

approached = moved toward

I approached the Time Step with the same determination to win that I had approached the time tables with.†
p. 65..7 (definition 1)

I approached the Time Step with the same determination to win that I had approached the time tables with.†
p. 65..8 (definition 1)

Through the cloth film, I saw the shadow approach.
p. 97..1 (definition 1) *

approach = coming near

Approached in the dark the swaying bulbs looked lonely and purposeless.†
p. 122..4 (definition 1)

I sometimes had to lift the flap (our signal that an adult was approaching) and so I saw their pathetic struggles even as they talked about school and the movies.†
p. 147..4 (definition 1)

He bounded off the dais and approached the velvet gray box.†
p. 161..4 (definition 1)

He continued speaking directly to the dead woman, and I half wished she would rise up and answer him, offended by the coarseness of his approach.
p. 161..6 (definition 2) *

approach = technique (way of doing something)

I understood the arrogance of the young sailors who marched the streets in marauding gangs, approaching every girl as if she were at best a prostitute and at worst an Axis agent bent on making the U.S.A. lose the war.†
p. 211..5 (definition 1)

After our friend from New York hired a secretary and had his cards printed, Black approached the mark with a proposition.†
p. 222..1 (definition 1)

I waited until I formulated an approach to him before releasing the brake. I would stop the car when we reached the kiosk and put on my siddity air. I would speak to him like the peasant he was.
p. 238..3 (definition 2)

approach = technique (way of doing something)

They were concerned and excited over the approaching football games, but I had in my immediate past raced a car down a dark and foreign Mexican mountain.†
p. 270..9 (definition 1)

As my sixth month approached, Mother left San Francisco for Alaska.†
p. 286..8 (definition 1)

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From Other Sources
Grouped by 3 Meanings

Uses with a very rare meaning:

I ate the fried pig skins, danced, screamed and drank the extra-sweet and sticky Coca-Cola with the nearest approach to abandonment I had ever experienced.†
p. 234..3 (definition 3) *

Definitions:

(1) (approach as in: approached the city)
to get closer to (near in space, time, quantity, or quality)

(2) (approach as in: use the best approach)
a way of doing something; or a route that leads to a particular place

(3) (meaning too rare to warrant focus)
More rarely (and typically only in classic literature), the phrase nearest approach to as used in "her nearest approach to an apology" or "her nearest approach to a smile" typically means that "something is as close to something else as it ever gets." "As near an approach to" can have a similar meaning.