All 7 Uses of
aloof
in
The Odyssey, by Homer (translated by: Butcher & Lang)
- Then the steadfast goodly Odysseus answered him: 'Yet will the twain not long keep aloof from the strong tumult of war, when between the wooers and us in my halls is held the trial of the might of Ares.†
Book 16aloof = socially distant or uninterested
- Then Piraeus, the famed spearsman, drew nigh, leading the stranger to the assembly-place by the way of the town; and Telemachus kept not aloof from him long, but went up to him.†
Book 17
- If all the wooers should vouchsafe him as much as I, this house would keep him far enough aloof even for three months' space.'†
Book 17 *
- Now Odysseus sat aloof from the hearth, and of a sudden he turned his face to the darkness, for anon he had a misgiving of heart lest when she handled him she might know the scar again, and all should be revealed.†
Book 19
- Come therefore, delay not the issue with excuses, nor hold much longer aloof from the drawing of the bow, that we may see the thing that is to be.†
Book 21
- No other woman in the world would harden her heart to stand thus aloof from her lord, who after much travail and sore had come to her in the twentieth year to his own country.†
Book 23
- No other woman in the world would harden her heart to stand thus aloof from her husband, who after much travail and sore had come to her, in the twentieth year, to his own country.†
Book 23
Definition:
socially distant or uninterested in something that interests others -- often thinking oneself superior to others