Seen & Heard: Good Quotes From Great Books

All the definitions on Merriam-Webster.com include "Seen & Heard," a place to comment on why you looked up the word. Here are some of our favorite comments involving books.

Definition:

: characterized by a harsh snoring or gasping sound

Seen & Heard:

"In Farewell, My Lovely by Raymond Chandler: 'The bouncer breathed stertorously and his hand was limp.'" - Linda Dahlstrom

Definition:

: something that eases (symptoms) without curing the underlying disease

Seen & Heard:

"In Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov: 'I see nothing for the treatment of my misery but the melancholy and very local palliative of articulate art.'" - Johnny Bliss

Definition:

: having a mealy texture or surface

Seen & Heard:

"In Great Expectations by Charles Dickens: 'Mr. Pumblechook's premises in the High-street of the market town, were of a peppercorny and farinaceous character, as the premises of a corn-chandler and seedsman should be.'" - Rose Huskey

Definition:

: plumpness of person : stoutness

Seen & Heard:

"In Peter Pan by J.M. Barrie: '[Tinkerball] was slightly inclined to embonpoint.' Apparently Tink was a bit chubby, but Disney interpreted that as curvy. :)" - Sarah Ratliff

Definition:

: a bizarre or fantastic combination, collection, or assemblage

Seen & Heard:

"In Everything is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer: 'My grandmother and I used to scream words off her back porch a night, when I would stay over. That's something I remember. We screamed the longest words we could think of. 'Phantasmagoria!' I screamed.'" - Hannah Ruth Brothers

Definition:

: bony

Seen & Heard:

"In Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace: 'The last of the sun's snout was setting just over the tip of the U.S.S. Millicent's hair, which was almost osseously hard-looking, composed of dense woven nests of reticulate fibers like a dry loofa sponge, which she said over the summer a home-perm had misfired and left her hair a system of reticulate nests, and was only now loosening up enough even to attach a bow to.'" - Steven Vanderlinden

Definition:

: being beneath one's dignity

Seen & Heard:

"In Uncle Fred In The Springtime by P.G.Wodehouse: 'There's nothing infra dig about snitching [i.e. stealing] pigs. If I were differently situated, I'd do it like a shot.'" - Anthony Brown

Definition:

: lacking legal or moral restraints; especially : disregarding sexual restraints

Seen & Heard:

"In The Republic by Plato: '... in a city of the blessed, licentiousness is an unholy thing which the rulers will forbid.'" - Cassandra Schreibe

Definition:

: marked by shyness and lack of social graces

Seen & Heard:

"In The Plumed Serpent by DH Lawrence: 'His manner was superficially assured, underneath perhaps half-savage, shy and farouche, and deprecating.'" - Kendra Broom