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Great Expectations vocabulary
361 vocabulary words, including people, places, music, artists, etc.
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dumb show
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► definition
Definition:(a) Formerly, a part of a dramatic representation, shown in pantomime.(b) Signs and gestures without words;Noah Webster. Webster's Unabridged Dictionary (1913)
► uses
Uses:
O, it offends me to the soul to hear a robustious periwig-pated fellow tear a passion to tatters, to very rags, to split the ears of the groundlings, who (for the most part) are capable of nothing but inexplicable dumb shows and noise.
William Shakespeare. Hamlet
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It was not a verbal remark, but a proceeding in dumb-show, and was pointedly addressed to me. He stirred his rum and water pointedly at me, and he tasted his rum and water pointedly at me. And he stirred it and he tasted it; not with a spoon that was brought to him, but with a file.
Charles Dickens. Great Expectations (1861)
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A ceremony followed, in dumb show, in which it was easy to recognise the pantomime of a marriage.
Charlotte Brontë. Jane Eyre (1847)
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