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Wuthering Heights vocabulary
277 vocabulary words, including people, places, music, artists, etc.
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grimalkin
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synonyms: gib ???
► definition
Definition:1. a mean cat2. a churlish old woman
photo: by Callum Wale, CC0, https://unsplash.com/photos/h0HqUL1DX0Ygratuitous sound file: by egovind, CC0, https://www.freesound.org/people/egovind/sounds/257731/
► uses
Uses:
Nothing was stirring except a brindled, grey cat, which crept from the ashes, and saluted me with a querulous mew.
Two benches, shaped in sections of a circle, nearly enclosed the hearth; on one of these I stretched myself, and Grimalkin mounted the other.
Emily Brontë. Wuthering Heights (1847)
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It is unnecessary to explain, I suppose, that each individual grimalkin in the outfit, with that readiness of resource which distinguishes the species, had grappled with tooth and nail as many others as it could hook on to. This preserved the formation. It made the column so stiff that when the ship rolled (and the Mary Jane was a devil to roll) it swayed from side to side like a mast, and the Mate said if it grew much taller he would have to order it cut away or it would capsize us.
Ambrose Bierce. The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Volume 8 Negligible Tales, On With the Dance, Epigrams
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Thus fable reports that the fair Grimalkin, whom Venus, at the desire of a passionate lover, converted from a cat into a fine woman, no sooner perceived a mouse than, mindful of her former sport, and still retaining her pristine nature, she leaped from the bed of her husband to pursue the little animal.
Henry James. History of Tom Jones, a Foundling
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