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The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn vocabulary

1 British vocabulary words

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obsolete

slang

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nonesuch: synonyms: archetype, exemplar, ne plus ultra, apotheosis, doyen, paragon, nonpareil ???

tags: [obsolete] [slang]

► definition

Definition:

A person or thing of a sort that there is no other such; something extraordinary; a thing that has not its equal. It is given as a name to various objects, as to a choice variety of apple, a species of medic (Medicago lupulina), a variety of pottery clay, etc.

Noah Webster. Webster's Unabridged Dictionary (1913)
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the word is now rarely used in this sense, usually it is applied to names of cities, ships, or in the case of Mark Twain's novel as a theatrical group.

► uses

Uses:

though you've got that music thing and go among the quality, and are pretty as a pink, and Winthrop Adams thinks you a nonesuch, you come in here in plain everyday fashion and talk and read and make it sunshiny for everybody.

Amanda M. Douglas. A Little Girl in Old Boston (1868)

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Oh, this ain't bully nor noth'n! Oh, no, I reckon not! Why, bully, it beats the Nonesuch, don't it?"

Mark Twain. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn