— N. plainness &c. adj.; simplicity, severity; plain terms, plain English; Saxon English; household words V. call a spade "a spade"; plunge in medias res; come to the point.
— from Roget's Thesaurus by Peter Mark Roget

Interlocutors speaking prose, on the contrary, pelt and besiege one another with a peripheral attack; they come into contact at sundry superficial points and thence push their agreement inwards, until perhaps a practical coincidence is arrived at in their thought.
— from The Life of Reason: The Phases of Human Progress by George Santayana

Slop thought he might as well read it under the cover of my uncle Toby ’s whistling——as 10 ——Atque omnium cœlestium virtutum, angelorum, archangelorum, thronorum, dominationum, potestatuum, cherubin ac seraphin, & sanctorum patriarchum, prophetarum, & omnium apolstolorum & evangelistarum, & sanctorum innocentum, qui in conspectu Agni soli digni inventi sunt canticum cantare novum, et sanctorum martyrum et sanctorum confessorum, et sanctarum virginum, atque omnium simul sanctorum et
— from The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman by Laurence Sterne

While under this overpowering impression, Miss Amelia neglected her twelve dear friends at Chiswick most cruelly, as such selfish people commonly will do.
— from Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray

If we besides enumerate all the predicables, which we can find pretty completely in any good ontology (for example, Baumgarten's), and arrange them in classes under the categories, in which operation we must not neglect to add as complete a dissection of all these concepts as possible, there will then arise a merely analytical part of metaphysics, which does not contain a single synthetical proposition, which might precede the second (the synthetical), and would by its precision and completeness be not only useful, but, in virtue of its system, be even to some extent elegant.
— from Kant's Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics by Immanuel Kant

And from that church, a six score paces, is the Mount Sion.
— from The Travels of Sir John Mandeville by Mandeville, John, Sir

"With every effort, the quartermaster could only undertake to furnish rations for sixty days; and, in fact, full rations, of only flour, sugar, coffee and salt; salt pork only for thirty days, and soap for twenty.
— from The Mormon Battalion, Its History and Achievements by B. H. (Brigham Henry) Roberts

[77] Upon the 4th of April the levies from New England reached Canso, and were encamped there, where they were improved in their discipline until the arrival of the other troops from the different Provinces, while the ships of war upon the coast, and some stout privateers, continued off the harbour of Louisburg, in order to cut off all supplies, as well as intelligence of the projected enterprize.
— from An Historical Review of the Royal Marine Corps, from its Original Institution down to the Present Era, 1803 by Gillespie, Alexander, Major

The disorders in the existing currency, and especially the scarcity of small change, a scarcity so peculiarly distressing to the poorer classes, strongly recommend the carrying into immediate effect the resolution already entered into concerning the establishment of a Mint.
— from Abridgment of the Debates of Congress, from 1789 to 1856, Vol. 1 (of 16) by United States. Congress

And yet, he was wearing a beard, close clipped on the cheeks and forming over the chin a short, sharp point.
— from Mare Nostrum (Our Sea): A Novel by Vicente Blasco Ibáñez

For the Psammead, which was very cross and sleepy, said— [Pg 262] "Oh, don't bother me.
— from Five Children and It by E. (Edith) Nesbit

Such unwholesome food, assisted by the heat of the climate and season, soon produced an epidemical disease, which swept away five hundred soldiers.
— from History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire — Volume 4 by Edward Gibbon

The order pointed out that the innocent had to suffer with the guilty, “If they connive at such scandalous proceedings they themselves can no longer be considered free from blame, but if they give the names of those who make or sell the toys and drawings the market will again be opened.” Prisoners’ letters were intercepted, and a Corporal Hayes of the garrison and a prisoner known as Black Jimmy were found to be concerned in the traffic.
— from The Depot for Prisoners of War at Norman Cross, Huntingdonshire. 1796 to 1816 by Thomas (Thomas James) Walker