Literary notes about Allotted (AI summary)
The word "allotted" is used in literature to imply a predetermined share or designated role, whether that be a measure of time, duty, destiny, or tangible resource. It conveys an air of inevitability—whether assigning the onerous tasks of a villager [1], the officers appointed to a judge [2], or even the span of life decreed by fate [3, 4]. Authors deploy the term to reveal an underlying order: a seat is reserved in a bustling room [5, 6], lands are carefully distributed among conquerors or heirs [7, 8], and even destiny is rendered as a series of measured portions [9]. This versatile usage underscores a universe in which every role or period is calibrated in advance, framing both the mundane and the monumental acts of life.
- 57 “This individual has all the dirty work of the village allotted to him.
— from Castes and Tribes of Southern India. Vol. 7 of 7 by Edgar Thurston - Let every judge have two officers allotted him out of the tribe of Levi.
— from Antiquities of the Jews by Flavius Josephus - Equal courage and resolution are often shown by men who have passed the allotted limit of life.
— from Pushing to the Front by Orison Swett Marden - What is the destiny of man, but to fill up the measure of his sufferings, and to drink his allotted cup of bitterness?
— from The Sorrows of Young Werther by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe - So saying, he entered the cabin allotted to him, and taking the torch from the domestic's hand, thanked him, and wished him good-night.
— from Ivanhoe: A Romance by Walter Scott - “Lucky for you then, Handel,” said Herbert, “that you are picked out for her and allotted to her.
— from Great Expectations by Charles Dickens - He likewise allotted them lands, but not in contiguity, that the former owners might not be entirely dispossessed.
— from The Lives of the Twelve Caesars, Complete by Suetonius - How small a part of the boundless immensity of the ages is allotted to each of us, and presently that will vanish in eternity!
— from The Meditations of the Emperor Marcus Aurelius Antoninus by Emperor of Rome Marcus Aurelius - Contented, therefore, with the gifts of unconquered Jove, let us pass the years of our time allotted by fate, nor attempt more than mortality permits.
— from The Fables of Phædrus by Phaedrus
