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Literary notes about OUT (AI summary)

The word "out" serves as a versatile particle in literature, lending both literal and metaphorical nuances to a wide range of actions and emotions. In some instances, it denotes a physical movement from an enclosed space to the open, as seen when characters leave a room or step into the light ([1], [2], [3]). In other examples, "out" functions to emphasize the completion of an action—whether it be removing an object, as when a character "takes out his watch" ([4]) or "picks out a handkerchief" ([5]), or the elimination or rejection of something, such as "shutting someone out" ([6]). The word also conveys suddenness or intensity, appearing in phrases like "cried out" ([7]) or "burst out laughing" ([8]), and it can even hint at a transformation or emergence, as seen in journeys that "set out" ([9], [10]) or in the act of "coming out" with new understanding ([11]). Overall, this small yet powerful word enriches narrative detail by encapsulating movement, emotion, and change in a single term.
  1. As we came out into the verandah we saw my mother laid on a bedstead in the courtyard.
    — from My Reminiscences by Rabindranath Tagore
  2. " I went out.
    — from The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins
  3. "He has crept out of the Lascar's attic, and he saw the light." Becky ran to her side.
    — from A Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett
  4. [ Takes out his watch, looks at it uneasily, shakes it, holds it to his ear.
    — from Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll and Alice Gerstenberg
  5. She opened her "mesh" bag and took out an intensely perfumed handkerchief.
    — from The Best Short Stories of 1917, and the Yearbook of the American Short Story
  6. He'd certainly have shut her out, and then, mercy on me!
    — from Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded by Samuel Richardson
  7. MAURYA [Crying out as he is in the door.
    — from Riders to the Sea by J. M. Synge
  8. She seemed to be very angry, but suddenly burst out laughing, quite good-humouredly.
    — from The Idiot by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
  9. I set out on Thursday to Gloucester, on a party of pleasure; and on Saturday I went to the place appointed, at Woodstock:
    — from Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded by Samuel Richardson
  10. "We shall set out after supper," replied [Pg 143] Cacambo.
    — from Candide by Voltaire
  11. He says he doesn’t care if he is sent to prison, as he is certain of coming out in triumph as he has the proof of all his accusations.
    — from The Memoirs of Jacques Casanova de Seingalt, 1725-1798. Complete by Giacomo Casanova

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