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.
- As we came out into the verandah we saw my mother laid on a bedstead in the courtyard.
— from My Reminiscences by Rabindranath Tagore - " I went out.
— from The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins - "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 - [ 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 - 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 - He'd certainly have shut her out, and then, mercy on me!
— from Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded by Samuel Richardson - MAURYA [Crying out as he is in the door.
— from Riders to the Sea by J. M. Synge - She seemed to be very angry, but suddenly burst out laughing, quite good-humouredly.
— from The Idiot by Fyodor Dostoyevsky - 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 - "We shall set out after supper," replied [Pg 143] Cacambo.
— from Candide by Voltaire - 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