Literary notes about Pert (AI summary)
The word "pert" is frequently employed in literature to evoke a sense of lively, cheeky, and sometimes impudent character or appearance. Writers use it to describe spirited personalities—a mischievous quality in a brother's touch ([1]) or the bold, lively demeanor evident in a character’s reflection or retort ([2], [3]). At times, it colors physical features, suggesting an animated, pretty look with accents of impudence ([4], [5]), while other times it captures the essence of witty, forward behavior in dialogue or temperament ([6], [7]). The term’s versatile usage, spanning serious moral reflections ([8]) to playful banter ([9]), illustrates its longstanding role in imbuing literary descriptions with a spark of spirited vivacity and bold sophistication.
- Here I was transgressing again; and this time I was made sensible of it by a sudden dig in the ribs, from the elbow of my pert brother.
— from The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Brontë - “Yes,” said Tuppence aloud, nodding at the pert reflection in the glass, “you’ll do.”
— from The Secret Adversary by Agatha Christie - "You have made two blunders in one statement," was Miss Enid's pert retort.
— from A Traitor's Wooing by Headon Hill - A pert little thing, that's what she was too often, with her tight-strained nerves.
— from Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy - She had beautiful golden hair and an animated, pretty face, with a pert little snub nose.
— from The Fire People by Ray Cummings - “Well, mother?” answered the pert hussy, throwing out of her mouth two vipers and two toads.
— from The Blue Fairy Book by Andrew Lang - "Well, five dollars won't last forever," was the pert rejoinder.
— from The Young Bank Messenger by Alger, Horatio, Jr. - Piety, in spite of its allegories, contains a much greater wisdom than a half-enlightened and pert intellect can attain.
— from The Life of Reason: The Phases of Human Progress by George Santayana - Kant says, somewhere, that the witty person is free and pert, the judicious person reflective, and unwilling to draw conclusions.
— from Criminal Psychology: A Manual for Judges, Practitioners, and Students by Hans Gross
