Literary notes about Pound (AI summary)
In literature, “pound” wears many hats, functioning both as a unit of currency and a measure of weight while also occasionally taking on metaphorical or even nominative roles. Its monetary meaning appears in contexts of commerce and debt—illustrated by references to sums and financial transactions in works by Dickens and Shakespeare ([1], [2], [3], [4], [5], [6], [7])—while its weight sense is evident in recipes and scientific measurements as seen in texts by Culpeper, Jefferson, and others ([8], [9], [10], [11], [12]). Moreover, the word is cast in dynamic roles such as an action term implying force or impact, or even serving as a character’s name, thereby underlining its versatility across genres and periods ([13], [14], [15]).
- I consider the service well worth a hundred pound, and I am well pleased to pay the money.
— from Our Mutual Friend by Charles Dickens - “Of course, there can be no objection to your being sorry for him, and I'd put down a five-pound note myself to get him out of it.
— from Great Expectations by Charles Dickens - It might have been twenty thousand pound.’
— from Hard Times by Charles Dickens - Did her grandsire leave her seven hundred pound?
— from The Complete Works of William Shakespeare by William Shakespeare - So do I answer you: The pound of flesh which I demand of him Is dearly bought, 'tis mine, and I will have it.
— from The Complete Works of William Shakespeare by William Shakespeare - Therefore, go; These griefs and losses have so bated me That I shall hardly spare a pound of flesh To-morrow to my bloody creditor.
— from The Complete Works of William Shakespeare by William Shakespeare - Why, this bond is forfeit; And lawfully by this the Jew may claim A pound of flesh, to be by him cut off Nearest the merchant's heart.
— from The Merchant of Venice by William Shakespeare - Take of green Walnuts a pound and an half, Radish roots one pound, green Asarabacca six ounces, Radish seeds, six ounces.
— from The Complete Herbal by Nicholas Culpeper - Take of yellow Wax, fat Rozin, Greek Pitch, of each half a pound, Oil nine ounces: mix them together, by melting them according to art.
— from The Complete Herbal by Nicholas Culpeper - And if you add two cents per pound more to the price of the cheese, the profit would still be only about $50 per year.
— from The Declaration of Independence of the United States of America by Thomas Jefferson - By April 1890, the average import price per pound of Rio No. 7 in this country was nineteen cents; and Brazil was supplying only about half our needs.
— from All About Coffee by William H. Ukers - A pound of nitrogen in rich manure is worth more than a pound of nitrogen in poor manure.
— from The Declaration of Independence of the United States of America by Thomas Jefferson - And the louts come and pound at the great gates, and we pound back again, and shout at them.
— from Tom Brown's School Days by Thomas Hughes - “But you didn’t,” said Colonel Pound, still staring at the broken window.
— from The innocence of Father Brown by G. K. Chesterton - Colonel Pound looked at him keenly, but the speaker’s mild grey eyes were fixed upon the ceiling with almost empty wistfulness.
— from The innocence of Father Brown by G. K. Chesterton
