Literary notes about Queasy (AI summary)
In literature, "queasy" is a versatile descriptor that often conveys both physical and emotional unease. Writers use it to illustrate a literal feeling of nausea—a queasiness in the stomach that unsettles characters in the midst of turbulent or awkward moments [1, 2, 3, 4]—as well as to suggest a broader sense of moral or psychological disquiet [5, 6, 7]. The term also finds its way into dialogue and poetic expressions, sometimes highlighting a character’s vulnerability or inner turmoil, as seen in passages where even the phrasing of a question carries a hint of discomfiture [8, 9]. Overall, "queasy" bridges the gap between a physical sensation and a more abstract, often anxiety-laden, state of being.
- Outside, the first harbor-swell caught the ship; she turned her face again, queasy at her stomach.
— from The Blue Star by Fletcher Pratt - I'm afraid my stomach's a little queasy.
— from Hail to the Chief by Randall Garrett - So let him go and carry himself to the isle of pipkins, and seek some stewed prunes for his queasy stomach.
— from Forest Days: A Romance of Old Times by G. P. R. (George Payne Rainsford) James - The ground still shook under his feet, and his insides were producing the queasy symptoms of motion sickness.
— from The Flaming Mountain: A Rick Brant Science-Adventure Story by Harold L. (Harold Leland) Goodwin - It was a horrible queasy falling sensation, as though the bar and the fight and the world were all dissolving into smoke around me.
— from The Hated by Frederik Pohl - But confound this tumid, queasy feeling—this restlessness, swelling, and heat—it was jealousy!
— from Jacob's Room by Virginia Woolf - I slowed my descent of the stairs and tried to place the uncertainty, the queasy foreboding I felt centering about my heart.
— from The Secret Martians by Jack Sharkey - And I have one thing, of a queasy question, Which I must act.
— from The Tragedy of King Lear by William Shakespeare - Who, queasy with his insolence Already, will their good thoughts call from him.
— from The Complete Works of William Shakespeare by William Shakespeare