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Literary notes about SUNDRY (AI summary)

In literature, “sundry” is employed to evoke a sense of varied assortment or miscellaneous parts, whether referring to physical objects, nuanced emotions, or diverse locations. Writers use the term to compactly convey that many different items are involved—as when Brontë gathers “all and sundry reins” into a single gesture [1] or when Douglass recounts being injured “in sundry places” [2]. It is equally at home in descriptions of nature, with Culpeper noting plants in “sundry other places” [3] and Irving bestowing “sundry-colored ribbons” in a lyrical list [4]. Across genres, from historical narratives and poetic verse to dramatic dialogues, “sundry” enriches the text by suggesting a broad, inclusive variety without enumerating every single element [5].
  1. He, this school autocrat, gathered all and sundry reins into the hollow of his one hand; he irefully rejected any colleague; he would not have help.
    — from Villette by Charlotte Brontë
  2. I was cut and bruised in sundry places, and my left eye was nearly knocked out of its socket.
    — from My Bondage and My Freedom by Frederick Douglass
  3. It grows in many moist grounds, well in meadows as untilled places, about London, in Hampstead church-yard, at Wye in Kent, and sundry other places.
    — from The Complete Herbal by Nicholas Culpeper
  4. And sundry-colored ribbons On it I will bestow; But chiefly blacke and yellowe With her to grave shall go.
    — from The Sketch-Book of Geoffrey Crayon by Washington Irving
  5. With this strange virtue, He hath a heavenly gift of prophecy; And sundry blessings hang about his throne, That speak him full of grace.
    — from Macbeth by William Shakespeare

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