Literary notes about battered (AI summary)
The term “battered” serves as a powerful descriptor in literature, evoking a sense of wear, abuse, or decay that resonates on both physical and metaphorical levels. It is applied to weathered ships and crumbling architecture to illustrate the ravages of nature or time ([1], [2]), while also depicting personal items like hats and shoes that carry the marks of a difficult existence ([3], [4], [5]). In dramatic narratives, it illustrates the toll of violent encounters or unrelenting hardship, whether in the relentless strikes of a battle or the harsh treatment of a beleaguered character ([6], [7], [8]). The word further extends its reach to encapsulate emotional or moral exhaustion, heightening the reader's sense of a character’s inner turmoil and struggle ([9], [10]). Through its varied applications, “battered” enriches the text with vivid imagery and layered meaning, reinforcing themes of endurance and decay across diverse literary landscapes ([11], [12]).
- Their ships had become so battered by storm as to be no longer sea-worthy.
— from A History of the Philippines by David P. Barrows - This vessel, battered as it was,—for the sea had handled it roughly,—produced a fine effect as it entered the roads.
— from Les Misérables by Victor Hugo - The woman who looked after him insisted with tears that he should wear European clothes—trousers, a shirt and a battered hat.
— from Kim by Rudyard Kipling - The battered silk hat was placed on the man’s head.
— from Dubliners by James Joyce - She always wore battered goatskin shoes, and was clean in her person.
— from Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky - I struck at the skylight, and battered in the cracked, loosened glass at a blow.
— from The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins - The Blacks crept stealthily down the chimney and battered in his skull while he slept.”
— from Following the Equator: A Journey Around the World by Mark Twain - Thornton was himself bruised and battered, and he went carefully over Buck's body, when he had been brought around, finding three broken ribs.
— from The call of the wild by Jack London - She felt morally battered to the ground after her conflict with Julius’s vigorous personality.
— from The Secret Adversary by Agatha Christie - I thought he looked rather battered and depressed."
— from Middlemarch by George Eliot - Thus Waller writes: The soul's dark cottage, battered and decayed, Lets in new light through chinks that time has made.
— from English Literature by William J. Long - His first act as agent for Lyte was to increase the rent of the battered store-building on the lot.
— from Babbitt by Sinclair Lewis
