Literary notes about deal (AI summary)
In literature, "deal" is a remarkably versatile word that conveys both quantity and process. It is often employed as a quantifier, with phrases like "a great deal" or "a good deal" signifying substantial amounts or frequency, as when characters remark on having a great deal of knowledge or trouble [1, 2, 3]. At the same time, the term functions as a verb to describe the act of managing, negotiating, or confronting challenges, as seen when protagonists are tasked with dealing with complex situations or delicate transactions [4, 5, 6]. Furthermore, in more colloquial dialogue, "deal" underscores the nature of personal arrangements or relationships, such as negotiating interpersonal matters or handling business [7, 8, 9]. This multiplicity of meanings not only enriches the texture of narrative but also allows writers to convey both the magnitude and the dynamics of a situation in a single word [10, 11].
- He knew a great deal about art, and all four enjoyed the morning immensely.
— from The Country of the Blind, and Other Stories by H. G. Wells - It required a great deal of labour to satisfy the old man that Heathcliff was not the aggressor; especially with my hardly-wrung replies.
— from Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë - I cannot but think that good horsemanship has a great deal to do with the mind.”
— from Mansfield Park by Jane Austen - If I were the sovereign, I should know how to deal with them all, vicar, steward, and revenue-office.
— from The Sorrows of Young Werther by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe - The case is different, however, when we come to deal with moral precepts, for here the results cannot be ascertained, interpreted, and divined.
— from The Dawn of Day by Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche - How are we to deal with such a case as this?
— from The Methods of Ethics by Henry Sidgwick - And she had a deal to mind in the way of poultry and the like, and minded of it, and come through.
— from David Copperfield by Charles Dickens - Thou didst deal with me, that I should be persuaded to go to Rome, and to teach there rather, what I was teaching at Carthage.
— from The Confessions of St. Augustine by Bishop of Hippo Saint Augustine - “If I get ’em, I’ll soon have their airs out of them; they’ll soon find that they’ve another kind of master to deal with than Monsieur St. Clare.
— from Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe - “I’ve brought a great deal; but it seems to me I’ve brought it to the right place.”
— from The Portrait of a Lady — Volume 1 by Henry James - "Give kind heed to dead men,—sick-dead, Sea-dead; deal heedfully with their dead corpses.
— from The Story of the Volsungs (Volsunga Saga); with Excerpts from the Poetic Edda
