Literary notes about engage (AI summary)
In literature, the word "engage" is remarkably versatile, functioning as a tool to illustrate commitment, interaction, and initiation of action. It conveys a refusal to involve oneself as well as a deliberate commitment to a task or conversation, whether that be in battle ([1], [2]), commerce ([3], [4]), or personal relationships ([5], [6]). It can suggest an invitation to active participation, as when a character pledges to assume responsibility or initiate dialogue ([7], [8]), and it even encompasses the realm of contracts and promises ([9], [10]). In each instance, the term deepens the narrative by highlighting the characters' willingness to connect with their circumstances and, by extension, their fates.
- 4 Be that as it might, Cuchulain offered to engage with him in battle and combat.
— from The Ancient Irish Epic Tale Táin Bó Cúalnge - Come on—a distant war no longer wage, But hand to hand thy country's foes engage:
— from The Iliad by Homer - komerc-i , to trade, engage in commerce.
— from A Complete Grammar of Esperanto by Ivy Kellerman Reed - It would be necessary that almost every man should be a man of business, or engage in some sort of trade.
— from An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith - Another could her heart engage, Another could her woe assuage
— from Eugene Oneguine [Onegin] by Aleksandr Sergeevich Pushkin - Consequently he began to observe the girl more in church, and to try to engage her in conversation.
— from Fathers and Sons by Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev - “No, but it isn’t a good thing for a young man to engage too soon in that pleasure which makes one neglect everything else.”
— from The Memoirs of Jacques Casanova de Seingalt, 1725-1798. Complete by Giacomo Casanova - To her, therefore, Tom Jones applied, in order to engage her interest on the behalf of his friend the gamekeeper.
— from History of Tom Jones, a Foundling by Henry Fielding - And, if you now desire new wars to wage, My skill I promise, and my pains engage.
— from The Aeneid by Virgil - I engage to deliver safely whatever you may put in my care.
— from The Memoirs of Jacques Casanova de Seingalt, 1725-1798. Complete by Giacomo Casanova
