Literary notes about giddy (AI summary)
In literature, the term "giddy" is employed with remarkable versatility to evoke both physical and emotional disorientation. At times, it captures the sensation of literal dizziness or a heady overload—as when characters describe throbbing aches and spinning sensations that verge on delirium ([1], [2], [3]). Elsewhere, it serves to characterize a buoyant, sometimes impulsively light-hearted mood, suggesting youthful exuberance or careless abandon ([4], [5], [6]). In other contexts, "giddy" connotes a destabilizing effect on the mind, hinting at the overwhelming impact of societal forces or personal disarray ([7], [8], [9]). Whether illustrating the physical impact of abrupt sensations or the intangible swirl of excitement and unease, the word enriches textual atmospheres and delineates characters with a keen, multifaceted precision ([10], [11], [12]).
- My head was still aching and giddy after yesterday.
— from Notes from the Underground by Fyodor Dostoyevsky - My head ached and I was giddy; fever was stealing over my limbs.
— from White Nights and Other Stories by Fyodor Dostoyevsky - He had been caught in a vortex and was being whirled on with a velocity of advance and gyration that made him giddy and sick.
— from An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge by Ambrose Bierce - Any body’s and every body’s notion of a pleasure excursion is that the parties to it will of a necessity be young and giddy and somewhat boisterous.
— from The Innocents Abroad by Mark Twain - XLI The whirlwind of the waltz sweeps by, Undeviating and insane As giddy youth's hilarity— Pair after pair the race sustain.
— from Eugene Oneguine [Onegin] by Aleksandr Sergeevich Pushkin - ‘That’s the effect of living backwards,’ the Queen said kindly: ‘it always makes one a little giddy at first—’ ‘Living backwards!’
— from Through the Looking-Glass by Lewis Carroll - I fear, I fear 'twill prove a giddy world.
— from The Complete Works of William Shakespeare by William Shakespeare - He that is giddy thinks the world turns round.
— from The Complete Works of William Shakespeare by William Shakespeare - So giddy-swift whirls and spins this immeasurable tormentum of a Revolution; wild-booming; not to be followed by the eye.
— from The French Revolution: A History by Thomas Carlyle - "I said pig," replied Alice; "and I wish you wouldn't keep appearing and vanishing so suddenly: you make one quite giddy."
— from Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll - I was giddy with standing on the brink of bliss, and all my virtue and philosophy were scarce sufficient to restrain the inordinate sallies of desire.
— from The Adventures of Roderick Random by T. Smollett - “I felt giddy and almost overcome,” Edna said, lifting her hands instinctively to her head and pushing her straw hat up from her forehead.
— from The Awakening, and Selected Short Stories by Kate Chopin
