Literary notes about remove (AI summary)
The term "remove" operates on multiple levels in literature, serving both literal and metaphorical functions. In some contexts, it denotes the physical extraction of an object or substance—as when residual traces are taken from beans in a coffee process [1] or when a gentleman lifts his hat as a polite gesture [2]. In other instances it conveys the abstract elimination of obstacles or unwanted elements, such as dismissing prejudice from one's doctrine [3] or dispelling lingering doubts [4, 5]. Whether describing the act of extracting material substances, displacing physical objects, or symbolically clearing the mind and heart [6, 7, 8], the word enriches narratives by highlighting processes of displacement, purification, and transformation.
- After extraction, the beans may be steam distilled to remove and to recover any residual traces of solvent, and then dried and roasted.
— from All About Coffee by William H. Ukers - In meeting a lady friend, wait for her to bow to you, and in returning her salutation, remove your hat.
— from The Gentlemen's Book of Etiquette and Manual of Politeness by Cecil B. Hartley - Bacon begins by endeavoring to remove the prejudices and to obtain fair attention to his doctrine.
— from Bacon's Essays, and Wisdom of the Ancients by Francis Bacon - My object in working steadily was to remove any suspicion he might entertain of my intent to run away; and in this I succeeded admirably.
— from Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave by Frederick Douglass - But the following considerations will, I hope, be sufficient to remove this hypothesis.
— from A Treatise of Human Nature by David Hume - Pain is here apparently useful because it expresses an incipient tension which the self-preserving forces in the organism are sufficient to remove.
— from The Life of Reason: The Phases of Human Progress by George Santayana - A man’s master is he who is able to confer or remove whatever that man seeks or shuns.
— from The Enchiridion by Epictetus - But he resolved to remove the obstacle in the way of his scheme; and he thought he had planned it so that he should evade suspicion.
— from Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Written by Herself by Harriet A. Jacobs
