Literary notes about uppermost (AI summary)
The word “uppermost” in literature is used with a remarkable range of meanings, from denoting physical position to emphasizing priority or prominence in thought. In some texts the term is employed quite literally to indicate the top or highest part of an object or formation – think of the stone at the uppermost step [1, 2], the uppermost shelf [3], or even anatomical descriptions such as the uppermost pair of jaws [4] and the uppermost limit of trees [5]. On the other hand, “uppermost” is also metaphorically applied to rank importance or focus, as when a character’s most pressing idea comes uppermost in his mind [6, 7, 8] or when a high-status place at a feast or in a synagogue is described as uppermost [9]. Authors from Fielding through Dickens to Jane Austen have thus used “uppermost” to signal either a literal topmost position or, more abstractly, the preeminent concern, idea, or quality in a given situation [10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15].
- It had four steps, and a stone to cross over when you came to the uppermost.
— from Gulliver's Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World by Jonathan Swift - It had four steps, and a stone to cross over when you came to the uppermost.
— from Gulliver's Travels into Several Remote Regions of the World by Jonathan Swift - He got up and seized something that was lying on the uppermost of his three bookshelves.
— from The possessed : by Fyodor Dostoyevsky - MANDIBLES.—in insects, the first or uppermost pair of jaws, which are generally solid, horny, biting organs.
— from The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection by Charles Darwin - It extends from the uppermost limit of trees to the region of perpetual snow.
— from The New Gresham Encyclopedia. A to Amide by Various - He was determined to foil the plans of escape which he suspected were uppermost in my mind.
— from Autobiography of a Yogi by Paramahansa Yogananda - This danger is perhaps the one uppermost in mind when verbal methods of education are attacked.
— from How We Think by John Dewey - "The thought that was uppermost in his mind was the thought of his wife," he repeated.
— from Lady Audley's Secret by M. E. Braddon - All their works they do for to be seen of men.—They love the uppermost rooms at feasts, and the chief seats in the synagogues, . . . . . .
— from Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave by Frederick Douglass - ,” said the puppet-show man, “I don't care what religion comes; provided the Presbyterians are not uppermost; for they are enemies to puppet-shows.”
— from History of Tom Jones, a Foundling by Henry Fielding - It did not pass away, as weightier things had done; but came uppermost again, and yet again, and many times that day, and often afterwards.
— from The Old Curiosity Shop by Charles Dickens - " Elinor tried to talk of something else; but Miss Steele could not be kept beyond a couple of minutes, from what was uppermost in her mind.
— from Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen - Mr Wegg then goes on to enlarge upon what throughout has been uppermost in his crafty mind:—the qualifications of Mr Venus for such a search.
— from Our Mutual Friend by Charles Dickens - What could he say, since what had got obstinately uppermost in his mind was the passionate love for her which he forbade himself to utter?
— from Middlemarch by George Eliot - To try no more to go away, and to try her again, was the reckless conclusion it turned uppermost.
— from Our Mutual Friend by Charles Dickens
