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DEW
| Pronunciation (US): |  | (GB): | |
I. (noun)
Sense 1
Meaning:
Water that has condensed on a cool surface overnight from water vapor in the air
Example:
in the morning the grass was wet with dew
Classified under:
Hypernyms ("dew" is a kind of...):
condensate; condensation (atmospheric moisture that has condensed because of cold)
Derivation:
dewy (wet with dew)
Context examples:
It was now the sweetest hour of the twenty-four:—"Day its fervid fires had wasted," and dew fell cool on panting plain and scorched summit.
(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)
The terrible sea, the frail boat, the storms, the suffering, the strangeness and isolation of the situation,—all that should have frightened a robust woman,—seemed to make no impression upon her who had known life only in its most sheltered and consummately artificial aspects, and who was herself all fire and dew and mist, sublimated spirit, all that was soft and tender and clinging in woman.
(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)
Imagine her dismay, on stealing a glance of timid admiration at the poet whose lines suggested an ethereal being fed on 'spirit, fire, and dew', to behold him devouring his supper with an ardor which flushed his intellectual countenance.
(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)
I believe it was a lovely summer morning: I know my shoes, which I had put on when I left the house, were soon wet with dew.
(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)
At night when the sun went down, the sheets were slackened; in the morning, when they yielded up the damp of the dew and relaxed, they were pulled tight again—and that was all.
(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)
It is not likely; and now it is time for you to come in; you'll catch the fever if you stop out when the dew is falling.
(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)
Well, if you are so obstinate, I will leave you; for I dare not stay any longer: the dew begins to fall.
(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)
Now, my little friend, while the sun drinks the dew—while all the flowers in this old garden awake and expand, and the birds fetch their young ones' breakfast out of the Thornfield, and the early bees do their first spell of work—I'll put a case to you, which you must endeavour to suppose your own: but first, look at me, and tell me you are at ease, and not fearing that I err in detaining you, or that you err in staying.
(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)
She began muttering,—The flame flickers in the eye; the eye shines like dew; it looks soft and full of feeling; it smiles at my jargon: it is susceptible; impression follows impression through its clear sphere; where it ceases to smile, it is sad; an unconscious lassitude weighs on the lid: that signifies melancholy resulting from loneliness.
(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)
This done, I lingered yet a little longer: the flowers smelt so sweet as the dew fell; it was such a pleasant evening, so serene, so warm; the still glowing west promised so fairly another fine day on the morrow; the moon rose with such majesty in the grave east. I was noting these things and enjoying them as a child might, when it entered my mind as it had never done before:—How sad to be lying now on a sick bed, and to be in danger of dying!
(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)
