Accent, subst. 1) modulation of the voice in speaking: “you find not the apostraphas, and so miss the a.” LLL IV, 2, 124. “action and a. did they teach him,” V, 2, 99. “well spoken, with good a. and good discretion,” Hml. II, 2, 489.
2) sound of the voice: “a terrible oath, with a swaggering a. sharply twanged off,” Tw. III, 4, 197. “the a. of his tongue affecteth him,” John I, 86. R2 V, 1, 47. R3 IV, 4, 158. Troil. I, 3, 53. Lr. I, 4, 1. “in second a. of his ordnance,” H5 II, 4, 126 (echo).
3) a modification of the voice expressive of sentiments: “till after many --s and delays she utters this,” Lucr. 1719. “prophesying with --s terrible,” Mcb. II, 3, 62. “with timorous a. and dire yell,” Oth. I, 1, 75.
4) pronunciation: “your accent is something finer,” As III, 2, 359. “speaking thick became the --s of the valiant,” H4B II, 3, 25. “neither having the a. of Christians nor the gait of Christians,” Hml. III, 2, 35.
5) word, expression: “those same tongues that give thee so thine own in other --s do this praise confound,” Sonn. 69, 7. “any a. breaking from thy tongue,” John V, 6, 14. “breathe short-winded --s of new broils,” H4A I, 1, 3. “do not take his rougher --s for malicious sounds,” Cor. III, 3, 55. “these new tuners of --s,” Rom. II, 4, 30 (coiners of words).
6) speech, language: “midst the sentence so her a. breaks,” Lucr. 566. “throttle their practised a. in their fears,” Mids. V, 97. “in states unborn and --s yet unknown,” Caes. III, 1, 113. “beguiled you in a plain a.” Lr. II, 2, 117.
Shakespeare Lexicon. Alexander Schmidt. Berlin. Georg Reimer. 1902.
This text was converted to electronic form by professional data entry and has been proofread to a high level of accuracy.
hide
Dictionary Entry Lookup
Use this tool to search for dictionary entries in all lexica.
