Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun In Shakspere's play “The Tempest,” a “savage and deformed” slave of Prospero, represented as the offspring of the devil and the witch Sycorax; hence, figuratively, a person of a low, bestial nature.

Etymologies

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Examples

  • The inchoate rage of Caliban is obvious just add mobile phones, but I am inclined not to grant the Great Awk tragic status, even of a diabolical kind.

    Brown Tragic ? He Wishes.... Newmania 2008

  • Cassio has a "daily beauty" in him that makes Iago ugly by comparison, Caliban is obvious I suppose but \I am inclined not to grant y = the teat awk tragic status even diabolically tragic.

    Labour Play The Race Card Again Newmania 2008

  • At the same time, Jason Flemyng’s look as Caliban is more practical using make-up FX, and you have an animatronic Medusa head, so how important is it to use practical in-camera FX whenever possible rather than CGI?

    Producer Kevin De La Noy On Set Interview CLASH OF THE TITANS – Collider.com 2010

  • Pinfold, a middle-aged writer living in the country, goes abroad because he is already in poor health, but from the moment he enters his cabin on a ship called the Caliban, bound for Ceylon, he hears voices denigrating him.

    Henry’s Demons Patrick Cockburn 2011

  • Pinfold, a middle-aged writer living in the country, goes abroad because he is already in poor health, but from the moment he enters his cabin on a ship called the Caliban, bound for Ceylon, he hears voices denigrating him.

    Henry’s Demons Patrick Cockburn 2011

  • The lively little sprite Ariel had nothing mischievous in his nature, except that he took rather too much pleasure in tormenting an ugly monster called Caliban, for he owed him a grudge, because he was the son of his old enemy Sycorax.

    Types of Children's Literature Walter Barnes

  • The lively little sprite Ariel had nothing mischievous in his nature, except that he took rather too much pleasure in tormenting an ugly monster called Caliban, for he owed him a grudge because he was the son of his old enemy Sycorax.

    Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 8 Charles Herbert Sylvester

  • It is a mistake to call Caliban's theology a study of primitive religion; for primitive religion is inseparable from the primitive tribe, and Caliban the savage, who has never known society, was a conception as unhistorical as it was exquisitely adapted to the individualist ways of Browning's imagination.

    Robert Browning Herford, C H 1905

  • It is a mistake to call Caliban's theology a study of primitive religion; for primitive religion is inseparable from the primitive tribe, and Caliban the savage, who has never known society, was a conception as unhistorical as it was exquisitely adapted to the individualist ways of Browning's imagination.

    Robert Browning 1892

  • The lively little sprite Ariel had nothing mischievous in his nature, except that he took rather too much pleasure in tormenting an ugly monster called Caliban, for he owed him a grudge because he was the son of his old enemy Scyorax.

    The Children's Hour, v 5. Stories From Seven Old Favorites Eva March Tappan 1892

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