Definitions

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • proper noun A female given name.

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

A Latinate form of Clarice, from Latin Claritia, a fanciful medieval variant of Clara.

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Examples

  • Richardson's Pamela faints in order to avoid sexual intercourse, while Clarissa is unconscious while being raped by Lovelace, thus escaping mentally from an unwanted experience; Rousseau's Julie falls into a swoon during her forbidden kiss with Saint Preux.

    Ildiko Csengei 2008

  • Incidentally the hold Wallace Simpson had on the Duke of Windsor was revealed in Clarissa Dixon Wright ` s recent book.

    Archive 2007-10-21 Newmania 2007

  • Incidentally the hold Wallace Simpson had on the Duke of Windsor was revealed in Clarissa Dixon Wright ` s recent book.

    Harry, England and Saint George Newmania 2007

  • If Lovelace seems too excited about her being there Clarissa is determined not to go.

    Monday Mish Mash « So Many Books 2006

  • Clarissa is writing to her friend Miss Howe and saying some not very nice things about her sister and comes out with this, “yet how can one be such a reptile as not to turn when trampled upon!”

    Clarissa Update « So Many Books 2005

  • The discussion of Clarissa is included in a chapter called “Richardson and Fielding: Tragic Pastoral and Comic Epic.”

    In Preparation « So Many Books 2005

  • It is interesting that he wrote this because even in Clarissa, Anna Howe and Clarissa Harlowe spend quite a bit of time discussing in detail the clothing of Lovelace and other gentleman callers.

    Baby You Can Drive My Car « So Many Books 2005

  • In this way we might obtain a literary product so anomalous in appearance as 'Clarissa' -- a story in which a most affecting situation is drawn with extreme power, and yet so overlaid with twaddle, so unmercifully protracted and spun out as to be almost unreadable to the present generation.

    Hours in a Library, Volume I. (of III.) Leslie Stephen 1868

  • One Fat Lady as in Clarissa Dickson Wright (of Two Fat Ladies fame) reading her autobiography Spilling the Beans.

    Ears on Wheels. I take Clarissa out for the day 2007

  • One Fat Lady as in Clarissa Dickson Wright (of Two Fat Ladies fame) reading her autobiography Spilling the Beans.

    Ears on Wheels. I take Clarissa out for the day 2007

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