contractedness love

Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun The state of being contracted; conciseness.
  • noun Narrowness; meanness; extreme selfishness.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun The state of being contracted; narrowness; meanness; selfishness.

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

  • noun The state of being contracted.

Etymologies

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Examples

  • It was once possible to row along this river; but its bed is now choked with solid substances, and is so narrowed by its straits that few vessels can get in, being prevented by its sluggishness and contractedness.

    The Danish History, Books I-IX Grammaticus Saxo

  • Now, we insist that political economy and the greatest well-being of all require that the political jurisdiction should, as far as possible, be commensurate with that commercial, industrial, and social dependence which works itself out to a large degree of fulfilment in spite of the obstructions interposed by the contractedness and isolation of political organization.

    The Continental Monthly, Vol. 3 No 2, February 1863 Devoted To Literature And National Policy Various

  • In this sense he felt contractedness to be the predominant characteristic of Earth and Water, expansiveness that of Air and Fire.

    Man or Matter Ernst Lehrs

  • There was nothing of stint or contractedness about him.

    Men of Maryland George Freeman 1914

  • He has felt the power of the mountains over his mind, and been filled with longing, as a grand emotion, but the contractedness of the spiritual horizon has not tormented him.

    Essays on Scandinavian Literature Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen 1871

  • This mill, from its nearness to the reservoir, as well as the contractedness of the valley at the spot, had experienced the violence of the flood in a degree of intensity unknown elsewhere.

    Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 440 Volume 17, New Series, June 5, 1852 Various 1841

  • Though it is too true that the great Christian principles, when embraced with conviction and seriousness by a very uneducated man, must greatly partake, by contractedness of apprehension, the ill fortune which has confined his mental growth, yet they will often do more than any other thing within the same space of time to avenge him of it.

    An Essay on the Evils of Popular Ignorance John Foster 1806

  • Once the contractedness that's at the center of fear ceases to be fueled, fear unravels, dissipates, terminates its occupancy of us.

    Beyond Meds giannakali 2010

  • "From the worship of slaves, to the worship of the Lord of Slaves, From the injustice of religions to the Justice of Islam, and from the contractedness of this world to the vastness of the hereafter!"

    MuslimMatters.org 2009

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