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Examples

  • Repeated use of those descriptive terms makes the brief read like an ancient pickwickian pleading and is really hard reading.

    The Volokh Conspiracy » Words To Live By: 2009

  • Repeated use of those descriptive terms makes the brief read like an ancient pickwickian pleading and is really hard reading.

    The Volokh Conspiracy » Words To Live By: 2009

  • Even granting that the genetic code is a symbol system rather than merely a system of causal correlations, to speak of "communication" here is at best pickwickian.

    Do Animals Communicate? Bach, Kent 1978

  • They are at first so polite – handling the pulque-jar to their fair companions (fair being taken in the general or pickwickian sense of the word); always taking off their hats to each other, and if they meet a woman, kissing her hand with an humble bow as if she were a duchess; – but these same women are sure to be the cause of a quarrel, and then out come these horrible knives – and then, Adios!

    Life in Mexico, During a Residence of Two Years in That Country Frances Erskine Inglis 1843

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  • From Bartleby.com:

    Pickwickian. In a Pickwickian sense. An insult whitewashed. Mr. Pickwick accused Mr. Blotton of acting in “a vile and calumnious manner,�? whereupon Mr. Blotton retorted by calling Mr. Pickwick “a humbug.�? It finally was made to appear that both had used the offensive words only in a Pickwickian sense, and that each had, in fact, the highest regard and esteem for the other. So the affront was adjusted, and both were satisfied.

    “Lawyers and politicians daily abuse each other in a Pickwickian sense.�? — Bowditch.

    http://www.bartleby.com/81/13217.html

    April 28, 2008