Richard Chenevix Trench
Archbishop and philologist, 1807-1886
Cited as Trench. — 61 quotations
Accident
Thou cam'st not to thy place by accident: It is the very place God meant for thee.
Attemper
If sweet with bitter . . . were not attempered still.
Capitulate
There is no reason why the reducing of any agreement to certain heads or capitula should not be called to capitulate.
Carnal
Carnal desires after miracles.
Cicerone
Every glib and loquacious hireling who shows strangers about their picture galleries, palaces, and ruins, is termed by them [the Italians] a cicerone, or a Cicero.
Civility
The gradual depature of all deeper signification from the word civility has obliged the creation of another word -- civilization.
Companion
A companion is one with whom we share our bread; a messmate.
Comparison
The miracles of our Lord and those of the Old Testament afford many interesting points of comparison.
Conglomerate
A conglomerate of marvelous anecdotes, marvelously heaped together.
Congratulate
Felicitations are little better than compliments; congratulations are the expression of a genuine sympathy and joy.
Convertible
So long as we are in the regions of nature, miraculous and improbable, miraculous and incredible, may be allowed to remain convertible terms.
Credence
To give credence to the Scripture miracles.
Cumulative
The argument . . . is in very truth not logical and single, but moral and cumulative.
Dank
Cheerless watches on the cold, dank ground.
Deceptive
Language altogether deceptive, and hiding the deeper reality from our eyes.
Dehort
“Exhort” remains, but dehort, a word whose place neither “dissuade” nor any other exactly supplies, has escaped us.
Discovery
We speak of the “invention” of printing, the discovery of America.
Discrimination
To make an anxious discrimination between the miracle absolute and providential.
Display
Having witnessed displays of his power and grace.
Draggle
With draggled nets down-hanging to the tide.
Draught
In his hands he took the goblet, but a while the draught forbore.
Drench
As “to fell,” is “to make to fall,” and “to lay,” to make to lie.” so “to drench,” is “to make to drink.”
Duke
All were dukes once, who were “duces” -- captains or leaders of their people.
Dull
Use and custom have so dulled our eyes.
Dye
Cloth to be dyed of divers colors.
Emblazonry
Thine ancient standard's rich emblazonry.
Enlighten
The conscience enlightened by the Word and Spirit of God.
Entireness
This same entireness or completeness.
Epoch
Great epochs and crises in the kingdom of God.
Ethic
The ethical meaning of the miracles.
Etymologize
How perilous it is to etymologize at random.
Evade
The heathen had a method, more truly their own, of evading the Christian miracles.
Exclamation
A festive exclamation not unsuited to the occasion.
External
The external circumstances are greatly different.
Fleck
A bird, a cloud, flecking the sunny air.
Flux
Her image has escaped the flux of things, And that same infant beauty that she wore Is fixed upon her now forevermore.
Folly
It is called this man's or that man's “folly,” and name of the foolish builder is thus kept alive for long after years.
Glooming
When the faint glooming in the sky First lightened into day.
Hind
The hind, that homeward driving the slow steer Tells how man's daily work goes forward here.
Idea
What is now “idea” for us? How infinite the fall of this word, since the time where Milton sang of the Creator contemplating his newly-created world, -- “how it showed . . . Answering his great idea,” -- to its present use, when this person “has an idea that the train has started,” and the other “had no idea that the dinner would be so bad!”
Inconcinnity
There is an inconcinnity in admitting these words.
Indign
Counts it scorn to draw Comfort indign from any meaner thing.
Indolence
As there is a great truth wrapped up in “diligence,” what a lie, on the other hand, lurks at the root of our present use of the word “indolence”! This is from “in” and “doleo,” not to grieve; and indolence is thus a state in which we have no grief or pain; so that the word, as we now employ it, seems to affirm that indulgence in sloth and ease is that which would constitute for us the absence of all pain.
Investiture
While we yet have on Our gross investiture of mortal weeds.
Joyance
From what hid fountains doth thy joyance flow?
Ken
It was relief to quit the ken And the inquiring looks of men.
Lampad
By him who 'mid the golden lampads went.
Lie
Wishing this lie of life was o'er.
Livery
It need hardly be observed that the explanation of livery which Spenser offers is perfectly correct, but . . . it is no longer applied to the ration or stated portion of food delivered at stated periods.
Lymph
A fountain bubbled up, whose lymph serene Nothing of earthly mixture might distain.
Obsequious
There lies ever in “obsequious” at the present the sense of an observance which is overdone, of an unmanly readiness to fall in with the will of another.
Orbed
The orbèd eyelids are let down.
Outfield
The great outfield of thought or fact.
Past
The present is only intelligible in the light of the past, often a very remote past indeed.
Procession
That the procession of their life might be More equable, majestic, pure, and free.
Rout
“My child, it is not well,” I said, “Among the graves to shout; To laugh and play among the dead, And make this noisy rout.”
Solidarity
Solidarity [a word which we owe to the French Communists], signifies a fellowship in gain and loss, in honor and dishonor, in victory and defeat, a being, so to speak, all in the same boat.
Staple
We should now say, Cotton is the great staple, that is, the established merchandise, of Manchester.
Trim
So deemed I till I viewed their trim array Of boats last night.
Villainy
Villainy till a very late day expressed words foul and disgraceful to the utterer much oftener than deeds.
Welter
Through this blindly weltering sea.