Fifteen Thousand Useful Phrases

Author(s)

• Grenville Kleiser

A Practical Handbook of Pertinent Expressions, Striking Similes, Literary, Commercial, Conversational, and Oratorical Terms, for the Embellishment of Speech and Literature, and The Improvement of the Vocabulary of Those Persons Who Read, Write, and Speak English
Alt-BC: Lucy Burgoyne

1. Introduction
2. How To Use This Book
3. Plan Of Study
4. Useful Phrases: abandoned hope - ample culture
5. Useful Phrases: amusing artlessness - azure sky
6. Useful Phrases: babbling gossip - bygone period
7. Useful Phrases: cabalistic phrase - collateral duties
8. Useful Phrases: collective wisdom - contingent reasons
9. Useful Phrases: continuous endeavor - cynical disregard
10. Useful Phrases: damaging admission - diligently propagated
11. Useful Phrases: dim comprehension - dynastic insolence
12. Useful Phrases: eager animosity - entrancing sadness
13. Useful Phrases: enveloping presence - exultant condition
14. Useful Phrases: facetious mood - flickering conscience
15. Useful Phrases: flighty obstinacy - futile babble
16. Useful Phrases: gabbling reminiscences - gymnastic agility
17. Useful Phrases: habitual deference - hysterical agitation
18. Useful Phrases: iconoclastic attitude - incipient fancy
19. Useful Phrases: incisive critic - inquisitional rack
20. Useful Phrases: inquisitive observer - isolated splendor
21. Useful Phrases: jaded sensibility - lying equivocations
22. Useful Phrases: maddening monotony - meteoric splendors
23. Useful Phrases: methodical regularity - mythical kingdom
24. Useful Phrases: naive manner - overworked drudge
25. Useful Phrases: pacific disposition - political malcontent
26. Useful Phrases: polluting taints - pyrotechnic outburst
27. Useful Phrases: quailing culprit - remarkable sagacity
28. Useful Phrases: remedial measure - ruthless commercialism
29. Useful Phrases: sacerdotal preeminence - shuddering reluctance
30. Useful Phrases: shuffling preliminaries - starched sterility
31. Useful Phrases: starlit eminence - systematic interaction
32. Useful Phrases: tacit assumption - tyrannical disposition
33. Useful Phrases: ubiquitous activity - undue predilection
34. Useful Phrases: undulating hills - unpalatable truth
35. Useful Phrases: unparalleled atrocities - utmost scorn
36. Useful Phrases: vacant stupidity - vulnerable foe
37. Useful Phrases: wabbling enterprise - zoologically considered
38. Significant Phrases: abashed and ashamed - awkwardness and crudity
39. Significant Phrases: babel and confusion - civilized and cultured
40. Significant Phrases: clamorous and wild - cynical and contemptuous
41. Significant Phrases: dangers and pitfalls - digressive and wanton
42. Significant Phrases: dilatory and hesitating - dwindle and disappear
43. Significant Phrases: eagerness and ecstasy - exuberant and infectious
44. Significant Phrases: fabulous and fabricated - futile and untrustworthy
45. Significant Phrases: gaiety and grace - hypocrisy and impudence
46. Significant Phrases: ideas and achievements - indomitable and dogged
47. Significant Phrases: indorsed and applauded - isolated and detached
48. Significant Phrases: jabber and chatter - luxury and pomp
49. Significant Phrases: madness and folly - mystic and wonderful
50. Significant Phrases: nagging and squabbling - overworked and fagged
51. Significant Phrases: pains and penalties - puzzled and affected
52. Significant Phrases: quackery and incompetence - rust and disuse
53. Significant Phrases: sad and melancholy - spacious and lofty
54. Significant Phrases: sparkling and spontaneous - sympathetic and consoling
55. Significant Phrases: taciturn and laconic - tyrant and oppressor
56. Significant Phrases: unaccountable and grotesque - vulgar and artificial
57. Significant Phrases: wandering and erratic - zigzag and deviating
58. Felicitous Phrases: ability, humor, and perspicacity - busy, active, and toiling
59. Felicitous Phrases: curious, fantastic, and charming - calculated, logical, and dispassionate
60. Felicitous Phrases: dwarfed, scant, and wretched - danger, difficulty, and hardship
61. Felicitous Phrases: eagerness, heartiness, and vehemence - fustian, padding, and irrelevancy
62. Felicitous Phrases: gaunt, desolate, and despoiled - humor, fancy, and susceptibility
63. Felicitous Phrases: idle, profuse, and profligate - luxurious, whimsical, and selfish
64. Felicitous Phrases: magnificent, sumptuous, and stately - overriding, arrogant, and quarrelsome
65. Felicitous Phrases: pain, toil, and privation - puzzles, tangles, and questionings
66. Felicitous Phrases: quarrels, misunderstandings, and enmities - rush, roar, and shriek
67. Felicitous Phrases: sacredness, dignity, and loveliness - sympathy, service, and compassion
68. Felicitous Phrases: talent, scholarship, and refinement - wrinkled, careworn, and pale
69. Impressive Phrases: able, skilful,... - business, profession,...
70. Impressive Phrases: candid, sincere,... - dull, heavy,...
71. Impressive Phrases: earth, air,... - gross, academic,..
72. Impressive Phrases: habit, custom,... - lucidity, impressiveness,...
73. Impressive Phrases: malice, anger,... - purpose, meaning,...
74. Impressive Phrases: quack, imposture,... - symmetry, proportion,..
75. Impressive Phrases: tact, courtesy,... - worry, annoyance,...
76. Prepositional Phrases "of": abandon of spontaneity - business of life
77. Prepositional Phrases "of": cadences of delirium - dust of defeat
78. Prepositional Phrases "of": earnestness of enthusiasm - futility of pride
79. Prepositional Phrases "of": gaiety of spirit - irony of life
80. Prepositional Phrases "of": jangle of sounds - overflow of vitality
81. Prepositional Phrases "of": page of desolation - ruts of conventionality
82. Prepositional Phrases "of": sadness of soul - system of aspersion
83. Prepositional Phrases "of": taint of megalomania - zone of delusion
84. Prepositional Phrases "by": affected by externals - hushed by denial
85. Prepositional Phrases "by": impelled by duty - wrenched by emotions
86. Prepositional Phrases "in": absorbed in meditation - kept in abeyance
87. Prepositional Phrases "in": landmarks in memory - weak in conception
88. Prepositional Phrases "into": abashed into silence - goaded into action
89. Prepositional Phrases "into": hushed into silence - withdraw into solitude
90. Prepositional Phrases "to": addicted to flattery - hostile to progress
91. Prepositional Phrases "to": impervious to suggestion - yield to reason
92. Prepositional Phrases "with": abounding with plenty - intoxicated with joy
93. Prepositional Phrases "with": kindle with enthusiasm - work with zeal
94. Business Phrases
95. Literary Expressions: A bitterness crept into her face - A nimble-witted opponent
96. Literary Expressions: A painful thought was flooding his mind - A wordless farewell
97. Literary Expressions: Absolutely vulgarized by too perpetual a parroting - Awaiting his summons to the eternal silence
98. Literary Expressions: Bandied about from mouth to mouth - Dull black eyes under their precipice of brows
99. Literary Expressions: Earth danced under a heat haze - Guilty of girlish sentimentality
100. Literary Expressions: Half choked by a rising paroxysm of rage - Humiliating paltriness of revenge
101. Literary Expressions: I capitulated by inadvertence - Kiss-provoking lips
102. Literary Expressions: Laden with the poignant scent of the garden honeysuckle - Rudely reminded of life's serious issues
103. Literary Expressions: Sacrificed to a futile sort of treadmill - Swift summer into the autumn flowed
104. Literary Expressions: Taking the larger sweeps in the march of mind - The hungry curiosity of the mind
105. Literary Expressions: The idiosyncratic peculiarities of thought - The swing of the pendulum through an arch of centuries
106. Literary Expressions: The tempered daylight of an olive garden - Twilight creeps upon the darkening mind
107. Literary Expressions: Unapproachable grandeur and simplicity - Your mind enthroned in the seventh circle of content
108. Striking Similes: A blind rage like a fire swept over him - And the smile she softly uses fills the silence like a speech
109. Striking Similes: As a child in play scatters... - Awkward as a cart-horse
110. Striking Similes: Babbling like a child - Dull as champagne
111. Striking Similes: Each like a corpse within its grave - Great scarlet poppies lay in drifts ...
112. Striking Similes: Hair as harsh as tropical grass and gray as ashes - Hushed like a breathless lyre
113. Striking Similes: I had grown pure as the dawn and the dew - Kingdoms melt away like snow
114. Striking Similes: Laboring like a giant - Like a yellow silken scarf the thick fog hangs
115. Striking Similes: Like an alien ghost I stole away - Like sweet thoughts in a dream
116. Striking Similes: Like the awful shadow of some unseen power - Lovely the land unknown...
117. Striking Similes: March on my soul nor like the laggard stay - Quivering like an eager race-horse to start
118. Striking Similes: Rage, rage ye tears, that never more should creep... - Swifter than the twinkling of an eye
119. Striking Similes: Talking and thinking became to him... - The music almost died away...
120. Striking Similes: The name that cuts into my soul like a knife - Then the lover sighing like furnace
121. Striking Similes: Theories sprouted in his mind like mushrooms - Turning easily and securely as on a perfect axle
122. Striking Similes: Unbends like a loosened bow - Youth like a summer morn
123. Conversational Phrases: A most extraordinary idea! - Human nature interests me very much indeed
124. Conversational Phrases: I admire your foresight - I could never forgive myself for that
125. Conversational Phrases: I dare say your intuition is quite right - I seem to have heard that sentiment before
126. Conversational Phrases: I shall at once proceed to forget it - It has never occurred to me
127. Conversational Phrases: It is a curious fact - It would take too long to formulate my thought
128. Conversational Phrases: Join us, please, when you have time - Surely you would not countenance that
129. Conversational Phrases: Tell me in what way you want me to help you - True, I forgot!
130. Conversational Phrases: Undeniably true - Would you mind telling me your opinion?
131. Conversational Phrases: Yes and no - Your statement is somewhat startling
132. Public Speaking Phrases: A fact of vast moment - And next I would ask
133. Public Speaking Phrases: And now allow me to call attention - Away then with the notion
134. Public Speaking Phrases: Be assured, then - But it has been suggested to me
135. Public Speaking Phrases: But it is a fact - By this time it will be suspected
136. Public Speaking Phrases: Can it be supposed - Granting all this
137. Public Speaking Phrases: Had I time for all that might be said - However, it is to me a very refreshing thing
138. Public Speaking Phrases: I abide by my statement - I am willing to know
139. Public Speaking Phrases: I anticipate with pleasing expectation - I distrust all general theories of
140. Public Speaking Phrases: I do again and again urge upon you - I hasten to concede
141. Public Speaking Phrases: I have a dark suspicion - I hope you will not accuse me
142. Public Speaking Phrases: I imagine that no one will be disposed - I rejoice to think I remark here
143. Public Speaking Phrases: I remember a reference made - I thank you very sincerely for the honor
144. Public Speaking Phrases: I think I am correct in saying - I yielded to the earnest solicitations
145. Public Speaking Phrases: If any man be so persuaded - In widening our view
146. Public Speaking Phrases: Indeed, can anyone tell me - It is my present purpose
147. Public Speaking Phrases: It is natural to ask the question - It may still more probably be said
148. Public Speaking Phrases: It must be a cause of delight - Just the reverse is true
149. Public Speaking Phrases: Language is inadequate to voice my appreciation - My regret is intensified by the thought
150. Public Speaking Phrases: Nay, I boldly say - Now, you will understand from this
151. Public Speaking Phrases: Observe again - Surely it is not too much for me to say
152. Public Speaking Phrases: Take another instance - The whole story of civilization
153. Public Speaking Phrases: Then again, in corroboration - Think of the cool disregard
154. Public Speaking Phrases: This absurdity arises - Very strange is this indeed
155. Public Speaking Phrases: We all agree as to - What strikes the mind so forcibly
156. Public Speaking Phrases: What, then, are we to believe - Your presence seems to say
157. Miscellaneous Phrases: A bewildering labyrinth of facts - A pleasant flow of appropriate language
158. Miscellaneous Phrases: A pompous failure - Ample scope for the exercise of his astonishing gifts
159. Miscellaneous Phrases: An abandoned and exaggerated grief - Awaited with feverish anxiety
160. Miscellaneous Phrases: Bandied to and fro - Dwindled to alarmingly small dimensions
161. Miscellaneous Phrases: Easy-going to the point of lethargy - Hopelessly belated in its appearance
162. Miscellaneous Phrases: I adjured him - Its dominating and inspiring influence
163. Miscellaneous Phrases: Jealous and formidable foes - Quixotically generous about money
164. Miscellaneous Phrases: Radiantly and transparently happy - Swift and vehement outbursts of feeling
165. Miscellaneous Phrases: Take root in the heart - The sycophants of the rich