| / English Dictionary |
PECULIARLY
| Pronunciation (US): |  | (GB): | |
I. (adverb)
Sense 1
Meaning:
In a manner differing from the usual or expected
Example:
he's behaving rather peculiarly
Synonyms:
curiously; inexplicably; oddly; peculiarly
Classified under:
Pertainym:
peculiar (beyond or deviating from the usual or expected)
Sense 2
Meaning:
To a distinctly greater extent or degree than is common
Example:
an especially (or specially) cautious approach to the danger
Synonyms:
especially; particularly; peculiarly; specially
Classified under:
Pertainym:
peculiar (markedly different from the usual)
Sense 3
Meaning:
Uniquely or characteristically
Example:
everyone has a moment in history which belongs particularly to him
Synonyms:
particularly; peculiarly
Classified under:
Adverbs
Pertainym:
peculiar (unique or specific to a person or thing or category)
Context examples:
It was engrossed by the extraordinary silence of her sister and Willoughby on the subject, which they must know to be peculiarly interesting to them all.
(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)
Though Laurie flirted with Amy and joked with Jo, his manner to Beth had always been peculiarly kind and gentle, but so was everybody's.
(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)
He was slowly advancing in a peculiarly menacing way, but he stopped now and put his big hands into the side-pockets of a rather boyish short jacket which he wore.
(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
On that to the right sat a very tall and well formed man with red hair, a livid face, and a cold blue eye, which had in it something peculiarly sinister and menacing.
(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
He pulled his cigarette spiritlessly, and his voice was peculiarly dead and monotonous.
(Martin Eden, by Jack London)
His eyes, which were of a peculiarly light, watery grey, seemed to always retain that far-away, introspective look which I had only observed in Sherlock’s when he was exerting his full powers.
(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
One of the phenomena which had peculiarly attracted my attention was the structure of the human frame, and, indeed, any animal endued with life.
(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)
His face was a strong—a very strong—aquiline, with high bridge of the thin nose and peculiarly arched nostrils; with lofty domed forehead, and hair growing scantily round the temples but profusely elsewhere.
(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)
Life had always seemed a peculiarly sacred thing, but here it counted for nothing, was a cipher in the arithmetic of commerce.
(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)
In a study published today has shown that the ability to actively forget is not a peculiarly human characteristic: rats, too, share our capacity for selective forgetting and use a very similar brain mechanism, suggesting this is an ability shared among mammals.
(Selective amnesia: how rats and humans are able to actively forget distracting memories, University of Cambridge)
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