Men ought to fly all pedantisms, and not rashly to use all words that are met with in every English writer, whether authentic or not.—Phillips, New World of Words, Preface.
| Awful, | } |
| Awfulness. |
This used once to be often employed of that which felt awe; it is only employed now of that which inspires it.
The kings sat still with awful eye,
As if they surely knew their sovran Lord was by.
Milton, On the Morning of Christ’s Nativity.
The highest flames are the most tremulous, and so are the most holy and eminent religious persons more full of awfulness, of fear and modesty and humility.—Bishop Taylor, Life of Christ, part i. § 5.
Awkward. In its present signification, unhandy, ungainly, maladroit; but formerly[7] untoward, and that, whether morally or physically, perverse, contrary, sinister, unlucky.
With awkward wind and with sore tempest driven
To fall on shore.