equivoque

• “How many times, after an equivoque, after the specious and treacherous reasoning of egotism, had he heard his irritated conscience cry in his ear: “A trip! you wretch!””

  Les Miserables

• “It almost always turns upon false relations and equivoque, whence jokers by profession usually possess minds as incorrect as they are superficial.”

  A Philosophical Dictionary

• “Such was the very philosophical address of Mr. Robert Bolton, a shorthand – writer, as he termed himself — a bit of equivoque passing current among his fraternity, which must give the uninitiated a vast idea of the establishment of the ministerial organ, while to the initiated it signifies that no one paper can lay claim to the enjoyment of their services.”

  Sketches by Boz

• “Calton was too much inwrapped in the contemplation of his happiness to see the equivoque between Hicks and himself; and threw himself back in his chair.”

  Sketches by Boz

• “This equivoque has been introduced by intolerant moralists, who, deceived by too much zeal, saw excesses where there was only innocent enjoyment.”

  The physiology of taste; or Transcendental gastronomy. Illustrated by anecdotes of distinguished artists and statesmen of both continents by Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin. Translated from the last Paris edition by Fayette Robinson.

• “Yet even the writer to whom I allude shares the mistake about the authorship, and does me the injustice to suppose that there was equivoque in my former rejection of this honour (as an honour I regard it).”

  Wuthering Heights

• “May I assure him that I would scorn in this and in every other case to deal in equivoque; I believe language to have been given us to make our meaning clear, and not to wrap it in dishonest doubt.”

  Wuthering Heights

• “Hence we find _Henrico, Felicia_, and the Queen together, going through a well-contrived and charmingly-conducted scene of equivoque -- the Queen questioning _Henrico_ touching the state of his heart, and he answering her in reference to _Felicia_, who is leaning over the embroidery frame behind the Queen, and out of her sight.”

  Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, October 30, 1841

• “Every thing, in a word, is tolerated which can in any way be passed into an equivoque.”

  Travels through the South of France and the Interior of Provinces of Provence and Languedoc in the Years 1807 and 1808

• “I hear of no news; that of the Duchess of Leinster's (118) match is very equivoque; and extreme their drawing-room.”

  George Selwyn: His Letters and His Life

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