Definitions

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun Plural form of engrossment.

Etymologies

Sorry, no etymologies found.

Support

Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word engrossments.

Examples

  • Mrs Stevenson, among other things, took a keen pleasure in work for the Indian Zenanas, and among his many engrossments Mr Stevenson was greatly occupied as to the public good of Edinburgh, and notably interested himself in the restoration of

    Robert Louis Stevenson Margaret Moyes Black

  • War for her, if for nobody else, should be an apocalypse, that is, a vision of realities for which at all times she is bound to fight, of which, nevertheless, she is apt to lose sight during the engrossments of peace.

    Thoughts on religion at the front 1911

  • The sad days immediately following the double funeral were so filled with visits from relatives and old friends, legal transactions necessary for the transfer of the estate of the old colonel, a successful tobacco factor in his time, and a hundred and one other engrossments, that in the months afterward they were hazy as an unpleasant dream.

    The Ghost Breaker A Novel Based Upon the Play Paul Dickey 1909

  • The surroundings were wonderfully beautiful; and if the men paused in their work, as they often did, the spirit of the woods, which as always had drawn aside from the engrossments of human activity, came closer as with fluttering of wings.

    The Rules of the Game Stewart Edward White 1909

  • In that narrow circle of engrossments where she had moved, mistaking it for the living universe, the great want, so it seemed now, was that she had never been asked to measure herself by moral standards at all.

    V. V.'s Eyes Henry Sydnor Harrison 1905

  • There was no other place to go except the Club, and Mrs. Talbot was an infinitely more interesting companion than men who discussed little besides their business, professional, or demi-monde engrossments.

    Sleeping Fires: a Novel Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton 1902

  • She explained that our friend, abroad, had just settled down to it when interrupted by her mother's death, and that then, on his return, he had been kept from work by the engrossments into which that calamity was to plunge them.

    The Figure in the Carpet Henry James 1879

  • She explained that Corvick had just settled down to it when he was interrupted by her mother's death; then, on his return, he had been kept from work by the engrossments into which that calamity plunged them.

    Embarrassments Henry James 1879

  • Doubtless all such engrossments of the soul, whether of one kind or the other, are to be taken as bad signs, and, as far as they go, to be allowed their due weight.

    Christian Nurture. 1802-1876 1876

  • The effect of the struggle for existence in arresting, with its engrossments, the intellectual development at the very threshold of adult life would have been disastrous enough had the character of the struggle been morally unobjectionable.

    Equality Edward Bellamy 1874

Comments

Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.