defunctive

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

There in orphic rapture he touches a dark string in his nature, and a rich defunctive music rises to the page: Watching from a bluff the tiny, clear Sparkling armada of promises draw near .

From Time Magazine Archive

The lane went back to a barred gate, became defunctive in grass, a mere path scarred quietly into new grass.

From "The Sound and the Fury" by William Faulkner

A truce to threnes and trentals and jeremies and all such congenital defunctive music!

From Ulysses by Joyce, James

And once more, in “The Phœnix and Turtle:” “Let the priest in surplice white, That defunctive music can, Be the death-divining swan, Lest the requiem lack his right.”

From Folk-lore of Shakespeare by Thiselton-Dyer, Thomas Firminger

Let the priest in surplice white, That defunctive music can, Be the death-defying swan, Lest the requiem lack his right.

From The Phoenix and the Turtle by Shakespeare, William