Definition:
A sentence that contains at least one independent clause and one dependent clause. See also:
Examples and Observations:
- "He was like a cock who thought the sun had risen to hear him crow."
(George Eliot, Adam Bede) - "If a man loses pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured, or far away."
(Henry David Thoreau) - "Most of the sentences we use in writing or in continuous speech are complex. Earlier in this chapter we tried to compose a piece of narrative in simple sentences. It would be difficult to do this at any great length, and in some types of discourse, e.g. the conduct of argument, it would be virtually impossible. There is a recurrent need to expound facts or concepts in greater elaboration than the structure of the simple sentence permits."
(Walter Nash, English Usage: A Guide to First Principles, Routledge, 1986) - "Although volume upon volume is written to prove slavery a very good thing, we never hear of the man who wishes to take the good of it by being a slave himself."
(Abraham Lincoln) - "When we remember we are all mad, the mysteries disappear and life stands explained."
(Mark Twain) - "I think we ought to have as great a regard for religion as we can, so as to keep it out of as many things as possible."
(Sean O'Casey, The Plough and the Stars) - "Courage is rightly esteemed the first of human qualities because it is the quality which guarantees all others."
(Winston Churchill) - "Maturity is a bitter disappointment for which no remedy exists, unless laughter can be said to remedy anything."
(Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.)
