Definition:
A sudden, forceful expression or cry. See also:
Examples and Observations:
- "Once the bases were loaded with no outs, we were saying, 'My goodness, we're going to have to score some runs in the bottom of the 11th to tie it.'"
(New York Yankees outfielder Brett Gardner, quoted by Anthony DiComo in "Yankees Faith in Bullpen Won't Waver." MLB.com, Oct. 10, 2009) - "When, from sudden and intense emotion, we give utterance to some abrupt, inverted, or elliptical expression, we are said to use an Exclamation; as 'bravo,' 'dreadful,' 'the fellow,' 'what a pity.'"
(Alexander Bain, quoted by Alfred H. Welsh in Studies in English Grammar, 1892) - "Hate me! wherefore? O me! what news, my love."
(Hermia in A Midsummer Night's Dream by William Shakespeare) - "'Whatever did you want to do that for?' she exclaimed, in scandalized astonishment.
"The shock must have been severe to make her depart from that distant and uninquiring acceptance of facts which was her force and her safeguard in life."
(Joseph Conrad, The Secret Agent. 1907) - "An' land o' Goshen, you might jest as well set down in the way of a cow-catcher as in front o' the course o' true love when it does git to runnin' smooth."
(Winifred Arnold, "Mis' Bassett's Matrimonial Bureau." Everybody's Magazine, 1904)
Pronunciation: ex-kla-MAY-shen
