Careful Words

promontory (n.)

  This goodly frame, the earth, seems to me a sterile promontory; this most excellent canopy, the air, look you, this brave o'erhanging firmament, this majestical roof fretted with golden fire, why, it appears no other thing to me than a foul and pestilent congregation of vapours. What a piece of work is a man! how noble in reason! how infinite in faculty! in form and moving how express and admirable! in action how like an angel! in apprehension how like a god!

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Hamlet. Act ii. Sc. 2.

  See one promontory (said Socrates of old), one mountain, one sea, one river, and see all.

Robert Burton (1576-1640): Anatomy of Melancholy. Part i. Sect. 2, Memb. 4, Subsect. 7.

Sometime we see a cloud that's dragonish;

A vapour sometime like a bear or lion,

A tower'd citadel, a pendent rock,

A forked mountain, or blue promontory

With trees upon 't.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Antony and Cleopatra. Act iv. Sc. 14.