Careful Words

ten (n.)

  • blow
  • breath
  • breather
  • breathing
  • decade
  • decagon
  • decagram
  • decahedron
  • decaliter
  • decameter
  • decasyllable
  • decennary
  • decennium
  • decigram
  • deciliter
  • decimeter
  • respite
  • tenner

ten (v.)

ten (adv.)

ten (adj.)

Could I come near your beauty with my nails,

I'd set my ten commandments in your face.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): King Henry VI. Part II. Act i. Sc. 3.

Seven hours to law, to soothing slumber seven,

Ten to the world allot, and all to heaven.

Sir William Jones (1746-1794):

Some to church repair,

Not for the doctrine, but the music there.

These equal syllables alone require,

Though oft the ear the open vowels tire;

While expletives their feeble aid to join,

And ten low words oft creep in one dull line.

Alexander Pope (1688-1744): Essay on Criticism. Part ii. Line 142.

Those families, you know, are our upper-crust,—not upper ten thousand.—Cooper: The Ways of the Hour, chap. vi. (1850.)

  At present there is no distinction among the upper ten thousand of the city.

Nathaniel P Willis (1817-1867): Necessity for a Promenade Drive.

Of no distemper, of no blast he died,

But fell like autumn fruit that mellow'd long,—

Even wonder'd at, because he dropp'd no sooner.

Fate seem'd to wind him up for fourscore years,

Yet freshly ran he on ten winters more;

Till like a clock worn out with eating time,

The wheels of weary life at last stood still.

John Dryden (1631-1701): oedipus. Act iv. Sc. 1.

What mighty ills have not been done by woman!

Who was 't betrayed the Capitol?—A woman!

Who lost Mark Antony the world?—A woman!

Who was the cause of a long ten years' war,

And laid at last old Troy in ashes?—Woman!

Destructive, damnable, deceitful woman!

Thomas Otway (1651-1685): The Orphan. Act iii. Sc. 1.