2 added to nouns or adjectives to form nouns which refer to a group of [noun]’s.
— from A Dictionary of Cebuano Visayan by John U. Wolff

A scarlet creeper clustered round one side of its ample porch; its windows were large, mullioned, and neatly latticed; it stood in the midst of a garden of no mean dimensions but every bed and nook of which teemed with cultivation; flowers and vegetables both abounded, while an orchard rich with promise of many fruits; ripe pears and famous pippins of the north and plums of every shape and hue; screened the dwelling from that wind against which the woods that formed its back-ground were no protection.
— from Sybil, Or, The Two Nations by Disraeli, Benjamin, Earl of Beaconsfield

Aided by these instructions, Sybil hastened on, avoiding notice as much as was in her power, and assisted in some degree by the advancing gloom of night.
— from Sybil, Or, The Two Nations by Disraeli, Benjamin, Earl of Beaconsfield

The wars, which he has described in the former volumes as glorious or necessary, are become unprofitable and wanton massacres; the buildings which he celebrated, as raised to the immortal honor of the great emperor, and his admirable queen, either as magnificent embellishments of the city, or useful fortifications for the defence of the frontier, are become works of vain prodigality and useless ostentation.
— from The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire Table of Contents with links in the HTML file to the two Project Gutenberg editions (12 volumes) by Edward Gibbon

The curate listened to him attentively and felt that he was a man of sound understanding, and that there was good reason in what he said; so he told him that, being of the same opinion himself, and bearing a grudge to books of chivalry, he had burned all Don Quixote’s, which were many; and gave him an account of the scrutiny he had made of them, and of those he had condemned to the flames and those he had spared, with which the canon was not a little amused, adding that though he had said so much in condemnation of these books, still he found one good thing in them, and that was the opportunity they afforded to a gifted intellect for displaying itself; for they presented a wide and spacious field over which the pen might range freely, describing shipwrecks, tempests, combats, battles, portraying a valiant captain with all the qualifications requisite to make one, showing him sagacious in foreseeing the wiles of the enemy, eloquent in speech to encourage or restrain his soldiers, ripe in counsel, rapid in resolve, as bold in biding his time as in pressing the attack; now picturing some sad tragic incident, now some joyful and unexpected event; here a beauteous lady, virtuous, wise, and modest; there a Christian knight, brave and gentle; here a lawless, barbarous braggart; there a courteous prince, gallant and gracious; setting forth the devotion and loyalty of vassals, the greatness and generosity of nobles.
— from The History of Don Quixote, Volume 1, Complete by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

Upon the head of the hero lay the dread cap 1804 of Hades which had the awful gloom of night.
— from Hesiod, the Homeric Hymns, and Homerica by Hesiod

Such little arguments were all too frequent, the result of a growth of natures which were largely independent and selfish.
— from Sister Carrie: A Novel by Theodore Dreiser

—This birthplace of our State, eighty miles below Richmond, is now the property of a gentleman of New York city, who has the ground cultivated.
— from Colonial Records of Virginia by Various

Very often, in the bleak moors and glens of north-east Scotland, I have spent pleasant and memorable evenings in the village rectory.
— from Literary Tours in The Highlands and Islands of Scotland by Daniel Turner Holmes

Well-proportioned limbs, rounded contours, an agreeable complexion, delicacy of skin, an easy and graceful figure, a harmonious tone of voice, etc., are advantages which are gifts of nature and fortune: of nature, which predisposed to this, and developed it herself; of fortune, which protects against all influence adverse to the work of nature.
— from Aesthetical Essays of Friedrich Schiller by Friedrich Schiller

She didn't get up and go out, neither, till he hinted p'raps she'd better, and even then she whispered to him mighty confidential afore she went.
— from The Postmaster by Joseph Crosby Lincoln

o the imagination, or distinct science of [Pg 193] form and composition, is a group of nude women in extravagant attitudes, which Dr. Laurent reproduces; he says nothing of the artist, except that he was probably a Saint Anthony by necessity, who, in this scene as of a Sabbath of witches, has given expression to the dreams that tormented him.
— from The Criminal by Havelock Ellis

He was then conducted to a desolate spot in the desert, and until the day on which he fled back to England he was kept to the monotonous task of superintending a gang of natives whose sole business it was to dig a very large hole in the sand, day after day and week after week.
— from The Treasury of Ancient Egypt Miscellaneous Chapters on Ancient Egyptian History and Archaeology by Arthur E. P. Brome (Arthur Edward Pearse Brome) Weigall

"There's glad I am to see you, merch fach-i, and if you have no grand friends to keep you company and no one to look after you, you have always got old Nance to love you."
— from By Berwen Banks by Allen Raine

It was a good one, nearly two carats.
— from Thieves' Wit: An Everyday Detective Story by Hulbert Footner

In the second scene of this second act Adriana goes on nagging in almost the same way.
— from The Man Shakespeare and His Tragic Life Story by Frank Harris