- muddlenounChapter 3 →
A confused, disorganized mess of a situation where things have gone wrong through misunderstanding or poor communication, not through anyone's deliberate bad intent.
“Howards End? Didn't you get my telegram? Oh, what a muddle! I am so sorry.”
- civiladjectiveChapter 3 →
Polite and courteous in a formal, controlled way, especially toward someone you dislike or distrust, doing just enough to avoid open rudeness.
“Charles was determined to be civil. He had not liked the look of the lady at all, but he was determined to be civil.”
- suretynounChapter 4 →
A firm guarantee or proof of something; here, the strongest possible evidence that a feeling is genuine and will not fail.
“To have no illusions and yet to love—what stronger surety of love could there be?”
- illusionsnounChapter 4 →
False beliefs or idealized pictures of a person or situation that do not match reality, which can make love feel exciting but also fragile.
“To have no illusions and yet to love—what stronger surety of love could there be?”
- boonsnounChapter 5 →
Highly valued gifts or blessings; things regarded as especially precious and desirable rather than merely useful.
“To be trusted was, to her, the greatest of all boons — greater than love.”
- backbonenounChapter 6 →
The essential supporting strength of something; here used to mean the class of people who provide the practical, reliable foundation that keeps the country functioning.
“They are the backbone of England. They have their hands on all the ropes.”
- hands on all the ropesphraseChapter 6 →
In control of every important mechanism of power and influence in society; the image is of sailors who manage the lines that steer a ship.
“They are the backbone of England. They have their hands on all the ropes.”
- diplomatistnounChapter 6 →
A person skilled at handling delicate or difficult situations between people with tact and careful negotiation; an older spelling of 'diplomat' used in early twentieth-century British English.
“Aunt Juley had been a failure as a diplomatist, but had succeeded as a human being.”
- trifledverbChapter 8 →
Treated something lightly or carelessly, without the seriousness it deserves; to trifle with feelings means to play around with them rather than taking them seriously.
“She was not a girl who trifled with her feelings, and, having once decided that she did not love Paul Wilcox, she meant it.”
- reverencenounChapter 9 →
A deep feeling of respect and almost sacred awe toward something, treating it as worthy of the greatest honor rather than as an ordinary object.
“Howards End was a house: but she could not speak of it without reverence.”
- frying-panphraseChapter 10 →
Part of the idiom 'out of the frying-pan into the fire,' meaning to escape one bad situation only to land in a worse one; here applied to the poor moving between different kinds of helplessness.
“if they jump out of the frying-pan of their own incompetence, they may jump into the fire of a new incompetence.”
- incompetencenounChapter 10 →
The inability to manage one's own affairs effectively; here it describes the practical helplessness of the poor, not a moral failing but a structural disadvantage.
“if they jump out of the frying-pan of their own incompetence, they may jump into the fire of a new incompetence.”
- prosenounChapter 10 →
In this text's special sense, the practical, everyday, businesslike side of life and personality, as opposed to the emotional and imaginative 'passion.'
“Only connect the prose and the passion, and both will be exalted.”
- exaltedverbChapter 10 →
Raised to a higher, nobler state; lifted up so that something ordinary becomes great or something divided becomes whole.
“Only connect the prose and the passion, and both will be exalted.”
- pencilled codicilphraseChapter 11 →
A handwritten addition to a will or legal document, written in pencil rather than ink; a codicil modifies or supplements what was already decided, but its informal form makes it easy to dismiss.
“The note was in pencil, and signed with her initials. It ran: 'To my husband: I should like Miss Schlegel (Margaret) to have Howards End.'”
- flimsyadjectiveChapter 11 →
Too weak or insubstantial to be taken seriously as a legal or moral claim; lacking the weight and formality needed to be binding.
“Ought the Wilcoxes to have offered it to Margaret? I think not. The appeal was too flimsy.”
- code of ethicsphraseChapter 11 →
The set of unspoken rules and moral standards that a particular group of people lives by, which may differ sharply from another group's values.
“They were not wicked people. They were normal people, and their code of ethics was that of the world.”
- comradeshipnounChapter 13 →
A warm sense of loyalty and fellowship shared between people, here specifically the kind of easy, practical solidarity the Wilcoxes reserve only for other men.
“The Wilcoxes were not lacking in comradeship, but they kept it for men.”
- trespassed on the futurephraseChapter 13 →
Worried about or tried to control things that had not yet happened; to trespass on the future means to intrude mentally into what is still unknown rather than living in the present.
“She was not a woman who trespassed on the future, and this made her less uneasy than might have been expected.”
- bequeathingverbChapter 12 →
Leaving property or possessions to a specific person through a will or written instruction at the time of one's death.
- motornounChapter 5 →
A motor car; in early twentieth-century British English, 'the motor' was the common shorthand for an automobile, still a symbol of modern wealth and speed.
- in their essencephraseChapter 5 →
At their most fundamental, defining level; stripped of surface detail to reveal what they truly are at their core.
“all the things that had made her aunt ridiculous were, in their essence, Wilcox things.”
- ill-fatedadjective
Destined from the start to end badly or in failure; doomed by circumstance rather than by anyone's particular wrongdoing.
- manslaughternoun
The legal charge of unlawfully killing someone without planning it in advance; less serious than murder because there was no deliberate intention to kill.
Howards EndNovel by E. M. Forster