instress, n.
(ˈɪnstrɛs)
[f. in adv. 12 + stress n.]
In the theories of Gerard Manley Hopkins: the force or energy which sustains an inscape (see quots.). Hence ˈinstress v. trans. and intr.; ˈinstressed ppl. a.; ˈinstressing vbl. n.
| 1868 [see inscape n.]. 1873–4 G. M. Hopkins Note-bks. & Papers (1937) 226 You can without clumsiness instress, throw a stress on/a syllable so supported. 1875 ― Jrnls. & Papers Feb. (1959) 263 Standing before the gateway I had an instress which only the true old work gives from the strong and noble inscape of the pointed-arch. 1876 ― Wr. Deutschland in Poems (1967) 53 His mystery must be instressed, stressed. 1881 ― Note-bks. & Papers (1937) 349 This song of Lucifer's was a dwelling on his own beauty, an instressing of his own inscape. 1944 W. H. Gardner G. M. Hopkins i. 11 In the vagaries of shape and colour presented by hills, clouds, glaciers and trees he discerns a recondite pattern—‘species or individually-distinctive beauty’—for which he coins the word ‘inscape’; and the sensation of inscape (or, indeed, of any vivid mental image) is called ‘stress’ or ‘instress’. 1948 W. A. M. Peters G. M. Hopkins i. 14 The original meaning of instress..is that stress or energy of being by which ‘all things are upheld’..and strive after continued existence. |