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Literary notes about copious (AI summary)

The term “copious” is often employed to evoke a sense of abundant flow or detail in literary works, enhancing both description and emotion. Authors use it to convey nature’s lavish bounty—as in the depiction of dews that refresh dry, hot nights [1] or the relentless flood of ideas likened to Plato’s overflowing riches [2]—and to signal the exhaustive compilation of historical records or scholarly notes [3, 4]. Moreover, “copious” extends its reach to human experience, describing everything from the ample tearful outpourings of grief [5] to the robust physical repletion in culinary or bodily contexts [6, 7]. Thus, across a myriad of texts from classic histories to epic poetry, the word serves as a potent modifier that magnifies both the material and the metaphorical, rendering scenes and narratives vividly abundant.
  1. The summer months were dry and very hot, but the nights cool and refreshed by copious dews.
    — from The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon
  2. Plato, like the sea, pours forth his riches in a copious and expansive flood.
    — from On the Sublime by active 1st century Longinus
  3. From every province of Europe and Asia the rivulets of gold and silver discharged into the Imperial reservoir a copious and perennial stream.
    — from The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon
  4. The very copious index herein is entirely the work of my professional clerk, Mr. H. A. Kenward, for which I offer him my thanks.
    — from A Complete Guide to Heraldry by Arthur Charles Fox-Davies
  5. Wild with despair, I shed a copious tide Of flowing tears, and thus with sighs replied: "'Fliest thou, loved shade, while I thus fondly mourn!
    — from The Odyssey by Homer
  6. Hence more blood flows into these glands, and they secrete a copious supply of saliva.
    — from The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals by Charles Darwin
  7. A copious table of contents renders the volume quite valuable for reference.
    — from Toronto of Old by Henry Scadding

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