stonebound en · ADJ
Etymology
From stone + -bound.
Meanings
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(not-comparable) Bounded by stone.
OUR hapless heroine—who in such a few short hours was plunged from the splendour and magnificence of a baronial castle to the depths of a stonebound dungeon and tortures, whose spotless mind knew nought of the cause of men’s unholy passions, whose dreams of love were such as floated round the angels’ bed, whose sighs arose from as pure a source as the breath that angels breathe,—had now learnt to understand the book of life with all its repugnant secrets.
1877, Peter Boyle, chapter XIV, in The Red Knights of Germany. […], volume III, London: Charing Cross Publishing Company, […], pages 268–269:We crossed a stream you couldn’t see from the road, feet drumming the floorboards of the wooden bridge to send a heartbeat through the mute village of stonebound, narrow lanes.
2005, John Reibetanz, “What Just Was”, in Near Relations, Toronto, Ont.: McClelland & Stewart Ltd., →ISBN, pages 15–16:The desolate images of rocks, of “stonebound suffering,” are every now and then juxtaposed with messages of inspiration like those of the epiphany of light in the lemon trees, of the re-creation of the winter wonderland of childhood, and of the sunflower, “crazed with light,” which can be found where “life evaporates as essence.”
1996, Frank N[orthen] Magill, Dayton Kohler, Laurence W. Mazzeno, editors, Masterplots: 1,801 Plot Stories and Critical Evaluations of the World’s Finest Literature, 2nd edition, volume 3, Pasadena, Calif.; Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Salem Press, →ISBN, page 1434:Austere, foreboding, it rises on a stonebound table over a tributary of the Loire.
1983, Darwin Porter, George McDonald, Frommer’s Dollarwise Guide to France, New York, N.Y.: Simon & Schuster, →ISBN, page 194:To the west lay the great basin of the Nile, a stonebound, godless waste, scarce redeemed by wide-spreading acacias and the green-streaked courses of innumerable streamlets that oozed from the sun-baked hills and struggled through the dancing heat of the lowlands to join the Nile.
1902, Ewart S[cott] Grogan, “Hunting Rhinoceros on the Upper Nile”, in Caspar Whitney, editor, Outing: An Illustrated Magazine of Sport, Travel, Adventure and Country Life, volume XL, New York, N.Y.: The Outing Publishing Company, […]; London: The International News Company, […], pages 685 and 687: