spare

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spare (one) (something)

To not force one to listen to or engage in something, especially that which is tedious, dull, or unpleasant. I can see that you understand what you did wrong, so I'll spare you a lecture about it. Spare us the lurid details, James.

spare someone something

to exempt someone from having to listen to or experience something. I'll spare you the details and get to the point. Please, spare me the story and tell me what you want.

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References in periodicals archive ?

But the set itself, a huge, stark, grey, walled-in room with a tilted floor and the sparest of furniture, represented a shadow-filled abstraction of the gloomy psychological state imprisoning the characters, the tragic figure of Jenufa's stepmother, the Kostelnicka, in particular.

Janacek's Jenufa. (Canada: Toronto; Opera in Review)

This approach of boiling down information to its sparest form might be appropriate for limited information use in which relatively fragmented chunks of information--such as phone numbers in an address book--are the appropriate unit size for conveying meaning.

Web design issues when searching for information using handheld interfaces. (Applied Research)

The book is illustrated with black and white cartoons by Jeff Danziger and Signe Wilkinson, and it is noted that this sparest of forms is represented by staff cartoonists at fewer than one-tenth of U.S.

Editorials: Pungent, profound, and path breaking; A book offers practical pointers about how the best in journalism transmit ideas and opinion

Crane probably did not read his Anabase, but that work too tries to suggest the movement and destinies of peoples over vast tracts of space and to do so in the sparest and most allusive manner.)

The last Elizabethan: Hart Crane at 100

"We'll mix with different cultures, get to travel internationally and learn Sparest," student Tammy Mamo said.

around campus

Her book is not necessarily the most authoritative, but it may be the sparest, most direct, and most scholarly.

The Ultimate Terrorists

In sojourns to other cultures, anthropologists discovered long ago that the sparest trappings can create powerful ritual spaces.

Monsters

In some sections, pages are filled with block quotes, separated by only the sparest commentary.

Singwauk's Vision: A History of Native Residential Schools

Rather than simply enacting a narrative of nationalist exploits, Talbot is burdened with the task of generating in its sparest form the very possibilit of a vectored and narratable history out of representation's empty returns.

The theater, the market, and the subject of history

The birthday prayer of 1758 is typical: Almighty and most merciful Father, who yet sparest, and yet supportest me, who supportest me in my weakness, and sparest me in my sins, ...

Sola fide? Samuel Johnson and the Augustinian doctrine of salvation

Even at the sparest level of description the extensive effort that went into formulating the Bulgarian Connection can be seen.

The rise and fall of the Bulgarian connection

The sparest poetry--especially when set beside the false eloquence of some American poetry--may ultimately be the richest.

Report from the besieged city

(13) When he comes to decide whether to inform his own sons of his murderous plans and make them accomplice in it, he says, "male agis, recedis, anime: si parcis tuis, / parces et illis" (324-25; Thou leau'ste thy purpose ill my mynde: if thou thine owne [sons] forbeare, / Thou sparest him).

Introduction: The Tyrant's Fear

He ate little, possessed almost nothing, and lived in the sparest accommodations.

Lax sought the authentic human life

Rather, the artist appeared to proceed by indirection and through the sparest of formal operations in the construction and selection of the objects exhibited.