non-plus

See also: nonplus and non plus

English edit

non-plus (third-person singular simple present non-plusses or non-pluses, present participle non-plussing or non-plusing, simple past and past participle non-plussed or non-plused)

Alternative spelling of nonplus
- 1838, A[lexander] Wilson McClure, “Relations of Universalism to God and Man”, in Lectures on Ultra-Universalism, 4th edition, Boston, Mass.: […] Crocker & Brewster, […], page 98:
  A fourth exclusive privilege of Universalists is, the possession of all the common sense, learning and piety in Christendom. Their effrontery abashes and non-pluses meeker men, who know not what to say to such dashing impudence.

non-plus (plural non-pluses or non-plusses)

Alternative spelling of nonplus
- 1724, The History of the Revolutions in Spain, volume II, part I (Containing, the Revolutions among the Moors, from 716 to the Taking of the City of Granada in 1492, Which Put an End to the Moorish Empire in Spain. With the Revolutions in Navarre, from 733 to 1521.), London: […] W. Mears, […]; and T. Edlin, […], page 228:
  He was not of the Number of thoſe hot-headed, fiery Princes who are guided merely by the Impulſes and Motions of a temerarious Valour which is inſenſible to all Danger, and who precipitate themselves headlong into ſuch intricate and perplexing Non-pluſes, that they are indiſpenſably oblig’d to ſtop ſhort at the Beginning, or at leaſt in the Middle, of their Courſe.
- 1841, William Rhind, A history of the vegetable kingdom, page 237:
  Being now much better able to make their queries of the secrets of that mystery, by how much their often failings had put them often to stops and non-plusses in the work […]