disjecta membra

American  

[dis-jek-tuh mem-bruh] / dɪsˈdʒɛk tə ˈmɛm brə /

plural noun

1. scattered members; disjointed portions or parts: applied to fragments of poetry or fragmentary quotations.

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disjecta membra British  

/ dɪsˈdʒɛktə ˈmɛmbrə /

plural noun

1. scattered fragments, esp parts taken from a writing or writings

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Etymology

Origin of disjecta membra

< Latin, alteration of disjectī membra poētae limbs of a dismembered poet, a phrase in Horace

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Example Sentences

See Examples For:

disjecta membra

"Professor Winterthorn's Journey" is full of the disjecta membra of idle small talk, and in the following sequence, "The Suit of Mistress Quickly", Reid has written what is almost a piece of sound poetry.

From The Guardian ● Sep. 28, 2012

It is high time this pseudo poetry of disjecta membra was put in its place, as you have done in the fine peroration of the article's last two paragraphs.

From Time Magazine Archive

To the essays relating to Germany, which we may accept as the disjecta membra of the author's unpublished History, there is little to add.

From Thomas Carlyle by John Nichol

The dilemma was simply either to use the Saj'a or to follow Mr. Payne's method and "arrange the disjecta membra of the original in their natural order"; that is, to remodel the text.

From The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night — Volume 10 by Sir Richard Francis Burton

The whole is often a collection of disjecta membra of arguments, so interdependent that omissions of any sort are exceedingly dangerous to the meaning of the speaker.

From American Eloquence, Volume 1 Studies In American Political History (1896) by Alexander Johnston

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