Welcome

ˈwɛlkəm

noun / verb

a polite expression of greeting or acceptance

The word 'welcome' originates from the Old English word 'wilcuma,' which meant 'a person whose coming is pleasing.' It can be used as both a noun and a verb to convey hospitality or acceptance.

In the middle, where anyone sitting on the bunk must see it, is this greeting: hello nigger welcome to oxford don't let THE SUN SET ON YOU HERE!

Stephen King

Song of Susannah (The Dark Tower, Book 6)

Here now I name my guest, Gandalf Greyhame, wisest of counsellors, most welcome of wanderers, a lord of the Mark, a chieftain of the Eorlingas while our kin shall last; and I give to him Shadowfax, prince of horses.’ ‘I thank you, Théoden King,’ said Gandalf.

J. R. R. Tolkien

The Two Towers

I might remind you, sir, that it is the Foundation Fleet that has been defeated in open battle five times, and that the ships of the Independent Trading Worlds have won your victories for you.” Indbur frowned dangerously, “You are no longer welcome upon Terminus, ambassador.

Asimov, Isaac

Foundation 2 - Foundation and Empire

The embarrassed poor creature stood there and appealed to one face after the other with his eyes, and found no welcome in any, the smile on his own face flickering and fading and perishing, meanwhile; then he dropped his gaze, the muscles of his face began to twitch, and he put up his hand to cover this womanish sign of weakness.

Mark Twain

Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc

Well, any friend of Mr. Bingley’s will always be welcome here to be sure; but else I must say that I hate the very sight of him.” Jane looked at Elizabeth with surprise and concern.

Jane Austen

Pride and Prejudice

“What?” “Science.” “Oh.” “One of the secrets of life man was a long time understanding: Animals breathe in what animals breathe out, and vice versa.” “I didn’t know.” “You know now.” “Thank you.” “You’re welcome.” When I’d bicycled our atmosphere to sweetness and freshness, I dismounted and climbed the iron rungs to see what the weather was like above.

Kurt Vonnegut

Cat's Cradle

When they told me, I … I took off my cloak as they commanded, threw my sword at Joffrey’s feet, and spoke unwisely.” “What did you say?” “The truth … but truth was never welcome at that court.

George R. R. Martin

A Dance with Dragons: A Song of Ice and Fire: Book Five

To John Hamilton Reynolds O that a week could be an age, and we Felt parting and warm meeting every week; Then one poor year a thousand years would be, The flush of welcome ever on the cheek: So could we live long life in little space, So time itself would be annihilate.

John Keats

Poetry

Moscow when occupied by the enemy did not remain intact like Berlin, Vienna, and other towns, simply because its inhabitants abandoned it and did not welcome the French with bread and salt, nor bring them the keys of the city.

Leo Tolstoy

War and Peace

He was known, well known, along the highways in hiding that are traveled by the poor and the mad, by the professional revolutionaries and by those who have been taught to hate so well that their hate shows on their faces like harelips and they are unwanted except by others like them, who welcome them to cheap rooms with slogans and posters on the walls, to basements where lengths of sawed-off pipe are held in padded vises while they are stuffed with high explosives, to back rooms where lunatic plans are laid: to kill a Cabinet member, to kidnap the child of a visiting dignitary, or to break into a boardroom meeting of Standard Oil with grenades and machine guns and murder in the name of the people.

King, Stephen

The Stand

He once yearned so frightfully for that occupation, and it was so welcome when it came; no doubt it relieved his pain so much, by substituting the perplexity of the fingers for the perplexity of the brain, and by substituting, as he became more practised, the ingenuity of the hands, for the ingenuity of the mental torture; that he has never been able to bear the thought of putting it quite out of his reach.

Charles Dickens

A Tale of Two Cities

“Why should you welcome fugitives?” he demanded.

Herbert, Frank

Dune

Harry tried to see what was written on the badges as he walked by, but he was too concerned to get Ron past their table quickly to linger long enough to read them.They received a rousing welcome at the Gryffindor table, where everyone was wearing red and gold, but far from raising Ron’s spirits the cheers seemed to sap the last of his morale; he collapsed onto the nearest bench looking as though he were facing his final meal.“I must’ve been mental to do this,” he said in a croaky whisper.

J. K. Rowling

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

“She wants to be alone and to play by herself.” Well, thinks Iris, I’m not going to be the most welcome thing ever to enter her life, then.

Gregory Maguire

Confessions of an Ugly Step Sister

At most terrestrial men fancied there might be other men upon Mars, perhaps inferior to themselves and ready to welcome a missionary enterprise.

H. G. Wells

The War of the Worlds

Go safely; and leave something of the happiness you bring!” The strength of the handshake was so much akin to that which I had noticed in the driver, whose face I had not seen, that for a moment I doubted if it were not the same person to whom I was speaking; so to make sure, I said interrogatively:— “Count Dracula?” He bowed in a courtly way as he replied:— “I am Dracula; and I bid you welcome, Mr. Harker, to my house.

Bram Stoker

Dracula

And because Dante says: Knowledge doth come of learning well retained, Unfruitful else, I have noted down what I have gained from their conversation, and have composed a small work on ‘Principalities,’ where I pour myself out as fully as I can in meditation on the subject, discussing what a principality is, what kinds there are, how they can be acquired, how they can be kept, why they are lost: and if any of my fancies ever pleased you, this ought not to displease you: and to a prince, especially to a new one, it should be welcome: therefore I dedicate it to his Magnificence Giuliano.

Niccolò Machiavelli

The Prince

Before this he had met life with a welcome—it had its trials, but none that a man could not face.

Upton Sinclair

The Jungle

The conqu’ring damsel, with expanded wings, The welcome message to her mistress brings.

Virgil

The Aeneid

It will seem to them no small indignity to philosophy to have it decreed, as is so welcome nowadays, that “philosophy itself is criticism and critical science—and nothing else whatever!” Though this estimate of philosophy may enjoy the approval of all the Positivists of France and Germany (and possibly it even flattered the heart and taste of Kant: let us call to mind the titles of his principal works), our new philosophers will say, notwithstanding, that critics are instruments of the philosopher, and just on that account, as instruments, they are far from being philosophers themselves!

Friedrich Nietzsche

Beyond Good and Evil

Yes, Captain Boomer, if you are quick enough about it, and have a mind to pawn one arm for the sake of the privilege of giving decent burial to the other, why in that case the arm is yours; only let the whale have another chance at you shortly, that’s all.” “No, thank ye, Bunger,” said the English Captain, “he’s welcome to the arm he has, since I can’t help it, and didn’t know him then; but not to another one.

Herman Melville

Moby Dick

Consider only that we are going to a country where we shall be at liberty to run riot from morning till night.” Pinocchio did not answer, but he sighed; he sighed again; he sighed for the third time, and he said finally: “Make a little room for me, for I am coming, too.” “The places are all full,” replied the little man; “but, to show you how welcome you are, you shall have my seat on the box.” “And you?” “Oh, I will go on foot.” “No, indeed, I could not allow that.

Carlo Collodi

The Adventures of Pinocchio

I only wanted a few good French friends in Bayonne to make me welcome in case I should come back there again.

Ernest Hemingway

The Sun Also Rises

Paine was a devoted student of astronomy, and it cannot for a moment be supposed that he had not participated in the universal welcome of Herschel’s discovery.

Thomas Paine

The Age of Reason

"Aye, that may well be," Ser Kyle said, "but many would welcome the return of Bittersteel.

George R.R. Martin

The Tales of Dunk & Egg

Now, then, were a conspirator to fall into your hands, he would be most welcome.” “For my part, dear mother,” interposed Renée, “I trust your wishes will not prosper, and that Providence will only permit petty offenders, poor debtors, and miserable cheats to fall into M. de Villefort’s hands—then I shall be contented.” “Just the same as though you prayed that a physician might only be called upon to prescribe for headaches, measles, and the stings of wasps, or any other slight affection of the epidermis.

Alexandre Dumas

The Count of Monte Cristo

We can do so little for him, and he does so much for us, I think the least we can do is to offer him a place here, and make him welcome if he comes.” This artful allusion to benefits conferred brought Tupman to his feet, looking as if he had quite made up his mind.

Louisa May Alcott

Little Women

In spite of the thousands of roubles he had saved, Trifon Borissovitch was very fond of emptying the pockets of a drunken guest, and remembering that not a month ago he had, in twenty-four hours, made two if not three hundred roubles out of Dmitri, when he had come on his escapade with Grushenka, he met him now with eager welcome, scenting his prey the moment Mitya drove up to the steps.

Fyodor Dostoevsky

The Brothers Karamazov

“How cheerfully he seems to grin, How neatly spread his claws, And welcome little fishes in With gently smiling jaws!” “I’m sure those are not the right words,” said poor Alice, and her eyes filled with tears again as she went on, “I must be Mabel after all, and I shall have to go and live in that poky little house, and have next to no toys to play with, and oh!

Lewis Carroll

Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland

Your love each other is nonsense.”—“Well,” replied Monseigneur Welcome, without contesting the point, “if it is nonsense, the soul should shut itself up in it, as the pearl in the oyster.” Thus he shut himself up, he lived there, he was absolutely satisfied with it, leaving on one side the prodigious questions which attract and terrify, the fathomless perspectives of abstraction, the precipices of metaphysics—all those profundities which converge, for the apostle in God, for the atheist in nothingness; destiny, good and evil, the way of being against being, the conscience of man, the thoughtful somnambulism of the animal, the transformation in death, the recapitulation of existences which the tomb contains, the incomprehensible grafting of successive loves on the persistent I, the essence, the substance, the Nile, and the Ens, the soul, nature, liberty, necessity; perpendicular problems, sinister obscurities, where lean the gigantic archangels of the human mind; formidable abysses, which Lucretius, Manou, Saint Paul, Dante, contemplate with eyes flashing lightning, which seems by its steady gaze on the infinite to cause stars to blaze forth there.

Victor Hugo

Les Misérables

Welcome to my humble home.

Rick Riordan

The Lost Hero

I should not forget that during my last winter at the pond there was another welcome visitor, who at one time came through the village, through snow and rain and darkness, till he saw my lamp through the trees, and shared with me some long winter evenings.

Henry David Thoreau

Walden

Welcome home, my son,’ said Sir Hercules in a voice that trembled a little.

Aldous Huxley

Crome Yellow

welcome to you from me, young prince of England!

Walt Whitman

Leaves of Grass

So alone that anyone, anything no matter how loathsome would be welcome.

Suzanne Collins

Mockingjay

Sometimes, indeed, I felt a wish for happiness and thought with melancholy delight of my beloved cousin or longed, with a devouring maladie du pays, to see once more the blue lake and rapid Rhone, that had been so dear to me in early childhood; but my general state of feeling was a torpor in which a prison was as welcome a residence as the divinest scene in nature; and these fits were seldom interrupted but by paroxysms of anguish and despair.

Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

Frankenstein; Or, The Modern Prometheus

Tranny gets the full Prodigal Son welcome: crying, hysterical fat ladies, a swarm of little kids piling out of their hammocks, sucking their thumbs and jumping up and down.

Neal Stephenson

Snow Crash

In any case that was very ancient history by now and as for our friend, the pseudo Skin-the-etcetera, he had transparently outlived his welcome.

James Joyce

Ulysses

The welcome feast had made them as sick as volcanoes.

Vonnegut, Kurt

Slaughterhouse Five

This pointed a contrast between the English General who saluted and the Indian trooper who stole: a contrast welcome to the Arab race-hesitation towards the Indians.

T. E. Lawrence

Seven Pillars of Wisdom

Our task has always been to bring the new into balance and, with it, modify behavior while not suppressing survival.” “Even so, how can you welcome this?” “The making of obscenities?” Leto asked.

Frank Herbert

God Emperor of Dune

And yet when I looked upon that ugly idol in the glass, I was conscious of no repugnance, rather of a leap of welcome.

Robert Louis Stevenson

The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

The glittering eyes in a death’s head Of old Luke Wadding’s portrait said Welcome, and the Ormonds all Nodded upon the wall, And even Stafford smiled as though It made him happier to know I understood his plan.

W. B. Yeats

Poetry

She greeted Babbitt with a giggling “Welcome to our little midst!

Sinclair Lewis

Babbitt

He felt instinctively that her nature, strong and resolute, with an inherent distaste for duplicity, was not one to welcome such a course.

Agatha Christie

The Murder of Roger Ackroyd

Come, death, and welcome.

William Shakespeare

Romeo and Juliet

Welcome aboard.” It was a large but elegant mechanism, built of polished walnut and oak, of brass and glass, copper and mirrors and carved and inlaid ivory, of quartz prisms and brass gears and springs and cogs.

Gaiman, Neil

Neverwhere

All around me I hear, “Good evening, sir.” “Welcome to fight club, sir.” “Thank you for joining us, sir.” Me, my monster face just starting to heal.

Palahniuk, Chuck

Fight Club

But it is my delight to keep the ruling faculty sound without turning away either from any man or from any of the things which happen to men, but looking at and receiving all with welcome eyes and using everything according to its value.

Marcus Aurelius

Meditations

Alike he thwarts the hospitable end, Who drives the free, or stays the hasty friend: True friendship's laws are by this rule express'd, Welcome the coming, speed the parting guest.

Homer

The Odyssey

Why does he imagine that Her Grace would welcome the service of a self-confessed kingslayer and betrayer?” A fair question, thought Tyrion, but what he said was, “The king I slew was sitting on her throne, and all those I betrayed were lions, so it seems to me that I have already done the queen good service.” He scratched the stump of his nose.

Martin, George, R. R.

A Dance With Dragons

Welcome or not, I found it necessary to attach myself to someone before I should begin to address cordial remarks to the passersby.

F. Scott Fitzgerald

The Great Gatsby

Far, far away among the valleys green Let us go forth and wander hand in hand Beyond those solemn hills that we have seen So often welcome home the falling sun Into their cloudy peaks when day was done— Beyond them till we find the ocean strand And hear the great waves run, With the waste song whose melodies I’d follow And weary not for many a summer day, Born of the vaulted breakers arching hollow Before they flash and scatter into spray.

C. S. Lewis

Poetry

Everywhere where the rumour of Buddha was heard, everywhere in the lands of India, the young men listened up, felt a longing, felt hope, and among the Brahmins’ sons of the towns and villages every pilgrim and stranger was welcome, when he brought news of him, the exalted one, the Sakyamuni.

Hermann Hesse

Siddhartha

Emma did not seem to welcome this hope with all the joy he had expected.

Gustave Flaubert

Madame Bovary

Meanwhile, To resalute the world with sacred light, Leucothea waked, and with fresh dews embalmed The Earth; when Adam and first matron Eve Had ended now their orisons, and found Strength added from above; new hope to spring Out of despair; joy, but with fear yet linked; Which thus to Eve his welcome words renewed: “Eve, easily may faith admit that all The good which we enjoy from Heaven descends; But that from us aught should ascend to Heaven So prevalent as to concern the mind Of God high-blest, or to incline his will, Hard to belief may seem; yet this will prayer, Or one short sigh of human breath, upborne Even to the seat of God.

John Milton

Paradise Lost

“Your worship is welcome, Master Pedro,” continued the landlord; “but where are the ape and the show, for I don’t see them?” “They are close at hand,” said he in the chamois leather, “but I came on first to know if there was any room.” “I’d make the Duke of Alva himself clear out to make room for Master Pedro,” said the landlord; “bring in the ape and the show; there’s company in the inn tonight that will pay to see that and the cleverness of the ape.” “So be it by all means,” said the man with the patch; “I’ll lower the price, and be well satisfied if I only pay my expenses; and now I’ll go back and hurry on the cart with the ape and the show;” and with this he went out of the inn.

Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

Don Quixote

What a welcome sight a leper must have been!

Heller, Joseph

Catch-22

You are very welcome to put any questions that you like to me now, and there is no danger that I will refuse to answer them.”

Arthur Conan Doyle

A Study in Scarlet

Any carrion, the carcase of a dead dog or cat, for example, though half putrid and stinking, is as welcome to them as the most wholesome food to the people of other countries.

Adam Smith

The Wealth of Nations