coquettish

coquettish: adj – a woman who endeavors without sincere affection to gain the attention and admiration of men [ coquette: noun ]

From “A Rose for Emily” by William Faulkner. “It was a big, squarish frame house that had once been white, decorated with cupolas and spires and scrolled balconies in the heavily lightsome style of the seventies, set on what had once been our most select street. But garages and cotton gins had encroached and obliterated even the august names of that neighborhood; only Miss Emily’s house was left, lifting its stubborn and coquettish decay above the cotton wagons and the gasoline pumps-an eyesore among eyesores. And now Miss Emily had gone to join the representatives of those august names where they lay in the cedar-bemused cemetery among the ranked and anonymous graves of Union and Confederate soldiers who fell at the battle of Jefferson.” (Section I – paragraph 2)

Now I understand that Miss Emily’s house is very individual, unique which marked by majestic dignity.

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