"The country above us" - her lofty American's phrase for Canada - "always struck me as storage space, like an attic."

To hear her float the aching, lofty phrases of Violetta's deathbed aria in "La Traviata" is to hear beautiful singing and poignant emotion in sublime balance.

Lately, the lofty and evocative phrase "Harlem Renaissance" has been bandied about as if it were newly relevant.

Said Riggs: "We use lofty phrases such as 'with justice for all,' when we talk about our legal system.

The lofty final phrases "up in nosebleed country," as Ms. Price called it, must proclaim despair: "She's not scared of dying; she's scared of living without her man."

On the stump, Mr. Hastert sticks to a meat-and-potatoes speech, stripped clean of lofty phrases.

He started almost humbly and worked his way up to long, lofty phrases.

Look at the programs, promotional brochures and newsletters of the state's major playhouses and you'll come upon lofty phrases about cherishing life and affirming the spirits.

Charles Gould, to use the suitably lofty phrase, rode like a centaur.

That statement is accurate, though such lofty phrases have no place in the series itself, which remains rooted in one family's illuminating and richly captured lives.