“To define is to distrust”
The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman“To define is to distrust” is the narrator’s paradoxical answer to Eugenius’s call for clarity: in the novel’s comic treatment of equivocation, an attempt to settle meaning can imply mistrust of the reader. The maxim is sharpened by what follows: the narrator triumphs by refusing a definition, then defines “nose” at length and insists on its literal sense alone.
The Exchange with Eugenius
As the two walk, Eugenius points to the word “Crevice” on page 178 of the first volume and observes that it has two senses. The narrator counters not with a clarification but with two possible roads, one dirty and one clean, and asks which they should take. Eugenius chooses the clean road. The narrator steps in front of him, lays a hand on his breast, and declares, “to define—is to distrust.” The physical gesture turns a discussion about words into a mock confrontation, while the clean-versus-dirty choice makes interpretation itself carry a suggestive charge.
A Victory Undermined
The narrator calls this an instance of triumphing over Eugenius, but qualifies the victory at once: he has triumphed “like a fool.” The self-correction prevents the maxim from becoming a simple rule against precision. He admits that he is not obstinate, and the admission leads directly into the next move: defining a nose. His performance therefore both resists interpretive control and demonstrates how quickly that resistance can reverse itself.
The Definition of a Nose
Before supplying the definition, the narrator appeals to readers of every age, complexion, and condition to guard against any ideas beyond those he intends. He then declares that “Nose” means a nose, “and nothing more, or less.” The elaborate warning makes a plain anatomical term seem newly vulnerable to implication; the harder the narrator insists on literalness, the more conspicuous the possibility of other meanings becomes. The maxim’s force lies in this tension between distrust of definition and the anxious act of defining.
Ambiguity and Readerly Trust
The exchange presents ambiguity as something that cannot be cleared away without consequence. Eugenius identifies two senses; the narrator redirects the problem into a choice between clean and dirty readings, then treats definition as an expression of distrust. Yet his subsequent definition asks readers to submit to his intended meaning. The episode thus makes the narrator’s authority unstable: he resists the reader’s interpretive freedom while acknowledging that language invites readings he cannot fully govern. The maxim is less a ban on definition than a comic exposure of the suspicion and uncertainty that attend it.
