I was reading poetry, and wondered while reading this: what does in fine mean?

Whenever Richard Cory went down town,
We people on the pavement looked at him:
He was a gentleman from sole to crown,
Clean favored, and imperially slim.

And he was always quietly arrayed,
And he was always human when he talked;
But still he fluttered pulses when he said,
"Good-morning," and he glittered when he walked.

And he was rich—yes, richer than a king,
And admirably schooled in every grace:
In fine, we thought that he was everything
To make us wish that we were in his place.

So on we worked, and waited for the light,
And went without the meat, and cursed the bread;
And Richard Cory, one calm summer night,
Went home and put a bullet through his head.

I interpret as meaning "in all details."

Reminds me of:

Thirty days hath September,
April, June, and November;
All the rest have thirty-one
Excepting February alone:
Which hath but twenty-eight, in fine,
Till Leap Year gives it twenty-nine.

I hadn't realized how many versions that poem has.

The AHD says in fine is an idiom meaning "In conclusion; finally. In summation; in brief," while M-W simply says it means "in short." The OED Online says in fine, in the fine, or more rarely, a fine or at fine means "(a) in the end, at last; (b) to conclude or sum up, finally; also, in short," and traces it back to 1297: "(a) 1297 R. GLOUC. (1724) 91 The noble Constantyn, (that was kyng here of this lond, & emperour atte fyn). . "

By the way, the th (in The, that and this) in that quote were represented by that strange symbol I talked about in an earlier post. I forget its name, but two people on this board told me what it was (I forget who). Then I discovered running my cursor over it will tell me what it means.

I've always interpreted the "in fine" in Richard Cory as "in short."

Richard Cory has been set to music in the CD But Yesterday Is Not Today-The American Art Song 1927-1972. Scroll down and you can listen to samples of some of the songs. You can find the words to most of the other songs here.


Tinman

quote:

Originally posted by tinman:

By the way, the th (in The, that and this) in that quote were represented by that strange symbol I talked about in an earlier post. I forget its name, but two people on this board told me what it was (I forget who).

Thorn, perhaps?

quote:

I've always interpreted the "in fine" in Richard Cory as "in short."

I suppose if it comes from Latin, it would literally mean in the end, or at the finish.