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Cringe   Listen
verb
Cringe  v. t.  To contract; to draw together; to cause to shrink or wrinkle; to distort. (Obs.) "Till like a boy you see him cringe his face, And whine aloud for mercy."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Cringe" Quotes from Famous Books



... Baruffo's: "If a man stand up to me I leave him some coins in his pocket, some life in his body; but if he crouch and cringe I stick him in the throat. He is ...
— The Waters of Edera • Louise de la Rame, a.k.a. Ouida

... a crotch of the spruce Neewa looked down on the first great tragedy of his life, and the advent of man. The two-legged beast made him cringe deeper into his refuge, and his little heart was near breaking with the terror that had seized upon him. He did not reason. It was by no miracle of mental process that he knew something terrible had happened, and that this tall, ...
— Nomads of the North - A Story of Romance and Adventure under the Open Stars • James Oliver Curwood

... spirit—as to my lords and masters; that I shall have no other God but this congregation; that I shall deny my own conscience for theirs; that I shall go about the trivial, nonsensical things they call my pastoral duties, in fear and trembling; that my ministry is to cringe when they speak, and do their will regardless of what I feel to be the will of Christ! Faugh!" Big Dan drew himself erect. "If this is what the call to the ministry means, I am beginning to understand some things that ...
— The Calling Of Dan Matthews • Harold Bell Wright

... ranging Cow-Boys of the sea, which had dissolved within them the whole moral man, so that they were ready to concrete in the first offered mould of baseness now; rotted down from manhood by their hopeless misery on the isle; wonted to cringe in all things to their lord, himself the worst of slaves; these wretches were now become wholly corrupted to his hands. He used them as creatures of an inferior race; in short, he gaffles his four animals, and makes murderers of them; out of cowards ...
— The Piazza Tales • Herman Melville

... the heart," said father, in precisely the same voice he always said, "This is a fine day we are having." "Now why are you coming here in such a shape?" This was a little cross. "I'm not the man to cringe before you!" This was quite boastful. "You'll get bullet for bullet, if you attempt to invade my house with a gun." This pinged as if father shot words instead ...
— Laddie • Gene Stratton Porter

... another chilling smile. "You do well to cringe, for I'm death itself. Even in death I could kill you, like a snake." And with that his voice took on the tones of a circus barker. "Yes, I'm a freak, as the gentleman so wisely said. That's what one doctor who ...
— The Moon is Green • Fritz Reuter Leiber

... gem gibe germ tinge edge urge huge serge judge singe ledge large barge fudge lodge dodge ridge cringe lunge budge hedge badge sledge nudge wedge fringe range bridge merge grudge trudge mange smudge charge plunge ...
— The Beacon Second Reader • James H. Fassett

... if Earth rotative seems And close your Lids from these o'er wakeful Gleams - Although your Palate cringe you shall not shrink Within the Kitchen of the House ...
— The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam Jr. (The Rubiyt of Omar Khayym Jr.) • Wallace Irwin

... attitude her face was in complete shadow, Perris felt her eyes burning out at him. His dismissal was at hand, he knew, and then the carelessly defiant speech which was forming in his throat died away. Sick at heart, he realized that he must cringe under the hand which was about to strike and be humble under the very eye of Hervey. He was no longer free and the chain which held him was the conviction that he could never be happy until he had met and ...
— Alcatraz • Max Brand

... but to cringe and submit to thickheads like Matifat and Camusot, as actresses bow down to journalists, and we ourselves to ...
— A Distinguished Provincial at Paris • Honore de Balzac

... sought flitch match hedge sward bought stitch hatch ledge swarm bright fitch latch wedge thwart plight hitch patch fledge bilge budge fosse breadth twinge bridge judge thong breast print ridge drudge notch cleanse fling hinge grudge blotch friend string cringe ...
— McGuffey's Eclectic Spelling Book • W. H. McGuffey

... girl, walking slowly to the house, had stopped, terrified; shrinking for him, not for herself, as with the unerring instinct of her sex she realized how his pride would cringe before such an exposure. ...
— Sunlight Patch • Credo Fitch Harris

... what is and what is not disreputable in this conventional world. It is not considered disreputable to cringe to the vices of a court, or to accept a pension wrung from the industry of the nation, in return for base servility. It is not considered disreputable to take tithes, intended for the service of God, and lavish them away ...
— Peter Simple and The Three Cutters, Vol. 1-2 • Frederick Marryat

... don't cringe," said the outcast, dropping the fawning tone of the mendicant for the threatening ferocity of the social wolf; "you'd better give me a trifle to keep body and soul together for the next few weeks. I'm a desperate man, George! ...
— Charlotte's Inheritance • M. E. Braddon

... and that very thought made him hunch closer to the fire. The young hunter was not superstitious, or at least he was not unnaturally so; but what man or boy is there in this whole wide world of ours who does not, at some time, inwardly cringe from something in the air—something that does not exist and never did exist, but which holds a peculiar and nameless fear for the soul ...
— The Wolf Hunters - A Tale of Adventure in the Wilderness • James Oliver Curwood

... "Ay, crawl and cringe now, you dog! I swore that you should do it! It's useless to beg me for mercy. I know not that word—neither did you. There is nothing left in me but hate—hate for you. I want to ...
— Sir Henry Morgan, Buccaneer - A Romance of the Spanish Main • Cyrus Townsend Brady

... suspended by their arms, and at each revolution of the wheel received new wounds on their members, until, in the language of that law so grossly outraged in their persons, they "languished and died." Ask you if a cringe of this murderous nature went unvisited, and if no inquiry was made respecting its circumstances? The forms of justice were observed; the handmaid was present, but the sacred mistress was far away. A coroner's inquest was called; for ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society

... the world from the eyes of the immigrant who has lost all his illusions of the land where dollars grow on the street and where everyone has an equal chance to be president, and if you do not cringe in abject humility, you are not unlikely to be insufferably self-asserting, considering that the world has robbed you and that now it is your turn to get all that is coming to you. So you make loud demands in a rude, ordering ...
— Applied Psychology for Nurses • Mary F. Porter

... and stars! Whip him.—Were't twenty of the greatest tributaries That do acknowledge Caesar, should I find them So saucy with the hand of she here,—what's her name Since she was Cleopatra?—Whip him, fellows, Till like a boy you see him cringe his face, And whine aloud ...
— Antony and Cleopatra • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]

... for all the blunders of his subordinates. A rich man, and the scion of an historic house, he has led the life of a galley-slave; an honest man, he has been doomed to perpetual prevarication; a humane man, he has had to condone every atrocity; an independent man, he must cringe before his master; a peaceful man, he must submit to the continuation of insensate slaughter; a highly gifted intellectual, he has had to pursue a policy of insane stupidity. Twenty-five years ago a professor of the University of Munich, Dr. Quidde, compared the ...
— German Problems and Personalities • Charles Sarolea

... road that ran to Indore, and branching to the left, that crossed the Nerbudda River at Mandhatta, they were constantly passing pilgrims on their way to the Temple of Omkar. In the affrighted eyes of the Hindus Barlow could read their dread of the Pindaris; they would cringe at the roadside and salaam, as fearful were they as if a wolf-pack swept ...
— Caste • W. A. Fraser

... in the world that would insult where it dared, but it would creep and cringe where it dared not. Let me remind you of a sentence of your own, the occasion for which I have forgotten: 'That little spirits will always accommodate themselves to the temper of those they would work upon: will fawn upon a sturdy-tempered person: will insult the meek:'—And another given to Miss ...
— Clarissa, Volume 2 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson

... regarding the man. He pictured him as either a bit of a fawner, who would cringe through the year, or a keen-headed business man, who would go through it with a steel-trap mouth, and an eye to every weakness in his fellow-workers. Certainly neither type he pictured appealed to him. Yet he felt confident he would find one of the two, and had already conceived ...
— Antony Gray,—Gardener • Leslie Moore

... the hereditary Prince of Orange; but the disposition of her Royal Highness had been greatly soured by the infamous treatment of her poor mother, and, conceiving that this said young Dutch upstart had not paid her mother proper respect and attention, but that he was more disposed to fawn and cringe to the will of her father, it is said that she dismissed him from her presence, and peremptorily refused to marry him. This drove her Royal Papa into a great passion, and our magnanimous Prince Regent went suddenly to ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 3 • Henry Hunt

... spring from the gloom of the canyon's womb; in the valley's lap we lie; From the white foam-fringe where the breakers cringe to the peaks that tusk the sky We climb, and we peer in the crag-locked mere that gleams like a ...
— Songs of a Sourdough • Robert W. Service

... distinctly audible voice, began a sharp practical address. Everyone listened with the utmost attention; none dared to interrupt him. He spoke for five minutes, nervously pounding the air from time to time, and sometimes howling his words at the listeners in a manner that made them cringe. He counselled moderation, accord, decency, but above all, instant action. 'The settlement of the Alsace-Lorraine question,' said he, 'will virtually decide whether we have peace or continued war with Prussia.' ...
— France in the Nineteenth Century • Elizabeth Latimer

... conveyed by the tube was beginning to wear away, and now the buccaneer sat up, rubbed his head in a bewildered fashion and looked around him. When he saw Rob he gave a shout of rage and drew his knife, but one motion of the electric tube made him cringe and slip away to the cabin, where ...
— The Master Key - An Electrical Fairy Tale • L. Frank Baum

... is black, And the wail of the South wings forth; Will ye cringe to the hot tornado's rack, And the vampires of the North? Strike! ye can win a martyr's goal, Strike! with a ruthless hand— Strike! with the vengeance of the soul, For your bright, beleaguered land! To arms! to arms! for the South needs help, And a craven is he who flees— For ye have ...
— War Poetry of the South • Various

... what we may become, instead of allowing it to grovel around in the very unpleasant circumstances in which some people are liable to find themselves. The outward vision is transient, the inner vision can build eternal realities. "Are we to beg and cringe and hang on the outer edge of life,—we who should walk grandly? Is it for man to tremble and quake—man who in his spiritual capacity becomes the interpreter of God's message,—the focus of ...
— Spirit and Music • H. Ernest Hunt

... on each side, with crowns in their hands, intended, I suppose, for a representation of Our Saviour's coming to judgment. Some of the company espying this, cry out and say, 'Lo, this is the God these people bow and cringe unto; this is the idol they worship and adore.' Hereupon several souldiers charged their muskets, (amongst whom one Daniel Wood, of Captain Roper's company was the chief) and discharge them at it: and by the many shots they made, at length ...
— The New Guide to Peterborough Cathedral • George S. Phillips

... Ana a terrible glance, which caused the latter to cringe. Evidently, the duenna stood in considerable awe of her temperamental ...
— The Radio Boys on the Mexican Border • Gerald Breckenridge

... Napoleons of finance when the market is strong and steady. When it becomes panicky and fluctuates and resolves itself into small unheroic deals, woman gets the job. For the world is principally a place where men work for the pleasures and woman has to cringe for the scraps. It may seem unchivalrous, but ...
— Garrison's Finish - A Romance of the Race-Course • W. B. M. Ferguson

... the far side of the rope-ladder doorway. Carmena had bent her head to pass under the massive lintel. Lennon followed Elsie to the side of the doorway opposite Farley. The lawyer-ranchman appeared to cringe, yet he held to his position and even attempted an ingratiating smile as he ...
— Bloom of Cactus • Robert Ames Bennet

... through. Some perverse will made him watch his father drawn over the borders of life. And yet, now, every day, the great red-hot stroke of horrified fear through the bowels of the son struck a further inflammation. Gerald went about all day with a tendency to cringe, as if there were the point of a sword of Damocles pricking the nape of ...
— Women in Love • D. H. Lawrence

... under my wing. And never once, since Pee-Wee went, have I actually punished either of my children. It may be wrong, but I can't help it. I don't want memories of violence to be left corroding and rankling in my mind. And I'd hate to see any child of mine cringe, like an ill-treated dog, at every lift of the hand. There are better ways of controlling them, I begin to feel, than through fear. Their father, I know, will never agree with me on this matter. He will always insist on mastery, open and undisputed mastery, ...
— The Prairie Child • Arthur Stringer

... aside, in guise of peace Seeking the people's favour; skilled to know How to arouse their ire, and how to gain The popular love by corn in plenty given. For famine only makes a city free; By gifts of food the tyrant buys a crowd To cringe before him: but a people starved Is ...
— Pharsalia; Dramatic Episodes of the Civil Wars • Lucan

... her own life to shape, with only such blundering, well-meant assistance as her mother could give her. She had found out that the world cannot pause to help the stricken, or to give a hand to the fallen, but that it always has leisure to cringe and make ...
— The Grey Lady • Henry Seton Merriman

... warn the lecturer who is only a beginner against the use of humor, commenting that if a joke is unlaughed at, it is disconcerting to all concerned. The only intelligent answer to that is: "Well, what of it?" The speaker who is going to cringe every time one of his passages falls a little flat had best not start. This happens at times to every lecturer; there are good days and bad days, live audiences and sour ones. If a man takes his work seriously, it is hardly ...
— The Armed Forces Officer - Department of the Army Pamphlet 600-2 • U. S. Department of Defense

... stretched burnt and bare. And then came the climax: something passed us,—high above our heads, I fancy, though its frightful winds seemed brushing us,—a ghost of the night, an aerial demon, a shrieking thing that made the man beside me cringe and shudder. It was new to me, but I could not mistake it. It was what the French call an obus, a word that in some subtle manner seems more menacing and dreadful than our own term ...
— The Firefly Of France • Marion Polk Angellotti

... returns when labor is resumed. There is a livery stable that I visit frequently; and while I wait to be served I notice what the grooms are doing. I see that when the currycomb or brush touches a certain spot upon the horse's skin there is a cringe, and usually a kick and a squeal,— possibly a harmless nip at the groom's shoulder. I learn, too, that there is a certain place upon the back of every horse that the grooms are not permitted to ...
— Lessons in Life - A Series of Familiar Essays • Timothy Titcomb

... went from England into France, Nor yet to learn to cringe nor dance, Nor yet to ride nor fence; Nor did I go like one of those That do return with half a ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan

... Lopez to embark on his career of international madness and prosecute it with the rage of a demon is not entirely clear. A vision of himself as the Napoleon of southern South America, who might cause Brazil, Argentina, and Uruguay to cringe before his footstool, while he disposed at will of their territory and fortunes, doubtless stirred his imagination. So, too, the thought of his country, wedged in between two huge neighbors and threatened with suffocation between their overlapping ...
— The Hispanic Nations of the New World - Volume 50 in The Chronicles Of America Series • William R. Shepherd

... duty, all come under the same law. If they consent to drift away into the limbo of failures, they have only to resign themselves, and their existence will soon end in futility and disaster; but, if they refuse to cringe under the lash of circumstances, if they toil on as though a bright goal were immediately before them, the result is almost assured; and, even if they do succumb, they have the blessed knowledge that they have failed gallantly. Half the misfortunes which crush the children ...
— Side Lights • James Runciman

... denounces, intrigues, executes, keeps an unarmed soldiery to do his behests, and hurls ecclesiastic thunders at kings and emperors with the grand audacity of a commission presumedly divine, while Greeks cringe, and Jews blaspheme, and heathen flee into, or away from, conversion; and the Church itself canonizes this spiritual father, this Sphinx-son of ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 32, June, 1860 • Various

... rapidly during our delay. New guns were seeking position, which was scarcely taken before there was a puff of smoke and their iron message. Heavens! what a vicious sound those shells had! something between a whiz and a shriek. Even the horses would cringe and shudder when one passed over them, and the men would duck their heads, though the missile was thirty feet in the air. I suppose there was some awfully wild firing on both sides; but I saw several of our men carried to the rear. But all this detail is an old, ...
— His Sombre Rivals • E. P. Roe

... xxvii. 5). They believe that the Lord has yet many things to say unto them, and they are willing and glad for Him to say them by whom He will, but especially by their leaders and their brethren. While they do not fawn and cringe before men, nor believe everything that is said to them, without proving it by the word and Spirit of God, they believe that God "gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors ...
— When the Holy Ghost is Come • Col. S. L. Brengle

... good. True faith in liberty Long since with Marius and Sulla fled: Now when Pompeius has been reft away Its counterfeit has perished. Now unshamed Shall seize the despot on Imperial power, Unshamed shall cringe the Senate. Happy he Who with disaster found his latest breath And met the Pharian sword prepared to slay. Life might have been his lot, in despot rule, Prone at his kinsman's throne. Best gift of all The knowledge how to die; next, death compelled. If cruel ...
— Pharsalia; Dramatic Episodes of the Civil Wars • Lucan

... man—very lightly clad—and a violent squint handicapped him seriously in the matter of first impressions. When he saw Jocelyn he dropped his burden of wood and ran towards her. The African negro does not cringe. He is a proud man in his way. If he is properly handled, he is not only trustworthy—he is something stronger. Nala grinned ...
— With Edged Tools • Henry Seton Merriman

... ass-like multitudes Cringe down at his command. With wagging ears and blinded eyes They do not understand. With pride they show each shackled wrist And on ...
— Bars and Shadows • Ralph Chaplin

... and cringe and crook the supple knee, And beg thy life of me, thine enemy, Whom thou, a moment since, didst doom to death. I will not breathe suspicion's lightest breath Against thy vaunted fame: and even though Before all men thou'st sworn thyself my foe, And pledged thyself wrongly to wreak on me ...
— Successful Recitations • Various

... said under his breath. "A woman! I know nothing of women. In all my life I have seen but two—my mother and a nautch-girl—who cringed to me. I should not like my wife to cringe to me. Are there not such as could be my companion, my comrade? Or are they all ...
— The Native Born - or, The Rajah's People • I. A. R. Wylie

... shall a Negro want with pride amid the studied humiliations of fifty million fellows? Well sped, my boy, before the world had dubbed your ambition insolence, had held your ideals unattainable, and taught you to cringe and bow. Better far this nameless void that stops my life than a sea ...
— The Souls of Black Folk • W. E. B. Du Bois

... alarming of tones: 'Remember Evelyn!' That startled the old man even more than the sight on the floor had done. He turned round, and I saw his fist rise as if against some menacing intruder, but it quickly fell again as his eyes encountered the picture which hung before him, and with a cringe painful to see in one of his years, he sidled back till he reached the doorway. Here he paused a minute to give another look at the man outstretched at his feet, and I heard ...
— The Circular Study • Anna Katharine Green

... "do you still let your thoughts dwell on that woman? There are people who cringe to the hand that strikes them, and the more they are duped and deceived, the more they love. If you are made of this kind of stuff, we shall never get on. Go and find your faithless mistress, and beg her to come back and share ...
— Caught In The Net • Emile Gaboriau

... this was not apparent. Harwood had assumed on general principles that the Honorable Isaac Pettit, of the "Fraser County Democrat," was an humble and obedient servant of the Honorable Morton Bassett, and would cringe at the mention of his name. To be sure, Mr. Pettit had said nothing to disturb this belief; but neither had the editor manifested that meek submission for which the reporter had been prepared. The editor's Gargantuan girth trembled again. The spectacle he presented ...
— A Hoosier Chronicle • Meredith Nicholson

... aspect was nearly that of a man. He held his head erect, the cringe disappeared from his back, the obsequiousness from his manner. Then while an eye might wink, he took on the appearance of a snake ...
— Trusia - A Princess of Krovitch • Davis Brinton

... Sparta and sailed for Alexandria, where the king, Ptolemy the Benefactor, at first was short and cold with him, because he would not cringe to him, but soon learned to admire him, treated him as a brother, promised him help to regain Sparta, and gave him a pension, which he spent in relieving other exiled Greeks. But the Benefactor died, and his son, Ptolemy Philopator, ...
— Aunt Charlotte's Stories of Greek History • Charlotte M. Yonge

... the weapon. Even as he fought the beast, Billie realized that in some manner the ape had learned to fear firearms, but whether it had ever learned to use them he could not venture a guess. He felt certain if he could draw the weapon and point it at the ape, it would at once cringe in fear. What might happen if the ape should get possession of ...
— The Broncho Rider Boys with Funston at Vera Cruz - Or, Upholding the Honor of the Stars and Stripes • Frank Fowler

... question is: Did Thomas Paine recant? Mr. Paine had prophesied that fanatics would crawl and cringe around him during his last moments. He believed that they would put a lie in the mouth of death. When the shadow of the coming dissolution was upon him, two clergymen, Messrs. Milledollar and Cunningham, called ...
— Lectures of Col. R. G. Ingersoll - Latest • Robert Green Ingersoll

... despite the brave countenance she presented to him. In a second she had quelled the threatened weakness. "I have made this house a paradise. I have made it a place in which you may find happiness if you care to seek for it here. At night I shudder and cringe, because I am the coward you would try to reform. I hide nothing from myself. I am afraid to be alone in this house. But I ...
— From the Housetops • George Barr McCutcheon

... matter, but yet it expresseth well the deformity. There is a master of scoffing, that in his catalogue of books of a feigned library, sets down this title of a book, The Morris-Dance of Heretics. For indeed, every sect of them, hath a diverse posture, or cringe by themselves, which cannot but move derision in worldlings, and depraved politics, who are apt to ...
— Essays - The Essays Or Counsels, Civil And Moral, Of Francis Ld. - Verulam Viscount St. Albans • Francis Bacon

... sycophantish slave kotoo; You love not such display; Let courtiers cringe and creatures "boo." 'Tis not our English way, My Prince, 'Tis not our ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, November 14th, 1891 • Various

... of Pele, and ye men of Owhyhee! Hearken! ye who cringe and tremble, at the sound of Kilauea, Fearful of the wrath of Pele, fearful of the lake of fire!— Priest, I say there is no Pele! Pele is not—never was! Pele lives but in your legends—there is only ...
— Bees in Amber - A Little Book Of Thoughtful Verse • John Oxenham

... To moil and toil to gain a little fame, And have each rascal that prowls under heaven Stab one for getting it? Had he wished power, The thing was in the market-place for sale At stated rates—so much for a man's soul! His was a haughty spirit that bent not, And one to rise had need to cringe and creep. So had his brother into favor crawled, Like slug into the bosom of a rose, And battened in the sun. At thought of him, Forgotten for a moment, Wyndham winced, And felt his wound. "Why bides he not in Town With his ...
— Wyndham Towers • Thomas Bailey Aldrich

... of warmth and good manners. The furniture was of oak and stamped leather. The low book-cases were covered with bronzes, casts, and figurines, of a quality so uniformly good that none seemed to feel the temptation either to snub or to cringe to its neighbor. The Owari pots felt no false shame beside the royal Satsuma; and Barbedienne's bronzes, the vases of Limoges and Lambeth and bowls from Nankin and Corea dwelt together in the ...
— The Bread-winners - A Social Study • John Hay

... German military inclination, but of German military policy. I often said to Germans of the Government, "Are you yourselves subject to being terrorised? If another nation murdered or outraged your women, your children, would it cause you to cringe in submission or would you fight to the last? If you would fight yourselves, what is there in the history of America which makes you think that Americans will submit to mere frightfulness; in what particular do you ...
— Face to Face with Kaiserism • James W. Gerard

... Music's house[2] she came, And begg'd like one both blind and lame; "My only friend, my dear," said she, "You see 'tis mere necessity Hath sent me to your house to whelp: I die if you refuse your help." With fawning whine, and rueful tone, With artful sigh, and feigned groan, With couchant cringe, and flattering tale, Smooth Bawty[3] did so far prevail, That Music gave her leave to litter; (But mark what follow'd—faith! she bit her;) Whole baskets full of bits and scraps, And broth enough to fill her paps; For well she knew, her numerous brood, For want of milk, would suck her ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift

... her almost painful shrinking from it appears in a letter of March 25, 1911, to Mr. Charles Scribner: "With this note I send the introduction to Father Damien. I didn't see how to touch upon the others when I know so little about them. I know this thing is about as bad as anything can be. I cringe whenever I think of it, but I seem incapable of doing better. If, however, it is beyond the pale, write and tell me, please, and I will try once again. Louis's work was so mixed up with his home life ...
— The Life of Mrs. Robert Louis Stevenson • Nellie Van de Grift Sanchez

... ordered our seizure. I have always been on good terms with him, and must try and induce him not to detain us. It will not do, however, to approach him on horseback. We must show him some respect, though we need not bow and cringe as ...
— Hendricks the Hunter - The Border Farm, a Tale of Zululand • W.H.G. Kingston

... against a world, a world of power, opinion, wealth, opportunity; and he, the one, must cringe and bear in silence lest the world crash about the ears of his people. He slowly plodded on in bitter silence toward the swamp. But the day was balmy, the way was beautiful; contempt slowly succeeded anger, and hope soon triumphed over all. For yonder was Zora, poised, ...
— The Quest of the Silver Fleece - A Novel • W. E. B. Du Bois

... Sivad fitted the first arrow to the string, and Stern was about to apply the torch, a rattling crash from above caused all to cringe and leap aside. ...
— Darkness and Dawn • George Allan England

... the band Of feeble spirits cringe and plead To the gigantic strength of Greed, And fawn upon his ...
— Shapes of Clay • Ambrose Bierce

... their ideal impersonations—these were the gods that England, in the majesty of her State, in the sovereignty of her chartered weal, must abase herself to then. To the vices of tyranny, to low companions and their companions, and their kindred, the State must cringe and kneel then. To these,—men who meddled with affairs of State,—who took, even at such a time, the State to be their business,—must address themselves; for these were the councils in which England's peace and war were ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon

... craven; crouch before, throw oneself at the feet of; swallow the leek, swallow the pill; kiss the rod; turn the other cheek; avaler les couleuvres [Fr.], gulp down. obey &c 743; kneel to, bow to, pay homage to, cringe to, truckle to; bend the neck, bend the knee; kneel, fall on one's knees, bow submission, courtesy, curtsy, kowtow. pocket the affront; make the best of, make a virtue of necessity; grin and abide, grin and bear it, shrug the shoulders, resign oneself; submit with a good grace &c (bear with) ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget

... stout-hearted heroes who will not fail me in the fray. These valiant souls have chosen me their lord. With such peers one may ponder counsel, and gain a following. Devoted are these friends and faithful-hearted; and I may be their lord and rule this realm. It seemeth no wise right to me that I should cringe a whit to God for any good. I will ...
— Codex Junius 11 • Unknown

... creature stood leering at me over his shoulder, and I knew he'd been using threats because my father, himself, was almost paralyzed with fear. And then I lost my head—in blind rage, I suppose. I must have talked like a common fish woman, but my one desire was to see them cringe. So I told about leaving the message for you, pretending to 've written a great deal more—twisting the knife all I knew how, and being thoroughly catty. It must have been a disgusting exhibition," ...
— Wings of the Wind • Credo Harris

... the soul, if there be one, with disgust at its own vileness, and the miserable contrast between its aspirations and attainments, its pretences and its efforts. At least, that would be the death fit for a life like mine—a death of disgust at itself. We claim immortality; we cringe and cower with the fear that immortality may not be the destiny of man; and yet we—I—do things unworthy not merely of immortality, but unworthy of the butterfly existence of a single day in such a world as this sometimes ...
— Wilfrid Cumbermede • George MacDonald

... the most debasing of the emotions. It can lead to panic even among soldiers with arms in their hands; sailors will trample on women and children in their blind rush for the boats; men will even deny their convictions, their faith, and cringe to brutal power; crimes the most vile are committed from fear, and fear had virtually obliterated womanhood in Miss Ainsley's soul. She was in a mood to accept any conditions for the assurance of safety, and she gave not a thought to any one or anything that offered ...
— The Earth Trembled • E.P. Roe

... misfortune of mankind is this: Calm and serene and unconcerned to court Fate's heaviest blows, and then, when these have fallen, To whine and cringe, bewailing one's sad lot.— Such folly we will none of, thou and I. For now I seek King Creon, to proclaim My right as guest-friend, and to clear away These clouds of dark distrust that threaten storm.— Meanwhile, take thou the babes and get thee hence Without the ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VI. • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke

... flatterers. The defect is, that they flatter only in print or in writing, but not by word of mouth; they will give things under their hand which they make a conscience of speaking. Besides, they are too libertine to haunt antechambers, too poor to bribe porters and footmen, and too proud to cringe to second-hand ...
— Life And Letters Of John Gay (1685-1732) • Lewis Melville

... Eastern, unpractical, though deviously subtle, taking no thought for the morrow, uselessly imaginative, submissive, ready to cringe genuinely to authority, then turn and kick the man below him. He was no stagnant pool with only the iridescent lights of corruption upon it. Almost in the English sense he was thoroughly manly. He had the true instinct for sport, the true ability of the thorough ...
— Bella Donna - A Novel • Robert Hichens

... dry heat on the brown, rolling fields; Shuddered with fearful ecstasy in bed Over a book of knights and bloody shields... The ship slowed, jarred and stopped. There, straight ahead, Were dock and fellows. Stumbling, he was whirled Out and away to meet them — and his back Slumped to the old half-cringe, his hands fell slack; A big boy's arm went round him — and a twist Sent shattering pain along his tortured wrist, As a voice cried, a bloated voice and fat, "Why it's Miss Nancy! ...
— Young Adventure - A Book of Poems • Stephen Vincent Benet

... did or not, I distinctly saw him cringe at my shot," hotly said another. "There's always a peculiar look a tiger has when he gets his death-wound: it's unmistakable ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, April, 1876. • Various

... to take his life. A quick motion from Elsa, whose trust returns when she sees her beloved in danger, permits Lohengrin to parry the first blow with his sword, and Frederick of Telramund soon lies dead upon the floor, while his accomplices cringe at Lohengrin's feet imploring his pardon. Day is dawning, and Lohengrin, after caring tenderly for the half-fainting Elsa, bids the would-be assassins bear the corpse into the presence of the king, where he promises to meet Elsa ...
— Stories of the Wagner Opera • H. A. Guerber

... my mother, I'd hit you down for that," he said, clenching his fists. "What do you know about things to talk to me like that? Who are you to take his side and cringe to him? If you can't judge him, there's plenty that can, and it's you who are pig-headed, not me, because you don't see I'm fighting your battle for you. It may seem too late to fight for you; but it's never too late to hate a wicked ...
— The Spinners • Eden Phillpotts

... letter of application. The applicant should state simply his qualifications for the place he wants. He should not make an appeal to sympathy (sob stuff) nor should he beg or cringe. He should not demand a certain salary, though he may state what salary he would like, and he should not say "Salary no object." It would probably not be true. There are comparatively few people with whom money is no ...
— The Book of Business Etiquette • Nella Henney

... dismissal of the East. "No longer my masters" a voice seemed to cry from the very heart of that multitude. "No longer will we halt at your command, no longer will your words be wisdom to us, no longer shall we smile with pleasure at your stories, and cringe with fear at your displeasure; you may hate our defection, you may lament our disloyalty, you may bribe us and smile upon us, you may preach to us and bewail our sins. We are no longer yours—WE ARE OUR OWN—Salute a new world, ...
— The Secret City • Hugh Walpole

... about them gold, jewels, purple, and those other marks of virtue and wisdom; but for the study of the things themselves, they remit it to others, thinking it happiness enough for them that they can call the king master, have learned the cringe a la mode, know when and where to use those titles of Your Grace, My Lord, Your Magnificence; in a word that they are past all shame and can flatter pleasantly. For these are the arts that speak a man truly noble and an exact courtier. But if you look into their manner of life you'll ...
— The Praise of Folly • Desiderius Erasmus

... decisive note in the affairs of that great department store known as "The Colossus," may not by design have carried an air that would indicate the man to whom small tradesman regarded it as a mark of good breeding to cringe, but even in a place where his name was not known his appearance would strongly have appealed to commercial confidence. That instinct which in earlier life had prompted fearless speculation, now crystalized into conscious force, gave unconscious authority to ...
— The Colossus - A Novel • Opie Read

... of the earth, and the Epicures heauen, how doth it forme our yong master? It makes him to kisse his hand like an ape, cringe his neck like a starueling, and play at hey passe repasse come aloft when hee salutes a man. From thence he brings the art of atheisme, the art of epicurising, the art of whoring, the art of poysoning, the art ...
— The Vnfortunate Traveller, or The Life Of Jack Wilton - With An Essay On The Life And Writings Of Thomas Nash By Edmund Gosse • Thomas Nash

... officious rising and uncovering at a wave from a flag or a blast from a brass band? Imperialism: Not a bit of it. Obsequiousness, servility, cupidity roused by the prevailing smell of money. When Mr Carnegie rattled his millions in his pockets all England became one rapacious cringe. Only, when Rhodes (who had probably been reading my Socialism for Millionaires) left word that no idler was to inherit his estate, the bent backs straightened mistrustfully for a moment. Could it be that the Diamond King was no gentleman after all? However, it was easy to ignore a rich ...
— Man And Superman • George Bernard Shaw

... by night, it was always with dauntless ferocity that the tortured Wolfhound faced his enemy, the Professor. Short of starving him to death, or killing him outright with the iron bar, the Professor could see no way of making the Giant Wolf cringe to him; he could devise no method of breaking that fierce spirit, though he exhausted every kind of severity and every sort of cruelty that his wide experience in the handling of fierce animals could furnish. For any one who could have ...
— Finn The Wolfhound • A. J. Dawson

... infancy Doth heaven with all its splendors lie; Daily, with souls that cringe and plot, We Sinais climb and ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 3 (of 4) • Various

... Holsma. "Quite so. Femke is a brave girl and doesn't need to cringe before anybody. ...
— Walter Pieterse - A Story of Holland • Multatuli

... he felt, within, "is it not enough to create us so unequal that we must also cringe in spirit, and acknowledge it! I expected to feel triumphant when I lodged my despised hat in this man's house, but I feel meaner ...
— The Entailed Hat - Or, Patty Cannon's Times • George Alfred Townsend

... rapidity of his action saved him, for the spear passed his shoulder so close that it tore away a shred of his coat, and stuck in the wall behind him. In another instant Doltaire had his sword-point at Voban's throat. The man did not cringe, did not speak a word, but his hands clinched, and the muscles of his face worked painfully. There was at first a fury in Doltaire's face and a metallic hardness in his eyes, and I was sure he meant to pass his sword through the other's body; ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... seek renown in arms, Pant after fame, and rush to war's alarms; To shining palaces let fools resort, And dunces cringe to be esteem'd at court: Mine be the pleasure of a rural life, From noise remote, and ignorant of strife; Far from the painted belle, and white-glov'd beau, The lawless masquerade and midnight show; From ladies, lap-dogs, courtiers, garters, stars, Fops, fiddlers, ...
— The Young Gentleman and Lady's Monitor, and English Teacher's Assistant • John Hamilton Moore

... struggle, an' never to cringe or fall— Still I worked for Charley, for Charley was now my all; And Charley was pretty good to me, with scarce a word or frown, Till at last he went a-courtin', and brought a ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For • Various

... cringe before Coriolanus. When he appears, the stage directions show that the "citizens steal ...
— Tolstoy on Shakespeare - A Critical Essay on Shakespeare • Leo Tolstoy

... we now value: the temple that might have sanctified the gold is of no account. This worship of mere wealth has, it is true, this advantage over the old adoration of birth, that something may possibly be got out of it; to cringe and fawn upon the people that have blue blood is manifestly futile, since the peculiarity is not communicable, but it is hoped that, by being shaken up in the same social bag with millionaires, something may be attained by what is technically called the ...
— Some Private Views • James Payn

... languidly occupied in making brushes, like the prisoners of the Alondiga, and two I saw whiling away the time making lace! Several of them tagged my footsteps, eager for some errand. One feels no great sense of security in a country whose boyish, uneducated, and ragged guardians of order cringe around like beggar boys hoping ...
— Tramping Through Mexico, Guatemala and Honduras - Being the Random Notes of an Incurable Vagabond • Harry A. Franck

... please; I am the emperor's servant, And my first care must be to do his pleasure. He did not send me here to fawn and cringe And coax these boors into good humor. No! Obedience he must have. We soon shall see If king or peasant ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller

... his way To Naples, on a certain day Came to his own Misenian seat, (Of old Lucullus's retreat,) Which from the mountain top surveys Two seas, by looking different ways. Here a shrewd slave began to cringe With dapper coat and sash of fringe, And, as his master walk'd between The trees upon the tufted green, Finding the weather very hot, Officiates with his wat'ring-pot; And still attending through the glade, Is ostentatious ...
— The Fables of Phdrus - Literally translated into English prose with notes • Phaedrus

... Dorothy. Don't you see I'm in deadly earnest? Must my former frivolity dog my steps through life? When I call to mind that I made fun to you of his serious purpose in life, the thought makes me cringe and despise myself." ...
— A Rock in the Baltic • Robert Barr

... him from the train, the dog was led through crowds of people and bustling, noisy streets that made Jan cringe and cower. At last they reached a place where water stretched so far that it touched the sky, and the water kept moving all the time. This frightened him, for he had never seen any water excepting in the little lake at the Hospice, and that ...
— Prince Jan, St. Bernard • Forrestine C. Hooker

... on, till they came within sight of the lions. Now Mr. Great-heart was a strong man, So he was not afraid of a lion; but yet when they were come up to the place where the lions were, the boys that went before were glad when to cringe behind, for they were afraid of the lions; so they stepped back, and went behind. At this their guide smiled, and said, How now, my boys, do you love to go before, when no danger doth approach, and love to come behind so soon as ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... with him; at least she would not crouch and cringe and hide her eyes. She would watch him as he rode, watch him as he fought, watch him to the end even though he slipped from ...
— Man to Man • Jackson Gregory

... became a flaming torch, and he waved it before him and laughed to see the warriors cringe. A cloud of smoke was billowing about him—he leaped to safety through a rising ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, June, 1930 • Various

... a despicable race, Like wand'ring Arabs shift from place to place. Vagrants by law, to Justice open laid, They tremble, of the beadle's lash afraid, And fawning cringe, for wretched means of life, To Madam May'ress, or his ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill

... Tush! these be but dreams of poets, or imaginings of children!—the commons be but slaves to the nobles; the nobles to the senate; the senate to their creditors, their purchasers, their consuls; the last at once their tools, and their tyrants! Go, young man, go. Salute, cringe, fawn upon your consul! Nathless, for thou hast mind enough to mark and note the truth of what I tell thee; thou wilt think upon this, and perchance one day, when the time shall have come, wilt ...
— The Roman Traitor (Vol. 1 of 2) • Henry William Herbert

... husband as if he had been the best and tenderest of gentlemen. Providence has its mysteries; but if there be one that taxes faith and staggers patience more than another, it is the long misery that makes a good woman cringe and writhe and agonize in silence under the utter rule and life-long sovereignty of a bad man. Perhaps such women do not suffer as we fancy; for after much trial every woman learns that it is possible to love where neither respect nor admiration can find foothold,—that it ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various

... with any answer I could make, he kept roaring louder and louder. There was no doubt that he was venting his spleen upon an unprotected and humble civilian, and that he was thoroughly enjoying seeing me cringe under his bulldozing. It flashed upon me that he might be a self-appointed guardian of the way. So when he began to wax still more arrogant, I simply said, "Take me to ...
— In the Claws of the German Eagle • Albert Rhys Williams

... wife and daughter!—mere echoes of their lord and master. She had behaved badly, of course; in a few days she supposed the report of her outburst would be all over the place. She did not care. Even for Roger's sake she was not going to cringe to these ...
— Marriage a la mode • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... Taddle, Horrors! Why, I shall be a freshman! If they touch me I'll scream! ah—ha, I'll scream! Scream, and betray my sex? No, that won't do; At Rome I'll have to be a Roman; And, to escape that dread ordeal, I Shall cringe and crawl, and in the presence of A fourth year man step soft and bow, And smile if he but condescend to nod. Oh, yes, I'll do't. In tableaux once I played Uriah Heep, and made the character So "'umble" ...
— Laura Secord, the heroine of 1812. - A Drama. And Other Poems. • Sarah Anne Curzon

... know I am handsomer thus! Your eyes ha' told me so already. And look ye, I can be as soft and tender, as meek and helpless as any puling woman of 'em all, when I will. And if I hate fiercely, so is my love—ha, d'ye blench, fool, d'ye shrink; you thing shaped like a man, must ye cringe at the ...
— Martin Conisby's Vengeance • Jeffery Farnol

... striking that, though in some of her manifestations a bore, she was at her worst less of a bore than they. They were almost always solemn and portentous, and they were for the most part of a deathly respectability. She wasn't necessarily snobbish, unless it was snobbish to want the best. She didn't cringe, she didn't make herself smaller than she was; she took on the contrary a stand of her own and attracted things to herself. Naturally she was possible only in America—only in a country where whole ranges of competition and comparison were absent. The natural history ...
— Pandora • Henry James

... is one of the sort that finds a new religion every few months and is now in the first fast furious throes of her latest, which is some form of psychomania, whereof the high priest is one Beverley, a plausible ringletted charlatan of alcoholic tendencies (Sludge the Medium, without his cringe and snarl), who ekes out his spasmodic visitations of genuine psychic illumination with the most shameless spoof. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, March 29, 1916 • Various

... a slave, when Freedom smiling stands, To strike the gyves from of his fettered hands? Who'd be a slave, and cringe, and bow the knee, And kiss the hand that steals his liberty? Behold the bird that flits from bough to bough; What though at times the wintry blasts may blow,— Happier it feels, half frozen in its nest, Than caged, though fed and fondled and caressed. 'Tis said, 'on Briton's ...
— Yorksher Puddin' - A Collection of the Most Popular Dialect Stories from the - Pen of John Hartley • John Hartley

... and gone! While we look coldly on and see law-shielded ruffians slay The men who fain would win their own! the heroes of to-day! Are we pledged to craven silence? O, fling it to the wind, The parchment wall that bars us from the least of human kind! That makes us cringe, and temporize, and dumbly stand at rest, While Pity's burning flood of words is red-hot ...
— The Duty of Disobedience to the Fugitive Slave Act - Anti-Slavery Tracts No. 9, An Appeal To The Legislators Of Massachusetts • Lydia Maria Child

... Governor imperturbably, "that we must and will get away with it." His emphasis on the plural pronoun caused Archie to cringe. "It strikes me as highly amusing that we have unloaded those bills of Leary's on a good sport like Seebrook. As I locked that stuff in his trunk I got to laughing—really, I did—and a chambermaid roaming the hall must have heard me, for the key rattled ...
— Blacksheep! Blacksheep! • Meredith Nicholson

... I neither want to cringe to the mob, nor be its master; I prefer to go my own way alone . . ." answered ...
— The Comedienne • Wladyslaw Reymont

... Cringe, scrape no more, ye city-fops, Leave off your feasting and fine speeches; Beat up your drums, shut up your shops, The courtiers then will kiss your breeches. Arm'd, tell the Popish Duke that rules, You're free-born subjects, ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Volume II • Theophilus Cibber

... race characteristics, in which they have taken a lively interest of late. We know how it is ourselves, they said; we used to be thin-skinned and self-conscious and sensitive. We used to wince and cringe under English criticism, and try to strike back in a blind fury. We have learned that criticism is good for us, and we are grateful for it from any source. We have learned that English criticism is dictated by love for us, by a warm interest in our intellectual development, just ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner

... Should he write to her again? No, she owed him a letter, and if she loved him, would doubtless answer it as soon as circumstances would permit; and he 'would let that haughty old aristocrat, her father, see that Philip Hayforth, the merchant, had more of the spirit of a man in him than to cringe to the proudest blood in England. And as for Emily, she was his betrothed bride—the same as his wife; and if he was not more to her than any father on earth, she was unworthy of the love he had given her. ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 2, No. 4, March, 1851 • Various

... officer, was what I may call a normal bucko. He hazed for the results rather than for the pleasure of hazing, though I think he did get some satisfaction out of thumping the men. You feel a fine thrill when you see a half dozen huskies cringe away before you with fear in their eyes. I imagine it is the same thrill a wild animal tamer feels as he faces his beasts. I felt this fascinating sensation many times after I had become a mate of ships. Lynch had no mercy on the stiffs of our watch; he hammered the rudiments of seamanship ...
— The Blood Ship • Norman Springer

... believe his house was rotting somewhere near by, though I've never seen it, not having been far enough in that direction. He ran towards me upon the path; his feet, shod in dirty white shoes, twinkled on the dark earth; he pulled himself up, and began to whine and cringe under a tall stove-pipe hat. His dried-up little carcass was swallowed up, totally lost, in a suit of black broadcloth. That was his costume for holidays and ceremonies, and it reminded me that this was the fourth Sunday I had spent in Patusan. ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad

... another, he was not idle; for if his companion bowed to a white person, he would rebuke him, and observe that all men were born equal, and that he was surprised that any one would degrade himself by such conduct,—that he would never cringe to the whites, nor ought any one who had the feelings of a man. When answered, 'We are slaves,' he would sarcastically and indignantly reply, 'You deserve to remain slaves'; and if he were further asked, 'What can we do?' he would remark, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 44, June, 1861 • Various

... there came about a strange mingling of crime and corruption, aestheticism and immorality, yet the Church was never abandoned for an hour. When enlightenment came, people began to doubt the spiritual power of the Papacy. They did not cringe to it so servilely as before. Religion was not violently embraced as in the Middle Ages, but there was no revolt. The Church held the power and was still the patron of art. The painter's subjects extended over nature, the antique, the fable, allegory, history, portraiture; ...
— A Text-Book of the History of Painting • John C. Van Dyke

... power in America. That is the god I mean. The most heartless, depraved monopoly on earth, yet men and governments grovel in the dust at its feet and cringe like dogs ...
— The Daughter of a Republican • Bernie Babcock

... should I mingle in Fashion's full herd? Why crouch to her leaders, or cringe to her rules? Why bend to the proud, or applaud the absurd? Why search for delight, in the ...
— Byron's Poetical Works, Vol. 1 • Byron

... her you were drunk." Kent nodded gravely, and his lips curled as he watched the other cringe. "She called me a liar," he added, with a ...
— Lonesome Land • B. M. Bower

... does withhold its wealth sometimes? Very well then, she can serve God without it, in spite of her rights. If men whine and cringe, or bully and shout, for the jewels with which their forefathers honoured God, she will fling them back again down her altar stairs and worship God in a barn or a catacomb without them. For, though she does not ...
— Paradoxes of Catholicism • Robert Hugh Benson

... one of those who fawn and lie, and cringe like spaniels to those a little higher, and take revenge by tyranny on ...
— Memoirs of the Life of the Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan V1 • Thomas Moore

... feel so, humiliated and angered Granger. Was there not enough of ignominy for him to endure without that? He drew his revolver, took aim at this yellow devil—but could not fire. The beast did not cringe and run away, zigzagging to avoid the bullets, stooping low on its legs, as is the habit of huskies when firearms are pointed at them; it sat there patiently blinking, a little in advance of its four grey comrades, with a ...
— Murder Point - A Tale of Keewatin • Coningsby Dawson

... not looking at her. Something else seemed to have caught his attention. For the moment he had ceased to cringe and implore. ...
— The Way of an Eagle • Ethel M. Dell

... the black forest of Boone's beard, and if Pierre was cold before, he was sick at heart to see the big man cringe before McGurk. ...
— Riders of the Silences • John Frederick

... their friendship. As time went on they welcomed me almost as one of the family; this mark of their esteem was won by my behavior in the matter. In spite of my passionate love, I did nothing that could lower me in my own eyes; I did not cringe, I paid no court to those upon whom my fate depended, before all things I showed myself a man, and not other than I really was. When I was well known to them, my old friend, who was as desirous as I myself that my life of melancholy loneliness should come ...
— The Country Doctor • Honore de Balzac

... be obliged to prostrate his honor and to submit his principles at the levee of some proud favorite, shouldered and thrust aside by every impudent pretender on the very spot where a few days before he saw himself adored,—obliged to cringe to the author of the calamities of his house, and to kiss the hands that are red with his father's blood?—No, Sir, these things are unfit,—they ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. II. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... for nothing, and get it. They want no pecuniary aid, being used to self-help, and liking it best. Stiff in opinion, they know their own minds, and are accustomed to victory. They do not in turn threaten and complain and cringe and curse and fawn. They keep a level course and run on an even keel. They are bad to beat, and can do with much letting alone. They are pious in their way, and talk like Cromwell's Puritans. They abhor ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)

... by admirers, and whose vanity is hourly feasted with all the luxuries of studied praise, is easily persuaded that his influence will be extended beyond his life; that they who cringe in his presence will reverence his memory, and that those who are proud to be numbered among his friends, will endeavour to vindicate his choice ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume IV: The Adventurer; The Idler • Samuel Johnson

... put up with the cruelty of their tutor, who at once took an immense dislike to them on finding that they did not, like the other boys, cringe before him, and that no trashing could extract a cry ...
— The Young Buglers • G.A. Henty

... negro's, had been extended, as it seemed, to his left ear by a savage sword slash which had healed very badly. He had an air of mean, perky intelligence, as of one of low rank and no breeding who had for many years been accustomed to cringe to the great and domineer over smaller fry than himself. Some sort of military rank he had, judging by his stained and frayed but once gaudy jacket. He carried a tuck of unusual length, stretching along his left side from heel to armpit, and a couple of pistols were stuck ...
— The Yeoman Adventurer • George W. Gough

... suffered physical torment before he would have confided all this to any living soul, but the secret thought that was growing more and more in his heart he told to Baree. The dog came into their camps now, but not until the Missioner and Mukoki had gone to bed. He would cringe down near David's feet, lying there motionless, oblivious of the other dogs and showing no inclination to disturb them. He was there on the tenth night, looking steadily at David with his two bloodshot eyes, wondering what it was that his master held in his hands. From ...
— The Courage of Marge O'Doone • James Oliver Curwood

... no joke at all," Lind said, gloomily. "Those Swiss people are craven. What can you expect from a nation of hotel-waiters? They cringe before every bully in Europe; you will find that, if Bismarck insists, the Federal Council will expel Armfeldt from Switzerland directly. No; the only safe refuge nowadays for the reformers, the Protestants the pioneers of Europe, is England; and the English do not know ...
— Sunrise • William Black

... sycophants bend their base knees in the court And servilely cringe round the gate, And barter their honour to earn the support Of the wealthy, the titled, the great; Their guilt piled possessions I loathe, while I scorn The knaves, the vile knaves who possess 'em; I love not to pamper oppression, but mourn For the poor, ...
— From John O'Groats to Land's End • Robert Naylor and John Naylor



Words linked to "Cringe" :   bend, creep, wince, shrink, cower, fawn, funk, squinch, grovel



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