"Mealy-mouthed" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... I had to hasten to fasten my boot, to hurry on again, before they should come near me. I could not bear the way they walked and talked, so crambling and material and mealy-mouthed. ...
— Twilight in Italy • D.H. Lawrence
... hypocritical, jesuitical, pharisaical; tartuffish; Machiavelian; double, double tongued, double faced, double handed, double minded, double hearted, double dealing; Janus faced; smooth- faced, smooth spoken, smooth tongued; plausible; mealy-mouthed; affected &c 855. collusive, collusory; artful &c. (cunning) 702; perfidious &c 940; spurious &c (deceptive) 545; untrue &c 546; falsified &c v.; covinous. Adv. falsely &c adj.; a la tartufe, with a double tongue; silly &c (cunning) 702. Phr. blandae mendacia ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... wouldn't have heeded me, and won't heed me, and must go your own way, I think—And in the parts I least like, I am yet thankful for honest, daring, and original Thought and Speech such as one hardly gets in these mealy-mouthed days. It was very kind of you to send ...
— George Borrow and His Circle - Wherein May Be Found Many Hitherto Unpublished Letters Of - Borrow And His Friends • Clement King Shorter
... man! I've only been to the offices in Conduit Street a few times," said Castlemayne. "The chap you see there is a fellow called Stipp—Mr. James Stipp. A nice, smooth-tongued, mealy-mouthed chap—you know. I say—d'ye think you'll be able to fasten anything on to Markham, or Chestermarke, or whatever his ...
— The Chestermarke Instinct • J. S. Fletcher
... Forget not the prophet that came from Judah many a year ago. How he testified against that golden god, and how Jeroboam's arm was paralyzed when he would have had the prophet slain. Why are we so mealy-mouthed in denouncing these golden-idol men? Is not the worship of money the hidden nourisher of public sin? Could the gin-palace exist but for the worship of Mammon? Could those streets of bad houses in London and other large towns flaunt their shame, ...
— Broken Bread - from an Evangelist's Wallet • Thomas Champness
... We've all been blind about Billy. When does he leave? We must have a reception. Great Gatlings! that job's eight thousand a year! There's been a car-load of lead-pencils worn to stubs figuring on those appointments. Think of it! Our little, wood-sawing, mealy-mouthed Billy! Angel unawares doesn't begin to express it. Elmville is disgraced forever until she lines up in a hurry ...
— Roads of Destiny • O. Henry
... Allaphair had flirted outrageously with Ira Combs the teacher, and in turn Jay got angry, not at her but at the man. So he sent word that he would come down the next Saturday and knock "that mullet-headed, mealy-mouthed, spindle-shanked rat into the middle of next week," and drive him from ...
— In Happy Valley • John Fox
... come to betray the Caesar and to place the destinies of Rome in her hands. It was strange indeed that this mealy-mouthed sycophant should be using those very words which had stood before her eyes like letters of fire, searing her brain ever since she had stood here—half an hour ago—with the grovelling ...
— "Unto Caesar" • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... call a clannishness amongst Englishmen of a certain order which has helped this country through many troubles. You are going to leave behind entirely the companionship of your class. You are going to cast in your lot with the riffraff of politics, the mealy-mouthed anarchist only biding his time, the blatant Bolshevist talking of compromise with his tongue in his cheek, the tub-thumper out to confiscate every one's wealth and start a public house. You won't ...
— Nobody's Man • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... that mealy-mouthed gentleman, who can't (hiccup) swear because he's a (hiccup) lord, did you?' asked Sir Harry, his attention being ...
— Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour • R. S. Surtees
... wish we had a few more of them. I like a well-conducted regiment, but these pasty-faced, shifty-eyed, mealy-mouthed young slouchers from the depot worry me sometimes with their offensive virtue. They don't seem to have backbone enough to do anything but play cards and prowl round the married quarters. I believe I'd forgive that old villain ...
— Life's Handicap • Rudyard Kipling
... ter be," he admitted, frankly, "'kase thar war sech a many o' them mealy-mouthed cusses a-waitin' on 'Genie. The kentry 'peared ter me ter bristle with Luke Todd; he 'minded me o' brumsaidge—everywhar ye seen his yaller head, ez homely an' ...
— 'way Down In Lonesome Cove - 1895 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... o' what we hev ben talkin' on, or I guess the coon 'll be wantin' to jine company, an' I don't wants him, I doesn't. He's a won'erful slimy sort o' cuss, an' since he's ben skeart by Sam Jedfoot's ghostess he hez ben a durned sight too mealy-mouthed fur me!" ...
— The Island Treasure • John Conroy Hutcheson
... extreme. It was almost to be expected that he should use plain words when referring to foes as malignant as Medina and Castro. These two men he accused of deliberately organizing a conspiracy against him;[92] he spoke bluntly of Medina's 'hatred', 'rage', 'trickery', and 'lying';[93] he was not mealy-mouthed in describing Castro's 'malice', 'deceit', 'calumnies', and 'perjury'.[94] Luis de Leon dealt no less faithfully with some members of his own order who were spiteful or cowardly—or both. As early as ...
— Fray Luis de Leon - A Biographical Fragment • James Fitzmaurice-Kelly
... surplices—Tempest is a more pretentious church than ours—and a brace of clergy enter. All through the Confession I gape about with vacant inattention—at the grimy whiteness of the choir; at the back of the organist's head; at the parson, a mealy-mouthed fledgling, who, with his finger on his place in the prayer to prevent his losing it, is taking a stealthy inventory of ...
— Nancy - A Novel • Rhoda Broughton
... then," she sighed dolefully. "I've just plain got to the end of the pile. It's hard, Miss Jane, honest it is, with Pappy cussin' an' drunk, an' barely enough to eat, an' not decent clothes to wear! His mealy-mouthed wife stands for it, but I don't, an' that makes things all the hotter. I'm tired of it! Why, I could have everything I ...
— Sunlight Patch • Credo Fitch Harris
... say, I kept my own counsel, and did not speak of my project even to Sarah. To all appearances I was to be the mere tool in this affair, the unfortunate cat employed to snatch the roast chestnuts out of the fire for the gratification of a mealy-mouthed monkey. ...
— Castles in the Air • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... mealy-mouthed for?' said his wife indignantly. 'Why conno yo say reet out 'at it's a pleeace not fit for ony decent dog to put his head in, an' an ill-mannert daggle-tail of a woman to keep it, as I'd like to sweep ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... of the whole." While Dr Warton, sensibly remarking, "that the character of a fond old dotard, betrayed into disgrace by an unsuitable match, is supported in a lively manner," refrains from making himself ridiculous by mealy-mouthed moralities which on such a subject every person of sense and honesty must despise. Mr Horne keeps foolishly carping at Pope, or "Mr Pope," as he sometimes calls him, throughout his interminable—no, not interminable—his ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol 58, No. 357, July 1845 • Various
... begin right—too mealy-mouthed. Did you hear what he's going to buy? No! I'll tell you when I see you—we've too big an audience right now. Don't it beat all, the time some people have ...
— Purple Springs • Nellie L. McClung
... is different with his language. Philip, I observe regretfully, is profane. I am not mealy-mouthed myself. There are moments of high emotional tension when silence is the worst form of blasphemy. But Philip is profane without discrimination. His supply of unobjectionable adjectives would be insufficient to meet the needs of the ordinary kindergarten conversation. He uses the same ...
— The Patient Observer - And His Friends • Simeon Strunsky
... ULLUS's cheek, if you arsk me! That haitch bizness gives me the 'ump. There isn't a hignerent mug, or a mealy-mouthed mutton-faced pump Who 'as learned 'ow to garsp hout a He-haw! in regular la-di-dah style, But'll look down on "'ARRY the haitchless," and wrinkle his ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 101, December 26, 1891 • Various
... among the friends of the reformed cause there are some for policy and many for gain, and that our adversaries, knowing this, leave no device or stratagem untried to sow sedition among the Lords and Leaders of the Congregation. This very day the Earl of Argyle has received a mealy-mouthed letter from that dissolute papist, the Archbishop of St Andrews, entreating him, with many sweet words, concerning the ancient friendship subsisting between their families, to banish from his protection ...
— Ringan Gilhaize - or The Covenanters • John Galt
... is—is shocked. If I hear you—" He tossed his hands up helplessly. "You're making your daddy so mealy-mouthed, the first bohunk with a grouch will pull his nose. I've got to swear at 'em. If you don't let me tear loose a bit when I'm with you, the air's going to be so blue next time I meet a bohunk that he'll think he's ...
— The Return of Blue Pete • Luke Allan
... their Journeys now, as of Yore, among the Country Churchyards, and hack out from the Headstones the sculptured cognizances of those having no manner of Right to them, the Stone-Masons about Hyde Park Corner would all make Fortunes from the orders that would be given to them for fresh Tombs. Not a mealy-mouthed Burgess now, whose great-grandfather sold stocking hose to my Lord Duke of Northumberland, but sets himself up for a Percy; not a supercilious Cit, whose Uncle married a cast-off waiting-woman from Arundel Castle, but vaunts himself on his alliance ...
— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 2 of 3 • George Augustus Sala
... a wide gesture, and swung to his daughter. "You hear him, the mealy-mouthed prude! Perhaps you'll believe at last that marriage with him would be the ruin of you. He would always be there the inconvenient husband—to mar your every ...
— Scaramouche - A Romance of the French Revolution • Rafael Sabatini
... growled out the old sea-lion, pretending to be angry, albeit he looked pleased at Dad's covert allusion to the Napier motto, which he had always endeavoured to act up to. "I'm sick of false compliments, old shipmate. I've had plenty of them and to spare from those mealy-mouthed, false-hearted, longshore ...
— Crown and Anchor - Under the Pen'ant • John Conroy Hutcheson
... What a mealy-mouthed little snip Lois could be, sometimes. You'd think to hear her that she was better than any of them, and luckier too, with her Joe and the kids. What a laugh! Joe was probably the only guy who'd ever looked at her, and she'd hooked him right out of school, and now with three kids in five years and ...
— The Very Secret Agent • Mari Wolf
... observations Tap realized that his sympathy and would-be friendly overture had been as gall in the mouth of his companion, who, unused to anything save the rugged bluntness of a wild, free life, took the mealy-mouthed sentence as a slight on his intelligence. The storm was averted by Tap inviting him to "have another," and, with delicate humility, taking the burly man's glass up to the bar in order to have it replenished—and also charged against the score of the burly man. Then he discreetly ...
— Colonial Born - A tale of the Queensland bush • G. Firth Scott
... I not justified? Were you not engaged to me? Am I to have you to visit me here, and to risk her insults, perhaps to be told to take myself off and to find accommodation elsewhere, because I am too mealy-mouthed to tell the truth as to the cause of my being here? I am here because you have promised to make me your wife, and, as far as I am concerned, I am not ashamed to have the fact advertised in every newspaper in the town. I told her that I was the promised wife of one Paul Montague, who ...
— The Way We Live Now • Anthony Trollope
... had ascended and no one could track camel-pads or flat rubber soles over bare solid rock, even if given the starting-point. No—he had got to die of thirst, starvation, and vultures, barring miracles of luck—and he had never had any good luck—for luck existed, undoubtedly, in spite of mealy-mouthed platitude-makers and twaddle about everything being pre-arranged and ordained with care and deliberation ...
— Snake and Sword - A Novel • Percival Christopher Wren
... "Well, what you so mealy-mouthed about? You ain't nigh so peart and hop-skippin' as you was when you started. Didn't you get a good welcome to the Mansion? Wasn't Madam to home? Don't squeeze that basket so tight. Eunice won't ...
— The Brass Bound Box • Evelyn Raymond
... said Fanny, jumping over the log, seated upon which she had eaten her dinner; "for I do pity people who are too mealy-mouthed to be honest—pity, or despise them, I cannot ...
— Be Courteous • Mrs. M. H. Maxwell
... imperturbably sucking at his pipe. "After all, that is their chief strength. Make no mistake! They are at work with the red-skins, poisoning them against us. Guy Johnson is savage at the mealy-mouthed way in which they talked at his last council, at Guy Park, and he has already procured orders from London to remove Dominie Kirkland, the missionary who has kept the Oneidas heretofore friendly to us. That ...
— In the Valley • Harold Frederic
... "Don't be mealy-mouthed, Renny; call a spade a spade. By George! young Hiram has gone off and forgotten his—And the ax, too! Perhaps they're left for us. He's a good fellow, is young Hiram. A fool? Of course I'm a fool. That's what I came for, and that's what I'm going to be for the next two weeks. ...
— In the Midst of Alarms • Robert Barr
... made the mealy-mouthed chits sing," cried Ciboule, "we will make them dance to the clatter of stones on ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue |
