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Onus   /ˈoʊnəs/   Listen
Onus

noun
1.
An onerous or difficult concern.  Synonyms: burden, encumbrance, incumbrance, load.  "That's a load off my mind"






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Onus" Quotes from Famous Books



... inter Bussianos et Monsorellum exorta: quorum exercendorum onus in se suscepit Joannes Monlucius Balagnius, . . . ducta in matrimonium occisi Bussii sorore, magni animi foemina quae faces irae maritali subjiciebat: vixque post novennium certis conditionibus jussu regis inter eum et ...
— Bussy D'Ambois and The Revenge of Bussy D'Ambois • George Chapman

... history preserved in the Royal Library must be of inestimable value to the writer on Beethoven,—a value which Marx must fully appreciate, both from his former labors as editor, and his more recent onus as contributor of ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... was innocent—He should have been set free unscathed, with apologies for a mistaken arrest. If he were guilty, of course he ought to receive the death-penalty for the crime of treason. Justice could allow of no middle course. But Pilate is not thinking of Justice. He only wants to escape the onus of killing an innocent man. Then he has Jesus brought forth, bleeding, in agony, His lacerated flesh exposed to the view of that heartless multitude. "Behold the man," says Pilate. "Look at your victim; is not this enough?" If Pilate thought his appeal ad misericordiam would touch those ...
— Men of the Bible; Some Lesser-Known Characters • George Milligan, J. G. Greenhough, Alfred Rowland, Walter F.

... Listen to me attentively. Lend me your ears. The onus of that proof rests on the petitioner. Because a case is undefended, it doesn't for one single shadow of a chance follow that the petitioner's plea is therefore going to be granted. No. The Divorce Court may be cynical, but it's a stickler for proof. The Divorce ...
— If Winter Comes • A.S.M. Hutchinson

... vagueness &c adj.; haze, fog; obscurity &c (darkness) 421; ambiguity &c (double meaning) 520; contingency, dependence, dependency, double contingency, possibility upon a possibility; open question &c (question) 461; onus probandi [Lat.]; blind bargain, pig in a poke, leap in the dark, something or other; needle in a haystack, needle in a bottle of hay; roving commission. precariousness &c adj.; fallibility. V. be uncertain ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget

... suicide. You are right, she did take it herself, and it was a suicide; but who terrified her into this act of self-destruction? Why, the one who had the most reason to fear her testimony, of course. But the proof, you say. Well, sir, this girl left a confession behind her, throwing the onus of the whole crime on a certain party believed to be innocent; this confession was a forged one, known from three facts; first, that the paper upon which it was written was unobtainable by the girl in the place where she was; secondly, that the words ...
— The Leavenworth Case • Anna Katharine Green

... and his change of temper had no significance for me. I can understand it now, however, and I know that he had frightened himself unnecessarily over the baroness's little experiment. It was he who had taken upon himself the onus of introducing the ladies' deputation, and the baroness's object is, of course, clear enough. All she wanted was to make herself favorably known to the general leaders of the party as a well-wisher to The Cause. Whether Brunow knew, then, anything of her ...
— In Direst Peril • David Christie Murray

... himself backward into the dining-room. Realizing that he must take on himself the onus of decision, he gave a quiet ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol 31, No 2, June 1908 • Various

... tending to a similar end. The experience of 1836 will teach them not to make a dead set against doing business, or granting supplies, etc. They will make that a consequence, and if possible force the Government to a dissolution, thus casting the onus of doing no public business on the Government. Again, although not meeting the present House may be considered as an admission of inferiority there, I think this less injurious than that the new Administration should be beaten ...
— The Story of My Life - Being Reminiscences of Sixty Years' Public Service in Canada • Egerton Ryerson

... succeeded in Iphigenie, appeared in the part of Zaire, a bold attempt, and tho' she did it well and with much grace, yet it was evidently too arduous a task for her. The whole onus of this affecting piece rests on the role of Zaire. In the part where naivete was required she succeeded perfectly and her burst: "Mais Orosmane m'aime et j'ai tout oublie" was most happy; but she was too faint and betrayed too ...
— After Waterloo: Reminiscences of European Travel 1815-1819 • Major W. E Frye

... was shame. But guilt better expresses my meaning. I repeat, should the woman prove to be, not the lovely but ignorant girl she appears, but Georgian Ransom, your wife, then upon her must fall the onus of Anitra's disappearance if not of her possible death. No! you must hear me out; the time has come for plain speaking. Your wife had her reasons—we do not know what they were, but they were no common ones—for wishing this intrusive sister out of the way. Anitra, on the contrary, could have ...
— The Chief Legatee • Anna Katharine Green

... and such a matter, she could not visualize him save as a malignant and uncultivated person; and when he tacitly suggested that she was as eager for matrimony as he was, and so put upon her the horrible onus of rejecting him before a second person, she closed her mind and her ears against him. She refused to listen, although her perceptions admitted the trend of his speech. His words droned heavily and monotonously to her as through dull banks of fog. She made up her ...
— Mary, Mary • James Stephens

... you are going to put all the onus of this hideous and cruel misunderstanding on my shoulders, when I explained your expression in charity to all parties, and to help ...
— Two Knapsacks - A Novel of Canadian Summer Life • John Campbell

... him. But how did it come there? you ask. Gentlemen, remember the footprints under the window. Amabel Page brought it. Having seen or perhaps met this old man roaming in or near the Webb cottage during the time she was there herself, she conceived the plan of throwing upon him the onus of the crime she had herself committed, and with a slyness to be expected from one so crafty, stole up to his home, made a hole in the shade hanging over an open window, looked into the room where John sat, saw that he was there ...
— Agatha Webb • Anna Katharine Green

... in manageable shape! If we keep our letters at all we throw them higgledy-piggledy into a box and have done with them; let some one else arrange them when the owner is dead. The some one else comes and finds the fire an easy method of escaping the onus thrown upon him. So on go letters from Tilbrook, Merian, Marmaduke Lawson {364}—just as we throw our money away if the holding on to it involves even very ...
— The Note-Books of Samuel Butler • Samuel Butler

... harp and halo? Austen did not dislike Mr. Flint; the man's rise, his achievements, his affection for his daughter, he remembered. But he was also well aware that Mr. Flint had thrown upon him the onus of the first move in a game which the railroad president was used to playing every day. The dragon was on his home ground and ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... ears, she taxed him with it on the afternoon before her death, and a quarrel ensued, part of which was overheard. On the previous day, the prisoner had purchased strychnine at the village chemist's shop, wearing a disguise by means of which he hoped to throw the onus of the crime upon another man—to wit, Mrs. Inglethorp's husband, of whom he had been bitterly jealous. Luckily for Mr. Inglethorp, he had been able to ...
— The Mysterious Affair at Styles • Agatha Christie

... doubt but that resistance is the remedy whereby governmental encroachment can be prevented; "resistance," he says, "is the ultimate and lawful resource against the violences of power." He points out how real is the guarantee of liberty where the onus of proof in criminal cases is thrown upon the government. He regards with admiration the supremacy of the civil over the military arm, and the skillful way in which, contrary to French experience, it has been found ...
— Political Thought in England from Locke to Bentham • Harold J. Laski

... help for it. If they caught him while feeding, they might have thought him a lower animal and shot him. He couldn't put an onus ...
— Anything You Can Do ... • Gordon Randall Garrett

... any individual in the colony, without any warrant or authority, may take another into custody, on the mere suspicion that he is a convict illegally at large: if it appear to the magistrate that he had a just or probable cause for suspicion, he is justified in doing so. The onus of proving that he is not a convict illegally at large, is thrown upon the suspected person, and if that is not established to the satisfaction of the magistrate, he is liable to be retained in custody, or sent to Sydney to be examined ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19, Issue 547, May 19, 1832 • Various

... them a start, they'll be pretty sure to have a cruise, as they call it, through the town. There, you may meet your man; and can insult him, by giving him a cuff, spitting in his face—anything to put the onus of ...
— The Flag of Distress - A Story of the South Sea • Mayne Reid

... it, and in his sincerity he must make up the insufficiency or remove the inconsistency. This is the only course for honourable men and no man should object. To repeat, it puts an equal burden on all—the onus of justifying the faith that is in them. Life is a divine adventure and he whose faith is finest, firmest and clearest will go farthest. God does not hold his honours for the timid: the man who buried his talent, fearing to lose it, was cast ...
— Principles of Freedom • Terence J. MacSwiney



Words linked to "Onus" :   vexation, encumbrance, fardel, dead weight, imposition, headache, concern, worry, incumbrance, pill



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