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Repugnant   /rɪpˈəgnənt/  /ripˈəgnənt/   Listen
Repugnant

adjective
1.
Offensive to the mind.  Synonyms: abhorrent, detestable, obscene, repulsive.  "The obscene massacre at Wounded Knee" , "Morally repugnant customs" , "Repulsive behavior" , "The most repulsive character in recent novels"






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"Repugnant" Quotes from Famous Books



... kind of fearful pleasure which we can understand from those which operated upon our own fancies in our youth. These prepare the mind for the reception of a thousand fictions concerning ghosts, witches, fairies, apparitions, and a long catalogue of nonsense, equally disgusting and repugnant to reason and common-sense. It is not surprising, then, that poor Alice's mind on that night was filled with phantasms of the most feverish and excited description. As far as she could, however, she concealed ...
— The Evil Eye; Or, The Black Spector - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton

... necessary certain facts which we regard as part of the order of our political nature. We look at territorial expansion, and the admission of new States, as part of a process as natural as it is desirable. To our forefathers the process was novel, and, in some of its features, repugnant. Many of them could not divest themselves of the feeling that the old States ought to receive more consideration than the new; whereas nowadays it would never occur to anyone that Pennsylvania and Georgia ought to stand either above or below ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume Three - The Founding of the Trans-Alleghany Commonwealths, 1784-1790 • Theodore Roosevelt

... humanity, made them prone to an error which there were few judicious preachers to warn them against; and we ought rather to wonder and admire the Divine clemency, which imparted to so rude nations the light of the Gospel, and disposed them to receive a religion so repugnant to their warlike habits, than that they should, at the same time, have adopted many gross superstitions, borrowed from the pagans, or retained numbers of those which had made part of their ...
— Letters On Demonology And Witchcraft • Sir Walter Scott

... given adhesion is in the matter of the national budget. To minds charged with the primary necessity of advance planning, cooerdination, provision of synchronizing parts in organization, the whole notion of our hit-or-miss system is repugnant. A budget system is not the remedy for all administrative ills, but it provides a basis of organization that at least does not paralyze administrative efficiency as our system does today. Through it, the cooerdination of expenditure in ...
— Herbert Hoover - The Man and His Work • Vernon Kellogg

... evil and not good, and it is only by good that evil can be overcome. But if our enemies come upon us, must we not fight? The country wishes peace. Our enemies bring war. Must we submit? We cannot submit. Submission to disgrace is repugnant to the spirit of the nation; death is better than submission. But killing, is it not crime? Is crime better than submission? No; submission is better than crime But is not submission also a crime? At least it is an infringement of the law of the nation's spirit. Then crime must be opposed by ...
— Who Goes There? • Blackwood Ketcham Benson

... habitual exaltations even as if they were sins, he turned to the primal idea of the vileness of this life, and its sole utility in enabling man to gain heaven. Beauty, what was it but temptation? He winced before a conclusion so repugnant to him, but the terrors of the verge on which he had so lately stood were still upon him in all their force, and he ...
— A Mere Accident • George Moore

... she couldn't send them off to the public wards of the hospitals. In the first place half the hospitals wouldn't take them as charity patients simply because she maintained a certain dignity, and in the second place the idea, by education, was so repugnant to her that it never entered her head to try. So she stayed at home and sewed from daylight until she couldn't hold open her eyes at night. That's where you get your true "Song of the Shirt." She not only sewed her fingers to the bone but while doing it she ...
— One Way Out - A Middle-class New-Englander Emigrates to America • William Carleton

... in which they lie across and athwart each other (except where they form a sort of bridge across a spot, in which case they seem to affect a common direction, that, namely, of the bridge itself),—all these characters seem quite repugnant to the notion of their being of a vaporous, a cloudy, or a fluid nature. Nothing remains but to consider them as separate and independent sheets, flakes, or scales, having some sort of solidity. And these flakes, be they what they may, and whatever may be said about the dashing ...
— Industrial Biography - Iron Workers and Tool Makers • Samuel Smiles

... dismissed from every stable he had previously served in, and who swindled and robbed the young gentlemen who employed him without either limit or shame. Although he made them pay him a very high salary—something like eight thousand francs a year—on the plea that it was most repugnant to his feelings to act as a groom, trainer, and jockey at the same time, he regularly every month presented them with fabulous bills from the grain merchant, the veterinary surgeon, and the harness-maker. In addition, he regularly sold Pompier's oats in order to obtain liquor, ...
— Baron Trigault's Vengeance - Volume 2 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau

... preparations, which lasted some days, and that it would prove repugnant to enumerate, the fakir declared himself ready to undergo the ordeal. The Maharajah, the Sikhs chiefs, and Gen. Ventura, assembled near a masonry tomb that had been constructed expressly to receive him. Before their eyes, the fakir closed with wax all the apertures in his body (except his mouth) ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 497, July 11, 1885 • Various

... scandal and protests by his boldness in color and his revolutionary way of seeing Nature, but there was not connected with his name the least offence against the conventions of society. His women were women of the people, picturesque and repugnant; the only flesh that he had shown on his canvases was that of a sweaty laborer or the chubby child. He was an honored master, who cultivated his stupendous ability with the same calm that he showed in ...
— Woman Triumphant - (La Maja Desnuda) • Vicente Blasco Ibanez

... year, I have no hesitation in stating that, although in point of law on the authorities I have referred to, and particularly the case of Felling v. Armitage, the petitioner's suit could not be sustained, yet noticing can be more repugnant to the principles of natural justice than that a landlord should look on at a great expenditure carried on by a tenant from year to year, without warning the tenant of his intention to turn him out of possession. ...
— The Land-War In Ireland (1870) - A History For The Times • James Godkin

... risked our lives, for meager gain. It is true that these slaves would sell at a high price, yet none of us looked upon money, gained in that way, quite as we do upon treasure taken in fair fight. In the one case we traffic with the Spaniards, who are our natural enemies; and it is repugnant, to a Christian man, to hand over even these poor negroes to such willful masters as these; in the other we are fighting for our queen and country. The Spaniards are the natural enemies of all good Protestants, and every ship we see, and every treasure bag we capture, does something ...
— Under Drake's Flag - A Tale of the Spanish Main • G. A. Henty

... Mr. Gryce that this neglect of religious observances was repugnant to her early traditions, and that during her visits to Bellomont she regularly accompanied Muriel and Hilda to church. This tallied with the assurance, also confidentially imparted, that, never having played bridge before, she had been "dragged ...
— House of Mirth • Edith Wharton

... found in the fact that, excepting the pious, whose hearts are governed by the Christian law of reciprocity between man and man, and the wise, whose minds have looked far into the relations and tendencies of things, none can be found to lift their voices against a system so utterly repugnant to the feelings of unsophisticated humanity—a system which permits all the atrocities of the domestic slave trade—which permits the father to sell his children as he would his cattle—a system which consigns one half of the community to ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon

... institutions cannot subsist without laying down the inequality of men as a fundamental principle, as a part and parcel of the legislation, affecting the condition of the human family as much as it affects that of society; but these are things so repugnant to natural equity that they can only be extorted from men ...
— Democracy In America, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alexis de Tocqueville

... However repugnant this plan might be, and Edmund felt all its hideousness, he felt every moment more and more convinced that it was the only safe way. He had suffered too much already to venture willingly back into the torture-chamber from which he had just escaped, even if he could safely have regained ...
— Heiress of Haddon • William E. Doubleday

... those boys who throw their hearts into everything they take in hand, and although soldiering as a profession was repugnant to him, he made such progress in the O.T.C. that he quite distinguished himself. Indeed, he did so well, that Captain Pringle, with whom he became very friendly, urged him ...
— All for a Scrap of Paper - A Romance of the Present War • Joseph Hocking

... amused him they had no charm for him—most of all, that he could not imagine himself tied to any one of them for life without conceiving the situation horrible in the extreme. To his independent nature the idea of such ties was repugnant: he knew himself too courteous to break through the civilities of life with a wife he did not love; but he knew also that in marrying a woman who was indifferent to him, he would be engaging to play a part for life in the most ...
— Saracinesca • F. Marion Crawford

... Muehler, a wealthy young German merchant, and was to be married in the course of a year. Some of M. Emanuel's relations and connections would, indeed, it seems, have liked him to marry her, with a view to securing her fortune in the family; but to himself the scheme was repugnant, and the ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte

... man, looking paler even than his wont; "not but that I have had opportunities, but duelling is repugnant to my principles. The idea of shedding blood shocks me; it is a barbarous custom, a monstrous ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 379, May, 1847 • Various

... write, were works of time. Marian's feelings were seldom freely expressed even to those whom she loved best, and to write down expressions of grief, affection, or gratitude, as a matter of course, was positively repugnant to her. ...
— The Two Guardians • Charlotte Mary Yonge

... verbatim in the letter to Mr. DeLuc, printed in the Philosophical Transactions), being dated April 26th. In enclosing it, Mr. Watt adds, "As to myself, the more I consider what I have said, I am the more satisfied with it, as I find none of the facts repugnant." ...
— James Watt • Andrew Carnegie

... solution of the enigma respecting the Catstane. The idea, however, that it was possible for a monument to a historic Saxon leader to be found in Scotland of a date antecedent to the advent of Hengist and Horsa to the shores of Kent, was a notion so repugnant to many minds, that, very naturally, various arguments have been adduced against it, while some high authorities have declared in favour of it. In this communication I propose to notice briefly some of the leading arguments that ...
— Archaeological Essays, Vol. 1 • James Y. Simpson

... worst not wholly uncongenial. His habit (a certain most respected professor in a northern university may recognise the words) of "getting into logical coaches and letting himself be carried on without minding where he is going" is anything but repugnant to brisk minds of seventeen. They are quite able to comprehend the great if mannered beauty of his finest style—the style, to quote his own words once more, as of "an elaborate and pompous sunset." Such a schoolmaster to bring youths of promise, not merely to good literature but to the best, ...
— Essays in English Literature, 1780-1860 • George Saintsbury

... step was as repugnant to Madame Bretton as to Pierre she at least made light of it. They must all live, she cheerily explained, and living in America was a far different problem from what it had been in the green valley of Bellerivre. And after all they were but doing what many another household ...
— The Story of Silk • Sara Ware Bassett

... pontiff himself, and all the terrors of the Church were at thy command, thou shouldst not escape my vengeance, thou daring priest! To the Furca!—his offence is repugnant to my nostrils—'tis ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby

... la double mission, resumant le double caractere de l'humanite! Nous perdrons la femme, et nous n'aurons pas l'homme. Voila ce qui nous arrivera. On nous donnera ce quelque chose de monstreux, cet etre repugnant, qui deja parait a notre horizon."—LE COMTE A. ...
— Sex in Education - or, A Fair Chance for Girls • Edward H. Clarke

... George of Anhalt, but chose Nicholas von Amsdorf—a man of better promise, not, indeed, solely from his theological principles, but as being likely to be more dependent on his territorial sovereign, though perhaps, as an unmarried man and a member of the nobility, less repugnant than any other Protestant theologian to the Catholics. On January 18, 1542, the Elector brought him in solemn state to Naumburg before the ...
— Life of Luther • Julius Koestlin

... obliged to cover up his identity by assuming another name, Ulchester, after vainly appealing to his father for help on the plea that he was now honourably married and settled down, turned again to the stage, and, repugnant though such a thing was to the delicately-nurtured woman he had married, compelled Zuilika to become his assistant and to go on the boards with him. That is how the afterwards well-known music-hall 'team' of 'Zyco and the Caliph's Daughter' ...
— Cleek: the Man of the Forty Faces • Thomas W. Hanshew

... lies for its wilful destruction (Wharton and Stille, p. 861). "Where there has been as yet no judicial settlement of the immediate question, it may be reasonably contended that to make the criminality of the offence depend upon the fact of quickening is as repugnant to sound morals as it is to enlightened physiology" (ib.). "That it is inconsistent with the analogies of the law is shown by the fact that an infant, born even at the extreme limit of gestation after ...
— Moral Principles and Medical Practice - The Basis of Medical Jurisprudence • Charles Coppens

... time, and he had somehow come to accept the general opinion unquestioningly, that she would accept Carthew when he proposed. He had been prepared to face the alternative of either suffering her to marry a scoundrel, or of taking a step more repugnant to him, which would probably end by an entire breach of his friendship with the Greendales, that of telling them this story. He was therefore delighted to find that the difficulty had been solved by Bertha herself without his ...
— The Queen's Cup • G. A. Henty

... hard and unkind husband to her, which he had not been, but merely a very self-absorbed and dominant one, while the one person who could make her quite happy was his despised son. Michael's person, Michael's tastes, Michael's whole presence and character were repugnant to him, and yet Michael had the power which, to do Lord Ashbridge justice, he would have given much to be possessed of himself, of bringing comfort and serenity to ...
— Michael • E. F. Benson

... think so now, but let me reason you into seeing the falsity of your thought,—for I do not wish to force or impel you to do a thing repugnant to your reason as well as to your feelings. To begin with, you do ...
— Other Things Being Equal • Emma Wolf

... impossible to conceive, nor repugnant to reason, that there may be many species of spirits, as much separated and diversified one from another by distinct properties whereof we have no ideas, as the species of sensible things are distinguished one from another by qualities which we know and observe in them. That there should ...
— An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding, Volume II. - MDCXC, Based on the 2nd Edition, Books III. and IV. (of 4) • John Locke

... was without salt. One or two of the radiances glanced at him with inviting eyes, but no, he dared not face it. He grew gloomy, gloomier. He thought angrily: "All this is not for me. I'm a middle-aged fool, and I've known it all along." Life lost its savour and became repugnant. Fatigue punished him, and simultaneously reduced two hundred and fifty thousand pounds to the value of about fourpence. It was Eve who ...
— Mr. Prohack • E. Arnold Bennett

... effigy. But their popularity is not limited to the narrow bounds of an island; there are other countries where their measures, and above all, their conduct to the Catholics, must render them preeminently popular. If they are beloved here, in France they must be adored. There is no measure more repugnant to the designs and feelings of Bonaparte than Catholic emancipation; no line of conduct more propitious to his projects, than that which has been pursued, is pursuing, and, I fear, will be pursued, towards Ireland. What is England without Ireland, and what is Ireland ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. 6 (of 6) - With his Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore

... submit to the hateful endearments of a man you don't love or care for? How wrong to yourself, how infinitely more wrong to your still unborn and unbegotten children! Would you consent to become the mother of sons and daughters by a man whose whole character is utterly repugnant to you? Nature has given us this divine instinct of love within, to tell us with what persons we should spontaneously unite: will you fly in her face and unite with a man whom you feel and know to be wholly unworthy of you? With us, ...
— The British Barbarians • Grant Allen

... believe that each being is an immortal spirit, hampered by contact with mortal laws, and I believe that consciousness and emotion are something superior even to chemistry. But to use emotion to silence people would be entirely repugnant to me, and equally to Maud. She isn't the sort of woman who would be content if you only just said you believed ...
— Watersprings • Arthur Christopher Benson

... letter, almost hostile in its tone, from her sister-confederates, of which the following are the essential contents: "It cannot be concealed from you, that for a good while there has been much talk of a disputation. Transactions of this sort have not at all been displeasing and repugnant to your feelings heretofore. Well! Now we are to act for a final restoration of peace. Require Zwingli and his associates to appear here along with your deputies, and thus show yourselves as those, who would willingly suffer discord, ill-will and disturbance ...
— The Life and Times of Ulric Zwingli • Johann Hottinger

... Expressions, Also All Metaphoricall Speeches, Tending To The Stirring Up Of Passion, (because such reasoning, and such expressions, are usefull onely to deceive, or to lead him we Counsell towards other ends than his own) Are Repugnant To The Office ...
— Leviathan • Thomas Hobbes

... disguise from myself that she is very ill. If she awakes to a renewal of the same anguish, I dare not contemplate the consequences. You know that I do not love you, Mr. Barclay. I make no pretension to a change in my feelings; repugnant as it must be to a heart of sensibility, I must view this transaction as a matter of bargain and sale. I will accept your late offer, to save my mother from further suffering, and to gain a home ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 4 October 1848 • Various

... on his return from Troy. In the second, Orestes avenges his father by killing his mother: facto pius et sceleratus eodem. This deed, although enjoined by the most powerful motives, is, however, repugnant to the natural and moral order of things. Orestes, as a prince, was, it is true, called upon to exercise justice, even on the members of his own family; but we behold him here under the necessity of stealing in disguise into the dwelling of the ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art - and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel trans John Black

... turning white as marble, she begged her cousin to go with her. But 'Lena refused, soothing the agitated girl, and begging her to be calm. "You've only to be decided," said she, "and it will soon be over. Captain Atherton, I am sure, will not insist when he sees how repugnant to your feelings ...
— 'Lena Rivers • Mary J. Holmes

... secretary of state; and the herald's trumpet for the tilt was sounded by the Virginia assembly, in the adoption of a resolution, declaring so much of the late act of Congress as provided for the assumption of the state debts "repugnant to the constitution of the United States," and "the exercise of a power not expressly granted to the general government." That clause of the act for funding the continental debt, which restrained the government from redeeming at pleasure any part of that debt, ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing

... these occasions that he was hardly up to his office, and that this solitary member of his flock was not disposed to yield herself to his guidance. He was ready to pity her if she would allow herself to be pitied; but any expression of sympathy seemed repugnant to her. Any one so utterly lonely, so absolutely without interest in existence, he had never seen or thought to see; and yet he could not bring himself to like her, or to say more than the mere commonplace utterances ...
— Not Like Other Girls • Rosa N. Carey

... yet,"—i.e., under the sixth trumpet, was the coming of the kingdom of GOD—the fifth universal empire; that at a period anterior to the time when it might rationally be expected, it would be proclaimed in a form repugnant to the teachings of the prophets; and that when thus heralded, it would be met by the party uttering the heaven-inspired truths, with the denial that the time had arrived, and by arguments to show its true nature and epoch, under the ...
— A Brief Commentary on the Apocalypse • Sylvester Bliss

... associates. Under this impression she consulted Lord John Russell, who advised her on what he understood to be the facts. On his advice the Queen stated in reply, that she could not "consent to a course which she conceives to be contrary to usage, and is repugnant to her feelings." Sir Robert Peel held firm to his stipulation, and the chance of his then forming a Ministry was at an end. Lord Melbourne and his colleagues had to be recalled, and at a Cabinet meeting they adopted a minute declaring it "reasonable, ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen V.1. • Sarah Tytler

... to it the power of life and death over human souls. Perhaps you do not go so far, but if you make the claim at all you must make it in its entirety. There is an idea of commercialism, of monopoly in that conception which is utterly repugnant to any one who tries to approach the subject with a fresh mind, and from an ideal point of view. And religion ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... England little respect and less attention has been paid to the expounders of democracy and their constructive theories of popular government. The notion that philosophers are the right persons to manage affairs of state and hold the reins of Government has always been repugnant to the English people, and, with us, to call a man "a political theorist" is to contemn him. The English have not moved towards democracy with any conscious desire for that particular form of government, and no vision of a perfect State or ...
— The Rise of the Democracy • Joseph Clayton

... companions to the teacher, his mother and his wife being the first female disciples, and his father the first lay devotee. It should be noticed in passing that the idea of a priesthood with mystical powers is altogether repugnant to Buddhism; every one's salvation is entirely dependent on the modification or growth of his own inner nature, resulting from his own exertions. The life of a recluse is held to be the most conducive to that state of sweet serenity at which the most ardent disciples aim; but that ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 3 - "Brescia" to "Bulgaria" • Various

... chateau. The elevation of the road giving us fair protection from the enemy's shots, we were able, by stringing a number of boards together and making rafts, to indulge in bathing; until the water became so dirty from the earth dislodged from its banks by the shells that it was repugnant for us to indulge in ablutions in it any longer—none of us having been ordered mud bath treatment ...
— A Soldier's Sketches Under Fire • Harold Harvey

... injurious prejudice was discarded, and the truth recognised, that while marriage looks to offspring as its natural sequence, there should be inculcated such a thing as marital continence, and that excess here as elsewhere is repugnant to morality, and is visited by the laws of physiology with certain and severe punishment on ...
— The Physical Life of Woman: - Advice to the Maiden, Wife and Mother • Dr. George H Napheys

... works, whether Mahayanist literature or the Hindu Puranas and Epics, chiefly in their moderation. They may be classified under several heads. Many of them are mere embroidery or embellishment due to poetical exuberance, esteemed appropriate in those generous climates though repugnant to our chilly tastes. In every country poetry is allowed to overstep the prosaic borders of fact without criticism. When an English ...
— Hinduism and Buddhism, Vol I. (of 3) - An Historical Sketch • Charles Eliot

... glad to hear you say so, Colonel; for it would be most repugnant to me, and painful to my staff of assistants, and for my pupils, I may add. There are the servants too, and the publicity in the town, where I am afraid the matter is too much talked about already. You think, then, that we may ...
— Glyn Severn's Schooldays • George Manville Fenn

... privilege, as well as our duty, not only to feed the hungry stomach that resides in a rascal, having pity for its sorrow and its need, but to do it gladly, gratefully, in recognition of its sturdy and loyal maintenance of its purity and innocence in the midst of temptation and in company so repugnant to its better feelings. ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... this transaction Captain Bligh exerted himself to the utmost to reduce the people to a sense of their duty by haranguing and expostulating with them, which caused me to assume a degree of ferocity quite repugnant to my feelings, as I dreaded the effect which his remonstrances might produce. Hence I several times threatened him with instant death unless he desisted; but my menaces were all in vain. He continued to harangue ...
— The Naval Pioneers of Australia • Louis Becke and Walter Jeffery

... property and immunities under the protection of general rules which govern society." That society can never make new rules for the better protection of life, liberty, and property and immunities, is a doctrine as repugnant to reason as it is to social progress. It is equally repugnant to the principle of interpretation laid down by the Supreme Court of the United States: "The law is perfectly well settled that the first ten amendments to the Constitution, commonly known as the Bill of ...
— The Making of Arguments • J. H. Gardiner

... the Cartesians, must be acquired, like that about body, or the extended substance, within the bounds of their province, and by the means they employ, particular experiments and observations. Nothing can be true of mind, any more than of body, that is repugnant to these; and an intellectual hypothesis which is not supported by the intellectual phenomena is at least as ridiculous as a corporeal hypothesis which is not supported by ...
— Letters to Sir William Windham and Mr. Pope • Lord Bolingbroke

... services. It is entirely repugnant to the feeling of humanity to regard a man's person in its entirety as an instrument intended to satisfy the wants of another.(66) Yet this happens wherever slavery exists; in its coarsest form, in ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • William Roscher

... only so long as they thought it their interest. And though he did his utmost to keep up strict discipline, he was obliged to humour them more than he would have been justified in doing under other circumstances. Though he might have used the lash,—very common in those days,—to flog men was repugnant to his feelings, and he preferred trying to keep them in order by kindness. Unhappily, many of them were of too brutal a nature to understand his object, so they fancied that he treated them as he did from timidity. Old Jacob Shobbrok urged ...
— The South Sea Whaler • W.H.G. Kingston

... this unexpected visit of Phillip's, and the feeling that grew between us as I nursed him well and strong again, that brought it about that I told Kenneth Moore, who had become so repugnant to me that I could not bear to see him or hear him speak, that I wanted to be released from the promise he had wrung from me that night ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 26, February 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various

... lay aside theirs, as it is not permitted them to carry this ensign of authority during the continuance of the dictator in office, to whom all the toquis apo-ulmens and ulmens take the oath of obedience. Even the people, who during peace are exceedingly repugnant to subordination, are now entirely submissive to the commands of the military dictator. Yet he has not the power of putting any one to death, without the consent of his principal officers; but as all these are of his appointment, his orders are next ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 5 • Robert Kerr

... friars, his companion, or somebody else, I know not; for the inquisitors never tell the names of informers to the Counsellors, nor the names of the witnesses, lest they should except against them. It is to be observed, that all who hear any proposition that appears to them repugnant to, or inconsistent with the doctrines of holy mother church, are bound to reveal it to the Inquisitor, and also to discover the person by whom it was uttered; and, in this affair no regard is to be had to any ties, however sacred. ...
— Life in the Grey Nunnery at Montreal • Sarah J Richardson

... profession; the word "clergyman" in land grants to signify clergy; felons from other Provinces to be apprehended, and the trade between the United States and the Province to be temporarily provided for, by the suspension of an Act repugnant to the free intercourse with the United States, established by treaty of 1794. Several amendments to Acts and other Acts were passed, when the Session was ...
— The Rise of Canada, from Barbarism to Wealth and Civilisation - Volume 1 • Charles Roger

... we have been careful not to call a law, was pronounced by the National Council to be "not only repugnant to Christian principles, but also opposed to the civil rights guaranteed by our Constitution," and the Association was called to persistently resist it with ...
— The American Missionary — Volume 50, No. 05, May, 1896 • Various

... why one IDEA may suggest another 26 This applied to confusion and distance 27 Thirrdly, the straining of the eye 28 The occasions which suggest distance have in their own nature no relation to it 29 A difficult case proposed by Dr. Barrow as repugnant to all the known theories 30 This case contradicts a received principle in catoptrics 31 It is shown to agree with the principles we have laid down 32 This phenomenon illustrated 33 It confirms the truth of the principle whereby it is explained 34 Vision ...
— An Essay Towards a New Theory of Vision • George Berkeley

... a little place he knew and loved. He could no longer stand the alien environment around him; it was repugnant, repelling. All he could think of was a little room, a familiar room, a beloved room. He knew the cracks in its ceiling, the feel of the varnish on the homely little desk, the touch of the worn carpet against his feet, the very smell of the air itself. ...
— What The Left Hand Was Doing • Gordon Randall Garrett

... early life was somewhat repugnant to one of his plain, outspoken nature; yet, with all that, he was forcibly impressed by her sweet, pure and ...
— The Witch of Salem - or Credulity Run Mad • John R. Musick

... we learned things concerning the unhappy creature that took away our appetites, leaving in our mouths the bitter taste of fruit cut with a steel knife. And a whole strange, hateful, repugnant, deplorable existence was revealed to us. The notes she signed, the debts she has left behind her at all the dealers, have the most unforeseen, the most amazing, the most incredible basis. She kept ...
— Germinie Lacerteux • Edmond and Jules de Goncourt

... Baymouth, which would carry him some miles out of the direct road to Washington, and consume several hours of that time of which every moment was now so precious. But to leave the country without saying farewell to the friends of his infancy was repugnant to every good feeling of his heart. He did not hesitate long. He turned his horse's head towards Baymouth and put him into a gallop. The horse was fresh, and Ishmael thought he would ride fast ...
— Self-Raised • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth

... in the Antwerp procession; but both are infinitely removed from the degradation of emotion produced by an orgy of superstition such as that depicted in Ostendorfer's print, which is truly nearer akin to the scenes that occasionally occur in Salvation Army or Methodist revivals, and is even more repugnant to the spirit of the Renascence than to that of the Reformation as Luther and Duerer conceived of it. It is well to remind ourselves, by reading such a passage and by gazing at Duerer's Virgins enthroned and crowned with stars, that the attitude of later Protestants in regard to the ...
— Albert Durer • T. Sturge Moore

... power. The theatrical profession was, however, utterly distasteful to me, though acting itself, that is to say, dramatic personation, was not; and every detail of my future vocation, from the preparations behind the scenes to the representations before the curtain, was more or less repugnant to me. Nor did custom ever render this aversion less; and liking my work so little, and being so devoid of enthusiasm, respect, or love for it, it is wonderful to me that I ever achieved any success ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble

... to be driven to take any course repugnant to your heart, Mrs. Irwin. And who is there who would dare ...
— The Coming Conquest of England • August Niemann

... inharmonious, conflicting, inapposite, irreconcilable, contradictory, inappropriate, mismatched, contrary, incommensurable, mismated, discordant, incompatible, repugnant, discrepant, inconsistent, unsuitable. ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald

... momentarily expecting two blows, delivered simultaneously by both hands, to expel the air from the ruddy globe of his face. At other times these redoubtable personages tested the strength of their arms upon Magdalena's pate, which was bare with the baldness of repugnant diseases, and they would howl with laughter at the damage done to their fists by the protuberances of the hard skull. The bugler lent himself to these tortures with the humility of a whipped dog, and found a certain revenge in repeating, ...
— Luna Benamor • Vicente Blasco Ibanez

... inconceivable to the human mind? You are the blasphemers, when you imagine that a being, perfect according to you, could be guilty of such cruelty towards creatures whom he has made out of nothing. Confess, your ignorance of a creating God; and cease meddling with mysteries, which are repugnant to ...
— Good Sense - 1772 • Paul Henri Thiry, Baron D'Holbach

... city of New York, the said acts of the legislature of the State of New York to the contrary notwithstanding. At the hearing, the Chancellor perpetuated the injunction, being of the opinion that the said acts were not repugnant to the Constitution and laws of the United States, and were valid. This decree was affirmed in the Court for the Trial of Impeachments and Correction of Errors, which is the highest court of law and equity in the ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster

... distinctions of caste, they would seek in vain through the laws and institutions of Massachusetts for any recognition of their prejudice. He deplored the fact that they had attempted to foist into the legal arrangements of the land a principle utterly repugnant to the State constitution, and that what the sovereignty of the constitution dared not attempt a school committee accomplished. To Phillips it seemed crassly inconsistent to say that races permitted to intermarry should be debarred by Mr. Chandler's "sapient ...
— The Education Of The Negro Prior To 1861 • Carter Godwin Woodson

... to do with some of them; he would carry out a pretty ingenious thought which would set him more at ease in accounting for the absence of his ring to Romola, and would also serve him as a means of guarding her mind from the recurrence of those monkish fancies which were especially repugnant to him; and with this thought in his mind, he went to the Via Gualfonda to find Piero di Cosimo, the artist who at that time was pre-eminent in the fantastic mythological design which Tito's ...
— Romola • George Eliot

... Colonial period the towns were little republics, with the Bible for their foundation, and their schools were established for general instruction in that book. The exclusion of the Bible from those early schools would have been repugnant to their founders. They regarded the Bible not merely as an authoritative book in all matters of conscience, but as the charter of their liberty and their guide to ...
— The Choctaw Freedmen - and The Story of Oak Hill Industrial Academy • Robert Elliott Flickinger

... quarrel easily about money matters; dislikes asking too frequently even for payment of his just debts, and will often give them up altogether rather than quarrel with his debtor. Practical joking is utterly repugnant to his disposition; for he is particularly sensitive to breaches of etiquette, or any interference with the personal liberty of himself or another. As an example, I may mention that I have often found it very difficult to get one Malay servant to waken another. He will call as loud ...
— The Malay Archipelago - Volume II. (of II.) • Alfred Russel Wallace

... personality, legend, event, or rite. Thus, Buddha represents the tendencies towards pity and resignation, summing up the aspirations for final rest. On the other hand, abstract ideas, pure concepts, being repugnant to the mystic's nature, it is also necessary that they take on images through which they may be seen—e.g., the relations between God and man, in the various forms of communion; the idea of divine protection in incarnations, mediators, etc. But the images made use of are not dry and colorless ...
— Essay on the Creative Imagination • Th. Ribot

... a kind of remorse which sought relief in the performance of the most difficult and repugnant tasks. He thought he could understand how, in her bitter repentance for her conduct toward her mother, Nest had taken in the first helpless creature that came seeking shelter in her name. It was not what he would have chosen, ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 8, January, 1851 • Various

... the country. If I had been injured in the performance of duty, I would have no scruples in accepting support during an enforced idleness, but this disability arose from no fault of the Government, and the thought of accepting aid under such circumstances is too repugnant." ...
— Philip Dru: Administrator • Edward Mandell House

... or insect pests; they give not only an abundance of fruit but on arbors and trellises are much prized for their shade and beauty. The fruit, to a palate accustomed to other grapes, is not very acceptable, having a musky flavor and a somewhat repugnant odor, which, however, with familiarity becomes quite agreeable. The pulp is sweet and juicy but is lacking in sprightliness. The grapes are not suitable for the market since the berries drop from the bunch in ripening and ...
— Manual of American Grape-Growing • U. P. Hedrick

... instances, perhaps even also the capacity of devotion. And let him,—if, after thus dealing with his own heart, he can say that his knowledge has indeed been fruitful to him,—yet consider how many there are who have been forced by the inevitable laws of modern education into toil utterly repugnant to their natures, and that in the extreme, until the whole strength of the young soul was sapped away; and then pronounce with fearfulness how far, and in how many senses, it may indeed be true that the wisdom of this world is foolishness ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume III (of 3) • John Ruskin

... scripture standard, "Be not unequally yoked, together with unbelievers." It is even desirable that husband and wife belong to the same branch of the church, that they may walk together on the sabbath to the house of God. There is indeed something repugnant to the feelings of a Christian to see the husband go in one direction to worship, and the wife in another. They cannot be thus divided, without serious injury to the religious interests of their family, as well as of their own souls. It is impossible for them to train up ...
— The Christian Home • Samuel Philips

... lion, not a man, who slaughters wide, In strength of rage, and impotence of pride; Who hastes to murder with a savage joy, Invades around, and breathes but to destroy! Shame is not of his soul; nor understood, The greatest evil and the greatest good. Still for one loss he rages unresign'd, Repugnant to the lot of all mankind; To lose a friend, a brother, or a son, Heaven dooms each mortal, and its will is done: Awhile they sorrow, then dismiss their care; Fate gives the wound, and man is born to bear. But this insatiate, the commission given By fate exceeds, ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer

... express'd a warm Zeal on this Subject, and declar'd his generous Intention, if it were in his Power, to cleanse these polluted Places, and not to suffer a Comedy to be presented but what had past a severe Examination, and where all things which might shock a modest Ear, or be look'd on as repugnant to ...
— Essay upon Wit • Sir Richard Blackmore

... have felt that the future you have designed for me is too narrow—too selfish. With my Master's Call sounding in my ears, the thought of devoting my life to any business, however high its position in the eyes of the world, is intolerably repugnant. ...
— Conversion of a High Priest into a Christian Worker • Meletios Golden

... he, "I agree with you! 'Tis certainly a humiliation not to be wished or defended: it is, indeed, a mere ceremony, a mere formality; but it is a mortifying one, and so obsolete, so unlike the practices of the times, so repugnant from a gentleman to a gentleman, that I myself looked another way: it hurt me, and I wished it dispensed ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madam D'Arblay Volume 2 • Madame D'Arblay

... any way. I have no space for indulging in a dissertation on the value of methodical study and arrangement in the extension of our knowledge, as opposed to the promiscuous mingling of different kinds of facts, which is often required in practice, but repugnant to the increase of knowledge. If you want to improve our acquaintance with the sense of touch, you accumulate and methodize all the experiences relating to touch; you compare them, see whether they are consistent or inconsistent, select the good, reject the bad, improve the statement of ...
— Practical Essays • Alexander Bain

... The repugnant idea of succeeding to Evelyn in his affections had stifled the very germs of coquetry, and my manner to him was unmistakable; nor was it without evident dissatisfaction that Mr. Basil Bainrothe surveyed the ruin ...
— Miriam Monfort - A Novel • Catherine A. Warfield

... garden-house. Opium is produced, which is pounded in a brass vessel and mixed with water; it is then strained into a dish with a spout, from which it is poured into the chief's hand. One after the other the guests now come up, each protesting that kusumba is wholly repugnant to his taste and very injurious to his health, but after a little pressing first one and then another touches the chief's hand in two or three places, muttering the names of Deos (gods), friends or others, and drains the draught. Each after drinking washes the chief's ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume IV of IV - Kumhar-Yemkala • R.V. Russell

... for all grace, takes pleasure in spiritual purity; therefore he can so much more easily resist fleshly impurity: and in such faith the Spirit tells him of a certainty how he shall avoid evil thoughts and everything that is repugnant to chastity. For as the faith in divine favor lives without ceasing and works in all works, so it also does not cease its admonitions in all things that are pleasing to God or displease Him; as St. John says in his Epistle: "Ye need not that any man teach you: for the divine anointing, ...
— A Treatise on Good Works • Dr. Martin Luther

... prior attachment and throwing herself upon his generosity for a release. When, however, on the following day, he renewed his addresses, she shrunk from the adoption of the plan she had formed. There was something so repugnant to her just pride, in laying open the secret of her heart to such a man as Morano, and in suing to him for compassion, that she impatiently rejected this design and wondered, that she could have paused upon it for a moment. ...
— The Mysteries of Udolpho • Ann Radcliffe

... the words. Courting in such a businesslike aspect as it evidently wore to the speaker was the last thing he was thinking of. He was going to walk with her, perhaps kiss her; but "courting" was too coolly purposeful to be anything but repugnant to his ideas. The door was opened and he entered, just as Arabella came ...
— Jude the Obscure • Thomas Hardy

... 'absurdities of orthodox religious beliefs,' has done more toward shaking faith in many church doctrines than any man of this age'? And, after all, is not his doctrine a sane one? He says, in effect: 'I can not believe these things. My reason revolts at them. They are repugnant to my intellect. I can not believe that a just God will punish one of His creatures for an honest opinion.' He denies that there is such a God as the churches hold out to us. He denies that the world was created in six days; that man was created in the manner ...
— Out of Doors—California and Oregon • J. A. Graves

... being impressed with the opinion that there must exist some latent cause of a peculiar nature to induce a commander who had heretofore distinguished himself for a scrupulous regard to the claims of honorable warfare,—to induce him to commit an act so repugnant to sound policy, so abhorrent to his nature, so flagrant an outrage on humanity. The General, we understand, would not sanction, nor did he absolutely prohibit, a flag being sent. They, therefore, on their own responsibility, sent ...
— The Defence of Stonington (Connecticut) Against a British Squadron, August 9th to 12th, 1814 • J. Hammond Trumbull

... under the reign of Trajan, the younger Pliny was intrusted by his friend and master with the government of Bithynia and Pontus. He soon found himself at a loss to determine by what rule of justice or of law he should direct his conduct in the execution of an office the most repugnant to his humanity. Pliny had never assisted at any judicial proceedings against the Christians, with whose lame alone he seems to be acquainted; and he was totally uninformed with regard to the nature of their guilt, the method of their conviction, ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon

... not like speech-making, he showed from the beginning that he meant to master the repugnant art. To read speeches, as he did in the early days of the tour, was not good enough. He schooled himself steadily to deliver them without manuscript, so that by the end of the trip he was able to ...
— Westward with the Prince of Wales • W. Douglas Newton

... doctrine which formed part of the initiation into the mysteries.[3] And Vanini—whom his contemporaries burned, finding that an easier task than to confute him—puts the same thing in a very forcible way. Man, he says, is so full of every kind of misery that, were it not repugnant to the Christian religion, I should venture to affirm that if evil spirits exist at all, they have posed into human form and are now atoning for their crimes.[4] And true Christianity—using the word in ...
— The Essays of Arthur Schopenhauer; Studies in Pessimism • Arthur Schopenhauer

... The principle is precisely the same as it regards those whose brains have been vitiated by some noxious agency. To make them morally responsible in an equal degree with men more happily endowed would be repugnant to every idea of right and justice. But within the range of their capacity, whatever it may be, they are free, and accountable for the use of their liberty. True, there is often difficulty in making these distinctions, even where the necessity for it is the greatest; ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various

... Fatherland, constitute a striking illustration of his methods in statecraft. He was fairly entitled to say, "Ego qui feci." He had achieved his aim in defiance of the nation. The Court threw its weight into the scale against the war; to the Crown Prince the strife with Austria was notoriously repugnant. The King himself, as the crisis approached, evinced marked hesitation. How triumphantly the event vindicated the policy of the great Premier, is a matter of history. He has frankly owned that if ...
— Camps, Quarters, and Casual Places • Archibald Forbes

... this to you in behalf even of an enemy, a captain in the British service, now on his way to the headquarters of the American army, and unfortunately doomed to death for a crime not his own. A sentence so extraordinary, an execution so repugnant to every human sensation, ought never to be told without the circumstances which produced it: and as the destined victim is yet in existence, and in your hands rests his life or death, I shall briefly state the ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine

... and the Creed, called the Apostles, and I don't trouble my Head any farther: I leave the rest to be disputed and defined by the Clergy, if they please; and if any Thing is in common Use with Christians that is not repugnant to the holy Scriptures, I observe it for this Reason, that I may not offend ...
— Colloquies of Erasmus, Volume I. • Erasmus

... scorn and rage with which she dismissed him, Rafael thought he caught a trace of loathing at some memory of Boldini—that repugnant lecher, who had been the only person in the world to win her ...
— The Torrent - Entre Naranjos • Vicente Blasco Ibanez

... Messrs. MacVittie and MacFin; and, with a view of making him feel their power, or rather in order to force him, at this emergency, into those measures in their favour, to which he had expressed himself so repugnant, they had recourse to a summary process of arrest and imprisonment,—which it seems the law of Scotland (therein surely liable to much abuse) allows to a creditor, who finds his conscience at liberty to make oath that the ...
— Rob Roy, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott

... immediate and unreasoning hate for the thing, whatever it was, a hate so strong that he forgot to feel fear. It seemed to him to combine the repulsive qualities of a spider and a toad. The body, fat and repugnant, was covered by a loose skin, dull and leathery, and the fatness seemed to be pulled downward below the lower tentacles like an insect's body, until it was wider at the bottom than at ...
— Martians Never Die • Lucius Daniel

... incorrect. In our opinion it would be a fatal mistake to use coloured troops against the whites, more especially as plenty of whites are available. From the English standpoint there is probably nothing offensive in the suggestion. Most Home people do not seem to see anything repugnant in black boxers fighting whites, but they have not had to live in the midst of a black population. If the Indians are used against the Germans it means that they will return to India disabused of the respect they should bear for the white race. ...
— Native Life in South Africa, Before and Since • Solomon Tshekisho Plaatje

... simpering youth presented him with a card, begging for his opinion, he spoke so as to be heard by all, "No, thank you, sir. I am requested by the ladies present to state that such competition was never contemplated by their committee and would be repugnant to all their sentiments. They beg that the election may be at once dropped ...
— The Three Brides • Charlotte M. Yonge

... having some other design upon you than to convince you by his argument. It is hardly too much to say that Montaigne is the most essential author to know, if we would understand the course of French thought during the last three hundred years. In every way, the influence of Montaigne was repugnant to the men of Port-Royal. Pascal studied him with the intention of demolishing him. Yet, in the Pensees, at the very end of his life, we find passage after passage, and the slighter they are the more significant, almost "lifted" out of Montaigne, down to a figure of speech or a word. ...
— Pascal's Pensees • Blaise Pascal

... themselves. But it was too late; the wish for improvement had been excited. The administration had been too corrupt, the exactions too heavy to be longer borne, when reform appeared to be within reach. The very soldiers became possessed with the same spirit, and though highly repugnant to the King's feelings, it soon became evident that a compliance with the wishes of the people and with the constituton, as declared by the ...
— Journal of a Voyage to Brazil - And Residence There During Part of the Years 1821, 1822, 1823 • Maria Graham

... the plank and drop off into the water in almost perfect safety, providing the ropes didn't break. It created a sensation, and the other frats were mad with jealousy. We took every man we wanted the next fall before the authorities put a stop to the scheme. That shows you just how repugnant the idea of being initiated is to the green ...
— At Good Old Siwash • George Fitch

... semi-savage people, living in a civilization to which they are unequal, partaking to a limited degree of its benefits, performing in no degree its duties. Because they are spatially in a civilization to which they are morally and intellectually repugnant, they cannot but be as a foreign irritant to the body social. The problem is, How shall the body social adjust itself, daily, hourly, to this irritant; how feel at ease and safe in spite of it? How shall the white inhabitants of the ...
— The Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, 1995, Memorial Issue • Various

... or divine, who comprehended all the secret springs that govern the mind, was preparing a universal code for all mankind; must he not imitate the physician, and deliver general truths, however unpalatable, however repugnant to particular prejudices, since upon the observance of these truths alone the happiness of ...
— The History of Sandford and Merton • Thomas Day

... biting his lip with that resolute half-combative air which I now saw in him at times, roused by things which continually met him in his dealings with the world—things repugnant alike to his feelings and his principles, but which he had still to endure, not having risen high enough to oppose, single-handed, the great mass of social corruption which at this crisis of English history kept gathering and gathering, ...
— John Halifax, Gentleman • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik

... for a Seventh Species of Women, who are of a melancholy, froward, unamiable Nature, and so repugnant to the Offers of Love, that they fly in the Face of their Husband when he approaches them with conjugal Endearments. This Species of Women are likewise subject to little Thefts, ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele

... are heresies, repugnant to Scripture, springing up three centuries since, and anathematized by ...
— Apologia Pro Vita Sua • John Henry Cardinal Newman

... No true Londoner ever admits that fault lies at his door. 'No, I never!' is an exclamation that is on his lips from earliest childhood, whenever he is charged with anything blameworthy or punishable. That is why school discipline was ever a thing repugnant to the schoolboard child and its parents; no schoolboard scholar ever deserved punishment. However obvious the fault might seem to a disciplinarian, 'No, I never' exonerated it as something that had not happened. Public schoolboys and private schoolboys of the upper and ...
— When William Came • Saki



Words linked to "Repugnant" :   repugnance, offensive



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