Free TranslationFree Translation
Synonyms, antonyms, pronunciation

  Home
English Dictionary      examples: 'day', 'get rid of', 'New York Bay'




Respectable   /rɪspˈɛktəbəl/  /rispˈɛktəbəl/   Listen
Respectable

adjective
1.
Characterized by socially or conventionally acceptable morals.
2.
Deserving of esteem and respect.  Synonyms: estimable, good, honorable.  "Ruined the family's good name"
3.
Large in amount or extent or degree.  Synonyms: goodish, goodly, healthy, hefty, sizable, sizeable, tidy.  "A goodly amount" , "Received a hefty bonus" , "A respectable sum" , "A tidy sum of money" , "A sizable fortune"






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








Advanced search
     Find words:
Starting with
Ending with
Containing
Matching a pattern  

Synonyms
Antonyms
Quotes
Words linked to  

only single words



Share |





"Respectable" Quotes from Famous Books



... of the crowd, a man of respectable appearance jumped on the running board of the automobile, spit at me, saying "Pfui," and struck Harvey in the face with his hat. I stopped the automobile, jumped out and chased this man down the street and caught ...
— My Four Years in Germany • James W. Gerard

... line between Middlesex and Essex counties, corps of light horse, and many officers of militia, and was received by the president of the State of New Hampshire, the vice president, some of the council, Messrs. Langdon and Wingate of the Senate, Colonel Parker, marshal of the state, and many other respectable characters, besides several troops of well-clothed horse, in handsome uniforms, and many officers of the militia, also in handsome white and red uniforms of the manufacture of the state. With this cavalcade we proceeded, ...
— Home Pastimes; or Tableaux Vivants • James H. Head

... soldier's motto. He rose from his chair, discarded his purple gown, and arrayed himself in his best attire. Never had he paid such attention to his toilet. His face was clean shaven and shining, his sparse hairs were laid out to the best advantage, his collar spotless, his frock coat oppressively respectable, and his tout ensemble irreproachable. "Be George!" he said to himself, as he surveyed himself in the small lodging-house glass, "I'd look as young as Baumser if I had some more hair on me head. Bad cess to the helmets and shakoes ...
— The Firm of Girdlestone • Arthur Conan Doyle

... redeemed by the missionaries from slavery, were employed on the farm. They were dressed in a shirt, jacket, and trousers, and had a respectable appearance. Judging from one trifling anecdote, I should think they must be honest. When walking in the fields, a young labourer came up to Mr. Davies and gave him a knife and gimlet, saying that he had found them on the road, ...
— A Naturalist's Voyage Round the World - The Voyage Of The Beagle • Charles Darwin

... two teachers, were naturally destined to be his counsellors; but why should not his mother also have helped him? Like all the women of her family, Agrippina was of superior mind, of high culture, and, as Tacitus himself admits, led a most respectable life, at least to the time of her marriage with Claudius. Brought up, as she was, in that family which for eighty years had been governing the Empire, she was well informed about affairs of State. Is it possible to suppose that such a woman would shut herself up in her home to weave ...
— Characters and events of Roman History • Guglielmo Ferrero

... the Shah; but it has now, in true Persian style, been left to fall into decay. It is only in the finest and driest weather that the journey can be made on wheels, and this was naturally out of the question for us. A railway was mooted some time since along this, the only respectable carriage-road in Persia—but the ...
— A Ride to India across Persia and Baluchistan • Harry De Windt

... I must go back, Daniel. Goodness knows what would happen if I didn't. If you had seen some of the decorations those other women wanted to put up, you would think it was necessary for someone with respectable taste to be there. Why, Sophronia Smalley actually would have draped the presiding officer's desk—MY desk—with a blue flag with a white whale on it, if I hadn't been ...
— Cap'n Dan's Daughter • Joseph C. Lincoln

... Pfalz proved a highly respectable Kaiser; lasted for ten years (1400-10), with honor to himself and the Reich. A strong heart, strong head, but short of means. He chastised petty mutiny with vigor, could not bring down the Milanese Visconti, who had perched themselves so high on money paid to Wenzel; could ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various

... present Republican party have set themselves, ever since they came definitely into power with M. Grevy in 1879, to reviving all the most odious traditions of the earlier Republican experiments, and to re-identifying the Republic with all that the respectable masses of the French people most hate and dread, has seemed from the first, and now seems, little short ...
— France and the Republic - A Record of Things Seen and Learned in the French Provinces - During the 'Centennial' Year 1889 • William Henry Hurlbert

... characters of the individuals who compose the party I find it embarrassing to speak; yet, vanity apart, I may assert with truth that they have each a sufficient strength of head to make the virtues of the heart respectable, and that they are all highly charged with that enthusiasm which results from strong perceptions of moral rectitude, called into life and action by ardent feelings. With regard to pecuniary matters it is found necessary, if twelve men with their families emigrate ...
— Biographia Epistolaris, Volume 1. • Coleridge, ed. Turnbull

... than in the oligarchy; there they are inert and unpractised, here they are full of life and animation; and the keener sort speak and act, while the others buzz about the bema and prevent their opponents from being heard. And there is another class in democratic States, of respectable, thriving individuals, who can be squeezed when the drones have need of their possessions; there is moreover a third class, who are the labourers and the artisans, and they make up the mass of the people. When ...
— The Republic • Plato

... punishment, and consequently prevention, of crime. It is not right that in the witness-box you should be badgered and insulted as if you were worthy of the dock! One can feel some sympathy with the relatives of the prisoner, because he appears to have had respectable surroundings. But if he is convicted of forgery, it will be his own fault! I shall accept the verdict as a proof that education and birth are not safeguards to prevent crime. And as for you, Sir (turning ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 102, February 27, 1892 • Various

... did not regret his respectable past, if he were ever respectable, and it is equally certain that he had no craving for high things in the way of tall hats and two-storey houses. He appreciated the value of money, since it enabled him to gratify his tastes, but it must be admitted ...
— The Missing Link • Edward Dyson

... period an extensive suburb on the Surrey side of London, but long since incorporated into the great mass of the metropolis. The street in which the mansion stood was large, the houses were spacious and handsome, their tenants, as I learned afterwards, opulent and respectable. It was late in August; my friend's family were all at Margate; and I found none to do the honours of the house but himself and his eldest son, a young man of prepossessing appearance and intelligent manners. On finding I was not ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 350, December 1844 • Various

... extraordinary character and an eminent navigator, whose many discoveries ought to recommend his memory to posterity, as a man of infinite industry, and of a most laudable public spirit. Captain William Dampier was descended of a very respectable family in the county of Somerset, where he was born in 1652. During the life of his father and mother, he had such education as was thought requisite to fit him for trade; but losing his parents while very young, and being of a roving disposition, which strongly ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume X • Robert Kerr

... am; and a pretty kettle of fish you have made of it. Instead of treating love as a quiet and respectable undertaking, as I mean to treat it—instead of simmering your love down to a gentlemanly respect and esteem, as I mean to simmer it—and waiting patiently for the natural consequences of things, as I mean to wait—you must, like a boy as you are, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - April 1843 • Various

... the end of a little valley, through which runs a tributary to the Rio Grande, boasted of healthful climate. Santa Fe had a public square in the center, a house known as "the Palace." There were numerous gambling houses there and these gambling houses were considered as respectable as the merchants' store houses. The business of the place was considerable, many of the merchants being wholesale dealers for the vast territory tributary. In the money market there were no pennies,—nothing less than five-cent pieces. ...
— The Second William Penn - A true account of incidents that happened along the - old Santa Fe Trail • William H. Ryus

... knew that gambling on unused land was popular in Canada, in spite of taxes planned to prevent it, and while there are respectable real estate agents, the fringe of the profession is occupied by sharpers who prey upon what is fast becoming a national vice. Confiding strangers with money to invest are often swindled, and there was an obvious motive for Telford's ...
— Carmen's Messenger • Harold Bindloss

... to Dick, and tries to intrigue him into a soft job; and as for Harry she goes on telling him month after month that unless he forswears sack and lives cleanly she will visit him with her high displeasure. Meanwhile, most of these satellites have affaires de coeur of their own, some respectable, others not; they regard the young lady with engaging frankness as a woman and a sister, they have the run of her father's house, and would feel insulted if anybody questioned the perfect correctness of their behaviour. ...
— The Red Planet • William J. Locke

... is, then," agreed Doc Madison. "You're poor, but respectable—and that brings us to the other point. Before you go down there, Helena's going to start a little night-school with a grammar, and teach you to paddle along the fringe of the great American language so's you won't fall in and ...
— The Miracle Man • Frank L. Packard

... of any private collector; and he doubtless regarded his "unam Bibliam in iv. magnis voluminibus," with the veneration of a divine and the fondness of a student. He collected what in those times was deemed a respectable library, and bequeathed no less than sixty or seventy volumes to the Durham monks, including his great Bible, which has ever since been preserved with religious care; from a catalogue of them we learn his partiality for classical literature; ...
— Bibliomania in the Middle Ages • Frederick Somner Merryweather

... to assuage for inadequate wage our unseemly contentions and quarrels, Be it yours to maintain your respectable reign in the sphere of Political Morals; And, relying no more on the shedding of gore or the rule of torpedoes and sabres, Make beneficent plots for dividing in lots the ...
— Lyra Frivola • A. D. Godley

... Goring, of Hurst Pierrepoint, in Sussex, representative of a junior line of the respectable family of Goring, which maintains its importance in that county, was bred at Court, under the care of his father, one of Elizabeth's Gentlemen Pensioners; was knighted May 29, 1608; in 1610, occurs as Gentleman in Ordinary of the Bedchamber to Prince Henry; ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby

... no reply. He continued: 'What an unhappy lot is that of a father, who having tenderly loved a child, and strained every nerve to bring him up a virtuous and respectable man, finds him turn out in the end a worthless profligate, who dishonours him. To an ordinary reverse of fortune one may be reconciled; time softens the affliction, and even the indulgence of sorrow itself is not unavailing; but what remedy is there for an evil that is perpetually augmenting, ...
— Manon Lescaut • Abbe Prevost

... where it is not necessary to fight the gravitational pull of a planet to get them. The stony asteroids average thirty-six per cent oxygen by mass; the rest of it is silicon, magnesium, aluminum, nickel, and calcium, with respectable traces of sodium, chromium, phosphorous manganese, cobalt, potassium, and titanium. The metallic nickel-iron asteroids made an excellent source of export products to ship to Earth, but the stony asteroids ...
— Thin Edge • Gordon Randall Garrett

... would not read thundering leading-articles. I would not have an opinion. What's the use of an opinion here? Happy fellows! do not the French, the English, and the Prussians, spare them the trouble of thinking, and make all their opinions for them? Think of living in a country free, easy, respectable, wealthy, and with the nuisance of talking politics removed from out of it. All this might the Belgians have, and a part do they enjoy, but not the best part; no, these people will be brawling and by the ears, and parties run as ...
— Little Travels and Roadside Sketches • William Makepeace Thackeray

... the county of Prince George's, in March, 1749. His parentage was highly respectable, his ancestors emigrating from Wales, and he being of the second generation after their settlement ...
— A sketch of the life and services of Otho Holland Williams • Osmond Tiffany

... the indignity perpetrated upon himself, (his having been beaten with sticks by the whites,) with the feeling that a respectable person among us would have shown under such circumstances; and pointing to a black mark on his face, said that he wore it as a symbol of disgrace. The customs of his nation required, that he should avenge the wrong that he had received, but he chose rather to submit to it for the present than ...
— Great Indian Chief of the West - Or, Life and Adventures of Black Hawk • Benjamin Drake

... hostility on the basis of common injuries and common fear against the Borgia. But they were for the most part stained themselves with crime, and dared not trust each other, and could not gain the confidence of any respectable power in Italy except the exiled Duke of Urbino. Procrastination was the first weapon used by the wily Cesare, who trusted that time would sow among his rebel captains suspicion and dissension. He next made overtures to the leaders separately, and so far succeeded ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Second Series • John Addington Symonds

... the capital of New South Wales are said to be very good, and the articles well and tastefully arranged; but the social condition of the colony naturally tends to make the persons who keep them very different, and a much less respectable class, speaking generally, than the tradespeople of the mother country. The noble harbour of Port Jackson, and the position of the capital of the colony, unite in affording every possible encouragement to trade; and the following account given by the ...
— Australia, its history and present condition • William Pridden

... Bayard left the Forest Rest, with Leonidas Force's supposed challenge in his pocket and on warlike thoughts intent, he walked rapidly on toward the Calvert House, an old-fashioned and highly respectable roadside establishment, half farmhouse, half tavern, notable for its pure liquors, fine tobacco and rare game—in season. It was a favorite house of call for travelers on that road, and of sojourn to strangers who might be detained by business or by accident in ...
— Her Mother's Secret • Emma D. E. N. Southworth

... things she was still capable of these primitive sequences. She had not received the happiest impression of the Countess on meeting her at the villa, but was thankful for an opportunity to repair the accident. Had not Mr. Osmond remarked that she was a respectable person? To have proceeded from Gilbert Osmond this was a crude proposition, but Madame Merle bestowed upon it a certain improving polish. She told Isabel more about the poor Countess than Mr. Osmond had done, and related the history of her marriage and its consequences. The Count was a member ...
— The Portrait of a Lady - Volume 1 (of 2) • Henry James

... in common things never failed. It has been observed that he and Mrs. Wordsworth did incalculable good by the example they unconsciously set the neighborhood of respectable thrift. There are no really poor people at Rydal, because the great lady at the Hall, Lady Le Fleming, takes care that there shall be none,—at the expense of great moral mischief. But there is a prevalent ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 43, May, 1861 • Various

... neighborhood, and took from their comfortable homes forty-three negroes, who were hurried off to York River and placed on board a vessel bound Northward. Along with these negroes, as a prisoner, was a gentleman named Lee, a resident and highly respectable citizen of King William, who has since been released and allowed to return to his home. He states that when the vessel arrived in Chesapeake Bay, the small-pox made its appearance among the negroes, that disease having existed to some extent among the same family ...
— A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital • John Beauchamp Jones

... sublime; they were the incarnation of embattled France; the starving people of Metz, of Strassbourg, of Paris, were sublime. But there was nothing sublime about Monsieur Adolphe Thiers, nothing heroic about Hugo, nothing respectable about Gambetta. The marshal with the fat neck and Spanish affiliations, the poor confused, inert, over-fed marshal caged in Metz by the Red Prince, harassed, bewildered, stunned by the clashing of politics and military strategy, which his meagre brain was unable to reconcile or separate—this unfortunate ...
— Lorraine - A romance • Robert W. Chambers

... goin' to give it up after this,' whined Shine, disregarding Joe's outburst, 'an' get married again, an' live God-fearin' an' respectable.' ...
— The Gold-Stealers - A Story of Waddy • Edward Dyson

... Chancery suit on the victims immeshed in its toils. From the first these two threads are distinct, and yet happily interwoven. Let us take Lady Dedlock's thread first. She is the wife of Sir Leicester Dedlock, whose "family is as old as the hills, and a great deal more respectable," and she is still very beautiful, though no longer in the bloom of youth, and she is cold and haughty of manner, as a woman of highest fashion sometimes may be. But in her past there is an ugly hidden secret; and a girl of sweetest disposition walks her ...
— Life of Charles Dickens • Frank Marzials

... indeed. There are people in society here that have really no more money to live on than what some of us pay for servant hire. Still I won't say but what some of them are very good people—and respectable, too." ...
— The Gilded Age, Part 4. • Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and Charles Dudley Warner

... renegotiation of an IMF standby loan, President FERNANDEZ has stabilized the country's financial situation, lowering inflation to less than 6%. A fiscal expansion is expected for 2008 prior to the elections in May and for Tropical Storm Noel reconstruction. Although the economy is growing at a respectable rate, high unemployment and underemployment remains an important challenge. The country suffers from marked income inequality; the poorest half of the population receives less than one-fifth of GNP, while the richest 10% enjoys nearly 40% of national income. The Central ...
— The 2008 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.

... with her captain wanting; and she has, queerly, the right. So, then, the worthy dame who receives no one, might be treated, it struck us, conversationally, as a respectable harbour-hulk, with more history than top-honours. But she has the indubitable legal right to fly them—to proclaim it; for it means ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... is assisted by respectable forces of men, contributes greatly both to their preservation and their chances of victory, but by itself is worth nothing. Nor is there any other profession that is of weight without persons to cooeperate and to aid in its administration. ...
— Dio's Rome, Vol VI. • Cassius Dio

... falsified by the 'Apology of Tertullian,' and the far more respectable testimony of Melito, Bishop of Sardis, who explicitly states that the Christians, up to his time, the third century, had never been victims of persecution; and that it was in provinces lying beyond the boundaries of the Roman Empire, and not in ...
— The Freethinker's Text Book, Part II. - Christianity: Its Evidences, Its Origin, Its Morality, Its History • Annie Besant

... Theatre is a handsome building and looks some in front like our own Capitol in Washington, D. C. It stands between two meetin'-houses, as if it laid out to set back and enjoy its neighborhood and be real respectable. ...
— Around the World with Josiah Allen's Wife • Marietta Holley

... shapeless compilation, in which reason lies buried under a mass of authorities and quotations. This fashion originated among French wits and declaimers, and it has been, I know not for what reason, adopted, though with far greater moderation and decency, by some respectable writers among ourselves. As to those who first used this language, the most candid supposition that we can make with respect to them is, that they never read the work; for, if they had not been deterred from the perusal of it by such a formidable display of Greek characters, ...
— A Discourse on the Study of the Law of Nature and Nations • James Mackintosh

... considered before she accepted it, but only because of her father. The idea that it would lift him out of the walk-up, out of Harlem and cold veal, was the one excuse for her voyage to Cytherea. The voyage had been eminently respectable. Undertaken with full ecclesiastical sanction, Aphrodite and her free airs had had nothing to do with it. None the less it was to Cytherea that she had gone—and to Lampsacus also, for all she and her geography ...
— The Paliser case • Edgar Saltus

... Mamie, but were just going to walk home from her mother's house to his cottage. That was good enough for him, he said. I looked at him hard for a minute after we met. When we had parted I had a sort of idea that he might take to drink, but he hadn't. He looked very respectable and well-to-do in his black coat and high city collar; but he was thinner and bonier than when I had known him, and there were lines in his face, and I thought his eyes had a queer look in them, half shifty, half scared. He needn't have been afraid of me, for I didn't mean ...
— Man Overboard! • F(rancis) Marion Crawford

... been brought up in a respectable family, had enjoyed a careful education, and was regarded by friends and acquaintances as a young man of extraordinary promise. Just as he had left the S. seminary, and was intending a journey into foreign ...
— Strife and Peace • Fredrika Bremer

... want us to dinner tomorrow and a little dance afterward. It is Will's last nibble at pleasure. Oh, why didn't you make him choose some real business, you naughty father, so he could have stayed at home like a respectable citizen." ...
— The Girls at Mount Morris • Amanda Minnie Douglas

... Royal upstart on his style of pursuing the pleasures considered suitable to a Prince. One day it was told of him that, having given a cup to be raced for on the Bob-run, he was wroth to find on the notice-board of entries the names of a team of highly respectable little Englishmen who are familiar on the racecourse; and, taking out his pencil-case, he scored them off, saying, "My cup is for gentlemen, not jockeys," whereupon a young English soldier standing by had said: "We're not jockeys here, sir, and we're not princes; ...
— The Drama Of Three Hundred & Sixty-Five Days - Scenes In The Great War - 1915 • Hall Caine

... left hand on your hip or behind you. In the first place, you thus drag your partner too much forward, which makes her look ungraceful; in the next, this attitude is never used except in casinos, and it is almost an insult to introduce it in a respectable ball-room. ...
— Routledge's Manual of Etiquette • George Routledge

... order to come at once to the office, Edwin followed, but before he entered the room, Mrs. Engler saw to it that his clothing was changed, so that he would be a little more respectable to ...
— The Poorhouse Waif and His Divine Teacher • Isabel C. Byrum

... well, and having been brought before the Governor, were told that in consequence of their having committed no overt act of disorder they would be set at liberty and shipped to England, upon the single condition that they would abandon piracy and agree to become quiet citizens in whatever respectable vocation they might select. ...
— Buccaneers and Pirates of Our Coasts • Frank Richard Stockton

... the party without further formality. They didn't look so bad, either, so I saw my crooked work had done some good. Lon quit singing almost at once and walked good and his eyes didn't wabble, and he looked kind of desperate and respectable, and Ben was first-class, except he was slightly oratorical and his collar had melted the way fat men's do. And it was funny to see how every husband there bucked up when Ben came forward, as if all they had wanted was some one to make medicine for 'em before they ...
— Somewhere in Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson

... now comes upon the scene—young, bold, devout, unscrupulous, "a respectable gentleman of good birth"—Hernando Cortes. Great was the enthusiasm in Cuba to join the new expedition to the long-lost lands of the Great Khan; men sold their lands to buy horses and arms, pork was salted, armour was made, and at last Cortes, a plume of feathers and ...
— A Book of Discovery - The History of the World's Exploration, From the Earliest - Times to the Finding of the South Pole • Margaret Bertha (M. B.) Synge

... the earnest desire of any respectable number of the members of the Church, or of persons who are without its communion, is urged in behalf of some not wholly unreasonable ...
— A Short History of the Book of Common Prayer • William Reed Huntington

... the cross). A harlot! Who dares to bring her into this respectable company? Master taverner, take her out of here, or she'll hurt the good name of the place and the ...
— Master Olof - A Drama in Five Acts • August Strindberg

... respectability in attire. Some of the occupants of the room were there as witnesses in cases, others because of interest in parties to be tried, while the majority were there to pass judgment on the judge and learn as best they might the ways of the court and the law. Here and there was a sprinkling of respectable people who had by means of some mischance been caught ...
— The Hindered Hand - or, The Reign of the Repressionist • Sutton E. Griggs

... time this had been a most aristocratic locality, but most of the former residents had migrated to the newer suburb at the west of the town. Notwithstanding this fact, Lord Street was still a most respectable neighbourhood, the inhabitants generally being of a very superior type: shop-walkers, shop assistants, barber's clerks, boarding house keepers, a coal merchant, and even ...
— The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists • Robert Tressell

... he was presented to the reader, except that his manner was somewhat more short and severe, and his eye yet more restless. But he seemed almost a superior being by the side of his associates. Rene Dumas, born of respectable parents, and well educated, despite his ferocity, was not without a certain refinement, which perhaps rendered him the more acceptable to the precise and formal Robespierre. (Dumas was a beau in his way. His gala-dress was a BLOOD-RED COAT, with ...
— Zanoni • Edward Bulwer Lytton

... preparation and practice of war. I believe it is, indeed, probable that "facility of intercourse" gives the next largest quantity of occupation; and, as your Lordship rightly observes, to most respectable persons. And if the entire population of Manchester lost the use of its legs, your Lordship would similarly have the satisfaction of observing, and might share in the profits of providing, the needful machinery of porterage and stretchers. But observe, my Lord—and observe as ...
— On the Old Road, Vol. 2 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin

... becoming more affectionate. Of course there were periods in which her mind veered round. But at the end of the year Mrs Baggett certainly did wish that the young lady should marry her old master. "I can go down to Portsmouth," she said to the baker, who was a most respectable old man, and was nearer to Mrs Baggett's confidence than any one else except her master, "and weary out the rest on 'em there." When she spoke of "wearying out the rest on 'em," her friend perfectly understood that she alluded to what years ...
— An Old Man's Love • Anthony Trollope

... mad, and showed it by kneeling down and saying his prayers on the street. Now there are many men who are not mad, yet I am afraid are worse than poor ——, for they never pray at all.' But to return—I inquired at Mr B. if he could recommend me to any cheap and respectable lodging. After applying some thought to the subject, he began to recollect that he did know of one or two. With regard to one the address was rather imperfect, as he knew neither the name nor the number, but had a guess of the street. The other I discovered, ...
— The Book-Hunter - A New Edition, with a Memoir of the Author • John Hill Burton

... the arrangements given in the last two columns are not the only ways of forming two and three triangles. There are others, but one set of figures will fully serve our purpose. We thus see that before Mrs. McAllister can claim her sixth L5 present she must save the respectable sum of L1,631,432,881. ...
— Amusements in Mathematics • Henry Ernest Dudeney

... is always preceded by an extension of the circle of influence which a people exerts through its traders, its deep-sea fishermen, its picturesque marauders and more respectable missionaries, and earlier still by a widening of its mere geographical horizon through fortuitous ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park

... wasted. He is a far better sub-editor and reporter than I was at his age, with his French wit and cleverness. The only fault I find with him is that he longs for plate-glass and flummery instead of old Froggatt's respectable panes." ...
— The Long Vacation • Charlotte M. Yonge

... drunken brute in the house who disturbed my rest last night. He's a very respectable man in general, but when on the "spree" a most consummate fool. When he came in he stood on the top of the stairs and preached in the dark with great solemnity and no audience from 12 P.M. to half-past one. At last I opened my door. "Are we to have no sleep at all for ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 23 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... exactly what you mean, my dear boy," said Corbario in a tone of sympathy. "You see I am not very old myself, after all—barely thirty—not quite, in fact. I could call myself twenty-nine if it were not so much more respectable to be older." ...
— Whosoever Shall Offend • F. Marion Crawford

... of a heavier, more Georgian aspect, in spite of certain Pre-Raphaelite experiments and other signs of the coming of a younger generation. Sir Charles Eastlake was President. Professor Hart was delivering lectures to its students, full of academic, respectable intelligence, if little more; lectures which those who are curious may find reported in full in ...
— Frederic Lord Leighton - An Illustrated Record of His Life and Work • Ernest Rhys

... a functionary of importance in the building, ever to earn the smug immortality of such a statue. I am sorry to say the places I cared for were those same low-lived, straggling, squalid, dangerous regions which hung at one end of respectable little Sendennis like dirty lace upon a demure petticoat. In the early days of my acquaintance with those regions I must confess that I entered them with a certain degree of fear and trembling; but after ...
— Marjorie • Justin Huntly McCarthy

... sign the treaty; I have even reconducted him to Newcastle, and as he was obliged to be satisfied with our proceedings towards him—the deal coffer being always carried without jolting, and being lined softly, I asked for a gratification for you. Here it is." He threw a respectable-looking purse upon the cloth; and all involuntarily stretched out their hands. "One moment, my lambs," said D'Artagnan; "if there are profits, there are ...
— Ten Years Later - Chapters 1-104 • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... is, of course, perfectly right, and his inference is strictly logical. A Church, however highly respectable and however richly endowed, which came into existence only 1,500 years after Christ, came into existence just 1,500 years too late, and cannot by any intellectual manoeuvring or stretching of the imagination be identified ...
— The Purpose of the Papacy • John S. Vaughan

... expects die in infancy, why, once reconciled to his Government and restored to his estates, the law must take its usual course, and Violante will be the greatest heiress in Europe. As to the young lady herself, I confess she rather awes me; I know I shall be henpecked. Well, all respectable husbands are. There is something scampish and ruffianly in not being henpecked." Here Randal's smile might have harmonized well with Pluto's "iron tears;" but, iron as the smile was, the serious young man was ashamed of it. "What am I about," said ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... the peninsula as had been done before, and at two o'clock on the following morning was up within two miles of the fort with a respectable abatis in front of his line. His artillery was all landed on that day, the 14th. Again Curtis's brigade of Ame's division had the lead. By noon they had carried an unfinished work less than a half mile from the fort, and turned it so as to face ...
— Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant, Complete • Ulysses S. Grant

... his birthday. It seemed as if he had been carried away with an unwonted tide of pleasurable sensation, so as to forget in some degree what his father had communicated concerning the purpose of his journey. He halted at length before a respectable but solitary old mansion, to which he was directed as the ...
— Guy Mannering, or The Astrologer, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott

... magazines and the silly doings of the world's day, whipping every trick and ruse of controversy through all the paces of paradox and persiflage. And, when the whim changes, it is most easy and delightfully disconcerting to play with the respectable and cowardly bourgeois fetishes and to laugh and epigram at the flitting god-ghosts and the debaucheries and ...
— John Barleycorn • Jack London

... married. The French had then given up their conventional trick of attributing Eleanor's acts to her want of morals; and France gave her—as to most women after sixty years old—the benefit of the convention which made women respectable after they had lost the opportunity to be vicious. In French eyes, Eleanor played out the drama according to the rules. She could not save John, but she died in 1202, before his ruin, and you can still see her lying with her husband and her son Richard at Fontevrault in ...
— Mont-Saint-Michel and Chartres • Henry Adams

... often happened in your experience?-Yes; and in such cases this is what I do-Generally there are two or three elders in the parish, who are very respectable and very independent, and I privately consult these men as to whether the statements which have been made to me by the people are true. I have found that I have been oftener deceived in thinking that a man had something saved, when he had nothing, ...
— Second Shetland Truck System Report • William Guthrie

... was the kind of spread-eagle thing you might expect; I can see that Tommy has formed himself on the orators of his father's respectable saloon. What he said in comment interested me more. 'Sure, I guess it is the best government, ma'am, though, of course, I got to make it out that way, anyhow. But we come from Ireland, and there they got the other kind, and me granny, she starved in the famine time, she did that—with the fever. ...
— Stories of a Western Town • Octave Thanet

... observation in a letter to a Friend in England:—"David Barclay's humane views towards the Blacks from Jamaica have been so far realized, that these objects of his concern enjoy their freedom with comfort to themselves, and are respectable in their characters, keeping up a friendly intercourse with each other, and avoiding to intermix with the common Blacks of this city, being sober in their conduct and industrious ...
— The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the - Abolition of the African Slave-Trade, by the British Parliament (1839) • Thomas Clarkson

... writing to some extent on account of its practical utility. It is true the Medes have left us no written monuments; and we may fairly conclude from that fact that they used writing sparingly; but besides the antecedent probability, there is respectable evidence that letters were known to them, and that, at any rate, their upper classes could both read and write their native tongue. The story of the letter sent by Harpagus the Mede to Cyrus in the belly of a hare, though probably apocryphal, is important as showing the belief of Herodotus ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 3. (of 7): Media • George Rawlinson

... name of a proletarian rebel, who was crucified as a common criminal because, as they said, "He stirreth up the people." An embarrassing "Savior" for the church of Good Society, you might imagine; but they manage to fix him up and make him respectable. ...
— The Profits of Religion, Fifth Edition • Upton Sinclair

... the story opened a field of infinite surmise. In all probability Judson Clark was still alive, living under some assumed identity, free of punishment, outwardly respectable. Three years before he had been adjudged legally dead, and the estate divided, under bond of ...
— The Breaking Point • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... the Irish people, and was relieved from the obligation of enforcing at all costs the law of the land. Popular sympathies, moreover, blend in the minds of modern Englishmen with feelings of a much less generous and much less respectable order. Dislike of trouble, hatred to the performance of arduous public duties, a growing indifference to ordinary commonplace ideas of law and justice, contempt for the legal rights of individuals ...
— England's Case Against Home Rule • Albert Venn Dicey

... can't be Joshua!" I said, for I knew him for one of the most respectable young ghosts in ...
— The Ghost Ship • Richard Middleton

... for export to other parts of Persia, as well as all over India. The Perso-Indian trade in rose oil, which continued to possess considerable importance in the third quarter of the 18th century, is declining, and has nearly disappeared; but the shipments of rose-water still maintain a respectable figure. The value, in rupees, of the exports of rose-water from Bushire in 1879, were—4,000 to India, 1,500 to Java, 200 to Aden and the Red Sea, 1,000 to Muscat and dependencies, 200 to Arab coast of Persian ...
— Scientific American Supplement No. 275 • Various

... self-respect and reasonable consideration for other peoples' feelings and interests on every point except their dread of losing their own respectability. But when there's a will there's a way. I hate to see dead people walking about: it is unnatural. And our respectable middle class people are all as dead as mutton. Out of the mouth of Mrs Knox I have delivered on them the ...
— Fanny's First Play • George Bernard Shaw

... noise that they made was alarming, but they were compelled to risk it. In half an hour they had made a hole large enough to get through. The monk went first, being the thinner; he pulled Casanova after him—dusty, torn, and bleeding, for he had worked harder than Father Balbi, who still looked respectable. ...
— The True Story Book • Andrew Lang

... had been in Kingston for the best part of four weeks, lodging at the house of a very decent, respectable widow, by name Mrs. Anne Bolles, who, with three pleasant and agreeable daughters, kept a very clean and well-served lodging house in the outskirts of ...
— Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates • Howard I. Pyle

... loved country-house. You must know, Campan, that the king has promised to spend every afternoon of a whole week with me at Trianon, and that there we are going to enjoy life, nature, and solitude. So, for a whole week, the king will only be king in the forenoon, and in the afternoon a respectable miller in the village Trianon. Now, is not that a merry thought, Campan? And do you not see that I cannot go to Trianon in any other than ...
— Marie Antoinette And Her Son • Louise Muhlbach

... editors of the Knickerbocker Magazine (Clark and Edson) solicit contributions to its pages. This periodical has always maintained a respectable rank, and appears destined to hold on its course. I am too far out of the world to judge well. The conflict of periodicals appears to increase; but I do not think that the number of sound readers, who seek useful knowledge, keeps pace with it. I think not. We seem to be on the eve of a light and ...
— Personal Memoirs Of A Residence Of Thirty Years With The Indian Tribes On The American Frontiers • Henry Rowe Schoolcraft

... what it means. Jemimy, mister, ain't no senory, nor no madame. Jemimy's my old Kentucky rifle, mister. And the twins ain't no neenos, but a brace uh pistols that can shoot fur as it's respectable fer a pistol to shoot, and hit all it's lawful to hit. You tell him who Jemimy is, mister; and tell 'im she's a derned good talker, and most ...
— The Gringos • B. M. Bower

... fine horses which an English groom was taking over for a Russian nobleman, who was to figure at the approaching coronation of the Emperor. The Russians set great value on English horses, and employ a considerable number of English grooms, many of whom raise themselves to respectable situations, as had the man who had charge of ...
— Fred Markham in Russia - The Boy Travellers in the Land of the Czar • W. H. G. Kingston

... she replied, fiercely. "Not you nor your motor-car nor your money nor any part of you. Come swaggering in, dropping your cigar ash over the place, and behaving as though you'd been a respectable person all your life!" she continued, indignantly. "What right have you got to think that your wife was made to be your slave or your trained dog, to beg when you hold out a piece of biscuit, and go ...
— The Double Life Of Mr. Alfred Burton • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... a very respectable party, having in its ranks the majority of the men of wealth and education, fell a victim to the doctrine of availability when it nominated Harrison on account of his military reputation. He lived only one month after his inauguration, and Tyler, the Vice President, who succeeded him, reverted ...
— Historical Essays • James Ford Rhodes

... on in their happy ignorance of a better lot, while round them is gathered all that their lord can command of luxury and pleasantness. His wealth is hoarded for them alone; he permits himself no ostentation, except the respectable one of arms and horses; and the time is weary that he passes apart from his home and hareem. The sternest tyrants are gentle there; Mehemet Ali never refused a woman's prayer; and even Ali Pasha was partly humanized by his love for Emineh. In the time of the Mamelukes, criminals ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Volume 19 - Travel and Adventure • Various

... period at which this history commences a young gentleman, Owen Hartley, who was pursuing his academical course with credit, preparatory to entering the ministry, fell in love during a long vacation with a well-educated young lady of respectable position in life, if not of birth equal to his. She returned his affection, and it was agreed that they should marry when he could obtain a living. Being ordained, he was appointed to a curacy of 50 pounds a year, in which post ...
— Owen Hartley; or, Ups and Downs - A Tale of Land and Sea • William H. G. Kingston

... glance. They would have simply accepted them for what they appeared to the casual observer—two cottage children who were either altogether motherless or sadly neglected—and then forgotten all about them. For, to be quite candid, they looked far from respectable—entirely unlike the trim, spotless little persons whom Perry had dressed with such care and precision only some hours before; bearing but small resemblance in their general cut to the dainty figures which had run the gauntlet ...
— Two Little Travellers - A Story for Girls • Frances Browne Arthur

... mind; perhaps she had forgotten something. But I was at the door. She asked for Monsieur Vincent, and then got back into her cab again, calling to the driver to return home, as it was too late. Oh! she's such a nice, lively, and respectable lady. The gracious God doesn't send many such into the world. Why, with the exception of yourself, she's the best—well, well, may Heaven ...
— A Love Episode • Emile Zola

... learned in the Law, were his descendants, and men of secular fame, Gabriel Riesser among them, proudly mention their connection, however distant, with Saul Wahl. The memory of his deeds perpetuates itself in respectable Jewish homes, where grandams, on quiet Sabbath afternoons, tell of them, as they show in confirmation the seal on coins ...
— Jewish Literature and Other Essays • Gustav Karpeles

... sister as far as Gandercleugh, on his way to Glasgow, to take a passage to Canada. But winter was now set in, and as he thought it advisable to wait for a spring passage, when the St. Lawrence should be open, he settled among us for the few months of his stay in Britain. As we said before, the respectable old man met with deference and attention from all ranks of society; and when spring returned, he was so satisfied with his quarters, that he did not renew the purpose of his voyage. Janet was afraid of the sea, and he himself felt the infirmities of age and hard service more than he had at ...
— A Legend of Montrose • Sir Walter Scott

... be pardoned the reproduction of one of the mildest of these naughtinesses. A French woman novelist had written: "To know truly what love is, we must go out of ourselves" (sortir de soi). The addition of a single letter transformed this eminently respectable sentiment into the feline confession: "To know truly what love is, we must go out nights" ...
— The Booklover and His Books • Harry Lyman Koopman

... particular, by way of exception even on individuals not qualified. The selection of the extraordinary members who were added naturally fell in the main on adherents of the new order of things, and introduced, along with -equites- of respectable standing, various dubious and plebeian personages into the proud corporation—former senators who had been erased from the roll by the censor or in consequence of a judicial sentence, foreigners from Spain and Gaul who had to some extent to learn their Latin in the senate, men lately ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen

... Black Ned felt that he had acquired a certain character which might be retained or lost. Without absolutely saying that he became a better man in consequence, we do assert that he became more respectable to ...
— The Coxswain's Bride - also, Jack Frost and Sons; and, A Double Rescue • R.M. Ballantyne

... I think, chiefly in the way I had of thinking aloud that I said, more to myself than to her, "I'm sure I don't know what makes him keep you, you do it so very badly. But perhaps you're respectable." ...
— A Flat Iron for a Farthing - or Some Passages in the Life of an only Son • Juliana Horatia Ewing

... in love with C—— C——, and determined on carrying her off if they could not contrive to obtain her from her father for my wife. "The question at issue," I said to M. de Bragadin, "is how to give me a respectable position, and to guarantee a dowry of ten thousand ducats which the young lady would bring me." They answered that, if Paralis gave them the necessary instructions, they were ready to fulfil them. That was all I wanted. I spent two hours in forming all ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt

... am afraid we live in a world of misnomers, and of a worse kind than this. In my little experience I have found that a gang of swindling bankers is a respectable old firm; that men who sell their votes to the highest bidder, and want only 'the protection of the ballot' to sell the promise of them to both parties, are a free and independent constituency; that a man who successively betrays everybody that ...
— Gryll Grange • Thomas Love Peacock

... England stands alone to-day, as she has stood for the last fifty years, the one free trade nation in the world. Possibly England of all the nations may be right and everybody else may be wrong, but there is, at least, a division of opinion so respectable that we may assume, with all due reverence for our free trade friends, that there are two sides to this question as to ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 24, November, 1891 • Various

... gone directly to the abbey. She explained to them again, that having slept during the day, she was traveling at night for coolness; therefore she did not need any sleep; and as she did not wish to awaken the worthy abbot nor the respectable monks, she preferred to stop in an inn to ...
— The Knights of the Cross • Henryk Sienkiewicz

... doubtful about her. The son looked his father full in the face, pale with fury. "She's as respectable a girl as any. How can you speak of her like that? How d——" He faltered, he was in such a fury that his ...
— The Son of His Mother • Clara Viebig

... Mr Montague;—I am. Mrs Pipkin is my aunt, or, leastways, my mother's brother's widow, though grandfather never would speak to her. She's quite respectable, and has five children, and lets lodgings. There's a lady here now, and has gone away with her just for one night down to Southend. They'll be back this evening, and I've the children to mind, with the servant girl. I'm quite respectable here, Mr Montague, and nobody need be a ...
— The Way We Live Now • Anthony Trollope

... here are quiet and respectable men. They were asked many questions, and guided the white officers to the place where Wad Etman stood—it was there that those who landed from the steamer first rested—and to the place where the great house of Suleiman Wad ...
— With Kitchener in the Soudan - A Story of Atbara and Omdurman • G. A. Henty

... the moralit of the people, I asked the maid at a respectable private house where I was staying: "Have you a father?" "No, sir," she answered, "we Paraguayans are not accustomed to have a father." Children of five or six, when asked about that parent, will often answer, "Father died in the war." The war ended thirty-nine years ago, but they have ...
— Through Five Republics on Horseback • G. Whitfield Ray



Words linked to "Respectable" :   unrespectable, considerable, worthy, solid, nice, upstanding, respectability, presentable, reputable, decent



Copyright © 2024 e-Free Translation.com