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Undutiful

adjective
1.
Lacking due respect or dutifulness.  Synonym: impious.  "An undutiful son"



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"Undutiful" Quotes from Famous Books



... man, now so thoroughly angry that he let go Anne's hand, "I have a good mind to give you what you deserve. As for you, undutiful, wretched girl," he added, his voice rising to an emotional tremolo, "you shall be well ...
— Grace Harlowe's Plebe Year at High School - The Merry Doings of the Oakdale Freshmen Girls • Jessie Graham Flower

... returned the dame. "And is there nothing dishonourable or undutiful in the boy's breaking the heart of his own plighted love, and his mother's heart too, for the sake of the dark secrets and counsels of a wicked stranger? Why did you ever come here?" she apostrophised the innocent captain. "Who wanted ...
— A Message from the Sea • Charles Dickens

... Ried who had gone out from them only two months ago. A whole lifetime of experience and discipline seemed to her to have been crowded into those two months. Nothing of her past awakened more keen regret in this young girl's heart than the thought of her undutiful, unsisterly life. It was all to be different now. She thanked God that he had let her come back to that very kitchen and dining-room to undo her former work. The old sluggish, selfish spirit had gone from her. Before this every thing had been done for Ester Ried, now ...
— Ester Ried • Pansy (aka. Isabella M. Alden)

... excellently intermingled. "They that marry where they do not love, will love where they do not marry." "He knows little, who will tell his wife all he knows." Speaking of children, he says that a man complained that never father had so undutiful a child as he. "Yes," said the son, "my grandfather had." Alluding to servants, and saying that the Emperor Charles the Fifth being caught in a tempest had many horses thrown overboard to save the lives of the slaves—which ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 1 (of 2) - With an Introduction upon Ancient Humour • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange

... effect on their brother Jack, (who was a rude, ill-natured, slovenly boy), that he soon grew better; and to prevent himself being utterly despised, and turned out of doors, by his papa and mamma, for his undutiful behaviour, he immediately mended his manners, and in a very little time was beloved and admired, almost equally with his brother Tommy. It has now, however, ceased to be the school of Europe; and as the late extraordinary events, ...
— A Museum for Young Gentlemen and Ladies - A Private Tutor for Little Masters and Misses • Unknown

... shed tears. He then produced his testament for my inspection, pretended to blame me that though I were the elder, I had so little ingratiated myself in his favour, and added, that he could not think of being guilty of so undutiful a conduct, as to contravene the last dispositions of his father. If however he could be of any use to me in my future plans of life, he would exert himself ...
— Italian Letters, Vols. I and II • William Godwin

... sow one's wild oats. render vicious &c. adj.; demoralize, brutalize; corrupt &c. (degrade) 659. Adj. vicious[1]; sinful; sinning &c.v.; wicked, iniquitous, immoral, unrighteous, wrong, criminal; naughty, incorrect; unduteous[obs3], undutiful. unprincipled, lawless, disorderly, contra bonos mores[Lat], indecorous, unseemly, improper; dissolute, profligate, scampish; unworthy; worthless; desertless[obs3]; disgraceful, recreant; reprehensible, blameworthy, uncommendable; discreditable, disreputable; Sadistic. ...
— Roget's Thesaurus

... can you refuse to bless a Father, whose only Care is to make you happy, as Mr. Meanwell has inform'd you. Come, wipe thy Eyes; nay, prithee do, or thou wilt break thy Father's Heart; see thou bring'st the Tears in mine to think of thy undutiful Carriage to ...
— The Busie Body • Susanna Centlivre

... reached home before nine o'clock, a distance of forty-five miles. My father and my sister met me at the door; but to attempt to describe the affecting reconciliation would be only doing an injustice to my own feelings. My poor father, however, would scarcely allow me to offer any apology for my undutiful behaviour; he took all the blame to himself; he had reflected more than I had upon the consequences of my voyage, the full particulars of which I found he knew, he having received an account of my every movement, and known all my plans, which had in confidence been communicated by the honest captain ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 1 • Henry Hunt

... a way, but always against the grain. He has a tough lot of prejudices; and you may depend upon it, they would be more obstinate against me than any one else, and I should be looked on as an undutiful dog for questioning them, besides getting the whole credit of every case that ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge

... almost as monstrous as the deed would have been. There sat her father, and his worship might ask him whether she ever had shown herself an undutiful child to him. (Hereupon I would have risen to speak, but Dom. Consul suffered me not to open my mouth, but went on with his examination; whereupon ...
— The Amber Witch • Wilhelm Meinhold

... not be so undutiful; but it is a pity your throwing all that money away on my education if I am not to complete it. If I had taken a good degree, I might have turned out something; but never mind,—it can't be helped now. Then you will be ...
— Not Like Other Girls • Rosa N. Carey

... miracle, with the moral purpose of all the world, of which we are a part, that removes all difficulty in believing it. Science, as such, cannot admit a miracle, and can only say, 'Here is a puzzle yet unsolved.' Nor can the most religious scientific man be blamed as undutiful to religion if he persists in endeavouring to solve the puzzle. But he has no right to insist beforehand that the puzzle is certainly soluble; for that he cannot know, and ...
— The Relations Between Religion and Science - Eight Lectures Preached Before the University of Oxford in the Year 1884 • Frederick, Lord Bishop of Exeter

... me. Caroline, from her earliest days, was the perfection of beauty and health. I was small, weakly, and, if the truth must be told, almost as plain-featured as Uncle George himself. It would be ungracious and undutiful in me to presume to decide whether there was any foundation or not for the dislike that my father's family always felt for my mother. All I can venture to say is, that her children never had any cause ...
— The Queen of Hearts • Wilkie Collins

... throne. For the next century and a half, till their power declined after the death of Aurangzeb in 1707, Kabul and Delhi were under one rule, and the Panjab was held in a strong grasp. When it was disturbed the cause was rebellions of undutiful sons of the reigning Emperor, struggles between rival heirs on the Emperor's death, or attempts to check the growing power of the Sikh Gurus. The empire was divided into subahs, and the area described in this book ...
— The Panjab, North-West Frontier Province, and Kashmir • Sir James McCrone Douie

... great man, my dear, and it's no for me or you to be judging him. It would be telling us all, if we behaved ourselves in our several stations the way your faither does in his high office; and let me hear no more of any such disrespectful and undutiful questions! No that you meant to be undutiful, my lamb; your mother kens that - she kens it well, dearie!" And so slid off to safer topics, and left on the mind of the child an obscure but ...
— Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson

... multitudes of boys in many respects. Smoking often leads to boys into bad company. Smoking often makes them precocious, undutiful, impudent and callous. Smoking often ruins the health. Smoking generally stunts their growth. Smoking generally sallows their complexion. Smoking often leads them to lying. Smoking often leads them to stealing. Smoking often leads them to drinking. Smoking degenerates the boy physically, ...
— Cole's Funny Picture Book No. 1 • Edward William Cole

... kissed him; and then, after looking at him to see how sweetly he slept,—now frowning, and now smiling in his dreams,—she went away with Hepsa, and they talked a great while together, telling each other what the other didn't know. Genevieve was often shocked and grieved at Hepsa's undutiful remarks about her father, mother and brother; and when she felt they didn't love Hepsa, as her own dear father and mother loved her, still she could not understand why Hepsa did not love them better. She was often a good deal perplexed ...
— The Angel Children - or, Stories from Cloud-Land • Charlotte M. Higgins

... Charles, take care," said the old woman, trembling with passion, for this was a new tone for her son to take with her. "You had my blessing the other day, and you saw what followed it; do not tempt me to curse an undutiful, disobedient, ...
— Christie Johnstone • Charles Reade

... a very undutiful idea; but she was silent. If she had but had wings like a dove, how gladly would she have flown to warn her friends! She well knew that Mrs Clere was not likely to be in the mood to grant a favour and ...
— The King's Daughters • Emily Sarah Holt

... reluctance than usual. 'You must forgive me for not having answered your letters. It really was not my fault.... And how do you do, Kitty? Have you been keeping my mother company ever since? It is very good of you; I am afraid you must think me a very undutiful son. But ...
— Celibates • George Moore

... me,' moaned Lady Le Breton, sinking back vacantly once more, with an air of resignation after her efforts, into the easy-chair: 'was there ever a mother so plagued and burdened with unnatural and undutiful sons as I am? If it weren't for dear Herbert, I'm sure I don't know what I should ever do between them. Ronald, too, who always pretended to be so very, very religious! To think that he should go and uphold the word ...
— Philistia • Grant Allen

... I have heard of your good Fortune; and however a Reprobate thou hast been, I'll not shew my self so undutiful an Uncle, as not to give the Gentlewoman a little House-room: I heard indeed she was gone a week ago, And, Sir, my House is at ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. II • Aphra Behn

... foolish; it was wrong and undutiful," he declared. "I am astonished that my daughter should have mixed herself up with such underhand work. And may I ask why I was kept ...
— The New Tenant • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... of young gentlemen and others her subjects in parts beyond the seas;—where for the most part they were "nourselled and nourished in papistry," with such instructions as "made them to mislike the government of their country, and thus tended to render them undutiful subjects;" &c. and intending to "take some present order therein;" as well by prohibiting that any but such as were known to be well affected in religion, and would undertake for the good education of their children, should send ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin

... scrutiny Into her mutiny Rash and undutiful: Past all dishonour, Death has left on ...
— The Hundred Best English Poems • Various

... execution was to be forced upon him; and the execution thereof was accordingly forced upon him. And the Resident, Middleton, on the Nabob's refusal to act in contradiction to his sworn engagement guarantied by the East India Company, and in the undutiful and unnatural manner required, did totally supersede his authority in his own dominions, considering himself as empowered so to act by the instructions of the said Hastings, although he had reason to ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VIII. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... holy elder," he cried, pointing to Ivan, "that is my son, flesh of my flesh, the dearest of my flesh! He is my most dutiful Karl Moor, so to speak, while this son who has just come in, Dmitri, against whom I am seeking justice from you, is the undutiful Franz Moor—they are both out of Schiller's Robbers, and so I am the reigning Count von Moor! Judge and save us! We need not only your prayers but ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky

... Ferdinand's courage that he was first to quit the ship? Are Miranda's speeches about her grandmother (I, ii, 140) and to Caliban inconsistent with the maidenly innocence assumed to be characteristic of her? Do you consider her talk with Ferdinand (III, i) in character? Is she undutiful to her father? Unmaidenly in her speedy declaration of love (III, i, 67, 89, 94-106, 110)? Should she be represented as ignorant or innocent of the world, or as in love? Describe the characters and relations to each other of the lovers from all that is given about them. Compare with Florizel and ...
— Shakespeare Study Programs; The Comedies • Charlotte Porter and Helen A. Clarke

... the ungrateful man go unpunished?" What then, I answer, shall we punish the undutiful, the malicious, the avaricious, the headstrong, and the cruel? Do you imagine that those things which are loathed are not punished, or do you suppose that any punishment is greater than the hate of all men? It is a punishment not to dare receive a benefit from anyone, ...
— L. Annaeus Seneca On Benefits • Seneca

... my part in what had happened, that nothing would have enabled me to keep back my tears but the fear that Steerforth, who often looked at me, I saw, might think it unfriendly—or, I should rather say, considering our relative ages, and the feeling with which I regarded him, undutiful—if I showed the emotion which distressed me. He was very angry with Traddles, and said he was ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens

... departed. It is not quite clear whether Gian Battista was present or not, but as soon as ever the messenger had departed, Cardan let loose an indignant outburst over his son's misconduct, reproaching him with undutiful secresy, and setting forth how he had introduced to him four young ladies of good family, of whom two were certainly enamoured of him. Any one of the four would have been acceptable as a daughter-in-law, but he declared that now he would insist upon having full information ...
— Jerome Cardan - A Biographical Study • William George Waters

... Wherefore sometimes in accordance with the hidden design of the Divine judgments, which regard chiefly the future reward, some, who are dutiful to their parents, are sooner deprived of life, while others, who are undutiful to ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas

... unprecedented in the Rollo family, of Illinois, Antony was an undutiful son. He was so undutiful that he may be said to have been preposterous. There were seven other sons—Antony was the eldest. His younger brothers were a nice, well-behaved bevy of boys as ever you saw. They always ...
— Cobwebs From an Empty Skull • Ambrose Bierce (AKA: Dod Grile)

... herself was capable of taking a situation as lady's maid—a higher position then than now—and she knew of one lady who was willing to engage her, if she could provide otherwise for Phoebe. Phoebe was the second of her children, and was now seventeen. She expressed her sorrow for the undutiful behaviour of which she had been guilty towards both parents; and she besought in all ignorance the father who had been dead for fourteen years, to plead with Madam, to help her, in any way she pleased, to ...
— The Maidens' Lodge - None of Self and All of Thee, (In the Reign of Queen Anne) • Emily Sarah Holt

... them off—they should not be outraged by an introduction to a vulgar pantomime clown under his roof; and lastly (this was an outburst he could not deny himself), a solemn impressive appeal to the common humanity, if not to the ordinary filial instincts, of his undutiful son. ...
— Vice Versa - or A Lesson to Fathers • F. Anstey

... they will," she repeated, and warned her brother into the background with a gesture half-pleading half-peremptory. "We are your children, and we're not bad or undutiful children at all, and I'm sure that when you think it all over, mamma, you'll see that it would be absurd to let anything ...
— The Market-Place • Harold Frederic

... Sadako no longer took her cousin with her to the theatre or to choose kimono patterns at the Mitsukoshi store. She was irritated at Asako's failure to learn Japanese. It bored her to have to explain everything. She found this girl from Europe silly and undutiful. ...
— Kimono • John Paris

... to indulge in undutiful slumber did not result in evil on this occasion, although it did result in something rather surprising. It might have been far otherwise had ...
— The Iron Horse • R.M. Ballantyne

... likewise give her the power of appointment, which means that she may give or leave it to the children in unequal proportion—a shilling to one and all the rest of the property to another—just as they may deserve to be treated. When any of the children are undutiful and likely to give the widow trouble, this placing her in his own position gives her the needed power over the unruly. Should a man die intestate, the widow is entitled to a third of his property, and the remainder goes to the ...
— The Girl's Own Paper, Vol. VIII. No. 358, November 6, 1886. • Various

... have any idea that there is such a thing as a clock," said Gilbert. "I can't get to the bottom of that affair. I'm certain you women pulled strings. But Anne, undutiful wife, won't tell ...
— Anne's House of Dreams • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... "Oh, what an undutiful son I have been!" cried Harry; "had I known then what I know now! and yet, the fiend would not have turned a hand, had it been his own father! Thank God, I have his forgiveness for disobeying his last commands! 't is the one great lesson of my life, and should I live a hundred ...
— Natalie - A Gem Among the Sea-Weeds • Ferna Vale

... money still. And though his venerable father, Rear-admiral Sir Ajax Trotter, K.C.B., has paid his debts many times, and swears if he ever hears of Dolly betting again, he will disinherit his son, Dolly—the undutiful Dolly—goes on ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 2, January, 1851 • Various

... was, that the very extent of the perjury should be his client's protection, because it showed that he was not a man "to be tried by ordinary standards." When, in addition to this, he laboured day after day to persuade the jury that Roger Tichborne was a drunkard, a liar, a fool, an undutiful son, an ungrateful friend, and an abandoned libertine—declared in loud and impassioned tones that he would "strip this jay of his borrowed plumes," and indignantly repudiated the notion that the man his client claimed to be had one single good quality about him, the ...
— Celebrated Claimants from Perkin Warbeck to Arthur Orton • Anonymous

... "but my fidelity to my Chateaudoux has not faltered, nor will not, whatever I may be called upon to endure. I cannot, however, be so undutiful as to accept my Chateaudoux's addresses without my father's consent; and my mother, who is of the same mind with me, insists that even with that consent a runaway marriage is not to be thought of unless my Chateaudoux can provide me ...
— Clementina • A.E.W. Mason

... declaration was followed by a plentiful shower of tears, which the father could not behold with unmoistened eyes, although he reviled her with marks of uncommon displeasure; and turning to the Count, "I appeal to you, sir," said he, "whether I have not reason to curse the undutiful obstinacy of that pert baggage, and renounce her for ever as an alien to my blood. She has, for some months, been solicited in marriage by an honest citizen, a thirty thousand pound man; and instead of listening to such an advantageous proposal, she hath bestowed her heart upon a young fellow not ...
— The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom, Complete • Tobias Smollett

... service I could render you; and I should be greedy indeed if I desired greater wealth than you have bestowed. If I may say so without offending, I earnestly wish that you would permit me, by resigning your gifts, to retain in my own eyes the right to keep my secret without seeming undutiful or unthankful." ...
— Across the Zodiac • Percy Greg

... that more and more, though I have tried to fancy that it was. No, sir, my wrongs are irreparable. I had the making of a real Harvard man in me, and of a Unitarian, nicely balanced between radicalism and amateur episcopacy. Now, I am an orthodox ruin, and the undutiful stepson of a Down East alma mater. I belong nowhere; I'm at odds.—Is Hubbard's wife really handsome, or ...
— A Modern Instance • William Dean Howells

... every letter, and a silk dress and lace cap she herself has chosen in the Boulevard Capucines. And I must care for myself, and furnish the cottage prettily, and keep a servant. Her wealth and great fortune have not rendered her undutiful,—my Laure." ...
— Mere Girauds Little Daughter • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... that the spirits of the departed, both the good and the bad, were released on that particular night, and that, if they were not propitiated, these spirits would haunt throughout the coming year their undutiful living relatives. In all probability, though the time of celebration is different, these Roman ceremonies and the Hallowe'en ceremonies in this country had a common origin. In the year 610, the Bishop of Rome ordained that the heathen Pantheon should be converted into ...
— Folk Lore - Superstitious Beliefs in the West of Scotland within This Century • James Napier

... sharply about it; Jose ventured to remind her that guests were present and that it would be better to discuss the matter in private. Angry because one of her children ventured to dispute her, she replied: "You are an undutiful son. You will never accomplish anything which you undertake. All your plans will result in failure." These words could not be forgotten, as succeeding events seemed to make their prophecy come true, and there is pathos in one of Rizal's letters in which he reminds his mother that ...
— Lineage, Life, and Labors of Jose Rizal, Philippine Patriot • Austin Craig

... "Very much obliged to you. I'm a poor man; but it's on account of some undutiful children that I've spent all my money on, and now they begrudge their poor ...
— Rufus and Rose - The Fortunes of Rough and Ready • Horatio Alger, Jr

... brought into the sun: and the tyrant in possession crushes the outbreak of all these, drives them back like slaves into the dungeon and darkness, and chafes without that his prisoner is rebellious, and his sworn subject undutiful and refractory. So the lamp was out in Castlewood Hall, and the lord and lady there saw each other as they were. With her illness and altered beauty my lord's fire for his wife disappeared; with his selfishness and faithlessness her foolish fiction of love and reverence was ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray

... fought with—Heaven forgive me, what was I about to say!—but you mentioned the man's name, and our minds willingly recall our ancient follies. Few and evil have been my days upon earth, I may say with Jacob of old, though I do not mean to say that my case is so hard as his; he had many undutiful children, whilst I have only—; but I will not reproach you. I have also like him a son to whom I can look with hope, who may yet preserve my name when I am gone, so let me be thankful; perhaps, after all, I ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow

... derogatory to the honour and destructive to the interests of England; and he declared that he would hazard every drop of blood, and his last shilling, rather than see his country set at defiance, bullied, and dictated to, by her undutiful and ungrateful children; her disobedient and rebellious subjects. The amendment was negatived by a majority of ninety-one against twenty-six. Fourteen peers had it entered on the journals, at full length, as ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan

... for I have been undutiful in not asking before, have any tidings been received of my poor uncle, and the brave crew ...
— The Pirate of the Mediterranean - A Tale of the Sea • W.H.G. Kingston

... with the fellow, and she's throwing herself at his head; it's perfectly awful to think of it. She has forgotten all about her old father. I'll be a beggar in my old age; the Firs will have to go; I'll be ruined, undone. Oh, was there ever such an undutiful daughter? I must go to her. I must hobble up to that distant spot as quickly as possible; perhaps when she sees me she may pause before she irrevocably commits so wicked an act. Oh, how lame I am! what agonies I'm enduring! ...
— Frances Kane's Fortune • L. T. Meade

... faded from the lad's face at the words, as the blossom fades 'neath the blighting touch of frost. What he said was so undutiful from a nephew touching his uncle—particularly when that uncle is a prelate—that ...
— The Suitors of Yvonne • Raphael Sabatini

... them as the worst people in the world, till they have seen others no better; and then, like individuals with their private sorrows, they find change produces no alleviation. The Mount of Miseries, in the Spectator, where all the people change with their neighbours, lay down an undutiful son, and carry away with them a hump-back, or whatever had been the source of disquiet to another, whom he had blamed for bearing so ill a misfortune thought trifling till he took it on himself, is an admirably well constructed fable, and is applicable ...
— Observations and Reflections Made in the Course of a Journey through France, Italy, and Germany, Vol. I • Hester Lynch Piozzi

... army; he headed riots; and he was finally detected in a plan for actually assassinating his father. Severus, when he discovered this last enormity of wickedness, sent for his son to come to his imperial tent. He laid a naked sword before him, and then, after bitterly reproaching him with his undutiful and ungrateful conduct, he said, "If you wish to kill me, do it now. Here I stand, old, infirm, and helpless. You are young and strong, and can do it easily. I am ...
— King Alfred of England - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott

... contrived to struggle ashore. He lay dazed for a time, and dreamed that the old man visited him, and gave him a pull from his flask. Next morning, much refreshed, he wandered into the country, which he found to be an uninhabited island. He now repented of his undutiful conduct in leaving his parents, and felt his sad plight to be a fitting ...
— The Hero of Esthonia and Other Studies in the Romantic Literature of That Country • William Forsell Kirby

... right to a hundred dollar shawl as Anna," replied my sister, in a very undutiful tone. "And what is more, ...
— All's for the Best • T. S. Arthur

... in consequence of my scream, except by attributing to him something of the human weakness of vanity. I cannot help thinking that he liked to hear himself speak to God in the presence of an admiring listener. He prayed with fervour and animation, in pure Johnsonian English, and I hope I am not undutiful if I add my impression that he was not displeased with the sound of his own devotions. My cry for help had needlessly, as he thought, broken in upon this holy and seemly performance. 'You, the child of a naturalist,' he remarked in awesome ...
— Father and Son • Edmund Gosse

... none but me to love thee, unknown to thine own sons! I cannot, I will not give my heart away from thee! Thy little bride shall be faithful to thee, whatever betide. When we meet beyond the grave I will have been thine only, nor have set any before thy sons. Heaven forgive me if I be undutiful to my uncle; but thou must be preferred before even him! Hark!" and she started as if at Eberhard's foot-step; then smiled, recollecting that Ebbo had his father's tread. But her husband had been too much in awe of her to enter with that hasty agitated step and exclamation, ...
— The Dove in the Eagle's Nest • Charlotte M. Yonge

... hang, 97, The Ape as Antiquary, and 99, The Housewife. If Chardin touches the border-line between sentiment and sentimentality, Greuze (end wall) in 369, Return of the Prodigal; 370, A Father's Crime; and 371, The Undutiful Son, certainly oversteps it. Each of these became the theme of extravagant eulogy and didactic preachments by Diderot, his literary protagonist, who hailed him as a French Hogarth making Virtue ...
— The Story of Paris • Thomas Okey

... remained undiscovered for a couple of days, and the tides of the Firth had removed much. Mrs. Lancaster had departed with sullen, smouldering eyes. She honestly considered her daughter thankless and undutiful, because the latter had not promised her a share of ...
— Till the Clock Stops • John Joy Bell

... with the Popes. Their parental sway has been opposed only by their undutiful sons who grew impatient of the Gospel yoke. Photius, the leader of the Greek schism, was an obedient son of the Pope until Nicholas refused to recognize his usurped authority. Henry VIII. was a stout ...
— The Faith of Our Fathers • James Cardinal Gibbons

... dear young friend, I have lost much, even more than I tell you and I say there are sorrows worse than death so you will be a pride and comfort as you grow up, for I have known what an undutiful son is too. But I think of my brave, noble boy that died in France and you brought him back to me for a few minutes when I sat reading his letter. So I shall always love these scout boys on account of you and would like to read ...
— Roy Blakeley in the Haunted Camp • Percy Keese Fitzhugh

... threw himself upon the bed, and pressing his temples into the ragged quilt, felt the panorama of childhood pass across his mind like something cool, sorrowful, and compassionate. The sickness she had cured, the bad words she had taken from his undutiful lips, the whipping she had saved him from at the cost of her deceit, the lie she had never told him, the tears he had found her shedding upon her knees when first he had been drinking, the money he had never given her out of his salary ...
— Tales of the Chesapeake • George Alfred Townsend

... you may possibly regard it as a duty to shut your eyes to the faults of those who are dear to you, and to persuade yourself, against your judgment, that they have no faults or none worth thinking of. One can imagine a child painfully struggling to be blind to a parent's errors, and thinking it undutiful and wicked to admit the existence of that: which is too evident. And if you know well a really good and able man, you will very naturally think his goodness and his ability to be relatively much greater than they are. For goodness and ability ...
— The Recreations of A Country Parson • A. K. H. Boyd

... advancing towards the Earl, and speaking in a tone of light reproach, "to go away and leave me, when I come back from twelve or fourteen hundred miles' distance, without even waiting to see my most beautiful dressing-gown. Really you fathers are becoming excessively undutiful towards your children! You have wanted some one so long to keep you in order, my lord, that I see evidently, I shall be obliged to hold a tight hand over you. But tell me, in pity tell me, did you ever see anything so exquisite as this dressing-gown? Its beauty would be nothing without its ...
— The King's Highway • G. P. R. James

... said the lady earnestly again laying her cold hand on his arm. She was interrupted by her wayward and undutiful son. ...
— False Friends, and The Sailor's Resolve • Unknown

... listen to me? No one can say I have been undutiful or disrespectful. I am a man, with a right to speak my mind, and I have done so; but this is different. I am not here by my own will. Something that is stronger than I has brought me. There is something in your mind which disturbs—others. I don't know what I am ...
— The Open Door, and the Portrait. - Stories of the Seen and the Unseen. • Margaret O. (Wilson) Oliphant

... anon, sir.—Lucy, on her part, angelic creature, professed that she could not dream of being undutiful towards kind old Pa; and that, unless desperate measures were resorted to, quamprimum, in the twinkling of a bed-post she would be under the disagreeable necessity to bundle and go with the disabled man of war to ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 12, No. 339, Saturday, November 8, 1828. • Various

... of affectionate parents! beware how you crush the hearts that have "nourished and cherished" you as only parents' hearts can do! God will smite the undutiful child with a curse! Bear and forbear, even if the commands of those appointed over you should seem to be unjust. Remember their labor, and toil and suffering in your behalf, and spare, oh! spare them in their old age, when their bodies are ripening ...
— Eveline Mandeville - The Horse Thief Rival • Alvin Addison

... and I think it not right. In private families I never see a young man behaving so to his elders, so unfeeling or so unreasonable, as to refuse to do any thing himself, unless all the rest will do what he does. Such a person would certainly be amenable to the laws against undutiful conduct: [Footnote: Pabst: die Gesetze wegen ungebuhrlicher Behandlung der Eltern. [Greek: Kakosis], "maltreatment", was a technical term in the Attic law, denoting a failure of duty on the part of husbands, children, or guardians, toward their wives, parents, or wards, for which ...
— The Olynthiacs and the Phillippics of Demosthenes • Demosthenes

... threshold, all the mischief and misery she hath made here will seem to come in adoors in one heap. But what could I do, wife? We must hear the news of Gerard. I saw that in thine eyes, and felt it in my own heart. And she is backed by our undutiful but still beloved son, and so is she stronger than we, and brings our noses down to the grindstone, the sly, cruel jade. But never heed. We will hear the letter; and then let her go unblessed as she ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade

... sorrow at parting with me, and I knew that she was of such a disposition that I would be forgotten in a day or two. They would never miss me, for I had no place in their affections. True, I was an undutiful child, and deserved none. I possessed no qualities that would win either their pride or love, but my heart cried ...
— My Brilliant Career • Miles Franklin

... are a lazy woman and an undutiful wife. It is not four miles to Cobhurst, and you walk two or three times that distance every day, gadding about town. You ought to go out there and attend to Mike's clothes, and see that he is comfortable, instead of giving up the little time ...
— The Girl at Cobhurst • Frank Richard Stockton

... I must retire. Come, Constance, my love. You see, Mr. Hastings, the wretchedness of my situation: was ever poor woman so plagued with a dear sweet, pretty, provoking, undutiful boy? [Exeunt MRS. ...
— She Stoops to Conquer - or, The Mistakes of a Night. A Comedy. • Oliver Goldsmith

... his guilt in disobeying his father, and he felt unhappy to think that his father and mother were seated together at their pleasant table, and that he could not come, because he had been an undutiful son. He determined that he would never be unfaithful in his ...
— Parker's Second Reader • Richard G. Parker

... forgave him for this undutiful stupidity. "We could have got on without him," he used to say later on, "but there's the business. And he an only son, too!" His mother wept very much after his disappearance. As it had never occurred to him to leave word behind, he was mourned over ...
— Typhoon • Joseph Conrad

... and anthems as the angels sing in heaven, was no friend of the old-fashioned duet between the minister and clerk in the conduct of divine service. He would have no "talking, or sleeping, or gazing, or leaning, or half-kneeling, or any undutiful behaviour in them." Moreover, "everyone, man and child, should answer aloud both Amen and all other answers which are on the clerk's and people's part to answer, which answers also are to be done not in a huddling or slubbering fashion, gaping, or scratching the head, ...
— The Parish Clerk (1907) • Peter Hampson Ditchfield



Words linked to "Undutiful" :   undutifulness, impious, disrespectful



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