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Avow   Listen
verb
Avow  v. t.  (past & past part. avowed; pres. part. avowing)  
1.
To declare openly, as something believed to be right; to own or acknowledge frankly; as, a man avows his principles or his crimes. "Which I to be the of Israel's God Avow, and challenge Dagon to the test."
2.
(Law) To acknowledge and justify, as an act done. See Avowry.
Synonyms: To acknowledge; own; confess. See Confess.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Avow" Quotes from Famous Books



... Gawaine, we have been served this day of what meats and drinks we thought on, but one thing beguiled us, we might not see the holy Graile, it was so preciously covered: wherefore I will make here avow, that to-morn, without longer abiding, I shall labour in the quest of the Sancgreal, that I shall hold me out a twelvemonth and a day, or more if need be, and never shall I return again unto the court till I have seen it more openly than it hath been seen here; and if ...
— Song and Legend From the Middle Ages • William D. McClintock and Porter Lander McClintock

... shall condemn you. O God! full of mercy and goodness, and of fatherly care and providence, and never a greater providence found I in my lifetime, than I found this last time in my journey, I thank my God for it; and here I avow, if this blood of mine should go for it, it was acceptable service to God we did that day; I know there were many that sent up their prayers to God for the maintenance of his liberty, I am sure the Lord heard you; for I say to you, the ...
— The Pulpit Of The Reformation, Nos. 1, 2 and 3. • John Welch, Bishop Latimer and John Knox

... she felt herself the absolute, untrammelled possessor of it. Until now Captain Horn, to whom she owed her gold, and the power it gave her, had been with her or had exercised an influence over her. Until the time had come when he could avow the possession of his vast treasures, it had been impossible for her to make known her share in them, and even after everything had been settled, and they had all come home together in the finest state-rooms of a great ocean liner, she had still felt dependent upon the counsels ...
— Mrs. Cliff's Yacht • Frank R. Stockton

... he was more than half ashamed. Its mere formulation in words rendered it bumptious and presumptuous. Beyond the confession made to Rodney Temple on the night of his arrival no force could have induced him to avow it. Better any imputation of craft than the suspicion of wanting to confer benefits on his fellow-men. It was a satisfaction to him to be able to say, even in his own inner consciousness, that the desperate state of Guion's ...
— The Street Called Straight • Basil King

... embrace compress'd, The rock-ribb'd mother, Earth, his love confess'd: The hundred-handed giant at a birth, And me, she bore, nor slept my hopes on earth; My heart avow'd my sire's ethereal flame; Great Adamastor, then, my dreaded name. In my bold brother's glorious toils engaged, Tremendous war against the gods I waged: Yet, not to reach the throne of heaven I try, With mountain pil'd on mountain to the sky; To me the conquest of the seas befell, In his green realm ...
— National Epics • Kate Milner Rabb

... her head, but with downcast eyes, "in this dreadful moment, when he lies a prisoner, his life in danger, I can avow, what I could scarcely dare avow even to myself, that I loved him with a passionate and unrequited love. I loved him with an eager and devoted affection, although his heart was not mine—poor simple uncourtly girl as I am—although it was another's. He too loved, I know—but it was a great and ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 363, January, 1846 • Various

... to slavery, and never hesitated to avow his sentiments. His black servants were very much attached to him. The peculiar nature of Washington forbade those heart-friendships demanded by a narrower and more impulsive nature. He kept all the world too far from him ever to win that tenderness of affection which sweetens ...
— The Memories of Fifty Years • William H. Sparks

... Fonseca, Rodrigues, Peirara, Azavedo, Montefiores, &c. &c.—are of Jewish origin. Their numbers, therefore, will never be accurately known until the restoration, when thousands who, from convenience and pride, and some from apprehension, conceal their religion, will be most eager to avow it when their nation takes rank among the governments ...
— The Book of Religions • John Hayward

... so full of vanity. Your male friends will still treat you like a woman; and many a man, for instance Dr. Johnson, Lord Littleton, and even Dr. Priestley have insensibly been led to utter warm eulogiums in private that they would be sorry openly to avow without some cooling explanatory ifs. An author, especially a woman, should be cautious, lest she too hastily swallows the crude praises which partial friend and polite acquaintance bestow thoughtlessly when ...
— Mary Wollstonecraft • Elizabeth Robins Pennell

... the distance; and as the news flew from mouth to mouth, it was soon magnified into a rumour that the French were coming. Horror seized the English and their adherents, and the hitherto concealed partizans of the French began openly to avow themselves; tri-coloured ribbons grew suddenly into great request, and cries of "Vive l'Empereur!" resounded through the air. These exclamations, however, were changed to "Vive le Lord Vellington!" when it was discovered that the approaching ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 351 - Volume 13, Saturday, January 10, 1829 • Various

... and male, Here the heir-ship and heiress-ship of the world, here the flame of materials, Here spirituality the translatress, the openly-avow'd, The ever-tending, the finale of visible forms, The satisfier, after due long-waiting now advancing, Yes here comes my ...
— Leaves of Grass • Walt Whitman

... attentions, or, I may say, rather those servile adorations, would continue for ever, and that in time she might arrive at the highest point of power. The Archbishop of Aix and her brother divined her thoughts, for she did not dare to avow them, and showed her in the clearest way that those thoughts were calculated to lead her astray. They explained to her that the only interest Madame de Maintenon had in favouring her was on account of Spain. ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon

... these sounds my lips Gave utterance, wailing: "Thy fair looks withdrawn, Things present, with deceitful pleasures, turn'd My steps aside." She answering spake: "Hadst thou Been silent, or denied what thou avow'st, Thou hadst not hid thy sin the more: such eye Observes it. But whene'er the sinner's cheek Breaks forth into the precious-streaming tears Of self-accusing, in our court the wheel Of justice doth run counter to the edge. Howe'er that thou may'st profit by ...
— The Divine Comedy, Complete - The Vision of Paradise, Purgatory and Hell • Dante Alighieri

... ambiguousness in the result of his lengthy inquiries, on the greatest as well as on the lightest matters, and it was inevitable that a listener should accept the dubious lesson in his own sense. Was this shrewd casuist only bringing him by a roundabout way to principles he would not have cared to avow? To the great religious thinker of the next century, to Pascal, Montaigne was to figure as emphatically on the wrong side, not merely because "he that is not with us, is against us." It was something to have been, in the matter of religious tolerance, ...
— Gaston de Latour: an unfinished romance • Walter Horatio Pater

... all "intention." The book has been written neither to aid the Abolitionist nor glorify the planter. The author does not believe that by such means he could benefit the slave, else he would not fear to avow it. On the other hand, he is too true a Republican, to be the instrument that would add one drop to the "bad blood" which, unfortunately for the cause of human freedom, has already arisen between "North" and "South." No; he will be the last man to aid European ...
— The Quadroon - Adventures in the Far West • Mayne Reid

... How could he face her, after all that had happened. He bitterly regretted his weakness in permitting the girl to avow her love for him, in engaging ...
— The Secret of the Storm Country • Grace Miller White

... of proceeding," he said. "You are to avow your affection for this fine gentleman, and then he is to throw over another lady in order to reward your devotion. There was a day when Miss Graham's pride would have been outraged by a proposition which certainly seems ...
— Run to Earth - A Novel • M. E. Braddon

... that this doctrine of obeying God, rather than man, will be considered as dangerous, and heretical by many, but I am not afraid openly to avow it, because it is the doctrine of the Bible; but I would not be understood to advocate resistance to any law however oppressive, if, in obeying it, I was not obliged to commit sin. If for instance, there was ...
— An Appeal to the Christian Women of the South • Angelina Emily Grimke

... session of the 36th Congress, when the war clouds were threatening, and desertion of the Union cause became an epidemic, high above the breathings of secession was heard the voice of William H. Seward, exclaiming: "I avow my adherence to the Union with my friends, with my party, with my State; or without either, as they may determine, in every event of peace or war, with every consequence of honor or dishonor, of life or death." In conclusion he declared: "I certainly shall never directly or indirectly give my ...
— Hidden Treasures - Why Some Succeed While Others Fail • Harry A. Lewis

... most unworthy patience have I seen My country shackled and her sons oppressed; And though I've felt their injuries, and avow My ardent hope hereafter ...
— A Book of the Play - Studies and Illustrations of Histrionic Story, Life, and Character • Dutton Cook

... of the National Secular Society it is only necessary to be able honestly to accept the four principles, as given in the National Reformer of June 14th. This any person may do without being required to avow himself an Atheist. Candidly, we can see no logical resting-place between the entire acceptance of authority, as in the Roman Catholic Church, and the most extreme Rationalism. If, on again looking to the Principles ...
— Annie Besant - An Autobiography • Annie Besant

... he shoud now justifie all againe. If things had bene done in a corner, it had been some thinge to deney them; but being done in y^e open view of y^e cuntrie & before all men, it is more then strange now to avow to make them plainly appear to any indifferente men; and here wher things were done, and all y^e evidence that could be were presente, and yet could make nothing appear, but even his freinds condemnd him & gave their voyce to ...
— Bradford's History of 'Plimoth Plantation' • William Bradford

... the question of the Church, the more intelligent laymen of the Irish National party openly avow their wish to alienate the property of the Church, on the ground that its existence forms a barrier to the union of Irish Protestants with the Catholic majority in the formation of a truly National Irish party. It is asserted, and apparently not without reason, that if the Irish Protestants ...
— University Education in Ireland • Samuel Haughton

... it had seemed necessary for Colonel Tiffton openly to avow his sentiments, and not "sneak between two fires, for fear of being burned," as Harney wolfishly told him one day, taunting him with being a "villainous Yankee," and hinting darkly of the ...
— Bad Hugh • Mary Jane Holmes

... are any such whom my suffering the just sentence of the law has not mollified,) may cast upon me for this confession. The wiser or more ingenious will, I hope, approve my conduct, and allow with me, that next to doing right is to have the courage and integrity to avow that I have done wrong." These sentiments were not, be it observed, made public until after ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745 - Volume III. • Mrs. Thomson

... complete destruction. "Tegannisorens loves the French," he wrote to Frontenac, "but neither he nor any other of the upper Iroquois fear them in the least. They annihilate our allies, whom by adoption of prisoners they convert into Iroquois; and they do not hesitate to avow that after enriching themselves by our plunder, and strengthening themselves by those who might have aided us, they will pounce all at once upon Canada, and overwhelm it in a single campaign." He adds that within the past two years ...
— Count Frontenac and New France under Louis XIV • Francis Parkman

... father's enemy, I like him still less!" exclaimed the now really anxious girl. "Will you not speak to him, Major Heyward, that I may hear his tones? Foolish though it may be, you have often heard me avow my faith in the tones of ...
— The Last of the Mohicans • James Fenimore Cooper

... from me—My soul disdains to hold parley with thee! were her violent words.—But I threw myself at her feet, and took hold of her reluctant hand, and began to imprecate, avow, to promise—But thus the passionate beauty, interrupting me, ...
— Clarissa, Volume 6 (of 9) - The History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson

... efficacy of spiritual self-chastisement with a person who closes her lips into a thin line and looks at you out of blank, uncomprehending eyes! Common sense, right, and logic were all arrayed on Miranda's side. When poor Rebecca, driven to the wall, had to avow the reasons lying behind the sacrifice of the sunshade, her aunt said, "Now see here, Rebecca, you're too big to be whipped, and I shall never whip you; but when you think you ain't punished enough, just tell me, and I'll make out to invent a little something more. I ain't so smart as ...
— Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm • Kate Douglas Wiggin

... when we meet, We'll dare make no avow, But, 'Dame, how does my gay goss-hawk?' 'Madame, how ...
— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott

... that he had great confidence that the council would be brought to give at least some encouragement to the enterprise. In 1850 Mr. Dow was named among the candidates for the mayoralty; and when his views in this regard were assailed by his opponents, he did not hesitate to boldly avow his opinions, and to declare that he wished no support for any office which demanded of him any modification of these convictions. The workmen fail, but the work succeeds. The name of Jesse E. Dow merits conspicuous record in ...
— History of the Negro Race in America from 1619 to 1880. Vol. 2 (of 2) - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George Washington Williams

... interest, except for the bull. They were under a real fascination, which communicated itself to most of the strangers who came to Spain, and principally for this barbarous amusement. Besides, it must be avowed—and we avow it with grief—that compassion for animals is, in Spain, particularly among the men, a sentiment more theoretical than practical. Among the lower classes it does ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 7 • Various

... you prove right and I prove wrong, A million years from now, In language plain and frank and strong My error I'll avow ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine

... is—yes, my doubt is great, My faith's still greater, then my faith's enough. I have read much, thought much, experienced much, Yet would die rather than avow my fear The Naples' liquefaction may be false, When set to happen by the palace-clock According to the clouds or dinner-time. 730 I hear you recommend, I might at least Eliminate, decrassify my faith Since I adopt it; keeping what I must And leaving what I can—such points ...
— Men and Women • Robert Browning

... emotion, "I must have done so; your behaviour to me this evening has proved it. Could you think, Jacobi, that I, a wife, the mother of many children, could permit the sentiment which you have been so thoughtless as to avow this evening? Could you imagine that it would not occasion me great uneasiness and pain? Indeed, it is so, Jacobi; I fear that you have gone sadly wrong; and if I myself, through any want of circumspection in my conduct, have assisted thereto, may God forgive me! ...
— The Home • Fredrika Bremer

... they are dispatched in correspondence and in newspapers to the provinces.[1425]—Thus we see the second means of compulsion; each deputy is answerable for his vote, at Paris, with his own life, and, in the province, with those of his family. Members of the former Third-Estate avow that they abandon the idea of two Chambers, because "they are not disposed to get their wives' and children's throats cut." On the 30th of August, Saint-Hurugue, the most noisy of the Palais-Royal barkers, marches off to Versailles, at the head of 1,500 men, to complete ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 2 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 1 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine

... calling upon me publicly to avow or disavow, to approve or disapprove, in writing, any religious doctrine or statement, however carefully or cautiously drawn up (in other words, to append my name to a religious manifesto) to be an infringement of that social forbearance which guards the freedom of religious opinion in this country ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume II (of II) • Augustus de Morgan

... really have tried to be a good Catholic, if you have complied faithfully with all your religious duties, you will have to avow that it is all owing to the beneficial Catholic influence under which you were placed during the time of your scholarship, and afterwards. If you escaped the general contagion of unbelief and vice, remember that it is owing to a kind of ...
— Public School Education • Michael Mueller

... hope the Father will send thee, as the companion of life's toils and joys, is not to thy thought pure? Is not manliness to thy thought purity, not lawlessness? Can his lips speak falsely? Can he do, in secret, what he could not avow to the mother that bore him? O say, dost thou not look for a heart free, open as thine own, all whose thoughts may be avowed, incapable of wronging the innocent, or still further degrading the fallen—a man, in short, in whom brute nature is entirely ...
— Woman in the Ninteenth Century - and Kindred Papers Relating to the Sphere, Condition - and Duties, of Woman. • Margaret Fuller Ossoli

... I returned, laughing at him, "you could not, if you wished, make me quarrel with you; and if you desire it, I will freely avow my firm belief in the fact that my cousin Dorothy is the flower of modesty. Does that better ...
— Dorothy Vernon of Haddon Hall • Charles Major

... Harry, my lad. I've often grumbled; but I avow it—I am past service, gouty as I am; but ...
— Syd Belton - The Boy who would not go to Sea • George Manville Fenn

... not easy to reconcile this monstrous tissue of incongruity and dissimulation with any motives of necessity or expediency. Why should he, so soon after preparing to raise the kingdom in his daughter's cause, thus publicly avow her imbecility, and deposit the whole authority in the hands of Philip? Was it to bring odium on the head of the latter, by encouraging him to a measure which he knew must disgust the Castilians? [53] But Ferdinand by this very act shared the responsibility with him. Was it in the ...
— The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella The Catholic, V3 • William H. Prescott

... the man to whom I belonged as the hand belongs to the body, my indignation held me bravely up. But now that I was alone, I conceived a sickness at myself and my designs that I could scarce endure; I longed to throw myself at his feet, avow my intended treachery, and warn him from that pestilential swamp, to which I was decoying him to die; but my vow to my dead father, my duty to my innocent youth, prevailed upon these scruples; and though my face was pale ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 5 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... following was received from the Twenty-first Precinct: "The mob avow their determination of burning this station. Our connection by telegram may ...
— The Great Riots of New York 1712 to 1873 • J.T. Headley

... may as well tell you at once—if you will not trust to me, to your brother, or any friend who may be able to protect you from insult—nor prevail on your lover to come forward in a decent and respectable way, and avow his purpose—it will become your brother's duty to tell him that his visits can no longer be allowed ...
— The Macdermots of Ballycloran • Anthony Trollope

... unredeemed, go to the gaping, grave. Thousands shall deem it an old woman's tale, Such as the nurses frighten babes withal. These in a gulph of anguish and of flame Shall curse their reprobation endlessly. Yet tenfold pangs shall force them to avow, Even on their beds of torment, where they howl, My honor, and the justice of their doom. What then avail their virtuous deeds, their thoughts Of purity, with radiant genius bright, Or lit with human reason's ...
— Ancient and Modern Celebrated Freethinkers - Reprinted From an English Work, Entitled "Half-Hours With - The Freethinkers." • Charles Bradlaugh, A. Collins, and J. Watts

... avow, and act up to such opinions, their understandings, at least, deserve the contempt and obloquy that men, WHO NEVER insult their persons, have pointedly levelled at the female mind. And it is the sentiments of these polite men, who do not wish to ...
— A Vindication of the Rights of Woman - Title: Vindication of the Rights of Women • Mary Wollstonecraft [Godwin]

... experienced playwrights and accomplished wits of our own days: the porter in Macbeth, the gravediggers in Hamlet, the fool in Lear, even the humours in Love's Labour Lost and The Merchant of Venice have offended. I avow myself an impenitent Shakesperian in this respect also. The constant or almost constant presence of that humour which ranges from the sarcastic quintessence of Iago, and the genial quintessence of Falstaff, ...
— A History of English Literature - Elizabethan Literature • George Saintsbury

... not been difficult to tell his father of the danger before he made his visit, but now he hesitated before he could avow that the young lady's hand had again been offered to him. 'Pretty well, sir. We had a good deal of archery and that kind of thing. It was ...
— John Caldigate • Anthony Trollope

... wit and sense assure my fate, In them my love's success I see; Nor can he be unfortunate Who dares avow his flame for thee. ...
— Wit and Wisdom of Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

... Paris. vilagxo : village. regno : State. obe- : obey. imperio : empire. konfes- : confess, avow, polico : police. acknowledge, profess Kristo : Christ. (a religion, etc.). Lutero : Luther. enir- : enter. Kalvino : Calvin. ruza : sharp (cunning). germano : German. suficxa : sufficient. franco : Frenchman. ordinara : ordinary. Rusujo : Russia. naiva : simple. provinco : province. ...
— The Esperanto Teacher - A Simple Course for Non-Grammarians • Helen Fryer

... Sabine farmstead or my Tiburtine, For who Catullus would not harm, avow, kind souls, Thou surely art at Tibur; and who quarrel will Sabine declare thee, stake the world to ...
— The Poems and Fragments of Catullus • Catullus

... foreign amours is not pleasant. Her two avowals to Edward Rochester—one before he had declared his love for her, and the other on her return to him—are certainly somewhat frank. Jane Eyre in truth does all but propose marriage twice to Edward Rochester; and she is the first to avow her love, even when she believed he was about to marry another woman. It is indeed wrung from her; it is human nature; it is a splendid encounter of passion; and if it be bold in the little woman, it is redeemed by her noble defiance of his tainted suit, and her desperate ...
— Studies in Early Victorian Literature • Frederic Harrison

... person, not his name. 250 I doubt not, he is some Moresco chieftain Who hides himself among the Alpuxarras. A week has scarcely pass'd since first I saw him; He has new-roof'd the desolate old cottage Where Zagri lived—who dared avow the prophet 255 And died like one of the faithful! There he lives, ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge

... the palm of eloquence and the prize for flow of speech, the king straightway took a bracelet from his arm, and gave it to him as the appointed reward, adding: "I would fain learn from thyself thy debate with Grep, wherein he was not ashamed openly to avow himself vanquished." ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")

... from the throne. Full of attention to the queen, Madame Elizabeth, and the royal children, he strove by every means in his power to hide from them the perils and humiliations of the journey. Constrained, no doubt, by the presence of his rough colleague, Petion, if he did not openly avow the feeling of pity, admiration, and respect which had conquered him during the journey, he showed it in his actions, and a tacit treaty was concluded by looks. The royal family felt that amidst this wreck of all their hopes ...
— History of the Girondists, Volume I - Personal Memoirs of the Patriots of the French Revolution • Alphonse de Lamartine

... the gaping grave. 145 Thousands shall deem it an old woman's tale, Such as the nurses frighten babes withal: These in a gulf of anguish and of flame Shall curse their reprobation endlessly, Yet tenfold pangs shall force them to avow, 150 Even on their beds of torment, where they howl, My honour, and the justice of their doom. What then avail their virtuous deeds, their thoughts Of purity, with radiant genius bright, Or lit with human reason's earthly ray? 155 Many are called, but few will I elect. Do thou My bidding, ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley

... in an impulse of anger, he walked swiftly to Leet Hall. It lay in his duty, as he fully deemed, to avow fearlessly to Captain Monk what he thought of this act of oppression, and to protest against it. The beams of the setting sun, sinking below the horizon in the still autumn evening, fell across the stubbled fields from which the corn had not long ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 1, January, 1891 • Various

... found himself involved in apparently inextricable embarrassments. Legitimists and Republicans were alike hostile to his reign. That he might conciliate the surrounding dynasties, and save himself from such a coalition of crowned heads as crushed Napoleon I., he felt constrained to avow political principles and adopt measures which exasperated the Republicans, and yet did not reconcile the Legitimists to what they deemed his usurpation. Notwithstanding the most rigid censorship of the press France has ever known, ...
— Louis Philippe - Makers of History Series • John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott

... that you shall stay here; and since you avow your purpose to run away again, I must see that you are put in a safe ...
— Up The Baltic - Young America in Norway, Sweden, and Denmark • Oliver Optic

... his due all in good time—should have ample opportunity of deciding whether he would, after all, marry such a girl as she. Meanwhile his attitude with regard to the murder exasperated her. Yet, in some strange way it relieved her to be angry and sore with him—to have a grievance she could avow, and on which she made it a merit to dwell. His gentle, yet firm difference of opinion with her on the subject struck her as something new in him. It gave her a kind of fierce pleasure to fight it. He seemed somehow to be providing her with excuses—to be coming down to her level—to ...
— Marcella • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... therefore, to be wholly virtuous it is only necessary to repeat virtuous formulas. We say: "I desire to be kind to my friends, honourable in business, philanthropic towards the poor, public-spirited in politics." So long as we refuse to allow ourselves, even in the watches of the night, to avow any contrary desires, we may be bullies at home, shady in the City, skinflints in paying wages and profiteers in dealing with the public; yet, if only conscious motives are to count in moral valuation, we shall remain model characters. ...
— The Analysis of Mind • Bertrand Russell

... me letters of my father's, which seemed to me, unless my senses altogether failed me in that horrible moment, to avow his relationship ...
— The Antiquary, Complete • Sir Walter Scott

... by this time, and the more so because of his being beyond the need of concealments. There would be no more shrinking into the odorous depths of the hothouse, or hesitancies, or equivocations. He would walk up and avow himself—to father and mother as well as to Rosie. The hero in him was coming to ...
— The Side Of The Angels - A Novel • Basil King

... disposition would be general to avow in strong terms their attachment to the person and character of the President, the committee united in reporting an answer which promised, in general terms, due attention to the various subjects recommended to ...
— Life And Times Of Washington, Volume 2 • John Frederick Schroeder and Benson John Lossing

... against his will. It was a painful situation to be placed in; but he now regretted it the less, inasmuch as it afforded him an opportunity of acknowledging before their mutual friends that he loved Mr. Wardle's daughter deeply and sincerely, that he was proud to avow that the feeling was mutual, and that if thousands of miles were placed between them, or oceans rolled their waters, he could never for an instant forget those happy days when ...
— The Inns and Taverns of "Pickwick" - With Some Observations on their Other Associations • B.W. Matz

... upon me, I saw that no time was to be lost in fulfilling my contract with Sir Robert Cecil's daughter. My Jewess, however, thinks otherwise; declares she will follow me here; that if I do her not justice she will brave her father's anger, avow her intimacy with a Christian (which I believe they invariably punish by death), and forward, what she calls, proofs of my guilt to the Lord Protector. You perceive, Dalton, ...
— The Buccaneer - A Tale • Mrs. S. C. Hall

... you will find some irony in my name, after all that I have done, and all that I herein avow. I am named Modeste. Therefore I have not deceived you by signing "O. d'Este M." Neither have I misled you about our fortune; it will amount, I believe, to the sum which rendered you so virtuous. I know that to you money is a consideration ...
— Modeste Mignon • Honore de Balzac

... the necessity of truth and honour, which, although it may not justify me in remitting the penalty, may yet retain him my friendship. A deer has been slain in the woods, and by one of you. Let the guilty boy avow his fault." ...
— The House of Walderne - A Tale of the Cloister and the Forest in the Days of the Barons' Wars • A. D. Crake

... become independent; it no longer fought for others and for opinions not its own, but for itself, and under its own banner. The court, by its multiplied faults, its imprudent machinations, and, lastly, by the flight of the monarch, had given it a sort of authority to avow its object; and the Lameths, by forsaking it, had left it to ...
— History of the French Revolution from 1789 to 1814 • F. A. M. Mignet

... said, had fallen from these ships which floated in the air. They were kept some days in confinement, and at last having been confronted with their accusers, the latter were obliged, after contesting the matter, and making several depositions, to avow that they knew nothing certain concerning their being carried away, or of their pretended fall from the ...
— The Phantom World - or, The philosophy of spirits, apparitions, &c, &c. • Augustin Calmet

... this truth, the soldier's daughter could not bear to avow it, and she answered hastily, 'He has never been braced or trained; he was always ill till within the last few years— coddling at first, neglect afterwards, he has it all to learn, and it is too ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge

... that, Larry. I think these things cannot be said too often: they keep up the moral tone of the community. As you know, I claim the right to think for myself in religious matters: in fact, I am ready to avow myself a bit of a—of a—well, I don't care who knows it—a bit of a Unitarian; but if the Church of England contained a few men like Mr Keegan, I should certainly ...
— John Bull's Other Island • George Bernard Shaw

... eyes glowing like coals of fire, and his sentences rattling forth like volleys of musketry—"the time has come," said he, "when I shall not only utter my opinions, but make them the basis of my political action here. I do not, then, hesitate to avow before this House and the country, and in the presence of the living God, that if, by your legislation, you seek to drive us from the Territories of California and New Mexico, and to abolish slavery in the District ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore

... Censor, are yourself a Parent, you will view me with Compassion when I declare I am the Father of this poor Girl the Prisoner at the Bar; nay, when I go further and avow, that of all my Offspring she is my favourite Child. I can truly say that I bestowed a more than ordinary Pains in her Education; in which I will venture to affirm, I followed the Rules of all those who are acknowledged to have writ ...
— Fielding - (English Men of Letters Series) • Austin Dobson

... breath, "I would say that, and nothing else; and, unless this man is a hundred times stronger than I suppose him to be, unless he is made of bronze, of marble, or of steel, he would fall at my feet and avow his guilt." ...
— The Widow Lerouge - The Lerouge Case • Emile Gaboriau

... For saw we not that dangerous power avow'd Whom Freedom oft hath found her mortal bane, Whom public Wisdom ever strove to exclude, And but with blushes suffereth in her train? Corruption vaunted her bewitching spoils, O'er court, o'er senate, spread in pomp her toils, And call'd herself the state's directing ...
— Poetical Works of Akenside - [Edited by George Gilfillan] • Mark Akenside

... them an old statesman with a massive silver head, and eyes that have looked into people's thoughts so long that you have an uncanny feeling that they can see right through your soul and read motives you dare not avow even to yourself. I was terribly in awe of him at first, but when I got acquainted with him I found him charming. He is not above talking delightful nonsense even to a girl. I sat by him at dinner, and he talked to me—not nonsense, either, this time. He told me of his political ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1905 to 1906 • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... it is because I avow myself a very worm, sinful beyond measure, that I reject a line of conduct you would applaud perhaps. Shall I proceed, 125 as it were, a-pardoning?—I?—who have no symptom of reason to assume that aught less than my strenuousest efforts will keep myself out of mortal sin, ...
— Selections from the Poems and Plays of Robert Browning • Robert Browning

... but, on the other hand, we find in them thorough loyalty to historical truth. They deal in no suppression of evidence; they give every side of the question. They write like men who feel, as Bollandus their founder did, that under no circumstances is it right to tell a lie. They never hesitate to avow their own convictions and predilections. They draw their own conclusions, and put their own gloss upon facts and documents; but yet they give the documents as they found them, and they enable the impartial ...
— The Contemporary Review, January 1883 - Vol 43, No. 1 • Various

... part I do not scruple to avow the conviction, that ere long, a knowledge of the principal truths of Chemistry will be expected in every educated man, and that it will be as necessary to the Statesman, the Political Economist, and the Practical Agriculturist, ...
— Familiar Letters of Chemistry • Justus Liebig

... lives of both of these men. In the years from 1830 to 1836, which were so memorable in large accessions to the Churches of New Hampshire, the power of the gospel was manifested in Amherst, and these men with many others were persuaded to act upon their religious convictions and avow their faith in Christ. Mr. Melendy united with the Congregational Church in 1832, and Mr. David and several of his workmen followed the example in 1835; the character of all these men for integrity ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2 • Various

... importance. The year 1718 has been selected as a concluding date because that year was marked by the publication of Francis Hutchinson's notable attack upon the belief. Hutchinson levelled a final and deadly blow at the dying superstition. Few men of intelligence dared after that avow any belief in the reality of witchcraft; it is probable that very few even secretly cherished such a belief. A complete history would of course include a full account both of the witch trials from Anglo-Saxon times to Elizabeth's accession and of the various witch-swimming ...
— A History of Witchcraft in England from 1558 to 1718 • Wallace Notestein

... neighborhood, being bound to it by a thousand links of love for its sweeping and soft landscapes. At this farm I was unknown to the world, far removed from everything, but in close proximity to the soil, the good, healthy, beautiful and green soil. And, must I avow it; there was something besides curiosity which retained me at the residence of Mother Lecacheur. I wished to become acquainted a little with this strange Miss Harriet, and to know what passed in the solitary souls of those wandering old, ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Vol. 1 (of 8) - Boule de Suif and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant

... fell in fight, they would brand me as a thief. Should the papers be found on my body, then honorable men would execrate my memory as a traitor to country and to King, for had not Serigny told me he could not avow my connection with him? The lust of life still surging strong within me, I drew my sword. Its point effectually guarded the narrow space in front from post to post. They parleyed a time, and I rested ...
— The Black Wolf's Breed - A Story of France in the Old World and the New, happening - in the Reign of Louis XIV • Harris Dickson

... almost equally delighted with this marvellous effort. "I avow my conviction, now and here," says he, "that, logically and historically, his argument is impregnable—entirely impregnable." . . . . . . "In my judgment," he continues, "the speech of my friend from Massachusetts will make a NEW ERA ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various

... and approaching the prince.) Here, in these hallowed aisles; here, in the face of Heaven, and of man, by all your hopes of future preservation, avow your treason, and your sovereign's wrongs, detested, treacherous, murderous villain!—(prince much agitated.) See, guilt is on him! Now, ye who had no faith (to the monks) and ye who trample upon sacred rights (to the free knights) behold how sacred justice is displayed! There's the usurper, ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 6, June 1810 • Various

... pauvre ami, is it that you take me for a duchess? I come from the ouvriers, me, the working peoples. I avow it. Never can I do my shops in a hat. I ...
— A Great Man - A Frolic • Arnold Bennett

... us avow it, this idea, which seemed natural at the first blush, appeared to him after a moment's reflection, as strange, impossible, and almost repulsive. For, at bottom, he shared the general impression, and the old member of the ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo

... Nottingham secures the assistance of the High Sheriff, and besets the knight's castle, accusing him of harbouring the king's enemies. The knight bids him appeal to the king, saying he will 'avow' (i.e. make good or justify) all he has done, on the pledge of all his lands. The sheriffs raise the siege and go to London, where the king says he will be at Nottingham in two weeks and will capture both the ...
— Ballads of Robin Hood and other Outlaws - Popular Ballads of the Olden Times - Fourth Series • Frank Sidgwick

... on the point of revising and considerably altering, for republication in England, an edition of such amongst my writings as it may seem proper deliberately to avow. Not that I have any intention, or consciously any reason, expressly to disown any one thing that I have ever published; but some things have sufficiently accomplished their purpose when they have met the call of that particular transient occasion in which they arose; and ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey

... what is against reason. They place above reason that which one cannot comprehend and which one cannot account for. But against reason will be all opinion that is opposed by invincible reasons, or the contrary of which can be proved in a precise and sound manner. They avow, therefore, that the Mysteries are above reason, but they do not admit that they are contrary to it. The English author of a book which is ingenious, but has met with disapproval, entitled Christianity not Mysterious, wished to combat this distinction; but it does ...
— Theodicy - Essays on the Goodness of God, the Freedom of Man and the Origin of Evil • G. W. Leibniz

... language where the benevolent speaker intended she should feel it—in her very heart. She could not even parry the shafts; she was defenceless for the present. To answer would have been to avow that the cap fitted. Mrs. Yorke, looking at her as she sat with troubled, downcast eyes, and cheek burning painfully, and figure expressing in its bent attitude and unconscious tremor all the humiliation and chagrin she experienced, felt the ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte

... forgive me if I avow that this same country, whose editorial labours you are thus commending, is shamefully deficient in the cultivation of Ancient English History! I speak my sentiments roundly upon this subject: because you know, Lysander, how vigilantly ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin

... review of facts and of principles. They deprecate all agitation unfriendly to the peace and reciprocal good-will of the different sections of the country. So do I, most heartily; and in my own humble sphere I have earnestly exerted myself to this end. And I do, unwillingly but decidedly, avow my conviction, derived from abundant personal observation, that it is not by the summary suppression of petitions, it is not by Lynching this or any other petition, that tranquillity is to be restored, and harmony assured, either in the ...
— Speech of Mr. Cushing, of Massachusetts, on the Right of Petition, • Caleb Cushing

... be such. Nothing—not love, tenfold more ardent and irrational than that he felt for his siren wife—could have wrought upon him to introduce to the world, as Mrs. Aylett of Ridgeley, one who had been before married, and was ashamed, for any cause whatever, to avow this. The blemish left by the acrid breath of common scandal upon a woman's fame was to him ineffaceable by any process yet discovered by pitying man or angels. The maligned one may not have erred from the straitest road ...
— At Last • Marion Harland

... possibly avow the motives of her behaviour, ventured not to offer any apology for her apparent negligence; but, hitherto accustomed to the most distinguished kindness, a change to so much bitterness shocked and overpowered ...
— Cecilia vol. 2 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)

... forests, and may be obtained by the cart-load in its season; but to his taste, and that of his family, it is the most unpalatable of fungi, nor could he find any of the most passionate mycophagists who would avow that they liked it. There is a disagreeable saline flavour that they could not remove nor overlay. In addition to these, the same authority enumerates Agaricus russula, Schaeff., Agaricus hypopithyus, ...
— Fungi: Their Nature and Uses • Mordecai Cubitt Cooke

... Nevertheless he is desirous of announcing it in his magazine, and therefore I wish to prepare you for the shock. I can say nothing more than I have already said on the subject of vigilence, if not of secrecy. I never will avow myself, and nothing can hurt and offend me so much as any of my friends doing it for me; this is not faron de parler, but my real and unalterable feeling; I could not bear ...
— Marriage • Susan Edmonstone Ferrier

... throne in favour, and that there was no union so exalted that he might not have made his suit as rather that of a superior than an equal. The Queen both loved and honoured him, and condescended to avow as much with gracious frankness. She knew no other man, she deigned to say, who was so worthy of honour and affection, and that he had not married must be because there was no woman who could meet him ...
— A Lady of Quality • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... her father, but not by her own wish, she was engaged to the Baron Franz d'Epinay. She loved a young military officer named Maximilian Morrel, a son of the Marseilles shipowner. But neither of them had dared to avow their affection for each other ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol III • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.

... the happy counterbane, Sent down from heaven by some celestial scout, As well its name and nature both avow't." ...
— Herbal Simples Approved for Modern Uses of Cure • William Thomas Fernie

... some time before he replied; then he said hesitatingly: "The world would never understand how it was that Vaudrec constituted you his sole heiress and that I allowed it. To accept that legacy would be to avow guilty relations on your part and an infamous lack of self-respect on mine. Do you know how the acceptance of it might be interpreted? We should have to find some adroit means of palliating it. We should have to give people ...
— Bel Ami • Henri Rene Guy de Maupassant

... me avow, dear cousin, that when first this happy inspiration seized me, I had much ado—you know my promptitude of old—to refrain from seeking you at once and pressing my suit with that ardour which the warmth of my purpose dictated. On second thoughts, however, ...
— The Mayor of Troy • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... his letter (say what he will) was a complete resignation, and that the Duke had a right so to consider it; that in the Duke's conduct there appeared a want of courtesy and an anxiety to get rid of him which it would have been more fair to avow and defend than to deny; that on both sides there was a mixture of obstinacy and angry feeling, and a disposition to treat the question rather as a personal matter than one in which the public interests were deeply concerned. But the charge which is made on one side that Huskisson ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William - IV, Volume 1 (of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville

... of Athens, are made in almost every Assembly about the hostilities of Philip, hostilities which ever since the treaty of peace he has been committing as well against you as against the rest of the Greeks; and all, I am sure, are ready to avow, though they forbear to do so, that our counsels and our measures should be directed to his humiliation and chastisement: nevertheless, so low have our affairs been brought by inattention and negligence, I fear it is harsh truth to say, that if all the orators ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various

... been said, had educated its children to understand painting as a language. Now that the passions men dared to avow were no longer connected with happiness in some future state only, but mainly with life in the present, painting was expected to give voice to these more human aspirations and to desert the outgrown ideals of the Church. In Florence, the ...
— The Venetian Painters of the Renaissance - Third Edition • Bernhard Berenson

... of them should be speedful and helply to thee in nourishing of the heavenly grace working within in thy soul; but if it be so (which God forbid), that thou or any other be so lewd and so blinded in the sorrowful temptations of the midday devil, that ye bind you by any crooked avow to any such singularities, as it were under colour of holiness feigned under such an holy thraldom,[255] in full and final destroying of the freedom of Christ, the which is the ghostly habit of the sovereign holiness that may be in this life, or in the other, by the witness ...
— The Cell of Self-Knowledge - Seven Early English Mystical Treaties • Various

... moreover, affirmed that Manbos are treacherous. If by treachery is meant a violation of faith and confidence, they can not be said to be treacherous. They kill when they feel that they are wronged. I know of few cases where they did not openly avow their feelings and demand reparation. Refusal to make the reparation demanded is equivalent to a declaration of war, and in war all is fair. It is every man's duty to safeguard himself as best he can. The Manbo, Mandya, ...
— The Manbos of Mindano - Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume XXIII, First Memoir • John M. Garvan

... who have long known the manly force, bold spirit, and masterly versification of this poem, it is a matter of curiosity to observe the diffidence with which its authour brought it forward into publick notice, while he is so cautious as not to avow it to be his own production; and with what humility he offers to allow the printer to 'alter any stroke of satire which he might dislike[355].' That any such alteration was made, we do not know. If we did, we could not but feel an ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill

... the deep gulf that gapes a hideous welcome! You sigh at your weakness of heart, or of endeavor, and your sighs float out into the breeze, that rises ever from the shock of the waves, and whirl, empty-handed, to Heaven. You avow high purposes, and clench them with round utterance; and your voice, like a sparrow's, is caught up in the roar of the fall, and thrown at you from the cliffs, and dies away in the solemn thunders of nature. ...
— Dream Life - A Fable Of The Seasons • Donald G. Mitchell

... what was better than freedom—with a duteous bond which his experience had been preparing him to accept gladly, even if it had been attended with no promise of satisfying a secret passionate longing never yet allowed to grow into a hope. But now he dared avow to himself the hidden selection of his love. Since the hour when he left the house at Chelsea in full-hearted silence under the effect of Mirah's farewell look and words—their exquisite appealingness stirring in him ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot

... his lampoon, we infinitely prefer it to the cowardly prudence of the author or authors of the Twopenny Post-bag lurking behind a fictitious name, and "devising impossible slanders," which he or they have not the spirit to avow. ...
— The Works of Lord Byron: Letters and Journals, Volume 2. • Lord Byron

... anything else than the maintenance of the laws and institutions which its Sovereign had sanctioned and sworn to maintain inviolate. It was however precisely for the purpose of destroying these laws and institutions that the dynasty began the war. This, of course, they did not venture to avow. It was necessary to conceal the real motives of their perfidious conduct from the civilized world. Hence in their public proclamations they always alleged some pretext or other—all of them equally groundless. At the commencement they said that it was only an insignificant faction they had to ...
— Select Speeches of Kossuth • Kossuth

... ne'er shall know it! All shall be held her rebel brother's deed; And while contending passions shake the rabble, (Grief for the sire, resentment 'gainst the son; And pity for the princess) forth I'll step, Avow our marriage, claim the crown her right, And, when she mounts the throne, ascend ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 5, May 1810 • Various

... not answer this question, and he did not pursue the theme. Presently I inquired, "If you allow no appeal to popular feeling or passion, to what was I so nearly the victim? And what is the terrorism that makes it dangerous to avow a credulity or incredulity opposed ...
— Across the Zodiac • Percy Greg

... those look avow, The mantling cheek, the knitting brow: I could not hope it did he live, But now, O! now, ye must forgive! Most recreant they who dare offend One who has lost her only friend! De Stafford's widow here appears— For him, my Eustace, flow these tears! Ye may not blame ...
— The Lay of Marie • Matilda Betham

... in with, strike in with, close in with; echo, enter into one's views, agree in opinion; vote, give one's voice for; recognize; subscribe to, conform to, defer to; say yes to, say ditto, amen to, say aye to. acknowledge, own, admit, allow, avow, confess; concede &c. (yield) 762; come round to; abide by; permit &c. 760. arrive at an understanding, come to an understanding, come to terms, come to an agreement. confirm, affirm; ratify, approve, indorse, countersign; corroborate &c. 467. go with the stream, swim with the stream, go with ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget

... may do in the height of his power,"[23] he was but giving expression to a conception of the royal prerogative which had been lodged in the mind of every Tudor, but which no Tudor had been so tactless as publicly to avow. The first two Stuarts confidently expected to maintain the same measure of absolutism which their Tudor predecessors had maintained—nothing more, nothing less. There were, however, several reasons why, for them, this was an ...
— The Governments of Europe • Frederic Austin Ogg

... I must therefore avow, in the first place, from whence I took the character. The first image I had of him, was from the Achilles of Homer; the next from Tasso's Rinaldo, (who was a copy of the former) and the third from the Artaban of Monsieur Calpranede, who has imitated both. The ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Volume 4 (of 18) - Almanzor And Almahide, Marriage-a-la-Mode, The Assignation • John Dryden



Words linked to "Avow" :   attest, admit, avouch, verify, acknowledge, claim, assert, assure, take, hold, swear, disavow, tell, aver, declare



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