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Contemptuous   Listen
adjective
Contemptuous  adj.  Manifesting or expressing contempt or disdain; scornful; haughty; insolent; disdainful. "A proud, contemptuous behavior." "Savage invective and contemptuous sarcasm." "Rome... entertained the most contemptuous opinion of the Jews."
Synonyms: Scornful; insolent; haughty; disdainful; supercilious; insulting; contumelious. Contemptuous, Contemptible. These words, from their similarity of sound, are sometimes erroneously interchanged, as when a person speaks of having "a very contemptible opinion of another." Contemptible is applied to that which is the object of contempt; as, contemptible conduct; acontemptible fellow. Contemptuous is applied to that which indicates contempt; as, a contemptuous look; a contemptuous remark; contemptuous treatment. A person, or whatever is personal, as an action, an expression, a feeling, an opinion, may be either contemptuous or contemptible; a thing may be contemptible, but can not be contemptuous.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Contemptuous" Quotes from Famous Books



... unwillingly driven into crime, sought from the mistress of the boarding-house protection against his champion. Mrs. Considine, called into consultation, was informed that Mrs. Prescott must either cease from instigating the waiters to commit murder or find other quarters. Liosha curled a contemptuous lip. ...
— Jaffery • William J. Locke

... Dubois. And, in alluding to these footnotes, it is impossible to repress some feeling of annoyance that the valuable work of the Abbe should, in an evil hour, have fallen into the hands of a writer who has thought fit often, in a few brief and contemptuous words, summarily to dismiss and overrule those conclusions which were the result of a life spent on more intimate terms with natives than any I have ever been able to hear of. And Mr. Pope's statements are the more calculated to impose on ...
— Gold, Sport, And Coffee Planting In Mysore • Robert H. Elliot

... unstrung. Always excessively shy, he was embarrassed now by quite a variety of causes. The world was full of eyes—Mrs Ford's saying 'Go!' Ogden's saying 'Fool!' the portrait saying 'Idiot!' and, finally, the eyes of this wonderfully handsome girl, large, grey, cool, amused, and contemptuous saying—so it seemed to him in that feverish moment—'Who is this curious pink person who cumbers the ...
— The Little Nugget • P.G. Wodehouse

... remained still in my eyes just as pure, inaccessible, and majestic. She always responded with equal calm, pride, and cheerful equanimity. Sometimes she was friendly, but generally her every look, every word, and every movement expressed equanimity—not contemptuous, but crushing and bewitching. Every day with a feigned smile on my lips I tried to play a part, and with torments of passion and desire in my heart I spoke banteringly to her. She saw that I was dissembling, but looked straight at me cheerfully and simply. This position became unbearable. ...
— The Cossacks • Leo Tolstoy

... contemptuous curl of his lip, Mr. Bell answered: "And you really suppose, do you, that I can be induced to disinherit my grandson on the testimony of a colored woman? Not I, sir. Thank God, I am not infected with this ...
— A Romance of the Republic • Lydia Maria Francis Child

... slipped by, and another commenced. Then Fortune, with a contemptuous good-humoured spin of her wheel, did for Charles Turold what he could hardly have hoped to achieve in a year's ...
— The Moon Rock • Arthur J. Rees

... can ignore. The consistent, systematic lying of the German press, or the grotesque blasphemies of the Kaiser, can be met by us with contemptuous tolerance. After all, what is is, and neither falsehood nor bombast will alter it. But this policy of murder deeply affects not only ourselves but the whole framework of civilization, so slowly and painfully built upward by ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 3, June, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various

... in the face of this passionless sarcasm. He could have met stormy indignation or any sort of invective in kind; but the contemptuous irony with which his pretensions were treated, the cold scrutiny with which his motives were searched, was something he could not meet. He tried to pull himself together for some sort of protest, but he ended by hanging his head in silence. He always believed that Squire ...
— A Modern Instance • William Dean Howells

... she had been deliberately preferred and had enjoyed her triumph hardened Diane's heart against her. Nay, the open violence and abandonment of her grief seemed to the more restrained and concentrated nature of her elder a sign of shallowness and want of durability; and in a certain contemptuous envy at her professing a right to mourn, Diane never even reconsidered her own resolution to play out her father's game, consign Eustacie to her husband's murdered, and leave her to console herself with bridal splendours and a choice of ...
— The Chaplet of Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge

... her own time for decision, indifferently ignoring the howls of rage, her thin lips curling in contemptuous smile, her glance yet upon the startled Chevalier. Laying her hand upon his sleeve, she said ...
— Prisoners of Chance - The Story of What Befell Geoffrey Benteen, Borderman, - through His Love for a Lady of France • Randall Parrish

... and by our ancestors in the seventy, are less, men of Athens, than the wrongs which, in thirteen incomplete years that Philip has been uppermost, [Footnote: I. e. in power; but, as Smead, an American editor, truly observes, [Greek: epipolyxei] has a contemptuous signification, Jacobs: oben schwimmt. The thirteen years are reckoned from the time when Philip's interference in Thessaly began; before which he had not assumed an important character in southern Greece.] he has inflicted on the Greeks: nay they are scarcely a fraction of ...
— The Olynthiacs and the Phillippics of Demosthenes • Demosthenes

... to tell you, Gaffer," said the dame, with most contemptuous coolness, "I do not think you could do my errand, so I will e'en keep it to myself." Benjamin was too much accustomed to his wife's independent mode of conduct, to pursue his inquiry farther; nor did the dame tarry for farther question, but marched ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott

... at that," said the gilt Cordovan leather, with a contemptuous glance at a broad piece of gilded leather spread out on a table. "They will sell him cheek by jowl with me, and give him my name; but look! I am overlaid with pure gold beaten thin as a film and ...
— Bimbi • Louise de la Ramee

... force. But the State, when it came to the assistance of the church, had no intention to diminish its authority. Those rebukes and those censures which were lawful before, were lawful still. But they had hitherto operated only upon voluntary submission. The refractory and contemptuous were at first in no danger of temporal severities, except what they might suffer from the reproaches of conscience, or the detestation of their fellow Christians. When religion obtained the support of law, if admonitions and ...
— The Life Of Johnson, Volume 3 of 6 • Boswell

... liberty-loving Lady Clementina, groom as he had been, menial as he had heard himself called, and as, ere yet he knew his birth, he had laughed to hear, knowing that his service was true—that she, who despised nothing human, would be neither disgusted nor contemptuous nor wrathful if, from a great way off, at an awful remove of humility and worship, he were to wake in her a surmise that he dared feel toward her as he had never felt and never could feel toward any other? For would it not be altogether counter to the principles he had so often heard her announce ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 20, August 1877 • Various

... and scintillated upon the smallest provocation. He was one of the most cantankerous, self-willed men in the whole company, and was under the impression that his advice was worth the combined wisdom of all the rest. He had heard the contemptuous reference made to himself by O'Donoghue, and his little eyes ...
— The Story of Louis Riel: The Rebel Chief • Joseph Edmund Collins

... nothing else to do but go into the Mills. Susy would grow older and take Sarah's place. But what if she didn't want to? What happened to the "big girls" who didn't want to go into the Mills? Robin could hear Beryl's contemptuous: "Why they haven't a chance in the world." Well, anyway, someone could make the Mills so nice that the girls would want to work in them. "I wish I were big!" cried Robin with such passion that Mrs. Lynch, not knowing her train of thought, had a sudden qualm at taking a sensitive little thing ...
— Red-Robin • Jane Abbott

... the Major—few of them could appreciate that melancholy grace and politeness with which Major Pendennis at once acceded to Mr. Bloundell's version of the story, and thanked him for correcting his own error. They stared on the next occasion of meeting, when Bloundell spoke in contemptuous terms of old Pen; said everybody knew old Pen, regular old trencherman at Gaunt House, notorious ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray

... against 'seditious utterances,' a term which might mean almost anything. In 1639 the Maryland assembly passed an act for 'determining enormous offences,' among which were included 'scandalous or contemptuous words or writings to the dishonor of the lord proprietarie or his lieutenant generall for the time being, or any of the council.' By a North Carolina act of 1715 seditious utterances against the government was made a criminal offence, ...
— The Spirit of American Government - A Study Of The Constitution: Its Origin, Influence And - Relation To Democracy • J. Allen Smith

... glanced at the letter, and put it down with a smile that was somewhat contemptuous. "I have no need to read the letter," says she—(indeed, 'twas as well she did not; for the Chelsea missive, in the poor dowager's usual French jargon, permitted him a longer holiday than he said. "Je vous donne," quoth ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray

... of the phrases, "to entreat Achilles to a calm" (evidently he had forgotten Shakespeare's "pursue him and entreat him to a peace"), "this wrangler here," "like a fellow of no worth." He was certainly not likely to be unjust to Charles James Fox. So he is unhappy, rather than contemptuous, over such excellent phrases as "swearing away the lives," "crying injustice," "fond of ill-treating." These appear to Mr. Aristarchus Jeffrey too "homely and familiar," too "low and vapid"; while a harmless and ...
— Essays in English Literature, 1780-1860 • George Saintsbury

... counting the cost. So men must rust in prison camps until the struggle is over." The monotony in this case seems to have been varied by fights between the prisoners of different nationality, each set considering that the others had not done their part in the war. We need not be contemptuous about that. The monotony of the prisoners' life must tend to produce the maximum degree of mutual friction. There is absolutely no privacy for the prisoner of war. To be forced to remain, day and night, for months and years in idleness, ...
— The Better Germany in War Time - Being some Facts towards Fellowship • Harold Picton

... of gentleness. With every opportunity for extravagant gesture, he stood, as the play seemed to foam about him, like a rock against which the foam beats. Made up as a kind of Roman Moltke, the lean, thoughtful soldier, he spoke throughout with a slow, contemptuous enunciation, as of one only just not too lofty to sneer. Restrained in scorn, he kept throughout an attitude of disdainful pride, the face, the eyes, set, while only his mouth twitched, seeming to chew his words, with ...
— Plays, Acting and Music - A Book Of Theory • Arthur Symons

... sense, [Greek: kopros], particularly of camels, from the round form; and the word was common, in the later Hebrew, in that sense. Hence the evil spirit is called [Hebrew: ba'al-zbwl], a contemptuous name, instead of [Hebrew: ba'al-zbwb] [Greek: Beelzeboul] instead of [Greek: Beelzeboub] ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 59, December 14, 1850 • Various

... little low kitchen window, let it be seen that Mr. Pawket had lapsed into slumber. His wife looked at him with an expressionless face. Wringing her hands out of the dish-water, she carried the pan to the door; with contemptuous words of warning to some chickens near by, she flung the contents on the grass. Going further into the door-yard she dragged up some bleached clothing and stuffed it into a clothes-basket. Choking the range full of coal, wrenching into place a refractory coal-scuttle, she turned the damper ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1919 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various

... recall with any enjoyment the interview which followed—Cecilia and the children having been brushed out of the way by the indignant soldier. Things which had been puzzling to Bob were suddenly made clear—traces of distress which Cecilia had often explained away vaguely, the children's half-contemptuous manner towards her, even Eliza's tone in speaking of her—a queer blend of anger and pity. Mrs. Rainham held her ground to some extent, but the brother's questions were hard to parry, and some of ...
— Back To Billabong • Mary Grant Bruce

... we have so much to remember, and so much to forget, before we can transfer ourselves in any measure into his peculiar point of vision, that a right study of him, for an Englishman, even of ingenuous, open, inquisitive mind, becomes unusually difficult; for a fixed, decided, contemptuous Englishman, next to impossible. To a reader of the first class, helps may be given, explanations will remove many a difficulty; beauties that lay hidden may be made apparent; and directions, adapted to his actual position, ...
— Autobiography • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

... I imagined that you would have made the discovery, when you were so contemptuous of the answers which I made to Socrates. I had very great hopes that you would have been enlightened by ...
— Laches • Plato

... greater than ever, in his delight at being with her again, and his solicitude to the weakness which Theodora could neither understand nor tolerate. She took all unclassified ailments as fine lady nonsense; and was angry with Violet for being unable to teach at school, contemptuous if Arthur observed on her looking pale, and irate if he made her rest ...
— Heartsease - or Brother's Wife • Charlotte M. Yonge

... the French caddie sprang, so to speak, from the ground, the perfect likeness of his Scottish brother. He was just as sly, just as importunate in his demands to be employed, just as fond of "putting at short holes," more profane, and every bit as contemptuous of all non-golf- playing humanity as the boyish Scotch caddie, in whom contempt has reversed the usual process, and bred familiarity ...
— Lost Leaders • Andrew Lang

... residence of Michael Finsbury. He had met the lawyer at a time of great public excitement in Chelsea; Michael, who had a sense of humour and a great deal of careless kindness in his nature, followed the acquaintance up, and, having come to laugh, remained to drop into a contemptuous kind of friendship. By this time, which was four years after the first meeting, Pitman was ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... should have jumped into the river one night, only that I thought it might flatter her vanity. I came back here and ignored her. She broke with Samuel and tried to regain my affections. I scorned her. I trod on her heart! I stamped her pride into the dust! I was cruel. I was contemptuous. I was well-nigh insane. Then she went back to Samuel, and made him marry her. Then she forced my imbecile old father, on his death-bed, to will all the property to Samuel, except this piece of rough ...
— The End Of The World - A Love Story • Edward Eggleston

... his nature, roused by Mountjoy's contemptuous composure, was forcing its way outwards; he ...
— Blind Love • Wilkie Collins

... compared with his. There were people, to be sure, who paid little attention to him, but he did not notice them; and those who showed it more plainly were "Philistines, everyday fellows, insignificant people," as he whispered to his brother with contemptuous pity. It was quite peculiar: everyone's greater or lesser importance as a man and a citizen could be measured with perfect exactitude by the degree of ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IX - Friedrich Hebbel and Otto Ludwig • Various

... aware of the contemptuous manner in which Doctor Clarke speaks of this production, and its English translation by the Rev. W. Berwick, declaring them to be "of equal merit, and that they scarce deserve to be mentioned." But to the merit of this work we ...
— The American Quarterly Review, No. 17, March 1831 • Various

... a convict, was punished with twenty-four lashes, on the 25th, for using seditious expressions, and throwing away some fish which had been issued, in a contemptuous manner. ...
— An Historical Journal of the Transactions at Port Jackson and Norfolk Island • John Hunter

... it through the court with troops of ladies, More like an empress than Duke Humphrey's wife. Strangers in court do take her for the queen: She bears a duke's revenues on her back, And in her heart she scorns our poverty. Shall I not live to be avenged on her? Contemptuous base-born callet as she is! She vaunted 'mongst her minions t'other day, The very train of her worst wearing gown Was better worth than all my father's lands, Till Suffolk gave two dukedoms for ...
— Characteristics of Women - Moral, Poetical, and Historical • Anna Jameson

... "sprinkling"; that the "wax candles," "lighted" and "unlighted," appear to you alike insignificant; that even the jus divinum of any system of ecclesiastical government is sometimes not discerned with absolute precision; and, in short, that you look with contemptuous wonder on half our "great controversies." If I mistake not, things are coming to that pass amongst us, that we shall soon think of them almost with contemptuous ...
— The Eclipse of Faith - Or, A Visit To A Religious Sceptic • Henry Rogers

... was a bitter mockery—and trampled it beneath his feet. His mother raised her weeping eyes silently and imploringly to his face. He returned to her side, pressed her hand affectionately between his own, and casting a contemptuous glance upon his brother, quitted the apartment, and, a ...
— Mark Hurdlestone - Or, The Two Brothers • Susanna Moodie

... sure, he did not find in Ambrose's sermons the exhilaration or the verbal caress which had captivated him in those of Faustus the Manichean; but yet they had a persuasive grace which held him. Augustin heard the bishop with pleasure. Still, if he liked to hear him talk, he remained contemptuous of ...
— Saint Augustin • Louis Bertrand

... son, it is written that 'a prophet hath no honor in his own city!' Of our blessed Lord and Saviour the contemptuous Jews said, 'Is not this Jesus, ...
— Hidden Hand • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth

... the hard plain, I rose up immediately, and in a few minutes was able to resume the chase again. My horse was equally fortunate, for although thus brought to a sudden stand while at full gallop, he wheeled about, gave a contemptuous flourish with his heels, and cantered after Jacques, who soon caught him again. My head bothered me a good deal for some time after this accident, and swelled up till my eyes became almost undistinguishable; but a few weeks put me all right again. And who do you think this man Jacques ...
— The Young Fur Traders • R.M. Ballantyne

... and at that moment the others came in from the garden. But Charmian, why she did not know, felt increasing regret for her inadvertence. She even wished that Madame Sennier had shown some emotion, surprise, even contemptuous incredulity. The complete blankness of the Frenchwoman at ...
— The Way of Ambition • Robert Hichens

... amputate. But the marquis was absolutely horrified at the idea,—shrank from it with invincible repugnance. The moment the first dawn of comprehension vaguely illuminated their periphrastic approaches, he blazed out in a fury, cursed them frightfully, called them all the contemptuous names in his rather limited vocabulary, and swore he would ...
— Malcolm • George MacDonald

... considerable number of wealthy Germans began the construction of such vessels. But when interviewed they denied that they were preparing for a flood. They said that they simply wished to enlarge and increase the number of their pleasure craft, after the example of the Kaiser. All this was in contemptuous defiance of the warning which Cosmo Versal had been careful to insert in his circulars, that "balloons and aeros of all kinds will be of no use whatever; the only safety will be found in arks, and they must be provisioned ...
— The Second Deluge • Garrett P. Serviss

... the voyage. Perhaps Mrs. Somerville had told him of the fainting fit, and he was about to make a friendly inquiry when the captain accosted him. But Elsie's ears, tuned to fine precision where her lover's utterances were concerned, had caught the note of contemptuous command, and she was even more surprised by the Count's flurried answer ...
— The Captain of the Kansas • Louis Tracy

... Their eyes were certainly fixed on the two ladies in a curious, direct fashion, not exactly impudent, but still in a way no policeman had ever looked at either of them before. A coolly watchful, slightly contemptuous stare, interrupted by one man turning to say something to the other, at which both grinned. Vida was conscious of wishing that she had come in her usual clothes—above all, that Janet had not raked out that 'jumble sale' object she had perched ...
— The Convert • Elizabeth Robins

... old tingling pain burns my cheeks as I recall certain rude and contemptuous words which were said to me when I was very young, and stamped on my memory forever. I was once called a "stupid child" in the presence of strangers. I had brought the wrong book from my father's study. Nothing could be said to me to-day which would give me a tenth part of the hopeless sense of ...
— Bits About Home Matters • Helen Hunt Jackson

... Enemies. Take pity on my unprotected situation. Instead of seducing me to an action which would cover me with shame, strive rather to gain the affections of those who govern me. The Baron esteems you. My Aunt, to others ever harsh proud and contemptuous, remembers that you rescued her from the hands of Murderers, and wears with you alone the appearance of kindness and benignity. Try then your influence over my Guardians. If they consent to our union my hand is yours: From your account of my Brother, ...
— The Monk; a romance • M. G. Lewis

... with a kind of contemptuous smile, which he was much addicted to, 'Gentlemen, you cannot conceive what an additional honor it would be to all of us, if in cruising a few days we should have the good luck to fall in with an English frigate of our force and carry her in with us.... This would crown our ...
— Paul Jones • Hutchins Hapgood

... devouring like locusts. It is the same easy route by which, to this day, the Bedouin find their way into Palestine, whenever the weak Turkish Government is a little weaker or more corrupt than usual. Apparently, the Midianites were on their homeward march, laden with spoil, and very contemptuous of the small force across the valley, who, on their part, had not shaken off their terror of the fierce nomads who had used them as ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren

... experiences of the last three days my faith in Fred's tales had more than once been rather rudely shaken; but the contemptuous tone in which he disposed of our model, the Great Sea Captain, startled me so severely that I do not think I felt any additional shock of astonishment when strong hands lifted the tarpaulin from our heads, and—grave amid several ...
— A Great Emergency and Other Tales - A Great Emergency; A Very Ill-Tempered Family; Our Field; Madam Liberality • Juliana Horatia Gatty Ewing

... they were repulsive to him, and still more stupid. None of them inspired him with respect, with deep, hearty interest; he did not even ask them what their names were; he forgot where and when he made their acquaintance, and regarding them with contemptuous curiosity, always longed to say and do something that would offend them. He passed days and nights with them in different places of amusement, and his acquaintances always depended just upon the category of each of these places. ...
— Foma Gordyeff - (The Man Who Was Afraid) • Maxim Gorky

... be changed by staring her out of countenance, and she returned his gaze unflinchingly; but not another word would she say on the subject. There is a sad majority of wives whose attitude towards their husbands must be one of contemptuous toleration—toleration of their past depravity and of their present deceits, whatever form they may take. Such a wife looks upon her husband as a hopeless incurable, because she knows that he has not the sense, even ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand

... where the squirrel had been. A limousine passed. A surviving victoria followed. Both were superior. So also were the occupants. They were very smart people. You could tell it from the way they looked. They had an air contemptuous and sullen. The world is not good enough for them, Cassy thought. In an hour, car and carriage would stop. The agreeable occupants would alight. They would enter fastidious homes. Costly costumes they would exchange ...
— The Paliser case • Edgar Saltus

... head quickly, he made a contemptuous gesture of dissent. "No, it wasn't that. I never loved her, except, perhaps, just at the first. But there's something that comes before love, I guess. I don't know what it is, but there's something. It may be just plain doggedness, ...
— Life and Gabriella - The Story of a Woman's Courage • Ellen Glasgow

... their hastily swilled liquor the hilarious patrons of Peden's hall became more contemptuous of the city marshal. His apparent avoidance of trouble, his unaccountable absence, his failure to step up and meet this challenge from Peden, became a grievance against him in their ...
— Trail's End • George W. Ogden

... to Stephen, who stood nearest to him. The boy did not deign to reply. With a contemptuous grunt, he turned scornfully ...
— Cap'n Warren's Wards • Joseph C. Lincoln

... things stood guard with the mysterious tubes, another unbound them. A whole shower of high pitched, piping syllables was hurled at them, speech which sounded threatening and contemptuous but was otherwise, of course, entirely unintelligible, and then the creatures withdrew. The heavy metal door was slammed shut, ...
— The Red Hell of Jupiter • Paul Ernst

... as he met the English officer's insulting gaze—insulting, for the stranger gave a contemptuous look around at the assembled party, swaggered forward, unbuckling his belt and throwing it and his sword upon the table with a bang, before dragging forward a chair over the polished floor, raising it a little, and then bringing ...
— The King's Esquires - The Jewel of France • George Manville Fenn

... Mother; then I'll help myself, and when I do, God help you all," and with a contemptuous shrug of her broad shoulders she walked away, leaving the poor old Prioress ...
— The Lady Of Blossholme • H. Rider Haggard

... what do the cavaliers see in that horrid creature?" archly asked the Duchess, contemptuous of this ...
— Mistress Nell - A Merry Tale of a Merry Time • George C. Hazelton, Jr.

... acquaintance. Ethel was highly indignant at the tone in which he had exclaimed, "What, May, have you one as young as this?" on discovering the existence of the baby; and when Norman observed that was not so atrocious either, she proceeded, "You did not hear the contemptuous, compassionate tone when he asked papa what he meant to do with ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge

... general resentment darted an angry glance around him, and suppressing with difficulty the desire which urged him to reply in furious or in contemptuous language, returned his dagger into his scabbard, looked disdainfully around upon the assembled menials, turned short upon his heel, and pushing aside those who stood betwixt him and the ...
— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott

... and contemptuous. Bates had failed to satisfy Pickering and was flung off like a ...
— The House of a Thousand Candles • Meredith Nicholson

... on some occasion, it is said, two English Officers, not well informed upon the matter, and provoking enough in their contemptuous ignorance, were reasoning with one another in Friedrich Wilhelm's hearing, as to the warlike powers of the Prussian State, and Whether the King of Prussia could on his own strength maintain a standing army of 15,000? Without subsidies, do you think, so many as 15,000? ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Volume IV. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Friedrich's Apprenticeship, First Stage—1713-1728 • Thomas Carlyle

... are admirably sketched the vices generally accompanying a low degree of civilisation; and in the first scene of the second act Shakespeare has, as in many other places, shown the tendency in bad men to indulge in scorn and contemptuous expressions as a mode of getting rid of their own uneasy feelings of inferiority to the good, and also, by making the good ridiculous, of rendering the transition of others to wickedness easy. Shakespeare never puts habitual ...
— Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher • S. T. Coleridge

... left me, for their shawls and bonnets, I took up the newspapers which Mr. Trevanion had thrown on the table, by way of something to do. My eye was caught by his own name; it occurred often, and in all the papers. There was contemptuous abuse in one, high eulogy in another; but one passage in a journal that seemed to aim at impartiality, struck me so much as to remain in my memory; and I am sure that I can still quote the sense, though not the exact words. The paragraph ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... must not for a moment imagine that Bunyan was afraid of temporal consequences, which prevents his enlarging upon this part of his subject. His contemptuous answer to Fowler for attacking the doctrine of justification, although a great man with the state, and soon afterwards made a bishop, is a proof that he was a stranger to the fear of man. He had said enough, and therefore there was ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... December. The king lost no time in giving effect to this discomfiture. At the extraordinary hour of twelve o'clock on the following night, an order was sent to the two secretaries of state, North and Fox, that they should deliver up the seals by his majesty's command; adding the contemptuous injunction, that they should send them by the under-secretaries, the king ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Vol. 56, No. 346, August, 1844 • Various

... let her go alone. And in her face the curate had seen something he had never seen there until then,—a wistful look, as if now she would be glad to pick up any suitable crumb to carry home with her. In that dawn of coming childhood, though he dared not yet altogether believe it such, the hard contemptuous expression of Bascombe's countenance, and the severe disapproval in Mrs. Ramshorn's, were entirely ...
— Thomas Wingfold, Curate • George MacDonald

... be harm," thought Amine, "at least the deed is not his—'tis mine; they cannot say that he has practised arts that are unlawful and forbidden by his priests. On my head be it!" And there was a contemptuous curl on Amine's beautiful arched lip, which did not say much for her devotion ...
— The Phantom Ship • Frederick Marryat

... that, the Lexow disclosures of inconceivable rottenness of a Tammany police; the woe unto you! of Christian priests calling vainly upon the chief of the city "to save its children from a living hell," and the contemptuous reply on the witness-stand of the head of the party of organized robbery, at the door of which it was all laid, that he was "in politics, working for his own pocket all the time, same as you and ...
— The Battle with the Slum • Jacob A. Riis

... plenty to do in this part of the world that's better than kicking your heels against the fence all the morning? Now just look around, my boy, until you find something that wants fixing up, and take off your coat and go at it. You won't have to look far about here." And the Judge gave a contemptuous glance toward the widow Fairlaw's neglected farm. "Take my word for it, boy," he added, "work's a mint—work's a mint." And then he turned away, walking with dignified pace toward the ...
— Harper's Young People, October 26, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various

... 'His abilities gave him an haughty confidence, which he disdained to conceal or mollify; and his impatience of opposition disposed him to treat his adversaries with such contemptuous superiority as made his readers commonly his enemies, and excited against the advocate the wishes of some who favoured the cause. He seems to have adopted the Roman Emperour's determination, oderint dum metuant; he used no allurements of gentle language, but wished to compel rather than ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 5 • Boswell

... the frozen wastes. One day Marie Lovetski's condition became so serious that Somaloff begged General Rachieff to order the fetters which bound her wrists to be removed, receiving in reply a refusal as contemptuous as it was decisive. All that day the exile's secret lover walked moodily on, racking his brains for some method by which to save the woman from dying before even the terrible journey ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 30, June 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various

... whatever the circumstances, there must be no exhibition of vulgar curiosity, no eagerness, no enthusiasm, no astonishment while one of ocean's countless mysteries is unfolding itself before his eyes; he must exhibit an air of semi-contemptuous indifference, as who should say, "I am a seasoned hand—a shell-back, and none of your beach-combers. I have long been familiar with all the strange sights and sounds and vicissitudes to be met with upon the broad ocean; for me the tale of them is exhausted; so far ...
— The Cruise of the "Esmeralda" • Harry Collingwood

... be the end of such a life? Marriage? But who desired her? One of those talentless painters, who ventilated at Kayser's house, not merely their contemptuous theories, but also their down-at-the-heel shoes? To fall from one Bohemian condition to another, from exigency to want, to be the wife of one of these greasy-haired dreamers? Her whole nature shuddered in revolt at this ...
— His Excellency the Minister • Jules Claretie

... the spot. Enraged and bewildered by Sanin's unconventional method of dealing with the difficulty, the discomfited emissaries withdraw. Later, the challenger meets Sanin in the street, and goaded to frenzy by his calm and contemptuous stare, strikes him with a whip; he immediately receives in the face a terrible blow from his adversary's fist, delivered with all his colossal strength. A friend carries him to his lodgings, and there he commits suicide. From the conventional ...
— Essays on Russian Novelists • William Lyon Phelps

... the preeminence of the British Empire was mainly due to the battle-zeal of Jimmy's ancestry. But whenever Jimmy talked about his grandfather, Bob skilfully turned the conversation to his game-cock. This made Jimmy testy, and one day he told Bob, in contemptuous tones, that "he'd be even wi' him yet, in the matter o' game-cocks, as ...
— Golden Stories - A Selection of the Best Fiction by the Foremost Writers • Various

... English, and so have acquired nothing in the room of their natural levity and cheerfulness. However, as their high opinion of their own country remains, for which they can no longer assign any reason, they are contemptuous and reserved, instead of being ridiculously, consequently pardonably, impertinent. I have wondered, knowing my own countrymen, that we had attained such a superiority. I wonder no longer, and have a little more respect for ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume II • Horace Walpole

... old enough to think at all, she had been inordinately proud of "being a man," and profoundly contemptuous of the women about her whose colorless lives spelled thraldom and ...
— A Pagan of the Hills • Charles Neville Buck

... pull the other way. It is hard to believe that the kindred of Turk and Magyar was thought of when a Turkish Pasha ruled at Buda. Doubtless Hungarian Protestants often deemed, and not unreasonably deemed, that the contemptuous toleration of the Moslem Sultan was a lighter yoke than the persecution of the Catholic Emperor. But it was hardly on grounds of primeval kindred that they made the choice. The ethnological dialogue ...
— Prose Masterpieces from Modern Essayists • James Anthony Froude, Edward A. Freeman, William Ewart Gladstone, John Henry Newman and Leslie Steph

... a great deal of your comfort depends on the character of the newsboy. He has it in his power indefinitely to better and brighten the emigrant's lot. The newsboy with whom we started from the Transfer was a dark, bullying, contemptuous, insolent scoundrel, who treated us like dogs. Indeed, in his case, matters came nearly to a fight. It happened thus: he was going his rounds through the cars with some commodities for sale, and coming to a party who ...
— Across The Plains • Robert Louis Stevenson

... thick fingers with a contemptuous look for the women folk. He had just worked off his five years' government naval service; and it was as master-gunner of the fleet that he had learned to speak good French and hold sceptical opinions. He hemmed and hawed and then rattled off his latest love adventure, ...
— An Iceland Fisherman • Pierre Loti

... marched to the nearest basket on the table and deliberately took off the cover and began taking out the contents. It happened to be Mrs. Nathan Butters' basket. Mrs. Jameson lifted out the great loaf of fruit cake and set it on the table with a contemptuous thud, as it seemed to us; then she took out a cranberry pie and a frosted apple pie, and set them beside it. She opened Mrs. Peter Jones' basket next, and Mrs. Jones stood there all full of nervous twitches and saw her take out a pile of ham sandwiches ...
— The Jamesons • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman

... departure of his influence, removed any interested motive for courting her friendship. Between them and Lady Nelson, on the other hand, the breach was final. Their occasional mention of her is unfriendly, and upon the whole contemptuous; while she, as far as can be judged from their letters, returned to them an ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. II. (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan

... a repetition. It must surely be obvious to any careful reader that here is something much more than—unless his reading has been as wide elsewhere as it is careful here—he expected from Romance in the commoner and half-contemptuous acceptation of that word. Lancelot he may, though he should not, still class as a mere amoureux transi—a nobler and pluckier Silvius in an earlier As Yon Like It, and with a greater than Phoebe for idol. Malory ought to be enough to set him right ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury

... showing them off a little; and she was humanly grateful to have the warm shoulder turned to her and he smiled upon by her friends and the village again; for of all the hard things to bear, to be cut by your neighbors and left in contemptuous ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... absurd impropriety of the application he had tipsily determined on, and was about to leave the place, when M. Derville arrived. The ship-broker's surprise and anger at finding Hector Bertrand in his house were extreme, and his only reply to the intruder's stammering explanation, was a contemptuous order to leave the place immediately. Bertrand slunk away sheepishly enough; and slowly as he sauntered along, had nearly reached home, when M. ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 459 - Volume 18, New Series, October 16, 1852 • Various

... comes up to see if she is ready to go home, and she looks at both of us with superior icy eyes. And Carol freezes in a second. Ordinarily, she looks at me with a sort of sympathetic pity and wonder, but Lark is always haughty and nearly contemptuous. It is different with the rest of the class. It is nothing important to them. The twins are popular in the class, you know, and the others, realizing that they dislike me, hold aloof on ...
— Prudence of the Parsonage • Ethel Hueston

... not answer, and Calista said, "Oh—!" with the peculiar German inflection of contemptuous patience. Conrad ...
— Shapes that Haunt the Dusk • Various

... merely his due. Prince Charles could not have taken the devotion of Henry Goring, or of Neil MacEachain, more entirely as a matter of course, involving no consideration in return, than Roderick took the unparalleled self-sacrifice of his barber friend and school-mate. Scott has remarked on this contemptuous and ungrateful selfishness, and has contrasted it with the relations of Tom Jones and Partridge. Of course, it is not to be assumed that Smollett would have behaved like Roderick, when, "finding the fire in my apartment almost extinguished, I vented my fury upon poor Strap, whose ear I pinched ...
— Adventures among Books • Andrew Lang

... intellectual life at least, but the pretenders to superior knowledge in that degenerate university town merely traded on the achievements of their ancestors, repeating with dead lips the echo of the old philosophies. They were marked only by levity, mockery, sneers, and contemptuous arrogance; idlers were they, in quest of some ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume II • John Lord

... declared the horse, with a contemptuous neigh. "Still, I don't care to drag any passengers. You'll ...
— Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz • L. Frank Baum.

... one,'—'squinting eyes,' 'red hair,'—'paint and patches,' &c. were bandied from mouth to mouth. Leonella was almost choaked with passion, and loaded her malicious Adviser with the bitterest reproaches. The swarthy Prophetess for some time listened to her with a contemptuous smile: at length She made her a short answer, and then ...
— The Monk; a romance • M. G. Lewis

... instructions should arrive, he would live in strict seclusion. He did not think that he should be justified in quitting his post without express orders; but his earnest hope was that he should be directed to turn his back in contemptuous defiance on the Court which had dared to treat England ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 5 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... to this by pushing out his lips, drawing up his chin, half closing his eyes, and nodding his head in a very contemptuous manner; saying almost as plainly as words could express it—"All gammon, doctor! You needn't try to come over me with ...
— Finger Posts on the Way of Life • T. S. Arthur

... there had been no inherited sin. Our sexual organs, he declares, have become shameful because, through sin, they are now moved by lust. At the same time Augustine by no means takes up the mediaeval ascetic position of contemptuous hatred towards the body. Nothing can be further from Odo of Cluny than Augustine's enthusiasm about the body, even about the exquisite harmony of the parts beneath the skin. "I believe it may be concluded," he even says, "that in the creation ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis

... and he, harsh tongued, Bending a brow upon her rough as rock, With eyes that struck like steel, seeking to break Or snare her with a sudden stroke of fear: 'Art thou a Christian?' and she answered, 'Yea, I am a Christian!' In brow-blackening wrath He motioned a contemptuous hand and bade The lictors scourge the old man down and forth With rods, and as the cruel deed was done, Perpetua stood white with quivering lips, And her eyes filled with tears. While yet his cries Were mingling with the curses of the crowd, Hilarianus, calling name by name, Gave sentence, ...
— Alcyone • Archibald Lampman

... know what ut is to help a dhrunken husband home an' see him go to the gyard-room. Will that plase you, Dinah Shadd, that won't be seen talkin' to my daughter? You shall talk to worse than Judy before all's over. The sergints' wives shall look down on you contemptuous, daughter av a sergint, an' you shall cover ut all up wid a smiling face when your heart's burstin'. Stand off av him, Dinah Shadd, for I've put the Black Curse of Shielygh upon him an' his own ...
— Indian Tales • Rudyard Kipling

... of long experience came up the cynical, slightly contemptuous consolation, "You know this never lasts. You always throw this same fit, and get ...
— Americans All - Stories of American Life of To-Day • Various

... she would have stained her whiteness by a falsehood, he could have saved her by a word; for the question, of inquest or no inquest, had hung trembling in the balance only the night before. Miss Hale might love another—was indifferent and contemptuous to him—but he would yet do her faithful acts of service of which she should never know. He might despise her, but the woman whom he had once loved should be kept from shame; and shame it would be to pledge herself to a lie in ...
— North and South • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

... invent nothing so wonderful as Madame Bolivard," she cried gaily. "She is contemptuous of the dangers of English marketing. 'The people understood me at once,' she said. She evidently has a poor ...
— Septimus • William J. Locke

... and Talleyrand had formed with the Opposition. As Bland Burges remarked: "Talleyrand is intimate with Paine, Home Tooke, Lord Lansdowne, and a few more of that stamp, and is generally scouted by every one else." George III's words were equally contemptuous and marked his resolve to have as little as possible to do with France.[76] Pitt did not state his opinions on this topic; but he probably held ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose

... small a matter to us, but one which will, perhaps, be immensely important to them! It is, perhaps, better for our peace that we do not know; it would not be pleasant to have our children's and children's children's contemptuous expressions sounding in our prophetic ears. Perhaps we have no right to complain of the obliteration of these memorials of antiquity by the plough; the living are more than the dead, and in this case it may be said that ...
— A Shepherd's Life • W. H. Hudson

... and cosmopolitan elements in Quita made her airily contemptuous of trifles, of the petty point of view, the 'local' attitude of mind often found in isolated Indian stations, more especially among the women. And setting aside Honor and Frank, the half-dozen officers' ...
— The Great Amulet • Maud Diver

... of the late pope, a man of harsh manners and dissolute life, an object of general hatred. Five of the cardinals, Robert of Geneva, Acquasparta, Viviers, Poitou, and De Verny, were seized in their attempt to steal away, and driven back, amid contemptuous hootings, by personal violence. Night came on again; the populace, having pillaged all the provisions in the conclave, grew weary of their own excesses. The cardinals fled on all sides. Four left the city; Orsini and St. Eustache ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various

... stood him in good stead; it had developed his insight, his subtlety, and, strange to say, his powers of dissimulation. Contrary to what is popularly supposed, his study of the affairs of the other world had enabled him to deal with this world's affairs with a half-contemptuous facility. As for the minor technicalities, the social pass-words, and so forth, to which much importance is generally ascribed, David had nothing to fear from them; first, because he was a man of noble ...
— David Poindexter's Disappearance and Other Tales • Julian Hawthorne

... scimitar in hand, and know that if you do not cut him down he will cut you down, you naturally strike as hard and as quickly as you can. You have never liked Gervaise, Rivers. I am sure I don't know why, but you always speak in a contemptuous sort of tone about him. True, it does him no harm, but it certainly does you no good. For what reason should you feel a contempt for him? Although so much younger, he is a better swordsman and a better rider than you ...
— A Knight of the White Cross • G.A. Henty

... paid the debt. Sir Tancred grew exceedingly disagreeable; he set forth with perfect frankness his opinion of Mr. Lambert's character, declared that he would rather go to that uncomfortable abode of contemptuous debtors, Holloway, than be swindled in so barefaced a fashion; and exclaiming, "You may go to your native Jericho, before I pay you a farthing, you thieving rascal!" went out of the office, and ...
— The Admirable Tinker - Child of the World • Edgar Jepson

... haughtily awaiting the first words of accusation. And the face of young David was to the full as haughty and contemptuous as ...
— The Black Douglas • S. R. Crockett

... account. This counsel guided her into safer paths. Finally, when Chrysostom was driven forth to banishment, by his advice she remained in the city, and became a support for his followers and those who had been dependent upon him. She met contemptuous treatment and judicial persecutions, but continued her works of charity, and outlived the man whose mind and heart had so influenced hers by eleven years. Chrysostom wrote her many letters, of which seventeen are extant.[14] They plainly show the estimate he set upon the diaconate of women, and ...
— Deaconesses in Europe - and their Lessons for America • Jane M. Bancroft

... what punishment her audacity was about to draw upon her. But worse, perhaps, than any other punishment, was the discovery that Sergius had already forgotten her; or rather, that he thought so little about her as to be able to dismiss her and her pretensions with a single contemptuous rebuke. He had called his armor bearer for another purpose than to speak of her. A new phase had passed over his burdened and excited mind. He could not endure that solitude, with ever-present disagreeable reflection. ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 4, October, 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... reject the testimony, but will wait for confirmation at other times and from other unconnected sources. Such ought to have been the conduct of the King of Siam when the Dutch travelers affirmed to him the existence of ice. But an ignorant person is as obstinate in his contemptuous incredulity as he is unreasonably credulous. Any thing unlike his own narrow experience he disbelieves, if it flatters no propensity; any nursery tale is swallowed implicitly by him ...
— A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive • John Stuart Mill

... and furnished the basis for the others. Yet both Hegel and Comte, not to speak of Schelling, were far more interested in the intellectual and historical, the ethical and social aspects of the question. Both Hegel and Comte were, whether rightly or wrongly, rather contemptuous of the appeal to biology and organic life. Both had the sense that they used a great figure of speech when they spoke of society as an organism, and compared the working of institutions to biological functions. This is indeed the question. ...
— Edward Caldwell Moore - Outline of the History of Christian Thought Since Kant • Edward Moore

... prophesying with harps, with psalteries, with cymbals, and with every other instrument of music then in fashion. Were we now to speak of prophesying with a fiddle, or with a pipe and tabor, the expression would have no meaning, or would appear ridiculous, and to some people contemptuous, because we have changed the meaning ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine

... picture of Luke Fildes reaches high-water mark in the school of his time, and yet in watching as I have done the crowds who surge through the Tate Galleries and the National Gallery, it is an almost every-day occurrence to overhear such contemptuous remarks as "Oh, yes, one of those literary fellows," drop from the lips of some highbrow who only tolerates Constable because of the influence his example and work had on Corot and other men of ...
— Outdoor Sketching - Four Talks Given before the Art Institute of Chicago; The Scammon Lectures, 1914 • Francis Hopkinson Smith

... civilisation of the old world. What a contrast to the unarmed and peaceful prosperity of his own country! Thank heaven, New England needed no fortresses, military roads, or standing armies! True, but why that flush of contemptuous pity for the poor old world, which could only hold its own by such ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume II. • Charles Kingsley

... had contracted a debt, and she would pay it with her blood. Michel now mattered little to her, let him do what he would. The young man's threat: "To-morrow night!" returned to her mind without affecting her in the least. The contemptuous curl of her lip seemed silently to brave ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet

... shut her out with a bang of contemptuous mockery, and the poor ladies were once more left alone ...
— Under the Waves - Diving in Deep Waters • R M Ballantyne

... laugh at Lytton's rhetoric, but very few dramatists have had a more complete mastery of theatrical situations, and that is a good thing to be master of. Why the word "theatrical" should have come to be used in a contemptuous sense I cannot understand. "Musical" is a word of praise in music; why not "theatrical" in a theater? A play in any age which holds the boards so continuously as "The Lady of Lyons" deserves more consideration than the ridicule of those who think that the world has moved ...
— The Story of My Life - Recollections and Reflections • Ellen Terry

... spoke and stood at attention, then stared truculently, too inherently chivalrous to deny her civility—he would have cut his throat as soon as address her from horseback while she stood—and too contemptuous of her father's calling to be more civil than he deemed ...
— Rung Ho! • Talbot Mundy

... of declamation which is designed merely or mainly for home-consumption,—speaking for Buncombe, as we call it. The instant, therefore, that it was evident that Mr. Coningham was addressing, not the House of Commons, but his constituents at Brighton, he was interrupted by derisive cheers and contemptuous groans. Again and again did the indignant orator attempt to make his voice heard above the confusion, but in vain; and when, losing all presence of mind, he made the fatal admission,—"I can tell Honorable Gentlemen that I have just returned from visiting my constituents, and ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 50, December, 1861 • Various

... found herself at Fifty-first street, and there before her lay Washington Park, with its gracious meadow, its Italian garden, its rose walk, its lagoon, and drooping willows. But then, that was Chicago. All contrast. The Illinois Central railroad puffed contemptuous cinders into the great blue lake. And almost in the shadow of the City Hall ...
— Fanny Herself • Edna Ferber

... windows, were interspersed with ruinous palm-thatched bamboo huts and grotesquely decorated temples filled with fat priests and hideous, ochre-daubed gods, and noisy with the incessant blare of conch shells and the jangling of bells. Lalpuri was a byword throughout India and was known to its contemptuous neighbours as the City of Harlots and Thieves. Poverty, debauchery, and crime were rife. Justice was a mockery; corruption and abuses flourished everywhere. A just magistrate or an honourable official was as hard to find as an honest ...
— The Elephant God • Gordon Casserly

... freedom. Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty. He who would be respected must respect himself. The best friend of the Negro is he who would rather see, within the borders of this republic one million free citizens of that race, equal before the law, than ten million cringing serfs existing by a contemptuous sufferance. A race that is willing to survive upon any other terms is scarcely worthy ...
— The Negro Problem • Booker T. Washington, et al.

... do that!" broke in Dene, with contemptuous impatience. "Clear your mind of that idea. I'm playing the giddy-goat not for your sake, my man; but—but for ...
— The Woman's Way • Charles Garvice

... a hookah, in Persia a nargilly, in Egypt a sheesha, in Turkey a chibouque, in Germany a meerschaum, in Holland a pipe, in Spain a cigar—I have tried them all. The art of smoking is carried by the Orientals to perfection. Considering the contemptuous suspicion with which the Ottomans ever regard novelty, I have sometimes been tempted to believe that the eastern nations must have been acquainted with tobacco before the discovery of Raleigh introduced it to the occident; but ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, - Issue 566, September 15, 1832 • Various

... only dwellings that remain in this curious wilderness of dismantled crumbling grey walls compassionately cloaked with a thousand profuse and graceful creepers. These are the only ruins properly so called, except those of Fort Putnam, that I have ever seen in this land of contemptuous youth. I hailed these picturesque groups and masses with the feelings of a European, to whom ruins are like a sort of relations. In my country, ruins are like a minor chord in music, here they are like a discord; they are not the relics of time, but the results ...
— Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation - 1838-1839 • Frances Anne Kemble

... indignation at the question, "The king, without doubt." "Indeed, Mr. Partridge," says Mrs. Miller, "you are not of the same opinion with the town; for they are all agreed, that Hamlet is acted by the best player who ever was on the stage." "He the best player!" cries Partridge, with a contemptuous sneer, "why, I could act as well as he myself. I am sure, if I had seen a ghost, I should have looked in the very same manner, and done just as ne did. And then, to be sure, in that scene, as you called it, between him and his mother, where you told me he acted so fine, why, Lord help me, any ...
— Public Speaking • Irvah Lester Winter

... looked down upon the two young fellows, positively gnashed his teeth as he clenched his fists and regarded them angrily. In his super-arrogance this huge bully towered over the couple, and treated them to a stare, a derisive, angry, contemptuous inspection, which humbled them exceedingly. Indeed, Henri and Jules might have been simply noxious animals, mere beetles to be trodden underfoot, so contemptuous was ...
— With Joffre at Verdun - A Story of the Western Front • F. S. Brereton

... or contemptuous about my "moral sense," and so probably will you be. I am extremely pleased that he agrees with my position, as far as animal nature is concerned, of man in the series; or, if anything, thinks I have erred ...
— Alfred Russel Wallace: Letters and Reminiscences, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Marchant

... of the woodland and silenced the song of the birds! Meanwhile, I was so fearfully anxious that she should risk no danger of hearing, even of surmising, the cruel slander against her—should meet no cold contemptuous looks, above all, should be safe from the barbed talk of Mrs. Poyntz—that I insisted on the necessity of immediate change of air and scene. I proposed that we should all three depart, the next day, for the banks of my own beloved and native Windermere. By that ...
— A Strange Story, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... made a contemptuous gesture toward the canvas with his outstretched brush. "A mere daub," said he. "One step higher than painting a barn or ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton

... she studied her companion through half-closed eyes. Julian was reading an article in one of the Reviews and remained entirely unconscious of her scrutiny. His forehead was puckered, his mouth a little contemptuous. It was obvious that he did not wholly approve of ...
— The Devil's Paw • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... before me the Lord Strange's Players, to whom I specially gave in charge and required them in Her Majesty's name to forbear playing until further order might be given for their allowance in that respect. Whereupon the Lord Admiral's Players very dutifully obeyed; but the others, in very contemptuous manner departing from me, went to the Cross Keys and played ...
— Shakespearean Playhouses - A History of English Theatres from the Beginnings to the Restoration • Joseph Quincy Adams

... the Great Fire swept them bare, no district of London has preserved its old lines so closely; and, walking in Whitefriars, we can still stare through the gate that once barred off the brawling Copper Captains of Charles II.'s Alsatia from the contemptuous Templars of King's Bench Walk. Whitefriars was at first a Carmelite convent, founded, before Blackfriars, on land given by Edward I.; the chapter-house was given by Henry VII. to his physician, Dr. Butts (a man mentioned by Shakespeare), and in the reign of ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury

... to everything that was not rustic, felt in her narrow soul a kind of hatred for the ecstatic extravagances of the old girl. She had found a phrase by which to describe her, I know not how, but a phrase assuredly contemptuous, which had sprung to her lips, invented probably by some confused and mysterious travail of soul. She said: 'That woman is a demoniac.' This phrase, as uttered by that austere and sentimental creature, seemed ...
— Selected Writings of Guy de Maupassant • Guy de Maupassant

... her grandfather Jane knew that, to this day, nothing had been heard of Hewett's daughter; what people said at the time of the girl's disappearance she had learned fully enough from Clem Peckover, who even yet found it pleasant to revive the scandal, and by contemptuous comments revenge herself for Clara's haughty usage in old days. Time had not impaired Jane's vivid recollection of that Bank-holiday morning when she herself was the first to make it known that Clara had gone away. Many a time since ...
— The Nether World • George Gissing

... on that trip, for when we got as far as Stanhope, on the Morris and Essex road, our money had given out. I offered the station-master my watch as security for the price of two tickets to New York, but he bestowed only a contemptuous glance upon it and remarked that there were a good many fakirs running about the country palming off "snide" gold watches on people. Our lantern outfit found no more favor with him, and we were compelled to ...
— The Making of an American • Jacob A. Riis



Words linked to "Contemptuous" :   contemptuousness, insulting, disrespectful



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