Free TranslationFree Translation
Synonyms, antonyms, pronunciation

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




Sham   Listen
noun
Sham  n.  
1.
That which deceives expectation; any trick, fraud, or device that deludes and disappoints; a make-believe; delusion; imposture; humbug. "A mere sham." "Believe who will the solemn sham, not I."
2.
A false front, or removable ornamental covering.
Pillow sham, a covering to be laid on a pillow.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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

Synonyms
Antonyms
Quotes
Words linked to  

only single words



Share |





"Sham" Quotes from Famous Books



... when Hannah, delighted with a chance to disturb Nellie, answered for her. "It's my opinion that headache was all a sham, for you hadn't been gone an hour, afore he was over here in the garden with Maude, where he stayed ever so long. Then he came agen this afternoon, and hasn't ...
— Cousin Maude • Mary J. Holmes

... mass instinctively recognizes as divine; it feels for it, gropes for it, and the Devil, as usual, is the first to seize for his purposes whatever noble impulse comes over men, and this search for the divine of the mass becomes a sham, a fashionable craze. Hence the rage, the boom. This is the inevitable stage of falsehood through which every noble aspiration must pass. By and by the stage of truth must come, and come it shall, in due ...
— Lectures on Russian Literature - Pushkin, Gogol, Turgenef, Tolstoy • Ivan Panin

... much in his way, except the sham romance which he had assumed along with a painted face and a stage costume, and of which he knew the just and accurate value. He had never had time to fall seriously in love, he used to say to Maurice Mangan. And now, in this long spell of idleness ...
— Prince Fortunatus • William Black

... the woman, "hit that jinted piece of hardware a blow with a shillayleh, and show these Manuels and proud Castilians that it's a holler sham." ...
— Frontier Boys in Frisco • Wyn Roosevelt

... unusual capacity for government displayed by an Oriental people, was tempted to accept the famous assertion which Nubar Pasha put into the mouth of the Khedive Ismail: 'We are no longer in Africa, but in Europe.' Yet all was a hateful sham ['The government of the Egyptians in these far-off countries is nothing else but one of brigandage of the very worst description.'—COLONEL GORDON IN CENTRAL AFRICA, April 11, 1879.] The arbitrary and ...
— The River War • Winston S. Churchill

... Lyons had been purposely instructed to earth the line at the time in question, to test whether there was no deception in the trial, a proceeding which would have seemed strange, had not the occurrence of a sham trial some months previous rendered it a prudent course. The result of this trial was that the French Government agreed to give the printer a year of practical work on the French lines, and if found satisfactory, it was to be finally adopted. Daily ...
— Heroes of the Telegraph • J. Munro

... it," said Gorman. "For the matter of that we haven't got the thing. We manage along all right with sham politics, Ireland and Insurance Acts and the rest of it. If real politics lead to trouble over places like Salissa I prefer our home-made imitation. But Real Politik or not, the thing's done; so what's the good of the ...
— The Island Mystery • George A. Birmingham

... guess you saved some of us from losing more in the way of valuables," smiled the medical man grimly. "For one, I'm ashamed of myself. A man who has been practising medicine more than twenty years should know too much to be taken in by sham fits on the part of a thief who plays his trick in order to rob a crowd of ...
— The Grammar School Boys Snowbound - or, Dick & Co. at Winter Sports • H. Irving Hancock

... the little sham mahogany table, upon which the big brass samovar steamed and whispered, listening to her and watching her. She gave him his glass of the pale-yellow Russian tea that neither cheers nor inebriates, but merely ...
— Those Who Smiled - And Eleven Other Stories • Perceval Gibbon

... to be grown old, the boys shouting to one another full of glee, all the dogs in the yard clamouring because only the wise old retriever, Captain, was allowed to be of the party; Arthur Cradock making ridiculous mistakes on purpose between the uncle and nephew, Trevorsham and Sham Trevor, ...
— Lady Hester, or Ursula's Narrative • Charlotte M. Yonge

... whole manner betrayed it—the smile upon his lip, the fidgety motion of his feet, and the look which he darted from time to time around the room, as if to satisfy himself that his happiness was "not a sham but a reality." But his happiness seemed far from contagious. On his right hand there was a lovely creature, seated on a footstool, who did not partake his enjoyment. There was something so sweet and so harmonious in her expression, that you felt sure at once she was as good ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 334, August 1843 • Various

... leather caps and bullets and bones scattered about in the fields, and you are pestered with children innumerable with relics of all sorts. We had heard magnificent accounts on our road here of all that was to be done on the field, balls, fetes, sham fights, processions, and I do not know what, but they have all dwindled to a dinner given here to the Belgian soldiers and a Mass to be said for the souls of the dead to-morrow. However, we saw what we wished as we wished, and the impression is perhaps clearer than if it ...
— Before and after Waterloo - Letters from Edward Stanley, sometime Bishop of Norwich (1802;1814;1814) • Edward Stanley

... Samurai. But there were horrors, too; notably the senile amorousness of Zakkuri and the offensive little figure of It, his shadow—an interpolation in the bill of fare. A properly qualified dwarf I might have welcomed; but this precocious babe with the false moustache and the sham bald crown and the cynical giggle, who ought to have been in the nursery instead of serving his master with liquid stimulants and assisting in all sorts of wickedness, was a peculiarly nauseating object, and got on my nerves far more than the terrors of the torture-chamber. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, January 28, 1914 • Various

... refused to give commensurately, using as an excuse the fact that the directors were away. Mr. Nelson's feelings blazed forth and he blurted out, "You run this corporation, and you can do as you please," and with that he strode out of the room leaving his calmer friend to secure a gift of $500.00. Sham irritated him beyond measure. Again, at headquarters one day Maurice Pollak was holding forth in vivid language on the subject of people who refused to contribute, and he did not notice Mr. Nelson coming in behind him. When he suddenly ...
— Frank H. Nelson of Cincinnati • Warren C. Herrick

... condition at this time. He had toilsomely erected a sort of sham paradise of stage scenery, in which he continued to play the character of the youthful lover, which he was scarcely entitled to continue in life, and now this luckless doctor, with a careless movement, had thrown down all the painted canvasses ...
— How Women Love - (Soul Analysis) • Max Simon Nordau

... the depths of the country led such a wretched life of struggles, of suppressed rebellion, of unuttered poetry, who to get away from Lousteau had climbed the highest and steepest peak of her scorn, and who would not have come down if she had seen the sham Byron at her feet, suddenly stepped off it ...
— Parisians in the Country - The Illustrious Gaudissart, and The Muse of the Department • Honore de Balzac

... chatting together, or betting, with their waxed tablets and their styli(11) in their hands, some waiting the commencement of the race between Fuscus and Victor, others watching with interest the progress of a sham fight on horseback between two young men of the equestrian order, denoted by the narrow crimson stripes on their tunics, who were careering to and fro, armed with long staves and circular bucklers, in all the swift and beautiful ...
— The Roman Traitor (Vol. 1 of 2) • Henry William Herbert

... make every one think as we do. The newest evolution—that of the snake on training-day—certainly "brings down the house," even if it fails to carry an admission of its superiority. When this friendly rivalry is over, the sham fight proceeds. A rough structure of boards and boughs has been prepared to represent a fort, and one of the companies is imprisoned therein, with little air or light, and with no means of defence except to discharge ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, September, 1885 • Various

... Pollock was gathering his brigades at Gundamuk in the beginning of the following September, a forlorn Afghan, in dirty and tattered rags, rode into his camp. This scarecrow was Futteh Jung, who, unable to endure longer his sham kingship and the ominous tyranny of Akbar Khan, had fled from Cabul in disguise to beg a refuge in ...
— The Afghan Wars 1839-42 and 1878-80 • Archibald Forbes

... 'Tyrant,' from his affectionate persecution of young Huettenbrenner, who in return lavished upon him the affection of a slave for his idol. They were all boisterous, merry, life-loving spirits, venting their feelings in howls, repartees, sham-fights, and mock-concerts—there is even a story of their 'performing' the 'Erl King,' with Schubert himself accompanying them on a tooth-comb! The change from this unconventional life to the aristocratic surroundings of Zelesz was therefore immense; yet Schubert was not unhappy. The family were ...
— Story-Lives of Great Musicians • Francis Jameson Rowbotham

... your waiter with pathetic indignation, to 'see after that cutlet!' He steps out to see after it, and by-and-by, when you are going away without it, comes back with it. Even then, he will not take the sham silver cover off, without a pause for a flourish, and a look at the musty cutlet as if he were surprised to see it—which cannot possibly be the case, he must have seen it so often before. A sort of fur has been produced upon its surface by the ...
— The Uncommercial Traveller • Charles Dickens

... battaile attempted. He thought hym self a God ouer nature, all landes and Seas to giue place to hym, and puffed with pride, he forgatte hymself: his power was terrible, his harte fainte, whereupon his enteryng into Grece was not so dreaded, as his flight fro[m] thence was sham[-] full, mocked and scorned at, for all his power he was driuen backe from the lande, by Leonides king of the Lacedemoni- ans, he hauing but a small nomber of men, before his second battaile fought on the Sea: he sente fower thousande armed men, ...
— A booke called the Foundacion of Rhetorike • Richard Rainolde

... that has been raised, to a Gentleman's Disadvantage, of whom I must declare my self an Admirer; namely, that Signior Nicolini and the Lion have been seen sitting peaceably by one another, and smoking a Pipe together, behind the Scenes; by which their common Enemies would insinuate, it is but a sham Combat which they represent upon the Stage: But upon Enquiry I find, that if any such Correspondence has passed between them, it was not till the Combat was over, when the Lion was to be looked upon as dead, according to the received Rules of the Drama. Besides, this ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele

... heareth the trumpet, saith: 'ha, ha'; that smelleth the battle afar off, the encouraging of the captains, the shouting of the army." Military trappings are no longer looked upon as stage furniture, good only for Fourth-of-July parades and sham manoeuvers. War with us has become a stern reality, and promises to continue such, for people do not yield up willingly their independence, even to a world-power with a providential "destiny" to fulfil. And since war is slaughter, it might be apropos to remark on ...
— Explanation of Catholic Morals - A Concise, Reasoned, and Popular Exposition of Catholic Morals • John H. Stapleton

... excited, either before or after the conflict, by certain males, and thus unconsciously prefer them. In the case of Tetrao umbellus, a good observer (23. 'Land and Water,' July 25, 1868, p. 14.) goes so far as to believe that the battles of the male "are all a sham, performed to show themselves to the greatest advantage before the admiring females who assemble around; for I have never been able to find a maimed hero, and seldom more than a broken feather." I shall have to recur to this subject, but I may here add that with ...
— The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex • Charles Darwin

... enterprise,' he says with just prescience, 'will want other rewards than the mere accumulation of wealth,' and other rewards, may we add, than knighthoods and sham peerages. 'The awakening ambitions of the gifted and heroic will need fitting spheres for their honourable gratification,' and such spheres, we may be very sure, will not be found in a third-rate little consultative council, planted in a back-room in Westminster, waiting ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 3 of 3) - Essay 9: The Expansion of England • John Morley

... me to answer your question, Paul, but I understand enough of both French and German to know that his broken English is a mere sham—a mixture, and a bad one too, of what no German or Frenchman would use—so it's not likely to be the sort of bad English that a Swede would speak. Moreover, I have caught him once or twice using English words correctly at one time ...
— Twice Bought • R.M. Ballantyne

... overthrown States, Congress should begin with a clean slate, and make clean work of it. Let there be no hesitation. It would be a cowardly deference to a defeated and treacherous President, if any account were made of the illegitimate, one-sided, sham governments hurried into existence for a malign purpose in the absence of Congress. These pretended governments, which were never submitted to the people, and from participation in which four millions of the loyal people were excluded ...
— The Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, 1995, Memorial Issue • Various

... prosecution was, however, reserved to the government, and as it was well known that the Whigs would never exercise that right from fear of losing the parliamentary support of the Romanists, their bill was seen by the public to be a sham. This circumstance, taken in connection with the premier's vehement letter to the Bishop of Durham, threw an imputation of inconsistency and insincerity upon the political character of Lord John Russell, which impaired his ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan

... was all a sham! A mask to hide the terrible conflict that was raging within her soul, ...
— I Will Repay • Baroness Emmuska Orczy

... had they laughed at? At his laugh. So that trace of a hateful act, of which he must keep the mark for ever—mutilation carved in everlasting gaiety; the stigmata of laughter, image of the sham contentment of nations under their oppressors; that mask of joy produced by torture; that abyss of grimace which he carried on his features; the scar which signified Jussu regis, the attestation of a crime ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo

... has need of, it is here. Yet it is here in sham, in effigy, in tortured compromise. The dead have need of silk. Yet silk is dear, and there are living backs to clothe. The rolls are paper.... ...
— Profiles from China • Eunice Tietjens

... SERGIUS. A hollow sham, I say. Would you have come back here if nothing had passed between you, except at the muzzle of your pistol? Raina is mistaken about our friend who was burnt. He was not ...
— Arms and the Man • George Bernard Shaw

... riding over the ground, dressed in uniform, and mounted on their splendid steeds: their plumes waving over their cocked-hats in true military array. A band of music, as is usual, accompanied the soldiers. There was also a "sham-fight," before the breaking up of the encampment, and it was really terrifying to me, who had never seen a battle fought, to witness two columns of troops drawn up, and, at the roll of the drum, behold them engage in deadly conflict, to all appearance, and ...
— Twenty-Two Years a Slave, and Forty Years a Freeman • Austin Steward

... plans for the next day. They were going to have a sham fight over all the big fields in our neighbourhood, and advised us to come and see it. They said the best time would be about ten in the morning, when they were to monter a l'assaut of a large farm with moat and drawbridge near Dammarie. They were to make a very early ...
— Chateau and Country Life in France • Mary King Waddington

... but at the suggestion of the Treasurer of Portugal, John Affonso de Alemquer, he decided on this African crusade instead. For the same strength and money might as well be spent in conquests from the Moslem as in sham-fights between Christians. So after reconnoitring the place, and lulling the suspicions of Aragon and Granada by a pretence of declaring war against the Count of Holland, King John gained the formal consent of his nobles at Torres Vedras, and set sail from ...
— Prince Henry the Navigator, the Hero of Portugal and of Modern Discovery, 1394-1460 A.D. • C. Raymond Beazley

... from the look he might read upon their faces. He thought, very grimly, that this could mean but one thing, and that thing was the end forever and ever, for him.... His heart was sick in him and he longed most desperately to break away from these other women and the sham of talk and dash off to dark solitude where the primitive man could have his way, could tramp and fight and curse and sob and break his heart in decent privacy. He faced with loathing the refinements of torture which ...
— The Palace of Darkened Windows • Mary Hastings Bradley

... can't always," replied Alick; "but I think I'm not easily taken in, and I'm willing to stake my judgment on this being no sham. And how would you have turned out from ...
— Lucy Raymond - Or, The Children's Watchword • Agnes Maule Machar

... she will cheerfully take all she is allowed to get quietly, as a sop for her quietness regarding Egypt, and she will cheerfully fight you for the rest—small blame to her. She knows Africa is a superb training ground for her officers. Sham fights and autumn manoeuvres have a certain value in the formation of a fighting army, but the whole of these parlour-games, put together in a ten-year lump, are not to be compared to one month's work at real war, to fit an army for its real work, and France knows well the real work will come ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley

... described her guest as a nice-looking man dressed in deep mourning. "Young, my dear, with beautiful dark brown hair, and a grand beard, and a sweet sorrowful look. Ah, his eyes would tell anybody that his black clothes are not a mere sham. Whether married or single, of course I can't say. But I noticed the name on his travelling-bag. A distinguished name in my opinion—Hugh Mountjoy. I wonder what he'll order to drink when he has his dinner? What a mercy it will be if we ...
— Blind Love • Wilkie Collins

... Armenia. Moreover, the level tract between the mountains and the sea was broad enough for the manoeuvres of such an army as Heraclius commanded, and allowed him to train his soldiers by exercises and sham fights to a familiarity with the sights and sounds and movements of a battle. He conjectured, rightly enough, that he would not long be left unmolested by the enemy. Shahr-Barz, the conqueror of Jerusalem and Egypt, was very ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 7. (of 7): The Sassanian or New Persian Empire • George Rawlinson

... said Mrs. R., "that there is some question of real or sham Constables at Burlington House. Why not refer it to the Chief ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 104, February 25, 1893 • Various

... pianoforte music is therefore essentially a sforzando followed by a rapid diminuendo. Anything in such music marked as a long note to be sustained crescendo—the most thrilling effect of orchestral, choral, and organ music—is necessarily a sham and ...
— Twentieth Century Inventions - A Forecast • George Sutherland

... indulging in the luxury of being adored 'by far the cleverest man she has ever met,' and is as heart-whole as I am! Ha, ha! That is the basis of the religion of love of which poets are the high-priests. Each worshipper knows that his own love is either a transient passion or a sham copied from his favorite poem; but he believes honestly in the love of others for him. Ho, ho! Is it not a silly ...
— An Unsocial Socialist • George Bernard Shaw

... uninteresting pepper-boxes took their place. No doubt they have it in their favour that they may be more like the original Norman terminations than were those they replaced, which were, however, real "Perpendicular," and these are only sham Norman. Originally, from the eastward side of the south transept, projected a semi-circular chapel, shown on plan by dotted lines, and corresponding to that still remaining on the north side of the cathedral. It was part of the original plan, and though we believe no record ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Norwich - A Description of Its Fabric and A Brief History of the Episcopal See • C. H. B. Quennell

... "That was all a sham. Perhaps I have indulged her too much, and not begun early enough to subdue her violent temper. She is very wilful, and ...
— Seek and Find - or The Adventures of a Smart Boy • Oliver Optic

... after another of the beautiful gowns was taken out for exhibition. Few had ever seen anything just like them. Homer Smith had prided himself upon being a connoisseur in ladies' costumes and had directed all of Amy's, taking care that there was no sham about them. Everything was real, from the fabric itself to the lace which trimmed it, and which alone had cost him hundreds of dollars. And now they were at a Rummage Sale, and the managers did not know what to do with them. It ...
— The Cromptons • Mary J. Holmes

... men had as yet acquired but the most insignificant part, and that all existing claims to philosophical truth were as idle and precarious as the guesses and traditions of the vulgar; his belief that no greater object could be aimed at than to sweep away once and for ever all this sham knowledge and all that supported it, and to lay an entirely new and clear foundation to build on for the future; his assurance that, as it was easy to point out with fatal and luminous certainty the rottenness and hollowness of all existing knowledge and ...
— Bacon - English Men Of Letters, Edited By John Morley • Richard William Church

... Yussuf awoke, and finding it late, hastened to dress himself in his best clothes, saying to himself, "I am a beeldar, and I will die a beeldar." He took care to comb out his beard, and twist it in a fiercer manner; and then putting on his sham sword, lost no time in going to the palace, where he took his station among the beeldars who were on duty, hoping that he would be despatched by the chief on a similar message as that of the day before. The caliph soon afterwards made his appearance ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Captain Frederick Marryat

... presence of God. It was not a religious meeting; it was a meeting full of religion. And it was a picture that will ever stand fresh in my memory and which will be an inspiration in time of doubt. There was nothing there but the real things, absolutely no sham of any kind. Oh, it was wonderful! I hope you can get just a little idea of what it was. I wish you would keep this letter. I want to be able to read ...
— The War Romance of the Salvation Army • Evangeline Booth and Grace Livingston Hill

... off with the portfolios of place and privilege and pay under their honest arms. But these are the unprincipled papists and infidels of a mushroom republic; and, thank God, such spurious patriotism, and such sham and selfish statesmanship, have not yet shown their miserable heads among faithful, fearless, straightforward, and uncalculating Englishmen. At the same time, if ever that continental vice should attack our national character, we have two well-known essays in our ethical and casuistical ...
— Bunyan Characters - Third Series - The Holy War • Alexander Whyte

... and read up wills of the parents of any likely gudgeons I may know. I must get a Herald to invent an escutcheon of my family, and throw a genealogical tree into the bargain in consideration of my taking a few second-hand heirlooms of a pawnbroking friend of his. I must get up sham ancestors, and find out some notorious name to start my pedigree from. It does not matter what his character was; either villain or martyr will do, provided that he lived five hundred years ago. It would be considered far more creditable to make good my descent from Satan in ...
— The Hand of Ethelberta • Thomas Hardy

... work like a horse in a bark-mill, to make every body believe they are most excellent Christians, very nearly as pious as the angel Gabriel, when the truth is, their religion is all sham, and they will lie and cheat as bad as any body, if they think they will not be found out. Whenever I see one of this class, trying with all his might to pass for a saint, with his face as long as a yard-stick, or, perhaps, all lighted up with ...
— Wreaths of Friendship - A Gift for the Young • T. S. Arthur and F. C. Woodworth

... forever to remember this night and these words; to remember that we are what we are, and precious in the eyes of the world, because centuries ago those who were of single mind and of pure hand so created us, scorning sham and haste and counterfeit. Well do I recollect my master, Augustin Hirschvogel. He led a wise and blameless life, and wrought in loyalty and love, and made his time beautiful thereby, like one of his own rich, many-coloured church casements, that told ...
— Famous Stories Every Child Should Know • Various

... Barker?" She stood with the pillow- sham in her hand which she was just about to fasten on the pillow, and Sewell involuntarily took note of the fashion in which it ...
— The Minister's Charge • William D. Howells

... was dancin' an' feightin' for ever, Will Wade said at he was quite griev'd; An' Pedlety tell'd 'em he'd never Forgit 'em as lang as he leev'd. They knock'd yan another about, Just warse than a sham to be seen, Charlie Will look'd as white as a clout, Kit Puke gat a pair o' ...
— Yorkshire Dialect Poems • F.W. Moorman

... Russia, through her minister, Hartvig, at Belgrade, framed it (but see N. Jorga, Hist. des Etats balcaniques, p. 436). Miliukoff, in a "Report to the Carnegie Foundation," denies this. The plan occurred to many men so soon as Turkish Reform proved a sham. Venizelos is said to have mooted it to Mr. James Bourchier in May 1911. (R. Rankin, Inner History of the Balkan War, ...
— The Development of the European Nations, 1870-1914 (5th ed.) • John Holland Rose

... had been born and had grown, always with war at its background. They had gone along well enough until this winter, and then everything had changed. Chris, Natalie, Clayton, herself—none of them were quite what they had been. Was that one of the gains of war, that sham fell away, and people revealed either the best or ...
— Dangerous Days • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... respecting us—they will learn not to respect God. If they see that we do not respect truth and honesty, they will not respect truth and honesty; and he who does not respect them, does not respect God. They will learn to look on religion as a sham. If we are ...
— Town and Country Sermons • Charles Kingsley

... made it his diversion to alarm the inhabitants, in January 1804, by assuming the figure of a spectre. This sham ghost has certainly much to answer for. One poor woman, who was far advanced in her pregnancy of a second child, was so much shocked, that she took to her bed, and survived only two days. She had been crossing near the church-yard about ten o'clock at night, ...
— Apparitions; or, The Mystery of Ghosts, Hobgoblins, and Haunted Houses Developed • Joseph Taylor

... in a bad dilemma; he had to insist that Rosie should keep his conversion a secret. But Rosie became indignant, she set her lips and declared that a conversion that had to be kept secret was no conversion at all, it was simply a low sham, and Peter Gudge was a coward, and she was sick of him! So poor Peter went away, heartbroken ...
— 100%: The Story of a Patriot • Upton Sinclair

... overleaps itself, since a classic temple in the heart of Liebenstein is surely as much out of place as a tiara would be on the head of the peasant woman who hands you your daily portion of Stahlwasser. Even the spring it originally sheltered has revolted against its sham marble pillars and grotesque entablature, and betaken itself elsewhere! Nowadays the paint and plaster are peeling off the columns, and its door is padlocked. Happily—although a melancholy warning to the educated—it remains a ...
— A War-time Journal, Germany 1914 and German Travel Notes • Harriet Julia Jephson

... and scene, until he saw the falling cloud that was to hide its pictures from him forever. The gay bright regiments always going and coming, the continual paradings and firings, the successions of sham sieges and sham defenses, the plays got up by his cousin in the hospital, the navy-pay yacht in which he had sailed to Sheerness with his father, and the ships floating out in the Medway with their far visions of sea,—he was to lose them all. ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster

... lover, perhaps? Quite useless trying to fool me, Sinclair, with play-acting—about cousins. In my capacity of guru I feel compelled to warn this accomplished young lady that her fine cavalier is only a sham Rajput ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver

... exclaimed Adair. "Tell them that they shall be set free, and that they need no longer sham being sailors, which one can tell with half an ...
— The Three Commanders • W.H.G. Kingston

... 175 feet deep would enhance its beauty by forming a crystal-clear lake." Landscape gardens, places of recreation and worship, are never made beautiful by destroying and burying them. The beautiful sham lake, forsooth, should be only an eyesore, a dismal blot on the landscape, like many others to be seen in the Sierra. For, instead of keeping it at the same level all the year, allowing Nature centuries of time to make new shores, ...
— The Yosemite • John Muir

... the women: champagne's the thing; make 'em drink, make 'em talk;—make 'em talk, make 'em do anything. So I orders a bottle, as if for myself; and, 'Ma'am,' says I, 'will you take a glass of Sham—just one?' Take it she did—for you know it's quite distangy here: everybody dines at the table de hote, and everybody accepts everybody's wine. Bob Irons, who travels in linen on our circuit, told me that he had made some slap-up acquaintances among the genteelest ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray

... something worse than sham Unionism or cold acquiescence in the issue of battle: it is the universally prevalent doctrine of the supremacy of the State. Even in South Carolina a few men stood up against the storm, and now claim ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 100, February, 1866 • Various

... modesty on great men in modern times: as if Shakespeare alone should be unaware that he was Shakespeare or that Napoleon or Darwin or Lincoln or Cavour should each be ignorant of his worth. Better vanity, if you will, than sham modesty. There was no harm done that Roosevelt at twenty-three felt proud of being recognized as a power in the Assembly. We must never forget also that he was a fighter, and that his first contests in Albany had so roused his blood that he longed to fight those battles to a finish, ...
— Theodore Roosevelt; An Intimate Biography, • William Roscoe Thayer

... Two high smoke-stacks, built of empty pork-barrels, rose from the centre of this strange craft; and at the bottom of each stack was an iron pot, in which was a heap of tar and oakum that sent forth volumes of black smoke when lighted. One dark night the fires in this sham monster were lighted, and she was towed down to the Confederate batteries, and set drifting down the river. She was quickly discovered, and the batteries on the bluffs opened on her with a roar. There was nothing about the dummy to ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 2 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot

... looking so full of rage that I thought Atoi stood but a slight chance for his life. After a great deal of violent pantomimic action and grimace, the apology offered by Atoi was accepted, and the visit was concluded by a grand war-dance and sham fight performed in their best manner. King George, in the fulness of his heart at this complete restoration of friendship, gave a great feast of kumaras and fish, to which we added some tobacco; and the whole of the party seated themselves by each other with the utmost sociality—a convincing proof ...
— A Narrative of a Nine Months' Residence in New Zealand in 1827 • Augustus Earle

... economy was necessary, and forethought was an indispensable element in his life; but the tendency has remained and sometimes shows itself. All that can be traced of this quality in the daughter is a certain power of keen discernment, which saves her from being cheated by the sham paupers who abound in the neighborhood of Carvel Place, and from being led into spoiling the school-children with too many feasts ...
— Paul Patoff • F. Marion Crawford

... play at Revolution till they learn to think the coarse reality as easy and pretty as the vaudeville they have been acting. They are fast coming to the conclusion that the list of grievances put forward by the secessionists is a sham and a pretence, the veil of a long-matured plot against republican institutions. And it is time the traitors of the South should know that the Free States are becoming every day more united in sentiment and more earnest in resolve, and that, so soon as they are thoroughly satisfied ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 40, February, 1861 • Various

... measuring 54 X 27 m. (about 100 X 50 Egyptian ells), and built of burned brick. The outside walls were ornamented, as was usual in later Egyptian buildings, with pilasters composed of groups of smaller rectangular pilasters. It is the same motive so often to be observed in the sham doors in tombs of the old kingdom, and is really the most natural facade ornamentation for brick buildings, as it may be made by simply setting every alternate column of bricks forward or backward. The walls were, in addition, plastered. Back ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 1178, June 25, 1898 • Various

... own faults and envious of the material advantages enjoyed by others. Self-willed and arrogant, he could bully or whine with equal effect. Despising men, he believed that if a man did not possess some requisite quality, he had only to ape it, as few would distinguish between the real and the sham. ...
— A Book of Remarkable Criminals • H. B. Irving

... continued, "that love is a very rare thing, nowadays, and is so very generally an abominable sham that I have often amused myself by diabolically devising plans for its destruction. On this occasion I very nearly came to grief myself. The same thing happened to me some time ago—about forty years, ...
— A Roman Singer • F. Marion Crawford

... of Trebizond misnam'd— Inmate of highest stars, where erst it sham'd All other loveliness: its honied dew (The fabled nectar that the heathen knew) Deliriously sweet, was dropp'd from Heaven, And fell on gardens of the unforgiven In Trebizond—and on a sunny flower So like its own above that, to this hour, ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 5 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe

... who at the first touch of the three-pronged spear forgot all his sham resistance and settled himself in an easy position with his left arm round one of the staying ropes, standing well balanced and ready to dart the implement down into one of the great beautifully-marked mackerel-natured fish, which with an easy stroke of its ...
— Hunting the Skipper - The Cruise of the "Seafowl" Sloop • George Manville Fenn

... Norman Chief were tried friends; and, though the huge horse, ears laid back, mouth open to bite, pursued Jerry in mad gyrations all about the paddock, it was with no thought of inflicting hurt, but merely to act up to his part in the sham battle. Yet no invitation of Jerry's could induce Michael to join in the fun. He contented himself with sitting down outside the rails and ...
— Michael, Brother of Jerry • Jack London

... to the most splendid, illustrious, serene and eminent Lady of Pleasure the Countess of Castlemayne, &c., signed by us, Madam Cresswell and Damaris Page, this present 25th day of March, 1668." This sham petition occasioned a pretended answer, entitled, "The Gracious Answer of the Most Illustrious Lady of Pleasure, the Countess of Castlem.... to the Poor Whores' Petition." It is signed, "Given at our Closset, in King Street, Westminster, die Veneris, April 24, 1668. Castlem...." ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys

... have me sham insanity during the trial, and he became irritably insolent in his manner toward me because I positively refused to do so. He told me that if I stuck to the truth I would surely be convicted, but if I followed his advice by openly assuming idiotic tactics in court and making false statements ...
— Born Again • Alfred Lawson

... written to me," she said chokingly. "I've never had a letter from him since he went away, and that was on New Year's Eve. It's all been a mistake—a sham ... he never cared for me—he ...
— The Phantom Lover • Ruby M. Ayres

... Oman, says that the Simoom is worse in Sham (Yemen?) than in Oman: it blows for three or four hours. Butter eaten largely is the remedy against its ill effects, and this is also smeared on the body: in Oman a wetted cloth is put over the head, body, and ...
— The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume II (of 2), 1869-1873 • David Livingstone

... workingmen and delighted in the society of toilers. They lived like poor men, and wore the garb of mechanics. Neither had any use for the cards, curds and custards of what is called polite society. They hated hypocrisy, sham, pretense, and scorned the soft, the warm, the pleasant, the luxurious. They liked stormy weather, the sweep of the wind, the splash of the rain and the creak of cordage. They gloried in difficulties, reveled in the opposition of things, and smiled ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 11 (of 14) - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Businessmen • Elbert Hubbard

... powers, and not only reigned but governed. Had the doctrine of the divine right of kings been overthrown in India during the reign of even the ablest of the six, and the heir to the throne been debarred the exercise of power; taught from his infancy that his role was to be wholly ornamental, a sham king whose chief end and use was the opening of fancy bazaars or the laying of foundation stones, he too would have developed into something suited for the purpose in view, just as heirs apparent have done elsewhere. It ...
— Round the World • Andrew Carnegie

... for vagabonds, who formerly begged about under pretence of having been discharged destitute from ships and hospitals; whence an idle malingerer wanting to enter the doctor's list is said to "sham Abraham." From a ward in Bedlam which was appropriated for the reception of idiots, which was named Abraham: it is a very old term, and was cited by Burton in the Anatomy of Melancholy so far ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth

... sham courage. I was morally a coward, and could not possibly face the evil spirit of detraction. Therefore, the morning found me feverish in body and faint in spirit. I kept out of sight of my boarders, except Mr. Seabrook, who looked into the kitchen with a sympathizing ...
— The New Penelope and Other Stories and Poems • Frances Fuller Victor

... now had been pleasantly and superficially stirred, suddenly saw the play from a new angle. With quick imagination she visualized the great reality of which all this was but a clever sham. She saw Quin passing through it all, not to the thunder of stage shrapnel and the glare of a red spot-light, but in the life-and-death struggle of those eighteen months in the trenches. Before she knew it, she too was gazing absently ...
— Quin • Alice Hegan Rice

... question whether the same set of soldiers would be again summoned to the field. Let us take it for granted that we have seen enough of the miseries of warfare to last us for a while, and keep us contented with militia musters and sham-fights. The question is whether we could leave our children and our children's children with any secure trust that they would not have to go through the very trials we are enduring, probably on a more extended scale and ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)

... highly military qualities, in a quarter where it was least expected. In reply, the troops fired grape and small arms, but without any intention of doing mischief. The rioters again fired at the troops, but not the slightest harm resulted to the troops. It was a kind of sham battle. The military authorities began, however, to tire of it, and the mob was fired into, when one man having been killed, and another having been dangerously wounded, the mutineers dispersed, leaving some of the most daring among them, to keep up a straggling fire from ...
— The Rise of Canada, from Barbarism to Wealth and Civilisation - Volume 1 • Charles Roger

... these deputations," said the gentleman in Downing Street, "of all things in the world I dislike a deputation. I do not care how much I labour in the Closet or the house; that's real work; the machine is advanced. But receiving a deputation is like sham marching: an immense dust and no progress. To listen to their views! As if I did not know what their views were before they stated them! And to put on a countenance of respectful candour while they are developing their exploded or their impracticable systems. Were it not that at a practised ...
— Sybil - or the Two Nations • Benjamin Disraeli

... on till they drop. There are very few that consciously resist work, or who humbug us by pretending they are ill. Yet, as I had told Rolf, we had one of these exceptions at the farm; it was an ox that would always lie down and sham dead, if not in the mood to work; he then stretched out his limbs and looked at his last gasp ... but no sooner did we leave him to himself than he was on his legs again and off to his stall. No amount ...
— Lola - The Thought and Speech of Animals • Henny Kindermann

... God, believe in Him as a warrior arriving on a scene of disorder, and trying to make all well. He must not have permitted the disorder to grow up, and then try to subdue it. It must be there first. It is a battle obviously—but it must be a real battle against a real foe, not a sham fight between hosts created by God. In that case, 'to think of oneself as an instrument of God's designs is a privilege one shares with the devil,' as someone said. I will not believe that He is so little in earnest as that. No, He is ...
— Father Payne • Arthur Christopher Benson

... Southern Realty Co. v. Walker, 211 U.S. 603 (1909), where two Georgians who conducted all of that business in Georgia created a sham corporation in South Dakota for the sole purpose of bringing suits in the federal courts which ordinarily would have been brought in the Georgia courts. Diversity jurisdiction was held not to exist because ...
— The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation • Edward Corwin

... however, there is little to reproach them with on the score of cowardice, and it will be matter of rejoicing if you or your elephants do not come off second best in the encounter. Even in the last desperate case, a cunning old tiger will often make a feint, or sham rush, or pretended charge, when his whole object is flight. If he succeed in demoralising the line of elephants, roaring and dashing furiously about, he will then try in the confusion to double through, unless he is too badly wounded to be able to travel ...
— Sport and Work on the Nepaul Frontier - Twelve Years Sporting Reminiscences of an Indigo Planter • James Inglis

... a consciousness of high superiority? And who would ever venture to suspect that Col. Lloyd was subject to the troubles of ordinary mortals? Master and slave seem alike in their glory here? Can it all be seeming? Alas! it may only be a sham at last! This immense wealth; this gilded splendor; this profusion of luxury; this exemption from toil; this life of ease; this sea of plenty; aye, what of it all? Are the pearly gates of happiness and sweet content flung open to such suitors? far from it! ...
— My Bondage and My Freedom • Frederick Douglass

... the ancient constitution—all these topics, we say, would, if we were so inclined, supply us, as they have supplied Mr. Macaulay, with abundant opportunities of grave tautology and commonplace; but we decline to raise sham debates on points where there is no contest. We can have little historic difference, properly so called, with one who has no historical difference on the main facts with anybody else: instead, then, of pretending to treat any great questions, either of constitutional learning or political ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson

... pass from that one generation into another without losing much of what grace it had, and acquiring most odious and mischievous elements. Entailed Puritanism being an actual impossibility, all attempts to realize it, all assumptions of success in it, have the worst features of sham and hypocrisy. The diligent students of the history and the social life of our own colonial days know very well what an unspeakable difference there was, in all that makes and manifests characters and dispositions, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 75, January, 1864 • Various

... who have been sending out ships with sham bolt-heads on their timbers, and only half their bolts, may meditate on that "buildeth a ...
— A Joy For Ever - (And Its Price in the Market) • John Ruskin

... his foot upon the breast of their sham deliverer, in the absence of a spare arm; and gave him a gentle roll as he spoke. Gashford, for it was no other, crouching yet malignant, raised his scowling face, like sin subdued, and pleaded to ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens

... play quite quietly there," excused Anne. "They don't run and yell as they do elsewhere. Such howls as drift up here from Rainbow Valley sometimes! Though I fancy my own small fry bear a valiant part in them. They had a sham battle there last night and had to 'roar' themselves, because they had no artillery to do it, so Jem says. Jem is passing through the stage where all boys hanker to ...
— Rainbow Valley • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... to neutralize the ill effects of any poison which children may have swallowed in the way of sham-adventurous stories and wildly fictitious tales. 'The Jolly Rover' runs away from home, and meets life as it is, till he is glad enough to seek again his father's house. Mr. TROWBRIDGE has the power of making an instructive story absorbing in its interest, and of covering a moral so ...
— Four Young Explorers - Sight-Seeing in the Tropics • Oliver Optic

... Parolles' sham anxiety about a lost drum is mentioned fourteen or fifteen times in All's Well III. v. and vi.; and IV. i. Parolles earns his nickname of 'Tom Drum,' in ...
— Shakespeare and Music - With Illustrations from the Music of the 16th and 17th centuries • Edward W. Naylor

... Certainly that Rogue had a Message from some body or other; but being baulk'd by my coming, popt that Sham upon me. Come along, ye Sots, let's see if we can find the Dog again. Patch, lock her up; D'ye hear? ...
— The Busie Body • Susanna Centlivre

... nobility, been men with the old fire, they would not have stood it. They were worn out with centuries of catering to themselves. Give me a man who will shape his life and live it with all his strength. I am tired of sham and pretence, of cynical wit, of mocking at the real things of life, of pride, vain-glory, and hypocrisy. Give me a man ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... return the letter. It is, as you say, very genuine, truthful, affectionate, maternal—without a taint of sham or exaggeration. Mary will love her child without spoiling it, I think. She does not make an uproar about her happiness either. The longer I live the more I suspect exaggerations. I fancy it is sometimes a sort of fashion ...
— Charlotte Bronte and Her Circle • Clement K. Shorter

... eighteenth century, and the sentimentality plus orthodoxy of similar work in the nineteenth. Benassis no doubt plays Providence in a manner and with a success which it is rarely given to mortal man to achieve; but we do not feel either the approach to sham, or the more than approach to gush, with which similar handling on the part of Dickens too often affects some of us. The sin and the punishment of the Doctor, the thoroughly human figures of Genestas and the rest, ...
— The Country Doctor • Honore de Balzac

... me, Diego, you know me,—Concho, the major-domo of the Blessed Innocents. Ha! You know me now. Yes, I have come to save you. I have come to make you strong. So—I have come to help you strip the Judas that has stepped into your place,—the sham prodigal that has had the fatted ...
— Two Men of Sandy Bar - A Drama • Bret Harte

... was inflicted by the English laws, and that it was indeed one consequence of all punishment. "Dat be ver strange," said the king; "for me know and hears good deal of your people, dough me no live among dem; and me have often hear dat sham is de consequence and de cause too of many of your rewards. Are your rewards and punishments ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding

... 1780, in Mr. Langton's Collection. Hay was third in command in the expedition to North America in 1757. It was reported that he said that 'the nation's wealth was expended in making sham-fights and planting cabbages.' He was put under arrest and sent home to be tried. Gent. Mag. 1758, p. 170. Mr. Croker says that 'the real state of the case was that he had gone mad, and was in that state sent home.' He died before the sentence of the court-martial ...
— The Life Of Johnson, Volume 3 of 6 • Boswell

... his kitchen, and condemned him to the servile office of turnspit. Afterwards, as young Simnel showed some intelligence and loyalty, he was made one of the king's falconers. And so ended the story of this sham Plantagenet. ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 4 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris

... maneuvers, and where we saw the torpedo boats that were lying in ambush behind Rohellan Isle glide between the rocks, all of which appeared familiar to them, and start out seaward at the first signal. It was here, too, that we were witnesses of the sham attack against a pleasure yacht, shown in one of our engravings. A torpedo boat, driven at full speed, stopped at one meter from the said yacht with a precision that denoted ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 385, May 19, 1883 • Various

... which he hoped to lure the garrison from the fort. His scouts had apprised him that Harrison with a large force was at Sandusky, about sixty miles distant. The chief proposed that the Indians should gain the road which led from Sandusky to Fort Meigs and that a sham battle should be enacted there to deceive the garrison, who would naturally suppose that some of Harrison's force, coming to the fort, were being attacked. They would hasten to the assistance of their comrades, and the British would fall upon them in the rear, ...
— Tecumseh - A Chronicle of the Last Great Leader of His People; Vol. - 17 of Chronicles of Canada • Ethel T. Raymond

... closer. With the moon behind his back, his face is in shadow, and cannot be seen by Clancy. But it is not needed for his identification. The dress and figure are sufficient. Cut sharply against the sky is the figure of a plumed savage; a sham one Clancy knows, with a thrill of fresh despair, recognising ...
— The Death Shot - A Story Retold • Mayne Reid

... seems an adequate excuse for nearly any offence short of murder; the preservation that is to say of the appearance of something that is already gone. Here it is that I do definitely part company with the false aristocrat who is by nature and intent a humbug and fabricator of sham attitudes, and ally myself with democracy. Fact, valiantly faced, is of more value than any reputation. The false aristocrat is robed to the chin and unwashed beneath, the true goes stark as Apollo. The false is ridiculous with undignified insistence upon his dignity; the true says like God, ...
— First and Last Things • H. G. Wells

... very creditably. Then they were divided into two equal parts, which were marched to the opposite extremities of the plateau, when they faced about, and, charging down upon each other, engaged in a very realistic sham fight, lasting for the best part of an hour, and resulting in quite a number of casualties, several of the men being unhorsed and sustaining more or less serious injuries; after which the regiment re-formed, ...
— Through Veld and Forest - An African Story • Harry Collingwood

... was an intensely ambitious man and without physical fear. He was always in perfect training and early acquired the art of warfare of the Indian type. It is told of him that when he was about ten years old, he engaged with other boys in a sham battle on the shore of a lake near St. Paul. Both sides were encamped at a little distance from one another, and the rule was that the enemy must be surprised, otherwise the attack would be considered a failure. One must come within so many paces undiscovered in order ...
— Indian Heroes and Great Chieftains • [AKA Ohiyesa], Charles A. Eastman

... beginning," Rachael asserted eagerly. "You know it, and I know it- -everyone does. You're not happy, and I'm wretched. I'm sick of excuses, and pretending, and prevaricating. There isn't a thing in the world we feel alike about; our life has become an absolute sham. It isn't as if I could have any real influence over you—you go your way, and do as you please, and I take the consequences. I realize now that every word I say jars on you. Why, sometimes when you come into a room and find me there I can tell by the ...
— The Heart of Rachael • Kathleen Norris

... tuft-hunters and title-mongers; and if I never ran after an English lord, I should certainly be devilishly ashamed of a brother-in-law whom I was forced to call markee or count! I should feel sure he was a courier, or runaway valley-de-sham. Turn up your nose at a doctor, indeed, Harry!—pshaw, good English style that! Doctor! my aunt married a Doctor of Divinity—excellent man—wore a wig and was made a dean! So long as Rickeybockey is not a doctor of physic, I don't care a button. ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... The whole thing is galling me, I tell you, the whole—" Brenton hesitated; "infernal sham." The last two words he flung out with a ...
— The Brentons • Anna Chapin Ray

... sir," said the attendant, "the captain don't; but this chap does. I haven't seen what I have amongst the sick and wounded without picking up a little, and I say Master Corporal here's doing a bit o' sham Abram to ...
— The Kopje Garrison - A Story of the Boer War • George Manville Fenn

... of the strong to the weak, however clearly that pledge may be attested, unless the wording of it jumps with the formularies of a sanctioned legalism. A grievous wrong was perpetrated, which only the dishonesty of Themis permits; for an honest lawgiver's aim should be to find means of enforcing a sham marriage, all the more relentlessly in proportion to the victim's innocence and ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan

... your mother called her a beggar woman, and turned her out; but I gave it to the old woman. She pretended not to hear, like she always does when one tells her unpleasant truths, but she is no more deaf than I am, as you know. It is all a sham, and the proof of it is, that she went up to her own room immediately, without saying ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume IV (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant

... the Brigade carried out various tactical exercises under the directions of General Rees. One day was given to field firing practice, on which occasion I acted as one of the 'casualty' officers—that is to say, I had to select various men during the sham attack and order them to drop out as casualties. Live ammunition was used in rifles and Lewis guns as well as live rifle-grenades; and I remember there were seven slight casualties from accidents with the rifle-grenades. These ...
— Q.6.a and Other places - Recollections of 1916, 1917 and 1918 • Francis Buckley

... many of the inland towns of New England, some thirty years ago, to celebrate the anniversary of the surrender of Lord Cornwallis by a sham representation of that important event in the history of the Revolutionary War. A town meeting would be called, at which a company of men would be detailed as British, and a company as Americans—two leading citizens being ...
— The Complete Works of Artemus Ward, Part 2 • Charles Farrar Browne

... gained from absolutism, including manhood suffrage. In the first Cortes summoned after the Restoration, thanks to the good sense of Castelar, the Republican party, from being conspirators, became a parliamentary party in opposition. Zorilla alone, looking upon it as a sham, retired to France in disgust. By the new constitution of 1876, the power of making laws remained, as before, vested in the Cortes and the Crown: the Senate consists of three classes, Grandes, Bishops, and high officers of State sitting ...
— Spanish Life in Town and Country • L. Higgin and Eugene E. Street

... thirty puppets plaited of rushes were annually thrown into the stream.(12) The ideas of divine mercy and placability were in these instances inseparably mixed up with a pious cunning, which tried to delude and to pacify so formidable a master by means of a sham satisfaction. The Roman fear of the gods accordingly exercised powerful influence over the minds of the multitude; but it was by no means that sense of awe in the presence of an all-controlling nature or of an almighty God, that lies at the foundation of the views of pantheism and monotheism ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen

... scattered on the floor, I remembered old Nuflo, and how I had surprised him at his feast of rank coatimundi in his secret retreat. "Nuflo, old neighbour," said I, "how quiet you are under your green coverlet, spangled just now with yellow flowers! It is no sham sleep, old man, I know. If any suspicion of these curious doings, this feast of flesh on a spot once sacred, could flit like a small moth into your mouldy hollow skull you would soon thrust out your old nose to sniff the savour ...
— Green Mansions - A Romance of the Tropical Forest • W. H. Hudson

... interested in watching Fred Badger, and listening to what he had to say from time to time. Apparently Fred was as indignant as any of them, and so far as Jack could tell there was not a particle of sham about his fervent denunciation of the evil deed contemplated by those strangers anxious to beat the Chester people, who wagered with ...
— Jack Winters' Baseball Team - Or, The Rivals of the Diamond • Mark Overton

... Germany, she knew very well what she was about in backing up Austria-Hungary in this matter.... Servian concessions were all a sham. Servia proved that she well knew that they were insufficient to satisfy the legitimate demands of Austria-Hungary by the fact that before making her offer she had ordered mobilization and retirement of Government ...
— Why We Are At War (2nd Edition, revised) • Members of the Oxford Faculty of Modern History

... in the Middle Ages, or in the literary desert of China or of India, that such systems have arisen; in our own enlightened age, growing up by the side of Physics, Ethics, and other really progressive sciences, there is a weary waste of knowledge, falsely so-called. There are sham sciences which no logic has ever put to the test, in which the desire for knowledge invents the ...
— Theaetetus • Plato

... on, repeated action made action easy. The springs of feeling were readily troubled. Still each one felt, or tried to feel, all that he should have felt. No one dared admit to his fellows that his tears were a sham, his joy a pretense, his sadness a lie. But often, in the bottom of their hearts, men would confess with real tears that they had no ...
— The Story of the Innumerable Company, and Other Sketches • David Starr Jordan

... were the sham fights on land and water. Many a hard-fought battle was waged between the boys and young men who made up his guards and crews, and who would be divided into two or more opposing parties, as the plan of battle required. This was rough ...
— Historic Boys - Their Endeavours, Their Achievements, and Their Times • Elbridge Streeter Brooks

... doesn't steal a loaf of bread; he has no temptation to do so: the uneducated thief doesn't get up sham companies, because he has no temptation to do so. Temptation and Opportunity have much to answer for in the destinies of men. Honesty is the best policy, but it is not always the ...
— The Humourous Story of Farmer Bumpkin's Lawsuit • Richard Harris

... recognized as a legitimate force, thus becomes an instrument of intrigue and constraint. The Assembly, having accepted theatrical exhibitions when these were sincere and earnest, is obliged to tolerate them when they become mere sham and buffoonery. At this vast national banquet, over which it meant to preside, and to which, throwing the doors wide open, it invited all France, its first intoxication was due to wine of a noble quality; but it has touched glasses with the populace, ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 2 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 1 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine

... God, is like inquiring into the origin of God, the self- 555:18 existent and eternal. Only impotent error would seek to unite Spirit with matter, good with evil, immortality with mortality, and call this 555:21 sham unity man, as if man were the offspring of both Mind and matter, of both Deity and humanity. Crea- tion rests on a spiritual basis. We lose our standard of 555:24 perfection and set aside the proper conception of Deity, when we admit that the perfect is the ...
— Science and Health With Key to the Scriptures • Mary Baker Eddy

... letters of the sign-boards by the roadside instead of profiting by the directions they offer." She would have us know also that "it is not the people who make small technical mistakes or even blunders, who are barred from the paths of good society, but those of sham and pretense whose veneered vulgarity at every step tramples the flowers in the gardens of cultivation." To her mind the structure of etiquette is comparable to that of a house, of which the foundation is ethics and the rest good taste, correct speech, quiet, unassuming ...
— Etiquette • Emily Post

... she likes, and if she prefers sham singing to honest reading, that's her concern, not mine. But I tell you plainly, sir, I am an old-fashioned man, and have no patience with all these changes. I have a great mind to see if I can't get made churchwarden, and try the effect of a little counter-irritation. ...
— My Little Lady • Eleanor Frances Poynter

... of the crisis Shelby saw Dr. Crandall step from his phaeton to his little sham Greek temple of an office at the foot of his lawn, and followed him. The bluff physician greeted him with ...
— The Henchman • Mark Lee Luther

... had the governor thereof been as brave as he who met his death in the castle of Porto Bello, there might have been a different tale to tell. As it was, he surrendered it in a most cowardly fashion, merely stipulating that there should be a sham attack by the buccaneers, whereby his credit might be saved. And so Saint Catharine ...
— Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates • Howard Pyle



Words linked to "Sham" :   act, make believe, put on, feign, fraud, cheater, ringer, Tarabulus Ash-Sham, pillow sham, affect, belie, fake book, simulate, pseudo, slicker, pseud, fictitious, false, role player, imitative, beguiler, imposter, pretender, cheat, dissemble, mouth, talk through one's hat, trickster, pretended, impostor, name dropper, feint, assume, counterfeit, bull, assumed, take a dive



Copyright © 2024 e-Free Translation.com