"Termagant" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... were so wicked, and because they did not sufficiently believe the infallibility and impeccability of their ancestors. I am reminded of the woman mentioned by Sam Weller, whose husband disappeared. The woman had been a fearful termagant; the husband, a very inoffensive man. After his disappearance, the woman issued an advertisement, assuring him, that, if he returned, he would be fully forgiven; which, as Mr. Weller justly remarked, was very generous, seeing he had never ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IX., March, 1862., No. LIII. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics, • Various
... you, some honourable women and a few men who call you a cynic; who speak of "the withered world of Thackerayan satire;" who think your eyes were ever turned to the sordid aspects of life—to the mother-in-law who threatens to "take away her silver bread-basket;" to the intriguer, the sneak, the termagant; to the Beckys, and Barnes Newcomes, and Mrs. Mackenzies of this world. The quarrel of these sentimentalists is really with life, not with you; they might as wisely blame Monsieur Buffon because there are snakes ...
— Letters to Dead Authors • Andrew Lang
... the injuries of those who have been forced to submit to her temper; and moreover I hope to effect a cure. Desperate diseases, you must be aware as a medical man, require desperate remedies. I consider that a termagant and a lunatic are during their paroxysms on a par, as rational behaviour in either party may be considered as a lucid interval. Let her, if it be only for one hour, witness herself reflected in the various ...
— Newton Forster - The Merchant Service • Captain Frederick Marryat
... swept her with one comprehensive glance and turned away. Students of women, experienced adventurers in matrimony, these plumbers, bird merchants "delicatessens" and the rest looked, perceived and comprehended that here was the very devil of a woman—a virago, a shrew, a termagant, a natural-born trouble-maker; and they shivered and thanked God that she was Tunnygate's and not theirs; their unformulated sentiment best ...
— Tutt and Mr. Tutt • Arthur Train
... hit it; why should we endanger our Men against a desperate Termagant; If he love Wounds and Scars so well, let him exercise on our Enemies—but if he will needs fall upon us, 'tis then time enough for us to venture ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume IV. • Aphra Behn
... Margaret Hall was a widow, who earned her living as a washerwoman; that the little suffering lad was her only child, her dearly beloved. That while she scolded, pretty nearly, everybody else, "till her name was up" in the neighbourhood for a termagant, to him she was evidently most tender and gentle. He lay alone on his little bed, near the window, through the day, while she was away toiling for a livelihood. But when Libbie had plain sewing to do at her lodgings, instead of going out to sew, she used to watch from her bedroom window ...
— The Grey Woman and other Tales • Mrs. (Elizabeth) Gaskell
... now Lady Mary's turn to show confusion at the old termagant's talk, and she coloured as red as a sunset on the coast of Kerry. I forgave the old hag her discourteous appellation of "baboon" because of the joyful intimation she gave me through the door that Lady Mary was not to be trusted when I was near ...
— The O'Ruddy - A Romance • Stephen Crane
... her papa laughed at her, quizzed her, joked at her, in a way which the Miss Brownings called 'really cruel' to each other when they were quite alone, Molly took her little griefs and pleasures, and poured them into her papa's ears, sooner even than into Betty's, that kind-hearted termagant. The child grew to understand her father well, and the two had the most delightful intercourse together—half banter, half seriousness, but altogether confidential friendship. Mr. Gibson kept three servants; ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... too many serious situations in France to be browbeaten by a termagant like Miss Susan Timmins. He went down to the kitchen, ordered a good breakfast for all of his party, and threatened to have recourse to the law if the meal was not ...
— Ruth Fielding Down East - Or, The Hermit of Beach Plum Point • Alice B. Emerson
... however, that a gentleman, named Petruchio, came to Padua, purposely to look out for a wife, who, nothing discouraged by these reports of Katharine's temper, and hearing she was rich and handsome, resolved upon marrying this famous termagant, and taming her into a meek and manageable wife. And truly none was so fit to set about this herculean labour as Petruchio, whose spirit was as high as Katharine's, and he was a witty and most happy-tempered humourist, and withal so wise, and of such a true judgment, that ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles Lamb and Mary Lamb
... thought the Chamberlain to himself, with a swift side glance at this termagant, and a ...
— Doom Castle • Neil Munro
... said of one who has a termagant for his wife, that he has married the Devil's daughter, and ...
— 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue • Captain Grose et al.
... is oftentimes too late with some of you young, termagant, flashy sinners—you have all the guilt of the intention, and none of the pleasure of the practice—'tis true you are so eager in pursuit of the temptation, that you save the devil the trouble of leading you into it. Nor is it out of discretion that you ...
— The Comedies of William Congreve - Volume 1 [of 2] • William Congreve
... I may venture to say that I know you well, for there's a termagant of an Irish woman down at the camp going about wringing her hands, shouting out your good qualities in the most pathetic tones, and giving nobody a moment's peace because she does not know what has become of you. Having ...
— The Island Queen • R.M. Ballantyne
... not repress a smile at the rememberance of Jake's termagant mother nad her dirty, comfortless cottage, an how her intemperance in administering such castisement as conveyed most grief to a boy's nature first drove Jake to seek refuge with ...
— The Red Acorn • John McElroy
... little, that is possessed at any time by an intelligent man is certain to increase. Such a man does every act with cleverness. In consequence of self-restraint, he succeeds in winning great fame. Home-keeping men of little understanding have to put up with termagant wives that eat up their flesh like the progeny of a crab eating up their dam. There are men who through loss of understanding become very cheerless at the prospect of leaving home. They say unto themselves,—These are our friends! This is our country! Alas, how shall we leave these?—One ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... For the present, lying there while she sponged my wound, I saw only that she was a great deal younger than I had deemed; and not only young but in distress; and not only distressed but in some sort helpless. In short, here was a woman so unlike the termagant who had charged across the bridge that I could hardly reconcile the two or believe ...
— Corporal Sam and Other Stories • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... offends me to the soul, to hear a robustious, periwig-pated fellow (like yourself) tear a passion to tatters, &c.—I would have such a fellow whipped (give it him, he deserves it) for o'erdoing Termagant. * * * Oh, there be players that I have seen play, (no, we see him,) and heard others praise, and that highly, (oh! oh! oh!) not to speak it profanely, that, having neither the accent of Christians, (ha! ha! ha!) nor the gait of Christian, Pagan, nor man, have so strutted ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 366 - Vol. XIII, No. 366., Saturday, April 18, 1829 • Various
... things, we demand Gibraltar of you:—which can still less be complied with. Termagant Elizabeth has set her heart on Gibraltar: that, in such opportunity as this unexpected condition of the Balances now gives her, is the real cause of ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. VI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... obligations in the course of my Johnsonian History, has furnished me with a droll illustration about this question. An honest carpenter, after giving some anecdote in his presence of the ill-treatment which he had received from a clergyman's wife, who was a noted termagant, and whom he accused of unjust dealing in some transaction with him, added, 'I took care to let her know what I thought of her.' And being asked, 'What did you say?' answered, 'I told her ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell
... decline her, She's made of dragon-pattern stony China. What fools her suitors are, their hearts to fix on So termagant ...
— Turandot: The Chinese Sphinx • Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller
... seeing and hearing Mary Bristow perform her part, which she did with perfect propriety. Sophy and Fanny were excellent, but as they were doomed to be the good children, they had not ample room and verge enough to display powers equal to the little termagant heroine of the night. William in his Old Man (to use the newspaper style) was correct and natural. Mr. Edgeworth as the English Farmer evinced much knowledge of true English character and humour. Miss Edgeworth as the Widow ...
— The Life And Letters Of Maria Edgeworth, Vol. 1 • Maria Edgeworth
... of her engagement, Laura knew why. "You saved her," said Helbeck. "Since that evening when you denounced me for selling her—little termagant!—I have racked my brains ...
— Helbeck of Bannisdale, Vol. II • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... character, not fortitude, not patience Were mine, the which the village thought I had In bearing with my wife, while preaching on, Doing the work God chose for me. I loathed her as a termagant, as a wanton. I knew of her adulteries, every one. But even so, if I divorced the woman I must forsake the ministry. Therefore to do God's work and have it crop, I bore with her So lied I to myself So lied I to ...
— Spoon River Anthology • Edgar Lee Masters
... "do we not all know to what a termagant you are united? and her temper and high rank combined must no doubt make her a sweet companion." Here he burst into a loud laugh, and the little man actually strutted with a feeling of ...
— Eastern Tales by Many Story Tellers • Various
... stone in the churchyard, which told that Athanasius Pastoureau, a native of Flanders, lay there buried, aged 87 years. The old man's cottage, which Esmond perfectly recollected, and the garden (where in his childhood he had passed many hours of play and reverie, and had many a beating from his termagant of a foster-mother), were now in the occupation of quite a different family; and it was with difficulty that he could learn in the village what had come of Pastoureau's widow and children. The clerk of the parish recollected her—the ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... regard that speech of hers as being "free from affectation." But one historian not only says this, he adds: "She was the protector of her country, and the prudent executor of its will." She was nothing of the sort; on the contrary, she was a cold, greedy, heartless termagant, who risked the loss of her country by her parsimony, and it was only saved by the dauntless courage of the famishing seamen. I think that is one of the most gruesome and humiliating pieces of British history: for the monarch of a great empire to exhibit herself ...
— The Shellback's Progress - In the Nineteenth Century • Walter Runciman
... a gentleman of Gray's Inn, some years ago was prevailed upon by his friends to dismiss a mistress, by whom he had a child, but who was so great a termagant and scold, that she was believed to use him very ill, and even to beat him. He became melancholy in two days from the want of his usual stimulus to action, and cut his throat on the third so completely, that ...
— Zoonomia, Vol. II - Or, the Laws of Organic Life • Erasmus Darwin
... was but a poor creature, and, like most weak characters, he turned out a wicked one, because he found that there were more temptations to do wrong than inducements to do right. Like other weak people, too, he was torn asunder by the influence of stronger wills. On the one side he had a termagant of a wife, stirring him up to idolatry and all evil, and on the other side Elijah thundering and lightning at him; so the poor man was often reduced to perplexity. Once in his lifetime he did behave like a king, with some ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... sirs, he kept his vow. Ye will not smile If, at the first, the best that he could do Was with his first poor penny-piece to buy A cat, and bring her home, under his coat By stealth (or else that termagant, the cook, Had drowned it in the water-butt, nor deemed The water worse to drink). So did he quell First his own plague, but bettered others, too. Now, in those days, Marchaunt Adventurers Shared with their prentices ...
— Collected Poems - Volume Two (of 2) • Alfred Noyes
... be in me but I'll put this het gad down her throat!' cried he, in an ecstasy of wrath, snatching a bar from the forge; and he might have executed his threat, had he not been withheld by a part of the mob; while the rest endeavoured to force the termagant ...
— Waverley • Sir Walter Scott
... other goats. 670 For though the Whore bends Hereticks With flames of fire, like crooked sticks, Our Schismaticks so vastly differ, Th' hotter th' are, they grow the stiffer; Still setting off their spiritual goods 675 With fierce and pertinacious feuds. For zeal's a dreadful termagant, That teaches Saints to tear and rant, And Independents to profess The doctrine of dependences: 680 Turns meek, and secret, sneaking ones, To raw-heads fierce and bloody-bones: And, not content with endless quarrels Against ...
— Hudibras • Samuel Butler
... the Church Termagant. They are the Scolds of the Church-hold, terrible from the beginning hitherto. Their work is denouncing; they have always a burden against something. Obsta decisis is their motto,—"Hate all that is agreed upon." When the "contrary-minded" are called for, the Church ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 7, May, 1858 • Various
... of those big families where there is not love enough to go 'round. The mother was a robustious woman with a termagant temper; she was what you call "practical." She arose each morning, like Solomon's ideal wife, while it was yet dark, and proceeded to set her house in order. She made the children go to bed when they were not sleepy and get up when they were. ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 2 of 14 - Little Journeys To the Homes of Famous Women • Elbert Hubbard
... 4a3b4c3b, 5: A hen-pecked husband's lament: he woos and marries the termagant within three days—then follows trouble. She "mashes his mouth with a shovel," bundles up her "duds", and leaves him within ...
— A Syllabus of Kentucky Folk-Songs • Hubert G. Shearin
... made, which she threw out on the ground disdainfully. Back again she flew, and in an instant brought some more and threw it out. This she did with the most impudent look you can imagine. Then she flew swiftly in and out, like a little termagant, throwing out of the mouth of the jar, sticks, dead leaves, grass, with all the nice soft things which the poor bluebird had been a week in collecting. Every now and then, she came out for a minute and sang as sweetly as if she were not engaged ...
— What the Animals Do and Say • Eliza Lee Follen
... of the shadow as if lifted by indignation but there was the flicker of a smile on his lips. "You say I don't know women. Maybe. It's just as well not to come too close to the shrine. But I have a clear notion of woman. In all of them, termagant, flirt, crank, washerwoman, blue-stocking, outcast and even in the ordinary fool of the ordinary commerce there is something left, if only a spark. And when there is a spark there ...
— Chance - A Tale in Two Parts • Joseph Conrad
... tatters, to very rags, to split the ears of the groundlings; who, for the most part, are capable of nothing but inexplicable dumb shows and noise: I could have such a fellow whipped for o'erdoing Termagant; it out-herods Herod: ...
— The Young Man and the World • Albert J. Beveridge
... from him to his reader without considerable deflection. He cannot say exactly what he would. His words do not hold the same meaning for him as for others. "Mother" to him is a dear woman with a gentle voice, always dressed in black, sitting by the window of home; to another she is a shrieking termagant, whose phrases are punctuated by blows. There is not a word that means exactly the same to two persons; yet with words men must express their thoughts, their feelings, their hopes, their purposes,—always changing, ever new,—and for all this shall they use but a few score of words? Words ...
— English: Composition and Literature • W. F. (William Franklin) Webster
... who could stoop to such deception! As the days went on the public became more excited and the attacks more ferocious. It was rumored that his fiancee had married him against his will, that she was a virago and a termagant. Would the country be contented to see the Executive Mansion ruled by petticoats, and by those of a hussy at that? What sort of a hero was the man who could be ordered about by a woman and could not call his soul his own? Then they began to overhaul his record. Was he ...
— Captain Jinks, Hero • Ernest Crosby
... was Mon-ah-tan-uk, a phrase descriptive of the rushing waters of Hell Gate that separated them from their Long Island neighbours, the inhabitants themselves being called by these neighbours Mon-ah-tans, anglice Manhattans, literally, People of the Whirlpool, a title which, even though the termagant humour of the waters be abated, it beseems me as aptly fits ...
— People of the Whirlpool • Mabel Osgood Wright
... they should represent objects which are familiar; the resemblances should be accurate, and the manners should be attended to, or at least, the general moral that is to be drawn from them. The attitude of Sephora, the boxing lady in Gil Blas, must appear unnatural to children who have not lived with termagant heroines. Perhaps, the first ideas of grace, beauty, and propriety, are considerably influenced by the first pictures and prints which please children. Sir Joshua Reynolds tells us, that he took a child with him through ...
— Practical Education, Volume I • Maria Edgeworth
... stand upon our terms, as to matters of dying first, let us make ourselves as merry as we can with our misfortunes. Why, there's the devil on't! if thou could'st make my enjoying thee but a little easy, or a little more unlawful, thou should'st see what a termagant lover I would prove. I have taken such pains to enjoy thee, Doralice, that I have fancied thee all the fine women of the town—to help me out: But now there's none left for me to think on, my imagination is quite jaded. Thou art a wife, ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Volume 4 (of 18) - Almanzor And Almahide, Marriage-a-la-Mode, The Assignation • John Dryden
... fully determined, the persecution has been fiercer. I may have aroused suspicion by failing to act my part when she triumphantly announced my uncle's marriage to me, or else by my unabated resistance to the little termagant who is to be forced on me. At any rate, I have been so intolerably watched whenever I was not on duty, that my hours of bliss became rarer than ever. Well, sir, my uncle charges me with indiscretion, and says my ardour aroused unreasonable suspicions. He was constantly ...
— Love and Life • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Lord Melbourne, "he would indeed be dangerous; but if taken in, he would simply be destructive." So Brougham was left out, Pepys was made Chancellor, and the Premier compared himself to a man who has broken with a termagant mistress and married the best of cooks. Mr. Napier was not so happy. The termagant was left on his hands. He had to keep terms with a contributor who hated with deadly hatred the very government that the Review existed to support. No editor ever had such a contributor as Brougham in ...
— Studies in Literature • John Morley
... all now," observed Henderson, in a fit of passion, aggravated by the bitterness of his disappointment—"I see your trick; an' so, you old scoundrel, you thought to impose your termagant daughter upon me instead of Miss Sullivan, and she reeking with typhus fever, too, by your own account. For this piece of villany I shall settle with you, however, never fear. Typhus fever! Good God!—and ...
— The Black Prophet: A Tale Of Irish Famine • William Carleton
... did Margaret. You must bear with her, for her heart is breaking now, and if she has become a termagant it is because her shamed pride has driven her mad. Bear with ...
— The Eagle's Shadow • James Branch Cabell
... stars I am so intimately acquainted with, that I can assure him, he will never have her: for would you believe it, though Cynthio has wit, good sense, fortune, and his very being depends on her, the termagant for whom he sighs, is in love with a fellow, who stares in the glass all the time he is with her, and lets her plainly see, she may possibly be his rival, but never his mistress. Yet Cynthio, the same unhappy man whom I mentioned in my first narrative, pleases ...
— The Tatler, Volume 1, 1899 • George A. Aitken
... down as a man haunted by a fixed delusion, or as one oppressed by a guilty conscience, or as an unbearably henpecked husband. The probabilities, when reckoned up, certainly pointed to the last idea; but, still, the impression conveyed was that of a more formidable persecutor even than a termagant wife. ...
— Ghost Stories of an Antiquary • Montague Rhodes James
... two friends, both at important points—Mas' Daniel at the great house, and Miss Lucretia at home. From Mas' Daniel I got protection from the bigger boys; and from Miss Lucretia I got bread, by singing when I was hungry, and sympathy when I was abused by that termagant, who had the reins of government in the kitchen. For such friendship I felt deeply grateful, and bitter as are my recollections of slavery, I love to recall any instances of kindness, any sunbeams of humane treatment, which found way to my soul through the iron grating ...
— My Bondage and My Freedom • Frederick Douglass
... again 'twas something else. The servants raged. The husband was at his wit's end. "You think of nothing, sir." "You spend too much." "You gad about, sir." "You are idle." Indeed she had so much to say that, in the end, tired of hearing such a termagant, he sent her to her parents in the country. There she mixed with those who minded the turkeys and pigs until she was thought to be somewhat tamed, when the ...
— The Original Fables of La Fontaine - Rendered into English Prose by Fredk. Colin Tilney • Jean de la Fontaine
... I hear you say: "Fie, fie, Ju! Why play with a man's toys?" To return to the subject in hand. Will you put me quite out of your mind and thoughts? Can you? If so, I pray you do so. For I love you not at all. 'Tis so absurd of you to want to marry the little red-haired termagant you used to play with. And believe me, I'm naught now save a big red-haired termagant. And I love you not one whit more than I did in the old days when I used to hate you. Perhaps 'twould be folly to say that I never will love you. ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 6, July 1905 • Various
... married Philip V. of Spain, when her bold and energetic nature soon made itself felt in the councils of Europe, where she carried on schemes for territorial and political aggrandisement; was an accomplished linguist; is called by Carlyle "the Termagant of Spain"; her Memoirs are ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... 'I'll be a termagant again when she's gone; see if I won't. I'll get up an awful racking cough at night, and I'll worry that nasty Mr Martin much more than Dickory has worried him, see if I don't; and I'll sing on the stairs, and I'll ...
— Dickory Dock • L. T. Meade
... he is vulgar and vicious, despotic, reckless, so as to have no devotion for the august prizes and incorruptible pleasures of existence; if she is an unappeasable termagant, or a petty worrier, so taken up with trifling annoyances, that, wherever she looks, "the blue rotunda of the universe shrinks into a housewifery room;" if the presence of each acts as a morbid irritant on the nerves of the other, to the destruction ...
— The Friendships of Women • William Rounseville Alger
... fellow" tearing a passion to tatters, to very rags, is a less familiar spectacle upon our boards than formerly; albeit, this statement is obviously open to the reply that the system of "o'er doing Termagant," and "out-Heroding Herod" has ceased to prevail, inasmuch as the tragedies and vehement plays, which gave it opportunity and excuse, have vanished from the existing dramatic repertory. And gag, except perhaps in relation to certain interpolations, which are founded upon enduring, if absurd, ...
— A Book of the Play - Studies and Illustrations of Histrionic Story, Life, and Character • Dutton Cook
... it offends me to the soul to hear a robustious periwig-pated fellow tear a passion to tatters, to very rags, to split the ears of the groundlings, who for the most part are capable of nothing but inexplicable dumb-shows and noise. I would have such a fellow whipped for o'erdoing Termagant. It out-herods ...
— Public Speaking • Clarence Stratton
... beginning to consider as Susan's greatest charms. He had secretly said to himself, that if Eleanor Hebthwaite and Susan Dixon were equal in point of riches, he would sooner have Eleanor by far. He had begun to consider Susan as a termagant; and when he thought of his intercourse with her, recollections of her somewhat warm and hasty temper came far more readily to his mind than any remembrance of her ...
— Half a Life-Time Ago • Elizabeth Gaskell
... object I am happy to say I was successful. 'Here,' said I, 'is a wife remarkable for putting as much good-nature into her six or eight hours of day-life as most women put into twice the time. No one can tell what she is in her sleep: perhaps the veriest termagant on earth. Suppose her sleep could be abridged, might not some of this termagantism overflow into and be diffused over her waking existence? I can well imagine this, and you, my friend, reduced to such straits by it that you might ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 450 - Volume 18, New Series, August 14, 1852 • Various
... watchman, that's a crime which, if I am rich, costs me one pound—perhaps five pounds; if I am poor, sends me to the treadmill. If I break the hearts of five hundred old fathers, by buying with gold or flattery the embraces of five hundred young daughters, that's vice,—your servant, Mr. World! If one termagant wench scratches my face, makes a noise, and goes brazen-faced to the Old Bailey to swear to her shame, why that's crime, and my friend, Mr. World, pulls a hemp-rope out of his pocket.' Now, do you understand? Yes, I ...
— Night and Morning, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... said Blair, slowly. "Most weird sight I ever saw. The rocks seem like sentient giants ready to eat each other. Termagant Nature, unleashed and rampant." ...
— The Come Back • Carolyn Wells
... stand to it? heere's some of us knowes how to runne away and they be put to it. Though wee have left our brave Generall, the Earle of Pembrooke, yet here's Cavaliero Bowyer, Core and Nod, by Jesu, sound cards: and Mahound and Termagant[148] come against us, weele fight with them. Couragio, my hearts! S. George ...
— A Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. III • Various
... in speaking of the brank preserved in that town: "There is no evidence of its having been actually used for many years; but there is testimony to the fact that within the last forty years the brank was brought to a termagant market-woman, who was effectually silenced by ...
— The Olden Time Series, Vol. 5: Some Strange and Curious Punishments • Henry M. Brooks
... the same ungovernable termagant as ever—conceited little puss! But she always amuses me—that's one consolation!" He laughed, and taking out his cigar-case, opened it. "Will you have one?" Longford accepted the favour. "Who is this old fellow, Pippitt?" he asked—"Any relation of the dead and ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli
... originally from County Cork, was an Irish lady with a thick brogue and a husky temper. She was amiable enough so long as things went to her satisfaction, but when they did not suit her she was a termagant. She was neither beautiful nor graceful, she was not young nor was she very clean. Her usual condition was dishevelled, her face was all askew, and when she dressed up she looked like a valentine. Her greatest weakness was a propensity for smashing dishes, and when reprimanded she would ...
— The Lion and The Mouse - A Story Of American Life • Charles Klein
... could give me: 'Hand me the shovel. You stop a bit,—you're out of breath. Sit down on that stone there, and light your pipe; here's some tobacco. Now tell me the rest of the story. How did the old fellow get on after he had buried his termagant wife?' That's how I should treat him; and I should get, in return, such a succession of peeps into human life and intent and aspirations, as, in the course of a few years, would send me to the next vicarage that turned up a sadder and ...
— The Vicar's Daughter • George MacDonald
... versed, for all his mumming, in matters of chivalry). "Kisses for such coward lips?" cries he. "Nay, but a swinge to silence them!" and would have struck trousered Angelica full on the mouth. But decollete Geoffrey Dizzard, crying at him "Sweet termagant, think not to baffle me by these airs of manhood!" had sprung in the way and on his own ...
— A Christmas Garland • Max Beerbohm
... her mistress either on the paternal or on the maternal side. No person who had a natural interest in the Princess could observe without uneasiness the strange infatuation which made her the slave of an imperious and reckless termagant. This the Countess well knew. In her view the Royal Family and the family of Hyde, however they might differ as to other matters, were leagued against her; and she detested them all, James, William and Mary, Clarendon ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 3 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... painter saw it, could not be beautiful; one asks one's self what maiden in her teens, a pretty face, would have done in the midst of these good, plain folk, stunted and elderly, with faces like wrinkled apples. A simple accessory most of the time, woman is for him merely a termagant or a blue-stocking ...
— Picture and Text - 1893 • Henry James
... of the spoils, the termagant succeeded in carrying the day; also, to her quarters, bale after bale of goods, together with numerous odds and ends, sundry and divers. Moreover, she laid in a fine stock of edibles, so as, in all respects possible, to ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. I (of 2) • Herman Melville
... daughter of Don Caesar. She fixed her heart on having Julio de Melessina for her husband, and so behaved to all other suitors as to drive them away. Thus to Don Garcia, she pretended to be a termagant; to Don Vincentio, who was music-mad, she professed to love a Jew's-harp above every other instrument. At last Julio appeared, and her "bold stroke" obtained as its reward "the husband of her choice."—Mrs. Cowley, A Bold ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... vicissitudes survives as the key-note of a valued song of trust, seems to illustrate the Providence that will never let a good thing be lost. It is related of the Rev. David Williams, of Llandilo, an obscure but not entirely forgotten preacher, that he had a termagant wife, and one stormy night, when her bickerings became intolerable, he went out in the rain and standing by the river composed in his mind these lines of ...
— The Story of the Hymns and Tunes • Theron Brown and Hezekiah Butterworth
... Davers,—-I cou'd direct 'em to a Dozen or two of Quality Originals, from whom (with Exception perhaps of her Wit) one wou'd swear the Author had taken her Copy.—-What a Sum might these Objectors ensure, to be paid, by the Husbands and Sons, of such termagant, hermaphrodite Minds, upon their making due Proof, that they were no longer to be found, ...
— Samuel Richardson's Introduction to Pamela • Samuel Richardson
... in proportion. She was handsome too, in a swarthy way, though near at hand her face was sensuous and bold. Yet she had a suave, flattering manner and a coarse wit that captured the crowd. Dangerous, unscrupulous and cruel, I thought; a man-woman, a shrew, a termagant! ...
— The Trail of '98 - A Northland Romance • Robert W. Service
... affectionate, thinking beings, and moral agents; and then witty, as if by accident, or as the Duchesse de Chaulnes said of herself, "par la grace de Dieu." As to humor, it is carried as far as possible in Mrs. Quickly; in the termagant Catherine; in Maria, in "Twelfth Night;" in Juliet's nurse; in Mrs. Ford and Mrs. Page. What can exceed in humorous naivete, Mrs. Quickly's upbraiding Falstaff, and her concluding appeal—"Didst thou not kiss ...
— Characteristics of Women - Moral, Poetical, and Historical • Anna Jameson
... great losses, feel them none the less. I consider it my duty as a gentleman to say that his bearing through the ordeal did credit to his noble family and his personal character. The Archduchess, who is foolhardy and insolent, does not deserve such a lover, and it is grievous to think that such a termagant should have so much power over such a man. I regard her as I would some poisonous reptile. Piety—which improves most women—only seems to render her the more defiant, and love—which softens most wills—makes hers the more hard. After parting with M. de Hausee she swooned, and I thought ...
— Robert Orange - Being a Continuation of the History of Robert Orange • John Oliver Hobbes
... lords and masters' leave; and if they were married, the children should never cry, nor the servants commit a fault: they'd set the house to rights; they would do every thing. But the lion-like talkers abroad are mere baa-lambs at home, being generally dupes and slaves to some termagant mistress, against whose imperiousness they dare not open their lips, {50}but are frightened even if she frowns. Old bachelors, in this, resemble your pretenders to atheism, who make a mock in public of what in private they tremble ...
— A Lecture On Heads • Geo. Alex. Stevens
... some termagant ones in a club, undervaluing our new translation of Virgil, I've known both what opinion I ought to harbour, and what use to make of them; and since the opportunity of a digression so luckily presents itself, I shall make bold to ask the gentlemen their sentiments of ...
— The Dramatic Works of John Dryden Vol. I. - With a Life of the Author • Sir Walter Scott
... than a child, went about everywhere with jewels on her fingers, and red gems hanging round her neck, and yellow gems pendent from her ears, and white gems shining in her black hair. She was hardly nineteen when her father died and she was taken home by that dreadful old termagant, her aunt, Lady Linlithgow. Lizzie would have sooner gone to any other friend or relative, had there been any other friend or relative to take her possessed of a house in town. Her uncle, Dean Greystock, of Bobsborough, ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope
... in his absence, riot away on the remnant of his broken fortunes. As to their mother, (who was once so tender, so submissive, so studious to oblige, that we all pronounced him happy, and his course of life the eligible,) she is now so termagant, so insolent, that he cannot contend with her, without doing infinite prejudice to his health. A broken-spirited defensive, hardly a defensive, therefore, reduced to: and this to a heart, for so many years waging offensive war, (not valuing whom the opponent,) what a reduction! now comparing ...
— Clarissa, Volume 7 • Samuel Richardson
... thrilling and whispered narrative. The mountain was generally shunned. It is true that Senor Joaquin Pedrillo afterward located a grant near the base of the mountain; but as Senora Pedrillo was known to be a termagant half-breed, the Senor was not supposed ...
— Legends and Tales • Bret Harte
... fellow tear a passion to tatters, to very rags, to split the ears of the groundlings, who for the most part are capable of nothing but inexplicable dumb-shows and noise. I could have such a fellow whipp'd for o'erdoing Termagant. It out-herods Herod. Pray ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to prose. Volume III (of X) - Great Britain and Ireland I • Francis W. Halsey
... Israel,) and La Jeune France. All of these, Mitchell, D'Iraeli, Moncton Milnes and the rest, are classed under the common term of boyocracy, a very good phrase to denote the ridiculous portions of the young creed. Though the author has no view of this class of sentimental or termagant politicians except on their ludicrous side, he exposes that side with a brilliant remorselessness which is refreshing in this age of universal cant. Though something of a coxcomb himself, he has ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 2 August 1848 • Various
... enchant him by the intelligence. But O, my lord, that you could have seen my phoenix Lovel!the very prince and chieftain of the youth of this age; and not destitute of spirit neitherI promise you he gave my termagant kinsman a quid pro quoa Rowland for his Oliver, as the vulgar say, alluding to the ...
— The Antiquary, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... Terror, with the destroyers Termagant, Truculent and Manly, were stationed at a position suitable for the long range bombardment of Zeebrugge in co-operation ...
— The Boy Allies with the Victorious Fleets - The Fall of the German Navy • Robert L. Drake
... was a little termagant. Her big blue eyes seemed to flash with anger, and as she danced about, shaking her fist at Marjorie and pointing her forefinger at her, she cried, ...
— Marjorie at Seacote • Carolyn Wells
... David Dickson was fond of telling a story of a Scottish termagant of the days before kirk-session discipline had passed away. A couple were brought before the court, and Janet, the wife, was charged with violent and undutiful conduct, and with wounding her husband by throwing a three-legged stool ...
— Reminiscences of Scottish Life and Character • Edward Bannerman Ramsay
... Unfortunately, he is given to break into a gallop now and then; and whenever in this vicious mood, is pretty sure to take up with Puff, and the two are apt to make wild work of it when they scamper abroad together. The worst of it is, that nobody knows which is which of these two termagant tramplers: both are thoroughly protean creatures, changing shapes and characters, and assuming a thousand different forms every day; so that it is a task all but impossible to distinguish one from the ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 434 - Volume 17, New Series, April 24, 1852 • Various
... waved it aside. "Forget it. I just like to see that little termagant taken down. But don't count on my being soft. My methods may be a bit unusual—I always did like the courtroom scenes in the old books by that fellow Smith—but Space Lobby never had any reason to reverse my ...
— Badge of Infamy • Lester del Rey
... termagant!" broke out Harry. "What does she mean by being so pert to me? She treats me as if ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... hung back a little at first, and trembl'd, afraid to trespass: What ails the SOT, says the new Termagant? what are you afraid of? did God forbid you! yes, and why? that we might not be knowing and wise like himself! What reason can there be that we, who have capacious souls, able to receive knowledge, should have it withheld? take it, you Fool, and eat; don't you see how I am exalted ...
— The History of the Devil - As Well Ancient as Modern: In Two Parts • Daniel Defoe
... husband and wife somewhat ridiculous? A husband, in common acceptation, signifies a jealous brute, a surly tyrant; or, at best, a weak fool, who may be made to believe any thing. A wife is a domestic termagant, who is destined to deceive or torment the poor devil of a husband. The conduct of married people, in general, sufficiently ...
— Letters of the Right Honourable Lady M—y W—y M—e • Lady Mary Wortley Montague
... devil take you? If you wakened me, then drink with me! It is an interesting tale, brother, that of the boot! I didn't want to go with Olga. I don't like to be bossed. She came under the window and began to abuse me. She always was a termagant. You know what women are like, all of them. I was a bit drunk, so I took a boot and heaved it at her. Ha-ha-ha! Teach her not to scold another time! But it didn't! Not a bit of it! She climbed in at the window, lit the lamp, ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery In Four Volumes - Detective Stories • Various
... very well to talk of the pleasures of the milkmaid going out in the balmy freshness of the purple dawn; but imagine a poor fellow pulled out of bed on a drizzly, rainy morning, and equipping himself for a scamper through a wet pasture lot, rope in hand, at the heels of such a termagant as mine! In fact, madam established a regular series of exercises, which had all to be gone through before she would suffer herself to be captured; as, first, she would station herself plump in the middle of a marsh, which lay at the ...
— Household Papers and Stories • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... foam at the mouth, without causing a muscle to vibrate in the motionless figure of the stranger. The effect of his indifference began to extend itself to the other spectators; and a youngster, who was just quitting the condition of a boy to enter the state of manhood, attempted to assist the termagant, by flourishing his tomahawk before their victim, and adding his empty boasts to the taunts of the women. Then, indeed, the captive turned his face toward the light, and looked down on the stripling with an expression that was superior to ...
— The Last of the Mohicans • James Fenimore Cooper
... for what had just happened. We didn't even need to talk about it, for each knew that the other understood. What still disturbs me, though, is something not in my boy's make-up, but in my own. During the long and silent drive home I noticed a mark on my husband's neck. And I was the termagant who must have put it there, though I have no memory of doing so. But from it I realize that I haven't the control over myself every civilized and self-respecting woman should have. I begin to see that I can't altogether ...
— The Prairie Child • Arthur Stringer
... "she's made of the stuff that breaks but never bends. I believe in my soul if I was to carry her off to sea to-morrow she would leap overboard and end it all the day after. I wish I had never listened to Blanche's tempting. I wish I had left the little termagant in peace. The game isn't ...
— The Unseen Bridgegroom - or, Wedded For a Week • May Agnes Fleming
... been just rediscovered that women could be leaders in the world—at least in politics and the tricks of statecraft. Women were the fiercest partisans and their voices powerful in the warring parties. It was a woman, his termagant duchess, who had given Marlborough his ascendancy in England, made him dominate all Europe. It was a clever woman who had contrived Marlborough's downfall and given his enemies the government of England. It was a woman—another duchess—who beat Swift. You need not suspect Alison, who had some ...
— The Highwayman • H.C. Bailey
... however, when he was a pupil in Van Goyen's studio, his father pursued him for some fault. Van Goyen, who was a kindly creature, as became the father-in-law of Jan Steen, called out to his other pupils—"Berg hem" (Hide him!) and the phrase stuck, and became his best-known name. Nicolas married a termagant, but never allowed her to ...
— A Wanderer in Holland • E. V. Lucas
... He was fond of the child, but knowing what a termagant his wife was, he thought that silence like discretion was the better part of valor, and hastily beat a retreat ...
— Minnie's Sacrifice • Frances Ellen Watkins Harper
... seasonable opportunity to mention the Lady with some reflections and cautions, which he might more advisedly have declined." The close of his final interview was perhaps an ill-chosen moment for wounding the King's pride by another reference to the foul-mouthed termagant, who now swayed the Court, and trampled on her royal lover with the usual insolence of the ...
— The Life of Edward Earl of Clarendon V2 • Henry Craik
... imbowell mee to day, Ile giue you leaue to powder me, and eat me too to morow. 'Twas time to counterfet, or that hotte Termagant Scot, had paid me scot and lot too. Counterfeit? I am no counterfeit; to dye, is to be a counterfeit, for hee is but the counterfeit of a man, who hath not the life of a man: But to counterfeit dying, when a man thereby liueth, is to be no counterfeit, but the true and perfect ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... wroth, And vowed, by his troth,— While the beggar slunk into a corner,— If his termagant wife Did not end her ill strife, He would change words for ...
— The Baron's Yule Feast: A Christmas Rhyme • Thomas Cooper
... situation; and, having for ten dinars redeemed me from captivity with the Franks, carried me along with him to Aleppo. Here he had a daughter, and her he gave me in marriage, with a dower of a hundred dinars. Soon after this damsel turned out a termagant and vixen, and discovered such a perverse spirit and virulent tongue as quite unhinged all my domestic comfort.—A scolding wife in the dwelling of a peaceful man is his hell, even in this world. Protect and guard us against a wicked inmate. ...
— Persian Literature, Volume 2, Comprising The Shah Nameh, The - Rubaiyat, The Divan, and The Gulistan • Anonymous
... is it, you little termagant you? Oh, you're a honey-cooler. What have you been doing now, Imp?" cried the old man, turning fiercely to Jacquelina. "Answer me, you little ...
— The Missing Bride • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... attitude as one of 'innocence-resembling boldness.' In the trial scene, no less than in the scenes of altercation with Brachiano and Flamineo, Webster clearly intended her to pass for a magnificent vixen, a beautiful and queenly termagant. Her boldness is the audacity of impudence, which does not condescend to entertain the thought of guilt. Her egotism is so hard and so profound that the very victims whom she sacrifices to ambition seem in her sight justly punished. Of Camillo and ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... together. Mr. O'Connor, however, bore up somewhat better than Neal. The latter was subdued in heart and in spirit, thoroughly, completely, and intensely vanquished. His features became sharpened by misery, for a termagant wife is the whetstone on which all the calamities of a henpecked husband are painted by the devil. He no longer strutted as he was wont to do, he no longer carried a cudgel as if he wished to wage a universal battle with mankind. He was now a married man. Sneakingly, and with a cowardly ...
— Stories by English Authors: Ireland • Various
... was rising. At this juncture his brother officer slipped out some languid words in his ear, indicative of his astonishment that he should be championing a termagant, and horror at the idea of such a thing being publicly imagined, tamed Wilfrid quickly. He recovered himself with his usual cleverness. Seeing the signs of hostility vanish, Mr. Pericles said, "You are on a search for your father? You have found him? Hom! I should say a maladie ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... nature, which is the characteristic of this Poet's art, serves here, as elsewhere, to disguise the internal continuities of the poetic design. The careless eye will not track it in these finer touches. 'Where some stretched-mouth rascal' would have roared you out his prescribed moral, 'outscolding Termagant' with it, the Poet, who is the poet of truth, and who would have such fellows 'whipped' out of the sacred places of Art, with a large or small cord, as the case may be, is content to bring in his 'delicate burdens,' or to keep ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon
... off to town, leaving Annette all alone in the house until the father gets home tonight. The child's fever has been soaring sky-high for days, and I was just beginning to think I had it in control and could pull her through when that old termagant-gossip of a mother, who doesn't deserve to have chick or child, hikes off to spend the afternoon with relatives in the city for a chance to look up bargains at The Martindale. What are embroideries and dress goods compared with the life of a child? Won't she get a piece of my ...
— At the Little Brown House • Ruth Alberta Brown
... condition? A shopman with thirty-five pounds a-year, out of which he had to find his clothing, washing, lodging, and all other incidental expenses—the chief item of his board—such as it was—being found him by his employers! He was five weeks in arrear to his landlady—a corpulent old termagant, whom nothing could have induced him to risk offending, but his overmastering love of finery; for I grieve to say, that this deficiency had been occasioned by his purchase of the ring he then wore with so much pride! How he ...
— Ten Thousand a-Year. Volume 1. • Samuel Warren
... ever see such a boy!" continued the termagant, her tones a whole octave above the treble staff, as it seemed to me. "How dare you put your ...
— Down The River - Buck Bradford and His Tyrants • Oliver Optic
... three days, and Sadie Kate nearly ran her little legs off carrying peppery messages back and forth between us and the doctor. It is only under stress that I communicate with him by telephone, as he has an interfering old termagant of a housekeeper who "listens in" on the down-stairs switch. I don't wish the scandalous secrets of the John Grier spread abroad. The doctor demanded Miss Snaith's instant dismissal, and I refused. Of course she is a vague, unfocused, inefficient old thing, but she does love the children, and with ...
— Dear Enemy • Jean Webster
... evolved vague ideas of some sort of adventuress, such as she had read of in a few cheap novels that had found their way to Carcajou. In spite of the mild and timid tone of the letters she had prepared to see some sort of termagant, or at least a woman enterprising, perhaps bold, one who would make it terribly hot for the man she would believe had deceived her and brought her on a fool's errand. This little thin-faced girl who looked with big, frightened eyes was something utterly ...
— The Peace of Roaring River • George van Schaick
... at a club of his countrymen, where the London papers are taken. Sometimes his daughters entice him to the theaters, but not often. He abuses French tragedy, as all fustian and bombast, Talma as a ranter, and Duchesnois as a mere termagant. It is true his ear is not sufficiently familiar with the language to understand French verse, and he generally goes to sleep during the performance. The wit of the French comedy is flat and pointless to him. He would not give one of Munden's wry faces or Liston's ...
— The Crayon Papers • Washington Irving
... to marry to morrow—either to the Apothecary or the Farmer, Men I never saw, to be reveng'd on thee, thou termagant Infidel. ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. III • Aphra Behn
... This termagant was a little broad-set figure wearing a mask, intended as a representation of his Satanic majesty, adorned with a huge pair of horns. From it hung a black cloak or shirt, out of which protruded a goodly ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... wonderous scant," returned Milo Fitzwalter, "I may not reckon twenty men at arms in the whole train, and varlets have I none; but it boots not to number spears when danger presses; so to horse and away. Beshrew me, were it the termagant Queen Maude herself, I'd do my best to rescue her in this extremity."—"Thou art a true knight, Fitzwalter," replied the king, "and wilt prosper: the Saint's benizon be with thee, for thou must speed on this errand with such tall men as thou canst muster of thine ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 10, No. 274, Saturday, September 22, 1827 • Various
... is as perfect and as delightful as any in the English language. Any one who cannot enjoy this has no perception of human nature, and no love of humor in his composition. In time Rip discovered that his only escape from his termagant wife was to take his gun, and stroll off into the woods with his dog. "Here he would sometimes seat himself at the foot of a tree, and share the contents of his wallet with Wolf, with whom he sympathized as a fellow sufferer in persecution. 'Poor Wolf,' he would say, 'thy mistress leads ...
— Four Famous American Writers: Washington Irving, Edgar Allan Poe, • Sherwin Cody
... believe that Ghazee-od Deen's first repudiation of Moonna Jan arose entirely from a desire to revenge himself upon his termagant wife, whose furious temper left him no peace. She was, from his birth, very fond of the boy; and to question his legitimacy was to wound her in her tenderest point. This was the "raw" which her husband established, and which his son ...
— A Journey through the Kingdom of Oude, Volumes I & II • William Sleeman
... to verie ragges, to split the eares of the Groundlings: who (for the most part) are capeable of nothing, but inexplicable dumbe shewes, & noise: I could haue such a Fellow whipt for o're-doing Termagant: it outHerod's Herod. Pray you ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... one! Here's a virago! Here's a termagant! If length and sharpness go for anything, You'll want no sword while you ...
— The Complete Plays of Gilbert and Sullivan - The 14 Gilbert And Sullivan Plays • William Schwenk Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan
... he had completed the reading of the letter, Calumet was silent, staring straight ahead of him. The information contained in the account of his father's adventures was soothing—the termagant who had presided over his boyhood destinies had not been his real mother, and his father had left him a score to settle. He already hated the Taggarts, not particularly because they were his father's enemies, ...
— The Boss of the Lazy Y • Charles Alden Seltzer
... attempting to play off the same hellish scheme with a beautiful young rustic which had succeeded in the case of my ill-fated Agnes. But the young woman in this instance had a high, and, in fact, termagant spirit. Rustic as she was, she had been warned of the character of the man; everybody, in fact, was familiar with the recent tragedy. Either her lover or her brother happened to be waiting for her outside the window. He saw in part ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... do," cried the Baron, beginning to ascend the companion-ladder. "Captain Jan Dunck, keep the Count down here below; don't let him show himself on any account. I will settle the matter. This female, this termagant, will carry off one of your passengers, and, as an honest man, you are bound ...
— Voyages and Travels of Count Funnibos and Baron Stilkin • William H. G. Kingston
... and hypochondriac of the eighteenth century, how one would like to sit at some ghastly Club, between you and the bony, "mighty-mouthed," harsh-toned termagant and dyspeptic of the nineteenth! The growl of the English mastiff and the snarl of the Scotch terrier would make a duet which would enliven the shores of Lethe. I wish I could find our "spiritualist's" paper in the Portfolio, in which the two are brought together, but I hardly know ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... this stronghold the unlucky Rip was at length routed by his [v]termagant wife, who would suddenly break in upon the tranquility of the assemblage, and call the members all to naught; nor was that august personage, Nicholas Vedder himself, sacred from the daring tongue of this terrible virago, who charged him with encouraging ...
— The Literary World Seventh Reader • Various
... around about me. I might have prated to her of my needs, wrung her heart with the piteousness of my appeal. Cui bono? I can't whine to women—or to men either, for the matter of that. When I am by myself I can curse and swear, play Termagant and rehearse an extravaganza out-Heroding all the Herods that ever Heroded. But before others—no. I believe my great-grandfather, before he qualified for his baronetcy, ...
— The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne • William J. Locke
... with his usual sneering laugh, "it avails not to deny it. The Woman and the Devil, who, as thine oracle Holdforth will confirm to thee, cheated man at the beginning, have this day proved more powerful than my discretion. Yon termagant looked so tempting, and had the art to preserve her countenance so naturally, while I communicated my lord's message, that, by my faith, I thought I might say some little thing for myself. She thinks she hath my head ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... arrived in the same week in the families of both Sewall and Dow. The ministrations of Dr. Stickney had not been available, and the two mothers had survived because they had the constitutions of frontierswomen rather than because they had the benefit of the nursing of the termagant who was Jerry Tompkins's wife. The babies—known to their families, and to the endless succession of cowboys who came from near and far to inspect them, as "the Bad Lands babies"—were ...
— Roosevelt in the Bad Lands • Hermann Hagedorn
... the proceedings had been opened, and in place of some dark-browed and termagant sorceress, with the mark of every evil passion in her face, there appeared before the spectators crowding into every available corner, the slim, youthful figure—was it boy or girl?—the serene and luminous countenance of the Maid, the flower of youth raising its ...
— Jeanne d'Arc - Her Life And Death • Mrs.(Margaret) Oliphant
... had gone out and talked to the boys—even scolded them, so that they slunk away ashamed, and began to stand as much in dread of her as of the clutches of their prey. So she, gentle and timid to excess, acquired among them the reputation of a termagant. Popular opinion among children, as among men, is of ten just, but as often very unjust; for the same manifestations may proceed from opposite principles; and, therefore, as indices to character, may ...
— The Portent & Other Stories • George MacDonald
... Child" concludes unhappily, though without any attempt at a highly wrought tragical catastrophe; the Rich man persists in his unrelenting conduct, and we are left to imagine that his son returns to live and die in misery with his termagant wife.] ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. II • Robert Dodsley |
