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Worse   Listen
noun
Worse  n.  
1.
Loss; disadvantage; defeat. "Judah was put to the worse before Israel."
2.
That which is worse; something less good; as, think not the worse of him for his enterprise.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Worse" Quotes from Famous Books



... Abbe Sergi were not those which gave the most solicitude to Bonaparte; much worse were those he received from Paris, which gave him an account of the persevering intrigues of his enemies, and the malicious slanders that were circulated against him by the Directory, who were envious of his power and superiority, ...
— The Empress Josephine • Louise Muhlbach

... so many cases tries to hide all the pleasant features of houses that have seen at least three centuries, but this sort of work when in the hands of only partially educated folk is liable to produce a worse state of affairs than if things had been left untouched. An example of what over-restoration can do, may be seen when we reach the beautiful ...
— Normandy, Complete - The Scenery & Romance Of Its Ancient Towns • Gordon Home

... Trapes," sighed Ravenslee, leaning back in his chair and shaking a rueful head, "you touch on gloomy matters. As the story books say, 'thereby hangs a tale'—the dismal tale of a miserable wretch whose appetite was bad, whose sleep was worse, and whose temper was worst of all—oh, a very ...
— The Definite Object - A Romance of New York • Jeffery Farnol

... SCHOOL OF POLITENESS.—The first and best school of politeness, as of character, is always the home, where woman is the teacher. The manners of society at large are but the reflex of the manners of our collective homes, neither better nor worse. Yet, with all the disadvantages of ungenial homes, men may practice self-culture of manner as of intellect, and learn by good examples to cultivate a graceful and agreeable behavior towards others. Most men are like so many ...
— Searchlights on Health: Light on Dark Corners • B.G. Jefferis

... nor a firm touch, nor any learnable or describable touch whatsoever, will enable him to produce, currently, a resemblance of it; but that he must either draw it slowly, or give it up. And (which makes the matter worse still) though gathering the bough, and putting it close to you, or seeing a piece of near foliage against the sky, you may draw the entire outline of the leaves, yet if the spray has light upon it, and is ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin

... if you should, through any unlucky breakdown, come to be afraid of it, I am no worse off than I was before, if I have to do it at last. Keep your ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 2 (of 3), 1857-1870 • Charles Dickens

... preferred travelling no more during the day; but we were without arms and the Llanos were then infested by large numbers of robbers who attacked and murdered the whites who fell into their hands. Nothing can be worse than the administration of justice in these colonies. We everywhere found the prisons filled with malefactors on whom sentence is not passed till after the lapse of seven or eight years. Nearly a third of the prisoners succeed in making their escape; ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America V3 • Alexander von Humboldt

... to make them fine. I wanted to make them brilliant. I wanted to make them interesting. And of course I could not do it by myself. I am nothing but a copycat. I just quoted a lot of things I had heard you say; and I did worse than that, Peter. I watched the little whimsy lines around your mouth and I tried to interpret the perfectly lovely things they would make you say to a woman if you loved her and were building a dream house for her. And oh, Peter, it's too ghastly; I don't ...
— Her Father's Daughter • Gene Stratton-Porter

... that Northern winds carried to the listening ear of the Southern slave-holder, and in every oppression of the weak by the strong, every proud assumption of idleness over labor which echoed the music of Southern life back to us. Here in our midst lived that worse and falser nature, side by side with the true and better nature which God meant should be the nature of Americans, of which he was shaping out the type and champion in his chosen David ...
— Addresses • Phillips Brooks

... for a stinking Knight; worse than I have gone down with you, e'er now—Sixty Years ago, quoth ye—As old as I am— I live without Surgeons, wear my own Hair, am not in Debt to my Taylor, as thou art, and art fain to kiss his Wife, to persuade her Husband to be merciful ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. III • Aphra Behn

... shoulders were learning to bend, his head to slouch forward. One needed but to glance at him to see that Geoffrey Tudor was fast becoming that most disagreeable of social characters, a grumbler! And with grumbling unrepressed, and indulged in, come worse things, for it has its root in that true "root ...
— Great Uncle Hoot-Toot • Mrs. Molesworth

... to a worse place than any they had yet met with. This was a path naturally very rugged and craggy, which having been made more so by the late falling in of the earth, terminated in a frightful precipice above a thousand feet deep. Here the cavalry stopped short. Hannibal, wondering at this sudden halt, ...
— The Ancient History of the Egyptians, Carthaginians, Assyrians, • Charles Rollin

... elephant-hunting ground. They are wild, savage and ferocious, and what they lack individually in strength, they make up in numbers. They're like little red apes, and woe betide the unlucky hunter who falls into their merciless hands. They treat him worse than the ...
— Tom Swift and his Electric Rifle • Victor Appleton

... heaven is merciful. And how is he merciful? "He is kind unto the unthankful and to the evil." Again; "If any man have not the spirit of Christ, he is none of his." And are we to suppose that the poor in our day are any worse than they were when Christ was upon earth? Yet we find him frequently exhorting the rich to give to the poor. This is one of the most common precepts of the New Testament. Indeed, our Lord has greatly honored the poor, in appearing himself in a condition ...
— A Practical Directory for Young Christian Females - Being a Series of Letters from a Brother to a Younger Sister • Harvey Newcomb

... be set such statements as this made by Frederick Law Olmsted, after many months of travel in the South: "The field hand negro is on an average a very poor and a very bad creature, much worse than I had supposed before I had seen him and grown familiar with his stupidity, indolence, duplicity, and sensuality. He seems to be but an imperfect man, incapable of taking care of himself in a civilized manner, and his ...
— The Negro and the Nation - A History of American Slavery and Enfranchisement • George S. Merriam

... for the newly-discovered misfortunes of the old man to whom he was indebted for this world's life at least, he anxiously sought to soothe him; but he had far more and far worse to torment him than Malcolm even yet knew, and with burning cheeks and bloodshot eyes he lay tossing from side to side, now uttering terrible curses in Gaelic and now weeping bitterly. Malcolm took his loved ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Vol. XV., No. 85. January, 1875. • Various

... night came on, a small steamer was encountered tied up to the bank and Paul and his companion spent the night aboard of her. It was that night that Boyton succumbed to something worse than rapids, quicksand or waterfalls. They had lighted their pipes after supper and were lounging about the cabin talking of their adventures, when Paul asked Read what kind of smoking tobacco ...
— The Story of Paul Boyton - Voyages on All the Great Rivers of the World • Paul Boyton

... (HODDER AND STOUGHTON) from the mutineers at the Nore, it may be admitted that Sir GILBERT PARKER displayed a certain originality. With regard, to the clou of his plot, however, I can hardly say so much. Melodramatic young lovers have (in fiction) gone to prison and worse rather than employ a defence involving distress to the ladies of their choice, from ages untold. Dyck Calhoon did it when he was wrongly indicted for the killing of Erris Boyne, who was a traitor in the pay of France and incidentally the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 159, December 1, 1920 • Various

... about as Tom had said; four miles for the horses, against a mile and a half for Hervey. Both routes were bad, Hervey's the worse of the two. All things considered, hills, muddy roads, trackless woodland, swampy areas, it should take the heavily loaded team a little over an hour to reach the bridge. By Tom's calculation it must take Hervey at least ...
— Tom Slade's Double Dare • Percy Keese Fitzhugh

... state for man in general; and every man is a worse man in proportion as he is unfit for ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor

... agreed not to speak to Mr. Moore about this matter—it was a matter between he and I, and since your word cannot be depended upon, our business relations cease right here." I considered his management bad and his word in honor, worse. Mr. Dillon returned to Maxwell's ranch and I continued in ...
— The Second William Penn - A true account of incidents that happened along the - old Santa Fe Trail • William H. Ryus

... first began, Miss Jenny said to her class: "You must each think earnestly before answering. To give in a mark above what you feel yourself entitled, is to tell worse than a story, it is to tell a falsehood, and a falsehood is a lie. I shall leave it to you. I believe in trusting my pupils, and I shall take no note of your standing. Each will be answerable for herself." Miss ...
— Emmy Lou - Her Book and Heart • George Madden Martin

... she crossed the room to the door, out of which she went with a set face, and into the highway. Here she began to saunter up and down, perversely pulling her hair into a worse disorder than he had caused, and unfastening several buttons of her gown. It was a fine Sunday morning, dry, clear and frosty, and the bells of Alfredston Church could be heard on the breeze from the north. People were going ...
— Jude the Obscure • Thomas Hardy

... supposed that the life-bearing phase of lunar history—if there ever was one—could survive the outbreak of the volcanic cataclysm. North America, or Europe, if subjected to such an experience as the continental areas of the moon have passed through, would be, in proportion, worse wrecked than the most fearfully battered steel victim of a modern sea fight, and one can readily understand that, in such circumstances, those now beautiful and populous continents would exhibit, from a distance, scarcely any token ...
— Other Worlds - Their Nature, Possibilities and Habitability in the Light of the Latest Discoveries • Garrett P. Serviss

... impertinent when asked not to disturb their neighbours; but they break up at last, and the lovers have, as the poet says, "moonlight [actually] and sleep [possibly] for repayment." But with the morning a worse thing happens. The lover, waking, sees at the foot of the bed, flowing sluggishly from the crack under the Englishman's door, a dark brownish-red fluid. It is blood, certainly blood! and what on earth is to be done? Apparently the Englishman (they have heard a heavy bump in the night) has ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 - To the Close of the 19th Century • George Saintsbury

... looked at it, with a faint smile, and asked them to set it free in the fields. And so we did. His father has just this moment come back, bringing him a mastiff pup, hoping to comfort him with that; but I think it only makes it worse." ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky

... worse nor death. But it'll come right," she said, persistently, muttering to herself, as she leaned her face on her knees, watching,—"it'll ...
— Margret Howth, A Story of To-day • Rebecca Harding Davis

... very neat," she said approvingly. "I never would have believed a boy could be so handy with a broom! Last spring I hired William Dean, the son of a neighbor, to tidy up the barn and the yard; but it looked worse when he ...
— Aunt Hannah and Seth • James Otis

... Stadtholder in the Mark, the Grand Master of the Knights of St. John, the Director of the War Department—he, to be called to account as a servant by his master! He was expected to answer for what he had done in the plenitude of his power, and—worse than that—he must suffer that power to be limited! He would do nothing of the sort; he would not give up the blank charters not yet appropriated and send them ...
— The Youth of the Great Elector • L. Muhlbach

... sue for peace. England had deprived France of her colonies, but had lost repute as a military Power. Austria alone, with her dependent neighbours, maintained the unequal struggle on the Continent under worse conditions, and with no hope but ...
— Lectures on the French Revolution • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton

... Antipater, who was the cause of the hatred, accompanied them. But he did not openly show his enmity toward them, for he stood in awe of the one who had reconciled them. But the dissensions between the brothers still accompanied them, and the suspicions they had of one another grew worse. ...
— The Makers and Teachers of Judaism • Charles Foster Kent

... hurling back whatever he discovers there,—now, thunderbolts for us to grasp, if we can, and translate—now placing quietly, even tenderly, in our hands, things that we may see without effort—if we won't see them, so much the worse for us. ...
— Essays Before a Sonata • Charles Ives

... the old and the new, and to show that the latter will answer the same purpose as the former, even he begins to feel, in the end, that he has promised too much. For the question whether the new belief answers the same purpose as the old, or is better or worse, is disposed of incidentally, so to speak, and with uncomfortable haste, in two or three pages (p. 436 et seq.-), and is actually bolstered up by the following subterfuge: "He who cannot help himself in this matter is beyond help, is not yet ripe for our ...
— Thoughts out of Season (Part One) • Friedrich Nietzsche

... we have made the matter worse," he said to his wife, who, on returning from a visit to Clara, reported that, so far from improving, she was too evidently sinking, daily. "If Fisher should have entered into another engagement, or, if his pride ...
— Lessons in Life, For All Who Will Read Them • T. S. Arthur

... shall enjoy by Grace. And (chap. 4. ver.3.) "Better is he that hath not yet been, than both they;" that is, than they that live, or have lived; which, if the Soule of all them that have lived, were Immortall, were a hard saying; for then to have an Immortall Soule, were worse than to have no Soule at all. And againe,(Chapt. 9.5.) "The living know they shall die, but the dead know not any thing;" that is, Naturally, and before the resurrection ...
— Leviathan • Thomas Hobbes

... make allowances for the accidents of a large business," he said. "You must bear in mind that the weather just at the harvest of that corn was worse than we have known it for years. However, I have mended my arrangements on account o't. Since I have found my business too large to be well looked after by myself alone, I have advertised for a thorough good man as ...
— The Mayor of Casterbridge • Thomas Hardy

... power/ therfore art thou callyd an emperour/ but yf fortune were for me in suche wyse/ I wold be come a good man and better than I now am/ but thou/ the more richer and fortunat that thou art/ the more worse art thou/ Alixander sayd to hym I shall change thy fortune in suche wyse as thou ne saye/ that thou shalt doo hit by pouerte/ but for euyll and mauaiste/ And so he made hym ryche/ And thys was he that afterward was a good prynce and a good Iusticyer/ The kynge ought to be soueraynly ...
— Game and Playe of the Chesse - A Verbatim Reprint Of The First Edition, 1474 • Caxton

... have been said a month later that Finn was physically the worse for his adventure in the hands of Matey. His ribs were sound once more, and all his wounds and bruises were healed, though a light-coloured scar remained, and would remain on his muzzle, where the dog-stealer's ...
— Finn The Wolfhound • A. J. Dawson

... there is little pitching or tossing. When the sea strikes her, she quivers all over in a rather uncomfortable way. She is rather an old ship; she formerly ran between Vancouver and San Francisco, and is certainly the worse for wear. The huge engine-shafts shake the beams which support them; the pieces of timber tremble under the heavy strokes of the engine, and considerable apertures open from time to time in the deck as she heaves to and fro. The weather, however, is not stormy; and the ...
— A Boy's Voyage Round the World • The Son of Samuel Smiles

... will find the way. But, first, you must try and repair the mischief you have done to Lillie. By your own account of the matter, you have been encouraging and keeping up a sort of silly, romantic excitement in her. It is worse than silly; it is sinful. It is trifling with her best interests in this life and the life to come. And I think you must know that, if you had treated her like an honest, plain-spoken brother or cousin, ...
— Pink and White Tyranny - A Society Novel • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... ambitious expectations. The gentle reader, therefore—for I am much of Captain Bobadil's humour, and could to no other extend myself so far—the GENTLE reader, then, will be pleased to understand that I am a a Scottish gentleman of the old school, with a fortune, temper, and person, rather the worse for wear. I have known the world for these forty years, having written myself man nearly since that period—and I do not think it is much mended. But this is an opinion which I keep to myself when I am among younger folk, for I recollect, in my youth, ...
— Chronicles of the Canongate • Sir Walter Scott

... a worse reward; Thus saith the vengeance of the Lord, "Let everlasting hatred be "Betwixt ...
— Hymns and Spiritual Songs • Isaac Watts

... ever heard of me, worse luck! (A silence.) Isabel, look here. I never ask questions, do I? But it was so long ago—and Oberville almost belongs to history—he will one of these days at any rate. Just tell me—did ...
— The Greater Inclination • Edith Wharton

... then resolved to return to his post, but was persuaded to seek first a full recovery of health "in the naturall ayre of my countrey." He deplored the ill effects on the Virginia project of his return home, but argued that it would have been far worse for Virginia had he remained there only ...
— The Virginia Company Of London, 1606-1624 • Wesley Frank Craven

... away. A few land journeys with sledges only ended in disappointment, but at last the vessel was free of ice and joyfully they hoisted her sails. But worse disappointment was in store. She had sailed for three miles when they met a ridge of ice, and a solid sea forbade any further advance. In vain did they try to saw through the ice. November found the poor Victory hopelessly icebound and her crew doomed to another winter ...
— A Book of Discovery - The History of the World's Exploration, From the Earliest - Times to the Finding of the South Pole • Margaret Bertha (M. B.) Synge

... occurs to me that they sell here the best herrings in London; buy six.' Indeed Dr. Turner, afterwards Bishop of Calcutta, who accompanied him in his carriage, said that so far from his nerves being shaken by the hootings of the mob, Lord Ellenborough only observed that their saliva was worse than their bite.... ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury

... If it is bad for the family for a large number of women unable to find suitable permanent mates to be so eager for motherhood that they claim social permission for that public service whatever their marital position, it may be still worse for the family for a large number of highly superior women to cease to care greatly for intimate comradeship with men or for the actual experience of motherhood. Many women working and living in solitary fashion until too old to risk the chances of marriage, and able to find highest comradeship and ...
— The Family and it's Members • Anna Garlin Spencer

... not argued that Mary of Guise was, or became, incapable of worse than dissimulation (a case of forgery by her in the following year is investigated in Appendix B). But her practices at this time were such as Knox could not throw the first stone at. Her French advisers were in fact "perplexed," as Throckmorton wrote to Elizabeth (August 8). ...
— John Knox and the Reformation • Andrew Lang

... able-bodied men were transferred from the service of the rebels in corn-fields to the Union service in battle-fields—how Mr. Lincoln and the Union party were vilified for that wise and necessary measure! But worse, infinitely worse, than mere opposition to war measures, were their efforts to impair the confidence of the people, to diminish the moral power of the government, to give hope and earnestness to ...
— The Life, Public Services and Select Speeches of Rutherford B. Hayes • James Quay Howard

... none the worse for that. A free and constant bloomer, of rich and varied coloring. Habit low and spreading. One of the best plants we have for low beds, under the sitting-room windows. Keep the faded flowers cut off, and at midsummer cut away most of the old branches, and allow the plant to ...
— Amateur Gardencraft - A Book for the Home-Maker and Garden Lover • Eben E. Rexford

... the Bourbons after the Hundred Days. Gaudissart, to whom the open firmament of heaven was indispensable, found himself shut up in prison, under the weight of an accusation for a capital offence. Popinot the judge, who presided at the trial, released him on the ground that it was nothing worse than his imprudent folly which had mixed him up in the affair. A judge anxious to please the powers in office, or a rabid royalist, would have sent the luckless traveller to the scaffold. Gaudissart, who believed he owed his life to the judge, ...
— Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau • Honore de Balzac

... To have the impression of "fashion" dominant is contrary to the purpose of somber dress; it is a costume for the spirit, a covering for the visible body of one whose soul seeks the background. Nothing can be in worse taste than crepe which is gathered and ruched and puffed and pleated and made into waterfalls, and imitation ostrich feathers as a garnishing for a hat. The more absolutely plain, the more appropriate and dignified is the mourning dress. A "long veil" is a shade pulled down—a protection—it should ...
— Etiquette • Emily Post

... are about to have a fight, belong to quite another time. George III. and General Gordon are moved out of the way before the combat starts; and as for Nelson, he was frozen long ago up there; it is a ridiculous attitude for so great a man, and a worse altitude, but there he is, and you cannot alter it; however he is frozen and mercifully doesn't feel anything or see anything that is ...
— The Tale of Lal - A Fantasy • Raymond Paton

... and cloudy, the are smokey, had a few drops of rain; we employed the chord generally to which we also gave the assistance of the pole at the riffles and rocky points; these are as numerous and many of them much worse than those we passed yesterday; arround those points the water drives with great force, and we are obliged in many instaces to steer our vessels through the appertures formed by the points of large sharp rocks which reach a few inches above the surface of the water, here sould our ...
— The Journals of Lewis and Clark • Meriwether Lewis et al

... is uniformly bad for these children. Indeed, idleness would be worse. And it is not that all these children are forced to turn out bad. But as a matter of fact children under sixteen are not generally wanted save in positions of monotonous and unpromising employment, and their ...
— The Minister and the Boy • Allan Hoben

... wine of my brother, who is there in the cure of souls," he said. "Ah, he is a judge of wine, my brother. It is a fine place, not like this beast of a village, inhabited by bad heretics and worse Catholics." ...
— Bog-Myrtle and Peat - Tales Chiefly Of Galloway Gathered From The Years 1889 To 1895 • S.R. Crockett

... each gallon of alcohol. In two hundred gallons there are sixteen hundred pints, for each one of which the trader got a buffalo-robe worth five dollars. The Indian women toiled many long weeks to dress those sixteen hundred robes. The white traders got them for worse than nothing; for the poor Indian mother hid herself and her children until the effect of the poison passed away from the husband and father, who loved them when he had no whiskey, and abused and killed them when he had. Six thousand dollars for sixty gallons of alcohol! Is it a ...
— The Old Santa Fe Trail - The Story of a Great Highway • Henry Inman

... Those matters can be arranged. And if they should slip through our fingers, we can buy up the story at the Clarion office later. We'd be no worse off." ...
— The Deaves Affair • Hulbert Footner

... and laid it fondly on her breast, speaking to her and trying to rouse her; but it was of no avail: the hard, stertorous breathing grew worse and worse. ...
— Sylvia's Lovers — Complete • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

... recently held at Petersburg an international exhibition of instruments of torture, handcuffs, models of solitary cells, that is to say instruments of torture worse than knouts or rods, and sensitive ladies and gentlemen went and amused themselves by looking ...
— The Kingdom of God is within you • Leo Tolstoy

... explain Peru. The reply to this seems to me conclusive. In the first place, he is, in this respect, like all other writers of his time. That was an age of fanciful theories. Montesinos is certainly no worse than others in this respect, while he has the merit of being somewhat more original. He brought the Peruvian civilization from Armenia, and argued that Peru was Solomon's Ophir. Undue importance has been accorded to several of the old Spanish chroniclers, whose works ...
— Ancient America, in Notes on American Archaeology • John D. Baldwin

... walls and with heaps of rubbish, but does not show much trace of important buildings. This city has been supposed to represent the Biblical Resen; but the description of that place as lying "between Nineveh and Calah" seems to render the identification worse than uncertain. ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 2. (of 7): Assyria • George Rawlinson

... good, foul or fair, impossible or actual, a monstrous debauch of mind or a triumph of realisation, there is the Comedie. It is forty years since Balzac squared and laid the last stones of it; and it exists—if a little the worse for wear: the bulk is enormous—if the materials be in some sort worm-eaten and crumbling. Truly, he had 'incomparable power.' He was the least capable and the most self-conscious of artists; his observation was that of an ...
— Views and Reviews - Essays in appreciation • William Ernest Henley

... of terror with which he filled her at the first moment of each encounter was far worse than mere dislike. Intuitively, she regarded him as a menace, and, through his unvarying politeness, she found herself trying to fathom his real intentions. What object could he have had in ranging himself with the suitors for her hand? He was very rich himself. ...
— The Title Market • Emily Post

... inspired. The grey-headed old man gliding like a ghost into her room and acting the thief while he supposed her fast asleep, then bearing off his prize and hanging over it with the ghastly exultation she had witnessed, was worse—immeasurably worse, and far more dreadful, for the moment, to reflect upon—than anything her wildest fancy could have suggested. If he should return—there was no lock or bolt upon the door, and if, distrustful of having left some money yet behind, he should come ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens

... uncarpeted and dirty, to the third landing, where he was ushered into a room about ten feet square. It could not be considered a very desirable apartment. It had once been covered with an oilcloth carpet, but this was now very ragged, and looked worse than none. There was a single bed in the corner, covered with an indiscriminate heap of bed-clothing, rumpled and not over-clean. There was a bureau, with the veneering scratched and in some parts stripped off, and a small glass, eight inches by ...
— Ragged Dick - Or, Street Life in New York with the Boot-Blacks • Horatio Alger

... his great devotion. He fell ill, and underwent an operation called l'empieme, which is performed by making an incision between the ribs, in order to let out the pus; it had, to all appearance, a favourable result, but the patient grew worse, and could not breathe. His medical attendants could not conceive what occasioned this accident and retarded his cure. He died almost in the arms of the Dauphin, who went every day to see him. The singularity of his disease ...
— Memoirs And Historical Chronicles Of The Courts Of Europe - Marguerite de Valois, Madame de Pompadour, and Catherine de Medici • Various

... families, acted as good citizens should act. And he became quite triumphant, repeating that he knew of no cause for self-reproach, and that his ever-growing fortune left him with an easy conscience. It was so much the worse for the poor, if they were bent on remaining poor. In vain did the doctor urge that the Malthusian theories were shattered, that the calculations had been based on a possible, not a real, increase of population; in vain too did he prove that the present-day economic ...
— Fruitfulness - Fecondite • Emile Zola

... breakfast at the shelf-table nailed in place underneath the western window. They made a picnic of it, and her spirits skipped upon the hilltops. For the first time she ate from tin plates, drank from a tin cup, and used a tin spoon the worse for rust. What mattered it to her that the teapot was grimy and the fryingpan black with soot! It was all part of the wonderful new vista that had suddenly opened before her gaze. She had awakened into life and already she was dimly realizing that many and varied experiences lay waiting ...
— Ridgway of Montana - (Story of To-Day, in Which the Hero Is Also the Villain) • William MacLeod Raine

... he felt the awful darkness which encloses all mortal aspiration, and the keenest audacities of human speculation. The incapacities of human reason at such times overwhelmed him, and left him hopeless, or, still worse, in a half-derisive mood. And these moods, as well as his clearer and more elaborate thoughts, hastily transferred to paper, are found amongst his notes. It is quite impossible to vindicate his consistency, and it is not in the least necessary to do this, as already explained; while ...
— Pascal • John Tulloch

... ship stood by the shore of the great sea; into this Eline entered. There were other ships, some better, some worse. But somehow she knew that just this, and not another, was the ship she wanted, and none ...
— The Strange Little Girl - A Story for Children • V. M.

... did she care to look. She remembered that she was not acting fairly towards Alfred. But instead of considering that question, she repelled it. She had suffered enough, suffering had made her what she was; she must now think of herself. She must get out of her present life; marriage might be worse, but it would be a change, and change she must have. Things must take their course, she did not know whether she would accept or refuse: but she was sure she would like him to propose. He had loved her, and, as he had not married, it was probable that he still loved her, anyway she ...
— Celibates • George Moore

... echoes and the denizens of the woods disturbed, and two other Indians fired, thus rendering confusion worse confounded. Their aims were not good, however, and Raventik was interested and surprised— though not alarmed—by the whizzing sounds that seemed close to his ears, and the little splashes in the water just ahead of him. Fortunately a bend in the river here ...
— The Walrus Hunters - A Romance of the Realms of Ice • R.M. Ballantyne

... his own barbarous life in the midst of a civilised community of workers and artists and thinkers and craftsmen, with whom he seldom mingles, and with whom he has nothing in common, this chartered relic of worse days preserves from first to last many painful traits of the low moral and social ideas of his ancestors, from which he has never varied. He represents most of all, in the modern world, the surviving savage. His love of gewgaws, of titles, of uniform, of dress, of feathers, ...
— Post-Prandial Philosophy • Grant Allen

... to betray the Caesar, O my soul!" he replied, still on his knees, his forehead bent low to the ground, "Death, a thousand times worse than a dagger's thrust ... a ...
— "Unto Caesar" • Baroness Emmuska Orczy

... true, Mr. Dodge says, that the quality of the corn north of parallel forty is worse than for many years, increasing practically the amount of shortage indicated by the number of bushels. As the whole corn grown in 1883 in Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Dakota, added to half that grown in Ohio, Indiana, ...
— Prairie Farmer, Vol. 56: No. 1, January 5, 1884. - A Weekly Journal for the Farm, Orchard and Fireside • Various

... courtesies of life; nor did any of us go over there. Here are two hostile bodies on this floor; and it is but a type of the feeling that exists between the two sections. We are enemies as much as if we were hostile States. I believe that the Northern people hate the South worse than ever the English people hated France; and I can tell my brethren over there that there is no love lost upon the ...
— American Eloquence, Volume III. (of 4) - Studies In American Political History (1897) • Various

... defence by all representatives of the mythological view of the world, and extolled as a refutation of "monistic dogma." The closing word of the discourse, "ignorabimus," was translated as a present, and this "ignoramus" taken to mean that "we know nothing at all"; or, even worse, that "we can never come to clearness about anything, and any further talk about the matter is idle." The famous "ignorabimus" address remains certainly an important rhetorical work of art; it is a "beautiful sermon," characterised by its highly-finished form and its surprising variety of philosophico-scientific ...
— Monism as Connecting Religion and Science • Ernst Haeckel

... land of Wessex —warrior's exultant. 60 To feast on the fallen on the field they left The sallow-hued spoiler, the swarthy raven, Horned of beak, and the hoary-backed White-tailed eagle to eat of the carrion, And the greedy goshawk, and that gray beast, 65 The wolf in the wood. Not worse was the slaughter Ever on this island at any time, Or more folk felled before this strife With the edge of the sword, as is said in old books, In ancient authors, since from the east hither 70 The Angles and Saxons eagerly sailed Over the salt ...
— Old English Poems - Translated into the Original Meter Together with Short Selections from Old English Prose • Various

... of living, though that is grievous enough, as threatened with an increasing cost which will bring suffering and misery to a large body of our inhabitants. So we come here not only to discuss providing a remedy for what is now existing, but some protection to ward off what is threatening to be a worse calamity. We shall utterly fail of our purpose to provide relief unless we look at things as they are. It is useless to indulge in indiscriminate abuse. We must not confuse the innocent with the guilty; it must be our ...
— Have faith in Massachusetts; 2d ed. - A Collection of Speeches and Messages • Calvin Coolidge

... boys and gells they goes to school, and 'tes all in favor of the towns there. I can't work no more; I'm 's good as gone meself; but I feel sometimes I'll 'ave to go back. I don't like the streets, an' I guess 'tes worse ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... there lies a better and a worse, A lesser and a larger, in men's view, I would be better than the thing I do, As God ...
— Poems of Progress • Ella Wheeler Wilcox

... towards Archie's door, though only two short days had fled, all life had changed to me and darkness hung about me like a pall. Upon which change I was bitterly reflecting when I was interrupted by a message that Archie was taken somewhat worse and not expected to live longer than through the night. And I could not but be glad of this summons from my own life's tragedy, that I might share another's. It is God's blessed way. The balm for secret sorrow is in the bosom of another burden, unselfishly assumed; ...
— St. Cuthbert's • Robert E. Knowles

... was doing, she had spoken sharply to her brother and had said hasty words that she immediately regretted. Her conscience quickly reproved her. She felt bad over the loss of the flower, but she felt much worse over her hasty words. A dark, heavy cloud settled down upon her. The sunshine was all gone; there was no longer any song in her heart, but ...
— Heart Talks • Charles Wesley Naylor

... winter set in. There was a little money left, but to Mrs. Bart it seemed worse than nothing—the mere mockery of what she was entitled to. What was the use of living if one had to live like a pig? She sank into a kind of furious apathy, a state of inert anger against fate. Her faculty ...
— House of Mirth • Edith Wharton

... of to-day, Doubts might torment, and blunders may have teaz'd, But ale can cure them; let us all be pleas'd. Thou, venerable man, let me defend The father of my new dear bosom friend; You broke your crutch, well, well, worse luck might be, I'll be your crutch, John Meldrum, lean on me, And when your lovely daughter shall complain, Send Gilbert's wooden argument again. If still you wonder that I take a wife From the unpolish'd walks of humble life, I'll tell you on what ground my love began, And let the wise confute ...
— Wild Flowers - Or, Pastoral and Local Poetry • Robert Bloomfield

... on some hot water with a few carrots and a little chopped parsley in it and plenty of pepper and salt. She tasted it, as a good cook should, and said to herself: "Not bad, I have tasted worse." ...
— Fairy Tales from the German Forests • Margaret Arndt

... buildings in the world are filled with it from top to bottom. Charcoal, under his more scientific and important name of carbon, may be called one of the great lords of the world. His domain is so extensive that one might go round the world without getting out of it; he is even worse than the Marquis ...
— The History of a Mouthful of Bread - And its effect on the organization of men and animals • Jean Mace

... of several people who were standing at the gate ran towards him and, taking his horse by the bridle, led him round the walls of the town and, pointing to the west, told him to go along or it would be the worse for him. He in vain represented the danger of being benighted in the woods, exposed to the inclemency of the weather and the fury of wild beasts. "Go along," was the only answer he received. He found that these negroes had acted thus from kindness, as the king's messengers who had ...
— Great African Travellers - From Mungo Park to Livingstone and Stanley • W.H.G. Kingston

... his mouth as wide open as it will go—which is saying a good deal—and one trusts that one's words are entering into him. All Sunday afternoon he was struggling valiantly against an almost supernatural sleepiness. After tea he got worse, and I began to think he would be no use to me. We none of us ate much supper; and Dick, who appears able to understand him, helped him to carry the things out. I heard them talking, and then Dick came back and closed the door behind him. 'He wants to know,' ...
— They and I • Jerome K. Jerome

... West Bank - the larger of the two areas under the Palestine Authority - has experienced a general decline in economic growth and a degradation in economic conditions made worse since the second intifadah began in September 2000. The downturn has been largely the result of the Israeli closure policies - the imposition of border closures in response to security incidents in Israel - which disrupted labor and commodity ...
— The 2005 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency

... Among other things, he was very fond of telling us what we ought to do. He suggested more improvements in the first three days of his sojourn with us than I had thought of since we commenced housekeeping. And what made the matter worse, his suggestions were generally very good ones. Had it been otherwise I might have borne his remarks more complacently, but to be continually told what you ought to do, and to know that you ought to do it, ...
— Rudder Grange • Frank R. Stockton

... on hurriedly, his eyes on the door. "I'm not worse, I suppose, than other men, but all the same I'm not to be trusted. And when I say I'm not to be trusted I mean that I myself don't know whether I'll keep my word from one minute to another. I'm sure you don't know ...
— The Captives • Hugh Walpole

... sayin' a word back. By God, Fatty, he looked sort of hungry. When he grinned, his upper lip went up kind of slow and you could see his big teeth. I expected to see him make a move to sink 'em in the throat of Fitz. But he didn't. Nope, he didn't make a move, and all the time Fitz ravin' and gettin' worse and worse. Finally Fitz made the move. Yep, he pulled his gun and had it damned near clean on Mac Strann before that devil would stir. But when he did, it was jest a flash of light. Both them guns went off, but Mac's bullet hit Fitz's ...
— The Night Horseman • Max Brand

... friend, and a bulky native of the Grisons, could "accommodate themselves" collectively and undividedly with what was barely sufficient for their just moiety, however much it might afford a night's rest to their worse half. Christian was sent out into the storm to look for supplementary rooms in Montepulciano, which he failed to get. Meanwhile we ordered supper, and had the satisfaction of seeing set upon the board a huge red flask of vino nobile. In copious draughts of this the King of Tuscan wines, we ...
— New Italian sketches • John Addington Symonds

... when she asked me to do something for her. Once, I remember (in the winter after Mrs Cottier came to us), she drove to Salcombe to do her Christmas shopping. It came on to snow during the afternoon; and at night-time the storm grew worse. We put back supper, expecting her to come in at any minute, but she did not come. The hours went by, and still she did not come, and still the storm worsened. The wind was not very high, but the air was full of a fine, powdery, drifting snow; the night seemed full of snow; ...
— Jim Davis • John Masefield

... then you will see my apartment," said Miss Dimpleton, with pride; "for it is already put in order, and that will prove to you that I am an early riser, and that if you are sleepy and idle so much the worse for you, for I shall ...
— The Mysteries of Paris V2 • Eugene Sue

... it a good few times," said Stephen, laughing, "and it never did aught worse to me than rub itself against me and mew. Why, surely, man! you're not ...
— One Snowy Night - Long ago at Oxford • Emily Sarah Holt

... "She's worse," I growled. "She's hurt—that's one reason she won't come up! And allow me to say that what you know about women wouldn't fill a gnat's eye!" I seemed to be hypped on this, and couldn't ...
— Wings of the Wind • Credo Harris

... and therefore not identical with any one of them? Nor would any man be a ruler unless he were induced by the hope of reward or the fear of punishment;—the reward is money or honour, the punishment is the necessity of being ruled by a man worse than himself. And if a State (or Church) were composed entirely of good men, they would be affected by the last motive only; and there would be as much 'nolo episcopari' as there is ...
— The Republic • Plato

... interests. Left to himself, he would save the old man's life; but there is some one else by the sickbed, a portress, who would push him into the grave for thirty thousand francs. Not that she would kill him outright; she will not give him arsenic, she is not so merciful; she will do worse, she will kill him by inches; she will worry him to death day by day. If the poor old man were kept quiet and left in peace; if he were taken into the country and cared for and made much of by friends, he would get well again; but he is harassed by a sort of Mme. Evrard. When ...
— Cousin Pons • Honore de Balzac

... facts, but word-paintings of things and persons, so chosen and arranged that the reader may see, as if at first hand, the spirit of Life at work before him. The new novel has as many bemoaners as the old novel had when it was new. It is no question of better or worse, but of differing forms—of change dictated by gradual suitability to the changing conditions of our social life, and to the ever fresh discoveries of craftsmen, in the intoxication of which, old and equally worthy craftsmanship is—by the way—too ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... and quietly, but without bustle or hurry, taking care not to let things fall, not to bump against the furniture, not to jar the bed, not to slam doors, in fact not to make any unnecessary noises, as sick people are not only disturbed but may be made worse by noises and confusion. If a door is squeaky the hinges should be oiled. Too much talking, loud talking and whispering are to be avoided. Only cheerful and pleasant subjects should be talked of, never illnesses either that of ...
— Scouting For Girls, Official Handbook of the Girl Scouts • Girl Scouts

... worse one than you can even imagine. Captain Nichol wouldn't know you. His memory was destroyed at the time of the injury. All before that is gone utterly;" and Martine rapidly narrated what is already known to the reader, concluding, "I'm sorry Helen came ...
— Taken Alive • E. P. Roe

... children. I saw the little darkies running about the streets down there at Carthage; they were poor and ragged and dirty, but they were out in the air and the sunshine; they have a chance to get their growth; to go to school and learn something. The white children are worked worse than slaves, and are growing up dulled and stunted, physically and mentally. Our folks down here are mighty short-sighted, judge. We'll wake them up. We'll build a model cotton mill, and run it with decent ...
— The Colonel's Dream • Charles W. Chesnutt

... "A great part of the enjoyment of life is in the knowledge that there are people living in a worse place than that you inhabit;" but it does not add to our happiness to think of those who could not come to this lovely spot; and we commiserate the Can't-get- away Club ...
— Over the Border: Acadia • Eliza Chase

... however, was worse than his bite,—owing to his lack of teeth, probably—for he very good-naturedly set himself to work preparing supper for me. After a slice of cold ham, and a warm punch, to which my chilled condition gave a grateful flavor, I went to bed in a distant chamber ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner

... wife of Ilmarinen Cried aloud in bitter anguish, Thus addressed the youth, Kullervo: "Evil son, thou bloody herdsman, Thou hast brought me wolves in malice, Driven bears within my hurdles! These the words of Kullerwoinen: "Have I evil done as shepherd, Worse the conduct of the hostess; Baked a stone inside my oat-cake, On the inside, rock and tan-bark, On the stone my knife, was broken, Treasure of my mother's household, Broken virtue of my people!" Ilmarinen's wife made answer: "Noble herdsman, Kullerwoinen, ...
— The Kalevala (complete) • John Martin Crawford, trans.

... left, anyway, before the show was over, but one boy which was asleep. So the duke said these Arkansaw lunkheads couldn't come up to Shakespeare; what they wanted was low comedy—and maybe something ruther worse than low comedy, he reckoned. He said he could size their style. So next morning he got some big sheets of wrapping paper and some black paint, and drawed off some handbills, and stuck them up all over ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain



Words linked to "Worse" :   worsened, better, bad, badness, comparative, get worse, comparative degree



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