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Rankle   /rˈæŋkəl/   Listen
Rankle

verb
(past & past part. rankled; pres. part. rankling)
1.
Gnaw into; make resentful or angry.  Synonyms: eat into, fret, grate.  "His resentment festered"






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Rankle" Quotes from Famous Books



... speak of open warfare on stricken fields, or even of pitiless slaughter wrought by those who, when their blood is hot, "do not their work negligently;" but of bitter by-blows, dealt on either side, such as humanity cannot lightly forget or forgive—of passions roused, that will rankle savagely long after this generation shall be dust. There remains the chance of utterly quelling and annihilating the insurrection (I speak as a ...
— Border and Bastille • George A. Lawrence

... the fort at Mackinac was accomplished without any Indian atrocities, the success of that day was to precipitate a massacre, long to rankle in the minds of the pioneers of the West. Immediately upon hearing of the capture of the fort, General Hull wrote to Captain Heald in command at Fort Dearborn ordering the evacuation of that post. On the morning of August 15th, as the small garrison of fifty-five regulars and twelve militia ...
— Old Fort Snelling - 1819-1858 • Marcus L. Hansen

... shaft to rankle in Anne's stormy bosom, Marilla descended to the kitchen, grievously troubled in mind and vexed in soul. She was as angry with herself as with Anne, because, whenever she recalled Mrs. Rachel's dumbfounded countenance her ...
— Anne Of Green Gables • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... nation "whose race and language are now overrunning the world from one end of it to the other." [Arnold.] and whatever differences of form of government may exist between us and them; whatever reminiscences of the days when, though brethren, we strove together, may rankle in the minds of us, the defeated party; we should cherish the bonds of common nationality that still exist between us. We should remember, as the Athenians remembered of the Spartans at a season of jealousy and temptation, that our race is one, being ...
— The Fifteen Decisive Battles of The World From Marathon to Waterloo • Sir Edward Creasy, M.A.

... doesn't seem to me that I have any use for repentance. If what I have done deserves punishment in another world, I must suffer it; but I know it cannot be half what I have suffered of late. No, cousin, I need you no longer. There is no sting to rankle, now that hope—hope for my boy—has gone. I can rest quiet now, ...
— Shining Ferry • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... Englishman in Simeon Samuels,' chuckled the Parnass, in whose breast the defeat of his candidate had never ceased to rankle. ...
— Ghetto Comedies • Israel Zangwill

... and said no more. He had the art of not overdoing: he left the arrow to rankle. He walked by her side in a silence for ever so long. Then, suddenly, as if by a mighty effort of unselfish love, went off into delightful discourse. He cooed and wooed and flattered and fascinated; and by the time they ...
— The Woman-Hater • Charles Reade

... all the neighborhood, and the boy-friend could not resist the temptation of repeating Jacob's grand design, for the endless amusement of the school. The betrayal hurt Jacob more keenly than the ridicule. It left a wound that never ceased to rankle; yet, with the inconceivable perversity of unthinking natures, precisely this joke (as the people supposed it to be) had been perpetuated, until "Jake Flint's Journey" was a synonyme for any absurd or extravagant expectation. ...
— Beauty and The Beast, and Tales From Home • Bayard Taylor

... only pain me As a lingering disease, But, finding no redress, ferment and rage; Nor less than wounds immedicable Rankle."] ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 2 • George Gordon Byron

... turn aside from the pursuit of hate! I staked my life on thine, and the stake is lost; but what care I? My hate shall follow thee; wither thy bones with its curse; poison every joy; blight every hope; rankle in thy life blood! Bid thee seek health, and bite the dust for anguish because it flies thee! And for me. Ha, ha! Men may think to judge me—torture, triumph, slay! Well, let them." And with a movement so sudden and so desperate, that to avert it was impossible, he burst ...
— The Vale of Cedars • Grace Aguilar

... sir, this hangman drew a heavy sum yearly from him; thus making him only a mine of wealth to himself; this, no doubt, would rankle in the other's heart, to think he should be so beset, and hold ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest

... sore rankle through life. 'T is not from whence you came that counts; 't is what you are. I'd take your shame of birth, if I could rid myself of mine. Fortune, position, and opportunity I've wasted, while you have won rank ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford

... ridicule, which, owing to my miserable and wretched touchiness of character, used formerly to make me wince, as if I had been touched with hot iron. Things that nobody else cares for enter into my mind and rankle there like venom. I know these feelings are absurd, and therefore I try to hide them, but they only sting the deeper for concealment. ...
— The Three Brontes • May Sinclair

... so high as my present attainment, but neither did they include this constant struggle with the vilest manifestations of which the human nature is capable." He brought his fist down on the table. "I am a match for all of them," he exclaimed. "But their arrows rankle, for I am human. They have poisoned ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton

... a low, poisonous laugh of triumph rankle through the hotel office. He turned round. Bradley, the over-fed, over-confident, over- estimated financier, laid a hand on the shoulder of his companion as ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... a covert danger to rankle in their midst until it gains strength to burst into an open enemy? Will they tamely submit while Hesden Le Moyne rallies the colored men to his standard and hands over Horsford to the enemy? Will they ...
— Bricks Without Straw • Albion W. Tourgee

... robbed of their self-respect. The most hopeless causes I have, come from that class of people who give each other bits of their mind—very objectionable bits, consisting of vulgar abuse for the most part, and the calling of names that rankle. The operators seem to derive a solemn kind of self-satisfaction from the treatment themselves, but it does for the ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand

... and woe-begone, he fell to ground, And turned his eyes toward heaven; nor spake he aught. Nor ate, nor slept, till in his daily round The golden sun had broken thrice, and sought His rest anew; nor ever ceased his wound To rankle, till it marred his sober thought. At length, impelled by phrensy, the fourth day, He from his limbs ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto

... spirit Blurs not with modesty his merit. On all exerting wit and tongue, His rattling jokes, at random flung, Bespatter widely friend and foe. Too late the forward boy will know That jokes are often paid in kind, Or rankle longer ...
— Fables of John Gay - (Somewhat Altered) • John Gay

... I believe. Beatrice will be sorry, I think; she makes a great companion of him. And now I think that we must be getting home," and she went, leaving this poisoned shaft to rankle in his breast. ...
— Beatrice • H. Rider Haggard

... she met him she had teased him about it, asking who it was he took after, and such-like questions; and Tony had replied with an abruptness which was so unusual in him that she had at first felt amused, until it began to rankle. Then she resented it, and when they met again, she was equally abrupt to him as he had been to her, and had, moreover, given a great deal of attention to what Dickson, who was present, said and did, while ignoring, as far as she could, the very existence ...
— Colonial Born - A tale of the Queensland bush • G. Firth Scott

... your duty to consider the consequences," Lady Loring interposed. "You don't know how such things sometimes rankle in a man's mind. He may be perfectly willing to do you justice—and yet, there may be moments when he would doubt if you had told him the whole truth. I speak with the experience of a married woman. Don't place yourself in that position toward your husband, if you wish ...
— The Black Robe • Wilkie Collins

... Unpleasantness of that kind is apt to rankle long. But I wasn't going to give up my rights. Nobody but a coward does that. They talked of going to law and trying the will, but they wouldn't have got much by that. And then they abused me for two years. When they had done and got sick of it, I told them they ...
— He Knew He Was Right • Anthony Trollope

... charming taste. They are fond of music, of dancing, and are not insensible to the beauties of nature. They are indolent, and have little ambition except to be admired and well spoken of. They are so sensitive that a harsh word will rankle in then hearts, and make them unhappy for a length of time; and they will strip themselves to pay the grills for their flattery, and to escape their satire. Though naturally timid, and loath to shed blood, they witness ...
— History of the Negro Race in America From 1619 to 1880. Vol 1 - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George W. Williams

... progress of this war, and also of the broils in Poland, may possibly draw the King of Prussia into it during the ensuing campaign: and it must, before it be finished, take in this country, and perhaps England. The ill humor on account of the Dutch revolution continues to rankle here. They have recalled their ambassador from the Hague, manifestly to show their dissatisfaction with that court, and some very dry memorials have lately been exchanged on the subject of the money this country assumed ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson

... there were none of the then modern accomplishments of which she had not made herself mistress; wealth and regal honors were hers; and yet what a sad picture she presents! Evil passions were allowed to rankle in her breast unchecked, till she became one of the vilest creatures, in a country become the vilest and basest of nations. The powers of mind with which she was endowed, used for the benefit of her country, might have been the means of its salvation; but instead of appealing ...
— Woman: Man's Equal • Thomas Webster

... may fancy how such an event as this would rankle in Charlotte's mind. I only wonder that she did not remonstrate against her father's decision to send her and Emily back to Cowan Bridge, after Maria's and Elizabeth's deaths. But frequently children are unconscious of the effect which some of their simple revelations ...
— The Life of Charlotte Bronte - Volume 1 • Elizabeth Gaskell

... barb in this that rankled after the ladies had gone; and on comparing notes with her daughter, Mrs. Lapham found that a barb had been left to rankle in ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... I that must take you a peg lower. I am sure you look for more work, you shall have wood enough to cleave, make your tongue the wedge, and your head the beetle. I'll make such a splinter run into your wits, as shall make them rankle till you become fools. Nay, if you shoot books like fools' bolts, I'll be so bold as to make your judgments quiver with my thunderbolts. If you mean to gather clouds in the Commonwealth, to threaten tempests, for your flakes of snow, we'll pay you with stones of hail; if with an easterly ...
— A History of English Literature - Elizabethan Literature • George Saintsbury

... sufferer has a family, his weeping wife and helpless infants are not unfrequently the objects of his frantic fury. In a word, he exhibits, to the life, all the detestable passions that rankle in the bosom of a savage; and such is the spell in which his senses are locked, that no sooner has the unhappy patient recovered from the paroxysm of insanity occasioned by the bite, than he seeks out the destroyer for the sole purpose of ...
— McGuffey's Fifth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey

... I left, to look out for such property as I left behind, and had retained my old house. I found him waiting for me, and with everything in good order. That is one good thing to be said about the natives. An imagined wrong or insult may rankle in their minds for months, until they have a chance to stab you in the back. They will lie to you at times with the most unblushing nerve, often when the truth would have served their ends so much better that it seems as if they must have been doing mendacious gymnastics ...
— Anting-Anting Stories - And other Strange Tales of the Filipinos • Sargent Kayme

... until he began to talk about it that I remembered there had ever been a Delverton mystery. Practically he gave me the same history of the case as your report does, missing some points certainly, but enlarging considerably on others. That the villain had escaped justice seemed to rankle in his mind, and he was contemptuous of the intelligence of Scotland Yard. The tragedy, he said, had hastened his brother's end, and I judged he had no great ...
— The Master Detective - Being Some Further Investigations of Christopher Quarles • Percy James Brebner

... been equal and mutual in both of us, the existence of which on my side only I was perhaps claiming to my credit. Very sad to me also, I will not conceal from you, was that departure, and it planted stings in my heart which now rankle there deeper, as often as I think with myself of my reluctant parting, my separation as by a wrench, from so many companions at once, such good friends as they were, and living so pleasantly with each other in one city, far off indeed, but to ...
— The Life of John Milton Vol. 3 1643-1649 • David Masson

... had robbed him of a chance like that was enough to rankle in any man's guts and make him work up something pretty close to insanity. I marked it down in my mental files for the investigation I was supposed to make, but let it go ...
— Let'em Breathe Space • Lester del Rey

... Mr. Chase might resolve to behave with magnanimity beneath his disappointment, the disappointment must rankle all the same. It was certainly the case that, while he professed friendship towards Mr. Lincoln personally, he was honestly unable to appreciate him as a president. Mr. Chase's ideal of a statesman had ...
— Abraham Lincoln, Vol. II • John T. Morse

... turns her eyes from all others, and says to herself and to the world, with what heart she may, that she has no need of help. But does that end the pain? Does it make her strong to say it? May not the slight implied in being overlooked rankle in her heart till it is changed and hardened? I am afraid the many single women we see and hear of, who live to themselves, giving no sympathy and seeking none, proves it past all denying. My dear, folk may say what they like about woman's sphere and woman's mission—and great nonsense ...
— Janet's Love and Service • Margaret M Robertson

... did not know. She ventured a guess or two, but there was no conviction in her tone. With two nominal arrests in five minutes chalked against him, and with his first rebellion against the Little Woman to rankle in his conscience and memory, she owned herself at ...
— The Trail of the White Mule • B. M. Bower

... youth was both indignant and overwhelmed at it. Other sorrows, other illusions dispelled, further increased his agitation, making a wound that might really have become misanthropy, had his heart been less excellent by nature. But it could not rankle thus in him, and his sufferings only resulted in making him quit England with less regret, and throw into his verses and letters misanthropical expressions, no sooner written than disavowed by the general tone of cordiality and good-humor that reigned ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli

... dipped for, When, his left-hand i' the hair o' the wicked, deg. deg.37 Back he held the brow and pricked its stigma, Bit into the live man's flesh for parchment, Loosed him, laughed to see the writing rankle, 40 Let the wretch go festering through Florence)— Dante, who loved well because he hated, Hated wickedness that hinders loving, Dante, standing, studying his angel,— In there broke the folk of his Inferno. deg. ...
— Browning's Shorter Poems • Robert Browning

... was of a forgiving disposition, and let bygones be bygones. It is the only plan at schools, for girls are generally so frank in the nature of their remarks that if you begin to treasure up the disagreeable things said to you, and let them rankle, you will probably find yourself without a chum in the world. Though the fashion may be for plain speaking, it is often a matter of mood, and the mate who genuinely believes you a "blighter" one day, will claim you as a "mascot" with equal persuasion on the next. It is all part of the ...
— A Popular Schoolgirl • Angela Brazil

... for example, when his room was 'done out,' there was invariably a skirmish between them, because Edwin really did hate anybody to 'meddle among his things.' The derangement of even a brush on the dressing-table would rankle in his mind. Also he was very 'crotchety about his meals,' and on the subject of fresh air. Unless he was sitting in a perceptible draught, he thought he was being poisoned by nitrogen: but when he could see the curtain or blind trembling in the wind he was hygienically at ease. ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett

... should, as we are both human—they wouldn't be over and done with in an hour. They would stick in your mind and rankle, because, you see, they might be proofs that I didn't really love you. And then when I seemed happy with you, you would wonder if I was acting. I know all this sounds morbid and exaggerated, but it isn't. What have you got to go on, as regards me? What do you really know of me? If something ...
— Uneasy Money • P.G. Wodehouse

... has felt strongly, and he was feeling strongly now; he was feeling passionately—that was my whole contention. But he had perhaps never made it plain to those rather near-sighted little mental eyes of hers, and he had let her suppose something that could n't fail to rankle in her mind and torment it. 'You have let her suppose,' I said, 'that you were thinking of me, and the poor girl has been jealous of me. I know it, but from nothing she herself has said. She has said nothing; she has been too proud and too considerate. ...
— Confidence • Henry James

... in a long sigh and shook her head. "It won't do, Roddy. Can't you see you're giving way practically under a threat—because I'll go away if you don't? But think what it would mean if I did stay, on those terms. The thing would rankle always. And if anything did happen to one of the babies because the new nurse wasn't quite so good, you'd never forgive me—not in ...
— The Real Adventure • Henry Kitchell Webster

... sovereignty is a right higher than all others; and that has been made into a common stock for the benefit of all. All further agitation is ended. This element must be cast out of political problems. Henceforth that poison will not rankle in the blood. 2. Another thing has been learned: the rights and duties of minorities. The people of the whole nation are of more authority than the people of any section. These United States are supreme over Northern, ...
— The World's Best Orations, Vol. 1 (of 10) • Various

... story," answered Mr Rose. "'Is not that He whose high places and whose altars Hezekiah hath taken away?' Methinks that should rankle sore in Hezekiah's mind, and in the hearts of them that lovest him. Bishop Bonner is somewhat coarser and less subtle, yet 'tis the same ...
— Robin Tremain - A Story of the Marian Persecution • Emily Sarah Holt

... fatal than a dodge. Wrongs will be forgiven, sufferings and losses will be forgiven or forgotten, battles will be remembered only as they recall the martial virtues of the combatants; but anything like chicane, anything like a trick, will always rankle. The Government are concerned in South Africa not only to do what is fair, but to do what South Africa will accept as fair. They are concerned not merely to choose a balance which will deal evenly between the races, but one which will secure the ...
— Liberalism and the Social Problem • Winston Spencer Churchill

... he, Jerrem, belonged to no one, could claim no one, had no name and could not say where he came from. Down in the depths of a heart in which nothing that was good or bad ever lingered long Jerrem let this fester rankle, until often, when he seemed most gay and reckless, some thoughtless word or idle joke would set it smarting. The one compensation he looked upon as given to him above Adam was the power of attraction, by which he could supplant him with others and rob him ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 26, August, 1880 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various

... and if all other means fail, you may be glad to try my device to prevent Maurice from marrying his cousin. Gratitude and pity are strong allies, and if he recovers, his strong will will move heaven and earth to gain her. Good night." And leaving her last words to rankle in Annon's mind, Mrs. Snowdon departed to endure sleepless hours full of tormenting memories, newborn hopes, and alternations ...
— The Abbot's Ghost, Or Maurice Treherne's Temptation • A. M. Barnard

... affirmative. Being a boy, one of the lowest orders of human creatures in point of intuitions, Jimmy could not know that his mother understood the rankle in her son's heart. Nor could he divine that she kept the supper ...
— The Court of Boyville • William Allen White

... religion is sure to be exhibited in places where its professors are asleep or dead. In communities where real religion flourishes, where its power is felt, and its votaries are consistent and decided; whatever hatred may rankle in the breasts of opposers, they are not apt to indulge in contemptuous derision. But where formality and worldliness prevail, and no conspicuous standard of Christian character is visible—the hearts of sinners will be manifested. They will, without hesitation, avow, in how low and ...
— The National Preacher, Vol. 2 No. 7 Dec. 1827 • Aaron W. Leland and Elihu W. Baldwin

... very heavy sentence was hanging over his head. He cared little for it; nothing that Saint Werner's or its authorities could do, would wound him half so deeply as what he was already suffering, or cause the iron to rankle more painfully in his soul. He felt as a man who is in ...
— Julian Home • Dean Frederic W. Farrar

... would ward it off. If it did not come, there was no need for saying anything. Conscience told him that it would be better to be perfectly straight with his wife. Instinct told him that though she would probably be sweet and sympathetic over it, yet it would rankle in her mind and poison her thoughts. And perhaps for once, Instinct may have been better than Conscience. Do not ask too many questions, you young wife! Do not be too free with your reminiscences, you young husband. There are things which can be forgiven, ...
— A Duet • A. Conan Doyle

... interview haunted him. He felt that he had come very badly out of it. She had showed herself to be his superior on his own pet subject. She had been courteous while he had been rude, self-possessed when he had been angry. And then, above all, there was her presence, her monstrous intrusion to rankle in his mind. A woman doctor had been an abstract thing before, repugnant but distant. Now she was there in actual practice, with a brass plate up just like his own, competing for the same patients. Not that he ...
— Round the Red Lamp - Being Facts and Fancies of Medical Life • Arthur Conan Doyle



Words linked to "Rankle" :   fret, annoy, gravel, nettle, vex, irritate, get to, nark, rile, devil, bother, get at, chafe, rag, grate



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