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Abjure   Listen
verb
Abjure  v. t.  (past & past part. abjured; pres. part. abjuring)  
1.
To renounce upon oath; to forswear; to disavow; as, to abjure allegiance to a prince. To abjure the realm, is to swear to abandon it forever.
2.
To renounce or reject with solemnity; to recant; to abandon forever; to reject; repudiate; as, to abjure errors. "Magic I here abjure."
Synonyms: See Renounce.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Abjure" Quotes from Famous Books



... development, have come down to us. His father was his first teacher. To escape the persecutions of the Almohades, Maimonides, then thirteen years old, removed to Fez with his family. There religious persecution forced Jews to abjure their faith, and the family of Maimon, like many others, had to comply, outwardly at least, with the requirements of Islam. At Fez Maimonides was on intimate terms with physicians and philosophers. At the same time, both in personal ...
— Jewish Literature and Other Essays • Gustav Karpeles

... and coldness. In spite of these strange opinions the Pneumatists made some scientific progress, and recognized some diseases hitherto unknown. Galen wrote of the Pneumatists: "They would rather betray their country than abjure their opinions." The founder of the sect of Pneumatists was a very prolific writer, for the twenty-ninth volume of one of his works is quoted by Oribasius. The teaching of the Pneumatists speedily gave way to that of the Eclectics, of whom Galen was ...
— Outlines of Greek and Roman Medicine • James Sands Elliott

... general indignation; and Edward, deeming matters sufficiently prepared for his purpose, applied to the court of Rome, and obtained for Gavaston a dispensation from that oath which the barons had compelled him to take, that he would forever abjure the realm.[*] He went down to Chester to receive him on his first landing from Ireland; flew into his arms with transports of joy; and having obtained the formal consent of the barons in parliament to his reestablishment, set no longer ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part B. - From Henry III. to Richard III. • David Hume

... at thy brazen gates ourselves we fling— Hear us, even us, thy bondmen firm and sure, Our kin, our souls, our very God abjure! Art thou asleep, or dead, ...
— Bog-Myrtle and Peat - Tales Chiefly Of Galloway Gathered From The Years 1889 To 1895 • S.R. Crockett

... he must be made to recant and abjure his heresy; and, if necessary, torture must be applied. This he knew well enough, and his daughter knew it, and her distress may be imagined. Moreover, it is not as if they had really been heretics, as if they hated or despised the Church of Rome. On the contrary, they loved and honored the ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 11 • Various

... stands like a sentinel guarding the entrance to the harbor. It is the Tarpeian Rock of the far East. During the persecution of the Christians in the seventeenth century, the steep cliff which forms the seaward side of the island was an execution point, and from here men and women who declined to abjure their faith were cast headlong on the sea-washed rocks five hundred feet below. The harbor is surrounded by lofty elevations. Tall, dark pines and a verdant undergrowth mark the deep ravines and sloping hillsides, ...
— Foot-prints of Travel - or, Journeyings in Many Lands • Maturin M. Ballou

... austerities in the Middle Ages, were recognised early as needful to the system. Even the ascetics by the Red Sea and in Nitria did not deprive themselves of all literary solace, although the more fanatical would abjure it, and many would be too poor to have it. The Rule of Pachomius, founder of the settlements of Tabenna, required the brethren's books to be kept in a cupboard and regulated lending them. These libraries are referred to in Benedict's own Rule. ...
— Old English Libraries, The Making, Collection, and Use of Books • Ernest A. Savage

... gave, for one swift instant, a glance at Trenchard, who was, very clumsily, climbing into the carriage. Nikolai looked at him gravely. His round, red face was quite expressionless as he turned back and began to abjure his horses in that half-affectionate, half-abusive and wholly human whispering exclamation that Russians use to ...
— The Dark Forest • Hugh Walpole

... Americans, with only here and there a "Spigoty" with his long greased hair, his finger rings, and his effeminate gestures, and even a negro or two. For though Uncle Sam may permit individual states to do so, he may not himself openly abjure before the world his assertion as to the equality of all men by enacting ...
— Zone Policeman 88 - A Close Range Study of the Panama Canal and its Workers • Harry A. Franck

... resolution, and the city was surrendered. The emperor took from his captive the electoral dignity, and extorted from him the most cruel concessions as the ransom for his life. Without a murmur he surrendered wealth, power and rank, but neither entreaties nor menaces could induce him in a single point to abjure his Christian faith. ...
— The Empire of Austria; Its Rise and Present Power • John S. C. Abbott

... Abjure the Why and seek the How: the God and gods enthroned on high, Are silent all, are silent still; nor hear ...
— The Kasidah of Haji Abdu El-Yezdi • Richard F. Burton

... the misfortunes of others; to be humble, but without meanness; to be proud, but without arrogance; to abjure every sentiment of hatred and revenge; to show himself magnanimous and liberal, without ostentation and without profusion; to be the enemy of vice; to pay homage to wisdom and virtue; to respect innocence; to be constant and patient in adversity, and modest ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike

... equality with the first baron of the realm, for a time deterred him from openly proscribing it; but at length his wrath burst forth in an ungovernable flame. The knights Ingley, Adrian Forrest, Adrian Fortescu, and Marmaduke Bohus, refusing to abjure their faith, perished on the scaffold. Thomas Mytton and Edward Waldegrave died in a dungeon; and Richard and James Bell, John Noel, and many others, abandoned their country for ever, and sought an asylum at Malta[4], completely stripped {629} of their possessions. ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 191, June 25, 1853 • Various

... the King that in the moral situation of Protestant communities it would be enough "to show them the troops," to compel them to abjure. The troops had been "shown," therefore, to the Reformers of Bearn; the intendant of that province, Foucault, had come to Paris to concert with the minister the management of the enterprise; Louvois could not have found a fitter instrument than this pitiless and indefatigable man, who ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 12 • Editor-In-Chief Rossiter Johnson

... not write to you again; I would encourage, I would allow of, no intercourse between us. This was my solemn resolution and my voluntary and no less solemn promise; yet I sit down to abjure this ...
— Jane Talbot • Charles Brockden Brown

... centuries earlier, and which confronted Louis Philippe three centuries later—that is to say, having been raised to sovereign power by a party which was not in the majority, he soon found himself obliged to separate from this party and to abjure his religious beliefs, as others have abjured or will yet abjure their political beliefs; consequently, just as Octavius had his Antony, and Louis Philippe was to have his Lafayette, Henri IV was to have his Biron. When monarchs are in this position they can no ...
— Massacres Of The South (1551-1815) - Celebrated Crimes • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... you, if the Catholics admitted such a dangerous dispensing power in the hands of the Pope; but they all deny it, and laugh at it, and are ready to abjure it in the most decided manner you can devise. They obey the Pope as the spiritual head of their Church; but are you really so foolish as to be imposed upon by mere names? What matters it the seven-thousandth part of a farthing ...
— Peter Plymley's Letters and Selected Essays • Sydney Smith

... latter, with suitable advice when they are followed, is considered as enabling them to pass through life with less danger than the prohibition of the same, whereas they mix but little with others of other denominations. They abjure the world, that they may not imbibe its spirit. And here they would observe, that the knowledge, which is recommended to be obtained, by going through perilous customs is not necessary for them as a society. For living much at home, and ...
— A Portraiture of Quakerism, Volume I (of 3) • Thomas Clarkson

... fell down flat on his face to the ground, and uttered these words following: "Oh, happy be the time that brought me hither to hear the divine discourse of this man of God" (Martin Luther), "a chosen vessel of the Lord to declare his truth! And now I abjure and utterly renounce these my former errors, finding them convinced and beaten down through God's infallible Word which out of his divine mouth" (Martin Luther), "hath touched my heart, and won me ...
— Selections from the Table Talk of Martin Luther • Martin Luther

... in a much softer, trembling voice: "Will you be true to me then? Will you let yourself be saved? Will you save your precious life and your reason? Will you abjure this accursed harpy? Will you escape ...
— The Bride of Dreams • Frederik van Eeden

... and submit to the laws of the State—to deliver up all contumacious and rebellious persons within their district—to deliver up all deserters from the regular service—to sign a declaration of allegiance to the United States, and to South Carolina in particular, and to abjure the British crown, and to surrender all British property. Compliance with these conditions, was to ensure them full pardon for their treasons to the State, and the enjoyment of their property as citizens within ...
— The Life of Francis Marion • William Gilmore Simms

... himself, did not dare publicly to outrage the severe edicts which Louis XIV., in his bigot days, had fulminated against all heretics. Law soon let him know that there would be no difficulty on that head. He was ready at any moment to abjure his religion in the way of business. For decency's sake, however, it was judged proper he should previously be convinced and converted. A ghostly instructor was soon found, ready to accomplish his conversion in the shortest ...
— The Crayon Papers • Washington Irving

... at length the use of them will be entirely superseded, or at best confined to the higher orders of society; who, it is probable, may be induced in the long run both by the growing perfection of their native manufactures, and by patriotism, to abjure the consumption of all goods that may have a tendency to augment the prosperity of their common oppressor. The colonists, in fact, have only to advance a few steps further in the manufacturing system to be completely independent of foreign supply. Already ...
— Statistical, Historical and Political Description of the Colony of New South Wales and its Dependent Settlements in Van Diemen's Land • William Charles Wentworth

... from the sixth to the tenth century is the golden age of this literature. Its temporary decline after this period was owing to the invasion of the Arabians, when many of the inhabitants were converted to the Mohammedan faith and many more compelled to suffer persecution for their refusal to abjure Christianity. After the subjection of Armenia to the Greek empire, literature again revived, and until the fourteenth century was in a flourishing condition. In 1375, when the Turks took possession of the country, the inhabitants ...
— Handbook of Universal Literature - From The Best and Latest Authorities • Anne C. Lynch Botta

... Chastelain, Isaac Jogues, and Charles Garnier, had to seek a more populous centre as headquarters for their mission in Huronia. The chiefs of Oenrio invited the Jesuits to their village. But Brebeuf's demands were heavy. They should believe in God; keep His commandments; abjure their faith in dreams; take one wife and be true to her; renounce their assemblies of debauchery; eat no human flesh; never give feasts to demons; and make a vow that if God would deliver them from the pest they would build a chapel to offer Him thanksgiving and praise. They ...
— The Jesuit Missions: - A Chronicle of the Cross in the Wilderness • Thomas Guthrie Marquis

... connection; thus thrown upon himself, without the nerve or the spirits for external amusement, few situations are more forlorn. The Parisian French are intensely calculating and selfish; illness and grief are so alien to their tastes that, to the best of their ability, they ignore and abjure them. As long as health permits, out-of-door life or companionship solaces that within; the stranger may be enchanted; but when confined to his apartment and dependent on chance visitors or hireling services, he ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I. February, 1862, No. II. - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... stick upon the ground with a mighty ring of resolution, and the miracle is done. Who would take me for thirty now? From this moment I abjure pessimism and cynicism in all their forms, put from my mind all considerations of the complexities of human life, unravel all by a triumphant optimism which no statistics can abash or criticism dishearten. I likewise undertake ...
— The Quest of the Golden Girl • Richard le Gallienne

... Away with dry Rationalism! Let us fight it with all the powers we possess; whether by bold Platonism or simple Bible faith; whether by enthusiastic hymns, or dreamy fairy tales; whether by the fabulous world of distant times and zones, or by the instincts of the children in the next village. Let us abjure the ever-recommended nostrum of imitation of the old masters in poetry, and rather attach ourselves to homely models, and endeavour, with their help, lovingly and organically to develop their inner life. These were the aims of Walter Scott and his Scotch school, only with such changes ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Nineteenth Century • Henry A. Beers

... accepted, with favour, an absurd petition from Praise-God Barebone and his friends, who inveighed against all who would question the power of the Rump Parliament, and pressed for stern measures on all who presumed so much as to name the restoration of the King, or who would not abjure any Government in the hands of a single person. This roused the keen animosity of the officers, and decided them to press on Monk an alteration of his course. Once more he visited the City; but this time not as an enemy, but as a friend. ...
— The Life of Edward Earl of Clarendon V2 • Henry Craik

... matrons side by side on a settee, under a lovely girlish head by Greuze. They were both delighted at the idea of seeing the presents. It was something to do. Mrs. Tempest had made up her mind to abjure even square dances this evening. There was something incongruous in widowhood and the Lancers; especially ...
— Vixen, Volume I. • M. E. Braddon

... was wise or foolish will be seen, or may be inferred. But I do not abjure the theory. I think and believe that there are a good many people in the world who pursue lives for which they are not fitted, and lose all contentment in the process, simply because they respect conventions ...
— The Silent Isle • Arthur Christopher Benson

... strongly discountenanced by the owner thereof), and those to Caldecott's Spinney were prompted chiefly by the conveniences for setting night-lines. What didn't the Doctor know? And what a noble use he always made of it! He almost resolved to abjure rook-pies and night-lines for ever. The tea went merrily off, the Doctor now talking of holiday doings, and then of the prospects of the half-year—what chance there was for the Balliol scholarship, whether ...
— Tom Brown's Schooldays • Thomas Hughes

... we said to one another in the count's picture gallery. I called to you to rescue me at any price. I told you that if I could purchase deliverance thereby, I was ready to commit a crime. That to be with you again I would abjure the faith of my fathers, although I knew I should die of penitence after the perpetration of ...
— The Youth of the Great Elector • L. Muhlbach

... "Dost thou, indeed, repent thee of thy iniquities? Dost thou abjure the devil and all ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth

... that Wladimir, at the commencement of the eleventh century, declared, that all the waters of the Borysthenes were holy, and that plunging in them was sufficient to make a man a Christian; the baptism of the Greeks being performed by immersion, millions of men went into this river to abjure their idolatry. It was this same Vladimir who sent deputies to different countries, to learn which of all the religions it best suited him to adopt; he decided for the Greek ritual, on account of the pomp of its ceremonies. Perhaps also he preferred it ...
— Ten Years' Exile • Anne Louise Germaine Necker, Baronne (Baroness) de Stael-Holstein

... useful!" sighed Bridgie dejectedly. Buying hats was not so exciting as she had imagined if she were obliged to abjure the pretty ones, and buy the useful in which she appeared to such painful disadvantage. "And I expect it is cheap, Pixie. Very cheap! I have, to ...
— More about Pixie • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey

... of an easy change in faith. Charles II was playing double with Catholics and Protestants. The Kirkes were closely attached to the court; and it was, perhaps, not difficult for the Huguenot wife to abjure Protestantism and declare herself a convert to the religion of her husband. But when Radisson proposed taking her back to France, that was another matter. Sir John Kirke forbade his daughter's departure ...
— Pathfinders of the West • A. C. Laut

... United States, and well disposed to the good order and happiness of the same; and having declared on his solemn oath, before the said Court, that he would support the Constitution of the United States, and that he did absolutely and entirely renounce and abjure all allegiance and fidelity to every foreign prince, potentate, state, and sovereignty whatsoever, and particularly to the Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, of whom he was before a subject; and having ...
— Journal of a Voyage across the Atlantic • George Moore

... realize all the sin and harm of war, and are not willing to fire on men either of their own or a foreign country; judges and prosecutors who do not like to try and to condemn criminals; priests, who abjure deception; tax-gatherers who try to perform as little as they can of their duties, and rich men renouncing their wealth—then the same thing will inevitably happen to other rulers, other soldiers, other judges, priests, tax-gatherers, and rich men. And when there are no longer men willing to fill ...
— The Kingdom of God is within you • Leo Tolstoy

... and misery. The emaciate mother was unable to afford sustenance to her infant. A sister of Baron d'Aubigne, Madame de Vilette, took Francoise to her home at the Chateau de Marcey, where she passed her infancy. After an imprisonment of four years, the baron was released; but, as he refused to abjure Calvinism, Cardinal Richelieu would not permit him to remain in France. He consequently, with his family, embarked for Martinique. During the passage, Francoise was taken ill and apparently died. As one of the crew was about to consign the body to its ocean burial, ...
— Louis XIV., Makers of History Series • John S. C. Abbott

... four-and-twenty lords, [632] whose birth and riches were attested by his Latin interpreters, the remainder of the French captives, who had survived the slaughter of the day, were led before his throne; and, as they refused to abjure their faith, were successively beheaded in his presence. The sultan was exasperated by the loss of his bravest Janizaries; and if it be true, that, on the eve of the engagement, the French had massacred their ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 6 • Edward Gibbon

... said, "I cannot own thee as my king. My father would not have me abjure all he taught me before his body is yet cold. I but ask thee as a kind enemy, who wars not with the dead, to give me leave to remove him from this fatal spot—to take him home. Thou wilt not deny an English lad this poor boon, ...
— The Rival Heirs being the Third and Last Chronicle of Aescendune • A. D. Crake

... insisted on rebuke, And urged me hard with doings which not will, But misery, hath wrested from me. Where 470 Easily canst thou find one miserable, And not inforced oft-times to part from truth, If it may stand him more in stead to lie, Say and unsay, feign, flatter, or abjure? But thou art placed above me; thou art Lord; From thee I can, and must, submiss, endure Cheek or reproof, and glad to scape so quit. Hard are the ways of truth, and rough to walk, Smooth on the tongue discoursed, pleasing to the ear, And tunable as sylvan pipe or song; 480 ...
— Paradise Regained • John Milton

... the sun!" he answered, wildly, and forgetting all his embarrassment. "Whatever man has done to win woman would I do to win you—more than ever man did to win woman would I do to win you! I would renounce my friends, betray my country, abjure my faith, lose my ...
— Victor's Triumph - Sequel to A Beautiful Fiend • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth

... have read in a book of fiction, is given by M. Merimee, in small compass and without unnecessary horrors. Less than an hour before its commencement, the Countess informs her lover of the fate reserved for him and all of his faith. She urges and implores him to abjure his heresy; he steadfastly refuses—and she, her love redoubled by his courageous constancy, conceals him from the assassins. In the disguise of a monk, he escapes from Paris, and makes his way to La Rochelle, the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 380, June, 1847 • Various

... and placed our altar under some great trees, for the benefit of the shade; and every day before sun-rising my companion and I began to catechise and instruct these new Catholics, and used our utmost endeavours to make them abjure their errors. When we were weary with speaking, we placed in ranks those who were sufficiently instructed, and passing through them with great vessels of water, baptised them according to the form prescribed by the Church. As their number was very great, we cried ...
— A Voyage to Abyssinia • Jerome Lobo

... are called upon to abjure the iniquitous government of Peter Stuyvesant over the inhabitants residing on Long Island. His rule is too grievous for any brave Englishman and good Christian to tolerate any longer. All honest hearts that seek the glory of God ...
— Peter Stuyvesant, the Last Dutch Governor of New Amsterdam • John S. C. Abbott

... natural allies of royalty and aristocracy. But the help of these allies was contumeliously rejected by those politicians who make themselves ridiculous by carousing on Mr Pitt's birthday, while they abjure all Mr Pitt's principles. The consequence is, as you are forced to own, that there is not in the whole kingdom a Roman Catholic of note who is your friend. Therefore, whatever your inclinations may be, you must intrust power in Ireland to Protestants, ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 4 (of 4) - Lord Macaulay's Speeches • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... prattling! Thou hast drunk the Samian wine—thou art weak to-night. We will abjure. Eh? By Solomon! who left ...
— Saronia - A Romance of Ancient Ephesus • Richard Short

... nothing but a dangerous folly. Well, it is dangerous, like climbing the Alps, but one gets a great view from the top. And, oh! from there how small men look and how near are the heavens. I mean, my dear boy, that although I have asked you to abjure seances and so forth, I do pray of you to cultivate the spiritual. The physical, of course, is always with us, for that is Nature's law, without which it could not continue. But around and beyond it broods the spirit, ...
— Love Eternal • H. Rider Haggard

... beings. And yet how narrowly had I escaped the loss of all? Clotilde, hopeless of ever hearing of me more, had formed the determination to leave Ireland on that day; and weary of disappointed affections, and alienated from the world, to change her name, abjure her rank, and take the veil in one of the Italian convents connected with her family. I should thus have lost her for ever. She had waited on this eventful day only for the return of her domestic. His arrest on the night before had deranged her plans; and when he had returned, his mixture ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 57, No. 356, June, 1845 • Various

... of alchemy a moral behavior is required, which is hardly necessary as a precondition of merely chemical work. The disciple of the art is to free his character, according to the directions of the masters from all bad habits, especially to abjure pride, is diligently to devote himself to prayer, perform works of love, etc.; no one is to direct his senses to this study if he has not previously purified his heart, renounced the love of worldly things, and surrendered himself ...
— Hidden Symbolism of Alchemy and the Occult Arts • Herbert Silberer

... faithful man, as he had been an honest and good boy. Spena was greatly instrumental in spreading the glorious truths of the gospel throughout the country, but at length, venturing into a part of Europe where the papists were supreme, he was seized and accused of being a recreant monk. Refusing to abjure the faith, he—as were many others at that time—was condemned to the flames, and became one of the noble army of martyrs who will one day rise up in judgment against that fearful system of imposture and tyranny which condemned them to ...
— The Woodcutter of Gutech • W.H.G. Kingston

... the evidences of this appeared. First came edicts forbidding any one to attend non-Catholic preaching. Then commands to hear mass. After that were kindled the fires in which many bravely endured the worst rather than abjure the faith. These proceedings were, however, preliminary to an attack on the valleys. So the Vaudois betake themselves to united prayer for guidance. After deliberation it was resolved to address the duke, the duchess, and the council of the state. ...
— The Vaudois of Piedmont - A Visit to their Valleys • John Napper Worsfold

... church [s], still subsisted; but Henry ordained, that any man accused of murder, or any heinous felony, by the oath of the legal knights of the county, should, even though acquitted by the ordeal, be obliged to abjure the realm [t]. [FN [r] Bened. Abb. p. 132. Hoveden, p. 549. [s] Seld. Spicileg. ad Eadm. p. 204. [t] ...
— The History of England, Volume I • David Hume

... would be a greater bore than the solitude it destroyed. It shall be no such thing, but only the trouble of a journey. I feel too, as I grow older, the vis inertiae, and fancy that locomotion is more difficult, but let us abjure the doctrine, for it baulks much pleasure. Pray—pray as the children say—come to us, think of it first as not impossible, then weigh fairly the objections, and if they resolve themselves into mere aversion to change, overcome them by an assurance that the very change will give value to the ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott

... way to Khiva he would tolerate no Oriental exaggeration of his army rank, although a higher title would have smoothed his way and added to his consideration. An English official who was a captive at Bokhara (or Khiva) was offered his life by the Khan if he would abjure the Christian faith and say he was a Moslem; but he preferred death rather than the advantage of a temporary equivocation. I do not suppose that he was a specially pious man at home or that he was a martyr to religious principle, but for the moment Christianity stood for England ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner

... proper times with spirit and dignity. He had behaved, as we all knew, in a very courageous manner on the field. Esmond had seen a copy of the letter the prince writ with his own hand when urged by his friends in England to abjure his religion, and admired that manly and magnanimous reply by which he refused to yield to the temptation. Monsieur Baptiste took off his hat, blushing at the hint Colonel Esmond ventured to give him, and said:—"Tenez, elle est jolie, la petite ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray

... '"I abjure thee!" cries Tom's young lady. "I renounce thee. I never will be thine. Thou," she says to the Gifted, "art the object of my first and all-engrossing passion. Wrapt in thy sublime visions, thou hast not perceived my love; but, driven to despair, I now shake off ...
— The Lamplighter • Charles Dickens

... I thought as much! Then to my fate I yield— So ends my cherished scheme! Oh, I had hoped To band all women with my maiden throng, And make them all abjure tyrannic Man! ...
— The Complete Plays of Gilbert and Sullivan - The 14 Gilbert And Sullivan Plays • William Schwenk Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan

... is convict thereof, the first time shall be amerced, and shall lose the thing so bought, and that according to the custom of the town; he that is convicted the second time shall have judgment of the pillory; at the third time he shall be imprisoned and make fine; the fourth time he shall abjure the town. And this judgment shall be given upon all manner of forestallers, and likewise upon them that have given them counsel, help, or favor." 1 Ruffheads Statutes, 187, 188. 1 Statutes of the Realm, ...
— An Essay on the Trial By Jury • Lysander Spooner

... 1548, one year after the death of Francis! Besides the queen's four Marys, the vessels also brought to France three of her natural brothers, among whom was the Prior of St. Andrews, James Stuart, who was later to abjure the Catholic faith, and with the title of Regent, and under the name of the Earl of Murray, to become so fatal to poor Mary. From Brest, Mary went to St. Germain-en-Laye, where Henry II, who had just ascended the throne, overwhelmed her with caresses, ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - MARY STUART—1587 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE

... patent for the duke of Hereford, was even condemned, for that imaginary offence, to suffer the punishment of treason; though, on account of his character, his life was spared on condition that he should abjure the kingdom forever. ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various

... thou wilt needs laugh, I will find thee a better jest—Give me thy hand, or, rather, lend it me, for I but ask it in the way of friendship. Here, cousin Wilfred of Ivanhoe, in thy favour I renounce and abjure—Hey! our cousin ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VII • Various

... but I said to my ingenuous youths that no pedantic study was needed, that all I required was a preparation such as would enable any one of them to read intelligently his morning newspaper, and to this end I advised each one of them to accept his conditions, to abjure all learning by rote from text-books, to take up simply any convenient atlas which came to hand, studying first the map of our own country, with its main divisions, physical and political, its water communications, trend of coasts, spurring of mountains, positions of leading cities, ...
— Volume I • Andrew Dickson White

... allowing me so long a time: he came to me therefore one day, and finding me extremely melancholy, 'Madam,' said he, 'it is with great regret I find myself obliged to exceed the bounds I have prescribed myself in gaining your heart, but you must now consent either to marry me or publicly abjure your religion; all my power cannot exempt you from the laws which oblige the women of the seraglio to embrace our faith.—-I adore you, and though I ought to compel you to a change so beneficial to you, yet ...
— The Princess of Ponthieu - (in) The New-York Weekly Magazine or Miscellaneous Repository • Unknown

... encouragement, of that decadence and degeneration which is now rampant in Europe; and it is for this reason, although to the end of his life he still loved Wagner, the man and the friend, that we find him, on the very eve of his spiritual death, exhorting us to abjure Wagner the musician and ...
— The Case Of Wagner, Nietzsche Contra Wagner, and Selected Aphorisms. • Friedrich Nietzsche.

... more he sends out, For pots of brown stout, Or schnapps, but resolves to do henceforth without, Abjure from this hour all excess and ebriety, Enroll himself one of a Temp'rance Society, All riot eschew, Begin life anew, And new-cushion and hassock the family pew! Nay, to strengthen him more in this new mode of life He boldly determined to ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton

... of a dog! my pleasure is in thy destruction. Nine and thirty such ill-devoted wretches as thyself have I already sacrificed, and thou shalt make the fortieth victim to my enjoyment, unless thou wilt abjure thy faith, and become, like me, a worshipper of the sacred fire, in which case thou shalt be my son, and I will teach thee the art of making gold." "Cursed be thou, thy religion, and thy art," exclaimed the enraged Mazin: "God forbid ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous

... receiving intense and impassioned conceptions respecting man and nature. The persons in whom this power resides may often, as far as regards many portions of their nature, have little apparent correspondence with that spirit of good of which they are the ministers. But even whilst they deny and abjure, they are yet compelled to serve, the power which is seated on the throne of their own soul. It is impossible to read the compositions of the most celebrated writers of the present day without being startled with the electric life which burns within their words. They measure ...
— A Defence of Poetry and Other Essays • Percy Bysshe Shelley

... step. They forget that when the pledge has once been given, there is no turning back, The knot cannot be untied. If a thoughtless mistake has been made, the inevitable results will nevertheless follow. The maxim is current, that "marriage is a lottery." It may be so if we abjure the teachings of prudence—if we refuse to examine, inquire, and think—if we are content to choose a husband or a wife, with less reflection than we bestow upon the hiring of a servant, whom we can discharge any day—if we merely regard attractions of face, ...
— Thrift • Samuel Smiles

... but with the life of the upper, intellectual, artistic classes, the life which he had personally always led, the cerebral life, the life of conventionality, artificiality, and personal ambition. He had been living wrongly and must change. To work for animal needs, to abjure lies and vanities, to relieve common wants, to be simple, to believe in God, ...
— The Varieties of Religious Experience • William James

... probabile est: Distrust all innovations, wrote Titus Livius. Undoubtedly it would be better were man not compelled to change: but what! because he is born ignorant, because he exists only on condition of gradual self-instruction, must he abjure the light, abdicate his reason, and abandon himself to fortune? Perfect health is better than convalescence: should the sick man, therefore, refuse to be cured? Reform, reform! cried, ages since, John the Baptist and Jesus Christ. Reform, reform! cried our fathers, fifty years ago; and ...
— What is Property? - An Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of Government • P. J. Proudhon

... to seek his friendship, and loved to repose and refresh themselves in his conversation. He enjoyed, a little mischievously, seeing one of them (Chateaubriand) lay aside his royalism, another (Lamennais) abjure his Catholicism, and the third (Lamartine) forget his former aristocracy, in visiting him. He looked upon this, and justly, as a homage paid to the manners and spirit of the age, of which he was the humble but ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 4, February, 1858 • Various

... affirmed, and the vanitie of the Papisticall religioun openlye rebucked: Amongis whome war Dundy and Leyth principalles, against whome was maid ane verry strayte inquisitioun, by David Betoun, cruell Cardinall;[140] and diverse war compelled to abjure and burne thair byllis, some in Sanctandross, and some at Edinburgh. About the same tyme, Capitane Johnne Borthwik was brunt in figure, but by Goddis providence eschaiped thair fury.[141] And this ...
— The Works of John Knox, Vol. 1 (of 6) • John Knox

... father will be better away from home. He has never been in England, and he will see how many, like Mr. Pitt and Colonel Barre, are with us. As for myself, I have been a bit of a fool about you, and your father is more or less right. We must abjure sack and take physic." ...
— Hugh Wynne, Free Quaker • S. Weir Mitchell

... upon which I may be thought to have spoken my mind too freely—I beg leave to qualify whatever has been unguardedly said to their dispraise or prejudice, by one general declaration—That I have no abhorrence whatever, nor do I detest and abjure either great wigs or long beards, any farther than when I see they are bespoke and let grow on purpose to carry on this self-same imposture—for any purpose—peace be with them!—> mark only—I ...
— The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman • Laurence Sterne

... is difficult to determine, unless we can believe that such physicians suppose it to be heresy to make use of any remedy in a different manner from what was recommended by the "Father of Homoeopathy," and abjure all possibility of ...
— An Epitome of Homeopathic Healing Art - Containing the New Discoveries and Improvements to the Present Time • B. L. Hill

... as to deprive them of any strong claim to originality." "No," said he gaily, "I shall never believe that Frenchmen are changed, until I hear that there is no ballet in Paris; you might as well tell me, that the Swiss will abjure the money which makes a part of his distinction, as the Frenchman give up the laced coat, the powdered queue, and the order of St Louis at his buttonhole. Those things are the man, they are his mind, his senses, himself. He is a creation of monarchy—a clever, amusing, ingenious, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 55, No. 340, February, 1844 • Various

... mean to. I had never seen a real live monk before, and my Lutheran training had not exactly inclined me in their favor. I ate of the food set before me, not without qualms of conscience, and with a secret suspicion that I would next be asked to abjure my faith, or at least do homage to the Virgin Mary, which I was firmly resolved not to do. But when, the meal finished, I was sent on my way with enough to do me for supper, without the least allusion having been made to my soul, I felt ...
— The Making of an American • Jacob A. Riis

... was his belief, and his practice went with it to the end. His own temperance and the knowledge of it made others more temperate. When they saw moderation and self-control in the man who above all others had licence to be insolent, lesser men were the more ready to abjure all insolence of their own. [31] But there was this difference, Cyrus held, between modesty and self-control: the modest man will do nothing shameful in the light of day, but the man of self-control nothing base, not even in secret. [32] Self-restrain, ...
— Cyropaedia - The Education Of Cyrus • Xenophon

... reasons for supposing that I have an attachment for my father's clerk. Oh! I see how it is, she wishes you to say: "If your heart, my daughter, has no preference for any one, marry Godard." (In a low voice to Gertrude) This, madame, is an atrocious move! To make me abjure my love in my father's presence! But I will ...
— The Stepmother, A Drama in Five Acts • Honore De Balzac

... abjure their allegiance; for they have found out that their king is a king Log, and can do them no good. A king, set up in opposition to God's will, cannot save. The ruin of their projects teaches godless men at last that they have been fools to take their own way; for all defences, ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St Matthew Chapters I to VIII • Alexander Maclaren

... hereby solemnly declare, avow, render, and deliver by this as Our own act, freely undertaken and accomplished for the good, welfare, comfort, and succor of the Realm of Jingalo and of its People, that now and from this day henceforward. WE do utterly renounce, relinquish, and abjure all claim to rank, titles, honors, emoluments, and privileges holden by US in virtue of OUR inheritance and succession as true and rightful Sovereign Lord of the said Realm of Jingalo. And for the satisfying of OUR Royal Conscience and the better safety and security of ...
— King John of Jingalo - The Story of a Monarch in Difficulties • Laurence Housman

... made presumptuous chiefly by the treacherous puffing of his cockney fellow gossips, and profligate in his poems merely to make them saleable, we regret that he did not live long enough to acquire common sense, and abjure the pestilent and perfidious gang who betrayed his weakness to the grave, and are now panegyrising his memory into contempt. For what is the praise of cockneys but disgrace, or what honourable inscription can be placed over the dead by the hands of notorious libellers, exiled ...
— Early Reviews of English Poets • John Louis Haney

... always lifted up, in his unfailing readiness to pull with the Father's yoke, he was repelling, driving away sin—away from himself, and, as Lord of men, and their saviour, away from others also, bringing them to abjure it like himself. No man, least of all any lord of men, can be good without willing to be good, without setting himself against evil, without sending away sin. Other men have to send it away out of them; the Lord had to ...
— Hope of the Gospel • George MacDonald

... passion, too long for our peace, Were those hours—can their joy or their bitterness cease? We repent, we abjure, we will break from our chain,— We will part, we will fly ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Vol. 3 (of 7) • Lord Byron

... midst of the general reaction, the faithful heirs of the literary salons of the eighteenth century remained the only strangers in them. The mistakes and disasters of the Revolution had not made the survivors of that brilliant generation abjure their ideas and desires; they remained sincerely liberal, but without pressing demands, and with the reserve of those who have succeeded little and suffered much in their endeavors after reform and ...
— Worlds Best Histories - France Vol 7 • M. Guizot and Madame Guizot De Witt

... been proved to be in connexion with that sorcerer who has aimed at your life; that the chiefs of the accursed Huguenot party are concealed in Paris, awaiting but your death to place the crown upon his brow; that he also looks to this event to abjure once more the true Catholic faith, and return into the bosom of heresy; that by giving power into his hands, you endanger the safety of the state; that by committing the rule of the country to a Heretic and a Seceder, you endanger the safety of your own soul; that, by such a step, the honour ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 363, January, 1846 • Various

... doubt whether, apart from the representations of the "books" they abjure as special "revelations," there is any thing in the history of the world which will justly a sober-minded man in coming to any positive conclusion as to this promised "progress" this infidel millennium, ...
— The Eclipse of Faith - Or, A Visit To A Religious Sceptic • Henry Rogers

... to abjure the special tenets of Catholicism. In 1755 Governor Darrell commanded all masters of vessels who brought out Irish passengers to carry them back at the close of the fishing season. A special tax was levied ...
— Newfoundland and the Jingoes - An Appeal to England's Honor • John Fretwell

... abjure Dramatic Force, I must Take the Sub-Editor's decree on Trust, Or, lured by hope of selling something Good, Write out my ...
— The Rubaiyat of Omar Cayenne • Gelett Burgess

... post to claim Balzac's letters, and through Madame Hanska he sends her many directions, and specially enjoins great caution. We are told[*] that she was so much struck by the solemnities at M. de Hanski's funeral—the lights, the songs, and the national costumes —that she decided to abjure the Protestant faith, and that in 1843 she took the veil. We may wonder however, whether tardy remorse for her deceit towards the dead man, who had treated her with kindness, had not its influence in causing this sudden religious ...
— Honore de Balzac, His Life and Writings • Mary F. Sandars

... would take such terms?" asked Balian in dismay. "Rather, I think, would she choose to die by her own hand than by that of your hangman, since she can never abjure her faith." ...
— The Brethren • H. Rider Haggard

... for his master as a rare piece of good fortune, shrank in dismay from this, the most important and honourable charge that had ever been bestowed upon him. It drew him away from the new path in which he did not yet feel at home, because the love he could not abjure constantly thrust him into the world, into the midst of the life and tumult from which Heaven itself commanded ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... the history of the Church. The highest instance-save One—is, of course, the instance of the Martyrs. When in human history has Romance been more splendidly displayed than when the young men and maidens of Pagan Rome suffered themselves to be flung to the wild beasts of the arena sooner than abjure the religion of the Cross? And close on the steps of the Martyrs follow the Confessors, the "Martyrs-Elect," as Tertullian calls them, who, equally willing to lay down their lives, yet denied that highest ...
— Prime Ministers and Some Others - A Book of Reminiscences • George W. E. Russell

... the faith in Christ;—no folly, no error, no evil to be exposed, or warred against, which may not, and should not, be convicted and denounced from its contrariancy and enmity to Christ. To the Christian preacher Christ should be in all things, and all things in Christ: he should abjure every argument that is not a link in the chain, of which Christ is the staple ...
— The Literary Remains Of Samuel Taylor Coleridge • Edited By Henry Nelson Coleridge

... of these associations respond to a watchword, like soldiers on duty; they profess the doctrine of passive obedience; say rather, that in uniting together they at once abjure the exercise of their own judgment and free will; and the tyrannical control which these societies exercise is often far more insupportable than the authority possessed over society by the Government which they attack. Their moral ...
— Democracy In America, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alexis de Tocqueville

... a ready-made gallows in the street. He was let down shortly, "brought around" with rum, and the oath was offered again. He refused it. This had not been looked for. It had been taken for granted that he would abjure his fealty to the king at the first tightening of the cord. A conference was held, and it was declared that retreat would be undignified and unsafe, so the Tory was swung up again, this time with a yank that seemed ...
— Myths And Legends Of Our Own Land, Complete • Charles M. Skinner

... of a man beloved! Thou lifeless corpse! Here, on thy death-cold hand, Do I abjure all foreign ties for ever! And to my country's cause devote myself. I am a Switzer, and will act as one, With my whole heart ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. III • Kuno Francke (Editor-in-Chief)

... armies.' They want to repair the injustice as follows: Belgium will pay Germany $96,000,000! Give this proposal your vote. When Galileo had discovered the fact that the earth moved around the sun, he was forced at the foot of the stake to abjure his error, but he murmured, 'Nevertheless it moves.' Well, gentlemen, as I fear a still greater misfortune for my country I consent to the payment of the $96,000,000 and I cry 'Nevertheless it moves.' Long live our country in ...
— History of the World War - An Authentic Narrative of the World's Greatest War • Francis A. March and Richard J. Beamish

... Khosrul!" he said slowly and with a sinister smile—"The Lion's paw has struck thee down at last! Too long hast thou trifled with our patience,—thou must abjure thy heresies, or die! What sayest thou now of doom,—of judgment,—of the waning of glory? Wilt prophesy? ... wilt denounce the Faith? ... Wilt mislead the people? ... Wilt curse the King? ... Thou mad ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli

... vaunting in such elevated terms. Believe me, then, my friend, that that is a miserable arithmetic, which could estimate friendship at nothing, or at less than nothing. Respect for you has induced me to enter into this discussion, and to hear principles uttered, which I detest and abjure. Respect for myself now obliges me to recall you into the proper limits of your office. When nature assigned us the same habitation, she gave us over it a divided empire. To you she allotted the field of science; ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson

... of those you have! You make me angry, but I want to be fair," said the shining creature, "and I can't be unless you are. You're not fair, nor candid, nor honourable, when you swallow your words and abjure your faith, when you throw over old friends and old memories ...
— The Tragic Muse • Henry James

... was thus speaking, a fearful struggle took place in the breast of Alessandro—for the renunciation of his creed, a creed in which he must ever in his heart continue to believe, though ostensibly he might abjure it—was an appalling step to contemplate. Then to his mind also came the images of those whom he loved, and who were far away in Italy:—his aunt, who had been so kind to him, his sister whom he knew to be so proud of him, and Father Marco, who manifested such deep interest ...
— Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf • George W. M. Reynolds

... half laughingly: "Dr. Marmion, I wonder how many of us wish ourselves transported permanently to that time when we didn't know champagne from 'alter feiner madeira' or dry hock from sweet sauterne; when a pretty face made us feel ready to abjure all the sinful lusts of the flesh and become inheritors of the kingdom of heaven? Egad! I should like to feel it once again. But how can we, when we have been intoxicated with many things; when we are drunk with success and experience; have ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker



Words linked to "Abjure" :   renounce, retract, recant, abjuration



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