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Abusive   Listen
adjective
Abusive  adj.  
1.
Wrongly used; perverted; misapplied. "I am... necessitated to use the word Parliament improperly, according to the abusive acceptation thereof."
2.
Given to misusing; also, full of abuses. (Archaic) "The abusive prerogatives of his see."
3.
Practicing abuse; prone to ill treat by coarse, insulting words or by other ill usage; as, an abusive author; an abusive fellow.
4.
Containing abuse, or serving as the instrument of abuse; vituperative; reproachful; scurrilous. "An abusive lampoon."
5.
Tending to deceive; fraudulent; cheating. (Obs.) "An abusive treaty."
Synonyms: Reproachful; scurrilous; opprobrious; insolent; insulting; injurious; offensive; reviling.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Abusive" Quotes from Famous Books



... her husband's snug little dinner, to which he came home; having told him her story of pussy's beating, at which he was justly and dignifiedly indignant, saying it was all of a piece with that abusive Examiner; having received the sausages, and turkey, and mince pies, which her husband had ordered; and cleaned up the room, and prepared everything for tea, and coaxed and duly bemoaned her cat ...
— The Grey Woman and other Tales • Mrs. (Elizabeth) Gaskell

... general attention whatever. This oasis in a desert generation was a little book called Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation, which appeared anonymously in England in 1844, and which passed through numerous editions, and was the subject of no end of abusive and derisive comment. This book, the authorship of which remained for forty years a secret, is now conceded to have been the work of Robert Chambers, the well-known English author and publisher. The book itself is remarkable as ...
— A History of Science, Volume 4(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams

... schoolmaster never lost his temper. There was a man who thought he would try to make him angry. He said many harsh and abusive words to the teacher, and even cursed him. But the only reply the teacher made was, "Friend, may the Lord ...
— Stories of American Life and Adventure • Edward Eggleston

... nine we were assembled, a curious crowd. The health commissioner and the inspector, being members of the same political party, greeted each other by their first names. Miss Bisbee was nervous, Bridget was abusive, Denny was sullen. As for Kennedy, he was, as usual, as cool as a lump of ice. And I—well, I just sat on my ...
— The Silent Bullet • Arthur B. Reeve

... position gave him means of protection which Sir Ralph Abercromby had not; he was known to enjoy the personal confidence of the King; and those who did not hesitate three months before to assail by every abusive epithet the humane Scottish Baronet, hesitated long before criticising with equal freedom ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee

... heard General Williams speak of Harry; and when he at last left, I was still more pleased with him for this kindness to us. He says Captain Huger is dead. I am very, very much distressed. They are related, he says. He talked so reasonably of the war, that it was quite a novelty after reading the abusive newspapers of both sides. I like him, and was sorry I could not ask him to repeat his visit. We are unaccustomed to treat gentlemen that way; but it won't do in the present state to act as we ...
— A Confederate Girl's Diary • Sarah Morgan Dawson

... should be doing injustice and not justice. The English press has, it is true, for many years been engaged in teaching us that we were little better than thieves or pirates; but that press has been so uniformly and unsparingly abusive of us, whenever we have failed to grant all that it has claimed, that its views are entitled to little weight. At home, many of our authors have taken the same side of the question; and the only answer ...
— Letters on International Copyright; Second Edition • Henry C. Carey

... latter retired into his own apartment, after he had taken a formal leave of the King for the night, than he gave way to the explosion of passion which he had so long suppressed; and many an oath and abusive epithet, as his jester, Le Glorieux said, "fell that night upon heads which they were never coined for," his domestics reaping the benefit of that hoard of injurious language which he could not in decency bestow on his royal guest, even in his absence, and which was yet become too great to ...
— Quentin Durward • Sir Walter Scott

... arrives about the same time, and stops to give an entertainment to the guests. Mignon, who is with the band, is ordered to perform the egg dance, but, worn out with fatigue and abusive treatment, refuses. Giarno, the leader, rushes at her, but the old harper interposes in her behalf. Giarno then turns upon Lotario, when the wandering student, Wilhelm Meister, suddenly appears and rescues both Mignon and the harper. To save her from any further persecution ...
— The Standard Operas (12th edition) • George P. Upton

... our mind that if men would use consideration, mingled with reason and judgment, they would see the inconsistency of the above teaching. Should a man who had used abusive language to you come and penitently ask your forgiveness, you would forgive, but that does not give him liberty to continue his abuse. When the penitent comes to God he will pardon, but this does not give him liberty to continue in sin. God created man with an intelligence, a reason and common ...
— The Gospel Day • Charles Ebert Orr

... always both insolent and cowardly, and thus often irritated some strong-minded auditor, and got himself into some pickle where he had to sneak out, which he did with much ease. In his seedy days the landlord of a hotel in whose bar-room he used to preach and curse, put him down when he grew too abusive, by coolly and sternly telling him to go to bed. Mr. Folger himself had one or two brief intervals of sense, in one of which, angered at some insolence of Matthias, he seized him by the throat, shook him well, and flung him ...
— The Humbugs of the World • P. T. Barnum

... absolute need for; and that the time had now arrived when they must begin to think of saving their own personal belongings. When I attempted to remonstrate with them and point out the folly of their behaviour they became virulently abusive, and declared that if I wanted the pumps kept going I might keep them going myself—and this although I had already done considerably more than my fair share of that back- breaking labour. Therewith they abandoned the pumps ...
— A Middy of the Slave Squadron - A West African Story • Harry Collingwood

... at the Gen. Assem. of the Pres. Ch. He wrote home lately that he never saw a mob that made use of viler language than did the best of citizens there in their denouncings of the South. I confess, however, that this is not a one-sided affair; for I have heard equally abusive language applied to the North by the people South. As before, then, let us "strike hands" on this point also, for both sections are equally culpable. As to the strength of individuals in the two sections, it must be tested ...
— Letters of Ulysses S. Grant to His Father and His Youngest Sister, - 1857-78 • Ulysses S. Grant

... the chief made fresh efforts to calm the irritated guide, but Rance knew that he had to deal with treacherous men, and repeated his order to be off at the same time throwing forward his rifle in a threatening manner. Whereupon the chief flew into a violent rage, and, after using a good deal of abusive language, returned to his village, where he immediately summoned a council of war, and, by his violent gesticulations and frequent looking and pointing towards the camp, left no doubt on the minds of the travellers ...
— Digging for Gold - Adventures in California • R.M. Ballantyne

... she said, "the girls in his class say he has a dreadful, dreadful temper, gets angry and abusive when they make the slightest mistake, and sometimes strikes them with a whalebone pointer he always has in his hand; that is, he snaps it on their fingers, and it hurts terribly. I shouldn't mind the pain so much; but it would just ...
— The Two Elsies - A Sequel to Elsie at Nantucket, Book 10 • Martha Finley

... liberty of joking and saying what they pleased; and hence the name of such free speakers, Bridgers, Bridge-folk. (See Casaubon's note on Strabo, p. 400.) Hence the word came to signify generally abusive people. Sulla did not forget these insults when he took Athens (c. 13). Plutarch alludes to this also in his Treatise on ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume II • Aubrey Stewart & George Long

... three or four policemen came in, each leading a man by the collar, the ordinary riffraff of the street, charged with petty offences. One was very drunk and abusive. He attracted the attention of everybody in the room by his antics. He insisted on dancing a breakdown which he called the "Essence of Jeems' River"; and in the scuffle which followed, first one and then the other policeman in charge of Sleeny became involved. Sleeny was standing ...
— The Bread-winners - A Social Study • John Hay

... becomes furious as a tiger. His confidential negro servant, Saad, known as the Devil, was born and bred a slave, obtained manumission, and has wandered as far afield as Russia and Gibraltar. He is the pure African, merry at one moment and sulky at another, affectionate and abusive, reckless and crafty, quarrelsome and unscrupulous ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Volume 19 - Travel and Adventure • Various

... addition to his political writings he translated AEsop's Fables, Seneca's Morals, and Cicero's Offices. His AEsop contains much from other authors, including himself. In his writings he was lively and vigorous but coarse and abusive. ...
— A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature • John W. Cousin

... the seraphic singer of the Nativity and of Paradise is a tribute which seems to savor of audacity. It is hard to conceive of Emerson as "an expert swordsman" like Milton. It is impossible to think of him as an abusive controversialist as Milton was in his controversy with Salmasius. But though Emerson never betrayed it to the offence of others, he must have been conscious, like Milton, of "a certain niceness of nature, an honest haughtiness," which was as a shield ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)

... that made Tom wince, though he did not understand a word she was saying. Despite her protests, he brushed her aside and stalked into the house. He went rapidly from room to room, upstairs and down, from garret to cellar, the girl following him with her chorus of abusive reproach. She might have held her peace, thought Tom, for within half-an-hour he was convinced that there was not a person in the House on the Dunes save himself and his excited companion. All he discovered for his pains was that old Mrs. Meath ...
— The Inn at the Red Oak • Latta Griswold

... who had writhed under the attacks of Duane, a former resident of Ireland, but lately driven from India for violating the liberty allowed to the press, hoped for sweet revenge. Others wanted retribution against Callender, setting up at Richmond an abusive press such as had caused him to be driven from Scotland not long before. The list of lesser offenders among the alien writers was long. As President Adams asked: "How many presses, how many newspapers have been directed by vagabonds, fugitives from a bailiff, ...
— The United States of America Part I • Ediwn Erle Sparks

... while Dora was convulsed with passion. He remembered the utter wonder in Valentine's eyes when Dora's flamed upon them. He remembered the sickening sense of shame that had cowed him as he listened to her angry, abusive words. And this untrained, ignorant, ill-bred woman was his wife! For her he had given up home, parents, position, wealth—all he had in life worth caring for. For her, and through her, he stood there ...
— Dora Thorne • Charlotte M. Braeme

... below his dignity to know that a peer was not handsome; and feeling that his dignity would suffer if an inferior should venture to intrude on him information of such a nature. We know that a common fellow will take pleasure in saying, "That prince is humpbacked;" therefore, it is abusive to say that a lord is deformed. To the few words dropped on the subject by the queen the Lord Chancellor had contented himself with replying, "The face of a peer is in ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo

... existed in the midst of the corruptions of the Empire, forming the characters of such Emperors as Pertinax, Carus, Probus, the second Claudius, Aurelian, and our own Constantius; and he denies, with abusive violence, the power for good, of Roman Law, ...
— The Pleasures of England - Lectures given in Oxford • John Ruskin

... had the misfortune to make himself a name, he becomes public property. Every one rakes into his life, relates his most trivial actions, and insults his feelings; he becomes like those walls, which every passer-by may deface with some abusive writing. Perhaps you will say that I have myself encouraged this curiosity by publishing my Confessions. But the world forced me to it. They looked into my house through the blinds, and they slandered me; I have opened the doors and windows, so that they should ...
— An "Attic" Philosopher, Complete • Emile Souvestre

... semicircular form, dangers and misfortunes were supposed to be threatened. If there were no more than three lines that bended at the extremities, the person was marked to be a prattler; and if the individual was a woman, she was put down as a scold or abusive person. Hairy people were among those on whom fortune smiled; whereas smooth-faced, beardless men were numbered among ...
— The Mysteries of All Nations • James Grant

... feuilletonist in England; and Professor Newman, J. Stuart Mill, and others, gave us the limited influence of the Westminster Review. The Cornhill was neutral; Chambers's respectfully inimical; Bentley and Colburn antagonistically flat; Maxwell's tri-visaged publications grinningly abusive; Good Words had neither good nor bad words for us; Once a Week and All the Year Round gave us a shot now and then. Blackwood and Fraser disliked our form of Government, and all its manifestations. The rest ...
— Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, - and His Romaunt Abroad During the War • George Alfred Townsend

... government; and it was no more consistent with the policy of Mr. Washington and those who immediately surrounded him than it was with that of Robespierre or of Pitt that I should survive." As he grew more angry, he became more abusive. He ridiculed Washington's "cold, unmilitary conduct" during the War of Independence, and accused his administration, since the new constitution, of "vanity," "ingratitude," "corruption," "bare-faced treachery," and "the tricks of a sharper." He closed this wretched outbreak ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 26, December, 1859 • Various

... the contaminations of debauchery and the habits of inebriety which have been so grossly and falsely sent abroad concerning him." But the enemy had ten guns to Paine's one, and served them with all the fierceness of party-hate. A shower of abusive missiles rattled incessantly about his ears. However thick-skinned a man may be, and protected over all by the oes triplex of self-sufficiency, he cannot escape being wounded by furious and incessant attacks. Paine felt keenly the neglect of his former ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 21, July, 1859 • Various

... proper respect due from man to man. It is wholly beside the mark to say that he will not put up for a moment with the cuffs and kicks so freely administered to his Indian colleague. A respectable Chinese servant will often refuse to remain with a master who uses abusive or violent language, or shows signs of uncontrollable temper. A lucrative place is as nothing compared with the "loss of face" which he would suffer in the eyes of his friends; in other words, with his loss of dignity as a man. If a servant will put up with a blow, the best course is to dismiss ...
— The Civilization Of China • Herbert A. Giles

... excuses for being allowed to remain; but Mr. Black cut him short, by telling him, in a tone which was distinctly heard at the farthest corner of the house, to march off, or he would instantly unchain the house-dog and set loose the terriers, and let them make a supper of him. Oaths and abusive language followed; but the stranger did not wait to hear more. He had proceeded as far as the corner of the garden wall, where a wicket gate communicated with the front door, and was muttering vengeance to himself, when he was accosted ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume III • Various

... believe, because it is not against the peace before the indictment makes it so." "Why, that may be," cries the justice, "and indeed perjury is but scandalous words, and I know a man cannot have no warrant for those, unless you put for rioting [Footnote: Opus est interprete. By the laws of England abusive words are not punishable by the magistrate; some commissioners of the peace, therefore, when one scold hath applied to them for a warrant against another, from a too eager desire of doing justice, have construed a ...
— Amelia (Complete) • Henry Fielding

... the long hours of these weeks and months of torture did he lose his dignity or his lofty bearing quail before his tormentor. He was too refined and dignified to be abusive, and too proud in General Miles' ...
— The Victim - A romance of the Real Jefferson Davis • Thomas Dixon

... cut by the torrents from the mountain. I accordingly took a party of the "Forty Thieves," and following along the edge of the ravine, ascended the slope that led to the stockades upon the heights. Great numbers of natives had assembled, and were shouting the most abusive epithets in Arabic until we arrived at about a hundred yards from the foremost stockade. This now opened fire upon us, the natives being concealed within, and aiming with their muskets between the interstices of the ...
— Ismailia • Samuel W. Baker

... himself until he finds which party prevails. Plunket is arrived, and is actually at this moment in the next room with Wynn. We have not much fear in our quarter of the Board of Control on Thursday, which I suppose will end in an abusive speech from Creevey. Vansittart's Superannuation Bill will create a great deal of discussion, and which he will not mend by his explanations. I have nothing to add; you shall hear from me as things occur. The next ten days ...
— Memoirs of the Court of George IV. 1820-1830 (Vol 1) - From the Original Family Documents • Duke of Buckingham and Chandos

... a cigarette. "At this point, Professor Dandrik ordered the experiment stopped, and Professor Faress insisted on continuing. When Dandrik ordered the apparatus dismantled, Faress became rather emotional about it—obscenely abusive and threatening, according to Dandrik. Dandrik complained to Khane, Khane ordered Faress to apologize, Faress refused, and Khane dismissed Faress. Immediately, the students went on strike. Faress confirmed the whole story, and he ...
— Ministry of Disturbance • Henry Beam Piper

... and that it was well for them they were not indicted. But we have not space to quote further. The extracts we have already made will be sufficient to show Scrogg's utter contempt for those duties which the law imposed upon him as the counsel for the prisoners; his abusive and threatening demeanor toward their witnesses; his appeals to the passions of the jury, their bigotry and their fears; and in a word, his total destitution of every quality that marks the honest, fair-minded, and ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, May 1844 - Volume 23, Number 5 • Various

... Christian Guardian, the Wesleyan Advocate, and the Church. A paper in the German language was published at Berlin, in the Gore Settlement, for the use of the German settlers. Lower Canadian and American newspapers were also circulated in great numbers. She deprecates the abusive, narrow tone of the local papers, but at the same time admits—a valuable admission from one far from prepossessed in favour of Canadians—that, on the whole, the press did good in the absence and scarcity of books. In some of the provincial papers she 'had seen articles written with ...
— The Intellectual Development of the Canadian People • John George Bourinot

... Sir Joshua Reynolds of the abuse with which he was loaded by Foote, when Sir Joshua answered, that Foote, in so doing, gave the strongest possible proof of being in the wrong; as it was always the man who had the worst side who became violent and abusive. ...
— The Book of Three Hundred Anecdotes - Historical, Literary, and Humorous—A New Selection • Various

... was only consistent with the whole character of the man who had always proved himself equal to every emergency, and defied any attempt to thwart his designs. The language used by the miserable man on the present occasion was bitter and abusive; it related to his children, who he said were being taken away that they might be delivered to the white man; but his words fell idly upon the ears of the Indians, who only shuddered as they gazed upon his ...
— Owindia • Charlotte Selina Bompas

... impeachment he was summoned to answer. And so, as an accused man, and in danger for the result, he changed his dress, and went round with his hair untrimmed, in the attire of a suppliant, to beg the people's grace. But Clodius met him in every corner, having a band of abusive and daring fellows about him, who derided Cicero for his change of dress and his humiliation, and often, by throwing dirt and stones at him, interrupted his supplication to ...
— The Boys' and Girls' Plutarch - Being Parts of The "Lives" of Plutarch • Plutarch

... said I, backing to the door and opening it; "you can be as abusive as you like. But there is a limit. You ...
— The Lost World • Arthur Conan Doyle

... you want to quarrel with your best friend, all right! I've stood by you so far, and dragged you out of the deepest danger, but if you get too abusive—good-by! You may shift ...
— All Aboard - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry

... a Briton. Such was the picture of France at that period, but it was a picture which our English satirist could not contemplate with common patience. The swarms of grotesque figures who paraded the streets excited his indignation, and drew forth a torrent of coarse abusive ridicule, not much to the honour of his liberality. He compared them to Callot's beggars—Lazarus on the painted cloth—the prodigal son—or any other object descriptive of extreme contempt. Against ...
— The Works of William Hogarth: In a Series of Engravings - With Descriptions, and a Comment on Their Moral Tendency • John Trusler

... fault with it for that," said she. "I've wanted to say to you—since the other evening—that I can see widening vistas showing oceans of good things I never reckoned on in the least. And when I get unreasonable and generally brutal and abusive, I am not really and fundamentally so any more than ...
— Double Trouble - Or, Every Hero His Own Villain • Herbert Quick

... gates off the hinges,' 'a bat,' 'an angel of darkness.' Such epithets sound strangely in our more refined age; but they were then considered essential to faithful dealing. The Bishop in his reply, called 'Dirt wiped off,' beat the tinker in abusive language; he calls Bunyan 'A wretched scribbler,' 'grossly ignorant,' 'most unchristian and wicked,' 'a piece of proud folly,' 'so very dirty a creature that he disdains to dirt his fingers with him,' 'Bunyan can no more disgrace him than a rude creature can eclipse the moon by barking ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... 'You Goth! you Vandal!' they exclaim, 'how contemptible is the creature who has no music in his soul!' Which is really very rude. Even persons who are not musical have their feelings. 'Hath not a Jew ears?'—that is to say, though they have 'no ear,' they understand what is abusive language and resent it. ...
— Some Private Views • James Payn

... they were allowed to go about the streets. He was told that could not be the case, for it was a direct violation of the rules for Nuns to depart from the Hotel Dieu Nunnery. He replied—"Ce n'est pas vrai. That is not true," Mr. Bonthillier then became very angry, and applied to Maria Monk some very abusive epithets, for which a gentleman in the room reproved him. It was evident, that he lost his temper because he had lost his argument, and his hopes ...
— Awful Disclosures - Containing, Also, Many Incidents Never before Published • Maria Monk

... in Europe in his head, from the Vatican at Rome, to the learned collection of Dr. Salmon at Fleet-Ditch; but at the same time, he is a cynic in behaviour, a fury in temper, impolite in conversation, abusive and scurrilous in language, and ungovernable in passion. Is this to be learned? Then may I be still illiterate. I have been in my time, pretty well master of five languages, and have not lost them yet, though I write no bill over my door, or set Latin quotations in the ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IX; • Jonathan Swift

... this place that there seemed to be a strong prejudice among some of the soldiers against the Salvation Army for some reason. The soldiers stood about swearing at the Staff-Captain and his helper as they worked, and saying the most abusive and contemptible things to them. At last the Staff-Captain turned about and, looking at them, ...
— The War Romance of the Salvation Army • Evangeline Booth and Grace Livingston Hill

... in a sneering, incredulous way, but Sawkins was inclined to be abusive. He averred that he had been watching Crass and Sweater and had seen the latter put his thumb and finger into his waistcoat pocket as he walked into the dining-room, followed by Crass. It took the latter a long time to convince his two workmates of the truth of his own account, but he succeeded ...
— The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists • Robert Tressell

... entrance of the garden arose a loud noise and vehement recriminations of threatening and abusive voices. ...
— The Empress Josephine • Louise Muhlbach

... the unhappy defaulters with every abusive epithet he could devise (and being called names in German is no joke, I can tell you); and, lastly, he swore by everything he could think of that, if their rent was not paid on the morrow, themselves and their families should be turned out of doors to sleep on the snow, which ...
— In the Yule-Log Glow, Book II - Christmas Tales from 'Round the World • Various

... supposed to hate Tita, and resent her marriage with Rylton, who was a relative of hers; but five days after the fiasco, as Randal called it, Rylton had a letter from her that somewhat startled him. It was extremely abusive, and rather involved; but the meaning of it was that he ought to be ashamed of himself, and that Tita was too good for him. She wound up with a few very rude remarks directed at Mrs. Bethune, and a hope that Tita would stick ...
— The Hoyden • Mrs. Hungerford

... Congress has the right to determine its own rule of practice, punish members for disorderly conduct, and, by a two-thirds vote, expel a member. Members guilty of acts of violence or abusive language may be punished by a vote of censure, or may be obliged to apologize to the house. For the commission of a grave offense, a Congressman may be expelled from the house to which ...
— Problems in American Democracy • Thames Ross Williamson

... your adversary's Brutus, grand as you survey his chin, heroic at the last button of his waistcoat, unappeased at the very knees of his superior kersey continuations, inexorable at the commencement of his straps, and about to become abusive at his shoe-ties, the first cooler of your wrath will be the Hoby-like arched instep of his genuine Wellingtons, which, even as a drop of oil upon the troubled ocean, will extend itself over the heretofore ruffled ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various

... that when he came to tell his mother about this journey around the world there would be great difficulties. She would object very strongly, and if that did not do then she would become extremely abusive, compare him to his father, cry bitterly, and banish him suddenly and heartbrokenly from her presence for ever. She had done that twice already—once about going to the opera instead of listening to a lecture on Indian ethnology and ...
— The Research Magnificent • H. G. Wells

... the only dates open to his companion clash with the festival of the patron saint of his church. In another he resists the appeal of Dawkins to visit him in Somerset on similar grounds. His friend may become abusive, but Green assures him emphatically that it cannot be helped. 'I am not a pig,' he writes; 'I am a missionary curate.... I could not come to you, because I was hastily summoned to the cure of 5,000 costermongers and ...
— Victorian Worthies - Sixteen Biographies • George Henry Blore

... Danish Queen; had, though hardly able to govern his own kingdom, assumed the title "king of Denmark," and laid claim to Norway, too; and when she blamed him for it he had answered her disdainfully. In a letter he had used foul and abusive language, calling her "a king without breeches," and the "abbot's concubine" (abbedfrillen), on account of her particular attachment to a certain abbot of Soro, who was her spiritual director. It is, however, true, ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various

... traitors; the most orthodox theologians have not been able to guarantee themselves from this reproach; they have mutually bespatered each other; prodigally lavished, with malignant reciprocity, the most abusive terms: nearly all have, without doubt, merited these invectives, if in the term atheist be included those men who have not any idea of their various systems, that does not destroy itself, whenever they are willing to submit it to ...
— The System of Nature, Vol. 2 • Baron D'Holbach

... the dose of the anodyne? Probably the fellow was abusive. It might have been some shameful extremity that had forced upon her this act in self-defence. But such a situation would have called for violence, some swift blow. The man had died in insidious calm. He had counselled it, believed in it. But not that she—the ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick

... hammering and pounding as if some one were trying to open a box. This was followed by a sound that resembled the falling of paper on the floor; it lasted for some time, bunch apparently following bunch. Listen! Some one is talking in an abusive voice! What's that? A gruesome, sing-song voice repeating unintelligible words: "I-oi! huh, huh! I-oi, huh-huh!" There is a sound as if of crackling fire. The flames cannot be seen; ...
— The Goose Man • Jacob Wassermann

... who are seldom in command, the master was proportionally tyrannical and abusive—he swore at the men, made them do the duty twice and thrice over on the pretence that it was not smartly done, and found fault with every officer ...
— Mr. Midshipman Easy • Captain Frederick Marryat

... continued to pour out a volley of loud and abusive words, interlarding them with such oaths and curses as would have ...
— The Kentucky Ranger • Edward T. Curnick

... place to place, trying to find some one — and it took him two days to do so — who could write, so as to dictate a letter to his sons in Johannesburg, informing them of what had happened. The week expired before he could get a reply from Johannesburg. The landlord, in a very abusive mood, again demanded the instant arrival of his two sons from Johannesburg, to commence work at the farm-house the very next morning. Kgabale spent the whole night praying that at least one of his sons might come. By daybreak next morning no answer had arrived, and ...
— Native Life in South Africa, Before and Since • Solomon Tshekisho Plaatje

... has attracted him. There are few men of hot temperament who have not experienced this overmastering infatuation, and they know that even supposing the object becomes perfectly unworthy, unfaithful, abusive, and with every vice indulged openly before them, they may wince, they may thoroughly despise her, but the chain holds them fast in adamantine bonds, which neither the persuasion of friends nor their own knowledge of the ...
— The Romance of Lust - A classic Victorian erotic novel • Anonymous

... The mob was very abusive to the member who carried up the resolution to the Queen, and called Wilberforce 'Dr. Cantwell.' The Queen demanded to be heard by counsel at the bar of the House of Lords. Contrary to order and contrary ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William - IV, Volume 1 (of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville

... them in the white sand and almost parboiling them, brought anything but relief. The circle of torturers formed about Jerry again, and again was wreaked upon him all abusive contempt for having lost his taboo. What drove Jerry the maddest were not the blows and physical torment, but the laughter. No dog enjoys being laughed at, and Jerry, least of all, could restrain his wrath when they jeered him and cackled close ...
— Jerry of the Islands • Jack London

... I did leave home and come to the city when I was but sixteen, because my father was a drunkard, and my step-mother abusive, and we were poor and I ...
— Madeline Payne, the Detective's Daughter • Lawrence L. Lynch

... the baby held so closely within the tattered shawl. An intuitive glance (mother herself or soon to be) told her that this sickly babe was not the child of the woman who held it. She asked questions that the woman evaded. Pressed further, the beggar grew abusive, and took refuge in curses, with dire threats of violence. Mrs. Fry withdrew, and waiting for nightfall followed the woman: down a winding alley, past rows of rotting tenements, into a cellar below a ginshop. There, in this one squalid room, she found a dozen babies, all tied fast in cribs ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 2 of 14 - Little Journeys To the Homes of Famous Women • Elbert Hubbard

... subject and full sympathy with it. Such were Formans at the time, the American one since (and far from alone in America, but this the best) and more lately your own. Other known and unknown critics of course wrote on the book when it appeared, some very favourably and others quite sufficiently abusive. ...
— Recollections of Dante Gabriel Rossetti - 1883 • T. Hall Caine

... tales of sorrow and want which had no foundation; yet there is something in the present case that banishes his suspicions, and he follows her as she designates her abode. She hesitates, as they near the spot, for fear her husband would be at home in one of his abusive moods, for her woman's heart would fain cover up even her bloated and loathsome husband with its loving ...
— The Elm Tree Tales • F. Irene Burge Smith

... that Roosevelt used to write very angry letters to people who deserved them, drawing liberally upon his very expressive supply of abusive words for the occasion. Each time his secretary quietly stopped the letter. Each time the Colonel came in the day after and asked if the letter had been sent. Each time the secretary said, "No, that one did not get off." And ...
— The Book of Business Etiquette • Nella Henney

... first confronting Creon, he is thus accosted: "Have you heard the sentence pronounced on your bride?" He answers meekly: "I have, my father, and I yield to your superior wisdom, which no marriage can equal in excellence;" and it is only gradually that his ire is aroused by his father's abusive attitude; while at the end his first intention was to slay his father, not himself. Had Sophocles understood love as we understand it, he would have represented Haemon as drawing his sword at once and moving heaven and earth to prevent his bride ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck

... are ignorant) are, indeed, well practised in abuse, and have long learned to call mathematicians and astronomers cheats and charlatans. They freely used their vocabulary for the benefit of De Morgan, whom they denounced as a scurrilous scribbler, a defamatory, dishonest, abusive, ungentlemanly, and ...
— Myths and Marvels of Astronomy • Richard A. Proctor

... lent it, without asking him, to a neighbor. Chlidon, in a burst of anger at the delay to his journey, entered into a loud altercation with the woman, who grew angry on her part and wished him ill luck on his journey. Word led to word, both sides grew more angry and abusive, and at length he began to beat his wife, and continued his ill treatment until her cries brought neighbors in to separate them. But all this caused a loss of time, the bridle was not in this way to be had, and ...
— Historic Tales, vol 10 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris

... broad as Cranmer. He was not a polished man; he was often offensively rude and brusque, and lavish of epithets, Nor was he what we call a modest and humble man; he was intellectually proud, disdainful, and sometimes, when irritated, abusive. None of his pictures represent him as a refined-looking man, scarcely intellectual, but coarse and sensual rather, as Socrates seemed to the Athenians. But with these defects and drawbacks he had just such traits and gifts as fitted him ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VI • John Lord

... omit to say that while missionaries have carried on their work openly and boldly, they have felt themselves bound to treat the people courteously, and to abstain from the use of violent and abusive words. There are places where they do not deem themselves entitled to declare their message—such as sacred places where worship is being carried on. Mr. Smith, of the Church Mission, once mentioned to me that he had for a short time taken ...
— Life and Work in Benares and Kumaon, 1839-1877 • James Kennedy

... amongst all ranks and degrees in the British nation. As men formerly became eminent in learned societies by their parts and acquisitions, they now distinguish themselves by the warmth and violence with which they espouse their respective parties. Books are valued upon the like considerations: an abusive scurrilous style passes for satire, and a dull scheme of party- notions is called ...
— The Coverley Papers • Various

... An affront to a lad was answered at the pistol's mouth. The sense of quick responsibility tempered the tongues of even the most violent, and the newspapers of South Carolina for eight years, it is said, did not contain one abusive word. The ownership of slaves, even more than of realty, held families steadfast on their estates, and everywhere prevailed the sociability of established neighborhoods. Money counted least in making the social status, ...
— Southern Literature From 1579-1895 • Louise Manly

... this cut-throat place, after refusing to lend Talvis a hundred Louis, which he wanted to borrow of me on the strength of the revenge I owed him. He was in a bad humour, both on this account and because he had lost the hundred Louis I had paid him, and he allowed himself to use abusive language, which I treated with contempt. I went to bed, promising myself never to set foot in such ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt

... contradiction, so very uncalled for, annoyed Richard, who was still smarting at the loss of the birds, owing to Ripton's bad shot, and was really the injured party. He, therefore bestowed the abusive epithet on Ripton anew, ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... a consistent whole, in the sense in which that quality would be ordinarily attributed to a system of philosophy. Does Sir Walter mean to assert that Blake is, in this sense too, 'consistent'? It is a little difficult to discover. Referring, in his Introduction, to Blake's abusive notes on Bacon's ...
— Books and Characters - French and English • Lytton Strachey

... climax—"Well done, my Johnsing and the White Bastard," (meaning Basis,) exclaimed a drunken negro! Halting in front of the Coleman House, the Governor elect mounted a goods box, and under feelings of great excitement, hatred, and malice, delivered a speech abusive of the whole American party, excepting none, in coarse, bitter language, in a style peculiarly his own—adapted alone to the foul precincts of Billingsgate—rounding his periods with a diabolical and infernal ...
— Americanism Contrasted with Foreignism, Romanism, and Bogus Democracy in the Light of Reason, History, and Scripture; • William Gannaway Brownlow

... place a kick where it would do the most good against the stomach of a policeman, and when the officer rolled over there was for a few moments a renewal of the fight, silent on the part of the men and vociferous on the part of the drunkard, who had a fine flow of abusive language. Then the procession went on again. It was perfectly useless to put Joe on the police ambulance, for it required two men to sit on him while in transit, and the barrow is not made to stand such ...
— The Face And The Mask • Robert Barr

... for his absence, except on one occasion, when he had been to spend an evening in the company of his mother and some friends. Once only he incurred correction. His old schoolmaster had received an abusive anonymous letter; and Lambert having discovered from the hand-writing, which was ill disguised, and by the paper, which was the same as that used in his office, that Chatterton was the writer, thought it necessary to check so mischievous ...
— Lives of the English Poets - From Johnson to Kirke White, Designed as a Continuation of - Johnson's Lives • Henry Francis Cary

... :BrokenWindows: /n./ Abusive hackerism for the {crufty} and {elephantine} {X} environment on Sun machines; properly ...
— The Jargon File, Version 4.0.0

... August. She also spoke Mrs. Behn's famous epilogue reflecting upon the Duke of Monmouth. Two days later a warrant was issued for the arrest of 'Lady Slingsby, Comoedian, and Mrs. Aphaw Behen,' to answer for their 'severall Misdemeanours' and 'abusive reflections upon Persons of Quality.' Even if they were actually imprisoned, of which there is no evidence, the detention both of actress and authoress was very brief. On 4 December of the same year, after the union of the two companies, Lady ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. II • Aphra Behn

... ill example to our children, our apprentices, our covenant servants, and other dependants, by their saucy and insolent behaviour, their pert, and sometimes abusive answers, their daring defiance of correction, and many other insolences which youth are ...
— Everybody's Business is Nobody's Business • Daniel Defoe

... in their hatred of Catholic piety, railed in the most abusive language against the veneration of images, and especially of the cross. The images and statues of the saints were to them nothing but idols, which ought to be destroyed. The cross on which Jesus ...
— The Inquisition - A Critical and Historical Study of the Coercive Power of the Church • E. Vacandard

... Exeter in 1835 to report on Lord John Russell's candidature for Parliament for the Morning Observer. The election was a very exciting one, and the great novelist, it was said, found food for one of his novels in the ever-famous Eatonswill, and the ultra-abusive editors. Four years afterwards Dickens leased a cottage at Alphington, a village about a mile and a half away from Exeter, for his father and mother, who resided there for three and a half years. Dickens frequently came to see them, and "Mr. Micawber," with his ample seals and air of importance, ...
— From John O'Groats to Land's End • Robert Naylor and John Naylor

... principle there is no abusive language that may not be employed to render any man odious—for every man commits sin of some kind, and every sin is like some other sin, in many respects, and in certain aggravated cases, may be bad, or even worse, ...
— An Essay on Slavery and Abolitionism - With reference to the duty of American females • Catharine E. Beecher

... is not the man to care what his foes or his old political friends think or say about him. Water on a duck's back is, I fancy, an oppressive agony compared with the right honourable gentleman's feelings when he hears or reads the condemnatory and abusive remarks of some of his former allies. If at any time he does perchance feel at all stung by any of the adverse criticisms he hears or reads, he takes care not to show ...
— A Tale of One City: The New Birmingham - Papers Reprinted from the "Midland Counties Herald" • Thomas Anderton

... red in the face and abusive, while I remained cool and exasperating. I was getting even with Jimmie for ...
— Abroad with the Jimmies • Lilian Bell

... Pendennis Castle to enquire meantime into the treatment of the Launceston prisoners, and their release followed after a little while. It was noted also, in proof of his personal kindness towards the Quakers, that, though he received letters from some of them violently abusive of himself and his government, he never showed any ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson

... wonderful deshabille, my patient. Mlle. Chateray was of middle height, of a pleasant fulness, and dark of feature. She had large eyes that, as I entered, were roaming in a restless way about the room, and her voice was lifted sharply abusive of her maid, a mild ...
— Hurricane Island • H. B. Marriott Watson

... tail, and takes the bit in his teeth and pulls shamelessly. Then the charioteer is worse off than ever; he falls back like a racer at the barrier, and with a still more violent wrench drags the bit out of the teeth of the wild steed and covers his abusive jaws and tongue with blood, and forces his legs and haunches to the ground ...
— The Greek View of Life • Goldsworthy Lowes Dickinson

... three cudgellings for writing a pentameter ending so villanously as—"terror ubique aderat!" But no man ever thought him worthy of anything beyond cudgelling. And, in fact, the whole story is a bounce of his own. For, in a most abusive letter which he wrote "to a learned person," (meaning Wallis the mathematician,) he gives quite another account of the matter, and says (p. 8,) he ran home "because he would not trust his safety with the French clergy;" ...
— Miscellaneous Essays • Thomas de Quincey

... matter of mirth than of argument, as that a Parliament parasite cannot be called an abuser of the Parliament, and that passage, "How can a clause delivered in a postscript, concerning my opinion of my way, be abusive to the Parliament?" A great privilege either of postscripts or of his opinions, that they cannot be abusive to the Parliament. Many passages are full of acrimony, many extravagant, and not to the point in hand, ...
— The Works of Mr. George Gillespie (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Gillespie

... time is ripe," said Dicky piously. They found Kingsley Bey reading the last issue of the French newspaper published in Cairo. He was laughing at some article in it abusive of the English, and seemed not very downcast; but at a warning sign and look from Dicky, he became as grave as he was inwardly delighted at seeing ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... Jesus round the room, before all the members of the Council, who continued to address him in reproachful and abusive language. Every countenance looked diabolical and enraged, and all around was dark, confused, and terrified. Our Lord, on the contrary, was from the moment that he declared himself to be the Son ...
— The Dolorous Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ • Anna Catherine Emmerich

... tipsy man, taking no notice of those who passed, but bumping against them. On looking round he saw a dram shop near at hand; steps led down from the footpath to the basement, and Raskolnikoff saw two drunkards coming out at that moment, leaning heavily on each other and exchanging abusive language. The young man barely paused before he descended the steps. He had never before entered such a place, but he felt dizzy and was also suffering from intense thirst. He had a craving for some beer, partly because he attributed ...
— The Continental Classics, Volume XVIII., Mystery Tales • Various

... reply to questions addressed him as to certain facts of the campaign. He writes: "About May 2d, C. V. Eskridge of Emporia wrote a very scurrilous article against woman suffrage. It filled three columns of The News. In it he denounced the lady speakers in the most abusive manner, ridiculing them with insulting epithets. About the middle of May F. H. Drenning, Chairman of the Republican State Committee, called a meeting of that committee to make arrangements to canvass the State for negro suffrage. ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage

... children again, or the convention that she should never be spoken to again by any decent person and should finally drown herself, or the convention that persons involved in scenes of recrimination or confession by these conventions should call each other certain abusive names and describe their conduct as guilty and frail and so on: all these may provide material for very effective plays; but such plays are not dramatic studies of sex: one might as well say that Romeo and Juliet is a dramatic ...
— Overruled • George Bernard Shaw

... fined two pounds for using abusive language to a policeman. Only his explanation, that he thought he was addressing a fare, saved him from ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Sept. 5, 1917 • Various

... that I was about to be married, and, to tell the truth, the reason why I had the marriage celebrated so quietly was that I feared lest there might be a scandal in the church. She came to Mr. Doran's door just after we returned, and she endeavoured to push her way in, uttering very abusive expressions towards my wife, and even threatening her, but I had foreseen the possibility of something of the sort, and I had two police fellows there in private clothes, who soon pushed her out again. She was quiet when ...
— The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

... mixtus." Dr. Jamieson explains it as "foolish and noisy talk. Islandic, bulldur, stultorum balbuties." Dr. Ogilvie, however, has queried its derivation from the "Spanish balda, a trifle, or baldonar, to insult with abusive language; Welsh, baldorz, to prattle. Mean, senseless prate; a jargon of words; ribaldry; anything jumbled ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 206, October 8, 1853 • Various

... may also take mules or horses, to replace the jaded animals of their trains, or to serve as pack-mules for the regiments or brigades. In all foraging, of whatever kind, the parties engaged will refrain from abusive or threatening language, and may, where the officer in command thinks proper, give written certificates of the facts, but no receipts; and they will endeavor to leave with each family a reasonable portion ...
— The Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman, Complete • William T. Sherman

... old man, and his name was Jim, And he had a pet bear who was fond of him; But the man was very cruel and abusive to his pet, And one day his people missed him, and they ...
— The Arkansaw Bear - A Tale of Fanciful Adventure • Albert Bigelow Paine

... innumerable blessings, because it would be in accordance with nature, and would get rid of excess in eating and drinking and of adulteries and frenzies, making men love their wives, and having other excellent effects. I can imagine that some lusty youth overhears what we are saying, and roars out in abusive terms that we are legislating for impossibilities. And so a person might have said of the syssitia, or common meals; but this is refuted by facts, although even now they are not extended to women. 'True.' There is no impossibility or super-humanity in my proposed law, as I shall endeavour to prove. ...
— Laws • Plato

... truth, beauty, and simplicity. If pupils are left to themselves, they imitate the improper and erroneous easily and skilfully; the right and suitable with difficulty, and certainly unskilfully. Even the little fellow who can hardly speak learns to use naughty, abusive words more quickly and easily than fine, noble expressions. What school-master has not been surprised at this facility, and what good old aunt has not laughed at it? But you say, "It is not right to force ...
— Piano and Song - How to Teach, How to Learn, and How to Form a Judgment of - Musical Performances • Friedrich Wieck

... predisposition and excited state of mind upon the subject, and the greater liability of his being betrayed into an act of overt resistance to the law, if an opportunity occurred. This excited state of mind continued in the court room, as was proved by his addressing the officers in the abusive and sanguinary terms used by him. Up to the moment of leaving the court room, and when expostulated with by the officer, for saying he and others ought to have their throats cut, he admitted that he had said so, and that he said so again. Clark and Hutchins ...
— Report of the Proceedings at the Examination of Charles G. Davis, Esq., on the Charge of Aiding and Abetting in the Rescue of a Fugitive Slave • Various

... mount guard together with the French. But the people and the national guard did not accompany the French soldiers quietly; on the contrary, the bewildered prince distinctly heard the sneers, the derisive laughter, and jeers of the crowd; even the boys in the tree-tops were casting down their abusive epithets. When the procession drew nearer, and the people surrounded the prince, he discovered the meaning of these ...
— Napoleon and the Queen of Prussia • L. Muhlbach

... Perry the editor yet: but I am preparing a specimen. I shall have a difficult job to manage, for you must know that Mister Perry, in common with the great body of the Whigs, thinks "The Albion" very low. I find I must rise a peg or so, be a little more decent and less abusive; for, to confess the truth, I had arrived to an abominable pitch; I spared neither age nor sex when my cue was given me. N'importe (as they say in French): any climate will suit me. So you are about to bring your old face-making face to London. You could ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas

... einem Anhange, der die Kritik der Kantischen Philosophie enthaelt ("The World as Will and Idea; four books, with an appendix containing a criticism on the philosophy of Kant"). Some delay occurring in the publication, Schopenhauer wrote one of his characteristically abusive letters to Brockhaus, his publisher, who retorted "that he must decline all further correspondence with one whose letters, in their divine coarseness and rusticity, savoured more of the cabman than of the philosopher," and concluded with a hope that his fears that ...
— Essays of Schopenhauer • Arthur Schopenhauer

... simply to do his will! That letter became my holy thing, my guiding star, my anchor. Sometimes when my stepfather would begin abusing and insulting me, I would softly lay my hand on my bosom (I wore Michel's letter sewed into an amulet) and only smile. And the more violent and abusive was Mr. Ratsch, the easier, lighter, and sweeter was the heart within me.... I used to see, at last, by his eyes, that he began to wonder whether I was going out of my mind.... Following on this first letter came a second, still ...
— The Jew And Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev

... discussion of the "everlasting general ticket elections," Douglas made an unhappy impression. John Quincy Adams recorded in his diary,—that diary which was becoming a sort of Rogues' Gallery: "He now raved out his hour in abusive invectives upon the members who had pointed out its slanders and upon the Whig party. His face was convulsed, his gesticulation frantic, and he lashed himself into such a heat that if his body had been made of combustible matter, it would have burnt out. In the midst of his roaring, ...
— Stephen A. Douglas - A Study in American Politics • Allen Johnson

... gelehrter in a very excited state rushes up to me and calls upon me to halt, in the name of the Emperor. The taking of pictures by persons not imperially authorised is streng verboten. He is evidently prepared to be abusive, if not actually violent, until I assure him, in the best German that I can command, that I have no political or archaeological intentions, and that if the photographing of his picturesque work-people to him displeasing is, I will my camera immediately in its ...
— Out-of-Doors in the Holy Land - Impressions of Travel in Body and Spirit • Henry Van Dyke

... 1862. Mr. G. W. P. Bentinck made a very bitter and abusive speech of the United States, and invited Her Majesty's Government to offer some explanation why, according to the policy which they had pursued with respect to Italian affairs, they had abstained from recognizing the independence ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Volume 2 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine

... tips. Sweet Vi'lets was always giving coppers and sixpences to this man, but one day they fell out when Flittermouse begged for a shilling. He must, he said, have a shilling, he couldn't do with less, and when the other refused he followed him, demanding the money with abusive words, to everybody's astonishment. Finally Sweet Vi'lets turned on him and told him to go to the devil. Flittermouse in a rage went straight to the constable and denounced his patron as a sheep-stealer. He, Flittermouse, had been his servant ...
— A Shepherd's Life • W. H. Hudson

... applause rolled along the seats, fiercer and fiercer, and through it all a shower of curses and abusive epithets upon the Caesarians. All around Drusus seemed to be tossing and bellowing the breakers of some vast ocean, an ocean of human forms and faces, that was about to dash upon him and overwhelm him, in mad fury irresistible. The din was louder and louder. The bronze casings ...
— A Friend of Caesar - A Tale of the Fall of the Roman Republic. Time, 50-47 B.C. • William Stearns Davis

... Socrates says {ei pant' autou beltio phes einai, k.t.l.}, the sense seems to be: "No, if you say that all these prime creatures are better than he is, you are an abusive person still." ...
— The Symposium • Xenophon

... cranky resistive unco-operative will-less hipped obsessed hypocritical of mean disposition excitable fearful exacting dissatisfied undecided wilful self-centered morbid doubtful demanding retarded abusive ...
— Applied Psychology for Nurses • Mary F. Porter

... sadly disturbed our peace of mind, for my sister and I were going back to Ilkesaari alone, and as they seemed likely to be our only companions, we felt a couple of hours spent in such society would be rather more than we cared for. They might be affectionate or abusive, or they might even commit suicide, ...
— Through Finland in Carts • Ethel Brilliana Alec-Tweedie

... mouth of her cavern, he quickly gave veut to his rage in the most buskin'd strain, and concluded by swearing that he would have her ousted. To this assault she was not backward in reply, but soon convinced him that she was much more powerful in abusive language than our Roscius, though he had recourse in his speech to Milton's "hell-born bitch," and other phrases of similar celebrity, whilst she entirely depended on her own natural resources. Those to whom this oratory is not new, have no need of our reporting any of it; ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan

... firmness. He called on his men to be ready, and not to allow one of the Chiefs to escape from the wigwam, and with his hand on his pistols, he waited the proper moment for action. The Indians continued to pour forth the most abusive epithets: but they did not begin the expected attack, and it was evident that they were a little intimidated by the undaunted bearing of the white men. One of them, however, seemed actuated by some desperate purpose, and to be regardless of aught else. ...
— The Pilgrims of New England - A Tale Of The Early American Settlers • Mrs. J. B. Webb

... perfectly fit for any service, the impatient Hampton was quickly supplied with the necessary food and clothing, while Murphy, grown violently abusive, was strapped on a litter between two mules, a guard on either side. Brant rode with the civilian on a sharp trot as far as the head of the pack-train, endeavoring to the very last to persuade the wearied man to relinquish this work ...
— Bob Hampton of Placer • Randall Parrish

... filled for my swallowing. The Bible Society and myself have been accused of blasphemy, sedition, etc. A collection of tracts has been seized in Murcia, in which the Catholic religion and its dogmas are handled with the most abusive severity; {256a} these books have been sworn to as having been left BY THE COMMITTEE OF THE BIBLE SOCIETY WHILST IN THAT TOWN, and Count Ofalia has been called upon to sign an order for my arrest and banishment from ...
— The Life of George Borrow • Herbert Jenkins

... with a silent bow even if it is abusive and unjust—such is the literary etiquette. It is not the thing to answer, and all who do answer are justly blamed for excessive vanity. But since your criticism has the nature of "an evening conversation on the steps of the Babkino lodge" ... and as, ...
— Letters of Anton Chekhov • Anton Chekhov

... as abusive as Horace upon the occasion—but if there is no catachresis in the wish, and no sin in it, I wish from my soul, that every imitator in Great Britain, France, and Ireland, had the farcy for his pains; and that there was a good ...
— The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman • Laurence Sterne

... chief who has a personal grievance may send a war message in the shape of a fighting-bolo,[7] or of a lance with an abusive challenge, but this is rare, as far as I have been able to ascertain. It is common, however, for the more famed war chiefs to keep their personal enemies on the qui-vive, by periodic threats. "I will begin my march ...
— The Manbos of Mindano - Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume XXIII, First Memoir • John M. Garvan

... however, got furious at this and used such abusive language both to "Downy" and the lieutenant that the latter gave orders at last for him to be shown ...
— Crown and Anchor - Under the Pen'ant • John Conroy Hutcheson

... however, he was sullen, cantankerous, abusive. They were all compassionate to him, treating him like a spoiled, but not the less in reality a sickly child. Arctura thought her grandmother could not have brought him up well; more might surely have been made of him. But Arctura had him after ...
— Donal Grant • George MacDonald

... several hundred roughs collected on Tower Hill to await his return; and on making his appearance at the gate he was hissed and hooted by the crowd, who followed him along the Minories yelling, hooting, and using abusive language, their numbers and threatening demeanour momentarily increasing. About half-way up the Minories he was met by Mr. Ballantine, the Thames police magistrate, who asked him if he could render him any assistance; but the cool, courageous soldier simply replied that he did ...
— English Caricaturists and Graphic Humourists of the Nineteenth Century. - How they Illustrated and Interpreted their Times. • Graham Everitt

... the house where I dwelt, abusive shrieks and howls arose: the housewife had been robbed of two hens, and she accused my orderly of the theft. He denied it, and called upon me to bear witness whether 'he, Egor Avtamonoff, would steal!' I assured the housewife of Egor's honesty, ...
— A Reckless Character - And Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev

... He jerked out the abusive words without sacrificing any of his dignity. From that day he changed his route to disappoint those whom he perceived had come ...
— The Dead Command - From the Spanish Los Muertos Mandan • Vicente Blasco Ibanez

... traffic at a general meeting of the directors, and declared that he had not words to express his disgust at one who, for the sake of his own personal profit, could condescend to depreciate the property of his constituents. The accused retorted, and the meeting growing stormy and abusive, ended late at night ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 460 - Volume 18, New Series, October 23, 1852 • Various

... rather funny that any company should expect a sane man to pay so much good money for Press notices, mostly abusive. He never subscribed. ...
— One Day's Courtship - The Heralds Of Fame • Robert Barr

... the relatives and friends of the queen-mother, who considered that she had been insultingly treated, and her brother Leonidas once went so far in his abusive language as to hint to Lykurgus that he knew that he meant to be king, throwing the suspicion upon Lykurgus, if anything should happen to the child, that he would be supposed to have managed it. This sort of language was used by the queen-mother also, and ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume I (of 4) • Plutarch

... courage, that seeks the bubble reputation even in the cannon's mouth, may be had for sixpence a day. But civil courage, such as enabled the Princess Parizade, in the Arabian Tales, to go straight up the hill to her object, though the magical multitude of advising and abusive voices continually called to her to turn back, is one of the rarest qualities in man or woman, and not to be had for love, ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. III - Belinda • Maria Edgeworth

... the daughters of this Protestant hero was being bred up with no religion at all, as yet, and ready to be made Lutheran or Roman, according as the husband might be, whom her parents should find for her? This talk, very idle and abusive much of it was, went on at a hundred mess-tables in the army; there was scarce an ensign that did not hear it, or join in it, and everybody knew, or affected to know, that the commander-in-chief himself had relations with his nephew, the Duke of ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray

... with Manila exists, these qualities are less pronounced, and the women, who are agreeable, bathe frequently. For the rest, the inhabitants of the two islands are friendly, obliging, tractable, and peaceable. Abusive language or violence very rarely occurs, and, in case of injury, information is laid against the offender at the tribunal. Great purity of manners seems to prevail on the north and west coasts, but not on the east coast, nor in Leyte. External piety is universally conspicuous, through the ...
— The Former Philippines thru Foreign Eyes • Fedor Jagor; Tomas de Comyn; Chas. Wilkes; Rudolf Virchow.

... aid from Marlowe. Certain it is that Greene attacked the poet furiously when the remodelled work was produced, calling upon his brother dramatists of repute to beware of upstart puppets and "rude groomes." But Shakespeare was serenely unmoved by these abusive epithets, for which Greene's publisher apologised later. He was in the historical vein, and proceeded to write "Richard III.," in which Richard Burbage is said to have made a great sensation; the following play was "Richard II.," and the poet was clearly responsive to ...
— William Shakespeare - His Homes and Haunts • Samuel Levy Bensusan

... own use certain of these church funds, and the bishop now called upon him to reimburse them. This application, as might have been expected, made Richard extremely angry. He assailed the bishop with the most violent and abusive language, and charged all sorts of corruption and wickedness against the papal government itself. These charges may have been true, but the occasion of being called upon to pay a debt was not the proper time for ...
— Richard I - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott

... freighted with bags of rice and bales of paper; the hands aboard this boat indulge in a lively quarrel, during the evening chow-chow, and bang one another about in the liveliest manner. The peculiar indignation that finds expression in abusive language no doubt reaches its highest state of perfection in the Celestial mind. No other human being is capable of soaring to the height of the Chinaman's falsetto modulations, as he heaps reproaches and cuss-words on his enemy's queue-adorned head. A big boat's ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens

... conducted his defence of ecclesiastical liberty, in a series of attacks upon episcopacy. These are written in a bitter spirit of abusive hostility, for which we seek an insufficient apology in his exclusive converse with a party which held bishops in abhorrence, and in the low personal respectability of a large portion ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 7 of 8 • Charles F. (Charles Francis) Horne

... Vindication of it in some Shape or other. First, it came out in a News-Paper; after that, I publish'd it in a Six-penny Pamphlet, together with the Words of the first Presentment of the Grand Jury and an injurious abusive Letter to Lord C. that came out immediately after it; both which had been the Occasion of my writing that Vindication. The Reason I gave for doing this, was, that the Reader might be fully instructed in the Merits of the Cause between my Adversaries and my Self; and because I thought it requisite, ...
— A Letter to Dion • Bernard Mandeville

... meet us full in view, but we have also to consider and digest the fact, that the maintenance of this Church for near three centuries in Ireland has been contemporaneous with a system of partial and abusive government, varying in degree of culpability, but rarely, until of later years, when we have been forced to look at the subject and to feel it, to be exempted in common fairness from the reproach of gross inattention (to ...
— The Grand Old Man • Richard B. Cook

... that these persons had voluntarily remained there: the refusal of a Dutch fleet on their own coasts to strike to an English yacht, is much aggravated: and to piece up all these pretensions, some abusive pictures are mentioned, and represented as a ground of quarrel. The Dutch were long at a loss what to make of this article, till it was discovered that a portrait of Cornelius de Wit, brother to the pensionary, painted by order ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part F. - From Charles II. to James II. • David Hume

... far as it is in touch with them. We have no reason to suppose that the qualities in question will not characterise the conduct of the French at the present moment. There can, however, be no doubt that a better definition of the mode in which a neutral Power should prevent abusive use of the asylum afforded by its ports and waters is urgently required. The point is one which must prominently engage the attention of the special conference upon the rights and duties of neutrals, for which a wish was expressed by The Hague Conference of 1899, and, ...
— Letters To "The Times" Upon War And Neutrality (1881-1920) • Thomas Erskine Holland



Words linked to "Abusive" :   scurrilous, offensive



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