Online dictionaryOnline dictionary
Synonyms, antonyms, pronunciation

  Home
English Dictionary      examples: 'day', 'get rid of', 'New York Bay'




Cabal   Listen
verb
Cabal  v. i.  (past & past part. caballed; pres. part. caballing)  To unite in a small party to promote private views and interests by intrigue; to intrigue; to plot. "Caballing still against it with the great."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








Advanced search
     Find words:
Starting with
Ending with
Containing
Matching a pattern  

Synonyms
Antonyms
Quotes
Words linked to  

only single words



Share |
Add this dictionary
to your browser search bar





"Cabal" Quotes from Famous Books



... Ireland, has also a stately house at Euston, near this town, which he enjoys in right of his mother, daughter to the Earl of Arlington, one of the chief ministers of State in the reign of King Charles II., and who made the second letter in the word "cabal," a word formed by that famous satirist Andrew Marvell, to represent the five heads of the politics of that time, as the word "smectymnus" was on a ...
— Tour through the Eastern Counties of England, 1722 • Daniel Defoe

... people preferred the authority of Xavier above theirs, and not knowing how to refute their adversary, made a cabal at court, to lessen the Christians in the good opinion of the king. They gave him jealousies of them, by decrying their behaviour, and saying, "They were men of intrigue, plotters, enemies of the public ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume XVI. (of 18) - The Life of St. Francis Xavier • John Dryden

... office, and that this faction found compensation in the establishment of a new government, it is not easy to resist the suspicion that the secession movement was neither more nor less than a conspiracy, hatched by a clever and unscrupulous cabal. ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson

... was home ten days before he missed his leadership, and even then he was made aware of its spoliation only by beholding it in the hands of the cabal. Mr. Croker meant Mr. Nixon for the mayoralty; but the plotting eighteen, intriguing with Brooklyn blocked the way with Mr. Coler. The coalition was too strong for Mr. Croker to force, and the logic of that same ...
— The Onlooker, Volume 1, Part 2 • Various

... Broken-hearted and worn out, he resigned his seat in the Assembly, and returned to England, where, after grievous delay, he succeeded in getting his pension restored. He never returned to Canada, and survived the restoration of his pension but a short time. Thus, through the malignity of a selfish and secret cabal, was Upper Canada deprived of the services of a zealous and useful citizen and legislator, whose residence among us, had it been continued, could not have failed to advance the ...
— An Algonquin Maiden - A Romance of the Early Days of Upper Canada • G. Mercer Adam

... by cabal and stratagem, obtained a seeming triumph over a single individual, but who, like the Farnesian Hercules, personified the force and resistance of incomparable strength. "The Bees of Christchurch," as this conspiracy ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli

... shift &c. (substitute) 147; last shift &c. (necessity) 601. measure, step; stroke, stroke of policy; master stroke; trump card, court card; cheval de bataille[Fr], great gun; coup, coup d'etat[Fr]; clever stroke, bold stroke, good move, good hit, good stroke; bright thought, bright idea. intrigue, cabal, plot, conspiracy, complot[obs3], machination; subplot, underplot[obs3], counterplot. schemer, schemist[obs3], schematist|; strategist, machinator; projector, artist, promoter, designer &c. v.; conspirator; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus

... Cromwell humbled the proud spirit of Englishmen, who had often revolted at the excessive stretches of prerogative under their legitimate kings; and this new habit of submission, added to a deep repentance for their late crime, so struck the independent character of the nation, that a cabal of atheists and libertines persuaded an unprincipled Prince that he might as easily found his throne on what was then deemed the firm basis of despotism, as many of the Continental princes had done. If, ...
— The Loyalists, Vol. 1-3 - An Historical Novel • Jane West

... be remarked, have employed such humor as I can command "in favor of establishment." What it is worth I am not to judge; as usual in such cases, those who are of my cabal pronounce it good, but cyclometers and other paradoxers either call it very poor, or commend it as sheer buffoonery. Be it one or the other, I observe that all the effective ridicule is, in this subject, on the side of establishment. This is partly ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume I (of II) • Augustus De Morgan

... from the accidental coincidence of the initial letters of the names of five of its members with those which make up the word was known as the Cabal. But the word Cabala, or Cabal, had as yet none of the odious meaning which after events attached to it; it meant indeed simply what we mean by "cabinet." Nor was there anything in the temper or conduct ...
— History of the English People, Volume VI (of 8) - Puritan England, 1642-1660; The Revolution, 1660-1683 • John Richard Green

... as may be; and, if I may have commission from A., I can make sure of Lord Lockhart and those with him." One might imagine from this that Falconbridge would have liked to secure the succession for Henry; but it rather appears that what he wanted was to counteract a cabal against the interests of the family generally, which he had reported as then going on among the officers. Certain it is that, after Richard had been proclaimed and Henry had most loyally and affectionately put all his services at the disposal of his elder brother, Falconbridge continued in cipher ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson

... to Blefuscu in performance of my promise according to the license he had given me, which was well known at our court, and would return in a few days when the ceremony was ended. But he was at last in pain at my long absence; and, after consulting with the treasurer and the rest of that cabal,[35] a person of quality was despatched with the copy of the articles against me. This envoy had instructions to represent to the monarch of Blefuscu the great lenity of his master, who was content to punish me no farther ...
— Gulliver's Travels - Into Several Remote Regions of the World • Jonathan Swift

... are some very interesting portraits. Full-length pictures of the members of the Cabal Ministry adorn the dining-room—all fine examples of Lely's brush; then there is a very large representation of the Duke of Wellington at Waterloo mounted on his favourite charger "Copenhagen" by Lawrence; two "Romneys," one "Sir Joshua," ...
— A Cotswold Village • J. Arthur Gibbs

... to captivate him, and take his mind, as it were, by storm, now with the boldest and most daring paradoxes; now with bursts of eloquent invective against the oppression and aristocratic insolence of the cabal, which by his shewing governed Rome; and now with sarcasm and pungent wit, that he saw but little of the course, which he had come especially ...
— The Roman Traitor (Vol. 1 of 2) • Henry William Herbert

... be familiar as that of one of the greatest roysterers and most courtly libertines of the early days of Louis XIV., as well as that of a rabid anti-cardinalist and frondeur, and one of the earliest of that new cabal of nobility known as the petits-maitres, whose leader the Prince de Conde was destined to become a few years later. He was a man of about my own age, that is to say, between thirty-two and thirty-three, and of my own frame, tall, spare, and active. ...
— The Suitors of Yvonne • Raphael Sabatini

... subtle women of discreeter years, and passions shamefully inflamed and purposes wickedly egged on. We say nothing of all this; nor will we dwell upon it. Mrs. Dallington Vere assuredly was no slight sufferer. But she conquered the cabal that was formed against her, for the dandies were her friends, and gallantly supported her through a trial under which some women would have sunk. As it was, at the end of the season she did travel, but all is now forgotten; and Hill Street, Berkeley Square, again contains, at ...
— The Young Duke • Benjamin Disraeli

... the great, greedy spider of organized capital at whatever cost of public welfare or of private faith. He was indeed a man of affairs—was Thomas Van Dorn—a part of a vast business and political cabal, that knew no party and no creed but dividends and still more dividends, impersonal, automatic, soulless—the materialization of the ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White

... able In magick Talisman and Cabal, 530 Whose primitive tradition reaches As far as ADAM'S first green breeches: Deep-sighted in intelligences, Ideas, atoms, influences; And much of Terra Incognita, 535 Th' intelligible world, cou'd ...
— Hudibras • Samuel Butler

... Garrow on the other hand and his daughter were both very markedly clever, and this produced a closeness of companionship and alliance between the father and daughter which painfully excited the jealousy of the wife and mother. But it was totally impossible for her to cabal with her daughter against the object of her jealousy. Harriet always seeking to be a peacemaker, was ever, if peace could not be made, stanchly on Theo's side. I am afraid that Mrs. Garrow did not love her second daughter at all; and I am inclined to ...
— What I Remember, Volume 2 • Thomas Adolphus Trollope

... contrived to sell her with advantage and to be themselves taken into the Chilian service. They and another volunteer, Captain Worcester, a North American, liking the ascendancy over Admiral Bianco which their experience had won for them, formed a cabal with the object of securing Admiral Blanco's continuance in the chief command, or its equal division between him and Lord Cochrane. Nothing but the Chilian admiral's disinterested patriotism prevented a serious rupture. He steadily withstood all temptations to his vanity, ...
— The Life of Thomas, Lord Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald, G.C.B., Admiral of the Red, Rear-Admiral of the Fleet, Etc., Etc. • Thomas Cochrane, Earl of Dundonald

... Parliament, obtained the name of the Rump Parliament. Lambert's hopes and aims were raised by his success against Sir George Booth in the August following, and jealousies soon arose between his party in the army and the Rump. The Parliament would have dismissed him, and the chief officers in the cabal with him, but Lambert with the army in October hindered their free meeting, and took the management of the government into the hands of a council of officers, whom they called the Committee of Safety. Towards the latter end of the year, the tide began to be changed in favour ...
— Cavalier Songs and Ballads of England from 1642 to 1684 • Charles Mackay

... I remember, I wonder not they were weary of you; last night was one of their cabal-nights: they have 'em three times a week and meet by turns at one another's apartments, where they come together like the coroner's inquest, to sit upon the murdered reputations of the week. You and I are excluded, and it was once proposed that all the male sex should be excepted; but somebody ...
— The Way of the World • William Congreve

... independence of his second son. He moreover observed, that, in consequence of this information, he no sooner heard of Mr. Pickle's death, which happened at the club, than he went directly with a lawyer to his house, before any cabal or conspiracy could be formed against the rightful heir; and, in presence of witnesses provided for the purpose, sealed up all the papers of the deceased, after the widow had, in the first transports of her sorrow and vexation, fairly owned, that ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett

... favour at too dear a rate; When merit pines, while clamour is preferr'd, And long attachment waits among the herd; When no distinction, where distinction 's due, Marks from the many the superior few; When strong cabal constrains them to be just, And makes them give at last—because they must; What hopes that men of real worth should prize, What neither friendship gives, nor merit buys? The man who justly o'er the whole presides, ...
— The Poetical Works of Edward Young, Volume 2 • Edward Young

... Opposition in the House of Commons Fall of Clarendon State of European Politics, and Ascendancy of France Character of Lewis XIV The Triple Alliance The Country Party Connection between Charles II. and France Views of Lewis with respect to England Treaty of Dover Nature of the English Cabinet The Cabal Shutting of the Exchequer War with the United Provinces, and their extreme Danger William, Prince of Orange Meeting of the Parliament; Declaration of Indulgence It is cancelled, and the Test Act passed The Cabal dissolved Peace with the United Provinces; Administration of Danby Embarrassing ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Complete Contents of the Five Volumes • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... beset your cradle and menaced your youth. A prince of your house, backed up by ambitious inferiors, resolved to wrest the crown from you, in order to get it for himself and his descendants. The Queen, your mother, full of heroic resolution, herself had energy enough to resist the cabal; but more than once her feet touched the very brink of the precipice, and more than once she nearly fell over ...
— The Memoirs of Madame de Montespan, Complete • Madame La Marquise De Montespan

... yo un amigo, llamado Ramon Gamez, teniente de cazadores de mi mismo batallon, el hombre mas cabal que he conocido....—Nos habiamos educado juntos; juntos salimos del colegio; juntos peleamos mil veces, y juntos deseabamos morir por la libertad....—iOh! iEstoy por decir[16-4] 15 que el era mas liberal que yo y que ...
— Novelas Cortas • Pedro Antonio de Alarcon

... a story, as true as the sausage story above given, was told regarding me, by one of those reverend divines, in whose frock sits some anile chatter-boxes, as any man who knows this world knows. They take the privilege of their gown. They cabal, and tattle, and hiss, and cackle comminations under their breath. I say the old women of the other sex are not more talkative or more mischievous than some of these. "Such a man ought not to be spoken to," says Gobemouche, narrating ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray

... in my last about the four Princes, I now know not to be true with respect to the Duke of Gloucester, who has held aloof from all cabal with them, and even declared in the House of Lords that he ...
— Memoirs of the Court and Cabinets of George the Third, Volume 2 (of 2) - From the Original Family Documents • The Duke of Buckingham

... have seen by Sir James' speech, the very complete triumph his firmness and energy have obtained over the factious cabal of their most contemptible assembly. Bedard will be shortly released—that fellow alone of the whole gang has nerve, and does not want ability or inclination to do mischief whenever opportunity offers; the rest, old Papineau and ...
— The Life and Correspondence of Sir Isaac Brock • Ferdinand Brock Tupper

... Mr. Pinkney to have been born too far south. Had he been a New Englander, it is probable that he would have been ranked as the first of American lyrists by that magnanimous cabal which has so long controlled the destinies of American Letters, in conducting the thing called 'The North American Review'. The poem just cited is especially beautiful; but the poetic elevation which it induces we must refer ...
— Edgar Allan Poe's Complete Poetical Works • Edgar Allan Poe

... his post till my Lord Clarendon went out and the Cabal came in, and then, not liking those he had to work with, he gave up his office, and we retired into the country, while our children were still young enough to grow up in the love to Walwyn that I ...
— Stray Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge

... group of large-site administrators who pushed through the {Great Renaming} and reined in the chaos of {USENET} during most of the 1980s. The cabal {mailing list} disbanded in late 1988 after a bitter internal catfight, ...
— THE JARGON FILE, VERSION 2.9.10

... expedition, to avoid quarrels and, at the same time, to promote his plans, resolved to despatch Bussi to his duchy of Alencon, in order to discipline such troops as he should find there. My brother's amiable qualities excited the jealousy of Maugiron and the rest of his cabal about the King's person, and their dislike for Bussi was not so much on his own account as because he was strongly attached to my brother. The slights and disrespect shown to my brother were remarked by everyone at Court; but his prudence, ...
— Memoirs And Historical Chronicles Of The Courts Of Europe - Marguerite de Valois, Madame de Pompadour, and Catherine de Medici • Various

... the South Devon Railway, and lies in a rocky nook on the confines of Dartmoor. Macaulay, whose brother was vicar of the neighboring parish of Bovey-Tracey, knew it well, and tells us in his History that Clifford (a member of the Cabal ministry) retired to the woods of Ugbrook. He was a lucky man to have such paternal acres to retire to, but probably the visitor to-day sees this park in a condition which Charles's minister would indeed ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII, No. 29. August, 1873. • Various

... half an hour on the Chief Commissioner, the work part of the day was gone; and then my lassitude—I say lassitude—not indolence—is so great that it costs me an hour's nap after I come home. We dined to-day with R. Dundas of Arniston—Anne and I. There was a small cabal about Cheape's election for Professor of Civil Law, which it is thought we can carry for him. He deserves support, having been very indifferently used in the affair of the Beacon,[429] where certain high Tories showed a great desire to leave him to the mercy of ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott

... no lack of 'Boulangism' in France forty years ago had M. Thiers and his legislative cabal got the better of the Prince President in the 'struggle for life' which then went on between the Place St.-Georges ...
— France and the Republic - A Record of Things Seen and Learned in the French Provinces - During the 'Centennial' Year 1889 • William Henry Hurlbert

... who described the present Parliamentary situation as "a cabal every afternoon and a crisis every second day" is justified of his epigram. The lobbies this afternoon were full of agitated whisperers, with much talk of a divided Cabinet and this and that Minister on the brink of resignation, because they cannot agree upon the number of men they want ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. CL, April 26, 1916 • Various

... me that it was because he was proud, reticent, and held himself aloof from their club life and social haunts. Taking advantage of his personal unpopularity, your magnanimous guardian organized a cabal against him. No sooner was the painting exhibited, than a tirade of ridicule and abuse was poured upon it, and the journal most influential in forming and directing artistic taste, contained an overwhelmingly adverse criticism, ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson

... tri-color we all love and honor, as the symbol of our homes and the hope of the world, and thought how more grandly, even in her ruin, Richmond stood in the light of its crowding stars, rather than the den of a desperate cabal, whose banner was known in no city nor sea, but as the ensign of corsairs, and hailed only by fustian peers, now rent in the grip of our eagle, and without a fane or an abiding-place. Let us go on, not conquerors, but Republicans, battering down only to rebuild more gloriously,—not ...
— Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, - and His Romaunt Abroad During the War • George Alfred Townsend

... Curio[513] the tribune from many debts, and given to Paulus the consul fifteen hundred talents, out of which he decorated the Forum with the Basilica, a famous monument which he built in place of the old one called Fulvia;—under these circumstances, Pompeius, fearing cabal, both openly himself and by means of his friends exerted himself to have a successor[514] appointed to Caesar in his government, and he sent and demanded back of him the soldiers[515] which he had lent to Caesar for ...
— Plutarch's Lives Volume III. • Plutarch

... the commission with which he had been intrusted as a personal mark of favour from his sovereign; forgetting that he had formerly thought his being deprived of a privilege, or honour, common to those of his rank, was the result of mere party cabal. He commanded his trusty aide-de-camp, Dominie Sampson, to read aloud the commission; and at the first words, "The king has been pleased to appoint"—"Pleased!" he exclaimed, in a transport of gratitude; ...
— Guy Mannering • Sir Walter Scott

... farce of answering her scruples before the bewildered man—the scene that for some far-fetched reason led Macaulay's mind to the incest in the Oedipus Rex—is perhaps the best comedy of situation in the piece. But the scene of defamation between the Froths and Brisk is notable as (with the Cabal idea in The Way of the World) the inspiration of the Scandal Scenes in Sheridan's play. When we remember that less than two years were gone since the production of The Old Bachelor, the improvement in Congreve is remarkable. ...
— The Comedies of William Congreve - Volume 1 [of 2] • William Congreve

... is, and not as the old masters or the new masters have said it should be painted, to persevere in looking at truth and at nature without the smallest prejudice for tradition, this was the whole mystery and cabal of the P. R. B. They called themselves "preraphaelite," because they found in the wings of Lippi's angels, and the columbines of Perugino's gardens that loving and exact study of minute things which gave to them a sense of sincerity, and which they missed in the breadth and ease of later work. ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 8 (of 8) • Various

... tedious, when, after the first act, they would never listen ten minutes to it? Why did they attend to the first scenes, and even applaud one? Let me not be told, because these were sublime, and commanded the respect of the cabal raised against it; because there are other scenes far more sublime in the piece, which they perpetually interrupted. Will it be believed, that they pitched upon the scene of the sacrifice of Volgesie, ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli

... no lack of provocation. Since the removal of Reeder, all the Federal officials of the Territory were affiliated with the pro-slavery Missouri cabal. Both to secure the permanent establishment of slavery in Kansas, and to gratify the personal pride of their triumph, they were determined to make these recusant free- State voters "bow down to the cap of Gessler." Despotism ...
— Abraham Lincoln: A History V1 • John G. Nicolay and John Hay

... and members of Congress plotted during 1777 to have Washington removed from the command of the army. For an account of this Conway Cabal read Fiske's American ...
— A Brief History of the United States • John Bach McMaster

... Le Tartuffe, Les Femmes Savantes, and Le Misanthrope, works that were perilous ventures on the popular intelligence, big vessels to launch on streams running to shallows. The Tartuffe hove into view as an enemy's vessel; it offended, not Dieu mais les devots, as the Prince de Conde explained the cabal raised against it to ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... left for the other questions. There was no romantic side to be expressed in these, so she scribbled away half-heartedly. Her uncertain memory, which had readily supplied quotations from Browning or Edgar Allan Poe, struck altogether when asked for such sordid details as the names of the Cabal ministry, or the history of the Long Parliament. The bell rang, and left her with her paper only half finished. At one o'clock the candidates were given an hour's rest, and a hot lunch was served to them in the dining-hall. At two they returned to their desks, and the examination continued ...
— The Luckiest Girl in the School • Angela Brazil

... lacked experience of war, that had been accustomed in unusual measure to have its wishes speedily gratified, must somehow be marshalled behind the government, unless the alternative was the capture of power by the Congressional Cabal that was ...
— Lincoln • Nathaniel Wright Stephenson

... from books, or any manuscript I ever yet met withal, it is reduced from a cabal lodging in astrology, but so mysterious and difficult to be attained, that I have not yet been acquainted with any who had that knowledge. I will say no more thereof, but that the asterisms and signs and constellations give greatest ...
— William Lilly's History of His Life and Times - From the Year 1602 to 1681 • William Lilly

... an ignoble cabal, supported not so much, perhaps, by Rattazzi himself as by followers, the design of which was to prevent Cavour from returning to power. Abroad, the Empress Eugenie, who looked on Cavour as the Pope's worst foe, did what she could to further the scheme, and its promoters counted ...
— The Liberation of Italy • Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco

... John Quincy Adams, he was really the Chief Magistrate. He submitted neither his reason nor his conscience to the control of any partisan cabal. No man was appointed to office in obedience to political dictation, and no faithful public servant was proscribed. The result rewarded his magnanimity. Faction ceased to exist. When South Carolina, a few years afterward, ...
— Life and Public Services of John Quincy Adams - Sixth President of the Unied States • William H. Seward

... rapid succession, during his Storm and Stress period, The Robbers, Fiesco, Cabal and Love, and the beginning of Don Carlos (finished in 1787). Between this time and his last period, which opens with Wallenstein, he devoted himself assiduously to the study of philosophy, history, and esthetic ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. III • Kuno Francke (Editor-in-Chief)

... The whole cabal of his enemies consulted together in what manner they should vent their resentment against him; and it was agreed that they should treat him with indifference and neglect, till they should arrive in France; and when there, they should contrive to render his courage suspected, and by ...
— The Old English Baron • Clara Reeve

... to found a party in this house, and there is scarcely a member at this end of the House who is able to address us with effect or to take much part, whom he has not tried to bring over to his party and his cabal. At last he has succeeded in hooking ... Mr. Lowe. I know it was the opinion many years ago of a member of the Cabinet that two men could make a party. When a party is formed of two men so amiable and so disinterested as the two gentlemen, we may hope to see for the first time in Parliament ...
— The Grand Old Man • Richard B. Cook

... of affairs when the third Governor of Kansas, newly appointed by President Pierce, arrived in the Territory. The Kansas pro-slavery cabal had upon the dismissal of Shannon fondly hoped that one of their own clique, either Secretary Woodson or Surveyor-General John Calhoun, would be made executive, and had set on foot active efforts in that direction. In principle and purpose they enjoyed the abundant sympathy ...
— Abraham Lincoln, A History, Volume 2 • John George Nicolay and John Hay

... you did very well, my children—" the young man smiled benevolently—"very well. And now," he continued, turning to Lady Mary and speaking in English, "let me be asking of our gallants yonder what make' them to be in cabal with highwaymen. One should come to a polite understanding with them, you think? ...
— Monsieur Beaucaire • Booth Tarkington

... the sanded square, with hedges of sere lime trees, where a big, periwigged Roman Emperor of an Elector presides, making one think of the shouts of "Hurrah, lads, for America!" of the bought and sold Hessians of Schiller's "Cabal and Love." At the other end was a promenade, terraced above the yellow tree-tops of a park, above a gentle undulating country, with villages and steeples in the distance. "Schoeneaussicht" the place called itself; and the view was looked at by the wide and many windows of pleasant ...
— Hortus Vitae - Essays on the Gardening of Life • Violet Paget, AKA Vernon Lee

... government, and the happy effects they had experienced from it, prompted them to choose from among their wisest and most virtuous men, him in whom they had observed the tenderest and most fatherly disposition. Neither ambition nor cabal had the least share in this choice; probity alone, and the reputation of virtue and equity, decided on these occasions, and gave the ...
— The Ancient History of the Egyptians, Carthaginians, Assyrians, • Charles Rollin

... Triumvirate of Painters, to monopolize to themselves all valuable commissions, and particularly the honor of decorating the chapel of St. Januarius, is one of the most curious passages in the history of art. The following is Lanzi's account of this disgraceful cabal: ...
— Anecdotes of Painters, Engravers, Sculptors and Architects, and Curiosities of Art, (Vol. 2 of 3) • Shearjashub Spooner

... request, was again arrested and carried off a prisoner "to the very room where, twenty-four years ago, Marshal Biron had been confined." For some time past "it had been current at court and throughout the kingdom that a great cabal was going on," says Richelieu in his Memoires, "and the cabalists said quite openly that under his ministry, men might cabal with impunity, for he was not a dangerous enemy." If the cabalists had been living in that confidence, they were most ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume V. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot

... men. He brought with him to the camp at Cambridge two who were ambitious to displace him, yet of Lee and Gates, both retired English officers, the first never won a personal following, and the second achieved but the meagre dignity of leadership of a cabal. From the moment when he took command of the army, Washington was, indeed, "first in the ...
— The Siege of Boston • Allen French

... words, in process of time, become so thoroughly domesticated that their translation, or the use of an awkward equivalent, would be a greater mark of pedantry than the use of the foreign words. The proper use of such terms as fiat, palladium, cabal, quorum, omnibus, antique, artiste, coquette, ennui, physique, regime, tableau, amateur, cannot be censured on the ground of their ...
— Slips of Speech • John H. Bechtel

... permitted to write without rebuke and without punishment that the present Kaiser "has all the gifts except one, that of politics," marks a new license in journalistic debate. That this same person was able, single-handed, to bring about the exposure and downfall of a cabal of decadent courtiers whose influence with the Emperor was deplored, proves again how completely the German press has escaped from certain leading-strings. A sharp criticism of the Emperor in die Post, even as lately as ...
— Germany and the Germans - From an American Point of View (1913) • Price Collier

... most extraordinary memorial of Sir Joseph Yorke to the States-General, which, perhaps, any foreign Minister ever made to an independent State; calling for their open disavowal of the conduct of the Regency; censuring them as a mad cabal, ever ready to sacrifice the public interests to private views, aiding the natural enemy (France) of both countries in destroying their mutual happiness; and it demands of the States-General also, an exemplary punishment of the Pensionary, Van Berckel, by name, and of all his accomplices, ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. VIII • Various

... discussion ran high upon the probabilities. Some were of opinion that it would be Huntley; some, Gerald Yorke; a very few, Tom Channing. Countenanced by Gaunt and Huntley, as he had been throughout, Tom bore on his way, amid much cabal; but for the circumstance of the senior boy espousing (though not very markedly) his cause, his place would have been unbearable. Hamish attended to his customary duties in Guild Street, and sat up at night as usual in his bedroom, as his candle ...
— The Channings • Mrs. Henry Wood

... of the English constitutional system to-day, namely, the cabinet. The creation of the cabinet was a gradual process, and both the process and the product are utterly unknown to the letter of English law. It is customary to regard as the immediate antecedent of the cabinet the so-called "cabal" of Charles II., i.e., the irregular group of persons whom that sovereign selected from the Privy Council and took advice from informally in lieu of the Council itself. In point of fact, by reason principally of the growing unwieldiness of the Privy Council, the practice of deferring ...
— The Governments of Europe • Frederic Austin Ogg

... agreed that Sunderland should receive this sum yearly, and that he should, in return, exert all his influence to prevent the reassembling of the Parliament. [59] He joined himself therefore to the Jesuitical cabal, and made so dexterous an use of the influence of that cabal that he was appointed to succeed Halifax in the high dignity of Lord President without being required to resign the far more active and lucrative post ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 2 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... of the family who played the most important part in history is Sir Thomas Clifford, afterwards the Lord Clifford whose initial is the first of the five that together spell 'Cabal.' In its early days, he was the leading spirit of that famous council. One branch of the Cliffords had settled in Holland, and it was probably in staying there with his relations that Sir Thomas had been brought to the notice of Charles ...
— Devon, Its Moorlands, Streams and Coasts • Rosalind Northcote

... to let events drift now. They had passed beyond her control. Perhaps a policy of masterly inactivity might rescue her from the tornado which had swept her off her feet. In any case, she must fight her own battles, irrespective of the cabal entered into in Paris. Captain James Devar was an impossible ally; the French Count was a negligible quantity when compared with an English viscount whose ancestry threw back to the Conquest and whose estates covered half ...
— Cynthia's Chauffeur • Louis Tracy

... about. In December, 1809, Macon made an effort to pass a stringent navigation act to meet the British Orders in Council and the French decrees. The bill passed the House but was emasculated in the Senate, the Republican cabal voting with the Federalists to strike out the effective clauses. The act interdicting commercial intercourse with Great Britain and France expired in May, 1810, and was not revived. A new act was passed, which was a virtual surrender of every point in dispute. Resistance was abandoned, and our ...
— Albert Gallatin - American Statesmen Series, Vol. XIII • John Austin Stevens

... before he could complete his financial reforms, he was driven from office by the cabals of his colleagues, and the influence of the king's German favorites and mistresses. The Earl of Sunderland, who had married a daughter of the Duke of Marlborough, was at the head of the cabal party, and was much endeared to the Whigs by his steady attachment to their principles. He had expected, and probably deserved, to be placed at the head of the administration. When disappointed, he bent all his energies to undermine Townsend and Walpole, and succeeded ...
— A Modern History, From the Time of Luther to the Fall of Napoleon - For the Use of Schools and Colleges • John Lord

... of church or state He very zealous is, and able, Devout at pray'rs, and sits up late At the cabal and council-table. His very dog, at council-board, Sits grave and wise as ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Volume II • Theophilus Cibber

... built of trunks of trees. The flag of the United States waves in the centre, surrounded by English colours, and medals hung to the walls. They are presented by the Indians to their Father, the agent, as a proof that they abjure all cabal or alliance with the English. Pipes, or calumets and other little Indian presents, offered by the various tribes as pledges of their friendship, decorate the walls and give a remarkable and characteristic ...
— Old Fort Snelling - 1819-1858 • Marcus L. Hansen

... Union. It is unfortunate that he did not take this step at first. The mistake probably resulted from his besetting sin—excess of confidence. On 26th January he expressed to Cornwallis his deep disappointment and grief at the action of the Dublin Parliament, which he ascribed to prejudice and cabal. Clearly he had underrated the force of ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose

... interest enough to make his government easy; yet even those, in the latter part of his reign, he had run counter to in every project that opposed his own opinion; for which, and because he grew reserved and would not drink and roar at their rate, a cabal was formed to take away his captainship, which death did ...
— Great Pirate Stories • Various

... had been six canoes of them, who, among other methods of taking fish, had taught their dogs to drive the fish into a corner of some pond or lake, from whence they were easily taken out by the skill and address of these savages. The old cabal, during our absence, had been frequently revived; the debates of which generally ended in riot and drunkenness. This cabal was chiefly held in a large tent, which the people belonging to it had taken some ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 17 • Robert Kerr

... some share in its administration. Again, Government is a contrivance instituted for the security of individuals; and it seems both reasonable that each man should have a share in providing for his own security, and probable, that partiality and cabal should by this means be most effectually excluded. And again, To give each man a voice in the public concerns comes nearest to that admirable idea of which we should never lose sight, the uncontrolled exercise of private judgment. Each man would thus be ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage

... witch of Eye, Roger Bolingbroke, an astrologer and supposed magician, Thomas Southwel, canon of St. Stephen's, and one John Hume, or Hun, a priest. These persons frequently met the duchess in secret cabal. They were accused of calling up spirits from the infernal world; and they made an image of wax, which they slowly consumed before a fire, expecting that, as the image gradually wasted away, so the constitution and life of the poor king would ...
— Lives of the Necromancers • William Godwin

... Ships must have passed, & other powers in their Hands, made use of these Powers to defeat the Intentions of the people & succeeded; in short the Governor who for Art & Cunning as well as an inveterate hatred of the people was inferior to no one of the Cabal; both encouragd & provoked the people to destroy the Tea. By refusing to grant a Passport he held up to them the alternative of destroying the property of the East India Company or suffering that to be the sure ...
— The Writings of Samuel Adams, vol. III. • Samuel Adams

... monks who teach, who dispute, who govern, who cabal, and who burn people that are not of ...
— Candide • Voltaire

... his duty, like General Grant, in the station to which he was assigned, he might have risen much higher. As it was, he never did. This man made the discovery of the War Department order, and soon there was a cabal which was constantly giving out that they were independent of my authority and could shake themselves free at any moment. At first, we did not know what this meant, but it soon leaked out, though they intended to keep ...
— Personal Recollections of a Cavalryman - With Custer's Michigan Cavalry Brigade in the Civil War • J. H. (James Harvey) Kidd

... ever been won except by a bold initiative? I say nothing of professional jealousy, it exists in the army as elsewhere; but it is a bitter thought to me that the recognition denied me by my country—or rather by the Radical cabal in the Cabinet which pursues my family with rancorous class hatred—that this recognition, I say, came to me at the hands of an enemy—of ...
— Augustus Does His Bit • George Bernard Shaw

... been intrusted by George IV. with the task of forming a government, but had promptly been deserted by six members of the former Ministry, including Wellington, Lord Eldon, and Peel, who were now accused of having resigned in consequence of a cabal or conspiracy against the constitutional prerogative of the king to change his ministers at his own pleasure. In the House of Commons the prince heard Peel's attack on Canning and the new government, which was parried by Brougham. 'In a magnificent speech, which ...
— Little Memoirs of the Nineteenth Century • George Paston

... out against the queen which could not easily be repelled. A friend who called upon her immediately after the decision, found her in her closet weeping bitterly. "Come," said Maria, "come and weep for your queen, insulted and sacrificed by cabal and injustice." The king came in at the same moment, and said, "You find the queen much afflicted; she has great reason to be so. They were determined through out this affair to see only an ecclesiastical prince, a Prince de Rohan, while he is, in fact, ...
— Maria Antoinette - Makers of History • John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott

... the enemy of the Cinq-Cygnes, by giving his influence to the election of Simon Giguet; and he was now conversing on that point with the man who accompanied him, an apothecary named Fromaget, who, as he did not furnish his wares to the chateau de Gondreville, desired nothing better than to cabal against the Kellers. ...
— The Deputy of Arcis • Honore de Balzac

... to the weary routine of court life: "The princesses who have not attended the hunt will come in, followed by their cabal, and wait the return of the king in my apartment in order to go to dinner. The hunters will come in a crowd, and will relate the whole history of their day's sport, without sparing us a single detail. They will then go to dinner. Madame de Dangeau will challenge ...
— Louis XIV., Makers of History Series • John S. C. Abbott

... That was what it amounted to. She had stolen his confidence, as only a selfish woman could. And against that cabal of mother and son he felt helpless. It was even more than that. As against Natalie's indulgence he did not wish to pose as a mentor pointing out always the ...
— Dangerous Days • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... 551. (Session of Fructidor 3.) The first idea of the commission of Eleven was to have the Convention itself choose the two-thirds. "Its opponents took advantage of the public outcry and broke off this plan.... of the Girondist cabal." Louvet, Fructidor 3, mounted three times into the tribune to support this project, still more scandalous than the other. "Eh, what electoral assembly could be better than yours! You all know each other well." Louvet adds this significant expression: ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 4 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 3 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine

... Its neutrality is always useful, while its alliance becomes frequently a burden, and its support of no advantage. It is, therefore, more from a view of preventing evils than from expectation of profit, that all other Powers plot, cabal, and bribe. The map of the Turkish Empire explains what maybe though absurd or ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton

... scale of probabilities, which he found had been with great skill calculated on these notes, he selected the principal names, and then tried with these, whether he could make out an idea that had struck him the moment he had heard of the Gassoc. He recollected the famous word Cabal, in the reign of Charles the Second, and he thought it possible that the cabalistical word Gassoc might be formed by a similar combination. But Gassoc was no English word, was no word of any language. Upon close examination of the ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. VII - Patronage • Maria Edgeworth

... violent opposition in the house of lords, also; but it was finally carried by a majority of seventy-one against twenty-eight. Sixteen peers signed a long and powerfully-expressed protest, representing the bill as friendly to corrupt intrigue and cabal, hostile to all good government, and abhorrent to the principles of ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan

... to my death, were it for the benefit of my country," said he. "But to fall a sacrifice to a cabal, to the jealousy of an insidious, knavish favorite, is what makes the death-hour fearful. Ah, I die for naught, I die that Munnich, Ostermann, and Biron may remain securely in power. It is horrible ...
— The Daughter of an Empress • Louise Muhlbach

... why are these idle people so indiscreet to name those two words, which afford occasion of laying open to the world such an infamous scene of subornation and perjury, as well as calumny and informing, as I believe is without example: when a whole cabal attempted an action, wherein a condemned criminal refused to join with them for the reward of his life?[7] Not that I disapprove their sagacity, who could foretell so long before, by what hand they should ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IX; • Jonathan Swift

... Session, very often in a group, and at such times he usually asked, "Well, boys, what's the news?" He wanted good news; and many a reporter tricked up the truth now and then to give it to him. Informed once that "Bob" Rogers had vehemently in his office denied any cabal in the Cabinet against the Premier he swiftly replied, with that splendid, satirical smile, "Well, the fact that Bob Rogers says there is none would convince me that ...
— The Masques of Ottawa • Domino

... a cabal of witches detected at Malmsbury. They ere examined by Sir James Long of Draycot-Cerne, and by him committed to Salisbury Gaol. I think there were seven or eight old women hanged. There were odd things sworne against them, as the strange manner of ...
— The Natural History of Wiltshire • John Aubrey

... among his friends most of the distinguished nobility. The great Duke of Ormond had already begun that connection which subsisted between Dryden and three generations of the house of Butler; Thomas Lord Clifford, one of the Cabal ministry, was uniform in patronising the poet, and appears to have been active in introducing him to the king's favour; the Duke of Newcastle, as we have seen, loved him sufficiently to present him with a play for the stage; the witty Earl of Dorset, then Lord Buckhurst, ...
— The Dramatic Works of John Dryden Vol. I. - With a Life of the Author • Sir Walter Scott

... had been laid to sleep by the recognition of Pope Symmachus. Before sending this letter, the Pope had held a council of seventy-two bishops in St. Peter's on March 1, 499, which made important regulations to prevent cabal and disturbance at papal elections such as had just taken place. This council had been subscribed by Laurentius himself,[81] and the Pope in compassion[82] had given him the bishopric of Nocera. Now the emperor Anastasius, reproved ...
— The Formation of Christendom, Volume VI - The Holy See and the Wandering of the Nations, from St. Leo I to St. Gregory I • Thomas W. (Thomas William) Allies

... them Hollar? Then at Lambeth, ain't Mr. Baldwin and Mr. Cabbell been both on 'em bottled By Mr. D'Eyncourt and Mr. Hawes, who makes soap yellow and mottled! And hasn't Sir Benjamin Hall, and the gallant Commodore Napier, Made such a cabal with Cabbell and Hamilton as would make any chap queer? Whilst Sankey, who was backed by a Cleave-r for Marrowbone looks cranky, Acos the electors, like lisping babbies, cried out "No Sankee?" Then South'ark has sent Alderman Humphrey and Mr. B. Wood, Who has ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various

... understand and believe, pretty much the same in more modern institutions for the encouragement of the Fine Arts. The end is lost in the means: rules take place of nature and genius; cabal and bustle, and struggle for rank and precedence, supersede the study and the love of art. A Royal Academy is a kind of hospital and infirmary for the obliquities of taste and ingenuity—a receptacle where enthusiasm and ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt

... on the site of Arlington House, so called from its connection with Henry Bennet, Earl of Arlington (the Earl whose initial supplied one of the a's in the word "Cabal"). John Sheffield, Duke of Buckingham, bought the house and rebuilt it in 1703, naming it after himself, and including in the grounds part of the land belonging to Tart Hall, which stood at the head of St. James's Street, and has been mentioned in the account ...
— The Strand District - The Fascination of London • Sir Walter Besant

... Grace, you may call it vengeance—vengeance on the cabal of councillors, who have ever countermined you, in spite of your wit and your interest with the King.—Vengeance ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott

... wolf-pack was over. Hendricks resigned, to escape a worse thing; Meigs came over to the majority with a show of heartiness that made Kent doubly watchful of him; heads fell to the right and left, until at the last there was left only one member of the original cabal to reckon with; the judicial tool of the ...
— The Grafters • Francis Lynde

... decisive. By adopting obstructive tactics, of a kind to be perfected in a later age, the opposition succeeded in prolonging the discussion in committee over forty nights, until September 7. Though Peel separated himself from the old tories, and steadily declined to cabal with O'Connell's faction against the government, such an unprofitable waste of time could not have taken place without his tacit sanction. Only one important alteration was made in the bill. This was the famous "Chandos ...
— The Political History of England - Vol XI - From Addington's Administration to the close of William - IV.'s Reign (1801-1837) • George Brodrick

... other hand, the same Self-love inspires a beast to heap The highest pyramid of fame For every one that bears his name; Because he justly deems such praise The easiest way himself to raise. 'Tis my conclusion in the case, That many a talent here below Is but cabal, or sheer grimace,— The art of seeming things to know— An art in which perfection lies More ...
— A Hundred Fables of La Fontaine • Jean de La Fontaine

... religion both are safe; they are secured to us by the laws; and those laws are executed under an established government, by a lawful king. The Defender of our Faith is the defender of our common freedom; to cabal, to write, to rail against this administration are all endeavours to destroy the government; and to oppose the succession, in any private man, is a treasonable practice against the foundation of it. Pompey very honourably maintained the liberty of his ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Vol. 7 (of 18) - The Duke of Guise; Albion and Albanius; Don Sebastian • John Dryden

... So far as it has gone, it probably is the most pure and defecated public good which ever has been conferred on mankind. We have seen anarchy and servitude at once removed, a throne strengthened for the protection of the people, without trenching on their liberties, all foreign cabal banished, by changing the crown from elective to hereditary; and what was a matter of pleasing wonder, we have seen a reigning King, from an heroic love to his country, exerting himself with all the toil, the ...
— Selected Speeches on British Foreign Policy 1738-1914 • Edgar Jones

... condescended to mitigate severe condemnation of his capacity by mild praise of his character, who had hoped to displace him from the presidency, and who, in the effort to do so, had engaged in what might have been stigmatized even as a cabal. Plenty of people were ready to tell him stories innumerable of Chase's hostility to him, and contemptuous remarks about him; but to all such communications he quietly refused to give ear. What Mr. Chase thought or ...
— Abraham Lincoln, Vol. II • John T. Morse

... demonstrations only too certain of coming evils receive but little attention in their earlier stages. Yet undoubtedly, if the laws applicable to conspiracy can in any way be evaded, we may see by the extensive cabal now organizing itself in England for aiding the Irish conspiracy to overthrow the Irish Protestant church, that we have but exchanged one form of agitation for a worse. Worse in what respect? Not as measured simply by the ruin it would cause—between ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLII. Vol. LV. April, 1844 • Various



Words linked to "Cabal" :   clique, secret plan, cabalist, politics, government, game, junto, camarilla, conjure, pack, machinate, complot, Gunpowder Plot, inner circle, plot, faction, conspire, political science, ingroup, coterie, conspiracy, coconspire, camp



Copyright © 2024 Dictionary One.com