Online dictionaryOnline dictionary
Synonyms, antonyms, pronunciation

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




Ceremonious   Listen
adjective
Ceremonious  adj.  
1.
Consisting of outward forms and rites; ceremonial. Note: (In this sense ceremonial is now preferred.) "The ceremonious part of His worship."
2.
According to prescribed or customary rules and forms; devoted to forms and ceremonies; formally respectful; punctilious. "Ceremonious phrases." "Too ceremonious and traditional."
Synonyms: Formal; precise; exact. See Formal.






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





"Ceremonious" Quotes from Famous Books



... of an agreeable female companion during the voyage. We may remark here that the letters of Hastings to his wife are exceedingly characteristic. They are tender, and full of indications of esteem and confidence: but, at the same time, a little more ceremonious than is usual in so intimate a relation. The solemn courtesy with which he compliments his "elegant Marian" reminds us now and then of the dignified air with which Sir Charles Grandison bowed over Miss Byron's hand in the ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... his stage practice to his aid, and following her lead,' it is not worth while; but,' he added with a ceremonious bow, 'I shall not break my heart if I must needs go on with Madame la Baronne. The right which you have given me to use a dearer name is so precious to me '—he drew out his watch and pretended to compare it with ...
— Despair's Last Journey • David Christie Murray

... and thus be free to engage in new relations; just as a man who wishes to be naturalized in a new country must first break the ties which hold him to the old one. Those articles of food we were speaking of lately, which are so stiff and ceremonious, and want so much coaxing before they change into chyme, which, moreover, we call indigestible because they tire the stomach so much more than the rest, are merely those whose component parts being held together by more ...
— The History of a Mouthful of Bread - And its effect on the organization of men and animals • Jean Mace

... little apprehension of personal violence, and the boss protested that he would 'see me righted,' should any mischief befall. So it went on for a few days longer, when a second deputation waited upon me, and, less ceremonious than the first, they rushed noisily, and without notice, up the stairs, and crowded into my bench-room. There were about twenty of them; their spokesman looked clean and respectable, but the others were a dirty, out-at-elbows, ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 428 - Volume 17, New Series, March 13, 1852 • Various

... Morven came a few weeks after, and remained some days with the countess. They were ceremonious and polite until they had a moment to retire from before people, when the countess changed her cold disdain to a cordial and ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest

... Understand me clearly, that I mean it! You must not come again into my grounds without my special permission. I shall not allow my liberty to be taken away, or restricted, by you. If there be need at any time to come to the house, come in ceremonious fashion, by the avenues which are used by others. You can always speak to me in public, or socially, in the most friendly manner; as I shall hope to be able to speak to you. But you must never transgress the ordinary rules of decorum. If you do, I shall have to take, for my own ...
— The Man • Bram Stoker

... in, an engine and tender, a brakesman's van, a single carriage and a guard's van. The stationmaster bid us a most ceremonious adieu, and the guard, cap in hand, helped me into ...
— The Man with the Clubfoot • Valentine Williams

... taken her name from the lists, as a result of this reputation. Her husband took part at all the royal functions, for he did not have a chance every day to show off his load of honorary hardware, but she stayed at home, loathing these ceremonious affairs. Renovales had often heard her declare, dressed luxuriously and wearing costly jewels in her ears and on her breast, that she laughed at his set, that she was on the inside, she was an anarchist! And he laughed as he heard ...
— Woman Triumphant - (La Maja Desnuda) • Vicente Blasco Ibanez

... help perceiving him, not only on account of his impertinent remarks, but he, moreover, stood so near him that he several times impeded him in his rapid evolutions, and of course got himself shoved aside in no very ceremonious way. Instead of making him keep his distance, these rude shocks and pushes, accompanied sometimes with hasty curses, only made him cling the closer to this king of the game. He seemed determined to maintain his right to his ...
— The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner • James Hogg

... not to be mollified, and during a meal, of which Turner duly appreciated the merits, concealed his annoyance with a tact truly French. He was a little more formal in his speech—a little more ceremonious in manner, and John Turner ignored these signs with a placid assurance for which ...
— Dross • Henry Seton Merriman

... Postlethwaite girl, and the instant that was concluded, as luck would have it, an elderly lady joined the group, and Mrs. Glow went through the formal ceremony of introducing King to her. He hardly knew how it happened, only that he made a hasty bow to the Bensons as he was shaking hands with the ceremonious old lady, and they had gone to the door of exit. He gave a little start as if to follow them, which Mrs. Glow noticed with a laugh and the remark, "You can catch them if you run," and then he weakly submitted to his fate. After all, it was only an accident which would hardly need a word ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner

... for I had heard that he disliked a more ceremonious prefix, "I've come to tell you how much the Leaves have meant to me." "Ah!" he simply replied, and asked me to take a chair. To this hour I can see the humble room, but when I try to recall our conversation I fail. That it was on general literary subjects I know, but the main theme ...
— Ivory Apes and Peacocks • James Huneker

... of the reception and entertainment of guests would apply with but little modification to the houses of the Kenyahs and Klemantans. In the Sea Dayak house the reception and entertainment of guests is less ceremonious, and is carried out by the unorganised efforts of individuals, rather than by the household as a whole with the chief at its head. On the arrival of a party of visitors, the people of each room clamorously invite the guests to sit down before ...
— The Pagan Tribes of Borneo • Charles Hose and William McDougall

... sliding, crawling and jumping, through forests of coal, over mines of iron, and beside walls glittering with silver. Presently, however, Leo found himself where they had started from, viz., his own cellar door, and Knops preparing to leave him. Dropping his ceremonious manner, he said: ...
— Prince Lazybones and Other Stories • Mrs. W. J. Hays

... going to Nazareth. Better stay here, unless you want to go through a great deal of ceremonious foolishness over there. It's Peruvian ground and the barefooted ignoramuses of officials may insist on showing their importance by demanding your papers and all that. I can go across, get the men, and be back here before you'd be half through the ...
— The Pathless Trail • Arthur O. (Arthur Olney) Friel

... bell!" exclaimed Louis; and seizing Hamilton's arm, he hurried off, leaving Norman to follow at his leisure, as neither Hamilton nor himself felt at all inclined to be ceremonious. ...
— Louis' School Days - A Story for Boys • E. J. May

... Mexico,—pleasant for young soldiers destined to die on the plains of Gettysburg or the cloudy heights of Lookout Mountain. There was an esprit de corps in the little band, a dignity of bearing, and a ceremonious state, lost in the great struggle which came afterward. That great struggle now lies ten years back; yet, to-day, when the silver-haired veterans meet, they pass it over as a thing of the present, and go back to the times of the ...
— Castle Nowhere • Constance Fenimore Woolson

... must trouble you with a word more on this disagreeable subject, Mr. Carleton," he began, after a ceremonious salutation,—"My friend, Lieut. Thorn, considers himself greatly outraged by your determination not to meet him. He begs to ask, by me, whether it is your purpose to abide by it at ...
— Queechy • Susan Warner

... had retained in his own from the time she put them there. "You must redeem your promise to come and see me again, I hope under happier circumstances." He flung open the door with suspicious haste, and bowed her out in his ceremonious way. ...
— The Mayor of Warwick • Herbert M. Hopkins

... hundred odes and declared that "purity of thought" might be stamped on the whole collection. Into a confused mass of traditional ceremonies be brought something like order, making the Chinese (if a trifle too ceremonious) the politest people on earth. Out of their myths and chronicles he extracted a trustworthy history, and by his treatment of vice he made princes tremble, lest their heads should be exposed on the gibbet of history. He gave much time to editing the music of ...
— The Awakening of China • W.A.P. Martin

... was to go over to the mainland. He nodded to the young man carelessly, but said nothing, and no one would have guessed how kindly he had spoken to him on the previous night. Giovanni Beroviero took ceremonious leave of his father, his cap in his hand, bending low, a lean man, twenty years older than Marietta, with an insignificant brow and clean-shaven, pointed jaw and greedy lips. Marietta stood within the shadow of the doorway, very ...
— Marietta - A Maid of Venice • F. Marion Crawford

... Next day a ceremonious visit was paid to Rauparaha in his island fortress: "The old man told me that now he had seen my eyes and heard my words, he would lay aside his evil ways and turn to the Book." How far this change was sincere may be doubted; it seems to have been partly caused by his fear of Col. Wakefield's ship, ...
— A History of the English Church in New Zealand • Henry Thomas Purchas

... of entertainment. A dinner to eight people, not specially elaborate and without wines, rarely costs the giver less than $25 or $30, and may easily run much higher. It requires delicacies for the palate, flowers and bonbons and other decorations for the table, and ceremonious serving. The finest of linen, cut glass and silver adorn it, and the repast may easily be prolonged through two or more hours. Such a dinner is served in courses; begins with an appetizer, extends through soup, fish, joint, salad and dessert courses at the very least, and ends with coffee, ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter

... animals, I am extremely susceptible to external impressions; and the fresh air, movement, and company, had all their usual exhilarating effects on my spirits. Our lady of Sourcraut Hall, Lady C——, received myself and my protector with a ceremonious and freezing politeness; asked a few questions concerning my treatment, gentleness, and docility; and desiring my kind companion to put me on the back of a chair, she bowed him out of the room. When ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 17, Number 489, Saturday, May 14, 1831 • Various

... simplest action is begun or ended by king or chief. Monteiro and Gamitto (pp. 101 et seg.) refer to the practice everywhere on the line of country which they visited: there it seems to be even a more ceremonious affair than in the Congo. The claps were successively less till they were hardly audible; after a pause five or six were given, and the last two or three were in hurried time, the while without pronouncing a word. The palaver now opened steadily with a drink: a bottle of trade ...
— Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton

... by the indifference, to use no harsher term, of the foreigner to the fact that the Chinese are a very ceremonious people, extremely punctilious in all social relations and disposed to regard a breach of etiquette as a cardinal sin. "Face'' is a national institution which must be preserved at all hazards. No one can get along with the Chinese who does not ...
— An Inevitable Awakening • ARTHUR JUDSON BROWN

... stood up in the pew, and repeated the responses very audibly; evincing that kind of ceremonious devotion punctually observed by a gentleman of the old school, and a man of old family connections. I observed, too, that he turned over the leaves of a folio prayer-book with something of a flourish; possibly to show off an ...
— Old Christmas From the Sketch Book of Washington Irving • Washington Irving

... of the final tie on the Pacific lines, as has been hinted, was a ceremonious undertaking. The event took place on Monday, March 10th, 1869. Representatives were present from almost every part of the Union, and the construction parties, not yet wholly dispersed, made up a greater crowd than had been seen at Promontory before or is likely ...
— Railway Adventures and Anecdotes - extending over more than fifty years • Various

... preserve them, he must make room for another who will. So long, however, as he answers their expectations, there is no limit to the care which they take of him, and which they compel him to take of himself. A king of this sort lives hedged in by a ceremonious etiquette, a network of prohibitions and observances, of which the intention is not to contribute to his dignity, much less to his comfort, but to restrain him from conduct which, by disturbing ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer

... of that period, and which at the present day seems no longer to be understood, even in the portraits of the period in which the painter has endeavored to recall them into being. La Valliere acknowledged the ceremonious salutation which Fouquet addressed to her by a gentle inclination of the head and motioned him to a seat. But Fouquet, with a bow, said, "I will not sit down ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas

... imperfect copy of trans-Atlantic originals. Starting from this point, their course has been shaped according to the peculiar genius of our institutions and people. Republican feeling has dispensed with the monastic dress, the servile demeanor toward superiors, and the ceremonious forms which had lost their significance. The peculiar wants of a new country have required not high scholarship, but more practical learning to meet pressing physical wants. Again, our numerous religious ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No 3, September, 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various

... open the double window-sashes and politely asked the gentleman to make use of this direct road, with an apology for suggesting it. But he had seen at a glance that this kind of happy-go-lucky tourist was not of the ceremonious strain. ...
— The Son of Clemenceau • Alexandre (fils) Dumas

... accounts often appear to be contradictory in themselves. In the same breath that they extol the wonderful strength of filial piety, they speak of the common practices of exposing infants; the strict morality and ceremonious conduct of the people are followed by a list of the most gross debaucheries; the virtues and the philosophy of the learned are explained by their ignorance and their vices; if in one page they speak of the excessive fertility of the country, and the amazing extension ...
— Travels in China, Containing Descriptions, Observations, and Comparisons, Made and Collected in the Course of a Short Residence at the Imperial Palace of Yuen-Min-Yuen, and on a Subsequent Journey thr • John Barrow

... and see some of my friends instead! They are not fine or ceremonious, but lively, odd, and pleasant. Come, it will ...
— An Old-fashioned Girl • Louisa May Alcott

... the narrow space betwixt the castle and the water, the Lords Ruthven and Lindesay were already moving slowly to their boats, accompanied by the Lady of Lochleven, her grandson, and their principal attendants. They took a ceremonious leave of each other, as Roland could discern by their gestures, and the boats put oft from their landing-place; the boatmen stretched to their oars, and they speedily diminished upon the eye of the idle gazer, who ...
— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott

... And true to her German training, and undaunted by the fork, she did that which Anna-Rose in her contentment had forgotten, and catching up Mrs. Twist's right hand, fork and all, to her lips gave it the brief ceremonious kiss of a well ...
— Christopher and Columbus • Countess Elizabeth Von Arnim

... holy water. Aretino has made a witty scene about this in the 'Cortegiana,' where one of the Vatican servants cheats a poor fisherman, and then hands him over to the sacristan of Saint Peter's to be cured of an imaginary possession by a ceremonious exorcism. Such proceedings must have been common enough in those days when witchcraft and demonology were elements with which rulers and lawgivers had to ...
— Ave Roma Immortalis, Vol. 2 - Studies from the Chronicles of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford

... in Honolulu I witnessed the ceremonious funeral of the King's sister, her Royal Highness the Princess Victoria. According to the royal custom, the remains had lain in state at the palace thirty days, watched day and night by a guard of honor. And during all that time a great multitude ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... coach to Marysville and Sacramento was likewise waiting, for Sugar Pine was the limit of Bill's ministration, and the coach which we had just left went no further. In the course of twenty minutes, however, there was a slight and somewhat ceremonious bustling in the hall and on the verandah, and Yuba Bill and the Judge re-appeared. The latter was leading, with some elaboration of manner and detail, the shapely figure of Miss Mullins, and Yuba Bill was accompanying her companion to the buggy. We all rushed to the windows ...
— The Idler Magazine, Vol III. May 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various

... Lady Margaret took a ceremonious leave, with all the respect which she owed to royal blood, even when flowing in the veins of a sergeant of the Life-Guards; again assuring Mr Stewart, that whatever was in the Tower of Tillietudlem was heartily at his service and that ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott

... Jane, in the dull dining-room, Mr. Rylands, had he not been more engaged in these late domestic changes, might have noticed that the Missouri girl waited upon him with a certain commiserating air that was remarkable by its contrast with the frigid ceremonious politeness with which she attended her mistress. It had not escaped Mrs. Rylands, however, who ever since Jack's abrupt departure had noticed this change in the girl's demeanor to herself, and with a woman's intuitive insight of another ...
— Mr. Jack Hamlin's Mediation and Other Stories • Bret Harte

... maintained some little reserve, but was much more familiar and communicative than before. She appeared, moreover, to be as little ceremonious as Mrs. Ellison had reported her, and very readily accepted Amelia's apology for not paying her the first visit, and agreed to drink tea with ...
— Amelia (Complete) • Henry Fielding

... I'm glad we met as we did, for it makes things free and easy, and that is so agreeable in this ceremonious place," replied Debby, looking in quite an ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, August, 1863, No. 70 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various

... beg your pardon for overlooking the ceremonious flirtation which women insist shall be indulged in, for I assure you that their ways are sometimes a mystery to me; but I admit that the commonest sort of sense should have kept me from falling into this error. My sister shall call ...
— The Colossus - A Novel • Opie Read

... striking poem by Dante's contemporary, Frauenlob, in Von der Hagen's great collection. Also to a very strange composition, from the heyday of minne-song, by Heinrich von Meissen. This is not the furious love ode, but the ceremonious epithalamium of devotional poetry. It is the bearing in triumph, among flare of torches and incense smoke, over flower-strewn streets and beneath triumphal arches, of the Bride of the Soul, her enthroning on a stately couch, ...
— Renaissance Fancies and Studies - Being a Sequel to Euphorion • Violet Paget (AKA Vernon Lee)

... ways of its operation: As those of magic, because it is a knowledge of more than is lawful to be known; divination, from a revealing of things past, present, or to come; enchantment, from a working by charms or ceremonious rites; sorcery, from the casting of lots to bring hidden things to light; necromancy, from the calling up and consulting the devil, in form of some dead person; fascination, from the hurting creatures by envious looks, ...
— The Mysteries of All Nations • James Grant

... a gunpowder glare, swallowed in an instant in darkness, and down came the black portcullis of his scowl with a chop, while clearing his voice, and directing his red face and vicious little eyes straight on simple Dan Loftus he said, rising very erect and square from an unusually ceremonious bow— ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu

... ceremonious process by which the fatty acids are determined in one portion of the soap, and the alkali by the incineration of another, I consider the following method is not unworthy of publication, because it appears to afford quicker and more correct results by reason of the greater simplicity of the manipulation. ...
— The Art of Perfumery - And Methods of Obtaining the Odors of Plants • G. W. Septimus Piesse

... the Prince. A drive followed through a country of varied and striking beauty to the Imperial Palace of Livadia where the Czar's Master of Ceremonies, Count Jules Stenbock, was waiting to receive the Royal visitors. A ceremonious entertainment was given here in the highest style of refinement and with the somewhat unexpected accompaniments of chamberlains in green and gold and a mass of servants from St. Petersburg, together with every sort of luxury. Here ...
— The Life of King Edward VII - with a sketch of the career of King George V • J. Castell Hopkins

... tears in her eyes,—but she managed to restrain them, and with something of a defiant air she made her formal obeisance and withdrew. She did not return again, but a page appeared instead, ushering in with ceremonious civility a tall personage, clad in flowing white robes and muffled up to the eyes in a mantle of silver tissue,—a majestic, mysterious, solemn-looking individual, who, pausing on the threshold of the apartment, ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli

... little dried-up man, whose ceremonious bow put Violet in mind of the Mayor of Wrangerton. Bending low, he politely gave her a chair, and then subsided into oblivion; while Miss Gardner came forward, as usual, the same trim, quiet, easy-mannered person, and began ...
— Heartsease - or Brother's Wife • Charlotte M. Yonge

... know,' said he, meditatively, and drew my hand through his arm. The cornelian bracelet slipped into view. 'Mrs. Fontevrault,' uttered he, in a ceremonious tone—my warm pulse grew still—'do ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 3 No 3, March 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... Mr. Esmond, to whom he made a very low bow indeed, and kissed the hand of each lady in his most ceremonious manner. He had come in his chair from the palace hard by, and wore his two stars of the Garter and ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray

... perhaps natural amongst a ceremonious, oratorical race, that the boat should have waited while a passenger publicly lamented on the beach. It was more odd still that the mother should have been the chief, rather the only, actor. She was leaving indeed; she hoped ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... young peer was ceremonious, but not in the least servile. He saluted the other's superior rank, not his person, as he turned the guard out for a general officer. He never could be brought to be otherwise than cold and grave in his behaviour to ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray

... attack him unless when mounted and well armed; and the Indians consider the killing a grizzly bear a feat equal to the scalping of a human foe. These never attempt to hunt him, unless when a large party is together; and the hunt is, among some tribes, preceded by a ceremonious feast and a bear-dance. ...
— The Hunters' Feast - Conversations Around the Camp Fire • Mayne Reid

... observances of the dining-room and saloon, in proportion as they are many and strict, extinguish that agreeable communion which they were originally intended to secure. The dislike with which people commonly speak of society that is "formal," and "stiff," and "ceremonious," implies the general recognition of this fact; and this recognition, logically developed, involves that all usages of behaviour which are not based on natural requirements, are injurious. That these conventions defeat ...
— Essays on Education and Kindred Subjects - Everyman's Library • Herbert Spencer

... reappear for at least an hour. I could hear their busy voices, loud and low by turns, as they ranged from public to confidential topics. At last Mrs. Todd kindly remembered me and returned, giving my door a ceremonious knock before she stepped in, with the small visitor in her wake. She reached behind her and took Mrs. Fosdick's hand as if she were young and bashful, and gave her a ...
— The Country of the Pointed Firs • Sarah Orne Jewett

... For were there not a score of Indians waiting outside eager to pay as well for masses, confessions, and all the rest of his own hocuspocus? There followed a social chat, well liquefied, after which we took our ceremonious leave. Once outside, I learned the distressing fact that the shape of the padre's bows had required crystals costing twelve cents, instead of the customary ...
— Tramping Through Mexico, Guatemala and Honduras - Being the Random Notes of an Incurable Vagabond • Harry A. Franck

... old master, it was not as a master, but simply as "Captain Auld," who had married old master's daughter. All my lessons concerning his{146} temper and disposition, and the best methods of pleasing him, were yet to be learnt. Slaveholders, however, are not very ceremonious in approaching a slave; and my ignorance of the new material in shape of a master was but transient. Nor was my mistress long in making known her animus. She was not a "Miss Lucretia," traces of whom I yet remembered, and the more especially, as I saw them shining in the face of ...
— My Bondage and My Freedom • Frederick Douglass

... his ceremonious manner and speaking angrily and naturally; "but you talk as though I had not been making love ...
— The Irrational Knot - Being the Second Novel of His Nonage • George Bernard Shaw

... ceremonious speeches were delivered. The head chief was of course the first to speak again. His address was very complimentary. He said he had been gazing all day long across the great lake watching for my coming. Although it was ...
— By Canoe and Dog-Train • Egerton Ryerson Young

... "You are a very ceremonious fellow!" cried the horseman. "Go and tell M. de Saint-Geran that his relative, the Marquis de Saint-Maixent, wishes to ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... From one to five the intense heat keeps every one indoors. At five, official Java and all other Europeans bathe, dress, and get ready for dinner. After dinner, driving, calling, and gossiping at the clubs is the proper thing, and nowhere are people more ceremonious. ...
— Wealth of the World's Waste Places and Oceania • Jewett Castello Gilson

... and before long a barge was coming off, with the national colours trailing behind, Don Ramon being made out seated in the stern-sheets in uniform, and surrounded by his officers. He looked ceremonious and grand enough in his State barge, but there was no ceremony in his acts. He sprang up the side as soon as the coxswain hooked on, and embraced the skipper with the tears in his eyes, the two lads having to suffer the same greeting in turn, ...
— Fitz the Filibuster • George Manville Fenn

... Judge, loudly. "Genteel to the last! A hat of fashion, no doubt, made in London; quite too ceremonious and topgallant for these colonies. He left it to his eldest son, en-tiledit, we may ...
— The Entailed Hat - Or, Patty Cannon's Times • George Alfred Townsend

... his residence in Paris on the rue de Grenelle in 1819. At that time he kept a dancer and liked nothing better than high living. He became a marquis on the death of his father and eldest brother. He was a polished man, courtly, methodical, and ceremonious. He insisted upon living selfishly. His death would have allowed Mme. de Beauseant to wed Gaston de Nueil. [Father Goriot. The ...
— Repertory Of The Comedie Humaine, Complete, A — Z • Anatole Cerfberr and Jules Franois Christophe

... one where all the men were asleep, saw some potatoes cooking, took a fancy to eat them, and undertook to draw them out of the fire with the point of his sword. Instantly a soldier awoke, and seeing some one usurping part of his supper, "I say, you are not very ceremonious, eating our potatoes!"—"My comrade, I am so hungry that you must excuse me."—"Well, take one or two then, if that is the case; but get off." But as the Emperor made no haste in getting off, the ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton

... merry time! Certainly, at the last state dinner of the Rothschilds, in the presence of such notabilities as Canning or Narischkin, I was obliged to keep rather in the background. The invitation to a large, brilliant, but ceremonious ball appears a very questionable way of showing me attention. The drive up, the endless queue of carriages, wearied me, and at last I got out and walked. There, too, I found little pleasure." On the ...
— Great Violinists And Pianists • George T. Ferris

... shame are ever tied together With Gordian knots of such a strong thread spun, They cannot without violence be undone." "One whose mind Appears more like a ceremonious chapel Full of sweet music, than a thronging presence." "Gentry? 'tis nought else But a superstitious relic of time past; And, sifted to the true worth, it is nothing But ancient riches." "What is death? The safest trench i' th' world to keep man ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various

... only have, but return our Thanks to you. Don't let us be over ceremonious in thanking, but rather let us rise from Table, ...
— Colloquies of Erasmus, Volume I. • Erasmus

... towards the door as the solemn procession filed in, and there was a trace of annoyance on his face at the interruption, mixed with a shade of perplexity as to what this gorgeous display all meant. The Italian is as ceremonious as the Spaniard where a function is concerned, and the official who held the ornate box which contained the jewellery resting on a velvet cushion, stepped slowly forward, and came to a stand in ...
— The Triumphs of Eugene Valmont • Robert Barr

... with him. He laid his hand lightly on her shoulder, and she stood up close beside him, her bright face upraised, a saucy gleam in her eyes, and both her attitude and bearing bespoke an affectionate confidence between father and child less common in those ceremonious days than ...
— The Lost Treasure of Trevlyn - A Story of the Days of the Gunpowder Plot • Evelyn Everett-Green

... connection with the animal he kills. Each animal has a soul or spirit to be offended or placated; if pleased, the spirit of the dead animal communicates with its living kin, who in turn will deem it an honour to be killed by such considerate folk as the ceremonious Innuit. Round the igloo fire we heard another tradition of Nuliayok. The Goddess of the Sea once gave birth to a litter of white and red puppies. These she put into two little water-tight baby-boots and set them floating before a north wind. The ...
— The New North • Agnes Deans Cameron

... precinct of the imperial tent at the east gate; not even the Tartar dukes dare presume to enter at the west gate, which is reserved for the emperor alone; yet the lower people do not pay much regard to this ceremonious injunction. At this time, likewise, all the other envoys now at the imperial residence were presented, but very few of them were admitted within the tent. On this occasion, infinite quantities of rich gifts of all kinds were presented to the emperor, by the ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 1 • Robert Kerr

... shoes.]—I was heartily weary, yet walked however to the Queene's Chappell at St. James's, and there saw a little mayde baptized; many parts and words whereof are the same with that of our Liturgy, and little that is more ceremonious than ours. Thence walked to Westminster and eat a bit of bread and drank, and so to Worster House, and there staid, and saw the Council up, and then back, walked to the Cockepitt, and there took my leave of the Duke of Albemarle, who is going ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys

... misgiving interfere with your beauty sleep, Holmes," was the reply, dashed with a touch of good-humoured impatience. "People are not so beastly ceremonious over here." ...
— The Sign of the Spider • Bertram Mitford

... at him without a word. She had received proposals of marriage, dignified, ceremonious affairs submitted to her by the dowager, but from this stranger came the first avowal of love she had ever listened to. A stranger; yet he held her hand; she felt herself drawn towards him by a force she could not combat. Her other arm was over the back of a chair, slowly she ...
— The Bondwoman • Marah Ellis Ryan

... spread by clever men of the world to excuse their shallow behavior in their own eyes and in the eyes of others. What these people come here for is to satisfy their lower inclinations—you must see this for yourself; if you do not allow yourself to be influenced by these pretentious, ceremonious forms, at least try to discover the reality that lies beneath them. What you call the height of civilization seems to me the lowest. Do you understand? I feel that cultured people in their drawing-room society are in the condition of savages, and ...
— The Malady of the Century • Max Nordau

... pleasant to meet Dame Clio over the tea-table, as it were, where she is often more entertaining, if not more instructive, than when she puts on the loftier port and more ceremonious habit of a Muse. These inadvertences of history are pleasing. We are no longer foreigners, in any age of the world, but feel that in a few days we could have accommodated ourselves there, and that, wherever ...
— The Writings of James Russell Lowell in Prose and Poetry, Volume V - Political Essays • James Russell Lowell

... fond of school-feasts, had promised to assist at this one. It was not to be a stiff or ceremonious affair. There was to be no bevy of young ladies, oppressively attentive to their small charges, causing the children to drink scalding tea in a paroxysm of shyness. The whole thing was to be done ...
— Vixen, Volume I. • M. E. Braddon

... France, the Countess de Noailles was assigned to her as her lady of honor. She was somewhat advanced in life, haughty and ceremonious, a perfect mistress of that art of etiquette so rigidly observed in the French court. Upon her devolved the duty of instructing the dauphiness in all the punctilios of form, then deemed far more important than the requisitions of morality. The following ...
— Maria Antoinette - Makers of History • John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott

... advanced toward the veranda and in a ceremonious way kissed the governor upon the lips. That young executive was much surprised, but returned the salute and squeezed her tiny waist. All the company laughed at this, except Madame Bapp, who glared angrily and exclaimed, "Coquine!" ...
— White Shadows in the South Seas • Frederick O'Brien

... operators desisted—the crowd were stilled—the gap was forgotten—for now, with a loud and warlike flourish of trumpets, the gladiators, marshaled in ceremonious procession, entered the arena. They swept round the oval space very slowly and deliberately, in order to give the spectators full leisure to admire their stern serenity of feature—their brawny limbs and various arms, ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various

... courteous his conduct towards them had been. They inquired whether he would have morning levees, since they wished "to wait upon him." To this the Marquis replied, with his thanks, that, although not fond of ceremonious visits, he would always be "glad to cultivate an acquaintance with gentlemen whose actions show they are true Britons, by standing up for and supporting the ancient constitution and liberties of well-born subjects, whose honour is engaged to shake ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745 - Volume III. • Mrs. Thomson

... remarked above everything and every one, even above the king himself. And she was so, for the queens, notwithstanding their dignity, and the king, despite the respect which etiquette required, were all eclipsed by her. The queens, stately and ceremonious, were softened and could not restrain their laughter. Madame Henrietta, the queen-mother, was dazzled by the brilliancy which cast distinction upon her family, thanks to the wit of the grand-daughter of Henry IV. The king, jealous, ...
— Ten Years Later - Chapters 1-104 • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... and that very soon," he responded, and his manner reminded her for a fleeting instant of the winning deference, the slightly ceremonious politeness, of her ...
— The Fate of Felix Brand • Florence Finch Kelly

... de Walton soon perceived, that the receipt of Pembroke's letter did not in any respect alter the cold ceremonious conduct of his lieutenant towards him, which limited their intercourse to what their situation rendered indispensable, and exhibited no advances to any more frank or intimate connexion. Thus, as may sometimes be the case between officers ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott

... Ceremonious salutations were exchanged. The Princess must have been nearly sixty, but she laced herself so tightly that from behind one might have taken her for a young woman. This tight lacing, however, was her last coquetry. Her hair, though still plentiful, was ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola

... the next morning she entered her employer's office. Acknowledging with a nod his somewhat ceremonious bow, she handed him the envelope in which she had enclosed that ...
— The Golden Slipper • Anna Katharine Green

... Medecin," especially as four of its most distinguished members were introduced under Greek names, invented by Boileau for his friend's use. The consultation held by these sages, which respects everything save the case of the patient—the ceremonious difficulty with which they are at first brought to deliver their opinions—the vivacity and fury with which each finally defends his own, menacing the instant death of the patient if any other treatment be observed, seemed all to the public highly comical, and led ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 7 of 8 • Charles F. (Charles Francis) Horne

... such matters they are most eager to discourse, yet are cautious of beginning it themselves, lest they should seem to insult over and rejoice at the misery of others. You please a hunter if you ask him about dogs, a wrestler about exercise, and an amorous man about beauties; the ceremonious and superstitious man discourses about dreams, and what success he hath had by following the directions of omens or sacrifices, and by the kindness of the gods; and some questions concerning those things will extremely please him. He that inquires anything ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch

... corpse. At home, he did not put on any formal deportment. 2. When he saw any one in a mourning dress, though it might be an acquaintance, he would change countenance; when he saw any one wearing the cap of full dress, or a blind person, though he might be in his undress, he would salute them in a ceremonious manner. ...
— The Chinese Classics—Volume 1: Confucian Analects • James Legge

... you are aware that I never interfere with your hospitalities, but you seem to have forgotten that my Sevres china is only a set for twelve, and I can use no other on ceremonious occasions. With Bertha and Madeleine we have one guest ...
— Fairy Fingers - A Novel • Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie

... disappeared, and immediately after a gentleman sauntered into the room, and flung himself lazily into the empty armchair which stood at the fireplace vis-a-vis to the one in which Mr Clearemout sat, explaining that he would not have been so ceremonious had he not fancied that his friend was engaged with some ...
— Deep Down, a Tale of the Cornish Mines • R.M. Ballantyne

... ceremonious form by which he was accustomed to address the Queen in public, hoping to hint to her of some necessary preparation to control the meeting of the Council that could not, in ...
— The Royal Pawn of Venice - A Romance of Cyprus • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull

... the faintest possible salutation, and, without taking a seat, conveyed her mother's excuses in a tone of such studied coldness that it amused Farnham, who took it as a school-girl's assumption of a grand and ceremonious manner suitable ...
— The Bread-winners - A Social Study • John Hay

... Christ, and temples of the Holy Ghost, they devolved not all upon the sufficiency of soul-existence; and therefore with long services and full solemnities, concluded their last exequies, wherein to all distinctions the Greek devotion seems most pathetically ceremonious. ...
— Religio Medici, Hydriotaphia, and the Letter to a Friend • Sir Thomas Browne

... ceremonious air, Bowed, and then said, "Raphael, truth to tell, For to be free and honest suits me well, Pleases me not ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various

... replied I. Such a good lady's approbation must make me too sensible of my happiness. My dear master handed me into the chariot, and stood talking with Sir Thomas Atkyns, at the door of it, (who was making him abundance of compliments, and is a very ceremonious gentleman, a little too extreme in that way,) and, I believe, to familiarize me to the gazers, which concerned me a little; for I was dashed to hear the praises of the countrypeople, and to see how they ...
— Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded • Samuel Richardson

... think I do! Not so much for your father, perhaps. I suppose men of his time of life change little, if at all; but you are as ceremonious as if I had been introduced to ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever

... ceremonious politeness from one end of the table to the Governor at the other end). "When ...
— The Militants - Stories of Some Parsons, Soldiers, and Other Fighters in the World • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews

... figured over with yellow braid, sat stolidly, blades in hand and ready dipped, when the passengers took their places, the Prince and Lael in the box, and Nilo behind them as guard. The vessel was too light to permit a ceremonious reception. ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 1 • Lew. Wallace

... inhabitants of the village at having the honoured privilege of entertaining such noble and distinguished visitors, &c. A suitable reply is made by the guests (through an interpreter, if no one among them can speak Samoan), and then follows a ceremonious brewing and drinking of kava. This is a most important function in Samoa, and to the stranger unaccustomed to the manner of making the beverage, the ordeal of drinking it is an exceedingly trying one. It is prepared as follows: ...
— By Rock and Pool on an Austral Shore, and Other Stories • Louis Becke



Words linked to "Ceremonious" :   conventional, formal, pompous



Copyright © 2024 Dictionary One.com