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Foist   Listen
noun
Foist  n.  
1.
A foister; a sharper. (Obs.)
2.
A trick or fraud; a swindle. (Obs.)






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Foist" Quotes from Famous Books



... the court they be," said David, to some inquiry from his more ignorant companion, as he generally affected to consider him. Indeed, with but little wit and less valour, he wished to foist himself upon one possessing both, as a being of extraordinary wisdom and fortitude. And truly, if loud words and big lies could have done this, he would have had no lack either of ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby

... shows you much declined. Were you not dim and doted, you might see A pack of cheats that claim a pedigree, No more of kin to you, than you to me. Do you not know, that for a little coin, Heralds can foist a name into the line? They ask you blessing but for what you have; But once possess'd of what with care you save, The wanton boys would piss upon ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol I - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden

... above occurs. But the main plot—which turns not only on the courtship, by a mere fribble, of a lady whose husband is supposed to be dead, and who has very complacently forgotten all about him, but on a ridiculous plot to foist a pretender off as the dead husband itself—is simply absurd. The lack of probability, which is the curse of the minor Elizabethan drama, hardly anywhere appears more glaringly. Parasitaster, or The Fawn, a satirical comedy, is much better, but the jealous hatred ...
— A History of English Literature - Elizabethan Literature • George Saintsbury

... be neither too quick nor too slow in his replies. And not only he, but all the personages must be trained to speak composedly, and to fit convenient gesture to the matter of their speech. Nor must they foist in a syllable or clip one of the verse, but must enounce firmly and repeat what is set down for them in due order. Whosoever names Paradise is to ...
— The Growth of English Drama • Arnold Wynne

... "nothing could be stronger than his language, nothing weaker than the impression it leaves on the mind. It is like a dictionary of obsolete English suffering from a severe fit of delirium tremens." A prominent literary periodical saw, in the attempt to foist Thompson on the public as a genuine poet, a sectarian effort to undermine the literary press of England. In the course of a year the sale of "Sister Songs" amounted to 349 copies. The "New Poems" fared ...
— The Hound of Heaven • Francis Thompson

... under a despotism? Never having felt the results of a weak executive, they do not know the dangers of unlimited power. No man is more republican in sentiment than I am, but I think it no less than a crime to foist a republic upon a people in no way fitted for it, and all those who abandon the King in this hour of danger, who do not uphold his authority to the fullest extent, are participants in that crime and are helping to bring on those ...
— Calvert of Strathore • Carter Goodloe

... you?" Uncle William leaned on his hoe and fixed her with stern eye. "Easier a brick without straw, a law without a legislature, than to foist an idea, a plan, a measure on this village save in one way. My dear Annie, haven't you found out in five days that Miss Pamela is chief of the clan? Sister, aunt, cousin, in varying degrees, to every Roscoe and Collamer in the township—and there are ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 6, July 1905 • Various

... by vain conceit perchance, On public taste to foist thy stale romance; Though Murray with his Miller may combine, To yield thy Muse just HALF-A-CROWN A LINE? No! when the sons of song descend to trade, Their bays are sear, their former laurels fade. ...
— The Works of Lord Byron: Letters and Journals, Volume 2. • Lord Byron

... Works Committee were going to foist an assistant on him. Assistant! The very name was a slight upon his capabilities, a slur on his independence. Why had they ...
— Adventures in Many Lands • Various

... to de door, and opens it, and I'm just goin' to butt in, when dere suddenly jumps out from de room on de odder side de passage anodder guy, and gets de rapid strangleholt on dis foist mug. Say, wouldn't dat make you wonder was you on your ...
— The Gem Collector • P. G. Wodehouse

... indemnities, which also serve his purpose because they necessitate the incurring of a bonded debt, interest bearing. But the history of the world for centuries proves that a condition of war is Mammon's opportunity to foist a debt upon a free people and to increase the burden of those whose bonds he ...
— Usury - A Scriptural, Ethical and Economic View • Calvin Elliott

... toil soil foist boil coin cloy point broil joist hoist joint enjoy voice royal noise spoil moist avoid choice annoy doily ...
— The Beacon Second Reader • James H. Fassett

... the kind, and my mind was filled with abhorrence of such men as Corbridge, who would not only send a person into the other world simply to gratify a scientific curiosity or for purposes of profit, but would rehabilitate a departed spirit with all his lost needs and appetites, and then foist him upon a comparative stranger for care and sustenance. Such conduct was not only mean, but criminal in its nature, and if there was no law against it, one ought ...
— Amos Kilbright; His Adscititious Experiences • Frank R. Stockton

... misbehaves herself, and I dismiss her. Where is the grievance? He himself made her a lectrice, and now complains that she is expected to do her duty in that line of life. He himself banished her from the family, and now grumbles that I did not at once foist her upon him. He would like to escape the odium of his former action by blaming me; but I am not meek, and I shall make ...
— Lady Rose's Daughter • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... Ireland at least, to show how far they can carry their resistance. In this they will stand united as one man, and it is vain for the English Government to flatter itself that it will find tools among them, should it foist on ...
— Irish Race in the Past and the Present • Aug. J. Thebaud

... What would you have me do? Resume a name never conceded to me,—perhaps not righteously mine,—thrust myself upon the unwilling and shrinking hands which disowned and rejected me; blazon my virtues by pretensions which I myself have promised to forego, and foist myself on the notice of strangers by the very claims which my nearest relations dispute? Never! never! never! With the simple name I have assumed; the friend I myself have won,—you, my generous benefactor, my real father, who never ...
— The Disowned, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... appropriation that made it family history Constitutionally discontented Decency's a dirty petticoat in the Garden of Innocence England's the foremost country of the globe Enjoys his luxuries and is ashamed of his laziness Fires in the grates went through the ceremony of warming nobody Foist on you their idea of your idea at the moment Grimaces at a government long-nosed to no purpose He judged of others by himself Hear victorious lawlessness appealing solemnly to God the law Her aspect suggested the repose of a winter landscape Here, where he both wished and wished not to be I 'm the ...
— Quotations from the Works of George Meredith • David Widger

... witch-doctors; and those priests were the intellectuals of their time. I wonder when we shall have a party of intellectuals content to find out the people's ideals and to serve them faithfully, instead of trying to foist their own ideals ...
— A Poor Man's House • Stephen Sydney Reynolds

... also mother of twin-daughters neurotic and plain who, sered by nature and yellowed by time and on the wrong side of the matrimonial hedge, had been only too glad to foist her on to the plump shoulders of jolly, capable, pretty Sybil and to get rid of them both ...
— The Hawk of Egypt • Joan Conquest

... improve.'"—Hiley's Gram., p. 89. Here we see the origin of some of Bullions's blunders. To is so small a word, it slips through the fingers of these gentlemen. Words utterly needless, and worse than needless, they foist into our language, in instances beyond number, to explain infinitives that occur at almost every breath. Their students must see that, "I read to learn," and, "I study to improve," with countless other examples of either sort, are very different constructions, ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown

... purpose, I pray, is God's name hooked and haled into our idle talk? why should we so often mention Him, when we do not mean anything about Him? would it not, into every sentence to foist a dog or a horse, to intrude Turkish, or any barbarous gibberish, be ...
— Sermons on Evil-Speaking • Isaac Barrow

... cheapjack advertisement that its inside wants certain medicines, and that these medicines are worth buying at a price that makes the vendor a millionaire, there he is with his million. Some people say that he has swindled the public. The public has swindled itself by allowing him to foist stuff down its throat on terms which give him, and his heirs and assigns after him, all the control over the work and wealth of the world that is implied by the possession of a million. When we buy rubbish we do not only waste our money to our own harm, but, under the conditions ...
— International Finance • Hartley Withers

... distinctly opposed to religious teaching in State schools. There can be little doubt that before many years have passed, in England as elsewhere, the Churches will have to face the question of the best methods of themselves undertaking that task of religious training which they have sought to foist upon the State. If they are to fulfil this duty in a wise and effectual manner they must follow the guidance of biological psychology at the point where it is at one with the teaching of their own most ancient traditions, ...
— The Task of Social Hygiene • Havelock Ellis

... been forgotten, and its author is fast following it into oblivion, while the shade of Carlyle looms ever larger, towering already above the Titans of his time, reaching even to the shoulder of Shakespeare! Gosse? Who is this presumptuous fellow who would take Carlyle in tutelage, foist himself upon the attention of the public by making a peep-show of the great essayist's faults? There is, or was, a pugilist named Gesse, or Goss; but as he did not deal foul blows to the dead, this must be a different ...
— Volume 1 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann

... trail of romances, as was Hop-o'-my-Thumb, in the fairy tale, by the white stones he dropped behind him. Poor Barbier, who ministered to a passion for novels that demanded twenty volumes a day, was at his wit's end. He tried to foist on the Emperor the romances of the year before last; but these Napoleon had generally read, and he refused, with imperial scorn, to look at them again. He ordered a travelling library of three thousand volumes ...
— Books and Bookmen • Andrew Lang

... points, it is difficult to delude wife and mother and children and the house-friend of the family; fortunately for them, however, these persons almost always keep a secret which in a manner touches the honor of all, and not unfrequently go so far as to help to foist the imposture upon the public. And if, thanks to such domestic conspiracy, many a noodle passes current for a man of ability, on the other hand many another who has real ability is taken for a noodle to redress the balance, and the total ...
— A Woman of Thirty • Honore de Balzac

... concentration of vice? See how baseness and wickedness can stand with head erect! Oh, hardened monsters! But the other eleven. How can they expect us to believe this transparent falsehood—this palpable device? How can they foist it ...
— Micah Clarke - His Statement as made to his three Grandchildren Joseph, - Gervas and Reuben During the Hard Winter of 1734 • Arthur Conan Doyle

... warlike expeditions. Hence a lively controversy amongst the learned upon the question of deciding to which Robert to apply the latter epithet. Some persist in assigning it to the duke of Normandy; others seek for some other Robert upon whom to foist it. However that may be, in 1034 or 1035, after having led a fair life enough from the political point of view, but one full of turbulence and moral irregularity, Duke Robert resolved to undertake, barefooted and staff in hand, a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, "to expiate his sins ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume I. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot

... make him hear reason!" cried the other king, indignantly. "He promised us a beautiful princess, and he has sent us a skeleton, a fright. I do not wonder he has kept it shut up for fifteen years, and now he wishes to foist it upon us." ...
— The Fairy Book - The Best Popular Stories Selected and Rendered Anew • Dinah Maria Mulock (AKA Miss Mulock)

... some of the magic of the poem has evaporated in the process. However, Lawes was loyal to his friend, and whatever alterations his wider knowledge of the requirements of stage production may have led him to introduce into the masque as performed at Ludlow, he never sought to foist any changes of his own into the published poem, when, having tired himself with making copies for his friends, he at length decided, with Milton's consent, to send it forth into the world in its slender ...
— Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Drama - A Literary Inquiry, with Special Reference to the Pre-Restoration - Stage in England • Walter W. Greg

... Civa are different gods. But each in turn represents the All-god, and consequently each represents the other. The Vishnu-worship which grew about Krish[n.]a, originally a friend of one of the epic characters, was probably at first an attempt to foist upon Vedic believers a sectarian god, by identifying the latter with a Vedic divinity. But, whatever the origin, Krishna as Vishnu is revered as the All-god in the epic. And, on the other hand, Civa of many names has kept the marks of Rudra. ...
— The Religions of India - Handbooks On The History Of Religions, Volume 1, Edited By Morris Jastrow • Edward Washburn Hopkins

... was too stupid to realize that her only chance lay in gaining the popularity of the people who were none too well disposed. With incredible folly, before in any way consolidating her position, she formed a plot worthy only of a second-rate cinematograph, pretended pregnancy and planned to foist a "supposititious child" upon the nation. A plan, foredoomed by its folly to failure, which brought down on her the contempt and ridicule not only of Serbia, but of all Europe. Such was the history of Serbia up to the date when I plunged into it and found it ...
— Twenty Years Of Balkan Tangle • Durham M. Edith

... moment when the garrulous conductor was trying to foist off poor little Tommy Orrick upon Mr. Stanhope, the old doctor ...
— Captivating Mary Carstairs • Henry Sydnor Harrison

... With certain modifications, the most important of which were introduced later by Aasen himself, this artificial language is that which has been adopted ever since by those who write in dialect, and which later enthusiasts have once more endeavoured to foist upon Norway as her official language in the place of Dano-Norwegian. Aasen composed poems and plays in the composite dialect to show how it should be used; one of these dramas, The Heir (1855), was frequently acted, and may be considered as the pioneer of ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... contained no covenant that we should send a corporal's guard across our frontier. If Shah Soojah had a powerful following in Afghanistan, he could regain his throne without our assistance; if he had no holding there, it was for us a truly discreditable enterprise to foist him on a recalcitrant people at the ...
— The Afghan Wars 1839-42 and 1878-80 • Archibald Forbes

... that lovers are the life of fiction, and that a story of any kind can scarcely hold the reader without them. The love-interest, as they call it, is also supposed to be essential to the drama, and friends of mine who have tried to foist their plays upon managers have been overthrown by the objection that the love-interest is not strong enough in what they have done. Yet lovers in real life are, so far as I have observed them, bores. They are confessed to be disgusting before or after marriage ...
— Questionable Shapes • William Dean Howells

... wilt even 'semble and cog with thine own father: A couple of false knaves together, a thief and a broker. Thou makes townsfolks believe thou art an honest man: in the country Thou dost nothing but cog, lie, and foist with Hypocrisy. You shall be hanged together, and go along[156] together for me, For if I should go, the folks would say, we ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VI • Robert Dodsley

... kept busy attending to this intricate machine of popular government. In sober truth, it must be said that capitalism has created, and could not exist without, the very bureaucracy it charges Socialism with attempting to foist upon the nation."[301] ...
— Socialism As It Is - A Survey of The World-Wide Revolutionary Movement • William English Walling

... letters of Maret and Hauterive as inculpating these men and tending to free Bonaparte from suspicion of complicity. But the letters cannot be said to dissipate all suspicion. The First Consul had made this negotiation peculiarly his own: no officials assuredly would have dared secretly to foist their own version of an important treaty; or, if they did, this act would have been the last of their career. But Bonaparte did not disgrace them; on the contrary, he continued to honour them with his confidence. Moreover, the First ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose

... of race, to diversity of creed, to distinctions of caste, they would seek in vain through the laws and institutions of Massachusetts for any recognition of their prejudice. He deplored the fact that they had attempted to foist into the legal arrangements of the land a principle utterly repugnant to the State constitution, and that what the sovereignty of the constitution dared not attempt a school committee accomplished. To Phillips it seemed crassly inconsistent ...
— The Education Of The Negro Prior To 1861 • Carter Godwin Woodson

... For de love of Mike, d'yuh mean to tell me Lizzie is talking back? Whadda yuh know about dat! Whadda yuh know about dat! You'll get sick on us here, foist t'ing we know. Where ...
— The Trail of the Hawk - A Comedy of the Seriousness of Life • Sinclair Lewis

... drink the best wine, live on the best of everything, while my defamers get poor and lank, as they deserve to be. Who are my defamers? Envious swindlers! Men who try to ape me, but are too stupid and too dishonest to succeed. They endeavor to attract notice as mountebanks, and then foist upon the public worthless trash, and hope thus to succeed. Ah! defamers of mine, you are fools as well as knaves. Fools, to think that any man can succeed by systematically and persistently cheating ...
— The Humbugs of the World • P. T. Barnum

... passed like minutes to the girls, and they were surprised when the porter came through with his "Foist call fo' dinnah!" ...
— The Outdoor Girls in the Saddle - Or, The Girl Miner of Gold Run • Laura Lee Hope

... that followed were the most terrible in the history of Samoa. A handful of exasperated whites—treaty officials, missionaries, and consuls—were determined to foist Tanumafili on the unwilling natives of the group, and backed by three men-of-war, they declared Mataafa a rebel and plunged the country into a disastrous and sanguinary war. England and America, in the person of their respective naval commanders, vied with one ...
— Wild Justice: Stories of the South Seas • Lloyd Osbourne

... the whole, Shakespeare must have had a singular rather than a prepossessing face; and it is wonderful how, with this bust before its eyes, the world has persisted in maintaining an erroneous notion of his appearance, allowing painters and sculptors to foist their idealized nonsense on its all, instead of the genuine man. For my part, the Shakespeare of my mind's eye is henceforth to be a personage of a ruddy English complexion, with a reasonably capacious brow, intelligent and quickly ...
— Our Old Home - A Series of English Sketches • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... it?" he said to Grace. "When the North gets angry enough to put its foot down, all this bluster about State- rights, and these efforts to foist slavery on a people who are disgusted with it, ...
— His Sombre Rivals • E. P. Roe

... knowledge and instruction. Furthermore, if Socialism be true, it should not fear open and complete examination. If the truth is the truth, it must prevail in the end. Therefore the surreptitious and secret attempt to foist Socialism upon an unsuspecting people savors much of the lack of sincerity and of belief in its real truth on the part of its own advocates. At least they should stop making their appeal mainly to the uninstructed ...
— Socialism and American ideals • William Starr Myers

... by questioning with occasional comments than by preaching, more by showing the help the story gives to the questioner than by trying to foist its assistance upon the hearer. "Now there is a fine lesson for you, my boy. I want you to remember it," is not half so effective as "That idea seems good to me. I've often thought about it but never seemed to realize it so much. I shall try to remember it." Wouldn't you, dear parent, rather ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 10 - The Guide • Charles Herbert Sylvester

... policy will be voted wise by the directors because it will go further than anything else to save the season; it will be welcomed by the public because of their disappointment with the novelties which a shortsighted policy attempted to foist upon them. ...
— Chapters of Opera • Henry Edward Krehbiel

... Bards:—you have asked what the Welsh have done in the world; you are supposed to have slighted some person of their family—a tenth cousin!—anything turns their blood. Or you have once looked straight at them without speaking, and you discover years after that they have chosen to foist on you their idea of your idea at the moment; and they have the astounding presumption to account this misreading of your look to the extent of a full justification, nothing short of righteous, for their treachery and your punishment! ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... fiend helped thee to thy liquor, I trow?" said Gamel, hastily. "Think not to foist thy fooleries upon me. Should I find thee with a lie on thy tongue, the hide were as well off thy shoulders. To ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby

... interlard a Latin sentence with some Greek word, which for seeming garnish they crowd in at a venture; and rather than be at a stand for some cramp words, they will furnish up a long scroll of old obsolete terms out of some musty author, and foist them in, to amuse the reader with, that those who understand them may be tickled with the happiness of being acquainted with them: and those who understand them not, the less they know the more they may admire; whereas ...
— In Praise of Folly - Illustrated with Many Curious Cuts • Desiderius Erasmus

... Saskatchewan and Alberta, are partially recognized by law, there are yet some who seem to have a mission to reopen the conflict by ever dragging the problem into the open arena of our political life. Under the specious pretext of national welfare they would foist upon the Canadian Public opinions and measures opposed to our existing system and to the broad spirit of liberty that inspires and maintains it. But we all know that in this persistent and methodical opposition ...
— Catholic Problems in Western Canada • George Thomas Daly

... This group was opposed to Wei Chung-hsien, who ruthlessly had every discoverable member murdered. The remainder went into hiding and organized themselves secretly under another name. As the new emperor had no son, the attempt was made to foist a son upon him; at his death in 1627, eight women of the harem were suddenly found to be pregnant! He was succeeded by his brother, who was one of the opponents of Wei Chung-hsien and, with the aid of the opposing ...
— A history of China., [3d ed. rev. and enl.] • Wolfram Eberhard

... preconceived opinion, have themselves become the parents of new prejudices and speculations; other names given to parts which have been ill observed, or which are even non-existent, have been sources of new errors. What functions and uses has it not been attempted to foist upon the pineal gland, and on the alleged empty space in the brain which is called the arch, the first of which is but a gland, while the very existence of the other is doubtful,—the empty space being perhaps produced by the hand of the anatomist ...
— Evolution, Old & New - Or, the Theories of Buffon, Dr. Erasmus Darwin and Lamarck, - as compared with that of Charles Darwin • Samuel Butler

... question. The most plausible theory is that the open and gross suggestion of immoral relation between Yorick, the clergyman and moralist, and the Paris maiden, seemed to Bode inconsistent with the then current acceptation of Yorick's character; and hence he preferred by artifice to foist the misdemeanor ...
— Laurence Sterne in Germany • Harvey Waterman Thayer

... he laughed like anything and sat down beside me and said: "You were enjoying yourself so much this morning that you had not even a glance to spare for me." "Contrariwise (I've got that from Dora), I never foist myself on anyone, and never hang around anyone's neck." Then he wanted to put his arm round my waist (and probably, most probably, he would have kissed me), but I sprang to my feet and called Dora or rather Thea, for before the gentlemen we pretend that we never ...
— A Young Girl's Diary • An Anonymous Young Girl

... on the part of the Scottish nation subscribed to by all ranks of the community, the first signature being appended to it in the Greyfriars' Churchyard, Edinburgh, on February 28, 1638, to maintain the Presbyterian Church and to resist all attempts on the part of Charles I. to foist Episcopacy upon it; it was ratified by the Scottish Parliament in 1640, and subscribed by Charles ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood

... not boast that I do change: Thy pyramids built up with newer might To me are nothing novel, nothing strange; They are but dressings of a former sight. Our dates are brief, and therefore we admire What thou dost foist upon us that is old; And rather make them born to our desire Than think that we before have heard them told. Thy registers and thee I both defy, Not wondering at the present nor the past, For thy records and what we see doth lie, Made more or less by thy continual ...
— Shakespeare's Sonnets • William Shakespeare

... the humbler class of wandering minstrels, are expected to repeat their lays as they have received them. But, although in the main these professional gentlemen adhere to the traditional words which they know by heart, the temptation must be very strong to foist at suitable pauses into their tales impromptu passages—best described in stage language as "gag"—which they think will be acceptable to their audience. And whether or not this be actually the case with the Indian bards, we are expressly told ...
— The Science of Fairy Tales - An Inquiry into Fairy Mythology • Edwin Sidney Hartland

... universe, and specially the mystic characters traced by the long-revolving ages upon the stony tablets of this planet Earth. It has in the first instance no creed to support, no dogmas to verify, no meaning to foist upon nature; its sole and single query is, What does nature teach? What is fact? What is truth? What has occurred in the past annals of this planet? What is the actual and true history of its bygone ages, and ...
— Continental Monthly, Volume 5, Issue 4 • Various

... proceeds of such compulsory sales are applied to the conversion of the Jews, the seeking up of the ten missing tribes, or to the regeneration of the interesting coloured population of the globe. Each lady contributor takes it in her turn to keep the basket a month, to sew for it, and to foist off its contents on a shrinking male public. An exciting time it is when that turn comes round. Some active-minded woman, with a good trading spirit, like it, and enjoy exceedingly the fun of making hard-handed ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte

... the world is fairly teeming with books,—good books, books written with a motive, books inculcating morals, books teaching lessons,—it seems almost a piece of presumption too great for endurance to foist another upon the market. There is scarcely room in the literary world for amateurs and maiden efforts; the very worthiest are sometimes poorly repaid for their best efforts. Yet, another one is ...
— Violets and Other Tales • Alice Ruth Moore

... change involved in the abolition of the old punishments, there had been in progress, throughout the intervening centuries, a positive development of far worse omen for the hapless sailor-man. The root-principle of direct coercion, necessarily inherent in any system that seeks to foist an arbitrary and obnoxious status upon any considerable body of men, was slowly but surely bursting into bud. The years that had seen the unprested seaman freed from the dread of the yardarm and the horrors of the forepeak, ...
— The Press-Gang Afloat and Ashore • John R. Hutchinson

... out what the Elks were going to do. He would not join in with the Elks, he told himself, but he would pal with any single Elk, or even with two or three. That would be all right as long as he did not foist himself upon a whole patrol. "Eight's a company, nine's a crowd, gee whiz, I have to admit that," he said to himself. "It's all right for me to go with one feller even if he's a scout ...
— Pee-Wee Harris Adrift • Percy Keese Fitzhugh

... have been overflowing with wrath ever since the proposal was made to engraft our half-barbaric form of government on Hawaii and our other new possessions. I have been studying how to save, not them, but ourselves from the disgrace. This is the first time the United States has ever tried to foist upon a new people the exclusively masculine form of government. Our business should be to give this people the highest form which has been attained by us. When our State governments were originally formed, there ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various

... and foist it into some bye-place Of some old rotten roll: Do't, I command thee! Must I ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Vol. 7 (of 18) - The Duke of Guise; Albion and Albanius; Don Sebastian • John Dryden

... you abominable nonsensical Pasquale, you atrocious skinflint—you love-sick old fool—you gaudy tricked-out ass with the cap and bells dangling about your ears. Take care lest I snuff out the candle of your life, and so at length put an end to the infamous tricks which you try to foist upon the good, honest, ...
— Weird Tales. Vol. I • E. T. A. Hoffmann

... To have slipped the world's great leaping-time, and come Upon thy pinched and dozing days: these weeds, These corporal leavings, thou not cast'st us new, Fresh from thy craftship, like the lilies' coats, But foist'st us off With hasty tarnished piecings negligent, Snippets and waste From old ancestral wearings, That have seen sorrier usage; remainder-flesh After our father's surfeits; nay with chinks, Some of us, that if speech may have free leave Our souls go out at elbows. We are sad With more than ...
— New Poems • Francis Thompson

... them with profound gratitude, making a congee: "Gentlemen, I wish you good night, and we are very much obliged to you that you have not used us ill!" And this is the cuckoo that has had the audacity to foist upon me ten buttons on a side and a black velvet collar—A damn'd ninth ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas

... doctrine of allegiance to party plays directly into the hands of politicians of the baser sort—and doubtless for that it was borrowed—or stolen—from the monarchial system. It enables them to foist upon the country officials whom no self-respecting man would vote for if he could but come to understand that loyalty to himself is his first and highest duty, not loyalty to any ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine

... and Hawaii was of great interest to her, and she at once asked for the enfranchisement of the women of these newly won island possessions. She regarded it as an outrage for the most democratic nation in the world to foist upon them an exclusively masculine government, a "male oligarchy," as she called it. "I really believe I shall explode," she wrote Clara Colby, "if some of you young women don't wake up and raise your voice in protest.... I wonder if when ...
— Susan B. Anthony - Rebel, Crusader, Humanitarian • Alma Lutz

... decline of religious feeling among the people . . ." he sighed. "I should rather think so! They'd better foist a few more priests ...
— The Bishop and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov

... summarise my views, and if you can find any flaws in my reasoning I will be glad. The first thing to observe is that the diminutive Frenchman drew on himself the special vengeance of the Turks when I exposed the attempt to foist on them a collection of dummy diamonds. Yet he actually had the nerve to return to the Rue Barbette later in the day. He has not been seen since, so the little scoundrel is either dead or a prisoner in Hussein-ul-Mulk's flat. As I cannot permit myself ...
— The Albert Gate Mystery - Being Further Adventures of Reginald Brett, Barrister Detective • Louis Tracy

... the patent, and undoubtedly, also, it would have had the desired effect had it been allowed to do its work uncriticised. But Swift's opposition was fatal to Walpole's intentions. He took the report as but another attempt to foist on the people of Ireland a decree in which they had not been consulted, and no amount of yielding, short of complete abandonment of it, would palliate the thing that was hateful in itself. He resented the insult. After specific ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. VI; The Drapier's Letters • Jonathan Swift

... year or two his senior,—why, of course, you are,—and of whose past he knows nothing,—absolutely nothing. Don't you shudder at the effrontery of the minx? Is it not heart-breaking to contemplate the folly, the utter infatuation of the misguided youth who now stands ready to foist such a creature upon the circles of which your ladyship is a distinguished ornament? I protest it is really incredible. I don't believe a ...
— The Cords of Vanity • James Branch Cabell et al

... little argument. I lit a cigarette and let them argue. In such cases, every married couple has its own queer and private and particular and idiosyncratic way of coming to an agreement. The third party who tries to foist on it his own suggestion of a way is an imbecile. The dispute on the point of vanity, charmingly conducted, ended ...
— The Red Planet • William J. Locke

... parent of all, whether they trace their descent from this primary source through a glorious or a mean line of ancestors. Be not deceived when men who are reckoning up their genealogy, wherever an illustrious name is wanting, foist in that of a god in its place. You need despise no one, even though he bears a commonplace name, and owes little to fortune. Whether your immediate ancestors were freedmen, or slaves, or foreigners, ...
— L. Annaeus Seneca On Benefits • Seneca

... to let him put his money into a certain failure. I will not listen to you, Dick. Much as I love you, I still have a conscience and it will not allow me to sacrifice that simple soul. Why, don't you know what would happen? The critics would go into convulsions over the attempt to foist a silly little—" ...
— Mr. Bingle • George Barr McCutcheon

... for example, that thrifty and individualistic folk made a complete failure of the attempt to foist contributory old-age pensions upon them, and I doubt whether such sumptuary legislation can succeed with us. That, however, is neither here nor there. The gist of the matter is, that because such things ...
— Germany and the Germans - From an American Point of View (1913) • Price Collier

... met him again, I cannot say how he took the invectives and the "murder-subscription." Perhaps it was not quite right of me to foist on him, as examples of genuine Parisian opinion, two such papers as those I gave him; but, then, all is fair not merely in love but in war also, and in regard to the contentions of France and Germany, my sympathies were entirely on the ...
— My Days of Adventure - The Fall of France, 1870-71 • Ernest Alfred Vizetelly

... advertisement and quotation in the English party Press of the baser kind, which for partisan reasons plays on the bigotry of English people by the booming of such books, no matter how scurrilous or how vile are their innuendoes. The comment of M. Paul-Dubois on these attempts to foist on the Catholic Church responsibility for the evil case in which Ireland finds herself, deserves quotation:—"Cette these grossiere et fanatique ne vaut l'honneur d'un devellopment ni d'une discussion: contentons nous de remarquer comme il est habile et simple ...
— Ireland and the Home Rule Movement • Michael F. J. McDonnell

... friends. She was his steady champion from first to last. Whether it was some crackbrain scribbler who tried to prove Poe "mad," some accomplished scholar who endeavored to disparage him in order to magnify some other writer, or some silly woman who attempted to foist herself into notice by relating "imaginary facts" concerning the poet's hidden life, Mrs. Whitman was always ready to defend ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. October, 1878. • Various

... organization of Sisters in Unity indorse the peace movement, and that it use its wide influence to check the tendency toward militarism which injudicious and misguided Americans hope to foist upon the ...
— I Spy • Natalie Sumner Lincoln

... without any kind of alteration of his constancie, he recommending his soule vnto almightie God, gaue vp the ghost. When hee had thus ended his life (thanks be to God) his skin being taken and filled with strawe, was commanded foorthwith to be hanged vpon the bowsprit of a Foist, [Footnote: A Foist as it were a Brigandine, being somewhat larger then halfe a galley, much vsed of the Turkish Cursaros, or as we call them Pirates or Rouers.] and to be caried alongst the coast of Syria by the sea side, that ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, - and Discoveries of The English Nation, v5 - Central and Southern Europe • Richard Hakluyt

... from you, Naomi. Carroll has placed himself beyond the pale by what he has done in having the impertinence to foist himself upon us as a social equal. Now, Carroll—are you ready ...
— Midnight • Octavus Roy Cohen

... below sixty, and enjoyed perfect health. He was rather thin, indeed, and his limbs were delicate; but he was always well and active, and it was something of a mystery how he had been able to foist himself upon the community as a candidate for a place in the poorhouse. There were plenty of people in the town older, more wretched, and even poorer. But from the very foundation of the institution he had been consumed by a desire to enter it; he felt himself a born Sun-Brother, ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries - Masterpieces of German Literature Vol. 19 • Various

... prattling away like a madman. "I am weary of the stuff. I'm hunting the world over, in search of a friend. Nobody loves me. I want to find someone who'll believe the lies I tell him without expecting me to believe the truth he tries to foist on me. I want to find a man as tricky with his brains as I am with my hands. He must be a politician and a spy, because I love excitement. That's why I called you a spy. If you were one, you might have admitted ...
— Affair in Araby • Talbot Mundy

... think if gentlemen would look at this proposition seriously, there would be no difference of opinion among us. Such a proposition would foist into the Constitution a most injurious, pernicious, and troublesome doctrine. By the most ultra abolitionists of the free States the power of emancipating our slaves has been disclaimed. From the organization of the Government, no such right has been ...
— A Report of the Debates and Proceedings in the Secret Sessions of the Conference Convention • Lucius Eugene Chittenden

... Bross exploded. "Where's your own? It's plain's daylight what I say is so. When did Miss Lessing come here? Five weeks ago, to a day—March foist, or close onto it—just when the Joinal says she did her disappearin' stunt. How you goin' to ...
— The Day of Days - An Extravaganza • Louis Joseph Vance

... statement of M. Harrisse—'After a diligent study of all the original documents, we feel constrained to say that there is not a particle of evidence, direct or indirect, implicating Amerigo Vespucci in an attempt to foist his name on this continent.'" And moreover, "no shade of doubt is left upon the integrity of Vespucci. So truth is strong, and ...
— Amerigo Vespucci • Frederick A. Ober

... them to be gentlemen of good houses, well descended and allied, hire apparel at brokers, some scavenger or prick-louse tailors to attend upon them for the time, swear they have great possessions, [5178]bribe, lie, cog, and foist how dearly they love, how bravely they will maintain her, like any lady, countess, duchess, or queen; they shall have gowns, tiers, jewels, coaches, ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior

... term that can be applied to editors who lived in a time when to foist one's own elucubrations upon a deceased genius was a work of piety deserving praise. Some of the acts which were virtues in Job's days have assumed a very different aspect in ours; but good intentions are always at a premium, and the Jewish ...
— The Sceptics of the Old Testament: Job - Koheleth - Agur • Emile Joseph Dillon

... than half-way up the range. Have recovered 1,500 head of rebranded stock, much of which is Bar T. Stelton is the head of the rustlers and I have the proof. Sorry to foist these criminals on the Bar T, but it was the nearest ranch, and besides, I want them there when your father comes home. Also I want to be able to tell you that I love you, and will love you always. With luck, two days ought to see the end of ...
— The Free Range • Francis William Sullivan

... bon enfaunt (Goodchild), just as a braggart Burgundian was called by Tudor dramatists a burgullian. Bellinger is for Barringer, an Old French name of Teutonic origin. [Footnote: "When was Bobadil here, your captain? that rogue, that foist, that fencing burgullian" (Jonson, Every Man in his Humour, iv. 2).] Those people called Salisbury who do not hail from Salesbury in Lancashire must have had an ancestor de Sares-bury, for such was the earlier name of Salisbury ...
— The Romance of Names • Ernest Weekley

... serious disadvantages. In reality this was not the case. Contrast it for a moment with the undignified welter of undigested and ex parte theories which academic prosodists have tried for three hundred years to foist upon English verse, and it will be seen that the simple Japanese rule has the merit of dignity. The only part of it that we Occidentals could not accept perhaps, with advantage to ourselves, is the peculiarly Oriental ...
— Japanese Prints • John Gould Fletcher

... of the Jews truly at heart, and that compulsory measures would do away with the hostility of the Jewish populace toward enlightenment. He failed to perceive, as did also some of his like-minded contemporaries, that the culture which the Russian Government of his time was trying to foist upon the Jews was only apt to accentuate their distrust, that, so long as they were the target of persecution, the Jews could not possibly accept the gift of enlightenment from the hands of those who lured ...
— History of the Jews in Russia and Poland. Volume II • S.M. Dubnow

... briers of their bushie beardes, could not choose, but (as close aire long imprisoned) engender corruption. Wiser was our brother Bankes of these latter dais, who made his iugling horse a cut, for feare if at anie time hee should foist, the stinke sticking in his thicke bushie taile might be noisome to his auditors. Should I tell you how many purseuants with red noses, and sargeants with precious faces shrunke away in this sweat, you would not ...
— The Vnfortunate Traveller, or The Life Of Jack Wilton - With An Essay On The Life And Writings Of Thomas Nash By Edmund Gosse • Thomas Nash

... opposition did not lack daring in making assertions contrary to facts. Charges were now made that the mayor was in league with the railroad to foist upon the city a great burden of expense, because the law under which cities could compel railroads to elevate their tracks declared that one-fifth of the burden of expense must be borne by the ...
— Twelve Men • Theodore Dreiser

... Mary Ambree, your examples are dangerous. Rogues, hell-hounds, Stentors! out of my doors, you sons of noise and tumult, begot on an ill May-day, or when the galley-foist is afloat to Westminster! [DRIVES OUT THE MUSICIANS.] A trumpeter could not ...
— Epicoene - Or, The Silent Woman • Ben Jonson

... introduction to the Monarch, and even with its composition, may be ignored. Had there been a particle of evidence for this, it would have been seized and magnified by the legalists in Israel, not to speak of those apocryphal writers who foist so much else on Jeremiah and Baruch.(268) That they have not even attempted this is proof—if proof were needed—that Jeremiah, the youthful son of a rural family, and probably still unknown to the authorities in the Capital, had nothing whatever ...
— Jeremiah • George Adam Smith

... I am unable to help you," he replied. "And in case I have not made myself sufficiently clear upon the subject, let me tell you that I deeply resent the plot by which you endeavoured to foist such an ...
— Nobody's Man • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... increasingly evident that the Reformed and Crypto-Calvinists employed the Variata as a cover for their false doctrine of the Lord's Supper; when, furthermore within the Lutheran Church the suspicion gradually grew into conviction that Melanchthon, by his alterations had indeed intended to foist doctrinal deviations upon the Lutheran Church; and when, finally, a close scrutiny of the Variata had unmistakably revealed the fact that it actually did deviate from the original document not only in extent, but also with regard to intent, not merely formally, but ...
— Historical Introductions to the Symbolical Books of the Evangelical Lutheran Church • Friedrich Bente

... unquestioned human liberty and of carrying out a proposition to which our nation is pledged; it therefore transcends all considerations of states rights. This objection comes chiefly from Southern Democrats, who claim that it is a form of oppression for three-fourths of the states to foist upon one-fourth measures of which the minority of states do not approve. Yet the provision for so amending the Constitution was adopted by the states and has stood unchallenged in the Constitution for more than a century. ...
— Woman Suffrage By Federal Constitutional Amendment • Various

... the one that introduced the hobble skoit. My Bella was one of the foist to wear one. There ain't a fad that he don't go over to Europe and get. He made a fortune ...
— Every Soul Hath Its Song • Fannie Hurst

... them. And now, since the success of motor-cars (those far greater, because unrestricted, bores), railways have taken on for me some such charm as the memory of the posting coaches had for the greybeards of my boyhood, some such charm as aeroplanes may in the fulness of time foist down for us on motor-cars. 'But I rove,' like Sir Thomas More. And I seem to think that a cheap literary allusion will make you excuse that vice. To resume my breathless narrative I decided that I would slowly follow the tracks of ...
— And Even Now - Essays • Max Beerbohm

... seemed to her now, an unpardonable crime. To seize upon another girl's identity; to usurp another's chance; to foist herself upon the unsuspecting and kindly souls at the Ball homestead in a way that raised for them a happiness that was merely a phantom—the thought of it all was now a draught of which the dregs were very, ...
— Sheila of Big Wreck Cove - A Story of Cape Cod • James A. Cooper

... uncontaminable ocean, to go back to the noisy pavements, the clanging car-bells, the noisome odors of the city,—and all for what? Simply because a jealous fisherman and a hysterically sympathetic young woman chose to foist it upon ...
— Flint - His Faults, His Friendships and His Fortunes • Maud Wilder Goodwin

... be tempted to discriminate in favor of its own products. For a similar reason it may be argued that it is dangerous to allow the dramatist or novelist to furnish us with a "philosophy of life." The chances are that, instead of impartially fulfilling the duties of a common carrier, he will foist upon us his own goods, and force us to draw conclusions from the samples of human nature he has in stock. I should not be willing to accept a philosophy of life even from so accomplished a person as ...
— By the Christmas Fire • Samuel McChord Crothers

... about arresting me, and I listened to all the speeches and resolutions. If I'd been a prince there couldn't have been more excitement. The end of all was that they agreed that it wasn't right that New Zealand should be allowed to foist her criminals upon her neighbors, and that I was to be sent back again by the next boat. So they posted me off again as if I was a damned parcel; and after another eight-hundred-mile journey I found myself ...
— My Friend The Murderer • A. Conan Doyle

... dat clothin'-store's a willy wonder, sure. De old mug what showed me round give me de frozen face when I come in foist. 'What's doin'?' he says. 'To de woods wit' you. Git de hook!' But I hauls out de plunks you give me, an' tells him how I'm here to get a dude suit, an', gee! if he don't haul out suits by de mile. Give me a toist, it did, watching him. 'It's up to youse,' ...
— The Intrusion of Jimmy • P. G. Wodehouse

... sure, times and manners have altered. While you lived, taste kept the French drama pure; and it was the congenial business of English playwrights to foist their rustic grossness and their large Fescennine jests into the urban page of Moliere. Now they are diversely occupied; and it is their affair to lend modesty where they borrow wit, and to spare a blush to the cheek of the Lord Chamberlain. But still, as has ever been our wont since Etherege saw, ...
— Letters to Dead Authors • Andrew Lang

... good-natured, harum-scarum fellow; and masterships of hounds, memberships of Parliament—all expensive unmoney-making offices,—being things that most men are anxious to foist upon their friends, Mr. Waffles' big talk and interference in the field procured him the honour of the first refusal. Not that he was the man to refuse, for he jumped at the offer, and, as he would be of age before the season ...
— Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour • R. S. Surtees

... that what we have said is true, and that he possesses scarcely a qualification for the office he holds—if we make one trifling exception (hardly worth mentioning)—for he is nothing more than, merely, a first-rate musician. With this single accomplishment, it is like his impudence to try and foist himself upon the Cockney dilettanti after M. Jullien, who possessed every other requisite for a conductor but a knowledge of the science; which is, after all, a ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various

... barge, and all the citizens with their barges decked and trimmed with targets and banners of their mysteries accordinglie, attending on her grace. The bachellers barge of the lord maior's companie, to wit, the mercers', had their barge with a foist trimmed with three tops, and artillerie aboord, gallantlie appointed to wait vpon them, shooting off lustilie as they went, with great and pleasant melodie of instruments, which plaied in most swete and heavenlie maner. Her grace ...
— Coronation Anecdotes • Giles Gossip

... Guardians were not accustomed to restrain themselves, and did not withhold the expression of their indignation upon this announcement. As Mr. Doll had himself been a guardian of St. Simon Magus, it was clear to their impartial minds that he was trying by a trick to foist a bastard—perhaps his ...
— Ginx's Baby • Edward Jenkins

... cried Mrs Pansey, like a stentorian ram, 'she belongs to a good old English family, and, in my opinion, she disgraces them thoroughly. A meddlesome old maid, who wants to foist her niece on to George Pendle; and she's likely to succeed, too,' added the lady, rubbing her nose with a vexed air, 'for the young ass is in love with Mab, although she is three years older than he ...
— The Bishop's Secret • Fergus Hume

... It was mighty cool in Jean Arlac to foist her on thee. And now that we have left the crowd behind and are comfortable in ...
— A Little Girl in Old Quebec • Amanda Millie Douglas

... to badger you! We were little fools to think such a thing ever went on when one came to years of discretion. Only I believe we were afraid the elder and idiotic Darcy might foist his son on some college. I must say Yerbury has become quite endurable now that party lines have been set up;" and Mrs. Eastman crumbed her ...
— Hope Mills - or Between Friend and Sweetheart • Amanda M. Douglas

... get a boy with a big basket to go with you, Bob; and go round to the cottages, to buy up fowls. Mind, don't let them sell you nothing but cocks—one to every seven or eight hens is quite enough; and don't let them foist off old hens on you—the younger they are, the better. I should say that, at first, you had better take Manola with you, if Carrie can spare her; then you won't get taken in, and you will soon learn to tell the difference between an old hen ...
— Held Fast For England - A Tale of the Siege of Gibraltar (1779-83) • G. A. Henty

... him!" cries Vetch with an evil sneer. "He turns preacher! You fool! Who are you to foist yourself into the concerns of your betters—a fellow only saved from the gutter by charity! While the girl is a minor I will deal with this estate as I please; and when she comes of ...
— Humphrey Bold - A Story of the Times of Benbow • Herbert Strang

... gazed at the jury, adjusting his sleeves as he did so, and looking as though he knew for certain that he was on the trail of a slippery, elusive criminal who was in a fair way to foist himself upon an honorable and decent community and an honorable and innocent ...
— The Financier • Theodore Dreiser

... docile, is suffering, not for its sins, but for its deficiencies; not for its own characteristic acts or natural ambitions, but for what it has too tamely allowed others, Prussian statesmen and soldiers, with alien ideals and an alien temper, to foist upon it, until it has become an integral part of its natural life and consciousness. Germany has been indoctrinated and Prussianised not only into acquiescence, but into sympathy with the ...
— The War and Democracy • R.W. Seton-Watson, J. Dover Wilson, Alfred E. Zimmern,

... frabjously immoral," said McTurk. "Wonder you aren't ashamed to foist your company on ...
— Stalky & Co. • Rudyard Kipling

... disgrace in which you left the University. Allow me to say, sir, that it reflects little credit on your honour that you should have imposed on your late employer, and taken advantage of his weak health and faculties to foist yourself upon his family under ...
— Roger Ingleton, Minor • Talbot Baines Reed

... was awaiting this. Thou wilt inoculate our knightly veins With thy corrupted Jewish blood. Thou 'lt foist This adder on my bosom. Henry Schnetzen Is no weak dupe, whom every lie may start. Make ready, Jew, for death—and ...
— The Poems of Emma Lazarus - Vol. II. (of II.), Jewish Poems: Translations • Emma Lazarus

... you wants, only I protest I'll have no babies foist on me here." Then she added, "I will not trust you byes. Show me your hands that you ain't hidin' of ...
— The Broom-Squire • S. (Sabine) Baring-Gould

... the men in the foist car to pile over the engine an' remove obstruchtions from the track," ...
— The U.P. Trail • Zane Grey

... granted by the Regent's negotiators. Thirdly, the Congregation now asserted that "finally" an arrangement in conformity with their proclamation was "agreed upon in word and promise"; that is, verbally, which we never find them again alleging. The game was to foist false terms on public belief, and then to accuse the Regent of perfidy ...
— John Knox and the Reformation • Andrew Lang

... O, must you be stabbed by a soldier? Mass, that's true! when was Bobadill here, your captain? that rogue, that foist, that fencing Burgullion? ...
— Every Man In His Humor - (The Anglicized Edition) • Ben Jonson

... Sirdar's communications, who, by the way, at that date was already being known as Lord Kitchener of Khartoum. It having been noticed that certain dignitaries and others were, through the press, ruining the scheme by attempts to foist upon it theological and medical schools, a complete answer was found for their statements by a near relative of Gordon Pasha. In the course of conversation he referred to what I knew to be the facts, that the British and Egyptian army doctors wherever stationed in the Soudan, ...
— Khartoum Campaign, 1898 - or the Re-Conquest of the Soudan • Bennet Burleigh

... Philippa was "easily foist." She had that rare joyousness which is contagious, making all who come within its influence merry like itself; and with her wildest laughter and her most careless jests, a maiden simpleness and grace was mingled which made the "judicious" who had "grieved" before as much her ...
— The Youth of Jefferson - A Chronicle of College Scrapes at Williamsburg, in Virginia, A.D. 1764 • Anonymous

... one of those "lion" finders who seek the animal for pleasure, not for the glory it brings them; she had the courage of her instincts—lion-entities were indispensable to her, but she trusted to divination to secure them; nobody could foist a ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... was who had murdered him! Once, long, long ago, almost at the outset of the Gray Seal's career, a spurious gray seal had been used before. But this was a vastly different, and far more significant matter. Then it had been an attempt to foist the identity of the Gray Seal upon a poor, miserable devil in order to secure a reward—here it was a crime, murder, coolly, callously laid to the Gray Seal, that the guilty man might escape without a breath of suspicion. Just another crime credited to the Gray Seal! No one would ...
— The Further Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard

... for too high stakes, Ackerman," Mr. Tolman objected. "It is a little rough to put all the burden on Dick. Suppose we divide up the responsibility and foist half of it on Stephen? Let us say you will come if both boys make good in their studies ...
— Steve and the Steam Engine • Sara Ware Bassett

... question of 'Free-will,' and being myself more or less of a fatalist, it annoyed me that I never could in the very slightest degree shake his convictions on that point. Moreover, when I plagued him too much with Herbert Spencer, he had a way of retaliating, and would foist upon me his favourite authors. He was never a worshipper of any one writer, but always had at least a dozen prophets in whose ...
— Derrick Vaughan—Novelist • Edna Lyall

... to repay his loan and your own, if I may trust to your generous affection for the grandson of a Hazeldean! I have the less scruple in this appeal to you, for I know bow it would grieve you that a Jobson, who perhaps never knew a grandmother, should foist your own kinsman from the lands of his fathers. Of one thing I am convinced,—we squires and sons of squires must make common cause against those great moneyed capitalists, or they will buy us all out in a few generations. The old race of country gentlemen ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... even now, when I am morally certain of his culpability, I—I can't bring myself to despise the man. He's been my friend for thirty years, Dexter has, and damn it—— I beg your pardon, Sarah—but, damn it, I keep on thinking of him, in soft moments, as my friend now. I sit by the hour trying to foist the blame upon Archie Wickersham, and he's no more guilty than Dexter. Dexter's merely good-natured about his crookedness; wholesome about it, somehow. And ...
— Then I'll Come Back to You • Larry Evans

... be needless to be a Radical any more. Radical I never was, really, by nature or by sympathy. The part had been thrust on me one day, when Edward proposed to foist the House of Lords on our small Republic. The principles of the thing he set forth learnedly and well, and it all sounded promising enough, till he went on to explain that, for the present at least, he proposed to be ...
— The Golden Age • Kenneth Grahame

... there I made the substitution of my name for that of the real author, and in the case of that delightful copy of Milton you gave me, Phil, it pleased me to believe that it was presented to me by the author, only the inscription on the title-page made it necessary for me to foist upon you the burden or distinction of authorship. Then, as I lived on in my imaginary paradise, it struck me that for one who had done such great things in letters I was doing precious little writing, ...
— The Water Ghost and Others • John Kendrick Bangs

... They did not shoot him, and when they rode off he addressed them with profound gratitude, making a congee: "Gentlemen, I wish you good-night; and we are very much obliged to you that you have not used us ill!" And this is the cuckoo that has the audacity to foist upon me ten buttons on a side and a black velvet collar,—a ...
— The Best Letters of Charles Lamb • Charles Lamb

... he wore the grim look of a righteously angry man. He thrust the book at Philon. "Here, sir, is your book. The next time you try to foist one over on a book trader remember science is a shrewd detective and you'll have to be cleverer than you've been this time. This book is, I'll admit, a clever job, but nevertheless a forgery. It was not printed in nineteen forty-six. The ...
— The House from Nowhere • Arthur G. Stangland

... chink wid de pigeon toes and de bow legs!" yelped the grocer's boy. "If he's goin' de way dem feet are pointed, foist t'ing yous know he'll be ...
— Owen Clancy's Happy Trail - or, The Motor Wizard in California • Burt L. Standish

... NIGRUM, "black wine," may be muddy wine in need of clarification; there is some slight doubt about this point. It appears that the vintner of old was much more tempted to foist unworthy stuff upon his customers than his colleague of today who is very much restricted by law ...
— Cooking and Dining in Imperial Rome • Apicius

... this tape recording and see what we have on our hands. Then we must make a thorough, unbiased study of these animals, and show Rainsford and his accomplice that they cannot hope to foist these ridiculous claims on the scientific world with impunity. If we can't convince them privately, there'll be nothing to do but expose ...
— Little Fuzzy • Henry Beam Piper

... to encounter the competition not solely of the candidate of the minority, but of all the men of established reputation in the country who were willing to serve, it would be impossible any longer to foist upon the electors the first person who presents himself with the catchwords of the party in his mouth, and three or four thousand pounds in his pocket. The majority would insist on having a candidate worthy of their choice, or they would ...
— Considerations on Representative Government • John Stuart Mill

... instance of Russia, had been sent to reorganize the Montenegrin army, saw themselves hampered at every turn by the Court clique at Cetinje. Jankovi['c], finding that orders were given without his knowledge, returned to Ni[vs]; and later on, after the fall of Lov[vc]en, Nikita tried to foist upon Pe[vs]i['c] the odium of a surrender which his own ...
— The Birth of Yugoslavia, Volume 1 • Henry Baerlein

... an uneasy feeling among the poor in our big towns that, if hard times should come, an attempt will be made to foist on them many of the weirder garments which kind-hearted ladies have been making for ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, September 30, 1914 • Various

... his fellow-cranks were the forerunners of other bands of ignorant enthusiasts who in later years endeavoured to foist themselves upon the natives of the Pacific Islands and met with similar and well-merited disaster. Like the ill-fated "La Nouvelle France" colony of the notorious Marquis de Ray, all these land-stealing ventures set about their exploits under the cloak of religion. One, ...
— The Call Of The South - 1908 • Louis Becke

... that Mr. and Mrs. Forsyth gave themselves and Josephine much more. They had a theory and a grievance. Satisfied from the first that the alleged victim was a drunken tramp, who submitted to have a hole bored in his head in order to foist himself upon the ranch, they were loud in their protests, even hinting at a conspiracy between Josephine and the stranger to supplant her brother in the property, as he had already in the spare bedroom. "Didn't all that yer happen THE VERY NIGHT she pretended to go for Stephen—eh?" ...
— A Sappho of Green Springs • Bret Harte

... condition of marvellous and still rapidly-growing prosperity. If that be so, if there be no disease, then obviously is there no need for the remedy which Mr. Williams and other Protectionists are anxious to foist upon the country. But though that conclusion will be sufficiently obvious to most minds, there are among us hypochondriacal persons who never think that they are quite well, and these unfortunates will still hanker after some patent medicine to cure their imaginary ills. It is ...
— Are we Ruined by the Germans? • Harold Cox

... things to go wrong than he had thought humanly possible in the management of a mine, and between ordering his machinery and taking on new men he had had scant leisure for affairs of the heart. He was young and inexperienced and the dealers took advantage of it to foist off old stock and odd parts, and then his engineers became fractious and disgruntled because he expected quick results. It was all very different from what he had expected when he had taken over the Paymaster lease, and yet it had to be endured and ...
— Shadow Mountain • Dane Coolidge

... to the point if we thumped together: I, because I'm not wanted, and it's an insult to foist me on to mankind whether I like it or not; and you, because... well, because you are a ...
— Winding Paths • Gertrude Page



Words linked to "Foist" :   stick in, visit, foist off, inclose, bring down, introduce, enclose, impose, insert



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