Online dictionaryOnline dictionary
Synonyms, antonyms, pronunciation

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




Forthright   Listen
adverb
Forthright  adv.  Straight forward; in a straight direction. (Archaic)






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





"Forthright" Quotes from Famous Books



... how cheerily he talked Amid the ceaseless tumult of the guns, How, when the word was given, he stood erect, Sprang from the trench and, shouting to his men, Led them forthright to where the sullen foe Waited their coming; and his brain took fire, And all was exultation and a high Heroic ardour and a pulse of joy. "Forward!" his cry rang out, and all his men Thundered behind him with their eyes ablaze, "Forward for England! Clear the beggars ...
— The Vagabond and Other Poems from Punch • R. C. Lehmann

... spirit. The young men at the first thought themselves bantered, but, seeing that the lady spoke in good earnest, they made answer joyfully that they were ready, and without losing time about the matter, forthright took order for that which they had to ...
— The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio • Giovanni Boccaccio

... Quite out of fashion, like a rusty mail In monumental mockery. Take the instant way; For Honor travels in a strait so narrow, Where one but goes abreast: keep then the path; For Emulation hath a thousand sons, That one by one pursue: if you give way, Or hedge aside from the direct forthright, Like to an entered tide, they all rush by, And leave you hindmost;— Or, like a gallant horse fallen in first rank, Lie there for pavement to the abject rear, O'errun and trampled on. Then what they do in present, ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick

... know his name, no matter)—so much less! Well, less is more, Lucrezia: I am judged. There burns a truer light of God in them, In their vexed beating stuffed and stopped-up brain, 80 Heart, or whate'er else, than goes on to prompt This low-pulsed forthright craftsman's hand of mine. Their works drop groundward, but themselves, I know, Reach many a time a heaven that's shut to me, Enter and take their place there sure enough, 85 Though they come back and cannot ...
— Selections from the Poems and Plays of Robert Browning • Robert Browning

... what is now a lengthy and costly war. Our country deserves a debate that prizes substance over rhetoric, and a policy that is adequately funded and sustainable. The President and Congress must work together. Our leaders must be candid and forthright with the American people in order to win ...
— The Iraq Study Group Report • United States Institute for Peace

... to his mother's rede and going out forthright to the Divan, committed the manage of the realm into the hands of certain old men of understanding and experience; save that he did this only after Bassora had been ruined, inasmuch as he turned not from his folly till he had spent and squandered all the treasures of the sultanate and was become ...
— Alaeddin and the Enchanted Lamp • John Payne

... rouseth to their toils from slumber sweet The binders of the sheaf, then his last sleep Unclasped the warrior-son of her who brings Light to the world, the Child of Mists of Night. Now swelled his mighty heart with eagerness To battle with the foe forthright. And Dawn With most reluctant feet began to climb Heaven's broad highway. Then did the Trojans gird Their battle-harness on; then armed themselves The Aethiop men, and all the mingled tribes Of those war-helpers that from many ...
— The Fall of Troy • Smyrnaeus Quintus

... had fallen, stone on stone, 25 And lay there shattered; hence the sudden sound: A warrior leaning on his sword alone Now watched the sphinx with that regard profound; The sphinx unchanged looked forthright, as aware Of nothing in the vast abyss ...
— The City of Dreadful Night • James Thomson

... Lord of Tong, thou'rt grown presumptuous and over-venturesome, methinks. But since life thou dost hold so cheap prepare ye for death forthright!" ...
— The Geste of Duke Jocelyn • Jeffery Farnol

... am indebted to the Rev. J. Howard Melish, D.D. whose forthright denunciations of political corruption in Cincinnati were further "shots heard ...
— Frank H. Nelson of Cincinnati • Warren C. Herrick

... a little. Claire was amazed to find that she did not feel indignant. His tone was offensive, but at least it was forthright. Besides, she had known instinctively that some day he would force the issue, and she was rather glad to get it settled. And she began to hope that she could persuade him skilfully against his warped convictions. She was trembling inwardly, too, at the thought that ...
— The Blood Red Dawn • Charles Caldwell Dobie

... by assuming that she was not talking to idiots and cretins, but to men and women of mature minds—so she could speak as she thought in a forthright manner. She inveighed against the double standard. When someone in the auditorium asked what she meant by the single standard she replied, she meant sexual expression and experience for man and woman on an equal footing ... the normal living of life without which no human being could be really ...
— Tramping on Life - An Autobiographical Narrative • Harry Kemp

... this New Testament, therefore, with a curious feeling of interest and surprise, dwelling long at a time upon its few, simple, forthright teachings, being moved by them in ways he did not comprehend, and finding certain of the dogmas of his Church sounding strangely in his ears even when his own lips ...
— The Lions of the Lord - A Tale of the Old West • Harry Leon Wilson

... more of the vile rant I strode forward and thus presently came on a small dell or dingle full of the light of a fire that crackled right merrily; at the which most welcome sight I made shift to scramble down the steepy bank forthright and approached the blaze on eager feet. Drawing near, I saw the fire burned within a small cave beneath the bank, and as I came within its radiance the song broke off suddenly and a man rose up, facing me across the fire and with one hand ...
— Black Bartlemy's Treasure • Jeffrey Farnol

... act King Henry takes on the voice and nature of buried Hotspur. He woos Katherine exactly as Hotspur talked to his wife: he cannot "mince" it in love, he tells her, in Hotspur's very words; but is forthright plain; like Hotspur he despises verses and dancing; like Hotspur he can brag, too; finds it as "easy" to conquer kingdoms as to speak French; can "vault into his saddle with his armour on his back"; he is ...
— The Man Shakespeare • Frank Harris

... oblivion; and because I failed, And all my rhymes were gawky, shambling camels, Or else obscene, blue-buttocked apes, I'm doomed To lackey it for things such as I've made, Till one of them crunches my backbone with his teeth, Or knocks my wind out with a forthright kick Clean in the midriff, crumpling up in death The hunched and stunted body that was me— John, the apostle of the Perfect Form! Jerusalem! I'm talking like a book— As you would say: and a bad book at that, A maundering, kiss-mammy ...
— Georgian Poetry 1913-15 • Edited by E. M. (Sir Edward Howard Marsh)

... significance. Like the school-house and meeting-house, it has become glorified by our men of letters. John Fiske and other historians have celebrated it in some of the most brilliant pages of our political writing; and that citizen literature, so deeply characteristic of us, found in the plain, forthright, and public-spirited tone of town-meeting discussions its keynote. The spectacular debates of our national history, the dramatic contests in the great arena of the Senate Chamber, the discussions before huge popular audiences in the West, have maintained ...
— The American Mind - The E. T. Earl Lectures • Bliss Perry

... with sweete senting flowers: It wideneth to a sufficient breadth, for the march of fiue or sixe in front, and extendeth, to not much lesse, then halfe a London mile: neyther doth it lead wearisomely forthright, but yeeldeth varied, & yet, not ouer-busie turnings, as the grounds oportunity affoordeth; which aduantage encreaseth the prospect, and is conuerted on the foreside, into platformes, for the planting of Ordinance, and the walkers sitting; and on the back part, ...
— The Survey of Cornwall • Richard Carew

... eternal truth, is courageous enough and energetic enough to make itself a nuisance to people of every other faith. The Jew not only does not bid for converts, but discourages them by imposition of hard conditions, and the Moslem True Believer's simple, forthright method of reducing error is to cut off the head holding it. I don't say that this is right; I say only that, being practical and comprehensible, it commands a certain respect from the impartial observer not conversant with scriptural ...
— The Shadow On The Dial, and Other Essays - 1909 • Ambrose Bierce

... fled along the field, And now forthright, and now in orbits wheel'd; For here the Trojan troops the list surround, And there the pass is clos'd with pools and marshy ground. Aeneas hastens, tho' with heavier pace- His wound, so newly knit, retards the chase, And oft his trembling ...
— The Aeneid • Virgil

... contents. "All salams that befit and greetings that are meet from part of Sankharib, King of Assyria and Niniveh, and from his Wazir and Secretary Haykar unto thee, O glorious monarch, and salutations be betwixt me and thee. And forthright, when this missive shall have reached thee, do thou arise in haste and come to meet me and let our trysting-place be the Buk'at Nisrin, the Lowland of the Eglantine[FN33] of Assyria and Niniveh, that I may commit to thee the kingdom sans fight or fray." Furthermore ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton

... Bailey, a gentle, frail little body also joined our circle, adding one more pair of eyes to those whose scrutiny must have been somewhat trying to the bride. To meet these blunt, forthright folk at such a table without betraying amusement or surprise, required tact, but the New Daughter succeeded in winning them all, even Mary, the cook, who ...
— A Daughter of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland

... and the sudden light, and the hope and fear of her purpose of bewailing her story, sat her down on the stair there, almost, as it were, 'twixt home and hell, till her heart came back to her and the tears began to flow from her eyes. Forthright came back Aloyse, bearing a white loaf and a little pitcher of milk on a silver serving-dish; she laid them down, unlocked the door into the garden, and thrust Goldilind through by the shoulders; then she turned and took up her serving-dish with ...
— Child Christopher • William Morris

... glowing coal; And the redness ran in the mass and burrowed within like a mole, And copious smoke was conceived. But, as when a dam is to burst, The water lips it and crosses in silver trickles at first, And then, of a sudden, whelms and bears it away forthright: So now, in a moment, the flame sprang and towered in the night, And wrestled and roared in the wind, and high over house and tree, Stood, like a streaming torch, ...
— Ballads • Robert Louis Stevenson

... heard his story, the vein of rage started out between his eyes[FN37] and he turned to his body-guard who stood before him, forty white slaves, smiters with the sword, and said to them, "Go down forthright to the house built by the son of Khakan and sack it and raze it and bring to me his son Nur al-Din with the damsel; and drag them both on their faces with their arms pinioned behind them." They replied, "To hear is to obey;" and, arming themselves, they ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton

... Britain and his reception of the messengers who come for him. "Arthur sate full still; one while he was wan, and in hue exceeding pale; one while he was red, and was moved in heart. When it all brake forth, it was good that he spake; thus said he then, forthright, Arthur, the noble knight: 'Lord Christ, God's Son, be to us now in aid, that I may in life hold God's laws.'" [18] But in general Layamon's expansions of Wace are merely slight additions or modifications, ...
— Arthurian Chronicles: Roman de Brut • Wace

... impaired, for the time being, while a second holding the same year seemed to reduce the significance of the Robbins case itself to that of a reassertion of the elementary rule against discrimination. "The commerce clause," Justice Reed remarked sententiously, "forbids discrimination, whether forthright or ingenious."[598] ...
— The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation • Edward Corwin

... honest, forthright, Winnebago Wisconsin self talking. But up in her apartment the other Fanny Brandeis, the calculating, ambitious, determined woman, said: "Now why did I say that! I never want to see the ...
— Fanny Herself • Edna Ferber

... a cheerful company that sat down upon the grass around the table with loaded plates. Their food had its extra seasoning of merry jests and loud laughter. Sarah was a little shocked at the forthright directness of their eating, no knives or forks or napkins being needed in that process. Having eaten, washed and packed away their dishes the women went home at two. Before they had gone Samson's ears caught a thunder of horses' feet in the distance. Looking ...
— A Man for the Ages - A Story of the Builders of Democracy • Irving Bacheller

... they fade out of existence not by being refuted in their turn, but simply by a tacit agreement to ignore their claims: so that the true insight they were based on is too often buried under them. The hypostasis of philosophical terms is an abuse incidental to the forthright, unchecked use of the intellect; it substitutes for things the limits and distinctions that divide them. So physics is corrupted by logic; but the logic that corrupts physics is perhaps correct, and when it is moral dialectic, it is more important than physics itself. Mr. Russell's ethics ...
— Winds Of Doctrine - Studies in Contemporary Opinion • George Santayana

... which they had counted on since this was the only way Jim Kendric knew of getting back among old friends and old surroundings. There was nothing subtle about him; in all things he was open and forthright and tempestuous. In a man's hardened and buffeted body he had kept the ...
— Daughter of the Sun - A Tale of Adventure • Jackson Gregory

... They rode forthright at one another. Their lances brake at the first blows. But they drew swords in a fury and rushed at one another. Le Beau Disconus smote the giant's shield so that it fell from him; but Maugis in turn slew Le Beau Disconus's steed with a great blow on its head. Le ...
— The Junior Classics, V4 • Willam Patten (Editor)

... you, Nail up[FN108] the Jew and bring the money, for there is no way by which five thousand gold pieces can be lost.' Wherefore we knew that our device did not suffice. So I went forth and finding a young man, a Haurani,[FN109] passing along the road, laid hands on him forthright and stripped him, and whipped him with palm-rods. Then I threw him in jail, ironed, and carrying him to the Prefecture, beat him again, saying to them, 'This be the robber who stole the coin.' And we strove to make him confess; but he would not. Accordingly, we beat him a third ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton

... hungry at night and catch the fragrance of the evening along the road or upon the hill, or at barn-doors smell the unmilked cows, or at the doorway, the comfortable odours of cooking supper how good that all is! At such times I know Esau to the core: the forthright, nature-loving, simple man he was, coming in dabbled with the blood of hunted animals and hungry ...
— Great Possessions • David Grayson

... so forth, and set sail, and ceased not sailing from island to island and from sea to sea, with a fair wind and a favouring, till we arrived at Bassorah safe and sound. I made no stay there, but freighted another vessel and, transferring my goods to her, set out forthright for Baghdad-city, where I arrived in safety, and entering my quarter and repairing to my house, foregathered with my family and friends and familiars who laid up my goods in my warehouses. When my people who, reckoning the period of ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton

... such striking freshness, such compelling strength, to the simple, forthright directness, the unaffected earnestness and modesty of the Message brought us by the Canadian preachers. The most bumptious and self-satisfied Cockney who ever heard the ringing of Bow Bells, would have found ...
— The Message • Alec John Dawson

... be a mistake somewhere. Ruthless competition in business she knew and understood. Only the fit survived—just as in her husband's chosen field only the peculiarly fit could hope to survive. But she rather resented the idea that pleasant, well-bred people could be guilty of coarse, forthright fraud. Surely not! ...
— North of Fifty-Three • Bertrand W. Sinclair

... Varus to his flame, As I from Forum idling came. Forthright some whorelet judged I it Nor lacking looks nor wanting wit, When hied we thither, mid us three 5 Fell various talk, as how might be Bithynia now, and how it fared, And if some coin I made or spared. "There was no cause" (I soothly said) "The Praetors or the Cohort made 10 Thence ...
— The Carmina of Caius Valerius Catullus • Caius Valerius Catullus

... devoid of inclination to move elsewhere. Now the water which quickens the verdure of the canals moves from the pole down to the equator as the season advances. This it does then irrespective of gravity. No natural force propels it, and the inference is forthright and inevitable that it is artificially helped to its end. There seems to be no escape from this deduction. Water only flows downhill, and there is no such thing as downhill on a surface already in fluid ...
— Is Mars Habitable? • Alfred Russel Wallace

... letter next morning while still in bed, and its forthright assault made her shiver. She did not attempt to deceive herself. She acknowledged the singular power of this young man to shake her, to change her course of action. From the first she acknowledged something almost terrifying in the appeal of his eyes, a power which he seemed unconscious of. His ...
— The Light of the Star - A Novel • Hamlin Garland

... has a most beautiful countenance, and he attracted me at once by his indescribably kind and benevolent appearance. What an interesting man he is, and what a pleasure it is to listen to his open and forthright conversation." ...
— Hymns and Hymnwriters of Denmark • Jens Christian Aaberg

... the pedestrians, fleeing like bewildered hens across the big streets and squares. Corporal Bertrand, who keeps himself always a little aloof, correct, erect, and silent, with a strong and handsome face and forthright gaze, was foreman in a case-factory. Tirloir daubed carts with paint—and without grumbling, they say. Tulacque was barman at the Throne Tavern in the suburbs; and Eudore of the pale and pleasant face kept a roadside ...
— Under Fire - The Story of a Squad • Henri Barbusse

... sinister in his lean, firm jaw and saucy black eye—a boy like Jack Cody, for instance, for whom a whole world of short-skirted femininity divided itself naturally into two classes: just girls—and Split Madigan. But that a forthright, practical, severe person like herself should be made ridiculous by Crosby's worship, and that Split, her arch-enemy, should be there to hear her adorer make his sexless declaration, was too much! Even a Madigan could not bear up under it. When Sissy looked from ...
— The Madigans • Miriam Michelson

... midway at a world's fair, and go to smutty shows, and take in sex magazines, and read the sort of books that our vice crusading friend reads. They like to conjure up the charms of carnality, and to help out their somewhat sluggish imaginations by actual peeps at it, but when it comes to taking a forthright header into the sulphur they usually fail to muster up the courage. For one clerk who succumbs to the houris of the pave, there are five hundred who succumb to lack of means, the warnings of the sex hygienists, and their own depressing consciences. For one "clubman"—i.e., bagman or suburban ...
— In Defense of Women • H. L. Mencken

... in admiration. It was impossible to catch Steve off guard. The agent had a deceptive appearance, athletic and good looking, with the forthright friendliness of a college undergraduate. But his trained eyes and ...
— The Flying Stingaree • Harold Leland Goodwin

... Though for that we deemed them happier: but now when the moon shone bright, And when by a doomed man's deeming 'twas the midmost of the night, Lo, forth from yonder thicket were two mighty wood-wolves come, Far huger wrought to my deeming than the beasts I knew at home: Forthright on Gylfi and Geirmund those dogs of the forest fell, And what of men so hoppled should be the tale to tell? They tore them midst the irons, and slew them then and there, And long we heard them snarling o'er that abundant cheer. Night after night, O my sister, the story was the same, ...
— The Story of Sigurd the Volsung and the Fall of the Niblungs • William Morris

... the goodness? The worst of men would alter it if they could. But God, they say, can do it, and he does not. Yet they still look up and say "Our Father." And the Father looks down with a face as blenchless as the Sphinx's, gazing forthright across the ...
— Flowers of Freethought - (First Series) • George W. Foote

... set our pocket-watches by the clock of fate. There is a headlong, forthright tide, that bears away man with his fancies like a straw, and runs fast in time and space. It is full of curves like this, your winding river of the Oise; and lingers and returns in pleasant pastorals; and yet, rightly thought upon, never returns at all. For though ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 1 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... therefore, how he conducts himself at home and abroad, and how, in his native town, he delivers his mind on sacred things, and profane. In New York, for instance, or in Turabu for that matter, he could say in plain forthright speech what he thought of Family, Church or State, and no one would mind him. But where these Institutions are the rottenest existing he will be minded too well, and reminded, too, of the fate of ...
— The Book of Khalid • Ameen Rihani

... prompt and forthright action. Recommendation for action will be contained in a message to be ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Dwight D. Eisenhower • Dwight D. Eisenhower

... should have said so flatly. If it meant the Army should try unsegregated and mixed units, it should have said so. Its report, McCloy concluded, should have put these matters beyond doubt. He was equally forthright in his rejection of the quota, which he found impractical because it deprived the Army of many qualified Negroes who would be unable to enlist when the quota was full. Even if the quota was meant as a floor rather than a ceiling, McCloy thought it objectionable. "I do not ...
— Integration of the Armed Forces, 1940-1965 • Morris J. MacGregor Jr.

... Shelton, ye are well found," he said. "I owe you one thing that I value little, my life; and one that I can never pay you for, this victory.—Catesby, if I had ten such captains as Sir Richard, I would march forthright on London.—But now, sir, claim ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 8 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... quite four times the diameter of our own sun, neatly bisected by the horizon. Tommy watched, waiting for it to sink. But it did not sink straight downward as the sun seems to do in all temperate latitudes. It descended, yes, but it moved along the horizon as it sank. Instead of a direct and forthright dip downward, the sun seemed to progress along the horizon, dipping more deeply as it swam. And Tommy ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science January 1931 • Various

... towards me a naked man there crept, And straight I rode up towards him, and knew his face for one I had seen in the hall of the Hundings ere its happy days were done. I asked him his tale, but he bade me forthright to bear him away; So I took him up behind me, and we rode till late in the day, Toward the cover of the wild-wood, and as swiftly as we might. But when yet aloof was the thicket and it now was moonless night, We stayed perforce for a little, and ...
— The House of the Wolfings - A Tale of the House of the Wolfings and All the Kindreds of the Mark Written in Prose and in Verse • William Morris

... The early visions are simple, poetic and cheerful. The bodies of the dead are burned and their ashes are consigned to earth. But this is viewed merely as a symbolic act of preparation—cooking it is called forthright—for another life of joy. The righteous forefathers of old who died before, they have found another good place. Especially Yama, the first mortal, has gone to the great rivers on high; he has searched out, like a pioneer, the way for all his descendants: "He went before and found a dwelling which ...
— Cerberus, The Dog of Hades - The History of an Idea • Maurice Bloomfield

... stately his ways; and stepp'd out the man-troop, The linden-board bearers. Now lightly the tracks were All through the woodland ways wide to be seen there, Her goings o'er ground; she had gotten her forthright Over the mirk-moor: bore she of kindred thanes The best that there was, all bare of his soul, Of them that with Hrothgar heeded the home. Overwent then that bairn of the athelings Steep bents of the stones, and stridings full narrow, Strait paths nothing pass'd over, ways all uncouth, ...
— The Tale of Beowulf - Sometime King of the Folk of the Weder Geats • Anonymous

... expressing their sense of annoyance forcibly. When a high-spirited Southern gentleman, regarding whom something of a disagreeable nature had appeared in the news columns, entered the editorial sanctum without knocking, wearing upon his crimsoned face an expression of forthright irritation and with his right hand stealing back under his coat skirt, it was time for the offending reporter to emulate the common example of the native white-throated nut-hatch and either flit thence ...
— One Third Off • Irvin S. Cobb

... an iron check upon himself, he would throttle down a temper which more than once in his life, at moments of tempest, had blazed out uncontrollably. He would smother within himself that passion which in forthright men is so prone to burst into violence. Were Gloria to show herself to be this or that, were she to say this word or another, he would speak with her coolly, he would listen to her calmly, and in the end, since judge he must, ...
— The Everlasting Whisper • Jackson Gregory

... gazed up at him with such fixity of surprise that the rush of his forthright appeal weakened towards its end. She was overwhelmed by the intensity of passion in his voice, as well as by surprise that he, so soon after his bitter loss, could turn to another—to her daughter, a child. And, at last, she whispered, ...
— The Tyranny of the Dark • Hamlin Garland

... thank God!" Mrs. Sheridan said, in her forthright voice. "Lord knows where it all comes from, these days, but the children always have plenty," she added, glad of a diversion. "They bought themselves a car two years ago, and if it isn't a Victrola this week, it's a thermos bottle, ...
— The Beloved Woman • Kathleen Norris

... dollar gift to the Foundation Fund, she had proceeded with her tidings to others of the authorities, and presently met with appreciation in proportion to the funds involved. Director Pond, a decisive and forthright man, had stood upon a chair and cried the splendid donation to the assembled company, his obvious moral being that others similarly prospered by the Lord should go and do likewise. So had come vindicatory advertisement gorgeous beyond the little ...
— V. V.'s Eyes • Henry Sydnor Harrison

... the sort of office-boy that "business men" would contend for: easy to imagine the manoeuvres, even the feuds, that would enliven business blocks in the downtown district for the possession of Johnny's confident smile and dashing, forthright way. I learned, in due season, that Johnny had cast in his lot with a real-estate operator, and had been cherished, through periods harried by competition, as a pearl ...
— On the Stairs • Henry B. Fuller

... is to assume that, however brilliant his surrounding invention may be, the purpose will always be firmly implicit in the central subject. Some of the early epics manage to do without any conspicuous added invention designed to extend what the main subject intends; but such nobly simple, forthright narrative as Beowulf and the Song of Roland would not do for a purpose slightly more subtle than what the makers of these ringing poems had in mind. The reality of the central subject is, of course, to be understood broadly. It means that the story must ...
— The Epic - An Essay • Lascelles Abercrombie

... shall bide, sure-guarded, when the restless lightnings wake, In the boom of the blotting war-cloud, and the pallid nations quake. So, at the haggard trumpets, instant your soul shall leap, Forthright, accoutred, accepting—alert from the walls of sleep. So at the threat ye shall summon—so at the need ye shall send, Men, not children, or servants, tempered and taught to ...
— The World Peril of 1910 • George Griffith

... foamy pools of the burn for trout, or reading voraciously in the library. Mostly I read books of travel, and especially did I relish the literature of Vagabondia. I had come under the spell of Stevenson. His name spelled Romance to me, and my fancy etched him in his lonely exile. Forthright I determined I too would seek these ultimate islands, and from that moment I was a changed being. I nursed the thought with joyous enthusiasm. I would be a frontiersman, a trail-breaker, a treasure-seeker. The virgin prairies called to me; the susurrus of the giant pines echoed in my heart; ...
— The Trail of '98 - A Northland Romance • Robert W. Service

... came in sight of the house, queer feelings took possession of Kate. She struggled to think kindly of her father; she tried to feel pangs of grief over his passing. She was too forthright and had too good memory to succeed. Home had been so unbearable that she had taken desperate measures to escape it, but as the white house with its tree and shrub filled yard could be seen more plainly, Kate suddenly was filled with the strongest ...
— A Daughter of the Land • Gene Stratton-Porter

... a man of short stature, broad-shouldered and muscular. Liked by his friends and colleagues for his frankness, there was a salt savour in his forthright speech—he never learned to play the courtier. His manners were not polished, a certain rusticity clung to him always, but his honesty was appreciated and he held positions of trust. Affectionate, slow—with the Dutch slowness praised ...
— Promenades of an Impressionist • James Huneker

... prime minister. 'Seek out this nose, for the King's affliction is sore. And wheresoever you find this nose upon the face of a man, strike it off forthright and bring it in all haste to the Court, for the King must be cured. Go, and come not back until your search ...
— Brown Wolf and Other Jack London Stories - Chosen and Edited By Franklin K. Mathiews • Jack London

... like Bunyan's apart, there is nothing in the world more difficult than to write with the easy and forthright simplicity of talk, as any one may see who tries for himself—or even compares the letter-writing with the conversation of his friends. So that this desire of simplicity, of clarity, of lucidity led at once to a more deliberate art. Dryden and Swift and Addison were assiduous ...
— English Literature: Modern - Home University Library Of Modern Knowledge • G. H. Mair

... Elizabethan. He had a consuming passion for beauty—his only religion. He loved women and he loved war, like the gallant, picturesque old soldiers of fortune. There was no pose in all this; his was a brave, uncalculating, forthright nature, that gave everything he had and was, without a shade of fear or a shade of regret. He is one of the most fiery spirits of our time, and like Rupert Brooke, he will be thought ...
— The Advance of English Poetry in the Twentieth Century • William Lyon Phelps

... way; For honour travels in a strait so narrow— Where one but goes abreast. Keep then the path, For emulation hath a thousand sons That one by one pursue; if you give way, Or hedge aside from the direct forthright, Like to an ent'red tide they all rush by And leave you hindmost; Or, like a gallant horse fall'n in first rank, Lie there for pavement to the abject rear, O'er-run and trampled on. Then what they do in present, Though less than yours in past, must o'ertop yours; For Time ...
— The History of Troilus and Cressida • William Shakespeare [Craig edition]

... funny, sad beggar. So he's won you. Won you in a game of drawing poker. Another man would have done as well, but the creature was keen for you. Great strength of character. Determined sort. Hope you won't think I didn't play soundly, but it's not a forthright game. Think they're bluffing when they aren't. When they are you mayn't think it. So far as hiding one's intentions, it's a most rottenly immoral game. Low, animal cunning—that ...
— Ruggles of Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson

... this art on the beaten way or in the bazars? If we busy ourselves with it here, the folk will say of us, These practise alchemy; and the magistrates will hear of us, and we shall lose our lives.[FN17] Wherefore, O my son, an thou desire to learn this mystery forthright, come thou with me to my house." So Hasan barred his shop and went with that Ajami; but by the way he remembered his mother's words and thinking in himself a thousand thoughts he stood still, with bowed head. The Persian turned and seeing ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 8 • Richard F. Burton

... integrated, some of these non-conformists prevailed over such strength as could be mustered against them, and by hearty and forthright robberies and murders came to be leaders and rulers of men—earls, barons, kings. The aristocracy of modern Europe is descended from such stout rebels. They became reconciled with, and organized, society, and aided it in war against the weaker of their own sort; ...
— The Subterranean Brotherhood • Julian Hawthorne

... through six large volumes of everyday experience, which deals with the whole matter of a life, and yet is rarely wearisome, which condescends to the most fastidious particulars, and yet sweeps all away in the forthright current of the narrative,—such a style may be ungrammatical, it may be inelegant, it may be one tissue of mistakes, but it can never be devoid of merit. The first and the true function of the writer has been thoroughly ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 3 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... forerunners of the Wolf; therefore Folk-might and Face-of-god fell at once into speech with them, and had their tidings; and when they had heard them, they saw nought to hinder the host from going on their road to Silver-dale forthright; and there were still three hours of daylight before them. So the vanward of the host tarried not, and the captains left word with the men from under House-stone that the rest of the Host should fare on after them speedily, and that they should give this word to each company, as men came up from ...
— The Roots of the Mountains • William Morris

... was so, it was so. For better or for worse, that was the kind of woman she had become, with the simple, forthright physical life subordinate, humble; like a pleasant, lovable child playing among the strong, full-grown, thought-freighted interests and richly varied sympathies and half-impersonal joys and sorrows which had taken possession of her days. And she could not think that the child could ever ...
— The Brimming Cup • Dorothy Canfield Fisher

... Ballin. But the note of color runs through the school and one hardly needs to name individual men. Whether our landscapists glaze and scumble with the tonalists, or use some modification of the impressionist hatching, it is for the sake of color; and even our most forthright and dashing wielders of the big brush often achieve a surprising power of ...
— Artist and Public - And Other Essays On Art Subjects • Kenyon Cox

... I figure that, as flambeaux banish eve, My sombre image, warped by insidious heave Of those less forthright, ...
— Wessex Poems and Other Verses • Thomas Hardy

... waiting—keep him even a long while? . . . He deserved it. . . . But ah, no! She was under a vow never to be other than forthright with him; and the truth was, his coming filled ...
— Lady Good-for-Nothing • A. T. Quiller-Couch

... she shared with the two girls. She didn't know whether Dick was worth millions or whether he was running a cabaret because he was hard up, and she cared less. She always followed her heart. Fancy the situation: Dick the uncatchable, and Paula who never flirted. They must have sprung forthright into each other's arms, for inside the week it was all arranged, and Dick made his call on me, as if my decision meant anything one way or ...
— The Little Lady of the Big House • Jack London

... swiftly and surely out of pained and useless speculation into forthright doing. From surety of what he had seen he passed to doubt, to uneasiness about himself: for if he could not look at a fair-haired woman without seeing Myra's face, then he must be going mad. He ...
— The Hidden Places • Bertrand W. Sinclair

... hands of inexperienced youth and hast neglected the elders and hast dissipated thy moneys and the moneys of the monarchy, and thou hast lavished all thy treasure upon wilfulness and carnal pleasuring." Zayn al-Asnam, awaking from the slumber of negligence, forthright accepted his mother's counsel and, faring forth at once to the Diwan,[FN15] he entrusted the management of the monarchy to certain old officers, men of intelligence and experience. But he acted on this wise only after Bassorah-town was ruined, inasmuch ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton

... angel of the light, Rebuked am I by hungry ear and sight, When I behold one lamp that through our fen Goes hourly where most noisome; hear again A tongue that loathsomeness will not affright From speaking to the soul of us forthright What things our craven senses keep from ken. This is the doing of the Christ; the way He went on earth; the service above guile To prop a tyrant creed: it sings, it shines; Cries to the Mammonites: Allay, allay Such misery as by ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... weak from Monsieur Ambrose Pare's drastic surgery that he was compelled to postpone his business. "Get you back to Eaucourt," said Coligny, "and cultivate your garden till I send for you. France is too crooked just now for a forthright fellow like you to do her service, and I do not think that the air of Paris is healthy for our house." Gaspard was fain to obey, judging that the Admiral spoke of some delicate state business for which he was aware he ...
— The Path of the King • John Buchan

... an easy thing to sever the connection which had been so strangely established between herself and this good friend, who seemed each moment to be less the simple mountaineer she had once believed him to be. Western he was, forthright and rough hewn, but he had shown himself a man in every emergency—a candid, strong man. Her throat filled with emotion, but she walked beside ...
— They of the High Trails • Hamlin Garland

... upon the right arm a sounding thwack. The beggar made as if to drop his staff forthright, and Nat lifted himself for ...
— Robin Hood • Paul Creswick

... Mr. Hardy, With a dark skill in weaving word-patterns Of subtle ideographies that mark him A man of genius. So am not I, But a plain Spirit, simple and forthright, With no damned philosophical fal-lals About me. When I visited that planet And watched the animalculae thereon, I never said they were "automata" And "jackaclocks," nor dared describe their deeds As "Life's impulsion by Incognizance." It may be that those ...
— A Christmas Garland • Max Beerbohm

... of orthodox criticism, of course, this is a grave fault. The Kipling-Wells style of swift, shouldering, button-holing writing has accustomed readers and critics alike to a straight course and a rapid tempo. Moreover, it has accustomed them to a forthright certainty and directness of statement; they expect an author to account for his characters at once, and on grounds instantly comprehensible. This omniscience is a part of the prodigality of moral theory that I have been discussing. An author who knows just what ...
— A Book of Prefaces • H. L. Mencken

... the streets stands ready the array Of steel, and bare is every blade and bright. Scarce the first warders of the gates essay To stand and battle in the blinding night.' So spake the son of Othrys, and forthright, My spirit stirred with impulse from on high, I rush to arms amid the flames and fight, Where yells the war-fiend and the warrior's cry, Mixt with the din of strife, mounts upward ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil - Translated into English Verse by E. Fairfax Taylor • Virgil

... beasts of ravening jaws, A grisly throng of serpents manifold. And healings of their hurt, by knife and charm, Apis devised, unblamed of Argive men, And in their prayers found honour, for reward. —Lo, thou hast heard the tokens that I give: Speak now thy race, and tell a forthright tale; In sooth, this ...
— Suppliant Maidens and Other Plays • AEschylus



Words linked to "Forthright" :   direct, straight-from-the-shoulder, free-spoken, forthrightness, blunt, point-blank, forthrightly, candid, frank



Copyright © 2024 Dictionary One.com