Online dictionaryOnline dictionary
Synonyms, antonyms, pronunciation

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




Insubordinate   Listen
adjective
Insubordinate  adj.  Not submitting to authority; disobedient; rebellious; mutinous.






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





"Insubordinate" Quotes from Famous Books



... At Bastia, Colonel de Rully falls under a shower of bullets, and the National Guard takes possession of the citadel and the powder magazine. These are not passing outbursts: at the end of two years the same insubordinate spirit is apparent everywhere.[3121] In vain do the commissioners of the National Assembly seek to transfer the Nassau regiment from Metz. Sedan refuses to receive it; while Thionville declares that, if it comes, she will blow ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 2 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 1 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine

... dawns, let the boy go to school. As the sheep need the shepherd, so the boy needs a master; for he is at once the most cunning and the most insubordinate of creatures. Let him be taken away from mothers and nurses, and tamed with bit and bridle, being treated as a freeman in that he learns and is taught, but as a slave in that he may be chastised ...
— Laws • Plato

... "You are insubordinate," was all he answered him, and then to the two men-at-arms behind the lieutenant—"Ho, there!" he called. "Bring out the guard. I am ...
— The Strolling Saint • Raphael Sabatini

... 3 the steamer returned, bringing Achmet Rafik and the sole surviving soldier from the Shir. This officer declared his men to have been insubordinate, and that they joined the natives against his orders to make an attack upon their enemies in return for attacks ...
— Ismailia • Samuel W. Baker

... policy which he had tested in Europe. The instruments he employed to put it in force were the Kurds, a turbulent shepherd race marching with and mixed up among the Armenians. By this means he had the excuse ready that these massacres were local disturbances among remote and insubordinate tribes, one of whom, however, the Kurds, he armed with modern rifles and caused to be instructed in some elementary military training. Their task was to murder Armenians, their pay was the privilege to rape their girls and their women, and to rob the houses of the men they had killed. The Armenians ...
— Crescent and Iron Cross • E. F. Benson

... rose from his chair and took two or three turns across the frayed strips of carpet. His eyes were no longer the eyes of a father irritated by the insubordinate fret of a fledgling son begging permission to test his wings. His bearded face bore the seamed uncertainty of his deeply vexed spirit. Perhaps in that moment there came to him some sense of conversion to the prophet-like assurance of ...
— Destiny • Charles Neville Buck

... surprise which all this caused me, I was speedily aroused by an order more immediately interesting, being summoned on the poop-deck to attend the general muster. Up they came from holes and hatchways, a vast host, no longer brawling and insubordinate, but quiet, submissive, and civil. Such as were wounded had been placed under the doctor's care, and all those now present were orderly and service-like. With a very few exceptions, they were all sailors, ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 3, July, 1851 • Various

... mother an ignorant, uncultured woman, his father a defaulter in middle life, in his age a sot, the boy was left to follow the promptings of his own will, naturally strong and turbulent. His youth was stormy and insubordinate, his young manhood not without the reproach of dishonorable mercantile dealings, and even the splendor of his military achievements in the service of his country could scarcely blind the judgment of his warmest admirers to the suspicious stains upon his moral character. That the last link ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XVII. No. 101. May, 1876. • Various

... with a tolerance at that date rare, recognized everywhere the religion of the country and entrusted all the affairs of the Christians to their own ecclesiastics. To the Turks, the Montenegrin tribes and the Albanian tribes of the mountains—who had also their own Bishops —were but insubordinate tribes against whom they sent punitive expeditions when taxes were in arrears and raids became intolerable. The Montenegrins descended from their natural fortress and plundered the fat flocks of the plain lands. They existed mainly by brigandage as their sheep-stealing ballads tell, and ...
— Twenty Years Of Balkan Tangle • Durham M. Edith

... furtively. Now, we have no option in the matter. We are expected to degrade ourselves by meaningless and humiliating gestures. The N.C.O.'s are almost as bad. If you answer a sergeant as you would a foreman, you are impertinent; if you argue with him, as all good Scotsmen must, you are insubordinate; if you endeavour to drive a collective bargain with him, you are mutinous; and you are reminded that upon active service mutiny is punishable by death. It is ...
— The First Hundred Thousand • Ian Hay

... "Insubordinate! See here," and she took out her more dainty provision from behind a seat and sat down opposite, in such a pretty, companionable way that he in his admiration ...
— Barriers Burned Away • E. P. Roe

... which he wears round his neck, Lord-Mayor fashion. I saw him just now, a little man rather like a monkey. He is a very important personage, for all the orders are given through him, and he receives the pay for his men and is responsible for their good behaviour. Woe be to the man who is insubordinate! Not only will he be punished now, but his whole village will hear about it, and he will be disgraced and find it difficult to ...
— Round the Wonderful World • G. E. Mitton

... At the critical moment the Greeks always appear to have lost faith in their leaders, and to have behaved in a disorderly and insubordinate manner. ...
— The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1, No. 28, May 20, 1897 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various

... that his brother clergy should be subjected to petticoat government. He therefore made up his mind to infuse a little of his spirit into the bishop, sufficient to induce him to oppose his wife, though not enough to make him altogether insubordinate. ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope

... put in Gonzaga quickly, "you bring us back to the main issue. Such a leader you have shown us that you are not. You have done worse. You have been insubordinate when you should not only have been orderly, but have enforced orderliness in others. And for that, by my lights, you should be hanged. Waste no more time on him, Madonna," he concluded, turning to Valentina. "Let the ...
— Love-at-Arms • Raphael Sabatini

... the Prophet of Galilee. But he did not trust Judas, who he had heard was a bad, untruthful man, and he had no confidence in his flippant faith in the cowardice of the disciples, and of the people. Annas believed in his own power, but he feared bloodshed, feared a serious riot, such as the insubordinate, irascible people of Jerusalem lent itself to so easily; he feared, in fact, the violent intervention of the Roman authorities. Fanned by opposition, fertilised by the red blood of the people, which vivifies everything on which it falls, the heresy would grow stronger, ...
— The Crushed Flower and Other Stories • Leonid Andreyev

... association with him in the heart of the parent to be disturbing and painful, how can the result be otherwise than alienating and depressing? Let there be two children in a family, one of whom is invariably obedient, gentle, attentive, ingenuous; the other, irritable, insubordinate, careless, secretive, and untruthful. The former shall be idolized, while the latter is regarded with condemnatory repugnance. The fact that a boy is your son, or that a girl is your daughter, cannot wholly neutralize the repulsiveness of their odious traits. When children ...
— The Friendships of Women • William Rounseville Alger

... couple of hours before, Mr. Secretary having been somewhat noisy and insubordinate, the Major had been obliged to rule him out of order and request his silence. The insult—for so he ...
— The Revolution in Tanner's Lane • Mark Rutherford

... Illinois, the popularity of Abraham Lincoln induced the young men of the Sangamon Valley, in forming a company of mounted riflemen, to vote him as their captain. The forces were very irregular irregulars, did no fighting as a body, and were insubordinate to the last. Once it was in an ironically amusing manner. The commander had saved a friendly Indian from a beating, that being General Cass' order, as well as what his humanity prompted, though at the same time there had been Indian tragedy in his own family, ...
— The Lincoln Story Book • Henry L. Williams

... from you that I was unpopular, and on my return I met with unmistakable signs of hostility. My native workmen were insubordinate. In fact, it was the reports from my overseers which had led me to visit the island. I made a tour of the place, believing it to be necessary to my interests that I should get once more in touch with negro feeling, since I had returned to my home in Cuba after ...
— Bat Wing • Sax Rohmer

... resources of life. Even if we insist that the interests connected with getting a living are only material and hence intrinsically lower than those connected with enjoyment of time released from labor, and even if it were admitted that there is something engrossing and insubordinate in material interests which leads them to strive to usurp the place belonging to the higher ideal interests, this would not—barring the fact of socially divided classes—lead to neglect of the kind of education which trains men for the useful pursuits. It would ...
— Democracy and Education • John Dewey

... 20,000 men for attack is a difficult operation, even with well-drilled troops and an experienced staff. Nor were the supply arrangements yet completed. The full complement of waggons had not arrived, and the drivers on the spot were as ignorant as they were insubordinate. The troops had received no instruction in musketry, and many of the regiments went into action without having once fired their rifles. But the protests of the generals were of no effect. The Federal Cabinet decided that in face of the public impatience it was impossible to ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson

... until his death; and whether or not the effect thus intended will come up to expectations will depend on two factors: (1) whether or not the merits and personal influence of the predecessor will continue effective after his death, and (2) whether or not there will be unscrupulous and insubordinate claimants at the death of the Head, and, if any, the number of such men and whether the point of dispute they raise be well-founded. If these are taken as the basis for discerning the future we will arrive at the same ...
— The Fight For The Republic in China • Bertram Lenox Putnam Weale

... company called the "Tigers," took their turn at this service, and we would gladly have dispensed with their "protection." Utterly undisciplined, they were more dangerous to friends than to foes. Mutinous and insubordinate, they were engaged in constant collisions with each other and with the companies so unfortunate as to be quartered near them; and their camp was a pandemonium. In addition to other sources of quarrel and contention, several women (vivandieres, ...
— The Narrative of a Blockade-Runner • John Wilkinson

... all the mysticism, all the discredited and riotous vagaries of his insubordinate soul, Franklin possessed a saving common sense; yet it was mere freakishness which led him to accept a vagrant impulse as the controlling motive at the crucial moment of his life. His nature was not more ...
— The Girl at the Halfway House • Emerson Hough

... of Simon, and, terrified and abashed, they spake to the sons of Jacob with little courage: "Said ye not that ye cast this lad into the pit because he was of a rebellious spirit? What, now, will ye do with an insubordinate slave? Rather sell him to us, we are ready to pay any price you desire." This speech was part of the purpose of God. He had put it into the heart of the Midianites to insist upon possessing Joseph, that he might not remain with his brethren, and be slain by them.[49] The brethren ...
— The Legends of the Jews Volume 1 • Louis Ginzberg

... which was usually employed to signify the thunderbolt. As he destroyed everything in his blind rage, the kings of Chaldaea were accustomed to invoke him against their enemies, and to implore him to "hurl the hurricane upon the rebel peoples and the insubordinate nations." When his wrath was appeased, and he had returned to more gentle ways, his kindness knew no limits. From having been the waterspout which overthrew the forests, he became the gentle breeze which caresses and refreshes them: with his warm showers he fertilizes the fields: ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 3 (of 12) • G. Maspero

... angry enough to use the first words that may rise to your lips, without pausing to consider whether they happen or not to be offensive, and I am sure that is not a safe temper in which to engage in an altercation with that man. He is insolent, insubordinate, and altogether a most dangerous man to deal with—one can tell that by merely glancing at his eyes—and I have a firm conviction that if you were perchance to offend him, he would without compunction stab you, or do you ...
— The Castaways • Harry Collingwood

... officer, an evil smile upon his thin lips. "You hint, I suppose, that I am not a gentleman? We shall see. But first, as you appear to be an insubordinate dog, we had better ...
— Action Front • Boyd Cable (Ernest Andrew Ewart)

... could not well be without strong contrasts, and of these unsparing criticism took advantage. Hostile journals delineated Fremont as a shallow, vainglorious, "woolly-horse," "mule-eating," "free-love," "nigger-embracing" black Republican; an extravagant, insubordinate, reckless adventurer; a financial spendthrift and political mountebank. As the reading public is not always skillful in winnowing truth from libel when artfully mixed in print, even the grossest calumnies were not without their effect in contributing to his defeat. But to the sanguine zeal ...
— Abraham Lincoln, A History, Volume 2 • John George Nicolay and John Hay

... straightened up and began to give me very fine assistance in the bunk-house. His change of mind and heart almost lost him his job, for he lost a good deal of his brutality—the thing that fitted him for his work. In ushering insubordinate gentlemen downstairs, he did it more with force of persuasion than with the force of his shoe. He continued my campaign of cleaning, and decorated the kalsomined walls with chromos that he bought at one penny apiece. He was a psychologist ...
— From the Bottom Up - The Life Story of Alexander Irvine • Alexander Irvine

... his O.C. to attach him to me, and I placed him in the cellar at Maroc where he began to instruct the men in the noble art of self defence. People used to wonder why I had a prize-fighter attached to me, and I told them that if the Junior Chaplains were insubordinate, I wanted to be able to call in some one in an emergency to administer discipline. I always said, with (p. 195) perfect truth, that since my prize-fighter was attached to me I had had no trouble with any of the chaplains. It is wonderful ...
— The Great War As I Saw It • Frederick George Scott

... whenever that kind of thing occurs, petty tyrannies and intermeddlings on the part of the superior are answerable for it. I met this particular man on one occasion only. I suppose that I had been pointed out to him as the young insubordinate who had dared to trespass on tradition by wearing the clothes served out to him. He stopped me in the middle of the barrack square at Cahir, and offered me a solemn warning: "You go on as you've begun, young man, and we'll make ...
— Recollections • David Christie Murray

... is then what St. Paul calls the mind of the flesh ([Greek: phronaema sarkos]) or the wisdom of this world. The result is, that the reason is super-finite; and in this relation, its antagonist is the insubordinate understanding, or ...
— Coleridge's Literary Remains, Volume 4. • Samuel Taylor Coleridge

... had given them as a cause for unmercifulness. The more time changed his army from the feudal gathering of English country gentlemen and yeomen to mercenary bands of men-at-arms, the mere greedy, rapacious, and insubordinate became their temper. Well knowing the greatness of the peril, and that the very best of his captains had scarcely the will, if they had the power, to restrain the license that soon became barbarity unimaginable, he spoke sadly overnight of his dread of the day of surrender, when it might prove ...
— The Caged Lion • Charlotte M. Yonge

... "You're insubordinate, Paresi," said Anderson, "and you're a great comfort." His slight smile faded, and horizontal furrows appeared over his eyes. "Tell me why I had that nasty little phase of doubt ...
— Breaking Point • James E. Gunn

... first attempt at mutiny being thus happily suppressed, it is to be hoped that Curtis will succeed as well in future. An insubordinate crew ...
— The Survivors of the Chancellor • Jules Verne

... in the North, and found ready credence with a great many, that the people of the South were as a rule, insubordinate and indisposed to accept the changed conditions there, and that insubordination and turmoil were the rule. To ascertain the facts in this regard, during the later months of 1865 Mr. Johnson commissioned General Grant ...
— History of the Impeachment of Andrew Johnson, • Edumud G. Ross

... let the mare out a little. Corey understood something about horses, though in a passionless way, and he would have preferred to talk business when obliged to talk horse. But he deferred to his business superior with the sense of discipline which is innate in the apparently insubordinate American nature. If Corey could hardly have helped feeling the social difference between Lapham and himself, in his presence he silenced his traditions, and showed him all the respect that he could have exacted from any of his clerks. He talked horse with him, ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... some pity as well as the disgrace which overwhelmed him is quite apparent. Most of his troops were ill-equipped, unreliable, and insubordinate. Even during the march to Detroit he had to use a regular regiment to compel the obedience of twelve hundred mutinous militiamen who refused to advance. Their own officer could do nothing with them. At Detroit two hundred of them refused to cross the river, on the ...
— The Fight for a Free Sea: A Chronicle of the War of 1812 - The Chronicles of America Series, Volume 17 • Ralph D. Paine

... learn much which its parents do not know? Will not a child arrogate a superiority unfavourable to love and obedience?" He shuddered again at the likelihood that Mechanics' Institutes would "make discontented spirits and insubordinate and presumptuous workmen." He opposed the admission of Dissenters to Cambridge University, and he "desired that a medical education should be kept beyond the reach of a poor student," on the ground that "the better able the parents are to incur ...
— Old and New Masters • Robert Lynd

... Thompson. "Your silence indicates that you are still insubordinate. You may, therefore, choose between two things. You may apologize to me now, and to-morrow to the girls you have accused of treachery, or you may leave this school, not to return to it unless permitted to do so by the ...
— Grace Harlowe's Junior Year at High School - Or, Fast Friends in the Sororities • Jessie Graham Flower

... commission to the army, composed of three members of the council, invested with all the powers which the governor himself, if present, would possess. These commissioners arrived at Casco about the middle of July, where they found the army insubordinate, and indisposed to the service. The troops, however, were again embarked, and arrived at Passamaquodi, on the seventh of August. The spirits of the general were broken, and his health was impaired. ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 1 (of 5) • John Marshall

... the mercy of his servants, who, insolent and insubordinate, robbed, laughed at, and neglected him. The waste and expense were enormous. Our hero, who found how matters stood, ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VI. • Various

... produced a titter, and the insubordinate youngster was again told he must not talk. After awhile he became accustomed to school and liked it. He grew older and learned his letters. It was a tedious task, the most difficult of which was to distinguish "N" from "U," but he finally mastered them, ...
— Sustained honor - The Age of Liberty Established • John R. Musick,

... race has still to learn that girls need good meals just as much as, or more than, persons of maturer years. Boys are no better off at many places; but boys have opportunities of adding bloaters and chops to their breakfasts, which would be considered horribly indelicate and insubordinate ...
— The Mark Of Cain • Andrew Lang

... military unification that we who desire its continuance must look to hold it together. There never was anything like it before. Essentially it is an adventure of the British spirit, sanguine, discursive, and beyond comparison insubordinate, adaptable, and originating. It has been made by odd and irregular means by trading companies, pioneers, explorers, unauthorised seamen, adventurers like Clive, eccentrics like Gordon, invalids like Rhodes. It has been made, in spite of authority and ...
— An Englishman Looks at the World • H. G. Wells

... He remembered that queer skating-impulse of ten days ago, the impulse that had let her in. That any mind, even an imaginative one, could pass beneath the sway of such a fancy was strange enough; and Hibbert, while fully aware of the disorder, yet found a curious joy in yielding to it. This insubordinate centre that drew him towards old pagan beliefs had assumed command. With a kind of sensuous pleasure he ...
— Four Weird Tales • Algernon Blackwood

... and some had returned home, and it was not until Morgan had beheaded Captain Lee and Captain Powell that order was restored among them. Beside these were the burgher militia, who were brave and well trained, but insubordinate, and ready on every occasion to ...
— By Pike and Dyke: A Tale of the Rise of the Dutch Republic • G.A. Henty

... of those Nuns fond of drums and bugles, who seem to have been created to follow the armies in action, to pick soldiers during the vicissitudes of battles, and, better than a General, to tame with one word the rough and insubordinate troopers; a genuine martial and bellicose Nun, whose wrinkled and pitted face, looked like an image of ...
— Mademoiselle Fifi • Guy de Maupassant

... the inhabitants, in their enforced idleness, had any temptation to be insubordinate, they had a far greater inducement to keep the law in the bridled savagery of the German gendarmerie. These creatures, who from the color of their uniform and the brutality of their conduct were known as the "green devils," seemed to ...
— World's War Events, Vol. II • Various

... now become a wild insubordinate boy, and the only school in which I could properly be taught was that world-wide school which awaited me, in which Toil and Hardship are the severe but noble teachers. I got into sad scrapes. Quarrelling, on one occasion, with ...
— My Schools and Schoolmasters - or The Story of my Education. • Hugh Miller

... in August last, I expected would be great in any state of things; but they proved greater than expected. I never doubted that the plans of the President were wise and sufficient. Their failure we all impute, 1. To the insubordinate temper of Armstrong: and, 2. To the indecision of Winder. However, it ends well. It mortifies ourselves, and so may check, perhaps, the silly boasting spirit of our newspapers, and it enlists the feelings ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson

... to report you as insubordinate?" he asked, after a pause, during which the two regarded each other somewhat after the fashion of two dogs making acquaintance—a tall, leering old mastiff looking surlily down at the advances of an anxious yet ...
— The Drummer Boy • John Trowbridge

... monarch born before his time. He had some of the notions which the Tudors subsequently developed with success; but he had none of their power and self-control, and he was faced from his accession by a band of insubordinate uncles. Moreover, it needed the Wars of the Roses finally to convince the country of the meaning of the independence of the peerage. Richard fell a victim to his own impatience and their turbulence. Henry IV came to the throne as the king ...
— The History of England - A Study in Political Evolution • A. F. Pollard

... prisoner is at liberty, he is subject to all the rules and regulations of the army of the government that captured him, and if he refuses to obey the rules or acts in an insubordinate manner toward the officers in command, he may be punished and disciplined according to his offense. And here it is again left to the discretion of his captors as to what measure of punishment shall be ...
— America's War for Humanity • Thomas Herbert Russell

... should sooner or later discover this opinion in Private McCuaig, and that he should consider the holding of this opinion as a tendency toward insubordination. It was also inevitable that the sergeant major should order a course of special fatigues calculated to subdue the spirit of the insubordinate private. ...
— The Sky Pilot in No Man's Land • Ralph Connor

... levee. And they took them (oh, the pity of it!) they took them to Mr. Lynch's slave pen, turned into a Union prison of detention, where their fathers and grandfathers had been wont to send their disorderly and insubordinate niggers. They were packed away, as the miserable slaves had been, to taste something of the bitterness of the negro's lot. So came Bert Russell to welter in a low room whose walls gave out the stench of years. How you cooked for them, and schemed for them, and cried for them, ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... the Europeans are fined by stopping their pay for a certain number of days and sometimes a man is revocated, which means he is sent home without being paid for the six months or year previously. In this way men who drink hard when they have the opportunity, who are habitually insubordinate, or who are undesirable, are weeded out rapidly. Penal offences are of course tried in the Courts and punished with imprisonment. It is indeed curious after travelling in America and our colonies, to find, sturdy, rough, independent characters ...
— A Journal of a Tour in the Congo Free State • Marcus Dorman

... cried Marian, in mock dignity, "as your superior officer, I am capable of judging of the merits of you both, and neither of you can change my estimate. You are insubordinate, and I shall put you under arrest if you don't tell me how you escaped at once. You have kept a woman's curiosity in check almost as long as your brave regiment held the enemy, and that's your greatest achievement thus ...
— An Original Belle • E. P. Roe

... Birmingham, and voted against Peel in the house of commons. Having thus vindicated his independence, Huskisson, somewhat too hastily, placed his resignation in the hands of the premier on May 20. The duke, having fairly lost patience with his insubordinate colleagues, was equally prompt in accepting it, and declined to receive the explanations offered. In the end, Palmerston, Dudley, Grant, and Lamb, followed the fortunes of Huskisson, and Wellington's government was completely purged of ...
— The Political History of England - Vol XI - From Addington's Administration to the close of William - IV.'s Reign (1801-1837) • George Brodrick

... produced an immediate, though, no doubt, conflicting impression upon the gentleman who had just been denouncing her. He bowed, with an involuntary deference which he had not at all meant to show to Lady Henry's insubordinate companion, and then ...
— Lady Rose's Daughter • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... part largely in her way when she sent men to fight the battles of the United Colonies. Her officers and men were often too independent to submit willingly to proper military authority, and in some trying emergencies the Berkshire men were insubordinate or were disposed to follow their leaders in attacks not always wisely chosen. It was Captain Asa Douglas, of Hancock, the man who had done much to promote the capture of Ticonderoga by skilful recruiting and by pledge of his estate, who in May, 1776, was Chairman of a convention of Berkshire towns ...
— Colonel John Brown, of Pittsfield, Massachusetts, the Brave Accuser of Benedict Arnold • Archibald Murray Howe

... to them by inspired orators. What we call Revivalism was an institution in Italy, which the Church was too wise to discountenance or to suppress, although the preachers of repentance were often insubordinate and sometimes even hostile to the Papal system. The names of Arnold of Brescia, San Bernardino of Siena, John of Vicenza, Jacopo Bussolari, Alberto da Lecce, Giovanni Capistrano, Jacopo della Marca, Girolamo Savonarola, ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volume 1 (of 7) • John Addington Symonds

... that I won't, sir. I'm sorry to appear insubordinate, but I've got to refuse—I simply must. I've never shirked a duty before, as I think you will admit, Mr. Blaine. I have always carried out the missions you entrusted to me to the best of my ability, no matter what the odds against me, and in this case I have gone ahead conscientiously up to ...
— The Crevice • William John Burns and Isabel Ostrander

... most startling form; in the New Testament it is exhibited, alike by St. Paul and by St. Paul's Master, as a manifestation of love—not vindictive, but remedial. The disciplining love of a human father is used to illustrate the Divine dealings with insubordinate mankind. About Nature we need scarcely argue. "In the physical world there is no forgiveness of sins," and rebellion against the laws of righteous living brings penal consequences which no one can mistake. And yet again, has History any more unmistakable ...
— Prime Ministers and Some Others - A Book of Reminiscences • George W. E. Russell

... Philip ascertained that all chance of saving the Lion had been lost after the second night, when she had beat in her larboard streak, and six feet water in the hold; that the crew had been very insubordinate, and had consumed almost all the spirits; and that not only all the sick had already perished, but also many others who had either fallen over the rocks, when they were intoxicated, or had been found dead in the morning from their exposure during ...
— The Phantom Ship • Frederick Marryat

... his brother, Lieutenant-general Sir William Napier, the merits of the case are amply, although it must be admitted, not dispassionately discussed. The material is, however, afforded for a just judgment upon the controversy. It can hardly be doubted the gallant general was insubordinate; that he assumed authority to which he was not entitled, and ruled with a glorious and intellectual tyranny, which was not the less a tyranny because of the genius by which it was directed. The general's faults were, however, overlooked by his country, which was served by him through an eventful ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan

... in the conquest of America is the landing of Cortez at Vera Cruz in 1521. He was an insubordinate officer acting in defiance of orders, and the governor of Cuba, in just indignation, despatched a force under Narvaez to bring him back. Cortez came down from the interior to the coast, deprived Narvaez of ...
— Lectures on Modern history • Baron John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton

... before Crook himself. Then," continued Archer, "I asked Willett in so many words if it were true that he had struck 'Tonio with a gauntlet that night at Bennett's, and he said, reluctantly, it was—that 'Tonio had been insolent, insubordinate, that that was the way he had always dealt with such cases. Perhaps with men like 'Tonio it was all wrong, but he had never met Indians like 'Tonio before. I told him gravely that he had made a serious error, and that he should lose no time in getting word to 'Tonio that he realized this and ...
— Tonio, Son of the Sierras - A Story of the Apache War • Charles King

... the seaman before the mast, no less than those of his officer, are benumbed by the monotony and isolation from mankind, which are the gravest drawbacks of a sailor's life. It is in these dull moments that men are tempted to drink and quarrel, that officers become tyrannical, and their crews insubordinate, or even mutinous. Lest it should be thought that my impressions of the average sailor are derived from an exceptional crew or picked men, I have only to add that the manning of the 'Sunbeam' was a family job. ...
— A Voyage in the 'Sunbeam' • Annie Allnut Brassey

... day at Saint-Cloud, Jean thought himself unhappy, and unhappy he became in fact. He was wilfully, deliberately insubordinate, proud of breaking rules ...
— The Aspirations of Jean Servien • Anatole France

... So when first arraigned, he tried to avoid pleading (ibid., 287), but he was tried first for the murder of William Moore, on which the passes had no bearing. William Moore was an insubordinate gunner; after an altercation, Kidd hit him on the head with a bucket, and he died. It was probably manslaughter, but the jury sustained the indictment for murder. After being condemned for murder, Kidd was tried (unfairly in several particulars) ...
— Privateering and Piracy in the Colonial Period - Illustrative Documents • Various

... finely-drawn brows and with thick lashes, golden-brown, and curling up at the tips. Peculiar eyes: Mrs Gildea, who knew them well, never could decide their exact colour. The nose was a delicate aquiline, the chin pointed. An untidy mass of wavy chestnut hair stuck out in uneven puffs and insubordinate curls, all round the small head. At this moment Mrs Gildea remembered a suggestive charm sent to Lady Bridget by her cousin, Chris Gaverick, one Christmas, of ...
— Lady Bridget in the Never-Never Land • Rosa Praed

... pushed off from the shore. A basket of provisions had been placed in the boat, and before we had been very long out at sea, George insisted upon its being unpacked, threatening Aleck that he should be reported as insubordinate unless he consumed precisely the quantity of wine and the whole amount of cold chicken dealt out ...
— The Story of the White-Rock Cove • Anonymous

... of the king, had succeeded the Duke of Vendome. He found the army in great disorder, the generals divided and insubordinate, Turin besieged according to the plans of La Feuillade, against the advice of Vauban, who had offered "to put his marshal's baton behind the door, and confine himself to giving his counsels for the direction of the siege;" the prince, ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume V. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot

... guilty of acts of violence. When he became unbearably insubordinate I found it to be my duty to put irons upon him. As I approached him with the handcuffs he smote me twice in the face, and I yet carry the mark that he gave me. [Here the precious half-breed pointed to his right eye, which was a dusky purple.] This black eye I received ...
— The Story of Louis Riel: The Rebel Chief • Joseph Edmund Collins

... bearers. The soldiers did not know, they could not see. The great high roads that led to Paris were being abandoned; they were plunging into unfathomable morasses; they were being led through dark, gloomy, dreadful woods to the northward. Where? For what purpose? The dumb, wrathful, insubordinate, despairful army indeed moved at the will of its master, but largely because it realized that it could not stay where it was, and largely because it was better to move on and die than to lie down and die. They were at least warmer on ...
— The Eagle of the Empire - A Story of Waterloo • Cyrus Townsend Brady

... old-fashioned ships, but an old-fashioned ship she was indeed. We even had hempen cables instead of chain ones! The crew, drawn almost exclusively from the lists of registered seamen, was active and bold on the rigging, but somewhat insubordinate. The words of command were given amidst volleys of oaths, and carried out under a hail of blows dealt by the petty officers. The superior officers, who had all belonged to the old Imperial Navy, clung to that detestable habit, ...
— Memoirs • Prince De Joinville

... with them. Singular too as it may appear, a love of quarrelling and a passion for calumny have been found to be as decidedly characteristic of the foreigners in Greece, as of the natives. The Philhellenes were notoriously a most insubordinate body; the English in Greece have never been able to live together in amity and concord; the three European powers who signed a treaty to aid and protect Greece, have rarely been able to agree on the means of carrying their good intentions into execution on a systematic ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 360, October 1845 • Various

... Mr Robert Howlett's insubordinate language," said Mark's fellow-invalid, when all at once there came a cry of rage, followed by a loud shouting somewhere forward. Then more cries, and confusion, and directly after there was a desperate scuffle going on by the ...
— The Black Bar • George Manville Fenn

... but the Canadians laid down their arms. Currie had not finished his work. He had planned the whole hundred days, beginning with Cambrai, and the apex of that achievement after the breaking of the infallible Hindenburg line, was the recapture of Mons. He was once more "insubordinate". He did not seem to pay respect to the armistice. His men had often said that they wanted to fight Heine on German soil. Denied that, at least they wanted a chance to be part of the army of occupation, ...
— The Masques of Ottawa • Domino

... determined on asking the captain to set him on shore, that he might wait at Juan Fernandez the passing of some other ship in which he might return home. The captain agreed to this proposal willingly enough, glad to dismiss from his crew so insubordinate a sailor; and just before the Clinque Ports was about to weigh anchor, the adventurous seaman was sent on shore with the few things that belonged to him. He sprang from the boat almost before her ...
— Famous Islands and Memorable Voyages • Anonymous

... discretion of Congress with regard to the qualifications of members; but I hold it my duty to recommend to you, in the interests of peace and the interests of union, the admission of every State to its share in public legislation when, however insubordinate, insurgent, or rebellious its people may have been, it presents itself, not only in an attitude of loyalty and harmony, but in the persons of representatives whose loyalty can not be questioned under any existing constitutional or legal test. It is plain that an indefinite or permanent ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 2) of Volume 6: Andrew Johnson • James D. Richardson

... cabin with Captain Alden, the Master faced the insubordinate member of his crew with an expression of hard implacability. The captain stood there determinedly confronting him. His right hand held to the table for support. His left sleeve was sodden with blood; the left ...
— The Flying Legion • George Allan England

... moral consequences, and the troops became demoralized and insubordinate from their enforced idleness. Plundering and acts of violence became so common that Gustavus was obliged to issue the most stringent ordinances to restore discipline; and an officer and many men ...
— The Lion of the North • G.A. Henty

... and powers, to obey magistrates."—Titus i: 16, and ii: from 1 to 10, and iii: 1. The context shows that a doctrine was taught by these wicked men, which tended in its influence on servants, to bring the gospel of Christ into contempt in Church and State, because of its seditions and insubordinate character. ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various

... that is to be known with regard to the unruly condition of the foundationers of the Great Shirley School. The person who can doubtless tell me most is Kathleen O'Hara. The mere fact of her defying my authority and refusing to come to see me when she is summoned, shows that she is insubordinate as far ...
— The Rebel of the School • Mrs. L. T. Meade

... came to its own. Yet there had always been a clearly felt difference between the conclusions of the biological sciences and those dealing with lifeless substance, in the relative vagueness, the insubordinate looseness and inaccuracy of the former. The naturalist accumulated facts and multiplied names, but he did not go triumphantly from generalization to generalization after the fashion of the chemist or physicist. It is easy to see, therefore, how it came about that the inorganic ...
— First and Last Things • H. G. Wells

... pill was a good life," he is not the dupe of that public sentiment against killing which is propagated and endowed by people who would otherwise be killed themselves, or of the mouth-honor paid to poverty and obedience by rich and insubordinate do-nothings who want to rob the poor without courage and command them without superiority. Froissart's knight, in placing the achievement of a good life before all the other duties—which indeed are not duties at all when they ...
— Bernard Shaw's Preface to Major Barbara • George Bernard Shaw

... to be a little sharp now and then,' he explained. 'Why, if I didn't keep an iron rule over them, they'd be getting insubordinate in no time. You mustn't think I've any objection to their playing tennis, or anything of that sort; only discipline must be kept up; though it seems severe, perhaps, ...
— The Talking Horse - And Other Tales • F. Anstey

... Clara unfavourably. She began to neglect her books, to be insubordinate, to exhibit arrogance, which brought down upon her plenty of wholesome reproof. Her father was not without a share in the responsibility for it all. Entering upon his four hundred pounds, one of the first things John did was to hire a piano, ...
— The Nether World • George Gissing

... but little progress, in the Navy especially, and not much on shore, it was difficult to obtain good and steady warrant officers, and I was especially troubled with a drunken boatswain, gunner, and carpenter. Drunk or sober, they were constantly insubordinate, setting a bad example to the crew, and quarrelling with each other. I determined, however, to master them, and compel them to do their duty, or get them dismissed from the service. As I was the only ...
— Hurricane Hurry • W.H.G. Kingston

... when General Gage told him that the Americans "would be lions whilst we are lambs, but if we take the resolute part they will undoubtedly prove very meek". He determined to force Boston to submission, and his ministers were at his command. A junior lord of the treasury was insubordinate, and was promptly dismissed. It seemed a small matter, but it had important consequences, for the rebel was Charles Fox. He had more than one grudge against the king, and he was perhaps growing impatient of serving under a minister who was virtually the king's representative, though ...
— The Political History of England - Vol. X. • William Hunt

... under an unnatural vivacity. Roderick watched her keenly. Mr. and Mrs. Scobel went back to their business of getting the children together, and the pots, pans, and baskets packed for the return-journey. The children were inclined to be noisy and insubordinate. They would have liked to make a night of it in this woody hollow, or in the gorse-clothed heights up yonder by Stony Cross. To home after such a festival, and be herded in small stuffy cottages, was doubtless trying to ...
— Vixen, Volume I. • M. E. Braddon

... them to the devil! cut their throats; let them go; do what you like, since you are responsible, not I. And be sure, sir officer, I shall not fail to report your insubordinate language to ...
— The Purple Land • W. H. Hudson

... palms of his hands. If she did this bold thing, what could he say to those she told her lie to? How could he bring proof or explain who he was—and what story dare he tell? His protestations and struggles would merely amuse the lookers-on, who would see in them only the impotent rage of an insubordinate youngster. ...
— The Lost Prince • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... within its lines; but the tone of the army went down gradually, but steadily. During the summer more than one of Beauregard's companies—though of the best material and with a brilliant record—had to be mustered out as "useless and insubordinate." Excellence in drill and attention to duty both decreased; and it was felt by competent judges that rust was gradually eating away the fabric of the army. This was certainly the fault to a great extent of the officers, ...
— Four Years in Rebel Capitals - An Inside View of Life in the Southern Confederacy from Birth to Death • T. C. DeLeon

... insubordinate. He did not intend to be cheated out of his fun by any orders that "Straw-nose" should give him. Instead of obeying his commander, he sang out a contemptuous refusal, and dashed ahead, as if to supplant his general in the post of leader of ...
— The Boy Life of Napoleon - Afterwards Emperor Of The French • Eugenie Foa

... pleasure. None of them returned. A female emissary was equally unavailing. Week after week elapsed, until nearly three months had expired. Provisions began to fail. The city was in confusion. The troops grew insubordinate. Yet Sir Henry persisted in the defence. General Fairfax, with 1,500 horse and foot, was daily expected. There was not powder enough for an hour's contest should the city be stormed. Still Sir ...
— The Life of George Washington, Volume I • Washington Irving

... cities of Catholic Europe. Abroad, even in Catholic countries, if there be in any part of their territory scepticism and insubordination in religion, cities are the seat of the mischief. Even Rome itself has its insubordinate population, and its concealed free-thinkers; even Belgium, that nobly Catholic country, cannot boast of the religious loyalty of its great towns. Such a calamity is unknown to the Catholicism of Dublin, Cork, Belfast, and ...
— The Idea of a University Defined and Illustrated: In Nine - Discourses Delivered to the Catholics of Dublin • John Henry Newman

... his whole aspect evidence of such strength and force and power, such human passion kept in control by relentless will, such attributes of command, that none looked upon him without awe; and the idlest jester, the lowest and most insubordinate soldier, subsided into silence before that noble personality, realizing the ineffable dignity of the man. The grandeur of that cause which perhaps even he scarcely realized while he sustained it, looked out from his solemn ...
— For Love of Country - A Story of Land and Sea in the Days of the Revolution • Cyrus Townsend Brady

... many excellent parts, I would be the last to deny; but that they were in the main a quarrelsome, intractable, mutinous, and mischief-making element in our armies during the Revolution, is not to be gainsaid. I know, of my own knowledge, how their fractious and insubordinate conduct grieved and sorely disheartened poor Montgomery while we lay before Quebec. I could tell many tales, too, of the harm they did to the cause in New York State, by their prejudices against us, and their narrow ...
— In the Valley • Harold Frederic

... muff-fashion, compelled me to walk up and down the spacious hall until the circulation returned, which it did with a sensation of agony that well-nigh took away my senses. This was a most signal escape, for I was wholly ignorant of my danger, and not a little perplexed and annoyed at the insubordinate conduct of the veteran, who was a model of respectful humility. Had he, poor fellow, known how busy those fingers would one day be against his religion—for he was a French Romanist—he might have been tempted to sheath his bayonet and give me free access to the tempting fire, ...
— Personal Recollections • Charlotte Elizabeth

... with a royal commission, sent him a year before, to command at Detroit.[45] His late chaplain, the very intelligent Father Bonnecamp, speaks of him as fearless, energetic, and full of resource; but the Governor calls him haughty and insubordinate. Great efforts were made, at the same time, to build up Detroit as a centre of French power in the West. The methods employed were of the debilitating, paternal character long familiar to Canada. All emigrants with ...
— Montcalm and Wolfe • Francis Parkman

... first glance, Rome saw nothing in Martin Luther but a vulgar, insubordinate, quarrelsome monk. Could the Inquisition have laid hold of him, it would have speedily disposed of his affair; but, as the conflict went on, it was discovered that Martin was not standing alone. Many thousands of men, as ...
— History of the Conflict Between Religion and Science • John William Draper

... or insubordinate, the punishment or rebuke, if any is intended, SHOULD BE PROMPTLY ADMINISTERED. The account against him should not be entered on the books, but balanced on the spot. Whatever is his due should be paid off to the last stiver, and there the matter should end, never to be ...
— Jack in the Forecastle • John Sherburne Sleeper

... starvation and sunstroke up at a place called Ali Musjid, ten years later; and afterward he had been sent down thousands of miles south to haul and pile big balks of teak in the timberyards at Moulmein. There he had half killed an insubordinate young elephant who was shirking ...
— The Jungle Book • Rudyard Kipling

... been administered by himself. He expired in great agony. He it was who promoted the idea of destroying the Column in the Place Vendome. Raoul Rigault, Procureur de la Commune, has been shot. Napoleon Gaillard, Director of the Barricades, was insubordinate at Satory, and was shot by the side of the fosse there. It is reported that Cluseret, Amouroux, and Clement, all members of the Commune, have ...
— The Insurrection in Paris • An Englishman: Davy

... keen as Jack's must see and know him as he was. What was hatefulest and most unendurable of all was the bondage of truce in which the Atterburys held him. Wesley was no coward, and he ached to meet Jack face to face, arm to arm, and settle with that thoughtless insubordinate a rankling list of griefs heaped up in moments of over-vivacious frankness. He would make Jack smart for his arrogance, his insolence, his cursed condescension so soon as they were back ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan

... lighted building, as is quite prevalent in our world, but is compelled to enter profitable labor under strict surveillance. Any prisoner becoming rebellious and refusing to work is dealt with severely. If he is still insubordinate, he is placed on the revolving wheel of death until his stubborn will is broken, or he falls fatigued into ...
— Life in a Thousand Worlds • William Shuler Harris

... among the common masses of a Southern population anywhere, on any terms short of the utter extinction of their basis of wealth and distinction, will be the return of an armed overseer to a cowering mob of insubordinate slaves. The mere assertion of their authority will be its instant acceptance, and the most abject submission by the people. They will only have to demand reelection to the National Congress, and to every place of power, to be reinstated in precisely ...
— The Continental Monthly, Volume V. Issue I • Various

... of the campaign double, and always superior, numbers to the enemy, his imagination led him continually to double their strength in his reports. This delusion so wrought upon him that on the night of June 27 he sent the Secretary of War an almost despairing and insubordinate despatch, containing these ...
— A Short Life of Abraham Lincoln - Condensed from Nicolay & Hay's Abraham Lincoln: A History • John G. Nicolay

... on the verge of open war with Ireland and Wales, and the population of the Isle of Wight and another person, whose name is not given, threatened to declare war. The English nobles, too, were insubordinate, and the king, who had fallen under the influence of a man named Spencer and his father, was required by the best society, headed by Lancaster, to exile both of ...
— Comic History of England • Bill Nye

... here," Mr. Denny continued. "The whole camp turned out to save the lake, to stem the flood. But you were not here. Your companions in our troop worked till they were dog tired. But where were you? Helping? No, you were off on some vagabond journey—disobedient, insubordinate." ...
— Tom Slade's Double Dare • Percy Keese Fitzhugh

... intervention of any primary meetings. Such a thing, if we mistake not, was never known again in Illinois. The convention system was afterwards seen to be an absolute necessity to prevent the disorganization of parties through the restless vanity of obscure and insubordinate aspirants. But the eight who "took the stump" in Sangamon in the summer of 1836 were supported as loyally and as energetically as if they had been nominated with all the solemnity of modern days. They became famous in the history ...
— Abraham Lincoln: A History V1 • John G. Nicolay and John Hay

... threatening or insulting One month's confinement at hard language or behaving in an labor and forfeiture of $10; for insubordinate manner to a noncommissioned officer, reduction noncommissioned officer while in addition thereto. in ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents, Volume IX. • Benjamin Harrison

... self-respect; she suffered from a sense of shame; with difficulty she subdued resentment and impulses yet more rebellious. It was ignoble to debate in this way concerning that of which she could not yet speak formally with her own mind; to contend like an insubordinate school-girl, when the point at issue was the dearest ...
— The Emancipated • George Gissing

... Mr. Polly's mind, and quite beyond his control, the insubordinate phrasemaker would be proffering such combinations as "Chubby Chops," or "Chubby Charmer," as suitable for the gentleman, very much as a hat ...
— The History of Mr. Polly • H. G. Wells

... day nothing could be made of me in the morning; Miss Frankland sternly warned me that if such conduct was pursued after dinner nothing should save my skin from a severe scourging. However, my mind was made up, and I went in "for the whole hog," as our vulgar Yankee cousins say. I was more idle and insubordinate than ever. Miss F. looked thunder; at four o'clock she ordered me to stay, and the girls to go. She then locked the door, took out from the desk a formidable rod, and told me to approach her. I did so—really half ...
— The Romance of Lust - A classic Victorian erotic novel • Anonymous

... I can toll you, is this:—The men at the collieries have been as troublesome and insubordinate as ever, seeming to think opposition to Lord St. Erme an assertion of their rights as free-born Englishmen; and at last, finding it impossible to do anything with them as long as they did not depend immediately upon himself, he took the pits into his own hands when Mr. Shoreham went ...
— Heartsease - or Brother's Wife • Charlotte M. Yonge

... oppress the individual, according to circumstances. If necessary it is made retrospective. To provide for the case of judges refusing to apply such laws, Law I. of 1897 has been passed, which compels them to swear obedience to the President and gives him the right to dismiss summarily such as prove insubordinate or lukewarm. The President of the High Court, Mr. Kotze, fell under the action of this law, ...
— Boer Politics • Yves Guyot

... only does your uncle say that though Sam's success is very doubtful, your inaccuracy would make your failure certain; but if your knowledge were ever so well up to the mark, I could not put you into the navy. Left to yourself here, you have been insubordinate, vain, weak, shuffling: can I let you go into greater temptation, where disgrace would be ...
— The Stokesley Secret • Charlotte M. Yonge

... made no answer in words. He simply took one step forward, pounced upon his insubordinate follower, and with a single swing of his athletic frame sent him flying headlong through the door, so that this free and independent burgher lit upon his head in the passage, smashing his pipe and considerably damaging his best feature—his nose. "There," said Muller, shutting ...
— Jess • H. Rider Haggard

... Hampton's men were not of a kind to face this. "The perfect rawness of the troops," writes he, "with the exception of not a single platoon, has been a source of much solicitude to the best-informed among us."[7] They were ignorant, insubordinate, and forever "falling off."[8] ...
— An Account Of The Battle Of Chateauguay - Being A Lecture Delivered At Ormstown, March 8th, 1889 • William D. Lighthall

... miles there and back—and Jennings, who liked to have a good deal of his time to himself, had been rather cross about it. Not that he dared show any temper to Lady Anne, who was easy and kindly with her servants, as a rule, but could reduce an insubordinate one to humble submission as well as any old lady ever could. But Mary, who knew the household pretty well by this time, knew that Jennings was out of temper by the set of his shoulders, as she surveyed ...
— Mary Gray • Katharine Tynan

... maintain colonies that would do nothing to aid her, came more and more to value her overseas possessions for their commercial importance, classing as valuable assets those that advanced her prosperity, and treating as insubordinate those that disregarded the acts of trade and thwarted her policy. The independence that Massachusetts claimed was diametrically opposed to the growing English notion that a colony should be subordinate and dependent, should obey ...
— The Fathers of New England - A Chronicle of the Puritan Commonwealths • Charles M. Andrews

... guy, 'e sends you to the boss for punishment and says you gave 'im an insubordinate look, and you ain't allowed to deny ...
— A Dominie in Doubt • A. S. Neill

... storm broke, and vengeance fell on the little rebel's head. Words passed between George and Mr. Ward during the morning study. The boy was quite insubordinate and unjust: even his faithful brother cried out, and owned that he was in the wrong. Mr. Ward kept his temper—to compress, bottle up, cork down, and prevent your anger from present furious explosion, is called keeping your temper—and said he should speak upon this business ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray

... as she had said only a little boy and accustomed to do as he was told. He was also a fine, sturdy little Scot with a pride of his own. His breeding had been of the sort which did not include insubordinate scenes, so he got out of bed and began to dress. But his mother ...
— The Head of the House of Coombe • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... Empire of the Czar's, with its feeble-willed autocrat, its insubordinate grand dukes, its rival ministers pulling different ways, and its greedy officials whose country was their pocket, had been silently and steadily enfolded in the ...
— The International Spy - Being the Secret History of the Russo-Japanese War • Allen Upward

... insubordinate man who was a perfect moral character," said the Rector. "It is very discouraging altogether; and you thought he was engaged to Wodehouse's pretty daughter, didn't you? I hope not—I sincerely hope not. That would make things doubly bad; but, to be sure, ...
— The Perpetual Curate • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant



Words linked to "Insubordinate" :   subordinate, rebellious, resistive, noncompliant, mutinous, contumacious



Copyright © 2024 Dictionary One.com