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Insufferable   Listen
adjective
Insufferable  adj.  
1.
Incapable of being suffered, borne, or endured; insupportable; unendurable; intolerable; as, insufferable heat, cold, or pain; insufferable wrongs.
2.
Offensive beyond endurance; detestable. "A multitude of scribblers who daily pester the world with their insufferable stuff."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Insufferable" Quotes from Famous Books



... "that I will ever come here again, or advise any of my friends to come here? It is insufferable. I will write to the police—" But at this he began to shed tears and to wring his hands, saying it was not ...
— A Roman Singer • F. Marion Crawford

... ale, almost simultaneously, and the result was that, in a very short time, BULMER might have rolled in money if he had felt disposed—as, to do him justice, he never did—to render himself ridiculous. Now what is there in the fact that BULMER has made a fortune in beer that should inflate him to so insufferable an extent? Can it be that there is some mysterious property in the liquid itself, some property which, having escaped even the careful investigation of the analytical chemists, has pervaded the being of BULMER, and has induced him to patronise the inhabited world? ...
— Punch, Volume 101, September 19, 1891 • Francis Burnand

... as in these great congregations of the Edinburgh churches. As nearly as I can judge, it is intellectual rather than emotional; but it is not a tribute paid to eloquence alone, it is habitual and universal, and is yielded loyally to insufferable ...
— Penelope's Progress - Being Such Extracts from the Commonplace Book of Penelope Hamilton As Relate to Her Experiences in Scotland • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin

... broken by the trunks of the trees, darted amongst the shadows of the forest in long lines of light, producing the most magnificent effect. Sometimes its broad disk appeared at the end of an avenue, lighting it up with insufferable brightness. The foliage of the trees, illuminated from beneath by its saffron beams, glowed with the lustre of the topaz and the emerald. Their brown and mossy trunks appeared transformed into columns of antique bronze; and the birds, which had retired in silence to their ...
— Paul and Virginia • Bernardin de Saint Pierre

... began to pour clarified butter into the fire, terrible snakes, striking fear into every creature, began to fall into it. And the fat and the marrow of the snakes thus falling into the fire began to flow in rivers. And the atmosphere was filled with an insufferable stench owing to the incessant burning of the snakes. And incessant also were the cries of the snakes fallen into the fire and those in the air about to ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa - Translated into English Prose - Adi Parva (First Parva, or First Book) • Kisari Mohan Ganguli (Translator)

... show; shut me up in a cellar—I will shout from it to be heard half a mile away, or I will starve myself to death that they may have another weight on their black consciences. Kill me and I will haunt them with my ghost. All my acquaintances say to me: 'You are a most insufferable person, Pavel Ivanitch.' I am proud of such a reputation. I have served three years in the far East, and I shall be remembered there for a hundred years: I had rows with everyone. My friends write to me from Russia, 'Don't ...
— The Witch and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov

... more that she should stand so coldly mocking before an anger that could bow the proudest heads in France. "You have the pride of Satan, your greed is insatiable, your domineering spirit utterly insufferable, and you have the most false and ...
— The Historical Nights' Entertainment • Rafael Sabatini

... of the Revolution were in the councils of the nation, or fighting the battles of your country. And by whom are they made? By runaways chiefly from the British dominions, since the breaking out of the French troubles. It is insufferable. It cannot be borne. It must and ought, with severity, to be put down in this House; and out of it to meet the lie direct. We have no fellow-feeling for the suffering and oppressed Spaniards! Yet even them we do not ...
— American Eloquence, Volume I. (of 4) - Studies In American Political History (1896) • Various

... Jock; "but I say, mother, don't go making him cockier. You know he's only fit to be stitched up in one of Jessie's little red Sunday books, and he must learn to keep a civil tongue in his head, and not be an insufferable little donkey." ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge

... Thou Eternal! I am one of all, And nothing ask that others may not share. Thou art almighty; we are weak and small, And yet Thy children: let Thy mercy spare!" Trembling, he raised his eyes, and in the place Of the insufferable glory, lo! a face Of more than mortal tenderness, that bent Graciously down in token of assent, And, smiling, vanished! With strange joy elate, The wondering Rabbi sought the temple's gate. Radiant as Moses from the Mount, he stood And cried aloud unto the multitude "O Israel, hear! ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier

... Converted Sinner ... A Sermon Preached in Boston, May 31, 1724, In the Hearing and at the Desire of certain Pirates [Archer and White], a little before their Execution, To which there is added, A more private Conference of a Minister with them (Boston, 1724). With his usual insufferable vanity, he indicates that the capture of the pirates was widely attributed to his public prayer against pirates on Sunday, Apr. 26: "Behold, before the week was out, there comes in a Vessel wherein" were the ...
— Privateering and Piracy in the Colonial Period - Illustrative Documents • Various

... she whispered. "If you knew! Women are not supposed to give anything away! It makes men draw back. It makes them insufferable." ...
— The Fur Bringers - A Story of the Canadian Northwest • Hulbert Footner

... peculiar interest to the saintly ideal of her which he had formed. She had once said, peace and rest were inconceivable while there existed strife and suffering in nature. Nowhere could there be found refuge; drawing near unto the divine, this pain only became wider, more intense, almost insufferable, feeling and assimilating the vastness of divine sorrow brooding over the unreclaimed deep. This pity, this consciousness of pain, not her own, filling her own, filling her life, marked her out from everyone he knew. She seemed ...
— AE in the Irish Theosophist • George William Russell

... to meet and therefore not expecting repulse, I climbed up his chair, stayed myself by the breast of his coat, and sat down on his knee. The recollection of his daughter's crime, his contaminated blood, and the insufferable insolence of my father, came strongly upon him. He scowled at me, seized me by the arms, flung me from him with something like violence, and walked hastily out of ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft

... the oldest and ugliest of the many old and ugly ladies who took up my case when I left Major Milroy's service have just called, announcing themselves, with the insufferable impudence of charitable Englishwomen, as a deputation from my patronesses. It seems that the news of my reconciliation with Armadale has spread from the servants' offices at the great house, and has reached the ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins

... So, mooning and miserable, I lagged along the bank toward my bush-hut; and presently, to my sudden surprise, discovered the very lady of whom I had been thinking so intently—not dogged as usual by that insufferable Ensign, but in earnest conversation ...
— The Hidden Children • Robert W. Chambers

... said the Dwarf, showing his yellow teeth with a detestable grin; while Ricardo turned quite white with anger, and not knowing how to deal with this insufferable little monster. ...
— Prince Ricardo of Pantouflia - being the adventures of Prince Prigio's son • Andrew Lang

... when the heat was insufferable, and the town a veritable Sahara as regards facilities for quenching thirst; when the tension was at its worst; when sickness, disease, and death were busiest. It had come, in fine, with a crown for the sorrows ...
— The Siege of Kimberley • T. Phelan

... slaveholders have said, "we were never in bondage to any man," and therefore the yoke of bondage would be insufferable to us, but slaves are accustomed to it, their backs are fitted to the burden. Well, I am willing to admit that you who have lived in freedom would find slavery even more oppressive than the poor slave does, but then you may try this question ...
— An Appeal to the Christian Women of the South • Angelina Emily Grimke

... she was now rolling a cigarette with an air of insufferable probity. I gave her up and played a new game of smashing horseflies as they settled on my mount. Dandy Jim plays the game ably. When a big fly settles on his nose he holds his head round so I can reach it. He does not flinch at the terrific smash of my hat across his face. If a fly ...
— Ma Pettengill • Harry Leon Wilson

... sometimes from the whole morning of a generation by earth-born mists and smoke of kitchen fires, only to glow the more consciously at sunset, and after nightfall to crown itself with imperishable stars. Wordsworth had that self-trust which in the man of genius is sublime, and in the man of talent insufferable. It mattered not to him though all the reviewers had been in a chorus of laughter or conspiracy of silence behind him. He went quietly over to Germany to write more Lyrical Ballads, and to begin a poem on the growth of his own mind, at a time when there were only two men in the world (himself ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various

... of sense of humor made it hard for him at times. He was sitting very erect in the straight-backed hotel chair when he said: "Mr. Ford, there are occasions when your conceit is insufferable. Do you imagine for a moment that you are the only engineer in the United States ...
— Empire Builders • Francis Lynde

... which took place while he was on the Continent—confound the Continent, my wife would go—and which was entirely without his cognisance. The Colonel received his brother's excuses, first with awful bows and ceremony, and finally with laughter. "My good Hobson," said he, with the most insufferable kindness, "of course you intended to be friendly; of course the affair was done without your knowledge. We understand that sort of thing. London bankers have no hearts—for these last fifty years past that I have known you and your brother, and my amiable nephew, the present ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray

... group is perhaps the most insufferable of all impediments to rippling talk; and interruptions from without are quite as intolerable. What pleasure is there in conversation between two people, or among three or four, when the thought is interrupted every other remark? Frequent references ...
— Conversation - What to Say and How to Say it • Mary Greer Conklin

... eyes half closed and eyelids cunningly blinking. Now that her fears were weakening Joan found his impertinence almost insufferable. But she ...
— The Summons • A.E.W. Mason

... merchantmen, though with Venice in the distance, will scarcely be attractive to a confirmed invalid, I fear—and yet the steamers will be found expensive beyond his means. The sugar-vessels, which I hear most about, give out an insufferable smell and steam—let us talk of it a little on Thursday. On Monday ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett

... wife of General Muffat de Beuville, who was created Comte by Napoleon I. She was an insufferable old woman, who was always hand-in-glove with the priests, and had an authoritative manner, which bent every one to her will. Her daughter-in-law, Comtesse Sabine, was entirely under her dominion, and was forced by her to lead an ...
— A Zola Dictionary • J. G. Patterson

... have moved the gall of some learned and intelligent writers who quarrel with certain versifiers; I confess myself, like them, unwilling to be stunned by the Theseids of the hoarse Codri of the day. Bavius and Maevius undoubtedly are, as they ever were, insufferable persons. But it belongs to a philosophical critic to distinguish ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various

... the source of half the charm of the French mind as well of all its dryness, the genius for economy. It is wasting a room to let it be a bedroom alone; so it must be tricked out as an ingeniously contrived sitting-room, and ends by being (in many cases) insufferable both by night and by day. But allowing all weight to these latter reflections, it is still very possible that the French have the better part. If you are well fed, you can perhaps afford to be ill lodged; whereas, I doubt whether enjoyment of the most commodious apartments is compatible with ...
— The Galaxy - Vol. 23, No. 1 • Various

... change had come over all men; and the first sense of pain was the wild signal for general lamentation and horror. The first sense of pain lay in a rigorous construction of the breast and lungs, and an insufferable dryness of the skin. It could not be denied that our atmosphere was radically affected; the conformation of this atmosphere and the possible modifications to which it might be subjected, were now the topics of discussion. The result of investigation sent an electric thrill ...
— Edgar Allan Poe's Complete Poetical Works • Edgar Allan Poe

... farther on, he struck into unburned bush that hid the camp from him. There were thorny brakes and thickets of withered ferns, but though progress was excruciatingly painful he smashed through them furiously. He was hot and breathless; it was insufferable that he should be delayed among the timber in anxiety. Breaking out into the open, he sent up a hoarse cry, for a thin trail of vapor curled above one of the shacks. Then a man appeared in the doorway and waved a hand ...
— Prescott of Saskatchewan • Harold Bindloss

... until nightfall; the night proved dark, but dangerously clear and calm. No lights were allowed—not even a cigar; the engine-room hatch-ways were covered with tarpaulins, at the risk of suffocating the unfortunate engineers and stokers in the almost insufferable atmosphere below. But it was absolutely imperative that not a glimmer of light should appear. Even the binnacle was covered, and the steersman had to see as much of the compass as he could through a conical aperture carried almost up to ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 2 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris

... separation here is, indeed, a projected escalade of heaven; here are, indeed, labours for a Hercules in a dress coat, armed with a pen and a dictionary to depict the passions, armed with a tube of superior flake-white to paint the portrait of the insufferable sun. No art is true in this sense: none can 'compete with life': not even history, built indeed of indisputable facts, but these facts robbed of their vivacity and sting; so that even when we read of the sack of a city or the fall of an empire, we ...
— The Pocket R.L.S. - Being Favourite Passages from the Works of Stevenson • Robert Louis Stevenson

... said, for Dr. Foster was absent, and they were always stupid when he was away. She could not understand all Mr.—— said, his words were so learned, while the man who talked so long, and never came to the point, was insufferable in hot weather, so she remained away, and came to see her friend, who, she supposed, knew that she had a governor for next-door neighbor—Governor Markham from Iowa—and a widower, too, as Dr. Hayes had said, when she asked why his wife was not ...
— Ethelyn's Mistake • Mary Jane Holmes

... repress it without pity; immediately repressible, so that our laughter may not have been wasted, but sure of reappearing under fresh aspects, so that laughter may always find something to do; inseparable from social life, although insufferable to society; capable—in order that it may assume the greatest imaginable variety of forms—of being tacked on to all the vices and even to a good many virtues. Truly a goodly number of elements to ...
— Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic • Henri Bergson

... gods and demons!" he cried, "I'm not going to stand for her going hunting with that man-net! If she catches any insufferable pup in ...
— The Gay Rebellion • Robert W. Chambers

... growing insufferable," she cried. "Simply because I mention the club, you assume that I am—angling—for a man that—that has been decently polite to me. I have never been invited to marry Mr. Park. And you give me low advice about laying traps for some other sort ...
— Golden Stories - A Selection of the Best Fiction by the Foremost Writers • Various

... that light insufferable, And that far-beaming blaze of majesty, Wherewith he wont at heaven's high council-table To sit the midst of Trinal Unity, He laid aside; and, here with us to be, Forsook the courts of everlasting day, And chose with us a ...
— In The Yule-Log Glow—Book 3 - Christmas Poems from 'round the World • Various

... horses in a southerly direction; but the heat was now so great, that it became almost insufferable, and at last the horses stood still. They dismounted, and drove their horses slowly before them over the glowing plain; and now the mirage deluded and tantalised them in the strangest manner. At one time, Alexander pointed with delight (for he could not speak) to what ...
— The Mission; or Scenes in Africa • Captain Frederick Marryat

... mother's son of ye; cheer I say;" and certainly precept was never more strenuously backed by example, for he huzzaed till I thought he would burst a blood—vessel; may I add, I almost wished it, such was the insufferable annoyance, the chagrin, this announcement gave me; and I waited with eager impatience for the din and clamour to subside, to disclaim every syllable of the priest's announcement, and take the consequences of my baptismal epithet, cost what it might. To this I was impelled by ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Vol. 1 • Charles James Lever

... say more he tiptoed out, leaving behind him a declaration of war, which Miss Walbrook, without saying anything in words, was not slow to pick up. "Insufferable," was her comment to herself. Of the hostile forces against her this, she ...
— The Dust Flower • Basil King

... crawfishing party. To Coristine the whole thing was gall and wormwood. The only satisfaction he had was, that Mr. Lamb could not summon courage enough to divest himself of shoes and stockings and take part in the sport personally. But what an insufferable ass he, Coristine, had been not to keep on wading, in view of such glorious company! What was the use of complaining: had he been there she would never have gone in, trust her for that! Wilkinson and he were right in their ...
— Two Knapsacks - A Novel of Canadian Summer Life • John Campbell

... small attempt on a shred of paper in the book: but though Dr. Blacklock commended it very highly, I am not just satisfied with it myself. I intend to make it a description of some kind: the whining cant of love, except in real passion, and by a masterly hand, is to me as insufferable as the preaching cant of old Father Smeaton, whig-minister at Kilmaurs. Darts, flames, cupids, loves, graces, and all that farrago, are just a Mauchline * * * * a ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham

... the walls. As he passed he glanced at himself in the looking-glass. His face looked pale and sunken, his temples looked hollow, his eyes were bigger, darker, more staring, as though they belonged to someone else, and they had an expression of insufferable mental agony. ...
— The Schoolmistress and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov

... to get away from these fellows!" said the major, "they are so uncommonly prosy! That commissary, with his mess beef, and old Pritchard, with black doses and rigors,—nothing so insufferable! Besides, in reality, a young officer never needs all that nonsense. A little medicine chest—I'll get you one each to-morrow for five pounds—no, five pounds ten—the same thing—that will see you all through the Peninsula. Remind me of it in the morning." This we all promised to do, and the ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 1 (of 2) • Charles Lever

... everlasting fire." Fire is that which of all things is the most insufferable and insupportable. Wherefore, by fire, is shewed the grievous state of the ungodly, after judgment. Who can eat fire, drink fire, and lie down in the midst of flames of fire? Yet this must the wicked do. Again; not only fire, but everlasting fire. "Behold how great a fire a little matter kindleth." ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... pretty anger, "this is insufferable! 'T is your fault, Guilbert, you fool. Am I, then, to spend the day here ...
— The Suitors of Yvonne • Raphael Sabatini

... getting insufferable!" exclaimed Mrs. Thoresby, sitting apart, with two or three others who had not joined the group about Dakie Thayne. "And why Captain Green should give him the bag always, I can't understand. It is growing to ...
— A Summer in Leslie Goldthwaite's Life. • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney

... peerage was said to be insulted by the appellation under which it had been presumed to usher those representations into that Assembly. They were styled a Memorial; such a title was only allowable in transactions between princes and states independent of each other, but was insufferable on the part of subjects. The answer was that the lowest officer in the service had a right to present a memorial, even to his Majesty, should he think himself aggrieved; with much more reason might a respectable body present one to the House of Lords. But, exclusive of the ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 1 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Egerton Ryerson

... can find anything worse to say, say it—and may you live to hear that good-for-nothing Orsino call you good and confiding when you are eighty-two years old. And Corona is laughing at me. It is insufferable. You used to be a good girl, Corona—but you are so proud of having four sons that there is no possibility of talking to you any longer. It is a pity that you have not brought them up better. Look at Orsino. He is ...
— Don Orsino • F. Marion Crawford

... thought to myself, you are one of those people with a dramatic sense of your own importance. It will probably make you very happy, and an absolutely insufferable person! I have little doubt that the tiny prig was saying to herself, "I dare say that all these men are wondering who is the clever-looking little girl who is walking in the opposite direction to the match, and has probably something ...
— At Large • Arthur Christopher Benson

... room, while Jack raged in helpless fury upon the sofa. It was insufferable to be treated as if he were a boy who could be ordered about against his will. When John Allen Ferguson Melland said a thing, he meant it, and not all the old men in the world should move him from it, ...
— The Fortunes of the Farrells • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey

... the tumults of this world, Man's fleeting life, the rise and fall of states, While changeless measured change; the spirit of prayer Fanning that wondrous picture oft to flame Until the glory grew insufferable. Long years thus lived he. As the Apostle Paul, Though raised in raptures to the heaven of heavens, Not therefore loved his brethren less, but longed To give his life—his all—for Israel's sake, ...
— Legends of the Saxon Saints • Aubrey de Vere

... was absolutely necessary that she should restrain herself and endure his insufferable endearments, and even force herself to speak. And yet her tongue seemed tied, and it was only by the utmost effort of her will that she could bring herself to express her astonishment at his rapid return ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... Mr. Waterford, you are becoming insufferable. I shall have to go down there and help Phil get dinner. Besides, I want to talk French with him. And I ...
— Desk and Debit - or, The Catastrophes of a Clerk • Oliver Optic

... of heat upon the body is measured by the difference in the actual and sensible temperatures, as recorded by the dry and wet bulb thermometers. When both stand nearly together as they are apt to do in a humid atmosphere, the heat becomes insufferable. In the dry climate of Arizona such a condition cannot occur. The difference in the two instruments is always great, often as much as forty degrees. For this reason, a temperature of 118 degrees F. at Yuma is less oppressive than 98 ...
— Arizona Sketches • Joseph A. Munk

... exordium, which has points of resemblance with that of the insufferable Bana's Harsha-charita, is only the Hindoo method of declaring that the two characters presently to be brought upon the scene are mortal incarnations of love and charm: as we call a man, an Adonis, or a ...
— Bubbles of the Foam • Unknown

... early youth, Began to steal—from old and young. Likewise Evander, and the truth Was like a bad taste on his tongue. Born thieves and liars, their affair Seemed only to be tarred with evil— The most insufferable pair Of scamps that ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 4 (of 4) • Various

... uninhabitable, so the mosquitos do not prevent men from dwelling in the countries where they abound, provided that, by their situation and government, they afford resources for agriculture and industry. The inhabitants pass their lives in complaining of the insufferable torment of the mosquitos, yet, notwithstanding these continual complaints, they seek, and even with a sort of predilection, the commercial towns of Mompox, Santa Marta, and Rio de la Hacha. Such is the force of habit in evils which we suffer every hour of the day, that the three missions ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America V2 • Alexander von Humboldt

... Indeed, it may be said that in self-sacrifice in the ordinary intercourse of life, mainly consists the difference between being well and ill bred. Without some degree of self-restraint in society a man may be found almost insufferable. No one has pleasure in holding intercourse with such a person, and he is a constant source of annoyance to those ...
— Searchlights on Health: Light on Dark Corners • B.G. Jefferis

... certainly, what you express"—he had positively to laugh for it; "and you speak of him, with your insufferable 'we,' as if you were presenting him as your—God knows what! You've enjoyed a large exchange of ideas, I gather, to have arrived at such unanimity." And then, as if to fall into no trap he might somehow be laying for her, she dropped all eagerness and rebutted nothing: "You must see a great deal ...
— The Outcry • Henry James

... to say, comes my son;" as a shadow passes the window, and Eustace's tall figure with the meekly stooping head comes in at the door. "Eustace, I beg that you will decide who is to be in authority in this house—your mother or this young lady. It is insufferable that every time I send the children into the corner Vera should call them out and give them cakes ...
— Vera Nevill - Poor Wisdom's Chance • Mrs. H. Lovett Cameron

... glaring blunder; for, according to Plutarch and Diodorus, on the memorable night in question there was a new moon. Pshaw! it is a tasteless, insipid plagiarism from Grote; and if I am to be bored with such insufferable twaddle, I will stop my subscription. For some time I have noticed symptoms of deterioration, but this is altogether intolerable; and I shall write to Manning that, if he cannot do better, it would be advisable for ...
— St. Elmo • Augusta J. Evans

... anything I had ever dreamed of. Fields, which a few short weeks before had given promise of a rich harvest, were laid waste. Here and there tiny columns of smoke arose from the smouldering ruins of once happy homes. The heat and dust were almost insufferable, but as the sun declined a cool breeze sprang up, and later a flood of moonlight clothed the landscape with a mystical beauty. It shone coldly on the few deserted homes which the hand of the destroyer had spared, and to me it seemed that its silvery rays were like the pale fingers of a ...
— Memories - A Record of Personal Experience and Adventure During Four Years of War • Fannie A. (Mrs.) Beers

... curiosity, I pressed the magic box to my ear, and faintly there echoed in my brain a few disconnected strains of that solemn music. But now, more than ever, it was insufferable to me, and I dropped the box ...
— A Columbus of Space • Garrett P. Serviss

... suspense, eagerness and heart-hunger fell on the young artist the instant he knew his footsteps were turned toward Memphis and Rachel. The six days that must intervene between the present time and the moment he entered the old capital seemed insufferable. Never did a lover so fume against the inexorable deliberation of time and the obstinate length of distance. The preliminaries to departure seemed to accumulate and lengthen—and lessen in importance. Haste consumed him. Under a momentary impulse, ...
— The Yoke - A Romance of the Days when the Lord Redeemed the Children - of Israel from the Bondage of Egypt • Elizabeth Miller

... creakingly. This ancient landlubber was becoming as great an affliction as any cross-bowed mariner. He shook a musty effluvium from his piebald clothes, overturned my inkstand, and went on with his insufferable nonsense. ...
— Sixes and Sevens • O. Henry

... she is tall and lean, and very ill shaped; she hath bad features, and a worse complexion; she hath a stinking breath, and twenty ill smells about her besides; which are yet more insufferable by her natural sluttishness; for she is always lousy, and never without the itch. As to other qualities, she hath no reputation either for virtue, honesty, truth, or manners; and it is no wonder, considering what her education ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Vol. VII - Historical and Political Tracts—Irish • Jonathan Swift

... the stone ballast beneath the bamboo deck there was yet another layer of humanity, whose condition can neither be described nor conceived. Without air, without light, without room to move, without hope; with insufferable stench, with hunger and thirst, with heat unbearable, with agony of body and soul, with dread anticipations of the future, and despairing memories of the past, they sat for days and nights together—fed with just enough of uncooked rice and water to keep soul ...
— Black Ivory • R.M. Ballantyne

... temper, which never was sweet, was soured to such a degree, by these accumulated evils, that she was insufferable. Her husband kept out of the way as much as possible: he dined and supped at his club, or at the tavern: and, during the evenings and mornings, he was visible at home but for a few minutes. Yet, though his time was passed entirely away from his wife, his children, and his home, he ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth

... The insufferable monotony of the proposed recreation! Eleanor would not have watched the most brilliant performance at His Majesty's Theatre for a single evening under such uncomfortable circumstances, and to be ...
— The Chronicles of Clovis • Saki

... all and everything which threatened his freedom. He would have done with them forever; he would see them no more. Let him away to the uttermost parts of the earth, to the great plains where freedom is. Anywhere over the far horizon where he could get away from the defiling bit and the insufferable mastery ...
— Sir Nigel • Arthur Conan Doyle

... whether on arrival his boots would be of spotless cleanliness, while the extravagance of a pair of white gloves meant a diminution in food which it was not pleasant to contemplate. Then, too, he felt savage disgust at the elegant costumes and smart cabriolets owned by empty-headed fops with insufferable airs of conquest, who looked at him askance, and to whom he could not prove the genius that was in him, or give voice to his belief that some day he would dominate them all. The restlessness and discomfort, ...
— Honore de Balzac, His Life and Writings • Mary F. Sandars

... malicious only, but false. It is commonly said, indeed, in our courts, that truth it is which aggravates the libel. And so it is as regards the feelings or the interests of the man libelled. For is it not insufferable that, if a poor man under common human infirmity shall have committed some crime and have paid its penalty, but afterwards reforming or out-growing his own follies, seeks to gain an honest livelihood for his children in a place which the knowledge of his past transgression ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. 1 (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey

... as to cruelty, they had nothing of it in their very nature; no inhumanity, no barbarity, no outrageous passions; and yet all of them men of great courage and spirit. Their temper and calmness had appeared in their bearing the insufferable usage of the three Englishmen; and their justice and humanity appeared now in the case of the savages above. After some consultation they resolved upon this; that they would lie still a while longer, till, if possible, these three men might ...
— The Further Adventures of Robinson Crusoe • Daniel Defoe

... instrua. Instructor instruisto. Instrument (mus.) muzikilo. Instrument (wind) blovinstrumento. Instrument (string) kordinstrumento. Instrument (tool) ilo. Insubordination ribeleto—ado. Insufferable nesuferebla. Insufficient nesuficxa. Insular insula. Insulate soligi, izoli. Insult insulti. Insurance asekuro. Insure asekuri. Insurgent ribelanto. Insurrection ribelo. Insusceptible sensentema. ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes

... all sides from lamps and tapers and crystals, cornelians and gems of fiery lustre, liquid lights and flashing mirrors, and eyes of crowding damsels, bright ones. So, when they had risen, and could bear to gaze on the insufferable splendour, they saw sitting on a throne of coral and surrounded by slaves with scimitars, a fair Queen, with black eyes, kindlers of storms, torches in the tempest, and with floating tresses, crowned with a circlet of green-spiked precious stones and masses of crimson weed with ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... "but the President is actually thinking of appointing Craig—in case the vacancy should occur. Of course, I am trying to make him see the folly of such a proceeding, but—You are right. Men are cowards. That insufferable upstart is actually bullying the President into a state of terror. Already he has compelled him to prosecute some of our best friends out in the Western country, and if the Courts weren't with us—" Branch checked himself abruptly. It was not the first time ...
— The Fashionable Adventures of Joshua Craig • David Graham Phillips

... taken and carried into hell, became comparatively comfortable. What can be more terrible than the idea thus conveyed of our aversion to goodness, which makes heaven intolerable, and the presence of God insufferable torture! Can anything express, more than this, the need ...
— Orthodoxy: Its Truths And Errors • James Freeman Clarke

... ridiculous. But now all this nonsense had sobered down, and nothing could be detected beyond a sly glance, or a squeeze of the hand now and then; yet we often quizzed them about by-gones, and declared that engaged pairs were insufferable—we could always find them out ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 437 - Volume 17, New Series, May 15, 1852 • Various

... Marwitz, now turning her eyes on the ceiling, seemed to reflect dispassionately. "I never conceived it possible that she would leave him," she then said. "I found him insufferable and I saw that unless I went Karen also would come to see him as insufferable. To spare the poor child this I came away. And I was amazed when she appeared here. Amazed and distressed," said Madame von Marwitz. And after another moment she took up: "As for ...
— Tante • Anne Douglas Sedgwick

... as soon as it shows itself in the morning, strikes almost through you. Mosquitoes, sand flies and gnats cover you, and as the sun gets up higher it becomes entirely calm and the rays pour down a heat that is insufferable. The fever that it creates, together with the irritation caused by the insects, produces a thirst which is insatiable, to quench which we drink water at a temperature of eighty-two degrees. About four o'clock in the afternoon a rain squall, ...
— Dewey and Other Naval Commanders • Edward S. Ellis

... Review, Oct., 1906). She considers that thirteen is quite early enough to begin teaching children the lessons of the Gospels, for a child who acted in accordance with the Gospels would be "aggravating," and would generally be regarded as "an insufferable prig." Moreover, she points out, it is dangerous to teach young children the Christian virtues of charity, humility, and self-denial. It is far better that they should first be taught the virtues of justice and courage ...
— The Task of Social Hygiene • Havelock Ellis

... the hunter himself could tire her out. As for him, he was not happy unless he was working, and at times he made the screw spin again under his fierce strokes, whenever his eyes fell on the wan faces of his young companions stewing in the insufferable heat. He shortened the journey by twenty-four hours, for on the afternoon of the fourth day the woman, for the first time, showed signs ...
— In Search of the Okapi - A Story of Adventure in Central Africa • Ernest Glanville

... Raven to do with these insufferable pests? Has he not enough to answer for without linking his name with these suckers of blood? Yaeethl is Yaeethl, but ...
— In the Time That Was • James Frederic Thorne

... world of Shakespeare's latest period; and it is peopled, this universe of his invention, with beings equally unreal, with creatures either more or less than human, with fortunate princes and wicked step-mothers, with goblins and spirits, with lost princesses and insufferable kings. And of course, in this sort of fairy land, it is an essential condition that everything shall end well; the prince and princess are bound to marry and live happily ever afterwards, or the whole story is ...
— Books and Characters - French and English • Lytton Strachey

... infused into him too much of the spirit of glory, yea, and mixed the goodness of his nature with a touch of revenge, which is evermore accompanied with a destiny of the same fate. Of this number there were some of insufferable natures about him, that towards his last gave desperate advice, such as his integrity abhorred, and his fidelity forbade, amongst whom Sir Henry Walton notes, without injury, his Secretary Cuffe, as a vile man and of a perverse nature: I could also name others that, when ...
— Travels in England and Fragmenta Regalia • Paul Hentzner and Sir Robert Naunton

... that scarcely half of them come in again at the right moment; while the rest still hold their instrument under their left arm, and look about them. Thus the point is greatly weakened, if not entirely missed. I invoke the attention and vigor of orchestral conductors to this insufferable habit. It is, however, so rooted that they will only ensure its extirpation by making a large number of violinists amenable for the fault of a single player; by inflicting a fine, for example, upon a whole row, if one of them misses coming in. Even were this fine no more than half-a-crown, ...
— The Orchestral Conductor - Theory of His Art • Hector Berlioz

... I get so interested in myself that I thrust myself into the front of every discussion in the most insufferable way. [Reginald, with an exclamation of disgust, crosses the kitchen towards the study door]. But, my dear Rejjy, are you quite sure that Miss Bridgenorth is going to be married? ...
— Getting Married • George Bernard Shaw

... who was in a towering passion at the treatment he received, now started up, and said, "Sir and Madam, you appear to me not to understand the usages of good society, and I positively declare, that had I been aware of the insufferable vulgarity of her parents, nothing would have induced me to marry the daughter. I tell you this, because I care nothing for you. You are on the stilts at present, but I shall soon bring you to your senses; for know, Sir and Madam, although I did elope with and married your daughter, the ...
— Valerie • Frederick Marryat

... the death of this excellent man we have lost a friend, whose loss to ourself we most sincerely mourn, though the grave was, to him, a welcome relief from an insufferable disease, that had made life wretched for years. Mr. Dwight was the son of Rev. Dr. Dwight, President of Yale College. He became pastor of Park-st. church, in Boston, while we attended it in boyhood, and it is our pride to record that we were so fortunate as to secure his friendship at that time, ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 2, January, 1851 • Various

... replied. Then, with insufferable insolence, he hissed in her ear, "Louis Taschereau ...
— Isabel Leicester - A Romance • Clotilda Jennings

... me something truly. A man said to me yesterday that he found life here insufferable. Do you ...
— The Conquest of Canaan • Booth Tarkington

... towards certain classes a bigoted antipathy. He spoke of "parsons" and all who belonged to parsons, of "lords" and the appendages of lords, with a harshness, sometimes an insolence, as unjust as it was insufferable. He could not place himself in the position of those he vituperated; he could not compare their errors with their temptations, their defects with their disadvantages; he could not realize the effect of such and such ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte

... not longer tautological, he avoided tautology with the infernal art of a leader-writer, filling his wind bags and mincing words as if he had been a trained journalist on the staff of the Daily Post. There seemed all the matter of an insufferable tragedy in these thoughts; that his patient and enduring toil was in vain, that practice went for nothing, and that he had wasted the labor of Milton to accomplish the tenth-rate. Unhappily he could not "give in"; ...
— The Hill of Dreams • Arthur Machen

... education was defective; for on all occasions, when speaking with us, he says, 'Yes, Monsieur le Comte!' or 'Certainly, Madame la Comtesse!' as if he were a servant. Yet withal, he has a peculiar pride, or perhaps I should say insufferable vanity. But his great fault, in my eyes, is the scoffing tone he adopts, when the subject is religion ...
— Monsieur de Camors, Complete • Octave Feuillet

... looked, it must have had, nevertheless, a garishness and artificiality which would offend the artistic eye. When newly constructed, the Roman temples in the time of the emperors must have been oppressive, reflecting the hot sunshine from their snowy cellae and pillared porticoes with an insufferable glare. Marble—unlike sandstones, clay-slates, and basalts, which are kindred to the earth and the elements, and find themselves at home in any situation, all things making friends with them, mosses, lichens, ivies—is ...
— Roman Mosaics - Or, Studies in Rome and Its Neighbourhood • Hugh Macmillan

... where there are none." God's heavy wrath is kindled in their souls, and notwithstanding their continual prayers and supplications to Christ Jesus, they have no release or ease at all, but a most intolerable torment, and insufferable anguish of conscience, and that makes them, through impatience, to murmur against God many times, to rave, to blaspheme, turn atheists, and seek to offer violence to themselves. Deut. xxviii. 65, 68. "In the morning they wish for ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior

... The man with the scar had committed some inexcusable offense, and Mrs. Sandford had crossed him off the list. He knew that the Italian officer is, more or less, a lady's man; and the supreme confidence he has in the power of brass buttons and gold lace makes him at times insufferable. ...
— The Lure of the Mask • Harold MacGrath

... Molly, with a stamp of her sandalled foot, "it is not possible to guess worse! He is more insufferable to me, hour ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle

... England's throughout our relations with her. The third cause, I said, was certain traits of the English and ourselves which have produced personal friction. An American does or says something which angers an Englishman, who thereupon goes about thinking and saying, "Those insufferable Yankees!" An Englishman does or says something which angers an American, who thereupon goes about thinking and saying, "To Hell with England!" Each makes the well-nigh universal—but none the less perfectly ridiculous—blunder of damning a whole people because one of them has rubbed him ...
— A Straight Deal - or The Ancient Grudge • Owen Wister

... a ragged kitchen duster as turban. I am very fond of little Achmet, and like to see him doing tableaux vivants from Murillo with a plate of broken victuals. The children of this place have become so insufferable about backsheesh that I have complained to the Maohn, and he will assemble a committee of parents and enforce better manners. It is only here and just where the English go. When I ride into the little villages ...
— Letters from Egypt • Lucie Duff Gordon

... Sir Clement Willoughby, I know not how to express my indignation at his conduct. Insolence so insufferable, and the implication of suspicions so shocking, irritate me to a degree of wrath, which I hardly thought my almost worn-out passions were capable of again experiencing. You must converse with him no more: he imagines, from the pliability of your temper, that ...
— Evelina • Fanny Burney

... the least Admonition. Mr. Freeman was going to make a softning Speech, but I interposed; Look you, Madam, I have nothing to say to this Matter, but you ought to consider you are now past a Chicken; this Humour, which was well enough in a Girl, is insufferable in one of your Motherly Character. With that she lost all Patience, and flew directly at her Husbands Periwig. I got her in my Arms, and defended my Friend: He making Signs at the same time that it was too much; I beckoning, nodding, and frowning over her Shoulder, ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele

... protest by gesture.... Shut me up in a dungeon—I'll shout so loud that I shall be heard for a mile round, or I'll starve myself, so that there shall be a still heavier weight on their black consciences. Kill me—and my ghost will return. All my acquaintances tell me: 'You are a most insufferable man, Pavel Ivanich!' I am proud of such a reputation. I served three years in the Far East, and have got bitter memories enough for a hundred years. I inveighed against it all. My friends write from Russia: 'Do not come.' But I'm going, to spite them.... Yes.... That is life. I understand. ...
— The House with the Mezzanine and Other Stories • Anton Tchekoff

... vague feeling of dissatisfaction with herself. She felt crude and awkward and dull of wit. Her mother, Marthy, Ward—all the persons she knew—were crude and awkward and ignorant beside Charlie Fox. And she had had the temerity, the insufferable effrontery, to criticize him and patronize him over those ...
— The Ranch at the Wolverine • B. M. Bower

... looked at her with cold astonishment. "You surprise me," he said. "You talk as if you'd been going to see too many of those insufferable screen-plays that make the proletariat sniffle and the intelligent swear. I am merely a business man, Miss Eustis, and attending to this particular affair for my employer is all in the course of the day's work. I—er—am not in a position to refuse to ...
— Slippy McGee, Sometimes Known as the Butterfly Man • Marie Conway Oemler

... felicity—that almighty blessing which ratified their value to all the rest? Wherefore, oh! wherefore do I shrink in miserable weakness from—what? Is it from reviving, from calling up again into fierce and insufferable light the images and features of a long-buried happiness? That would be a natural shrinking and a reasonable weakness. But how escape from reviving, whether I give it utterance or not, that which is for ever vividly before me? What need to call into artificial light that which, ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey

... Francisco many depraved women, with their parasites, took refuge in Chicago. These were very brazen women, and the vile young men who lived on their shameful earnings were cunning in thwarting the police. Conditions became insufferable. So wide open was the district that a secretary of the Young Men's Christian Association in walking four blocks on the sidewalk was solicited by sixty-two women from their open doors and windows. A police court justice was accused ...
— Fighting the Traffic in Young Girls - War on the White Slave Trade • Various

... yours, Von Koren, you might live with Nadyezhda Fyodorovna for thirty years, perhaps, and might leave your heirs a rich vineyard and three thousand acres of maize; but I felt like a bankrupt from the first day. In the town you have insufferable heat, boredom, and no society; if you go out into the country, you fancy poisonous spiders, scorpions, or snakes lurking under every stone and behind every bush, and beyond the fields—mountains and the desert. Alien people, an alien country, a wretched form of civilisation—all ...
— The Duel and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov

... but also those processes by which the vote was secured to men of our own land. The simplest method now possible is by amendment of the Federal Constitution. To deny the privilege of that method to women is a discrimination against them so unjust and insufferable that no fair-minded man North or South, East or West, can logically ...
— Woman Suffrage By Federal Constitutional Amendment • Various

... all his wonderful achievements this youth would be top-heavy and a most insufferable prig. The fact was, he was a fine, rollicking, healthy young man much given to pranks, ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 12 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Scientists • Elbert Hubbard

... She was one of those sickly women that might have lasted these ten years—Rebecca thought to herself, in all the woes of repentance—and I might have been my lady! I might have led that old man whither I would. I might have thanked Mrs. Bute for her patronage, and Mr. Pitt for his insufferable condescension. I would have had the town-house newly furnished and decorated. I would have had the handsomest carriage in London, and a box at the opera; and I would have been presented next season. All this might have ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray

... not share this secret with Ted!" declared Phyllis, obstinately. "He's nearly nineteen and he thinks he's the most important thing in creation, and he's perfectly insufferable in some ways, now. To have his advice asked in this thing would set him up worse than ever. ...
— The Dragon's Secret • Augusta Huiell Seaman

... which she anticipates are precisely such as a vain, luxurious, and haughty woman would especially dread, and which only true virtue and magnanimity could despise. Cleopatra could have endured the loss of freedom; but to be led in triumph through the streets of Rome is insufferable. She could stoop to Caesar with dissembling courtesy, and meet duplicity with superior art; but "to be chastised" by the scornful or upbraiding glance of the injured Octavia—"rather ...
— Characteristics of Women - Moral, Poetical, and Historical • Anna Jameson

... she whispered, "I loved Ephraim, and it was because I left him that my heart closed up—because in insufferable pride and impatience I left him. Oh, my love, now I know that you loved me too." She rocked herself in a passionate desire for Ephraim's presence. The scene in the cold autumn wood at Fayette came back to her eyes and ears. She felt the very touch of his hand when he went. "Fool! ...
— The Mormon Prophet • Lily Dougall

... death, but ignored it, being concerned about its own affairs, While hoping to live on for ever, cost what it might; and another life, mysterious, indefinite, obscure, that, as a worm in an apple, secretly gnawed at the core of his former life, poisoning it, making it insufferable. ...
— Sanine • Michael Artzibashef

... give utterance to an honest, candid thought. These fellows were so backed on by the local authorities, that the general feeling being also pretty much in their favour, their insolence was in many cases almost insufferable. Few men chose to enter the lists with them, because they had no chance of fair play, nor any probability of arguing the question with any degree of candour or liberality; and as a man must have either put up with flat ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 2 • Henry Hunt

... something nearer twenty-five years of it. For Linda had been only Josephine's age when their mother died, and Professor Field's daughters had assumed the management of his little home. Linda might have been anything, thought her sister, as the older woman rinsed and soaped cheerfully, in the insufferable heat of the kitchen, but she had always had cooking and dishes to do. She said ...
— Harriet and the Piper - (Norris Volume XI) • Kathleen Norris

... is from the ideas generally formed of the climate in the West Indies!" observed Newton. "In England, we couple it with insufferable ...
— Newton Forster - The Merchant Service • Captain Frederick Marryat

... like that," said his lordship with an insufferable air of omniscience, "you want ...
— The Intrusion of Jimmy • P. G. Wodehouse

... had to pay the usual "white penny" for every mile, but also a heavy general fee for the whole journey. If he was found without his ticket of leave, he was at once arrested. But it was when he came to a bridge that the exactions grew insufferable. The regulations were somewhat tricky, for the Jew was specially taxed only on Sundays and the Festivals of the Church. But every other day was some Saint's Festival, and while, in Mannheim, even on those days the Christian ...
— The Book of Delight and Other Papers • Israel Abrahams

... is what you are here for. I spoil you with care and attentions because you are the spiritual vent of solitude and celibacy, but that doesn't prevent you, with your spiteful way of looking at me, from being insufferable at times, as you are today, ...
— La-bas • J. K. Huysmans

... between army and army, navy and navy, of the Europe before 1914? The code, to be sure, of cunning, of greed, of might; the materialism of the philosopher and the naturalism of the sensualist, clothed in grandiose forms and covered with the insufferable hypocrisy of solemn phrases. There are no conceivable ethical or religious interests and no humane goals or values that justify these things. International diplomacy and politics, economic imperialism, using political machinery and power to half-cloak, half-champion its ...
— Preaching and Paganism • Albert Parker Fitch

... lilt with which even red-tape has not dared to tamper! But mark how they go on): 'when the train is at a standstill at a station, but, if lifted, they must be lowered again before the train starts.' And this insufferable bathos, forsooth, was ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, January 5, 1916 • Various

... fatal to all his profits, had restored my brother to his senses, and seeing that the mischief had been caused by his own insufferable pride, he rent his clothes and tore his hair, and lamented himself so loudly that the passers-by stopped to listen. It was a Friday, so these were more numerous than usual. Some pitied Alnaschar, others only laughed ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments • Andrew Lang.

... Dominican priest of a most amiable and heroic character. He first went to Hispaniola with Columbus in his second voyage, where he manifested an ardent but honest zeal, first in attempting to instruct the natives in the principles of the catholic faith, and afterwards in defending them against the insufferable cruelties exercised by the Spanish tyrants who succeeded Columbus in the discoveries and settlements in South America. He early declared himself Protector of the Indians; a title which seems to have been acknowledged by the Spanish government. He devoted himself ever after to the most indefatigable ...
— The Columbiad • Joel Barlow

... was I indeed wretched beyond the wretchedness of mere Humanity. And a brute beast —whose fellow I had contemptuously destroyed—a brute beast to work out for me—for me a man, fashioned in the image of the High God—so much of insufferable wo! Alas! neither by day nor by night knew I the blessing of Rest any more! During the former the creature left me no moment alone; and, in the latter, I started, hourly, from dreams of unutterable fear, to find the hot breath of the thing upon my face, and its vast ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 2 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe

... never seen so many beggars. It was insufferable. For this evening, at least, every one was giving—except Livingstone. Want was stretching out its withered hand even to Poverty and found it filled. But Livingstone took no part in it. The chilly and threadbare street-venders ...
— Santa Claus's Partner • Thomas Nelson Page

... as well one way as the other, if she would but have patience to hear them. But she's extremely severe, you know, as almost all those very clever women are; so that she keeps a kind of restraint upon me whether I will or no. However, that's nothing compared to her caro sposo, for he is utterly insufferable; so solemn, and so dull! so stately and so tiresome! Mortimer, too, gets worse and worse; O 'tis a sad tribe! I dare say he will soon grow quite as horrible as his father. Don't you ...
— Cecilia vol. 2 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)

... Hastings' still more irritable reply. "He thinks he is a hero, and presumes upon it to intrude himself in a most insufferable manner. I have no doubt Jonas would have got along ...
— Three People • Pansy

... peered down upon her from between the silken curtains of her balcony, and clapped her hands twice so that her woman-slaves ran quickly to watch and whisper about this white woman who stood unattended in the open market. They giggled in the insufferable Eastern way, and pointed across the Square, where the whole of the male population surged about two men. But Zulannah, the recognised beauty of the North of Egypt, shrugged her dimpled shoulders as she stuffed ...
— The Hawk of Egypt • Joan Conquest

... The English are natural despots. Rem was quite right last night. I saw and felt, as much as he did, the quiet but sovereign arrogance of young Hyde. His calm assumption of superiority was in reality insufferable. The young man's faults are racial; they are in the blood. Cornelia shall not have anything to do with him. Why do you speak ...
— The Maid of Maiden Lane • Amelia E. Barr

... that Mrs. Wilton had greatly changed. But now a sadder change took place—a separation from her husband. The cause of this separation I know not. I never asked her, nor to me has she ever alluded to it. But it is said that his manner towards her became insufferable, and that she sought protection and an asylum among her friends. Be the cause what it may, it is enough to make her a ...
— Home Lights and Shadows • T. S. Arthur

... appointed to rule ouer them, was all alike hurtfull vnto the subiects, the lieutenant oppressing them by his capteins and men of warre, and the procurator or receiuer by force and reprochfull demeanours, polling them by insufferable exactions. ...
— Chronicles (1 of 6): The Historie of England (4 of 8) - The Fovrth Booke Of The Historie Of England • Raphael Holinshed

... of them, and as promptly discarded it for the newer tourist's helmet, and that in turn for a yachting cap. Must I confess it?—before Boller left McGraw I had quite surpassed him as a model of fashion. But my ambition did not end here. The very conceit which had made me such an insufferable youth in my last days at home was the spur which drove me to win every honor that could come to an undergraduate. As Boller stepped out of offices I stepped into them—in presidencies and secretaryships almost innumerable, into editorships, and even captaincies. Physically timid, I endured much ...
— David Malcolm • Nelson Lloyd

... drink, what is it but to live; and what is life but death, if death be that which all men deem it, a thing insufferable, and to be shunned. I refresh myself now only with soda-water and biscuits. Ganymede, ...
— Ixion In Heaven • Benjamin Disraeli

... listened sympathetically to Bainbridge's story, for he was not unfamiliar with the ways of the Barbary Corsairs and he had long been of the opinion that tribute only made these pirates bolder and more insufferable. The Congress of the Confederation, however, had followed the policy of the European powers and had paid tribute to secure immunity from attack, and the new Government had simply continued the policy of the old. In spite of his abhorrence of war, Jefferson held that ...
— Jefferson and his Colleagues - A Chronicle of the Virginia Dynasty, Volume 15 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Allen Johnson

... triple ray descends from the uncreated light, and before that insufferable brightness I am dazzled and bewildered. There is no longer any distinction for me between profane and sacred; I no longer understand the difference of these terms. Wheresoever I meet with good, truth, beauty, be the man who brings them to me who he may, and come he whence ...
— The Heavenly Father - Lectures on Modern Atheism • Ernest Naville

... Willbewill was that apostate of whom mention was made before,) and the keeper of the gates of Mansoul. He therefore, with big and ruffling words, demanded of the trumpeter who he was, whence he came, and what was the cause of his making so hideous a noise at the gate, and speaking such insufferable words against ...
— The Holy War • John Bunyan

... not say such things to Aurelia, although, if you are worthy to dine at her side, they are the very things you are longing to say. What insufferable stuff you are talking about the weather, and the opera, and Alboni's delicious voice, and Newport, and Saratoga! They are all very pleasant subjects, but do you suppose Ixion talked Thessalian politics when he was ...
— Prue and I • George William Curtis

... unhappy sympathy in situation, and was her sole remaining attachment to this world, deprived even of that melancholy solace which letters or messages could give: that the bitterness of her sorrows, still more than her close confinement, had preyed upon her health, and had added the insufferable weight of bodily infirmity to all those other calamities under which she labored: that while the daily experience of her maladies opened to her the comfortable prospect of an approaching deliverance into a region where pain and ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part D. - From Elizabeth to James I. • David Hume

... "Insufferable girl!" said Dora Russell; "I wonder you try to draw her out, Cecil. You know perfectly that we none of us care to have anything to ...
— A World of Girls - The Story of a School • L. T. Meade

... satire. And indeed a provocation is almost necessary, in behalf of the world, that you might be induced sometimes to write; and in relation to a multitude of scribblers, who daily pester the world with their insufferable stuff, that they might be discouraged from writing any more. I complain not of their lampoons and libels, though I have been the public mark for many years. I am vindictive enough to have repelled force by force if I could imagine that any of ...
— Discourses on Satire and Epic Poetry • John Dryden

... we fight about the rent and the division of the profits of the day; in the first we sleep in linen "as white as the wings of the dove," in the second on pieces of smelly blankets; the first is redolent of ottar of roses, Shakib's favourite perfume, the second is especially made insufferable by that stench which is peculiar to every Hebrew hive. For these and other reasons, Khalid separates himself from his Semite fellow peddlers, and makes this time a bigger ...
— The Book of Khalid • Ameen Rihani

... thought himself lucky in retiring without broken shins. That Newton's little nature was remarkable had often been insisted on by his mother; but it was remarkable, Ransom saw, for the absence of any of the qualities which attach a teacher to a pupil. He was in truth an insufferable child, entertaining for the Latin language a personal, physical hostility, which expressed itself in convulsions of rage. During these paroxysms he kicked furiously at every one and everything—at poor "Rannie," at his mother, at Messrs. ...
— The Bostonians, Vol. I (of II) • Henry James

... portions are drawn inward. They rush and swirl in vast cyclones, thousands of miles in extent. The centre grows compact, heat is evolved by impact, as will be explained in Chapter II. Dull red light begins to look like coming dawn. Centuries go by; contraction goes on; light blazes in insufferable brightness; tornadoes, whirlpools, and tempests scarcely signify anything as applied ...
— Recreations in Astronomy - With Directions for Practical Experiments and Telescopic Work • Henry Warren

... that I am there at any rate," the lady rejoined. "The heat will be insufferable." Mrs. Gary declared herself of ...
— Melbourne House • Elizabeth Wetherell

... came to Pampeluna itself, we found it so indeed; and to me that had been always used to a hot climate, and indeed to countries where we could scarce bear any clothes on, the cold was insufferable; nor, indeed, was it more painful than it was surprising: to come but ten days before out of the Old Castile, where the weather was not only warm, but very hot, and immediately to feel a wind from the Pyrenees mountains, so very keen, so ...
— The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe (1808) • Daniel Defoe

... arise in which a man who genuinely abhors violence confronts an almost insoluble dilemma. On the one hand he may be faced with the imminent triumph of some almost insufferable evil; on the other, he may feel that the only available means of opposing that evil is violence, which is ...
— Introduction to Non-Violence • Theodore Paullin

... are soon gone over on swift horses; but yet, when we reached the borders of the lake we were quite exhausted, and our hearts failed us. The heat of the smoke was insufferable, and sheets of blazing fire flew over us in ...
— New National Fourth Reader • Charles J. Barnes and J. Marshall Hawkes

... face pale with anger, "you are positively insufferable. Will you leave my room and close the door ...
— Her Father's Daughter • Gene Stratton-Porter

... together with a dawning passion for socks, ties, and brilliantine, was an unmistakable sign of growing up; Russell was preternaturally thin and looked all arms and legs; while Tim had forsaken knickers for full-fledged trousers, and resented any attempt at petting as an insufferable offence. ...
— A College Girl • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey

... Marcius, and expected to be warmly welcomed by a man who was their near relation and personal friend. Nothing of the kind, however, happened. They were conducted through the enemy's camp, and found him seated, and displaying insufferable pride and arrogance, with the chiefs of the Volscians standing round him. He bade the ambassadors deliver their message; and after they had, in a supplicatory fashion, pronounced a conciliatory oration, ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume I (of 4) • Plutarch

... of atonement. Such, plainly, is the unwritten feudal law, which gives to the Over-Lord the lion's share of booty, the initiative in war and council, and the right to command; but limits him by the privilege of the peers to renounce their fealty under insufferable provocation. In no Book is Agamemnon so direfully insulted as in the First, which is admitted to be of the original "kernel." Elsewhere the sympathy of the poet occasionally enables him to feel the elements ...
— Homer and His Age • Andrew Lang

... wishes it to be said," continued the stiff, formal Scot (there was a consequential air about him now that was almost insufferable), "that for all I've the intention in my mind to spend my life in the old place, she thinks she'll very likely break me of it, and bring me to live in more frequented parts in a year or two, when she'll hope to come and see her friends again. 'Tis what she says, Mr. Trenholme" (and ...
— What Necessity Knows • Lily Dougall

... Out of these thousands of voices, not to be differentiated by the human ear, the ewe knows the note of her little one with very remarkable certainty, and the lamb the answering cry of its dam. With this sound ringing in his ears, and daily becoming more and more insufferable from monotony and increase, the sheep-man rides out in the morning among his Mexicans, and returns to camp at night aweary, with haply a couple of little ones abandoned by their mothers in his ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, October 1885 • Various

... for money. He could not pay the $45 fine demanded, and in default, was sent to the chain-gang for eight months. He wore stripes, night and day, and if contumacious, was whipped by the guards. His work was in a stone quarry, a deep hole, into which the summer sun poured an insufferable heat. He was forced to do his work with a 49-pound hammer in that funnel-shaped pit, at a hundred degrees in the shade—if he could find any shade. One day he told the guard he was sick, and could ...
— The Subterranean Brotherhood • Julian Hawthorne

... office, and was duly presented to the rector of the church, who made no sign, save a twinkle of his eye, of having met her in another, and humbler capacity, but shook hands and talked to her without that insufferable air of patronage which elder people at times seem to delight ...
— What Two Children Did • Charlotte E. Chittenden

... be complete, he should have been ignorant, gourmand, and cowardly. But, far from this, he was very learned, temperate, and madly courageous. He had all the great qualities of the soul, joined to an insufferable disposition, and a self-satisfaction which amounted almost to delirium. But what devotion, what zeal, what a ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, Issue 49, November, 1861 • Various

... to write an introduction to this particular book seems insufferable patronage; yet one would do it for love of Laboulaye, or for the sake of one's own "little past," or to draw one more young reader into the charmed circle that will ...
— Laboulaye's Fairy Book • Various

... and leave me to myself, Forstner, you insufferable ass!' The words broke forth half fiercely, ...
— A German Pompadour - Being the Extraordinary History of Wilhelmine van Graevenitz, - Landhofmeisterin of Wirtemberg • Marie Hay

... simplicity may be improved, but pride and conceit never. Well, I don't discourage you; I think it will please Sir Everard, from what he said when I jested with him about it; only I hope that intolerable papa, with his brogue, and his snuff, and his Latin, and his insufferable long stories about the Duke of Berwick, will find it necessary hereafter to be an inhabitant of foreign parts. But as to the daughter, though I think you might find as fitting a match in England, yet if your heart be really ...
— Waverley • Sir Walter Scott

... no less, a hundred and twelve lines,' said the insufferable Merton. 'Could you give us them ...
— The Disentanglers • Andrew Lang

... the civilized Philistine, but is willing to speak to him in a language all his own, hoping indeed to tune his tongue one day to something less uncouth. None can sympathize more cordially than the writer does with Durtal in his horror of unauthorized devotions, of insufferable vernacular litanies, of nerveless and sickly hymns, of interminable "acts of consecration" void of a single definite idea, more especially when these things are brought into the very sanctuary itself, with stole and cope and every apparent endeavour to fix ...
— The Faith of the Millions (2nd series) • George Tyrrell



Words linked to "Insufferable" :   intolerable, unacceptable, unsufferable, unendurable, impossible



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