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Vituperation   Listen
noun
Vituperation  n.  The act of vituperating; abuse; severe censure; blame. "When a man becomes untractable and inaccessible by fierceness and pride, then vituperation comes upon him."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Vituperation" Quotes from Famous Books



... of the eighteenth century, not only were religious systems very much at a discount among persons of intelligence, but the Deity himself was relegated to the position of an exploded idea, becoming an object of vituperation, witty or obscene according to the humour of the individual critic. As one of the illuminated, Mr. Verity did not escape the prevailing infection, although an inborn amenity of disposition saved him from atheism in its more blatantly offensive forms. The existence of the ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet

... upon the chance of becoming Ida May Bostwick, and so escaping the horror and despair that enshrouded Sheila Macklin like a filthy mantle, stood after the first blast as firm as a rock under the torrent of vituperation and rage which poured from the other ...
— Sheila of Big Wreck Cove - A Story of Cape Cod • James A. Cooper

... in the July Number. How could you find it in your heart (a soft one, as I have hitherto supposed) to treat an old friend and liege contributor in that unheard-of way? Not that I should care a fig for any amount of vituperation, if you had only let my article come before the public as I wrote it, instead of suppressing precisely the passages—with which I had taken most pains, and which I flattered myself were most cleverly done. The interview with the President, for example: it would have been a treasure ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 60, October 1862 • Various

... retorted that the misunderstanding had been mutual, and also that all the wretchedness had not fallen to her share; but he would not stoop to reproaches and vituperation. It was a natural peculiarity of her shallow nature to demand exhaustive comprehension for ...
— Princess • Mary Greenway McClelland

... general doctrine of evolution needed in order to move the world. "Darwinism," in one form or another, sometimes strangely distorted and mutilated, became an everyday topic of men's speech, the object of an abundance both of vituperation and of praise, more often than ...
— Darwiniana • Thomas Henry Huxley

... the main argument against recurring to the old Scottish Confession of 1560 is that derived from the unmeasured language of vituperation in which it, as well as the contemporary forms of recantation[141] required of priests at that date, indulges when referring to the teaching of the members of the pre-Reformation church. No doubt it might be deemed sufficient proof of this to subjoin ...
— The Scottish Reformation - Its Epochs, Episodes, Leaders, and Distinctive Characteristics • Alexander F. Mitchell

... bitterest execration. I soon learnt to dread those conferences, those terrific scenes which I was forced to witness in my capacity of interpreter. O—— revelled in them with exceeding gusto. He used to gird his loins for the effort of vituperation; I think he regarded the performance as a legitimate kind of exercise—his last remaining one. As soon as the boy returned from town and presented himself with his purchases, O—— would glare at him for two or three minutes with such virulence, such ...
— Alone • Norman Douglas

... crown lawyers to the contrary took an unmanly delight in girding and snapping at the captives whom the fortune of war had put in their power. Monstrous charges were trumped up that could not be substantiated, even the Lord High Steward descending to vituperation. ...
— A Daughter of Raasay - A Tale of the '45 • William MacLeod Raine

... not once growled since poor Mrs. Meadows had been really ill; and though she had been feeding on hopes of Albinia's visit, and was far from strong, she quashed her husband's misgivings, and cheerily strove to convince him that he would be wanted by no one, least of all by herself. A slight vituperation of the polysyllabic pair was all the relief she permitted herself, and who could blame her for that, when even Mr. Dusautoy called the one 'that foolish fellow,' and the other ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge

... vituperation of Dalis, but in no wise prevented his continuance as a rather loud antagonist of ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science July 1930 • Various

... cause; that we study human nature in a charnel house, and, like the nations of the East, pay divine honours to the maniac and the fool." But if these two great men cannot refrain from such outspoken vituperation—they also lead the way: they both teach the divinity of ideas and the vileness of action without principle; they both exalt the value of personality and character; they both deprecate the influence ...
— Thoughts out of Season (Part One) • Friedrich Nietzsche

... the whole crowd of men, women and children danced and hooted and clapped their hands, assailing him with the choicest epithets of Indian vituperation. With loud cries they demanded that he should be tied to the stake, that they might all enjoy the pleasure of tormenting him. A stake was immediately planted in the ground, and he was firmly fastened to it. His entire clothing was torn from him, mainly by ...
— Daniel Boone - The Pioneer of Kentucky • John S. C. Abbott

... advocates and defenders of slave-holding in this country might find in this discourse matter of encouragement, and that our anti-christian prejudices against the colored man might be strengthened and confirmed by its malignant vituperation and sarcasm. On this point we have sympathized with the forebodings of an eloquent writer in ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier

... Traitor!" When his vocabulary of vituperation and his breath failed him, he paused and ...
— The Joyous Adventures of Aristide Pujol • William J. Locke

... mass. Hence, as the Platform charges the Confession only with favoring the Ceremonies of the Mass, the charge is not only sustained, but falls short, of what we have established in the preceding pages: and all the vituperation aimed at us by different individuals, who have studied the subject imperfectly, or not at all, we cheerfully forgive, conscious that the aim of all we have published on this subject has been the prosperity of the church, and assured ...
— American Lutheranism Vindicated; or, Examination of the Lutheran Symbols, on Certain Disputed Topics • Samuel Simon Schmucker

... sentences as cannot easily be digested by a weak stomach. I would wish he should deal with her more gently, being a young princess unpersuaded. . . . Surely in her comporting with him she declares a wisdom far exceeding her age." {201a} Vituperation is not argument, and gentleness is not unchristian. St. Paul did not revile the gods ...
— John Knox and the Reformation • Andrew Lang

... opponent. Almost all the talk about its being a "victory" comes from James; and in recounting this, as well as all the other battles, nearly every subsequent British historian simply gives James' statements over again, occasionally amplifying, but more often altering or omitting, the vituperation. The point at issue is simply this: could a frigate which, according to James himself, went out of action with every sail set, take another frigate which for two hours, according to the log of the Pomone, lay motionless and unmanageable on the waters, without a sail? To prove that it could ...
— The Naval War of 1812 • Theodore Roosevelt

... intense enemy, and that man had hated him all those years. Alexander Hamilton had never missed an opportunity to vilify Mr. Burr, and his attack had never been resented. Calmly had Aaron Burr pursued his upward and onward course, simply smiling at the vituperation of Hamilton. Could those two men have agreed, they would have been the greatest leaders any nation ever had. Their hatred was as expensive as was that of Blaine and Conklin ...
— Jukes-Edwards - A Study in Education and Heredity • A. E. Winship

... in seguito! At last the assailant, beating her breast with both hands, and tempestuously swaying her person back and forth, wreaked her scorn in one wild outburst of vituperation, and returned finally to her tub, wisely saying, on the purple verge of asphyxiation, "O, ...
— Venetian Life • W. D. Howells

... women write, the hero of the story shoulders the blame, and often has to bear his creator's vituperation in addition to his other troubles. When a man essays this theme in fiction, he shows clearly that it is the woman's fault. When the situation is presented outside of books, the happily married critics distribute condemnation ...
— The Spinster Book • Myrtle Reed

... left those squaws for a moment. I was sure they were spies who would go to the devils outside and tell them of the weakness of the fort. Two of the squaws began to fight about a fine tooth comb. The more formidable of the two, with much vituperation, declared she would not stay where the other one was. Just at the height of the fight, a gun outside was fired. The minute it was fired, the squaw started for the door. I suspected that it was a signal for her to come ...
— Old Rail Fence Corners - The A. B. C's. of Minnesota History • Various

... said Segrave wildly, "and now he has heaped disgrace upon us, upon me and mine.... Curse him! ... curse him, I say!" he continued, whilst all the pent-up fury, forcibly kept in check all this while by the advent of the police, now once more found vent in loud vituperation and almost maniacal expressions of rage. "Liar ... cheat! ... Look at him, Captain! there stands the man who must bear the full brunt of the punishment, for he is the decoy, he is the thief! ... The pillory for him ... the pillory ...
— The Nest of the Sparrowhawk • Baroness Orczy

... injury to the House of Lords by lowering the style and character of their debates and introducing coarseness and acrimony such as never were known there before. Hardly a night passes without some discreditable scene of squabbling and vituperation bandied between him and the High Tory Lords, one or other of them; their hatred of him and his scorn of them are everlastingly breaking out. He and Lyndhurst, though constantly pitted against each other, are great friends all the time, but with ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. III • Charles C. F. Greville

... issues were discussed, but one point urged by Kinney against the proposed Michigan canal was, "that it would flood the country with Yankees." It would be a great mistake to suppose that Reynolds himself wholly escaped vituperation. On the contrary, he claims the credit of being "the best abused man in the State." He relates that one of the stories told on him was, "that I saw a scarecrow, the effigy of a man in a corn-field, just at dusk, and that I said, 'How are you, my friend? Won't you ...
— Something of Men I Have Known - With Some Papers of a General Nature, Political, Historical, and Retrospective • Adlai E. Stevenson

... pledge of honour as a Jew will be guarantee for the quality of your commodity. Thus everything is to be gained, and the accomplishment is within your own power. Will you quietly sit by and hear vituperation heaped upon your creed and upon yourselves, without being roused to the slightest effort? I will readily admit that it is only the prejudices of the ignorant and vulgar which draw the distinction between yourself and the Christian: enlighten him therefore where requisite; associate as much ...
— Suggestions to the Jews - for improvement in reference to their charities, education, - and general government • Unknown

... thus to behave at this pinch! If we meet another party, we shall be all hurled headlong over the rocks, or we shall have to fight desperately and have to hurl them over, and all for your obstinacy, sons of donkeys that you are!"—and he broke forth in a torrent of vituperation and abuse which it is not necessary for ...
— Manco, the Peruvian Chief - An Englishman's Adventures in the Country of the Incas • W.H.G. Kingston

... him—and to the violence of the language he applied to them. In this he excelled; for although as quiet as possible when he was sober, when he was drunk he was a terror, so the police said, and his resources of vituperation were cyclopedic. He possessed in this particular department an eloquence which was incredible. His blasphemy was vast, illimitable, infinite. He told me once that he could not explain it; that when he was sober he abhorred profanity, and never uttered an oath; ...
— The Burial of the Guns • Thomas Nelson Page

... "Thor's neebody heor!" "Then by Gox," said the excited mate, "Ye'ar the beggar I've been luckin' for these last few neights!" The slumberer was the person who ought to have been pacing the deck. Needless to say, he became the object of much vituperation, and was never again trusted to look after the lives of his shipmates or the property of his employer. Similar incidents to this occurred on ...
— The Shellback's Progress - In the Nineteenth Century • Walter Runciman

... of nascent Radicalism and the movement in favour of political reform than any other means employed. Chief-justice Mansfield's strictures and Lord Braxfield's diatribes alike paled into insignificance beside these deadly, scorching bombs of Juvenal-like vituperation, which have remained unapproached in their specific line. As an example take Ellis's Ode to Jacobinism, of which ...
— English Satires • Various

... so despised, he was the veriest slave to it that ever breathed, as he confesses when he says that he was almost more annoyed at the censure of the meanest than pleased with the praises of the highest of mankind; and when he deals around his fierce vituperation or bitter sarcasms, he is only clanking the chains which, with all his pride, and defiance, and contempt, he is unable to throw off. Then he despises pretenders and charlatans of all sorts, while he is himself a pretender, as all men are who assume a character which does not belong ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William - IV, Volume 1 (of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville

... seigneur, was actually a mauvais sujet! What the French precisely understand by a mauvais sujet, I never could exactly make out; for, when impelled by curiosity to inquire, my queries were always met by such a volley of vituperation, as left one altogether in the dark with regard to the real nature of the charge. On the whole, I presume, we are to consider a mauvais sujet as a culprit, compared with whose transgressions, the several enormities of gaming, drinking, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Issue 266, July 28, 1827 • Various

... ridiculous and rantipole abuse lavished upon Mr. Balfour by the Nationalist orators and newspapers. I am not surprised to see this. Mr. Davitt has the stuff in him of a serious revolutionary leader, and no such man can stomach the frothy and foolish vituperation to which parliamentary agitators are addicted, not in Ireland only. Unlike Mr. Parnell, who is forced to have one voice for New York and Cincinnati, and another voice for Westminster, Mr. Davitt is free to be always avowedly bent on bringing about a thorough Democratic ...
— Ireland Under Coercion (2nd ed.) (1 of 2) (1888) • William Henry Hurlbert

... reason to lament the softness of his own heart," replied Maria Theresa, bitterly. "If he were absolute sovereign here, the Jesuits would be exiled to-morrow; and the King of Prussia, for whom he entertains such unbounded admiration, would be the first one to offer them shelter. I will answer your vituperation, my son, by reading to you a letter written by Frederick to his agent in Rome. It relates to the rumor now afloat that the pope is about to disperse the holy brotherhood. I have just received a copy of it from Italy, and it rejoices me to be able ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach

... epistles were really circulated at the time when they were written, it is matter of astonishment that Petrarch never suffered from any other flames than those of love; for many honest reformers, who have been roasted alive, have uttered less anti-papal vituperation than our poet; nor, although Petrarch would have been startled at a revolution in the hierarchy, can it be doubted that his writings ...
— The Sonnets, Triumphs, and Other Poems of Petrarch • Petrarch

... thankful for our near deliverance to spend my breath on vituperation. I reached toward the rung above me and prepared to pull myself back ...
— Mr. Hawkins' Humorous Adventures • Edgar Franklin

... published in 1835. In the ten volumes of travel published from 1836 to 1838 he dealt out occasional criticisms of both England and America with so impartial a hand that he drew down upon himself the savage vituperation of the press on both sides of the Atlantic. Then came the period during which, from being the most popular American author, he became the most unpopular man of letters to whom the nation has ever given birth. "For years," says Lounsbury, "a storm of abuse fell upon him, ...
— The Story of Cooperstown • Ralph Birdsall

... encounter, and to have been forced to listen to the unguarded vituperation of my rector." ...
— Hepsey Burke • Frank Noyes Westcott

... 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 them had ever reached me." It was this feeling of easy superiority, I suspect, that made him the mark for so much jealous vituperation. Scott is wrong in attributing his onslaught upon Settle to jealousy because one of the latter's plays had been performed at Court,—an honor never paid to any of Dryden's.[78] I have found nothing like a trace of jealousy in that large and benignant nature. ...
— Among My Books - First Series • James Russell Lowell

... Leslie's patronizing insolence more than she hated her open vituperation. She would have liked to say that she was amazed to learn that Leslie ever told the plain truth about anything. Prudence warned her to let the ...
— Marjorie Dean, College Sophomore • Pauline Lester

... circulated against both Robison and Barruel were not without effect. Thirteen years later we find another American, this time a Freemason, confessing "with shame and grief and indignation" that he had been carried away by "the flood of vituperation poured upon Barruel and Robison during the past thirty years," that the title pages of their works "were fearful to him," and that although "wishing calmly and candidly to investigate the character of Freemasonry he refused for months to open their books." Yet when in 1827 ...
— Secret Societies And Subversive Movements • Nesta H. Webster

... and disappeared below, while Private Bliss, still fondling the handspike, listened unmoved to a lengthy vituperation which Bill called a plain and honest opinion ...
— Light Freights • W. W. Jacobs

... years of his life. I will believe that higher and more honorable motives than those by which he had been guided during the fierce and turbulent party-times, when the "John Bull" was established, had led him to relinquish scandal, slander, and vituperation, as dishonorable weapons. I know that in my time he did not use them; his advice to me, on more than one occasion, while acting under him, was to remember that "abuse" seldom effectually answered a purpose, and that it was wiser as well as ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 90, April, 1865 • Various

... reward, are equally just, and make up together almost the sum of justice; and we see in fact that the two are of nearly equal efficacy for the right management of life. The two things, in short, are so interrelated, and so involved in one and the same act, that the vituperation of the bad may in a sense be called the praising of the good. But, though right, reason, and use are equal on both sides, the acceptability is not the same likewise; for whoever vituperates another bears the burden and imputation of two very heavy things at once,—accusing another, ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson

... the owner of the store jumped up from his chair, and stood glowering at the girl who risked a request so full of vituperation against himself. ...
— Within the Law - From the Play of Bayard Veiller • Marvin Dana

... than reason; and he too by this strange faculty knew well enough that something was abroad, raying out from that silent curtained unseen window—something of an utterly different order from that of dog or flung shoe and furious vituperation—something that affected certain nerves within his body in a new and awful manner. Once or twice in his life he had been conscious of it before, once in an empty room, once in a room tenanted by a mere outline beneath a sheet and closed by a ...
— The Necromancers • Robert Hugh Benson

... caricaturing Robert Morris, staggering off with the Administration on its back, or "Miss Assumption and her bastard brats," its anti-Federal part was abusing Hamilton as the arch-fiend who had sold the country, and applying to him every adjective of vituperation that fury and coarseness could suggest. There were poems, taunts, jibes, and squibs, printed as rapidly as the press and ingenuity could turn them out. If our ancestors were capable of appreciating the literary excellence of their pamphleteers, as many of those who have replaced ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton

... aimed at securing for himself. From his pages there flows an incessant stream of abuse of all the great masters of political power in his time; of Caesar and Pompeius; of Crassus and Antonius, not to mention his coarse vituperation of Piso and Gabinius, and his uneasy sneers at the impracticable Cato. We may note the different tone which his disparagement assumes towards these men respectively. He speaks of Caesar with awe, of Pompeius with mortification, with dislike of Crassus, with bitter malice of Antonius. Caesar, even ...
— The International Monthly Magazine - Volume V - No II • Various

... when Baker from the gallery audibly exclaimed: "Lay on, McDuff, and damned be he who first cries hold, enough!" The silence which pervaded the chamber was broken by a general laugh, greatly disconcerting Randolph, but seeming to inspire McDuffie, who went on in a strain of vituperation witheringly pungent, in the midst of which Mr. Randolph left his seat and the House. Here was a triumph few had enjoyed. Not even Bayard, in his famous attack upon Randolph, when the latter first came into Congress, had won so much. Every one seemed delighted. The ...
— The Memories of Fifty Years • William H. Sparks

... really a very aggravating person. If I could not have got my book published elsewhere, I would certainly have had a row—I would have taken out my money's worth in vituperation." ...
— The Altar Fire • Arthur Christopher Benson

... speak, but he raised his hand and pointed to the hall with an upward motion for the stairs, and Eddy went, with a faint whimper of remonstrance. The scolding woman saw the little, retreating figure, and directly the torrent of her vituperation was turned ...
— The Debtor - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman

... laureate of the ex-emperor, the contemner of the Bourbons, the paeanist of the "star of the brave," "the rainbow of the free," should make good his political heresy by personal depravity—by unmanly vice, unmanly whining, unmanly vituperation? ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Vol. 3 (of 7) • Lord Byron

... Court of the United States says—what is patent to every man who reads the Constitution of the United States—that it does guaranty property in slaves,it has been attacked with vituperation here, on this floor, by Senators on all sides. Some have abstained from any indecent, insulting remarks in relation to the Court. Some have confined themselves to calm and legitimate argument. To them I am about to reply. To the others, I shall have something to say a little later. What says ...
— American Eloquence, Volume III. (of 4) - Studies In American Political History (1897) • Various

... literature the letters are remarkable for clearness of expression and for a polish of style so high as to be artificial and monotonous; their chief literary defect is violence of language. Occupied almost exclusively with personal vituperation, they deal with events as opportunities for abuse rather than for thoughtful comment, with constitutional doctrines as weapons of attack rather than as bulwarks of liberty. The writer's political opinions are based on narrow grounds; he exhibits no power of ...
— The Political History of England - Vol. X. • William Hunt

... subordinate position in the custom-house. No sooner had Greeley glanced it over than he astonished the gentleman, who was aware of Mr. Greeley's early obligation to Mr. Jones, by the volley of oaths and vituperation which he heaped upon him because he did not go West instead of hanging around there seeking office. No wonder the gentleman, who was a reputable middle-aged man, fled from the presence of this famous expounder of 'Moral Ideas.' ...
— Hidden Treasures - Why Some Succeed While Others Fail • Harry A. Lewis

... when brought into contact with reality. In the same book be indicates, in his caustic way, the commencement of that change in his political temperature—for it cannot be called a change in opinion—which has drawn down on him immense vituperation from some of the patriotic party, but which seems to have resulted simply from the essential antagonism ...
— The Essays of "George Eliot" - Complete • George Eliot

... the opponents was next gone into, in the course of which the counsel indulged in strong vituperation against the witnesses for the bill. One of them spoke of the utter impossiblity of making a railway upon so treacherous a material as Chat Moss, which was declared to be an immense mass of pulp, and nothing else. "It actually," said Mr. Harrison, "rises in height, from the rain swelling ...
— Lives of the Engineers - The Locomotive. George and Robert Stephenson • Samuel Smiles

... another is that one feels more than another." Milton's capacity of emotion, when once he became champion of a cause, could not be contained within the bounds of ordinary speech. It breaks into ferocious reprobation, into terrific blasts of vituperation, beneath which the very language creaks, as the timbers of a ship in a storm. Corruptio optimi pessima. The archangel is recognisable by the energy of his malice. Were all those accomplishments; those many studious ...
— Milton • Mark Pattison

... and vituperation of his spouse were, therefore, lost upon Nicholas Forster; and the impossibility of disturbing the equanimity of his temper increased the irritability of her own. Still Mr Nicholas Forster, when he did reflect upon the subject, which was but during ...
— Newton Forster - The Merchant Service • Captain Frederick Marryat

... Zophar, the third comforter, opens his lips for coarse vituperation rather than sharp rebuke, and regrets that God Himself does not feel moved to give a practical lesson of wisdom to the conceited "prattler," who persists in believing in his own innocence in spite of the unmistakable judgment of his just Creator and the unanimous testimony of his candid friends. ...
— The Sceptics of the Old Testament: Job - Koheleth - Agur • Emile Joseph Dillon

... throw it down on those tin can roofs, and dodge behind the blinds. The Chinamen would swarm out and look up at the row of houses on the edge of the bluff, shake their fists, and pour out Chinese vituperation. By and by, when they had retired and everything was quiet again, their tormentors would throw another bottle. ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine

... speech by this maidenly outburst of vituperation, Mr. Garth lost all that self-control which his quieter judgment had recognized as probably necessary to the safety of his own person. White with anger, he raised his hand to strike Liza, who thereupon drew up, and, giving him a vigorous slap on each cheek, said, "Keep thy neb oot of that, ...
— The Shadow of a Crime - A Cumbrian Romance • Hall Caine

... grace had not shielded Saeh-pah from vituperation, and when Juan Gonzalvo came wooing, Yahn told him that across the hills was a woman waiting for a man, and dressed in fine skins and many beads:—when he or his men had won Koh-pe the daughter of Tsa-fah, to come back and tell her. She did not mean ...
— The Flute of the Gods • Marah Ellis Ryan

... views, and encouraged him to continue the conduct of his paper on that line. It was an age of vituperation and libelling. Probably there never has been a time since when so many editors, in proportion to the number of papers, believed that the newspaper was for that purpose. The gentleman of whom Franklin spoke wanted to abuse another; but ...
— From Boyhood to Manhood • William M. Thayer

... matters, indeed, are involved in the story of his political attitude from the close of his struggle for amending the Constitution down to the very close of his life,—a story which used to be told with angry vituperation on one side, perhaps with some meek apologies on the other. Certainly, the day for such comment is long past. In the disinterestedness which the lapse of time has now made an easy virtue for us, we may see, plainly enough, that such ungentle words as "apostate" and "turncoat," ...
— Patrick Henry • Moses Coit Tyler

... way of atonement for youthful vituperation (he called him "a ragamuffin deist") of Tom Paine, exhumed his bones from their first resting-place at New Rochelle, and brought them to Liverpool on his return to England in 1819. They were preserved by Cobbett at Normanby, Farnham, till his death in 1835, but were sold in consequence of his son's ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Vol. 7. - Poetry • George Gordon Byron

... statesman's policy had but to be inconvenient to his adversary in order to prove the Minister "hateful," "execrable," "abominable," "wicked," a traitor to his country, and a conspirator against the liberties of the people. Pitt honored Walpole with such vituperation, and when Walpole went out, and Carteret came in without Pitt, the same expressive language was transferred by the illustrious commoner from Minister to Minister, as though no virtue could possibly be found in any Government without his presence. When Junius affected to regard Lord Mansfield ...
— International Miscellany of Literature, Art and Science, Vol. 1, - No. 3, Oct. 1, 1850 • Various

... nose," Donal shouted in terror, as he ran full speed to his aid, abusing Hornie in terms of fiercest vituperation. ...
— Sir Gibbie • George MacDonald

... were the least dispensable tools of the capitalists, the greatest menace to civilization. We were absolutely lacking in principle, we were ready at any time to besmirch our profession by legalizing steals; we fouled our nests with dirty fees. Not all that he said was vituperation, for he knew something of the modern theory of the law that legal radicals had begun to proclaim, and even to ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... in German law, has arrived at the conclusion that it is not best to allow the head of the state to be the sport of every crank or blackguard who can wield a pen or pencil. The American view, which allowed Lincoln, Garfield, and McKinley to be attacked in all the moods and tenses of vituperation, and to be artistically portrayed as tyrants, drunkards, clowns, beasts of prey, and reptiles, has not yet been received into German modes of thought. Luther said that he "would not suffer any man to treat the Gospel as a sow treats a sack of oats"; and that seems ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Dickson White Volume II • Andrew Dickson White

... thoughts were coursing through de Batz' head, Heron had been indulging in a volley of vituperation. ...
— El Dorado • Baroness Orczy

... remains one of the very greatest painters that ever lived. The serious criticism of Cezanne is a landmark in the history of the movement, and still something of a novelty; for, naturally, I reckon the vulgar vituperation with which his work was greeted, and the faint praise with which it was subsequently damned, as no criticism at all. The hacks and pedagogues and middle-class metaphysicians who abused him, and only when it dawned on them that they ...
— Since Cezanne • Clive Bell

... discharging their new pattern fire-locks. The militiamen on their part waded into the sea and gave such answer as they could from their clumsy old matchlocks: making good the deficiency—so far as noise was concerned—by shouts of vituperation; and calling on their assailants as "Rebels," "Traitors," and "Murderers of their King." The landing was frustrated for ...
— St George's Cross • H. G. Keene

... their last ditch, and discredited even in that, it is now evident that the conspirators had determined to stake all upon one final throw. Fortunately the very desperateness of the plot has proved its undoing, and from the tremulous lips of the perpetrators themselves comes to-day a froth of vituperation and rancorous abuse that is the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, April 8, 1914 • Various

... it is really schoolboy humour belatedly prolonged. Vituperation is the schoolboy's idea of friendly banter. The schoolboy does not so much consider the feelings of his victim as his companions' need for amusement. But I am sure that the tendency nowadays is, somehow or other, to prolong the hobbledehoy days. There is so much ...
— The Silent Isle • Arthur Christopher Benson

... no longer reported speeches as delivered. They were revised and raised to greater powers of vituperation and abuse. Instead of a convincing, logical speech, their champion hurled a "torrent of scathing denunciation," "withering ...
— The Man in Gray • Thomas Dixon

... yarns of the Republics of antiquity, and of the greatness of Paris, and the glories of the United States. He was getting on famously with Castilian, and was charmed with the redundancy of its vocabulary of vituperation, which was only to be equalled by the Irish, of which his father had been such a master. I made Barbarossa and my old chum known to one another, and we dined together, pledging the past in a cup of wine tempered with the living waters which bubbled up in the sacristy of the parish church, and ...
— Romantic Spain - A Record of Personal Experiences (Vol. II) • John Augustus O'Shea

... towns and castles. The tradition is that all day long, and part of the night, the two women screamed abuse at each other from their several towers, and desisted only for their meals, their devotions, and necessary sleep. Folk passing along the highway would halt and listen to the yelling and vituperation of the two shrews. Each had her own chapel at the foot of the cliffs, in which each ostentatiously followed the rite of which she approved; and to this day the chapels remain. According to the local story, the cries ...
— Castles and Cave Dwellings of Europe • Sabine Baring-Gould

... hoarse and raucous when he was angry—there came the soft hissing and clicking of their sobs. Sometimes his fierce taunts would bring some reply from the Empress, some gentle reproof to him for his gallantries, but each remonstrance only excited him to a fresh rush of vituperation. In one of his outbursts he threw his snuff-box with a crash upon the floor as a spoiled child would hurl ...
— Uncle Bernac - A Memory of the Empire • Arthur Conan Doyle

... sympathy, from its vigorous attack upon the critics who had hitherto assumed the prerogative of attack. Jeffrey and Brougham were seethed in their own milk; and outsiders, whose credentials were still being examined, as Moore and Campbell, came in for their share of vigorous vituperation. The Lakers fared worst of all. It was the beginning of the author's life-long war, only once relaxed, with Southey. Wordsworth—though against this passage is written "unjust," a concession not much sooner made than ...
— Byron • John Nichol

... many hands! That's the way those unfeeling ruffians increase our poor-rates! But I 'll get up a riot against him, I will! Don't talk to me of the law! What the devil is the good of the law if it don't protect a man's industry,—a liberal man, too, like me!" Here Dick burst into a storm of vituperation against the rotten old country in general, and Mr. Dyce, the monster capitalist ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... everyone else's success, and had a peculiar, personal loathing of the impressionists; for he looked upon his own failure as due to the mad fashion which had attracted the public, sale bete, to their works. The genial disdain of Michel Rollin, who called them impostors, was answered by him with vituperation, of which crapule and canaille were the least violent items; he amused himself with abuse of their private lives, and with sardonic humour, with blasphemous and obscene detail, attacked the legitimacy ...
— Of Human Bondage • W. Somerset Maugham

... under Clerical rule. The Bavarian phlegmatic temperament craves constant stimulation; the political strife, in which there is no embittered fanaticism, but which in all good nature sways backward and forward, is an indispensable condition of the national life. Combativeness and the lust of vituperation are in the blood of the Bavarian people; it is all one, whether we look for them in a riotous kirmess or in blunt ridicule, in the poetic improvisations of which the quick-witted peasants, being especially gifted ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries - Masterpieces of German Literature Vol. 19 • Various

... as when I read ultra anti-slavery speeches. I see how the lost will hate God's mysterious providence, and revile it; and how they will fight with each other, and pour out their furious invective and sarcasm and vituperation, and scourge one another with their fiery tongues, as they now do, when some one of the party appears to falter. If there were not something truly good in connection with slavery amid all its evils, I think such men ...
— The Sable Cloud - A Southern Tale With Northern Comments (1861) • Nehemiah Adams

... of me. In such moments I would seize the blade of the paper-knife, and use the blood of the beet-root, drape myself in the classical folds of the bed-sheet, and go for the Tyrant, hissing fearful hexameters of scorn and vituperation into his ears, and usually winding up with a pose so magnificently triumphant that it would bring down any house which was not of the most ...
— In Bohemia with Du Maurier - The First Of A Series Of Reminiscences • Felix Moscheles

... was instant. From one old gullet, then from others, came choking, snarling sounds which presently became words. By those words Kirby heard himself cursed with a vituperation which made him, even in his temporary ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, December 1930 • Various

... Their abstract idea of God, their peculiar religious observances, their refusal to intermarry with their neighbors, their serious habits of life—all have served to mark them out and attract the wonder of the philosophical, the vituperation of the vulgar, and the dislike of the ignorant. Their enemies in every epoch have repeated with slight variation the charge which Haman brought in his petition to King Ahasuerus, "There is a people scattered abroad and dispersed among the peoples in all the provinces of thy kingdom; and their ...
— Josephus • Norman Bentwich

... the sum thus saved, there has been a dispute which has given rise to some most amusing literary vituperation. The care with which MSS. have been read now enables us to suppose that it was ten hundred thousand sesterces—thus expressed, "H.S.X."—amounting to something over L8000. We hear elsewhere, as will be mentioned again, ...
— The Life of Cicero - Volume II. • Anthony Trollope

... spirit of this passage we have at present nothing to say. The sudden transition from the apostle's "words of blessing and benediction," to Mr. Sumner's words of railing and vituperation, we shall pass by unnoticed. Upon these the reader may make his own comments. It is our object simply to comment on the words of the great apostle. And, in the first place, we venture to suggest that there are several very serious difficulties ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various

... Such vituperation of saints and sacred images may be heard to this day in Italy, and is a common feature of idol-worship in all lands; for, however the invocation of the saints could be vitalized in the hearts of the few spiritual, there is ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IX., March, 1862., No. LIII. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics, • Various

... alluded to again and again. What Jonson really did, was to raise the dramatic lampoon to an art, and make out of a casual burlesque and bit of mimicry a dramatic satire of literary pretensions and permanency. With the arrogant attitude mentioned above and his uncommon eloquence in scorn, vituperation, and invective, it is no wonder that Jonson soon involved himself in literary and even personal quarrels with his fellow-authors. The circumstances of the origin of this 'poetomachia' are far from clear, and those who have written on the topic, ...
— Epicoene - Or, The Silent Woman • Ben Jonson

... equivocal praise was the favourite weapon in the armoury of each, though it certainly appears to have been tempered, and sharpened, and polished with additional care for the hand of Junius? When did Francis ever deal in compliment or in equivoque? In his vituperation there was always more of fury than of malice: but Junius and Walpole were cruel. Madame du Deffand says to the latter, "Votre plume est de fer tremp'e dans de fiel." I have sometimes thought that clever old woman either knew or suspected ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole

... giving an excellent imitation of the bullying methods of his idol. This was an opportunity to win fame, he argued, and he gave full play to the little wit he possessed and ample licence to his undeniable powers of vituperation and blasphemy. ...
— The Brown Mask • Percy J. Brebner

... to martyrdom was too grotesque. Eileen burst into a peal of laughter, which was taken by her mother as a tribute to her lively vituperation. Decidedly, life was deliciously odd. Suddenly she remembered her posted letter to Doherty, and ...
— The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes • Israel Zangwill

... she went by her maiden name, she was a married woman, being the wife of Stephen Foster, a professional Abolitionist agitator and lecturer. Although himself noted for the bitterness of his speech, when it came to hard-hitting vituperation he could not begin to "hold a candle" to ...
— The Abolitionists - Together With Personal Memories Of The Struggle For Human Rights • John F. Hume

... fellow gets together an upper-class audience, gives long thought to his preparations, writes down his slanders in a thick notebook, and uplifts his voice in vituperation of Plato, Pythagoras, Aristotle, Chrysippus, and in short all of us; he cannot plead holiday time, nor yet any private grievance; he might perhaps be forgiven if he had done it in self-defence; but it was he that opened hostilities. Worst of all, Philosophy, he shelters ...
— Works, V1 • Lucian of Samosata

... offensive to his fellow-men. "The Senator so conducts himself," said Fessenden, a Republican, and to a great extent an ally, "that he has no friends." He had a peculiar command of the language of insult and vituperation that was all the more infuriating because obviously the product not of sudden temper, but of careful and scholarly preparation. In all matters requiring practical action he was handicapped by an incapacity for understanding men; in matters requiring mental lucidity by an incapacity for following ...
— A History of the United States • Cecil Chesterton

... your mind! Suppose you let up on vituperation and do a bit of explaining. What has Carly done to ...
— The Come Back • Carolyn Wells

... In bitter words the presiding consul refused to put Calidius's proposal to a vote, and then, turning directly upon his colleague before the face of the whole multitude, he poured out reproof and vituperation. Marcellus turned red and then black in the face with rage. Drusus's heart was beating rapidly with hope. So long as the consuls were at enmity, little would be done! Suddenly Scipio started as if to leave the assembly. "He's going to call in Pompeius's cohorts!" ...
— A Friend of Caesar - A Tale of the Fall of the Roman Republic. Time, 50-47 B.C. • William Stearns Davis

... lady whom he had secretly married. This suspension was much owing to his having incurred the anger of the Dominican Friars, whom he had attacked in his writings. We are told that he was esteemed more fit for the stage than the pulpit. The humour of Skelton consists principally of severe personal vituperation. In "Colyn Cloute" he assailed the clergy generally, but he wrote personal attacks on Garnesche (a courtier), and on Wolsey. The Cardinal had been his patron at one time, and Skelton had dedicated poems to him, among them ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 1 (of 2) - With an Introduction upon Ancient Humour • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange

... words were barely audible in the storm of applause that swept through the assembly, and the vote of urgency for the motion to provide the necessary war-funds was demanded with enthusiastic outcries, varied by angry vituperation of the few deputies who stood up to oppose it. But Thiers immediately arose and, in spite of many disorderly interruptions, made a passionate appeal to the assembly to reflect before precipitating the country ...
— Studies in Literature and History • Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall

... noiselessly to the open window with the intention of looking in. But the school-house, far from exhibiting that "kam" and studious abstraction which had so touched the savage breast of McKinstry, was filled with the accents of youthful and unrestrained vituperation. The voice of Rupert Filgee came sharply to ...
— Cressy • Bret Harte

... voices, with much earnestness. It is rare for the disputants to be injured in these questions. Their language on these occasions is, I am told, extremely rich in allusions. It would often make a gendarme blush. Their oaths are more ornate than the Italians'; the art of vituperation is far advanced in China. A strong wind was blowing in our faces. We rested at some mud hovels where poverty was stalking about with a stick in rags and nakedness. Full dress of many of these beggars would disgrace a Polynesian. Even the better dressed were hung with garments ...
— An Australian in China - Being the Narrative of a Quiet Journey Across China to Burma • George Ernest Morrison

... your sister's part. And what is it all about? I've just written to her as civil a letter as one woman ever wrote to another. And if I had chosen, I could have,—could have,—h—m—m." Miss Stanbury, as she hesitated for words in which to complete her sentence, revelled in the strength of the vituperation which she could have poured upon her niece's head, had she chosen to write her last letter about Colonel Osborne ...
— He Knew He Was Right • Anthony Trollope

... says that sarcasm is vituperation softened in the outward expression by the arts and figures of disguise—epigram, innuendo, irony—and embellished with the figures of illustration. Crabb says that sarcasm is the indulgence only of personal resentment, and is ...
— The Verbalist • Thomas Embly Osmun, (AKA Alfred Ayres)

... out of bounds now, and by the bitterness of his vituperation he seemed to invite death. Dave interrupted his ...
— Heart of the Sunset • Rex Beach

... small. But there is a much larger number who take up opinions on trust,—and have concluded this must be a very pernicious and unjust enactment, for no other reason than because the others shout their disapprobation with such violence and vituperation." ...
— The Trial of Theodore Parker • Theodore Parker

... a terrible instance how strong a thing Art is; the grim old author, master of every form of ugly vituperation, had drifted miserably away from his beautiful youth, when he wrote the sweet poems and sonnets that make the pedestal for his fame; and on that delicate pedestal stands this hideous iron figure, with its angry ...
— The Thread of Gold • Arthur Christopher Benson

... struck at this pestilent art of the Renaissance. Destroy its claims to admiration there, and it can assert them nowhere else. This, therefore, will be the final purpose of the following essay. I shall not devote a fourth section to Palladio, nor weary the reader with successive chapters of vituperation; but I shall, in my account of the earlier architecture, compare the forms of all its leading features with those into which they were corrupted by the Classicalists; and pause, in the close, on the edge of the precipice of decline, so soon as I have made its depths discernible. In ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume I (of 3) • John Ruskin

... girl had gone upstairs a fearful tumult had arisen on the upper floors, whence also a vile smell descended. Some dispute, some battle, seemed to be in progress. There were shouts and howls, followed by a furious exchange of vituperation. ...
— Fruitfulness - Fecondite • Emile Zola

... notice of the painter's introduction of the Virago into his picture of the "Modern Midnight Conversation." No female figure appears in this subject. It is in the third plate of the "Rake's Progress" the woman alluded to is introduced. A small critic might here find a fit subject for vituperation, and loudly condemn Cunningham as a writer who was too idle to examine the works he was describing; pouncing on his minute errors, and forgetting the totality of his generous labors. Much of this spirit infests literature; and merges the kindly ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various

... lucid and clear. But all was unavailing. He was assailed by the Government party in language such as is rarely to be met with in the annals of Parliamentary debate in this country. Mr. Attorney-General Robinson went beyond any former effort of his life in the way of vituperation, and overleapt the bounds of the commonest decency. He proclaimed himself to be the son of a United Empire Loyalist who had fought and bled for his country, and as therefore being no fit company for runaway felons and pickpockets. His sympathy with himself was so great ...
— The Story of the Upper Canada Rebellion, Volume 1 • John Charles Dent

... the time: I must do it;" and rising, put off his hat to address the house. At first his language was decorous and even laudatory. Gradually he became more warm and animated: at last he assumed all the vehemence of passion, and indulged in personal vituperation. He charged the members with self-seeking and profaneness; with the frequent ...
— The History of England from the First Invasion by the Romans - to the Accession of King George the Fifth - Volume 8 • John Lingard and Hilaire Belloc

... her parcels and placed them in her basket. Without waiting to hear her thanks, he lifted his hat and was turning away as if all had been a trifle, when he was confronted by the enraged expressman pouring forth volleys of vituperation. With a chivalric impulse the girl drew nearer the stranger, who looked the bully steadily in the eyes while he kept his hands in his pockets. The man made a gesture as if to strike. Instantly the young fellow's left arm was up in ...
— The Earth Trembled • E.P. Roe



Words linked to "Vituperation" :   insult, abuse, vituperate, vitriol



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