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Damning   /dˈæmɪŋ/   Listen
Damning

adjective
1.
Threatening with damnation.  Synonym: damnatory.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Damning" Quotes from Famous Books



... his pocket. Oh, my friends and fellow- countrymen, the down-trodden operatives of Coketown, oh, my fellow- brothers and fellow-workmen and fellow-citizens and fellowmen, what a to-do was there, when Slackbridge unfolded what he called 'that damning document,' and held it up to the gaze, and for the execration of the working-man community! 'Oh, my fellow-men, behold of what a traitor in the camp of those great spirits who are enrolled upon the holy scroll of Justice ...
— Hard Times • Charles Dickens*

... personages have left the Gipsies in a more pitiable condition than they were before they took up their cause, although they, in doing so, put "two faces under one hat," blessing and cursing, smiling and frowning, all in one breath, praising their faults and sins, and damning their few virtues. In fact, to such a degree have fiction writers painted the black side of a Gipsy's life, habits, and character in glowing colours that, to take another 20,000 men, women, and children out of our back slums and sink-gutters ...
— Gipsy Life - being an account of our Gipsies and their children • George Smith

... clashing against each other in a complexity and agglomeration of horrors, was shooting her darts of fire and venom all around him. Even such was Milton; yea, and such, in spite of all that has been babbled by his critics in pretended excuse for his damning, because for them too profound, excellencies,—such was Shakspeare. But alas! the exceptions prove the rule. For who will dare to force his way out of the crowd,—not of the mere vulgar,—but of the vain and banded aristocracy of intellect, ...
— Literary Remains, Vol. 2 • Coleridge

... instruments of death, resembling those used in my youth, by cavaliers that rode in the levies of the first Charles, and of his pusillanimous father. There were worldly pride and great vanity, with much and damning ungodliness, in the wars that I have seen, my children; and yet the carnal man found pleasure in the stirrings of those graceless days! Come hither, younker; thou hast often sought to know the manner in which the horsemen are wont to lead into ...
— The Wept of Wish-Ton-Wish • James Fenimore Cooper

... the mate of the Margaret Quail, restrained by no consideration of cloth, swearing and damning right and left, in a towering rage at the cowardice ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 4 • Charles Dudley Warner

... with the evil precedent of Colonel Napier's History of the Peninsular War. It is a specimen of the true French military school; not a thought for the justice of the war,—not a consideration of the damnable and damning iniquity of the French invasion. All is looked at as a mere game of exquisite skill, and the praise is regularly awarded to the most successful player. How perfectly ridiculous is the prostration of Napier's mind, apparently a powerful one, before the name of Buonaparte! I declare ...
— Specimens of the Table Talk of S.T.Coleridge • Coleridge

... have proof," she answered, "indirect but damning enough. This man has sometimes forwarded and collected for me letters from connections of mine in Germany. He handed me one to-night from a distant cousin. You know him by name General Geroldberg. The first two pages ...
— The Devil's Paw • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... against you," he said at last; "and damning evidence, too!" he added with a glance at his son that seemed to pulverise him. "Terrible evidence! Consider, Charles: the magistrates have decided, as a result of their investigations, that no one got into the chateau on the fatal night; you were ...
— Fantomas • Pierre Souvestre

... that their relations with the White House and the Treasury were not confidential. No one volunteered advice. No one offered suggestion. One got no light, even from the press, although press agents expressed in private the most damning convictions with their usual cynical frankness. The Congressional Committee took a quantity of evidence which it dared not probe, and refused to analyze. Although the fault lay somewhere on the Administration, and could lie nowhere else, the trail always faded and died out at ...
— The Education of Henry Adams • Henry Adams

... Shaw, between Maria Edgeworth and Miss Barlow. But serious art or serious thought in Ireland has always revealed itself to the English sooner or later as a species of sedition, and the Irish have with culpable folly allowed themselves to accept for characteristic excellences what were really the damning defects of their work—an easy fluency of wit, a careless spontaneity of laughter. They have taken Moore for a great poet, and Handy Andy for a humorist to be proud of. Yet an Irishman who wishes to speak dispassionately ...
— Irish Books and Irish People • Stephen Gwynn

... line of transgression, beyond the bounds of forgiveness, the leaders of that party, who put Mr. Strong up for Governor, have attained it. These things I gather from the papers, and from the history of the day, as I have collected them since my return home. And to all this must be added the damning fact of Te Deums, orations, toasts, and processions of the clergy, and the judges, with all the leaders of the federal, or opposition party, in celebration of the success of the Spaniards in restoring ...
— A Journal of a Young Man of Massachusetts, 2nd ed. • Benjamin Waterhouse

... merrily told them, if they were ground-landlords, he hoped if they built tenements upon the land and made improvements, they would, according to the custom of all landlords, grant them a long lease; and bid them go fetch a scrivener to draw the writings. One of the three, damning and raging, told them they should see they were not in jest; and going to a little place at a distance, where the honest men had made a fire to dress their victuals, he takes a firebrand and claps it to the outside of their hut, and very fairly set it on fire; and it would ...
— The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe (1808) • Daniel Defoe

... the Weepers, and a hundred others, all of distinct parties, persecuting when strong, tolerant when weak, hating each other in the name of the God of peace, forming such an exclusive heaven in a religion of universal charity, damning each other to pains without end in a future state, and realizing in this world the imaginary hell ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster

... discomfortably glaring; the outcome of his unsurpassable literary faculty is often no more than a parade or triumph of the vocables; there were times when his brain appears to have become a mere machine for the production of antitheses and sterile conceits. What is perhaps more damning than all, his work is saturate in his own remarkable personality, and is objective only here and there. His dramas are but five-act lyrics, his epics the romance of an egoist, his history is confession, his criticism the opinions of Victor Hugo. Even his lyrics, the 'fine flower' of his genius, ...
— Views and Reviews - Essays in appreciation • William Ernest Henley

... staggers me. What a wonderful case of the Epacridae! It is most vexatious, also humiliating, to me that I cannot follow and subscribe to the way in which you strikingly put your view of the case. I look at your facts (about Eucalyptus, etc.) as DAMNING against continental extension, and if you like also damning against migration, or at least of ENORMOUS difficulty. I see the ground of our difference (in a letter I must put myself on an equality in arguing) lies, in my opinion, that scarcely anything ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume I • Francis Darwin

... puppets—in a word, for the most ordinary and conventional purposes of the romantic novelist. Nor is this the only instance of such psychological obtuseness in his work. That, in spite of this initial and damning defect, he does succeed in producing a fine novel, is but one more proof of the amazing fecundity of his genius. None the less does the fact remain that it is a novel, so to speak, without a soul—that, so far from being of the essence of the Covenant, the Burleys, Mucklewraths, Mauses and Macbrairs ...
— Ringan Gilhaize - or The Covenanters • John Galt

... removed, though he's no more my lord, May plead at bar, or at the council-board: So may cast poets write; there's no pretension To argue loss of wit, from loss of pension. Your looks are chearful; and in all this place I see not one that wears a damning face. The British nation is too brave, to show Ignoble vengeance on a vanquished foe. At last be civil to the wretch imploring; And lay your paws upon him, without roaring. Suppose our poet was your foe before, Yet now, the business of the field is o'er; 'Tis time to let your civil ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Vol. 7 (of 18) - The Duke of Guise; Albion and Albanius; Don Sebastian • John Dryden

... flock from these burly shepherds of souls—this outbreak of a devilish spirit—this crusade against law and order, tolls and tithes, life and property, is a damning evidence against these spiritual pastors and masters, for such they are to the great body of the Welsh common people, in the fullest sense. The Times newspaper has ruffled the whole "Volscian" camp of Dissent, it appears, by thundering forth against ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 54, No. 338, December 1843 • Various

... arranged in his mind the damning, if circumstantial, evidence he had accumulated, he awaited the hour with confidence, for his nature was not lacking in the cock-surety of a Briton. All the same, he dressed himself particularly well that morning, putting on a blue and white striped waistcoat which, ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... who had been waiting outside, that everything was going smoothly and he could go back to the station. Returning to his chair, Morgan took up the subject of the clues he had discovered in the apartment. After recounting his discovery of the cuff button, he added, "and that was one of the most damning pieces of evidence which I had against you, Marsh—the letter—"M" on that ...
— The Sheridan Road Mystery • Paul Thorne

... unaccustomed silence prevailed, and then it was noticed that the frog was distended to a degree which must have caused it infinite satisfaction, while the canary had vanished. The conclusion was obvious and damning. Being accustomed to post mortems, my friend settled the point forthwith, the warm canary being revealed, with but ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield

... the prospect of watching how you bear this hunting through life, that never quite hunts you down; how long you resist the poison-influence, as slow as it is sure, of a crafty tongue that cannot be silenced, of a denouncing presence that cannot be fled, of a damning secret torn from you and exposed afresh each time you have hidden it—there is the promise of a nameless delight which it sometimes fevers, sometimes chills my blood to think of. Lying in this place at night, in those hours of darkness and stillness when ...
— Basil • Wilkie Collins

... quietly and wearily, "you are an exact reversal of the legend of Pandora's Box. You have all the charm and advantages that a boy could want to help him on in the world, and behind it all there is the fatal damning gift of ...
— The Unbearable Bassington • Saki

... will hold that there might be room to absolve you had you openly gone to save Almo in your full regalia and in your own carriage, or your own litter, with your lictor before you; but that while the fact of your being out of Rome all night in a litter is damning enough, the appearance of duplicity and underhanded secrecy given to the proceeding by your being disguised in another woman's clothing and carried in a borrowed litter makes ...
— The Unwilling Vestal • Edward Lucas White

... my dear boy," said old Mr. Cary, gently: "would it not be rank treason to let these foxes escape, while we have this damning proof against them?" ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley

... evidence that our great grandfathers looked upon mountains with aversion and horror. The poets of even the seventeenth century never tire of damning them in good, set terms. If they had had the unhappiness to read the opening lines of "The Pleasures of Hope," they would assuredly have thought Master Campbell had gone funny and should be shut up lest he do himself ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce • Ambrose Bierce

... alone. But with the evidence of those rebranded cattle, and the testimony of two men, together with the damning testimony of his past! Ward lifted his head and stared heavily at the pine slope before him. He could not go to Seabeck and tell him anything. In the black hour of that ride, he could not think of anything that he could do that would ...
— The Ranch at the Wolverine • B. M. Bower

... vulgar or the small; forgetting that approbation neither adds to virtue nor diminishes? Perhaps, and indeed I fear, my mind was warped. Yet surely the neglect and even odium in which the unobtruding man of genius is at present overwhelmed, is a damning accusation against the rich and ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft

... it. Would Miss Dalrymple think more leniently of him than mere unprejudiced people, those who knew less of him than she? His very presence on the yacht, although somewhat inexplicably complicated in recent occurrences, was per se a primal damning circumstance. But she spared him the necessity of answering. She divined now from his blackened features what his position on the yacht must be. He was only a ...
— A Man and His Money • Frederic Stewart Isham

... weeks ago, and was told the author was a friend of mine. But I remained hopelessly in the dark till yesterday. What do you say to Sir Philip Egerton coming out in that line? I am told he is the author, and the fact speaks volumes for Owen's perfect success in damning himself. ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 1 • Leonard Huxley

... damned the Pontifical See, And the same thing, they thought, would do nicely for P.; But he turned up his nose at their murmuring and shamming, And cared (shall I say) not a d—— for their damning. So they first read him out of their church, and next minute Turned round and declared he had never been in it. But the ban was too small, or the man was too big; For he recks not their bells, books, and candles a fig (He don't look like a man who would stay treated shabbily, Sophroniscus' ...
— Home Life of Great Authors • Hattie Tyng Griswold

... "The damning brand of the magnate is on me, and employers are warned against me. And all because I possess a conscience that would not stoop to crime. I have stood out against retaliating as long as I can. Now my vow is given to be avenged ...
— The Transgressors - Story of a Great Sin • Francis A. Adams

... corporal raised his huge shoulders, as much as to say, "He is even worse than you think him," was very violent against Snarleyyow, whom the corporal, aware that it was no mutiny, made no ceremony in "damning in ...
— Snarley-yow - or The Dog Fiend • Frederick Marryat

... but as for Maitland, he deemed it no laughing matter. From that moment his perception was clear that, whatever she might claim to be, however damning the circumstances in which she appeared to him, there was ...
— The Brass Bowl • Louis Joseph Vance

... time I bought the place, and I was ready, if he wished, to give them up to be tortured, thinking that this would be the strongest test of his assertions and of the facts. 35. But he would not take them, saying that there was no trusting slaves. It seems to me strange that slaves when tortured make damning statements about themselves, knowing well that it will kill them, but prefer to be tortured than to inform on their masters to whom they are naturally ill-disposed, when by doing so they could free themselves. 36. If Nicomachus had asked ...
— The Orations of Lysias • Lysias

... calf, Leviatt had known that the stray-man suspected him of being leagued with the rustlers. But this knowledge had not disturbed him. He felt secure because of his position. Even the stray-man would have to have absolute, damning evidence before he could hope to be successful in proving a range ...
— The Two-Gun Man • Charles Alden Seltzer

... for the closing of the case had wrought in the old lawyer an instant metamorphosis. With the words "The defense rests" every suggestion of the mountebank, the actor or the shyster had vanished. The awful responsibility under which he labored; the overwhelming and damning evidence against his client; the terrible consequences of the least mistake that he might make; the fact that only the sword of his ability, and his alone, stood between Angelo and a hideous death by fire in the electric ...
— Tutt and Mr. Tutt • Arthur Train

... extricate thee, may I have to go to the bottom of the ice.'" The poet of course knows that he must go thither to continue his journey to Purgatory, but the reprobate soul is unaware of such a course, and believes that the visitor has fortified his promise with a true oath. Both his name and the damning story of his life are soon told by the poor wretch, who then asks Dante for the fulfillment of the promise—the removal of the ice so that sight may be restored even for a minute. "'Open my eyes' he said—but I opened them not, to be rude to him was courtesy" (Inf., XXXIII, 148.) ...
— Dante: "The Central Man of All the World" • John T. Slattery

... was whistling Lillabullero to my father,—Dr. Slop was stamping, and cursing and damning at Obadiah at a most dreadful rate,—it would have done your heart good, and cured you, Sir, for ever of the vile sin of swearing, to have heard him, I am determined therefore to relate the whole affair ...
— The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman • Laurence Sterne

... he was upwards of fourscore years, continually taught this by his constant text, 'Little children, love one another?' Let us allow men to judge us by our works. The labour of Protestantism will not be accomplished by the pharisaical mode of priding ourselves on our faith, and damning that of every one else! Our mission is to preach the Gospel pure and simple. Too much time, too much money, too much of true religion is wasted, in our common custom of trying to proselytise others! We should look at home ...
— She and I, Volume 1 • John Conroy Hutcheson

... wouldn't keep speaking of Arthur with that damning kind of phrase. It was because she wanted to convince him that Arthur didn't really merit it that she went further in speech than ...
— Missy • Dana Gatlin

... case of whites; and on the other hand they will frequently reject, or at least discredit, testimony of the Negro against the white man, however well supported it may be. But to compound for sins we are inclined to by damning those we have no mind to, in case of any difficulty between white and black, and the former is injured or loses his life, lucky is the latter if the homicide is not declared murder—when courts of justice, though sure to inflict the highest penalty in his ...
— A Review of Hoffman's Race Traits and Tendencies of the American Negro - The American Negro Academy. Occasional Papers No. 1 • Kelly Miller

... grew, the more they were incredible. That Captain Branscome, of all men in the world, should be guilty of such a crime! And yet, with this damning evidence in my hand, I could not but recall a dozen trifles—mere straws, to be sure—all pointing towards him. He had been here in my father's garden: that I might take as proven. With what object? And if that object were an innocent one, why had he not told me of his intention to visit ...
— Poison Island • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)

... gently into a deep murmur. This episode was the sensation of the second day's proceedings—affecting all the audience, affecting everybody except Jim, who was sitting moodily at the end of the first bench, and never looked up at this extraordinary and damning witness that seemed possessed of ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad

... all these hours that she had been sitting there, brushed before her in a synthesis of thought, replacing the stream of impressions and images. The crushing accumulation of hostile evidence—witness after witness coming forward to add to the damning weight of it; the awful weakness of the defence—Wharton's irritation under it—the sharpness, the useless, acrid ability of his cross-examinations; yet, contrasting with the legal failure, the personal success, the mixture of grace with energy, the technical accomplishment ...
— Marcella • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... opponent of the rhyming plays. Those of the Howards, of Davenant, and others, the first which appeared after the Reformation, experienced his opposition. At the representation of the "United Kingdoms," by the Honourable Edward Howard, a brother of Sir Robert, the Duke's active share in damning the piece was so far resented by the author and his friends that he narrowly escaped sanguinary proofs of their displeasure.[7] This specimen of irritation did not prevent his meditating an attack upon the whole body of modern dramatists; in which he had the assistance of several wits, ...
— The Dramatic Works of John Dryden Vol. I. - With a Life of the Author • Sir Walter Scott

... This disproved the assertion that Clodius had loitered on his way back to Rome till the growing darkness gave him an opportunity of attacking his adversaries. Then it came out that Milo had had in his retinue, besides the women and boys, a number of fighting men. Finally there was the damning fact, established, it would seem, by competent witnesses, that Clodius had been dragged from his hiding-place and put to death. Cicero too lost his presence of mind. The sight of the city, in which all the shops were shut ...
— Roman life in the days of Cicero • Alfred J[ohn] Church

... at the bottom of every secret of both governments. They had the folly to let you know, obliquely, that he had been sent for by Mr. Hastings, but they conceal the information obtained from him: a silence more damning than any positive evidence could be. You have here a proof of their practice of producing such evidence only as they thought most favorable to their wicked purposes, in the destruction of this great ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. XII. (of XII.) • Edmund Burke

... that his deed had robbed him of a home and of a name, Hurling on his orphan son the damning heritage of shame: Life and lands by law were forfeit; he had driven his offspring forth, Rudely, ruthlessly, to wander, one of the ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII No. 1 January 1848 • Various

... doubt this patience, when the world is damning us, Is philosophic in our former friends; 'T is also pleasant to be deemed magnanimous, The more so in obtaining our own ends; And what the lawyers call a "malus animus" Conduct like this by no means comprehends: Revenge in person's certainly no virtue, But ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron

... scarcely affects their disappointment. These dream-lovers of theirs, these monsters of unselfishness and devotion, these tall fair Donovans and dark worshipping Wanderers! And then comes the rabble rout of us poor human men, damning at our breakfasts, wiping pens upon our coat sleeves, smelling of pipes, fearing our editors, and turning Euphemia's private boxes into public copy. And they take it so steadfastly—most of them. They never let us see the romance we have robbed them of, but turn to and make the best of it—and ...
— Certain Personal Matters • H. G. Wells

... softened as she spoke of him, dear as her own first-born. "Jack bueno, mebbyso Gene bueno, mebbyso Clark, mebbyso Donny all time bueno." Doubt was in her voice when she praised those last two, however, because of their continual teasing. She stopped short to emphasize the damning contrast. "Good Injun all same mebbyso yo' boy Grant, hee-ee-eap kay bueno. Good Injun Grant ...
— Good Indian • B. M. Bower

... and his warehouse Picthatch. Takes up single testons upon oath, till doomsday. Falls under executions of three shillings, and enters into five-groat bonds. He waylays the reports of services, and cons them without book, damning himself he came new from them, when all the while he was taking the diet in the bawdy-house, or lay pawned in his chamber for rent and victuals. He is of that admirable and happy memory, that he will salute one for an old acquaintance that he never saw in his life before. ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various

... question, in Pym's words, resolves itself into how the solemn little devil got to know so much about women. It made the world marvel when they learned his age, but no one was quite so staggered as Pym, who had seen him daily for all those years, and been damning him for his indifference to the sex during the greater ...
— Tommy and Grizel • J.M. Barrie

... the present year the Cavaliere Gennarelli, a Roman barrister, and a member of the Roman parliament in 1848, has published a series of official documents issued by the Papal authorities during the last ten years; the most damning indictment, by the way, that was ever recorded against a Government. Amongst those documents there appears the official sentence which, as usual, was published after the execution of a certain Romulo Salvatori in 1851. The trial possesses ...
— Rome in 1860 • Edward Dicey

... the summer of 1916 he had been sent to a punishment work camp near Windau in Courland. I had already heard unsavoury rumours of this camp while I was in Germany, of men forced to toil until they dropped in their tracks, of an Englishman shot simply because his guard was in bad temper. But the most damning arraignment of Windau came from a young Saxon medical student, who told me that after he had qualified, for a commission as second lieutenant he declined to accept it. This was such an unusual occurrence in a country where the army officer is a semi-deity that I was naturally ...
— The Land of Deepening Shadow - Germany-at-War • D. Thomas Curtin

... sympathy was unreturned; in their eyes I was a creature light as air; and they would scarce spare me the time for a perfunctory caress or perhaps a hasty lap of the wet tongue, ere they were back again in sedulous attendance on those dingy deities, their masters- -and their masters, as like as not, damning their stupidity. ...
— St Ives • Robert Louis Stevenson

... exclusive and provincial.' He might 'gabble most brutishly' and yet not fall under the letter of the definition; but 'his speech bewrayeth him,' his dialect (like the jargon of a Bond Street lounger) is the damning circumstance. If he were a mere blockhead, it would not signify; but he thinks himself a knowing hand, according to the notions and practices of those with whom he was brought up, and which he thinks the go everywhere. In a word, this character is not the offspring of untutored ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt

... the Dissenters, breaks out into the following rhapsody:—"No man of common sense and common integrity can deny that Bunyan was a practical atheist, a worthless contemptible infidel, a vile rebel to God and goodness, a common profligate, a soul-despising, a soul-murdering, a soul-damning, thoughtless wretch as could exist on the face of the earth. Now be astonished, O heavens, to eternity! and wonder, O earth and hell! while time endures. Behold this very man become a miracle of mercy, a mirror ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 3. (of 4) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... Mentally damning poor, dear Mr. Smith and his friend, as well as the whole race of coal-dealers, Carron watched Brigit as she talked to Theo and her other neighbour, Pat Yelverton, who watched her in quite ...
— The Halo • Bettina von Hutten

... No more damning document for Austria can be imagined than Prince Lichnowsky's Memorandum. He denounces Austria's hypocritical support of the independence of Albania. In this respect he holds similar views to those expressed in the Austrian delegations of 1913 by Professor Masaryk, ...
— Independent Bohemia • Vladimir Nosek

... King of Bells, dropping this habit when he found that every soul there disliked him. Perhaps some discharged veteran of the 4th, tramping through Gantick in search of work, had recognised him and let fall a damning hint. Long before I can remember the story had grown up uncontradicted, believed in by everyone. Beneath it the man lived on and deteriorated; but his workmanship never deteriorated, and no ...
— The Laird's Luck • Arthur Quiller-Couch

... he had indulged. He was as simple in his garrulous chatter of glory and distinction as a half-fool. His warped mind ran only on the spectacular end that he had planned for himself, and the speech from the gallows that was to be the black, damning seal at the end ...
— The Rustler of Wind River • G. W. Ogden

... Colonel Starbottle thoroughly appreciated the convincing proof of Tretherick's unfaithfulness and malignity afforded by the damning evidence of the existence of Tretherick's own child in his own house. He was dimly aware, however, of some unforeseen obstacle to the perfect expression of the infinite longing of his own sentimental nature. But, before he could say anything, Carry appeared on the landing ...
— Selected Stories • Bret Harte

... in groups and scattered fours, and one by one, his heavy-breathing troopers followed, cursing the order that had sent them abroad with-out their horses, damning—as none but a dismounted cavalryman can damn—the earth's unevenness, their swords, their luck, their priests, the night, their boots, and Jaimihr. Forewarned, Alwa held on down the pitch-dark side street, ...
— Rung Ho! • Talbot Mundy

... classes, energy and intelligence found an outlet in the religious life and created a multitude of religious societies. Even to-day Hinduism has no one creed or code and those who take a serious interest in religion are not merely Hindus but follow some sect which, without damning what it does not adopt, selects its own dogmas and observances. This is not sectarianism in the sense of schism. It is merely the desire to have for oneself some personal, intimate religious life. Even in so uncompromising and levelling a creed as Islam the devout often ...
— Hinduism and Buddhism, Vol I. (of 3) - An Historical Sketch • Charles Eliot

... governor's power had been used against them. He was convinced that Warden, Jordan, Simmons, and the others were employing their talents against him with the secret approval of the governor; but until he secured absolute, damning evidence he dared ...
— The Trail Horde • Charles Alden Seltzer

... attended by his staff, and his guard of light horse, set off for Wills' Creek by the way of Winchester, the road along the north side of the Potomac not being yet made. "This gave him," writes Washington, "a good opportunity to see the absurdity of the route, and of damning it very heartily." [Footnote: Draft of a letter, among Washington's papers, addressed to Major ...
— The Life of George Washington, Volume I • Washington Irving

... SIN OF HEROD.—Do these same white-walled sepulchres of hell know that they are committing the damning sin of Herod in the slaughter of the innocents, and are accessories before the fact to the crime of murder? Do women in all circles of society, when practicing these terrible crimes realize the real danger? Do they understand that it is undermining their health, and their constitution, ...
— Searchlights on Health - The Science of Eugenics • B. G. Jefferis and J. L. Nichols

... bit right, my dear. He does—just what the man says in the rhymes—what is it? you know—makes up for his own little peccadilloes by damning yours and mine. I forget how it goes. But there'll be more in by-and-by, and then we'll have another table. Those who come late will be more in your line; not so ready to peck your eyes out if you happen to forget a card. That Miss Ruff is dreadful." Here an awful note ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope

... reasons for this unexampled unity against the government was the wide-spread conviction, based, as we have seen, upon the most damning evidence, that Premier Sturmer and his Cabinet were not loyal to the Allies and that they contemplated making a separate peace with Germany. All factions in the Duma were bitterly opposed to a separate peace. Rodzianko ...
— Bolshevism - The Enemy of Political and Industrial Democracy • John Spargo

... right. But what iniquity! To come between the Word of God and his rational creature! To interpose between the light of Heaven and the soul of man! To withhold the lamp of life from one-sixth of the entire population! Of all the damning features of American slavery, ...
— American Scenes, and Christian Slavery - A Recent Tour of Four Thousand Miles in the United States • Ebenezer Davies

... punishment still, for whoever commits an assault upon a stranger, is termed a robber; but whoever assaults a friend, is little better than a parricide!" "I am well aware," Eumolpus replied, to rebut this damning harangue, "that nothing can look blacker against these poor young men than their cutting off their hair at night. On this evidence, they would seem to have come aboard by accident, not voluntarily. Oh how ...
— The Satyricon, Complete • Petronius Arbiter

... done: He but pays the pain he suffers, Clipping, like a pair of Snuffers, Light that ought to burn the brighter For this temporary blighter. 70 He's the Cancer of his Species, And will eat himself to pieces,— Plague personified and Famine,— Devil, whose delight is damning.[582] For his merits—don't you know 'em?[ia] Once he ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron

... A cold damning resume of Inglesby's entire career made Eustis hesitate. A vivid picture of what the state might expect at Inglesby's hands roused him to just anger. Such as this fellow represent Carolina? Never! When Inglesby's name should be put up, Eustis ...
— Slippy McGee, Sometimes Known as the Butterfly Man • Marie Conway Oemler

... you would fain deny me now. I could not any longer bear the torturing suspense I endured: I wrote to you; your father answered the letter. Here, here I have it still: read! note well the cool, the damning insult of each line. I see that you knew not of this: I rejoice at it! Can you wonder that, on receiving it, I subjected myself no more to such affronts? I hastened abroad. On my return I met you. Where? In crowds, in the glitter ...
— The Disowned, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... the woman had induced the priest to take down the sworn statements of the two dying men, seal it, and give it to her. This paper she brought with her. All this I learned afterwards. At the time I knew nothing of this damning evidence. ...
— Stories by Modern American Authors • Julian Hawthorne

... 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 the wrong way. Nothing could show up more forcibly and vividly this human weakness for generalizing from insufficient data, than the incident in London streets which I promised to tell you ...
— A Straight Deal - or The Ancient Grudge • Owen Wister

... for his soothing. She could only watch with fascinated eyes as the Honorable Timothy reclaimed the note and wrote across it's damning face: "Miss Greene may come to. She ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume III. (of X.) • Various

... thought I should get back into Lloyd's, and I saw the foreman, and he told me to my face that I was too old, that they wanted younger men. And I went into the office to see Lloyd, pushed past the foreman, with him damning me, and ...
— The Portion of Labor • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman

... be explained by the condition of their horses. Every train of thought brings the critic back always to the great horse question, and encourages the conclusion that there, at all seasons of the war and in all scenes of it, is to be found the most damning indictment against British foresight, common-sense, and power of organisation. That the third year of the war should dawn without the British forces having yet got the legs of the Boers, after having penetrated ...
— The Great Boer War • Arthur Conan Doyle

... without going to the bank itself, had learned that the bank examiners had suddenly put in an appearance, had either discovered or deduced that something was wrong, and had realised that should Suviney's demand for money, or Suviney's blackmailing story become known, it would appear as damning evidence of a past record looming up to point suspicion toward him now. That was what he had meant by saying he needed ...
— The Further Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard

... been a rumour going about that some years ago—while the war was on, in fact—you wrote a very wonderful attack upon the trades unions. This attack was so bitter in tone, so damning in some of its facts, and, in short, such a wonderful production, that at the last moment the late Prime Minister used his influence with you to suspend its publication. It was held over, and in the meantime ...
— Nobody's Man • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... of damning in advance any evidence Esther might give. The man, on his own statement, knew nothing, had no prejudice for or against. He was merely voicing ...
— Juggernaut • Alice Campbell

... on the desk; he strode to it and snatched the music. "There," he hoarsely said, "there is damning proof that you have lied to me; there is the Ballade in F minor by Chopin, and who, in the name of Beelzebub, ...
— Melomaniacs • James Huneker

... deprecates the hasty voice of the pit in words that suggest the anxiety of a man now responsible for a happiness dearer than his own. "I have heard," he writes, "that there are some young Gentlemen about this Town who make a Jest of damning Plays—but did they seriously consider the Cruelty they are guilty of by such a Practice, I believe it would prevent them"; the more, that if the author be "so unfortunate to depend on the success of his Labours for his Bread, he must be an inhuman Creature ...
— Henry Fielding: A Memoir • G. M. Godden

... pocket-book, and began to turn over the leaves in search of the damning details, when Drake interrupted him. 'You don't expect me to ...
— The Philanderers • A.E.W. Mason

... per-capita output of gossip is a record that would stagger the census bureau. Still, you can't get away from the note, Craig. There it is, in Dixon's own handwriting, even if he does deny it: 'This will cure your headache. Dr. Dixon.' That's a damning piece of evidence." ...
— The Poisoned Pen • Arthur B. Reeve

... his story to so many credulous audiences that by this time it was well-nigh unrecognizable. As he repeated it now for Terry's benefit, the evidence against Radnor appeared conclusive. A full confession of guilt could scarcely have been more damning. ...
— The Four Pools Mystery • Jean Webster

... though impatient, peevish though devout, With wit disgusting, and despised without; Saints in design, in execution men, Peace in their looks, and vengeance in their pen. Methinks I see, and sicken at the sight, Spirits of spleen from yonder pile alight; Spirits who prompted every damning page, With pontiff pride and still-increasing rage: Lo! how they stretch their gloomy wings around, And lash with furious strokes the trembling ground! They pray, they fight, they murder, and they weep,- Wolves in their vengeance, in their manners sheep; Too well they act the prophet's ...
— The Library • George Crabbe

... [he writes] I am dining with a knot of honest, furious Federalists, who are damning all their opponents as a set of consummate scoundrels, panders of Bonaparte, etc. The next day I dine, perhaps, with some of the very men I have heard thus anathematized, and find them equally honest, warm, and indignant; ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner

... of stagecraft. Hippolytus, scandalized at Phaedra's avowal of her incestuous passion, seizes her by the hair and draws his sword as though to slay her. He changes his purpose, but the nurse has seen him and calls for aid, denouncing Hippolytus' violence and clearly intending to make use of it as damning evidence against him. But the chorus refuse to credit her, and the incident falls flat.[181] Everywhere there is the same casual workmanship. If we stop short of denying to Seneca the possession of any dramatic talent, it is at any rate hard to resist the ...
— Post-Augustan Poetry - From Seneca to Juvenal • H.E. Butler

... and the fear they were said to entertain of heavenly avengers. It was not so, at least, with him. He feared the laws of nature, lest, in their callous and immutable procedure, they should preserve some damning evidence of his crime. He feared tenfold more, with a slavish, superstitious terror, some scission in the continuity of man's experience, some wilful illegality of nature. He played a game of skill, depending on the rules, calculating consequence from cause; and what if nature, as ...
— The Short-story • William Patterson Atkinson

... old and approved lines. He had heard of Drew's religious views and he took this occasion to include a warning of the damning influence that was about to enter the vicinity with the ...
— Joyce of the North Woods • Harriet T. Comstock

... those two points allowed the clergy of any country whatsoever, they must necessarily govern that country absolutely; everything being, directly or indirectly, relative to faith or doctrine; and whoever is supposed to have the power of saving and damning souls to all eternity (which power the clergy pretend to), will be much more considered, and better obeyed, than any civil power that forms no pretensions beyond this world. Whereas, in truth, the clergy ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield

... Armagh—an office which might be considered as hereditary in his family, and to which his estate in that county gave him a kind of indefeasible right, is one instance of a number. It will ever be remembered as a damning proof of the foolish and wicked malignity of the Irish administration against the friends ...
— The Causes of the Rebellion in Ireland Disclosed • Anonymous

... almost fell out of the car in their anxiety not to miss a point, and George quite deliberately lingered on the cross-streets, so that the damning total might be increased. ...
— The Sturdy Oak - A Composite Novel of American Politics by Fourteen American Authors • Samuel Merwin, et al.

... damning him. I am damning myself for being such a fool. [Rising]. How could I let myself be taken in so? [She begins prowling to and fro, her bloom gone, looking curiously ...
— Heartbreak House • George Bernard Shaw

... course there were odd ten-pound notes here and there, but as a rule I just opened the door and fired the black-mailers out. The moment a fellow came in, and handed me his card, and said he had proofs of two kinds of articles in his pocket, one praising me, one damning me, I told him to go and see my advertising agent, and if he wouldn't do that, then to go to hell. That's the way you've got to talk in the City," he added, as ...
— The Market-Place • Harold Frederic

... pointed down at the wet sphagnum. Smith's foot-prints were there in damning contrast to her own. Worse than that, Smith's pipe lay on an embedded log, and a ...
— The Flaming Jewel • Robert W. Chambers

... hypocritically, self-righteous beneath his meekness, but Cally was prompt to pounce on it as a damning confession. She flashed a brilliant smile upon him, saying, "Ah, yes!—it's so much easier to preach ...
— V. V.'s Eyes • Henry Sydnor Harrison

... stranger ends. The "ordinary residence" of the threatened Irish landowners was in England, "to which country they were attached, not only by the ties of birth and early habit, but also by those of indisputable public duties," as though these facts did not constitute in themselves a damning satire on the system of Irish Government. They were to be "fined" for living in England, as though that fine were not the most just and politic which could be conceived, if it went even an inch towards establishing the principle that ...
— The Framework of Home Rule • Erskine Childers

... complaints of lack of money. Here I saw a bastard of the late King of Sweden's come to kiss his hands; a mighty modish French-like gentleman. Thence to White Hall, with Sir W. Batten and Sir W. Pen, to Wilkes's; and there did hear the many profane stories of Sir Henry Wood damning the parsons for so much spending the wine at the sacrament, cursing that ever they took the cup to themselves, and then another story that he valued not all the world's curses, for two pence he shall get at any time the prayers of some poor body that is worth a 1000 of all their curses; Lord ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys

... and draws his life thence. From heaven, therefore, through the good spirits, all the elements of saving goodness flow sweetly down and are appropriated by the freedom of the good man; while from hell, through the bad spirits, all the elements of damning evil flow foully up and are appropriated by the freedom of ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger

... said Tish. "Thirty-one tons, perhaps, of dynamite! And that's only part," said Tish. "Here's the most damning thing of all—a note to ...
— Tish, The Chronicle of Her Escapades and Excursions • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... the damning evidence of the rolled r's. Combined with the silvery fair hair and the determined little mouths and chins, it was irresistible. Clearly they were foreigners, and equally clearly they were not Italians, or Russians, or French. Within ...
— Christopher and Columbus • Countess Elizabeth Von Arnim

... Jones lives off Perkin's Road, Wandsworth Common, though he does keep a sitting-room in Berners Street just to see his clients in, and he is a very low-class person, even for a prophet. No, no, sir, Madame is quite right. She married me despite the damning—yes, I say, sir, the damning fact that I was a prophet—" here Malkiel the Second brought down one of the dogskin gloves with violence upon the rickety parlour table—"but before ever we went to the Registrar's she made ...
— The Prophet of Berkeley Square • Robert Hichens

... would behave in such a base way. To convince her Hope was forced to let her read the account in Mrs. Jasher's handwriting. When acquainted with the contents, the poor girl's first desire was to have the matter hushed up, and she implored her lover with tears to suppress the damning document. ...
— The Green Mummy • Fergus Hume

... insisted that her watch and the farmer's were not the same. The farmer, anxious to acknowledge his property, demanded the constable to deliver the watch, that it might be sworn to in open court; and when the constable put his hand to his pocket the only piece of damning evidence had vanished, stolen by the nimble fingers of one of ...
— A Book of Scoundrels • Charles Whibley

... delight—and the phrases he would pick up and remember, the most outlandish and impossible things! The first time that the little rascal burst out with "God damn," his father nearly rolled off the chair with glee; but in the end he was sorry for this, for Antanas was soon "God-damning" everything and everybody. ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair

... believed him, for I heard the voice of Le Gardeur in a distant room, amid a babble of tongues and the rattle of dice. I sent him a card with a few kind words, and received it back with an insult—deep and damning—scrawled upon it. It was not written, however, in the hand of Le Gardeur, although signed by his name. Read that, your Excellency," said he, throwing a card to the Count. "I will not repeat the foul expressions it contains. Tell Pierre Philibert what he should do to save his honor and save ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby

... intimidated and almost frightened; she lost color as she stood, agitatedly, shifting her weight from one foot to the other, and averting her eyes from the speaker. A thief caught in a felonious act would not have presented a more damning spectacle. ...
— The Son of Clemenceau • Alexandre (fils) Dumas

... remove something he had left here at the time of the murder, something incriminating,—the weapon, perhaps, or some personal article; a cigarette-case, a handkerchief with his name upon it, or a pair of gloves. Whatever it was it must have been damning evidence against him to have made him ...
— In the Fog • Richard Harding Davis

... child! For the moment he was, indeed, a child, in spirit and in memory, dwelling again by the great river, over-against the Enchanted Land! Then with an effort of the will he pulled himself together, picked up his weapon and audibly damning himself for an idiot strode on. Passing an opening that reached into the heart of the little thicket he looked in, and there, supine upon the earth, its arms all abroad, its gray uniform stained with a single spot of blood upon the breast, its white face turned ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Vol. II: In the Midst of Life: Tales of Soldiers and Civilians • Ambrose Bierce

... into a paroxysm of affected rage and grief, upbraided her counsellors, and first imprisoned and then sacrificed the fortunes of her poor secretary, Davison, one of her most virtuous servants, as a victim to her own fame, and the resentment of the King of Scots. These damning facts in the character of Elizabeth are too well known to require to be dilated on; they have eclipsed the few noble actions of her life, and remain indelible spots on her reputation as a woman and a sovereign. But we learn from this letter the humiliating effects made by ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 343, November 29, 1828 • Various

... aggressive on the smallest provocation: at their head was a man of a cold sort of purity, rather childish and wilful, maintaining the integrity of his doctrine, religious, moral, and artistic, explaining in abstract terms the Gospel of music to the small number of the Elect, and calmly damning Pride and Heresy. To these two states of mind he attributed every defect in art and every vice of humanity: the Renaissance, the Reformation, and present-day Judaism, which he lumped together in one category. The Jews of music were burned in ...
— Jean Christophe: In Paris - The Market-Place, Antoinette, The House • Romain Rolland

... wherefore, that with so many half-pay captains; so many poor curates; so many lieutenants, of both services, without hopes of promotion; so many penny-a-liners, and fashionable novelists; so many damned dramatists, and damning critics; so many Edinburgh and Quarterly Reviewers; so many detrimental brothers, and younger sons; when there are horses to be hired, pistols to be borrowed, purses to be taken, and mails are as plentiful as partridges—it were worth serious investigation, ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth

... my cause, while I, no doubt, slept peacefully enough under the same roof, for I have never known what it is to lie awake with my troubles. One damning fact the Vicomtesse could not disguise, namely, that she was for the moment ...
— Dross • Henry Seton Merriman

... disgrace—the long pursuing, long expected—has seized at last. All the various facts, statements, indications as to Kitty's behavior, which through the most diverse channels had been flowing steadily towards her for weeks past, were now surging through her mind and memory—a grievous, damning host. And every now and then, as she caught the placards in the streets, her heart contracted anew. Her son, her William, in what should have been the heyday of his gifts and powers, baffled, tripped up, defeated!—by his own wife, the ...
— The Marriage of William Ashe • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... vengeance. He had hitherto believed that he was living in most cordial terms with the greater part of the inhabitants of the earth, and with the powers above in particular: but woe be unto him if he was not soon convinced of the fallacy of such damning security! for his lady was the most severe and gloomy of all bigots to the principles of the Reformation. Hers were not the tenets of the great reformers, but theirs mightily overstrained and deformed. Theirs was an unguent hard to be swallowed; but hers was that unguent embittered and overheated ...
— The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner • James Hogg

... letter. That letter I wanted to open, and which you persuaded me not to!" She mustered all her damning facts one after another. "And it was postmarked from Craterville. Vance, you ...
— Black Jack • Max Brand

... the story opens he was a figure of note among those who spent their time in criticizing the government and damning the Irish Parliament. He even became a friend of some young hare-brained rebels of the time; yet no one suspected him of anything except irresponsibility. His record was clean; Dublin Castle ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... Accordingly, when the volume appeared (Jan. 2, 1645-6), purchasers of it did indeed find Marshall's portrait of Milton in it, but those among them who knew Greek could read, underneath it, inscribed by Marshall's own graving tool, this damning ...
— The Life of John Milton Vol. 3 1643-1649 • David Masson

... "not a soul till we opened our mouths; an' then 'twould be easy enough, for my lord, or earl, or gentleman, bein' naked, an' not likin' it (which would only be nat'ral), would fall a-swearin' 'eavens 'ard, damning everybody an' cursin' everything, an' never stop to think, while I—not bein' born to it—should stand there a-shiverin' an' tryin' a curse or two myself, maybe—but Lord! mine wouldn't amount to nothin' at all, me not bein' nat'rally gifted, nor yet born ...
— The Broad Highway • Jeffery Farnol

... and walked to the furthermost corner of the apartment. For his daughter's sake, and for the sake of his own strong liking for this man, he had resolutely shut his eyes upon the damning chain of evidence against him. Now he felt that that he could do so no longer. Nothing but guilt could account for this strange reticence. He was forced to admit it at last. His compassion was still strong, but it was mingled with a great horror. He felt that he must ...
— The New Tenant • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... and Mr Adderly, at the desire of their commanding officer, had raised up the body of Jones, but as they could perceive but little (if any) sign of life in him, they again let him fall, Adderly damning him for having blooded his wastecoat; and the Frenchman declaring, "Begar, me no tush the Engliseman de mort: me have heard de Englise ley, law, what you call, hang up de man dat tush ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding

... forward, then turned. Every eye was directed across the stream. A hundred damning fingers pointed at the solitary figure there. There were hoarse yells of: "There he be Yon's him! What's he done ...
— Bob, Son of Battle • Alfred Ollivant

... such a cat! They began to lay plots to get rid of him through the law. Nothing could be easier to such knowing adepts in guilt than to transfer to his charge any deed of violence one of their own gang had committed—heap damning circumstances round him—privily apprise justice—falsely swear away his life. In short, the man was in their way as a wasp that has blundered into an ants' nest; and, while frightened at the size of ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... Meredith could only utter his wife's name in blank amazement. What could he say under such damning circumstances? Mrs. Dalton ...
— Banked Fires • E. W. (Ethel Winifred) Savi

... penalty. Here we are on the bed-rock of their ideas of justice and humanitarianism. Still we are not altogether surprised, because the Democratic newspaper organs have openly defended and justified the atrocities committed by German soldiers, and whenever any particularly damning evidence has been produced their parole has consistently been: "At any rate, now is not the time to discuss it." According to their comprehension the only time for discussion is when Europe is under the German heel. They are willing ...
— What Germany Thinks - The War as Germans see it • Thomas F. A. Smith

... was, I learned, soon afterwards discharged from the Army. He either died or disappeared in the full current of English life. Perhaps he is with our armies now. It does not matter. What matters is my memory of his nervous, sallow, Cockney face, its earnestness, its imprint of veracity, and the damning ...
— The Red Planet • William J. Locke

... explain the events. Elizabeth, as I show, was widely believed to be an accessory to the murder of Amy Robsart. But in carefully following her words and actions at that critical time, as reported by de Quadra, my reading of the transaction is as given here. The most damning fact against Elizabeth was held to be her own statement to de Quadra on the eve of Lady Robert Dudley's murder to the effect that Lady Robert was "already dead, or very nearly so." This foreknowledge of the fate of ...
— The Historical Nights Entertainment, Second Series • Rafael Sabatini

... he explained to God that he could not feel it to be right or fair that, when he had prayed so very much, and prayers of the sort to which a blessing was promised, he should be given over to the damning power of circumstance, launched in a career of back-sliding, and made thereby, not only an object of greater scorn to all men than if he had never reformed, but actually, as it appeared to him, more worthy ...
— The Zeit-Geist • Lily Dougall

... softly to rid them of the worst of the plaster, then smoothed them briskly down his chest in a hasty effort to remove the cobwebs that clung there. The result—two damning smears on the ...
— Nicky-Nan, Reservist • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)

... old overseer of the Blake slaves—had defrauded the innocent as surely as if he had plunged his great red fist into the little pocket of a child, had defrauded, indeed, with so strong a blow that the very consciousness of his victim had been stunned. There had been about his act all the damning hypocrisy of a great theft—all the air of stern morality which makes for the popular ...
— The Deliverance; A Romance of the Virginia Tobacco Fields • Ellen Glasgow

... that place seemed small at that moment. Leith had put us in a spot where we would not be likely to trouble him for some time, and with bitterness in our hearts we staggered along in the dark, alternately damning the treachery of the ruffian and our own stupidity. We had tried to exercise caution, but when we reviewed our actions, it seemed, as Holman had remarked, that we had used ...
— The White Waterfall • James Francis Dwyer

... the country. Even the lynchings occurring from time to time in some quarters, while atrocious and frowned upon by the best people, seemed due in most cases less to disregard for the spirit of the law than to distrust of legal methods and machinery. Indications multiplied, moreover, that this damning blot on Southern civilization ...
— History of the United States, Volume 5 • E. Benjamin Andrews

... for the missus!" Here Mr. Hennage lowered his voice, glanced cautiously around to make certain that he would not be overheard by Mrs. Pennycook, leaned further in the window and improvising a megaphone with his hands, whispered hoarsely the damning words: ...
— The Long Chance • Peter B. Kyne

... the session sat with the reputation of a man in their ruthless fingers, tossing it back and forth, and deliberating upon their own damning phrases, while the minister sat with stern white face, and sought to hold them from taking an action that might brand a human soul forever. Marilyn needed no more than those harsh words to know that her friend of the years was being weighed in ...
— The City of Fire • Grace Livingston Hill

... screwed up in rotary chewing and sucking movements, drooled tobacco juice upon his unclean shirt. Brodie at moments when he desired to be utterly inoffensive could not purge his utterance of oaths; he was one of those men who could not remark that it was a fine morning without first damning the thing, qualifying it with an epithet of vileness, and turning it out of his big, loose mouth sullied with syllables which do not get ...
— The Everlasting Whisper • Jackson Gregory

... possible answer, that of his conscience. If once he were convinced that things were not right, it would be dishonest to participate in their profits. And he was convinced. Mr. Jackson's arguments and his damning document had thrown a flood of light upon many matters which he had suspected but never quite understood. He was the partner of, well, adventurers, and the money which he received would in fact be filched from the pockets of unsuspecting persons. He would vouch for that of which he was ...
— The Yellow God - An Idol of Africa • H. Rider Haggard

... power. But it stood incongruously round the corner, in a mean side street, as if anxious to escape observation; its juxtaposition to the door of a wine shop of the lowest class was noticeable in a car of such high caste; and, what was finally damning, the rat-faced man of Lyons was lounging in the door of the wine shop, sucking at a cigarette and watching the traffic with an all too listless eye shaded by the visor of ...
— Alias The Lone Wolf • Louis Joseph Vance

... for weeks. Her soul was the arena of contending instincts. Alone of all the world she still believed in Everard's innocence, felt that there was something more than met the eye, divined some devilish mystery behind it all. And yet that damning letter from the anonymous lady shook her sadly. Then, too, there was the deposition of Polly. When she heard Peters's voice accosting her all her old repugnance resurged. It flashed upon her that this man—Roxdal's boon companion—must know far more than he had told to the police. ...
— The Idler, Volume III., Issue XIII., February 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly. Edited By Jerome K. Jerome & Robert Barr • Various

... profound sense of the folly and weakness of his conduct. It may be conceived with what curses he assailed the memory of the fair narrator of Hyde Park; her parting laughter rang in his ears all night with damning mockery and iteration; and when he could spare a thought from this chief artificer of his confusion, it was to expend his wrath on Somerset and the career of the amateur detective. With the coming of the day, he found in a shy milk-shop the means to appease ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 5 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... in soul for, to her, Damocles confessed the ghastly, terrible, damning truth that he was a Coward. He said that he had hidden the fearful fact for all these years within his guilty bosom and that now it had emerged and convicted him. He lived in subconscious terror of the Snake, and in its presence—nay even in ...
— Snake and Sword - A Novel • Percival Christopher Wren

... Hispaniola. Drake "took this old man into his pinnace to verify that which he had informed, and rowed towards this ship." As he drew near, the Spanish mariners hailed them, asking "whence the shallops came." Drake answered: "From Nombre de Dios." His answer set the Spaniards cursing and damning him for a heretic English buccaneer. "We gave no heed to their words," says the narrative, but hooked on to the chains and ports, on the starboard bow, starboard quarter, and port beam, and laid her aboard without further talk. It was something of a task to get on board, for the ship stood ...
— On the Spanish Main - Or, Some English forays on the Isthmus of Darien. • John Masefield



Words linked to "Damning" :   inculpative, inculpatory, damnatory



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