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Debauch

noun
1.
A wild gathering involving excessive drinking and promiscuity.  Synonyms: bacchanal, bacchanalia, debauchery, drunken revelry, orgy, riot, saturnalia.



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"Debauch" Quotes from Famous Books



... strangers who crowded their gay capital. And when their general found it necessary to demand their aid on the ramparts, he could only secure their attendance by ordering the taverns and cookshops to be removed to the place of duty. Not yet so far sunk in sloth and debauch, the Byzantines were nevertheless hosts eminently dangerous to the austerer manners of their Greek visitors. The people, the women, the delicious wine, the balm of the subduing climate served to tempt the senses and ...
— Pausanias, the Spartan - The Haunted and the Haunters, An Unfinished Historical Romance • Lord Lytton

... of such perfidy to another time." The time had come; to the last attempt towards conciliation, made by Van Groot, son of the celebrated Grotius, in the name of the States General, the king replied with threatening haughtiness. "When I discovered that the United Provinces were trying to debauch my allies, and were soliciting kings, my relatives, to enter into offensive leagues against me, I made up my mind to put myself in a position to defend myself, and I levied some troops; but I intend to have more by the spring, and I shall make use of them at that time in the manner I shall ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume V. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot

... their hands mutually thrust into the capacious cuffs of their watchcoats, and each with a frowzy woollen nightcap under his hat. Here and there a staggering toper might be seen on his way home from the tavern brawl or the midnight debauch, advancing, or attempting to advance, as if he wanted to trace Hogarth's line of beauty. From some quarters the wild and reckless shriek of female profligacy might be heard, the tongue, though loaded with blasphemies, nearly paralyzed by intoxication. Nor can we close here. The fashionable ...
— The Black Baronet; or, The Chronicles Of Ballytrain - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton

... the young men cooing, Like pigeons on a sultry afternoon. Old maids and matrons volubly averred Morality and faith's supreme felicity, Young wives were loud in praise of domesticity, While you stood lonely like a mateless bird. And when at last the gabbling clamour rose To a tea-orgy, a debauch of prose, You seemed a piece of silver, newly minted, Among foul notes and coppers dulled and dinted. You were a coin imported, alien, strange, Here valued at another rate of change, Not passing current in that babel mart Of poetry and butter, cheese and art. Then—while ...
— Love's Comedy • Henrik Ibsen

... for his condition, and took my arm. As I supported him towards his lodgings I could see that he was not only suffering from the effects of a recent debauch, but that a long course of intemperance had affected his nerves and his brain. His hand when I touched it was dry and feverish, and he started from every shadow which fell upon the pavement. He rambled in his speech, too, in a manner which suggested the delirium ...
— The Captain of the Pole-Star and Other Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle

... in support of Salmasius, he says: "There is one More, part Frenchman and part Scot, so that one country or one people cannot be quite overwhelmed with the whole infamy of his extraction"; and he indulges himself in a debauch of punning on Morus, the Latin word for a mulberry. In the prelatical controversy, after discussing with his opponent the meaning of the word "angel," he continues: "It is not ordination nor jurisdiction that is angelical, but the heavenly message of the Gospel, which ...
— Milton • Sir Walter Alexander Raleigh

... file." They know the place well; it is the general rendezvous of the abandoned women whose lovers and parasites they are.[1232] "The patriots all gather around them, treat them to ice cream and wine, and debauch them in the face of their officers."—To this, moreover, must be added the fact that their colonel, M. du Chatelet, has long been odious to them, that he has fatigued them with forced drills, worried them and diminished the number of their ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 2 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 1 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine

... that seduced and murdered the woman who should have been his wife; that cast out and starved his own child, and now would debauch this poor girl, who is ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol III, Issue VI, June, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... opened by a young man in a rich but torn and soiled eighteenth-century costume, and he looked, in the half-light of the entrance, as though he was just recovering from a sustained debauch. The young man stared haughtily in silence. Only after an appreciable hesitation did George see through the disguise and recover himself sufficiently to remark with the ...
— The Roll-Call • Arnold Bennett

... the girl, who, amidst all the havoc of debauch, retained much of youth and beauty in her form and face; "nay, Guidotto; perhaps it ...
— Rienzi • Edward Bulwer Lytton

... Talbot's mode of giving assistance to his country friends, that it savored of mercenariness, amounting to villainy, it is to be said, on his behalf, that he was simply practicing the morals that Mr. Belcher had taught him. Mr. Belcher had not failed to debauch or debase the moral standard of every man over whom he had any direct influence. If Talbot had practiced his little game upon any other man, Mr. Belcher would have patted his shoulder and told him he was a "jewel." So much of Mr. Belcher's wealth ...
— Sevenoaks • J. G. Holland

... evidently to the very worst part of society, but the watchfulness of the police prevented any open disorder. We came away early and in a quarter of an hour were in busy London, leaving far behind us the revel and debauch, which was prolonged through the ...
— Views a-foot • J. Bayard Taylor

... which represented the body and blood of the Saviour of mankind; adding, that a man who would use an appeal to the flag in aid of the subjugation of an unwilling people, would be capable of using the sacramental wine for a debauch. ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar

... not seen that Dore's battles are always, even to the end, the battles of a caricaturist. His decapitated trunks, cloven heads, smoking hearts, arms still fighting though severed from their bodies, are simply a debauch of grim humor. There is never the slightest attempt to realize carnage—only to convey, by the caricaturist's exaggeration, an idea of colossally impossible bloodthirstiness. One may not enjoy this kind of fun, but ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 8 (of 8) • Various

... heavy meals and deep draughts of the Saxon, had long ceased to characterize the offspring of that noblest of all noble races. Warwick, whose stately manliness was disgusted with whatever savoured of effeminacy or debauch, used to declare that he would rather fight fifty battles for Edward IV. than once sup with him! Feasts were prolonged for hours, and the banquets of this king of the Middle Ages almost resembled those of the later Roman emperors. The Lord Montagu did ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... months; and then—!" Well; at least part of the programme was carried out: he drank. But he did not die. No; he went on living, living, living! That first year they were constantly asking each other for news of him: "Have you heard anything?" "Yes; an awful debauch. Oh, he can't stand it. He'll be in his grave before Christmas." But Christmas came, and Frederick was still living. Then it was "before spring"—"before fall"—"before Christmas" again. And yet he went on living. And she had gone ...
— The Awakening of Helena Richie • Margaret Deland

... when a universal cancan takes place upon the public floor, and where each female boldly exposes just enough of her person to excite desire in the beholder. These girls dance in ordinary street costumes, and in many cases are paid by the proprietor for their services. It is a wild debauch, and needs but to be seen once, to be ever afterward ...
— Danger! A True History of a Great City's Wiles and Temptations • William Howe

... never deprive us. It fortifies the soul against the calamities of life. It moderates, if it is not strong enough to govern and control the passions. It favors not the association of the cup, the dice-box, or the debauch. The atmosphere of a library is uncongenial with them. It clings to home, nourishes the domestic affections, and the hopes and ...
— An Essay on Professional Ethics - Second Edition • George Sharswood

... men away as soon as possible. Carson was sent forward a day's march, with all who could be collected. The next day Mr. Young followed, having with much difficulty gathered the remainder of the band. Soon the party was reunited, and the men were recovered from their shameful debauch. Then for nine days they vigorously continued their march homeward, when they again reached the banks of the Colorado river, not far from the spot where they ...
— Christopher Carson • John S. C. Abbott

... morning entertainment)—Ver. 969. A banquet in the early part or middle of the day was considered by the Greeks a debauch.] ...
— The Comedies of Terence - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Notes • Publius Terentius Afer, (AKA) Terence

... staggered out of the pub and fell in the gutter, the ambulance did its duty, and trundled Joe to his abiding place, but the real fun occurred when Joe was gathered in during the third stage of his debauch. He passed through the oratorical stage, then the maudlin or sentimental stage, from which he emerged into the fighting stage, when he was usually ejected into the street, where he forthwith began to make Rome howl, and paint the town red. At this point the policeman's whistle sounded, and the ...
— The Face And The Mask • Robert Barr

... moment, but what would happen should the wolves succeed in pulling down and devouring the horse? They would, to a certainty, return and attack us, as we had feared; or, even if they did not, the Indians would be recovering from their debauch. I could only hope that they had not consumed all the liquor, and that the first to awaken would take another pull at the bottles. In spite of our fearful position, a drowsiness began to steal over me, produced perhaps by exhaustion. I even now ...
— Adventures in the Far West • W.H.G. Kingston

... pretty lady puss Had tricks like this, and we ne'er know of it! I tell you, Lanciotto, you and I Must have a patent for our foolery! "She smiled; he kissed her full upon the mouth!"— There's the beginning; where's the end of it? O poesy! debauch thee only once, And thou'rt the greatest wanton in the world! O cousin Lanciotto—ho, ho, ho! [Laughing.] Can a man die of laughter? Here we sat; Mistress Francesca so demure and calm; Paolo grand, poetical, sublime!— Eh! what is this? Paolo's dagger? Good! Here is more proof, sweet ...
— Representative Plays by American Dramatists: 1856-1911: Francesca da Rimini • George Henry Boker

... we're to do with you, Ruggles," began the stricken woman, and so done out she plainly was that I at once felt the warmest sympathy for her as she continued: "First you lead poor Cousin Egbert into a drunken debauch——" ...
— Ruggles of Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson

... the disorders of continual elections, though those of Rome were sober disorders. They had nothing but faction, bribery, bread, and stage plays to debauch them. We have the inflammation of liquor superadded, a fury hotter than any of them. There the contest was only between citizen and citizen; here you have the contests of ambitious citizens on one side, supported by the Crown, to oppose ...
— Thoughts on the Present Discontents - and Speeches • Edmund Burke

... "Lettuce eaten raw or boyled, helpeth to loosen the belly, and the boyled more than the raw." It was known as the "Milk Plant" to Dioscorides and Theophrastus, and was much esteemed by the Romans to be eaten after a debauch of wine, or as a sedative for inducing sleep. But a prejudice against it was entertained for a time as venerem enervans, and therefore mortuorum ...
— Herbal Simples Approved for Modern Uses of Cure • William Thomas Fernie

... Theodora, to atone for her mother's gay life, wished to retire into the bosom of the Church. With this idea she placed herself in the hands of a cardinal, in order that he might instruct her in the duties of the devout. This wicked shepherd found the lamb so magnificently beautiful that he attempted to debauch her. Theodora instantly stabbed herself with a stiletto, in order not to be contaminated by the evil-minded priest. This adventure, which was consigned to the history of the period, made a great commotion ...
— Droll Stories, Complete - Collected From The Abbeys Of Touraine • Honore de Balzac

... the night in gaming, Or very nearly so, at any rate, And other vices hardly worth the naming (But we, of course, are not immaculate), Then think of rising very, very late After a night's debauch and dissipation And rolling homewards with unsteady gait (Perhaps 'twas after the red-hot gyration Of the previous evening). Ours is ...
— The Minstrel - A Collection of Poems • Lennox Amott

... all the rivers of Europe were gathered into one channel, they would not be a tithe as large. But the people who heard these wonderful accounts were unconcerned. The French monarch knew naught but to debauch his heritance; the French courtier intrigued and plundered; the French peasant, dogged and sullen in his long suffering, dragged out his miserable existence. The flood of waters rolled on, and a hundred and thirty years ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 810, July 11, 1891 • Various

... deal with them, then? Seven million church member voters in this country! Why do not they focus their religion and do something? I divine a reason. While they live all the rest of the year with prayers and resolutions, they go out on a moral debauch on election day with a ...
— The Daughter of a Republican • Bernie Babcock

... of an hour before the first wave of our pent-up enthusiasm had spent itself. After a positive debauch of self-congratulation, amicable bickering with regard to the precise order of precedence in which an antiquary would place our acquisitions, and breathless speculation concerning their true worth, we sank into ...
— Jonah and Co. • Dornford Yates

... know all about the intricate technicalities of manufactures and markets, and are eager to set the trade right. Grodman perhaps hardly allowed sufficiently for the step backward that Denzil made when he devoted his whole time for months to "Criminals I Have Caught." It was as damaging as a debauch. For when your rivals are pushing forward, to stand still ...
— The Big Bow Mystery • I. Zangwill

... passion unknown to him; but that tenderness which with us creates a horror of blood was equally unknown. Pleasure was sweet to him; but he was man enough to feel that a life of pleasure was contemptible. To pillage a city, to pilfer his all from a rich man, to debauch a friend's wife, to give over a multitude of women and children to slaughter, was as easy to him as to forgive an enemy. But nothing rankled with him, and he could forgive an enemy. Of courage he had that better sort which can appreciate ...
— Life of Cicero - Volume One • Anthony Trollope

... not make his appearance on the next morning until nearly ten o'clock; and then he looked like a man who had been on a debauch. It was eleven before Harvey Green came down. Nothing about him indicated the smallest deviation from the most orderly habit. Clean shaved, with fresh linen, and a face, every line of which was smoothed into calmness, he looked ...
— Ten Nights in a Bar Room • T. S. Arthur

... instructor aloft during the morning, the five Scotchmen were the pick of the bunch. But all hands seemed to be very decent fellows in their own rough way, now that they had had time to recover from their previous day's debauch, and manifested a distinct disposition to be friendly toward the young greenhorn whom they found in their midst, especially as they had already had an opportunity to see that the greenhorn's greenness was not of such a character ...
— The Adventures of Dick Maitland - A Tale of Unknown Africa • Harry Collingwood

... raved, prayed, blasphemed, implored the guards to fire among them. The gaolers in the meantime held lights to the bars, and shouted with laughter at the frantic struggles of their victims. At length the tumult died away in low gaspings and moanings. The day broke. The Nabob had slept off his debauch, and permitted the door to be opened. But it was some time before the soldiers could make a lane for the survivors, by piling up on each side the heaps of corpses on which the burning climate had already begun to do its loathsome work. When at length a passage was made, twenty-three ghastly figures, ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... of noisy debauch, full of duels, bets, elopements; he had squandered his fortune and frightened all his family. A servant behind his chair named aloud to him in his ear the dishes that he pointed to, stammering, and ...
— The Public vs. M. Gustave Flaubert • Various

... the whole of Europe followed in the wake of France. It may even be declared that the reaction against the seventeenth century was in many respects excessive, for the eighteenth century gave itself up to a species of sentimental debauch. It is none the less a fact that the author of La Nouvelle Heloise was the first to blend the moral life of man with his exterior surroundings. He felt the savage beauty and grandeur of the mountains of Switzerland, ...
— An Iceland Fisherman • Pierre Loti

... tremble before the man with hay-seed in his hair. They cannot reach him. They cannot tempt or debauch him. Teach this to your sons. Teach it with horses, buggies, churches, picnics, schools, books, rest, and travel. Take the boys to the rank-smelling cities; show them the factories, the store-gangs, and the street gangs. Then they will go home with joy in their hearts, and when Old Brindle ...
— The Golden Censer - The duties of to-day, the hopes of the future • John McGovern

... between two sensitive and virtuous persons. I say "sensitive," because a monk, a recluse can be not wicked and live without knowing what friendship is. I say "virtuous," because the wicked have only accomplices; voluptuaries have companions in debauch, self-seekers have partners, politicians get partisans; the generality of idle men have attachments; princes have courtiers; virtuous men alone have friends. Cethegus was the accomplice of Catilina, and Maecenas the courtier of Octavius; but Cicero ...
— Voltaire's Philosophical Dictionary • Voltaire

... the loser? If such corrupter, therefore, should have the impudence to pretend a real affection for her, ought not the woman to regard him not only as an enemy, but as the worst of all enemies, a false, designing, treacherous, pretended friend, who intends not only to debauch her body, but her understanding at ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding

... officers, who are so full of it, she withdrew the charge and he was set at liberty. For a few days he was quiet, but soon the red liquor poured down his throat, and like a mountain devil stirred all the dark passions of his lost and ruined nature. He attempted to debauch his own daughter, and was only prevented by the physical force of the ever-watchful mother. The father (great God! is such a human being entitled to the endearing term?) turned upon her, and again, as had often happened, abused, ...
— The Twin Hells • John N. Reynolds

... occurred on a plantation he had been visiting, and, as it presents a novel feature in the asserted rights of slave-holders—how profane, I will not stop to inquire—I think it worth recording. After a recital of a drunken debauch, in which he had taken a part, described by him as a frolic, and which had been kept up for several days, his host, he said, anxious to show the high sense he entertained of the honour of the visit by making almost any sacrifice (this was said with great conceit), proposed ...
— An Englishman's Travels in America - His Observations Of Life And Manners In The Free And Slave States • John Benwell

... somewhile with his face in his hands: now he rose mechanically, shaking and stumbling like a drunkard after a debauch. But as he rose, his face was altered, and his voice rang out over ...
— The Wrecker • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne

... flood; Struck with the seat that gave Eliza[A] birth, We kneel, and kiss the consecrated earth; In pleasing dreams the blissful age renew, And call Britannia's glories back to view; Behold her cross triumphant on the main, The guard of commerce, and the dread of Spain, Ere masquerades debauch'd, excise oppress'd Or English honour grew a standing jest. A transient calm the happy scenes bestow, And, for a moment, lull the sense of woe. At length awaking, with contemptuous frown, Indignant Thales ...
— Dr. Johnson's Works: Life, Poems, and Tales, Volume 1 - The Works Of Samuel Johnson, Ll.D., In Nine Volumes • Samuel Johnson

... was ticking off the data gathered so far on her fingers. The brutal quarrel with Nancy. The rush to the nearest blind-tiger. The debauch. The insult to Law. The drunken struggle. The prison. The alias. And now the attempt to pretend that nothing had happened—when the criminal in question was doubtless swigging from a pocket-flask at this very moment for the courage to support his flagrant impudence ...
— Young People's Pride • Stephen Vincent Benet

... shall have A cold lodging in the grave; When swift Death shall overtake us, We shall sleep and none can wake us. Drink we then the juice o' the vine Make our breasts Lyaeus' shrine; Bacchus, our debauch beholding, By thy image I am moulding, Whilst my brains I do replenish With this draught of unmixed Rhenish; By thy full-branched ivy twine; By this sparkling glass of wine; By thy Thyrsus so renowned: By the healths with which th' art crowned; By the feasts which thou dost prize; By thy numerous ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan

... defy all such hypocritical interpretation, and tears off his turban and throws it at the head of the meddling dervis, and throws his glass after the turban. But the love or the wine of Hafiz is not to be confounded with vulgar debauch. It is the spirit in which the song is written that imports, and not the topics. Hafiz praises wine, roses, maidens, boys, birds, mornings, and music, to give vent to his immense hilarity and sympathy with every form of beauty and joy; and lays the emphasis ...
— Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam and Salaman and Absal • Omar Khayyam and Ralph Waldo Emerson

... there are fifty, thirty, ten, or even one woman who is capable of exercising this trust or holding this responsibility it demonstrates that sex, as a sex, does not disfranchise, and the whole question is granted. (Applause.) Here our laws are made by irresponsible people—people who demoralize and debauch society; people who make their living in a large measure by upholding the institutions that are inherently, forever, and always corrupt. (Applause.) Laws that are made by the people who own dramshops, who keep gambling-saloons, who minister to the depraved ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage

... shell-fish; the sweet juices will turn into bile, and a thick phlegm will bring a jarring upon the stomach. Do not you see, how pale each guest rises from a perplexing variety of dishes at an entertainment. Beside this, the body, overloaded with the debauch of yesterday, depresses the mind along with it, and dashes to the earth that portion of the divine spirit. Another man, as soon as he has taken a quick repast, and rendered up his limbs to repose, rises vigorous to ...
— The Works of Horace • Horace

... succeeded by his elder brother, a fox-hunter and a sot, who neglected his affairs, insulted and oppressed his servants, and in a few years had well nigh ruined the estate, when he was happily carried off by a fever, the immediate consequence of a debauch. Charles, with the approbation of his wife, immediately determined to quit business, and retire into the country, although this resolution was strenuously and zealously opposed by every individual, whom he consulted on the subject. Those who had tried the experiment, assured ...
— The Expedition of Humphry Clinker • Tobias Smollett

... the cardinal; "you little naked boy with wings and a bow! You give us more trouble than all the rest of the heathen deities combined—you fly about so—you appear in such strange places—you compel mortals to do such remarkable things—you debauch my pigeons, and, when the ill is done, you send your victims to me, or another priest, and ask for absolution, so that they ...
— The Turquoise Cup, and, The Desert • Arthur Cosslett Smith

... darkness of the field and approaching the house, to quickly dissolve in the gathering already there. In their lively steps, as well as in the eager voices occasionally raised along the dark road, the men's desire to join in the debauch was apparent. ...
— In the Shadow of the Hills • George C. Shedd

... Stetson his khaki trousers and rough shirt were stained with mud and grime, his eyes were sunken in dark hollows, his worn face was unshaven and his hair, when he removed his hat, was unkempt. He did not look like a hero; he looked more like some ruffian just from a prolonged debauch. But the little ...
— The Winning of Barbara Worth • Harold B Wright

... down "Ghosts" to watch, with a painfully beating heart, the progress of this living "Mrs. Alving" past the house, pleading, persuading, coaxing the burly weakling, who will be saved from a week's debauch if she can only get him safely home now, and keep him quiet till "the ...
— Hillsboro People • Dorothy Canfield

... (who, by the way, I suspect strongly of having been a clergyman), but he assuredly hit the right nail on the head when he epitomised his typical wise man as knowing "the ways and farings of many men." What culture is comparable to this? What a lie, what a sickly debilitating debauch did not Ernest's school and university career now seem to him, in comparison with his life in prison and as a tailor in Blackfriars. I have heard him say he would have gone through all he had suffered if it were only for the deeper insight it gave him into ...
— The Way of All Flesh • Samuel Butler

... me tipsy to-night; let us have a debauch as of old, and if I have a trouble at the bottom of my heart, I promise you, you shall see it as you would a diamond at the ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas

... without thinking of returning it! But if he had lost that sum to Jansen,(700) or to any of the honourable men at White's, he would think his honour engaged to pay it. There is nothing, sure, so whimsical as modern honour! You may debauch a woman upon a promise of marriage, and not marry her; you may ruin your tailor's or your baker's family by not paying them; you may make Mr. Mann maintain you for eighteen months, as a public minister, out of his own pocket, and still ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole

... low, despairing cry, for a flash of lurid light now revealed and explained all that had been so strange and unaccountable. The terrible secret was now revealed, as far as she was able to comprehend it—her father was an opium inebriate, and this was but the stupor of a debauch! The thought of his death had been terrible, but was not this worse? She lifted her face in a swift glance at Roger, and saw him looking at her with an expression, that was full of the strongest sympathy, and something more. She ...
— Without a Home • E. P. Roe

... which it had few customers and suspicion was rife at any invasion. "They are drinking wine, vermouth, and greenish opaline draughts of absinthe. Staggering in unnerved and stupefied from the previous night's debauch, they show few signs of vitality until four or five glasses of the absinthe have been drunk, and then they awaken; their eyes brighten and their tongues are loosened—the routine of play, smoke, and alcohol ...
— Fifth Avenue • Arthur Bartlett Maurice

... cowed as a rule, met them at a double disadvantage, being at once unable to recall the events of overnight, and firmly convinced that the whole misadventure was a trick of his Royal Highness. In this state of mind the Captain, shaken by his debauch, had almost collapsed before Mr. Sturge's demand that the ship should be put about—or, as he expressed it, turned round—and navigated to the nearest point ...
— The Mayor of Troy • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... swindler imitating the manners of a dandy; and many swindlers and dandies be there, doubtless, in London as well as in Paris. But there is about the present swindler, and about Monsieur Dambergeac the student, and Monsieur Dambergeac the sous-prefet, and his friend, a rich store of calm internal debauch, which does not, let us hope and pray, exist in England. Hearken to M. de Gustan, and his smirking whispers, about the Duchess of San Severino, who pour son bonheur particulier, &c. &c. Listen to Monsieur Dambergeac's ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray

... resolution. The Queen my mother was greatly uneasy on account of the behaviour of these young men, fearing that, if my brother did not join them in this festivity, it might be attended with some bad consequence, especially as the day was likely to produce scenes of revelry and debauch; she, therefore, prevailed on the King to permit her to dine on the wedding-day at St. Maur, and take my brother and me with her. This was the day before Shrove Tuesday; and we returned in the evening, the Queen my mother having well lectured ...
— Memoirs And Historical Chronicles Of The Courts Of Europe - Marguerite de Valois, Madame de Pompadour, and Catherine de Medici • Various

... to the confectioner, in exchange for mince-pies and tarts of the very best quality; and I regret to say, that this announcement had the effect of reducing considerably the sum she derived from the charity of the ward, and effectually preventing the consummation of any very formidable debauch with her favourite viands. But the poor simpleton was as merry as she was innocent and harmless; and all unsuspicious of the latent grudge which had lessened her gratuity, tripped hastily off, to enjoy at least ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 432 - Volume 17, New Series, April 10, 1852 • Various

... frenzy. Raven, turning slightly, regarded him with a cold dislike. This was the voice that had echoed through the woods that day when Tira stood, her baby in her arms, in what chill of fear Raven believed he knew. Tenney went on lashing himself into the ecstasy of his emotional debauch. His eyes glittered. He was happy, he asserted, because he had found salvation. His conversion was akin to that of Saul. To his immense spiritual egotism, Raven concluded, nothing short of a story colossally dramatic would serve. He had been a sinner, ...
— Old Crow • Alice Brown

... he sought the cafe-veranda, wished he could have told the basic truth of his fighting mood: the look Mallow had given Elsa that day in Penang. Diligently he began the search. Mallow and Craig were still in their rooms, doubtless sleeping off the debauch of the preceding night. He saw that he must wait. Luncheon he ...
— Parrot & Co. • Harold MacGrath

... and remorseless friend, deemest though our debauch was felt? No! an effervescent draught of soda calmed us; we ate a blood orange, and ...
— A Love Story • A Bushman

... was asking that same question of his brain, as he made heroic endeavours to recollect the details of his last debauch. He paused, and, with a trick characteristic of him, pushed away his plate and cup, although he had ...
— Ringfield - A Novel • Susie Frances Harrison

... tokens of affection are interchanged, and promises to write are made, but seldom kept. With this mingling and outpouring of full hearts, the stream of punch still flows through tiny glasses: but, since "Many a little makes a mickle," the farewell thus taken ends sometimes as a debauch. ...
— A Tramp's Wallet - stored by an English goldsmith during his wanderings in Germany and France • William Duthie

... Zurich, Pfeffers, Augsburg, and several other cities, until finally at Salzburg his eventful life came to a close in 1541. His enemies said that he had died in a tavern from the effects of a protracted debauch; his supporters maintained that he had been murdered at the instigation of rival ...
— A History of Science, Volume 2(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams

... believe there have been very few companies that have been guilty of excess this way, where there have not happened more accidents which make against than for the continuance of it. It is very common that events arise from a debauch which are fatal, and always such as are disagreeable. With all a man's reason and good sense about him, his tongue is apt to utter things out of mere gaiety of heart, which may displease his best friends. Who ...
— Isaac Bickerstaff • Richard Steele

... be the best in the world. But English common-sense and French sanity would prevent them from announcing to other peoples that they proposed to conquer them, morally or materially, for their good. All Jingoes admire and desire war. But nowhere else in the modern world is to be found such a debauch of "romantic" enthusiasm, such a wilful blindness to all the realities of war, as Germany has manifested both before and since the outbreak of this world-catastrophe. A reader of German newspapers and tracts gets at last a feeling of nausea at the very words Wir ...
— The European Anarchy • G. Lowes Dickinson

... exercise of power by a Trust or Monopoly in its dealings with competing capital which deserves to be placed in a separate category of infamy, is the use of money to debauch the legislature into the granting of protective tariffs, special charters or concessions, or other privileges which enable a monopoly company to get the better of their rivals, to secure contracts, ...
— The Evolution of Modern Capitalism - A Study of Machine Production • John Atkinson Hobson

... you came to the factory. Your first increase of pay. Do you remember? We dined at Douix's that day. And then the Cafe des Aveugles in the evening, eh? What a debauch!" ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet

... me, with tickling satisfaction, by one whose Wit and good Manners are known to be just of the same weight, who, since he can be merry so easily, he shall laugh at some of the Reformers Hotch-potch too, as I have mingled it for him. Jewish Tetragramaton, Stigian Frogs, reeking Pandaemoniums, Debauch'd Protagonists, Nauseous Ribaldry, Ranting Smutt, Abominable Stench, Venus and St George, Juliana, the Witch and the Parson of Wrotham [Footnote: Collier's Epithetes.], with the admirable ...
— Essays on the Stage • Thomas D'Urfey and Bossuet

... where his mind could win it; and now he laid all blame on his enemy and suffered the passion of his own shame and remorse to rise, as it had been a red mist, against this man who was playing havoc with his body and soul. He trembled under the loneliness of the woods in a debauch of mere brute rage that exhausted him and left a mark on the rest of his life. Even his present powers appeared trifling and their exercise a deed unsatisfying before this frenzy. What happiness could be achieved by flinging Blanchard ...
— Children of the Mist • Eden Phillpotts

... reckons my interest accordingly. In comes my Lord Barkeley, who is going down to Harwich also to look after the militia there: and there is also the Duke of Monmouth, and with him a great many young Hectors, the Lord Chesterfield, my Lord Mandeville, and others; but to little purpose, I fear, but to debauch the country women thereabouts. My Lord Barkeley wanting some maps, and Sir W. Coventry recommending the six maps of England that are bound up for the pocket, I did offer to present my Lord with them, which he accepted; and so I will send them him. I ...
— The Diary of Samuel Pepys • Samuel Pepys

... into his chair, she was able to note the little beads of sweat under the cracked nether lip. He was in misery; he was paying for last night's debauch. His clothes were smartly pressed, his linen white, his jaws cleanly shaven; but the day would come when he would grow indifferent to bodily ...
— The Ragged Edge • Harold MacGrath

... children, were dressed in old masquerading costumes; those who had not been able to obtain this luxury had fastened on their clothes old rags, of flaunting colors; some young men were attired in women's apparel, torn and soiled with mud; all these faces, haggard from debauch and vice, bloated by intoxication, sparkled with savage joy, in thinking that, after a night of drunken orgies, they were going to see the two women put to death, for whom the scaffold was raised. The scum of the population of Paris, an immense mob, was composed of ...
— Mysteries of Paris, V3 • Eugene Sue

... last master, because I thought he was harshly treated; but the rogue was no sooner safe under my protection than he began to lie, pilfer, and steal like the devil. When I first set him up in a warm house he had hardly put up his sign when he began to debauch my best customers from me. *Then it was his constant practice to rob my fish-ponds, not only to feed his family, but to trade with the fishmongers. I connived at the fellow till he began to tell me that they were his as much as mine. In my manor of *Eastcheap, because it lay at some distance ...
— The History of John Bull • John Arbuthnot

... hundred and eighty days, given by the King Ahasuerus to all the nabobs of the realm. It is assumed that this king was Xerxes the Great, but the identification is by no means conclusive. At the close of this monumental debauch, the king, in his drunken pride, calls in his queen Vashti to show her beauty to the inebriated courtiers. She refuses, and the refusal ought to be remembered to her honor; but this book does not so regard it. ...
— Who Wrote the Bible? • Washington Gladden

... easily pass into license; examples are the Roman Saturnalia and the Hindu Holi[417]; the harvest festival of the Hos of Northeastern India is a debauch,[418] and with it is connected the expulsion of evil spirits—an example of the coalescence of festivals. A peculiar feature in certain of these ceremonies is the exchange of places between masters and servants; this abandonment of ordinary social ...
— Introduction to the History of Religions - Handbooks on the History of Religions, Volume IV • Crawford Howell Toy

... his friends good-by and thanking them for their hospitality. He had hoped that Mila would accompany him a few steps on his long journey, but she made no sign beyond a despairing look at her uncle, who was surly, as if he had felt the reaction from too prolonged a debauch of the spirit. Gerald lit his pipe, kissed the hand of Mila with emphasis, and parted from them. He had not gone a hundred yards before he heard soft footsteps tracking him. He turned and was disappointed to see that it was only Karospina, who came ...
— Visionaries • James Huneker

... leave, these warlike similitudes are something too high-sounding for the matter in hand. You want some dirty money; there is the bottom of your contention; and as for your means, what are they? to stir up sorrow in a family that never harmed you, to debauch (if you can) your own nephew, and to wring the heart of your born brother! A footpad that kills an old granny in a woollen mutch with a dirty bludgeon, and that for a shilling-piece and a paper of snuff—there is all ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition, Vol. XII (of 25) - The Master of Ballantrae • Robert Louis Stevenson

... passing in the street. In the evening David brought his friends to sit in talk with him on the wide verandas. At times he went alone to his room at the top of the house and buried himself in books. On Saturday evenings he had a debauch and with a group of friends from town sat at a card table in the long parlour playing ...
— Marching Men • Sherwood Anderson

... recur for a moment to the fistic carnival: Have any of you been able to determine how the Dallas News stood in regard to that great enterprise? Sometimes, when I want to go on an intellectual debauch, I read the News— or Ayer's Almanac. It appears to entertain but two opinions, namely, that Uncle Sam should black the boots of John Bull, and that Grover Cleveland carries the brains of the world in his beegum. This brace of abortive ideas constitute its ...
— Volume 12 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann

... more loosened than strengthened by the ascetic-hierarchical religiosity of the church."[1236] Dulaure[1237] quotes Gerson and Nicolas de Clemangis that convents in the fifteenth century were places of debauch. Geiler, in a sermon in Strasburg Cathedral, gave a shocking description of convents.[1238] A convent is described as a brothel for neighboring nobles.[1239] At the end of the fifteenth century the revolt and change in the mores which ...
— Folkways - A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals • William Graham Sumner

... abandoned in order to sweep the English from the waters of the Ionian Isles. In the event of success, the invasion of Turkey, the seizure of Egypt, and the gratification of Alexander would be easy. More remotely, the deadly blow at England could be struck in Asia. What a conception! What a debauch of the imagination! ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. III. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane

... they were not guilty of accession to a riot likely to be strictly inquired into, glided about with an humble and dismayed aspect, like men whose spirits being exhausted in the revel and the dangers of a desperate debauch over-night, are nerve-shaken, timorous, and ...
— The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott

... and realized how the first hours of the Sabbath had passed, he started up much vexed with himself, and after a brief retrospect said: "Such excitements as those of yesterday are little better than a debauch, and I must shun them hereafter. God has blessed and succeeded me, and it is but a poor return I am making. However my unfortunate attachment may end, nothing is gained by moping around in the hours of night. Henceforth let there be an ...
— Barriers Burned Away • E. P. Roe

... Gemma Donati, in Twelve Hundred and Ninety-two, when Dante was twenty-seven, was a little matter arranged by the friends of both parties. Dante was dreamy, melancholy and unreliable: marriage would sober his poetic debauch and cause him ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 13 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Lovers • Elbert Hubbard

... suspicion of my previous initiation, held a charm over her, to say nothing of the powerful weapon she had so unexpectedly found by her side, and which had so great an influence over her passions. We spent a most luxurious night, and hardly closed our eyes, notwithstanding my afternoon's debauch; such is the power and resources of nature, in a well-constituted youth of fifteen and upwards, that Miss Evelyn had rather to force our embraces, than to stimulate by any artificial excitement my ever ready prick. I won from her a promise to come next night, and let me know what ...
— The Romance of Lust - A classic Victorian erotic novel • Anonymous

... a Fop, my Lady Fancy, and ever was so, an idle conceited she Fop; and has Vanity and Tongue enough to debauch any Nation under civil Government: but, Patience, thou art a Virtue, and Affliction will come.—Ah, I'm very sick, alas, I have not long to dwell amongst the Wicked, Oh, oh.—Roger, ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume IV. • Aphra Behn

... nothing in the world like a persuasive speech to fuddle the mental apparatus and upset the convictions and debauch the emotions of an audience not practised in the tricks and delusions of oratory. Wilson sat down victorious. The house submerged him in tides of approving applause; friends swarmed to him and shook him by the hand and congratulated him, and Billson was shouted ...
— The Man that Corrupted Hadleyburg • Mark Twain

... undisturbed Walks, as, Wind-mills, Water-mills, Grange-houses, Park-lodges, &c. and their Feeding-place on soft Ground, or Boards; and have for his meet, white Corn, or White-bread Tosts, steept in Drink, or Urine, is good, both to Scower, and Cool them. And do not debilitate and debauch his Courage and Strength, by having too many Hens to walk with; three Hens are enough for ...
— The School of Recreation (1696 edition) • Robert Howlett

... who had seen the world, were ever ready to bolster the matter through, and as they were brawny, broad-shouldered warriors, and veterans in brawl as well as debauch, they had great sway with the multitude. If any one pretended to assert the innocence of the duchess, they interrupted him with a loud ha! ha! of derision. "A pretty story, truly," would they cry, ...
— The Crayon Papers • Washington Irving

... to proceed to Greenwich, where a branch of his fish-curing business existed, or was supposed to exist. Here he met a friend who offered to treat him. Unfortunately for the success of his schemes he accepted this offer, and, in the course of a debauch, revealed so much of his private affairs that the friend, after seeing him safely to his lodging, and bidding him an affectionate farewell, went up to London by the first boat on the following morning, and presented ...
— The Floating Light of the Goodwin Sands • R.M. Ballantyne

... of the city passes into that of the drunken debauch, where the chief men of Samaria sprawl, 'smitten down' by wine, and with the innocent flowers on their hot temples drooping in the fumes of the feast. But bright and sunny as the valley is, glittering in the light as the city sits on her hill, careless ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Isaiah and Jeremiah • Alexander Maclaren

... master, after three days of debauch, ordered him to be at work at three o'clock the next morning. He quickly and even eagerly agreed, for he was already intimate with his master's rope-lash. He reached home at ten o'clock on an autumn night, and went to bed and to sleep. He woke ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett

... circulation went on with agony, or stopped with numbness. It is true, I was called down within the hour; but that hour of suffering had done me much constitutional mischief. I was stupified as much as if I had committed a debauch upon fat ale. However, I was too angry to complain, or to seek relief from the surgeon. I went on deck at half-past eight, with obtuse faculties and a ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard

... he returned. He placed the check book in its accustomed place in the desk, destroyed all evidence of the night's debauch and left a note on the desk saying: "My dear Rayder, I have been suddenly called home by the illness of my wife. Come to Saguache as soon as you can ...
— Where Strongest Tide Winds Blew • Robert McReynolds

... chiefly in adults, in those in advanced life, and in those who exercise little but eat much. Constipation favors their occurrence, and the condition is commonly present in pregnant women. Fatigue, exposure, horseback exercise, or an alcoholic debauch will cause their appearance. Certain diseases also occasion ...
— The Home Medical Library, Volume II (of VI) • Various

... all her sighs return'd, And, in full rage of youthful ardour, burn'd: Large his possessions, and beyond her own: Their bliss the theme, and envy of the town: The day was fix'd, when, with one acre more, In stepp'd deform'd, debauch'd, diseas'd threescore. The fatal sequel I, through shame, forbear: Of pride, and av'rice, who can cure the fair? Man's rich with little, were his judgment true; Nature is frugal, and her wants are few; Those few wants answer'd, bring sincere delights; But fools create themselves ...
— The Poetical Works of Edward Young, Volume 2 • Edward Young

... may say, had become necessary to me: by this time I couldn't think of living without him. . . . Now I know what's crossing your mind. I might have piled up the torture on Farrell, and at the same time have played on that other passion, by setting myself to debauch Santa. No, I'm not complaining. You shall have as bad to condemn before I've done, so you needn't apologise. But, as it happens, I wasn't that sort of blackguard. Moreover, it wouldn't have worked, anyhow. Santa was as good as ...
— Foe-Farrell • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... Mr. Sponge to himself, as, with throbbing head, he lay tumbling about in bed, alleviating the recollections of the previous day's debauch with an occasional dive into his old friend Mogg. Corporeally, he was in bed at Puddingpote Bower, but mentally, he was at the door of the Goose and Gridiron, in St. Paul's Churchyard, waiting for the three o'clock bus, coming from the Bank to take ...
— Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour • R. S. Surtees

... his prototype. He lived chiefly in taverns, was a gross sensualist in his habits, and brutal in his conversation. His fine gentlemen all partake of their parent's grossness and vulgarity; they usually open their dialogue, by complaining of the effects of last night's debauch. He is probably the only author, who ever chose for his heroes a set of riotous bloods, or scowerers, as they were then termed, and expected the public should sympathise in their brutal orgies. True it is, that the heroes ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Vol. 7 (of 18) - The Duke of Guise; Albion and Albanius; Don Sebastian • John Dryden

... they dimly discerned the wigwams of the savages. Concealing themselves within musket shot, they waited patiently for the light to reveal their foes. The Indians were in a very dead sleep from a great debauch in which they had engaged during the early part of the night. The night had been warm, and they were sleeping upon the ground around their wigwams. At an appointed signal, every gun was discharged upon the slumberers, and a storm of bullets fell upon them and swept through their wigwams. ...
— King Philip - Makers of History • John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott

... than ever it was in the fabulous palmy days, but it is not so precious now; and a great work, so far from being treated as a priceless possession and a companion, is regarded only as an item in the menu furnished for a sort of literary debauch. A laborious historian spends ten years in studying an important period; he contrives to set forth his facts in a brilliant and exhilarating style, whereupon the word is passed that the history must be read. People meet, and the ...
— Side Lights • James Runciman

... comes a time when you think you will die unless you have some chocolate creams, go on a c.c. debauch. I do, occasionally, and will eat as many as ten or so; but I take them before dinner, then me for the balance of ...
— Diet and Health - With Key to the Calories • Lulu Hunt Peters

... that they stumble in a mire of dissipation. Mr. Hendricks never got aboard that railroad train so popular with political aspirants. The Dead River Grand Trunk Railroad is said to have for its stations Tippleton, Quarrelville, Guzzler's Junction, Debauch Siding, Dismal Swamp, Black Tunnel, Murderer's Gulch, Hangman's Hollow, and ...
— T. De Witt Talmage - As I Knew Him • T. De Witt Talmage

... indescribably reckless and desperate in such a picture. It seems not credible that respectable married people, with umbrellas, should find appetite for a bit of supper within quite a long distance of a fiery mountain; ordinary life begins to smell of high-handed debauch when it is carried on so close to a catastrophe; and even cheese and salad, it seems, could hardly be relished in such circumstances without something like a defiance of the Creator. It should be a place for nobody but hermits dwelling ...
— Virginibus Puerisque • Robert Louis Stevenson

... went into his house. They were not, even to Harry's hostile eye, brazenly ruffians. Something of the bully they might have about them, for they ran to brawn and swagger, but they were trim enough and brisk, and had no smack of debauch—a company of old soldiers, by the look of them, and still not past their prime. They were with Colonel Boyce a long time, and Harry grew very sick of the Tristia, and had to drink more beer over it than was his habit of ...
— The Highwayman • H.C. Bailey

... it in kindness—we couldn't bear to see the poor fellow so miserable:—and besides, he was such a damper upon us, sitting there silent and glum, when he was under the threefold influence—of the loss of his sweetheart, the loss of his fortune, and the reaction of the lost night's debauch; whereas, when he had something in him, if he was not merry himself, he was an unfailing source of merriment to us. Even Grimsby could chuckle over his odd sayings: they delighted him far more than my ...
— The Tenant of Wildfell Hall • Anne Bronte

... that I could cry like a baby? It cuts me to the heart, it is all so true; it is too much for me, when I think of my wretched, wasted years—paying all that money for my own labour, too! I am sober again after a debauch, I see what the object of my maudlin affection is like, and what ...
— Works, V2 • Lucian of Samosata

... $1,000. It was not much of a find, but it was enough to turn their heads. Dropping all work, they both proceeded to have "a good time," going on a drunken orgie, which lasted just as long as the money held out. When they came to their senses they were worse off than before. Weakened by prolonged debauch, they were in no mood for digging, and to complicate matters some one had jumped their claim during their absence. Even their tools had disappeared. Without resource or credit, they could not procure others. Yet work they must to keep the wolf from the door, so, cursing others when they had ...
— The Mask - A Story of Love and Adventure • Arthur Hornblow

... His defeat'; and I said to myself: 'Well, the last man shall not be quite a fiend, just to spite That Other.' And I worked and groaned, saying: 'I will be a good man, and burn nothing, nor utter aught unseemly, nor debauch myself, but choke back the blasphemies that Those Others shriek through my throat, and build and build, with moils and groans.' And it was Vanity: though I do love the house, too, I love it well, for it is my home on the ...
— The Purple Cloud • M.P. Shiel

... its nature, the disobedience was not active but passive; he did not positively injure his master's property; he simply failed to turn it to profitable account. The terror of this servant was too lively to admit of his enjoying a debauch purchased by the treasure which had been placed under his charge. Fear is a powerful motive in certain directions and for certain effects; it makes itself felt in the heart, and leaves its mark on the ...
— The Parables of Our Lord • William Arnot

... miscreants who infest the city of New York and advertise throughout the country the goods that he manufactures, but send nothing except rubbish. The "original Doctor Jacobs" excoriates unmercifully the whole tribe of swindlers whose rascalities debauch and bring odium upon the trade. He exhorts the gentleman of great reputed "shrewdness and sagacity" to observe the utmost caution in conducting operations, and gives him explicit directions ...
— The Lock and Key Library/Real Life #2 • Julian Hawthorne

... he ate, the taste grew more agreeable, and all the effects of his debauch disappeared. It was like magic; his blood warmed and glowed, as if touched with ...
— Alice of Old Vincennes • Maurice Thompson

... Sen plied his trade. And Foo Sen was cosmopolitan in his wares! Here, one, hard pressed, might find refuge from the law; here a pipe and pill were at one's command; here one might hide his stolen goods, or hatch his projected crime, or gamble, or debauch at will—it was the entree only that was hard to obtain ...
— The Further Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard

... steamy, looked like the steamy leaves of cabbage. The men were oblivious of their wives as they gave the social passwords of Main Street, the orthodox opinions on weather, crops, and motor cars, then flung away restraint and gyrated in the debauch of shop-talk. Stroking his chin, drawling in the ecstasy of being erudite, Kennicott inquired, "Say, doctor, what success have you had with thyroid for treatment of pains in the legs ...
— Main Street • Sinclair Lewis

... a quarrel, or made me dread one, with the clouds of tobacco, and fumes of brandy, gave an infernal appearance to the scene. There was everything to drive me back, nothing to excite sympathy in a rude tumult of the senses, which I foresaw would end in a gross debauch. What was to be done? No bed was to be had, or even a quiet corner to retire to for a moment; all was lost ...
— Letters written during a short residence in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark • Mary Wollstonecraft

... wrote Forster in 1779; but the Berliners! Sociability and refined taste, he found, degenerated in them into sensuality, into libertinage (he might almost say voracity), freedom of wit and love of shining in shameless licence and unrestrained debauch of thought. The women in general were abandoned. An English diplomat, Sir John Harris, afterwards Lord Malmesbury, had the same impression: Berlin was a town where, if fortis might be translated by "honourable," you could say that there was not a ...
— German Problems and Personalities • Charles Sarolea

... most of us, repent—or occasionally even repent of repenting. He does not read his own works and find them much worse or much better than he had expected. He does not feel a faint irrational sense of debauch, after even divine pleasures of this life. Watch him at a German restaurant, and you will satisfy yourself that he does not. In short, both in the most scientific and in the most casual sense of the word, he does not know what it is to have a ...
— The Appetite of Tyranny - Including Letters to an Old Garibaldian • G.K. Chesterton

... amongst much valuable knowledge that he had amassed, was a skill in dealing with wounds and a wide understanding of the ways to go about healing them. This knowledge made him realize how unwise at such a season was Gregory's debauch, and sorrowfully did he wag his head over his master's ...
— The Tavern Knight • Rafael Sabatini

... that crouching figure; till at length they plainly could discern the line of arching loins, the crest, thick as a stallion's, the massive, wagging head. No mistake this time. There he lay in the deepest black, gigantic, revelling in his horrid debauch—the Black Killer! ...
— Bob, Son of Battle • Alfred Ollivant

... the Son the Son of Man and the Savior of his brothers: one whose chief utterance on the subject of the conventional family was an invitation to all of us to leave our families and follow him, and to leave the dead to bury the dead, and not debauch ourselves at that gloomy festival the family funeral, with its sequel of hideous mourning and grief which is either ...
— A Treatise on Parents and Children • George Bernard Shaw

... professional class, the capitalists to give up gladly whatever small pleasure they may have derived from the use of alcohol, in order that John Jones, workingman, may have money in the bank and a happy home, instead of his Saturday night debauch. In every democracy the few sacrifice for the many—"the greatest good of the greatest number" is the slogan. And I, for one, am proud to have been a member of that legislative body which passed so truly God-bidden and democratic an act ...
— Perfect Behavior - A Guide for Ladies and Gentlemen in all Social Crises • Donald Ogden Stewart

... unhappily, given to drink. The gay spirits and lively health of youth supported him for a while; but, even in these early days, he was too often troubled with that depression of spirit which follows on a debauch. But, as time passed on, and the habit grew stronger upon him, his health began to give way, and his cheerfulness of mind to desert him. He lived but four years after the publication of his ...
— Boswell's Correspondence with the Honourable Andrew Erskine, and His Journal of a Tour to Corsica • James Boswell

... IT UP. To prolong a debauch. We kept it up finely last night; metaphor drawn from ...
— 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue • Captain Grose et al.

... manners than the English; undoubtedly French fire-water was of excellent flavor. But the traders whom Dongan sent to Michilimackinac proved beyond cavil that English goods were cheap; and so long as a beaver skin was the price of a debauch on French brandy, whereas a mink skin was sufficient to attain the same exaltation by means of English rum, the French control of the fur trade rested on a precarious basis. The chief obstacle to Dongan's ...
— Beginnings of the American People • Carl Lotus Becker

... mistress. 'Twas a chance I saw you, lady, so intent was I On chiding hence these graceless serving-men, Who cannot break their fast at morning meals Without debauch and mistimed riotings. This house hath been a scene of nothing else But atheist riot and profane excess, Since my old master quitted ...
— The Works of Charles Lamb in Four Volumes, Volume 4 • Charles Lamb

... The Puritan debauch is the logical culmination of the anti-Paganism and backworldism launched two hundred centuries back. The Christian ethic, to the bewildered chagrin of its advocates, has triumphed. Not a triumph this time that offers itself as a cloak for Jesuitism, ...
— Nonsenseorship • G. G. Putnam

... August. c. 42. The utmost debauch of the emperor himself, in his favorite wine of Rhaetia, never exceeded a sextarius, (an English pint.) Id. c. 77. Torrentius ad loc. and Arbuthnot's Tables, ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 3 • Edward Gibbon

... its bearer was fairly out of college. The publicity it then attained (partly due to young Harman's conspicuous wealth) attached to some youthful exploits not without a certain wild humour. But frolic degenerated into brawl and debauch: what had been scrapes for the boy became scandals for the man; and he gathered a more and more unsavoury reputation until its like was not to be found outside a penitentiary. The crux of his career in his own country was ...
— The Guest of Quesnay • Booth Tarkington

... narrative, then, the population of the country, especially of the South and West, had arrived at that state of agitation, which, whether its object be legitimate or not, is certain, in a short time, to brutalize the public mind and debauch the public morals, by removing all the conscientious impediments which religion places against crime, and consequently all scruple in committing it. Heretofore, those vile societies of a secret nature, that disgrace the country and debase the character of her people, existed ...
— The Tithe-Proctor - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton

... French nation, just recovering from a debauch of irreligion and anarchy, should begin insensibly to yield to the charms of a wooer so seductive? For some time past the soldiers, as the Milan newspapers declared, had been a pack of tatterdemalions ever flying before the arms of his Majesty the Emperor; ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. I. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane

... they might not be perceived by the enemy, who was near; who, having scoured the country, and now returned heavy laden with booty, lay encamped in the plains in a careless and negligent posture, so that, with the night ensuing upon debauch and drunkenness, silence prevailed through all the camp. When Camillus learned this from his scouts, he drew out the Ardeatians, and in the dead of the night, passing in silence over the ground that lay between, came up to their works, and, commanding ...
— The Boys' and Girls' Plutarch - Being Parts of The "Lives" of Plutarch • Plutarch

... habit has been taught by others, e.g., by elder boys at school, where association largely results in mutual corruption. With others, the means of sensual gratification is found out by personal action; whilst in other cases fallen and depraved men have not hesitated to debauch the minds of mere children by teaching ...
— Searchlights on Health: Light on Dark Corners • B.G. Jefferis

... If such matter-of-course mention of appalling debauch cry of political honor and morality reflects the character of a conscience and foreshadows the scope of a purpose,—if such were his estimate of Congress, and such his belief then—how much are the Central Pacific magnates disposed ...
— How Members of Congress Are Bribed • Joseph Moore

... dazzled with uncouth shapes and startling colours, his throat parched with dust, elbowed, crushed, mauled, hustled by the crowd, he was intoxicated with this debauch of diversions. ...
— The Aspirations of Jean Servien • Anatole France

... said, the Syndic Doormann, when dining with him one day, having drunk more wine than usual, took away his cloak. This defence per Baccho was completely successful. An argument founded on the similarity between the conduct of the Syndic and the accused, could not but triumph, otherwise the little debauch of the former would have been condemned in the person of the latter. This trial, which terminated so whimsically, nevertheless proves that the best and the gravest institutions may become objects of ridicule when suddenly introduced into a country ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton

... him with their cries and gambols, having the air of inviting him to throw his harness to the winds and follow them on the plain, where grass grows for all without work. Naturally the driver endeavours to preserve his noble conquest, and distributes blows with the whip to those who wish to debauch it. Then the wild horses become furious, and throw themselves on the vehicle; they break it with their feet and cut their comrade's traces with their teeth to enable him to share their own free life. The enterprise satisfactorily concluded, they gallop ...
— The Industries of Animals • Frederic Houssay

... was sitting in an armchair, with his feet in a large tub of water, chewing a couple of bitter almonds. All this was by way of preparation for the evening's debauch. ...
— A Hungarian Nabob • Maurus Jokai

... chant, and shouting vociferously, till they feel assured that the evil spirit must have fled. Then they give themselves up to feasting and drinking rice-beer, till they are in a fit state for the wild debauch which follows. The festival now "becomes a saturnale, during which servants forget their duty to their masters, children their reverence for parents, men their respect for women, and women all notions ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer

... The work was done long before all the wolves had died. For the survivors, gorged to repletion, some wounded, others whole, slunk gradually away and disappeared in the dim glades, there to sleep off their cannibal debauch. ...
— Darkness and Dawn • George Allan England

... might be supposed, after my first debauch, with a violent headache, but I had also a fever, brought on by my previous anxiety of mind. I rose, dressed, and went on deck, where the snow was nearly a foot deep. It now froze hard, and the river was covered with small pieces ...
— Jacob Faithful • Captain Frederick Marryat

... having wound up some allotted portion of work, Ardworth would indulge what he called a self-saturnalia,—would stride off with old college friends to an inn in one of the suburbs, and spend, as he said triumphantly, "a day of blessed debauch!" Innocent enough, for the most part, the debauch was, consisting in cracking jests, stringing puns, a fish dinner, perhaps, and an extra bottle or two of fiery port. Sometimes this jollity, which was always loud and uproarious, found its scene in one of ...
— Lucretia, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... Ganymedes in white skirts shuffled with huge tankards through a perfect forest of orange trees in tubs; for, worse luck to my morals, I have not seen a single frightful example, not one individual balancing dispersedly over his legs. In the grand duchy of Baden the debauch is punished by a law of somewhat harsh logic, which commits to prison both drunkards and those who have furnished the wherewithal to excess. The common people form a nation of drinkers, not drunkards. The beer-tables are usually placed in the open air, with shelter ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 12, No. 32, November, 1873 • Various



Words linked to "Debauch" :   carnalise, debauchee, suborn, alter, lead off, lead astray, bastardise, sensualise, modify, revel, revelry, poison, carnalize, change, bastardize, infect, debaucher, sensualize



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