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Derogatory   /dərˈɑgətˌɔri/   Listen
Derogatory

adjective
1.
Expressive of low opinion.  Synonyms: derogative, disparaging.  "Disparaging remarks about the new house"






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Derogatory" Quotes from Famous Books



... thing that a foreigner does on entering Rome is to originate a derogatory name for the juice of the grape native to the soil, the vino nostrale. He calls it, if red wine, red ink, pink cider, red tea; if white wine, balm of gooseberries, blood of turnips, apple-juice, alum-water, and slops for babes; finally ... if not killed off with a fever, from drinking the ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. V, May, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... "Murray's Barracks," which became historic from their connection with the Boston Massacre,)—that James Otis, at the session of the Superior Court, in the Town-House, moved that the Court adjourn to Faneuil Hall, because of the cannon that remained pointed at the building, as it was derogatory to the honor of the Court to administer justice at the mouth of the cannon and the point of the bayonet,—that the Sixty-Fourth and Sixty-Fifth Regiments had arrived from Cork, and were quartered in the large and commodious stores on Wheelwright's Wharf,—and that Commodore Hood, the commander ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various

... which, being once made and wound up, will for a time perform its movements without the assistance or even presence of its maker. But reasons press too far the analogy between the Creator and an artisan. So excellent a man as Baxter was misled by this hypothesis, which evidently is as derogatory to God as occasionalism is fatal to ...
— Conversion of a High Priest into a Christian Worker • Meletios Golden

... near it but once— about a week ago—when I found the tomb covered with cobwebs, and twisted the key partly into the hole to drive out the spider. I give you my most solemn assurance that I never unlocked it, never saw the interior. Your suspicions are ungenerous and unjust—derogatory to you and insulting ...
— St. Elmo • Augusta J. Evans

... Alvida, after poisoning her first husband to secure Rasni, shamelessly attempts to woo the King of Cilicia. Quite the most successful character, perhaps the most amusing of all Greene's clowns, is Adam, the blacksmith. His loyal defence of his trade against derogatory aspersions, his rare drunkenness, his detection and beating of the practical joker who comes disguised as a devil to carry him off like a Vice on his back, his tactful replenishings of his cup at the king's table, ...
— The Growth of English Drama • Arnold Wynne

... opposed to a man's excellence: because "men think little of things that are not worth much ado" (Rhet. ii, 2). Now we seek for some kind of excellence from all our goods. Consequently whatever injury is inflicted on us, in so far as it is derogatory to our excellence, seems to savor of ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I-II (Pars Prima Secundae) - From the Complete American Edition • Saint Thomas Aquinas

... artificial polish, often only a cloak for baseness and selfishness!—in the daily interchange of business, one seeking to over-reach the other by wily arts; sacrificing principle for temporal advantage. There is nothing so derogatory to religion as aught allied to such a spirit among Christ's people—any such blot on the "living epistles." "Ye are the light of the world." That world is a quick observer. It is sharp to detect inconsistencies—slow to forget them. The true Christian ...
— The Mind of Jesus • John R. Macduff

... generation of converts threshes over the same old straw. The point is whether you will sit in judgment on one who questions the divine inspiration of certain passages in the Bible derogatory to women. If Mrs. Stanton had written approvingly of these passages you would not have brought in this resolution for fear the cause might be injured among the liberals in religion. In other words, if she had written your views, you would not have considered a resolution necessary. ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 2 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper

... settled all old and new grudges by a pull of the trigger, had he not been restrained by Mr. Hunt. That gentleman acted as moderator, endeavoring to prevent a general melee; in the midst of the brawl, however, an expression was made use of by Lisa derogatory to his own honor. In an instant the tranquil spirit of Mr. Hunt was in a flame. He now became as eager for the fight as any one on the ground, and challenged Lisa to settle the dispute on the spot with pistols. Lisa repaired to his boat to arm himself for the ...
— Astoria - Or, Anecdotes Of An Enterprise Beyond The Rocky Mountains • Washington Irving

... meeting. This was but fair and right, and they came. She then explained how different her idea of a meeting was from a church service to which they were accustomed; that she had no thought of saying anything derogatory of that service nor of the priests who ministered to them; that her heart had been drawn to them in sympathy, as they were leaving their old homes for new ones in America; and that she had wanted to address them as to their habits and aims in their ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage

... certainly could not tell Lord Rufford to speak to the Duke without getting the Duke's leave to tell him so. And then, if all this were done, and Lord Rufford were to assure the Duke that the young lady had made a mistake, how derogatory would all that be to the exalted quiescence of the house of Mayfair! She thoroughly wished that her niece were out of the house; for though she did believe the story, her belief was not thorough. "I will speak to your uncle," she said. "And now you ...
— The American Senator • Anthony Trollope

... best friends of Mr. Adams seriously questioned the propriety of his appearing as a Representative in the halls of Congress. It was a step never before taken by an ex-President of the United States. They apprehended it might be derogatory to his dignity, and injurious to his reputation and fame, to enter into the strifes, and take part in the litigations and contentions which characterize the national House of Representatives. Moreover, they were fearful that in measuring himself, as he necessarily must, in the decline ...
— Life and Public Services of John Quincy Adams - Sixth President of the Unied States • William H. Seward

... season! I should have been obliged to have a guard to defend me from fiddlers and pastrycooks, indignant at the abuse of their patrons. Already I'm told that, from some flippant and unguarded expressions considered derogatory to Baker Street and Harley Street, rents have fallen in these respectable quarters; and orders have been issued that at least Mr. Snob shall be asked to parties there no more. Well, then—now they are ALL away, let us frisk at our ease, and have at everything like the bull ...
— The Book of Snobs • William Makepeace Thackeray

... Lenni-Lenape, as well as the other tribes of North America, women often had a peculiar part to play in national and social affairs. If ever the services of a peacemaker were desired, that position was always given to a woman. It was considered derogatory to the dignity of a male Indian that he should at any time, of his own accord, desire peace. He and his enemy might both be thoroughly tired of fighting; but neither of them would lower himself in his own estimation, and in the estimation of his countrymen, ...
— Stories of New Jersey • Frank Richard Stockton

... congregation have stipulated with a minister to fill the pulpit, and preach two sermons a week, visit the sick and attend funerals, they think he can have not too much time for composing sermons. They moreover consider it derogatory to the honor of his flock to be obliged to keep a school—when I told him that our clergymen bent all their force to instructing youth in morality and religion, he said, then they attempt to raise a structure before they lay a foundation for it. He seemed very strenuous ...
— A Journal of a Young Man of Massachusetts, 2nd ed. • Benjamin Waterhouse

... determined to initiate no changes which would disturb the official party, or give self-government to the people. The assembly, in which the Liberals were dominant, passed an address to the king, declaring the lieutenant-governor's conduct "derogatory to the honour of the king," and also a memorial to the British house of commons charging him with "misrepresentation, and a ...
— Canada under British Rule 1760-1900 • John G. Bourinot

... took in his clothes again. "You mean you're a Middle? You neither talk nor look like a Middle, captain." She used the caste rating as though it was not quite a derogatory term. ...
— Mercenary • Dallas McCord Reynolds

... monarchs, they acknowledged, that all these princes, by the primary and fundamental law of the state, had been vested with a solid and absolute authority. They declared their abhorrence of all principles and positions derogatory to the king's sacred, supreme, sovereign, absolute power, of which none, they said, whether single persons or collective bodies, can participate, but in dependence on him, and by commission from him. They promised, that the whole nation, between sixteen and sixty, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part F. - From Charles II. to James II. • David Hume

... families, and to these the plan of education was adapted. Then appeared Pestalozzi and directed education also to the lower classes of society—those which are called, not without something approaching to a derogatory meaning, the people. From this time dates popular education, the effort for the intellectual and moral elevation of the hitherto neglected atomistic human being of the non-property-holding multitude. ...
— Pedagogics as a System • Karl Rosenkranz

... generous—aye, a noble heart, and will freely grant what is frankly solicited. Bear in mind, moreover, Ronayne, that it is no humiliation to admit error when conscious of having committed it; and if this be so in the social relations of life, how much less derogatory is ...
— Hardscrabble - The Fall of Chicago: A Tale of Indian Warfare • John Richardson

... Aunt Dahlia had been able to preserve her frozen calm. The dam now burst. The years rolled away from her, and she was once more the Dahlia Wooster of the old yoicks-and-tantivy days—the emotional, free-speaking girl who had so often risen in her stirrups to yell derogatory personalities at people ...
— Right Ho, Jeeves • P. G. Wodehouse

... way, was attacked by Darnley, in his edition of Beaumont and Fletcher, as 'false and degrading to man, derogatory to God.' As I have lately seen the remark quoted with approbation, it is worth noticing the argument by which Darnley supports it. He says that an honest able man is nobler than an honest man, and Aristides with the genius of Homer nobler than Aristides with the dulness of a clown. Undoubtedly! ...
— Hours in a Library, Volume I. (of III.) • Leslie Stephen

... in the mouths of people, and in the papers. And every day grew the ominous feeling that something was wrong. It was a contradictory situation and no one could put a finger on the trouble. Rumors one heard, but no definite derogatory statements. The truth was that those who knew what was wrong had good reasons for saying nothing, while all who had to do with stock affairs and surmised the evil, were themselves loaded up with the stock ...
— Frenzied Finance - Vol. 1: The Crime of Amalgamated • Thomas W. Lawson

... chose to sell his books himself in his own neighbourhood he might have a supply at cost price, or half-a-crown per volume. Clare consulted his intimate friends on this project: Allan Cunningham indignantly inveighed against Mr. Taylor for making a suggestion so derogatory to the dignity of a poet, and Mrs. Emmerson at first took a similar view, but afterwards changed her mind, on seeing Clare himself pretty confident that he could sell a sufficient number of copies not only to clear himself from debt but enable him to rent a small farm. After Clare had accepted ...
— Life and Remains of John Clare - "The Northamptonshire Peasant Poet" • J. L. Cherry

... as to the genus of the sin, the Manichean heresy is more grievous than the sin of other idolaters, because it is more derogatory to the divine honor, since they set up two gods in opposition to one another, and hold many vain and fabulous fancies about God. It is different with other heretics, who confess their belief in one ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas

... high, and led us on to victory. Of course, our verminous contemporary, the Independent, will scoff, and wipe its shoes on the illustrious dead. Of course, the mangey creature—ceasing the while from its perennial self-scratching—will hoot something derogatory. Let it sneer, yelp aloud in its impotent hog-like manner; let it root with its filthy snout among the heaps of garbage where it loves to make its unclean haunt in unspeakable Buffery. 'Twill not serve—the ...
— Pickwickian Studies • Percy Fitzgerald

... only write Greek as a scholar, but seems to have spoken it with considerable ease and fluency; for on one occasion he made a speech in that language, a condescension which some of his friends thought derogatory to the dignity ...
— Cicero - Ancient Classics for English Readers • Rev. W. Lucas Collins

... thing. The last speech in opposition to the measure was made by Mr. Webster, who employed the strongest language he could command condemnatory of an act which he declared was so unconstitutional, so derogatory to the character of the senate, and marked with so broad an impression of compliance with power. But though thus pronounced an irregular and unconstitutional proceeding by Mr. Webster and the other senators with whom he sided and voted, Mr. John Quincy Adams, ...
— Hidden Treasures - Why Some Succeed While Others Fail • Harry A. Lewis

... the rise of the burgher class, and the evolution of human liberty through their work, was by no means an easy task. As the military spirit was dominant, the calling of an artisan was considered derogatory, and lords and soldiers looked down upon the industrious classes as inferior beings. Scott well represents this spirit in the speech of Rob Roy, the Highland chief, in his reply to the offer of Bailie Jarvie to get his sons employment in a factory: "Make my sons weavers! I would see every loom ...
— Ten Great Events in History • James Johonnot

... thus Sioux, Biloxi, and Hohe (the Dakota designation for the Asiniboin) are clearly opprobrious, while Paskagula might easily be opprobrious among hunters and warriors, and Iowa and Oto appear to be derogatory or contemptuous expressions. The names applied by the whites were sometimes taken from geographic positions, as in the case of Upper Yanktonai and Cape Fear—the geographic names themselves being frequently of Indian origin. Some of the current names ...
— The Siouan Indians • W. J. McGee

... Robinson was sharp. He knew quite well that the brains of the London detectives held some elusive quality which he personally lacked. They seemed to peer into the heart of a thing so wisely and thoroughly. He did not share Superintendent Fowler's somewhat derogatory estimate of Furneaux, with whom he was much better acquainted than was his superior officer, while Chief Inspector Winter's repute stood so high that it might not be questioned. Still, to the best ...
— The Postmaster's Daughter • Louis Tracy

... told Ramon, I cannot help but feel that it is not true. My father could not have become a pauper, much less could he, the soul of honor, have been guilty of anything derogatory to his good name. Until a few days prior to his death, he had been in his usual excellent spirits, and surely had there been any financial difficulties in his path he would have retrenched, in some measure. He made no effort to do so, however, and in the last few weeks has given ...
— The Crevice • William John Burns and Isabel Ostrander

... of the arts, asked Daniel whether he had ever heard anything about a certain Hugo Wolf who was being much talked about and who was sitting in darkest Austria turning out songs like a Hottentot, made a number of derogatory remarks about a fountain that was being erected in the city, said that a company of dancers had just appeared at the Cultural Club in a repertory of grotesque pantomimes, remarked that as he was coming over he learned that there was an institution in the city that loaned potato sacks, ...
— The Goose Man • Jacob Wassermann

... very characteristic that, in this serious piece also, low humour was still largely employed. In printing—the publisher remarks—the passages in question were left out, as derogatory 'to so ...
— Shakspere And Montaigne • Jacob Feis

... promise was given. That it proceeded from any inclination to the Roman Catholic faith, and any hope that, by its means, easier terms might be obtained for that faith, was a supposition that Clarendon would have deemed derogatory to the King's honesty. Clarendon would gladly have seen terms more merciful granted by the Act of Uniformity. But once the Bill was passed he saw how fatal vacillation was, and would fain have persuaded his ...
— The Life of Edward Earl of Clarendon V2 • Henry Craik

... outdone, yet what survived the day was a rumour, which became a sort of tenuous legend among those interested. There had been a fight over Dora Yocum, it appeared, and Ramsey Milholland had attempted to maintain something derogatory to the lady, while Wesley defended her as a knightly youth should. The something derogatory was left vague; nobody attempted to say just what it was, and the effects of the legend divided the schoolroom strictly according ...
— Ramsey Milholland • Booth Tarkington

... necessity of devoting millions of money to the defence of our coasts. I contend that there is nothing in the expected new system of naval warfare, through the employment of steam-vessels, that can justify such expensive and derogatory precautions, because there are equally new, and yet secret, means of conquest, which no devices hitherto used in maritime warfare could resist ...
— The Life of Thomas, Lord Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald, Vol. II • Thomas Lord Cochrane

... it," he answered, "from Lady Janet's point of view. Do you suppose she sees anything derogatory to her in attempting to break off the marriage? I will answer for it, she believes she is doing you a kindness. In one sense it would be a kindness to spare you the shame of a humiliating confession, and to save you (possibly) from being rejected to ...
— The New Magdalen • Wilkie Collins

... the girl was washing the glasses. The establishment boasted four: we do not record the circumstance as at all derogatory to Mrs. Raddle, for there never was a lodging-house yet, that was not short of glasses. The landlady's glasses were little, thin, blown-glass tumblers, and those which had been borrowed from the public-house ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens

... is pious and not at all ill taught, he is much pleased to find so little difference between the teaching of the Koran and the Aangeel. He wanted me, in case Omar did not go with me, to take him to serve me. Here there is no idea of its being derogatory for a gentleman's son to wait on one who teaches him, it is positively incumbent. He does all 'menial offices' for his mother, hands coffee, waits at table or helps Omar in anything if I have company, nor will he eat or smoke before me, or sit till I tell him—it is ...
— Letters from Egypt • Lucie Duff Gordon

... In setting down these derogatory comments I do not wish to imply that I was positively detested but that I was not a beloved county institution was soon evident to my wife. Delegations of school children did not call upon me, and very few ...
— A Daughter of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland

... a moment, and then she answered boldly, "Not a whit. Why should it be derogatory? It is not done with the object of obtaining an improper appointment on behalf of an unimportant man. When falsehoods of that kind are told you can't meet them in a straightforward way. I suppose I know with ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope

... friends throughout life. "Eastward Hoe" achieved the extraordinary popularity represented in a demand for three issues in one year. But this was not due entirely to the merits of the play. In its earliest version a passage which an irritable courtier conceived to be derogatory to his nation, the Scots, sent both Chapman and Jonson to jail; but the matter was soon patched up, for by this time Jonson had influence ...
— The Poetaster - Or, His Arraignment • Ben Jonson

... their country into debt, that is no reason why we should also be bound down to her in her depression. I know many condemn the desire of the Moreton Bay people to relieve themselves from the embarrassment of New South Wales; and state it is selfish and derogatory in us attempting to repudiate our share of the debt, and after being benefited by her prosperity in past years, to desire separation now, when her resources are more circumscribed. But I believe the obligation is the other ...
— Fern Vale (Volume 1) - or the Queensland Squatter • Colin Munro

... on that day in preparing what was needed for the Sabbath. Therefore, though one may have many servants to wait upon him, it is a great merit personally to prepare for the wants of the Sabbath in order thus to honor it; and let him not think it derogatory to his own honor to honor the Sabbath thus, for it is his honor to honor the Sabbath. It is written of H'A'ree of blessed memory, that he was in the habit of sweeping away the cobwebs in his house (in honor of the Sabbath), and it is well known to the initiated what ...
— Hebraic Literature; Translations from the Talmud, Midrashim and - Kabbala • Various

... Addison harps continually. Indeed, were it not for this weakness in the 'feminine world' half his vocation as a moralist in the Spectator would be gone, and if the general estimate in his Essays of the women with whom he was acquainted be to any extent a correct one, the derogatory language used by men of letters, and especially by Swift, Prior, Pope, and Chesterfield may be ...
— The Age of Pope - (1700-1744) • John Dennis

... Child was galled into a vote for three of the most respectable men in the town of Milton!!—viz: Daniel Couch jun. Esq. Joel Keeler Esq. late a member of the legislature, and Thomas Palmer Esq!!!—It is derogatory to no man in that town, to say that a more respectable delegation could not have been procured. And what is more shameful still, one of those gentlemen, viz: Daniel Couch jun Esq. whom the Doctor had thus honestly ...
— A Review and Exposition, of the Falsehoods and Misrepresentations, of a Pamphlet Addressed to the Republicans of the County of Saratoga, Signed, "A Citizen" • An Elector

... hurtful, harmful, detrimental, pernicious, deleterious, baneful, noxious, maleficent, prejudicial; defamatory, derogatory, detractory. ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming

... expected, had obtained employment in a merchant's counting-house at Hull, for which his knowledge of languages eminently fitted him. Though he possessed none of the noble blood of the Talbots, the employment was thought by Mistress Susan somewhat derogatory to the family dignity, and there was a strong suspicion both in her mind and that of Master Heatherthwayte that his change of purpose was due to the change of religion in England, although he was a perfectly regular church-goer. Captain Talbot, however, laughed at all this, ...
— Unknown to History - A Story of the Captivity of Mary of Scotland • Charlotte M. Yonge

... presume to understand the ceremonials of government. My father is of the opinion, that 'The President of the United States' has a Roman and republican simplicity, and that any addition to it would be derogatory and childish." ...
— The Maid of Maiden Lane • Amelia E. Barr

... by no means the case, it principally derives its immediate subsistence from a deity of a fabricative characteristic, whom Plato calls Jupiter, conformably to the theology of Orpheus. The intelligent reader will readily admit that this dogmas is so far from being derogatory to the dignity of the Supreme, that on the contrary it exalts that dignity, and, preserves in a becoming manner the exempt transcendency of the ineffable. If therefore we presume to celebrate him, for as we have already observed, it is more becoming to establish in silence those parturitions ...
— Introduction to the Philosophy and Writings of Plato • Thomas Taylor

... case at Saratoga—he found himself thinking of the way Melinda had of helping "fix his things" when he was going from home, and of hearing his mother say what a handy girl she was, and what a thrifty, careful wife she would make. He meant nothing derogatory to Ethelyn in these reminiscences; he would not have exchanged her for a thousand Melindas, even if he had to pin his shirt bosoms together and go barefoot all his life. But Melinda kept recurring ...
— Ethelyn's Mistake • Mary Jane Holmes

... Sonya, during this stay in Moscow, he said to himself, "Ah, there will be, and there are, many more such girls somewhere whom I do not yet know. There will be time enough to think about love when I want to, but now I have no time." Besides, it seemed to him that the society of women was rather derogatory to his manhood. He went to balls and into ladies' society with an affectation of doing so against his will. The races, the English Club, sprees with Denisov, and visits to a certain house—that was another matter and quite the thing for a dashing ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy

... associate them with experimental psychology would be to lend colour to the idea that modern science has recognized this branch of knowledge. Nothing, perhaps, is further from the fact, and while it cannot in any way be regarded as derogatory to the highest scientist to be associated with others, of less scientific attainment but of equal integrity, in this comparatively new field of enquiry, it may lead to popular error to institute a connection. It is still fresh in the mind how the Darwinian hypothesis was utterly misconceived by the ...
— Second Sight - A study of Natural and Induced Clairvoyance • Sepharial

... make the progress we would wish her while she has so many avocations. I kept her home a week in hopes Shepherd would consent to attend her at home, but he absolutely declined it, as his partners thought it derogatory to their dignity. I was therefore obliged to submit, and permit her to go as usual. She begins to cipher. Mr. Chevalier attends regularly, and I take care she never omits learning her French lesson. I believe she makes most progress in this. Mr. St. Aivre never comes; ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis

... next that of the commander-in-chief, a guard of Roman knights[1061] for his person. Both requests had been refused—the place of honour because it belonged only to those whom the Roman people had addressed as kings, the guard, because it was derogatory to the knights of Rome to act as escort to a Numidian. The prince may have taken the refusal, not merely as an insult in itself, but as a hint that Metellus did not recognise him as a probable successor to Jugurtha. He was in an anxious and moody frame of mind when he was ...
— A History of Rome, Vol 1 - During the late Republic and early Principate • A H.J. Greenidge

... the design of the other, but it was far from being agreeable to him. The idea of letting the Pequot fight the battle alone was derogatory to his honor, and besides, his curiosity was stimulated to witness the conduct of the savage, and he therefore ...
— The Knight of the Golden Melice - A Historical Romance • John Turvill Adams

... credit, at least with less loss, than any other man prominently identified with its agitation and settlement. This was not pleasing to the President. He had evidently not concealed his distrust from the outset, and had cumbered his offer of a cabinet position with conditions which seemed derogatory to the dignity of Mr. Buchanan,—conditions which a man of spirit might well have resented. He informed Mr. Buchanan that, as he should "take no part himself between gentlemen of the Democratic party who might become aspirants ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine

... is surviving all derogatory criticism. He is still the poet with the universal appeal. It is altogether probable that he is more widely read to-day than any other American poet. Even foreigners still express their affection for this poet of the domestic ...
— Stories of Authors, British and American • Edwin Watts Chubb

... were by no means pleased at this addition to the number of the Ranees; and they agreed amongst themselves that it would be highly derogatory to their dignity to permit Guzra Bai to associate with them, and that the Rajah their husband, had offered them an unpardonable insult in marrying a Malee's daughter, which was to be revenged upon her the ...
— Tales of Wonder Every Child Should Know • Various

... Pasha a Censor would not allow us to send anything about the ox-wagons. That officer thought the ox-cart was derogatory to the dignity of the army. If we had been able to say that they had such things as motor transport, or steam wagons, he would have cheerfully allowed ...
— Bulgaria • Frank Fox

... a word to say. Mr. Batchgrew grunted, vacillating. It seemed as if the majestic apparition of Mrs. Maldon had rebuked everything that was derogatory and undignified in her trustee, and that both he and Louis were apologizing to the empty hall for being common, base creatures. Each of them—and especially Louis—had the sense of being awakened to events of formidable grandeur whose imminence neither had suspected. Still assuring ...
— The Price of Love • Arnold Bennett

... Marryat's novels, and sort birds' eggs. And this new boy would most likely never go out of the close, and would be afraid of wet feet, and always getting laughed at, and called Molly, or Jenny, or some derogatory ...
— Tom Brown's Schooldays • Thomas Hughes

... to reproach Antony for a little kind of banquet, because he, as he says, drinks water, his purpose being to sit up at night and compose speeches against us,—though he brings up his son in such drunkenness that the latter is sober neither night nor day. Furthermore he undertook to make derogatory remarks about Antony's mouth, this man who has shown so great licentiousness and impurity throughout his entire life that he would not keep his hands off even his closest kin, but let out his wife for hire and ...
— Dio's Rome, Vol. III • Cassius Dio

... imaginary crimes, and have so much intellectual cowardice, that they dare not reason about those things, which they are directed by their priests to believe, however contradictory to human apprehension, or derogatory to the great Creator of all things. The maniacal hallucination at length becomes so painful, that the poor insane flies from life to become free ...
— Zoonomia, Vol. II - Or, the Laws of Organic Life • Erasmus Darwin

... in one of her talkative moods. Her voice, clear and boyish and far-carrying, was so easy and pleasant to listen to that it didn't matter much what she said. Should I convey an erroneous impression and one derogatory to a charming companion if I said that she chattered along like a magpie? She talked about servants, and I gathered that she had never had any trouble with servants. And I thought, "Why should you, ...
— We Three • Gouverneur Morris

... constitution of society, an unsuitable acquaintance, friendship, or alliance, is more embarrassing and more painful for the woman than the man. As in single life an undesirable acquaintance is more derogatory to a woman than to a man, so in married life, the woman it is who ventures most, "for," as Jeremy Taylor writes, "she hath no sanctuary in which to retire from an evil husband; she may complain to God as do the subjects of tyrants and ...
— Social Life - or, The Manners and Customs of Polite Society • Maud C. Cooke

... satirist upon the narrative of the Roman historian. I confess that, but for its technical merits, which are lost upon most of the visitors of the Gallery, the picture would give me no pleasure whatever, nay, much disgust, as altogether derogatory ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 385. November, 1847. • Various

... even to this, and thus the blue court-dress, for instance, was lost for ever. Moller never wrote again. When later on he called on me at the time of my conductorship in Dresden, he admitted that he had been embittered against me owing to humiliating and derogatory remarks we were said to have made about him after we parted, and had resolved not to have anything further to do with us. We were certain of our innocence in the matter, and very grieved at having, through pure slander, lost the chance of such ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner

... and the red blossoms and green leaf-pairs unconcernedly slashing the white garment, have seen one of the prettiest sights in the world. But I should not dream of transferring the epithets "beautiful" or even "pretty" from the flower to the book. It is remarkable, and it is clever in no derogatory sense. For it has pathos without mere sentiment, and truth, throwing a light on humanity, which is not wholly or even mainly like ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 - To the Close of the 19th Century • George Saintsbury

... retained. It had lost its ethnic meaning and among the Ragusan poets of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries the word was used to signify a shepherd. The Venetians employed the word Morlacchi as a term of mockery, because it indicated people of the mountains, backward people. And this derogatory connotation has clung to it, so that to-day the Morlaks, who after all are Croats and Serbs, do not like to ...
— The Birth of Yugoslavia, Volume 1 • Henry Baerlein

... only be regarded as adventures for plunder and robbery, and must meet the condemnation of the civilized world, whilst they are derogatory to the character of our country, in violation of the laws of nations, and expressly prohibited by our own. Our statutes declare "that if any person shall, within the territory or jurisdiction of the United ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents, Volume - V, Part 1; Presidents Taylor and Fillmore • James D. Richardson

... British people that whilst we desire to retain the British connection, if we can rise to our full height with it we are determined to dispense with, and even to get rid of that connection, if that is necessary for full national development. I hold that it is not only derogatory to national dignity but it actually impedes national progress superstitiously to believe that our progress towards our goal is impossible without British connection. It is this superstition which makes some of the best of us tolerate the Punjab wrong and the Khilafat insult. ...
— Freedom's Battle - Being a Comprehensive Collection of Writings and Speeches on the Present Situation • Mahatma Gandhi

... despatched to Bellerstown to offer this high behest to the poor parson, whose ready compliance was expected, as a matter of course. But he calmly and peremptorily refused the proffered vote, and intimated that he held it derogatory to the sacred nature of his office to pollute himself with such politics, and inconsistent with every principle of honour, morality, and religion, to take an oath, as required by law, that he was possessed of a landed estate, while, in truth, he had no earthly title ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume VI • Various

... he, "the study of the fine arts, for we see them applied only to embellish pleasures, and to strengthen our inducements to gratify the senses at the expense of our immortal claims. But, because we have seen painting put to this derogatory use, and have, in consequence, prohibited the cultivation of it among us, are we sure that it is not one of those gracious gifts which God has bestowed on the world, not to add to the sensual pleasures of man, but to facilitate his improvement as ...
— The Life, Studies, And Works Of Benjamin West, Esq. • John Galt

... one's predecessors. Moreover, public sentiment is not to be derided nor disregarded. It has a certain title to respect, even when superstition is involved. Hence the statement can be made, that in telling this story of the "Yotsuya Kwaidan" no derogatory motive is involved—to people, class, or person; least of all in reference to ...
— The Yotsuya Kwaidan or O'Iwa Inari - Tales of the Tokugawa, Volume 1 (of 2) • James S. De Benneville

... conservatism, expatiated upon the benefits with which they endowed the country, and the evils which would occur when they should be no more:—decay of English spirit, decay of manly pluck, ruin of the breed of horses, and so forth, and so forth. To give and take a black eye was not unusual nor derogatory in a gentleman; to drive a stage-coach the enjoyment, the emulation of generous youth. Is there any young fellow of the present time who aspires to take the place of a stoker? You see occasionally in Hyde Park one dismal old drag with a lonely driver. ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray

... Mary Pembroke, colouring with that prompt indignation which she was prone to feel when any thing was said that seemed derogatory to her friends, "that's possible, Sir James; and yet you find Miss Caroline Percy does draw in this very superior style—yes, and it is the perfection of her accomplishments, that they ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. VII - Patronage • Maria Edgeworth

... will—I have desired his Holiness not only not to sanction such conduct openly, but not to pass it by in silence. I have demanded that severe and fitting sentence be passed at once on an act so wicked and so derogatory to the Apostolic ...
— The Reign of Henry the Eighth, Volume 1 (of 3) • James Anthony Froude

... Chevalier feel almost happy. But she had deceived him; she had not spoken the truth. She had lied out of self-respect, and in order not to reveal a domestic secret which she regarded as derogatory to the honour of her family. The truth was that, being carried away by her passion for Ligny, Felicie had given Girmandel the go-by, and he, being a man of the world, had promptly cut off supplies. Madame Nanteuil, despite her years, had resumed ...
— A Mummer's Tale • Anatole France

... such an accident, for instance, as getting drunk. If you came to think of it, few things could be more compromising to the person than that (Heavens! if Miss Harden had seen it last Wednesday night!). And since any friendship with ladies of doubtful character might be considered equally derogatory from its dignity, he further resolved to eliminate (absolutely) Miss Poppy Grace. He took no credit for these acts of renunciation. They seemed to him no more morally meritorious than the removal of dust from his coat sleeves, or of ink-stains ...
— The Divine Fire • May Sinclair

... their former ordinances, as a necessary security for that purpose, Edward told them that he was willing to grant them a free and legal confirmation of such of those ordinances as were not entirely derogatory to the prerogative of the crown. This answer was received for the present as satisfactory. The king's person, after the death of Gavaston, was now become less obnoxious to the public; and as the ordinances insisted on appeared to ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part B. - From Henry III. to Richard III. • David Hume

... forced to yield, and consent to this derogatory marriage of her son," said the notary. "If such a misfortune happens it is probable that the greater part of your uncle's fortune will serve for what ...
— Ursula • Honore de Balzac

... Cloncurry, who, being a member of the Association, was unworthy to receive the King's representative and the Chancellor. Lord Anglesey warmly defended Lord Cloncurry as a magistrate and a man, and appealed to his known loyalty and respect for the King as a proof that he would never have done anything derogatory to his own situation. The Duke's letter he described to have been overbearing and insolent, Lord Anglesey's[22] temperate, but firm. Lord Anglesey declares that these were all the grounds of offence he had ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William - IV, Volume 1 (of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville

... the virtue, the honor, and the patriotism of their country, withhold their suffrages from those candidates for office who offer ardent spirit as a bribe to secure their elevation to power. It is derogatory to the liberties of our country, that office can be obtained by such corruption—be held by such ...
— Select Temperance Tracts • American Tract Society

... head it must be admitted, that letters-patent under the Great Seal of Great Britain for coining copper money for Ireland, are legal and obligatory, a just and reasonable exercise of your Majesty's royal prerogative, and in no manner derogatory, or invasive, of any liberties or privileges of your subjects of Ireland. When any matter or thing is transacting that concerns or may affect your kingdom of Ireland, if your Majesty has any doubts concerning the same, or sees just cause for considering ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. VI; The Drapier's Letters • Jonathan Swift

... plunge, or start, or do anything derogatory to its age and infirmities. So that Charles Larkyns' proposition caused him some little nervous agitation; nevertheless, as he was ashamed to confess his fears, he, in a moment of weakness, consented to accompany ...
— The Adventures of Mr. Verdant Green • Cuthbert Bede

... that it will be in this one instance, or in the other: "In the morning sow thy seed, and in the evening withhold not thy hand; for thou knowest not whether shall prosper, this, or that." If they rate the value of their agency so high, as to hold it derogatory to their dignity that any part of their labors should be performed under the condition of possibly being unsuccessful, they may be assured that such is not exactly the estimate of Him to whom they look for the acceptance of their services, and ...
— An Essay on the Evils of Popular Ignorance • John Foster

... again with the yoke of bondage.' This word to the Galatians contains the doctrine of Christian liberty, which soon at the Reformation was to resound so loudly. Erasmus did not apply it here in a sense derogatory to the dogmatics of the Catholic Church; but still it is a fact that the Enchiridion prepared many minds to give up much that he still wanted ...
— Erasmus and the Age of Reformation • Johan Huizinga

... suppose that the gentleman lowers himself anywhere—and especially in the Colonies—by undertaking any kind of manual labour. I have known the sons of gentlemen of good family working as bullock-drivers, shepherds, stockdrivers, bushmen, for a yearly wage, and nobody considered the employment derogatory. On the contrary, these are the men who get on ...
— Five Years in New Zealand - 1859 to 1864 • Robert B. Booth

... that she would reason as he had reasoned himself, if she chanced to see him while she was waiting for the man she loved. She knew that he was to marry her sister, and that he might therefore be supposed to disapprove of an affair which could only lead to a derogatory match for herself, and he had therefore carefully abstained from following her on that Sunday morning when she ...
— Sant' Ilario • F. Marion Crawford

... did not share the generous sentiments of La Corne St. Luc. They thought it derogatory to pure military men to listen to a priest on the ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby

... gladiators by disseminating artfully concocted news. Those actually in the secret, flattered by the confidence and fearful for their own skins, steadfastly denied the story when it cropped up. Last, but not least, was the law, that made it sacrilege to speak in terms derogatory to the emperor. A gladiator, though the crowd might almost deify him, was a casteless individual, unprivileged before the law, whom any franchised citizen would rate as socially far beneath himself. To have identified the emperor with Paulus in a voice above a whisper would have made the ...
— Caesar Dies • Talbot Mundy

... that curate is thoroughly sound. It is full of incident and humour and not at all derogatory to the prestige of the church. I have been asked for it, more than once, by hostesses. And though I am rather sick of it myself, I still fall back on it in cases of such urgency as I judged the present one to ...
— The Jervaise Comedy • J. D. Beresford

... few days to keep the light which chance had shed for me upon Armour's affairs to myself. The whole thing considered in connection with his rare and delicate talent, seemed too derogatory and disastrous to impart without the sense of doing him some kind of injury in the mere statement. But there came a point when I could no longer listen to Dora Harris's theories to account for him, wild idealizations as most of them were of any man's circumstances and intentions. ...
— The Pool in the Desert • Sara Jeannette Duncan

... book, full of occult hints—though not with much explanation of the hints given—the Yoga Vasishtha, a clear definite statement that the deities, as Mahadeva, Vishnu and Brahma, have all climbed upward to the mighty posts They hold.[2] And that may well be so, if you think of it; there is nothing derogatory to Them in the thought; for there is but one Existence, the eternal fount of all that comes forth as separated, whether separated in the universe as I'shvara, or separated in the copy of the universe in man; ...
— Avataras • Annie Besant

... embarrassed by this liberal offer, he at once changed his ground, abandoned Cooper's remark, which had previously been the sole subject of discussion, and peremptorily insisted that Gen. Hamilton should deny ever having made remarks from which inferences derogatory to him could fairly have been drawn. This demand was plainly unjustifiable. No person would answer such an interrogatory. It showed that Burr's desire was, not to satisfy his honor, but to goad his adversary to the field. It establishes the general charge, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 5, March, 1858 • Various

... demanded, or, at least, some among them, unquestionably were derogatory to the rights of a sovereign nation. But in spite of their extreme character Servia, on July 25, declared that she submitted to them almost without a reservation of ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War from the Beginning to March 1915, Vol 1, No. 2 - Who Began the War, and Why? • Various

... this formality. I am confident that Mr. Stead himself, if he should read these lines, will not make any objection to my revelation of these little episodes in his early career. I have told them because, whilst they are so thoroughly characteristic of the man, they are not in any way derogatory to his reputation. ...
— Memoirs of Sir Wemyss Reid 1842-1885 • Stuart J. Reid, ed.

... than intellect in its exercise, so we demand of those who watch us an appreciation of the simple unconscious kind which finds an outlet in clapping rather than the cold, intellectual approval which would self-consciously think applause derogatory. I have yet to meet the actor who was sincere in saying that he ...
— The Story of My Life - Recollections and Reflections • Ellen Terry

... the detestable doctrine of faith against good works, I was his friend no longer; for surely that doctrine was coined in hell; and one would think none but the devil himself could have the confidence to preach it. For can anything be more derogatory to the honour of God than for men to imagine that the all-wise Being will hereafter say to the good and virtuous, 'Notwithstanding the purity of thy life, notwithstanding that constant rule of virtue and goodness in which you walked upon earth, still, ...
— Joseph Andrews Vol. 1 • Henry Fielding

... suddenly assailed me that what I have said may sound derogatory to Hester. Know, then, that I do not think there is a woman in the world who is not capable of inspiring true and abiding love in the heart of some man. Besides, Hester to me looms up as a heroine. Not a hair's breadth ...
— The Kempton-Wace Letters • Jack London

... this brief ceremony, Durward's companion seemed to pay the most rigid and scrupulous attention; while Durward, not quite so much occupied with religious thoughts, could not forbear blaming himself in his own mind for having entertained suspicions derogatory to the character of so good and so humble a man. Far from now holding him as a companion and accomplice of robbers, he had much to do to forbear regarding him ...
— Quentin Durward • Sir Walter Scott

... the force of historical facts and express declarations," p. 69. (3) And that they were "more open to censure," when, on being "urged by objections to various passages in the history of the Old Testament, as derogatory to the divine perfections or to the Jewish Saints, they had recourse to an allegorical explanation by way of answer," p. 71. (4) I add, "It is impossible to defend such a procedure, which seems to imply a want of faith in those who had recourse to it;" ...
— Apologia pro Vita Sua • John Henry Newman

... an eye-witness of discernment, we must believe that party spirit, which had usually so little influence over his sense of justice, swayed the prepossessions of Lord Hardwicke. At all events, it affected his treatment of the unhappy men to whom he displayed a petulance wholly derogatory to his character as a judge, and discreditable to his feelings as a man. "Instead of keeping up the humane dignity of the law of England, whose character is to point out any favour to the criminal, he crossed them, and almost scolded at any offer they made towards defence." ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745 - Volume III. • Mrs. Thomson

... commonly remarked of Lincoln that he was a "rank idealist." Morse, Watt, Marconi, Edison—all were, at first, adjudged idealists. We say of the League of Nations that it is ideal, and we use the term in a derogatory sense. But that was exactly what was said of the Constitution of the United States. "Insanely ideal" was the term used ...
— A Dutch Boy Fifty Years After • Edward Bok

... demanded that Giordano should give up the criminals; the porter replied that the Duke was asleep; the Orsini men-at-arms lunged out with their weapons, looked on during the interview, and considering the presence of the Bargello derogatory to their master, drove him away, killing one of his men and wounding several others. Thereupon Pope Gregory forbade the Duke from seeing Vittoria or communicating with her by messengers, on pain of a fine of ten thousand gold ducats, an order to which ...
— Ave Roma Immortalis, Vol. 1 - Studies from the Chronicles of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford

... be divulged and pirated, and the glory and merit of his discovery taken from him. He cast his eyes on the nobility and rich gentry of his acquaintance at Strasburg and Mainz. He probably met with rebuffs from all quarters, on account of the prejudice then prevailing that handicrafts were derogatory to a gentleman. He was, therefore, obliged to sink his rank, become a workman, associate with artisans, and mix with the people, in order to raise the people to the high level of morality ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 5 of 8 • Various

... is to speak ill of God; blasphemy is an utterance derogatory to the respect and honor due to God. Primarily, it is a sin of the tongue; but, like all other sins, it draws its malice from the heart. Thus, a thought may be blasphemous, even though the blasphemy remain unexpressed; and a gesture, ...
— Explanation of Catholic Morals - A Concise, Reasoned, and Popular Exposition of Catholic Morals • John H. Stapleton

... Rohan probably needed purging by fire, for the order to burn them indicates that they contained evidence derogatory to his position as a dignitary of the church. The prince cardinal was a vain and profligate man, full of vicious inclinations, and credulous to a degree that had made him the victim of the unscrupulous schemer, Madame de La Motte Valois, a woman as adroit and ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 6 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality. French. • Charles Morris

... for the limited circle in which divine truth has been caused to shine. But I have before intimated that the consequences of our unbelief here, can with no more propriety be carried into an eternal state, than the consequences of our ignorance of any science. It is derogatory to the sacred loveliness of divine truth, either to promise any further reward to those who seek and find her than the enjoyment she brings to the soul in her own native sweetness, or to threaten those who neglect so divine a treasure with any other ...
— A Series of Letters In Defence of Divine Revelation • Hosea Ballou

... propounded the matter to A, without any preparation. Result.—'I am surprised, and I should have been surprised if I had seen it in the newspaper without previous confidence from you. But nothing more. N—no. Certainly not. Nothing more. I don't see that there is anything derogatory in it, even now when you ask me that question. I think upon the whole that most people would be glad you should have the money, rather than other people. It might be misunderstood here and there, at first; but I think ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster

... strong effort the baron quelled his rising anger; he could gain no credit by a dispute with the aged and highly esteemed citizen who had thus spoken to him, and turning aside he directed his steps homeward. He fancied that it would be derogatory to his rank to engage in manual labour, and yet he could not stand by and see the fair Jaqueline and other young ladies of position thus employed without offering to assist them, unless he was prepared to be regarded as destitute alike of all chivalric and patriotic feelings. On reaching ...
— The Lily of Leyden • W.H.G. Kingston

... spring out on his forehead, and into his steely eyes there came a positively hunted look. I could understand and sympathize. Napoleon himself would have wilted if he had found himself in the midst of a trio of females, one talking baby-talk, another fussing about his health, and the third making derogatory observations on his lower limbs. Vincent Jopp was ...
— The Clicking of Cuthbert • P. G. Wodehouse

... sleep. I know guns have this power of projecting horrible emanations of themselves into the slumbers of sportsmen who have not treated them as they deserved. I have suffered from it myself. It was only last week that, having said something derogatory to the dignity of my second gun, I woke with a start at two o'clock in the morning, and found its wraith going through the most horrible antics in a patch of moonlight on my bed-room floor. I shot with ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 103, December 10, 1892 • Various

... Tale-Lama is unbounded, as that of a divinity deigning to reign on earth must naturally be over his worshippers. But as he often transmigrates into the body of a mere child, and that, moreover, his very divinity makes it derogatory in him to meddle with worldly affairs, he is supplied with a grosser colleague, who, under the name of Nomekhan, or spiritual emperor, transacts all the business of the state. He is nominated for life by the Tale-Lama, and in his turn chooses four kalons, or ministers, whose ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 5, No. 3, March, 1852 • Various

... having had recourse to the dreadful alternative of enlisting in the English army; but not being built of such questionable material, he bowed beneath the heavy yoke, believing, as he did, that however distasteful and derogatory to his feelings, it was more honorable and independent to be indebted to himself, even at so great a sacrifice, for the means of joining his beloved on the other side of the Atlantic, than to be constrained to traverse its trackless waste, weighed down with the conviction, ...
— Ridgeway - An Historical Romance of the Fenian Invasion of Canada • Scian Dubh

... visitor, "I canna but think you are unreasonable in your anger. I said nothing derogatory to the minister; far be it from me! But we can a' see that the house needs a head, and the bairns need a mother. The minister's growing gey cheerful like, and the year is mair than ...
— Janet's Love and Service • Margaret M Robertson

... what he was about, as well as politer persons. He was at least as happy with his kitchen wench as Addison was with his countess, or Voltaire with his marchioness, and he would not have been what he was, nor have played the part that he did play in the eighteenth century, if he had felt anything derogatory or unseemly in a kitchen wench. The selection was probably not very deliberate; as it happened, Theresa served as a standing illustration of two of his most marked traits, a contempt for mere literary culture, and a yet deeper contempt for social accomplishments ...
— Rousseau - Volumes I. and II. • John Morley

... "I heard language, or thought I heard language, which I should construe as decidedly derogatory to the Profession which you serve and to which I ...
— The Humourous Story of Farmer Bumpkin's Lawsuit • Richard Harris

... in our past acquaintance that warrants me to believe that, instead of serving me, you sought but to serve yourself? Be that as it may, I had but one mode of repairing to the head of my house the wrongs I have done him, and that was by saving his daughter from a derogatory alliance with an impostor who had abetted my schemes for hire, and who now would ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... upheld was that the idea or mental conception constituted the chief value of any art work, that outline or form was the direct language or vehicle of such idea, and that colour, light, shade, surface-texture, or realism, were subordinate, if not derogatory, elements. Thus it is that the works of the master cannot be judged by ordinary standards: hence likewise the drawings and cartoons are ...
— Overbeck • J. Beavington Atkinson

... religion. The various bishops, deacons, abbots, and pastors of the Netherlands made a similar decision. An elaborate paper, drawn, up by the State-Council, at the request of the states-general, declared that there was nothing in the Pacification derogatory to the supreme authority of his Majesty. Thus fortified; with opinions which, it must be confessed, were rather dogmatically than argumentatively drawn up, and which it would have been difficult very logically to, defend, the states looked forward confidently ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... too prudent to attack me in my presence. I see the same police informers here now, and I authorize them carefully to report these my words, that Mr. Peel would not DARE, in my presence, or in any place where he was liable to personal account, use a single expression derogatory to my ...
— The History of the Great Irish Famine of 1847 (3rd ed.) (1902) - With Notices Of Earlier Irish Famines • John O'Rourke

... committed some bloody act—some murderous act. Dreadful was the panic I underwent. God pardon the wrong I did; and even now I pray to him—as though the past thing were a future thing and capable of change—that he would forbid her for ever to know what was the derogatory thought I had admitted. I sometimes think, by recollecting a momentary blush that suffused her marble countenance,—I think—I fear that she might have read what was fighting in my mind. Yet that would admit of another explanation. If she did read the very worst, meek saint! she suffered no complaint ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey, Vol. 2 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey

... afterwards more than ten thousand had left the island, and in three years forty-five thousand eight hundred and eighty-four persons, principally men, had left for the diggings. It was evident that Sir Wm. Denison would soon have nobody to govern but old women and children, a circumstance derogatory to his dignity, so he wrote to England for more convicts and immigrants, and he pathetically exclaimed, "To whom but convicts could colonists look to cultivate their lands, to tend their flocks, to reap their ...
— The Book of the Bush • George Dunderdale

... when Lola Montez horsewhipped Henry Shibley, editor of the Grass Valley National, for what she considered derogatory reflections on herself, published in his paper. It can readily be understood that Grass Valley was at that time a place of importance, when Lola Montez considered it worth while to stay there several years and sing and dance ...
— A Tramp Through the Bret Harte Country • Thomas Dykes Beasley

... not, perhaps, be thought very respectable; but I assure you he was so considered in those days. So many people in Liverpool were, to use an old and trite sea-phrase, "tarred with the same brush" that these occupations were scarcely, indeed, were not at all, regarded as anything derogatory from a man's character. In fact, during the privateering time, there was scarcely a man, woman, or child in Liverpool, of any standing, that did not hold a share in one of these ships. Although a slave captain, and afterwards ...
— Recollections of Old Liverpool • A Nonagenarian

... objections which he makes to Tickell's remarks are too absurd to discuss. From nothing indeed which Tickell says, but from one of Steele's own admissions, it is impossible not to draw a conclusion very derogatory to Steele's honesty, and to make us suspect that his sensitiveness was caused by his own uneasy conscience: 'What I never did declare was Mr. Addison's I had his direct injunctions to hide.' This certainly seems to imply that Steele had allowed himself to be credited ...
— An English Garner - Critical Essays & Literary Fragments • Edited by Professor Arber and Thomas Seccombe

... good thirty years": that is to say, from my first verse-writing in "Friendship's Offering" at fifteen, to my last orthodox and conservative compositions at forty-five.[2] But when I began to utter radical sentiments, and say things derogatory to the clergy, my old friend got quite restive—absolutely refused sometimes to pass even my most grammatical and punctuated paragraphs, if their contents savored of heresy or revolution; and at ...
— On the Old Road Vol. 1 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin

... them of a protection so legitimate, whether for all branches of their commerce in general, or in particular for articles of naval stores of any kind, would be regarded under present circumstances as an act of partiality derogatory to the principles of an absolute neutrality, and would inevitably produce the consequences mentioned in the Memoir, which has been sent to their High Mightinesses. It is especially to this essential object, and ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. IX • Various

... "wisdom and magnanimity" displayed by His Royal Highness, in confiding to Lord Wellesley the powers that had just been entrusted to him, he repeated his opinion that any "proscription" of the Noble Earl in question, would be "a proceeding equally derogatory to the estimation of His Royal Highness's personal dignity and the security of his political power;"—adding, that the advice, which he took the liberty of giving against such a step, did not proceed "from any peculiar partiality to the Noble Earl or to many of those with whom he was allied; ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan Vol 2 • Thomas Moore

... which were now withheld for the first time in the history of Upper Canada, passed an Address to the King, in which the Lieutenant-Governor's conduct was painted in no neutral tints. He was directly charged with being despotic, tyrannical, unjust and deceitful. His conduct was declared to have been "derogatory to the honour" of his Majesty, and "demoralizing to the community." A memorial to the House of Commons was also adopted, in which his public acts were referred to as having been arbitrary and vindictive, and wherein he was charged with mis-statements, ...
— The Story of the Upper Canada Rebellion, Volume 1 • John Charles Dent

... will publish them. I will read them myself." He turned the handle of the door, and then came back to me and again looked me in the eyes. "If I cannot use them—and there might be a hundred reasons why I could not, and none of them derogatory to your work—" he said, "do not be discouraged. There are many doors. Mine is only one. Knock at the others. Good ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... that interested him. During this intermission Nick skated by himself. His old cronies, Tip Slavin and Leon Disney, were on the ice, and, of course, indulging in their customary derogatory remarks concerning the playing of the Regulars, but Nick did not seem to want to join them, as had always ...
— The Chums of Scranton High at Ice Hockey • Donald Ferguson

... ordinary character cobbler might as easily have stitched together. There are sparks both of pathos and of humour, even in the dullest parts, which could be elicited from none but the Author of 'Waverley.' . . . If, indeed, we have spoken in a manner derogatory to this, his later effort, our censure arises only from its comparison with ...
— Guy Mannering, or The Astrologer, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott

... maintain affectionate terms with his wife's father. She had been very foolish. All the world had admitted as much. He had seen it with his own eyes at that wretched ball. She had suffered her name to be joined with that of a stranger in a manner derogatory to her husband's honour. It was hardly surprising that his brother should have spoken of her conduct in disparaging terms;—but he did not believe that his brother had used that special term. Personal violence;—blows and struggling, and that on the part of a Dean of the Church ...
— Is He Popenjoy? • Anthony Trollope



Words linked to "Derogatory" :   derogate, uncomplimentary, derogative



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