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Disdain   /dɪsdˈeɪn/   Listen
Disdain

noun
1.
Lack of respect accompanied by a feeling of intense dislike.  Synonyms: contempt, despite, scorn.  "The despite in which outsiders were held is legendary"
2.
A communication that indicates lack of respect by patronizing the recipient.  Synonyms: condescension, patronage.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Disdain" Quotes from Famous Books



... turned upon his heels with such manifest disdain, that he lost half the credit which he had gained ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 343, May 1844 • Various

... cannot dwell with slaves, nor reign O'er those who cower to take a tyrant's yoke; She left the down-trod nations in disdain, And flew to Greece, when Liberty awoke, New-born, amid those glorious vales, and broke Sceptre and chain with her fair youthful hands: As rocks are shivered in the thunder-stroke. And lo! in full-grown strength, an empire stands Of leagued and rival states, the wonder ...
— Poetical Works of William Cullen Bryant - Household Edition • William Cullen Bryant

... For a full minute they regard each other unwillingly, too surprised for disdain, and then, with a laudable desire to show how unworthy of consideration either deems the other, they turn slowly away until a shoulder and half a ...
— Molly Bawn • Margaret Wolfe Hamilton

... we passed I saw that the look on her face was that of a superior and critical adversary. It was a glance of amused disdain, softened only by a smile of contempt. As it fell upon me I blushed to the rim of my sombrero. I felt as meanly as though I had been caught in a lie. With her eyes, I saw the bare feet of our negro band, our ill-fitting uniforms with their flannel facings, the ...
— Captain Macklin • Richard Harding Davis

... taxed him with Disingenuity. He to clear himself made the subsequent Defence, and that in the most solemn Manner possible: That he was applied to and instigated to accept of a Benefice: That a conditional Offer thereof was indeed made him at first, but with Disdain by him rejected: That when nothing (as they easily perceived) of this Nature could bring him to their Purpose, Assurance of his being entirely unengaged before-hand, and safe from all their After-Expectations (the ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele

... faltered and in spite of my efforts I burst out laughing, while Jeremy began to hammer again; whereupon Diana wrested the book from me and stood, flushed and angry, viewing me in lofty disdain. ...
— Peregrine's Progress • Jeffery Farnol

... sovereigns of Europe. The arts of persuasion, so diligently cultivated by the first Caesars, were neglected by the military ignorance and Asiatic pride of their successors; and if they condescended to harangue the soldiers, whom they feared, they treated with silent disdain the senators, whom they despised. The assemblies of the senate, which Constantius had avoided, were considered by Julian as the place where he could exhibit, with the most propriety, the maxims of a republican, and the talents of a rhetorician. He ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon

... compassion, who only slays to help the life onward when the form has become an obstruction. And they blaspheme who speak of an incarnation of the Supreme, as coming to mislead the world that He has made. Rightly did your own learned pandit, T. Subba Row, speak of that theory with the disdain born of knowledge; for no one who has a shadow of occult learning, no one who knows anything of the inner realities of life, could thus speak of that beautiful and gracious manifestation of the Supreme, or dream that ...
— Avataras • Annie Besant

... two lovers, whose sole avowal had been a look exchanged in a crowded ball-room; and while they danced together their trembling hands revealed through the scented gloves the depth of their love. From that day they had both of them taken great delight on those trifles which happy lovers never disdain. One day the young man led his only confidant, with a mysterious air, into a chamber where he kept under glass globes upon his table, with more care than he would have bestowed upon the finest jewels in the world, ...
— The Physiology of Marriage, Part II. • Honore de Balzac

... peace did you gain, perhaps, nor the rest you had planned, 'Neath the horrible countless eyes that you could not withstand? Or was it God looked from his throne in a moment's disdain, And you shrieked for a trial once more in the height ...
— The Fairy Changeling and Other Poems • Dora Sigerson

... all supernatural incidents save one ghost, she sought to bring her story "within the utmost verge of probability." Walpole, perhaps displeased by the slighting references in the preface to some of the more extraordinary incidents in his novel, received The Old English Baron with disdain, describing it as "totally void of imagination and interest."[30] His strictures are unjust. There are certainly no wild flights of fancy in Clara Reeve's story, but an even level of interest is maintained throughout. Her style is simple and refreshingly free from ...
— The Tale of Terror • Edith Birkhead

... in sympathy with him; for she said with a shrug of her pretty shoulders, as she looked around, "I have always bad dreams after a visit to this room. Do these things have a life of their own? Look at the creature on that corner shelf! What a serene disdain is in his smile! He seems to gaze into the very depths of your soul. I see that there is a curtain to his shrine; and I shall take leave to draw it." With these words she went to the scornful divinity, and shut his offending eyes behind the ...
— The Maid of Maiden Lane • Amelia E. Barr

... answering spoke: "We all can go to her and quiet her. A word suffices oft. She is our Queen, But to the King belongeth power supreme. If Bidasari should disdain the throne We shall renounce our functions at the court, For what the Queen desires is most unjust. And if we prove unfaithful we shall be O'erwhelmed with maledictions." Thus they spoke And went back to the busy-lived campong Of merchants. Here they thought to go and ...
— Malayan Literature • Various Authors

... when a jackal, or it might have been a honey-badger, slipped across the road in front, a drifting shadow, the Turcoman only rattled the snaffle-bit in his teeth, cocked his ears, and then blew a breath of disdain from ...
— Caste • W. A. Fraser

... next room and presently Miss Catherwood came forth alone. She held her head as haughtily as ever, and regarded him with a look in which he saw much defiance, and he fancied, too, a little disdain. ...
— Before the Dawn - A Story of the Fall of Richmond • Joseph Alexander Altsheler

... anything. In short, Faith, Hope, and Charity would be quite banished from such a world—for men are born to relieve and assist one another; and in their stead should succeed and be introduced Defiance, Disdain, and Rancour, with the most execrable troop of all evils, all imprecations, and all miseries. Whereupon you will think, and that not amiss, that Pandora had there spilt her unlucky bottle. Men unto men will be wolves, hobthrushers, and goblins (as were Lycaon, Bellerophon, Nebuchodonosor), ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais

... courtier, or think it necessary to become one to me!" she said with some disdain. "I have achieved that reputation, ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens

... returning home on a wet day, bedraggled, not at her best, toiling along the wet lane, and being splashed with mud by the wheels of a giant car, from the cushioned seat of which the Squire and his wife regarded her with lofty disdain. There was a Mrs Maplestone, and I had drawn a mental picture of her, which I felt sure was true to life. Small, meek, rather pretty, with big brown eyes which held a chronic expression of being rather frightened by what had just gone before, and exceedingly anxious as to what should ...
— The Lady of the Basement Flat • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey

... disdain; "no, believe me, they may 'pretend' forever. They can never look like us! They imitate even our marks, but never can they look like the real thing, never can they ...
— Famous Stories Every Child Should Know • Various

... absolutely alone, and entirely responsible for your effect on the audience. You must be able to express every variety of emotion and feeling, must make them realize the difference between sorrow and happiness, revenge or disdain; in short, make them, for the moment, experience these things. The artist who can best vivify these varying emotions must have temperament. On the piano, you may hear players who express sentiment, feeling, fine discrimination ...
— Vocal Mastery - Talks with Master Singers and Teachers • Harriette Brower

... student of government, no American sociologist, has ever written a book on news-gathering. There are occasional references to the press, and statements that it is not, or that it ought to be, "free" and "truthful." But I can find almost nothing else. And this disdain of the professionals finds its counterpart in public opinions. Universally it is admitted that the press is the chief means of contact with the unseen environment. And practically everywhere it is assumed that the press should do spontaneously for us what primitive democracy imagined each of ...
— Public Opinion • Walter Lippmann

... which they envy me! When I had sacrificed ten bitter years To the proud idol of her vanity; Submitted with a slave's humility To every change of her despotic fancies The plaything of each little wayward whim. At times by seeming tenderness caressed, As oft repulsed with proud and cold disdain; Alike tormented by her grace and rigor: Watched like a prisoner by the Argus eyes Of jealousy; examined like a schoolboy, And railed at like a servant. Oh, no tongue Can paint ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller

... girl, who had received me with marked courtesy, to the cold air and repelling hauteur of the dark-browed captain, the blood rushed throbbing to my forehead; and as I walked to my place at the table, I eagerly sought his eye, to return him a look of defiance and disdain, proud and contemptuous ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VI. • Various

... the Theatre des Varietes, where he played the part of Jupiter in the Blonde Venus, and the Duc de Beaurivage in the Petite Duchesse. He had a good-natured but somewhat drunken appearance. He treated women with disdain, and the idea that any man should trouble himself about them raised in him the only indignation of ...
— A Zola Dictionary • J. G. Patterson

... there are no springs from which we can construct aqueducts, it is necessary to dig wells. Now in the digging of wells we must not disdain reflection, but must devote much acuteness and skill to the consideration of the natural principles of things, because the earth contains many various substances in itself; for like everything else, it is composed of the four elements. In the first ...
— Ten Books on Architecture • Vitruvius

... touching, absolutely painful to witness. He glances casually at a huge, towering vermilion construction that is whizzing towards him on four wheels, preceded by a glint of brass and a wisp of steam; and then with disdain he ignores it as less important than a mere speck of odorous matter in the mud. The next instant he is lying inert in the mud. His confidence in the goodness of God had been misplaced. Since the beginning of time God ...
— The Author's Craft • Arnold Bennett

... considering that it is the only place of public amusement that the city affords. I have before mentioned the want of decorum at the Cincinnati theatre, but certainly that of the capital at least rivalled it in the freedom of action and attitude; a freedom which seems to disdain the restraints of civilized manners. One man in the pit was seized with a violent fit of vomiting, which appeared not in the least to annoy or surprise his neighbours; and the happy coincidence of a physician being at that moment personated on the stage, was hailed by many of the audience ...
— Domestic Manners of the Americans • Fanny Trollope

... a current of crude brutality in his nature, and it was active now. When Agatha had first come from England the change in her had been a shock to him, and it would not have cost him very much to let her go. Since then, however, her coldness and half-perceived disdain had angered him, and the interview which was just past had left him in an unpleasant mood. Though it was, perhaps, the last effect he would have expected, it had stirred him to desire a fulfillment of her pledge. ...
— Masters of the Wheat-Lands • Harold Bindloss

... Marse Billy Wickliffe—you kin ax him all you wanter." Tim giggled, then clapped his hand over his mouth. Tim was lathy—long-legged, long-armed, with an ashy-black complexion and very big eyes. As he stood fondling the Flower's nose, he glared disdain of all the other candidates, or, rather, of the knots of folk gathered admiringly ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 5, June 1905 • Various

... HIM?" cries mademoiselle, referring to Sir Leicester with ineffable disdain. "Eh! Oh, then regard him! The ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens

... generally against projects of this kind, but without any beneficial effect. Land-schemes, as they were called, were puffed into popularity, and all our advices and remonstrances on the subject were rejected with disdain. Universal ruin has followed these schemes, and the unfortunate dupes are left to mourn their loss. Nothing is more specious than a plan of earning an independent livelihood by cultivating a few acres of land; but, practically, ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 433 - Volume 17, New Series, April 17, 1852 • Various

... had latterly betrayed uneasiness and irritation, now rose, red as fire. "The conversation is taking a turn I did not at all intend," said she, and swept out of the room with royal disdain. ...
— Put Yourself in His Place • Charles Reade

... the war bore most heavily on Andalusia, from its contiguity to the scene of action, yet recruits were drawn in abundance from the most remote provinces, as Galicia, Biscay, and the Asturias, from Aragon, and even the transmarine dominions of Sicily. The sovereigns did not disdain to swell their ranks with levies of a humbler description, by promising an entire amnesty to those malefactors, who had left the country in great numbers of late years to escape justice, on condition of their serving in the Moorish war. Throughout this motley host the strictest discipline ...
— History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella V1 • William H. Prescott

... misanthropist who quarrelled with it, but it was he, and not it, that was in the wrong. Tom Tusher gave Harry plenty of good advice on this subject, for Tom had both good sense and good humour; but Mr. Harry chose to treat his senior with a great deal of superfluous disdain and absurd scorn, and would by no means part from his darling injuries, in which, very likely, no man believed but himself. As for honest Doctor Bridge, the tutor found, after a few trials of wit with the pupil, that the younger man was an ugly subject for wit, ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray

... darkened with reproach; and he asked himself half hopefully if she cared—if it were possible for a moment that she cared. There had been humour in her smile, but, for all his effort, he could bring back no deeper emotion than pity or disdain—and it seemed to him that both the pity and the disdain were ...
— The Battle Ground • Ellen Glasgow

... Mme. du Chatelet dumb; she could not find an answer. Looking round the room, she saw that every woman admired Lucien; she watched group after group repeating the phrases by which Lucien crushed her with seeming disdain, and her heart contracted with ...
— Eve and David • Honore de Balzac

... thou hast; then hear: The changeling King who oft has kneel'd before me, And own'd no other pow'r, now treats me With ill dissembl'd love mix'd with disdain. A newer beauty rules his faithless heart, Which only in variety is blest; Oft have I heard him, when wrapt up in sleep, And wanton fancy rais'd the mimic scene, Call with unusual fondness on Evanthe, While I have lain neglected by his side, Except sometimes ...
— The Prince of Parthia - A Tragedy • Thomas Godfrey

... amongst their hostages are enjoined to send their damsels of quality, is always engaged more effectually than that of others. They even believe them endowed with something celestial and the spirit of prophecy. Neither do they disdain to consult them, nor neglect the responses which they return. In the reign of the deified Vespasian, we have seen Veleda for a long time, and by many nations, esteemed and adored as a divinity. In times past they likewise worshipped Aurinia ...
— Tacitus on Germany • Tacitus

... mandate intrusted to him by the Emperor Zeno, to deliver Italy from the barbarians. When his own kinsmen, Boethius and Symmachus, were put to death on a charge of treachery, Maximus burned with hatred of the Goth. He regarded with disdain the principles of Cassiodorus, who devoted his life to the Gothic cause, and who held that only as an independent kingdom could there be hope for Italy. Having for a moment the ear of Theodoric's daughter, Amalasuntha, when she ruled for her son, Maximus ...
— Veranilda • George Gissing

... and let us dream the rest. But, in the next moment, he discovered our boots, and he completed his crime by saluting us as "Boots! boots!" My brother made a dead stop, surveyed him with intense disdain, and bade him draw near, that he might "give his flesh to the fowls of the air." The boy declined to accept this liberal invitation, and conveyed his answer by a most contemptuous and plebeian gesture, upon which my brother drove him in with a ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 8, January, 1851 • Various

... "Zirt," a low word. The superlative "Zarrat" (fartermost) or, "Abu Zirt" (Father of farts) is a facetious term among the bean-eating Fellahs and a deadly insult amongst the Badawin (Night ccccx.). The latter prefer the word Taggaa (Pilgrimage iii. 84). We did not disdain the word in ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton

... misfortunes. "But, madam," added he, "it shall be your own fault if you do not live at ease for the future. The sultan of Harran's sons offer you a safe retreat in the court of their father; be pleased to accept of it. You will be there cherished by that sovereign, and respected by all; and if you do not disdain the affection of your deliverer, permit me to assure you of it, and to espouse you before all these princes; let them be witnesses to our contract." The princess consented, and the marriage was concluded that very day in the castle, where they found all sorts of provisions. ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous

... not know how often it is gathered on Mount Sinai," said Wayland, after looking at the drug offered him with great disdain, "but I will wager my sword and buckler against your gaberdine, that this trash you offer me, instead of what I asked for, may be had for gathering any day of the week in the ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott

... fought, rose up and lay down in calm disdain of our presence. It was as if, unobserved, and yet close beside them, we were studying the denizens of a small corner of aboriginal America, America in pre-Columbian times. Reluctantly, slowly we turned and rode away, back ...
— A Daughter of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland

... for! I couldn't keep house without him." A certain fine disdain curled her lip; she had utterly ignored my second question. Completely quenched, I was fain to accept Squanko at once, ...
— Happy Days for Boys and Girls • Various

... defiance and a challenge to the academicians who had come to hiss Hugo's play—was, in fact, a pourpoint or jerkin of cherry-coloured satin, cut in the shape of a Milanese cuirass, pointed, busked, and arched in front, and fastened behind the back with hooks and eyes. From the imperturbable disdain with which the wearer faced the opera-glasses and laughter of the assembly it was evident that it would not have taken much urging to induce him to come to the second night's performance decked in a daffodil waistcoat.[25] The young enthusiasts of le petit cenacle ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Nineteenth Century • Henry A. Beers

... carelessness on your part will be taken advantage of by a man of his disposition. It is not sufficient for you to be reserved: his conduct even calls for your resentment; and should he again, as will doubtless be his endeavour, contrive to solicit your favour in private, let your disdain and displeasure be so marked, as to constrain a change in his behaviour. Though, indeed, should his visit be repeated while you remain at the Grove, Lady Howard must pardon me ...
— Evelina • Fanny Burney

... before him, and Sturk looked at the back of the volume with a leisurely disdain, but finding no title there, returned to the recipe. They both stared on his face, without breathing, while he conned it over. When he came about half-way, he whistled; and when he arrived at the end, he frowned hard; and squeezed his lips together till the red disappeared altogether, and he looked ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu

... whilst this aspiration has always made its mark in the lives of men of thought, in vigorous individuals it does not remain a detached object, but is satisfied along with the satisfaction of other aims." Young Americans "are educated above the work of their times and country, and disdain it. Many of the more acute minds pass into a lofty criticism ... which only embitters their sensibility to the evil, and widens the feeling of hostility between them and the citizens at large.... We should not know where to find in literature any record of so much unbalanced intellectuality, ...
— Emerson and Other Essays • John Jay Chapman

... principles. It was founded in revelation and in reason too: It was consistent with the principles of the best, and greatest, and wisest legeslators of antiquity.——Tyranny in every form, shape and appearance, was their disdain and abhorrence; no fear of punishment, nor even of death itself, in exquisite tortures, had been sufficient to conquer that steady, manly, pertinacious spirit, with which they had opposed the tyrants of those days, in church and state. They were very far from being enemies ...
— A Collection of State-Papers, Relative to the First Acknowledgment of the Sovereignty of the United States of America • John Adams

... to support the interests of his own family: he deserted to the king in the night-time, and carried over a body of twelve thousand men along with him.[*] Warwick was now too far advanced to retreat; and as he rejected with disdain all terms of peace offered him by Edward and Clarence, he was obliged to hazard a general engagement. The battle was fought with obstinacy on both sides: the two armies, in imitation of their leaders displayed uncommon valor; and the victory remained long undecided ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part B. - From Henry III. to Richard III. • David Hume

... favored nowadays than of old has said: "Every time I hear of somebody who has wanted one of these books without being able to get it, or who, having got it, has conceded it nothing better than the disdain of an ignoramus, I feel as if I must forthwith get out the copy and read it through again and again, until I have read it once for every person who has rejected it or been denied it." One may feel reasonably sure that it is this kind of solicitude, rather than any possible sanction ...
— The Cords of Vanity • James Branch Cabell et al

... so readily to his temples began to amuse her; she leaned back against the bridge rail and contemplated him with smiling disdain. ...
— The Danger Mark • Robert W. Chambers

... early age to an engraver, but, attracted by astronomy, he studied so well that, when a lad of sixteen, he was admitted as a pupil to the Paris Observatory. There is no doubt that the great French mathematician, Le Verrier, regarded Flammarion with a certain disdain as more of a poet than an astronomer; but he soon vindicated, by several important discoveries, his title to be regarded as a man of science. "Urania," which appeared in 1889, is an excellent example of his ability as a thinker, and of his charm as a writer. The work is hardly a novel, though ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IV. • Editors: Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton

... recount of Attis, the Bithynians of Herodotus, the Arcadians of Endymion, not to mention several others who were thought blessed and beloved of the gods; nor does it seem strange if God, a lover, not of horses or birds, but men, should not disdain to dwell with the virtuous and converse with the wise and temperate soul, though it be altogether hard, indeed, to believe, that any god or daemon is capable of a sensual or bodily love and passion for any human form or beauty. Though, indeed, the wise ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough

... pleasures so delicious, so pure, and henceforth so far from the reach of men. Ah, if in such moments any ideas of Paris, of the age, of my little aureole as author, came to trouble my dreams, with what disdain did I drive them out, to deliver myself without distraction to the exquisite sentiments of which I was so full. Yet in the midst of it all, the nothingness of my chimeras sometimes broke sadly upon my mind. Even if every dream had suddenly been transformed into reality, it would not have ...
— Rousseau - Volumes I. and II. • John Morley

... are anxious to give a practical present which not one of their soldier men-folk should disdain to accept would certainly find ...
— The Amateur Army • Patrick MacGill

... she had a gentleness, a fineness of the heart which was the secret of her unpremeditated charm. Without it Rose might have been as pretty as she pleased, she would not have pleased Tanqueray. He could withstand any manifestly unspiritual appeal, restrained by his own fineness and an invincible disdain. Therefore, when the divine folly fell upon him, he was like a thing fresh from the last touch of the creator, every sense in him unworn and ...
— The Creators - A Comedy • May Sinclair

... sail for the Thames, with the noise of drums, trumpets, and cannon, at the beginning of March, 1604. After passing through a great storm at the Nore, the vessel reached the Tower, where the King and the young Prince inspected her with delight. She was christened Disdain by the Lord High Admiral, and Pett was ...
— Men of Invention and Industry • Samuel Smiles

... Verplanck. It was the best annual ever brought out in America, equal, it is said, to the best of the English annuals, which is not saying much of those of a later date, but is high praise as regards the earlier volumes, to which even Scott did not disdain to contribute. Besides editing and writing for The Talisman, which was published for three years (1827-29-30), Mr. Bryant furnished several papers for "Tales of the Glauber Spa," a collection of entertaining stories, the work of Sands, Verplanck, Paulding, Leggett, Miss Sedgwick, and himself. ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 7 of 8 • Charles F. (Charles Francis) Horne

... adversary the venomed weapons of political fanaticism, shall we voluntarily and unnecessarily associate ourselves with either, and become responsible for the infliction upon either of such unusual calamities? While I reject, therefore, with disdain, a suggestion which I have somewhere heard, of the possibility of our engaging against the Spanish cause, still I do not feel myself called upon to join with Spain in hostilities of such peculiar character as those which she may possibly retaliate upon France. Not being ...
— Selected Speeches on British Foreign Policy 1738-1914 • Edgar Jones

... possessed them. They talk of "le sentiment du mtier"; in travelling, Paris is the eternal theme. A sagacious observer has remarked in their language the "short, aphoristic phrase, the frequent absence of the copulative, avoidance of dependent phrases, and disdain of modifying adverbs. Naivet, abandon, ennui, etc., are specific terms of the language, and designate national traits. When Beaumarchais ridiculed a provincial expression, the Dauphiness, we are told, composed ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... discouragement of conversation was an immediate cause of offence—was interpreted, rightly enough I fear, as disdain. His ignorance of the vulgar dialect, a thing upon which he had hitherto prided himself, suddenly took upon itself a new aspect. He failed to perceive at once that his reception of the coarse and stupid but genially intended remarks that greeted ...
— Tales of Space and Time • Herbert George Wells

... come with their hearts full of their lusts; so many lusts, so many idols; and for this God refuseth to be inquired of by them: "should I be inquired of?" is as much as, "I will not be inquired of." It is a denial with disdain; "should I?" Or, if they be so impudent to inquire, He will not answer; or if He give them an answer, it shall be a cold one; He will give them their answer at the door; better none; "I will answer them according to the multitude of their idols," i.e. according ...
— The Covenants And The Covenanters - Covenants, Sermons, and Documents of the Covenanted Reformation • Various

... time shall cease, Will watch that earth, where once, not all in vain, He died to give us peace, may not disdain A prayer ...
— Songs from the Southland • Various

... bait—after which we see him lounging in the carriage of some fair compatriote with herself and daughters. If we are paying a morning visit, in he comes, "glissarding it" into the drawing-room, and bowing like a dancing-master; nor does he disdain to produce a small book of testimonials, in which the subscribers have agreed to give him a poetic character, and compare him to a torrent, to a nightingale, to an eagle, to an avalanche. They who love flattery as a bee loves honey, are all captivated, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 361, November, 1845. • Various

... voyage to the regions about Bojador, bringing with him the first gold. Presently a company was formed for the purpose of carrying on the gold-trade between Portugal and Africa. Its leading men were the navigators Lanzarote and Gilianez, and Prince Henry 'the Navigator' did not disdain to become a member. In 1471 Joao de Santarem and Pedro Escobar reached a place on the Gold Coast to which, from the abundance of gold found there, they gave the name of 'Sao Jorje da Mina,' the present Elmina. ...
— To the Gold Coast for Gold - A Personal Narrative in Two Volumes.—Vol. I • Richard F. Burton

... there is a little east window in the north transept through which, it is conjectured, arrows were intended to be shot at marauding Danes; for an Englishman's church was once his castle. Archaeologists familiar with Worth church have been known to pass with disdain cathedrals for which the ordinary person cannot ...
— Highways & Byways in Sussex • E.V. Lucas

... great and fatal truth had not yet been impressed upon the French nation, for the popular voice was stifled beneath the ukase of despotism; and even the tiers-etat—important as the loyalty of that portion of a kingdom must ever be to its rulers—were treated with disdain and contumely; but beneath all the workings of his government (or rather the government of his minister, for the son of Marie de Medicis was a monarch only in name), may be traced the undercurrent of popular indignation and discontent, which, gradually swelling and rising ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe

... danger of scandal concerning faith, and, as the gloss of Augustine says on Gal. 2:11, "Peter gave an example to superiors, that if at any time they should happen to stray from the straight path, they should not disdain to be reproved ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas

... canst tell, in humble strain, The feelings of a heart, Which, though not proud, would still disdain To bear a meaner part, Than that of bending at the shrine Where their bright ...
— Whittier-land - A Handbook of North Essex • Samuel T. Pickard

... away and took hope with him, disdain, despair and frenzy gushed from the thief's boiling bosom in one wild moan; and with that moan he dashed himself on his face on the floor, though it was as hard as ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade

... immediately brought to the King, who asked him if he thought the Irish would make any further resistance, and he replied, "On my honor I believe they will, for they have still a good body of horse entire." William, eying him with a look of disdain, repeated, "Your honor, your honor!" but took no other notice of his having acted contrary to his engagement, when he was permitted to go to Ireland on promise of persuading Tyrconnel to submit to the new government. The Irish now abandoned the field with precipitation; but ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 12 • Editor-In-Chief Rossiter Johnson

... too many of those of the middle classes, while the poorest citizens are often haggard and distraught from sheer hunger—hunger which has not had time to be commuted into moral poison; college-taught men, in responsible positions, being forced to live on salaries which a London lift-boy would disdain. When that other local feature, that respect for honourable poverty—the reverse of what we see in England where, since the days of the arch-snob Pope, a slender income has grown to be considered a subject ...
— Old Calabria • Norman Douglas

... and coolness of my heart! I want it on fire always, not for self-delight, but to spread the Gospel from pole to pole." And in other letters: "My heart wants nothing so much as to dispense all—all for the glory of Him whom my soul loveth." "I am nothing—Christ is all; I disclaim, as well as disdain, any righteousness but His. I not only rejoice that there is no wisdom for His people but that from above, but reject every pretension to any but what comes from Himself. I want no holiness He does not give me, and ...
— Excellent Women • Various

... beautiful and well placed, it drew forth glances of marked disdain from every lady within sight of it, Zoe excepted. She was placable. This was a lesson in color; and she managed to forgive the teacher, in ...
— The Woman-Hater • Charles Reade

... had been surrounded with honors and riches, He would have found partisans near Herod and in every other place. But as He preached a renunciation of the world both to His disciples and to Himself, let us not be astonished that they treated Him with so much disdain. Such is the prediction of the holy man Job, and which after Him must be accomplished in the person of all the righteous; "the upright man is laughed to scorn." In fact, my dear hearers, you know that, whatever virtue and merit we ...
— The World's Great Sermons, Vol. 2 (of 10) • Grenville Kleiser

... instantly fell. He looked with surprise, not unmingled with sorrow and distrust, at Reilly, a circumstance which did not escape his daughter, who could not, for the life of her, avoid fixing her eyes, lovelier even in the disdain they expressed, with an indignant look at ...
— Willy Reilly - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton

... which even in the bosom of a queen beat with sympathy for the cause of constitutional liberty; who, herself not unacquainted with grief, laid on the coffin of our dead Garfield the wreath fragrant with a sister's sympathy,—to her our republican manhood does not disdain to bend. ...
— Bradford's History of 'Plimoth Plantation' • William Bradford

... high heavens rang out and said: "The Shekinah shall not rest upon these high mountains that are so proud, for it is not God's will that the Shekinah should rest upon high mountains that quarrel among themselves and look upon one another with disdain. He prefers the low mountains, and Sinai among these, because it is the smallest and most insignificant of all. Upon it will He let the Shekinah rest." [183] The other mountains hereupon said to God, "Is it possible that Thou are partial, and wilt give us ...
— THE LEGENDS OF THE JEWS VOLUME III BIBLE TIMES AND CHARACTERS - FROM THE EXODUS TO THE DEATH OF MOSES • BY LOUIS GINZBERG

... fairness of a lily; a slim, willowy figure; a straight back and a small head set on her shoulders in a way that showed both blood and pride. Moreover, she had character enough, as her friends knew: those gray eyes that smiled could grow haughty with disdain or flash with indignation, and she had taught many an uppish young man ...
— The Christmas Peace - 1908 • Thomas Nelson Page

... Against the wall near Tatsu stood a light framework of wood with the silk already stretched and dried for painting. At his other hand a brush slanted sidewise from a bowl of liquid ink. The boy's pulses leaped toward these things even while his lips curled in disdain at the shallow decoy. "So they expect to trap me, these geese and jailers who have temporary dominance over my life," thought he, in scorn. No, even though he now desired it of himself, he would ...
— The Dragon Painter • Mary McNeil Fenollosa

... that correspondence, hesitated for some moments to communicate it to her. That note, the first and sole recompense of her devotion, courage, and constancy, we must here transcribe, as the tardy and begrudging compensation for such long-continued ingratitude, such long-continued disdain, for so many ...
— Political Women, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Sutherland Menzies

... the Strand he stalks, a sable shade Of death, while, jingling like the elfin train, In silver samite knight and dame and maid Ride to the tourney on the barrier'd plain; And he must bow in humble mute disdain, And that worst woe of baffled souls endure, To see the evil that ...
— The Visions of England - Lyrics on leading men and events in English History • Francis T. Palgrave

... deportment, which combines in it the rude greatness of Fabricius or Regulus with the accomplishments of Pliny or Antoninus. His simplicity of manners, his frugality, his austerity of life, his singular disdain of sensual pleasure, his military heroism, his application to business, his literary diligence, his modesty, his clemency, his accomplishments, as I view them, go to make him one of the most eminent specimens of pagan ...
— The Idea of a University Defined and Illustrated: In Nine - Discourses Delivered to the Catholics of Dublin • John Henry Newman

... as hospitals, will entertain, Those which the lofty of this world disdain: The poor, the lame, the maimed, halt and blind, The leprous, and possessed too, may find Free welcome here, as also such relief As ease them will ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... step has been already taken; the whole space round the town swept clean, without regard for churches or for monasteries, in accordance with the public need. I contemplate in these our fellow-citizens a noble spirit of disdain for all their losses and the bygone luxuries of villa-life; an admirable unity and fervour for the preservation of liberty; fear of God alone; confidence in Him and in the justice of our cause; innumerable other good things, certain to bring again the age of gold, and which I hope ...
— The Life of Michelangelo Buonarroti • John Addington Symonds

... Nadiboff, with an accent half of disdain. "Surely, you are not sufficiently a petty shop-keeper or serf to think always of that ...
— The Submarine Boys and the Spies - Dodging the Sharks of the Deep • Victor G. Durham

... thrower, the toy soars abruptly upwards, and taking a sinistral course, returns, twirling rapidly, to the thrower, occasionally making two complete revolutions. The ends are deflexed prior to each throw. Boys and youths are fond of the "Piar-piar," and men of sober year's do not disdain it, being frankly pleased when they succeed in causing it to execute a more prolonged and graceful ...
— My Tropic Isle • E J Banfield

... cried, with hands upraised in mock disdain. "Why, I wrote the thing myself. Am I to ...
— The Perils of Pauline • Charles Goddard

... distinction with it. But the Sports Club had been founded by the most dashing young men of Hillport, which is the most aristocratic suburb of Bursley and set on a lofty eminence. The sons of the wealthiest earthenware manufacturers made a point of belonging to it, and, after a period of disdain, their fathers also made a point of belonging to it. It was housed in an old mansion, with extensive grounds and a pond and tennis courts; it had a working agreement with the Golf Club and with the Hillport Cricket Club. But chiefly it was a social affair. The correctest ...
— The Card, A Story Of Adventure In The Five Towns • Arnold Bennett

... a moment, and then, drawing himself up, marched past her with a look of the utmost disdain. Lady Jersey returned the look to the full; and, as soon as the Prince was gone, said to me, with a smile, 'Didn't I do ...
— The Works of Lord Byron: Letters and Journals, Volume 2. • Lord Byron

... mine were shame If I could wish to brand thy name. But though these dullards boast thy grace, Thou in their orgies hast no place. Thou still disdain'st such sorry lot, As even below the soaking sot. Great was high Duty's power of old The empire o'er man's heart to hold; To urge the soul, or check its course, Obedient to her guiding force. These own not her control, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLV. July, 1844. Vol. LVI. • Various

... of this kind does endure for ever, and by the end of a year the poison had in a great degree spent itself, and with my recovery from my love-ache there grew up in my mind a disdain of my behaviour. As I saw my mother's visage peaked with pity I grew to be heartily ashamed of myself, and to resolve honestly and earnestly to make amends. I disliked tending shop more bitterly than ever. But there was the shop, and it was dear to my mother's heart; and so I buckled to, if not with ...
— Marjorie • Justin Huntly McCarthy

... supporter, or vindicator.'—WEBSTER'S DICT."—Peirce cor. "Virgil wrote the AEneid."—Kirkham cor. "Which, to a supercilious or inconsiderate native of Japan, would seem very idle and impertinent."—Locke cor. "Will not a look of disdain cast upon you throw you into a ferment?"—Say cor. "Though only the conjunction if is here set before the verb, there are several others, (as that, though, lest, unless, except,) which may be used with the subjunctive ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown

... youth and beauty of her granddaughter, were the best means of increasing her capital, and therefore she failed not to promote their cultivation in every way she could. Nor was the aid of poets wanting; for some there are who do not disdain to write for the gipsies, as there are those who invent miracles for the pretended blind, and go snacks with them in what ...
— The Exemplary Novels of Cervantes • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

... suspect the flavour of the eels caught therein; yet, to my thinking, it is not in the least destitute of beauty. A barge trailing up through it in the sunset is a pretty sight; and the heavenly crimsons and purples sleep quite lovingly upon its glossy ripples. Nor does the evening star disdain it, for as I walk along I see it mirrored therein as clearly as in the waters of the ...
— Dreamthorp - A Book of Essays Written in the Country • Alexander Smith

... they came once,—from the far West, Graenske; from the far East, the Russian;—and arrived both together at Sigrid's court, to prosecute their importunate, and to her odious and tiresome suit; much, how very much, to her impatience and disdain. She lodged them both in some old mansion, which she had contiguous, and got compendiously furnished for them; and there, I know not whether on the first or on the second, or on what following night, this unparalleled Queen Sigrid had the house surrounded, ...
— Early Kings of Norway • Thomas Carlyle

... come and see?" he suggested, and this time she did not disdain his arm, and they strolled ...
— The Tinted Venus - A Farcical Romance • F. Anstey

... allied, With tenderest names their hatred hide? Now if thy judgment still refers To Fate this plot of his and hers, My mind herein can ne'er agree: And O, in this be ruled by me. Weak, void of manly pride are they Who bend to Fate's imputed sway: The choicest souls, the nobly great Disdain to bow their heads to Fate. And he who dares his Fate control With vigorous act and manly soul, Though threatening Fate his hopes assail, Unmoved through all need never quail. This day mankind shall learn aright ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI

... seat with a fierce exclamation. "This is too much," he exclaimed, "and I have a right to know why such an offer on my part should be answered by disdain, and even insolence." ...
— Saint George for England • G. A. Henty



Words linked to "Disdain" :   decline, detest, snub, refuse, hate, depreciation, repel, look down on, turn away, rebuff, disparagement, pass up, dislike, derogation



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