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Dishonour   Listen
Dishonour

verb
1.
Bring shame or dishonor upon.  Synonyms: attaint, disgrace, dishonor, shame.
2.
Force (someone) to have sex against their will.  Synonyms: assault, dishonor, outrage, rape, ravish, violate.
3.
Refuse to accept.  Synonym: dishonor.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Dishonour" Quotes from Famous Books



... good old servant, that, were honour to be won, I would drive thee from my side. But this is a wild and an inconsiderate deed, to which my fate or my folly has bound me. I die to save my name from dishonour; but, alas! I must leave on my ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott

... such lapses of his duty. He told his father that he had a clear plan of success before him, but said that in all cases—fortunate or unfortunate—he would always remember the name he bore and do nothing to bring it shame or dishonour. A very good, brave letter, dear ones. I give Ian credit ...
— An Orkney Maid • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr

... "Without dishonour to my noble blood," he said, "I cannot touch a hand denied by such a murder, committed for private vengeance, and not pro ...
— Pan Tadeusz • Adam Mickiewicz

... Mariano de Silva," said the former, with an air of brutal mockery that was habitual to him, "I rather think you are too loyal a gentleman to dishonour the laws of hospitality by ...
— The Tiger Hunter • Mayne Reid

... subjecting the Duke to the annoyance of a public lawsuit; during which, moreover, her former liaison with his brother, the Prince de Joinville, could not fail to be made matter of comment and curiosity. He urged upon her the desirability of avoiding a publicity which must tend to dishonour both herself and her children; and, finally, he pointed out the propriety and policy of seizing so favourable an opportunity to secure the goodwill of the Regent, who would as a natural consequence be gratified ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 2 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe

... me, perhaps, after all these years. Ah," he continued, springing to his feet and striding up and down the room, "if she had but believed me at the time, I should never have become what I now am! Had she had faith in me, I could have borne everything else—shame, disgrace, dishonour, ruin—I could have borne them all. But when to the loss of those was added the loss of her esteem, her respect, her love, it was too much; I had nothing left to live for—save revenge; and by heaven I have had ...
— A Middy in Command - A Tale of the Slave Squadron • Harry Collingwood

... he drank beyond its strength it was because he chose to, and not because a woman coaxed him. Not his wife, at any rate—she was an old story by now. As I read the case, I fancy there was no feeling for her left in him but the hatred occasioned by his supposed dishonour. ...
— The Early Short Fiction of Edith Wharton, Part 1 (of 10) • Edith Wharton

... beguiled His own Sovereign's child To his own dirty views of promotion, Wear his Sheep's cloathing still Among flocks to his will, And dishonour the ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Vol. 7. - Poetry • George Gordon Byron

... in the world; and he was one of the oppressors. There is no sorrow that a child can bear, keener and more gnawingly bitter than this. It has a sting of its own, for which there is neither salve nor remedy; and it had the aggravation, in my case, of the sense of personal dishonour. The wrong done and the oppression inflicted were not the whole; there was besides the intolerable sense of living upon other's gains. It was more than my ...
— Daisy • Elizabeth Wetherell

... hope, the same will, which had been the substance and the basis of his love, while the restless pleasures and passionate longings, like sea-waves, had tossed but on its surface,—this same moral energy is represented as snatching him aloof from all neighbourhood with her dishonour, from all lingering fondness and languishing regrets, whilst it rushes with him into other and nobler duties, and deepens the channel, which his heroic brother's death had left empty for its collected flood. Yet another secondary ...
— Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher • S. T. Coleridge

... co-respondent is in honour bound to marry the defendant. The affair of Lady Madge with Lord Desmond was an entirely innocent one, despite what London said. Lady Madge's husband, wrought upon by shame and anger, began his action for divorce; and Desmond found himself not merely face to face with dishonour but bound by conventional honour for life to a girl with whom he had ...
— When Winter Comes to Main Street • Grant Martin Overton

... which she squandered; Georges Hugon killed himself from jealousy of his brother Philippe, who embezzled for her sake, and brought himself to imprisonment and disgrace; Vandeuvres too, after courting dishonour, met death at his own hand; and Foucarmont, stripped bare and cast off, went to perish in the China seas. The procession was unending; more money was always required. After a successful appearance in a play called Melusine, ...
— A Zola Dictionary • J. G. Patterson

... not if I could. It is not worth while! My father, although he knows that I am dying, will scarcely speak to me. He has forgotten that I am his daughter, save when he laments it. He sits alone day by day, brooding upon the dishonour of his race. The priest, who prays for me, speaks words of doubtful comfort, as though, after all, he doubted whether salvation were possible for me. The horror of it all has entered into my soul! The sin of the past is ever before my eyes,—black and threatening,—and ...
— A Monk of Cruta • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... lashed the slave's bared back, struck down New England's senator for daring to speak, lifted the torch of rebellion, slaughtered in cold blood its thousands, and starved our helpless prisoners. Its end is not martyrdom, but dishonour." ...
— The Clansman - An Historical Romance of the Ku Klux Klan • Thomas Dixon

... Petrarch's sonnets ('Petrarch's invention is pure love itself; Petrarch's elocution pure beauty itself'), justifies the common English practice of imitating them on the ground that 'all the noblest Italian, French, and Spanish poets have in their several veins Petrarchized; and it is no dishonour for the daintiest or divinest Muse to be his scholar, whom the amiablest invention and beautifullest elocution acknowledge their master.' Both French and English sonnetteers habitually admit that they are open to the charge of plagiarising Petrarch's sonnets to Laura (cf. Du Bellay's Les ...
— A Life of William Shakespeare - with portraits and facsimiles • Sidney Lee

... greater lustre in life, he created Miss Sedley countess of Dorchester. This honour, so far from pleasing, greatly shocked Sir Charles. However libertine himself had been, yet he could not bear the thoughts of his daughter's dishonour; and with regard to this her exaltation, he only considered it as rendering her more conspicuously infamous. He therefore conceived a hatred to James, and readily joined to dispossess him of his throne ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Vol. III • Theophilus Cibber

... "Clara," he said, after a pause of mournful silence, "we must think what is to be done, without passion or violence—there may be something for us in the dice yet, if we do not throw away our game. A blot is never a blot till it is hit—dishonour concealed, is not dishonour in some respects.—Dost thou attend to me, wretched girl?" he said, suddenly ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott

... dishonour then? You are right; but, my lord, it is not brought about by you, but by this hussy, whom I will have sewn up in a sack, and thrown into the Indre; thus your dishonour will be washed away. Hi! there," she ...
— Droll Stories, Volume 3 • Honore de Balzac

... should, for he is a personable man when well set out. And if he did but consider how it is to his honour that his Wife should go as fine as he I could the more rejoice therein, but it is not so, and great dishonour it is to him to consider how this quarter he hath spent fifty pounds on his clothes and but twelve on me, a thing not fit to be said of him. But ...
— The Ladies - A Shining Constellation of Wit and Beauty • E. Barrington

... and our Church are one. We are loyal Englishmen, and will stick to Queen, Parliament, and friends because we love them and believe in them and know that they will never betray or desert us. We hold the faith of our friends, and cannot, without dishonour, turn and accept the ...
— Sea-Dogs All! - A Tale of Forest and Sea • Tom Bevan

... she were dead, and her body were found, no countenance would be given to the theory of the prosecution, for the mere conviction that her lover had deserted her would be a sufficient explanation of her suicide. Beyond the ambiguous letter, no tittle of evidence of her dishonour—on which the bulk of the case against the prisoner rested—had been adduced. As for the motive of political jealousy that had been a mere passing cloud. The two men had become fast friends. As to the circumstances of the alleged crime, the medical evidence was on the whole in favour ...
— The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes • Israel Zangwill

... kind of ecstasy of delight, and not, I think unworthily; for, though much of my delight came from being there with my cousin, and receiving our Lord's Body with her, I do not think that is any dishonour to God whom we must love first of all, to find a great joy in loving Him in the company of those we love purely and uprightly. So at least it seems ...
— Oddsfish! • Robert Hugh Benson

... pay continual attention to one's own appearance? Is not Socrates said actually to have urged his followers frequently to consider their image in a glass, that so those of them that prided themselves on their appearance might above all else take care that they did no dishonour to the splendour of their body by the blackness of their hearts; while those who regarded themselves as less than handsome in personal appearance might take especial pains to conceal the meanness of their body by the glory of ...
— The Apologia and Florida of Apuleius of Madaura • Lucius Apuleius

... had taken words of instruction from him direct. She had awaited them in an ecstasy of happiness—and fear. For her exaltation was made terrible by the dread that some error might dishonour her.... ...
— The World Set Free • Herbert George Wells

... gaze Dishonour bow'd its head; Oppression slunk ingloriously away; The virtuous follow'd where thy footsteps led, And ...
— Writings in the United Amateur, 1915-1922 • Howard Phillips Lovecraft

... cannoniers also. Oh! what can I do with such men? What shall I do? Alas, alas!' He set spurs to his horse and galloped off down the line, still ringing his hands and uttering his dismal wailings. Oh, my children, how small, how very small a thing is death when weighed in the balance with dishonour! Had this man but borne his fate silently, as did the meanest footman who followed his banners, how proud and glad would we have been to have discoursed of him, our princely leader. But let him rest. The fears ...
— Micah Clarke - His Statement as made to his three Grandchildren Joseph, - Gervas and Reuben During the Hard Winter of 1734 • Arthur Conan Doyle

... birds do. But if she drops half-way it's better than if she'd never flown. Your sister, sir, is trying the wings of her spirit, out of the old slave market. For women as for men, there's more than one kind of dishonour, Captain Huntingdon, and worse things than being dead, as you ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... upon honest principles—the minds of all cultivated and embued with useful knowledge—and the manners, so far as is practicable, trained with a view to what is decorous and proper in social life. Punish by your frowns, by public scorn and private avoidance, the wretch who would cast dishonour on you by the dishonesty of his dealings. The poorest youth of character may justly aspire in this country to the honours of every station, and he will be the more honoured and sought as his fair fame expands itself—an example to his fellows—an ornament to ...
— Suggestions to the Jews - for improvement in reference to their charities, education, - and general government • Unknown

... things approving ourselves as the ministers of God, in much patience, in afflictions, in necessities, in distresses, in stripes, in imprisonments, in tumults, in labours, in watchings, in fastings. ... By honour and dishonour, by evil report and good report: as deceivers and yet true; as unknown and yet well known; as dying, and behold we live; as chastened and not killed; as sorrowful, yet alway rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; ...
— Parables of the Christ-life • I. Lilias Trotter

... raised up? With what body do they come?" Thou fool, that which thou sowest is not quickened, except it die.... It is sown in corruption, it is raised in incorruption; it is sown in dishonour, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in ...
— The Legacy of Greece • Various

... dieth, and him all men Hate, and himself abhors the unrighteousness, And seeth his own dishonour intolerable. But I being just, doing right upon myself, Slay mine own soul, and no man born shames me. For none constrains nor shall rebuke, being done, What none compelled me doing, thus these things fare. Ah, ah, that ...
— Atalanta in Calydon • Algernon Charles Swinburne

... was taking a real part in the monastic existence. Gradually, too, as he caught the spirit of the place, the gospel of forgiveness, ever the stumbling-block of fighting men, appeared to him as something that could be practised without dishonour, and the determination to kill Sir Arnold gave way to a sort of attempt at repentance for having even wished to ...
— Via Crucis • F. Marion Crawford

... answered him as follows: "Who made thee a judge of the actions or dispositions of the Almighty's creatures—thou who art a worm and no man in his sight? How it befits thee to deal out judgments and anathemas! Hath he not made one vessel to honour, and another to dishonour, as in the case with myself and thee? Hath he not builded his stories in the heavens, and laid the foundations thereof in the earth, and how can a being like thee judge between good and evil, that are both subjected to the workings of ...
— The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner • James Hogg

... her in childhood, and exercised over her a power that made her shrink from aught that was unworthy, petty or mean. To her the lightest breath of dishonour was to be avoided at any cost of pain, and she wrought into me, her only daughter, that same proud and passionate horror at any taint of shame or merited disgrace. To the world always a brave front was to be kept, and a ...
— Annie Besant - An Autobiography • Annie Besant

... said she, 'are of no account in my estimation. The love which I bear you has deprived me of repose: do not treat me with cruel disdain. A liking for me would do you no dishonour, for, thank God! I may be proud of my descent. But if, despised by you, I cannot aspire to the highest marks of your affection, let me have a single kiss, and the censer ...
— Eastern Tales by Many Story Tellers • Various

... Baalzebub, God of flies, and of what flies are bred from; to visit his self-blinded worshippers, and bestow on them his own Cross of the Legion of Dishonour. He had come suddenly, capriciously, sportively, as he sometimes comes; as he had come to Newcastle the summer before, while yet the rest of England was untouched. He had wandered all but harmless about the West country that summer; as if his maw had been full glutted five years before, ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume II. • Charles Kingsley

... drawn unwittingly into this, as I have into other things. I never meant to do wrong. As to dishonour, Heaven knows ...
— Elster's Folly • Mrs. Henry Wood

... and valour was not likely to be shocked at the thought of hearing amass. But so inconsistent is human nature that there are tender spots even in seared consciences. And thus this man, who had owed his rise to his sister's dishonour, who had been kept by the most profuse, imperious, and shameless of harlots, and whose public life, to those who can look steadily through the dazzling blaze of genius and glory, will appear a prodigy of turpitude, believed implicitly in the religion which he had learned as a boy, ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 2 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... strange vault which He has ordained? And do we dream that by carving fonts and lifting pillars in His honour, who cuts the way of the rivers among the rocks, and at whose reproof the pillars of the earth are astonished, we shall obtain pardon for the dishonour done to the hills and streams by which He has appointed our dwelling-place;—for the infection of their sweet air with poison;—for the burning up of their tender grass and flowers with fire, and for spreading such a shame of mixed ...
— Lectures on Art - Delivered before the University of Oxford in Hilary term, 1870 • John Ruskin

... us foes, avows he not his guilt? Condemns he not the action we condemn, Owning it his, and owning it dishonour? 'Tis well my cares pressed forward, ...
— Count Julian • Walter Savage Landor

... related them; and whatever might be at first the prejudice of the audience against a crime so un-English as that of assassination from revenge, yet when the national prejudices of the prisoner had been explained, which made him consider himself as stained with indelible dishonour, the generosity of the English audience was inclined to regard his crime as the aberration of a false idea of honour, rather than as flowing from a heart naturally savage, or habitually vicious. I shall never forget the charge of the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, - Issue 282, November 10, 1827 • Various

... Souvestre, brandishing his sabre, and seeking to encourage his followers. "Down with these traitors who dishonour the uniform of France! Death to ...
— The Trampling of the Lilies • Rafael Sabatini

... lusts, and hold out against them and refuse to give themselves up to them,—not because they fear poverty or the ruin of their families, like the lovers of money, and the world in general; nor like the lovers of power and honour, because they dread the dishonour or ...
— Phaedo - The Last Hours Of Socrates • Plato

... that he was being abandoned by his country; but in spite of its ingratitude he would not dishonour it. When they reminded him that they had been promised ships, he swore by Moloch to provide them himself at his own expense, and pulling off his necklace of blue stones he threw it into the crowd as the pledge ...
— Salammbo • Gustave Flaubert

... not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel unto honour, and another unto dishonour? ...
— Familiar Quotations • John Bartlett

... bring to trial; where one hears a man say to a woman who is weeping and interceding: "I overlook your love-affairs, you must overlook my hatreds!" What sort of place is that where the orgies of 1852 intrude upon and dishonour the mourning of 1815! where Caesarion, with his arms crossed, or his hands behind his back, walks under those very trees, and in those very avenues still haunted by the ...
— Napoleon the Little • Victor Hugo

... rather susteaned and long sufferred, for the great luif that I had to your Lordschip and posteritie, and your freindis, and your house; als beleving suyrly your Lordschippis wisedom should not have manteaned and mulled with sick thingis that mycht do me dishonour or displeasur, considdering I being reddy to have putt good ordour thairto alwayes; but hes allanerlie absteaned, for the luif of your Lordschip and house foirsaid, that I bear trewly, knawing and seing the great ...
— The Works of John Knox, Vol. 1 (of 6) • John Knox

... stand unfaithfulness, Meg, dishonour?" Freddy's eyes dropped. He could not inflict upon himself the pain which Meg's trusting ...
— There was a King in Egypt • Norma Lorimer

... Francois Balzac, had learned of the disaster, in spite of all the precautions taken to keep him in ignorance, and he addressed a letter, very noble in tone, to M. Sedillot, thanking him for having saved the family name from dishonour. We get an echo of the recriminations which must have arisen within the family circle from the firm yet bitter reply that Balzac made to ...
— Honor de Balzac • Albert Keim and Louis Lumet

... cleared me from the whole of one set, and, gentlemen, I ask you to-day to clear me from another. Three times I have been re-elected by my constituents, and what Sir Henry Tyler asks you to do is to send me to them branded with the dishonour of a conviction, branded not with the conviction for publishing heresy, but branded with the conviction, dishonourable to me, of having lied in this matter. I have no desire to have a prison's walls closed on me, but I would sooner ten times ...
— Annie Besant - An Autobiography • Annie Besant

... revolt against their world and the pedantry of its little inflexible laws; and all her old traditions had become odious to her, seeming, for the moment, deeply tainted with dishonour, and partly the cause of her disastrous plight. A great, ruining wave had broken over her life, and in her passionate helplessness she cried only for some firm and absolute shore, else the silence of the engulfing waters, not for the vain ropes of social convention with which they ...
— A Comedy of Masks - A Novel • Ernest Dowson and Arthur Moore

... Disgrace, dishonour, no rally, ah no retrieving, The scorn of scorns shall his name and his nation brand, 'T is a sword that smites from the rear, his helmet cleaving, That hurls him to earth, to his death on the ...
— Poems by Jean Ingelow, In Two Volumes, Volume II. • Jean Ingelow

... victorious conquest, and not to forget thy prosperous fortune amyd thy glorious triumphe, by committing a facte vnworthy of thy valiaunce: reade the first Nouel of the fortunate Romane Horatius? Wilt thou vnderstande what dishonour and infamie, desire of libidinous lust doth bring, read the rape of Lucrece? Wilt thou know what an vnkinde part it is vnnaturally to abuse the state of thine own countrie, reade Martius Coriolanus? Wilt thou learne what fruite is reaped of wicked luste, to dispoyle virgins ...
— The Palace of Pleasure, Volume 1 • William Painter

... commander. The human species is divided into two classes, the successfully tempted, and the tempted in vain. And, though the latter must be admitted to be a small minority, yet they ought to be regarded as the "salt of the earth," which preserves the entire mass from putridity and dishonour. They are like the remnant, which, if they had been to be found in the cities of the Asphaltic lake, the God of Abraham pronounced as worthy to redeem the whole community. They are like the two witnesses amidst the general ...
— Thoughts on Man - His Nature, Productions and Discoveries, Interspersed with - Some Particulars Respecting the Author • William Godwin

... the first time he realized what Sir Frederick's death meant for himself. In thus snatching her from him in the very crisis of confession it had taken away his chance of redeeming his dishonour. ...
— The Divine Fire • May Sinclair

... the world is, after all, a much happier compromise than it seems to be, and life easier than wisdom is apt to think it; that grief gives joy its relish, purifying what it touches truly; and that "sweet are the uses of adversity" when its clouds are not the shadow of dishonour. All this can be shown but lightly within such space, it is true; and in the machinery a good deal has to be taken for granted. But Dickens was quite justified in turning aside from objections of that kind. "You must suppose," he wrote to me (21st of November), "that the ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster

... offended by faults of taste, and saw nothing to laugh at in the statesman who was borne into the lobby amidst the tortures of the gout, or carried into the House of Lords to breathe his last in a protest against national dishonour. ...
— History of the English People, Volume VII (of 8) - The Revolution, 1683-1760; Modern England, 1760-1767 • John Richard Green

... meant to keep it concealed, but now they have found it all out. I shall drench you with the dew of my shame, you who are young as a flower. I tell you my name, and that we are father and child; yet I thought this would put dishonour upon you, and therefore I let you pass. Do not hold ...
— Certain Noble Plays of Japan • Ezra Pound

... cast aside, Record that Fox a Briton died! When Europe crouched to France's yoke, And Austria bent, and Prussia broke, And the firm Russian's purpose brave Was bartered by a timorous slave, Even then dishonour's peace he spurned, The sullied olive-branch returned, Stood for his country's glory fast, And nailed her colours to the mast! Heaven, to reward his firmness, gave A portion in this honoured grave, And ne'er held marble in its trust Of two ...
— Marmion: A Tale of Flodden Field • Walter Scott

... holiday folk, rich or poor, affect English races; or help pronouncing them, if physiognomy be any test of character, the most degraded beings, even some of those smart-dressed men who carry bags with their names on them, which our pseudo-civilisation has yet done itself the dishonour of producing. Now, of that class I saw absolutely none. I do not suppose that the brown fellows who hung about the horses, whether Barbadians or Trinidad men, were of very angelic morals: but they looked like heroes compared with the bloated hangdog roughs ...
— At Last • Charles Kingsley

... sent to subdue the rebel slaver who not only disgraced humanity but refused to pay tribute. Like most of the Khedivial expeditions the troops under Bellal Bey met with ill-fortune. They came, they saw, they ran away. Some, less speedy than the rest, fell on the field of dishonour. The rebellion was open. Nevertheless it was the Khedive who sought peace. Zubehr apologised for defeating the Viceregal soldiers and remained supreme in the Bahr-el-Ghazal. Thence he planned the conquest of Darfur, at that time an independent kingdom. The Egyptian Government ...
— The River War • Winston S. Churchill

... following attempt, which, we are assured, was the casual amusement of half an hour during several solicitations to proceed, will neither be unacceptable to our readers, nor (these circumstances considered) dishonour the persons concerned by a hasty publication.' Gent. Mag. ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell

... personal slavery, judging from the examples before me, I conclude it equally so of political bondage.—The extreme despotism of the government seems to have confounded every principle of right and wrong, every distinction of honour and dishonour and the individual, of whatever class, alive only to the sense of personal danger, embraces without reluctance meanness or disgrace, if it insure his safety.—A tailor or shoemaker, whose reputation perhaps is too bad to gain him a livelihood by any trade ...
— A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, • An English Lady

... further alleges that having placed this dishonour on the school, you connived with the enemy to keep it by them till it suited your time and purpose, and that then you arranged ...
— The Hero of Garside School • J. Harwood Panting

... upon your recollection the more awful obligations attendant upon your station in the world, you will forgive me if I just hint to Your Grace that Society has claims upon you, which you cannot refuse but with dishonour to yourself, and the contempt of those who possess the right which you refuse to grant; a contempt which they ...
— The First of April - Or, The Triumphs of Folly: A Poem Dedicated to a Celebrated - Duchess. By the author of The Diaboliad. • William Combe

... often haunted the place at full moon, and described the nature of the apparition much as V—- afterwards experienced it for himself when he exorcised it. It was the disclosure of these circumstances, also, which stamped his father's memory with dishonour, that had driven young Freiherr ...
— Weird Tales. Vol. I • E. T. A. Hoffmann

... borne the faithful knight, And well deserved, had Fortune done him right: 'Tis time to mend her fault, since Emily By Arcite's death from former vows is free; If you, fair sister, ratify the accord, And take him for your husband and your lord, 'Tis no dishonour to confer your grace On one descended from a royal race; And were he less, yet years of service past From grateful souls exact reward at last. Pity is Heaven's and yours; nor can she find A throne so soft as ...
— Palamon and Arcite • John Dryden

... felt yourselves stained with dishonour for the rest of your lives had you procured anything else on false pretences! But a woman—that is a different affair. The code of honour does not here apply, it would seem. Any fraud may be honourably practised on her, and wild is the surprise and indignation if she objects ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird

... or the mind, had immediately possessed itself of her heart. Too innocent to imagine the real motive that prompted the senator's intrusion on her slumbers, where others of her sex would have foreboded dishonour, she feared death. All her father's vague denunciations against the enormities of the nobles of Rome rushed in an instant over her mind, and her childish imagination pictured Vetranio as armed with some terrible and mysterious vengeance ...
— Antonina • Wilkie Collins

... guilt under which we at present labour; and till we have extinguished every trace of this bloody traffic, which our posterity, looking back to the history of these enlightened times, will scarcely believe had been suffered to exist so long, a disgrace and a dishonour to our country. ...
— The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the Abolition of the African Slave Trade by the British Parliament (1808) • Thomas Clarkson

... army is a most interesting profession,—the profession of Wellington and Marlborough and Lord Roberts; a most interesting profession, as you observe. A profession that may mean death—death, rather than dishonour." ...
— The Longest Journey • E. M. Forster

... their utmost to pour dishonour on the name and memory of Renwick, and to extinguish the cause for which he suffered, yet the Redeemer whom he intensely loved, and faithfully served, has in his providence, vindicated the one, as He has preserved, and will ...
— The Life of James Renwick • Thomas Houston

... was, and loved the simple truth, Yet had some useful cunning from his youth; A cunning never to dishonour lent, And rather for defence than conquest meant; 'Twas fear of power, with some desire to rise, But not enough to make him enemies; He ever aim'd to please; and to offend Was ever cautious; for he sought a friend. Fiddling and fishing were his arts, at times He alter'd sermons, and he aimed ...
— The Parish Clerk (1907) • Peter Hampson Ditchfield

... Ib vii. 99. Mrs. Barbauld did what Swift said Gay had shown could be done. 'One may write things to a child without being childish.' Swift's Works, xvii. 221. In her Advertisement, she says:—'The task is humble, but not mean; to plant the first idea in a human mind can be no dishonour to any hand.' 'Ethicks, or morality,' wrote Johnson, 'is one of the studies which ought to begin with the first glimpse of reason, and only end with life itself.' Works, v. 243. This might have been the motto of her book. As the Advertisement was not published till ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell

... yourself the election, these objects have obtained security for a powerful protection, to place them, as successively they shall be qualified, in some way useful to themselves and to the public. I shall take care that they do no dishonour to your patronage; at least to the moment in which (having received them from your hands) I deliver them back into the same benevolent and ...
— Memoirs of the Court and Cabinets of George the Third, Volume 2 (of 2) - From the Original Family Documents • The Duke of Buckingham

... prince) for mirth a time? When lawless gluttons riot, mirth's a crime; The luscious wines, dishonour'd, lose their taste; The song is noise, and impious is the feast. Suffice it to have spent with swift decay The wealth of kings, and made my youth a prey. But now the wise instructions of the sage, And manly thoughts inspired by manly age, Teach me to seek redress for all my woe, ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer, translated by Alexander Pope

... approaching morning were rife in busy London, Nicholas had made his way alone to the city, and stood beneath the windows of his mother's house. It was dull and bare to see, but it had light and life for him; for there was at least one heart within its old walls to which insult or dishonour would bring the same blood rushing, that flowed in his ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens

... boldness of his speech and amaze at the pretensions of the Prince to meet in fight his whole host, such as he had described to him, being at heart assured that he would perish in the fray and so he should be quit of him and freed from the fear of dishonour. Thereupon he called the eunuch and bade him go to his Wazir without stay and delay and command him to assemble the whole of the army and cause them don their arms and armour and mount their steeds. So the eunuch carried the King's order to the Minister, who straightaway summoned the Captains of ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton

... the hardest is, y-wis, Men mighten deme that he loveth me; 730 What dishonour were it un-to me, this? May I him lette of that? Why nay, pardee! I knowe also, and alday here and see, Men loven wommen al this toun aboute; Be they the wers? ...
— Troilus and Criseyde • Geoffrey Chaucer

... yielded by an examination of the Gospel itself. Yet it must be regarded as altogether independent. To suppose otherwise would be to ascribe to the writer in the second century an amount of critical insight and investigation which would do no dishonour to the nineteenth. But there is also another point of importance to my immediate subject. The writer detaches the First Epistle of St John from the Second and Third, and connects it with the Gospel. Either ...
— Essays on "Supernatural Religion" • Joseph B. Lightfoot

... caused her own loss of fortune. Yet that was not a thing to break his father's heart, or harden his brother's against him. Mere chance it must have been; ill-luck, or at the worst carelessness. There could not be any real dishonour in Major Harper. And after all what was money, when they could be so much happier without it? She determined to go to her husband and openly say so, telling all that had come to her knowledge of their ...
— Agatha's Husband - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik (AKA: Dinah Maria Mulock)

... Du Barry in tears a short while before. His body was hastily thrust into a coffin, and hurried at the trot through the darkness to St. Denis, for fear of attack from the sullen crowds that gathered to do it dishonour; so was he huddled away amongst the bones of the ancient kings of his race, unattended by the Court, and amidst ...
— Vigee Le Brun • Haldane MacFall

... of the Mother," he interposed, answering the note of reproach, "I need to mix freely among her sons—and daughters. These clothes are passports to all, and, wearing them in her service is no dishonour. But for my harmless disguise, I might not have ventured near enough to save you from making a feast for the muggers—just for this superstition of Dewali—not cured by all the wisdom of Oxford.—Was ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver

... with the President, he was very kind; did I tell you that? At the last he said: 'Vous verrez, vous serez contente de moi.' To which she answered, 'Et vous, vous serez content de moi.' It was repeated to me as to the great dishonour of Madame Sand, and as a proof that she could not resist the influence of power and was a bad republican. I, on the contrary, thought the story quite honourable to both parties. It was for the sake of her rouge friends that she approached ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Volume II • Elizabeth Barrett Browning

... and an old man, so to disgrace himself. For shame, you old wretch! Go home to your bed, you hoary old sinner! And for my part, I'm not sorry that my son should see, for once in his life, to what shame and degradation and dishonour, drunkenness and whiskey may bring a man. Never mind the change, sir!—Curse the change!" says the Colonel, facing the amazed waiter. "Keep it till you see me in this place again; which will be never—by George, never!" And shouldering his stick, and scowling ...
— Boys and girls from Thackeray • Kate Dickinson Sweetser

... was upon her before the mother guessed at the blinding and awful truth. She was a proud, stern, old woman, come of a race strong in rectitude, and she would scarcely have believed an angel if one had come to testify to her daughter's dishonour. But the time came when it could no longer be hidden, when the birth-pains were on the wretched girl, and in the quietness of the winter night, her ...
— An Isle in the Water • Katharine Tynan

... Fairford chose that which was in his own apprehension the least; and, like a brave officer sending forth his son to battle, rather chose he should die upon the breach, than desert the conflict with dishonour. Neither did he leave him to his own unassisted energies. Like Alpheus preceding Hercules, he himself encountered the Augean mass of Peter Peebles' law-matters. It was to the old man a labour of love to place in a clear and undistorted view the real merits of this case, ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott

... a number of persons who had formed themselves into a kind of company for the purpose, and the only way to decide it was that Eon should be examined in the presence of witnesses. The chevalier was offered half the wager, but he laughed them to scorn. He said that such an examination would dishonour him, were he man or woman. Caraccioli said that it could only dishonour him if he were a woman, but I could not agree with this opinion. At the end of a year the bet was declared off; but in the course of three years he received his pardon from the king, and ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt

... appearances in this case are singularly strong and striking; and so they had need be, to become the ground of so general a censure. We see this extraordinary Character, almost in the first moment of our acquaintance with him, involved in circumstances of apparent dishonour; and we hear him familiarly called Coward by his most intimate companions. We see him, on occasion of the robbery at Gads-Hill, in the very act of running away from the Prince and Poins; and we behold him, on another of more honourable obligation, ...
— Eighteenth Century Essays on Shakespeare • D. Nichol Smith

... be the result," Burr wrote Samuel Smith, a Republican congressman from Maryland, "every man who knows me ought to know that I would utterly disclaim all competition. Be assured that the Federalist party can entertain no wish for such an exchange. As to my friends, they would dishonour my views and insult my feelings by a suspicion that I would submit to be instrumental in counteracting the wishes and the expectations of the people of the United States. And I now constitute you my proxy ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander

... finds that, by dint of enchantment, he has been made false to Guinevere (Book XI. chap. viii.) After his dreaming vision of the Holy Grail, with the reproachful Voice, Sir Lancelot said, "My sin and my wickedness have brought me great dishonour, . . . and now I see and understand that my old sin hindereth and shameth me." He was human, the Lancelot of Malory, and "fell to his old love again," with a heavy heart, and with long penance at the end. How such ...
— Alfred Tennyson • Andrew Lang

... orthodox Church recognizing no wife as legitimate beyond the third). But in this he failed. The memory of the terrible Tsar, the fear of him, was still alive in superstitious Russia, and none dared to dishonour his son. So Boris had recourse to other and surer means. He dispatched his agents to Uglich, and presently there came thence a story that the boy, whilst playing with a knife, had been taken with a fit of epilepsy, and had fallen, running the blade into his throat. ...
— The Historical Nights Entertainment, Second Series • Rafael Sabatini

... bring relief to it," said Don Quixote; "I say so because this little beast may now supply the want of Rocinante, carrying me hence to some castle where I may be cured of my wounds. And moreover I shall not hold it any dishonour to be so mounted, for I remember having read how the good old Silenus, the tutor and instructor of the gay god of laughter, when he entered the city of the hundred gates, went very contentedly mounted ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

... the leading champions of hostile and irreconcilable world policies, united only in a joint endeavour to undo the evil work of Bismarck and Beaconsfield which claimed to bring to Europe "peace with honour," and which ultimately brought Europe nothing but war with dishonour. ...
— German Problems and Personalities • Charles Sarolea

... expressed by the people, at the sight of the body of their late sovereign; but our message was unavailing, as they recommenced their attack on our quarters with the utmost violence, threatening that in two days we should all pay with our lives for the death of their king and the dishonour of their gods, as they had now a sovereign whom we could not deceive as we had done ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. IV. • Robert Kerr

... appearance easy, but the effect Most hazardous; for straight, upon the alarm, The city would be sure to be in arms; Therefore, to undertake, and not to compass, Were to come off with ruin and dishonour. You know the Italian proverb—Bisogna copriersi[6],— He, that will venture on a hornet's nest, Should arm his head, and ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Vol. 7 (of 18) - The Duke of Guise; Albion and Albanius; Don Sebastian • John Dryden

... Dunnere; all of whom fell in defending the body of Brihtnoth. One of the vikings, thinking that Olaf meant to gain possession of it, carried off the body of the dead hero; but Olaf would not allow his men to do dishonour to so brave a foe, and he afterwards delivered the body to Brihtnoth's friends, who gave it a worthy resting ...
— Olaf the Glorious - A Story of the Viking Age • Robert Leighton

... good and wise man, honourable and valiant, as you will see presently,—was very angry to think that the Scot would dishonour him and his fair wife. And that he might avenge himself without trouble, he commanded his wife that if the Scot should accost her again, she should appoint a meeting on a certain day, and, if he were so foolish as to come, he would buy his ...
— One Hundred Merrie And Delightsome Stories - Les Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles • Various

... for her father; and when the fortress in which they were enclosed began to be besieged by Manlius Priscus, the lieutenant of the general, and when he became aware that the garrison were proposing to surrender, he, fearing that, to the dishonour of her father, this noble damsel might be made a prisoner and be ravished, slew her, and then fell upon his sword himself. Now I will return to the ...
— The Roman History of Ammianus Marcellinus • Ammianus Marcellinus

... Balfour, by nature the most selfish of men and also an intemperate lover of office, would never have stooped to such dishonour; but among the leaders of the Unionist Party there was to be found a man who saw in a lie the opportunity for a Party advantage ...
— The Mirrors of Downing Street - Some Political Reflections by a Gentleman with a Duster • Harold Begbie

... fresh from a country school, and now holding a post which may expose you to many temptations. I, then, as your father, whose desire is to watch over you and help you to grow into a brave and good man, hold that it would not be dishonourable for you to confide in me in every way. It can be no dishonour for you ...
— In Honour's Cause - A Tale of the Days of George the First • George Manville Fenn

... which they drew up, and which Wharncliffe read to me. It was moderate, temperate, embraced ample concessions, and asserted the necessity of each party refraining from demanding of the other what either was so pledged to as to be unable to concede without dishonour. On Wharncliffe's return to town he again saw Palmerston, and communicated to him Harrowby's concurrence in an equitable adjustment of the Reform question, and then suggested that if Government really desired this, it would be better that he (Wharncliffe) should see Lord Grey himself ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. II • Charles C. F. Greville

... understandings existed at the same time in London, things so infinitely trifling as conversaziones should have been endured; but conversaziones there were, and Burke's book was precisely made to their admiration. It is no dishonour to the matured abilities of this great man, that he produced a book which found its natural place on the toilet-tables, and its natural praise in the tongues of the Mrs Montagues of this world. It ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 350, December 1844 • Various

... the last act; the idea of the drama—that the lovers must be seen gradually thrust away from life (which is light) to death (which is eternal night)—must be carried one step further. Mark, in an agony of grief, asks them why they, the two he loves best in the world, dishonour him in so frightful a fashion. He presses home to them their sin and his suffering, his affection and their indifference to it; and he ends up with the question, "Why?" Tristan cannot answer; he perceives only that Mark's love is a more terrible menace for them than any trap ...
— Wagner • John F. Runciman

... sacrificing the interests, honour, and independence of the country which has adopted me. Your Majesty, who has so ready a perception of what is just, must admit the propriety of my resolution. Though I am not jealous of the glory and power which surrounds you, I cannot submit to the dishonour of being regarded as a vassal. Your Majesty governs the greatest part of Europe, but your dominion does not extend to the nation which I have been called to govern; my ambition is limited to the defence of Sweden. The effect produced upon the people by the invasion of which I ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne

... Cocoa-Tree, made helplessly tipsy by this abominable seducer and perverter of youth, and fleeced of four thousand pounds. She described with the most vivid minuteness the agonies of the country families whom he had ruined—the sons whom he had plunged into dishonour and poverty—the daughters whom he had inveigled into perdition. She knew the poor tradesmen who were bankrupt by his extravagance—the mean shifts and rogueries with which he had ministered to it—the astounding falsehoods by which he had imposed upon the ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray

... Guisnes, and elsewhere.[360] Giustinian thought that Henry had been gambling too much and wished to turn over a new leaf. There were also rumours that these courtiers governed Henry after their own appetite, to the King's dishonour; and Henry, annoyed at the report and jealous as ever of royal prestige, promptly cashiered them, and filled their places with grave and ...
— Henry VIII. • A. F. Pollard

... not having attained to a higher experience, Sybilla considered beauty as all in all. And this child—her child and Angus's,—would be a deformity, a shame to its parents, a dishonour to its race. How should she ever bear to look upon it? Still more, how should she ever dare to show the poor cripple to its father, and say, "This is our child—our firstborn." Would he not turn away in disgust, and answer that it had ...
— Olive - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik, (AKA Dinah Maria Mulock)

... that brutish race Like some poor wren that shrieking eagles tear, While brute Dishonour, with her bloodless face Stood by and smote his lips that moved ...
— In Flanders Fields and Other Poems - With an Essay in Character, by Sir Andrew Macphail • John McCrae

... from the Countess the particulars of the distressing scene when the priest in the harshest manner withheld the consolations of religion from the dying man, who was a pious Catholic, but who had the strength of mind even in death not to dishonour himself and his colleagues. Cavour wrote an indignant article in the Risorgimento denouncing the party spite which could cause such cruel anguish under a religious cloak, and the people of Turin became so much excited ...
— Cavour • Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco

... and further desire you would communicate the Inclosed Manifests to as many of the Inhabitants you can, and as Speedily as possible to prevent their being involved in the Same dangerous and Unhappy dilemma. "Be assured, Sir, I shall never dishonour the character of a Soldier by Surrendering my command to any Power except to that of my Sovereign from whence it originated. I am, Sir, "Your most hble servt, "JOS. GORHAM, "Lt.-Col., Com'at, R. F. A., "Commanding ...
— The Chignecto Isthmus And Its First Settlers • Howard Trueman

... inevitably be mendacious. In short, like the most pitiable outcasts of womankind, and, without their excuse, you will live by selling your honour. You will not suffer much, nor suffer long. Your conscience will very speedily be seared with a red-hot iron. You will be on the road which leads from mere dishonour to crime; and you may find yourself actually practising chantage, and extorting money as the price of your silence. This is the lowest deep: the vast majority, even of social mouchards, do not sink ...
— Essays in Little • Andrew Lang

... in the chair and put his face between his hands. Life was sweet, and he could not disguise from himself that he was ready to do the utmost he honourably could to save his life. But here, it seemed clear, dishonour was too surely involved. To give up the papers, if they were really private, might not be so hard, but to join Schenk in running the works, even on non-war material, was a thing he shrank from instinctively. Would the workmen understand ...
— Two Daring Young Patriots - or, Outwitting the Huns • W. P. Shervill

... "All dishonour that will appertain to you, Harvey, appertains to you now. You insulted your friend. Neither your death nor his can atone for that offence. If reparation be truly made, it will ...
— The Lights and Shadows of Real Life • T.S. Arthur

... that I am a prisoner—in disgrace—but not in dishonour; but know, scoundrel, that if I were to swing the next minute at the yardarm, I would not tolerate or answer to such familiarity. Speak ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard

... mean, that has dishonour'd you, Dishonour'd me, these Lords, nay, and all Spain; This Devil's ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. II • Aphra Behn

... congeniality, nor submission, were the emotions it awakened. I stood—not soothed, nor won, nor overwhelmed. It seemed as if a challenge of strength between opposing gifts was given, and I suddenly felt all the dishonour of my diffidence—all the pusillanimity of ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte



Words linked to "Dishonour" :   assail, foul, befoul, disesteem, turn down, outrage, standing, attack, honor, corruptness, discredit, assault, decline, reject, dishonor, set on, disgrace, ignominy, gang-rape, attaint, unrighteousness, maculate, refuse, infamy, disrepute, defile, pass up, opprobrium



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