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Grievance   /grˈivəns/   Listen
Grievance

noun
1.
A resentment strong enough to justify retaliation.  Synonyms: grudge, score.  "Settling a score"
2.
An allegation that something imposes an illegal obligation or denies some legal right or causes injustice.
3.
A complaint about a (real or imaginary) wrong that causes resentment and is grounds for action.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Grievance" Quotes from Famous Books



... manifested themselves in the alacrity with which the whole army had caught at the insidious suggestion of abandoning the war; and, just before the second assembly, Thersites avails himself of the general feeling, constituting himself the representative of a popular grievance, to vent his personal spite against Agamemnon. Ulysses saw how dangerous such a display might be at such a moment; and artfully assuming (line 281) that the feeling was confined to Thersites alone (though in his subsequent speech, line 335, he admits and excuses the general discontent), he proceeds ...
— The Iliad • Homer

... a grievance," answered Grandfather, "to see men placed in this station, who perhaps had neither talents nor virtues to fit them for it, and who certainly could have no natural affection for the country. The king generally bestowed the governorships of the American colonies upon needy noblemen, ...
— True Stories from History and Biography • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... Home is home, you know, if it is only a cellar and starvation. But perhaps"—with a shrug—"that class of Irish are never happy without a grievance. Now, Twiss, it appears to me, has just ground for complaint.—A shoemaker," turning to the judge a face beaming with fun, "whom this young lady has transported and set down in charge of gardens and hot-houses. He does not know a hoe from a mower, and he is ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, October, 1877, Vol. XX. No. 118 • Various

... was not softened by the respectable fortune I had made from several successful musical comedies and a number of efforts which my publishers advertise as "high-class parlor pieces for the home." In fact, she felt it to be a grievance that my lightness should be better paid than the Professor's learning. In which she was no ...
— The Thing from the Lake • Eleanor M. Ingram

... Miss Notman's character, hearing these last words, would have at once changed the subject. When she spoke of "her humble position," she invariably referred to some offense offered to her dignity, and she was invariably ready to state the grievance at full length. Ignorant of this peculiarity, Father Benwell committed a fatal error. He inquired, with courteous interest, what ...
— The Black Robe • Wilkie Collins

... upon this condition of things as a grievance proper to be brought before your honorable body for consideration ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various

... Sampson Levi said firmly, fanning himself in his chair, and gazing at Theodore Racksole with the direct earnest expression of a man having a grievance. 'Yes; a private detective. It's a small matter, I know, and I dare say you think you've got a right, as proprietor of the show, to do what you like in that line; but I've just called to tell you that I object. I've called as a matter ...
— The Grand Babylon Hotel • Arnold Bennett

... injustice; so contrary to the whole course of human nature and human institutions, that the very people who are most eager for it, are among the first to grow disgusted at what they have done. Then some part of the abdicated grievance is recalled from its exile in order to become a corrective of ...
— The Life of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - 1838 • James Gillman

... say, it is the Dignity and Perfection of Fools, that they never fail trusting themselves; they believe themselves sufficient and able for every Thing; and hence their want or waste of Brains is no Grievance to them, but they hug themselves in the Satiety of their own Wit; but to bring other People to have the same Notion of them, which they have of themselves, and to have their apish and ridiculous Conduct make the same Impression on the ...
— The History of the Devil - As Well Ancient as Modern: In Two Parts • Daniel Defoe

... weak to disperse them. All my wounds were dressed and bandaged and I was laid comfortably enough upon a pallet, but I was all alone except for the flies which settled upon me blackly with such an insistence of buzzing that that minor grievance seemed verily the greatest in the world, and for the time all else ...
— The Heart's Highway - A Romance of Virginia in the Seventeeth Century • Mary E. Wilkins

... cloth, and the little maid had swept up the hearth, Mrs. Church began to recollect herself. It is true she was no longer hungry nor cold, for the fire was plentiful, and the sun also poured in at the small window. But Mrs. Church had a memory and, as she believed, a grievance. In her tiny house on the common four miles away firing was scarce, and food was scarcer. The owner of the house did not care to spend more than a very limited sum of money on coals and food. There was nothing in the cottage for Mrs. Church's supper ...
— The Rebel of the School • Mrs. L. T. Meade

... old system when there was a large council, no one was responsible. If a citizen had a grievance, and complained to his councilman, he was perhaps truthfully told that he was not to blame. He was sent from one member of the city government to the other, and unable to obtain relief, in sheer desperation, he gave up hope and abandoned his ...
— Philip Dru: Administrator • Edward Mandell House

... ill-temper, for even Stephens began to be angry at their anger, and to scowl at them as they passed him. Here they were at a crisis in their fate, with the shadow of death above them, and yet their minds were all absorbed in some personal grievance so slight that they could hardly put it into words. Misfortune brings the human spirit to a rare height, but the ...
— A Desert Drama - Being The Tragedy Of The "Korosko" • A. Conan Doyle

... to look after ornamental gardens and South aspics and all, I ought to have my salary raised," said James, still harping on his one grievance. ...
— Happy Days • Alan Alexander Milne

... Holland should have the impudence to think of limiting his conquests. Having, as we have mentioned, detached England from the alliance by bribing with gold and female charms the miserable Charles II., Louis was ready, without any declaration of war, even without any openly avowed cause of grievance, to invade Holland, and annex the territory to his realms. The States-General, alarmed in view of the magnitude of the military operations which were being made upon their borders, sent embassadors to the French court humbly to inquire if these preparations were designed against ...
— Louis XIV., Makers of History Series • John S. C. Abbott

... administrations of Anda and Vargas in the preceding century. Native levies had fought loyally under Spanish leadership against Dutch and British invaders, or in suppressing local revolts among their own people, which were always due to some specific grievance, never directed definitely against the Spanish sovereignty. The Philippines were shut off from contact with any country but Spain, and even this communication was restricted and carefully guarded. There was an elaborate central government which, however, hardly touched ...
— The Social Cancer - A Complete English Version of Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal

... employers attended the conferences of the men to talk over matters of mutual interest. The function of the shop committee was to consider wages, hours, safety rules, sanitation, recreation and other problems. Whenever any employee had a grievance he took it up with the foreman and, if it was not settled to his satisfaction, he brought it before the shop committee. If the members of the shop committee decided in favor of the man with a grievance, they attempted to settle the matter with the company's agents. All these things ...
— History of the United States • Charles A. Beard and Mary R. Beard

... Now you are getting unreasonable. Do come along without any more nonsense. At any rate, I am going. I am not strong enough to carry you home; but I am strong enough to make my way through that door in spite of you. You will then have a new grievance against me for my brutal violence. (He takes a step towards ...
— The Philanderer • George Bernard Shaw

... arose in political affairs which required the mature deliberation of Sir Howard. The boundary dispute was now argued within every district with an earnestness that showed the importance of the cause. The present grievance had grown out of ...
— Lady Rosamond's Secret - A Romance of Fredericton • Rebecca Agatha Armour

... soothing melody had no power. When she and her husband left the Limes he broke out at once, with all the eagerness with which a man begins when he has been repeating to himself for some time every word of his grievance...
— Catharine Furze • Mark Rutherford

... For lack of what they love, are miserable; Abundance is your grievance. You're too rich A lover, Antipho! For your condition Is to be wish'd and pray'd for. Now, by Heaven, Might I, so long as you have done, enjoy My love, it were bought cheaply with my life. How hard my lot, unsatisfied, unbless'd! How happy yours, in full possession!—One Of lib'ral birth, ...
— The Comedies of Terence • Publius Terentius Afer

... better, he felt assuaged. To cultivate and nourish a grievance when you have five hundred pounds in your pocket, in cash, is the most ...
— Buried Alive: A Tale of These Days • Arnold Bennett

... was betrothed, and would be married six months thence. It did not, however, trouble her that she had heard of this through a servant; she never looked for anything else. Had she been addicted (which, fortunately for her, she was not) to that most profitless of all manufactures, grievance-making,—she might have wept over this little incident. But except for one reason, the news of her sister's approaching marriage was rather agreeable to Philippa. She would have another tyrant the less; though ...
— The Well in the Desert - An Old Legend of the House of Arundel • Emily Sarah Holt

... its limits. "The tongue touches where the tooth aches," as Dr. Riccabocca would tell us. By little and little our Juvenile Talleyrand (I beg the elder great man's pardon) wormed out from Dick this grievance, and in the grievance discovered the origin of Dick's connection with ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... whom and the blacks, who surrounded them on all sides, an implacable enmity had existed as far back as history or even legend extended. From whence those white people had come, or how long they had inhabited the land of which they held such stubborn possession, there was no record to tell; but the grievance of the blacks seemed to consist in the fact that the interlopers—as they chose to regard them—occupied the whole of a peculiarly rich and fertile tract of country from which, though they were relatively few in number, ...
— The Adventures of Dick Maitland - A Tale of Unknown Africa • Harry Collingwood

... up before he had time to understand all the facts in that little affair of ours. If he had waited he would have found that he had no cause for grievance." ...
— The Launch Boys' Adventures in Northern Waters • Edward S. Ellis

... Things to a Commonwealth will have some of its Members who will think them a Grievance. I have just now receiv'd the following Letter from a Fencing-Master, who is very apprehensive of Business falling off, if the Act against ...
— The Theater (1720) • Sir John Falstaffe

... appetite, you know," says the General. "Such a devil of a twist! If I had had my way, I should have been at Argaum two months later. But, good Lard!—they wouldn't let me out of Hospital." The old soldier, roused by the recollection of a fifty-year-old grievance, still rankling, launched into a denunciation of the effeminacy and timidity of Authorities and Seniors, of all sorts and conditions. His youth was back upon him with its memories, and he had forgotten that he too ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan

... more as I expected," he began in the dull, resigned tones of a man with a grievance. "That swindler has been dodging me for four months now, and I guess he will keep on dodging me for the rest of the year that he claims I got a lease ...
— Elkan Lubliner, American • Montague Glass

... the credit to this imaginary personage of clearing their land of this grievance: but the brood came from the very quarter from whence Apis was supposed to have arrived. They were certainly Hivites from Egypt: and the same story is told of that country. It is represented as having been of old over-run with serpents; ...
— A New System; or, an Analysis of Antient Mythology. Volume II. (of VI.) • Jacob Bryant

... revenues of the Church ought to be applied to purposes of public utility. Peel laid significant stress on the divided counsels in the Ministry, and accused Lord John of asserting that the Irish Church was the greatest grievance of which the nation had ever had to complain. The latter repudiated such a charge, and explained that what he had said was that the revenues of the Church were too great for its stability, thereby implying that he both desired and contemplated ...
— Lord John Russell • Stuart J. Reid

... (3) had discovered that the Athenians were harbouring a grievance against her allies, as follows:—They felt it hard that, while Athens was put to vast trouble on their account, yet in her need not a man among them stepped forward to render help. Accordingly he persuaded the assembly of Ten Thousand to open negotiations with Athens for the purpose ...
— Hellenica • Xenophon

... upon them. Beneath her desire to pay a trick upon her haughty and ambitious mistress, and to call her master her cousin, there surely lurked a long-stifled hatred, built up like an avalanche, upon the pebble of some past grievance. ...
— Cousin Pons • Honore de Balzac

... less veracious traveller Captain Longbow has a great grievance with the public. He claims that during a recent expedition in Arctic regions he actually reached the North Pole, but cannot induce anybody to believe him. Of course, the difficulty in such cases is to produce proof, ...
— The Canterbury Puzzles - And Other Curious Problems • Henry Ernest Dudeney

... the neighbouring rivers, which are alive with undisturbed and neglected trout. The barrels in which the herrings are packed are said to cost two shillings and sixpence each, and some new regulation requires additional hoops, which, to those concerned, appears a grievance. It is said the herrings must realise ten shillings per barrel, in order to repay costs and labour, but the last advices from Halifax state that eight shillings only are offered by the merchants. The French, I understand, attend more to the cod ...
— The Life of Thomas, Lord Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald, Vol. II • Thomas Lord Cochrane

... presidency he headed the Commons, and delivered their resolutions in the plain words recorded by Hakewell." These "plain words" were, that no subsidy should be granted to Henry IV. until every cause of public grievance had been removed. Landor came rightly by his independence of thought. "Walter Noble represented the city of Lichfield; he lived familiarly with the best patriots of the age, remonstrated with Cromwell, and retired from public life on ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 • Various

... for the hostile pair, a new cause of grievance against Zibeline. When she, in her turn, gave at her home a similar dinner, a fortnight later, she received from them, in reply to her invitation, which was couched in the most courteous terms, a simple visiting card, with the following ...
— Zibeline, Complete • Phillipe de Massa

... near the park wall, looked to the Squire like Gregson, his ejected farmer. And who was that black-coated fellow coming through the small wicket-gate beside the big one? What the devil was he doing in the park? There was a permanent grievance in the Squire's mind against the various rights-of-way through his estate. Why shouldn't he be at liberty to shut out that man if he wanted to? Of course by the mere locking and barricading of the gates, as they would be ...
— Elizabeth's Campaign • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... Where the spine joins it. Not more furiously On Menalippus' temples Tydeus gnaw'd, Than on that skull and on its garbage he. "O thou who show'st so beastly sign of hate 'Gainst him thou prey'st on, let me hear," said I "The cause, on such condition, that if right Warrant thy grievance, knowing who ye are, And what the colour of his sinning was, I may repay thee in the world above, If that, wherewith I speak ...
— The Divine Comedy • Dante

... by degrees together To talk their grievance over, in a voice As gentle as a woman's.... There is no education in the world Like human contact for mankind's advance; All differences, then, adjust themselves; But when two races are estranged by hate, They grow so deaf to one ...
— Freedom, Truth and Beauty • Edward Doyle

... the legend are in harmony in this particular, that Awatobi was destroyed by the other Tusayan pueblos, and that Mishoninovi, Walpi, and probably Oraibi and Shunopovi participated in the deed. A grievance that would unite the other villagers against Awatobi must have been a great one, indeed, and not a mere dispute about water or lands. The more I study the real cause, hidden in the term powako, "wizard" or "sorcerer," the more I am convinced that the progress Christianity was ...
— Archeological Expedition to Arizona in 1895 • Jesse Walter Fewkes

... a little as she scrambled into her saddle. Bob, mounting his own horse, wore no hat, but it was a pet grievance of his that Betty persistently scorned headgear whether riding ...
— Betty Gordon at Boarding School - The Treasure of Indian Chasm • Alice Emerson

... contemptible work here," he whispered—"spite and a mean spirit of reprisal. I have been making a secret investigation, and I find that this blow at your son and you, and at the good name of our college was struck by one man, a man with a grievance—Doctor Gilman. Doctor Gilman has repeatedly desired me to raise his salary." This did not happen to be true, but in such a crisis Doctor Black could not ...
— The Red Cross Girl • Richard Harding Davis

... of settlers. In 1874, they twice sent messengers with tobacco (the usual Indian credentials for such messengers) to Qu'Appelle to prevent the making of the treaty there. Besides the claims to the outside promises, preferred by the other Indians, they had an additional grievance, which they pressed with much pertinacity. To obtain their adhesion to Treaty Number One, the Commissioners had given them preferential terms in respect to their reserve, and the wording in the treaty of these ...
— The Treaties of Canada with The Indians of Manitoba - and the North-West Territories • Alexander Morris

... from the street, still he never stirred. I had seen colored people in what they call "the black sulks," when, for days, they neither smiled nor spoke, and scarcely ate. But this was something more than that; for the man was not dully brooding over some small grievance; he seemed to see an all-absorbing fact or fancy recorded on the wall, which was a blank to me. I wondered if it were some deep wrong or sorrow, kept alive by memory and impotent regret; if he mourned for the dead master to whom he had ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 12, No. 73, November, 1863 • Various

... his temperament to support, that he welcomed it at times as a distraction, and these exercises of the strange ingenuity of brain which she possessed, at the cost, as it seemed, of all other intelligences, would very often interest and amuse him. On the other hand she was quite as valuable as a grievance. If he had no other fault to find with his wife, he could always blame her for suffering the idiot girl to hang about the place, and the relief of this was enormous. On the present occasion he contemplated her broad back ...
— Tales from Many Sources - Vol. V • Various

... humblest inhabitant denied the right of petition to the local Legislature on any subject, or against any governmental acts, or the right of appeal to the Imperial Government or Parliament on the subject of any alleged grievance. The very suspicion and allegation that the Canadian Government did counteract, by influences and secret representations, the statements of complaining parties to England, roused public indignation as arbitrary and unconstitutional. Even the insurrection which took place in ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 1 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Egerton Ryerson

... repeated, returning to his grievance, "never had I expected to find James Mottram a traitor to his order. As for the folk about here, they're bewitched! They believe that this puffing devil will make them all rich! I could tell them different; but, as you know, there are ...
— Studies in love and in terror • Marie Belloc Lowndes

... was as follows: On the one side was the Triple Alliance, including Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Italy; while on the other was the Triple Entente, comprising Great Britain, France and Russia. As the event proved, the uncertain element in this line-up was Italy, which had a real grievance against Austria in the latter's possession of the former Italian territory known as the Trentino, and which was not consulted by Germany and Austria prior to the outbreak of hostilities. She therefore declined to enter the war as a member of the Triple Alliance, but was later ...
— America's War for Humanity • Thomas Herbert Russell

... the Fifth lingered behind in perturbed consultation. They considered they had a just and most pressing grievance. In all the annals of the school such a case had never occurred before. It had been hitherto an inviolable though unwritten law that no one under the age of fifteen should be admitted to the Fifth ...
— The Youngest Girl in the Fifth - A School Story • Angela Brazil

... was a sudden alarum among the soldiers, and I was able to dodge the familiar rehearsal of old Benjamin's grievance. ...
— Pebbles on the Shore • Alpha of the Plough (Alfred George Gardiner)

... arguendo that our imaginary court would commence its consideration with the assumption that Austria had a just grievance against Servia, and that the murder of the Archduke on June 28, 1914, while in fact committed by Austrian citizens of Servian sympathies on Austrian soil, had its inspiration and encouragement in the political activities either of the Servian Government ...
— The New York Times Current History of the European War, Vol. 1, January 9, 1915 - What Americans Say to Europe • Various

... business. The Cubans have rebelled. They must take the consequences, sustained by the certainty of success in the end. Moreover, we not only are on friendly terms with Spain, we not only have no personal grievance as a nation against her, but we are a great nation, she is a weak one. We have no moral right, we a lusty young country, to humiliate a proud and ancient kingdom, expose the weaknesses and diseases of her old age to the unpitying eyes of the world. It would be a despicable ...
— Senator North • Gertrude Atherton

... grievance against Miss Chatterton. He had been induced to lengthen his visit in order to entertain her, and Miss Chatterton refused to be entertained. His position at Coton Manor had thus become a humiliating sinecure. ...
— The Return of the Prodigal • May Sinclair

... the box to have redressed it.—The old French officer did it with much less confusion; for leaning a little over, and nodding to a sentinel, and pointing at the same time with his finger at the distress,—the sentinel made his way to it.—There was no occasion to tell the grievance,—the thing told himself; so thrusting back the German instantly with his musket,—he took the poor dwarf by the hand, and placed him before him.—This is noble! said I, clapping my hands together.—And yet you would not permit this, said ...
— A Sentimental Journey • Laurence Sterne

... other classes of the citizens, to be under arms for the purpose of going through military exercises and evolutions, as often as might be necessary to acquire the degree of perfection which would entitle them to the character of a well-regulated militia, would be a real grievance to the people, and a serious public inconvenience and loss. It would form an annual deduction from the productive labor of the country, to an amount which, calculating upon the present numbers ...
— The Federalist Papers

... on the breast of our intimate destiny as the breast of a goddess once served for the cup of the sculptor of old. Every man has the cup of his fashioning, and most often the cup he has learned to desire. When we murmur at fate, let our grievance be only that she grafted not in our heart the wish for, or thought of, a cup more ample and perfect. For indeed in the wish alone does inequality lie, but this inequality vanishes the moment it has been perceived. Does the thought ...
— Wisdom and Destiny • Maurice Maeterlinck

... do. To whip a knave, sir, or an honest man! A wise man or a fool—atone for wrong, Or double the amount on't! Master Walter, Touching your ward, if wrong is done, I think On my side lies the grievance. I would not say so Did I not think so. As for love—look, sir, That hand's a widower's, to its first mate sworn To clasp no second one. As for amends, sir, You're free to get them from a man in whom You've been forestalled by fortune, for the spite Which ...
— The Hunchback • James Sheridan Knowles

... on account of its simplicity, people seem to be naturally disposed to underrate the power which gave it utterance. Booker Washington may merely be following in the footsteps of Adam Smith when, instead of regarding the negro population as an evil or a grievance, he prescribes that their labour, as a source of vast wealth, be utilised for the national advancement. Viewed from any other standpoint, there can be no doubt that the rapidly-increasing negroes inspire some disquieting apprehensions as a ...
— From Slave to College President - Being the Life Story of Booker T. Washington • Godfrey Holden Pike

... no distinctly shapen grievance that she could state even to herself; and in the midst of her confused thought and passion, the mental act that was struggling forth into clearness was a self-accusing cry that her feeling of desolation ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot

... Congressman came to bore him for an appointment or with a grievance, had a pleasant way of telling a succession of stories, which left his visitor no chance to state his case. One day, a Representative, who had been thus silenced, stated from experience as follows: "I've been trying for the last four days to get an audience with the President. I have gone to the ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore

... out into a new grievance. "That damned vicar," he complained, "thinks I ought to think myself lucky to get this place! Every time I meet him I can see him think it.... One of these days, George I'll show him what a ...
— Tono Bungay • H. G. Wells

... a grievance took strong hold of Prescott, and it was inflamed at the new mention of the Secretary's name. If it were any other it might be more tolerable, but Mr. Sefton was a crafty and dangerous man, perhaps ...
— Before the Dawn - A Story of the Fall of Richmond • Joseph Alexander Altsheler

... appreciation of the Resolution of the Senate personal to myself, can find no adequate expression in words. Intentionally, I have at no time given offence; and I carry from this presence no shadow of feeling of unkindness toward any Senator, no memory of any grievance. ...
— Something of Men I Have Known - With Some Papers of a General Nature, Political, Historical, and Retrospective • Adlai E. Stevenson

... alienations of tradition, prejudice, and religion seemed to make harmony as impossible as the promise of it is to these warring States,—England has only to refresh her memory on these points, in order to relieve us of the charge of folly in attempting an impossibility. So much for the first grievance we allege against our ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, Issue 49, November, 1861 • Various

... as he left this castle, on the way to his own home, a man suddenly sprang out upon him before the Porta Petruccia: it was one of Andre's favourites, Conrad of Gottis chosen no doubt because he had a grievance against the incorruptible magistrate on account of some sentence passed against him, and the murder would therefore be put down to motives of private revenge. The cowardly wretch gave a sign to two or three companions, who surrounded ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - JOAN OF NAPLES—1343-1382 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE

... must give way and the grave that had already opened for her husband and her son would yawn to swallow her up with her sorrows. She shuddered and drew her hood over her face to screen it from the sun which now began to shine in. Its light was a grievance to her; she had hoped never ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... of his birth and also because he squinted, and predicted all manner of evils to the monastery if he were elected Abbot. Henry II., soon after the new Abbot had been appointed, and the Bishop of Lincoln happening to be at St. Albans at the same time, the Bishop brought up the old grievance about the Abbey having been made independent of him, but the King silenced him with angry words. Warren founded a leper hospital for women as Geoffrey had founded one for men. This hospital was dissolved by Wolsey in 1526, its revenues going towards ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Saint Albans - With an Account of the Fabric & a Short History of the Abbey • Thomas Perkins

... manner of costumes and scenery it was fine and showy enough; but there was not much action. That is to say, there was not much really done, it was only talked about; and always violently. It was what one might call a narrative play. Everybody had a narrative and a grievance, and none were reasonable about it, but all in an offensive and ungovernable state. There was little of that sort of customary thing where the tenor and the soprano stand down by the footlights, warbling, with blended ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... me, and den robbed me of all my money!" howled Quimp, whose greatest grievance was the loss ...
— Fighting for the Right • Oliver Optic

... return for essential services; the esteem of those capable of judging of, and rewarding them. I will not say whether or not my exactness in discharging the duties of my employment was a just subject of complaint from the ambassador; but I cannot refrain from declaring that it was the sole grievance he ever mentioned previous to ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau

... Napoleon's grievance against us was thereby materially lessened, and his protest against fictitious blockades in the preamble of the Berlin Decree really applied only to our action on the coast between the Helder and Brest, where our cruisers were watching the naval preparations still going ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose

... crime there must be a punishment; for every wrong there must be a remedy, and for every grievance there must be a redress. That this state of things is wrong and unjust, if not unlawful, no fair-minded person will deny. It is not only wrong and unjust to the colored people of the State, who are thus ...
— The Facts of Reconstruction • John R. Lynch

... situation would be if she had only said Yes, instead of No, that afternoon. People have odd notions sometimes, and it actually seemed to him that his vexation with her for destroying the pleasure of the present occasion was something quite apart from, and in addition to, his main grievance against her. It might have been so jolly, and now she had spoiled it. He could have boxed her ...
— Deserted - 1898 • Edward Bellamy

... been growing more and more morose and dissatisfied day by day. Her grievance was very tangible. A young girl had been brought forcibly to the house and placed in her care to be treated as a prisoner. From that time the perpetrators of the deed had left the woman to her own resources, never communicating ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces in Society • Edith Van Dyne

... guess. You see, she has never put her foot in this place, of course, and I have been promising her all the time that she could come here once to have a look at the house and the park before she married. Her standing grievance has always been that I couldn't receive her here. On account of Mizzie, you know. Which she has understood perfectly well. And to sneak her in here some time when Mizzie was not at home—well, for that kind of thing I have never had any taste. And so she sends me a telephone ...
— The Lonely Way—Intermezzo—Countess Mizzie - Three Plays • Arthur Schnitzler

... a table close to him he took a cigar, lighted it, and watched its spirals of smoke curl upward. Life and the smoke that vanisheth had much in common. On the whole, he had no grievance against life. If it was proving a rather wearisome affair it was doubtless his own fault, and yet this finding of himself alone at forty was hardly what he had intended. There was something actually comic about it. That for which he had striven ...
— The Man in Lonely Land • Kate Langley Bosher

... my mental food from boyhood—aye, almost from infancy; and her memories, her memories! I think of London as Macaulay must have thought of Athens. Decent Americans—that is, a majority—don't listen to jingo politicians; and new arrivals with a grievance against England are left to the vis medicatrix naturae. There'll never be another war between England and the United States. Our Anglo-Saxon element think normally; and the vast majority of our German citizens have always been on the sensible and morally right side of national questions—there's ...
— A Strange Discovery • Charles Romyn Dake

... brave soldier, a true citizen and a real gentleman. While protecting the property of capitalists he was kind and forbearing to the working classes who believed they had a grievance. ...
— The Honest American Voter's Little Catechism for 1880 • Blythe Harding

... 13. Having investigated their grievance and affliction, and seeing that the bishop was reading his conclusions in the pulpit and was quite determined to have his way, and was even giving orders that absolution should not be granted to the encomenderos acting contrary to what he thought proper; inasmuch as the bishop ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume VIII (of 55), 1591-1593 • Emma Helen Blair

... found that official organizing a posse comitatus for the purpose of quelling an anticipated uprising of lease-holders. In answer to the manager's complaint the custodian of the law had asserted his first duty was generally to preserve the peace; afterward, he would attend to Barnes' particular grievance. Obliged to content himself as best he might with this meager assurance, the manager, at his wit's end, had accompanied the party whose way had led them in the direction the carriage had taken, and whose final destination—an unhoped-for ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham

... ignorance of music; they cannot dance; in the whole of this vast city there is not a single place where a couple, so minded, can go for an evening's dancing, unless they are prepared to journey as far as North Woolwich. Not one. Ought it not to be felt and resented as an intolerable grievance that grandmotherly legislation actually forbids the people to dance? That the working men themselves do not seem to feel and resent it is really a mournful thing. Then, they cannot paint, draw, model, or carve. They cannot act, and seemingly do not care greatly ...
— As We Are and As We May Be • Sir Walter Besant

... callers on one afternoon!" G.J. reflected. And yet she had told him she went out for the first time only the day before yesterday! He scarcely liked it, but his reason rescued him from the puerility of a grievance against her on this account. "And why not? She is bound to ...
— The Pretty Lady • Arnold E. Bennett

... to Rome. The matter had filled her mind for a month or more, and had overflowed so abundantly into her conversation that quite a number of people who were not going to Rome, and who were not likely to go to Rome, had made it a personal grievance against her. Some indeed had attempted quite unavailingly to convince her that Rome was not nearly such a desirable place as it was reported to be, and others had gone so far as to suggest behind her back that she was dreadfully "stuck up" about "that Rome ...
— The Country of the Blind, And Other Stories • H. G. Wells

... commands a high price upon the Scotch coast. As yet their displeasure is only signified by sullen countenances and black looks, but I heard from the second mate this afternoon that they contemplated sending a deputation to the Captain to explain their grievance. I much doubt how he will receive it, as he is a man of fierce temper, and very sensitive about anything approaching to an infringement of his rights. I shall venture after dinner to say a few words to him upon the subject. I have always found that he will tolerate ...
— The Captain of the Pole-Star and Other Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle

... twenty-five cents dry, at the tannery, were their proper pay. Raften never allowed his son to kill the calves. "Oi can't kill a poor innocent calf mesilf an' I won't hev me boy doin' it," he said. Thus Sam was done out of a perquisite, and did not forget the grievance. ...
— Two Little Savages • Ernest Thompson Seton

... they all recognize a common grievance, the dull murmurs of the people become cries of impatience. Rossini has proceeded on this hypothesis. After the outcry in C major, Pharoah sings his grand recitative: Mano ultrice di un Dio (Avenging ...
— Massimilla Doni • Honore de Balzac

... complete double letter, and in return shall expect a monstrous budget. Without doubt, the dames of Southwell reprobate the pernicious example I have shown, and tremble lest their babes should disobey their mandates, and quit, in dudgeon, their mammas on any grievance. Adieu. When you begin your next, drop the "lordship," and ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Letters and Journals, Vol. 1 • Lord Byron, Edited by Rowland E. Prothero

... Puritans. The Baltimore family at first displayed great liberality and judgment in their rule; but, as they gained confidence from the secret support of the king to their cherished faith, their wise moderation seems to have diminished. However, the principal grievance brought against them was, that they had not provided by public funds for Church of England clergymen as fully as for those of their own faith, although by far the larger portion of the population belonged to the flock of the former. The unsatisfactory ...
— The Conquest of Canada (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Warburton

... moving at a snail's pace, their limp ears marking the time; while perched high upon the seat, under a yellow cotton wagon umbrella, Presley recognised Hooven, one of Derrick's tenants, a German, whom every one called "Bismarck," an excitable little man with a perpetual grievance and an endless flow ...
— The Octopus • Frank Norris

... them—the present one is a Swede, the last one, Irish—but they seem to be such stupid, cranky things! However, one thing I insist upon—they are not to slap the children, and are to let them have their own way, as far as possible. And I make it equally plain to the children that if they have any grievance, they needn't mind about their father—all they have to do is come to me, and throw their arms about my neck, and I will do the best to straighten it out for them. That does a great deal to help ...
— Heart and Soul • Victor Mapes (AKA Maveric Post)

... personality to sweep her off her feet in the same determined manner that he had carried her into the wilderness. She was no longer afraid of him. She occasionally forgot, in spite of herself, that she had a deep-seated grievance against him. At such times the wild land, the changing vistas the journey opened up, charmed her into genuine enjoyment. She would find herself smiling at Bill's quaint tricks of speech. Then she would recollect that she was, to all intents and purposes, a prisoner, the captive of his bow ...
— North of Fifty-Three • Bertrand W. Sinclair

... that appearance: more especially, since it was raining at the moment—as if the very clouds were coming down—and I stood in need of shelter. But that grievance was little thought of. I was suffering a chagrin, far more intolerable than the tempest. Where was Lilian? Such cool reception, on her part, I had not expected. It was indeed a surprise. Had I mistaken the character ...
— The Wild Huntress - Love in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid

... laws which should regulate the breaking of bad news. You, please remember, were carefully prepared by me against the shock of the Duke's death; and yet I hear you still mumbling that I didn't let the actual fact be told you by a Messenger. Come, do you really think your grievance against me is for a moment comparable with that of Mrs. and Miss Batch against Clarence? Did you feel faint at any moment in the foregoing chapter? No. But Katie, at Clarence's first words, fainted outright. Think a little ...
— Zuleika Dobson - or, An Oxford Love Story • Max Beerbohm

... man smiled, and shook his head. "I wad be baith a grievance and a disgrace to your fine servants, my leddy, and I have never been a disgrace to onybody yet, that I ...
— The Antiquary, Complete • Sir Walter Scott

... was that the steward was taken into custody and heavily fined. Tillotson sent a kind message to assure his predecessor that the fine should not be exacted. But Sancroft was determined to have a grievance, and ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 4 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... yourself by turning my article inside out?" asked Lucien. He had written his brilliant sketch simply and solely to give emphasis to his grievance. ...
— A Distinguished Provincial at Paris • Honore de Balzac

... wise, sad eyes. "Time will dispose of them," he said quietly. "He is new to the life. Let him taste its full bitterness. It will plead powerfully against his—scruples. He has as yet no special and private grievance. Wait until he gets into trouble with Woodson or his master. When he has done that and has taken the consequences, he will be ours. ...
— Prisoners of Hope - A Tale of Colonial Virginia • Mary Johnston

... with Germany? Is she doing us any wrong? Some of our people seem to think so, though I find it hard to say in what the wrong consists. Are we doing her any wrong? Some Germans seem to think so, and it behoves us, if we can, to find out what the German grievance is. ...
— Britain at Bay • Spenser Wilkinson

... were exhorbitant. He was able to pay a heavy fee to the Duchess of Kendal; and when the contract was revoked, he obtained an excessive compensation. His Halfpence are historic because Swift, in raising a tempest over the Irish grievance, employed the language of revolution and national patriotism, as it had never been heard. Again, the Excise Bill would have saved many hundreds of thousands of pounds to the State, when a hundred thousand ...
— Lectures on Modern history • Baron John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton

... is resolved on making it a grievance, and as some distinguished statesman has deemed it worth his while to devise a bill for its suppression, it is in vain to deny that the evil is one of magnitude. England has declared she will not be ground ...
— Cornelius O'Dowd Upon Men And Women And Other Things In General - Originally Published In Blackwood's Magazine - 1864 • Charles Lever

... is one of those open forums where every man with a sore spot goes out to air his grievance. On Sundays there were little groups around the trees where orators debated on everything from a patent medicine to the nature of God. Charles Bradlaugh and Mrs. Annie Besant were associated together ...
— A Labrador Doctor - The Autobiography of Wilfred Thomason Grenfell • Wilfred Thomason Grenfell

... the minister. Aga Meer returned to the King with this message, and his Majesty agreed to this condition. The Resident then sent his head moonshie, Gholam Hossein, to promise Eesa Meean, that the woman should be restored to him, and any grievance he might have to complain of should be redressed, and his party all saved, if he gave up the children. But he and his followers now demanded a large sum of money, and declared, that they would murder the boys unless it was given and secured to ...
— A Journey through the Kingdom of Oude, Volumes I & II • William Sleeman

... bits so that even their own mothers could not recognize them; That human beings should use every devilish invention of science with the one purpose of maiming, blinding, destroying those against whom they have no personal grudge or grievance; All this ...
— NEVER AGAIN • Edward Carpenter

... interest alone he's almost repaid all you lent him in the first instance; you've first-class security for the rest; yet you must ruin him to revenge yourself upon us. On us, mark you! It's against us you've got your grievance, not against old Garland or his son. You've lost sight of that fact. That little trick this morning was our doing entirely. Why don't you take it out of us? Why refuse a fair offer to spite people who ...
— Mr. Justice Raffles • E. W. Hornung

... is one which has, for some years, been a very prominent one, and is likely, I fear, for some time yet to occupy a large share of public attention. The discontent, manifested in the troubles of recent years, has had its root in an old sense of grievance, for which there was, unhappily, only too abundant reason. The great proportion of the soil of Ireland was taken from the original owners, and handed over to Cromwell's followers, and for years the land that still remained in the hands of Irishmen was subject to the covetousness ...
— Orange and Green - A Tale of the Boyne and Limerick • G. A. Henty

... anguish, sorrow, heartbreak, regret, remorse, dolor, misery, heartache, woe, tribulation, rue, affliction, bereavement, trial, adversity, distress, grievance. ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming

... concentrating the army within supporting distance of Nashville became apparent on the appearance of the advance of Bragg's army at Murfreesboro, reinforcing Breckinridge's command, which had been left in Tennessee to enforce the "blockade of Nashville." This was another grievance the Kentucky troops had against Bragg. All the Kentucky infantry troops under Bragg were in Breckenridge's command, and they were exceedingly anxious to return to the State with Bragg's army to visit their friends ...
— The Army of the Cumberland • Henry M. Cist

... much of a patriot to allow his personal grievance to interfere with the defence of his country in these circumstances, and he waited upon General Braddock at Alexandria, and accepted the position. However, he wrote to a friend that it was not altogether patriotism that ...
— From Farm House to the White House • William M. Thayer

... from his realm, and forbidding his subjects to trade with them. Moreover, the seminary building is being erected in a place selected in violation of a royal decree, and which has been arbitrarily seized from its owners; and the monopolies granted are a grievance and injury to many persons, especially to the Indians who reside near Manila. The Audiencia accordingly revoke these, and order that the seminary building be demolished; and they issue a royal decree ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XXI, 1624 • Various

... the door of the kitchen with some complaint, and stands there talking to herself in a depressing murmur until she arrives at the next grievance. Whenever we hear this, which is whenever we are in the sitting-room, we amuse ourselves by chanting lines of melancholy poetry which correspond to the sentiments she seems to be uttering. It is the only way the infliction can be endured, for the sitting-room ...
— Penelope's Progress - Being Such Extracts from the Commonplace Book of Penelope Hamilton As Relate to Her Experiences in Scotland • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin

... brought the wild-rose colour to her face, and made her heart beat faster. It was certainly a life full and gratifying beyond her dreaming, and it was almost settled now! If Ward did not figure very prominently in this bright dream, she told herself that Ward should have no cause for grievance. He should always be first in everything; but if his wife enjoyed her position, her connections, her place in the family, surely there was no harm in that! There was but one stumbling block: Royal Blondin. Her heart ...
— Harriet and the Piper - (Norris Volume XI) • Kathleen Norris

... another grievance under which the Romans groan. The few articles that are landed on their coast have to encounter tedious and almost insuperable delays before they can find their way to the capital. This is owing to the wretched state of the communication, which is kept purposely ...
— Pilgrimage from the Alps to the Tiber - Or The Influence of Romanism on Trade, Justice, and Knowledge • James Aitken Wylie

... name men call Circumstance, and my law is that man shall do not what he will, but what he must,"—because as yet he could not see this, he left Thorney that day for Londinium, saying no word of his grievance to any man, with his bundle tied to ...
— Nicanor - Teller of Tales - A Story of Roman Britain • C. Bryson Taylor

... middle Ages the tie of loyalty was rather to the man than to the state, and Andrej Kourbsky seems to have deemed that his honor would be safe, provided he sent a letter to his sovereign, explaining his grievance and giving up his allegiance. The letter is said to have been full of grave severity and deep, suppressed indignation, though temperate in tone; but no one would consent to be the bearer of such a missive, since the cruel tyrant's first fury was almost certain to fall on him who presented it. Believing ...
— A Book of Golden Deeds • Charlotte M. Yonge

... to be ready and willing to sacrifice himself for the good of the team. That's what I heard Jack telling Archie Frazer, who's also been dropped; but his Scotch blood seemed to be up, and he looked as if he had a personal grievance against old ...
— Jack Winters' Gridiron Chums • Mark Overton

... as he listened. He even found time to wonder whether Toby, if pressed, knew what sort of animal he meant by a "crocodile of a bear." But then a good deal of allowance must be made for a stuttering boy, and especially when he has a grievance as big ...
— With Trapper Jim in the North Woods • Lawrence J. Leslie

... venerable ladyship, (her grandmother,) as well as her maternal aunts; that her cousins are, it is true, blunt, but that if all the young ladies associated together in one place, they may also perchance dispel some dulness; that if ever (Miss Lin) has any grievance, she should at once speak out, and on no account feel a stranger; and everything will then ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin

... restored Union, Georgia and Louisiana must be as Maryland and Kentucky continued even in the midst of camps. Who, during the acme of the French revolution, could have believed that the people of Paris would so soon and so readily accept even despotism as the panacea of turmoil? Show a real grievance, and I grant you that rebellion achieves the dignity of revolution. Provide an imaginary or a colored evil as the basis of insurrection, and even pride and obstinacy will eventually comprehend the sophistry of ...
— Continental Monthly - Volume 1 - Issue 3 • Various

... the dread of the fate preparing for de Barral's unprotected child, she was not engaged in writing a compendious and ruthless hand-book on the theory and practice of life, for the use of women with a grievance. She could as yet, before the task of evolving the philosophy of rebellious action had affected her intuitive sharpness, perceive things which were, I suspect, moderately plain. For I am inclined to believe that the woman whom chance had put in command of Flora de Barral's destiny took no very ...
— Chance • Joseph Conrad

... beautiful devotion for which twins are so celebrated in drama and romance has never existed between my brother and myself. Nor was this my fault. I was of a highly sensitive disposition, and from my earliest years it was impressed upon me that Gregoire regarded me in the light of a grievance, I could not help having illnesses, yet he would upbraid me for taking them. Then, too, he was always our mother's favourite, and instead of there being caresses and condolence for me when I was indisposed, there was nothing but grief for the indisposition ...
— A Chair on The Boulevard • Leonard Merrick

... Would she curse us? What is her grievance? What is her story?" demanded Bradford half indignantly, and Squanto, after some conference with the sachem, informed them that this woman, once called Sunlight-upon-the-Waters, but now known as The-Night-in-Winter, had been mother of seven tall sons who filled her wigwam with venison, ...
— Standish of Standish - A story of the Pilgrims • Jane G. Austin

... more the same conclusion. He fled from Trye, as he had fled from Wootton. He meant apparently to go to Chamberi, drawn by the deep magnetic force of old memories that seemed long extinct. But at Grenoble on his way thither he encountered a substantial grievance. A man alleged that he had lent Rousseau a few francs seven years previously. He was undoubtedly mistaken, and was fully convicted of his mistake by proper authorities, but Rousseau's correspondents suffered none the less for that. ...
— Rousseau - Volumes I. and II. • John Morley

... motion of Ephraim Tutt, of the firm of Tutt & Tutt, Judge Simeon Watkins, sitting as a committing magistrate, held for the action of the grand jury Raphael B. Hogan and Joseph P. Simpkins, his assistant, for the crime of extortion, and directed that their case be referred to the Grievance Committee of the County Lawyers' Association for the necessary action ...
— By Advice of Counsel • Arthur Train

... themselves to be led to the commission of an act of disorder. We may even go to the extent of admitting that occasionally college disorder is not without a certain color of reason. It is the youthful way of resenting a real or an imaginary grievance. When a class discovers that it or some of its members have been treated too severely, according to its standard, by a certain professor, what more natural than to create a disturbance in the recitation-room or in public? In itself considered, the act is a youthful ebullition, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, April, 1876. • Various

... satisfactory boy. He had probably been making himself objectionable, and had been glad of an excuse to break rules. The master did not demand particulars. He gave the culprit an imposition, and ordered him to obey the rules of his house; and another time, if he had any grievance, to come with it to him instead of taking the law ...
— The Cock-House at Fellsgarth • Talbot Baines Reed

... always won the highest prizes; and I could not see why, at home, I should be forced to do housework when I wanted to read, while my brother, who wished to work, was compelled to study. When I complained of this last grievance, I was told that I was a girl, and never could learn much, but was only fit to become a housekeeper. All these things threw me upon my own resources, and taught me to make the most of every opportunity, custom and habit ...
— A Practical Illustration of Woman's Right to Labor - A Letter from Marie E. Zakrzewska, M.D. Late of Berlin, Prussia • Marie E. Zakrzewska



Words linked to "Grievance" :   score, resentment, allegation, rancour, gall, grudge, rancor, bitterness, complaint



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