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Quarrelsome   /kwˈɔrəlsəm/   Listen
Quarrelsome

adjective
1.
Given to quarreling.  "Quarrelsome when drinking"



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"Quarrelsome" Quotes from Famous Books



... "The Kingdom of God is righteousness, peace, joy." Righteousness, of course is just doing what is right. Any boy who does what is RIGHT has the Kingdom of God within him. Any boy who, instead of being quarrelsome, lives at peace with the other boys, has the Kingdom of God within him. Any boy whose heart is filled with joy because he does what is right, has the Kingdom of God within him. The Kingdom of God is not going to religious meetings, and hearing strange religious experiences; the Kingdom ...
— Addresses • Henry Drummond

... and been arrested for carrying a large pocketknife; as he did not understand a word of English our friend was glad when he left. He gave place to a Norwegian sailor, who had lost half an ear in a drunken brawl, and who proved to be quarrelsome, cursing Jurgis because he moved in his bunk and caused the roaches to drop upon the lower one. It would have been quite intolerable, staying in a cell with this wild beast, but for the fact that all day long the prisoners were put ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair

... identical in blood; pent up together on one small island, so that their intercourse (one would have thought) must be as close as that of prisoners who shared one cell of the Bastille; the same in language and religion; and yet a few years of quarrelsome isolation—a mere forenoon's tiff, as one may call it, in comparison with the great historical cycles—has so separated their thoughts and ways that not unions, not mutual dangers, nor steamers, nor railways, nor all the king's horses and all the king's men, seem able to obliterate the ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XXII (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... his outburst of passion, vented his spite by giving to the Morning Courier an exaggerated and distorted account of the affair, in which the youth was made to exchange places with himself, and appear as a coarse, quarrelsome bully. ...
— A Knight Of The Nineteenth Century • E. P. Roe

... inveigled men into the vain expectation that they would make a home for them, when they no more knew how to make a home than a heaven. The best they can do is to go to one of those places so satirically called an 'intelligence office,' and import them into their elegant houses a small mob of quarrelsome, drunken, dishonest foreigners, and then they and their husbands live on such conditions as are permitted. I would be mistress of my house, just as a man is master of his store or office, and I would know thoroughly how work of all kinds was done, and see that it was done thoroughly. If they wouldn't ...
— What Can She Do? • Edward Payson Roe

... hatred, and wars between them. In a part of the country (its geographical position described) I see several negroes under Gorilla domination. Well treated by their masters. Frog-eating Gorillas across the Salt Lake. Bull-headed Gorillas—their mutual hostility. Green Island Gorillas. More quarrelsome than the Bull-heads, and howl much louder. I am called to attend one of the princesses. Evident partiality of H. R. H. for me. Jealousy and rage of large red-headed Gorilla. How shall ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray

... pit against. get into hot water, fish in troubled waters, brawl; kick up a row, kick up a dust; turn the house out of window. Adj. discordant; disagreeing &c. v.; out of tune, ajar, on bad terms, dissentient &c. 489; unreconciled, unpacified; contentious &c. 720. quarrelsome, unpacific[obs3]; gladiatorial, controversial, polemic, disputatious; factious; litigious, litigant; pettifogging. at odds, at loggerheads, at daggers drawn, at variance, at issue, at cross purposes, at sixes and sevens, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus

... who was haughty, ostentatious, and quarrelsome, was, at the time of the stranger's arrival, rehearsing the shows and tournaments intended to welcome his bride, the sister of the Emperor Maximilian the Second. She was his second wife. The first was a daughter of the rival house of Tuscany, which he detested; and ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Vol. 2 • Leigh Hunt

... now to human proofs of the dignity of learning, we find that among the heathen the inventors of new arts, such as Ceres, Bacchus, and Apollo, were consecrated among the gods themselves by apotheosis. The fable of Orpheus, wherein quarrelsome beasts stood sociably listening to the harp, aptly described the nature of men among whom peace is maintained so long as they give ear to precepts, laws, and religion. It has been said that people would then be happy, when kings were philosophers, or philosophers kings; and history shows ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books, Volume XIII. - Religion and Philosophy • Various

... who had formerly lived in India, and was returning there with her three children, after a visit to her home in America. Mrs. Lenox has two sons and one daughter, a little fairy, the pet of all on board. The sons are indolent, quarrelsome fellows, who not only make themselves unhappy, but also try to annoy their mother ...
— The Lost Kitty • Harriette Newell Woods Baker (AKA Aunt Hattie)

... take them into the country—one may as well practise when one has the opportunity. Besides, sportsmen are often quarrelsome; and if it is known that one shoots well,—it keeps one ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 5 • Edward Bulwer Lytton

... re-read "The Art of Flirtation" and you will discover that the biggest laughs precede, arise from, or are followed by quarrels. Weber and Fields in their list of the most humorous business, cite not only mildly quarrelsome actions, but actually hostile and seemingly dangerous acts. The more hostile and the more seemingly dangerous they are, the funnier they are. Run through the Cohan list and you will discover that nearly every bit of business there ...
— Writing for Vaudeville • Brett Page

... "Don't be a fool, Congdon! Put up your gun and say you're sorry, like a gentleman. Damme"—Dick in his cups was notoriously quarrelsome and capricious as to the grounds of quarrel—"she's my sister, too, for that matter. And Jack's my brother: and begad, he has the right of it. He's a pragmatical fellow, but as plucky as ginger, and I love him for it. Fight ...
— Hetty Wesley • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... Latin; the national poems were translated into Latin to induce the learned to read them; native poets composed their verses in Latin, and all lectures at the universities were delivered in that tongue. The work of Luther was undone: ambitious princes and quarrelsome divines continued the rulers of Germany, and everything seemed drifting back into the Middle Ages. Then came the Thirty Years' War (1618- 1648), with all its disastrous consequences. At the close of that war the public mind was somewhat awakened, literary societies were organized, and literature ...
— Handbook of Universal Literature - From The Best and Latest Authorities • Anne C. Lynch Botta

... heard it said that Colonel A—— was in general the least quarrelsome of Confederate officers; but that on more than one occasion, where his statement upon some point of fact had been challenged by a comrade, who did not intend to question his veracity but simply the accuracy of his observation, ...
— Across the Zodiac • Percy Greg

... beings of the finest singers and the most beautiful of all the birds, the spirits of the children of white people enter the bodies of stupid, ugly birds that just squawk around, and are neither interesting to look at nor pleasant to listen to, but are quarrelsome, and thievish. When I asked Oo-koo-hoo to name a few birds into which the spirits of white children entered, he mentioned, among others, the woodpecker—which the Indians consider to have, proportionately, ...
— The Drama of the Forests - Romance and Adventure • Arthur Heming

... had equipped him with its excellent qualities. He was quick at his work, nimble with his fingers, ready with his tongue, clear in his thoughts. And, moreover, full of fun, good-natured and brave, kind and quarrelsome, inquisitive and a chatterbox. A madcap, he never could show more respect to a burgomaster than to a beggar! But he had a heart; he fell in love every other day, and confided in the ...
— Invisible Links • Selma Lagerlof

... vicious: they are only "frail." They are not artistic: they are only lascivious. They are not prosperous: they are only rich. They are not loyal, they are only servile; not dutiful, only sheepish; not public spirited, only patriotic; not courageous, only quarrelsome; not determined, only obstinate; not masterful, only domineering; not self-controlled, only obtuse; not self-respecting, only vain; not kind, only sentimental; not social, only gregarious; not considerate, ...
— Man And Superman • George Bernard Shaw

... outlook rather stormy, doesn't it?" she said, turning to him with all of her old sweet friendly manner. "Do let us agree, Duane. Mercy on us! we ought to adore each other—unless we have forgotten the quarrelsome but adorable friendship of our childhood. I thought you were the perfection of ...
— The Danger Mark • Robert W. Chambers

... happiness. When life remains lost in sense or reverts to it entirely, humanity itself is atrophied. And humanity is tormented and spoilt when, as more often happens, a man disbelieving in reason and out of humour with his world, abandons his soul to loose whimseys and passions that play a quarrelsome game there, like so many ill-bred children. Nevertheless, compared with the worldling's mental mechanism and rhetoric, the sensualist's soul is a well of wisdom. He lives naturally on an animal level and attains a kind of good. He has free and concrete pursuits, ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana

... nothing. One set have always been friendly and helpful to Bull, the other set have always been unfriendly and obstructive to him. He proposes to reject the advice of the successful, amicable, helpful men, who have always stuck up for him, and to follow the advice of the quarrelsome, unsuccessful, unfriendly men, who have always spoken ill of him and have spent their energies in trying to damage him. Bull must be a fool—or rather he would be if he meant to act in this foolish way. He will not do so; ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)

... peoples are disputing for the leadership of the world," I said, "and meanwhile the whole world sweeps past us. We're drifting into a quarrelsome backwater." ...
— The Passionate Friends • Herbert George Wells

... pretty wings with another soft reproachful note, and flew away—away out in the bright sunny garden, over the bushes and flowers, away—away—to some leafy corner up among the high trees, where there would be no angry voices to startle it, no quarrelsome children to frighten its tender little heart—no sound but the soft brush of the squirrel's furry tail among the branches, and the gentle flutter of the summer breeze. Away, away! But what did that "away" mean ...
— Hoodie • Mary Louisa Stewart Molesworth

... their hardihood by treading barefoot on the embers; the circle of grunting figures, leaning forward, hatchet and musket in hand, moving slowly around the fire with a shuffling, hopping step; the outer circle of sitting or lying figures, men, women, and children, drunken, wanton, quarrelsome, dreaming of the blood that should be let before the sun had gone; and at one side the little group of old men, beating their drums of wood and skin with a rhythm ...
— The Road to Frontenac • Samuel Merwin

... amusement of the situation, Dorothy resorted to flight. With a hasty "Excuse me" she rose and left the table. Jane and Adrienne instantly followed suit, leaving the quarrelsome freshman alone in ...
— Jane Allen: Right Guard • Edith Bancroft

... inducing the leaders of the opposing political parties to nominate different men for the same office. The effect was electrical. Immediately on these nominations being made public, the people rose like one man, and began canvassing like a great many different and very quarrelsome men. Target companies sprang from the recesses of the East Side, like ghosts from the rocks in Der Freischuetz; drums and fifes resounded; cannons boomed; fireworks burst into flame. The Eye-witness, having thus set the universe satisfactorily by the ears, got into his second-story front, and ...
— Punchinello, Vol. II., No. 34, November 19, 1870 • Various

... can put on a pair of gloves and harmlessly pound another boy about a bit—or get pounded about—it satisfies the desire for fistic encounter that's a part of every fellow's make-up, and he's a lot less likely to be quarrelsome. Besides, Horace, it's a fine exercise for the body and ...
— Left Tackle Thayer • Ralph Henry Barbour

... if there be any evil propensities, such as a quarrelsome, irritable temper, a love of turbulence and cruelty, selfishness, avarice, jealousy, etc., all of which lie at the base of the brain, they may be for the time entirely suppressed by gentle dispersive manipulations from the organs of such propensities either ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, June 1887 - Volume 1, Number 5 • Various

... can enjoy the wind on the heath in camp, our books and sport and school, all these things come to us through men like Wilfrid and St. Patrick, St. Columba and St. Ninian, St. Augustine and others who in the days of long ago came to lift our fathers from the wretched, quarrelsome life, and from the starving helplessness of the Men of the ...
— The Book of Missionary Heroes • Basil Mathews

... arrogate the right to dispose of it as they please. He relates that in case of a domestic quarrel the husband shoulders his gun and goes away a week or so. The neighbors naturally say that his wife is quarrelsome. All the odium consequently falls on her, and when he gets back she is only too willing to drudge for him more than ever. Heckewelder naively gives the Indian's recipe for ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck

... himself king of Macedonia. He had before this been on bad terms with Pyrrhus, who had made incursions into Thessaly, and the usual disease of princes, grasping covetousness, had made them suspicious and quarrelsome neighbours, especially since the death of Deidameia. Now, however, as they both claimed Macedonia, they were brought into direct collision, and Demetrius, after mating a campaign in AEtolia and leaving Pantauchus ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume II • Aubrey Stewart & George Long

... state. The local princes once more resumed their intrigues and quarrels, varied at intervals by appeals to their suzerain for justice or succour. The "Royal Messengers" appeared from time to time with their escorts of archers and chariots to claim tribute, levy taxes, to make peace between quarrelsome vassals, or, if the case required it, to supersede some insubordinate chief by a governor of undoubted loyalty; in fine, the entire administration of the empire was a continuation of that of the preceding century. The peoples of Kush meanwhile ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 5 (of 12) • G. Maspero

... evade, saying lightly that it began to look as though he and Courtot could no more meet than could spring and autumn. But when she asked directly, 'What would happen if you did meet?' he answered bluntly. His mood was not quarrelsome this morning; he wanted no needless fight with any man. But if Jim Courtot stepped out into his trail and began shooting . . . Well, he left it to her, what would happen. Then he began to speak of Barbee and his new girl, of anything that offered itself to his mind as a lighter ...
— The Desert Valley • Jackson Gregory

... capacity for gentleness, for chivalry, for tenderness and love. The Mount of the Moon is small. That is good. There will be no disturbance of the brain, no propensity towards lunacy. Mars is not excessive, but it is strong, and he will be bold and courageous, but not quarrelsome." ...
— The Redemption of David Corson • Charles Frederic Goss

... publick Eye. This he does at the Risque of his own Reputation; for it is a thousand to one but those whose Craft he puts at Hazard, will give him the odious Epithets of suspicious dissatisfiable peevish quarrelsome &c, and honest, undiscerning Men may be indued for a time to believe them pertinent; but he solaces himself in a conscious Rectitude of Heart, trusting that it will sooner or later be made manifest; perhaps in this World, but most assuredly in that Day when the secret Thoughts ...
— The Original Writings of Samuel Adams, Volume 4 • Samuel Adams

... aforesaid friendship or affability, to which it belongs to behave agreeably towards those among whom we dwell. Hence the Philosopher says (Ethic. iv, 6) that "those who are opposed to everything with the intent of being disagreeable, and care for nobody, are said to be peevish and quarrelsome." ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas

... against the Thebans. And generally, we may say that while Pompeius only injured the Romans through inability to refuse the demands of friends, or through ignorance, Agesilaus ruined the Lacedaemonians by plunging them into war with Thebes, to gratify his own angry and quarrelsome temper. ...
— Plutarch's Lives Volume III. • Plutarch

... 109) says: "Yaga, instead of yagaya, means properly noisy, scolding, and must be connected with the root yagat' to brawl, to scold, still preserved in Siberia. The accuracy of this etymology is confirmed by the use, in the speech of the common people, of the designation Yaga Baba for a quarrelsome, ...
— Russian Fairy Tales - A Choice Collection of Muscovite Folk-lore • W. R. S. Ralston

... Assamese to many frontier tribes; but in its restricted sense it is specially given to the above tract. The Abors, together with the cognate tribes of Miris, Daphlas and Akas, are supposed to be descended from a Tibetan stock. They are a quarrelsome and sulky race, violently divided in their political relations. In former times they committed frequent raids upon the plains of Assam, and have been the object of more than one retaliatory expedition by the British government. In 1893-94 occurred the first Bor Abor expedition. home military ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... leaders. This has been the chief cause of its almost unbroken career of success; and it has been its pride and its boast that it has been well-trained, obedient, and consequently successful, while all other parties have been quarrelsome and impatient of discipline, and consequently have risen only to endure through a few years of sickly existence, and then to pass away. The Federalists, the National Republicans, the Antimasons, the Whigs, and the Know-Nothings have each appeared, flourished for a short time, and then passed to ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 85, November, 1864 • Various

... de Breuilly, reproaching him with his quarrelsome disposition, and affirming that there had been no trace of defiance either in the attitude or the features of Monsieur de Mauterne when he had passed ...
— Led Astray and The Sphinx - Two Novellas In One Volume • Octave Feuillet

... was a quarrelsome, mischief-making meddler, good for nothing but to set the parish together by the ears; and I must beg of you to drop his name when at my table, Peveril. As to the chimes, you will hear ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 2, February, 1891 • Various

... who had taken no notice of any word against her, now turned her head toward Kenkenes and slowly inspected him. He had no opportunity to guess whether her gaze was approving, for the crowd about him, grown weary of waiting, had become quarrelsome and was loudly resenting his defense of the Hebrews. The porter, supported by several of his brethren, was already menacing the young sculptor when some one shouted that the procession ...
— The Yoke - A Romance of the Days when the Lord Redeemed the Children - of Israel from the Bondage of Egypt • Elizabeth Miller

... sir," replied Jack, "that I also shall not fail to mention to Captain Wilson that I consider you a very quarrelsome, impertinent fellow, and recommend him not to allow you to remain on board. It will be quite uncomfortable to be in the same ship with such ...
— Mr. Midshipman Easy • Captain Frederick Marryat

... small boats surrounded the yacht, native boats of curious build, and manned by dark-skinned natives of the Rock, in nondescript attire—a noisy, pushing, quarrelsome lot, eager to do business, gesticulating wildly, and jabbering loudly in many strange tongues. Here was a pure Spaniard, with a red sash round his waist, and a velvet cap, round as a cartwheel, on his head, with a boatful of vegetables and early fruit. There was a ...
— The Thin Red Line; and Blue Blood • Arthur Griffiths

... empowering them also to call before them such witnesses as they pleased, and to force them to make oath of such things as might discover what they sought after."[*] Some civil powers were also given the commissioners to punish vagabonds and quarrelsome persons. ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part C. - From Henry VII. to Mary • David Hume

... case for his strict rights, always to be prepared to contest everything, to adhere always to what he claims as his right, to get into a rage with his neighbor because he would not see as he saw himself—well, we should call that man an intolerably quarrelsome fellow who was not fit for civilized human society [cheers]; and yet, as nations, apparently there seems nothing strange in our doing that which, as individuals, we should be the ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol II, After-Dinner Speeches E-O • Various

... as he should be may be called Friendly, and his mean state Friendliness: he that exceeds, if it be without any interested motive, somewhat too Complaisant, if with such motive, a Flatterer: he that is deficient and in all instances unpleasant, Quarrelsome and Cross. ...
— Ethics • Aristotle

... unnecessary to suppose that every man who came to the house must have bad intentions, whether he gave me just cause for suspicion or not. In fact, she hinted that it was good to be brave, but bad to be quarrelsome. Then as to my personal appearance, she acknowledged that I was larger and handsomer than she, and that my rough, shaggy coat was far from unbecoming; but when I laughed at her finical cleanliness, and called her affected for not keeping her own white fur as rough and muddy as mine, she ...
— Cat and Dog - Memoirs of Puss and the Captain • Julia Charlotte Maitland

... Eglaf spake, he that sat at the feet of the Lord of the Scyldings; he bound up[4] aquarrelsome speech: to him was the journey of Beowulf, the proud sea-farer, agreat disgust; because he granted not that any other man should ever have beneath the skies, more reputation with the world than he himself: 'Art thou the Beowulf that ...
— The Translations of Beowulf - A Critical Biography • Chauncey Brewster Tinker

... of Virginia are usually represented to be more quarrelsome than those of any other American state; and, when they come to blows, they fight like wild beasts. They bite and kick each other with indescribable fury; and endeavour to tear each other's eyes out ...
— Travels in North America, From Modern Writers • William Bingley

... Francis Eaton, but she did not live after 1622. Desire Minter, who was also of the Carver household, has been the victim of much speculation. Mrs. Jane G. Austin, in her novel, "Standish of Standish," makes her the female scapegrace of the colony, jealous, discontented and quarrelsome. On the other hand, and still speculatively, she is portrayed as the elder sister and house keeper for John Howland and Elizabeth Tilley, after the death of Mistress Carver; this is assumed because the first girl born to the Howlands was named Desire. [Footnote: ...
— The Women Who Came in the Mayflower • Annie Russell Marble

... Paul Montague packed up all his clothes and was driven away to the railway station by Roger himself, without seeing either of the ladies. There had been very hot words between the men, but the last words which Roger spoke to the other on the railway platform were not quarrelsome in their nature. 'God bless you, old fellow,' he said, pressing Paul's hands. Paul's eyes were full of tears, and he replied only ...
— The Way We Live Now • Anthony Trollope

... of the most remarkable cases of insanity of which there is any mention in history. For instance, there was the Baldwin case, in Ohio, twenty-two years ago. Baldwin, from his boyhood up, had been of a vindictive, malignant, quarrelsome nature. He put a boy's eye out once, and never was heard upon any occasion to utter a regret for it. He did many such things. But at last he did something that was serious. He called at a house just after dark one evening, ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... tyrant, booby, Bluebeard, Catherine Hayes, George Barnwell, among us, we need never despair. I have read of the passion of a transported pickpocket for a female convict (each of them being advanced in age, repulsive in person, ignorant, quarrelsome, and given to drink), that was as magnificent as the loves of Cleopatra and Antony, or Lancelot and Guinever. The passion which Count Borulawski, the Polish dwarf, inspired in the bosom of the most beautiful ...
— The History of Pendennis, Vol. 2 - His Fortunes and Misfortunes, His Friends and His Greatest Enemy • William Makepeace Thackeray

... American all the morning. He went on exactly like a very badly brought up child. He was fretful and quarrelsome and sometimes abusive, and I had some difficulty in keeping my temper. He continually recurred to my English accent and jeered so offensively and so pointedly at what he called "your English friends" that I began to believe there was some purpose behind his attitude. But ...
— The Man with the Clubfoot • Valentine Williams

... Christmas came to an end. There was dried cod and boiled rice on Christmas Eve, and it tasted good enough; but of all the rest there was nothing. There were a couple of bottles of brandy on the table for the men, that was all. The men were discontented and quarrelsome. They poured milk and boiled rice into the leg of the stocking that Karna was knitting, so that she was fuming the whole evening; and then sat each with his girl on his knee, and made ill-natured remarks about everything. The old farm-laborers ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo

... into the west, either battered by storm, or idly drifting in calm, while life on board became a tiresome routine. The dullness and ill treatment led to trouble below, to dissatisfaction and angry outbreaks of temper. The prisoners grew quarrelsome among themselves, and mutinous toward their guards. I took no part in these affairs, which at one time became serious. Two men were shot dead, and twice afterwards bodies were carried up the ladder at dawn, ...
— Wolves of the Sea • Randall Parrish

... in most of the quarrels. The British colonies are also much more scattered than the possessions of any of the other powers, and consequently England has more neighbors to dispute with than the others, and from this fact appears to be more quarrelsome ...
— The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1, No. 53, November 11, 1897 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various

... islands and continents within the tropics, in both the old and new worlds. Their length is often five feet and upwards, and they range in weight from 50 to 500 or 600 lbs. As turtles find a constant supply of food on the coasts which they frequent, they are not of a quarrelsome disposition, as the submarine meadows in which they pasture, yield plenty for them all. Like other species of amphibia, too, they have the power of living many months without food; so that they live harmlessly and peaceably together, ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton

... running with the fast set. But Duke Jones, who could carry more strong liquors than any man in the crowd, said of him, "Dick is no good; when he goes to town with us he's a thousand miles away, and every glass makes him more stuck-up and quarrelsome." ...
— The Unknown Quantity - A Book of Romance and Some Half-Told Tales • Henry van Dyke

... and intricate was the work that had been ordered from him; and the gondoliers, meanwhile, in their splendid liveries, held converse with other gondoliers in lazily drifting barks, with hatchments of other noble houses embroidered on their sleeves; and their tones were strident and quarrelsome, or self-complacent and patronizing, as the quality of the silken sashes which displayed the color of their house was heavier or poorer than ...
— A Golden Book of Venice • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull

... he says," rejoined the host. "He is a loyal subject of the king; but he is apt to get quarrelsome ...
— Windsor Castle • William Harrison Ainsworth

... on. Street brawls were not uncommon, especially in the neighborhood of the Hungaria. Those who roused grumbled about quarrelsome students, ...
— Long Live the King • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... by the white man. Although many of the tribes north of the Ohio River, through the influence of alms and whisky, were fast losing their savage virtues and becoming spiritless beggars, idle, drunken, quarrelsome, the Shawnees were ...
— Four American Indians - King Philip, Pontiac, Tecumseh, Osceola • Edson L. Whitney

... his eyes ceiling-ward and complained: "I can't understand why I should be chosen by Providence to act as peace-maker between jealous lovers, or quarrelsome husbands and wives. It is one of the most thankless jobs ...
— Polly's Business Venture • Lillian Elizabeth Roy

... a country remarkably similar in its physical characteristics to the Blue Ridge Region of our own South, with the same warm summers and the same brief, cold winters, peopled by the same poverty-stricken, illiterate, quarrelsome, suspicious, arms-bearing, feud-practising race of mountaineers, and you will have the best domestic parallel of Albania that I can give you. Though during the summer months extremely hot days are followed by bitterly cold nights, and though fever is prevalent along the coast ...
— The New Frontiers of Freedom from the Alps to the AEgean • Edward Alexander Powell

... asking the, perhaps not impertinent, question, 'Was he a poet?' And the method had its merits, for the question once asked, it was easy for the lecturer, like an incendiary who has just fired a haystack, to steal away amidst the cracklings of a familiar controversy. It was not unfitting that so quarrelsome a man as Pope should have been the occasion of so much quarrelsomeness in others. For long the battle waged as fiercely over Pope's poetry as erst it did in his own Homer over the body of the slain Patroclus. Stout men took part in it, notably Lord Byron, whose letters to Mr. Bowles on the subject, ...
— Obiter Dicta - Second Series • Augustine Birrell

... disaster to whatever comes within the range—often a very wide one—of its baleful influence. Ought we unhesitatingly to fly from such men, as Dr. Foissac advises? Yes, doubtless, if their misfortunes arise from an imprudent and unduly hazardous spirit, a heedless, quarrelsome, mischief-making, Utopian or clouded mind. Ill-luck is a contagious disease; and one unconsciousness will often infect another. But if the misfortunes be wholly unmerited, or fall upon those who are dear to us, flight were unjust and shameful. ...
— The Buried Temple • Maurice Maeterlinck

... took the word: 'Thorvid my brother, who is called the wisest of us, calls the man Atti quarrelsome, silly, and foolish. He calls him so because, ill-content with peace, he hunts eagerly after small things, and yet gets them not, while for their sake he throws away great and good things. I am deaf, ...
— The Red True Story Book • Various

... and quarrelsome, had been a veritable demon when drunk, and drunk she had been whenever she could, by hook or crook, raise the price of whiskey. Never, to Billy's recollection, had she spoken a word of endearment to him; and so terribly had she abused him that even while he was yet a little ...
— The Mucker • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... were not quarrelsome by nature; on the contrary, they were dignified and gentle. They always avoided fighting. It was only when driven to it, or when hunted down and attacked, that they naturally endeavoured to defend themselves. ...
— Across Unknown South America • Arnold Henry Savage Landor

... glance, Rome saw nothing in Martin Luther but a vulgar, insubordinate, quarrelsome monk. Could the Inquisition have laid hold of him, it would have speedily disposed of his affair; but, as the conflict went on, it was discovered that Martin was not standing alone. Many thousands of men, as resolute as himself, were coming ...
— History of the Conflict Between Religion and Science • John William Draper

... absolute mistresses in the houses of their married sons, who frequently ill-treat them; and the poor women are sometimes obliged to live with quarrelsome favourites, and may be corrected or divorced at pleasure. Widows who have no friends, are commonly robbed of a considerable portion of their property by those who come to sympathize with them by an affected ...
— Female Scripture Biographies, Vol. II • Francis Augustus Cox

... docks thrust up heads through cracks in the fences to catch at the legs or the skirts of passers-by, while masses of nettles squeeze their way under fences to sting little children. Apropos, the latter are all thin and hungry, in the highest degree quarrelsome, and addicted to prolonged lamentation. Also, each spring sees a certain proportion of their number carried off by diphtheria, while scarlatina and measles are as epidemic among them as ...
— Through Russia • Maxim Gorky

... blows. From that moment I was the especial favourite of the Sergeant, who gave me further lessons, so that in a little time I became a very fair boxer, beating everybody of my own size who attacked me. The old gentleman, however, made me promise never to be quarrelsome, nor to turn his instructions to account, except in self-defence. I have always borne in mind my promise, and have made it a point of conscience never to fight unless absolutely compelled. Folks may rail against boxing if they please, but being able to box may sometimes stand ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow

... the rum fully restored him to his old quarrelsome self, and he and the first-mate, Mr Flinders, had an awful row one night, when the skipper threatened to send the mate forward and promote Jan Steenbock in his place. Captain Snaggs had never forgiven him for the cowardice and want of sailorly instinct he displayed at the time of the alarm of fire ...
— The Island Treasure • John Conroy Hutcheson

... were times even when they were glad to see her face at the door when they hadn't been very good, for somehow she had a way of putting things right again, and making them feel both how wrong and how silly it is to be cross and quarrelsome, that nobody else had. And she would just help the kind words out without seeming to do so, and take away that sore, horrid feeling that one can't be good, even though one is longing so to be happy and ...
— The Adventures of Herr Baby • Mrs. Molesworth

... Born, according to most accounts, in 1520, Francis de Vivonne, Lord of La Chastaigneraye, was a godson of Francis I., and early displayed marked skill and prowess in all bodily exercises and feats of arms. He was, however, of a very quarrelsome disposition, and had several duels. A dispute arising between him and Guy de Chabot, Lord of Jarnac, they solicited permission to fight, but Francis I. would not accord it, and it was only after the accession ...
— The Tales Of The Heptameron, Vol. IV. (of V.) • Margaret, Queen Of Navarre

... Savoy, he was sitting in a company at table with a Prince of Wirtemberg, The Prince took up a glass of wine, and, by a fillip, made some of it fly in Oglethorpe's face. Here was a nice dilemma. To have challenged him instantly, might have fixed a quarrelsome character upon the young soldier: to have taken no notice of it might have been considered as cowardice. Oglethorpe, therefore, keeping his eye upon the Prince, and smiling all the time, as if he took what his Highness had done in jest, said 'Man Prince,—'(I forget ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell

... Otherwise the murdered man's next of kin were authorized to take his life; and if they refrained from doing so, as often happened, he remained an outcast from the clan. A willful murder was a rare occurrence before the days of whiskey and drunken rows, for we were not a violent or a quarrelsome people. ...
— The Soul of the Indian - An Interpretation • [AKA Ohiyesa], Charles A. Eastman

... the fences into the grain or into the orchard. This one is usually quite different from the master spirit, the "boss of the yard." The latter is generally the most peaceful and law-abiding cow in the lot, and the least bullying and quarrelsome. But she is not to be trifled with; her will is law; the whole herd give way before her, those that have crossed horns with her, and those that have not, but yielded their allegiance without crossing. I remember such a one among my father's ...
— The Galaxy - Vol. 23, No. 1 • Various

... be rid of that quarrelsome and dangerous man, Burgsdorf," he said complacently, as he sank apparently exhausted into an easy chair. "I have rendered him harmless and shoved him aside without his being really conscious of it. He does not suspect that we advanced and promoted the others only to remove him, Burgsdorf, ...
— The Youth of the Great Elector • L. Muhlbach

... will know it, that I may accuse him to the king. For the king does not want that these noble Seymours should give way to the Howards; he does not want that the nobler, the better, and more glorious, should bow before these quarrelsome, domineering papists. The king loves the noble Seymours, and his powerful arm will protect them against all ...
— Henry VIII And His Court • Louise Muhlbach

... partner, against a little Polak and a dark-bearded man. This man was apparently very drunk, as was evident by his reckless playing and his jibing, jeering manner. He was losing money, but with perfect good cheer. Not so his partner, the Polak. Every loss made him more savage and quarrelsome. With great difficulty Rosenblatt was able to keep the game going and preserve peace. The singing, swaying, yelling, cursing crowd beside them also gave him concern, and over and again he would shout, "Keep quiet, you fools. ...
— The Foreigner • Ralph Connor

... mouth, filled with plug tobacco, shaved and rubbed in his hand into a proper condition for smoking. Mark, though by no means an intemperate man, is fond of a drop now and then, and when he has just a thimbleful too much, the way he will swear is emphatically a sin. And yet he is anything but quarrelsome or contrary, even when a shade over the line of strict sobriety. He is a great, strong, square-shouldered, big-breasted, good-natured specimen of the genus homo, a giant in physical strength, and were I a wolf, I would prefer letting him alone to any man in these parts. When ...
— Wild Northern Scenes - Sporting Adventures with the Rifle and the Rod • S. H. Hammond

... the window watching for the train and wishing himself at Grassy Spring with Jerrie. Peterkin seldom drank to excess, but on this occasion he had taken a little too much. When under the influence of stimulants, he was either aggressive and quarrelsome, or jocose and talkative. The latter mood was on him now, and as he drank his brandy and water he held forth upon the subject of matrimony, wondering why his son did not marry, and saying it was quite time he did so and ...
— Tracy Park • Mary Jane Holmes

... appearance on the ice, knowing their quarrelsome disposition, Josiah would have returned home, but Henry West ...
— The Little Quaker - or, the Triumph of Virtue. A Tale for the Instruction of Youth • Susan Moodie

... activity. The horses were in, fresh and quarrelsome, with ears laid back. Kells was sitting upon a rock near the fire with a cup of coffee in his hand. He was looking better. When he greeted Joan his voice sounded stronger. She walked by Pearce and ...
— The Border Legion • Zane Grey

... Mr. C. Matthews played Lady and Lord Whiffle—two also exceedingly difficult characters, but by these performers most delicately handled. They are a very young, inexperienced (almost childish), and quarrelsome couple. Frivolity so extreme as they were required to represent demands the utmost nicety of colouring to rescue it from silliness and inanity. But the actors kept their portraits well up to a pleasing standard, and made them both quite ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various

... the new-comers. The foremost was Samuel Haines, a man who had made an unsuccessful attempt to get the appointment to distribute stamped paper in New Hampshire, and the other James Albert, a half-breed Indian, who was well known in Portsmouth as a quarrelsome fellow, ready to take part in any business, however disreputable, so long as he was provided with ...
— Neal, the Miller - A Son of Liberty • James Otis

... quarrelsome, and sometimes nearly intolerable; but she was generous and off-handed, and made a settlement, reserving only a life interest, and nearly all ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu

... man be envious that hath no children; let him be neither downcast nor quarrelsome on account of it. For a father, though great, may be grieved; as to the mother of children, she hath less peace than another. Verily, each man is created [to his destiny] by the God, Who is the chief of a tribe, trustful ...
— The Instruction of Ptah-Hotep and the Instruction of Ke'Gemni - The Oldest Books in the World • Battiscombe G. Gunn

... drunken indians,—as it was Sunday,—usually a man and woman together. Two of the men we met had been fighting, and were covered with blood; the face of one of them was livid with the blows which he had received. Many of the parties were noisy and quarrelsome, and some of them showed a tendency to meddle with us, as ...
— In Indian Mexico (1908) • Frederick Starr

... make companions of my messmates Sills and Broom. Their education was very limited, and the few ideas they possessed were frequently erroneous. Sills was not ill-natured, though weak, and easily led by anybody who would take the trouble to lead him. Broom I found at times surly and quarrelsome, and inclined always to grumble. However, as I had been a good many years at school, and had often met similar characters, though my school-fellows were more refined, I knew pretty well ...
— My First Voyage to Southern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston

... has fallen a great quarrel, And a striving within the doors, And quarrelsome words have the Bailies said, And eke ...
— The Scarlet Gown - being verses by a St. Andrews Man • R. F. Murray

... of the blackbird family are exemplary in this relation.) Does he drop his part of poet, of reveler of the meadows, I wonder, and come down to the sober prose of stuffing baby mouths? Are bobolinks always this jolly, delightful crowd? Are they never quarrelsome? Alas! it would take much more than one day, however sunny and however long, ...
— Little Brothers of the Air • Olive Thorne Miller

... Justice of the Supreme Court Terry. In the eyes of those too close to events to have a clear sense of proportion, he was one of the great men of his period. Courtly, handsome, with haughty manners, of aristocratic bearing, fiercely proud, touchily quarrelsome on "points of honour," generous but a bitter hater, he and his equally handsome, proud, and fiery wife were considered by many people of the time as embodying the ideal of Southern chivalry. But Johnny Fairfax would ...
— The Gray Dawn • Stewart Edward White

... taverns, which had often led even to bloodshed, by leasing them both. He was equally respected by the old partisans of the Horeszkos and by the servants of Judge Soplica. He alone knew how to keep an ascendancy over the terrible Warden of the Horeszkos and the quarrelsome Apparitor; in Jankiel's presence both Gerwazy terrible of hand and Protazy terrible of tongue stifled their ...
— Pan Tadeusz • Adam Mickiewicz

... old and done, but once I knew them tall and strong and strapping, not their equals in all the armies. And what they have seen of wars, my dear! They were ever going or coming from them, and sometimes I would not know where they were out in the quarrelsome world but for a line in the Saturday Post or the Courier or maybe an old hint in the General Almanack itself. Perhaps when you become acquainted with the General and the Cornal you will wonder that they are never at any time ...
— Gilian The Dreamer - His Fancy, His Love and Adventure • Neil Munro

... sitting in a corner beside her brother, whom the warmth of the room and his numerous potations had rendered drowsy, and thinking it an opportune moment to tell him of her scheme, before he became talkative or quarrelsome, she ...
— Fantomas • Pierre Souvestre

... being a busy little trading and manufacturing town. The mischief was that their greatness was of a kind not to be settled by reference to the court calendar, or college of heraldry. It was therefore the most quarrelsome kind of greatness in existence. You smile, sir, but let me tell you there are no feuds more furious than the frontier feuds, which take place on these "debatable lands" of gentility. The most violent dispute that I ever knew in high life, was one that occurred at a country town, on a question ...
— Tales of a Traveller • Washington Irving

... been able to complain that it was difficult to pick a quarrel with Frank Stokoe. Not that he was quarrelsome—far otherwise; but never was he known to shrink from any combat that was pressed on him, and on this occasion the venomous little foreigner found him most ready to oblige. It wanted but a slight ...
— Stories of the Border Marches • John Lang and Jean Lang

... old. I cannot call him my friend, for I must venerate him to whom I give that title, and veneration, or even esteem, Pigtop was never born to inspire. My humble companion he is not, for no person in his deportment towards me can be less humble than he. He is as quarrelsome as a lady's lapdog, and seems never so happy as when he has effectually thwarted my intentions. Prince Hal said of the jolly wine-bibber, Jack, that "he could have better spared a better man!" Of Pigtop I am compelled to say more—"I could not spare him at all." ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard

... blowzy and freckled, with a small pug nose and a quarrelsome mouth. The other (the face on what, with ordinary persons, was the back of the head) was dark and forbidding, its nose a large brick-colored pug, the mouth underneath shaped most extraordinarily—not unlike a barrette, for it was ...
— The Poor Little Rich Girl • Eleanor Gates

... raised no objection. Frontenac certainly was not a governor who pillaged the colony to feather his own nest. If he took profits, they were not thought excessive by any one except Duchesneau. The king recalled him not because he was venal, but because he was quarrelsome. ...
— The Fighting Governor - A Chronicle of Frontenac • Charles W. Colby

... the terms of the new Constitution the members excluded in the preceding year took their places again in the House; and it was soon clear that the Parliament reflected the general mood of the nation. The tone of the Commons became captious and quarrelsome. They still delayed the grant of supplies. Meanwhile a hasty act of the Protector in giving to his nominees in "the other House," as the new second chamber he had devised was called, the title of "Lords," kindled a strife between the two Houses which was busily fanned by Haselrig ...
— History of the English People, Volume VI (of 8) - Puritan England, 1642-1660; The Revolution, 1660-1683 • John Richard Green

... their gowns of rose and lilac and other pastel shades—surely they were more important life-products than women in frowsy and dowdy imitation clothes! Surely it was better to be serene and clean and pleasant, than to be terrible and bewildered, sick and quarrelsome! I was seized by a frenzy, a sort of instinctive animal lust for this life of ease and prettiness. No matter if those dirty, raucous-voiced hordes of strikers, and others of their "ilk"—as the "Times" phrased ...
— They Call Me Carpenter • Upton Sinclair

... Calvinist preacher, a rector, or a Levite; I will be your faithful wife; will wash and weave, spin flax, and endure misery; I will become God-fearing, my lips shall forget to scold and curse, and shall learn to sing psalms. If I should become quarrelsome, you may beat me, shut me up, and make me fast, and I will be always faithful to you; only throw aside ...
— Peter the Priest • Mr Jkai

... this was not my only motive. I heard it said by every one that the Epicureans were soft and voluptuous, the Peripatetics avaricious and quarrelsome, and Plato's followers puffed up with pride. But of the Stoics, not a few pronounced that they were true men, that they knew everything, that theirs was the royal road, the one road, to wealth, to wisdom, to all that can ...
— Marius the Epicurean, Volume Two • Walter Horatio Pater

... merry, fairly intelligent (this being judged rather from the young people), very superstitious, brave, with much power of enduring pain, cruel, not more revengeful perhaps than is usual among uncivilised natives, friendly one with another, not quarrelsome, but untrustworthy and not over-faithful even in their dealings with one another, though honest as regards boundaries and property rights and in the sense of not stealing from one another within their own communities (this ...
— The Mafulu - Mountain People of British New Guinea • Robert W. Williamson

... that to be a Christian does take some of the fight out of a person, but it is the quarrelsome kind of fighting that has neither beauty nor strength in it which it takes out of one. But when you come to read history you will find that some of our bravest soldiers were Christians. John Havelock, a British general who fought in ...
— Fifty-Two Story Talks To Boys And Girls • Howard J. Chidley

... all? I was afraid it was fever, or something of that sort. Who has he been fighting with? He doesn't look quarrelsome at all." ...
— The Dash for Khartoum - A Tale of Nile Expedition • George Alfred Henty

... to get out of this," I said, shaking him angrily. But he merely grunted and turned over. As he did so, I saw his features for the first time. It was the quarrelsome ...
— The Man in Lower Ten • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... 14th.—Avignon; wall; view from the tower of the Cathedral; visit it; paintings very beautiful; palace; inquisition; left Avignon for Beaucaire; river uninteresting; thence to Nismes by railway; poor country; asses and mules used; women shoeing them; people athletic, but very passionate and quarrelsome. ...
— The Story of My Life - Being Reminiscences of Sixty Years' Public Service in Canada • Egerton Ryerson

... of a chariot-race (spectaculum) drives out morality and invites the most trifling contentions; it is the emptier of honourable conduct, the ever-flowing spring of squabbles: a thing which Antiquity commenced as a matter of religion, but which a quarrelsome posterity ...
— The Letters of Cassiodorus - Being A Condensed Translation Of The Variae Epistolae Of - Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator • Cassiodorus (AKA Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator)

... him, is not a person of Napoleonic ideas, but of ideas quite superior to Napoleonic.... That noble, patient, deep, pious, and solid Germany should be at length welded into a nation, and become Queen of the Continent, instead of vapouring, vainglorious, gesticulating, quarrelsome, restless, and over-sensitive France, seems to me the hopefulest fact that has ...
— Thomas Carlyle - Biography • John Nichol

... effigy, as the English Government came to know, for distribution, and he commanded a miniature of himself, by Le Brun, 'with all the Orders.' This miniature may have been a parting gift to Madame de Talmond, or one of the other protecting ladies, 'adorable' or quarrelsome. It is constantly spoken ...
— Pickle the Spy • Andrew Lang

... legitimate owners. With that, they affected a respect for tradition, an austerity in morals and discipline, which made them perfect puritans. Yes, they were the pure, the irreconcilables, who alone had not bent before the Roman officials. All this was very pleasing to the discontented and quarrelsome, and caressed the popular instinct in its ...
— Saint Augustin • Louis Bertrand

... Thirty-eighth Street, resplendent and ornate with gilded furniture and bric-a-brac, housed not only her husband, Colonel Blood, and herself but her divorced husband and their children as well, and also all of her quarrelsome relatives. Here many radicals, social reformers, and spiritualists gathered, among them Stephen Pearl Andrews, who soon made use of Victoria and her Weekly to publicize his dream of a new world order, the Pantarchy, as he called it. Victoria, herself, was an ardent spiritualist, ...
— Susan B. Anthony - Rebel, Crusader, Humanitarian • Alma Lutz

... originate in a love of truth, which is a source of courtesy and gentleness, but rather in an inordinate desire for supremacy, (68) From all these considerations it is clearer than the sun at noonday, that the true schismatics are those who condemn other men's writings, and seditiously stir up the quarrelsome masses against their authors, rather than those authors themselves, who generally write only for the learned, and appeal solely to reason. (69) In fact, the real disturbers of the peace are those who, in a free state, seek to curtail ...
— A Theologico-Political Treatise [Part IV] • Benedict de Spinoza

... confusion was put an end to by the Company taking entire command of the line, and turning the quarrelsome competitors off it. ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various

... far the best servant, and smiles and speaks like Lalage herself, ugly as the poor drudge is. The voice and smile of the negroes here is bewitching, though they are hideous; and neither S- nor I have yet heard a black child cry, or seen one naughty or quarrelsome. You would want to lay out a fortune in woolly babies. Yesterday I had a dreadful heartache after my darling, on her little birthday, and even the lovely ranges of distant mountains, coloured like opals in the sunset, did not delight me. This is a dreary place ...
— Letters from the Cape • Lady Duff Gordon

... than any mental disturbance. But I find it hard either to judge him or convey the full development of him to the reader. I saw too much of him; my memory is choked with disarranged moods and aspects. Now he is distended with megalomania, now he is deflated, now he is quarrelsome, now impenetrably self-satisfied, but always he is sudden, jerky, fragmentary, energetic, and—in some subtle fundamental way that I find ...
— Tono Bungay • H. G. Wells

... Grant and myself had a lively discussion, I affirming "That the existence of classes who live upon unearned incomes is detrimental to the welfare of the community, and ought to be put an end to by legislation." Another debate—in this very quarrelsome spring of 1887—was a written one in the National Reformer between the Rev. G.F. Handel Rowe and myself on the proposition, "Is Atheism logically tenable, and is there a satisfactory Atheistic System for the guidance of Human Conduct." And so ...
— Annie Besant - An Autobiography • Annie Besant



Words linked to "Quarrelsome" :   quarrelsomeness, argumentative



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