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Animadversion   Listen
noun
Animadversion  n.  
1.
The act or power of perceiving or taking notice; direct or simple perception. (Obs.) "The soul is the sole percipient which hath animadversion and sense, properly so called."
2.
Monition; warning. (Obs.)
3.
Remarks by way of criticism and usually of censure; adverse criticism; reproof; blame. "He dismissed their commissioners with severe and sharp animadversions."
4.
Judicial cognizance of an offense; chastisement; punishment. (Archaic) "Divine animadversions."
Synonyms: Stricture; criticism; censure; reproof; blame; comment.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Animadversion" Quotes from Famous Books



... religion, and virtue, and order, have not been punished, nor their authors discountenanced; that the most audacious libels on Royal Majesty have passed without notice; that the most treasonable invectives against the laws, liberties, and constitution of the country, have not met with the slightest animadversion; I must consider this as a shocking and shameless pretence. Never did an envenomed scurrility against everything sacred and civil, public and private, rage through the kingdom with such a furious and unbridled licence. ...
— Thoughts on the Present Discontents - and Speeches • Edmund Burke

... or even in his defects, he may be ranked as one of the last disciples of the school of Fontenelle. His answer to my first letter was prompt and polite: after a careful examination he returned my manuscript, with some animadversion and much applause; and when I visited London in the ensuing winter, we discussed the design and execution in several free and familiar conversations. In a short excursion to Buriton I reviewed my essay, according to his friendly advice; ...
— Memoirs of My Life and Writings • Edward Gibbon

... lady entertains any regard for Mr. Smithers. She must be better acquainted with his feelings than we; consequently, we should avoid the possibility of creating any contentions between the families; while, after all, there might have been nothing in his manner deserving animadversion." ...
— Fern Vale (Volume 1) - or the Queensland Squatter • Colin Munro

... popular mind so impressible, that a spirit of discontent soon began to spread over the loyal States on the part of those who had hoped for what they termed a vigorous administration. For a few weeks the conduct of the government fell under the animadversion of all classes in the North. To those who wanted an instant settlement, and the return of the seceding States upon their own terms, the administration seemed too radical. To those who demanded that the flag be ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine

... the present ministry escape the animadversion of the parliament. The lords having addressed the king to put the Isle of Wight, Jersey, Guernsey, Scilly, Dover-castle, and the other fortresses of the kingdom, in a posture of defence, and to disarm the papists, empowered a committee to inquire into the miscarriages in Ireland, which were generally ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett

... complicated accumulation of difficulties to combat, as Lord Ellenborough; few, if any, of his predecessors have had their actions, their motives, and even their words, exposed to such an unsparing measure of malicious animadversion and wilful misconstruction; yet none have passed so triumphantly through the ordeal of experience. Many of his measures may now be judged of by their fruits; and those of the Calcutta press who were loudest in their cavils, compelled to admit ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 343, May 1844 • Various

... the Company will, I hope, be the subject of your severest animadversion. The accident was caused by the tire of one of the right wheels of the engine having flown off; and it is clear that the engine was not in a condition to ply between the stations of the Great ...
— Railway Adventures and Anecdotes - extending over more than fifty years • Various

... the late disturbances in Ireland, many cant terms have been brought into use, which are not yet to be reckoned amongst the acknowledged terms of the country. However absurd these may be, they are not for our purpose proper subjects of animadversion. Some countries have their birds of passage, and some their follies of passage, which it is scarcely worth while to shoot as they fly. It has been often said, that the language of a people is a just criterion of their progress in civilization; but we must not take a specimen ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. IV • Maria Edgeworth

... which were very brilliant, and several times did us the honour of being present at ours. But; unfortunately, the extravagance of her conduct, which was very unsuitable to her situation, soon became the subject of general animadversion. ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne

... the visitation suggested the Bishop, and thus opened a wide duct, which entirely diverted the stream of animadversion from that small pipe—that capillary ...
— Scenes of Clerical Life • George Eliot

... the thicket, at or about the epoch of the murder. This I grant. I doubt if there were not a dozen gangs, such as described by Madame Deluc, in and about the vicinity of the Barrire du Roule at or about the period of this tragedy. But the gang which has drawn upon itself the pointed animadversion, although the somewhat tardy and very suspicious evidence of Madame Deluc, is the only gang which is represented by that honest and scrupulous old lady as having eaten her cakes and swallowed her brandy, without putting themselves to the trouble of making ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 1 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe

... to ask your advice, dear Monsieur Saissy; please give it me quite frankly, without any reserve, and tell me whether you think it is an opportune moment for my letter (which I enclose), relative to my pretended animadversion against the Israelites, to be published or not. If you think it is, I beg you to insert it in the next number of the Gazette de Hongrie; otherwise it shall remain unprinted, as I shall not send it to ...
— Letters of Franz Liszt, Volume 2: "From Rome to the End" • Franz Liszt; letters collected by La Mara and translated

... obscure and undecided points, ought, if they have one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God, and one hope, under the influence of one Spirit, who sanctifies them all, to be one in profession, in action, and in heart." This passage, which is in the spirit of the entire tract, is open to grave animadversion. ...
— On Calvinism • William Hull

... permission from the Government of Her Catholic Majesty to print, at the expense of the Society, Padre Scio's translation of the New Testament. He subsequently sold the work at a moderate price and had no reason to believe that in so doing he infringed any law of Spain or exposed himself to the animadversion of the Authorities, otherwise, from my knowledge of Mr Borrow s character, I feel justified in assuring Your Excellency that he would at once, although with regret, have desisted from his meritorious task of propagating the Gospel. Some months ...
— The Life of George Borrow • Herbert Jenkins

... even publicly and openly criminal, there are some who, for what purpose or through what timidity I know not, would have him publicly defended by testimonies in his favour rather than marked with due animadversion. My principle, I confess, and as the fact has several times proved, is far enough apart from theirs, inasmuch as, if I have made any profit when young in the literary leisure I then had, whether by the instructions of learned men or by my own ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson

... "simple priests" upon the rich and idle clergy. The revolt occasioned a bitter feeling among the landlord class against Wycliffe and his followers, and after its suppression the Lollards were made the object of much animadversion. Their preaching was forbidden,(643) and Wycliffe was obliged to retire to his country parsonage, where he continued to labour with his pen for the cause he had so much at heart, until his ...
— London and the Kingdom - Volume I • Reginald R. Sharpe

... the trenches, with a cannon for his pillow, as the most ironclad veteran in the ranks. He seemed to require neither sleep nor food, and his reckless habit of exposing himself to unnecessary danger was the subject of frequent animadversion on the part both of the archdukes and of ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... upheld by a grateful public, and the few deputies, more particularly Cotta and Griesinger, who had defended the new constitution on account of its liberality and who regarded form as immaterial, became the objects of public animadversion. The populace broke the windows of the house inhabited by the liberal-minded minister, von Wangenheim. The poet Uhland greatly distinguished himself as a warm upholder of the ancient rights of the people.[3] ...
— Germany from the Earliest Period Vol. 4 • Wolfgang Menzel, Trans. Mrs. George Horrocks

... and the most pious of men were exposed to the unjust but dangerous imputation of impiety. Malice and prejudice concurred in representing the Christians as a society of atheists, who, by the most daring attack on the religious constitution of the empire, had merited the severest animadversion of the civil magistrate. They had separated themselves (they gloried in the confession) from every mode of superstition which was received in any part of the globe by the various temper of polytheism: but it was not altogether so evident what deity, or what form of worship, they ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon

... disparagement of their MORALS. Indeed, my dear, I wonder at you!—A slighter occasion might have passed me, after I had written to you so often to so little purpose, on this topic. But, affecting as my own circumstances are, I cannot pass by, without animadversion, the reflection I ...
— Clarissa, Volume 2 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson

... the firing of the troops upon the prisoners may have been justified at its commencement, by the turbulent conduct of the latter, yet that the extent of the calamity must be ascribed to a want of steadiness in the troops, and of exertion in the officers, calling for the most severe animadversion. His Royal Highness has been pleased to direct the commander in chief to address to the commanding officer of the Somerset militia, his disapprobation of the conduct of the troops, which it is trusted will make a ...
— A Journal of a Young Man of Massachusetts, 2nd ed. • Benjamin Waterhouse

... obelisks like that on Bunker Hill, and especially the Washington monument at the national capital, are open to critical animadversion. Let us contrast the last mentioned of these great piles with the obelisk as the Egyptian conceived and executed it. The new Pharaoh ordered a memorial of some important personage or event. In the first place, a mighty stone was dislodged ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)

... printed.[8] The preface to the first two volumes is by M. Licquet: and it is not divested of point and merit. It begins by attacking the Quarterly Review, (June 1821, p. 147.) for its severity of animadversion on the supposed listlessness and want of curiosity of the French in exploring the architectural antiquities of their country; and that, in consequence of such supineness, the English, considering them as their own property, have described them accordingly. "The decision ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume One • Thomas Frognall Dibdin

... he was the senior officer on the whole frontier, the Department had not notified him of Brown's orders. This vicious practice of managing the campaign from a point as distant as Washington then was, ignoring any local centre of control, drew subsequently the animadversion of the President, who in a minute to the Secretary remarked that "it does not appear that Izard,"—Wilkinson's successor,—"though the senior officer of the district, has been made acquainted with the plan of operations ...
— Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812 - Volume 2 • Alfred Thayer Mahan

... place, as of us all, to proclaim the gospel of good will and cultivate the arts of fraternity. I have no quarrel with the President on this score. What I contest is the self-exploitation to which he is prone, so lacking in dignity and open to animadversion. ...
— Marse Henry, Complete - An Autobiography • Henry Watterson

... los otros monteros, los pajes y la gente menuda del servicio de don Dionis, la exquisita solicitud de Garces y el aprecio con que sus senores le distinguian, habianle valido una especie de general animadversion, y al decir de los envidiosos, en todos aquellos cuidados con que se adelantaba a prevenir los caprichos de su senora revelabase su caracter adulador y rastrero. No faltaban, sin embargo, algunos que, mas avisados o maliciosos, creyeron sorprender en la asiduidad del solicito mancebo ...
— Legends, Tales and Poems • Gustavo Adolfo Becquer

... upon bad manners in public places. But to its great surprise it was severely rebuked some time afterward by Cleopatra herself, who said, with some feeling, that she had two reasons for complaint. The first was, that her ancient friend the Easy Chair should place her in the pillory of its public animadversion; and the other was, that the Easy Chair should gravely defend such conduct as that of Mr. Thomas. No remonstrance could be more surprising and nothing more unexpected than that Cleopatra should differ in opinion upon such a point. To the personal aspect of the ...
— Ars Recte Vivende - Being Essays Contributed to "The Easy Chair" • George William Curtis

... the next month's literary assize (as you seem disposed to consider it), you find in some of the magazines a severe animadversion upon the spirit of your writings? Dare I do this, and still ...
— Beulah • Augusta J. Evans

... a bold and eloquent performance. He commenced by a spirited animadversion on the Attorney's speech, and then extended his subject into a general defence of the liberty of the press, which he pronounced to be the true object of attack on the part of the First Consul. He followed ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 366, April, 1846 • Various

... look) I have known David Garrick longer than you have done; and I know no right you have to talk to me on the subject." Perhaps I deserved this check; for it was rather presumptuous in me, an entire stranger, to express any doubt of the justice of his animadversion upon his old acquaintance and pupil. I now felt myself much mortified, and began to think that the hope which I had long indulged of obtaining his acquaintance was blasted. And, in truth, had not my ardour been uncommonly strong, and my resolution uncommonly ...
— A Book of English Prose - Part II, Arranged for Secondary and High Schools • Percy Lubbock

... difficulty. We agreed that if reflecting people at the North would adopt Scriptural views on that point, peace would soon ensue; for all the discussions of the supposed or real evils in slavery, which would then be the sole objects of animadversion, would elicit truth, and tend to good. If the South felt that the North were truly her friend, they would both be found cooperating for the improvement and elevation of the colored race. Every form of oppression and selfishness would feel the withering rebuke of a just and enlightened universal public ...
— The Sable Cloud - A Southern Tale With Northern Comments (1861) • Nehemiah Adams

... sufficiently supported; some I have rejected without mention, as evidently erroneous; some I have left in the notes without censure or approbation, as resting in equipoise between objection and defence; and some, which seemed specious but not right, I have inserted with a subsequent animadversion. ...
— Preface to Shakespeare • Samuel Johnson

... Olivarez, that is, 1646; Gil Blas was therefore born 1588, and this corresponds altogether with different allusions, which show that when the romance was written the war between Spain and Portugal was present to the author's mind, and the subject of his constant animadversion. Portugal, as our readers may recollect, became subject to the Spanish yoke in 1580, the Duke of Braganza was raised to the throne of that kingdom in 1640; and the war to which that event gave rise was not terminated ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 344, June, 1844 • Various



Words linked to "Animadversion" :   animadvert, interdict, condemnation, censure



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