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Disdain   Listen
verb
Disdain  v. t.  (past & past part. disdained; pres. part. disdaining)  
1.
To think unworthy; to deem unsuitable or unbecoming; as, to disdain to do a mean act. "Disdaining... that any should bear the armor of the best knight living."
2.
To reject as unworthy of one's self, or as not deserving one's notice; to look with scorn upon; to scorn, as base acts, character, etc. "When the Philistine... saw David, he disdained him; for he was but a youth." "'T is great, 't is manly to disdain disguise."
Synonyms: To contemn; despise; scorn. See Contemn.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Disdain" Quotes from Famous Books



... disdain which Modeste now conceived for ordinary men gave to her face a look of pride, an inexpressible untamed shyness, which tempered her Teutonic simplicity, and accorded well with a peculiarity of her ...
— Modeste Mignon • Honore de Balzac

... and evidently possessed some authority; nevertheless, I thought I could detect an air of concern in his features, as he offered to help one of the captives out of the boat. The latter, however, regarded him with an air of disdain, and, though his hands were tied behind him, leaped ashore without assistance. He was a man of commanding stature, with a well-bronzed face, and a look of great energy of character. He wore a ...
— The Little Savage • Captain Frederick Marryat

... faithful as a watchdog, keeping awake by whittling at something no more fantastic than a clothespin. There were hundreds of them scattered about the house. It was the sole form his idleness took. He painted heads and eyes on them—cleverly, too—for Zoe, but as she grew older she began to disdain them, bullying him in much the fashion her ...
— Star-Dust • Fannie Hurst

... Hercules had to be taught this fact. Tradition relates that at one time he met an insignificant-looking toad in his path which he would have passed by in disdain had it not been for its particularly ugly appearance. Thinking to do the world a service by destroying it he thumped the reptile with his club, when, to his surprise, instead of being crushed by the impact, the beast grew to twice its former size. Repeated ...
— Blue Goose • Frank Lewis Nason

... yet withal so beautifully childlike, tells us "that a wild bit of ferny ground under a fir or two, looking as if possibly one might see a hill if one got to the other side, will instantly give me intense delight because the shadow, the hope of the hills is in them." Both lovers showed the same disdain of the mere climber. Javelle's Alpine memories record his sense of aloofness from the general type of ...
— Mountain Meditations - and some subjects of the day and the war • L. Lind-af-Hageby

... to grant you food and pleasure: errors there are, no doubt, and plenty of them, grammatical and typographical, all of which I might have corrected by an errata at the end of my volume; but I disdain the wish to rob you of your office, and have therefore left them just where I made them, without a single note to mark them out; for if all the thistles were rooted up, what would become of the ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle

... last look at London. He came back with a sigh to reality: the Swallow had dwindled to microscopical proportions, and looked dirty; Bittlesea itself had the appearance of a village with foolish aspirations to be considered a port, and he noticed, with a strong sense of pity tempered with disdain, the attentions of two young townsmen to a couple of ...
— A Master Of Craft • W. W. Jacobs

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

... tales were beyond the child's intelligence, they did not fail to leave behind a confused impression of recklessness, irony, and cynicism. Mademoiselle Servien alone never relaxed her attitude of uncompromising dislike and disdain. She said nothing against him, but her face was a rigid mask of disapproval, her eyes two flames of fire, in answer to the courteous greeting the tutor never failed to offer her with a special roll of his little ...
— The Aspirations of Jean Servien • Anatole France

... was settled—the fiendish plan that was to torture an innocent woman until she was driven to shame and almost death. He wrote the letter. Marion received it with silent disdain; she had told him that it must all be at an end, and it ...
— Marion Arleigh's Penance - Everyday Life Library No. 5 • Charlotte M. Braeme

... doom of those who do openly blaspheme the Holy Ghost, in a way of disdain and reproach to its office and service: so also it is sad for you, who resist the Spirit of prayer, by a form of man's inventing. A very juggle of the devil, that the traditions of men should be of better esteem, and more to be owned than the Spirit of prayer. What ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... back with rage, tore the ring once more from her finger, and cast it again upon the floor. Then, with an air of comedy disdain, 'It is really too cheap a thing to fool a fool like you.' And so, with a shrill peal of stagey laughter, she curtseyed low to him ...
— Despair's Last Journey • David Christie Murray

... which end he began immediately to talk around the driver about things in general. From the price of horses they diverged to the prospects of various kinds of business, and thence slap into the politics of the country. The driver was a stubborn Locofoco, and Benson did not disdain to enter into an elaborate argument with him. Ashburner, who then occupied the other box-seat, was astonished at the man's statistical knowledge, the variety of information he possessed upon local topics, and his accurate acquaintance with the government and institutions of ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 2, January, 1851 • Various

... large, solid, clear-eyed. His uniform showed his fine build to advantage. He was generally liked in St. Petersburg, where his martial bearing and his well-known bravery had given him a sort of popularity in society, which, on the other hand, had great disdain for Gounsovski, the head of the Secret Police, who was known to be capable of anything underhanded and had been accused of sometimes playing into the hands of the Nihilists, whom he disguised as agents-provocateurs, ...
— The Secret of the Night • Gaston Leroux

... (Cybele) when new gods were invited hither to relieve our distresses? Who poured out their riches to supply a depleted treasury during that same war, now so fresh in memory? Was it not the Roman matrons? Masters do not disdain to listen to the prayers of their slaves, and we are asked, forsooth, to shut our ears to the petitions of ...
— The Story of Rome From the Earliest Times to the End of the Republic • Arthur Gilman

... "There's hope for thee yet." This earth may look dull, old friends may forsake thee; Sorrows that never before thou hast met May roll o'er thy head; yet that bright star before thee Shines to remind thee "there's hope for thee yet." 'T is but folly to mourn, though fortune disdain thee, Though never so darkly thy sun may have set; 'T is wisdom to gaze at the bright star before thee, And shout, as you gaze, "There's hope ...
— Town and Country, or, Life at Home and Abroad • John S. Adams

... with a start that he was afraid of the girl. It was incredible, but it was true. He had never felt that way to a woman before, but there was something in her eyes, a cold disdain which cowed even as it ...
— Jack O' Judgment • Edgar Wallace

... velvet of a robe! Your locks are chains which would fetter all men. And you could lay all your triumphs at Adolphe's feet, show him your power and never use it. Then he would fear, where now he lives in insolent certainty. Come! To action! Inhale a few mouthfuls of disdain and you will exhale clouds of incense. Dare to reign! Are you not next to nothing here in your chimney-corner? Sooner or later the pretty spouse, the beloved wife will die, if you continue like this, in a dressing-gown. Come, and you shall perpetuate your sway through the arts of coquetry! ...
— Petty Troubles of Married Life, Second Part • Honore de Balzac

... happy. I doubt it sometimes, for during the three months the Count has been here, I see him every day resume more and more his old coldness to me. Formerly, I could reproach myself with nothing. I had betrayed no one; and he, in his disdain, had violated no promise. Now, though, he has created eternal remorse and regret. He has revived in my heart a flame which was nearly out—yet has nothing but indifference and contempt for me. He forgets, though, how dangerous it is ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various

... will send him one of the spirits told off for such duties, and I will thus kindle all the more fiercely the coals of sensual desire. After that he hath once only had intercourse with but one of these women, if all go not as thou wilt, then disdain me for ever, as unprofitable, and worthy not of honour but of dire punishment. For there is nothing like the sight of women to allure and enchant the minds of men. Listen to a story that beareth witness to ...
— Barlaam and Ioasaph • St. John of Damascus

... rejoice at M. d'Escorval's accident; could he have prevented it, he would have gladly done so. Still, he could not help saying to himself that this stroke of misfortune would free him from all further connection with a man whose superciliousness and disdain had been painfully disagreeable ...
— Monsieur Lecoq • Emile Gaboriau

... ability, rank, and fortune, are often led to view the honors of Masonry with such indifference, that when their patronage is solicited, they either accept offices with reluctance, or reject them with disdain."[76] ...
— The Principles of Masonic Law - A Treatise on the Constitutional Laws, Usages And Landmarks of - Freemasonry • Albert G. Mackey

... the most unexpected alterations, cannot assure a stable situation, because it is not in itself the constitution of a common, strong, and commanding law; but, on the contrary, is the distrust of the efficacy of the latter and a certain traditional disdain for a humane and peaceful solution of ...
— Latin America and the United States - Addresses by Elihu Root • Elihu Root

... of "Whisky" and "Toddy," and were the property of the Misses Honeywood. The lordly shepherds' dogs, whom they encountered on their journeys, would have nothing to do with such a medley of unruly scamps, but turned from their overtures of friendship with patrician disdain. They routed ...
— The Adventures of Mr. Verdant Green • Cuthbert Bede

... herself thus pilloried for general contempt, yet not for a moment did she flinch. White to the lips, but with her head held up in silent self-justification, she moved slowly down the room, running the gauntlet of public disdain. Did I say all had abandoned her? No, there was one who remained faithful, one who was, not merely a fair-weather friend, but ready to believe in her and stand by her through the severest ordeal. Janie, the ...
— The New Girl at St. Chad's - A Story of School Life • Angela Brazil

... a sense of superiority, which was in itself somewhat ludicrous; but as nobody is clear-sighted in their own concerns, he was quite unconscious of this. His laugh nettled Lady Randolph still more. She said, with a certain disdain in ...
— Sir Tom • Mrs. Oliphant

... accept the simple but expressive token of their gratitude and admiration. Suffer their leader to place upon your veteran brow the only crown it would not disdain to wear, the blended emblems of civic worth and martial prowess. It will not pain you, General, to perceive some scattered sprigs of melancholy cypress intermingled with the blended leaves of laurel and oak. Your heart would turn ...
— Memoirs of General Lafayette • Lafayette

... bespoke a gratifying degree of admiration and wonder. The longer the cartridges and the larger the bullets, the more they impressed them, and our revolvers were glanced at with contempt and a shrug of the shoulders, expressing infinite disdain, until each of us shot a few rounds. Then they winced, started to run away, came back and laughed boisterously over their own fright; but after that they had more ...
— Two Years with the Natives in the Western Pacific • Felix Speiser

... being sent for his benefit. You are a part of his scheme of providence. True, he pities while he rejoices over you. Your blindness and stupidity in not seeing the fat and luscious tidbits he snaps up from almost beneath your feet is of course a subject of wonder and disdain. But he learns to make allowances for you, and comes to view your failings charitably, especially as they enure to his benefit, and so lean to Virtue's side. Fear of you he has none. Indeed, you inspire ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, August, 1878 • Various

... makes you lofty," interposed Jesse Smith in dark disdain. "Pretty soon you'll show ...
— The Border Legion • Zane Grey

... brilliant popularity, never emerge from obscurity, or not into any splendor that can be called national; sometimes, perhaps, from a temper unfitted for worthy struggles in the head of the house; possibly from a haughty, possibly a dignified disdain of popular arts, hatred of petty rhetoric, petty sycophantic courtships, petty canvassing tricks; or again, in many cases, because accidents of ill-luck have intercepted the fair proportion of success due to the merits ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey

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

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

... she answered calmly. "If you come and claim me, you will find me true. Some women never love more than once. Yet I will not bind you. You have your profession to occupy you. Your family may disdain a rebel's child with her property confiscated. You may wander to all parts of the world: you will see numberless women—many very far superior ...
— Hurricane Hurry • W.H.G. Kingston

... schoolmaster and his wife returned. They came back full of disdain and prejudice against the work, and even put themselves out of the way to go from house to house, in order to set the people against me and my preaching. They said that they could bring a hundred clergymen to prove that I was wrong; but their efforts had ...
— From Death into Life - or, twenty years of my ministry • William Haslam

... keeping with that of the fashionable north-western belle. The squaws cut off about three yards of print and make the skirt; while others take flour sacks and cut holes through for the waist and have leggings and moccasins; they would disdain to wear such ...
— Two months in the camp of Big Bear • Theresa Gowanlock and Theresa Delaney

... no grief that I am brown, For all brunettes are born to reign: White is the snow, yet trodden down; Black pepper kings need not disdain: White snow lies mounded on the vales Black pepper's weighed in ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds

... following peculiarities (by no means recommendatory) in the work selected by the most fortunate of the jewel-hunters; it is catalogued "The Sleeping Beauty," by D. Maclise, R.A., and assuredly painted with the most independent disdain for either law or reason. Never has been seen so signal a failure in attempting to obtain repose by the introduction of so many sleeping figures. The appointment of parts to form the general whole, the first ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various

... Their waters amain In ruthless disdain, - Her who but lately Had shivered with pain As at touch of dishonour If there had lit on her So coldly, so straightly Such ...
— Satires of Circumstance, Lyrics and Reveries, with - Miscellaneous Pieces • Thomas Hardy

... seen my bride another's bride,— Have seen her seated by his side,— Have seen the infant which she bore, Wear the sweet smile the mother wore, When she and I in youth have smiled As fond and faultless as her child:— Have seen her eyes, in cold disdain, Ask if ...
— Abbotsford and Newstead Abbey • Washington Irving

... universal cry, And dost thou linger still on Gallia's shore? Go, Tyranny! beneath some barbarous sky Thy terrors lost and ruin'd power deplore! What tho' through many a groaning age 5 Was felt thy keen suspicious rage, Yet Freedom rous'd by fierce Disdain Has wildly broke thy triple chain, And like the storm which Earth's deep entrails hide, At length has burst its way and ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge

... especially, the crowd seem to have claimed it as their right that the actors should play naked, probably, it has been thought, as a survival of a folk-ritual. But the Romans, though they were eager to run to the theatre, felt nothing but disdain for the performers. "Flagitii principium est, nudare inter cives corpora." So thought old Ennius, as reported by Cicero, and that remained the genuine Roman feeling to the last. "Quanta perversitas!" as Tertullian exclaimed. "Artem magnificant, artificem notant."[41] In this matter the Romans, ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis

... war was practically ended, now that Roman troops had taken it in hand. This action rendered the Gauls all the more tractable. They made less difficulty about the war-tax, now that they had got their men back again, while his disdain only sharpened their sense of duty. On the other side, when Civilis and Classicus heard of Tutor's defeat, the destruction of the Treviri, and the universal success of the Roman arms, they fell into a panic, hastily mobilized their own scattered ...
— Tacitus: The Histories, Volumes I and II • Caius Cornelius Tacitus

... &c., a proposition was made by him, to the second lieutenant and myself, to cruise under both flags, the American and Carthagenian, and this to be kept a profound secret from the crew, until we had sailed from port. Of course, we rejected the proposition with disdain, and told him the consequence of such a measure, in the event of being taken by a man-of-war of any nation,—that it was piracy, to all intents and purposes, according to the law of nations. We refused to go out in the privateer, ...
— Thrilling Adventures by Land and Sea • James O. Brayman

... occurred in the first act, he would have given but one. He held that towards the middle of a performance success should be quietly fostered, but never forced. For the claqueurs of other theatres Auguste entertained a sort of disdain. It was, as he averred, the easiest thing in the world to obtain success at the Opera Comique, or the Vaudeville. The thing was managed there not so much by applause as by laughter. There was the less need for careful management; the less risk of vexing ...
— A Book of the Play - Studies and Illustrations of Histrionic Story, Life, and Character • Dutton Cook

... extinguished;— My bosom is become red with flames, Like a parterre of roses;— This heart is no longer mine: It hangs suspended on the ringlets of thy hair— And thou, cruel fair! thou piercest it With a glance of thy cold disdain. Ah! inquire not into the wretched. Khacan's fate: Thy waving locks have deprived him of reason; But how many thousand lovers, before him, Have fallen victims to the magic of ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 17, - Issue 491, May 28, 1831 • Various

... Do you think that if I loved another man, I should pretend to go on loving my husband, or be afraid to tell him or all the world? But this woman is not made that way. She governs men by cheating them; and (with disdain) they like it, and let her govern them. (She sits down again, with her ...
— The Man of Destiny • George Bernard Shaw

... if these I disdain, I abandon my gain, And by fortune at once am refused: Then pardon their use, And accept my excuse, Nor of guilt let my guile ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner

... Man. They resemble one another very much—noble faces, high and candid foreheads, honest eyes. They walk proudly, throwing out their chests, stepping firmly and confidently, and looking, now to this side, now to that, with condescension and slight disdain. They wear white ...
— Savva and The Life of Man • Leonid Andreyev

... tolerated his bouncing, familiar manners as if they were born to be his playthings—he was so serious and yet so droll, so stupidly self-assertive and yet so irresistibly affectionate! He seemed to take his pleasures sadly, wearing, if such be possible to a fox, an air of melancholy disdain; and yet his beady eyes were ever on the lookout for mischief, and for the chance of a helter-skelter romp with his sisters round and round the chamber, or to the entrance of the "earth," where the sprouts of ...
— Creatures of the Night - A Book of Wild Life in Western Britain • Alfred W. Rees

... and ran, laughing, to the galley, whence she returned with a large plate of fudge. At Dan's look of surprise she tossed her head in mock disdain of what he might ...
— Dan Merrithew • Lawrence Perry

... be felt, not heard." Her calm regard was unchanged—nay, rather it had grown harsh and hard, had seemed to imply disdain, repulsion, and he could not face those things; he rose from his kissing of her feet—he did go forth again. This time he might return, immaculate, from the path of that "lambent flamelet." . . . He knew he could ...
— Browning's Heroines • Ethel Colburn Mayne

... the parlor and would disdain to look, while Jane had gone out to help plant some early potatoes on a warm hillside. The coast was clear. Seeing the stage coming, the old woman waddled down the lane at a remarkable pace, paid her fare to town, and the Holcroft kitchen knew ...
— He Fell in Love with His Wife • Edward P. Roe

... word beseems The work the earnest hand prepares; Its load more light the labor deems, When sweet discourse the labor shares. So let us ponder—nor in vain— What strength can work when labor wills; For who would not the fool disdain Who ne'er designs what he fulfils? And well it stamps our human race, And hence the gift to understand, That man within the heart should trace Whate'er he fashions with ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller

... "Oh!" in disdain, "that thing!" With some effort Bernie fished it from the capacious depths of a pocket, disentangling the sharp corners from the torn and ...
— The Film Mystery • Arthur B. Reeve

... and straight-cut nose were in their clearness as an earnest of the noble thoughts that were within, and that so often spoke from the depths of her splendid eyes. She was not a scornful beauty, though her face could express scorn well enough. Where another woman would have shown disdain, she needed but to look grave, and her silence did the rest. She wielded magnificent weapons, and wielded them nobly, as she did all things. She needed all her strength, too, for her position from the first was not easy. ...
— Saracinesca • F. Marion Crawford

... History would disdain even an allusion to such figments—quite as disgraceful, certainly to Maurice as to Barneveld—did they not point the moral and foreshadow some of the vast but distant results of events which had already taken place, and had they not been so generally ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... each contains Some emblem of man's all-containing soul; Shall he make fruitless all thy glorious pains, Delving within thy grace an eyeless mole? Make me the least of thy Dodona-grove, Cause me some message of thy truth to bring, Speak but a word through me, nor let thy love Among my boughs disdain to perch and sing. ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell

... with a well-counterfeited air of the disdain with which Mrs. De Lancy Stevens views all republican institutions since her year in ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No IV, April 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... for in the man who gives himself wholly up to the business of healing, who considers Medicine itself a Science, or if not a science, is willing to follow it as an art,—the noblest of arts, which the gods and demigods of ancient religions did not disdain to ...
— Medical Essays • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... clear to him, sir, that my birth and position must warrant me innocent of any treachery, and though I might well disdain to answer these reckless charges I owed it to myself to remark to His Royal Highness that, but for my desire to serve him, I had never meddled in the affair. So that when I had done, my Lord Middleton says, laughing, ...
— The Highwayman • H.C. Bailey

... loan her protection and lavish her gold upon the Sicilian Court from any love for that court, but simply from dread and hatred of the republican principles advocated by Napoleon. She, therefore, often treated the English with the utmost disdain. And yet, sustained by twenty thousand British troops upon the island, she trampled upon all popular rights, consigning, by arbitrary arrests, to the dungeon or to exile ...
— Louis Philippe - Makers of History Series • John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott

... kept him free from every form of blame that might befall a king; men saw him move in friendly wise among his guests. He spake: "Ye worthy knights, ere ye go hence, pray take my gifts. I am minded to deserve it of you ever. Do not disdain my goods, the which I'll share with you, as ...
— The Nibelungenlied • Unknown

... disfavour which amounted to positive dislike, others with disdain and even contempt, and others thought of Wyndham and wondered what Willoughby was coming to. Even among the Sixth many an unfriendly glance was darted at him as he took his seat, and many a whispered foreboding passed from boy to boy. Only a few watched him with ...
— The Willoughby Captains • Talbot Baines Reed

... Jacks, this boy!" said Estella with disdain, before our first game was out. "And what coarse hands he has! And ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens

... gave us another exhibition of that repression of feeling, of that disdain of hysteria, that is a national characteristic, and is what Mr. Kipling meant when he wrote: "But oh, beware my country, ...
— With the Allies • Richard Harding Davis

... studio near the roof of an old house close to the river, and there lived the life of a Bohemian, with an absolute disdain for everything not related to art. He revolted against the canons of the schools, and tried to achieve truth in painting by adopting an exaggerated realism. His hopes became centred in a large painting, ...
— A Zola Dictionary • J. G. Patterson

... luxuriates under the eagle's aegis and writes eulogies upon Benjamin Franklin, George Washington and William McKinley. Nor is he alone in his devotion to the American idea. The small boy curses his neighbor by calling him 'un Espanol,' and treats you with disdain if you suggest that he is simply a poor Porto Rican. 'No, no,' he says, pointing at himself. 'No, Espanol, Porto-Rican Americano.' His motives are not, however, always of the sincerest, for the boys have learned ...
— Porto Rico - Its History, Products and Possibilities... • Arthur D. Hall

... desire alone. Moreover, we have learned the bitter lesson that international agreements, historically considered by us as sacred, are regarded in Communist doctrine and in practice to be mere scraps of paper. The most recent proof of their disdain of international obligations, solemnly undertaken, is their announced intention to ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various

... have a try with me, Birdie," she implored. "I'll pay the dime." And Birdie, with professional disdain, condescended to circle the room with ...
— Calvary Alley • Alice Hegan Rice

... do protest and disdain a little too strenuously for good taste, if not to gain believers; but surely, Eve, you do not support these travellers in all that they have written ...
— Home as Found • James Fenimore Cooper

... love that had wanted but that to make it perfect. In truth I am ashamed of even combating such an essential falsehood. Were it not that here and there a weak soul is paralysed by the presence of the monstrous lie, and we dare not allow sympathy to be swallowed up of even righteous disdain, a contemptuous denial ...
— Miracles of Our Lord • George MacDonald

... "Let us not disdain the ass," said I; "I wish we had him here; he is of a very fine breed, and would be as useful as ...
— The Swiss Family Robinson; or Adventures in a Desert Island • Johann David Wyss

... as a portent and a terror; but he had no fear of Time. Indeed he was the foster-brother of Time, and so disdainful of the bitter god that he did not even disdain him; he leaped over the scythe, he dodged under it, and the sole occasions on which Time laughs is when he chances on Tuan, the son of Cairill, the son ...
— Irish Fairy Tales • James Stephens

... dear little one, that Heaven Does no earthly thing disdain; Man's poor joys find there an echo Just as surely as his pain; Love, on earth so feebly striving, Lives divine ...
— De La Salle Fifth Reader • Brothers of the Christian Schools

... paces, and horsemen were careering about with that dexterity and grace for which the Arickaras are noted. As soon as a horse was purchased, his tail was cropped, a sure mode of distinguishing him from the horses of the tribe; for the Indians disdain to practice this absurd, barbarous, and indecent mutilation, invented by some mean and vulgar mind, insensible to the merit and perfections of the animal. On the contrary, the Indian horses are suffered to remain in every respect the superb and ...
— Astoria - Or, Anecdotes Of An Enterprise Beyond The Rocky Mountains • Washington Irving

... give the sense of being banded together in a numerous ambush, they can deceive eye and ear, and even nose with noisome stenches; but they cannot show themselves, and they cannot hurt. If they could be seen, they would be nothing but limp ungainly things that would rouse disdain and laughter and even pity, at anything at once so weak and so malevolent. But they are not like the demons of sin that can hamper and wound; they are just little gnomes and elves that can make a noise, and their strength is a spiteful and a ...
— Where No Fear Was - A Book About Fear • Arthur Christopher Benson

... Contrite, Mr. Holy-man, Mr. Dare-not-lie, and Mr. Penitent, with their weapons go forth to meet him. Now the monster, at first, was very rampant, and looked upon these enemies with great disdain; but they so belaboured him, being sturdy men at arms, that they made him make a retreat; so they came home to Mr. Mnason's ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

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

... once that it's got to stop—absolutely, and—Good Lord!—I don't care what any one thinks—if I were in your place I'd jolly well sling Banks off the premises—I tell you I would—" he got to his feet, his vehemence was increasing, as if he would shout down Brenda's silent disdain—"I'd confoundedly well kick him out of the county..." He looked almost equal to the task as he stood there roaring like a young bull-calf; but although he could have given his rival a good three stone in weight there was, I fancy, a difference in the quality of their muscles that might ...
— The Jervaise Comedy • J. D. Beresford

... and began to cool himself with a consequential air, while Charles Gould bowed and withdrew. Then he dropped the fan at once, and stared with an appearance of wonder and perplexity at the closed door for quite a long time. At last he shrugged his shoulders as if to assure himself of his disdain. Cold, dull. No intellectuality. Red hair. A true ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad

... workmanlike laboriousness, to which he is compelled by his modern conscience) inclines him to a lofty and almost charitable serenity as regards religion, with which is occasionally mingled a slight disdain for the "uncleanliness" of spirit which he takes for granted wherever any one still professes to belong to the Church. It is only with the help of history (NOT through his own personal experience, therefore) that the scholar succeeds in bringing himself to a respectful seriousness, ...
— Beyond Good and Evil • Friedrich Nietzsche

... to entertain the haughty idea that I have not yet made you an offer equal to your value?" asked the cardinal, with a smile of disdain. ...
— The Three Musketeers • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... Britain's sons with proud disdain Survey'd the gay Patrician's titled train, Their various merit scann'd with eye severe, Nor learn'd to know the peasant from the peer: At length the Gothic ignorance is o'er, And vulgar brows shall scowl on LORDS no more; ...
— An Heroic Epistle to the Right Honourable the Lord Craven (3rd Ed.) • William Combe

... spirit of courteous moderation which usually characterizes the proceedings of the Imperial Parliament. The relations between the governor and his ministers, at the best difficult, were made impossible for a man like Metcalfe by the ill-mannered disdain with which, as all the citizens of his capital knew, the cabinet spoke of their official head; and in debate the personal element played far too prominent a part. In all the early Union assemblies, too, the house betrayed its inexperience by passing rapidly from serious constitutional questions ...
— British Supremacy & Canadian Self-Government - 1839-1854 • J. L. Morison

... want to speak to me about?" she asked, her chin elevated, disdain in her eyes. She assured herself that when he glanced at her as he was doing at this instant, she positively hated him. She wondered why ...
— 'Drag' Harlan • Charles Alden Seltzer

... you do not disdain To dwell amongst the menial train, I have a silent place, and lone, That you and I may call our own, Where tumult never makes an entry— Susan, what business ...
— The Bed-Book of Happiness • Harold Begbie

... any overbearing declaimer; and he was too intellectually great to be an humble listener to Johnson. Therefore he shunned him on having experienced what manner of man he was. The surly dictator felt the mortification, and revenged it by affecting to avow his disdain of powers too distinguished to be objects of ...
— Evolution, Old & New - Or, the Theories of Buffon, Dr. Erasmus Darwin and Lamarck, - as compared with that of Charles Darwin • Samuel Butler

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

... to drive on the removal of my Lord Godolphin, and the rest; and, in the council, treated the small remainder, who continued some time longer in their places, with all possible marks of hatred or disdain. But when the question came for dissolving the Parliament, he stopped short: he had already satiated his resentments, which were not against things, but persons: he furiously opposed that counsel, and promised to undertake for the Parliament himself. When the Queen had declared ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. X. • Jonathan Swift

... largest of its class as yet in the world, in its swifter, more graceful, and more daring leap from bank to bank, across the tides of this arm of the sea, not only illustrates the bolder temper which is natural here, the readiness to attempt unparalleled works, the disdain of difficulties in unfaltering reliance on exact calculation, but, in the material out of which it is wrought, it shows the new supremacy of man over the metal which, in former time, he scarcely could use save for rude and coarse implements. The steel ...
— Opening Ceremonies of the New York and Brooklyn Bridge, May 24, 1883 • William C. Kingsley

... the pair together—the mannish woman and the womanish man, looking at each other, the man in admiration and the woman in veiled disdain. ...
— If I Were King • Justin Huntly McCarthy

... Viglius, the court, after Granvelle's departure, was like a school of boys and girls when the pedagogue's back is turned. He was very bitter against the Duchess for her manifest joy at emancipation. The poor President was treated with the most marked disdain by Margaret, who also took pains to show her dislike to all the cardinalists. Secretary Armenteros forbade Bordey, who was Granvelle's cousin and dependent, from even speaking to him in public. The Regent soon became ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... vegetables. The wine was contained in large earthen jars whose covers were closely luted. Numbers of the hogs and the fowls had been bruised to death on the passage, which were thrown overboard from the Lion with disdain, but the Chinese eagerly picked them up, washed them clean ...
— Travels in China, Containing Descriptions, Observations, and Comparisons, Made and Collected in the Course of a Short Residence at the Imperial Palace of Yuen-Min-Yuen, and on a Subsequent Journey thr • John Barrow

... The disdain which the servants learned from their master grew rapidly. So much so that one Monday morning, toward nine o'clock, Madame Desvarennes came down to the courtyard, expecting to find the carriage which generally took her to the station. It was the second coachman's ...
— Serge Panine, Complete • Georges Ohnet

... of fifteen, who was a perfect catastrophe. She read things and had begun to talk about her "right to be a woman." Emily Heppel-Bevill was only thirty-seven—three years from forty. Feather had reached the stage of softening in her disdain of the women in their thirties. She had found herself admitting that—in these days—there were women of forty who had not wholly passed beyond the pale into that outer darkness where there was weeping and wailing ...
— The Head of the House of Coombe • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... power, brute or physical, and spiritual, including all occult and supernatural efficacy, and strength of intellect and will. Virtue, triumphant by the aid of adventitious force, or relying upon unconquerable pride and disdain to resist it, was the highest reach of their dynamic conceptions. Moral power is properly a Christian idea. It is not, therefore, without what I conceive to be a true as well as a poetic apprehension ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 2, No. 4, March, 1851 • Various

... of a dead world, I hate you! Because your very emptiness and solitude are worse than a prison, because the calls of the living things that creep and fly over your endless bosom are more mournful than death itself, I hate you! Because I would be free, because I respect sex, because of the disdain for womanhood that dwells in your crushing silence, I hate—oh, my God, how I hate you!" She threw her arms wide, in ...
— A Breath of Prairie and other stories • Will Lillibridge

... thunder; and till then who knew The force of those dire arms? Yet not for those, Nor what the potent Victor in his rage Can else inflict, do I repent, or change, Though changed in outward lustre, that fixed mind, And high disdain from sense of injured merit, That with the Mightiest raised me to contend, And to the fierce contentions brought along Innumerable force of Spirits armed, That durst dislike his reign, and, me preferring, His utmost power with adverse power ...
— Paradise Lost • John Milton

... is especially true in the early stages of adolescence. The boy or girl is becoming conscious of himself as a person, and resents being treated as a child; the only way he knows of asserting his personality is by affecting an air of disdain toward those who presume to treat him as a child. This swagger is more likely to be put on when there is a third person present. It is therefore always safer to reserve your discussions and corrections to the time when you are alone ...
— Your Child: Today and Tomorrow • Sidonie Matzner Gruenberg

... the only one to whom the afternoon had brought trials. Chris had not been without his share of troubles. The Seminoles treated him with marked disdain and would not even permit him to ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely

... Geoffrey Brent confined his dissipations to London and Paris and Vienna—anywhere out of sight and sound of his home—opinion was silent. It is easy to listen to far off echoes unmoved, and we can treat them with disbelief, or scorn, or disdain, or whatever attitude of coldness may suit our purpose. But when the scandal came close home it was another matter; and the feelings of independence and integrity which is in people of every community which is not utterly spoiled, asserted ...
— Dracula's Guest • Bram Stoker

... years, I'm nevertheless like a mountain, which, in spite of its height, cannot screen the sun from view. Besides, since my father's death, I've had no one to look after me, and were you, uncle Pao, not to disdain your doltish nephew, and to acknowledge me as your son, it would ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin

... each of them would have taken quite a different aspect in your eyes. The sum of their faults was their inability to earn money; but, indeed, that inability does not call for unmingled disdain. ...
— New Grub Street • George Gissing

... Disdain, hauteur, impatience, were stamped upon the general's countenance as he pushed briskly through the crowd, turning his head from side to side in search of the ...
— Heart of the Sunset • Rex Beach

... protected, but cultivated the gay science with considerable success. [87] Their names have descended to us, as well as those of less illustrious troubadours, whom Petrarch and his contemporaries did not disdain to imitate; [88] but their compositions, for the most part, lie still buried in those cemeteries of the intellect so numerous in Spain, and call loudly for the diligence of some Sainte Palaye or Raynouard to disinter ...
— History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella V1 • William H. Prescott

... beam, who still in look Prays thee, O hallow'd spirit! to own her shine. Then by her love we' implore thee, let us pass Through thy sev'n regions; for which best thanks I for thy favour will to her return, If mention there below thou not disdain." ...
— The Divine Comedy, Complete - The Vision of Paradise, Purgatory and Hell • Dante Alighieri

... live, and that this great upper chamber was to be his ball-room, where he could have his routs and banquets, the kitchen being in handy proximity. Most of the villagers accepted this explanation, as nothing better offered, and commented either in pious disdain, or ...
— Joyce's Investments - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry

... of building his mass-houses, and of celebrating his worship, in every town and village of our empire. We permit him to do so; for we will fight this great battle with the weapons of toleration. We disdain to stain our hands or tarnish our cause by any other: these we leave to our opponents. But when we go to Rome, and offer to buy with our money a spot of ground on which to erect a house for the worship of God, we are told that we can have—no, not a foot's-breadth. Why, I say, the gospel had ...
— Pilgrimage from the Alps to the Tiber - Or The Influence of Romanism on Trade, Justice, and Knowledge • James Aitken Wylie

... eyes glittered, her red lips closed in a tight line, and her little pointed face was as the face of a wicked sprite. Eunice stood, surveying her. Tall, stately, beautiful, she towered above her guest, and looked down on her with a fine disdain. ...
— Raspberry Jam • Carolyn Wells

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

... out his location notices and cache them in monuments which he built beside those of his predecessors. He even copied the exact wording on the Desert Rat's notices. He forgot his blistered heel and worked with prodigious energy and interest, receiving with dogged silent disdain the humorous sallies of the Desert Rat, to whom the other's sudden industry was a source of infinite amusement. The Desert Rat and the Indian were busy with pans and prospector's picks gouging out "stringers" and crevices ...
— The Long Chance • Peter B. Kyne

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

... disdain our hero waved aside the proffered gold of the scoundrelly millionaire and dashed down the stairway of the proud mansion to where his gallant steed, Midnight, was champing at the hitching post. ...
— Somewhere in Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson

... am your friend. I cannot bear to hear the man I love ridiculed by fools—by idiots. To hear a fellow who, had he been born a Chinese, had starved for want of genius to have been even the lowest mechanick, toss up his empty noddle with an affected disdain of what he has not understood; and women abusing what they have neither seen nor heard, from an unreasonable prejudice to an honest fellow whom they have not known. If thou wilt write against all these reasons get a patron, be pimp to some worthless man of quality, write panegyricks on ...
— Miscellanies, Volume 2 (from Works, Volume 12) • Henry Fielding

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

... wisely; in a less degree when he is overtaken by illness or love or drink, or has met with any other disaster. But when he comes to a character which is unworthy of him, he will not make a study of that; he will disdain such a person, and will assume his likeness, if at all, for a moment only when he is performing some good action; at other times he will be ashamed to play a part which he has never practised, nor will he like to fashion and frame ...
— The Republic • Plato

... How, no more: As for my country, I have shed my blood, Not fearing outward force, so shall my lungs Coin words till their decay against those meazels Which we disdain, should tetter us, yet sought The very way to ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon

... know that I had bounding in my veins a portion of the blood that ages since had fallen to secure a nation's liberties, or in any way had served to perpetuate its fame. Wealth, simple wealth, I always regarded with disdain. I revered the well-born. My father was apprenticed from the workhouse to a maker of watch-springs, living in Clerkenwell; but after remaining with his master a few months, during which time he was treated with great severity, he ran away. He obtained ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 54, No. 335, September 1843 • Various

... the best I could; I have killed the deer, and eaten just one luscious mouthful. And now I give up the animal to you, and merely ask for myself and companions, who have been faithfully guarding the prize, such portion as you yourselves may disdain." Several crows were pecking away at the carcass, but Barbekark and they were always on good terms. Sometimes, indeed, he allowed them to rest upon his back; and consequently he did not ...
— Stories of Animal Sagacity • W.H.G. Kingston

... she thought; he had told her once that were she Hagar Warren's grandchild he should not be riding with her—how much less, then, would he make that child his wife! and rather than meet the look of proud disdain on his face when first she stood confessed before him, she resolved to go away where no one had ever heard of her or Hagar Warren. She would leave behind a letter telling why she went, and commending to Madam Conway's ...
— Maggie Miller • Mary J. Holmes

... corners disdainfully turned down at the luckless man, who was left alone in the vast gorgeous dining-room, engaged in sopping his bread in his wine after the fashion of his country, crushed beneath the weight of universal disdain. ...
— Tartarin On The Alps • Alphonse Daudet



Words linked to "Disdain" :   turn away, contemn, freeze off, repel, contempt, derogation, decline, dislike, rebuff, refuse, scorn, despise, despite, spurn, disparagement, pass up, pooh-pooh



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