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Disrepair   Listen
noun
Disrepair  n.  A state of being in bad condition, and needing repair. "The fortifications were ancient and in disrepair."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Disrepair" Quotes from Famous Books



... an end by Prof. Naville in 1898, was erected by Queen Hatshepsu in honour of Amen-Ra, her father Thothmes I, and her brother-husband Thothmes II, and received a few additions from Thothmes III, her successor. He, however, did not complete it, and it fell into disrepair, besides suffering from the iconoclastic zeal of the heretic Akhunaten, who hammered out some of the beautifully painted scenes upon its walls. These were badly restored by Ramses II, whose painting is easily distinguished from the ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, And Assyria In The Light Of Recent Discovery • L.W. King and H.R. Hall

... mission of Prague as a royal and imperial residence. The castle had been repaired fitfully by one king or another as we have seen, and had been provided with strong towers chiefly used as dungeons, and had been allowed to fall into disrepair by the impecunious and extravagant John. The cathedral was probably in not much better case. We have seen glimpses of that sacred fane with its memories of royal saints and martyrs, how St. Wenceslaus built the first church on the site of the present one, as a casket to hold that precious ...
— From a Terrace in Prague • Lieut.-Col. B. Granville Baker

... little surprise that Madame Champlain should not care to visit Canada a second time, for the buildings at Quebec had fallen into disrepair, and more than once the supply of food ran very low. During 1625 Champlain remained in France with his wife, and therefore did not witness the coming of the Jesuits to the colony. This event, which is a landmark in the ...
— The Founder of New France - A Chronicle of Champlain • Charles W. Colby

... the front door, and the white imported marble window lintels spin an elaborate and marvelously fine lacework of white over the handsome red-brick facade. Although it is, alas, falling somewhat into disrepair, perfect proportion and gemlike workmanship still stamp the venerable mansion as one of patrician heritage. There are other excellent examples of architecture in Weymouth, but the Cowing house must always be the star, both because of ...
— The Old Coast Road - From Boston to Plymouth • Agnes Rothery

... the duty of a tenant to exercise proper care of the estate. A very prominent duty was the care of the canals. To see that they were kept in proper order was the mark of good government. To allow them to fall into disrepair was probably the result of weak government, or the exhaustion due to defeat in war. But it very soon led to the impoverishment of the country. The Code contemplates the care of the canal banks, or dikes, ...
— Babylonian and Assyrian Laws, Contracts and Letters • C. H. W. Johns

... telecommunication development plan, running through 2005, emphasizes improving domestic trunk lines, international connections, and the mobile cellular system domestic: at independence in December 1991, Ukraine inherited a telephone system that was antiquated, inefficient, and in disrepair; more than 3.5 million applications for telephones could not be satisfied; telephone density is rising slowly and the domestic trunk system is being improved; the mobile cellular telephone system is expanding at a high rate international: country code - 380; two new domestic ...
— The 2007 CIA World Factbook • United States

... the ingeniously constructed buildings on his estate were in a state of disrepair, the live stock showed decrease, the wheat was got rid of quickly and cheaply, the wood was sold for a trifling sum for lumber, the labourers were not paid for the work they had done. On the other hand, during prosperous days, following the death of some relative, things used to ...
— The Created Legend • Feodor Sologub

... course to Ciudadella branches off to the northward, turning again after a while due west on to General Stanhope's road. But that was nothing to me then. Turning my back upon it, I took another path, in woeful disrepair, which led me down by many windings between high stone walls and straggling clumps of prickly pear. There were few houses to stop the view—only some two or three farm buildings. Cottages can scarcely be said to exist. The ...
— The Recipe for Diamonds • Charles John Cutcliffe Wright Hyne

... shed, huge, but in disrepair. Monster doors were ajar. Bell heaved at them and swung them wide. A small, trim, two-seated plane showed ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, June, 1930 • Various

... beyond belief, the natives were lazy even in their curiosity, and everything pertaining to the place was in a shocking state of disrepair. Among other items of interest, proudly pointed out to the American officer by his host, was a gruesome collection of human skulls, which decorated the dwelling both indoors and out. "Trophies of war," he explained nonchalantly to his astonished guest, merely ...
— A Woman's Journey through the Philippines - On a Cable Ship that Linked Together the Strange Lands Seen En Route • Florence Kimball Russel

... finished, was destitute of nearly every requisite of civilised life, and in front of it was a bank of rubbish and loose stones, with a swamp below, while the interior was in an indescribable state of dust and disrepair. Still, we felt that the Governors had done the best they could in the circumstances, and we took possession as early as possible. As it was, however, we received many of the citizens, who were so kind as to call on us, in the midst of all the confusion of plastering, papering, ...
— McGill and its Story, 1821-1921 • Cyrus Macmillan

... similarity, in this way: "If those houses have fallen down, or got into disrepair, a life-interest in which is bequeathed to some one, the heir is not bound to restore or to repair them, any more than he is bound to replace a slave, if a slave, a life-interest in whom has been bequeathed to some ...
— The Orations of Marcus Tullius Cicero, Volume 4 • Cicero

... countenance! Adieu, O culler of offensive expressions - 'and a' - to be a posy to your ain dear May!' - Fanny seems a little revived again after her spasm of work. Our books and furniture keep slowly draining up the road, in a sad state of scatterment and disrepair; I wish the devil had had K. by his red beard before he had packed my library. Odd leaves and sheets and boards - a thing to make a bibliomaniac shed tears - are fished out of odd corners. But I am ...
— Vailima Letters • Robert Louis Stevenson

... always getting into debt!—but when a man is the owner of a property—which has descended to him from generations of ancestors, his first duty is to it. Noblesse oblige! It is not right to allow it to fall into disrepair for ...
— Flaming June • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey

... to which it was attached until the Reformation. It was for a moment under the custody of Chaucer's son: it nursed the childhood of Henry VI., but with the beginning of the next century it had already lost its importance. After half that century had passed the castle was already falling into disrepair; much of the masonry of the town and of the fortress, lying squared and convenient to the river, had been moved down stream for the new buildings at Windsor, and when, nearly a century later again, the Civil War broke out, ...
— The Historic Thames • Hilaire Belloc

... and bid them note, that though our opinions may be wrong, the action we advise is not rash: let the question be shelved awhile: if, as we are always pressing on people, due care be taken of these monuments, so that they shall not fall into disrepair, they will be always there to 'restore' whenever people think proper and when we are proved wrong; but if it should turn out that we are right, how can the 'restored' buildings be restored? I beg of you therefore to let the question ...
— Hopes and Fears for Art • William Morris

... his burnt umbers and brown madders with a lavish hand, and introduces his beautiful irregularities of outline, and his artistic disrepair, he does not look to the drainage, and takes no thought for ...
— The Danvers Jewels, and Sir Charles Danvers • Mary Cholmondeley

... affair with a small, dim, wavy glass, and drawers which you pulled out by sticking your fingers under the bunches of flowers that served as knobs. The fireplaces in both rooms were in a shocking state of disrepair, but one didn't mind that, as in winter a fire burned in them, and in summer they were boarded up with fireboards covered with cut-out pictures pasted on a background of black calico. Those gay cut-out ...
— The Purple Heights • Marie Conway Oemler

... completion of a modern road down the mountain led most vehicles away to another egress. The grass-grown pavement, which wound into the plain by a hundred graceful twists and plunges, was now given up to ragged contadini and their donkeys, and to such wayfarers as were not alarmed at the disrepair into which it had fallen. I stood in the shadow of the tall old gateway admiring the scene, looking to right and left at the wonderful walls of the little town, perched on the edge of a shaggy precipice; at the circling mountains over against them; at the road ...
— Italian Hours • Henry James

... already considered antiquated. Any one who may choose to walk along the Czerniakowska will find to-day on the left-hand side of it a large building, once an iron-foundry, now deserted and falling into disrepair. If it be evening-time, he will, as likely as not, meet the patrol from the neighboring hussar barracks, which nightly guards this road ...
— The Vultures • Henry Seton Merriman

... unworthy of a curiosity seeker's visit. The town, within the fortifications, although not of great size, is for the most part well planned, the streets being straight, regular, and some of them kept clean and in good order, although many of the smaller ones are allowed to fall into great disrepair. They are too narrow, moreover, for the heat of the climate, as the confined air and stench frequently existing in them, are principally generated by their closeness, and more especially during the cool of the evening and early morning, are far from ...
— Recollections of Manilla and the Philippines - During 1848, 1849 and 1850 • Robert Mac Micking

... object in the great sala was a sewing-machine, and we should have been inconsolably outraged by its presence there, amid so much that was merely venerable and beautiful, but for the fact that it was in a state of harmonious and hopeless disrepair, and, from its general contrivance, gave us the idea that it had never been of any use. It was, in fact, kept as a sort of curiosity by the landlord, who exhibited it to the admiration of his ...
— Venetian Life • W. D. Howells

... some school-girl, I glanced down at the work-basket standing on a table at my side. It was full of various kinds of work, among which I spied a pair of stockings, which were much too small, as well as in too great a state of disrepair, to belong to Mrs. Belden; and drawing them carefully out, I examined them for any name on them. Do not start when I say I saw the letter H plainly marked upon them. Thrusting them back, I drew a deep breath of relief, gazing, ...
— The Leavenworth Case • Anna Katharine Green

... with his army of 37,000 men, finding himself unable to raise the siege, determined to make a dash against Nimeguen, an important frontier fortress of Holland, but which the supineness of the Dutch Government had allowed to fall into disrepair. Not only was there no garrison there, but not a gun was mounted on its walls. The expedition seemed certain of success, and on the evening of the 9th of June Boufflers moved out from Xanten, and marched all night. Next day Athlone obtained news of the movement and started in ...
— The Cornet of Horse - A Tale of Marlborough's Wars • G. A. Henty

... other parties, all three being clear of the nullah five minutes after the exploding of the mine. These parties, which were moving along in front of G11A, came under heavy rifle-fire and had to drop into the trench. The overhead traverses, which were in a state of disrepair owing to the trench being unoccupied by the enemy, were low and made progress difficult and slow. Lieut. Aitken, who was leading the first grenade team, had rounded a bend in the trench with a bayonet man of his team when they came under fire from a few yards range from an erection at ...
— The Fifth Battalion Highland Light Infantry in the War 1914-1918 • F.L. Morrison

... I say of the Roteewallah and the Jooteewallah, who comes round so regularly to keep your boots and shoes in disrepair, and of all the vociferous tribe of borahs? There is the Kupprawallah, and the Boxwallah, and the Ready-made-clotheswallah ("readee made cloes mem sa-ab! dressin' gown, badee, petticoat, drars, chamees, everyting, mem sa-ab, very che-eap!") and the Chowchowwallah and the Maiwawallah ...
— Behind the Bungalow • EHA

... stronger far, still remained standing. But even from that distance Stern could quite plainly see, without the telescope, that the Williamsburg Bridge had "buckled" downward and that the farther span of the Blackwell's Island Bridge was in ruinous disrepair. ...
— Darkness and Dawn • George Allan England

... upon us and no increase—is not that the story of much of all our lives, and of the whole of some lives? Are we like Eastern lands where the trees have been felled, and the great irrigation works and tanks have been allowed to fall into disrepair, and so when the bountiful treasure of the rains comes, all that it does is to swell for half a day the discoloured stream that carries away some more of the arable land; and when the sunshine comes, with its swift, warm powers, all that it does is to bleach the stones and scorch the barren sand? ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren

... garish to a degree that by no means assists in the fiction that Chester is the unadulterated old-country town one would like to think it." Such a feeling I could not entirely rid myself of, and even in following the old wall, I could not help noting its carefully maintained disrepair. I would not wish to be understood as intimating that Chester is not well worth a visit, and a visit of several days if one can spare the time; only that its charm was, to me, inferior to that of its more unpretentious neighbors, ...
— British Highways And Byways From A Motor Car - Being A Record Of A Five Thousand Mile Tour In England, - Wales And Scotland • Thomas D. Murphy

... Besides the equipment he had just brought in, there were other items, all in varying stages of disrepair and ruin. ...
— Millennium • Everett B. Cole

... never seen much of her; for although the church and parsonage were only two miles from his own door, he was never known to go there but on Sundays. It chanced, however, that the parsonage fell into disrepair, and had to be dismantled; and the parson and his daughter took lodgings for a month or so, on very much reduced terms, at Will's inn. Now, what with the inn, and the mill, and the old miller's savings, our friend was a man of substance; and besides that, he had a name for good temper ...
— The Merry Men - and Other Tales and Fables • Robert Louis Stevenson

... limited area similar to that of the most Negroes in Harlem, New York City. In the former place, the houses occupied by the migrants were the old one-family type, were unsanitary, and in a serious state of disrepair. Two years previous to the exodus 300 or more of these houses were vacant; but during the migration of the Negroes they all became occupied, many of them having been converted so as to house two or more families. The report further states that the Negro newcomers had pushed over into the ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 6, 1921 • Various

... the stairway the corridor turned at right angles and ran north. On either side opened a number of chambers in like conditions of disrepair, which had been used as bedrooms in the palmy days of the hostelry. This corridor ended at the bowling-alley, where as children Tom and Dan had loved to play. Half-way to the entrance to the bowling-alley a third hallway branched off to the right, leading to a similar set of chambers. ...
— The Inn at the Red Oak • Latta Griswold

... another Chinese village of some pretensions and population, near which are two very large two-storied Malay houses in some disrepair, in which the wife of the banished Mentri of Larut lives, with a number of slaves. A quantity of mirthful-looking slave girls were standing behind the window bars looking at us surreptitiously. We alighted at the house of Mr. Wynne, the Government Agent, who ...
— The Golden Chersonese and the Way Thither • Isabella L. Bird (Mrs. Bishop)

... was ample; his retinue, all things considered, impressive; and the Kutub, although in a state of disrepair in certain portions, was still unmistakably a royal residence. But he was thoroughly weary of the massive pile, and increasingly exasperated ...
— The Flaw in the Sapphire • Charles M. Snyder

... themselves he didn't like his little charge to look too poor. Later he used to say "Well, if we're poor, why, after all, shouldn't we look it?" and he consoled himself with thinking there was something rather elderly and gentlemanly in Morgan's disrepair—it differed from the untidiness of the urchin who plays and spoils his things. He could trace perfectly the degrees by which, in proportion as her little son confined himself to his tutor for society, Mrs. Moreen shrewdly forbore to renew his garments. She did nothing that ...
— The Pupil • Henry James

... gas 180 km note: product pipelines from Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan have been in disrepair ...
— The 2002 CIA World Factbook • US Government

... late Bishop of Llandaff for a parishioner. Some years ago he occupied Llansaintfraed House, and rescued the parish from the disgrace of a ruinous and neglected church. It is only to be wished that every parish had its manor occupied so well—for a district with churches so shamefully fallen into disrepair we never saw. In all the churchyards, for instance, the piety of our forefathers had raised a cross; and it surely does not argue a man to be a Puseyite, if he thinks highly of such an emblem in such a place; and in every instance, except this one of Llansaintfraed, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 360, October 1845 • Various

... hole, as he was wont to call it. He caused the door to be locked, and since then no one had entered the little building. The key, it was presumed, had been lost; the lock certainly looked rusty. The roof, too, soon fell into disrepair, and no doubt within, the place soon became the prey of damp and mildew, the nest of homing birds, or the lair of timid beasts. Very soon the proud copy of an archaic temple took on that miserable and forlorn look peculiar to ...
— The Nest of the Sparrowhawk • Baroness Orczy

... object of uniting the two fleets into one, when occasion should require, made an attempt to re-open the canal between the Nile and the Red Sea, which had been originally constructed by Seti I. and Ramesses II., but had been allowed to fall into disrepair. The Nile mud and the desert sand had combined to silt it up. Neco commenced excavations on a large scale, following the line of the old cutting, but greatly widening it, so that triremes might meet in it and pass each other, without shipping their oars. After a time, however, he ...
— Ancient Egypt • George Rawlinson

... view by its princely owners, the Dukes of Rutland, who, though for more than a century back they have ceased to inhabit it, have yet most carefully protected the building from falling into the slightest disrepair. ...
— Heiress of Haddon • William E. Doubleday

... neglected his duties, and allowed the castle to fall into disrepair, almost into ruin. This was not altogether his own fault. The castle was of importance as guarding the marches against the Welsh, always ready, at the least provocation, to make raids into England. The office of constable was honorary ...
— Castles and Cave Dwellings of Europe • Sabine Baring-Gould

... us, encumbrances of which we cannot easily rid ourselves, influential ideas which are no longer adequate to our present situation, obsolete emotions, methods, or institutions. We may allow our cultural inheritance, through bad education, to fall into disrepair ...
— Human Traits and their Social Significance • Irwin Edman

... rebuilt, the fallen aqueducts were left in ruins, the boulevards fell into disrepair and guinea-grass rioted through the cracked pavements. Back of the town the plantations were neglected, the great houses fallen, while the present owners lived contentedly in the little huts which once had been ...
— Plotting in Pirate Seas • Francis Rolt-Wheeler

... built by the father of the present proprietor, was a decent mansion, suitable to the size of the estate, but, since the accession of this owner, it had been suffered to go considerably into disrepair. At some little distance from the house stood the court ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott

... now the small, clean place, fresh with whitewash and bright with garden flowers, shone upon by the sun and sung about by birds, to which he had brought Jacqueline. The tenant had been dull, and the place was fallen into disrepair. In the winter air and without a leaf or flower, it looked again as it had looked when he and Gideon lived there alone. He dismounted, fastened Selim to the fence, and entered by the ...
— Lewis Rand • Mary Johnston

... walls of Placentia bristled with 22 defenders, and the fields glittered with the soldiers' armour. The Vitellian legions[259] advancing in close order with their auxiliaries in scattered bands assailed the higher portions of the walls with stones and arrows: where the walls were in disrepair or crumbling from age they came close up to them. The Othonians above, poising and aiming their weapons with surer effect, rained them down on the Germans, who came rashly charging under the walls with the wild songs and scanty dress of their country, brandishing their shields over ...
— Tacitus: The Histories, Volumes I and II • Caius Cornelius Tacitus

... Argentan to Mortree, a village of no importance except for the fact that one must pass through it if one wishes to visit the beautiful Chateau d'O. This sixteenth century mansion like so many to be seen in this part of France, is in a somewhat pathetic state of disrepair, but as far as one may see from the exterior, it would not require any very great sum to completely restore the broken stone-work and other signs of decay. These, while perhaps adding to the picturesqueness of the buildings, do not bring out that aspect of carefully ...
— Normandy, Complete - The Scenery & Romance Of Its Ancient Towns • Gordon Home

... mules, in many cases hideous physical specimens of their breeds, furnished the motive power. The cars were little "bobtailed" receptacles, usually badly painted and more often than not in a desperate state of disrepair. In many cities the driver presided as a solitary autocrat; the passengers on entrance deposited their coins in a little fare box. At night tiny oil lamps made the darkness visible; in winter time shivering passengers warmed themselves by pulling their coat collars and furs closely ...
— The Age of Big Business - Volume 39 in The Chronicles of America Series • Burton J. Hendrick

... something of the disrepair of the chamber, but was silenced by the irritable impatience which was expressed in his master's countenance; he lighted the way trembling and in silence, placed the lamp on the table of the deserted room, and was about to attempt some arrangement of the bed, when his master big him begone ...
— Bride of Lammermoor • Sir Walter Scott

... the right, they came down to a little inn by the water-side. It was shabby with the look of disrepair which all inns had at that time. Its paint was chapped and faded; its windows cracked and held together by pasted strips of paper. The putty had perished in places, so that some of the panes were on the point of falling out. Nevertheless, ...
— The Kingdom Round the Corner - A Novel • Coningsby Dawson

... they sat in the long library, John happened to mention Rosemary Sussex,—and the old parsonage, where his boyhood had been spent, untenanted now—in disrepair. Sir Peter asked a casual question or two. For the rest of the evening he schemed ...
— Old Valentines - A Love Story • Munson Aldrich Havens

... long felt its blight. Breaking out at the opening of the season, it interrupted the planting and cultivating of the grounds. It struck an entire summer out of one year, and broke in upon another. The fields were neglected; fences, roads, barns, and even the meeting-house, went into disrepair. Burdens were accumulated upon the already over-taxed resources of the people. An actual scarcity of provisions, amounting almost to a famine, continued for some time to press upon families. Farms were brought under mortgage ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham



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