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Slur   Listen
verb
Slur  v. t.  (past & past part. slurred; pres. part. slurring)  
1.
To soil; to sully; to contaminate; to disgrace.
2.
To disparage; to traduce.
3.
To cover over; to disguise; to conceal; to pass over lightly or with little notice. "With periods, points, and tropes, he slurs his crimes."
4.
To cheat, as by sliding a die; to trick. (R.) "To slur men of what they fought for."
5.
To pronounce indistinctly; as, to slur syllables; to slur one's words.
6.
(Mus.) To sing or perform in a smooth, gliding style; to connect smoothly in performing, as several notes or tones.
7.
(Print.) To blur or double, as an impression from type; to mackle.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Slur" Quotes from Famous Books



... sovereigns on the spot to a common fund to be raised for the purpose. "I don't know what is to be done with a country like this," said Captain Glomax, who, as an itinerant, was not averse to cast a slur upon the ...
— The American Senator • Anthony Trollope

... resemblance of some people to cucumbers. Why is celery more aristocratic than potato? Is "them" the right word in the sentence: "I do not pull them up"? Explain what is meant by the paragraph on salads. Why is the tomato a "parvenu"? Does the author wish to cast a slur on the Darwinian theory? Is it true that moral character is influenced by what one eats? What is the catechism? What do you think of the author's theories about scarecrows? About "saving men from any particular vice"? Why does raising one's own vegetables make one feel ...
— Modern Prose And Poetry; For Secondary Schools - Edited With Notes, Study Helps, And Reading Lists • Various

... some spirit, for the implied slur upon Our Square stung me. "In fact, I was reading one of our local publications when you inter—when you arrived. It contains some ...
— From a Bench in Our Square • Samuel Hopkins Adams

... self-conceited," said Mrs. Barclay, ready to resent any slur upon her boy. "He has excellent business capacity, and if he were older I should not need to ...
— The Store Boy • Horatio Alger, Jr.

... this moment, and could not but resent what appeared to be a most unseemly slur cast upon her friends. 'I don't understand it at all,' she said. 'Of course the Emperor is there. Everybody has known for the last month that he was coming. What is the meaning of ...
— The Way We Live Now • Anthony Trollope

... when around a single note these represent a note in the extract which was bracketed or otherwise highlighted. When around two or more notes, they represent a slur or beam. ...
— Critical & Historical Essays - Lectures delivered at Columbia University • Edward MacDowell

... I had an odd sort of reluctance to mention the subject to my entertainers. The thing itself was a ghostly slur upon the house, and, to run away, a reproach to my manhood; and besides, writing now at a distance, and in the spirit of history, I suspect the interest which beauty always excites had a great deal to do with my resolve to hold my ground; and, I dare say, notwithstanding my other ...
— Wylder's Hand • J. Sheridan Le Fanu

... Siva, and that lady joyfully cohabiting with him, held the semen virile in her hands. And then she thought within herself that those who would observe her in that disguise in the forest, would cast an unmerited slur upon the conduct of those Brahmana ladies in connection with Agni. Therefore, to prevent this, she should assume the disguise of a bird, and in that state she should more easily get out of ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli

... Miss Bibby, had said the piece was perfect. But Pauline herself had a lurking, miserable doubt in her mind; she seemed to recollect just one mistake, just one tiresome finger jumping up to a black note, when it should have played a white one with a slur. She stared wretchedly at the written statement before her. Suppose it were not true—think of writing a lie, an actual lie to mother! But, indeed, if she really knew for certain that she had played D flat she would not dream of writing so. It was the doubt ...
— In the Mist of the Mountains • Ethel Turner

... thought to Pearl, and she pondered it deeply. The charge against her family—the slur which could be thrown on them was not that of dishonor, dishonesty, immorality or intemperance—none of these—but that they had worked at poorly paid, hard jobs, thereby giving evidence that they were not capable of getting easier ...
— Purple Springs • Nellie L. McClung

... which is called "intoning." It is a plaintive, rhythmical chant, with as strong an unction of the nasal as ever prevailed in a Quaker or Methodist meeting. I cannot exactly understand why Episcopacy threw out the slur of "nasal twang" as one of the peculiarities of the conventicle, when it is in full force in the most approved seats of church orthodoxy. I listened to all in as uncritical and sympathetic a spirit as possible, giving myself up to be lifted by the music as high as it could waft me. To ...
— Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands V2 • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... I told Lee this morning that it was a shame to draw the line on that little girl just because that rotten, bad brother-in-law of hers was base enough to slur her at the club. But, as you say, women can't be driv. However, I think Lee can manage a dinner if anybody can. As you say, we're only artists, and artists can do anything—except borrow money. However, if you want to know, Lee says that this ...
— Money Magic - A Novel • Hamlin Garland

... opinions quite freely, without any restraint. He got so carried away by his subject, and spoke so loudly, that he quite alarmed the order-bedecked general. Nejdanov was a strong admirer of Ostrovsky, but could not help feeling, in spite of the author's great genius, his evident desire to throw a slur on modern civilisation in the burlesqued character of Veherov, in "Never Sit in ...
— Virgin Soil • Ivan S. Turgenev

... BRITANNIS IN MONTIBUS, indeed, but alas! INERUDITO SAECULO - once, in the days of his good dog, he had bought some sheep in Edinburgh, and on the way out, the road being crowded, two were lost. This was a reproach to John, and a slur upon the dog; and both were alive to their misfortune. Word came, after some days, that a farmer about Braid had found a pair of sheep; and thither went John and the dog to ask for restitution. But the farmer was a hard ...
— Memories and Portraits • Robert Louis Stevenson

... soon came to a conclusion. They decided that there could be no doubt as to the authenticity of the Aulus Gellius. In portions it was true that between the lines other characters were partly legible; but this threw no slur on the MS. itself. Of the commentary on the book of Jasher, it will be remembered, they gave no decisive opinion, and it is still an open question. They expressed their belief that the Aulus Gellius was alone worth the price asked by Dr. Groschen. It only remained now for the ...
— Masques & Phases • Robert Ross

... of following out the pregnant hint of Athanasius that sin is no true part of human nature (else were God the author of evil), Apollinarius cut the knot by refusing the Son of Man a human spirit as a thing of necessity sinful. Too thoughtful to slur over the difficulty like Pelagius, he was yet too timid to realize the possibility of a conquest of sin by man, even though ...
— The Arian Controversy • H. M. Gwatkin

... contact, contiguity, juxtaposition, osculation, tangency; taction, tact, palpation; dash, sprinkling, soupcon, infusion; animadversion, censure, stricture, reflection, slur. Associated words: tactile, tactility, tactual, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming

... she, raising herself to her full height, her slender fingers clenched together, every nerve 'roused to action,—"if you would not insult me, never again call the woman who has had the heart to cast such a slur upon the character of her whom we know is innocent, my mother! It is not to injure your feelings that she has invented such a vile scheme, but it is by injuring Natalie's character in your eyes, she may banish from her heart all future happiness. Nay, do not start at such a strange ...
— Natalie - A Gem Among the Sea-Weeds • Ferna Vale

... reveal love as truly as the most soothing words. The warning comes in time. 'Forty days' of grace are granted. The gospel warns us in time enough for escape. It warns us because God loves; and they are as untrue messengers of His love as of His justice who slur over the ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St Matthew Chapters I to VIII • Alexander Maclaren

... such men are artists, and that this is what art means, and what it does for people, and that such a narrow, cowardly life is what we, fellow-handicraftsmen, aim at. I see this taken for granted continually, even by many who, to say truth, ought to know better, and I long to put the slur from off us; to make people understand that we, least of all men, wish to widen the gulf between the classes, nay, worse still, to make new classes of elevation, and new classes of degradation—new ...
— Hopes and Fears for Art • William Morris

... better acknowledge it at once so as to preserve the poor animal's character, which was, and is, so far as I know up to the present, as spotless as his coat, never having had a slur cast upon it, save in this one respect, that 'Gyp,' as the master-at-arms said, in his funny ...
— Young Tom Bowling - The Boys of the British Navy • J.C. Hutcheson

... want. He was, therefore, really distressed, when he fixed upon some necessitous and greedy emigrants for his instruments to play on the credulity of the English Ministers in some of their unguarded moments. Their generosity in forbearing to avenge upon the deluded French exiles the slur attempted to be thrown upon their official capacity, and the ridicule intended to be cast on their private characters, has been much approved and admired here by all liberal-minded persons; but it has also much disappointed Bonaparte and Talleyrand, who expected to see these emigrants ...
— Memoirs of the Court of St. Cloud, Complete - Being Secret Letters from a Gentleman at Paris to a Nobleman in London • Lewis Goldsmith

... it must be so," said Chinston, with a sigh, "but it seems very hard that this slur should ...
— The Mystery of a Hansom Cab • Fergus Hume

... of its paws, and made a noise such as some of the other animals make when they are in distress. I wish it would not talk; it is always talking. That sounds like a cheap fling at the poor creature, a slur; but I do not mean it so. I have never heard the human voice before, and any new and strange sound intruding itself here upon the solemn hush of these dreaming solitudes offends my ear and seems a false note. And this new sound is so close to me; it is right at my shoulder, ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... Unfortunately for Van Haubitz, the jeweller and some other tradesmen at Frankfort, so soon as they learned his departure, had forwarded their accounts to the care of the Amsterdam firm; and, although his father had not the remotest intention of paying them, he was incensed in the extreme at the slur thus cast upon his house and name. In short, the unlucky artilleryman at once saw he had no chance of a single kreuzer, or of the slightest countenance from his father. His applications to his brothers, and one or two to more distant relatives, were equally ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 62, No. 384, October 1847 • Various

... he had been, as it might seem to the superstitious, marked by fate for a destiny peculiarly severe. His real birth was long disputed, without the shadow of a reason, except what was suggested by a base court intrigue. This slur upon his legitimacy, which was afterwards virtually wiped away by the British Parliament, was nevertheless the greatest obstacle to his accession, there being nothing so difficult to obliterate as a popular impression ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745. - Volume I. • Mrs. Thomson

... of emery paper, did one require it, there are reams; but it is a point with every housekeeper that the spoons be hidden in a different place each night. If anybody excepting herself can find them in the morning, it is a slur upon her. No matter, a stick of firewood, sharpened at one end, makes an ...
— The Second Thoughts of An Idle Fellow • Jerome K. Jerome

... which was a mile away up stream, a guard of a lieutenant and twenty-five men to be stationed at the agency itself. The major demurred, and the agent wired to Washington with the usual result. Whatsoever slur upon his actions McPhail had seen fit to cast at the expense of Mr. Davies during the investigation recently referred to, he had heard enough to convince him that the Indians spoke of that officer with awe and reverence and ...
— Under Fire • Charles King

... down." As if to live up to the lucrative berth, Mr. Forquer had finished a frame-house—Springfield still had log houses, and not only in the environs, either!—and to cap the novelty, had that other new feature, a lightning-rod, put upon it. The object of the slur at youth had listened to the diatribe, flattering only so far as he ...
— The Lincoln Story Book • Henry L. Williams

... silenced for the moment. She did not mind the greater number of the rival comet's tails. It was not that which made her feel herself at a disadvantage. It was the slur at her lesser relationship to the master of the house. Any reference to that was a blow which never failed to make her flinch; and one which the widow never lost a chance to deal. But Miss Penelope had not yielded an inch through the ceaseless contention ...
— Round Anvil Rock - A Romance • Nancy Huston Banks

... believe that ships have souls, it may be that she gloried in her shame, like other fallen creatures; for her large, slanting oval hawse-pipes and boot-top stripe gave a fine, Oriental sneer to her face-like bow, and there was slur and insult to respectable craft in the lazy dignity with which she would swash through the fleet on the port tack, compelling vessels on the starboard tack to give up their right of way or be rammed; for she was a large ...
— "Where Angels Fear to Tread" and Other Stories of the Sea • Morgan Robertson

... their generosity, which puts into one's mouth statements that on final analysis may be cold facts, but which, remembering that one is lecturing on work among people whom one loves and respects, it would never occur to me to slur at a public meeting. No one who tries to alter conditions which exist can expect to escape making enemies. I have seen reports of what I have said at advertised meetings, that were subsequently cancelled. I have followed ...
— A Labrador Doctor - The Autobiography of Wilfred Thomason Grenfell • Wilfred Thomason Grenfell

... thing in the case of all future attempts at blackmail, once we have got a clean slate in regard to all compromising questions. Our enemies will, however, persist in leaving no stone unturned in order to cast a slur upon the Embassy, for their principal object is to succeed in bringing about my recall, or the rupture of diplomatic relations with Germany. Once they have accomplished this, they are convinced that it will be an easy matter to draw the United ...
— My Three Years in America • Johann Heinrich Andreas Hermann Albrecht Graf von Bernstorff

... wants say this before we go any further. Nobody bet not slur my wife in here—do I'll strow 'em ...
— De Turkey and De Law - A Comedy in Three Acts • Zora Neale Hurston

... in his eyes, Than that my lord through me should suffer shame. Am I so bold, and could I so stand by, And see my dear lord wounded in the strife, And maybe pierced to death before mine eyes, And yet not dare to tell him what I think, And how men slur him, saying all his force Is melted into mere effeminacy? O me, I fear that I am ...
— Idylls of the King • Alfred, Lord Tennyson

... already?" he repeated. "But not all of them? I know you compose. You are not saying that you are about to give composition up?" A forced and awkward "slur," ...
— Bertram Cope's Year • Henry Blake Fuller

... she?" with an emphasis on that feminine, personal pronoun which was all the bitterer slur on the rest of womankind in that neighborhood, that he was so unconscious of the reflection it conveyed. The cook and the stable-boy also came running to the kitchen door, on hearing the hostler's exclamation; and they, too, stood gazing at the unconscious Mercy, and each, in ...
— Mercy Philbrick's Choice • Helen Hunt Jackson

... went on Brereton, as he stretched himself flat on the floor, "that I might then kiss that of Venus— and over hers I did not hurry, lads. Therefore, gentlemen, my present taste is, despite Gibbs' slur, most excellent, and I expect sweet dreams till his Excellency wants me. Silence ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford

... vigour enough for it, and when the senate was inclined to entrust the business to his colleague Caius Laelius, the father of this Laelius, who was surnamed the Wise; Publius Africanus, the elder brother of Lucius Scipio, rose up, and entreated them not to cast such a slur on his family, and said that in his brother there was united the greatest possible valour, with the most consummate prudence, and that he too, notwithstanding his age, and all the exploits which he had performed, would attend his brother ...
— The Orations of Marcus Tullius Cicero, Volume 4 • Cicero

... will be to drop, or slur, the final syllables of the words; to leave off the sound of final ed; to lose the sharpness of the s; to blur the l; and sometimes to lose the sound of k and c. But, if he has learned to read, by pointing to these letters in the words he has spoken ...
— What the Mother of a Deaf Child Ought to Know • John Dutton Wright

... of that commission thoroughly exculpated Sir James Brooke from any blame, there was never any amende honourable made for subjecting him to such an indignity. It was never understood by the natives as anything but a slur on the Rajah's character, and was a terrible injury to his prestige for a time. Indeed, it was the seed of the Malay plot; and if we had all been killed, our own English Government would have been the remote cause of our death. It is no doubt difficult for Englishmen to ...
— Sketches of Our Life at Sarawak • Harriette McDougall

... soprano, and a bass and tenor, too. I can thrill and slur and frill and whirr and shake you through and through. I'm a Jews' harp—I'm an organ—I'm a fiddle and a flute. Every kind of touching sound is ...
— Wild Animals at Home • Ernest Thompson Seton

... disclose the secret, under the oppression of which his very life was wasting away. He knew that if he once revealed it, whether his father was ultimately proved to be guilty or innocent, there would remain a slur and a suspicion on the family, and on Perrine besides, from her approaching connection with it, which in their time and in their generation could never be removed. The reproach of the world is terrible ...
— After Dark • Wilkie Collins

... mind, sir, I can see nobody—do you hear? Nobody. I am particularly engaged with a gentleman from Asia)—My boy, would you give us that little Christmas book (a little Christmas book of Dickens's, Macready, which I'm anxious you should hear); and don't slur it, now, or be too fast, Dickens, please!'—I say, if you was a real gent, something to this effect might happen. I shall be under sailing orders the moment I have finished. And I shall produce myself (please God) in London on the very day you ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster

... other hand, you sanction the marriage, and conceal the truth, you commit a deliberate act of deceit; and you leave the lives of the young couple at the mercy of a possible discovery, which might part husband and wife—cast a slur on their ...
— The Legacy of Cain • Wilkie Collins

... The Request, so pathetic, playful and persuasive is it. It is in E minor and has a plaintive, appealing quality. The G major part is very pretty. In the last lines the passion mounts, but is never shrill. Kullak notes that in the fifth and sixth bars there is no slur in certain editions. Klindworth employs it, but marks the B sforzando. A slur on two notes of the same pitch with Chopin does not always mean a tie. The A flat Mazurka, No. 3, is pessimistic, threatening and irritable. Though in the key of E major ...
— Chopin: The Man and His Music • James Huneker

... said my wife, "though I agree with you as to the actual state of society in this respect, I must enter my protest against your slur on the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 107, September, 1866 • Various

... as well. That wound, therefore, seemed at first to go against him, but he bandaged it, and plastered it, and hoped for better luck. And his third wound truly was a blessed one, a slight one, and taken in the proper course of things, without a slur upon any of his comrades. This set him up again with advancement and appointment, and enabled him to marry and ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore

... I may tell to you, my 'old school-fellow') to make me wish for this 'fine lady's recovery' and 'health'; and that is, (by some distant intimations,) I have heard from Mr. John Harlowe, that it is 'very likely' (because of the 'slur' she hath received) that she will choose to 'live privately' and 'penitently'—and will probably (when she cometh into her 'estate') keep a 'chaplain' to direct her in her 'devotions' and 'penitence'—If she doth, who can stand a 'better chance' than 'myself'?—And as I find (by ...
— Clarissa, Or The History Of A Young Lady, Volume 8 • Samuel Richardson

... slur for Archie even more than the young man did. She felt vaguely that Archie ought to do something to demonstrate that he was not a worthless character, possibly kick Mr. Smith out of the studio, at least protest at being called a "cad" and "adventurer." ...
— Clark's Field • Robert Herrick

... Chandler," she responded, speaking with the plaintive Southern slur and intonation. "My husband was taken suddenly ill about ten minutes before you came. He has had attacks of heart trouble before—some of them were very bad." His clothed state and the late hour seemed to prompt her to further ...
— Rolling Stones • O. Henry

... blood put in my veins that never rose up in them by birth. You to have put a slur maybe on the whole of my posterity for ever. That now is a thing ...
— New Irish Comedies • Lady Augusta Gregory

... a share of the congratulations. Although the faithful creature had retreated on each occasion of his being attacked, no one thought of casting a slur upon his canine courage. He had only exhibited a wise discretion: for what chance would he have stood against such a formidable adversary? He had done better, therefore, by taking to his heels; for had he foolishly stood his ground, and ...
— The Cliff Climbers - A Sequel to "The Plant Hunters" • Captain Mayne Reid

... that God is in no sense implicated by his creative act, or involved in his creation. That his relation to the creatures he has made should make any difference to him, carry any consequence, or qualify his being, is repudiated as a pantheistic slur upon his self-sufficingness. I said a moment ago that theism treats us and God as of the same species, but from the orthodox point of view that was a slip of language. God and his creatures are toto genere distinct ...
— A Pluralistic Universe - Hibbert Lectures at Manchester College on the - Present Situation in Philosophy • William James

... with him—this gentleman here—for sending him some money to-morrow.' She said it with a slur of the word gentleman which was more contemptuous than any emphasis, and walked slowly on. The man bent his head again, and the girl spoke to him as they both followed her. Clennam ventured to look ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens

... easy chair, with a cup of my thinnest china in one hand and a copy of Walter Pater's Marius the Epicurean in the other. We had been speaking of climate, and he wanted to look up the passage where Pater said, "one always dies of the cold"—which I consider a slur on the Northwest! ...
— The Prairie Wife • Arthur Stringer

... convincing. As Prince of the Republic, as Chief Pontiff of Rome, I proclaim this Priestess cleared of all imputations whatever. Manifestly she is dear to Vesta, and worthy of the favor she has shown her. Henceforward let no man dare to smirch her with any slur or slander." ...
— The Unwilling Vestal • Edward Lucas White

... only the present situation can be turned to advantage, this crowning paradox is the most hopeful element in the whole of a tangled question. It is not only that the British elector is likely to revolt at once against the slur upon his intelligence and the drain upon his purse, but that Irish Unionism, once convinced of the tenacity and sincerity of that revolt, is likely to undergo a dramatic and beneficent transformation. ...
— The Framework of Home Rule • Erskine Childers

... enough to follow the quick movement of his hand. None saw it drop or rise again. There was a slur of movement, and then, in the hand which had been empty, was a long-barrelled Colt. Cherry Bim, taking no notice of the sensation he created, tossed the revolver to the ceiling and ...
— The Book of All-Power • Edgar Wallace

... this was a deed of wonderful courage, and no man denied it, but it is curious that so stern a supporter of discipline as Havelock did not see that his son had put himself in a position where he had no right to be, and in so doing had thrown a slur on the bravery of the major, who except for the accident of his horse being shot would have led the men himself. But Havelock, full of pride in his son's action, insisted, to the great mortification of the 64th, ...
— The Red Book of Heroes • Leonora Blanche Lang

... same time suppressing its enormous and perhaps insuperable difficulties. People know exactly what to think of it, and, whether it ever meets with perfect success or proves a complete failure, no one in the country will ever think of casting a slur on the bright name of its peerless ...
— All Around the Moon • Jules Verne

... Jimmy will doubtless explain," answered Alfred with a slur on the "dear." Then he turned toward the door of his study. "Pray excuse me—I'M TOO BUSY," and with that he strode out of the room and banged the study ...
— Baby Mine • Margaret Mayo

... fury such words as these, spoken in Barnaby's hearing, not to mention that vile slur set upon himself, must have cast our hero. To be sure he scarcely knew what he did, but he put his hand against Sir John Malyoe's breast and thrust him back most violently, crying out upon him at the same time for daring so to threaten a young lady, ...
— Stolen Treasure • Howard Pyle

... their labour, the rights of marriage and of the parental relation, which are respected even among the most savage nations; it sustains an iniquitous internal slave-trade—it corrupts the owners, and casts a slur upon the dignity of labour. It acts as an incubus on public improvement, and vitiates public morals; and it proves a very formidable obstacle to religion, advancement, and national unity; and so long as it shall remain a part of the American constitution, ...
— The Englishwoman in America • Isabella Lucy Bird

... detail which it would be disingenuous to slur over. It is this. We are told that Saint Joseph was awkward and backward in his development. As a child his boy-comrades used to laugh at him for his open-mouthed staring habits; they called him "bocca-aperta" ...
— Old Calabria • Norman Douglas

... in the presence of only a few chosen friends is what many may prefer and desire; but considering the inevitable slur contained in the words: "Why did they do it?" the woman, at least, would do well to refrain from the ...
— The Etiquette of Engagement and Marriage • G. R. M. Devereux

... but to convince observers of the haughtiness of one's own temper; and looked, as if one would question their compliance with our wills, unless we would exact it with an high hand; which might cast a slur upon the command we gave, as if we thought it was hardly so reasonable as otherwise to obtain ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson

... aware that, under no circumstances whatever, will our Army and Fleet be employed in taking part in the quarrels of our neighbours. The entire Cabinet are grieved at questions so frequently put to them—questions that are not only disquieting abroad, but a slur upon the intentions of men whose sole duty is the safety and peace of the ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100, June 20, 1891 • Various

... obloquy, opprobrium, ignominy. dishonor, disgrace; shame, humiliation; scandal, baseness, vileness[obs3]; turpitude &c. (improbity) 940[obs3]; infamy. tarnish, taint, defilement, pollution. stain, blot, spot, blur, stigma, brand, reproach, imputation, slur. crying shame, burning shame; scandalum magnatum[Lat], badge of infamy, blot in one's escutcheon; bend sinister, bar sinister; champain[obs3], point champain[obs3]; byword of reproach; Ichabod. argumentum ad verecundiam[Lat]; sense of shame &c. 879. V. be inglorious &c. adj.; incur disgrace &c. ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget

... no one to cast a thought upon the matter: all who take the least interest repose entire faith in the Institute. Hence the French discoverer turns all his thoughts to the Institute, and looks for his only hearing in that quarter. He therefore throws no slur upon the means of knowledge, but would say, with M. Demonville: "A l'egard de M. Poisson,[632] j'envie loyalement la millieme partie de ses connaissances mathematiques, pour prouver mon systeme d'astronomie aux plus incredules."[633] This system is that the only bodies of our system ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume I (of II) • Augustus De Morgan

... Ant. XIII, 10:6a-c] Now there was a certain Jonathan, a great friend of Hyrcanus, but of the sect of the Sadducees, whose ideas are the opposite of those of the Pharisees. He told Hyrcanus that Eleazar had cast that slur upon him according to the common opinion of all the Pharisees and that this would be made clear if he would ask them the question, What punishment they thought this man deserved? For in this way he might be sure that the slur was not laid on him with ...
— The Makers and Teachers of Judaism • Charles Foster Kent

... rapidly, "let us thresh out the matter ourselves. We will save Sir Frank's name from a police court slur at ...
— The Green Mummy • Fergus Hume

... made to an atrocious slur cast without a shred of evidence on her moral character. There is as little foundation for more general though milder charges of laxity. It is admitted that she had little love for her first husband, and it seems to ...
— The Tales Of The Heptameron, Vol. I. (of V.) • Margaret, Queen Of Navarre

... is it, then, we don't abhor This horrid little prude? Why don't we cast the foullest slur On such a Prussian character? Because, as I remarked before, She ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, October 20, 1920 • Various

... not worm-like subtlety that suggested that reply. It was positive inspiration. By those simple words Juliana had done something to remove the slur she was always casting on a certain character. Tollington Moon had not managed his nieces' affairs so badly after all if one of them could afford herself extravagances of that sort. The blouse therefore might be taken as a sign and ...
— Superseded • May Sinclair

... art, having the same general objects as heretofore, but with a more express view to the benefit of the reader. Looking even at those memoirs which, like Hayley's of Cowper, have been checked by pathetic circumstances from fixing any slur or irreverential scandal upon their subject, we still see a great fault in the mass of biographic records; and what is it? It is—that, even where no disposition is manifested to copy either the eloge or the libellous pasquinade, too generally the author appears ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. 1 (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey

... declined to do so; I have declined to attend republican meetings and I have abstained from subscribing to republican funds. I also refused to join the Republican Club formed at Cambridge University, though I am far from wishing to cast a slur on those Liberal politicians—Professor Fawcett and others—who did join it. The view I took was that I had no right to make use of my position as a member of the House of Commons, gained largely by the votes of those who are not even theoretical republicans, ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke V1 • Stephen Gwynn

... had so long really embittered his existence. Those were truly happy holidays, and he looked forward eagerly to the time when he might return to school, and lift up his head among his companions without a sense of shame, or the slightest slur attached ...
— Ernest Bracebridge - School Days • William H. G. Kingston

... the fact betimes That flattery is the nurse of crimes. Friendship, which seldom nears a throne, Is by her voice of censure known. To one in your exalted station A courtier is a dedication; But I dare not to dedicate My verse e'en unto royal state. My muse is sacred, and must teach Truths which they slur in courtly speech. But I need not to hide the praise, Or veil the thoughts, a nation pays; We in your youth and virtues trace The dawnings of your royal race; Discern the promptings of your breast, Discern you succour the distrest, Discern your strivings to attain ...
— Fables of John Gay - (Somewhat Altered) • John Gay

... from between his lips to offer protest against this slur, but changed his mind, and resumed smoking, though ...
— Klondike Nuggets - and How Two Boys Secured Them • E. S. Ellis

... question, this is the most confident, and the sorest. {5} A writer on astronomy said of Mr. Jellinger Symons,[18] "Of course he convinced no one who knew anything of the subject." This "ungenerous slur" on the speculator's memory appears to have been keenly felt; but its truth is admitted. Those who knew anything of the subject are "the so-called men of science," whose three P's were assailed; prestige, pride, and prejudice: this the author ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume II (of II) • Augustus de Morgan

... You know them well enough; you only play at not knowing because you regard it as a slur on their characters, instead of as the ...
— Works, V3 • Lucian of Samosata

... L28,000 to L7,000. This means a wretched pittance to beneficiaries who, before your fraud, were enjoying a fairly decent income. I am aware that you are a distinguished Magistrate,—that you have belonged to many Clubs,—that there is not a slur upon the cooking that used to distinguish your dinner-parties. I know the severity of the sentence I am about to pass, and I wish my conscience would permit me to give you a ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Volume 102, March 19, 1892 • Various

... by the slur thus slyly cast upon British honour, invited the young gentleman to make himself ...
— The Snare • Rafael Sabatini

... Betty's temper flared up belligerently as she recalled them. He had evidently meant to insinuate that Charley had lied outright when he told her the motive for the attack, and he had followed it up by that covert slur on his character. Charley's devotion was the thing that redeemed the dull monotony of existence. She became suddenly humble and tenderly penitent in her mood toward him; he loved her much better ...
— The Prodigal Judge • Vaughan Kester

... heavy cavalry used panoply as impenetrable as the European chivalry of the middle ages. Among the other scattered traits of manners, it will be remarked as singular, according to the ideas of the present day, that open piracy and robbery are neither spoken of as disreputable, nor as attaching any slur to those who exercised them; insomuch, that the notoriety of Thyamis, having been a chief of freebooters, is not regarded as any obstacle to his assumption of the high-priesthood. But this, it will ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine—Vol. 54, No. 333, July 1843 • Various

... stiffly withstood the party that was not his, and upon some slur and insolence took from a man his office. Followed a week of glassy smoothness. Then suddenly, by chance, was discovered the plot of Bernal Diaz de Pisa—the first of many Spanish conspiracies. It involved several hundred men and was no less a thing than the seizure in ...
— 1492 • Mary Johnston

... Yet the slur upon her identity could always hurt Nancy Nelson. Many a night, after Jennie was sound asleep in her bed, Nancy ...
— A Little Miss Nobody - Or, With the Girls of Pinewood Hall • Amy Bell Marlowe

... suspiciously. Did he mean to cast some slur upon his conduct? He was sorry he could not see the Secretary's face more clearly, and he was anxious also to be gone. But the great man seemed to have ...
— Before the Dawn - A Story of the Fall of Richmond • Joseph Alexander Altsheler

... for Peter Blood that the argument should have left him unmoved. It is a little thing, perhaps, but in a narrative in which there is so much that tells against him, I cannot—since my story is in the nature of a brief for the defence—afford to slur a circumstance that is so strongly in his favour, a circumstance revealing that the cynicism attributed to him proceeded from his reason and from a brooding over wrongs rather than from any natural instincts. "I ...
— Captain Blood • Rafael Sabatini

... Jones the Acting British Agent had written to the Acting High Commissioner (December 30, 1898): 'I will only remark that the enclosed report ... seems to show that the Public Prosecutor (Krause), who has been deeply offended by the slur cast upon his judgment through the orders from Pretoria to keep the accused in prison instead of out on bail, was more inclined to defend than to prosecute and showed an extraordinary desire to incriminate either ...
— The Transvaal from Within - A Private Record of Public Affairs • J. P. Fitzpatrick

... was quickly, with a queer catch in his voice, that he added—"I ask you to do this, my sister"—he had never before called Madeleine Baudoin "my sister"—"because of Claire's children, of Clairette and Jacqueline. Their mother would not wish a slur to rest upon them." ...
— Studies in love and in terror • Marie Belloc Lowndes

... but offered no comment. In fact, he treated the affair so lightly that Mr. Harley felt relieved; that latter speculator had been somewhat disturbed in his mind concerning Storri's opinion of what, to give it a best description, evinced niggard distrust of Storri, and cast in negative fashion a slur ...
— The President - A novel • Alfred Henry Lewis

... Parnell of wilful and deliberate falsehood in denying his connection with P. J. Sheridan, Sir Charles Lewis reappeared on the scene, and, with protest of his desire that the Irish leader should have the earliest opportunity of clearing his character from the slur cast upon it, moved that the printers of the Times be brought to the Bar on a charge of breach of privilege. Mr. W. H. Smith, then fresh to the leadership, did his best to shake off this inconvenient counsellor. Sir Charles's proposal ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 29, May 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various

... them, I shall do it.—Save you, Monsieur Florimel! Faith, me thinks you are a very janty fellow, poudre et ajuste, as well as the best of 'em. I can manage the little comb; set my hat, shake my garniture, toss about my empty noddle, walk with a courant slur, and at every step peck down my head: If I should be mistaken for some courtier now, pray where's ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. II • Edited by Walter Scott

... his words carefully, "when a man gets married, he wants to marry a lady, not a tomboy." For some unknown reason, he resented any slur cast at Isabel. ...
— Old Rose and Silver • Myrtle Reed

... of the saints are of a redeeming virtue; for, by their patient enduring and losing their blood for the word, they recover the truths of God that have been buried in Antichristian rubbish, from that soil and slur that thereby hath for a long time cleaved unto them; wherefore it is said, They overcame him, the beast, 'by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony, and they loved not their lives unto the death' (Rev 12:11). They overcame him; that is, they recovered the truth from under ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... tremulous motion could be communicated to the string, which not only prolonged the tone appreciably but gave it an expressive effect somewhat analogous to the vibrato of a violinist. The Germans called this effect Bebung, the French Balancement, and it was indicated by a row of dots under a short slur written over the note. It is to the special fondness which Bach felt for the clavichord that we owe, to a great extent, the cantabile style of his music, its many-voicedness and ...
— How to Listen to Music, 7th ed. - Hints and Suggestions to Untaught Lovers of the Art • Henry Edward Krehbiel

... never poked my nose into literature or politics; I have never sought popularity in polemics with the ignorant; I have never made speeches either at public dinners or at the funerals of my friends.... In fact, there is no slur on my learned name, and there is no complaint one can make against ...
— The Wife and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov

... the leader of the orchestra in the restaurant downstairs?" asked Archie, ignoring the slur. ...
— Indiscretions of Archie • P. G. Wodehouse

... kind of face which is always turned away from facts,' Gideon said. 'Facts are too difficult, too complicated for him. Hard, jolly facts, with clear sharp edges that you can't slur and talk away. Potterism has no use for them. It appeals over their heads to prejudice and sentiment.... It's the very opposite to the scientific temper. No good scientist could conceivably be a Potterite, because he's concerned ...
— Potterism - A Tragi-Farcical Tract • Rose Macaulay

... seemed to her a direct slur upon her father's memory, but knew it was just. She could fairly hear him laugh as Marie spoke, sitting back in an easy attitude, perhaps mixing a julep and cackling amusedly in that peculiar voice ...
— Joyce's Investments - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry

... the leaves at the border of the path. She was going; and the contemptuous slur at my "reasons" proved that she did not believe them existent. She believed me ...
— The Rise of Roscoe Paine • Joseph C. Lincoln

... her house over the rise of that land where you can see the chimblys." Mr. Gammon was perfunctory in that reply, but immediately his little blue eyes began to sparkle and he launched out into his troubles. "There's them that don't believe in witches. I know that! And they slur me and slander me. I know it. I ...
— The Skipper and the Skipped - Being the Shore Log of Cap'n Aaron Sproul • Holman Day

... attractive manner and a clear enunciation that not even acute nervousness can slur or disorganize. He is, in fact, an excellent public speaker, never missing the value of a sentence, and managing his voice so well that even in the open air people are able to follow what he says at a distance ...
— Westward with the Prince of Wales • W. Douglas Newton

... consist of ten wide yards of soft white muslin or soft red material, so ingeniously disposed as to drape the bust and lower limbs, and form a girdle at the same time. One shoulder and arm are usually left bare. The part which may be called a petticoat—though the word is a slur upon the graceful drapery—is short, and shows the finely turned ankles, high insteps, and small feet. These women are tall, and straight as arrows; their limbs are long and rounded; their appearance is timid, one might almost say ...
— The Golden Chersonese and the Way Thither • Isabella L. Bird (Mrs. Bishop)

... some things which offend the nostrils more than—odours!" threw back Wynne with a black look in Nigel's direction, and with a sort of slur in his voice that showed he had been drinking more than was good for him that night. "I think I can endure the smells of Cairo after—other things. Eh, Nigel?" He forced a laugh which was mirthless and unpleasant, and Merriton, with a quick glance into his ...
— The Riddle of the Frozen Flame • Mary E. Hanshew

... in the young man's smile, for though Hawtrey had cast no particular slur upon the family's credit he had signally failed to enhance it, and he was quite aware that his English relatives did not greatly desire his presence ...
— Masters of the Wheat-Lands • Harold Bindloss

... his grandfather; not one of that purse-proud and haughty kind of men. That is why I have written to him and made the request on your behalf. Were he different to what he really is, not only would he cast a slur upon your honest purpose, honourable brother, but I myself likewise would not have been as ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin

... a Rich Barian anything which he doubts, instead of simply asking you if it is true, he will invariably cock his head interrogatively, and almost pathetically address you with the solemn adjuration, "Honest Indian?" Whether this phrase is a slur or a compliment to the aborigines of this ...
— The Shirley Letters from California Mines in 1851-52 • Louise Amelia Knapp Smith Clappe

... projected invention of the steam-boat by Lord Stanhope. The atrocities committed during the fury of the French Revolution had so entirely cured him of his predilection for the popular part of our Government, that he could not resist the opportunity, however ill-timed, of casting a slur on this nobleman, who was accused of being over-partial to it. In the third Essay, on Parochial Psalmody, he gives the preference to Merrick's weak and affected version over the two other translations that are used ...
— Lives of the English Poets - From Johnson to Kirke White, Designed as a Continuation of - Johnson's Lives • Henry Francis Cary

... struck Newman, and which Mr. Birrell found easy to discern, was of course always familiar to Ulstermen as characteristic of "the South and West," and was their justification for the badge of "loyalist," their assumption of which English Liberals, knowing nothing of Ireland, held to be an unjust slur ...
— Ulster's Stand For Union • Ronald McNeill

... continued, seizing the astounded Margari by the cravat, "you are a refined scoundrel. You persuaded my dear nephew Coloman to take that false step and then you yourself changed the forty florins into forty thousand. You wanted to ruin the young man's future and bring a slur upon the family. I know everything. His honour the magistrate told me all about it yesterday, and that is why I hand you over to the law for punishment." And with that he shook him so violently that he fell on his back again, this time into a bed of tomatoes, whereby his ...
— The Poor Plutocrats • Maurus Jokai

... woman was anything to him! She was crying hard, now; "He just isn't frank, that's all." She could bear that; it was cruel, but she could bear it! And it was a protection to Maurice, too; it saved him from the slur of being suspected. "Oh, I am ashamed to have suspected him!" she thought; "how dreadful in me! But I've proved that I was wrong." When she said that she knew, in a numb way, that after this she must not play with the dagger of an unbelieved suspicion. She recognized that this ...
— The Vehement Flame • Margaret Wade Campbell Deland

... inaction, would certainly attack us, I thought it advisable to make a forward movement; but the attitude of the 29th was not encouraging. I addressed them, and expressed a hope that they would now by their behaviour wipe out the slur of disloyalty which the firing of the signal shots had cast upon the regiment, upon which Captain Channer,[7] who was just then in command, stepped forward, and said he would answer for the Sikhs; but amongst the Pathans there was an ominous ...
— Forty-one years in India - From Subaltern To Commander-In-Chief • Frederick Sleigh Roberts

... business. Graham would not, and in a maudlin, stupid sort of speech declared his opposition, which was honest enough. All this annoyed the Government very much, and now O'Connell is said to be quite satisfied with what he has done, and does not want to have a committee, but (having thrown a slur on the Judge by the vote of Parliament) to let the matter drop. Spring Rice also voted against the Government, and said that he had never known a worse case since he sat in Parliament, and that nothing could be more mischievous than the effect such ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. III • Charles C. F. Greville

... confesses to have felt a little concern at an imputation, which was once faintly attempted to be made, he scarcely now remembers by whom, that in the character of Nathan Slaughter he intended to throw a slur upon the peaceful Society of Friends, of which Nathan is described as having been an unworthy member. This notion is undeserving of serious challenge. The whole object was here to portray the peculiar characteristics of a class of men, ...
— Nick of the Woods • Robert M. Bird

... or which have undergone a transplanting to their disadvantage, they will often remain perfectly dormant to all appearance for a year or more. Such plants should be moved into a moist fissure in rockwork, east aspect, and the soil should be of a peaty character. This may seem like coddling, and a slur on hardy plants. Here, however, we have a valuable subject, which does not find a home in this climate exactly so happy as its native habitat, but which, with a little care, can have things so adapted to its requirements as to be grown year after year in its ...
— Hardy Perennials and Old Fashioned Flowers - Describing the Most Desirable Plants, for Borders, - Rockeries, and Shrubberies. • John Wood

... conscious of her beauty, and perhaps of certain other things. Fire under that ice, I conjecture—red corpuscles rampant behind that meek white mask of hers. "Forsitan in hoc anno pulcherrima debutantium" is the verdict of a contemporary journal. For "forsitan" read "certe." No slur, that, on the rest of ...
— A Christmas Garland • Max Beerbohm

... consider that fact, and fit yourselves to be useful, not superfluous women. That class, by the way, is largely made up of widows, I find; so don't consider it a slur ...
— Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott

... slur seemed to attach to Kitty. The acquaintances she had made in her brief and curious fashion were all, or nearly all, socially immaculate. The friends (they were all men) who came to her of their own intimate accord, belonged, some of them, ...
— The Immortal Moment - The Story of Kitty Tailleur • May Sinclair

... when this declaration was made was scanty. Only twenty-nine lay peers were present, not because many of the great houses had become extinct, but because some of the principal Yorkist peers had been attainted, and others had been left without a summons. In the quieter times which followed this slur upon them was removed, and the House of Lords was again filled. On January 18, 1486, Henry married Elizabeth. This marriage and the blending of the white and red rose in the Tudor badge was Henry's way of announcing ...
— A Student's History of England, v. 1 (of 3) - From the earliest times to the Death of King Edward VII • Samuel Rawson Gardiner

... not mention this, my lord," said the counsel, "had not a certain magistrate, in another place, at an earlier stage of this inquiry, used language—in my humble opinion harsh and unwarranted— calculated to cast a slur on that gentleman's character, if not to interfere seriously with his future prospects. I merely wish to say, my lord, that my clients, and those of us who have gone fully into the case, and may be expected ...
— Reginald Cruden - A Tale of City Life • Talbot Baines Reed

... what is the use of asking what I mean when you know quite well, Noel? Hubert insulted me in his will, and cast a slur on my character by forbidding me to marry you. Freddy—although he did not fire the second shot—certainly lured Hubert to his death by forging that letter. I don't intend to consider my husband's memory any more, nor my brother's position. I shall ...
— Red Money • Fergus Hume

... Another slur upon the noble sport of chub fishing is the fact of his not being worth eating—a fact which, in the true sportsman's eyes, will go for nothing. But though the man who can buy fresh soles and salmon may despise chub, there are those who do not. True, you may make a most accurate ...
— Prose Idylls • Charles Kingsley

... at once to Strahan's room and tell him of the loss sustained. A deposit had been confided to me, and I felt as if there were a slur on my honour every moment in which I kept its abstraction concealed from him to whom I was responsible for the trust. I hastily ascended the great staircase, grim with faded portraits, and found myself in a long corridor opening on my own bedroom; no doubt also on Strahan's. ...
— A Strange Story, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... HIS CORRESPONDENTS.—A Correspondent, who writes himself Peter Ball, or Bell,—for his hand-writing is as ragged as his manners—admonishes me of the old saying, that some people (under a courteous periphrasis I slur his less ceremonious epithet) had need have good memories. In my 'Old Benchers of the Inner Temple,' I have delivered myself, and truly, a Templar born. Bell clamours upon this, and thinketh that he hath caught a fox. It seems that in ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb

... some difficulty in telling all that had happened. He hesitated, blushed, hummed and hawed. Misgivings began to cross his mind when he found himself obliged to tell his story to someone else. He felt inclined to slur things over, but I wanted to get at the facts, so I helped him over the bad places, and questioned him till I had got out pretty nearly the whole story as I have ...
— The Way of All Flesh • Samuel Butler

... it was still the Middle Ages in Austria, and promised to remain so forever. Some even set it away back centuries upon centuries and said that by the mental and spiritual clock it was still the Age of Belief in Austria. But they meant it as a compliment, not a slur, and it was so taken, and we were all proud of it. I remember it well, although I was only a boy; and I remember, too, the ...
— The Mysterious Stranger and Other Stories • Mark Twain



Words linked to "Slur" :   obliterate, play, talk, focus, mar, speak, smear, dim, blur, smudge, verbalize, weaken, musical notation, smirch, spiel, blot, refer, disparagement, music, splotch, verbalise, depreciation, blotch, blemish, daub, spot, ethnic slur, defect



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