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Uncivilized   Listen
adjective
Uncivilized  adj.  
1.
Not civilized; not reclaimed from savage life; rude; barbarous; savage; as, the uncivilized inhabitants of Central Africa.
2.
Not civil; coarse; clownish. (R.)






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Uncivilized" Quotes from Famous Books



... Emperor of the Roman Empire of the West. In Spain, Charlemagne ruled the country between the Pyrenees and the Ebro; but his most important conquests were effected on the eastern side of his original kingdom, over the Sclavonians of Bohemia, the Avars of Pannonia, and over the previously uncivilized German tribes who had remained in their fatherland. The old Saxons were his most obstinate antagonists, and his wars with them lasted for thirty years. Under him the greater part of Germany was compulsorily civilized, and converted ...
— The Fifteen Decisive Battles of The World From Marathon to Waterloo • Sir Edward Creasy, M.A.

... natural beverage, although even they find it palatable only when suffering from the recurrent disorder known as thirst, for which it is a medicine. Upon nothing has so great and diligent ingenuity been brought to bear in all ages and in all countries, except the most uncivilized, as upon the invention of substitutes for water. To hold that this general aversion to that liquid has no basis in the preservative instinct of the race is to be unscientific—and without science we are ...
— The Devil's Dictionary • Ambrose Bierce

... who, as defined by Johnson, holds his dinner as the most important business of the day. Cargill did not act up to this definition, and was, therefore, in the eyes of his new acquaintance, so far ignorant and uncivilized. What then? He was still a sensible, intelligent man, ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott

... between modern Europe and ancient Europe and Asia: I mean the respect paid to women. To what nation, I say, is due the chivalrous respect to women which is the surest sign of civilization, and which was unknown to the ancient Greeks and Romans, except to the Germans, who even in their most uncivilized state paid such veneration to their women as to consult them as oracles on all occasions and to admit them to their councils? Tacitus particularly mentions this; and speaking of the Germans of his time, he says, "They have an idea that there is something divine about a woman."[126] It ...
— After Waterloo: Reminiscences of European Travel 1815-1819 • Major W. E Frye

... "You UNCIVILIZED Beasts!" cried Benham, and before Amanda could realize what he was up to, she heard the crack of his revolver and saw a puff of blue smoke drift away above his right shoulder. The foremost beast rolled over and the goatherd had sprung to his feet. He shouted with something between anger ...
— The Research Magnificent • H. G. Wells

... watched the flickering of the fire and the heavy masses of the shadows. She could not sleep. There came upon her the feeling of unreality in her surroundings which is experienced by nearly all civilized human beings when thrown into the uncivilized surroundings of nature. It all seemed to her like some rapid and fevered dream. She wondered what had become of Henry Decherd, what had been the cause of his sudden departure from the steamer. She resolved to summon courage on ...
— The Law of the Land • Emerson Hough

... second bottle of the Patterne Port to Doctor Middleton, Clara's father—and the old fellow says: 'I have but a girl to give?' Well, I feel like that. This is the most wonderful eating that humanity has ever devised. I'm not a glutton. If I were I should have sampled this before. I'm just an uncivilized man from the bush overwhelmed by a new sensation. I'm your debtor, General, to all eternity. And your genius in recommending this wine"—he filled Andrew's glass with Cinzano's Asti Spumante—"is worthy of the man who saw us out at Bourdon Wood. By the way," he added, ...
— The Mountebank • William J. Locke

... surely defend their own territory against invasion or damage, and the national honor and the rights of their citizens throughout the world, by the wise scientific use of surplus revenue, derived from high import duties if the people so please, instead of by the former uncivilized method of sacrificing the lives of hundreds of thousands of brave men. Far more, such sacrifice of the brave can no longer avail. As well might it be attempted to return to hand- or ox- power, freight-wagons and country roads, in place of the present steam-locomotives, trains of ...
— Forty-Six Years in the Army • John M. Schofield

... well aware of it, sir; and indeed, if I may be permitted to take advantage of the apropos, it was on the subject of one of your daughters that I wished to speak to you this morning, and which brought me over at this uncivilized hour, hoping to ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 2 (of 2) • Charles Lever

... live here always. If we make money we'll want to go back some day where there are people, and comforts and things going on. We'll want friends, everybody has friends. You don't mean for us always to stay far away from everything in these wild, uncivilized places?" ...
— The Emigrant Trail • Geraldine Bonner

... color as that material. His coolness and intrepidity had been shown on many occasions, and these qualities, together with his immense strength, had secured him high esteem among the Cherokees, who, like all uncivilized people, set the highest value upon personal courage and physical prowess. It is related that shortly before the massacre at Fort Loudon he interfered in a desperate feud between two Cherokee braves who ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, August, 1885 • Various

... urged that war has its own exigencies and that these three instances of uncivilized conduct partook of the nature of military necessities. Turning from the outrages of war to the triumphs of peace, let us make a disinterested attempt to find out just what foundation there may be for the implicit ...
— The New York Times Current History of the European War, Vol. 1, January 9, 1915 - What Americans Say to Europe • Various

... sentiment that provision for gratifying it is not confined to the cities which our modern civilization has reared, nor do the capitals of Christendom alone boast of their parks and similar places of resort. In effete and uncivilized Turkey the "institution" has long been established, and still flourishes; and the "Sweet Waters of Constantinople" draw quite as well, as regards both male and female visitors, as either Fairmount, Central or Hyde Park, or even the Bois de Boulogne, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - April, 1873, Vol. XI, No. 25. • Various

... physicians of every school for the relief of a great diversity of distressing symptoms, is instinctively resorted to by sympathizers and attendants upon the sick, and constitutes one of the chief duties of the nurse. Uncivilized people resort to this process as their principal remedy in ...
— The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English • R. V. Pierce

... that realm. He ordered that Christianity should be made the religion of the kingdom and the worship of Odin should cease; and put English bishops over the Danish clergy. He also brought in English workmen to teach the uncivilized Danes. Thus, Dane as Canute was, he preferred the religion and conditions of his conquered to those of his native kingdom, feeling that it was superior in all the arts and ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 9 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality. Scandinavian. • Charles Morris

... European War permeated everything from and through the nation to the individual, from trade and commerce and world-finance to the cost of food and the price of labor. The whole world, civilized and uncivilized, was drawn into this whirlpool of disaster - the majority of the population of the earth was actually at war. Was it possible that such a vast conflict - so far reaching in its racial and national elements, so bitter in its ...
— A History of The Nations and Empires Involved and a Study - of the Events Culminating in The Great Conflict • Logan Marshall

... which have attained stability and permanence in the history of the world is very small. If we leave out of consideration those vague and varying forms of faith and worship which we find among uncivilized and unsettled races, among races ignorant of reading and writing, who have neither a literature nor laws, nor even hymns and prayers handed down by oral teaching from father to son, from mother to daughter, we see that the number of the real historical ...
— Chips from a German Workshop - Volume IV - Essays chiefly on the Science of Language • Max Muller

... the whites as if nothing had been said; and taking it for granted that the Indians were as ignorant of civilized speech as they appeared, some of the inquisitive pale-faces indulged themselves in quite uncivilized speeches, for they had a traditional contempt and ...
— The Cabin on the Prairie • C. H. (Charles Henry) Pearson

... most savage and uncivilized tribes is eagerly cultivated even at the risk of life. New avenues to trade are opened up in places where men, still living in the most primitive state, have few if any wants; and it is considered as part of the keen merchant's skill to fill the minds of these uncouth ...
— Irish Race in the Past and the Present • Aug. J. Thebaud

... easy transit of the desert, were visible in small patches of coal, scattered upon the sand; presently we saw a dark nondescript object, that did not look at all like the abode of men, civilized or uncivilized; and yet, from the group hovering about an aperture, seemed to be tenanted by human beings. This proved to be an old boiler, formerly belonging to a steam-vessel, and appearing, indeed, as if some black and shapeless hulk had been cast ...
— Notes of an Overland Journey Through France and Egypt to Bombay • Miss Emma Roberts

... to Eleanor a characteristic of the whole make up. Her dress was not otherwise than neat, and yet that epithet would never have occurred to one in describing it; all graces of style or attire were so ignored. Her gown sat without any; so did her collar; both were rather uncivilized, without partaking of the picturesqueness of savage costume. The face was by no means disagreeable; lacking neither in sense, nor in spirit nor in kindliness; but Eleanor perceived at once that the mind must have a serious want somewhere, in refinement or discernment: ...
— The Old Helmet, Volume II • Susan Warner

... and tempted forth, are savagely menaced, rudely repelled; whatsoever is finest in the man, together with the entire nature of woman, lies, in that low temperature, enchained and repressed, like seeds in a frozen soil. The harsh, perpetual contest with want and lawless rivalry, to which all uncivilized nations are doomed, permits only a few low powers, and those much the same in all,—lichens, mosses, rude grasses, and other coarse cryptogamous growths,—to develop themselves; since these alone can endure ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 43, May, 1861 • Various

... senate and people of Rome have committed and intrusted to your honour and authority, of doing your best to protect them, and of desiring their greatest happiness. Even if the lot had made you governor of Africans, or Spaniards, or Gauls—uncivilized and barbarous nations—it would still have been your duty as a man of feeling to consult for their interests and advantage, and to have contributed to their safety. But when we rule over a race of men in which civilization not only exists, but from which it is believed to have spread ...
— The Letters of Cicero, Volume 1 - The Whole Extant Correspodence in Chronological Order • Marcus Tullius Cicero

... of this population was altogether unlike that of the Indian race. The latter, it is true, formed no part of the colonial communities, and never amalgamated with them in social connections or in government. But although they were uncivilized, they were yet a free and independent people, associated together in nations or tribes, and governed by their own laws. Many of these political communities were situated in territories to which the white ...
— Report of the Decision of the Supreme Court of the United States, and the Opinions of the Judges Thereof, in the Case of Dred Scott versus John F.A. Sandford • Benjamin C. Howard

... "Boys, we came out here with the glorious prospect of capturing a Yankee general and his staff, and instead of getting him, we have broken up a nigger funeral and captured the gospel sharp, armed with a picket fence, and a kicking mule. Shall we hang him for engaging in uncivilized, warfare, by stabbing us with pickets poisoned with whitewash, or shall we take the red-headed slim-jim back with us as a curiosity." The boys all said not to hang me, but to take me along. I saw that it was all day with me this time. I felt that I was helping put down ...
— How Private George W. Peck Put Down The Rebellion - or, The Funny Experiences of a Raw Recruit - 1887 • George W. Peck

... to remark the other negresses more particularly than before. He was gratified with their manners: like most uncivilized women, they seemed at once tender of heart and tough of constitution; equally ready to die for their infants or fight for them. Unsophisticated as leopardesses; loving as doves. Ah! thought Captain Delano, these, perhaps, are some of the very women whom Ledyard ...
— The Piazza Tales • Herman Melville

... fool enough to run away from college, thinking it a fine romantic thing to ship before the mast for a voyage round the world. I was a little disappointed, perhaps, but I made the best of it, and in two years I was second mate of a whaler lying in a little harbor of one of the uncivilized islands of the Pacific. While we were at anchor there a French trading vessel put in, apparently for water. She had the dregs of a mixed crew of Lascars and Portuguese, who said they had lost the rest of their men by ...
— By Shore and Sedge • Bret Harte

... illustrated, Walking Stewart's view of the English character will be found to terminate: and his opinion is especially valuable—first and chiefly, because he was a philosopher; secondly, because his acquaintance with man civilized and uncivilized, under all national distinctions, was absolutely unrivalled. Meantime, this and others of his opinions were expressed in language that if literally construed would often appear insane or absurd. The truth is, his long intercourse with foreign ...
— The Notebook of an English Opium-Eater • Thomas de Quincey

... and uncivilized races makes it clear beyond question that the customary beliefs of tribes or nations are almost invariably false. It is difficult to divest ourselves completely of the customary beliefs of our own age and nation, but ...
— Political Ideals • Bertrand Russell

... she replied, with a grimace, and began to set the room in order, bending herself into graceful attitudes, and by each of her gestures making Lavretsky feel that she considered him an uncivilized bear. It was with a sensation of downright hatred that he watched the mocking expression of her faded, but still piquante, Parisian face, and looked at her white sleeves, her silk apron, and her little cap. At last he sent her away, and, after long hesitation, as Varvara Pavlovna ...
— Liza - "A nest of nobles" • Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev

... manifest their pious enthusiasm in no other way than by rocking their bodies backwards and forwards, and singing with their cracked voices a gruesome and monotonous chant. This rude song had something of a wild and uncivilized nature, as if it had come down to these old people from the savage rites of their African ancestors. They did not sing in unison, but each squeaked or piped out her, "Yi, wiho, yi, hoo!" according to the strength ...
— The Late Mrs. Null • Frank Richard Stockton

... says, "There is not perhaps a finer country in the world for the residence of uncivilized man, than that which occupies the shore between the Red River and Lake Superior; fish, various fowl and wild rice are in great plenty: the fruits are, strawberries, plums, cherries, ...
— A Letter from Major Robert Carmichael-Smyth to His Friend, the Author of 'The Clockmaker' • Robert Carmichael-Smyth

... upon the roughness and rudeness with which men meet on these occasions, if the polished ladies of the land would come up to the ballot-box clothed with these rights and participate in the exercise of the franchise. It has not been found that association with ladies is apt to make men rude and uncivilized; and I do not think the reflex of it prevents that lady-like character which we all prize so highly. I do not think it has that effect. On the other hand, in my judgment, if it was popular to-day for ladies to go to the polls, no man would regret their presence there, and ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage

... dress, for pleasure and for sway, are the passions of savages; the passions that occupy those uncivilized beings who have not yet extended the dominion of the mind, or even learned to think with the energy necessary to concatenate that abstract train of thought which produces principles. And that women, from their education and the ...
— A Vindication of the Rights of Woman - Title: Vindication of the Rights of Women • Mary Wollstonecraft [Godwin]

... Tangerines of the tint of the bottom of pots, Tangerines of every—no, I beg to recall that, there are no well-defined blue or green Tangerines; at least, none that came under my ken. The town is as old as the hills and courageously uncivilized. There is no gasholder, no railway-station, no theatre, no cab-stand, no daily paper, and no drainage board to go into controversy over. It is unconsciously backward, near as it is to Europe—a rifle-shot off the track of ships plying ...
— Romantic Spain - A Record of Personal Experiences (Vol. II) • John Augustus O'Shea

... further step in the same high process, in which force is to be put down by intelligence, and success, even in war, is to depend on the industry of peace; thus, in fact, providing a perpetual restriction on the belligerent propensities of nations, and urging the uncivilized, by necessity, to own the superiority, and follow the example of the civilized, by knowledge, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLII. Vol. LV. April, 1844 • Various

... such things. A charivari, even out here in this uncivilized section of the country, can hardly be dangerous. I really do not think we care to run away, thank you." Her lip curled unmistakably. "Mr. Fleetwood is suffering from a sick headache. He needs rest—not ...
— Lonesome Land • B. M. Bower

... apprehension of hostility on either side. The intercourse between the two parties of civilized and uncivilized men was truly fraternal. The French conformed, as far as possible, to the modes of life of the Indians. They shared in their games, married the daughters of their chiefs, and in all points endeavored to identify the interests of ...
— The Adventures of the Chevalier De La Salle and His Companions, in Their Explorations of the Prairies, Forests, Lakes, and Rivers, of the New World, and Their Interviews with the Savage Tribes, Two Hu • John S. C. Abbott

... nature of his deed; having argued that it was against England his treachery was directed, and that was a virtue in his eyes; not seeing what direct injury could come to Byng through it. He had not seen, he had not understood, he was still uncivilized; he had only in his veins the morality of the native, and he had tried to ruin his master's wife for his master's sake; and when he had finished with Fellowes as a traitor, he was ready to ruin his confederate—to kill him—perhaps did ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... After destroying the only organized government in the archipelago, the only security for life and property, native and foreign, in great commercial centers like Manila, Iloilo, and Cebu, against hordes of uncivilized pagans and Mohammedan Malays, should we then scuttle out and leave them to their fate? A band of old-time Norse pirates, used to swooping down on a capital, capturing its rulers, seizing its treasure, burning the town, abandoning the people to domestic disorder and foreign ...
— Problems of Expansion - As Considered In Papers and Addresses • Whitelaw Reid

... (5) There is a tendency among human beings to artificial adornment during the period of courtship, but not to natural ornament to any extent, as among many animal species. (6) The indorsement of society is almost invariably sought, both among uncivilized and civilized peoples, before the establishment of a new family—usually through the forms of a religious marriage ceremony. (7) Chastity in women, especially married women, is universally insisted upon, both ...
— Sociology and Modern Social Problems • Charles A. Ellwood

... left alone. I remember going back one day into the room, and seeing him so. My entrance partially aroused him from a brown study. (He was at all times very "absent") He rose, said grace aloud for the benefit of the company—which had dispersed—and withdrew to his library. But we abolished this uncivilized custom in conclave, and thenceforth sat our meals ...
— Six to Sixteen - A Story for Girls • Juliana Horatia Ewing

... in clips of five, and the little bullets famous for their long flight are covered with nickel. The Remington bullets are bigger and coated with brass. Something has been said to the effect that the Remington balls used by the Spaniards are poisonous and that it is uncivilized to manufacture them. The object of the Mauser and Remington system in covering the bullets, the one with nickel and the other with brass, is not to poison, but to prevent the lead from fouling the rifles. The point is almost reached ...
— The Story of the Philippines and Our New Possessions, • Murat Halstead

... acted in this manner, in order the better to secure to himself the possession of the crown. For, having to deal with men yet uncivilized, and no very good judges of true merit, he was afraid, that too great a familiarity with him might induce contempt, and occasion plots and conspiracies against a growing power, which is generally looked upon with invidious and discontented ...
— The Ancient History of the Egyptians, Carthaginians, Assyrians, • Charles Rollin

... a rough and mountainous country, separated, on the west, from Acarnania by the river Ach-e-lo'us, the largest of the rivers of Greece, was inhabited, like Acarnania, by a hardy and warlike race, who long preserved the wild and uncivilized habits of a barbarous age. The river Achelous was intimately connected with the religion and mythology of the Greeks. The hero Hercules contended with the river-god for the hand of De-i-a-ni'ra, the most beautiful woman of his time; ...
— Mosaics of Grecian History • Marcius Willson and Robert Pierpont Willson

... benediction and increase from heaven, as to render Ireland a most flourishing garden in the church of God, and a country of saints. And those nations, which had for many ages esteemed all others barbarians, did not blush to receive from the utmost extremity of {603} the uncivilized or barbarous world, their most renowned teachers and guides in the greatest of all sciences, ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler

... at all improbable that the emigrants had been guilty of those faults from which civilized men who settle among an uncivilized people are rarely free.'—Macaulay. 'Nor is it at all improbable that the emigrants had been guilty of the faults that (such faults as) civilized men that settle (settling, or settled) among an uncivilized people are rarely ...
— The Verbalist • Thomas Embly Osmun, (AKA Alfred Ayres)

... as follows: "Extensive influence of poetic genius over the remotest and most uncivilized nations; its connection with liberty and the virtues that naturally attend on it. [See the Erse, Norwegian, and Welsh fragments; the Lapland and American songs.]" He also quotes Virgil, Aen. vi. ...
— Select Poems of Thomas Gray • Thomas Gray

... marks of it to make it credible) that this was no island at first, but a part of the continent. Utopus that conquered it (whose name it still carries, for Abraxa was its first name) brought the rude and uncivilized inhabitants into such a good government, and to that measure of politeness, that they now far excel all the rest of mankind; having soon subdued them, he designed to separate them from the continent, and to bring the sea quite round them. To accomplish this, he ...
— Ideal Commonwealths • Various

... see a little of bush life at that dear Wiriwilta that Emily was always talking about. She did not think that she would care to stay long, but for a year or two she really thought the life would be very pleasant for a change, just to see how things were done in these outlandish uncivilized places. She said, too, to her brother, that she thought she could be of service to Mrs. Phillips and the children. The society of Victoria was so indifferent, that it would be desirable to form a pleasant little coterie of one's own. The children's music ...
— Mr. Hogarth's Will • Catherine Helen Spence

... dancing-girl. Her dancing was not any of those noble and majestic movements which make part of the entertainment of the most wise, of the education of the most virtuous, which improve the manners without corrupting the morals of all civilized people, and of which, among uncivilized people, the professors have their due share of admiration; but these dances were not decent to be seen nor fit to be related. I shall pass them by. Your Lordships are to suppose the lowest degree of infamy in occupation and ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. X. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... should be remembered, that just as in civilized lands, all these demonstrations of joy and sorrow are tempered by moderation and wisdom, and subdued by silent acquiescence in the Divine will, so in uncivilized lands, they are the occasion for giving the loose rein to passion and tumult and violent emotion. How much in conformity with true faith in God, and religious principle, is the quiet, well-ordered and moderate course of procedure among ...
— The Women of the Arabs • Henry Harris Jessup

... will pretend that the Filipinos have had any political training. Before the arrival of the Spaniards, only 350 years ago, they were all uncivilized. Many of them are still semi-savages; others are savages pure and simple. These facts are indisputable. If, then, we turn to history for assistance, we can not find a single instance of any real political evolution in any of the various divisions of the inhabitants ...
— The Head Hunters of Northern Luzon From Ifugao to Kalinga • Cornelis De Witt Willcox

... to be anticipated in Mr. Collins's enterprise are the extent of the territory to be traversed, its wild and rugged surface formation, and the uncivilized character ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 97, November, 1865 • Various

... of stone. Very few of these divine precepts are not found among the precepts of the Ottawa and Chippewa Indians, except with regard to the Sabbath day to keep it holy; almost every other commandment can be found, only there are more, as there were about twenty of these "uncivilized" precepts. They also believed, in their primitive state, that the eye of this Great Being is the sun by day, and by night the moon and stars, and, therefore, that God or the Great Spirit sees all things ...
— History of the Ottawa and Chippewa Indians of Michigan • Andrew J. Blackbird

... language thoroughly, said adieu forever to her embroidered jackets and pink silk trousers, succeeded in adapting her figure and her gait to European garb, to the embarrassment of long skirts; and one evening, at the opera, displayed to the marvelling Parisians the figure, still a little uncivilized, but elegant, refined and so original, of a female Mussulman in a decollete ...
— The Nabob, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet

... a sad fact that when a highly civilized people meet an uncivilized people, each race celebrates the occasion by appropriating all the evil qualities of the other. Vices, not virtues, are the first to fraternize. It was as unfair of Cook's crew to judge the islanders by the rabble swarming out to steal from the ships, as it would be for a newcomer to ...
— Vikings of the Pacific - The Adventures of the Explorers who Came from the West, Eastward • Agnes C. Laut

... a spear, had been known to their ancestors; and that they, in their superstitious fancies, had imagined that by wearing his totem, it would save them from being wounded with the same kind of weapon used in killing him. Let us not laugh at such a singular conceit among uncivilized tribes, for it still prevails in Europe. On many of the French and German soldiers, killed during the last German war, were found talismans composed of strips of paper, parchment or cloth, on which ...
— Vestiges of the Mayas • Augustus Le Plongeon

... madam," said Paganel, divining her thoughts. "The aborigines of Australia are low enough in the scale of human intelligence, and most degraded and uncivilized, but they are mild and gentle in disposition, and not sanguinary like their New Zealand neighbors. Though they may be prisoners, their lives have never been threatened, you may be sure. All travelers are unanimous in declaring that the Australian natives ...
— In Search of the Castaways • Jules Verne

... Vancouver the two "farmers" held a day's consultation. They warmed up on a matinee, digested a Chinese dinner of chop suey and foyung, rice-cakes and various uncivilized desserts, went to bed late, and next morning had a plunge in the ocean. By that time they had decided Vancouver was a bad place to begin operations in, and they took boat for Victoria. There they really went ...
— A Canadian Bankclerk • J. P. Buschlen

... in the sunshine near the two mounds, which my remaining bronze boy has decorated with crocuses from the neighboring ravine. He spends long hours after dark, gathering wild flowers in the moonlight. His devotion to me and my dead love, is the saddest, most boundless tribute that an uncivilized mind could offer. Silently he goes about his duties; silently he grieves, and more silently he gathers flowers as a tangible evidence ...
— Letters of a Dakota Divorcee • Jane Burr

... Africa, and all that part of Asia which lies any considerable way north of the Euxine and Caspian seas, the ancient Scythia, the modern Tartary and Siberia, seem, in all ages of the world, to have been in the same barbarous and uncivilized state in which we find them at present. The sea of Tartary is the frozen ocean, which admits of no navigation; and though some of the greatest rivers in the world run through that country, they are at too great a distance from one another to carry commerce ...
— An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations • Adam Smith

... been in Spain, and I have been in Peru," he answered dryly, "therefore I know classical Spanish and its colonial dialects. As to being in Lima, I was there, and I do not wish to go there again, as I had quite enough of those uncivilized parts thirty years ago, when the country was much ...
— The Green Mummy • Fergus Hume

... difficulty of access have excluded all laws and political surveillance. Nevertheless, throughout that desert, and neglected wilderness, the Nile has flowed for ages, and the people upon its banks are as wild and uncivilized at the present day as they were when the Pyramids were raised in Lower Egypt. The Nile is a blessing only half appreciated; the time will arrive when people will look in amazement upon a mighty Egypt, whose waving crops shall extend, far beyond the ...
— The Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia • Samuel W. Baker

... facility and completeness, still less have found in it matter for this thoroughly entertaining narrative. His ardor as a sportsman and a naturalist seems to have sprung from a stronger, independent love of "wild life," an instinctive preference for the haunts and habits of uncivilized races, apart from the pursuits for which they give scope. This may be thought to argue ignoble tastes; but the reverse conclusion would be more correct. Mr. Hornaday is a believer in the "gentle savage." The Dyak ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, November 1885 • Various

... country is in the hands of those who possess the property, the government is a civilized government; but, on the other hand, if it is in the hands of those who have no property, the government is necessarily an uncivilized government. It is quite impossible that any one should become a safe statesman who does not possess a direct property interest in society. You know there is not a tyro of our political sect who does not fully admit the ...
— The Monikins • J. Fenimore Cooper

... Lacedaemon troops of young men, with incredible earnestness contending together with their hands and feet, with their teeth and nails, nay, even ready to expire, rather than own themselves conquered. Is any country of barbarians more uncivilized or desolate than India? Yet they have among them some that are held for wise men, who never wear any clothes all their life long, and who bear the snow of Caucasus, and the piercing cold of winter, without ...
— Cicero's Tusculan Disputations - Also, Treatises On The Nature Of The Gods, And On The Commonwealth • Marcus Tullius Cicero

... earl who was very wealthy and enthusiastic on the subject of founding colonies in the Northwestern British possessions. He was a kind hearted but visionary man, and had no practical knowledge whatever on the subject of colonization in uncivilized countries. About the beginning of the nineteenth century he wrote several pamphlets, urging the importance of colonizing British emigrants on British soil to prevent them settling in the United States. In 1811 he obtained a grant of land from the Hudson Bay Company in the region of Lake Winnipeg, ...
— The History of Minnesota and Tales of the Frontier • Charles E. Flandrau

... not so pleasant as Milwaukee, nor so picturesque as St. Paul, nor so grand as Chicago, nor so civilized as Cleveland, nor so busy as Buffalo. Indeed, Detroit is neither pleasant nor picturesque at all. I will not say that it is uncivilized; but it has a harsh, crude, unprepossessing appearance. It has some 70,000 inhabitants, and good accommodation for shipping. It was doing an enormous business before the war began, and, when these troublous times are over, will no doubt again go ahead. I do not, however, think it well ...
— Volume 1 • Anthony Trollope

... spectator, so it may be that those who "staged" the greatest war in mankind's history derive some bitter instruction from its reception by mankind. They know now that it is condemned by every civilized nation on earth; and before these lines are published their uncivilized catspaws will have ample reason to condemn it also. Neutrals there must ...
— Raemaekers' Cartoons - With Accompanying Notes by Well-known English Writers • Louis Raemaekers

... 'Then suppose we say revolvers at twelve paces or less. I have no prejudices.' It seems that the baron had, for he said my new proposition was also unheard of, uncivilized. ...
— A Diplomatic Adventure • S. Weir Mitchell

... what was coming, so I opened one of the windows all the way up, to let out the terrific fumes of the uncivilized stuff that he smoked, while he curled himself up comfortably in his strange position on top of the piano, with his chin resting on one hand, and his elbow on some sheet-music, and then smoked away like a steam-engine, as immovable as a bronze statue, while he ...
— The Adventures of the Eleven Cuff-Buttons • James Francis Thierry

... concerned. As soon as this truth is realized, a curious significance appears in some characteristic habits of the village school boys and girls. The boys, especially, deserve remark. That they are in general "rough," "uncivilized," I suppose might go without saying. It might also go without saying, were it not that the comparison turns out to be useful, that in animal spirits, physical courage, love of mischief and noise, they are at least a match for middle-class boys who go to the town grammar-school. I wish I ...
— Change in the Village • (AKA George Bourne) George Sturt

... liberating the serfs, which intention he carried out, and paid for with his own life in due time. Russia had been the only country to stand aloof on the slave question, thus branding herself in two worlds as still uncivilized. The young Czar knew that such a position was untenable. "Without the serf the Russian Empire must crumble away," his advisers told him. "With the serf she cannot endure," he answered And twenty-two millions of men were set free. In this act he stood almost alone; for hardly a single minister was ...
— The Vultures • Henry Seton Merriman

... barbarous and its speech was unknown to me; as for the monks, their vile and untameable way of life was notorious almost everywhere. The people of the region, too, were uncivilized and lawless. Thus, like one who in terror of the sword that threatens him dashes headlong over a precipice, and to shun one death for a moment rushes to another, I knowingly sought this new danger in order to escape from the former one. And there, amid ...
— Historia Calamitatum • Peter Abelard

... spectacle, none more likely to propitiate an impartial and common Creator, than a rigid adherence to the principles of justice on the part of a powerful nation in its transactions with a weaker and uncivilized people whom circumstances have ...
— U.S. Presidential Inaugural Addresses • Various

... the "force" is wanting, "humbug" is the weapon as a "pis aller." Katchiba having no physical force, adopted cunning, and the black art controlled the savage minds of his subjects. Strange does it appear, that these uncivilized inhabitants of Central Africa should, although devoid of religion, believe implicitly in sorcery; giving a power to man superhuman, although acknowledging nothing more than human. Practical and useful magic is all that is esteemed by the ...
— The Albert N'Yanza, Great Basin of the Nile • Sir Samuel White Baker

... Doubtless he HAD told the boy all sorts of tales; perhaps he HAD declared himself to be the defrauded instead of the defrauder; he was quite capable of it. Possibly the youngster did believe he had a claim upon the wealthy relatives in that "uncivilized" country, America. The wealthy relatives! I thought of Captain Barnabas's last years, of Hephzibah's plucky fight against poverty, of my own lost opportunities, of the college course which I had been obliged to forego. My indignation returned. I would not go back at once to ...
— Kent Knowles: Quahaug • Joseph C. Lincoln

... insuperable obstacles in the country itself, as it would have to pass over mountains and across deserts; while, as it turned north to Kamtschatka, it would come into a region of frightful cold, where winter reigns the greater part of the year. Of this whole country a large part is not only utterly uncivilized, but uninhabited, and portions which are occupied are held by savage ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 61, November, 1862 • Various

... was the last of its kind to leave German ports for years. The day after he sailed from Bremen came the war. Fanny Brandeis was only one of the millions of Americans who refused to accept the idea of war. She took it as a personal affront. It was uncivilized, it was old fashioned, it was inconvenient. Especially inconvenient. She had just come from Europe, where she had negotiated a million-dollar deal. War would mean that she could not get the goods ordered. Consequently there could ...
— Fanny Herself • Edna Ferber

... the bare thought of one of us leaving them, they manifested the most lively concern. The grief and consternation of Kory-Kory, in particular, was unbounded; he threw himself into a perfect paroxysm of gestures which were intended to convey to us not only his abhorrence of Nukuheva and its uncivilized inhabitants, but also his astonishment that after becoming acquainted with the enlightened Typees, we should evince the least desire to withdraw, even for a time, from their ...
— Typee - A Romance of the South Sea • Herman Melville

... minister can I be!" For what is left of the field the Lord sends the minister into? It is cut up and fenced off into countless divisions, to every one of which some earthly-agent or interest brings a title-deed. The minister finds the land of the world, like some vast tract of uncivilized territory, seized by wild squatters, owned and settled by other parties, and, as a famous political-economist said in another connection, there is no cover at Nature's table for him. As with the soldier in the play, whose wars were over, his ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., February, 1863, No. LXIV. • Various

... sounds now to be heard were the ticking of the instrument and the ceaseless cries of the storm. The Indians, the instant they heard the former, ceased their uncivilized mirth, again looked apprehensively at the mysterious instrument, and hurriedly glanced at me. Their treacherous, suspicious natures were thoroughly aroused on seeing me looking eagerly toward the instrument. I knew ...
— A Lover in Homespun - And Other Stories • F. Clifford Smith

... the uncivilized of all lands, had their own peculiar battle cry or war-whoop, which it is impossible to reproduce by letters. During our Civil War the Confederates gave a thrilling imitation of it in their famous "Rebel Yell," which every old soldier recalls ...
— Healthful Sports for Boys • Alfred Rochefort

... masterly sketch of the condition of woman in uncivilized life, in which the subject is illustrated by the most apposite quotations from the works of different travellers and historians. It is the writer's opinion that in uncivilized life, the degradation of woman, though common, is not universal. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 54, No. 335, September 1843 • Various

... becoming a hater of philosophy, uncivilized, never using the weapon of persuasion,—he is like a wild beast, all violence and fierceness, and knows no other way of dealing; and he lives in all ignorance and evil conditions, and has no sense of ...
— The Republic • Plato

... have an uncivilized way here of hanging murderers," said Cap, shaking herself free of Old Hurricane's grasp, and hastening out of the court-room to mount ...
— Capitola's Peril - A Sequel to 'The Hidden Hand' • Mrs. E.D.E.N. Southworth

... reason is an inescapable consequence of the political, economic, ideological and sociological assumptions of the civilizing process. The second reason is inherent in the methods used by civilized peoples in their dealing with the uncivilized majority of humanity. ...
— Civilization and Beyond - Learning From History • Scott Nearing

... offering any protection to native tribes, would be inexpedient.'' For nearly twenty years the spirit of that resolution paralysed British action in Africa, although many circumstances—the absence of any serious European rival, the inevitable border disputes with uncivilized races, and the activity of missionary and trader—conspired to make British influence dominant in large areas of the continent over which the government exercised no definite authority. The freedom with which blood and treasure were spent to enforce respect for the ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... me in the hall. "Delighted to see you," said he, "I have just been to—, (the nearest town) in order to discover what sort of savages abide there. Great preparations for a ball—all the tallow candles in the town are bespoken—and I heard a most uncivilized fiddle, ...
— Pelham, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... other words, intermediate between clan and tribe. Scholars usually call this group by its Greek name, phratry or "brotherhood", for it was known long ago that in ancient Greece clans were grouped into brotherhoods and brotherhoods into tribes. Among uncivilized people all over the world we find this kind of grouping. For example, a tribe of North American Indians is regularly made up of phratries, and the phratries are made up of clans; and, strange as it might at first seem, a good many half-understood features ...
— Civil Government in the United States Considered with - Some Reference to Its Origins • John Fiske

... him. The skins of animals have been used as clothing for thousands of years; and furs have become so general in dresses and ornaments, that, to obtain them, a regular trade has long been carried on. In this traffic, the uncivilized inhabitants of cold countries exchange their furs for useful articles and comforts and luxuries, which are only to be obtained from warmer climes and ...
— History, Manners, and Customs of the North American Indians • George Mogridge

... the ground, dip of strata, etc., the hydrographic area being, as a rule, by no means equal to the topographic area of a given basin. From this cursory view of the preliminary investigations necessary can be realized what difficulties must attend the design of dams for reservoirs in newly settled or uncivilized countries, where there are no data of this nature to go on, and where if maps exist they are probably of the roughest description and uncontoured; so that before any project can be even discussed seriously special surveys ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 595, May 28, 1887 • Various

... were nooks, or rather caverns, of deep obscurity, the secrets of which I never learned, being too reverent of their dust and cobwebs. The beams and rafters, roughly hewn and with strips of bark still on them, and the rude masonry of the chimneys, made the garret look wild and uncivilized, an aspect unlike what was seen elsewhere in the quiet and decorous old house. But on one side there was a little whitewashed apartment, which bore the traditionary title of the Saint's Chamber, because holy men in their youth had slept, and studied, and prayed ...
— The Old Manse (From "Mosses From An Old Manse") • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... is stronger in Man than in any other creature, is stronger in the European than in the savage. Moreover, judging from the greater extent and variety of faculty he exhibits, we may infer that the civilized man has also a more complex or heterogeneous nervous system than the uncivilized man: and, indeed, the fact is in part visible in the increased ratio which his cerebrum bears to the subjacent ganglia, as well as in the wider departure from symmetry in its convolutions. If further ...
— Essays: Scientific, Political, & Speculative, Vol. I • Herbert Spencer

... witch, goddess,—woman at all events, palpable and undeniable. She must be accepted for what she was, civilized or uncivilized, heathen or Christian. She was a perfected achievement,—vain to argue how she might have been made better. Who says that an evening cloud, gorgeous in purple and heavenly gold, were more usefully employed fertilizing ...
— Idolatry - A Romance • Julian Hawthorne

... barbarous countries, where little or no marriage ceremonies are required, benefits man but little. There can be no true domestic blessedness without loyalty and love for the select and married companion. All the licentiousness and lust of a libertine, whether civilized or uncivilized, bring him only unrest ...
— Searchlights on Health: Light on Dark Corners • B.G. Jefferis

... know very well: Czipra is still—a heathen. Now the first requisite here for marriage is the birth-certificate. You know well that Topandy has hitherto brought the poor girl up in an uncivilized manner. I cannot present her to mother in this state. She must learn to know the principles of religion, and just so much of the alphabet as is necessary for a country lady—and you must realize that several weeks are necessary for ...
— Debts of Honor • Maurus Jokai

... and arts being spent in the time of Andrea, that alone was in use which had been brought by the Goths and by the uncivilized Greeks into Tuscany. Wherefore he, having studied the new method of design of Giotto and those few antiquities that were known to him, refined in great part the grossness of so miserable a manner ...
— Lives of the Most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects - Volume 1, Cimabue to Agnolo Gaddi • Giorgio Vasari

... the chair a prey to tumultuous emotions. She ought to be disgusted she supposed, and of course she was—such an uncivilized horrible thought! but at the same time every nerve was tingling and her pulse was beating with the strange thrills she had only lately begun to ...
— His Hour • Elinor Glyn

... with which I looked upon these far-travelled barks I dare hardly trust myself to declare or to describe; they told me of men and of their increase, who, only for the waters on which they live, would be as little known and quite as uncivilized as the Indian whose land they have redeemed from the wild beast or more savage hunter, to bid it teem with abundance, and to be a refuge and a home for millions ...
— Impressions of America - During The Years 1833, 1834, and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume II. • Tyrone Power

... facts which have lately been brought to light in regard to one such personage and the community in which he lived may have a peculiar interest and significance in their bearing on the general question of the mental capacity of uncivilized races. ...
— Hiawatha and the Iroquois Confederation • Horatio Hale

... Cruelty is contagious in uncivilized communities. Mr. Conant, a neighbor of Mr. Litch, returned from town one evening in a partial state of intoxication. His body servant gave him some offence. He was divested of his clothes, except his shirt, whipped, and tied to a large tree ...
— Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl - Written by Herself • Harriet Jacobs (AKA Linda Brent)

... terrible race of beings, came out from that then mysterious but now historic region, lying between China and Russia, and surged into Europe under the leadership of Attila, sweeping before them as they came Goths, Vandals, and other Teutonic races, as if with a predetermined purpose of forcing the uncivilized Teuton into the lap of a perishing civilization in the south. Then having accomplished this, after the defeat of Attila at Chalons in A.D. 453, they disappeared forever as a race from the ...
— A Short History of France • Mary Platt Parmele

... fine, and of Italian cast, but stern, morose, and forbidding, and he never uses razor. On the back of his left hand, near the wrist, there is a broad scar. He dresses in half-mourning always, and never wears any jewelry, but strictly shuns all society, and prefers uncivilized regions. He never stays long in any town, and follows no occupation, though his aspect and carriage are military, as he has been a cavalry officer. From time to time he has been heard of in Europe, Asia, and Africa, and is now believed to ...
— Erema - My Father's Sin • R. D. Blackmore

... which my doubt was dispelled shows that there is one subject besides love on which difference of language is no bar to the communication of ideas. This is the desire of the uncivilized man for a little coin of the realm. In South Africa, Zulu chiefs, who do not know one other word of English, can say "shilling" with unmistakable distinctness. My Russian driver did not know even this little English word, but he knew enough of the universal language. When we ...
— The Reminiscences of an Astronomer • Simon Newcomb

... The uncivilized inhabitants of the Philippines quickly adopted the rites, forms, and ceremonies of the strange religion, and, at the same time, copied the personal externalities of their new masters, learning to despise their own manners and customs as heathenish and barbarian. Nowadays, ...
— The Former Philippines thru Foreign Eyes • Fedor Jagor; Tomas de Comyn; Chas. Wilkes; Rudolf Virchow.

... diminish the unwelcomeness to us of this act on the part of Great Britain to find that she assumed to justify it on the ground of an alleged protectorship of a small and obscure band of uncivilized Indians, whose proper name had even become lost to history, who did not constitute a state capable of territorial sovereignty either in fact or of right, and all political interest in whom and in the territory they occupied Great Britain had previously renounced by successive ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 3 (of 4) of Volume 5: Franklin Pierce • James D. Richardson

... has followed us up to this point will have observed that handicraft labour was the first stage of the development of human power, and that machinery has been its last and highest. The uncivilized man began with a stone for a hammer, and a splinter of flint for a chisel, each stage of his progress being marked by an improvement in his tools. Every machine calculated to save labour or increase production ...
— Industrial Biography - Iron Workers and Tool Makers • Samuel Smiles

... confusion prevailed in the military councils, arising chiefly from the jealousies and conflicting authorities of the French and Irish commanders. James was entirely under the control of the French ambassador, who, together with all his countrymen in Ireland, affected to despise the Irish as a rude and uncivilized people; while the Irish, in turn, hated the French for their arrogance and insolence. Many of the Irish gentlemen, who had raised regiments at their private expense, were superseded to make room for Frenchmen, appointed by the influence of the French ambassador. ...
— Orange and Green - A Tale of the Boyne and Limerick • G. A. Henty

... that the opening out of the uncivilized parts of the world to commerce will alone serve to make an ...
— The Task of Social Hygiene • Havelock Ellis



Words linked to "Uncivilized" :   barbarian, savage, noncivilised



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