Online dictionaryOnline dictionary
Synonyms, antonyms, pronunciation

  Home
English Dictionary      examples: 'day', 'get rid of', 'New York Bay'




Ungentle   Listen
adjective
Ungentle  adj.  Not gentle; lacking good breeding or delicacy; harsh. "Vicious, ungentle, foolish, blunt, unkind." "That ungentle flavor which distinguishes nearly all our native and uncultivated grapes."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








Advanced search
     Find words:
Starting with
Ending with
Containing
Matching a pattern  

Synonyms
Antonyms
Quotes
Words linked to  

only single words



Share |
Add this dictionary
to your browser search bar





"Ungentle" Quotes from Famous Books



... believe it; and, on that account, More readily forgive you: for oh! Chaerea, I am not form'd of an ungentle nature, Nor am I now to learn the ...
— The Comedies of Terence • Publius Terentius Afer

... MAT. Ungentle grooms first took and tore me thus, From whom old Salisbury, chastising their wrong, Most kindly brought me to this gentle queen; Who laid her soft hand on my bleeding cheeks, Gave kisses to my lips, wept for my woe; And was devising ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VIII (4th edition) • Various

... resembles an ill-formed vessel labouring tempest-tossed in the waves; his implacable Myrtale resembles the angry Adriatic, in which also he finds a likeness to an ill-tempered lover. All through, from first to last, the gentle Horace pelts with most ungentle phrases one of the noblest objects in nature, provocative alike of our admiration and our awe, our terror and ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 429 - Volume 17, New Series, March 20, 1852 • Various

... very closely, and although I used the sjambok freely amongst my men I could not persuade them, not even by this ungentle method, to make a stand against their foes, and as we passed Witpoort the enemy's cavalry with two guns was ...
— My Reminiscences of the Anglo-Boer War • Ben Viljoen

... little. She tried to speak but her lips felt stiff. They took her up carefully and laid her on the old lounge. The babies started to climb up over her at once, and howled fearfully when Bridget pulled them down with an ungentle shake and sat them on the floor. Then she went to answer the door bell and ushered ...
— A Modern Cinderella • Amanda M. Douglas

... Lord of Worcester! 'tis not well That you and I should meet upon such terms As now we meet. You have deceived our trust; And made us doff our easy robes of peace, To crush our old limbs in ungentle steel: This is not well, my lord, this is not well. What say you to't? will you again unknit This churlish knot of all-abhorred war, And move in that obedient orb again Where you did give a fair and natural light; And be no more an exhaled meteor, A prodigy of fear, and a portent Of broached ...
— King Henry IV, The First Part • William Shakespeare [Hudson edition]

... for yours neither. You've ungently, Brutus, Stole from my bed: and yesternight at supper You suddenly arose, and walk'd about, Musing and sighing, with your arms across; 240 And when I ask'd you what the matter was, You star'd upon me with ungentle looks: I urg'd you further; then you scratch'd your head, And too impatiently stamp'd with your foot: Yet I insisted, yet you answer'd not, 245 But with an angry wafture of your hand Gave sign for me to leave you. ...
— The New Hudson Shakespeare: Julius Caesar • William Shakespeare

... when Life is too too long! A Comedy it is, and now an History; What is not sleep unto the feeble mind? It easeth him that toils, and him that's sorry; It makes the deaf to hear; to see, the blind; Ungentle Sleep! thou helpest all but me, For when I sleep my soul is vexed most. It is Fidessa that doth master thee If she approach; alas! thy power is lost. But here she is! See, how he runs amain! I fear, at night, ...
— A History of English Literature - Elizabethan Literature • George Saintsbury

... those years to propose to themselves such a reward as the noblest dispositions above other things in this life have sometimes preferred. Whereof not to be sensible when good and fair in one person meet, argues both a gross and shallow judgment, and withal an ungentle and swainish breast. For by the firm settling of these persuasions I became so much a proficient, that if I found those authors anywhere speaking unworthy things of themselves, or unchaste of those names which before they had extolled, this effect it wrought with me, from that time forward ...
— Milton • Mark Pattison

... not move under the stare, nor did his companion. The mild blue eyes were childlike as ever. The guard's gaze shifted from them to the trembling figure of Amos Peabody. He bent over him, thrust at him with ungentle hand. The automatic under Hilary's fingers crept farther out from the blouse, but a warning gesture from his ...
— Slaves of Mercury • Nat Schachner

... the hated, ungentle touch, and the nearness of the longshoreman, all worked to unman Johnnie, who gave way again. He did not fear a whipping any longer. It was, as Mrs. Kukor might have put it, "somethink yet again." Over him had swept the realization that soon this kind, free-handed, lovable ...
— The Rich Little Poor Boy • Eleanor Gates

... dwelling is as lone as thou! Here giant weeds a passage scarce allow To halls deserted, portals gaping wide; Fresh lessons to the thinking bosom, how Vain are the pleasaunces on earth supplied; Swept into wrecks anon by Time's ungentle tide. ...
— Childe Harold's Pilgrimage • Lord Byron

... such ungentle doom! But I will shield you; and supply A kindlier soil on which to bloom, A nobler bed on which ...
— The Spirit of the Age - Contemporary Portraits • William Hazlitt

... meeting this look, "I would have you know me ever as your comrade to serve you faithfully, seeking only your friendship and nought beyond; one you may trust unfearing despite my ungentle ways." ...
— Black Bartlemy's Treasure • Jeffrey Farnol

... fatigued-looking, but not ungentle rake of forty, Selincourt had stayed once at Wanhope, but the visit had not been a success: indeed Laura had been thankful when it ended before host and guest threw the decanters at each other's heads. That she was pleased to see him now there ...
— Nightfall • Anthony Pryde

... place is perishing. Savannah and the larger towns have been looked after first—as is natural and right," added the physician, in a business-like tone. She had a quick and clear-cut, but not ungentle voice. ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 8 • Various

... just; nor, like Pegasus in Euripides, "who stooped and crouched lower than he wished"[642] to take up his rider Bellerophon, must he humble himself and grant whatever favours are asked him, fearing to be called hard and ungentle. They say that the Egyptian Bocchoris, who was by nature very severe, had an asp sent him by Isis, which coiled round his head, and shaded him from above, that he might judge righteously. Bashfulness on the contrary, like a dead weight on languid ...
— Plutarch's Morals • Plutarch

... ever saw was that of a woman whom the world calls beautiful. Through its "silver veil" the evil and ungentle passions looked out hideous and hateful. On the other hand, there are faces which the multitude at the first glance pronounce homely, unattractive, and such as "Nature fashions by the gross," which I always recognize with a warm heart-thrill; ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier

... methinks!" quoth the archer. "But for our tall brother now, he is changed these latter days: he groweth harsh, methinks, and something ungentle at times." And Giles thoughtfully touched ...
— Beltane The Smith • Jeffery Farnol

... answered with words of craft: "Apollo, what ungentle word hast thou spoken? And is it thy cattle of the homestead thou comest here to seek? I saw them not, heard not of them, gave ear to no word of them: of them I can tell no tidings, nor win the fee of him who tells. Not like a lifter of cattle, a stalwart man, am ...
— The Homeric Hymns - A New Prose Translation; and Essays, Literary and Mythological • Andrew Lang

... Ranald standing in the doorway, with face bloodless, ghastly, livid. Quickly she went up to him, and said, in a voice trembling and not ungentle: "Oh, why did you wait, Mr. Macdonald; go ...
— The Man From Glengarry - A Tale Of The Ottawa • Ralph Connor

... fate, though courtesy disclaims To call our kind by such ungentle names; Yet, if your rashness bid you vainly dare, Think of their doom, ye simple, ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... ought to be a "gentleman." Do you know the meaning of the word "gentleman"? "It means a gentleman—a man who does things gently, with love. And that is the whole art and mystery of it. The gentleman can not in the nature of things do an ungentle, an ungentlemanly thing." "Love doth not behave itself unseemly." Life is full of opportunities for learning love. Every man and woman every day has a thousand of them. There is an eternal lesson for ...
— The Jericho Road • W. Bion Adkins

... hast ever wronged, in thought or word or deed, the spirit that generously confided in thee; if thou art a lover, and hast ever given one unmerited pang to that true heart which now lies cold and still beneath thy feet,—then be sure that every unkind look, every ungracious word, every ungentle action will come thronging back upon thy memory and knocking dolefully at thy soul: then be sure that thou wilt lie down sorrowing and repentant on the grave, and utter the unheard groan and pour the unavailing tear, more deep, more ...
— The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. • Washington Irving

... him as a new species of man—a hermit of the world. He knew the world and did not hate it. His satire was rarely quite ungentle. He did not strike her as a disappointed man who fled to solitude in bitterness of spirit, but rather as an imaginative man with an unusual feeling for romance, and perhaps a desire for freedom that the normal civilised life ...
— The Garden Of Allah • Robert Hichens

... above all nations, were morose and splenetic. Nothing is holy to me that lessens in my view the beneficence of my Creator. If you could show Him ungentle and unkind in a single instance, you would render myriads of men so, throughout the whole course of their lives, and those too among the most religious. The less that people talk about God the better. He has left us a design to fill up: He has placed the canvas, the colours, and the pencils, within ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor

... after no pleasant fashion, as near as I can guess, about the age of six years. One glorious morning in early summer I found myself led by the ungentle hand of Mrs. Mitchell towards a little school on the outside of the village, kept by an old woman called Mrs. Shand. In an English village I think she would have been called Dame Shand: we called her Luckie Shand. Half dragged along the road by Mrs. Mitchell, from whose rough ...
— Ranald Bannerman's Boyhood • George MacDonald

... her to realize that but a short time ago she had never heard them, never felt their curious influence, their driving power, which, mingled with other powers of sun and air, flogs the souls of men and women into desire of ungentle joys and of sometimes cruel pleasures. And now, with the fading away of the daylight, those powerful, savage, and sad voices gained in meaning, seemed no more to be issuing from the throats of toiling and sweating Egyptians, but to be ...
— Bella Donna - A Novel • Robert Hichens

... thee for the pleasure of the wind, With those great careless wings, Nor yet did I. And there were other things: It seemed God let thee flutter from his gentle clasp: Then fearful he had let thee win Too far beyond him to be gathered in, Snatched thee, o'er eager, with ungentle grasp. Ah! I remember me How once conspiracy was rife Against my life— The languor of it and the dreaming fond; Surging, the grasses dizzied me of thought, The breeze three odors brought, And a gem-flower waved in a wand! ...
— A Boy's Will • Robert Frost

... conversation would begin in murmurs, not inaudible, though subdued. I caught a snatch of their tenor now and then; and, in truth, some influence better and finer than that of every day, seemed to soothe Graham at such times into no ungentle mood. ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte

... you, sir?— 'Tis base, ungentle, and unmannerly, Because, forsooth, you covet my poor wealth, Which likes me not, as I care not for it, To persecute ...
— Cromwell • Alfred B. Richards

... with gentle words, and tears, imploring; But all ungentle was the voice they heard In answer; "If indeed ye be the sons Of that Antimachus, who counsel gave, When noble Menelaus came to Troy With sage Ulysses, as ambassadors, To slay them both, nor suffer their return, Pay now the forfeit of your ...
— The Iliad • Homer

... for yours neither. You've ungently, Brutus, Stole from my bed: and yesternight, at supper, You suddenly arose, and walk'd about, Musing and sighing, with your arms across; And, when I ask'd you what the matter was, You stared upon me with ungentle looks: I urged you further; then you scratch'd your head, And too impatiently stamp'd with your foot: Yet I insisted, yet you answer'd not; But, with an angry wafture of your hand, Gave sign for me to leave you. So I did; Fearing to strengthen that ...
— Julius Caesar • William Shakespeare [Hudson edition]

... to do with the process of mating, but it puzzles me to guess just what the message can be which requires to be published so loudly. Such a stentorian, long-winded cry! You wonder where the bird finds breath for such an effort, and think he must be a very ungentle lover, surely. But withhold your judgment for a few days, till you see him and his mate gamboling about the branches of some old tree, calling in soft, affectionate tones, Wick-a-wick, wick-a-wick; then you will confess that, whatever failings the golden-wing ...
— Birds in the Bush • Bradford Torrey

... KING. Ungentle queen, to call him gentle Suffolk! No more, I say; if thou dost plead for him, Thou wilt but add increase unto my wrath. Had I but said, I would have kept my word, But when I swear, it is irrevocable.— If, after three days' space, thou here ...
— King Henry VI, Second Part • William Shakespeare [Rolfe edition]

... painful to read the marginal notes of Fox here. "Lord Cobham would not obey the beast." Thomas Arundell, "Caiaphas sitteth in consistory. The wolf was hungry; he must needs be fed with blood. Bloody murderers." With many others, yet more ungentle. The justice of the judgment cannot but be questioned when the feelings of the historian give themselves vent in such language as this. Still we must make great allowances for ...
— Henry of Monmouth, Volume 2 - Memoirs of Henry the Fifth • J. Endell Tyler

... years before. The likeness was indeed complete, even to the full, stony eyes, and a certain shadowy circle about the neck. It was without coat or hat, precisely as Gilson had been when laid in his poor, cheap casket by the not ungentle hands of Carpenter Pete—for whom some one had long since performed the same neighborly office. The spectre, if such it was, seemed to bear something in its hands which Mr. Brentshaw could not clearly make out. ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Vol. II: In the Midst of Life: Tales of Soldiers and Civilians • Ambrose Bierce

... have followed this latter account, as the figure of the high priest is far from being either ignoble or ungentle. ...
— Giotto and his works in Padua • John Ruskin

... in the hall it was different. Not a lad there, perhaps, but would have been glad to have exchanged places with the gallant confounder of sophomore plots, who was pictured in most minds as starving to death somewhere out in the rain, a captive in the ungentle hands of ...
— Behind the Line • Ralph Henry Barbour

... Whylomme[1]bie pensmenne[2] moke[3] ungentle[4] name Have upon Goddwynne Erie of Kente bin layde: Dherebie benymmynge[5] hymme of faie[6] and fame; Unliart[7] divinistres[8] haveth faide, Thatte he was knowen toe noe hallie[9] wurche[10]; 5 Botte thys was all hys faulte, ...
— The Rowley Poems • Thomas Chatterton

... that Lord Euston is married: in a week more I believe that I shall write you word that he is divorced. He is brutal enough; and has forbid Lady Burlington (266) his house, and that in very ungentle terms. The whole family is in confusion: the Duke of Grafton half dead. and Lord Burlington half mad. The latter has challenged Lord Euston, who accepted the challenge, but they were prevented. There are different stories: some say that the ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole

... John hoisted him in with vigorous and ungentle hands. Crawling into the back the sick man fell prone with a groan. Courant, who had heard them and turned to watch, ...
— The Emigrant Trail • Geraldine Bonner

... dismal, a shallow vale between dark slopes of spruce. Grass, fire-wood, and water were there in abundance. All the men were off, throwing saddles and packs, before the tired girl made an effort to get down. Riggs, observing her, made a not ungentle move to pull her off. She gave him a sounding ...
— The Man of the Forest • Zane Grey

... sum of human things, And half our mis'ry from our foibles springs; Since life's best joys consist in peace and ease, And few can save or serve, but all may please: Oh! let th'ungentle spirit learn from hence, A small unkindness is a great offence. Large bounties to bestow we wish in vain; But all may shun the guilt ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. 6 • Maria Edgeworth

... deprived this form of mine Of all that once thou fancied'st fine? Ah no! what once allured thy sight Is still in its meridian height. Old age and wrinkles in this face As yet could never find a place; A youthful grace informs these lines Where still the purple current shines, Unless by thy ungentle art It flies to aid my wretched heart: Nor does this slighted bosom show The many hours it ...
— Hetty Wesley • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... was; for yesterday Thraso met Phillis with her posies, And thus began th' ungentle fray, 'Miss, I must execute those roses.' Then made, but fruitless made, a ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 183, April 30, 1853 • Various

... the one essential of both. I would not let the smallest child stroke his father's beard roughly. Watch a child and when he begins to grow rough you will see an evil spirit looking out of his eyes. It is a mean and bad thing to be ungentle with our own. Politeness is either a true face or a mask. If worn at one place and not at another, which of them is it? And there were no mask if there ought not to be a face. Neither is politeness at all inconsistent with thorough familiarity. ...
— Weighed and Wanting • George MacDonald

... was carried by rough but not ungentle hands to the dead-house on the hill. I went with it. I overheard the superintendent tell the master of the work-house that I was a rich man—an invalid—and that I passed a great deal of my time at Brighton. In a lowered voice ...
— The Tragedy of the Chain Pier - Everyday Life Library No. 3 • Charlotte M. Braeme

... work. There is some difference between being fine and being refined, and in Ellen's station of life it is very difficult to hit the right point. To be refined is to be free from all that is rough, coarse, or ungentle; to be fine, is to affect to be above such things. Now Ellen was really refined in her quietness and maidenly modesty, and there was no need for her to undertake any of those kinds of tasks which, by removing young ...
— Friarswood Post-Office • Charlotte M. Yonge

... The ungentle laws and customs touched upon in this tale are historical, and the episodes which are used to illustrate them are also historical. It is not pretended that these laws and customs existed in England in the sixth century; ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... to all, But they have made them lovelier, for the lore Of mighty minds doth hallow in the core Of human hearts the ruin of a wall Where dwelt the wise and wondrous; but by thee How much more, Lake of Beauty! do we feel, In sweetly gliding o'er thy crystal sea,[76] The wild glow of that not ungentle zeal, Which of the Heirs of Immortality Is proud, and makes the breath ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron

... and from which a steam was beginning to rise as he stood now with his back to the fire. Charlot eyed him so narrowly that the fellow shifted his position and dropped his glance in some discomfort. His speech, though rough of purport, had not been ungentle of delivery. But his face was dirty—the sure sign of an ardent patriot—his hair hung untidy about his face, and he wore that latest abomination of the ultra-revolutionist, a dense black ...
— The Trampling of the Lilies • Rafael Sabatini

... David. "Young man," he said sharply, "I don't like the way you look at me. Stop! Not a word, sir! I have taken up the show business seriously. I find that our animal tamers are entirely competent. What we need here is a tamer for vicious and ungentle bipeds. There is a way to tame them, just as there is a way to break the spirit of the lion or the tiger. It shall be my special duty to deal with these unruly human beings. I hope you grasp my meaning. ...
— The Rose in the Ring • George Barr McCutcheon

... her father, saying, "Why are you so ungentle? Have pity, sir; I will be his surety. This is the second man I ever saw, and to me ...
— Types of Children's Literature • Edited by Walter Barnes

... ungentle hand I summon them back, for a moment, from that Past which has closed upon them and upon me. How pleasantly they live again in my memory! Happy, magical Past, in whose fairy atmosphere even Conway, mine ancient foe, stands forth transfigured, ...
— The Story of a Bad Boy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich

... why so pale? Dost hear stern winter in the gale? And didst them tempt th' ungentle sky To catch one vernal ...
— Literary Remains (1) • Coleridge

... killed upon the snow. And I bethought me that her whiteness was like that of the snow, and that the blackness of her hair and her eyebrows was like that of the raven, and that the two red spots upon her cheeks were like the two drops of blood." Said Gwalchmai, "This was not an ungentle thought, and I should marvel if it were pleasant to thee to be drawn from it." "Tell me," said Peredur, "is Kai in Arthur's Court?" "He is," said he, "and behold he is the knight that fought with thee last; and ...
— The Mabinogion Vol. 1 (of 3) • Owen M. Edwards

... mounts the reviewer's throne in this issue, proceeding first of all to demolish our own fond dream of yesterday; The Conservative. Looking backward down the dim vista of those bygone but memory-haunted days of October, 1915, when we perpetrated the horribly plainspoken and frightfully ungentle number whereof Mr. Fritter treats, we are conscious of our manifold sins, and must beg the pardon of the liquor interests for shouting so rudely in the cause of total abstinence. Pres. Fritter's critical style is a good ...
— Writings in the United Amateur, 1915-1922 • Howard Phillips Lovecraft

... honor, but him from that deed restrained 60 The Lord, the Ruler of hosts. Went then the devilish one, The wanton [warrior-prince],[4] with [mickle] band of men, The baleful his bed to seek, where he his life should lose Quickly within one night; he had then his end attained[5] On earth ungentle [end], such as before he wrought for, 65 The mighty prince of men, while in this world he was, While he dwelt under roof of the clouds. Then fell so drunk with wine The mighty [chief] on his bed, as if he knew no rede Within his place of wit; the warriors stepped Out from the chamber ...
— Elene; Judith; Athelstan, or the Fight at Brunanburh; Byrhtnoth, or the Fight at Maldon; and the Dream of the Rood • Anonymous

... stick then? I saw no reason; but I took what came. If I cried out, it is a more harmless vent than many. Let me alone. Geoffrey, I think, was a villain. God help him if He can: he is dead too. He took sop and gave stick: ungentle in Geoffrey, but he paid for it. He was a cross-bred dog with much of the devil in him; he bit himself and died barking. Last, there is John. I desire to speak reasonably of John; but he is too snug, he gets all sop. This is not fair. He should have some stick, that we may ...
— The Life and Death of Richard Yea-and-Nay • Maurice Hewlett

... trial a printed declaration was affixed throughout the city, taunting Bales's "proud poverty," and his pecuniary motives, as "a thing ungentle, base, and mercenary, and not answerable to the dignity of the golden pen!" Johnson declares he would maintain his challenge for a thousand pounds more, but for the respondent's inability to perform a thousand ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli

... she hung her head, as if it were her fault, poor thing, and said, sobbing, that indeed she was afraid she was but a childish widow, and would be but a childish mother if she lived. In a short pause which ensued, she had a fancy that she felt Miss Betsey touch her hair, and that with no ungentle hand; but, looking at her, in her timid hope, she found that lady sitting with the skirt of her dress tucked up, her hands folded on one knee, and her feet upon the fender, frowning at ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens

... thou wreck his peace Wha for thy sake wad gladly die? Or canst thou break that heart of his Whase only faut is loving thee? If love for love thou wilt na gie, At least be pity to me shown: A thought ungentle canna be ...
— The Hundred Best English Poems • Various

... nauseous tale, How many youths her myrtle chains have worn, How many virgins at her triumphs pined! Yet how resolved she guards her cautious heart; Such is her terror at the risks of love, And man's seducing tongue! The other seems A bearded sage, ungentle in his mien, And sordid all his habit; peevish Want Grins at his heels, while down the gazing throng He stalks, resounding in magnific praise 140 The vanity of riches, the contempt Of pomp and power. Be prudent in your zeal, Ye grave associates! let the silent grace Of her who blushes ...
— Poetical Works of Akenside - [Edited by George Gilfillan] • Mark Akenside

... thou wreck his peace, Wha for thy sake wad gladly die? Or canst thou break that heart of his, Whase only faut is loving thee? If love for love thou wiltna gie, At least be pity to me shown; A thought ungentle canna be The thought ...
— Book of English Verse • Bulchevy

... but it can't be helped. So you must try to be contented with making your name boyish, and playing brother to us girls," said Beth, stroking the rough head with a hand that all the dish washing and dusting in the world could not make ungentle in its touch. ...
— Little Women • Louisa May Alcott

... to herself, for Mrs. Mandel was now merely staying on provisionally, and, in the absence of any regrets or excuses from Christine, was looking ruefully forward to the moment when she must leave even this ungentle home for the chances of the ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... will not, hold me still; My tongue, though not my heart, shall have his will. He is deformed, crooked, old, and sere, Ill-faced, worse bodied, shapeless everywhere; 20 Vicious, ungentle, foolish, blunt, unkind; Stigmatical in ...
— The Comedy of Errors - The Works of William Shakespeare [Cambridge Edition] [9 vols.] • William Shakespeare

... of it. If I am ungentle, it is because I despise deceit, and you possess a guile that has given me my first taste of self-contempt, and the draught is bitter. Hear me out; for this reminiscence is my justification; you must listen to the one and accept the other. You seemed all this, ...
— Moods • Louisa May Alcott

... and walk'd about, Musing, and sighing, with your arms across; And when I ask'd you what the matter was, You star'd upon me with ungentle looks."—J. Caesar, Act ii, ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown

... ignorant classes used coarse and loud tones, and rough words and movements; while only the refined circles habitually used gentle tones and gentle manners. For the same reason, those born in the higher circles were called "of gentle blood." Thus it came that a coarse and loud voice, and rough, ungentle manners, are regarded ...
— The American Woman's Home • Catherine E. Beecher and Harriet Beecher Stowe

... burst Harry, having broken, to save Elizabeth from a rude contact, the barrier she had closed to save his life. That life, which he had once saved by callously assailing her heart, he now risked, that her body might not suffer the touch of an ungentle hand. So swift and sudden was his entrance, that he had crossed the room, and floored Elizabeth's captor, with a deep gash down the side of the head, ere Colden made a step ...
— The Continental Dragoon - A Love Story of Philipse Manor-House in 1778 • Robert Neilson Stephens

... ungentle, but it came from the bottom of his belief concerning himself, and a longing for ...
— Dr. Sevier • George W. Cable

... This ungentle mention of the toucan was not improbably suggested by the parti-hued, and rather plumagy aspect of the stranger, no bigot it would seem, but a liberalist, in dress, and whose wardrobe, almost anywhere than ...
— The Confidence-Man • Herman Melville

... they might get a glimpse of him, and there is little doubt the poor gunner-messenger was subjected to inimitable moral lectures on the sin and pains and penalties of having any communication whatsoever with the ungentle inhabitants of Longwood. This good-hearted fellow was as carefully shadowed as though he had been commissioned to carry the Emperor off. Lowe was infected with the belief that he had some secret designs, and if ...
— The Tragedy of St. Helena • Walter Runciman

... and dangerous. Once or twice her feet slipped on the smoothly-worn rock beneath; and she confessed to an inward thankfulness when her uncertain feminine hand-grip was exchanged for his strong arm around her waist. Not that he was ungentle; but Miss Alice angrily felt that he had once or twice exercised his superior masculine functions in a rough way; and yet the next moment she would have probably rejected the idea that she had even ...
— The Twins of Table Mountain and Other Stories • Bret Harte

... unkind, but that was all. She did not wish Fan to read to her, or give her any assistance in dressing, or to remain long in her room, but preferred to be left alone. When she spoke, her words and tone were not ungentle, but she no longer wished to talk, and after a few minutes she would send her away; and then Fan, sad at heart, would go to her own room—that large back room where her bed had been allowed to remain, ...
— Fan • Henry Harford

... blossom, why so pale? 5 Dost hear stern Winter in the gale? And didst thou tempt the ungentle sky To catch one vernal ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge

... Now this ungentle girl was mistaken in her surmise, as she was about many things that caused her unhappiness. What the people in the stage were really interested and amused with were a couple of lambs in the field back of Lucindy, and their playful gyrations were a novel sight to them, and they had ...
— Our Young Folks at Home and Abroad • Various

... avoid all the hamlets strewed here and there on the sea-beach, for I was unwilling to make a display of my hideousness. I was not quite sure that, if seen, the mere boys would not stone me to death as I passed, for a monster: some ungentle salutations I did receive from the few peasants or fishermen I chanced to meet. But it was dark night before I approached Genoa. The weather was so balmy and sweet that it struck me that the Marchese and his daughter would very probably have quitted ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1, April, 1851 • Various

... is assiduous in prayer and sacrifice—perhaps, indeed, all the more assiduous in consequence of what he believes about their attributes;[10] being persuaded (like the attendant who warned Hippolytus) that his only chance of mollifying their ungentle dispositions in regard to himself is, by honorific tribute ...
— Review of the Work of Mr John Stuart Mill Entitled, 'Examination of Sir William Hamilton's Philosophy.' • George Grote

... graceful walk, his fair skin and smooth hands. Yet those who carefully studied his clearcut features were favorably impressed; the women, by the direct, honest gaze of his blue eyes and the absence of ungentle lines in his face; the men, by the good nature, and that indefinable something by which a man ...
— Betty Zane • Zane Grey

... of retribution, terrible, And in the order of sublime behests: But, even if that were not, amid the awe Of unintelligible chastisement, 455 Not only acquiescences of faith Survived, but daring sympathies with power, Motions not treacherous or profane, else why Within the folds of no ungentle breast Their dread vibration to this hour prolonged? 460 Wild blasts of music thus could find their way Into the midst of turbulent events; So that worst tempests might be listened to. Then was the truth received into my heart, That, under heaviest sorrow earth can bring, 465 If ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. III • William Wordsworth

... death! Maria shuddered as the thought swiftly awoke of those dark secrets hidden beneath the ever-lasting green and white of the forest. Lorenzo Surprenant was right in what he had been saying; it was a pitiless ungentle land. The menace lurking just outside the door-the cold-the shrouding snows-the blank solitude-forced a sudden entrance and crowded about the stove, an evil swarm sneering presages of ill or hovering in a yet more dreadful silence:—"Do you remember, my sister, the men, brave and well-beloved, whom ...
— Maria Chapdelaine - A Tale of the Lake St. John Country • Louis Hemon

... divers Metals, one hot and dry, another cold and moist, a third assuming a mixt Nature and Complection to it self. Therefore the Metal of Mars being ordained in its degree by a gross Salt before others in the greatest quantity, is found to have the hardest, ungentle, strongest, and grossest Body, which Nature appropriated and granted to it, it hath the least portion of Mercury, but more of Sulphur, and most of Salt, hence, and from such a mixture or composition ...
— Of Natural and Supernatural Things • Basilius Valentinus

... abound, One whom the Muses and Minerva love; For whom should they, than Crites, more esteem, Whom Phoebus, though not Fortune, holdeth dear? And, which convinceth excellence in him, A principal admirer of yourself: Even through the ungentle injuries of Fate, And difficulties, which do virtue choke, Thus much of him appears. What other things Of farther note do lie unborn in him, Them I do leave for cherishment to shew, And for ...
— Cynthia's Revels • Ben Jonson

... greatly regret it. My failure to recognize the Princess Mary grew out of my misfortune in never having been allowed to bask in the light of her countenance. I cannot believe the fault lies at my door, and I hope for her own sake that her highness, on second thought, will realize how ungentle and unkind some one else has been." And with a sweeping courtesy he ...
— When Knighthood Was in Flower • Charles Major

... exacted a thousand pounds from Roger Hoare, a merchant of Bridgewater; who had contributed to the military chest of the rebel army. But the prey on which they pounced most eagerly was one which it might have been thought that even the most ungentle natures would have spared. Already some of the girls who had presented the standard to Monmouth at Taunton had cruelly expiated their offence. One of them had been thrown into prison where an infectious malady was raging. She had ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... said, quickly, but not in an ungentle tone. "Where is the lady hurt?—Bring me linen and water.—You may give her a little wine too.—She is faint from loss of blood;" and advancing to the bedside, he took Caroline's hand kindly in his own, saying, "Do not be alarmed, my dear. These things happen every day in battle; and women get ...
— The King's Highway • G. P. R. James

... who, with her pitcher on her head, had passed by without taking any notice of him. The Neapolitan, struck by her appearance, stood still and gazed after her, not heeding that he was standing in the very midst of the game, which, with two steps, he might have cleared. A very ungentle ball came knocking against his shins, as a reminder that this was not the spot to choose for meditation. He looked round, as if in expectation of some excuse. But the young boatman who had thrown the ball stood silent among his ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: German • Various

... of Avon, thou whose measured muse Most sweetly sings Elizabethan views To shame ungentle smiths of journalese With thy sublimest verse, what words are these That shine amid the lines like jewels set But ere thine hour no bard had chosen yet? Didst thou in masterly disdain of too much law Not only limn the truths no others saw ...
— The Eye of Zeitoon • Talbot Mundy

... Paulus that night was coming on, and was startled, when the hermit removed her hand from his arm with ungentle haste, and called to her to follow him with a roughness that was quite new to him. She obeyed, and wherever it was necessary to climb over the rocks, he supported and lifted her, but he only spoke when she ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... easier posture. Our total solitude seemed from the first to breed a certain good-fellowship between us: neither next day nor for many days did he remit or falter in his care for me. But his manner, though not ungentle, was taciturn. He seemed to carry about a weight on his mind; his brow wore a constant frown, vexed and unhappy. Once or twice I caught ...
— Sir John Constantine • Prosper Paleologus Constantine

... a not ungentle effort released himself from his wife's embrace. This act so restored his self-respect that he ...
— The Just and the Unjust • Vaughan Kester

... sometimes the interviews came at impossible ones; But it did not matter to her As long as the stories were printed and her name was spelt correctly. So we sent a photographer to the hotel one day To take pictures of her in her drawing room. He was an ungentle photographer Who had been accustomed to take pictures of young women Coming into the harbor on shipboard, and no photograph was complete Without limbs being crossed or suchwise. But she did not mind even that, If the pictures were published the next day. He took a great ...
— The Broadway Anthology • Edward L. Bernays, Samuel Hoffenstein, Walter J. Kingsley, Murdock Pemberton

... and a half old, and had been before the public nearly three years. What hours of toil and weariness he must have been passing through at the very time when my little ones were being rocked and petted and shielded from every ungentle wind that blows! And what an existence was his now—travelling from city to city, practising at every spare moment, and performing night after night in some close theatre or concert-room when he should be drinking in that deep, refreshing slumber which childhood needs! However ...
— The Little Violinist • Thomas Bailey Aldrich

... all, of every degree, Ye gentle readers and ungentle writers, In this twelfth Canto 't is my wish to be As serious as if I had for inditers Malthus and Wilberforce:—the last set free The Negroes and is worth a million fighters; While Wellington has but enslaved the Whites, And Malthus does the thing 'gainst which ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron

... the Mayflower were thus engaged, however, for several were delicate in health, and several others had servants who took this ungentle labor upon themselves; but those who did not labor with their hands felt no superiority, and those who did had no shame in so doing; and although the manners of the day inculcated a certain deference of manner and speech from ...
— Standish of Standish - A story of the Pilgrims • Jane G. Austin

... arm thrown round her waist, a rather ungentle pull was given her dangling foot, and she was set right to proceed. But for an instant she could not go on, and she again felt the arm supporting and forcing her against the bare brick wall, so that those below might not ...
— Reels and Spindles - A Story of Mill Life • Evelyn Raymond

... her store, When lo! in much ungentle strain, She bade me think of her no more, She ...
— Poems • Sir John Carr

... I am coming to have a quite pathetic fellowship for them." She buried her white teeth in the softness of the fig.—"Not without reason, perhaps. It is idle to deny that you are a pastmaster in the ungentle art of rejection. What have you to ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet

... came to my hermitage, in the heart of the white-pine tree, and clambering up into it, sat down to rest. The grapes, which I had watched throughout the summer, now dangled around me in abundant clusters of the deepest purple, deliciously sweet to the taste, and, though wild, yet free from that ungentle flavor which distinguishes nearly all our native and uncultivated grapes. Methought a wine might be pressed out of them possessing a passionate zest, and endowed with a new kind of intoxicating ...
— The Blithedale Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... replied impatiently; now I wiped my tear-swollen face and meekly obeyed the summons. Together Habu and I set out for a distant market place in the Bengali section of Benares. The ungentle Indian sun was not yet at zenith as we made our purchases in the bazaars. We pushed our way through the colorful medley of housewives, guides, priests, simply-clad widows, dignified Brahmins, and the ubiquitous holy bulls. Passing an inconspicuous lane, I turned my ...
— Autobiography of a YOGI • Paramhansa Yogananda

... neither shield nor spear. Then Sir Key cried, "I also will ride after the kitchen boy, and see whether he will obey me now." And taking his horse, he rode after him, and said, "Know ye not me, Beaumains?" "Yea," said he, "I know thee for an ungentle knight, therefore beware of me." Then Sir Key put his spear in rest and ran at him, but Beaumains rushed upon him with his sword in his hand, and therewith, putting aside the spear, struck Sir Key so sorely in the side, that he fell down, as if dead. Then he alighted, and took his shield ...
— The Legends Of King Arthur And His Knights • James Knowles

... and lightning, and rain. The gale caused one collision on the Canal, and twenty-five steamers were delayed near the Bitter Lake; it broke down the railway and sanded it up for miles, and it levelled fifty English and forty Egyptian telegraph-posts—an ungentle hint to prefer the telephone. Saturday, the beginning of winter, opened with a cold raw souther and a surging sea, which washed over the Dock-piers; in such weather it was impossible to embark ten mules without horse-boxes. On Sunday the waves ran ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 1 • Richard Burton

... that ladye bright, Was had forth of the towre: But ever she droopeth in her minde, As, nipt by an ungentle winde, Doth some ...
— Queechy, Volume I • Elizabeth Wetherell

... Lewis's door; he saw her. Involuntarily her bow in return to his salutation was very low. At the same instant Tippoo started, on a run to which all his former gallopping had been a gentle amble. This was not ungentle; the motion had nothing rough; only Eleanor was going in a straight line over the ground at a rate that took away her breath. She had presence of mind not to draw the curb rein, but she felt that she could hardly endure long the sort of progress she was making through ...
— The Old Helmet, Volume I • Susan Warner

... a hospital tent, at headquarters, the surgeon cannoned against, and rebounded from, another officer,—a sallow man, not young, with a face worn more by ungentle experiences than by age, with weary eyes that kept their own counsel, iron-gray hair, and a moustache that was as if a raven had laid its wing across his lips ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry

... not in the way that might have been expected. He had no scruples about sharing the secret or in keeping it inviolate; his real distress lay in the fear that Mrs. Wrandall might hear of all this from other and perhaps ungentle sources. As for her posing for Hawkright, it meant little or nothing to him. In his own experience, two girls of gentle birth had served as models for pictures of his own making, and he fully appreciated ...
— The Hollow of Her Hand • George Barr McCutcheon

... staires upon me and takes roote, I thinke. It mooves, and now to earth is fixt agen; Oh, now it walkes and sadly marches this way. Is't not a ghost? heele fright me. Oh, sweet sir, Speake if you can and say who murderd you. It points at me: my eyes? ungentle eyes To kill so at first sight! Ile have my lookes Arraigned for't and small Cupid shall be judg, Who for your sake will make me blind ...
— A Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. II • Various

... thrall Of Rome; but Death with noiseless feet Has stolen and will steal on all. How near dark Pluto's court I stood, And AEacus' judicial throne, The blest seclusion of the good, And Sappho, with sweet lyric moan Bewailing her ungentle sex, And thee, Alcaeus, louder far Chanting thy tale of woful wrecks, Of woful exile, woful war! In sacred awe the silent dead Attend on each: but when the song Of combat tells and tyrants fled, Keen ears, press'd shoulders, closer ...
— Odes and Carmen Saeculare of Horace • Horace

... of the year, lye at another, and where lard was rendered at butchering-time. He took him into the wagon-shed and showed him the rickety high-wheeled, top-heavy carriage used by the first of the Dowds back in the forties, now ready to fall to pieces at the slightest ungentle shake; the once gaudy sleigh with its great curved "runners"; and over in a dark corner two long barrelled rifles with rusty locks and rotten stocks, that once upon a time cracked the doom of deer and wolf and fox, of catamount and squirrel and coon, of wild turkeys ...
— Quill's Window • George Barr McCutcheon

... A runaway! To the temple with him!" chimed a dozen. The prisoner's outcries were drowned. He would have been swept off in ungentle custody had not a strong ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis

... that I wish to bring before you now, is the year previous to my marriage. Never had I received an ungentle word from my father; never in all my waywardness and selfwill did he harshly reprove me. He steadily endeavored to impress on my mind a sense of the constant presence of God. He would often say, 'Every moment, ...
— Aunt Phillis's Cabin - Or, Southern Life As It Is • Mary H. Eastman

... she was told. It struck the Duchess that she always did as she was told and she spoke to her hoping that her voice was not ungentle. ...
— Robin • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... some fatal freak of fortuity these were acting under late telegraphic advice from London, Lanyard held himself well in hand: the first sign of intent to hinder him would prove the signal for a spectacular demonstration of the ungentle art of not getting caught with the goods on. And for twenty seconds, while the crowd milled slowly through the narrow exit, he was as near to betraying himself as he had ever been—nearer, for he had marked down the point ...
— The Lone Wolf - A Melodrama • Louis Joseph Vance

... woman's horror he had swooped down and laid a not ungentle hand on her ankle in its neat and smart-looking shoe. Now he took out his knife, slashed twice, and held up the pieces of a stout ...
— Betty Gordon at Boarding School - The Treasure of Indian Chasm • Alice Emerson

... colossal stature to something more nearly the measure of mortality. His form was enveloped in a sweeping sad-coloured robe; a light, thin veil resting on his countenance, mitigated, without concealing, the not ungentle austerity of his marble features. His gait was remarkable; nothing could be more remote from every indication of haste, yet such was the actual celerity of his progression, that Pan had scarcely beheld him ere he started to find him already at ...
— The Twilight of the Gods, and Other Tales • Richard Garnett

... ungentle wayward mood! 'Tis said of thee, when in the lap, Thy nurse to tempt thee to thy food, Would squeeze a lemon in ...
— The Works of Lord Byron: Letters and Journals, Volume 2. • Lord Byron

... feeble flame of intelligence that flickered up toward her. She remained a moment staring down at her handiwork, then covered her face, and burst out crying. An ungentle grasp descended upon her shoulder. Her uncle, standing tall and angry behind her, thrust her from ...
— Judith of the Cumberlands • Alice MacGowan

... my mind to coax the gentleman into adopting me, I devoted myself entirely to him for the evening, and ignored the rest of the party, as serenely as a cat knows how. Again and again did he put me down with firm, but not ungentle hands, saying—"Go down, Toots," and pick stray hairs in a fidgety manner off his dress-trousers; and again and again did I return to his shoulder (where he couldn't see the hairs) and purr in his ear, and rub my long whiskers ...
— Brothers of Pity and Other Tales of Beasts and Men • Juliana Horatia Gatty Ewing

... shadows fling. Yon turret stands;—where ebon locks, As glossy as the heron's wing Upon the turban of a king,[199] Hang from the lattice, long and wild,— 'Tis she, that EMIR'S blooming child, All truth and tenderness and grace, Tho' born of such ungentle race;— An image of Youth's radiant Fountain Springing in a ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al



Words linked to "Ungentle" :   ignoble, lowborn, untitled



Copyright © 2024 Dictionary One.com