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Contemptuous   /kəntˈɛmptʃuəs/   Listen
Contemptuous

adjective
1.
Expressing extreme contempt.  Synonyms: disdainful, insulting, scornful.



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"Contemptuous" Quotes from Famous Books



... his Turn. Who can endure to see the great Officers of State, the B—y's and T—t's treated after so scurrilous a Manner? I can't for my Life, says I, imagine who they are the SPECTATOR means? No! says he,—Your humble Servant, Sir! Upon which he flung himself back in his Chair after a contemptuous Manner, and smiled upon the old lethargick Gentleman on his left Hand, who I found was his great Admirer. The Whig however had begun to conceive a Good-will towards me, and seeing my Pipe out, very generously offered me the Use of his Box; but I declined it with great ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele

... Mary turned round and favoured the orator with a long and curious glance. Her expression was quite indefinite, but it was not contemptuous, a fact on which I inwardly ...
— A Hero of Our Time • M. Y. Lermontov

... were enabled to set about building their kirk; the foundations thereof were not, however, laid till the following year, but their proceedings gave me a het heart, for they were like an open rebellion to my authority, and a contemptuous disregard of that religious allegiance which is due from the ...
— The Annals of the Parish • John Galt

... half-threatening superiority which never fail of reducing such high-talking sparks to abject meekness. 'Twas a trick of pretended bullying, which we long-suffering Americans were driven to adopt in self-defence against certain derisive, contemptuous praters that came to our shores from Europe. But 'tis more to my purpose, as the biographer of Philip Winwood, to continue upon the ...
— Philip Winwood • Robert Neilson Stephens

... the suspicion of a diamond pipe. Last and most important, there was this perpetual spying on myself. It was as clear as daylight that the place held some secret, and I wondered if old Japp knew. I was fool enough one day to ask him about diamonds. He met me with contemptuous laughter. 'There's your ignorant Britisher,' he cried. 'If you had ever been to Kimberley you would know the look of a diamond country. You're as likely to find diamonds here as ocean pearls. But go out and scrape in the spruit if you like; ...
— Prester John • John Buchan

... first question at the store elicited the information that the Bishop had gone up the river to Binchinnin, Ostachegan Creek and Fort St. Pierre. Next, the name of Herbert Mabyn called forth contemptuous shrugs. None of the men could give certain information of his whereabouts, though Clearwater Lake was mentioned again. He had not been in to the post for four months; and there was a handful of letters waiting for him. Garth was referred ...
— Two on the Trail - A Story of the Far Northwest • Hulbert Footner

... a half-amused, half-contemptuous stare for a moment; then stopped at a huckster's stall to purchase some cigarettes; lit one, and after smoking for a few minutes, pleasantly remarked, as if the fact ...
— The Midnight Queen • May Agnes Fleming

... was quite upset by the news of the explosion, tried to think how his friend Guillaume, to whom he was much attached, might be extricated from any charge of complicity should he be denounced. And Guillaume, at sight of Janzen's contemptuous coldness, must have suffered keenly, for the other evidently believed him to be trembling, tortured by the one desire to save his own skin. But what could he say, how could he reveal the deep concern which rendered him so feverish ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola

... at Lucrezia with a half-contemptuous humor, and she up at him with a wide-eyed, unconcealed adoration. Then he looked curiously round the room, with a sharp intelligence that took in ...
— The Call of the Blood • Robert Smythe Hichens

... and half-contemptuous. "The woman is a serving-maid," he said, "who brought me a message that I understand but little. Tell me, Metem, for you know this place of old, does there stand in the palace garden a great fig tree with ...
— Elissa • H. Rider Haggard

... recognize in the justly wounded feelings of the Minister of the United States at the Court of St. James much to excuse the notice which he was provoked to take of that agitator, in my humble opinion he would better have consulted the dignity of his station and of his country in treating him with contemptuous silence. He would exclude us from European society, he who himself, can only obtain a contraband admission, and is received with scornful repugnance into it! If he be no more desirous of our society than we are of his, he may rest assured that a state of perpetual non- intercourse will exist between ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier

... a brief, contemptuous glance toward the stove. "You got the damn' queer way to talk. I don't call no squaw no lady. ...
— Rowdy of the Cross L • B.M. Sinclair, AKA B.M. Bower

... my instructions, waited till the first lieutenant had paused, and then made the first freemason sign, looking up very boldly at the first lieutenant, who actually drew back with astonishment at this contemptuous conduct, hitherto unwitnessed on board of ...
— Percival Keene • Frederick Marryat

... contemptuous glance before he returned his eyes to the road. "I said the ship was the Pride of Darkhan. If you had studied this system at all, you would know what that means. Cassylia and Darkhan are sister planets and rivals in every way. It has been ...
— Deathworld • Harry Harrison

... very Spaniards lost faith in his concessions. With rage in his heart at the failure of his efforts, he had renewed his betrothal on the very eve of his departure only that he might insult the Infanta by its contemptuous withdrawal as soon as he was safe at home. But to England at large the baser features of his character were still unknown. The stately reserve, the personal dignity and decency of manners which distinguished ...
— History of the English People, Volume V (of 8) - Puritan England, 1603-1660 • John Richard Green

... Is not Cranmer's contemptuous mention of these uncertain legends and vain repetitions amply justified? And can we be too thankful to the sturdy champions of the Reformation, who in the face of no little opposition and by efforts scarcely appreciated to-day, cut us loose from all responsibility ...
— A Short History of the Book of Common Prayer • William Reed Huntington

... contemptuous look, and then going to a large safe in the forward part of the main office, brought out the cash ...
— The Missing Tin Box - or, The Stolen Railroad Bonds • Arthur M. Winfield

... sounded a final flourish as the Prince of the Captivity dismounted from his white mule; his train shouted as if they were once more a people; and, had it not been for the contemptuous leer which played upon the countenances of the Moslem bystanders, it might have been taken for a day of triumph ...
— Alroy - The Prince Of The Captivity • Benjamin Disraeli

... Then Robert sighed. Weaknesses of Langham's sort may be amusing enough to the contemptuous and unconcerned outsider. But the general result of them, whether for the man himself or those whom he affects, is tragic, not comic; and Elsmere had ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... blushed, held out his hand and withdrew it again, dropped his hat and caught it awkwardly between his knees. Myra (who had made the sign of the cross as Hester entered) stood and regarded him with a cold, contemptuous interest. Her uncle presented the poor fellow with a proprietary wave of the hand, as though he had been ...
— Shining Ferry • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... and dissolute life, an object of general hatred. Five of the cardinals, Robert of Geneva, Acquasparta, Viviers, Poitou, and De Verny, were seized in their attempt to steal away, and driven back, amid contemptuous hootings, by personal violence. Night came on again; the populace, having pillaged all the provisions in the conclave, grew weary of their own excesses. The cardinals fled on all sides. Four left the city; Orsini and St. Eustache escaped to Vicovaro, Robert of Geneva to Zagarolo, St. Angelo to ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various

... the new-comer, apparently noways abashed by the contemptuous manner of his reception, as he stepped up to the table, and placed a roll of dollars upon ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 57, No. 352, February 1845 • Various

... the biographers, but has assumed a darker hue since the discovery by Mr. Masson of a copy of the first edition of The Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce, with the written date of August 1. According to Phillips's narrative, the pamphlet was engendered by Milton's indignation at his wife's contemptuous treatment of him, in refusing to keep the engagement to return at Michaelmas, and would therefore be composed in October and November, time enough to allow for the sale of the edition, and the preparation of the enlarged edition, which came out in February, 1644. But if the date "August ...
— Milton • Mark Pattison

... significantly first at his watch, and then at Titmouse. "It's only for the sake of my other young men, you know, sir. In a large establishment like ours, we're obliged, you know, sir," &c. &c. &c., he added, in a low cringing tone, deprecatory of the contemptuous air with which he felt that Mr. ...
— Ten Thousand a-Year. Volume 1. • Samuel Warren

... some fraternal feeling, but these lads appeared instinctively to avoid each other, and Tony's being a senior, made this easily possible on his part. Malatesta, seeing that Bill and Gus were both exceedingly friendly with Tony, seemed to take especial pleasure in making contemptuous remarks concerning all three, or in making offensive, insulting gestures that they could not help seeing. At first this was altogether puzzling because the motive was not apparent. It became more evident, however, following ...
— Radio Boys Loyalty - Bill Brown Listens In • Wayne Whipple

... for the doctor, for any one indeed who could crack even a feeble joke under such circumstances, or who could run an impersonal finger over that wound and those stains. Odd how a healthy, normal man holds the medical profession in half contemptuous regard until he gets sick, or an emergency like this arises, and then turns meekly to the man who knows the ins and outs of his mortal tenement, takes his pills or his patronage, ties to him like a rudderless ...
— The Man in Lower Ten • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... high poetical reputation; and, indeed, in those dark ages the harsh and bitter force that underlies his crude thought and half-barbarous language is enough to give him a place of note. Casaubon dismisses him in two contemptuous words as "versificator insulsissimus"; this is true of a great part of his work, and would perhaps be true of it all but for the /saeva indignatio/ which kindles the verse, not into the flame of poetry, but as it were to a dull red heat. There is little direct allusion ...
— Select Epigrams from the Greek Anthology • J. W. Mackail

... are!" said Constance presently, making a contemptuous lip. "They ought to be still in ...
— Lady Connie • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... several centuries of living practical history all pull the other way. It is hard to believe that the kindred of Turk and Magyar was thought of when a Turkish pacha ruled at Buda. Doubtless Hungarian Protestants often deemed, and not unreasonably deemed, that the contemptuous toleration of the Moslem sultan was a lighter yoke than the persecution of the Catholic emperor. But it was hardly on grounds of primeval kindred that they made the choice. The ethnological dialogue held at Constantinople does indeed sound like ethnological theory ...
— Harvard Classics Volume 28 - Essays English and American • Various

... cases to say that neither Elfrida's heavy-lidded beauty nor the smile that gave its instant attraction to Kendal's delicately eager face had much to do with the establishment of their acquaintance, such as it was. Kendal, though his virtue was not of the heroic order, would have turned a contemptuous heel upon any imputation of the sort, and Elfrida would have stared it calmly ...
— A Daughter of To-Day • Sara Jeannette Duncan (aka Mrs. Everard Cotes)

... the theoretic or scientific instruction of youth. The medical art also is to be in their hands, since no one is fit to be a physician who does not study and understand the whole man, moral as well as physical. M. Comte has a contemptuous opinion of the existing race of physicians, who, he says, deserve no higher name than that of veterinaires, since they concern themselves with man only in his animal, and not in his human character. In his last years, M. Comte (as we learn from Dr Robinet's volume) indulged ...
— Auguste Comte and Positivism • John-Stuart Mill

... Some, indeed, there were, who thought to show the soundness of their judgment by affirming that all the beauty and dignity of the natural world existed only in the poet's fancy. Let such men speak for themselves, who undoubtedly appear to have been spawned forth by Nature with a contemptuous bitterness; she having plastered them up out of her refuse stuff, after all the swine were made. As respects all things else, the poet's ideal was the ...
— Elson Grammer School Literature, Book Four. • William H. Elson and Christine Keck

... until their men returned. The latter had suffered shipwreck, because the Dutch captain had attempted to sail away when he saw the approach of the English officers. When the church had once more raised sufficient funds for the emigration, the magistrates gave them a contemptuous permission to depart, "glad to be rid of them at any price." So, in 1608, they also joined the English exiles in Amsterdam. The rank injustice and cruelty of their treatment, together with their patience ...
— The Development of Religious Liberty in Connecticut • M. Louise Greene, Ph. D.

... however, that they must be appropriate to this occasion, and desiring to be appreciative, he smiled pleasantly into the golfer's face and murmured, "Beastly fluke!" Mr. Balfour, by the way, has a particular and decided taste in caddies, for he has written that he can gladly endure severe or even contemptuous criticism from them; can bear to have it pointed out to him that all his misfortunes are the direct and inevitable result of his own folly; can listen with equanimity when failure is prophesied of some stroke he is attempting, and can note unmoved the self-satisfied ...
— The Complete Golfer [1905] • Harry Vardon

... their experience of what such a man could do to them, within the law and beyond it, that not a voice or a hand, or even an eye was raised. Among the men, not one. But the woman who stood knitting looked up steadily, and looked the Marquis in the face. It was not for his dignity to notice it; his contemptuous eyes passed over her, and over all the other rats; and he leaned back in his seat again, and ...
— Short Stories and Selections for Use in the Secondary Schools • Emilie Kip Baker

... tolerant," he said quietly, "familiar with subtleties, contemptuous of standards. It's rubbing the bloom off you. You let a man who is married come too close to you—you betray enough curiosity concerning him to do it. A drifting woman does that sort of thing, but why do you cut your cables? ...
— The Danger Mark • Robert W. Chambers

... so," cried the questioner, with a contemptuous glance; "'different minds incline to different objects!' His has decided for 'the wonderful, the wild;' and a pretty finale he has ...
— Thaddeus of Warsaw • Jane Porter

... attack, and if this be true, it can hardly be doubled that Camden had sailed too long in fair weather, or that he needed a squall to recall him to the duties of the helm. He answered Brooke, who replied with increased contemptuous tartness. It is admitted that Camden was indiscreet in his manner of reply, and that some genuine holes had been pricked in his heraldry. But the Britannia lay high out of the reach of fatal pedantic attack, and this little cloud over the reputation ...
— Gossip in a Library • Edmund Gosse

... when he heard the tone in which this was spoken, for the officer was both angry and contemptuous, when he heard the words ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest

... but see that Athanasius was master in Egypt. He may not have cared about the council, but the baptism of some heathen ladies at Alexandria roused his fiercest anger. He broke his rule of contemptuous toleration, and 'the detestable Athanasius' was an exile again before the summer was over. But his work remained. The leniency of the council was a great success, notwithstanding the calamity at Antioch. It gave offence, indeed, to zealots like Lucifer, ...
— The Arian Controversy • H. M. Gwatkin

... court with troops of ladies, More like an empress than Duke Humphrey's wife. Strangers in court do take her for the queen: She bears a duke's revenues on her back, And in her heart she scorns our poverty. Shall I not live to be avenged on her? Contemptuous base-born callet as she is! She vaunted 'mongst her minions t'other day, The very train of her worst wearing gown Was better worth than all my father's lands, Till Suffolk gave two ...
— Characteristics of Women - Moral, Poetical, and Historical • Anna Jameson

... of overweening pride. The trouble with Coriolanus is not ambition, as is the case with Macbeth. He cares little for crowns, office, or any outward honor. Self-centered, self-sufficient, contemptuous of all mankind outside of his own immediate circle of friends, he dies at last because he refuses to recognize those ties of sympathy which should bind all men and all classes of men together. He leads his countrymen to battle, and shows great courage at the siege of Corioli. ...
— An Introduction to Shakespeare • H. N. MacCracken

... very happy. In the mean time try to save dear Mrs. Sterling all you can, and let her make you worthy a good husband," was Christie's answer to a speech she was too noble to resent by a sharp word, or even a contemptuous look. ...
— Work: A Story of Experience • Louisa May Alcott

... considered himself very much of a man, and he did not relish being called an "infant." But he kept his temper; he foresaw that everything depended upon his remaining cool. He treated the remark with contemptuous silence. ...
— Chasing an Iron Horse - Or, A Boy's Adventures in the Civil War • Edward Robins

... Many physicians and surgeons, who are supposed to be trained in scientific methods of thought, will indorse what she says. The author of one of the most recent and in many respects admirable books on the care of babies, is almost contemptuous in her disdain for those who ...
— Applied Eugenics • Paul Popenoe and Roswell Hill Johnson

... result to his cause can grow from any other course, is the part of true wisdom as well as civility. An exception may be noted to the opinion of the Bench, as easily in an agreeable and polite, as in a contemptuous and insulting manner. The excitement of the trial of a cause caused by the conflict of testimony, making often the probabilities of success to vibrate backwards and forwards with as much apparent uncertainty as the chances in a game of hazard, ...
— An Essay on Professional Ethics - Second Edition • George Sharswood

... must get some bits for these, To bridle their contemptuous cursing tongues, That, like unruly never-broken jades, Break through the hedges of their hateful mouths, And pass ...
— Tamburlaine the Great, Part II. • Christopher Marlowe

... a contemptuous smile, "thou'rt in the right, Nancy, to take the gentleman at his first word. Hold him fast, and play over all thy monkey tricks with him, with all my heart; who knows but it may engage him more? For, should he leave thee, I might be too much provoked at ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson

... expected an open fight. The spur of alcohol had thrust them over the edge, given them a swifter flow of their impoverished blood, a temporary confidence in their own prowess, a mock valor that answered Lund's contemptuous challenge. ...
— A Man to His Mate • J. Allan Dunn

... enveigled the maid into bringing to thy notice, your Majesty," and the Duke cast a contemptuous glance at Monmouth, who ...
— Mistress Penwick • Dutton Payne

... held very well in check until then, flamed up as Stoner spat out the last contemptuous epithet. He had stood with his right hand behind him, grasping his heavy oaken stick—now, as his rage suddenly boiled, he swung hand and stick round in a savage blow at his tormentor, and the crook of the ...
— The Borough Treasurer • Joseph Smith Fletcher

... gone two hours,' said Frank at last, still without raising his eyes from his book. His tone was contemptuous, his voice was jarring, not yet having developed ...
— The Trespasser • D.H. Lawrence

... at Magda and shrugged his shoulders. The liveliness of the girl who skipped about while she was washing her dishes, roused a contemptuous compassion in him. He knew well what it felt like to have no desire for skipping about, and how great the weight of a man's head, hands, and feet can be when he ...
— Selected Polish Tales • Various

... was a moment's silence. His face was within a foot of hers, lowering, black, bestial. Her eyes met his without a tremor. Her full, sweet lips only curved into a faintly contemptuous line. ...
— The Pawns Count • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... my Review—three of them written by clergymen, and one by a scholarly layman of the Church of England. In those replies to the then unknown author of the Review, I was assailed by all sorts of contemptuous and criminating epithets—all denying that the author of such a publication could be "a Methodist Preacher,"—but was "an American," "a rebel," "a traitor,"—and that the Review was the "prodigious effort ...
— The Story of My Life - Being Reminiscences of Sixty Years' Public Service in Canada • Egerton Ryerson

... there any of that old dreary, half-contemptuous tone and manner which had often made her think he was only conforming to please her, and shrinking from coming to close quarters, where he might confess opinions that would grieve her. He was manifestly ...
— The Long Vacation • Charlotte M. Yonge

... hold of her wrist nor did he, until he had led her from the room back to the library. Then he released the girl, standing between her and the door, with folded arms and that cynical, quiet, contemptuous smile of his upon his ...
— The Clue of the Twisted Candle • Edgar Wallace

... problem is not at any cost to maintain the industries a nation actually possesses, but to have the national capital applied in the most efficient channels. So, too, Hume dismissed the Mercantile theory with the contemptuous remark that it was trying to keep water beyond its proper level. Tucker, as has been pointed out, was a free trader, and his opinion of the American war was that it was as mad as those who fought "under the peaceful Cross to recover the Holy Land"; and he urged, indeed, prophesied, the union ...
— Political Thought in England from Locke to Bentham • Harold J. Laski

... contemptuous sniff, and the triumvirate descending from their pedestal, all six men returned ...
— Standish of Standish - A story of the Pilgrims • Jane G. Austin

... de la Foret within?" he called; then stopped short, as though astonished, seeing Angele. "So! so!" he said, with a contemptuous laugh. Michel de la Foret's fingers twitched. He quickly stepped in front of Angele, and answered: "What is ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... and why they did not tear down and demolish that mockery, which was scarcely strong enough to impede the progress of women and children; that the enemy, who were skulking behind their baggage, were, in fact, captured and in their hands." Such were the contemptuous reproofs of their leaders. But it was not an easy task either to leap over or remove the burdens raised up against them, or to cut through the panniers, closely packed together and covered completely with baggage. When the removal ...
— The History of Rome; Books Nine to Twenty-Six • Titus Livius

... stay here, now that you're rich." She threw a contemptuous glance about the shop. Jinnie caught the inflection of the cutting voice and noted the expression in the ...
— Rose O'Paradise • Grace Miller White

... house, so that he might see the inside of it: indeed, if he had only met with a better reception at the bank, he would have invented such an excuse. But if Gabriel was icily stand-offish, Joseph was openly sneering and contemptuous, and the detective knew that no excuse would give him admittance. Still, there was the outside: he would take a look at that. Starmidge was a young man of ideas as well as of ability, and without exactly shaping ...
— The Chestermarke Instinct • J. S. Fletcher

... at the letter, and put it down with a smile that was somewhat contemptuous. "I have no need to read the letter," says she—(indeed, 'twas as well she did not; for the Chelsey missive, in the poor Dowager's usual French jargon, permitted him a longer holiday than he said. "Je vous donne," quoth her ladyship, ...
— The History of Henry Esmond, Esq. • W. M. Thackeray

... all manner of adjectives. We have had big charged upon us, because we use it where an Englishman would now use great. I fully admit that it were better to distinguish between them, allowing to big a certain contemptuous quality; but as for authority, I want none better than that of Jeremy Taylor, who, in his noble sermon 'On the Return of Prayer,' speaks of 'Jesus, whose spirit was meek and gentle up to the greatness of the ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell

... there isn't anny fool yarn you're not ready to believe." He stopped suddenly. The Duke of Wellington was coming up the steps, and his remarks trailed off into coughs and incoherent murmurs about the weather. Spectacle John knew better than to air his scientific theories before the Duke. She gave a contemptuous sniff and passed into ...
— Treasure Valley • Marian Keith

... him next and sat him, haughtily contemptuous, till he stopped, quivering with fatigue ...
— The Eagle's Heart • Hamlin Garland

... at the wrong, he had every reason to feel, she had done him. Then his anger had dissolved into a meager correspondence of outward and obvious facts. There was so much that she had been unable to explain. He had always been impatient, even contemptuous, of the emotion that made her surrender to him unthinkable—Linda realized now that it had been the strongest impulse of her life—and, of course, she had never accounted for the practically unbalanced enmity of ...
— Linda Condon • Joseph Hergesheimer

... long stretch of rough road with certain places sharply marked out to our eyes. The rejection by the Jewish leaders began at once. It ran through three stages, the silent contemptuous rejection, the active aggressive rejection, then the hardened, murderous rejection running up to the terrible climax ...
— Quiet Talks on Following the Christ • S. D. Gordon

... you ought to turn a good penny by this," said Heale, half envious of Tom's connection, half contemptuous at his ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume I • Charles Kingsley

... by 'saints'? Who are these amongst whom the broad acres of that infinite prairie are to be parted out? The word has attracted to itself contemptuous meanings and ascetical meanings, and meanings which really deny the true democracy of Christianity and the equality of all believers in the sight of God. But its scriptural use has none of these narrowing and confusing associations adhering to it, nor does it even directly and at first mean, ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ephesians; Epistles of St. Peter and St. John • Alexander Maclaren

... conquered the finest parts of Europe, has distressed, disunited, deranged, and broke to pieces all the rest, and so subdued the minds of the rulers in every nation, that hardly any resource presents itself to them, except that of entitling themselves to a contemptuous mercy by a display of their imbecility and meanness. Even in their greatest military efforts, and the greatest display of their fortitude, they seem not to hope, they do not even appear to wish, the extinction of what subsists to their certain ruin. Their ambition is only to be admitted ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. V. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... noise she made, the chairmen, who were near the door, came up, and the mob gathered, and our dulcimer was broken, and I'm very sorry for it.' The mistress of the print-shop observed, in a loud and contemptuous tone, 'that all this must be a lie, for that such a one as he could not have buns to give away to dogs!'—Here the blind man vindicated his boy, by assuring us that 'he came honestly by the bun—that ...
— Tales And Novels, Volume 1 • Maria Edgeworth

... at once radiant with gratitude, and its effect upon the cottage mistress was to further soften her asperity, so that though she again ejaculated that contemptuous "Huh!" it was in a milder tone; and, with something like interest she demanded, "How long 's that baby been that feverish she is now? She looks 's if she was comin' down with somethin' catchin'. Best get her home, ...
— A Sunny Little Lass • Evelyn Raymond

... ambassador. I gave him M. Morosini's letter, and he said, coldly, that he was glad to make my acquaintance. When I asked him to present me at Court the insolent fool only replied with a smile, which might fairly be described as contemptuous. It was the aristocratic pride coming out, so I returned his smile with a cold bow, and never set ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt

... Warrington would confess that he was a contributor to the leading journals of the day. The members were on the look-out for any indications of intellectual originality, academical or otherwise, and specially contemptuous of humbug, cant, and the qualities of the 'windbag' in general. To be elected, therefore, was virtually to receive a certificate from some of your cleverest contemporaries that they regarded you as likely to be in future an eminent man. The judgment ...
— The Life of Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, Bart., K.C.S.I. - A Judge of the High Court of Justice • Sir Leslie Stephen

... died when she saw his face. He shot her a quick, suspicious look, and his big mouth trembled with a scornful and contemptuous smile and he looked away indifferently. Then he faced ...
— Sisters • Kathleen Norris

... in the habits of the cassowary himself that explains these offerings. The cassowary always comes to meet you at the bars with a look of grave inquiry. If you offer no tribute he turns off, with many cockings of the beak, surprised, indignant, and contemptuous. Very few people can endure this. They hastily produce anything they have—anything to conciliate the contemptuous cassowary. And as he takes it, an expression steals across the cassowary's face which seems to admit that perhaps the ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 25, January 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various

... and they were ready to admit her to their ranks and let her lord it with them. Already she felt within her a stealing allegiance to their standards, an acceptance of their limitations, a disbelief in the things they did not believe in, a contemptuous pity for the people who were not able to live ...
— House of Mirth • Edith Wharton

... represented by the faselus of the Georgics, that problematical vegetable which has transmitted its name to the haricot in the Latin tongues? Remembering that the contemptuous epithet vilis is used by the poet in qualification, I am strongly inclined to regard it as the cultivated vetch, the big square pea, the little-valued jaisso ...
— Social Life in the Insect World • J. H. Fabre

... back by force of simple appeal in the name of God and of the country. By the light of those solid and actual qualities which ensure to her no ignoble place on the noble roll of Italian women who have deserved well of Italy, the record of her visions and ecstasies may be read without contemptuous intolerance of hysterical disease. The rapturous visionary and passionate ascetic was in plain matters of this earth as pure and practical a ...
— Songs before Sunrise • Algernon Charles Swinburne

... itself the Crown Prince Ferdinand, under the influence of his Neapolitan wife, headed a party in opposition to Godoy and the supporters of French dominion. Godoy, insecure at home, threw himself the more unreservedly into the arms of Napoleon, who bestowed upon him a contemptuous patronage, and flattered him with the promise of an independent principality in Portugal. Izquierdo, Godoy's agent at Paris, received proposals from Napoleon which were concealed from the Spanish Ambassador; and during the first months ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe

... such a kind can be authenticated at all. The Protestant Christian rejects every one of them—rejects them without inquiry—involves those for which there is good authority and those for which there is none or little in one absolute, contemptuous, and sweeping denial. The Protestant Christian feels it more likely, in the words of Hume, that men should deceive or be deceived, than that the laws of nature should be violated. At this moment we are beset with reports ...
— Froude's Essays in Literature and History - With Introduction by Hilaire Belloc • James Froude

... troubled the conqueror's ambitious dreams. The peace was broken as swiftly as made. In five months he was back before Frederik's capital with his whole army, while a Swedish fleet anchored in the roadstead outside. "What difference does it make to you," was the contemptuous taunt flung at the anxious envoys who sought his camp, "whether the name of your king is Karl or Frederik so long as you are safe?" He had come to make ...
— Hero Tales of the Far North • Jacob A. Riis

... money?" repeated Manual, with a sort of contemptuous echo. "Would a soldier part with his liberty, but with his life, unless the chains ...
— The Pilot • J. Fenimore Cooper

... absence of linen. One day Fanny found herself at Fifty-first street, and there before her lay Washington Park, with its gracious meadow, its Italian garden, its rose walk, its lagoon, and drooping willows. But then, that was Chicago. All contrast. The Illinois Central railroad puffed contemptuous cinders into the great blue lake. And almost in the shadow of the City Hall ...
— Fanny Herself • Edna Ferber

... [41] This is a contemptuous reference in Martineau's own words to 'George Borrow, the writer and actor of romance,' in the allusion to Martineau's schoolfellows under Edward Valpy. Martineau was at the Norwich Grammar School for four years—from 1815 to 1819. See Life and Letters, by ...
— George Borrow and His Circle - Wherein May Be Found Many Hitherto Unpublished Letters Of - Borrow And His Friends • Clement King Shorter

... fluency, because his mind was stammering and his hands twitching. Neither of them answered; but their faces seemed to him as if contemptuous. ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... Grumkow—does not draw his; presents it undrawn, with unconditional submission and apology: "Slay me, if you like, old Friend, whom I have injured!" Whereat Dessau, uttering no word, uttering only some contemptuous snort, turns his back on the phenomenon; mounts his horse and rides home. [Pollnitz, ii. 212, 214.] A divided man from this Grumkow henceforth. The Prince waited on her Majesty; signified his sorrow for past estrangements; his great wish now to help her, ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Volume V. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle

... escape punishment. The long lash passed over his body, and cracked like the report of a pistol; and while the officer was drawing back his arm for another attempt, the impudent, dirty face of the rogue was raised, and a leer of contemptuous pity expressed ...
— The Gold Hunter's Adventures - Or, Life in Australia • William H. Thomes

... Savine had started at Millicent's first statement, and now she read contemptuous indignation in Helen's eyes. It was certain her niece's voice, ...
— Thurston of Orchard Valley • Harold Bindloss

... which he might once have entertained as to their genuineness had disappeared. But Walpole's literary judgments were notoriously capricious. In his subsequent correspondence with Mason and others, he became very contemptuous of MacPherson's "cold skeleton of an epic poem, that is more insipid than 'Leonidas.'" "Ossian," he tells Mason, in a letter dated March, 1783, has become quite incredible to him; but Mrs. Montagu—the founder of the ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Eighteenth Century • Henry A. Beers

... are more reverentially inclined toward all honest critical investigations, more anxious to see all truth, the Bible itself, sifted and tested in every possible method; but we must protest against what certainly seems too contemptuous a rejection of a mass of historic evidence hitherto undoubted, except by the school of Voltaire; and of the hasty denial of the meaning of Christian and martyrologic symbols, as well known to antiquaries as Stonehenge or ...
— Literary and General Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley

... less the result of his "artfulness," and that he was unduly "puffed up" by it, was, in Hooker's characteristic reasoning, equally clear. As his host smilingly advanced with outstretched hand, Mr. Hooker's efforts to assume a proper abstraction of manner and contemptuous indifference to Clarence's surroundings which should wound his vanity ended in his lolling back at full length in the chair with his eyes on the ceiling. But, remembering suddenly that he was really the bearer of a message to Clarence, it struck him that his supine position was, from a theatrical ...
— Clarence • Bret Harte

... crushed into the slope by the driving force of the vicious mountain storms to which it is open on three sides. There is no shelter for it. It stands out bravely to sunshine and storm alike with the contemptuous indifference of familiarity. It is a dugout, and, as its name implies, is built half in the ground. Its solitary door and single parchment-covered window overlook the valley, and the white path in front where the snow is packed hard by the tramp of dogs ...
— In the Brooding Wild • Ridgwell Cullum

... have been easier to play the virtuous, forsaken, and unfortunate girl," she said, with a contemptuous smile. "It would have been less troublesome to throw myself at your feet, bathed in a flood of tears, and to say, 'Oh, have mercy upon me! Free me from this unworthy role which has been forced upon ...
— NAPOLEON AND BLUCHER • L. Muhlbach

... and remarked pointedly that it would take an hour for the water to cool in them and that they must be left alone in the meantime. He did not look at the girl, but from the tail of his eye he saw her pull a contemptuous grimace at him when she thought his ...
— Casey Ryan • B. M. Bower

... colonel, conspicuous alike for doubtful money-matters and matrimonial trouble; and in a farther corner the sallow profile of a writer whose books were apt to rouse even the man of the world to a healthy and contemptuous disgust. Surely these persons had never been there of old; he could ...
— The Marriage of William Ashe • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... back on that experience, she wondered how she had been able to preserve her calm, cold unconcern, which very soon convinced the youth that his advances were not welcome. Liz looked round at her, and, noting the proud, contemptuous curl of the girl's sweet lips, laughed up ...
— The Guinea Stamp - A Tale of Modern Glasgow • Annie S. Swan

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

... statesmen of our day—and we can do very little save wait for this young man to declare himself. We are the puppets with whom he plays. It rests with him whether our names are written upon the scroll of fame or whether our administration is dismissed in half a dozen contemptuous words by the coming historian. It rests with him whether our friend Bransome here shall be proclaimed the greatest Foreign Minister that ever breathed, and whether I myself have a statue erected to me in Westminster Yard, which ...
— The Illustrious Prince • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... With the passing of the "lady," American women may fail to remember that a gentlewoman need pretend to no aristocracy but that of the noblesse oblige of her own femininity. In the paragraph quoted above, women are spoken of as those who are "uniformly elevating" and as "weak and dependent" to a contemptuous degree. They cannot be both at once, and it seems to me that in fact they are neither. Woman is not an angel nor a demon, not a conqueror nor a slave. But the seed from which any of these conflicting natures may develop lies in more fertile soil, ...
— Woman and the Republic • Helen Kendrick Johnson

... a contemptuous look over his shoulder. "Better world? What do I want with a better world? I just don't want to be bothered. I've been getting my three squares a day, got a nice little flat for my family. How do I know it's not going to be a ...
— Ultima Thule • Dallas McCord Reynolds

... for them meant nothing to some of the Galatians. Many had disowned him as their teacher and gone over to the false apostles. No doubt the false apostles took every occasion to defame Paul as a stubborn and contemptuous fellow who thought nothing of disrupting the unity of the churches for no other reason than his ...
— Commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians • Martin Luther

... sir, yes," and receiving from Young the sneering reply, "We know all about it, Governor." On July 4., no northward movement of the people having begun, Cumming told Young that he intended to publish his proclamation. "Do as YOU please," was the contemptuous reply; "to-morrow I shall get upon the tongue of my wagon, and tell the people that I am going home, and they can ...
— The Story of the Mormons: • William Alexander Linn

... eggs and this bread were perfectly good, before he did black magic over them. And did you see the contemptuous look he gave me when I was so eccentric as to order toast? Oh, Reaper, Reaper, you desire a modern town, yet I wonder if you know how many thousands of tourists go from coast to coast, cursing you? If I could ...
— Free Air • Sinclair Lewis

... the morning after him. The factor is particularly keen for having him brought in right away. He also wants to know what I have done with all the furs that he claims have disappeared from this district during the last year." Donald's tone was contemptuous. ...
— The Wilderness Trail • Frank Williams

... some young people, and even some people not young, may smile, and be a little contemptuous over the idea of so much interest and delight in so small a matter. It can only be said of them, that there are some things happening every day in the world, that such people don't know of, and cannot be supposed to understand. That a good woman should have to plan ...
— The Inglises - How the Way Opened • Margaret Murray Robertson

... with a contemptuous curl of her matchless upper lip; "schule-marms arn't fine ladies; fine ladies don't work; only niggers works har. I reckon I'd rather be 'spectable ...
— Among the Pines - or, South in Secession Time • James R. Gilmore

... than choosing one set of companions or choosing another. There are some awful cads who sit along with Mr. Monk;—fellows that make you sick to hear them, and whom I couldn't be civil to. But I don't think there is anybody I hate so much as old Beeswax. He has a contemptuous way with his nose which makes me long to ...
— The Duke's Children • Anthony Trollope

... air with a chorus of "Caspitas!" and "Carambas!" None of them called Lola "Infanta" nowadays unless it were in a spirit of friendly pleasantry; and she herself had lost much of the air which had brought this contemptuous honor upon her ...
— A Prairie Infanta • Eva Wilder Brodhead

... But there was blame, too; there was even sharply contemptuous criticism. On the whole, Rachael had almost as much satisfaction from her morning's reading as Magsie did. The three most influential papers did not comment upon Miss Clay's acting at all. In two more, little Miss Elsie Eaton ...
— The Heart of Rachael • Kathleen Norris

... rose and pressed in a huddled body toward the hall, while Patty turned into the empty schoolroom. On the threshold she paused to hurl one contemptuous word over her shoulder: ...
— Just Patty • Jean Webster

... resigned her part in it. Jean herself absolutely refused to discuss the subject, beyond saying that she was tired and had found it necessary to drop something, and she was so sarcastic and ill-tempered that even her best friends began to let her severely alone. Toward Eleanor her manner was as contemptuous as ever, and she kept haughtily aloof from Betty. But one day when two of the Hill girls, gossiping in her room, made some slighting remarks about Betty's prominence in class affairs, Jean flashed ...
— Betty Wales Senior • Margaret Warde

... no evident result. The rationalists either maintained a contemptuous silence or answered him by their favorite cry of ignorance and fanaticism. The true teachings of Christianity, they asserted, could be ascertained only by the trained theologian, able to read the Bible in ...
— Hymns and Hymnwriters of Denmark • Jens Christian Aaberg

... were very quick, and they snapped and scintillated upon the smallest provocation. He was one of the most cantankerous, self-willed men in the whole company, and was under the impression that his advice was worth the combined wisdom of all the rest. He had heard the contemptuous reference made to himself by O'Donoghue, and his little eyes ...
— The Story of Louis Riel: The Rebel Chief • Joseph Edmund Collins

... of a lady, born and bred. All this I saw and realized at a glance; but what I was most conscious of at the time was the look in the dark eyes as they surveyed me from head to foot. Indifference was there, and contemptuous amusement; she didn't even condescend to smile, much less speak. Under that look my self-importance shrank until the yellow dog with which I had compared myself loomed as large as an elephant. She might have looked that way at some ...
— The Rise of Roscoe Paine • Joseph C. Lincoln

... to explain that this was not to be a rival show—no drinks would be sold; the idea was merely to found a place of amusement for the people. The only effect on the boss was to evoke a contemptuous "E-r-r-r!" and an injunction, in Chicago vernacular, to get out of that as soon as they liked—or sooner. And, by way of punctuation, he turned to expectorate copiously, but with imperfect precision at a box of sawdust which ...
— The Preacher of Cedar Mountain - A Tale of the Open Country • Ernest Thompson Seton

... make you into my confidant, my good man," said Mr. Carson, in a contemptuous tone, "I think it might be as well to inquire your right to meddle with our affairs. Neither Mary, nor I, as I conceive, called you in as a mediator." He paused: he wanted a distinct answer to this last supposition. None came; so he ...
— Mary Barton • Elizabeth Gaskell

... only laughed. She may not have remembered her own frock, or Mona's, she was probably not laughing at Mona's annoyance, it is very likely that she was amused at something she and Philippa were talking about, but Mona thought otherwise, and only glared back at her with angry, contemptuous eyes. She saw Millie's face change, and saw her whisper in Philippa's ear, then she heard them both laugh, and her heart was fuller than ever of hatred, and mortification. Mortification with herself partly, for allowing Millie to ...
— The Making of Mona • Mabel Quiller-Couch

... commentator, has given us a penetrating example of the effect of inflection; "In her impersonation of the part of Lady Macbeth, Mrs. Siddons adopted successively three different intonations in giving the words 'We fail.' At first a quick contemptuous interrogation—'We fail?' Afterwards, with the note of admiration—'We fail,' an accent of indignant astonishment laying the principal emphasis on the word 'we'—'we fail.' Lastly, she fixed on what I am convinced is the true reading—We fail—with the ...
— The Art of Public Speaking • Dale Carnagey (AKA Dale Carnegie) and J. Berg Esenwein

... hat under his arm, showing himself in three-quarter profile, and looking so neat that he resembled a piece of Sevres porcelain. He took up a copy of the Revue des Deux Mondes which was lying on the table between an Imitation and an Almanach de Gotha, and spoke of a distinguished poet in a contemptuous tone, said he was going to the "conferences of Saint-Francis," complained of his larynx, swallowed from time to time a pellet of gummatum, and in the meantime kept talking about music, and played the part ...
— Sentimental Education, Volume II - The History of a Young Man • Gustave Flaubert

... classes. A Glasgow butcher's wife, in the Highlands, attired in all the magnificence of her satins, laces, and jewelry, returned the courteous salute of the little woman in the gingham dress and gray shawl with a contemptuous toss of the head, and flounced past, to learn, to her great mortification, that she had missed an opportunity of forming an acquaintance with the Queen. So a large class of pretenders to science refuse to become acquainted with Bible truth, because it is not shrouded in the ...
— Fables of Infidelity and Facts of Faith - Being an Examination of the Evidences of Infidelity • Robert Patterson

... passage, I was thinking whether my dress could be so very ridiculous as my old cousin thought it, and trying in vain to recollect any evidence of a similar contemptuous estimate on the part of that beautiful and garrulous dandy. I could not—quite the reverse, indeed. Still I was uncomfortable and feverish—girls of my then age will easily conceive how miserable, under similar circumstances, such a ...
— Uncle Silas - A Tale of Bartram-Haugh • J.S. Le Fanu

... From the contemptuous way in which Senator Tweed treated Mr. Tilden, scouted his plans, and ridiculed his propositions, it was evident that the whole scheme had been staged as a State-wide spectacle to humiliate and end the political career ...
— My Memories of Eighty Years • Chauncey M. Depew

... Athens, than the wrongs which, in thirteen incomplete years that Philip has been uppermost, [Footnote: I. e. in power; but, as Smead, an American editor, truly observes, [Greek: epipolyxei] has a contemptuous signification, Jacobs: oben schwimmt. The thirteen years are reckoned from the time when Philip's interference in Thessaly began; before which he had not assumed an important character in southern Greece.] he has ...
— The Olynthiacs and the Phillippics of Demosthenes • Demosthenes

... emitted a shrill cry, to be interpreted as contemptuous laughter, and, in her emotion, spoke too impulsively: "Why, she'd ...
— The Turmoil - A Novel • Booth Tarkington

... conscious of darkness as—Shall I tell you the truth? You think you sing for the Dawn, but you sing in reality to be admired, you—songster, you! [With contemptuous pity.] Is it possible you are not aware that your poor notes raise a smile right through the forest, accustomed to the fluting of ...
— Chantecler - Play in Four Acts • Edmond Rostand

... They feel they would be unwelcomed, that nine tenths of the congregation would consider them unfit to address their prayers to the Great White Throne from so exclusive a place. The widow's mite would cause the warden's face to glimmer with a well-bred smile of contemptuous amazement, if laid in the midst of the crisp bank bills of the collection; and Lazarus would lay a long time at the doors of these churches, unless the police should ...
— The Secrets Of The Great City • Edward Winslow Martin

... face as he spoke, as if the nature of the transaction would be changed by staring her out of countenance, and she returned his gaze unflinchingly; but not another word would she say on the subject. There is a sad majority of wives whose attitude towards their husbands must be one of contemptuous toleration—toleration of their past depravity and of their present deceits, whatever form they may take. Such a wife looks upon her husband as a hopeless incurable, because she knows that he has not the sense, even if he had the strength of character, to mend his moral defects. Beth fully ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand

... kicking, writhing, foaming. It took six men to drag him down on to the floor amidst the splintered remains of the table—and not one of the six who did not bear the prisoner's mark upon him. But Sharkey still surveyed him with the same contemptuous eye. From outside there came the crash of breaking wood and the clamour ...
— The Green Flag • Arthur Conan Doyle

... Indian with a scornful laugh. "Tell the polar bear," continued Meestagoosh, in a contemptuous tone, "that I did not expect to catch him so soon. I have been fortunate. It was kind of him to come in my way, and to bring his she-bear with him. Tell him that I and my braves are going to pay a visit to his ...
— Ungava • R.M. Ballantyne

... the author, in the "Morning Chronicle", of which I confess with much moral and poetical contrition, that the lines and the subject were equally bad. I have since "studied" his work; and long before you had sent me your contemptuous challenge, had been preparing an examination of it, which will shortly appear in "The Watchman" in a series of essays. You deem me an "enthusiast"—an enthusiast, I presume, because I am not quite convinced with yourself and Mr. ...
— Biographia Epistolaris, Volume 1. • Coleridge, ed. Turnbull

... rapidity, and her answer, which was the first of the numerous ones that appeared, obtained extraordinary notice. Marked as it is with the vehemence and impetuousness of its eloquence, it is certainly chargeable with a too contemptuous and intemperate treatment of the great man against whom its attack is directed. But this circumstance was not injurious to the success of the publication. Burke had been warmly loved by the most liberal and enlightened ...
— Memoirs of the Author of a Vindication of the Rights of Woman • William Godwin

... the widdy Kelly, I can tell him that; for when I puts my hand to a thing, I mane to pull through wid it. But tell me—all this'll be costing money, won't, it? Attorneys don't bring thim sort of things about for nothing," and she gave a most contemptuous twist to the notice. ...
— The Kellys and the O'Kellys • Anthony Trollope

... il?" said the captain of the privateer to the young man who interpreted. The young man translated this fine speech, upon which the French captain called the English one by a very contemptuous title, and turned away. The privateer's men now made their appearance from below, having helped themselves to everything they could find; the orders were then given for the prisoners to be brought ...
— Poor Jack • Frederick Marryat

... they would be at the house, where Maria would open the door, and give him a peculiar contemptuous look—the old look largely intensified; and but for the doctor's words, and the promise given, the boy felt that he must have run away down the first ...
— Quicksilver - The Boy With No Skid To His Wheel • George Manville Fenn

... he made a contemptuous gesture of dissent. "No, it wasn't that. I never loved her, except, perhaps, just at the first. But there's something that comes before love, I guess. I don't know what it is, but there's something. It may be just plain doggedness, but after I married her there wasn't anything on top this ...
— Life and Gabriella - The Story of a Woman's Courage • Ellen Glasgow

... at that moment the others came in from the garden. But Charmian, why she did not know, felt increasing regret for her inadvertence. She even wished that Madame Sennier had shown some emotion, surprise, even contemptuous incredulity. The complete blankness of the Frenchwoman at ...
— The Way of Ambition • Robert Hichens

... ruler of the synagogue, Crispus. Being rejected by the Jews, he turned to the Gentiles, and held his meetings {135} in the house of Justus, a converted proselyte. The Jews prosecuted St. Paul before Gallio, who, however, dismissed the case with contemptuous indifference. The converts to Christianity were numerous. They were mostly Gentiles (1 Cor. xii. 2), but there were a few influential Jewish Christians and some Gentiles who had been proselytes of Judaism. It is clear that the Church contained a few men of good ...
— The Books of the New Testament • Leighton Pullan

... action. And, above all, whatever the circumstances, there must be no exhibition of vulgar curiosity, no eagerness, no enthusiasm, no astonishment while one of ocean's countless mysteries is unfolding itself before his eyes; he must exhibit an air of semi-contemptuous indifference, as who should say, "I am a seasoned hand—a shell-back, and none of your beach-combers. I have long been familiar with all the strange sights and sounds and vicissitudes to be met with upon the broad ocean; for me the tale ...
— The Cruise of the "Esmeralda" • Harry Collingwood

... then a man of forty, and under the Commonwealth he had been famous in Dryden's contemptuous phrase as "the loudest bagpipe of the squeaking train"; but he was no sooner a minister of Charles than he flung himself into the debauchery of the Court with an ardour which surprised even his master. "You are the ...
— History of the English People, Volume VI (of 8) - Puritan England, 1642-1660; The Revolution, 1660-1683 • John Richard Green

... to change the fashion of her thought and had no power in that either. It was a strange, half-angry, half-contemptuous pity that moved in her, and a fever of impatience. He was wicked to be struck down so, rent, impotent. Why must the wretch go plunging out into the world and measure himself against these swashbuckling conspirators? He had no equipment for it. He was fated to end it with disaster. Faith, it ...
— The Highwayman • H.C. Bailey

... Lablache, with a contemptuous shrug. "You know the inevitable result of such a hasty decision. It means ruin to you—beggary to that poor child." His teeth snapped viciously. Then he smiled with his mouth. "I can only put your de—refusal down ...
— The Story of the Foss River Ranch • Ridgwell Cullum

... Caucasus, paths to illimitable empire and uncompromising despotism. It moves down the map of the world, as a glacier moves down the Alps, patient and relentless, startling the jealous rivals that watch its course, and granting contemptuous peace to the allies that shiver ...
— Humanity in the City • E. H. Chapin

... his dealings with the intangible things of life to be a higher form, indeed the highest form, of intellectual employment. He is therefore racially, historically, and by temperament jealous or contemptuous, according to his station in life, of the cosmopolitan exchanger of the world, the Jew. He denies to him either patriotism or originality, and looks upon him as merely a distributer, whether in art, literature, or commerce, as an exchanger who amasses wealth by taking ...
— Germany and the Germans - From an American Point of View (1913) • Price Collier

... at each one of Moronval's witticisms. The fact was, that Jack dreaded the veiled allusions to his mother with which these remarks invariably terminated. He, to be sure, rarely caught their full meaning, but he saw by the contemptuous laughter that they were far from kindly. Madame Moronval would sometimes interrupt the conversation by a friendly word to Jack, or by sending him on some trifling errand. During his absence, she administered a reproof to her ...
— Jack - 1877 • Alphonse Daudet

... you see the contemptuous face with which he receives your offer, you see how proudly, how scornfully he looks down upon you, as if it would be a disgrace to him to recognize such worthy men as judges. Oh, I will submit to your sentence, I have no desire ...
— The Corsair King • Mor Jokai



Words linked to "Contemptuous" :   contemptuousness, contempt, insulting, disrespectful, disdainful, scornful



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