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Pique   /pik/   Listen
Pique

noun
1.
Tightly woven fabric with raised cords.
2.
A sudden outburst of anger.  Synonyms: irritation, temper.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Pique" Quotes from Famous Books



... unusual force and pathos. He took the congregation not a little by storm. He fairly carried us away. He was eloquent, and that with a simplicity which made one question whether he did not speak out of some pressing personal experience."—Katherine's manner was touched by a pretty edge of pique.—"Really I believed I knew all about Julius and his doings by this time, but it seems I don't! I think I must find out. It would vex me that anything should happen in which he needed sympathy, and that I did not offer it.—His subject was the answer to prayer ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet

... the Quarterly Review, uncut and unopened, not from disrespect or disregard or pique, but it is a kind of reading which I have some time disused, as I think the periodical style of writing hurtful to the habits of the mind, by presenting the superfices of too many things at once. I do not know that it contains ...
— Life of Lord Byron, With His Letters And Journals, Vol. 5 (of 6) • (Lord Byron) George Gordon Byron

... the verdict, delivered from rolling clouds: "If you were only a mass of blathering vanity, Dick, I wouldn't mind,—I'd let you go to the deuce on your own mahl-stick; but when I consider what you are to me, and when I find that to vanity you add the twopenny- halfpenny pique of a twelve-year-old girl, then I bestir myself ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling

... external objects, rather than from the heart or understanding, both of which they reserve for actions and not for company. Besides, as they are in general very ignorant, they find very little pleasure in serious conversation, and do not at all pique themselves on shining by the wit they can exhibit in it. Poetry, eloquence and literature are not yet to be found in Russia; luxury, power, and courage are the principal objects of pride and ambition; ...
— Ten Years' Exile • Anne Louise Germaine Necker, Baronne (Baroness) de Stael-Holstein

... to think of himself as a stoic, quite indifferent about his "carcase." His briefer black moods he might acknowledge had transitory causes. But his general and abiding conceptions of humanity were the result of dispassionate reflections. "You think," he cries in half-sportive pique, "that because I pass my life trying to make harmonious phrases, in avoiding assonances, that I too have not my little judgments on the things of this world? Alas! Yes! and moreover I shall burst, enraged at not ...
— The George Sand-Gustave Flaubert Letters • George Sand, Gustave Flaubert

... worthy man was in keeping with his manners and his countenance. No power could have made him give up the white muslin cravats, with ends embroidered by his wife or daughter, which hung down beneath his chin. His waistcoat of white pique, squarely buttoned, came down low over his stomach, which was rather protuberant, for he was somewhat fat. He wore blue trousers, black silk stockings, and shoes with ribbon ties, which were often unfastened. ...
— Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau • Honore de Balzac

... recollect the master's wife stroking his pretty curls and treating him furtively to goodies; at college he had the tutor simpering and bowing as he swaggered over the grass-plat; old men at clubs would make way for him and fawn on him—not your mere pique-assiettes and penniless parasites, but most respectable toad-eaters, fathers of honest families, gentlemen themselves of good station, who respected this young gentleman as one of the institutions of their country, and the admired ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray

... case, there are circumstances by which the woman is, if not justified, at least excused. Frank did put faith in his cousin's love for himself. He did credit her when she told him that she had accepted Lord Fawn's offer in pique, because he had not come to her when he had promised that he would come. It did seem natural to him that she should have desired to adhere to her engagement when he would not advise her to depart from it. And then her jealousy about Lucy's ring, and her abuse of Lucy, ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope

... avoided the danger with which they were threatened by this law. Such of them as had any claims to reason and who belonged to the better class, thought it their duty to remain stedfast to their new faith; but the greater part, as though out of pique at having been forced against their will by the law to abandon the faith of their fathers, adopted the belief of the Manicheans, or what is ...
— The Secret History of the Court of Justinian • Procopius

... you somehow," he said then; "you are surrounded by mystery, you puzzle me, you pique my curiosity. I am not curious about small things as a rule, but this is not a small thing, and I have a great curiosity as to the state of your heart, as to the ...
— The Time of Roses • L. T. Meade

... Richard Waverley in the case before us; for, had the sum total of his enormities reached the ears of Sir Everard at once, there can be no doubt that the new commissioner would have had little reason to pique himself on the success of his politics. The Baronet, although the mildest of human beings, was not without sensitive points in his character; his brother's conduct had wounded these deeply; the Waverley estate was fettered by no entail ...
— Waverley • Sir Walter Scott

... many a glance at Barbara and at Jim. Barbara seemed serious almost to ungraciousness—that might be a sign. Jim was teasing Sally, who laughed deeply and richly, like a child, and spilled her orange juice on her fresh gown. Perhaps he was trying to pique Barbara by assuming an ...
— The Story Of Julia Page - Works of Kathleen Norris, Volume V. • Kathleen Norris

... man with a dark complexion, alluring black eyes and black moustache curled up at the ends, entered hastily, tucking the third envelope in the pocket of his pique waistcoat. ...
— The Lady of Big Shanty • Frank Berkeley Smith

... inquiringly. She was always sensitively responsive, and now had forgotten, like a sweet-tempered child, her momentary pique. ...
— The Squirrel-Cage • Dorothy Canfield

... uniformly less noble, and, if its general intent is not immoral, at least many of the scenes verge upon the risque. What is the cause of this digression from a style of writing so much more natural to Marivaux? Fleury attributes the reason to his pique with Crebillon fils and his desire to prove to him "that in a work that borders upon license, brutal license is not enough; that it must be presented in a delicate form, and seasoned with wit and observation."[94] Certain it is that les Egarements de l'esprit et du coeur, published the following ...
— A Selection from the Comedies of Marivaux • Pierre Carlet de Chamblain de Marivaux

... an expression of pique; it reawakened quite another suspicion. It was evident that she was hurt at the cessation of Dunham's attentions. He was greatly minded to say that Dunham was a fool, but he ended by saying, with sarcasm, "I suppose he saw ...
— The Lady of the Aroostook • W. D. Howells

... decided. But the course of her true love could not have run very smooth and, knowing that Lennox was otherwise interested, she took up with Paliser out of pique. ...
— The Paliser case • Edgar Saltus

... you puzzle me, Mr. De Gex," I replied with pique. "It would be so much easier if you would be frank and ...
— The Stretton Street Affair • William Le Queux

... cruel, more unjust. His aunt had certainly intended a rebuke; but she hardly realized either the over-sensitiveness of Ivan's nature or the extent of his boyish feeling for his cousin, whom he concluded to be responsible, by some unfathomable pique, for his ...
— The Genius • Margaret Horton Potter

... new opera of "Hamlet." The Prince and I sang the duet, "I Rosens duft." He was the lion of the evening, and I think that he was very pleased. I hoped that he had forgotten the unpleasant incident of the morning and Delsarte, of whom Monsieur Due cleverly remarked, "Qui s'y frotte s'y pique—." ...
— In the Courts of Memory 1858-1875. • L. de Hegermann-Lindencrone

... so sadly for its farm and community. But the owner was a hard and ignorant white man, hating "niggers" only a shade more than he hated white aristocrats of the Cresswell type. He had sold the school its first land to pique the Cresswells; but he would not sell any more, she was sure, even now when the promise of wealth faced ...
— The Quest of the Silver Fleece - A Novel • W. E. B. Du Bois

... his cigar and the fine edge of his reason had been dulled by so much when he matched his boy's wit against hers. His mind had not sought out the hidden motive that lay behind what she had said; he had followed where she led and, finding her logic impregnable, had yielded like a child, in a pique. Yes, yielded out of spite without ever once thinking that she worked, day by day, ...
— Rimrock Jones • Dane Coolidge

... up, feeling a little indignant and a little curious. Strolling towards the ruins, however, there was too much to start conversation and too much to give delight, to permit either silence or pique to last. ...
— The Old Helmet, Volume I • Susan Warner

... farm, with the assistance of an only son, a very promising youth, who was already contracted in marriage with the daughter of another wealthy farmer. Thus the mother had a prospect of retrieving the affairs of her family, when all her hopes were dashed and destroyed by a ridiculous pique which Mrs. Gobble conceived against the young farmer's sweetheart, ...
— The Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves • Tobias Smollett

... with him that it showed that more or less pique and irritation existed between the ladies, and told him how things stood, and that ...
— Allan Quatermain • by H. Rider Haggard

... Triumvir and friend, he attacks him in the accompanying letter to the Tuscan ruler with the withering sarcasm that "the satins, velvets, and brocades would perhaps have been better if Titian had received a few more scudi for working them out." If Aretino's pique had not caused the momentary clouding over of his artistic vision, he would have owned that the canvas now in the Pitti was one of the happiest achievements of Titian and one of the greatest things in portraiture. There is no flattery here of the "Divine Aretino," ...
— The Later works of Titian • Claude Phillips

... he adds, 'when I was at Eton, and Mr. Bland had set me on an extraordinary task, I used sometimes to pique myself upon not getting it, because it was not immediately my school business. What! learn more than I was absolutely forced to learn! I felt the weight of learning that; for I was a blockhead, and ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 2 • Grace & Philip Wharton

... sentiment of the thing and not the thing itself that engaged his attention. I scarcely saw him eat a hearty meal during his whole stay. Both at Parker's hotel in Boston, and at the Westminster in New York, everything was arranged by the proprietors for his comfort, and tempting dishes to pique his invalid appetite were sent up at different hours of the day; but the influenza had seized him with masterful power, and held the strong man down till he left ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster

... voluptuous glow, and a fugitive blush flitted across her lily-white cheeks. She was more beautiful than ever. But who can fathom the follies of a young man who has got too hot blood in his head and heart? The bitter pique which the Baron had stirred up within me I transferred to the Baroness. The entire business seemed to me like a foul mystification; and I would now show that I was possessed of alarmingly good common-sense and ...
— Weird Tales. Vol. I • E. T. A. Hoffmann

... detail of economy. His attitude to socks had lacked in reverence and technique. He had not perceived that socks may be as sound a symbol of culture as the 'cello or even demountable rims. He had been able to think with respect of ties and damp pique collars secured by gold safety-pins; and to the belted fawn overcoat that the St. Klopstock banker's son had brought back from St. Paul, he had given jealous attention. But now he graduated into ...
— Free Air • Sinclair Lewis

... Gilbert the second, Rufus or Rubens, i.e. Red, is another well-known figure. Like his father, he at first supported the barons, but soon after the battle of Lewes he took the King's side, and fought for him at Evesham. Again from pique he deserted him, returning to his allegiance once more in 1270. He was buried ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Abbey Church of Tewkesbury - with some Account of the Priory Church of Deerhurst Gloucestershire • H. J. L. J. Masse

... Mr. Morion's, he did not know just why; then his pique was lost in sarcastic recollection of the time when he too used to read poems to ladies. He had read that poem to Lina Ridgely and the ...
— Indian Summer • William D. Howells

... second, if second, to Cicero alone, ardent, impassioned, yet bland, clement, easy; liberal both of hand and council; averse to Cicero from personal pique, as well as from party opposition; an eager candidate for popular applause and favor, it was most natural that he should take side with ...
— The Roman Traitor (Vol. 2 of 2) • Henry William Herbert

... each, throwing it on the floor without any order. The secretary afterwards gathered them all up, and arranged them to be carried into the Emperor's private room. His Majesty, before making his toilet, in summer, put on pantaloons of white pique and a dressing-gown of the same, and in winter, pantaloons and dressing-gown of swanskin, while on his head was a turban tied in front, the two ends hanging down on his neck behind. When the Emperor donned this headdress, his appearance was far from elegant. When he came out of the ...
— The Private Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Constant

... its place. When she saw what she wished to know, she told me the story, the whole miserable story, that I'd heard enough of to suspect. Why she'd married the other man she couldn't explain herself, except that it was a woman's whim—I had stayed away and he had come the oftener—part pique and part the man's dare-devil fascination, I reckon; but a month had shown her how she really stood, and had shown him, too. Likewise, she saw the sort of man he was and the kind of life he lived. At last he got rough and cruel to her, trying every way to break ...
— The Barrier • Rex Beach

... were not even permitted to suffer any considerable pecuniary loss by reason of their breach of the law. Finding that their conduct led to their being made the subjects of a sort of hero-worship, it is not surprising that they soon came to pique themselves upon what they had done, and, so far from feeling any consciousness of shame or regret, to openly court publicity for their proceedings. Jarvis was especially culpable in this respect, and was not ashamed to write letters to the papers on the subject, ...
— The Story of the Upper Canada Rebellion, Volume 1 • John Charles Dent

... taken long ago, she told herself, and lay tucked away in the receptacle which contained the varied neatly labelled patterns of her masculine world; but at the same time she was perfectly aware that within five minutes he would pique afresh both her interest and her liking. "You can't warm yourself by fireworks," she had once said to him, and a moment later had paused to wonder at the intrinsic meaning of a daring phrase ...
— The Wheel of Life • Ellen Anderson Gholson Glasgow

... to have married. She is very beautiful," said Toni simply. "And she would have been the right mistress for Greenriver. I can't understand how it was you married me. Eva said—when we were driving home—that it must have been pique. She said you wanted to show the other woman you did not care ... and when I thought about it, I saw that it ...
— The Making of a Soul • Kathlyn Rhodes

... pure liberty must leap with delight upon the disincumbered earth, where once stood that gloomy abode of "broken hearts," and reflect upon the sufferings of the wretched Latude, and the various victims of capricious pique, or prostitute resentment. It was here that, in the beautiful lines of Cowper, the hopeless ...
— The Stranger in France • John Carr

... few years she would be the most dashing. It is astonishing how soon the eye of even a child can discriminate, in that particular which has been rendered the sole subject of its studies and the grand object of its wishes; so that people who pique themselves upon being men of the world, or women of fashion, are rivalled in all their boasted knowledge and discernment by young creatures, whose faculties they may deem very inefficient, and which are indeed so in all ...
— The Barbadoes Girl - A Tale for Young People • Mrs. Hofland

... will never see anything beyond what he possesses himself, for the very good reason that this is all he wants to see. If there is anything on which he is in doubt, it will give him a vague sense of fear, mixed with pique; because it passes his comprehension, and ...
— The Essays of Arthur Schopenhauer; The Art of Controversy • Arthur Schopenhauer

... presence, which because of my assignments, failed to reach me for some time. So engrossed was I in the events surrounding the victory over the grass I could not conceive why any broker would want to see me and so put off my visit several times, till the urgency of the calls began to pique my curiosity. ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore

... zest, his lively intelligence, were not equally consulted and regaled. It is certain that, restless and exacting as seemed the demand on his attention, he yielded courteously all that was required: his manner showed neither pique nor coolness: Ginevra was his neighbour, and to her, during dinner, he almost exclusively confined his notice. She appeared satisfied, and passed to the ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte

... here— 120 You see him screw his face up; what's his cry Ere you set foot on shipboard? "Six feet square!" If you won't understand what six feet mean, Compute and purchase stores accordingly— And if, in pique because he overhauls Your Jerome, piano, bath, you come on board Bare—why, you cut a figure at the first While sympathetic landsmen see you off; Not afterward, when long ere half seas over, You peep up from your utterly naked boards 130 Into some snug and well-appointed berth, Like mine ...
— Men and Women • Robert Browning

... alone to Broade Street to Sir G. Carteret by his desire to confer with him, who is I find in great pain about the business of the office, and not a little, I believe, in fear of falling there, Sir W. Coventry having so great a pique against him, and herein I first learn an eminent instance how great a man this day, that nobody would think could be shaken, is the next overthrown, dashed out of countenance, and every small thing of irregularity in his ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys

... resign. Since then she had been at her best,—we are all more or less selfish creatures,— and had grown gentler, curbing the delicate imperiousness of her nature, and frankly, and without the least pique, taken a secondary position of interest in the household, occasioned by Lali's popularity. She looked Lali up and down with a glance in which many feelings met, and then, catching her hands warmly, she lifted them, put them on her own shoulders, and said: "My dear beautiful ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... nuisance, a professed talker. Display of any kind was quite foreign to his nature; and whenever he chanced to encounter a person cursed with that propensity, he would sit in silence for a whole evening: not in the silence of vexation or pique, but of a man left at leisure to pursue his own thoughts, or calmly amuse himself with the characteristics of the chatterer. If, while thus occupied, unexpectedly interrupted, or appealed to by the aforesaid chatterer, or any one else, he readily answered, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCLXXVI. February, 1847. Vol. LXI. • Various

... days Mrs. Ffinch-Brown swooped down upon the Robson household and gave vent to her pique. She had been divorced so long from these melancholy relations of hers that she had really forgotten their existence, and she displayed all the rancor of a woman who discovers suddenly a moth hole in the long undisturbed folds of a treasured cashmere shawl. Her precisely timed visits ...
— The Blood Red Dawn • Charles Caldwell Dobie

... severally taken occasion by his neglect of me to renew their advances; and if I were like Annabella and some others I should take advantage of their perseverance to endeavour to pique him into a revival of affection; but, justice and honesty apart, I could not bear to do it. I am annoyed enough by their present persecutions without encouraging them further; and even if I did it would have precious little effect upon him. He sees me suffering ...
— The Tenant of Wildfell Hall • Anne Bronte

... muslin; Messrs. Walter Evans and Co.'s embroidery cotton No. 16. For toilet mat: White pique; ...
— Beeton's Book of Needlework • Isabella Beeton

... occurrences still recent, it would be impossible, of course, to submit it to the public eye, without the omission of some portion of its contents, and unluckily, too, of that very portion which, from its reference to the secret pursuits and feelings of the writer, would the most livelily pique and gratify the curiosity of the reader. Enough, however, will, I trust, still remain, even after all this necessary winnowing, to enlarge still further the view we have here opened into the interior of the poet's life and habits, and to indulge harmlessly ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. II - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore

... object of the prince's admiration was the lady Dewbell, who, proud as she was, could not help feeling flattered by the evident and special devotion of one for whom the whole of her sex were dying. Sir Timothy Lawn, who, from pique or melancholy, or from some unknown cause, had left the court the very day after the arrival of the new prince, was not entirely forgotten, but was laid away carefully on a back shelf of her heart; and the lady Dewbell never had been so beautiful, so fascinating, so joyous and irresistible. Courts ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 4 October 1848 • Various

... trusted in a matter of this nature," put in Bulstrode, with a little pique, "Mr. Follock has every reason to be contented. Had I known, however, that the customs of New York allowed a lady who is present to be toasted, that gentleman would not have had the merit of being the first to make ...
— Satanstoe • James Fenimore Cooper

... asked, again and again, smiling,—but still feeling a little pique. She had counted on gladdening their sorry ...
— Prudence Says So • Ethel Hueston

... each other; we kept the great pace Neck by neck, stride by stride, never changing our place; I turned in my saddle and made its girths tight, Then shortened each stirrup, and set the pique right, Rebuckled the cheek-strap, chained slacker the bit, Nor galloped less ...
— The Ontario Readers: Fourth Book • Various

... natural rights of man, which is always a crime and leads to all manner of wickedness, is exercised by the Colonists with a cruelty that merits the abhorrence of everyone, though I have been told that they pique themselves upon it; and not only is the capture of the Hottentots considered by them merely as a party of pleasure, but in cold blood they destroy the bands which nature has knit between husband and wife, and between parents and their children. Does ...
— Native Races and the War • Josephine Elizabeth Butler

... chums on board. "He'll do more too come another occasion." That occasion did occur before many days were over. Two days afterwards the "Blanche" was joined by the "Quebec" frigate, and together, when sailing by Guadeloupe, they discovered the French thirty-six-gun frigate "Pique" lying at anchor in the harbour of Pointe-a-Pitre, ready for sea. Not to deprive his brother captain of the honour he might obtain by engaging an antagonist so worthy of him, Captain Carpenter parted ...
— The Grateful Indian - And other Stories • W.H.G. Kingston

... know the prefect by his clothes." Now it had unfortunately happened that M. de Chamans having sent his trunks by diligence they had not yet arrived, and being dressed in a green coat; nankeen trousers, and a pique vest, it could hardly be expected that in such a suit he should overawe the people under the circumstances; so, when he got up on a bench to harangue the populace, cries arose of "Down with the ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... Then came the verdict, delivered from rolling clouds: 'If you were only a mass of blathering vanity, Dick, I wouldn't mind,—I'd let you go to the deuce on your own mahl-stick; but when I consider what you are to me, and when I find that to vanity you add the twopenny-halfpenny pique of a twelve-year-old girl, then I bestir myself in ...
— The Light That Failed • Rudyard Kipling

... against you, Henry. You told her to decline Richard Raby, and so she declined him. Spite, indeed! The gentle pique of a lovely, good girl, who knows her value, though she is too modest to show it openly. Well, Henry, you have lost her a husband, and she has given you one more proof of affection. Don't build the mountain of ingratitude any higher: do pray take the cure that offers, and make your mother happy, ...
— Put Yourself in His Place • Charles Reade

... not; but Captain Blastblow is a very brilliant man, and has been around Cape Horn and the Cape of Good Hope so many times that he ought to know what he is about," I replied, letting out a little of my pique at the commander of the Islander for ...
— Up the River - or, Yachting on the Mississippi • Oliver Optic

... presiding at the head of her club, gave me the first idea of her management and address, in inspiring these girls with so sensible a love and respect for her. There was no stiffness, no reserve, no airs of pique, or little jealousies, but all was unaffectedly gay, cheerful ...
— Memoirs Of Fanny Hill - A New and Genuine Edition from the Original Text (London, 1749) • John Cleland

... Lilia sang: we thought her half-possessed, She struck such warbling fury through the words; And, after, feigning pique at what she called The raillery, or grotesque, or false sublime— Like one that wishes at a dance to change The music—clapt her hands and cried for war, Or some grand fight to kill and make an end: And he that next inherited ...
— The Princess • Alfred Lord Tennyson

... note!" and she took out a crumpled envelope, directed in Aunt Mary's handwriting to Fred, on the back of which Alex had written, "Dear B., we beg pardon, but Carey and Dick are going up to Andrews's about his terrier.—A. L." "Very cool, certainly!" said Beatrice, laughing, but still with a little pique. "What a life I will ...
— Henrietta's Wish • Charlotte M. Yonge

... but for her would have been united in this world and the next. She was thrusting herself upon Lord Hartledon, knowing that in his true heart it was another that he loved, not her. Yes, she knew that full well. He admired her beauty, and was marrying her; marrying partly in pique against Anne Ashton; partly in blindfold submission to the deep schemes of her mother, brought to bear on his yielding nature. All the injustice done to Anne Ashton was in that moment beating its refrain upon her heart; and a thought crossed her—would God not avenge it? Another time ...
— Elster's Folly • Mrs. Henry Wood

... at all, she must have done so just to pique Janice, not understanding how really valuable the contents of the box were. If possible, Mr. Day wished to recover the lost box without the publicity of going to the police, both for Olga's sake and for ...
— Janice Day, The Young Homemaker • Helen Beecher Long

... came. Now all the hurt, and pique, and shame, and jealous disappointment rushed together to mingle and disguise themselves with a swell and pang that always rose in her at the name of her little dead sister,—dead six years ago, when she was nine and ...
— The Other Girls • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney

... Cauldstaneslap. Here was Archie's secret, here was the woman, and more than that - though I have need here of every manageable attenuation of language - with the first look, he had already entered himself as rival. It was a good deal in pique, it was a little in revenge, it was much in genuine admiration: the devil may decide the proportions! I cannot, and it is very likely that ...
— Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson

... and striped stockings; a white pique waistcoat, a gray coat, with large metal buttons, and his hair in powder. He must have ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.

... the patriotic trend of the Otises was intensified a little by a personal pique in the matter referred to. But that either father or son was transferred from the king's party to the people's party by the failure of Colonel Otis to be appointed Chief Justice is not to be believed. Other stories are to be dismissed in the ...
— James Otis The Pre-Revolutionist • John Clark Ridpath

... whether Scarlett heard them, as he sat there still fanning his face, till at last, in a fit of half-maddening pique, Fred turned again on Samson, and signed to him ...
— Crown and Sceptre - A West Country Story • George Manville Fenn

... you and I will go down in the barouche, and I'll call for you, and we'll take Mr. Jones with us. And mind you're very civil to him, and only notice the other in a quiet, good-humoured way—for he mustn't think you do it out of pique—and before the whitebait is on the table you'll see he'll be a different man. But now you must go—there's a dear. I'll call for you at five. It's too bad to turn you out; but I'm never at home to any one between three and half-past ...
— Kate Coventry - An Autobiography • G. J. Whyte-Melville

... the cloud of apprehension had passed, leaving her sky serene again. And now Harboro had put aside the incident of the Mesquite Club ball as if it did not involve anything more than a question of pique. ...
— Children of the Desert • Louis Dodge

... an epoch when it was possible for a young man just come of age to lead the House of Commons. Lord George Gordon had led a somewhat varied life. He had been in the navy, and had left the service from pique, while the American war was still in its earliest stages, in consequence of a quarrel with Lord Sandwich concerning promotion. The restless energy which he could no longer dedicate to active service he resolved most unhappily ...
— A History of the Four Georges and of William IV, Volume III (of 4) • Justin McCarthy and Justin Huntly McCarthy

... that our tie is profane in comparison with yonder bar of cloud that sleeps on the horizon, or that clump of waving grass that divides the brook? Let us not vilify but raise it to that standard. That great defying eye, that scornful beauty of his mien and action, do not pique yourself on reducing, but rather fortify and enhance. Worship his superiorities; wish him not less by a thought, but hoard and tell them all. Guard him as thy counterpart. Let him be to thee forever a sort of beautiful enemy, untamable, devoutly revered, ...
— Essays • Ralph Waldo Emerson

... asked she, with as indifferent a tone as she could assume, but which yet had a touch of pique in it. His quick ...
— Half a Life-Time Ago • Elizabeth Gaskell

... profited by experience, say that when I was younger I found I often misrepresented the intentions of people, and that they did not mean what at the time I supposed they meant; and further, that, as a general rule, it was better to be a little dull of apprehension where phrases seemed to imply pique, and quick in perception when, on the contrary, they seemed to imply kindly feeling. The real truth never fails ultimately to appear; and opposing parties, if wrong, are sooner convinced when replied to forbearingly, than when overwhelmed. ...
— Character • Samuel Smiles

... knit scarf, and upon it a mirror, a bouquet of paper flowers, a few empty bonbonierres, a powder box, a faded photograph of a young man with white eyebrows and eyelashes and a haughtily astonished face, as well as several visiting cards. Above the bed, which is covered with a pink pique blanket, along the wall, is nailed up a rug with a representation of a Turkish sultan luxuriating in his harem, a narghili in his mouth; on the walls, several more photographs of dashing men of the waiter and actor type; a pink lantern ...
— Yama (The Pit) • Alexandra Kuprin

... does not think so," Murat replied, with pique. "I have just brought Madame Mere a present of eight fine carriage-horses. She declined them with thanks, and would not see me when I called on her in Rome. As for my loving ...
— Romance of Roman Villas - (The Renaissance) • Elizabeth W. (Elizbeth Williams) Champney

... little belief go far?[69] The nineteenth century is not precisely the age of the martyrs, or, if we are to find them, we must in general turn to politics and to science; Bishop Blougram does not pique himself on a genius for martyrdom; if he fights with beasts, it is on this occasion with a very small one, a lynx of the literary tribe, and in the arena of his own dining-room over the after-dinner wine. He is pre-eminently a man of his time, when the cross and its ...
— Robert Browning • Edward Dowden

... rival in his affection made her absolutely outrageous. She had so little considered Claribel in that light, that she had not deigned to notice Lionel's attention to her, which indeed her vanity whispered was merely a feint to pique herself, and to give him an opportunity of still hovering near her. The gift of the fairy, which had operated so much to Claribel's disadvantage in the opinion of her lover, secured her from sharing the keen mortification of her ...
— The Flower Basket - A Fairy Tale • Unknown

... In a moment of pique Girty had deserted his military post at Fort Pitt, and become an outlaw of his own volition. Previous to that time he had been an able soldier, and a good fellow. When he realized that his step was irrevocable, ...
— The Spirit of the Border - A Romance of the Early Settlers in the Ohio Valley • Zane Grey

... the exquisite Pleasure that delicious Fruit gave our Taste as lasting as we could, and by drying them protract their stay beyond its natural Date. We own that thus they have not a Flavour equal to that of their juicy Bloom; but yet, under this Disadvantage, they pique the Palate, and become a Salver better than any other Fruit at its first Appearance. To speak plain, there are a Number of us who have begun your Works afresh, and meet two Nights in the Week in order to give you a Rehearing. We never come together without drinking your Health, and as ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele

... the ship, but find himself unable to proceed. At these unfortunate break downs, he would be obliged to resign the speaking-trumpet to the first-lieutenant; and if, as sometimes happened, the latter (either from accident, or perhaps from a pardonable pique at having the duty taken out of his hands), was not at his elbow to prompt him when at fault—at these times the cant phrase of the officers, taken from some farce, used to ...
— Newton Forster - The Merchant Service • Captain Frederick Marryat

... come to this—that the mere sight of the youth, and strength, and beauty that have left us far behind shall stir our bile, as though it were an insolent parade—that the choicest delicacies at our neighbor's wedding-breakfast shall not pique our palate like the baked meats at his funeral? Not so; if we must give ground let us retreat in good order, leaving no shield behind us that our enemy may build into his trophy. If we are rash enough to assail Lady Violet Vavasour with petitions for a waltz, and see her look doubtfully down ...
— Sword and Gown - A Novel • George A. Lawrence

... call me Ella, instead of using the formality which rather belongs to strangers in fashionable society than to those dwelling beneath the same roof, in the wilds of Kentucky?" responded the person addressed, in a tone of pique, while she raised her head and let her soft, dark eyes rest ...
— Ella Barnwell - A Historical Romance of Border Life • Emerson Bennett

... that the act Of eating, with another act or two, Makes us feel our mortality in fact Redoubled; when a roast and a ragout, And fish, and soup, by some side dishes backed, Can give us either pain or pleasure, who Would pique himself on intellects, whose use Depends so ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron

... of strict neutrality. On the one side Russell was being berated by pro-Southerners as weakly continuing an outworn policy and as having "made himself the laughing-stock of Europe and of America[799];" on the other he was regarded, for the moment, as insisting, through pique, on a line of action highly dangerous to the preservation of peace with the North. October 23 Palmerston wrote his approval of the Cabinet postponement, but declared Lewis' doctrine of "no recognition of ...
— Great Britain and the American Civil War • Ephraim Douglass Adams

... the day, but there was nothing under-bred in his manner or language. He rather fulfilled her ideal of the light-hearted student who had brought away the air of the university without being oppressed by its learning. She saw, with a curious little blending of pique and pleasure, that he was not in the least afraid of her, and that, while claiming to be simply a farmer, he unconsciously asserted by every word and glance that he was her equal. She had the penetration to recognize from the start that she could ...
— Nature's Serial Story • E. P. Roe

... and passionate soul? Ah, no! he would not, he could not believe it. Light and false Henrietta could never be. She had been seen, she had been admired, she had been loved: who that saw her would not admire and love? and he was the victim of her pique, ...
— Henrietta Temple - A Love Story • Benjamin Disraeli

... of advice before we part: even the 'servant' may presume to counsel his 'master' as he is quitting his service. The landlord within is not one of those landlords who pique themselves on courtesy: and the gentleman tourist, with submission be it said, is not one of those tourists who travel with four horses,—or even by the stage-coach: and foot-travellers in England, especially in the winter season, do not meet with 'high consideration.' ...
— Walladmor: - And Now Freely Translated from the German into English. - In Two Volumes. Vol. I. • Thomas De Quincey

... Donna Isidora. I knew her at Toledo, and for years kept her company. During my absence,—Saint Petronila strike him with the leprosy!—a certain Lopez, a dirty, shuffling, addle-pated knave, stepped in between us, and married her. She took the poor fool purely through pique, because I did not write to her; and the holy saint knows ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat

... and free for all the world," she went on, not looking at me more than I could now at her. "I have set my life to prove this thing. When I came here to this America—out of pique, out of a love of adventure, out of sheer daring and exultation in imposture—then I saw why I was born, for what purpose! It was to do such work as I might to prove the theory of my father, and to justify the life of my mother. For that thing I was born. For ...
— 54-40 or Fight • Emerson Hough

... indignation, exchange one of your blandest smiles, and pass on, still striding to see what lovely features grace that exquisite chapeau. Half afraid, of course—for she is a lady evidently, and you pique yourself on being a perfect gentleman—you venture, as you pass, to let your eye just glance within the sacred enclosure of blonde and primroses;—pshaw! it's old Miss Thingamy, that you had to hand down to dinner the other day at Lady Dash's; and instantly catching your ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 57, No. 352, February 1845 • Various

... about her, and that wounded pride had caused her to do as she had done; but her husband's remark suggested other thoughts. It was possible that reports were in circulation calculated to injure her social standing, and that Mrs. Todd's conduct toward her was not the result of any private pique. ...
— Off-Hand Sketches - a Little Dashed with Humor • T. S. Arthur

... clad in fur, lace, and velvet to astonish the inhabitants, who instead of being impressed, so outshone the visitors, by their own and their wives' magnificence of apparel, that Marguerite was reported to have left the banquet hall in pique. The belfry quite dominated the square at the eastern angle, where were the ...
— Vanished towers and chimes of Flanders • George Wharton Edwards

... officers were advised by George Thomas, who had instigated them to this violence out of pique against the Begam for her preference of the Frenchman,[29] to set aside their puppet and reseat the Begam in the command, as the only chance of keeping the territory of Sardhana.[30] 'If', said he, 'the Begam should die under the torture of mind and body to which you are subjecting ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman

... could have had any motive in leaving out Weatherbee? Why had she told the story at all? She was a woman of great self-control, but also she had depths of pride. Had she, in the high tide of her anger or pique, taken this means to retaliate for the disappointment he ...
— The Rim of the Desert • Ada Woodruff Anderson

... the taste is gone, and the appetite palled. In some parts of the Continent, young persons are taught from mere common authors, and do not read the best classics until their maturity. I certainly do not speak on this point from any pique or aversion towards the place of my education. I was not a slow or an idle boy; and I believe no one could be more attached to Harrow than I have always been, and with reason: a part of the time passed there was the happiest of ...
— The Life of Lord Byron • John Galt

... for the vote which he has deposited. The very secrecy of the ballot is intended to secure the independence and irresponsibility to the lodge of the voter. And, although it is undoubtedly a crime for a member to vote against the petition of an applicant on account of private pique or personal prejudice, still the lodge has no right to judge that such motives alone actuated him. The motives of men, unless divulged by themselves, can be known only to God; "and if," as Wayland says, "from any circumstances we are led to entertain any ...
— The Principles of Masonic Law - A Treatise on the Constitutional Laws, Usages And Landmarks of - Freemasonry • Albert G. Mackey

... others. A little later she came out with tears adding new lustre to her shining eyes, for the talk had been very earnest and heart-searching; but they were tears of happiness, for upon her gleaming curls now sat the square pique cap which was the visible sign that she had safely traversed the first stretch of the long, hard road. To be sure, she knew well that even this, the so dearly desired cap and pale blue dress which went with it, did not make ...
— 'Smiles' - A Rose of the Cumberlands • Eliot H. Robinson

... the Duke has the family talent for conversation, and the Duchess is very amiable, and of course speaks French. She wore a high, plain silk dress of the prevailing colour, and a black chenille net. The Infantas had black silk skirts with a broad piece of black velvet at the bottom, and white pique shirts. We left the table in the same order as before, and, after a few minutes in the salon, the Duke took Henry into his private room. The Duchess requested us to be seated, and asked us questions about our tour, &c.... and then, rising, ...
— Memoirs of the Life and Correspondence of Henry Reeve, C.B., D.C.L. - In Two Volumes. VOL. II. • John Knox Laughton

... other blue gown just before he bade her good-bye three years ago. That was why she wore blue this night—to recall to Ian what it appeared he had forgotten. And presently she would dine alone with Ian in her husband's house—and with her husband's blessing. Pique and pride were in her heart, and she meant Ian Stafford to remember. No man was adamantine; at least she had never met one—not one, neither bishop ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... this great statesman and warrior; as, indeed, no man ever deserved better the very greatest praise and the strongest censure. If the present writer joins with the latter faction, very likely a private pique of his own may be ...
— The History of Henry Esmond, Esq. • W. M. Thackeray

... with further facts, he was obliged to rely on would-be philosophical dissertations which it is to be hoped were not obtained from his father's notebooks. Young Forster says that the appointment was first of all given to his father in a spirit of pique on the part of Lord Sandwich, and then the order forbidding him to write was made because the father had refused to give Miss Ray, Lord Sandwich's mistress, who had admired them when on board the ship, ...
— The Life of Captain James Cook • Arthur Kitson

... in her mother's household, the earnest and devoted daughter,—gliding gracefully about her mother's cottage, the very type of gentleness and of duty. Yet withal there are sparks of spirit in her that pique your pride, lofty as it is. You offer flowers, which she accepts with a kind smile, not of coquetry, but of simplest thankfulness. She is not the girl to gratify your vanity with any half-show of tenderness. And if there lived ever in her ...
— Dream Life - A Fable Of The Seasons • Donald G. Mitchell

... affection for him, feigns to break with her, and she, though really loving him, returns an indifferent answer and marries Gaspero out of pique. The distracted lover thereupon falls upon his sword in the presence of the newly wedded couple, and the bride, touched by the spectacle of her lover's devotion, languishes and dies ...
— The Life and Romances of Mrs. Eliza Haywood • George Frisbie Whicher

... teachers," retorted Phillis, with a little heat, for the word "romantic," and the satirical droop of Mrs. Cheyne's lip made her decidedly cross. "But I must not detain you any more with our uninteresting affairs," dropping a little courtesy, half in pique and half in mockery, for her spirits were rising under ...
— Not Like Other Girls • Rosa N. Carey

... Vendôme. In London or Rome she may be presented in a few international salons, but as she finds it difficult to make her new acquaintances understand what an exalted position she occupies at home, the chances are that pique at seeing some Daisy Miller attract all the attention will drive my lady back to the city where she is known and appreciated, nothing being more difficult for an American “swell” than explaining to the uninitiated in what way her position differs from that of ...
— The Ways of Men • Eliot Gregory

... very best possible presentation of the book is required. Here is the place where most of all the prospective purchaser's interest must be aroused. Here the most felicitous publicity inspiration is needed—and the problem is to indicate the story, yet not tell it, and to pique curiosity to the buying point. On books of a serious nature a jacket note is just as essential, if not more so, but the problem is different. The prospective purchaser of such a book as "Irish History and the Irish Question," "The Flower Garden," for example, ...
— The Building of a Book • Various

... more pressing things to think about." With the finality of this reply the brief conversation dropped, though the perception on Derek's part that it was not from her inability to carry it on stirred him to an unusual feeling of pique. Most of the women he met were ready to entertain him without putting him to any exertion whatever. They even went so far as to manifest a disposition to be agreeable, before which he often found it necessary ...
— The Inner Shrine • Basil King

... would do what we desired at last, you might as well have done it at first," is a common nursery-maid's speech, which is well calculated to pique the pride of a half-subdued penitent. When children are made ashamed of submission, they will become ...
— Practical Education, Volume I • Maria Edgeworth

... displeased him greatly, for he was not one who could contentedly take the second place. He could not have had a more excellent companion than the manly and upright Whalley; but in his close intimacy with him he had rather hoped to pique Walter, and show him that his society was not indispensable to his happiness. But Walter's open and generous mind was quite incapable of understanding this unworthy motive, and with feelings far better trained than those of Kenrick, he never felt ...
— St. Winifred's - The World of School • Frederic W. Farrar

... justice of the retribution which his wilful comrade had brought upon herself. But as he saw the elasticity leave her steps, the color fade from her cheeks, the resolute mouth relax, and the wistful eyes dim once or twice with tears of weariness and vexation, pity got the better of pique, and he relented. His steady tramp came to a halt, and stopping by a wayside spring, he pointed to a mossy stone, saying with no hint of ...
— Moods • Louisa May Alcott

... doubt about that. She liked him, and she would not leave him. Also, she was a young woman of exceptional common sense, and, being such, she would not risk the loss of a large fortune merely for the sake of indulging pique engendered by his refusal to ...
— Helen with the High Hand (2nd ed.) • Arnold Bennett

... Ducks, and Geese is obvious enough; we see them stream across the heavens, or hear their clang in the night; but these minstrels of the field and forest add to their other charms a shade of mystery, and pique the imagination by their invisible and unknown journeyings. To be sure, we know they follow the opening season north and the retreating summer south; but who will point to the parallels that mark the limits of their wandering, or take us ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 91, May, 1865 • Various

... "we must assume that he has happy moments—or, perhaps, two soul-sides, one to face the world with, one to show his manuscripts when he's writing. You hint a fault, and hesitate dislike. That, indeed, is only natural, on the part of an old friend. But you pique my interest. What is the trouble with him? Is—is ...
— The Cardinal's Snuff-Box • Henry Harland

... develops in the young girl whom you make your wife a curiosity which is naturally excessive; but as mothers in France pique themselves on exposing their girls every day to the fire which they do not allow to scorch them, this curiosity ...
— Analytical Studies • Honore de Balzac

... no name signed, and no date. It was an inscription well calculated to pique curiosity. One would greatly like to know the nature of the wrong that had been done, and what sort of vengeance was wanted, and whether the prisoner ever achieved it or not. But there was no way of ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... his rank his townsmen indulged this defect, and would not distress him by remarking on it, till another preacher of those parts, actuated by a private pique, came on one occasion to tantalize him, and said, "I have seen you in a dream; may it prove fortunate!" He asked: "What have you seen?" He replied: "So it seemed in my vision that your voice had become harmonious, and mankind were charmed with your melodious cadences." For ...
— Persian Literature, Volume 2, Comprising The Shah Nameh, The - Rubaiyat, The Divan, and The Gulistan • Anonymous

... than I can help it, I assure you, madam," I answered, rather inclined to be amused than angry, and hoping to pique her by my replies. "You are free to go in any direction you please directly ...
— Hurricane Hurry • W.H.G. Kingston

... between immense concaves of void and fulness, shut in like the flaw in a diamond." How the subscribers to the Circulating Library of the enterprising Mr. Loring must catch their breaths in amazement, when that courteous gentleman hands them for the last new novel—sandwiched between "Pique" and "Woodburn"—thoughts of ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 84, October, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... totally forgotten it," said she, with a blush which avenged my wounded self-love. Ironical pleasure at having been the subject of her pencil I could not indulge myself in expressing, as I did not care to enlighten Little Handsome. Any lurking pique was banished when Etty showed me, with a smile, the ...
— Autumn Leaves - Original Pieces in Prose and Verse • Various

... signature of the endorsement is that of him, who had resigned a post in his youth rather than be a party to putting a man to death. As was observed at the time, Robespierre in doing this, suppressed his pique against his colleagues, in order to take part in a measure, that was a sort of complement to his ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 1 of 3) - Essay 1: Robespierre • John Morley

... of seeing in all this only the angry disdain of a noble character, which she was incapable of appreciating, thought it all pique against M. de Rohan, hiding another feeling for him, and therefore began to defend him with ...
— The Queen's Necklace • Alexandre Dumas pere

... something humorous and was leaning forward to tell his vis-a-vis. It had been so vital that he had laid his pen down to tell it. He was talking with half-shut lips, with eyes that shifted back and forth alert for a glance of disfavour. His rusty black derby sat on the back of his head: his white pique tie had slipped away from ...
— Stubble • George Looms

... read your paper very carefully," said Raffles, with the first trace of pique in his tone. "It was rain that closed play before five o'clock. I hear it was a sultry day in town, but at Manchester we got the storm, and the ground was under water in ten minutes. I never saw such a thing in my life. ...
— A Thief in the Night • E. W. Hornung

... criticised his contemporaries in an unfavourable sense, and as one wishful to find fault. The victims were Casimir Delavigne, Scribe, and Ponsard. On each occasion Dumas declares that, after reflecting, he saw that he was moved by a little personal pique, not by a disinterested love of art. He makes his confession with a rare nobility of candour; and yet his review of Ponsard is worthy of him. M. Ponsard, who, like Dumas, was no scholar, wrote a play styled Ulysse, and borrowed from ...
— Essays in Little • Andrew Lang

... Tom Thurston entered, and Julia Monson came down to receive HIM, her pique not interfering, and it being rather stylish to be disengaged on the morning of the day when the household was in all the confusion ...
— Autobiography of a Pocket-Hankerchief • James Fenimore Cooper

... Deborah was sitting with her, they always seemed to be talking in the drawing-room; nay, there were reports of his joining in the fabrication of some of the delicacies that were triumphantly brought to her room; and Ella was in a state of impatient pique at being slighted by 'Mr. Tom,' who, she complained, was always fighting with Cora about their politics; and Cora herself used to bring what Dr. May had said, as the choicest entertainment to her sick friend; while to ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge

... you no longer; but it was certainly only a feeling of pique, since just now, as soon as I found you again at my feet, my heart beat rapidly, and my first impulse was to follow you as if I were your slave. Then, if I love you, why am I afraid of you? What is it that prevents me from leaving this room, as if invisible hands were holding me back by ...
— The Dream • Emile Zola

... with jealousy of the other, till the credulous fool, in a pique, shall be entangled in ...
— Memoirs of the Life of the Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan V1 • Thomas Moore

... hand, when he saw any of those men who pique themselves on their estates, and who believe because they are men of high condition that they are above instruction, or have no need of it, because their riches alone are sufficient to gain them the esteem of the world, and to make them succeed in all their undertakings, he endeavoured ...
— The Memorable Thoughts of Socrates • Xenophon

... Germain it was all preposterous; if she had owned the humorous sense it would have been tragically absurd. For what did it amount to, pray, but this, that Jack Senhouse had been in love with a girl who had loved somebody else, had married her choice, and was now repenting it? Jack, then, in a pique, had trifled with her, Mary Germain, and made love to her. Now he found that this Sanchia was to be seen he was for jumping back. Was he to jump, or not to jump? Did it lie with her? Jack seemed ...
— Rest Harrow - A Comedy of Resolution • Maurice Hewlett

... Pique—A heavy cotton cloth having a surface that is corded or having a raised lozenge pattern; used for women's and children's ...
— Textiles and Clothing • Kate Heintz Watson

... an inveterate hater, a miser even in misanthropy, and hoarded up a grudge as he did a guinea. Thus, though my mother was an only sister, he had never forgiven her marriage with my father, against whom he had a cold, still, immovable pique, which had lain at the bottom of his heart, like a stone in a well, ever since they had been school boys together. My mother, however, considered me as the intermediate being that was to bring every thing again ...
— Tales of a Traveller • Washington Irving

... command hastily, but only if necessary, and shun prohibitions based on petulance or pique. Give the child what it wants if easily ...
— Epilepsy, Hysteria, and Neurasthenia • Isaac G. Briggs

... demands had been acceded to. She was gratified, perhaps, that she had become a person of much importance. She thought more of Woodell and less of Harlson, because of the issue of the debate, as she understood it, and, when the first pique and passion were over, became resigned enough to the outlook. She had been on the verge of sin, but she was not the only woman in the world to carry a secret. Woodell's pleadings were met with yielding, and the wedding occurred within ...
— A Man and a Woman • Stanley Waterloo

... her with aversion. Ned, being in college, of course put on all the airs which freshmen think it their bounden duty to assume. He was not very wise, but very good-natured, and altogether an excellent person to carry on a picnic. Sallie Gardiner was absorbed in keeping her white pique dress clean and chattering with the ubiquitous Fred, who kept Beth in ...
— Little Women • Louisa May Alcott

... Blanche, Captain Faulkner, who was as fine a fellow as poor Captain Savage, whom we buried yesterday; there could not be a finer than either of them. I was at the taking of the Pique, and carried him down below after he had received his mortal wound. We did a pretty thing out here when we took Fort Royal by a coup-de-main, which means, boarding from the main-yard of the frigate, and dropping from it into the fort. But what's that ...
— Peter Simple and The Three Cutters, Vol. 1-2 • Frederick Marryat

... thought, when the door opens and Lady Stafford comes in. She is radiant, a very sunbeam, in spite of the fact that Sir Penthony is again an absentee from his native land, having bidden adieu to English shores three months ago in a fit of pique, ...
— Molly Bawn • Margaret Wolfe Hamilton

... Naupaktus, an AEtolian fortress, Flamininus, pitying the Greeks, left Peloponnesus and sailed to the consul at Naupaktus. At first he reproached him with conquering Antiochus, and then allowing Philip to reap all the advantages of his victory, and with wasting time in besieging one city out of pique, while the Macedonians were adding tribes and kingdoms to their empire. After this, as the besieged, when they saw him, called upon him by name from the walls, and stretched out their hands to him ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume II • Aubrey Stewart & George Long

... allowed her marvelous black hair that fell in two tresses over her shoulder to be caressed by the perfumed hands of the beautiful Onoto, who had heard her this evening for the first time and had thrown herself with enthusiasm into her arms after the last number. Onoto was an artist too, and the pique she felt at first over Annouchka's success could not last after the emotion aroused by the evening prayer before the hut. "Come to supper," Annouchka ...
— The Secret of the Night • Gaston Leroux

... Lillie, what can one have more than real old china and heavy silver plate? I rather pique myself on that; I think it has quite a good, rich, solid ...
— Pink and White Tyranny - A Society Novel • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... I thought it was only a bit of pique on her part, and I hoped to be able to talk the lady round. I know what ...
— Okewood of the Secret Service • Valentine Williams

... treating his chief's antipathy to his new ally as a prejudice to be made fun of, and in the end dispelled, came to understand that it was insuperable. To cut short an impossible situation, he tendered his resignation, on which all the ministers resigned; but as the question was one of personal pique, the king commanded them to remain at their posts. Cavour applauded this decision. For the moment it was better that he, not D'Azeglio, should be sacrificed. They parted without ceasing to be private and political friends. Massimo d'Azeglio's nature was too generous to hear a grudge ...
— Cavour • Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco

... Stokes, but he could not give her a title. The duke could—if he would. But would he? She was rich, but there were others richer. People said that he was wary. Yet he admired Miss Daisy, it was true, and if by her flirtation with Mr. Stokes she could pique him into a proposal, she ...
— The Motor Maid • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson

... complained grievously that they, who composed the greater part of the Lacedaemonium force, should every year be led hither and thither, and exposed to great risks and dangers, merely to satisfy one man's personal pique. Hereupon we are told that Agesilaus, desiring to prove that this argument about their composing so large a part of the army was not founded on fact, made use of the following device:—He ordered all the allies ...
— Plutarch's Lives Volume III. • Plutarch

... with great pique, "but on one condition, which is, that you will promise me that you will not mention to Madame d'Albret what has now passed ...
— Valerie • Frederick Marryat

... However, she found her attention very much divided between tumultuous joyance in the mountain grandeur, bathed in the marvelously life-exciting air, and concern for the outcome of the day. If a faint suggestion of pique at the manner in which the horseman ignored her presence crept subconsciously into all her meditations, she did ...
— The Furnace of Gold • Philip Verrill Mighels

... her a long time. I could no more have refrained from it than you can refrain from feeling a pique at the fact, though you have nothing but contempt for us both and only a passing interest if the truth were known. I am glad you have persisted in asking me until I told you. I think one of the most promising signs that women will survive is the fact that they are ...
— The Gorgeous Girl • Nalbro Bartley

... Look!" Phyllis stood at the other end of the conservatory. "Does not there recur to you some other woman you have loved? You start. Come; was not your love for Gretchen pique? Who is she who thus mirrors my own likeness? Whoever she is, she loves you! Let us return; I shall be missed." It was not the woman but ...
— Arms and the Woman • Harold MacGrath

... army in 1745, it would appear that the worthy baronet's zeal became a little more moderate just when its warmth was of most consequence. He talked much, indeed, of taking the field for the rights of Scotland and Charles Stuart; but his demi-pique saddle would suit only one of his horses; and that horse could by no means be brought to stand fire. Perhaps the worshipful owner sympathized in the scruples of this sagacious quadruped, and began to think, that what was so much dreaded by the horse could not be very ...
— The Antiquary, Complete • Sir Walter Scott

... years have pass'd, since, in thy prime, Plunging from off the shatter'd Blanche, o'erboard Amid the moonlight waves, twas thine to climb La Pique's torn side, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 57, No. 356, June, 1845 • Various

... provoke, literally to call out or challenge, is to begin a contest; one provokes another to violence. To affront is to offer some defiant offense or indignity, as it were, to one's face; it is somewhat less than to insult. Compare PIQUE. ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald

... comparative wealth and, as a rule, superlative health, Blakely started on his career as a subaltern at Sandy with three serious handicaps,—the disfavor of his captain, who knew and loved him little,—the prejudice of Mrs. Bridger, who knew and loved him not at all,—and the jealous pique of Mrs. Plume, who had known and loved him, possibly, ...
— An Apache Princess - A Tale of the Indian Frontier • Charles King

... pique coat and short skirt, with pale blue blouse and pale blue hat—and at the extremity blue stockings and white tennis shoes. She picked up a tennis racket in its press, and prepared to leave the studio. She had bought the coat, the skirt, the blouse, the hat, the tennis shoes, the racket, ...
— The Lion's Share • E. Arnold Bennett

... barbarian," said the Princess, rallying herself, with a certain degree of pique, arising perhaps from her not thinking more dramatis personae were appropriate to the scene, than the two who were already upon the stage. Then, as if for the first time, appearing to recollect the message with which she had been commissioned, she ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott



Words linked to "Pique" :   vexation, material, fabric, irritation, offend, annoyance, anger, resent, chafe, textile, temper, cloth



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