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Disarming   Listen
adjective
disarming  adj.  
1.
Capable of allaying suspicion or hostility and inspiring confidence; as, a disarming smile.
2.
Capable of allaying hostility.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Disarming" Quotes from Famous Books



... my better judgment, for I fear Brown's enthusiasm for dramatic settings. His pathetic belief that my next picture for the R.A. would be entitled "The Tower of Silence," and that I should achieve a masterpiece in depicting the blood-red ruin at sunset across the desert was somewhat disarming. He forgot in his enthusiasm that if the sun did set when we were in the required position we should be benighted on the plain without food or shelter, and not at all in the ...
— A Dweller in Mesopotamia - Being the Adventures of an Official Artist in the Garden of Eden • Donald Maxwell

... Stanhope, second Earl of Chesterfield, ob. 1713, act. suae 80. We learn, from the memoir prefixed to his "Printed Correspondence," that he fought three duels, disarming and wounding his first and second antagonists, and killing the third. The name of the unfortunate gentleman who fell on this occasion was Woolly. Lord Chesterfield, absconding, went to Breda, where he obtained the royal pardon from Charles II. He acted ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys

... a Chinese restaurant in Manila with the capital provided by Locke and Trask as a reward for his bravery in disarming the steward. ...
— Isle o' Dreams • Frederick F. Moore

... embroidered slippers ought to be very cautious of treading in the mire. Philosophers should not only live the simplest lives, but should also use the plainest language. Poets, in employing magnificent and sonorous words, teach philosophy the better by thus disarming suspicion that the finest poetry contains and conveys the finest philosophy. You will never let any man hold his right station: you would rank Solon with Homer for poetry. This is absurd. The only resemblance is in both being eminently wise. Pindar, too, makes even the cadences ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor

... one whom Gonzaga's high-sounding words in connection with that letter had left cold. This was Peppe, that most wise of fools. He hastened after Francesco, and while the knight was disarming he came to voice his suspicions. But Francesco drove him out with impatience, and Peppe went sorrowing and swearing that the wisdom of the fool was truly better than the ...
— Love-at-Arms • Raphael Sabatini

... ring" and say defiantly at the outstart, "Gentlemen, I am here to fight!" Theodore Roosevelt can do that—Beecher would have been mobbed if he had begun in that style at Liverpool. It is for your own tact to decide whether you will use the disarming grace of Henry W. Grady's introduction just quoted (even the time-worn joke was ingenuous and seemed to say, "Gentlemen, I come to you with no carefully-palmed coins"), or whether the solemn gravity of Mr. Bryan before the Convention will prove to be ...
— The Art of Public Speaking • Dale Carnagey (AKA Dale Carnegie) and J. Berg Esenwein

... smiling. 'But you are, this time, for I accepted the conditions, you know. And besides—you have the pencils yet.' There was a certain gay simplicity about his manner that was disarming. ...
— Wych Hazel • Susan and Anna Warner

... With his disarming simplicity he made me observe, as if it were a matter of some consequence, how strange it was that he should have spent the morning indoors at all. He generally was out before tiffin, visiting various offices, seeing his friends ...
— The Shadow-Line - A Confession • Joseph Conrad

... been bad, the coast was blockaded, and their difficulties were aggravated by the heavy taxes imposed, and rigorously levied by Championnet for the support of his army. These impositions, and a decree for the disarming of the people, produced discontent even amongst the friends of the new institutions. Nevertheless, Championnet, by showing an interest in the rising Republic, had gained a certain degree of popularity, when he ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCLXXVI. February, 1847. Vol. LXI. • Various

... curiously little fear for Michael as a soldier, for whenever she thought of him as one, as fighting at the Front, she saw the bright light surrounding him, and disarming his amazed opponents. ...
— There was a King in Egypt • Norma Lorimer

... could be more unusual?" cried Adelaide, who wanted to add, "The only question is, does your wretched son possess it?" But she didn't; she asked instead, with a tone of disarming sweetness, "Shall we be perfectly candid ...
— The Happiest Time of Their Lives • Alice Duer Miller

... Wali's troops had been showing signs of insubordination; and little doubt was entertained that they had been tampered with, by Ayoub's emissaries. The question of disarming them was several times discussed; but the Wali maintained his faith that they would remain true to their salt, and the British force was so small that it was deemed imprudent to take any step to diminish their strength, by dispensing with the services of a strong body of men who might, after ...
— For Name and Fame - Or Through Afghan Passes • G. A. Henty

... 13th.—Many thanks for the proof-sheets, and Schwarzenberg's despatch and Duvergier's letter, which I enclose. I was kept at home by a slight attack of gout yesterday, and did not see Malmesbury, but on Monday he told me that he had hopes of being able to announce a disarming of the three would-be belligerent Powers. Until he makes that statement I shall not believe in its probability. Palmerston and Lord John seem well aware that any encouragement to war would be most unpopular at home, and I don't expect that there will be much ...
— Memoirs of the Life and Correspondence of Henry Reeve, C.B., D.C.L. - In Two Volumes. VOL. II. • John Knox Laughton

... was flung open, and Molly Selwyn sailed in and overwhelmed Sara with apologies for her reception, or rather, for the lack of it. She was quite charming in her penitence, waving dimpled, deprecating hands, and appealing to Sara with a pair of liquid, disarming, golden-brown eyes that earned her ...
— The Hermit of Far End • Margaret Pedler

... own guards, and many of them in constant intercourse with himself; as indeed was essential if he was to make any use of them at all. It was from them that danger was to be feared; and that in a thousand ways. [47] How was he to guard against it? He rejected the idea of disarming them; he thought this unjust, and that it would lead to the dissolution of the empire. To refuse them admission into his presence, to show them his distrust, would be, he considered, a declaration of war. [48] But there was ...
— Cyropaedia - The Education Of Cyrus • Xenophon

... to Madame de Choisy's assembly. She was the wife of the Chanceller of the Duke of Orleans, and gave a fete every year, to which all the court went; and, by way of disarming suspicion, all the cavaliers who were in the great world were to attend to order that their ...
— Stray Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge

... so bad as a newspaper correspondent; for while the one was an open enemy, the other was a secret foe, a traitor, and a spy. Moreover, in addition to this, there was the fact that he was an American, which, instead of disarming their rage, had only intensified it. These men called themselves Republicans, but they were Spaniards also; and Spaniards hate Americans. They cannot forgive the great republic for its overshadowing power which menaces them in the New World, and for the mighty ...
— A Castle in Spain - A Novel • James De Mille

... robustness about them, but he used them with great effect, while amusing the audience, to give life to an abstraction, to explode an absurdity, to clinch an argument, to drive home an admonition. The natural kindliness of his tone, softening prejudice and disarming partisan rancor, would often open to his reasoning a way into minds most unwilling to ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln

... cause, and under a chieftain whom they loved, the race of Ivor have seldom taken the field under five hundred claymores. But you are aware, Captain Waverley, that the disarming act, passed about twenty years ago, prevents their being in the complete state of preparation as in former times; and I keep no more of my clan under arms than may defend my own or my friends' property, when the country is troubled with such men as your last night's landlord; and government, ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott

... us! bah, bah! he wishes to save the notary!" answered Morel, completely wild, and contending with Rudolph. At the end of a second, he succeeded in disarming him, opened the door, and threw the instrument ...
— The Mysteries of Paris V2 • Eugene Sue

... year Rob Roy composed another epistle, very little to his own reputation, as he therein confesses having played booty during the civil war of 1715. It is addressed to General Wade, at that time engaged in disarming the Highland clans, and making military roads through the country. The letter is a singular composition. It sets out the writer's real and unfeigned desire to have offered his service to King George, but for his liability ...
— Rob Roy, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott

... gendarmes, to arrest malefactors; each individual soldier considers himself the agent of the old diplomatists, charged with none but political functions: police matters are not within his province. What is the consequence? The Austrian army, after carefully disarming the citizens, delivers them over to malefactors, without the ...
— The Roman Question • Edmond About

... truth of this with such grave, disarming courtesy, and yet with such undisguised wonder,—as she appeared to talk with greater freedom to a stranger than an American girl would,—that she at once popped off the crusader, and accompanied him somewhat more demurely ...
— Tales of Trail and Town • Bret Harte

... their horses, and had flung themselves upon him. He was hauled roughly to his feet, his rifle snatched from his hand, and his cartridge-pouch torn away. A few yards away, Roy, his face bleeding, was the centre of another group who were disarming him in spite of ...
— On Land And Sea At The Dardanelles • Thomas Charles Bridges

... fresh impediment appeared: the Austrians, on April 18th, wrote proposing a disarming on both sides; the Prussian answer was delayed for many days; it was said in Berlin that there was a difference of opinion between Bismarck and the King; Bismarck complained to Benedetti that he was wavering: when at last the answer was sent it was to accept ...
— Bismarck and the Foundation of the German Empire • James Wycliffe Headlam

... the old man in the face with such a semblance of honesty that he succeeded in disarming a dangerous suspicion of mockery —dangerous, if he was to continue family physician at Tralee. "Ah," he suddenly remarked, "there comes Orlando now!" He pointed to a spot about half a mile away, where a horseman could be seen cantering slowly ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... stranger, who, in Manuel's opinion, looked unpleasantly like a gringo, with his coppery hair waving crisply under his sombrero, and his eyes that were blue as the bay over there to the east. But when Dade introduced him, Jack greeted his squat host with a smile that was disarming in its boyish good humor, and with language as liquidly Spanish as Manuel's best Castilian, which he reserved for his talks with the patron on the porch when the senora and the young senorita ...
— The Gringos • B. M. Bower

... let an opportunity to conciliate Luke's friendship slip, and would at times swear by him. And to further demonstrate his friendship for the versatile skipper, he now proposed that we take passage on the "Two Marys," as well for the purpose of disarming our political enemies, who might charge us with presumption did we take a more fashionable conveyance, as to carry out a genuine stroke of political economy. Feeling that objection would be useless, I consented ...
— The Life and Adventures of Maj. Roger Sherman Potter • "Pheleg Van Trusedale"

... it had been distinctly understood to carry with it the extinction of democracy in Ireland. This, rather than declarations and restrictions of doubtful efficacy, was the real "security" on which the legislature relied for disarming the disloyalty of Irish catholics. For some time it answered its purpose so far as to keep the representation of that disloyalty within safe limits in the house of commons. But it naturally produced a contrary effect in Ireland itself, and was ...
— The Political History of England - Vol XI - From Addington's Administration to the close of William - IV.'s Reign (1801-1837) • George Brodrick

... The broadsword now used, though called the glaymore (i.e. the great sword), is much smaller than that used in Rorie More's time. There is hardly a target now to be found in the Highlands. After the disarming act, they made them serve as covers to their butter-milk barrels; a kind of change, like beating spears into pruning-hooks. Sir George Mackenzie's Works (the folio edition) happened to lie in a window ...
— The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides with Samuel Johnson, LL.D. • James Boswell

... alarmed her. While giving her full attention to the management of the sleigh, she was beginning to dread the first words of this man, who was merely wielding a cheap power acquired in the shady course of his career. There is nothing so disarming as the assumed air of intimate knowledge of one's private thoughts and actions. De Chauxville assumed this air with a skill against which Catrina's dogged strength of character was incapable of battling. His manner conveyed the ...
— The Sowers • Henry Seton Merriman

... He had the face of a mischievous schoolboy. In his eyes there lurked two little imps of adventure while his broad and sunny smile was completely disarming. "Sunny Jim" was the name given him by his friends in the office, a name that still clung to him after five tempestuous years ...
— Molly Brown's Senior Days • Nell Speed

... breeding inferior to that of his companion, but he had so sturdy and swinging a gait, so stalwart and goodly a build, so engaging a manner, and so florid a smile, that the very sight of him was disarming, despite the patent crafty deceit in his face. It seemed as if it could not be very deep or guileful, it was so frankly expressed. It was suggestive of the roguish machinations of a child. He had twinkling ...
— The Frontiersmen • Charles Egbert Craddock

... the youth had been more the command of the ruler than of the man. Despite himself, there had been something about the dainty peacock he could not help but like; and the bold dash for the window, the disarming of the purse-proud Buckingham, who for many reasons displeased him, and the leap to the sward below, with the accompanying farewell, had especially delighted both his manhood and ...
— Mistress Nell - A Merry Tale of a Merry Time • George C. Hazelton, Jr.

... on the public mind even in the gravest affairs and the counsels of a nation. Richard duke of Gloucester, afterwards Richard III, shortly before his usurpation of the crown in 1483, had recourse to this expedient for disarming the power of his enemies, which he feared as an obstacle to his project. Being lord protector, he came abruptly into the assembly of the council that he had left but just before, and suddenly asked, what punishment they deserved who should be found to have plotted ...
— Lives of the Necromancers • William Godwin

... unspeakable to revenge, were out in the heather. The hills that seemed so lonely were not bare of human life. A man was seldom so solitary but that eyes might be on him from cave, corry, wood, or den. The Disarming Act had been obeyed in the usual style: old useless weapons were given up to the military. But the spirit of the clans was not wholly broken. Even the old wife of Donald Ban, when he was "sair hadden down by a Bodach" (ghost) asked ...
— The Book of Dreams and Ghosts • Andrew Lang

... its blades can be numbered. The sword that for three years had been counted the best in all the Low Countries was its better. But I fought fasting and for the second time that morning, so maybe the odds were not so great. I wounded him slightly, and presently succeeded in disarming him. "Am I Kirby?" I demanded, with my ...
— Modern Prose And Poetry; For Secondary Schools - Edited With Notes, Study Helps, And Reading Lists • Various

... wretches fell upon their knees and howled for mercy. While Deppingham was holding his wife's limp form in his arms, calling out to her in the agony of fear, utterly oblivious to all else that was happening about him, his two friends were swiftly disarming the grovelling natives. Selim's knife severed the cords that bound Bobby Browne's hands; he was staring blankly, dizzily before him, and many minutes passed before he was able to comprehend that ...
— The Man From Brodney's • George Barr McCutcheon

... them other things than speech. "Here, Waldron!" Galbraith would say. "This is no cake-walk. All you've got to do is to cross to that chair and sit down in it like a lady. Show her how to do it, Dane." And Rose, with her good-humored disarming smile at the infuriated Waldron, would go ahead and ...
— The Real Adventure • Henry Kitchell Webster

... note written at this time, when the distinction first came to him, he defines these two natures of war as follows: "First, those in which the object is the overthrow of the enemy, whether it be we aim at his political destruction or merely at disarming him and forcing him to conclude peace on our terms; and secondly, those in which our object is merely to make some conquests on the frontiers of his country, either for the purpose of retaining them permanently or of turning ...
— Some Principles of Maritime Strategy • Julian Stafford Corbett

... Very little is said in our histories about the sufferings of the Episcopalians when it was their turn to be under the harrow. They were not violent, they murdered no Moderator of the General Assembly. Other measures were the Disarming Act, the prohibition to wear the Highland dress, and the abolition of "hereditable jurisdictions," and the chief's right to call out his clansmen in arms. Compensation in money was paid, from 21,000 pounds to the Duke of Argyll to 13 pounds, 6s. 8d. to the clerks of the Registrar of ...
— A Short History of Scotland • Andrew Lang

... station. I had meant to be frightfully cross with him when he appeared—that is to say, if he weren't wounded or disabled in any way—but somehow I never can be very cross when I see him, the way he wrinkles up his short-sighted eyes is so disarming. ...
— Olivia in India • O. Douglas

... number of his cronies, who were standing at a corner on the opposite side, of the street. Both came to the rescue, but the O'Nales and Finnegans outnumbering the Dutch, made a Donnybrook onset, disarming and routing their adversaries, and capsizing barrels, boxes, kegs, decanters, and baskets of onions, into one general chaos,—taking possession of the Dutchman's calabash, and proclaiming ...
— Manuel Pereira • F. C. Adams

... looking and speaking which Flora could only describe as smooth. But smooth without texture or softness; smooth as quick-flowing water, smooth as glass—a surface upon which even caution might lose its equilibrium. For the danger in Clara was that she was disarming. There was nothing antagonistic in her. One noticed her slowly. The flat tones of her voice made background for other people's conversations. The pale tints of her gown blended with the pale tones of her hair and flesh. Beside Clara's exquisite ...
— The Coast of Chance • Esther Chamberlain

... say it; it broke from me in the firelight moonlight with a power that I could not stay. She looked at me with a disarming gentleness. ...
— The Ninth Vibration And Other Stories • L. Adams Beck

... freshly-arrived wounded and scattering wide grins around him. At her horrified exclamation he began to shrivel away towards the door, ushering himself out with the propitiatory words, "Good morning. Good night. T'ank you. Water!" A most effectual method of disarming reproof. ...
— Punch, 1917.07.04, Vol. 153, Issue No. 1 • Various

... occupy themselves with the vanquished soldiers, who cast themselves at their feet, they left them to look about the fort, without even disarming them, and began to examine their conquest, like schoolboys in vacation, laughing with all their hearts, as if ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet

... its owner—tame, but with infinite possibilities of danger. For the information which Nash had given seemed to remove all his distrust of the moment before and he became instantly genial, pleasant. In fact, he voiced this sentiment with a disarming frankness immediately. ...
— Trailin'! • Max Brand

... the side, was a hand-cuff expert. One day he managed to slip out of his chains and away from his tiresome cannon balls. He made a daring dash for liberty, disarming and killing a sentry. Boldly, he sought out the Captain of the Royal Guard and fought a very realistic duel with him before the Empress and all the members of her retinue who came out from the wings ...
— The Spoilers of the Valley • Robert Watson

... a disarming smile for the absent DEARTH). Do you know, I believe he is. Do the ladies like ...
— Dear Brutus • J. M. Barrie

... begun, "My dear Cousin," and her frank American way was disarming. She wrote four pages of apology for herself and her husband, explaining why they had neglected "looking up Mrs. Nelson Smith when she was Miss Annesley ...
— The Second Latchkey • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson

... muskets have been quietly transferred from the northern arsenal at Springfield alone, to those in the southern states. We are much obliged to Secretary Floyd for the foresight he has thus displayed in disarming the north and equipping the south for ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman

... met her inquisitive glance with disarming frankness, but his words when he answered gave ...
— Max • Katherine Cecil Thurston

... was quite aware that her anger had burnt itself out. Her mind felt as cold as her hands. Better have it over. She put on a severe black frock, not only suitable to the occasion but as a protection from disarming compliments. Mortimer, who dressed so well himself that it would have been as impossible for him to overdress as to be rude to a woman, disliked dark severity in woman's attire. He never criticized his wife's clothes, but when they displeased ...
— The Sisters-In-Law • Gertrude Atherton

... seemed to be goodfellowship, but the seeming failed to strengthen into certainty on closer inspection. Here was a man who could think hiddenly, speak guardedly, wait for others to show their cards, and do all this with a disarming appearance of ingenuous friendliness. The atmosphere he radiated as he sat waiting for his host to explain himself was ...
— The Mayor of Warwick • Herbert M. Hopkins

... gave me 200 cowries and some green beads. I was at the point of disarming my slaves and driving them away, when they relented, and professed to be willing to go anywhere; so, being eager to finish my geographical work, I said I would run the risk of their desertion, and gave beads to buy provisions for a start north. I cannot state how much I was worried ...
— The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume II (of 2), 1869-1873 • David Livingstone

... was odd to see a procession parading the city seated They carried banners of coarse red stuff with red letters. "No disarmament," said the banners, for the most part in crudely daubed letters and with variant spelling, and "Why should we disarm?" "No disarming." "No disarming." Banner after banner went by, a stream of banners flowing past, and at last at the end, the song of the revolt and a noisy band of strange instruments. "They all ought to be at work," said Asano. "They have had no ...
— When the Sleeper Wakes • Herbert George Wells

... religious pharmacy infallible receipts for calming the conscience; the priests in every country possess sovereign secrets for disarming the wrath of Heaven. However true it may be that the anger of Deity is appeased by prayers, by offerings, by sacrifices, by penitential tears, we have no right to say that religion holds in check the ...
— Superstition In All Ages (1732) - Common Sense • Jean Meslier

... adopt the role of an escaped prisoner from the British fleet he might succeed in disarming suspicion," remarked Pierre Cousin, the other prisoner. "Monsieur's accent is certainly not quite perfect (if he will pardon my presuming to say so); still it may pass without attracting much notice, and ...
— Under the Meteor Flag - Log of a Midshipman during the French Revolutionary War • Harry Collingwood

... best tragic ballad since "The Ancient Mariner," and in "Intentions" one of the best critical expositions of the open secret of art ever written at all—he never permits us for a second to lose touch with the wayward and resplendent figure, so full, for all its bravado, of a certain disarming childishness, ...
— Suspended Judgments - Essays on Books and Sensations • John Cowper Powys

... acquaintance with the economic strain to see any humiliation in such accidents; but it offended her sense of order that he should not have liquidated his obligation in the three years since their marriage. He took her remonstrance with his usual disarming grace, and left her to forward the liberating draft, though her delicacy had provided him with a bank-account which assured his personal independence. Lizzie had discharged the duty without repugnance, since she knewthat his delegating it to her was the result of ...
— Tales Of Men And Ghosts • Edith Wharton

... came in, with a disarming grin. "How much of that is hindsight, Jim? You've built one, you know—and from all accounts, progress wasn't nearly as smooth as your story ...
— The Galaxy Primes • Edward Elmer Smith

... very certain, from the way the officer spoke, that these threats would be carried out. Worse, however, was to come. While he walked aft, to speak to the next ship which was coming up, his men, I felt very sure, with his full knowledge, dispersed themselves about the decks, disarming our crew, and taking all articles which seemed to please them. Drawing pistols from their belts, they placed them at the heads of our people, and threatened to blow their brains out unless they gave up ...
— The Golden Grasshopper - A story of the days of Sir Thomas Gresham • W.H.G. Kingston

... who would ever suspect? Mateo is there already with his woman and the kiddies. Has it ever occurred to you, old man, how thoroughly disarming a woman and kiddies are in any ...
— The Thunder Bird • B. M. Bower

... Stuart laughed, and, woman-like, observed that she supposed it was only people who, like Forbes, had succeeded in disarming the critics, who could afford to scoff at them,—a remark which drew a funny little bow, half-petulant, half-pleased, out of the artist, in whom one of the strongest notes of character was his susceptibility ...
— Miss Bretherton • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... acquaintance. Women possess an inexhaustible fund of kindness for those who love them. You know this well, you men, and it is what always reassures you when you are treated unkindly. You know that your presence, your attentions, the sorrow that affects you have their effect, and end by disarming our pride. ...
— Life, Letters, and Epicurean Philosophy of Ninon de L'Enclos, - the Celebrated Beauty of the Seventeenth Century • Robinson [and] Overton, ed. and translation.

... up hope, and he was doing more than hoping now—he was planning carefully. Kid Wolf had a hole card. Had the Spanish soldiers known him better, they would have used more care in disarming him. But then, enemies of Kid Wolf had made that mistake before, to ...
— Kid Wolf of Texas - A Western Story • Ward M. Stevens

... they cannot,—a mere excuse, v because they tried to prevail on the Nassick boys to go slowly like them, and wear my patience out. They killed one camel with the butt ends of their muskets, beating it till it died. I thought of going down disarming them all, and taking five or six of the willing ones, but it is more trouble than profit, so I propose to start westwards on Monday the 4th, or Tuesday the 5th. My sepoys offered Ali eight rupees to take them to the coast, thus it has been ...
— The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume I (of 2), 1866-1868 • David Livingstone

... marriage is seldom, if ever, observed in women. For reasons that we shall examine later, they have much more to gain by the business than men, and so they are prompted by their cooler sagacity tenter upon it on the most favourable terms possible, and with the minimum admixture of disarming emotion. Men almost invariably get their mates by the process called falling in love; save among the aristocracies of the North and Latin men, the marriage of convenience is relatively rare; a hundred men marry "beneath" them to every woman who perpetrates the same folly. ...
— In Defense of Women • H. L. Mencken

... of lawlessness. The tars were maddened by the attempt to slay their comrade, and a wild rush was made upon several of the soldiers. They were promptly overpowered, disarmed, and their muskets used in disarming their friends who were panic stricken by the vigorous onslaught, and soon succumbed to Jack's bellicose persuasiveness. It then became an easy task to carry out the impromptu plan of campaign of putting each soldier into his sentry-box and casting both him and the box into the running ...
— The Shellback's Progress - In the Nineteenth Century • Walter Runciman

... slaughter had been carefully listed; that clubs and clans of assassins had been organized and drilled in signals and tactics; that the aid of the State militia and the Naval Reserves had been solicited to enter Wilmington on the 10th of November to assist in disarming every Negro, and aiding in his slaughter and banishment. That the intervention of Providence in the earnest and persistent entreaties of white citizens who were too nobly bred to stoop so low, and the strategy and cunning of the Negro ...
— Hanover; Or The Persecution of the Lowly - A Story of the Wilmington Massacre. • David Bryant Fulton

... disarming, but shook his head, "I'm afraid not, Zusanette. Now, tell us, where did you ...
— Status Quo • Dallas McCord Reynolds

... to have it," retorted Billy, still with that disarming, airy cheerfulness. "Besides, 'twon't be half so bad as you think. Wasn't that a good pudding to-night? Didn't you both come back for more? ...
— Miss Billy Married • Eleanor H. Porter

... you that I seized the fine opportunity he had given me of disarming all future suspicion. I took a high tone on the spot, and met him with the old lady's letter. He politely refused to look at it. I insisted on his looking at it. 'I don't choose to be mistaken,' I said, 'for a woman who may be a bad character, because ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins

... But disarming the mere conscript soldiers was not quite so simple, although Maga managed it. They had less regard for their own skins than handicapped their officer, and yet more than his contempt for the ...
— The Eye of Zeitoon • Talbot Mundy

... taxes were to be applied. These, they insisted, were to be used for national works. The Young Turks would give no pledge to this effect, and foolishly tried to extort a tax to pay for the Bulgar rising of 1903. They ordered also the disarming of Albania, and sent a large force into ...
— Twenty Years Of Balkan Tangle • Durham M. Edith

... stiffened a little; but it was impossible to be annoyed with her. To begin with, she was too unreal, too unsubstantial a being. And, to go on with, invincible good-temper is so very disarming. ...
— The Far Horizon • Lucas Malet

... originated solely for the exploitation of a forbidden weapon. Even if a generous ruling, superimposed on the Treaty, offered these guilty plants a new lease of life because of their urgent peace-time use, the claim could not be supported before neutral experts. The Treaty provides authority for the disarming of certain chemical munition plants. Nothing but the most drastic economic need can justify departure from this critical disarmament measure. The need may justify Treaty exemption for other types of munition production in which the disarmament aspect is not so overwhelmingly ...
— by Victor LeFebure • J. Walker McSpadden

... refused. On the answer being given, fire was applied to the house in two places, the enemy standing around with bayonets fixed to prevent any one from escaping. Our men, seeing no way of escaping, then surrendered, determined to run the chance of being shot to being roasted. After disarming our men, some of the lowest of the Fenians threatened to shoot the prisoners for making a resistance while in the house. Col. O'Neil and the other officers prevented any violence being done, and at the same time threatened ...
— Troublous Times in Canada - A History of the Fenian Raids of 1866 and 1870 • John A. Macdonald

... to stay out of one. You don't do that by disarming. We're taking that ship down into the Badlands. Remember?" Rodney Maxwell said. "Ever hear the name ...
— The Cosmic Computer • Henry Beam Piper

... soon formed. A kissing game in one of the upper rooms was suspended for a moment, and one of the tall girls accompanied him down as if they were a delegation, and on the principle that in designs against a woman a female confederate is always helpful in disarming suspicion. ...
— From Jest to Earnest • E. P. Roe

... in a frenzy of rage, and seizing a sabre in each hand he began a desperate struggle. The bravest soldiers could scarcely succeed in disarming the mangled giant, who, when his huge hands were chained in order to bind up his wounds, tore off the bandages with his fetters and, by a last tremendous exertion of strength, ...
— The Corsair King • Mor Jokai

... Whether by disarming a people thus broken into several tribes, and thus remote from the seat of power, more good than evil has been produced, may deserve inquiry. The supreme power in every community has the right of debarring ...
— A Journey to the Western Isles of Scotland • Samuel Johnson

... standing on the platform, I heard a drum beat in the street, and sent Amelie out to see what was going on. She came back at once to say that it was the garde champetre calling on the inhabitants to carry all their guns, revolvers, etc., to the mairie before sundown. That meant the disarming of our departement, and it flashed through my mind that the Germans must be nearer than the official announcements ...
— A Hilltop on the Marne • Mildred Aldrich

... wavering between two minds. My first impulse had been to reload, and kill the doe; but her plaintive voice entered my heart, disarming me of all hostile intentions. Had I dreamed of witnessing this painful spectacle, I should not have left the trail. But the mischief was now done. "I have worse than killed her," thought I, "it will be better ...
— Thrilling Adventures by Land and Sea • James O. Brayman

... sunshine with every movement of the head that had a bird-like poise; a low broad Clytie brow and eyes that were the loveliest violet color, sometimes blue, sometimes the tenderest, most appealing gray. Her smile was captivating, disarming. It played about her lips that shut with dimples in the corners, it quivered in her eyes and made the ...
— The Girls at Mount Morris • Amanda Minnie Douglas

... Copernicus, urged publication, and undertook to see the work through the press. This, however, he was unable to complete and another Lutheran, Osiander, to whom he entrusted it, wrote a preface, with the apparent intention of disarming opposition, in which he stated that the principles laid down were only abstract hypotheses convenient for purposes of calculation. This unauthorised interpolation may have had its share in postponing the prohibition of the book by the ...
— Kepler • Walter W. Bryant

... prejudiced," Josephine objected, with a disarming laugh. "Of course, you ought to think so, but, really you know, you haven't quite seen all the beautiful women in the world. ...
— Heart of the Blue Ridge • Waldron Baily

... resented her reservation for this solemn gentleman. One or two efforts, however, to make this resentment plain to the English soldier resulting uncomfortably, after a brisk morning's work, in the temporary disablement of one aggressor and the repeated disarming of another, in the end the "homme a Cromwell" was left to wed in peace. Oddly enough, his best man was his old acquaintance Sir Blaise Mickleton, who, having realized his property in good time, had settled in Paris since 1644 and had almost forgotten his ...
— The Lady of Loyalty House - A Novel • Justin Huntly McCarthy

... of life's whole armory of weapons the means of disarming Hope, she could have found nothing so effectual as nature had supplied in her unconsciousness. Helplessness conquers. There was a quality in Emilia which would have always produced something very like antagonism in Hope, had she not been her sister. Had ...
— Malbone - An Oldport Romance • Thomas Wentworth Higginson

... works at Etruria in Staffordshire. Cameo of a Slave in Chains; of Hope. Figures on the Portland or Barberini vase explained, 271. 2. Coal; Pyrite; Naphtha; Jet; Amber. Dr. Franklin's discovery of disarming the Tempest of it's lightning. Liberty of America; of Ireland; of France, 349. VII. Antient central subterraneous fires. Production of Tin, Copper, Zink, Lead, Mercury, Platina, Gold and Silver. Destruction of Mexico. Slavery of ...
— The Botanic Garden - A Poem in Two Parts. Part 1: The Economy of Vegetation • Erasmus Darwin

... till 1879, when the Cape Government, urged, it would appear, by the restless spirit of Sir Bartle Frere (then Governor), conceived the unhappy project of disarming the Basutos. It was no doubt a pity that so many of them possessed firearms; but it would have been better to let them keep their weapons than to provoke a war; and the Cape Prime Minister, who met the nation in its great popular assembly, the Pitso, had ample notice through the speeches delivered ...
— Impressions of South Africa • James Bryce

... encouraged Lucille. She perceived the futility of polite, introductory phrases here; she could go straight to her purpose, be brutally frank. She gave Mrs. Brace a brilliant, disarming smile, a proclamation of fellowship. Her confidence ...
— No Clue - A Mystery Story • James Hay

... need for me to go into the details of the way in which men and women, whose whole livelihood depends upon their success in disarming the suspicions of their victims and luring them to their doom, contrive to overcome the reluctance of the young girl without parents, friends, or helpers to enter their toils. What fraud fails to accomplish, a little force succeeds in effecting; and a girl who has ...
— "In Darkest England and The Way Out" • General William Booth

... turned to the old couple, who were waiting for the doorway to clear, with a disarming ...
— The Best British Short Stories of 1922 • Edward J. O'Brien and John Cournos, editors

... inspectors were not sent to conduct a scavenger hunt for hidden materials across a country the size of California. The job of the inspectors is to verify that Iraq's regime is disarming. It is up to Iraq to show exactly where it is hiding its banned weapons...lay those weapons out for the world to see...and destroy them as directed. ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various

... later." And, despite the hurt of his bruised fingers, the man grinned as he noted the venomous gleam in the leader's eye. For not only was Lapierre thinking of the proselyting of LeFroy, who had been his most trusted lieutenant, but of his own disarming, and the meaning stare of the fishlike eyes that had prompted him to abandon his attempt to poison MacNair when wounded in ...
— The Gun-Brand • James B. Hendryx

... matter to which I haven't given much attention, so far," answered Tom, with disarming candor. "But, if we can have a map of this part of the country, I'll quickly mark off the limits on which I think you ...
— The Young Engineers in Mexico • H. Irving Hancock

... the end one might have foreseen for him. Only he was, through it all and in spite of it all—as he had been through, and in spite of, his pictures—so handsome, so charming, so disarming, that one longed to cry out: "Be dissatisfied with your leisure!" as once one had longed to say: ...
— The Early Short Fiction of Edith Wharton, Part 2 (of 10) • Edith Wharton

... thunderbolt fell. As the Christian Indians of Gnadenhtten were engaged one day in tilling the soil, the American troops of Colonel Williamson appeared upon the scene, asked for quarters, were comfortably, lodged, and then, disarming the innocent victims, accused them of having sided with the British. For that accusation the only ground was that the Indians had shown hospitality to all who demanded it; but this defence was not accepted, and Colonel Williamson decided to put the ...
— History of the Moravian Church • J. E. Hutton

... smile was the most engaging part of him; it had the knack of disarming the most wrathful. It had served him many a time in the hour of retribution, and he never scrupled to make use of it. It was ...
— The Rocks of Valpre • Ethel May Dell

... Amazed and shaken as they were, we might have dispatched them with all ease, to join the dead whose lamentations yet rang in their ears; but we contented ourselves with disarming them and bidding them begone for their lives in the direction of the Pamunkey. They went like frightened deer, their one goal in life ...
— To Have and To Hold • Mary Johnston

... gathered from the fact that they return in full force in every serious illness. As soon as the feverishly seething blood rushes over my brain and drowns my consciousness, the oldest devils, driving out and disarming all laterborn ones, come back again, and that best shows, without doubt, how they must ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IX - Friedrich Hebbel and Otto Ludwig • Various

... "He was consulted on every imaginable subject.... Government chiefs and rebels consulted him with regard to policy; political letters were brought to him to read and criticise.... Parties would come to hear the latest news of the proposed disarming of the country, or to arrange a private audience with one of the officials; and poor war-worn chieftains, whose only anxiety was to join the winning side and who wished to consult with Tusitala as to which that might be. Mr. Stevenson would sigh sometimes ...
— The Life of Robert Louis Stevenson for Boys and Girls • Jacqueline M. Overton

... their industries with equal facility in all countries, it would become a matter of little consequence to them under what flag they lived, and that this complete commercial assimilation would soon be followed by a general movement for disarming, which would put an end to ...
— Historical and Political Essays • William Edward Hartpole Lecky

... question of time, this ascertaining whether Mr. Glynde had called within the last week. It was marvellous how well this man of deeds knew his clients. Mrs. Agar had never persevered in any inquiry or project that required time all through her life. Mr. Rigg, behind his disarming smile, could see as far into a ...
— From One Generation to Another • Henry Seton Merriman

... bridges over the Lech were destroyed; the whole course of the stream protected by strong garrisons as far as Augsburg; and that town itself, which had long betrayed its impatience to follow the example of Nuremberg and Frankfort, secured by a Bavarian garrison, and the disarming of its inhabitants. The Elector himself, with all the troops he could collect, threw himself into Tilly's camp, as if all his hopes centred on this single point, and here the good fortune of the Swedes ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. III • Kuno Francke (Editor-in-Chief)

... opportunity to express their opinions. The military usurpers have allowed nothing to be submitted to the test of a popular vote, except where they were able to take such measures of precaution, in the way of hanging, confiscation, banishment, disarming opponents, and the presence of an armed force which should overawe dissenters, as might secure the unanimity they desired. There is undoubtedly much more loyalty in the Northern than in the Southern States of the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 46, August, 1861 • Various

... the hotel for a few days, and not until the Doctor had met him and treated him very nicely, thus entirely disarming him of suspicion. ...
— Twenty Years of Hus'ling • J. P. Johnston

... effect on the younger man. If Bassett had been a weakling timorously making overtures for help, Harwood would have been sensible of it; but a man of demonstrated force and intelligence, who had probably never talked thus to another soul in his life, was addressing him with a candor at once disarming and compelling. It was not easy to say to a man from whom he had accepted every kindness that he had ceased to trust him; that while he had been his willing companion on fair-weather voyages, he would desert without ...
— A Hoosier Chronicle • Meredith Nicholson

... came first was of medium height and square build. He had a disarming, florid face, and the bland, good-natured expression of a genial farmer. The other glanced swiftly over the room. He was the shorter of the two, and his clean shaven face and his undistinctive tweed clothing would have left ...
— The Heart of Unaga • Ridgwell Cullum



Words linked to "Disarming" :   demobilisation, armament, unprovoking, arming, demobilization, disarm



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