Online dictionaryOnline dictionary
Synonyms, antonyms, pronunciation

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




Discomfort   Listen
verb
Discomfort  v. t.  (past & past part. discomforted; pres. part. discomforting)  
1.
To discourage; to deject. "His funeral shall not be in our camp, Lest it discomfort us."
2.
To destroy or disturb the comfort of; to deprive of quiet enjoyment; to make uneasy; to pain; as, a smoky chimney discomforts a family.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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

Synonyms
Antonyms
Quotes
Words linked to  

only single words



Share |
Add this dictionary
to your browser search bar





"Discomfort" Quotes from Famous Books



... There were besides a few other houses for summer visitors. Thus, long ago, was there tolerable comfort at Murray Bay. In any case visitors soon found that the place had abundant compensations even for discomfort. They came and came again. Friends came to visit them and they too learned to love the spot. Some Americans from New York chanced to find it out and others of their countrymen followed; by 1885 already well established was the now ...
— A Canadian Manor and Its Seigneurs - The Story of a Hundred Years, 1761-1861 • George M. Wrong

... the milk was to be found in Flossy's bag, and accordingly in a short time Dickory had a meal; not quite what she was accustomed to, but sufficient to soothe her off into a slumber in which she forgot the discomfort of her damp clothes and all ...
— Dickory Dock • L. T. Meade

... not danger, at least discomfort, came from the trick which the Tiber has always had of flooding the lower parts of the city. Somewhat later than our date the river restrained by strong stone embankments, which one had to descend by steps in order ...
— Life in the Roman World of Nero and St. Paul • T. G. Tucker

... at this. It was, no doubt, true, but it seemed horribly petty and commonplace. His comprehension stopped at such details as these, and he had given her no credit for the courage which would have made light of bodily discomfort. ...
— Hawtrey's Deputy • Harold Bindloss

... to Mexico, where the viceroy, Marquis de Salinas, his uncle, appointed him governor and captain-general of the Filipinas Islands, because of the arrival at that juncture of news of the death of Don Pedro de Acuna. Without stopping to consider the discomfort and lack that he was causing his family, and the short time in which his successor would arrive, he accepted and went to take charge of the said duties. During the period of his government, he made peace with the Mindanaos, and reenforced the kingdom of Maluco, then besieged by the Dutch, ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XXII, 1625-29 • Various

... tired, and subjected to all the evils of travelling; but for all that, I would not have missed the sort of realization that I have of the existence of the past of great glory, if I must have a thousand times the discomfort. I went alone yesterday to St. Peter's and the Vatican, and today, taking Murray, I went alone to the Roman Forum, and stood beside the ruined porticos and the broken columns of the Temple. Then I pushed on to the Coliseum, and walked around its whole circumference. ...
— Maria Mitchell: Life, Letters, and Journals • Maria Mitchell

... the hotels happened to be inferior at any particular town, the party occupied it through the period of the engagement. Visitors were received, friendly parties arranged, and little of the inconvenience and discomfort of travel experienced. It was thus that Mary Anderson made her first great theatrical tour through the States. In spite of now and then a cold, or even hostile press, her progress was very like a triumph. ...
— Mary Anderson • J. M. Farrar

... not refuse to admit me, neither did she decide in my favour, and I continued to linger about her, and to impress her in all the ways I could with my worthiness. In the meantime I saw her admitting other students, and that added greatly to my discomfort, for I felt, deep down in my heart, that I could do as well as they, if I could only get a chance to show her what was ...
— Stories of Achievement, Volume III (of 6) - Orators and Reformers • Various

... Yet these presages of his coming ill, Not greatest cause of her discomfort were, She saw his blood from his deep wounds distil, Nor what he suffered could she bide or bear: Besides, report her longing ear did fill, Doubling his danger, doubling so her fear, That she concludes, so was her courage lost, Her wounded lord ...
— Jerusalem Delivered • Torquato Tasso

... La Rochefoucauld. It encouraged Rousseau, a century later, to talk of "ce triste livre," and to declare, in the true romantic spirit, that "Bad maxims are worse than bad acts." There have always been, and always will be, people who experience a sort of malaise, an ill-defined discomfort, as though they sat in an east wind, while they read La Rochefoucauld. This is particularly true of Englishmen, who resent being told that "Our virtues are often only our vices in disguise," and who also, by the ...
— Three French Moralists and The Gallantry of France • Edmund Gosse

... for they cannot walk, or even stand, on account of the pitching and tossing of the ship; and it is equally difficult to bring it to them. The poor children are always greatly neglected; and the mournful and wearisome sound of their incessant fretting and crying adds very much to the general discomfort ...
— Rollo in London • Jacob Abbott

... approving of their entertainment, that at break of day they were far more willing to hearken to a composition, than hastily to make more assaults or entries.' 'But as the day increased,' says Raleigh, 'so our men decreased; and as the light grew more and more, by so much the more grew our discomfort, for none appeared in sight but enemies, save one small ship called the "Pilgrim," commanded by Jacob Whiddon, who hovered all night to see the success, but in the morning, bearing with the "Revenge," was hunted like a hare among many ...
— Short Studies on Great Subjects • James Anthony Froude

... lee of the cliff, while the hunter put two fresh sticks on the coals. But little of the snow reached them where they lay, wrapped well in their blankets, and all care disappeared from Robert's mind. Inured to the wilderness he ignored what would have been discomfort to others. The trails they had left in the snow when they hunted wood would soon be covered up by the continued fall, and for the night, at least, there would be no danger from the warriors. He felt an immense comfort and ...
— The Masters of the Peaks - A Story of the Great North Woods • Joseph A. Altsheler

... asphyxiated the swarms of people who were hurrying to and fro in that restless undetermined way which is such a predominating feature of what is called a London "season," and the general impression of the weather was, to one and all, conveyed in a sense of discomfort and oppression, with a vague struggling expectancy of approaching thunder. Few raised their eyes beyond the thick warm haze which hung low on the sooty chimney-pots, and trailed sleepily along in the arid, dusty parks. Those who by ...
— The Treasure of Heaven - A Romance of Riches • Marie Corelli

... Creation. In the strophes of the epic the earth was a flat and stationary parallelogram. About the earth, and uniquely for its benefit, sun, moon and stars paraded. Above was a deity one or multiple. Below were places of vivid discomfort. To the latter, or to the former, the soul of man proceeded. There were no other resorts. Creation had ...
— The Lords of the Ghostland - A History of the Ideal • Edgar Saltus

... and it was considered a remarkable achievement to fly over the Alps. Our standard now has been immeasurably raised, and there are twenty high flights for one in former years. Many of them have been undertaken with impunity. The thirty-thousand-foot level has been reached time after time with no discomfort beyond cold and asthma. What does this prove? A visitor might descend upon this planet a thousand times and never see a tiger. Yet tigers exist, and if he chanced to come down into a jungle he might be devoured. There are jungles of the upper air, and there are worse ...
— Danger! and Other Stories • Arthur Conan Doyle

... own father. I could n't stand it any longer. I bolted out, and when I found it was you I was a little flurried. But Eugenia carried it off, did n't she?" Clifford added, in the tone of a young humorist whose perception had not been permanently clouded by the sense of his own discomfort. ...
— The Europeans • Henry James

... to such a height that it was a very great inconvenience for anyone who had climbed to the top to descend to the ground, and the builders lost much time in going to eat and drink, and suffered great discomfort in the heat of the day. Filippo therefore made arrangements for eating-houses with kitchens to be opened on the cupola, and for wine to be sold there, so that no one had to leave his labour until the evening, which was ...
— Lives of the Most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects - Vol 2, Berna to Michelozzo Michelozzi • Giorgio Vasari

... custom to walk. "But what were a few shillings?" he said to himself, the prodigality of desperation having seized upon him. In any case he could pay that, and if he was to be ruined, what did a few shillings more or less matter? but the discomfort of walking over those muddy roads, and arriving with dirty boots and a worn-out aspect, mattered a great deal. He reached the Hall at a propitious moment, when Mr. Copperhead was in the highest good-humour. He had been taken over the place, from one end to another, over the stables, ...
— Phoebe, Junior • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant

... scenes, and especially to go through them in your company," wrote Mr. Grote in January, "would be to me pre-eminently delightful; but, alas! my physical condition altogether forbids it. I could not possibly stay away from London, without the greatest discomfort, for so long a period as two months. Still less could I endure the fatigue of horse and foot exercise which an excursion in Greece must inevitably entail." The journey occupied more than two months; but in the autumn Mr. Mill was at Avignon; and, returning to London ...
— John Stuart Mill; His Life and Works • Herbert Spencer, Henry Fawcett, Frederic Harrison and Other

... she might have conceived against him! He would yield nothing! If he was foiled he was foiled, but it should not be his fault! His own phrase was, that he would not throw up the sponge so long as he could come up grinning. He had occasional twinges of discomfort, for his conscience, although seared indeed, was not seared as with the hottest iron, seeing he had never looked straight at any truth: it would ease those twinges, he vaguely imagined, so to satisfy a good woman like ...
— The Elect Lady • George MacDonald

... into the fore house, where we found the boatswain, Chips, and Sails as securely trussed up as ourselves. And there, still gagged and bound helplessly hand and foot, we were left to our meditations until, after a very eternity, as it seemed, of extreme discomfort, first came the daylight and finally eight bells of the morning watch, when the sliding door of the house was thrust open and one of the men ...
— Turned Adrift • Harry Collingwood

... to this moral discomfort, this distaste for my former habits, this aimless restlessness and discontent with myself and others, of which I have been conscious during the last few months?... I have taken it into my head to hate the trinkets on my husband's watchchain. We lived together in peace for ten ...
— The Dangerous Age • Karin Michaelis

... all mysterious auto bandits out seeking whom we may devour!" cried a young man with a naturally attractive face and beautiful teeth, hastily folding his handkerchief cornerwise for a mask, and tying it behind his head—to the great discomfort of his neighbors, who complained bitterly at having their eyes jabbed out ...
— The Lookout Man • B. M. Bower

... ever felt so like a hypocrite in my life before. But I realised at least that even if Jane's lodgings were discomfort embodied, I must take them and stop in them, while I remained there, now. Nothing else was ...
— Recalled to Life • Grant Allen

... we may believe, we do not in fact know, that we possess heart, stomach, or lungs so long as they do not cause us discomfort, suffering, or anguish. Physical suffering, or even discomfort, is what reveals to us our own internal core. And the same is true of spiritual suffering and anguish, for we do not take account of the fact that we possess a soul until ...
— Tragic Sense Of Life • Miguel de Unamuno

... man, though certain minor details of his chauffeur's rig were a bit unusual, and now that he had been obliged, by some discomfort, to remove his goggles, his face appeared pleasant and quite untanned. His passenger noted these things, remarking: ...
— The Stolen Singer • Martha Idell Fletcher Bellinger

... of the horsemen, who, on the day referred to, were thus scrambling, to the great discomfort of their steeds, down the steep and rugged sides of the sierra, avoiding, for reasons of safety, the high-road from Salinas to Vittoria, which lay at a league or two on their right, was a man of middle age and tawny complexion, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 364, February 1846 • Various

... been eating their curry, and drinking their bitter beer, at home, in all the comfort of muslin and nankeen. Macaulay is vehement in his dislike of "those great formal dinners, which unite all the stiffness of a levee to all the disorder and discomfort of a two-shilling ordinary. Nothing can be duller. Nobody speaks except to the person next him. The conversation is the most deplorable twaddle, and, as I always sit next to the lady of the highest rank, or, in other words, to the oldest, ugliest, and ...
— Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay • George Otto Trevelyan

... opinion. Nothing tells us that the bite of the Tarantula may not provoke, in weak and very impressionable people, a nervous disorder which music will relieve; nothing tells us that a profuse perspiration, resulting from a very energetic dance, is not likely to diminish the discomfort by diminishing the cause of the ailment. So far from laughing, I reflect and enquire, when the Calabrian peasant talks to me of his Tarantula, the Pujaud reaper of his Theridion lugubre, the Corsican husbandman of his Malmignatte. Those Spiders ...
— The Life of the Spider • J. Henri Fabre

... is obviously in front. I have repeatedly noticed, with a timid terrier of mine, that when she is afraid of some object in front, the nature of which she perfectly knows and does not need to reconnoitre, yet she will for a long time hold her ears and tail in this position, looking the image of discomfort. Discomfort, without any fear, is similarly expressed: thus, one day I went out of doors, just at the time when this same dog knew that her dinner would be brought. I did not call her, but she wished much to accompany me, and at the same time she wished much for her dinner; and there she stood, ...
— The Expression of Emotion in Man and Animals • Charles Darwin

... hope to make a few steady friends, but we're depending on the ebb and flow." Her colour was mounting, and had not Joe been so uncomfortable he would have seen how pretty she was. But he sank deeper and deeper into a sullen and unreasoning discomfort. The two had evidently had considerable in common before. He felt awkward—knew of nothing to say. Claybrook, on the other hand, ...
— Stubble • George Looms

... residences in the earliest Victorian style, interminably high and with deep damp basements and downstairs coal-cellars and kitchens that suggested an architect vindictively devoted to the discomfort of the servant class. If so, he had overreached himself and defeated his end, for no servant would stay in them unless for exceptional wages or exceptional tolerance of inefficiency or exceptional freedom in repartee. Every storey in the house was from twelve ...
— The New Machiavelli • Herbert George Wells

... struggled on a very meagre separation allowance. Fully aware were they also that while they were manning the trench as infantrymen and receiving as remuneration a miserable pittance, munition workers in England were receiving excessively high wages for congenial work and enjoying freedom from all discomfort and ...
— The Story of the "9th King's" in France • Enos Herbert Glynne Roberts

... His sole discomfort was that he could not invent a sufficiently ingenious explanation of his call. You can't tell a woman you've called to make love to her, and when your previous call happens to have been ten years ago, some kind ...
— The Grim Smile of the Five Towns • Arnold Bennett

... spent hours stuffing the bed-ticks with Spanish moss, would hardly have felt repaid could they have seen her discomfort at that moment. ...
— Blue Bonnet's Ranch Party • C. E. Jacobs

... uppermost being that of the thirsty man himself, the others those of his wife, children, or friends. The plus sign early in the drinker's stream of experience stands for the plus value which drinking the water effects-the gratifying taste of the water and the allaying of the discomfort of thirst-real values, whose worth cannot be gainsaid. Following, in his own stream of experience, are a row of minus signs, indicating the undesirable penalties in his own life which follow-disease, pain, deprivation of other goods. No good accrues to others, unless the ...
— Problems of Conduct • Durant Drake

... fact, spell much discomfort to the elegant lady who lived in the villa at Cintra, and would considerably diminish not only Senhor Bonaventura's handsome balance at the Bank of Brazil, but would impoverish certain ministers, permanent and temporary, who looked ...
— The Keepers of the King's Peace • Edgar Wallace

... and Charlie returned to the further side of the Fork, and made immediate preparations to move all their goods and effects to the new home of the emigrants. Sandy and Oscar, being rather too small to wade the stream without discomfort, while it was so high, were left on the south bank to receive ...
— The Boy Settlers - A Story of Early Times in Kansas • Noah Brooks

... an exaggerated form the unfavourable estimate which they have formed of others, especially if this exaggerated form can be compressed into an epigram. But it requires little reflexion to see that this keen and exaggerated habit of criticism must be productive of much discomfort in a society in which it is general, and that, when applied to literary work, even though it may be a protection against inaccuracy and breaches of taste, it must be a great discouragement to the young and repressive of much honest and valuable effort. To restrain ...
— Progressive Morality - An Essay in Ethics • Thomas Fowler

... ground, thickly covered with wood, at Valley Forge, on the west side of the Schuykill, and about twenty-five miles from Philadelphia. This position was chosen in order to keep Howe in check, and Philadelphia in great discomfort, and he was allowed to take possession of it without any molestation. The way in which Washington executed his plan does honour to his perseverance. He had but few tents, and, even if there had been an abundance, mere canvass would not have ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan

... dark, the place was full of cobwebs. To add to Jack's discomfort, a spider occasionally dropped on him. Suddenly overhead ...
— The Ocean Wireless Boys And The Naval Code • John Henry Goldfrap, AKA Captain Wilbur Lawton

... probably suspected they had a well-laid plan to escape. The jailer was further surprised to hear the two prisoners singing—actually singing some of their hymns, though they must have been in great discomfort. ...
— "Say Fellows—" - Fifty Practical Talks with Boys on Life's Big Issues • Wade C. Smith

... discomfort and dirt and cold, and harassed by the effects of an ill-healed wound received in Flanders some months before, and he wanted to ...
— The Deserter • Richard Harding Davis

... that life is the dream of a shadow: he would better have compared it to a night of fever! What alternate fits of restlessness and sleep! what discomfort! what sudden starts! what ever-returning thirst! what a chaos of mournful and confused fancies! We can neither sleep nor wake; we seek in vain for repose, and we stop short on the brink of action. Two thirds of human existence are ...
— An "Attic" Philosopher, Complete • Emile Souvestre

... Oliver dated from one hot Sunday morning years before, when Oliver had broken in upon the old gentleman's long prayers by sundry scrapings of his finger-nails down the whitewashed wall of the school-room, producing a blood-cooling and most irreverent sound, much to the discomfort of the worshippers. ...
— The Fortunes of Oliver Horn • F. Hopkinson Smith

... an early age to look my vanities in the face; I outfaced them and they quailed, but persisted, surviving for my discomfort to this day. Here is the confession: It was not until my arrival at the chateau that I realised what temerity it involved to dine there in evening clothes purchased, some four or five or six years previously, in the economical neighbourhood of the Boulevard St. Michel. Yet the things fitted me ...
— The Guest of Quesnay • Booth Tarkington

... confidence in the great cause he was representing. His cards were frankly laid upon the table and he appeared like a fighting champion, ready to meet all comers. Indeed, this very attitude of frankness, openness, sincerity, and courtesy, one could see from the side-lines, was a cause of discomfort to Senator Lodge and the Republicans grouped about him, and one could also see written upon the faces of the Democratic senators in that little room a look of pride that they had a leader who carried himself so gallantly and who so brilliantly met ...
— Woodrow Wilson as I Know Him • Joseph P. Tumulty

... in turn or together, and had philosophized upon the facts as little as any of them; but Rosy's brother (who had been about, and who knew more than he was ever likely to tell) looked round at her now and then with a vague discomfort. ...
— With the Procession • Henry B. Fuller

... that very speedily too—with a Feeling that had all the Signs and Portents of Love. These two unfortunate People were so shut out from the world, and so spiritually wedded by a common Misery and discomfort, that their mere earthly coming together could not be looked upon but as natural and reasonable; for Mrs. Greenville was the only woman upon whom the Prisoner could be expected to look,—he being, beyond doubt, one of Gentle Degree, if not of Great and Noble Station, ...
— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 1 of 3 • George Augustus Sala

... was at Rivington, and I should have had him visited there, had it not been on a single-track branch-railway which could not handle without danger and discomfort the scores of thousands we were planning to carry to and from him almost daily. So, it was given out that he purposed as far as possible to withdraw from the strife of the campaign and to await the results in the dignified calm in which he wished ...
— The Plum Tree • David Graham Phillips

... patient has headache or general discomfort, give him one or two aspirin tablets every 3 or 4 hours (half a tablet, for a child under 12). If he is nauseous, give him "motion sickness tablets," if available. If his mouth is sore or his gums ...
— In Time Of Emergency - A Citizen's Handbook On Nuclear Attack, Natural Disasters (1968) • Department of Defense

... the way it had developed. First those uncertain steps toward understanding the universally latent powers of telepathy, then growing chaos as each individual spent most of his time fighting off unwanted messages. After a period of desperate discomfort a few great minds, made superhuman by their ability to tap each others' resources, had devised the Central System Switchboard. Only living units, delicately poised between rigid order and sheer chaos, could receive mental messages but this problem ...
— Cerebrum • Albert Teichner

... the frame, when we descend towards the burning plains of the coast. But such is the organization of man; and even in the moral world, we are less soothed by that which ameliorates our condition than annoyed by a new sensation of discomfort. ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America • Alexander von Humboldt

... town, observed another indication of some disturbance in the usual processes of Nature. While crossing the river he noticed that the fishes were leaping in great numbers out of the water, and called the attention of several persons to the fact. They attributed this, however, to the discomfort occasioned by the intense heat, for the temperature of the water had increased so much that it ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, December 1878 • Various

... it; but he could still walk very little, although specialists had not given up hope that perhaps in time he might be able to do so. There was a rumor that he was strapped into a steel jacket which he was forced to wear continually, and the mill hands commented on its probable discomfort and wondered how the boy could always keep so even-tempered. For it was unavoidable that the large force of servants from Aldercliffe and Pine Lea should neighbor back and forth with the townsfolk ...
— Ted and the Telephone • Sara Ware Bassett

... delighted, George adored him, Meta's eyes danced whenever he came near, Dr. Spencer admired him, and Dr. Hoxton prophesied great things of him; but Ethel did not feel as if he were the veritable Norman, and had an undefined sensation of discomfort, when she heard his brilliant repartees, and the laughter with which he accompanied them, so unlike his natural rare and noiseless laugh. She knew it was false excitement, to drive away the suspense that none dared to avow, but which did not press on ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge

... made the mistake of her life. Urged by her father, she accepted a position at court as Second Keeper of the Queen's Robes. There she spent five pleasureless and worse than profitless years. In her 'Diary and Letters,' the most readable to-day of all her works, she has told the story of wretched discomfort, of stupidly uncongenial companionship, of arduous tasks made worse by the selfish thoughtlessness of her superiors. She has also given our best historical picture of that time; the every-day life at court, ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 7 • Various

... mahogany and dark oak, with the upholstery in dull crimson velvet. To be sure, no style could be more unsuited to the climate, but then, on the other hand, it was a standing witness of his emancipation from all restraint. The thing might bring him discomfort, but that was a secondary matter, and he was prepared to suffer for his faith's sake. Certain hard and fast principles always came first with him, and in the heavy mahogany and the hot plush velvet none ...
— The Recipe for Diamonds • Charles John Cutcliffe Wright Hyne

... never expecting to see him, and it was with a savage mixture of surprise and satisfaction that he beheld him, bestridden by two dirty malingerers from a New York infantry regiment who rode on the snaffle with difficulty and objurgations and reproached each other for their mutual discomfort. ...
— Ailsa Paige • Robert W. Chambers

... When she returned to her father, she could not speak. He was apathetic and did not ask what the doctor had said. Lady Kelsey, hating the thought of Lucy and her father living amid the discomfort of furnished lodgings, had written to offer the use of her house in Charles Street; and Mrs. Crowley, in case they wanted complete solitude, had put Court Leys at their disposal. Lucy waited a few days to see whether her father grew stronger, but no change was apparent in ...
— The Explorer • W. Somerset Maugham

... treatment, given twice a day, or oftener if it can be without discomfort, has reduced the swelling and put back the tumour, till it may fairly be regarded as capable of absorption, it will be well to try the effect of hot fomentation by bathing (see Breast, Swelling in). This will not do harm, but good, if it is only used so far as to try whether the stage ...
— Papers on Health • John Kirk

... be the object of the study of the past, and our historians of today very largely concern themselves with mistakes in policy and defects of system; fortunately for them such critical investigation under our changed conditions does not involve the discomfort and danger that attended it in the days of ...
— Lineage, Life, and Labors of Jose Rizal, Philippine Patriot • Austin Craig

... to discuss their oysters. "Could you commit the madness of matrimony with Lady Locke? You are so wonderful as you are, so complete in yourself, that I scarcely dare to wish it, or anything else for you: and you live so comfortably upon debts, that it might be unwise to risk the possible discomfort of having money. Still, if you ever intend to possess it, you had better not waste time. You ...
— The Green Carnation • Robert Smythe Hichens

... First, her aunt was more genial on Sunday, because the family was on its best behavior that day, and came a little nearer to being genteel. Then Elizabeth was clothed in a long, spotlessly clean, dun-colored pinafore, starched to the extremity of discomfort, and her spirits, always colored by her surroundings, ...
— 'Lizbeth of the Dale • Marian Keith

... in hand, clambered to the neighbouring sill of the great artist's window. And the great artist tossed into his cap a sou. The monkey, putting the sou in his mouth, swallowed it, and grinned. But presently a great discomfort instituted itself in the monkey's abdomen. Whereupon the monkey immediately concluded that the sou ...
— A Book Without A Title • George Jean Nathan

... with torrents of rain which swept the roadway. His well-worn working clothes, fitted to the warmer Southern mines, gave him more concern from their visible, absurd contrast to the climate than from any actual sense of discomfort, and his feverishness defied the chill of his soaking garments, as he hurriedly faced the blast through the dimly lighted street. At the next corner he paused; he had reached another, and, from its dilapidated appearance, apparently an older wharf than that where he had landed, but, like ...
— Trent's Trust and Other Stories • Bret Harte

... on Board, and the discomfort of a voyage first class — British types — Reflections on the Deck and on the Sea — of Sky, and People, and of things in general. A P. & O. yarn, Old Junk, or Chestnut. Respectability and Art. It gets ...
— From Edinburgh to India & Burmah • William G. Burn Murdoch

... enabled them to pose as brothers aged about twenty-eight and twenty respectively. Their hair was allowed to run wild and mat about their brows and ears; hands and wrists were left, much to their discomfort, to get as grubby as possible, and in the end they were ready to meet the gaze of all as Belgian workmen of the ...
— Two Daring Young Patriots - or, Outwitting the Huns • W. P. Shervill

... hope vague and baseless enough, but strong to colour a girl's life with all the brightness of a thousand dawns. There had been rare potentialities in those days, anything might happen, something would happen. The little Emeline Cox, moving between the dreary discomfort of home and the hated routine of school, might surprise all these dull seniors and school-mates some day! She might become an actress, she might become a great singer, she might make a ...
— The Story Of Julia Page - Works of Kathleen Norris, Volume V. • Kathleen Norris

... mysterious fashion, of the deep longing with which he longed for sight or sense of her, to assure him that—in spite of qualms and indecisions—he had chosen aright. Conviction grew that directly the veil of sleep fell he would see her. It magnified his insomnia from mere discomfort to a baffling inimical presence withholding him from her:—till utter weariness blotted out everything; and even as he hovered on the verge of ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver

... probably struck sideways and sunk deeply in. With a single white in his pocket, all his projects for a rousing night in some wild tavern vanished utterly away. And it was not only pleasure that fled laughing from his grasp; positive discomfort, positive pain, attacked him as he stood ruefully before the porch. His perspiration had dried upon him; and though the wind had now fallen, a binding frost was setting in stronger with every hour, and he felt benumbed and sick at heart. What was ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 4 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... assistance which Cromwell had at hand, lay in the little band of courtiers who hung in penury, and vexation of heart, round Charles II. Wanderers on the Continent, in total ignorance of English opinion, acutely sensible of their own discomfort, raging against their great Tormentor, the King's 'over sea' counsellors were, by irritation and by 'zeal, made so blind,' that they were 'soon persuaded of good success' in any possible attempt to overthrow ...
— The Quarterly Review, Volume 162, No. 324, April, 1886 • Various

... preceding night of wakefulness and discomfort, the weary day in the train, the dizzy whirl through Berlin, the fright we had from the rough proceedings of the Germans, and all the strange experiences of the place we just escaped—after all this we needed rest. But to get it was impossible for all but the youngest ...
— From Plotzk to Boston • Mary Antin

... drawn by oxen, and driven by a stable-boy on a mustang. The journey was made in complete silence save for the maledictions addressed to the oxen by the boy, and an occasional "Ay yi!" "Madre de Dios!" "Sainted Mary, but the sun bores a hole in the head," from Dona Ignacia, whose increasing discomfort banished wrath and apprehension for ...
— Rezanov • Gertrude Atherton

... Perhaps the most graphic descriptions of him as an old man are those contributed as "Reminiscences" by Mrs. Kingsley-Tarpey and Mrs. Bainsmith. We know him there as a man who, though hardly ever free from some discomfort or pain in those days, yet never failed in that old-world courtesy of which, alas! there is so poor a supply in the world ...
— Memoir and Letters of Francis W. Newman • Giberne Sieveking

... my nineteen injurious habits at any time, and without discomfort or inconvenience. I think that the Dr. Tanners and those others who go forty days without eating do it by resolutely keeping out the desire to eat, in the beginning, and that after a few hours the desire is ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... the discomfort, the men were making good time until the disease struck. And that stopped ...
— Despoilers of the Golden Empire • Gordon Randall Garrett

... sure, my dear Mr. Clump," she said, "no efforts of mine have been wanting to restore our dear invalid, whom the ingratitude of her nephew has laid on the bed of sickness. I never shrink from personal discomfort: I never refuse ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray

... exactly in that state of passive endurance which would have caused her to lie under the carriage wheels unresistingly had she been placed perchance in that position. The weather was close and sultry, and the dust gathered on the folds of her riding-dross added to the warmth and discomfort of her appearance. Her father carried her in his arms into the house, her head reclining languidly on his shoulder, her cheeks white as her muslin collar. Mittie caught a glimpse of Clinton's countenance as he stood in the ...
— Helen and Arthur - or, Miss Thusa's Spinning Wheel • Caroline Lee Hentz

... worrying about you, Graham," retorted Jim, not sufficiently suggestive to set the Mayor at discomfort. "But you know the rule of the trail, same as we do. When a man gets hurt on a hunting trip, another of the bunch stays with him. Joe Blair is willing ...
— The Spoilers of the Valley • Robert Watson

... the people? Why should we not hope when new remedies are multiplying in such infinite excess over newly discovered diseases? New diseases? What is there essentially new that can be treated with remedies, in the coated tongues, foul mouths, high temperature and pulse, pain, discomfort, and acute aversion to food, that is to be found in the rooms of the sick? Are there really specifics for ...
— The No Breakfast Plan and the Fasting-Cure • Edward Hooker Dewey

... recorded. Where they date back half a century and have been forgotten and unused for many years, lawyers are sometimes careless in their title search and overlook them. This is a serious omission since they can suddenly be revived to the discomfort of a totally ...
— If You're Going to Live in the Country • Thomas H. Ormsbee and Richmond Huntley

... contents, although I pressed into service everything from Mason jars from the kitchen to hand-painted atrocities from the parlor. After I had given posies to Frau Nirlanger, and fastened a rose in Frau Knapf's hard knob of hair, where it bobbed in ludicrous discomfort, I still had enough to fill the washbowl. My room looked like a grand opera star's boudoir when she is expecting the newspaper reporters. I reveled in the glowing fragrance of the blossoms and felt very eastern and luxurious and popular. It had been a busy, happy, work-filled ...
— Dawn O'Hara, The Girl Who Laughed • Edna Ferber

... a thunderstorm and gale of wind came up, adding greatly to the wretched discomfort of the troops for the moment, but making the air clearer and laying the dust for a day or two. I found partial shelter with my staff, on the veranda of a small house which was occupied by ladies of the families of some general officers of the Potomac Army, who had seized the passing opportunity ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V1 • Jacob Dolson Cox

... moment when the angry crab closed his nippers on the bare big toe of Dick Lee, and his shrill note of discomfort rang across the inlet, the shriller whistle of the engine announced the arrival of the morning train from the city, at the little station in ...
— Dab Kinzer - A Story of a Growing Boy • William O. Stoddard

... tell me you are a hard-working art collector, making a decent living by gadding about Europe picking up knick-knacks. Now, suppose I came to you with a proposal like this: Suppose I told you that without any greater personal discomfort, without any greater danger or any harder work, you might, say, join forces with me and at one play of the game haul in fifty thousand dollars from men who no more deserve this money than we do, I'll warrant that you'd think ...
— Phantom Wires - A Novel • Arthur Stringer

... of old age is only a pretence. But you're not drinking your wine. It is only a pretence. The fact is, you are half afraid of this Slope, and would rather subject yourself to comparative poverty and discomfort, than come to blows with a man who will trample on you, if you ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope

... ponderous on the saecular oak. He took refuge in a cosmic point of view. That was the only point of view from which Havelock (it was, by the way, his physical type only that had caused him to be nicknamed the Dane: his ancestors had come over from England in great discomfort two centuries since), in his blonde hugeness, became negligible. You had to climb very high ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various

... the army, as far as possible, were kept active, but the cold winter, with frequent rains, caused much discomfort, and many were in hospital; few were furloughed. Many rude log chapels were erected and used, often alternately, for religious worship, lectures, concerts, readings, and dances. Civilian visitors were, at times, numerous. One most ...
— Slavery and Four Years of War, Vol. 1-2 • Joseph Warren Keifer

... friends of coldness—that most grievous result of the loss of wealth. Mr. Rouse, and a large party whom he kindly took under his protection, lived for the first week in a garden beneath some apple-trees. At first they were as merry as if it had been a picnic; but soon afterwards heavy rain caused much discomfort, for they were ...
— A Naturalist's Voyage Round the World - The Voyage Of The Beagle • Charles Darwin

... yet other counteractions of evil, of a penal character, which are present at other times, are away. In rude and semi-barbarous periods, at least in a climate such as our own, it is the daily, nay, the principal business of the senses, to convey feelings of discomfort to the mind, as far as they convey feelings at all. Exposure to the elements, social disorder and lawlessness, the tyranny of the powerful, and the inroads of enemies, are a stern discipline, allowing brief ...
— The Idea of a University Defined and Illustrated: In Nine - Discourses Delivered to the Catholics of Dublin • John Henry Newman

... expenditure which would so amply provide milk and the rest for children, is necessitated by an acquired habit which, like all acquired habits, can be discarded. The non-smoker and non-drinker does not suffer the discomfort of the smoker and drinker who is deprived of his need. These things cease to be needs at all, soon after they are dispensed with, or if the habit of taking them is never begun. They are luxuries only to ...
— Woman and Womanhood - A Search for Principles • C. W. Saleeby

... awed by the fury of the elements, he looked into the night. It seemed as if the valley as far as he could see was a vast lake that rippled and danced over the rocks. Bucks had never conceived of a thunderstorm like this. Until it abated there was nothing he could do, and he sat in wretched discomfort, hour after hour, waiting for the night to pass and listening to the mighty roar of the waters as they swept broadside down the divide carrying everything ahead of them. Before daylight the violence of the storm wore itself away, but the creek in ...
— The Mountain Divide • Frank H. Spearman

... daughter for the moment. Their white dresses, freshly starched and ironed by her, rustled stiffly at every movement of their bodies, and they walked daintily as if they were treading on eggs. Both had gone to bed with their hair screwed in curling-pins, losing half their sleep with pain and discomfort, but the result justified the sacrifice. Ada's hair, dark and lifeless in colour, decreased the sullen heaviness of her features; Pinkey's, worn up for the first time, was a barbaric crown, shot with rays of copper and gold as it caught ...
— Jonah • Louis Stone

... source of discomfort was doubtless the presence of Medina Coeli. This was the perpetual thorn in his side, which no cunning could extract. A successor who would not and could not succeed him, yet who attended him as his shadow and his evil genius—a confidential colleague who betrayed his confidence, ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... sea: for most people it is an experience of acute unpleasantness. Apart from the physical annoyance and remoter forms of discomfort, such as delays, it is apt to produce feelings of peculiar anxiety, fears of invisible dangers, strains of watching and listening for distant and unlocalized signals. The listless movements of the ship and her warning calls soon tell upon the nerves of the passengers; and that special, ...
— Ancient Art and Ritual • Jane Ellen Harrison

... was impervious to discomfort. He coughed and shook his head, but did not budge an inch. Before she had begun to put things in order, ...
— Dark Hollow • Anna Katharine Green

... the stoicism of the most practical phase of humanity—the savage. No good is to be got out of bewailing their lot, therefore they do not bewail it; moreover, belonging to a savage race, and far from the highest type of the same, they have no thought of the future, and are thus spared the discomfort and anxiety of speculating as to what it may contain for them. Indeed, their chief anxiety at this moment is that of food, of which they would fain have more, and gaze with wistful eyes upon their captors, who are ...
— The Sign of the Spider • Bertram Mitford

... let, hindrance, or interference of any kind. My brother, Don Hubert Saint Leger, is still a prisoner in the hands of your countrymen. My intention is to secure his release, if he is still alive; and to exact heavy compensation for his detention—and any discomfort or suffering to which he may have been subjected; or, if he is dead, to wreak my vengeance upon his slayers. Therefore, senor, you will be rendering your countrymen a service—when I have released you—by ...
— The Cruise of the Nonsuch Buccaneer • Harry Collingwood

... Every one followed the Indian custom of carrying with them their bedding-rolls, and leather-covered wash-basin containing their washing-kit, as well as one of the comfortable rhoorkhee chairs. In consequence, although for travel by boat or train nothing was provided, there was no discomfort entailed. The trains were fitted out with anti-aircraft guns, for the Turkish aeroplanes occasionally tried to "lay eggs," a by no means easy affair with a moving train as a target. Whatever the reason was, and I never succeeded in discovering it, the trains invariably left Baghdad in the ...
— War in the Garden of Eden • Kermit Roosevelt

... a blessing on his lips, and a fervent thanksgiving in his heart to the Providence that had spared him his treasure. For the moment, I believe, he completely forgot that important personage with whom originated all their anxiety and discomfort. To men, indeed, there is so little individuality about a Baby, that, I fear, it has to be weaned and vaccinated, and to go through many other processes before it ceases to be a thing, and rather an inconvenient one. No; Bruce went to ...
— M. or N. "Similia similibus curantur." • G.J. Whyte-Melville

... And yet the time had not come when I could think of him with calm indifference. Therefore, to scout the idea of him whenever it presented itself, to refuse to dwell upon him and what he had inflicted on me, was the only way to escape additional pain and discomfort for myself. And now, at sight of his handwriting, the beast, the monster of declining hate rose in me again, ...
— To-morrow? • Victoria Cross

... above each grave is very high, and the greater part of them are surmounted by a kind of wooden coffin, which at first sight conveys the impression that the dead person is above ground. I could not shake off a feeling of discomfort; and such is the power of prejudice, that—I acknowledge my weakness—I was even induced to beg that the priest would remove one of the covers. Though I knew full well that the dead man was slumbering deep in the earth, and not in this coffin, I felt a shudder pass over me as the ...
— Visit to Iceland - and the Scandinavian North • Ida Pfeiffer

... avoided her. She was reduced to questioning others, edging the little Bishareen alongside each in turn. She seemed no longer able to suffer the close confinement of the shibriyah, but endured the scorching sun and desert flies with less discomfort than the rest of ...
— The Lion of Petra • Talbot Mundy

... Nature,—specimens of the manner in which she enables her pupils to collect and retain knowledge, and stimulates them to apply it. Wherever these suggestions of Nature are individually neglected, there must be discomfort and danger, and wretchedness to the person doing so; and wherever they are not taken up by communities, and socially taught by education of some kind or another, society must necessarily remain little better than savage.—The opposite of this is equally true; for wherever they are ...
— A Practical Enquiry into the Philosophy of Education • James Gall

... returned to the palace in Rome. Costantino was still in bed, his son Fiovo and his nephew Sanguineo were with him attempting to comfort him; he was pointing out that it is little use trying to comfort a man who is, and has been for twelve years, enduring such extreme discomfort. They were interrupted by a messenger who announced the return ...
— Diversions in Sicily • H. Festing Jones

... most elemental consciousness, our almost material consciousness. And during sleep this material consciousness transfers itself into the nerves and to the brain. The transfer in wakefulness results in a feeling of pain or discomfort—as when we have indigestion, which is pure blood-discomfort. But in sleep the transfer is made through the dream-images which are mechanical phenomena ...
— Fantasia of the Unconscious • D. H. Lawrence

... that he must be ill. The healthy colour natural to them had left his large cheeks, their fatness was only flabbiness, the small eyes were filled with a strange, pleading, protesting misery as of a man in terrible bodily discomfort. ...
— A Sheaf of Corn • Mary E. Mann



Words linked to "Discomfort" :   uneasiness, status, inconvenience, unease, comfort, malaise, incommodiousness, hurt, uncomfortableness, irritation, suffering, condition, katzenjammer, soreness, wretchedness, hangover



Copyright © 2024 Dictionary One.com