Online dictionaryOnline dictionary
Synonyms, antonyms, pronunciation

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




Dissembling   Listen
adjective
Dissembling  adj.  That dissembles; hypocritical; false.






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





"Dissembling" Quotes from Famous Books



... to be able the frecher & cleerer to discerne the factions and state of the Court and of al the world besides, no lesse then doth the looker on or beholder of a game better see into all points of auauntage, then the player himselfe? and in dissembling of diseases which I pray you? for I haue obserued it in the Court of Fraunce, not a burning feuer or a plurisie, or a palsie or the hydropick and swelling gowte, or any other like disease, for if they may be such as may be either easily discerned or quickly cured, they be ill to dissemble ...
— The Arte of English Poesie • George Puttenham

... Christianity. Certainly it is unhappy for the Seceders, that the only disavowal of the most fiendish sentiments heard in our days, has come from an individual not authorized, or at all commissioned by his party—from an individual not showing any readiness to face the whole charges, disingenuously dissembling the worst of them, and finally offering his very feeble disclaimer, which equivocates between a denial and a palliation—not until after he found himself in the position of a petitioner ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 55, No. 340, February, 1844 • Various

... suit. So well indeed did she perform her self-imposed part, that not only Louis himself, but the whole Court were thoroughly deceived by the stratagem; and meanwhile the unsuspecting Princess became the victim of the dissembling Queen and her capricious ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe

... seemed too terrible, too humiliating. Yet, after all, could she blame her daughter? What was her present life, what would be her future, without education, without money—unless she had someone who could take care of her? Dissembling her indignation as much as possible, ...
— Bought and Paid For - From the Play of George Broadhurst • Arthur Hornblow

... mount on horseback."—"And if that number," continued Mahmud, "should not be sufficient?"—"Send this second arrow to the horde of Balik, and you will find fifty thousand more."—"But," said the Gaznevide, dissembling his anxiety, "if I should stand in need of the whole force of your kindred tribes?"—"Despatch my bow," was the last reply of Ismael, "and as it is circulated around, the summons will be obeyed by two hundred thousand horse." ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 5 • Edward Gibbon

... A heate full of coldnesse, a sweet full of bitternesse, a paine ful of pleasantnesse; which maketh thoughts have eyes, and harts eares; bred by desire, nursed by delight, weaned by jelousie, kild by dissembling, buried by ingratitude; and this is love! fayre ...
— Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Drama - A Literary Inquiry, with Special Reference to the Pre-Restoration - Stage in England • Walter W. Greg

... children, and don't spill your milk on your bibs," he answered them, with a dissembling smile that would have done credit to Mr. Height himself when upon the boards with Miss Hawtry. They departed in great spirits, and Mr. Vandeford noticed that Mr. Height had not been at all concerned as to how his manager's inner man would ...
— Blue-grass and Broadway • Maria Thompson Daviess

... him to possess himself of Munychia before the news of Antipater's death should be heard; which being done, and some days after the Athenians hearing the report of it, Phocion was taxed as privy to it before, and censured heavily for dissembling it, out of friendship for Nicanor. But he slighted their talk, and making it his duty to visit and confer continually with Nicanor, he succeeded in procuring his good-will and kindness for the Athenians, and induced him ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough

... to me for ever; and I remember how happy, how gay were my spirits, as I walked from the cottage to Allenham, satisfied with myself, delighted with every body! But in this, our last interview of friendship, I approached her with a sense of guilt that almost took from me the power of dissembling. Her sorrow, her disappointment, her deep regret, when I told her that I was obliged to leave Devonshire so immediately—I never shall forget it—united too with such reliance, such confidence in me! Oh, God! what a hard-hearted ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen

... dissembling mind" which English historians, his cotemporaries, attribute to O'Neil, was now brought into daily exercise. When he discovered money to be the master passion of the Lord Deputy, he procured his connivance at the escape of Hugh Roe O'Donnell ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee

... old and experienced actor, "stricken in age, melancholick, ruling after the crabbed forwardness of his doting will, impartial, for he loved none but himself, politic because experienced, familiar with none except for his profit, skillful in dissembling, trusting no one, silent, covetous, counting all things honest that were profitable." This characterisation cannot possibly have referred to Shakespeare in the year 1585. When it is noticed, however, that nearly all of Greene's ...
— Shakespeare's Lost Years in London, 1586-1592 • Arthur Acheson

... dissembling. I thought in that moment, that, if Fanny should burst in childish glee into the neighboring room, and in triumphant voice proclaim the concession she had wrung out of me, I might tell her on her return the name of some place that did not exist, ...
— Debts of Honor • Maurus Jokai

... answer, dissembling what pique he might have felt, and putting real interest into his words. "Is Molly Brant, then, come down from the Castle? What does she at the Hall? I thought Lady Johnson would have ...
— In the Valley • Harold Frederic

... Fernando, (he bore no resemblance to the Don Fernando of Don Quixote,) advanced with the gravity and solemnity of one whose business it was to kill giants; for though he was a man of much humor, he had a necromantic facility for dissembling, and could declare before high heaven his innocence of any crime laid at his door, and in the very next breath issue an order giving peace and comfort to pickpockets. And while I am writing of this great man, I may mention ...
— The Life and Adventures of Maj. Roger Sherman Potter • "Pheleg Van Trusedale"

... her boldly. His muscles tensed, Blaine watched every movement of the Zara's straying fingers. But her gaze was direct and kindly; there was no dissembling here. It was not the same Clyone he ...
— The Copper-Clad World • Harl Vincent

... undefinable; strong and weak by turns, indiscreet, dissembling, they are capable of anything.' 'Without doubt,' said M. de Lille, distressed that nothing had yet been said to him, and with a familiarity which was not likely to succeed; 'Without doubt. Look—' said he. The King interrupted him. I cited some traits in support of my opinion,—as that ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XXI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle

... that blessed Peter on which rock was holy church for all ages founded. All they bachelors then asked of sir Leopold would he in like case so jeopard her person as risk life to save life. A wariness of mind he would answer as fitted all and, laying hand to jaw, he said dissembling, as his wont was, that as it was informed him, who had ever loved the art of physic as might a layman, and agreeing also with his experience of so seldomseen an accident it was good for that mother Church belike ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce

... subject to annoyances or even to restraint; but who could say whether she was curable or not, until she was able to make a clean breast of her symptoms instead of concealing them? In their eagerness to stamp out disease, these people overshot their mark; for people had become so clever at dissembling—they painted their faces with such consummate skill—they repaired the decay of time and the effects of mischance with such profound dissimulation—that it was really impossible to say whether any one was well or ill till after an intimate acquaintance ...
— Erewhon • Samuel Butler

... been as one sent to them from the dead; I went myself in chains, to preach to them in chains; and carried that fire in my own conscience, that I persuaded them to be aware of. I can truly say, and that without dissembling, that when I have been to preach, I have gone full of guilt and terror, even to the pulpit door, and there it hath been taken off, and I have been at liberty in my mind until I have done my work; and then immediately, even before I could get down the pulpit stairs, I have been ...
— Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners • John Bunyan

... he had discovered the pursuit before they left the block of the restaurant. Dissembling, partly to avoid alarming the girl, partly to trick the spy, he turned this way and that round several corners, until quite convinced that the shadow was dedicated to himself exclusively, then promptly ...
— The Lone Wolf - A Melodrama • Louis Joseph Vance

... days, during which time all was festivity and rejoicing. On the sixth, Jason appeared before his uncle, and with manly firmness demanded from him the throne and kingdom which were his by right. Pelias, dissembling his true feelings, smilingly consented to grant his request, provided that, in return, Jason would undertake an expedition for him, which his advanced age prevented him from accomplishing himself. He informed his nephew that the shade of Phryxus had appeared to him in his dreams, ...
— Myths and Legends of Ancient Greece and Rome • E.M. Berens

... selling her for his own profit to some man less scrupulous than I was. It seemed to me urgent. What a disgusting state of things! What an unheard-of species of seduction! What a strange way to gain my friendship! And I found myself under the dire necessity of dissembling with the man whom I despised most in the world! I had been told that he was deeply in debt, that he had been a bankrupt in Vienna, where he had a wife and a family of children, that in Venice he had compromised his father who had been obliged to turn him out of his house, ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt

... charitable construction, be just, and possibly safe and beneficial." But no such ground for charity, leniency, or tenderness had been afforded by Charles. Even now, while actually treating with the Parliament after his complete second ruin, was he not the same man as ever, dissembling, prevaricating, secretly expecting something from Ormond and the Irish Rebels? If such a man were restored to power, under whatever bonds, promises, guarantees, the consequences were but too obvious. All the credit, all the huzzas, of the new situation ...
— The Life of John Milton Vol. 3 1643-1649 • David Masson

... Are word-makers daily. Others in courtesy, Whenever they meet ye, With new fashions greet ye: Changing each congee, Sometime beneath knee, With, "Good sir, pardon me," And much more foolery, Paltry and foppery, Dissembling knavery: Hands sometime kissing, But honesty missing. God give no ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VIII (4th edition) • Various

... can talk sensibly together, Mrs. Brace," she explained, dissembling her indignation. "We can get down ...
— No Clue - A Mystery Story • James Hay

... treachery is laid bare. This is what the agitations of my mind prognosticated; it was not without cause that my love took alarm; my continual suspicions were hateful to you, but I was trying to discover the misfortune my eyes have beheld; in spite of all your care, and your skill in dissembling, my star foretold me what I had to fear. But do not imagine that I will bear unavenged the slight of being insulted! I know that we have no command over our inclinations; that love will everywhere spring up spontaneously; that there is no entering a heart by force, and that every soul is ...
— Don Garcia of Navarre • Moliere

... singular adviser had predicted, it was not long before the old usurer made his appearance, evidently full of eagerness to ascertain whether any change had been wrought in her disposition towards him by the wonder-working draught. Dissembling her aversion as well as she could, and assuming looks very foreign to her feelings, she easily succeeded in persuading him that the philter had taken effect, and that all obstacles to his happiness were removed. Transported with rapture, he fell upon his knees, ...
— The Star-Chamber, Volume 2 - An Historical Romance • W. Harrison Ainsworth

... if so, it would perhaps furnish a very strong Argument to the Cartesians, for the supporting of their [Doctrine,[2]] that the Soul always thinks. But as several are of Opinion that the Fair Sex are not altogether Strangers to the Art of Dissembling and concealing their Thoughts, I have been forced to relinquish that Opinion, and have therefore endeavoured to seek after some better Reason. In order to it, a Friend of mine, who is an excellent Anatomist, has promised me by the first Opportunity to dissect a Woman's Tongue, and to ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele

... methinks you long to know whether there be no remedies for you to be had, that you may also be as well arm'd against the rigid natured, subtle and dissembling Lovers, as well as they have against the vitious Gentlewomen; take notice, that since you have subjected your selves to that foolish fashion of these times, never of your selves to go a wooing; but ...
— The Ten Pleasures of Marriage and The Confession of the New-married Couple (1682) • A. Marsh

... Jacob is introduced, by his mother, into Isaac's apartment, clothed in the goodly raiment of Esau, covered on the more exposed parts of the body with the skins of the kids, to make him resemble his hairy brother; and presents the food with due formality and dissembling eagerness to the blind old patriarch. Some suspicions, however, are awakened—"Who is it?"—"I am Esau, thy first-born."—"How can this be—how quickly thou hast returned?"—The young man blushes and trembles—but ...
— Female Scripture Biographies, Vol. I • Francis Augustus Cox

... parson, girl, the forerunner of a midwife, some nine months hence. Well, I find dissembling to our sex is as natural as swimming to a negro; we may depend upon our skill to save us at a plunge, though till then, we never make the experiment. But ...
— The Comedies of William Congreve - Volume 1 [of 2] • William Congreve

... human form, that bears a heart, A wretch, a villain, lost to love and truth, That can, with studied, sly, ensnaring art, Betray sweet Jenny's unsuspecting youth? Curse on his perjured arts! dissembling smooth! Are honor, virtue, conscience, all exiled? Is there no pity, no relenting ruth, Points to the parents fondling o'er their child? Then paints the ruined maid, ...
— Six Centuries of English Poetry - Tennyson to Chaucer • James Baldwin

... seriousness in the performance of duties, and in seeking of God, deceiveth many. They think, because they are not conscious to their own dissembling, but they look upon themselves as earnest in what they do, that therefore all is well. Sayeth not Christ, that not "every one that saith, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of God?" Matth. vii. 21; that is, not every one that reneweth their suits, and ingeminateth their desires, cry, ...
— Christ The Way, The Truth, and The Life • John Brown (of Wamphray)

... sight by one meanes or other, y they diue not into his subtilties: how he must be familiar with all & trust none, drinke, carouse and lecher with him out of whom he hopes to wring anie matter, sweare and forsweare, rather than be suspected, and in a word, haue the art of dissembling at his fingers ends as perfect ...
— The Vnfortunate Traveller, or The Life Of Jack Wilton - With An Essay On The Life And Writings Of Thomas Nash By Edmund Gosse • Thomas Nash

... from what other women I had known would have replied, that it made me feel confused. I had no conception or experience of woman's love that can dispense with playful dissembling, and so thought that I was mistaken after all. I began to consider that I was already quite an old man and she apparently about twenty years younger. Perhaps I resembled some one she had formerly known; perhaps ...
— The Bride of Dreams • Frederik van Eeden

... most strongly, Binning treats his former colleague in the University of Glasgow, with uniform courtesy and respect. In one place he says, "If I knew not the integritie of the writter, I could hardlie spare a hard censure of him, either for dissembling what he knowes, or not reading what he condemns. But I will think neither, but rather that he is too confident of his own assertion." In another place he exclaims, "Alas! should a divine speak so? If a carnall polititian had said it, I had not thought it strange, but a ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning

... seeing the treachery intended by the minister, dissembling his anger, sent word to his brother that he was convinced, even should the boats full of goods be landed, he himself would not be given up; and he therefore charged him to send the hostages on shore, and then to make sail and return to Portugal. "If he himself ...
— Notable Voyagers - From Columbus to Nordenskiold • W.H.G. Kingston and Henry Frith

... in an appearance after supper. It was plain that the big engineer had not expected to find other guests; also that their presence embarrassed him. Quite unused to dissembling his feelings, he took no pains to hide his dislike for Dunne. Casey, on the other hand, was polite, suave, quiet, wearing the mocking smile that ...
— Desert Conquest - or, Precious Waters • A. M. Chisholm

... countenance? The inward and mental habits; the constant pressure of the mind; the perpetual repetition of its acts. You detect at once a conceited, or foolish person. It is stamped on his countenance. You can see on the faces of the cunning or dissembling, certain corresponding lines, traced on the face as legibly as ...
— Reading Made Easy for Foreigners - Third Reader • John L. Huelshof

... synthetically, a compactness into which the imagination may cut thick, as into the rich density of wedding-cake. The moral of all which indeed, I fear, is, perhaps too trivially, but that the "thick," the false, the dissembling second half of the work before me, associated throughout with the effort to weight my dramatic values as heavily as might be, since they had to be so few, presents that effort as at the very last a quite convulsive, yet in its way highly agreeable, ...
— The Tragic Muse • Henry James

... On the 26th, part of our goods were sold to the merchants of Calicut, by the governor's procurement, with fair promises of part payment shortly. But it is not the custom of the best or the worst in this country to keep their words, being certain only in dissembling. Mr Woolman was desirous of going to Nassapore to make sales, but the governor put him off with divers shifts from time to time. The 3d July, our messenger for Surat returned, reporting that he had been set ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume IX. • Robert Kerr

... painful confession: for the voluntary-acquiescence, if it involved her in her sex, claimed an individual exemption. 'Women are women, and I am a woman but I am I, and unlike them: I see we are weak, and weakness tempts: in owning the prudence of guarded steps, I am armed. It is by dissembling, feigning immunity, that we are imperilled.' She would have phrased it so, with some anger at her feminine nature as well as at the subjection forced on ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... Falstaffe? Are these your Letters, Knight? Fal. I loue thee, helpe mee away: let me creepe in heere: ile neuer - M.Page. Helpe to couer your master (Boy:) Call your men (Mist[ris]. Ford.) You dissembling Knight ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare

... in Town, when he should understand she was not at her new-married Cousin's in the Country; which accordingly she did, keeping her self close Prisoner to her Chamber; where she was daily visited by Fondlove's Sister and the Landlady, but by no Soul else, the first dissembling the Knowledge she had of her Misfortunes. Thus she continued for above three Weeks, not a Servant being suffer'd to enter her Chamber, so much as to make her Bed, lest they should take Notice of her great Belly: but ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume V • Aphra Behn

... he is so, when he is among ten thousand; neither is the solitude so uncomfortable to be alone without any other creature, as it is to be alone in the midst of wild beasts. Man is to man all kind of beasts—a fawning dog, a roaring lion, a thieving fox, a robbing wolf, a dissembling crocodile, a treacherous decoy, and a rapacious vulture. The civilest, methinks, of all nations, are those whom we account the most barbarous; there is some moderation and good nature in the Toupinambaltians who eat no men but their enemies, whilst we learned and polite and Christian ...
— Cowley's Essays • Abraham Cowley

... good Assurance, and demanded both Principal and Interest. I was then at my Lodging, but being sent for, I was strangely surpris'd to see the Clerk of my Company, who was also a Sergeant, metamorphos'd into my Brother. He shrunk two Inches lower at the Sight of me; but dissembling the matter, I am glad to see thee alive Sergeant said I, for I took it for granted you were kill'd at the Battle of Launden; and I, reply'd the impudent Villain, thought you had, otherwise I ...
— Memoirs of Major Alexander Ramkins (1718) • Daniel Defoe

... false dissembling wretch! That slayest me with thy harsh and hellish tale, Thou for some pettie guift hast let him goe, And I am thus deluded of my boy: Away with her to prison presently, Traytoresse too keend and ...
— The Tragedy of Dido Queene of Carthage • Christopher Marlowe

... counsel of the dying Tilly. Tilly had given them counsel bitter but inevitable. Dissembling their hate and fear they called like trembling necromancers when they invoke the fiend upon the name of power. The name of Wallenstein gave new life to the Imperial cause under the very ribs of death. At once he stood ...
— Lectures and Essays • Goldwin Smith

... walls, In a dark vale were left. When the first grant T'approach the monarch was obtain'd, he rais'd The olive in his suppliant hand; then told His name, and lineage, but his crime conceal'd. His cause of flight dissembling, next he beg'd, For him and his, some pastures and a town. Then thus Trachinia's king with friendly brow: "To all, the very meanest of mankind, "Are our possessions free; nor do I rule "A realm inhospitable: add to these "Inducements strong, thine own illustrious name, ...
— The Metamorphoses of Publius Ovidus Naso in English blank verse Vols. I & II • Ovid

... a little pause. Randal Courteney was no longer dissembling his interest. He had laid his pipe aside, and was watching with unvarying intentness the downcast childish face. He asked no questions. There was something in the low-spoken words that held him silent. Perhaps he feared to ...
— Rosa Mundi and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell

... light and life! but not in him, 145 In mine owne dark love and light bent to another. Alas! that in the wane of our affections We should supply it with a full dissembling, In which each youngest maid is grown a mother. Frailty is fruitfull, one sinne gets another: 150 Our loves like sparkles are that brightest shine When they goe out; most vice shewes most divine. Goe, maid, ...
— Bussy D'Ambois and The Revenge of Bussy D'Ambois • George Chapman

... indignant at this, and the matter began unmistakably to point to open violence. Romulus in order to provide a fitting opportunity and place for this, dissembling his resentment, with this purpose in view, instituted games to be solemnized every year in honour of Neptunus Equester, which he called Consualia. He then ordered the show to be proclaimed among the neighbouring peoples; and the Romans prepared to solemnize it with all the pomp with which ...
— Roman History, Books I-III • Titus Livius

... and staring, for out from the gloom of the smithy issued Black George himself, with Prue upon his arm. The Ancient stared also, but, dissembling his vast surprise, he dealt the lid of his snuffbox ...
— The Broad Highway • Jeffery Farnol

... under three successive bishops, namely, Domnus, Timaeus, and Cyril. If it was for too much favoring Paul of Samosata, condemned at Antioch in the year 269, he must have been deceived, for want of a sufficient penetration into the impiety of that dissembling heretic. It is certain, at least, that he died in the catholic communion; which also appears from a fragment of a letter written by him to the church of Antioch, and still extant in the Alexandrian Chronicle. Though a priest of Antioch, ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler

... At dinner, the husband purposely gave the shoulder-bone of the ram, properly cleaned, to his wife, who was also well skilled in this art, for her examination; when, having for a short time examined the secret marks, she smiled, and threw the oracle down on the table. Her husband, dissembling, earnestly demanded the cause of her smiling, and the explanation of the matter. Overcome by his entreaties, she answered: "The man to whose fold this ram belongs, has an adulterous wife, at this time pregnant by the commission of ...
— The Itinerary of Archibishop Baldwin through Wales • Giraldus Cambrensis

... what's-it, then covered his slip by pretending he'd only leafed through the texts and picked up a bit here and there. I know when that boy's fooling, and I know he deliberately fluffed the questions Jerry put to him. Timmy's just plain lousy when it comes to dissembling, you know, as if it was completely foreign to him to lie. All right, all right, I know what you're going to say—fond mama building mother's-intuition fantasy around ...
— The Short Life • Francis Donovan

... the joys of sudden and courageous death is evidently more favourable still, since they have every chance of living for a time, and so of enjoying a reputation for bravery without much risk. But rather than accuse mankind of purposely dissembling terror in the hope of braggart fame, we would lay the charge upon a queer divergence between the mind and the bodily will. No matter what the mind may say in commendation of swift and glorious death, the bodily will continues to maintain its life to the utmost, and is the last and ...
— Essays in Rebellion • Henry W. Nevinson

... practised it, to make you taste your cheer With double pleasure, first prepared by fear. So loyal subjects often seize their prince, 790 Forced (for his good) to seeming violence, Yet mean his sacred person not the least offence. Descend; so help me Jove, as you shall find, That Reynard comes of no dissembling kind. ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol II - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden

... Squires came in to supper, he made casual announcement that he understood Bas had gone away somewhere. His vapid grin turned to a sneer as he mentioned Rowlett's name after the never-failing habit of his dissembling, but Dorothy set down his plate as though it had become suddenly too ...
— The Roof Tree • Charles Neville Buck

... is no use dissembling with me, I know all. Be easy; we are playing a game in which you are laying one against a thousand; moreover, here is something on account to compensate you for ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... a tremendous groundswell of repressed feeling, had a fearful, almost supernatural earnestness that made the body of the monks tremble. Most of them were conscious of living but a shabby, shambling, dissembling life, evading in every possible way the efforts of their Superior to bring them up to the requirements of their profession; and therefore, when these words were bolted out among them with such a glowing intensity, every one of them began mentally feeling for the key of his own private and interior ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, Issue 49, November, 1861 • Various

... manner contrary to our thoughts."—Murray's Gram., p. 353; Kirkham's, 225; Goldsbury's, 90. "Irony is saying one thing and meaning the reverse of what that expression would represent."—O. B. Peirce's Gram., p. 303. "An Irony is dissembling or changing the proper signification of a word or sentence to quite the contrary."—Fisher's Gram., p. 151. "Irony is expressing ourselves contrary to what we mean."—Sanborn's Gram., p. 280. "This is in a great Measure delivering their own Compositions."—Buchanan's ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown

... religion does not stifle ambition, Elisabeth was capable of requiring others to do a blamable action that she might reap the fruits; and she would have been, like them again, implacable as to her dues and dissembling in her actions. Once offended, she watched her adversaries with the perfidious patience of a cat, and was capable of bringing about some cold and complete vengeance, and then laying it to the account of God. Until her marriage the Saillards lived without other society than ...
— Bureaucracy • Honore de Balzac

... watched these symptoms of disaffection with deep anxiety, said little, says Martyr, but coolly scrutinized the minds of those around him, dissembling as far as possible his own sentiments. [14] He received further and more unequivocal evidence, at this time, of the alienation of his son-in-law. An Aragonese gentleman, named Conchillos, whom he had placed near the person ...
— The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella The Catholic, V3 • William H. Prescott

... then, Monimia, art thou dearer to me Than all the comforts ever yet bless'd man. But let not marriage bait thee to thy ruin. Trust not a man; we are by nature false, Dissembling, subtle, cruel, and unconstant: When a man talks of love, with caution trust him; But if he swears, he'll certainly deceive thee. I charge thee, let no more Castalio sooth thee; Avoid it, as thou wouldst preserve the peace Of a poor brother, ...
— The Orphan - or, The Unhappy Marriage • Thomas Otway

... brings us into a certain rapport, a reciprocal subjective relation, which immediately interferes with our taking an objective view. As everybody strives to win either respect or friendship for himself, a man who is being observed will immediately resort to every art of dissembling, and corrupt us with his airs, hypocrisies, and flatteries; so that in a short time we no longer see what the first impression had clearly shown us. It is said that "most people gain on further acquaintance" but what ought to be said ...
— Essays of Schopenhauer • Arthur Schopenhauer

... receive, yet very backward to part with any thing. And if one neighbour asketh ought of another, or to borrow any thing, which the other is unwilling either to give or lend, they never will plainly deny by saying, I cannot or will not; but with dissembling they will excuse themselves, saying, They have it not, or is it lent abroad already, altho it be with them in the ...
— An Historical Relation Of The Island Ceylon In The East Indies • Robert Knox

... in human form, that bears a heart— A wretch, a villain, lost to love and truth— That can, with studied, sly, ensnaring art, Betray sweet Jenny's unsuspecting youth? Curse on his perjur'd arts, dissembling, smooth! Are honour, virtue, conscience, all exil'd? Is there no pity, no relenting ruth, Points to the parents fondling o'er their child? Then paints the ruin'd maid, ...
— Robert Burns - How To Know Him • William Allan Neilson

... inexperienced, early deprived of the guiding influence of her fond parents, and seldom mixing in society—had very rare opportunities of forming any opinion of the world or its motives; and knew not the accomplished art of dissembling her feelings, when the ice of her outward reserve had been once broken. The conversation and ingenuous manner of her companion pleased her, and she took an interest and pleasure in his society, which she had no idea of concealing. What her feelings were, at this period of her ...
— Fern Vale (Volume 1) - or the Queensland Squatter • Colin Munro

... spoil the charm, and bring us ill luck! That's the rule, you know. I really don't know that you ought to have told me," added the artful Bray, dissembling his intense joy at ...
— From Sand Hill to Pine • Bret Harte

... what he did by all this; he knew that his making the worst of his case, was the way to speedy help, and that a feigning and dissembling the matter with God, was the next way to a ...
— The Jerusalem Sinner Saved • John Bunyan

... fear of danger, who comforted me under the trouble I was in upon the slaughter of my sons, and looked to see what affection my surviving brethren bore me! This was my protector, and the guardian of my body! And when I call to mind, O Varus, his craftiness upon every occasion, and his art of dissembling, I can hardly believe that I am still alive, and I wonder how I have escaped such a deep plotter of mischief. However, since some fate or other makes my house desolate, and perpetually raises up those that are dearest ...
— The Wars of the Jews or History of the Destruction of Jerusalem • Flavius Josephus

... would have us swallow? If his godmother were well, why should he sell his stokh? Bismillah! The olives are old and the jar is broken!" When Prince Badfellah perceived them whispering, his countenance fell, and his knees smote against each other through fear,—but, dissembling again, he said, "Well, so be it! Lo! I have much more than shall abide with me, for my days are many and my wants are few. Say forty thousand sequins for my stokh and let me depart, in Allah's name. Who will give forty thousand sequins to become ...
— The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Tales • Bret Harte

... a consciousness of dissembling. They were drawn together by the possibility they did not mention, drawn together in the very thing ...
— The Visioning • Susan Glaspell

... "The queen, to protract the time till supplies of men and other necessary provisions arrived, and to abate the fervor of the enemy, being constrained to have recourse to her wonted arts, excellently dissembling ...
— History of the Rise of the Huguenots - Volume 2 • Henry Baird

... views of the queen-mother to receive with complacency and encouragement the dissembling professions of Elizabeth; by which she was not herself deceived, but which served to deceive and to alarm her enemies the protestants, and in some measure to mask her designs against them. We have seen what high civilities had passed between the courts on occasion of the admission ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin

... the Gentlemans eyes, sayde: who am I: twise or thrise, in which time the drab had gotten the purse and put it up. The Gentleman thinking it had been some merrie friend of his, reckoned the names of three or foure, when letting him go, the crafty knave dissembling a bashful shame of what he had done, said: By my troth sir I crie ye mercy, as I came in at the Church doore, I took ye for such a one (naming a man) a verie friend of mine, whome you very much resemble: I beseech ye be not angrie, it was verie boldlye done of me, but in penance of my ...
— The Third And Last Part Of Conny-Catching. (1592) - With the new deuised knauish arte of Foole-taking • R. G.

... I found I was to carry money to one Jessie Broun, who was no better than she should be, I supposed it was some trip of his own that Mr. Henry was dissembling. I was the more impressed ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition, Vol. XII (of 25) - The Master of Ballantrae • Robert Louis Stevenson

... training. If they have not been trained properly as they are not adepts in dissembling and they reflect their mothers in all ...
— The Colored Girl Beautiful • E. Azalia Hackley

... it before that," replied Trent with a slightly crestfallen air. "And I thought I was acting the part of a person who was not mad about her to the life. Well, I never was any good at dissembling. I shouldn't wonder if even old Peppmueller noticed something through his double convex lenses. But however crazy I may have been as an undeclared suitor, I am going to be much worse now. Here's the place," he broke off, as the cab rushed down a side-street and swung round a corner into ...
— The Woman in Black • Edmund Clerihew Bentley

... near to forgetting his own interests, and preferring those of Ruth. Lady Horton sat silent, her heart fluttering with dismay and perplexity. Heaven had not equipped her with a spirit capable of dealing with a situation such as this. Blake stood in make believe stolidity dissembling his infinite chagrin and the stormy emotions warring within him, for some signs of which Diana watched his ...
— Mistress Wilding • Rafael Sabatini

... this one, right now," said Blount, cutting the car to the left. He was more than willing to delay, even by littles, the moment when he should be obliged to resume the sorry business of waiting and dissembling. ...
— The Honorable Senator Sage-Brush • Francis Lynde

... subject who has reduced his prince to the necessity of dissembling, can never expect a sincere and lasting forgiveness; and the tragic fate of Constans soon deprived Athanasius of a powerful and generous protector. The civil war between the assassin and the only surviving ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon

... that was erected in the place: and men laughed and wondered, and said, "Is it possible?" or, "Did you ever hear the like?" and yet thought he meant no hurt; he did it so handsomely and ingenuously. And all these were prosperous: whereas Pompey, who tended to the same ends, but in a more dark and dissembling manner as Tacitus saith of him, Occultior non melior, wherein Sallust concurreth, Ore probo, animo inverecundo, made it his design, by infinite secret engines, to cast the state into an absolute anarchy and confusion, that the state might cast ...
— The Advancement of Learning • Francis Bacon

... had scarcely settled at Onondaga before signs of the dangers that were gathering became too plain for the blind zeal of the Jesuits to ignore. Cayugas, Onondagas, and Senecas, togged out in war-gear, swarmed outside the palisades. There was no more dissembling of hunger for the Jesuits' evangel. The warriors spoke no more soft words, but spent their time feasting, chanting war-songs, heaving up the war-hatchet against the kettle of sagamite—which meant the rupture of peace. Then came four hundred Mohawks, who not only ...
— Pathfinders of the West • A. C. Laut

... certain gift of irony." That is profoundly true. A would-be writer of light verse who has not an ironical habit of mind had better change his purpose and write an epic. Locker has his full share of the necessary gift. Half gay, half melancholy, always ironical—dissembling most of pain and some of pleasure—he is in certain ways the appropriate spokesman of a society like our own, which is really most natural when most dissembling, or dismissing with a smile, its deeper emotions. There is nothing ...
— London Lyrics • Frederick Locker

... such was the prouidence of God, who disposeth all thinges to the best, the xij. daye of December, he with Cutbert Simson and others, through the crafty and traiterous suggestion of a false hipocrite and dissembling brother called Roger Sargeaunt, a taylor, were apprehended by the Vicechamberlaine of the Queenes house, at the Saracens heade in Islington: where the Congregation had then purposed to assemble themselues ...
— The Works of John Knox, Vol. 1 (of 6) • John Knox

... and conscience to the question how and where the plant "man" has hitherto grown most vigorously, believe that this has always taken place under the opposite conditions, that for this end the dangerousness of his situation had to be increased enormously, his inventive faculty and dissembling power (his "spirit") had to develop into subtlety and daring under long oppression and compulsion, and his Will to Life had to be increased to the unconditioned Will to Power—we believe that severity, violence, slavery, danger in the street and ...
— Beyond Good and Evil • Friedrich Nietzsche

... happy man," said the Dishonest Gain, "and thy bleeding head is but mere dissembling. ...
— Fantastic Fables • Ambrose Bierce

... to the carrying-on of a secret intrigue. The more fully I became aware of the veneration with which the countess was looked up to by the whole country, the more I learned to appreciate her ability in dissembling and her profound perversity; and I was all the more proud of her. I felt the pride setting my cheeks aglow when I saw her at Brechy; for I came there every Sunday for her sake alone, to see her pass ...
— Within an Inch of His Life • Emile Gaboriau

... me. Never had I so quailed, even when the army of France was at the gates of Cadiz and I read peril for my life in the dissembling words of my royal master. Vainly I tried to discover the cause of your displeasure, and the lack of sympathy between us which this fact disclosed was terrible to me. For in truth I have no wish but to act by your will, think your thoughts, see with your eyes, respond ...
— Letters of Two Brides • Honore de Balzac

... of one," said he, dissembling his amusement. "Professions—don't they all more or less involve sitting shut up in stuffy offices, among pigeon-holes full of dusty and futile papers, doing tiresome tasks for the greater glory of other people, like a slave in the hold of a galley? No, if I'm to work, ...
— My Friend Prospero • Henry Harland

... through and fired the hearts of these descendants of the nobility and gentry of Britain. They were the cavaliers in chivalry and daring, and despised, as their descendants despised, the Roundheads and their descendants, with their cold, dissembling natures, hypocritical in religion as faithless in friendship, without one generous ...
— The Memories of Fifty Years • William H. Sparks

... yet by every change thrown nearer the top; till with Anthony and Lepidus he is one of the Triumvirate that rules the world. Then came those cruel proscriptions. This is the picture commonly seen:—a cold keen intellect perpetually dissembling; keen enough to deceive Anthony, to decieve the senate, to decieve Cicero and all the world; cruel for policy's sake, without ever a twinge of remorse or compunciton: a marble-cold impassive mind, and no heart al all, with master-subtlety achieving mastery of the world.—Alas! ...
— The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris

... hardly dissembling her aversion to the "continental system," and openly refusing to acknowledge Joseph as King of Spain, would avail herself of the insurrection of that country, necessarily followed by the march of a great French army across the Pyrenees, as affording a favourable opportunity for once more taking ...
— The History of Napoleon Buonaparte • John Gibson Lockhart

... there, in human form, that bears a heart— A wretch! a villain! lost to love and truth! That can, with studied, sly, ensnaring art, Betray sweet Jenny's unsuspecting youth? Curse on his perjur'd arts! dissembling smooth! Are honour, virtue, conscience, all exil'd? Is there no pity, no relenting ruth, Points to the parents fondling o'er their child? Then paints the ruin'd ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham

... truth; suppressio veri[Lat]; perversion, distortion, false coloring; exaggeration &c 549; prevarication, equivocation, shuffling, fencing, evasion, fraud; suggestio falsi &c (lie) 546[Lat]; mystification &c (concealment) 528; simulation &c (imitation) 19; dissimulation, dissembling; deceit; blague[obs3]. sham; pretense, pretending, malingering. lip homage, lip service; mouth honor; hollowness; mere show, mere outside; duplicity, double dealing, insincerity, hypocrisy, cant, humbug; jesuitism, jesuitry; pharisaism; Machiavelism, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus

... dissemble. It was necessary to flatter Robespierre's vanity, and, by panegyric, to impel him to the attack. This was the motive which induced me to load him with those praises of which you complain. Whoever blamed Brutus for dissembling with Tarquin?" ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... wait behind, my stay May aid the cause; dissembling I must learn, Necessity shall teach me how to vary My features to the looks of him I serve. I'll thrust myself disguis'd among the croud, And fill their ears with murmurs of the deed: Whisper all is ...
— The Prince of Parthia - A Tragedy • Thomas Godfrey

... my prince,' said the grand vizier, dissembling, 'there is something in what your highness suspects; but you cannot be ignorant of the necessity a minister is under to obey his royal master's orders; yet, if you will but be pleased to set me at liberty, ...
— Fairy Tales From The Arabian Nights • E. Dixon

... are some things which seem fair, and even generous in them, it is true. And Fairbanks has a way of looking very meek and innocent; and one of two things is certain: he must be unacquainted with the world, and incapable of a thought of deception, or else he is an arch and dissembling rogue. But there are some expressions about his eyes that I cannot like; and I think there is a little blarney about them both. I may be wrong; I hope I am, and if I am, that I may be forgiven. It is unpleasant ...
— Summerfield - or, Life on a Farm • Day Kellogg Lee

... Hamilton, which there was reason to believe would be granted. This measure affords full proof, that notwithstanding the friendly conferences which they kept up with him for some time, they had resolved on his ruin from the beginning: but such instances of Popish dissembling were not new ...
— Biographia Scoticana (Scots Worthies) • John Howie

... which are the things Desired, Feared, Hoped, &c: for these the constitution individuall, and particular education do so vary, and they are so easie to be kept from our knowledge, that the characters of mans heart, blotted and confounded as they are, with dissembling, lying, counterfeiting, and erroneous doctrines, are legible onely to him that searcheth hearts. And though by mens actions wee do discover their designee sometimes; yet to do it without comparing them with our own, and distinguishing all circumstances, by ...
— Leviathan • Thomas Hobbes

... Philosophie are not in us but by countenance, or accidents that never touch us to the quick, give us alwaies leasure to keep our countenance setled. But when that last part of death, and of our selves comes to be acted, then no dissembling will availe, then is it high time to speake plaine English, and put off all vizards: then whatsoever the pot containeth must be shewne, be it good or bad, foule ...
— Literary and Philosophical Essays • Various

... himself alone with Ferraud again. There was going to be no dissembling; he was going to ...
— A Splendid Hazard • Harold MacGrath

... me fluttering nigh; And beneath his ardour trembling, Starts she up—then off I hover. "Look there, dearest!" Thus dissembling, Speaks the maiden to her lover— "Come and catch ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLV. July, 1844. Vol. LVI. • Various

... chamber where Ricciardo was, and having entered without uncovering her head, closed the door behind her. Overjoyed to see her, Ricciardo sprang out of bed, took her in his arms, and said caressingly:—"Welcome, my soul." Catella, dissembling, for she was minded at first to counterfeit another woman, returned his embrace, kissed him, and lavished endearments upon him; saying, the while, not a word, lest her speech should betray her. The darkness of the room, which was profound, was equally welcome to both; ...
— The Decameron, Volume I • Giovanni Boccaccio

... kissed the maiden, and sent her into the tent. A little while afterward, the queen came and spoke to him and asked him about the man to whom their daughter was to be wedded; and Agamemnon, still dissembling, told her that the hero's name was Achilles, and that he was the son of old ...
— Hero Tales • James Baldwin

... those Tommies got the porkers." To which I remarked vacantly, "Oh!" Then, further on, "Haven't the oats come on in that field?" Again, I helplessly "Er—yes." Then, "I wonder if they've got any fowls left in that shanty over there?" I, dissembling knowledge no longer, at last observed, "Really I don't understand it. I can't remember this place a bit." To which my neighbour replied, "Don't you remember coming this way when we ...
— A Yeoman's Letters - Third Edition • P. T. Ross

... were best for me to teare this mischievous and wicked harlot with my mouth, or to kicke and kill her with my heels. But a better thought reduced me from so rash a purpose: for I feared lest by the death of Fotis I should be deprived of all remedy and help. Then shaking myne head, and dissembling myne ire, and taking my adversity in good part, I went into the stable to my owne horse, where I found another asse of Milos, somtime my host, and I did verily think that mine owne horse (if there were any natural conscience ...
— The Golden Asse • Lucius Apuleius

... out to me almost gaily, and I was just pretending to compare it with mine, when there was a smart rap on the door and Vard stalked in. There was always a civic majesty in his gait, an air of having just stepped off his pedestal and of dissembling an oration in his umbrella; and that day he surpassed himself. Miss Vard had turned pale at the knock; but the mere sight of him replenished her veins, and if she now avoided my eye, it was in mere pity ...
— The Greater Inclination • Edith Wharton

... to be brief in discourse, In plain terms I'll tell you my mind; My qualities you shall all know, And to what my humour's inclined: I hate all dissembling base knaves And pickthanks whoever they be, And for painted-faced drabs, and such like, They shall never get penny of me. For this I will make it appear, And prove by experience I can, 'Tis the excellen'st thing in the world To be a ...
— Ancient Poems, Ballads and Songs of England • Robert Bell

... did never before understand what I now see clearly, To wit, that Democracy tends to level all human distinctions!" His fate so untoward and sad the Pine-tree statesman, bewailing, Stood in the corridor there while Democrats freed from confinement Came trooping forth from the chamber, dissembling all, as they passed him, Hilarious sentiments painful indeed to observe, and remarking: "O friend and colleague of the Speaker, ...
— Shapes of Clay • Ambrose Bierce

... Is she dissembling? he thought to himself. Does she know what is in the note, or is she deceived by the resemblance of the hand? He hoped, he believed the latter. He was warned—doubly warned; but those strange accidents, through which a higher intelligence seems to be speaking ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. II • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke

... he marched upon the Pharian town; But when the people, jealous of their laws, Murmured against the fasces, Caesar knew Their minds were adverse, and that not for him Was Magnus' murder wrought. And yet with brow Dissembling fear, intrepid, through the shrines Of Egypt's gods he strode, and round the fane Of ancient Isis; bearing witness all To Macedon's vigour in the days of old. Yet did nor gold nor ornament restrain His hasting ...
— Pharsalia; Dramatic Episodes of the Civil Wars • Lucan

... incantations, signifies unpleasantness between husband and wife, or sweethearts. To hear others repeating them, implies dissembling among your friends. ...
— 10,000 Dreams Interpreted • Gustavus Hindman Miller

... with which the dear girl seemed to place all her dependence on me, would, of itself, have produced this effect, had she not possessed my whole heart, as I was now so fully aware. Moments like those, make one alive to all the affections, and strip off every covering that habit or the dissembling of our manners is so apt to throw over the feelings. I believe I both spoke and acted towards Anneke, as one would cling to, or address the being dearest to him in the world, for the next few minutes; but, I can suppose the reader will naturally prefer learning what we did, under ...
— Satanstoe • James Fenimore Cooper

... beget love in the persons we counsel, by dissembling our knowledge of ability in ourselves, and avoiding all suspicion of arrogance, ascribing all to their instruction, as an ambassador to his master, or a subject to his sovereign; seasoning all with humanity and sweetness, only expressing ...
— Discoveries and Some Poems • Ben Jonson

... to the entreaty. How could he do otherwise, for there could be no harm in walking with the pastor? Mr. Parris, among his other accomplishments, had the power of dissembling. He could assume a smiling exterior while a devil raged in his heart. After they had gone aside some distance, and the farmer had passed on with his cows, they returned to the old stone wall, and Charles waited, very much as a criminal ...
— The Witch of Salem - or Credulity Run Mad • John R. Musick

... of these so famous Princes, the King, taking occasion of the death of these principall men of his armie, agreed, making none priuie thereto, to receiue the money which was offered him for his differing off the siege of the citie of Sagitta, yet dissembling to make peace, with the Saracens, but that he ment to go through with the worke, that he had begunne. Whereupon sending a message vnto Iaphet, hee aduised the English souldiers to come downe to Acres with their fleete, and to conferre and consult with him touching ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques and Discoveries - of the English Nation. v. 8 - Asia, Part I. • Richard Hakluyt

... thee, Silius. Against the majesty of Rome, and Caesar, I do pronounce thee here a guilty cause, First of beginning and occasioning, Next, drawing out the war in Gallia, For which thou late triumph'st; dissembling long That Sacrovir to be an enemy, Only to make thy entertainment more. Whilst thou, and thy wife Sosia, poll'd the province: Wherein, with sordid, base desire of gain, Thou hast discredited thy actions' worth, And been ...
— Sejanus: His Fall • Ben Jonson

... the captain and his men might land were requested to arrest them, and to confiscate their drugs and spices. His Majesty warned the viceroy that this decree was issued to please the king of Portogal, and requested him to send news of the outcome. Dissembling and secrecy ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803 - Volume III, 1569-1576 • E.H. Blair

... Rom. xii. 3,—"As God has DEALT to every man the measure of faith." In a fond imitation of Latimer's sermon he followed up the metaphor of DEALING,—that men should PLAY ABOVE-BOARD, that is, avoid all dissembling,—should not POCKET CARDS, but improve their gifts and graces,—should FOLLOW SUIT, that is, wear the surplice, &c.,—all which produced nothing but laughter in the audience. Thus the same actions by several persons at several times are made not ...
— The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims - Volume II (of II) • Andrew Steinmetz

... seems to have been finally decided in a long and stormy Cabinet session held on December 13. The events of the few preceding days had evidently shaken the President's confidence in his own policy. He startled his dissembling and conspiring Secretary of War with the sudden questions, "Mr. Floyd, are you going to send recruits to Charleston to strengthen the forts?" "Don't you intend to strengthen the forts at Charleston?" The apparent change of policy alarmed the Secretary, but he ...
— Abraham Lincoln, A History, Volume 2 • John George Nicolay and John Hay

... press your confidences on me," says she, smiling and dissembling rather finely; "I know nothing. I accuse you of nothing. Only, Tommy, you were a ...
— April's Lady - A Novel • Margaret Wolfe Hungerford

... now, boy," she said at about the moment in which I could no longer keep my dissembling alive. "Send the Governor in here to me, for it is about the time I had promised to dance with him. I want to talk with him and try to make him see some at least of this matter in the right light. Go; and come to ...
— The Daredevil • Maria Thompson Daviess

... fortune, tried in a short time how inconstant, vncerteine variable, wandering, vnstable, and flitting she is; which when she is thought firmelie to stand, she slipperinglie falleth; and with a dissembling looke counterfaiteth false ioies. [Sidenote: Roger of waldens variable fortune.] For by the meanes of hir changeablenesse, the said Roger of a poore fellow, grew vp to be high lord treasuror of the realme, and shortlie after archbishop of Canturburie; but by what right, ...
— Chronicles (3 of 6): Historie of England (1 of 9) - Henrie IV • Raphael Holinshed

... parents. Those parents are wisest who train their sons and daughters in the utmost liberty both of thought and speech; who do not instill dogmas into them, but inculcate upon them the sovereign importance of correct ways of forming opinions; who, while never dissembling the great fact that if one opinion is true, its contradictory cannot be true also, but must be a lie and must partake of all the evil qualities of a lie, yet always set them the example of listening to unwelcome opinions with patience ...
— On Compromise • John Morley

... taking in the East. They have endeavoured to disguise from each other their perturbed feelings. But STRATHEDEN felt that CAMPBELL's eye was upon him, whilst CAMPBELL at last abandoned the futile effort of dissembling his uneasiness under the cold steel-grey glance of STRATHEDEN. They finally agreed that the best thing they could do was to set forth for Berlin, making secret detours in order to call at other of the principal capitals, and confer with the Foreign Ministers. ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 102, Jan. 9, 1892 • Various

... compendious way. The most compendious, is that which is according to nature: that is, in all both words and deeds, ever to follow that which is most sound and perfect. For such a resolution will free a man from all trouble, strife, dissembling, and ostentation. ...
— Meditations • Marcus Aurelius

... think, uncle, that he is on a visit to a family which is above dissembling to deceive him, and he will esteem such frankness as an ...
— Major Frank • A. L. G. Bosboom-Toussaint

... his scheme through well," declared Mrs. Coddington. "Yet for our part we are very glad that the time for dissembling is past." ...
— The Story of Leather • Sara Ware Bassett

... not himself, were insufficient to glut the hatred, and avenge the insulted majesty of Philip. For his own hands and his own purposes he reserved the task; and at a later period, the wreck of the Armada strewed the shores of Britain with memorials of his gigantic and innocuous malignity. Dissembling, however, his displeasure, he permitted Don John to expect, when the Netherlands had been pacified, his approval ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 366, April, 1846 • Various

... The congregation who could crane their necks sufficiently saw a black object, which they guessed to be the carter's hat, crawling along the hedge-top. For a moment it was motionless, and then it shot ahead. The rivals had seen each other. It was now a hot race. Sam'l, dissembling no longer, clattered up the common, becoming smaller and smaller to the on-lookers as he neared the top. More than one person in the gallery almost rose to their feet in their excitement. Sam'l had it. No, Sanders was in front. Then the two figures disappeared from view. ...
— Auld Licht Idyls • J.M. Barrie

... the Queen's observation, M. de Montmorin made no secret of the necessity there was of Their Majesties dissembling their feelings; the avowal of which, he said, would only tend to forward the triumph of Jacobinism, 'which,' added he, 'I am sorry to see predominates in the Assembly, and keeps in subordination all the public ...
— The Secret Memoirs of Louis XV./XVI, Complete • Madame du Hausset, an "Unknown English Girl" and the Princess Lamballe

... This Kineard dissembling the matter, as he that could giue place to time, got him out of the countrie, and after by a secret conspiracie assembled togither a knot of vngratious companie, and returning priuilie into the countrie ...
— Chronicles (1 of 6): The Historie of England (6 of 8) - The Sixt Booke of the Historie of England • Raphael Holinshed



Words linked to "Dissembling" :   pretense, head game, double-dealing, chicanery, indirection, delusion, impersonation, duplicity, feigning, deceit, pretence, obscurantism, guile, trickery, fakery, cheat, four flush, hypocrisy, lip service, illusion, shenanigan, chicane, deception, imposture, bluff, falsification, simulation



Copyright © 2024 Dictionary One.com