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Ignominious   Listen
adjective
Ignominious  adj.  
1.
Marked with ignominy; incurring public disgrace; dishonorable; shameful. "Then first with fear surprised and sense of pain, Fled ignominious."
2.
Deserving ignominy; despicable. "One single, obscure, ignominious projector."
3.
Humiliating; degrading; as, an ignominious judgment or sentence.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Ignominious" Quotes from Famous Books



... springs upon the animal's back and starts to ride off. Almost as soon the two officers get astride, Roblez on his own charger, the mustang mare being left to Uraga. From her mistress he must part thus unceremoniously, covered with ignominious shame! ...
— The Lone Ranche • Captain Mayne Reid

... to these Kingdoms, and the Chevalier safely gotten away to France (whither, however, that luckless young Man was expelled, and in a very ignominious manner, at the Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle), I do confess that I began to weary somewhat of my fine Red Doublet, and of the Rosettes in my shoes; and although my Loyalty to King George and the Protestant Succession was without stain, I felt that it was somewhat beneath the dignity ...
— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 2 of 3 • George Augustus Sala

... was I to get at her and hear what she had to say? Clearly it was possible that she was under restraint, but I did not know; I was not certain, I could not prove it. At Guildford station I gathered, after ignominious enquiries, that the Justins had booked to London. I had two days of nearly frantic inactivity at home, and then pretended business that took me to London, for fear that I should break out to my father. I came up revolving a dozen impossible projects of action in my mind. I had to ...
— The Passionate Friends • Herbert George Wells

... from jerking Helen's head, or attempting to guide her in any way. The only chance of safety over New Zealand tracks, or New Zealand creeks, is to leave your horse entirely to itself. I have seen men who were reckoned good riders in England, get the most ignominious tumbles from a disregard of this advice. An up-country horse knows perfectly well the only sound spots in a swamp; or the only sound part of a creek's banks. If his rider persists in taking him over the latter, where he himself thinks it narrowest and safest, he is pretty sure to find ...
— Station Amusements • Lady Barker

... father still may be, his dormant affection will be awakened, when he is acquainted with the dreadful situation of his only son; nay, his family pride will never permit that you should perish by so ignominious a death; and your assumed name will enable him, without blushing, to exert his interest, and obtain ...
— The King's Own • Captain Frederick Marryat

... As luck would have it, while they were debating how they should pay him out properly, and whether to give him another ducking in the muddy water or no, a happy means presented itself to them for punishing him in a much more ignominious manner, and one which was as original as it ...
— The Island Treasure • John Conroy Hutcheson

... frequent. The whole country should have such a law, and I should enjoy its application right here in Pennsylvania, where oaks of a hundred years have been cut down to make room for a whisky sign, and where a superb pin-oak that I passed today is devoted to an ignominious use. If I may venture to become hortatory, let me say that the responsibility for the preservation of the all-too-few remaining great primeval trees, and of their often notable progeny, in our Eastern States, rests with those who care ...
— Getting Acquainted with the Trees • J. Horace McFarland

... and situated. The occupants of the quarter are accounted for by the existence there of many houses of the same character, for which trade has no use, and which can only be rented by the poorer kinds of industry, of a precarious or ignominious nature. ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac

... falsehood, and calumny; he is wounded by the tooth of the Blatant Beast; and after having been cured, not without difficulty, and not without significant indications on the part of the poet that his friend had need to restrain and chasten his unruly spirit, he is again delivered over to an ignominious captivity, and the ...
— Spenser - (English Men of Letters Series) • R. W. Church

... be prevented by the Entente Powers from returning to their fatherland, and would not be punished for their loyal and neutral feeling and action." [15] This because the Entente press was angrily denouncing the step as a "disgraceful desertion" and asking "with what ignominious penalty their War Lord has visited so signal and so heinous an act of mutiny, perjury, and treason on the part of his soldiers" [16]—the soldiers who went to Germany precisely in order to avoid committing an act of mutiny, perjury, and treason. ...
— Greece and the Allies 1914-1922 • G. F. Abbott

... is something very ignominious in making a first transatlantic trip. No one should ever do it. Everybody should begin with the second or third trip. Yet I remember a little Kansas City lawyer I met on the New Amsterdam, who didn't ...
— Ship-Bored • Julian Street

... aggravated my feelings by pretending to pity me, though I guessed even then that he had arranged the plan beforehand with Yool and Cockle thus to entrap me. The seamen had descended towards the deck, leaving me bound in this ignominious manner. Jerry came and placed himself in the rigging ...
— A Voyage round the World - A book for boys • W.H.G. Kingston

... cries of "Ville gagnee! Tue! Tue!" But the citizens flew to arms; barricades were erected; and finally the French were driven out with heavy loss, leaving some 1500 prisoners in the hands of the town-guard. Many French nobles perished, and the "French Fury," as it was called, was an ignominious and ghastly failure. Indignation was wide and deep throughout the provinces; and William's efforts to calm the excitement and patch up some fresh agreement with the false Valois, though for the moment partially successful, only added to his ...
— History of Holland • George Edmundson

... more ignominious was the failure of Mr. Bull's Eye when he saw his first bear. They were paddling slowly and silently down Dead River, when the guide heard a slight noise in the bushes just behind a little bend. He whispered to the rifleman, who sat kneeling ...
— Birds and Bees, Sharp Eyes and, Other Papers • John Burroughs

... systematically humiliated in every direction! The nature and consequences of victory have indeed been cruelly modified, if one must submit to the law of the conqueror after having been delivered from him for twenty-five years. The glorious resistance of the past thus becomes an ignominious surrender and makes us shed tears of shame, even more bitter than those which we ...
— The Schemes of the Kaiser • Juliette Adam

... other great reforms, that of rural self-government and the judiciary, were not stained by the ignominious label kromye Yevreyev, "excepting the Jews," so characteristic of Russian legislation. The "Statute concerning Zemstvo Organizations," [1] issued in 1864, makes no exceptions for Jews, and those among them with the necessary agrarian or commercial qualifications ...
— History of the Jews in Russia and Poland. Volume II • S.M. Dubnow

... event proved, in the course Allen pursued, he was right. Because, though at first nothing was talked of by his captors, and nothing anticipated by himself, but his ignominious execution, or at the least, prolonged and squalid incarceration, nevertheless, these threats and prospects evaporated, and by his facetious scorn for scorn, under the extremest sufferings, he finally wrung repentant usage from his foes; and in the end, being liberated from his irons, and walking ...
— Israel Potter • Herman Melville

... there was not a jousting held in Maudlin's revels at which the Rusty Knight did not appear; and none from which he bore away the crown. The procedure was always the same: at the last instant he appeared in his ignominious arms, and stung the mockers to silence by the glory of his sword and his undaunted proclamation of his lady. So ardent was his manner that it was difficult not to believe him a conqueror among men and her the loveliest of women, until the fray began; when he was instantly overcome, ...
— Martin Pippin in the Apple Orchard • Eleanor Farjeon

... holding nothing so ignominious and reproachful as inconstancy and levity of mind, and persuading himself that a man of valour could not commit a more dishonourable part than for fear of danger to avoid and shun great attempts, was nothing at all changed or discouraged with the speeches and words of the ...
— The Discovery of Muscovy etc. • Richard Hakluyt

... found one place where Mr. Darwin pinned himself down beyond possibility of retreat, however ignominious, by using the words "my theory of descent with modification." {202a} He often, as I have said, speaks of "my theory," and then shortly afterwards of "descent with modification," under such circumstances that no one ...
— Luck or Cunning? • Samuel Butler

... Every citizen has equal rights to them and in them. Why, therefore, may not a Southern man, as well as a Northern man, go into them with his property? What right has Congress to place the South under an ignominious bar of restriction? The Constitution declares that slaves are property; that all the States and the people have equal rights. The Territories belong to all. Therefore, under the Constitution, they should ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 34, August, 1860 • Various

... him over the river, and so home, but in his frank and ingenuous nature how could he face him on his almost ignominious return? He stood still, a little away from the carriage-track, half wishing he might not be seen. He was seen, however, and a close observer might have discovered the half sneer on the otherwise handsome and manly face of the Judge, who had ...
— Bart Ridgeley - A Story of Northern Ohio • A. G. Riddle

... the passer-by, for the indifferent, and even for my country's foes. My wish is that the veriest looker-on, idly turning these pages, may be confronted only with documents whose authenticity will be self-evident, if he is willing to see, and whose ignominious tale will reach his heart, if ye ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 2, May, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various

... In this somewhat ignominious method of reaching her objective Miss Verity, although more and more mystified, amiably acquiesced—to be greeted, when Hordle throwing open the schoolroom door formally announced her, by a sound closely resembling ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet

... the feet was spiritual, and served as a species of absolution. Peter, in his zeal, saw nothing in it but too great an act of abasement on the part of his Master; he knew not that to save him Jesus would the very next day humble himself even to the ignominious death of ...
— The Dolorous Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ • Anna Catherine Emmerich

... greater usefulness, popularity, and emolument, he continued his church fellowship with these poor people through persecution and distress, imprisonment and the threats of transportation, or an ignominious death, until he crossed the river 'which has no bridge,' and ascended to the celestial city, a period of nearly forty years. Of the labours of his first pastor, John Gifford, but little is known, except ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... always talking about introducing your business methods into the army. As if that were possible! Why, the objects of the two things are entirely different. A business man is always looking for work; an officer is always trying to avoid it. If you neglect these principles, I can foresee an ignominious end in store for you, Barefoot, and Colonel Musgrave will ...
— General Bramble • Andre Maurois

... will be a horse or a driver. Either occupation gives him plenty to do. But the role of an elderly passenger, given a softly cushioned seat and deposited respectfully at the journey's end, he rejects with violent expressions of scorn. It is ignominious. He will be a policeman or robber or judge or executioner, just as the exigencies of the game demand. These are honorable positions worthy of one who belongs to the party of action. But do not impose upon him by asking him to act the part of the respectable citizen who is robbed and who ...
— Humanly Speaking • Samuel McChord Crothers

... Street prison—another fatal example of the sure result of gambling. Heir to a title—moving in the first society—having held a commission in the most distinguished of the Royal regiments—he was reduced to the alternative of an ignominious flight with outlawry, or risking the forfeiture of his wretched life, to the outraged laws of his country. When in Paris, he at one time had won L30,000, and on his way home he dropped into another gambling house, where he ...
— The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims - Volume II (of II) • Andrew Steinmetz

... to the paragraph which urged the utmost punishment that law could inflict upon the desperadoes. The outraged populace could be appeased with nothing save death in its most ignominious, inglorious form. The trials would be short, the punishment swift and sure. The people demanded the lives of ...
— Castle Craneycrow • George Barr McCutcheon

... followers of the two kings on the left of the royalist lines could not withstand the weight of the squadrons of Leicester and Gloucester. The King of the Romans was driven to take refuge in a mill, where he soon made an ignominious surrender. Henry himself lost his horse under him and was forced to yield himself prisoner to Gilbert of Gloucester. The mass of the army was forced back on to the town and priory, which were occupied by the victors. ...
— The History of England - From the Accession of Henry III. to the Death of Edward III. (1216-1377) • T.F. Tout

... for the rest of his life, in the hands of the Levites with Aaron at their head, for only by having a body of men stained with his own crimes and devoted to his fortunes could Moses thenceforward hope to carry his adventure to a good end. Otherwise he faced certain and ignominious failure. His preliminary task, therefore, was to devise for the Levites a reward which would content them. His first step in this direction was to go back to the mountain and seek a new inspiration and a revelation more suited to the existing conditions than ...
— The Emancipation of Massachusetts • Brooks Adams

... print gown had become inextricably entangled in the maze amid which she moved, and fearing Willie's wrath if she should sunder her fetters she had been forced to stand captive and helplessly witness a newly made sponge cake burn to a crisp in the oven. She had hoped the ignominious episode would not reach the outside world; but as Wilton was possessed of a miraculous power for finding out things the story filtered through the community, affording the village a laugh and the opportunity to affirm with ominous shakings of the head ...
— Flood Tide • Sara Ware Bassett

... the other side of his face, forming a contrast almost unearthly. We eagerly stepped forward to address him, but the miscreants who had charge of us pushed us back with their muskets, refusing even the small boon of exchanging a few words with an old companion now about to suffer an ignominious death. Howland saw and felt the movement on our part. He turned upon us another look, a look full of brave resolution as well as resignation, and, in a low but distinct tone, uttered: 'Good-bye, boys; I've got to suffer. You must——' But the ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, April 1844 - Volume 23, Number 4 • Various

... Persian hosts under Darius and Xerxes, and had fought with distinguished bravery in the memorable battles of Marathon and Salamis. In the Persians he has, in an indirect manner, sung the triumph which he contributed to obtain, while he paints the downfall of the Persian ascendancy, and the ignominious return of the despot, with difficulty escaping with his life, to his royal residence. The battle of Salamis he describes in the most vivid and glowing colours. Through the whole of this piece, and the Seven before Thebes, there gushes forth a ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art - and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel trans John Black

... and so sudden was Richmond's appearance that the boy stood fast, as if struck with catalepsy, for a few seconds before he bethought himself of a way out of his difficulty, when, pretending to catch a fly which did not exist, he turned upon his heel, and beat an ignominious ...
— The Bag of Diamonds • George Manville Fenn

... to complete the picture of our smart adjutant of Hussars in cowboy hat, grey flannel shirt, breeches and gaiters, with a face as brown as a Kaffir's, wandering over the South African veldt. During these expeditions, by the way, Baden-Powell's wardrobe came to ignominious grief, and under the tattered breeches, the stained shirt, and the split boots, he was a mere network of holes. The ankles of his socks remained true to the end, but the rest of them, in B.-P.'s euphemistic phrase, were most ...
— The Story of Baden-Powell - 'The Wolf That Never Sleeps' • Harold Begbie

... mountain has brought forth its mouse, and a sufficiently small mouse it is, God knows. And my three weeks' hard work have got to go into the ignominious pigeon-hole. Confound it, I could have earned ten thousand dollars with infinitely less trouble. However, I shouldn't have done it, for I am too lazy, now, in my sere and yellow leaf, to be willing to work for anything but love..... I kind of envy ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... in heaven of divine glory and happiness. Is there not in this resemblance and likeness to God an unspeakably high dignity and glory for man? We are reminded of this by the sign of the Cross. The Son of God redeemed us through the Cross. After sin had reduced the human race to a state of ignominious bondage the Son of God, moved by infinite love, became incarnate for us, in order to make satisfaction for our sins and to remove from us their awful consequences. From slaves of sin and of the devil, He has made us just and children of God. Having been redeemed, we now call God our Father; ...
— The Excellence of the Rosary - Conferences for Devotions in Honor of the Blessed Virgin • M. J. Frings

... theory! The poet placed on an ignominious level with the nervous hypochondriac! You are the very last person I should suppose guilty of entertaining such a degraded estimate of ...
— Beulah • Augusta J. Evans

... reasonable to impute miscarriages rather to those, who are known to have given, formerly, such orders as a brave admiral perished under the ignominious necessity of observing, than to those of whom it cannot be said that any former part of their lives has been stained with the reproach of cowardice; at least it is necessary to suspend our judgment, till the truth shall be made apparent by a rigid inquiry; ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 10. - Parlimentary Debates I. • Samuel Johnson

... was murder'd. I think I have just Grounds for Complaint. The whole Empire is in Confusion, and torn to Pieces, and this Free-booter is as happy as a King. O Fortune! O Fate! a Highwayman as happy as a Monarch! and the most amiable Creature that Nature ever fram'd has suffer'd perhaps, an ignominious Death, or perhaps, is in a State of Life a thousand Times worse than Death itself! O Astarte! Astarte! What art ...
— Zadig - Or, The Book of Fate • Voltaire

... or a German rope," said Wharton, "and you'll never be seen or heard of again. It's an ignominious end." ...
— The Hosts of the Air • Joseph A. Altsheler

... to the station rafters. "Who pays the police?" "We do." "Who owns 'em?" "Cargan." Thus question and answer were bandied back and forth. Again a voice demanded in strident tones the ignominious tar ...
— Seven Keys to Baldpate • Earl Derr Biggers

... contempt, or depreciation, was, in his opinion, the true touch-stone of humility, because it renders us more like to Jesus Christ, the Prototype of all solid virtue, Who humbled and annihilated Himself, making Himself obedient unto death, even the ignominious death ...
— The Spirit of St. Francis de Sales • Jean Pierre Camus

... the Calvinization of Electoral and Ducal Saxony was, apparently, an accomplished fact. But the very next year marked the ignominious downfall and the unmasking of the dishonest Philippists. For in this year appeared the infamous Exegesis, which finally opened the eyes of Elector August. Its complete title ran: "Exegesis Perspicua et ferme ...
— Historical Introductions to the Symbolical Books of the Evangelical Lutheran Church • Friedrich Bente

... lawyers of our country, and he manifestly took the lead of them all. But the abilities which he displayed, hour by hour, and day by day, through that long protracted contest, in which the verdict sought for by those who then wielded the political destinies of our country was an ignominious death, were no less remarkable than his unshaken firmness and high moral elevation of deportment, struggling as he was ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis

... and the strange looks of all around me. The passage was terrible to me; but I had yet more to undergo. I was recovered just in time to witness the poor wretch, whose prop and consolation I had undertaken to be, carried, exhausted and in nerveless horror, to the ignominious tree—his head drooping on his breast, his eyes opening mechanically at intervals, and only kept from fainting and utter insensibility by the unused and fresh morning air, which breathed in his face, as if in cruel mockery. I looked once, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 13, No. 374 • Various

... poor wretch so mauled, so tumbled and rolled, and kept on tumbling and rolling, in ignominious mire. Milton indeed pays him the compliment of following his reasonings, restating them in their order, and quoting his words; but it is only, as it were, to wrap up the reasoner in the rags of his own bringing, and then kick ...
— The Life of John Milton Vol. 3 1643-1649 • David Masson

... with 900 men. The remainder of the enemy's forces, consisting of militia, rather than exceed their military obligations by crossing the frontier, chose to leave these men to their fate. In spite of the ignominious surrenders with which the first two expeditions against Canada had terminated, a third attempt was made by Brigadier-General Smyth to force the Canadian frontier; but on November 28 he was repulsed with loss by the British under Bishopp between Chippewa and Fort Erie, ...
— The Political History of England - Vol XI - From Addington's Administration to the close of William - IV.'s Reign (1801-1837) • George Brodrick

... man lay on his bed of straw, in an ignominious cell, cursing the gold that had tempted, and the weakness and folly that had yielded and rushed into the snare. Louis had visited him, but his visit had afforded no consolation. What was pity or sympathy without the power to release ...
— Helen and Arthur - or, Miss Thusa's Spinning Wheel • Caroline Lee Hentz

... the true stories were touched up for telling. A sensitive boy's humiliations may be very good fun for ordinary thickskinned grown-ups; but to the boy himself they are so acute, so ignominious, that he cannot confess them—cannot but deny them passionately. However, perhaps it was as well for me that I romanced a bit; for, on the one occasion when I told you the truth, you threatened ...
— Man And Superman • George Bernard Shaw

... impossible: nothing shall be spared, to ensure our honour and independence, possessions dearer than life: every thing shall be attempted, every thing done, to repel an ignominious yoke. We say it to the nations, may their rulers hear us! if they accept your offers of peace, the French people will expect from your strong, liberal, and paternal government, motives of consolation ...
— Memoirs of the Private Life, Return, and Reign of Napoleon in 1815, Vol. II • Pierre Antoine Edouard Fleury de Chaboulon

... Jesus Christ, however sorrowful and ignominious it may appear to us, must nevertheless have been to Jesus Christ Himself an object of delight, since this God-man, by a wonderful secret of His wisdom and love, has willed that the mystery of it shall be continued and solemnly renewed in His Church until the final consummation of the world. ...
— The World's Great Sermons, Vol. 2 (of 10) • Grenville Kleiser

... carcases of those arch-rebels Cromwell, Bradshawe, and Ireton dragged out from their superb tombs in Westminster among the kings, to Tyburn, and hanged on the gallows there from morning till night, and then buried under that ignominious monument in a deep pit; thousands of people who had seen them in all their pride being spectators. Look back at November 22, 1658, and be astonished! And fear God and honour the king; but meddle not with them ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IX. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton

... of AEsculapius; his determination in spite of danger to go up to Rome;[356] the cowardice of his disciples in deserting him; the charge brought against him of disaffection to Caesar; the Minister's acknowledging, on his private examination, that he was more than man; the ignominious treatment of him by Domitian on his second appearance at Rome; his imprisonment with criminals; his vanishing from Court and sudden reappearance to his mourning disciples at Puteoli;[357]—these, with other particulars of a similar cast, evidence a history modelled ...
— Historical Sketches, Volume I (of 3) • John Henry Newman

... you interrupted me, for Jamie will make an ignominious failure. Have you nothing better to do than stray about the woods like ...
— St. Elmo • Augusta J. Evans

... culprit? Why not? An old man so lost to all sense of shame that he had dared to write such a letter to Casanova; a dotard who could actually believe that Casanova, whom he had personally known, would set his hand to this ignominious task. He no longer knew Casanova! Nor did anyone know him, in Venice or elsewhere. But people should learn to know him ...
— Casanova's Homecoming • Arthur Schnitzler

... these ignominious circumstances that Francois La Verendrye, having reached the foot of the Rocky Mountains, was obliged to turn back without going farther, leaving the mystery of the Great Sea still unsolved. Francois rode ...
— Pathfinders of the Great Plains - A Chronicle of La Verendrye and his Sons • Lawrence J. Burpee

... him with his haggard hound's eyes; there was no answering smile on his heavy lips, now furzed with their grizzled growth of hair. There seemed something ignominious in such an end, something futile and self-frustrating. It was unjust. It left everything so hideously incomplete. He revolted against it with a sullen and ...
— Never-Fail Blake • Arthur Stringer

... something of the ways of Grub Street through his friend Ralph, who had come with him from Philadelphia. "This low writer," as Pope called him, is now remembered only for a couple of vicious lines in the Dunciad, and for the ignominious part he plays in Franklin's Autobiography. For many months he was a continual drain on Franklin's pocket, and seems to have been the boy's evil genius ...
— Benjamin Franklin • Paul Elmer More

... seeing and conversing with the lovely Veenah. My brain had before that time teemed with ambitious projects of distinguishing myself; sometimes as a priest—sometimes as a writer; and occasionally I thought I would bend all my efforts to rouse my countrymen to throw off the ignominious yoke of Great Britain. But this short interview had changed the whole current of my thoughts. I had now a new set of feelings, opinions, and wishes. My mind dwelt solely upon the pleasures of domestic life—the surpassing bliss of ...
— A Voyage to the Moon • George Tucker

... in the blood of his fellow. So far as he has violated the laws of his country, he is a subject for public execution, and has nothing to hope for, at the tribunal of human justice. His misery, whether it arise from the contemplation of an ignominious death, from the fear of detection, or from the consciousness of having violated the moral principles of his nature, is alike insupportable, as well ...
— Twenty-Four Short Sermons On The Doctrine Of Universal Salvation • John Bovee Dods

... or stay under the circumstances, but he hated to beat an ignominious retreat, as if he thought that she thought he could not be beside her for a quarter of an hour without making an ass of himself again and pestering her. Why should he not accept the cup of tea ...
— A Houseful of Girls • Sarah Tytler

... heavy and awkward. He studied the dark opening. It did indeed look very narrow. He had squirmed through it without much trouble, but that was in the densest darkness, and he had taken all the time he needed. Now if the sentry should turn * * * Well, it would be the end of Zaidos, and a most ignominious end at that. He was not a coward, but he had no fancy to find himself against a wall with a firing ...
— Shelled by an Unseen Foe • James Fiske

... recollected to have heard that the youngest was a comrade of Narcisse, who, he likewise knew, entertained a covert spite against Amanda, and, for his mother's sake, a rankling dislike of Mona Macdonald. Against both of these his umbrage might be supposed to have been heated by his recent ignominious expulsion from Stillyside; and to gratify this resentment he might now be executing some scheme of revenge, wherein, from his intimacy with the young Duchatel, he could know that that family had cause to be ready to assist him. Here was a clue to the recovery of his ward:—in ...
— The Advocate • Charles Heavysege

... to be that which it was her right to call herself;—of a woman who, though thwarted in her ambition by her own child, and cheated of her triumph at the very moment of her success, had dared rather to face an ignominious death than see all her efforts frustrated by the maudlin fancy of a girl. Yes! She would face it all. Let them do what they would with her. She hardly knew what might be the mode of death adjudged to a Countess who had murdered. Let them kill her as they would, they would kill ...
— Lady Anna • Anthony Trollope

... The idea that a man like Frederick Douglass can be denied entrance to a car, that the doors of a hotel can be shut in his face; that he may be prevented from entering a theatre; the idea that there shall be some ignominious corner into which such a man can be thrown simply by a decision of the Supreme Court! ...
— The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Volume VIII. - Interviews • Robert Green Ingersoll

... You are back in Germany. In this serious moment I ask You earnestly to help me. An ignominious war has been declared against a weak country, and in Russia the indignation, which I fully share, is tremendous. I fear that very soon I shall be unable to resist the pressure exercised upon me and that I shall be forced to take measures which will lead to war. To prevent such ...
— The Evidence in the Case • James M. Beck

... compares those who, in his time, imitated Pindar to the youth who attempted to fly to heaven on waxen wings, and who experienced so fatal and ignominious a fall. His own admirable good sense preserved him from this error, and taught him to cultivate a style in which excellence was within his reach. Dryden had not the same self-knowledge. He saw that ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 2 (of 4) - Contributions To The Edinburgh Review • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... killed Adrian Fellowes, there would be an end to everything. If he was suspected, and if the law stretched out its hand of steel to clutch him—what an ignominious end to it all; what a mean finish to life, to opportunity, to ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... time for which her invitation to Severndale had been extended, she had no possible excuse for prolonging it, and deciding that her schemes had met with defeat largely owing to her own impolitic precipitation in forcing the situation, she did not mean to make an ignominious retreat. So, with well assumed suavity she told her brother-in-law that some urgent business matters claimed her attention in New York, and asked if he could complete his arrangements for Peggy's departure without her aid, as she really ought ...
— Peggy Stewart at School • Gabrielle E. Jackson

... true, but what he says of the location of the Temple of Issus in the centre of his country is false. If it is not false—" she hesitated. "Oh it cannot be true, it cannot be true. For if it were true then for countless ages have my people gone to torture and ignominious death at the hands of their cruel enemies, instead of to the beautiful Life Eternal that we have been taught to ...
— The Gods of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... so," Bertram answered, still placid and unruffled. "There were three of us who saw him; and it was a very ignominious position indeed for a person who sets up to be a great chief in the country. He won't like the little boys on his own estate to know the great Sir Lionel was lifted up against his will, carried about like a baby, and set down in a bracken-bed. Indeed, I was more than sorry to have to do such ...
— The British Barbarians • Grant Allen

... news from you, I hastened to the Rue d'Ulm, where I learned that you had sold your furniture and started for America. Any other woman might have believed herself deserted under such circumstances, but not I. I felt sure that you had not fled in ignominious fashion. I was convinced that you had only concealed yourself for a time in order to strike ...
— Baron Trigault's Vengeance - Volume 2 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau

... the "triumphs" of legislative and administrative morality are really such ignominious failures must now be clear, but may again be repeated. It is because on matters of morals there is no unanimity of opinion as there is in regard to crime. There is always a large section of the community ...
— The Task of Social Hygiene • Havelock Ellis

... could clearly contemplate the effects of giving way to temptation—were all the unhappy consequences to stand out visibly before them—they would never be induced to turn aside into sin. Could the young man as he is tempted to quaff the fashionable glass of intoxicating beverage, see plainly the ignominious life, the poverty and wretchedness, and the horrid death by delirium tremens, to which it so often leads, he would set it down untasted, and turn away in alarm. But it is the nature of temptation to blind and deceive the unwary, and ...
— Golden Steps to Respectability, Usefulness and Happiness • John Mather Austin

... of unpardonable nature indeed."—"What is it, for heaven's sake?" answered Jones, trembling and pale, expecting to hear of his amour with Lady Bellaston. "Oh," said she, "how is it possible! can everything noble and everything base be lodged together in the same bosom?" Lady Bellaston, and the ignominious circumstance of having been kept, rose again in his mind, and stopt his mouth from any reply. "Could I have expected," proceeded Sophia, "such treatment from you? Nay, from any gentleman, from any man of honour? To have ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding

... being capable to dare to the Death. We have also further, with great Sorrow of Mind, observed that this Dreadful Action, by long Impunity, (our Royal Attention being employed upon Matters of more general Concern) is become Honourable, and the Refusal to engage in it Ignominious. In these our Royal Cares and Enquiries We are yet farther made to understand, that the Persons of most Eminent Worth, and most hopeful Abilities, accompanied with the strongest Passion for true Glory, are such ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele

... the Orsini ended with the ignominious defeat of the papal forces at Soriano, January 23, 1497, whence Don Giovanni, wounded, fled to Rome, and where Guidobaldo was taken prisoner. The victors immediately forced a peace on ...
— Lucretia Borgia - According to Original Documents and Correspondence of Her Day • Ferdinand Gregorovius

... the deep, and thou earth, mother of all—and to the all-seeing orb of the Sun I appeal; look upon me, what treatment I, a god, am enduring at the hand of the gods! Behold with what indignities mangled I shall have to wrestle through time of years innumerable. Such an ignominious bondage hath the new ruler of the immortals devised against me. Alas! alas! I sigh over the present suffering, and that which is coming on. How, where must a termination of these toils arise? And yet what is it I am saying? I know beforehand all futurity exactly, ...
— Prometheus Bound and Seven Against Thebes • Aeschylus

... indeed," said the Senator. "In the States we haven't got into the way yet of using dinner clarets." It was as good as a play to see the rector wince under the ignominious word. "Your great statesman added much to your national comfort when he took the duty off the lighter ...
— The American Senator • Anthony Trollope

... any genuine desire to aid or abet the cause of the enemy but to cast suspicion upon a certain unit within his own ranks. To be deprived of active duty in the field was to his warm and impulsive nature an ignominious calamity. To learn subsequently of the appointment of Gates to the second in command, the one general whom he despised and hated, was more than his irritable temperament could stand. The American cause now appeared hopeless to him, nevertheless he entertained ...
— The Loyalist - A Story of the American Revolution • James Francis Barrett

... the distant future, was at first no more than forty francs, and they had to await the advent of Duruy, the great minister and liberator, before primary instruction was in some degree raised from this ignominious level of abasement. ...
— Fabre, Poet of Science • Dr. G.V. (C.V.) Legros

... reared to such magnificence for his own glory. Thus ingloriously Richard disappears from history, for nothing certain is known of the time, manner, or place of his death, though it is conjectured that he was speedily murdered. How history repeats itself! Richard's ignominious end recalls to mind the verse in which an English poet depicts the end of an Eastern king who ...
— Christmas: Its Origin and Associations - Together with Its Historical Events and Festive Celebrations During Nineteen Centuries • William Francis Dawson

... the human mind. To be driven by external motives from the path which our own heart approves, to give way to any thing but conviction, to suffer the opinion of others to rule our choice, or overpower our resolves, is to submit tamely to the lowest and most ignominious slavery, and to resign the right of directing our ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson - Volume IV [The Rambler and The Adventurer] • Samuel Johnson

... of wind-blown hair, to see, standing among the stones, a stranger of the opposite sex, garbed in tweed knickers and leather gaiters. One glance was enough. The next second she turned, and beat a hurried and ignominious retreat to the sheltered side of the green mound. Ingred, panting in the rear, ...
— A Popular Schoolgirl • Angela Brazil

... the pensioner of the new Turkish emperor Mohammed, and received a city of Thrace and some adjacent islands for his own maintenance and that of his followers. In this state of humiliating dependence he remained until death released him from his ignominious servitude. Thomas, the other brother, was driven into exile by the invasion of his dominions. He fled to Corfu, and from thence to Italy—according to Gibbon's account—'with some naked adherents; his name, his sufferings, and the head ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 419, New Series, January 10, 1852 • Various

... it, then," I said. "Well, it's pretty ignominious, isn't it, to be shot down like ...
— The Iron Pirate - A Plain Tale of Strange Happenings on the Sea • Max Pemberton

... by with their Snider carbines by their sides, looking at every tame black with such a savage, supercilious hatred! And their white officers—oh, how can any man who pretends to be a gentleman, and calls himself a Christian, descend to such an ignominious position as to lead a party of black troopers? If I were a man, and had to become a sub-inspector of Native Police, I would at least blacken my face so as to hide my shame when I rode out ...
— Tom Gerrard - 1904 • Louis Becke

... not sleep, nor on the spring-bed, nor on the floor. It is two hours past midnight now, and I shall try to while away the time by scrawling this to you. My brother, I can not long support this sort of life, being no more fit for rough, ignominious labor. 'But why,' you will ask, 'did you undertake it?' Yes, why? Strictly speaking, I made a mistake. But it's a noble mistake, believe me—a mistake which everybody in my condition ought to make, if but once in their life-time. Is it not something to be able to make an honest ...
— The Book of Khalid • Ameen Rihani

... beheld Laxley a step behind, and Jack rushing up to him, seizing his collar, and instantly undergoing ignominious prostration for his heroic defence of the ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... now old and broken, marched against him, but died before reaching the border. The weakness of his son, Edward II, permitted the Scotch, ably led by Bruce, to win the signal victory of Bannockburn, near Stirling Castle. Here the Scottish spearmen drove the English knighthood into ignominious flight and freed their country from ...
— EARLY EUROPEAN HISTORY • HUTTON WEBSTER

... think," Mr. Fentolin went on, "that I spend a great fortune buying the secrets of the world, that I live from day to day with the risk of ignominious detection always hovering about me—do you think that I do this and am yet unprepared to run the final risks of life and death? Have you ever talked with a murderer, Mr. Dunster? Has curiosity ever taken you within the walls of Sing Sing? Have you sat within the cell of a doomed man and felt the ...
— The Vanished Messenger • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... skillfully tied with a stout rope in such wise that he resembled a fowl trussed for the oven. After securing him in this fashion, his assailants had fastened the ends of the rope to the iron frame of the bed, and his only possible movement was an ignominious half roll, back and forth, in a space of less than eight inches. This maneuver he had evidently been engaged in as soon as he heard voices and knocking outside, but he had been gagged with such brutal efficacy that his sole effort at speech was a species ...
— One Wonderful Night - A Romance of New York • Louis Tracy

... everybody has a more personal interest here in all these matters. The whole week has been like a long play, and now, on Saturday night, I want nothing but repose. What a dream it must be to the chief actors! The Queen, who is always good and noble, was averse to such ignominious flight; she preferred staying and taking what came, and if Madam Adelaide had lived, they would never have made such a [word undecipherable] figure. Her pride and courage would have inspired them. With her seemed to fly Louis Philippe's star, ...
— Letters from England 1846-1849 • Elizabeth Davis Bancroft (Mrs. George Bancroft)

... and kicked and cuffed him to the edge of the wood, while the whole company shouted with laughter at this ignominious punishment, and approved it. A year or more passed. Wolsey and his Indian wife were happy in their free and simple life; happy, too, in their little babe. Wolsey was seldom absent from his cabin ...
— Myths And Legends Of Our Own Land, Complete • Charles M. Skinner

... what passes abroad. It is my resolution to let foreign affairs take their course, to establish my authority at home, and to do something for my religion." A few days later he announced the same intentions to the States General. [71] From that time to the close of his ignominious reign, he made no serious effort to escape from vassalage, though, to the last, he could never hear, without transports of rage, that men called him ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 2 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... the Warmoth faction, Pinchback was elected permanent chairman of the Warmoth convention and made the keynote speech for the campaign. Subsequently, Warmoth's utter degeneracy alienated him and so they parted company. Warmoth's star descended, and he went down to ignominious defeat. Upon his name and memory were heaped derogations, curses and anathemas. And unfortunately these will always be associated with his memory. On the other hand, Pinchback's star rose to the ascendant and he was elected ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 5, 1920 • Various

... father, as the only way of securing the throne. His conspiracy was detected, and he was seized and executed, Ariaspes thereby becoming the eldest son, and so the natural heir. Ochus then persuaded Ariaspes that he had offended his father, and was about to be put to a cruel and ignominious death, whereupon that prince in despair committed suicide. His elder brothers thus removed, there still remained one rival, whom Ochus feared. This was Arsames, one of his half-brothers, an illegitimate son of Artaxerxes, ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 5. (of 7): Persia • George Rawlinson

... Satan." It was firmly believed that the arch-fiend (Satan) was forever hovering about the Christians, but it was also believed that the sign of the cross, or a few drops of holy water, or the name of Mary, could put him to an immediate and ignominious flight. ...
— The Necessity of Atheism • Dr. D.M. Brooks

... in the carrying out of their design; being driven off by Virginia riflemen, concealed in the houses. Excellent marksmen those Virginians were, and picked off so many of the advancing foe that they compelled them to take ignominious flight to their boats and return to the vessels, which then had to withdraw beyond the reach of the ...
— Elsie's Vacation and After Events • Martha Finley

... preparations for departure, which at the moment he had deemed to be so well designed and so effective, were after all ridiculous. No amount of combustion could have prevented the disclosure at an inquest of the ignominious facts. ...
— Leonora • Arnold Bennett

... already been employed, and of whose deeds and distinctions she had heard so much. By the language of the Spanish tyranny, which swayed with iron authority over her native city, she heard him denounced and execrated as a rebel and marauder, for whom an ignominious death was already decreed by the despotic viceroy. This language, from such lips, was of itself calculated to raise its object favorably in her enthusiastic sight. By the patriots, whom she had been accustomed to love and venerate, she heard the same name breathed always ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 2 August 1848 • Various

... substitute team met that afternoon in the gymnasium. It was their last opportunity for practice. Saturday they would rise to victory or go down in ignominious defeat. The latter seemed to them impossible. They had practised faithfully, and Grace had been so earnest in her efforts to perfect their playing that they were completely under her control and moved like clockwork. There was no weak spot ...
— Grace Harlowe's Sophomore Year at High School • Jessie Graham Flower

... multitude; and, overtaking their enemy at the narrow pass of Bethhoron, they avenged the cause of independence by a considerable slaughter of the legionary soldiers, and by driving the remainder to an ignominious flight. ...
— Palestine or the Holy Land - From the Earliest Period to the Present Time • Michael Russell



Words linked to "Ignominious" :   shameful, ignominiousness, dishonourable, disgraceful, black, ignominy



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