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Intermeddle   Listen
verb
Intermeddle  v. i.  To meddle with the affairs of others; to meddle officiously; to interpose or interfere improperly; to mix or meddle with. "The practice of Spain hath been, by war and by conditions of treaty, to intermeddle with foreign states."
Synonyms: To interpose; interfere. See Interpose.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Intermeddle" Quotes from Famous Books



... Hispaniola, who plying to the Windward near Porto Rico, took two sail, one was a small Bristol Ship, the other a Spanish Pirate, who had taken the Bristol Ship; which so provoked Lowther, that he threatened to put all the Spaniards to Death, for daring to intermeddle in his Affairs: But at last he contented himself with burning both their ships; and the Spaniards getting away in their launch, they thought ...
— Pirates • Anonymous

... rice-swamps foreign supplies are necessary, if we go no farther than is urged [a proposal to permit the trade for a limited time], we shall be unjust towards South Carolina and Georgia. Let us not intermeddle." (Madison Papers, pp. 1389, 1391.) This gentleman was one of your "very wise men"; and his mantle has recently fallen upon other wise men from the East. Mr. Wilson, another member of the committee, objected. ...
— A Letter to the Hon. Samuel Eliot, Representative in Congress From the City of Boston, In Reply to His Apology For Voting For the Fugitive Slave Bill. • Hancock

... extravagant outlays in public works of internal improvement, and the enormous interest paid to foreign capitalists for their loans, involved him in the utmost financial embarrassment. This furnished the occasion to the Western powers, in particular to England and France, to intermeddle still more in Egyptian affairs. The Khedive sold to the British Government his shares in the Suez Canal, and gave into the hands of the English and French (1878) the control of the financial administration of the country. This sort of dependence was repugnant to both the Khedive ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher

... the territory seized by force; and as soon as this agreement was reached France began to move on to other land in the basin of the St. Paul's and St. John's rivers. This is all then simply one more story of the oppression of the weak by the strong. For eighty years England has not ceased to intermeddle in Liberian affairs, cajoling or browbeating as at the moment seemed advisable; and France has been only less bad. Certainly no country on earth now has better reason than Liberia to know that "they should get who have the power, and they ...
— A Social History of the American Negro • Benjamin Brawley

... him for some time, till one day when I was at the house of Damat Zade, I saw a glimpse of the Jew passing hastily through one of the courts, as if he wished to avoid me. 'My friend,' said I to Damat Zade, 'do not attribute my question to impertinent curiosity, or to a desire to intermeddle with your affairs, if I venture to ask the nature of your business with the Jew, who has just ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth

... him in Champagne, composed chiefly of nobility, the bravest and best in France. The King found, since my brother's departure, that he could not, either by threats or rewards, induce a single person among the princes and great lords to act against him, so much did every one fear to intermeddle in this quarrel, which they considered as of a family nature; and after having maturely reflected on his situation, he acquiesced in my mother's opinion, and begged her to fall upon some means of reconciliation. ...
— Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois, Complete • Marguerite de Valois, Queen of Navarre

... and detained under sequestration by the officer of the Bishop of Paris, whom our proctor has often prayed in form of law to deliver them, but he behaves so strangely that we shall find in him neither right, grace, nor favour:— We ask you to write to the Bishop of Paris to intermeddle favourably and tell his official to do right, so that we may get our things back."[1] In 1396-7 William, prior of Newstead, and a brother canon, proceeded against John Ravensfield for the return of a book by Richard ...
— Old English Libraries, The Making, Collection, and Use of Books • Ernest A. Savage

... with the good folk and with all the common country of Flanders that they must not mix nor intermeddle in any way, by assistance in men or arms, in the wars of our lord the King and the noble Sir Philip of Valois (who holdeth himself ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various

... looked so trim, so neat, so happy in her work, that he would be hard to satisfy who did not admire her, even though she was not what the world calls strictly beautiful. She succeeded so well in her cooking operations, with which she would not allow the servant to intermeddle, that in a very short time a couple of dainty dishes and some coffee smoked upon the board; and Janetta bidding her father come to the table, placed herself near him, and smilingly dispensed ...
— A True Friend - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant

... abhorrence in which this measure was held by their fellow citizens, the danger and difficulties which must attend the execution of so odious a task, and expressed the united desire of the city that they would renounce the commission, and engage not to intermeddle with the ship or cargo in any shape whatever. Some of the commissioners resigned in a manner that gave general satisfaction, others in such equivocal terms as desired further explanation. However, in a few ...
— Tea Leaves • Various

... universe, realizing that he is a spirit breathed from God, complete in himself, subject to all spiritual laws, interested in all spiritual welfare; when no stranger soul, though it be that of his dearest friend, can intermeddle with all that ...
— The Crown of Thorns - A Token for the Sorrowing • E. H. Chapin

... that embrace, the life of life, that was in it! Now for the first time the bond of full and perfect love was drawn round the husband and wife, sacredly shutting them in from the world without, which could never more come between them, or intermeddle with their sorrows or ...
— Agatha's Husband - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik (AKA: Dinah Maria Mulock)

... cannot intermeddle; but mothers who have had a child restored to them from the very borders of the unseen land will ...
— Penshurst Castle - In the Days of Sir Philip Sidney • Emma Marshall

... Parliamentary enactments. The very title of Elizabeth rested in a Parliamentary statute. When the Houses petitioned at the outset of her reign for the declaration of a successor and for the Queen's marriage it was impossible for her to deny their right to intermeddle with these "matters of State," though she rebuked the demand and evaded an answer. But the question of the succession was a question too vital for English freedom and English religion to remain prisoned within Elizabeth's council-chamber. It came again to the front in the ...
— History of the English People - Volume 4 (of 8) • John Richard Green

... that I intend to digress, through this whole history, as often as I see occasion, of which I am myself a better judge than any pitiful critic whatever; and here I must desire all those critics to mind their own business, and not to intermeddle with affairs or works which no ways concern them; for till they produce the authority by which they are constituted judges, I shall not plead ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding

... and produced what appeared to me irrefragable arguments drawn from matters of fact, to prove my assertion, that women cannot, by force, be confined to domestic concerns; for they will however ignorant, intermeddle with more weighty affairs, neglecting private duties only to disturb, by cunning tricks, the orderly plans of reason which rise above ...
— A Vindication of the Rights of Woman - Title: Vindication of the Rights of Women • Mary Wollstonecraft [Godwin]

... go ourselves," said Mrs. Linwood, beginning to be restless and anxious. And they went—she and Edith. Though it was Saturday and I was free, I did not accompany them, for I felt that a stranger to him should not "intermeddle with ...
— Ernest Linwood - or, The Inner Life of the Author • Caroline Lee Hentz

... once so crafty and so childlike, so credulous and so suspicious, so benevolent and so malign. Again and again he had despaired of victory, but he had won at last. In another minute or so this formidable Jinnee would be safely bottled once more, and powerless to intermeddle and plague him for ...
— The Brass Bottle • F. Anstey

... way of the Cape of Good Hope. Sure I am they would come to us sooner by some months by the way of Cape Horn. If this reasoning does not satisfy people, but they still remain persuaded that the South Sea Company ought not to intermeddle with the East India trade at all, I desire to know why the West India merchants are allowed to import coffee from Jamaica, when it is well known that the East India Company can supply the whole demand of this kingdom from Mocha? If it be answered that the Jamaica coffee ...
— Early Australian Voyages • John Pinkerton

... in which first Spain and then Russia and the German Emperor were to take so important a part, as they bore no fruit, it is sufficient to observe, in passing, how little European statesmen understood the business in which they were so ready to intermeddle, and what a curious spectacle Catharine and Kaunitz present, seeking to usher into the congress of kings the first true representative of that great principle of popular sovereignty which was to make all their thrones totter and tremble under them. It may ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 91, May, 1865 • Various

... respect which he is obliged to pay to the master, renders it more difficult for him to protect the slave. But in a country where the government is in a great measure arbitrary, where it is usual for the magistrate to intermeddle even in the management of the private property of individuals, and to send them, perhaps, a lettre de cachet, if they do not manage it according to his liking, it is much easier for him to give ...
— An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations • Adam Smith

... said by Him whose Spirit dictated them, "Behold it is written before me."[587] How elevated is the rejoicing of God's Covenant people! Theirs is a joy which the world cannot give nor take away. With it a stranger cannot intermeddle; it is unspeakable and full of glory! It is the joy of ...
— The Ordinance of Covenanting • John Cunningham

... Borneo, and observed that such arrangements could not be justified by proving the existence of bad government in independent Native States. "The worse the government of these States, the greater the difficulties which crop up when we intermeddle." In 1881 as a Minister he resisted the grant of that charter. All these surrenders of territory and jurisdiction to commercial associations filled him with suspicion. He knew that expedients lay ready to the white man's hand by which the native population could easily ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke, Vol. 2 • Stephen Gwynn

... fantastic, with a certain beauty always accompanying them." The Rape of the Lock, perhaps, stops short of beauty, but it attains elegance and prettiness in a supreme degree. In imitation of the gods and goddesses in the Iliad, who intermeddle for or against the human characters, Pope introduced the Sylphs of the Rosicrucian philosophy. We may measure the distance between imagination and fancy, if we will compare these little filagree creatures with Shakspere's ...
— Brief History of English and American Literature • Henry A. Beers

... speeches of rebuke or of consolation would be trivial and out of place before the great anguish of her heart. The man's soul was above the narrow limits of his training; he felt, dimly, that here was something with which it were best not to intermeddle, some trouble for which he ...
— Vera Nevill - Poor Wisdom's Chance • Mrs. H. Lovett Cameron

... procedure was undoubtedly effectual. After Mary Sibley had been thus awfully rebuked and distressingly exposed for dealing with "John Indian," it is not likely that any one else ever ventured to intermeddle with the "afflicted," or have any connection, except as outside spectators, with the marvellous phenomena of "diabolical operations." It will be noticed, that, while Mr. Parris thus waved the sword of disciplinary vengeance against any who should dare to ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham

... the attempt of many earnest members of the order to check this tendency to intermeddle in politics; see Dr. Murray's ...
— The Religions of Japan - From the Dawn of History to the Era of Meiji • William Elliot Griffis



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