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Nay   Listen
noun
Nay  n.  (pl. nays)  
1.
Denial; refusal.
2.
A negative vote; one who votes in the negative.
It is no nay, there is no denying it. (Obs.)






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Nay" Quotes from Famous Books



... that I might do I would say, stay here and be wise; but I do not think that would be best for thee." She looked at her liquor-stained dress with a sad smile. "Nay, thou shalt go, in truth, thou shalt go. It is best so. My boy, ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling

... "Nay, don't wish that," cried the old carrier, who had been hearing everything, though he had not spoken before. "Man, indeed! Why, aren't you all boys with everything you can wish for? How would you like to be a man and have to do nothing else every day but sit in this here cart, and go to ...
— Devon Boys - A Tale of the North Shore • George Manville Fenn

... as soon as he could speak they told him all sorts of amusing tales, in which all the bad people had short noses, and all the good people had long ones. No person was suffered to come near him who had not a nose of more than ordinary length; nay, to such an extent did the courtiers carry their fancy, that the noses of all the little babies were ordered to be pulled out as far as possible several times a day, in order to make them grow. But grow as they would, they never could grow as long as that of Prince Wish. When he was old enough ...
— The Fairy Book - The Best Popular Stories Selected and Rendered Anew • Dinah Maria Mulock (AKA Miss Mulock)

... the book population than from the numbers of mankind. We ought to recollect, with more of a realized conception than we commonly attain to, that a book consists, like a man, from whom it draws its lineage, of a body and a soul. They are not always proportionate to each other. Nay, even the different members of the book-body do not sing, but clash, when bindings of a profuse costliness are imposed, as too often happens in the case of Bibles and books of devotion, upon letter-press which is ...
— On Books and the Housing of Them • William Ewart Gladstone

... to release me as soon as I should confess: but instead of that he set fire to the straw out of pure villainy, for what could I do to him? I have been a good friend to the English. Sir, pursue that man: he must be a Frenchman. I will give you a quarter, nay, a third of my goods, if you ...
— In Clive's Command - A Story of the Fight for India • Herbert Strang

... gather. They flit to and fro, with something like sorrow upon their dark brows. In their midst lies a manly form, but his cheek, how deathly! His eyes are wild with the fitful fire of fever. One friend stands before him—nay, I should say, kneels; for see, he is pillowing that poor head ...
— Stories Worth Rereading • Various

... of the hour cried out upon her, like children long neglected; and, with the luxurious leisure of those who may prolong a pleasant task, she set her house in order. She laid out a programme to occupy her days. The attic should be cleaned to-morrow. In one day? Nay, why not three, to hold Time still, and make him wait her pleasure? Then there were the chambers, and the living-rooms below. She felt all the excited joy of youth; she was tasting ...
— Tiverton Tales • Alice Brown

... this principle to private resentments is not more evident, than its inapplicability to public. The tomb which ought to be the goal of the one, is the starting-post of the other. It is the legitimate province, nay, more, one of the most sacred duties of the annalist to speak of public characters after their deaths, with that severity of reprobation or of praise, to which their conduct in public life may have entitled them. Have not all impartial biographers and historians acted on this principle? And ...
— Statistical, Historical and Political Description of the Colony of New South Wales and its Dependent Settlements in Van Diemen's Land • William Charles Wentworth

... I'll tell all—nay, more, if you look in that drawer, where the pistols are, you know, you will find a note from him to me. That will be quite as good evidence as ...
— Jack Harkaway's Boy Tinker Among The Turks - Book Number Fifteen in the Jack Harkaway Series • Bracebridge Hemyng

... communication and transport—been so vivid, so general, so intense as in these times. Not only does "the Pope's writ run," as we may say, by post and telegraph, and penetrate to the inmost recesses of every part of the globe, so that the Holy See is in daily, nay hourly communication with every bishop and every local Catholic community; but never has there been a time when so many thousands, nay tens of thousands of Catholic clergy and laity, even from the remotest lands, have ...
— The Purpose of the Papacy • John S. Vaughan

... of the same character. It is indeed a little curious to note the perfect unanimity with which most writers fall back upon the above authors as at once the source of the data they adduce in support of the several theories, and as their final, nay, their only, authority. Now and then one will be found to dissent from some particular bit of evidence as announced by Squier and Davis, or to give a somewhat different turn to the conclusions derivable from the testimony offered by them. But in the main the theories first announced by the authors ...
— Animal Carvings from Mounds of the Mississippi Valley • Henry W. Henshaw

... footprints for miles behind then—I never think of their sufferings during that terrible winter without involuntarily inquiring, Where then were their families? Who lit up the cheerful fire upon their hearths at home? Who spoke the word of comfort and encouragement? Nay, sir, who furnished protection from the rigors of winter, and brought them ...
— Sketches and Studies • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... in the education of our children is a practical question which every nation has, from time to time, to ask and answer afresh in the light of her national ideals and in view of her national aspirations. Nay, further, it is a question which with every necessary change in her internal organisation, and with every fundamental alteration in her relation to her external neighbours, has to be asked and answered anew by ...
— The Children: Some Educational Problems • Alexander Darroch

... eyes to his, aglow with that tender, appealing, mocking, defiant smile of hers. He, poor man, smiled too, though not very happily, I fear—nay, even with a kind of suspicious bewilderment, as one who sniffs brewing mischief, but knows not of what particular variety it will be. They were seated in the shade and the coolness of a long open colonnade at ...
— The Lady Paramount • Henry Harland

... rooms, she glanced at the gate out of the corner of her eye without precisely looking round, and she could see the Baron riveted to the spot in admiration, consumed by curiosity and desire. This is to every Parisian woman a sort of flower which she smells at with delight, if she meets it on her way. Nay, certain women, though faithful to their duties, pretty, and virtuous, come home much put out if they have failed to cull such a posy in ...
— Cousin Betty • Honore de Balzac

... The new faith gave open sanction to evasion of the banquet, and thus fortified and increased those who loved not the ceremonial day. The spirit of solitude, no more a maenad, but a nun, sheltered earth's children in the folds of her robe, and no man said her nay. ...
— Apologia Diffidentis • W. Compton Leith

... prolix and tedious, "What, or how much, each man had, who was an occupier of land in England, either in land or in stock, and how much money it were worth." So very narrowly, indeed, did he commission them to trace it out, that there was not one single hide, nor a yard (108) of land, nay, moreover (it is shameful to tell, though he thought it no shame to do it), not even an ox, nor a cow, nor a swine was there left, that was not set down in his writ. And all the recorded particulars were afterwards brought to ...
— The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle • Unknown

... operas, Tuesday's operas, are crowded now. There is nothing else new. Last week there was a magnificent ball at Carleton-house: the two royal Dukes and Princess Emily were there. He of York danced; the other and his sister had each their table at loo. I played at hers, and am grown a favourite; nay, have been at her private party, and was asked again last Wednesday, but took the liberty to excuse myself, and am yet again summoned for Tuesday. It is triste enough: nobody sits till the game begins, and then she ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole

... of her innocence, but her husband, always rash and violent, turns from her, when she refuses to say nay, and banishing her from his castle, casts his glove before ...
— The Standard Operaglass - Detailed Plots of One Hundred and Fifty-one Celebrated Operas • Charles Annesley

... lameness she could not travel as an opera singer. I have heard both singers and Carlotta was my choice. Adelina was the most advertised, for she was a money-maker and demanded just so much notoriety when she engaged and signed her contracts. Her power was supreme and no one dared to say her nay. Woe be to the poor prima donna who sang better or had more applause or favors than she did. She was the only queen of song as long as her reign lasted. Emma Nevada and Madam Etelka Gersta were her especial victims when they sang the same season with her. I am ...
— Sixty Years of California Song • Margaret Blake-Alverson

... fearful tortures; that a room in her house, into which none ever entered but herself, contained a young boy's grave; and that she passed long nights of prayer upon the spot, where lay her only child, martyred by the hands of Arian persecutors. Nay, some of the few who, having dared to face that fearful storm, had survived its fury, asserted that she herself, amid her own shame and agony, had cheered the shrinking boy on to his glorious death. But though she had found trouble ...
— Hypatia - or, New Foes with an Old Face • Charles Kingsley

... came in his might, with King Henry's right, To turn church lands to lay, With sword in hand, and torch to light Their walls, if they said nay; A monk remained, unchased, unchained, And he did not seem formed of clay, For he's seen in the porch, and he's seen in the church, Though he ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron

... rejoicing. Had not the great Arctic Explorer come home? Had he not been to the North Pole and back? At that very moment were not a couple of steam-tugs drawing his wooden vessel towards his native shore? It was indeed a moment for congratulation—not only personal but national, nay cosmopolitan. The victory of art over nature belonged to more than a country, ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, VOL. 103, November 26, 1892 • Various

... theological subjects at the time that this hymn was composed, and though all doctrinal stamp and mark be carefully absent from it, it is yet a poem that never could have been written but in a Christian age, in a Christian land—but by a man whose whole soul and heart had been at one time (nay, was at the very moment of composition) inspired and suffused with that firm belief in God's goodness and His justice—that full assurance of rewards beyond the grave—that exulting and seraphic cheerfulness which associates joy with the Creator—and ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 334, August 1843 • Various

... France, who commonly judge of other nations by their own, imagined that a persecuted cardinal might, nay, ought to live like a private man even at Rome, and advised me not to spend much money, because my revenues in France were all seized, and said that such exemplary modesty would have an admirable effect upon ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre

... acknowledgment to the "Laudable" Vigilas and quote at large from the luminous pages of The Later Cosmos. Now the reader, scenting more learned discourse, may meditate upon skipping this chapter; nay, will probably do so. Yet, to my thinking, he will act more wisely in buckling down to it, seeing that it contains matter of moment for the perfect understanding of the narrative proper. The studying of guide-posts is not an amusing occupation, but it is infinitely ...
— The Doomsman • Van Tassel Sutphen

... are in every wise man's life moments of intense beauty and delight; if he has strength of mind he will call them back to him at will and live in the blessedness of the past, not in the mere dull agony of the moment. Nay, can he not actually enjoy the intellectual interest of this or that pang? Has he not that within him which can make the quality of its own life? On hearing of the death of a friend he will call back the sweetness of that friend's converse; in the burning ...
— Five Stages of Greek Religion • Gilbert Murray

... marquise, "that you should understand me thus! Nay, may God grant them long prosperity in this world and infinite glory in the next! Dictate a new letter, and I will write just ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... inconceivable speed above mentioned, takes a little more than fifty years to reach our eyes; and from that follows the strange but inevitable inference that we see the pole star not as and where it is at this moment, but as and where it was fifty years ago. Nay, if to-morrow some cosmic catastrophe were to shatter the pole star into fragments, we should still see it peacefully shining in the sky all the rest of our lives; our children would grow up to middle age and gather their children ...
— Clairvoyance • Charles Webster Leadbeater

... the tongue's rapid utterance; but they are never rude or boisterous. There are belles, pretty French belles, with just a tint of deceitless rouge for fashion's sake, and tinkling, crisp, low French voices modulated to chime with the music and not disharmonize it; nay, rather add to the sweetness of ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 11, - No. 22, January, 1873 • Various

... while they occupied themselves with their case and drank themselves drunk and the heat of their drink redoubled. Presently, the doorkeeper came to me and said, 'O my lady, fear not; but when thou hast a mind to go, let me know.' Quoth I, 'Thinkest thou to delude me?' and quoth he, 'Nay, by Allah! But I have ruth on thee for that our Captain and Chief purposeth thee no good and methinketh he will kill thee this night.' Said I to him, 'An thou be minded to do me a favour, now is its time;' and said he, 'When our Chief riseth to his need and goeth to ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton

... make an Easter Holiday, For Orangemen who yearn to have their say! They've got political delirium tremens. Orange? Nay, they're sour ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 104, April 1, 1893 • Various

... material to keep much measures with a mere natural, I made presently free with him, though at my first motion of meddling, his surprise and confusion made him receive my advances but awkwardly: nay, insomuch that he bashfully shied, and shied back a little; till encouraging him with my eyes, plucking him playfully by the hair, sleeking his cheeks, and forwarding my point by a number of little wantonnesses, I soon turned ...
— Memoirs Of Fanny Hill - A New and Genuine Edition from the Original Text (London, 1749) • John Cleland

... warmed the sheet of paper which you have before you. The microscope will show you the trail of flattened particles left by the tesselated epidermis of his hand as it swept along the manuscript. Nay, if we had but the right developing fluid to flow over it, the surface of the sheet would offer you his photograph as the light pictured it ...
— The Americanization of Edward Bok - The Autobiography of a Dutch Boy Fifty Years After • Edward William Bok (1863-1930)

... Such a coincidence would have afforded them a pretext, although, indeed, a groundless one, for asserting that there was either collusion or compulsion, whilst in reality there was complete liberty. The two Fathers who voted, nay, constituting a minority of two, acted according to their right, and it was not questioned. These Fathers were Monsignor Louis Riccio, Bishop of Casazzio, in the kingdom of Naples, and the Right Rev, ...
— Pius IX. And His Time • The Rev. AEneas MacDonell

... displeasure, which only drew them closer in the end, secure in the hope of her ultimate yielding. But now the two barren years lay between; years which had stiffened his jaw and left him rough in his ways; years which had wrought some change in her, he knew not what. A single day might solve the crux—nay, it might bring the great happiness of which he dreamed. But each morning as he woke with the dawn he saw that mighty army without banners, the sheep, marching upon their stronghold, the broad mesa which fed the last of Jeff's cows, ...
— Hidden Water • Dane Coolidge

... the bees outside, and the birds and the sighing bass of the fir-trees than of anything more carefully concerted. The organ was played with a curious drone in it, almost like that of the primitive bagpipe. But there was that one phrase, a strong strain of human appeal, enough to lift the world, nay, to let itself go straight to the blue heavens: "Because there is none other that fighteth for us but only ...
— The Marriage of Elinor • Margaret Oliphant

... glory of this country, and of his reign, in perfect tranquillity at home, at seventy-seven, growing blind and deaf, to die without a pang, before any reverse of fortune, or any distasted peace, nay, but two days before a ship-load of bad news: could he ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. IV (of X)—Great Britain and Ireland II • Various

... never trace me. It breaks my heart to leave you, my dear dear husband, for I love you better than life, but I know I have lost your love, and I want to rid you of the burden and annoyance of a hated wife. So, farewell forever in this world, and nay you be ...
— Elsie's New Relations • Martha Finley

... each. It is one of the ironies of history that the first Sir Samuel Hood should have had just opportunity enough to show how great were his powers, and yet have been denied the chance to exhibit them under conditions to arrest the attention of the world; nay, have been more than once compelled to stand by hopelessly, and see occasions lost which he would unquestionably have converted into signal triumphs. In him, as far as the record goes, was consummated the advance of the eighteenth century. ...
— Types of Naval Officers - Drawn from the History of the British Navy • A. T. Mahan

... "Nay, captain," she said, at last, weary of his importunity, "you know well my feelings. Far be it from me to play for one moment the coquette's part. I thank you for the compliment you pay me by these assurances, but you are fully aware that I can never encourage ...
— The Sea-Witch - or, The African Quadroon A Story of the Slave Coast • Maturin Murray

... to whom this mischance is happened! nay, happy I, to whom this thing being happened, I can continue without grief; neither wounded by that which is present, nor in fear of that which is to come. For as for this, it might have happened unto any man, but any man having such a thing befallen him, could not have continued without grief. Why ...
— Meditations • Marcus Aurelius

... that awful night. Every second seemed a minute, every minute seemed a day, nay, a night, a thousand dark nights! I was in eternal punishment! I ...
— Roger Trewinion • Joseph Hocking

... was not ready she thought herself so, and was at all events willing. Nay, she was so eager that she shouted when she should have held her tongue. And who shall say what the schemer of the Tuileries thought of it all behind that pleasant smile, those dull and sphinx-like ...
— The Isle of Unrest • Henry Seton Merriman

... coming to defend Compiegne, Joan of Arc came entirely at her own instigation, and that during the previous six months Flavy had defended Compiegne against the English and Burgundians with success and energy; nay more, that, in spite of bribes from the Duke of Burgundy, Flavy contrived to hold the town till the close of ...
— Joan of Arc • Ronald Sutherland Gower

... I may be, but I am one against many. Which of you would dare stand alone and lie to all the others? Nay, sahibs, I am a political offender, not a soldier!" They all laughed at that and seizing the moment when they were in a pliant mood the Orakzai Pathan proceeded to bring ...
— King—of the Khyber Rifles • Talbot Mundy

... "Nay, an old way—a very old way. Often God makes an example o' rare malevolence an' seems to say, 'Look, despise, and be anything but this.' Like Judas and Herod he is an excellent figure in a book. Put him ...
— Darrel of the Blessed Isles • Irving Bacheller

... be installed as housekeeper in the master's house. In the future, Mrs. Denvil, with the reaction of a shallow nature, may make trips to better climates for her neuralgia, or Jack be absent at college; but Henry Denvil—nay, the very foundry—cannot be more constant to the spot than his daughter. There will be no balls for her, clad in satin, pearls and diamonds twinkling in her hair and about her throat, no dancing days, no debut in society as an heiress. Instead, Cecilia will flit from room to room of the ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 7 • Various

... who surround him. Any woman, for instance, suspected of having cast behind her the Bible and all practices of devotion and the elementary articles of the common creed, would be distrustfully regarded even by those who wink at the same kind of mental boldness in men. Nay, she would be so regarded even by some of the very men who have themselves discarded as superstition what they still wish women to retain for law and gospel. So long as any class of adults are effectually discouraged ...
— On Compromise • John Morley

... fierce thou wast of old To shipwrecked men. Nay, pities manifold Held thee in fancy homeward, lest thy hand At last should fall on one of thine own land. But now, for visions that have turned to stone My heart, to know Orestes sees the sun No more, a cruel ...
— The Iphigenia in Tauris • Euripides

... the revenues belonging to the Count, wherever it might be in Flanders, and he disbursed them at his will, and gave them away without rendering any account. And when he would borrow of any burghers on his word for payment, there was none that durst say him nay. In short there was never in Flanders, or in any other country, duke, count, prince, or other who can have had a country at his will as James van Artevelde had for a long time." It is possible that, as some historians have thought, ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various

... with your dochtter or I departe." And thareat was smylling of the best, and lowd laughtter of some; for the Bisehop had a dowghter maryed with Andro Balfour[91] in that same toune. Then the Bischoppis bad, "Away with the earll." But he ansured, "Nay; I will not departe this houre; for I have more to speak against the vices of preastis, then I cane expresse this haill[92] day." And so, after diverse purposes, thei commanded him to burne his bill. And he demanding the caus, thei said, "Becaus ye ...
— The Works of John Knox, Vol. 1 (of 6) • John Knox

... "Nay, you'll die later, Madam Bannister, but not for many years, I hope," he told her, with a ...
— Wyoming, a Story of the Outdoor West • William MacLeod Raine

... very mournful, clambered up to the nail, took down the cage, and set himself to clean it, and to feed the bird. His thoughts reverting from this occupation to the little old gentleman who had given him the shilling, he suddenly recollected that that was the very day—nay, nearly the very hour—at which the old gentleman had said he should be at the Notary's office again. He no sooner remembered this, than hastily explaining the nature of his errand, he went off at full speed to the ...
— Ten Boys from Dickens • Kate Dickinson Sweetser

... not—nay, I felt she did not—love me. It was possible that some other was preferred before me; but to doubt my own affection, to suspect my own truth, was to destroy all the charm of my existence, and to extinguish within me forever the ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 2 (of 2) • Charles Lever

... Browning's life-work—the tide that first moved shoreward in the loveliness of "Pauline," and, with "long withdrawing roar," ebbed in slow, just perceptible lapse to the poet's penultimate volume. As for "Asolando," I would rather regard it as the gathering of a new wave—nay, again rather, as the deep sound of ocean which the outward surge ...
— Life of Robert Browning • William Sharp

... of confession. I little thought I should ever have another. Late as it is, shall I avail myself of it? Nay! if not before, why now? Why now?—when there are so much stronger reasons for silence—when to speak would be to knock to atoms the newly-built edifice of Barbara's happiness—to rake up the old and nearly ...
— Nancy - A Novel • Rhoda Broughton

... geometer gave proof of the greatest boldness, for in the course of the year 1758 he undertook to determine the time of the following year when the comet of 1682 would reappear. He designated the constellations, nay the stars, which it would encounter ...
— Biographies of Distinguished Scientific Men • Francois Arago

... intended visit to Corinth. The miserable crew of antagonists, who yelped at his heels all his life, seized this change of purpose as the occasion for a double-barrelled charge. They said he was either fickle and infirm of purpose, or insincere, and saying 'Yea' with one side of his mouth and 'Nay' with the other. He rebuts this accusation with apparently quite disproportionate vehemence and great solemnity. He points in the context to the faithfulness of God, to the firm Gospel which he had preached, to God's great 'Yea!' as his answer. He says in effect, 'How ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: Romans Corinthians (To II Corinthians, Chap. V) • Alexander Maclaren

... muddy, dull thing we suppose it to be; it has a heart like ourselves, and in the bottom of that there are the boughs of the tall trees, and the blades of the shaking grass, and all manner of hues of variable pleasant light out of the sky. Nay, the ugly gutter, that stagnates over the drain-bars in the heart of the foul city, is not altogether base; down in that, if you will look deep enough, you may see the dark serious blue of far-off sky, and the passing of pure clouds. It is at your own will that you see in ...
— English Prose - A Series of Related Essays for the Discussion and Practice • Frederick William Roe (edit. and select.)

... very well that had it not been for William, or rather, for Maud, he would never have found out the dreadful truth. Nay, more, he was dimly aware that but for them, and for their insistence on it as the only proper course open to him, he would never have taken action. All would have been forgiven and forgotten, had not William, ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol 31, No 2, June 1908 • Various

... possibly secure this advantage without effecting the ruin of the duke, and making his dominions a French province; and that the contrary of all this would result from himself becoming lord of Naples; for having only the French to fear, he would be compelled to love and caress, nay even to obey those who had it in their power to open a passage for his enemies. That thus the title of king of king of Naples would be with himself (Alfonso), but the power and authority with Filippo; so ...
— History Of Florence And Of The Affairs Of Italy - From The Earliest Times To The Death Of Lorenzo The Magnificent • Niccolo Machiavelli

... fraudulent and evil, and I invite the careful criticism of this class; and if, in my exposition of this subject, I announce a single proposition which will not bear the closest scrutiny; if I say aught which conflicts with common sense or reason, nay, if you can find one single natural fact to militate against the principles which I announce as fundamental to this science, I will be obliged to the gentleman or lady who will raise the question with me, and I will either prove my position to the satisfaction of this audience or retire ...
— How to Become Rich - A Treatise on Phrenology, Choice of Professions and Matrimony • William Windsor

... of commerce obtains here as in all Mohammedan countries—nay, the mode was in vogue long before Moses was born. The Arab never changes. He brought the custom of his forefathers with him when he came to live on this island. He is as much of an Arab here as at Muscat or Bagdad; ...
— How I Found Livingstone • Sir Henry M. Stanley

... bad complaint. Ought we not to do our utmost to make a room as pleasant as possible during the time that our friend can be with us? Hospitality, to my thinking, is a virtue, a pleasure, and a luxury; but in whatever light it is considered, nay, even if you regard it as a speculation, ought not our guest or our friend to be made much of? Ought not every refinement of luxury to be reserved ...
— The Country Doctor • Honore de Balzac

... Indeed, certain of the governor's confidential friends, to whom he could venture to speak his mind freely on such matters, have assured us that he privately entertained a considerable good-will for our author—nay, he even once went so far as to declare, and that openly too, and at his own table, just after dinner, that "Knickerbocker was a very well-meaning sort of an old gentleman, and no fool." From all which may have been led to suppose, ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving

... "Nay," says Jack, stoutly. "Fate can serve us no worse within doors than without, so let us in and face this ...
— A Set of Rogues • Frank Barrett

... tailor, a violin-teacher, a shoemaker, a letter-writer, a barber, a clothes-washer, and various other useful and reputable tradespeople or professors, all of whom expressed anxiety to inform my mind, cultivate my taste, expedite nay correspondence, delight my ear, and improve ...
— Captain Canot - or, Twenty Years of an African Slaver • Brantz Mayer

... inclined to let me do the same at his expense. I have been getting a good salary for six or seven years, and for a part of that time, as much as a thousand dollars. I am ashamed to say that I have not a farthing laid by; nay, what is worse, I owe a good many little bills. But, dear mother, I think I have come fairly to my senses. I have come to a resolution not to spend a dollar foolishly; thus far I have been able to keep my promise to myself, and, by the help of Heaven, I mean to keep it to the end. My first ...
— Choice Readings for the Home Circle • Anonymous

... gone forth from the valleys of Norway—before yet a smoke-wreath had ascended from its huts—before an axe had felled a tree of its woods—before yet king Nor burst forth from Jotunhem to seek his lost sister, and passing through the land gave to it his name; nay, before yet there was a Norwegian, stood the high Dovre mountains with snowy summits before the face of ...
— Strife and Peace • Fredrika Bremer

... members of classes, male and female, looked up, as to a sort of monitor, or I know not what to call it—for the impression thus made, is better seen and felt than described. The bad behaviour of a young woman, in these circumstances, is, indeed, equally influential—nay, more so, inasmuch as the current of human nature sets more readily downward than upward. Still, a good example is influential—greatly so: would that it were ...
— The Young Woman's Guide • William A. Alcott

... that her guardian had hastened away to accompany that grey-eyed, golden-haired witch of a woman to Washington was intolerably bitter; and as she contemplated the possibility, nay the probability, of his speedy marriage, a wild longing seized her to make her escape, and avoid the sight ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson

... fixed, in artistic representation. And so, I hope, that what has been discovered in this volume—in the way of pageant and procession even more than that of examination, though with something of that also—may have shown further progress towards—nay, actual attainment of, the goal which I ventured to mark out in the earlier volume as that of the novelist by the words, "Here is the whole of human life before you. Copy it or, better, re-create it—with variation and decoration ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 - To the Close of the 19th Century • George Saintsbury

... furnished the matter of a new species of poetry. A palace—or a temple—or a cave by the wild sea-shore, was painted; actors, representing by their attire, and their majestic demeanour, heroes and heroines of the old departed world; nay, upon high occasions, celestial gods and goddesses—trod the Stage and spoke, in measured recitation, before assembled thousands of spectators, seated in wonder and awe-stricken expectation. The change to the poet in the manner of communicating with his hearers, alters the character ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 57, No. 352, February 1845 • Various

... of those who came to rescue him from intellectual and moral darkness. The Northern teachers and a few Southern heroes began the work of educating the Negro, at a time, when teaching the Negro was an extremely delicate innovation—nay, dangerous experiment. Through what perils, privations, ridicule, and ostracism they passed, only such pioneers as Drs. H. M. Tupper, D. W. Phillips, C. H. Corey, J. T. Robert, E. A. Ware, E. M. Cravath, ...
— Twentieth Century Negro Literature - Or, A Cyclopedia of Thought on the Vital Topics Relating - to the American Negro • Various

... that they envy every other Fate? Are we not those who are neither for God or for his Enemies but are "for themselves"; those who may not even take refuge in Hell, lest the one damned get glory of them! The very terror of this clear-cutting sword-sweep, dividing us, bone from bone, may, nay! probably will, send us back to our gentle "lovers of humanity" who, "knowing everything pardon everything." But one sometimes wonders whether a life all "irony," all "pity," all urbane "interest," ...
— Visions and Revisions - A Book of Literary Devotions • John Cowper Powys

... be fully and precisely acquainted with the plans of our enemies. Nay, do not draw that sword by your side, Mustafa Khan. Look ...
— Tales of Destiny • Edmund Mitchell

... it 's not the sea below it, nor the craggy crests above it, Nor the bracken with the mosses soft between, Nor the droopin' bells o' heather, nay, it 's not for these I love it, That ...
— Sprays of Shamrock • Clinton Scollard

... the job. And if Jackson determines you've not acted well, I'll mill you, Tom Optimus, though you're a swell." "Sit down, Joe; be jolly—'twas Carter alone That has every obstacle in your way thrown. Nay, never despair, man—you'll yet be her liege; But rally again, boy, you'll carry the siege." Thus quieted, Joe sat him down to get mellow; For Joe at the ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle

... Nay, but a dream I had Of a world all mad, Not simply happy mad like me, Who am mad like an empty scene Of water and willow-tree, Where the wind hath been; But that foul Satan-mad, Who ...
— The Art of Letters • Robert Lynd

... Nay, each degenerate race hath fled Its shameful rites and orgies dread: Grim Baal in glowing furnace cast Sinks to the ...
— The Hymns of Prudentius • Aurelius Clemens Prudentius

... personal matter for which I was arraigned before the United States Court, after the trial was over I should trouble the public no further with that matter; and hitherto indeed, though often attacked, nay, almost continually for the last fourteen years, I have never returned a word in defence. But now, as this case is one of such vast and far-reaching importance, involving the great Human Right to Freedom ...
— The Trial of Theodore Parker • Theodore Parker

... persuade every man in a popular government not to carve himself of that which he desires most, but to be mannerly at the public table, and give the best from himself to decency and the common interest. But that such orders may be established as may, nay must, give the upper hand in all cases to common right or interest, notwithstanding the nearness of that which sticks to every man in private, and this in a way of equal certainty and facility, is known even to girls, being no ...
— The Commonwealth of Oceana • James Harrington

... in the Cabinet or in the councils of the Opposition against some particular proposal, and then, when it is, in spite of his advice, made a party resolve, he goes to the House of Commons and speaks in its favor; nay, even it may be, proposes it. Pulteney made a long and what would now be called an exhaustive speech. It was stuffed full of portentous erudition about the early history of the eldest sons of English kings. The speech was said to have been delivered with much less ...
— A History of the Four Georges, Volume II (of 4) • Justin McCarthy

... you in this darkness; such things have been. You have lost, with the light, more than half the indications of affection which that would disclose. But you trust to the probable; your pulse does not beat any the quicker, nor do your nerves tremble. You may have similar, nay, how much stronger proofs (if you will) of the confidence with which you may trust God, and Him, the compassionate One, "whom he hath sent," in spite of all the gloom in which this life is involved. That certainty ...
— The Eclipse of Faith - Or, A Visit To A Religious Sceptic • Henry Rogers

... uncovered, so that I only saw a portion of the fresco. I have never heard, or read, or said, or written, anything tending to disparage the real cooeperation of Mr. Kirkup, or of my late lamented friend Mr. Wilde, or of anybody else in this matter,—nay, that it was at my request that the editor of the English translation of Kugler's Handbook of the History of Painting, published in 1842, has in the preface of that book mentioned Mr. Kirkup as having assisted materially in the recovery. ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 1, August 1850 - of Literature, Science and Art. • Various

... cheek with spreading shame? They all for him pursue, or quit, their end The mountain flames their burning power suspend; In solid heaps th' unfrozen billows stand, To rest and silence aw'd by his command: Nay, the dire monsters that infest the flood, By nature dreadful, and athirst for blood, His will can calm, their savage tempers bind, And turn to mild protectors of mankind. Did not the prophet this great truth maintain ...
— The Poetical Works of Edward Young, Volume 2 • Edward Young

... through every quarter of the globe, many of them grown old and worn out in the service of science. All had, in some degree, physically or morally, undergone the sorest trials. They had escaped shipwreck; conflagration; Indian tomahawks and war-clubs; the fagot and the stake; nay, even the cannibal maws of the South Sea Islanders. But still their hearts beat high during Sir Francis M——'s address, which certainly was the finest oratorical success that the Royal Geographical Society of London had ...
— Five Weeks in a Balloon • Jules Verne

... harder trial, which was to receive the man who had disgraced her, lowered her pride to the dust, degraded the name she bore. She had married him, not loving him—nay, plucking another love out of her heart in order that she might give herself to him. She had married him for position and fortune; and now by his follies, by his extravagance, and by that greed of gold which is inevitable in the spendthrift and profligate, he had gone ...
— Phantom Fortune, A Novel • M. E. Braddon

... vast and increasing host of readers who prefer the novel of action to any other form of fiction should, nay, indeed, must, make a point of reading this exceedingly fine ...
— Wild Nature Won By Kindness • Elizabeth Brightwen

... "Nay, by my halidome, but I shall this day do my devoir right worthily upon the body of yon false knight," quoth Westby, as he carefully turned ...
— The Jester of St. Timothy's • Arthur Stanwood Pier

... thence a folk, kings far and wide, most noble lords of fight, Should come for bane of Libyan land: such web the Parcae dight. The Seed of Saturn, fearing this, and mindful how she erst For her beloved Argive walls by Troy the battle nursed— —Nay neither had the cause of wrath nor all those hurts of old Failed from her mind: her inmost heart still sorely did enfold That grief of body set at nought in Paris' doomful deed, The hated race, and honour shed ...
— The AEneids of Virgil - Done into English Verse • Virgil

... at this time,—what we call a Change of Ministry;—daily crisis laboring towards fulfilment, or brewing itself ripe. Townshend and Walpole have had (how many weeks ago Coxe does not tell us) that meeting in Colonel Selwyn's, which ended in their clutching at swords, nay almost at coat-collars: [Ib. p. 335.] honorable Brothers-in-law: but the good Sister, who used to reconcile them, is now dead. Their quarrels, growing for some years past, are coming to a head. "When the firm used to be Townshend and Walpole, all was well; when it had ...
— History of Friedrich II of Prussia V 7 • Thomas Carlyle

... "Nay, I am not pained at the recollection, Harriet. Thou art changed in many ways since then. I do not believe that thee would play ...
— Peggy Owen and Liberty • Lucy Foster Madison

... employ our ships to convey it from their shores, and ourselves find a market for it among other countries already well supplied with cheap sugar, where it is not required, and where it only tends the more to depress the price in markets already abundantly supplied. Nay, we do more; we admit it into our ports, we land it on our shores, we place it in our bonded warehouses, and our busy merchants and brokers deal as freely on our exchanges in this slave produce as in any other, only with this difference—that this cheap sugar is not permitted to ...
— The Economist - Volume 1, No. 3 • Various

... Nay, shrink not from that word "Farewell!" As if 'twere friendship's final knell— Such fears may prove but vain: So changeful is life's fleeting day, Whene'er we sever, Hope may say, We ...
— The Illustrated London Reading Book • Various

... the midst of that mighty drama are girls and their blind visions? They are the Yea or Nay of that good for which men are enduring and fighting. In these delicate vessels is borne onward through the ages the treasure of ...
— Is Life Worth Living? • William Hurrell Mallock

... that kills the body. Nay, By that which even Christ bade us to fear Hath died my dead. Ah, me! if on a bier I could but see him lifeless stretched to-day, I 'd bathe his face with tears of joy, and lay My cheek to his in anguish which were near To ecstasy, if I could hold him dear ...
— Mercy Philbrick's Choice • Helen Hunt Jackson

... information he had received, wisely withholding the means from which his knowledge came, saying that he knew she had that moment parted from a man who would lead her to the brink of destruction, and then cast her off like a child's broken play-thing. He begged, nay, he besought her, with tears in his eyes, to promise she would never again see him. Emma was thunderstruck, not only at the accuracy of her father's information, but at hearing such a character of one whom ...
— International Short Stories: French • Various

... unintelligible, and again the third night he heard the voices and one voice said, "This our labour is vain, let him alone. He is some changeling and not of the blood of Rury. He will be a grazier, I think, and buy cattle and sell them for a profit." And the other said, "Nay, let us not leave him yet. Remember how valiantly he faced the fierce water-dog and slew him at one cast." When he climbed to the roof, as his manner was, to gaze at the mountain, he thought that Slieve ...
— The Coming of Cuculain • Standish O'Grady

... eternal life: but rather that eternal life is the way to know God. He does not say, This is to know God and Jesus Christ, in order that they may have eternal life. Whatever He says, He does not say that. Nay, more, if we are to be very exact (and can we be too exact?) with the Lord's words, He says, that 'This is eternal life, in order that they may know God and Jesus Christ.' Not that we are to know God that we ...
— Sermons for the Times • Charles Kingsley

... done fifty, without food, over the roughest and mossiest mountains. I lived on what I shot, and for drink I had spring-water. Nay, I am forgetting. There was another beverage, which I wager you have never tasted. Heard you ever, sir, of that eau de vie which the Scots call usquebagh? It will comfort a traveller as no thin ...
— The Moon Endureth—Tales and Fancies • John Buchan

... as AN INHERITANCE FROM OUR FOREFATHERS. Upon that body and stock of inheritance, we have taken care not to inoculate any scion alien to the nature of the original plant. All the reformations we have hitherto made have proceeded upon the principle of reverence to antiquity; and I hope, nay, I am persuaded, that all those which possibly may be made hereafter, will be carefully formed upon analogical precedent, ...
— Selections from the Speeches and Writings of Edmund Burke. • Edmund Burke

... were free to come after her," said Genevieve, not without some bitterness, "he could carry Belle away this very minute; there would be nobody to say him nay. Poor boy!" ...
— The Paternoster Ruby • Charles Edmonds Walk

... Pedro," he said, on the third day of their making acquaintance with Roger, "that this young fellow has joined. If I had had my will, I should have said nay when Cortez proposed it; but it is good for you, lad. It is well enough for an old soldier like me to toil along all day without speaking, under a burning sun; and to say but little, even over his cup of wine, at the end of the march. But it is not good for ...
— By Right of Conquest - Or, With Cortez in Mexico • G. A. Henty

... Sir, I would; and if any bad consequences should follow from the haste and excitement, let those be answerable who, when there was no need to haste, when there existed no excitement, refused to listen to any project of reform; nay, made it an argument against reform that the public mind was not excited.... I allow that hasty legislation is an evil. But reformers are compelled to legislate fast, just because bigots will not legislate early. Reformers are compelled to legislate in times of excitement, because bigots ...
— Public Speaking • Clarence Stratton

... dust Of valiant men whose swords have turned to rust? Shall I, like Menelaus by the coast, O'er dead Ajaces make unmanly boast? Shall I, in chains of an ignoble Verse, Degrade dead Hectors, and their pangs rehearse— Nay! such is not the mood this People feels, Their chariots drag no foemen by the heels! Let Ajax slumber by the sounding sea From the fell passion of his madness free! Let Hector's ashes unmolested sleep— But not to-day shall ...
— A Wreath of Virginia Bay Leaves • James Barron Hope

... Harrow, and added, "I am told that Harrow is the best school in England." The Harrovians present, including my father, my brother Claud, myself, the late Lord Bradford, and my brother-in-law the late Lord Mount Edgcumbe, welcomed this indisputable proposition warmly—nay, enthusiastically. The Etonians who were there, Sir Augustus Paget, then British Ambassador in Rome, the late Lord Northampton, and others, contravened her Majesty's obviously true statement with great heat, quite oblivious of the fact that it is opposed to all etiquette to contradict a ...
— The Days Before Yesterday • Lord Frederick Hamilton

... "Nay," said the man in a harsh, saw-sharpening voice, "think I don't know better than that? That aren't ...
— Burr Junior • G. Manville Fenn

... love for her was so great that for this reason you went out into the wide world,—nay, more, you went out of the world—you became a monk! And yet you could not free yourself from her. Her charm brought you back again, that you might be near her, might even see her again. Am ...
— Peter the Priest • Mr Jkai

... honour of the first disclosure, and her brother was certain to keep her part in the matter a secret; but, on the other hand, she did not know how much Louisa might have told her mother, nor whether Mrs. Hall might persist in secrecy—nay, or even Rose. Indeed, she was quite uncertain how much Rose had understood. She could not have kept back guesses, and she did not believe in honour on Rose's part. So she was nervous on finding that her uncle ...
— That Stick • Charlotte M. Yonge

... on the cheerless days of rain, and even of sleet and hail, that would shove the reluctant year back into January. The fair face of Spring, with her tears dropping upon her quenchless smiles, peeped in suppressed triumph from behind the growing corn and the budding sallows on the river-bank. Nay, even when the snow came once more in defiance of calendars, it was but a background from which the near genesis should 'stick ...
— Robert Falconer • George MacDonald

... uncle, your husband, doth every day go to mass, and you come not there, nor my cousin, your son, the Prince of Navarre? I answered (quoth the queen), Sire, the king, my husband doth so because you go thither, to wait upon you and obey your order and commandment. Nay, aunt (quoth he), I do neither command nor desire him to do so. But if it be naught (as I do hear say it is), he might well enough forbear to be at it, and offend me nothing at all; for if I might as well as he, and ...
— The Rise of the Hugenots, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Henry Martyn Baird

... that trouble waits In daily watch before our gates; On earth the cross is borne by all, All feel its weight, and taste its gall; But shall we therefore cast away The Christian's light? I tell thee—nay. ...
— Paul Gerhardt's Spiritual Songs - Translated by John Kelly • Paul Gerhardt

... favored violence: "Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword."[24] "Suppose ye that I am come to give peace on earth? I tell you, Nay; but rather division."[25] "But those mine enemies, which would not that I should reign over them, bring hither, and slay them before me."[26] "My kingdom is not of this world: if my kingdom were of this world, then would my servants fight, that I should not be delivered to the Jews."[27] "When ...
— The Mistakes of Jesus • William Floyd

... look in his wallet," said Robin, "and, Sir Knight, if in truth you have no more, not one penny will I take; nay, I will give you ...
— The Elson Readers, Book 5 • William H. Elson and Christine M. Keck

... of season now in manifest, now in recondite application, he presses it into the service of expression and illustration. At least a third of his myriad metaphors are derived from it. It would indeed be difficult to find a single act in any of his dramas, nay, in some of them, a single scene, the diction and imagery of which are not colored by it. Much of his law may have been acquired from three books easily accessible to him—namely, Tottell's PRECEDENTS (1572), Pulton's STATUTES ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... called upon, nay, forced to speak, raised his head, and without perhaps bestowing so much as a thought on the young man behind him who was inwardly quivering in anxious expectancy of some betrayal on his part which would precipitate disgrace and lifelong sorrow on all ...
— Agatha Webb • Anna Katharine Green

... impressions of his own life, the answer has obviously not been scientific in our sense of the term. But it was scientific. It was the science of primitive man, and if we have to reject it as science not so good as our science, nay, as not science at all judged by our standard, we must not deny to primitive man the claim of having preceded modern man in his observation and interpretation of the ...
— Folklore as an Historical Science • George Laurence Gomme

... mentioned these facts to show that the Indians were justified in their want of faith in the white men: they were robbed and pillaged and had no redress; nay, they were imprisoned as thieves for taking away their own cattle which had been stolen from them, although they showed their own marks and brands upon them. Whether the American Government suffered all this spoliation with a view to disgust the Indians and incline ...
— Diary in America, Series Two • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)

... that you should be wasted, uselessly expended, in the mere gratification of a petty revenge which will benefit nobody anything; on the contrary, I am convinced that we should gain immensely by making you one of ourselves— Nay, do not interrupt me, please; hear me to the end before you attempt to reply. In the absence of Garcia I am supreme here; I can secure your election as a member of our band, and once a member, you are absolutely safe from Garcia, for it ...
— A Middy of the King - A Romance of the Old British Navy • Harry Collingwood

... lives have been made various by learning, sometimes find it hard to keep a fast hold on their habitual views of life, on their faith in the Invisible, nay, on the sense that their past joys and sorrows are a real experience, when they are suddenly transported to a new land, where the beings around them know nothing of their history, and share none of their ideas—where their mother earth shows another lap, and human life ...
— Silas Marner - The Weaver of Raveloe • George Eliot

... is born who has chosen the greater way. Now I must pass onwards. Kedar, Narayan, Ananda, farewell! Nay, no further; it is long way to return, and the ...
— AE in the Irish Theosophist • George William Russell

... Said he, "Nay, gentle Siegfried, do but this journey take, Not for my sake only, but for my sister's sake. You'll oblige fair Kriemhild in this as well as me." When so implor'd was Siegfried, ...
— The Book of the Epic • Helene A. Guerber

... as well as outside the northern walls of the canon of the Rito, bear testimony to the tradition still current among the Queres Indians of New Mexico that the Rito, or Tyuonyi, was once inhabited by people of their kind, nay, even of their own stock. But the time when those people wooed and wed, lived and died, in that secluded vale is past long, long ago. Centuries previous to the advent of the Spaniards, the Rito was already deserted. Nothing remains but the ruins of former abodes and the memory of their ...
— The Delight Makers • Adolf Bandelier

... shame for pretending myself concerned in these high matters, and told me I was but a prating vain child, who had spoken big words to Rankeillor and to Stewart, and held myself bound upon my vanity to make good that boastfulness. Nay, and he hit me with the other end of the stick; for he accused me of a kind of artful cowardice, going about at the expense of a little risk to purchase greater safety. No doubt, until I had declared and cleared myself, I might any day encounter Mungo Campbell ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 11 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson



Words linked to "Nay" :   yea, negative



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