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Rant   Listen
verb
Rant  v. i.  (past & past part. ranted; pres. part. ranting)  To rave in violent, high-sounding, or extravagant language, without dignity of thought; to be noisy, boisterous, and bombastic in talk or declamation; as, a ranting preacher. "Look where my ranting host of the Garter comes!"






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Rant" Quotes from Famous Books



... Queen! appear; Let falsehood fill the dreary waste; Thy democratic rant be here, To fire the brain, corrupt the taste. The fair, by vicious love misled, Teach me to cherish and to wed, To low-born arrogance to bend, Establish'd order spurn, ...
— Translations of German Poetry in American Magazines 1741-1810 • Edward Ziegler Davis

... Does Pa Pulsifer rant any more rants? No. He gets his perfecto goin' nicely, blows a couple of smoke rings up towards the ceilin', and then remarks in sort of ...
— Torchy, Private Sec. • Sewell Ford

... adventure, when grandees became admirals and field-marshals because they were grandees, had such incapacity been shown by any restless patrician. Frederic Spinola, at the age of thirty-two, a landsman and a volunteer, thinking to measure himself on blue water with such veterans as John Rant, Joost de Moor, and the other Dutchmen and Zeelanders whom it was his fortune to meet, could hardly escape the doom which so ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... with anguish at the mere hint of oppression. No cheek is so easily bedewed by the unnecessary tear as the cheek of the ruffian—and those who compose the "editorials" for Mr Hearst's papers have cynically realised this truth. They rant and they cant and they argue, as though nothing but noble thoughts were permitted to lodge within the poor brains of their readers. Their favourite gospel is the gospel of Socialism. They tell the workers that the world is their ...
— American Sketches - 1908 • Charles Whibley

... you call upon God to help you?" says he. "He has helped you a lot in the past, hasn't he, Roy? And He has helped her a lot, hasn't he? Helped her to stand me. Oh, that's a joke! The just and merciful One—d'you remember how old Baintree used to rant? You approved, didn't you. You agreed with old Baintree. So did I, Roy, to ...
— The Blood Ship • Norman Springer

... say shoo has to want, For Johnny ofttimes gets o'th spree; He spends his wages in a rant, An' leeaves his wife to pine or dee. An' monny a time aw've ligged i' bed, An' cursed my fate for bein poor, An' monny a bitter tear aw've shed, When thinkin ov sweet Mistress Moore. For shoo's mi life Is Johnny's wife, An' tho' to love her isn't reet, What con aw do, When all th' neet throo ...
— Yorksher Puddin' - A Collection of the Most Popular Dialect Stories from the - Pen of John Hartley • John Hartley

... Rant was seized in his own house and shot. Clos was met by a company, and seeing Trestaillons, with whom he had always been friends, in its ranks, he went up to him and held out his hand; whereupon Trestaillons drew a pistol from his belt and ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... comic were interwoven; the stage was thronged with a motley variety of figures, humors, and conditions—knights, citizens, soldiers, horse-boys, peasants; there was a court-jester; songs and lyric passages were interspersed; there were puns, broad jokes, rant, Elizabethan metaphors, and swollen trunk-hose hyperboles, with innumerable Shakesperian reminiscences in detail. But the advice of Herder, to whom he sent his manuscript, and the example of Lessing, whose "Emilia Galotti" had just appeared, persuaded Goethe to recast the ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Eighteenth Century • Henry A. Beers

... he is, all of a sudden, squarin' off in front o' me, his mug stuck up and his eyes like a couple o' headlights. Imagine! The guy ain't got enough meat on his bones for a rest'rant chicken. Honest to God, he looked like he'd been through a mile o' sausage mill. But crazy as a bedbug. And there's somethin' ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various

... about it. The attitude of the public toward the theatre has changed. To-day we would not tolerate the heavy melodramas which enchained our parents and grandparents. The age of rant and fustian has passed away, and Edwin Forrest could never gain a second fortune from such a combination of these qualities as "Metamora." We are more sophisticated; we refuse to be thrilled by Ingomar, no matter how ...
— American Men of Mind • Burton E. Stevenson

... in doubt. Proceeding, Andre-Louis spoke as he conceived that Philippe de Vilmorin would have spoken. He had so often argued with him, so often attended the discussions of the Literary Chamber, that he had all the rant of the reformers—that was yet true in ...
— Scaramouche - A Romance of the French Revolution • Rafael Sabatini

... call it? the domain of practical politics. As for me, you don't suppose I don't want everything we poor women can get, or that I would refuse any privilege or advantage that's offered me? I don't rant or rave about anything, but I have—as I told you just now—my own quiet way of being zealous. If you had no worse partisan than I, you would do very well. My son has talked to me immensely about your ideas; and even if I should enter into them only because he does, I should do so quite enough. You ...
— The Bostonians, Vol. II (of II) • Henry James

... &c. adj[obs3].; scrabble. empty sound, dead letter, vox et praeterea nihil[Lat]; "a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing"; "sounding brass and a tinkling cymbal." nonsense, utter nonsense, gibberish; jargon, jabber, mere words, hocus-pocus, fustian, rant, bombast, balderdash, palaver, flummery, verbiage, babble, baverdage, baragouin[obs3], platitude, niaiserie[obs3]; inanity; flap-doodle; rigmarole, rodomontade; truism; nugae canorae[Lat]; twaddle, twattle, fudge, trash, garbage, humbug; poppy-cock ...
— Roget's Thesaurus

... the"; not to mention the fanciful vein of the whole passage, which might lead any one unacquainted with Milton to look for this quotation among the dramas of the prime. The great hyperbolical strain of the Elizabethans, which so often broke into rant, is caught and nobly echoed in praise ...
— Milton • Sir Walter Alexander Raleigh

... hardly in a body's power, To keep at times frae being sour, To see how things are shared; How best o' chiels are whiles in want, While coofs on countless thousands rant, And ken ...
— Capitola's Peril - A Sequel to 'The Hidden Hand' • Mrs. E.D.E.N. Southworth

... what most people suppose to be 'the extreme case,' Magazine Poetry. Of course there is to-day a great deal of rant and twaddle published under the name of verse in magazines; yet I could point to scores and scores of poems that have thus appeared during the last ten years,[5] which half a century ago would have made—and deservedly have ...
— Some Private Views • James Payn

... lying at your gate. But wait a little! He shall soon lie in Abraham's bosom, while you shall roast on the devil's great gridiron, and be seasoned just to his tooth!—Will the prophets say, "Come here gamester, and teach us the long odds?"—'Tis odds if they do!—Will the martyrs rant, and swear, and shuffle, and cut with you? No! The martyrs are no shufflers! You will be cut so as you little expect: you are a field of tares, and Lucifer is your head farmer. He will come with his reapers ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft

... country lyceum- halls, are one thing,—and private theatricals, as they may be seen in certain gilded and frescoed saloons of our metropolis, are another. Yes, it is pleasant to see real gentlemen and ladies, who do not think it necessary to mouth, and rant, and stride, like most of our stage heroes and heroines, in the characters which show off their graces and talents; most of all to see a fresh, unrouged, unspoiled, high bred young maiden, with a lithe figure, and a pleasant voice, acting in those love-dramas which make us young again ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes

... enthusiastic character; but it would be hard to point out a passage indicating that exuberant confidence in his own prowess, and contempt of every one else, so liberally exhibited by Almanzor. Instances of this defect are but too thickly sown through the piece; for example the following rant. ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Volume 4 (of 18) - Almanzor And Almahide, Marriage-a-la-Mode, The Assignation • John Dryden

... who certainly were not inclined to judge him harshly, and who, as far as I know, were never personally ill-used by him. Sharp and Rogers both speak of him as an unpleasant, affected, splenetic person. I have heard hundreds and thousands of people who never saw him rant about him; but I never heard a single expression of fondness for him fall from the lips of any of those who knew him well. Yet, even now, after the lapse of five-and-twenty years, there are those who cannot talk for a quarter of an hour about ...
— Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay • George Otto Trevelyan

... made a huge fire down by the shore, and left them alone. They sat by it until nearly ten o'clock, he talking incessantly; her overtures had roused in him the desire to please, and, instead of the usual monologue of egotism and rant, he poured out poetry, eloquence, sense and humorous shrewdness. Had he been far less the unusual, the great man, she would still have listened with a sense of delight, for in her mood that night his penetrating voice, which, in other moods, she found as insupportable as a needle-pointed ...
— The Fashionable Adventures of Joshua Craig • David Graham Phillips

... "Don't rant, old thing. You know you'll never keep it up," Nevil urged more gently than he had ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver

... only because they were heathens, but also because they were kings; for when Christian princes and lords appear on the stage, the satire is often continued. Thus Lancelot of the Lake appears unexpectedly at the Court of king Herod, and after much rant the lover of queen Guinevere draws his invincible sword and ...
— A Literary History of the English People - From the Origins to the Renaissance • Jean Jules Jusserand

... Hope of Gain depends upon it; None who neglect it ever did grow rich, Or ever will, or can by Indian Commerce. By this old Ogden built his stately House, Purchas'd Estates, and grew a little King. He, like an honest Man, bought all by Weight, And made the ign'rant Savages believe That his Right Foot exactly weigh'd a Pound: By this for many Years he bought their Furs, And died in ...
— Ponteach - The Savages of America • Robert Rogers

... thus characterized, there is much false morality, much depraved sentiment, and much hollow rant; but still it carries within it the germ of an excellence, which, sooner or later, must in the progress of national genius arrive at its full development. Meanwhile, it is a consolation to know that nothing really immoral is ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... clever forgeries by a certain alloy of truth, and it may be that her Beethoven letters are, after all, fictions founded on fact. The language of these letters is somewhat overstrained, but Beethoven could rant on occasion, and Ludwig Nohl believed the letters to be genuine, since a friend of his said he had seen them and recognised Beethoven's script. Thayer accepts the entanglement with Bettina as a fact, and thinks it was, at that crisis in Beethoven's life, "a happy circumstance ...
— The Love Affairs of Great Musicians, Volume 1 • Rupert Hughes

... fled: Those legs of his would soon have sped That flossy tail—that lofty head— Far, far away from danger. But—fatal error of his race— In sandy bank he hid his face, And thought by this to evade the chase Of the ostrich-bagging ranger. So he who, like the ostrich vain, Is ign'rant, and would so remain, Of what folks do, it's very plain In folly's road he's walking. For if in sand you hide your head Just to escape that which you dread, And, seeing not, say danger's fled: ...
— The Death of Saul and other Eisteddfod Prize Poems and Miscellaneous Verses • J. C. Manning

... betimes and to my office, where we sat all the morning, and a great rant I did give to Mr. Davis, of Deptford, and others about their usage of Michell, in his Bewpers,—[Bewpers is the old name for bunting.]—which he serves in for flaggs, which did trouble me, but yet it was in defence of what was truth. So home to dinner, where ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys

... his tone conveyed the malice and the menace of a man who had been nursing a grudge for a long time. "Two years ago his newspaper letters and his rant killed that Consolidated project, and I had a contingent fee of fifty thousand dollars at stake; as it was, I got only a little old regular lobby fee and my expense money. And the power hasn't been developed by the infernal, dear, protected people, has it?" he ...
— All-Wool Morrison • Holman Day

... Lindre, about 7 leagues from Portpile, wher I played one of the Gascons a pret[347] in the boat; wheir also I saw a reservoire of fisches. Heir I was wery sick, so that I suped none, as I had not dined, my Poictiers rant incapacitating me. Yea, I was distempered al the way after, so that I cost not wery dear to ...
— Publications of the Scottish History Society, Vol. 36 • Sir John Lauder

... preached in the meeting house of the First Baptist Church, Richmond, was well ordered, without the rant common to some preachers of that day, dignified and pathetic, and left a lasting impression on the audience.[54] Teague had often remarked to William Crane, "Sir, I don't hear any of your white ministers ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 7, 1922 • Various

... Bonaparte with Cromwell, particularly as to the contrast in their deeds affecting foreign States? Cromwell's interference for the Albigenses, B[onaparte]'s against the Swiss. Then religion would come in; and Milton and you could rant about our countrymen of that period. This is a hasty suggestion, the more hasty because I want my supper. I have just finished Chapman's Homer. Did you ever read it? It has most the continuous power of interesting you ...
— The Best Letters of Charles Lamb • Charles Lamb

... how they rant at the Base when we have to protect ourselves," I replied, not without a certain amount of bitterness. "They'd like to pacify the Universe with never a sweep of a disintegrator beam. 'Of course, Commander Hanson' ...
— The God in the Box • Sewell Peaslee Wright

... being held in this city, talk as fluently of the Bible and God's teachings in their speeches as if they could draw an argument from inspiration in maintenance of their woman's rights stuff.... The poor creatures who take part in the silly rant of "brawling women" and Aunt Nancy men are most of them "ismizers" of the rankest stamp, Abolitionists of the most frantic and contemptible kind and Christian (?) sympathizers with such heretics as Wm. Lloyd Garrison, ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 1 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper

... despotism of Cromwell, the arbitrary sequestrations of committee-men, the iniquitous decimations of military prefects, the sale of British citizens for slavery in the West Indies, the blood of some shed on the scaffold without legal trial, . . . the persecution of the Anglican Church, the bacchanalian rant of sectaries, the morose preciseness of puritans . . . It is universally acknowledged that no measure was ever more national, or has ever produced more testimonies of public approbation, than the restoration of Charles ...
— The Visions of England - Lyrics on leading men and events in English History • Francis T. Palgrave

... of "Again! 'Ay bor'! again!" the blackeyed lover, hypnotizing himself into an ecstasy, poured out race and passion and war with the law, in the true Gipsy rant which is sung from Transylvania to Yetholm or Carnarvon ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... Gaboon can scarce surpass Pall-Mall In vicious, gibbering vulgarity Of coarse vituperation. Decency, Courtesy, common-sense, all cast aside! Pheugh! GARNER, in his cage, would open wide His listening ears, did Jacko of the forest So "slate" a foeman when his head was sorest. Strange that to rave and rant, like scullion storm, Like low virago scold, should seem "good form" To our Society Simians, when one name Makes vulgar spite oblivious of its shame! "Voluntary and deliberate," their speech, "Articulate ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 103, October 1, 1892 • Various

... Mrs. G[rant] of L. intimates that she will take her pudding—her pension, I mean (see 30th November), and is contrite, as H[enry] M[ackenzie] vouches. I am glad the stout old girl is not foreclosed; faith, cabbing ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott

... the fiddlers strove for warlike music. Tamerlane, surrounded by the Tartar host, received his prisoners, and the defiant rant of Bajazet shook the rafters. All the sound and fury of the stage could not drown the noise of the audience. Idle talk and laughter, loud comment upon the players, went on,—went on until there entered Darden's ...
— Audrey • Mary Johnston

... and you shall see, We every one shall Captains be, To Whore and rant as well as they, When o'er the Hills and far ...
— Wit and Mirth: or Pills to Purge Melancholy, Vol. 5 of 6 • Various

... symptom that he is reduced to distracting his mind by making an analysis of a dull sermon. 'There is nothing particular in it,' he admits, but at least it is better, he thinks, to listen to a bad sermon than to the blasphemous rant of deistical societies. Indeed, Crabbe's spirit was totally unlike the desperate pride of Chatterton. He was of the patient enduring tribe, and comforts himself by religious meditations, which are, perhaps, rather commonplace ...
— Hours in a Library - New Edition, with Additions. Vol. II (of 3) • Leslie Stephen

... he would make a soldier, and who never will think so. As well expect the excited animal of the ring to think in the presence of the red rag of the toreador as to expect them to think on the subject of the Negro soldier. They can curse, and rant, when they see the stalwart Negro in uniform, but it is too much to ask them to think. To them the Negro can be a fiend, a ...
— The Colored Regulars in the United States Army • T. G. Steward

... Qualifications, of what kind soever, to the virtuous Man. Accordingly [Cato][1] in the Character Tully has left of him, carried Matters so far, that he would not allow any one but a virtuous Man to be handsome. This indeed looks more like a Philosophical Rant than the real Opinion of a Wise Man; yet this was what Cato very seriously maintained. In short, the Stoics thought they could not sufficiently represent the Excellence of Virtue, if they did not comprehend in the Notion of it ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele

... Fables;'—rejecting the whole of that supernatural clement with which the only records which can tell us any thing about the matter are full; declaring its whole history so uncertain that the ratio of truth to error must be a vanishing fraction;—the advocates of these systems yet proceed to rant and rave—they are really the only words we know which can express our sense of their absurdity—in a most edifying vein about the divinity of Christianity, and to reveal to us its true glories. 'Christ,' says Strauss, 'is not ...
— Reason and Faith; Their Claims and Conflicts • Henry Rogers

... scenes with all the fond minuteness that belongs to love; no pompous rhetoric about the inferiority of the brutes, but a warm plea on their behalf against man's inconsiderateness and cruelty, and a sense of enlarged happiness from their companionship in enjoyment; no vague rant about human misery and human virtue, but that close and vivid presentation of particular deeds and misdeeds, which is the direct road to the emotions. How Cowper's exquisite mind falls with the mild warmth of morning sunlight on the commonest objects, at once disclosing every ...
— George Eliot; A Critical Study of Her Life, Writings & Philosophy • George Willis Cooke

... strain, "was to declaim in praise of poverty, with two millions sterling out at usury; to meditate epigrammatic conceits about the evils of luxury in gardens which moved the envy of sovereigns; to rant about liberty while fawning on the insolent and pampered freedmen of a tyrant; to celebrate the divine beauty of virtue with the same pen which had just before written a defence of the murder of a mother ...
— Seekers after God • Frederic William Farrar

... impersonated by Miss O'Neill. Before Rachel came, it had been thought that the new romantic drama of MM. Hugo and Dumas, because of its greater truth to nature, had given the coup de grace to the old classic plays; but the public, at her bidding, turned gladly from the spasms and the rant of "Angelo" and "Angele," "Antony" and "Hernani," to the old-world stories, the formal tragedies of the seventeenth century poet-dramatists of France. The actress fairly witched her public. There was something of magic in her ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 8 (of 8) • Various

... the drama hold divided sway, Sometimes by evil counsellors, 'tis said, Like earth-born potentates have been misled. In those gay days of wickedness and wit, When Villiers criticised what Dryden writ, The tragic queen, to please a tasteless crowd, Had learn'd to bellow, rant, and roar so loud, That frighten'd Nature, her best friend before, The blustering beldam's company foreswore; Her comic sister, who had wit 'tis true, With all her merits, had her failings too: And would sometimes ...
— Scarborough and the Critic • Sheridan

... blessings. We live in an age of morbid emotion and introspectiveness; wherein the poets, such as they are, have sunk to the level of mere pathologists engaged in the dissection of their own ultra-sophisticated spirits. The fresh touch of Nature is lost to the majority, and rhymesters rant endlessly and realistically about the relation of man to his fellows and to himself; overlooking the real foundations of art and beauty—wonder, and man's relation to the unknown cosmos. But Miss Jackson is not of the majority, and has not overlooked these things. In ...
— Writings in the United Amateur, 1915-1922 • Howard Phillips Lovecraft

... in holes in de groun'—dey kill an' eat one anoder, an' dey'm allers at war wid one anoder. But de white man he gwoe dar, an' he buy 'em fur twenty pieces ob silver—dat's' zactly de price—twenty silver dollars—dey pay dat fur 'em up ter dis day—dem pore, ign'rant folks won't take nuffin' but silver. Well, de white man buy 'em, and he fotch 'em to dis country, which am like de lan' ob Egypt, full ob schools, ob churches, ob larnin,' an' ob all manner ob good tings. ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 3 No 2, February 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... swung back to his desk, a grim smile on his lips. "It always boils down to the same thing—they don't know what they're going to do about it. Let 'em rant all they please, in the end what I ...
— The Monk of Hambleton • Armstrong Livingston

... herself wanting to talk of it. She wanted to rage and rant. She was astonished at the primitiveness of her emotions. She had laughed her way through life and had prided herself on the dispassionateness of her point of view. And now it was only by the exercise of the utmost self-control that she was able ...
— Mistress Anne • Temple Bailey

... Ada!" said Vermont contemptuously. "Don't begin to rant—you're not on the stage now. I kept all my promises to you, at any rate. I got you on at the Rockingham and I introduced you to Leroy; and if you had only played your cards properly you would have hooked him by this time. As it is, he'll marry his ...
— Adrien Leroy • Charles Garvice

... as I believe I have elsewhere observed, that we male-delinquents in love-matters have of the other sex:—for while they, poor things! sit sighing in holes and corners, or run to woods and groves to bemoan themselves on their baffled hopes, we can rant and roar, hunt and hawk; and, by new loves, banish from our hearts all ...
— Clarissa, Volume 7 • Samuel Richardson

... of all this rant and nonsense, how much finer is the speech that the Count really did make! "It is a very fine evening,—egad it is!" The "egad" did the whole business: Mrs. Cat was as much in love with him now as ever she had ...
— Catherine: A Story • William Makepeace Thackeray

... Cf. again the scene at Ophelia's grave, where a strong strain of aesthetic disgust is traceable in Hamlet's 'towering passion' with Laertes: 'Nay, an thou'lt mouth, I'll rant as well as thou' ...
— Shakespearean Tragedy - Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth • A. C. Bradley

... upheld, and the disgust, hatred, and scorn uttered for the excesses which marked the godless revolutionists of the age. It is singular that so fair-minded a biographer as Parton could see nothing but rant and nonsense in the most philosophical political essay ever penned by man. It only shows that a partisan cannot be an historian any more than can a laborious collector of details, like Freeman, accurate ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XI • John Lord

... for all," cried Mr. Cumberland Vane, rapping his knuckles angrily on the table, "I tell you, once and for all, my man, that I will not have you turning on any religious rant or cant here. Don't imagine that it will impress me. The most religious people are not those who talk about it. (Applause.) You answer the questions and ...
— The Ball and The Cross • G.K. Chesterton

... kept his temper completely, and waving his hand to add impression to his speech, he said, with a calmness which aggravated Sir Henry's wrath, "Nay, good friend, I prithee be still, and brawl not—it becomes not grey hairs and feeble arms to rail and rant like drunkards. Put me not to use the carnal weapon in mine own defence, but listen to the voice of reason. See'st thou not that the Lord hath decided this great controversy in favour of us and ours, against thee and thine? Wherefore, render ...
— Woodstock; or, The Cavalier • Sir Walter Scott

... Baal, They dare not sit or lean, But fume and fret and posture And foam and curse between; For being bound to Baal, Whose sacrifice is vain, Their rest is scant with Baal, They glare and pant for Baal, They mouth and rant for Baal, For ...
— Sea Warfare • Rudyard Kipling

... it!" said the others. "Give us a rant, Factor," and round the table they gathered: the candles were being lit, the ambrosial ...
— Doom Castle • Neil Munro

... to go). You rant like any common fellow. Go, then, and marshal your thousands; and make haste; for Mithridates of Pergamos is at hand with reinforcements for Caesar. Caesar has held you at bay with two legions: we shall see what he ...
— Caesar and Cleopatra • George Bernard Shaw

... thy resistless light, Disperse those phantoms from my sight, Those mimic shades of thee: The scholiast's learning, sophist's cant, The visionary bigot's rant, The monk's philosophy. ...
— Poetical Works of Akenside - [Edited by George Gilfillan] • Mark Akenside

... Holiness! Cant, rant, and fustian! The nations are rotten with dirty pride, and dirty greed, and mean lying, and petty ambitions, and sickly sentimentality. Holiness! I should be ashamed to show my face at Heaven's gates and say I came from such a ...
— God and my Neighbour • Robert Blatchford

... indeed, incompatible—if the love of freedom and active enterprise necessarily exclude the grace and softness which lessen, or at least teach us to forget, the burden of existence, let us be what we are; and, indeed, it is the opinion of many, that the rant of social pleasure is the price we pay for the excellence of our political institutions. It is because before the law all men are equal, that in the world so much care is taken to show that they are different. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 54, No. 335, September 1843 • Various

... great deal of warmth, that it was no such thing, but that as he had lived with the character of the boldest fellow of his profession he was resolved to die with it, and leave his memory to be admired by all the gentlemen of the road in succeeding ages. This was the rant which took up the poor fellow's head, and induced him to bear 250 pound weight upon his breast for upwards of seven minutes, and was much the same kind of bravery as that which induced the French lacquey to dance a minuet immediately before he danced his last upon the wheel, ...
— Lives Of The Most Remarkable Criminals Who have been Condemned and Executed for Murder, the Highway, Housebreaking, Street Robberies, Coining or other offences • Arthur L. Hayward

... land and naval forces, with hostile purpose now declared, for the sake of having them "fire the first gun," would have been as unwise as it would be to hesitate to strike down the arm of the assailant, who levels a deadly weapon at one's breast, until he has actually fired. The disingenuous rant of demagogues about "firing on the flag" might serve to rouse the passions of insensate mobs in times of general excitement, but will be impotent in impartial history to relieve the Federal Government from the responsibility of the assault made by sending a hostile ...
— The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government • Jefferson Davis

... have been the champion of his contrary, and blackened their own faults, and made light of their own virtues, when they beheld them in a master. Macconochie had soon smelled out my secret inclination, took me much into his confidence, and would rant against the Master by the hour, so that even my work suffered. "They're a' daft here," he would cry, "and be damned to them! The Master—the deil's in their thrapples that should call him sae! it's Mr. Henry should be master now! They were nane sae ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition, Vol. XII (of 25) - The Master of Ballantrae • Robert Louis Stevenson

... even unconvinced. Then his face brightened. "That's 'cause you was too little, like that canary at th' Res't'rant what ain't got its feathers yet. You was too little fer yer wings to have growed afore you come away," and his lively imagination having thus settled the problem, the two continued ...
— The Angel of the Tenement • George Madden Martin

... like true British sailors, We'll rant and we'll roar across the salt seas, Until we take soundings in the Channel of Old England From Ushant to ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling

... Facque nonenarios de cifris, cu{m} remeabis Occ{ur}rant si forte cifre; dum demps{er}is vnum ...
— The Earliest Arithmetics in English • Anonymous

... Alfieri, and try the interest, &c. of these my new attempts in the old line, by him in English; and then tell me fairly your opinion. But don't measure me by YOUR OWN old or new tailors' yards. Nothing so easy as intricate confusion of plot and rant. Mrs. Centlivre, in comedy, has ten times the bustle of Congreve; but are they to be compared? and yet she drove Congreve from ...
— Life of Lord Byron, With His Letters And Journals, Vol. 5 (of 6) • (Lord Byron) George Gordon Byron

... the title of MASCAGNI'S new Opera. The title, anglicised, would be suitable for an old-fashioned transpontine melodramatic tragedian, who could certainly say of himself, "I rant so!" ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 103, November 19, 1892 • Various

... professional life is full of "nobodies." The pulpit is crowded with goodish "nobodies"—men who have no power—no unction—no mission. They strain their brains to write common-places, and wear themselves out repeating the rant of their sect and the cant of their schools. The bar is cursed with "nobodies" as much as the pulpit. The lawyers are few; the pettifoggers are many. The bar, more than any other medium, is that through ...
— Lessons in Life - A Series of Familiar Essays • Timothy Titcomb

... was no one-sided idealist. He felt keenly the growing complexity of the relation between employer and worker, the seeming hopelessness of permanently harmonizing their claims, the recurring necessity of fresh compromises and adjustments. He hated rant, demagogy, the rash formulating of emotional theories; and his contempt for bad logic and subjective judgments led him to regard with distrust the panaceas offered for the cure of economic evils. But his ...
— The Fruit of the Tree • Edith Wharton

... the bench, fate sent into the room all in one moment, as if to insult his sorrow, a creature that seemed the goddess of gayety, impervious to a care. She swept in with a bold, free step, for she was rehearsing a man's part, and thundered without rant, but with a spirit and fire, and pace, beyond the conception of our poor tame ...
— Peg Woffington • Charles Reade

... hoarse wailings, and Bastille Devoilee (Bastille unveiled). Loquacious Abbe Raynal, at length, has his wish; sees the Histoire Philosophique, with its 'lubricity,' unveracity, loose loud eleutheromaniac rant (contributed, they say, by Philosophedom at large, though in the Abbe's name, and to his glory), burnt by the common hangman;—and sets out on his travels as a martyr. It was the edition of 1781; perhaps the last notable ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle

... heart of craft and cant, Sick of the crazed enthusiast's rant, Profession's smooth hypocrisies, And creeds of ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier

... past. His ideas, thoughts, feelings, associations, are all with barbarous manners, obsolete customs, and exploded superstitions. The march of his intellect is like that of a crab, backward.... The highest inspirations of poetry are resolvable into three ingredients: the rant of unregulated passion, the whining of exaggerated feeling, and the cant of factitious sentiment; and can therefore serve only to ripen a splendid lunatic like Alexander, a puling driveler like Werter, or a morbid dreamer like Wordsworth. It can never make a philosopher, nor a statesman, ...
— A Study of Poetry • Bliss Perry

... heartbreaking to them. But that does not bother my Lord Jesus, nor Dr. Luther, for we believe that the Gospel will and must continue. Let a layman ask such Romanists, and let them give answer, why they despoil and mock all of God's commandments, and rant so violently about this power, whereas they cannot show at all why it is necessary, or what it is good for. For ever since it has arisen, it has accomplished nothing but the devastation of Christendom, ...
— Works of Martin Luther - With Introductions and Notes (Volume I) • Martin Luther

... in our day rant like the lawyer, and no clergyman would use such language as that of the Reverend Moses Welch. The clergy have been pretty well republicanized within that last two or three generations, and are not likely to provoke quarrels ...
— Pages From an Old Volume of Life - A Collection Of Essays • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... when he accuses them as politicians of lying, cheating, and stealing, he estimates them by his knowledge of himself as a politician. He supposes that they would not hesitate to do what, without compunction, he does himself. They are all players together, and this is a kind of stage rant designed to impress the groundlings, who, after all, compose the larger part of ...
— From the Easy Chair, vol. 1 • George William Curtis

... to her sons, that fiends would refuse to execute, Lavinia does not shriek, nor rant, nor call upon the gods, but speaks what nobody but Shakspere ...
— The Critics Versus Shakspere - A Brief for the Defendant • Francis A. Smith

... Rair, roar. Rant, song, lay. Rape, rope. Raw, row. Reaming, foaming. Reck, observe. Rede, counsel. Red up, cleared up. Reek, smoke. Reike, (smoky), Edinburgh. Restricket, restricted. Reveled, ravelled, trouble-some. Reynynge, running. Reytes, water-flags, iris. Rig, ridge. Rigwoodie, ...
— English Poets of the Eighteenth Century • Selected and Edited with an Introduction by Ernest Bernbaum

... me," Lord Rokesle observed; "I begin to fear these heroics are contagious. Possibly I, too, shall begin to rant in a moment. Meanwhile, as I understand it, you decline to perform the ceremony. I have had to warn you before this, Simon, that you mustn't take too much gin when I am apt to need you. You are very ...
— Gallantry - Dizain des Fetes Galantes • James Branch Cabell

... Mrs Simpson, who had not yet resumed her work, and was looking at the fire thoughtfully, 'I shall tell you the story. You will please keep it to yourself, if you don't mind? Thank you. Now it is just this. I had an old uncle, a Dr Rant. Perhaps you may have heard of him. Not that he was a distinguished man, but from the odd way he ...
— Ghost Stories of an Antiquary - Part 2: More Ghost Stories • Montague Rhodes James

... Titles wore; Some who knew how to rail, some to accuse, And some who haunted Taverns and the Stews. Some roaring Bullies, who ran th'row the Town Crying, God damn 'um, they'd support the Crown: Whose wicked Oaths, and whose blasphemous Rant, Had quite put down the holy zealous Cant. Some were for War, and some on Mischief bent; And some who could, for gain, new Plots invent. Some Priests and Levites too among the rest, Such as knew how to blow the Trumpet best: Who ...
— Anti-Achitophel (1682) - Three Verse Replies to Absalom and Achitophel by John Dryden • Elkanah Settle et al.

... appeal. Articulate distinctly. Pause after each question. Do not rant or declaim, but ...
— Successful Methods of Public Speaking • Grenville Kleiser

... position was perfectly tenable, and he defended it with unsurpassed force. For the hour unfortunately his influence was gone. Great newspapers thought themselves safe in describing one of these performances as something between the rant of the fanatic and the trick of the stage actor; a mixture of pious grimace and vindictive howl, of savage curses and dolorous forebodings; the most unpatriotic speech ever heard within the walls of parliament. In sober fact, it was one of the three or four most masterly deliverances evoked by the ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley

... party will have failed. But, sir, if such a failure take place, rest assured that the "Bishops, Elders, and other Ministers" of the Methodist Church, South, will not help to bring about such a failure! We can afford to let such minions of party as you are, rave and rant, and publish their expositions, and issue their warnings to Churches: they will all serve to swell our ranks. All true American hearts, not chained to the car of party, or bound down by the cords of plunder, think alike upon the great questions that have called the American party into existence. ...
— Americanism Contrasted with Foreignism, Romanism, and Bogus Democracy in the Light of Reason, History, and Scripture; • William Gannaway Brownlow

... her best and all that, but her day is past, and here's plenty of young flesh and blood to fill her place. This one is rather young, but she's smart as a whip—she's full of mettle and is fresh and healthy-looking. It won't do to have pale girls around, for it gives cursed busybodies a chance to rant about women standing all day. (Out of the corner of his eye he measured Belle from head to foot.) She can stand, and stand it, too, for a long while. She's compact and stout. She's built right for the business." At last he said, aloud, "In ...
— Without a Home • E. P. Roe

... thought himself beloved," said the maiden; "but by what slight creatures!—things whose heads could be rendered giddy by a playhouse rant—whose brains were only filled with red-heeled shoes and satin buskins—and who run altogether mad on the argument of a George and ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott

... happy. Life will never have much joy in it for Mark. By the time he is five-and-twenty he will wonder why people ever laugh, and think all fools who seem merry. Poetry will not exist for Mark, either in literature or in life; its best effusions will sound to him mere rant and jargon. Enthusiasm will be his aversion and contempt. Mark will have no youth; while he looks juvenile and blooming, he will be already middle-aged in mind. His body is now fourteen years of age, but his soul is ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte

... growth of a plant which has been in China for at least twelve centuries, which has had medicinal uses for nine, and whose medicinal properties have been put in the capsule for six, is not an easy matter, far more difficult, in fact, than the average Englishman and even those who rant so much about the whole business upon little knowledge can imagine. Opium has been made in China for four centuries, and although used then with tobacco, has been smoked since the middle of ...
— Across China on Foot • Edwin Dingle

... you may fancy how them poor ign'rant furriners left that Custom House. Sam told me arterwards 'twere like shellin' peas— spakin' ...
— The Astonishing History of Troy Town • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... pleasure, delight. delicado, -a delicate, sweet. delicia f. delight. delicioso, -a delicious, delightful. delirante adj. delirious, raving. delirar rave, dote. delirio m. delirium, madness, rapture, rant, idle talk. delito m. crime. demasa f. excess. demasiado, -a too much, too great. demonio m. devil, demon. denso, -a dense, thick. dentro adv. within; —— de prep. within. denuesto m. insult, ...
— El Estudiante de Salamanca and Other Selections • George Tyler Northup

... you wouldn't rant, mother. It only hardens me. Come: I suppose I am the only young woman you ever had in your power that you did good to. Don't spoil it ...
— Mrs. Warren's Profession • George Bernard Shaw

... performed ceremonially. Nothing could equal the vigorous gravity of his demeanour when leading his men in fight. His words were few at such times; he was the only officer I ever knew void absolutely of rant in action. Others would shout and scream and shriek their orders redundant and unwholesome; Haskell's eye spoke better battle English than all their distended throats. He was merciful ...
— Who Goes There? • Blackwood Ketcham Benson

... of the glancing helm: "Ajax, brave leader, son of Telamon, Deal not with me as with a feeble child, Or woman, ign'rant of the ways of war; Of war and carnage every point I know; And well I know to wield, now right, now left, The tough bull's-hide that forms my stubborn targe: Well know I too my fiery steeds to urge, And raise the war-cry in the standing fight. But ...
— The Iliad • Homer

... places his favourite metaphysical gabble—his dissertations about the stars, the passions, the Greek plays, and what not—his eternal whine about what he calls the good and the beautiful—is a fellow as mean and paltry as can be well imagined; a man of rant, and not of action; foolishly infirm of purpose, and strong only in desire; whose beautiful is a tawdry strumpet, and whose good would be crime in the eyes of an honest man. So much for the portrait of Ernest Maltravers: as for the artist, ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson

... Eden's ring; it just paid for their places at the theater, where they saw the living puppets of the colony mop and mow and rant under the title of acting. This was so interesting that Robinson was thinking of his ring the whole time, and how to get it back. The girls agreed between themselves they had never ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade

... sealed-up eyes can never more unclose to lighten with glad hope or fond ambition; the quiet heart cannot leap with gratitude or joy at that "word spoken in due season" which aids its noblest aspirations to become realized! The DEAD poet?—Press the cold clods of earth over him, and then rant above his grave,—tell him how great he was, what infinite possibilities were displayed in his work, what excellence, what merit, what subtlety of thought, what grace of style! Rant and rave!—print reams of acclaiming ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli



Words linked to "Rant" :   rabbit on, magniloquence, jabber, grandiosity, ranting, declamation, blah, rhetoric, screed, claptrap, ornateness, speak, ranter, grandiloquence



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