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Retainer   Listen
noun
Retainer  n.  
1.
One who, or that which, retains.
2.
One who is retained or kept in service; an attendant; an adherent; a hanger-on.
3.
Hence, a servant, not a domestic, but occasionally attending and wearing his master's livery.
4.
(Law)
(a)
The act of a client by which he engages a lawyer or counselor to manage his cause.
(b)
The act of withholding what one has in his hands by virtue of some right.
(c)
A fee paid to engage a lawyer or counselor to maintain a cause, or to prevent his being employed by the opposing party in the case; called also retaining fee.
5.
The act of keeping dependents, or the state of being in dependence.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Retainer" Quotes from Famous Books



... was fully as heroic and as noble as the imaginary Gauvain of fiction—is equally skilful in drawing the wild Breton beggar who dwells underground among the branching tree-roots; and the monstrous Imanus, the barbarous retainer of the Lord of the Seven Forests; and Radoub, the serjeant from Paris, a man of hearty oaths, hideous, heroic, humoursome, of a bloody ingenuity in combat. And the same hand which described the silent sundown ...
— Studies in Literature • John Morley

... an elderly female, wearing a purple sun-bonnet and carrying a purple umbrella. There was something very eccentric about the garb of this elderly personage, and many an inexperienced city man would have taken her for a retired nurse, or some other domestic retainer of the family, but there was a steadfastness in her gaze, and a fire in her eye, which indicated to Lawrence that she was one much more accustomed to give orders than to take them. He raised his hat very politely, and asked if Mr Keswick was to ...
— The Late Mrs. Null • Frank Richard Stockton

... operation allayed my pulse for a few hours; but as the fever came back with new vigor, it became necessary for my attendants to arouse the Mongo to a sense of my imminent danger. Yet Ormond, instead of springing with alacrity to succor a friend and retainer in affliction, sent for a young man, named Edward Joseph, who had formerly been in his employment, but was now settled on his own ...
— Captain Canot - or, Twenty Years of an African Slaver • Brantz Mayer

... Sharp attorneys in practice are not popular there. There is a legend that a process-server once came in at a back door to serve a writ; but being detected by a waiter, was skilfully edged by that wary retainer into Wine Bottle Court, right past the person on whom he was desirous to inflict the 'Victoria, by the grace, &c.' Once in the court, he was set upon by a mob of inky-faced boys just released from the works ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury

... the rival of Mrs. Clive. Amongst the many clients who were drawn to Murray by that speech, Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough, was neither the least powerful nor the least distinguished. Her grace began by sending the rising advocate a general retainer, with a fee of a thousand guineas; of which sum he accepted only the two-hundredth part, explaining to the astonished duchess that "the professional fee, with a general retainer, could neither be less nor more than ...
— A Book About Lawyers • John Cordy Jeaffreson

... for the proper discussion of political questions must have positive political convictions, and can a man who has such convictions honorably devote himself to discrediting them, and to defeating the policy which they demand, under the plea that he has professionally accepted a retainer or a salary to do so? Would his arguments have any moral weight if they were known to be those of a man who was not himself convinced by them? And is not the concealment of the fact indispensable to the ...
— Ars Recte Vivende - Being Essays Contributed to "The Easy Chair" • George William Curtis

... Matthews," he read, "book-keeper with Whysot Whysot and Company, dealers in church ornaments. Called April 3rd. Reputation damaged on the race-track. Known as a welcher. Reputation to be repaired by August 1st. Retainer Five Dollars." He turned the page and ran his fingerless knuckles down ...
— The King In Yellow • Robert W. Chambers

... palace servants, considered De Vac a loyal retainer of the house of Plantagenet. Whatever else of mischief De Vac might be up to, Brus was quite sure that in so far as the King was concerned, the key to the postern gate was as safe in De Vac's hands as ...
— The Outlaw of Torn • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... Ameni; but as he was among the persons nearest to the king it was impossible to see him that day, and it was not till the next morning that he was able to speak with him. Ameni inspired the anxious and sorrowful old retainer with, fresh courage, returned with him in his own chariot to the harbor, and accompanied him to Setchem's boat to prepare her for the happiness which awaited her after her terrible troubles. But he came too late, the spirit of the poor lady ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... policies, and doing everything in their power to make things unpleasant for the wife and children of this attainted rebel. To only two people in the house, and to one out of it, was the secret of Sir Patrick Home's hiding-place known. With the help of a faithful friend and retainer, Jamie Winter, the carpenter, Lady Home and her daughter Grisell had one dark night carried bed and bedclothes to the burying-place of the Homes, a vault under Polwarth Church, a mile from Redbraes. A black walnut folding-bed, exactly ...
— Stories of the Border Marches • John Lang and Jean Lang

... An aged retainer carried the awful news of the murder to Wallace in his concealment. For long he was overpowered with agony. Then a desperate determination arose in his mind. "The sun must not again rise upon Heselrigge!" was his thought. He called his followers, and told them of the deed. "From this hour," ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VII • Various

... only a Military Knight, he possess'd an honourable pension into the bargain; the reward as well as retainer of service, and which seems (besides the favours perhaps of Mrs. Ursula) to be the principal and only solid support of his present expences. But let us refer to the passage. "A pox of this gout, or a gout of this pox; for one or the other plays the rogue with ...
— Eighteenth Century Essays on Shakespeare • D. Nichol Smith

... existence of the tradition which Nayland Smith had in some way unearthed, but assured us that never, in her time, had the uneasy spirit declared himself. She was ignorant (or, like the excellent retainer that she was, professed to be ignorant) of the location of the historic chamber ...
— The Hand Of Fu-Manchu - Being a New Phase in the Activities of Fu-Manchu, the Devil Doctor • Sax Rohmer

... men could not have borne to live so, in such deadly insecurity. But probably they troubled their heads little about the pirates, kept the women and children at home, and set a retainer on the cliff in open weather, to scan the offing for the light-rigged barques, while poorer folk took their chance. We live among a different set of risks now, and think little of ...
— Escape and Other Essays • Arthur Christopher Benson

... proclamation from these headquarters, dated August 14th, 1898, shall not exercise jurisdiction over any crime or offense committed by any person belonging to the Army of the United States, or any retainer of the Army, or person serving with it, or any person furnishing or transporting supplies for the Army; nor over any crime or offense committed on either of the same by any inhabitant or temporary resident of said territory. In such cases, except when Courts ...
— The Story of the Philippines and Our New Possessions, • Murat Halstead

... with this nondescript political status, and cut off from any means of livelihood, he was joyfully supported by those who sympathised with his design. One was Sakuma- Shozan, hereditary retainer of one of the Shogun's councillors, and from him he got more than money or than money's worth. A steady, respectable man, with an eye to the world's opinion, Sakuma was one of those who, if they cannot do great deeds in their own person, have yet ...
— Familiar Studies of Men & Books • Robert Louis Stevenson

... cruel desertion. The woman's husband is even now living in plenty with the creature for whom he forsook her, not a dozen blocks away, while she "keeps the home together for the childer." She sought justice, but the lawyer demanded a retainer; so she gave it up, and went back to her little ones. For this room that barely keeps the winter wind out she pays four dollars a month, and is behind with the rent. There is scarce bread in the house; ...
— Children of the Tenements • Jacob A. Riis

... patrimony for Archie, the only son of Dame Forbes, and his lady mother had hard work to keep up a respectable state, and to make ends meet. Sandy Grahame, who had fought under her husband's banner and was now her sole retainer, made the most of the garden patches. Here he grew vegetables on the best bits of ground and oats on the remainder; these, crushed between flat stones, furnished a coarse bread. From the stream an abundance of fish could always be obtained, and the traps and nets therefore ...
— In Freedom's Cause • G. A. Henty

... hardy and summer flowers that border the squares of the vegetable garden. These strips now crumble earth into the walks, and the slightest footfall is followed by a landslide. We had intended to use narrow boards for edging, but Bart objects, like the old retainer in Kipling's story of An Habitation Enforced, on the ground that they will deteriorate from the beginning and have to be renewed every few years, whereas the turf will improve, even if it is more trouble to ...
— The Garden, You, and I • Mabel Osgood Wright

... mountains, a truly magnificent pile, which had been placed at their disposal for the 'honeymoon' by one of the wealthiest of the King's subjects,—and there, as soon as equerries, grooms-in-waiting, flunkeys, and every other sort of indoor and outdoor retainer would consent to leave them alone together, the Royal wife came to her Royal husband, and asked to be allowed to speak a few words on the subject of their marriage, 'for the first and last time,' said she, with a straight glance from the cold moonlight mystery ...
— Temporal Power • Marie Corelli

... Alien Office, and therefore has not the same means and opportunity of conferring with his Counsel; for I have never placed myself in that situation, and do not mean hastily to go there, for it is not a very agreeable service, and I would take no man's retainer, if I thought that I must do so; there has not therefore been that communication which we should have had, if our client had been a free man. But I shall prove by some witnesses of my own, that which ...
— The Trial of Charles Random de Berenger, Sir Thomas Cochrane, • William Brodie Gurney

... period brings us to another epoch in the history of Gaelic poetry. The Bard was now the chieftain's retainer, at home a crofter and pensioner,[11] abroad a follower of the camp. We find him cheering the rowers of the galley, with his birlinn chant, and stirring on the fight with his prosnuchadh catha, or battle-song. At the noted battle ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various

... son, who is a young naval officer, fallen in the far East, has been cruelly put to death. He comes back, unannounced, to his broken-hearted mother, his despairing bride, his sister, and an old man- servant. This old, bent, faithful retainer, a stock dramatic part, was played by Regnier with the consummate art that is Nature itself staged. He has hidden the returned son behind a curtain for fear that his mother, seeing him unexpectedly, should die of joy. The sister ...
— Recollections Of My Childhood And Youth • George Brandes

... minute that Constable Frost came into town with his prisoner. Before Joe had been in jail an hour he had engaged himself to defend that unsophisticated youngster, and had drawn from him an order on Mrs. Newbolt for twenty-five dollars. He had demanded fifty as his retainer, but Joe knew that his mother had but twenty-five dollars saved out of his wages, and no more. He would not budge a cent beyond ...
— The Bondboy • George W. (George Washington) Ogden

... your regular business. We'll have you watched, and as soon as we are satisfied that you are keeping faith with us, we'll send you ten thousand dollars in cash. If you make the agreement with me, I'll give you a thousand cash to-night before you leave this place, as a sort of retainer and expression of our sincerity. Then, following the fee of ten thousand dollars, you'll find that much business is flowing your way. All you have to do to get all this is to withdraw from the Prale case ...
— The Brand of Silence - A Detective Story • Harrington Strong

... son and daughter, the Count resolved to quit the island; and did so, making his way as best he could to Stamford, in Ireland, where he obtained a menial's place in the service of a knight, retainer to one of the earls of that Country, and so abode there a long while, doing all the irksome and wearisome drudgery of a ...
— The Decameron, Volume I • Giovanni Boccaccio

... her vengeance upon the constable for a monstrous affront, and hearing presently that he had a rich uncle in Shropshire, she killed the old gentleman (in imagination) and made the constable his heir. Instantly a retainer, in the true garb and accent of the country, carried the news to Dogberry, and sent him off to Ludlow on the costliest of fool's errands. He purchased a horse and set forth joyously, as became a man of property; he limped home, broken in purse and spirit, ...
— A Book of Scoundrels • Charles Whibley

... but still you should have consulted me. I see this claim is for three hundred and fifty pounds—it's for trespass. Now sit down quietly and calmly, and tell me the facts." And then he took pen and paper and placed himself in position to take his retainer and instructions. ...
— The Humourous Story of Farmer Bumpkin's Lawsuit • Richard Harris

... deck to seek out his favorite retainer, the dark, swarthy man who had sat that morning in the prow of the long boat. To him he explained his difficulty, ...
— Their Mariposa Legend • Charlotte Herr

... BROOME, AND GRIFFITHES) has been all the way From Bedford Row to Swazieland, and has written a lively narrative of his perilous journey. He went on a professional retainer. You don't catch Bedford Row in Swazieland on other terms. Being there, he kept his eyes open, saw a good deal, and describes his impressions in racy fashion. He did not like the coffee served en route, and was disappointed with the Southern Cross; ...
— Punch, or The London Charivari, Vol. 100., Jan. 17, 1891 • Various

... sickly woman, as ungenial as himself. The young wife, on the other hand, was a bright, stirring creature, who would have been the sunshine of a labourer's home. She pined amidst the dreariness and the formality of her conjugal existence, and seized the first opportunity of escape from it. A retainer of the Duke's, whose chivalry her position had aroused, connived at her escape, and tells ...
— A Handbook to the Works of Browning (6th ed.) • Mrs. Sutherland Orr

... horse back into the main avenue, she was sorry that her father or Salvador could not spare even the few minutes that would have sufficed for an introduction. At any rate, she would probably find an old servant at the back of the house—some family retainer whose welcome would charm away this displeasing sense ...
— The Stowaway Girl • Louis Tracy

... departing guest to the domestics of the family where he had been entertained. Lucy smiled on the old man with her usual sweetness, bade him adieu, and deposited her guerdon with a grace of action and a gentleness of accent which could not have failed to have won the faithful retainer's heart, but for Thomas the Rhymer, and the successful lawsuit against his master. As it was, he might have adopted the language of the Duke ...
— Bride of Lammermoor • Sir Walter Scott

... with him a retainer, who was as much like many of the characters in Gil Blas as his master. He called himself a private secretary, though there was no writing for him to do, and he lived in the steerage with the carpenter and sailmaker. ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana

... want to know at all, Del?" said he, laughing a little nervously, and dropping from his hand an open paper into mine. "It shall be my wedding-present to you. It is Mr. Drake's retainer. Pretty stout one, is it not? This is what made me jump out of the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 7, Issue 42, April, 1861 • Various

... self-repressed as a rule and sullen, found him merely abhorrent. During his mother's lifetime, and because she could not do without him, he had slept at Steens and walked to and from his shop in Helleston; but on the day after the funeral he packed and left home, taking with him old Malachi, a family retainer whom Humphrey had long ago lamed for life by flinging a crowbar at him in a ...
— Two Sides of the Face - Midwinter Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... then Marnham would still be hung. Could they elope? Possibly, but with the same result. Could I take her away and put her under the protection of the Court at Pretoria? Yes, but with the same result. I wondered what my Hottentot retainer, Hans, would have advised, he who was named Light-in-Darkness, and in his own savage way was the cleverest and most cunning man that I have met. Alas! I could not raise him from the grave to tell me, and yet I knew well ...
— Finished • H. Rider Haggard

... danger till every hope was passed. Then at last, in disguise, he managed to escape, and reached this place in safety, hoping here to find something to guide him as to where his wife and children were. But he found nothing—the house was deserted, not a servant or retainer of any kind left except myself, and what, alas! could I do? He was worn out and exhausted, poor man; he hid in the house for a few days, creeping out at dusk in fear and trembling to buy a loaf of bread, trusting to his disguise and to his ...
— The Tapestry Room - A Child's Romance • Mrs. Molesworth

... days I remember to have had a vague but profound admiration for a certain legendary person called the Lord Mayor's fool. I had the highest opinion of the intellectual capacity of that suppositious retainer of the Mansion House, and I really regarded him with feelings approaching to absolute veneration, because my nurse informed me on every gastronomic occasion that the Lord Mayor's fool liked everything that was good. You will agree with me, I have no doubt, that if this discriminating jester ...
— Speeches: Literary and Social • Charles Dickens

... am glad you relieved me of the necessity of making some such suggestion. I think that is all—for the present." She stood up, and, fingering her glove, glanced down at the table for a moment. "May I pay, say, two hundred dollars now, as a retainer?" ...
— A Husband by Proxy • Jack Steele

... Daphne, doesn't he act just exactly as though he had been a retainer in our honored family for generations?" Kit regarded his back with distinct approbation as they drove along Pennsylvania Avenue, and when the old fellow raised his whip in salute to every other old retainer perched on the box of ...
— Kit of Greenacre Farm • Izola Forrester

... the steps of his retainer he pulled back the rusty bolts which protected the door leading from the gallery to the tower, admitting into the sanctuary of learning a man of arms whose stalwart appearance was in keeping with that of his master. This man, scarcely awakened, ...
— The Hated Son • Honore de Balzac

... all Scotland! from mountain and moor, With banner folds streaming in air, Proud lord and retainer, the wealthy and poor, Thronged forth in their plaids to the fair; Steeds, pricked by their riders, loud clattering made, And, cheered by ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 5. May 1848 • Various

... a better man and a better swordsman than you are, and because you have not on all your estates a servant nor a retainer who will not join me against you when I tell them the cause ...
— Dorothy Vernon of Haddon Hall • Charles Major

... of articles to the nobility and gentry, from a service of plate to an army of footmen, clapped into this house a silver-headed butler (who was charged extra on that account, as having the appearance of an ancient family retainer), two very tall young men in livery, and a select staff of kitchen-servants; so that a legend arose, downstairs, that Withers the page, released at once from his numerous household duties, and from the propulsion of the wheeled-chair (inconsistent with the metropolis), had ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens

... inside, too—had not been loaded for a generation. I went back, full of encouragement, and reported to the guide, and asked him to discharge this dismantled fortress. It came out, then. This fellow was a retainer of the Sheik of Tiberias. He was a source of Government revenue. He was to the Empire of Tiberias what the customs are to America. The Sheik imposed guards upon travelers and charged them for it. It is a lucrative source of emolument, and sometimes brings into the national treasury ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... bound himself to conform to their wishes in everything, on pain of their instantly throwing up the whole affair, looking out for another heir at law (!) and issuing execution forthwith against Titmouse for all expenses incurred under his retainer. I said that Gammon gave his confiding client an alleged copy of this agreement;—it was not a real copy, for certain stipulations appeared in each, which were not intended to appear in the other, for reasons which were perfectly satisfactory to—Messrs. ...
— Ten Thousand a-Year. Volume 1. • Samuel Warren

... on West's reply, for Old Hucks was a general favorite. The fact that the old retainer of the Weggs had a blind wife to whom he was tenderly devoted made the proposition of his leaving the farm one of intense interest. Old Hucks and his patient wife had not been so much "hired help" as a part of the Wegg establishment, and it was doubtful if they ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces at Millville • Edith Van Dyne

... that the criminal practice makes too much of a drain upon his mind and body, and while he will defend certain great lumber operators and will appear for the defense in the famous Yarborrough murder case, and is considering accepting an almost unbelievably large retainer in the Skelton divorce case with its ramifications leading into at least three criminal prosecutions, and four suits to change or perfect certain land titles, yet this kind of practice is distasteful to the Judge, and he will probably confine himself after this year to what is ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White

... though not very comprehensible reply; but Jessie was satisfied, for she knew the man well, as he had for a considerable time been, not exactly a servant of the house, but a sort of self-appointed hanger-on, or unpaid retainer. For an Indian, he was of a cheerful disposition ...
— The Buffalo Runners - A Tale of the Red River Plains • R.M. Ballantyne

... Butler thought—but there! I really neither know nor care For what the Dear Old Butler thought! In my opinion, Butlers ought To know their place, and not to play The Old Retainer night and day I'm getting tired and so are you, Let's cut ...
— Cautionary Tales for Children • Hilaire Belloc

... particular friendship or amity in the pair, but rather a mutual antagonism and suspicion. Mrs. Peyton, coldly polite to Clarence's former COMPANION, but condescendingly gracious to his present TENANT and retainer, did not notice it, preoccupied with the annoyance and pain of Susy's frequent references to the old days of their ...
— Susy, A Story of the Plains • Bret Harte

... is the finest of Miss Edgeworth's stories, because it is the only one in which she had set herself a technical problem of exceeding difficulty. She chose to use the faithful old retainer to tell the tale of the family's downfall in consequence of its weakness, its violence, and its vice. Thady has never a word of blame for any son of the house he has served generation after generation. Indeed, he is forever praising his succession of masters; ...
— Inquiries and Opinions • Brander Matthews

... thing so pure as genuine poetry; and as to the instance which has incited you to offer me this tribute of your gratitude, though I have not seen it, I doubt not but that it is a splenetic effusion of the conductor of that Review, who has taken a perpetual retainer from his own incapacity to plead against ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth

... about your faithful old retainer being in trouble," said Mr. Blake. "I'm sorry to hear ...
— Tom Swift among the Fire Fighters - or, Battling with Flames from the Air • Victor Appleton

... faces about it, is not to be denied us. It is the lar and genius of the meeting; the proof positive of the season; the representative of all our warm emotions and bright thoughts; the glorious eye of the room; the inciter to mirth, yet the retainer of order; the amalgamater of the age and sex; the universal relish. Tastes may differ even on a mince-pie; but who gainsays a fire? The absence of other luxuries still leaves you in possession of ...
— Christmas: Its Origin and Associations - Together with Its Historical Events and Festive Celebrations During Nineteen Centuries • William Francis Dawson

... conversed together in French. They took rooms, but did not retire to bed, saying that they expected two friends who were motoring, and who would arrive in the night. They sat over the fire in the lounge, while the staff of the hotel all retired, save the night-boots, an old retainer. The latter stated that during the night, as he passed the door of the lounge, he saw through the crack of the door the younger of the two men examining something which shone and sparkled in the light, and he thought to be diamonds. This struck him as somewhat curious; therefore he kept a ...
— Hushed Up - A Mystery of London • William Le Queux

... the poolroom interests and his first gleaning of gambling-house lore, of his drifting deeper and deeper into this life of unearned increment, of his fight with the Bar Association, which was taken and lost before the Judiciary Committee of Congress, and of his final offer of retainer from Penfield, and private and expert services after the second raid on that gambler's Saratoga house. Frank could understand why he said little of the purpose that took him to Europe. Although she waited anxiously for any word he might let fall on ...
— Phantom Wires - A Novel • Arthur Stringer

... some short time after this retreat, the Lord Castlewood despatched a retainer of his to a little Cottage in the village of Ealing, near to London, where for some time had dwelt an old French refugee, by name Mr. Pastoureau, one of those whom the persecution of the Huguenots ...
— The History of Henry Esmond, Esq. • W. M. Thackeray

... in October to act for the company to defend a suit brought by McLean County. Lincoln had won it. To prevent any demurrer about the fee of one thousand dollars, a fourth of that having been paid for the retainer, he had six members of the bar append their names to testify the charge was usual and just. Nevertheless Superintendent McClellan ...
— The Lincoln Story Book • Henry L. Williams

... Sooty retainer to the vine, Bacchus' black servant, negro fine; Sorcerer, that mak'st us dote upon Thy begrimed complexion, And, for thy pernicious sake, More and greater oaths to break Than reclaimed lovers take 'Gainst women: thou thy siege dost lay Much too in the female way, While thou suck'st ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various

... the completer development of its more salient features. The visitor from another planet who had known the old and should see the new would note but few changes. Alter et Idem—another yet the same—he would say. From magnate to baron, from workman to villein, from publicist to court agent and retainer, will be changes of state and function so slight as to elude all ...
— War of the Classes • Jack London

... in hers, placed her left in both of his, and then continued: "And receive them back as vassal and retainer and to faithfully fight in my lady's cause, according to the feudal laws ...
— The Ghost Breaker - A Novel Based Upon the Play • Charles Goddard

... the Nine Provinces, (Kiushiu). He had but one son, an infant, whom the people in admiration nicknamed Jiraiya (Young Thunder.) During one of the civil wars, this castle was taken, and Ogata was slain; but by the aid of a faithful retainer, who hid Jiraiya in his bosom, the boy escaped and fled northward to Echigo. There he lived until ...
— Japanese Fairy World - Stories from the Wonder-Lore of Japan • William Elliot Griffis

... Riley!" the caller exclaimed, enthusiastically, as the door was opened for him by Mr. Gorham's aged retainer—"it's the same Riley who used to box my ears when I tramped over his flower-beds ...
— The Lever - A Novel • William Dana Orcutt

... interrupted her mistress. Mrs. Griffen was an old and privileged retainer, but there were limits even for ...
— All on the Irish Shore - Irish Sketches • E. Somerville and Martin Ross

... pressed it, peering through the iron latticework at the stately court. The answer was prompt. Down the steps of the hotel came a white-headed majordomo, gorgeously arrayed, and so pictorial that he might have been a family retainer stepping from the pages of an ...
— The Firefly Of France • Marion Polk Angellotti

... library of poetry and criminal trials, that we find him sitting down to his dinner after his holiday with Pitman. A spare old lady, with very bright eyes and a mouth humorously compressed, waited upon the lawyer's needs; in every line of her countenance she betrayed the fact that she was an old retainer; in every word that fell from her lips she flaunted the glorious circumstance of a Scottish origin; and the fear with which this powerful combination fills the boldest was obviously no stranger to the bosom of our friend. The hot ...
— The Wrong Box • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne

... the service of your writ, Mr. Manison." And to James after the man had departed: "Never give the opposition an inkling of what you have in mind—and always treat anybody who is not in your retainer as opposition." ...
— The Fourth R • George Oliver Smith

... stood hesitating, pondering whether it were possible for him to forgo all earthly joys, his old henchman, Riguenbach, chanced to enter, and learning his master's quandary, he laughed loudly and advised the Count to eject Bernard forcibly. The Abbot met the retainer's mirth with a look of great severity, and on Riguenbach showing that he was still bent on insolence, the Churchman cried to him: "Get thee behind me, Satan"; whereupon a flame of lightning darted suddenly across the chamber, and the man who had long aided and abetted the Count's wickedness ...
— Hero Tales and Legends of the Rhine • Lewis Spence

... and were nearly alike in life and habits. Among the free men there was equality in all but wealth and the social standing that cannot be separated therefrom. The thrall was a serf rather than a slave, and could own a house, etc., of his own. In a generation or so the freeman or landless retainer, if he got a homestead of his own, was the peer of the highest in the land. During the tenth century Greenland was colonised from Iceland, and by end of the same century christianity was introduced into Iceland, but made at first little difference in arrangements of society. ...
— The Story of the Volsungs, (Volsunga Saga) - With Excerpts from the Poetic Edda • Anonymous

... said; "to make a friend and retainer out of your prisoner. And so this Highland piper has been ...
— The Master of Appleby • Francis Lynde

... in the half-dismantled dining-room. It was a meal not easily to be forgotten, made the more fantastic by Mrs. Heth's determined attempts to act as if nothing in particular had happened. From her remarks to the ancient family retainer it appeared that she and Miss Carlisle had returned home to attend to a business matter of no great consequence, overlooked in the rush of departure. And she demanded, quite as if that were the very business referred ...
— V. V.'s Eyes • Henry Sydnor Harrison

... sum?" Answered Kichiro[u]—"As deserving no more. They are paltry fellows; little better than common soldiers (ashigaru). But there is more to tell, now the end is reached. The true name of Sakurai Kichiro[u] is Takahashi Daihachiro[u], at one time a retainer of Matsudaira Aki no Kami. Pressed by the money lender Jusuke, I killed him and had the body disposed of by one Densuke, the cook at the soldiers' quarters of the yashiki. This was in Tenwa 3rd year 5th month (June 1683). ...
— The Yotsuya Kwaidan or O'Iwa Inari - Tales of the Tokugawa, Volume 1 (of 2) • James S. De Benneville

... Resume (continue) dauxrigi. Rsum (prcis) resumo. Resurrection revivigo—igxo. Retail, to sell by detale vendi. Retail, by pomalgrande, detale. Retail (trade) detala. Retailer revendisto. Retain gardi, teni. Retainer vasalo. Retaliate revengxi. Retaliation revengxo. Retard prokrasti, malhelpi. Retardation prokrasto, malhelpo. Retentive persista, premorebla. Retina retino. Retinue sekvantaro. Retire reeniri. Retirement kvieteco. Retort ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes

... "the flitting of the sow." In the contest, Kerse's eldest son and hope, Jock, is killed, and the point or moral of the narrative is, the contempt with which the old laird looks on that event, as compared with the grave affair of flitting the sow. A retainer who comes to tell him the result of the battle stammers in his narrative on account of his grief for Jock, and is thus pulled up by ...
— The Book-Hunter - A New Edition, with a Memoir of the Author • John Hill Burton

... said the Lady of Avenel, to whom this man, a retainer of her husband's brother, and who sometimes executed his commissions at Glendearg, was an object of secret apprehension and suspicion. "Gracious heavens!" she added, rising up, "where is my child?" All rushed to the spence, Halbert Glendinning first arming himself with ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott

... convert's life. Although he was now a Catholic, his eloquence had lost none of its magic, and railway directors were not very likely to indulge their bigotry at the expense of their dividends. He lost not, I suppose, a single retainer, and his practice at the bar went on as before. His conversion, however, affords us a convenient point at which to turn aside and review his professional career, contrasting so singularly with what the ordinary observer would have anticipated for him under such a condition. We are so much accustomed ...
— Memoirs of James Robert Hope-Scott, Volume 2 • Robert Ornsby

... should be explained, is the name for a retainer which is handed direct from a prisoner in the dock to a counsel, without the intervention of a solicitor. It is the resource of the poorer class of offenders, who can scrape together that single guinea, but ...
— The Queen Against Owen • Allen Upward

... New York. Perhaps Senator Williams will inform us what it will cost to keep up a well appointed lobby in Washington, and how much the average one-horse lawyers in Congress expect, in money down, in the way of a retainer. Huntington could tell, and so could Jay Gould; but both are silenced for the present, ...
— Prairie Farmer, Vol. 56: No. 4, January 26, 1884 - A Weekly Journal for the Farm, Orchard and Fireside • Various

... their landlord, before the harvest came round, such coarse bread of mixed rye and barley as he might choose to lend them. What Turgot therefore had in his mind was no relation of free contract, though it was that legally, but a relation which partly resembled that of a feudal lord to his retainer, and partly—as Sir Henry Maine has hinted—that of a planter to his negroes. It is less surprising, then, that Turgot should have enforced some of the responsibilities of ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 2 of 3) - Turgot • John Morley

... destined to remain unfulfilled. His boss was talking easily, and in a friendliness which disgusted his retainer. He seemed to be even deferring to this aged scallawag of a chief, as though he were some one of importance. That was one of Charley's greatest grievances against his chief. He was always too easy with "damn-fool neches." Charley felt that these miserable ...
— The Triumph of John Kars - A Story of the Yukon • Ridgwell Cullum

... distressed and vexed with herself. Was it the heat that had enervated her and robbed her of the presence of mind she usually had at her command? She herself could not understand how it was that she had not at once taken advantage of the opportunity to plead to Haschim for her faithful retainer. The merchant might have interested himself ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... was one of the most approachable of men, genial, kindly, friendly. The interview was arranged without difficulty, and Peter, with his heart beating uncomfortably, was shown by the old retainer who kept guard in the outside office through the blue velvet hangings into ...
— Purple Springs • Nellie L. McClung

... was unquestionably deserved. It fitted him like a glove. The fact that the great man had afterward sought to palliate the sting of the term did not actually help matters any. What he had thought in the beginning and so spontaneously declared was what he really believed, and as his dispirited retainer observed to himself, who could ...
— Walter and the Wireless • Sara Ware Bassett

... gentility, and was a plain, conscientious, godly woman, but with the narrow self-concentrated piety of the time, which seemed to ignore all the active part of the duty to our neighbour. She had lived many years as a faithful retainer to the Belamour family, and avoided perplexity by minding no one's business but her own, and that thoroughly. Naturally reserved, and disapproving much that she saw around her, she had never held it to be needful to do more than preserve her own integrity, and the interests of her employers, ...
— Love and Life • Charlotte M. Yonge

... of Evesham, a baron of England," Cuthbert said fearlessly, "and am travelling homeward from the Holy Land. My garb as a crusader should protect me from all interruption; and the heedless conduct of my retainer was amply justified by the insult offered to the arms of England. There is not one of the knights assembled round you who would not in like manner have avenged an insult offered to those of Austria; and I am ready to do battle in the lists with any who choose to say ...
— Winning His Spurs - A Tale of the Crusades • George Alfred Henty

... The retainer who had had his head broken by Carrot lay curled in his blanket by the fire. He was sleeping an exhausted man's sleep. It was hard work waking him. At last he sat up, a squat patriarch with grizzled bushy beard and shrewd watchful eyes. He was huddled in a queer parti-colored ...
— Cinderella in the South - Twenty-Five South African Tales • Arthur Shearly Cripps

... revolution from the Cold Country she had been seized by spies, brought to Earth, to Tarrano in Venia, and imprisoned in the tower from which Georg had so lately rescued her. Wolfgar for years had been her friend and loyal retainer, though he ...
— Tarrano the Conqueror • Raymond King Cummings

... However, after the hired retainer and I had completed our work with the wire netting, desertions became less frequent. People poured in from villages for miles around to look at the up-to-date chicken farm. It was a pleasing and instructive spectacle to see Ukridge, in a pink shirt without a collar, and very dirty flannel trousers, ...
— Love Among the Chickens - A Story of the Haps and Mishaps on an English Chicken Farm • P. G. Wodehouse

... Nitocris should be his wife and Empress if she would, and if not, his slave and plaything, as he had sworn to Phadrig the Egyptian. The fortress-castle of Oscarburg, on the lonely wooded shore of Viborg Bay, had kept many a secret safely before now, and it would keep this one. Every retainer in the Castle, every man, woman, and child on the estates for leagues around, was his, body and soul, as their fathers before them had been the blind, unquestioning serfs of his fathers. There his word was law, and his will was fate. There was no "liberty" ...
— The Mummy and Miss Nitocris - A Phantasy of the Fourth Dimension • George Griffith

... converted every thing into ingredients of success; whom scarce any surprise or mischance could defeat or overthrow. A very short time before he withdrew from practice, he was engaged at Liverpool, whither he had gone upon a special retainer, in a very intricate ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 363, January, 1846 • Various

... house, might be tempted to give him his advice, of which we are not told the import, in the character of his father's spirit, and authenticate the tale by the mention of some token known to him as a former retainer of the family. The Duke was superstitious, and the ready dupe of astrologers and soothsayers. The manner in which he had provoked the fury of the people must have warned every reflecting person of his ...
— Letters On Demonology And Witchcraft • Sir Walter Scott

... would be necessary for them to make some financial arrangement. And the other set his teeth together, and took a tight grip upon himself, and said, "Considering the importance of the case, and all the circumstances, I think I should have a retainer of fifty thousand dollars." ...
— The Metropolis • Upton Sinclair

... in despair, sat down on a stone at a little distance and waited until some retainer of the two queens or some servant-woman might pass who would give him news of his son. But he sat there all day without seeing any one whom he knew, and was forced at last to go down into the town, where he found, not without some difficulty, a lodging in a hostelry ...
— Catherine de' Medici • Honore de Balzac

... ronin was a retainer who had given up the service of his feudal master, and for the time being was his ...
— Japan • David Murray

... you are on," said the old retainer; "but maybe you'll have the luck to come within arm's-length of that blackguard Martin. I always doubted him. Are ...
— Kilgorman - A Story of Ireland in 1798 • Talbot Baines Reed

... I felt the dreadful blow, Or chid the Dean, or pinch'd thy spouse; Since you could see me treated so, (An old retainer ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift

... a larger field in which to develop his intellect. He served on various committees during the next two years, and in 1770 was chosen a Representative to the general Court, notwithstanding he had just before accepted a retainer to defend Captain Preston and his soldiers for their share in what had passed into history as the Boston massacre. His ability as a practitioner at the bar can be judged from the successful result of their case, as managed by him, against great public prejudice. Adams' duties ...
— Hidden Treasures - Why Some Succeed While Others Fail • Harry A. Lewis

... if used with guano as a retainer of the volatile gases, in all cases where it can be conveniently obtained especially in soils where evaporation is so rapid as it is in most parts of ...
— Guano - A Treatise of Practical Information for Farmers • Solon Robinson

... had received private orders through Berry to be in attendance with his young master's mare, Cassandra, and was lurking in a plantation of firs unenclosed on the borders of the road, where Richard, knowing his retainer's zest for conspiracy too well to seek him anywhere but in the part most favoured with shelter and concealment, ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... interesting little scene downstairs, aunt Nesta," she said. "The meeting of the faithful old retainer and the young master. Skinner was almost overcome with surprise and joy when he ...
— Piccadilly Jim • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse

... sinister design as Raynor Royk sprang toward him with upraised weapon, sought safety in a sudden and inglorious dive under the table. Yet quick as he was, the old retainer was quicker. His heavy axe came down with a sweep, and never more would the fickle Stanley have played the dastard had not a carved chair arm stayed, for an instant, the weapon's fall. Ere it had shorn its way through the ...
— Beatrix of Clare • John Reed Scott

... gallop, his bright head above the dark blue military cloak forming a picturesque feature in the woodland, and the flying heels of his spirited horse seeming to add a rattling chorus of applause to his patriotic sentiments. The old retainer ambled along in his wake, but more slowly. His idea of the beautiful was not quite so recklessly defiant. Presently, for he was still jaded from the effects of his long journey on the previous day, he ...
— An Algonquin Maiden - A Romance of the Early Days of Upper Canada • G. Mercer Adam

... revolution against the Spaniards. He had been proscribed, captured, and sentenced to death. He would have been executed, but for the interference of Don Pablo, who had saved his life. Since then Guapo—such was the Indian's name—had remained not only the retainer, but the firm and ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid

... of the Ablest San Francisco Attorneys Not Under Retainer of Prison-Dodging Captains of Industry - Measures Not Allowed to Reach Senate or Assembly, but Killed in Committees - ...
— Story of the Session of the California Legislature of 1909 • Franklin Hichborn

... eyes on his clerk and began to slowly rub his hands together, he continued: "You have been nearly three months in my employ, Mr. Page, and have fulfilled your duties satisfactorily. I think the time has come when I may safely enlarge them a little. As I told you, John Nason pays me a yearly retainer to attend to all his law business. I have reason to feel he is not entirely satisfied to continue that arrangement, and I am forced to find some way to bring a little pressure to bear on him in order that he may see it ...
— Uncle Terry - A Story of the Maine Coast • Charles Clark Munn

... see, there is another thing. There is a question of professional ethics involved. If I take that retainer I am bound in honor to undertake any case Cousin Holliday may give me. And—and, I'm not sure I should care to do that. You know how I feel about a lawyer's duty to his client and his duty to himself. There are ...
— Thankful's Inheritance • Joseph C. Lincoln

... action for the advocate, that all causes are to be taken by him indiscriminately and conducted with a view to one single end, success. It is much to be feared, however, that the prevailing tone of professional ethics leads practically to this result. He has an undoubted right to refuse a retainer, and decline to be concerned in any cause, at his discretion. It is a discretion to be wisely and justly exercised. When he has once embarked in a case, he cannot retire from it without the consent of his client or the approbation of the court.[10] To ...
— An Essay on Professional Ethics - Second Edition • George Sharswood

... light, by all the pleasures I have had this night, by your lost maidenhead, you are cozened meerly. I have cast beyond your wit. That Gentleman is your retainer Welford. ...
— The Scornful Lady • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher

... Bruton Street at a quarter past seven, was informed by the butler who admitted him that his father was dressing and would be down in a few minutes. The butler, an old retainer of the Marlowe family, who, if he had not actually dandled Sam on his knees when an infant, had known him as a small boy, was ...
— The Girl on the Boat • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse

... rewarded with the highest promotion in his master's service, and lived happily to the end of his days, devoted to the little Princess, who never forgot that she owed her life to this faithful retainer. She was no longer troubled by an unkind step-mother, and her days passed happily and quietly ...
— Japanese Fairy Tales • Yei Theodora Ozaki

... "We must examine into this matter." He touched a bell beside him, and when a retainer appeared directed his Chamberlain and his Treasurer to wait ...
— Mother Goose in Prose • L. Frank Baum

... on), as one of my managers reports that he has observed it under jack while it was not apparent on the coffee under other kinds of shade trees. But on hot westerly and southerly slopes, and especially where the soil is a bad retainer of moisture, and where the gradient is rather steep, jack may be used with advantage, as in such situations the heat is great and the light strong. I am therefore taking steps to remove jack by degrees from all but southerly and westerly exposures. I may add here that I have found that plants grown ...
— Gold, Sport, And Coffee Planting In Mysore • Robert H. Elliot

... restitution, or to prove himself innocent. Hence he is clearly guilty of sin, and is bound to ease the depositary of his burden. On the other hand he who, by stealth, takes his own property, if this be unjustly detained by another, he sins indeed; yet not because he burdens the retainer, and so he is not bound to restitution or compensation: but he sins against general justice by disregarding the order of justice and usurping judgment concerning his own property. Hence he must make satisfaction to God and endeavor to allay whatever scandal he may have given his neighbor by acting ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas

... Committee sat under a quite exceptional cross fire. First, there was the king. The Censor is a member of his household retinue; and as a king's retinue has to be jealously guarded to avoid curtailment of the royal state no matter what may be the function of the particular retainer threatened, nothing but an express royal intimation to the contrary, which is a constitutional impossibility, could have relieved the Committee from the fear of displeasing the king by any proposal to abolish the censorship ...
— The Shewing-up of Blanco Posnet • George Bernard Shaw

... and children gathering seaweed and shells. He would have pushed his acquaintance still nearer, but as his boat rounded the point, with one accord they all scuttled away like frightened sandpipers. Pomfrey, on his return, asked his Indian retainer if they could swim. "Oh, yes!" "As far as the rock?" "Yes." Yet Pomfrey was not satisfied. The color of his strange apparition remained unaccounted for, and it was not ...
— Under the Redwoods • Bret Harte

... beginning to talk," said Barkley. "And just to get right down to business, and show you we're not all talk, I want to give you a little retainer fee. I'm sorry it isn't larger, but it'll grow, I hope." He drew a goodly wallet from his breast pocket, and counted out ten one-hundred-dollar bills, which he threw down carelessly on the pine needles in front of Dan Anderson. "Is ...
— Heart's Desire • Emerson Hough

... a little "black fellow," who had been a sort of retainer of mine in the bush, and on the plains a bright active lad, as supple as a snake, and, as he used to say, the son of a chief. He was called Jacky Fishook, and was a very useful fellow out there, for he could follow a trail like a hound, could climb ...
— Miss Grantley's Girls - And the Stories She Told Them • Thomas Archer

... king received. this letter he was greatly distressed, but he remembered how he himself had lived for twenty years as a lindorm, and had been freed from the spell by his young queen. He therefore wrote back to his most trusted retainer that the queen and her two whelps should be taken care ...
— The Pink Fairy Book • Various

... the Desert Rat and his Indian retainer worked through the stringers and pockets of the Baby Mine, while the man from Boston sat looking at them, or, when the spirit moved him, casting about in the adjacent sand for stray "specimens" of which he managed to secure quite a number. The next morning, as soon as it ...
— The Long Chance • Peter B. Kyne

... substituted for a pair of later date. The lost ones had, in fact, only recently been received from the boot-maker; and the blow was difficult to bear with resignation, even by the saintliest follower of Islam — a reputation which our retainer came short of by a ...
— Diary of a Pedestrian in Cashmere and Thibet • by William Henry Knight

... Dick," said Nicholas; "I scarce know myself; and though the clothes I wear are well made enough, they seem to sit awkwardly on me, and trouble me as much as the shirt of Nessus did Hercules of old. For the nonce I am Sir Richard Hoghton's retainer. I must own I was angry with myself when I saw Sir Ralph Assheton with his long train of gentlemen, all in murrey-coloured cloaks and doublets, at Myerscough Lodge, while I, his cousin, was habited like one of another house. And when I would have excused my apparent defection ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth

... put anybody's bet on the cuff. I do a fair-to-middling brisk trade in booking bets placed and discussed by telepathy, but the ones I accept and pay off on—if they're lucky—are those folks who've been sufficiently foresighted to lay it on the line with a retainer against which ...
— The Big Fix • George Oliver Smith

... the officer does not return?" inquired Lung Wang. At that moment attendants came to inform him that his retainer had been murdered by ...
— Myths and Legends of China • E. T. C. Werner

... back, perhaps, yet southern always, and by birth-right American, he might have been a war-lord of another land and day. No feudal baron ever dismounted with more assuredness at his own hall, to toss careless rein to a retainer. He stood now, tall and straight, a trifle rough-looking in his careless planter's dress, but every inch the master. A slight frown puckered up his forehead, giving to his face an added hint ...
— The Law of the Land • Emerson Hough

... beyond the mere question of bread and butter involved. Properly attended to, fuller justice is done to both lawyer and client. An exorbitant fee should never be claimed. As a general rule never take your whole fee in advance, nor any more than a small retainer. When fully paid beforehand, you are more than a common mortal if you can feel the same interest in the case as if something was still in prospect for you, as well as for your client. And when you lack interest ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln

... a tight-drawn waistcoat pocket with a chubby thumb and forefinger, pulled out a strip of paper, and flipped it to Keith as casually as though it were a cigarette paper. "There's a little something as a retainer," ...
— The Gray Dawn • Stewart Edward White

... plans were Gabrielle would have given Smith a retainer to know, for if they involved the arrest of her Jim and his extradition to another State. She wondered how her father could believe they would get away safely in a week. If the detectives had lost ...
— Cupid's Middleman • Edward B. Lent

... Norton's view of the difference between public and private interests and their respective rights that he had come to believe captial to be the sacred heritage of the nation which must be protected at any cost. The acceptance of a retainer from the C. St. and P. Railroad Company for wholly unnecessary services in Washington—only another way of buying a man—a transaction arranged by Senator Stevens, was but another stage in the disintegration of the young Congressman's character, but it brought him just that much ...
— A Gentleman from Mississippi • Thomas A. Wise

... business, you see, and full confidences should never be exchanged in a situation of this kind until a contract is drawn up, signed, sealed, witnessed, and recorded. In other words, I ought to have an understanding and a retainer ...
— Campfire Girls at Twin Lakes - The Quest of a Summer Vacation • Stella M. Francis

... home of Sir Walter Raleigh. In the fine park the infant Yeo is dammed and broadened into a graceful sheet of water. Here also is the eminence known as Jerusalem Hill and the seat where Raleigh is said to have sat smoking to be discovered by a scared retainer, who threw a pot of ale over his master, thinking him on fire. Pope was for a time the guest of one of his patrons—Lord Digby; and the Prince of Orange stayed here on his progress from Devon to London. The Gate-house ...
— Wanderings in Wessex - An Exploration of the Southern Realm from Itchen to Otter • Edric Holmes

... woman. But never fear, Jane; I'll attend to Hartman's case too. I hope to act as attorney for both plaintiff and defendant, and speedily to reconcile their conflicting interests. It is true I am on a prospecting tour: I have no retainer from him yet. But I shall soon pocket that, and master his side of the suit. O, I'll take him up tenderly, and ...
— A Pessimist - In Theory and Practice • Robert Timsol

... the room before Durham could answer, but he heard her calling for her ancient retainer and giving him instructions with the same volubility that she had shown when ...
— The Rider of Waroona • Firth Scott

... now settled into a peculiar calmness. He said with a touch of mock irony: "The sailor shall play his part—the obedient retainer of the ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... an uncomfortable retainer of yours,' said Mr Mackenzie, who had witnessed this extraordinary scene. 'He has frightened Alphonse out of his wits; look!' and he pointed to the Frenchman, who, with a scared white face and trembling limbs, was making his way into the house. 'I don't think that ...
— Allan Quatermain • by H. Rider Haggard



Words linked to "Retainer" :   servant girl, house servant, scullion, quid pro quo, seneschal, servant, manservant, familiar, domestic help, factotum, flunkey, menial



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