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Squabble   Listen
verb
Squabble  v. i.  (past & past part. squabbled; pres. part. squabbling)  
1.
To contend for superiority in an unseemly manner; to scuffle; to struggle; to wrangle; to quarrel.
2.
To debate peevishly; to dispute. "The sense of these propositions is very plain, though logicians might squabble a whole day whether they should rank them under negative or affirmative."
Synonyms: To dispute; contend; scuffle; wrangle; quarrel; struggle.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Squabble" Quotes from Famous Books



... warrant you he can tell what makes every sound you hear. One comes from some kind of bird squawking; another I happen to know is a night heron looking for a supper along the water's edge; then I suppose coons squabble when they meet, trailing over half sunken logs; a bobcat calls to its mate; the owls tune up; chuckwillswidows, the same birds that we call whippoorwills up North, you know, keep a whooping all the time; and there are all sorts of other noises that might stand for anything. ...
— Chums in Dixie - or The Strange Cruise of a Motorboat • St. George Rathborne

... political slander. An officer of the army, resident at Baltimore, told the editor of a paper friendly to General Pierce, that while in Mexico General Pierce was at a gambling-table with another officer; and, a squabble ensuing, this officer struck General Pierce in the face, and that the General took it without a word. He told the editor also that the officer who offered this insult was in California, making it difficult to have a word from him upon the subject. The editor, in perplexity, sent the paragraph ...
— Memories of Hawthorne • Rose Hawthorne Lathrop

... had—these three little boys and three little girls! How they laughed and jumped and knocked their heads together in picking up the cherries, yet never quarreled—for there were such heaps, it would have been ridiculous to squabble over them; and besides, whenever they began to quarrel, Brownie always ran away. Now he was the merriest of the lot; ran up and down the tree like a cat, helped to pick up the cherries, and was first-rate at ...
— The Adventures of A Brownie - As Told to My Child by Miss Mulock • Miss Mulock

... regards length and strength, and "not in it" with a good solid stick. In the hands of a hasty, hot-tempered individual they may lead to the shedding of blood over some trivial, senseless squabble. The hollowing out of the cane, to make the scabbard, renders them almost useless ...
— Broad-Sword and Single-Stick • R. G. Allanson-Winn

... huge enjoyment over the altercation, managed to motion Alice to his side: "Better git over to yer cayuse," he cautioned. "He's pretty near had time to make it into the alley, an' when he comes, he'll come a-shootin'. Guess I'll jest keep the squabble a-goin', they all seem right interested," he indicated the crowd that had edged close about the two principals. And Alice smiled as she mounted her horse to hear the renewed vigour with which retort met ...
— Prairie Flowers • James B. Hendryx

... and given their lives to the betterment of their fellows. But I have been a good fisherman, and I should have made a poor missionary, or reformer, or leader of any crusade against sin and crime. I am not a fighter, I dislike any sort of contest, or squabble, or competition, or storm. My strength is in my calm, my serenity, my sunshine. In excitement I lose my head, and my heels, too. I cannot carry any citadel by storm. I lack the audacity and spirit of the stormer. I must reduce it slowly or steal it quietly. I lack moral courage, though I have ...
— Our Friend John Burroughs • Clara Barrus

... Opposition Bench, and, with left foot clasped round right ankle, elbow of right arm leaning on box, and clenched left hand swinging to and fro in perilous proximity to a grand old proboscis, he literally drives home his argument. House may listen, if it pleases, like crowd closing in on street squabble; HENRY JAMES is having it out with his old friends and Leader; professing fullest respect, and even reverence for his right hon. friend the Member for Midlothian, but at same time showing how ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 98, March 1, 1890 • Various

... I said, smiling. "Do you remember how Tommy and I used to squabble as to which of us ...
— A Rogue by Compulsion • Victor Bridges

... demanded one. "Shall he stand with impunity upon the throne of Manator whilst we squabble about ...
— The Chessmen of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... however, matters were amicably settled, and the patient little ponies, which had stood perfectly still throughout the squabble, feeling us mount into our places, started off at a full gallop out of the town almost before we had caught the reins. Sheer bravado on the part of the ponies, or one might perhaps better say training, for it is the habit of ...
— Through Finland in Carts • Ethel Brilliana Alec-Tweedie

... perhaps Henslowe's thrust at Jonson in his displeasure rather than a designation of his actual continuance at his trade up to this time. It is fair to Jonson to remark however, that his adversary appears to have been a notorious fire-eater who had shortly before killed one Feeke in a similar squabble. Duelling was a frequent occurrence of the time among gentlemen and the nobility; it was an impudent breach of the peace on the part of a player. This duel is the one which Jonson described years after to Drummond, ...
— Epicoene - Or, The Silent Woman • Ben Jonson

... her uncle. "We're still in the painful early stages of the squabble. I'll tell you what I'll do, Andrew: I'll compromise with you. Instead of making the bargain you proposed, I'll stand aside and let you go ahead of me into the next world. Then you can come back at your leisure and keep the spook compact. It'll be quite interesting. Every ...
— The Return of Peter Grimm - Novelised From the Play • David Belasco

... had had another squabble after Mr. Sponge's departure in the morning, Mr. Jog reproving Mrs. Jog for the interest she seemed to take in Mr. Sponge, as shown by her going to the door to see him amble away on the piebald hack. Mrs. Jog justified herself on the score of Gustavus James, with whom she was quite sure Mr. Sponge ...
— Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour • R. S. Surtees

... off well; the libations were plentiful. The antagonists and their four seconds made it a point of honor that a duel, involving so large a fortune, and the reputation of two men noted for their courage, should not appear the result of an ordinary squabble. No two gentlemen could have behaved better than Philippe and Max; in this respect the anxious waiting of the young men and townspeople grouped about the market-place was balked. All the guests, like true ...
— The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac

... the great in that age, when the powers of monarchy, though disputed, still maintained themselves in their pristine vigor. Clarendon[**] tells us a pleasant incident to this purpose: a waterman, belonging to a man of quality, having a squabble with a citizen about his fare, showed his badge, the crest of his master, which happened to be a swan; and thence insisted on better treatment from the citizen. But the other replied carelessly, that he did not trouble his head about that goose. For this offence, he was summoned before the ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part E. - From Charles I. to Cromwell • David Hume

... pains to lock the front door after them. Due to a squabble among themselves on their arrival at the house, the back door had remained unlocked. Dulcie Vale had been roughly ordered by Leslie to see to it. Dulcie was sulking, however, at Leslie's high-handed manner. ...
— Marjorie Dean, College Sophomore • Pauline Lester

... and the government of the Church;[39] and the name "spiritual possessions" has been so exclusively applied to worldly possessions that now no one understands it to mean anything else, and this has gone so far that men regard neither the spiritual nor the external Church any more, and they squabble and quarrel about temporal possessions like the heathen, and say, they do it for the sake of the Church and of spiritual possessions. Such perversion and misuse of words and things has come from the Canon Law and human statutes, to ...
— Works of Martin Luther - With Introductions and Notes (Volume I) • Martin Luther

... slain his father) in Moray, and next he killed two of Sweyn's men who had assisted in the burning of Thorbiorn's relative, Frakok, or Frakark, in Kildonan. Jarl Ragnvald with difficulty reconciles Thorbiorn and Sweyn, and they start for a joint raid. Soon, however, they squabble over the spoils, and Thorbiorn puts his wife Ingirid, Sweyn's sister, away, a deed that ...
— Sutherland and Caithness in Saga-Time - or, The Jarls and The Freskyns • James Gray

... in with those who carried it on. Scenes of swaggering riot and roaring dissipation were, till this time, new to me; but I was no enemy to social life. Here, though I learnt to fill my glass, and to mix without fear in a drunken squabble, yet I went on with a high hand with my geometry, till the sun entered Virgo, a month which is always a carnival in my bosom, when a charming fillette, who lived next door to the school, overset my trigonometry, and set me off at a tangent from the spheres of my studies. I, however, struggled on ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham

... prudent to pursue him. To boys, under ordinary circumstances—boys who have buffeted their way through a scolding nursery, a wrangling family, or a public school—there would have been nothing in this squabble to dwell on the memory or vibrate on the nerves, after the first burst of passion: but to Philip Beaufort it was an era in life; it was the first insult he had ever received; it was his initiation into that changed, rough, and terrible career, ...
— Night and Morning, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... squabble was in progress, the sailors made way for him good-humoredly, and he reached the forecastle only a moment behind Sigurd. Kark's taper was just disappearing among the ...
— The Thrall of Leif the Lucky • Ottilie A. Liljencrantz

... my new master, was a younger brother of small means and large pretensions. He had been quartered at Kil-mac-squabble with a detachment, where he had passed the winter in still-hunting, quelling ructions, shooting grouse and rebels, spitting over the bridge, and smoking cigars; and having obtained leave of absence, pour se d'ecrasser, was on his way to London for ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 17, Number 489, Saturday, May 14, 1831 • Various

... bar-room squabble Ginsling spake when he said he "owed him a debt which he was determined to pay back to ...
— From Wealth to Poverty • Austin Potter

... followed in hot pursuit, and two of the Tokrooris overtook her, and held on to her tail like bull-dogs, although dragged for some distance, at full gallop through thorns and ruts, until the other men arrived and overpowered the thin, but wiry animal. When slaughtered, there was a great squabble between my men and the Abyssinians, who endeavoured to steal ...
— The Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia • Samuel W. Baker

... near to the wind as she would lie, bearing so for the French coast more than the English, and making for the Vergoyers, instead of the Varne, as intended. This carried them into wider water, and a long roll from the southwest crossing the pointed squabble of the strong ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore

... they left the body of the zebra, my African following made a rush for it, and began a fierce fight over the remains, so that I had to restore order and leave a coolie to see that our guide got the large share, as he deserved. In the meantime the lion, hearing the noise of the squabble, halted on the crest of the hill to take a deliberate look at me, and then disappeared over the brow. I jumped on to my mule and galloped as hard as I could after him, and luckily found the pair still in sight when I reached the top of the rise. As soon as they saw ...
— The Man-eaters of Tsavo and Other East African Adventures • J. H. Patterson

... in the half-empty shed, and the boys, merely for the fun of teasing, declared that they should not, so blocked up the door-way as fast as the girls cleared it. Seeing that the squabble was a merry one, and the exercise better for all than lounging in the sun or reading in school during recess, Teacher did not interfere, and the barrier rose and fell almost ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, September 1878, No. 11 • Various

... was prevented by various bustles: first, the driver came to be paid; then there was a squabble between Sam and Rebecca about the manner of carrying up his sister's trunk, which he would manage all his own way; and lastly, in walked Mr. Price himself, his own loud voice preceding him, as with something of the oath kind he kicked away his son's port-manteau and his daughter's bandbox ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen

... a strike," replied Griscom. "The railroad men's union is in a squabble among themselves and a fight is on. That means trouble and ...
— Ralph on the Engine - The Young Fireman of the Limited Mail • Allen Chapman

... learned to consider nothing strange in this citizen squabble. Come, speak as a friend, and I promise on my honour ...
— My Sword's My Fortune - A Story of Old France • Herbert Hayens

... obligation thus attributed to her adversary was no small balm to Ida's resentment; it drew a part of the sting from her defeat and compelled Mr. Farange perceptibly to lower his crest. He was unable to produce the money or to raise it in any way; so that after a squabble scarcely less public and scarcely more decent than the original shock of battle his only issue from his predicament was a compromise proposed by his legal advisers and finally ...
— What Maisie Knew • Henry James

... purposes, odds, brouillerie[Fr]; division, split, rupture, disruption, division in the camp, house divided against itself, disunion, breach; schism &c. (dissent) 489; feud, faction. quarrel, dispute, tiff, tracasserie[obs3], squabble, altercation, barney *[obs3], demel, snarl, spat, towrow[obs3], words, high words; wrangling &c. v.; jangle, brabble[obs3], cross questions and crooked answers, snip-snap; family jars. polemics; litigation; strife &c. (contention) ...
— Roget's Thesaurus

... morally dangerous; for it brings with it the temptation to look on the thing found as your own possession, all but your own creation; to pride yourself on it, as if God had not known it for ages since; even to squabble jealously for the right of having it named after you, and of being recorded in the Transactions of I- know-not-what Society as its first discoverer:- as if all the angels in heaven had not been admiring it, long before you were ...
— Glaucus; or The Wonders of the Shore • Charles Kingsley

... not in the least care about your son-in-law's visits; you brought him here—take him away again! If you have any authority in your family, it seems to me that you may very well insist on your wife's patching up this squabble. Tell the worthy old lady from me, that if I am unjustly charged with having caused a young couple to quarrel, with upsetting the unity of a family, and annexing both the father and the son-in-law, I will deserve my reputation by ...
— Cousin Betty • Honore de Balzac

... creatures, immediately follow the discovery. The gabble and laughter and hurrying from the houses to the hedge, the hasty scrambling through the little wicket gates, all occurs with a flutter and noisy squabble that suggest a flock ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens

... peremptory; and as there was no use in getting into a squabble about such a trifle, I handed my partner over to the care of a gentleman of the party, who was fortunately accoutred according to rule, and, stepping to my quarters, I equipped myself in a pair of tight nether integuments, and returned to the ball—room. By this time there ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott

... with this society, alack! a tremendous squabble ensued. It had fallen almost entirely into the hands of the boarders, and they seemed determined to keep all its privileges to themselves. They fixed upon a play, shared the cast among them, and held rehearsals in the evenings. Mavis, Merle, and Muriel, the only day-girls ...
— Monitress Merle • Angela Brazil

... interrupted me and said: "I am not at all interested in any squabble or quarrel between General Pershing and General Wood. The only thing I am interested in is winning this war. I selected General Pershing for this task and I intend to back him up in every ...
— Woodrow Wilson as I Know Him • Joseph P. Tumulty

... shore they came upon the dead and mangled body of a woman upon whose person there were a number of trinkets and jewelry and two diamond rings. In their eagerness to secure the plunder, the Hungarians got into a squabble, during which one of the number severed the finger upon which were the rings, and started on a run with his fearful prize. The revolting nature of the deed so wrought upon the pursuing farmers, who by this time were ...
— The Johnstown Horror • James Herbert Walker

... that know me call me the rain-maker. They may be right. They may be wrong. I'm not going to squabble about it. You can call me what you please. I ...
— Little Mr. Thimblefinger and His Queer Country • Joel Chandler Harris

... succeeded Sussex as Lord Deputy. The rival septs of the north were drawn into a rising against O'Neill, while the English army advanced from the Pale; and in 1567 Shane, defeated by the O'Donnells, took refuge in Antrim, and was hewn to pieces in a drunken squabble ...
— History of the English People - Volume 4 (of 8) • John Richard Green

... fifteenth year. The Oxford professor of Arabic, Joseph White (1746-1814), was son of a poor weaver in the country and a man of reputation for learning, although now remembered only for a rather disreputable literary squabble. Robert Owen and Joseph Lancaster, both sprung from the ranks, were leaders in social movements. I have already spoken of such men as Watt, Telford, and Rennie; and smaller names might be added in literature, science, and art. The individualist ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume I. • Leslie Stephen

... all he could for himself. But Devilshoof having secured the medallion, made off with it. He was no sooner gone than a dark woman wrapped in a cloak came into the street and, when she was right in the midst of the squabble, she dropped her cloak and revealed herself as Queen of the band. All the gipsies were amazed and not very comfortable either!—because, strange to say, this gipsy queen did not approve of the maraudings of her band; and when she caught them at ...
— Operas Every Child Should Know - Descriptions of the Text and Music of Some of the Most Famous Masterpieces • Mary Schell Hoke Bacon

... the first time, the work of Luther came to Hutten's attention. The disturbances at Wittenberg were in the beginning treated by all as a mere squabble of the monks. To Leo the Tenth this discussion had no further interest than this: "Brother Martin," being a scholar, was most probably right. To Hutten, who cared nothing for doctrinal points, it had no significance; ...
— The Story of the Innumerable Company, and Other Sketches • David Starr Jordan

... my part when I suggested that longitudinal belts of the world were cooled one after the other. I shall very much like to see Agassiz's letter, whenever you receive one. I have written a long letter; but a squabble with or about Hooker always does me a world of good, and we have been at it many a long year. I cannot understand whether he attacks me as a wriggler or a hammerer, but I am very sure that a deal of wriggling ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin - Volume I (of II) • Charles Darwin

... was hoeing in a field and got in a squabble about something with a young gal name Polly, same name as his wife. After while he git so mad he reach up with his fingers and wet them on his tongue and point straight up and say, "Now you got a trick on you! Dere's a heavy trick on you now! Iffen you don't change your ...
— Slave Narratives, Oklahoma - A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From - Interviews with Former Slaves • Various

... yet already he could see with steady clearness. And while his eyes were still closed, he had felt, tasted, and smelled. He knew his two brothers and his two sisters very well. He had begun to romp with them in a feeble, awkward way, and even to squabble, his little throat vibrating with a queer rasping noise (the forerunner of the growl), as he worked himself into a passion. And long before his eyes had opened he had learned by touch, taste, and smell to know his mother—a fount of warmth ...
— White Fang • Jack London

... and fine attitude, could not avoid perceiving her violence, and testified their displeasure at it." Possibly the scene excited mirth in an equal degree. Foote forthwith prepared a burlesque, "The Green-room Squabble; or, A Battle Royal between the Queen of Babylon and the Daughter of Darius." The same tragedy, it may be noted, had at an earlier date been productive of discord in the theatre. Mrs. Barry, as Roxana, had indeed stabbed her Statira, Mrs. Boutell, with ...
— A Book of the Play - Studies and Illustrations of Histrionic Story, Life, and Character • Dutton Cook

... supercilious indifference to mere 'theological subtleties.' To him Paul's preaching and the Jews' passionate denials of it seemed only a squabble about 'words and names.' Probably he had gathered his impression from Paul's eager accusers, who would charge him with giving the ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: The Acts • Alexander Maclaren

... female contributor squabble. 'Tis very comic, but really unpleasant. But what care I? Now that I illustrate my own books, I can always offer you a situation in our house - S. L. Osbourne and Co. As an author gets a halfpenny a copy of verses, and an artist a penny a cut, perhaps ...
— The Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson - Volume 1 • Robert Louis Stevenson

... that old lovat's tragedy is over: it has been succeeded by a little farce, containing the humours of the Duke of Newcastle and his man Stone. The first event was a squabble between his grace and the Sheriff about holding up the head on the scaffold—a custom that has been disused, and which the Sheriff would not comply with, as he received no order in writing. Since that, the Duke has burst ten yards ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole

... was at Malta, 1805, there happened a drunken squabble on the road from Valette to St. Antonio, between a party of soldiers and another of sailors. They were brought before me the next morning, and the great effect which their intoxication had produced on their memory, and ...
— Literary Remains (1) • Coleridge

... us here, Percival," he said, turning to Paul, "to talk over the triangular squabble between you and Moncrief and Newall. You don't mind us putting that off for a bit? This is the thing we've got to settle, this cheeky ...
— The Hero of Garside School • J. Harwood Panting

... friends (said the melancholy gentleman), was not this an extremely hard case? To be thus abused, and reviled, and scouted, for merely desiring to be allowed to live in peace, and to have nothing to do with a squabble in which I did not feel in any way interested. But this was not all. I was lampooned, caricatured, and paragraphed in the newspapers, in a thousand different ways. In the first, I was satirized as the fair dealer; in the second, ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume VI • Various

... Sons"[EN50] were mostly in the upper lands; but a few wretched fellows, with swords, old spears, and ridiculous matchlocks, assembled and managed to get up a squabble about the right of leading strangers into "our country" (Bild-n). The doughty Rjih ibn Ayid, who, mounted upon a mean dromedary, affected to be chief guide, seemed to treat their pretensions as a serious matter, when we laughed them ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 2 • Richard Burton

... the actual feeding of the pigs, and for their digestion's sake, it was well that the farmer's wife warned him that there might be such a thing as over-feeding, even of pigs. He would have spent the best part of the afternoon in filling the trough and watching them squabble over it. ...
— Great Uncle Hoot-Toot • Mrs. Molesworth

... his visit, he got into the village green, and sat on the stocks with a hat that gave him the air of a fugitive from the treadmill; because he sat on the stocks—with that hat, and a cross face under it—he had been forced into the most discreditable squabble with a clodhopper, and was now limping home, at war with gods and men;—ergo, (this is a moral that will bear repetition)—ergo, when you walk in a rich man's grounds, be contented to enjoy what is yours, namely, ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 3, February, 1851 • Various

... ludicrous show of despair, the Greek was about to attempt another desperate struggle for the recovery of his goods, when two Zouaves elbowed their small persons upon the crowded stage, and were eagerly referred to by all the parties concerned in the squabble. How they contrived it, I cannot say, so prompt were their movements; but, in a very few minutes, the watches were in their possession, and going much faster than was agreeable either to Turk or Greek, who both combined to arrest ...
— Wonderful Adventures of Mrs. Seacole in Many Lands • Mary Seacole

... warfare" (here von Hoffner laughed sardonically) "they play into our hands. More than a twelvemonth of war has not taught them that the hitherto recognized observances of war are no longer binding. This is not a petty squabble between two nations. It is a struggle for existence; consequently it ...
— The Submarine Hunters - A Story of the Naval Patrol Work in the Great War • Percy F. Westerman

... was to be satisfied with the western provinces of the Balkan peninsula; Russia gained Moldavia, Bulgaria, and Roumelia as far as Constantinople; while Greece fell to the lot of France, whose troops were already on the Italian shores, at a day's sail from the Illyrian coast. A squabble over Malta, which had been blockaded since its capture by Buonaparte, and which surrendered at last to a British fleet, but whose possession the Czar claimed as his own on the ground of an alleged election as Grand Master of the Order of St. John, served as ...
— History of the English People, Volume VIII (of 8) - Modern England, 1760-1815 • John Richard Green

... at stake depending on Graham's remaining unrecognized, with old Fort Reynolds only six miles ahead, and Silver Shield only twenty-six farther, it would be foolish to become involved in a squabble. But Toomey had been nursing his wrath. Big Ben was not too fond of Cullin, and Geordie found that they were quite bent on making trouble at first opportunity. In spite of the early hour an air of excitement pervaded the station. Many men were idling about the ...
— To The Front - A Sequel to Cadet Days • Charles King

... officers, who went by the nickname of "King." Brutus, in his character of quaestor, has to decide the dispute, which in the hands of the principals degenerates, as disputes so conducted generally do, into a personal squabble. Persius leads off with some oriental flattery of the general and his suite. Brutus is "Asia's sun," and they the "propitious stars," all but Rupilius, ...
— Horace • Theodore Martin

... day by his wife, He took to his heels and fled for his life: Tom's three dearest friends came by in the squabble, And saved him at once from the shrew and the rabble; Then ventured to give him some sober advice- But Tom is a person of honor so nice, Too wise to take counsel, too proud to take warning, That ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton

... squabble began. Italian "archaeologists of the highest standing" backed Prof. Pigorini: Mortillet had not seen the Italian things, but he stood to his guns. Things found near Cracow were taken as corroborating the Breonio finds, ...
— The Clyde Mystery - a Study in Forgeries and Folklore • Andrew Lang

... your adding to it. Take my advice. Go and put on some pretty dresses and then go for a ride, as I told you, and get your tea at the 'Queen Titania' tearoom. It's just lately been opened, and it's a most attractive place. But promise not to squabble. Indeed, I wish you'd promise not to discuss this matter of the earring. But I suppose that's ...
— Two Little Women on a Holiday • Carolyn Wells

... ludicrous. Paradise Lost, as a whole, is radically tainted by a vicious principle. It professes to justify the ways of God to man, to account for sin and death, and it tells you that the whole originated in a political event; in a court squabble as to a particular act of patronage and the due or undue promotion of an eldest son. Satan may have been wrong, but on Milton's theory he had an arguable case at least. There was something arbitrary in the promotion; there were little symptoms ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various

... [With fierce shivering self-contempt] At last you get that you can bear nothing real at all: you'd rather starve than cook a meal; you'd rather go shabby and dirty than set your mind to take care of your clothes and wash yourself; you nag and squabble at home because your wife isn't an angel, and she despises you because you're not a hero; and you hate the whole lot round you because they're only poor slovenly useless devils like yourself. [Dropping his voice ...
— John Bull's Other Island • George Bernard Shaw

... will give up rather its faith than its money. The Abbey authorities never thought of giving up either, but they threatened Purcell with terrible penalties unless he gave up the money. Almost with a pistol at his head they asked him to give up his money or his post. How the squabble ended no man knows; the conjecture that he 'refunded' the money—i.e., gave it to those it did not ...
— Purcell • John F. Runciman

... "That is how it must feel, I suppose, to strike a girl. My fist seems unclean," he said, in huge disgust. "I'd give Todd his three sovs. back if I could recall that blow. I wish I'd left the fool alone, and anyhow, it's my opinion I don't shine much in our little squabble. Todd has been playing the man since his Perry cropper, and I've been playing the cad just because he was once useful to me and I did not want to let him go." Cotton devoted the next few hours to a little honest unselfish thinking, and the result was that he came pretty near to ...
— Acton's Feud - A Public School Story • Frederick Swainson

... Philanderer himself, are in the full sense of those blasting and obliterating words "funny without being vulgar," that is, funny without being of any importance to the masses of men. It is a play about a dashing and advanced "Ibsen Club," and the squabble between the young Ibsenites and the old people who are not yet up to Ibsen. It would be hard to find a stronger example of Shaw's only essential error, modernity—which means the seeking for truth in terms of time. Only a few ...
— George Bernard Shaw • Gilbert K. Chesterton

... an acrimonious conversation takes place between Puzzle, the Politician, and Bays, the poet, in which squabble the Pert Beau and the Solemn Beau, and other habitues of the place take part. Puzzle discovers that a comedian and other players are in the room, and insists that they be ejected or forbidden the house. The Widow is justly incensed, and ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers

... not prepared to admit this, what do we prove ourselves to be? Baboons!' I laughed, but again Karl only smiled—this time, with deadly embarrassment. I discovered afterwards through Bulow that in some youthful squabble he had had the word 'Baboon-face' hurled at him. It soon became impossible to hide the fact that Ritter felt himself grossly insulted by 'the doctor,' as he called him, and he left my house foaming with rage, not to set foot in it again for years. After a few days I received a letter in which ...
— My Life, Volume II • Richard Wagner

... Jack were returning one day from fishing, and they had come nearer than Howard had liked to having a squabble. Howard had said something about an undergraduate, a friend of Jack's. Jack had seemed to resent the criticism, and said, "I am not quite sure whether you know so much about him as you think. Do you always analyse people like that? I sometimes feel with you as if I were in a room ...
— Watersprings • Arthur Christopher Benson

... footing, and who forgets even to blush when the former toddy is mentioned, though she still shudders at the remembrance of sour-sop. She is the business-man of the party; and while philosophy and highest considerations occupy the others, with an occasional squabble over virtue and the rights of man, she changes lodgings, hires carts, transports baggage, and, knowing half-a-dozen words of Spanish, makes herself clearly comprehensible to everybody. We have found a Spanish steamer for Can Grande; but she rows thither in a boat and secures his passage and ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 23, September, 1859 • Various

... that dialogue (which was spoken on the stage after 'The Poetaster' had given rise to a general squabble), how it came about that such a hubbub was made of that play, seeing that it was free from insults, only containing 'some salt' but 'neither tooth, nor gall,' whilst his antagonists, after all, had been the cause of whatever remarks he ...
— Shakspere And Montaigne • Jacob Feis

... articles from the Discovery, were trying to escape, when she opened fire upon them. The articles were returned, but an officer on shore not knowing this, seized a canoe belonging to one of the chiefs, who, in a squabble, was afterwards knocked down. Captain Cook, also ignorant of what had taken place, followed the supposed thieves into the interior, although he returned unmolested. The next day the Discovery's cutter was carried off, and Captain Cook, in order to recover it, resolved ...
— Notable Voyagers - From Columbus to Nordenskiold • W.H.G. Kingston and Henry Frith

... Christ demands this true repentance from every one." Luther's attitude provoked spirited discussion throughout the Germanics, and the more discussion, the more interest and excitement. The pope, who had dismissed the subject at first as a mere squabble among the monks, was moved at length to summon Luther to Rome to answer for the Theses, but the elector of Saxony intervened and prevailed upon the pope not to ...
— A Political and Social History of Modern Europe V.1. • Carlton J. H. Hayes

... but praise for the way in which Bismarck created his Versailles masterpiece. That there was a political squabble behind the curtain, in ...
— Blood and Iron - Origin of German Empire As Revealed by Character of Its - Founder, Bismarck • John Hubert Greusel

... defined in the N.E.D. as 'a brawl, wrangle, squabble' and marked obsolete. It seems to differ from its numerous synonyms by the suggestion of what we call a muddle: that is an active wrangling ...
— Society for Pure English Tract 4 - The Pronunciation of English Words Derived from the Latin • John Sargeaunt

... there was a squabble between the young engineer and the Daisy, who was a profound believer in the scientific object of Tom's journey, and greatly resented the far ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge

... replied the jeweller, "I know you to be a good woman, and won't have a squabble with you about this paltry chest. The giver of the warning is a box-maker, to whom I am about to sell this cursed chest that I wish never again to see in my house, and for this one he will sell me two pretty little ones, in which there will not be space enough even ...
— Droll Stories, Complete - Collected From The Abbeys Of Touraine • Honore de Balzac

... great wit, was asked, because of his jokes; and Mrs. Butt, on whom he practises; and Potter, who is asked because everybody else asks him; and Mr. Ranville Ranville of the Foreign Office, who might give some news of the Spanish squabble; and Botherby, who has suddenly sprung up into note because he is intimate with the French Revolution, and visits Ledru-Rollin and Lamartine. And these, with a couple more who are amis de la maison, made up the twenty, whom Mrs. Timmins thought she might safely invite ...
— A Little Dinner at Timmins's • William Makepeace Thackeray

... prisoners, very indifferent to this squabble, made a ring round the combatants, or, rather, round the beating and the beaten, for Boulard, panting and much alarmed, made no resistance, but endeavored to parry, as well as he could, the blows of his adversary. Happily, the overseer ran up, on hearing the cries, and released the bailiff ...
— Mysteries of Paris, V3 • Eugene Sue

... place for it. Only, I do want to have my way this time. You see, we're going home day after to-morrow, and very likely we'll never see the Cliftons again, after we leave here. They don't come here every summer like we do. And I hate to spoil these two last days with a horrid squabble, when we six have been so nice and chummy and pleasant all the time we've been here. You needn't have much to do with Pauline, if you don't want to, but just for two days, can't you just be decently polite to her, and not say ...
— Two Little Women • Carolyn Wells

... said in another whisper. I thanked him for his further suggestion, and turned away, leaving him to a side squabble with the banker, who finally concluded by telling him that he never wished to see him ...
— Confession • W. Gilmore Simms

... I will rather sue to be despis'd, then to deceiue so good a Commander, with so slight, so drunken, and so indiscreet an Officer. Drunke? And speake Parrat? And squabble? Swagger? Sweare? And discourse Fustian with ones owne shadow? Oh thou invisible spirit of Wine, if thou hast no name to be knowne by, let vs ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare

... it flares up at a girl's glance, quite suddenly, and afterward smoulders out into indifference or even into hatred. So, say we, let all sensible people marry for money, for then in any event you get what you marry for,—a material benefit, a tangible good, which does no vanish when the first squabble, or perhaps the first gray hair, arrives. That is sensible; but women, Harry, ...
— Gallantry - Dizain des Fetes Galantes • James Branch Cabell

... again, "Make a fool of old George? What silly piffle! Already done it himself, what, what! Waste her time!" And if she wasn't keen to marry him, had I called him across the ocean to intervene in a vulgar village squabble about social precedence? "Social precedence ...
— Ruggles of Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson

... it might almost be said that it is the only one of them that can now be read by a gentleman without a sense of annoyance and disgust. There is no point of view from which the medical profession appears in a more humiliating and contemptible light than that which the literature of this memorable squabble presents to the student. Charges of ignorance, dishonesty, and extortion were preferred on both sides. And the Dispensarian physicians did not hesitate to taunt their brethren of the opposite camp with playing corruptly into the hands of the apothecaries—prescribing enormous ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury

... "brother of Jim, the feller I introduced you to. Sure, Jasp and I have had lo-ong talks together—but he don't like me any more." He twisted his nose and made a face, as if to intimate that it was merely a childish squabble, and Hardy said no more. ...
— Hidden Water • Dane Coolidge

... remove, or step into some other course." And Coke, no doubt, took care that it should be so. Cecil, too, may possibly have thought that Bacon gave no proof of his fitness for affairs in thus bringing before him a squabble in which ...
— Bacon - English Men Of Letters, Edited By John Morley • Richard William Church

... to the side of the vessel, still keeping his eye on his master, but returned in a moment and seated himself again by him, now supporting his head, now wiping his forehead and talking to him all the while in the most soothing tones. There had been a matrimonial squabble of a very ludicrous kind in the cabin, between the little German tailor and his little wife. He had secured two beds, one for himself and one for her. This had struck the little woman as a very cruel ...
— Biographia Literaria • Samuel Taylor Coleridge

... delightful Brangtons in "Evelina;" they had all the vivacity of the pleasant cousins of the heroine of that story, and the same generosity towards the public in regard to their family affairs. Before they had been in the cabin an hour, we felt as if we knew every one of them. There was a great squabble as to where and how they should sleep; and when this was over, the revelations of the nature of their beds and their peculiar habits of sleep continued to pierce the thin deal partitions of the adjoining state-rooms. When all the possible trivialities ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner

... where the softened light from within shone upon them through a huge window, the boys had gathered. They were chatting, jesting, chaffing one another, and occasionally playing pranks, which once or twice started a squabble. As Rackliff sauntered up Chub Tuttle was complaining that nearly a pint of peanuts had been ...
— Rival Pitchers of Oakdale • Morgan Scott

... more shares with you and your mates," Walker shouted; and the men on the claims nearest caught the words, and withdrew their attention from the wrangle between Palmer Billy and the jumper of his ground, in favour of the squabble between the ...
— Colonial Born - A tale of the Queensland bush • G. Firth Scott

... squabble over the discipline of living with one's mother-in-law, and of the loss to the children of grandmother's petting, but at least physical content and mental satisfaction have increased. Has selfishness also? Who shall say? And anyway it is a part of the progress of the age, and what are ...
— The Cost of Shelter • Ellen H. Richards

... squabble between Hohenlo and Edward Norris had been more unlucky for Leicester than any other incident during the year, for its result was to turn the hatred of both parties against himself. Yet the Earl of all men, was originally least to blame for the transaction. It has been seen ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... made to confirm the rumours by the circumstance of his Majesty's gracious kindness in answering my inquiries at the moment of his greatest danger, by expresses from Carlton House. My carriage also was in town one day in the highest paroxysm of the supposed squabble; but I happened not to be in it, being confined ...
— Memoirs of the Court of George IV. 1820-1830 (Vol 1) - From the Original Family Documents • Duke of Buckingham and Chandos

... about a fortnight since. It died in part of its own weakness, and in part for being choked up with bad actors. The two principal parts were destined to Mrs. Jordan and Mr. Bannister, but Mrs. J. has not come to terms with the managers, they have had some squabble, and Bannister shot some of his fingers off by the going off of a gun. So Miss Duncan had her part, and Mr. de Camp, a vulgar brother of Miss De Camp, took his. He is a fellow with the make of a jockey, and the air of a lamplighter. His part, the principal comic hope of the play, ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas

... understanding now is—though I knew nothing of it at the time—that they did charge for admittance at the Cooper Institute, and that they took in more than twice $200. I have made this explanation to you as a friend; but I wish no explanation made to our enemies. What they want is a squabble and a fuss; and that they can have if we explain; and they cannot have it if we don't. When I returned through New York from New England, I was told by the gentleman who sent me the check that a drunken vagabond in the club, having learned something about ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne

... facilities for preaching to those priests who shared his view. In 1716, an edict was issued, banishing all missionaries unless excepted as above. The Emperor had indeed been annoyed by another ecclesiastical squabble, on a minor scale of importance, which had been raging almost simultaneously round the choice of an appropriate Chinese term for God. The term approved, if not suggested, by K'ang Hsi, and indisputably the right one, as shown ...
— China and the Manchus • Herbert A. Giles

... at me triumphantly. For my own part I must confess I was disappointed. A cat-and-dog squabble between a rustic Lothario and some local virago did not excite me so intensely as it seemed ...
— The Green Eyes of Bast • Sax Rohmer

... concerning the theatres and players, though only a small percentage is criticism. More people would recognize each of thirty popular performers than could identify even one of the great in other branches of art or in science. A recent squabble about a couple of actresses has been the subject of greater fuss than would be caused by the discovery of the lost books of Livy, of a picture by Apelles, of the MS. of an unknown opera by Beethoven, ...
— Our Stage and Its Critics • "E.F.S." of "The Westminster Gazette"

... undertaker, of course, refused to pay. I explained how the matter stood; on which the clergyman acquiesced, civilly enough; but it was very strange to see the worldly, business-like way in which he entered into this squabble, so soon ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... last solemn occasion was marred by a petty squabble among the disciples regarding the order of precedence to be observed in their seats at the table. Judas succeeded in gaining the seat of honor next to the Master. Jesus startled the company by insisting upon washing the feet of the Twelve, an act which placed them on a pedestal above ...
— Mystic Christianity • Yogi Ramacharaka

... allus worked like a charm. I could tell ye of many a squabble that's been settled by the means of a smilin' face an' a good hearty ...
— Glen of the High North • H. A. Cody

... Friggs just as she had been represented, with the addition of being very kindly disposed toward me; but between her and Mr. Bull there existed a sort of chronic squabble that led to frequent passages of wit. Mr. Bull opened the ball, that morning, by observing, with a half wink at me, that 'he see she hadn't been kerried off yet,' which referred to a previously expressed objection on the part of Miss Friggs to sleep without ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol IV, Issue VI, December 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various

... far by a certain vigorous Viking spirit that was certainly in him, will never be known. The Greeks welcomed him and made him a leader, and for a few months he found himself in the midst of a wretched squabble of lies, selfishness, insincerity, cowardice, and intrigue, instead of the heroic struggle for liberty which he had anticipated. He died of fever, in Missolonghi, in 1824. One of his last poems, written there on his thirty-sixth birthday, a few months before he died, expresses ...
— English Literature - Its History and Its Significance for the Life of the English Speaking World • William J. Long

... Steingall," cried Devar. "Have we been drawn into an international squabble? Don't tell me that Devar's canned salmon is really a ...
— One Wonderful Night - A Romance of New York • Louis Tracy

... They are very poorly furnished and nasty, far below similar conveyances in any continental city with which we are acquainted. Greater fault still is to be found with the drivers, a large proportion of whom are so prone to overreach, that it is hardly possible to settle for their fares without a squabble. Our experience leads us to say, that at an average a stranger pays 30 per cent. above the proper sum, besides having his temper in almost every instance ruffled to some extent by the sense of having no adequate protection ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 432 - Volume 17, New Series, April 10, 1852 • Various

... thanked you for your letter of September 18th, with the accounts of the Genoese treaty and of the Pretender's quarrel with the Pope—it is a squabble worthy a Stuart. Were he, here, as absolute as any Stuart ever wished to be, who knows with all his bigotry but he might favour us with a reformation and the downfall of the mass? The ambition of making a Duke of York vice-chancellor ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume I • Horace Walpole

... contradictory statements published with regard to French political or religious facts, even of recent date. A general impression has long prevailed that there was a Massacre of St. Bartholemew in Paris in the year 1572; but even that has recently been denied, or softened down into a mere political squabble. It is not, however, possible to deny the fact that there was a Revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685, though it has been vindicated as a noble act of legislation, worthy even of the reputation and ...
— The Huguenots in France • Samuel Smiles

... too well-bred to squabble here, Or insult back to render; But may you wither soon, my dear, Although ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke

... gone, but the expressman had had some trouble with a drunken man who actually took the package out of his hands and didn't give it back without a squabble. Strange how men can drink till they can't see, and so early ...
— The Mystery of the Hasty Arrow • Anna Katharine Green

... wren scream desperately; turning, I saw the little vagabond fall into the grass with the wrathful bluebird fairly upon him; the latter had returned just in time to catch him, and was evidently bent on punishing him well. But in the squabble in the grass the wren escaped and took refuge in the friendly evergreen. The bluebird paused for a moment with outstretched wings looking for the fugitive, then flew away. A score of times during the month of June did I see the wren taxing every energy to get away from the bluebird. He ...
— Bird Stories from Burroughs - Sketches of Bird Life Taken from the Works of John Burroughs • John Burroughs

... girt with costly shawls and decked with jewelled necklaces, as though they were fresh from a profitable campaign. "Every Sepoy is a Sirdar at least, and every Sowar a Rajah!" was the envious comment of the peaceable citizens who endured their insolence, and before this last palace-squabble, it had been a bright dream of Gerrard's to embody the civil inhabitants into some kind of militia, and with their help and that of the guard to reduce the army sternly to its proper place. Accordingly, he devoted an interview of considerable length to explaining ...
— The Path to Honour • Sydney C. Grier

... their daughter-in-law, he replied that, being a Greek, she was of course a Melchite. Those present asked no better reason; as soon as the question of creed was raised the conversation, as usual in these convivial evenings, became a squabble over dogmatic differences; in the course of it a legal official ventured to opine that if the case had been that of a less personage than a son of the Mukaukas—for whom it was, of course, out of the question—of ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... had done, and threatened to arrest him. On young Carlton, the new A.D.C., taking sides with the commander of the artillery, and applauding the act, old D—— turned upon him like a lion. A violent squabble ensued, which resulted in Arthur Carlton resigning his appointment on the Staff, and expressed his determination to rejoin his regiment ...
— Vellenaux - A Novel • Edmund William Forrest

... a certain Man..., a peasant from the Val d'Aosta, an Alpine valley in Piedmont, where cretinism is indigenous, exhibited perverse tendencies from his earliest infancy. When twelve years old, he killed his companion in a squabble over ...
— Criminal Man - According to the Classification of Cesare Lombroso • Gina Lombroso-Ferrero

... rapidly, as some momentary rush of passionate excitement, now slowly, as some depressing and gloomy notion succeeded; when suddenly my path was arrested by a long file of bullock cars which blocked up the way. Some chance squabble had arisen among the drivers, and to avoid the crowd and collision, I turned into a gateway which opened beside me, and soon found myself in a lawn handsomely planted and adorned with flowering ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 2 (of 2) • Charles Lever

... Seniors, your admiration for them is entirely boundless. In one or two individual instances, it is true, it has been broken down by an unfortunate squabble with thick-set fellows in the Chapel aisle. A person who sits not far before you at prayers, and whose name you seek out very early, bears a strong resemblance to some portrait of Dr. Johnson; you ...
— Dream Life - A Fable Of The Seasons • Donald G. Mitchell

... the Greeks, who have exercised almost as fatal an influence over modern knowledge as they have a beneficial one over modern taste, had no conception of anything more ancient than the Trojan war, except Chaos. Chaos is a poetic legend, and the Trojan war was the squabble of a few ...
— Sketches • Benjamin Disraeli

... attain an insulting pre-eminence—seemed outraged to the limit of endurance as I looked forward to the inevitable detection, soon or late, of the impromptu deception which, in spite of me, was expanding and developing like a snake-lie, or an election squabble. ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy

... stood between them and the lamp; upon which they snatched it from one another to try it; and the younger children fell a-crying, that the elder would not let them have it long enough. But as a little matter amuses children, and makes them squabble and fall out, my wife and I took no notice of their noise, which presently ceased, when the bigger ones supped with us, and my wife had given the ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous

... I had a squabble yesterday," admitted Ethel Brown. "Here is Roger and here is Ethel Brown. Let's see how we are going to get on in ...
— Ethel Morton's Holidays • Mabell S. C. Smith

... my lad. Didn't I trust you, and send you in among my choice grapes, and ripe figs, and things. There, say no more about it. Gardeners don't grow fruit to satisfy their mouths, but their eyes, and their minds, my lad. Eat away. Don't let a squabble with a schoolboy who hasn't learned manners spoil your supper. We've never had any children; but if we had, Grant, I don't think they ...
— Brownsmith's Boy - A Romance in a Garden • George Manville Fenn

... days of that Church numbered. As to the prosperity of the University, is there a corner of Europe where men of science will not laugh when they hear that the prosperity of the University of Saint Andrews is to be promoted by expelling Sir David Brewster on account of a theological squabble? The professors of Edinburgh know better than this Presbytery how the prosperity of a seat of learning is to be promoted. There the Academic Senate is almost unanimous in favour of the bill. And indeed it ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 4 (of 4) - Lord Macaulay's Speeches • Thomas Babington Macaulay



Words linked to "Squabble" :   argue, bickering, contend, row, debate, fence, quarrel, words, niggle, pettifoggery, quibble, tiff, run-in, dustup, brabble, fuss, spat, bicker



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