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Submissive   Listen
adjective
Submissive  adj.  
1.
Inclined or ready to submit; acknowledging one's inferiority; yielding; obedient; humble. "Not at his feet submissive in distress, Creature so fair his reconcilement seeking."
2.
Showing a readiness to submit; expressing submission; as, a submissive demeanor. "With a submissive step I hasted down."
Synonyms: Obedient; compliant; yielding; obsequious; subservient; humble; modest; passive.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Submissive" Quotes from Famous Books



... with which he had traveled from Lycia to Greece and had brought the beautifully ornamented bridle in his hand. It was an enchanted bridle. If he could only succeed in putting the golden bit into the mouth of Pegasus, the winged horse would be submissive, and would own Bellerophon for his master, and fly whithersoever he might choose to ...
— Journeys Through Bookland V2 • Charles H. Sylvester

... more submissive to my lot, with a prayer in my heart that those whose consciences had been addressed might respond. I tried in vain to sleep that night. The words of the text, 'Give, and it shall be given unto you; good measure, pressed down, and ...
— Stories Worth Rereading • Various

... second protocol (January 27) fixed the proportion of the national debt to be borne by Belgium at sixteen parts out of thirty-one. The sovereign of Belgium was required to give his assent to these protocols, as a condition to being recognised by the Powers. But the Congress of Brussels was in no submissive mood. They had already (January 19) resolved to proceed to the election of a king without consulting anyone. The territorial boundaries assigned to Belgium met with almost unanimous reprobation, a ...
— History of Holland • George Edmundson

... however, consists in his qualities as a draught animal; for this he is carefully trained from his infancy, and undergoes severe and frequent floggings to break him regularly into the team. He becomes then remarkably submissive, comes at his master's call, and allows himself quietly to be harnessed to the sledge. In fastening them care is taken not to let them go abreast: they are tied by separate thongs, of unequal lengths, to a horizontal bar on the forepart of the sledge; an old knowing one leads the way, running ...
— The Moravians in Labrador • Anonymous

... at last, and for many long months there would be no breaking of waves upon the rocks or lapping of tides upon the sandy beach. The Frost King, grim and inexorable, had ascended his throne, and the world, subdued into utter silence, lay prostrate and submissive at his feet. ...
— Bobby of the Labrador • Dillon Wallace

... existed in France than the one which then ascended from the scaffold, we trust, to the bosom of God. Maria Antoinette died with the pride and the firmness of the invincible queen. Elizabeth yielded herself to the spirit of submissive piety, and fell asleep upon the bosom of her Savior. Our thoughts would more willingly follow her to those mansions of rest, where faith instructs us that she winged her flight, than turn again to the prison where the orphan children ...
— Maria Antoinette - Makers of History • John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott

... were pleased with the purity of Yudhishthira, the courage of Arjuna, the submissive attention of Kunti to her superiors, and the humility of the twins, Nakula and Sahadeva; and all the people rejoiced ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli

... pick up, here and there, a few crumbs of religious truth, and make the most of their scanty supply. Many of them truly love the Lord; and his unseen presence and joyful anticipations of heaven make them submissive to their hardships, and cheerful and faithful in their duties. But they can not thank their masters for what religious ...
— Step by Step - or, Tidy's Way to Freedom • The American Tract Society

... to allow them to share in all these blessings? Did they not experience, in the case of several of their own princes who had allowed themselves to be persuaded that war against such benefactors of humanity was rebellion, proofs of the lauded Roman clemency, since Rome adorned these submissive lords with kingly titles, with generalships in their armies, and with Roman fillets, and gave them, if, perchance, they had been driven out by their compatriots, maintenance and a place of refuge in their ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries: - Masterpieces of German Literature Translated into English, Volume 5. • Various

... annoyance; and at last it seems to him safer for his own position, especially in regard to Romola, that she should be secretly housed as she is, and taught to regard herself as his wife. Soon there comes to be more of ease for him with the bond-submissive child-mistress, than in the presence of the high-souled, pure-hearted wife. In the first and decisive encounter with Baldassarre, the words of repudiation which seal the whole after-character of his life, ...
— The Ethics of George Eliot's Works • John Crombie Brown

... day by Collins, I suppose he will not be long before he returns; and then, possibly, he is to be mighty stately, mighty mannish, mighty coy, if you please! And then must I be very humble, very submissive, and try to insinuate myself into his good graces: with downcast eye, if not by speech, beg his forgiveness for the distance I have so perversely kept him at?—Yes, I warrant!—But I shall see how this behaviour will sit upon me!—You have always rallied me upon my meekness, I think: well then, ...
— Clarissa, Volume 4 (of 9) - History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson

... child into the Doctor's submissive arms—helped her daughter into the buggy, and when she had climbed in herself, she glared triumphantly over her glasses and above her Roman nose, as she said: "Now, Amos—have some sense. Doctor,—go on." ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White

... personality. A cheery, buxom woman, still handsome, full of life and fun, she had held for the whole of her married life a sway over her lord and master all the greater that neither of them was conscious of the fact. A most devoted and submissive wife, a most indulgent and affectionate mother, Mrs. Wedmore occupied the not unenviable position of being half slave, half idol ...
— The Wharf by the Docks - A Novel • Florence Warden

... And so she does: she's neither too submissive, Nor yet too haughty; but so just a mean Shows, as it ought, a ...
— All for Love • John Dryden

... convince them that not they, but I am the master of my own heritage. I should not be able to take revenge on the submissive, but I will trample on the ...
— The Pharaoh and the Priest - An Historical Novel of Ancient Egypt • Boleslaw Prus

... strains; it is rife with temptations. It offers a little world for autocracy to vaunt itself. The martinets command, often totally blind to the changing nature of the subjects as they pass from the submissive to the rebellious. One day the parents wake up to realize that they are not the only ones possessed ...
— Religious Education in the Family • Henry F. Cope

... told her Majesty he intended to go that morning to pay his duty to the King, but she advised him not. This was Monday morning, and she said Wednesday was time enough; and, indeed, in that I think her Majesty was in the right. the Prince submitted to her counsel, and only writ a most submissive and respectful letter to his Majesty, giving his reasons for what he had done. And this conversation ended, that he hoped his Majesty would do him the honour to be godfather to his daughter, and that he would be pleased to name who the godmothers ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole

... God, and hast prevailed.' So if we have God, who out of such a sow's ear made a silk purse, out of such a stone raised up a servant for Himself, we may be sure that His purpose in all discipline will be effected on us submissive, and we shall end where His ancient servant ended, and shall be in our turn ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren

... respects kind and gentle to them. The Australian savage—who is, however, the lowest in the scale of civilisation—when he wants a wife, watches till he finds a damsel to his taste, and then knocks her down with his club, a sign to her that she is henceforth to be a submissive and dutiful wife. I am sure our friends here would not be guilty of such ...
— On the Banks of the Amazon • W.H.G. Kingston

... friend had melted within him at this revelation of the submissive isolation of the sweet-tempered, cool-blooded old scholar. Carelessly confident, like all the young, that any amount or variety of human affection could be his for the asking, he promised himself to make the dear old recluse a sharer in his own wealth; but the next year he married ...
— Hillsboro People • Dorothy Canfield

... course encouraged him and her uncle. The former liked her manifestation of spirit as long as he believed it to be within control. To his impetuous, imperious nature the idea of a tame, insipid bride was not agreeable; while Mr. Baron, still under the illusion that she was yet but a submissive child, thought that her bad mood was passing and would be gone in the morning. He little dreamed how swiftly her mind was awakening and developing under the spur of events. She did not yet know that her cousin was meditating such ...
— Miss Lou • E. P. Roe

... few for John. He served her as the crusader served his chosen lady. The spirit of the old knights of chivalry that had descended upon him still held him in a spell that he did not wish to break. Often she mocked at him and laughed at him, and then he liked her all the better. No placid, submissive woman, shrinking before the dangers, would have pleased him. In her light laughter and her banter, even at his expense, he read a noble courage and a lofty soul, and in their singular isolation it was given to ...
— The Hosts of the Air • Joseph A. Altsheler

... Stuart of Garlies, ancestor of the earls of Galloway; by Murray of Cockpool, ancestor of the Murrays, lords Annandale; by Grierson of Lagg, Gordon of Lochmaben, and many other of the most ancient and respectable barons in the south-west of Scotland, binding themselves, in the most submissive terms, to become the liegemen and the vassals of the house of Maxwell; a circumstance which must highly excite our idea of the power of that family. Nay, even the rival chieftain, Johnstone of Johnstone, seems at one time to ...
— Minstrelsy of the Scottish border (3rd ed) (1 of 3) • Walter Scott

... countenance applied again, and was relieved as an unfortunate shoemaker, who had been burned out of his house, and all he had; in the afternoon he went again in his trimmed clothes, and desiring admittance to Sir William, with a modest grace and submissive eloquence he repeated his misfortunes as the supercargo of a vessel which had been cast away, and his whole effects lost, at the same time mentioning the kindness he had received from his grace the Duke of Bolton. Sir William, ...
— The Surprising Adventures of Bampfylde Moore Carew • Unknown

... to argue with him, and we dared not disobey his orders. The motto of Jack, like the submissive response of a Mussulman to an Eastern caliph, is "To hear is to obey." We left the wharf and pulled briskly out of the harbor. But no sloop was to be seen. We stopped for a moment to reconnoitre, but Bohun told us to keep pulling; it was all right; we were going directly towards ...
— Jack in the Forecastle • John Sherburne Sleeper

... the tall scholar, who was what Nils had promised to be, her permanent pupil, he was not always as obedient and submissive as he might have been. Even when he sat opposite to her at the dinner-table, in the presence of stranger guests, he would sometimes, contrary to her express command, tell the story of the great April thaw, and the escape of the little schoolmistress ...
— Little Tora, The Swedish Schoolmistress and Other Stories • Mrs. Woods Baker

... the emperor summoned successively several of the generals of his army; but his questions were such as indicated their answers; and many of these chiefs, born in the capacity of soldiers, and accustomed to obey his voice, were as submissive in these conversations as upon the ...
— History of the Expedition to Russia - Undertaken by the Emperor Napoleon in the Year 1812 • Count Philip de Segur

... all over with stories of humility. Dante beheld among them the Annunciation, represented with so much life, that the sweet action of the angel seemed to be uttering the very word, "Hail!" and the submissive spirit of the Virgin to be no less impressed, like very wax, in her demeanour. The next story was that of David dancing and harping before the ark,—an action in which he seemed both less and greater than a king. Michal was looking out upon him from a window, like a ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Volume 1 • Leigh Hunt

... the Philosophical Transactions for 1793, Mr. CORSE says: "If a wild elephant happens to be separated from its young for only two days, though giving suck, she never after recognises or acknowledges it," although the young one evidently knows its dam, and by its plaintive cries and submissive approaches ...
— Sketches of the Natural History of Ceylon • J. Emerson Tennent

... dreaming about those earlier centuries of the Middle Ages, in which the legends were self-conceived. Among countryfolk so gently submissive, as these legends show them, to the Church, you would readily suppose that very great innocence might be found. This is surely the temple of God the Father. And yet the penitentiaries, wherein reference is made to ordinary sins, speak of strange ...
— La Sorciere: The Witch of the Middle Ages • Jules Michelet

... gently relieved her of her burden. Miss Mary was both embarrassed and angry. "If you carried more of that for yourself," she said spitefully to the blue arm, without deigning to raise her lashes to its owner, "you'd do better." In the submissive silence that followed she regretted the speech, and thanked him so sweetly at the door that he stumbled. Which caused the children to laugh again,—a laugh in which Miss Mary joined, until the color came faintly into her pale cheek. The next day ...
— The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Tales • Bret Harte

... darker secret of his treachery to his adoptive father cast any cloud over his habitual cheerfulness. His love for Romola was a higher and deeper passion than anything he felt for the child-like, submissive little Tessa, and when she told him frankly of her brother's warning vision, he set himself to convince her it was the mere nightmare of a diseased imagination, and the perfect love and trust she had for him ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IV. • Editors: Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton

... killed," she said savagely—"I'll have ye killed"; and then suddenly he felt her collapse, submissive, and his ...
— In Happy Valley • John Fox

... shall not keep sweet, with the peace of God in our breast. The only thing that can do us real harm is sin. So the intercession on our behalf ever is, not that we may be kept from things that are hard, from experiences that are costly or painful, but that we may be kept pure, gentle, and submissive, with peace and joy ...
— Personal Friendships of Jesus • J. R. Miller

... known to say in English were 'You lie!' was one of the gentlest of beings. Pepys describes her as having a modest, innocent look, among all the demireps with whom she was forced to associate. Again we turn to Pepys, an anecdote of whose is characteristic of poor Katherine's submissive, uncomplaining nature:— ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 1 • Grace Wharton and Philip Wharton

... wrenched away by the hand of violence? When separations come by the hand of death, the pious soul can bow in resignation, and say, "Not my will, but thine be done, O Lord!" But when the ruthless hand of man strikes the blow, regardless of the misery he causes, it is hard to be submissive. I did not reason thus when I was a young girl. Youth will be youth. I loved and I indulged the hope that the dark clouds around me would turn out a bright lining. I forgot that in the land of my birth the shadows are too dense for light to ...
— Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl - Written by Herself • Harriet Jacobs (AKA Linda Brent)

... delight in plaguing, embarrassing, and alarming those who were set over them. A Frenchman always tried to please, while many Americans seemed to take an equal delight in letting the Nova Scotians know that they longed to be at liberty to fight them again. I confess I do not wonder that the submissive, smiling Frenchmen made more friends at Halifax than the ordinary run of American seamen, who seemed too often to look and speak as if they longed to try again the tug of war with ...
— A Journal of a Young Man of Massachusetts, 2nd ed. • Benjamin Waterhouse

... of his soul by the grandeur of his faults, to show the ruins of his desert. But no sooner had he crossed her threshold, and found himself within the zone of those eyes of scintillating azure, that met no limits forward and left none behind, than he grew calm and submissive, as a lion, springing on his prey in the plains of Africa, receives from the wings of the wind a message of love, and stops his bound. A gulf opened before him, into which his frenzied words fell and disappeared, and from which uprose a voice which changed ...
— Seraphita • Honore de Balzac

... toward an elevated Christian philosophy. "In him," said Mme. de Sevigne, "I defend one who does not cease to celebrate the perfections and the existence of God; who never judges his neighbor, who excuses him always; who is insensible to the pleasures and delights of life, and entirely submissive to the will of Providence; in fine, I sustain the faithful admirer of Sainte Therese, and of my grandmother, Sainte Chantal." This gentle, learned, and disinterested man, whose friendship deepened with years, was an unfailing resource. In her troubles and perplexities she seeks his advice; in ...
— The Women of the French Salons • Amelia Gere Mason

... world he checks his researches, he discreetly lays aside the use of his most formidable faculties, he no longer consents to doubt or to innovate, but carefully abstaining from raising the curtain of the sanctuary, he yields with submissive respect to truths ...
— American Institutions and Their Influence • Alexis de Tocqueville et al

... wild was never undertaken. It was the passionate stand of despair against force so overwhelming as to make mad the helpless, yet not submissive, victims. The Doge, who no doubt in former days had felt it to be a mere affair of the populace, a thing with which a noble ambassador and proveditore had nothing to do, a struggle beneath his notice, found himself at last, with ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various

... matters of speculation no question is altogether new, and hardly any answer is altogether new. But the Church had known how to deal with intellectual insurgents, from Abelard in the twelfth century down to Giordano Bruno and Vanini in the seventeenth. They were isolated; they were for the most part submissive; and if they were not, the arm of the Church was very long and her grasp mortal. And all these meritorious precursors were made weak by one cardinal defect, for which no gifts of intellectual acuteness could compensate. They had the scientific idea, but they lacked the social idea. They ...
— Diderot and the Encyclopaedists (Vol 1 of 2) • John Morley

... come to you with his wish; and though I would not for a moment have you present at the actual operation, if you could yield so far as to come to him for a few minutes, and assure him that we are going to do it for his own good, I think it will make him more submissive." ...
— Wanted—A Match Maker • Paul Leicester Ford

... nothing more odious than the majority; it consists of a few powerful men to lead the way; of accommodating rascals and submissive weaklings; and of a mass of men who trot after them, without in the ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. II • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke

... restricted public education, who has overtaxed and ground down the people until now the mine is laid, and Finland is ready for open revolt. The prisons are filled with the innocent; women are flogged; the poor are starving, and 'The Strangler,' as they call him, reports to the Czar that Finland is submissive and is Russianized!" ...
— The Czar's Spy - The Mystery of a Silent Love • William Le Queux

... the corner of the ceiling, and arched her eyebrows in resigned and submissive fashion. When the rain did come,—as of course it would,—when all the fancy work was drenched and the pretty dresses spoiled, the girls would remember her prophecy, and be compelled to acknowledge its correctness; but till then she would suffer in silence, and refuse ...
— A Houseful of Girls • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey

... babes, torn so rudely from their mother, were sent to a noble sister of the duke, who dwelt in Pavia; but no word was told to Griselda of their fate; and she, poor mother, submissive to her husband's will, because she believed it supreme, like God's, dared not ask after them, lest she should hear that they ...
— The Children's Portion • Various

... re-establishing his authority. He made Williamsburg the capital of the colony, instead of Jamestown, which never rose from its ruins—a fact hardly to be regretted, as the site was decidedly unhealthy. Berkeley had no mercy on the now submissive insurgents. Bacon's chief lieutenant had been the brave Scotch Presbyterian, William Drummond, the first governor of North Carolina. When Drummond was brought before him the governor said: "You are very ...
— The Land We Live In - The Story of Our Country • Henry Mann

... continued, "that she looked like a poor stricken thing condemned, and let herself be led back as submissive as a child, and Master Horace's face was like the dead. He didn't think any one but the major and Dr. Danby saw her go, all was done in a minute. But it was done, and some few had seen, and it got out, and things were said that wasn't true. Not the doctor! No, miss, you needn't ...
— Stories by English Authors: Orient • Various

... frequently spread among us, of their liberty if they would confess, and the like expression used by some, have brought many into a snare. The Lord direct and guide those that are in place, and give us all submissive wills; and let the Lord do with me and mine what seems ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham

... including in this term the mechanical or chemical resistance of body and brain, as something which is produced or evolved or "thrown off" by spirit and as something which, when once it has been evolved, spirit has to penetrate, permeate, and render porous and submissive. ...
— The Complex Vision • John Cowper Powys

... character which made his father tremble for the consequences. It seemed as if the gloomiest and most hideous of mental maladies were taking the form of religious despair. Still the youth was gentle, courteous, affectionate, and submissive to his father's will, and resisted with all his power the dark suggestions which were breathed into his mind, as it seemed, by some emanation of the Evil Principle, exhorting him, like the wicked wife of Job, to curse God ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 14, No. 384, Saturday, August 8, 1829. • Various

... fine-spirited and warm-hearted youth, who fancies he repays his master with gratitude for the care of his boyish years—this young man—in the eight long years I watched over him with a parent's anxiety, never could repay me with one look of genuine feeling. He was proud, when I praised; he was submissive, when I reproved him; but he did never love me—and what he now mistakes for gratitude and kindness for me, is but the pleasant sensation, which all persons feel at revisiting the scene of their ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb

... pepper-castor turret, his sister's room. The thought of their glad welcome smote his heart. How could he shape the words that must inform them of their disappointment? And then he thought of the gentle pensive wife in the Parisian lodging, so grateful for his devotion, so tender and submissive,—the wife he had rescued from death and eternal condemnation, as it seemed to his pious Catholic mind. The thought of this dear ...
— Charlotte's Inheritance • M. E. Braddon

... camel. They have always fires in them, and prefer sleeping in them while on a journey to spending the night on shore. "On land you have lions," say they, "serpents, hyaenas, and your enemies; but in your canoe, behind a bank of reed, nothing can harm you." Their submissive disposition leads to their villages being frequently visited by hungry strangers. We had a pot on the fire in the canoe by the way, and when we drew near the villages devoured the contents. When fully satisfied ourselves, I found we could all ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone

... when a person makes a desperate resolution it is because there is no other course open. A man who, like me has passed his youth and the best years of his life working for his own future and for the future of his sons, a man who has been submissive to all the wishes of his superiors, who has discharged conscientiously all his duties, suffered everything in order to live in peace and in tranquillity; when such a man, whose blood has been chilled by Time, ...
— Friars and Filipinos - An Abridged Translation of Dr. Jose Rizal's Tagalog Novel, - 'Noli Me Tangere.' • Jose Rizal

... men's sports. Nature, howsoe'er disguised, will soon or late assert herself. Thou art a woman, therefore again I say, steep thy soul in humility. I fear that haughtiness in thee which thy father doth abet. Methinks it bodes but ill both to thee and to him. But this give ear to: in all things be submissive to thy ...
— In Doublet and Hose - A Story for Girls • Lucy Foster Madison

... cause of my being taken," cried the fierce Hamster, whose savage complaints had quite silenced the gentler murmurs of the pretty little Lemmings, and had done more perhaps to make them submissive to their lot than anything which I could ...
— The Rambles of a Rat • A. L. O. E.

... months through hay- making and harvest. He had made his escape from a Southern master who was about to sell him farther south. Once before he had made an unsuccessful attempt at freedom, but was captured and placed in irons, until they made deep sores around his ankles. As he appeared very submissive, the sorest ankle was relieved. Being so badly crippled, he was thought safe. But supplying himself with asafetida, which he occasionally rubbed over the soles of his shoes, to elude the scent of bloodhounds, he again followed the north star, and finally ...
— A Woman's Life-Work - Labors and Experiences • Laura S. Haviland

... antiquary may be told where the kings of many nations are buried, and if he loves to soothe his imagination with the thoughts that naturally rise in places where the great and the powerful lie mingled with the dust, let him listen in submissive silence; for if he asks any questions his delight is at an ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 5 • Boswell

... Father, "the Father of our spirits," who, unlike our earthly fathers even at their best (and that was a noble best indeed), not only chastens, but chastens with an unerring result of holiness in the submissive child—yea, a holiness which is one with His own (ver. 10), His ...
— Messages from the Epistle to the Hebrews • Handley C.G. Moule

... great proportional magnitude, and so flexible and obedient to the animal's will as to be moved in all directions with the greatest facility. Although a full-grown male, he is perfectly quiet, good-tempered, and submissive, and receives the caresses of strangers ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 19, - Issue 552, June 16, 1832 • Various

... nor referred to the fact that her illness had been caused by the dreadful tidings of his death. She was patient, gentle, and submissive, doing whatever she was told to do, simply because it was easier than to resist, and, as she slowly but surely gained, Mrs. Mencke told herself that the way was clear to the consummation of her ...
— His Heart's Queen • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon

... reason for this attitude of mind. Conciliation and adaptation has not been the characteristic of the mind of the West in presenting its faith to the East. This did not make so much difference, so long as the Indian was submissive and had not waked up to the spirit of self-assertion. But to-day, when that spirit is so rampant, and when a new nationalism and a half-spurious patriotism glories in everything eastern and is annoyed by all that is western, the matter ...
— India, Its Life and Thought • John P. Jones

... one of them, who seemed to be a person of quality, made me a long speech, of which I could not understand a word, though I could tell from his manner that he sometimes threatened me, and sometimes spoke with pity and kindness. I answered in few words, but in the most submissive manner; and, being almost famished with hunger, I could not help showing my impatience by putting my finger frequently to my mouth, to signify that I wanted food. He understood me very well, and, descending from the stage, commanded that several ladders should be set against my sides, on which ...
— The Blue Fairy Book • Various

... ouertooke the foremost, and marched in good order with our whole army. Nowe the Soldan perceiuing that notwithstanding the great damages which we had sustained, our Imperial hignes prouided to giue him a fresh encounter, humbly submitting himselfe vnto vs, and vsing submissive speaches, made suite to haue peace at our hands, and promised to fulfill the pleasure of our maiestie Imperiall, to doe vs seruice against all commers, to release all our subiects which were captiues ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques and Discoveries - of the English Nation. v. 8 - Asia, Part I. • Richard Hakluyt

... sat utterly crushed and humiliated, not daring even to raise my sight to her face, for I felt that my own unspeakable weakness and folly had brought this tempest upon me! But there is a limit to patience, even in the most submissive mood; and when that was overpassed, then my anger blazed out all the more hotly for the penitential meekness I had preserved during the whole interview. Her words from the first had fallen like whip-cuts, making me writhe with the pain they inflicted; but that last taunt stung me beyond endurance. ...
— The Purple Land • W. H. Hudson

... stimulus from the outside world. She had been just a little inclined to murmur at the dulness of her life at Fellside; yet she had borne herself with a placid sweetness which had been Lady Maulevrier's delight. But now there was a marked change in her manner. She was not the less submissive and dutiful in her bearing to her grandmother, whom she both loved and feared; but there were moments of fretfulness and impatience which she could not conceal. She was captious and sullen in her manner to Mary and the Fraeulein. She would ...
— Phantom Fortune, A Novel • M. E. Braddon

... an' submissive as bairns," remarked Quentin Dick, with a grim smile on his lips and a frown on his brow that were the reverse ...
— Hunted and Harried • R.M. Ballantyne

... extraordinary girl. After the first fuck she was like a well-broken horse; she obeyed me in everything, blushed, was modest, humbled, indifferent, conquered, submissive; but I could get no conversation out of her excepting what I have narrated. She cried every ten minutes, and looked at me. After each fuck she laid with her eyes closed, and mouth open, and turned on her side directly, ...
— My Secret Life, Volumes I. to III. - 1888 Edition • Anonymous

... privilege,—if you could despoil the garden of some nameless dependent neighbor of the carefully reared flowers, and torment his little dog or cat, without his daring to punish you or to appeal to your infatuated parents,—if aged men addressed you in a submissive tone, and with the appellation of 'Sir,' and their aged wives uttered their wonder at your condescension, and pushed their grandchildren away from around the fire for your sake, if you happened, though ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 48, October, 1861 • Various

... for his very dread, Which voice eke quak'd, and also his mannere Goodly* abash'd, and now his hue is red, *becomingly Now pale, unto Cresside, his lady dear, With look downcast, and humble *yielden cheer,* *submissive face* Lo! *altherfirste word that him astert,* *the first word he said* Was twice: "Mercy, ...
— The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems • Geoffrey Chaucer

... undisguisedly, to exhibit his power, which started again at this point. This was indeed manifested in mere teasing tricks, for Undine often rebuked the agitated waves or the contrary winds, and then the violence of the enemy would be immediately submissive; but again the attacks would be renewed, and again Undine's reproofs would become necessary, so that the pleasure of the little party was completely destroyed. The boatmen too were continually whispering to one another in dismay and looking with distrust at the ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries: - Masterpieces of German Literature Translated into English, Volume 5. • Various

... begun. But love resisted once grows passionate, And nothing more than counsel lovers hate. For as a hot proud horse highly disdains To have his head controlled, but breaks the reins, Spits forth the ringled bit, and with his hooves Checks the submissive ground; so he that loves, The more he is restrained, the worse he fares. What is it now, but mad Leander dares? "O Hero, Hero!" thus he cried full oft; And then he got him to a rock aloft, Where having spied ...
— Hero and Leander • Christopher Marlowe

... work and the earnings he had spent on his father: his thoughts ran constantly on what the old man's feelings had been in moments of humiliation, when he had held down his head before the rebukes of his son. When our indignation is borne in submissive silence, we are apt to feel twinges of doubt afterwards as to our own generosity, if not justice; how much more when the object of our anger has gone into everlasting silence, and we have seen his face for the last time in the ...
— Adam Bede • George Eliot

... her, if she persisted. He was her Paris agent, even her Paris errand-boy, at one time negotiating the entrance of the governess, Mademoiselle Borel, into the Saint-Thomas-de-Velleneuve nunnery; at another, purchasing gloves, millinery, and other articles of dress. Yet she never considered him submissive enough, ...
— Balzac • Frederick Lawton

... last note of a love-song. "Down, my gentle one! thou art too fond, down! so!" this as the tigress instantly removed its embracing paws from her neck, and, trembling in every limb, crouched on the ground in abjectly submissive obedience. Another moment, and she advanced leisurely into the pavilion, Aizif slinking stealthily along beside her and seeming to imitate her graceful gliding movements, till she stood within a few paces of Theos and Sah-luma, just near the spot where the lotus-flowers swayed ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli

... over the members of her own children, he and his secretary passed the night in uniting the scattered limbs. He then ventured to avow himself; and having pretended to correct this incorrigible tragedy, the submissive Academy retracted their censures, but the public pronounced its melancholy fate on its first representation. This lamentable tragedy was intended to thwart Corneille's "Cid." Enraged at its success, Richelieu ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli

... of righteousness may Brahmans tread, And high esteem their high deserving wed; May kings in justice' ways be ever led, And earth, submissive, bend ...
— The Little Clay Cart - Mrcchakatika • (Attributed To) King Shudraka

... I answered, in a submissive voice; though I debated with myself for a moment whether it would be best to stick to the ready money and quit the sinking ship, or to hold fast by my friend, and back Charles's luck against the Professor's science. After a short, ...
— An African Millionaire - Episodes in the Life of the Illustrious Colonel Clay • Grant Allen

... news, and had felt certain it would produce a desperate outbreak on his part. Now that it was over she was relieved. The storm had been no worse than she expected, and now that Ned had so speedily come round, and was submissive, she felt a ...
— Through the Fray - A Tale of the Luddite Riots • G. A. Henty

... is," the doctor went on, "I have a favor to ask of you for our patient. It seems that the other morning a new chambermaid waited upon him, whom he found much more gentle and sympathetic in her manner than the others, and more submissive and quiet in her ways—possibly because she is a foreigner, and accustomed to servitude. I suppose you have no objection to HER taking charge of ...
— From Sand Hill to Pine • Bret Harte

... was superseded by Major (afterwards Sir Hector) Monro. This officer's arrival changed the face of affairs. Blowing from guns twenty-four of the most discontented of the sepoys, the Major led the now submissive army westward to Buxar (Baksar), near the confluence of the Karamnassa with the Ganges, where the two Nawabs (for Kasim and the Audh Viceroy had now united their forces) encountered him to be totally routed on ...
— The Fall of the Moghul Empire of Hindustan • H. G. Keene

... armies and generals and accumulated treasures; and all implicitly served him. His ministers and his generals were equally able and supple, and he was at peace with all the world. Parliaments, nobles, and Huguenots were alike submissive and reverential. He had inherited the experience of Sully, of Richelieu, and of Mazarin. His kingdom was protected by great natural boundaries,—the North Sea, the ocean, the Mediterranean, the Pyrenees, the Alps, and the mountains ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VIII • John Lord

... on a roof. In the middle of the town, beside the street, is a tall, thin standpipe, and this standpipe was to demonstrate a "shoot off" of the gas. Scores of small boys climbed on to the roofs of neighbouring sheds to see the fun. First there was a meek, submissive flame burning at the top of the pipe, and looking weak in the fine sunlight. Then, abruptly, the flame shot up a hundred feet, and there was a loud roaring. Not only was the roaring a terrifying thing, but the force of that rush of gas made the ground, the roof and the little ...
— Westward with the Prince of Wales • W. Douglas Newton

... Commander of the Faithful[FN119] and come abroad at this hour?" quoth one of the youths, "I am the son of him to whom all necks[FN120] abase themselves, alike the nose- pierced of them and the breaker; they come to him in their own despite, abject and submissive, and he taketh of their wealth and of their blood." The Master of Police held his hand from him,, saying, "Belike he is of the kinsman of the Prince of True Believers," and said to the second, "Who art thou?" Quoth he, "I am the son of him whose ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton

... defeat the mind. For great is that abjection, and august That irony. Submissive we shall find ...
— A Father of Women - and other poems • Alice Meynell

... costs must needs attend it, attend it long. And first of all the cost of applying our principle within our own borders. For, when a place had been obtained for us among nations, we looked down, and, lo! at our feet the African—in chains. A benighted and submissive race, down-trodden and despised from of old, a race of outcasts, of Pariahs, covered with the shame of servitude, and held by the claim of that terrible talisman, the word property,—here it crouched at our feet, lifting its hands, imploring. Yes, America, here ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., February, 1863, No. LXIV. • Various

... selecting a powerful and wealthy colony as a strong base for their operations. Finally Spurinna himself rather explained his plans than reproached their faults, and, leaving patrols behind, succeeded eventually in leading the rest of the men back to Placentia in a quieter and more submissive frame of mind. There the walls were repaired, outworks built, and the turrets increased in height and number, while Spurinna provided not only for arms and ammunition but also for obedience and discipline. This was all his party lacked, for their ...
— Tacitus: The Histories, Volumes I and II • Caius Cornelius Tacitus

... she need not have enslaved herself, and that it was in this excess her inherited puritanism came out. She might sometimes openly rebel against her mother's domination, as my wife and I had now and again seen her do; but inwardly she was almost passionately submissive. Here I thought that Glendenning, if he had been a different sort of man, might have been useful to her; he might have encouraged her in a little wholesome selfishness, and enabled her to withhold sacrifice where ...
— A Pair of Patient Lovers • William Dean Howells

... remonstrating with his master about the groundlessness of his fears, he would be made to feel the heaviness of his hand, and chastisements were the reward of his devotion so frequently that his usually submissive spirit began to rebel, and Frank resolved to leave the service of so peculiar and so thankless a master upon the first ...
— Bucholz and the Detectives • Allan Pinkerton

... Ensisheim submissive, but Brisac proved more obstinate. The magistrates there did not resort to force. They declared there was no need, for they were fully protected by the article in the treaty of St. Omer, which forbade arbitrary imposition of any tax on the part of the suzerain. ...
— Charles the Bold - Last Duke Of Burgundy, 1433-1477 • Ruth Putnam

... short his Power, to contract the Limits of his Kingdom, and in a Word, to dethrone him in the World: No doubt the Devil receiv'd a Shock, for you find him always afterward, crying out in a horrible Manner, whenever Christ met with him, or else very humble and submissive, as when he begg'd leave to go into the Herd of Swine, a Thing he ...
— The History of the Devil - As Well Ancient as Modern: In Two Parts • Daniel Defoe

... a little shyly to his good wishes and was then led up to Mrs. Crumble, in a stiff black silk, who curtseyed with a submissive amiability to her new mistress. "I'm sure, me lady," ...
— The Wife of Sir Isaac Harman • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells

... she answered, in the meek submissive tone of a strong nature, bent but not daring to break down. She could not shed tears, deeply as she felt; she must save all her strength and bear that gnawing misery which Herbert Bowater's mention of J. C.'s brothers had inflicted upon her—bear it in utter uncertainty through the night's journey, ...
— The Three Brides • Charlotte M. Yonge

... and Aholibamah are very different characters: Anah is soft, gentle, and submissive; her sister is proud, imperious, and aspiring; the one loving in fear, the other in ambition. She fears that her love makes her "heart grow impious," and that she worships the seraph rather than the Creator.—Ed. ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol 1 - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook • The Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D.

... Medina to Damascus, and became in fact the founder of a dynasty known as the Ommayads, the new caliph being a descendant of the famous Arabian chieftain Ommayad. Egypt acknowledged the new authority and remained quiet and submissive. It furnished Abd el-Malik, who became caliph in 685, not only with rich subsidies and abundant provisions, but also ...
— History Of Egypt From 330 B.C. To The Present Time, Volume 11 (of 12) • S. Rappoport

... and has written a prayer upon his slate, and hung it up as a kind of protection, and an assurance of Heavenly companionship. He dreams now, sometimes, of his children or his wife, but is sure that they are dead, or have deserted him. He is easily moved to tears; is gentle, submissive, and broken-spirited. Occasionally, the old agony comes back: a very little thing will revive it; even a familiar sound, or the scent of summer flowers in the air; but it does not last long, now: for the world without, has come to be the vision, ...
— American Notes for General Circulation • Charles Dickens

... Submissive before his tone she replied that she was hungry; that she would be ready, too. She had donned blouse and skirt and stocking and shoes and finished braiding her hair when he re-entered. He showed her a tin basin outside filled with icy ...
— Then I'll Come Back to You • Larry Evans

... Only I want to know how the lower orders—the dregs, the scum, the dirt under our feet, the slaves that do all the work and get starved for it—how these trampled wretches regard the question. If they are happy, submissive, contented, delighted to lick the boots of their betters, my conscience will be clear to accept their homage, and their money for any stick of mine they look at. But you have amazed me by a most outrageous act. Because the lower orders have owned a path here for some centuries, ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore

... eyes upon us with hypnotic intensity she said she had felt moved, unaccountably moved, to tell the Auxiliary that we must support a foreign female missionary this coming year. The silence that met this announcement was sad and submissive. We were already paying all the dues we could afford, this meant fifty dollars extra, and not a single one of us wanted to send ...
— A Circuit Rider's Wife • Corra Harris

... pin-prick.... Now they looked at one directly, calmly, steadily; their black centres had lost their lustre. 'I am broken in, I am tame, I am good,' her soft and dull gaze seemed to say. Her continued, submissive smile told the same story. And her dress, too, was subdued; brown, with little spots on it. She came up to me, asked me whether I knew her. She obviously felt no embarrassment, and not because she had lost a sense of shame or memory of the past, but simply because ...
— A Desperate Character and Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev

... thought on and settled long afore. Verily, I dare say it so had. First, they elected the Duke of Aquitaine to the regency—which of course was the self thing as electing his mother, since he, being a mere lad, was but her mouthpiece, and was buxom [submissive] unto her in all things: and all present sware to fulfil his pleasure, as though he had been soothly king, under his privy seal, for there was no seal meet for the regency. And incontinent [immediately] thereafter, ...
— In Convent Walls - The Story of the Despensers • Emily Sarah Holt

... the only example even approximating to the heroic type. Coriolanus—Caesar—Antony, stand in flawed strength, and fall by their vanities;—Hamlet is indolent, and drowsily speculative; Romeo an impatient boy; the Merchant of Venice languidly submissive to adverse fortune; Kent, in King Lear, is entirely noble at heart, but too rough and unpolished to be of true use at the critical time, and he sinks into the office of a servant only. Orlando, ...
— Harvard Classics Volume 28 - Essays English and American • Various

... and then she can be honorably married. But unless her freedom is purchased for her by some lover, the cases are rare, indeed, that a girl is allowed to earn her own freedom, though they are kept submissive by constant promises that the goal is just ahead of them. A few days after the Oakland papers had triumphantly asserted that it had been demonstrated that there was not a single slave girl in Chinatown—a statement that everyone who had any intelligence on the subject, including the newspapers ...
— Heathen Slaves and Christian Rulers • Elizabeth Wheeler Andrew and Katharine Caroline Bushnell

... meat. That is part of my Philosophy of Violence," he retorted. "I maintain that one of the reasons man is losing his power and strength is that he has so long been upon a vegetable diet. He is as cowed and submissive as the grass-eating beast ...
— Rastignac the Devil • Philip Jose Farmer

... this astounding avowal, I repeated, in a stern tone and without one touch of sympathy, my demand for an explanation. She knelt lovingly at my feet,—not in a posture submissive or humiliating, but as if thus she could get nearer my heart,—and ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 7, Issue 41, March, 1861 • Various

... inducements to behave well, and so few temptations to lead them astray, may be supposed to have afforded a favourable opportunity for studying the convict character. It may be asked by some, how such a party could have been made to yield submissive obedience for so long a period as a year, away from all other authority, than mere moral controul. This was chiefly because these men were placed in a position where it was so very clearly for their own interest to conduct themselves properly. Accordingly, the greater number, as ...
— Journal of an Expedition into the Interior of Tropical Australia • Thomas Mitchell

... Diomed in silence heard, Submissive to the monarch's stern rebuke; Then answer'd thus the son of Capaneus: "Atrides, speak not falsely: well thou know'st The truth, that we our fathers far surpass. The seven-gated city, Thebes, we took, With smaller force beneath the wall of Mars, ...
— The Iliad • Homer

... the two or three miles in the most submissive silence, never uttering a syllable of regret or repentance; and before Justice Cholmley, of Holm-Fell Hall, he was sworn into his Majesty's service, under the name of Stephen Freeman. With a new name, he began a new life. Alas! the old ...
— Sylvia's Lovers — Complete • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

... the plantations, handed over the superintendence of others to those mentioned in the will who considered themselves left-handed members of the family—of which Desnoyers as the Patron received their submissive allegiance—and ...
— The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse • Vicente Blasco Ibanez

... home in Missouri onpleasant. A disposition to smash furniture, and heave knives around; an inclination to howl when drunk, and that frequent; a habitooal use of vulgar language, and a tendency to cuss the casooal visitor,—seemed to pint," added Mr. McClosky with submissive hesitation "that—she—was—so to speak—quite onsuited to the marriage ...
— Tales of the Argonauts • Bret Harte

... general, and I picked it up and returned it to her," was the gentlemanly and submissive reply of the ...
— The Heart's Secret - The Fortunes of a Soldier, A Story of Love and the Low Latitudes • Maturin Murray

... it takes the form of habitual trust or acquiescence, the submissive acceptance of trials which are ultimately, we believe, not really evils, because ordained by God and overruled for good.[30] This spirit of obedience can be maintained by constant vigilance alone.[31] ...
— Christianity and Ethics - A Handbook of Christian Ethics • Archibald B. C. Alexander

... hand was one surrounded with difficulties. Her husband, when the matter was being discussed, at once made her understand that he would not relieve her by an offer to perform the task. He had been made to break the bad news to Lady Clavering, and, having been submissive in that matter, felt himself able to stand aloof altogether as to this more difficult embassy. "I suppose it would hardly do to ask Harry to see him again," Mrs. Clavering had said. "You would do it much better, my dear." the rector had replied. Then ...
— The Claverings • Anthony Trollope

... excellent seaman, and combines boldness with discretion.[12] He has served in large squadrons, and he has commanded them. As a Second, he may not have been submissive; as a Chief, he has been successful in command. His appointment will give confidence both to officers and men; and his name is not unknown both to enemies and allies. If he has the faults of his family, ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Volume III (of 3), 1854-1861 • Queen of Great Britain Victoria

... 'tis good to sit down with a description, periphrasis, or adumbration; for, by acquainting our reason how unable it is to display the visible and obvious effects of nature, it becomes more humble and submissive unto the subtleties of faith: and thus I teach my haggard and unreclaimed reason to stoop unto the lure of faith. I believe there was already a tree, whose fruit our unhappy parents tasted, though, in the same chapter when ...
— Religio Medici, Hydriotaphia, and the Letter to a Friend • Sir Thomas Browne

... protracted one. The animal kingdom did not yield readily to man's lordship, and the war must have been long and bitter, settled as the relations now seem. Rest has succeeded victory. The lower animals are now submissive to man, or retire before him in dread of his strength and resources, and the strain upon his powers has ceased. So far as this phase of evolution is concerned the influences aiding the mental development of man have lost their strength. The warfare is over, and man reigns supreme ...
— Man And His Ancestor - A Study In Evolution • Charles Morris

... the king's prerogative in its full extent, and without restriction or limitation, rendered, to such as espoused it, all that branch of law which is called constitutional extremely easy and simple. He was as submissive and mean to those above him as he was haughty and insolent to those who were in any degree in his power; and if in his own conduct he did not exhibit a very nice regard for morality, or even for decency, he never failed to animadvert ...
— A History of the Early Part of the Reign of James the Second • Charles James Fox

... and taking me by the collar, led me out of my dungeon. He had a club in his hand, and assured me if I made any resistance, he would hit me on the head with it. Deeming it prudent to be submissive, I permitted him to conduct me to my chamber. The blinds were closed, and I saw that the room had been prepared for my reception. It afterwards came to my knowledge that my uncle positively refused to permit me to be confined in the cellar; and they had nailed up the windows and the blinds ...
— Seek and Find - or The Adventures of a Smart Boy • Oliver Optic

... endangered. So long as you permitted us to control the government, and with the aid of a few friends at the North to enact laws constituting your section a guard against the escape of our property, we were willing to live with you. You have been submissive to our rule heretofore; but it looks now as if you did not intend to continue so, and we will remain in the Union no longer." Instead of this the seceding States cried lustily,—"Let us alone; you have no constitutional power to interfere with us." Newspapers ...
— Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant, Complete • Ulysses S. Grant

... continued, merrily, "if you promise to be submissive, and not become a monopolist; for when you, Isabel, and myself are together, I feel as if I had lost myself; I don't know to whom I belong; you want me, Isabel wants me, until I don't ...
— A Heart-Song of To-day • Annie Gregg Savigny

... worthy of remark, in justice to Johnson's political character, which has been misrepresented as abjectly submissive to power, that his 'Observations on the present State of Affairs' glow with as animated a spirit of constitutional liberty as can be found any ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill

... The submissive Lucien had little to say for himself, nor could any motive for joining in the murder beyond a readiness to oblige his brother be suggested. In his Souvenirs M. Berard des Glajeux states that to-day it would seem to be clearly ...
— A Book of Remarkable Criminals • H. B. Irving

... so easy for you. You have but to let me live in your dear company. I doubt I would rather be miserable with you than happy with any other woman. Ill-use me if you will; play Zantippe, and I will be more submissive than Socrates. But you are all mildness—perfect Christian, perfect woman. You cannot miss ...
— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon

... better, but he wasn't allowed to get up; and he was secretly not sorry not to have to try. The weakness which followed the first shock had made him submissive to the situation; he began to be used to the fact that he was ill; even the nurse's presence he philosophically accepted, so resigned was he to the necessity. He asked questions concerning his ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1915 - And the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various



Words linked to "Submissive" :   bowed, obedient, abject, cringing, bowing, meek, domineering, unassertive, servile, wormlike, grovelling, dominated, slavish, subservient, henpecked, submissiveness, spiritless, subordinate, wormy



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