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Unctuous   Listen
adjective
Unctuous  adj.  
1.
Of the nature or quality of an unguent or ointment; fatty; oily; greasy. "The unctuous cheese."
2.
Having a smooth, greasy feel, as certain minerals.
3.
Bland; suave; also, tender; fervid; as, an unctuous speech; sometimes, insincerely suave or fervid.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Unctuous" Quotes from Famous Books



... passion marked him for the thing he was. Garrison saw confronting him not the unctuous, plausible friend, but a hunted animal, with fear and venom showing in his narrowed eyes. And, curiously enough, he noticed for the first time that the prison pallor was strong on Crimmins' face, and that the hair above his outstanding ...
— Garrison's Finish - A Romance of the Race-Course • W. B. M. Ferguson

... insist, in printed Utopian dreams, on the mutual consent and bond of souls which can never become general; he pairs with a vehemence of which the bonds are constantly riveted by the hammer of necessity. Modern innovators write unctuous theories, long drawn, and nebulous or philanthropical romances; but the thief acts. He is as clear as a fact, as logical as a ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac

... doubtfully, and there, sure enough, on the roof of the sepulchre, was a peculiarly unctuous and sooty mark, three feet or more across. Doubtless it had in the course of years been rubbed off the sides of the little cave, but on the roof it remained, and there ...
— She • H. Rider Haggard

... marge, to the Reverend Don So-and-so Who is Dante, Boccaccio, Petrarca, St. Jerome, and Cicero, "And moreover" (the sonnet goes rhyming), "the skirts of St. Paul has reached, Having preached us those six Lent-lectures more unctuous than ever he preached." Noon strikes,—here sweeps the procession! our Lady borne smiling and smart, With a pink gauze gown all spangles, and seven swords stuck in her heart! Bang-whang-whang goes the drum, tootle-te-tootle the fife; No keeping ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various

... Terence P. proved himself a marine engineer. If there was a word of opprobrium, mundane or nautical, which the port skipper didn't shout at that submarine commander, the port engineer supplied it. In all his life Cappy Ricks had never listened to such rich, racy, unctuous abuse; it lifted itself about the level of the commonplace and became a work of art. ...
— Cappy Ricks Retires • Peter B. Kyne

... it would expand itself over more than two or three acres of the adjacent mountains, discovering every shrub and tree that grew upon them. The atmosphere from the beginning of the evening had been remarkably thick and hazy; and the dew, as felt upon the bridles, was unusually clammy and unctuous. In such weather similar luminous bodies are observed skipping about the masts and yards of ships, and are called by the mariners corpusanse, a corruption of the cuerpo santo, or sacred body, of the Spaniards. The same were the Castor and Pollux of the ancients. Some writers ...
— Palestine or the Holy Land - From the Earliest Period to the Present Time • Michael Russell

... express the juice, which, after being strained through a hair cloth, was merely inspissated by the action of the sun, or a slow fire, and cast into balls or casks. The only precaution necessary was to allow no mixture of any unctuous materials, which destroyed the efficacy of the soap. A vegetable soap, which has been found excellent for washing silk, &c, may be thus obtained. To one part of the skin of the Ackee add one and a half part of the Agave karatu, macerated in one ...
— The Commercial Products of the Vegetable Kingdom • P. L. Simmonds

... husband which had the effect of destroying any remnant of respect she may still have felt for him. She found that he was in the habit of examining her private papers in her absence, and that he had opened her letters and resealed them. His manner to her was unctuous as a rule; but she knew he lied to her without hesitation if it suited his purpose—and that alone would have been enough to destroy her liking for him, for it is not in the nature of such a woman to love a man who has looked ...
— Ideala • Sarah Grand

... ashes, not even a weed taking root there; the roof torn into shapeless rents; the shutters hanging about the windows in rags of rotten wood; before its gate, the stream which had gladdened it now soaking slowly by, black as ebony, and thick with curdling scum; the bank above it trodden into unctuous, sooty slime: far in front of it, between it and the old hills, the furnaces of the city foaming forth perpetual plague of sulphurous darkness; the volumes of their storm clouds coiling low over a waste of grassless ...
— The Two Paths • John Ruskin

... he thinks it necessary or expedient to prejudice indifferent people against me, he is clearly right to do so. Ah! I see, you think I dislike him. I don't, indeed. Morally and physically, he seems a little too unctuous, that's all. Capital clergyman for a cold climate! Fancy how useful he would be in an Arctic expedition. They might save his salary in Arnott's stoves: I'm certain ...
— Sword and Gown - A Novel • George A. Lawrence

... stagnant gravy was chilled and congealed into patches of greasy white. He managed to swallow it with many pauses of invincible disgust—only to find it replaced by a solid slab of pale brown suet pudding, sparsely bedewed with unctuous black treacle. ...
— Vice Versa - or A Lesson to Fathers • F. Anstey

... life she had known nothing but falsehood and scheming wickedness;—and, though she rebelled against the consequences, she had not rebelled against the wickedness. Now to this unfortunate young woman and her two companions, Mr. Emilius discoursed with an unctuous mixture of celestial and terrestrial glorification, which was proof, at any rate, of great ability on his part. He told them how a good wife was a crown, or rather a chaplet of aetherial roses to her ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope

... where places for one hundred chosen guests were arranged on the floor, while the three or four hundred of minor importance were provided for in the galleries above. By noon the whole party were assembled. The halls and passages of the castle were already permeated with rich and unctuous smells, and a delicate nose might have picked out and arranged, by their finer or coarser vapors, the dishes preparing for the upper and lower tables. One of the parasites of Prince Alexis, a dilapidated nobleman, officiated as Grand Marshal,—an office which more than compensated for the ...
— Beauty and The Beast, and Tales From Home • Bayard Taylor

... the other stretched out his hand to a paper on the table. "Here, comrade," he said, with a laugh, "here is a place for you to begin. A bishop whose wife has just been robbed of fifty thousand dollars' worth of diamonds! And a most unctuous and oily of bishops! An eminent and scholarly bishop! A philanthropist and friend of labor bishop—a Civic Federation decoy duck for the chloroforming ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair

... of about forty, with a high-coloured face and an active, vigorous frame. He gesticulated freely and spoke in an unctuous, fawning tone. ...
— Fantomas • Pierre Souvestre

... like a Chinese god's, dewlaps like a hunting hound's, cold, stubby, and very clean hands, and a gown that gave him a grotesque dignity. And he had eyed wee Shane unctuously. And wee Shane did not like fat, unctuous men. He liked them lean and ...
— The Wind Bloweth • Brian Oswald Donn-Byrne

... but with stress of unctuous generosity. This, if his hearers knew what he had suffered at her hands, must tell greatly to his credit; if they were not aware of the circumstances, such a tone would become him as ...
— In the Year of Jubilee • George Gissing

... having regular and gradual protuberances, from the bottom towards the top, ending in five or six clusters of nuts, shaded by large deciduous leaves. The nuts, which are about the size of a hazle nut, have a hard kernel, encompassed by a clammy unctuous substance, covered by a thin skin, and the oil is produced from them by being exposed to the sun, which, by its influence, opens the juices; subsequent to this exposure, the nuts are put into a boiler full of water, and a liquid, in the process of boiling, ...
— Observations Upon The Windward Coast Of Africa • Joseph Corry

... might, always came back to two subjects. They seemed never to tire of them. Three talked of their daughters-in-law, and bitterness rasped their throats. One talked of her son, and her voice was unctuous with pride. ...
— Half Portions • Edna Ferber

... who presented a striking contrast to the meagre personage engaged in conversation with her. The Duke de Riancourt was a small, nervous man of thirty years or thereabouts, with a sanctimonious, unctuous mien, shifting eyes and long, smooth hair, carefully parted near the middle of the forehead, and a rigidity of movement that showed great ...
— A Cardinal Sin • Eugene Sue

... right! There were tyrants of souls as well as tyrants of sword. Prayers were uttered that were fitter for hearing in hell than in Heaven. Good men could deceive themselves into crime cloaking spiritual malice, sect jealousy, race hatred with an unctuous text. Here, in New England, where men had come for freedom, was tyranny masking in the guise of religion. Preachers as jealous of the power slipping from their hands as ever was primate of England! A poor gentleman hounded to his death because ...
— Heralds of Empire - Being the Story of One Ramsay Stanhope, Lieutenant to Pierre Radisson in the Northern Fur Trade • Agnes C. Laut

... there the two sat at the table opposite to each other, gazing into vacancy without uttering a word. But they did not remain long undisturbed in their gloomy meditations, for the door soon opened and the priest came in with a smooth, unctuous: "Praised be Jesus Christ!" ...
— How Women Love - (Soul Analysis) • Max Simon Nordau

... not interfere with his staff officers in their 'paper-work,' but if ever occasion demanded he did not hesitate to draw his pen, not in self-defence, but in defence of the Brigade and his subordinates. He was no party to that unctuous politeness that sprang up during the war when staff met staff upon the telephone. He thought nothing of ringing up Corps, and expected speech with the head of a department, for he was the enemy of all high-placed obstructionists. His ...
— The Story of the 2/4th Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry • G. K. Rose

... decorous response, and bowed in silence; but his wife resented the unctuous beaming of content on the other's wide countenance, and ...
— The Damnation of Theron Ware • Harold Frederic

... hastily to bed. It is the most gruesome of all his writings, and so perfect that one can complain only of the slightly too obvious moral; and, again, that really Mr. Hyde was more of a gentleman than the unctuous Dr. Jekyll, with ...
— Essays in Little • Andrew Lang

... the good motive, and he affects to be a very model of domesticity. The sentiment of piety also was strong upon him, and if he did not, like the illustrious Peace, pray for his jailer, he rivalled the Prison Ordinary in comforting the condemned. Had it only been his fate to die on the gallows, how unctuous ...
— A Book of Scoundrels • Charles Whibley

... Falstaff. Her features were as ill-suited for the expression of grief as a circus clown's. She had not even a channel in her plump cheeks to drain the tears from the corners of her eyes; and the slow drops, large and unctuous, trickled down her round jowl and soaked into her bonnet-strings, leaving her cheeks as fresh and as ruddy in the sunlight as if they had been merely wet with perspiration. Her eyes stared, unpuckered, apparently unconscious that they wept. Her mouth ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol 31, No 2, June 1908 • Various

... usual handshaking, and the two gentlemen's palms were remarkably unctuous before the ...
— A Dream of the North Sea • James Runciman

... mean owners at all," returned Penfield coolly, "I mean just what I said—the owner. Ah," the most unctuous satisfaction in his voice, "for all your non-committal manner I don't believe you know as much ...
— The Silver Butterfly • Mrs. Wilson Woodrow

... along with Bordeaux, the conservative ethical reaction. He upholds Catholicism and the sacredness of the "home." He is a master in plot and has a clear, vigorous and appealing style. A gravely portentous sentiment sometimes spoils his tragic effects; but every lover of Paris will enjoy the unctuous elaboration of the "backgrounds" of his stories, touched often with the most delicate and mellow evocations of ...
— One Hundred Best Books • John Cowper Powys

... was a solemn hush. The evangelist's "amen" was not spoken with his usual unctuous fervor, but very gently and reverently. In spite of his coarse fiber, he could appreciate the nobility behind such a confession as this, and the deeps ...
— Further Chronicles of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... and turning the pages of a weekly publication that dealt in news of local high life. Its chief item, to-day, was the announcement of a dance she was to give shortly—at the club, as usual—and she had just finished for the second time the commentator's glib and unctuous phrasing. ...
— Stories from Everybody's Magazine • 1910 issues of Everybody's Magazine

... holding, Trotty made no pause in his attack upon the savoury meat before him, but cut and ate, and cut and drank, and cut and chewed, and dodged about, from tripe to hot potato, and from hot potato back again to tripe, with an unctuous and unflagging relish. But happening now to look all round the street—in case anybody should be beckoning from any door or window, for a porter—his eyes, in coming back again, encountered Meg: sitting opposite to him, with her arms ...
— The Chimes • Charles Dickens

... Hall grew unctuous, and had many a sly wink with Chaplain McDevitt. Senator Blair was moody, restless and irritable, except in the hours which he spent with Mrs. Latimer. Winifred, in her anxiety, became a stranger to sleep, but she made ...
— A Man of Two Countries • Alice Harriman

... raging thirst and burning fever of the marshes consuming them, with only the warm and impure river water to drink, and little even of this; with but a small supply of medicines, and no food or delicacies suitable for the sick, the bean soup, unctuous with rancid pork fat, forming the principal article of low diet; uncheered by kind words or tender sympathy, it is hardly matter of surprise that hundreds of as gallant men as ever entered the army ...
— Woman's Work in the Civil War - A Record of Heroism, Patriotism, and Patience • Linus Pierpont Brockett

... the Government to help a poor man to make a living for his family than to help a rich man make more profit for his company. This principle was too sound to be fought openly. It is the kind of principle to which politicians delight to pay unctuous homage in words. But we translated the words into deeds; and when they found that this was the case, many rich men, especially sheep owners, were stirred to hostility, and they used the Congressmen they ...
— Theodore Roosevelt - An Autobiography by Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt

... beheld. The cholera has subsided; the Elder's greatest harvest time is gone; few victims are to be found for the Elder's present purposes. Now he is constrained to resort to the refuse of human property (those afflicted with what are called ordinary diseases), to keep alive the Christian motive of his unctuous business. To speak plainly, he must content himself with the purchase of such infirmity as can be picked up here and there ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams

... cut off the noses and ears of the stone saints in the churches. James II., who had had the sense to choose Jeffreys and Kirke, was a prince imbued with true religion; he practised mortification in the ugliness of his mistresses; he listened to le Pere la Colombiere, a preacher almost as unctuous as le Pere Cheminais, but with more fire, who had the glory of being, during the first part of his life, the counsellor of James II., and, during the latter, the inspirer of Mary Alcock. It was, thanks to this strong religious ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo

... office was quiet, but none the less thrilling on that account. Mr. Raider received her cordially, and with a great deal of unctuous fatherly advice. He took her into his office, which was one corner of the press room glassed in by itself, and talked over her duties, which, as far as Lark could gather from his discourse, appeared to consist in doing as ...
— Prudence Says So • Ethel Hueston

... "Really," and Olive felt as if she were a young child and he were offering her a stick of candy; "it was a very smart little tap. Yes, as you say, a Mamie is an anticlimax to one's best endeavours. Now, if all the ladies," Olive had a momentary longing to hurl a plate in his unctuous direction; "only were blessed with names like yours, we poor novelists would never be devoid of ...
— The Brentons • Anna Chapin Ray

... of approval went round the assembly, and a few open "amens" broke forth as the unctuous old ecclesiastic sat down. It sounded to the ears of the young preacher like the breaking of waves on a far-off shore; and then the meaning of all that had happened sifted through his benumbed intellect, and he strove to rise. He would refuse to act. He would ...
— The Uncalled - A Novel • Paul Laurence Dunbar

... for the elegance of literary style, tenderness of spirit and keenness of observation. He excels in ironical sketches. He has often been compared to Eugene Sue, but his touch is lighter than Sue's, and his humor less unctuous. Most of his little sketches, originally written for La Vie Parisienne, were collected in his 'Monsieur et Madame Cardinal' (1873); and 'Les Petites Cardinal', (1880). They are not intended 'virginibus puerisque', and the author's ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet

... reglar price. So, just you skin off six hundred an' thirty bucks, an' eighteen more, an' pass 'em acrost. An' do it pronto or somethin' might happen to Fatty right where he's thickest." The cowpuncher emphasized his remarks by boring the muzzle even deeper into the unctuous periphery of the proprietor. The croupier shot a questioning glance ...
— The Texan - A Story of the Cattle Country • James B. Hendryx

... perfidious manner. He tried to disturb her conscience. One night he went to her bed with a crucifix in his hand, and made her swear, swear on the life of her child, that she would never deceive him. He used all manner of threats and unctuous ...
— The Goose Man • Jacob Wassermann

... overgrown with weeds, and studded with slate stones, bounded by a ruinous brick wall, and having an entrance through a dilapidated gateway. One or two melancholy-looking cows were feeding on the rank herbage that sprang from the unctuous soil, spurning many a hic jacet with their cloven hoofs. But afar, in the most distant part of the field, I espied the figure of a man who was busily occupied in digging a grave. There was something within that impelled me to stroll forth and accost him. I ...
— The Three Brides, Love in a Cottage, and Other Tales • Francis A. Durivage

... air, a huge black cross. It reached its elevation, and was made fast in almost less time than it has taken to relate it, and instantly a pile of faggots which had been raised a short distance in front if it, and steeped in oil or some other unctuous matter, was ...
— The Roman Traitor (Vol. 2 of 2) • Henry William Herbert

... said a rich, deep, unctuous voice, which seemed to roll through the school, and there ...
— Burr Junior • G. Manville Fenn

... With the ingenious aid of HANDLEY PAGE; Haste to discover all that may be known About the situation in Cologne; Or, like Sir WILLIAM BEVERIDGE, to appease The clamourings of esurient Viennese— In none of these things Fortune waits for me, Nor Knighthood cheap, nor unctuous O.B.E. Ah, not for me to note with facile pen Successive stages of the L. of N. With calorimetric and statistic arts Administer the prog of Foreign Parts, Or, eager not to do the thing by halves, To reconcile the Czechs and Jugo-Slavs— I will, resigning honours, kudos, pelf, Administer hot cocoa ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Feb. 12, 1919 • Various

... (Vol. iii., pp. 88. 153.).—I venture to suggest, that in this phrase the allusion is to a rich and unctuous morsel, which, when assisted by a little salt, will be tolerated by the stomach, otherwise will be rejected. In the same way an extravagant statement, when taken with a slight qualification (cum grano salis) will be tolerated ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 74, March 29, 1851 • Various

... they are. They're crazy over it," said Clown with an unctuous smile. Strange that whatever Clown says, it makes me itching mad. "But, if you don't look out, there is danger," ...
— Botchan (Master Darling) • Mr. Kin-nosuke Natsume, trans. by Yasotaro Morri

... selected that will serve for cultivating that distinctive, sociable quality of voice that, in itself, goes far in contributing to the comfort and delight of the after-dinner audience. The real after-dinner speech deals much in pleasantry. The tone of voice is characteristically unctuous. Old Fezziwig is described by Dickens as calling out "in a comfortable, rich, fat, jovial, oily voice." Something like this is perhaps the ideal after-dinner voice, although there is a dry humor ...
— Public Speaking • Irvah Lester Winter

... preferred to dip in a rolling valley between my extended arms, or hang over them like a tablecloth, rather than keep its desired form. But with patience, and the loan of one of Dan's huge palms, it finally fell with an unctuous, dusty "whouf" into ...
— We of the Never-Never • Jeanie "Mrs. Aeneas" Gunn

... continues to steep and ferment during ten days, or less, according to the strength of the leaven-water, and according to the disposition of the weather for fermentation. When the materials have been sufficiently steeped, or fermented, an unctuous matter, which is the oil of the grain, will be seen swimming on the surface, having been thrown up by the fermentation. This must be scummed off; and the fermented grain, being taken out of the tub, is put into a fine hair sieve, placed over a settling-tub, when fair water is ...
— The Cook and Housekeeper's Complete and Universal Dictionary; Including a System of Modern Cookery, in all Its Various Branches, • Mary Eaton

... rheumatic pains, particularly those of the fixed kind, and which were seated deep. In these cases I have given from ten grains to a scruple of the fresh root twice or thrice a day, made into a bolus or emulsion with unctuous and mucilaginous substances, which cover its pungency, and prevent its making any painful impression on the tongue. It generally excited a slight tingling sensation through the whole habit, and, when the patient was kept warm in ...
— The Botanist's Companion, Vol. II • William Salisbury

... hog, the Sus Tajapin of naturalists, is here meant, which is an indigenous animal of the warmer parts of America, and is found in one of the West India islands. It has no tail, and is particularly distinguished by an open glandular orifice on the hinder part of the back, which discharges a fetid unctuous liquid; and which orifice has been vulgarly ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume X • Robert Kerr

... fair definition of intuition, but there was something in the unctuous roll of Mr. Monroe's words that made me positive he was quoting his somewhat erudite speech, and had not himself a perfectly ...
— The Gold Bag • Carolyn Wells

... water, sleety flaw Through the dun midnight air stream'd down amain: Stank all the land whereon that tempest fell. Cerberus, cruel monster, fierce and strange, Through his wide threefold throat barks as a dog Over the multitude immers'd beneath. His eyes glare crimson, black his unctuous beard, His belly large, and claw'd the hands, with which He tears the spirits, flays them, and their limbs Piecemeal disparts. Howling there spread, as curs, Under the rainy deluge, with one side The other screening, oft they roll them round, ...
— The Divine Comedy • Dante

... crust, which can't be done with many American "Camemberts" or, indeed, with the dead, dry French ones sold out of season. Then came the Roquefort, a regal cheese we voted the best buy of the lot, even though it was the most expensive. A plump piece, pleasantly unctuous but not greasy, sharp in scent, stimulatingly bittersweet in taste—unbeatable. There is no American pretender to the Roquefort throne. Ours is invariably chalky and tasteless. That doesn't mean we have no good Blues. We have. But they ...
— The Complete Book of Cheese • Robert Carlton Brown

... Mediterranean. He ought to have shown himself at once in all Barbary; he then might have annihilated this monstrous error, propagated by Romish priests, that the English had no religious books, and were not Christians. It is but justice to add, the Bishop went to Tangiers. Mr. Hay expected a very unctuous episcopal visit, and was shocked to hear the good Bishop talk so much about fortifications and "horrid war." There is consistency in everything; and common sense dictated that the Bishop should have, ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson

... with his marked abdominal prominence, showed that she was gaining part of what she played for. Wise youths who buy their loves, are not unwilling, when opportunity offers, to try and obtain the commodity for nothing. Examinations of her hand, as for some occult purpose, and unctuous pattings of the same, were not infrequent. Adrian waxed now and then Anacreontic in his compliments. Lucy would say: "That's worse ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... from its cage: impatient, it may be, of this convict, this sickly, shrivelled bit of humanity standing there; wondering the nauseated life in his nostrils or soul claimed yet its share of God's breath. Society had taken the man like a root torn out of native unctuous soil, kept it in a damp cellar, hid out the breath and light. If after a while it withered away, whose fault was it? If there were no hand now to plant it again, do you look for it to grow rotten, or not? One would have said Soule was a root that had been planted in ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 75, January, 1864 • Various

... the elements of flame, {and} it takes fire at the concussion, the winds {once} calmed, the caverns will become cool; or, if the bituminous qualities take fire, or yellow sulphur is being dried up with a smouldering smoke, still, when the earth shall no longer give food and unctuous fuel to the flame, its energies being exhausted in length of time, and when nutriment shall be wanting to its devouring nature, it will not {be able to} endure hunger, and left destitute, ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Copious Notes - and Explanations • Publius Ovidius Naso

... process takes place, the fat uniting with the ammonia given off by the decomposition to form adipocere. This consists of a margarate or stearate of ammonium with lime, oxide of iron, potash, certain fatty acids, and a yellowish odorous matter. It has a fatty, unctuous feel, is either pure white or pale yellow, with an odour of decayed cheese. Small portions of the body may show signs of ...
— Aids to Forensic Medicine and Toxicology • W. G. Aitchison Robertson

... o'clock, the tinkling note of the muffin-bell strikes agreeably upon the ear, suggestive of fragrant souchong and bottom-crusts hot, crackling, and unctuous. Now ensues a delicate savour in the atmosphere of the terrace kitchens, and it is just at its height when Smith, Brown, Jones, and Robinson are seen walking briskly up the terrace. They all go in at Smith's, where the muffin-man went in about half an hour before, ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 448 - Volume 18, New Series, July 31, 1852 • Various

... intendant. I judged we must be approaching the entrance to Villa Satronia and that they were people from there. I assumed an exaggerated imitation of Dromanus' most grandiloquent manner and in his orotund unctuous delivery I declaimed: ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White

... Professor A. Lasson, entitled Deutsche Art und deutsche Bildung, the adjective "deutsch" occurs 256 times in 42 pages—sometimes 13 times in one page, often 10 or 11 times—and always, of course, with a sort of unctuous implication that human language contains no higher term of eulogy. This enumeration does not include the constantly recurring "deutsch" in "Deutschland," nor the ...
— Gems (?) of German Thought • Various

... you, don't talk back. It's them that just takes things as they come, and lets bygones be bygones, that get the good checks at the end of the week. Some of them fight more 'n they work, but I guess you won't be that kind," she concluded, with an unctuous smile, displaying two rows of false teeth. Then, with a quick, nervous, jerky gait, she hopped up the flight of rough plank stairs, threw open a door, and ushered me into the bedlam noises of the "loft," where, amid the roar of machinery and the hum of innumerable ...
— The Long Day - The Story of a New York Working Girl As Told by Herself • Dorothy Richardson

... this will greatly assist in modifying and fixing the tints and shades which the dyes impart. The best thing for the purpose, in the writer's opinion, is clear ox-gall, which, besides being useful as a mordant, will destroy all unctuous matter. ...
— French Polishing and Enamelling - A Practical Work of Instruction • Richard Bitmead

... delightful. The ethical 'dissertation,' however, had to be shortened by omitting all reference to German philosophy, and the account of the schoolmen is cursory. It is easy to see why the suave and amiable Mackintosh appeared to Mill to be a 'dandy' philosopher, an unctuous spinner of platitudes to impose upon the frequenters of Holland House, and hopelessly confused in the attempt to make compromises between contradictory theories. It is equally easy to see why to Mackintosh ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume II (of 3) - James Mill • Leslie Stephen

... during copulation and from bruises, blows, and other mechanical injuries, the condition is more common in the ox in connection with the comparative inactivity of the parts. The sheath has a very small external opening, the mucous membrane of which is studded with sebaceous glands secreting a thick, unctuous matter of a strong, heavy odor. Behind this orifice is a distinct pouch, in which this unctuous matter is liable to accumulate when the penis is habitually drawn back. Moreover, the sheath has two ...
— Special Report on Diseases of Cattle • U.S. Department of Agriculture

... bolus, which he pushes into his mouth. He repeats this till all is gone, and then he sleeps like a boa- constrictor until he recovers his activity; or else he feeds on great flat cakes of wheat flour, off which he rends jagged-pieces and lubricates them with some spicy and unctuous gravy. All our ways of life, our meats and drinks, and all our notions of propriety and fitness in connection with the complicated business of appeasing our hunger as becomes our station, all these are a foreign land to him: yet he has made ...
— Behind the Bungalow • EHA

... have been in a fine round hole at the other side. But Bernard did a better thing. The only emigrant in his party was Leonora, and I like to think they lived happily ever after on his little orange-farm. I can only hope that his rival, Pike-Sarpe, a horrible little unctuous cad of a solicitor, will shortly do something to attract the official attention ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, February 11, 1914 • Various

... your awkward mistake. It was caused by the coming on of the fit, you remember. A man who is about to have an attack of epilepsy can't of course tell one pocket from another. But such a man is all the more bound to be unctuous." ...
— Overland • John William De Forest

... myself—that is all. Nor is there anything with which I can compare myself; there is no moral which it would be of any use for you to read to me. At the present moment nothing could well be more incongruous than a moral. Oh, you self-satisfied persons who, in your unctuous pride, are forever ready to mouth your maxims—if only you knew how fully I myself comprehend the sordidness of my present state, you would not trouble to wag your tongues at me! What could you say to me that I do not already ...
— The Gambler • Fyodor Dostoyevsky

... the arms of his chair, and matched his hands together by the thumbs and by the forefingers, and by the other fingers, one by one; and little by little the musical, false voice of his lady, and the singularly gentle and unctuous tones of his host, Arnold de Curboil, blended together and lost themselves, just as the gates of dreamland softly ...
— Via Crucis • F. Marion Crawford

... The topmost shoots for cuttings, nor from the top Of the supporting tree your suckers tear; So deep their love of earth; nor wound the plants With blunted blade; nor truncheons intersperse Of the wild olive: for oft from careless swains A spark hath fallen, that, 'neath the unctuous rind Hid thief-like first, now grips the tough tree-bole, And mounting to the leaves on high, sends forth A roar to heaven, then coursing through the boughs And airy summits reigns victoriously, Wraps all the grove in robes of fire, and gross With pitch-black vapour ...
— The Georgics • Virgil

... I made for the military headquarters and saw the commandant. It was evident that they had been hauled over the coals for the way they had behaved when Jack was there, for I never saw such politeness in any headquarters. I was preceded by bowing and unctuous soldiers and non-commissioned officers, all the way from the door to the Presence, and was received by the old man standing. He was most solicitous for my comfort and offered me everything but the freedom of the city. He said that he ...
— A Journal From Our Legation in Belgium • Hugh Gibson

... one, a wealthy and usurious merchant, with a twinkling and humid eye, and a sleek and unctuous aspect, which did not, however, suffice to disguise something fierce and crafty in his low brow and pinched lips—"trusty and well-beloved Ximen," said this Jew—"truly thou hast served us well, in yielding to thy persecuted brethren this secret shelter. Here, indeed, may ...
— Leila or, The Siege of Granada, Book V. • Edward Bulwer Lytton

... great green prairie, the monotony of whose surface is scarcely broken by the rivers which cross it here and there, and the great lines of railroad that serve as causeways through the desperate mud of spring and winter. A scattered people, who till the unctuous black soil only too easily, and leave as much of the crop rotting on the ground through neglect as would support the entire population; rude though thriving towns, where the grocery and the tavern, the ball room and the race course are more lovingly patronized ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No. V, May, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... into the house, but not before she had heard the beginning of Gladys's unctuous comment: "Oh, how disgraceful! Ain't Margery just too awful!" She also had time to realize vaguely that, disgraceful though it was, Gladys seemed in no haste to turn on the twins that cold glance of scorn which, by all reckoning, should instantly have been forthcoming. Why did she stay ...
— The Hickory Limb • Parker Fillmore

... and unctuous, robust and yet delicate, flavoured as it was with the broth of a whole flock of boiled chickens. The diners were silent now, their noses in their plates, their faces brightened by steam from the savoury soup, soup, two selected dishes, a ...
— La-bas • J. K. Huysmans

... Jove!" A period of profound introspection followed, and then he broke forth: "Well, I 'll be hanged!" emphasizing each word with a slow nod. Then he began to laugh,—not noisily; scarcely audibly, indeed; but with the deep, unctuous chuckle of one who gloats over some exquisitely absurd situation, some jest of many facets, each contributing ...
— A Love Story Reversed - 1898 • Edward Bellamy

... In spite of their unctuous tones the Hebrew and his wife did their business rapidly, with sharpness and decision. Either one of them would have undertaken to name the precise pawning value of anything on earth and, possibly, of most things in heaven, provided that the universe were brought piecemeal to ...
— A Cigarette-Maker's Romance • F. Marion Crawford

... humor at dinner had not brightened things, and she had had an insane desire to turn cartwheels round the room, so implacable and highly strained was the attitude of the master of the house, so unctuous was the grace and the thanksgiving before and after the meal. Abel Baragar had stored up his anger and his righteous antipathy for years, and this was the first chance he had had of visiting his displeasure on the woman who had "ruined" George, ...
— Northern Lights • Gilbert Parker

... arrival of two steamers, all the tables were engaged. There was one in the corridor, he was told, if he did not mind another gentleman. He did mind; he much preferred a table alone, but he also wanted his luncheon. He followed the unctuous head waiter the length of the big dining-room, winding in and out among the small tables, only to emerge finally into the corridor and find himself face to face with his bete ...
— The Honorable Percival • Alice Hegan Rice

... unctuous little man, this Carbajal; he reminded O'Reilly of a drop of oil. He evinced an unusual interest in the affairs of his American guest, and soon developed a habit of popping into the latter's room at unexpected moments, ostensibly to see that ...
— Rainbow's End • Rex Beach

... anxious to get back to the hospital, but he would have infinitely sooner resigned all pretensions to the place than have owed it in any manner to Mr. Slope's influence in his favour. Then he thoroughly disliked the tone of Mr. Slope's letter; it was unctuous, false, and unwholesome, like the man. He saw, which Eleanor had failed to see, that much more had been intended than was expressed. The appeal to Eleanor's pious labours as separate from his own grated sadly against his feelings ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope

... taken your room, and that they will pay more. You ask for an attic. Just now there are two gentlemen there. Will there be a place under the eaves? Possibly, next week. But before then the two gentlemen are on hand again, have unpacked their vials of unctuous hair-oil, and are happily snuggled under the eaves. Indeed, they seem to make long journeys expressly to head one off, and to be where they should not be. They are on time always, and in at the winning. Some day one will pathetically die of two gentlemen on the brain; and the doctor will only call ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 • Various

... the little office where he usually received his fashionable clients. He was still the self-same consequential figure, resplendent in broadcloth and fine linen, but the benevolent smile had vanished from his unctuous features, and he looked ...
— A Girl Among the Anarchists • Isabel Meredith

... abundance of infinite depth, with oranges. This done, he calmly made a hole in the next orange which came to his hand and began to suck it loudly and persistently, boy-fashion, meanwhile smacking his lips. His face was one wreath of unctuous smiles. "There is but one way to eat an orange," he ...
— Mistress Nell - A Merry Tale of a Merry Time • George C. Hazelton, Jr.

... this so burnt the Romans, that it dispersed that united band, who now tumbled clown from the wall with horrid pains, for the oil did easily run down the whole body from head to foot, under their entire armor, and fed upon their flesh like flame itself, its fat and unctuous nature rendering it soon heated and slowly cooled; and as the men were cooped up in their head-pieces and breastplates, they could no way get free from this burning oil; they could only leap and roll about in their pains, as they fell down ...
— The Wars of the Jews or History of the Destruction of Jerusalem • Flavius Josephus

... shrilly. And only when I had moved my chair, and thrown down my book, had the laughter and unctuous whispering died away, and given place ...
— Through Russia • Maxim Gorky

... should not like to take it habitually, nevertheless it is not disagreeable. You put in it, if you like, crusts of bread, or, at times, toast, and then it becomes a species of soup; otherwise it is drunk as broth; and, ordinarily, it was in this last fashion the King took it. It is unctuous, but very warm, a restorative singularly good for retrieving the past night, and, for preparing you ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon

... expression, in the meshes of some antiquated law, was doomed to administer in some measure to their need by the payment of a penalty and costs. The fat old fellow who presided as judge, and beneath whose robe of office an unctuous leathery surtout was all too visible, peered in vain through a pair of massive horn-spectacles into a huge timber-swathed volume in search of the act, the provisions of which I had violated. At length, ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 435 - Volume 17, New Series, May 1, 1852 • Various

... reflect thereon) the personal want of cleanliness of judge, jury, barristers and ushers, rendered the existence of the little parasite and its effective transference from man to man possible. Those pompous emblems of authority, the horsehair wigs—those musty robes of unctuous dignity—were full of dirt, and harboured the wandering bearer of typhus infection. Gaol-fever was due to dirt; its infecting germs were ...
— More Science From an Easy Chair • Sir E. Ray (Edwin Ray) Lankester

... It seems strange that this error should have diffused itself very extensively, when it is remembered that a certain degree of roughness is essential to frictional resistance. The smoothness of the ordinary railway track is roughness compared to that of an oiled or unctuous metallic surface; and it has been amply demonstrated that the resistance of friction, of two bearing surfaces depends, not upon their extent, but upon the pressure with which they are forced together. A traction wheel, ...
— Scientific American, Volume XXIV., No. 12, March 18, 1871 • Various

... upon her death-bed. Possibly, as her end drew near she had perceived herself tower to camel size, the entrance to Paradise shrink to the circumference which refuses to receive a thread manipulated by an unsteady hand. Yes, yes; they began to expand in unctuous conjecture that merged into deliberate assertion, when some one remarked that Mrs. Errington had died in exactly three minutes of the rupture of a blood-vessel on the brain. So this comfortable theory was exploded. And no other seemed tenable. No other explained the fact that this wealthy woman, ...
— Tongues of Conscience • Robert Smythe Hichens

... Hazlet has been denouncing them in hall with unctuous fervour, and I do think it was that which led me to join in a game which was instantly proposed by some of the ...
— Julian Home • Dean Frederic W. Farrar

... the dissolution or mixing of several bodies, whether fluid or solid, with saline or other Liquors, might not partly be attributed to this Principle of the congruity of those bodies and their dissolvents? As of Salt in Water, Metals in several Menstruums, Unctuous Gums in Oyls, the mixing of Wine and Water, &c. And whether precipitation be not partly made from the same Principle of Incongruity? I say partly, because there are in some ...
— Micrographia • Robert Hooke

... Guardians, to decide the point by her personal testimony. One can imagine the half-dozen portly prosperous figures, and the contrast their appearance offered to that of the bent and withered crone. 'Now, Betty,' said the chairman with unctuous patronage, 'you look hale and hearty enough, yet they tell me that you are a hundred years old; is this really true?' 'God Almighty knows, sir,' was her reply, ...
— Some Private Views • James Payn

... degrees to the westward, and separating with great cleanness and smoothness, present impressions of such liveliness, that there is no possibility of doubt as to their being animal foot-tracks, and those of the tortoise family. A thin layer of unctuous clay between the beds has proved favourable to their separation; and it is upon this intervening substance that the marks are best preserved. Slab after slab is raised from the quarry—sometimes a foot thick, sometimes only a few inches—and upon almost every one of them are ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 459 - Volume 18, New Series, October 16, 1852 • Various

... during which the island of Sardinia, to say nothing of places nearer home, such as Arles and Marseilles, paid them homage. The chronicle of this old Provencal house has been written, in a style somewhat unctuous and flowery, by M. Jules Canonge. I purchased the little book—a modest pamphlet—at the establishment of the good sisters, just beside the church, in one of the highest parts of Les Baux. The sisters have a school for the hardy little Baussenques, whom I heard piping their lessons while I waited ...
— A Little Tour in France • Henry James

... her. He wore a black Vandyke beard, and his special forte was a carefully trained and extremely long nail on the little finger. It was said that this nail demanded a goodly portion of his leisure hours. His voice told its own story of bonhommie and unctuous ...
— A Little Garrison - A Realistic Novel of German Army Life of To-day • Fritz von der Kyrburg

... and died from repletion during the night. I cannot express to your highness the satisfaction that I felt at finding that the carcase of the harpooner was in my possession. I surveyed my treasure over and over again with delight. I could now cook my French dishes. He was soon dissected, and all his unctuous parts carefully melted down, and I found that I had a stock which would last me as long as the bodies which I had remaining to exercise my skill upon. The first day I succeeded admirably—I cooked my dishes; and when they were ready I took off my night-cap and apron, passed my fingers ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Frederick Marryat

... observing his customers with shrewd unfriendly eyes, set out the glasses and the accompanying bottles—he never needed to inquire what these men would take; he knew the tipple of every soul in Barnriff by heart—Abe opened out. He was unctuous and careful of his diction. He was Barnriff's lay-preacher, and felt that this attitude was ...
— The One-Way Trail - A story of the cattle country • Ridgwell Cullum

... on the sidewalk, he made his way leisurely to Canal Street, and thence diagonally through the old French quarter toward the French Market. In a narrow alley giving upon the levee he finally found what he was looking for; a dingy sailors' barber's shop. The barber was a negro, fat, unctuous and sleepy-looking; and he ...
— The Price • Francis Lynde



Words linked to "Unctuous" :   smarmy, unctuousness, fulsome, oleaginous, soapy, buttery



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