Online dictionaryOnline dictionary
Synonyms, antonyms, pronunciation

  Home
English Dictionary      examples: 'day', 'get rid of', 'New York Bay'




Unmanageable   Listen
adjective
Unmanageable  adj.  See manageable.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








Advanced search
     Find words:
Starting with
Ending with
Containing
Matching a pattern  

Synonyms
Antonyms
Quotes
Words linked to  

only single words



Share |
Add this dictionary
to your browser search bar





"Unmanageable" Quotes from Famous Books



... you?" asked her mother. She knew she had none. She was always sufficiently shrewd to see that she had none. If the girl had had a pound a week of her own, her mother had always realized that she would have been unmanageable. After the Jem Temple Barholm affair she would have been capable of going to live alone in slums. As it was, she knew enough to be aware that she was too handsome to walk out into Piccadilly without a penny in her pocket; so it had been just ...
— T. Tembarom • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... came in sight of a vessel which looked like the Guerriere; but it was half-past eight o'clock at night before he came within speaking distance. A battle followed and lasted till the stranger became unmanageable, when the President stopped firing; and the next morning Rogers found that his enemy was the British ...
— A School History of the United States • John Bach McMaster

... in whom this "Sense of the Past" is all-powerful; whom the gift of an old London house and its furnishings enables to transport himself bodily into the life of 1820. More than this, he lives that life (and it is here that one suspects the idea of becoming unmanageable) in the person of an actual youth of that time, in whom a corresponding Sense of the Future has been so strong that he has answered the curiosity of his descendant by an exchange of personalities. Of course ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Nov 21, 1917 • Various

... friendships without any thought of marriage. I doubt whether this is possible for young people, though I know it is the fashion nowadays to behave as though it were. And especially is it difficult—or impossible—where there has been any thought of love—on either side. For love is the great, unmanageable, explosive thing, which cannot be tamed down, at a word, into friendship—not in youth at any rate. The attempt to treat it as a negligible quantity can only bring ...
— The Mating of Lydia • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... century it was known that rubber would keep out water, but it was sticky and unmanageable. After a while a Scotch chemist named McIntosh succeeded in dissolving rubber in naphtha and spreading it between two thicknesses of cloth. That is why his name is given to raincoats made in this way. Overshoes, too, were made of pure rubber poured over clay lasts which ...
— Makers of Many Things • Eva March Tappan

... roused us hence With elevated song, Bid us renounce this world of sense, Bid us divide the immortal prize With the seraphic throng: 'Knowledge and love make spirits blest, Knowledge their food, and love their rest;' But flesh, the unmanageable beast, Resists the pity of thine eyes, And music of thy tongue. Then let the worms of grovelling mind Round the short joys of earthly kind In restless windings roam; Howe hath an ample orb of soul, Where shining worlds of knowledge roll, Where love, ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan

... Captain's wife, this boy's mother, was a lady of Buenos Ayres, of Spanish descent, and had died while the child was in his cradle. These two motherless children were as strange a pair as one roof could well cover. Both handsome, wild, impetuous, unmanageable, they played and fought together like two young leopards, beautiful, but dangerous, their lawless instincts showing through all their ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 32, June, 1860 • Various

... much more dangerous operation in the mare than in the females of other domesticated quadrupeds and should never be resorted to except in animals that become unmanageable on the recurrence of heat and that will not breed or that are utterly unsuited to breeding. Formerly the operation was extensively practiced in Europe, the incision being made through the flank, and a large proportion of the ...
— Special Report on Diseases of the Horse • United States Department of Agriculture

... I look up to see Winifred spin along the road before the house, seated in a yellow-wheeled sulky, behind the most unmanageable colt on this side of the Mississippi, as I verily believe. Of course Mr. Marsden is very glad to have the breaking process taken off his hands; but if I were Professor Anstice I don't think I should like to have my daughter take up the profession ...
— Flint - His Faults, His Friendships and His Fortunes • Maud Wilder Goodwin

... smile. And in a loud voice she said that the child's hair had been cut by her orders, for she had noticed that she was beginning to be vain. It is so! and people flatter her so much that she has become unmanageable. ...
— The Grandee • Armando Palacio Valds

... too much pride, easily to retract an opinion he had once adopted, or to forgive an opposition to his judgment. The narrow education of a tradesman it was natural to suppose had rendered the mind of Mr. Hartley still more tenacious, and unmanageable. And neither would sir William have been willing to see his friend, nor would the lover readily have involved his mistress in circumstances of ...
— Damon and Delia - A Tale • William Godwin

... destined for but a single voyage, sometimes do not reach their port,—seldom without more or less of danger,—and never without infinite toil' They usually carry but three or four hands. Their form and gravity render them very unmanageable. Lying flat and dead in the water, with square timbers below their bottom planks, they often run on a sandbank with a strong head-way, and bury their timbers in the soil. To get them afloat again is a great ...
— American Scenes, and Christian Slavery - A Recent Tour of Four Thousand Miles in the United States • Ebenezer Davies

... state of my heart!'—Ah, my dear! it is an unmanageable one. 'Greatness of mind!'—I don't know what it is!—All his excellencies, his greatness, his goodness, his modesty, his cheerfulness under such afflictions as would weigh down every other heart that had but half the compassion in it with which his overflows—Must not all other men appear ...
— The History of Sir Charles Grandison, Volume 4 (of 7) • Samuel Richardson

... consequences; but the purser not giving any definite directions, whether the application was to be external or internal, the liquor, I regret to say, for the honour of the British navy, was applied much lower down. For some weeks the men seemed half-crazed, and were almost as unmanageable as ships that had lost their rudders. Well, so they had! It was a melancholy sight to see piles of beautiful tails with little labels tied to them, like the instructions on a physic-bottle; each ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various

... was always telling him he was married and ought to know better, set to work and ate up everything immediately, as completely as if they had been locusts. And then, they were all so dreadfully wild and unmanageable! Mine was by far the hardest task of all, the keeping them in any sort of order. For instance, Captain George declared one day, that if there was one thing he did better than another, it was to make jam. Consequently a fatigue party was ordered out to gather strawberries, ...
— Station Amusements • Lady Barker

... water. During the first hour or two of this engagement the gunboats had an immense advantage; being propelled both by sails and oars, they were enabled to choose their own position. While the ship lay becalmed and unmanageable they poured grape and canister shot into her stern and bows like hailstones. At this time the ship's crew could not bring a single gun to bear upon them, and all they could do was to use their small arms through the ports and ...
— American Merchant Ships and Sailors • Willis J. Abbot

... intervals lifting her lovely blue eyes in childish adoration to his face. They might have been grandfather and granddaughter, but they were, in fact, old Aaron Rockharrt and Miss Rose Flowers—Merlin and Vivien again, except that the Iron King was rather a rugged and unmanageable Merlin. ...
— For Woman's Love • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth

... hopelessly ruined all who entered them, all classes were indiscriminately herded together. It is now generally allowed that deportation, as practised, had utterly failed, the chief reasons being the unmanageable numbers sent and the absence of outlets for their ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 8, Slice 2 - "Demijohn" to "Destructor" • Various

... changed," her mother went on,—"and is become utterly obstinate and unmanageable. Perfectly self-important too—she thinks there is no wisdom now but her own. I may thank you for it, ...
— Melbourne House, Volume 2 • Susan Warner

... has no assistant, often does not undress, knowing that he will be called up before he has snatched an hour's sleep. To the strain of such inhuman conditions must be added the constant risk of infection. One wonders why the impatient doctors do not become savage and unmanageable, and the patient ones imbecile. Perhaps they do, to some extent. And the pay is wretched, and so uncertain that refusal to attend without payment in advance becomes often a necessary measure of self-defence, ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma: Preface on Doctors • George Bernard Shaw

... influence had been removed, he had become perfectly unmanageable. My sisters assured me that the abominable woman from whom I had rescued him, would most certainly end in marrying him after all, unless I reappeared immediately on the scene. What was to be done? Nothing was to be done, ...
— Poor Miss Finch • Wilkie Collins

... the ravages and unmanageable character of this destructive disease, I have long and deeply felt the want of some written account, both of the malady, and of a proper mode of treatment. Some research and observation, made in consequence of this feeling, have terminated in the acquisition of ...
— North American Medical and Surgical Journal, Vol. 2, No. 3, July, 1826 • Various

... to soothe and satisfy, and raise wages and make promises, what guarantee have I that the same thing will not occur to-morrow, and next day, and next week? I engaged them fairly and squarely, and have held strictly to my contract. They are so spoiled and unmanageable that there is no satisfaction in their service. Even now, while I am talking they are no doubt still in an uproar. Why, it is a wholesale mutiny. Something must be done at once. I have come to you for advice. If, as I say, they could be persuaded to remain, ...
— Idle Hour Stories • Eugenia Dunlap Potts

... getting abroad, and it is better the world should derive some instruction, however imperfect, from my experience, than that the lives of men should be hazarded by its unguarded exhibition, or that a medicine of so much efficacy should be condemned and rejected as dangerous and unmanageable. ...
— An Account of the Foxglove and some of its Medical Uses - With Practical Remarks on Dropsy and Other Diseases • William Withering

... Some parties would be brought over by seeming to fall in with their views, others cajoled by bribing their leaders, but the levellers and fanatics were invincible. They had been Cromwell's agents in subduing his enemies, and a consciousness of their power made them unmanageable; they were determined on owning no King but Jesus, and on thinking the regal title, when assumed by man, the mark of the beast and the seal of reprobation to its supporters. "The Protector's son-in-law, Fleetwood, kneeled and prayed publickly, that the Lord might spit ...
— The Loyalists, Vol. 1-3 - An Historical Novel • Jane West

... overwhelmed in Tears, I am certain has not in himself the Concord of sweet Sounds, and, must, as Shakespear says, be fit for Treasons, Stratagems and Spoils. And to close at once, all I will say of the Author's Conduct in regard to the managing (what seems most unmanageable) the Mind even when overcome by Madness, he has no where made a stronger Contrast between Clarissa and Lovelace, or kept the Characters more distinct than in their Madness. I have already mentioned how much Clarissa's Thoughts in her Frenzy apparently ...
— Remarks on Clarissa (1749) • Sarah Fielding

... balloon, therefore, which ascends from the ground full, gas is lost throughout its upward journey, and when it comes down again it is partially empty or flabby. This would be an impossible situation in the case of the airship, for she would become unmanageable, owing to the buckling of the envelope and the sagging of the planes. Ballonets are therefore fitted to ...
— British Airships, Past, Present, and Future • George Whale

... Supremacy of Great Britain and the Liberty of America, is utterly impossible. So vast a continent and of such a distance from the seat of empire, will every day grow more unmanageable. The motion of so unwieldy a body cannot be directed with any dispatch and uniformity, without committing to the Parliament of Great Britain, powers inconsistent with our freedom. The authority and force which would be absolutely necessary for the preservation ...
— American Eloquence, Volume I. (of 4) - Studies In American Political History (1896) • Various

... The Rose, unmanageable from the loss of her head-sail, lay at the mercy of the Spaniard; and the archers and musketeers had hardly time to range themselves to leeward, when the Madre Dolorosa's chains were grinding against the Rose's, and ...
— The Junior Classics • Various

... a part, was not behindhand in his hatred. But inasmuch as one was haughty, audacious, and intemperate, the other was cunning, cool, and treacherous. Charles was the proudest, most daring, and most unmanageable prince that ever made the sword the type and the guarantee of greatness; Louis the most subtle, dissimulating, and treacherous king that ever wove in his closet a tissue of hollow diplomacy and bad faith in government. The struggle between these sovereigns was unequal ...
— Holland - The History of the Netherlands • Thomas Colley Grattan

... against," was [Ch] mound-fang; "to hinder" was [Ch] woman-fang. This last example may seem a little strange until we remember that man must have played the principal part in the development of writing, and that from the masculine point of view there is something essentially obstructive and unmanageable in woman's nature. It may be remarked, by the way, that the element "woman" is often the determinative in characters that stand for unamiable qualities, e.g. [Ch][Ch] "jealous," [Ch][Ch] "treacherous," ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 2 - "Chicago, University of" to "Chiton" • Various

... among his papers three Acts of a Drama, without a name,—written evidently in haste, and with scarcely any correction,— the subject of which is so wild and unmanageable, that I should not have hesitated in referring it to the same early date, had not the introduction into one of the scenes of "Dry be that tear, be hush'd that sigh," proved it to have been produced after ...
— Memoirs of the Life of the Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan V1 • Thomas Moore

... Hinny, a term of endearmenthoney. Holme, a hollow, level low ground. "Horse of wood, foaled of an acorn," a form of punishment. Howf, a retreat. Hunder, a hundred. Hup! used to a horse in order to make him quicken his pace. "Hup nor wind," quite unmanageable. ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott

... with a martingale. Has a bad trick of whirling around without cause It's his idea of a joke on his rider. It's all just how he feels One day he'll ride along peaceable and pleasant for twenty miles. Next day, before you get started, he's well-nigh unmanageable. Knows automobiles so he can lay down alongside of one and sleep or eat hay out of it. He'll let nineteen go by without batting an eye, and mebbe the twentieth, just because he's feeling frisky, he'll cut up over like a range cayuse. Generally speaking, too lively for a gentleman, and ...
— Burning Daylight • Jack London

... being started if it feels balky. The leading span attached to the covered wagon in which Ruth and her two chums, Helen Cameron and Jennie Stone, rode had now communicated their own fright to the four other animals. All six were utterly unmanageable. ...
— Ruth Fielding in the Great Northwest - Or, The Indian Girl Star of the Movies • Alice B. Emerson

... unmanageable. I see what's wrong with them—but I've lost my interest in naval affairs." He paused and added dreamily: "I was horribly seasick ...
— Septimus • William J. Locke

... bestowed on his son, would rather inspire in a generous soul noble emulation, than paltry vanity. "On this boy," said he, laying his hand upon his son's head, "descends my mantle, with a double portion of my spirit!" Phillip's praise of his son Alexander, when the boy rode the unmanageable horse,[98] is another instance of the kind of praise ...
— Practical Education, Volume I • Maria Edgeworth

... to keep his men under discipline. It was all-important that their presence should be unsuspected by the enemy, but it would have been betrayed a score of times had not his vigilance intervened. Red Oxenford, in particular, grew more and more unmanageable; he had neither eaten nor slept now for three days, and the strain was telling on him. Finally he announced that he would wait no longer. The north gate was open, and what should prevent his walking straight up to the White Tower and sticking ...
— The Doomsman • Van Tassel Sutphen

... Rochelle. The light Spanish galleys out-manoeuvred the heavy English ships, laden deep in the water with stores and filled with troops and horses. The Spaniards set on fire some of the English transports, which became unmanageable owing to the fright of the horses embarked upon them. The English fought valiantly, and night fell before the battle was decided. Next day, the Spaniards attacked again, and won a complete victory. The English fleet ...
— The History of England - From the Accession of Henry III. to the Death of Edward III. (1216-1377) • T.F. Tout

... you," cried Tom, frantically, thrusting his hat in her face, in a wild delusion that he was offering his hand, for he was so upset by the sight of Elsie that he felt as if rapidly going up in an unmanageable balloon. ...
— A Noble Woman • Ann S. Stephens

... mind into such forms as will represent the words and actions of others in the most favourable point of view. The same illustration will serve to suggest the best manner of making allowances for those whose minds are unmanageable, because uneducated and undisciplined. They cannot see things in the same point of view that you do; how unreasonable then is it of you to expect that they should form the same estimate ...
— The Young Lady's Mentor - A Guide to the Formation of Character. In a Series of Letters to Her Unknown Friends • A Lady

... Raymond!" said she; "I feel so sorry for the man. Nature meant him to be a Tory, and education has turned him into a Whig. He has the kindest of hearts, and the most unmanageable of consciences. He will help us to free a prisoner, but he would not call me anything but 'Mistress' ...
— Out in the Forty-Five - Duncan Keith's Vow • Emily Sarah Holt

... of East and West in a charming Parisian creed. He abhorred de Marsay; de Marsay was unmanageable, but with Rastignac he was much pleased; he exploited him, though Rastignac was not aware of it. All the burdens of married life were put on him. Rastignac bore the brunt of Delphine's whims; he escorted her to the Bois de Boulogne; he went with her to the play; and the little ...
— The Firm of Nucingen • Honore de Balzac

... sure to do what is honorable. Of course, I quite understand that until her temper cools off she will be immovable; those determined natures always are. I have brought up one hot-headed person, and I think I know the weak spot; and Hugh McNeil was never quite unmanageable. Do not fret about Dexie, I feel sure she will fulfil her part to-night, ...
— Miss Dexie - A Romance of the Provinces • Stanford Eveleth

... Leopold, the Duke of Brunswick. And lesser magnificoes the room full. Such very superior people make a dull audience, of course; the presence of royalty is always understood to bar applause, which is not etiquette when a Majesty is by. I played very ill; my voice was quite unmanageable, and broke twice, to my extreme dismay. The fact is, I am fagged half to death; but as I cannot give up my work and cannot bear to give up my play, the only wonder is that I am not fagged whole to death. Mr. Craven acted really capitally, and I wondered how he could. They put us ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble

... hands is less dangerous to society than a sense of wrong in their heads. At any rate this is the dilemma to which the drift of opinion has been for some time sweeping us, and in politics a dilemma is a more unmanageable thing to hold by the horns than a wolf by the ears. It is said that the right of suffrage is not valued when it is indiscriminately bestowed, and there may be some truth in this, for I have observed that what men ...
— Harvard Classics Volume 28 - Essays English and American • Various

... this fibril anxiety never to be long beyond call? Surely, and the demon in his brain laughed with amusement, he did not expect her to send him a cryptic wireless—"Everything arranged; operation a success; appendix removed without opposition," or "Patient unmanageable; must ...
— Out of the Ashes • Ethel Watts Mumford

... should indeed be a fool, to proceed as I do, and mean matrimony!—'However, since you are thrown upon a fool,' says she, 'marry the fool at the first opportunity; and though I doubt that this man will be the most unmanageable of fools, as all witty and vain fools are, take him as a punishment, since you cannot as a reward.'—Is there ...
— Clarissa, Volume 4 (of 9) - History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson

... present consideration, viz. that the pretenders to the art, by working upon the imaginations of their patients, were frequently able to produce convulsions; that convulsions so produced are amongst the most powerful, but, at the same time, most uncertain and unmanageable applications to the human frame which can ...
— Evidences of Christianity • William Paley

... two horses. The one horse he says is white, beautiful and noble, well-broken and winged, too, always trying to rise and fly upward with the chariot toward heaven. But the other horse is black, evil, and unmanageable, always trying to rush downward, and drag the chariot and ...
— True Words for Brave Men • Charles Kingsley

... of all. The flowers our mothers and sisters used to love and cherish, those which grow beneath our eaves and by our doorstep, are the ones we always love best. If the Houyhnhnms should ever catch me, and, finding me particularly vicious and unmanageable, send a man-tamer to Rareyfy me, I'll tell you what drugs he would have to take and how he would have to use them. Imagine yourself reading a number of the Houyhnhnm Gazette, giving an account ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes

... God's pleading with him by the message of Moses and Aaron, by the mighty plagues which God sent on Egypt, only hardened Pharaoh's heart. The Lord God spoke to him, and his message only lashed Pharaoh's proud and wicked will into greater fury and rebellion, as a vicious horse becomes the more unmanageable the more you punish it. Therefore, it is said plainly in scripture, that THE LORD hardened Pharaoh's heart; not as some fancy, that the Lord's will was to make Pharaoh hard-hearted and wicked. God forbid. The ...
— Sermons on National Subjects • Charles Kingsley

... that he loved me, but I felt as if it was not for my own sake; as if he loved something in my soul that was strange to me. I never saw him smile; sometimes he was so harsh that I was afraid of him; at another time he was unmanageable." ...
— The Continental Classics, Volume XVIII., Mystery Tales • Various

... in them something of the genuine features of The Desert. They had come eight or ten miles an hour, a long galloping trot, for such is the motion of the camel. As soon as the two parties met, there was a simultaneous scamper off of our camels, and some of theirs got very unmanageable. I was nearly thrown off, and it required Mohammed and Said to hold my camel until the alarm had subsided. The Sheikh Makouran was obliged to dismount and ride his donkey. I asked Mohammed what was the matter, for I could not understand this strange confusion all ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson

... find a better one than the dappled mount. The birds in the air do not fly more swiftly than the palfrey; and he is not too lively, but just suits a lady. A child can ride him, for he is neither skittish nor balky, nor does he bite nor kick nor become unmanageable. Any one who is looking for something better does not know what he wants. And his pace is so easy and gentle that a body is more comfortable and easy on his back than in a boat." Then said Erec: "My dear, I have no objection to her accepting this gift; indeed, I am pleased with the offer, and do ...
— Four Arthurian Romances - "Erec et Enide", "Cliges", "Yvain", and "Lancelot" • Chretien de Troyes

... remember the extremely clever and effective pictures in crewels by an accomplished American lady, Mrs. Oliver Wendell Holmes, exhibited in London a few years ago. These exceptional cases do not, however, disprove the objections against employing the most unfit and unmanageable materials for producing subjects alien to the ...
— Needlework As Art • Marian Alford

... square sitting-room of the old Seminary building in which you boarded—the bright faces whose radiance made up in part for the limitations of artificial light—the puzzled air which every one took on when presented with the list of unmanageable words, to be reproduced in their consecutive order in prose or verse composition within the next quarter or half hour—the stillness which supervened while the enforced "pleasures" of "poetic pains" or prose agony were being undergone—the sense of relief which supplemented ...
— The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss • George L. Prentiss

... was in a horse-car on Sixth Avenue, a few days ago, when the horses suddenly became unmanageable, and left the track for the sidewalk, amid the oaths and execrations of the driver. Immediately in front of the car a crowd had gathered around two performing bears and a showman. One of the animals, thin, emaciated, and the mere wreck of his native strength, attracted ...
— Tales of the Argonauts • Bret Harte

... combination of romantic and tragical appeal; Avatar, with its extraordinary mixture of romance, again, with humour, its "excitingness," and its delicacy of taste; the equally extraordinary felicity of the dealings with that too often unmanageable implement the "classical dictionary" in Arria Marcella, Une Nuit de Cleopatre, and perhaps especially Le Roi Candaule; the tiny sketches—half-nouvelle and half-"middle" article—of Le Pied de la Momie, ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 - To the Close of the 19th Century • George Saintsbury

... together with the uproarious cheers for the grandpapa of Charlemagne, had now made the company unmanageable. The orchestra was again challenged with shouts the stormiest for the new glee. I made again a powerful effort to overrule the challenge. I might as well have talked to the winds. I foresaw a tempestuous evening; and I ordered myself to be strengthened with three waiters on each side; the vice-president ...
— Miscellaneous Essays • Thomas de Quincey

... that his candidate was more unmanageable than ever, presently departed, and Paul sat down to breakfast. But he could not eat. He was both stricken with shame and moved to the depths by immense pity. Far removed from him as Silas Finn was in ...
— The Fortunate Youth • William J. Locke

... welcomed by the chiefs of the army, recounted to them "in detail," says William of Tyre, "how the people, who had preceded them under his guidance, had shown themselves destitute of intelligence, improvident, and unmanageable at the same time; and so it was far more by their own fault than by the deed of any other that they had succumbed to the weight of their calamities." Peter, having thus relieved his heart and recovered his hopes, joined the powerful army of crusaders who had come at last; ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume I. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot

... this unseasonable gravity is admitted to quell the palpitations of this unmanageable heart? But still it will go on with its boundings. I'll try as I ride ...
— Clarissa, Volume 5 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson

... was, says Camille, to see so many Judiths, from eight to ten thousand of them in all, rushing out to search into the root of the matter! Not unfrightful it must have been; ludicro-terrific, and most unmanageable. At such hour the overwatched Three Hundred are not yet stirring: none but some Clerks, a company of National Guards; and M. de Gouvion, the Major-general. Gouvion has fought in America for the cause of civil Liberty; a man of no inconsiderable heart, but ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle

... clear over the uproar. The rioters, instead of being intimidated, rushed to a pile of paving-stones that unfortunately happened to be near, and arming themselves with these, began to pelt the horses, which soon became unmanageable, so that the cavalry ...
— The Great Riots of New York 1712 to 1873 • J.T. Headley

... draw a circle with the "free" hand, and with a single line. You cannot do it if your hand trembles, nor if it hesitates, nor if it is unmanageable, nor if it is in the common sense of the word "free." So far from being free, it must be under a control as absolute and accurate as if it were fastened to an inflexible bar of steel. And yet it must move, under this necessary control, with ...
— The Evolution of Expression Vol. I • Charles Wesley Emerson

... even the smallest, was gathered a crowd of people in hope to catch a glimpse of the face of the President-elect, or, at least, to see the flying train. At the larger stopping-places these gatherings were swelled to thousands, and in the great cities into almost unmanageable assemblages. Everywhere there were vociferous calls for Mr. Lincoln, and, if he showed himself, for a speech. Whenever there was sufficient time, he would step to the rear platform of the car and bow his acknowledgments ...
— A Short Life of Abraham Lincoln - Condensed from Nicolay & Hay's Abraham Lincoln: A History • John G. Nicolay

... Sprache in Ruecksicht geistiger Beziehungen ein Woerterbuch erblasster Metaphern. We regret this, while yet it is not wholly matter of regret. Gerber (Sprache als Kunst, vol. i. p. 387) urges that language would be quite unmanageable, that the words which we use would be continually clashing with and contradicting one another, if every one of them retained a lively impress of the image on which it originally rested, and recalled ...
— On the Study of Words • Richard C Trench

... University of Michigan in October, 1857, although I had much to do with other students, I took especial charge of the sophomore class. It included many young men of ability and force, but had the reputation of being the most unmanageable body which had been known there in years. Thus far it had been under the charge of tutors, and it had made life a burden to them. Its preparation for the work I sought to do was wretchedly imperfect. Among my duties was the examination of entrance classes in modern ...
— Volume I • Andrew Dickson White

... be able to command himself," said Charles, "at least, if I may judge from his presence of mind at the time of the accident; and I shall therefore know better what to do, than if he were as unmanageable ...
— Principle and Practice - The Orphan Family • Harriet Martineau

... is coming," he said, hurriedly. "He is already under the arch; he wishes to spend the evening in the garden; it is a whim! They say he is quite unmanageable to-day." ...
— The Shadow of the Cathedral • Vicente Blasco Ibanez

... Anglo-Saxon of our new recruit's real name proved utterly unmanageable on the lips of our French attendants, and Henry Chatillon, after various abortive attempts to pronounce it, one day coolly christened him Tete Rouge, in honor of his red curls. He had at different times been clerk of a Mississippi steamboat, and ...
— The Oregon Trail • Francis Parkman, Jr.

... Parliament had just been elected, which was about to meet, when there were some final difficulties between the King and his Liberal Ministers over the exact wording of the oath of allegiance. The excitable Neapolitan populace forthwith became unmanageable. The Swiss Guards, who had long been the butt of the people, put down the revolt without mercy. Once more King Ferdinand was master. He hastened to dismiss his Cabinet and dissolved the Parliament before it could come to order. Orders were sent to General Pepe, who had marched to the front ...
— A History of the Nineteenth Century, Year by Year - Volume Two (of Three) • Edwin Emerson

... When it turned to attack him the man in front again pulled at his rope. So most of them were brought down to the landing place, and there with great difficulty again thrown down, tied, and carried bodily on board. Some of them were so unmanageable that they had to be carried all the way down to the landing place. If English cattle possessed the strength and obstinate fury of these little animals, Copenhagen Fields would have to be removed farther from London, or the entrance swept ...
— By Sheer Pluck - A Tale of the Ashanti War • G. A. Henty

... savages had passed the point of safe sailing; their boats had become unmanageable. Forgetting their errand, their only hope now was to save themselves, but in vain they tried to reach the shore: the current was whirling them to their doom. Cries and death-songs mingled with the deepening roar ...
— Myths And Legends Of Our Own Land, Complete • Charles M. Skinner

... in halting to shoot up at this pursuer, and he spurred Wildfire just as a sharp crack sounded above. The bullet thudded into the earth a few feet behind him. And then over bad ground, with the stallion almost unmanageable, Slone ran a gantlet of shots. Evidently the man on the rim had smooth ground to ride over, for he easily kept abreast of Slone. But he could not get the range. Fortunately for Slone, broken ramparts ...
— Wildfire • Zane Grey

... as he was violent; and as she never failed to step in between her husband and the object of his wrath, as both he and she were naturally just, kind to excess, and generous to all, they were beloved by everybody. There was only one point on which the count was rather unmanageable, and that was the game laws. He was passionately fond of hunting, and watched all the year round with almost painful restlessness over his preserves, employing a number of keepers, and prosecuting poachers with such energy, that people said he would rather miss a ...
— Within an Inch of His Life • Emile Gaboriau

... beating violently, I observed a vessel a few miles off fire a signal of distress. I hastened to the nearest point, and with the help of my glass perceived that she was Dutch built, and that, having lost her rudder, she was quite unmanageable. She fired several guns at short intervals, and my people came in large numbers to give assistance. But the surf was so fearful that nothing could be done. No boat could have lived a moment in such a sea. We were ...
— Christmas: Its Origin and Associations - Together with Its Historical Events and Festive Celebrations During Nineteen Centuries • William Francis Dawson

... before he found the boat quite unmanageable. The long oar crowded him nearly off the seat, as he tried to hold her straight out into mid-water. She was flat-bottomed, and as she got into the region of whitecaps, she began to be blown bodily with ...
— Short Stories of Various Types • Various

... after them; I succeeded in getting them back, but they were exceedingly troublesome and restless, attempting to start off, or to get down to the sea whenever my eye was off them for an instant, and never feeding quietly for ten minutes together; finding at last that they would be quite unmanageable, I made a very strong and high yard, and putting them in, kept them generally shut up, letting them out only to feed for two or three hours at once. This gave me a little time to examine my maps, and to reflect upon my position ...
— Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central • Edward John Eyre

... was the human mind more prolific." "Luther holds a high and glorious place in German literature." "In his manuscripts we nowhere discover the traces of fatigue or irritation, no embarrassment or erasures, no ill-applied epithet or unmanageable expression; and by the correctness of his writing we might imagine he was the copyist rather than the writer of the work."—So says Audin, his Roman ...
— Luther and the Reformation: - The Life-Springs of Our Liberties • Joseph A. Seiss

... Duke of Savoy. Other Burgundian possessions of Savoy were seized by the canton of Freiburg; and after awhile all these subjects and allies were admitted on equal terms into the confederation. The result is that modern Switzerland is made up of what might seem to be most discordant and unmanageable elements. Four languages—German, French, Italian, and Rhaetian—are spoken within the limits of the confederacy; and in point of religion the cantons are sharply divided as Catholic and Protestant. Yet in spite ...
— American Political Ideas Viewed From The Standpoint Of Universal History • John Fiske

... had died of a broken heart on his account. All this came upon Frederick, in consequence of not restraining his passions while a boy. His violent, ungovernable temper might have been subdued, when he was a child; but by indulgence it increased in strength, till it became perfectly unmanageable. ...
— Anecdotes for Boys • Harvey Newcomb

... head, and hope, and wait, with a woman's ready faith, and a courage that died out in the twilight and revived in the dawn, and kept her in a fever of suspense and expectation. It wearied her so unspeakably, in the long hours of practical daylight and unmanageable night, that sometimes she could hardly bear it. The world seemed to turn round till she could not catch her thoughts; and nerves overstrung and on the watch, made her start and grow pale with the commonest little sounds of every day and ...
— The Gold of Chickaree • Susan Warner

... pursuit of the production of wealth, and the mere mechanical multiplying, for this end, of manufactures and population, threatens to create for us, if it has not created already, those vast, miserable, unmanageable masses of sunken people,—one pauper, at the present moment, for every nineteen of us,—to the existence of which we are, as we have seen, absolutely forbidden to reconcile ourselves, in spite of all that the philosophy ...
— Culture and Anarchy • Matthew Arnold

... father, but he, nervous and apprehensive, had disappeared. He felt that if he should be compelled to disclose the failure of his predictions, she would pass into one of her sullen, unmanageable moods. He feared that things were beyond his control, and decided to let the young men manage for themselves. He was not, however, exceedingly solicitous. He hoped that Arnault, aided by the influence of his munificent ...
— A Young Girl's Wooing • E. P. Roe

... exertion to escape, of which the swift sailing of his vessel held out some hopes. These hopes were, however, frustrated, in consequence of the brig losing several important spars, and being soon rendered almost a complete wreck. In this crippled and unmanageable condition, she drifted upon a small, low, island, at no great distance, but still kept up a fire from such of her guns as could be brought to bear, or rather such as she had men enough left to work, for, by this time, full two thirds of her crew were killed or wounded.—Finding it ...
— An Old Sailor's Yarns • Nathaniel Ames

... into enthusiasm; for then it is in danger of ranging beyond its limits, into poetic fury: we must then pull in the rein and act with caution, well knowing that it is the worst vice of a writer, as well as of a horse, to be wanton and unmanageable. The best way therefore is, whilst the mind of the historian is on horseback, for his style to walk on foot, and take hold of the rein, that it may ...
— Trips to the Moon • Lucian

... did take and pursue his resolution. In all the tottering imbecility of a new government, and with parliament totally unmanageable, he persevered. He persevered to expel the fears of his people by his fortitude—to steady their fickleness by his constancy—to expand their narrow prudence by his enlarged wisdom—to sink their factious temper in his public spirit. In spite of his people he resolved ...
— Selections from the Speeches and Writings of Edmund Burke. • Edmund Burke

... threshold. Another man, seemingly by common consent, waited outside. Waldstricker came to a halt at the sight of the squatter girl. Even in her mourning, and ashen pale, she looked glorious. Her burnished, unmanageable hair clung like a golden mantle about her. She had lifted heavy lashes and was looking ...
— The Secret of the Storm Country • Grace Miller White

... same sloping to three feet four inches at one end, is the correct height from the ground. Most packers like to have this gradual slope to one end so that the apples will naturally feed toward that end. The length may be anything up to eight or ten feet, beyond which the table becomes heavy and unmanageable. ...
— Apple Growing • M. C. Burritt

... desperate outlaws were by no means afraid to pay occasional visits to their own relatives, and from time to time to hold communication with them. Nay, not only was this the fact, but, what is still more strange, many persons who were related to individuals connected with this daring and unmanageable class were in the habit of attending their nightly meetings, sometimes for the purpose of preventing a robbery, or of killing a family whom they ...
— The Evil Eye; Or, The Black Spector - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton

... noise which is uncommon to the bees should ever be made during their swarming or hiving. The only effect of noise, ringing of bells, &tc., that I could ever discover, was, to render them more hostile and unmanageable. ...
— A Manual or an Easy Method of Managing Bees • John M. Weeks

... you despise me!" she burst forth, chokingly. "I believe I am hysterical, and the more I rail at my stupidity and folly, the more unmanageable my nerves—if it is my nerves that are out of order— become. But I have been so happy, so content and grateful, lately! And everything will ...
— At Last • Marion Harland

... why 'substantial forms' were the betes noires of the seventeenth-century philosophers. It was because they turned nature into an unmanageable jungle, in which trees, bushes, and parasites of a thousand kinds wildly interlaced. There was nothing for it, if science was to proceed, but to clear the ground and replant with spruce in rows: to postulate a single uniform nature, of which there should be a single science. ...
— Theodicy - Essays on the Goodness of God, the Freedom of Man and the Origin of Evil • G. W. Leibniz

... The Rose, unmanageable from the loss of her head-sail, lay at the mercy of the Spaniard; and the archers and musqueteers had hardly time to range themselves to leeward, when the Madre Dolorosa's chains were grinding against the Rose's, and grapples tossed on board from ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley

... inflame the quarrel between the parties: the bravery of the two leaders promised an obstinate engagement; and the equality of the armies, being each about twelve thousand men, a number which was not unmanageable by the commanders, gave reason to expect a great effusion of blood on both sides, and a very doubtful ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part B. - From Henry III. to Richard III. • David Hume

... Rosalie, and even as a child I hated to be controlled. If I set my heart upon anything, I wanted to have it at once, and if I was opposed, I was very angry. I loved my dear old nurse; but when we were about eight years old, she had to leave us to live with her mother, and then I was completely unmanageable. My mother engaged a governess for us, who was to teach us in a morning and take us out in the afternoon. She was an indolent person, and she took very little trouble with us, and my mother did not exert herself sufficiently to look after us, or ...
— A Peep Behind the Scenes • Mrs. O. F. Walton

... grow unmanageable, you had better give him one of these powders—two, if necessary. But no more; they ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick

... not at all!" Jim protested gruffly. An unmanageable silence hung between them for a few seconds; then Julia, with a murmured excuse, went to the extrication of Miss Pierce, now hopelessly involved in a surge of swarming children, and Jim went on his way. He carried with him a warm memory of the erect young figure in white, and the ...
— The Story Of Julia Page - Works of Kathleen Norris, Volume V. • Kathleen Norris

... once brought up a young lion, and finding him weak and harmless, did not attempt to control him. Every day the lion gained in strength and became more unmanageable, until at last, when excited by rage, he fell upon his master and tore him to pieces. So what seemed to be an "innocent" sin has grown until it strangled him who was once its ...
— Architects of Fate - or, Steps to Success and Power • Orison Swett Marden

... the black curtain thicker and thicker over Bridget's rosy face; firmly she settled herself on her unmanageable steed. ...
— The Rectory Children • Mrs Molesworth

... the most appropriate simile—was the features of stubborn and ponderous endurance, which might well have amounted to obstinacy in his earlier days; of integrity, that, like most of his other endowments, lay in a somewhat heavy mass, and was just as unmalleable or unmanageable as a ton of iron ore; and of benevolence which, fiercely as he led the bayonets on at Chippewa or Fort Erie, I take to be of quite as genuine a stamp as what actuates any or all the polemical philanthropists of the age. He had slain men with his own hand, for aught I know—certainly, ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... answered as many of them as she could, she would put them all over again afresh. On one occasion when Dorothy could not say she believed he was, when she saw him, thinking about his wife, Juliet went into hysterics. She was growing so unmanageable that if Dorothy had not partially opened her mind to Polwarth, she must at last have been compelled to give her up. The charge was wearing her out; her strength was giving way, and her temper growing so irritable that she was ashamed of herself—and all without any good to Juliet. Twice ...
— Paul Faber, Surgeon • George MacDonald

... word "missing" there is a horrible depth of doubt and speculation. Did she go quickly from under the men's feet, or did she resist to the end, letting the sea batter her to pieces, start her butts, wrench her frame, load her with an increasing weight of salt water, and, dismasted, unmanageable, rolling heavily, her boats gone, her decks swept, had she wearied her men half to death with the unceasing labour at the pumps before she sank with them ...
— The Mirror of the Sea • Joseph Conrad

... discomforts of chopping seas that drenched our decks fore and aft, and chilling gales mingled with fogs and heavy rains. It was cold enough for midwinter, yet here we were on the verge of midsummer. Our little craft was rendered somewhat unmanageable by a deck-load of coal and a heavy cargo of freight, and there were periods when I would have thought myself fortunate in being once more off Cape Horn in the good ship Pacific. The amtman and his young bride spent this portion of their honey-moon performing ...
— The Land of Thor • J. Ross Browne

... said I, blurring the words, for my tongue was getting unmanageable, "they're making ...
— Desert Dust • Edwin L. Sabin



Words linked to "Unmanageable" :   difficult, cumbersome, uncorrectable, wieldy, clumsy, uncontrollable, awkward, intractable, ungainly, cumbrous, noncompliant, unwieldy, manageable, defiant, disobedient, incorrigible, bunglesome, unmanageableness



Copyright © 2024 Dictionary One.com