Online dictionaryOnline dictionary
Synonyms, antonyms, pronunciation

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




Villany   Listen
noun
Villany  n.  See Villainy.






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





"Villany" Quotes from Famous Books



... but two ways, either to live and pursue revenge, or to die and forget it—Of the pursuit I am weary. I have had a full meal of villany, and am glutted: its foulness is insufferable, and I turn from it loathing. Then welcome death! Again it would have sought me, but for their eternal officiousness. It is in vain. There are swords, pistols, and poison still. Life has a thousand outlets: and to live, knowing what I know and ...
— Anna St. Ives • Thomas Holcroft

... backsliding from Him, as to do any other thing. Oh! the shame that did now attend me! especially when I thought, I am now a-going to pray to Him for mercy, that I had so lightly esteemed but a while before! I was ashamed; yea, even confounded, because this villany had been committed by me: but I saw that there was but one way with me; I must go to Him, and humble myself unto Him, and beg that He, of His wonderful mercy, would show pity to me, and have mercy upon my ...
— Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners • John Bunyan

... blood as the Castrocaros and the Conios? Is not the son of Pagani called the Demon? and would it not be better that such a son were swept out of the family? Nay, let him live to chew to what a pitch of villany it has arrived. Ubaldini alone is blest, for his name is good, and he is too old to leave a child after him. Go, Tuscan—go; for I would be left ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Volume 1 • Leigh Hunt

... other trial that could be selected would give so fair an idea of the delusions of the Scottish people as this. Whether we consider the number of victims, the absurdity of the evidence, and the real villany of some of the persons implicated, it is ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay

... record the effect of an actual though undesigned experiment, which I prosecuted for upwards of twelve years among you. For the greater part of that time I could expatiate on the meanness of dishonesty, on the villany of falsehood, on the despicable arts of calumny; in a word, upon all those deformities of character which awaken the natural indignation of the human heart against the pests and the disturbers of human society. ...
— The Preacher and His Models - The Yale Lectures on Preaching 1891 • James Stalker

... hate him. I made love to the man to get it out of him. Richard! my word of honour, they have planned to carry her off, if Mount finds he cannot seduce her. Talk of devils! He's one; but he is not so bad as Brayder. I cannot forgive a mean dog his villany. ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... with peculiar kindness and attention. Hence they are apt to think too well of the world. Lawyers, on the other hand, think too ill of it. They see only, or for the most part, its worst side. They are brought in contact with dishonesty and villany in their worst developments. I have observed, in doing business with lawyers, that they are exceedingly hawk-eyed, and jealous of everybody. The omission of a word or letter in a will, they will scan with the closest scrutiny; ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 121, November, 1867 • Various

... must bear to hear your faults from me. Had you not sent don Carlos to the court The night before the battle, that foul slave, Who forg'd the senseless scroll which gives you pain, Had wanted footing for his villany. ...
— The Revenge - A Tragedy • Edward Young

... the one or buying room for the other of the chief encloser, called the Lord of the Manor, or some other wretch as cruel as he.... Now all this slavery of the one and tyranny of the other was at first by murder and cruelty one against the other. And that they might strengthen themselves in their villany against God's Ordinances and their Brother's Freedom and Rights, they had always a Commander-in-Chief, and ...
— The Digger Movement in the Days of the Commonwealth • Lewis H. Berens

... fire in order to force their way, and having obtained, as is believed, a promise of life, he opened the door, and reminding them that he was a priest, he conjured them to spare him. Two of the assassins rushed upon him with drawn swords; but a third, James Melvil, more calm and more considerate in villany, stopped their career, and bade them reflect, that this sacrifice was the work and judgment of God, and ought to be executed with becoming deliberation and gravity. Then turning the point of his sword towards Beatoun, he called ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part C. - From Henry VII. to Mary • David Hume

... received they would have claimed three or four. They would no doubt have cheated him. But how was he now to measure the extent of his father's fraud against that of his creditors? And though it would have been right in him to resist the villany of these Jews, he felt that it was not fit that he should escape from their fangs altogether by his father's deceit. He had not become so dead to honor but that noblesse oblige did still live within his bosom. And ...
— Mr. Scarborough's Family • Anthony Trollope

... generous to a fault. You could not say that man is a villain and a scoundrel when you really would have proof of his villany in your possession." ...
— Marguerite Verne • Agatha Armour

... always understood his predecessor had already done—his life at this moment in jeopardy; for a cursory glance at the tall figure of the marauder, as he had entered, had sufficed to show that the object of his search was before him—and too well he knew the unscrupulous villany of the man to doubt for a moment what his conduct would be if he found his pursuer in his power. If he could slip from the bed unobserved, and master the weapon on the table, he might effect his escape, and even secure the murderer; for he made light of the resistance that could ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine—Vol. 54, No. 333, July 1843 • Various

... not: nay, an' thou wert, there would be no lack of them i' the next generation. Thou might'st be the father of the race, being now the bodily type of it. The phases of thy villany are so numerous that, were they embodied they would break down the fatal tree which is thine inheritance, and cause a lack of cords for ...
— The Works of Christopher Marlowe, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Christopher Marlowe

... the escape made by Caroline Everett; an escape which she did not fully comprehend until a few months afterwards, when the trial of Lawson took place, during which revelations of villany were made, the recital of which caused her heart to shudder. Yes, narrow had been her escape! Had her father been delayed a few moments longer, she would have become the wife of a man soon after condemned to expiate his crimes against society in the ...
— Heart-Histories and Life-Pictures • T. S. Arthur

... wretch, thou coward! Thou little valiant, great in villany! Thou ever strong upon the stronger side! Thou Fortune's champion that dost never fight But when her humorous ladyship is by To ...
— Familiar Quotations • John Bartlett

... usurpation and a caricature. History, however, will not consent to curtail the honor due to the true Caesar, because her decision, in the presence of false Caesars, may give occasion to simplicity to play the fool and to villany to play the rogue. She, too, is a Bible, and if she can as little prevent herself from being misunderstood by the fool and quoted by the Devil, she ought as little to be prejudiced by either." Strong words, but very natural as coming from a learned German who finds ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 80, June, 1864 • Various

... of switch-engines; white-handed clerks and electricians swung lanterns and coupled cars; conductors turned switchmen, superintendents became conductors, and managers stepped down to yard-masters; and still the mob, gaining in numbers and wrath and villany with every hour, blackguarded the trainmen, blockaded the trains, and bombarded with sticks and stones and coupling-pins the few shrinking and terrified passengers. Trains reaching the city were towed in with every ...
— A Tame Surrender, A Story of The Chicago Strike • Charles King

... piece is said to be a certain divine of the Dominican order, by nation a Saxon. Of what avail is it to add his name and surname, which he himself does not desire to have suppressed? A monster like him knows not what shame is; he would rather look for praise from his villany. This rogue added a new Preface in my name, in which he represented three men sweating at the instruction of one boy: Capito, who taught him Hebrew, Beatus Greek, and me, Latin. He represents me as inferior to each of the others alike ...
— Colloquies of Erasmus, Volume I. • Erasmus

... who thinks all the World as sincere as her self, and so her unwary Heart becomes an easy Prey to those deceitful Monsters, who no sooner perceive it, but immediately they grow cool, and shun her whom they before seemed so much to admire, and proceed to act the same common-place Villany towards another. A Coxcomb flushed with many of these infamous Victories shall say he is sorry for the poor Fools, protest and vow he never thought of Matrimony, and wonder talking civilly can be so strangely misinterpreted. Now, Mr. ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele

... is at its height. At the superb marble counter they are served with the choicest beverages and regalias of Vuelta Abajos' best leaf. The human mob is dense. Wailing, passionate music beats upon the air. There is the cry of lost souls in its under-toned pathos. Villany and sentiment go hand in hand at the El Dorado. The songs of old, in voice and symphony, unlock the gates of memory. They leave the lingerers, disarmed, to the tempting allurements of ...
— The Little Lady of Lagunitas • Richard Henry Savage

... served with the domestic and nautical drama. On those stages the language struts and aspirates, and the effects are borrowed from Vauxhall and Cremorne for plays which are constructed to hold the greatest possible amount of cockneyism and grotesqueness, with the principal object of showing how villany and murder are uniformly overcome by virtue, whose kettle sings upon the hob above a pile of buttered muffins at last; and the pit, which came in for a shilling, pays the extra tribute of a tear. These shop-keepers of the Surrey side sit on Sunday ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 92, June, 1865 • Various

... Martinique, the one light, and the other laden with sugar and cocoa: he put the men on board the latter into the former, and allowed her to depart. He brought the freighted vessel into North Carolina, where the governor and Black Beard shared the prizes. Nor did their audacity and villany stop here. Teach and some of his abandoned crew waited upon his excellency, and swore that they had seized the French ship at sea, without a soul on board; therefore a court was called, and she ...
— The Pirates Own Book • Charles Ellms

... may be assumed, with tolerable safety, that no first villany is ever entirely deliberate. There is something in events to give it direction—something to egg it on—to point out time, place, and opportunity. Of course, it is to be understood that the actor is one, in the first ...
— Charlemont • W. Gilmore Simms

... an account of his little money transactions with Huckaback—of which, however, all he could tell was—that for ten shillings down, he had given a written engagement to pay fifty pounds on getting the estate. Of this Gammon made a careful memorandum, explaining to Titmouse the atrocious villany of Huckaback—and, in short, that if he (Titmouse) did not look very sharply about him, he would be robbed right and left; so that it was of the utmost consequence to him early to learn how to distinguish between false and true friends. Gammon went on to assure him that the instrument which ...
— Ten Thousand a-Year. Volume 1. • Samuel Warren

... a younger brother, who was equally skilful as a necromancer, and even surpassed him in villany and pernicious designs. As they did not live together, or in the same city, but oftentimes when one was in the east, the other was in the west, they failed not every year to inform themselves, by their art, each where the other ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous

... courage of a whore, Are what ten thousand envy and adore! All, all look up with reverential awe, At crimes that 'scape, or triumph o'er the law: While truth, worth, wisdom, daily they decry— 'Nothing is sacred now but villany.' 170 ...
— The Poetical Works Of Alexander Pope, Vol. 1 • Alexander Pope et al

... the floating enginery of Mammon? Truth, integrity, honour, were all recklessly sacrificed to gain by the friends he loved and had respected most—sacrificed without shame and without remorse—repentance being with them a repentance only over ill-laid schemes of villany—plans for the ruination of widows and orphans, blasted in the bud of their iniquity. The brother of his bosom made him a bankrupt—and for a year the jointure of his widow-mother was unpaid. But she died before the second Christmas—and he was left alone ...
— Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson

... his game a sixth time, and won. The same day that saw my uncle rise with thousands, saw him seek his pillow at night, a frantic beggar! He was too proud a man, too honourable, I will add, not to throw down his last guinea, in satisfaction of such demands. He never suspected villany in the business. He paid his losses, therefore; and in less than a week afterwards, an inquest sat upon his body, which was found at the bottom of ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 13, No. - 361, Supplementary Issue (1829) • Various

... crackling fireworks and roaring cannon, left upon my mind an indescribable impression of dangerousness—of "something fierce and terrible, eligible to burst forth." Of men like this, then, were formed the Companies of Adventure who flooded Italy with villany, ambition, and lawlessness in the fifteenth century. Gattamelata, who began life as a baker's boy at Narni and ended it with a bronze statue by Donatello on the public square in Padua, was of this breed. ...
— New Italian sketches • John Addington Symonds

... who saw too,—a sudden flash of light, as it were, revealing to Penn all the heartless, scheming villany of the friendly-seeming Augustus. He grasped the Stackridge pistol; his eyes, glaring in the dark, were fixed in righteous fury on the elegant ...
— Cudjo's Cave • J. T. Trowbridge

... veiled the monster who sought our destruction, O, where had we all been now? And was it not a striking instance of Jehovah's righteous retributions, that the man who was once the betrothed of my aunt, should be the instrument selected by Heaven to disclose the villany and wickedness of the wretch who seduced her affections by artful falsehoods, and made her his wife, but to steal her fortune and blast her life? Poor, dear aunt Mary! I mourn not nor pine to find she is not my mother, ...
— Eventide - A Series of Tales and Poems • Effie Afton

... which the British government had thus perfidiously seized. We regret to say, but history will bear us out in the assertion, that there is no government in Christendom whose annals are sullied with so many acts of unmitigated villany as the government ...
— Peter Stuyvesant, the Last Dutch Governor of New Amsterdam • John S. C. Abbott

... the astonished Giles a long career of villany on the part of the said Wilson. The young man shuddered as the vile category of crime was unrolled. It was horrible that such a wretch as Walter Franklin should be the father of Anne. But for all her parent's vices, Giles never swerved from the determination to marry the girl. He was not one ...
— A Coin of Edward VII - A Detective Story • Fergus Hume

... old man, I am glad to say," said I. "There are days when you are the living image of your grandfather Raffles, but that is only when you are planning some scheme of villany. I can almost invariably detect the trend of your thoughts by a glance at your face—you are Holmes himself in your honest moments, Raffles at others. For the past week it has delighted me more than I can say to find you a fac-simile ...
— R. Holmes & Co. • John Kendrick Bangs

... every Christian heart. If slavery be, necessarily, "the sum of all villanies," as you and many use the expression, the relation cannot exist without making each slave-holder a villain, in all the degrees of villany. You will do well to look into the cant phrases of "freedom," before you indulge in the use of them. The bishops and clergy of the noble army of Methodists in the South would not sustain their great chief in applying the phrase in question to the actual state of things ...
— The Sable Cloud - A Southern Tale With Northern Comments (1861) • Nehemiah Adams

... due cause I hoped to find thee (Gellius!) faithful In this saddest our love, love that is lost and forlore, Or fro' my wotting thee well or ever believing thee constant, Or that thy mind could reject villany ever so vile, But that because was she to thyself nor mother nor sister, 5 This same damsel whose Love me in its greatness devoured. Yet though I had been joined wi' thee by amplest of usance, Still could I never believe this was sufficient of ...
— The Carmina of Caius Valerius Catullus • Caius Valerius Catullus

... life. He understood now that Leonora had been his one genuine passion: the love that comes to people once in a lifetime. It had been within reach of his hand, and he had failed to grasp it, had frightened it away forever with a cowardly act of villany, a cruel farewell, the shame of which would go to the grave with him. Garlanded in the orange-blossoms of the orchard, Love had passed before him, singing the Hymn of wild Youth that knows neither scruples nor ambition. Love, true love had invited him to follow—and he had answered with ...
— The Torrent - Entre Naranjos • Vicente Blasco Ibanez

... great cruelty, was turned into a foure footed Asse, in most vile and abject manner: yea, and whose estate seemed worthily to be lamented and pittied of the most hard and stonie hearts, was accused of theft and robbing of my deare host Milo, which villany might rather be called parricide then theft, yet might not I defend mine owne cause or denie the fact any way, by reason I could not speake; howbeit least my conscience should seeme to accuse me by reason of silence, ...
— The Golden Asse • Lucius Apuleius

... the suffering of innocence to atone for guilt. It means that one crime is condoned by the commission of another—a deliberate one. It means that truth must die in order that dishonor may live. It substitutes vengeance for justice. It does not seek to protect society by checking villany; it seeks the safety of the criminal by a shifting of responsibility. If the framers of human laws were no wiser that the revealers of divine law, no nation could live, no family would ...
— Men, Women, and Gods - And Other Lectures • Helen H. Gardener

... convict detected in stealing potatoes was ordered to receive 300 lashes, to be chained for six months to two other criminals, and to have his allowance of flour stopped for six months. Further, to contribute to the detection of villany, a proclamation, offering 60 pounds of flour, more tempting than the gold of Peru, was promised to any one who should apprehend a robber of garden ground. At length the bonds of misfortune began ...
— The History of Tasmania , Volume II (of 2) • John West

... at once that you think no ill, and do not threaten me that I am to be taken into the country for protection. And when you tell me of the bold-faced villany of that young woman, speak of her with the disgust that she deserves; and say that your sister Susanna is suspicious and given to evil thoughts; and declare your brother to be a wicked slanderer if he has said a ...
— Is He Popenjoy? • Anthony Trollope

... reader that an immense number of persons, both infidels and Protestants, especially in sober-minded England and Scotland, treat every professed Catholic miracle as a portion of the vast gigantic system of deliberate fraud and villany which they conceive to be the very life of Catholicism. From the Pope to the humblest priest who says Mass and hears confessions in an ugly little chapel in the shabbiest street of a country town, all are regarded as leagued in one wide-spreading imposture. Pius IX., for ...
— The Life of St. Frances of Rome, and Others • Georgiana Fullerton

... thing serious in it but its Persecutions, its Murders, its Massacres; all employ'd against the most innocent and virtuous, and the most sensible and learned Men, because they will not be Tools to support Villany and Ignorance. ...
— A Discourse Concerning Ridicule and Irony in Writing (1729) • Anthony Collins

... the times, and seemed to say that the world was fast coming to a finis; the ends of the earth appearing to have combined in a great Popish plot of villany. Every man that had a heart to feel, must have trembled amid these threatening, judgment-like, and calamitous events. As for my own part, the depravity of the nations, which most of these scenes showed me, ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - tailor in Dalkeith • D. M. Moir

... looking with mute astonishment at these evidences of Jaggers's villany, there came a low knocking at the door, and two men entered, one of them a broad, brown-bearded man in a half seafaring ...
— Miss Grantley's Girls - And the Stories She Told Them • Thomas Archer

... not his own. He may desire to imitate that course of behavior which had Samuel Bowles abducted and unlawfully imprisoned because he published in his paper the truth about Wall Street trickery and villany, or which sandbagged Dorman B. Eaton in the streets of New York for having fought with legal weapons of honest denunciation that malodorous craft of a compact between incarnate kleptomania in finance and the unspeakable "boss" burglar of ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 24, November, 1891 • Various

... of the public, annoyed by the hints which he had received from Barillon, afraid of losing character, afraid of losing office, repaired to the royal closet. He was determined to keep his place, if it could be kept by any villany but one. He would pretend to be shaken in his religious opinions, and to be half a convert: he would promise to give strenuous support to that policy which he had hitherto opposed: but, if he were driven to extremity, ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 2 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... many a Forbes, and many a Dun,[142] Each a resolved, and pious son, Wait her high bidding; each prepared, As she around her orders shared, Proof 'gainst remorse, to run, to fly, And bid the destined victim die, 80 Posting on Villany's black wing, Whether he patriot is, or king. Oppression,—willing to appear An object of our love, not fear, Or, at the most, a reverend awe To breed, usurp'd the garb of Law. A book she held, on which her ...
— Poetical Works • Charles Churchill

... him after his first departure from the right way. Ah, how little is there in worldly possessions, be it large or small, to compensate for a troubled, self-accusing spirit! how little to throw in the balance against the heavy weight of conscious villany! ...
— True Riches - Or, Wealth Without Wings • T.S. Arthur

... occasion in full Senate, and in the presence of General James Gunn (the Georgia senator who was representing the swindlers), to denounce the scheme as "a speculation of the darkest character and of deliberate villany." ...
— Stories Of Georgia - 1896 • Joel Chandler Harris

... found. Feed them, and flog them, and I pledge myself to their swaggering, and their courage. D'ye see that thought ful-looking, bony miscreant, that has a look of godliness in the midst of all his villany? That fellow fish'd for herring till he got a taste of beef, when his stomach revolted at its ancient fare; and then the ambition of becoming rich got uppermost. He is a Scot, from one of the lochs ...
— The Red Rover • James Fenimore Cooper

... pariahs among the community, who extort and cheat their employers without mercy. If not permitted so to do, they leave them at a minutes warning; and you cannot go to any foreign colony of English people without listening to very justified tirades of the villany of the servants. Upon the same principle, there are few places abroad where the tradespeople have not two prices; one for the English, and the other ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)

... General Robertson are contained the cases of all the persons, that have been tried and convicted of robbery, horse stealing, &c. in the Jerseys since the war, as they have protected every species of villany. They wish us to consider every felon we hang, as a part of ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. VIII • Various

... of travail approached, to the protection of her own family, was induced to confide herself to the charge of some vile agent of this nefarious seducer, and by her conducted to one of those solitary and secret purlieus of villany, which, to the shame of our police, still are suffered to exist in the suburbs of this city, where, with the assistance, and under the charge, of a person of her own sex, she bore a male child, under circumstances which added ...
— The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott

... in danger of being shot down by their enemy as if they had been rabbits in a pen, now marched boldly into the centre of the town, pulled down the Spanish flag, and hoisted their own in its place. They were the masters of Gibraltar. Never had ambitious villany been more successful. ...
— Buccaneers and Pirates of Our Coasts • Frank Richard Stockton

... on the verge of bankruptcy, owing to the villany and mismanagement of his agent, and was thrown into Fleet Street Prison, a jail in which he had never before been confined. His health gave way afterwards, and this remarkable man died July ...
— Comic History of the United States • Bill Nye

... makes no allowances; he forgets the best authenticated facts in the history of the times, and the most generally recognised principles of human nature. The opposition of the great orator to the policy of Philip he represents as neither more nor less than deliberate villany. I hold almost the same opinion with Mr Mitford respecting the character and the views of that great and accomplished prince. But am I, therefore, to pronounce Demosthenes profligate and insincere? Surely not. Do we not perpetually see men of the greatest talents and the purest intentions ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 1 (of 4) - Contibutions to Knight's Quarterly Magazine] • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... lusted for it, and the benefits of peace seem greater than ever; but the benefits of equity and truth seem greater than all. Show me justice, or try to make me unjust,—force upon me at the point of the sword the unspeakable degradation of abetting villany, and I will seize the hilt, if I can, and write my protest clear with the blade, and while I have it in my hand I will reap what advantages are possible in ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 56, June, 1862 • Various

... a cast-off Creole than the resplendent rogue who fascinated even history for a time by the clamor and glitter of his triumphs. But the fellow is unmistakably an emperor in the egg—so dauntless and frontless in the very abjection of his villany that we feel him to have been defrauded by mischance of the only two destinations appropriate for the close of his career—a gibbet ...
— The Age of Shakespeare • Algernon Charles Swinburne

... a rare specimen of villany," said Paul, as he laid down the paper, "and has been written in some such spirit as that employed by the devil when he tempted our common mother. I think I never read a better specimen of low, ...
— Home as Found • James Fenimore Cooper

... ten years; but I do not defend it; I only portray it. Being the boy he was, he was destined somehow to dwell half the time in a world of dreamery; and I have tried to express how, when he had once got enough of villany, he reformed his ...
— Boy Life - Stories and Readings Selected From The Works of William Dean Howells • William Dean Howells

... Here you have passed from infancy to childhood, from childhood to adolescence, unconscious that a cloud deeper than poverty and obscurity rests upon your youth. I could not bear that my innocent child should blush for a father's villany. I could not bear that her holy confidence in human goodness and truth should be shattered and destroyed. But the day of revelation must come. From the grave, whither I am hastening, my voice shall speak; for the time ...
— Ernest Linwood - or, The Inner Life of the Author • Caroline Lee Hentz

... such proportions that it would require more pages than this book contains to present them in detail. I even thought of including Hippopopolis in the list, but when I realized that it was entirely owing to his villany that I had enjoyed the delightful privilege of visiting the gods in their own abode, I spared him. And to think that because of an unintentional error this great opportunity to rid the world, and incidentally myself, of much that ...
— Olympian Nights • John Kendrick Bangs

... fellow among them who looks capable of any villany. He finds something to mount on, and, in the Creole patois, calls a general halt. Bienvenu sinks down, and, vainly trying to recline gracefully, resigns the leadership. The herd gather round the speaker; he assures them that they have been outraged. Their ...
— Old Creole Days • George Washington Cable

... extremely rationalistic in her interpretation; 'for if iver Old Harry appeared in a human form, it's that Dempster. It was all through him as we got cheated out o' Pye's Croft, making out as the title wasn't good. Such lawyer's villany! As if paying good money wasn't title enough to anything. If your father as is dead and gone had been worthy to know it! But he'll have a fall some day, Dempster will. ...
— Scenes of Clerical Life • George Eliot

... at last received the letter which this rider had been so abashed to deliver, slow but lasting wrath began to gather in his gray-lashed eyes. It was the inborn anger of an honest man at villany mixed with lofty scorn and traversed by a dear anxiety. Withal he found himself so helpless that he scarce knew what to do. He had been to Frida both a father and a mother, as she often used to tell him when she wanted something; ...
— Frida, or, The Lover's Leap, A Legend Of The West Country - From "Slain By The Doones" By R. D. Blackmore • R. D. Blackmore

... Italy, in 1536, renewed a plague, then almost ceased, by besmearing with an ointment and a powder the posts and doors of men's houses. One of the wicked old hags having been apprehended and examined, confessed the fact. The like villany was perpetrated elsewhere about the same time. Weeping and lamentation were heard in every dwelling for fathers stricken down by death; but, strange to say, the women escaped injury. Cattle were killed through wolves' dung being hidden ...
— The Mysteries of All Nations • James Grant

... public, and lamentations being raised in the palace, Servius, supported by a strong guard, took possession of the kingdom by the consent of the senate, being the first who did so without the orders of the people. The children of Ancus, the instruments of their villany having been already seized, as soon as it was announced that the king still lived, and that the power of Servius was so great, had already gone ...
— The History of Rome, Books 01 to 08 • Titus Livius

... of this dear child,-who was led to destruction by her own imprudence, the hardness of heart of Madame Duval, and the villany of Sir John Belmont,-was once, what her daughter is now, the best beloved of my heart: and her memory, so long as my own holds, I shall love, mourn and honour! On the fatal day that her gentle soul left ...
— Evelina • Fanny Burney

... offered no word of explanation. These reflections naturally recalled again more strongly than before his haggard face, his wandering manner, his restless anxious looks. His affection for the child might not be inconsistent with villany of the worst kind; even that very affection was in itself an extraordinary contradiction, or how could he leave her thus? Disposed as I was to think badly of him, I never doubted that his love for her was real. I could not admit the thought, ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens

... the Prince's jester; a very dull fool, only his gift is in devising unprofitable slanders; none but libertines delight in him, and the commendation is not in his wit, but in his villany, for he both pleases men and angers them, and then they laugh at ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 1 (of 2) - With an Introduction upon Ancient Humour • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange

... not of obstinacy, For money excuse them, though they use villany, Thus shall you perform your office aright, For favour or money ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VI • Robert Dodsley

... language, "like a bear in a chain," ready to be slipped upon Maurice should "the boy" prove ungrateful. He connived at the famous forgery of the prelate of Arras, to which the Landgrave Philip owed his long imprisonment; a villany worse than many for which humbler rogues have suffered by thousands upon the gallows. The contemporary world knew well the history of his frauds, on scale both colossal and minute, and called ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... St. Petersburg as soon as possible, maintained a close and frequent correspondence with Poole by the agency of the nurse, who luckily was not above being bribed by shillings. Poole continued to reject the villany proposed by Jasper; but, in course of the correspondence, he threw out rather incoherently—for his mind began somewhat to wander—a scheme equally flagitious, which Jasper, aided perhaps by Madame Caumartin's ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... them from the heights of his superior learning. In the second portion, where he defends his marriage with Pudentilla and justifies his dealings with his step-sons, he clears himself in good earnest, nay does more than clear himself. For he unveils in the most merciless fashion the villany of his accusers—the base ingratitude of Pudens, and the unspeakable ...
— The Apologia and Florida of Apuleius of Madaura • Lucius Apuleius

... hunted from her door by the creditors whom he had defrauded, and forced to confess her disgrace and her despair, in order to save herself from the unknown terrors of the law, invoked upon her innocent head by his villany. This is the history of the first two weeks of those two years, during which, as his perjured lips have sworn, he was using every effort to secure her return to him. I will not enlarge now upon this history, ...
— A Modern Instance • William Dean Howells

... deputies were sent back to Ariminum, and the bishops, already reduced to great distress by their long detention, were plied with threats and cajolery till most of them yielded. When Phoebadius and a score of others remained firm, their resistance was overcome by as shameless a piece of villany as can be found in history. Valens came forward and declared that he was not one of the Arians, but heartily detested their blasphemies. The creed would do very well as it stood, and the Easterns had accepted it already; but if Phoebadius ...
— The Arian Controversy • H. M. Gwatkin

... perpetually ill, that she implored her husband to let her enjoy the company of her sister and friends. When he could have no relief from her importunity (being assured that in seeing her relations, she must discover his barbarous deceit) he thought it was best to be himself the relator of his villany; he fell upon his knees before her, with so much seeming confusion, distress and anguish, that she was at a loss to know what could mould his stubborn heart to such contrition. At last, with a thousand well counterfeited ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Vol. IV • Theophilus Cibber

... in a place of considerable difficulty, involving a row on one side and imputation of villany on the other, and studied ...
— The Universal Reciter - 81 Choice Pieces of Rare Poetical Gems • Various

... far the wicked spirit of envy, malice, and resentment can hurry some men, my nameless old persecutor had provided a monument at the stone-cutter's, and would have it erected in the parish church: and this piece of notorious and expensive villany had actually succeeded, if I had not used my utmost interest with the Vestry; where it was carried at last but by two voices, that I ...
— An English Garner - Critical Essays & Literary Fragments • Edited by Professor Arber and Thomas Seccombe

... guilty of a villany seems to us highly improbable. That Addison should have been guilty of a villany seems to us highly improbable. But that these two men should have conspired together to commit a villany seems to us improbable in a tenfold degree. All that ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... that I have not been the dupe of a heartless or mercenary woman. Margaret has not acted as a free agent. She has paid the penalty of her determination to force herself into the presence of Henry Dunbar. By some inexplicable means, by some masterpiece of villany and cunning, this man has induced his victim's daughter to become the champion of his innocence, instead of the ...
— Henry Dunbar - A Novel • M. E. Braddon

... thirty to forty log dwellings. During the reign of the Ohio-River bargemen,[A] it was notorious as the headquarters of the roughest elements in that boisterous class, and frequently the scene of most barbarous outrages—"the odious receptacle," says a chronicler of the time, "of filth and villany." ...
— Afloat on the Ohio - An Historical Pilgrimage of a Thousand Miles in a Skiff, from Redstone to Cairo • Reuben Gold Thwaites

... bad as himself: he fears him as a man well armed and provided, but sets boldly on good natures, as the most vanquishable. One that seriously admires those worst princes, as Sforza, Borgia, and Richard the third; and calls matters of deep villany things of difficulty. To whom murders are but resolute acts, and treason a business of great consequence. One whom two or three countries make up to this compleatness, and he has travelled for the purpose. His deepest indearment is ...
— Microcosmography - or, a Piece of the World Discovered; in Essays and Characters • John Earle

... publishers of Railway libraries think that it is forty or fifty double- column pages of pirated English fiction. Readers of the "New York Ledger" suppose it to be a romance of angelic virtue at last triumphant over satanic villany. The aristocracy of culture describe it as a philosophic analysis of human character and motives, with an agnostic bias on the analyst's part. Schoolboys are under the impression that it is a tale of Western chivalry and Indian outrage—price, ten ...
— Confessions and Criticisms • Julian Hawthorne

... throwing in, had catch'd fast hold of some impending Bushes, and sav'd himself on a little Jutty within the Concavity. On hearing us talk English he cry'd out; and Ropes being let down, in a little Time he was drawn up; when he gave us an ample Detail of the whole Villany. Among other Particulars, I remember he told me of a very narrow Escape he had in that obscure Recess. A poor Woman, one of the Wives of the Soldiers, who were thrown down after him, struggled, and roared so much, that they could ...
— Military Memoirs of Capt. George Carleton • Daniel Defoe

... the bullet in the muzzle of the pistol, into the barrel of which it slid, fitting there exactly. Shocked and confounded by this proof of his kinsman's villany, the Count dropped the other pistol ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 366, April, 1846 • Various

... who, to accomplish his revenge, conspired with three profligates named Melitus, Lycon, and Anytus, orators and rhetoricians, to destroy that godlike being. Defended by the reverence in which the people held him, Socrates was perpetually secured from the feeble villany of these three associates, till Aristophanes joining them, broke down by wit the barrier that protected him. In the comedy of the Clouds he threw the venerable old man into such forcible ridicule as overset all the respect of the mob ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 4, April 1810 • Various

... much to the point. If bred as a divine, he would have held his place among the "brilliants" of the time, and been as original, erratic, or outr as any. What a fortune lost! It is part of the fatality for the man not to know it, at least in time. Even villany would have put him into his proper place, but for that film over the mental vision. "If rogues," said Franklin, "knew the advantages attached to the practice of the virtues, they would become ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 30, April, 1860 • Various

... detract, but better skilled in the art of detraction than the author of the above stupid scandal, has made free with my character. For I can not suppose, that malice so absurd, so barefaced, so diametrically opposite to truth, to common policy, and, in short, to everything but villany, as the above is, could impress you with so ill an opinion of my ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 2 (of 5) • John Marshall

... the night before." The magistrates and constables were as much in need of reform as the laws. "The greatest criminals in this town," said Walpole,[147] "are the officers of justice; there is no tyranny they do not exercise, no villany of which they do not partake." Many of the magistrates were never impartial, except, as Fielding said: "when they could get nothing on either side." One class of constables was described by Fielding ...
— A History of English Prose Fiction • Bayard Tuckerman

... suborned to devise, and feign those things against them, and had persevered in that wickedness by the counsel of his Father, and some others, whom envy, revenge and hope of gain had prompted on to that devillish design and villany; and he also confessed, that upon that day when he said that they met at the aforesaid house or barn, he was that very day a mile off, getting Plums in his Neighbours Orchard. And that this is a most certain truth, there are many ...
— Discovery of Witches - The Wonderfull Discoverie of Witches in the Countie of Lancaster • Thomas Potts

... instantly corrupted. Villany is always progressive. We decline from right—not suddenly, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. - Volume 19, No. 536, Saturday, March 3, 1832. • Various

... brutal cruelty of the judge. His fury seemed to be directed with peculiar violence upon the Dissenters. "Show me," said he, "a Presbyterian, and I will show thee a lying knave. Presbyterianism has all manner of villany in it. There is not one of those lying, snivelling, canting Presbyterians, but, one way or another, has had a hand in the rebellion." He sentenced nearly all who were accused, to be hanged or burned; and the excess of his barbarities ...
— A Modern History, From the Time of Luther to the Fall of Napoleon - For the Use of Schools and Colleges • John Lord

... criminal character; but he does not the less leave clear to our reprobation the vice or the crime. But here I found myself called upon, not only to feel interest in the villain (which would be perfectly allowable,—I am very much interested in Macbeth and Lovelace), but to admire and sympathize with the villany itself. Nor was it the confusion of all wrong and right in individual character that shocked me the most, but rather the view of society altogether, painted in colors so hideous that, if true, instead of a revolution, it would draw down a deluge. It was the hatred, ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... named Nick Muggins, who is employed by the noble suitor to intercept letters, and the aid of Crop, who acts as a sort of go-between, are put in requisition for this purpose; but the villany of the latter is finely defeated in his mistaking a silly, forward girl, Miss Glossop, for Penelope, and accordingly prevailing on her to elope with him to Lord Spoonbill's villa, where the blunder ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, - Volume 12, No. 329, Saturday, August 30, 1828 • Various

... Rim was my father's as much as it was Disbrowe Erne's father's. Disbrowe Erne's father entrapped mine, and got the other half. It was the old story of Esau's pottage, with thrice the villany. My father made me promise him on his death-bed, that, come fair means, The Rim should be mine again. I was twenty, Erne was fifty. Fair means came. Nevertheless, if I had known how things stood, I might have broken the promise,—who knows?—if at that moment I had happened ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 79, May, 1864 • Various

... said, "Oh gentle Cavalier! Now by thy God say me no villany; The favour of your name I fain would hear, And if a Christian, speak for courtesy." Replied Orlando, "So much to your ear I by my faith disclose contentedly; Christ I adore, who is the genuine Lord, And, if you please, ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron

... time to give over Trade; and what still vex'd him more, to have his poor innocent Wife call'd pocky B—ch, and himself all the debauch'd Villains into the Bargain. The Surgeon, on the other hand, cries out, A new piece of Villany, a Fellow brings a Whore, and a Bill of Parcels, to rob my House, and has withal the Impudence to boast of a Conversation he has truly had with my Wife in a Hackney-Coach. The Surgeon's Wife had been found over a Dish of Tea at a Relation's House in Crutched-Fryars, where she had dined, and had ...
— The Tricks of the Town: or, Ways and Means of getting Money • John Thomson

... the World an account, of the uncommon Villany of a Gentleman of a good Family in England practis'd upon his Sister, which was attested to me by one who liv'd in the Family, and from whom I had the whole Truth of the Story. I shall conceal the unhappy Gentleman's ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume V • Aphra Behn

... worthy, and yet more ardent, bibliomaniac, called JOHN CLUNGEON, who left a press, and some books carefully deposited in a stout chest, to the parish church at Southampton. We have also evidence of this man's having erected a press within the same; but human villany has robbed us of every relic of his books and printing furniture.[347] From Southampton, you must excuse me if I take a leap to London; in order to introduce you into the wine cellars of one JOHN ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin

... But these social cobwebs by which we poor flies are caught and held,—it is very hard to break them! I was always going to do right, and always did wrong. After my great wrong to Amy, which was a pretended marriage, she left me,—she had found out my villany,—and went to America. She did not write to me until she knew she must die, and then she related every particular,—all your great kindness to both her and the child, and the motherly tenderness with which Mrs. Lunt had endeavored to soften her sufferings. In twenty years I have changed very much ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 104, June, 1866 • Various

... merry as a marriage bell. Just before the marriage a confessor was sent for to a sick seaman, who revealed young Lynch's crime. The Warder of Galway stood at the bed of this dying man, and heard of the villany of his beloved son. Young Lynch was arrested, tried, found guilty, and sentenced. The mother of young Lynch, having exhausted all efforts to obtain mercy for her son, flew in distraction to the Blake tribe—she was a ...
— The Letters of "Norah" on her Tour Through Ireland • Margaret Dixon McDougall

... after his father's return. He however would consult his father's agent and would then appear on settling-day. They were all full of the blandest courtesies. There was not one of them who had any doubt as to getting his money,—unless the whole thing might be disputed on the score of Tifto's villany. Even then payment could not be disputed, unless it was proved that he who demanded the money had been one of the actual conspirators. After having seen his creditors he went ...
— The Duke's Children • Anthony Trollope

... this truce and the forming of their worthless compact the three wretches prepared to depart from the scene of their villany. First, however, they advanced cautiously as close as they dared to the edge of the pit into which they had flung their victim, and, peering into its blackness, listened fearfully. No sound broke the awful silence, and of a sudden the three men, moved by a common impulse, turned ...
— The Copper Princess - A Story of Lake Superior Mines • Kirk Munroe

... either for compassionate accompanying just causes of lamentation, or for rightly painting out how weak be the passions of woefulness. Is it the bitter, but wholesome Iambic [Footnote: Originally used by the Greeks for satire], which rubs the galled mind, in making shame the trumpet of villany, with bold and open crying out against naughtiness; ...
— English literary criticism • Various

... The kiosks are almost all occupied: charming little Chinese pagodas these—eight-sided, with lattice screens on all sides—screens so tightly woven that no curious idler can see in, and yet so loosely put together that each hidden inmate can see out. Even the trees overhead have a hand in the villany, spreading their leaves thickly, so that the sun itself has a hard time to find out what is going on beneath their branches. All this you become aware of as you enter ...
— The Underdog • F. Hopkinson Smith

... upon as a baby. Indeed, Fred was of but little use in settling the business, much more plague than profit, since he stood up stoutly for his father's honor and integrity. He had that much of a son's love. And he characterized Horace Eastman's villany as it deserved: his education had not quite done away with his ...
— Hope Mills - or Between Friend and Sweetheart • Amanda M. Douglas

... by the way he came and went, and by the precaution always taken when he was there. But when he came to live in the room over theirs, and when, by listening at odd times, she found that he and her husband were engaged in some great villany, the nature of which she could not understand, then she saw that there was nothing to do, but in sheer desperation to sit down and wait ...
— The Recollections of Geoffrey Hamlyn • Henry Kingsley

... Innocent Lanier (who is appointed by my brother to sollicit this business) with all the particulars and publique speeche that he may the better know how to imploy this paynes for the discovering of the knot of this villany. I desire you to say well what is fitt to be done in the divorce of my brother and to notify me your opinions thereon and (if you thinke it fitt to be pursued in this) what is the speediest work that may be taken therein. And you discover the ...
— The Curious Case of Lady Purbeck - A Scandal of the XVIIth Century • Thomas Longueville

... that night to Naples, were now trying to fly their bargain and remain at Capri till the morrow. The Danes beat them, however, and then sat down to dinner, and to long stories of the imposture and villany of the Italians. One of them chiefly bewailed himself that the day before, having unwisely eaten a dozen oysters without agreeing first with the oyster-man upon the price, he had been obliged to pay this scamp's ...
— Italian Journeys • William Dean Howells

... at his execution he spoke of assassination with the abhorrence which became a good Christian and a brave soldier. He had never, he protested, on the faith of a dying man, harboured the thought of committing such villany. But he frankly owned that, in conversation with his fellow conspirators, he had mentioned his own house as a place where Charles and James might with advantage be attacked, and that much had been said on the subject, though nothing had been ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... biassed, or his pleasantness forced; never did he laugh in the wrong place, or prostitute his sense to serve his luxury; never did he stab into the wounds of fallen virtue, with a base and a cowardly insult, or smooth the face of prosperous villany, with the paint and washes of a mercenary wit; never did he spare a sop for being rich, or flatter a knave for being great. He had a wit that was accompanied with an unaffected greatness of mind, and a natural love to justice and truth; ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Volume II • Theophilus Cibber

... into the serene summer darkness and the dewy garden, getting a little fresh air upon his heated face. Last of all he came back, peremptory and decided. "I shall not betray him," said the Perpetual Curate; "but I will have no further schemes concocted nor villany carried on in my house. If I consent to shield him, and, if possible, save him from the law, it is neither for his sake—nor yours," said the indignant young man. "I suppose it is no use saying anything ...
— The Perpetual Curate • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant

... no chicanery, by the Dey of Algiers. If this country were erected at once into a downright, honest, open despotism, the people would be gainers. If a judge or despot then proved a rogue, he would at once appear in his true character; but now villany can be artfully concealed under the verdict of a packed jury. I am satisfied that the present system of corruption is more detrimental to the ...
— The Life of Thomas, Lord Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald, G.C.B., Admiral of the Red, Rear-Admiral of the Fleet, Etc., Etc. • Thomas Cochrane, Earl of Dundonald

... our view to the village of Hazeldean, we behold in this whirligig Dr. Riccabocca spurring his hobby after Lenny Fairfield; and Miss Jemima, on her decorous side-saddle, whipping after Dr. Riccabocca. Why, with so long and intimate a conviction of the villany of our sex, Miss Jemima should resolve upon giving the male animal one more chance of redeeming itself in her eyes, I leave to the explanation of those gentlemen who profess to find "their only books in woman's looks." Perhaps it might be from the over-tenderness and clemency ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 2, January, 1851 • Various

... black, burning shame that one with a Highland name and a Highland mother would take a part like yon. I would not think there could be men in the world so bad. They must have wicked mothers to make such sons; the ghost of a good mother would cry from her grave to check her child in such a villany." Olivia spoke with intense feeling, her eyes ...
— Doom Castle • Neil Munro

... with you any way," said Gus, who, like so many others, never made a square bargain with the devil, but was easily "led captive" from one wrong and villany to another. ...
— What Can She Do? • Edward Payson Roe

... had probably reached the cottage of his father, and had learned what had happened. My uncle had told him that I had obtained the precious will—that the charter of their villany was gone. He had found that "that boy" was not to be trifled with. "That boy" had possessed himself of the fearful secret of their evil practices, had probed the mystery of their iniquity, and was ready to come down upon them like an avenging spirit, to expose their rascality, and to publish ...
— Seek and Find - or The Adventures of a Smart Boy • Oliver Optic

... the tools of the Confederates. They have been taken, and every thing has been discovered. Pulawski, their great hero, hired the assassins and bound them by an oath. Letters found upon Lukawski, who boasts of his share in the villany, shows that Pulawski was the head conspirator, and that the plot had been approved ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach

... in faith; fetch a ladder, and I will set him. Fortune, thou injurious dame, thou shalt not by this villany Have cause to triumph over Prodigality. Why speak'st thou not? why speak'st thou not, I say? Thy silence doth but breed thine own ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VIII (4th edition) • Various

... to surrender; and thereby secure whatever small chance of pardon such conduct might merit. But when Steelkilt made known his determination still to lead them to the last, they in some way, by some subtle chemistry of villany, mixed their before secret treacheries together; and when their leader fell into a doze, verbally opened their souls to each other in three sentences; and bound the sleeper with cords, and gagged ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville

... hypocrisy. Mine old lord, whiles he liv'd, was so precise, That he would take exceptions at my buttons, And, being like pins' heads, blame me for the bigness; Which made me curate-like in mine attire, Though inwardly licentious enough, And apt for any kind of villany. I am none of these common pedants, I, That cannot speak without propterea quod. Y. Spen. But one of those that saith quando-quidem, And hath a special gift to form a verb. Bald. Leave off this jesting; here my ...
— Edward II. - Marlowe's Plays • Christopher Marlowe

... fright, presently knew her father's voice; and his lordship, notwithstanding his passion, knew the voice of reason, which peremptorily assured him, it was not now a time for the perpetration of his villany. Hearing, therefore, the voice approach, and hearing likewise whose it was (for as the squire more than once roared forth the word daughter, so Sophia, in the midst of her struggling, cried out upon her father), he thought proper to relinquish his prey, having only disordered ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding

... to make my name famous. No man lives or has ever lived who has brought the same amount of study and of natural talent to the detection of crime which I have done. And what is the result? There is no crime to detect, or, at most, some bungling villany with a motive so transparent that even a Scotland Yard official ...
— A Study In Scarlet • Arthur Conan Doyle

... believe that it was his first offence. The same thing happened at Christmas. He has become hardened in successful villany. The crime is not against me alone; it is against the Church, and must be punished accordingly. Don't raise your hands in that deprecating manner, Ralph, or attempt to plead for him," and he stamped his foot impatiently; "I must and will be obeyed. Why do you ...
— George Leatrim • Susanna Moodie

... as it deserves to be. Doctor Harrison descends to some low business, quite unworthy of him, such as tampering with the mails. This is not only mortifying, but entirely unnecessary; inasmuch as Doctor Harrison has a subordinate villain to do all the low villany, in the person of Squire Deacon, who shoots at Mr. Linden from behind a hedge (!), and is never called to account therefor,—a strange remissness on the part of everybody, which seems to have no recommendation except that it leaves him free to do this ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 6, No. 33, July, 1860 • Various

... how will the woes of Virtue end? 'Tis late in the Five-Act play; And Fortune still is dark Vice's friend, And villany holds its sway, Its truly wonderful sway! 'Twould scarce be the thing for Vice to crow, And Virtue to sink and die; The end must arrive some time, we know— So bring on your Russian Spy,— Come, out with your ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 103, December 31, 1892 • Various

... every limb, and since then the thought haunts me. If I knew that Louison were dead I would thank God on my knees, but it is terrible to think that she is in the power of that scoundrel. The fact that Robeckal has a hand in the affair stamps it at once as a piece of villany." ...
— The Son of Monte-Cristo, Volume II (of 2) • Alexandre Dumas pere

... courtier is always degrading enough to play; but to be courtier to a prince whose favour was to be won by proficiency in vice, and audacity in follies, to truckle to his tastes, to win his smiles by the invention of a new pleasure and his approbation by the plotting of a new villany, what an office for the author of 'The School for Scandal,' and the orator renowned for denouncing the wickednesses of Warren Hastings! What a life for the young poet who had wooed and won the Maid of Bath—for ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 2 • Grace & Philip Wharton

... been hanged, and cut down before he was dead; and he suffered the unutterable mortification of knowing that, after a long and successful social career, he had been detected by his worst enemy in a piece of disgraceful villany. In the first place, Giovanni might kill him. Del Ferice was a very good fencer, but Saracinesca was stronger and more active; there was certainly considerable danger in the duel. On the other hand, if he survived, Giovanni had him in his power for the rest ...
— Saracinesca • F. Marion Crawford

... end of my sojourn at Warsaw I put down these words: "Love for another man's wife, if only a pastime, is a great villany, and if real, is one of the greatest misfortunes that can happen to a man." Writing this before Kromitzki's arrival, I had not taken into account all the items which make up the sum of this misfortune. I also thought it nobler than it really is. Now I begin ...
— Without Dogma • Henryk Sienkiewicz

... them that truly trust you, 'tis a clumsy villany! Any knave may slay the child who climbs and slumbers ...
— Indian Poetry • Edwin Arnold

... and ha's, thy whine and stammering. 55 Pish—fool! thou blunder'st through the devil's book, Spelling thy villany! ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge

... Oviedo characterizes it as "a badly contrived and worse written document, devised by a factious and unprincipled priest, a clumsy notary without conscience, and others of the like stamp, who were all concerned in this villany." (Hist. de las Indias, Ms., Parte 3, lib. 8, cap. 22.) Most authorities agree in the two principal charges, - the assassination of Huascar, and the conspiracy against the Spaniards.] These charges, most of which ...
— The History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William H. Prescott

... you are! how dare you kill another man's daughter without provocation? Such unspeakable villany is unworthy a Samurai's son. Know, that the duty of every Samurai is to keep watch over the country, and to protect the people; and such is his daily task. For sword and dirk are given to men that they may slay rebels, and faithfully serve their ...
— Tales of Old Japan • Algernon Bertram Freeman-Mitford

... Sobieski, "that your mother has so abruptly imparted to you the real country and character of your father. I see that his villany has distressed a heart which Heaven has made alive to even the slightest appearance of dishonor. But be consoled, my son! I have prevented the publicity of his conduct by an ambiguous story of your mother's widowhood. Yet notwithstanding ...
— Thaddeus of Warsaw • Jane Porter

... the reflection upon which tormented his conscience, and made life miserable; that he was going to confess his sins to the pious devotee, and consult her on whatever penance could atone for his villany, of which he had heartily repented, and hoped to obtain the mercy of heaven by a sincere reformation of life. The crime of this wretch was no less than murder; the circumstances of which we forgot to detail in its proper place. The cauzee's wife immediately after her ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous

... despair. How can I gaze upon you, and know, that it is, perhaps, for the last time, without suffering all the phrensy of despair? But it shall not be so; you shall be mine, in spite of Montoni and all his villany.' ...
— The Mysteries of Udolpho • Ann Radcliffe

... accept it. But we must advance the 150 piastres, and so, in mid-journey, we have already paid them to the end, with the risk of their horses breaking down, or they, horses and all, absconding from us. But the knavish varlets are hardly bold enough for such a climax of villany. ...
— The Lands of the Saracen - Pictures of Palestine, Asia Minor, Sicily, and Spain • Bayard Taylor

... agreed thereto. And when they were come in to that country the people saw that she was so fair, and anon they told the king, which anon commanded that she should be brought into his presence. And when she was come, God of his good grace so purveyed for her, that no man had power to do her villany. Wherefore the king was feared that God would have taken vengeance on him for her, and sent for Abram and said to him that he should take his wife, and that he had evil done to say, that she was his sister, and so delivered her again, and gave him ...
— Bible Stories and Religious Classics • Philip P. Wells

... with an enuious forged tale Deceiued the king, betraid mine enemy, And hope for guerdon of my villany. ...
— The Spanish Tragedie • Thomas Kyd

... wait for words," returned the old lady. "I can see quite clearly. I am experienced. I know the Golds. I have been familiar with the method of their villany for many years." ...
— Aunt Rachel • David Christie Murray



Copyright © 2024 Dictionary One.com