Online dictionaryOnline dictionary
Synonyms, antonyms, pronunciation

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




Bad   /bæd/   Listen
Bad

adjective
(compar. worse; superl. worst)
1.
Having undesirable or negative qualities.  "His sloppy appearance made a bad impression" , "A bad little boy" , "Clothes in bad shape" , "A bad cut" , "Bad luck" , "The news was very bad" , "The reviews were bad" , "The pay is bad" , "It was a bad light for reading" , "The movie was a bad choice"
2.
Very intense.  Synonym: big.  "In a big rage" , "Had a big (or bad) shock" , "A bad earthquake" , "A bad storm"
3.
Feeling physical discomfort or pain ('tough' is occasionally used colloquially for 'bad').  Synonym: tough.  "She felt bad all over" , "He was feeling tough after a restless night"
4.
(of foodstuffs) not in an edible or usable condition.  Synonyms: spoiled, spoilt.  "A refrigerator full of spoilt food"
5.
Feeling or expressing regret or sorrow or a sense of loss over something done or undone.  Synonyms: regretful, sorry.  "Regretful over mistakes she had made" , "He felt bad about breaking the vase"
6.
Not capable of being collected.  Synonym: uncollectible.
7.
Below average in quality or performance.  "A bad recital"
8.
Nonstandard.
9.
Not financially safe or secure.  Synonyms: high-risk, risky, speculative.  "High risk investments" , "Anything that promises to pay too much can't help being risky" , "Speculative business enterprises"
10.
Physically unsound or diseased.  Synonyms: unfit, unsound.  "A bad heart" , "Bad teeth" , "An unsound limb" , "Unsound teeth"
11.
Capable of harming.  "Smoking is bad for you"
12.
Characterized by wickedness or immorality.
13.
Reproduced fraudulently.  Synonym: forged.  "A forged twenty dollar bill"
14.
Not working properly.  Synonym: defective.  "A defective appliance"



Related searches:



WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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





"Bad" Quotes from Famous Books



... out to sea, where she was recovered by means of a grapnel thrown from the whaler. The two on the rocks had to face the surf again but were good swimmers, and with their recovery our little adventure ended. It was a pity we had bad weather, because I intended to give the crew a run on the island when ...
— South with Scott • Edward R. G. R. Evans

... Mrs. Day. "That is too bad! The leg's up on the closet shelf here. Jase was calkerlatin' to put it on again, but he ain't never got 'round to it. But the box'll hold yer. It only rattles," she added, as Janice tried the ...
— Janice Day at Poketown • Helen Beecher Long

... their boat, and this was the first house they entered. No wonder, then, that they made a straight wake for the whale's mouth —the bar —when the wrinkled little old Jonah, there officiating, soon poured them out brimmers all round. One complained of a bad cold in his head, upon which Jonah mixed him a pitch-like potion of gin and molasses, which he swore was a sovereign cure for all colds and catarrhs whatsoever, never mind of how long standing, or whether caught off the coast ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville

... pleasantly hit off this class of literature, always appreciated by boarding-school misses and milliners' apprentices:—'"The Cousins," written by M. ——, we candidly admit we did not encounter. When a man has arrived at that time of life when he is compelled to use spec——no, not so bad as that, but lunettes, in order to accommodate the text to his eyes, and finds at the conclusion of an article such a passage as the following: "Beneath that knoll, at the foot of that weeping ash, side by side, in the bosom of one grave lie Reginald and Charlotte de Conrci"—when ...
— The Intellectual Development of the Canadian People • John George Bourinot

... said, smiling while the others laughed. "Both bad little boys and good little boys, as well as girls, are ...
— The Corner House Girls Growing Up - What Happened First, What Came Next. And How It Ended • Grace Brooks Hill

... does not open again till the end of June. Here they would be absolutely without employment unless they chose to stack wood for the steamboat companies, and their only amusements (save the mark) would be drinking bad rye whiskey—for Alaska is a "prohibition" country—and poker-playing. For men with a soul above such delights, the heart-breaking monotony of a northern winter would be appalling, and it is only to be understood by those who have had to endure similar experiences themselves ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park

... provision or ammunition wagon isn't a bad place for a wornout soldier. I remember I slept in another such as this in the Valley of Virginia, ...
— The Shades of the Wilderness • Joseph A. Altsheler

... strong perfume will be bad for him," whispered Ptolemaeus to the freedman. "Galenus sent word that he would visit the sick early to-day; but he is not here yet. He is an old man, and in Rome, they say, it is the ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... some suppose, and our scientific and thoughtful associate, Dr. Gould, has half countenanced the opinion, that there may yet be discovered a specific for every disease. Let us not despair of the future, but let us be moderate in our expectations. When an oil is discovered that will make a bad watch keep good time; when a recipe is given which will turn an acephalous foetus into a promising child; when a man can enter the second time into his mother's womb and give her back the infirmities which twenty generations have stirred into her blood, and infused into his ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)

... for all but one of us. Mr. Borup, in his bunk above the Professor's, read his letters, and in the course of his reading was heard to emit a deep sigh, then to utter an agonizing groan. Prof. MacMillan, thinking that Borup had received bad news indeed, endeavored to console him, and at the same time asked what was the bad news, feeling sure it could be nothing less than the death of Colonel Borup or some other close relative ...
— A Negro Explorer at the North Pole • Matthew A. Henson

... ago have given notice and departed were it not that they were all afraid to face him. Peter knew that that was true, because Mrs. Trussit had told him so. It was this hopeless feeling of indiscriminate punishment that made everything so bad. Until he was eight years old Peter had not been beaten at all, but when he was very young indeed he had learnt to crawl away when he heard his father's step, and he had never cried as a baby because his nurse's white ...
— Fortitude • Hugh Walpole

... types. Hence it happens that almost all older varieties of wheat are mixtures of more or less diverging forms. In the same variety the numerical composition will vary from year to year, and in oats this may, in bad years, go so far as to destroy more than half of the harvest, the wind-oats (Avena fatua), which scatter their grain to the winds as soon as it ripens, increasing so rapidly that they assume the dominant place. A severe ...
— Darwin and Modern Science • A.C. Seward and Others

... much to hear that gold, which in itself is so useless a thing, should be everywhere so much esteemed that even man, for whom it was made, and by whom it has its value, should yet be thought of less value than this metal; that a man of lead, who has no more sense than a log of wood, and is as bad as he is foolish, should have many wise and good men to serve him, only because he has a great heap of that metal; and that if it should happen that by some accident or trick of law (which, sometimes produces as great changes as chance itself) all this wealth should pass from ...
— Utopia • Thomas More

... heart, his heart had been mine. I know that the succession of external objects would have made the artless virtues of Olivia pass unheeded. It was for that I formed my little plan. I will not blush for a scheme that no bad passion prompted. But it is over, and I will return to my beloved solitude with what unconcern I may. God bless you, Mr. Burchel; I never meant you any harm: and in saying this, she advanced two steps forward, and laid her ...
— Four Early Pamphlets • William Godwin

... the person who sent them persisted in his revolt against the King, even after his abjuration. Notwithstanding the justice of not confounding the Duke of Mayenne with the Parisians, I saw this advice was likely to be followed, and it certainly might have produced some very bad consequence. I therefore insisted so strongly upon the advantage of letting the people, already recovered from their first terrors, taste the sweets of a peace which would interest them still more in the King's favor, that this Prince declared he would grant the truce they demanded ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1-20 • Various

... "Not so bad!" he thought. "In fact, I'm quite stylish. I'm almost as gay as some of the clowns." And his head bobbed slowly up and down, for it was fastened so that the least jar or jiggle ...
— The Story of a Nodding Donkey • Laura Lee Hope

... he had caught the very phraseology and intonation of its everyday professors, even those very tricks of bad logic at which he had been used to laugh. Ruth had always supposed, for example, that the presumption of instructing the Deity in appropriate conduct was impossible even to second-rate minds until by imitation slowly ...
— Lady Good-for-Nothing • A. T. Quiller-Couch

... breakfasted, and was just about to take my wherry and go down to acquaint the old couple with the bad success of my application. I had been reflecting with gratitude upon my own happiness in prospect, indulging in fond anticipations, and then, reverting to the state in which I had left Mary Stapleton and Tom's father and mother, contrasting their misery with my joy, arising from the ...
— Jacob Faithful • Captain Frederick Marryat

... I found Ludar gasping; but his wound, bad as it was, was not so bad as the villain intended. The blade which had aimed at his heart had turned aside on the rib, leaving, indeed, a hideous flesh-wound in the side, but not threatening life. He was faint with loss of blood, and I think, with pain; and when I ...
— Sir Ludar - A Story of the Days of the Great Queen Bess • Talbot Baines Reed

... road, where there were neat little houses, with fresh, green little lawns in front. The road was uneven and muddy after yesterday's heavy rain, but Willibald was a countryman himself, and paid no heed to bad roads, so he walked on now without ...
— The Northern Light • E. Werner

... statistics of foreign trade, has also come to be identified in popular speech with the "balance of trade," and many minds are no doubt imbued with the ideas (1) that an excess of imports over exports is bad, and (2) an excess of exports over imports is the reverse, because the former indicates an "unfavourable" and the latter a "favourable" trade balance. In the former case it is urged that a nation so circumstanced is living on its capital. Exact ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 2 - "Baconthorpe" to "Bankruptcy" • Various

... her eyes with the most deep and earnest gaze of confiding love that had ever greeted Albinia from any of the three. I'll try not to grieve you, for you are too sorry for me;' and she threw her arms round her neck. 'Oh, mamma! nothing is so bad when you help me ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge

... spirit, according to St. John the Evangelist, are the same, the parable is considered by the Quakers as relating to that divine light or spirit which is given to man for his spiritual instruction and salvation. As the seed was sown in all sorts of ground, good, bad, and indifferent, so this light or spirit is afforded, without exception, to all. As thorns choked this seed, and hindered it from coming to perfection, so bad customs, or the pleasures and cares of the world, hinder men from attending ...
— A Portraiture of Quakerism, Volume II (of 3) • Thomas Clarkson

... which is in the midst of the Throne shall shepherd them and lead them to eternal fountains of waters, and God shall wipe away every tear from their eyes. There shall be no more death—no mourning nor crying nor pain any more, for the former things—the old bad things—have passed away." That is the end of God's purpose for men. Surely it will be the wondering cry of the angels for ever, "Behold how ...
— The Gospel of the Hereafter • J. Paterson-Smyth

... elegance, he is less likely to be remembered. Latterly a native unsteadiness of purpose degenerated into inaction; during the period of his unabated vigour, it prevented his carrying out many literary schemes. A bad money manager, he had under no circumstances become rich; at one period he was in the receipt of fifteen hundred pounds per annum, yet he felt poverty. He had a strong feeling of independence, and he never received a favour ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various

... who have attempted to amend the work, and usurp his honours; and, regarding the compiler's confession of his indebtedness to others, but as a mark of "his exemplary diffidence of his own merits," adds, (in very bad English,) "Perhaps there never was an author whose success and fame were more unexpected by himself than Lindley Murray."—The ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown

... Antarctic Treaty Protocol ANZUS Australia-New Zealand-United States Security Treaty APEC Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation Arabsat Arab Satellite Communications Organization AsDB Asian Development Bank ASEAN Association of Southeast Asian Nations Autodin Automatic Digital Network B BAD Banque africaine de developpement; see African Development Bank (AfDB) BADEA Banque Arabe de Developpement Economique en Afrique; see Arab Bank for Economic Development in Africa (ABEDA) BCIE Banco Centroamericano de Integracion Economico; see Central American Bank for ...
— The 1999 CIA Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.

... less than fifty distinct references to him. The officers write many bad things of Nabu-bel-shumate, and it is plain that he had been a very vicious enemy. We have a number of letters from a writer of his name, who may well be the King of the Sealands before he broke with Assyria. ...
— Babylonian and Assyrian Laws, Contracts and Letters • C. H. W. Johns

... 'ome to roost-like, until I was dead. Then Abey leans over the counter an' ketches me by the neck 'andkerchief an' says, 'Think of the worst life you know, an' 'ave a bit on that.' Naturally, talkin' o' bad lives, you're the first chap whose name ...
— Golden Stories - A Selection of the Best Fiction by the Foremost Writers • Various

... we may call that intellectual maturity. It's bad for a man when he can't mature—which is my case. I seem to be as far from it as ever. Seriously, I should think few men ever had so slow a development. I don't stagnate: there's always movement; but—putting aside the religious question—my ...
— The Whirlpool • George Gissing

... last resort, after the failure of all other means to restrain the disloyal and oppressive acts of the rulers of that one colony. In contradistinction to the practice of other colonies of New England, and of every British colony at this day, Charles the First and Second were bad kings to England and Scotland, but were otherwise to New England; and when New England historians narrate at great length, and paint in the darkest colours, the persecutions and despotic acts of the Stuart kings over England and Scotland, and then ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 1 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Egerton Ryerson

... hearing. England was still in the main an agricultural country: and the agricultural labourer was fairly prosperous till the end of the century, while his ignorance and isolation made him indifferent to politics. There might be a bad squire or parson, as there might be a bad season; but squire and parson were as much parts of the natural order of things as the weather. The farmer or yeoman was not much less stolid; and his politics meant at ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume I. • Leslie Stephen

... difference so far as the development of our national life is concerned is to shut one's eyes to obvious facts. As such an impartial and intelligent student of our institutions as Mr. James Bryce has pointed out, the conspicuous failure of democracy in America thus far is seen in the bad government of our great cities. And it is in these centers that the mass of the immigrants learn their first and often last lessons ...
— Aliens or Americans? • Howard B. Grose

... to its utmost capacity. It was the first night of a new piece. The unfortunate comedy which Ada had so strongly condemned had been withdrawn, and a so-called musical farce—consisting of very bad music, and still worse comedy—hastily put on in its stead. As usual, no expense had been spared in the mounting, and Adrien's money had been poured out like water on extraordinary costumes, gorgeous, highly-coloured scenery, ...
— Adrien Leroy • Charles Garvice

... of sculpture, finished and unfinished, found on the spot. All the sculpture was manifestly copied from Greek originals, for it is hardly conceivable that such groupings and expressions as we see in these bad copies could have been first executed by such inferior artists. In this neighbourhood were the villa and farm of the poet Persius, and portions of the wall are still standing. At the ninth milestone are the tomb and the remains of the villa of the Emperor Gallienus, slain by a conspiracy ...
— Roman Mosaics - Or, Studies in Rome and Its Neighbourhood • Hugh Macmillan

... were puzzled; it was quite a new phase. They had not liked Miss Lopez at first; she gave herself airs and had a bad temper. Once she had slapped a chorus woman who had spoiled her exit; at a rehearsal she had been so rude to the tenor the stage manager had had to call her down and there had been a fight. Now they wondered and whispered—under circumstances conducive to ill-humor she was as ...
— Treasure and Trouble Therewith - A Tale of California • Geraldine Bonner

... same; but he has done worse since that. To be called sprightly is bad enough, but yesterday he said that he shouldn't be surprised if I ...
— Polly Oliver's Problem • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin

... with a grin, "and I am much too modern." Then in a bantering tone: "How much better was the old day when men might differ nobly foot to foot, with the fair lady to the victor and a funeral to the vanquished as the natural upshot. It is too bad! In the name of progress we have come too far and thrown ...
— The President - A novel • Alfred Henry Lewis

... "'And then my bad days will begin,' said Taku-Wakin, 'for he hates me for my father's sake, and also a little for yours, Old Two-Tails, and he will persuade the Council to give my mother to another man and I shall be made subject ...
— The Trail Book • Mary Austin et al

... within the past few years things have been going from bad to worse with the manufacturers of linseed oil. The long and short of it all was that the margin between the cost of the raw seed and running our mills, and what we could get for the oil cake and the ...
— Monopolies and the People • Charles Whiting Baker

... poor women were turned out of their miserable hut. The mother froze to death,—for it was winter then,—and the daughter was left on my hands. We got a Franciscan monk, whom we met in the forest, to marry us—which was a bad move for the girl, for no one would employ her, because she was my wife. So the forest became our home, hollow trees our shelter; and what a friend an old tree can become! Well, to make a long story short, necessity very soon taught ...
— The Nameless Castle • Maurus Jokai

... often much interest in our provincial papers, Sir Herbert. My husband makes a point of taking them all in—bad and good—of every shade of politics. He believes it is only by hearing all sides that you can truly judge of ...
— John Halifax, Gentleman • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik

... not profess the Catholic religion, despite his early training. He believed in the Ute god, and in a happy hunting-ground, and also in a bad place, where wicked ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman

... a trifling matter enough in the telling, but to the lonely Miselle this chance encounter with a comrade was enough to change the whole aspect of affairs; and she sat down to breakfast the next morning, strong in the faith of a brilliant victory over bad roads, oily boats, and ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 90, April, 1865 • Various

... dispute, that the minstrel and his companion could distinguish their voices though the distance was considerable. Having screened his eyes with his hand for some minutes, Bertram at length exclaimed, "By our Lady, it is my old friend, Tom Dickson, sure enough!—What can make him in such bad humour with the lad, who, I think, may be the little wild boy, his son Charles, who used to run about and plait rushes some twenty years ago? It is lucky, however, we have found our friends astir; for I warrant, ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott

... was given to all kinds of pleasures and a great spendthrift. The pension allotted to him by the Pope, however rich it might be, was not enough for him; he tried to make money out of the works, building the walls of bad materials, which, notwithstanding their greatness and width, are not very firm or solid. As is manifest to every one in the works of Saint Peter's, the Corridore di Belvedere, the Convents di San Pietro ad Vincula, and other fabrics built by him, it has been necessary ...
— Michael Angelo Buonarroti • Charles Holroyd

... "It's too bad it is coming this way," said Ruth. "Miss Garwood declares that a good deal of smoke from such shells is poisonous." Miss Garwood was the head of the school for girls, and likewise ...
— The Rover Boys Under Canvas - or The Mystery of the Wrecked Submarine • Arthur M. Winfield

... or Lawton Blackberry has been despitefully spoken of by many; first, because the market fruit is generally bad, being plucked before it is fully ripened; and next, because, in rich, clayey grounds, the briers, unless severely cut back, grow into a tangled, unapproachable forest, with all the juices exhausted in wood. But upon a soil moderately rich, a little ...
— Success With Small Fruits • E. P. Roe

... existing circumstances, and with the dissatisfaction of the officers and the remainder of the ship's company I do not hold myself responsible for any accident that may happen to the ship until these difficulties are removed, as the cables are bad and not to be trusted to, and we have no anchor sufficient to ...
— Narrative of Services in the Liberation of Chili, Peru and Brazil, - from Spanish and Portuguese Domination, Volume 1 • Thomas Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald

... semi-starvation, he arrived among his friends vigorous and energetic and exceedingly anxious to recommence business as soon as possible. He told them of all that had happened to him, what wonderful good fortune had come to him, and what terrible bad fortune had quickly followed it, and when he had related his adventures and his dangers he astonished even his piratical friends by asking them to furnish him with a small vessel and about twenty men, in order that he might go back and revenge himself, not only ...
— Buccaneers and Pirates of Our Coasts • Frank Richard Stockton

... they will not believe what the priests of Baal preach; because they will not believe in the real transubstantiation of the chalice; because they deny that the natural body of Christ is, after the sacrament, contained in the sacrament, no matter whether the priest be a good or a bad man. [Footnote: Ibid.] You give them over to the executioner, because they serve the truth, and are faithful followers ...
— Henry VIII And His Court • Louise Muhlbach

... Naples? When you spoke to me about Yewdell, and I said that I never wished to marry? I confessed that I had allowed myself to love a man, knowing him to be no good man. But in spite of reason I loved him, and did not believe him altogether bad—not too bad to be my husband. Then something happened—I found out something about him which killed my love, or changed it to hatred rather. I despised myself for having given him my heart, and was free again as if I had ...
— Fan • Henry Harford

... was only two or three yards, guns and bows were true enough for the end in view. At such work even bad shots met their reward. Arrows sank to the feathers; bullets penetrated to the heart or shattered the bones. Ere long numerous black lumps on the prairie told of death to the quadrupeds and success ...
— The Big Otter • R.M. Ballantyne

... BAD Banque Africaine de Developpement; see African Development Bank (AfDB) BADEA Banque Arabe de Developpement Economique en Afrique; see Arab Bank for Economic Development in Africa (ABEDA) BCIE Banco Centroamericano de Integracion Economico; see Central American Bank ...
— The 1991 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.

... the pious Polycarp, who, when the proconsul said to him, "I will set the beasts upon you, unless you yield your religion," replied: "Let them come; I cannot change from good to bad." Then they [10] bound him to the stake, set fire to the fagots, and his pure and strong faith rose higher through ...
— Miscellaneous Writings, 1883-1896 • Mary Baker Eddy

... very fatal consequences; for it aroused the hostility of all the Molucas, even that of their allies, and made the Spanish name as odious as was the Portuguese. The priest Hernando de los Rios, Bokemeyer, and other historians, moreover, accuse Don Pedro de Acuna of bad faith in this; but, strictly judged, we believe that they do so without foundation. Don Pedro in his passport assured the lives of the king and prince, but not their liberty. Doubtless a trifle more generosity would have made the conqueror greater, and the ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XVI, 1609 • H.E. Blair

... feed upon the anguish of the other—at the poor cabman beating the poor horse in the name, as it were, of his poor kids at home. And Stevie knew what it was to be beaten. He knew it from experience. It was a bad ...
— The Secret Agent - A Simple Tale • Joseph Conrad

... parts, pausing only long enough to see if he had left anything unbroken. He rushed out into the hall again. At the other end he heard Connel in action in another room. Astro grinned. It sounded as if the major was having a good time. "Well," thought the big cadet, "I'm not having such a bad time myself!" ...
— The Revolt on Venus • Carey Rockwell

... them as in nearly every case admitting naturally of this explanation. The portraits of Tisiphone, the Heliades, Orpheus, and the tedious list of heroes, Greek, Trojan, and Roman, who dwell in the shades, are difficult to pronounce upon. They might be extremely bad copies, but it is simpler to regard them as crude studies, unless indeed we suppose the versifier to have introduced them with the express design of making the Culex a good imitation of a juvenile ...
— A History of Roman Literature - From the Earliest Period to the Death of Marcus Aurelius • Charles Thomas Cruttwell

... have heard a great deal about me which is not very flattering. I lived a very rough life in South Africa, and I only had one friend in the world in whom I had the slightest confidence. That friend was your father. He stood by me in my bad times. He never worried me when I was flush of money, never denied me when I was broke. Whenever he helped me, he was content with what reward I offered him. There was no 'fifty-fifty' with Bill Nuttall. He was a man who had no ambition, ...
— The Man Who Knew • Edgar Wallace

... remarked to Mr. Barrett, as if resuming an old conversation: "I dare say, you've seen better marching in foreign parts. Right—left; right—left. Ha! ha! And not so bad, not so bad, I call it! with their right—left; right—left. Ha! ha! You've seen better. No need to tell me that. But, in England, we look to the meaning of things. We're a practical people. What's more, we're volunteers. Volunteers in everything. We can't make a regiment of ploughmen march ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... was full of men, whose talk was full of bets. The women were not as bad, but they were not plentiful. Some lords and signors were there without their dames. Lord Bloomerly, for instance, alone, or rather with his eldest son, Lord Bloom, just of age, and already a knowing hand. His father introduced him to all ...
— The Young Duke • Benjamin Disraeli

... of her own, at least, to dare to utter it. She received the commands of Lady Bendham with her accustomed submission, while all the consolation for the grief they gave her was, "that she resolved to make a very bad wife." ...
— Nature and Art • Mrs. Inchbald

... general personification of natural objects, it also shows that even now our intelligence is not emancipated from such a habit, and our speech unconsciously retains the old custom. Thus we call weather good and bad, the wind mad (pazzo) or furious, the sea treacherous, the waters insidious; a stone is obstinate, if we cannot easily move it, and we inveigh against all kinds of material obstacles as if they could hear us. We call the season inconstant or deceitful, the sun melancholy and ...
— Myth and Science - An Essay • Tito Vignoli

... quantity, but that they must always be ready to go on to fifty or sixty lines if there were time within the hour. However, notwithstanding all their efforts, the new master got on horribly quick. He seemed to have the bad taste to be really interested in the lesson, and to be trying to work them up into something like appreciation of it, giving them good, spirited English words, instead of the wretched bald stuff into which they rendered ...
— Tom Brown's Schooldays • Thomas Hughes

... or, rather, the fall of the roof, with the loss of grandeur in the spectacle, men's minds began to be free from the excitement that chained them to the spot, watching the progress of that element which has been truly described as a very good servant, but a very bad master; and of the truth of this every ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest

... the condition of the urine. In cases of poisoning it is dark or reddish-brown in colour, due to the presence of haematoporphyrin. It contains albumin and casts, but no red corpuscles. In cases of haematoporphyrinuria the prognosis is bad, and it is said that these cases ...
— Aids to Forensic Medicine and Toxicology • W. G. Aitchison Robertson

... of a month, the Comtesse Samoris was giving balls and suppers just the same as ever. Yveline then, under the pretext that she had a bad toothache purchased a few drops of chloroform from a neighboring chemist. The next day she purchased more; and, every time she went out, she managed to procure small doses of the narcotic. She ...
— The works of Guy de Maupassant, Vol. 5 (of 8) - Une Vie and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant 1850-1893

... supposed that it is wholly withdrawn from the action of the reason and free-will of the nation, nor from that of individual statesmen. All created things are subject to the law of development, and may be developed either in a good sense or in a bad; that is, may be either completed or corrupted. All the possibilities of the national constitution are given originally in the birth of the nation, as all the possibilities of mankind were given in the first man. The germ must be given in ...
— The American Republic: Its Constitution, Tendencies, and Destiny • A. O. Brownson

... residence. The village was full of marvelous old houses rich in frescoes, oriel windows, gables and turrets, but this dwelling, standing in a dignified situation on an eminence, was a prince amongst its compeers. The architecture, which was Renaissance, might belong to a bad style, but the long slopes of roof, the jutting balconies, the rich iron-work on the oblong facade, the painted sun-dial and the coats-of-arms now fading away into oblivion, the grotesque gargoyle which in the form of a dragon's head frowned upon the world,—each detail, that had once been ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Volume 11, No. 26, May, 1873 • Various

... oath never to go to the same master. The cat took up her abode with Adam, and she found sufficient mice in his house to satisfy her appetite. Seeing how useful she was in driving away and extirpating mice, Adam treated her most kindly. The dog, on the other hand, saw bad times. The first night after their separation he spent in the cave of the wolf, who had granted him a night's lodging. At night the dog caught the sound of steps, and he reported it to his host, who bade him repulse the intruders. They were ...
— The Legends of the Jews Volume 1 • Louis Ginzberg

... a house at Newbury. The woman of the house, the substance of whose testimony I am giving, having asked, "whether she came from Amesbury afoot," expressed her surprise at her having ventured abroad in such bad walking, and bid her children make way for her to come to the fire to dry herself. She replied "she was as dry as I was," and turned her coats aside; "and I could not perceive that the soles of her shoes were wet. I was startled at it, that she should ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham

... Divine. And likewise he is given an incentive toward making the best of his opportunities now, in order to pass on to higher and more satisfactory conditions in future lives. Reincarnationists claim that rewards and punishments are properly awarded only on the plane in which the deed, good or bad, was committed, "else their nature is changed, their effects impaired, and their collateral bearings lost." A writer on the subject has pointed out this fact in the following words: "Physical outrage has to be checked by the infliction ...
— Reincarnation and the Law of Karma - A Study of the Old-New World-Doctrine of Rebirth, and Spiritual Cause and Effect • William Walker Atkinson

... experiments have, I admit, been amateurish. But I shall acquire skill, and the appetite shall learn refinements, to keep it in health. I don't think it was bad sport, on the whole, to open with low comedy. It tickled me, anyhow, to watch Farrell emerge from a sort of bathing-machine upon the plage, moderately nude and quite unsuspicious—having given me that artful slip in Paris—and, ...
— Foe-Farrell • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... intend to call at Albemarle Street.... I make no doubt that we shall be able to come to terms; I like not the idea of applying to second-rate people. I have been dreadfully unwell since I last heard from you—a regular nervous attack; at present I have a bad cough, caught by getting up at night in pursuit of poachers and thieves. A horrible neighbourhood this—not a magistrate that dares to do ...
— A Publisher and His Friends • Samuel Smiles

... no one else was small enough to slip through the narrow slits of windows, the conspirators could only curse their bad luck. ...
— The Adventures of Akbar • Flora Annie Steel

... impressing so many men out of them that instances were by no means rare of traders being subsequently lost through being thus made so short-handed that their crews were insufficient in number and strength to successfully battle against bad weather. The crews of vessels furnished with letters of marque were nominally protected from impressment; but we were fully aware that the protection was only nominal, and altogether insufficient; hence it came about that a British privateer was always very much more anxious ...
— The Log of a Privateersman • Harry Collingwood

... name illustrious by many noble deeds; for you are endowed with a bold spirit and with strength of limb, and also with the eagle-glance of a chieftain. I should have made you a knight this very hour, if you had borne yourself as bravely in a good cause as you have just now in a bad. See to it, that I may do it soon. You may yet become a vessel of ...
— Sintram and His Companions • Friedrich de la Motte Fouque

... him. He no longer meant to make it a wish to be a bird, but not to ask for a second wish seemed wasteful, and, of course, he could not ask for it without returning to the fairies. Also, if he put off asking for his wish too long it might go bad. He asked himself if he had not been hardhearted to fly away without saying good-bye to Solomon. "I should like awfully to sail in my boat just once more," he said wistfully to his sleeping mother. He quite argued with her as if she could hear him. "It would be so splendid to tell ...
— The Little White Bird - or Adventures In Kensington Gardens • J. M. Barrie

... sanitary precautions are neglected, and water, hot and cold, is extravagantly provided, with free shower baths, there are none of the frills and furbelows that generally convert these—what should be—simple nature resorts into bad imitations of the luxurious hotels of the city. There are positively no dress events. Men and women are urged to bring their old clothes and wear them out here, or provide only khaki or corduroy, with short skirts, bloomers and leggings for the fair ...
— The Lake of the Sky • George Wharton James

... immediate orders that Zadig should be brought before him, and that his two friends and the lady should be set at liberty. Zadig fell prostrate on the ground before the king and queen; humbly begged their pardon for having made such bad verses and spoke with so much propriety, wit, and good sense, that their majesties desired they might see him again. He did himself that honor, and insinuated himself still farther into their good graces. They gave him all the wealth of the envious man; but Zadig restored him back the ...
— International Short Stories: French • Various

... the pint that I've been moosin on. You see it's thick; the fog's as bad as ever. What's the use of going out to-night? Now, ef we wait till to-morrow, it may be clear, an then we ...
— Lost in the Fog • James De Mille

... friend, Mr. J. C. McDaniel, about this pecan, and when he visited me during the Christmas holidays I gave him a sample. The only thing that he could say bad about the pecan was that it was slightly on the small side. I know personally that at least three or possibly four bushels of good quality nuts were harvested from that tree, most of them on the ground by the ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the 43rd Annual Meeting - Rockport, Indiana, August 25, 26 and 27, 1952 • Various

... sorts of things," answered Billy, "chiefly about what he and Svorenssen went through before they joined us here. And he likes to hear how we managed, too, before we settled down on Eden. Do you know, I'm beginning to think he's not such a bad sort of chap after all. He seems to admire ...
— The Strange Adventures of Eric Blackburn • Harry Collingwood

... her. Her soul drank in deep draughts of the knowledge of good and evil from Bertram's lips; she felt it was indeed a privilege to be with him and listen to him; she wondered how she could ever have endured that old bad life with the lower man who was never her equal, now she had once tasted and known what life can be when two well-matched souls walk it together, abreast, in ...
— The British Barbarians • Grant Allen

... in her. But you have locked bad news behind your set teeth. Oh, for God's sake, don't torture me one second longer! Tell me the ...
— Vashti - or, Until Death Us Do Part • Augusta J. Evans Wilson

... case seemed hopeless. It was, however, among the "all things" that God causes to work together for good, while Satan eagerly seeks to use them for evil. It checked my inordinate desire for mere acquirements, which I believe to be a bad tendency, particularly in a female, while it threw me more upon my own resources, such as they were, and gave me a keen relish for the highly intellectual conversation that always prevailed in our home. My father delighted ...
— Personal Recollections • Charlotte Elizabeth

... of Nations indeed! It is an absurdity. Who among thinking men believes in its reality?" "I do," answered his neighbor; "but, like the devils, I believe and tremble. I hold that it is a corrosive poison which destroys much that is good and will further much that is bad." A statesman who was not a delegate demurred. "In my opinion," he said, "it is a response to a demand put forward by the peoples of the globe, and because of this origin something good will ultimately come of it. Unquestionably it is very defective, but in time it may be—nay, ...
— The Inside Story Of The Peace Conference • Emile Joseph Dillon

... that Sunday introduced Lambert into the Bad Lands and established his name and fame. Within three months after going to work for the Syndicate ranch he was known for a hundred miles around as the man who had broken Jim Wilder's outlaw and won the horse by that ...
— The Duke Of Chimney Butte • G. W. Ogden

... selling, freight, express, warehouse and cartage, postage and office supplies, telephone and telegraph, credit and collection; and the fixed overhead charges for interest, heat, light, power, insurance, taxes, repairs, equipment, depreciation, losses from bad debts, and miscellaneous items.[334] The average loss for bad debts among grocers in 1916 was 0.03 percent of the total sales, according to the director of business research, Harvard University, who estimated also that the common figure for credit and collection expense was 0.06 percent. ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers

... represented "New York," and the habit of masculine solidarity made him accept their doctrine on all the issues called moral. He instinctively felt that in this respect it would be troublesome—and also rather bad form—to ...
— The Age of Innocence • Edith Wharton

... Declaration with more surprise and anger than Russell. Bad as he was, he was much under the influence of two feelings, which, though they cannot be called virtuous, have some affinity to virtue, and are respectable when compared with mere selfish cupidity. Professional spirit and party spirit were strong in him. He might be false ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 4 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... of Maryland were all that could be desired, and Gerald was not long in fulfilling part of his promise. Knowing that something over half way to their destination there was for several miles a bad stretch of road, he wished to even matters by making good time until the rough ...
— Dorothy's Triumph • Evelyn Raymond

... Virginia clergy went on from bad to worse. Whatever could be done by the courage and earnestness of one man was done by Dr. Blair, who arrived in 1689 with limited powers as commissary of the Bishop of London, and for more than fifty years struggled against adverse influences to recover the church from its degradation. ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon

... fevers and agues are supposed by some people to originate in the extensive rice-beds which cause a stagnation in the water; the constant evaporation from the surface acting on a mass of decaying vegetation must tend to have a bad effect on the constitution of those that are immediately exposed ...
— The Backwoods of Canada • Catharine Parr Traill

... Hub. Sir, you bad me sit, and promis'd you would hear, Which I now say you shall; not a sound more, For I that am contemner of mine own, Am Master of your life; then here's a Sword Between you, and all aids, Sir, though you blind ...
— Beggars Bush - From the Works of Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher (Vol. 2 of 10) • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher

... very sharp. Finding themselves in a bad box, they had planned their movements with great cunning. He believed that Mrs. Walton had deposited the amount required for bail in the bank, with the deliberate intention of forfeiting it, rather than have her accomplice ...
— True Love's Reward • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon

... he could not enter the mouth of the [gulf of the] Californias, on his return and while passing, as I had sent him orders, because many of his crew had fallen ill and were dying rapidly, and because his provisions had suddenly become bad, which obliged him to hasten his return. After examination of this in my royal Council of the Indias, together with the surveys and relations that were sent with the description of each port, singly, of those discovered by the said Sebastian ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XIV., 1606-1609 • Various

... of this almost universal departure from the primitive usage? There may have been many reasons, some bad, some good. One, no doubt, was the superstitious feeling already mentioned which regarded baptism as a charm, indispensable to salvation, and which insisted on imparting it to every human being who could be touched ...
— Our Day - In the Light of Prophecy • W. A. Spicer

... of the poor-houses greatly influences me to go forward. I have heard it again and again, from good authority, that children, placed at the Unions, are corrupted, on account of the children of vagrants, and other very bad young people, who are in such places; so that many poor relatives of orphans, though unable to provide for them, cannot bear the idea of their going there, lest they should be corrupted. I therefore judge that, even for the sake of keeping orphans of poor yet respectable ...
— The Life of Trust: Being a Narrative of the Lord's Dealings With George Mueller • George Mueller

... Postel. But although he deemed it the mark of inferiority to neglect a grain of the gold of obsolete and eccentric writers, he always assigned to original speculation a subordinate place, as a good servant but a bad master, without the certainty and authority of history. What one of his English friends writes of a divine they both admired, might fitly be applied ...
— The History of Freedom • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton

... here and there you will find a virtuous woman who adorneth a glorious house as the streak of the moon arrayeth the breadth of the Heavens" (i. 346). "So you see, King, honourable matrons are devoted to their husbands and 'tis not the case that women are always bad" (ii. 624). And there is true wisdom in that even balance of feminine qualities advocated by our Hindu-Hindi class-book the Toti-nameh or Parrot volume. The perfect woman has seven requisites. She must not always be merry (1) nor sad (2); she must not always be talking ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 10 • Richard F. Burton

... immaturity and bad taste the poem compels admiration by its elevation of thought and sustained brilliance of execution; it contains passages of lofty thought and real beauty, such as the dream of Pompeius, or the character which ...
— Helps to Latin Translation at Sight • Edmund Luce

... hadn't ben thar more'n half an hour, when I heared a screech that fairly lifted my hat off my head, a-comin' from th' open valley, jest beyont th' trees whar I was a-lyin' in th' shade, an' a-soundin' like sum feller was gittin' hurt mortal bad. I jumps up quick an' runs tew sum bushes that growed a-treen me an' th' sound, an' looks through 'em, a little cautious-like on account of my broken arm, an' seed three men a-strugglin' on th' ground not more'n forty rods from whar I was; an' th' next I knowed I heared a lot ...
— The Cave of Gold - A Tale of California in '49 • Everett McNeil

... moment. "You asked me to tell you and I did. If you never speak to me again it will be exactly what I deserve. But I thought it and so I said it. Expressing my thoughts is one of my bad habits. . . . Oh, why, we are ...
— The Rise of Roscoe Paine • Joseph C. Lincoln

... the terms of payment of the indemnity were harder than before. Resistance was hopeless. In truth, the Iron Chancellor had recently used very threatening language: he accused the French Government of bad faith in procuring the release of a large force of French prisoners, ostensibly for the overthrow of the Commune, but really in order to patch up matters with the "Reds" of Paris and renew the war with Germany. Misrepresentations and threats ...
— The Development of the European Nations, 1870-1914 (5th ed.) • John Holland Rose

... other places where the wood had caught there were vicious hissings, spittings, and cracklings, as if it were hard work to burn. And so hard did it seem in some places that the scraps of wood gave it up as a bad job, and ...
— Sail Ho! - A Boy at Sea • George Manville Fenn

... this autumn—not quite six years yet," replied Bertha, correcting her. "Yes, I too remember the day," she said thoughtfully. "It seemed a bad day for me, and yet it was a good one. I have feathered my nest. You stepped out of it and I ...
— The Time of Roses • L. T. Meade

... had lost fully two-thirds of my share. The next morning I awoke feeling remorseful and sulky, and demanded that Jim play another game to give me a chance to get even. He assented readily enough, but my bad luck continued, and in an hour I had lost all of my money and had nothing left to bet. Jim got up, taking the gun, and went down to the boat to repair a leak which had bothered us the day before. ...
— Montezuma's Castle and Other Weird Tales • Charles B. Cory

... meaning becomes clear. It is not very easy at first to see what the shapes really are, but after looking at them carefully they become plainer. The different shapes and figures in the cup must be taken together in a general reading. Bad indications will be balanced by good ones; some good ones will be strengthened by others, ...
— Tea-Cup Reading, and the Art of Fortune-Telling by Tea Leaves • 'A Highland Seer'

... Mrs. Elliot for many days, for the accounts from Simla were bad; but she is now, I am told, quite restored. I have suffered much less than I expected: I recovered much sooner. The doctors tell me that I should have had no right to expect an earlier recovery had I been ...
— A Journey through the Kingdom of Oude, Volumes I & II • William Sleeman

... from home and knows that the wife or the "nippers" or the old mother is sick, he wants to go home. And so he puts in his time hoping for a wound that will be "cushy" enough not to discommode him much and that will be bad enough to swing Blighty on. Sometimes when he wants very much to get back he stretches his conscience to the limit—and it is pretty elastic anyhow—and he fakes all sorts of illness. The M.O. is usually a bit too clever for Tommy, however, and out and out fakes seldom get by. Sometimes ...
— A Yankee in the Trenches • R. Derby Holmes

... Devon, though to a lesser degree than in Cornwall, and still less than in Wales, there is a larger admixture of original Celtic blood than in Kent, Sussex, Essex, and the counties of the Saxon heptarchy. But, according to Westcote—who is, for all his discursiveness, no bad authority—the Britons and the Saxons came to loggerheads; for the government being Saxon, and the laws and the language, the poor Britons could neither hear nor make themselves understood, and so took arms against the settlers, and were by them driven "beyond ...
— Lynton and Lynmouth - A Pageant of Cliff & Moorland • John Presland

... there - married the young man with the dark whiskers, who sits beyond HER, only last month. They are going to settle in the very Far West, where he has lived four years, but where she has never been. They were both overturned in a stage-coach the other day (a bad omen anywhere else, where overturns are not so common), and his head, which bears the marks of a recent wound, is bound up still. She was hurt too, at the same time, and lay insensible for some days; bright as ...
— American Notes for General Circulation • Charles Dickens

... — Isn't there the harvest boys with their tongues red for drink, and the ten tinkers is camped in the east glen, and the thousand militia — bad cess to them! — walking idle through the land. There's lots surely to hurt me, and I won't stop alone in it, let himself do what ...
— The Playboy of the Western World • J. M. Synge

... "I am not so bad as that neither. I have read them bit by bit, just as I could get a moment's time, and I believe, I shall very soon ...
— The Surgeon's Daughter • Sir Walter Scott

... bad thing," said the walking-boss, "I used to be at it myself, and I know. When I wanted whisky, I needed it worse than a scalded pup does a snow bank. The first year I had a hundred and fifty dollars, and I blew her all in six days. Next year I had a little more, ...
— The Blazed Trail • Stewart Edward White

... sufficient quantity of the coffee remaining on the floor of the ship's hold is put into the bag to make it of the proper weight. The expense of reconditioning and rebagging is generally borne by the marine insurance companies. When the entire cargo is unloaded, and the slacks and bad-order bags are weighed and marked, the warehouseman tallies up the records of his clerks, and renders a corrected chop ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers

... what is in the other casket, before we get into a bad humor," said the Emperor. So the nightingale came forth and sang so delightfully that at first no one could say anything ill-humored ...
— Andersen's Fairy Tales • Hans Christian Andersen

... b'y," he said, by way of explanation. "And I've a family, two little girruls at home. I want thim to remimber their father as something besides a blatherskite phin they grow up. So I'm in a rispictible business again.... There's a new boss now, bad cess ...
— Port O' Gold • Louis John Stellman

... a person unknown shineth by his bright fame, whose presence offendeth and maketh dark the eyes of the beholders. We often hope to please others by our being and living with them, but often we displease them through the bad manners they find ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 6 • Charles H. Sylvester

... Kensington doesn't seem to suit you, my young friend," she said. "The longer you have been my guest, the oftener you fill your glass and empty your cigar-case. Those are bad signs in a young man. When you first came here you arrived invalided by a wound. In your place, I should not have exposed myself to be shot, with no other object in view than describing a battle in a newspaper. I suppose tastes differ. Are you ill? Does your wound still ...
— The New Magdalen • Wilkie Collins

... destitute of convictions. By his residence in the east he had lost faith in our religion, in our civilization, and, in a degree, in our political system. However, he had no stronger faith in any other system. His purposes were not bad, and his disposition to aid others was a charming feature of his character. He would oblige an associate whenever he could do so. As a legislator he would perfect bills that he did not approve, and his stores of knowledge were ...
— Reminiscences of Sixty Years in Public Affairs, Vol. 1 • George Boutwell

... over so many children, that each child has enough freedom, and enough sport in the prophylactic process of laughing at its elders behind their backs, to escape with much less damage than the single child. In a large school the system may be bad; but the personal influence of the head master has to be exerted, when it is exerted at all, in a public way, because he has little more power of working on the affections of the individual scholar in the intimate way that, for example, the mother of a single ...
— A Treatise on Parents and Children • George Bernard Shaw

... Rod was desperate with suffering, before he did, and, during a stop, began to shout to be let out. Nobody heard him, apparently, and when the train again moved on, the situation of the prisoners was as bad ...
— Cab and Caboose - The Story of a Railroad Boy • Kirk Munroe

... it, I wonder if my thirsty old mate's bones are yet lying there in the vault. What was his name? such a bad memory I have! Oh! Gibbs—Bill ...
— Captain Brand of the "Centipede" • H. A. (Henry Augustus) Wise



Words linked to "Bad" :   unsuitable, counterfeit, painful, distressing, quality, nonstandard, severe, horrid, swingeing, unhealthy, forged, awful, unspeakable, ill, unfit, rotten, linguistics, lamentable, rubber, deplorable, stale, bad check, bad fairy, sad, unskilled, terrible, abominable, defective, goodness, good, repentant, liability, corky, unfavorable, imitative, naughty, bad egg, icky, worst, regretful, mediocre, bad-tempered, intense, pretty, corked, poor, harmful, uncomfortable, atrocious, uncool, pitiful, no-good, unsound, unfavourable, not bad, stinking, stinky, inadvisability, incompetent, lousy, invalid, shitty, worse, bad debt, colloquialism, unworthiness, hopeless, frightful, penitent, unsoundness, inferior, bad-mannered, Bad Lands, badly, bad person, disobedient, crappy, negative, fearful, bad hat, undesirability, dreadful, malfunctioning, nonfunctional, hard, unregretful, evil



Copyright © 2024 Dictionary One.com