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Contumely   Listen
Contumely

noun
1.
A rude expression intended to offend or hurt.  Synonyms: abuse, insult, revilement, vilification.  "They yelled insults at the visiting team"






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Contumely" Quotes from Famous Books



... honour, could refuse to answer such a call. On the following Sunday Sharp delivered an animated discourse against the high pretensions of the see of Rome. Some of his expressions were exaggerated, distorted, and carried by talebearers to Whitehall. It was falsely said that he had spoken with contumely of the theological disquisitions which had been found in the strong box of the late King, and which the present King had published. Compton, the Bishop of London, received orders from Sunderland to suspend Sharp till the royal pleasure should be further known. The Bishop was in ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 2 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... victory,—the victory of Hastings, completely subjugated them. Hume, who was decidedly an impartial historian, is compelled to say of that conquest, "It would be difficult to find in all history a revolution more destructive, or attended with a more complete subjection of the ancient inhabitants. Contumely seems even to have been wantonly added to oppression; and the natives were universally reduced to such a state of meanness and poverty, that the English name became a term of reproach; and several generations elapsed before one family of Saxon pedigree was raised to any considerable ...
— A Ramble of Six Thousand Miles through the United States of America • S. A. Ferrall

... from the consciousness of the thousand recollections of former professions awakened in the minds of every applauder of his apostacy. Let him have a Toole to give bold utterance to the toasts which, in former years, would have called forth his contumely and indignation, and which, even now, he dare only whisper, lest the echo of his own voice should be changed into a curse. Let him have wine, that his blood may riot through his veins and drive memory onward. Let him have wine, that when the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, August 28, 1841 • Various

... pipes, cigars, and bundles of cut, or rolls of hog or pigtail, tobacco? Such a costly and offensive apparatus for gratifying their depraved appetites would have furnished solid objections to their persons and doctrines, and would have been a just cause for the clamors and contumely, with which they were ...
— A Dissertation on the Medical Properties and Injurious Effects of the Habitual Use of Tobacco • A. McAllister

... deserted; I have been nearly frightened out of my wits; have had my soul nearly burned out of my body, and have been foully besmirched with dirt and mud. But, worse than all, I have heard myself made the subject of contempt and contumely." ...
— The Squirrel Inn • Frank R. Stockton

... children listening to the voice of Saint Peter, who is the Prince of the Apostles. He glances at the fancy of certain modern physicists, devotion is a definite molecular change in the convolution of grey pulp. He notices with contumely the riddle of which Milton speaks ...
— The Kasidah of Haji Abdu El-Yezdi • Richard F. Burton

... reason. If she spoke, the case would be so strong as to demand inquiry. The relief in Duplay's mind was so great that he could not explain it, until he realized that his niece's way of treating him had so stuck in his memory that he had been prepared to be turned from Iver's doors with contumely. Such an idea seemed absurd now, and the ...
— Tristram of Blent - An Episode in the Story of an Ancient House • Anthony Hope

... churlishness &c adj.; spinosity^, perversity; moroseness &c (sullenness) 901.1. sternness &c adj.; austerity; moodishness^, captiousness &c 901; cynicism; tartness &c adj.; acrimony, acerbity, virulence, asperity. scowl, black looks, frown; short answer, rebuff; hard words, contumely; unparliamentary language, personality. bear, bruin, brute, blackguard, beast; unlicked cub^; frump, crosspatch^; saucebox &c 887 [Obs.]; crooked stick; grizzly. V. be rude &c adj.; insult &c 929; treat with discourtesy; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget

... pending the judgment of pope and emperor on the dissension. Such was the state of affairs when Charles entered into possession of Guelders and manifested a disposition to interest himself in Cologne. He informed the chapter that he was greatly displeased with their contumely. To Cologne he said, "Be neutral," but the burghers showed so little inclination to heed his neighbourly advice that he tried harsher measures and permitted Cologne merchants to ...
— Charles the Bold - Last Duke Of Burgundy, 1433-1477 • Ruth Putnam

... supplied advice, and the kind friends who had given him letters to the Presbyterian clergymen at New York and Princeton, had figured without their host. Young Hamilton knew all that Nevis had in store for him: he knew its littleness, its contumely and disgrace, and in the secret recesses of his own strong heart he had slipped the cable that held him to the past. No more remittances from home; no more solicitous advice; no more kind, ...
— Little Journeys To the Homes of the Great, Volume 3 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard

... But the sting of contumely or insult was not added to their misfortunes. There is a fellowship of brave men which rises above the feuds of nations, and may at last go far, we hope, to heal them. From every rock there rose a Boer—strange, ...
— The Great Boer War • Arthur Conan Doyle

... of her lord and master, was received by him, strangely enough, with considerable good-humour: he swore that the wench had served him a good trick, and was rather amused at the anger, the outbreak of fierce rage and contumely, and the wretched wretched tears of heartsick desperation, which followed her announcement of this step to him. For Mr. Brock, she repelled his offer with scorn and loathing, and treated the notion of a union with Mr. Bullock with yet ...
— Catherine: A Story • William Makepeace Thackeray

... as a State. Congress had just adopted the Ordinance of 1784, and one of Jefferson's prospective States included most of the land already appropriated by these pioneers. They nourished, too, long-standing grievances. They were taxed for the support of a government which treated them with contumely and ignored their administrative needs. The movement toward independence acquired such headway that not even the repeal of the act of cession by North Carolina could stay its course. With a confidence born of frontier conditions these "modern Franks, the ...
— Union and Democracy • Allen Johnson

... Since my doings offended Amphitryon, and this love affair of mine lately occasioned his guiltless self some consternation, it is turn about now, and my guiltless self has to suffer for the scorn and contumely he heaped on her. ...
— Amphitryo, Asinaria, Aulularia, Bacchides, Captivi • Plautus Titus Maccius

... that at the least sign of indifference from the medical board people she would walk away, take her bag, and go to Windermere. She had never been to the Lakes. And Windermere was not far off. She would not endure one single hint of contumely from any one else. She would go straight to Windermere, to see the big lake. Why not do as she wished! She could be quite happy by herself among the lakes. And she would be absolutely free, absolutely free. She rather ...
— The Lost Girl • D. H. Lawrence

... will blame me; they will believe every charge, scout every palliative plea. For a season, I must endure its frown, and resign my will to drink the bitter cup of scorn and contumely; for I have gone astray, I have sinned against the judgment of my fellow-mortals; and yet, oh! it were so easy to gain sympathy, were I to disclose the secrets of the inner dungeons of my prison-house—that spot which poets sing as blessed—Home! O man, ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. V, May, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... substantial employer and say, 'Do you wish to rectify yourself on this thing called "patriotism?"' Do you wish to give the soldier back his job who presents to you a meritorious case? We give you a chance. If you do not take it we will publish this thing and you will go down to contumely ...
— The Story of The American Legion • George Seay Wheat

... Estate hitherto been? Nothing. It is but too true that you are nothing in France if you have only the protection of the common law. Without some privilege or other, you must make up your mind to suffer contempt, contumely, and all sorts of vexation. The unfortunate person who has no privileges of his own can only attach himself to some great man, by all sorts of meanness, and thus get the chance, on occasion, to ...
— The Eve of the French Revolution • Edward J. Lowell

... day alone with the master-cook, Ruus showed so much disobedience, and raised the anger of his superior to such a pitch, that he received chastisement severely for his contumely. At this Ruus felt wroth; and, having previously placed a cauldron of water on the fire, and perceiving the water boiled, he seized, in the apparent frenzy of the moment, the master-cook by his ankle and the nape of his neck, and thrust him head foremost ...
— A Yacht Voyage to Norway, Denmark, and Sweden - 2nd edition • W. A. Ross

... Chryseis, the daughter of Chryses, a priest of Apollo, the other Briseis; the former had fallen to the lot of Agamemnon, the King of the Greek host, the latter to Achilles his bravest follower. Chryses, father of Chryseis, went to Agamemnon to ransom his daughter, but was treated with contumely; accordingly he prayed to the god to avenge him and was answered, for Apollo sent a pestilence upon the Greeks which raged for nine days, destroying man and beast. On the tenth day the chieftains held a counsel to discover the cause of the malady. At it Chalcas the seer before revealing ...
— Authors of Greece • T. W. Lumb

... contumely, Cold inhumanity, Burning insanity, Into her rest.— Cross her hands humbly, As if praying dumbly, ...
— The Ontario Readers: The High School Reader, 1886 • Ministry of Education

... intended to bring the form of government of the United States, or the Constitution of the United States, or the military or naval forces of the United States, or the flag of the United States, or the uniform of the Army or Navy of the United States into contempt, scorn, contumely, or disrepute, or shall wilfully utter, print, write or publish any language intended to incite, provoke or encourage resistance to the United States or to promote the cause of its enemies, or shall wilfully display the flag of any foreign enemy, or shall wilfully, by utterance, writing, printing, ...
— The Debs Decision • Scott Nearing

... When we haue shuffle'd off this mortall coile, [Sidenote: 186] Must giue vs pawse.[9] There's the respect That makes Calamity of so long life:[10] For who would beare the Whips and Scornes of time, The Oppressors wrong, the poore mans Contumely, [Sidenote: proude mans] [Sidenote: 114] The pangs of dispriz'd Loue,[11] the Lawes delay, [Sidenote: despiz'd] The insolence of Office, and the Spurnes That patient merit of the vnworthy takes, [Sidenote: th'] When he himselfe might his Quietus make ...
— The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark - A Study with the Text of the Folio of 1623 • George MacDonald

... as so many new and efficient workers had been developed and the cause had acquired a standing which made its advocacy an easy task compared to what it had been in the past, when only a few women had the courage and strength to take the blows and bear the contumely. So Miss Mary took possession of the house; masons, carpenters, painters and paper-hangers were put to work, and by June all was ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 2 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper

... Vincent, turning pale with rage. "You have treated that lady with the utmost contumely. And I have demanded this interview with you for the express purpose of telling you that I will not submit to have the widow of my brother treated with disrespect in my own house ...
— Self-Raised • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth

... turned king's evidence against M'Lane, the reward was far different. Blood-money failed to solace him for the contumely heaped upon him; and, according to the historian Garneau, he was so overcome by public contempt that after some years he was reduced to begging his bread ...
— Old Quebec - The Fortress of New France • Sir Gilbert Parker and Claude Glennon Bryan

... up any manly blood which remained in his subjects, but the despotic style and the extreme insolence of language and demeanor, used to a person of great condition among the politest people in the world, was intolerable. Nothing aggravates tyranny so much as contumely. Quicquid superbia in contumeliis was charged by a great man of antiquity, as a principal head of offence against the Governor-General of that day. The unhappy people were still more insulted. A relation, ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. II. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... immensely; and as he is ourself for the moment, or at least the chief portion of ourself (the other half-self retiring into a dim corner of semiconsciousness and cowering under the storm of sneers and contumely,—you follow me perfectly, Beloved,—the way is as plain as the path of the babe to the maternal fount), as, I say, the abusive fellow is the chief part of us for the time, and he likes to exercise his slanderous vocabulary, we on the whole enjoy a brief season of self-depreciation ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)

... glory for the contumely thou hast suffered; a garment of praise for thy sorrow; and for having been seated here in the lowest place, the ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VII (of X)—Continental Europe I • Various

... this evening perhaps for the last time. We have shared the toil of the march, the peril of the fight, the dismay of the retreat—alike we have endured cold and hunger, the contumely of the internal foe, and outrage of the foreign oppressor. We have sat, night after, night, beside the same camp-fire, shared the same rough soldiers' fare; we have together heard the roll of the reveille, which called us to duty, or the beat of the tattoo, which gave the signal for the hardy sleep ...
— The Old Bell Of Independence; Or, Philadelphia In 1776 • Henry C. Watson

... d'Angely, I remembered the jest which Mathurine had uttered at our joint expense. Doubtless it had dwelt in mademoiselle's mind, and exciting her animosity against me had prepared her to treat me with contumely when, contrary to all probability, we met again, and she found herself placed in a manner in my hands. It had inspired her harsh words and harsher looks on our journey northwards, and contributed with her native pride to the low opinion I had formed of her when I contrasted ...
— A Gentleman of France • Stanley Weyman

... central ideas, largely those of Lamarck, had been presented by Hering in 1870 (as Butler found shortly after his publication); they had been favourably received, developed by Haeckel, expounded and praised by Ray Lankester. Coming from Butler, they met with contumely, even from such men as Romanes, who, as Butler had no difficulty in proving, were unconsciously inspired by the same ideas—"Nur mit ein bischen ...
— Unconscious Memory • Samuel Butler

... you, could never be confirmed. I bore the offspring of my guilt in solitary anguish, afterwards loaded with reproaches when I needed comfort and consolation, and stunned with imprecations when I required soothing and repose. I buried it with shame and sorrow and contumely. You had abandoned me, and I felt that all ties to this world were over. I took the veil; and never was the world quitted by so willing a votary as myself. I have since been peaceful, if ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Frederick Marryat

... copy. And, when you shall consider, through the certain hatred of some, how much a man's innocency may be endangered by an uncertain accusation; you will, I doubt not, so begin to hate the iniquity of such natures, as I shall love the contumely done me, whose end was so honourable as to be wiped off by ...
— Epicoene - Or, The Silent Woman • Ben Jonson

... his sense of dignity is ruffled. Nor are there many of my own literary brethren (thin-skinned creatures though we are) so sensitively alive to the Public Opinion, wisely despised by Dr. Riccabocca, as the same peasant. He can endure a good deal of contumely sometimes, it is true, from his superiors, (though, thank Heaven! that he rarely meets with unjustly;) but to be looked down upon, and mocked, and pointed at by his own equals—his own little world—cuts him to the soul. And if you can succeed in breaking his pride, and destroying this sensitiveness, ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 2, No. 4, March, 1851 • Various

... sanctified his whole life, and, as he says, made him more dear to himself; he settled his colossal work, and remained unmarried for life. He may have been foolish: but I prefer his behaviour to that of a man who treats his father with contumely and ingratitude even while he is living upon him. We hear much of Shelley's unselfishness, but it does not appear that he ever denied himself the indulgence of a whim. The "Ode to the West Wind," the "Ode Written in Dejection near Naples," ...
— The Ethics of Drink and Other Social Questions - Joints In Our Social Armour • James Runciman

... the leading politicians at that juncture must have given Crispi a savage satisfaction for the contumely he had had to suffer in 1891, and there is no kind of question in my mind that, if he had then insisted as a sine qua non on a dictatorship, he would have had it with the almost universal approbation of Italians out of office and the acquiesence ...
— The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume II • William James Stillman

... Slope as an emissary from the evil one; nor was she justified in praising Mr. Slope, seeing that in her heart of hearts she did not think well of him. She was, however, wounded in spirit, and angry, and bitter. She had been subjected to contumely and cross-questioning and ill-usage through the whole evening. No one, not even Mr. Arabin, not even her father, had been kind to her. All this she attributed to the prejudice and conceit of the archdeacon, ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope

... the court of France, where ultimately the prince royal married her. But the two elder daughters, having obtained absolute power, treated their father at first with disrespect, and soon with contumely. Refused at last even the comforts necessary to his declining years, the old king, in a transport of rage, left the palace, with, it is said, only the court fool for an attendant, and wandered, frantic and half naked, during the storms of winter, in ...
— Our Fathers Have Told Us - Part I. The Bible of Amiens • John Ruskin

... the Muse to aid him sing the wrath of Achilles, the poet relates how Apollo's priest came in person to the Greek camp to ransom his captive daughter, only to be treated with contumely by Agamemnon. In his indignation this priest besought Apollo to send down a plague to decimate the foe's forces, and the Greeks soon learned from their oracles that its ravages would not cease until the maiden ...
— The Book of the Epic • Helene A. Guerber

... which the writer, not having been educated at a girls' school, cannot be expected to detail. They were given excellent meals at healthy hours, and the reprehensible habits of the lark were treated with contumely. They were given to understand that it was good to be smart always, and even smarter at church. Religious fervour, if it ran to limpness of dress, or form, or mind, was punishable according to law. A wholesome spirit of competition was encouraged, not in the taking of many prizes, the ...
— The Grey Lady • Henry Seton Merriman

... the Rub. For in that sleep of Death what Dreams may come, When we have shuffled off this Mortal Coil, Must give us pause—There's the Respect That makes Calamity of so long Life; For who would bear the Whips and Scorns of Time, Th' Oppressor's Wrongs, the proud Man's contumely, The Pangs of despis'd Love, the Law's Delay, The Insolence of Office, and the Spurns That patient Merit of th' unworthy takes, When he himself might his Quietus make With a bare Bodkin? Who would Fardles bear, To groan and sweat under a weary Life? But that the Dread of something after Death, ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele

... left him. And regaining consciousness, he felt a great pain, and leaving the combat fled in a northernly direction. And at this, the mighty car-warrior Arjuna and Uttara, both began to address him contumely." ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli

... come a period to her misery, an hour of release in which she might be in comfort ere she died? Hitherto from one year to another, from one decade to the following, it had all been struggle and misery, contumely and contempt. She thought that she had done her duty by her child, and her child hated and despised her. It was but the other day that Arabella had openly declared that in the event of her marriage she would not have ...
— The American Senator • Anthony Trollope

... Tom Paine, and the various publications of Richard Carlile had formed his chief scriptures, a certain Baptist preacher laid hold of the Irishman's mercurial sense. Daddy was awakened and converted, burnt his Byron and his Tom Paine in his three-pair back with every circumstance of insult and contumely, and looked about for an employer worthy of one of the elect. Purcell at the time had a shop in one of the main streets connecting Manchester and Salford; he was already an elder at the chapel Daddy frequented; the two made acquaintance and Lomax became ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... within our territory, by a miscreant who took him at disadvantage, and fought him (if fighting it can be called) in a way that neither man, nor Giant, nor Pygmy ever dreamed of fighting, until this hour. And, adding a grievous contumely to the wrong already done us, the miscreant has now fallen asleep as quietly as if nothing were to be dreaded from our wrath! It behooves you, fellow-countrymen, to consider in what aspect we shall stand before the world, and what will be the verdict of impartial history, should we ...
— Tanglewood Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... imbrued in the blood of babes had chanced to be in her hospital, she would have given him his medicine with just the same air. Although no one could have specified a lack of courtesy towards a guest—for in my house she played hostess—there was an indefinable touch of cold contumely in her attitude. Whether he felt the hostility as acutely as I did, I cannot say; but he carried it off with a swaggering grace. He bowed to ...
— The Red Planet • William J. Locke

... strewn, Fearful to see, and know that souls of men Lay prison'd in their cold and heavy frames.— Sudden behind her sprang a mighty cry, "Ho! Traitress! turn, or die!" and evermore Voices leapt out to wound her, like sharp swords, With words of contumely, and mocking taunts, Scoffs at her woman's heart 'mid manhood's guise, Threats, rude defiances on every side. At first she clomb, nigh stunn'd with wrathful cries, Now at her side, whilst she would ...
— Poems • Walter R. Cassels

... permitted to escape at His birth, when thou sawest thy blessed and only Son hanging in such torment on the Cross, in the presence of a cruel and furious crowd, who showered upon Him all the insults and contumely and shame that they could think of; when thou sawest Him whom thou didst bear in thy pure womb without feeling the burden, so barbarously stretched on the Cross, and pierced with nails; when thou sawest His sacred arms, with which He had so many times lovingly embraced thee, ...
— Light, Life, and Love • W. R. Inge

... I pitied him from the bottom of my heart. The contumely with which he was treated by all went to my heart even after I knew that he was misbehaving. I knew that he was misbehaving;—but how? It could only be by hiding the will, or by being conscious that it was hidden. Though he was a knave, he was not cunning. ...
— Cousin Henry • Anthony Trollope

... brightly conspicuous, and in them, if wisely appealed to, lies the strongest hope of amity between the two races whose destiny seems bound up together in the Western world. Even a dumb brute can be won by kindness. Surely it were worth while to try some other weapon than scorn and contumely and hard words upon people of our common race,—the human race, which is bigger and broader than Celt or Saxon, barbarian or Greek, Jew or Gentile, black or white; for we are all children of a common Father, forget it as we may, and each one ...
— The House Behind the Cedars • Charles W. Chesnutt

... either the esteem or the confidence of savages, they must bear with their prying and childish curiosity, and not be afraid of treating them too kindly; by this means they become the quietest and gentlest creatures in the world; but, if treated with contumely, and their wives and families repulsed from your ship, they become dangerous, vindictive, and cruel neighbours, as many a dreadful deed which has taken place in this vicinity will ...
— A Narrative of a Nine Months' Residence in New Zealand in 1827 • Augustus Earle

... like badinage do they hang about in the middle of that road, showering derision and contumely upon each other for full ten minutes, when, with one culminating burst of mutual abuse, they go off together fighting and the street is left ...
— Stage-Land • Jerome K. Jerome

... or pathetic narrative to draw tears from sympathetic eyes. All I wish to delineate is, the progressive steps of a poor man, advancing from indigence to ease; from oppression to freedom; from obscurity and contumely to some degree of consequence—not by virtue of any freaks of fortune, but by the gradual operation of sobriety, honesty, and emigration. These are the limited fields, through which I love to wander; sure to find in some parts, the smile of new-born happiness, the glad heart, inspiring ...
— Letters from an American Farmer • Hector St. John de Crevecoeur

... is a point of honor for the successive classes to treat each other with contumely. The feud between freshman and sophomore goes on automatically. Only when one has become a senior may he, without losing caste, recognize a freshman as a youth of promise, and admit that a sophomore is not half bad. Such disinterested criticism is tolerated because it is evidently the result ...
— Humanly Speaking • Samuel McChord Crothers

... say that, through your delay, I am kept there on that wretched wharf; and when I do push off, I have—I, Her Majesty's representative, in the sight of these Chinese scoundrels—I have, I say, to suffer from the insult and contumely of being pelted, stoned, of having filth thrown at me. Look at my nearly new uniform coat, sir. Do you see this spot on the sleeve? A mark that will never come out. That was a blow, sir, made by a disgusting rotten ...
— Blue Jackets - The Log of the Teaser • George Manville Fenn

... many of us lay ourselves liable to contumely and ridicule. We have to meet sneers; but we are determined that in the defense of right we will ignore everything but what we ...
— Debate On Woman Suffrage In The Senate Of The United States, - 2d Session, 49th Congress, December 8, 1886, And January 25, 1887 • Henry W. Blair, J.E. Brown, J.N. Dolph, G.G. Vest, Geo. F. Hoar.

... ride back?" But then he thought, "No, I will not. I will stop at the first farm-house or inn that I may find, where I can get shelter for myself and food for my horses during the night, and thence I will write him the intelligence, take it how he will. I will not expose myself to fresh contumely by going ...
— The King's Highway • G. P. R. James

... no more popular man in the House of Commons than he who seven years ago" (it was only five) "was hooted and howled at, and was for many succeeding months the mark of contumely and scorn ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke V1 • Stephen Gwynn

... gentleman and a patriot;—and I conceive there is a strong relationship between the two. He loves the land that bore him—and so did most of the great spirits recorded in history. His own mental cultivation, while it yields him personal enjoyment, teaches him not to treat with contumely inferior men. Though he has courage to protect his honour, he is not deficient in conscience to feel for the consequences; and when opportunity offers the means of amende, it is embraced. In a word, I wish it ...
— Handy Andy, Volume One - A Tale of Irish Life, in Two Volumes • Samuel Lover

... incongruity of stately buildings and want of hospitality, and naturally reminds us of a pleasant epigram of Martial's on the same occasion, where after describing the magnificence of a villa, he concludes however, there is no room either to sup or lodge in it. It ends with a transition on the contumely with which the parasites are treated at the tables of the great; being a pretty close imitation of Juvenal on the same subject. This satire has also a ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Volume I. • Theophilus Cibber

... unquestionably do something to raise his spirits. My mother's advice coincided with my own feelings. I allowed the count a secret interview, and he had permission to ask my father for my hand. He did so in fear and trembling. He was dismissed with scorn and contumely. My mother and I then used all our influence to turn my father, and—I was married to Count ...
— The Malady of the Century • Max Nordau

... meeting was the most impressive I ever attended. Aaron and I had spoken, Charles Remond followed, picturing the contumely and opprobrium everywhere heaped upon the black man and all identified with him, the ostracism from social circles, etc. At the climax he exclaimed: "I have a fond and loving mother, as true and noble a woman as God ever made; but whenever ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 1 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper

... the speech, mark you, the professor said, of a finished orator, full of courteous haughtiness and pouring in chastened diction I will not say the vials of his wrath but pouring the proud man's contumely upon the new movement. It was then a new movement. We were weak, ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce

... in me so to answer him—unfeminine, perhaps, and too provocative of insult; but the blood of my race is hot, and vehement to repel insult; and when I thought of the sufferings I had endured, the trials I had encountered, and the contumely which I had borne on account of that man, my every vein seemed to ...
— Valerie • Frederick Marryat

... was this! Perfect truth in the midst of error; perfect love in the midst of ingratitude and coldness; perfect rectitude in the midst of perjury, violence, fraud; perfect constancy in the midst of contumely and desertion; perfect innocence, confronting every debased form of depravity and guilt; perfect patience, encountering every species of gross provocation—"oppressed and afflicted, He opened not His mouth!" "For my love" ...
— The Mind of Jesus • John R. Macduff

... food as dangerous to come by as bear's venison, father," answered Rose, bitterly, still on fire with the idea that the monk treated her nation with suspicion and contumely. ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott

... and attentive hearers, Miller's name was seldom mentioned by the religious press except by way of ridicule or denunciation. The careless and ungodly, emboldened by the position of religious teachers, resorted to opprobrious epithets, to base and blasphemous witticisms, in their efforts to heap contumely upon him and his work. The gray-headed man who had left a comfortable home to travel at his own expense from city to city, from town to town, toiling unceasingly to bear to the world the solemn warning of the judgment near, was sneeringly denounced ...
— The Great Controversy Between Christ and Satan • Ellen G. White

... she cried, "how can you thus shame me? You must know with what unmerited scorn and contumely Reuben was treated by poor mother when it was we who were rich and they who were (in her belief, at least) poor. She would scarce let him cross the threshold of our house. I have tingled with shame at the way in which she spoke of and to him. Frederick ...
— The Sign Of The Red Cross • Evelyn Everett-Green

... A few men who will not only have the moral courage to aim the severing blow at the chattel relation between master and slave, without parley, palliation or compromise; but who have also the christian fidelity to brave public scorn and contumely, to seize a coloured man by the hand, and elevate him to the position from whence the avarice and oppression of the whites have degraded him. These men have the right view of the subject. They see that in ...
— The Fugitive Blacksmith - or, Events in the History of James W. C. Pennington • James W. C. Pennington

... sense, is meant anything which is done without any right. Besides this, it has three special significations; for sometimes it is used to express outrage, the proper word for which—contumely—is derived from the verb 'to contemn,' and so is equivalent to the Greek 'ubris': sometimes it means culpable negligence, as where damage is said to be done (as in the lex Aquilia) 'with injury,' ...
— The Institutes of Justinian • Caesar Flavius Justinian

... like it. After a time she lapsed into a state of dreadful calmness, and observed that, when that unfortunate train of circumstances had occurred in the Indigo Trade, she had foreseen that she would be exposed, during her whole life, to every species of insult and contumely; and that she was glad to find it was the case; and begged they wouldn't trouble themselves about her,—for what was she?—oh dear! a nobody!—but would forget that such a being lived, and would take ...
— The Cricket on the Hearth • Charles Dickens

... such matter as a commendation of the sign of the cross from these two places, Ezek. ix. 4; Rev. vii. 3; alleging, that because in the forehead nothing is more plain to be seen than the fear of contumely and disgrace, therefore the Scripture describeth them marked of God in the forehead, whom his mercy hath undertaken to keep from final confusion and shame.(833) Bellarmine allegeth for the cross the same two places.(834) But for answer to the first, we say, that neither the ...
— The Works of Mr. George Gillespie (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Gillespie

... viz. consideration, goodwill, confidence, and influence abroad, obtained the very reverse, and had the grief to see her Government and herself treated on many occasions with neglect, aversion, distrust, and even contumely. ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Vol 2 (of 3), 1844-1853 • Queen Victoria

... say that I had returned under the impression that my presence was desired by Cynthia, and that I must protest with all my power against the treatment I had received. I had been arrested and imprisoned with much violence and contumely, without having had any opportunity of hearing what my offence was supposed to have been, or having had any semblance of a trial, and that I could not consider that my usage had been consistent with the ...
— The Child of the Dawn • Arthur Christopher Benson

... in my will and in my power, yet I should never be, in the language of the market, one shilling the better for her. Her father, a man of low birth, and having, perhaps, in spite of his wealth, suffered from the proud man's contumely, has determined to ennoble his family by means of his only child, and she is not to enjoy his fortune unless she marry one who has a title. If she unites herself with any man, below the rank of a baron's son, he swears she shall never see the colour ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. VII - Patronage • Maria Edgeworth

... ripe for its reception. The word 'pragmatism' spread, and at present it fairly spots the pages of the philosophic journals. On all hands we find the 'pragmatic movement' spoken of, sometimes with respect, sometimes with contumely, seldom with clear understanding. It is evident that the term applies itself conveniently to a number of tendencies that hitherto have lacked a collective name, and that it ...
— Pragmatism - A New Name for Some Old Ways of Thinking • William James

... danger, our toil—and conveniently forgot our horrible scare. We decried our officers—who had done nothing—and listened to the fascinating Donkin. His care for our rights, his disinterested concern for our dignity, were not discouraged by the invariable contumely of our words, by the disdain of our looks. Our contempt for him was unbounded—and we could not but listen with interest to that consummate artist. He told us we were good men—a "bloomin' condemned lot of good men." Who thanked us? Who took any notice of our wrongs? Didn't we lead ...
— The Nigger Of The "Narcissus" - A Tale Of The Forecastle • Joseph Conrad

... fear, until every man of intelligence clearly perceives that unless resistance is made,—not simple resistance alone, but aggressive protest, the grand, glorious Republic of Zalapata will become a mere appanage of Atlamalco. I have remonstrated with General Yozarro, and in return he treats me with contumely and insult. My nature revolts, ...
— Up the Forked River - Or, Adventures in South America • Edward Sylvester Ellis

... gallant who had given the queen an apple. As beliefs of this type are an integral part of the character of the lower orders, I am certain that the passage in Petronius is not devoid of sarcasm; and if such is the case, "contus" cannot be rendered "pole." The etymology of the word contumely is doubtful but I am of the opinion that the derivation suggested here is not unsound. A recondite rendering of "contus" would surely give a sharper point to the joke and furnish the riddle with the sting ...
— The Satyricon, Complete • Petronius Arbiter

... Sampson's position at this agreeable entertainment was truly pitiable. For, not only was he exposed defenceless to the harangues of Mrs Wilfer, but he received the utmost contumely at the hands of Lavinia; who, partly to show Bella that she (Lavinia) could do what she liked with him, and partly to pay him off for still obviously admiring Bella's beauty, led him the life of a dog. Illuminated on the one hand by the stately graces of Mrs Wilfer's ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens

... are not mannikins to be pulled about for the convenience and humours of others, but that we know what honest words are, understand the difference between civility and abuse, and have pride enough to resent contumely, when, at least, we feel it to be unmerited. M. Pozzo is a handsome man, of good size and a fine dark eye, and has a greater reputation for talents than any other member of the diplomatic corps now at Paris. He is by ...
— Recollections of Europe • J. Fenimore Cooper

... gentle birth, friends from childhood, had to work like servants in the fields, the vineyard, and the house; they had to take lodgers, and wait on them; and worse than all this, to listen to words of insult and contumely, and that from others besides the clergy, who, under the Papal rule, were absolute masters in the town. For at that time few paid any tribute of respect to the wives of the men who had made sacrifices ...
— Captain Mansana and Mother's Hands • Bjoernstjerne Bjoernson

... all other considerations were lost in the apprehension of instant death; and, drawing one ineffectual blow at the smith, he avoided that which was aimed at him in return by bounding backward; and, ere the former could recover his weapon, Eachin had plunged into the stream of the Tay. A roar of contumely pursued him as he swam across the river, although, perhaps, not a dozen of those who joined in it would have behaved otherwise in the like circumstances. Henry looked after the fugitive in silence and surprise, but could not speculate on the consequences of ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott

... estimate! It seems to be a settled thing that the value of great work shall never be recognised during the worker's lifetime, but only afterwards—when he or she who was so noble, so self-sacrificing, or so farseeing, shall have passed beyond the reach of envy, scorn and contumely, into other regions of existence and development. The finest deeds are done without acknowledgment or reward, and when the hero or heroine has gone beyond recall, the whole world stands lamenting its blindness for not having known or loved them better. Donna Sovrani"—and ...
— The Master-Christian • Marie Corelli

... the debate on the Westminster Scrutiny, Fox accused 'a person of great rank in this House'—Pitt I believe—'of adding pertness and personal contumely to every species of rash and inconsiderate violence.' Parl. Hist. xxiv. 924. Pitt, in reply, classed Fox among 'political apostates,' ib. p. 929. Burke, the same evening, 'sat down saying, "he little minded the ill-treatment ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 4 (of 6) • Boswell

... the honorable self-respect that every gentleman must possess, and it was very galling to him to have to suffer such odious treatment from the mean-spirited archbishop. Indeed, it was only for his father's sake that he submitted to the continued contumely and petty slights to which the archbishop delighted in subjecting him. At last the open rupture came. The archbishop called him a knave and dissolute fellow, and told him to be off; and when Mozart waited upon Count Arco, the ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 8 (of 8) • Various

... hackwork, bound to a drudgery as stale and dreary as any in life, and he sees what no man has ever seen before him, though it has been plain in view for years and years. Through scorn and discouragement and contumely he polishes his treasure, in painful hours snatched from distasteful labour, and at last he brings it where it can be seen and known for ...
— My Contemporaries In Fiction • David Christie Murray

... his reputation there, as a man of high moral worth, and of almost the highest intellectual attainments, and a man honored in the most remarkable degree with all the highest offices which his countrymen could confer upon him, swept contumely from his path, and even his enemies were ashamed to manifest their hostility. From London he ...
— Benjamin Franklin, A Picture of the Struggles of Our Infant Nation One Hundred Years Ago - American Pioneers and Patriots Series • John S. C. Abbott

... Francis a mere piece of foppery; for was she not a Messalina and a jade? "I know nothing of your story of Messalina," answered Burke; "am I obliged to prove judicially the virtues of all those I shall see suffering every kind of wrong and contumely and risk of life, before I endeavour to interest others in their sufferings?... Are not high rank, great splendour of descent, great personal elegance and outward accomplishments ingredients of moment in forming the interest we take in the ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various

... labour more profitable, sold their sable brethren to their southern neighbours, and thus easily and profitably removed slavery from their borders,—for those, I say, to turn round and preach a crusade for the emancipation of the negro, in homilies of contumely, with the voice of self-righteousness, exhibits a degree of assurance that cannot be surpassed. Had they known as much of human nature as of the laws of profit and loss, they might have foreseen that in every epithet heaped upon their southern countrymen, they ...
— Lands of the Slave and the Free - Cuba, The United States, and Canada • Henry A. Murray

... Speaker of the House of Commons, was suffered—was tolerated—in rising to reply; in retorting with insolence; in lecturing and reprimanding the Senate through their representative officer; in repelling just scorn by false scorn; in riveting his past offences; in adding contumely to wrong. Never more must this be repeated. Neither must the Whig policy be repeated of bringing Mr O'Connell before a tribunal of justice that had, by a secret intrigue, agreed to lay aside its terrors.[31] No ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 337, November, 1843 • Various

... nothing; a government faction superseding the governor, and an opposition faction engrossing the people. He now, for the first time, became a politician. He resolved to crush both, and he succeeded. He treated the government faction in Ireland with contumely, and he treated the opposition with contempt. Both were indignant; he laughed at both, and treated them with still more scorn. Both were astonished—the government faction intrigued against him in England, the opposition threatened impeachment. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 57, No. 351, January 1845 • Various

... maintaining America's destiny. I am sorry for your empty sleeve. But let me assure you that we, also, have known suffering. Because we believe in America—first, last, and always in America—we have stayed here, enduring sneers and contumely, in order that when America speaks it will be like the sound of a rushing cataract—one voice, one heart, but the voice and heart of Humanity. In no other way can America go to war. . . . And until that moment arrives I shall ...
— The Parts Men Play • Arthur Beverley Baxter

... not do it. Hast thou considered how each man's heart is so tremulously responsive to the hearts of all men; hast thou noted how omnipotent is the very sound of many men? How their shriek of indignation palsies the strong soul; their howl of contumely withers with unfelt pangs? The Ritter Gluck confessed that the ground-tone of the noblest passage, in one of his noblest Operas, was the voice of the Populace he had heard at Vienna, crying to their Kaiser: Bread! Bread! Great is the ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle

... a lifetime, but as a foreign being, an unknown quantity, a worshipper of graven images, a participant in blasphemous rites, a believer, in short, in just all that which sound, respectable, and godly British common sense cast forth, with scorn and contumely, close on four centuries back. He was frightened. His everyday, comfortable, jog-trot, little odd and end of a local parochial suburban middle-class world was literally turned upside down ...
— The Far Horizon • Lucas Malet

... anything is surely going to be criticized, vilified, and misunderstood. 15 This is a part of the penalty for greatness and every great man understands it; and understands, too, that it is no proof of greatness. The final proof of greatness lies in being able to endure contumely without resentment. Lincoln did not resent criticism; he knew that every life must be its 20 own excuse for being; but look how he calls Hooker's attention to the fact that the dissension Hooker has sown ...
— Story Hour Readings: Seventh Year • E.C. Hartwell

... this I am your neighbour. The dens in which we are lodged are contiguous; we are separated only by the bars. Your note was sent on hither from my rooms in Walpole Street. Since we met I have known the utmost that woman's perfidy and the rich man's contumely can inflict. But I can bear my punishment. I loved, I trusted. She to whose hand I aspired, she on whose affections I had based hopes at once of happiness in life and of extended usefulness in the clerical profession, SHE was less ...
— Old Friends - Essays in Epistolary Parody • Andrew Lang

... fierce rajah, and when at last my lips parted, as if forced to say something in answer to his searching gaze, I writhed within myself and felt ashamed of the contemptible words. For his utterance of that term of contumely so liberally used toward one of a race of people who had been for countless generations great chiefs in their own land, and whose cities were centres of a civilisation, barbaric, perhaps, but whose products we were only too glad ...
— Gil the Gunner - The Youngest Officer in the East • George Manville Fenn

... source of constant torment, and all allusions to it gall and wormwood. And Mr. Allan was not the man to wean Poe from such festering fancies: as a rule he was proud of the handsome and talented boy, and indulged him in all that wealth could purchase, but at other times he treated him with contumely, and made him feel the ...
— Edgar Allan Poe's Complete Poetical Works • Edgar Allan Poe

... prcieuses had been several times attacked before, it remained for Molire to give them their death blow, and after the performance of his comedy the name became a term of ridicule and contumely. What enhanced the bitterness of the attack was the difference between Molire's natural style and the affected tone of the would-be elegants he brought ...
— The Pretentious Young Ladies • Moliere

... some of them had lost their honours for doing it, some their estates, and all of them were threatened. The noble structures which he had begun were given over by the workmen, the good deeds requited with contumely, the honours he had conferred with infamy and disgrace. For many persons, who in the day of his authority had loaded him with presents, required them again in his distress, pretending they were but loans and no ...
— Florence and Northern Tuscany with Genoa • Edward Hutton

... firmly refused the wife of Bai. But when I saw your son at the well and he, Hosea. . . . Oh, at last he was so affectionate and kissed me so kindly . . . and then—then. . . . My poor heart! I saw him, the best of men, perishing amid contumely and disease. ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... ostentation. Abolitionists placed in his hand petitions for the suppression of slavery in the District of Columbia, the seat of the federal authorities. He offered them to the House of Representatives, and they were rejected with contumely and scorn. Suddenly the alarm went forth, that the aged and venerable servant was retaliating upon his country by instigating a servile war, that such a war must be avoided, eyen at the cost of sacrificing the freedom of petition and the freedom ...
— Life and Public Services of John Quincy Adams - Sixth President of the Unied States • William H. Seward

... with consummate skill, and spreading their vile character like a pollution wherever they went: and among all these a number of poor but honest clients, forced quietly to put up with a thousand forms of contumely[14] and insult, and living in discontented idleness on the sportula or daily largesse which was administered by the grudging liberality of their haughty patrons. The stout old Roman burgher had well-nigh disappeared; the sturdy ...
— Seekers after God • Frederic William Farrar

... guide. He understands nothing of the solemn happenings which he has witnessed, nor does he ask their meaning, though his own heart had been lacerated with pain at sight of the king's sufferings. He is driven from the sanctuary with contumely. ...
— A Book of Operas - Their Histories, Their Plots, and Their Music • Henry Edward Krehbiel

... readily perceive how they thus came into collision with the ruling powers. They were fined in Massachusetts and Connecticut for resistance to oppressive ecclesiastical laws, they were imprisoned in Virginia, and throughout the land were subjected to contumely and reproach. This dislike to the Baptists as a sect, or rather to their principles, was very naturally shared by the higher institutions ...
— The New England Magazine, Volume 1, No. 1, January 1886 - Bay State Monthly, Volume 4, No. 1, January, 1886 • Various

... forty and odd, in particularly mellow moments he was liable to confess that, while matrimony no doubt offered a far wider field for both general excitement and variety, as far as he himself was concerned, he felt that his bachelor condition had points of excellence too obvious to be treated with contumely. Perhaps the fact that Sarah Hunter, four years his senior, had kept so well oiled the cogs of the domestic machinery of the white place on the hill that their churnings had never been evidenced may have been in part an ...
— Then I'll Come Back to You • Larry Evans

... self-delusion, he could in all truth exclaim, "Lord, I have loved the habitation of Thy house, and the place where Thine honour dwelleth." This was all he had to offer to the Father in expiation of his contumely and refractoriness, his errors and ...
— The Cathedral • Joris-Karl Huysmans

... the puny form of a little old Turk, poorly dressed like a marabout or santon of the desert—a sort of enthusiasts, who sometimes ventured into the camp of the Crusaders, though treated always with contumely, and often with violence. Indeed, the luxury and profligate indulgence of the Christian leaders had occasioned a motley concourse in their tents of musicians, courtesans, Jewish merchants, Copts, Turks, ...
— The Talisman • Sir Walter Scott

... about him fiercely, and could he have found a single face that expressed contumely, he would have been prompt to quarrel with its owner; but meeting everywhere with looks of sobriety, and occasionally of commiseration, he very deliberately seated himself by the side of the hunter, and, placing his legs in the two vacant holes ...
— The Pioneers • James Fenimore Cooper

... possessed by a love for uniformity so exaggerated that they would tear down ancient institutions and reduce all Churches to the same level, there was no reason why Churchmen should return evil for evil and repay contumely with scorn. There was a nobler mission for Christians than that of seeking to exterminate each other, a higher object than that of endeavouring to sow the seeds of vulgar prejudice either against new discoveries ...
— Faces and Places • Henry William Lucy

... directions added for joining them together, or originally into nouns and verbs. It is a pity that he has left this matter short, by omitting to define the Verb. After enumerating sixteen different definitions (all of which he dismisses with scorn and contumely) at the end of two quarto volumes, he refers the reader for the true solution to a third volume, which he did not live to finish. This extraordinary man was in the habit of tantalizing his guests on a Sunday afternoon with ...
— The Spirit of the Age - Contemporary Portraits • William Hazlitt

... out? Search your own nature—look into your pride, your sensitiveness to neglect and censure, your high sense of personal dignity. I have seen how ill you can brook slight affronts—do you believe that your love will enable you to bear great ones—scorn, contumely, perhaps opprobrium? Think, think, ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 2, No. 12, May, 1851. • Various

... occasions of ruin to some admirable poems; and, as if that were not enough, have memorialized a painful feature of weakness in Wordsworth's judgment. If ever on this earth there was a man that in his prime, when saluted with contumely from all quarters, manifested a stern deafness to criticism—it was William Wordsworth. And we thought the better of him by much for this haughty defiance to groundless judgments. But the cloak, which Boreas could not tear away from the traveller's resistance, oftentimes ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. II (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey

... time, and for shame refused to return to our fort, but anchored not far from it; there the natives cut his moorings one night, and, drawing the ship to land, entered it and pillaged whatever they wished, and treated the mandarin with contumely. In the morning, when the commandant got wind of the affair, he sent a troop of soldiers. Attacking the natives with orders not to kill them (for the soldiers shot their bullets into the sky), they captured some chiefs. Thereupon, the chiefs restored ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XXII, 1625-29 • Various

... house with his dogs, and sent down his servant to ask a bit of bread from the goodwife for his greyhounds, with instructions what to do if he met with a denial. Accordingly, when the witch had refused the boon with contumely, the servant, as his master had directed, laid above the door a paper which he had given him, containing, amongst many cabalistical words, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 492 - Vol. 17, No. 492. Saturday, June 4, 1831 • Various



Words linked to "Contumely" :   invective, low blow, disrespect, scurrility, insult, stinger, vitriol, cut, vituperation, discourtesy, billingsgate, contumelious



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