Online dictionaryOnline dictionary
Synonyms, antonyms, pronunciation

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




Forthright   /fˈɔrθrˈaɪt/   Listen
Forthright

adjective
1.
Characterized by directness in manner or speech; without subtlety or evasion.  Synonyms: blunt, candid, frank, free-spoken, outspoken, plainspoken, point-blank, straight-from-the-shoulder.  "A blunt New England farmer" , "I gave them my candid opinion" , "Forthright criticism" , "A forthright approach to the problem" , "Tell me what you think--and you may just as well be frank" , "It is possible to be outspoken without being rude" , "Plainspoken and to the point" , "A point-blank accusation"



Related search:



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





"Forthright" Quotes from Famous Books



... vision has this Mr. Hardy, With a dark skill in weaving word-patterns Of subtle ideographies that mark him A man of genius. So am not I, But a plain Spirit, simple and forthright, With no damned philosophical fal-lals About me. When I visited that planet And watched the animalculae thereon, I never said they were "automata" And "jackaclocks," nor dared describe their deeds As "Life's impulsion by Incognizance." It may be that ...
— A Christmas Garland • Max Beerbohm

... God!" Mrs. Sheridan said, in her forthright voice. "Lord knows where it all comes from, these days, but the children always have plenty," she added, glad of a diversion. "They bought themselves a car two years ago, and if it isn't a Victrola this week, it's a thermos bottle, or a pair of white buckskin shoes! Rose ...
— The Beloved Woman • Kathleen Norris

... learn this art on the beaten way or in the bazars? If we busy ourselves with it here, the folk will say of us, These practise alchemy; and the magistrates will hear of us, and we shall lose our lives.[FN17] Wherefore, O my son, an thou desire to learn this mystery forthright, come thou with me to my house." So Hasan barred his shop and went with that Ajami; but by the way he remembered his mother's words and thinking in himself a thousand thoughts he stood still, with bowed head. The Persian turned and seeing ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 8 • Richard F. Burton

... That was her honest, forthright, Winnebago Wisconsin self talking. But up in her apartment the other Fanny Brandeis, the calculating, ambitious, determined woman, said: "Now why did I say that! I never want to see ...
— Fanny Herself • Edna Ferber

... rhymes were gawky, shambling camels, Or else obscene, blue-buttocked apes, I'm doomed To lackey it for things such as I've made, Till one of them crunches my backbone with his teeth, Or knocks my wind out with a forthright kick Clean in the midriff, crumpling up in death The hunched and stunted body that was me— John, the apostle of the Perfect Form! Jerusalem! I'm talking like a book— As you would say: and a bad book ...
— Georgian Poetry 1913-15 • Edited by E. M. (Sir Edward Howard Marsh)

... energetic enough to make itself a nuisance to people of every other faith. The Jew not only does not bid for converts, but discourages them by imposition of hard conditions, and the Moslem True Believer's simple, forthright method of reducing error is to cut off the head holding it. I don't say that this is right; I say only that, being practical and comprehensible, it commands a certain respect from the impartial observer not conversant with scriptural justification ...
— The Shadow On The Dial, and Other Essays - 1909 • Ambrose Bierce

... America we are ruined by our good nature and listening on all sides. This compliance takes away the power of being greatly useful. A man should not be able to look other than directly and forthright. A preoccupied attention is the only answer to the importunate frivolity of other people; an attention, and to an aim which makes their wants frivolous. This is a divine answer, and leaves no appeal and no hard thoughts. In Flaxman's drawing of the Eumenides of ...
— Essays, Second Series • Ralph Waldo Emerson

... Asnam hearkened to his mother's rede and going out forthright to the Divan, committed the manage of the realm into the hands of certain old men of understanding and experience; save that he did this only after Bassora had been ruined, inasmuch as he turned ...
— Alaeddin and the Enchanted Lamp • John Payne

... this I staggered down the saloon, clutching the wall, and came abruptly against a pillar which supported the balcony above. From this I let myself go at a venture, and walked into the closed door forthright. Congratulating myself on my luck, I turned the handle and passed into the darkness of the passages beyond. And now a sound of voices flowed toward me, voices raised in some excitement, and I could perceive a light some way along the passage in the direction of the officers' cabins. As ...
— Hurricane Island • H. B. Marriott Watson

... all around And seeing none heeding, went straightway Whereas the finger's shadow lay, And with his knife about the place A little circle did he trace; Then home he turned with throbbing head, And forthright gat him to his bed, And slept until the night was late And few men stirred from gate to gate. So when at midnight he did wake, Pickaxe and shovel did he take, And, going to that now silent square, ...
— The Earthly Paradise - A Poem • William Morris

... tell story after story, each with its crisis, its thrill, its summing up of a single existence or a single action. The sharp, telling thrust that his conception of art demanded could be given only by a very specious, not very profound, very forthright, kind of cynicism, like the half kindly, half contemptuous laugh of the man who tells a good story at the club. For him it was the point ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Vol. 1 (of 8) - Boule de Suif and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant

... wings had fallen, stone on stone, 25 And lay there shattered; hence the sudden sound: A warrior leaning on his sword alone Now watched the sphinx with that regard profound; The sphinx unchanged looked forthright, as aware Of nothing in the ...
— The City of Dreadful Night • James Thomson

... the gospel. The message of the good news has not been truly delivered. Unable to believe in the forgiveness of their Father in heaven, imagining him not at liberty to forgive, or incapable of forgiving forthright; not really believing him God our Saviour, but a God bound, either in his own nature or by a law above him and compulsory upon him, to exact some recompense or satisfaction for sin, a multitude of teaching men have ...
— Hope of the Gospel • George MacDonald

... eyelid and something deliciously sinister in his lean, firm jaw and saucy black eye—a boy like Jack Cody, for instance, for whom a whole world of short-skirted femininity divided itself naturally into two classes: just girls—and Split Madigan. But that a forthright, practical, severe person like herself should be made ridiculous by Crosby's worship, and that Split, her arch-enemy, should be there to hear her adorer make his sexless declaration, was too much! Even a Madigan could not bear up under ...
— The Madigans • Miriam Michelson



Words linked to "Forthright" :   direct



Copyright © 2024 Dictionary One.com