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Impudent   Listen
Impudent

adjective
1.
Marked by casual disrespect.  Synonyms: flip, insolent, snotty-nosed.  "The student was kept in for impudent behavior"
2.
Improperly forward or bold.  Synonyms: fresh, impertinent, overbold, sassy, saucy, smart, wise.  "Impertinent of a child to lecture a grownup" , "An impudent boy given to insulting strangers" , "Don't get wise with me!"






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Impudent" Quotes from Famous Books



... has he, for his speech and his mind are at variance. Like honey is his voice, but his heart of gall, all tameless is he, and deceitful, the truth is not in him, a wily brat, and cruel in his pastime. The locks of his hair are lovely, but his brow is impudent, and tiny are his little hands, yet far he shoots his arrows, shoots even to Acheron, and to ...
— Theocritus, Bion and Moschus rendered into English Prose • Andrew Lang

... attendant. While Sherasmin helped the ladies to mount, Huon hastened back to the palace hall, and found that the exhausted caliph had sunk upon a divan. With the prescribed ceremonies, our hero politely craved a lock of his beard and four of his teeth as a present for Charlemagne. This impudent request so incensed the caliph that he vociferated orders to his guards to slay the stranger. Huon was now forced to defend himself with a curtain pole and a golden bowl, until, needing aid, he suddenly blew a resounding peal upon his magic horn. The ...
— Legends of the Middle Ages - Narrated with Special Reference to Literature and Art • H.A. Guerber

... from your own horses. Love. That must be a lie; for I never allow them any. James. In a word, you are the bye-word everywhere; and you are never mentioned, but by the names of covetous, stingy, scraping, old— Love. Get along, you impudent villain! James. Nay, sir, you said you would n't be angry. Love. Get out, ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick

... to adapt herself to the habits and customs of this new country, Nora felt that she could have struck him in his impudent face. The fact that she reddened under his scrutiny, naturally only made her the ...
— The Land of Promise • D. Torbett

... he cried, 'I find him a prowler, breaking all rules of discipline. A perverted, impudent rascal! An example shall be set to my school, sir. We have been falling lax. What! I find the puppy in my garden whistling—he confesses—for one of my servants—here, Mr. Boddy, if you please. My school shall see that none insult me with impunity!' He laid on Heriot ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... of Array for Cumberland. Having directions from me continually how matters did and would go betwixt the King and Parliament, he acted warily, and did but sign one only warrant of that nature, and then gave over. When the times of sequestrations came, one John Musgrave, the most bold and impudent fellow, and most active of all the north of England, and most malicious against my friend, had got this warrant under Mr. Pennington's hand into his custody; which affrighted my friend, and so it might, for it was cause enough of sequestration, and would have done it. Musgrave intending ...
— William Lilly's History of His Life and Times - From the Year 1602 to 1681 • William Lilly

... 'Work as hard as you like here, but don't take to wheeling gravel through the village, pray. Bob Middleton might do, only he's such an impudent fellow. I hate having anything to ...
— Holiday Tales • Florence Wilford

... angry at once. She thought of the men she had seen—in the streets, in cafes and gardens, the masters in the school, photographs in the girls' albums. They had all offended her at once. Something in their bearing and manner.... Blind and impudent.... She thought of the interview she had witnessed between Ulrica and her cousin—the cousin coming up from the estate in Erfurth, arriving in a carriage, Fraulein's manner, her smiles and hints; ...
— Pointed Roofs - Pilgrimage, Volume 1 • Dorothy Richardson

... Diamond, as brave and good a soldier as ever drew sword, as noble and true a Christian as ever endured persecution and showed patience. They are discussing a plan for crossing the river in boats, landing at a causeway where the Alexandria road crosses Four Mile Run, and so cutting off the impudent picket of the enemy's cavalry that holds post at the Virginia end of the Long Bridge. The battalion commanders are evidently dazzled by the brilliancy of the moonlight and the colonel's scheme, for it ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 6, No 5, November 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... government—viz: the will of the Governor. It must fail. Lord Stanley decidedly adverse to the Lower Canadians; does not forget their expunging one of his despatches from their journals—it was so impudent. Trusts the Home Government will accept the proposed civil list; they will never have so large a one offered again. In conclusion, Sir Charles Metcalfe's great reputation places him in an eminently favourable position for carrying out Sir Charles Bagot's policy, by which alone the Province ...
— The Story of My Life - Being Reminiscences of Sixty Years' Public Service in Canada • Egerton Ryerson

... loved the man. There was something fantastically chivalrous in the action; something superb in the contempt of convention; something whimsical, adventurous, unexpected; and something divine in the wrathful pity; and something irresistible in his impudent apostrophe to myself. It has been the one flash of comfort during ...
— The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne • William J. Locke

... first time, proving refractory and impudent, received a thrashing before starting, and when Stanley arrived at his camp at night, he found that upwards of twenty of the men had remained behind. He, therefore, sent a strong body back, under Selim, who returned with the men and some heavy slave-chains, and Stanley ...
— Great African Travellers - From Mungo Park to Livingstone and Stanley • W.H.G. Kingston

... chastened spirit that I looked from this splendid fighting 'plane, back to my little three-cylinder Penguin, with its absurd clipped wings and its impudent tail. A moment ago it had seemed a thing of speed, and the mastery of it a glorious achievement. I told Drew what my feeling was as I came racing back to the starting-point, and how brief my moment of triumph had been. He answered me at first in grunts and ...
— High Adventure - A Narrative of Air Fighting in France • James Norman Hall

... human malice. Our senses are here feasted with the clear and genuine taste of their objects, which are all sophisticated there, and for the most part overwhelmed with their contraries. Here Pleasure looks, methinks, like a beautiful, constant, and modest wife; it is there an impudent, fickle, and painted harlot. Here is harmless and cheap plenty, there guilty and ...
— Cowley's Essays • Abraham Cowley

... of our troops occasioned by this second impudent foray it is unnecessary to say any thing. The Central train reached this city at eight o'clock, three hours ...
— Three Years in the Federal Cavalry • Willard Glazier

... ourselves more than guilty were we to utter a word of endorsement as to the efficacy of their system of treating that serious class of diseases in men which has been generically termed Nervous Debility, and which for so many years has been, and is at present, made the stalking-horse for impudent swindlers, quacks and impostors to palm off worthless and often injurious ...
— Manhood Perfectly Restored • Unknown

... inferred from this, that he has taken the half of the scenes of his Caius Marius verbally, or with disfiguring changes, from the Romeo and Juliet of Shakspeare. Nothing more incongruous can well he conceived, than such an episode in Roman manners, and in a historical drama. This impudent plagiarism is in no manner justified by his ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel

... Rabelais; Burton, Sterne, Swift, and a long list of works which are yearly reprinted and republished without a word of protest. Lastly, why does not this inconsistent puritan purge the Old Testament of its allusions to human ordure and the pudenda; to carnal copulation and impudent whoredom, to adultery and fornication, to onanism, sodomy and bestiality? But this he will not do, the whited sepulchre! To the interested critic of the Edinburgh Review (No. 335 of July, 1886), I return my warmest ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 10 • Richard F. Burton

... and heir of Colonel Anthony Preston, with his broad acres and ample bank account—he to be called a blackguard by a low Irish boy. His passion got the better of him, and he ran through the gate, his eyes flashing fire, bent on exterminating his impudent adversary. ...
— Only An Irish Boy - Andy Burke's Fortunes • Horatio Alger, Jr.

... indeed that sagacious and loyal person, the Editor of the 'Morning Chronicle', seems to be of this notion; for when some one ventured to express some, we think not unnatural, indignation at Lord Byron's having been the author of some impudent doggrels, of the same vein, which appeared anonymously in that paper reflecting on his Royal Highness the Prince Regent, and her Royal Highness his daughter, the Editor before-mentioned exclaimed—"What! and is not a Peer, an hereditary councillor of the Crown, to be ...
— The Works of Lord Byron: Letters and Journals, Volume 2. • Lord Byron

... increase his fear of throwing himself unreservedly upon his own convictions. That he grew to perceive the childishness of churchly dogma, we know. That he appreciated the Church's insane license of affirmation, its impudent affirmations of God's thoughts and desires, its coarse assumptions of knowledge of the inner workings of the mind of Omnipotence, we likewise know. But, on the other hand, we know that he feared to break with ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking

... "modest maidens" was a piece of absurdity becoming Amphicrates[2] rather than Xenophon. And then what a strange delusion to suppose that modesty is always without exception expressed in the eye! whereas it is commonly said that there is nothing by which an impudent fellow betrays his character so much as by the expression of his eyes. Thus Achilles addresses Agamemnon in the Iliad as "drunkard, with eye ...
— On the Sublime • Longinus

... on her feet to receive Dora. "Oh, you impudent!" she charged. "That's the reference you gave me—when I asked you who was telephoning my ...
— Apron-Strings • Eleanor Gates

... brothers of Zombe, before-mentioned, came, and then a complete rout ensued. M'toka left nearly all his guns behind him; his allies, the Malongwana, had previously made their escape. It is two months since this rout, so we have been prevented by a kind Providence from coming soon enough. He was impudent and extortionate before, and much more now that he has been emboldened by success ...
— The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume II (of 2), 1869-1873 • David Livingstone

... those two law lords and in his contempt for the general body of the peers than Smith. "To one who understands the case as I do," he writes to Dr. Blair, "nothing could appear more scandalous than the pleading of the two law lords. Such curious misrepresentation, such impudent assertions, such groundless imputations, never came from that place; but they were good enough for the audience, who, bating their quality, are most of them little better than their brothers the Wilkites of the streets." Hume, having lost his place with a change of ministry, ...
— Life of Adam Smith • John Rae

... time ago, and took possession of the tree and all that was in it, and they brought up a large family of little ones, all of which I pounced upon one after another, and ate. Indeed, the oaks here belong to my family; so finding these impudent intruders would not quit the premises, I made short work of the matter, and took the law into my ...
— Lady Mary and her Nurse • Catharine Parr Traill

... training; and when his attitude toward charity is sullen anger rather than humble jollity; when he insists on his human right to swagger and swear and waste,—then the spell is suddenly broken and the philanthropist is ready to believe that Negroes are impudent, that the South is right, and that ...
— Darkwater - Voices From Within The Veil • W. E. B. Du Bois

... the sea-shore one day, Came dashing along in its impudent way; A wee little maiden was straying too near. Said the wavelet—I'll catch you my child, never fear, "I will carry you home to a bed in the sea, "I will rock you as snug as on Mother's own knee." But the child answered ...
— Golden Moments - Bright Stories for Young Folks • Anonymous

... law (lex) as a usage: but Plutarch's words by no means imply that he thought there was a Lex to this effect. Livius (xxxi. c. 20) states that only a dictator, consul, or praetor could have a triumph. The claim of Pompeius was an impudent demand: but he felt his power. The 'first Scipio' is the elder Africanus. See Life of Tiberius Gracchus, ...
— Plutarch's Lives Volume III. • Plutarch

... man stretched out his right arm. "I will tell you what you are," he said. "You are a rogue, my man, an impudent and black-hearted rogue and vagabond. I have passed an hour with you. Oh, believe me, I feel myself disgraced! And you have eaten and drunk at my table. But now I am sick at your presence; the day has come, and the night-bird should be off to his roost. Will ...
— Stories By English Authors: France • Various

... as he had no evidence whatever of any undertaking on his father's part, as any such promise on his father's part must simply have been a promise of a gift of money out of his own pocket, and further as the miller was impudent, he would not repair the mill. Ultimately he offered L20 towards the repairs, which the miller indignantly refused. Readers will be able to imagine how pretty a quarrel there would thus be between the landlord and his tenant. When all this was commencing,—at the time, that is, ...
— The Vicar of Bullhampton • Anthony Trollope

... disposition, but he had hitherto never ventured to rebel, farther than occasionally to absent himself from church, on the Sunday after every admonition which Dr. Beaumont from time to time privately gave him to abstain from too free indulgence at market. He would have thought it sacrilegious as well as impudent to question the lawful endowment of the church, and he reproved his wife for being piqued at Mrs. Mellicent's blaming her passion for high-crowned hats, ruffs, and farthingales, which the sage spinster thought indecorous for yeomen's wives, though very suitable ...
— The Loyalists, Vol. 1-3 - An Historical Novel • Jane West

... Mowbray; "it is sufficient they are forthcoming when called for. But, may I enquire, my lord, who the writer of this letter is, and whether he has any particular spleen to gratify by this very impudent assertion, which is so easily capable ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott

... from her mind without another thought. A stronger and more disagreeable odor proclaimed the presence of an opossum; in fact, its beady eyes could be seen dully glowing in the farthermost corner of the cavity. How dared the impudent creature appropriate for its own use and defile the place that Suma held sacred? Ordinarily she would pass it in contempt, but such impertinence must not remain unpunished. With a snarl of rage she dashed through the ...
— The Black Phantom • Leo Edward Miller

... voted croquet a bore, and spent most of his time lying under a tree smoking and reading a novel. He fell foul of Joe Crouch (who still came to do odd jobs in the garden) over some trifling matter, calling him an impudent blockhead, and telling Miss Fenleigh in a lofty manner that "he would never allow such a cheeky beggar to be hanging about ...
— Soldiers of the Queen • Harold Avery

... Devil goes like a roaring lyon in search of his pray but the lord lets us escape from him but we" (pauvre petite!) "do not strive with this awfull Spirit.... To-day I pronunced a word which should never come out of a lady's lips it was that I called John a Impudent Bitch. I will tell you what I think made me in so bad a humor is I got one or two of that bad bad sina (senna) tea to-day,"—a better excuse for bad humor and bad language ...
— Stories of Childhood • Various

... you like," answered Zoie, with an impudent toss of her head, "but I'll NOT give up that baby until I get ...
— Baby Mine • Margaret Mayo

... great bibliophile, would treat a book as roughly as if it were a pair of shoes, would stick in straws to keep his place, or stuff it with violets and rose-leaves, and would very likely eat fruit or cheese over one page and set a cup of ale on the other. An impudent boy would scribble across the text, the copyist would try his pen on a blank space, a scullion would turn the pages with unwashed hands, or a thief might cut out the fly-leaves and margins to use in writing his letters; ...
— The Great Book-Collectors • Charles Isaac Elton and Mary Augusta Elton

... a shame," he said, hotly, "that the impudent ragamuffins of the town should be allowed to cast words of disrespect in the public streets at my sainted master, Rabba bar Chana, the man of profound ...
— Jewish Fairy Tales and Legends • Gertrude Landa

... to seize and burn the impudent huzzy, lying there as unconcerned as though she had been the 'Private Meditations and Prayers of the Rev. Bagge,'" Mrs. Crawley confided to her Aunt Elizabeth, "but it was a six-shilling book, and I knew how ...
— A Girl Among the Anarchists • Isabel Meredith

... the godly poet, 5 Rules not poesy, needs not e'er to rule it; Charms some verse with a witty grace delightful? 'Tis voluptuous, impudent, a wanton. ...
— The Poems and Fragments of Catullus • Catullus

... of such creatures?" continued he. "O my dear cousin! I see a day at hand, when these impudent women shall be for bidden from the pulpit to go exposing their naked bosoms. What savages or what infidels ever needed that? Oh! if they could see what Heaven has in store for them, their mouths would be this instant opened ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Volume 1 • Leigh Hunt

... the small buff cows of North Italy repose after their long voyage or march, kneeling on the sandy ground or rubbing their sides against the wooden cross awry with age and shorn of all its symbols. Lambs frisk among the boats; impudent kids nibble the drooping ears of patient mules. Hinds in white jackets and knee-breeches made of skins, lead shaggy rams and fiercely bearded goats, ready to butt at every barking dog, and always seeking ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece • John Addington Symonds

... was rather an impudent young man, and Mr. Masters, though he was mild enough at home, did not like impudence from the world at large. "I suppose, Mr. Botsey," said he, "that if Goarly were to go to you for a barrel of beer you'd sell ...
— The American Senator • Anthony Trollope

... terrified her. These cool words threw into Hilda a vivid excitement of feeling, which for a time turned all her thoughts upon this man, who under such circumstances dared to resume that tone of impudent superiority which once before he had ventured to adopt. Her strength revived under such a stimulus, and for a time her bitter contempt and indignation stilled the deep sorrow and anxiety of ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille

... rare,—or that he never did what he knew to be wrong. He had his faults and his weaknesses; but for the present I shall let my young reader discover them from what he says and what he does. He was disturbed by the derision of his friend, no less than by his impudent self-possession. He even asked himself why he should be tied to his mother's apron string, as Thomas expressed the subjection of the child to the parent. He was only a year younger than his companion, and he began to question ...
— Little By Little - or, The Cruise of the Flyaway • William Taylor Adams

... impudent young pusson they had left behind, and nearly annihilated Dolf when he attempted a word in the ...
— A Noble Woman • Ann S. Stephens

... The first thing we noticed was that his little stomach began to stick out like a pigeon's breast; and then the food got a little wider spread, and he started little calves to his legs; and last of all, he began to get quite saucy and impudent. He is really what you ought to call a young man, though I suppose nobody in the whole wide world has any idea of his age; and as far as his behaviour goes, you can only think of him as a big little child with ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... most impudent turn, seven or eight days before my departure. He sent word to me, by his two devoted slaves, Le Blanc and Belleisle, that as he had the foreign affairs under his charge, he must have the post, which he would not and could not any longer do without; ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon

... school-books. Colonel Grim and his wife, divining the teacher's intention, agreed that it was a great outrage, but they did not mention the matter to Ralph. Henceforth, however, the boy refused to be accompanied by his servant. A week later he was impudent to the teacher of gymnastics, who whipped him in return. The Colonel's rage knew no bounds; he rode in great haste to the gymnasium, reviled the teacher for presuming to chastise his son, and committed the boy to the care ...
— Short Story Classics (American) Vol. 2 • Various

... Jerry advanced two or three paces and stood looking down at her. In our first conversation he told me that she seemed absurdly small, quite too insignificant to be so impudent. In our second conversation I elicited the fact that he thought her skin smooth; in our third that her lips were much redder ...
— Paradise Garden - The Satirical Narrative of a Great Experiment • George Gibbs

... of the Place which he violates. Many Reflections of this Sort might be very justly made upon this Kind of Behaviour, but a Starer is not usually a Person to be convinced by the Reason of the thing; and a Fellow that is capable of showing an impudent Front before a whole Congregation, and can bear being a publick Spectacle, is not so easily rebuked as to amend by Admonitions. If therefore my Correspondent does not inform me, that within Seven Days after this Date the Barbarian ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele

... on Gout, and Wecherus, of all whom notices may be found in the pages of Haller and Vanderlinden; also, Reed's Surgery, and Nicholas Culpeper's Practice of Physic and Anatomy, the last as belonging to Samuel Seabury, chirurgeon, before mentioned. Nicholas Culpeper was a shrewd charlatan, and as impudent a varlet as ever prescribed for a colic; but knew very well what he was about, and badgers the College with great vigor. A copy of Spigelius's famous Anatomy, in the Boston Athenaeum, has the names of Increase and Samuel Mather written in it, and was doubtless ...
— Medical Essays • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... you believe it? the natives objected to it. They asked us what we would think of it if they dug up our Queen. Just think of it! The impudent niggers! As if there was any similarity in the ...
— Captain Jinks, Hero • Ernest Crosby

... vision (viii.) a powerful ram is furiously attacked and overthrown by a goat. The angel Gabriel explains that the ram is the Medo-Persian empire, and the goat is the king of Greece, clearly Alexander the Great. From one of the four divisions of Alexander's empire, a cunning, impudent and impious king would arise who would abolish the daily sacrifice and lay the temple in ruins, but by a miraculous visitation he would be destroyed. In ch. ix. Daniel, after a fervent penitential prayer offered in behalf of his sinful people, is enlightened by Gabriel as to the true meaning of ...
— Introduction to the Old Testament • John Edgar McFadyen

... saddle, and pulled out my sword. I thought it was only the bravado of some impudent fellow ...
— Captain Macklin • Richard Harding Davis

... impossible not to remark how Czipra became attached to him in her simplicity. She had a feeling which she had never felt before, a feeling of shame, if some impudent jest was made at her expense by one of Topandy's guests, in the ...
— Debts of Honor • Maurus Jokai

... About the same time, Thomas Shadwell, who is represented in the satire as likewise an Irishman, brought Sir Robert on the stage in his "Sullen Lovers," in the character of Sir Positive At-all, a caricature replete with absurd self-conceit and impudent dogmatism. Shadwell was of "Norfolcian" family, well-born, well-educated, and fitted for the bar, but drawn away from serious pursuits by the prevalent rage for the drama. The offence of laughing at the poet's brother-in-law Shadwell had aggravated by accepting the capricious ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 10, August, 1858 • Various

... letter 63.) That was a time when there was no interest in maintaining such a fact. 17. Raleigh's account of his first voyage to Guiana proves him to have been a man capable of the most extravagant credulity or most impudent imposture. So ridiculous are the stories which he tells of the Inca's chimerical empire in the midst of Guiana; the rich city of El Dorado, or Manao, two days' journey in length, and shining with gold and silver; the old Peruvian prophecies in favor of the English, who, he says, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part D. - From Elizabeth to James I. • David Hume

... capable of so many interpretations that no one knew what it meant—whether Noddy intended to run away, or reform his vicious habits. Bertha had never seen him look so self-possessed and impudent when he had done wrong, and she feared that all her labors for his moral improvement ...
— Work and Win - or, Noddy Newman on a Cruise • Oliver Optic

... live? was ever yet offender so impudent, that had a thought of Mercy after confession of a crime like this? get out I cannot where thou hurl'st me in, but I can take revenge, that's all the ...
— A King, and No King • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher

... American project, and the salary had been offered. But in other respects there had been some exaggeration. It was well known to the rector that Mr. Prosper regarded America and all her institutions with a religious hatred. An American was to him an ignorant, impudent, foul-mouthed, fraudulent creature, to have any acquaintance with whom was a disgrace. Could he have had his way, he would have reconstituted the United States as British Colonies at a moment's notice. Were he to die without having begotten another heir, Buston must become the property ...
— Mr. Scarborough's Family • Anthony Trollope

... feeling hurt when at this late day you indulge in mysteries. Now kiss me, and forget my ugly temper, and set it all down to that Pandora legacy of sleepless curiosity, which dear mother Eve received in her impudent tete-a-tete with the serpent, and which she spitefully saw fit to bequeath to every daughter who has succeeded her. So—we are at peace once more? Now keep your horrid secrets to yourself, ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson

... ritualism, and yet I know no one more ritualistic than you are, only your ritual is not ours. You cannot listen to a sermon if the preacher wears a surplice, you waive the entire merit of the sermon, and see nothing but the impudent surplice. All the beautiful instruction passes unheeded, and your brows gather into a frown black as the robe that isn't there.... I believe that you would insist that Christ Himself should ascend into Heaven in a black robe, and you would send the goats to hell draped in samite ...
— Celibates • George Moore

... to the last antechamber without any obstacle being raised. Here I addressed myself to the chamberlain, demanding an audience with the sovereign, and he assured me that I should be introduced into the presence. But directly afterwards the impudent scoundrel who had taken hold of my arm came up and began to speak to the chamberlain in German. He said his say without my being able to contradict him, and his representations were doubtless not in my favour. Very possibly, too, the chamberlain was one of the gang, and I went from Herod to ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt

... had first try this time, and next time you shall have it, without drawing lots. It's precious hard on you, if you are the right man, that you should only be able to approach her when she's already been rubbed the wrong way by my impudent pretensions." ...
— The Path to Honour • Sydney C. Grier

... thoughts would have been more than human. Perhaps it is the most dominant characteristic of the British race that it will not defend itself until it must. He had known of that thought-reading trick ever since his ayah (native nurse) taught him to lisp Hindustanee; just as surely he knew that its impudent, repeated use was intended to sap his belief in himself. There is not much to choose between the native impudence that dares intrude on a man's thoughts, and the insolence that understands it, and is rather ...
— King—of the Khyber Rifles • Talbot Mundy

... to declare on the house-tops that he had promised marriage to La Lalli, what human being in all the city would believe them? The very notion that such a thing could be possible would be treated as the impudent invention of people who clearly had not the smallest knowledge of the man they were attempting to practise on. No, he had but to will it to be free. If only ...
— A Siren • Thomas Adolphus Trollope

... Creature so officious, that 'twill be known to every one at one time or other, so busie, and so impudent, that it will be intruding it self in every ones company, and so proud and aspiring withall, that it fears not to trample on the best, and affects nothing so much as a Crown; feeds and lives very high, and that makes it ...
— Micrographia • Robert Hooke

... which had from time immemorial rejoiced in the respective and respectable names of several worthies of our village, and then speeding away to the homes of said worthies, to proclaim the audacious deed through the key-hole, in the most impudent and incomprehensible manner possible. It was on such an evening as this, a few months after the arrival of the Laytons at Aberdeen, that the Misses Simpkins sat in their cheerless back-room, hovering over a small fire, busily plying their noisy knitting-needles, and meantime indulging in their ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 3 September 1848 • Various

... give that farmer a sound scolding," he muttered, "for he's becoming so impudent lately that soon he will think he owns ...
— Twinkle and Chubbins - Their Astonishing Adventures in Nature-Fairyland • L. Frank (Lyman Frank) Baum

... upon him sharply, with the fact dawning upon him that Tom Fillot, the most impudent joker on board the Nautilus, was laughing in his sleeve at his expense; but before he could make quite sure, a thrill ran through all on deck, and a rush ...
— The Black Bar • George Manville Fenn

... a gentleman, are you? A pretty gentleman truly! your father was a clergyman! Your family is too good to enter into my service! Why you impudent rascal! was it for this that I took you up, when Mr. Underwood dismissed you for your insolence to him? Have I been nursing a viper in my bosom? Pretty master's manners will be contaminated truly? He will not know what is due to him, but will ...
— Caleb Williams - Things As They Are • William Godwin

... very little luck, and had suffered much by desertion, therefore should be glad to end his warfare in the service of her or her fair daughter. In a word, continued he, I am a soldier, and to be plain is my character: You see me, Madam, young, sound, and impudent; take me yourself, widow, or give me to her, I will be wholly at your disposal. I am a soldier of fortune, ha!' This was followed by a vain laugh of his own, and a deep silence of all the rest of the company. I had nothing left for it but to fall fast asleep, which ...
— The Coverley Papers • Various

... "Silence, impudent clown!" roared the fat, fierce-looking Multiplicand. "Ignoramus! nothing of music! Why, you don't know ...
— The Garden of the Plynck • Karle Wilson Baker

... is a poor Pharisee in! For mercy he cannot pray; he cannot pray for it with all his heart, for he seeth indeed no need thereof. True, the Pharisee, though he was impudent enough, yet would not take all from God; he would still count, that there was due to him a tribute of thanks: "God, I thank thee," saith he: but yet not a bit of this for mercy; but for that he had let him live (for I know not for what he did thank himself), till he had made ...
— The Pharisee And The Publican • John Bunyan

... little shake. "I'll tell your mamma if you don't tell me, what is it now?" "No, I have done nothing, I was looking out of the window when she began to cry." "You're telling a story, I see you are," said the nursemaid; and off I went, after being impudent to her. ...
— My Secret Life, Volumes I. to III. - 1888 Edition • Anonymous

... met anyone he admired half so much as that clown, who was always in a good temper (to be sure he had everything his own way—but then he deserved to), always quick and ready with his excuses; and if he did run away in times of danger, it was not because he was really afraid! Then how deliciously impudent he was to shopkeepers! Who but he would have dared to cheapen a large fish by making a door mat of it, or to ask the prices of cheeses on purpose to throw mud at them? Not that he couldn't be serious when he chose—for once he unfurled a Union Jack and said something quite noble, which made everybody ...
— The Talking Horse - And Other Tales • F. Anstey

... the gate of his quarter, by which was the shop of the Caliph's tailor. When the man saw him wearing a dress of the apparel of the Caliph, worth a thousand dinars, he said to him, "O Khalifah, whence hadst thou that gown?" Replied the Fisherman, "What aileth thee to be impudent? I had it of one whom I taught to fish and who is become my apprentice. O forgave him the cutting off of his hand [FN229] for that he stole my clothes and gave me this cape in their place." So the tailor ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 8 • Richard F. Burton

... of the Encyclopedia or Gazetteer kind; and became, still in Johnson's phrase, "the richest author that ever grazed the common of literature." A more singular and less reputable character was that impudent quack, Sir John Hill, who, with his insolent attacks upon the Royal Society, pretentious botanical and medical compilations, plays, novels, and magazine articles, has long sunk into utter oblivion. It is said of him that he pursued every branch of literary quackery with ...
— Samuel Johnson • Leslie Stephen

... seen that they had magnified it in England, into a revolt of the New England States against the government of the Congress. A letter from a Dr Walter, who I believe was originally of Massachusetts, is printed as a voucher for this impudent falsehood. As British emissaries may endeavor to circulate this with you, where they have an interest in deceiving, I concluded it proper to furnish you with ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. VIII • Various

... matters, it is adventitious from without, to wit, from the help and assistance of the magistrate, not from the nature of ecclesiastical power, from which it is very heterogeneous; and, therefore, if any suspended or excommunicate person should be found who shall be so stiff-necked, and so impudent, that at once he cast off all shame, and make no account at all of those censures, but scorn and contemn the same, or peradventure shall insolently or proudly obtrude himself upon the sacrament, or being also ...
— The Works of Mr. George Gillespie (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Gillespie

... stood in heaven there is no telling. It is safe to say that they were the usual human mixture of selfish and altruistic, wise and foolish, honorable and impudent, profitable and ruinous. She came by the dictagraphic idea very gradually. She had plentiful leisure since she had taken a distaste for good works. She had been so roughly handled by the world she was toiling for that she decided to let it get along ...
— We Can't Have Everything • Rupert Hughes

... contrary, it is an honour to have an "early Christian" as an opponent. One cannot read the New Testament without acquired admiration for whatever it abuses—not to speak of the "wisdom of this world," which an impudent wind-bag tries to dispose of "by the foolishness of preaching."... Even the scribes and pharisees are benefitted by such opposition: they must certainly have been worth something to have been hated in such an indecent manner. Hypocrisy—as if this were a charge that the "early ...
— The Antichrist • F. W. Nietzsche

... and shake, as he showed me a knot in his matted locks and asked if it were not the enemy's tying. I told him 'twas tied by the enemy indeed, the deadly sin of sloth, and that a stout Dutchman ought to be ashamed of himself for carrying such a head within or without. But I scarce bethought me the impudent Schelm could have thought ...
— Grisly Grisell • Charlotte M. Yonge

... purgatory. I spent one once, stuck in a snow-drift, or almost stuck, for we were ten hours late, and missed all connections, and the Christmas I had expected to spend with friends, I passed in a nasty car with a surly Pullman conductor, an impudent mulatto porter, and a lot of fools, all of whom could have murdered each other, not to speak of a crying baby whose murder was perhaps the only thing all would ...
— The Burial of the Guns • Thomas Nelson Page

... you —— fool! You don't need coal every time a few drops of rain fall. Lie down in bed, you pack of swine, if you are cold, and leave me alone with your impudent complaints." ...
— A Little Garrison - A Realistic Novel of German Army Life of To-day • Fritz von der Kyrburg

... men looked at each other silently a few minutes, Duff Salter in profound astonishment, Calvin Van de Lear with an impudent smile. ...
— Bohemian Days - Three American Tales • Geo. Alfred Townsend

... not often been asked by one civilized man of another, with the hope of a candid answer, since marriages were celebrated with ring and book. "I want to ask you a close question— Are you now, in feeling as well as judgment, glad you are married as you are? From anybody but me this would be an impudent question, not to be tolerated; but I know you will pardon it in me. Please answer it quickly, as I am impatient to know." It is probable that Mr. Speed replied promptly in the way in which such questions ...
— Abraham Lincoln: A History V1 • John G. Nicolay and John Hay

... any man, who glories in the name of Christian, lay his hand on his heart, and say, it was my duty to blind my eyes to the fact, and think of it no further? Many, alas, I know, would have whispered this to me; but if any one were to proclaim it, the universal conscience of mankind would call him impudent. ...
— Phases of Faith - Passages from the History of My Creed • Francis William Newman

... Jenkins and a glorification of Jansoulet: "O Bernard Jansoulet, benefactor of childhood!" It was a sight to see the vexed, scandalized faces of the guests. What an intriguer was this Moessard! What an impudent piece of sycophantry! And the same envious, disdainful smile quivered on every mouth. And the deuce of it was that a man had to applaud, to appear charmed, the master of the house not being weary as yet ...
— The Nabob • Alphonse Daudet

... "You impudent dog," he said quietly, "you come round the corner where these people can't see us and I'll give ...
— The Haunted Bookshop • Christopher Morley

... obliged to endow all his fictitious creations with real life, it will be by the reduction and elimination of this dimension that Mr. Meredith will have to proceed. There will be great joy in that other world when he has done it: and, alarming as the task looks, I think it not impudent to say that no one who ever enjoyed his conversation will ...
— The English Novel • George Saintsbury

... told me they had nothing to do with such statements, and that I seemed a most impudent rascal to trump up such things against ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IV. • Editors: Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton

... this is going on, young woman has entered omnibus, and taken vacant seat. Conductor counts places, says there is no room. Can't carry me. Won't give back fare—has torn off ticket. Says I must get out. Say I will report him. Impudent again. Getting out drop ticket. Incident subsequently (to my later satisfaction) leads ...
— Punch, or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, August 15, 1891 • Various

... marriage at Putney was placed in Roswell's hands by Judge Bikens and was instantly "pronounced an impudent forgery." Being in the dark as to how far Mary's family had been informed of their marriage, Roswell avoided any expression that might reveal it to Judge Bikens, and refused to accept the letter as a true expression of his wife's ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson

... impudence, and the third, still, impudence. No modest man ever did or ever will make his fortune. Your friend Lord H[alifa]x, R. W[alpo]le, and all other remarkable instances of quick advancement, have been remarkably impudent. The Ministry is like a play at Court; there's a little door to get in, and a great crowd without, shoving and thrusting who shall be foremost: people who knock others with their elbows, disregard a little kick of the shins, and still thrust heartily forwards, are sure of a ...
— Lady Mary Wortley Montague - Her Life and Letters (1689-1762) • Lewis Melville

... was written on her ticket—was a picture. Even her shadows tried to desert her as she lifted and wallowed in the long, burnished rollers. There was something astonishingly impudent about her. She reminded Dennison of an old gin-sodden female derelict of the streets. There were red patches all over her, from stem to stern, where the last coat of waterproof black had blistered off. The brass of her ports were green. Her name should have been Neglect. She was probably full ...
— The Pagan Madonna • Harold MacGrath

... Mona, "and that's just what I can't do! Why, my servants rode over me so, and were so impudent and lazy, I just gave up housekeeping and went to a hotel to live. We had to,—there was no ...
— Patty and Azalea • Carolyn Wells

... confident on't, For reasons of state, that her majesty won't Know, I myself I Was present and by, At the great trial, where there was a great company, Of a turbulent preacher, who, cursedly hot, Turn'd the fifth of November, even the gun-powder plot, Into impudent railing, and the devil knows what: Exclaiming like fury—it was at Paul's, London— How church was in danger, and like to be undone, And so gave the lie to gracious Queen Anne; And, which is far worse, to our parliament-men: And then printed a book, Into ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift

... with me. Sept. 9th, very wyndy at Sowth and rayny. Sept. 12th, hayle this morning on Monday. Sept. 15th, lent by Mr. Werall 40s. John Cholmley went with him to give him and other physik; and I answered John Cholmeley the 40s. again. Sept 24th, Barthilmew cam. Sept. 25th, Mr. Olyver Carter his impudent and evident disolutenes in the church. Sept. 26th, he repented and some pacification was made. Sept. 27th, I granted a lease of thre lives to Mr. Ratclyf for two howses in Dene Square of 7s. rent both; fine, twenty nobles. Sept. 28th, cam Mr. Yardely of Calcot in Chesshyre, abowt six myles wide ...
— The Private Diary of Dr. John Dee - And the Catalog of His Library of Manuscripts • John Dee

... time now St. Just allowed the conversation to drop; he was gazing wide-eyed, almost appalled at this impudent display of well-nigh ferocious selfishness and vanity. De Batz, smiling and complacent, was leaning back in his chair, looking at his young friend with perfect contentment expressed in every line of his pock-marked face and in the very attitude of his well-fed body. It was easy ...
— El Dorado • Baroness Orczy

... hearing, Rivers said: "I am glad that fellow, Dalton, has gone. If the judge had not been with him I would have kicked him out long ago. He has a sharp, impudent tongue, when he has a mind to ...
— From Wealth to Poverty • Austin Potter

... and the avidity of gain have their corrupting effects even in the wilderness, as may be instanced in the members of this aboriginal emporium; for the same journalist denounces them as "saucy, impudent rascals, who will steal when they can, and pillage whenever a weak ...
— Astoria - Or, Anecdotes Of An Enterprise Beyond The Rocky Mountains • Washington Irving

... nose was inclined to turn up, his gray eyes had a merry, mischievous expression, and his lips were generally parted in a smile. A casual observer would have said that he was a happy-go-lucky, merry, impudent-looking lad; but he was more than this. He was shrewd, intelligent, and exceptionally plucky; always ready to do a good turn to others, and to take more than his fair share of blame, for every scrape he got ...
— Held Fast For England - A Tale of the Siege of Gibraltar (1779-83) • G. A. Henty

... emergency, and had about decided to accede to Mrs. Tanner's request and preach in Ashland before he left. This decision had put him in so self-satisfied a mood that he was eager to announce it before his fellow-boarder. Moreover, he was hungry, and he could not understand why that impudent boy and that coquettish young woman should remain away at Sunday-school such ...
— A Voice in the Wilderness • Grace Livingston Hill

... said. 'I'll tell you what's wrong with you. You've got a mean heart, you ain't honest, and you're too lazy to live. Here, take that money from him and give it to the man that can do most with it, and take this useless loafer out of my sight.' And served him right, too, say I, impudent, lazy liar." ...
— Corporal Cameron • Ralph Connor

... "You're a deal too impudent to be hungry!" said the man, making a blow at him with his open hand, which Clare dodged. "Be off with you, or I'll set the dog ...
— A Rough Shaking • George MacDonald

... now; and if I choose to withhold two of them, no one will be blamed but Nero, who was careless and dropped them! 'Lena has nothing decent to wear, and I don't feel like expending much more for a person so ungrateful as she is. You ought to have heard how impudent she was that time you all ...
— 'Lena Rivers • Mary J. Holmes

... way, my hearties! There seems nothing better to be done; let us have a stroke of a harpoon at that impudent rascal." ...
— The Pilot • J. Fenimore Cooper

... fitted with gloves and with a halo formed of his knives which were as sharp as razors, and which he planted close to her, was his wife. She might have been a woman of forty, and must have been fairly pretty, but with perverse prettiness, an impudent mouth, a mouth that was at the same time sensual and bad, with the lower lip too thick for the thin, ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume II (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant

... bitten." However he took care to mention that there were various kinds of audacity. Oh, there are, there are! . . . There is, for instance, the kind of audacity almost indistinguishable from impudence. . . . I must believe that in this case I have not been impudent for I am not conscious ...
— The Rescue • Joseph Conrad

... those above them. The constant habit of meeting and discussing subjects connected with their own interests, in their own fields, and 'under their own fig-trees', with their landlords and Government functionaries of all kinds and degrees, prevents their ever feeling or appearing impudent or obtrusive; though it certainly tends to give them stentorian voices, that often startle us when they come into our houses to discuss the same ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman

... pretend to be sheepish, but I should be sorry to think I was impudent." And I asked him what in the world he meant. When at last I had assured him that I could undertake to temper admiration with respect, he informed me, with an air of religious mystery, that it was in his power to introduce me to the most beautiful woman ...
— The Madonna of the Future • Henry James

... impudent creature,—trying to make mischief between me and my kind master, but it won't do. (To CLEMENTINA aside.) The will is signed, and I'll take care he does not alter it;—so ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)

... her so absurdly that she grows more impudent every day," she said; "she could not dare to give herself such airs only ...
— Hetty Gray - Nobody's Bairn • Rosa Mulholland

... Farragut took fire. Between him and the impudent little Confederate flotilla, whose easy triumph had suddenly laid low the hopes and plans of his brother admiral, there stood nothing save the guns of Port Hudson. These batteries he would pass, and for the fourth time, yet not the last, ...
— History of the Nineteenth Army Corps • Richard Biddle Irwin

... that a great deal of the wars, seditions, and troubles of the world did formerly turn upon the contention between interests that went by the names of Protestant and Catholic. But I imagined that at this time no one was weak enough to believe, or impudent enough to pretend, that questions of Popish and Protestant opinions or interest are the things by which men are at present menaced with crusades by foreign invasion, or with seditions which shake the foundations ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VI. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... are indefinitely postponed.[3461]—It has summoned to its bar Fournier, Lazowski, Deffieux, and other leaders, who, on the 10th of March, were disposed to throw it out of the windows, but, on making their impudent apology, it sends them away acquitted, free, and ready to begin over again.[3462] At the War Department it raises up in turn two cunning Jacobins, Pache and Bouchotte, who are to work against it unceasingly. At the Department of the Interior it allows the ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 3 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 2 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine

... hear presently that it is out of Christian charity that he covets my money! But I will put a stop to all this, and justice, impudent rascal, ...
— The Miser (L'Avare) • Moliere

... day upon a party in a kind of Cheap-Jack van," she wrote,—"gayly-dressed people, tricked off in smart finery, and larking like a lot of Ramsgate tradesmen on the public road. One of the impudent creatures made a trumpet of his great ugly fist and spelt out the name of the hotel at which they were stopping, and then put his hand to his ear, as if to listen for the response. Expecting me to tell them anything about myself! But I flatter ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, August, 1885 • Various

... always on the old tombstone before Silvere had time to stretch out his arms. She would laugh at her own strength and agility as, for a moment, with her hair in disorder, she remained almost breathless, tapping her skirt to make it fall. Her sweetheart laughingly called her an impudent urchin. In reality he much admired her pluck. He watched her jump over the wall with the complacency of an older brother supervising the exercises of a younger one. Indeed, there was yet much that was childlike in their growing love. On several occasions they spoke of going ...
— The Fortune of the Rougons • Emile Zola

... without taking the trouble to bow to anyone; "what sense is there in sending for me to come here in this way, almost by force, and by a very impudent young woman?" ...
— The Mystery of Orcival • Emile Gaboriau

... time that Tom Tripp, looking in at the window, got an idea of the situation, but he was unobserved. The river bank was near, and he ran down to it, hoping, but not expecting, to see some one who could interfere with the impudent robber. We have already seen that he was luckier ...
— Do and Dare - A Brave Boy's Fight for Fortune • Horatio Alger, Jr.

... existence; and everything I have seen or heard of its character, both from its patrons and its enemies, has confirmed me beyond repentance in the belief, that, let the character of the Abolitionists be what it may in the sight of the Judge of all the earth, this is the most meddlesome, impudent, reckless, fierce, and ...
— American Scenes, and Christian Slavery - A Recent Tour of Four Thousand Miles in the United States • Ebenezer Davies

... the earlier numbers was a burlesque, but not very successful, Journal of the present Paper War, which speedily involved the author in actual hostilities with the notorious quack and adventurer Dr. John Hill, who for some time had been publishing certain impudent lucubrations in the London Daily Advertiser under the heading of The Inspector; and also with Smollett, whom he (Fielding) had ridiculed in his second number, perhaps on account of that little paragraph in the first edition of Peregrine ...
— Fielding - (English Men of Letters Series) • Austin Dobson

... out," wrote Horace Walpole in 1744, "all has been in suspense. The leaders of the Opposition immediately imposed silence upon their party; everything passed without the least debate, in short, all were making their bargains. One has heard of the corruption of courtiers, but, believe me the impudent prostitution of patriots, going to market with their honesty, beats it to nothing. Do but think of two hundred men of the most consummate virtue, setting themselves to sale for three weeks!"[113] The corruption of Parliament and the indifference, ...
— A History of English Prose Fiction • Bayard Tuckerman



Words linked to "Impudent" :   forward, disrespectful, impudence



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