Online dictionaryOnline dictionary
Synonyms, antonyms, pronunciation

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




Lenient   /lˈiniənt/  /lˈinjənt/   Listen
Lenient

adjective
1.
Tolerant or lenient.  Synonyms: indulgent, soft.  "Too soft on the children" , "They are soft on crime"
2.
Not strict.  "Easy standards" , "Lenient rules" , "An easy penalty"
3.
Characterized by tolerance and mercy.






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





"Lenient" Quotes from Famous Books



... Eloise found him a shade less taciturn than usual to-night. He felt vaguely that he now had an ally of his own flesh and blood in the house, a spirit sufficiently kindred to prefer his society to theirs, and this made him unusually lenient. ...
— Jewel - A Chapter In Her Life • Clara Louise Burnham

... pulpit he looked straight down into the tall Rectory pew, and once or twice his eyes involuntarily sought its occupants. Once, indeed, he paused in his discourse. It was after the words— "We are totally mistaken if we persuade ourselves that Christ was lenient towards sin. He made no hesitation in driving the money-changers from His Father's temple even with a whip. But He discriminated between the sin and the sinner. The fig-tree He blasted was one which, bearing no fruit, yet made a false show of health: the Pharisees He ...
— Hetty Wesley • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... recks not for weapons; I this do scorn then, so be Higelac gracious, My liegelord beloved, lenient of spirit, 65 To bear a blade or a broad-fashioned target, A shield to the onset; only ...
— Beowulf - An Anglo-Saxon Epic Poem • The Heyne-Socin

... police, jury commissioner—in fact, an all-around potentate. Sort of Pooh-bah, you know. For serious offences, such as wife beating, wife stealing, or having more than one wife at a time, we were not so lenient. The offender, on conviction, was strung up by the thumbs and used as a target by amateurs who desired to become proficient in the use of the cattle-adder. Murderers were attended to a trifle more expeditiously. They were strung ...
— West Wind Drift • George Barr McCutcheon

... imposed on the vanquished are nothing but arms of oppression. What more could Germany herself have done had she won the War? Perhaps her terms would have been more lenient, certainly not harder, as she would have understood that conditions such as we have imposed on the losers are ...
— Peaceless Europe • Francesco Saverio Nitti

... will be lenient towards them," cried the young man. "You will not condemn them to death. Remember that whatever may have been their guilt, had it not been for the death of Pomeroff, you would not ...
— Rabbi and Priest - A Story • Milton Goldsmith

... a long Preface to this small book. When the third edition of the Book of Ser Marco Polo was published in 1903, criticism was lenient to the Editor of YULE'S grand work, and it was highly satisfactory to me that such competent judges as Sir Aurel STEIN and Sven HEDIN gave their approval to the remarks I made on the itineraries followed in Central Asia by the celebrated ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo, Volume 2 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa

... weakness which he had shown. He had slain Tybalt, but would he also slay himself, slay his dear lady, who lived but in his life? The noble form of man, he said, was but a shape of wax, when it wanted the courage which should keep it firm. The law had been lenient to him, that instead of death, which he had incurred, had pronounced by the prince's mouth only banishment. He had slain Tybalt, but Tybalt would have slain him: there was a sort of happiness in that. Juliet ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb

... his conduct, in the encounter with the allied fleets the previous July; especially for failing to keep touch with them and bring them again to action. The national outcry was too strong to be disregarded, nor is it probable that the Admiralty took a more lenient view of the matter. At all events, an inquiry was inevitable, and the authorities seem to have felt that it was a favor to Calder to permit him to ask for the Court which in any case must be ordered. "I did not ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. II. (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan

... with lenient eyes, On whatso beside thee may creep and cling, For the possible beauty that underlies The passing ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various

... has enriched Talacio's Letter with numerous and important notes. He claims a lenient judgment of his translation, which is printed side by side with the original, on account of the obscurities of the manuscript, and the uncertainty as to the meaning of some of the writer's expressions. But, allowing for these difficulties, we regret that Mr. Squier did not ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 39, January, 1861 • Various

... dip his pen in gall. He was careful as to matters of fact, fortified his memory by an accurate diary, and had an innate love of controversy. With slavery abolished, the tendency of his mind was towards a lenient policy in Southern matters and for the promptest ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Volume 2 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine

... were heard in the woods, and it was perceived that they came nearer and nearer. The lieutenant, therefore, together with Mr. Banks, and three or four more persons, set out to meet them; and the result of the interview, in consequence of the prudent and lenient conduct of our commander and his friends, was a complete reconciliation. Soon after the Indians went away, the woods were seen to be on fire at the distance of about two miles. This accident, if it had happened ...
— Narrative of the Voyages Round The World, • A. Kippis

... several of the large towns to enforce these lenient laws, and to purchase the freedom of a few of the most deserving slaves. The quakers, beside liberating all their negroes, have contributed liberally towards the funds these societies have established, for carrying ...
— Travels in the United States of America • William Priest

... little volume you mention has given pleasure to the author of Percival and Aubrey, I am sufficiently repaid by his praise. Though our periodical censors have been uncommonly lenient, I confess a tribute from a man of acknowledged genius is still more flattering. But I am afraid I should forfeit all claim to candour, if I did not decline such praise as I do not deserve; and this is, I am sorry to say, the case in ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Letters and Journals, Vol. 1 • Lord Byron, Edited by Rowland E. Prothero

... remarking my bell-cord—that is the identical rope, sir, which hanged Bellingham, who shot Mr. Perceval in the House of Commons. I offered any sum for the one in which Thistlewood ended his life to match it—but I was unfortunately disappointed; and the laws have now become so disgracefully lenient, that I fear I shall never have an opportunity of procuring a respectable companion rope for the other side of my mantel-piece. And 'tis all owing to the rascally Whigs, sir—they have swept away all our good old English customs, and deprived us of our ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various

... what more meddlesome between friends than a loan? A regular marplot. For how can you help that the helper must turn out a creditor? And creditor and friend, can they ever be one? no, not in the most lenient case; since, out of lenity to forego one's claim, is less to be a friendly creditor than to cease to be a creditor at all. But it will not do to rely upon this lenity, no, not in the best man; for the best man, as the worst, is subject to all mortal ...
— The Confidence-Man • Herman Melville

... Henry de Croisenois affected the airs and manners of a lad of twenty, and so found many who looked upon his escapades with lenient eyes, ascribing them to the follies of youth. Under this youthful mask, however he concealed a most astute and cunning intellect, and had more than once got the better of the women with whom he had had dealings. His fortune ...
— Caught In The Net • Emile Gaboriau

... sudden interest in my boy taught me a new lesson in human selfishness, but not as yet new fears. My nature was not one to grasp ideas of evil, and the remembrance of that oath still remained to make me lenient ...
— Room Number 3 - and Other Detective Stories • Anna Katharine Green

... home from Vienna he decided that his generals and his douma had been too lenient. He had old grievances against the streltsi; they had been the army of Sophia, in opposition to the army of the Czar; he remembered the invasion of the Kremlin, the massacre of his mother's family, her terrors in Troitsa, and the conspiracies which all but delayed his journey ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 12 • Editor-In-Chief Rossiter Johnson

... Mrs Arabin, as she told all this, remembered that in the days of which she was speaking she was a young mourning widow,—"but I think I can never forget the sort of harsh-toned paean of low-church trumpets with which that poor woman made her entry into the city. She might have been more lenient, as we had never sinned by being very high. She might, at any rate, have been more gentle with us at first. I think we had never attempted much beyond decency, good-will and comfort. Our comfort she utterly destroyed. Good-will was not to her taste. And as ...
— The Last Chronicle of Barset • Anthony Trollope

... calm, dispassionate judgment, not vindictive, who could hold the reins with a firm hand, yet look with a lenient eye on the follies which he did not share, was needed in the spirit world, and ...
— Strange Visitors • Henry J. Horn

... of New York owned the ship, "Panama." She carried spelter, lead, iron and other products to China and returned with tea, false cinnamon and various other Chinese goods. The duty on these was extremely high. But the Government was far more lenient to the trading class than the trader was to the poor debtor. It generously extended credit for nine, twelve and eighteen months before it demanded the payment of the tariff duties. What happened under this system? As soon as the ship arrived, the cargo ...
— History of the Great American Fortunes, Vol. I - Conditions in Settlement and Colonial Times • Myers Gustavus

... arrival of the family carriage from Kingcombe Holm, wherein sat Mary and Eulalie. To these were speedily added the three young Dugdales, all in high glee. And it spoke well for the Miss Harpers, whom Agatha was disposed to like least of her husband's relatives, that they made very lenient and kindly ...
— Agatha's Husband - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik (AKA: Dinah Maria Mulock)

... young man," returned his father. "Your Uncle Dick may be too lenient. I am rather of the opinion that you and your brother, if not your cousins, have got ...
— The Rover Boys at Colby Hall - or The Struggles of the Young Cadets • Arthur M. Winfield

... slavery; you are putting the tyranny of a mob on the throne of a kind and lenient prince. Where is the consistency of your ...
— The Spy • James Fenimore Cooper

... declare here, as I have often done before, and which has been repeated by the greatest and wisest of statesmen and patriots, in this and other lands, that it is the best and freest government—the most equal in its rights, the most just in its decisions, the most lenient in its measures, and the most aspiring in its principles, to elevate the race of men, that the sun of heaven ever shone upon. Now, for you to attempt to overthrow such a government as this, under which we have lived for more than three-quarters of a century—in which we have gained our wealth, ...
— The Speaker, No. 5: Volume II, Issue 1 - December, 1906. • Various

... oblivion. I merely recognized that she was one human being and I another. Should I have been deferential to her by reason of her age and maternity, then from the vantage which this gave her, she should have been lenient to me on account of my chit-ship and inexperience. ...
— My Brilliant Career • Miles Franklin

... a person of extreme discernment," said Victoria. "And love is lenient with fools. By the way, Humphrey, it has just occurred to me that there's one quality which some people think necessary in a wife, which you ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... latter, though at times convenient, Was not so necessary; for they tell That she was handsome, and though fierce look'd lenient, And always used her favourites too well. If once beyond her boudoir's precincts in ye went, Your 'fortune' was in a fair way 'to swell A man' (as Giles says); for though she would widow all Nations, she liked man ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron

... was exciting. And then sometimes he caught her looking at him from under her brows with an almost furtive, sullen scrutiny, which made him move quickly. Often she met his eyes. But then her own were, as it were, covered over, revealing nothing. She gave him a little, lenient smile. She was to him extraordinarily provocative, because of the knowledge she seemed to possess, and gathered fruit of experience ...
— Sons and Lovers • David Herbert Lawrence

... get along!" said Don, feeling uncommonly lenient toward his fellow men. "Here's a dollar if that will help you out ...
— A Romance of Billy-Goat Hill • Alice Hegan Rice

... human flesh out of affectation than that primitive man ever ate it out of ignorance. I am here only following the outlines of their argument, which consists in maintaining that man has been progressively more lenient, first to citizens, then to slaves, then to animals, and then (presumably) to plants. I think it wrong to sit on a man. Soon, I shall think it wrong to sit on a horse. Eventually (I suppose) I shall think it wrong to sit on a chair. That is the drive of the argument. ...
— Orthodoxy • G. K. Chesterton

... lenient measures which had been taken by the legislature to reclaim the insurgents, only enlarged their demands; and that they were proceeding systematically to organize a military force for the subversion of the constitution; ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 4 (of 5) • John Marshall

... advise you to keep nothing back from me. So much is at stake for you and your relatives who are involved in this affair that it is of the utmost consequence that you should secure lenient ...
— The Coming Conquest of England • August Niemann

... arose—between them and my wife at least. Hal's wife, received kindly at the little provincial court, as all ladies were, made herself by no means popular there by the hot and eager political tone which she adopted. She assailed all the Government measures with indiscriminating acrimony. Were they lenient? She said the perfidious British Government was only preparing a snare, and biding its time until it could forge heavier chains for unhappy America. Were they angry? Why did not every American citizen rise, assert his rights as a freeman, and serve ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray

... theory of justice after their ideas, or rather, according to their own desires; they bolster it up with facts that limp all the way from half-truths to downright falsities; and thus acquit themselves of sin, and go their way in peace. A judge is always lenient when he ...
— Explanation of Catholic Morals - A Concise, Reasoned, and Popular Exposition of Catholic Morals • John H. Stapleton

... what the canny man of Greenock is supposed to have done. He'd brought the tree-slips from the south when he risked his spying expedition into northern waters. He meant to make a present of them to Lord Bellomont if the Governor were lenient: but the Governor's heart was flinty, and Captain Kidd found softer soil for the planting of ...
— The Lightning Conductor Discovers America • C. N. (Charles Norris) Williamson and A. M. (Alice Muriel)

... Be lenient with lobsters, and ever kind to crabs, And be not disrespectful to cuttle-fish or dabs; Chase not the Cochin-China, chaff not the ox obese, And babble not of feather-beds in company with geese. Be ...
— A Nonsense Anthology • Collected by Carolyn Wells

... conclusion Mr. Tebrick was in the right or not, is not for us here to consider. But I would only say to those who would censure him for a too lenient view of the religious side of the matter, that we have not seen the thing as he did, and perhaps if it were displayed before our eyes we might be led to ...
— Lady Into Fox • David Garnett

... and wherever the occasion arose, against all odds, and even in the face of misguided authority. (Having left the impression that Miss Prinkwell contemplated an invasion of those rights, the colonel became more lenient and genial.) He fully recognized her high and noble office; he saw in her the worthy successor of those two famous instructresses of Athens—those Greek ladies—er—whose names had escaped his memory, ...
— Trent's Trust and Other Stories • Bret Harte

... lady Feng, "that you are far too lenient. But fancy allowing servants in this household to go on in this way; why, what will be ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin

... as a scholar and an historian he is merely pitiless; to Croker ruining the Life by the insertion of the Tour—a feat which would scarce be surpassed by the interpolation of the Falstaff scenes of the Merry Wives in one or other of the parts of Henry IV.—he is lenient enough, and lenient on grounds which are not artistic but purely moral. Did he recognise to the full the fact of Boswell's pre-eminence as an artist? Was he really conscious that the Life is an admirable work of art as well as the ...
— Views and Reviews - Essays in appreciation • William Ernest Henley

... rock the cradle of reposing age, With lenient arts extend a mother's breath, Make languor smile, and smooth the bed of death; Explore the thought, explain the asking eye, And keep awhile ...
— Hours in a Library, Volume I. (of III.) • Leslie Stephen

... good while Confession of weakness which does not wish to be strong Conscience itself requires a conscience Constituency of mediocrities of which the world is made up Cowardice may call for our most lenient judgment Criticise other people's modes of dealing with their children Despair itself would have been like an anodyne Don't begin to pry till you have got the long arm on your side Educational factory Fall silent and think they are thinking ...
— Widger's Quotations from the Works of Oliver W. Holmes, Sr. • David Widger

... Committee appointed to command the defence of Petrograd an ambitious regular Army Captain, Muraviov, the same Muraviov who had organised the Death Battalions during the summer, and had once been heard to advise the Government that "it was too lenient with the Bolsheviki; they must be wiped out." A man of military mind, who admired power and ...
— Ten Days That Shook the World • John Reed

... plane from what you and I have been taught to consider right. Lans is in the vanguard of this movement—but I only implore you to give him time and while we are waiting let me ask you this—would you be more lenient to—to this protege of yours than you are to Lans, if I could prove to you that he has been hiding his private life from you entirely? Has, apparently, laid himself bare to your confidence and good-will while, in a secret and shameful manner, he has had very disreputable ...
— A Son of the Hills • Harriet T. Comstock

... innocency. Though you should send out this angel of peace, yet you are sending out a destroying angel too; and what would be the effect of the conflict of these two adverse spirits, or which would predominate in the end, is what I dare not say: whether the lenient measures would cause American passion to subside, or the severe would increase its fury,—all this is in the hand of Providence. Yet now, even now, I should confide in the prevailing virtue and efficacious operation of lenity, though working ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. II. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... patience and good temper. Also, health and strength are conducive to equability of temper, and hence the domestic popularity of the man of brawn above the one of brain, who is not infrequently exacting and crossly egotistical in his family relations where the other would be lenient and go-easy. ...
— Some Everyday Folk and Dawn • Miles Franklin

... of his, however, got wind about this time, and served to enlighten many persons as to his real character, who had hitherto been most lenient in their expressions about him. Our worthy tutor, with a zeal for our welfare far more praiseworthy than successful, was in the habit of summoning to his chambers, on certain mornings of the week, his various pupils, whom ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 1 (of 2) • Charles Lever

... drown him anyhow, because he was a deep rascal, since his plots were unsolvable. Masked judges and masked executioners, with unlimited power, and no appeal from their judgements, in that hard, cruel age, were not likely to be lenient with men they ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... said examination, that admiral Byng was unjustly condemned. The sentence might be strictly legal, and, at the same time very severe, according to the maxim, summum jus, summa injuria. In such cases, and perhaps in such cases only, the rigour of the law ought to be softened by the lenient hand of the royal prerogative. That this was the case of admiral Byng appears from the warm and eager intercession of his jury, a species of intercession which hath generally, if not always, prevailed at the foot of ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett

... office long engage To rock the cradle of reposing age; With lenient arts extend a mother's breath, Make languor smile, and smooth the bed of death; Explore the thought, explain the asking eye, And keep awhile one parent ...
— The Wedding Ring - A Series of Discourses for Husbands and Wives and Those - Contemplating Matrimony • T. De Witt Talmage

... escape were punished with death. The position of the former officials removed from Macedonia was, in all probability, similar. This expedient, violent as it was, was still, as things stood, the most lenient, and the enraged Greeks of the Roman party were far from content with the paucity of the executions. Lyciscus had accordingly deemed it proper, by way of preliminary, to have 500 of the leading men of the Aetolian patriotic party slain at the meeting of the diet; the Roman commission, ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen

... quorum causas procul habeo'; cf. H. i. 1) and just in his judgment, except in a few passages in the Histories, where he is rather unfair (i. 42, ii. 95). He is milder in the Annals through advancing years, and from the better times he lived in. Generally he takes a lenient view of things, except (1) in offences against the state (cf. the character of Tiberius); (2) when the religious element comes in; cf. what he says of Claudius' marriage with his brother's daughter Agrippina: Ann. xiv. 2, 'Agrippina ... exercita ...
— The Student's Companion to Latin Authors • George Middleton

... says the erudite Bella, with a lenient smile. "Tennis was first brought from France to England in the reign of ...
— Rossmoyne • Unknown

... that he was likewise convinced that, when Hinojosa and the other captains were informed of the powers and intentions of the president, they would receive him with all submission. The president thanked Mexia for his good intentions, observing that it was necessary to use lenient measures on this occasion, as his majesty was very desirous to restore the country to peace and good order, without having recourse to warlike measures, if it could possibly be accomplished. As it was obvious to every one, that the chief cause of the disturbances ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 5 • Robert Kerr

... assume any particular merit from the lenient manner, in which this disagreeable affair has terminated. But I beg you to believe, Sir, that I most sincerely rejoice, not only because your humane intentions are gratified, but because the event accords with the wishes of his Most Christian Majesty and ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. XI • Various

... the public that having "absolute and supreme power," I was absurdly lenient towards Abou Saood, whom I knew to be so great a villain. I confess to one fault. I should have arrested and transported him to Khartoum when he first arrived at Gondokoro with the cattle stolen from the ...
— Ismailia • Samuel W. Baker

... of ourselves we must learn to think independently and honestly. It is too common to be conventionally honest, but dishonest with ourselves. It is too common to pass unnoticed in ourselves the faults we condemn in others. We should be lenient in our judgment because often the mistakes that others make would have been ours had we but had the ...
— Maintaining Health • R. L. Alsaker

... part in the events of the previous night by a trophy I possessed in the shape of a tattered red curtain, which I had brought home as a token of my prowess. The thought that people generally, and my own family in particular, were wont to put a lenient construction upon youthful escapades was a great comfort to me; outbursts of this kind on the part of the young were regarded as righteous indignation against really serious scandals, and there was no need for me to be afraid of owning up to having ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner

... the old lady has got to say for herself," he murmured. "Can she have seen Nina? And has Nina said anything. Not that she can seriously injure me in the mater's eyes. No one would be more lenient to a little harmless flirtation which was never meant to lead anywhere than my good mother. Still it was a great bore for Josephine to turn up when she did. Obliged me to shorten my leave abruptly, and ...
— The Honorable Miss - A Story of an Old-Fashioned Town • L. T. Meade

... unwarrantable doctrines held forth in the said petitions and remonstrance to the artifices of a few.' All this while Lord Dartmouth (the new Secretary of State for the Colonies, successor to Lord Hillsborough) 'had a true desire to see lenient measures adopted towards the colonies,' not being in the least aware that he was drifting with the Cabinet towards the very system of coercion against which he gave the most public and the most explicit pledges." (History of the United States, Vol. ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 1 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Egerton Ryerson

... sternly at the frothing Bellefont. "I would be inclined to be lenient, but I am informed that this is not the defendant's first offense. The clerk of the court will, therefore, ...
— The Varmint • Owen Johnson

... you are telling the truth about some things—downright lies about others. You are a drug fiend— but I will be lenient with you, for one reason. Contrary to everything that I would have expected, you are really trying to save that poor half-witted girl whom you love from the terrible habit that has gripped you. That is why ...
— The War Terror • Arthur B. Reeve

... have said, great qualities in the curate of Poltons, but I have not quite made up my mind precisely what they are. I ought, however, to say that Dora takes a more favorable view of him and a less lenient view of ...
— Frivolous Cupid • Anthony Hope

... both sides, there is a terrible guilt, and it is the duty of Christian or any other moralists, whether or no they belong to the guilty nations, sternly to assign and condemn that guilt. It is precisely on this loose and lenient habit of mind that the engineers of aggressive war build in our time, and we have seen, in the case of neutral nations and of a section of our own nation, what chances they have of succeeding. They have only to fill their ...
— The War and the Churches • Joseph McCabe

... other's indifferent tailoring throw the perfection of his own into such brilliant contrast—the similarity between the livery of service and the male costume de luxe fostering such comparisons—make him any more lenient. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, July 21, 1920 • Various

... Mr. Kingsbury,' says she, laughing out loud, 'I hope he will be as lenient with my poor housekeeping as ...
— Sixes and Sevens • O. Henry

... time I will allow it to pass; but never let me hear of such conduct again, or I will not be so lenient." ...
— Angel Agnes - The Heroine of the Yellow Fever Plague in Shreveport • Wesley Bradshaw

... Romans, like the Carthaginians, had but little mercy for a defeated general. His colleague and his army had undoubtedly been sacrificed by his rashness. Moreover, the senate was composed of his bitter political enemies, and he could not hope that a lenient view would be taken of his conduct. Nevertheless Varro returned to Rome and appeared before the senate. That body nobly responded to the confidence manifested in it; party feeling was suspended, the political adversary, the defeated ...
— The Young Carthaginian - A Story of The Times of Hannibal • G.A. Henty

... generous, brave, just, and true. Neither Esmond, nor The Newcomes, nor The Virginians are in any sense the work of a misanthrope. And where Thackeray speaks in his own person, in the lectures on the English Humourists, he is brimful of all that is genial, frank, lenient, and good-hearted. What we know of the man, who loved his friends and was loved by them, and who in all his critical and personal sketches showed himself a kindly, courteous, and considerate gentleman, inclines us to repel this charge of cynicism. We will ...
— Studies in Early Victorian Literature • Frederic Harrison

... found several faults with Miss Edgeworth's former works—she takes this opportunity of returning them sincere thanks for the candid and lenient manner in which her errors have been pointed out. In the present Tales she has probably fallen into many other faults, but she has endeavoured to avoid those for which ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. IX - [Contents: Harrington; Thoughts on Bores; Ormond] • Maria Edgeworth

... soon as the last load of hay was in the barn, just to show how he appreciated the bold way in which his hired help had tickled the rascals when they were getting over the fence. Indeed, the farmer said Andy had been too lenient, and that if it had been his aeroplane that was threatened in that mean way, he would have felt wholly justified in emptying both barrels of the gun after the marauders, first giving them time to get a certain ...
— The Aeroplane Boys Flight - A Hydroplane Roundup • John Luther Langworthy

... too lenient, too lenient by far, Leonce," asserted the Colonel. "Authority, coercion are what is needed. Put your foot down good and hard; the only way to manage a wife. ...
— The Awakening and Selected Short Stories • Kate Chopin

... completely in the power of their tyrannous masters, the official record thus stated is indeed appalling. But here again the Kaiser himself, as chief commander of the army, must be held largely responsible; for his more than lenient treatment of the convicted offenders is nothing less than a direct encouragement to their fellows to continue in these fiendish practices. One sergeant, a man by the name of Franzki, belonging to the Eighty-fifth Regiment ...
— A Little Garrison - A Realistic Novel of German Army Life of To-day • Fritz von der Kyrburg

... talking matters over with Dr. Morgan no more than with her father. Upon her return to Exeter, she immediately visited the president's office, and explained why she had refused to take the examination. Dr. Morgan was in a lenient frame of mind. She not only forgave Elizabeth her hasty act, but took time to explain to her that this was a custom old as examinations themselves, and a necessity. The explanation satisfied Elizabeth's wounded feelings but did not alter her view of the method. ...
— Elizabeth Hobart at Exeter Hall • Jean K. Baird

... there was no small risk of a new Reign of Terror. It is just, however, to say that the king, his ministers, and his allies exerted themselves to restrain the violence of the fanatical royalists, and that the punishments inflicted, though in our opinion unjustifiable, were few and lenient when compared with those which were demanded by M. de Labourdonnaye and M. Hyde de Neuville. We have always heard, and are inclined to believe, that the government was not disposed to treat even the regicides with severity. But on this point the feeling ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 2 (of 4) - Contributions To The Edinburgh Review • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... more lenient in their animadversions on American railways, if they would more persistently bear in mind the great difference in the conditions under which railways have been constructed in the Old and the New World. In England, for example, the railway came after the thick ...
— The Land of Contrasts - A Briton's View of His American Kin • James Fullarton Muirhead

... stronger and bitterer, against brother and sister. The Englishman's proverbial love of "fair play," seemed for once forgotten. The merciful reasoning of the law, that takes every man to be innocent until he is proven guilty, was too lenient to be listened to. The brother had murdered her—the sister had aided and abetted. Let them both hang—that was the vox populi of Chesholm—hanging was too good ...
— A Terrible Secret • May Agnes Fleming

... not only attempted but did actually strike his warder rather severely, met with a more lenient punishment. In this case the prisoner was decidedly to blame, and his punishment, in technical language, was "six months in chokey with the black ...
— Six Years in the Prisons of England • A Merchant - Anonymous

... Not more lenient is the Scholiast on Orestes: "This piece," he says, "is one of those which produce a great effect on the stage, but with respect to characters it is extremely bad; for, with the exception of Pylades, all the rest are good for nothing." Moreover, "Its catastrophe is more suitable to comedy than ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art - and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel trans John Black

... picking scientific flaws in various stories? Some of the amateur experts' opinions really serve as a comic sequel after a night of interesting reading. If they would only stop to realize that some of their most indisputable data is merely hypothesis, the criticisms might be more lenient. ...
— Astounding Stories, March, 1931 • Various

... towns of Winthrop and Revere, the average has been only one to forty-one and nine-tenths. These statistics are indeed startling, and may be easily used as a foundation for an argument that our laws governing the matter are far too lenient, since the number of divorces is so ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1 • Various

... poignant struggle going on beneath that seeming attitude of rigid disapproval. He joined the hunters, as it were, because he was afraid-not, of course, of his own instincts, for he was fastidious, a gentleman, and a priest, but of being lenient to a sin, to something which God abhorred: He was, as it were, bound to take a professional view of this particular offence. When in his walks abroad he passed one of these women, he would unconsciously purse his lips, and frown. ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... for "goose," his shot would have been nearer the mark; as it was, all things considered, it was not a miss. He smarted considerably under the self-condemnation. If a comrade had said as much he would have resented it hotly, but a man is wonderfully lenient to himself! ...
— Blue Lights - Hot Work in the Soudan • R.M. Ballantyne

... into those who were advocates for greater severity, by representing to them what universal odium would be attached to their memories by the Roman people, that Decius Silanus, consul elect, did not hesitate to qualify his proposal, it not being very honourable to change it, by a lenient interpretation; as if it had been understood in a harsher sense than he intended, and Caesar would certainly have carried his point, having brought over to his side a great number of the senators, among whom was Cicero, the consul's brother, had not a speech by Marcus Cato infused new vigour into ...
— The Lives Of The Twelve Caesars, Complete - To Which Are Added, His Lives Of The Grammarians, Rhetoricians, And Poets • C. Suetonius Tranquillus

... unmoved, though his flashing eye betrayed, in some degree, his secret emotion. Not so his partner. Flinging himself on his knees before the Prince, he cried in piteous tones—"I confess my manifold offences, and own that my sentence is lenient in comparison with them. But I beseech your Highness to spare me the mutilation and branding. All ...
— The Star-Chamber, Volume 2 - An Historical Romance • W. Harrison Ainsworth

... the monotony of existence becomes to them exactly what it would have been had they never inflicted a pang upon the unfortunate spectators, whose unaccustomed eyes shrink daily from the impression to which they have not been rendered callous by custom, or lenient by false taste. ...
— The Poetry of Architecture • John Ruskin

... slaves to read and write and worship the gods of paganism in peace and security, for there was nothing in the laws, literature, or religion of the age to awaken in the soul of the bondman a just sense of his rights as a man. But the American slaveholder cannot be thus lenient. In the excess of his benevolence, as a political propagandist, he has kindled a fire for the oppressed of the old world to gaze at with hope, and for crowned heads and dynasties to tremble at; but a due regard to the safety of his "peculiar ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society

... had moved westward, seeking immunity in a region where such obscure professions were regarded with a more lenient eye. Joan had little enough sympathy with her relative's studies. She neither believed in them, nor did she disbelieve. She was so young, and so full of that vitality which makes for the wholesome enjoyment of life, as viewed through ...
— The Golden Woman - A Story of the Montana Hills • Ridgwell Cullum

... Mrs. Haddo, and it will rest with her whether you remain a member of the Specialities or not. Your frank confession to us, although it is a little late in the day, and the peculiar circumstances attending your gaining possession of the packet, incline us to be lenient to you—if only, Betty, you will now do the one thing left to you, and give the packet up—put it, in short, into Mrs. Haddo's hands, so that she may keep it until Sir John Crawford, who is your ...
— Betty Vivian - A Story of Haddo Court School • L. T. Meade

... getting something new. That he'll turn out anything great I don't believe, but you may safely praise him. He is well read, a remarkable Oriental scholar, and has a good judgment. It was he who wrote that nice review of my 'Reflections on Domestic Life.' We must be lenient towards ...
— What the Moon Saw: and Other Tales • Hans Christian Andersen

... de Hue, who was at liberty in Paris, and the faithful Turgi, who remained in the Tower, some communications passed between the royal family and their friends. The wife of Tison, who waited on the Queen, suspected and finally denounced these more lenient guardians,—[Toulan, Lepitre, Vincent, Bruno, and others.]—who were executed, the royal prisoners being subjected ...
— Memoirs Of The Court Of Marie Antoinette, Queen Of France, Complete • Madame Campan

... here, and I will hang them for you," exclaimed the lady, excitedly. "I think our government is entirely too lenient ...
— Frank on a Gun-Boat • Harry Castlemon

... a lenient grace, Has cherished a smile for me; And its features hint of a fairer face That comes with a memory Of a flower-and-perfume-haunted place And a ...
— The Complete Works • James Whitcomb Riley

... examination, and I determined to send him to college. He was delighted at the proposal, for he had begun now to appreciate the advantages of education. Anticipating that he would have trouble with the Faculty, I selected a college which was distinguished for its means of learning, and was jet very lenient in its discipline. Myndert easily obtained admission, and at once took high rank in his class. Knowledge came so easy to him, that he had plenty of leisure, and I feared that his old vicious habits would ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton

... Este, and one who, in the eyes of her generation, was the model of all virtues, should seek a favour from one who had wronged her sister so deeply, affords fresh proof how lightly such liaisons were regarded in those days, and may incline us to be more lenient in our judgments of the men ...
— Beatrice d'Este, Duchess of Milan, 1475-1497 • Julia Mary Cartwright

... and caution cease! With lenient hand dispense your sway; Give them the healing balm of peace, Their wounded ...
— Elegies and Other Small Poems • Matilda Betham

... reasoned that if the jury returned a verdict of "Not Guilty," his client's alternative confession could be written off as an obvious mistake; on the other hand, if he were found "Guilty," the fact of confession would be an ethical asset towards securing for him a lenient view ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, June 11, 1919 • Various



Words linked to "Lenient" :   permissive, clement, leniency, lenience, soft, undemanding, indulgent



Copyright © 2024 Dictionary One.com