"Opprobrious" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... mentioned, he chooses to have a feast of disgrace, (if I may say so,) to have a riot of infamy, served up to him day by day for a course of years, in every species of reproach that could be given by his colleagues, and by the Court of Directors, "from whom," he says, "I received nothing but opprobrious and disgraceful epithets," and he says "that his predecessors possessed more of their confidence than he had." Yet for years he lay down in that sty of disgrace, fattening in it, feeding upon that offal of disgrace and excrement, upon ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. X. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... abrogation of the sayd lawes, whereby arose moch trouble in this said realme, and that his dethe, which they untruely called martyrdome, happened upon a reskewe by him made, and that, as it is written, he gave opprobrious wordes to the gentyllmen, whiche than counsayled hym to leave his stubbernesse, and to avoyde the commocion of the people, rysen up for that rescue. And he not only callyd the one of them bawde, ...
— Primitive Christian Worship • James Endell Tyler
... to be taught, and therefore not to be imitated by him who has it not from nature. How easy it is to call rogue and villain, and that wittily! but how hard to make a man appear a fool, a blockhead, or a knave, without using any of those opprobrious terms! To spare the grossness of the names, and to do the thing yet more severely, is to draw a full face and to make the nose and cheeks stand out, and yet not to employ any depth of shadowing. This is the mystery of that noble trade, which yet no master can teach to ...
— Discourses on Satire and Epic Poetry • John Dryden
... any Tamtonian, but that is an overstatement. A few usually persist in thinking as they did before; or in altering their convictions in obedience to reason instead of authority, as our own people do; but they are at once assailed with the most opprobrious names, accused of treason and all manner of crimes, pelted with mud and stones and in some instances deprived of their noses and ears by the public executioner. Yet in no country is independence of thought so vaunted as a virtue, and in none ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce • Ambrose Bierce
... counsel scorn Of Pallas. She to heaven well-pleased return'd, And in the mansion of Jove AEgis[20]-armed Arriving, mingled with her kindred Gods. But though from violence, yet not from words 275 Abstained Achilles, but with bitter taunt Opprobrious, his antagonist reproached. Oh charged with wine, in steadfastness of face Dog unabashed, and yet at heart a deer! Thou never, when the troops have taken arms, 280 Hast dared to take thine also; never thou Associate with Achaia's Chiefs, to form The secret ambush.[21] ...
— The Iliad of Homer - Translated into English Blank Verse • Homer
... and that all word of security given to Moorish places or individuals should be inviolably observed. These regulations were enforced by severe penalties, and had such salutary effect that, though a vast host of various people was collected together, not an opprobrious epithet was heard nor ...
— Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada • Washington Irving
... separately; for some were much more run after than others, and the men were instructed by their wives what to bid for. Often the women joined in, and as they bid excitedly against each other the church rang with opprobrious epithets. A man would come to the roup late, and learn that the seat he wanted had been knocked down. He maintained that he had been unfairly treated, or denounced the local laird to whom the seat-rents went. If he did not get the seat he would leave the kirk. Then the woman who had forestalled ...
— Auld Licht Idylls • J. M. Barrie
... founded in the ideas of the day. They could not well endure that one of so humble and even ignominious birth, on the mother's side, should be the heir of so illustrious a line as the great dukes of Normandy. William's enemies were accustomed to designate him by opprobrious epithets, derived from the circumstances of his birth. Though he was patient and enduring, and often very generous in forgiving other injuries, these insults to the memory of his mother always stung him very deeply, and awakened ...
— William the Conqueror - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... tactical genius of Hannibal, Quintus Fabius Maximus invoked the aid of time to afford him opportunities to strike. His "Fabian Tactics" have become proverbial, and earned for him at the time the opprobrious epithet "Cunctator," which the epigram[3] of Ennius has immortalised in his honour. Popular clamour led to a division of authority with Varro, and to the disaster of Cannae (B.C. 216). General G. B. McClellan was recalled from ...
— Lectures on Land Warfare; A tactical Manual for the Use of Infantry Officers • Anonymous
... historians has earned a brilliant reputation in the conclusive proof that oceans are the world's highways, while its continents are its barriers. To the term "militarism" we attach an opprobrious meaning; militarism is the more infamous in exact proportion to its efficiency. We have been at little pains to define it, and as to certain of its aspects are ...
— The New York Times Current History of the European War, Vol. 1, January 9, 1915 - What Americans Say to Europe • Various
... such a narrow way of looking at things. The other side can do nothing right while they themselves are absolutely faultless! If a Tory wishes to confer an opprobrious epithet on a person he calls him a Radical, and vice versa; the opposite faction is capable of any enormity? This reminds me of the old Scotchman who on being asked his opinion of a man who had first murdered and then mutilated his victim, answered ...
— Lazy Thoughts of a Lazy Girl - Sister of that "Idle Fellow." • Jenny Wren
... anything for you in my line." To fellows going, as we thought, right into battle, this was about the last kind of talk we wanted to hear. A doctor's offer of service in our situation, was full of ghastly suggestions. So his well-meaning proffer was met with opprobrious epithets, and indignant defiance. It was shouted to him in vigorous Anglo-Saxon, what we thought of doctors anyhow, and that if he didn't look sharp we'd fix him so he would need a doctor, himself, to patch him up. The Doctor ...
— From the Rapidan to Richmond and the Spottsylvania Campaign - A Sketch in Personal Narration of the Scenes a Soldier Saw • William Meade Dame
... in the 4th book of his Otia Imperialia, sect. 88., mentions a certain pond or mere lying near the confines of Wales, and named Haveringemere, of which the peculiarity is, that if a person passing over it in a boat utters, in a loud voice, certain opprobrious words, a commotion arises in the waters and sinks the boat. The words, as printed in the edition of Leibnitz (Leibnitii Scriptores Brunsvicenses, tom. i. p. 990.), are "Prout haveringemere aut allethophe cunthefere;" ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 184, May 7, 1853 • Various
... stands in the garden. To pluck also signifies to deny a degree to a candidate at one of the universities, on account of insufficiency. The three first books of Euclid, and as far as Quadratic Equations in Algebra, will save a man from being plucked. These unfortunate fellows are designated by many opprobrious appellations, such as the twelve apostles, the legion of honor, wise ...
— 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue • Captain Grose et al.
... Christian hearts O for a pagan zeal! A needful, but opprobrious prayer!"—Young, N. ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... reproof with the utmost contempt and made the greatest mockery that was possible for them to do at me, giving me all the opprobrious, insolent scoffs that they could think of for preaching to them, as they called it, which, indeed, grieved me rather than angered me. I went away, however, blessing God in my mind that I had not spared them though they ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 12 • Editor-In-Chief Rossiter Johnson
... opprobrious epithets with which some of our philosophers and gloomy sectarians have branded our nature—the principle of universal selfishness, the proneness to all evil, they have given us—still, the detestation in which ...
— The Letters of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... home, Eleanor, holding her little dog in her arms, was blind with tears, but Maurice effervesced into extravagant ridicule. His opinion of Mrs. Newbolt, her parlor, her ponderosity, and her missing g's, exhausted his vocabulary of opprobrious adjectives; but Eleanor was silent, just putting up a furtive handkerchief to wipe her eyes. It was dark, and he drew her hand through his arm and ...
— The Vehement Flame • Margaret Wade Campbell Deland
... arrive and having made sure that the Amahagger were gone, Thomaso and the other cowards emerged from their hiding-places and returned. Unfortunately for the former the first person he met was Umslopogaas, who began to revile the fat half-breed in no measured terms, calling him dog, coward, and other opprobrious names, such as deserter of women and children, and so ...
— She and Allan • H. Rider Haggard
... other side was beyond description—and tried to come to terms with the representative of our least hated opponent. He even thought, and Peter was not guileless, that he had secured their neutrality, when they suddenly burst forth into opprobrious language, being a very vulgar school indeed, and exposed Peter's designs openly. His feelings were not much hurt by the talk, in which, indeed, he scored an easy victory after he had abandoned negotiation and had settled down to vituperation, but Seminary boys whose homeward ...
— Young Barbarians • Ian Maclaren
... thought himself specifically addressed, and Penny was left in possession of the floor. But Stanley's curt treatment rankled in his heart. So, placing his feet wide apart and his hands in his waistcoat pockets, he respectfully drew attention to the opprobrious epithet "gas-bag" which had been employed in requesting him to retire from this Chamber of Horrors, and asked that the offensive remark ...
— Tell England - A Study in a Generation • Ernest Raymond
... charlatanism? I am almost scared to look up the word in the dictionary for fear of discovering that I am myself no better than that opprobrious thing. But still, if Victor Hugo was really a charlatan, one can safely say one would sooner be damned with the author of "L'Homme qui Rit" than saved with many who have no charlatanism ...
— Suspended Judgments - Essays on Books and Sensations • John Cowper Powys
... his polity. The Sultan of time past needed but little awfulness, for when the lieges saw him, they feared him; but the Sultan of these days hath need of the most accomplished polity and the utmost majesty, because men are not as men of by-gone time and this our age is one of folk opprobrious, and is greatly calamitous, noted for folly and hardness of heart and inclined to hate and enmity. If, therefore, the Sultan (which Almighty Allah forfend!) be weak or wanting in polity and majesty, this will be the assured cause of his country's ruin. Quoth the proverb, 'An hundred ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... husband,—the artist retained his partiality; which seems to have increased in exact proportion to their abuse. The picture being thus contemplated through the medium of party prejudice, we cannot wonder that all its imperfections were exaggerated. The painted harlot of Babylon had not more opprobrious epithets from the first race of reformers than the painted Sigismonda of Hogarth from ...
— The Works of William Hogarth: In a Series of Engravings - With Descriptions, and a Comment on Their Moral Tendency • John Trusler
... not stay there long himself. I can detect a slight acrimony in his manner on the subject, and deduce from it that he was not perhaps encouraged by Dr. Chang or his hosts to linger. I flatter myself I know Wilbraham's mentality fairly well—if one may be permitted that rather opprobrious word." ...
— Mystery at Geneva - An Improbable Tale of Singular Happenings • Rose Macaulay
... This the traditional Christian, conceited of himself, and strong in his own will and righteousness, overcome with blind zeal and passion, either despised as a low and common thing, or opposed as a novelty, under many hard names and opprobrious terms; denying, in his ignorant and angry mind, any fresh manifestations of God's power and spirit in man, in these days, though never more needed to make true Christians. Not unlike those Jews of old, that ...
— A Brief Account of the Rise and Progress of the People Called Quakers • William Penn
... his loathing were made eternal; for he loved another with the ardor of a first fresh love, and his wife seemed to him a demon full of malignity, who stood between him and the angel of his heart and the heaven of his desires. His words of despair rang within her ears. The opprobrious epithets which he applied to her stung her to the quick. Passionate and hot-hearted, all her woman's nature rose up in arms at this horrible, this unlooked-for assault. All her pride surged up within her in deep and bitter resentment. Whatever she might once have ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille
... left!" singsonged Racey from the corner of the building, and set the thumb of one hand to his nose and twiddled opprobrious fingers at his comrade. "You wanna be a li'l bit quicker when you go to souse me, Swing. Yo're too slow, a lot too slow. Yep. Now I wouldn't go for to fling that pail at me, Swing. You might bust it, and yore carelessness with crockery thataway has already cost you ...
— The Heart of the Range • William Patterson White
... was Shelley's ideal feminine character, is the embodiment of a theory, not a human being. She "walks always in the light of reason," and decides that "to marry in extreme youth would be a proof of pernicious and opprobrious temerity." The most memorable of Brown's novels is Edgar Huntly, which bears an obvious resemblance to Caleb Williams. Like Godwin, Brown is deeply interested in morbid psychology. He finds pleasure in tracing the workings of the brain in times ...
— The Tale of Terror • Edith Birkhead
... bought us with His precious Blood. So one wants never to forget so great a blessing, but always to hold it before one's eyes, in holy and sweet gratitude, seeing how immeasurably God loves us: who did not shrink from giving His only begotten Son to the opprobrious death of the Cross, to give ...
— Letters of Catherine Benincasa • Catherine Benincasa
... For when a man is attracted to an act, even if it be condemned by others, he views it as delightful and eligible in itself; but when he is forced, by the conventional use of words, to attach to that act an opprobrious epithet, an epithet which he himself has always applied with scorn, he finds himself unable to suppress the emotion connoted by the word; he cannot defend his rebellious intuition against the tyranny of language; he is inwardly confused ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... 7. In general we may observe, that as our assent to all probable reasonings is founded on the vivacity of ideas, It resembles many of those whimsies and prejudices, which are rejected under the opprobrious character of being the offspring of the imagination. By this expression it appears that the word, imagination, is commonly usd in two different senses; and tho nothing be more contrary to true philosophy, than this inaccuracy, yet in the following reasonings ...
— A Treatise of Human Nature • David Hume
... good nature presumed to draw a parallel between the Reverend Mr. Milman and Lord Byron? What gnat did they strain at here, after having swallowed all those camels? Against what woman taken in adultery dares the foremost of these literary prostitutes to cast his opprobrious stone? Miserable man! you, one of the meanest, have wantonly defaced one of the noblest specimens of the workmanship of God. Nor shall it be your excuse, that, murderer as you are, you have spoken daggers, but ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... the effect of nursing prejudice by using foolish opprobrious nicknames. Henderson was a good officer, he has shown himself an excellent son, always sacrificing his own predilections for the sake of duty. He is a right-minded, religious, sensible man, his own master, and ...
— Beechcroft at Rockstone • Charlotte M. Yonge
... July 1673 Forbes of Tolquhon was fined by the Lords in 40 lib. Scots for opprobrious speaches to Mr. David Thoires, advocat, and calling ...
— Publications of the Scottish History Society, Vol. 36 • Sir John Lauder
... am undone for ever; What shall I do with myself? I'll run into some desart, and there I'll hide my opprobrious head. No, hang it, I wont neither; all wits have their failings sometimes, and have the fortune to be thought fools once in their lives. Sure this is but a copy of her countenance; for my heart is true to me, and whispers to me, she ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Volume 4 (of 18) - Almanzor And Almahide, Marriage-a-la-Mode, The Assignation • John Dryden
... acknowledged enmity, and premeditated injury, on the part of the accused towards the deceased. The questions to which he was compelled to request her reply were simply, "Was she aware of any cause of hatred existing between the accused and the deceased?" "Had she ever heard opprobrious and insulting epithets used by the former or the latter?" "or any threat, implying that the death of Don Ferdinand Morales was desired by the prisoner?" "Had she ever seen the prisoner draw his ...
— The Vale of Cedars • Grace Aguilar
... word being like the law of the Medes and Persians, that altereth not, no one disputes it. They couple a few opprobrious epithets with his name just at first, but finally, putting on an air of resolution, declare themselves determined and ready to outdo any decorators ...
— Molly Bawn • Margaret Wolfe Hamilton
... performance usually concludes by tying him to a wheel of our ox waggon, and then, after many struggles, I manage to achieve my object all sublime (though there is not much sublimity about it). Not wanting opprobrious epithets, my steed remained nameless for the first week. I casually thought of calling him "Black Bess," but "he" is not a mare, and I thought it would be inappropriate. At length I struck what I consider ...
— A Yeoman's Letters - Third Edition • P. T. Ross
... June 1750, that Captain Dow, commanding H.M. cruiser Sincerity[6] was, according to the orders received from the Board of Customs, on duty in Douglas Roads. A notorious Irish smuggling wherry came in from Ireland and ran under the Sincerity's stern, while the smugglers "with opprobrious, treasonable, and abusive language abused His Majesty King George and all that belonged to or served under him." This, of course, was too much for any naval officer to endure, and Captain Dow immediately caused the ship to come alongside, and, after being rummaged, she was found ...
— King's Cutters and Smugglers 1700-1855 • E. Keble Chatterton
... the printers were quite equal to the emergency. They would make up sham parcels of waste-paper, and send them out with an ostentatious show of secrecy. The officers—simple fellows enough, though they were called 'Government spies,' 'Somerset House myrmidons,' and other opprobrious names, in the unstamped papers—duly took possession of the parcels, after a decent show of resistance by their bearers, while the real newspapers intended for sale to the public were sent flying by thousands down a shoot in Fleur-de-Lys ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... that it was, adding that if I wanted to make sure I might move a few feet over in his direction. He also called me an opprobrious name. ...
— Right Ho, Jeeves • P. G. Wodehouse
... you, Caesar! where be yer? Come right in here, you loafin' niggah." This was Nan's most affectionate nickname for her husband; it was always accompanied with a glance of proud admiration, which was the key to the seemingly opprobrious epithet, and revealed that all it really meant was a complacent satisfaction in her breast that her husband was in a position to loaf if he liked to,—a gentleman of leisure and dignity, so to speak, subject to no orders but ...
— Hetty's Strange History • Helen Jackson
... Act Matthew is sent to reconnoitre, when he learns that the lady's hand is already engaged, and that she has not even read Ralph's letter. Returning, he tells Ralph she will have nothing to do with him, and how she abuses him with opprobrious terms; which puts him to dying for love right on the spot; and Matthew, to help on the joke, calls in the parish clerk and others to sing a mock requiem. As Ralph does not succeed in dying, Matthew counsels ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson
... commerce," "assemblage of horrors," "crimes committed against the liberty of the people," are the brands which Mr. Jefferson has burned into the forehead of slavery and the slave trade. When, sir, have I, or any other person opposed to slavery, spoken in stronger and more opprobrious terms of slavery, than this? You have caused the bust of this great man to be placed in the centre of your Capitol; in that conspicuous part where every visitor must see it, with its hand resting on the Declaration of Independence, ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... occasions engaging in any battle; he even gave up many of his just rights to avoid quarrelling, which conduct, instead of gaining (as it justly deserved) the approbation of his companions, drew upon him the insult and abuse of the whole school; and they were perpetually teasing him with the opprobrious title of coward. For some time he bore it with great good-humour, and endeavoured to laugh it off; but, finding that had no effect, he one day thus addressed us:—"If you suppose that I like to be called a coward, you are ...
— The Life and Perambulations of a Mouse • Dorothy Kilner
... order to the officers, she started up, and stood erect, face to face with the husband: "the opprobrious blur against all peace and joy and light and life"—for he was standing against the window a-flame with morning. But in her terror, that seemed to her the flame from hell, since he was in it—and she cried to him to stand away, she chose hell ...
— Browning's Heroines • Ethel Colburn Mayne
... his last illness and death transmitted by those who attended on him and witnessed it, a death worthy of his noble life, and fully justifying the brief comment of Smeton, "Surely, whatever opprobrious things profane men may utter, God hath in him given us an example of the right way as well of dying as of living." It is true, as his heartless traducer takes care to remind us, no dirge was chanted over his remains, no ...
— The Scottish Reformation - Its Epochs, Episodes, Leaders, and Distinctive Characteristics • Alexander F. Mitchell
... irresistible and headlong impulse, which withdrew the usual guard which he maintained over his language. "Charles of Burgundy is unworthy of your attachment. He who can insult and strike his councillors—he who can distinguish the wisest and most faithful among them by the opprobrious name ...
— Quentin Durward • Sir Walter Scott
... had elapsed when this shameful intrigue became the subject of common talk, and public indignation took the side of the injured woman, when Lord Forrester, after getting tired of her, "was so cruel and base as to speak of her openly in the most opprobrious manner," even alluding to her criminal connection with him. In so doing, however, he had not taken into consideration the violent character of the woman he had wronged, nor thought he of her jealousy, wounded pride, and despair. In his ...
— Strange Pages from Family Papers • T. F. Thiselton Dyer
... could not meet a cadet anywhere without having the most opprobrious epithets applied to us; but after complaining two or three times, we concluded to pay no attention to such things, for, as we did not know these cadets, we could ...
— Henry Ossian Flipper, The Colored Cadet at West Point • Henry Ossian Flipper
... I ask you to precipitate some one else, in order that I may benefit by the example." The king laughed at his wit, and spared his life.—Nor is this tale without a spice of humour: An astrologer entered his house and finding a stranger in company with his wife abused him, and called him such opprobrious names that a quarrel and strife ensued. A shrewd man, being informed of this, said to the astrologer: "What do you know of the heavenly bodies, when you cannot tell what goes on in your own house?"[10]—Last, ...
— Flowers from a Persian Garden and Other Papers • W. A. Clouston
... tilt. The barkeeper shouted, 'Good luck to you and your lady, Mr McKeith.' The drunken reprobates, awakened from their slumber on the boards, called out, too, 'Goo-luksh!' There was an attempt at a cheer, but before McKeith had got out his answering, 'Thank ye—Good day, mates,' a shower of opprobrious epithets rained upon him from a little band of discontented bush rowdies—the advance guard of that same Union delegate who had come up with them ...
— Lady Bridget in the Never-Never Land • Rosa Praed
... preserved in oil and sawdust. He made disgraceful caricatures of our physiognomies by falsely representing that he wished us to sit for our portraits. He perpetrated drawings upon the backs of our college exercises, mixing them with opprobrious remarks concerning our preceptors, which we did not observe till our attention was called to them upon their return by the preceptors themselves. We bore these things meekly on the whole, for that ...
— Bog-Myrtle and Peat - Tales Chiefly Of Galloway Gathered From The Years 1889 To 1895 • S.R. Crockett
... the general spirit and temper of the religious press with reference to science and scientific men, there is much to criticize and condemn. It is often snappish, petulant, ill-humored, unfair, and sometimes malicious in the extreme. Such opprobrious terms as infidelity, irreligion, rationalizing tendencies, naturalism, contempt for the Scriptures, etc., are freely used. Scientific men are called infidel pretenders, and are charged with a secret conspiracy ...
— Continental Monthly, Volume 5, Issue 4 • Various
... and his officers, and pointed out a place where they had lately slain many of the Mexican troops, which they had named Cuilonemequi, or the Place of Slaughter of the Mexicans, on whom they bestowed the most opprobrious epithets. He represented the soil of the country as well fitted for tillage and the rearing of cattle, and the port as well situated for trade with Cuba, Hispaniola, and Jamaica; but as inconvenient, from its distance from Mexico, and unhealthy ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. IV. • Robert Kerr
... career by gratuitously placing himself in Charles the Bold's power,[98] was received by the Parisians with many gibes. The royal herald proclaimed at sound of trumpet by the crossways of Paris: "Let none be bold or daring enough to say anything opprobrious against the Duke of Burgundy, either by word of mouth, by writing, by signs, paintings, roundelays, ballads, songs or gestures." On the same day a commission seized all the magpies and jackdaws in Paris, whether caged or otherwise, which were to be registered according to ...
— The Story of Paris • Thomas Okey
... Never excited by the fumes of wine Before that hour, or since. Then, forth I ran 305 From the assembly; through a length of streets, Ran, ostrich-like, to reach our chapel door In not a desperate or opprobrious time, Albeit long after the importunate bell Had stopped, with wearisome Cassandra voice 310 No longer haunting the dark winter night. Call back, O Friend! [E] a moment to thy mind, The place itself and fashion of the rites. With ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. III • William Wordsworth
... peculiar to Germany. It is customary to address strangers in the third person plural, Se; or, when on very familiar or affectionate terms, in the second person singular, Du; but of all modes of speech the third person singular, Er, when applied to the person addressed, is the most opprobrious. A police official thus interrogates ...
— A Tramp's Wallet - stored by an English goldsmith during his wanderings in Germany and France • William Duthie
... observe that so many, and such conflicting statements, respecting public measures, I believe never were before made by a body of persons dwelling within limits so confined as those of Harmony. Some of the ci-devant "communicants" call Robert Owen a fool, whilst others brand him with still more opprobrious epithets: and I never could get two of them to agree as to the primary causes of the ...
— A Ramble of Six Thousand Miles through the United States of America • S. A. Ferrall
... brightness and joviality which entitle a dance to call itself a success. The cotillon reached brilliance, owing to the captaincy of Captain Deverax. Several score opprobrious epithets were applied to the Captain in the course of the night, but it was agreed nemine contradicente that, whatever he would have done in front of a Light Brigade at Balaclava, as a leader of cotillons he was terrific. Many ...
— The Card, A Story Of Adventure In The Five Towns • Arnold Bennett
... out against the current, pushed and elbowed, struck at random, fell and were trampled, rose and trampled in their turn. They seized one another by the garments, the hair, the beard—fought like animals, cursed, shouted, called one another opprobrious and obscene names. When, finally, Alvan Creede had seen the last person of the line pass into that awful tumult the light that had illuminated it was suddenly quenched and all was as black to him as to those within. He turned ...
— Can Such Things Be? • Ambrose Bierce
... they liked in it, if anything, and leave out the rest and be grateful. Instead, it would be slated by reviewers, and compared to the Royal Academy, and to a literary signpost pointing the wrong way, and other opprobrious things; as if an anthology could point to anything but the taste of the compiler, which of course could not be expected to agree with any one else's; tastes never do. The thing was, thought Jane, to hit the public taste with the right thing at the right moment. ...
— Potterism - A Tragi-Farcical Tract • Rose Macaulay
... unable to believe in the reality of such persons. These, among all the opponents of Sense and Wisdom may fairly claim to be considered most mysterious; for, while lavishing on deniers of their idols every kind of sharp invective and opprobrious epithet, they cannot assure themselves the 'monsters' did, or do, actually exist. With characteristic humour David Hume observed, 'There are not a greater number of philosophical reasonings displayed upon any subject ...
— Superstition Unveiled • Charles Southwell
... four or five ages, according to the average term of human life, since the earlier grand display of mind, what had been effected toward such an advancement of intelligence in the community, that when this next tribe of highly endowed spirits should appear, they would stand in much loss opprobrious contrast to the main body of the nation, and find a much larger portion of it qualified to receive their intellectual effusions. By this time, the class of persons who sought knowledge on a wider scale than what sufficed for the ordinary affairs of life, who took an interest in ...
— An Essay on the Evils of Popular Ignorance • John Foster
... of accident; as things wholly collateral to the system. It is observed, that this party has never spoken of an ally of Great Britain with the smallest degree of respect or regard; on the contrary, it has generally mentioned them under opprobrious appellations, and in such terms of contempt or execration, as never had been heard before, because no such would have formerly been permitted in our public assemblies. The moment, however, that any of those ...
— Selections from the Speeches and Writings of Edmund Burke. • Edmund Burke
... variously referred to as "the Southern Expedition," "the Cherokee Expedition," "the great jayhawking expedition," and by many another name, more or less opprobrious.] ...
— The American Indian as Participant in the Civil War • Annie Heloise Abel
... crying newspapers, greeted her with excited comments and with laughter. They had missed her for so long that they had imagined her ill, perhaps dead. Seeing her turn up again, they were full of greedy ardour for her news. They put to her searching and opprobrious questions. She did not hear them. Soon she was in the midst of the crowd. Yet she scarcely realized that she was not alone. No mechanical smile came to her face. It seemed as if she had forgotten the old wiles of the streets, put off forever the frigid ...
— Flames • Robert Smythe Hichens
... you rebel; that I was used to. He said you were a traitor; that, in his vocabulary, amounts to the same thing. He even hinted that you were a coward; and that I knew to be false, and did not hesitate to tell him so. He used fifty opprobrious terms that I cannot remember; but among others were the beautiful epithets of 'disorganizer,' 'leveller, 'democrat,' and 'jacobin' (I hope he did not mean a monk!). In short, he acted Colonel Howard in ...
— The Pilot • J. Fenimore Cooper
... she swooned. When she came to her senses, she awoke as from a trance. But when she beheld the letter again, she read again the opprobrious word "faithlessness" in her husband's handwriting. She did not know what act of disloyalty she had committed. She moved about in her room by fits and starts. At last a thought came to her mind: she sent for the best goldsmith in town, and told him to make her a gold slipper ...
— Filipino Popular Tales • Dean S. Fansler
... and being unable to stop, fell headlong over the figure of the self-made parson. She had not seen Doug's part in the transaction, and being much disturbed in mind and dress, turned upon poor Wetmore and flung at the worthy shepherd the opprobrious words, ...
— A Forest Hearth: A Romance of Indiana in the Thirties • Charles Major
... the office now looked for their arms; but these had been removed in the night without their knowledge. They soon learned, from the language of the people by whom the house was surrounded, that they were Gorkhalese soldiers, who ordered them, in opprobrious language, (Nekal Bahenchod,) to come out. Several who went out were killed, but the Raja remaining within, and all his people invoking the protection of the Governor and of the Company, as usual in such cases, the soldiers entered, and said, there is no Governor nor Company can now give you any assistance. ...
— An Account of The Kingdom of Nepal • Fancis Buchanan Hamilton
... of that day were, for the most part, so governed as to reconcile men with the less opprobrious vices of monarchy. Poland was a State made up of centrifugal forces. What the nobles called liberty was the right of each of them to veto the acts of the Diet, and to persecute the peasants on his estates—rights ...
— The History of Freedom • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton
... fear, or weak dislike to that which is painful. On neither side will he tell lies for peace. He is ready to be lost for his fellow-men. In the name of God he rebukes the flames of hell. The fugitives pause on the top, look back, call him lying prophet, and shout evil opprobrious names at the man who counts not his own life dear to him, who has forgotten his own soul in his sacred devotion to men, who fills up what is left behind of the sufferings of Christ, for his body's sake — for the human race, of which he is the head. Be sure that, come what ...
— David Elginbrod • George MacDonald
... This opprobrious illustration raised a considerable clamor of abuse from the ruder women; but the Judge's and Burgomaster's ladies silenced them, and repeated their resolution never to give up their faith against their ...
— A Book of Golden Deeds • Charlotte M. Yonge
... her wanderings, and Mercury, sent by Jove, comes to question Prometheus as to the nuptials which he has boasted will accomplish the overthrow of the ruler of the Gods. Him Prometheus reviles with opprobrious epithets, calling him a lackey of the Gods, and refuses to disclose anything concerning the matter on which he questions him. The winged God, replying, threatens him with dire calamities. A tempest will come upon him and overwhelm him with thunderbolts, and ...
— Prometheus Bound and Seven Against Thebes • Aeschylus
... boasts itself superior, exalts its own divinities, and looks with contempt on outsiders. Each group thinks its own folkways the only right ones, and if it observes that other groups have other folkways, these excite its scorn. Opprobrious epithets are derived from these differences. "Pig-eater," "cow-eater," "uncircumcised," "jabberers," are epithets of contempt and abomination. The Tupis called the Portuguese by a derisive epithet descriptive of birds which have feathers around their feet, on account of trousers.[17] ...
— Folkways - A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals • William Graham Sumner
... supposed to be that one has violated the sister of the person spoken to, but this can hardly have been the original significance as sasur or father-in-law is also considered in a minor degree an opprobrious term of address. ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India—Volume I (of IV) • R.V. Russell
... arose, drowning these protestations, and the most opprobrious epithets could be heard on ...
— Baron Trigault's Vengeance - Volume 2 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau
... late, and Hudson had refused to have it done at first. The carpenter's refusal to perform the work excited the anger of the master to such a degree, that he drove him violently from the cabin, using the most opprobrious language, and finally threatening ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 5 • Charles Sylvester
... youth Demosthenes earned an opprobrious nickname by the effeminacy of his dress and manner." Does Mr Mitford know that Demosthenes denied this charge, and explained the nickname in a perfectly different manner? (See the speech of Aeschines against Timarchus.) And, if he knew it, should ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 1 (of 4) - Contibutions to Knight's Quarterly Magazine] • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... of himself as an Old Public Functionary he was a good deal laughed at by some of the newspapers, and the phrase has since been frequently used in an opprobrious or satirical sense. This is to be regretted, for there is no character more respectable, and there are few so useful, as an intelligent and patriotic man of long standing in the public service. What one such man can do is shown by the ...
— Captains of Industry - or, Men of Business Who Did Something Besides Making Money • James Parton
... do by vain resistance, by useless efforts? The cool, the distant spectator, placed in safety, may arraign me for ingratitude, may bring forth the principles of Solon or Montesquieu; he may look on me as wilfully guilty; he may call me by the most opprobrious names. Secure from personal danger, his warm imagination, undisturbed by the least agitation of the heart, will expatiate freely on this grand question; and will consider this extended field, but as exhibiting the ...
— Letters from an American Farmer • Hector St. John de Crevecoeur
... that if you deny him the common courtesy which no gentleman refuses to another, he will proclaim your name with the most opprobrious adjuncts to all the world, and in place of his former regard he will hold you in the most unlimited contempt, which he will have no scruple ...
— Queechy • Susan Warner
... the virtues, or the repository of all knowledge, or anything equally harmless, conventional, and middle class. All calculations were in his favour; but, chance being incalculable, he fell upon an individuality whom it is much easier to define by opprobrious names than to classify in a calm and scientific spirit—but an individuality certainly, and a temperament as well. Rare? No. There is a certain amount of what I would politely call unscrupulousness in all of us. Think for instance of the excellent Mrs Fyne, who herself, and in the bosom of ...
— Chance - A Tale in Two Parts • Joseph Conrad
... wards of the city, shouting, "Heads out! behold the cap of the accursed Haritun." He was afterwards sent back to prison, the soldiers leading him by a circuitous route to prolong his sufferings, and the mob continually following him with opprobrious language. "I entered the prison," he wrote to a native brother, "with a joyful heart, committing myself to God, and giving glory to Him, that He had enabled me to pass through fire and sword, and brought me to ...
— History Of The Missions Of The American Board Of Commissioners For Foreign Missions To The Oriental Churches, Volume I. • Rufus Anderson
... in the face of this work from the pen of the acknowledged inventor of state-craft, to describe Cesare's conquest of the Romagna by opprobrious epithets and sweeping statements of condemnation and censure—statements kept carefully general, and never permitted to enter into detail which must destroy their own ...
— The Life of Cesare Borgia • Raphael Sabatini
... leaders; but not unanimously. The movement is supposed to have been undertaken without consultation with Grant; but he did nothing to discourage it, and to this extent he consented to it. The attempt failed. Prudent people had no mind to have their hero's good name again made opprobrious by fresh scandals, which they could ...
— Ulysses S. Grant • Walter Allen
... not astonish the world. The King of France, having driven John from all he held on the continent, gladly saw religion itself invite him to farther conquests. He summoned all his vassals, under the penalty of felony, and the opprobrious name of culvertage,[82] (a name of all things dreaded by both nations,) to attend in this expedition; and such force had this threat, and the hope of plunder in England, that a very great army was in a short time assembled. A fleet also rendezvoused in the mouth of ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VII. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... and other clans which had been devoted friends of the Tokugawa shoguns were especially outraged by this conciliatory spirit shown to the Choshu troops. They claimed that this clan by resisting the imperial commands had merited the opprobrious title of rebels (chotoki), and were no longer fit for the association of loyal clans. But the Choshu daimyo had been restored to the favor of his emperor, and moreover was allied with the clans whose power was paramount at Kyoto, so that the disapprobation ...
— Japan • David Murray
... sexual aim or it may be placed near it. In no normal person does the normal sexual aim lack some designable perverse element, and this universality suffices in itself to prove the inexpediency of an opprobrious application of the name perversion. In the realm of the sexual life one is sure to meet with exceptional difficulties which are at present really unsolvable, if one wishes to draw a sharp line between the mere variations within physiological limits ...
— Three Contributions to the Theory of Sex • Sigmund Freud
... Parses, better known by the opprobrious name of Gaures or Guebres, another word for infidels. They are in Asia what the Jews are in Europe. The name of their pope or ...
— The Ruins • C. F. [Constantin Francois de] Volney
... embarking at Malaga for Ceuta. The gate in the wall of that city, through which they went forth, continued for ages to bear the name of Puerta de la Cava, or the gate of the harlot; for such was the opprobrious and unmerited appellation bestowed by the Moors ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, April 1844 - Volume 23, Number 4 • Various
... rejected the Pope, refused not the faith of Rome, and effected no more than what his own pre- decessors desired and essayed in ages past, and it was conceived the state of Venice would have attempted in our days. It is as uncharitable a point in us to fall upon those popular scurrilities and opprobrious scoffs of the Bishop of Rome, to whom, as a temporal prince, we owe the duty of good language. I confess there is a cause of passion between us: by his sentence I stand excommunicated; heretic is the best language he affords me: yet ...
— Religio Medici, Hydriotaphia, and the Letter to a Friend • Sir Thomas Browne
... quarto, and since it was my habit to crowd sixteen hundred words into a page, the loss of time and labour would have been, at least, considerable. I recovered my MS. all crumpled and dirty, and I applied to that ostler pretty nearly all the opprobrious names in his language with which I was acquainted. "Mais, monsieur," the criminal responded, "le papier etait deja gate; vous avez ecrit la-dessus." If this had been intended as a literary criticism, ...
— Recollections • David Christie Murray
... happened unluckily that some reported light words of Mr. Motley about Mr. Linden's care of his wife, and especial distrust of the gentlemen who had asked her to ride, reached Mr. Middleton's ear in a very exaggerated and opprobrious form. Mr. Middleton did not know Mr. Linden, nor know much of him; his bottled-up wrath resolved that Mr. Linden should not continue long in his reciprocal ignorance. And so it fell out, that as this week began with showing Mr. Linden something of Faith that he had not seen ...
— Say and Seal, Volume II • Susan Warner
... intelligent and attentive hearers, Miller's name was seldom mentioned by the religious press except by way of ridicule or denunciation. The careless and ungodly, emboldened by the position of religious teachers, resorted to opprobrious epithets, to base and blasphemous witticisms, in their efforts to heap contumely upon him and his work. The gray-headed man who had left a comfortable home to travel at his own expense from city to city, from town to town, toiling unceasingly ...
— The Great Controversy Between Christ and Satan • Ellen G. White
... this took time, especially since Caroline, the brown mare, would rather travel ten miles straight ahead than go backward ten feet. Brit was obliged to "take it out of her" with the rein ends and his full repertoire of opprobrious epithets before he could cramp the wagon and head them down the ...
— The Quirt • B.M. Bower
... and ears; and, moreover, he could never hear the names of either of the Wringhims mentioned without getting into a quandary of disgust and anger; and all that he would deign to say of them was, to call them by all the opprobrious names ...
— The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner • James Hogg
... last fight was, the duke of Parma, after his vows offered to the lady of Halla, came somewhat late to Dunkirk, and was received with very opprobrious language by the Spaniards, as if in favour of queen Elizabeth he had slipped the fairest opportunity that could be to do the service. He, to make some satisfaction, punished the purveyors that had not made provision of ...
— Fox's Book of Martyrs - Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant - Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs • John Fox
... who had given way before the superior discipline of the enemy, when I was brought to the ground by a blow from a musket. At the same moment the enemy discovered my rank, exulted in their having taken the rebel general, as they termed me, and bid me ask for quarters. I felt that I deserved not so opprobrious an epithet, and determined to die, as I had lived, an honored soldier in a just and righteous cause; and without begging my life or making reply, I lunged with my sword at the nearest man. They then bayoneted and ...
— From Farm House to the White House • William M. Thayer
... the people refused to sell anything to those whom they considered their enemies, and some even denied them the common courtesy of a drink of water. The chief amusement of the children along the route was to shout opprobrious or derisive epithets as they passed, not infrequently accompanied with stones, rotten apples, and now and then the still more objectionable egg. The squire's opinion of Whiggism went to an even lower pitch, but his womenkind bore it unflinchingly ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... last, resolutely refusing to give any explanation of his conduct, he was finally ejected, much to his relief, on a street corner. Although, as he informs us, he felt perfectly satisfied with this arrangement, he was impelled under the circumstances to hurl after the conductor an opprobrious appellation which he had ascertained from Patsey was the correct thing in such emergencies, ...
— Urban Sketches • Bret Harte
... wherewith Mr. Harley in the beginning invested the conversation with that pistol had not been lost upon Storri, and he shivered lest the interview conclude with his own murder. Mr. Harley, having exhausted expletive and opprobrious term, might empty the six chambers of his dreadful weapon into Storri. Thus spake Storri's fears, and he cowered while Mr. Harley raged. Indeed, the tables had been turned, and Mr. Harley was taking virulent advantage of the reversal. ...
— The President - A novel • Alfred Henry Lewis
... heard an anecdote of him which is quite credible. The regent (it is said) wanted him to use the Sikhs to catch a female runaway slave, and on his refusing, the Rajah made use of a very opprobrious epithet, on which he drew himself up, saying: "You are a man of high birth in your country, but I'm a man of high birth in mine, and, so long as I bear Queen Victoria's commission, I refuse to accept ...
— The Golden Chersonese and the Way Thither • Isabella L. Bird (Mrs. Bishop)
... question. I recognized that I was defeated. If I answered no, he would cut the matter short and wave me to the door without the grace of a word—I saw it in his uncompromising eye; if I said I was a lecturer, he would despise me, and dismiss me with opprobrious words; if I said I was a dramatist, he would throw me out of the window. I saw that my case was hopeless, so I chose the course which seemed least humiliating: I would pocket my shame and glide out without answering. The ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... the others, a colonel offended one of the men of Company A, ordering him away from a fire by which the colonel was standing. This called forth some of the liveliest sort of vituperation. Such combinations of opprobrious epithets are rarely exhibited. That man's relatives, near and remote, male and female, were brought into requisition to define the exquisite meanness of his nature and origin. The discomfited nabob appealed to Colonel Pattee for ...
— In The Ranks - From the Wilderness to Appomattox Court House • R. E. McBride
... noisome, distasteful, insolent, abusive, aggressive, assailant, fetid, disagreeable, opprobrious, scurrilous, fulsome. ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... man stabbed; it was thought at the time fatally. The Sixth Ward, "the Bloody Sixth," as it was called, was the point of greatest danger, and thither the Mayor repaired in person, accompanied by the sheriff and a large posse, and remained the greater part of the day. Threats and opprobrious epithets were freely used, and occasionally a paving-stone would be hurled from some one on the outskirts of the crowd; but the passage to the polls was kept open, and by one o'clock the citizens could deposit their votes without fear of ...
— The Great Riots of New York 1712 to 1873 • J.T. Headley
... instrument or weapon whatever, or shall, post or publish, or cause to be posted or published, any writing charging any such person so declining or refusing to accept any such challenge to be a coward, or using any other opprobrious or injurious language therein, tending to deride and disgrace such person, for so offending, on conviction thereof in any court competent to trial thereof in said district, shall be punished by confinement to hard labour in the penitentiary for a term not exceeding ...
— Diary in America, Series One • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... You've been hoodooed! After that, you went off by your lonesome and tried cattle. Your windmills broke down; your cattle was stole plumb opprobrious—Mexicans blamed, of course. And the very first winter the sheep drifted in on you—where no sheep had never blatted before—and eat you out ...
— Copper Streak Trail • Eugene Manlove Rhodes
... actually benefited through the influence exerted upon their imaginations, would be to refuse to Homoeopathy what all are willing to concede to every one of those numerous modes of practice known to all intelligent persons by an opprobrious title. ...
— Medical Essays • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... the contempt that it generally deserves. In the language of the prize ring, the pugilist who lies down while he can yet stand and see is called a "quitter." It would be harsh and unjust to apply to all suicides this opprobrious name; but there can be little doubt, I think, that the majority of them are weaklings who give up and lie down while they still ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol 31, No 2, June 1908 • Various
... very thick-skinned; he made not the slightest show of resentment at the opprobrious epithet. So we got up and walked ...
— On the Fringe of the Great Fight • George G. Nasmith
... ladies to take this next-door room," said his garrulous attendant that afternoon, and Stuyvesant thought opprobrious things. "They'll be giggling and talking all night, I suppose," said he disgustedly when the "medico" came in late that afternoon. "I wish you'd move me, if you ...
— Ray's Daughter - A Story of Manila • Charles King
... dragged its leaden hours to meet the dawn, bringing no rest to the desolate soul, who silently grappled with fate, while every womanly instinct shuddered at the loathsome degradation forced upon her. Face downward on her hard, narrow cot, she recalled the terrible accusations, the opprobrious epithets, and tearless, convulsive sobs of passionate protest shook her ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... on others so much harmless pleasure. But the little children and dirt-pie manufacturers were presently succeeded by followers of a larger growth, and a number of lads and girls from the factory being let loose at this hour, joined the mob, and began laughing, jeering, hooting, and calling opprobrious names at the Frenchman. Some cried out "Frenchy! Frenchy!" some exclaimed "Frogs!" one asked for a lock of his hair, which was long and in richly-flowing ringlets; and at length the poor artist began to perceive that he was an object ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... the schoolhouse boat suddenly turned round and started off at a smart pace down stream, where it was soon out of reach of the parting taunts and opprobrious noises which Parson, for the credit of his house, continued to hurl at its crew till they ...
— The Willoughby Captains • Talbot Baines Reed
... effects which tyrannical conduct, harsh and opprobrious language, ungovernable passion, and a worrying and harassing temper, on the part of naval commanders, seldom fail to produce on the minds of those who are subject to their capricious and arbitrary command, are strongly exemplified in the cause and consequences of the mutiny ...
— The Eventful History Of The Mutiny And Piratical Seizure - Of H.M.S. Bounty: Its Cause And Consequences • Sir John Barrow
... I address not with opprobrious words, in Oegir's hall. Bragi I soothe, by beer excited. I desire not that ...
— The Elder Eddas of Saemund Sigfusson; and the Younger Eddas of Snorre Sturleson • Saemund Sigfusson and Snorre Sturleson
... it up. Nor did such a thing excite surprise or comment. But when Mr. Moore rose to reply to me, he first ostentatiously opened his drawer, took out his revolvers, cocked them, and laid them in the open drawer before him. He then launched out into a speech of the most opprobrious language, applying to me offensive epithets, and frequently interspersing his remarks with the declaration that he was responsible for what he said, both there and elsewhere. It is difficult for me ...
— Personal Reminiscences of Early Days in California with Other Sketches; To Which Is Added the Story of His Attempted Assassination by a Former Associate on the Supreme Bench of the State • Stephen Field; George C. Gorham
... Nevertheless, if the clause be thoroughly considered, we shall find no reason to commend the mercy of the legislature; for it only proves, that the Jamaica law-makers will not scruple to charge the slightest and most natural offences with the most opprobrious epithets; and that a poor slave, who perhaps has no otherwise incurred his master's displeasure than by endeavouring (upon the just and warrantable principles of self-preservation,) to escape from his master's tyranny, without any criminal intention whatsoever, is liable to be deemed ...
— Some Historical Account of Guinea, Its Situation, Produce, and the General Disposition of Its Inhabitants • Anthony Benezet
... him, upbraided him with opprobrious words: "Cursed Paris,[146] most excellent in form, thou woman-raving seducer, would that thou hadst either not been born, or that thou hadst perished unmarried. This, indeed, I would wish, and indeed it would be much better, than ...
— The Iliad of Homer (1873) • Homer
... interesting to recall them; and salutary, also, if not sedative. Collect a few, and you will soon see clearly the particular kind of ass you are by the mistakes you have made in consequence of having confided in them. When I first met Evadne I was still young enough, in the opprobrious sense of the word, to suppose that I should find her mentally, when I met her again, just where she was when she left me after our little chat at the dinner-table; and I went to pay my duty call upon her under that most erroneous ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... experience how precarious the business of farming was, and thought that a certain salary, even though small, would always stand between his family and absolute want. 'I know not,' he wrote to Ainslie, 'how the word exciseman, or, still more opprobrious, gauger, will sound in your ears. I too have seen the day when my auditory nerves would have felt very delicately on this subject; but a wife and children have a wonderful power in blunting these kind of sensations. Fifty pounds a year for ...
— Robert Burns - Famous Scots Series • Gabriel Setoun
... slowly, and with prudent glances to right and left, down the hill, halted under the tree, stood up in his saddle and worked there for some minutes. The Apaches looked on from a distance, uttering yells of exultation and making opprobrious gestures. Presently Texas resumed his seat and cantered gently back to the ruins, bearing across his saddle-bow a fearful burden, the naked body of a girl of eighteen, pierced with more than fifty arrows, stained and streaked all over with blood, the limbs shockingly mangled, ...
— Overland • John William De Forest
... impatient of an injury, even from Sir John Falstaff his captain, and a knight, that he not only disobeyed his commands about carrying a letter to Mrs. Page, but returned him an answer as full of contumely, and in as opprobrious terms, as he ...
— The Dramatic Works of John Dryden Vol. I. - With a Life of the Author • Sir Walter Scott
... spot or stain; but it wouldn't have been any use to try to veneer Sylvia, as it were. Now these remarks are not opprobrious. They are designed to comfort you for the apparent mistakes of the trip to Hotel Frisbie. Things have come out better than we could have arranged them. Sylvia's guardian angel was holding Thinkright in the background, like a trump ...
— The Opened Shutters • Clara Louise Burnham
... Mary. His miracles are attributed to sorcery, the secret of which He brought in a slit in His flesh out of Egypt. He is said to have been first stoned and then hanged on the eve of the Passover. His disciples are called heretics and opprobrious names. They are accused of immoral practices, and the New Testament is called a sinful book. The references to these subjects manifest the ...
— Secret Societies And Subversive Movements • Nesta H. Webster
... constable, who will seize your worship as a vagrant, according to the statute." "Heaven and earth!" cried the stranger, starting up, and laying his hand on his sword, "do I live to hear myself insulted with such an opprobrious epithet, and refrain from trampling into dust ...
— The Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves • Tobias Smollett
... aggrieved, yet knows himself useful, lays dawn his office. The Advocate had been the mark of unceasing and infamous calumnies. He had incurred the deadly hatred of the highest placed, the most powerful, and the most popular man in the commonwealth. He had more than once been obliged to listen to opprobrious language from the prince, and it was even whispered that he had been threatened with personal violence. That Maurice was perpetually denouncing him in public and private, as a traitor, a papist, a Spanish partisan, was notorious. He had ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... thief. If there be any term of reproach which stings a Spaniard (and such was the boatman) more than another, it is that one; and the fellow no sooner heard it applied to himself, than with eyes sparkling with fury, he put his fist to the hadji's nose, and repaid the one opprobrious name by at least ten others equally bad or worse. He would perhaps have proceeded to acts of violence had he not been pulled away by the other Moors, who led him aside, and I suppose either said or gave him something which pacified him, as he soon ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... commonest vulture of the Himalayas is that very familiar fowl—the small white scavenger vulture (Neophron ginginianus), often called Pharaoh's chicken and other opprobrious names that I will not mention. This bird eats everything that is filthy and unclean. The natural consequence is that it looks untidy and disreputable. It is, without exception, the ugliest bird in the world. It is about the size of a kite. The plumage is ...
— Birds of the Indian Hills • Douglas Dewar
... who could not but feel that the term, as applied to such a young man as Peregrine Orme, was very opprobrious. ...
— Orley Farm • Anthony Trollope
... relative to the consumption of raw spirituous liquors in this place, are supposed to be the cause of the wretch's animosity. It is added that this declaration was loudly cheered by a crowd of persons who had assembled on the spot; and that one man had the boldness to designate Mr. Slug aloud by the opprobrious epithet of "Stick-in-the-mud!" It is earnestly to be hoped that now, when the moment has arrived for their interference, the magistrates will not shrink from the exercise of that power which is vested in them by the ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... entirely convinced, as is the fashion of his class, that all that could have been said of her was true, and that she was as unfit for the society of the respectable as any wretched creature could be. "That foreign madam" was what he called her, in the privacy of the housekeeper's room, with many opprobrious epithets. Mrs. Freshwater, who was, perhaps, more good-natured than was advantageous to the housekeeper and manager of a large establishment, was melted whenever she saw her, by the Contessa's gracious looks and ways, but Williams ...
— Sir Tom • Mrs. Oliphant
... a play called The Northern Lass, by Richard Brome. In this occurs an opprobrious sentence of Cornish, put into the mouth of a Cornishman bearing the absurd name of “Nonsence,” and addressed to a Spaniard who had no English, on the argument that Cornwall being the nearest point of Britain to Spain, Cornish might possibly approach ...
— A Handbook of the Cornish Language - chiefly in its latest stages with some account of its history and literature • Henry Jenner
... procedure has often come but little short of an inquisition. We have followed our own predilections and prejudices instead of being docile at the feet of Nature and asking her what to do. We have applied opprobrious epithets and resorted to ostracism. We have been freely dispensing suspensions and expulsions in a vain effort to prove that the school is both omniscient and omnipotent. We have tried to transform a poet into a mechanic, a blacksmith into an artist, and an astronomer into a ...
— The Vitalized School • Francis B. Pearson
... and strengthen her too late on that Wednesday afternoon, they thrust another 'witch' into her cell, bidding the two, with opprobrious words, keep company together. The new comer fell prostrate with the push given her from without; and Lois, not recognizing anything but an old ragged woman lying helpless on her face on the ground, lifted her up; and lo! it was ...
— Curious, if True - Strange Tales • Elizabeth Gaskell
... exist on public patronage would assume as the unofficial metaphor of dealings a pair of wild beasts bellowing and growling over the carcass of a lamb, and make this most helpless and stupid of animals the representation of the customer? To call a trader a lamb is as opprobrious an epithet as it was to call a Norman ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 6, July 1905 • Various
... forth! I wrote to him, but my letters might as well have been dropped into a well. I went to him, but was spurned away. I prayed him with tears to have pity on our unborn babe; but he laughed aloud in scorn and called it by an opprobrious name! Letters, prayers, tears, were all in vain. He never had acknowledged our marriage; he now declared that he never would do so; he discarded me, disowned my child and forbade us ever ...
— Hidden Hand • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth
... Nabu-bel-shumate had fled. It is not easy to say whether Ashurbanipal had appointed a lady, once the harimtu, or courtesan, of Menanu, as ruler of the Sealand before Nabu-bel-shumate, or whether he means to call Nabu-bel-shumate by this opprobrious epithet. Who is meant by Menanu is hard to see, unless it be the Elamite King, Umman-minana, the contemporary of Sennacherib, who had protected the ...
— Babylonian and Assyrian Laws, Contracts and Letters • C. H. W. Johns
... till very late, much depressed at the ill-success of his mission. He had searched all day most indefatigably, and had endured much contumely from the Union ladies, who called him "a thievish little rebel scoundrel," and other opprobrious epithets. But this did not annoy him so much as the manner in which everything he wanted had been sent away or hidden in private houses, which he was not allowed by General Lee's order to search. He had only managed to secure a quantity ...
— Three Months in the Southern States, April-June 1863 • Arthur J. L. (Lieut.-Col.) Fremantle
... certainly great numbers of married clergymen in northern Italy, Germany, and elsewhere, in the tenth and eleventh centuries. Of course the Church refused to sanction the marriage of its officials and called the wife of a clergyman, however virtuous and faithful she might be, by the opprobrious name of "concubine." ...
— An Introduction to the History of Western Europe • James Harvey Robinson
... persons presenting them were severely punished.[858] But the Assembly expressed an earnest desire to bring about a reconciliation between the hostile factions in the colony, and prescribed a heavy penalty for the use of such opprobrious epithets as "traytor, Rebell Rougue, ...
— Virginia under the Stuarts 1607-1688 • Thomas J. Wertenbaker
... become Mr. Burmistone's champion, indeed! She could scarcely have told when, unless, perhaps, she had fixed the date at the first time she had heard his name introduced at a high tea, with every politely opprobrious epithet affixed. She had defended him in her own mind then, and felt sure that he deserved very little that was said against him, and very likely nothing at all. And, the first time she had seen and spoken to him, she had been ...
— A Fair Barbarian • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... the position of his straw hat, or to offer a tardy apology. A more wanton, unprovoked, and flagrant outrage than that of which this man was guilty I never witnessed. It is customary for "the old dogs", as the experienced convicts are called, to use the most opprobrious language to their officers, and to this a deaf ear is usually turned, but I never before saw a man wantonly strike a constable. I fancy that the act was done out of bravado. Troke informed me that the man's name is Rufus Dawes, ...
— For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke
... Almighty that they should be expelled from it. This intolerant discourse, more worthy of a raving Jesuit than of a Protestant minister, was deservedly scouted by the inhabitants of Lausanne; but this did not hinder poor Mlle Michaud from being much affected at the opprobrious tirade directed against a set of men, among whom her father bore a conspicuous part, and who acted from patriotic motives. I must not omit to state that in this discourse M. Levade interwove some hyperbolical compliments towards the young Prince of Sweden, who attended the service that morning. ...
— After Waterloo: Reminiscences of European Travel 1815-1819 • Major W. E Frye
... call that noble metal, equally respected by Roman and barbarian, by rich and poor, by great and mean, by churchmen and laymen, which all mankind are fighting for, plotting for, planning for, intriguing for, and damning themselves for, both soul and body—by the opprobrious name of yellow dross? They are mad, Agelastes, utterly mad. Perils and dangers, penalties and scourges, are the arguments to which men who are above the universal influence which moves all others, can ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... that the American name had become opprobrious among all the nations of Europe; that the flag of the United States was everywhere exposed to insults and annoyance; the husbandman, no longer able to export his produce freely, would soon be reduced to want; it was high time to retaliate, and to convince foreign ...
— The Fathers of the Constitution - Volume 13 in The Chronicles Of America Series • Max Farrand
... drummed in the boy's ears. What did it mean? What was the sneer in it? "Brat!" "cry-baby," "tell-tale," "story-teller," these were opprobrious words, to be resented in their degree; and all but the first covered accusations which not only must never be deserved, but obliged a gentleman, however young, to ...
— Lady Good-for-Nothing • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... sat down together over a mug of good beer; when Adams, who had observed a gentleman's house as he passed along the road, inquired to whom it belonged; one of the horsemen had no sooner mentioned the owner's name, than the other began to revile him in the most opprobrious terms. The English language scarce affords a single reproachful word, which he did not vent on this occasion. He charged him likewise with many particular facts. He said, "He no more regarded a field of wheat when he was hunting, than ...
— Joseph Andrews Vol. 1 • Henry Fielding
... work had considerable success, 4 editions having been pub. before 1824, and others in 1831, 1853, and 1861. It was, however, subjected to some criticism and ridicule, and gave rise to the expression "bowdlerise," always used in an opprobrious sense. On the other hand, Mr. Swinburne has said, "More nauseous and foolish cant was never chattered than that which would deride the memory or depreciate the merits of B. No man ever did better service to Shakespeare ...
— A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature • John W. Cousin
... Allington was fined twelve thousand pounds for marrying his niece. One, who had sent a challenge to the Earl of Northumberland, was fined five thousand pounds; another for saying the Earl of Suffolk was a base lord, four thousand pounds to him, and a like sum to the King. Sir David Forbes, for opprobrious words against Lord Wentworth, incurred five thousand pounds to the King and three thousand pounds to the party. On some soap-boilers, who had not complied with the requisitions of the newly incorporated company, mulcts were imposed of one thousand five hundred pounds ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 11 • Various
... with insinuating that I, as agent of the society in the distribution of their charity in Antigua, had fraudulently duped them out of their money by a fabricated tale of distress, Mr. M'Queen proceeded to libel me in the most opprobrious terms, as "a man of the most worthless and abandoned character."[20] Now I know from good authority that it was upon Dr. Coull's information that Mr. M'Queen founded this impudent contradiction of notorious facts, and this ...
— The History of Mary Prince - A West Indian Slave • Mary Prince
... seemed to return. He would not allow the wounded man to be removed to his own house; saying he would keep him under his own roof that he might plague the villain. He returned to the chamber where Johnson lay, insulted him with the most opprobrious language, threatened to shoot him through the head, and could hardly be restrained from committing further acts of violence on the poor man, who was already in extremity. After he retired to bed, the surgeon procured a sufficient number of assistants, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... epithet is always an adjective, or a word or phrase used as an adjective, and is properly used to emphasize a characteristic but not to add information, as in the phrase "the sounding sea;" the idea that an epithet is always opprobrious, and that any word used opprobriously is an epithet is a popular error. Designation may be used much in the sense of appellation, but is more distinctive or specific in meaning; a designation ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... yourself and your clothes, the world will say that you are over-delicate; and particular people will call you—TAPETZON TINEMAXOCH!' What those words precisely mean," added my father, modestly, "I cannot say, since I never had the opportunity to acquire the ancient Aztec language,—but something very opprobrious ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... cit. ii. p. 251. There are many similar references to Schwenckfeld in Luther's Table Talk, and he usually calls him by the opprobrious ...
— Spiritual Reformers in the 16th & 17th Centuries • Rufus M. Jones
... bassa's passion, who was a violent, tyrannical man, and would have killed his own brother for the least advantage—a temper which made him fly into the utmost rage at seeing us poor, tattered, and almost naked; he treated us with the most opprobrious language, and threatened to cut off our heads. We comforted ourselves in this condition, hoping that all our sufferings would end in shedding our blood for the name of Jesus Christ. We knew that the bassa had often made a public declaration before our arrival that he should die ...
— A Voyage to Abyssinia • Jerome Lobo |
