Online dictionaryOnline dictionary
Synonyms, antonyms, pronunciation

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




Rankle   /rˈæŋkəl/   Listen
Rankle

verb
(past & past part. rankled; pres. part. rankling)
1.
Gnaw into; make resentful or angry.  Synonyms: eat into, fret, grate.  "His resentment festered"






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





"Rankle" Quotes from Famous Books



... look ere it reaches her heart, To bid its wounds rankle anew, Oh! smile, or embalm with a tear the sad smart, And angels will ...
— Poetic Sketches • Thomas Gent

... said, meaning it from the bottom of my heart. "Now one thing more, and you shall send me to Father Matthieu. 'Tis a shameful thing to speak of, but the thought of it rankles and will rankle till I have begged you to add it to the things forgotten. That ...
— The Master of Appleby • Francis Lynde

... in David and Goliath. He was possibly a man who betted on form, and on form Goliath should undoubtedly have won. David was an outsider. He had no breeding. He would have been surprised if he could have foreseen how his victory would rankle some thousands of years later in the soul ...
— The Pleasures of Ignorance • Robert Lynd

... For deeds undone Rankle and snarl and hunger for their due, Till there seems naught so despicable as you In all ...
— Poems by William Ernest Henley • William Ernest Henley

... mysterious title. It was an old dodge, but a good one. Nothing appeared on the advertisements but the mere title. No word as to what "The Crimson Cord" was. Perkins merely announced the words and left them to rankle in the reader's mind, and as a natural consequence each new advertisement served ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume III. (of X.) • Various

... should dare to roam? Or worse, thou wondrous world! oh! doubly worse, Did heaven design thy lordly land to nurse The motley dregs of every distant clime, Each blast of anarchy and taint of crime Which Europe shakes from her perturbed sphere, In full malignity to rankle here? ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al

... Ford soothingly. She knew that the first defeat Mollie had ever experienced would be bound to rankle and was prepared to make allowances. "If the engine is all right, why ...
— The Outdoor Girls at Bluff Point - Or a Wreck and a Rescue • Laura Lee Hope

... horse. But these little asperities are the occasional landmarks that give point and piquancy to the even tenor of their loving career. Neither would, for a moment, think of allowing such incidents to rankle in his bosom. Both would repudiate with scorn the idea that they were a whit less useful, or in any degree less attached, to each other on account ...
— The Wild Man of the West - A Tale of the Rocky Mountains • R.M. Ballantyne

... ready for the start from the other side. Mary Moosa and her son met him there, and camped beside the outfit for the night. Stonor returned to Enterprise House for dinner. He had tried to get out of it, knowing that the fact of this dinner would rankle in the trader's breast afterwards, but Gaviller had insisted on giving him a send-off. It was not a happy affair, for three of the guests were wretchedly nervous. They could not help but see in their mind's eye Gaviller's expression of indignant ...
— The Woman from Outside - [on Swan River] • Hulbert Footner

... English voyagers proudly felt themselves to possess gave an air of contemptuous defiance to their actions which the natives might resent. The firing of that last shot was not unlikely (together with the previous scuffle) to provoke feelings of deep enmity, and not only to rankle in the minds and memories of those present, but to be handed down by tradition to the next generation, and the next after that, so as to keep up both detestation of all white men, and dread of their ...
— Captain Cook - His Life, Voyages, and Discoveries • W.H.G. Kingston

... praise. When, at length, relating the particulars of the escape and death of Munro, he proceeded, with all the tender caution of a brother, softening the sorrow into sadness, and plucking from grief as much of the sting as would else have caused the wound to rankle, she felt that though another might sway his heart and its richer affections, she was not altogether destitute of ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms

... our own thought barbs it. [1] It is our pride that makes another's criticism rankle, our self-will that makes another's deed offensive, our egotism that feels hurt by another's self-assertion. Well may we feel wounded by our own faults; but we can hardly afford [5] to be miserable for the faults ...
— Miscellaneous Writings, 1883-1896 • Mary Baker Eddy

... the rabble whom I despised, I chose from among them the very worst, and made him do my will, and pampered and enriched him at the cost of all the rest. That, after casting about for the means of a punishment which should rankle in the bosoms of these kites the most, and strike into their gall, I devised this scheme at a time when the last link in the chain of grateful love and duty, that held me to my race, was roughly snapped asunder; roughly, for I loved him well; roughly, for I had ever put my trust in his affection; ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens

... to rankle in Anne's stormy bosom, Marilla descended to the kitchen, grievously troubled in mind and vexed in soul. She was as angry with herself as with Anne, because, whenever she recalled Mrs. Rachel's dumbfounded countenance her lips twitched with amusement and she felt a most reprehensible ...
— Anne Of Green Gables • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... we should, as we are both human—they wouldn't be over and done with in an hour. They would stick in your mind and rankle, because, you see, they might be proofs that I didn't really love you. And then when I seemed happy with you, you would wonder if I was acting. I know all this sounds morbid and exaggerated, but it isn't. What have you got to go on, as regards me? What do ...
— Uneasy Money • P.G. Wodehouse

... malign and subtle tyrant, how falsely art thou painted blind! 'tis thy votaries are so; for what but blindness can prevent their seeing thy poisoned shaft, which is for ever doomed to rankle in the ...
— Speed the Plough - A Comedy, In Five Acts; As Performed At The Theatre Royal, Covent Garden • Thomas Morton

... dismounted. She often wondered whether she ought to let him go on thus, whether it was right in her, if it did him harm, by confirming all his unpleasant feelings, or whether it might not be worse for him to let them rankle in his heart instead of pouring them out. It seemed too unkind to silence him, when he fancied such talk a comfort, and she was the only person in his confidence, yet what was right? what was good for him? Her head ached with the self debate; she felt positively worn ...
— The Two Guardians • Charlotte Mary Yonge

... never sleep," grumbled the prince, "till I have humbled that woman. And you? Have you no rankle in your heart? Have you no desire ...
— The Puppet Crown • Harold MacGrath

... his ribald speech. Not that he has yet sated his vengeance, for he intends continuing the torture of his victim unable to resist. He has driven the arrow deep into her heart, and leaves it to rankle there. ...
— The Death Shot - A Story Retold • Mayne Reid

... of a strong power, and offered the Free State a sum of ninety thousand pounds in settlement of whatever claim it might possess. The acceptance by the Free State in 1876 of this sum closed the controversy, though a sense of injustice continued to rankle in the breasts of some of the citizens of the Republic. Amicable relations have subsisted ever since between it and Cape Colony, and the control of the British government over the Basutos has secured for it peace in the quarter ...
— Impressions of South Africa • James Bryce

... things—mere trifles," continued Thorpe, dogmatically, "but with men of my temper and make-up those are just the things that aggravate and rankle and hurt. Maybe it's foolish, but that's the kind of man I am. You ought to have had the intelligence to see that—and not let these stupid little things happen to annoy me. Why just think what you did. I was ...
— The Market-Place • Harold Frederic

... Tarrant. Let him think of her as he would; at all events he could no longer imagine her overawed by his social prestige. The probability was that she had hurt him in a sensitive spot; it might be hoped that the wound would rankle for a long time. ...
— In the Year of Jubilee • George Gissing

... hangman drew a heavy sum yearly from him; thus making him only a mine of wealth to himself; this, no doubt, would rankle in the other's heart, to think he should be so beset, and ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest

... little sallies of ridicule, which, owing to my miserable and wretched touchiness of character, used formerly to make me wince, as if I had been touched with hot iron. Things that nobody else cares for enter into my mind and rankle there like venom. I know these feelings are absurd, and therefore I try to hide them, but they only sting the deeper ...
— The Three Brontes • May Sinclair

... Dennie's Port Folio, wrote in the preface to his "Original Poems" (Philadelphia, 1806), "Although the war, which terminated in a separation of the two nations, inflicted wounds which, it is to be feared, still rankle, yet the more considerate of both countries have long desired (if I may be allowed a transatlantic simile) that the hatchet of animosity might be buried in the grave of oblivion" (page 6). A little further ...
— The Philadelphia Magazines and their Contributors 1741-1850 • Albert Smyth

... been equal and mutual in both of us, the existence of which on my side only I was perhaps claiming to my credit. Very sad to me also, I will not conceal from you, was that departure, and it planted stings in my heart which now rankle there deeper, as often as I think with myself of my reluctant parting, my separation as by a wrench, from so many companions at once, such good friends as they were, and living so pleasantly with each other in one city, far off indeed, but to me most dear. I call to witness that ...
— The Life of John Milton Vol. 3 1643-1649 • David Masson

... benignant influence, than those which mutually bind the master and the slave, under our ancient system, handed down from the father of Israel. The unholy purpose of the abolitionists is, to destroy by defiling it; to infuse into it the gall and bitterness which rankle in their own envenomed bosoms; to poison the minds of the master and the servant; turn love to hatred, array "force" ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various

... and jeers. Grettir went afterwards and killed the beast, though not without a terrible struggle, in which they both fell over the rocks, but the bear was underneath, and Grettir was able to stab it to the heart. More than ever then on account of this did ill-will against Grettir rankle in Biorn's breast. He sailed west to England, as master of Thorkel's ship; when he returned he met Grettir at a place called Drontheim-firth. The two took up their old quarrel again, fought on the strand, and Biorn ...
— The Book of Romance • Various

... could both have pierced me to the quick, there was no inclination on his part wanting. By my soul I could .... but I forgive him. He is the father of my friend: and for that reason will I chew the cud of my mortification, nor suffer, if possible, a sense of his unkindness to rankle at my heart. At all events, Blessington, my mind is made up, and resign or exchange I certainly shall the instant I can find a decent ...
— Wacousta: A Tale of the Pontiac Conspiracy (Complete) • John Richardson

... forgiveness;" and then starting up on his feet, he exclaimed almost with a shriek: "How dare you to talk to me, Sir, of forgiveness? Forgiveness! I suppose you think I have nothing to forgive! I suppose you think I have no injuries which rankle in my breast! A broken heart is nothing! Shattered ambition is nothing! A tortured, lingering, wretched life is nothing! I suppose you will offer me your pity next; but know, Sir, that I despise both your forgiveness and ...
— La Vendee • Anthony Trollope

... I suddenly found fleeting, And they whistled o'er the surface, smooth and black, And the ice, with an unwonted warmth of greeting, Slapt me suddenly and hard upon the back. I didn't mind your laughing, if the laughter Had left no sting of scorn to rankle after. Though I'd joyously have flung myself before you To adore you, Still to sit with all one's might ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100., February 7, 1891 • Various

... the fort at Mackinac was accomplished without any Indian atrocities, the success of that day was to precipitate a massacre, long to rankle in the minds of the pioneers of the West. Immediately upon hearing of the capture of the fort, General Hull wrote to Captain Heald in command at Fort Dearborn ordering the evacuation of that post. ...
— Old Fort Snelling - 1819-1858 • Marcus L. Hansen

... unprepared. My child, it cuts me to the heart to pain you so, but the physician's probe must go to the depth of the wound. It is no kindness to the patient to put on a soothing surface application and leave death to rankle in the blood. We have no reason to believe that in the eye of God he that destroys himself is any the less guilty than he that kills another, and even in the judgment of man it's a cowardly flight ...
— A Face Illumined • E. P. Roe

... alludes to the hopes that were raised at another great era of partial concession and liberality, that of the revolution of 1782, when, also, benefits were conferred which proved abortive because they were incomplete, and balm poured into the wound, where the envenomed shaft was yet left to rankle. ...
— Peter Plymley's Letters and Selected Essays • Sydney Smith

... divine doom channelled, nor do I cry Disaster there; but may he not rankle and roam In backwheels though bound home?— That left to the Lord of the Eucharist, I here ...
— Poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins - Now First Published • Gerard Manley Hopkins

... nodded a vociferous affirmative. Being a boy, one of the lowest orders of human creatures in point of intuitions, Jimmy could not know that his mother understood the rankle in her son's heart. Nor could he divine that she kept the supper ...
— The Court of Boyville • William Allen White

... there to join you. Then remember you Southerners sprang to arms so gallantly in that skirmish with Spain that you made a fine impression. It was discovered that you had been brave enough not to allow defeat to rankle in your hearts, a really good quality. A more opportune time for you Southern people to take a stand would be ...
— The Hindered Hand - or, The Reign of the Repressionist • Sutton E. Griggs

... things in her days that poverty kept from her to the end, and the cloak was merely a luxury. She would soon have let it slip by as something unattainable had not Hendry encouraged it to rankle in her mind. I cannot say when he first determined that Jess should have a cloak, come the money as it liked, for he was too ashamed of his weakness to admit his project to me. I remember, however, his saying ...
— A Window in Thrums • J. M. Barrie

... three weeks after the picnic Charnock did not meet Sadie. The rebuff he had got did not rankle much, and was rather provocative than daunting, but he understood why she had told him he made her cheap. She meant to keep her caresses for her husband or declared lover, and if he wanted her, he must pay the regular price. This was very ...
— The Girl From Keller's - Sadie's Conquest • Harold Bindloss

... had been, "without deceit or dissimulation," to preserve the peace and friendship that had been established; and, so long as he should be Dutch Ambassador in London, his Highness did not see "what occasion of offence or scruple could rankle or sprout up" between the two States. At the present juncture he should regret his departure the more if he were not assured that no man would better represent to their High Mightinesses the Protector's goodwill ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson

... Durer. A harnessed knight, with an oldish countenance, is riding upon his high steed, attended by his dog, through a fearful valley, where fragments of rock and roots of trees distort themselves into loathsome forms; and poisonous weeds rankle along the ground. Evil vermin are creeping along through them. Beside him Death is riding on a wasted pony; from behind the form of a devil stretches over its clawed arm toward him. Both horse and dog look strangely, ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 44, Saturday, August 31, 1850 • Various

... at [in] an inn, And in the night-time secretly would I steal To travellers' chambers, and there cut their throats. Once at Jerusalem, where the pilgrims kneel'd, I strowed powder on the marble stones, And therewithal their knees would rankle so, That I have laugh'd a-good to see the cripples Go limping ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas

... the Hanyards onwards, Mistress Waynflete had always acted promptly and exactly to my wish. I felt a boor, and was in truth a boor, in comparison with her. Brocton's 'yokel blood' gibe had put murder into my blows, but it had truth enough in it to make it rankle like a poisoned arrow. Yet here was this wonder-woman, trustful as a child and meeker than a milkmaid. My work was new, but at any rate I had sometimes dreamed that I could do a man's work when I got my chance, and I had limbs of leather ...
— The Yeoman Adventurer • George W. Gough

... about that. Unpleasantness of that kind is apt to rankle long. But I wasn't going to give up my rights. Nobody but a coward does that. They talked of going to law and trying the will, but they wouldn't have got much by that. And then they abused me for two years. When they had done and got sick of it, I told them they should have it all back again as ...
— He Knew He Was Right • Anthony Trollope

... nothing is more fatal than a dodge. Wrongs will be forgiven, sufferings and losses will be forgiven or forgotten, battles will be remembered only as they recall the martial virtues of the combatants; but anything like chicane, anything like a trick, will always rankle. The Government are concerned in South Africa not only to do what is fair, but to do what South Africa will accept as fair. They are concerned not merely to choose a balance which will deal evenly between the races, but ...
— Liberalism and the Social Problem • Winston Spencer Churchill

... exasperated at a trifle, when the nerves are exhausted, is, perhaps, natural to us in our imperfect state. But why put into the shape of speech the annoyance which, once uttered, is remembered; which may burn like a blistering wound, or rankle like a poisoned arrow? If a child be crying or a friend capricious, or a servant unreasonable, be careful what you say. Do not speak while you feel the impulse of anger, for you will be almost certain to say too much, to say more ...
— How to Succeed - or, Stepping-Stones to Fame and Fortune • Orison Swett Marden

... Saracinesca, he had asked her to be his wife, and he knew not whether he desired to burn the memory of that first embrace from his heart, or to dwell upon the sweet recollection of that moment and suffer the wound of to-day to rankle more hotly by the horror of the comparison. When he thought of what she had been, it seemed impossible that she could have fallen; when he saw what she had become he could not believe that she had ever been innocent. A baser man than Giovanni would have suffered more in his personal ...
— Sant' Ilario • F. Marion Crawford

... who, however, directly the Duke's back is turned, gives him an antidote which restores him to health. In the last act Lucrezia takes comprehensive vengeance upon the friends of Gennaro, whose taunts still rankle in her bosom, by poisoning all the wine at a supper party. Unfortunately Gennaro happens to be present, and as this time he refuses to take an antidote, even though Lucrezia reveals herself as his mother, he ...
— The Opera - A Sketch of the Development of Opera. With full Descriptions - of all Works in the Modern Repertory • R.A. Streatfeild

... look so resigned, Walter. Just cast your memory back, and think of some of the kind things you have said to me when we have met since I have left Colquhoun Street. If you think I can forget, then you are mistaken. They will always rankle in my mind, and it is only natural that I should feel grateful, if nothing else, to those who are a little kinder and more attentive to me. A woman does not ...
— The Guinea Stamp - A Tale of Modern Glasgow • Annie S. Swan

... Rose. "'Is not that He whose high places and whose altars Hezekiah hath taken away?' Methinks that should rankle sore in Hezekiah's mind, and in the hearts of them that lovest him. Bishop Bonner is somewhat coarser and less subtle, yet 'tis the same thing in ...
— Robin Tremain - A Story of the Marian Persecution • Emily Sarah Holt

... as if you had turned into a knight in armor. Well, how much it has saved me! I should have hesitated and been miserable; and I should have married you all the same; and then been ashamed of marrying money, and had it rankle in me for years. And now—oh, you wise little thing!—all I can say ...
— Overland • John William De Forest

... black-and-white checks, white waistcoat and flaming scarlet buttonhole, sat Dollops, faithfully watching while Cleek assisted at the ceremony that was uniting two souls in one, and casting aside forever the smirch of a name that must rankle in the heart of her who had owned it in common with the man who had so nearly wrought her ...
— The Riddle of the Frozen Flame • Mary E. Hanshew

... America which takes the form of impatient criticism. No one in Britain ever calls an American a foreigner. To see faults in Germany or Spain is to tap boundless fountains of charity; but the faults of America rankle in an English mind almost as much as the faults of England. Mr. Britling could explain away the faults of England readily enough; our Hanoverian monarchy, our Established Church and its deadening effect on education, our imperial ...
— Mr. Britling Sees It Through • H. G. Wells

... shadowing his man so faithfully that at any hour of the day or night he could have clapped the arresting hand upon his shoulder. Still he hesitated. Once, in his Secret Service days, he had arrested the wrong man, and the smart of the prosecution for false imprisonment would rankle as ...
— The Price • Francis Lynde

... not seem to elevate him, or at least to call out of him any of the external indications of vanity. I cannot say that it never causes his pride to swell, but it never breaks out. I am even fearful that it may swell and rankle to an alarming degree inwardly. For pride is near of kin to melancholy!—a hurtful obstruction from the ordinary outlets of vanity being shut. It is this stoppage which engenders proud humors. Therefore a tailor ...
— The Works of Charles Lamb in Four Volumes, Volume 4 • Charles Lamb

... laugh of triumph rankle through the hotel office. He turned round. Bradley, the over-fed, over-confident, over- estimated financier, laid a hand on the shoulder of his companion as they moved ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... The learning of the Egyptian schools she had mastered; there were none of the then modern accomplishments of which she had not made herself mistress; wealth and regal honors were hers; and yet what a sad picture she presents! Evil passions were allowed to rankle in her breast unchecked, till she became one of the vilest creatures, in a country become the vilest and basest of nations. The powers of mind with which she was endowed, used for the benefit of her country, might have been the means ...
— Woman: Man's Equal • Thomas Webster

... have is a premature settlement in which some essential force is wholly disregarded. This excluded element will rankle in the flesh; it will bring about no end of disorders until it is finally recognised and admitted into a truly comprehensive regimen. The more numerous the interests which a premature settlement combines the greater inertia will it oppose to reform, and the more self-righteously ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana

... Charlotte and hurry after Penelope until she overtook her, and then escort her to the very door. In those days she could rarely bring herself to talk to Penelope at all, so far had her feelings got the mastery over her, and so deeply did her grievance rankle; and the farther she went the less able did she ...
— The Carroll Girls • Mabel Quiller-Couch

... this interview haunted him. He felt that he had come very badly out of it. She had showed herself to be his superior on his own pet subject. She had been courteous while he had been rude, self-possessed when he had been angry. And then, above all, there was her presence, her monstrous intrusion to rankle in his mind. A woman doctor had been an abstract thing before, repugnant but distant. Now she was there in actual practice, with a brass plate up just like his own, competing for the same patients. Not that he feared ...
— Round the Red Lamp - Being Facts and Fancies of Medical Life • Arthur Conan Doyle

... which he could say would ward it off. If it did not come, there was no need for saying anything. Conscience told him that it would be better to be perfectly straight with his wife. Instinct told him that though she would probably be sweet and sympathetic over it, yet it would rankle in her mind and poison her thoughts. And perhaps for once, Instinct may have been better than Conscience. Do not ask too many questions, you young wife! Do not be too free with your reminiscences, you young husband. There are things which can be forgiven, but never, ...
— A Duet • A. Conan Doyle

... to him?" murmured Billy, whose tact on occasions of universal sorrow was sometimes faulty. "'Tis the rankle of bein' in every blackguard's mouth that'll cut Will ...
— Children of the Mist • Eden Phillpotts

... this lesson seriously to heart, Dawson and I, for the Don's hint that we might end our career in gaol did still rankle woundily in our minds. And so very soberly we went out of the forest of Elche in the night on mules lent us by Sidi ben Ahmed, with a long cavalcade of mules charged with merchandise for embarking on board the pirates' vessel, and an escort of some half-dozen ...
— A Set of Rogues • Frank Barrett

... at the hands of a liveried waiter. But we must leave the rest, which it would take a column or two to describe, especially as to our mind, a gaming-house furnishes an epitome of all the bad passions that rankle in the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. XIX. No. 540, Saturday, March 31, 1832 • Various

... significant look, an incredulous expression of countenance, nay, even an emphatic silence, may do the work; and when the light and trifling thing which has done the mischief has fluttered off, the venom is left behind to work and rankle, to fever human existence, and to poison human society at the fountain springs ...
— Talkers - With Illustrations • John Bate

... in one's mind, remain in one's mind, dwell in one's mind, haunt one's mind, impress one's mind, dwell in one's memory. sink in the mind; run in the head; not be able to get out of one's head; be deeply impressed with; rankle &c (revenge) 919. recur to the mind; flash on the mind, flash across the memory. [cause to remember] remind; suggest &c (inform ) 527; prompt; put in mind, keep in mind, bring to mind; fan the embers; call up, summon up, rip up; renew; infandum renovare dolorem [Lat.]; jog the ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget

... Lynch alone, but the citizens at large, collectively and as individuals; and he had planted the seeds of envy and rage to rankle in their hairy breasts. He had shown them his gold, to make them yearn to find it, and his money to make them envy him his wealth; and then he had left them to stew in their own juice, for Blackwater was as hot as Jail ...
— Wunpost • Dane Coolidge

... is Honour, Innate and precept-strengthened, 'tis the rock 380 Of faith connubial: where it is not—where Light thoughts are lurking, or the vanities Of worldly pleasure rankle in the heart, Or sensual throbs convulse it, well I know 'Twere hopeless for humanity to dream Of honesty in such infected blood, Although 'twere wed to him it covets most: An incarnation of the poet's God In all his marble-chiselled beauty, or The demi-deity, Alcides, ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron

... got nothink." By such witticisms the edge of bitterness is turned; the sting is taken out of that sense of inequality which, as the labourer probably knows, would poison his present comfort and lead him into dangerous courses if he let it rankle. With one exception, the angriest recognition of class differences which I have come across amongst the villagers was when I passed two women on their way home from the town, where, I surmised, they, or some friend of theirs, had ...
— Change in the Village • (AKA George Bourne) George Sturt

... sought her friendship and society. The memory of former trial and suffering stole over her sometimes, as she mingled again 'mid the scenes of its enacting; but she was too wise and good to allow it to rankle, or stir bitter feelings in her bosom. Let the past be forgotten in the felicity of the present. Heaven had visited devouring vengeance on the guilty ones. Let her bow in ...
— Eventide - A Series of Tales and Poems • Effie Afton

... that Pietro's injunction had robbed him of a chance like that was enough to rankle in any man's guts and make him work up something pretty close to insanity. I marked it down in my mental files for the investigation I was supposed to make, but let ...
— Let'em Breathe Space • Lester del Rey

... the forces to disband; prisoners were liberated, and with the opportune aid of a furious rain-storm the Border-Ruffian army gradually melted away. Nevertheless the "Wakarusa war" left one bitter sting to rankle in the hearts of the defenders of Lawrence, a free- State man having been killed ...
— Abraham Lincoln: A History V1 • John G. Nicolay and John Hay

... and sure regard over them; it had a kind of unconsciousness of their sense of humility, of their wrong and resentment—the innocence of an aloof and distant tyrant, who has not dreamed how hurt flesh quivers and seared minds rankle. He was bland and terrible; and they hated him after their several manners, some with dull tear, one or two—and Slade among them—with a ferocity that moved them ...
— The Second Class Passenger • Perceval Gibbon

... the plateaus north of Craonne continued to rankle in the mind of the German command, and repeated efforts were made to recover these precious positions. In the night of July 25, 1917, a ferocious attack was made on the French lines on a front of about two miles from La Bovelle ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume VI (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various

... the alliance which was dictated by sound policy, by family ties, and by just fear of England's sea power, was further assured to France by recent and still existing injuries that must continue to rankle with Spain. Gibraltar, Minorca, and Florida were still in the hands of England; no Spaniard could be easy till this reproach was ...
— The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660-1783 • A. T. Mahan

... courses are depraved may cure themselves—if they are not robbed of their self-respect. The most hopeless causes I have, come from that class of people who give each other bits of their mind—very objectionable bits, consisting of vulgar abuse for the most part, and the calling of names that rankle. The operators seem to derive a solemn kind of self-satisfaction from the treatment themselves, but it does for ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand

... is so proof But through it from her bow The shafts that she can throw Will pierce and rankle. No champion e'er so tough, But's in the struggle thrown, And tripp'd and trodden down By her ...
— Ballads • William Makepeace Thackeray

... Jackson Harmar. "If Arnold had an atom of conscience or sensibility to shame, the curses of a whole people, whom he had turned from admiring friends to bitter foes, and the jeers and scorn of those whom he wished to make friends, must have planted many a thorn in his bosom, to rankle ...
— The Old Bell Of Independence; Or, Philadelphia In 1776 • Henry C. Watson

... emblem of protection to all that were struggling on and on over that vast expanse of unbroken and treeless plain; can you wonder then that the unspeakable crimes and mistakes of the Government of those days still rankle in the breast of every living man and woman that in any way participated in the settlement of the West? If you do, look on the painting of the terrible annihilation of the gallant Custer and his five companies of the Seventh U. S. ...
— Dangers of the Trail in 1865 - A Narrative of Actual Events • Charles E Young

... stained by bloodshed, although the Calvinists were reviled in the open street. A few stabs from a dagger or shots from an arquebus might, however, have been better; such wounds heal while mocking words rankle in ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... really wanted, I not only waste my servant's time, which would supply my wants, and therefore injure myself in one sense, but I waste the strength which is her only means of subsistence, and I awaken that vexation of temper, which, although perhaps suppressed before me, will yet rankle in her bosom, and probably induce her to commit some injury on my property, which is an actual sin in her: thus my folly leads to her guilt, and the very least mischief that can accrue is her unhappiness; ...
— The Barbadoes Girl - A Tale for Young People • Mrs. Hofland

... him how his attempt on Herr Van de Greutz might also be made to look. He would not be convinced, of course, but at bottom the two things were so related that it would be surprising if she did not get a few shafts home. He would not show the wounds then, but they would be there; they would rankle; there would be some humiliation for him, too. A curious light crept into her eyes at the thought; she was surer of being able to reduce him than of exalting herself, and it is good, when circumstances prevent one from mounting, to drag a superior to the level of one's humiliation. ...
— The Good Comrade • Una L. Silberrad

... has been more hated than Monsieur Louis Veuillot. He has flagellated, kicked, cuffed, jeered, mocked, humiliated, exasperated, better than anybody else, the writers I most detest. He has given them wounds which will forever rankle. He has indelibly branded these miserable actors who play upon the theatre of their vices the comedy of their vanity. We together examined the pages where I had expressed ...
— Atlantic Monthly,Volume 14, No. 82, August, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... old-fogyishness, per se, that irritated; it was the fact that her old-fogyishness had made her "call down" Missy—in front of the minister. Just as if Missy were a child. Fifteen is not a child, to itself. And it can rankle and burn, when a pair of admired dark eyes are included in the situation, just as ...
— Missy • Dana Gatlin

... Helga frowned regretfully. "I cannot blame him if he will not speak to me," she said to Sigurd Haraldsson. "The nature of a high-born man is such that a blow is like poison in his blood. It must rankle and fester and break out before he can be healed. I do not think he could have been more lordlike in his father's castle than he was yesterday. Hereafter I shall treat him as honorably as I treat you, or any ...
— The Thrall of Leif the Lucky • Ottilie A. Liljencrantz

... going away soon to La Crampade?" "How well Madame de Portenduere sang!" "Who is that little woman with such a load of diamonds?" Or, after firing off some smart epigrams, which give transient pleasure, and leave wounds that rankle long, the groups thin out, the mere lookers on go away, and the waxlights burn ...
— Another Study of Woman • Honore de Balzac

... Cristobal O'Donnel y Alvarez and his own dangerous, though ineligible rival, Casa Triana. I could see the thought dart into his mind and rankle; I could see him push it into a dark corner kept for the rubbish of imagination. I knew how he was telling himself that there could be no connection or collusion between the O'Donnel family and Casa Triana. I hoped he also soothed his anxiety by ...
— The Car of Destiny • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson

... forgiving disposition, and let bygones be bygones. It is the only plan at schools, for girls are generally so frank in the nature of their remarks that if you begin to treasure up the disagreeable things said to you, and let them rankle, you will probably find yourself without a chum in the world. Though the fashion may be for plain speaking, it is often a matter of mood, and the mate who genuinely believes you a "blighter" one day, will claim you as a "mascot" ...
— A Popular Schoolgirl • Angela Brazil

... passion, and the confession of premature passion, both rankle in the breast—and, probably, in the breast ...
— Hints for Lovers • Arnold Haultain

... consider the consequences," Lady Loring interposed. "You don't know how such things sometimes rankle in a man's mind. He may be perfectly willing to do you justice—and yet, there may be moments when he would doubt if you had told him the whole truth. I speak with the experience of a married woman. Don't place yourself ...
— The Black Robe • Wilkie Collins

... only pain me As a lingering disease, But, finding no redress, ferment and rage; Nor less than wounds immedicable Rankle."] ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 2 • George Gordon Byron

... were not palliated by the magnitude of their achievements. A humor that is often barbed, but which is most willingly directed against one's self; but, whether directed against the humorist or his neighbor, carries no poison upon its point and leaves no wound to rankle. ...
— The Busted Ex-Texan and Other Stories • W. H. H. Murray

... to harbour such a thought about you. There are many ways in which you may be cruel to a woman, Paul, and be forgiven, but you must not wound her pride in that way. That is the cruellest stab of all. The blade is poisoned, dear, and the wound will rankle for ...
— Despair's Last Journey • David Christie Murray

... for such property as I left behind, and had retained my old house. I found him waiting for me, and with everything in good order. That is one good thing to be said about the natives. An imagined wrong or insult may rankle in their minds for months, until they have a chance to stab you in the back. They will lie to you at times with the most unblushing nerve, often when the truth would have served their ends so much better that it seems as if they must have been doing mendacious gymnastics simply to keep themselves ...
— Anting-Anting Stories - And other Strange Tales of the Filipinos • Sargent Kayme

... back into the house, not a whit discomfited, and with not so much as a contrasting sigh in her bosom or a rankle in her heart. On the contrary, a droll twinkle played among the crow's-feet at the corners of her eyes. They could not hurt her, these merry girls, meaning nothing but the moment's fun, nor cheat her of her quiet share of ...
— A Summer in Leslie Goldthwaite's Life. • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney

... lower one might have complained; and still another would have left her in the woods. Barton said nothing, but, with a cold, stony face, walked on by her side. If, in his desperation, he wanted this killing thrust, which must ever rankle and never heal, to enable him to overcome and subdue his great passion, he had got it. That little hand, that emphasized her words with a gesture of superb disdain, would never have to repeat the blow. It raised about her a barrier that he was ...
— Bart Ridgeley - A Story of Northern Ohio • A. G. Riddle

... innocent Cass with the ring in his hand, and a general impression on his mind that he was already an object of suspicion to his comrades,—an impression, it is hardly necessary to say, they fully intended should be left to rankle ...
— Frontier Stories • Bret Harte

... way—the certain opposition of this proud old lady at Castle Dare. No doubt she would stand aghast at the mere mention of such a thing; perhaps in her sudden indignation she might utter sharp words that would rankle afterwards in the memory. In any case he knew the struggle would be long, and bitter, and harassing; and he had not the skill of speech to persuasively bend a woman's will. There was another way—impossible, ...
— Macleod of Dare • William Black

... bred, which may be met by appeals to honor, for so much of which school life is responsible, is often mitigated by the fact that falsehoods are frequently resorted to in moments of danger and excitement, are easily forgotten when it is over, and rarely rankle. These, even more than the pseudomaniac cases mentioned later, grow rankly in those with ...
— Youth: Its Education, Regimen, and Hygiene • G. Stanley Hall

... been made aware that he was not to be chosen to fill a vacancy in the list of aldermen; and that Farfrae was likely to become one of the Council. This caused the unfortunate discovery that she had played the waiting-maid in the town of which he was Mayor to rankle in his mind yet more poisonously. He had learnt by personal inquiry at the time that it was to Donald Farfrae—that treacherous upstart—that she had thus humiliated herself. And though Mrs. Stannidge seemed to attach no great importance to the incident—the ...
— The Mayor of Casterbridge • Thomas Hardy

... had treated Marlborough and Walpole was more than retaliated. Harley and Prior were thrown into prison; Bolingbroke and Ormond were compelled to take refuge in a foreign land. The wounds inflicted in this desperate conflict continued to rankle for many years. It was long before the members of either party could discuss the question of the peace of Utrecht with calmness and impartiality. That the Whig ministers had sold us to the Dutch; that the Tory ministers had sold us to the French; that ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... Mediterranean, and he dreamed dreams of Constantinople, and saw visions of India. Linked to many lawless instincts, there was in the Emperor's personal character much of the intolerance of the fanatic. Religion and pride alike made the fact rankle in his breast that so many of the Sultan's subjects were Sclavs, and professed the Russian form of Christianity. He was, moreover, astute enough to see that a war which could be construed by the simple and devout ...
— Lord John Russell • Stuart J. Reid

... the public admires the handle, the delicate work of the brain, while the cruelty is not apparent; how should the public know that the steel of the epigram, tempered in the fire of revenge, has been plunged deftly, to rankle in the very quick of a victim's vanity, and is reeking from wounds innumerable which it has inflicted? It is a hideous joy, that grim, solitary pleasure, relished without witnesses; it is like a duel with an absent enemy, slain at a distance ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac

... that he is indispensable from the business point of view. Besides, as every one knows, close contact in narrow circles has a tendency to cramp the mind. Trifling annoyances, real or imaginary, are apt to rankle in the spirit unless they be brushed away by the quick, firm touch of the great world. Kleinstaedtisches Leben, despite its many advantages, fails to develop the burgher in every direction. It leaves him one-sided, if not exactly ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, April, 1876. • Various

... approbation. Every course of action in hostility, however that hostility may be just or merited, is not justifiable or excusable. It is the duty of those who claim to rule over others not to provoke them beyond the necessity of the case, nor to leave stings in their minds which must long rankle even when the appearance of tranquillity is restored. We therefore assure your Majesty that it is with shame and sorrow we have seen several acts of hostility which could have no other tendency than incurably to alienate the minds of your American subjects. To excite, by a proclamation issued by ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VI. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... heavily on my hands. We made up the vests, but the otherwise pleasant labor of my needle was embittered by the reflection of how great a wrong had been done to us. The sting of this imposition continued to rankle in my heart so long as we were the bondwomen of ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 88, February, 1865 • Various

... Lake of Darkness, we made for Buccleugh, passing the cleugh where the buck was ta'en. Surely it is the deepest, the steepest, and the greenest cleugh that is shone on by the sun! Thereby we met an angler, an ancient man in hodden grey, strolling home from the Rankle burn. And we told him of our bad day, and asked him concerning that hideous fly, which had covered the loch and lured the trout from our decent Greenwells and March browns. And the ancient man listened to our description ...
— Angling Sketches • Andrew Lang

... dreadful things to one another without any one being a penny the worse. They do not understand one another's language. But if they speak a common tongue, the words which pass when the most ephemeral squabble arises stick and rankle. ...
— Getting Together • Ian Hay

... hand, but with a bad grace. He was dominated. This affront of Cleve's would rankle ...
— The Border Legion • Zane Grey



Words linked to "Rankle" :   rag, chafe, irritate, rile, get to, vex, annoy, get at, nettle, bother, devil, nark, gravel



Copyright © 2024 Dictionary One.com