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Respectable   /rɪspˈɛktəbəl/  /rispˈɛktəbəl/   Listen
Respectable

adjective
1.
Characterized by socially or conventionally acceptable morals.
2.
Deserving of esteem and respect.  Synonyms: estimable, good, honorable.  "Ruined the family's good name"
3.
Large in amount or extent or degree.  Synonyms: goodish, goodly, healthy, hefty, sizable, sizeable, tidy.  "A goodly amount" , "Received a hefty bonus" , "A respectable sum" , "A tidy sum of money" , "A sizable fortune"






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Respectable" Quotes from Famous Books



... man, taking off his hat and giving it a brush with his elbow as they entered the restaurant, as if trying to appear as respectable as he could in the eyes of a ...
— Tiger and Tom and Other Stories for Boys • Various

... Bridget McCarty that wears the breeches," said that lady. "It's me husband's, and a dacent, respectable man he is, barrin' the drink, which turns his head. ...
— Paul the Peddler - The Fortunes of a Young Street Merchant • Horatio Alger, Jr.

... foreign investment and delay foreign aid. On the brighter side, the government is addressing these issues with assistance from bilateral and multilateral donors. So long as political stability lasts, the Cambodian economy is likely to grow at a respectable pace. ...
— The 2000 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.

... you know what that implies! His serge costs more than one of our velvet gowns . . . . And then her artistic tastes, her bric-a brac! Her salon looks like a museum or a bazaar. I grant you it makes a very pretty setting for her and all her coquetries. But in my time respectable women were contented with furniture covered with red or yellow silk damask furnished by their upholsterers. They didn't go about trying to hunt up the impossible. 'On ne cherche pas midi a quatorze heures'. You hold, as I ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet

... known that you differed with him, it will do you the greatest honour to vindicate him, instead of disculpating yourself. My most earnest desire always is, to have your character continue as amiable and respectable as possible. There is no doubt but the whole will come out, and therefore your justification not coming from yourself will set it in a ten times better light. I shall go to town to-day to meet your brother; and as I know his affection for you will make him warm in clearing ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole

... consider Christians who believe in the natural birth of Jesus, of whom he implies that there is a respectable minority, to be heretics, though he himself strongly holds the preternatural birth of Jesus and his pre-existence as the "Logos" or "Word." He conceives the Logos to be a second God, inferior to the first, unknowable God, with respect to whom Justin, like Philo, ...
— Collected Essays, Volume V - Science and Christian Tradition: Essays • T. H. Huxley

... special friends, and I greatly fear he is making love to Gertrude. Now I know privately, on the very best authority, that although he has so completely deceived every one and has managed so cleverly to pose as a respectable man, that Mr. Zaluski is really a Nihilist, a free-lover, an atheist, and altogether a most unprincipled man. He is very clever, and speaks English most fluently, indeed he has lived in London since the spring of 1881—he told me so himself. I cannot help fancying ...
— The Autobiography of a Slander • Edna Lyall

... there's a good deal to be said for going out to the colonies. A man feels that he is helping the spread of civilisation; and that's something, you know. I should compare myself with the Greek and Roman colonists—something inspiriting in that thought—what? Why shouldn't I found a respectable newspaper, for instance? Yes, I shall think very seriously ...
— Born in Exile • George Gissing

... object of the writer was to exhibit the institution of marriage as the cause of what he was pleased to regard as woman's degradation and slavery; and his heroine is a young lady of highly respectable parentage, who proposes to regenerate womanhood by living with, and having children by, a man, without submitting to the humiliation of any legal bond. She accomplishes her purpose, and has a daughter, whose position, under our false civilisation, becomes so disagreeable in ...
— A Critical Examination of Socialism • William Hurrell Mallock

... pervading acidity of face and temper, but it was no more. To take her name as standing for a fair setting forth of her character would be highly injurious to a really respectable composition, which the world's neglect (there was no other imaginable cause) had soured ...
— Queechy, Volume I • Elizabeth Wetherell

... world who understand the method of rearing and multiplying the breed of cattle equal to the Marathas. It is by no means uncommon for a Silladar to enter a service with one mare and in a few years be able to muster a very respectable Pagah. They have many methods of rendering the animal prolific; they back their colts much earlier than we do and they are consequently more valuable as they come sooner on the ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume IV of IV - Kumhar-Yemkala • R.V. Russell

... But while on the one hand a general indifference to American literature as a whole has carried with it a lack of acquaintance with individual writers, that lack of acquaintance with the individuals naturally reacted to confirm disbelief in the existence of any respectable body of American literature. And the chilling and century-long contempt of the English public and of English critics for all American writing produced its result in a national exaggeration in American minds of their own shortcomings. ...
— The Twentieth Century American - Being a Comparative Study of the Peoples of the Two Great - Anglo-Saxon Nations • H. Perry Robinson

... magistrate then came forward, and drew an ironical contrast between the "respectable" people in the gallery and the "thieves" down below. "God says we have all 'robbed Him.' All are equal in God's sight. But some of us are pardoned thieves." At this point the discourse became theological, and fired ...
— Mystic London: - or, Phases of occult life in the metropolis • Charles Maurice Davies

... immediate answer from the respectable Mr. Nicholas was gratified, although it came in the form of a dignified rebuff: Mr. Nicholas "had no apprehension of the necessity or propriety of ...
— Patrick Henry • Moses Coit Tyler

... outer darkness of scientific and philosophical transactions and proceedings, ultra-respectable, but covered with the dust of disregard. I have descended into journalism. I have come back with the quasi-souls of ...
— The Book of the Damned • Charles Fort

... great ship-builders. His father, Peter Pett, was one of the Queen's master shipwrights. Besides being a ship-builder, he was also a poet, being the author of a poetical piece entitled, "Time's Journey to seek his daughter Truth,"[16] a very respectable performance. Indeed, poetry is by no means incompatible with ship-building—the late Chief Constructor of the Navy being, perhaps, as proud of his poetry as of his ships. Pett's poem was dedicated to the Lord High Admiral, Howard, Earl of Nottingham; and this may possibly ...
— Men of Invention and Industry • Samuel Smiles

... happy life together, this poor darling and I! What would there be left for us if we had not that? We are so wretched, my respectable sir! We have arms, but there is no work! We have the will, no work! I don't know how the government arranges that, but, on my word of honor, sir, I am not Jacobin, sir, I am not a bousingot.[30] I don't wish them any evil, but if I were the ministers, on ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo

... Wheeler, Susan's grandmother) had given us admittance, and we soon stood on the steps in front of the house, in calm survey of the scene before us. Hatherden was just the place to like or not to like, according to the feeling of the hour; a respectable, comfortable country house, with a lawn before, a paddock on one side, a shrubbery on the other; offices and a kitchen garden behind, and the usual ornaments of villas and advertisements, a greenhouse and ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 14, No. 399, Supplementary Number • Various

... and its inmates far more prosperous in appearance than had ever been the case before. Christina had once again the appliances of a wirthschaft, such as she felt to be the suitable and becoming appurtenance of a right-minded Frau, gentle or simple, and she felt so much the happier and more respectable. ...
— The Dove in the Eagle's Nest • Charlotte M. Yonge

... to all appearance, no less in love than she. I frequently encountered them walking through the unfrequented by-paths of the Retiro, at a respectable distance from her mother, who lingered opportunely to examine the first opening buds of flowers or some curious insect. Mothers, at this critical period of courtship, are under an obligation to be admirers of the works ...
— First Love (Little Blue Book #1195) - And Other Fascinating Stories of Spanish Life • Various

... But is "sentiment" to be ignored in the fixing of constitutions? Ruskin asks a pertinent question. What is it after all but "sentiment," he inquires, that prevents a man from killing his grandmother in time of hunger? Sentiment is the most respectable thing in human psychology. No one believes in it more thoroughly than your reactionary Tory. But he wears his heart on his sleeve with a difference. He is so greedily patriotic that he would keep all the patriotism ...
— The Open Secret of Ireland • T. M. Kettle

... spring of his soul; let him not be seduced by the sarcasms of those voluptuaries, who pretend to despise an immortality, towards which they lack the power to set forward; the desire of pleasing posterity, of rendering his name agreeable to generations yet to come, is a respectable, a laudable motive, when it causes him to undertake those things, of which the utility may be felt, of which the advantages may have an influence not only over his contemporaries, but also over nations who have not yet an existence. Let ...
— The System of Nature, Vol. 1 • Baron D'Holbach

... and prose, and he continually shows that he thought highly of his own endowments; but if he praises himself, he does it with that dignified frankness and simplicity of conscious truth, which renders even egotism respectable and delightful: whether he describes the fervent and tender emotions of his juvenile fancy, or delineates his situation in the decline of life, when he had to struggle with calamity and peril, the more insight he affords us into his own sentiments and feelings, the more reason we find ...
— Poemata (William Cowper, trans.) • John Milton

... how they were to know the proper owners. Three wretched-looking creatures crawled into the post-office and said they wanted those three bags—"those bags, there in the corner"—which happened to be nice, clean, respectable- looking bags, the sort of bags that anyone might want. One of them produced a bit of paper, it is true, which he said had been given to him as a receipt by the post-office people at Constance. But in the lonely passes of ...
— The Angel and the Author - and Others • Jerome K. Jerome

... favor; he was not only learned, so learned, in fact, that he was promptly dubbed the "scholar in politics," but he was rich, and therefore immune from all sordid temptation; he was a gentleman. Mr. Lodge's forbears had been respectable tradesmen who knew how to make money and to keep it—and the latter trait is strongly developed in their senatorial descendant. From them he inherited a fortune; he had been educated in a select private ...
— The Mirrors of Washington • Anonymous

... an imperfect sketch of his work, and to accomplish these ends, he is secure of the liberal aid of many most respectable persons in this city and New York. He regrets the necessity he is under of concealing these names, since they would furnish the public with irresistible inducements to read what, when they had read, they would find sufficiently recommended ...
— The Philadelphia Magazines and their Contributors 1741-1850 • Albert Smyth

... would have understood the romance, but she would have comprehended me. I knew that she was powerless to save me from the wrath to come. I wept. It was because I hated to lie to her,—yet I did so. Fear gripped me, and—like some respectable criminals I have since known—I understood that any confession I made would inexorably be used against me.... I wonder whether she knew I was lying? At any rate, the case appeared to be a grave one, and I was presently remanded to my room to ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... desired; 'By what authority the French engineers had been placed in the service of Holland?' And that he answered, that the inquiry had not been made, nor should be made. Though I do not consider the channel through which I get this fact, as absolutely sure, yet it is so respectable, that I give credit to it myself. 5. The King of Prussia is withdrawing his troops from Holland. Should this alliance show itself it would seem that France, thus strengthened, might dictate the re-establishment of the ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson

... which has had the honour of modern publication. What the excuse is we shall say presently. Wither was born at Brentworth, in the Alresford district of Hampshire (a district afterwards delightfully described by him), on 11th June 1588. His family was respectable; and though not the eldest son, he had at one time some landed property. He was for two years at Magdalen College, Oxford, of which he speaks with much affection, but was removed before taking his degree. ...
— A History of English Literature - Elizabethan Literature • George Saintsbury

... of the last century, there lived a tailor in Front street, near Market, in the midst of the most respectable people of that period; among the number was our esteemed friend Mr. Hembel, as also Judge Tilghman. This tailor possessed an ill-tempered little spaniel, who, lounging about the street-door, attacked every one that passed by, snapping and snarling in the most worrisome manner, more particularly ...
— The Dog - A nineteenth-century dog-lovers' manual, - a combination of the essential and the esoteric. • William Youatt

... have in the business they study, practise, and get fame and pudding by. Consider, too, how his belief in his art must have been strengthened and confirmed by the belief of other men in it; able men of former times, and respectable men of his own time. Indeed we will say of astrology generally that it is a much better thing than the spiritualism of this present day, with its idle rappings ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. IV. October, 1863, No. IV. - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various

... probably a native of Devonshire, for there he spent the last years of his life; spent them too, in some sort of consideration, for Mr. T. a very respectable surgeon of Ashburton, loved to repeat to me, when I first grew into notice, that he had ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 5, May 1810 • Various

... heart good to see it. Instead of a lonely and ragged man with a huge burden on his back, plodding along sorrowfully on foot while the whole city hooted after him, here were parties of the first gentry and most respectable people in the neighborhood setting forth towards the Celestial City as cheerfully as if the pilgrimage were merely a summer tour. Among the gentlemen were characters of deserved eminence—magistrates, politicians, and men of wealth, by ...
— Mosses from an Old Manse and Other Stories • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... French word for gipsy is bohemien, and from this we have the English word Bohemian. When we say a person is "a Bohemian," we mean that he lives in the way he really likes, and does not care whether other people think he is quite respectable or not. It was the novelist Thackeray who first used the word Bohemian ...
— Stories That Words Tell Us • Elizabeth O'Neill

... fairly afloat. The anti-slavery agitation had sprung to a vigorous life. The "irrepressible conflict" was begun. Nor can it be denied that its beginning was highly respectable. If there be any good in elevated social rank joined to distinguished ability, if there be any advantage in the favor of honorable and right-minded men, any dignity in British halls of legislation, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 50, December, 1861 • Various

... which he prided himself. But, as he cast about for some woman to whom he might take the hapless girl he had rescued, his thoughts fell on Aggie, and forthwith his determination was made, since he knew that she was respectable, viewed according to his own peculiar lights. He was relieved rather than otherwise to learn that there was already an acquaintance between the two women, and the fact that his charge had served time in prison did not influence him one jot against her. ...
— Within the Law - From the Play of Bayard Veiller • Marvin Dana

... for match-making, and, somehow or another, Henry Stephens had contrived to steal away the heart of the 'Downshire' belle. Prudence, however, compelled our young people to postpone their marriage, and whilst the good housewife qualities of the one readily procured her a situation in a highly respectable family in Melbourne, Henry obtained an appointment in the police force of ...
— A Lady's Visit to the Gold Diggings of Australia in 1852-53. • Mrs. Charles (Ellen) Clacey

... should have admired this unaffected statement; but Wordsworth rarely praised his contemporaries, and said that "Guy Mannering" was a respectable effort in the style of Mrs. Radcliffe. Nor did he even extol, though it is more in ...
— Essays in Little • Andrew Lang

... them all up." "Well done, well done," said everybody, "a very good idea. I dare say it did happen." So then we fell upon conjecturing what we should have done to save ourselves under similar circumstances, which gave rise to so many bloody-minded schemes and horrible intentions of torture, that no respectable snake would have ventured ...
— Yr Ynys Unyg - The Lonely Island • Julia de Winton

... transform them as boys? Must we be content to transport them as men? And so on Friday there was inaugurated at the Mansion House a scheme for dealing with the roughest lads of our town in such a way as experience has shown does transform them from the possibility of becoming young ruffians into respectable and honest men; in other words, to apply to them in their youth the law of kindness, and so make it unnecessary to apply to them for their discipline the penalty for the breach of any other law throughout their lives. I ask you whether you as Christian ...
— The After-glow of a Great Reign - Four Addresses Delivered in St. Paul's Cathedral • A. F. Winnington Ingram

... opinion exercised an ever increasing influence in the eighteenth century; M. Necker managed to turn it to account. He had married, in 1764, Mdlle. Suzanne Curchod, a Swiss pastor's daughter, pretty, well informed, and passionately devoted to her husband, his successes and his fame. The respectable talents, the liberality, the large scale of living of M. and Madame Necker attracted round them the literary and philosophical circle; the religious principles, the somewhat stiff propriety of Madame Necker maintained in her drawing-room an intelligent and becoming gravity ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume VI. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot

... to Freron for the Paris meridian [that is his real crime]; delightful news from canaille to canaille: 'How Voltaire had lost a great Lawsuit, respectable Jew Banker cheated by Voltaire; that Voltaire was disgraced by the King,' who of course loves Jews; 'that Voltaire was ruined; was ill; nay at last, that Voltaire was dead.'" To the joy of Freron, and the scoundrels ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XVI. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—The Ten Years of Peace.—1746-1756. • Thomas Carlyle

... met with him as a general and his army emerging from the wilderness. This first broad road must again from the necessity of the case, for there was no other at that time, have been the road from Cheraw hill to Camden. Thus have the accounts of two respectable witnesses, Dr. Irvine and Gen. Cantey, been reconciled, which appeared at ...
— A Sketch of the Life of Brig. Gen. Francis Marion • William Dobein James

... deviating from his proper line, and of impertinently interfering in the concerns of a Profession to which he does not belong. If it were necessary, however, to defend himself against this charge, he might shelter himself under the authority of many most respectable examples. But surely to such an accusation it may be sufficient to reply, that it is the duty of every man to promote the happiness of his fellow-creatures to the utmost of his power; and that he who thinks he sees many around him, whom he esteems and loves, labouring under ...
— A Practical View of the Prevailing Religious System of Professed Christians, in the Middle and Higher Classes in this Country, Contrasted with Real Christianity. • William Wilberforce

... The highly respectable Americans who were to serve as the link between the soldiers and the ladies decidedly declined the office, objecting to the martial gentleman as being altogether too dangerous to bring into the dove-cot. So the poor dears sighed in vain, and ...
— Shawl-Straps - A Second Series of Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag • Louisa M. Alcott

... Negro section of the town and to the home of a widow who had two daughters. They were refused admittance and then fired into the house. The girls, frightened, ran to another home. They were pursued, and Berry Washington, a respectable Negro seventy-two years of age, seized a shotgun, intending to give them protection; and in the course of the shooting that followed Dowdy was killed. The next night, Saturday the 25th, Washington ...
— A Social History of the American Negro • Benjamin Brawley

... a brilliant success. Dug-outs were bombed, emplacements destroyed, and a respectable bag of captives brought over. But the element of surprise, upon which so much insistence was laid above, was visited upon both attackers and attacked. To the former the contribution came from that well-meaning but somewhat ...
— All In It K(1) Carries On - A Continuation of the First Hundred Thousand • John Hay Beith (AKA: Ian Hay)

... money to go to places," his mother explained, "and there's no money in the house. It's all I've been able to do to put enough food in your hungry mouths to keep soul and body together and to get enough clothes to keep you looking decent and respectable. I was counting on some money from Mrs. Green to-day, to buy a little meat for supper and get some more cough medicine for Kathleen, but she wasn't satisfied with the dress and I've got to do part of it over before ...
— The Circus Comes to Town • Lebbeus Mitchell

... to give milk during the residue of their lives, or until prevented by old age. When I saw the last two spayed cows it was, I believe, during the third year that they had constantly given milk after they were spayed. The character of Mr. Winn (now deceased) was highly respectable, and the most entire confidence could be reposed in the fidelity of his statements; and as regarded the facts which he communicated in relation to the several cows which he had spayed, numerous persons with whom I became acquainted, fully ...
— Cattle and Their Diseases • Robert Jennings

... He asked me, would the missus like to make a trifle by taking charge of a couple of children? I said I thought she might, and so he brought me to the hotel, and I saw a young woman as said she and her husband were going abroad, and wished to leave the two little ones with some respectable person in the glens. Well, I saw her a second time, and then it was all settled. She gave us 20 pounds down, and said she would write. I didn't like to ask questions, thinking, perhaps, it wasn't all on the square about the bairns, and so I'm not sure I ever ...
— A Child of the Glens - or, Elsie's Fortune • Edward Newenham Hoare

... who has been wont to entertain her master with the display of her musical talents, to free herself from all signs of her former profession and identify herself as closely as possible with the ordinary "respectable" bourgeoise of the harem, from whom she has been distinguished hitherto by unveiled face and freedom of ingress and egress; and with this aim in view she would naturally be inclined to exaggerate the rigour of Muslim custom, as applied ...
— Tales from the Arabic Volumes 1-3 • John Payne

... as the thieves had broken up the boxes in hopes of getting goods more suitable for their purpose. Even with this small remaining stock I adventured to proceed for the Indies, where, by exchange and re-exchange, with much patient diligence, and with the blessing of God, I at length acquired a respectable stock. ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VII • Robert Kerr

... learned in their youth the possibility of resort to such practices: the less also can we wonder when we know that they met only similar denials in the higher Rossian society, and when we consider that such denials came from a source one is naturally inclined to respect, when the man denying seems respectable. How can we fancy a lie told by a gentleman in golden uniform, or a lady in a lace dress? But if the defenders of the civilization of Rossia and of the noble manners of its aristocracy knew all the cruel judgments of Rossian masters, the lewdness, recklessness, indecency, and shallowness ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 2, August, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... trial, Aristides, called the Just, Miltiades, the victor of Marathon, and Themistocles, the victor of Salamis. The excesses of the Paris Commune of 1870 during its reign, the lynchings of today by mobs of so-called "respectable citizens" who assume the power to accuse, judge and execute all at once, indicate how much regard unrestrained democracies would have for the ...
— Concerning Justice • Lucilius A. Emery

... own interests. What better offer could she expect? Suppose James was a rough diamond; he might still make a better husband than some other man better educated. He had had no advantages, but he was respectable and clever. Everyone admitted that he was smart. His ideas were simply wonderful. One of these days he would make a lot of money with his brains, and then she would be proud to be his wife. Thus she reasoned and, once she made up her mind, nothing ...
— Bought and Paid For - From the Play of George Broadhurst • Arthur Hornblow

... dear boy, I am very pleased to have seen you. Henceforth, I shall believe in miracles. Good heavens! How highly respectable ...
— Therese Raquin • Emile Zola

... arrived in the case of the Soviet Government for certain obvious reasons. For one thing, a collapse of the Soviet Government at the present time would be disconcerting, if not disastrous, to its more respectable enemies. It would, of course, open the way to a practically unopposed military advance, but at the same time it would present its enemies with enormous territory, which would overwhelm the organizing powers which they have shown again and again to ...
— The Crisis in Russia - 1920 • Arthur Ransome

... looked contented, and on good terms with the world; but, though prosperous, they certainly did not look it. In fact, they were all three exceedingly, almost disreputably, shabby. They looked more like tramps than respectable gold-miners. ...
— The Young Miner - or Tom Nelson in California • Horatio Alger, Jr.

... am afraid we live in a world of misnomers, and of a worse kind than this. In my little experience I have found that a gang of swindling bankers is a respectable old firm; that men who sell their votes to the highest bidder, and want only 'the protection of the ballot' to sell the promise of them to both parties, are a free and independent constituency; that a man who successively betrays ...
— Gryll Grange • Thomas Love Peacock

... tiny comfort to the elder girl as he bade his adieux in the parlor of the respectable lodging house he had found for her—the same caravansary (had they but known it) that housed ...
— Orphans of the Storm • Henry MacMahon

... seventeenth century, women appear as actors; in England it was not until long after the death of her greatest dramatist that (in 1660) women could fill a role upon the stage without serious hindrance or molestation; in Japan, even now, play-acting is not looked upon as a respectable profession for women. For a long time in England and elsewhere, female parts were taken by children and youths. Here also we meet with companies of child-actors, such as the "Boys of the Grammar School at Westminster," "The Children of Paul's," etc. The influence which produced these ...
— The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought • Alexander F. Chamberlain

... been buoyed up with the hope, that an attempt, of some kind or other, would be made to open a communication across their isthmus, calculated to compensate them for all their losses; and hence they have always been disposed to second the exertions of any respectable party prepared to undertake a work which they cannot themselves accomplish. They have heard of the time of the Galeones, when the fleet, annually arriving from Peru, landed its treasures in their port, which were exultingly carried overland to Porto Bello, where the fair ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 337, November, 1843 • Various

... but a poet from the country. In Parisian society money never appears on the scene; it is assumed that you have it and are above these details, like the people in genteel comedy. A breach of this convention would banish the transgressor from respectable company. ...
— The Immortal - Or, One Of The "Forty." (L'immortel) - 1877 • Alphonse Daudet

... out, "he has become an eminently respectable and patriotic millionnaire, giving of his abundance to save the nation's life, living in a palace meanwhile. What did he mean by his passionate words, 'I shall measure everything hereafter by the breadth of your woman's soul'? What have the words amounted to? You know, ...
— An Original Belle • E. P. Roe

... St. John's that year, suggest that the greater part of the latter force would have been better employed in New York and New Jersey than about Champlain. However that may be, the diversion to the Carolinas of a third body, respectable in point of numbers, is scarcely to be defended on military grounds. The government was induced to it by the expectation of local support from royalists. That there were many of these in both Carolinas is certain; but while military operations must take account ...
— The Major Operations of the Navies in the War of American Independence • A. T. Mahan

... boast) by early intercourse with polished society. His features, also, were handsome, and promised to be manly and dignified when they should cease to be youthful. His character as a scholar was more than respectable, though many youthful follies, sometimes, perhaps, approaching near to vices, were laid to his charge. But his occasional derelictions from discipline were not such as to create any very serious apprehensions respecting his future welfare; ...
— Fanshawe • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... in drinking pitarrilla from the same cup. Then they give a shout, and all the guests depart; and they are considered as married, for they are not allowed to drink together until late at night. The same ceremony is observed by rich and respectable slaves. ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803, Volume V., 1582-1583 • Various

... in outward appearance from those with which all essential parts of their organization show them to be really closely allied. They appear like actors or masqueraders dressed up and painted for amusement, or like swindlers endeavouring to pass themselves off for well-known and respectable members of society. What is the meaning of this strange travestie? Does Nature descend to imposture or masquerade? We answer, she does not. Her principles are too severe. There is a use in every detail of her handiwork. The resemblance of one animal to another is of exactly the ...
— Contributions to the Theory of Natural Selection - A Series of Essays • Alfred Russel Wallace

... ventilation, the necessity of pure air, you would deserve a monument. And, besides—this is an appeal to your lower nature—science is now the thing that pays." Theology she never considered; that was just now too uncertain in its direction. Law she had finally approved; it was still respectable; it was a very good waiting-ground for many opportunities, and it did not absolutely bar him from literature, for which she perceived he had a ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner

... which the canoe was now launched, although not so large as Superior, was, nevertheless, a respectable body of water, on which the sun was shining as if on a shield of bright silver. There were numbers of small islets scattered over its surface; some thickly wooded to the water's edge, others little better than bare rocks. Crossing this lake they came to ...
— Away in the Wilderness • R.M. Ballantyne

... party was very respectable in regard to numbers and enlisted much sympathy, still they had no wounds or bruises to exhibit, or very hard reports to make relative to their bondage. The treatment that had been meted out to them was about as tolerant as Slavery could well afford; and the ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still

... writing that portion of my opinion which directly bore upon the legality of the marriage; that such a paper would go far towards satisfying his friend that his case had been properly presented; as he was aware that no respectable lawyer would put his name to a legal opinion without first having carefully arrived at his conclusions by a thorough examination of the law bearing upon ...
— The Leavenworth Case • Anna Katharine Green

... thoughts. That faithful clergyman, his uncle Contarine, persuaded his nephew into those paths of decorous ignorance in which the ranks of the respectable tread their gentle way, and are not rude enough to question custom. He in his time had been a sizar, and had not found the duties devolving lowering or an impediment, as he said, to intimacy and association ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • E. S. Lang Buckland

... to have been the nephew of Col. Joseph Belt, the original patentee of Chevy Chase. He was a highly respectable man and ...
— A Portrait of Old George Town • Grace Dunlop Ecker

... spell-binding, and sentiment slush,—sentiment, that is, in books and on the stage,—and he was indulgently inclined to suspect that there was something "in it" for whoever appeared to be essaying a benevolent enterprise. Respectable, liberal-handed, habitually amused, slightly caustic, he looked out for the good of himself and those related to him and considered that he was justified in closing his corporate regards at that point. He ...
— The Precipice • Elia Wilkinson Peattie

... Billie, as she came to a stop before a three-story brick building that had all the respectable and uncomfortable appearance ...
— Billie Bradley and Her Inheritance - The Queer Homestead at Cherry Corners • Janet D. Wheeler

... enemy may be counteracted in two ways, both of which deserve the serious attention of your Legislature. The first and most important is, by making such exertions to procure a respectable army early in the season, that the mediators casting their eyes upon the muster rolls, may there read a full refutation of all that British artifice can suggest. I need not observe, that this measure must go hand in hand with taxation, since ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. XI • Various

... pen? How dare a perverse girl take these liberties with relations so very respectable, and whom she highly respects? What an unhappy situation is that which obliges her, in her own defence as it were, to ...
— Clarissa, Volume 1 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson

... was much what you would have expected it to be, bearing to other offices the same relation as he to other business men. He had it because not to have it wouldn't have been respectable. A young American who didn't go to an office every day would hardly have been a young American. An office, then, was a concession to public sentiment, as well as ...
— The Dust Flower • Basil King

... an intelligent—view of your function in life. The desire to live by your own labour is actuated by the very proper feeling that you ought to be doing your duty in the social organism. Your present work is equal to, say, three respectable pairs of boots a week. That, you will admit, is a fair measure of your utility. Now, if by becoming a great poet, you could give pleasure and delight to thousands of your fellow-men, it seems to me your utility would be fairly represented by quite a considerable ...
— Cleo The Magnificent - The Muse of the Real • Louis Zangwill

... the personnel bureau to develop some respectable black manpower statistics, it is unlikely that the lack of educated, black recruits can be blamed on widespread subterfuge at the recruiting level. Far more likely is the explanation offered by Under Secretary Kimball, that the black ...
— Integration of the Armed Forces, 1940-1965 • Morris J. MacGregor Jr.

... was so regardless of the duties of his office and the feelings of humanity should hold so lucrative and responsible a situation as the one which he enjoys to this day? There have been serious complaints made against him, within a year or two, by several respectable captains of vessels. ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, June 1844 - Volume 23, Number 6 • Various

... thought it over. It was her as first said that Fred was getting a nice young chap, and very respectable, and why should he be left out in the cold? And so I says to her, I says, "Well, you can make your will i' favour o' Fred, if you've a mind." "Nay, Meshach," her says, "never ask me to cut out our John's name." "Well," I says ...
— Leonora • Arnold Bennett

... upon the estate on the part of the younger son; but Ralph was sufficiently generous not to pay much attention to this. From the social point of view, no great difference would be made; it was as respectable to have a monk for a brother as a small squire, and Chris could never be more than this unless he made a good marriage. From the spiritual point of view—and here Ralph stopped and wondered whether it was very seriously worth ...
— The King's Achievement • Robert Hugh Benson

... you know—that you call 'Daisy' and 'Daise' and sometimes 'Strawberry.' These fondnesses for children and clergymen prove to me, Florian, that an Amidon is good goods on any confounded plane of consciousness you can throw 'em into—conservative, respectable, and all that, ...
— Double Trouble - Or, Every Hero His Own Villain • Herbert Quick

... you might let a chap in,' said the voice outside. 'I'm perfectly respectable. Upon ...
— Oswald Bastable and Others • Edith Nesbit

... the difficulty remains—one has to choose. For though I have no wish to be Queen of England or only for a moment—I would willingly sit beside her; I would hear the Prime Minister's gossip; the countess whisper, and share her memories of halls and gardens; the massive fronts of the respectable conceal after all their secret code; or why so impermeable? And then, doffing one's own headpiece, how strange to assume for a moment some one's—any one's—to be a man of valour who has ruled the Empire; to refer while Brangaena sings to the fragments of Sophocles, or see in a flash, ...
— Jacob's Room • Virginia Woolf

... Did he not know Bobby well enough to be assured that he was as firm and solid as a rock, that nothing at all could move or change him? And after all, was not he, Peter, wishing to be engaged and married and the father of a family and the owner of a respectable mansion? ...
— Fortitude • Hugh Walpole

... be shocked at this extravagant cynicism; to quote it, as respectable English journalists used to do, as a proof of the awful corruption of French society, or to regard it as semi-humorous exaggeration? I can't quite sympathise with people who take Balzac seriously. I ...
— Hours in a Library, Volume I. (of III.) • Leslie Stephen

... dignify, glorify; sing praises to &c (approve) 931; lock up to; exalt, aggrandize, elevate, nobilitate [Lat.]. Adj. distinguished, distingue [Fr.], noted; of note &c n.; honored &c v.; popular; fashionable &c 852. in good odor in; favor, in high favor; reputable, respectable, creditable. remarkable &c (important) 642; notable, notorious; celebrated, renowned, ion every one's mouth, talked of; famous, famed; far-famed; conspicuous, to the front; foremost; in the front rank, in the ascendant. imperishable, deathless, immortal, never fading, aere ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget

... distinguished her, but which characterized neither of her parents. Her paternal grandfather was a manufacturer in Spitalfields, of whom little is known, except that he was of Irish extraction and that he himself was respectable and prosperous. To his son, Edward John, Mary's father, he left a fortune of ten thousand pounds, no inconsiderable sum in those days for a man of his social position. Her mother was Elizabeth, daughter of Mr. Dixon, of Ballyshannon, Ireland, ...
— Mary Wollstonecraft • Elizabeth Robins Pennell

... returned to Paris as the well-known banker, Martin Rigal, the pretty Flavia's father, having, as he thought, obliterated Mascarin as completely as he had done Tantaine; but he had not noticed in the train with him a very dark young man with piercing eyes, who looked like the traveller of some respectable commercial firm. As soon as he reached his home, and had tenderly embraced his daughter, he went to the private room of Martin Rigal, and opened it with the key that never left his person, and then gazed at a large rough mass of brickwork which disfigured one side ...
— The Champdoce Mystery • Emile Gaboriau

... the wealth they have acquired. "Almost any man may quarry marble or stone," but how few can build a Rheims or "create an Apollo." When one thinks of the gambling, quackery, and other vocations far less respectable upon which vast fortunes are spent he thinks how dreadful the results of all of this spending. "What if all this wealth that is spent foolishly were used to advance the common interests of mankind? ...
— See America First • Orville O. Hiestand

... and resembles Enoch Arden in a certain degree. James Harris, a seaman, plighted to Jane Reynolds, was captured by a press-gang, taken overseas, and, after three years, reported dead and buried in a foreign land. After a respectable interval, a ship-carpenter came to Jane Reynolds, and eventually wedded her, and the loving couple had three pretty children. One night, however, the ship-carpenter being on a three days' journey, a spirit came to the window, and said that his name was James ...
— Ballads of Mystery and Miracle and Fyttes of Mirth - Popular Ballads of the Olden Times - Second Series • Frank Sidgwick

... on the north side of Oxford Street, in a dull but respectable thoroughfare. I found the house shut up,—no bill at the window, and no response to my knock. As I was turning away, a beer-boy, collecting pewter pots at the neighboring areas, said to me, "Do you want any ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.

... state-owned industries. The government remains opposed to EU membership, primarily because of Icelanders' concern about losing control over their fishing resources. Growth is likely to slow in 1998, to a still respectable 3.9%. ...
— The 1998 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.

... they were among the bravest and most efficient in the world, and it was largely their efforts and example which enabled the city to hold out so long. Motley describes them as a corps of three hundred fighting women, "all females of respectable character, armed with sword, musket, and dagger. Their chief, Kenau Hasselaer, was a widow of distinguished family, and unblemished reputation, about forty-seven years of age, who, at the head of ...
— A Wanderer in Holland • E. V. Lucas

... your husband's kinswoman will look much more respectable," answered the Captain; and in this, as in most matters, ...
— Vixen, Volume II. • M. E. Braddon

... so eminently in this order animated the whole Catholic world. The Court of Rome itself was purified. During the generation which preceded the Reformation, that court had been a scandal to the Christian name. Its annals are black with treason, murder, and incest. Even its more respectable members were utterly unfit to be ministers of religion. They were men like Leo the Tenth; men who, with the Latinity of the Augustan age, had acquired its atheistical and scoffing spirit. They regarded those Christian mysteries, of which they were stewards, just as the Augur Cicero ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... at these edifying services. I believe that no movement was made in the church on either Sunday, until the whole of the authorised reading- service was gone through, and I am sure that nothing was more remote from the more respectable party than any personal antagonism toward Mr. Redhead. He was one of the most amiable and worthy of men, a man to myself endeared by many ties and obligations. I never heard before your book that the sweep ascended the pulpit steps. He was present, however, ...
— The Life of Charlotte Bronte - Volume 1 • Elizabeth Gaskell

... sinner and a scoffer, and Bill is an earnest, thorough, respectable old freethinker, and consequently they often get a War Cry or a tract sent inside their exchanges—somebody puts it in ...
— While the Billy Boils • Henry Lawson

... these notices agree with the Persian accounts, both as to the locality of the Parthians and as to the fact of their subjection to the Persian government. They further agree in assigning to the Parthians a respectable military character, yet one of no very special eminency. On the ethnology of the nation, and the circumstances under which the country became an integral part of the Persian dominions, they throw no light. We have still to seek an answer ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 6. (of 7): Parthia • George Rawlinson

... do go, the best and worthiest are always striving to acquire the means of leaving the colony, and of returning to their native land. In ill-governed and ill-conditioned countries, on the contrary, the most respectable of the people are willing and anxious to emigrate for the chance of greater security and enlarged freedom; and if they succeed in obtaining these blessings in almost any degree, they have little inducement, on the average, to wish to abandon ...
— Specimens of the Table Talk of S.T.Coleridge • Coleridge

... relating had been a crime committed by myself. It was my own ingenuity that hid the dead body, and removed the traces of blood—and my own self-control that presented me as an innocent person, when the victim was missing, and I was asked (among other respectable people) to say whether I thought he was ...
— The Guilty River • Wilkie Collins

... production and livestock raising. Small-scale manufacturing activity features the processing of peanuts, fish, and hides. A sustained structural adjustment program, including a liberalized trade policy, had fostered a respectable 4% annual rate of growth in 1990-93. Reexport trade normally constitutes one-third of economic activity; however, border closures associated with Senegal's monetary crisis in late 1993 led to a halving of reexport trade, ...
— The 1996 CIA Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.

... this?" she stammered; and the scene that met her eyes was certainly strange enough to bewilder a respectable governess. ...
— Angelot - A Story of the First Empire • Eleanor Price

... England's rulers depended on the political intrigues of England's women. She was one who would fain be doing something if she only knew how, and the first important attempt she made was to turn her respectable young Tory husband into a second-rate Whig bantling. As this lady's character will, it is hoped, show itself in the following pages, we need not now describe it ...
— Doctor Thorne • Anthony Trollope

... the peculiar badge of Slavery. It does not stand, as with us, a symbol of intelligence, but a symbol of stupid servitude. It is the business of those whom the law puts out of the pale of society and accounts chattels, and who, by the opinion of society, are at the bottom, and under the feet of respectable men. To work is, therefore, prima facie evidence of degradation. It is ranking oneself with a slave by doing a slave's tasks; as eating a beggar's crust with him would be a ...
— Conflict of Northern and Southern Theories of Man and Society - Great Speech, Delivered in New York City • Henry Ward Beecher

... our meals, and here we slept and smoked and yarned in our watch below. I very well remember my two fellow apprentices. One was named Corbin, and the other Halsted. They were both of them smart, honest, bright lads, coming well equipped and well educated from respectable homes, in love with the calling of the sea, and resolved in time not only to command ships, but to ...
— The Honour of the Flag • W. Clark Russell

... eighteen, he had turned his eyes toward a professorship in one of the great universities of his country; before he was thirty he had won a professorship in the small but respectable college of his native town; and now, when past fifty, he had never won anything more. For him ambition was like the deserted martin box in the corner of his yard: returning summers brought no more birds. Had his abilities been even more extraordinary, the result could not ...
— The Mettle of the Pasture • James Lane Allen

... his own personal veracity and honour, that he believed that the original resolution contained the true cause of the public distress, and the amendment the false one. If the honourable gentleman would say that—if any respectable man present would say it—he ...
— The Life of Thomas, Lord Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald, G.C.B., Admiral of the Red, Rear-Admiral of the Fleet, Etc., Etc. • Thomas Cochrane, Earl of Dundonald

... which hung above each bin; but it was some minutes before she came to a bin labelled "Sherris," which she knew was another name for sack. The bottles had evidently been undisturbed for a long time, for the bin was full of cobweb, and the thick coating of dust upon the glass betokened a respectable age in the wine. She carried off two bottles, one under each arm, and then, with even quicker steps than had brought her to that darksome place, she hastened back to the upper floor, leaving the key in the cellar door, and the door unlocked. ...
— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon

... is there for the amusement of all the shop girls, seamstresses, factory girls, that crowd our cities? What for the thousands of young clerks and operatives? Not long since, in a respectable old town in New England, the body of a beautiful girl was drawn from the river in which she had drowned herself,—a young girl only fifteen, who came to the city, far from home and parents, and fell a victim to the temptation which brought her to shame and desperation. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 107, September, 1866 • Various

... friend Gist was, correctly speaking, a contrabandist. He had too little influence or money to procure a license, and too much enterprise to refrain because he lacked it. He belonged to a class more numerous than respectable, although it would be a good deal to say that there was any virtue in yielding to these petty exactions. It was a mere question of confiscation, or robbery, without redress, by the Indians. He risked it. With traders, at that time, it was customary to take an Indian ...
— Se-Quo-Yah; from Harper's New Monthly, V. 41, 1870 • Unknown

... quite sure! Porphyrius and this young Christian's father were brothers. Philippus must have left his house to his eldest son who is the one that is dead, and it now belongs no doubt to Mary, his widow. I must admit, child, that you choose your adorers from respectable families!" ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... give such power by statute. James indeed had induced his corrupt and servile judges to put on some obsolete laws a construction which enabled him to punish desertion capitally. But this construction was considered by all respectable jurists as unsound, and, had it been sound, would have been far from effecting all that was necessary for the purpose of maintaining military discipline. Even James did not venture to inflict death by ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 3 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... arn't, sir, nowheres. But if he was fed reg'lar like, so as to alter his shape, and I took off part of his ears, and about half his tail, he might be made to look respectable." ...
— The Vast Abyss - The Story of Tom Blount, his Uncles and his Cousin Sam • George Manville Fenn

... contemptible. The judge may seem to be a superior creature so long as he keeps at a distance, for I have never known one who was not constantly trying to look wise and grave; but when you know him, you find there is nothing remarkable about him except a plug hat, a respectable coat, and a great deal of vanity, induced by the servility ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume I. (of X.) • Various

... twenty-nine years old. From the day when a lad of thirteen years he shipped for his first voyage, he had spent his life on the ocean. He had served on peaceful merchantmen, and in the less peaceful, but at that time equally respectable, slave-trade. A small inheritance had enabled him to assume the station of a Virginia gentleman; and he had become warmly attached to American ideas and principles, and at the outbreak of the Revolution put his services at ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 1 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot

... widely ruling lord of golden Mycenae is so skilfully and persistently represented as respectable, indeed, by reason of his office, but detestable, ...
— Homer and His Age • Andrew Lang

... the youngest son of a respectable small farmer at Duffield, Derbyshire, where he was born in 1783. When at school he made steady and rapid progress, but was early removed from it to be apprenticed to a frame-smith near Loughborough. The boy soon learnt to handle tools with dexterity, and he acquired a minute knowledge ...
— Self Help • Samuel Smiles

... occasions me inexpressible uneasiness, I have been almost compelled to consent that my Evelina should quit the protection of the hospitable and respectable Lady Howard, and accompany Madame Duval to a city which I had hoped she would never again have entered. But alas, my dear child, we are the slaves of custom, the dupes of prejudice, and dare not stem the torrent of an opposing ...
— Evelina • Fanny Burney

... there rose a vision of the respectable old butler, and of the two tall, well-matched, but not physically strong-looking footmen. This must be the work of some man he had not yet seen? Of course there must be many men employed about such a ...
— From Out the Vasty Deep • Mrs. Belloc Lowndes

... part of the room, a young lady, observing that nobody seemed to take the least notice of Harry, advanced towards him with the greatest affability, and began to enter into conversation with him. This young lady's name was Simmons. Her father and mother had been two of the most respectable people in the country, according to the old style of English gentry, but, he having died while she was young, the care of her had devolved upon an uncle, who was a man of sense and benevolence, but a ...
— The History of Sandford and Merton • Thomas Day

... extenuated; but I am not inclined to regard it as having been a very heinous offence. The ability displayed in it is a sufficient compensation. The beauty of the serpent's skin appeases the aversion to its nature. Moreover, a toothless satire is verse without poetry- -the most odious of all respectable things. ...
— The Life of Lord Byron • John Galt

... remonstrance which Fanny expected from Graeme never came. Mrs Grove continued to discuss domestic affairs, and to leave Graeme out, and she was quite willing to be left out, and, after a little, things moved on smoothly. Mrs Tilman was a very respectable-looking person. A little stout, a little red in the face, perhaps. Indeed, very stout and very red in the face; so stout that Arthur suggested the propriety of having the kitchen staircase widened for her benefit; and so red in the face as to induce ...
— Janet's Love and Service • Margaret M Robertson

... Gelid had followed me on deck, and were now assisting their servants in putting the muskets in order. Bangs alone remained in the cabin, and when I went down, I found him swallowing the last morsel of his meal. He had on his fork some very respectable pieces of cheese. Before I left the deck, I saw clearly enough that a combat was inevitable, and as the disparity between the two vessels was very great, I confess that I had serious misgivings as to its probable result. That I felt excited and uneasy at the prospect ...
— Hair Breadth Escapes - Perilous incidents in the lives of sailors and travelers - in Japan, Cuba, East Indies, etc., etc. • T. S. Arthur

... on which his people value themselves above all the nations upon the face of the earth, very roundly taxes his brother monarch's administration with piracy, perfidy, inhumanity, and deceit. A charge conveyed in such reproachful terms, against one of the most respectable crowned heads in Europe, will appear the more extraordinary and injurious, if we consider that the accusers were well acquainted with the falsity of their own imputations, and at the same time conscious of having practised those very arts which they affected so much to decry. ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett

... an acquaintance with the sister of Madame de la T—. She was the supposed mistress of the prince of C—, endowed with a great share of understanding, and loved pleasure to excess, though she maintained her reputation on a respectable footing, by living with her husband and mother. This lady, perceiving that I had inspired her lover with a passion, which gave me uneasiness on her account, actually practised all her eloquence and ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett

... Isle of Man the practice of burning cattle alive in order to stop a murrain seems to have persisted down to a time within living memory. On this subject I will quote the evidence collected by Sir John Rhys: "A respectable farmer from Andreas told me that he was driving with his wife to the neighbouring parish of Jurby some years ago, and that on the way they beheld the carcase of a cow or an ox burning in a field, with a woman engaged in stirring the fire. On reaching the village to which they were ...
— Balder The Beautiful, Vol. I. • Sir James George Frazer

... intimate relations both with the daughter herself and with the girl's mother; in this way he had become friendly with Commodus, so that he was his companion at banquets and in the diversions of youth. Lucilla, who was neither more respectable nor more continent than her brother Commodus, detested the girl's husband, Pompeianus. It was for this reason that she persuaded the aforementioned to undertake the attack upon Commodus, and she not only caused his destruction, but was herself detected and put out of the way. Commodus killed ...
— Dio's Rome, Volume V., Books 61-76 (A.D. 54-211) • Cassius Dio

... they would be on their way back now. But she could neither see nor hear anything of their approach. It was stupid to be sitting up there on the roof of a house with nothing save a bear—fortunately at a respectable distance—for company, but perhaps under the circumstances she ought to be very thankful for having been able to reach such a haven at all. Besides, the day was remarkably pleasant—almost summer-like—although there ...
— The Rising of the Red Man - A Romance of the Louis Riel Rebellion • John Mackie

... The savage is not so tranquil, and gives way to the first impulse. In street fights the populace assembles and prudent folk get out of the way. It is the rabble and the fishwives who separate the combatants, and prevent respectable people from cutting each other's throats.[Footnote: Rousseau says in his Confessions (Oeuvres, xviii. 205 n. Part. ii. liv. viii.), that this heartless philosopher was suggested to him by Diderot, who abused his confidence, and gave his writings at this time a hard tone and a black ...
— The Eve of the French Revolution • Edward J. Lowell

... opinion, from women of that stamp; love is their trade, they care for no one, one down and another to come on!—But a woman who has sinned against duty must hug her sin, her only excuse is constancy, if such a crime can ever have an excuse. At least, that is the view I hold of a respectable woman's fall, and that is what ...
— The Muse of the Department • Honore de Balzac

... Sacramento, and asked him to make him a suit of clothes like everybody else. The tailor, familiar with Mr. Oakhurst's fastidiousness, did not know what he meant. "I mean," said Mr. Oakhurst savagely, "something RESPECTABLE,—something that doesn't exactly fit me, you know." But, however Mr. Oakhurst might hide his shapely limbs in homespun and homemade garments, there was something in his carriage, something in the pose of his beautiful head, something in the ...
— Tales of the Argonauts • Bret Harte

... husband and wife. So she took the name of Mme. de la Garde, in order to approach, as closely as Parisian usages permit, the conditions of a real marriage. As a matter of fact, many of these unfortunate girls have one fixed idea, to be looked upon as respectable middle-class women, who lead humdrum lives of faithfulness to their husbands; women who would make excellent mothers, keepers of household accounts, and menders of household linen. This longing springs from a sentiment so ...
— Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories • Edited by Julian Hawthorne

... you he was a painter, and not a nobleman," answered the ex-princess, impatiently. "One loves an artist, but cannot marry him. Do you suppose I would be so ridiculous as to give up my title to be the respectable wife of a painter? The Princess Lubomirski a Madame Wand, simple Wand! Oh, no! I shall travel with him, but I will ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach

... very much delighted, and a little in awe of such a celebrated personage, laughed heartily. And altogether there was sufficient attention and sufficient laughter to make a very respectable noise. This, being the major's cue for an exit, he rose, one sleek hand raised in sprightly protest as though to shield the invisible ladies, to whose bournes he was bound, from an uproar too masculine and mighty for the ears ...
— The Fighting Chance • Robert W. Chambers

... get the bomb as far away as possible from the King and from Monica, and to render it harmless, I would not give up my pursuit of the man in the black coat, who was fighting his way through the crowd, only a few yards in front of me,—a square-set figure, in the holiday clothes of a respectable workman. I saw only his back now, every muscle tense in his desire to escape the vengeance on his track; but I had seen his face for an instant, and ...
— The Car of Destiny • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson

... apparently quite ordinary men and women dining, and enjoying themselves, people rather more sociable, perhaps, than the guests at dinner parties often are. And yet I had reason to believe that among these ostensibly respectable people three at least there were whose lives were veiled in a mystery of some sort—I hoped it might be nothing worse. The opinion I had formed of our hostess is already known. In addition there was that strange young man, Hugesson Gastrell, who, ...
— The Four Faces - A Mystery • William le Queux

... our entrance to the hacienda by night, as I had wished on account of our appearance, and it was well we did so, for an inspection of the clothes I had worn displayed such a scarecrow suit as would have ensured the closing of any respectable ...
— The Golden Magnet • George Manville Fenn



Words linked to "Respectable" :   unrespectable, reputable, hefty, worthy, solid, presentable, nice, decent, goodish, considerable, upstanding, respectability



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