Online dictionaryOnline dictionary
Synonyms, antonyms, pronunciation

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




Subaltern   Listen
Subaltern

adjective
1.
Inferior in rank or status.  Synonyms: junior-grade, lower-ranking, lowly, petty, secondary.  "A lowly corporal" , "Petty officialdom" , "A subordinate functionary"






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





"Subaltern" Quotes from Famous Books



... extended his hand and laid it on his sleeve. Plessy turned upon him angrily, and the subaltern withdrew his hand. ...
— Ensign Knightley and Other Stories • A. E. W. Mason

... told me—I hope it is not indiscreet to mention it—that the first thing you did, on joining your regiment in India as a young subaltern, was to gather all the European children in cantonments together and march them through the place, playing 'The Girl I Left ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves

... which had been set aside for their education by their father at her death, after which, beyond providing them with a home—the ramshackle inheritance that had come to him from his father—he had made little further provision for them. His eldest son, Rupert, was a subaltern in a line regiment. No one knew whether he lived on his pay or not, and no one inquired. The second son, who possessed undeniable brilliance, had earned a scholarship, and was studying medicine. And Noel, now aged sixteen, was still at school, distinguishing himself at sports and consistently ...
— The Rocks of Valpre • Ethel May Dell

... supreme judges, especially in those causes where life and death were concerned; as Antiq. B. IV. ch. 8. sect. 14; and of his Life, sect. 14. See also Of the War, B. IV. ch. 5. sect. 4. Moreover, we find, sect. 7, that he imitated Moses, as well as the Romans, in the number and distribution of the subaltern officers of his army, as Exodus 18:25; Deuteronomy 1:15; and in his charge against the offenses common among soldiers, as Denteronomy 13:9; in all which he showed his great wisdom and piety, and skillful conduct ...
— The Wars of the Jews or History of the Destruction of Jerusalem • Flavius Josephus

... asked for a word of mature judgment of the expedition of a kind that was impossible when we were all close up to it, and when I was a subaltern of 24, not incapable of judging my elders, but too young to have found out whether my judgment was worth anything. I now see very plainly that though we achieved a first-rate tragedy, which will never be forgotten just because it was a tragedy, tragedy was not our business. In ...
— The Worst Journey in the World, Volumes 1 and 2 - Antarctic 1910-1913 • Apsley Cherry-Garrard

... this solid nucleus which would show them the way to perform their duty and take the brunt of every encounter. The young regulars who asked leave to accept commissions in state regiments were therefore refused, and were ordered to their own subaltern positions and posts. There can be no doubt that the true policy would have been to encourage the whole of this younger class to enter at once the volunteer service. They would have been the field officers of the new regiments, and would have impressed discipline ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V1 • Jacob Dolson Cox

... be moved by nothing but an invasion; and it would be almost as rational to wait the growth of an oak, as to wait the signing of your commission; but it shall be done in my own way. I have means which can make the tardy quick, and open the eyes of the blind. You shall be a subaltern in the Guards, unless you are in too much haste to be a general, and get yourself shot by some Parisian cobbler in the purloined uniform of a rifleman. But, let me tell you one fact, and I might indorse this piece of ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXIX. January, 1844. Vol. LV. • Various

... forehead, and I could not discern his face ; but I was instantly certain he was not Bonaparte, on finding the whole commotion produced by the rifling crew above mentioned, which, though it might be guided, probably, by some subaltern officer, who might have the captive in charge, had left the field of battle at a moment when none other could be spared, as all the attendant throng were evidently amongst the refuse ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 3 • Madame D'Arblay

... hundred, including the subaltern officers. These recruits, or the majority of them at least, were recruits in name only; they had seen service in many a hard campaign of the Rebellion. Some, of course, were beardless youths just out of their teens, full of that martial ...
— The Old Santa Fe Trail - The Story of a Great Highway • Henry Inman

... such a force, the young officer, aided by the one subaltern, made the best disposition possible for defence, trusting to hold the building until the fugitives should return with aid from Brunswick. Those who had their muskets were stationed at the few windows, while the dragoons with drawn swords ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford

... will deal chiefly with my personal experiences as subaltern and Captain in the Sixty-first N. Y. Volunteers during the first and last days of June, 1862, in ...
— Personal Recollections of the War of 1861 • Charles Augustus Fuller

... flat-crowned cap with floss-silk hanging all round, and a green glass button in front; he wore a loose scarlet jacket, broadly edged with black velvet, and having great brass buttons of the Indian naval uniform; his subaltern was similarly dressed, but his buttons were those of the 44th Bengal Infantry. The commandant having heard of our wish to go round by Choombi, told Campbell that he had come purposely to inform him that there was no road that way to Yakla; he was very polite, ordering his party ...
— Himalayan Journals (Complete) • J. D. Hooker

... it, and has been caring for you all this time. I do not mean Andy Curtin. He is nothing but a subaltern; but the dear Lord, our Father in Heaven, who never forgets us, though he often afflicts us. He sent me to you now, that you might know he loves you. It was he who made me love you and care ...
— Half a Century • Jane Grey Cannon Swisshelm

... compelled to make of disastrous mismanagement in military affairs; and still more, to find his reasonable request, after a long course of severe duty, for a temporary leave of absence to attend to his private concerns peremptorily refused, and that with as little courtesy as though he were a mere subaltern seeking to absent himself on a party ...
— The Life of George Washington, Volume I • Washington Irving

... eight thousand throats at once. British soldiers flung their helmets in the air; the band lost its head and broke into a triumphant clash of discord; while Colonel Buchanan, forgetful of his Scottish decorum, stood up in the drag and shouted like any subaltern. ...
— Captain Desmond, V.C. • Maud Diver

... obtained a commission in the royal engineers on June 23, 1852, and, after the usual course of study at Chatham was quartered for a short time at Pembroke Dock. In December, 1854, he received his orders for the Crimea, and reached Balaklava on January 1, 1855. As a young engineer subaltern serving in the trenches, his daring was conspicuous, while his special aptitude for obtaining a personal knowledge of the movements of the enemy was a matter of common observation among his brother officers. He was ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 6 of 8 • Various

... could then boast of no more than three principal theatres, exclusively of l'Opera Buffa introduced in 1788. These were l'Opera les Francais, and les Italiens, which, with six inferior ones, called petits spectacles, brought the whole of the theatres to ten in number. The subaltern houses were incessantly checked in their career by the privileges granted to the Comedie Francaise, which company alone enjoyed the right to play first-rate productions: it also possessed that of censorship, and sometimes exercised ...
— Paris As It Was and As It Is • Francis W. Blagdon

... much adroitness, nor was it to be expected that the duty would seem a disgrace, when the Prior of the Knights of Saint John was superintendent of the operations, when the Captain-General of the Netherlands had arranged the whole plan, and when all, from subaltern to viceroy, had received minute instructions as to the contemplated treachery from the great chief of the Spanish police, who sat on the ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... (May) we had a trying experience. Our company commander went out with myself and another subaltern and about forty men. We crossed the Mungo River in canoes, and then did a long and very difficult march all through the night in absolute dense forest. However the guides ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 5, August, 1915 • Various

... pursued by Innis until within the area of the patriot ambuscade when a single shot by Col. Shelby gave the signal for attack. The Whig riflemen, with sure and steady aim, opened a destructive fire which was kept up for an hour, during which time Col. Innis was wounded; all the British officers except a subaltern were killed or wounded. The Tory Captain, Hawsey, and Major Fraser, of the British regulars, with sixty-three privates were killed, and one hundred and sixty made prisoners. The American loss was only four killed and ...
— Sketches of Western North Carolina, Historical and Biographical • C. L. Hunter

... Grandpa had hobbled to the edge of the garden to meet the soldier boys home on their first leave. Christina had known they would be in khaki, but when a trim young private of artillery in jingling spurs and bandolier, and a smart young subaltern in shining boots and straps and belt and what not leaped from the democrat and charged upon her; instead of running to meet them, their sister put her head down against the gate post and burst into tears. ...
— In Orchard Glen • Marian Keith

... march by land. The result of thus sending his baggage, stores, official papers, &c., without a guard, and on the flank nearest the enemy, was just what might have been anticipated:—in attempting to pass the British post of Malden the whole detachment was attacked and captured, "by a subaltern and six men, in a small and ...
— Elements of Military Art and Science • Henry Wager Halleck

... observed that on a foraging expedition the large-headed individuals did not walk in the regular ranks, nor on the return did they carry any of the booty, but marched along at the side, and at tolerably regular intervals, "like subaltern officers in a marching regiment." He is disposed, however, to ascribe to them a much humbler function, namely, to serve merely "as indigestible morsels to the ant thrushes." This, I confess, seems ...
— The Beauties of Nature - and the Wonders of the World We Live In • Sir John Lubbock

... Washington. In the beginning of January, 1778, it was reported to Burr that Lord Stirling had made some remarks respecting the manner in which the colonel had contributed to arrange the rank of his (Burr's) subaltern officers. Lord Stirling at this time commanded the division. It will be recollected that, a few weeks previous, Colonel Burr had proposed to the commander-in-chief an enterprise against Staten Island, which was rejected; but, immediately after, it was unsuccessfully attempted by Lord Stirling. ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis

... was greatly cheered by an answer given to him by a young subaltern, Lieutenant Gomm, of the Forty-sixth Regiment, who, in the heat of action, was wounded ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various

... definitely renounced being. And there stood Hilda, immature, graceless, harsh, inelegant, dowdy, holding the letter between her inky fingers, in the midst of all that hard masculine mess,—and a part of it, the blindly devoted subaltern, who could expect none of the ritual of homage given to women, who must sit and work and stand and strain and say 'yes,' and pretend stiffly that she was a sound, serviceable, thick-skinned imitation man among men! If Hilda had been a valkyrie or a saint she might have ...
— Hilda Lessways • Arnold Bennett

... heard saying to a gunner subaltern: "We must go back and get that gun." The subaltern said, "We shall be killed, but it doesn't matter." The captain echoed heavily, "No, it doesn't matter," ...
— My War Experiences in Two Continents • Sarah Macnaughtan

... to note whether Kitty, who was promenading the deck with a subaltern—called to active service—had any idea of his peril. She had always discouraged his sitting on the taffrail, saying that it ...
— Banked Fires • E. W. (Ethel Winifred) Savi

... the valley, as the detachment of Lawton made its reappearance, at its southern extremity. The march of the troops was slow, and their line extended for the benefit of ease. In the front rode the captain, side by side with his senior subaltern, apparently engaged in close conference, while the rear was brought up by a young cornet, humming an air, and thinking of the sweets of a straw bed after the fatigues of a hard ...
— The Spy • James Fenimore Cooper

... the anomalous position in which he in common with other members of the party of reform had been placed under Canning and Goderich. Relief, however, came swiftly. Lord Goderich, after four months of feeble semblance of authority, resigned, finding it impossible to adjust differences. As a subaltern, declared one who had narrowly watched his career, Lord Goderich was respectable, but as a chief he proved himself to be despicable. The Duke of Wellington became Prime Minister, with a Tory Cabinet at his back, and ...
— Lord John Russell • Stuart J. Reid

... he had come constantly to her dressing-room, and afterwards she promised to find other pleasant reading; but after such excitement, it was not easy to find anything that did not appear dry. As the daughter of a Peninsular man, she thought nothing so charming as the Subaltern, and Gilbert seemed to enjoy it; but by the time he had heard all her oral traditions of the war by way of notes, his attendance began to slacken; he stayed out later, and always brought excuses—Mr. ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge

... social qualities, either in their own room or at the wine-party of a friend. Many young men in the army, I believe, adopt this system, from motives both of moral and of economical prudence. A pint, or even half a pint, of wine per day, makes a considerable hole in the pay of a subaltern, or in the stipend of a country curate, or in the allowance of a briefless barrister. Avoid acquiring factitious wants. Do not by habit make wine necessary to your comfort. It is wise, when young, not to indulge in luxuries which in any future period of your ...
— Advice to a Young Man upon First Going to Oxford - In Ten Letters, From an Uncle to His Nephew • Edward Berens

... a high nose. He looked at one over the collar, so to speak. His regard was very assured, and his speech was that short bundle of monosyllables which the subaltern throws at the orderly. He had never been questioned, and, the precedent being absent, he had never questioned himself. Why should he? We live by question and answer, but we do not know the reply to anything until a puzzled comrade ...
— Here are Ladies • James Stephens

... on less than a fixed amount for each successive grade." They called him "Crank Cranston" in the Eleventh for quite a while, but without affecting in the faintest degree his sturdy stand. Margaret's gowns continued simple and inexpensive, and their mode of living modest as any subaltern's, and many women spoke of them as "close" and "mean," but many men wished openly they had Cranston's moral courage. At home, too, better times had come. There was the old homestead, and Mr. Cranston as counsel of ...
— Under Fire • Charles King

... an officer," said the German suddenly to the British subaltern? "I surrender myself to you, and demand to be treated as an honorable prisoner of war. I do not wish to be ...
— Action Front • Boyd Cable (Ernest Andrew Ewart)

... showed the same skill and respect for order in their military organization, as in other things. The troops were divided into bodies corresponding with our battalions and companies, led by officers, that rose, in regular gradation, from the lowest subaltern to the Inca noble, who was intrusted with the ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott

... make any comments upon the motives or acts of any of the officers whom he should have cause to mention, and he somewhat reluctantly gives space to Colonel Rice's stricture of General Drayton. It is difficult for officers in subaltern position to understand all that their superiors do and do not. The Generals, from their positions, can see differently from those in the line amid the smoke of battle, and they often give commands ...
— History of Kershaw's Brigade • D. Augustus Dickert

... his light, he proceeded to tell the whole story, stopping occasionally to puff, lest he should lose the "vantage ground" he had just obtained. "What d'ye think of half-a-dozen strings of red onions, for one item in a subaltern's stores!" ...
— Satanstoe • James Fenimore Cooper

... with gossip. There was danger of an explosion any moment. Madame Dunoyer gave it out that the brilliant subaltern was to marry the girl. The Madame was going to capture the youth, either with her own charms or those of her daughter—or combined. Rumblings were heard on the horizon. The Ambassador, fearing entanglement, bundled ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great Philosophers, Volume 8 • Elbert Hubbard

... him to send. On its side the French Government was ill satisfied with the success at Hondschoote. Censuring Houchard for not pressing his advantage to the utmost and capturing the duke's whole army, it replaced him by his young and energetic subaltern, an ex-draper named Jourdan, who was destined to become one of Napoleon's marshals, while Houchard speedily went to the guillotine. By these drastic methods France found leaders who could conquer. For them the inspiring thought ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose

... and to other spectators. Now, though this desire of distinction, when it is disproportionate to the powers and qualities by which the individual is indeed distinguished, or when it is the governing passion, or taken as the rule of conduct, is but a "knavish sprite," yet as an attendant and subaltern spirit, it has its good purposes and beneficial effects: and is ...
— Literary Remains (1) • Coleridge

... their existence, armed and united themselves with those who wished to preserve the raft; among this number were some subaltern officers and many passengers. The rebels drew their sabres, and those who had none armed themselves with knives. They advanced in a determined manner upon us; we stood on our defence; the attack commenced. Animated by despair, ...
— Perils and Captivity • Charlotte-Adelaide [nee Picard] Dard

... offices, helping an old frail woman carefully out of the train and handing out her baggage, giving chocolates to children, interesting themselves in their fellow- travellers. At one place I saw a proud and anxious father, himself an old soldier, I think, seeing off a jolly young subaltern to the front, with hardly suppressed tears; the young man was full of excitement and delight, but did his best to cheer up the spirits of "Daddy," as he fondly called him. I felt very proud of our soldiers, ...
— Escape and Other Essays • Arthur Christopher Benson

... a few moments a young officer, M. de Salis, at the head of a small detachment, sword in hand, entered the chamber. Some of the deputies shrieked and fled, while others, more calm, reminded him that armed men were forbidden to enter the hall, and ordered him to retire. He refused, and sent his subaltern to the king for orders. But Louis still held to his strange policy of non-resistance. Even the terrible scenes of the morning, and the deliberate attack of an armed mob upon his palace, had failed to eradicate ...
— The Life of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France • Charles Duke Yonge

... calling me to Cairo. I was on my ass in one of the narrow streets, where I met a loaded camel. The space that remained between the camel and the wall was so little, that I could scarcely pass; and at that moment I was met by a Binbashi, a subaltern officer, at the head of his men. For the instant I was the only obstacle that prevented his proceeding on the road; and I could neither retreat nor turn round, to give him room to pass. Seeing ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 2, No. 12, May, 1851. • Various

... a second crash. We all retired about 200 yards back up the road. There I went to the captain in the middle of the traffic and asked him what I should do. He told us to get out of it as we could not do anything more—"You have all done magnificently"—then he gave me some messages for our subaltern. I shouted, "So long, sir," and left him, not knowing whether I should ever see him again. I heard afterwards that he went back when all the operators had fled and tried to get into ...
— Adventures of a Despatch Rider • W. H. L. Watson

... and a brigand's castle," interrupted Montreal, with some impatience. "This you were about to say—you are mistaken. Society thrust me from her bosom; let society take the fruit it hath sown. 'A fixed rank,' say you? some subaltern office, to fight at other men's command! You know me not: Walter de Montreal was not formed to obey. War when I will, and rest when I list, is the motto of my escutcheon. Ambition proffers me rewards you wot not of; and ...
— Rienzi • Edward Bulwer Lytton

... appointed quartermaster—a subaltern selected from the common seamen, and whose duty mostly stations him in the stern of the ship, where the captain walks. His business is to carry the glass on the look-out for sails; hoist or lower the colors; and keep an eye on the helmsman. Picked out from the crew for their superior ...
— Israel Potter • Herman Melville

... like the remainder of the officers, had drunk his fair share of wine. He never liked his royal subaltern, and took no pains to conceal his sentiments. The arrogance of the prince's utterances, as well as his assumption of superiority, exasperated him beyond measure, and, breaking into the conversation, he exclaimed in tones that were heard ...
— The Secret Memoirs of the Courts of Europe: William II, Germany; Francis Joseph, Austria-Hungary, Volume I. (of 2) • Mme. La Marquise de Fontenoy

... knelt beside him, and bent over as if to bind up a wound. In that position he remained motionless so long that Lieutenant Johnson, who had been firing steadily with a wounded soldier's rifle until twice hit himself, went to see if he could give any help. He found his brother subaltern dead in the act of binding up a wound as he knelt over the dying field-officer's body. At that moment Lieutenant Johnson received his third wound, and had to be carried from ...
— Four Months Besieged - The Story of Ladysmith • H. H. S. Pearse

... Chatelet was not an unkindly man, and muttering something about "hangman's work" he came up and surveyed us by the light of the torches. Then he ordered my hands to be freed, and drawing his subaltern aside gave him some commands in a ...
— Orrain - A Romance • S. Levett-Yeats

... the most obscure of their fellow-soldiers. History can only add, that the rebellion against the emperor Philip broke out in the summer of the year two hundred and forty-nine, among the legions of Maesia; and that a subaltern officer, [1] named Marinus, was the object of their seditious choice. Philip was alarmed. He dreaded lest the treason of the Maesian army should prove the first spark of a general conflagration. Distracted with the consciousness of his guilt ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 • Edward Gibbon

... strangers, and Wee Willie Winkie was a very particular child. Once he accepted an acquaintance, he was graciously pleased to thaw. He accepted Brandis, a subaltern of the 195th, on sight. Brandis was having tea at the Colonel's, and Wee Willie Winkie entered strong in the possession of a good-conduct badge won for not chasing the hens round the compound. He regarded Brandis with gravity for ...
— The Short-story • William Patterson Atkinson

... behind Mr. Wrenn's. He listened to her soft explanations with the desperate respect and affection which a green subaltern would give to ...
— Our Mr. Wrenn - The Romantic Adventures of a Gentle Man • Sinclair Lewis

... the inutility of the measure were made in vain. Bonaparte had the weakness at once to fear Fouche and to think him necessary. Fouche, whose talents at this trade are too well known to need my approbation, soon discovered this secret institution, and the names of all the subaltern agents employed by the chief agents. It is difficult to form an idea of the nonsense, absurdity, and falsehood contained in the bulletins drawn up by the noble and ignoble agents of the police. I do not mean to enter into details on this nauseating ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton

... became anxious to temporize. Negotiations were accordingly commenced between the adverse factions; and it was ultimately agreed that the keys of the city should be restored to the mayor from whom they had been taken, and some subaltern officers displaced by the Duke reinstated in their functions, and that so soon as this arrangement had been completed a new election should take place, by which M. de Rohan was to be at liberty to substitute others more agreeable ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 2 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe

... and Pontus, known as the Bellum Alexandrinum, was written by him or by another officer of Caesar's, Gaius Oppius. The books on the campaigns of Africa and Spain which follow are by different hands: the former evidently by some subaltern officer who took part in the war, and very interesting as showing the average level of intelligence and culture among Roman officers of the period; the latter by another author and in very inferior Latin, full of grammatical solecisms and popular idioms oddly mixed ...
— Latin Literature • J. W. Mackail

... the object of his mission, and in the end his old companions in arms received their just dues. "Fifteen thousand acres were awarded to a field officer, nine thousand to a captain, six thousand to a subaltern, and so on." Stobo and Van Braam, who were with him at Great Meadows, received nine thousand acres apiece. They were in London at the time, and subsequently Washington purchased their ...
— From Farm House to the White House • William M. Thayer

... was so clear and easily to be understood, but the side which showed their takings wrapt in mystery and hieroglyphics such as not even the world's leading financiers and mathematicians could hope to unravel? My subaltern, being consulted, agreed with me; I would have had him carpeted by the C.O. at once if ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, February 25th, 1920 • Various

... never deceiving oneself, monseigneur; nor being wanting in the respect which a subaltern owes to his superior officers, nor infringing the duties of a service one has accepted of one's ...
— The Man in the Iron Mask • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... hardly have done so had she been conscious of its having so serious an import. Yet, what was the secret of her manifest agitation? A sudden inspiration flashed across his mind; a smile came upon his lips. She was in love! The enemy's line contained some sighing Strephon of a young subaltern with whom she was in communication, and for whom she had undertaken this quest. The flower was their language of correspondence, no doubt. It explained also the young girl's animosity against the younger officers,—his adversaries; against himself,—their commander. ...
— Clarence • Bret Harte

... returned to his master before he was missed; but, at taking leave, I forced him (for he had sentiments enough to refuse it) to receive money enough to buy a silver watch, that great article of subaltern finery, which he at length accepted of, as a remembrance he was carefully to preserve of ...
— Memoirs Of Fanny Hill - A New and Genuine Edition from the Original Text (London, 1749) • John Cleland

... early enough to have got tired of it; for he had now been for some time on half-pay, and a brevet-major, after doing good service in the Indian wars, and was not yet thirty-four. Molyneux had served in the same light cavalry regiment as his subaltern, and there the foundation was laid of their close alliance. It was not a very fair or well-balanced one, being made up of implicit obedience, reliance, and reverence on the one side, and a sort of protecting condescension on ...
— Sword and Gown - A Novel • George A. Lawrence

... Soon afterwards, upon a site for the settlement being chosen, the necessary operations were commenced, and by the end of May in the following year, the preliminary arrangements having been completed, the Alligator left, and Captain John Macarthur, R.M., with a subaltern, assistant-surgeon, storekeeper, and a linguist, together with a detachment of forty marines, remained in charge of the new settlement. The Britomart remained behind for several years as a tender to this naval station, or military post—for either ...
— Narrative Of The Voyage Of H.M.S. Rattlesnake, Commanded By The Late Captain Owen Stanley, R.N., F.R.S. Etc. During The Years 1846-1850. Including Discoveries And Surveys In New Guinea, The Louisiade • John MacGillivray

... age, feebly aided by female hands, gave ample opportunity to gratify the ardent minds panting to exchange the tame drudgery of school and college for the limited, but to them world-wide, authority of the subaltern's sword and epaulet. There seemed to them but one road to advancement. The profession of arms was the sole pursuit which opened a career bounded only by the wildest dreams of ambition. What had been could be; ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 6, April, 1858 • Various

... has thought proper to allow them. They are thereby more led to temperance, to improve themselves by study, to mind their duty and how best to promote the service of their country. I served sixteen years as a subaltern officer in the army, made long sea voyages with the Regiment, furnished myself with sea stores, camp equipage and every other necessary equipments [and] my Father nor any Relation during that time was never [put to] one farthing's expense ...
— A Canadian Manor and Its Seigneurs - The Story of a Hundred Years, 1761-1861 • George M. Wrong

... "Major!" exclaimed the subaltern, "I—I half wish I'd let that Indian catch you; then you wouldn't have spoiled the pleasantest evening I ever had—ever began to have, ...
— Romance of California Life • John Habberton

... very gratifying. Well, sir, the great thing for the good of one's country is, first of all, to be a good man. All springs from there. For my part, although you are right in thinking that I have to do with politics, I am unfit by intellect and temper for a leading role. I was intended, I fear, for a subaltern. Yet we have all something to command, Mr. Fritz, if it be only our own temper; and a man about to marry must look closely to himself. The husband's, like the prince's, is a very artificial standing; and it is hard to be kind in either. Do you ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... sentinel, who fired upon him. In a moment he rushed up to the house, found the British arms piled before the door, and seized upon them. Twenty-two British regulars, of the 63d regiment, two tories, one captain, and a subaltern were taken, and one hundred and fifty of the Maryland line, liberated. In his account of this affair Gen. Marion says he had one man killed, and Maj. Benson wounded. But the man, Josiah Cockfield, who was shot through the breast; ...
— A Sketch of the Life of Brig. Gen. Francis Marion • William Dobein James

... the quartermaster-general of his division, received the report of his chief of staff, and gave necessary orders. It was at this place, and never at the General's own dwelling, that the captains or subaltern officers presented themselves when they had occasion to speak ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet

... Waterloo still throbbed and burnt on occasions in 1819. Many a scarred veteran and limping subaltern continued the heroes of remote towns and villages, or starred it at Bath or Tunbridge. The warlike fever, which had so long raged in the country, even when ruined manufacturers and starving mechanics were praying for peace ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen V.1. • Sarah Tytler

... might lay down for him. True, the Negro artilleryman had been left behind in America. At Camp Taylor he was spurned and rejected. But he refused to accept rebuff. He won his way into the heart of commanding officer and subaltern, gained his training, made a superior record, witnessed the outpouring of the entire white soldiery of the camp to present arms and salute him as he went away to service, and arrived in France in breathless haste in time to lay down a perfect barrage for his black comrades as they advanced through ...
— Kelly Miller's History of the World War for Human Rights • Kelly Miller

... (decrease) 36, (contract) 195; hide its diminished head, retire into the shade, yield the palm, play second fiddle, be upstaged, take a back seat. Adj. inferior, smaller; small &c 32; minor, less, lesser, deficient, minus, lower, subordinate, secondary; secondrate &c (imperfect) 651; sub, subaltern; thrown into the shade; weighed in the balance and found wanting; not fit to hold a candle to, can't hold a candle to. least, smallest &c (little) (small) &c 193; lowest. diminished &c (decreased) 36; reduced &c (contracted) 195; unimportant &c 643. Adv. less; under the ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget

... right in the way of the subaltern who wants to be a General before he has smelt powder; and it stands (and should stand) in everybody's way who applies for pay or position before he has served his apprenticeship and proved himself. Your sister's course is perfectly plain. ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... Empire of Russia. The treaty concluded with Austria is executed by His Imperial Majesty with the most perfect good faith, and as we have no diplomatic agent at his Court he personally inquired into and corrected a proceeding of some of his subaltern officers to the injury of our consul in one ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Andrew Jackson • Andrew Jackson

... a recent despatch tells us how a British subaltern saw, from a wood, an unsuspecting German soldier patrolling the road. Not caring to shoot his man in cold blood, he gave him a ferocious kick from behind, at which the startled German ran away with a yell. This subaltern certainly ought to have figured ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, October 21, 1914 • Various

... as the envelope was concerned. He and his guard pored over it in succession. Still it was unintelligible. It was a mysterious affair altogether. The Frenchman and I begged equally in vain to be allowed to interpret. Impossible. At length the subaltern on duty was found; and on his arrival I was released, with all due apologies, and carried off the captive and ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 57, No. 356, June, 1845 • Various

... standing talking to the commandant of one of the great French army supply depots one morning. He was a man of forty; a colonel in the regular French army. An erect, sturdy-looking man with white hair and mustache, and who wore the single star of a subaltern on his sleeve, came up, saluted, delivered ...
— The Americanization of Edward Bok - The Autobiography of a Dutch Boy Fifty Years After • Edward William Bok

... and desertion, to be added to his list of offences, the young officer moved to the head of the detachment when halted, and communicated what he heard to Captain Granville. Entering at once into the views of his subaltern, and anxious to make an example of the traitor, yet unwilling to act wholly on his own responsibility, Captain Granville dispatched an orderly to Colonel St. Julian to receive his instructions. The man soon returned with a message to say that Desborough ...
— The Canadian Brothers - or The Prophecy Fulfilled • John Richardson

... Lawrence inviting the inhabitants of New England to settle on the vacant lands in Nova Scotia, he was a young man of twenty-four years of age. His father had died at Haverhill; August 15th, 1757. The next year he went with his uncle, Capt. Hazen, to the assault of Ticonderoga, in the capacity of a subaltern officer in the Provincial troops, and shortly after the close of the campaign proceeded to Nova Scotia in order to find a promising situation for engaging in trade. The fur trade was what he had chiefly in mind at this time, but the Indians were rather unfriendly, and he became interested along with ...
— Glimpses of the Past - History of the River St. John, A.D. 1604-1784 • W. O. Raymond

... smile at my own vanity as I thought to myself of what a little consequence the life of a young artillery subaltern would be in the ...
— Gil the Gunner - The Youngest Officer in the East • George Manville Fenn

... provisos," interjected the lieutenant, filling a tumbler and handing it to the corporal, who drained it at a draught. In a moment the empty glass was returned to the lieutenant, who, instead of receiving it from the subaltern, refilled the tumbler. ...
— Captain Canot - or, Twenty Years of an African Slaver • Brantz Mayer

... mate, Evans, no one liked or cared for, and I know nothing of him, except that I once saw him in court, on trial for some alleged petty tyranny towards his men,— still a subaltern officer. ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana

... house was, therefore, an event which penetrated to the remotest wilds of Connaught, lighting up with cheering expectation the most desolate hovels of the proscribed. To the Puritans settled in Ireland, most of whom, from the mean condition of menial servants, common soldiers and subaltern officers, had become rich proprietors, the same tidings brought apprehension and alarm. But their leaders, the Protestant gentry of an earlier date, wealthy, astute and energetic, uniting all their influence for the common protection, turned this event, which seemed at one time to threaten their ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee

... thinks, "Ah, yes, we of the 100th were placed so and so, I perfectly remember." So with this memorial of poor Hood, it may have, no doubt, a greater interest for me than for others, for I was fighting, so to speak, in a different part of the field, and engaged, a young subaltern, in the Battle of Life, in which Hood fell, young still, and covered with glory. "The Bridge of Sighs" was his Corunna, his Heights of Abraham—sickly, weak, wounded, he fell in the full blaze and fame of ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray

... intermediate between the summum genus and the infimae species are called Subaltern Genera or Subaltern Species, according to the way they are looked at, being genera in relation to the classes below them and species in relation to the classes ...
— Deductive Logic • St. George Stock

... a traitor!" exclaimed the subaltern, who was evidently the kinder spirit of the two. ...
— International Weekly Miscellany, Vol. 1, No. 2, July 8, 1850 • Various

... our counter attack, we took 130 prisoners and released some forty of our own men who had been surrounded and captured, including a subaltern of artillery who had been cut off while observing from a ...
— The New York Times Current History of the European War, Vol 1, Issue 4, January 23, 1915 • Various

... their faults; however, he lost his life three days afterwards from not taking my advice. He was going down the hill with Rulhieres when I said to him, 'Mon General, you expose yourself too much; that which is duty in a subaltern is a fault in a general.' He very politely told me to go to where he may chance to be himself now; for a cannon-ball struck him a few seconds afterwards, and he was killed on the spot. General Perregaux was severely ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat

... fighting; yea, to strike him and disable him, and fly, rather—than provoke the skill of his right hand. Carlo demanded his cousin's freedom. It was denied to him, and Carlo claimed his privilege. The witnesses of the duel were Jenna and another young subaltern: both declared it fair according to the laws of honour, when their stupefaction on beholding the proud swordsman of the army stretched lifeless on the brown leaves of the past year left them with power to speak. Thus did Carlo slay his old enemy who would ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... subaltern of the 1st Guards at Waterloo—gives us the following glimpse of the Duke and his Staff, on the morning of the 18th, before the opening of ...
— A Week at Waterloo in 1815 • Magdalene De Lancey

... the perfect prince was De La Motte, a subaltern in the 29th Punjabis, ever the leader of the dangerous patrols along the native bush paths that give themselves so readily to ambush. Shot through the spine and paralysed below the waist his life ...
— Sketches of the East Africa Campaign • Robert Valentine Dolbey

... honor of the conquerors, where were assembled, in one glorious constellation, the great and little luminaries of New Amsterdam. There were the lordly Schout and his obsequious deputy, the burgomasters with their officious schepens at their elbows, the subaltern officers at the elbows of the schepens, and so on, down to the lowest hanger-on of police; every tag having his rag at his side, to finish his pipe, drink off his heel-taps, and laugh at his flights of immortal dulness. In short—for a city feast is a city feast ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving

... of Maurice, Kingsley, and Carlyle. And in Willy, the third son, it showed itself first in a revolt against Oxford, while he was still at Christ Church, leading to his going out to India and joining the Indian Army, at the age of twenty, only to find the life of an Indian subaltern all but intolerable, and to plunge for a time at least into ...
— A Writer's Recollections (In Two Volumes), Volume I • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... with the Major at Fort Bridger for an escort under a subaltern officer to proceed with two waggons with the treasure to Denver. Pete Hoskings and Jerry were to remain as managers of the mine throughout the winter. Harry and Tom had made up their minds to go to England and to return in the spring. ...
— In The Heart Of The Rockies • G. A. Henty

... Atkinson said, the colonel began thus: "I think, serjeant, Mr. Booth hath told me that you was foster-brother to his lady. She is really a charming woman, and it is a thousand pities she should ever have been placed in the dreadful situation she is now in. There is nothing so silly as for subaltern officers of the army to marry, unless where they meet with women of very great fortunes indeed. What can be the event of their marrying otherwise, but entailing misery and beggary on their ...
— Amelia (Complete) • Henry Fielding

... themselves over the tertiary plain as it widens southward beneath the granite bench that divides all the great rivers south of the Hudson into an upper and a lower reach. Detachments of them extend their tour to the Gulf. Readers of "A Subaltern on the Campaign of New Orleans in 1814-15" will recall his mention of the assemblage of robins hopping over the Chalmette sward that were the first living inhabitants to welcome the weary invaders on emerging from the palmetto marshes. They can hardly be said to reach the particular region ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, December, 1885 • Various

... devotion is, to say the least, problematical. However, she is on good terms with the curate of her parish, and is very particular about the arrangement of her dinner on the days she honours him with an invitation to her table. She seems to consider him a subaltern, very useful to her salvation, and capable of opening the gate of ...
— The Widow Lerouge - The Lerouge Case • Emile Gaboriau

... young subaltern was acting for him. My sergeant pal tipped me off. As I have said, I was an old soldier with all that that implies. He marched me up to the officer, already more or less at sea about his new duties. I asked for money. He was aware ...
— The Escape of a Princess Pat • George Pearson

... remonstrated. He thought the Colonel was too old a man for climbing trees. He recommended that a subaltern, a Second Lieutenant whom nobody would miss much if he fell, should be sent up the tree. The suggestion, as the Adjutant might have guessed, made the Colonel more determined and slightly ...
— Our Casualty And Other Stories - 1918 • James Owen Hannay, AKA George A. Birmingham

... had said to himself, he'd stick to the field, and the troop that had the roughest work to do was the one that best suited him, and so it had happened that by the second spring of his service in the regiment no subaltern was held in higher esteem by senior officers or regarded with more envy by the lazy ones among the juniors than the young graduate, for those, too, were days in which graduates were few and far between, except in higher grades. Twice had he ridden in the dead of winter the devious ...
— Warrior Gap - A Story of the Sioux Outbreak of '68. • Charles King

... top of the slope and stuck a handspike into the wet earth to give them a guide, under the very muzzles of the whole brigade, none of whom fired a shot at him, each leaving him to the other. Ensign Samson, who was the youngest subaltern in the regiment, ran out from the square and pulled down the hand-spike; but quick as a jack after a minnow, a lancer came flying over the ridge, and he made such a thrust from behind that not only his point ...
— The Great Shadow and Other Napoleonic Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle

... the life of Sir David Southern is involved, and you have such good reason to consider McConachan the man guilty of his uncle's death, it becomes my duty to put aside my private feelings and to confess to you that I am unable to look upon Mark McConachan as entirely above suspicion. When he was a subaltern in the regiment I have the honour to command, he was a source of grave worry and ...
— The Ashiel mystery - A Detective Story • Mrs. Charles Bryce

... the masses of the enemy. While I recommend to particular favor the gallant conduct and valuable services of Major Munroe, chief of artillery, and Captains Washington, 4th Artillery, and Sherman and Bragg, 3d Artillery, commanding batteries, I deem it no more than just to mention all the subaltern officers. They were nearly all detached at different times, and in every situation exhibited conspicuous skill and gallantry. Captain O'Brien, Lieutenants Brent, Whiting, and Couch, 4th Artillery, and Bryan, Topographical Engineer (slightly wounded), were attached ...
— The Medallic History of the United States of America 1776-1876 • J. F. Loubat

... some of your old modest qualms, Pathfinder, and will do you no credit with the girl. Women distrust men who distrust themselves, and take to men who distrust nothing. Modesty is a capital thing in a recruit, I grant you; or in a young subaltern who has just joined, for it prevents his railing at the non-commissioned officers before he knows what to rail at; I'm not sure it is out of place in a commissary or a parson, but it's the devil and all when ...
— The Pathfinder - The Inland Sea • James Fenimore Cooper

... whom he owed most at this juncture was Aymar de Chastes. Though Champlain had served the king faithfully, his youth and birth prevented him from doing more than belongs to the duty of a subaltern. But De Chastes, as governor of Dieppe, at a time when the League seemed everywhere triumphant, gave Henry aid which proved to be the means of raising him from the dust. It was a critical event for Champlain ...
— The Founder of New France - A Chronicle of Champlain • Charles W. Colby

... the Mahometan heaven, such as Gabriel the angel of Revelation, Israfil by whom the last trumpet is to be sounded, and Azrael the angel of death, there were also a number of subaltern intelligences of which tradition has preserved the names, appointed to preside over the different stages of ascents into which the celestial world was supposed to be divided.[2] Thus Kelail governs the fifth heaven; ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al

... order of his superior. Then he escorted them up the side to the deck, which was marvelously neat and attractive. Some half a dozen sailors lounged here and there and these stared as wonderingly at the invasion of strangers as the subaltern had done. But their guide did not pause longer than to see that they had all reached the deck safely, when he led them into a ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces Out West • Edith Van Dyne

... artillery subaltern is our guide in that maze of trenches, and we walk and walk and walk, with a brisk exchange of compliments between the '75's' of the French and the '77's' of the Germans going on high over our heads. The trenches are boarded at the ...
— A Visit to Three Fronts • Arthur Conan Doyle

... confidential reliance of a commanding officer. General Morris was advanced in years and depended implicitly on his Adjutant General, Captain E. W. Andrews. I branded Andrews a traitor to the colors. It was a serious position for a subaltern to assume, but I had the evidence to substantiate the charge. In searching the house of one Terrence R. Quinn, a noted blockade-runner, then a prisoner in Fort McHenry, I found evidence that Andrews was a partner in ...
— Between the Lines - Secret Service Stories Told Fifty Years After • Henry Bascom Smith

... pleased. He was anything but anxious to see the man whose skill had turned the joke against him; and his face betokened his feelings. Had he foreseen the meeting he would certainly have remained in Tralee, and left the job to a subaltern. "Hang it!" he exclaimed, vexed by the recollection, "a fine mess you led ...
— The Wild Geese • Stanley John Weyman

... should have no family," said a somewhat distant and subaltern Vipont, whisperingly and hesitating, "does ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... enough if they make you a subaltern. Look at me. I am older than you. I am a veteran of Italy and I am only a sub-lieutenant, I, who was Captain ...
— The Eagle of the Empire - A Story of Waterloo • Cyrus Townsend Brady

... to surrender their posts, while the fraternal shout, "Vive la Ligne!" elicited from the lips of many of the soldiers the answering cry of "Vive la Reforme!" In vain was it that Marshal Bugeaud, the veteran of a hundred battles, menaced and blasphemed. In vain did his old protege and subaltern, but now bitter foe, General Lamoriciere, dashing from one end of the line to the other on his white horse, entreat and persuade with his eloquent tongue. The people insisted—the National Guard fraternized—the ...
— Edmond Dantes • Edmund Flagg

... Volney, Boyd, and Wolfe's subaltern uncovered, and echoed an "Amen." Cumberland glared from one to another of them, ran the gamut of all tints from pink to deepest purple, gulped out an apoplectic Dutch oath, and dug the rowels deep into his bay. With shame, sorrow, and contempt in their hearts ...
— A Daughter of Raasay - A Tale of the '45 • William MacLeod Raine

... He could not bear the pain and terror in the eyes of the slender English youth, who, though he wore the uniform of a subaltern, seemed so much out of place there in the deep woods. Yet the forester meant to take ...
— The Keepers of the Trail - A Story of the Great Woods • Joseph A. Altsheler

... called, of course, and gone away filled with unwilling admiration, for the girl's gowns and graces were undeniable. The married men, as was the army way, had called with their wives on the occasion of the first visit. The bachelors, from Webb down to the junior subaltern, had called in little squads at first; afterwards, except the major, they sought to see Miss Flower when other fellows were not present. Even Hartley and Donovan, the two whose devotions to Esther Dade had been carried to the verge of oppression, and ...
— A Daughter of the Sioux - A Tale of the Indian frontier • Charles King

... the third son, we glean the following facts from the American Biographical Dictionary. In the year 1776, whilst he was a student of law in the office of the eminent Judge Wilson of Philadelphia, he left his pursuit and joined the army as a subaltern. He soon obtained the command of a company, in which he continued to the close of the revolutionary war. He was in almost every action fought in the Middle States during the war. At the battle of Brandywine he received the thanks ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII No. 1 January 1848 • Various

... to his freedom of action, Nicholas went to Moghiliev, the general headquarters, to bid his staff farewell, but his reception there was cool at least; nobody took the slightest notice of him, no more than if he had been some minor subaltern officer. Then his mother, the Dowager Empress Marie, appeared and in the evening he dined with her in her ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume VI (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various

... with the river its terms, its memories, its influence remained a definite factor in his personality to the end of his days. Moreover, it was his first period of great triumph. Where before he had been a subaltern not always even a wage-earner—now all in a moment he had been transformed into a high chief. The fullest ambition of his childhood had been realized—more than realized, for in that day he had never dreamed ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine

... broken, and that unwittingly, by the humour of one of the officers. In the course of the evening, the train stopped at a small station, and the compartment in which the officers were settled drew up in front of the Buffet. Some one asked where we were, and a subaltern, anxious to display his newly-acquired knowledge of French, replied, "Bouvette," which called forth no response. Shortly afterwards the train proceeded on its way, and the occupants of the carriage ...
— Three years in France with the Guns: - Being Episodes in the life of a Field Battery • C. A. Rose

... War Department to make inquiries for the provost-marshal, and show him Putnam's telegram, Major Abbot finds that official too busy to see him, "unless it be something urgent," says the subaltern, who seems to be an ...
— A War-Time Wooing - A Story • Charles King

... and no portion of what is taken from them is applied to any uses of local public utility, as roads, irrigation, encouragement of commerce and industry and the like; what is not sent home to the Sultan goes into the private pouches of the pasha and his many subaltern officials. This is like taking the milk and omitting to feed the cow. The consequence is, the people lose their interest in work of any kind, leave off striving for an increase of property which they will not be ...
— Chaldea - From the Earliest Times to the Rise of Assyria • Znade A. Ragozin

... and during this time they had worked hard to acquire a sufficient amount of cavalry drill to enable them to perform such simple evolutions as might be necessary. Major Warrener divided the squadron into two troops, each with a captain and subaltern; all these officers being cavalrymen, as were the officers who did duty as sergeants. Thus Major Warrener had the general command, each troop being maneuvered by its own officers. In the ranks as simple privates were two ...
— In Times of Peril • G. A. Henty

... said of a subaltern officer in the Peninsular campaigns, observed trudging along through mud and mire by the side of his regiment, "There goes 15,000 pounds a year!" and in our own day, the bleak slopes of Sebastopol and the burning soil of India have borne witness to the ...
— How to Get on in the World - A Ladder to Practical Success • Major A.R. Calhoon

... Both Anti-christ and his subaltern, the false prophet, dealt largely in the miracle of fire. The two witnesses, who had testified that they had come from God, had consumed their persecutors, again and again by fire, and the Hell-born imposters ...
— The Mark of the Beast • Sidney Watson

... that the spirit of unity pervade all evangelical denominations. During the Peninsular War, the Duke of Wellington, observing that one of his officers of artillery was serving a gun with remarkable precision against a body of men posted in a wood to the left, rode up to the subaltern, and said: "Well aimed, captain; but no more,—they are our own 99th!" A similar mistake has sometimes been committed by ecclesiastical organizations, which, instead of aiming at the common enemy, have expended ...
— History of Rationalism Embracing a Survey of the Present State of Protestant Theology • John F. Hurst

... which would deprive the Crown of a most valuable prerogative. If such a brevet as the one proposed were to lead to great additional expense, the Queen could understand the objection on the ground of economy; but the giving brevet rank to a few subaltern officers is too trifling a matter to alarm the Government. Perhaps the number might be reduced even, but to deviate from the established precedents for the first time altogether in this case, and that after the excellent behaviour ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Vol 2 (of 3), 1844-1853 • Queen Victoria

... like no other in the world, was ended at last, however, and they puffed past Lake Nakuro to the village station. Here their trip was ended, their baggage was rolled off, and they were taken in charge by a young subaltern, Lieutenant Smithers, together with the Boer merchant, Piet Andrus. The latter offered them the hospitality of his trading ...
— The Rogue Elephant - The Boys' Big Game Series • Elliott Whitney

... stocky sergeant of cavalry, who seemed master of the situation, and greatly enjoying his own importance. A pale-faced young woman, whom the conductor of Number Six addressed as Mrs. Osborn, was imploring his aid, when, to the amaze of the sergeant, this big subaltern in boots and spurs bulged in between him and Conductor Osborn and demanded to know the ...
— Lanier of the Cavalry - or, A Week's Arrest • Charles King

... only let me first bury my prince." Medoro pronounced these words with an air so sweet and tender that a heart of stone would have been moved by them. Zerbino was so to the bottom of his soul. He was on the point of uttering words of mercy, when a cruel subaltern, forgetting all respect to his commander, plunged his lance into the breast of the young Moor. Zerbino, enraged at his brutality, turned upon the wretch to take vengeance, but he saved himself by a ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch

... to its very last page. The subtle distinction of religious worship into latria, dulia, and hyperdulia, the refined classification of prayer under the two heads of direct, absolute, final, sovereign, on the one hand, and of oblique, relative, transitory, subaltern, on the other, swell indeed many elaborate works of casuistry, but are not discoverable in the remains of primitive Christians, nor in the writings of God's word have they any place. I cannot find in ...
— Primitive Christian Worship • James Endell Tyler

... from his crestfallen sensation at De Stancy's elusiveness, that officer himself emerged in evening dress from behind a curtain forming a wing to the proscenium, and Somerset remarked that the minor part originally allotted to him was filled by the subaltern who had enacted it the night before. De Stancy glanced across, whether by accident or otherwise Somerset could not determine, and his glance seemed to say he quite recognized there had been a trial of wits between them, and that, thanks to his chance meeting with Miss Bell in the train, ...
— A Laodicean • Thomas Hardy

... Stupendous mireginda. Stupid malsprita. Stupidity malspriteco. Stupor letargio. Sturdy harda. Sturgeon sturgo, huzo. Stutter balbuti. Stye (pig) porkejo. Style stilo. Style (fashion) fasono. Stylish stila. Subaltern subulo. Subcutaneous subhauxta. Subdivide redividi. Subdue submeti, venki. Subject (gram.) subjekto. Subject regato, regnano. Subject objekto. Subject (lit.) temo. Subject submeti, subigi. ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes

... himself; for numberless informers but distract or cloud information, as glasses which multiply will for the most part be found also to obscure. Of a life, too, which for the last twenty years was passed in the very front of literature, every leader of a literary company, whether officer or subaltern, naturally becomes either author or critic, so that little less than the recollection that it was once the request of the deceased, and twice the desire of those whose will I ever delighted to comply with, should ...
— Anecdotes of the late Samuel Johnson, LL.D. - during the last twenty years of his life • Hester Lynch Piozzi

... two miles to run, but the navigation was delicate, the entrance to this northern anchorage was not only narrow and shoal, but lay east and west, so that the schooner must be nicely handled to be got in. I think I was a good, prompt subaltern, and I am very sure that Hands was an excellent pilot; for we went about and about, and dodged in, shaving the banks, with a certainty and a neatness that were a ...
— Treasure Island • Robert Louis Stevenson

... Grand Master of the Ceremonies was, accordingly, abolished altogether. But Pollnitz, left loose in this manner, did not gallop direct, or go at all, into monkhood, as he had expected; but, in fact, by degrees, crept home to Berlin again; took the subaltern post of Chamberlain; and there, in the old fashion (straitened in finance, making loans, retailing anecdotes, not witty but the cause of wit), wore out life's gray evening; till, about thirty years ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XIV. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle

... and his brother have had the incredible presumption to accuse you of theft. The famous diamond, they declare, is in your hands. A word from you in denial will most amply satisfy the Prefect; nay, I go further: if your Highness would so far honour a subaltern as to declare his ignorance of the matter even to myself, I should ask permission to ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 4 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... man," the coach said, "but on the other hand here's the direct good of sitting tight and playing the game. I've heard you speak about Kipling. Well, you're like a young officer—a subaltern they call it, don't they?—in a Kipling story, a fellow that's under orders, and it's part of his game to play hard and keep his mouth shut and to not criticize his ...
— The Trail of the Hawk - A Comedy of the Seriousness of Life • Sinclair Lewis

... o'clock at night I was sent under a strong guard, up three pair of stairs in Scotland Yard, into a very small chamber. Two king's messengers were placed for the whole night at one door, and a subaltern's guard of soldiers at the other. As I was, and had been for some days, so ill as to be incapable of getting into or out of a carriage, or up or down stairs, without help, I looked upon all this parade to be calculated for intimidation. My spirits were good and I smiled inwardly. The next morning, ...
— Southern Literature From 1579-1895 • Louise Manly

... point of view: either kindly, as Sidonia, or coolly, as Lord Monmouth, but always calmly and with no point of passion in his regard: the Eskdales, Villebecques, Ormsbys, Bessos, Marneys, Meltons, and Mirabels, the Bohuns and St. Aldegondes and Grandisons, the Tadpoles and the Tapers, the dominant and subaltern humanity of the world. All these are drawn with peculiar boldness of line, precision of touch, and clearness of intention. And as with his men so is it with his women: the finest are not those he likes best but those who interested ...
— Views and Reviews - Essays in appreciation • William Ernest Henley

... should have told us of this. We've been trapped,' said a subaltern. 'Aren't the camel guns ever going to ...
— The Light That Failed • Rudyard Kipling



Words linked to "Subaltern" :   armed forces, petty, war machine, lowly, armed services, military machine, junior-grade, junior, lower-ranking, secondary, military, commissioned military officer



Copyright © 2024 Dictionary One.com