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Taunt   /tɔnt/   Listen
Taunt

noun
1.
Aggravation by deriding or mocking or criticizing.  Synonyms: taunting, twit.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Taunt" Quotes from Famous Books



... "Nor taunt of enemy shall move, Nor bitterest suffering shall degrade, My heart—for with my people's love My daring will be ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 14, No. 384, Saturday, August 8, 1829. • Various

... the old Colonna. And as the band swept on, the rude foreigners, encouraged by their leaders, had each some taunt or jest, uttered in a barbarous attempt at the southern patois, for the lazy giant, as he again appeared in front of his forge, leaning on his anvil as before, and betraying no sign of attention to his insultors, save by a heightened glow of his swarthy visage;—and so the gallant procession ...
— Rienzi • Edward Bulwer Lytton

... She is engaged in a vast philanthropic scheme for the benefit of the poor, by, the use of this wealth. But, alas, even here and now, the same, relentless fate pursued her. The villain Selby appears again upon the scene, as if on purpose to complete the ruin of her life. He appeared to taunt her with her dishonor, he threatened exposure if she did not become again the mistress of his passion. Gentlemen, do you wonder if this woman, thus pursued, lost her reason, was beside herself with fear, ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... the commissioners, but are the most rake-shamed rogues that ever I saw in my life; so he showed them this release, and they seemed satisfied, and went away with him to their atturney to be paid by him. But before they went, Sir W. Batten and my lady did begin to taunt them, but the rogues answered them as high as themselves, and swore they would come again, and called me rogue and rebel, and they would bring the sheriffe and untile his house, before he should harbour a rebel in his house, and that they would ...
— The Diary of Samuel Pepys • Samuel Pepys

... Lagardere break ground, and unable to get within Lagardere's guard, now began to taunt his antagonist savagely, calling him a child-stealer and a woman-wronger, with other foul terms of abuse that rolled glibly from his lips in the ugliness of his rage ...
— The Duke's Motto - A Melodrama • Justin Huntly McCarthy

... went doggedly forward, by the gaunt telegraph- posts and the hum of the resonant wires in the keen sea-wind. To one who had learned to know their song in warm pleasant places by the Mediterranean, it seemed to taunt the country, and make it still bleaker by suggested contrast. Even the waste places by the side of the road were not, as Hawthorne liked to put it, 'taken back to Nature' by any decent covering of vegetation. Wherever the land had the chance, it seemed to lie fallow. There is a certain tawny ...
— Essays of Travel • Robert Louis Stevenson

... it will be the fashion among literary critics to pooh-pooh Whistler, the writer, as an amateur. For Whistler was primarily a painter—not less than was Rossetti primarily a poet, and Disraeli a statesman. And he will not live down quicklier than they the taunt of amateurishness in his secondary art. Nevertheless, I will, for my own pleasure, ...
— Yet Again • Max Beerbohm

... sir, Think not to fly me thus. Do thou prepare For public insult in the streets—before The eyes of the citizens. I'll follow thee Like an avenging spirit I'll follow thee Even unto death. Before those whom thou lovest- Before all Rome I'll taunt thee, villain,—I'll taunt thee, Dost hear? with cowardice—thou wilt not fight me? Thou liest! thou ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 5 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe

... and one so discreditable to your house. I can only say that I am very sorry,"— which indeed he was—"and that I should never have taken any notice of his words—knowing that he would regret them on reflection—had he not in an unguarded moment allowed himself to taunt me with my birth. Uncle, you know the misfortune of my father's marriage, and that she was not his equal in birth, but you know too that she was my mother and I love her memory though I never saw her, and I could not bear to hear her spoken of like that, and I struck him. I hope that both ...
— Dawn • H. Rider Haggard

... the folk to intercede with me to restore her to him; but I told him that this could not lawfully be done but by an intermediate marriage, and we have agreed to make some stranger the intermediary, so none may taunt him with this affair. So, as thou art a stranger, come with us and we will marry thee to her; thou shalt lie with her to-night and on the morrow divorce her, and we will give thee what I said.' 'By Allah,' quoth Alaeddin ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume III • Anonymous

... have put my dreams upon an allowance. Yet even now I love you more than I love books and indolence and flattery and the charitable wine which cheats me into a favorable opinion of myself. What more can an old poet say? For that reason, lady, I pray you begone, because your loveliness is a taunt which ...
— Jurgen - A Comedy of Justice • James Branch Cabell

... Christians nominal and savages, in any portion of the globe, but that the savages have with great justice thrown in the Christians' teeth, that they preached one thing but did another. Unfortunately the taunt is but too true. Even those who had left their country for religious persecution have erred in the same way. The conduct of the Puritans who landed at Salem was as barbarous towards the Indians as that of Pizarro and his followers towards the Mexicans. In either case the poor aborigines were ...
— The Mission; or Scenes in Africa • Captain Frederick Marryat

... whose home had rung with laughter by the taunt and ridicule of those who made fun of her ugliness, [94] now graced her house with sweet smiles and engaging features, which drew scores of visitors to her home. Juan confessed his sins, and underwent penance for his wickedness; and the two lived together ...
— Filipino Popular Tales • Dean S. Fansler

... keenly barbed and doubly envenomed, and it sped as with the fierce hiss of a viper. Was it possible in this the final and most dreadful stage of Christ's mission, to make Him doubt His divine Sonship, or, failing such, to taunt or anger the dying Savior into the use of His superhuman powers for personal relief or as an act of vengeance upon His tormentors? To achieve such a victory was Satan's desperate purpose. The shaft failed. Through taunts and derision, through blasphemous challenge and diabolical ...
— Jesus the Christ - A Study of the Messiah and His Mission According to Holy - Scriptures Both Ancient and Modern • James Edward Talmage

... to Milford again, almost daily, to feast my eyes on the bleak, flat, gray landscape. The desolation of winter sustains our frail hopes. Nature is kindest then; she does not taunt us with fruition. It is the luxury of summer which tantalizes—her long, brilliant, blossoming days, ...
— The Morgesons • Elizabeth Stoddard

... lightning, and hurling unseen death. Even now I see him coming. The shallow streams he has forded, the deep rivers he has swum. He is tired and hungry; and his quiver has no arrows, but he brings a prisoner in his arms. Lay the deer's flesh on the coals, and bring hither the pounded corn. Taunt him not, for he is valiant, and has fought like ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 1 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones

... this abortive affair, Nelson, convinced by it that something more than a taunt was needed to bring his enemy under his guns, stationed frigates at the Hyeres, and to cruise thence to the eastward as far as Cape Taillat, to intercept the commerce between Italy and Toulon and Marseilles. For this purpose he had recommended, ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. II. (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan

... were now as futile as the burned-out lights which set off a child's pageant. Her sense of being blameworthy was exaggerated by a dread both definite and vague. The definite dread was lest the veil of secrecy should fall between her and Grandcourt, and give him the right to taunt her. With the reading of that letter had begun her husband's empire ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot

... did not interpret as an intentional cruelty. The Indian is not malicious. He will insult and exult over the vanquished foe in the heat of passion; but he will take the scalp and keep it very carefully, respect it, and to a certain extent the memory of the slain. But to sneer at and taunt a fallen adversary in the hour of sadness, and in the condition in which Tyope was, is not the Indian's way. That was not what made Tyope suffer. What overpowered his faculties, darkened his mind, and deprived him of ...
— The Delight Makers • Adolf Bandelier

... my appearance would be in the gown, or the taunt I flung at him, moved the Boy, I cannot say, but ...
— The Princess Passes • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson

... seized and dragged away to be shut up and tortured as Miss Starbrow had desired. But suddenly this feeling gave place to another, to a burning resentment experienced for the first time against this woman who had made her suffer so cruelly, and now came to taunt her and mock at her misery. It suffocated and made her dumb for a time. Then she burst out: "You wicked bad woman! You beast—you beast, how I hate you! Oh, I wish God ...
— Fan • Henry Harford

... cheek Of Virgin modesty, that thou shalt wish The earth might cover thee! in that last hour, When thy bruis'd breast shall heave beneath the chains That link thee to the stake; when o'er thy form, Exposed unmantled, the brute multitude Shall gaze, and thou shalt hear the ribald taunt, More painful than the circling flames that scorch Each quivering member; wilt thou not in vain Then wish my friendly aid? then wish thine ear Had drank my words of comfort? that thy hand Had grasp'd the dagger, and in death preserved Insulted modesty?" Her ...
— Poems, 1799 • Robert Southey

... mad at the time, but I could not lick him, for he was too large. All I could do was to patiently untie my shirt while my teeth chattered, then fling a large, three-cornered taunt in his teeth and run. He kept on poking fun at me, I remember, till I got dressed, and alluded incidentally, to my small brain and abnormal feet. This stung my sensitive nature, and I told him that if I had ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye

... long a Protestant custom to taunt Roman Catholics with being divided among themselves as regards topics vitally important, and to draw from the fact of such division an argument for making Scripture the only 'rule of faith and manners.' Chillingworth said, 'there are Popes against Popes, councils against councils, ...
— An Apology for Atheism - Addressed to Religious Investigators of Every Denomination - by One of Its Apostles • Charles Southwell

... the tribes were not entirely downcast, for during the early evening they continued to taunt us and to repeat their threats of bringing an army of two thousand on to the field in the morning. In fact, many of our men believed the savages had a shade the better of the fight, and would renew hostilities in ...
— A Virginia Scout • Hugh Pendexter

... a war whoop so piercing and fierce that Robert was startled. It cut the air like the slash of a sword, but it was a long cry, full of varied meaning. It expressed satisfaction, triumph, a taunt for the foe, and then it died away in a sinister note like a threat for any who tried to follow. Willet ...
— The Hunters of the Hills • Joseph Altsheler

... resembled more the sword of Richard than the scimetar of Saladin, but it was none the less a keen and trenchant blade. There is probably no better instance of Mr. Webster's power of sarcasm than the famous passage in which he replied to Hayne's taunt about the "murdered coalition," which was said to have existed between Adams and Calhoun. In a totally different vein is the passage about Massachusetts, perhaps in its way as good an example as we have of Webster's power of appealing to the higher and more tender feelings of ...
— Daniel Webster • Henry Cabot Lodge

... than Baalam! Would that | | every ass might rebuke thee. | | | | It is a common thing for temperance lecturers to denounce alcohol on | | the strength of tobacco, that is, lecture with a cud in their mouths. | | Now this is mean. There should be honor among thieves. Don't laugh at | | and taunt your brother, wallowing there in the mud, while your own | | mouth is full of a thousand times filthier filth. Don't grow poetical | | on the "drunkard's aspen hand," when your own poisoned nerves will | | quiver worse than his if you should abstain from your quid three | | hours. ...
— Vanity, All Is Vanity - A Lecture on Tobacco and its effects • Anonymous

... taunt pass unheeded. Her gaze wandered anxiously, and at last settled appealingly upon Sir Charles. "What shall I do?" ...
— An Unsocial Socialist • George Bernard Shaw

... ignorant of the number of innocent creatures that suffered death in the same State on the ridiculous charge of witchcraft toward the end of the seventeenth century? Well does it become their descendants to taunt Catholics with the horrors ...
— The Faith of Our Fathers • James Cardinal Gibbons

... that some of us had been there thousands of years before, but nobody had had the sense to discover us. We couldn't discover ourselves,—though if we could have foreseen how the sere and yellow nations of the earth would taunt us with youth and inexperience, we should have had ...
— Penelope's Progress - Being Such Extracts from the Commonplace Book of Penelope Hamilton As Relate to Her Experiences in Scotland • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin

... compatriot. Erasmus on his part irritated him furtively. He reveals in this whole dispute a lack of self-control and dignity which shows his weakest side. Usually so anxious as to decorum he now lapses into invectives: The British adder, Satan, even the old taunt ascribing a tail to Englishmen has to serve once more. The points at issue disappear altogether behind the bitter mutual reproaches. In his unrestrained anger, Erasmus avails himself of the most unworthy weapons. He eggs his German friends on ...
— Erasmus and the Age of Reformation • Johan Huizinga

... overhung the stream. This branch Mr Sudberry, in his eagerness, did not observe. In casting, he thrust the end of his rod violently into it; the line twirled in dire confusion round the leaves and small boughs, and the drag hook, as if to taunt him, hung down within a foot of ...
— Freaks on the Fells - Three Months' Rustication • R.M. Ballantyne

... is left unguarded!" By the neck he seized the raven, Whirled it round him like a rattle, Like a medicine-pouch he shook it, Strangled Kahgahgee, the raven, From the ridge-pole of the wigwam Left its lifeless body hanging, As an insult to its master, As a taunt to Hiawatha. With a stealthy step he entered, Round the lodge in wild disorder Threw the household things about him, Piled together in confusion Bowls of wood and earthen kettles, Robes of buffalo ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

... crept in about the window-sills and over the imprisoning panes, as if to taunt the victims who were ...
— The Witness • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz

... The first time Johnnie had ventured into the area wearing his baggy breeches and a voluminous shirt, the boys who had from the first called "Girl's hair!" at him changed their taunt to "Old clothes!" It had sent him scurrying back into the flat, and it had kept him there, so that Big Tom had some one to look after Grandpa steadily, and bring in ...
— The Rich Little Poor Boy • Eleanor Gates

... she cowered under each separate count of the curse launched against her. She bent like a slender reed under the strokes of a flail, lower and lower against his arm, but when the deadly voice flung the final taunt at her, she straightened slowly and looked ...
— The Treasure Trail - A Romance of the Land of Gold and Sunshine • Marah Ellis Ryan

... pouring out her scorn upon a mute victim. The audience knew what the woman in the play did not know, that it was for love of her that the man had sinned, to save her from a terrible danger which had hovered very near her life. The curtain fell, the woman leaving the room with a final taunt flung over her shoulder, the man seated at a table looking steadfastly into the fire with fixed, unseeing eyes. The audience drew a little breath and then applauded; the orchestra struck up and a buzz of ...
— A Millionaire of Yesterday • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... three words. And then his head drooped, his hands fell laxly at his sides. It seemed it was not of Beason he had been thinking as he looked Fate in the face with that taunt of the ...
— The Glory Of The Conquered • Susan Glaspell

... their master." This was an intolerable insult. To taunt a free-born man, as David was, with having been a slave and a runaway. It is hard to conceive how Nabal dared to say such a thing of a fierce chieftain like David, with six hundred armed men at his back; but ...
— True Words for Brave Men • Charles Kingsley

... not come through because in incomplete visualization some little part was left dangling, unconnected. And the long history of non-science belief in the magic properties of cabalistic signs and designs rose up to taunt him, to goad him with the possibility that perhaps man had once come close to the answer of how to control physical properties without the use of tools; that the development of a physical science had taken man down a sidetrack instead of farther along the ...
— Eight Keys to Eden • Mark Irvin Clifton

... That taunt stung Don into rising and squaring off, while his father looked unutterably disgusted and angry over the ridiculous turn affairs ...
— The Submarine Boys' Trial Trip - "Making Good" as Young Experts • Victor G. Durham

... than she, but to give up all for her would be a very great superiority; if her pride cannot bear to be under the small obligation, how will she make up her mind to the greater? If she cannot bear to think that her husband might taunt her with the fact that he has enriched her, would she permit him to blame her for having brought him to poverty? Wretched boy, beware lest she suspects you of such a plan! On the contrary, be careful and economical for her sake, lest ...
— Emile • Jean-Jacques Rousseau

... at his worst, Raffles as I never knew him before or after—a Raffles mad with pain and rage, and desperate as any other criminal in the land. Yet he had struck no brutal blow, he had uttered no disgraceful taunt, and probably not inflicted a tithe of the pain he had himself to bear. It is true that he was flagrantly in the wrong, his victim as laudably in the right. Nevertheless, granting the original sin of the situation, and given this unforeseen development, ...
— A Thief in the Night • E. W. Hornung

... of fortune. He turned towards his followers, and addressed the minstrel with his usual calmness, "Thou art right, good fellow," he said, "in what thou saidst to me but now, and I forgive thee the taunt which accompanied thy good counsel. Speak out, in God's name! and speak to one prepared to endure the evil which God hath sent him. Certes, a good knight is best known in battle, and a Christian in the time ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott

... and a bull's-eye. The Fordham Institute boys had no answer ready for that. Half of them turned to stare at Phin Drayne, whose guilty face, with color coming and going in flashes seemed to admit the truth of Reade's taunt. ...
— The High School Captain of the Team - Dick & Co. Leading the Athletic Vanguard • H. Irving Hancock

... the rage of the baffled to possess him. This cold officer upon a monument, who dropped epithets unconcernedly down, would be finer as a dead man, he thought. So grievous did he think it that he could never possess the secret right to taunt truly in answer. ...
— The Red Badge of Courage - An Episode of the American Civil War • Stephen Crane

... before Christmas itself. She could hardly believe the evidence of her senses when the boys affably volunteered to clear away the rubbish, and Bridgie and Esmeralda went upstairs with wreathed arms, calling one another "Darling" and "Love," with the echo of sharp taunt and sharper reply still ringing in the air! Certainly, if the Irish tongue were quick, the heart seemed even quicker to forgive an enemy, ...
— Pixie O'Shaughnessy • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey

... and scraps of songs, of which he had plenty, this pleasant honest fool poured out his heart even in the presence of Gonerill herself, in many a bitter taunt and jest which cut to the quick; such as comparing the king to the hedge-sparrow, who feeds the young of the cuckoo till they grow old enough, and then has its head bit off for its pains: and saying, that an ass may know when the cart draws the horse (meaning that Lear's daughters, ...
— Books for Children - The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 3 • Charles and Mary Lamb

... cheek turned white with the taunt the words might be supposed to imply. He held her two hands in his, pressing ...
— Verner's Pride • Mrs. Henry Wood

... instant Grace was sorry for her rude retort. It would have been far better to remain silent, she reflected. By answering she had shown Virginia that the latter's taunt had annoyed her. ...
— Grace Harlowe's First Year at Overton College • Jessie Graham Flower

... what have I ever done to be imprisoned like this? And was I not unhappy enough before, that you must needs come and taunt me with the happiness your daughter is enjoying now she ...
— The Green Fairy Book • Various

... Tex off so suddenly when Johnny had flung out that meaningless taunt? Meaningless ...
— Skyrider • B. M. Bower

... you speak to me of her? I can't bear it. You know I cannot. You do well to taunt me with the plebeian blood in your veins—you, of all men alive. Oh! why did you ever see this designing girl? Why did ...
— A Terrible Secret • May Agnes Fleming

... that one who reads this record will have difficulty in determining whether members of the bar conspired to drive a judge from the bench or whether the judge used the authority of the bench to whipsaw the lawyers, to taunt and tempt them, and to create for himself the role of the persecuted. I have reluctantly concluded that neither is blameless, that there is fault on each side, that we have here the spectacle of the bench and the bar using the courtroom for an unseemly demonstration of garrulous ...
— The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation • Edward Corwin

... happened had quickly leaked out: it was known before he came into view that Cotherstone had been discharged—his appearance in that bold, self-assured fashion only led to covert whispers and furtive looks. But suddenly, from somewhere in the crowd, a sneering voice flung a contemptuous taunt across the ...
— The Borough Treasurer • Joseph Smith Fletcher

... some nickels, yet his boasts would fill me with disgust. On the occasion just mentioned I was so irritated with my poverty and with the whole world that I was seized with an irresistible desire to taunt him. As he continued to eulogize his forthcoming masterpiece I threw out a Hebrew quotation: "Let others praise thee, but not thine ...
— The Rise of David Levinsky • Abraham Cahan

... stood, at that day, in the estimation of Nelson's fleet in particular; but from a privateersman he expected a greedy acquiescence in a plan that offered life as a reward, in exchange for a treachery like that he proposed. At first he felt disposed to taunt Raoul with the contradiction between what he, Cuffe, conceived to be his general pursuits, and his present assumption of principles; but the unpretending calmness of the other's manner, and the truth of his feelings, ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper

... speaker, full of Biblical quotations, apt in comparing the Old and New Testaments, and happy in the use of vivid illustrations. The vehemence and rapidity of his utterance sometimes sprinkled with saliva the hearers seated near him, which gave occasion for a famous taunt flung at Ambrose Clark, one of Stacy's converts and an early settler of Pierstown, when his brother Abel said that "Ambrose had rather be spit upon by Stacy than ...
— The Story of Cooperstown • Ralph Birdsall

... get some more crocks, Hester," she added. Debby was annoyed at herself in talking of family in the child's presence. With Debby's knowledge of Hester's parentage, it was as though she had thrown a taunt in the child's face. When Hester returned, bearing in her arms the two, large flower-pots, Debby made a point of showing her unusual consideration, asking her opinion as to the best flowers to be potted and whether she did not wish a plant for her ...
— Hester's Counterpart - A Story of Boarding School Life • Jean K. Baird

... The Polka to-night to play a little game of poker? Funny how things change about in an hour or two!" Rance chuckled mirthlessly; it seemed to suit his sardonic humour to taunt his helpless rival. "You think you can play poker,—that's your conviction, is it? Well, you can play freeze-out as to your chances, Mr. Johnson of Sacramento. Come, speak up,—it's shooting or ...
— The Girl of the Golden West • David Belasco

... shoulder again, young sir," he said to Dick. "What I have seen rejoices me greatly, but I do not say it to taunt you. In war if one wins the other must lose, and bear in mind ...
— The Rock of Chickamauga • Joseph A. Altsheler

... were grouped closely together, doors through which people constantly passed in and out like bees at the entrance to a hive. In the pensive sweetness of the semi-tropical night, this fantastic erection in plaster and gilding and coloured ornaments seemed an outrage, a taunt, a purposeful affront; and yet—the very violence of the contrast, its outrageousness, gave it a ...
— The Guests Of Hercules • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson

... his honour. Lowering looks however were bent upon him from every side of the table. Captain Pierce, an English officer, had been busy the day before stirring up the smouldering embers of anger. Suddenly a taunt was flung out by one of the guests at the discomfited hero. Shane—forgetting perhaps where he was—sprang up to revenge it. A dozen swords and skeans blazed out upon him, and he fell, pierced by three or four of his entertainers at ...
— The Story Of Ireland • Emily Lawless

... five barley loaves and two small fishes, to feed the five thousand, even an apostle said: "What are these among so many?" Yes, what are they? In the hands of a mere man, nothing—nay, worse than nothing; only enough to taunt the hungry thousands and become a cause of strife and riot. But in the hands of the Son of God, with His blessing on them, taken from His hands, and distributed according to His Word, they became a ...
— The Way of Salvation in the Lutheran Church • G. H. Gerberding

... of modern man. The shock of anger at frightful tales from Belgium—little children with their hands cut off (no evidence for that one); women foully outraged; civilians shot in cold blood—sent many men at a quick pace to the recruiting agents. Others were sent there by the taunt of a girl, or the sneer of a comrade in khaki, or the straight, steady look in the eyes of a father who said, "What about it, Dick?... The old country is up against it." It was that last thought which worked in the brain ...
— Now It Can Be Told • Philip Gibbs

... chain of thought the idea presented itself, but it instantly darted into my mind that the murderer had come to mock at my misery and taunt me with the death of Clerval, as a new incitement for me to comply with his hellish desires. I put my hand before my eyes, and cried out in agony, "Oh! Take him away! I cannot see him; for God's sake, do not ...
— Frankenstein - or The Modern Prometheus • Mary Wollstonecraft (Godwin) Shelley

... that Richard was a tough customer, and he made no further allusion to any suffering in store for his defiant rival. But Richard's taunt about Kennedy, and his promises to introduce him, were not pleasant to the bully, and he walked away. He feared that the victim had been ...
— In School and Out - or, The Conquest of Richard Grant. • Oliver Optic

... eloquence by the sarcasms of a member of a debating club, who characterised him as "Orator Mum;" for, like Cowper, when he stood up to speak on a previous occasion, Curran had not been able to utter a word. The taunt stung him and he replied in a triumphant speech. This accidental discovery in himself of the gift of eloquence encouraged him to proceed in his studies with renewed energy. He corrected his enunciation ...
— Self Help • Samuel Smiles

... and rosy with the deepest happiness she had ever know. He had never spoken so plainly before. "Edith can never taunt me again with his silence," she thought. Though sounding well enough to the ear, how false were his words! Zell was giving the best love of which her heart was capable in view of her defective education and character. In a sincere and deep affection there are great possibilities ...
— What Can She Do? • Edward Payson Roe

... my Master was and knew What did belong to writing Verse and Prose, Ne'er stumbled at small faults, nor yet did view With scornful Eye the Works and Books of those That in his time did write, nor yet would taunt At any Man, to fear ...
— An Apology For The Study of Northern Antiquities • Elizabeth Elstob

... in each new pursuit, So wholly what her anxious father wish'd, That he repented not his cruelty. Believing in her happiness, he felt Himself the author, and became more proud Of his own wisdom: yet she often heard His wayward taunt or querulous complaint, And, from the lordly partner of her fate, The harsher sound of ignorant rebuke. She was a matchless woman, when she lost The timid graces of retiring youth, She still was lovely, for her shaded eyes Beam'd with a lofty sweetness, a content ...
— Poems • Matilda Betham

... know," remarked Thad. "It gave us a run for the money; and chances are, we'll never get over laughing at the funny things that happened. Then besides think what it did for Smithy! After what he did I guess there isn't a scout who will ever taunt him about being ...
— The Boy Scouts' First Camp Fire - or, Scouting with the Silver Fox Patrol • Herbert Carter

... and cruelest taunt, which she had brought out against her better feelings, seemed to have relieved her soul of a hundred-weight of care; she drew a deep breath, and turning to Philippus, went on far ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... the only Englishman. Notwithstanding the diversity of nation, there was but little in sentiment, for with the exception of the apprentice, who was not a free agent, and myself, they all determined to 'turn out,' and many a taunt had I to bear for refusing to join them. Our boss was a man well to do in the world. Having of course heard of the threatened strike, he said: 'Well, you can do just as you like. There's no boss in the city pays better prices than I do, and they wont go ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 428 - Volume 17, New Series, March 13, 1852 • Various

... Mark Lemon. Mr. W. S. Gilbert, according to a world-travelled newspaper paragraph, let off the gibe at his friend Mr. Burnand. Laman Blanchard, says another journalist, surprised Jerrold into silence with the taunt. Mark Lemon, declares another, threatened his proprietors with it in a moment of anger; while Mr. Walford told me that it was certainly first spoken of by George Grossmith, senr., of humorous memory. But Hodder and Vizetelly ...
— The History of "Punch" • M. H. Spielmann

... again? She was worn out. She had been quiet in these two years: what had gone before she never looked back upon; but it made her thankful for even this stupid quiet. And now, when she had planned her life, busy, useful, contented, why need God have sent the old thought to taunt her? A wild, sickening sense of what might have been struggled up: she thrust it down,—she had kept it down all night; the old pain should not come back,—it should not. She did not think of the love she had given up as a dream, as verse-makers ...
— Margret Howth, A Story of To-day • Rebecca Harding Davis

... not on the wharf. And I did not think well of the business. So you need not taunt me. I tell you what, man, we had but little leisure to think of the dead. Death stands near behind us all. ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad

... nailed up the chest, took it on his back, and hastened to the city. When the ogre cried: "Enough, now!" Thirteenth ran all the faster, and, laughing, sang this song to taunt ...
— Italian Popular Tales • Thomas Frederick Crane

... reseru'd, Captiue to followe Caesars Chariot wheeles Riding in triumph to the Capitol: And Rome oft grac'd with Trophies of my fame, Shall now resound the blemish of my name. Bru. Oh what disgrace can taunt this worthinesse, 120 Of which remaine such liuing monuments Ingrauen in the eyes and hearts of men. Although the oppression of distressed Rome And our owne ouerthrow, might well drawe forth, Distilling teares from ...
— The Tragedy Of Caesar's Revenge • Anonymous

... in the course of his lonely prowlings, and from a distance had watched them play hide and seek. He had despised them and their silly game, but, on the other hand, they did not know who he was and would not make fun of him and taunt him with unpaid bills, and it had been rather nice to listen to their cheerful voices. The ruins, too, had fired his imagination. He had viewed them much as a general views the scene of a prospective battle. ...
— The Dark House • I. A. R. Wylie

... is very lovely—the world is a miracle, but it is all like a taunt, it is like an insult, this glory of the world. I am born a woman, and to be born a woman is to be exquisitely sensitive to insult and to live under it always, always. I wish that I were as marble to the magic of Life, I wish that ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird

... home, Mince not the generall tongue, name Cleopatra as she is call'd in Rome: Raile thou in Fuluia's phrase, and taunt my faults With such full License, as both Truth and Malice Haue power to vtter. Oh then we bring forth weeds, When our quicke windes lye still, and our illes told vs Is as our earing: fare ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare

... there sat an awful gladness in my heart,—nay, blame me not if I see the world thus darkly through the Veil,—and my soul whispers ever to me saying, "Not dead, not dead, but escaped; not bond, but free." No bitter meanness now shall sicken his baby heart till it die a living death, no taunt shall madden his happy boyhood. Fool that I was to think or wish that this little soul should grow choked and deformed within the Veil! I might have known that yonder deep unworldly look that ever and anon floated past his eyes was peering far beyond this narrow ...
— The Souls of Black Folk • W. E. B. Du Bois

... affection of The-White-Birch as a child might have done, but the joyous gallantry of the debonair young French officer was a thing of the past, and the bridegroom had become as completely the child of nature as his bride. He was adopted into the tribe, and the Indian name given him, in no spirit of taunt or contempt, but simply as a descriptive appellation, ...
— Standish of Standish - A story of the Pilgrims • Jane G. Austin

... to listen. He stood bending over a map, but at the phrase, "human material," he started violently. It sounded like a taunt directed at his own thoughts, as if the two men had seen into him and had agreed with each other to give him a good lesson and show him ...
— Men in War • Andreas Latzko

... orders, make very poor masters and mistresses. It is better that they should give up the business of house-keeping, and betake themselves to the living in hotels or boarding-houses with which our English cousins taunt us, little knowing that the nomadic life they condemn is the outcome of their own failure to make good citizens of those offscourings of jail and poorhouse and Irish shanty which they send to us under the ...
— Manners and Social Usages • Mrs. John M. E. W. Sherwood

... hither, thou that would'st forget The gamester's smile, the trader's vaunt, The statesman actor's face hard set, The kennel cry that cheers his taunt, Come where pure winds and rills combine To murmur peace round ...
— Ionica • William Cory (AKA William Johnson)

... notice of the taunt. My conversation with this man invariably led to full stops. He said something to which silence was the best retort. I did not stay long with him, for the train by which I was to return passed through the village in less than an hour from my arrival. As I walked down the little street I ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma • Hesba Stretton

... in the breast of the offended schemer. The latter bristled at the words, lost for an instant his self-possession, said in his anger more than he intended—more than he might easily unsay—enough to bruise the already smarting soul of Allcraft. A threat escaped his lips—a reproach—a taunt. He spoke of his power, and touched cuttingly upon the deep schemes of other men, more feasible than his own perhaps, and certainly more honest. Allcraft winced, as every syllable made known the speaker's actual strength—his own dependence and utter weakness. He made no reply to the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXIX. January, 1844. Vol. LV. • Various

... earth by the sky staid with, the daily close of their junction, The heav'd challenge from the east that moment over my head, The mocking taunt, See then whether you ...
— Leaves of Grass • Walt Whitman

... Paris a very short time he had his first fight with such a boy. He was quite able to hold his own, but all that first year he was continually set upon by the Parisians who loved to taunt him with being a little Corsican and to make ridiculous nicknames out of his two long names. He lost something of his reserve, because he liked the military side of the Paris school much better than the ...
— Historic Boyhoods • Rupert Sargent Holland

... taunt had sting enough to rouse Loveday to a wholesome contempt that saved her. She stood staring with a genuine scorn at the little articles of lace and artificial flowers which Cherry's beau had given her at the last fair. Yes, even at the riband which had been Cherry's special pride ...
— The White Riband - A Young Female's Folly • Fryniwyd Tennyson Jesse

... to taunt me into action, and reviewed the "kennel" with critical eyes. "Never saw a dog makin', its own chain before," he said to the Maluka as I sat among billows of calico and mosquito netting. But the homemaking instinct is strong in a woman, and the musterers went out west without the missus. ...
— We of the Never-Never • Jeanie "Mrs. Aeneas" Gunn

... in fact, I should note, one superiority of courage to my own: this habit of their so constantly casting up my poverty at me—poverty of character, of course I mean, for they don't, to do them justice, taunt me with having "made" so little. They don't, I admit, take their lives in their hands when they perform that act; the proposition itself being that I haven't the spirit ...
— The Whole Family - A Novel by Twelve Authors • William Dean Howells, Mary E. Wilkins Freeman, Mary Heaton Vorse, Mary Stewart Cutting, Elizabeth Jo

... The taunt was too much. Wheeling suddenly, Lidgerwood snapped out a summons to Jefferis: "Get aboard, ...
— The Taming of Red Butte Western • Francis Lynde

... in dry chronicles alone, but illuminated and adorned with all that fancy could suggest in ballad, and tale, and rude epic, the history of the mound-raising period, are not justly liable to this taunt. Until very modern times, history was the one absorbing pursuit of the Irish secular intellect, the delight of the noble, and the solace of ...
— Early Bardic Literature, Ireland • Standish O'Grady

... visitor is Harapha, the Philistine giant, who comes to taunt Samson, and is defied by him to mortal combat. This {237} episode is perhaps the least interesting, but it advances the action by exhibiting Samson's returning sense that God is still with him and will yet do some great work through him. It fitly ...
— Milton • John Bailey

... charge against professing Christians that their religion has very little to do with common morality. The taunt has sharpened multitudes of gibes and been echoed in all sorts of tones: it is very often too true and perfectly just, but if ever it is, let it be distinctly understood that it is not so because of Christian men's religion but in spite of it. ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren

... heroic self-sacrifice which the world is unwilling to forget. There is a charm in Tennyson's "Godiva" or his "Enoch Arden" beyond the reach of mere art; it is found in the noble spirit of the heroine who replies to the taunt of ...
— Elementary Guide to Literary Criticism • F. V. N. Painter

... temper. Read Eliab's irritating taunt in the twenty-eighth verse, and mark the fine self-possession of the young champion's reply! That conquest of temper helped him when he took aim at Goliath! There is nothing like passion for disturbing the accuracy of the eye and the steadiness ...
— My Daily Meditation for the Circling Year • John Henry Jowett

... taunt flashed through her and she seized on it. "People have told me so—his own relations have. I've never ...
— The Custom of the Country • Edith Wharton

... Thus do our opponents taunt us, but when we think not only of the present day, but of the nearly two thousand years during which Christianity has flourished, not in England only, but over all Europe, that is to say, over ...
— The Fair Haven • Samuel Butler

... zeal, for the spread of slavery, I cannot but hate. I hate it because of the monstrous injustice of slavery itself. I hate it because it deprives our republican example of its just influence in the world; enables the enemies of free institutions with plausibility to taunt us as hypocrites; causes the real friends of freedom to doubt our sincerity; and especially because it forces so many good men among ourselves into an open war with the very fundamental principles of civil liberty, criticizing ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln

... imagination to think what the mothers and wives of the members must think of the public confession of the deep disrespect their menfolk feel for them. Some one here spoke of "a row."' She threw back her head, and faced the issue as though she knew that by bringing it forward herself, she could turn the taunt against the next speaker into a title of respect. 'You blame us for making a scene in that holy place! You would have us imitate those other women—the well-behaved—the women who think more of manners ...
— The Convert • Elizabeth Robins

... converting his party. It has already been told in this book how at length he succeeded in his aims, how he broke up his party but saved the country, and how in the hour of mingled triumph and defeat he generously gave to Cobden the chief credit for success. Whigs and Tories might taunt one another with desertion of principles, or might claim that their respective leaders collaborated at the end; certainly the question would never have been put before the Cabinet or the House of Commons as a Government ...
— Victorian Worthies - Sixteen Biographies • George Henry Blore

... here before, I was grieved by hearing several of you say, "I will tell you what you wish to know, if I can be alone with you; but not before the other prisoners; for, if they know my past faults, they will taunt me with them." O, never do that! To taunt the fallen is the part of a fiend. And you! you were meant by Heaven to become angels of sympathy and love. It says in the Scripture: "Their angels do always behold in heaven the face of my Father." So was it with you in your childhood; ...
— Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, Vol. II • Margaret Fuller Ossoli

... Gethsemane to do what he was bidden as outside it to do what he was not bidden! How much better if he could have drawn the spiritual sword and cut on the ear which was to be betrayed by a maid-servant's taunt! Peter's conduct on this occasion, as often on other occasions, showed how poor a guide enthusiasm is when it is not informed with the mind and spirit ...
— The Trial and Death of Jesus Christ - A Devotional History of our Lord's Passion • James Stalker

... Her old taunt: sending men to death and taking no risk himself! She saw that he winced; she realized that she had stayed words that were about to come in a flood. Then she seemed to see him through new lenses. He appeared drawn and pale and old, as if ...
— The Last Shot • Frederick Palmer

... now one of our unhappy terms of distinction."—Burnet, i. 58. See also Scott's "Tales of a Grandfather," ch. xii. Mr. Green, however, thought the word whig might be the same as our whey, implying a taunt against the "sour-milk faces" of the fanatical Ayrshiremen.—"History of the English ...
— Claverhouse • Mowbray Morris

... now interrupted by a noise and shouting near my window, and could plainly distinguish the words Scipio and Solon uttered in a tone of taunt and reproach. Not immediately comprehending how Solon or Scipio could be introduced in a fray at Paris, I dispatched Angelique to make enquiry; and at her return I learned that a croud of boys were following a shoemaker of the neighbourhood, ...
— A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, • An English Lady

... "I taunt you? Read her note again! She wants your trusty counsel in an affair of the last importance to her welfare and happiness. You know what is the affair of last importance to a woman! Will you refuse her now, ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby

... zorra!" muttered the soldier, enraged beyond endurance by this last taunt; and drawing back his right arm, he dealt so heavy and unexpected a blow upon the breast of the muleteer that the latter reeled a couple of paces backwards, and then fell headlong and with considerable violence ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 361, November, 1845. • Various

... moderate. He would have pity on the advanced years of the proconsul, and would give the Romans back those men of theirs, who were not so much keeping watch in Mesopotamia as having watch kept on them." Crassus, stung with the taunt, exclaimed, "He would return the ambassadors an answer at Seleucia." Wagises, the chief ambassador, prepared for some such exhibition of feeling, and, glad to heap taunt on taunt, replied, striking the palm of one hand with the fingers' ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 6. (of 7): Parthia • George Rawlinson

... granite than have web feet and paddle in muck," retorted Uncle Trufant, ready with the ancient taunt as to the big ...
— The Skipper and the Skipped - Being the Shore Log of Cap'n Aaron Sproul • Holman Day

... and supped full of horrors. Lady Macbeth complains of the smell of blood on her hand: Macbeth makes no complaint—he has ceased to notice it now; but the same smell is in his nostrils. A contained fury and disgust possesses him. He taunts the messenger and the doctor as people would taunt their mortal enemies. And, indeed, as he knows right well, every one is his enemy now, except his wife. About her he questions the doctor with something like a last human anxiety; and, in tones of grisly mystery, asks him if he can 'minister to a mind diseased.' When the news ...
— Lay Morals • Robert Louis Stevenson

... the young Indian, his face darkening with anger at the savage taunt. "A man's death for a man, but jackals shall die like jackals. With hearts of terror and blood turned to water in their fear, they shall die a death more horrible than the palefaces can ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely

... opposed to restraint as such. For those who understand that all social liberty rests upon restraint, that restraint of one man in one respect is the condition of the freedom of other men in that respect, the taunt has no meaning whatever. The liberty which is good is not the liberty of one gained at the expense of others, but the liberty which can be enjoyed by all who dwell together, and this liberty depends on and is measured by the completeness with which by law, custom, or their own ...
— Liberalism • L. T. Hobhouse

... wished to join the club; but his mother, fearful lest some of the boys should taunt him with the occurrences of the past few days, desired him to remain at home. Captain Sedley's request, however, was quite sufficient, and Tony followed Frank ...
— The Boat Club - or, The Bunkers of Rippleton • Oliver Optic

... or has not to do with it," I broke in, for although I do not think that he meant them as a taunt, but merely as a statement of fact, Saduko's words stung me to the quick, especially as my conscience told me that they ...
— Child of Storm • H. Rider Haggard

... days of weariness and nights of pain are appointed them; they suffer, not only at the hand of man, but it seems as though God Himself were turned against them, to become their enemy. The heavens seem as brass to their cries and tears, and the enemy has reason to challenge them with the taunt, "Where is now your God!" The waters of a full cup are wrung out in days like these; and the cry is extorted, "How long, O Lord, ...
— John the Baptist • F. B. Meyer

... be undergone either in all the severity of unexpected and inexperienced trial, or else, more bitter still, to be begun again, and endured for the second time, amidst the ruins of cherished hopes and the feebleness of advancing years, embittered by the continual sting and taunt of the inner feeling that it has all been brought about, not by the fair course of appointed circumstance, but by miserable chance and wanton treachery; and, last of all, look beyond this—to the shattered destinies ...
— The Two Paths • John Ruskin

... for a place in the memory,' said Fleetwood; and the late hour, with the profitless talk, made it a stinging taunt. ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... The taunt would have angered me had his condition been other than it was; but coming from one so possessed of the devil of terror, it did no ...
— The Shame of Motley • Raphael Sabatini

... a great deal to take her in my arms, and press her to my bosom then and there,—to think that she should taunt me with having said to her the sort of thing I ...
— The Beetle - A Mystery • Richard Marsh

... them, a Biscayan captain called out, "Send your daughter to the brothel, and that will soon put you in funds!" This, was a favorite daughter named Elvira, whom Gonsalvo loved so tenderly, that he would not part with her, even in his campaigns. Although stung to the heart by this audacious taunt, he made no reply; but, without changing a muscle of his countenance, continued, in the same tone as before, to expostulate with the insurgents, who at length were prevailed on to draw off, and disperse to their quarters. The next morning, the appalling spectacle of the ...
— The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella The Catholic, V3 • William H. Prescott

... find it," was the reply; and then came what Master Ned knew would be the crowning taunt and insult to his father. "If it comes to the worst, I know how I can get to England, where I'd rather ...
— Philip Winwood • Robert Neilson Stephens

... had been no fight. The Stetsons were few and unprepared. They had neither the guns nor, without Rufe, the means to open the war, and they believed Rufe had gone for arms. So they had chafed in the store all day, and all day Lewallens on horseback and on foot were in sight; and each was a taunt to every Stetson, and, few as they were, the young and hot-headed wanted to go out and fight. In the afternoon a tale-bearer had brought some of Jasper's boasts to Rome, and, made reckless by moonshine and much brooding, he sprang up to lead ...
— A Cumberland Vendetta • John Fox, Jr.

... mercifully divide the two. And this leaves them helpless before a little American girl, laughing, talking, jesting, teasing, till, bewildered by such a phenomenon, they are swept down so easily that one is reminded of Attila's taunt to the Romans, "The thicker the grass, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 86, February, 1875 • Various

... impious spear. At this sad outcome Venus, to whom physical pain is a new sensation, flies in dismay to Olympus, the home of the deities, and hides her weeping face in the lap of Father Jove, while her lady enemies taunt her with biting sarcasms. The whole scene is an amusing example of ...
— Historic Tales, vol 10 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris

... taunt, and answered gravely: "My humble home would be much honored if King James should visit its halls, but Nottingham has as true archers as e'er drew bow, and Yorkshire men are stern ...
— The Prose Marmion - A Tale of the Scottish Border • Sara D. Jenkins

... and fro as though he had not heard. But suddenly he checked himself, stood still for a moment, then with a gloomy face and without taking his hands out of his pockets ran smartly up the stairs. Already facing the door she turned her head for a whispered taunt: "Come! Confess you were dying to see her stupid little face once more,"—to ...
— Chance • Joseph Conrad

... before me. Or would that this very day Cronion might waken war whence he would, and that I had a shield and two spears, and a helmet all of bronze, close fitting on my temples! Then shouldest thou see me mingling in the forefront of the battle, nor speak and taunt me with this my belly. Nay, thou art exceeding wanton and thy heart is hard, and thou thinkest thyself some great one and mighty, because thou consortest with few men and feeble. Ah, if Odysseus might but return and come to his own country, right soon would yonder doors full wide as they are, ...
— DONE INTO ENGLISH PROSE • S. H. BUTCHER, M.A.

... her question, "Then it IS war?" was at best a threat, and that implied hesitation. He recalled her strange allusion to his wife; was it merely the outcome of his own foolish confession on their first interview, or was it a concealed ironical taunt? Being satisfied, however, that she was not likely to imperil his public duty in any way, he was angry with himself for speculating further. But, although he still felt towards her the same antagonism she had at first provoked, he was conscious that she was beginning ...
— Clarence • Bret Harte

... value of my sacrifice. Then it seemed that I gave a great thing, and great was my betrayal. Therefore I could not rest for the thought of what I had put my hand to, chafed at Wetter's words that sounded now like a taunt, and seemed again to see old Hammerfeldt dying and to flush red in shame before the utterance of his eyes. The Prince had served his masters, his country, and the cause that he held right. Wetter, if he served himself, served his principles also. What ...
— The King's Mirror • Anthony Hope

... excited in the bosom of the poor boatman, and when "wifie" caught a fish the same procedure was repeated. "Of course," said the boatman, in telling me the story, "that pair caught more fish than any one I had had for a month, simply to taunt me with ...
— The Lake of the Sky • George Wharton James

... that taunt from Godfrey! How often had he been told before boys whom he esteemed and loved at school, and whose good opinion he was desirous to retain, that he was dependent upon the bounty of Colonel Hurdlestone, though the only son and heir of the rich miser; and that he was ...
— Mark Hurdlestone - Or, The Two Brothers • Susanna Moodie

... before which stood Menko, preventing her from advancing, and regarding her with eyes which burned with reckless passion, wounded self-love, and torturing jealousy. "Yes, coward!" she repeated, "coward, coward to dare to taunt me with an infamous past and speak of a still more ...
— Prince Zilah, Complete • Jules Claretie

... Malden rambled on. He talked of the Mexican war; told of Vera Cruz and the battle of Monterey. "Bravest thing you ever saw, boy. One of those Greasers rode square up to our line and flung a taunt in our faces, and rode away in disdain, while all our batteries ...
— The Transformation of Job - A Tale of the High Sierras • Frederick Vining Fisher

... said Christine, with a covert taunt in her tone, "that is a cheap way of making a reputation. I fear the impression will be given that you ...
— Barriers Burned Away • E. P. Roe

... that morning, found the rusty knife that had been buried with the hand, and apprehended Parker, who confessed his guilt. The wretched man said, that being out on the fatal night about some sick cattle, he had met poor Edmund by the low gate; that Edmund had begun, as usual, to taunt him; that the opportunity of revenge was too strong, and he had murdered him. His first idea had been flight, and being unable to drag the ring from Edmund's hand, which was swollen, he had cut it off, and thrown the body into the ditch. On hearing of ...
— Miscellanea • Juliana Horatia Ewing

... walking unarmed and without police escort in Tulla and Athenry was as great as ever was displayed by a knight-errant of old. The Nationalist papers, no longer able to taunt him with cowardice, took to declaring him to be a person ...
— The Reminiscences of an Irish Land Agent • S.M. Hussey

... harshly on poor Mag as once it would. She did not even turn her head to look at them. She had passed into an insen- sibility no childish taunt could penetrate, else she would have reproached herself as she passed familiar scenes, for extending the separation once so easily annihilated by steadfast integrity. Two miles beyond lived the Bellmonts, in a large, old fashioned, ...
— Our Nig • Harriet E. Wilson

... Nevertheless, his humorous productions are very small compared with his sentimental. It might perhaps have been expected that his mind would assume a gloomy and cynical complexion. His personal infirmity, with which, in his childhood, even his mother was wont to taunt him, might well have begotten a severity similar to that of Pope. The pressure of friends and creditors led him, while a mere stripling, to form an uncongenial alliance with a stern puritan, who, while enjoying his renown, sought to force his soaring genius into the trammels ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange

... taunt stung him. He looked up. He was not facing a helpless, dependent old woman as he had been the day before, but a handsome, clever girl, in every way his superior—and in the right! In his vague sense of honor it seemed more creditable for ...
— Trent's Trust and Other Stories • Bret Harte

... which we found ourselves was a large, handsome craft, of fully a hundred and eighty tons; and, from her great beam, her taunt, raking masts, the broad white ribbon outside, and the peculiar paint and fittings on her deck, she was evidently American. There were a good many white men among her crew; but there were also many blacks and mulattoes, of every shade of brown ...
— A Voyage round the World - A book for boys • W.H.G. Kingston

... away over the prairie, he discovered a new and puzzling kink in his temper. He had been angry with the Little Doctor for coming, but it was nothing to the rage he felt when she turned back! He did not own to himself that he wanted her beside him to taunt and to hurt with his rudeness, but it was a fact, for all that. And it was a very surly young man who rode into the Denson corral and threw a loop over the ...
— Chip, of the Flying U • B. M. Bower

... old Polonius and bully his daughter to death; but in this nineteenth century of time, no amount of insanity, real or assumed, will make us think it in accordance with the high and noble nature of the philosophic prince, either to sneer at the poor old whiteheaded courtier he has murdered, or taunt the little trusting girl he has taught to love him. If it were not for the name of Shakspeare, Hamlet would be set down as nearly the beau-ideal of a snob—a combination of the pedantry of James and the unmanliness of Buckingham. Read the play, with this key to the character, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 367, May 1846 • Various

... spoke his mind very strongly when he reached home that evening; and the effect was seen in the remarkable fact that Maggie never heard one reproach from her mother, or one taunt from Tom, about this foolish business of her running away to the gypsies. Maggie was rather awe-stricken by this unusual treatment, and sometimes thought that her conduct had been too ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 7 • Charles H. Sylvester

... go far to redeem Sussex men from the epithet "silly," which is traditionally theirs. Concerning this old taunt, I like the rector's remarks in Idlehurst. The phrase, he says, "is better after all than 'canny owd Cummerlan'' or calling ourselves 'free and enlightened citizens' or 'heirs to all the ages.' But suppose ...
— Highways & Byways in Sussex • E.V. Lucas

... stood with his gun levelled upon the man whom Gadbeau had killed. But, try as she would to keep back the knowledge which she knew she must never under any circumstances reveal, those words came ringing upon her ears. And she knew that the secret would haunt her and taunt her always. ...
— The Shepherd of the North • Richard Aumerle Maher

... these Yankee hogs who meddle in our affairs humiliate us to the last degree, and for still greater taunt order to us one of the ships of war of their rotten squadron, after insulting us in their newspapers and ...
— The Boys of '98 • James Otis

... pitying even while we approve his merited, yet hardly merited, shames and failures. Especially it touches us something hard that one so wit-proud as Sir John should be thus dejected, and put to the mortification of owning that "ignorance itself is a plummet o'er me"; of having to "stand at the taunt of one that makes fritters of English"; and of asking, "Have I laid my brain in the sun, and dried it, that it wants matter to prevent so gross o'er-reaching as this?" and we would fain make out some excuse for him on the score of these slips having occurred at a time ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson

... behold; and I felt myself grow indignant with Northmour, whose infidel opinions I well knew, and heartily derided, as he continued to taunt the poor sinner out of his humour ...
— New Arabian Nights • Robert Louis Stevenson

... Sarcasmus, or the Bitter taunt.] Or when we deride with a certaine seueritie, we may call it the bitter taunt [Sarcasmus] as Charles the fift Emperour aunswered the Duke of Arskot, beseeching him recompence of seruice done at the siege of Renty, against Henry the French king, where the Duke was taken prisoner, and afterward ...
— The Arte of English Poesie • George Puttenham

... would have followed them, guessing that they had some good reason for this sudden departure. But Higgs refused to come, and Orme, in whom his foolish taunt seemed still to rankle, only shrugged ...
— Queen Sheba's Ring • H. Rider Haggard

... all over, and the tired sophomores were getting ready for bed, Marjorie, who still felt the sting of Ruth's taunt, remarked ...
— The Girl Scouts' Good Turn • Edith Lavell

... it bid me rifle My heart's last fount for its insatiate thirst— Though every life-strung nerve be maddened first— Though it should bid me stifle The yearning in my throat for my sweet child, And taunt its mother till my ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick

... as if some being, having right to reproach and power to taunt, whispered to her as she slept, stern remonstrances against the idle, voluptuous, and dreaming life she was leading, mocking her for passing her time in the maudlin delights of love, calling upon her to arouse ...
— Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf • George W. M. Reynolds

... no further in either direction. This impugned and belied the very freedom declared in the Declaration and Constitution; and made both the mockery of Europe. The contradiction is reconciled; the taunt is silenced; speech is legally free and protected over all the Union, and the Pennsylvania Abolition Society has done more than any other agency—more than all other agencies combined—to vitalize the Constitution and give being to the Declaration. ...
— Masterpieces of Negro Eloquence - The Best Speeches Delivered by the Negro from the days of - Slavery to the Present Time • Various

... was speaking he closed the piano very slowly and softly. It did not take him long to put on his impenetrable face, for when he turned round there was not a trace of anger left; the scarce suppressed taunt in Cecil's last words moved him apparently no more than Mrs. Danvers's glance ...
— Sword and Gown - A Novel • George A. Lawrence

... cause of bloodshed? Who dares to say that it is my hand which has splashed those walls—that floor—with such hideous stains? Ha! see how they leap and dance, rise and fall; the place is full of them. Horrible! horrible! Are they there to taunt me, to reproach me, to accuse me? I say I did not do it; I am not to blame. How could I know that—that—what was it? Let me think. 'His blood is upon your hands.' Whose hands? Not mine, I swear; I could not do it; I have not ...
— The Voyage of the Aurora • Harry Collingwood

... passed, and no ships from England appeared. The men began to starve. And seeing this the Indians who had feared them before, now began to be scornful and taunt them. ...
— This Country Of Ours • H. E. Marshall Author: Henrietta Elizabeth Marshall

... delight. As for Will Hen Baizley, he was impressed by Will's confidence and coolness so much that he did not really wish just then to try conclusions with him. Therefore he contented himself with repeating his taunt of "you dars'n't!" and swaggered slowly away. The boys went into ...
— The Raid From Beausejour; And How The Carter Boys Lifted The Mortgage • Charles G. D. Roberts

... plant my crucified hero, and near him a converted courtesan—ah! what a master of the theatre I am!—in company with a handful of faithful disciples. The others have run away to save their cowardly skins in the tumult. The mobs that hailed him as King of the Jews now taunt him, after the manner of all mobs. His early life I shall borrow outright from the Buddha legends. He shall be born of a virgin; he shall live in the desert; as a child he shall confute learned doctors ...
— Visionaries • James Huneker



Words linked to "Taunt" :   barrack, gibe, bemock, chaff, jeer, jolly, scoff, banter, josh, provocation, aggravation, irritation, flout, mock, kid



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