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Contempt   Listen
noun
Contempt  n.  
1.
The act of contemning or despising; the feeling with which one regards that which is esteemed mean, vile, or worthless; disdain; scorn. "Criminal contempt of public feeling." "Nothing, says Longinus, can be great, the contempt of which is great."
2.
The state of being despised; disgrace; shame. "Contempt and begarry hangs upon thy back."
3.
An act or expression denoting contempt. "Little insults and contempts." "The contempt and anger of his lip."
4.
(Law) Disobedience of the rules, orders, or process of a court of justice, or of rules or orders of a legislative body; disorderly, contemptuous, or insolent language or behavior in presence of a court, tending to disturb its proceedings, or impair the respect due to its authority. Note: Contempt is in some jurisdictions extended so as to include publications reflecting injuriously on a court of justice, or commenting unfairly on pending proceedings; in other jurisdictions the courts are prohibited by statute or by the constitution from thus exercising this process.
Synonyms: Disdain; scorn; derision; mockery; contumely; neglect; disregard; slight.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Contempt" Quotes from Famous Books



... shame: Let men stand where God hath set them, and there is no cause of shame, though they be exposed in outward appearance to never so much contempt. ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... it's impossible for me to get on with him. No! Our natures are too different. I'm an indolent, weak, submissive nature. Perhaps in a good minute I might hold out my hand to him, but he would turn away from me . . . with contempt." ...
— The Duel and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov

... [Lovel], for the first time, spoke vastly well, and mentioned how great Sir Robert's character is abroad. Sir Francis Dashwood replied that he had found quite the reverse from Mr. Coke, and that foreigners always spoke with contempt of the Chevalier de Walpole. This was going too far, and he was called to order, but got off well enough, by saying, that he knew it was contrary to rule to name any member, but that he only mentioned it as ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume I • Horace Walpole

... the precincts of a palace. His horror at Remy was so extreme that he could have slain him without remorse, in order to see whether so great a monster had the blood and heart of a man in him. In such paroxysms of rage and contempt did Henri pass the time during the supper, which to the Duc d'Anjou was so full ...
— The Forty-Five Guardsmen • Alexandre Dumas

... and eyes Whose glory through their mist doth brighter rise! See! what an humble bravery doth shine, And griefe triumphant breaking through each line, How it commands the face! so sweet a scorne Never did HAPPY MISERY adorne! So sacred a contempt, that others show To this, (oth' height of all the wheele) below, That mightiest monarchs by this shaded booke May coppy ...
— Lucasta • Richard Lovelace

... Zoie, and she turned upon him with a look of contempt. "If there's anything that he DOESN'T object to," she continued, "I haven't found it out yet." And with that she threw herself in a large arm chair near the table, and left Jimmy to draw his ...
— Baby Mine • Margaret Mayo

... so precious, so inspiring, is treated with such utter irreverence and contempt in the calculations of us mortals as this same air of heaven. A sermon on oxygen, if one had a preacher who understood the subject, might do more to repress sin than the most orthodox discourse to show when and how ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 85, November, 1864 • Various

... element of the fishing colony began to experience a feeling of sharp resentment against the new owner of the Legonia cannery and his wild scheme. But again the foremost citizen had come to the fore and quieted their fears, turning them into open contempt and ridicule by ...
— El Diablo • Brayton Norton

... Commandant's quarters, and were at last set free, to hurry away. The next minute they encountered Anson, who had heard and seen all, and passed them without a word, but wearing a peculiarly supercilious and meaning smile which broadened into a grin of contempt that ...
— A Dash from Diamond City • George Manville Fenn

... but year by year the college mills grind out increasing lists of youths foredoomed to failure and disappointment, and meanwhile, trades, manufactures, and the industrial arts are neglected, and in fact regarded with contempt by our ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling

... earnest. He soon succumbs, and is laid out in his best clothes in an improvised chapel and duly sped on his way. The custom of burying the dead in the gown and cowl of monks has greatly passed into disuse. The mortal relics are treated with growing contempt, as the superstitions of the people gradually lose their concrete character. The soul is the important matter which the Church now looks to. So the cold clay is carted off to the cemetery with small ceremony. Even the coffins of the rich are jammed ...
— Castilian Days • John Hay

... are those we call projectors; and as there was always more geese than swans, the number of the latter are very inconsiderable in comparison of the former; and as the greater number denominates the less, the just contempt we have of the former sort bespatters the other, who, like cuckolds, bear the reproach of ...
— An Essay Upon Projects • Daniel Defoe

... Hollister was not an embittered man. Such methods were beneath his contempt. He merely withdrew from public life. As for recompense—surely you would not think of asking me to accept it from such a source! Never! Besides, I have more than enough. Several years ago I disposed of our mineral holdings, bought back the old Hollister mansion, ...
— Shorty McCabe on the Job • Sewell Ford

... Lord Jesus Christ has been profering to us, Grace, and Glory, and every good thing, and been alluring of us to Accept of Him, with such Terms as these, Undone Sinner, I am All; Art thou willing that I should be thy All? But, as a proof of that Contempt which this Unbelief has cast upon these proffers, I would seriously ask of the so many Hundreds above a Thousand People within these Walls; which of you all, O how few of you, can indeed say, Christ is mine, and I am his, and he is the Beloved of ...
— The Wonders of the Invisible World • Cotton Mather

... all his power, made expedition against them, and when he had marched his army up to Babylon he began to besiege them; but they cared nothing about the siege, for the Babylonians used to go up to the battlements of the wall and show contempt of Dareios and of his army by gestures and by words; and one of them uttered this saying: "Why, O Persians, do ye remain sitting here, and not depart? For then only shall ye capture us, when mules shall bring forth young." ...
— The History Of Herodotus - Volume 1(of 2) • Herodotus

... the Greek islands, as well as Sicily, the coast of Asia Minor, and Constantinople. Like most Englishmen who have served in the Levant, he developed a considerable respect for the Turk, and a quite unbounded contempt for the Greek. After the armistice negotiations in Crete he writes: "I found the conduct of the Turkish chiefs throughout manly, straightforward, and sincere, while that of their opponents was very much the reverse;" and in another place he writes of the Greeks that "a more perfidious, ferocious, ...
— The Surrender of Napoleon • Sir Frederick Lewis Maitland

... pantomimic rendering of it for my information was to be trusted, it was simply perfect. No, it was not that. He was not ashamed. He was shocked at being the selected victim, not of robbery so much as of contempt. His tranquillity had been wantonly desecrated. His lifelong, kindly nicety of outlook ...
— A Set of Six • Joseph Conrad

... election neither secures of itself good behaviour, nor protects from punishment: that every man who standeth, must take heed lest he fall: that no man can boast of his election, so as to look down with contempt upon his meaner brethren: and that there is no other foundation for an expectation of the continuance of divine favour than ...
— A Portraiture of Quakerism, Volume II (of 3) • Thomas Clarkson

... observed the beast smell her with great diligence, he scratched both her hands with lifting them to his nose, and clapping a claw on her bosom, drew blood; however he let her go, and at the same time turned from her with a sort of contempt, at which she was not a little mortified, and retired with some confusion to her friends in the gallery. Methought the whole company immediately understood the meaning of this, that the easiness of the lady had suffered her to admit certain imprudent and dangerous ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IX; • Jonathan Swift

... remarked his sedative and controlling influence over the disordered mind (Mark 1:27). He is not to be trapped in his talk, to be cajoled or flattered. There is greatness in his language—in his reference of everything to great principles and to God; greatness in his freedom from ambition, in his contempt of advertisement and popularity, in his appeal to the best in men, in his belief in men, in his power of winning and keeping friends, in his gift for making great men out of petty. In all this we are not stepping outside the Gospels nor borrowing from what he ...
— The Jesus of History • T. R. Glover

... his studies it may be well for the inquirer to note the fact that familiarity with the world about him leads the man in all cases to a certain neglect and contempt of all the familiar presentations of Nature. We inevitably forget that those points of light in the firmament are vast suns, and we overlook the fact that the soil beneath our feet is not mere dirt, but a marvellous structure, more complicated ...
— Outlines of the Earth's History - A Popular Study in Physiography • Nathaniel Southgate Shaler

... there? It ought to be counted over, Monsieur Vanel! particularly since M. Colbert makes presents of money to ladies, I see. Ah, that worthy M. Colbert is not so generous as M. Fouquet." And Aramis, spelling every word, every letter of the order to pay, distilled his wrath and his contempt, drop by drop, upon the miserable wretch, who had to submit to this torture for a quarter of an hour; he was then dismissed, not in words, but by a gesture, as one dismisses or discharges ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas

... in mine ears? Can this be true? Stand I condemn'd for pride and scorn so much? Contempt, farewell! and maiden pride, adieu! No glory lives behind the back of such. And, Benedick, love on, I will requite thee; Taming my wild heart to thy loving hand; If thou dost love, my kindness shall incite thee To bind our loves up in a holy band: For others say ...
— Much Ado About Nothing • William Shakespeare [Knight edition]

... with a love of old-time romance and of ancient story, he inspired a passion of gratitude that abides to this day. Mr Stevenson not only never laughed, as the other boys and girls did, nor treated the memory of delightful childish plays with contempt, as was the fashion of the generation just grown up, he never even smiled over the unfeminine tastes of a child who went pirate-hunting in an upturned table with a towel for a sail and dried orange ...
— Robert Louis Stevenson • Margaret Moyes Black

... govern while they serve us, and one hopes that the Englishman is not silently thinking of them too. He is probably of the lower classes, and one consoles one's self as one can by holding one's head higher in better company, where, without secret self- contempt, one can be more openly proud of our increasing fortunes and our increasing territory, and our warlike adequacy to a first position among the nations of the world. There is no fear that in such company one's national susceptibilities ...
— Seven English Cities • W. D. Howells

... immutable—oppressed with thought for the country's welfare! As he sat before Chrysler, and the latter felt the nearness of his broad shoulders and coarse black mass of hair, he could not but picture the man within sinking into littleness and self-contempt at the debased uses of ...
— The Young Seigneur - Or, Nation-Making • Wilfrid Chateauclair

... Childs, with great shrewdness, sagacity, and vigour, and with perfect confidence of always being in the right, acted as universal censor, pronouncing oracularly upon all ecclesiastical and political men and organs, expressing unqualified contempt for the House of Lords, and very small satisfaction with the House of Commons, showing no mercy to Churchmen, and little but asperity to Dissenters, and denouncing all British journals as base or blind except the Nonconformist.' ...
— East Anglia - Personal Recollections and Historical Associations • J. Ewing Ritchie

... me you are not jealous," Conny commanded. As her husband smiled and brushed her fair hair with his lips, she muttered, "You silly!" just as she had to Cairy's unreasonableness. Why! She was Percy's destiny and he knew it.... She had a contempt for people who ruffled themselves over petty emotions. This sex matter had been exaggerated by Poets and Prudes, and their hysterical utterances should not inhibit ...
— Together • Robert Herrick (1868-1938)

... under his guardianship that they had come to Pompeii. The confidence which, before their death, their parents had reposed in the Egyptian was in turn fully given to him by lone and her brother. For Apaecides the Egyptian felt nothing but contempt; the youth was to him but an instrument that might be used by him in bending lone to his will. But the mind of Ione, no less than the beauty of her form, appealed to Arbaces. With her by his side, his willing slave, he saw no limit to the heights ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VI. • Various

... other people's interests. You have no vision. Even human beings would like a high elegant hop. The other day I saw the Reverend Sinpeck hop a yard up into the air to impress a little snake that slid across his road. His contempt for anything that couldn't hop was so great that he threw away his pipe. And reverends, you know, cannot live without their pipes. I have known grasshoppers—members of my own family—who could hop to a height three hundred times their ...
— The Adventures of Maya the Bee • Waldemar Bonsels

... of our obligatory fast, and enabled to look with contempt upon the humble prickly pears, which for many a long day had been our only food. Daily now we came across herds of fat buffaloes, and great was our sport in pursuing the huge lord of the prairies. One of them, by-the-bye, gored my horse ...
— Monsieur Violet • Frederick Marryat

... logic, see that if his fellow-fishes eat bread, they, are suddenly jerked out of their element and vanish forever, and though you broke a quartern loaf into crumbs, he would snap his tail at you with enlightened contempt. If," said my father, soliloquizing, "I had been as syllogistic as those scaly logicians, I should never have swallowed that hook which—Hum! there—least said soonest mended. But, Mr. Bolt, ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... do to-day?" And then would sit amiably smiling and taking no notice of the reply or would sweetly glide off into a calculation of the number of letters she had lately received and answered or of the coffee-bearing power of Borrioboola-Gha. This she would always do with a serene contempt for our limited sphere of action, not ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens

... roof, this man here was the only one who slept like that last night!" He paused and looked down at the scowling, sullen creature on the floor. "You wretched little cur!" he said, with a gesture of unspeakable contempt. "And all for the sake of an old man's money! If I did my duty, I'd gaol you. But if I did, it would be punishing the innocent for the crimes of the guilty. It would kill that dear old man to learn ...
— Cleek: the Man of the Forty Faces • Thomas W. Hanshew

... Christianity alone takes the form of a cold and critical disquisition. The successes of barbarous energy and brute force call forth all the consummate skill of composition; while the moral triumphs of Christian benevolence—the tranquil heroism of endurance, the blameless purity, the contempt of guilty fame and of honors destructive to the human race, which, had they assumed the proud name of philosophy, would have been blazoned in his brightest words, because they own religion as their principle—sink into narrow asceticism. The glories of Christianity, ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 • Edward Gibbon

... but went back to France and died at Valenciennes on the 2nd of August 1791. His wife was not a bad woman, but she was not a good mother. Vain and capricious, passionate and self-indulgent, she mismanaged her son from his infancy, now provoking him by her foolish fondness, and now exciting his contempt by her paroxysms of impotent rage. She neither looked nor spoke like a gentlewoman; but in the conduct of her affairs she was praiseworthy. She hated and avoided debt, and when relief came (a civil list pension of L300 a year) she spent most of it upon her son. Fairly well educated, ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various

... Inclination. He happen'd to be a frequent Spectator of the Protestants Sufferings, who, about that Time, had their Tongues cut out, were otherwise tormented, and burnt for their Religion. This made him curious to dive into those Opinions, which inspired so much Constancy, Resignation and Contempt of Death; which brought him by degrees to a liking of them, so that he turn'd Protestant. And this put him in Disgrace with his father, who thereupon disinherited him; which forced him at last to quit France, and to retire to Lausanne in Swisserland by Calvin's and Beza's ...
— Franco-Gallia • Francis Hotoman

... elections show that lie was right as to this. The Socialists carried the first division of Alais, throwing 7,205 votes against 2,425 Radicals and 4,218 Government Republicans. For the Government Republicans my friend of the Amphitheatre could find no words of contempt strong enough. 'They are all whitewashed Wilsons,' he said, and then he dilated with much eloquence on the case of a certain M. Hude,'a great friend of Rochefort' he scornfully exclaimed, 'who is a great friend of Boulanger. Ah! voila du propre! he is ...
— France and the Republic - A Record of Things Seen and Learned in the French Provinces - During the 'Centennial' Year 1889 • William Henry Hurlbert

... people favorably impressed, because I feel lazy and weak, unequal to the trouble of friction, or the pain of conquest. Still, I feel a good deal of contempt for those so easily disconcerted or reaessured. I was not a child; I had lived in the midst of that New England society, in a way that entitled me to esteem, and a favorable interpretation, where there was doubt about my ...
— Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, Vol. II • Margaret Fuller Ossoli

... with fine contempt. "You managed to live on Kerguelen Land without things, so I don't see why you can't get married without them—though, for the matter of that, I will get anything you want in six hours. I never did hear such bosh as women talk about 'things.' ...
— Mr. Meeson's Will • H. Rider Haggard

... be the result of a chance introduction. It had in reality been carefully designed by the French manipulator of underground wires. Louis Delgado he already knew, and held in contempt, yet Louis was the only possible instrument for use in converting certain vague possibilities into definite realities. Changing the nebulous into the concrete; shifting the dotted line of a frontier from here ...
— The Lighted Match • Charles Neville Buck

... perceive He did solicit you in free contempt When he did need your loves; and do you think That his contempt shall not be bruising to you When he hath power to crush? Why, had your bodies No heart among you? Or had you tongues to cry Against the ...
— The Tragedy of Coriolanus • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]

... 305 is in file "09 Humboldt"] It is no slight p 306 evidence of the importance of analysis, which is too often regarded with contempt among the unscientific, that Laplace's perfect theory of tides has enabled us, in our astronomical ephemerides, to predict the height of spring-tides at the periods of new and full moon, and thus put the inhabitants of the sea-shore on their guard against the ...
— COSMOS: A Sketch of the Physical Description of the Universe, Vol. 1 • Alexander von Humboldt

... madhouse—but only in the sense that it is the Capital City of a Nation which is fighting mad. And I think that Berlin and Rome and Tokyo, which had such contempt for the obsolete methods of democracy, would now gladly use all they could get of ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Franklin D. Roosevelt • Franklin D. Roosevelt

... Little Scout," said David, gayly, bending over and kissing her with boyish contempt of aged bones; "and so you shall, and I make no doubt he'll be glad ...
— In the Yule-Log Glow, Book I - Christmas Tales from 'Round the World • Various

... North as Mulberry Street, while trying, as it were, to get on the other side of JOURDAN. In China, nobody objects to take the fin of a Shark, but in this country, when a Shark extends his fin to an honest man, it is always rejected with contempt. This voracious creature is common both in the Temperate and Torrid Zones. It has, in fact, no particular habitat, but is found in Diver's places ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 17, July 23, 1870 • Various

... she had frequently forsaken her interests to follow her own caprices. The minister heard of her death with the feeling one entertains for one's deceased enemy. Her former lovers looked upon her with contempt; and those who admired her still, were but little touched at her loss, because each, jealous of his rival, left tears and grief as the share of the Duke de Beaufort, who was at ...
— Political Women, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Sutherland Menzies

... and loved my duties better; if I have never felt anything but pity for the bad; if I have conceived a deeper compassion for the unfortunate, more veneration for the good, more circumspection in the use of present things, more indifference about future things, more contempt for life, more love for virtue." The works of Richardson are his touch-stone; those who do not love them, stand judged and condemned in his eyes. Yet in the midst of this tumult of admiration Diderot ...
— Diderot and the Encyclopaedists - Volume II. • John Morley

... so, young jackanapes?" said Beresynth with a sneer of the deepest contempt. "With you, children, I have no business. Do you not know me?" cried he turning to Castalio: "perhaps you have nothing ...
— The Old Man of the Mountain, The Lovecharm and Pietro of Abano - Tales from the German of Tieck • Ludwig Tieck

... her pale as death sink under the contempt and scorn of her people. You shall see her dragged along between the priests and the soldiers to the ringing of bells and the singing of hymns. She is already dead in the eyes of the people. She feels herself dead in her heart, ...
— Invisible Links • Selma Lagerlof

... is supremely interested in origins. Not until we have traced the genesis and earliest unfolding of an institution or an idea or a literature do we feel that we really understand and appreciate it. Familiarity with that which is noble breeds not contempt but reverence, and intelligent devotion. Acquaintance with the origin and history of a book is essential to its true interpretation. Therefore it is fortunate that modern discovery and research have thrown so much light upon the origin of both the ...
— The Origin & Permanent Value of the Old Testament • Charles Foster Kent

... robbed his master is astonishingly elegant: "Vile calumniator! You are the abhorrence of nature, the opprobrium of the human species and the earth can only be freed from an insupportable burthen by your being exterminated."[81] The diction is so elaborately dignified that the contempt which was meant almost to annihilate Caleb Williams, lies effectually concealed behind a blinding veil of rhetoric. When he has leisure to adorn, he translates the simplest, most obvious reflections into the "jargon" ...
— The Tale of Terror • Edith Birkhead

... Rule in the dark with pitious crueltie; But harmlesse Man is matter of the day, Which doth his work in pure simplicitie. God blesse his honest usefull industrie. But pride and covetize, ambition, Riot, revenge, self-love, hypocrisie, Contempt of goodnesse, forc'd opinion; These and such like do breed ...
— Democritus Platonissans • Henry More

... thrown down so rudely, when a smile that costs nothing would have left them standing to be finished into finer shape and more classical proportions in the years that are to come. You do a positive injury to the dullest child when you reward his little efforts with contempt. It is a wrong that can never be repaired, for the disheartment that strikes the happy spirit, flushed with the consciousness of having achieved something new and great, comes up in after time with the very same vividness at every trivial ...
— The Jericho Road • W. Bion Adkins

... it, was learning to drive Palmer Howe's new car, in mingled agony and bliss. He walked along the Street, not "right foot, left foot," but "brake foot, clutch foot," and took to calling off the vintage of passing cars. "So-and-So 1910," he would say, with contempt in his voice. He spent more than he could afford on a large streamer, meant to be fastened across the rear of the automobile, which said, "Excuse our dust," and was inconsolable when Palmer refused to ...
— K • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... of spirituality before which the institutions of Moses flee away as chaff before the wind. Simon has some esteem for Jesus, and in this juncture his sensations take a turn of pity, spiced, perhaps, with a little contempt, and he says with himself,—"Surely, this man cannot be a prophet, as is pretended, or he would know who and what sort of woman it is that touches him; for she is a sinner; she ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various

... and he set no store by it. No man was better fitted to adorn any circle he entered, but beyond that of friends and equals he rarely passed. He would take as much pains to keep out of the houses of the great as others take to get into them. Not always wisely, it may be admitted. Mere contempt for toadyism and flunkeyism was not at all times the prevailing motive with him which he supposed it to be. Beneath his horror of those vices of Englishmen in his own rank of life, there was a still stronger resentment at the social ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster

... before their eyes the truth that we are fearfully and wonderfully made, would be more inclined than others to acknowledge the infinite wisdom and power. But this is too often found not to be the case, and it would appear as if the old scholium, that "too much familiarity breeds contempt," may be found to act upon the human mind even when in communion with the Deity. With what awe does the first acquaintance with death impress us! What a thrill passes through the living, as it bends over the inanimate body, from which the spirit has departed! The clay that returns ...
— The King's Own • Captain Frederick Marryat

... courteously made more room for him among the tumbled emerald silk diapers of the luxurious divan, they now shared together. Nir jahs was by no means sober, but he had recovered a little of his self-possession since Lysia's sleepy eyes had darted such cold contempt upon him, and he seemed for the present to be on his guard against giving any further possible cause ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli

... A great wave of self-contempt swept over Elisabeth. She, who had prided herself upon the fact that no man was strong enough to win her love, to be accused of openly running after a man who did not care for her but only for her money! It was unendurable, ...
— The Farringdons • Ellen Thorneycroft Fowler

... do it," answered Disco, with a slight look of contempt at his friend, who bore too much resemblance in some points ...
— Black Ivory • R.M. Ballantyne

... venture to advance the argument, which Mavovo treated with proper contempt, that the shillings paid for this divination should be returned by him to the next heirs of such of them as happened to decease. Why, he asked, should these pay a shilling in order to be told that they must ...
— Allan and the Holy Flower • H. Rider Haggard

... men out of three could control me easily during such a period of mental excitement, is it not reasonable to suppose that the third man, the assistant physician, could likewise have controlled me had he treated me with consideration? It was his undisguised superciliousness that gave birth to my contempt for him. In a letter written during my second week of elation, I expressed the opinion that he and I should get along well together. But that was before I had become troublesome enough to try the man's patience. Nevertheless, it indicates that he could have saved ...
— A Mind That Found Itself - An Autobiography • Clifford Whittingham Beers

... and there!" cried Mae, tearing the fragments impetuously, and scattering the sudden little snow flakes before him. Then, with a look of supreme contempt, she ...
— Mae Madden • Mary Murdoch Mason

... would be forty pounds a year, out of which she calculated she could pay her debts and then assist Mrs. Bishop. But she would lose her independence, and would expose herself to the indifference or contempt then the portion of governesses. "I should be shut out from society," she explained to George Blood, "and be debarred the pleasures of imperfect friendship, as I should on every side be surrounded by unequals. To live only on terms of civility and common benevolence, without any ...
— Mary Wollstonecraft • Elizabeth Robins Pennell

... at that he ran the pencil through it and wrote something else on the other side of the fly-leaf, at which they all laughed uproariously. Presently he tossed the book back to me with all the outward signs of contempt that a fanatic can show for ...
— Jimgrim and Allah's Peace • Talbot Mundy

... men, the black women and female children were captured in excursions to this island, and were liable to the ill-treatment, which might be expected from men who regarded them with passion and contempt. They were employed as slaves on some islands, to strip the mutton bird, and in whatever irksome labor was within their capacity. It is said that one man (Harrison), had fourteen women in his service, whom he flogged with military severity, and some ...
— The History of Tasmania , Volume II (of 2) • John West

... inner amusement. There was something more than amusement, too. If Wes Thompson had not known that Sam Carr liked Tommy, rather admired his push and ability to hold his own in the general scramble, he would have said Carr's smile and eyes tinged the amusement with something like contempt. ...
— Burned Bridges • Bertrand W. Sinclair

... fingers closed round the gold, and her delight at getting so much money prevented her from feeling the contempt in the ...
— Stories from English History • Hilda T. Skae

... togeather with a particular declaration of the Murders shee had committed, layde open to the world, and giuen in Euidence against her at the time of her Arraignement and Tryall; as certainely it did beget contempt in the Audience, and ...
— Discovery of Witches - The Wonderfull Discoverie of Witches in the Countie of Lancaster • Thomas Potts

... of foreigners. The absence of historic records and relics in New England has often been a matter of contempt, and an amusing story is told by J. T. Fields of a stiff, conventional Englishman who called on the poet Longfellow at one of his busiest hours, and scanning him closely, gravely remarked: "We were doing the sights, sir, and as there are no ruins in ...
— The New England Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, Bay State Monthly, Volume 4, No. 4, April, 1886 • Various

... with the Pope, set foorth and vndertooke against England and the low Countreys. To the end that he might subdue the Realme of England, and reduce it vnto his catholique Religion, and by that meanes might be sufficiently reuenged for the disgrace, contempt and dishonour, which hee (hauing 34. yeeres before enforced them to the Popes obedience) had endured of the English nation, and for diuers other iniuries which had taken deepe impression in his thoughts. And also for ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of The English Nation, v. 7 - England's Naval Exploits Against Spain • Richard Hakluyt

... more expensive, than the one previously in use. The new company naturally followed suit, and in a surprisingly short time had built, or had under construction, several vans of an exactly similar kind. The "monster" saw the new departure of their rivals at first with curiosity, then with contempt, then with anxiety, and finally with suspicion and alarm. At the time of writing the alarm appears to have abated, but a good deal of the suspicion remains. The town is the world, the "monster" Great Britain, and the rival company the modern ...
— William of Germany • Stanley Shaw

... related for us his own life, so that we may judge of his opportunities of knowing what he tells? To which of their histories is such external testimony given as that of Tacitus to Josephus, in spite of the contempt felt by the polished Roman towards the whole Jewish race? Nothing can be more misleading than to speak of Josephus and of the Evangelists as though their writings stood on the same level; every mark of authenticity is present ...
— The Freethinker's Text Book, Part II. - Christianity: Its Evidences, Its Origin, Its Morality, Its History • Annie Besant

... "To observe the contempt with which America is spoken of, and the epithets of a 'nation of cheats,' 'sprung from convicts,' 'pusillanimous,' 'cowardly,' and such like,—these I think are sufficient to make any true American's ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Samuel F. B. Morse

... while we are learning from the gentiles? Our language, for example, is, as I have heard you say, a terrible jargon. We have forgotten much of our Hebrew and use many strange words instead. We have but to open our mouths to be recognized at once as Jews and to be treated with contempt. If we were but to learn the Russian language, it might save us from many a cruel humiliation and the Hebrew tongue might still be preserved in ...
— Rabbi and Priest - A Story • Milton Goldsmith

... had met, he had seen her sudden start, had felt his heart sink like lead. She was a creature of common clay after all! His eyes rested for a moment upon her companion, a man well known to him, though of a class for whom his contempt was great, and with whom he had no kinship. She was like this ...
— Berenice • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... had thrown down into the arena between the tiger and the lion. The lover does her bidding in order to vindicate his character as a brave knight. One boy after hearing the story at once states his contempt for the knight's acquiescence, which he declares ...
— The Art of the Story-Teller • Marie L. Shedlock

... fingering the while an engraved stone which hung upon his watch-guard. He was at a disadvantage in this conversation. Aware that Buckland regarded the circumstances of Peak's sojourn in the neighbourhood with feelings allied to contempt, he could neither adopt the tone of easy confidence natural to him on other occasions of difference in opinion, nor express himself with the coldness which would have obliged his son to ...
— Born in Exile • George Gissing

... The contempt for Lord Home as a conspirator—'in good faith he will never help his friend or harm his foe'—and the praises of Bower, are characteristic, and, here, are in place; elsewhere they are idle repetitions, mere copies. The apology for bad writing—Logan could not employ a secretary ...
— James VI and the Gowrie Mystery • Andrew Lang

... his legs: he did not know that they moved. But as he ran he grew able to run—gained courage at least to be a coward. The stars gave a little light. Over the grass he sped, and nothing followed him. "How fallen, how changed," from the youth who had climbed the hill as the sun went down! A mere contempt of himself, the self that contemned was a coward with the self it contemned! There lay the shapeless black of a buffalo, humped upon the grass: he made a wide circuit, and swept on like a shadow driven in the wind. For the wind had arisen, and added to his terror: it blew from ...
— Harper's Young People, December 16, 1879 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various

... except for their luxury and splendor, and the absence of what men so learned as Zicci was reputed, generally prize, namely, books. Zicci seemed to know everything that books can teach; yet of books themselves he spoke and thought with the most profound contempt. ...
— Zicci, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... guarantee lies in its innocuousness, and this again is mainly based on the rationality of the constitution, the stability of the government, and also on the publicity given to the assemblies of the classes. Another security is offered by the indifference and contempt with which insipid and malicious words are, ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various

... face, and who bore the name of the famous millionaire Rothschild. And this accursed Jew contrived to play even the liveliest things plaintively. For no apparent reason Yakov little by little became possessed by hatred and contempt for the Jews, and especially for Rothschild; he began to pick quarrels with him, rail at him in unseemly language and once even tried to strike him, and Rothschild was offended and ...
— The Chorus Girl and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov

... things supposed to be sacred, and next to them clergyman's wives, and after them those other ladies, old or young, who take upon themselves semi-clerical duties. And it is natural that it should be so; for is it not said that familiarity does breed contempt? When a parson takes his lay friend over his church on a week day, how much less of the spirit of genuflexion and head-uncovering the clergyman will display to the layman! The parson pulls about the woodwork and knocks about ...
— The Last Chronicle of Barset • Anthony Trollope

... the entertainment, Guster, who has never recovered her first failure, but has neglected no possible or impossible means of bringing the establishment and herself into contempt—among which may be briefly enumerated her unexpectedly performing clashing military music on Mr. Chadband's head with plates, and afterwards crowning that gentleman with muffins—at which period of the entertainment, ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens

... him at something beyond, as if he had no more substance than one of Ossian's ghosts, through whose form one might see the twinkling of the stars. It was better, she wisely thought, to ignore him, to forget his existence, than to be vexed with feelings of contempt and hostility. ...
— Fan • Henry Harford

... no other made my father a rich man. Poor Vernon! poor Peter! so brave, so frank, so true! to think that you should profit by their death!' this she said with ineffable contempt, looking at him from head to foot, as if he were a creature of inferior mould. 'But perhaps you mistook the case. I am not an heiress, remember, even now. I have a little brother who ...
— The Golden Calf • M. E. Braddon

... 4th, 1767, Radzivil controlling as Grand-Marshal, and Russia as minatory Phantom controlling Radzivil; Diet, after adjournments, after one long adjournment, disappeared 5th March, 1768; and of work mentionable it had done this of the Dissidents only. That of contributing to "the sovereign contempt with which King Stanislaus is regarded by all ranks of men," is hardly to be called peculiar ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XXI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle

... ideal. But it was activity she desired, and not luxurious ease such as so many crave, especially two young men lolling on the verandah awaiting her coming. Even though one was her brother, she could not restrain a feeling of contempt as she looked upon their white faces, soft hands, and immaculate clothes. Why should men, she asked herself, be so ready and willing to give themselves completely up to effeminate habits when their blood was hot within them, and the ...
— Under Sealed Orders • H. A. Cody

... than the rich. It is possible under a humble roof to excel in happiness kings and the friends of kings. Wealth depends upon what men want, not upon what men have. The more a man denies himself, the greater are the gifts of the gods to him. One may hold riches in contempt, and thus be a more splendid lord of wealth than the great landowner of Apulia. By contracting his desires he may extend his revenues until they are more than those of the gorgeous East. Many wants attend those who ...
— Horace and His Influence • Grant Showerman

... of daughters who are willing to drive their fathers to distraction by their disobedience and contempt ...
— A Roman Singer • F. Marion Crawford

... as the long bridge swung back against the rock, the cut end of it falling into the torrent, and waved their spears threateningly. To this demonstration Jeekie replied with gestures of contempt such as are known to street Arabs. Then he looked at the Mungana, who lay upon the ground a melancholy and dilapidated spectacle, for the perspiration had washed lines of paint off his face and patches of dye from his hair, also his gorgeous robes were water-stained and his gem necklaces ...
— The Yellow God - An Idol of Africa • H. Rider Haggard

... out to the gentlemen and ladies, and they remembered then that Dana Da had laughed at them some years ago. It was officially announced that the Old Man of the Mountains would treat the matter with contempt; Dana Da being an Independent Investigator without a single 'round' at the back of him. But this did not soothe his people. They wanted to see a fight. They were very human for all their spirituality. Lone Sahib, who was really being worn out with kittens, ...
— Soldiers Three • Rudyard Kipling

... in the Shed went defiantly and furiously back to work. A clamor was set up that was almost the normal working noise. It was the only possible way in which those men could express the raging contempt they felt for those who would destroy the ...
— Space Platform • Murray Leinster

... with contempt, but plunged into his tale at once. 'See this mark?' he said, turning up his sleeve and showing a scar upon his forearm, 'and this?' he indicated a mark on his neck; 'Well, you're going to hear how I came by these. Do you know what a Hall-mark ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various

... to swim his horse over many rivers, and finally he returned to Melbourne by way of Yass, having added no less than 8,000 words to his vocabulary of the native languages. But the public journals spoke of his labours and his dictionary with contempt and derision. They said, "Pshaw! a few mounted police, well armed, would effect more good among the aborigines in one month than the whole preaching mob of ...
— The Book of the Bush • George Dunderdale

... plaudits of the people ringing in his ears, Bacon was unwilling to humble himself. "My submissions are unacceptable, my real intentions misunderstood," he wrote Berkeley. "I am sorry that your honor's resentments are of such violence and growth as to command my appearance with all contempt and disgrace and my disowning and belying so glorious a cause as the country's defence. I know my person safe in your honor's word, but only beg what pledge or warranty I ...
— Bacon's Rebellion, 1676 • Thomas Jefferson Wertenbaker

... chair and fairly grovelled in his anguish on the floor. It was a pitiable sight, but one that moved the watchers with contempt. They waited patiently enough for the paroxysm of terror to pass and for Fenwick to resume something like the outer semblance of manhood. He drew himself up at length, and wiped the tears from ...
— The Mystery of the Four Fingers • Fred M. White

... me happy; but what was that something? I sauntered to the apartments of my sisters, hoping their conversation might amuse me. They had walked out, and the room was vacant. On the table lay a volume which they had been reading. It was a novel. I had never read a novel, having conceived a contempt for works of the kind, from hearing them universally condemned. It is true, I had remarked that they were as universally read; but I considered them beneath the attention of a philosopher, and never would venture to read them, lest I should lessen my mental superiority in the eyes of my sisters. ...
— The Crayon Papers • Washington Irving

... its sweet cadences, but Clay sensed in it something that was almost a touch of cool contempt. He felt vaguely that he must have blundered in describing Kitty. Evidently Miss Whitford did not see her quite as ...
— The Big-Town Round-Up • William MacLeod Raine

... high above the world. I don't think I had any definite idea where Dora came from, or in what degree she was related to a higher order of beings; but I am quite sure I should have scouted the notion of her being simply human, like any other young lady, with indignation and contempt. ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens

... achieved for Florence was not a permanent reform of morality, but a resuscitation of the spirit of freedom. His followers, called in contempt I Piagnoni, or the Weepers, formed the path of the commonwealth in future; and the memory of their martyr served as a common bond of sympathy to unite them in times of trial. It was a necessary consequence ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds

... hitherto without pleading a word in my own behalf; but his last speech roused me. Some of his pride stirred in my heart against the bitterness of his contempt. I raised my head, and met his eye steadily for the first time—then, thrust the writing materials away from me, and left my place ...
— Basil • Wilkie Collins

... broke the stiffness after the blessing. Mrs. Tanner bustled back and forth from the stove to the table, talking clamorously the while. Mr. Tanner joined in with his flat, nasal twang, responding, and the minister, with an air of utter contempt for them both, endeavored to set up a separate and altogether private conversation with Margaret across the narrow table; but Margaret innocently had begun a conversation with Bud about the school, ...
— A Voice in the Wilderness • Grace Livingston Hill

... while knights and squires rode out to war, and fought and conquered or fought and fell over the possession of a nook in a forest, or a title, or a smaller matter still, with what scorn and contempt did they not look down upon the wretched little scribbler, the man of mere letters and jargon, half-clothed in untanned hides, his only weapon an inkhorn at his belt, his pennon the feather of a goosequill! How they laughed at him, ...
— The Man-Wolf and Other Tales • Emile Erckmann and Alexandre Chatrian

... pestilent papistes and proude spaniardes. And yet can they not consider that where a woman reigneth and papistes beare authoritie, that there must nedes Satan be president of the counsel. Thus hast thou, O Lorde, in thy hote displeasure reuenged the contempt of thy graces offred. But, O Lord, if thou shalt reteine wrath to the end, what Aeshe is able to susteine? We haue sinned[85], O Lord, and are not worthy to be releued. But worthy art thou, O Lord, to ...
— The First Blast of the Trumpet against the monstrous regiment - of Women • John Knox

... how to apply the opposite social principles in behalf of the Man rather than the Master, and we have not yet surmounted all the difficulties or dangers of the experiment. It is droll how, in a tolerably well-meaning world like this, any sort of contempt becomes inclusive, and a whole population suffers for the vice, or it may be the virtue, of a very small majority, or a very powerful minority. Probably the most liberal and intelligent populations of Great Britain are ...
— Seven English Cities • W. D. Howells

... Samuel or Saul in Israel. So apparently insignificant an event as the establishment of a kingdom in Palestine was not likely to disturb the thoughts, even if it came to the knowledge, of an Assyrian monarch. Shamas-Vul would no doubt have regarded with utter contempt the petty sovereign of so small a territory as Palestine, and would have looked upon the new kingdom as scarcely more worthy of his notice than any other of the ten thousand little principalities which lay on or near his ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 2. (of 7): Assyria • George Rawlinson



Words linked to "Contempt" :   sneer, rudeness, law, despite, contemptuous, disrespect, dislike, noncompliance, civil contempt, scorn, criminal contempt, leer, discourtesy, disdain, fleer, disobedience



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