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Contemptuous   Listen
adjective
Contemptuous  adj.  Manifesting or expressing contempt or disdain; scornful; haughty; insolent; disdainful. "A proud, contemptuous behavior." "Savage invective and contemptuous sarcasm." "Rome... entertained the most contemptuous opinion of the Jews."
Synonyms: Scornful; insolent; haughty; disdainful; supercilious; insulting; contumelious. Contemptuous, Contemptible. These words, from their similarity of sound, are sometimes erroneously interchanged, as when a person speaks of having "a very contemptible opinion of another." Contemptible is applied to that which is the object of contempt; as, contemptible conduct; acontemptible fellow. Contemptuous is applied to that which indicates contempt; as, a contemptuous look; a contemptuous remark; contemptuous treatment. A person, or whatever is personal, as an action, an expression, a feeling, an opinion, may be either contemptuous or contemptible; a thing may be contemptible, but can not be contemptuous.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Contemptuous" Quotes from Famous Books



... community where money was scarce. Some of his victims went in despair to the much loved Squire for help, and got, over and over, relief, which disappointed Swallow who disliked him as he did no other man in the county. The Squire returned his enmity with contemptuous bitterness and entire distrust of the man ...
— Westways • S. Weir Mitchell

... of the gods cancels the malice of the righteous, and the devoted gratitude of humanity tears up the contemptuous libels of ...
— Suspended Judgments - Essays on Books and Sensations • John Cowper Powys

... desired figure was at length manifest. The man came hurrying and a little breathless, with his salver, at once apologetic and triumphant. My ice was half liquid. Had I not the right to reproach him, in the withering, contemptuous tone which correct diners have learned to adopt toward the alien serfs who attend them? I had not. I had neither the right nor the courage nor the wish. This man was as Anglo-Saxon as myself. He had, with all his deference, the mien of the race. When he dreamed of ...
— Your United States - Impressions of a first visit • Arnold Bennett

... nothing about that," said I, in a musing tone, as I thought of the strange manner in which this portion of my doggie's history had come to light, but I was recalled from my reverie by the contemptuous tones of my little companion's voice, as ...
— My Doggie and I • R.M. Ballantyne

... joy; if she had had any inclination to be contemptuous of Eleanor's timidity, it vanished when it was pointed out to her that it was really a sign of the Bride's infinite superiority.... So the three Houghtons accepted—one with amused pity, and the other with concern, ...
— The Vehement Flame • Margaret Wade Campbell Deland

... reading this letter at the trial the Attorney interspersed comments. At the phrase, "Mr. Guelph and his profligate sons," he exclaimed: "This passage is contemptuous, scandalous, false, cruel. Why, gentlemen, is Mr. Paine, in addition to the political doctrines he is teaching us in this country, to teach us the morality and religion of implacability? Is he to teach human creatures, ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine

... hue since the discovery by Mr. Masson of a copy of the first edition of The Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce, with the written date of August 1. According to Phillips's narrative, the pamphlet was engendered by Milton's indignation at his wife's contemptuous treatment of him, in refusing to keep the engagement to return at Michaelmas, and would therefore be composed in October and November, time enough to allow for the sale of the edition, and the preparation of the enlarged ...
— Milton • Mark Pattison

... way express satisfaction, or gratitude for what he had received but vanished mute, contemptuous and silently into the ...
— My Friends the Savages - Notes and Observations of a Perak settler (Malay Peninsula) • Giovanni Battista Cerruti

... scorn &c (contempt) 930; smoke; fool; make game of, make a fool of, make an April fool of^; play a practical joke; lead one a dance, run the rig upon, have a fling at, scout; mob. Adj. disrespectful; aweless, irreverent; disparaging &c 934; insulting &c v.; supercilious, contemptuous, patronizing &c (scornful) 930; rude, derisive, sarcastic; scurrile, scurrilous; contumelious. unrespected^, unworshiped^, unenvied^, unsaluted^; unregarded^, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget

... been smoked at the great council and afterward given to the medicine-men of the Bannocks as a pledge of Cayuse sincerity, he broke the long slender stem twice, thrice, crushed the bowl in his fingers, and dashed the pieces at Snoqualmie's feet. It was a defiance, a contemptuous rejection of peace, a declaration of war more disdainful than any ...
— The Bridge of the Gods - A Romance of Indian Oregon. 19th Edition. • Frederic Homer Balch

... given in these verses, however severe and contemptuous the strictures lavishly bestowed on it by Christian commentators, accords singularly with the train of thought which the modern doctrine ...
— The Antiquity of Man • Charles Lyell

... competent instructor will not only teach his men but will increase his prestige in the act. There are many inexpressibly dull bores who know what they're talking about, but still haven't learned how to say it, because they are contemptuous of the truth that it is the dynamic flow of knowledge, rather than the static possession of it, which is the means to power and influence. As technicians, they have their place. As instructors, they would be ...
— The Armed Forces Officer - Department of the Army Pamphlet 600-2 • U. S. Department of Defense

... several new and conclusive experiments in support of his theory; and entering at large upon its value in simplifying physiology and the study of diseases, with other interesting collateral topics. Riolanus, however, still remained unconvinced; and his second rejoinder was treated by Harvey with contemptuous silence. He had already exhausted the subject in the two excellent controversial pieces just mentioned, the last of which is said to have been written at Oxford about 1645; and he never resumed the discussion in print. Time had now come to the assistance ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 5 of 8 • Various

... of the girl stared at his dejected figure. She was at heart a gentle, little woman-child, endowed by nature with so much of tom-boy barbarism as was good for her. Just now a feeling of contemptuous surprise overcame her kindliness and her aunt's training. "There's your bag on the snow, and Billy will find your cap. What does a boy want with a bag? A boy—and afraid of snow!" she cried. ...
— Westways • S. Weir Mitchell

... tending to bow, separate him from the fox "'ounds" of Larry's experience. To Amos Opie David is the only type of hound worthy of the name; consequently there has been no little language upon the subject. That is, Larry has done the talking, punctuated by contemptuous "huhs" and sniffs from Amos, until day before yesterday. On this day David went on a hunting trip extending from five o'clock in the afternoon until the next morning, during which his voice, blending with two immature cries, told that he was ranging miles of ...
— The Garden, You, and I • Mabel Osgood Wright

... shan't be long," answered the young hostess, with a confident wink in Alfaretta's direction. To which that matter-of-fact maid replied by a contemptuous toss of her head ...
— Dorothy's House Party • Evelyn Raymond

... the commander's contemptuous glance. He knew his own unflinching Puritan principles, and his own undaunted courage; and he knew his value in the eyes of Standish. The captain knew it also, for he never liked to go on any enterprise that required bravery and cool judgement without securing the aid of Maitland; and although ...
— The Pilgrims of New England - A Tale Of The Early American Settlers • Mrs. J. B. Webb

... get away from the fact that the French Navy yesterday sustained a blow to its efficiency that it will take a long time to wipe out. Theirs was a "masterly inaction" caused by something which they do not attempt themselves to define. Both army and navy commanders here are one in their contemptuous ...
— Current History, A Monthly Magazine - The European War, March 1915 • New York Times

... has elevated dramatic entertainments from the cart to the costly temple? Human meanness could not do it, nor human policy alone. It has been accomplished by the intrinsic value to be found in such dramas as those composed by Shakspeare, and that justly entitles them to something nobler than a contemptuous sneer. ...
— The Bobbin Boy - or, How Nat Got His learning • William M. Thayer

... 1500 Kafr archers to assist in defending the place, Almeyda sent him a message demanding submission; but the answer was, that the Moors of Mombaza were not to be frightened by the noise of cannon like those of Quiloa, and he might do his worst. Enraged at this contemptuous answer, and because several of his men had been wounded, while attempting to burn some ships in the port belonging to Cambaya, Almeyda landed his men on the 15th of August and attacked the city. He succeeded ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VI - Early English Voyages Of Discovery To America • Robert Kerr

... on the Monday. The money expended had gone very far. The most had been made of a failing credit. Every particle of friendly generosity had been so manipulated as to add to the external magnificence. And Mrs. Carbuncle had done all this without any help from Lucinda,—in the midst of most contemptuous indifference on Lucinda's part. She could hardly be got to allow the milliners to fit the dresses to her body, and positively refused to thrust her feet into certain golden-heeled boots with brightly-bronzed toes, which were a great feature ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope

... of the Abbe Dubois. And, in alluding to these footnotes, it is impossible to repress some feeling of annoyance that the valuable work of the Abbe should, in an evil hour, have fallen into the hands of a writer who has thought fit often, in a few brief and contemptuous words, summarily to dismiss and overrule those conclusions which were the result of a life spent on more intimate terms with natives than any I have ever been able to hear of. And Mr. Pope's statements are the more calculated ...
— Gold, Sport, And Coffee Planting In Mysore • Robert H. Elliot

... again into a street filled with people hurrying about their affairs in the spring sunshine. So much for that, he reflected, not without a touch of contemptuous anger against Lewis. He understood now the man's troubled absorption. With the penitentiary staring ...
— The Hidden Places • Bertrand W. Sinclair

... of another class a deterioration, not in force, but in character; they have fallen into contemptuous or sinister usage. Many words for skill or wisdom have been thus debased. Cunning meant knowing, artful meant well acquainted with one's art, crafty meant proficient in one's craft or calling, wizard meant wise man. The present import of these words shows how men have assumed that mental ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor

... broken tempest sigh Where cold sierras gleam like scattered foam. And least of all he holds the human swarm— Unwitting now that envious men prepare To make their dream and its fulfillment one When, poised above the caldrons of the storm, Their hearts, contemptuous of death, shall dare His roads between ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 3 (of 4) • Various

... and when, among others, this girl of the hyacinth letter held out to him the tempting lure of her heart. Her heart? Or was it the tempting of his own wealth? Steele laughed, and his strong white teeth gleamed in a half-contemptuous smile as he ...
— Philip Steele of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police • James Oliver Curwood

... she exclaimed, with a contemptuous toss of her long brown curls. "Just as if WE could ...
— The Golden Road • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... the leverage of the franchise could they hope to move the heavy burden which weighed them down. In 1893 a petition of 13,000 Uitlanders, couched in most respectful terms, was submitted to the Raad, but met with contemptuous neglect. Undeterred, however, by this failure, the National Reform Union, an association which was not one of capitalists, came back to the attack in 1894. They drew up a petition which was signed by 35,000 adult male Uitlanders, as great a number probably as ...
— The War in South Africa - Its Cause and Conduct • Arthur Conan Doyle

... place at the appointed time, and began digging. While he was at work, two men came over from a drinking-saloon, to which my residence is nearer than I could desire. One of them I had known as Mike Fagan, the other as Hans Schleimer. They looked at Hiram, my New Hampshire man, in a contemptuous and threatening way for a minute or ...
— Over the Teacups • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... but by this time the card-tables had claimed their complement of players, who returned to the accustomed groove to find amusement there which poetry had not afforded them. They felt besides that the revenge of so many outraged vanities would be incomplete unless it were followed up by contemptuous indifference; so they showed their tacit disdain for the native product by leaving Lucien and Mme. de Bargeton to themselves. Every one appeared to be absorbed in his own affairs; one chattered with the prefect about a new crossroad, another proposed ...
— Two Poets - Lost Illusions Part I • Honore de Balzac

... the Rowley poems were written by a boy, and that such lovely things as the Dirge in AElla suggest a maturity that Chatterton did not by any means perfectly possess. In some respects he was as childish (to use the word in no contemptuous sense) as in others he was precocious. And it is a thousand pities that the difficulties of Chatterton's language and the peculiar charm and invention of his metrical technique cannot be appreciated till the boyish love of adventure, delight ...
— The Rowley Poems • Thomas Chatterton

... men had hastily substituted for it; more strange than Ovid's old story that the coral was soft under the sea, and hardened by exposure to air; than Marsigli's notion, that the coral-polypes were its flowers; than Dr. Parsons' contemptuous denial, that these complicated forms could be "the operations of little, poor, helpless, jelly-like animals, and not the work of more sure vegetation;" than Baker the microscopist's detailed theory of their being produced by the crystallization of the ...
— Glaucus; or The Wonders of the Shore • Charles Kingsley

... no one to foster, nor to interpret for her these feverish visions, so inexplicable to herself, poor child! To the good-natured, careless, jovial American, she would not have even hinted at them for worlds, and not less carefully did she shun appealing to her father for sympathy. That contemptuous "vraiment" dwelt in her memory, not as a matter of resentment, but as something to be avoided henceforth at the cost of any amount of self- repression. She would sit leaning her languid little head on his shoulder; but when he anxiously asked her what ailed her, she ...
— My Little Lady • Eleanor Frances Poynter

... of his subjects, and (what was yet more delicate) to pay for my present. Nothing shows the king in a more becoming light than the fact that I succeeded. He demurred at the principle; he exclaimed, when he heard it, at the sum. 'Plenty money!' cried he, with contemptuous displeasure. But his resistance was never serious; and when he had blown off his ill- humour—'A' right,' said he. 'You ...
— In the South Seas • Robert Louis Stevenson

... contempt. Reformers he appraised as busybodies, who were protesting against the conditions of success in business and politics. He nicknamed them "mugwumps" and continued to vote the regular tickets of his party. There succeeded to this phase of contemptuous dislike a few years, in which he was somewhat bewildered by the increasing evidences of corruption in American politics and lawlessness in American business methods, and during which he occasionally ...
— The Promise Of American Life • Herbert David Croly

... without uneasiness, and the next morning the sight of him still in the flesh was a genuine thrill. I found him walking the deck carrying himself nonchalantly and trying to appear unconscious of the glances—amused, contemptuous, hostile—that were turned toward him. He would have passed me without speaking, but I took his arm and led him to the rail. We had long passed quarantine and a convoy of tugs were ...
— Somewhere in France • Richard Harding Davis

... did not intend to be cheated out of his fun by any orders that "Straw-nose" should give him. Instead of obeying his commander, he sang out a contemptuous refusal, and dashed ahead, as if to supplant his general in the post of leader ...
— The Boy Life of Napoleon - Afterwards Emperor Of The French • Eugenie Foa

... The contemptuous tone in which he mentioned "these people" amused me infinitely, and I believed that his resolute, indomitable manner would have made him popular in any society. He was shrewd, withal, and walked beside me to his gate. When the regiments halted to rest, by the wayside, ...
— Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, - and His Romaunt Abroad During the War • George Alfred Townsend

... the horse, with a contemptuous neigh. "Still, I don't care to drag any passengers. You'll ...
— Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz • L. Frank Baum.

... asked in a slightly contemptuous tone. "You never heard of me starting any rough stuff when there was a pinch coming ...
— From Place to Place • Irvin S. Cobb

... art which she invented of frustrating the purposes of nature, and of blasting in the bud the hopes of future generations. In the exercise of domestic jurisdiction the nobles of Rome express an exquisite sensibility for any personal injury, and a contemptuous indifference for the rest of the human species. When they have called for warm water, if a slave has been tardy in his obedience, he is instantly chastised with three hundred lashes; but should the same slave commit a wilful murder, the master will mildly observe that he is a worthless ...
— The Satyricon, Complete • Petronius Arbiter

... modern political warfare has equalled, in meanness and moral turpitude, this assassin-stab at the character of a public man. Washington, with proper dignity, treated it as he had done other slanders, with that contemptuous silence which it deserved. But that very silence was construed into an acknowledgment of the truth of the words of the calumny. "The malignant commentators on this spurious text," says Marshall, "would not admit the possibility of ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing

... contemptuous shrug of his shoulders, he walked over to the chair at the table and sat down, still holding his hat in his hand, and without removing his overcoat. Laura came back laden with more things. Seeing Brockton sitting, ...
— The Easiest Way - A Story of Metropolitan Life • Eugene Walter and Arthur Hornblow

... lamented this change in the manners of his friend; he sometimes took the liberty of remonstrating with him upon the subject, but was only answered with a contemptuous sneer; and Master Mash, who happened once to be present, told him that he was a ...
— The History of Sandford and Merton • Thomas Day

... himself. As the evening approached, the contest grew more earnest, and those who were forced to allow themselves excelled, began to discover the malignity of defeat, first by angry glances, and at last by contemptuous murmurs. Seged likewise shared the anxiety of the day, for considering himself as obliged to distribute with exact justice the prizes which had been so zealously sought, he durst never remit his attention, but passed his time upon the rack of doubt, in balancing different kinds ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D, In Nine Volumes - Volume the Third: The Rambler, Vol. II • Samuel Johnson

... up good around your neck, then, if you must go to see your precious Hammersly and the rest of them. Have you ever heard that man say anything yet? Does he speak at all, Jerry?" Then her gentle mind, not at all accustomed to hard thoughts or contemptuous remarks, quickly changed. "Funny thing about that fellow," she mused. "He's got something on his mind. ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science April 1930 • Various

... United States, by G-d, sir, yes," and receiving from Young the sneering reply, "We know all about it, Governor." On July 4., no northward movement of the people having begun, Cumming told Young that he intended to publish his proclamation. "Do as YOU please," was the contemptuous reply; "to-morrow I shall get upon the tongue of my wagon, and tell the people that I am going home, and they can ...
— The Story of the Mormons: • William Alexander Linn

... delight at being with her again, and his solicitude to the weakness which Theodora could neither understand nor tolerate. She took all unclassified ailments as fine lady nonsense; and was angry with Violet for being unable to teach at school, contemptuous if Arthur observed on her looking pale, and irate if he made her ...
— Heartsease - or Brother's Wife • Charlotte M. Yonge

... vain attempts to argue the matter and disprove the statements, Macalister resigned himself to contemptuous silence, only rousing when the German spoke of England and English, to correct him to Britain ...
— Action Front • Boyd Cable (Ernest Andrew Ewart)

... had ceased speaking, the girl stood like a splendid statue, except for the glitter of her eyes and a slight quivering of her limbs; it was as if she awaited some response; then her face relaxed into a contemptuous smile, and her crimson lips parted to reveal her even, gleaming teeth. She laughed, a rippling little laugh like the tinkle of steel links, and with a single gliding movement that permitted no avoidance she swept to within two feet of the ...
— The Pirate Woman • Aylward Edward Dingle

... hisses. With savage grandeur he turned on them: "What! do you hiss me—me, George Frederick Cooke? You contemptible money-getters, you shall never again have the honor of hissing me. Farewell! I banish you!" He paused, and then added, with contemptuous emphasis, "There is not a brick in your dirty town but is cemented by the blood of a negro." Edmund Kean treated one of his audiences with less vigor, but with equal contempt. The spectators were noisy and insulting, but they called him out at the end of ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, December 1878 • Various

... like an icy blast, came the appalling possibility that the world knew more of Mrs. Braddock's whereabouts and actions than he, who was so vitally interested. The word "actress" as supplied by the contemptuous Baltimore girl conveyed to his soul a sharp, sickening dread. Was Mary Braddock the one? Had she given way under the strain? Had circumstance cowed her into submission? Was she the one who occupied the ...
— The Rose in the Ring • George Barr McCutcheon

... letters—summed up her disapproval of it by saying that the tales it produced were "de-civilized." And in that sentence not only the tales but, I apprehend, the strange people and the far-off countries also, are finally condemned in a verdict of contemptuous dislike. ...
— Notes on My Books • Joseph Conrad

... take my leave of this noble poem, without expressing how much I am struck with this plain conclusion of it. It is like the exit of a great man out of company whom he has entertained magnificently; neither pompous nor familiar; not contemptuous, yet without much ceremony. I recollect nothing, among the works of mere man, that exemplifies so strongly the ...
— The Iliad of Homer - Translated into English Blank Verse • Homer

... where the sergeant held my horse, mounted, and crossing the Yamhill River close by, called back in Chinook from the farther bank that "the sixteen men who killed the woman must be delivered up, and my six-shooter also." This was responded to by contemptuous laughter, so I went back to the military post somewhat crestfallen, and made my report of the turn affairs had taken, inwardly longing for another chance to bring the rascally Rogue ...
— The Memoirs of General Philip H. Sheridan, Vol. I., Part 1 • Philip H. Sheridan

... for preventing a vote which for years had been employed against this amendment. She described the great five days' discussion in the Senate September 26-October 1; the appeal to President Wilson for help and his magnificent response in person on September 30 with its contemptuous treatment by the opponents; the failure of the Republican leaders to supply the thirty-three votes promised and of the Democrats to provide from their ranks the thirty-fourth, which would complete the necessary two-thirds, and she gave the summary of the result of ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume V • Ida Husted Harper

... at the outset I would ask those readers who are inclined to turn with feelings of contemptuous impatience from what they deem an unprofitable discussion of idle speculations which have little or nothing to do with a problem they hold to be one of purely literary interest, to be solved by literary comparison and criticism, and by no other method, to withhold their verdict till ...
— From Ritual to Romance • Jessie L. Weston

... you did," responded Polly, in a most contemptuous voice. "Will a duck swim? I led you into mischief—of course you followed. Well, Fly, it rests with yourself. Don't obey our dear, good, gentle Nelly, and you'll have Miss Jenkins here. Won't it be fun to see her squinting at you over her spectacles ...
— Polly - A New-Fashioned Girl • L. T. Meade

... lifted her eyes to the tree from which had always emanated an influence of peace. She needed that message of peace now. She looked at the dark human figure, robbed of its menace, robbed of all its own paltry arrogance, and the furies that had torn her ebbed and subsided into a sickness of contemptuous pity. ...
— The Roof Tree • Charles Neville Buck

... his hands with a contemptuous gesture, which his quiet earnestness redeemed from ...
— Thurston of Orchard Valley • Harold Bindloss

... conviction that we are under a moral obligation in choosing our experiences, since the result of those experiences must ultimately determine our understanding of life. We know instinctively that if we grow contemptuous of our fellows, and consciously limit our intercourse to certain kinds of people whom we have previously decided to respect, we not only tremendously circumscribe our range of life, but limit the ...
— Democracy and Social Ethics • Jane Addams

... had Dolly loved her mother. At best, she had felt towards her that contemptuous toleration which inferior minds often extend to higher ones. And now—why, she ...
— The Woman Who Did • Grant Allen

... rising to the highest point, but the contemptuous tone in which these words were uttered dashed his hopes to the ground, and he listened despairingly as in imagination he saw himself rudely separated from ...
— Marcus: the Young Centurion • George Manville Fenn

... and men without hearts. This was not true, we know, of this Publican, nor of Zacchaeus, nor of Levi, who are commended in the Gospel. Perhaps this Publican who was praying, saw the Pharisee cast a contemptuous glance at him, perhaps he even heard the words of his prayer, but if so, he made no attempt at justifying himself. His prayer was not, "God, I am not what other men say of me, unjust, hard-hearted, peculating, exacting: on the contrary, I am strictly honest in my dealings, and I am very forbearing ...
— The Village Pulpit, Volume II. Trinity to Advent • S. Baring-Gould

... courtesy, to the cold air and repelling hauteur of the dark-browed captain, the blood rushed throbbing to my forehead; and as I walked to my place at the table, I eagerly sought his eye, to return him a look of defiance and disdain, proud and contemptuous as his own. ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VI. • Various

... console. And Mrs. Oswald was consoled by such true and tender sympathy. It was long before Mary could prevail on herself to disturb the flow of gentler affections by delivering Caroline's note. Mrs. Oswald received it with an almost contemptuous smile, which remained unchanged while she read. It was a labored effort to make her conduct seem a generous determination not to obstruct Philip's course in life, by binding him to a companion so unsuitable to his present prospects as herself. In reply, ...
— Evenings at Donaldson Manor - Or, The Christmas Guest • Maria J. McIntosh

... that?" asked Miller, with mingled wrath and stupefaction in his face,—wrath at the doctor's contemptuous disregard of all other opinions, and stupefaction at the suddenly ...
— 'Laramie;' - or, The Queen of Bedlam. • Charles King

... at one another, contemptuous, incredulous smiles on their faces, while Aunt Nancy almost ...
— Old Lady Number 31 • Louise Forsslund

... irregular education, strange acquaintances and habits, the constant presence of her mother, the poverty and disorder in their house, everything, from the very liberty the young girl enjoyed, with the consciousness of her superiority to the people around her, had developed in her a sort of half-contemptuous carelessness and lack of fastidiousness. At any time anything might happen; Vonifaty might announce that there was no sugar, or some revolting scandal would come to her ears, or her guests would fall to quarrelling ...
— The Torrents of Spring • Ivan Turgenev

... unable to contain his rage, and infatuated with love, he menaced the life of his friend as the obstacle of his enjoyment. Coolness and moderation were opposed to violence and frenzy, and he found himself treated with a contemptuous gentleness. Stricken to the heart, he wandered about for some time like one entranced. Meanwhile the nuptials were preparing; and the lovely girl he had perverted found ways to let him know she was about to be ...
— Dreams, Waking Thoughts, and Incidents • William Beckford

... keep one's feet!—apart from the honor of the thing, it would certainly have been better for Ben to stretch himself at ease in some country churchyard. To this day, however, I fancy that there is a contemptuous alloy mixed up with the admiration which the higher classes of English society profess for ...
— Our Old Home - A Series of English Sketches • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... and that he didn't want to have anything more to do with me. He said he should have to take the clock away. I asked him when he would bring it back. He said he didn't know. He appeared to take a pessimistic view of it. I asked him cheerfully if he would ever bring it back. He gave me a contemptuous look and, without another word, went, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, July 14th, 1920 • Various

... middle-aged, and cover gray hairs with shame, and wretchedness, and ruin! Oh, the dissipations, over which custom has thrown an influence well nigh omnipotent! Oh, the tauntings, and the high looks, the stiff neck, and the contemptuous sneer, with which wealth and station conduct themselves towards the lowliness of Christian meekness! Oh, the power that nerves itself against holiness! Wealth and imposing splendour, eloquence and numbers, ...
— The National Preacher, Vol. 2. No. 6., Nov. 1827 - Or Original Monthly Sermons from Living Ministers • William Patton

... imaginary shots, suspected betrayal from any toothless old peasant, and found themselves in the grip of fear because these Frenchwomen, these old men of the farm and the workshop, and even the children, stared at them as they passed with contemptuous eyes and kept an uncomfortable silence even when spoken to with cheerful Teuton greetings, and did not hide the loathing of their souls. All this silence of village people, all these black looks seemed to German soldiers like an evil spell about them. It got upon their nerves and made them angry. ...
— The Soul of the War • Philip Gibbs

... only ejaculate the words, 'Pity!' 'Forgive!' in his most contemptuous tone; while Mrs. Shelldrake, rocking violently in her chair, gave utterance to that peculiar clucking 'ts, ts, ts, ts,' whereby certain women express emotions too deep ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 52, February, 1862 • Various

... truth itself; whose first appearance to our eyes, bleared and dimmed with prejudice and custom, is more unsightly and unplausible than many errors, even as the person is of many a great man slight and contemptuous to see to. And what do they tell us vainly of new opinions, when this very opinion of theirs, that none must be heard but whom they like, is the worst and newest opinion of all others; and is the chief cause why sects ...
— Areopagitica - A Speech For The Liberty Of Unlicensed Printing To The - Parliament Of England • John Milton

... strongly susceptible. She was in the habit of composing with rapidity, and her answer, which was the first of the numerous ones that appeared, obtained extraordinary notice. Marked as it is with the vehemence and impetuousness of its eloquence, it is certainly chargeable with a too contemptuous and intemperate treatment of the great man against whom its attack is directed. But this circumstance was not injurious to the success of the publication. Burke had been warmly loved by the most liberal and enlightened friends of freedom, and they were proportionably inflamed ...
— Memoirs of the Author of a Vindication of the Rights of Woman • William Godwin

... should look on that which is unlawful for your eyes to see. The feasts and ceremonies you must attend, but if I can help it, no victim shall be slain in your presence, not even that whimpering hound, your servant," she added with a contemptuous glance at Jeekie, "who it seems, fears to give his life for the glory of the god, but who because he is yours, is safe ...
— The Yellow God - An Idol of Africa • H. Rider Haggard

... "lady," American women may fail to remember that a gentlewoman need pretend to no aristocracy but that of the noblesse oblige of her own femininity. In the paragraph quoted above, women are spoken of as those who are "uniformly elevating" and as "weak and dependent" to a contemptuous degree. They cannot be both at once, and it seems to me that in fact they are neither. Woman is not an angel nor a demon, not a conqueror nor a slave. But the seed from which any of these conflicting natures may ...
— Woman and the Republic • Helen Kendrick Johnson

... is noteworthy from two standpoints. Its offer of immediately guaranteeing the treaty to us is in sharp contrast with the positive and contemptuous refusal of the Congress which has just closed its sessions to consider favorably such a treaty; it shows that the Government which made the treaty really had absolute control over the situation, but did not choose to exercise this control. ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt

... thinking, but hardly filled in the first dozen lines when his foreman—this time apologising for the intrusion—came to tell him that if he wished to reach Magdala that evening they must start at once. He could not but acquiesce, and—as if contemptuous of the protection of his escort—he rode on in front, wishing to be left alone so that he might seek out the terms of his letter, and his mood of irritated perplexity did not pass away till he came within ...
— The Brook Kerith - A Syrian story • George Moore

... reproached her for her injustice and cruelty toward her innocent cousin, and almost persuaded her to cease her persecutions, and even to strive to imitate her winning virtues; but the remembrance of the scene in the summer-house, and of Henry's contemptuous look as he left her, without even a parting salutation, awakened the bitter thought that she had fallen in his estimation, perhaps beyond the power of retrieval, and she resolved to keep up the semblance of a pride and indifference ...
— The Elm Tree Tales • F. Irene Burge Smith

... and his temperament was jealous. A woman couldn't, as Adelaide sometimes had occasion to say to herself, keep men from making love to her; she did not always want to. Farron could be relentless, and she was not without a certain contemptuous obstinacy. Yet such conflicts as these she had learned not to dread, but sometimes deliberately to precipitate, for they ended always in a deeper sense of unity, and, on her part, in a ...
— The Happiest Time of Their Lives • Alice Duer Miller

... at no loss to account for North's motive. It was no longer the contemptuous disregard of a general manager for one of his subordinates who had shown signs of outgrowing his job. It was a fight between rivals—equals—and Ford knew that it must go on until one or the other should be driven to the wall. Thus far, his antagonist had scored every point. ...
— Empire Builders • Francis Lynde

... arrogant and mutinous; and now prosperity and glory brought out his vices in full strength. With the government which he had saved he took all the liberties of an insolent servant who believes himself to be necessary, treated the orders of his superiors with contemptuous levity, resented reproof, however gentle, as an outrage, furnished no plan of his own, and showed a sullen determination to execute no plan furnished by any body else. To Nottingham he had a strong and a very natural antipathy. They were indeed ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 4 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... an angry and contemptuous frown at his return. 'They have kept him from me.' He threw a little scroll on to the table. Its white silence made Cranmer shudder; it seemed to have something of the heavy threatening of the ...
— The Fifth Queen • Ford Madox Ford

... delivered their reports in a quiet and orderly manner; and as they did not presume to be as contemptuous and offhandish as they had been before, T'an ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin

... anticipated that when they had conquered the country they might meet with the Glare of Hatred as they patrolled the streets. The Supercilious Stare unnerved them. There is nothing so terrible to the highly-strung foreigner as the cold, contemptuous, patronising gaze of the Englishman. It gave the invaders a perpetual feeling of doing the wrong thing. They felt like men who had been found travelling in a first-class carriage with a third-class ticket. They became conscious of the ...
— The Swoop! or How Clarence Saved England - A Tale of the Great Invasion • P. G. Wodehouse

... St. Philip and other forts along the wall began to scour the channel, and with the galleys concentrated their fire upon the 'War Sprite.' But Raleigh disdained to do more than salute the one and then the other with a contemptuous blare of trumpets. 'The "St. Philip,"' he says, 'the great and famous Admiral of Spain, was the mark I shot at, esteeming those galleys but as wasps in respect of the powerfulness ...
— Raleigh • Edmund Gosse

... three weeks after the death of the king, whose life it was intended to save, the English parliament condescended to answer the protestation of the Scots, but in a tone of contemptuous indifference, both as to the justice of their claim and the consequences of their anger.[b] Scotland, it was replied, might perhaps have no right to bring her sovereign to a public trial, but that circumstance could not affect the right of England. As the English parliament did not ...
— The History of England from the First Invasion by the Romans - to the Accession of King George the Fifth - Volume 8 • John Lingard and Hilaire Belloc

... window, where his first waking glance would fall upon it, as a sign of how public opinion regarded his ideas and intentions on the subject of lynch law. She saw that it was intended as a warning and a contemptuous defiance, and her spirit rose high in righteous wrath. She knew well that this event presaged for the Governor trouble and humiliation, and probably, if a conflict were precipitated at once, an early defeat, and she quickly decided that he must not see the body or know what ...
— Emerson's Wife and Other Western Stories • Florence Finch Kelly

... "because of their perpetual turbulence, at the instigation of Chrestus," as Suetonius ignorantly observed), and during the Neronian persecution—never once alludes to them, and only mentions the Jews to apply a few contemptuous remarks to the idleness of their sabbaths, and to call them ...
— Seekers after God • Frederic William Farrar

... impotent effort, the tremendous disaster of Trafalgar proclaimed to the world the professional inefficiency of the French and Spanish navies, already detected by the keen eyes of Nelson and his brother officers, and upon which rested the contemptuous confidence that characterized his attitude, and to some extent his tactics, toward them. Thenceforward the emperor "turned his eyes from the only field of battle where fortune had been unfaithful to him, ...
— The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660-1783 • A. T. Mahan

... Sixth, and the carpet and rugs of the best (the early) period of Margery and Robin. There was a chandelier from Tiddly winks for the look of the thing, but of course she lit the residence herself. Tink was very contemptuous of the rest of the house, as indeed was perhaps inevitable; and her chamber, though beautiful, looked rather conceited, having the appearance of a ...
— Peter and Wendy • James Matthew Barrie

... rather a pity if it should turn into English? Might it not be hard to brand with a contemptuous name what does more ...
— The Clever Woman of the Family • Charlotte M. Yonge

... appearance of honest indignation that he had been paid the debt. Sir Tancred grew exceedingly disagreeable; he set forth with perfect frankness his opinion of Mr. Lambert's character, declared that he would rather go to that uncomfortable abode of contemptuous debtors, Holloway, than be swindled in so barefaced a fashion; and exclaiming, "You may go to your native Jericho, before I pay you a farthing, you thieving rascal!" went out of the office, and ...
— The Admirable Tinker - Child of the World • Edgar Jepson

... in the Vision-of-Mirza style, that all the angry, contemptuous, haughty expressions of good and zealous men, gallant staff-officers in the army of Christ, formed a rick of straw and stubble, which at the last day is to be divided into more or fewer haycocks, according to the number of kind and unfeignedly humble and charitable ...
— Coleridge's Literary Remains, Volume 4. • Samuel Taylor Coleridge

... takes us to Gatwick and Sandown—(or rather the train takes us—another absurd expression)—the last day of the latter Meeting being devoted to "Jumping Races," which is the contemptuous way some people speak of the winter branch of our National Sport!—forgetting that it demands the two most desirable qualities in a horse, speed and endurance—whereas the modern flat-racing has degenerated, for the most part, into scrambles ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 103, October 22, 1892 • Various

... of your comfort depends on the character of the newsboy. He has it in his power indefinitely to better and brighten the emigrant's lot. The newsboy with whom we started from the Transfer was a dark, bullying, contemptuous, insolent scoundrel, who treated us like dogs. Indeed, in his case, matters came nearly to a fight. It happened thus: he was going his rounds through the cars with some commodities for sale, and coming to a party who were at Seven-up or Cascino (our two games) upon a bed-board, slung down ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... Zealander is, we know, to sketch our own "mediaevalism" with contemptuous pity for its darkness. But until his day comes, our farthing-dips seem to make a gaudy illumination. And, meantime, we are alive; we walk about; we, too, can swell the chorus which the Initiated chant in every century with the same fond confidence: "We alone enjoy ...
— Holbein • Beatrice Fortescue

... Edward Henry in a vision had seen the historic group in a future issue of the Film. He had also, in the same vision, seen his mother conning the said issue, and the sardonic curve of her lips as she recognized her son therein, and he had even heard her dry, cynical, contemptuous exclamation: "Bless us!" He could never have looked squarely in his mother's face again if that group had appeared in her chosen organ! Her silent and grim scorn would have crushed his self-conceit to a miserable, hopeless pulp. Hence his resolve ...
— The Regent • E. Arnold Bennett

... moment." The Mattino disclosed to its readers in flaring headlines that "Yugoslav oppression cuts the throats of the Italian population in Dalmatia and terrorizes them." Would the people of Italy rather listen to such thrills or to the Secolo, which deprecated the contemptuous writings of Italian journalists with regard to the Slavs—the Gazzetta del Popolo's "little snakes" was one of the milder terms of opprobrium. The Secolo recalled Italy's own illiterate herds and the fact that the Italian Risorgimento was judged, not by the indifferent ...
— The Birth of Yugoslavia, Volume 2 • Henry Baerlein

... "Pooh!" is generally recognized in the realm of high finance as carrying weight. It is not derisive or contemptuous; it is dismissive. The subject of it simply ceases to exist. In the present instance, it was so mild as scarcely to stir the smoke from his after-dinner cigar, yet it had all the intent, if not the effect, of finality. The reason why it hadn't the effect was ...
— The Unspeakable Perk • Samuel Hopkins Adams

... side, so I merely pulled the trigger, and the ball went into the ground. But instantly I saw my mistake. Shame and consternation were written on the faces of my two seconds, and to the face of Fiske there came a contemptuous smile. I at once understood my error. I read what was in the mind of each. They dared to think I had pulled the trigger through nervousness, that I had fired before I was ready, that I was frightened and afraid. I am sure I never was so angry in ...
— Captain Macklin • Richard Harding Davis

... instant of launching his detectors, as fast as he could work the trips, four of the frightful nitrogen bombs of Titan—all that he could handle at once—shot out into space, their rocket-tubes flaring viciously. The enemy detectors of course located the flying torpedoes immediately, but, contemptuous of material projectiles, the spheres made no attempt to dodge, but merely lashed out upon them with their ravening rays. So close was the range that they had no time to avoid the radio-directed bombs after discovering ...
— Spacehounds of IPC • Edward Elmer Smith

... cried she, with contemptuous haughtiness; "he is a man, and he knows how to pardon the excesses of love! Look around you, foolish boy, and see how many of our proudest lords have united their fates with women who not only loved them while their husbands lived, but left their homes and children to join their ...
— The Scottish Chiefs • Miss Jane Porter

... Tarquins had built the great arched drain which still stands unshaken and in use, and smaller ones led to it, draining the Forum and all the low part of the town. The people were clean, far beyond our ordinary idea of them, as is plain enough from the contemptuous way in which the Latin authors use their strong words for uncleanliness. A dirty man was an object of pity, and men sometimes went about in soiled clothes to excite the public sympathy, as beggars do today in all countries. Dirt meant abject poverty, ...
— Ave Roma Immortalis, Vol. 1 - Studies from the Chronicles of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford

... and his face like a sombre veil. He was beautiful in his wrath, beautiful as the archangel Michael trampling the dragon beneath his feet. And thus he bent down his head toward her; thus he gazed at her with flashing and contemptuous looks. ...
— Henry VIII And His Court • Louise Muhlbach

... actions pulled heavily another Fred was frankly enjoying himself, which influenced her strongly toward the Armenian side, she being young and, doubtless the idol of a hundred heart-sick Americans, contemptuous ...
— The Eye of Zeitoon • Talbot Mundy

... not fit reading for a little boy. However, as she remembered Spenser and Chaucer, she doubted if Johnny could understand much of them. Probably he had gotten hold of an early Victorian, and she looked rather contemptuous. ...
— The Copy-Cat and Other Stories • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman

... Katy Lennox if she would accept him, and he told his mother so in the presence of his sisters, when one evening they were all kept at home by the rain. There was a sudden uplifting of Bell's eyelashes, a contemptuous shrug of her shoulders, and then she went on with the book she was reading, wondering if Katy was at all inclined to literature, and thinking if she were that it might be easier to tolerate her. Juno, who was ...
— Family Pride - Or, Purified by Suffering • Mary J. Holmes

... she had been sent for—understood that it was in reality to Toni's incapacity that she owed her present position; and Toni felt, with a miserable intensity, that Miss Loder looked upon her as some brilliant sixth-form girl would survey a kindergarten child, with a kindly, half-amused, half-contemptuous tolerance. ...
— The Making of a Soul • Kathlyn Rhodes

... leaving Max; she knew he was in safe hands; Laura would not allow Nancy an instant alone with him. Nor, as a matter of fact, was Riatt himself eager to subject himself to the cross-examination of that keen and contemptuous intelligence. Indeed Nancy soon drifted out of the room, and Riatt found himself committed to a long tete-a-tete with Laura on the subject of Christine's perfections, and his supposed deceitfulness in pretending indifference. "Oh, you protested too ...
— Ladies Must Live • Alice Duer Miller

... facts of such a kind can be authenticated at all. The Protestant Christian rejects every one of them—rejects them without inquiry—involves those for which there is good authority and those for which there is none or little in one absolute, contemptuous, and sweeping denial. The Protestant Christian feels it more likely, in the words of Hume, that men should deceive or be deceived, than that the laws of nature should be violated. At this moment we are beset with reports ...
— Froude's Essays in Literature and History - With Introduction by Hilaire Belloc • James Froude

... what to say in order to get such advantages as the charitable put at their disposal, and they accepted benefits as a right which came to them from the folly of their superiors and their own astuteness. They bore the curate with contemptuous indifference, but the district visitor excited their bitter hatred. She came in and opened your windows without so much as a by your leave or with your leave, 'and me with my bronchitis, enough to give me my death of cold;' she poked her nose into corners, and if she didn't say ...
— Of Human Bondage • W. Somerset Maugham

... her beautiful lip curl as she spoke in a contemptuous tone, and I thought that Jesus taught not so; but I feared to speak—so I wept, and knelt down alone and prayed ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 2, No. 12, May, 1851. • Various

... symphony of praise assured Mr. Coates that no suitor worthier than he had ever courted Thespis. The lust for the footlights' glare grew lurid in his mothish eye. What, after all, were these poor triumphs of the parlour? It might be that contemptuous Emma, hearing the loud salvos of the gallery and boxes, would call him at ...
— The Works of Max Beerbohm • Max Beerbohm

... with Stella and Vanessa have but little to do with the course of English Literature, they largely affect his personality, and no sketch of him would be complete without introducing them to the reader. We cannot conjure up the tall, burly form, the heavy-browed, scowling, contemptuous face, the sharp blue eye, and the bushy black hair of the dean, without seeing on one side and the other the two pale, meek-eyed, devoted women, who watch his every look, shrink from his sudden bursts of wrath, receive for their infatuation ...
— English Literature, Considered as an Interpreter of English History - Designed as a Manual of Instruction • Henry Coppee

... When they were across, Mithridates appeared again with one thousand horse, and archers and slingers to the number of four thousand. This whole body he had got by request from Tissaphernes, and in return he undertook to deliver up the Hellenes to Tissaphernes. He had grown contemptuous since his late attack, when, with so small a detachment, he had done, as he thought, a good deal of mischief, without the slightest ...
— Anabasis • Xenophon

... impedimenta moved upon Hyde Park, the Champ de Mars and the Prater, the umbrella and the oil-cloth tilt their only shield against Jupiter Pluvius, who seemed to take especial pleasure in demonstrating their failure, nineteen centuries after the contemptuous erasure of him from the calendar, to escape his power. It was reserved for the Philadelphia Commission to bring his reign (not the slightest intention of a pun) to a close. The most delicate silk ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - Vol. XVII, No. 102. June, 1876. • Various

... would be sufficient to quell them." He was now importuned to use the troops at his command to disperse the merchants' meeting at its adjournment. He held that this meeting was contrary to law. He characterized its resolves as contemptuous and insolent, and derogatory to the authority of Parliament. He never grew weary of holding up to reprobation the objects which the merchants had in view. And his political friends now asked him to make good his professions by acts. But he declined to interfere with ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 12, No. 73, November, 1863 • Various

... You have not the hardness and bitterness of mind, the cold self-possession and contempt of others, the power of dissembling and the iron will—in a word, the fundamental nastiness, without which you never could get through such a job. Why, you can not be contemptuous even to me!" ...
— Erema - My Father's Sin • R. D. Blackmore

... But the great gray form leaped here and there, and chop, chop, chop went those fearful jaws, no other sound from the lonely warrior; but a death yelp from more than one of his foes, as those that were able again sprang back, and left him statuesque as before, untamed, unmaimed, and contemptuous of them all. ...
— Animal Heroes • Ernest Thompson Seton

... not feel the need of social expertness. Something, some day, will awaken him to the folly of scorning as "soft," men who have accomplished manners; despising as "effeminate," youths who have physical grace; of being contemptuous of the perfect English of the well-bred gentleman; of consoling himself with the thought that his own crudeness is ...
— Etiquette • Emily Post

... M's intellectual calibre, I am not surprised to learn that he is treated throughout with the most contemptuous playfulness. He is horror-struck at learning that, in fact, he is nothing better "than a mediator between Christ and Beelzebub." He is joked about the fait accompli; and asked whether he would consider a box on his ears was ...
— Rome in 1860 • Edward Dicey

... Moscow in the season. Tattiana learns the intelligence— Of her provincial innocence The unaffected traits she now Unto a carping world must show— Her toilette's antiquated style, Her antiquated mode of speech, For Moscow fops and Circes each To mark with a contemptuous smile. Horror! had she not better stay Deep in ...
— Eugene Oneguine [Onegin] - A Romance of Russian Life in Verse • Aleksandr Sergeevich Pushkin

... the noblest spirit of paternal kindness, he had generously held out his arms, as far as they could reach, to clasp to his heart—to the great heart of the Union—the rash children of the South, if they would but let him. It was more with sorrow, than in anger, that he looked upon their contemptuous repulsion of his advances; and his soul still reproachfully yearned toward these his Southern brethren, as did that of a higher than he toward His misguided brethren, when He cried: "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them which are ...
— The Great Conspiracy, Complete • John Alexander Logan

... his opinion of actors in general about as concisely as I ever heard any one do; I asked him what he really thought of actors; and with a contemptuous ...
— Continuous Vaudeville • Will M. Cressy

... handkerchief stowed unintrusively away between the pumps; and then, turning round, he looked up at me, and wagged his tail. I could almost see a smile upon his face. The old man laughed, and said, half nettled by Sailor's contemptuous way of smelling his whole wardrobe, ...
— A Yacht Voyage to Norway, Denmark, and Sweden - 2nd edition • W. A. Ross

... for the hand of the assassin, there were two quick shots. Startled for a moment, I looked and saw the President draw his right hand up under his coat, straighten up, and, pressing his lips together, give Czolgosz the most scorn and contemptuous look possible to imagine. ...
— Shadow and Light - An Autobiography with Reminiscences of the Last and Present Century • Mifflin Wistar Gibbs

... where his trial was to take place, was soon full to overflowing. Phocion was assailed on every side by the clamours of his enemies, which prevented his defence; from being heard, and he was condemned to death by a show of hands. To the last Phocion maintained his calm and dignified, but somewhat contemptuous bearing. When some wretched man spat upon him as he passed to the prison, "Will no one," said he, "check this fellow's indecency?" To one who asked him whether he had any message to leave for his son Phocus, he answered, "Only that he bear ...
— A Smaller History of Greece • William Smith

... three on the steps. They stopped forty feet away at a word of command from the officer and Gerns and Ragnarok men exchanged silent stares; the faces of the Ragnarok men bearded and expressionless, the faces of the Gerns hairless and reflecting a contemptuous curiosity. ...
— Space Prison • Tom Godwin

... by the delegation from New York, were working for a military candidate; while the peace Democrats, under the leadership of Vallandigham, who had returned from Canada and was allowed to remain at large through the half-contemptuous and half-calculated leniency of the government he defied, bent all their energies to a clear statement of their ...
— A Short Life of Abraham Lincoln - Condensed from Nicolay & Hay's Abraham Lincoln: A History • John G. Nicolay

... the Caucasus, paths to illimitable empire and uncompromising despotism. It moves down the map of the world, as a glacier moves down the Alps, patient and relentless, startling the jealous rivals that watch its course, and granting contemptuous peace to the allies that shiver ...
— Humanity in the City • E. H. Chapin

... he released his hold, but he allowed the contemptuous speech to pass without remark. She lifted her arm, frictioning her wrist where his grip had scored a red mark round it. A tumult of anger against him seethed inside her. Her lips felt soiled and she put up her hand and rubbed them distastefully. ...
— The Vision of Desire • Margaret Pedler

... sincere in his constantly repeated disavowal of any wish to disturb the existing state of things. But his reason obviously is that 'the game would not be worth the candle.' No one can fail to perceive a contemptuous irony in many passages in which Shaftesbury affirms his orthodoxy, or when he touches upon the persecution of the early Christians, or upon the mysteries of Christianity, or upon the sacred duty of complying ...
— The English Church in the Eighteenth Century • Charles J. Abbey and John H. Overton

... as the most important means of organic modification, but with those who impugn it; it is hardly necessary, however, to say that Mr. Darwin never attempted to impugn by way of argument the conclusions either of his grandfather or of Lamarck. He waved them both aside in one or two short semi-contemptuous sentences, and said no more about them—not, at least, until late in life he wrote his "Erasmus Darwin," and even then his remarks were purely biographical; he did not say one syllable by way of refutation, ...
— Luck or Cunning? • Samuel Butler

... as redolent of scorn as they were two days before, while his nose bent to sniff the scorn with more evident approval than then. He apprehended more thoroughly the character of the man before him, saw more clearly the nature of his business, and wondered with contemptuous incredulity that Balfour had not been sharper ...
— Sevenoaks • J. G. Holland

... amount of an Indian's prayer.'[10] Obviously, when we compare Mr. Grinnell's account of Pawnee religion, based on his own observations, and those of Major North, and Mr. Dunbar, who has written on the language of the tribe, we are on much safer ground, than when we follow a contemptuous, half-educated European. ...
— The Making of Religion • Andrew Lang

... got one. What is this place?" said Malcolm, whom the aspect of the man had suddenly rendered doubtful, mouthing his English with Scotch deliberation. The man gave him a look of contemptuous surprise, and turning to another who lounged behind him with his hands in his pockets, said—"Tom, here's a gentleman as wants to know where he is: can you tell him?" The person addressed laughed, and ...
— The Marquis of Lossie • George MacDonald



Words linked to "Contemptuous" :   scornful, insulting, contemptuousness, disrespectful, disdainful



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