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Decry   Listen
verb
Decry  v. t.  (past & past part. decried; pres. part. decrying)  To cry down; to censure as faulty, mean, or worthless; to clamor against; to blame clamorously; to discredit; to disparage. "For small errors they whole plays decry." "Measures which are extolled by one half of the kingdom are naturally decried by the other."
Synonyms: To Decry, Depreciate, Detract, Disparage. Decry and depreciate refer to the estimation of a thing, the former seeking to lower its value by clamorous censure, the latter by representing it as of little worth. Detract and disparage also refer to merit or value, which the former assails with caviling, insinuation, etc., while the latter willfully underrates and seeks to degrade it. Men decry their rivals and depreciate their measures. The envious detract from the merit of a good action, and disparage the motives of him who performs it.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Decry" Quotes from Famous Books



... has been the fashion among the enemies of the new delusion to decry Mesmer as an unprincipled adventurer, while his disciples have extolled him to the skies as a regenerator of the human race. In nearly the same words, as the Rosicrucians applied to their founders, he has been called the discoverer of the secret which brings man into more intimate connexion with ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay

... the last ten years. Instruction in its management in disease is included in the curriculum of almost every medical school, and most physicians now own an outfit, more or less extensive, for use in ordinary practice. To decry and utterly condemn is no longer the custom of the steady-going physician, the ethics of whose cloth had been for centuries to condemn all that interfered with the use of drugs, and everything whose action could not be understood by the examples of common experience, and ...
— Steam Steel and Electricity • James W. Steele

... can be softened by harmony and whose feelings are so evidently alive to the in fluence of sweet sounds, should not decry the pleasures of virtue. This flute, and yon guitar, both call ...
— The Red Rover • James Fenimore Cooper

... fools aspiring to be knaves! The wit of cheats, the courage of a whore, Are what ten thousand envy and adore; All, all look up, with reverential awe, At crimes that 'scape, or triumph o'er the law; While truth, worth, wisdom, daily they decry— "Nothing is sacred now but villainy ". Yet may this verse (if such a verse remain) Show, there was one who ...
— English Satires • Various

... shoulders stoop, their lungs shrink, and their stomachs grow fat. No other species will be quite so deformed and distorted. Athletics they will watch, yes, but on the whole sparingly practise. Their snuffy old scholars will even be proud to decry them. Where once the simians swung high through forests, or scampered like deer, their descendants will plod around farms, or mince along city streets, moving constrictedly, slowly, their ...
— This Simian World • Clarence Day Jr.

... old self-holiness." Mind this phrase. Far was it from the heart of good Mr. Bunyan to decry personal holiness. It is nothing but self-holiness, or the holiness of the old man of sin; for true holiness springs from the belief of the truth, and love to the truth. All besides this only tends to ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... man is ignorant of rumors that are afloat about him. A whole town may be talking of his affairs; may calumniate and decry him, but if he has no good friends, he will know nothing about it. Now the innocent du Bousquier was superb in his ignorance. No one had told him as yet of Suzanne's revelations; he therefore appeared very jaunty and slightly conceited when the company, leaving ...
— An Old Maid • Honore de Balzac

... consider'd, that the were thereby endeavouring to destroy their own Happiness, and overthrow her Majesty's Title to the Crown: or (if they knew what they did) presumed upon the Lenity of that Government they decry'd; which (were there no better Reason) ought to have recommended it to their Approbation, since it could patiently bear with such, as were doing all they could to ...
— Franco-Gallia • Francis Hotoman

... described in this book, that there is as yet no prospect of coming to an understanding with many people. It is here that we come to the point where the desire must arise that it should no longer be a characteristic of our present day culture to at once decry as fanciful or visionary a method of research which differs from its own. But on the other hand it is also a fact at the present time that a number of people can appreciate the supersensible method of research, as it is presented ...
— An Outline of Occult Science • Rudolf Steiner

... still do exist, in a service which is an honour to its country; for what institution is there on earth that is perfect, or into which, if it once was perfect, abuses will not creep? Unfortunately, others have written to decry the service, and many have raised up their voices against our writings, because they felt that, in exposing error, we were exposing them. But to this we have been indifferent; we felt that we were doing good, and we have continued. To prove that ...
— Mr. Midshipman Easy • Frederick Marryat

... or by direct recruitment in India. The latter class of officers, after completing their education in India, should ordinarily go to Europe with a view to widening their experience. By this he did not wish to decry the training given in the Indian Universities, which produce some of the very best men, and he would not make the rule absolute. It was not necessary for men of exceptional ability to go to England in order ...
— Sir Jagadis Chunder Bose - His Life and Speeches • Sir Jagadis Chunder Bose

... boards, heavily ribbed, and is a sorry weight to handle. The contention is, that to withstand the swash of steamboat wakes breaking upon the shore, and the rush of drift in times of flood, a heavy skiff is necessary; there is a tendency to decry Pilgrim as a plaything, unadapted to the great river. A reasonable degree of care at all times, however, and keeping the boat drawn high on the beach when not in use,—such care as we are familiar with upon our Wisconsin inland lakes,—would render the employment ...
— Afloat on the Ohio - An Historical Pilgrimage of a Thousand Miles in a Skiff, from Redstone to Cairo • Reuben Gold Thwaites

... class of critics, it has been long a prevailing humour to decry one Alexander Pope. Mrs Margaret Fuller is resolved that if not first in the field against this notorious pretender, no one shall show greater hardihood than herself in the attack upon him. It ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 385. November, 1847. • Various

... as in neighborhoods where the reverse is true. The reason is obvious: cultured people have attractive and generally musical homes, and are thus made, to a great extent, independent of the amusements afforded in public places. This I mention, not to decry the theatre, which, I hold, has its appropriate, and, under proper conditions, educational and refining uses. In fact, the theatre (in which is performed the legitimate drama) would seem to be in certain respects a necessity, affording as it does occasional ...
— Music and Some Highly Musical People • James M. Trotter

... are not among those who decry the Greek and Latin classics. We think it a glorious privilege to read both those grand old tongues, and that an intelligent, cultivated man who is shut out from the converse of the splendid minds of ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 92, June, 1865 • Various

... that those who decry political economy, because it investigates men and the world as it finds them, are more gloomy than political economy itself, at least as regards the past and the present. Look into their books and their journals. What do you find? Bitterness and hatred of society. The ...
— Sophisms of the Protectionists • Frederic Bastiat

... far indeed from wishing to decry art, the study of art, or the benefits to be derived from its intelligent enjoyment. I only mean to suggest that we go the wrong way to work at present in this matter. Picture and sculpture galleries ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds

... which is difficult to understand is much admired by the simple-minded, who also decry pictures that tell their own story! A certain class of minds enjoy being mystified, and in consequence writers, painters, and musicians have appeared who are willing to juggle for their amusement. The simple definition given to us by the Russian writer comes like a breath of wholesome air to those ...
— The Ways of Men • Eliot Gregory

... was, moreover, instructive, indicating as it did in somewhat striking fashion the lack of sense of proportion prevalent amongst some of those included in G.H.Q. This chapter deals only with early days; but it may perhaps be mentioned here that there was a disposition to deride and decry the New Army at St. Omer almost up to the date, May 1915, when the first three of its divisions, the Ninth, Twelfth and Fourteenth, made their ...
— Experiences of a Dug-out, 1914-1918 • Charles Edward Callwell

... just now to decry the value of reading. We read, we are told, to avoid the necessity of thinking for ourselves. Books are ...
— The Art of Public Speaking • Dale Carnagey (AKA Dale Carnegie) and J. Berg Esenwein

... dear Miss Monson—as far as possible—I am the last man to decry my beautiful countrywomen, who are second to no others in appearance, certainly; if they do not dress as richly, it is because they do not need it. Mademoiselle Hennequin has ...
— Autobiography of a Pocket-Hankerchief • James Fenimore Cooper

... and, when 'tis new, all decry it; But, once let it be old, every trifler must try it. And Polonius, who praises no wine that's not Massic, Complains of my verse, that my verse is not classic. And Miss Tilburina, who sings, and not badly, My earlier verses, ...
— Lucile • Owen Meredith

... hold not by it; Better we let, then, the old view reign; Since there is peace in it, why decry it? Since there is comfort, why disdain? Note not the pigment the while that the painting determines ...
— Poems of the Past and the Present • Thomas Hardy

... justice from the law, and mercy from the gospel. "To impute crimes to Christianity," says the celebrated King of Prussia, "is the act of a novice." His word may fairly be taken for such an assertion. And yet these unbelievers have been so vile and perverse as to decry a system which they acknowledge to be useful. How ungrateful! How reprehensible! Collect now the thoughts scattered under this branch of the subject, and be honest—heartily believe, and openly acknowledge, that God was the author of the Bible. What but a ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy

... old models which they knew; and that the rightful sovereign of the new Parnassus, Lord Byron, protested against the new movement, while he followed it; upheld to the last the models which it was the fashion to decry, confessed to the last, in poetry as in morals, "Video meliora proboque, deteriora sequor," and uttered again and again prophecies of the downfall of English poetry and English taste, which seem to be on ...
— Literary and General Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley

... some few designing factious men, who have it at heart to establish some favourite schemes at the price of the liberty of mankind, and the very essence of religion, it is not in the power of such persons to decry any book they please; witness that excellent book called, 'A Plain Account of the Nature and End of the Sacrament;' a book written (if I may venture on the expression) with the pen of an angel, and calculated to restore the true use of Christianity, and ...
— Joseph Andrews Vol. 1 • Henry Fielding

... The Scene is only changed; for who wou'd lay A Plot, so hopeful, just the same dull way? Poets, like Statesmen, with a little change, Pass off old Politicks for new and strange; Tho the few Men of Sense decry't aloud, The Cheat will pass with the unthinking Croud: The Rabble 'tis we court, those powerful things, Whose Voices can impose even Laws on Kings. A Pox of Sense and Reason, or dull Rules, Give us an Audience ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. I (of 6) • Aphra Behn

... odes to an unknown god, sensuous lyrics of love, apostrophes and addresses to every human passion. But no poet, to my knowledge, has risen to the heights of the maternal instinct. Some contemporary clap-trap about sentimentalism will perhaps decry and ridicule the demand for an apotheosis of it. There are some who deny its existence, and assert that maternity is forced upon every woman. Reduced to its elements, such nonsense turns out the absurd pose of the theorist desperate to epater le bourgeois or to cover up hidden defects ...
— The Glands Regulating Personality • Louis Berman, M.D.

... should I spread them all at once? She always has too much in hand to stop to jest over trifles; she waved the tea-cloths aside, and seized her cup off Mrs Bust's tray, and went on talking shop. I don't want to decry Jessica. She's worth all the rest put together. While they gabble, she does things. If Mrs Carter (who hates the sight of her, by the way) and the rest of them ...
— A Sheaf of Corn • Mary E. Mann

... some reason that's to him like the proverbial red rag tae a bull. The last missionary tae Long Moose cam' awa wi' a lovely pair o' black eyes Sam Carr bestowed on him. I'm forewarnin' ye for yer ain good. Ye can decry material benefits a' ye like, but it'll be a decided benefit if ye ha' Sam Carr for a friendly neighbor ...
— Burned Bridges • Bertrand W. Sinclair

... decry St. Paul," answered Bonpre quietly—"He was a gifted and clever man, but he was a Man—he was not God-in-Man. Christ's doctrine leaves no place for differing sects; St. Paul's method of applying that doctrine serves as authority ...
— The Master-Christian • Marie Corelli

... his daughter, the sister of Gentile. Hearing this, Squarcione fell into such disdain against Andrea that they were enemies ever afterwards; and in proportion as Squarcione had formerly been ever praising the works of Andrea, so from that day onward did he ever decry them in public. Above all did he censure without reserve the pictures that Andrea had made in the said Chapel of S. Cristofano, saying that they were worthless, because in making them he had imitated the ancient works in marble, from ...
— Lives of the Most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects - Vol. 3 (of 10), Filarete and Simone to Mantegna • Giorgio Vasari

... on the threshing-floor—if we examine it in France, for instance, between Racine and Andre Chenier, we are obliged to recognise that it was very rarely both genuine and appropriate. The Romantic Revival, which we are beginning ungratefully to decry, did at least restore to poetry the sense of a genuine stateliness of expression, which once more gave it the requisite dignity, and made it a vehicle for the vital and ...
— Some Diversions of a Man of Letters • Edmund William Gosse

... consultations with leading conspirators. "The poetry of politics" and poetry on paper did not go together. Meanwhile he would try his hand on prose. A controversy had arisen between Bowles and Campbell with regard to the merits of Pope. Byron rushed into the fray. To avenge and exalt Pope, to decry the "Lakers," and to lay down his own canons of art, Byron addressed two letters to **** ****** (i.e. John Murray), entitled "Strictures on the Life and Writings of Pope." The first was published in 1821, the ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various

... counter-arguments in defense. I pointed but that for perhaps five years past my weight practically had been stationary. Also I called attention to the fact that I no longer ate so heavily as once I had. Not that I wished actually to decry my appetite. It had been a good friend to me and not for worlds would I slander it. I have a sincere conviction that age cannot wither nor custom stale my infinite gastric juices. Never, I trust, will there come a time when I shan't relish my victuals ...
— One Third Off • Irvin S. Cobb

... among some of our hair-splitting critics to decry Scott because of his carelessness in literary style, his tendency to long introductions, and his fondness for description. These critics will tell you that Turgeneff and Tolstoi are greater literary artists than Scott, just ...
— Modern English Books of Power • George Hamlin Fitch

... are to material forms, As mists to the copious shower As dead calms are to tornado storms That in tropical region lower So are educational fallacies That ignore and decry as naught The value and power that ever lie In the scope of ...
— Our Profession and Other Poems • Jared Barhite

... mentioning it in statute law, that the male has certain natural "rights," and the women only such rights as are granted her by the males. And the reason of this wrong-headed attitude on part of the mob is plain. It rules by force, whereas the semi-ascetic sects decry force, using only moral suasion, falling back on the Christ doctrine of non-resistance. This has given their women a chance to prove that they have just as able minds as the men, ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 2 of 14 - Little Journeys To the Homes of Famous Women • Elbert Hubbard

... Again, we may decry the color-prejudice of the South, yet it remains a heavy fact. Such curious kinks of the human mind exist and must be reckoned with soberly. They cannot be laughed away, nor always successfully stormed at, nor easily abolished by act of legislature. And ...
— The Souls of Black Folk • W. E. B. Du Bois

... you, and you endure and bow before it. Oh, you men, if you read this, know that I am grieved to the bottom of my heart to allow you so much importance, but it would be both bad taste and bad tactics to decry your worth; the value of our enemies enhances our own. What credit is it to conquer dunces? Know, you who wear trousers, know that in me you have a foe. I take pleasure in magnifying you men in order to maintain in myself the noble ardour ...
— Marie Bashkirtseff (From Childhood to Girlhood) • Marie Bashkirtseff

... the son of Nox and Somnus, of darkness and sleep. Idle men, who have not been at the pains to accomplish or distinguish themselves, are very apt to detract from others; as ignorant men are very subject to decry those beauties in a celebrated work which they have not eyes to discover. Many of our sons of Momus, who dignify themselves by the name of critics, are the genuine descendants of these two illustrious ancestors. They are often led into these numerous absurdities in ...
— The Palmy Days of Nance Oldfield • Edward Robins

... too impatient view of the Art of our own time, since we can neither see the ends toward which it is almost blindly groping, nor the few perfected creations that will be left standing amidst the rubble of abortive effort. An age must always decry itself and extol its forbears. The unwritten history of every Art will show us that. Consider the novel—that most recent form of Art! Did not the age which followed Fielding lament the treachery ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... did not stop there: the ambitious and intriguing Duchess went further, she undertook to ruin Madame de Longueville in her brother's estimation. With that object she set herself, with the assistance of La Rochefoucauld, to decry her in every way to him, and sought even to persuade him that his sister was not attached to him as she made it appear, and that she had promised the Duke de Nemours to serve him at his expense; whilst Madame de Longueville had never dreamed ...
— Political Women (Vol. 1 of 2) • Sutherland Menzies

... professor in the university of Wittemberg, resenting the affront put upon his order, began to preach against these abuses in the sale of indulgences; and being naturally of a fiery temper, and provoked by opposition, he proceeded even to decry indulgences themselves; and was thence carried, by the heat of dispute, to question the authority of the pope, from which his adversaries derived their chief arguments against him.[***] Still, as he enlarged his reading, in order to support these tenets, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part C. - From Henry VII. to Mary • David Hume

... shew what is Good or Bad in it, he ought to discover, and mark very exactly all its Virtues, and Vices, for that is a sure way to find out the Truth, which is more valuable than all things else whatever. If I had written against Plato with a Design to Decry his Works, I should be as Impious as[21] Zoilus, but on the contrary, I would praise him, and if in doing so I have Improved any of his Defects, I have done nothing worthy of Complaint, and which was not necessary for my Design. ...
— The Preface to Aristotle's Art of Poetry • Andre Dacier

... intense bitterness, "that you, too, who six months ago seemed as reasonable a man as I ever met, have joined in the chorus of denunciators. It has become the fashion to-day, thanks to your socialists, reformers, and agitators, to decry a man because he is rich, to take it for granted that he is a thief and a scoundrel, that he has no sense of responsibility for his country and his fellow-men. The glory, the true democracy of this nation, lies in its equal opportunity for all. They take no account of that, of the fact that ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... shake the head, And drink water, boys, instead, And the foolish all strong liquors do decry; Yet the foaming glass for me, May we never, never see A friend without a ...
— Yorksher Puddin' - A Collection of the Most Popular Dialect Stories from the - Pen of John Hartley • John Hartley

... beginning, though vaguely, to foresee this new social poetry, which will soothe the suffering soul by teaching it to rise towards God through humanity; because we now stand on the threshold of a new epoch, which, but for them, we should not have reached; shall we decry those who were unable to do more for us than cast their giant forms into the gulf that held us all doubting and dismayed on the other side? From the earliest times has genius been made the scapegoat of the generations. Society has ...
— Literary and Philosophical Essays • Various

... the "species question" divides with Italy and the Volunteers the attention of general society. Everybody has read Mr. Darwin's book, or, at least, has given an opinion upon its merits or demerits; pietists, whether lay or ecclesiastic, decry it with the mild railing which sounds so charitable; bigots denounce it with ignorant invective; old ladies of both sexes consider it a decidedly dangerous book, and even savants, who have no better mud to throw, quote antiquated ...
— Darwiniana • Thomas Henry Huxley

... not unsuccessful practice in this great City, I should now at last forbear sending my Bills to the Apothecaries, knowing that hereby a whole Company of men interested in the World (who by their number, noise, and tricks, may be able to decry any Physician) will become my implacable adversaries, and by their private whispers of untrue tales, will endeavour to their utmost, either to keep me from any new, or shuffle me out of my fixed imployment. But not fearing the utmost their malice can ...
— A Short View of the Frauds and Abuses Committed by Apothecaries • Christopher Merrett

... sat on the watch, occasionally hazarding an observation, while Jack, who was next Pacey, on the left, pretended to decry Sponge's judgement, asking sotto voce, with a whiff through his nose, what such a Cockney as that could know about horses? What between Jack's encouragement, and the inspiring influence of the bottle, aided by his own self-sufficiency, ...
— Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour • R. S. Surtees

... in other words, violence, as a means for bringing about the downfall of our Government and of the entire industrial system. Opposed to these men, who are frequently termed the "Reds," there is a rapidly disappearing faction of so-called "Yellows," who rely upon the use of the ballot, and decry direct action, either through personal repugnance to violence, or, as seems most likely, because they deem peaceful methods more prolific of votes, and consequently of future political advantage to themselves. The direct actionists by their inflammatory speeches and writings are especially ...
— The Red Conspiracy • Joseph J. Mereto

... life from another world, who belong to another order, who bring other standards, and sow the seed of new and larger types; who are not the organs of the culture or modes of their time, and whom their times for the most part decry and disown,—the primal, original, elemental men. It is here, in my opinion, that we must place Whitman; not among the minstrels and edifiers of his age, but among its prophets and saviors. He is nearer the sources of things than the popular poets,—nearer ...
— Whitman - A Study • John Burroughs

... scholastics said that in God there are three substances, one essence, and two processions. How does this sound as compared with the statement of Jesus that he and his Father are one, and that he would send the Comforter? This is not to decry theology; but is nevertheless to discriminate ...
— Understanding the Scriptures • Francis McConnell

... should we thus heap gratitude on men who from preference or from necessity have remained childless, and yet habitually treat women as if they could render no service to their country except by giving it children? If it be folly and shame, as I think, to belittle and decry the dignity and worth of motherhood, as some are said to do, it is no less folly, and shame quite as great, to deny the grand and patriotic service of many women who have died and left no children among their mourners. Plato puts into the mouth of a woman,—the eloquent ...
— Women and the Alphabet • Thomas Wentworth Higginson

... from a naturalist of acknowledged character and ability and marked by a conscientiousness and candor which have not always been reciprocated we have thought it simply right to set forth the doctrine as fairly and as favorably as we could There are plenty to decry it and the whole theory is widely exposed to attack For the arguments on the other side we may look to the numerous adverse publications which Darwin s volume has already called out and especially to those reviews which propose directly to refute it. Taking various lines and reflecting very diverse ...
— Evolution and Ethics and Other Essays • Thomas H. Huxley

... see, then, here are two methods of Education; the end of the one is to be philosophical, of the other to be mechanical; the one rises towards general ideas, the other is exhausted upon what is particular and external. Let me not be thought to deny the necessity, or to decry the benefit, of such attention to what is particular and practical, as belongs to the useful or mechanical arts; life could not go on without them; we owe our daily welfare to them; their exercise is the duty of the many, and we owe to the many a debt of gratitude for fulfilling that duty. I only ...
— The Idea of a University Defined and Illustrated: In Nine - Discourses Delivered to the Catholics of Dublin • John Henry Newman

... mid burn the wold bass-viol that I set such vallie by." Squire.—"You may hold the manse in fee, You may wed my spouse, my children's memory of me may decry." ...
— Wessex Poems and Other Verses • Thomas Hardy

... asked himself at night the meaning of his victory. When the morning dawned, when once more he had to go to his work, the work which was his life, although sometimes he was inclined to decry it secretly in moments of fatigue, he asked no further questions. His business was plain before him, and it was business into which he could put his heart. Although he was not an insensitive man, he was a man of generous nature. He pushed away with an almost careless energy those small ...
— Bella Donna - A Novel • Robert Hichens

... more Persian rugs—all old and all more than ordinarily pleasing in design and colouring—were sprawling about the chamber, any organised depreciation was out of the question. Where all were so beautiful, it required a larger output of moral courage than any one of us could essay to decry the whole pack. By way of doing his or her bit, everybody decided to praise one or two to the implied condemnation of the remainder. In the absence of collusion, it was inevitable that those rugs which somebody had thus branded as goats should invariably include somebody else's sheep. ...
— Jonah and Co. • Dornford Yates

... England to reverence, our constant appeal to classical standards, is an obstacle to our intellectual and artistic progress. We are like elderly writers who tend to repeat their own beloved mannerisms, and who contemn and decry the work of younger men, despairing of the future. A nation may reach a point, like an ancient and noble dynasty of princes, where it is overshadowed and overweighted by its own past glories, and where it learns to depend upon prestige rather ...
— The Silent Isle • Arthur Christopher Benson

... man's province. He has used new materials and labor-saving devices in railway stations and place of amusements, not selfishly, but because of the appreciation of the travelling public. It is the fashion to decry labor-saving devices in the house, because they do away with that sign of pecuniary ability, the capped and aproned maid. The obvious saving of steps by the speaking-tube and telephone-call is frowned upon for the same reason. It is this attitude of society which stands in the way of the ...
— The Cost of Shelter • Ellen H. Richards

... a bolder eye Hath lit each dew-drop on our trimmer lawn! Yet not for this, if wise, will we decry The spots and struggles of the timid Dawn; Lest so we tempt the approaching Noon to scorn The mists and ...
— Poems of Coleridge • Coleridge, ed Arthur Symons

... in writing of "politics" I am only dealing with the lights and shadows that flicker over the surface, and am not trying to discuss, still less to decry, the deep and ...
— The Hohenzollerns in America - With the Bolsheviks in Berlin and other impossibilities • Stephen Leacock

... otherwise the consent of parliament will be necessary. There is at present no such legitimated money; Portugal coin being only current by private consent, so that any one who pleases may refuse to take it in payment. The king may also at any time decry, or cry down, any coin of the kingdom, and make it ...
— Commentaries on the Laws of England - Book the First • William Blackstone

... beautiful in summer, when all the fine trees are in full grandeur, for I never saw any larger or more flourishing. It is the custom for the French to decry everything Spanish, even to the natural productions; and I had often been told that the moment the French side was quitted all was barren and worthless; I found, however, on the contrary, that the mountain-scenery greatly increased in sublimity the nearer we advanced towards Roncesvalles, ...
— Barn and the Pyrenees - A Legendary Tour to the Country of Henri Quatre • Louisa Stuart Costello

... stiffness they have to the fact that Bismarck lived. It is one of the things a full-blooded man is least able to bear in Germany, to hear the querulous questioning of the great deeds of this man, whose boot-legs were stiffer than the backbones of those who decry him. ...
— Germany and the Germans - From an American Point of View (1913) • Price Collier

... in South America took advantage of the statements in this book to depreciate the American railway system and American civil engineers, for their own private advantage in obtaining work, some Americans have been so foolish as to decry the book altogether, as traitorous to the interests of the country. Such mingled bigotry and conceit, shrinking from just criticism, would fetter all progress but fortunately it ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 32, June, 1860 • Various

... administered our foreign policy with no small share of success, were not linguists; and as to Charles Fox, he has left a French sentence on record that will last even as long as his own great name. I do not want to decry the study of languages; I simply desire to affirm that linguists—and through all I have said I mean colloquial linguists—are for the most part poor creatures, not otherwise distinguished than by the gift of tongues; ...
— Cornelius O'Dowd Upon Men And Women And Other Things In General - Originally Published In Blackwood's Magazine - 1864 • Charles Lever

... of common sense reproduce things just as sound judgment conceives of them; if they throw around them at times the halo of beauty which seems exaggerated, let us not decry them. ...
— Common Sense - - Subtitle: How To Exercise It • Yoritomo-Tashi

... letter while Red Chief, with a blanket wrapped around him, strutted up and down, guarding the mouth of the cave. Bill begged me tearfully to make the ransom fifteen hundred dollars instead of two thousand. "I ain't attempting," says he, "to decry the celebrated moral aspect of parental affection, but we're dealing with humans, and it ain't human for anybody to give up two thousand dollars for that forty-pound chunk of freckled wildcat. I'm willing to take a chance ...
— Whirligigs • O. Henry

... you ought to be ashamed of yourself! God forbid that one should decry such a man as Alfred was. But the pedantry of Freeman and his sect, who tried to make 'English' a conterminous name and substitute for 'Anglo-Saxon,' was only by one degree less offensive than the ignorance of your modern journalist who degrades Englishmen by ...
— Brother Copas • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... speciously. Hence the reason is perspicuous, why no French plays, when translated, have, or ever can succeed upon the English Stage. For, if you consider the Plots, our own are fuller of variety; if the Writing, ours are more quick, and fuller of spirit: and therefore 'tis a strange mistake in those who decry the way of writing Plays in Verse; as if the English ...
— An English Garner - Critical Essays & Literary Fragments • Edited by Professor Arber and Thomas Seccombe

... world ever saw; but the parents of all sound physics as well as of all sound metaphysics. Their very religion, in spite of its imperfections, helped forward their education, not in spite of, but by means of, that anthropomorphism which we sometimes too hastily decry. As Mr. Gladstone says in a passage which I must quote at length—"As regarded all other functions of our nature, outside the domain of the life to Godward—all those functions which are summed up in what St. Paul calls the ...
— Health and Education • Charles Kingsley

... was a capitalist, and I suspected him of being one of the directors of the penny-chair company. But perhaps he thought me a capitalist, too, and fancied that I would like to have him decry the unemployed. Still he may have been right about the blackmailing; one must live, and the innocent courage of open-air courtship in London offers occasions of wilful misconstruction. In a great city, the sense ...
— London Films • W.D. Howells

... avoided the Royal Academy, honouring every country save his own. And was he such a great painter, after all? Was he anything but a clever dauber whose work had been forced into general admiration by the efforts of a small clique of eccentric admirers? Far be it from them, the organs, to decry a dead man, but the National Valhalla was the National ...
— Buried Alive: A Tale of These Days • Arnold Bennett

... should be no antithesis between the words physical science and poetry. The secrets of the Universe, the ways of God's working, are surely the highest poetry; but the greater number of scientists have willed a divorce between the material and the spiritual, and decry that very imaginative faculty which, in the case of Kepler, bore such wonderful fruits for science. Facts are very well, and induction is also well, but science requires the aid of the creative and divining imagination to order ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 5, May, 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... slander me and say that I am humpbacked?" Then she discovered to him a part of her bosom, and when he saw her breasts his reason took flight from his head and his heart crave to her and he cried, "Cover it up,[FN262] so may Allah veil thee!" Quoth she, "Is it fair of any one to decry my charms?" and quoth he, "How shall any decry thy charms, and thou the sun of loveliness?" Then said she, "Hath any the right to say of me that I am lophanded?" and tucking up her sleeves, she showed him forearms as they were crystal; after which she unveiled ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton

... judges and inquisitors, are often the first to maintain that magic and sorcery are merely imaginary, and the effect of popular prejudices and errors. Upon that footing, Satan would destroy himself, and overthrow his own empire, if he were thus to decry magic, of which he is himself the author and support. If the magicians really, and of their own good will, independently of the demon, make this declaration, they betray themselves most lightly, and do not make their cause better; since the judges, notwithstanding their disavowal, prosecute them, ...
— The Phantom World - or, The philosophy of spirits, apparitions, &c, &c. • Augustin Calmet

... dull coloured carpets and hangings, have your modern reproductions antiqued. If you prefer gay, cheering tones, let the painted furniture be bright. These schemes are equally interesting in different ways. It is stupid to decry new things, since every grey antique had its ...
— The Art of Interior Decoration • Grace Wood

... in the hearing of their champion, without pricking a lance with him in their behalf. What do you, either of you, who abuse woman in that wholesale style, know of her? Nothing—less than nothing; and yet you venture, upon your paltry experience, to lift up your voices and decry the sex. Now I do know her; and upon my own experience avouch, that, as a sex, woman, compared with man, is as an angel to a devil. As a sex, woman is faithful, loving, self-sacrificing. We 'tis that make her otherwise; we, selfish, exacting, neglectful men; we teach ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth

... necessity, or decry the utility, of such an education, are generally deficient in a sense of what makes good literature—they are 'word-deaf,' as others are colour-blind. All writing is a kind of word-weaving; a skilful writer will make ...
— Robert Louis Stevenson • Walter Raleigh

... answer than this: I acted in the interest of reason, which always suffers, when certain objects are explained and judged by a reference to other supposed laws than those of material nature—the only laws which we know in a determinate manner. It would be unfair to decry the latter philosopher, who endeavoured to harmonize his paradoxical opinions with the interests of religion, and to undervalue an honest and reflecting man, because he finds himself at a loss the moment he has left the field of natural science. The same grace must be accorded ...
— The Critique of Pure Reason • Immanuel Kant

... retiring with his family before the storm, and under many privations, continued to preach. In theology, modern philosophy, and all the sciences connected with his profession he was deeply read. For classic literature, which it is so common for the superficial to decry, he was a great advocate, and to evince his sincerity retained his knowledge of the dead languages as long as he lived. In his discourses he was neither an extempore preacher, nor did he read. He wrote out his sermons correctly, and then committing them carefully to memory, ...
— A Sketch of the Life of Brig. Gen. Francis Marion • William Dobein James

... the fashion to-day to decry the cavaliers and the wearers of "love-locks," but they had a pretty taste in art and an eye for artistic surroundings, those old fellows of the sword and cloak; a much more pretty taste than their ...
— Royal Palaces and Parks of France • Milburg Francisco Mansfield

... spirits of the settlers. War was on, and there was none of the Howard's Creek men who believed that any change in their attitude could prevent the Ohio Indians from slaying at every opportunity. No matter how much they might decry the acts of Hughes and his mates in time of peace, there was no denying the fighting-value of the quartet when it ...
— A Virginia Scout • Hugh Pendexter

... I would be the last one in the world to decry facts as such. In the abstract I have the highest opinion of them. But facts, as someone has said, are stubborn things; and stubborn things, like stubborn people, are frequently tiresome. So it occurred to me that possibly there might be room for a guidebook on foreign travel which ...
— Europe Revised • Irvin S. Cobb

... mean anxious to the point of abnormality, disturbed, distressed unnecessarily. Yet I would not be misunderstood. Far be it from me, in this age of gross materialism and worship of physical power and wealth, to decry in the least a proper degree of solicitude for one's personal salvation. The religious life of the individual—the real, deep, personal, hidden, unseen, inner life of a human soul—is a wonderfully delicate thing, to be touched ...
— Quit Your Worrying! • George Wharton James

... Horace's time had a great many Admirers as that Poet informs us, but at last they were entirely decry'd. And it must not be imagin'd that the Fall of these Authors, as well French as Latin, was owing to the Change of their Languages. The true Reason was, they did not know how to hit the Point of Solidity and Perfection in those Languages, which is necessary to make a Work ...
— Reflections on Dr. Swift's Letter to Harley (1712) and The British Academy (1712) • John Oldmixon

... accepting it. For the dry bones of commerce, avarice and method and need, are odious to the Valley; and we cover them up with a pretty body of fiction and observances. Thus, when it comes to buying pigs, the buyer does not begin to decry the pig and the vendor to praise it, as is the custom with lesser men; but tradition makes them ...
— Hills and the Sea • H. Belloc

... however, that the ecclesiastical policy of the Protectorate was one which it would be most inconsistent on the part of Mr. Arnold and those who hold the same view with him to decry. It was a national church (to prevent the hasty abolition of which, seems to have been Cromwell's main reason for dissolving the Barebones Parliament) with the largest possible measure of comprehension. ...
— Lectures and Essays • Goldwin Smith

... measures can be devised and speedily executed to restore the credit of our currency and restrain extortion and punish forestallers.' A few days later: 'To make and extort money in every shape that can be devised, and at the same time to decry its value, seems to have become a mere business and an epidemical disease.' On December 30th, 1778, 'speculation, peculation, and an insatiable thirst for riches seems to have got the better of every consideration, and almost of every order of men; * * ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 2 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Edgerton Ryerson

... his friend went through all the places where Father La Combe had held his mission, to decry him and to speak against him so violently that a woman was afraid to say her "Pater" because, she said, she had learned it from him. They made a fearful scandal through the whole country; for the day after my arrival at the Ursulines of Thonon, ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 13 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Lovers • Elbert Hubbard

... Nevertheless, because he has some son at the front, some cousin in the government, or some historical sentiment for the flag and the nominal essence of his country, the oppressed subject will glow like the rest with patriotic ardour, and will decry as dead to duty and honour anyone who points out how perverse is this helpless allegiance to a government representing ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana

... pursuit of knowledge, means of amusement, everything is taken from them. What is left? Only the consolation which their sacred religion brings. The observance of the thousand ceremonials which you decry, is to them not only a religious necessity, a God-pleasing work; it is more, it is a source of domestic happiness, a means of genuine enjoyment, a comfort and a solace. Whether these observances are needed or are superfluous in a free country like America I shall not presume ...
— Rabbi and Priest - A Story • Milton Goldsmith

... finally consented to do what he could for Elliott, that this task would prove his Waterloo. "Coach Severely Handicapped by Material and Facilities," one headline read, while another had it, "Sun Now Hardly Destined to Set on Triumph for John Brown," the articles going on to decry the lamentable conditions surrounding Elliott's effort to attain a higher athletic grade. The task was regarded as beyond that of even a miracle man and John Brown was credited with having accepted the ...
— Interference and Other Football Stories • Harold M. Sherman

... orange red at the base of their ray florets—have become prime favorites of late years in European gardens, so offering them still another chance to overrun the Old World, to which so much American hay is shipped? Thrifty farmers may decry the importation into their mowing lots, but there is a glory to the cone-flower beside which the glitter of a gold coin fades into paltry nothingness. Having been instructed in the decorative usefulness of all this genus by European landscape gardeners, we Americans now importune the Department ...
— Wild Flowers Worth Knowing • Neltje Blanchan et al

... in and given us a great deal of information along various lines in regard to spraying, and I don't decry science in any sense at all. These men, while they were not scientifically educated, discovered scientific truths, and it is truths we ...
— Trees, Fruits and Flowers of Minnesota, 1916 • Various

... wrong and foolish to conceal from ourselves in the interests of "idealism" the real difficulties of the position in the special matter of revising treaties, that is no reason for any of us to decry the League, which the wisdom of the world may yet transform into a powerful instrument of peace, and which in Articles XI.-XVII.[159] has already accomplished a great and beneficent achievement. I agree, therefore, that ...
— The Economic Consequences of the Peace • John Maynard Keynes

... flats. "I've learned they have sermons twice a week—their ministers came along with them—prayers every day, and the singing of songs many times. They often alternate the psalm singing with the military drill, but I'm not one to decry their observances. Religious fervor is a great thing in battle. It made the Ironsides ...
— The Rulers of the Lakes - A Story of George and Champlain • Joseph A. Altsheler

... attempt, behold, it was so. He could not construct a simple sentence, let alone putting two sentences together; while, as for a paragraph, it lay beyond his farthest horizon. In short, here was an instance ready to hand for any cheap writer engaged to decry the old ...
— On The Art of Reading • Arthur Quiller-Couch

... prostrate before him, either on the ground upon bended knees, or sitting upon low benches. Nor was this rigid system relaxed in the middle of the same (xvith) century; when Roger Ascham composed his incomparable treatise, intitled the "Schoolmaster;" the object of which was to decry the same severity of discipline. This able writer taught his countrymen the value of making the road to knowledge smooth and inviting, by smiles and remunerations, rather than by stripes and other punishments. Indeed, such was the stern and Draco-like character which schoolmasters ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin

... North, is the 'Northern Evil' again. Oh, what a shame it is for intelligent people to decry Southern Christians in this way, and to erect their own moral sense into ...
— The Sable Cloud - A Southern Tale With Northern Comments (1861) • Nehemiah Adams

... old country. Putting aside the question of the magnificent health we enjoy—and that is no small thing—we are on the high road to a degree of competence we might never have attained to in England. Not that we wish to decry England; on the contrary, we would like to return there. But for a visit, merely. Here is our home, now. The young country that is growing out of its swaddling clothes, and that we hope, and we know, will one day be a Brighter Britain in ...
— Brighter Britain! (Volume 1 of 2) - or Settler and Maori in Northern New Zealand • William Delisle Hay

... or eight of them on board one of the American steam-ferries described, not to descant on the absence of all decent accommodation. I like to be fair and give the Americans their due. There is much I must decry. Will it make my praise appreciated on the other side of the Atlantic? I doubt it; but it will, I feel sure, make my English readers believe I write fairly, and do not hesitate to point out the many things ...
— The Truth About America • Edward Money

... the gallant British subaltern, in spite of silly chatter, who again and again has shown the highest attributes of an officer and a soldier. It is the foolish custom of a certain class of Englishman to decry all that is their own; and amongst the latest of these victims of a dyspeptic imagination is the British officer. Men call him stupid, who would themselves have no chance of passing the intellectual test which every young officer has to go through. Sitting safe and smug at home ...
— The Story of the Guides • G. J. Younghusband

... Those who decry the joy of achievement are like tyros at skating who venture alone upon thin ice, fall down, fall in, and insist on the way home that winter sports have been grossly overestimated. This outcry about men being unable to enjoy what they have ...
— The Joyful Heart • Robert Haven Schauffler

... is meaningless because it cannot be fully grasped at a first hearing: I have already spoken of the fallacy involved in that contention—the fallacy that a work of art should be completely comprehensible at a first hearing. It is equally nonsensical to decry the "literary" method of composition: that method was the method of at least two others of the great composers, Haydn and Beethoven, who "worked to a story." In fact, all these unreasonable reasoners who tell us these ...
— Richard Wagner - Composer of Operas • John F. Runciman

... protected. In other instances, while professing a willingness to hear—to seek truth—to not be afraid of the light—to boast of science even as the handmaid of religion—they have shown a disposition to decry the alleged discoveries of science, to ridicule its supposed facts, to make light of a whole concatenation of evidence, to prate of the uncertainties and vacillations of science, to sneer at 'sciolists,' ...
— Continental Monthly, Volume 5, Issue 4 • Various

... elaboration of style, which grew upon him more and more, giving throughout often a sense of extreme artificiality and of the self- consciousness usually bred of it, is but another incidental proof of this. And let no reader think that I wish here to decry R. L. Stevenson. I only desire faithfully to try to understand him, and to indicate the class or group to which his genius and temperament really belong. He is from first to last the idealistic dreamy or mystical romancer, and not the true idealist or dealer direct with life or character for its ...
— Robert Louis Stevenson - a Record, an Estimate, and a Memorial • Alexander H. Japp

... nation, time after time, to his honourable position, he had their trust to such an extent that everything was left in his hands; and he did his work well. He died, as he has lived, in the path of duty and honour. Let the world rage around us, let the enemy decry us, I say, Follow his example. The Lord will stand by you against the ruthless hand of the foe, and at the moment when He deems it right for interference peace will come once more. Why is the sympathy of the whole ...
— With the Boer Forces • Howard C. Hillegas

... virtues which we are to develop in a nation, we realise that for the security of the nation courage in her young men is indispensable. That it has been bred in the sons of England is attested by the fields of Flanders and the beaches of Gallipoli. We shall therefore give no heed to those who decry the danger of some schoolboy games. For we shall remember that just as few things that are worth gaining can be won without toil, so there are some things which can only be won by taking risks. Few things are less ...
— Cambridge Essays on Education • Various

... out; then ensconce yourself snugly in coffee-houses, brothels, and beer-shops, and observe who cry out most against the cheapness of the times, the reduced five per cents., and the increasing nuisance of police regulations; who rail the loudest against government, or decry physiognomical science, and such like? These are the right sort of fellows, brother. Their honesty is as loose as a hollow tooth; you have only to apply your pincers. Or a shorter and even better ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller

... to agree with me. I've heard you decry these snapshot, rapid-transit, tunnel divorces many a time. I've heard you say when a woman has made her bed, she must lie in it—make the ...
— The Climbers - A Play in Four Acts • Clyde Fitch

... increase our nation's good. And I'm doing what I think is right; I'm proposing what I know will help. I pride myself that I'm a prudent man, and I believe that patience is a virtue, but I understand politics is, for some, a game and that sometimes the game is to stop all progress and then decry the lack of improvement. But let me tell you, let me tell you, far more important than my political future—and far more important than yours—is the well-being of our country. And members of this chamber, members of this chamber, are practical ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various

... length of time leads one to discount the valour of pilots in the German Air Service, but the names of Boelcke, von Richthofen, and Immelmann recur as proof of the courage that was not wanting in the enemy ranks, while, however much we may decry the Gotha raids over the English coast and on London, there is no doubt that the men who undertook these raids were not deficient in the form of bravery that is of more value than the unthinking valour of a minute which, observed from ...
— A History of Aeronautics • E. Charles Vivian

... the human form, and how, when united with other qualities, it tended to the happiness of the individual and the well-being of the world. This I did at length, and in a manner to secure conviction, because it had been the fashion to decry beauty as a matter of ...
— Another World - Fragments from the Star City of Montalluyah • Benjamin Lumley (AKA Hermes)

... persuasively, "that you can be quite aware of the extent of the stoop. The fact is, I am, as I've tried to make you understand, a hairdresser; some might lower themselves so far as to call me a barber. Now, hairdressing, whatever may be said for it" (he could not readily bring himself to decry his profession)—"hairdressing is considribly below you in social rank. I wouldn't deceive you by saying otherwise. I assure you that, if you had any ideer what a barber was, you ...
— The Tinted Venus - A Farcical Romance • F. Anstey

... Burns. They anticipate, in particular, that half affected itch of simplicity which titillated the sensibilities of a corrupt and artificial society in the writings of Rousseau and the idyllic pictures of Bernardin de St. Pierre's "Paul and Virginia." Thomson went so far in this vein as to decry the use of animal food in a passage ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Eighteenth Century • Henry A. Beers

... from light, the uncleanness of vice from the purity of the spirit emulating God. For only in this way is unclean lead turned into gold." (P. 75.) "If one now ventures to say that the Word of Christ or the Holy Ghost of wisdom dwells in the microcosmic heaven [i.e., in the soul of man] we should not decry the blind children of the world as godless and abandoned. [But certainly the divine spirit is, as is later averred, the rectangular stone in us, on which we are to build.] This divine spark is, however, ...
— Hidden Symbolism of Alchemy and the Occult Arts • Herbert Silberer

... of course, no intention to decry this single-mindedness that is habitually put in evidence by the dynastic statesmen. Nor should it be taken as evidence of moral obliquity in them. It is rather the result of a peculiar moral attitude or bent, habitual to such statesmen, and in its degree also habitual to their compatriots, and ...
— An Inquiry Into The Nature Of Peace And The Terms Of Its Perpetuation • Thorstein Veblen

... quite contrary to their expectations: Torrez, to whom Fernandez served instead of an interpreter, answered their questions with such force of reason, that they were wholly vanquished; not being able to withstand his arguments, they endeavoured to decry him by their calumnies, spreading a report, that the companions of the great European Bonza cut the throats of little children by night, sucked their blood, and eat their flesh; that the devil had declared, by ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume XVI. (of 18) - The Life of St. Francis Xavier • John Dryden

... will recollect the uncommon pains taken at the beginning of the last session of the last Parliament, and indeed during the whole course of it, to asperse the characters and decry the measures of those who were supposed to be friends to America, in order to weaken the effect of their opposition to the acts of rigor then preparing against the colonies. The speech contains a full refutation of the charges against that ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. II. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... had no expectation of a fortune from the republication which produced you 2 L 3s. 0d.; but had I purchased the right of separate publication for 100 L, I hardly think you would have been satisfied that fortune should have so favoured you at my expense. It seems to be the fashion to decry that mode of publication; but there will always be books that can be published on no other terms, unless at the cost and risk of ...
— Memoirs of the Life and Correspondence of Henry Reeve, C.B., D.C.L. - In Two Volumes. VOL. II. • John Knox Laughton

... by quacks, never by physicians of good standing. It is purely a money-making enterprise, without consideration of the health or destruction of the people. It is popularly supposed that physicians decry these things from fear that their sale will injure regular practice. This is another error as they increase work for the doctor by aggravating existing trouble, as well as causing disease where there ...
— Alcohol: A Dangerous and Unnecessary Medicine, How and Why - What Medical Writers Say • Martha M. Allen

... great neglect and scorn of preaching, ariseth from the practice of men who set up to decry and disparage religion; these, being zealous to promote infidelity and vice, learn a rote of buffoonery that serveth all occasions, and refutes the strongest arguments for piety and good manners. These have a set of ridicule ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IV: - Swift's Writings on Religion and the Church, Volume II • Jonathan Swift

... feel quite guilty among you all, for I took not a single coin the whole afternoon," said Maud the modest; but Jim would not allow his favourite sister to decry herself in his presence, and was up in arms in a moment in ...
— A Houseful of Girls • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey

... hope from war?—Go, fool, to Dardan ears These bodings whisper, to thy new ally. Go, swell the panic, spread the coward's fears. Puff up the foemen's prowess to the sky,— Twice-conquered churls,—and Latin arms decry. See now, forsooth, the Myrmidons afraid Of Phrygian arms, Tydides fain to fly, Achilles trembling, Aufidus in dread Shrunk from the Hadrian deep, and cowering ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil - Translated into English Verse by E. Fairfax Taylor • Virgil

... eyeless sockets wherein naught But hate could dwell if once they flashed the fire Of being, or the doom-gift of Desire Should curse thy life, unbidden and unsought. Poor snow man with thy tattered hat awry, And broomstick musket toppling from thy hands, 'Tis well thou hast no language to decry Thy poor creator or his vain commands; No tear to shed that thou so soon must die, No voice to lift in ...
— Pan and Aeolus: Poems • Charles Hamilton Musgrove

... of the Milanese, where he was received as a Saint, he was invited to dinner by a wealthy and pious man. While he was at table, a man of bad character, who was, however, jealous of Francis's reputation, watched all his actions, in order to decry and criticise them: this man counterfeited a beggar at the door, and solicited an alms for the love of God. As soon as Francis heard the appeal for the love of God, he sent him the wing of a fowl, to which he had been just helped. The sham beggar, to whom it was taken, kept it. The next ...
— The Life and Legends of Saint Francis of Assisi • Father Candide Chalippe

... the paper famine is to continue there will shortly be a totally novel kind of advertising to be seen, where dissuasion holds the highest place. For unless something happens those journals which have already done much to reduce circulation will have to do more and actually decry themselves. Such counsels as those which follow may before long meet the eyes, and, it is possible, influence the minds, of the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, June 20, 1917 • Various

... measures was again pressed. Monot led off by proposing penalties against those who shall speak publicly against the mandats; Talot thought the penalties ought to be made especially severe; and finally it was enacted that any persons "who by their discourse or writing shall decry the mandats shall be condemned to a fine of not less than one thousand francs or more than ten thousand; and in case of a repetition of the offence, to four years in irons." It was also decreed that those who refused to receive the mandats ...
— Fiat Money Inflation in France - How It Came, What It Brought, and How It Ended • Andrew Dickson White

... sport. It has its limits, and lies outside of the struggle for existence, which is real, and is not play. Labor in the struggle for existence is irksome and painful, and is never happy or reasonably attractive except when it produces results. To glorify labor and decry wealth is to multiply absurdities. The modern man is set in a new dilemma. The father labors, wins, and saves that his son may have wealth and leisure. Only too often the son finds his inheritance a curse. Where is the error? Shall the ...
— Folkways - A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals • William Graham Sumner

... the entrance to the government building: the Major paused at the foot of the mahogany staircase to conclude earnestly: "It is fashionable just now in Manila to decry this effort to institute civil government among the Moros—but I know you are not of the type to be influenced. Governor Mason is making good: you will see that after you have been here a month. He is a wonder, Terry,—probably the only man who could handle this ...
— Terry - A Tale of the Hill People • Charles Goff Thomson

... for no team can be a one-man team and win. I realize that as a football player, Thor hasn't an equal in the State today, and if he had the right spirit, he would have few in the country. It would be ridiculous to decry his prowess, for he is a physical phenomenon. But you remember T. Haviland Hicks, Jr.'s, splendid defense of Thor, a week or so ago? Hicks gave you a full and clear explanation of the big fellow, and showed you why he does not know what college spirit is, what loyalty and love for one's Alma ...
— T. Haviland Hicks Senior • J. Raymond Elderdice

... home but one week, business called me to Philadelphia. Judge of my delight when almost the first object that met my view was your beautiful, unforgotten little self. You were just stepping into one of those very omnibusses you have since seen fit to decry. What followed you must remember as distinctly as I—no not as distinctly, for the whole of that delicious interview is engraven on my heart—one of the sun-bright scenes of my life that I can never forget. And now, after that beautiful interchange of thought and soul ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 4 October 1848 • Various

... intimate friend and adviser of Esprit, d'Andilly, and La Rochefoucauld. The letters of these men show clearly their warm regard as well as the value they attached to her opinions. "Indeed," wrote Voiture to her many years before, "those who decry you on the side of tenderness must confess that if you are not the most loving person in the world, you are at least the most obliging. True friendship knows no more sweetness than there is in your words." Her character, so delicately shaded and so averse to all violent passions, ...
— The Women of the French Salons • Amelia Gere Mason

... of this. Thinking is a difficult business,—an art which is practiced, to be sure, in every field of study, but one for which the philosophical branches provide unusual opportunity and material. It has become a habit with many of recent years to decry the study of logic as an antiquated discipline, but it still remains, if properly taught, an excellent means of cultivating clear thinking; there is no reason why a consciousness of correct ways of thinking and of the methods employed ...
— College Teaching - Studies in Methods of Teaching in the College • Paul Klapper

... elegy, the regal pomp of history, the gorgeous and philosophic mystery of the old dramatic fables. Never before had he learnt to gaze on "the bright countenance of truth, in the mild and dewy air of delightful studies." Those who decry classical education, do so from inexperience of its real character and value, and can hardly conceive the sense of strength and freedom which a young and ingenuous intellect acquires in all literature, and in all thought, by the laborious and ...
— Julian Home • Dean Frederic W. Farrar

... than that every man would be a wit if he could; and notwithstanding pedants of pretended depth and solidity are apt to decry the writings of a polite author, as flash and froth, they all of them show, upon occasion, that they would spare no pains to arrive at the character of those whom they seem to despise. For this reason we often find them endeavouring ...
— Essays and Tales • Joseph Addison

... said that Mr. Marvin had but one interview with his father-in-law elect, and returned so supremely disgusted, that the match was broken off. The horse-stealing story, more or less garbled, found its way through lips that pretended to decry it, yet eagerly repeated it. Only one member of the Rightbody family—and a new one—saved them from utter ostracism. It was young Mr. Ryder, the adopted son of the prospective head of the household, whose culture, manners, and general ...
— The Twins of Table Mountain and Other Stories • Bret Harte



Words linked to "Decry" :   objurgate, excoriate, condemn, denounce, reprobate



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