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Repugnancy   Listen
noun
Repugnancy, Repugnance  n.  The state or condition of being repugnant; opposition; contrariety; especially, a strong instinctive antagonism; aversion; reluctance; unwillingness, as of mind, passions, principles, qualities, and the like. "That which causes us to lose most of our time is the repugnance which we naturally have to labor." "Let the foes quietly cut their throats, Without repugnancy."
Synonyms: Aversion; reluctance; unwillingness; dislike; antipathy; hatred; hostility; irreconcilableness; contrariety; inconsistency. See Dislike.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Repugnancy" Quotes from Famous Books



... distinct meaning annexed to them. But why should we trouble ourselves any farther, in discussing this material SUBSTRATUM or support of figure and motion, and other sensible qualities? Does it not suppose they have an existence without the mind? And is not this a direct repugnancy, and altogether inconceivable? ...
— A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge • George Berkeley

... the astronomer's words bore fruit in his mind. "Why should I not follow good advice?" he asked himself. Police service did not inspire him with repugnance—far from it. He had often admired that mysterious power whose hand is everywhere, and which, although unseen and unheard, still manages to hear and see everything. He was delighted with the prospect ...
— Monsieur Lecoq • Emile Gaboriau

... she would give him his dismissal in twenty words, that was because he had ways, known to himself and other men, of creating situations without an issue, of forcing her to do things she could do only with sharp repugnance, under the menace of pain that would be sharper still. But all the same, what actually stared her in the face was that Verena was not to be trusted, even after rallying again as passionately as she had done during ...
— The Bostonians, Vol. II (of II) • Henry James

... they and others did, as Mrs. Lovelace; every one complimenting and congratulating her upon her nuptials; and that she received such their compliments and congratulations with no other visible displeasure or repugnance, than such as a young bride, full of blushes and pretty confusion, might be supposed to express upon such contemplative revolvings as those compliments would naturally inspire.' Nor do thou rave at me, Jack, nor rebel. Dost think I brought the ...
— Clarissa, Volume 4 (of 9) - History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson

... (Captain —— tells me), the bathing-place of the women was perfectly open (the shampooing, indeed, was done by a man), and Englishmen were offered no obstacle, nor excited the least repugnance; indeed, girls after their bath would freely pass, sometimes as if holding out their hair for innocent admiration, and this continued until countrymen of ours, by vile laughter and jests, made them guard themselves from insult by secrecy. So corruption spreads, and heathenism ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 1 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis

... Our repugnance to raw fowl had by this time entirely passed away, and although upon examination our poultry turned out to be rather high, one of the defunct chickens was torn asunder, and, being divided among us with the most scrupulous fairness, was devoured in ...
— Under the Meteor Flag - Log of a Midshipman during the French Revolutionary War • Harry Collingwood

... it, then, but to try to save your justly forfeited life,' said Waring, kneeling down with an expression of repugnance. He was something of a surgeon, and knew what he, was about. His task over, he made up the fire, warmed some food, fed the old man, and helped his waning strength with the contents of his flask. 'At least you placed all my property in the dug-out before you set me ...
— Castle Nowhere • Constance Fenimore Woolson

... waiting for the dress parade, he examined the time card given him by the principal. To him it had a decidedly strait-jacket odor, and he read it with a feeling of repugnance, not to say ...
— In School and Out - or, The Conquest of Richard Grant. • Oliver Optic

... thorny wreath of sorrow Eyes kind and frank, without tricks of glance Money is a pass-key that turns any lock Repugnance for the old laws began to take root in his heart Thou canst say in words what we can only feel Whether the form of our benevolence does more ...
— Quotations From Georg Ebers • David Widger

... longing for the sweetness of a sin that might have been, was the evil remnant of a passion not wholly quenched, whereas it was but the craving of a natural vanity that had not been strong enough to overcome a repugnance which ...
— Via Crucis • F. Marion Crawford

... do nothing but surrender, and Tipton put him in irons and sent him across the mountains to Morgantown, in North Carolina, where he was kindly treated and allowed much liberty. Most of the inhabitants sympathized with him, having no special repugnance to disorder, and no special sympathy even for friendly Indians. Meanwhile a dozen of his friends, with his two sons at their head, crossed the mountains to rescue their beloved leader. They came into Morgantown ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume Three - The Founding of the Trans-Alleghany Commonwealths, 1784-1790 • Theodore Roosevelt

... was an ambitious man, full of courage and astuteness, familiar with the sword and with poison, which he used alternately, according to the occasion, without feeling any repugnance or any predilection for either of them; but quite decided to be his nephew's heir whether ...
— The Borgias - Celebrated Crimes • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... and only thought was for Ethne. Moving across to the dark mass on the floor, I stretched out my hand. My fingers touched a smooth, fabric-like cloth, but the smell was the smell of fur, the musky, sun-warmed fur of the jungle! With sickening repugnance, I seized the Thing by its two broad shoulders and rolled it over. Then I carefully raised Ethne from the ground. At that moment Giles and a footman appeared with candles. In silence my uncle took one and came towards me, the servants with ...
— Uncanny Tales • Various

... after she reached her room he might have thought it broken then. Vague dread of the consequences of an act which, from his words, she believed he knew far more about than he did, mingled with her anger and feelings of repugnance. "Oh," she moaned, "it was just horrible; it was coming straight down from the sublime to the contemptible. That noble old colonel took me to the very gate of heaven. Now I'm fairly trembling with passion and fear. Oh, why will ...
— Miss Lou • E. P. Roe

... captivity. With the favour of heaven, I hope to prove like gold which becomes the purer the more it is passed through the furnace. Be content with the assurance I have given you, that I shall no longer look upon you with repugnance, as I used to do; for I must tell you, Ricardo, that I always found you somewhat more arrogant and presumptuous than became you. I confess, also, that I was deceived, and that my eyes being now opened, if the experiment ...
— The Exemplary Novels of Cervantes • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

... never moved from her face. Lilian, nerved by despair, spoke in almost a steady voice; but the landscape around her was veiled in mist; she saw only the visage which her memory had identified with repugnance and dread. ...
— Denzil Quarrier • George Gissing

... sacrifices are not only permitted but enjoined; and the epic characters shoot deer and even eat cows. We think, in short, that the change began as a sumptuary measure only. In the case of human sacrifice there is doubtless a civilized repugnance to the act, which is clearly seen in many passages where the slaughter of man is made purely symbolical. The only wonder is that it should have obtained so long after the age of the Rig Veda. But like the stone knife of sacrifice among the Romans ...
— The Religions of India - Handbooks On The History Of Religions, Volume 1, Edited By Morris Jastrow • Edward Washburn Hopkins

... Bracciano had satisfied Marcello of his intention to make her his wife, and of his willingness to countenance Francesco Peretti's murder. Marcello, feeling sure of his game, introduced the Duke in private to his sister, and induced her to overcome any natural repugnance she may have felt for the unwieldy and gross lover. Having reached this point, it was imperative to push matters quickly on ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Second Series • John Addington Symonds

... Henry was turning, but Catherine interrupted him. 'You have not spoken to Madame of Hainault, nor to the Duke of Orleans. Nay, you are in no guise to speak to any one,' she added, looking with repugnance at the splashes of mud that reached even ...
— The Caged Lion • Charlotte M. Yonge

... was seen with fixed eyes, mentally absorbed, thinking no doubt of the days of her youthful ignorance spent in that chamber full of harmonies now forever passed away. She felt a horrible repugnance against dropping into the gulf of pettiness in which the women among whom she lived were floundering. This repugnance, stamped on her forehead, on her lips, and ill-disguised, was taken for the insolence of a parvenue. Madame Graslin began to observe on all faces a ...
— The Village Rector • Honore de Balzac

... painful to touch on this unfortunate event, from the deep distress it has caused to the whole American people. This repugnance is increased by the consideration that our governments, though penetrated with regret, do not agree in sentiment, respecting the conduct of the parties ...
— A Journal of a Young Man of Massachusetts, 2nd ed. • Benjamin Waterhouse

... Ireland will be deceived by Macaulay, but there is danger in an occasional note of writers, such as Bernard Shaw and Stuart Mill. Our instinct often saves us by natural repugnance from the hypocrite, when we may be confused by some sentiment of a sincere man, not foreseeing its tendency. When an aggressive power looks for an opening for aggression it first looks for a pretext, and our danger lies in men's readiness to give it the pretext. ...
— Principles of Freedom • Terence J. MacSwiney

... consent to their union; but writing to Sandford this resolution, he was once more repulsed, and charged as a man of honour, to forbear to disturb the tranquillity of the family by any application of the kind. To this, Sandford received no answer; for the peer, highly incensed at his mistress's repugnance to him, determined more firmly than ever to consult his own happiness alone; and as that depended merely upon his obtaining her, he cared not by what ...
— A Simple Story • Mrs. Inchbald

... had seemed to recognize Dr. Monygham. He had no doubt now. He hesitated the space of a second. The idea of bolting without a word presented itself to his mind. No use! An inexplicable repugnance to pronounce the name by which he was known kept him silent a little longer. At last he ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad

... brought about perhaps by the introduction of Dietrich of Berne, the most imposing figure of all Germanic heroic lore. The necessity of providing him with a role corresponding to his importance, coupled with a growing repugnance on the part of the proud Franks to acknowledge defeat at the hands of the Huns, caused the person of Attila to dwindle in importance. Gradually, too, the role played by Kriemhild was totally changed. Instead of being the avenger of her brothers, as ...
— The Nibelungenlied • Unknown

... the nation, but it was not the only one. Louis, according to the promises held out on his restoration, was to reign in person; and the more the French have ever been desirous to obey their sovereign with cheerful alacrity, the greater is the repugnance which they feel to submit to the orders of his minions. Dismay, therefore, prevailed throughout the kingdom when we learnt that Louis, weakened by an obstinate and painful disease, had entirely divested himself of his royal authority in favour of Monsieur de Blacas. And how much more ...
— Memoirs of the Private Life, Return, and Reign of Napoleon in 1815, Vol. I • Pierre Antoine Edouard Fleury de Chaboulon

... door and looked at Julian. He was deferentially waiting on his customer, and Lady Tamworth noticed with a queer feeling of repugnance that he had even acquired the shopman's trick of rubbing the hands. Those five minutes proved for her a most unenviable period. Julian's sentence,—"I owe it all to you"—pressed heavily upon her conscience. ...
— Ensign Knightley and Other Stories • A. E. W. Mason

... the world! nay, how far the greater proportion are joined together by mere motives of convenience, accident, recommendation of friends, or indeed not unfrequently by the very fear of the event, by repugnance and a sort of fatal fascination! yet the tie is for life, not to be shaken off but with disgrace or death: a man no longer lives to himself, but is a body (as well as mind) chained to ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt

... close, are in Beethoven's writing. The rest is probably written by his nephew, with whom he had been obliged to take refuge in the house of his odious brother near Krems, because the police had intimated to the young delinquent that he must leave Vienna. See No. 435 on the subject of Beethoven's repugnance to live in his brother's family circle, whose ignoble wife treated the gray-haired and suffering ...
— Beethoven's Letters 1790-1826 Vol. 2 • Lady Wallace

... and Guyot, were extremely puzzled by the course of the illness. At times the girl would seem to be on the mend, then there would come a sudden relapse. After Perrotte's death they pressed for an autopsy, but the peasant relatives of the girl showed the usual repugnance of their class to the idea. Helene was taken red-handed in the theft of wine, and was dismissed. Fifteen days later she ...
— She Stands Accused • Victor MacClure

... new subdivision, and few thinking of swarming from the native hive. In this way that happy golden mean had been produced, so much extolled by the poets, in which there was no gold and very little silver. One thing which doubtless contributed to keep up this amiable mean was a general repugnance to sordid labor. The sage inhabitants of Sleepy Hollow had read in their Bible, which was the only book they studied, that labor was originally inflicted upon man as a punishment of sin; they regarded ...
— Wolfert's Roost and Miscellanies • Washington Irving

... resolved to make Antiochus king, and Stratonice queen, of all the provinces of Upper Asia, uniting them in marriage; telling them, that he thought he had sufficient power over the prince's will, that he should find in him no repugnance to obey his commands; and for Stratonice, he hoped all his friends would endeavor to make her sensible, if she should manifest any reluctance to such a marriage, that she ought to esteem those things ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough

... great a one as any man in Brummagem for liberty and truth, and them sort of things, he begged to be excused." Had it been possible to arrange for supplying him with sixteen pages of the paper for twopence, a bargain might no doubt have been struck; but he evidently had a business-like repugnance to anything in the nature of "over-trading." Equally unsuccessful was a second application made at Manchester to a "stately and opulent wholesale dealer in cottons," who thrust the prospectus into his pocket and turned his back upon ...
— English Men of Letters: Coleridge • H. D. Traill

... for its prosecution was discussed, and the first meetings of the infant Royal Society were held at his lodgings. At Oxford he acted for a time as deputy to the anatomical professor there, who had a great repugnance to dissection. In 1652 his industry was rewarded by the appointment of physician to the army in Ireland, whither he went; and whilst there he was the medical attendant of three successive lords-lieutenant, Lambert, Fleetwood, and Henry Cromwell. Large grants ...
— Self Help • Samuel Smiles

... university of Geneva, in his remarkable work, Esprits et Mediums. Professor Flournoy is known to be one of the most learned and most critical exponents of the new science of metapsychics. He even carries his fondness for natural explanations and his repugnance to admit the intervention of superhuman powers to a point where it is often difficult to follow him. I will give the narrative as briefly as possible. It will be found in full on pp. 348 to 362 of his ...
— The Unknown Guest • Maurice Maeterlinck

... went through the legless man from head to stump. He blanched, and for the thousandth part of a second all that was devil in him rushed with smouldering lights to his eyes. But of this Barbara perceived nothing; her repugnance mastered, she had already brightly smiled, nodded, and was walking swiftly away, her head high, spring air in her lungs and inspiration ...
— The Penalty • Gouverneur Morris

... Langham; 'lead on.' And he followed his companion without repugnance. After all, there was something contagious in ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... on its way to Irkutsk, had left plain traces: here a dead horse, there an abandoned cart. The bodies of unfortunate Siberians lay along the road, principally at the entrances to villages. Nadia, overcoming her repugnance, looked at ...
— Michael Strogoff - or, The Courier of the Czar • Jules Verne

... but he should have called it a comedy with an interlude; and the part I like best is the interlude. Possibly because he was weary of plots and counterplots he suddenly breaks loose, and with a warning to those who have "an unconquerable repugnance to sentiment" tells a moving tale that has nothing to do with the main narrative. I can thank him unreservedly for this, and for the crop of words which he has added to my vocabulary. "Bingawast," "gingumbobs," and "fubbs" have the right ring, and after a ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, February 23, 1916 • Various

... sometimes suffered to wait with her till he came in, and they used to tell her how happy she must be to keep such a son with her, and twittered their patronage of her and her nice old-fashioned parlor, and their praises of his skill in such wise against her echoless silence that she conceived a strong repugnance for all their tribe, in which she naturally included Grace when she appeared. She had decided the girl to be particularly forth-putting, from something prompt and self-reliant in her manner that day; and ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... Even and serene, completely mistress of herself and of her passions, endowed with a robust will, she accommodated herself without difficulty to all the sacrifices which her rank and situation imposed upon her. She changed husbands without repugnance, though her marriage to Octavianus occurred but five years after the proscriptions, while he was still red with the blood of her family and friends. Likewise she renounced her two sons, the future emperor Tiberius, who had been born before her second marriage, as well as the one ...
— The Women of the Caesars • Guglielmo Ferrero

... not return the compliment. In fact, now he looked closely at him for the first time, he felt a kind of repugnance to him, mingled with a strange feeling of doubt whether a man or a woman ...
— Phantastes - A Faerie Romance for Men and Women • George MacDonald

... Instant of their being taken Sick: It was evidently hurtful to 'em; they grew pale, and fell even in the time of their first Bleeding, or a little while after, into such Faintings, as could not in most of them be imputed to any Fear, Repugnance, or Distrust, since they demanded with Earnestness to ...
— A Succinct Account of the Plague at Marseilles - Its Symptoms and the Methods and Medicines Used for Curing It • Francois Chicoyneau

... from France that she would not acquire any Spanish-American territory either by conquest or by treaty, while the Secretary of State instructed the American Minister to Spain not to conceal from the Spanish Government "the repugnance of the United States to the transfer of the Island of Cuba by Spain to any other power." Canning was equally fearful lest the United States should occupy Cuba and he would have welcomed assurances that it had no designs upon the ...
— Jefferson and his Colleagues - A Chronicle of the Virginia Dynasty, Volume 15 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Allen Johnson

... merely a passing evil, for Francis's parents were in India, and Southminster was his only English home. Nay, even when he had returned to his tutor, Lucilla was not restored to her better self. Her craving for excitement had been awakened, and her repugnance to mental exertion had been yielded to. The routine of lessons had become bondage, and she sought every occasion of variety, seeking to outshine and dazzle the ladies of Southminster, playing off Castle ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge

... take a look at the spot." He smiled at her little shudder of repugnance. "We haven't any Sherlock Holmes in this country, and maybe we need one. I'll have a try ...
— Hidden Gold • Wilder Anthony

... you, pretty ladies," said the old woman, divining their repugnance and half-fear and desiring to placate them. "Won't you have your fortunes told? Only twenty-five cents, and I can tell you of your past and as much as you will of your future. Only a quarter, ...
— The Outdoor Girls on Pine Island - Or, A Cave and What It Contained • Laura Lee Hope

... ventured back to their misty island, where they spent an unsatisfactory summer, moving from place to place in a fruitless search for better weather. Several hemorrhages forced them to the conclusion that they must be once more on the wing, and as both felt an unconquerable repugnance to spending another winter at bleak Davos, it was finally decided to go where their hearts led them, and seek a suitable place in the south of France. As Mrs. Stevenson was too ill just then to travel, the invalid, accompanied by his cousin, Mr. R. A. M. Stevenson, ...
— The Life of Mrs. Robert Louis Stevenson • Nellie Van de Grift Sanchez

... petition I have to urge I have scarce courage to mention. My family, mistaking ambition for honour and rank for dignity, have long planned a splendid connection for me, to which, though my invariable repugnance has stopped any advances, their wishes and their views immoveably adhere. I am but too certain they will now listen to no other. I dread, therefore, to make a trial where I despair of success. I ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 1 • Madame D'Arblay

... be distressed if she knew you had been put in a disagreeable place, and further consideration for the rest of the table which is otherwise "blocked," exacts that you give no outward sign of your repugnance and that you make a pretence at least for a little while, of ...
— Etiquette • Emily Post

... these words, the canoe touched the shore in the immediate vicinity of the high precipitous crag of which a description has been before given. Heedless of her complaints, and wearied out with what they regarded as a most unreasonable repugnance, her parents at the moment decreed that Winona should that very day be united to the warrior. Her resolution was at once taken; it was such a one as could have been adopted only in a moment of deep love and deep despair. While all were engaged in busy preparations for the festival, ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 2 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones

... above the roaring water he formulated a theory with regard to the relationship of the personalities he had just left behind him. "The girl is being persecuted by this man Clarke, who is madly in love with her. She has an inner repugnance to him; but he is a clergyman, and that means a great deal to a girl in the adoration stage. Her mother, a nice, religious sort of person, favors the preacher, of course; but the father probably despises him. Clarke is evidently losing his hold on the rock-ballasted keel ...
— The Tyranny of the Dark • Hamlin Garland

... his eyes fixed on the floor, his velvet-shod feet giving out no sound. His air indicated deep reflection. In previous encounters with him, the Count had been pleased; now his sensations were of repugnance mixed with doubt and suspicion. He had not time to account for the change. It may have had origin in the higher prescience sometimes an endowment of the spirit by which we stand advised of a friend or an enemy; most likely, however, it was a consequence of the curious tales abroad in Constantinople; ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 2 • Lew. Wallace

... sympathy, as we neared the abode of the sinister Chinaman, she crept nearer to me, and when the cab was discharged, and together we walked down a narrow turning leading riverward, she clung to me fearfully, hesitated, and even seemed upon the point of turning back. But, overcoming her fear or repugnance, she led on, through a maze of alleyways and courts, wherein I hopelessly lost my bearings, so that it came home to me how wholly I was in the hands of this girl whose history was so full of shadows, whose real character ...
— The Insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu • Sax Rohmer

... invincible repugnance withheld him. He could not face one of these Americans who were "coming in" to his valley. Mrs. ...
— Ramona • Helen Hunt Jackson

... down a moment before the fellow studying him. He was worried and perplexed. The task before him was an unpleasant one. He had to overcome a natural repugnance to interference in the life of another. Under ordinary circumstances he would have watched Arsdale go to his doom with a feeling of nothing but indifference. In his own passion for individual liberty he neither demanded nor accepted ...
— The Seventh Noon • Frederick Orin Bartlett

... characteristic document, and, in some points of view, commendable. Its purpose was to induce Richards to consent to a measure he was desirous of introducing into his pastoral administration, to which Richards and one other member of his Church had manifested repugnance. Cotton Mather was in advance of his times, in liberality of views, relating to denominational matters. He desired to open the door to the Ordinances, particularly Baptism, wider than was the prevalent practice. He urges ...
— Salem Witchcraft and Cotton Mather - A Reply • Charles W. Upham

... sadness which deadens the imagination and suppresses curiosity; everything leads the mind to the results, not the causes, of child-birth. This is the information to which this answer leads. If the repugnance inspired by this answer should permit the child to inquire further, his thoughts are turned to the infirmities of human nature, disgusting things, images of pain. What chance is there for any stimulation of desire in ...
— Emile • Jean-Jacques Rousseau

... to British experience of war limited by contingent, we find that the continental form has frequently been used, but we also find it almost invariably accompanied by a popular repugnance, as though there were something in it antagonistic to the national instinct. A leading case is the assistance we sent to Frederick the Great in the Seven Years' War. At the opening of the war, so great was the popular repugnance that the measure was found impossible, and it was ...
— Some Principles of Maritime Strategy • Julian Stafford Corbett

... from the vantage-ground of later knowledge, the real, though unconscious, purpose seems to be pretty evident. Fitzjames had felt a repugnance to the clerical career, and is trying to convince himself that he has reasonable grounds for a feeling which his father would be slow to approve. There is not the least trace of any objection upon grounds of ...
— The Life of Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, Bart., K.C.S.I. - A Judge of the High Court of Justice • Sir Leslie Stephen

... relations on both the male and female side. He admits, however, that other causes, such as the extension of friendly alliances, may have come into play. Mr. W. Adam, on the other hand, concludes that related marriages are prohibited and viewed with repugnance from the confusion which would thus arise in the descent of property, and from other still more recondite reasons; but I cannot accept this view, seeing that the savages of Australia and South America,[268] who have no property to bequeath or fine moral feelings to confuse, ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication, Volume II (of 2) • Charles Darwin

... the natural repugnance which we have to the thoughts of burial and the grave, it is probable that the soul of a redeemed spirit thinks and cares as little concerning these things, so far as painful sensations are concerned, as ...
— Catharine • Nehemiah Adams

... think that I shall ever become a true elephant-hunter," said the Major. "I feel a sort of repugnance to destroy so sagacious an animal, and a degree of remorse when one lies dead. At the same time, if once accustomed to the fearful crashing and noise attending their movements, I do not consider them very dangerous ...
— The Mission; or Scenes in Africa • Captain Frederick Marryat

... he had a noble repugnance to taking any public advantage of it; and the numerous officers of the time that had obtained their positions by ...
— His Sombre Rivals • E. P. Roe

... suspicion. But they knew each other so well, they had so completely the habit, one may say, of each other, that the king could divine, from the tone in which Cornelius uttered the words, "As you please, sire," the repugnance that his visits would henceforth cause to the silversmith, just as the latter recognized a declaration of war in the "Adieu, my ...
— Maitre Cornelius • Honore de Balzac

... the men withdrew together in groups at a little distance, whispering as they usually do when having sport with a pretty woman who is not exactly a prude; and it was with some shame, at any rate, with expressed repugnance that he took the stool still warm from Achleitner's body. Mara began to ...
— Atlantis • Gerhart Hauptmann

... the office of "commander-in-chief of the land forces," which he held until his decease. In his management of the army, he displayed the same repugnance to reform as in civil life, and a determination to resist all changes that lessened aristocratic influence in its government, or the promotion of its officers. The liberal views and measures which spontaneously emanated from the Duke of Cambridge, in 1858-9, would have been impossible to the Duke ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan

... The condition I was in, through the enchantment of the Princess Jehaun-ara, and from which I was delivered only to fall almost immediately into the power of another, has made me look upon such a fate with horror." His tears hindered him from going on, and sufficiently shewed with what repugnance he beheld himself under the fatal necessity of being ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous

... my leave. Coralie pressed me to return the next day, and before I could speak Wetter accepted the invitation for me. There was no very strong repugnance in Struboff's face; I should not have heeded it had it appeared. Wetter prepared to come with me. I watched his farewell to Coralie; his smile seemed to mock both her and himself. She was weary and dreary, but probably ...
— The King's Mirror • Anthony Hope

... give Percival a pretext for absenting himself from the hut in which the so-called Mackay lay. He had, just at first, an invincible repugnance to meeting him again; he could not make up his mind how Brian Luttrell would expect to be treated, and he was almost morbidly sensitive about the mistake that he had made respecting "the steerage passenger." At night he stayed with ...
— Under False Pretences - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant

... gibbets in London were taken down, so that the dead bodies hanging thereon might not offend the sight of the King, who, however, had been too much accustomed to see the subjects of his father burned because they trusted in God's Word to have felt any great repugnance ...
— The Golden Grasshopper - A story of the days of Sir Thomas Gresham • W.H.G. Kingston

... called up a feeling of repugnance in Maurice: it came like a message from another world; the very baldness of its expression seemed to throw him back, at one stroke, into the hated atmosphere of his home. He folded the letter and replaced it in the envelope, ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson

... utterly of the new, must be kindly and kingly to those old ones absolutely of the old. Nor did the Prince without a kingdom, his loved island long since annexed by the United States and incorporated into a territory along with the rest of the Hawaiian Islands—nor did the Prince betray his repugnance for the odour of the hala. He bowed his head graciously; and his royal condescending words of pure Hawaiian I knew would make the old woman's heart warm until she died with remembrance of the wonderful occasion. The wry grimace he stole ...
— On the Makaloa Mat/Island Tales • Jack London

... body, the tenderness of his feet, and the great difficulty and suffering which he experienced in walking, indicated beyond a doubt that he had been kept in a sitting posture, with his legs stretched straight out before him. His sustenance had been bread and water; for he not only evinced great repugnance to any other food, but the smallest quantity affected his constitution in the most violent manner. It was also evident that he had never come in contact with human beings, beyond what was necessary ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 39, January, 1861 • Various

... but one gets so used to solitude that to return to the world, after having lived long in the atmosphere of one's own thoughts, is painful. The repugnance that grows on those who live alone to hearing their fellow-creatures express their ideas is very remarkable. It must be felt to be understood; and I have often wondered how it was that I never met ...
— Muslin • George Moore

... far better than he could tell her, for the truth of his passion shook the dramatic and artificial fabric of her own to its foundations; and even as she pressed him to her, she felt that secret repugnance which those who do not love feel for those who love them overmuch. It was mingled with a sense of shame which made her hate herself, and ...
— Casa Braccio, Volumes 1 and 2 (of 2) • F. Marion Crawford

... the scholarly and laborious details of his work, filled her with an invincible repugnance. And he did not attempt to persuade her. As to women and their claims, he was old-fashioned and contemptuous; he would have been much embarrassed by a learned daughter. That she should copy and tidy for him; that she should sit curled ...
— Helbeck of Bannisdale, Vol. I. • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... mean to say that we hate God; but we mean that there is something within us, while our hearts are not wholly his, which makes it unpleasant and burdensome to think of God and pray to him. We feel a certain repugnance to a familiar and happy intercourse with our heavenly Father. Our prayers, if we pray, are formal and cold; our hearts are hard, and their affections do not ...
— Orthodoxy: Its Truths And Errors • James Freeman Clarke

... had a curiosity to see the Cretins of the Valais, of whom I had so often heard. This miserable degradation of man affords ample subject for reflection; but it is excessively painful to see the human countenance thus become an object of horror and repugnance. I remarked, however, in several of these poor creatures, a degree of vivacity bordering on astonishment, produced on them by external objects. As they never recognize what they have already seen, they feel ...
— Ten Years' Exile • Anne Louise Germaine Necker, Baronne (Baroness) de Stael-Holstein

... not deceitful. The mind is not represented as conceiving two propositions, subversive of each other, as equally possible; but only as unable to understand as possible either of the two extremes; one of which, however, on the ground of their mutual repugnance, it is compelled to recognise as true. We are thus taught the salutary lesson, that the capacity of thought is not to be constituted into the measure of existence; and are warned from recognising the domain of our knowledge ...
— The Philosophy of the Conditioned • H. L. Mansel

... felt an intense repugnance to saying, "My father." But, much to her surprise, the Grey Lady slowly ...
— The Well in the Desert - An Old Legend of the House of Arundel • Emily Sarah Holt

... life,' he said. 'Up to this moment, I cannot understand what that terrible being was of whom I painted a likeness. It was certainly some diabolical apparition. I know that the world denies the existence of the Devil, and therefore I will not speak of him. I will only say that I painted him with repugnance: I felt no liking for my work, even at the time. I tried to force myself, and, stifling every emotion in a hard-hearted way, to be true to nature. I have been informed that this portrait is passing from hand to hand, and sowing unpleasant impressions, inspiring ...
— Taras Bulba and Other Tales • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol

... his hands into his pockets, but he hastily took them out again. Still he said nothing and hung his head. It was while she was in the mood of a conqueror that Miss Eunice went away. She felt a touch of repugnance at stepping from before his eyes a free woman, therefore she took pains to go when she ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 6 • Various

... vegetable matter, atom by atom, and the result was a duplicate of the object in stone. This, I confess, had never interested me greatly, and as for the ancient fossils thus produced, they disgusted me. Boris, it appeared, feeling curiosity instead of repugnance, had investigated the subject, and had accidentally stumbled on a solution which, attacking the immersed object with a ferocity unheard of, in a second did the work of years. This was all I could make out of the strange story he had just ...
— The King In Yellow • Robert W. Chambers

... seats, and they can all sit very sociably together, talking, laughing, and singing. It contrasts very agreeably with other work which they are called upon to do at this season,—namely, the grubbing of new grounds, from which they shrink with unconcealed repugnance, for outside of a mine there is no kind of labor more arduous or exacting. The land cleared is that from which the original forest has been cut, leaving stumps thickly scattered over the surface, from which a heavy scrub-growth springs up. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, December, 1885 • Various

... people;—the doctors for neglecting to declare the word of God, and the princes for the bad examples they gave their people. After which, they sent him back into his body again. He returned into it with repugnance, and began to relate all that he had seen; they poured spring water upon his body, and he felt a great warmth between his shoulders. After this, he began to preach throughout Hibernia; and the Venerable Bede[635] says that there was in his ...
— The Phantom World - or, The philosophy of spirits, apparitions, &c, &c. • Augustin Calmet

... actually beloved by those amongst whom her lot had been cast, however dissimilar to herself. But for that Christian spirit (in which must ever be included a liberal mind and gentle temper), she must have felt towards her connexions a still stronger repugnance than was even manifested by Lady Juliana; for Lady Juliana's superiority over them was merely that of refined habits and elegant manners; whereas Mrs. Douglas's was the superiority of a noble and highly-gifted mind, which could ...
— Marriage • Susan Edmonstone Ferrier

... my amiable host's time and attention than I should otherwise have been entitled to expect. Many a pleasant tale and amusing anecdote I might have had to relate had I written down half of what I daily heard; but I had always an invincible repugnance to playing the reporter and taking down people's words under their own roof. Every day Sir Walter was ready by one o'clock to accompany us either in driving or walking, often in both, and in either there was the same inexhaustible ...
— Marriage • Susan Edmonstone Ferrier

... in Oliver a sense of repugnance which he could not shake off. It was as if the head of some jolly clown of the night before had been suddenly thrust through the canvas of the tent in broad daylight, showing the paint, the wrinkles beneath, the yellow teeth, and the ...
— The Fortunes of Oliver Horn • F. Hopkinson Smith

... extraordinary look of repugnance creep into Dulcie's eyes as she cast a half-frightened glance at Connie Stapleton, seated staring at her ...
— The Four Faces - A Mystery • William le Queux

... who had been so much accustomed to literary and scientific society, and who had lately been in some degree admitted into the fashionable circles of the metropolis, in which he had become an object of much interest and attention, would have felt great repugnance to the solitude and obscurity of a small market town. But this does not appear to have been the case. General society, for which indeed he was not particularly suited, was not much to his taste; and during every period of his life, he always looked forward ...
— The Journal Of A Mission To The Interior Of Africa, In The Year 1805 • Mungo Park

... rather better to-day, I was obliged to overcome my repugnance to the disagreeable food we were compelled to resort to, and the ice once broken, I found that although it was far from being palatable, I could gradually reconcile myself to it. The boys after breakfast again went down to ...
— Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central • Edward John Eyre

... influence of the Home is realized. Step by step the girl is led on by the simple teaching of Christian and social ideals, until in reality she is a changed individual. Often she looks back on her past life with such repugnance and shrinking, that her only desire becomes that of doing something to retrieve her past, and she becomes an active agent in the betterment of the conditions of other girls ...
— The Social Work of the Salvation Army • Edwin Gifford Lamb

... allurement, fascination, charm, inducement, witchery, magnetism, enticement, lure. Antonyms: repulsion, repellence, repugnance, antipathy. ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming

... I have come to consider the adventure quite too good to be lost, and the experiment in aerial navigation, which came so near proving successful, of too much importance to science to be suppressed. Hence, conquering my repugnance, I have decided, on my own responsibility, to give these interesting and valuable particulars ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various

... only ensure the whole-hearted support of the great bulk of the nation, and the active sympathy of the over-sea British communities; but one that would be so strong in justice as to overcome, or at least mitigate, the natural repugnance with which international opinion regards a great and powerful state that imposes its will upon a small and weak people by force of arms. Above all, it had become a cardinal principle in Mr. Chamberlain's South African ...
— Lord Milner's Work in South Africa - From its Commencement in 1897 to the Peace of Vereeniging in 1902 • W. Basil Worsfold

... one of them shambled forward and began picking up my traps which had been dumped in a pile on the steps. His appearance struck me with such an instant feeling of repugnance, that even after I was used to the fellow, I never quite overcame that first involuntary shudder. He was not a full-blooded negro but an octoroon. His color was a muddy yellow, his features were sharp instead of flat, and his hair hung across his forehead almost straight. But these facts ...
— The Four Pools Mystery • Jean Webster

... learn some of the details of the tragedy. As one who had known the murdered man for several years, and the wife of his intimate friend, she was overwhelmed by the awful tragedy. She endeavoured to explain that the crime was like a horrible dream which she could not get rid of. But in spite of the repugnance with which she contemplated the fact that a gentleman she had known so well had been shot down in his own house she felt a natural curiosity to know how the ...
— The Hampstead Mystery • John R. Watson

... was not so absolute as Lamb seemed to think. The ministry, of which Canning was a member, had prepared a bill by which the queen was to receive L50,000 annually so long as she remained abroad. The king insisted on divorce or nothing, and it was his own repugnance to this measure that caused Canning to tender his resignation. The king refused it, and Canning went abroad and did not return until it ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb IV - Poems and Plays • Charles and Mary Lamb

... opponents of Tissot insisted that the non-effect of the holy water upon the demons proved nothing save the extraordinary cunning of Satan; that the archfiend wished it to be thought that he does not exist, and so overcame his repugnance to holy water, gulping it down in order to conceal ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White

... pains to study the origin of our cherished convictions; indeed, we have a natural repugnance to so doing. We like to continue to believe what we have been accustomed to accept as true, and the resentment aroused when doubt is cast upon any of our assumptions leads us to seek every manner of excuse for clinging to them. ...
— The Mind in the Making - The Relation of Intelligence to Social Reform • James Harvey Robinson

... his face in 1649, who shouted with equal glee when Cromwell was inaugurated in Westminster Hall, and when he was dug up to be hanged at Tyburn, who dined on calves' heads or stuck-up oak-branches, as circumstances altered, without the slightest shame or repugnance. These we leave out of the account. We take our estimate of parties from those who really ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... more, with her dead father's best friend and Maud, she had felt like her old self again, and had dreamt that she was with her own people. She had even disliked the prospect of seeing Logotheti after that, and she felt a much stronger repugnance for her theatrical comrades. She went to her own room before meeting them, and she sighed as she stood before the tall looking-glass for a moment after taking off her coat and hat. In pulling out the hat-pins her hair had almost come down, and Alphonsine proposed ...
— The Primadonna • F. Marion Crawford

... who had married a native of the Society Islands might be supposed to feel towards a white-skinned visitor from the land of her youth. For Mrs. Jerome had been reared a Churchwoman, and having attained the age of thirty before she was married, had felt the greatest repugnance in the first instance to renouncing the religious forms in which she had been brought up. 'You know,' she said in confidence to her Church acquaintances, 'I wouldn't give no ear at all to Mr. Jerome at fust; but after all, I begun to think ...
— Scenes of Clerical Life • George Eliot

... his own wants; in politics, he can fancy no such thing. When a people, then, have any knowledge of public life, the notion of association, and the wish to coalesce, present themselves every day to the minds of the whole community: whatever natural repugnance may restrain men from acting in concert, they will always be ready to combine for the sake of a party. Thus political life makes the love and practice of association more general; it imparts a desire of union, and teaches the means of combination to numbers of men who would ...
— Democracy In America, Volume 2 (of 2) • Alexis de Tocqueville

... neutral and exasperated as an ally. Since the pitiful Dutch campaign, the Czar had transferred to Great Britain the hatred which he had hitherto borne to France. The occasion was skilfully used by Bonaparte, to whom, as a soldier, the Czar felt less repugnance than to the Government of advocates and contractors which he had attacked in 1799. The First Consul restored without ransom several thousands of Russian prisoners, for whom the Austrians and the English had refused to give up Frenchmen in exchange, ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe

... forth by domestic inclemency to fall a victim to the elements. When, however, the truth became known, and it was ascertained that her husband, although still living, was lying dangerously ill in the charge of the Emperor, the repugnance which had been founded upon his extreme youth changed to passionate fondness. His absence, and his faithful military attendance upon her father, caused a revulsion in her feelings, and awakened her admiration. When Ottavio, now created Duke of Parma and Piacenza, returned to ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... convention movement I must condemn the course of several of the city papers for supporting, by their articles, the bitter feeling of bad men. As to the merciless manner in which the convention was broken up, I feel obliged to confess strong repugnance. ...
— The Memoirs of General P. H. Sheridan, Complete • General Philip Henry Sheridan

... was introduced in the salon of Madame de Montcornet, his apparent grandeurs were flourishing. He was accepted as the political critic of the de Marsays, the Rastignacs, and the Roche-Hugons, who had stepped into power. Emile Blondet, the victim of incurable hesitation and of his innate repugnance to any action that concerned only himself, continued his trade of scoffer, took sides with no one, and kept well with all. He was friendly with Raoul, friendly with ...
— A Daughter of Eve • Honore de Balzac

... those which I last night acknowledged to have the utmost force of passion to put aside, in my own case; the want of connection could not be so great an evil to my friend as to me. But there were other causes of repugnance; causes which, though still existing, and existing to an equal degree in both instances, I had myself endeavoured to forget, because they were not immediately before me. These causes must be stated, though briefly. The situation of your mother's family, though objectionable, was nothing ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen

... shooting where Diana and he had made their last stand. The Sheik made no sign and did not check the headlong gallop, but continued on, The Hawk taking the fallen bodies that lay in his path in his stride, with only a quiver of repugnance and a snort of disgust. Still on, past the huddled bundles of tumbled draperies that marked the way significantly, avoiding them where the moonlight illuminated brightly, and riding over them in ...
— The Sheik - A Novel • E. M. Hull

... vice-principal before Father Berton, gave him instructions in the French language. In this he made such rapid progress that in a short time he commenced the first rudiments of Latin. But to this study he evinced such a repugnance that at the age of fifteen he was not out of the fourth class. There I left him very speedily; but I could never get before him in the mathematical class, in which he was undoubtedly the cleverest lad at the college. ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne

... not conscientiously cherish repugnance for war, but practically none of those to whom so natural a sentiment makes most forcible appeal deem it a man's part to refuse a manifest personal call of natural duty. The conscientious objector to combatant service may in certain ...
— Raemaekers' Cartoons - With Accompanying Notes by Well-known English Writers • Louis Raemaekers

... this, he was bound to act. To save himself by her help, and, at the same time, without injuring her at all, was a very defensible step, to say the least of it. Who should say it wasn't his absolute duty to adopt it? Whatever repugnance he might have felt in asking a further loan from one who had already helped him beyond his expectations, it was certainly very much diminished since she had offered to yield to him, without reserve, every farthing that she possessed. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXIX. January, 1844. Vol. LV. • Various

... of what had passed when last they met, together with the wish of avoiding an interview with the Duke and his daughter, from which he augured nought but pain, overcame Wilton's repugnance to hold any private communication with one whom he had certainly seen in a situation at the least very equivocal; and merely saying to Lord Sherbrooke, "I must speak with this gentleman for a moment, and therefore cannot come ...
— The King's Highway • G. P. R. James

... uncleanness was not the least of Mary's trials that hard night. She had not tasted food since noon, and felt the keen hunger natural to youth and health such as hers, after twelve hours of fasting and eight hours of riding. Her appetite soon overcame her repugnance, and she ate, with a zest that was new to her, the humblest fare that had ever passed her lips. One often misses the zest of life's joys by having too much of them. One must want a thing before ...
— When Knighthood Was in Flower • Charles Major

... superiority. Like most women she did not entertain with regard to certain ugly facts of life the physical and moral disgust which upset the young fellow. There was nothing of the rebel in her. In still worse circumstances she would have been able to accept repugnant tasks without repugnance and quit them quite calm and natty, without a stain. Today she could not do that any more, for since she had come to know Pierre her love had caused her to be filled with the tastes and distastes of her friend; but that was not ...
— Pierre and Luce • Romain Rolland

... instituit et confirmavit. Now these Humiliati were an approved Order. But Burchard, while classing them with heretics beside the Poor Men of Lyons, expresses in a word the sentiments of the papacy toward them; it had for them an invincible repugnance, and not wishing to strike them directly it sought a side issue. Similar tactics were followed with regard to the Brothers Minor, with that overplus of caution which the prodigious success of the Order inspired. It all became useless when in 1221 Brother ...
— Life of St. Francis of Assisi • Paul Sabatier

... August Naab's argument for peace, entirely aside from his Christian repugnance to the shedding of blood, was ...
— The Heritage of the Desert • Zane Grey

... image fell down from Jupiter; the celestial Venus of Corinth, and Isis, sister to Osiris, the god of Egypt. These popular images, so universally worshipped, were naturally the aversion of the early followers of Christ. "The primitive Christians were possessed with an unconquerable repugnance to the use and abuse of images. The Jewish disciples were especially bitter against any but the triune God receiving homage, but, by a slow, though inevitable, progression, the honors of the original were transferred ...
— Through Five Republics on Horseback • G. Whitfield Ray

... movement as if to ward off the sound—the cry, the gesture expressive, not of grief, but of shrinking repugnance. But after a second, ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle

... disposed. If, therefore, when the body is thus otherwise disposed, the image of the food which is present be stimulated, and consequently the endeavour or desire to eat it be stimulated also, the new disposition of the body will feel repugnance to the desire or attempt, and consequently the presence of the food which we formerly longed for will become odious. This revulsion of feeling is called "satiety" or weariness. For the rest, I have neglected the outward modifications of the body observable in emotions, such, ...
— Ethica Ordine Geometrico Demonstrata - Part I: Concerning God • Benedict de Spinoza

... Flowery Land is, I think, the repugnance of the people to debt, or to credits in any form. As I have remarked, they have no banks of issue; no promises to pay for the Celestials; they deal only in the coin itself. All debts must be paid at the beginning of each year. The Chinaman who does not settle every account and enter ...
— Round the World • Andrew Carnegie

... apparent repugnance for military service we will see what an enlightened Parsi, who has in this case made himself the spokesman of his co-religionists, has to say. As a matter of fact, the Persians in olden times had distinguished ...
— Les Parsis • D. Menant

... palate; interest, the digestion of the inner ears; both significant of further digestion to follow. The food thus relished may not be the best food; and yet it may be the best for the patient, because she feels no repugnance to it, and can digest and assimilate, as well as swallow it. For my part, I believe in no cramming, bodily or mental. I think nothing learned without interest, can be of the slightest after benefit; and although the effort may comprise a moral good, it involves considerable intellectual injury. ...
— Adela Cathcart, Vol. 1 • George MacDonald

... deemed it his duty to give this information to Admiral COLLINGWOOD as soon as the fate of the day was decided; but thinking that HIS LORDSHIP might feel some repugnance to this communication, he left directions for Lieutenant HILLS to be detained on deck at his return, till he himself (Captain HARDY) should come up from the cockpit. Lieutenant HILLS was dispatched on this mission from the Victory, at the very time when the Enemy's van ships that had tacked ...
— The Death of Lord Nelson • William Beatty

... man's coat that is far too tight for its wearer. The insect is ugly in colouring, which is black, with an occasional blue gleam, and uglier still in shape and gait; and its disgusting method of defence increases the repugnance with which it inspires us. If it judges itself to be in danger, the Meloe resorts to spontaneous bleeding. From its joints a yellowish, oily fluid oozes, which stains your fingers and makes them stink. This is the creature's blood. The English, because of its trick of discharging ...
— The Glow-Worm and Other Beetles • Jean Henri Fabre

... the transition from terror to relief in her heart that the scene held nothing of repugnance to the girl, who was conscious only of a feeling of peace and security. She even smiled into the eyes of her deliverer, who had turned his attention from his canoemen and stood before her, his soft-brimmed Stetson ...
— The Gun-Brand • James B. Hendryx



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