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Abhorrent   /æbhˈɔrənt/   Listen
Abhorrent

adjective
1.
Offensive to the mind.  Synonyms: detestable, obscene, repugnant, repulsive.  "The obscene massacre at Wounded Knee" , "Morally repugnant customs" , "Repulsive behavior" , "The most repulsive character in recent novels"






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Abhorrent" Quotes from Famous Books



... "I am in love—and more—more than I ever was with you. Until I met him I did not even guess that I had the capacity to love again. It was the last thing I wanted. Abhorrent! But . . . but . . . he has something for me that you—not even you—ever had . . . that I had given up hope of finding long before I met you. ...
— Black Oxen • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton

... mere sight of it filling one with a delicious coolness. In its due time the harvest; the grain that gives life heaped into the barns; then autumn and soon the returning winter ... But here was the marvel of it, that the winter seemed no longer abhorrent or terrifying; it brought in its train the sweet intimacies of a house shut fast, and beyond the door, with the sameness and the soundlessness of deep-drifted snow, peace, a ...
— Maria Chapdelaine - A Tale of the Lake St. John Country • Louis Hemon

... sort of coquetry with trimness, is the true key to the mystery of the vision of the lady who appeared to Joe. Let us say that she suppressed everything that went beyond grace; that the hint of floridity was abhorrent to her. "Trim" is as clumsy as "slender"; she had escaped from the trimness of girlhood as wholly as she had gone through its coltishness. "Exquisite." Let us go back to Joe's own blurred first thought of her ...
— The Conquest of Canaan • Booth Tarkington

... light as it possibly can be, is the very circumstance that gives me a right to speak and offer my testimony against ideas which I think wholly unwarranted by the facts in the case. The views of modern philosophers, attacking the sanctity of Christian marriage, are to me perfectly abhorrent. Deprive marriage of its mystical, sacramental, penitential character, and it ceases to be the bulwark of a well-ordered society. I must again call upon St. John Chrysostom to speak for me. He says: 'Marriage is one of the most surprising ...
— Continental Monthly, Volume 5, Issue 4 • Various

... with Anjou was to alienate the Calvinists without gaining over the Catholics. Anjou was suspect to both. The action of the Spanish government, however, at this critical juncture did much to restore the credit of the prince with all to whom the Spanish tyranny and the memory of Alva were abhorrent. Cardinal Granvelle, after fifteen years of semi-exile in Italy, had lately been summoned to Madrid to become chief adviser to the king. Granvelle spared no pains to impress upon Philip the necessity ...
— History of Holland • George Edmundson

... the highly favoured Scotch have the exclusive privilege of supplying the miserable creatures whom the fortune of war has thrown into the hands of the English, with this national dish, so delicious to Scotchmen, and so abhorrent to an American. ...
— A Journal of a Young Man of Massachusetts, 2nd ed. • Benjamin Waterhouse

... valley of death; the sun would pour its cold rays on the frozen mound that marked the grave of Cassier. No tear of affection would moisten the icy shroud, but, in sympathy for the hapless child stained with his blood, whose crime was condoned in the provocation caused, the world has cast its abhorrent curse on the ...
— Alvira: the Heroine of Vesuvius • A. J. O'Reilly

... the faith of Jesus might peaceably divide with it the world. But surely to acquiesce in a system which reduces the people to a dead level of social depression, despotism, and semi-barbarism would be abhorrent from the first principles of philanthropy. With the believer, who holds the Gospel to be "good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people,"[o] such a notion is on higher grounds untenable; but even in view ...
— Two Old Faiths - Essays on the Religions of the Hindus and the Mohammedans • J. Murray Mitchell and William Muir

... denouncing the idea of a mediator. To them all mankind were the sons of God. That the Rabbis borrowed this God-idea and the expression "Our Father which is in Heaven" from Christianity is untenable, for, as Herford (Pharisaism, 120 et seq.) points out, such borrowing would have been abhorrent to them. This expression was undoubtedly current long before and during the time of Jesus, and it represented a conception of the divine acceptable to both the Rabbis and Jesus. The Rabbis had no quarrel with Christianity on this score, but did not admit ...
— Pirke Avot - Sayings of the Jewish Fathers • Traditional Text

... pernicious system of fostering monopolies that has been instituted in this country can have but one result, the undermining of our popular institutions, and in their place the substitution of moneyed Plutocracy. This result is abhorrent to every true American. ...
— The Transgressors - Story of a Great Sin • Francis A. Adams

... it. All the world will say that I was a fool, that I was in no way bound to any abhorrent compact, that last that any man could tolerate. Most will say that I should have turned and walked away from both. But I, who have always been simple and slow of wit, I fear, and perhaps foolish as to certain principles, now felt ...
— The Way of a Man • Emerson Hough

... Chapin's commands, once they learned the truth? They were Arabs who owed allegiance to no one but themselves, the country was wild, the law was feeble, it was twenty miles to the railroad! And, besides, the thought of confession was abhorrent. Physical injury, no matter how severe, was infinitely preferable to Helen Blake's disdain. He cast about desperately for some saving loophole, but found himself trapped—completely, ...
— Going Some • Rex Beach

... of the case was peculiarly distressing to me. As the chief magistrate of the community, nothing is so abhorrent to me as rebellion. Of a populace that are not law-abiding, nothing but evil can be predicted; whereas a people who will obey the laws cannot but be prosperous. It grieved me greatly to be told that the inhabitants of Gladstonopolis would rise in tumult and destroy the college ...
— The Fixed Period • Anthony Trollope

... afternoon following Amzi's party, her regard for Kirkwood. Then it had seemed to Phil the most natural and rational thing in the world for her father and Nan to marry; but now in this whirling chaos to which the world had been reduced, the thought of it was abhorrent. No wonder they looked at her curiously, not understanding her silence. Phil loved them all! Phil wanted everybody to be happy! Yet clearly happiness even in the small circle of her nearest and dearest was impossible. Her nimble fancy led her over rough chaotic peaks in an effort to find a point ...
— Otherwise Phyllis • Meredith Nicholson

... a temple," the Jew considered. He continued, with that old abhorrent acquiescence, "Now, a temple is admirable, but it is not builded until many labourers have dug and toiled waist-deep in dirt. Here, too, such spatterment seemed necessary. So I played, in fine, I played a cunning music. The pride of ...
— Domnei • James Branch Cabell et al

... infernal powers moved for me, That all the hosts of hell me welcome give, And claim me comrade in their revelry? Abhorrent things, I am not yours, I live, I know I live because I think on death! I live, dead things, to revel among tombs, A ghoul, henceforth I feast on buried joys, My soul the burial-place, where lie, beneath A fearful night of cries and hellish spumes, My lovely youth with jovial convoys, Hopes, ...
— Atma - A Romance • Caroline Augusta Frazer

... the bully rid me of my tormentor; he immediately assaulted Henley, and I hastened away from two beings so almost equally abhorrent, but from ...
— Anna St. Ives • Thomas Holcroft

... them, I did not quite see, I confess, how he could have obviated all the difficulties in the way of rendering them presentable to children. These old legends, so brimming over with everything that is most abhorrent to our Christianized moral sense some of them so hideous, others so melancholy and miserable, amid which the Greek tragedians sought their themes, and moulded them into the sternest forms of grief that ever the world saw; was such material the stuff that children's playthings should ...
— Tanglewood Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... responsibility of the dominant American power, and accomplish manifest Destiny by adding Cuba and Porto Rico to our dominion, has for half a century been the familiar understanding of American citizens. Spain, by her abhorrent system, personified in Weyler, and illustrated in the murderous blowing up of the Maine with a mine, has forced this duty upon us; and though we made war unprepared, the good work is going on, and the finish of the fight will ...
— The Story of the Philippines and Our New Possessions, • Murat Halstead

... we are coming to. I know your worry right now, and of a minute ago. You are so intrinsically honest, so intrinsically true, that the thought of sharing two men is abhorrent to you. I have not misread you. It is a long time since you have permitted me any love- touch." He shrugged his shoulders "And an equally long time since I offered ...
— The Little Lady of the Big House • Jack London

... salutary at her age. But her person and manners attract attention and excite curiosity. I am extremely desirous to keep her history secret, but I already find it difficult to answer questions without resorting to falsehood, which is a practice exceedingly abhorrent to me, and a very bad education for her. After this meeting with Mr. Fitzgerald, I cannot take her to any public place without a constant feeling of uneasiness. The fact is, I am so unused to intrigues and mysteries, and I find it so hard to realize that a young girl like her can ...
— A Romance of the Republic • Lydia Maria Francis Child

... Chesterton's sociology. "You see, I was brought up to think that it was quite right for the poor to have their teeth brushed by officials." This is undoubtedly the normal Socialistic outlook and the outlook most abhorrent to Chesterton. "The philanthropist," he once said, "is not a brother; he ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward

... quarrelling, drinking, and imprecation were so dreadful we could not keep watch any more, but hurried as far we were able from the sight and sounds of life so abhorrent to our nature, so horrid to witness. With pale faces and tearful eyes, and ears yet filled with oaths and bitter words, we proceeded to gain courage and implore help from the throne of grace, feeling how we stood in need of such aid. For not even ...
— Yr Ynys Unyg - The Lonely Island • Julia de Winton

... the period show that the outcry against the concentration of capital was furious. Men believed that it threatened society with a form of tyranny more abhorrent than it had ever endured. They believed that the great corporations were preparing for them the yoke of a baser servitude than had ever been imposed on the race, servitude not to men but to soulless machines incapable of any motive but insatiable greed. Looking back, we cannot wonder ...
— Looking Backward - 2000-1887 • Edward Bellamy

... once giving up the task of attending either of the sisters, when his eyes falling on the uncomplaining but melancholy features of his poor friend, he exclaimed, "No; for thy sake, gallant Butzou, I will brave every scene, however abhorrent ...
— Thaddeus of Warsaw • Jane Porter

... WHEREAS, The abhorrent conditions which have existed for more than three years in the island of Cuba, so near our own borders, have shocked the moral sense of the people of the United States, have been a disgrace to Christian civilization,—culminating, as they have, in the destruction of a United ...
— Problems of Expansion - As Considered In Papers and Addresses • Whitelaw Reid

... that a day of no work made no difference to them. Their indolence, the effect of their enervating climate, was well-nigh invincible; they preferred hunger to trouble, and withal their customs were abhorrent to Christian morality. Most islets of the South Seas have much the same experience. The people, taken on their best side, show themselves gentle and intelligent, and their chiefs are dignified gentlemen; but there is a horrible background of ferocity ...
— Pioneers and Founders - or, Recent Workers in the Mission field • Charlotte Mary Yonge

... well it's arranged! His sufferings sanctify him, but mine make me abhorrent and laughable! We must face the immutable. We've destroyed a soul, so ...
— The Road to Damascus - A Trilogy • August Strindberg

... Adams as a happy man, being delivered by an immediate death from such an inextricable scene of distress, and wished myself with him a thousand times. I had a great mind to have followed him into the other world; yet I know not how it is, there is something so abhorrent to human nature in self-murder, be one's condition what it will, that I was soon determined on the contrary side. Now again I perceived that the Almighty had given me a large field to expatiate in upon the trial of His creatures, by bringing ...
— Life And Adventures Of Peter Wilkins, Vol. I. (of II.) • Robert Paltock

... 1586: author of The Lover's Melancholy, Love's Sacrifice, Perkin Warbeck, and The Broken Heart. He was a pathetic delineator of love, especially of unhappy love. Some of his plots are unnatural, and abhorrent to a refined taste. ...
— English Literature, Considered as an Interpreter of English History - Designed as a Manual of Instruction • Henry Coppee

... to have deluded him, but she could not endure his praises, which painted to her imagination all that she might have been if she had not dashed her patriotism with the low cravings of vengeance, making herself like some abhorrent mediaeval grotesque, composed of eagle and reptile. She was most eager in entreating him to save Count Ammiani's life. Carlo, she said, was their enemy, but he had been their friend, and she declared with singular earnestness that she should never again sleep or hold up her head, ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... the worst fault of a critic. In the second, no one can fairly deny that some points in Mr. Tennyson's early, if not in his later, manner must have been highly and rightly disgustful to a critic who, like Lockhart, was above all things masculine and abhorrent of "gush." In the third, it is, unfortunately, not given to all critics to admire all styles alike. Let those to whom it is given thank God therefor; but let them, at the same time, remember that they are as much bound to accept whatever is good in all kinds of critics as whatever ...
— Essays in English Literature, 1780-1860 • George Saintsbury

... They, I fear, by the prevention of the state's Abhorrent policy, (which holds all ties As threads, which may be broken at her pleasure), Will not be suffered ...
— The Works of Lord Byron - Poetry, Volume V. • Lord Byron

... he is, to purposes of charity or reform. Man begins to be truly virtuous,—to be truly a man, only when, relying on the strength of the Lord to sustain his endeavors, he begins to avoid sin because it is abhorrent to God, and to fulfil the commandments because they are the words of God. Then only he begins to form himself into the symmetrical figure of a man; and to become perfect after the manner in which ...
— The Elements of Character • Mary G. Chandler

... marvel if all the contrivances in nature be not, as far as we can judge, absolutely perfect; and if some of them be abhorrent to our idea of fitness. We need not marvel at the sting of the bee causing the bee's own death; at drones being produced in such vast numbers for one single act, and with the great majority slaughtered by their sterile sisters; at the astonishing ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson

... had now adopted and transformed it. The Jews, for instance, like other Orientals, had a figurative way of speaking and thinking; their poetry and religion were full of the most violent metaphors. Now to the classic mind violent and improper metaphors were abhorrent. Uniting, as it did, clear reason with lively fancy, it could not conceive one thing to be another, nor relish the figure of speech that so described it, hoping by that unthinkable phrase to suggest its affinities. ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana

... entirely for those to whom suffering is familiar, or at least well known. And first I would remind them that all suffering is against the ideal order of things. No man can love pain. It is an unlovely, an ugly, abhorrent thing. The more true and delicate the bodily and mental constitution, the more must it recoil from pain. No one, I think, could dislike pain so much as the Saviour must have disliked it. God dislikes ...
— Miracles of Our Lord • George MacDonald

... sickening sense of humiliation; a proud man, he lives in daily fear of exposure and shame. At the age of forty-two, in the maturity of his manhood, he meets the woman who conquers his heart, his imagination, who compels his faith by making other women abhorrent to him, who allures and maddens with the certainty of her power to make good his ideal of her. He cannot marry her; that animal on the bed is capable of living for ...
— The Bell in the Fog and Other Stories • Gertrude Atherton

... prisoners of war; but although Zumalacarregui had been compelled, by the necessities of his position, to many acts of severity and apparent cruelty, his nature was in reality humane, and the shedding of human blood abhorrent to him. It was, therefore, with some difficulty that he resolved upon a course, the adoption of which he felt to be indispensable to the advancement of the cause ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 363, January, 1846 • Various

... bound by the most sacred oaths to the contrary—one such as I, who have but one longing wish connected with earth, to wit, the rebuilding of our Christian Zion—would betray the secrets of the confessional? Both are alike abhorrent ...
— The Talisman • Sir Walter Scott

... he stood listening—but not failing, even while he listened, to strive unavailingly with his problem of buttons—knew he was saved. Knowing this he nevertheless retreated still deeper into the inner room. The thought of spectators in numbers remained very abhorrent to him. So he did not hear all that happened next, ...
— The Life of the Party • Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb

... resistance? Why are the soldiers of Christ so sleepy and indifferent? Because they have so little real connection with Christ; because they are so destitute of His Spirit. Sin is not to them repulsive and abhorrent, as it was to their Master. They do not meet it, as did Christ, with decisive and determined resistance. They do not realize the exceeding evil and malignity of sin, and they are blinded both to the character and the power of the ...
— The Great Controversy Between Christ and Satan • Ellen G. White

... French Revolution, when that horrid hell burnt with its most lurid flame. In such a state of things, to be accused is to be condemned—to protect the innocent is to be guilty; and what perhaps is the worst effect, even men of better nature, to whom their own deeds are abhorrent, are goaded by terror to be forward and emulous in deeds of guilt and violence. The scenes of lawless violence which have been acted in some portions of our country, rare and restricted as they have been, have done more to tarnish its reputation than a thousand libels. ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various

... antagonism born of cosmopolitan prejudice—an inability to value at its true worth a nature not moulded on conventional lines. Rigorous as he was in his judgments, and eager to disown what was cheap or shallow, mere conventionalism, whether in art or daily life, was no less abhorrent to him. Here, he said to himself, was an original soul, ignorant and unenlightened perhaps, but endowed with swift perception and capable ...
— Unleavened Bread • Robert Grant

... this talk of an elixir and the restoration of his youth, I scarce knew from which hypothesis I should the more eagerly recoil. If his hopes reposed on any base of fact, if, indeed, by some abhorrent miracle, he should discard his age, death were my only refuge from that most unnatural, that most ungodly union. If, on the other hand, these dreams were merely lunatic, the madness of a life waxed suddenly acute, my pity would become a load almost as heavy to bear ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 5 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... would take a great deal to crush me, because I know, in the first place, that my own intentions were correct, that I feel in my heart a deep reverence for religion, that impiety is very abhorrent to me; and in the second, I place firm reliance on the judgment of some who have encouraged me. You and Mr. Lewes are quite as good authorities, in my estimation, as Mr. Dilke or the editor of the Spectator, and I would not under any circumstances, or for any ...
— Charlotte Bronte and Her Circle • Clement K. Shorter

... friend in the person even of a pickpocket, a loving father even in a burglar, and a kind neighbour even in a murderer. Faith, sympathy, friendship, love, loyalty, and generosity dwell not merely in palaces and churches, but also in brothels and gaols. On the other hand, abhorrent vices and bloody crimes often find shelter under the silk hat, or the robe, or the coronet, or the crown. Life may fitly be compared with a rope made of white and black straw, and to separate one from the other is to destroy the rope itself; so also life entirely independent of the ...
— The Religion of the Samurai • Kaiten Nukariya

... fit," The Laird answered. He longed to evade the issue—he realized that Daney was crowding him always, setting traps for him, driving him relentlessly toward a reconciliation that was abhorrent to him. "I have no objection. She cannot afford the expense of a Seattle hospital, I daresay, and I do not ...
— Kindred of the Dust • Peter B. Kyne

... our province to discuss in detail the peculiar and abhorrent domestic life of this people, no visible evidence of which meets the eye of the casual visitor; though in scanning the features of the large audience assembled in the Tabernacle on Sunday, the obvious want of intelligence in the faces of the women, compared ...
— Due West - or Round the World in Ten Months • Maturin Murray Ballou

... utmost detail how the madam of a house in Longworth Street came from time to time to her counter in the perfumery and soap department—and urged her to "stop making a fool of yourself and come get good money for your looks before you lose 'em drudging behind a counter." The idea grew less abhorrent, took on allurement as the degradation of tenement life ate out respect for conventional restraints—for modesty, for virtue, for cleanness of speech, and the rest. More and more boldly Kate was announcing that she wasn't going to ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips

... alone, but all of Gaul felt the awakening touch of a great civilization, and with improved ideals in living there came another great advance. The human sacrifices and abhorrent practices of the Druidical faith were abandoned, and Jupiter and Minerva and the gods of Parnassus supplanted the grim deities of a more ancient mythology. But while Rome was a powerful teacher, she was a ...
— A Short History of France • Mary Platt Parmele

... may truly be said to be in many respects repulsive. There are usually odours in such a camp which are repellent to the nose, dishes that are disgusting to the taste, sights that are disagreeable to the eyes, sounds that are abhorrent to the ear, and habits that are uncongenial ...
— The Norsemen in the West • R.M. Ballantyne

... service was but a sickening monotony of repetition. The words, too, were gabbled over in a manner anything but impressive. He was such a downright enemy to form, as substituted for religion, that any dash of untruth or unreality was abhorrent to him. When the last sounds died away in the cathedral we came out again into the cloisters, and sauntered about until the shadows fell over the beautiful enclosure. We were hospitably entreated, ...
— Yesterdays with Authors • James T. Fields

... lacerated. With considerable dignity for one in his condition, he bade his guest go farther and fare worse, and in mitigation of the latter's Parthian taunt, "Kid-glove fussing, 'bo," called Heaven and earth and the whole cafe to witness that, abhorrent though self-trumpeting was to him, no man had ever handled more delicately a prickly proposition than he had handled the Certina legislative interests. Gazing about him for sympathy he espied the son of his chief passing between the tables, ...
— The Clarion • Samuel Hopkins Adams

... affect my actual performances. But I am, nevertheless, in a chronic state of what the B.E.F. calls "wind up" on account of this exam. I am so eager to do well that the mere thought of failing is abhorrent. I am inclined to ascribe these feelings at bottom ...
— War Letters of a Public-School Boy • Henry Paul Mainwaring Jones

... again to the deck, and, as on the other ship, he breathed deeply to rid his lungs and nostrils of the abhorrent stench. The ensign in charge of ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, June, 1930 • Various

... early stages of their existence! Inexperienced as I was, my learning in humanity was wiser than the experience of my impulsive, generous, magnanimous lover, to whom the very thought of calculation would have been abhorrent. But I saw, I felt, I lived through in a few seconds the interminable and monotonous length of those calm days, and especially those calm evenings succeeding each other with a formidable sameness. I had watched great loves faint and die. And I knew that our love—miraculously ...
— Sacred And Profane Love • E. Arnold Bennett

... admit herself to be wrong when she knows herself to be right. You would not have her confess to a fault, the very idea of which has always been abhorrent to her?" ...
— He Knew He Was Right • Anthony Trollope

... III], speaking of the peasants in the Val Leventina knowing English, when I said "One English word has become universally adopted by the Ticinesi themselves. They say 'Waitee' just as we should say 'Wait' to stop some one from going away. It is abhorrent to them to end a word with a consonant so they have added 'ee,' but there can be no doubt about the origin of the word." The Avvocato Negri of Casale-Monferrato says that they have a word in their dialetto which, if ever written, would appear as "vuaitee," it means "stop" or "look here," and ...
— The Note-Books of Samuel Butler • Samuel Butler

... gentleness, that I could be pleased with seeing a tiger caress its keeper, if the cruel means by which the fiercest of beasts is taught all the servility of a fawning spaniel, did not recur every instant to my mind; and it is not much less abhorrent to my nature, to see a venerable lion jumping over a stick, than it would be to behold a hoary philosopher forced by some cruel tyrant to spend his days in whipping a top, or playing with a rattle. Every thing ...
— A Description of Millenium Hall • Sarah Scott

... shall refuse to do his or her part toward the maintenance of the social order he shall not be allowed to partake of its benefits. It would obviously not be fair to the rest that he should do so. But as to compelling him to work against his will by force, such an idea would be abhorrent to our people. The service of society is, above all, a service of honor, and all its associations are what you used to call chivalrous. Even as in your day soldiers would not serve with skulkers, but drummed cowards out of the camp, so would our workers ...
— Equality • Edward Bellamy

... to the abhorrent act in Iran, our Nation has never been aroused and unified so greatly in peacetime. Our position is clear. The United States will ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various

... understood the tokens of conventional good breeding. It however required considerable power over himself to keep the line of demarcation correctly, with one person in particular to whom he had a strong political aversion: Mr. Harley.—His very name was abhorrent to General Clarendon, who usually designated him as "That Genius, Cecilia—that favourite of your mother's! "—while to Lady Davenant Mr. Harley was the only person from whose presence she anticipated any pleasure, or who could make ...
— Helen • Maria Edgeworth

... probably enjoys less personal liberty than any other man of Christendom, and even his political liberty is fast succumbing to the new dogma that certain theories of government are virtuous and lawful and others abhorrent and felonious. Laws limiting the radius of his free activity multiply year by year: it is now practically impossible for him to exhibit anything describable as genuine individuality, either in action or in thought, without running afoul of some harsh and ...
— The American Credo - A Contribution Toward the Interpretation of the National Mind • George Jean Nathan

... South was more to be benefited by its defeat than the North. The latter had the people, the institutions, and the territory to make a great and prosperous nation. The former was burdened with an institution abhorrent to all civilized people not brought up under it, and one which degraded labor, kept it in ignorance, and enervated the governing class. With the outside world at war with this institution, they could not have extended their territory. The labor of the country was not skilled, nor allowed to become ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan

... Lucullus. It is abhorrent to my soul. What, can I thus be doubly a hypocrite? Would you ask me to perjure my immortal soul to the world and to my God? Better to die at once by the severest tortures that can ...
— The Martyr of the Catacombs - A Tale of Ancient Rome • Anonymous

... to induce them voluntarily to become friends or else they must be held by absolute military power or devastated so as to prevent them from ever again doing harm as enemies, which last-named policy is abhorrent to humanity and to ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 2) of Volume 6: Andrew Johnson • James D. Richardson

... simple indiscretions, acts of harshness, and cruelty on the part of our troops may lead, step by step, to delays, to impatience, and exasperation, and in the end to a general war and carnage—a result in the case of these particular Indians, utterly abhorrent to the generous sympathies of the whole American people. Every possible kindness compatible with the necessity of removal must therefore be shown by the troops; and if in the ranks a despicable individual should ...
— General Scott • General Marcus J. Wright

... is a thousand pities that you cannot come to Havana with me. The quality of being always virtuous—it is abhorrent, tres chere; correct it, if possible. And the garret cries out for us!" she said, turning away, with the straight line between her eyes that meant mischief, as Margaret had already learned. She turned to Peggy, who stood in some alarm, not knowing whether the old friend or the new ...
— Three Margarets • Laura E. Richards

... I see no reason why he should not marry that woman. He is certainly justified, since affection is what romantic love must evolve into after marriage. But do not mistake me, Dane. I do not intend this sweepingly. It will not do for the whole human herd; for at once enters that abhorrent thing you rightly fear, the marriage for convenience. Alas, it too often masquerades under the guise of romantic love. Certainly, every man is not capable of taking this short cut and at the same time ...
— The Kempton-Wace Letters • Jack London

... that Avery feared that Mrs. Lorimer would faint ere they came to an end. Then after a rigorously silent breakfast the children were assembled in the study to be questioned upon the Church Catechism—a species of discipline peculiarly abhorrent to them all by reason of the Vicar's sarcastic comments ...
— The Bars of Iron • Ethel May Dell

... Mr. Crimsworth made inquiries as to how I lived, whether I got into debt—no, my accounts with my landlady were always straight. I had hired small lodgings, which I contrived to pay for out of a slender fund—the accumulated savings of my Eton pocket-money; for as it had ever been abhorrent to my nature to ask pecuniary assistance, I had early acquired habits of self-denying economy; husbanding my monthly allowance with anxious care, in order to obviate the danger of being forced, in some ...
— The Professor • (AKA Charlotte Bronte) Currer Bell

... fit that the world should be crushed in the bosom of a young girl? and how could it be crushed so effectually as by marrying her to an old man, one whom she respected, but who was otherwise distasteful to her—one who, as a husband, would at first be abhorrent to her? As Madame Staubach thought of heaven then, a girl who loved and was allowed to indulge her love could hardly go to heaven. "Let it be so," she said to Peter Steinmarc after a few days of weak vacillation,—"let it be so. I think that it will be good for ...
— Linda Tressel • Anthony Trollope

... general and an able king. He succeeded in making him a brave soldier and a very good general; but Louis had no enthusiasm for the profession of arms. He hated bloodshed, and above all he hated sack and pillage. He had no genius, and crooked ways of any kind were abhorrent to him. When a very young man he fell passionately in love with a lady, whom he called his Sophie. But his brother and the world thought the real name of the object of his affection was Emilie de Beauharnais, the Empress ...
— France in the Nineteenth Century • Elizabeth Latimer

... experiencing a sort of foaming at the mouth and a twitching of the muscles, as if I must pitch into the man, tooth and nail. My view of the case is that my client finds her husband's attentions so abhorrent that she even swoons when he offers to kiss her; and so I am going to apply for a total dissolution of the marriage, for if the other side win their case the papal edict will forbid a second marriage on the ...
— Manasseh - A Romance of Transylvania • Maurus Jokai

... result of service. And it is absolutely necessary to have money. But we do not want to forget that the end of money is not ease but the opportunity to perform more service. In my mind nothing is more abhorrent than a life of ease. None of us has any right to ease. There is no place in civilization for the idler. Any scheme looking to abolishing money is only making affairs more complex, for we must have a measure. That our present system of money is a satisfactory basis for exchange ...
— My Life and Work • Henry Ford

... give no answer to this as regards the unintelligible clauses, for what we come to in the end is just as abhorrent to and inconceivable by reason as what they offer us; but as regards what may be called the intelligible parts—that Christ was born of a Virgin, died, rose from the dead—we say that, if it were not for the prestige that belief in these alleged facts has obtained, ...
— The Note-Books of Samuel Butler • Samuel Butler

... too late, for at that very moment Ned had thrown a picture, frame and all, into the box that Dorothy had started to pack the tea set in. There was a crash, and even the reckless girls paused, for the sound of broken china is as abhorrent to any girl as is the bell ...
— Dorothy Dale's Camping Days • Margaret Penrose

... lies away in the mists of the ages behind the kitchen middens and the Cambrian rocks. My own opinion in this matter is that the earlier courting methods of the Igalwa involved a certain amount of effort on the man's part, a thing abhorrent to an Igalwa. It necessitated his dressing himself up, and likely enough fighting that impudent scoundrel who was engaged in courting her too; and above all serenading her at night on the native harp, with its strings made from the tendrils of a certain orchid, or on the marimba, ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley

... man of high ideals with a deeply religious fervour, never sinning and then repenting as Nelson was habitually doing. Physical punishment of his men was abhorrent to him, and although he enforced stern discipline on his crew, they worshipped him. "I cannot understand," he said, "the religion of an officer who can pray all one day and flog his men all the next." His method was to create ...
— Drake, Nelson and Napoleon • Walter Runciman

... Ghosts and Hauntings, I never mention the Apparition by which I am pestered, the Phantom that shadows me about the streets, the image or spectre, so familiar, so like myself, and yet so abhorrent, which lurks in the plate-glass of shop-windows, or leaps out of mirrors ...
— More Trivia • Logan Pearsall Smith

... the Drummond brothers, begged of George Douglas, when at Durham, to write to his father and declare himself to Sir Patrick, but the youth would do neither. He did not think himself sufficiently out of reach, and, besides, the very sight of a pen was abhorrent to him. There was something pleasing to him in the liberty of a kind of volunteer attached to the expedition, and he would not give it up. Nor was he without some wild idea of winning Jean's notice by some gallant exploit on her behalf before she knew him for the object of ...
— Two Penniless Princesses • Charlotte M. Yonge

... of the power of the suggestion. Conventionalization also reduces suggestion, perhaps to zero. It is a mischievous thing to read descriptions of crime, vice, horrors, excessive adventures, etc., because familiarity lessens the abhorrent suggestions which those things ought to produce. Swindlers and all others who have an interest to lead the minds of their fellow-men in a certain direction employ suggestion. They often develop great practical skill ...
— Folkways - A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals • William Graham Sumner

... Richmond, which insisted that President Davis would not abuse his power. The Mercury replied that if he "were a second Washington, or an angel upon earth, the degradation such a surrender of our rights implies would still be abhorrent to every freeman." In retort the Enquirer pointed out that a similar law had been enacted by another Congress with no bad results. And in point of fact the Enquirer was right, for in October, 1862, after the expiration of the first act suspending ...
— The Day of the Confederacy - A Chronicle of the Embattled South, Volume 30 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Nathaniel W. Stephenson

... incessant depreciation of all schools of philosophy. Instead of seeing in these great thinkers of antiquity a yearning after that light which Christianity gives, he can see in them nothing but the deadliest enmity to Christianity. 'The Church of Christ is abhorrent in its plan and spirit from the systems of proud philosophers.' 'Moral philosophy and metaphysics have ever been dangerous to religion. They have been found to militate against the vital truths of Christianity and corrupt ...
— The English Church in the Eighteenth Century • Charles J. Abbey and John H. Overton

... inconsistency). Well, you know, this is unexpected: now it's really very unexpected. I should never have thought it from hearing you talk, Jo. Why, you said the whole modern movement was abhorrent to you because your life had been passed in witnessing scenes of suffering nobly endured and sacrifice willingly rendered by womanly women and manly men and deuce knows what else. Is it at the Ibsen club that you see ...
— The Philanderer • George Bernard Shaw

... homely face. Even in her youth Mrs. Herrick had never been handsome. Indeed, her old friends maintained that she was far better-looking in her middle age, in spite of all her hard work and that burning of the candle at both ends which is so abhorrent to the well-regulated mind. Her features were strongly marked, and somewhat weather-beaten, and the lower part of the face was too heavily moulded, but the clear, thoughtful gray eyes had a pleasant light in them. Malcolm was secretly very proud of his mother. He liked to watch her ...
— Herb of Grace • Rosa Nouchette Carey

... entertaining angels unawares? London! Grizel had more than sufficient money to take two there, and once in London, a wonder such as himself was bound to do wondrous things. Now that he thought of it, to become a minister was abhorrent to him; to preach would be rather nice, oh, what things he should say (he began to make them up, and they were so grand that he almost wept), but to be good after the sermon was over, always to be good (even when Elspeth was out of the way), never to ...
— Sentimental Tommy - The Story of His Boyhood • J. M. Barrie

... principle, everything that made up the greatness and littleness of the France of the end of last century, everything which will make up the greatness and littleness of France, the glories and weaknesses which the world must love, to the end of time; all these things were abhorrent to Alfieri; and Alfieri, when once he disliked a person or a thing, justly or unjustly, could only increase but never diminish his dislike. Let us look at this matter, which is instructive to all persons whose nobility of character runs to injustice, a little closer; it will help ...
— The Countess of Albany • Violet Paget (AKA Vernon Lee)

... way society advances, is simply this—the worst manifestations of vice are first proscribed, and then their proscription is made a stepping-stone to demolish others. For instance—we attack gambling with cards, the worst manifestation of the gambling principle; we make it abhorrent to the moral sense of the world; we so confound it, and justly too, with robbery, that future generations shall grow up in that faith, and all the efforts of interested sophistry never be able henceforward to separate them to the popular apprehension. ...
— Secret Band of Brothers • Jonathan Harrington Green

... although it attracted no public attention, it is certainly possible that Browning saw it. He would have enjoyed its melodious beauty, but the philosophy of the poem would have been to him detestable and abhorrent. Much is made there of the Potter, meaning blind destiny: and the moral is, "Drink! the Past gone, seize To-day!" Browning explicitly rejects and scorns this teaching: it is propounded by fools for the ...
— Robert Browning: How To Know Him • William Lyon Phelps

... irritation at the physical discomfort it entailed. He soon began to perspire freely, too freely; nevertheless, there was no glow to his body; he could think only of easy-chairs and warm stoves. He wondered what ailed him. Nothing could be more abhorrent than this, he told himself. Health was a valuable thing, no doubt, and he agreed that no price was too high to pay for it—no price, perhaps, except dull, uninteresting exercise of this sort. He was upon the point of turning back when the trail suddenly broke out into a ...
— The Winds of Chance • Rex Beach

... shocking, terrific, grim, appalling, crushing; dreadful, fearful, frightful; thrilling, tremendous, dire; heart-breaking, heart-rending, heart-wounding, heart-corroding, heart-sickening; harrowing, rending. odious, hateful, execrable, repulsive, repellent, abhorrent; horrid, horrible, horrific, horrifying; offensive. nauseous, nauseating; disgusting, sickening, revolting; nasty; loathsome, loathful[obs3]; fulsome; vile &c. (bad) 649; hideous ...
— Roget's Thesaurus

... palmy days at Brest! You had no sort of scruples then; You knelt at ease on Russia's chest, Dipped in her blood your iron pen, Dictated terms the most abhorrent And made ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, May 21, 1919. • Various

... the destinies of countless multitudes of men now and for ages to come; and it is a paramount duty to repress with a stern arm guilty conspiracies that have no just cause and no serious aim. These conspiracies I know to be abhorrent to the loyal and faithful character of the vast hosts of my Indian subjects, and I will not suffer them to turn me aside from my task of building up the fabric of ...
— Indian speeches (1907-1909) • John Morley (AKA Viscount Morley)

... silent for a few moments. The man himself grew more abhorrent to her, if possible, every moment; but her desire to find out what his purposes were, and her hope of making use of him still, in spite of present appearances, made her think that it might be best to accept ...
— The Living Link • James De Mille

... certain sure that Martin Holt would be glad enough to give it over to his niece if she had a sturdy husband of the Reformed faith to take care of her and it. His only fear was of its falling into the hands of the Papists, which thing would have been abhorrent to the grand sire whose legacy the money was. That fear laid to rest, he would be glad to be rid of the charge, and to give over the ...
— The Lost Treasure of Trevlyn - A Story of the Days of the Gunpowder Plot • Evelyn Everett-Green

... at Laughton sat that accursed and abhorrent being who sat there, young, impassioned, hopeful, as Lucretia Clavering,—under the old cedar-trees, which, save that their vast branches cast an imperceptibly broader shade over the mossy sward, the irrevocable winters had left the same. Where, through the nether boughs the ...
— Lucretia, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... removed by Congress permitting them to receive slaves from the other States, which, by dividing that evil, would lessen its danger. 2. The administration of justice in our forms, principles, and language, with all of which they are unacquainted, and are the more abhorrent, because of the enormous expense, greatly exaggerated by the corruption of bankrupt and greedy lawyers, who have gone there from the United States and engrossed the practice. 3. The call on them by the land commissioners to produce the titles ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson

... the captured arms for which they were suited. I heard occasionally that the enemy did use explosive balls, and others prepared so as to leave a copper ring in the wound, but it was always spoken of as an atrocity beneath knighthood and abhorrent to civilization. The slander is only one of many instances in which our enemy have committed or attempted crimes of which our people and their Government were incapable, and then magnified the guilt by accusing us of the offences they ...
— A Refutation of the Charges Made against the Confederate States of America of Having Authorized the Use of Explosive and Poisoned Musket and Rifle Balls during the Late Civil War of 1861-65 • Horace Edwin Hayden

... has been these past two days," she replied with haughty scorn. "The same that it shall always be. I will be neither wife nor mistress to a coward; a hideous, abhorrent pig of a man. I would die, it seems, if I felt the touch of your hand upon me. You do not dare to touch me, you craven. I, the daughter of an earl, the niece of a king, wed to the warty ...
— The Outlaw of Torn • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... the only thing which is valued in England, romantically, and with a kind of enthusiasm, besides property, is social distinction; the democracy in England is sometimes said to be indignant at the existence of so much social privilege; the word "class" is said to be abhorrent to the democrat; but the only classes that he detests are the classes above him in the social scale, and the democrat is extremely indignant if he is assigned to a social station which he considers to be below his own. I have met democrats who despise and contemn ...
— At Large • Arthur Christopher Benson

... on, Ziska, its controlling spirit, grew steadily more abhorrent of privilege and distinction, more bitterly fanatical. The ancient church, royalty, nobility, all excited his wrath. He was republican, socialist, almost anarchist in his views. His idea of perfection lay in a fraternity composed of the children of God, while he trusted to the strokes ...
— Historical Tales, Vol 5 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality, German • Charles Morris

... the brig on the approaching row-boats of the enemy. This he has accomplished with consummate skill. He has herein, as in all his other battle scenes on the water, avoided the portrayal of carnage and destruction of human life in lurid colors as is the custom with most painters. He has left these abhorrent scenes to the imagination, and has thereby rendered his pictures, while suggesting all the dreadful accompaniments of warfare, chaste, and free from scenes which are revolting ...
— Thirteen Chapters of American History - represented by the Edward Moran series of Thirteen - Historical Marine Paintings • Theodore Sutro

... carrying the tray backwards and forwards twice, and after a few moments she found herself standing in the middle of the kitchen, shaking with terror, while the other child whined about her skirts and stretched up its abhorrent little arms. She pushed it aside, qualifying the harsh movement with some insincere endearment, and went to Richard's room and walked in blindly, saying: "I must whip you—you've broken the law, and if you do that you must be punished." Out of the darkness before her came the voice ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West

... kedeshim, that is, persons devoted to the service of the deity and therefore sacred[1947] (as it is said in Zech. xiv, 20 ff., that bells on horses and temple-vessels shall be sacred to Yahweh). These, together with the female devotees, kedeshot ("prostitutes"), are denounced as abhorrent to Yahweh; both were features in the ritual of the Jerusalem temple of the seventh century B.C. and apparently earlier.[1948] The female devotee is called a "harlot" and the male a "dog" (kalb). The original ...
— Introduction to the History of Religions - Handbooks on the History of Religions, Volume IV • Crawford Howell Toy

... entertain all these thoughts and to dally with the idea of changing my religion, abhorrent as that idea was. At first I had been comforted by the thought that I was in love with both girls in orthodox Moslem style. But reflecting that I could never have both, that they would never come to me, that I must go to them, becoming renegade to my ...
— The Strange Adventures of Mr. Middleton • Wardon Allan Curtis

... bulk of the nation, however, soon returned to their idolatrous practices, if, indeed, they had ever given them up, and many of the royal advisers grew weary of the rigid observances which it was sought to impose upon them; rites abhorrent to Jahveh found favour even among members of the king's own family, and on Hezekiah's death, about 686 B.C., a reaction promptly set in against both his religious views and the material reforms ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 8 (of 12) • G. Maspero

... had offered to take Mrs. Scobel and Captain Winstanley in her roomy carriage. Mr. Scobel was not going to the ball. All such entertainments were an abhorrence to him; but this particular ball, being given in Lent, was more especially abhorrent. ...
— Vixen, Volume I. • M. E. Braddon

... the two conspirators for the British Raj and his white friends, paced back and forth, his hands behind his back, his head bent. He was a Christian; he was not only a Christian, he was a Hindu, and the shedding of blood was doubly abhorrent to ...
— The Adventures of Kathlyn • Harold MacGrath

... therefore God, being justice and truth, must judge and condemn them: What else can I do?(771) The ethical necessity of the doom of the people is clear to the Prophet from a very early stage of his ministry,(772) and throughout, though his heart struggles against it. But, if possible, even more abhorrent to God than these sins against domestic and civic piety in themselves, is the fact that they are committed in the very face of His Love and despite all its pleading. With Jeremiah as with Hosea the sin against love is the most hopeless and unpardonable, and this people have ...
— Jeremiah • George Adam Smith

... And chafe his brain, Evarra mowed alone, Rag-wrapped, among the cattle in the fields, Counting his fingers, jesting with the trees, And mocking at the mist, until his God Drove him to labour. Out of dung and horns Dropped in the mire he made a monstrous God, Abhorrent, shapeless, crowned with plantain tufts, And when the cattle lowed at twilight-time, He dreamed it was the clamour of lost crowds, And howled among the beasts: "Thus Gods are made, And whoso makes them otherwise shall die." Thereat the cattle bellowed. ...
— Verses 1889-1896 • Rudyard Kipling

... regretting sadly that it was his duty to communicate the terrible news. His feelings increased to a nervous dread by the time he reached Mr. Houghton's door. He feared the stern old man, and believed that he would always be associated with the tragedy, and so become abhorrent in the eyes of his employer. But, as the thing must be done, the sooner ...
— The Earth Trembled • E.P. Roe

... Pierre, where we were sooner or later to sleep, was far away, and for the third time we were driven to chocolate. It was a loathsome business eating the remaining morsels of our supply, and we felt that the very name of the food would in future be abhorrent to us. The night had become unfriendly, the Pass a Via Dolorosa, and the last drop was poured into our cup of misery at ...
— The Princess Passes • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson

... of delightful prigs than falls to the lot of most. I have much to be thankful for. Having got hold of the character of this lady, I piloted her through courtship and marriage. I gleefully invented all her sayings on these momentous occasions, and described the wedding and the abhorrent bridegroom with great minuteness. In ...
— The Lowest Rung - Together with The Hand on the Latch, St. Luke's Summer and The Understudy • Mary Cholmondeley

... arms, and so carrying her, that her eyes, if she should open them, could not encounter the horrid spectacle below, again rapidly descended, and hurried towards the house. Maria Heywood, on passing the rose-tree so recently prized, but now so abhorrent to her sight, could not resist a strong impulse to look upon the mysteries so strangely unveiled, but although the twilight had not yet passed away, nothing could be seen but the displaced earth, and stretched over ...
— Hardscrabble - The Fall of Chicago: A Tale of Indian Warfare • John Richardson

... practice that runs strongly counter to one of the great purposes of marriage, and is, to say the least, no help to the other, and carries with it the humiliation of the female sex, polygamy is justly argued to be abhorrent to nature. ...
— Moral Philosophy • Joseph Rickaby, S. J.

... education mock, nor culture smile disdainfully at the short and simple pleasures of the poor. If by some miracle of revelation culture could once become familiar from the inside with one of those scrubby and rather abhorrent families, the insignificance would be transfigured, the faces would grow distinguishable, and all manner of admired and even lovable characteristics would be found. How sober people are most days of the week; how widely charitable; how ...
— Essays in Rebellion • Henry W. Nevinson

... multitudes, and to reach, on the other side of day, that haven of safety and apparent innocence—his bed. One visitor had come: at any moment another might follow and be more obstinate. To have done the deed, and yet not to reap the profit, would be too abhorrent a failure. The money, that was now Markheim's concern; and as a means ...
— The Short-story • William Patterson Atkinson

... sorry to interrupt you when so agreeably employed, but necessity often compels us to do things abhorrent to our feelings; and as I have some important communications to make, which it is best for you to know immediately, I must beg to be permitted to disturb you for a few minutes. Perhaps it will be some compensation for the brief ...
— Eveline Mandeville - The Horse Thief Rival • Alvin Addison

... Francesca virtuously, as she plaited her hair, "and there is no spectacle so abhorrent to every sense as a narrow-minded man who cannot see anything outside of his own country. But he is awfully good-looking,—I will say that for him: and if you don't explain me to Lady Baird, I will write to Mr. Beresford about the earl. There ...
— Penelope's Experiences in Scotland • Kate Douglas Wiggin

... political barter is abhorrent, who at the time of the general election deprecated the "sale for a price" of the Nationalist vote, for so they were pleased to call what occurred, closed their eyes to the very obvious price of the Orange vote in the last Parliament, which took the form ...
— Ireland and the Home Rule Movement • Michael F. J. McDonnell

... to show me how dishonourable and base a return for such devotion it would be to allure thus away, from her own people and a home in which I had been so hospitably treated, a creature to whom our world would be so abhorrent, and for whose barren, if spiritual love, I could not reconcile myself to renounce the more human affection of mates less exalted above my erring self. With this sentiment of duty towards the Gy combined another of duty ...
— The Coming Race • Edward Bulwer Lytton

... man with insolent stare of the libertine, illtreated his delicate little wife. She herself could not understand marriage without genuine affection on both sides. Any such intimate relation as the marriage tie involved must surely be repellent and abhorrent to any self-respecting woman unless love were there to sanction and ...
— The Mask - A Story of Love and Adventure • Arthur Hornblow

... conduct had never undergone the trial of a fiendish and appalling joke. They were exasperated with him for being a half-hearted shirker: he focussed on them his hatred of the whole thing; he would have liked to take a signal revenge for the abhorrent opportunity they had put in his way. Trust a boat on the high seas to bring out the Irrational that lurks at the bottom of every thought, sentiment, sensation, emotion. It was part of the burlesque meanness pervading that particular ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad

... Elizabeth had constructed. On the contrary, what they asked was for its more rigorous enforcement. That Catholics should be suffered under whatever pains and penalties to preserve their faith and worship in a Protestant Commonwealth was abhorrent to them. Nor was Puritan opinion more tolerant to the Protestant sectaries who were beginning to find the State Church too narrow for their enthusiasm. Elizabeth herself could not feel a bitterer abhorrence of the "Brownists" (as they were called from ...
— History of the English People, Volume V (of 8) - Puritan England, 1603-1660 • John Richard Green

... never seemed so abhorrent to him as on this night, now that there was estrangement between them. She was already humiliated in his sight, and to raise his hand against her was like striking a fallen foe. She would think that he was no longer sorry—that ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, October, 1877, Vol. XX. No. 118 • Various

... nobiscum mittere. Volebat tamen, vt credimus, quod nos id ab eo peteremus. Sed cm vnus de Tartaris nostris, qui senior erat, nos ad hoc petendum hortaretur, nobis quidem, vt venirent, ne quaquam bonum videbatur. [Sidenote: Legate abhorrent Tartarorum ad Christianos legatione.] Ideque respondimus ei, qud non erat nostrum petere, sed si sponte ipse Imperator mitteret eos, libenter eos secur conduceremus, Domino adiuuante. Nobis autem ob plures causas ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries - Vol. II • Richard Hakluyt

... and Vandals; wild invaders: Goths and Arabs; stern Crusaders: Each, like some terrific torrent, Rolled above a ruined world; Till a cataract abhorrent ...
— Weeds by the Wall - Verses • Madison J. Cawein

... with telling emphasis. "But, I can see you are not angry, and so I am emboldened to say plainly, I would gladly see you my cousin's wife. Is the idea not altogether abhorrent to you?" ...
— The Haunted Chamber - A Novel • "The Duchess"

... self-effort to be good, and character building, in its place. It is not strange that the wise and cultured of this world feel their aesthetic natures shocked by the blood of the Cross, yet entertain no sense of their own abhorrent pollution in the sight of the infinitely holy One. It is not strange that the world assumes to have advanced beyond that which is repeatedly said to be the manifestation of the wisdom of God; branding as bigots, insincere, ...
— Satan • Lewis Sperry Chafer

... propelled by oars, and were in consequence, to a certain extent, independent of the weather. Like the sailors of all ages, to the Sea-wolves gales and storms of all sorts and descriptions were abhorrent; and in consequence they had a well-marked piracy season, which, as we shall see, covered the spring and summer, while they carefully avoided the inclement months of autumn ...
— Sea-Wolves of the Mediterranean • E. Hamilton Currey

... impediment to abolition." This "impediment" consists in the fact of the great value of the southern slaves—which, according to your estimation, is not less than "twelve hundred millions of dollars." I will adopt your estimate, and thus spare myself from going into the abhorrent calculation of the worth in dollars and cents of immortal man—of the worth of "the image of God." I thank you for your virtual admission, that this wealth is grasped with a tenacity proportioned to its vast amount. Many of the wisest and best men of ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society

... reptile Muse, Swoln from the sty, and rankling from the stews, With envy, spleen, and pestilence replete, And gorged with dust she lick'd from Treason's feet: 70 Who once, like Satan, raised to Heaven her sight, But turn'd abhorrent from the hated light:— O'er such a Muse shall wreaths of glory bloom? No—shame and execration be her doom. Hard-fated Bufo, could not dulness save Thy soul from sin, from infamy thy grave? Blackmore and Quarles, those blockheads of renown, Lavish'd their ink, but never harm'd ...
— The Poetical Works of Beattie, Blair, and Falconer - With Lives, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Rev. George Gilfillan [Ed.]

... Christians to Pagan masters was abhorrent to the later empire of the Barbarian Invasions, not because slavery in itself was condemned, but because it was a sort of treason to civilization to force men away from ...
— Hilaire Belloc - The Man and His Work • C. Creighton Mandell

... of essays in The Spectator (Nos. 58-61; May, 1711), Addison had earlier, of course, been at pains to distinguish between "true wit" and "false wit." Particularly abhorrent to him was the rebus. The first part of The Merry-Thought alone contains seven rebuses from "Drinking-Glasses, at a private Club of Gentlemen" (pp. 12-13), as well as several examples of other kinds of "wit" which Addison would ...
— The Merry-Thought: or the Glass-Window and Bog-House Miscellany. Part 1 • Samuel Johnson [AKA Hurlo Thrumbo]

... there was nothing abhorrent to Aguinaldo and the men about him in beginning a war by the murder of the commanding general on ...
— The Philippines: Past and Present (vol. 1 of 2) • Dean C. Worcester

... top and look towards the setting of the Sun to cry his curses against Mung, crying: "O Mung! whose hand is against the Sun, whom men abhor but worship because they fear thee, here stands and speaks a man who fears thee not. Assassin lord of murder and dark things, abhorrent, merciless, make thou the sign of Mung against me when thou wilt, but until silence settles upon my lips, because of the sign of Mung, I will curse Mung to his face." And the people in the street below would gaze up with wonder towards Yun-Ilara, ...
— The Gods of Pegana • Lord Dunsany [Edward J. M. D. Plunkett]

... board, cold, or smoking hot, bleeding its red juices into the dish when gashed with a knife, as if undergoing a second death. We do not eat negroes, although their pigmented skins, flat feet, and woolly heads proclaim them a different species; even monkey's flesh is abhorrent to us, merely because we fancy that that creature in its ugliness resembles some old men and some women and children that we know. But the gentle large-brained social cow that caresses our hands and faces with her rough blue tongue, and is more like man's ...
— Afoot in England • W.H. Hudson

... names denote the mighty, violent, death-dealing God." "The Religion of Israel," Knappert, p. 29. These names constantly recur in the early history of Israel. Jephthah's vow is a familiar instance of this abhorrent rite. Circumcision is supposed to mark a merciful compromise with this blood-gift; in ...
— The Right and Wrong Uses of the Bible • R. Heber Newton

... her. What was the secret of her despising him, and pitying me? Where was the explanation of her incomprehensible apathy when my name was twice pronounced in her hearing? Why had she left us, as if the bare idea of remaining in our company was abhorrent to her? The foremost interest of my life was now the interest of penetrating these mysteries. Walk? I was in such a fever of expectation that I felt as if I could have walked to the world's end, if I could only keep my husband by ...
— The Law and the Lady • Wilkie Collins

... insensate frenzied part, Ah, why should I such scenes outlive Scenes so abhorrent to my heart! 'Tis ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham

... had better measure me," said Enid, turning a face absolutely flaming red and deadly white to the speaker. "It is a dreadful, ghastly business altogether, but I cannot possibly think of any other way. The idea of anything like a struggle here is abhorrent.... And the dog's fidelity is so touching. My sister and I were exactly alike, except that she was fairer ...
— The Crimson Blind • Fred M. White



Words linked to "Abhorrent" :   offensive, repulsive, abhorrence, abhor



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