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Impudent

adjective
1.
Marked by casual disrespect.  Synonyms: flip, insolent, snotty-nosed.  "The student was kept in for impudent behavior"
2.
Improperly forward or bold.  Synonyms: fresh, impertinent, overbold, sassy, saucy, smart, wise.  "Impertinent of a child to lecture a grownup" , "An impudent boy given to insulting strangers" , "Don't get wise with me!"






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Impudent" Quotes from Famous Books



... supplying him according to his demand. At last he entered by the fortieth gate, and asked forty pieces of gold—this sum I likewise ordered to be given him. After receiving so much, the fakir re-entered from the first gate and again begged alms: his conduct appeared to me highly impudent, and I said, hear, O avaricious man, what kind of a fakir art thou, that dost not even know the meaning of the three letters which compose the word [Arabic: faqr] fakr (poverty); a fakir ought to act up to them. He ...
— Bagh O Bahar, Or Tales of the Four Darweshes • Mir Amman of Dihli

... she had been caught, and was ashamed. As her nature was not that of a woman, her shame took the form of rage and hatred. She pointed out the door to the impudent orderly and with a kick closed it behind him. She took several turns about the room, twisting a whip between her nervous hands, and then, stopping suddenly in front of the demented woman, said ...
— Friars and Filipinos - An Abridged Translation of Dr. Jose Rizal's Tagalog Novel, - 'Noli Me Tangere.' • Jose Rizal

... who says he comes from Mr. Horner, and must see your ladyship. Impudent little lad!" (This ...
— My Lady Ludlow • Elizabeth Gaskell

... in later Sanscrit poetry. Indeed, with much that is fresh and sweet and lovely in later Sanscrit poetry, there is little or no portraiture of character. All heroes are cast much in the same heroic mould; all love-sick heroines suffer in silence and burn with fever, all fools are shrewd and impudent by turns, all knaves are heartless and cruel and suffer in the end. There is not much to distinguish between one warrior and another, between one tender woman and her sister. In the Maha-bharata ...
— Maha-bharata - The Epic of Ancient India Condensed into English Verse • Anonymous

... Maud preferred such a dull place as Dreamland to the splendid metropolis up the coast was that she might have a quiet time of it, and not be annoyed by the impudent metropolitans. In fact, she was tired of her lovers—all save one, a fine young fellow named Jason, but better known in Dreamland as John. I have mentioned, I believe, that Maud was in very good circumstances: I am sorry to add that Jason wasn't. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII, No. 29. August, 1873. • Various

... unable to comprehend the nature of your language, sir," said the Rev. Thomas Tozer angrily, thinking it was an impudent undergraduate. "I don't understand you, sir; but I desire at once to ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books - Vol. II: Fiction • Arthur Mee, J. A. Hammerton, Eds.

... without. The fellow had seized her by her long hair, and thus dragged her up to the table, when first she was to turn round and look upon her judges. He had a vast deal to say in the matter, and was in every way a bold and impudent rogue, as will soon be shown. After Dom. Consul had heaved a deep sigh, and gazed at her from head to foot, he first asked her her name, and how old she was; item, if she knew why she was summoned before them? On the last point she answered that the Sheriff had ...
— The Amber Witch • Wilhelm Meinhold

... he make of a dream if he handled it? What would there be left? Donal's heart burned in his side when he recalled Feather's impudent little laugh as she had talked of her "vagabond Robin," her "small pariah." He was a boy entranced and exalted by his first passion and because he was a sort of young superman it was not a common one, though it shared all the unreason and impetuous simplicities of the ...
— Robin • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... adherent, "and is this the story?—why, how could I but drink your lordship's health on my bare knees, when Master Jenkin began it to me?—hang them that would not—I would have cut the impudent knave's hams with my broadsword, that should make scruple of it, and so have made him kneel when he should have found it difficult to rise again. But touching the spirit," he proceeded, finding that his master made no answer to his valorous ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott

... put their heads out of the window, and saw a colored man, sauntering along in an impudent, dont-carish manner. His dress—indeed his whole appearance—was absurd. He wore a stylish, shiny black hat; the rim slightly turned up in front, following the direction of the wearer's nose, which had ...
— Aunt Phillis's Cabin - Or, Southern Life As It Is • Mary H. Eastman

... the Arabs, ordered one of his guards to strike off his head. Upon this Werdan, the slave, understanding the Greek language, seized his master by the collar, and, giving him a buffet on the cheek, called him an impudent dog, and ordered him to hold his peace, and let his superiors speak. Moslema, perceiving the meaning of the slave, now interposed, and made a plausible speech to the governor, telling him that Amru had thoughts of raising the siege, having received a letter to that effect from ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 4 • Various

... hedge-shrew, lobworm, pray, How fare they? No bidding me then to—what did Zanze say? "Pare your nails pearlwise, get your small feet shoes 15 More like"—what said she?—"and less like canoes!" How pert that girl was!—would I be those pert, Impudent, staring women! It had done me, However, surely no such mighty hurt To learn his name who passed that jest upon me: 20 No foreigner, that I can recollect, Came, as she says, a month since, to inspect Our silk-mills—none with blue eyes and thick rings Of raw-silk-colored hair, at ...
— Selections from the Poems and Plays of Robert Browning • Robert Browning

... this kind. On that day, as I unbuckled his sword-belt, he drew it half out of the scabbard, saying, "Do you know, Constant, the wretches have made me cut the wind with this? The rascals are too impudent. It is necessary to teach them a lesson, that they may learn to hold themselves at ...
— The Private Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Constant

... tell you she positively dislikes you, Margaret," said Mrs. Hall. "It is only a few days since I knew of her saying that you were a bold, impudent woman, and she did ...
— Friends and Neighbors - or Two Ways of Living in the World • Anonymous

... Coverdale," said Mrs. Jones sharply, "you are very impudent! How dare you speak to me ...
— Robert Coverdale's Struggle - Or, On The Wave Of Success • Horatio, Jr. Alger

... attitude toward charity is sullen anger rather than humble jollity; when he insists on his human right to swagger and swear and waste,—then the spell is suddenly broken and the philanthropist is ready to believe that Negroes are impudent, that the South is right, and that Japan ...
— Darkwater - Voices From Within The Veil • W. E. B. Du Bois

... with sneering, carping, and fault-finding; and is ready to scoff at everything but impudent effrontery or successful vice. The greatest consolation of such persons are the defects of men of character. "If the wise erred not," says George Herbert, "it would go hard with fools." Yet, though wise men may learn of fools by avoiding their errors, fools ...
— Character • Samuel Smiles

... After this impudent and unprovoked attack, Mr. Flinders snapped his gun at the man who threw the spear; but the flint having received some wet when it was laid upon the beach, it missed fire. It was loaded with buck shot, and he was strongly tempted ...
— An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. 2 • David Collins

... knives, gloves, purses, and points. But when we excused ourselves from their importunity, alleging that we had a long journey before us, and must not give away those things which were necessary for ourselves, they reviled me as a niggard; and though they took nothing by force, they were exceedingly impudent, and importunate in begging, to have every thing they saw. If a man gives them any thing, it may be considered as thrown away, for they have no gratitude; and as they look upon themselves as the lords of the ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 1 • Robert Kerr

... bringing their pelts. Skin tepees rose outside our palisades like an army of mushrooms. Naked brats with wisps of hair coarse as a horse's mane crawled over our mounted cannon, or scudded between our feet like pups, or felt our European clothes with impudent wonder. Young girls having hair plastered flat with bear's grease stood peeping shyly from tent flaps. Old squaws with skin withered to a parchment hung over the campfires, cooking. And at the loopholes pressed the braves and the bucks and the chief ...
— Heralds of Empire - Being the Story of One Ramsay Stanhope, Lieutenant to Pierre Radisson in the Northern Fur Trade • Agnes C. Laut

... child over his success, vowed he was ready for all the tourists impudent enough to think they had a right to share Versailles with us, and, when a group of Germans talked their guttural way towards us, he had us all down on our knees, before we knew it, nibbling at the grass like so many Nebuchadnezzars ...
— Nights - Rome, Venice, in the Aesthetic Eighties; London, Paris, in the Fighting Nineties • Elizabeth Robins Pennell

... hunter's cap, with earflaps and a drooping foxtail, worn as the pompon but half-loosened in time. The eyes that inspected the file of vagrants, shone with undiminished force, and when they fell on the burliest and most impudent, these became quiet and submissive. In a word, the cohort of beggary yielded utter subserviency ...
— The Son of Clemenceau • Alexandre (fils) Dumas

... impudent dog!' exclaimed the Sultan, bursting into a laugh, in which the Sultana joined. 'I might have known it was one of your tricks!' But he sent Abu Nowas the gold he had promised, and let us hope that it did not fly so fast ...
— The Crimson Fairy Book • Various

... more dexterity for the revelation of some such redeeming quality in a character which in the act immediately preceding Webster has represented as utterly heartless and shameless, brutal in its hypocrisy and impudent in its brutality. ...
— The Age of Shakespeare • Algernon Charles Swinburne

... gloomy, mysterious place, is war-time Venice, but in certain respects I liked it better than the commercialized city of antebellum days. Gone are the droves of loud-voiced tourists, gone the impudent boatmen, the importunate beggars, the impertinent guides, gone the glare of lights and the blare of cheap music. No longer do the lantern-strung barges of the musicians gather nightly off the Molo. No longer across the waters float the strains of "Addio di Napoli" ...
— Italy at War and the Allies in the West • E. Alexander Powell

... quite your rude, old, impudent self!" said she, patting her hair with her two hands. "You have tossed me, Jack; I had no idea that ...
— The Great Shadow and Other Napoleonic Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle

... sure, sir," said Daniel, in a truly contrite tone, "I never should have done such an impudent thing against you, if I had only known what a nice gentleman you are. I took you for nothing but a haughty land-owner, without a word to fling at a poor fisherman. And now you go ever so far beyond what the Club doth, in speaking of the right that every ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore

... woman mean! I'll shoot the fellow if he dares to wring a promise out of Aurora. And this stuff about Lady Maud. What did I write? Do they fancy that I care for her? I like her as I like Wenham ice. Aurora 'softening' toward this impudent Englishman! She would soften toward a cat if it cried. Mr. Edward Churchill ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, Old Series, Vol. 36—New Series, Vol. 10, July 1885 • Various

... compliment yourself! Loisel! Send those impudent civilians into the house! I won't look at ...
— The Maids of Paradise • Robert W. (Robert William) Chambers

... whenever she pleases. She scolds people of the highest authority. The venerable Catherine of France, the oldest of the Ursulines, came to see the wonder, asked her questions, and at the very outset caught her telling a flagrant and stupid falsehood. The impudent woman got out of the mess by saying in the name of her evil spirit, "The Devil is ...
— La Sorciere: The Witch of the Middle Ages • Jules Michelet

... destined that Laurel, which, though it hath long been withered, may not probably soon drop from the Brow of its present Possessor; but there is another Place of much the same Value now vacant: it is that of Deputy Licensor to the Stage. Be not offended at this Hint; for though I will own it impudent enough in one who hath so many Obligations of his own to you, to venture to recommend another man to your Favour, yet Impudence itself may possibly be a Virtue when exerted on the behalf of a Friend; at least I am the less ashamed of it, as I have known men ...
— Henry Fielding: A Memoir • G. M. Godden

... Twenty-first Book they fight together, Ares against Athene, Athene also against his helper, Aphrodite; Poseidon and Here against Apollo and Artemis, Vulcan against the river god, Scamander. Ares called Athene impudent, and threatened to chastise her. She seized a stone and struck him on the neck, and relaxed his knees. Seven acres he covered falling, and his back was defiled with dust; but Pallas-Athene jeered at him; and when Aphrodite led him away groaning frequently, Pallas-Athene sprang after, ...
— Ten Great Religions - An Essay in Comparative Theology • James Freeman Clarke

... "Impudent fellows!" said the prince. "You know Metivier? I turned him out of my house this morning. He was here; they admitted him in spite of my request that they should let no one in," he went on, glancing angrily at ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy

... come, if it please Athena to keep me from harm." After he had carried the presents into the grotto and carefully hidden them, he sat down with the goddess among the gnarled roots of the olive-tree, and they laid plots to destroy Penelope's impudent suitors. Athena told him about the trouble they had caused her; how they had established themselves in her own home, trying to win her for a wife. For three years the noble Penelope had kept these arrogant men in suspense, deluded with ...
— Odysseus, the Hero of Ithaca - Adapted from the Third Book of the Primary Schools of Athens, Greece • Homer

... Buster would hear them screaming this. He would grind his teeth and glare up at them, but that was all he could do. He couldn't get at them. He just had to stand it and do nothing. But when impudent little Chatterer the Red Squirrel shouted the same thing from a place just out of reach in a big pine-tree, Buster could stand it no longer. He gave a deep, angry growl that made little shivers run over Chatterer, and then suddenly he started up that tree ...
— The Adventures of Buster Bear • Thornton W. Burgess

... however which very often it ill deserved; profligate governments having until a very modern period seldom scrupled, for the sake of robbing their creditors, to confer on all other debtors a licence to rob theirs, by the shallow and impudent artifice of lowering the standard; that least covert of all modes of knavery, which consists in calling a shilling a pound, that a debt of a hundred pounds may be cancelled by the payment of a hundred shillings. It would have been as simple a plan, and would have answered just ...
— The Paper Moneys of Europe - Their Moral and Economic Significance • Francis W. Hirst

... she was conscious of the really momentous change in this sunburnt, blue-eyed, lazily impudent youth since the day he arrived, three weeks ago, in their little wagonette. He took her arm, just as Noel had, and made her sit down beside him on the rustic bench, where he had evidently been told ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... "A beastly and pompous priesthood, political potentates and Christian pastors, full of false zeal, full of worldly pride, and full of gluttony, empty of the true religion, to their flocks oppressive, to their inferior clergy brutal, to their king abject, and to their God impudent and familiar,—they stand on the altar as a stepping-stone to the throne, glorying in the ear of princes, whom they poison with crooked principles and heated advice; a faction against their king when they are not his slaves,—ever the dirt under ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier

... that she must be a devilish impudent girl,' says Edwin Drood. 'And so, Pussy, you have passed your last ...
— The Mystery of Edwin Drood • Charles Dickens

... principall Minister of the Word of GOD at Edinburgh and chief Commissioner from the Kirk of Scotland to the Parliament and Synod of England made upon his death-bed. And taking into their serious consideration how many grosse lies and impudent calumnies are therein contained; Out of the tender respect which they do bear to his name (which ought to be very precious to them and all posterity, for his faithfull service in the great Work of Reformation in these Kingdoms, wherein the Lord was pleased to make him ...
— The Acts Of The General Assemblies of the Church of Scotland

... all the letters from the secretary's office, during the treaty of peace out of those, and what I learned from the ministry, I formed that History, which I am now going to publish for the information of posterity, and to control the most impudent falsehoods which have been published since. I wanted no kind of materials. I knew your father better than you could at that time, and I do impartially think him the most virtuous minister, and the most able, that ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. X. • Jonathan Swift

... Baroness was clad in a voluminous silk dress, pale grey in colour, and adorned with flounces and a crinoline and train. Also, she was short and inordinately stout, while her gross, flabby chin completely concealed her neck. Her face was purple, and the little eyes in it had an impudent, malicious expression. Yet she walked as though she were conferring a favour upon everybody by so doing. As for the Baron, he was tall, wizened, bony-faced after the German fashion, spectacled, and, apparently, about forty-five years of age. Also, ...
— The Gambler • Fyodor Dostoyevsky

... four days at Olmer, always facing her, 'man to man,' in the matter of Lady Ormont, not making way at all, but holding firm, and winning respectful treatment. They sat alone in her private room, where, without prelude, she discharged a fiery squib at impudent hussies caught up to the saddle-bow of a hero for just a canter, and pretending to a ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... hair-splitting logicians!—Do you, Philostratus, receive them in my name. If they make any impudent demands, you may tell them my opinion of them and their Museum. Go, but come back quickly. Bring in the painter. I will speak with him alone.—You, my friends, withdraw with our idiologos, the priest of Alexander, who is well known here, ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... English taverns on the road; some of them would not take us forward when there was a hill to pass, unless we would take four horses, and every one after another reviled us for having no mercy in loading the carriage like a waggon,—and then the drivers were so gleg and impudent, that it was worse than martyrdom to come with them. Had the Doctor taken my advice, he would have brought our own civil London coachman, whom we hired with his own horses by the job; but he said it behoved us to gi'e our ain fish guts ...
— The Ayrshire Legatees • John Galt

... jelly-fish, who was destined to exert a most maleficent influence on his after-life. Fate hangs no red lights at the cross-roads of a man's career. No "pricking of his thumbs," no strange portents warned the Master of "Standard Oil" that the impudent Philadelphia swashbuckler who dared interfere with the execution of his plan to fetter the "System's" yoke to the necks of the citizens of Brooklyn was the factor that destiny had chosen to shape the ...
— Frenzied Finance - Vol. 1: The Crime of Amalgamated • Thomas W. Lawson

... impudent, Georges Coutlass entered and, without waiting for an invitation, took a seat on a load of canned food. Brown grabbed the nearest rifle (it happened to be Fred's)—snapped open the breach—discovered it was loaded—and took aim. ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy

... have launched out upon the form, the colour, size, habits, peculiarities, etcetera, of every living thing, from the great buffalo (which he would have carefully explained was not the buffalo, but the bison) down to the sly, impudent, yet harmless little prairie dog (which he would have also carefully noted was not the prairie ...
— The Wild Man of the West - A Tale of the Rocky Mountains • R.M. Ballantyne

... were, the purposes of law had not then been perverted: it had not been made a craft; it served to deter men from committing crimes, or to punish them for the commission; never to shield notorious, acknowledged, impudent guilt from condign punishment. And in the fabric of society, imperfect as it was, the outline and rudiments of what it ought to be were distinctly marked in some main parts, where they are now well-nigh utterly effaced. Every person had his place. There was a system of superintendence everywhere, ...
— Colloquies on Society • Robert Southey

... also wrote the Prologue to Comus, spoken by Garrick, for the benefit of Mrs. Elizabeth Foster, grand-daughter to Milton; the Prologue and Postscript to Lander's impudent forgeries concerning that poet, by which Johnson was imposed on, as well as the rest of the world; a letter to Dr. Douglas, for the same impostor, after he had been detected, acknowledging and expressing contrition for the fraud; and the Life of ...
— Lives of the English Poets - From Johnson to Kirke White, Designed as a Continuation of - Johnson's Lives • Henry Francis Cary

... of the Doorga Pooja, the mutilating monstrosities of the Churruck, the enslaving sorceries of the Atharvana Veda, the raving mad revivals of Juggernath, the pious debaucheries of Nanjanagud, the strange and sorrowful delusions of Suttee, the impudent ravishments of Vengata Ramana,—all the fancies and frenzies, all the delusions and passions and moral epilepsies that go to make up a Meerut or ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various

... much on the fact that he had once terrified her. These cool words threw into Hilda a vivid excitement of feeling, which for a time turned all her thoughts upon this man, who under such circumstances dared to resume that tone of impudent superiority which once before he had ventured to adopt. Her strength revived under such a stimulus, and for a time her bitter contempt and indignation stilled the deep sorrow and anxiety of ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille

... he never made a single comfortable meal at an American hotel. The meat was swimming in grease, and the female servants uncivil, impudent, dirty, slow, and provoking. Occasionally they are a little slow, it must be confessed; but I never met with one, male or female, who was uncivil, impudent, or provoking. If I supposed it possible that my voice should ever reach ...
— Gala-days • Gail Hamilton

... would agree to anything I chose to propose. The servants about her I took care should be in my pay, not hers: especially the child's head nurse was under MY orders, not those of my lady; and a very handsome, red-cheeked, impudent jade she was; and a great fool she made me make of myself. This woman was more mistress of the house than the poor-spirited lady who owned it. She gave the law to the servants; and if I showed any particular attention to any of the ladies who visited us, the slut would not scruple to show her ...
— Barry Lyndon • William Makepeace Thackeray

... highness knows this impudent child well enough not to put any faith in her words," said Madame von Morien, evasively, not daring to claim ...
— Frederick the Great and His Court • L. Muhlbach

... eight species. The friendly subscriber who takes ten copies (more or less) forwarding their value. The gentleman subscriber who pays down his confidingly. The cautious-canny subscriber who ventures 5. 5s., or half the price. The impudent and snobbish subscriber who will address his ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton

... the jays that flew screeching to the top of the tree where she sat; they hopped on the branches around her with impudent curiosity, but there was something in the glance of her eye that speedily drove them away; they were none the wiser about her, nor, indeed, was she about herself. When the evening approached, and ...
— The Sand-Hills of Jutland • Hans Christian Andersen

... upon him who can? Shall he who cannot paint, retouch the canvass of Guido? Shall modest ingenuity be allowed only to imitators and to thieves? How many a prefatory argument issues virtually in this! It is not deference to merit, but impudent pretence, practising on the credulity of ignorance! Commonness alone exempts it from scrutiny, and the success it has, is but the wages of its own worthlessness! To read and be informed, is to make a proper use of books for the advancement of learning; but to assume to be an ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown

... fair-skinned juveniles of more northern lands—namely scampering after each other, running and yelling, indulging in mischief, spluttering in the waters, rolling on the sand, staring at the strangers, making impudent remarks, and ...
— The Red Eric • R.M. Ballantyne

... a tradition in Parliament, adopted also in the United States Senate, that silence is quite becoming to a member during his first session. Disraeli had a motto to the effect that it is better to be impudent than servile, and in order to teach Parliament that in the presence of personality all rules are waived, he very shortly indulged him in an exceeding spread-eagle speech. But he had not spoken five minutes before the members ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 5 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard

... Ezekiel Pickup," shouted Sergeant Halligan savagely, "it's against the regulations to talk to your superior orficers so damned impudent, and I'm a going to prefer charges against you, and you can face three months in the military prison for it. And I'm a-thinkin' that Briggs, the drill sergeant, will put you on the kickingest horse in ...
— Betty at Fort Blizzard • Molly Elliot Seawell

... babbled like the winds and streams, with utter indifference as to what she said or whom she addressed, used to bring choice bits of this gossip to Mrs. Lee. She always affected a little stammer when she said anything uncommonly impudent, and put on a manner of languid simplicity. She felt keenly the satisfaction of seeing Madeleine charged with her own besetting sins. For years all Washington had agreed that Victoria was little better than one of the wicked; she had done nothing but ...
— Democracy An American Novel • Henry Adams

... English gentleman, whose title sufficiently indicates its import, "The Discovery of Witchcraft, wherein the lewde dealing of witches and witchmongers is notably detected; the knavery of conjurers, the impiety of inchanters, the folly of soothsayers, the impudent falsehood of cozeners, the infidelity of atheists, the pestilent practices of pythonists, the curiosities of figure-casters, the vanity of dreamers, the beggarly art of alcumstrie, the abomination of idolatrie, the ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham

... through the Chiboque country, the provisions were absolutely spent; there was no resource but to kill a riding-ox, a part of which, according to custom, was sent to the chief. Next day was Sunday. After service the chief sent an impudent message demanding much more valuable presents. His people collected round Livingstone, brandishing their weapons, and one young man all but brought down his sword on his head. It seemed impossible to avoid a fight; yet Livingstone's management ...
— The Personal Life Of David Livingstone • William Garden Blaikie

... the Arab respect for women. I only speak of the common people—not of educated Copts. The best fun was to hear the Greeks (one of whom spoke English) abusing the Copts—rogues, heretics, schismatics from the Greek Church, ignorant, rapacious, cunning, impudent, etc., etc. In short, they narrated the whole fable about their own sweet selves. I am quite surprised to see how well these men manage their work. The boat is quite as clean as an English boat as crowded could be kept, and the engine in beautiful order. ...
— Letters from Egypt • Lucie Duff Gordon

... be friends. If we have quarrelled so that we don't speak to each other, you may depend upon it my aversion to him is well-founded; he let me read down to the bottom of his infamous soul, and he made me uncomfortable at that beautiful ball you gave us. I can't stand his impudent airs—all because he has got a notary's wife! I could have countesses if I wanted them; I sha'n't respect him any the more for that. Ah! my respect is a princess who'll never give birth to such as he. But, I say, you are a funny fellow, old man, ...
— Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau • Honore de Balzac

... you even to madness, I have given myself to you as no man ever has given himself to a woman. You have abused my most sacred emotions, and played an impudent, frivolous game with me. However, as long as you were merely cruel and merciless, it was still possible for me to love you. Now you are about to become cheap. I am no longer the slave whom you can kick about and whip. You yourself have set me free, and I am leaving a woman ...
— Venus in Furs • Leopold von Sacher-Masoch

... of witchcraft, Wherein the lewde dealing of witches and witchmongers is notablie detected, the knauerie of coniurors, the impietie of inchantors, the follie of soothsaiers, the impudent falshood of cousenors, the infidelitie of atheists, the pestilent practises of Pythonists, the curiositie of figurecasters, the vanitie of dreamers, the beggerlie art of Alcumystrie, The abhomination of ...
— Catalogue of the Books Presented by Edward Capell to the Library of Trinity College in Cambridge • W. W. Greg

... have a distinct probation. There are these gipsies; but then, alas! they are almost infamous in the eye of law, scarce capable of bearing evidence, and Meg Merrilies utterly so, by the various accounts which she formerly gave of the matter, and her impudent denial of all knowledge of the fact when I myself examined her ...
— Guy Mannering, or The Astrologer, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott

... quickens your hearing, and bids you strain to listen to what they say about you, and as you do so, you are pricked, stabbed, wounded by their slighting and jeering remarks, their scornful comments upon your impertinent and impudent arrogance at daring to take such a place, and their open denial of your possession of any of the qualities which would entitle you to so honored a position in ...
— Quit Your Worrying! • George Wharton James

... Browning I saw once or twice at dinner-parties, but knew him no better than in this early period, when I was Nelly Watts, and heedless of the greatness of great men. "To meet an angel and not to be afraid is to be impudent." I don't like to confess to it, but I think I must have been, according ...
— The Story of My Life - Recollections and Reflections • Ellen Terry

... "doing well, too," they say, and he had cared for little 'Tildy until last spring, when a lover married her. A hard life the lad had led, toiling for meat, and laughed at because he was homely and crooked. There was Sam Carlon, an impudent old skinflint, who had definite notions about niggers, and hired Ben a summer and would not pay him. Then the hungry boy gathered his sacks together, and in broad daylight went into Carlon's corn; and when the hard-fisted farmer ...
— The Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, 1995, Memorial Issue • Various

... Christmas and the one before that when Beryl had asked Santa Claus for a "real doll" and had cried on Christmas morning because the cheap little bit of dolldom which the mother had bought out of her meagre savings would not open or shut its eyes. And now—the impudent heart of the blessed child worrying that the home wasn't good enough for the likes of ...
— Red-Robin • Jane Abbott

... to blind my eyes to the fact, and think of it no further? Many, alas, I know, would have whispered this to me; but if any one were to proclaim it, the universal conscience of mankind would call him impudent. ...
— Phases of Faith - Passages from the History of My Creed • Francis William Newman

... emperor, came on a visit to Trieste in company with an Abbe Casti, whose acquaintance I wished to make on account of some extremely blasphemous poems he had written. However, I was disappointed; and instead of a man of parts, I found the abbe to be an impudent worthless fellow, whose only merit was a ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt

... our hero's expedition out on the harbor that night! For, one of the circles of light from the lantern shining up into his face, Barnaby True knew him the moment he clapped eyes upon him. Though he could not have recognized our hero, he grinned at him in the most impudent, familiar fashion, and never so much as touched his hat either to him or to Mr. Greenfield; but as soon as his master and his young mistress had entered the coach, banged to the door and scrambled up on the seat alongside the driver, and so away without a word, but ...
— Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates • Howard I. Pyle

... What if he were to reach such a climax in adiposity What if in the years to come he should be compelled, as was the unfortunate man from Berlin, to sit on a chair every five minutes, a chair carried by an impudent boy! What—here his heart sank—if the Fraeulein should mock his size! He walked so rapidly at this idea that other victims of rotundity stopped to look at his tall figure and nodded approval. Ach! Marienbad ...
— Visionaries • James Huneker

... the scenes of his Caius Marius verbally, or with disfiguring changes, from the Romeo and Juliet of Shakspeare. Nothing more incongruous can well he conceived, than such an episode in Roman manners, and in a historical drama. This impudent plagiarism is in no manner ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel

... a feed of corn for the horses, and, to Mr Norris's astonishment, I was impudent enough to get food for ourselves by appealing to the kind feelings of two good-looking female citizens of Front Royal, who, during our supper, entertained us by stories of the manner they annoyed the Northern soldiers by disagreeable ...
— Three Months in the Southern States, April-June 1863 • Arthur J. L. (Lieut.-Col.) Fremantle

... in the federal metropolis. "There was no place for the intrusion of the rabble in crowds, or for the mere coarse and boisterous partisan," says Colonel Stone in some remarks upon these receptions. "There was no place for the vulgar electioneerer or impudent place-hunter. On the contrary, they were select, and more courtly than have been given by any of Washington's successors. Proud of her husband's exalted fame, and jealous of the honors due, not ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing

... impudent happy Strumpet: —I gave him his Life, and that Creature enjoys the Sweets of ...
— The Beggar's Opera - to which is prefixed the Musick to each Song • John Gay

... foot firmly upon the green-sward, exclaimed with ecstasy: "Three, by heaven! That for managers!" and snapped his fingers. His companion asked an explanation of this strange conduct. "You'll know before you have strutted in three more barns," said the "old hand." "In winter, managers are the most impudent fellows living, because they know we don't like to travel, don't like to leave our nests, fear the cold, and all that. But when I can put my foot upon three daisies—summer's near, and managers may ...
— A Book of the Play - Studies and Illustrations of Histrionic Story, Life, and Character • Dutton Cook

... we gotten over the edge of this shoal when we began to see things—big blue crabs, the kind that can pinch and that play havoc with the fishermen's nets, and impudent little gray crabs, and needle-fish, and small chocolate-colored sharks—nurse sharks, Sam called them—and barracuda from one foot to five feet in length, and whip-rays and sting-rays. It was exceedingly interesting and surprising to see all these in such shallow ...
— Tales of Fishes • Zane Grey

... wise at last, and stopped her impudent mouth effectively; but she broke from him and ran into the woods, while he went down to the village ...
— The Lonely Island - The Refuge of the Mutineers • R.M. Ballantyne

... enemy of ritualism, and yet I know no one more ritualistic than you are, only your ritual is not ours. You cannot listen to a sermon if the preacher wears a surplice, you waive the entire merit of the sermon, and see nothing but the impudent surplice. All the beautiful instruction passes unheeded, and your brows gather into a frown black as the robe that isn't there.... I believe that you would insist that Christ Himself should ascend into Heaven in a black robe, and you would send the goats to hell draped in samite and white linen.' ...
— Celibates • George Moore

... was involved in a net of perplexity, from which it required all the acuteness of his apprehending mind to work out a mode of extrication. Augustus Brammel continued abroad, spending his money, and drawing upon the house, with the impudent recklessness which we have already seen to be a prime ingredient in his character. He did not condescend to communicate with his partners, or to give them any information touching his whereabouts, except such as might be gathered from his cheques, which came, week after week, with alarming ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXIX. January, 1844. Vol. LV. • Various

... me an impudent word, I will take you into the boat and put you into the fort," added the major, as he stepped ...
— Taken by the Enemy • Oliver Optic

... long streets stretch from east to west, the central one a very respectable street, clean, well-paved, and delightfully quiet. You may sit in a window there and hear nothing the livelong day but the drip of a fountain and the screaming of clouds of swallows, which are, without exception, the most impudent birds that can be imagined. Annoyed one day by the persistent "peeping" of a swallow that had perched in a nook just outside my window, I leaned out and frightened him away with my handkerchief. He darted down to a little olive-plantation below, and a minute after up came a score or two of swallows ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, September 1880 • Various

... proposed to marry her to the gay and witty Marshal de Bassompierre; and although his heart was not at all engaged, the marshal found the match extremely suitable, and was willing enough, until the King declared himself. Henry used the most impudent frankness. ...
— The Historical Nights Entertainment, Second Series • Rafael Sabatini

... be war," he said, and his face darkened. "It is as I foresaw. The French are impudent, and claim the land belongs to them ...
— A Soldier of Virginia • Burton Egbert Stevenson

... was by nature so addicted to raillery, that in his youthful obscurer years he would converse freely with players and professed jesters, and join them in all their low pleasures. And when supreme master of all, he was often wont to muster together the most impudent players and stage-followers of the town, and to drink and bandy jests with them without regard to his age or the dignity of his place, and to the prejudice of important affairs that required his attention. When he was once at table, it was not in Sylla's ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough

... thus far, loth, very loth, was I to lose my prize—once more I got hold of the rumpled-up letter!—Impudent man! were her words: stamping again. For God's sake, then it was. I let go my prize, lest she should faint away: but had the pleasure first to find my hand within both hers, she trying to open my reluctant ...
— Clarissa, Volume 4 (of 9) - History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson

... indeed, an extraordinary woman; and for my part, despising men and women alike for their motives, I could at this instant form a ministry of women, with the Queen at their head, no more silly and impudent than they who now suppose themselves to guide the fortunes of the country. If the Gods have any relish of humour,—and 'tis to be thought they have, else had they not created such a miserable little crawling ...
— The Ladies - A Shining Constellation of Wit and Beauty • E. Barrington

... not so much a law (lex) as a usage: but Plutarch's words by no means imply that he thought there was a Lex to this effect. Livius (xxxi. c. 20) states that only a dictator, consul, or praetor could have a triumph. The claim of Pompeius was an impudent demand: but he felt his power. The 'first Scipio' is the elder Africanus. See Life of Tiberius Gracchus, ...
— Plutarch's Lives Volume III. • Plutarch

... as plainly as the title of the opera proclaims the composer's purpose: it sums up the solid and pompous old burghers, the impudent apprentices, the love of Walther and Eva, and says nothing about Sachs. As an afterthought, in fact, Sachs is left for the prelude to the third act. As a piece of music, detachable from the opera, and by no means an integral part of it as is the case with ...
— Richard Wagner - Composer of Operas • John F. Runciman

... important of the leaders, tendered her submission. Colonel Willcocks gave her four days in which to prove the truth of her submission by coming in, in person. Shortly, however, before the truce expired, she sent in an impudent message that she would fight ...
— Through Three Campaigns - A Story of Chitral, Tirah and Ashanti • G. A. Henty

... and would you believe it? the natives objected to it. They asked us what we would think of it if they dug up our Queen. Just think of it! The impudent niggers! As if there was any similarity in ...
— Captain Jinks, Hero • Ernest Crosby

... with a chastened spirit that I looked from this splendid fighting 'plane, back to my little three-cylinder Penguin, with its absurd clipped wings and its impudent tail. A moment ago it had seemed a thing of speed, and the mastery of it a glorious achievement. I told Drew what my feeling was as I came racing back to the starting-point, and how brief my moment of triumph had been. He answered me at ...
— High Adventure - A Narrative of Air Fighting in France • James Norman Hall

... immortals vaunting more That thou wouldst Neptune's self confront in arms. So she, to whom Apollo nought replied.[9] But thus the consort of the Thunderer, fired With wrath, reproved the Archeress of heaven. 560 How hast thou dared, impudent, to oppose My will? Bow-practised as thou art, the task To match my force were difficult to thee. Is it, because by ordinance of Jove Thou art a lioness to womankind, 565 Killing them at thy pleasure? Ah beware— Far easier is it, on the mountain-heights To slay wild beasts and chase ...
— The Iliad of Homer - Translated into English Blank Verse • Homer

... gradually cleared away the rubbish until the original beauty of the temple was visible again. Even now, high up on all sides, you can see the depth of the earth surrounding it like cliffs, and on the top are squalid huts with dirty children and fluffy impudent goats and shrill-voiced, black-clad women, living their daily lives and ...
— Round the Wonderful World • G. E. Mitton

... we would say emphatically that they belong to the highest region of art,—an art subservient to genius of a very lofty order. We had supposed, with good reason for so supposing, that he had been thrust into his present position by one of the impudent cliques who beset our literature; ... but we have been most agreeably mistaken.... Mr. Hawthorne's distinctive trait is invention, creation, imagination, originality,—a trait which, in the literature of fiction, is positively worth all the rest. ...
— A Study Of Hawthorne • George Parsons Lathrop

... really, sir; can't help it. You made me. But go on, sir. Do. Chuck some books at me for being so impudent." ...
— Jack at Sea - All Work and no Play made him a Dull Boy • George Manville Fenn

... worse than wolves of France, Whose tongue more poisons than the adder's tooth, How ill-beseeming is it in thy sex To triumph, like an Amazonian trull, Upon their woes whom fortune captivates! But that thy face is, vizard-like, unchanging, Made impudent with use of ...
— King Henry VI, Third Part • William Shakespeare [Rolfe edition]

... the red men for the English as against the French. General Bouquet, who seems to have detested Croghan, wrote to General Gage, at a time when new powers had been conferred upon Indian-agents, "It is to be regretted that powers of such importance should be trusted to a man illiterate, impudent, and ill-bred." Nevertheless, within a few months, Bouquet wrote to Gage recommending Croghan as the person most competent to negotiate with the Western Indians for British control of the French posts in the ...
— The Story of Cooperstown • Ralph Birdsall

... ardour, for fear that the enemy might be reinforced and reverse the fortune of the battle. This aroused suspicion among the Othonians, who put a bad construction on all that their generals did. All the least courageous and most impudent of the troops vied incessantly with each other in bringing various charges against Annius Gallus, Suetonius Paulinus, and Marius Celsus, for the two latter had also been placed in command by Otho.[264] The most energetic in promoting mutiny and dissension were Galba's murderers, who, maddened ...
— Tacitus: The Histories, Volumes I and II • Caius Cornelius Tacitus

... definition, to denote an idea impossible of expression; and by employing in connection therewith the words 'good' and 'bad,' you indicate a merely subjective process in terms of an objective quality. Such presumption transcends the limit of the merely impudent, and passes into the boundless empyrean of ...
— Cobwebs From an Empty Skull • Ambrose Bierce (AKA: Dod Grile)

... That no man who calls himself a Christian—no man who calls himself a man—shall ever disgrace himself by dealing at any show-shop or slop-shop. It is easy enough to know them. The ticketed garments, the impudent puffs; the trumpery decorations, proclaim them,—every one knows them at first sight, He who pretends not to do so, is simply either a fool or a liar. Let no man enter them—they are the temples of Moloch—their thresholds are rank with human blood. God's curse is on ...
— Alton Locke, Tailor And Poet • Rev. Charles Kingsley et al

... there's no denying that. He's very brave, but what then; there's that impudent puppy of a valet of his, Chapeau; he's brave too: at least they say so. But what's bravery? Can they lead an army? is there anything of the General about them? ...
— La Vendee • Anthony Trollope

... It was impudent, yet gay, dexterous, and elusive enough to avoid reproof. With no more than a little shake of her head and a light yet embarrassed laugh, Mary moved toward the door, her way lying between the table and ...
— The Secret of the Tower • Hope, Anthony

... wasn't a bit changed. She still wore a ribbon on her hair, and her nose was as snubbed and impudent as ever. Of course, she was taller and her skirts were longer, but no one realized it. That was the difference. With Polly and Lois the years had really added themselves and marked a change, but Betty was still Betty and years mattered not ...
— Polly's Senior Year at Boarding School • Dorothy Whitehill

... I have seen of you has been quite enough! Kindly understand that my daughter is engaged to be married to another man, and that I do not wish to see or hear anything of you again! I shall try to forget your very existence, and I shall see to it that Wilhelmina does the same! You're an impudent scoundrel, sir! An impudent scoundrel! I don't like you! I don't wish to see you again! If you were the last man in the world I wouldn't allow my daughter to marry you! If that is quite clear, I ...
— Three Men and a Maid • P. G. Wodehouse

... rehearsal. On the previous evening Mrs. Vanstone's spirits had been sadly depressed. At a private interview with Miss Garth she had referred again, of her own accord, to the subject of her letter from London—had spoken self-reproachfully of her weakness in admitting Captain Wragge's impudent claim to a family connection with her—and had then reverted to the state of her health and to the doubtful prospect that awaited her in the coming summer in a tone of despondency which it was very distressing to hear. Anxious to cheer her spirits, Miss Garth had changed the conversation as soon ...
— No Name • Wilkie Collins

... but an impudent rascal, sir!" he said. "Of course you must see my daughter, my beautiful daughter, Gwendoline. He's afraid you'll frighten her, I suppose! Ha! ha! Frighten my bashful, ...
— A Bid for Fortune - or Dr. Nikola's Vendetta • Guy Boothby



Words linked to "Impudent" :   forward, disrespectful, impudence, saucy



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