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Patronizing   /pˈeɪtrənˌaɪzɪŋ/   Listen
Patronizing

adjective
1.
(used of behavior or attitude) characteristic of those who treat others with condescension.  Synonyms: arch, condescending, patronising.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Patronizing" Quotes from Famous Books



... one, Wrote so bravely against the sin of Britain, Then all wet with the royal bloodshed in her, Milton answered with pen that, be it granted, Showed vast genius, nor a mind without some Real marks of artistic cultivation, Though, O shame! patronizing such an outrage. Milton's pen is refuted next by Schaller's,— Quite a different pen ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson

... a greeting less complaisant and patronizing than is usually given to debutantes. Zelma's youthful charms, heightened by her sumptuous dress, took her audience by surprise, and, while voice and action delayed, made for her friends and favor, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 23, September, 1859 • Various

... address at this conference Mr. Washington denounced "petty thieving, pistol-toting, crap-shooting, the patronizing of 'blind tigers,' and unnecessary lawsuits" as some of the weights and encumbrances which are keeping the Negro from running well the race which ...
— Booker T. Washington - Builder of a Civilization • Emmett J. Scott and Lyman Beecher Stowe

... in the suburbs, he would let down the check-reins. The horses were sturdy brutes, not at all cruelly checked; but the saint could not rise superior to habit. Unfortunately she made the request with that blandly patronizing tone which in time becomes second nature to kindergartners. Its insinuating blandness ruffled our Jehu, who opined that his horses were all right, and that he could look after their comfort without any assistance. He did not say anything about old ...
— A Woman's Impression of the Philippines • Mary Helen Fee

... all were so frank and cordial as Mrs. Markham. There was a distinct chilliness in the manners of one, while a second had a patronizing air which was equally offensive. Helen's high spirits were dashed a little, but Robert strove to raise them again. He saw only the humourous features of such a course on the part of those whom they had encountered, and he exerted himself to ridicule it with such good effect that she laughed again, ...
— Before the Dawn - A Story of the Fall of Richmond • Joseph Alexander Altsheler

... heart, and by a Parisian standard of morality too elastic and too easy-going for more orthodox Christians. Into his manner came a suggestion of these thoughts,—his tone was less gracious, a trifle more patronizing. But as the victim supposed this to be his usual bearing, ...
— The Pines of Lory • John Ames Mitchell

... discuss the last dinner party at Government House, or recite a series of domestic woes brought on by that refractory necessity—the cook. Simpering young ladies, and simpering ladies that were no longer young, greeted me with a pretty, patronizing courtesy, and smiled upon my remarks as sweetly as we grown people do at the crude observances of a ...
— The Doctor's Daughter • "Vera"

... distinguish himself at any cost. (As a matter of fact the cost was borne by the Baptist minister.) The world (represented then by his tutor and a few undergraduates), the world that he suspected of looking down on him, or more intolerable still, of patronizing him, should be compelled to admire him. And the world, being young and generous, did admire him without any strong compulsion. At Oxford the City tailor's son scribbled, talked, debated furiously; the excited utterance of the man of the ...
— The Tysons - (Mr. and Mrs. Nevill Tyson) • May Sinclair

... particular excesses; though he goes straight for the book, as a critic should; Mr. Whibley cannot get quit of the bad tradition of patronizing Sterne:— ...
— Adventures in Criticism • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... who possessed the characteristic veneration of the bred and born New Englander for his native or imported school-ma'am, resented persistently their somewhat patronizing attitude toward the profession second only to the ministry in her stanch respect. A little of the simple grandeur of those childhood days when "the teacher boarded with them" clung with the ineradicable ...
— Julia The Apostate • Josephine Daskam

... nettled at this, and leaving her slow, wide-winged poise in the upper airs, she veered and with swallow-like swiftness darted down on him. "That sounds patronizing and elder-brotherish," she told him. "I've taken on all sorts of cargo that you don't know anything about. In ever so many ways you seem positively . . . naive! You needn't go thinking that I'm always highstrung ...
— The Brimming Cup • Dorothy Canfield Fisher

... can still do quite well,—which is not at all, of course, what we might have expected, and only goes to show that our Madame Cressida is now, as always, a charming exception to rules." Poppas' tone about his client was consistently patronizing, and he was always trying to draw one into a conspiracy of two, based on a mutual understanding ...
— Youth and the Bright Medusa • Willa Cather

... snugly amid groves of waving shade and semi-tropical fruit trees. Beyond all this the lower coast-range, where, toward San Francisco, Mount Diablo and Mount Tamalpais - grim sentinels of the Golden Gate - rear their shaggy heads skyward, and seem to look down with a patronizing air upon the less pretentious hills that border the coast and reflect their shadows in the blue water of San Francisco Bay. Upon the sloping sides of these hills sweet, nutritious grasses grow, upon which peacefully graze the cows ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens

... fellow, you. With your patronizing air, hang it! As if you did not want to make a break between Stein and Ulrich because of that Loehlein girl. I should know that, even if I were as stupid as that confounded, patronizing fellow of a Moeller. ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IX - Friedrich Hebbel and Otto Ludwig • Various

... time, yet at midnight what a circle might come forth and visit the library! Scott and Burns and Byron, Burke and Fox and Sheridan, all in one evening; clever, pretty Mrs. Thrale comes bringing Fanny Burney to meet Jane Austen and Maria Edgeworth; Horace Walpole, patronizing Gray, Rogers, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Keats, and Charles Lamb,—what a social club that would be! Ah, the librarian of the Astor is more fortunate than we; these spirits are all invisible, and we catch not even at midnight the rustle of the leaf they turn or the passing murmur of their voices. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 97, November, 1865 • Various

... lamp-shades; the clock ticked methodically; the unmoved Chinaman continuously repeated the score in a lifeless voice, like a big talking doll—and Willems would win the game. With a remark that it was getting late, and that he was a married man, he would say a patronizing good-night and step out into the long, empty street. At that hour its white dust was like a dazzling streak of moonlight where the eye sought repose in the dimmer gleam of rare oil lamps. Willems walked homewards, following the line of walls overtopped by the luxuriant vegetation ...
— An Outcast of the Islands • Joseph Conrad

... more in him than we know," said Rumple in a patronizing tone. "At any rate he had the sense to like my verses, and that shows that he is not altogether callous; he even said that it was clever of me to find such ...
— The Adventurous Seven - Their Hazardous Undertaking • Bessie Marchant

... plodder among dusty law books and discolored parchments, that won upon his regard. He looked upon him as a young man good enough in his way—a very small way, in his estimation—good enough for S——, and small enough for a country town lawyer. He would have put on towards him a patronizing air, and tried to excite in his mind a nobler ambition than to move in our circumscribed sphere, if something in the young man's steady, penetrating, half-mysterious eye had ...
— The Allen House - or Twenty Years Ago and Now • T. S. Arthur

... like that superior smile. It was a mistake of Francisco Alvarez, a mistake that many strong men make, to assume a patronizing manner even for a moment in the presence of another who was also strong. Henry's intuition at once put him on guard at ...
— The Free Rangers - A Story of the Early Days Along the Mississippi • Joseph A. Altsheler

... patronizing liberality, Mr. Slidell gave assurance that the new confederacy would recognize the rights of the inhabitants of the valley of the Mississippi and its tributaries to free navigation, and would guarantee ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine

... at Beaumanoir was speedily known to all the servants of the Chateau. She did not often visit them, but when she did there was a hurried recital of an Ave or two to avert any harm, followed by a patronizing welcome and a rummage for small coins to cross her hand withal in return for her solutions of the grave questions of love, jealousy, money, and marriage, which fermented secretly or openly in the bosoms of all of ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby

... new chum is not agreeable—it is something like being a new boy at school—you are bored with questions for some time after your arrival as to how you like the place, and what you are going to do; and people speak to you in a pitying and patronizing manner, smiling at your real or inferred simplicity in colonial life, and altogether 'sitting upon' you ...
— A Dictionary of Austral English • Edward Morris

... been wiser to stop in the ladies' cabin," said Stephen, still with the somewhat patronizing ...
— The Golden Silence • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson

... together a great company of young robust men to attend him in this sport; who were hereby also fitted to pursue men as they had done wild beasts. (Here the Free Kirk will find the beginning of the system which they are patronizing in Yankee Land.) Besides, in the age of Nimrod, the exercise of hunting might win him the hearts of men, whom he thus delivered from wild beasts, to which they were much exposed in their rude and unprotected way of living; so that many at last joined ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson

... have the mortification of sitting down to a pickup meal with Amy Campbell, the first time she has visited us; she's conceited enough about her house-keeping as it is, I'm sure, and I wouldn't have her patronizing and pitying me for worlds. The cook will be here at half-past three precisely; I had to pretend the train started a little earlier than it does so as to make her punctual; they are such uncertain things! and I ...
— The Albany Depot - A Farce • W. D. Howells

... party to which he believed he had been invited, and when in the afternoon Dick St. Claire came to the cottage to play with him, he felt a kind of patronizing pity for his friend who was ...
— Tracy Park • Mary Jane Holmes

... studio with Beverley she found Reginald Sellers, standing in a critical attitude before the easel. She was not very fond of him. He was a long, offensive, patronizing person, with a moustache that looked like a smear of charcoal, and a habit of addressing her ...
— The Man Upstairs and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse

... returned Smithy. He had already decided not to be patronizing, but to take a bold, frank, ...
— When I Grow Up • Richard E. Lowe

... dat," he answered in a somewhat patronizing tone. "You know," he went on, good-naturedly, "big turkey can't be cook if not have pretty good fire. But I'll open de window and den de fire she'll all go out. For me, you know I'm not mind de heat, for I'm used to dat when I fire ...
— A Lover in Homespun - And Other Stories • F. Clifford Smith

... that, if I did, it would be fatal to my new-formed purpose. So finally, in almost an agony of awkwardness, I blurted out, "Jim, I don't care what you think about it, I'm going to pray." Jim proved to be entirely mild and agreeable about it, however, and gave me his blessing in a patronizing sort of a way. The next day I burned my bridges behind me by packing ...
— Out of the Fog • C. K. Ober

... once stretched out her eager arms, along stone roads, through Frederick and Hagerstown to Cumberland, and thus formed a single route from the Ohio to Baltimore. Great stagecoach and freight lines were soon established, each patronizing its own stage house or wagon stand in the thriving towns along the road. The primitive box stage gave way to the oval or football type with curved top and bottom, and this was displaced in turn by the more practical Concord coach of national fame. The names of the important stagecoach ...
— The Paths of Inland Commerce - A Chronicle of Trail, Road, and Waterway, Volume 21 in The - Chronicles of America Series • Archer B. Hulbert

... This great work appeared in 1589, with a preface addressed to Raleigh and a considerable apparatus of recommendatory poems; one of which, a sonnet of great elegance, is marked with initials which assign it to the same patronizing friend. ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin

... petty mould. She repeats Grandmother Evarts, which is a pity, because there are types not worth repeating. Maria if she had not her husband Tom to manage, would simply fall on her face. It goes hard with a purely patronizing soul when there is nobody to manage; there is apt to be an explosion. However, Maria HAS Tom. But none of my brother's family, not even my dear sister-in-law, Cyrus's wife, have the right point of view with regard to the present, possibly on account ...
— The Whole Family - A Novel by Twelve Authors • William Dean Howells, Mary E. Wilkins Freeman, Mary Heaton Vorse, Mary Stewart Cutting, Elizabeth Jo

... in his customary patronizing way, ignoring the presence of the Bird boys completely and purposely, of course; "I've come out after you, to get your assistance in trying to find the rascals who broke into my hangar some time last night, and ran away with ...
— The Aeroplane Boys Flight - A Hydroplane Roundup • John Luther Langworthy

... said he, with patronizing good-nature, "take my advice, and let literature alone. It is one of the most uncertain things. To-day you may suit, to-morrow a chap comes along with some new fandango or summersault of high art, and the world leaves everybody to run after him, and you are thrown over. A man cannot earn his salt ...
— Hope Mills - or Between Friend and Sweetheart • Amanda M. Douglas

... up at Lancelot, the self-appointed man, with a bright glance of curious contemplation; and contemplation (of any other subject than self) is dangerously near contempt. She thought very little of his large, free brag, of his patronizing manner, and fine self-content, reference of everything to his own standard, beauty too feminine, and instead of female gentleness, highly cultivated waywardness. But in spite of all that, she could ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore

... faultless—a perfect out-and-outer. He was truly a great man, or appeared to fancy himself such—for he rarely condescended to exchange a word, except with an acquaintance, and even then, it was with a condescending, patronizing air; and he smiled as seldom as a Connecticut lawyer. Although sitting close by his side for twenty miles, not one word passed between us ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol. XXXII No. 2. February 1848 • Various

... effectively on to the head of his wife, even, it may be, with grateful appreciation on her part.[293] But the modern man, who for the most part spends his days tamely at a desk, who has been trained to endure silently the insults and humiliations which superior officials or patronizing clients may inflict upon him, this typical modern man is no longer able to assume effectually the part of the "noble savage" when he returns to his home. He is indeed so unfitted for the part that his wife resents his ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis

... Hester. She hated to be called kind, and perhaps spoke the more kindly to the poor woman that she was displeased with Mrs. Baldwin's patronizing ...
— Weighed and Wanting • George MacDonald

... great men have more than one dog in their homes. When I spent a day with the Quaker poet at Danvers, I found he had three dogs. Roger Williams, a fine Newfoundland, stood on the piazza with the questioning, patronizing air of a dignified host; a bright-faced Scotch terrier, Charles Dickens, peered at us from the window, as if glad of a little excitement; while Carl, the graceful greyhound, was indolently coiled up on a shawl and took little ...
— Adopting An Abandoned Farm • Kate Sanborn

... by some old neighbor, a man well to do in the world, who makes a civil, patronizing observation about the weather; and then, by way of performing a charitable deed, begins to chaffer for an apple. Our friend presumes not on any past acquaintance; he makes the briefest possible response to all general remarks, and shrinks quietly into himself again. ...
— The Old Apple Dealer (From "Mosses From An Old Manse") • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... few seniors who had had no active part in the toy-shop. "So I'm patronizing everything regardless," she exclaimed, sauntering up to Madeline and holding out a bag of fudge. "It's a decided hit, isn't it? Polly says the other classes are in despair at the idea of getting up anything that ...
— Betty Wales Senior • Margaret Warde

... princely specimen of Gothic architecture; and is in every respect calculated for the residence of its noble possessor, whose taste and munificence in patronizing the Fine Arts are well known to our readers. Nevertheless, it is worthy of special remark, that not only is the name of GROSVENOR conspicuous in this patronage, but his lordship has further evinced his ...
— The Mirror, 1828.07.05, Issue No. 321 - The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction • Various

... like wrestling with him, shoulder to shoulder, to distance him, to defeat him, to lower his complacent pride. His half-patronizing manner had stung keenly. Then the real nobility of his nature cropped out, and he laughed at his own sudden ...
— Hope Mills - or Between Friend and Sweetheart • Amanda M. Douglas

... Dorothy something almost patronizing in the stranger's manner as she bade her good-by. Perhaps she did pity her—but why? What was wrong, or what might happen on ...
— Dorothy Dale's Queer Holidays • Margaret Penrose

... toil, he wore the outward garb of a careless, trifling voluptuary. It was difficult to believe that this apparently effeminate lounger, foppish in dress, with curled and scented hair, luxuriating in the novel refinement of the warm bath, an epicure in food and drink, patronizing actors, lolling in his litter amid a train of parasites, could be the man on whom, as Horace tells us, civic anxieties and foreign dangers pressed a ceaseless load. He had built himself a palace and laid out noble gardens, the remains of which ...
— Horace • William Tuckwell

... the rating which the old draper already quaked at. In a minute Madame Roguin was standing in the middle of the room, and looking at the actors in this domestic scene: "I know all, my dear cousin," said she, with a patronizing air. ...
— At the Sign of the Cat and Racket • Honore de Balzac

... to me. And pay attention good. I'm not stupid and I'm not blind. I can see all those jewels you're loaded down with and I know why you're wearing them. They tell me a lot about you, you can be sure of that. Don't think I haven't noticed that patronizing air of yours, and don't think I've liked it. I haven't and ...
— The Weakling • Everett B. Cole

... exercise of that caressing irony which I have already described. She likes to observe that her man is a fool—dear, perhaps, but none the less damned. Her so-called love for him, even at its highest, is always somewhat pitying and patronizing. ...
— In Defense of Women • H. L. Mencken

... Osborne said to his friend's remonstrances, when they quitted the invalid, leaving him under the hands of Doctor Gollop. "What the deuce right has he to give himself his patronizing airs, and make fools of us at Vauxhall? Who's this little schoolgirl that is ogling and making love to him? Hang it, the family's low enough already, without HER. A governess is all very well, but I'd rather have a lady for my sister-in-law. ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray

... a king's son, you could not speak more confidently," I rejoined, with inexcusable rudeness. "Remember, too, you are not training a wife for your prince in disguise." But I was annoyed and irritated by his patronizing manner, and the suspicion that took possession of me from that time, that he had aided Evelyn in this conspiracy against my ...
— Miriam Monfort - A Novel • Catherine A. Warfield

... even Chris Marlowe were constantly patronizing the wonderful William, and supplied him with the iron ore products of the ancient and middle ages, which he quickly fashioned into the laminated steel of ...
— Shakspere, Personal Recollections • John A. Joyce

... past a wooden crucifix, and stopped at the court-yard of the farm. The tenant had already heard of their arrival; and perhaps he was better acquainted with the baron's circumstances than Anton could have wished, for he received them in a patronizing and self-sufficient manner, hardly taking the trouble to lead them into an unoccupied room. His first question, was, "Do you really believe that Rothsattel will be able to take possession of the estate? There is much to be done ...
— Debit and Credit - Translated from the German of Gustav Freytag • Gustav Freytag

... the Mall. I had remained behind, for, indeed, I had already made up my mind that I had no calling for this fashionable life. These men, with their small waists, their gestures, and their unnatural ways, had become wearisome to me, and even my uncle, with his cold and patronizing manner, filled me with very mixed feelings. My thoughts were back in Sussex, and I was dreaming of the kindly, simple ways of the country, when there came a rat-tat at the knocker, the ring of a hearty voice, and there, in the doorway, was the smiling, weather-beaten ...
— Rodney Stone • Arthur Conan Doyle

... have touched the hearts of these grim masters of irony, but for the sudden and equal development in both of the variety of weak natures. Mr. McCorkle basked in the popularity of his protege, and became alternately supercilious or patronizing toward the dwellers of Sierra Flat; while the poet, with hair carefully oiled and curled, and bedecked with cheap jewelry and flaunting neck-handkerchief, paraded himself before the single hotel. As may be imagined, this new disclosure of weakness ...
— Mrs. Skaggs's Husbands and Other Stories • Bret Harte

... men, to meet the exigency which had arisen in the West with the appropriate measure of relief; because they felt it due to their own characters, and the characters of their New England predecessors in this government, to act towards the new States in the spirit of a liberal, patronizing, magnanimous policy. So much, Sir, for the cause why; and I hope that by this time, Sir, the honorable gentleman is satisfied; if not, I do not know when, or how, or why ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster

... it is supposed that some Angel had disclosed to M. Bossu, the French author of the treatise upon Epic Poetry then fashionable, the sacred mysteries of Homer. John Sheffield had a patronizing recognition for the genius of Shakespeare and Milton, and was so obliging as to revise Shakespeare's Julius Caesar and confine the action of that play within the limits prescribed in the French gospel according to the Unities. Pope, however, ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele

... a ponderous person vaguely suggesting the great Heman, admitted that the weather was fine, patronizing it as he did so. The clerk continued the conversation. Captain Cy waited. ...
— Cy Whittaker's Place • Joseph C. Lincoln

... in this frank record of the innocent lust of the eyes. Mr. Boughton scruples little, in general, to write as well as to draw, when the fancy takes him; to write in the manner of painters, with the bold, irreverent, unconventional, successful brush. If I were not afraid of the patronizing tone I would say that there is little doubt that if as a painter he had not had to try to write in character, he would certainly have made a characteristic writer. He has the most enviable "finds," not dreamed of in timid literature, yet making capital descriptive prose. Other ...
— Picture and Text - 1893 • Henry James

... she seemed to make an effort, to try to assume the playful, half-patronizing manner of a pretty woman of the world to a man supposed to adore her; but she allowed her lips to tremble so that he might see she was playing a part. He did not dare to say that he saw, and he went down to the bank of the Nile, got into the felucca that was waiting, and ...
— Bella Donna - A Novel • Robert Hichens

... wide-awake lot, and so forth; interested, but good-naturedly skeptical. One had said, "Are you making believe to telegraph that way? Well, it's good fun, anyway." Another asked if they had been reading dime novels. The patronizing tone had rather nettled ...
— Tom Slade at Temple Camp • Percy K. Fitzhugh

... bottle, then me, with a strange expression: a little pity—not patronizing—but mostly feminine understanding. "Soda pop? Of course. You ...
— Question of Comfort • Les Collins

... him a half-way decent cup of coffee for breakfast, will fall in love with the place and boom it all over the country. Half of your Benevolent Bisons are here on the European plan, with a view to patronizing the free-lunch counters or being asked to take dinner at the home of some local Bison whose wife has been cooking up on pies, and chicken salad and veal ...
— Roast Beef, Medium • Edna Ferber

... had definitely taken the place of ambition as the mainspring of the movement to national and imperial consolidation. The Tariff Reform movement was largely inspired by a sense of insecurity in our commercial position. The half-patronizing friendship for Germany rapidly gave way, first to commercial jealousy, and then to unconcealed alarm for our national safety. All the powers of society were bent on lavish naval expenditure, and of imposing the idea of compulsory ...
— Liberalism • L. T. Hobhouse

... foreign sound of her musical voice, which was unlike anything he had ever heard before, and—alas for the inconstancy of youth—much finer than Mrs. Peyton's. Presently his farmer companion, casting a patronizing glance on Clarence's pea-jacket and brass ...
— A Waif of the Plains • Bret Harte

... you?" the lieutenant said, in a sort of patronizing way, and riding forward. "Put up your guns, men; we are not among bushrangers, I think." And in obedience to his command, the men slung the carbines at ...
— The Gold Hunter's Adventures - Or, Life in Australia • William H. Thomes

... was no longer indifferent to his presence, and even made a movement in the direction of being agreeable to him. She dropped in a measure, without knowing she had ever used it, her patronizing carriage, but had the assurance to compliment him not merely on the poem he had written, but on the way it had been received; she could not have credited, had he told her, that he was as indifferent to the praise or blame of what is called the public, as if that public were indeed—what ...
— The Elect Lady • George MacDonald

... danced and shouted with people whom he despised! To have said foolish things, sung idiotic songs, tried to kiss silly girls! Incredulously he remembered that he had by his roaring familiarity with them laid himself open to the patronizing of youths whom he would have kicked out of his office; that by dancing too ardently he had exposed himself to rebukes from the rattiest of withering women. As it came relentlessly back to him he snarled, "I hate myself! God how I hate myself!" But, ...
— Babbitt • Sinclair Lewis

... at first very good humoredly; once or twice calling her "a dear little prig," in his patronizing way—he was rather fond of patronizing his Aunt Hilary. But when she seriously spoke of his duties, as no longer a boy but a man, who ought now to assume the true, manly right of thinking for and taking care ...
— Mistress and Maid • Dinah Craik (aka: Miss Mulock)

... society Scott was naturally a prominent figure, being noted for his fund of anecdote and his superior gifts in presiding at dinners. But however much his kindly personal feeling is reflected in his comments on the literary work of his friends, he was too well-balanced to assume anything of the patronizing tone that such success as his might have made natural to another sort of man. His fellow-poets thought him a delightful person whom they liked so much that they could almost forgive the preposterous success of ...
— Sir Walter Scott as a Critic of Literature • Margaret Ball

... city is thus presented to them; and they have found it so convenient and so inexpensive that they have adopted Socialism in their thousands. But observe them in the company of the horny-handed, the roughshod, and the ill-spoken; they are either ill at ease or frankly patronizing. They are Bohemians among aristocrats ...
— Nights in London • Thomas Burke

... conceal her. How she came to witness the scene described requires some explanation. As they left the supper-room, she shook De Forrest off for a time, and when Miss Martell parted from Hemstead, she joined him. After the attention he had received, she was not in as patronizing a mood as before. ...
— From Jest to Earnest • E. P. Roe

... among men who drink my personal determination to quit still excites the patronizing inquiry, "Still on the wagon?" when I meet old friends. That used to make me angry, but it does not any more. I say, "Yes!" take my mineral water and pass on to other things. But the position of ...
— The Old Game - A Retrospect after Three and a Half Years on the Water-wagon • Samuel G. Blythe

... rewards, and in an affluent revenue which admits a reduction of the public burdens without withdrawing the means of sustaining the public credit, of gradually discharging the public debt, of providing for the necessary defensive and precautionary establishments, and of patronizing in every authorized mode undertakings conducive to the aggregate wealth and individual comfort ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various

... Pemberton saw the waving flags from the corner of his eyes; and the chaos of cheers and shouts drowned the thumping of his heart and the pat, pat of his feet on the trampled turf. Pemberton was enjoying himself immensely, and was grateful in a patronizing way for the coach's confidence in him. Then the quarter back engaged his attention. He glanced back. The foremost of the pursuers—for now the whole field was racing after him—was still a good ten yards behind. ...
— The New Boy at Hilltop • Ralph Henry Barbour

... started, Channing spoke a few appreciative if rather patronizing words to the school-master. "You've been awfully kind and clever about this. A surgeon could not have done better. You really ought to charge me a whopping big price, you know." He put his hand into his ...
— Kildares of Storm • Eleanor Mercein Kelly

... Massachusetts Hall and Harvard Hall, and several houses, are really old. Tom, Dick, and Harry put on the air of graybeards returning, after a half-century of adventure, to their childhood's home, though they left college only last year to go abroad. It was funny to see the patronizing looks they cast on the undergrads we saw; but they were the life of the place for us, all the same, and we felt truly in it, chaperoned by them. Outside college bounds, however, they lost interest. It was Jack who had to tell us about "Brattle." As far as the Boys were concerned, it might ...
— The Lightning Conductor Discovers America • C. N. (Charles Norris) Williamson and A. M. (Alice Muriel)

... but very poor rhyme," drawled Hen Rowe (whose father was a poet), patting the singer's flaxen head in a patronizing manner. ...
— Harper's Young People, January 13, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various

... like all other small people, had a great opinion of their own importance, and used to assume quite a patronizing air towards ...
— Tanglewood Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... He possessed all that patronizing geniality which policemen can show to evil-doers, as to colleagues in another department of the same industry. "You are back again yes? And how did you ...
— Those Who Smiled - And Eleven Other Stories • Perceval Gibbon

... pointed out almost every individual of both sexes, and generally introduced them to our notice, with a flourish of panegyrick — Seeing the king approach, 'There comes (said he) the most amiable sovereign that ever swayed the sceptre of England: the delicioe humani generis; Augustus, in patronizing merit; Titus Vespasian in generosity; Trajan in beneficence; and Marcus Aurelius in philosophy.' 'A very honest kind hearted gentleman (added my uncle) he's too good for the times. A king of England should have a spice of the devil in his composition.' ...
— The Expedition of Humphry Clinker • Tobias Smollett

... to steer clear of permanent alliances with any portion of the foreign world; so far, I mean, as we are now at liberty to do it; for let me not be understood as capable of patronizing infidelity to existing engagements. I hold the maxim no less applicable to public than to private affairs, that honesty is always the best policy. I repeat it, therefore, let those engagements be observed in their genuine sense. But, in ...
— Washington's Birthday • Various

... the villagers with patient disdain, was amazed to find that they were patronizing him with amusement. They spoke of his adored Boston as an old-fogy place with ...
— In a Little Town • Rupert Hughes

... rattled in the wind; rags fluttered from the broken windows; within doors were tattered children and scanty fare. The landlord's wife was a stout, buxom woman, of Irish lineage, and, what with scolding her husband and liberally patronizing his bar in his absence, managed to keep, as she said, her "own heart whole," although the same could scarcely be said of her children's trousers and her own frock of homespun. She confidently predicted that "a betther day was coming," being, in fact, the only thing hopeful about ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier

... kissed me often before," she said, "but you have been a little patronizing from your hilltop of youth and knowledge. Sometimes you have looked to me lonely up there on your hilltop and I know that I have been lonely sometimes in my valley of the years where knees are not ...
— The Last Shot • Frederick Palmer

... Miss Sessions was saying to him as he moved toward the two girls. "To-morrow morning." And with a patronizing nod to them all, she withdrew ...
— The Power and the Glory • Grace MacGowan Cooke

... Charlie is short for Monsieur Charloix, of course," elucidated Phil, with the patronizing air of one speaking ...
— Lucile Triumphant • Elizabeth M. Duffield

... the half-ironical, half-patronizing look a dull man puts on with a person of less fortune but more brain. "I didn't see you, Mr. Putney, until I was quite upon you. ...
— The Quality of Mercy • W. D. Howells

... Vaughan is especially remarkable, as well also for all those qualities which adorn and dignify the British country gentleman. Always careful of the welfare, habits, and comforts of the poor around him; patronizing the industry, ingenuity, and good conduct of his more humble countrymen, and ministering to the wants of the sick and the poor; hospitable in the extreme; kind, affable, and friendly to all, he fulfils in every respect the happy duties of the wealthy British ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. - Volume 10, No. 271, Saturday, September 1, 1827. • Various

... and gazed at the Holy Father in perplexed astonishment. But the genial countenance of the patriarch seemed to confirm his mild words. A smile, tender and patronizing, in which Jose read forgiveness—and yet with it a certain undefined something which augured conditions upon which alone penalty for his culpability would be remitted—lighted up the pale features of the Holy Father and warmed the frozen ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking

... at having 'Jack' pawned upon him, stuck to my lord, and rode on his right with the air of a general. He felt he was doing his duty as an Englishman in thus patronizing the hounds—encouraging a manly spirit of independence, and promoting our unrivalled breed of horses. The post-boy trot at which hounds travel, to be sure, is not well adapted for dignity; but Jawleyford nourished and vapoured as well as he ...
— Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour • R. S. Surtees

... much pleased with this plan, but Sylvia was rather inclined to take offence at Molly's patronizing ways, ...
— Sylvia's Lovers, Vol. I • Elizabeth Gaskell

... disconcerted by this reception. He had just entered, wearing an embroidered court uniform, knee breeches, and shoes, and had stars on his breast and a serene expression on his flat face. He spoke in that refined French in which our grandfathers not only spoke but thought, and with the gentle, patronizing intonation natural to a man of importance who had grown old in society and at court. He went up to Anna Pavlovna, kissed her hand, presenting to her his bald, scented, and shining head, and complacently seated himself ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy

... the "profoundest respect" to the loftiest insolence for an apocraphical correspondence, to use a word I find in the Prospectus: on my honor it is genuine. He will be better employed in discovering whether I exist by patronizing others, or by being patronized by them. I make any one who can find it out a fair offer: I will give him my patronage if I turn out to be Bufo, on condition he gives me his, if I turn out to be Bavius.[660] I need hardly say that I considered the last letter to be one of those to which no ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume II (of II) • Augustus de Morgan

... each rehearsal, have hitherto prevented M. Tarbox from placing it before the American public, and it has remained for San Diego to show herself superior to her sister cities of the Union, in musical taste and appreciation, and in high-souled liberality, by patronizing this immortal prodigy, and enabling its author to bring it forth in accordance with his wishes and its capabilities. We trust every citizen of San Diego and Vallecetos will listen to it ere it is withdrawn; and if ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume V. (of X.) • Various

... being punished by the invisible powers, which I was conscious of eminently deserving. The small painting shows this idea of Purgatorial arrest by a clever touch here and there, without depicting a frown or positive gloom. The patronizing demeanor of an artist at work upon a portrait, which we all know so well,—the inevitable effect of his faith in himself, the very breath of artistic endeavor, without which he would lounge through life asking, "Of what use is it to attempt?"—made me furious, in my naughty, secret ...
— Memories of Hawthorne • Rose Hawthorne Lathrop

... Those classes which already possess something resembling it—such as training, education, experience, tradition, outlook, good breeding—must pour out with both hands what they have to dispense; not in the way of endowments, conventicles, lectures and patronizing visits, but in quiet, self-sacrificing, ...
— The New Society • Walther Rathenau

... that a sailor always has the best of luck, they played cards freely, always betting on the Jack and Queen, and spent their money more easily than they earned it. They were quite partial to the ladies, and patronizing the bar and card tables as liberally as they did, usually returned to camp on Monday or Tuesday with a mule load of grub and whiskey as all the visible proceeds of a week's successful mining; but when Saturday night came around again we were pretty sure to see ...
— Death Valley in '49 • William Lewis Manly

... in a patronizing way, he said: "Miss Butterworth, I have given you considerable time, and perhaps you'll be kind enough to state your business. I'm a practical man, and I really don't see anything that particularly concerns me in all this talk. Of course, I'm sorry for Benedict and the rest ...
— Sevenoaks • J. G. Holland

... is afflicted with a weakness of this kind, we may regret it. We may pity or censure the star. But we must still acknowledge the star's genius, and applaud it. Hence we conclude that the chronic weakness of actors no more affects the question of the propriety of patronizing theatrical representations, than the profligacy of journeymen shoemakers affects the question of the propriety of wearing boots. All ...
— The Complete Works of Artemus Ward, Part 1 • Charles Farrar Browne

... stories that Mr. Gladstone told with greater relish than one concerning Sir Antonio Panizzi, who many years ago visited the library at Hawarden. Looking round the room and at its closely packed shelves, he observed in a patronizing tone, "I see you have got some books here." Nettled at this seemingly slighting allusion to the paucity of his library, Mr. Gladstone asked Panizzi how many volumes he thought were on the shelves. Panizzi replied: "From five to six thousand." Then a loud and exulting laugh rang ...
— The Grand Old Man • Richard B. Cook

... course, I had the fellow report to my office, and instinctively feeling that I wanted to show my gratitude, without being patronizing, he responded to my question as to what I could do to reward him, by asking simply that I get him some job that would allow him to attend night school. He stated that, owing to the fact that he worked alternate weeks at night shift he was unable ...
— T. Haviland Hicks Senior • J. Raymond Elderdice

... shaking a mandatory fist at Patsy as she disappeared through the door. "Remember—no help from the quality! I hate them as much as you do, and I won't have them coming around with their inquisitive, patronizing, supercilious offers of assistance to a—beggar. I tell you I want to be left alone! If you bring any one back with you I'll burn the stable down about ...
— Seven Miles to Arden • Ruth Sawyer

... extended a fair-skinned talon, and while he gripped my hand in it he bent his body forward three times at the hips, as the stage courtier does, and said in the airiest and most condescending and patronizing way—I quite remember his ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... right," said Christopher in a patronizing way. "There ain't a better man or neighbour alive. I've lived next farm to him for thirty years, so I ought to know. But he's queer sartainly—not like other people—kind of unsociable. He don't care for a thing 'cept dogs and reading and mooning round woods and fields. That ain't natural, you ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1905 to 1906 • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... to which I allude also animadverted severely upon the practice of Southern authors patronizing ...
— Beulah • Augusta J. Evans

... have been, for I never heard anybody talk such a lot of nonsense in all my life. I looked at Jack Ward once, and he was evidently having a very bad time, but every one else except Collier, who was sleepy, seemed to think that Lambert was amusing. He referred to Jack in a patronizing way as "our young hero," and said that my mind had been so completely upset by this brave deed that for some days I had been a cause of considerable anxiety to my friends. When he made that remark I took a very ripe pear from a dish in front of me, but ...
— Godfrey Marten, Undergraduate • Charles Turley

... of the nineteenth century. Barbican will represent Minerva or Science; the Captain, Bellona or War; while I, as Madre Natura, the newly born goddess of Progress, floating gracefully over you both, extend my hands so, fondly patronizing the one, but grandly ordering off the other, to the regions of eternal night! More on your toe, Captain! Your right foot a little higher! Look at Barbican's admirable pose! Now then, prepare to receive ...
— All Around the Moon • Jules Verne

... (113-122) for October, 1805, was written in the old style then fast giving way to the sprightlier methods of the Edinburgh. Here we find a style abounding in literary allusions and classical quotations, and evincing a generally patronizing attitude toward the author under discussion. Most readers will agree with the sentiments expressed by the reviewer, who succeeded in making his article interesting without descending to the depths of buffoonery. No apology is necessary ...
— Early Reviews of English Poets • John Louis Haney

... to one. Henry bought enough lemonade for me and smoking room swill of one sort and another to start his little old Wichita ocean But it was plain that the Gilded Youth interested her. And in a confidential moment filled with laughter and chaff and chatter she told us why: "He's patronizing me. I mean he doesn't know it, and he thinks I don't know it; but that's what he's doing. I interest him as a social specimen. I mean—I'm a bug and he likes to take me up and examine me. I think I'm the first 'Co-ed' he ...
— The Martial Adventures of Henry and Me • William Allen White

... head-wag and hand-wave of an amiable Dundreary. Yet I began to surmise a mystery even in him. More than once he inadvertently betrayed a knowledge of Romany, though he invariably spoke of his friends around in a patronizing manner as "these gypsies." This was very odd, for in appearance he was a Gorgio of the Gorgios, and did not seem, despite any talent for languages which he might possess, likely to trouble himself to acquire Romany while Russian would answer every purpose of conversation. ...
— The Gypsies • Charles G. Leland

... the corner of the street, plunged into the surging crowds of Broadway, passed into the huge restaurant, were once more pounced upon by a businesslike but slightly patronizing maitre d'hotel, and escorted to a remote table in a sort of annex of the room. Philip pushed the ...
— The Cinema Murder • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... in a certain fashion, never fail to produce an effect diametrically opposed to that which they seemingly aim at. M. de Coralth's persistence, and the importance he attached to a mere trifle, could not fail to annoy the most patient man in the world, and in fact his patronizing tone really irritated Pascal. "You are free, my friend, to do as you please," ...
— The Count's Millions - Volume 1 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau

... in my problems more than I can possibly have aided you," Mrs. Carey replied quietly. "Gilbert was so rebellious about country schools, so patronizing, so scornful of their merits, that I fully expected he would never stay at the academy of his own free will. You have converted him, and I am ...
— Mother Carey's Chickens • Kate Douglas Wiggin



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