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Recreant

noun
1.
An abject coward.  Synonyms: craven, poltroon.
2.
A disloyal person who betrays or deserts his cause or religion or political party or friend etc..  Synonyms: apostate, deserter, ratter, renegade, turncoat.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Recreant" Quotes from Famous Books



... almost forgotten; of winding green lanes and of ivied walls, of little solemn churchyards—in none of which she would never lie; of peeps of blue sea from the middle of a wood; of a primrose at the foot of a tree; of the crowded coach and the sounding horn; and lastly of the recreant one whom she could not even call her lover, but who had made her love him so that her very life was eaten away by sickness of fear, of ...
— Crowded Out! and Other Sketches • Susie F. Harrison

... puts in an occasional appearance. The recreant Sosia in Amph. 958 ff. mimics the dutiful slave. As. 259 ff. contains an ironical treatment of augury, while in 751 ff. the poet has his satirical fling at the ...
— The Dramatic Values in Plautus • Wilton Wallace Blancke

... three weeks he had not been to Oakwood, and she was determined no longer to endure such neglect,—at any rate, to investigate it. To this end she had sent Sydney to Dr. Morgan's to inquire of him news of the recreant German. And Sydney had not stayed to see ...
— A Tar-Heel Baron • Mabell Shippie Clarke Pelton

... minute or two during which she pressed him over and over again to have an interview with her recreant lover, bringing up all the arguments that she knew, reminding him of their former affection for each other, telling him that she had no brother of her own, and that her own father was worse than useless in such a matter. A word or two she said of the nature of the prize to be gained, and many ...
— The American Senator • Anthony Trollope

... atonement, still find no resting place,—no spot where he may hide his shame and endeavour to forget his errors? Shall the finger of scorn and derision be pointed at him wherever he betake himself? And must he for ever wander a recreant and outcast on the face of the earth, seeking in vain some friendly shore, where he may at length be freed from ignominious disabilities, and restored to the long lost enjoyment of equal rights and equal ...
— Statistical, Historical and Political Description of the Colony of New South Wales and its Dependent Settlements in Van Diemen's Land • William Charles Wentworth

... it Landry, the recreant, the apostate, the only seceder of our family from the just cause, who speaks thus?" said the old woman lifting her ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 363, January, 1846 • Various

... resumed, logic when pushed far enough becomes incoherence. The psychologist prefers vision and it would display none to believe that she did it. In the abstract, that is to be regretted. A lovely assassin! A beautiful girl slaying a recreant lover! A future prima donna killing a local millionaire! Monty Paliser murdered by the Viscountess of Casa-Evora! And at the opera! If I had ever put anything of the kind in my copy, reviewers would have indolently asked: "Why doesn't ...
— The Paliser case • Edgar Saltus

... some accident had occurred, especially as some of the yells indicated that somebody had come to grief. This caused him a very laborious run, and he arrived thoroughly blown, and with a natural desire to kick the recreant villager who bad caused ...
— Eight Years' Wandering in Ceylon • Samuel White Baker

... to a boy in play, like to ours of yester-eve, Baby Charles, is not to be kept when matters of state conflict." Then turning to the Spanish ambassador, he said: "Rest content, my lord count. This recreant Raleigh shall not ...
— The Children's Book of Christmas Stories • Various

... the upper room where Louise sat all day looking out over the prairie, and on the prairie where business carried Orlando from ranch to ranch on this perfect day, no recreant thought or feeling existed. Each was a simple soul, as yet unspoiled and in one sense unsophisticated—the girl, however, with an instinctive caution, such as an animal possesses in the presence of a foe with which it is in truce; the man with an astuteness which belonged to ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... field and stagnation at home; but, whenever they get to running things their way, it—it is just the reverse." (Shame! No! Wretch!) He vainly strives to rally under the fire of imprecation, but it is too late. The groomsmen are denouncing him, as he deserves to be, as a slanderer and recreant. Mr. Ferris and Mr. Waring spring to their feet to implore the assembly to reject any and all such statements as the emanations of an embittered, oft-rejected, and "subtle, perjured, false, disloyal man;" and poor Blake, who really wanted to ...
— Marion's Faith. • Charles King

... living fire upon it, when the name Is brutish and discolour'd.—When kings fail, Let's bastardize the craven to his breed, And hurl him recreant down! ...
— Cromwell • Alfred B. Richards

... that all such if they give not freely, of themselves be rated according to the Jurisdiction order for the Ministers Maintaynance." The delinquents were ordered to bring their "rate" to the Deacon's house at once. A presuming young man ventured to suggest that the recreant members who would not pay in the face of the whole congregation would hardly rush to the Deacon's door to give in their "rate." He was severely ordered to keep silence in the company of wiser and elder people; ...
— Sabbath in Puritan New England • Alice Morse Earle

... yield, The stern Atrides rages round the field: So some fell lion whom the woods obey, Roars through the desert, and demands his prey. Paris he seeks, impatient to destroy, But seeks in vain along the troops of Troy; Even those had yielded to a foe so brave The recreant warrior, hateful as the grave. Then speaking thus, the king of kings arose, "Ye Trojans, Dardans, all our generous foes! Hear and attest! from Heaven with conquest crown'd, Our brother's arms the just ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer

... leader of the giddy multitude, "when they raged, and became restless to find out misery for themselves and others, and the rabble would herd themselves together," as you said, "and endeavour to govern and act in spite of authority." So you wrote; and what said Franck, that recreant angler? Doth he not praise "Ireton, Vane, Nevill, and Martin, and the most renowned, valorous, and victorious conqueror, Oliver Cromwell"? Natheless, with all his sins on his head, this Franck discovered Scotland for anglers, and my heart turns to him when he praises "the glittering and resolute ...
— Letters to Dead Authors • Andrew Lang

... sin To love his nursling. What! a sin to love! A sin to pity! Rather should we deem Whatever Brahmans wise, or monks may hold, That he had sinned in casting off all love By his retirement to the forest-shades; For that was to abandon duties high, And, like a recreant soldier, leave the post Where God had placed ...
— Ancient Ballads and Legends of Hindustan • Toru Dutt

... the bridal feast, and appeared in red morocco shoes and a cap whose ruffles were the astonishment of the entire assembly. Mary Madeline's squealing baby detained her at home, and perhaps, also, she did not care to see her former lover, recreant and unfaithful though he had been to her, take the solemn vow of eternal ...
— Eventide - A Series of Tales and Poems • Effie Afton

... coast, La Salle had sailed four hundred miles beyond the mouth of the river he sought. Unaware of his mistake, he determined to land and build a temporary fort; but the frigate Aimable, laden with stores, was wrecked upon a reef; Beaujeu, the recreant commander of the Joly, deserted his leader and made sail for France, and presently La Salle was left with only the little frigate Belle. Soon afterwards this vessel also sank beneath the stormy waters of ...
— Old Quebec - The Fortress of New France • Sir Gilbert Parker and Claude Glennon Bryan

... you turn recreant at the last cast? You must along to countenance my undertaking: we ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. 6 (of 18) - Limberham; Oedipus; Troilus and Cressida; The Spanish Friar • John Dryden

... centuries before the Trethericks; but if my family had ever treated me in this way, and then asked me to turn my back on my best friend, I'd whistle them down the wind;" and here Kate snapped her fingers, bent her black brows, and glared around the room as if in search of a recreant Van Corlear. ...
— Selected Stories • Bret Harte

... belle of the kitchen, which was, as usual, none of his affair, Elmendorf took sides with the cook. In the light of his conduct on this occasion, Mrs. Lawrence declared him a pest, and she only recanted when thus unexpectedly he arrayed himself under her own banner against her recreant niece. ...
— A Tame Surrender, A Story of The Chicago Strike • Charles King

... Andrews, a large detachment of U.S. troops arrived, continuing a campaign against the recreant Indians and negroes. The appearance of the men and officers was wretched in the extreme; they had for weeks been beating through swamps and hammocks, thickly matted with palmetto bush, which had torn their undress uniforms in tatters, searching for an invisible enemy, who, thoroughly ...
— An Englishman's Travels in America - His Observations Of Life And Manners In The Free And Slave States • John Benwell

... is not possyble ... ... ... ... ... The smoothe face of the wanton lovelye Richard Should promise more true fortytude in love Then tourne a recreant ...
— A Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. III • Various

... possess one of the most beautiful; so that the strange pleasure of property, that instinct which makes Lizzy delight in her broken doll, and May in the bare bone which she has pilfered from the kennel of her recreant admirer of Newfoundland, is added to the other charms of this enchanting scenery; a strange pleasure it is, when one so poor as I can feel it! Perhaps it is felt most by the poor, with the rich it ...
— Our Village • Mary Russell Mitford

... to be the proper demands of the nation. His opponent for a generation was Benjamin Disraeli, the young Jewish novelist, who had first won a following in the House of Commons by voicing the venom of the old-line protectionist Tories against the recreant Peel. Versatile, shifty, brilliant, this adventurous politician made himself indispensable to the Conservatives, and overcame by political moves which were little short of genius, the leadership of the opposition. Indeed, he may be ...
— Ten Englishmen of the Nineteenth Century • James Richard Joy

... wrong cannot provoke unchastised. Grant that we lose; a loss can be made gain by a king's brave death. Why should not our example rouse and unite all who survive us? Which the nobler example—the one best fitted to protect our country—the recreant backs of living chiefs, or the glorious dead with their fronts to the foe? Come what may, life or death, at least we will thin the Norman numbers, and heap the barriers of our corpses on the Norman march. At least, we can show to the rest of England how men should ...
— Harold, Complete - The Last Of The Saxon Kings • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... provincial opinion at that time. With the glow-worm lights of country places, how could men see which were their own thoughts in the confusion of a Tory Ministry passing Liberal measures, of Tory nobles and electors being anxious to return Liberals rather than friends of the recreant Ministers, and of outcries for remedies which seemed to have a mysteriously remote bearing on private interest, and were made suspicious by the advocacy of disagreeable neighbors? Buyers of the Middlemarch newspapers found themselves in an anomalous position: ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot

... anxious months I had abundant reason to be thankful for the decision at which we had arrived, that I should remain behind when my family left for England. In the discharge of the work devolving on me from day to day, I felt I should have been recreant to duty, and missed many opportunities of usefulness, had I gone away. Early in September, to the great grief of us all, a much-loved member of the Mission, my sister-in-law, the wife of my senior colleague, Mr. Buyers, was removed by death. She had remained behind when other ...
— Life and Work in Benares and Kumaon, 1839-1877 • James Kennedy

... an expression which is half sardonic, half pitiful. Evidently he has not forgotten my quondam oft-repeated vow that no child of mine should be taught the orthodox fairy tales in unlearning which I had spent some of the best years of my life. And now I am a recreant, and he who aided and abetted me in my asseverations of independence remains faithful. Yes, but Nick, poor fellow, has no children. His grin seems to say, "See what you are missing, poor old patriarch; Dorothy and I are off for a ten-mile tramp ...
— The Opinions of a Philosopher • Robert Grant

... William, viscount of Melun, surnamed the Carpenter, from the weighty strokes of his axe; and the saints were scandalized by the fall [971] of Peter the Hermit, who, after arming Europe against Asia, attempted to escape from the penance of a necessary fast. Of the multitude of recreant warriors, the names (says an historian) are blotted from the book of life; and the opprobrious epithet of the rope-dancers was applied to the deserters who dropped in the night from the walls of Antioch. The emperor Alexius, [98] who ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 5 • Edward Gibbon

... contemplated flight, the recent trial having satisfied him of his inability to escape when pursued so closely by numbers. On the contrary, all his energies were aroused in order to meet his expected fate, with a calmness that should do credit to his colour and his manhood; one equally removed from recreant ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper

... thing is the preservation and perpetuity of their own liberties and institutions. And if they shall think as I do, that the extension of slavery endangers them more than any or all other causes, how recreant to themselves if they submit The question, and with it the fate of their country, to a mere handful of men bent only on seif-interest. If this question of slavery extension were an insignificant one, one having no power ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln

... fore-finger on her mouth,—"Hush! no more of that. Forsake the faith of my gallant fathers! I would as soon, were I a man, forsake their banner when the tide of battle pressed hardest against it, and turn, like a hireling recreant, ...
— Rob Roy, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott

... that he was in a worse position than ever. He had played truant once with success; but he was aware that it would not do a second time. Bully Tom was spiteful, and Master Arthur might come to "look up" his recreant pupil, and then ...
— Melchior's Dream and Other Tales • Juliana Horatia Ewing

... future position to their suffrages, more closely identified with them in interest, and partaking more nearly of their modes of thought, and who from the shortness of his term might easily be displaced if he should prove recreant to his trust, thus having every inducement to correctly represent the sentiments and protect the rights of his constituents, might act as a check upon that other house, which, further removed in every respect from the people, elected more in accordance with, the aristocratic ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol. 6, No. 1, July, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various

... Himself has no mercy on them. I should think the walls of this house would fall upon us to hide our shame—I should shrink shudderingly from every table, because that treaty might have been signed on it which is to render us recreant to duty, and to steal our unsullied honor. No! let us be humiliated, and succumb with a clear conscience, rather than accept the friendship and alliance of the Corsican, at the expense ...
— Napoleon and the Queen of Prussia • L. Muhlbach

... the Colonel joined me. He had been to the jobbing-tailor's to be sewn up in several places, and attributed our defeat to the refusal of the detested Drowvey to fall. Finding her so obstinate he had said to her in a loud voice, "Die, recreant!" but had found her no more open to reason on that ...
— The Trial of William Tinkling - Written by Himself at the Age of 8 Years • Charles Dickens

... You must allude, then, to those recreant tribes; which, while in their own eyes presenting a sublime moral spectacle to Mardi,—in King Bello's, do but present a hopeless example of bad debts. And these, the tribes that ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. II (of 2) • Herman Melville

... unquestioning faith, I went on to inquire whether he felt himself equal to the delicate duty of hanging about the yard of the Black Swan, and watching the doors of exit from that hotel, with a view to following my recreant nephew wherever he might go, even if considerably beyond the limits of Ullerton. I saw that the lad's intelligence was likely to be equal to this transaction, unless there should arise any difficult or complicated position by reason of the suspicion of Hawkehurst, or other mischance. ...
— Charlotte's Inheritance • M. E. Braddon

... always count for more than the individual, and that the individual must fall in line and step with the average conventions of the race at the expense of his own well-being, or be judged a deserter and a recreant. ...
— The Quest of the Simple Life • William J. Dawson

... eyes dark hair unwave shave and a Suprano Voice his age 58 his name Steve...." Even though Mr. Washington did not agree to spend his spare time looking for a disloyal husband with a soprano voice, he sent the poor woman a kind reply and suggested some means of tracing her recreant spouse. ...
— Booker T. Washington - Builder of a Civilization • Emmett J. Scott and Lyman Beecher Stowe

... all the host the barons speedily arm themselves and mount. But the Saxon knight, all armed, his visor laced, has continued to pursue Cliges at a gallop. Cliges, who never wished to have aught in common with a recreant or coward, sees him come alone. First of all the knight has assailed him with words: he stoutly calls him baseborn fellow, for he could not conceal the mind he had of him. "Fellow," quoth he, "here wilt thou leave the forfeit for my lord, whom thou hast slain. ...
— Cliges: A Romance • Chretien de Troyes

... seizes a dropped carbine and thrusts it into Burleigh's shaking hands. "Up with you, man!" he cries. "It's your scalp you're fighting for. Here, take a drink of this," and his filled canteen is glued to Burleigh's ashen lips. A long pull, a gasp, and hardly knowing what he does, the recreant officer kneels at the nearmost rock, aims at a painted savage leaping to the aid of a fallen brother, and the chance shot, for a marvel, finds its mark, and with a howl the warrior ...
— A Wounded Name • Charles King

... involuntarily keeping time to the rhythmic rise and fall of the white slippers as they flew by as indefatigably as if winged. When little Vladimir finally relinquished her, with assurances that he was 'desolated to leave so early', she was ready to rest, and see how her recreant knight had ...
— Little Women • Louisa May Alcott

... Lady Seton.—Go, worthless recreant, and in thickest fight Blot out thy guilty purpose: know thy life Depends on this day's daring; and its deeds And wounds alone, won in the ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume XXIV. • Revised by Alexander Leighton

... the friends of Viscellinus [Footnote: Spurius Cassius Viscellinus, the author of the earliest agrarian law, passed, but never carried into execution. He was condemned to death,—probably a victim to the rancorous opposition of the patrician order, of which he was regarded as a recreant member by virtue of his advocacy of the rights or just claims of the plebs. Cicero in early life was by no means so hostile to the principle underlying the agrarian laws, and to the memory of the Gracchi, as he was after he had reached the highest offices ...
— De Amicitia, Scipio's Dream • Marcus Tullius Ciceronis

... are 'Father Rielle,'" she exclaimed, "you think you are entitled to pursue a recreant sheep of the flock even over here! Oh! it is not on account of the storm—I know that—that you follow me! I have seen this coming for some time, and I ...
— Ringfield - A Novel • Susie Frances Harrison

... him, looking like an angry queen about to condemn a recreant vassal to death. And Esterhazy, with the mien and gait of a culprit, carne into her presence with a bow that was ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach

... and turn, good Ximen?" said the Jew, shaking his head; "thou knowest well what my words drive at. Thy master is the pretended Almamen; and that recreant Israelite (if Israelite, indeed, still be one who hath forsaken the customs and the forms of his forefathers) is he who hath stirred up the Jews of Cordova and Guadix, and whose folly hath brought upon us these dread things. Holy Abraham! this Jew hath cost me more than fifty Nazarenes ...
— Leila, Complete - The Siege of Granada • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... "shall approve of all laws," is mandatory and leaves the Executive without discretion. The committee took the whole matter very seriously, believing that great principles were at stake. "As representatives of the people," they declared, "we conceive that we should be recreant to their rights and true interests, if we should acquiesce in the 'veto power' as used by the Executive . . . . We believe the people should be heard through those who represent them and are responsible to them. That their wishes should be regarded, and not the wishes of the Federal Government ...
— History of the Constitutions of Iowa • Benjamin F. Shambaugh

... the lady had no name! Nay, from the looks that were being exchanged, and from the tittering that had risen amongst the younger of his guests, there must be more amiss than that! His Excellency frowned, drew himself up, and turned what was meant to be a searching and terrible eye upon the recreant in white satin. Audrey caught the look, for which Haward cared no whit. Oh, she knew that she had no business there,—she that only the other day had gone barefoot on Darden's errands, had been kept waiting in hall or kitchen of these people's houses! She knew that, for all her ...
— Audrey • Mary Johnston

... said unto me in the days of Josiah, the king,(175) Hast thou seen what recreant Israel did to Me(176) going up every high hill and under each rustling tree, and there playing the harlot. 7. And I said, After she has done all these things can she return to Me?—and she did not return. 8. And her treacherous sister Judah saw, yes she saw,(177) that, ...
— Jeremiah • George Adam Smith

... than innate love, These to my wish must recreant prove; Nor whilst an impulse here remain, Can ever hope the soul to gain; For memory scanning all the past, Relaxes her firm bonds at last, And gives to candor all the grace The heart can in ...
— A Nonsense Anthology • Collected by Carolyn Wells

... cannons' thunder, Whistling shot and bursting bomb, When my brothers fall around me, Should my heart grow cold and numb?" But the drum Answered, "Come! Better there in death united, than in life a recreant.—Come!" ...
— Complete Poetical Works of Bret Harte • Bret Harte

... had read and re-read what was the fullness of their woe. And she couldn't help hating King Mark, even if he was Isoud's lawful lord, because he proved himself such a recreant and false traitor to true love. Of course, he WAS Isoud's husband; and Missy lived in Cherryvale, where conventions were not complicated and were strictly adhered to; else scandal was the result. But she told herself that this situation was different ...
— Missy • Dana Gatlin

... I was sitting in the bar and asking the potman the best way to get to Castle Fyles, it suddenly came over me that it was the Fourth of July, and that, recreant as I was, I had come near forgetting the event altogether. I started off again down the main street to discover some means of raising a noise, and after a good deal of searching I managed to procure several handfuls of strange whitey fire-crackers the size of cigars and a peculiar red package ...
— Love, The Fiddler • Lloyd Osbourne

... 'Thou recreant and coward!' said Beaumains. 'Did not any of those knights that thou hast hung cry to thee for mercy? What pity and what mercy didst thou give them? And thou deservest none from ...
— King Arthur's Knights - The Tales Re-told for Boys & Girls • Henry Gilbert

... courage in an honourable cause, when he knew that he could never be put to the test. But what palliation shall you find for a rogue with so little pride in his art, that he exercised it 'half loth, half consenting'? It is not in this recreant spirit that masterpieces are achieved, and Maclaine had better have stayed in the far Highland parish, which bred him, than have attempted to cut a figure in the larger world of London. His famous encounter with Walpole should have covered him with disgrace, for it was ignoble at ...
— A Book of Scoundrels • Charles Whibley

... instigated by his tempters, the unhappy Doctor Augustine Cazalla urged him to be reconciled to the Church of Rome, he turned on him a look of sorrow and compassion, mingled with contempt, which at once silenced the recreant from the truth. Herezuelo's calmness seemed to excite the rage and all the evil passions of the priests and soldiers. They cursed and swore and reviled him in every possible way. "Ah! ah! in a short time, in spite of your bold looks, you will be in hell ...
— The Last Look - A Tale of the Spanish Inquisition • W.H.G. Kingston

... had insulted a gentleman, and not only challenged, but even pursued him, and blocked up his passage in the public highway; outrages which he (Sir Launcelot) would not suffer to pass unpunished. Accordingly, he insisted on the combat, on pain of treating Sycamore as a craven, and a recreant. This declaration was reinforced by Dawdle, who told him, that, should he now decline the engagement, all the world would look upon him as an ...
— The Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves • Tobias Smollett

... pad and pencil. I put on my coat and hat, pull on my gloves, and in self-defense plunge out into the cold November afternoon. I avoid the country, and try to keep my recreant thoughts on such practical subjects as trolley cars, motor-trucks and delivery wagons, rumbling noisily beside me along the street. A sudden "To Let" card appears in a new apartment. I wonder how much the rent is. I wonder how much the salary of ...
— The Fifth Wheel - A Novel • Olive Higgins Prouty

... that fiery blaze, Which makes it boil along the throbbing veins.— Albion, displeas'd, her own lov'd Spring surveys Passing, with volant step, o'er russet plains; Sees her to Summer's fierce embraces speed, Pale, and unrobed.—Faithless! thou well may'st hide Close in his sultry breast thy recreant head, That did'st, neglecting thy distinguish'd Isle, In Winter's icy arms so long abide, While Britain ...
— Original sonnets on various subjects; and odes paraphrased from Horace • Anna Seward

... him by the delights of her garden; the songs and dances of her maidens; her sweetest caresses. He turns from her with loathing, he curses her. At last Kirke's love turns to fierce hatred; she changes her garden into a desert; she calls upon Helios to come and slay her recreant lover. The sun god appears indeed, but says Zeus has forbidden him to injure Odysseus. In mad {410} frenzy Kirke tears his bow and arrow from Helios; she will kill her false lover herself; but her heart misgives her, the ...
— The Standard Operaglass - Detailed Plots of One Hundred and Fifty-one Celebrated Operas • Charles Annesley

... attendant upon it, Cuba is as necessary to the North American republic as any of its present members"; spoke of the danger to the United States of an insurrection in Cuba; asserted that "we should be recreant to our duty, be unworthy of our gallant forefathers, and commit base treason against our posterity, should we permit Cuba to be Africanized and become a second Santo Domingo, with all its attendant horrors to the white race, and suffer the flames to extend ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 3 - "Brescia" to "Bulgaria" • Various

... thou recreant Jack, thou lily-livered Jack, thou hysterical Jack. Tell me now, thou hast read ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley

... sir, if the people of Pennsylvania could sustain a distinction so odious, the very shades of their ancestors would rise from the battlefields of the Revolution, from Paoli and Germantown, and call their children bondmen of Carolina, vassals and recreant slaves! I speak not now of the whiskey insurrection, when, at the order of Washington, the militia of Virginia and of other States moved against the people of Western Pennsylvania, under the command of the Governor of Virginia and ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 3 No 2, February 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... to be on the parade at the "assembly of the details," not so much to watch the work of the post adjutant pro tempore, as the effect of the sudden and unlooked for change on certain of the customary spectators. He had swiftly ridden to the camp of the recreant Stabber and purposely demanded speech with that influential chieftain. There had been the usual attempt on part of the old men left in charge to hoodwink and to temporize, but when sharply told that Stabber, with his warriors, had been seen riding ...
— A Daughter of the Sioux - A Tale of the Indian frontier • Charles King

... turpi remedio fatentur se uti; recordatione pristinarum voluptatum se recreant, et adversante natura, pollinctam ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior

... had twitched so that the astonished palfrey reared. "I design torture," the Queen said; "ah, I perfect exquisite torture, for you have proven recreant, you have forgotten the maid Ysabeau,—Le Desir du Cuer, was it not, my Gregory, that you were wont to call her, as nowadays this Rosamund is the desire of your heart. You ...
— Chivalry • James Branch Cabell

... let the loud fierce knaves thy brethren quelled Ward off the wolves whose hides should line thy throne, Wert thou no coward, no recreant to the bone, No liar in spirit and soul and heartless heart, No slave, no traitor—nought of all thou art. A thing like thee, made big with braggart breath, Whose tongue shoots fire, whose promise poisons trust, Would cast a shieldless soldier forth to death And wreck three ...
— Locrine - A Tragedy • Algernon Charles Swinburne

... thought of looking out a husband for her. How it happened, I should not be able to tell you; everything might seem so untrue. She became pregnant. I had already long felt dismay at my own weakness and meanness. Shame, despair, dread of the world, waged war within my soul, and made me their recreant slave. I sent her away in my distress, provided for her, richly, prodigally; but my heart was turned to stone. Grief, sadness, doubts in herself and in God, bitter mortification that she had forfeited ...
— The Old Man of the Mountain, The Lovecharm and Pietro of Abano - Tales from the German of Tieck • Ludwig Tieck

... a glow of light held at arm's length by the recreant follower of Destiny illuminating a tableau which shall end the ignominious chronicle—a maid with unkissed, curling, contemptuous lips slowly lifting the lamp chimney and allowing the wick to ignite; then ...
— Roads of Destiny • O. Henry

... to come from the ground under the seat which I was occupying. My nerves are not easily shaken by trifles, but on this occasion I started to my feet in a fright—called out—received no answer—summoned back my recreant courage, and looked ...
— The Woman in White • Wilkie Collins

... usurper. England has her, navy and her army to operate against any rising of the inhabitants, at a moment's warning; while every office in the kingdom, of the slightest importance or trust, is in the hands of her minions. Again, among some of the recreant sons of the soil, she has, alas too ample scope for the use of her accursed gold; and thus it is; that to cope singled handed with her against such fearful odds, would involve oceans of blood, both on the field and on the scaffold. When, however, we come to dwell on the fact, that ...
— Ridgeway - An Historical Romance of the Fenian Invasion of Canada • Scian Dubh

... cannons' thunder, Whistling shot and bursting bomb, When my brothers fall around me, Should my heart grow cold and numb?' But the drum Answered, 'Come! Better there in death united, than in life a recreant,—Come!'" ...
— Deeds that Won the Empire - Historic Battle Scenes • W. H. Fitchett

... huge embattled piles which flung their dark shadows over the streets of Florence tell of the ceaseless war between baronage and people. The famous penalty by which some of the democratic communes condemned a recreant cobbler or tinker to "descend" as his worst punishment "into the order of the noblesse," tells of the hate and issue of the struggle between them. But no trace of struggle or of hate breaks the annals of Venice. There is no people, no democratic Broletto, no Hall of the Commune. And as there ...
— Stray Studies from England and Italy • John Richard Green

... the carp," quoth Robert with a hard smile, "when they dangled him up with a line out of the moat. Change and adventure are meet for all men. And I look that I do a good deed, when I restore a recreant shepherd to the fold." The priest went off, crying unworthy tears and cursing the new lord, to try and find a priest's office if he could; and Robert rode grimly away, back to his uncle, and told him all ...
— Paul the Minstrel and Other Stories - Reprinted from The Hill of Trouble and The Isles of Sunset • Arthur Christopher Benson

... cousin Jack. You speak of its being time to cease roving, of settling yourself at last, of never parting, and, prodigal as you are, of making Eve the future mistress of your fortune. Now to all this, recreant, confess, or I shall never again ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper

... a mistress who engages a maid without such credentials is regarded as recreant to her order. In England, too, the former mistress is held partly responsible for the mischief done, if she turn loose upon other households a woman ...
— The Secret of a Happy Home (1896) • Marion Harland

... softly smiling and holding out his womanish white hands. She would have rejoined him, but once again Constans forced her back. The dangling rope of the alarm-bell grazed his hand; he clutched at it, and a clang re-echoed through the court-yard, rousing the recreant warders from their slumbers. In that same instant Quinton ...
— The Doomsman • Van Tassel Sutphen

... Reconciliation pacigo. Reconsider rekonsideri. Recopy rekopii. Record registri, raporti. Recount (relate) rakonti. Recourse, to have alkuri. Recover (find) retrovi. Recover (to get well) resanigxi. Recreant timulo. Recreate rekrei. Recreation ludtempo. Recriminate kontrauxdiradi. Recrimination kontrauxdirado. Recruit (health) resani, resanigi. Recruit varbi. Recruit varbito, rekruto. ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes

... that her sons 305 Who frown on Freedom spare a smile for thee: Russia still hovers, as an eagle might Within a cloud, near which a kite and crane Hang tangled in inextricable fight, To stoop upon the victor;—for she fears 310 The name of Freedom, even as she hates thine. But recreant Austria loves thee as the Grave Loves Pestilence, and her slow dogs of war Fleshed with the chase, come up from Italy, And howl upon their limits; for they see 315 The panther, Freedom, fled to her old cover, Amid seas and mountains, and a mightier brood Crouch round. ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley

... twenty years ago, when it was first launched in the United States, and having labored so long and so earnestly for the enfranchisement of the male citizens of our country, irrespective of color or race, it would have been grossly inconsistent in me, not to say recreant and mean, to shrink from the duties for which you compliment me when ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage

... charges in fitting out an armament against the Spaniards, during the time of the Armada, as by the fines and confiscations levied on it by Elizabeth for harbouring of priests, obstinate recusancy, and popish misdoings. A recreant of James's time was momentarily perverted from his religion by the arguments of that great theologian, and the fortunes of the family somewhat restored by his timely weakness. But the Earl of Camelot, of the reign of Charles, returned to the old creed of his family, and they continued ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray

... his delivery by the Archduke John, into whose hands he first fell. But where he is no one exactly knows. The news has created an immense excitement in the kingdom, and all are resolved to sacrifice any of their treasures which may be demanded in order to satisfy the ransom which the recreant emperor has placed upon the king. Shame is it indeed that a Christian sovereign should hold another in captivity. Still more, when that other was returning through his dominions as a Crusader coming from the Holy Land, when his person should be safe, even to his deadliest enemy. ...
— The Boy Knight • G.A. Henty

... torment me. I beg you to wait until those days may come when I can show you all the devotion I yearn now to give you, but must not, for every moment that voice may reach me from beyond the grave, and I would be recreant to the most sacred obligations, and deep responsibilities that seem now to shape themselves before me, to our common humanity, if I forfeited an instant of inattention. I beg you to remember all this and wait, wait, until the depthless ...
— The Certainty of a Future Life in Mars • L. P. Gratacap

... had been engaged—only for nine weeks, indeed—but still, it was a little disappointing. However, Cousin Hans understood human nature, and he had seen enough of her that morning to know that her feelings towards her recreant lover could not have been true love. So ...
— Tales of Two Countries • Alexander Kielland

... face between her hands and lifted it gently. Tear-stained it was, flushing and paling, but its velvety, pink-and-white, becomingly freckled surface was unscratched, unbruised, unmarred by the recreant fist of Mr. Fink. ...
— The Trimmed Lamp and Others • O Henry

... to behave like men and not turn back in battle. Yet probably over half of these same doughty black soldiers had been dervishes before they came over to us. "Victory or death," was the cry of these fiery Amazons to their warrior lovers. He would have been recreant indeed or a marvellously brave man that would have returned to one of them a confessed runaway from battle. It was not surprising that the Sirdar did not object to their presence in the field, and occasionally saw that they ...
— Khartoum Campaign, 1898 - or the Re-Conquest of the Soudan • Bennet Burleigh

... like a recreant now avoid the deathful strife, After all his bravest warriors have ...
— Maha-bharata - The Epic of Ancient India Condensed into English Verse • Anonymous

... instrumental in spreading the glorious truths of the gospel throughout the country, but at length, venturing into a part of Europe where the papists were supreme, he was seized and accused of being a recreant monk. Refusing to abjure the faith, he—as were many others at that time—was condemned to the flames, and became one of the noble army of martyrs who will one day rise up in judgment against that ...
— The Woodcutter of Gutech • W.H.G. Kingston

... be the lord of a first-rate embassy; and a poor novelist, when he attempts to rival Dickens or rise above Fitzjeames, commits no fault, though he may be foolish. Sydney Smith truly said that in these recreant days we cannot expect to find the majesty of St. Paul beneath the cassock of a curate. If we look to our clergymen to be more than men, we shall probably teach ourselves to think that they are less, and can hardly hope ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope

... whom she was largely indebted for the fortune to which she had succeeded, the captain of her. The steam-yacht was the Viking, and Mrs. Scoble sailed in her to New York, and then to England, where she obtained a divorce from her recreant husband, and became the wife of Captain Sharp, who was now in command of the Blanche, the white steamer that sailed abreast of the Guardian-Mother when the wreck in ...
— Across India - Or, Live Boys in the Far East • Oliver Optic

... the distempered flesh from off the bones, Madness and panic fears that haunt by night; Then banishment from human intercourse; From the libation, from the loving cup, And from the altar, whence a father's wrath Unseen should drive the recreant; at the last Death without honour and without a friend.— Think ye that I such oracles could slight? And if I did, the deed must still be done; For many motives join to set me on: The gods command, my murdered father calls For vengeance, ...
— Specimens of Greek Tragedy - Aeschylus and Sophocles • Goldwin Smith

... stood up in the presence of the great congregation and attested our love for Christ and said from this time we will serve the Lord, have we not all been recreant? Have we not gone astray like lost sheep, and there is no health in us? Oh, they touch Christ; they have touched Him on the tenderest ...
— Around The Tea-Table • T. De Witt Talmage

... a curse upon his head Who dares insult the noble dead, And basely scrawl his worthless name Upon the records of their fame! Nelson, arise! thy country gave A heartfelt tear, a hallow'd grave: Her eyes are dry, her recreant sons Dare to profane thy mould'ring bones! And you, ye heroes of the past, Who serv'd your country to the last, And bought her freedom with your blood, Cornwallis, Duncan, Collingwood! Rise, if ye can, and mark the wretch Who dares his impious arm to stretch ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 20, Issue 561, August 11, 1832 • Various

... irresistible appeal. We non-Catholics can feel this even at the distance to which our Protestantism has remanded us, and at your first visit to the Seville cathedral during mass you cannot help a moment of recreant regret when you wish that a part in the mystery enacting was your birthright. The esthetic emotion is not denied you; the organ-tide that floods the place bears you on it, too; the priests perform their rites before the altar for you; they come and go, they bow and kneel, for you; the censer swings ...
— Familiar Spanish Travels • W. D. Howells

... whole question in all its beatings. The course of events is so rapidly hastening forward that the emergency may soon arise when you may be called upon to decide the momentous question whether you possess the power by force of arms to compel a State to remain in the Union. I should feel myself recreant to my duty were I not to express an opinion on this ...
— State of the Union Addresses of James Buchanan • James Buchanan

... for the district?" inquired Rachel, conquering a recreant lip to put the question, and putting ...
— The Shadow of the Rope • E. W. Hornung

... nothing more to say to you." And, drawing over the slide of the scuttle, he disappeared. Upon the very point of following him down, the attention of the exasperated seamen was called off to a party who had just then taken the recreant Bungs in hand. Amid a shower of kicks and cuffs, the traitor was borne along to the forecastle, where—I forbear to relate ...
— Omoo: Adventures in the South Seas • Herman Melville

... was known to the Haussas as MacGreg. His horse, surrounded by half a dozen badly-charred corpses, was discovered, but of the rider there were no signs. Reluctantly Wilmshurst was forced to come to the conclusion that fortune had favoured the recreant, and that under cover of the dense smoke the fellow had either crawled away or else had been carried by some of ...
— Wilmshurst of the Frontier Force • Percy F. Westerman

... the colonies for the struggle for liberty, and who had said to an agent of General Gage who offered him bribes if he would make his peace with the king, "I have long ago made my peace with the King of kings, and no power on earth can make me recreant to my duties ...
— True to His Home - A Tale of the Boyhood of Franklin • Hezekiah Butterworth

... foot of the accommodation-ladder. Ghita now descended; and as soon as her uncle and she were seated, the skiff, for it was little more, whirled away from the ship's side, though two or three more, who had also been left by recreant boatmen for better fares, called out to him ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper

... plain face, but a strong heart, and when she saw that Amy Holbrook was preferred, with steady hand and unflinching nerve, she wrote to her recreant lover that he was free. And now Amy, to whom the false knight turned, took it into her capricious head that she would not marry a farmer—she had always fancied a physician; and if young B—— would win her, he ...
— Homestead on the Hillside • Mary Jane Holmes

... with dignity, whilst he slowly seated himself; "sir, you are justified in thus misdoubting me; for though a gentleman should, like the wife of Caesar, be above suspicion, never yet knew chivalry a time but there were recreant knights. Moreover, I can perceive that circumstances now must shadow, and, as with refracting influence, distort me, so that I may well stand here seeming to be deformed, although my soul, if you could see it, would show wanting no part of honour's fair proportions. Hear me, then, patiently, ...
— The Advocate • Charles Heavysege

... walking back, "I do prize thy friendship more than precious jewels; but I were untrue to that love, should I expose thee to danger. For myself, I were a recreant, and no knight, could I, because of danger, refuse to obey a call to benefit my fellow-men; but, for thee, it is a reckless and unneeded temptation of peril. Deem me not unkind, but think it is my love and anxiety ...
— The Knight of the Golden Melice - A Historical Romance • John Turvill Adams

... design to trespass upon the time of the Conference at this stage of the debate. But statements have been made upon this floor to-day which I cannot permit for a single hour to remain unanswered. I should be recreant to my conscience, and especially to my State, if I did not ...
— A Report of the Debates and Proceedings in the Secret Sessions of the Conference Convention • Lucius Eugene Chittenden

... appeal was essentially iconoclastic, and the method of a reformer at close quarters with a mighty system of wrong cannot be measured by the standards of cool and polite debate. Phillips did not shrink from the sternest denunciation, or ridicule or scorn, of those who seemed to him recreant to freedom and humanity. The idols of a purely conventional virtue he delighted to shatter, because no public enemy seemed to him more deadly than the American who ...
— The Evolution of Expression Vol. I • Charles Wesley Emerson

... breezily down the trail after the recreant horses, whistled a tune as he went, for he was happy. He did not weigh reason against happiness—it was too soon for that. He would have given you, however, if pressed, a number of very good reasons why he and Polly ...
— Across the Mesa • Jarvis Hall

... King gazed on Shagpat, and was checked by passion at beholding him under the lather, so that the people praised Shagpat and the King. Then said he, 'O people, who shall forecast disasters and triumphs? Lo, I had this day at dawn intelligence from recreant Oolb, and its King and Court, and of their return to do honour to Shagpat! And I had this day at dawn tidings, O people, from Shiraz, and of the adhesion of that vain city and its provinces to the might of Shagpat! So commenced the day, yet is he, the object of the world's homage, ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... the time is strong again in the following Stornello,—a cry of reproach that seems to follow some recreant from a beleaguered camp of true comrades, and to utter the feeling of men who marched to battle through defection, and were strong chiefly in their just cause. It bears the date of that fatal hour ...
— Modern Italian Poets • W. D. Howells

... beautiful in England; it is a pile of ruins, like your faith! I wander round in your villages. Your tenants have gone the way of their lord. Roman Catholicism is a dying power. Hideous chapels have sprung up in all your districts! The true faith is neglected! And who is to blame for it all? Your recreant family. You, who should have been the most zealous upholders of religion, have drifted down the stream of fashion, nerveless and indifferent. Oh! it is heresy, rank heresy, to think of a De Vaux, such as you, dwelling indifferent amongst the ...
— A Monk of Cruta • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... one ladder and the free-trader at the other, in order to be certain that none proved recreant in so trying a moment. Near them were Alida, Seadrift, and the Alderman, with the attendants of ...
— The Water-Witch or, The Skimmer of the Seas • James Fenimore Cooper

... should descend to dabble in the black art of magic, and play tricks on the credulity of ignorant people by his knowledge of some simple secrets of chemistry; that he should pretend to prophetic gifts which in his heart he knew to be fraud, and should be recreant to his ancestral faith, proved him to deserve the penetrating sentence which Paul passed on him. He was a trickster, and knew that he was: his inspiration came from an evil source; he had come to hate righteousness of ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: The Acts • Alexander Maclaren

... relying upon German help; they now see and say that "e faaalo Siamani i Peritania ma America, that Germany is subservient to England and the States." It is grimly given to be understood that the despatch is an ultimatum, and a last chance is being offered for the recreant ally to fulfil her pledge. To make it more plain, the document goes on with a kind of bilious irony: "The two German war-ships now in Samoa are here for the protection of German property alone; and when the Olga shall have arrived" [she arrived on the morrow] "the German ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 17 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... aid in diffusing the principles of brotherly love throughout the world. We have assumed the office of guarding the holy flame which burns on the altar of benevolence, and we are bound to cherish its principles. That brother is recreant to every honorable feeling who can trifle with the solemn ...
— The Jericho Road • W. Bion Adkins

... For this reason, then, for this reason, when they yesterday saw Cleonymus the recreant, on this account they became stags, because they saw this most ...
— The Clouds • Aristophanes

... King in sore despite; "A murrain seize that traitrous knight, For that he lies!" he cried— "A base, unchristian paynim he, Else, by my beard, he would not be A recreant to his bride! ...
— John Smith, U.S.A. • Eugene Field

... petition was not an ebullition of vindictiveness. It had a practical purpose. On the scaffold he could say nothing for Cobham; Cobham might say much for him. It was possible that, when nothing more was to be gained by falsehoods, his recreant friend would clear his fame once for all. Then he quitted the hall, accompanying Sir Benjamin Tichborne, the High Sheriff, to the prison, according to Sir Thomas Overbury, 'with admirable erection, yet in such sort as ...
— Sir Walter Ralegh - A Biography • William Stebbing

... kept on weaving stores of fine linen and making regular pilgrimages for the letter which did not come. Years afterward, when the man finally appeared, it was all right, and the wedding went on just the same, even though in the meantime the recreant knight had ...
— The Spinster Book • Myrtle Reed

... the 2nd of December have in this wise passed before his eyes; he has recorded them all, weighed them all—not one has escaped him. History will be able to complete this narration, but not to weaken it. The magistrates were recreant to their trust, he has performed their functions. When direct, spoken testimony has failed him, he has sent to the spot what one might call genuine investigating commissions. He might cite many a fact for which he has prepared genuine interrogatories to which detailed replies ...
— Napoleon the Little • Victor Hugo

... a zealous Protestant; but without any regard to the supremacy of either mode of faith, it appears to have been a natural consequence of his birth and early associations that he should cling to the house of the Stuarts. One would almost have applied to the young nobleman the term "recreant," had he wavered when the descendant of Mary Stuart claimed his services. But such a course was far from his inclination. It was afterwards deemed expedient by his friends to plead for him on the ground of natural weakness ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745 - Volume II. • Mrs. Thomson

... prelates and lay lords, who, by virtue of their nobility, were exempt from taxation. The collection of the taxes was enforced with unrelenting severity. On one occasion, in the reign of Louis XIV., the troops sent out against the recreant peasants made more than 3,000 prisoners, of whom 400 were condemned to the galleys for life, and a number so large that the government did not dare to disclose it, were hung on trees or broken on the wheel.—Moreau de Jonnes, Etat Economique et Social de la France, ...
— The Earth as Modified by Human Action • George P. Marsh

... abundant accountant arrogant assailant assistant attendant clairvoyant combatant recreant consonant conversant defendant descendent discordant elegant exorbitant important incessant irrelevant luxuriant malignant petulant pleasant poignant reluctant stagnant triumphant vagrant warrant ...
— The Art Of Writing & Speaking The English Language - Word-Study and Composition & Rhetoric • Sherwin Cody

... knave,' he said to me, 'get you gone to the witch, Cicely Foterell, and to the recreant monk, Bolle, whom I curse and excommunicate from the fellowship of Holy Church, and tell them to watch for the first light of dawn, for by it, somewhat high up, they'll see Christopher Harflete hanging black against ...
— The Lady Of Blossholme • H. Rider Haggard

... toward Britt, he was dreading what might come from the disclosures he had just made. He had reason to distrust the tactics such men might employ. His relief arising from the show-down was tinged with regret; he was still sorry for the innocent losers in Egypt. To employ two escaped convicts and a recreant prison guard in his efforts to prevail on Britt and secure the rights due an innocent man promised to involve him ...
— When Egypt Went Broke • Holman Day

... antic shapes I take; The stoutest heart at my touch will quake. The miser dreams of a bag of gold, Or a ponderous chest on his bosom rolled. The drunkard groans 'neath a cask of wine; The reveller swelts 'neath a weighty chine. The recreant turns, by his foes assailed, To flee!—but his feet to the ground are nailed. The goatherd dreams of his mountain-tops, And, dizzily reeling, ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth

... my golden tree Pushed off its petals to get room to grow, I stripped the boughs to make an April gaud And wreathe a spendthrift garland for my hair. But mine is not the failure God deplores; For I of old am beauty's votarist, Long recreant, often foiled and led astray, But resolute at last to seek her there Where most she does abide, and crave with tears That she assoil me of my blemishment. Low looms her singing face to point the way, ...
— Gloucester Moors and Other Poems • William Vaughn Moody

... for you. Come with me, and don't sit starving here," said Tom, with a scornful look from her empty plate to that of her recreant escort, which ...
— An Old-fashioned Girl • Louisa May Alcott

... dear Cally, comes the hour When triumph crowns thy will, Submissive to thy winning power I seize the recreant quill: Indite these lines to bless thy days And sing my peans ...
— James Fenimore Cooper • Mary E. Phillips

... by him who made The world! thy heart-blood dyes my blade.— Thy threats, thy mercy I despise, Let recreant ...
— Gomez Arias - The Moors of the Alpujarras, A Spanish Historical Romance. • Joaquin Telesforo de Trueba y Cosio

... law of nations and of civilized warfare, immersed the flourishing town of Newark (Niagara) in one continued sheet of flame, and ignobly fled with his followers into his territory. The historian laments that it is not in his power to record one magnanimous act of that recreant General, to rescue his name from that gulf of infamy to which his nefarious conduct has ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 2 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Edgerton Ryerson

... plead their cause at the bar of the convention. In contrast with this, Fillmore had no support from New York. The Whigs of that State had sent a delegation to impeach him before the nation for faithlessness to principle, and to demand that votes of other States should not impose on New York a recreant son to confound and destroy ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine

... resource of the organization, in this connection, is to interdict to the recreant member the use of all caste servants. For instance, the caste barber and washerman are commanded to serve him and his no longer. The severity of this interdiction cannot possibly be realized by westerners, ...
— India, Its Life and Thought • John P. Jones

... receive officials so lost to self-respect as to accept appointments against the known and expressed wish of the people, and so craven and degraded as to need an army to protect them in their position, we feel that we should be recreant to every principle of self-respect, honor, integrity, and patriotism to bow tamely to such high-handed tyranny, a parallel for which is only found in the attempts of the British government, in its most corrupt ...
— The Story of the Mormons: • William Alexander Linn

... or by Him who made The world, thy heart's blood dyes my blade!"— "Thy threats, thy mercy, I defy! Let recreant yield, who fears to die." —Like adder darting from his coil, Like wolf that dashes through the toil, Like mountain-cat who guards her young, Full at Fitz-James's throat he sprung; Received, but recked not of a wound, And locked his arms his foeman ...
— The Ontario Readers: Fourth Book • Various

... lank and lean discolour'd cheek, With heavy eye, knit brow, and strengthless pace, Feebly Desire, all recreant, poor, and meek, Like to a bankrupt beggar wails his case: The flesh being proud, Desire doth fight with Grace, For there it revels; and when that decays, The guilty rebel for ...
— The Rape of Lucrece • William Shakespeare [Clark edition]

... appears The ancestral crime. When the dark hour comes that the gods have decreed And the Fury burns with wrathful fires, A demon unholy, with ire unabated, Lies like black night on the halls of the fated; And the recreant Son plunges guiltily on To perfect the ...
— Lectures Delivered in America in 1874 • Charles Kingsley

... girl could not doubt her sincerity. But with the injustice of a passionate, jealous love she did not so much blame her recreant lover. Some charm, some art, must have been used, perhaps by a third person, and the girl be guiltless. And if she could send her away and remain in ...
— A Little Girl in Old Detroit • Amanda Minnie Douglas

... Christ as the husband (2 Cor. 11:2; compare Rev. 21:2). To be spiritually adulterous, as the rabbis construed the utterances of the prophets, was to be false to the covenant by which the Jewish nations claimed distinction, as the worshipers of Jehovah, and to be wholly recreant and reprobate. Convicted on such a charge those sign-seeking Pharisees and scribes understood that Jesus classed them as worse than the idolatrous heathen. The words "adultery" and "idolatry" are of related ...
— Jesus the Christ - A Study of the Messiah and His Mission According to Holy - Scriptures Both Ancient and Modern • James Edward Talmage

... Except for his work as one of the early leaders of the liberal movement in Germany, it has perished, and his name has been almost forgotten. As a lover, his story stands out forever as a warning to the timid and the recreant. Let men do what they will; but there is just one thing which no man is permitted to do with safety in the sight of woman—and that ...
— Famous Affinities of History, Vol 1-4, Complete - The Romance of Devotion • Lyndon Orr

... Jackson, with ten thousand at his back; And Longstreet, too, and gallant Hill, and Rhodes, and brave Huger,[1] And he whose name is worth a host, our bold, devoted Lee; And back to where the lordly James his scornful billow rolls, The recreant foe is fleeing fast—those men ...
— War Poetry of the South • Various

... shades worn tend to soft pallors, lavender, and pink, and creamy white. A group of girlish shapes in these colors, seen newly lighted at a doorway from a passing carriage, gave as they pressed eagerly forward a supreme effect of that sentiment in English dress which I hope I am not recreant in liking. Occasionally, also, there was a scarf, lightly escaping, lightly caught, which, with an endearing sash, renewed for a fleeting moment a bygone age of Sensibility, as we find it recorded in many a graceful page, on ...
— London Films • W.D. Howells

... destruction of tilled lands, and even of the shell-fish on the shore, did not break the spirit of the Highlanders. Many bands held out in arms, and Lochgarry was only prevented by the Prince's command from laying an ambush for Cumberland. The Campbells and the Macleods under their recreant chief, the Whig Macdonalds under Sir Alexander of Sleat, ravaged the lands of the Jacobite clansmen; but the spies of Albemarle, who now commanded in Scotland, reported the Macleans, the Grants of Glenmoriston, with the Macphersons, Glengarry's men, and Lochiel's Camerons, as all eager ...
— A Short History of Scotland • Andrew Lang

... Deveny saw the men around him stiffen rigidly; he heard their slow-drawn breaths. The thought to draw his gun was strong in him, and he fought hard to force his recreant muscles to do the will of his mind. For an instant he stood, his right hand poised above the holster of his pistol, the elbow crooked, ...
— 'Drag' Harlan • Charles Alden Seltzer

... to hear you say so, Mistress Thankful," said Washington quietly; "for 'twould have been natural for you to have sought an interview with your recreant lover in yonder camp, though the attempt would have been ...
— Thankful Blossom • Bret Harte

... honourable to both parties. It was for the sake of her rouge friends that she approached the President at all, and she has used the hand he stretched out to her only on behalf of persons in prison and distress. The same, being delivered, call her gratefully a recreant. ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Volume II • Elizabeth Barrett Browning

... laughing. "Well, perhaps a jilted bride and her father do not always want to speak a good word for a recreant lover, but that is not the case this time, and who knows but we may be able to persuade the mother to see as we do. Toni and I have both remarked that Will never was a man until now, and that—forgive me, Regine, but I must say it—he owes his ...
— The Northern Light • E. Werner

... and dastard fear. Locks and bolts could not secure him from dismal apprehensions. A sound shook him, as the unseen wind makes the tall poplar shudder—a voice struck terror in his ear, and sickness to recreant heart. He could not be alone—for alarm was heightened by the speaking conscience that pronounced it just. He journeyed from place to place, his brother ever at his side, and the shadow of the avenger ever stalking in the rear, and impelling the weary wanderer ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 53, No. 331, May, 1843 • Various

... conviction that its principles and its aims are those of truth and the country, as we cling to the Union for the fulfillment of the purposes for which it was formed. Whenever we shall be taught that the Democratic party is recreant to its principles; whenever we shall learn that it can not be relied upon to maintain the great measures which constitute its vitality—I for one shall be ready to leave it. And so, when we declare ...
— The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government • Jefferson Davis

... Amongst our recreant Shaykhs I must not include Furayj bin Raf'a el-Huwayt, a man of whom any tribe might be proud, and a living proof that the Bedawi may still be a true gentleman. A short figure, meagre of course, as becomes the denizen of the Desert, ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 1 • Richard Burton

... has flown back to me in wild affright—the mere wreck of what she was, poor child! when I gave her into your keeping—and the inviolable sanctity of my house is around her. I much fear, Leon Dexter, that you have proved recreant to your trust—that you have not loved, protected, and cherished that delicate flower. The sweetness of her life ...
— The Hand But Not the Heart - or, The Life-Trials of Jessie Loring • T. S. Arthur

... alive these remnants of a once powerful people, and reconcile them to civilization, there is much reason to fear, that, however successfully we may excuse ourselves to ourselves by pleading the manifest destiny of the Anglo-Saxon race, impartial history will pronounce us recreant to a sacred duty. ...
— The Indian Question (1874) • Francis A. Walker

... beauty was cheapened in her own eyes. She saw herself swart and harsh-faced as some old savage squaw beside this fair angel. She turned on herself as well as on her recreant lover with rage and disdain—and all the time ...
— Madelon - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman

... proved successful, I could feel that part of the creating power was mine; for had I not trusted him? Let a man realize that there is some one who has faith in him, and the battle is half won. Even suppose he were to prove the recreant and the impostor predicted, the world would not be able to jeer at me; I could hug my wretched secret, and none would be the wiser. Decidedly, I was to be envied in the acquisition of this new interest. It would be almost like having a double ...
— A Romantic Young Lady • Robert Grant

... for thee: Russia still hovers, as an eagle might Within a cloud, near which a kite and crane Hang tangled in inextricable fight, To stoop upon the victor; for she fears The name of Freedom, even as she hates thine; But recreant Austria loves thee as the grave Loves pestilence; and her slow dogs of war, Fleshed with the chase, come up from Italy, And howl upon their limits; for they see The panther Freedom fled to her old cover Amid seas and mountains, and ...
— Mosaics of Grecian History • Marcius Willson and Robert Pierpont Willson

... publishes to the universe the day and the hour when the judges brought the golden pen to his house, and while he checks the insolence of this Bobadil, to show himself no recreant, assumes the golden ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli

... son, For him whose god-like eloquence could stun, Like some vast cat'ract, Faction's clam'rous tongue, Or by its sweetness charm, like Virgil's song, For him, whose mighty spirit rous'd afar Europe's plum'd legions to the hallow'd war; But who, ah! hapless tale! could not inspire Their recreant chiefs with his heroic fire; Who, as they pass'd the tyrant Conqu'ror's yoke, Felt, as the bolt of Heav'n, the ruthless stroke; And having long, in vain, the tempest brav'd, Could breathe no longer in a ...
— Poems • Sir John Carr

... "took" the child was declared immune to the bacteria of ignorance, illiteracy, stupidity and other prevalent social complaints. If the virus did not take the schoolmaster ostentatiously washed his hands of the recreant. ...
— The New Education - A Review of Progressive Educational Movements of the Day (1915) • Scott Nearing

... knights we'll hack, and so thou shouldest not alter the article of thy gentry. The punishment of a recreant or undeserving knight, was to hack off his spurs: the meaning therefore is; it is not worth the while of a gentlewoman to be made a knight, for we'll degrade all these knights in a little time, by the usual form of hacking off their ...
— Johnson's Notes to Shakespeare Vol. I Comedies • Samuel Johnson

... is interwoven with his. And do you think me so spiritless as to believe that I can be yours by compulsion? Tempt me not again, for the next time shall be the last, and the fish of the nearest river shall commute the flesh of a recreant knight into the fast-day dinner of an uncarnivorous friar. I spare you now, not in pity but in scorn. Yet shall you swear to a convention never more to pursue or molest my lord or me, and on this condition you ...
— Maid Marian • Thomas Love Peacock

... man!' said I in great affliction, 'they are awa'.' The night was so dark that I could not see Sirrah, but the faithful animal heard my words—words such as of all others were sure to set him most on the alert; and without much ado he silently set off in search of the recreant flock. Meanwhile I and my companion did not fail to do all in our power to recover our lost charge. We spent the whole night in scouring the hills for miles around, but of neither the lambs nor Sirrah ...
— Anecdotes of Dogs • Edward Jesse

... in the plains of Tigris I upraised the sacred standard of our chosen race, and called them from their bondage; how, despairing of his recreant fathers, and inspired by human power alone, I vainly claimed the mighty office for his sacred blood alone reserved. God of my fathers, grant that future service, the humble service of a contrite soul, may in the coming glory that awaits us, atone ...
— Alroy - The Prince Of The Captivity • Benjamin Disraeli

... herself and her husband, with a unanimity of purpose never apparent in their short married life, rising from their common tomb and hastening to that other tomb at the end of the alley, and falling at the feet of the one to whom in life he had been recreant in love, she ...
— Balcony Stories • Grace E. King

... Hast thou not spoke like thunder on my side? Been sworn my soldier? bidding me depend Upon thy stars, thy fortune, and thy strength? And dost thou now fall over to my foes, And wear a lion's hide? Doff it for shame, And hang a calf's skin on those recreant limbs. ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I., No. IV., April, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various



Words linked to "Recreant" :   quitter, coward, disloyal, fearful, cowardly



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