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Scornful   /skˈɔrnfəl/   Listen
Scornful

adjective
1.
Expressing extreme contempt.  Synonyms: contemptuous, disdainful, insulting.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Scornful" Quotes from Famous Books



... soul was he to sit on heights And live with rocks apart and scornful: Delights of men were his delights, And ...
— The Poems of Henry Kendall • Henry Kendall

... God I am enjoying vigorous health, and hope you all are well, as it is written in the first Psalm, "Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful." ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still

... overflow, Proud in spirit I might grow, Thee deny with scornful word, Asking who is God and Lord? For the heart with pride doth swell, Often knows not when 'tis well, ...
— Paul Gerhardt's Spiritual Songs - Translated by John Kelly • Paul Gerhardt

... others, was attached to the larger barges to which this duty had been assigned. Still, as he passed along the canal, before the crowded balconies and groaning vessels which lined its sides, there arose that scornful and deriding laugh, which seems ever to grow more strong and bold, as misfortune weighs most ...
— The Bravo • J. Fenimore Cooper

... on the trail—Bartley pretty well approximated Little Jim's description of him as a dude. And the word "dude" was commonly used rather to differentiate an outlander from a native than in an exactly scornful sense. Without a vestige of self-consciousness, Bartley made himself felt as a distinct entity, physically fit and mentally alert. Cheyenne, with his cow-puncher gait and his general happy-go-lucky attitude, furnished a strong contrast to the trim and well-poised Easterner. Dorothy was quick ...
— Partners of Chance • Henry Herbert Knibbs

... by an Irish clergyman named Jonathan Swift. He was a strange man. Some people said he was a genius, and some said he had always been a little insane. When he wrote, he often seemed to care for nothing but to say the most cutting, scornful things that he could. There was one class of persons, however, who loved him from the bottom of their hearts, and they were the poor people about his home in Ireland. It is true that he sometimes scolded them, but they saw straight through his grumbling and ...
— The Children's Hour, v 5. Stories From Seven Old Favorites • Eva March Tappan

... Her voice was scornful. "No. She rents it from Judge Hugo Marshall—or is supposed to pay him rent," she added with a trace of malice. "Hugo is an old darling, but he is fearfully weak where pretty women are concerned. Nita Selim had known Hugo in New York—somehow—and as soon as ...
— Murder at Bridge • Anne Austin

... homecoming," shouted the Admiral. "There, another cheer, lads; he is going to fight for his country," and amidst wild shouting Trevanion entered the carriage, while only looks of derision and scornful ...
— All for a Scrap of Paper - A Romance of the Present War • Joseph Hocking

... hadn't!" Owen sprang up, more upset than he cared to confess. He could visualize the whole scene: Vivian, with her beautiful, scornful face, taunting Eva, playing the hypocrite with Toni, and sending insulting messages to the man she had jilted; and the mere thought of the talk, the gossip, the raking up of old stories which would inevitably follow, set all ...
— The Making of a Soul • Kathlyn Rhodes

... even a moose. And if he sing of his casting-stones, it may be that he become more apt in the use thereof. And if he sing of his cave, it may be that he shall defend it more stoutly when Gurr teareth at the boulders. But it is a vain thing to make songs of the stars, that seem scornful even of me; or of the moon, which is never two nights the same; or of the day, which goeth about its business and will not linger though one pierce a she-babe with a flint. But as for me, I would have none of these songs. For if I sing of such in the council, how shall I keep my ...
— The Turtles of Tasman • Jack London

... place among his own bodymen, his immediate followers. On the other side of the stream the herald of the vikings (or pirates) stood, and with a loud voice gave the scornful message of the sea-folk to the English leader. If Byrhtnoth would be in safety he must quickly send treasure to ...
— Our Catholic Heritage in English Literature of Pre-Conquest Days • Emily Hickey

... grew scornful. "Oh!" she said, "if you like to put the subject in that light, it may well look ridiculous and impossible. Ignorance is always more or less arrogant. It is man's habit to fancy that all creation was made for him. There are few things of which he is so utterly ignorant, and of which ...
— The Mystery of a Turkish Bath • E.M. Gollan (AKA Rita)

... O Sir! with a scornful air; not far, I'll warrant. One of them was under the window just now; according to order, I suppose, to watch my steps— but I will do what I please, and go where I please; and that ...
— Clarissa, Volume 5 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson

... the servants and chaplains, as also unto certain of the ancientest that be here, calling them fools and daws, with such like, that you have given to the multitude an intolerable example of disobedience." "You show yourself to be a meet judge!" was Bonner's scornful reply. It was clear he had no purpose to yield. The real matter at issue, he contended, was the doctrine of the Sacrament, and from the very courtroom he sent his orders to the Lord Mayor to see that no heretical opinions were preached ...
— Stray Studies from England and Italy • John Richard Green

... on the evening of the ceremony (which fast approaches), for five years. He storms, swears, and is laughed at; somebody sends him a wedding present of sugar-plums—everybody calls him a boy, and makes merry at his expense—the wife treats him with contempt, and plays the scornful. The hobble-de-hoy husband, fired with indignation, determines ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, August 21, 1841 • Various

... In the village of this disciple, some young women students in the higher or university courses for women, and followers of Tolstoy, were living for the summer in peasant fashion, and working in the fields, "to the scornful pity of the peasants" (I italicize this phrase as remarkable on the lips of an adept.) These young women, having heard of the dispatch by post of the books, and being in the town, thought to do the count's disciple a favor by asking if they had arrived. Had they ...
— Russian Rambles • Isabel F. Hapgood

... hate and furious joy struggled for mastery in Marigny's face, but he showed an iron resolution that almost equaled the coolness of the man whose scornful gaze might well have ...
— Cynthia's Chauffeur • Louis Tracy

... So saying, he put his umbrella under his arm, drew off his right glove, and extended the hand of reconciliation to that most indignant gentleman; who, thereupon, thrust his hands beneath his coat tails, and eyed the attorney with looks of scornful amazement. ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens

... like to see thy nose Turn'd up in scornful curve at yonder pig, It would be well, my friend, if we, like him, Were perfect in our kind!..And why despise The sow-born grunter?..He is obstinate, Thou answerest; ugly, and the filthiest beast That banquets upon offal. ...Now I pray you Hear the pig's ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton

... made an impassioned reply in Portuguese; I could not understand all that he said, but caught enough to know the tenor of it, that "this was not the case; Englishmen or foreigners never visited his country, so how could they know." It was not so much what he said but the scornful bitterness of his manner that made an impression on me, not easily ...
— Journals Of Two Expeditions Of Discovery In North-West And Western Australia, Vol. 1 (of 2) • George Grey

... his side had, like Chamillard, taken a step forward, when the scornful answer of the great king changed him into a statue. For an instant he stood motionless and pale as death, then instinctively he laid his hand on his sword, but becoming conscious that he was lost if he remained an instant longer among these people, whom not one of his motions escaped, ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... her this would precipitate the danger. She called upon her courage and tried to still the fearful tumult in her heart. Somehow she succeeded. A scornful, confident pride flashed from her eyes into his. It told him that for his life he dared not lay a finger upon her in the way of harm. And he knew it was true, knew that if he gave way to his desire no hole under heaven ...
— Crooked Trails and Straight • William MacLeod Raine

... into speculation. What might be this momentous letter that I carried? What was this secret traffic 'twixt Cesare Borgia and his sister? Since Cesare had said that it meant the ruin of Giovanni Sforza—a ruin so utter, so complete and humiliating that it must provoke the scornful mirth of all Italy—the knowledge of it must soon be mine. Meanwhile I was an agent of that ruin. Dear God! how that reflection warmed me! What joy I took in the thought that, though he knew it not, nor could come to know ...
— The Shame of Motley • Raphael Sabatini

... a splendid figure now that he had sloughed all disguises and was on the threshold of his triumph. Even through the fog in which my brain worked it was forced upon me that here was a man born to play a big part. He had a jowl like a Roman king on a coin, and scornful eyes that were used to mastery. He was younger than me, confound him, ...
— Mr. Standfast • John Buchan

... thought of how, if the opportunity were again mine, I should reply to such an imperious mandate. If men said and did at the crucial moment all the wise, strong things that occur to them afterward, this would be a different world. The brave and scornful words I should have uttered I choked back, and, as countless others had done before me, I bowed my head and—submitted. Conscience and honesty slunk sadly into the background as I flaunted off on the arms of ...
— Frenzied Finance - Vol. 1: The Crime of Amalgamated • Thomas W. Lawson

... as they looked down, Frank Merriwell was seen to gaze straight toward them, and something like a scornful, triumphant smile flitted ...
— Frank Merriwell's Races • Burt L. Standish

... tragic condition of the world leaves us unstirred, if we draw no lessons from it, if there is no fiery stirring of will in Ireland to make it a better place to live in, then indeed we may lose hope for our country. Let us remember the most scornful condemnation in Scripture was not given to the evil but to the indifferent: "Because thou art neither hot nor cold I will spew thee out of my mouth." Let us not be the Laodiceans of Europe, listless and indifferent to human needs, swallowing our whisky and our porter, stupefying our ...
— National Being - Some Thoughts on an Irish Polity • (A.E.)George William Russell

... requires the furthest possible reach of self-righteousness to enable a man to lift his scornful nose in the air and turn his back upon so poor and pitiable a thing as a dead stranger come to beg the last kindness that humanity can do in its behalf. This creature has violated the letter of ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine

... ponderous spear, A mailed man came forth with scornful pride, I saw him, towering in his proud career, Along the valley with a giant stride: Upon his helm, in letters of bright gold, That to the sun's meridian splendour shone, Ambition's name far off I might behold. Meantime from earth there came a hollow moan; But Fame, who followed, her loud trumpet ...
— The Poetical Works of William Lisle Bowles, Vol. 1 • William Lisle Bowles

... words?" she said with a scornful lip, that quivered in her own despite at his nearness. "Name the thing ...
— Martin Pippin in the Apple Orchard • Eleanor Farjeon

... covetable possession her place among her kind. And this effort had failed, entirely. Sophia Blashkov, a quiet, gentle, blue-blooded, little debutante, had found herself utterly unequal to the task either of forcing a place in those glittering, scornful ranks for her black-blooded, much-condemned husband, or of keeping her own, now that she bore his name. True, her marriage had, probably, made possible her younger sister's exceptional and unhoped-for match. But Michael himself felt that he had sadly bungled a most important ...
— The Genius • Margaret Horton Potter

... fain have cut the connection with the entire family, treating Miss Ward with the most distant and supercilious bows on the unpleasantly numerous occasions of meeting her in the street, and contriving to be markedly scornful in his punctilious civility to Henry Ward when they met at the hospital. His very look appeared a sarcasm, to the fancy of the Wards; and he had a fashion of kindly inquiring after Leonard, that seemed to both a deliberate reproach ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge

... his companion had gone. Then, going to a closet at the end of the room, he brought forth his coat and hat; something prompted him to hold them up, and scrutinize them under the bright light of the electric globe. He put them on, then, with a smile, half-scornful, half-amused, ...
— The Market-Place • Harold Frederic

... death reached her, at the profusely laden breakfast-table at Jaggery House, Clapham Common, her first feeling was one of scornful anger towards a Providence which could be so careless. Life had always been prosperous for her, in a bourgeois, solidly wealthy way, entirely suited to her turn of mind. She had always had servants at ...
— From One Generation to Another • Henry Seton Merriman

... the argument was not renewed. Neil was sombre and silent. His father was uncertain as to his views, and he did not want to force or hurry a decision. Besides, it would evidently be more prudent to speak with the young man when he could not be influenced by his mother's wilful, scornful tongue. Perhaps Neil shared this prudent feeling; for he deprecated conversation, and, on the plea of business, left the breakfast-table before the meal ...
— The Bow of Orange Ribbon - A Romance of New York • Amelia E. Barr

... Scornful of absence' envious bar BROWN smiles upon the mystic meeting Of those her sons, who, sundered far, In brotherhood of ...
— Pike County Ballads and Other Poems • John Hay

... native pride, all his blood, rushed to Ammalat's heart; his soul fired with fury. "Is it thus I am received?" casting a scornful glance at both the women; "is it thus that promises are fulfilled here? I am glad that my eyes are opened. I was too simple when I prized the light love of a fickle girl—too patient when I hearkened to the ravings of an old woman. I see, that with Sultan Akhmet Khan ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXII. - June, 1843.,Vol. LIII. • Various

... Sprengel's theory was disproved by his scornful contemporaries in the very case of his wild geranium, which sheds its pollen before it has developed a stigma to receive any; therefore no insect that had not brought pollen from an earlier bloom could possibly fertilize this flower. How amazing that he did not see this! Our common wild ...
— Wild Flowers, An Aid to Knowledge of Our Wild Flowers and - Their Insect Visitors - - Title: Nature's Garden • Neltje Blanchan

... the very day that he made these positive and scornful assertions to himself that he found this same mighty Mr. Lawrence Fernald ...
— Ted and the Telephone • Sara Ware Bassett

... said his mother, with a scornful giggle. "You wouldn't have much to reckon on, if that ...
— David Elginbrod • George MacDonald

... here oft I sat alone, And disciplin'd myself with prayer and fast. Then rich in hope, with faith sincere, With sighs, and hands in anguish press'd, The end of that sore plague, with many a tear, From heaven's dread Lord, I sought to wrest. The crowd's applause assumes a scornful tone. Oh, could'st thou in my inner being read, How little either sire or son, Of such renown deserves the meed! My sire, of good repute, and sombre mood, O'er nature's powers and every mystic zone, With honest zeal, but methods of his own, With toil fantastic loved to brood; ...
— Faust Part 1 • Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

... poets declared that Venus herself must have used them and that they spoke the language of love; thus one on the lip meant the 'coquette,' on the nose the 'impertinent,' on the cheek the 'gallant,' on the neck the 'scornful,' near the eye 'passionate,' on the forehead, such as this one I wear, sir, the 'majestic.'" As she spoke, so rapidly and archly did her mobile features express in their changes her varying thought that Calvert sat entranced at her piquancy and daring. ...
— Calvert of Strathore • Carter Goodloe

... didn't give YOU away," sneered Zoie. "YOU needn't worry," and she fixed her eyes upon him with a scornful expression that left no doubt as to her opinion that he ...
— Baby Mine • Margaret Mayo

... every Alpine gap yawns with tradition, and is stocked with noble story; yet, the perverse and scornful one will none of it, and the sons of patriots are left with the clock that turns the mill, and the sudden cuckoo, with difficulty restrained in ...
— The Gentle Art of Making Enemies • James McNeill Whistler

... a scornful laugh]. This is your vaunted soul of freedom therefore! All daring, if it had an end to dare for! [Vehemently. I've shown you one; now, once for all, your ...
— Love's Comedy • Henrik Ibsen

... that in things difficult there is danger from ignorance, and in things easy from confidence; the mind, afraid of greatness, and disdainful of littleness, hastily withdraws herself from painful searches, and passes with scornful rapidity over tasks not adequate to her powers, sometimes too secure for caution, and again too anxious for vigorous effort; sometimes idle in a plain path, and sometimes distracted in labyrinths, and dissipated by ...
— Preface to a Dictionary of the English Language • Samuel Johnson

... brilliant foe with scornful eye, And whirls a tenfold tempest thro the sky; Where each fine atom of the immense of air, Steel'd, pointed, barb'd for unexampled war, Sings o'er the shuddering ground; when thus he broke Contemptuous silence, and to Hesper spoke: Thou comest ...
— The Columbiad • Joel Barlow

... old man, beginning to tremble, though he but half understood the meaning of the scornful mirth, "I have had charge of you since you ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 5 • Various

... was Sosthene hoeing leisurely in the little garden, and possibly the sunbonnet of la vieille half seen and half hidden among her lima-beans; but for the rest there was only the house, silent at best, or, worse, sending out through its half-open door the long, scornful No-o-o! of the maiden's unseen spinning-wheel. No matter the fame or grace of the rider. All in vain, my lad: pirouette as you will; sit your gallantest; let your hat blow off, and turn back, and at full speed lean down from the saddle, and snatch it airily from ...
— Bonaventure - A Prose Pastoral of Acadian Louisiana • George Washington Cable

... freedom of choice, the right of every human being. Yet how was I to do this? She herself would disdain my interference. Since then I must be an object of indifference or contempt to her, better, far better avoid her, nor expose myself before her and the scornful world to the chance of playing the mad game of a fond, foolish Icarus. One day, several months after my return to England, I quitted London to visit my sister. Her society was my chief solace and delight; ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley

... followers, who had all drawn in to the landing, he gave some sharp commands in his own language. They stepped ashore with evident reluctance and there was considerable murmuring amongst them. The chief looked them over with a scornful eye. ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely

... Into the ship in which the King sailed there entered no youth or maiden save only Alexander and Soredamors, whom the Queen brought with her. This maiden was scornful of love, for she had never heard of any man whom she would deign to love, whatever might be his beauty, prowess, lordship, or birth. And yet the damsel was so charming and fair that she might fitly have learned of love, if it ...
— Four Arthurian Romances - "Erec et Enide", "Cliges", "Yvain", and "Lancelot" • Chretien de Troyes

... asking a scornful Englishman what supported the pleasant town of Stratford-on-Avon. He replied at once, "The Shakespearian industry!" Now the cheerfulness of both Mr. Harold Bell Wright and Mrs. Gene Stratton-Porter, like the cheerfulness of "Pollyanna," ...
— Confessions of a Book-Lover • Maurice Francis Egan

... native Californian. Moreover, it made no difference to him whether his passenger had met an old acquaintance or not; it was sufficient for him to observe that the lady, as well as himself—for the expression on her face could by no means be described as bored or scornful—liked the stranger's appearance; and so the better to take in all the points of the magnificent horse which the young Californian was riding, not to mention a commendable desire to give his only passenger a bit of pleasant ...
— The Girl of the Golden West • David Belasco

... situation." Standing at the moment with face turned to Liberals above Gangway; from Irish camp behind his back rose shouts of ironical cheers and noisy laughter, "Boo-oo!" CHAMBERLAIN stopped perforce, and with scornful gesture of thumb over his shoulder at mob behind, said, "Yes, to the others I do not speak;" then went on and ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 103, August 20, 1892 • Various

... so proud and scornful toward me, Miss Richards?" he appealingly asked. "Can you not see that my admiration for you is genuine—that I really desire to be your friend? And why have you avoided me so persistently of late—why ...
— Mona • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon

... I have been in greater Delight for these many Years, than in beholding the Boxes at the Play the last Time The Scornful Lady [1] was acted. So great an Assembly of Ladies placed in gradual Rows in all the Ornaments of Jewels, Silk and Colours, gave so lively and gay an Impression to the Heart, that methought the Season of the Year was vanished; and I did not think ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele

... with energy, with violence; and I did mine with the reverse and moderation of a subordinate who does not like to be flung out of a pilot-house and is perched forty feet above the water. He was fiercely loyal to Shakespeare and cordially scornful of Bacon and of all the pretensions of the Baconians. So was I—at first. And at first he was glad that that was my attitude. There were even indications that he admired it; indications dimmed, it is true, by the distance that lay between the lofty boss-pilotical altitude and my ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... with scornful emphasis. "I'm not in the least afraid of any woman being more to you than I am, Charles. Just ...
— Making People Happy • Thompson Buchanan

... correctly. And having said this, with a respectful and barely perceptible smile of satisfaction addressed to me, he turned to the woman. And no sooner had he turned to her, than his whole face altered. He said, in a peculiar, scornful, hasty tone, such as is employed towards dogs: "What do you jabber in that careless way for? 'I sit in the taverns.' You do sit in the taverns, and that means, to talk business, that you are a prostitute," ...
— The Moscow Census - From "What to do?" • Lyof N. Tolstoi

... tragedies have familiar themes,—ambition in Macbeth, jealousy in Othello, filial ingratitude in Lear; there is nothing in these motives that the most unthinking audience could fail to understand. No crowd can resist the fervor of a patriot who goes down scornful before many spears. Show the audience a flag to die for, or a stalking ghost to be avenged, or a shred of honor to maintain against agonizing odds, and it will thrill with an enthusiasm as ancient as the human race. Few are the plays that can succeed without the moving force of love, the ...
— The Theory of the Theatre • Clayton Hamilton

... twice rejected at Nazareth? (comp. Lk. iv. 16-30 with Mk. vi. 1-6^a; Mt. xiii. 54-58). Here are two accounts that read like independent traditions of the same event; they agree concerning the place, the teaching in the synagogue on the Sabbath, the astonishment of the Nazarenes, their scornful question, and Jesus' rejoinder. Luke makes no reference to the disciples (Mk. vi. 1) nor to the working of miracles (Mk. vi. 5); Matthew and Mark, on the other hand, say nothing of an attempt at violence. These differences are no more serious, ...
— The Life of Jesus of Nazareth • Rush Rhees

... the idea looked scornful and addressed himself to Tomkins. "There ain't no bully tins in the perishing trenches, are there? Ho no! An' there hain't no china an' bits of glass and old cups and things in that there village about 'alf a mile down ...
— No Man's Land • H. C. McNeile

... handsome highwayman," said Aunt Deb, in a scornful tone. "They're ugly ruffians, and miserable arrant cowards to boot. If one does venture to stop the coach, I'll not give him any of my property as long as I ...
— Dick Cheveley - His Adventures and Misadventures • W. H. G. Kingston

... The Count Don Suero Gonzalez went with the Infantes; he was their father's brother, and had been their Ayo and bred them up, and badly had he trained them, for he was a man of great words, good of tongue, and of nothing else good; and full scornful and orgullous had he made them, so that the Cid was little pleased with them, and would willingly have broken off the marriage; but he could not, seeing that the King had made it. And when they reached Valencia, the Cid lodged the Infantes in the ...
— Chronicle Of The Cid • Various

... her and the Conways; while the grandmother prided herself particularly on the arched eyebrows and finely cut upper lip, which she said were sure marks of high blood, and never found in the lower ranks! With a scornful expression on her face, old Hagar would listen to these remarks, and then, when sure that no one heard her, she would mutter: "Marks of blood! What nonsense! I'm almost glad I've solved the riddle, and ...
— Maggie Miller • Mary J. Holmes

... beasts, but luckless maids engage His enmity; brave men are brave no more; Youth's strength he wastes, and drives fond, foolish age To blush and sigh at scornful ...
— The Elegies of Tibullus • Tibullus

... at him for a full minute before he seemed quite to understand all that was implied in this proposal; then he burst into a fit of scornful laughter. ...
— Under False Pretences - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant

... cried the lad, with a scornful laugh; "lived ever since I can remember close to the sea, and been told the name of every bird that comes here in the winter and in the summer to nest, and didn't know the cry of an old shag. Well, say that cry, for it ...
— The Lost Middy - Being the Secret of the Smugglers' Gap • George Manville Fenn

... head slowly as if in assent, he turned to gaze full in the Baggara's scornful eyes, his face lighting up with keen intelligence, and continuing his fixed look till the chief made an angry gesture and for a ...
— In the Mahdi's Grasp • George Manville Fenn

... and walking slowly to the bed; but there she paused and said with scornful deliberateness: "You can drive me out now, but I'll come back when she sleeps. I'll make her dream. Damn you! And tomorrow night—Ha! ...
— Possessed • Cleveland Moffett

... Years I've comfortably sheltered. Once he was a proud old mortal, And I found him in the valley, And I offered then to show him Where to find the nearest village. But he shook his head and broke out In a mocking scornful laughter. Marvellously grand his words were, Now like prayers devout and pious, Like a psalm, such as we gnomes sing Often in the earth's vast bowels; Then like curses unto heaven. Much I could ...
— The Trumpeter of Saekkingen - A Song from the Upper Rhine. • Joseph Victor von Scheffel

... dare wasn't much choice about it. De Northern people, dey talk mighty high about der love for de negro, but I don't see much of it in der ways. Why, sah, dey is twice as scornful ob a black man as de gentlemen in de Souf. I list in de army, sah, because dey say dey go to Richmond, and den I find Dinah ...
— With Lee in Virginia - A Story of the American Civil War • G. A. Henty

... they must call on each other Sunday evening, and can have nothing else to do. Now that all is quiet in the night, I am really quite disturbed about you and your silence, and my imagination, or, if not that, then the being whom you do not like to have me name, shows me with scornful zeal pictures of everything that could happen. Johanna, if you were to fall sick now, it would be terrible beyond description. At the thought of it, I fully realize how deeply I love you, and how deeply the bond that unites us has grown into me. I understand what you call loving much. ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. X. • Kuno Francke

... do, deary," was the older woman's answer. "Your uncle and I was good friends once; we haven't seen each other so often of late years, but that ain't changed my feelin's. Now you must go home and rest. Don't let any of these"—with a rather scornful glance at Josiah Badger and Ezekiel and the Reverend Absalom—"these Job's comforters bother you. Nat, you see that they let her alone, ...
— Keziah Coffin • Joseph C. Lincoln

... common soldier cut off his head and carried it to Affonso in the hope of knighthood. Almada, who fought till he could not stand from loss of blood, died with his friend. Hurling his sword from him, he threw himself on the ground, with a scornful, "Take your fill of me, Varlets," and ...
— Prince Henry the Navigator, the Hero of Portugal and of Modern Discovery, 1394-1460 A.D. • C. Raymond Beazley

... a scornful exclamation. "I have six thousand men," he said, "and I do not need to beg my life; for were there twenty ships instead of one they could never find me, and not a man who landed and tried to come through the country would return alive. I have given your captain the chance. If, ...
— Among Malay Pirates - And Other Tales Of Adventure And Peril • G. A. Henty

... Priscilla Winthrop was Mrs. Conklin's maiden name; in the second place, it links her with the Colonial Puritan stock of which she is so justly proud—being scornful of mere Daughters of the Revolution—and finally, though Mrs. Conklin is a grandmother, her maiden name seems to preserve the sweet, vague illusion of girlhood which Mrs. Conklin always carries about her like the ...
— In Our Town • William Allen White

... The alert waiter was transformed. He took his orders soberly, executed them soberly,—he was still a good routinier; but his early enthusiasm was absent. Something had gone from him that night; as she went to her carriage with her scornful, snapping, petulant Ca!—he felt that his life was over. Aholibah watched like a cat every night; he was not on for day duty. She never came to the Rasta before dark. The story of her infatuation for the well-bred, ...
— Visionaries • James Huneker

... to observe that the gentleman, Phrenologist, as he professes to be, has so little reverence in his crown. He could not read the foregoing suggestion without scoffing at it. Biblical truth is not powerless, though the scornful may refuse its correction.—G. ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown

... the woman, with a scornful laugh. "Oh, no doubt! You'll take, exceeding good care to be calm and reasonable, and weigh the pros and cons, and not get yourself into trouble to deliver the girl you wanted to marry the other day from captivity—from ...
— The Unseen Bridgegroom - or, Wedded For a Week • May Agnes Fleming

... one and of admiration for the other—but he is likely to view both Leonatus and Iachimo with considerable indifference; he will casually recognise the infrequent Cymbeline as an ill-tempered, sonorous old donkey; he will give a passing smile of scornful disgust to Cloten—that vague hybrid of Roderigo and Oswald; and of the proceedings of the Queen and the fortunes of the royal family—whether as affected by the chemical experiments of Doctor Cornelius or the bellicose attitude of ...
— Shadows of the Stage • William Winter

... She tossed her head. "Yes, I know him!" Her accent was richly scornful. "Pity they couldn't keep him ...
— The Monk of Hambleton • Armstrong Livingston

... so little generous that if I had known something then of his mother's allusion to 'white geese' I would have advised him to get one of them and lead it away on a beautiful blue ribbon. Mrs. Blunt was wrong, you know, to be so scornful. A white goose is exactly what her son wants. But look how badly the world is arranged. Such white birds cannot be got for nothing and he has not enough money even to buy a ribbon. Who knows! Maybe it was this which gave that tragic quality to his pose by the mantelpiece over there. Yes, that ...
— The Arrow of Gold - a story between two notes • Joseph Conrad

... her head in a wild, scornful way, as if on the verge of being swept from her feet by ...
— After the Storm • T. S. Arthur

... is thoroughly unconventional, and would do anything to please me, did so without a second thought. But imagine my distress when, as I entered the drawing-room a little late, I saw my fair Amazon standing in a doorway, not only alone, but alone in the midst of curious and scornful glances. My courtesy was at stake, my chivalry was roused, and she looked very handsome and very like any other woman brought to bay. She had the most charming expression, compounded of bewilderment and defiance, on her face when my eyes fell on her, and it changed to one that pleased me still ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII. No. 31. October, 1873. • Various

... been thinkin' of something since you've been here that I don't know but you'll say is about as wild as wantin' to buy a three-hundred- dollar picture with a week's board." She gave a short, self-scornful laugh; but it was a laugh, and ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... Italian laughed a scornful laugh as he said in his own language, "Only poor people ...
— The Golden House • Mrs. Woods Baker

... Tired?" the girl said, with a little scornful laugh. "Don't you believe it. Why the fun's only just beginning, isn't it, Seth? Do you know, auntie dear, the Indians are getting troublesome; they're going out on the war-path. Aren't they, Seth? And we're just in ...
— The Watchers of the Plains - A Tale of the Western Prairies • Ridgewell Cullum

... being obliged to relate such things of him, and doubts whether his spirit may not be looking down on him that moment disdainfully from heaven! Such an association of ideas had Dante produced between the celestial and the scornful!] ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Volume 1 • Leigh Hunt

... was to secure the supremacy of Prussia among the German States. In the very first months of his leadership he made it clear, in a famous sentence, by what methods he hoped to achieve his end. "The great questions are to be settled," he told the Prussian Diet, with a scornful hit at the Confederation, "not by speeches and majority resolutions, but ...
— The War and Democracy • R.W. Seton-Watson, J. Dover Wilson, Alfred E. Zimmern,

... scornful, hateful laugh, which brought the color up to Lydia's pale face like a blow. 'I gather, then, Lydia, that what you're asking me to do is to neglect my business in order to read socialistic literature ...
— Quit Your Worrying! • George Wharton James

... and beat you after all!" he cried, pointing a scornful finger at the glowering Nick, who was eyeing Hugh hungrily, as if trying to decide whether or not the other would tell Chief Wambold to lock him up as a thief. "I chanced to see him pull something out that he had been ...
— The Chums of Scranton High at Ice Hockey • Donald Ferguson

... fancied she saw at her bedside the forms of Edith, Arthur, and Ralph Coleman. The latter she denounced as a coward and traitor, from Carlton she hid her face, but to Edith she stretched forth her hand and implored her to save her from the torments she was now enduring, but only meeting with a scornful laugh, fell back ...
— Vellenaux - A Novel • Edmund William Forrest

... light-armed troops to outflank them and cut them off. When this was done, and the Illyrians were thrown into great disorder, Philopoemen saw that the cavalry could charge the Lacedaemonian light troops with great effect, and pointed this out to Antigonus's generals. Meeting with a scornful refusal, as his reputation was not yet sufficiently great to warrant his suggesting such a manoeuvre, he collected his own fellow-countrymen and charged with them alone. At the first onset he threw the light-armed troops into confusion, and presently routed them with great slaughter. ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume II • Aubrey Stewart & George Long

... the House of which there had been no example, and which have never since been imitated. No orator could there venture to reproach him with inconsistency. One unfortunate man made the attempt, and was so much disconcerted by the scornful demeanour of the Minister that he stammered, stopped, and sat down. Even the old Tory country gentleman, to whom the very name of Hanover had been odious, gave their hearty Ayes to subsidy after subsidy. In a lively ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... and Lady Jane, who had both overheard the remark, levelled indignant glances at their father, scornful looks at Mrs. Barton, and, to avoid further amatory ...
— Muslin • George Moore

... upon him with a sort of scornful pity. "Yes, Miramon: for I am Manuel, and I follow after my own thinking and my own desire. Of course it is very fine of me to be renouncing so much wealth and power for the sake of my wonderful dear Niafer: but she is worth the sacrifice, ...
— Figures of Earth • James Branch Cabell

... over a beautiful scrap-book of Lady Cecilia's. Beauclerc, who had stood by for some time, eyeing it in rather scornful silence, at length asked whether Miss Stanley was a lover of ...
— Helen • Maria Edgeworth

... I had to solve; I have not solved it to this day. What am I? I am a great gentleman, walking through the world with dauntless heart and head erect, scornful of all meanness, impatient of all littleness. I am a mean-thinking, little-daring man—the type of man that I of the dauntless heart and the erect head despise greatly—crawling to a poor end by devious ways, cringing to the strong, timid of all pain. I—but, dear reader, I will not sadden your ...
— The Second Thoughts of An Idle Fellow • Jerome K. Jerome

... measure of sacrifice was no deterrent. She was in a mood in which self-immolation seemed the natural penalty of her mistakes. She was not without the knowledge that money could buy the help she purposed to obtain by direct intervention; but her inherited instincts, scornful of roundabout methods, urged her to pay the price in something more personal than coin. It replied in some degree to her self-accusation, it assuaged the bitterness of her self-condemnation, to know that she was to be the active agent in putting right that ...
— The Wild Olive • Basil King

... you ride to your own doom," rejoined Demdike, with a scornful laugh, as he seized the abbot's bridle. "But you shall hear me. I tell you, you will never go forth on this expedition. I tell you that, ere to-morrow, Whalley Abbey will have passed for ever from your possession; and that, if you go thither again, your life will ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth

... stove. Her humiliation was the consequence of her own ideals only, for Avonlea folks thought it quite splendid that she should have won the prize. Her many friends regarded her with honest admiration; her few foes with scornful envy. Josie Pye said she believed Anne Shirley had just copied the story; she was sure she remembered reading it in a paper years before. The Sloanes, who had found out or guessed that Charlie had ...
— Anne Of The Island • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... said they, 105 "From the grave where he is buried, Spite of all the magic circles Laughing Water draws around it, Spite of all the sacred footprints Minnehaha stamps upon it!" 110 But the wary Hiawatha, Ever thoughtful, careful, watchful, Had o'erheard the scornful laughter When they mocked him from the tree-tops. "Kaw!" he said, "my friends the ravens! 115 Kahgahgee, my King of Ravens! I will teach you all a lesson That shall not be soon forgotten!" He had risen ...
— The Song of Hiawatha - An Epic Poem • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

... undressed," came the scornful reply. "I poured a cup of coffee down Dad's collar and burned his neck—oh, I didn't do it on purpose, Thomas Catt! 'Twas really his fault, for he joggled my elbow just as I was reaching up to set it on the shelf to cool. Aunt Maria was going ...
— Tabitha at Ivy Hall • Ruth Alberta Brown

... man I robb'd was a parson, by G—. Now, madam, you'll think it a strange thing to say, But the sight of a book makes me sick to this day. "Never since I was born did I hear so much wit, And, madam, I laugh'd till I thought I should split. So then you look'd scornful, and snift at the Dean, As who should say, 'Now, am I skinny[11] and lean?' But he durst not so much as once open his lips, And the doctor was plaguily down in the hips." Thus merciless Hannah ran on in her talk, Till she heard the Dean call, "Will your ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift

... boon of flying to the stricken lover's side,—her husband that is to be. In vain have I pointed out that I ask no sweeter bliss than to share my Percy's lot, for weal or woe, to live in the humblest cot, a tent, a hovel even, with only a crust,—it meets only his scornful refusal. When my arms are eagerly outstretched to enfold my soldier hero, I have to be content with nursing day and night his afflicted mother, whom for his sake I love as I would my own, had she not been taken from me years ago when I was but an unsophisticated ...
— Under Fire • Charles King

... had; but I was afraid you might think Ferruci took it. The stiletto was Italian, and the Count is Italian, so it struck me you might put two and two together and suspect Ercole. I never thought you'd fix on me," concluded Lydia, with a scornful toss of ...
— The Silent House • Fergus Hume

... live,—that the wealth which she affected to despise was eating into the soundness of her character, not by its splendour, but by the style of life which it had seemed to produce as a necessity. She knew that she was gradually becoming irreverent, scornful, and prone to ridicule; but yet, knowing this, and hating it, she hardly knew how to break from it. She had seen so much of the blacker side of human nature that blackness no longer startled her as it should do. She had been the ...
— Framley Parsonage • Anthony Trollope

... severe and protracted struggle with the Philistines the necessity for a solid union of the tribes was cryingly manifest, and the man came forward to meet the hour. Saul, a distinguished Benjamite of Gibeah, was overcome by anger at the scornful challenge which even the Ammonites ventured at such a time to cast in the teeth of his people: he called his fellow-countrymen to battle, not in virtue of any office he held, but on the strength of his own impulses; his enthusiasm proved ...
— Prolegomena to the History of Israel • Julius Wellhausen

... fairly cleaved to the roof of his dry mouth. He struggled to draw his revolver, but his arm refused to obey his will. Yet it was not wholly cowardice that swept over him in a sickly tide. As he had met those scornful, indignant eyes, there had rushed back to his mind a thousand small benefits conferred upon him by this man, a thousand instances of friendliness, the memory of the first days they had worked together, how he had slept under his roof, fed at his table, how, more than all, he had been given by ...
— A Girl of the Klondike • Victoria Cross

... cruelly wronged, and I have not been quite right here,"—placing his hand upon his forehead,—"and what has made it worse, I have been all wrong here,"—laying his hand upon his heart. "I have doubted everybody, and distrusted my God. I have been hard and scornful, and hated my fellows; but it is different with me now. I have heard that voice speaking to me, that you told us of in the little cabin. He has said unto me, even me, 'Come,' and he has given me 'rest.' I have had a long, long struggle, but the conflict is over. Ah, He is so different from ...
— The Cabin on the Prairie • C. H. (Charles Henry) Pearson

... therefore important from this historical point of view. In it, Marx for the first time shows his complete confidence in the theory. It needed confidence little short of sublime to challenge Proudhon in the audacious manner of this scintillating critique. The torrential eloquence, the scornful satire, and fierce invective of the attack, have rather tended to obscure for readers of a later generation the real merit of the book, the importance of the fundamental idea that history must be interpreted in the light ...
— Socialism - A Summary and Interpretation of Socialist Principles • John Spargo

... York!" repeated Tom. It was a scornful voice. "New York! And what do you intend to ...
— The Fifth Wheel - A Novel • Olive Higgins Prouty

... remarkable feature in his face, the upper lip of Grecian shortness, and the corners descending; the lips full, and finely cut. In speaking, he shows his teeth very much, and they are white and even; but I observed that even in his smile—and he smiles frequently—there is something of a scornful expression in his mouth that is evidently natural, and not, as many suppose, affected. This particularly struck me. His chin is large and well shaped, and finishes well the oval of his face. He is extremely thin, indeed so much so that his figure has almost a boyish ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. XX. No. 556., Saturday, July 7, 1832 • Various

... A scornful gesture, even an impatient one, escaped the old man, for he was one who believed in nothing good in ...
— The Brotherhood of Consolation • Honore de Balzac

... rather scornful of these metaphysical definitions of Pre-Raphaelitism; "for to characterise a Pre-Raphaelite picture by saying that it was inspired by the Oxford movement, is like attempting to explain the mechanism of a lock by describing the political opinions of the locksmith." [10] He himself proposes, ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Nineteenth Century • Henry A. Beers

... one of the most dexterous operators known in his peculiar line. On the present occasion, he did not heed the piteous pleadings of the disappointed boatmen, nor Sobrina's explanations, nor Can Grande's arguments. But when the whole five of us fixed upon him our mild and scornful eyes, something within him gave way. He felt a little bit of the moral pressure of Boston, and feebly broke down, saying, "You better do as you like, then," and so the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 23, September, 1859 • Various

... A scornful, fateful smile passed over his face. "'Hast thou never killed a man?' said Kaid. 'Never,' said he—'by the goodness of God, never!' The voice of Him of Galilee, the hand of Cain, the craft of Jael. But God is with ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... arms of the captive up behind him, and quickly fastened them. Then he took him by the collar, and stood him up on his feet. Cornwood looked unutterably scornful at me; and I doubt if he would have made any trouble if I had not been present. Judging by his looks, he appeared to regard me with intense hatred. I had interfered with some of his schemes before, and from the particular attention he bestowed upon me, I ...
— Up the River - or, Yachting on the Mississippi • Oliver Optic

... with a feeling of triumph that Laura reached her hotel, a scornful feeling of victory over society with its ...
— The Gilded Age, Part 7. • Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and Charles Dudley Warner

... complaining that there was no care for the agricultural labourer on the part of a Government which has undertaken the largest scheme of agricultural reform ever presented to a House of Commons. This had the effect of rousing the Old Man to one of those devastating bits of scornful and quiet invective by which he sometimes delights the House of Commons. Jesse had spoken of the proposals of the Queen's Speech as a ridiculous mouse, and thereupon came the dread retort that mice were not the only "rodents" that infested ancient buildings; ...
— Sketches In The House (1893) • T. P. O'Connor

... "what" without the "how" in speech. The same written sentence becomes two diametrically opposite ideas, given opposing inflection and accompanying voice-effect. "He stood in the front rank of the battle" can be made praiseful affirmation, scornful scepticism, or simple question, by a simple varying of voice and inflection. This is the more unmistakable way in which the "how" affects the "what." Just as true is the less obvious fact. The same written sentiment, spoken by a Lord Rosebery and by a man from White chapel or an uneducated ploughman, ...
— Stories to Tell Children - Fifty-Four Stories With Some Suggestions For Telling • Sara Cone Bryant

... many teeth!" was the scornful reply of the pirate. "The worthy saint must strike well before Barbaro of Istria sues to him ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 5 November 1848 • Various

... Sir Thomas Wyat," rejoined the demon, with a scornful laugh; "but you are scarcely a match for Herne the Hunter, as you will find, if you are rash enough to make the experiment. Beware!" he exclaimed, in a voice of thunder, observing the knight lay his hand upon his sword, "I am invulnerable, and you will, therefore, vainly strike at me. ...
— Windsor Castle • William Harrison Ainsworth

... of the Hawaiian women have the effect upon me of a perpetual marvel. But the expression generally has little of the courteousness, innocence, and childishness of the negro physiognomy. The Hawaiians are a handsome people, scornful and sarcastic-looking even with their mirthfulness; and those who know them say that they are always quizzing and mimicking the haoles, and that they give everyone a nickname, ...
— The Hawaiian Archipelago • Isabella L. Bird

... platform with plenty of room for bricks and the pail of mortar, and space in which to stretch his great legs. It was a comfortable place to sit and look out over Arichat harbor. Andy, who had watched the preparations with scornful eye, had suggested ...
— Uncle William - The Man Who Was Shif'less • Jennette Lee

... 'most lost his. They'd been making repairs on the hill and, some way, the lanterns wasn't lit. It's an awful dark night. He saw what he was comin' to and turned out sudden into the grass. He had to go into the ditch, then, not to run over me—and somebody else. He ran away!" Plainly that scornful accent did not mean Burns. "I didn't. I helped him get the car up. I got his engine goin' for him; he showed me how. His arm was broke. There ain't no house for a mile out there. I hated to see him try to ...
— Red Pepper Burns • Grace S. Richmond

... clattering in in clouds of dust to demand that he should start at once. But his dignity as Sir Edmund Antony's representative forbade this, and when he rode into Habshiabad at last it was in the midst of his picked troop of Granthis, who were obviously scornful of the military display with which the Nawab was prepared to welcome them. In his anxiety to improve his army, poor old Sadiq Ali had handed it over of late to a drunken European adventurer, who asserted that he had been in Ajit Singh's service, but whom Gerrard suspected, from certain ...
— The Path to Honour • Sydney C. Grier

... the oak room!" was the scornful reply. "And what good would that do? You know well enough that the wall's double on three sides, and there are more secret entrances than even I know of. The oak room's not for you this night, Squire. It's hoping to get you there that's keeping ...
— The Great Impersonation • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... very dark and bitter as the night wore on; then the blizzard caught us; but even in spite of that, I fell into a doze, to be rudely awakened by this fellow—but what can you expect from a person of that kind?" Here the brakeman gave a scornful grunt, and the conductor ...
— The Statesmen Snowbound • Robert Fitzgerald

... white man came, were so scornful of man that they could be considered the dominant species in North America. They'd been known to raid a camp of Indians to carry away a man for food. Indian spears and arrows were simply ineffective against them. When Stonewall Jackson ...
— Operation Terror • William Fitzgerald Jenkins



Words linked to "Scornful" :   disrespectful



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