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Subaltern

adjective
1.
Inferior in rank or status.  Synonyms: junior-grade, lower-ranking, lowly, petty, secondary.  "A lowly corporal" , "Petty officialdom" , "A subordinate functionary"






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"Subaltern" Quotes from Famous Books



... young subaltern, "if my Company Commander curses my men for having long hair, I'll whip off his own hat and show him to be three weeks ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, May 21, 1919. • Various

... out of the train and handing out her baggage, giving chocolates to children, interesting themselves in their fellow- travellers. At one place I saw a proud and anxious father, himself an old soldier, I think, seeing off a jolly young subaltern to the front, with hardly suppressed tears; the young man was full of excitement and delight, but did his best to cheer up the spirits of "Daddy," as he fondly called him. I felt very proud of our soldiers, their simplicity and kindness and real goodness. I was glad ...
— Escape and Other Essays • Arthur Christopher Benson

... the monotony broken, and that unwittingly, by the humour of one of the officers. In the course of the evening, the train stopped at a small station, and the compartment in which the officers were settled drew up in front of the Buffet. Some one asked where we were, and a subaltern, anxious to display his newly-acquired knowledge of French, replied, "Bouvette," which called forth no response. Shortly afterwards the train proceeded on its way, and the occupants of the carriage settled themselves down to sleep. All passed quietly for the next couple of hours—then the train stopped ...
— Three years in France with the Guns: - Being Episodes in the life of a Field Battery • C. A. Rose

... course of study at Chatham was quartered for a short time at Pembroke Dock. In December, 1854, he received his orders for the Crimea, and reached Balaklava on January 1, 1855. As a young engineer subaltern serving in the trenches, his daring was conspicuous, while his special aptitude for obtaining a personal knowledge of the movements of the enemy was a matter of common observation among his brother officers. He was wounded on June ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 6 of 8 • Various

... questions concerning the art of war, to which I returned such answers as convinced him that I was not wholly ignorant in that particular. In short, I was enlisted as a volunteer in his own regiment, and soon after promoted to the rank of a subaltern, and the office of equerry to his own son, who, at that time, had attained to the degree of colonel, though his age ...
— The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom, Complete • Tobias Smollett

... me to Cairo. I was on my ass in one of the narrow streets, where I met a loaded camel. The space that remained between the camel and the wall was so little, that I could scarcely pass; and at that moment I was met by a Binbashi, a subaltern officer, at the head of his men. For the instant I was the only obstacle that prevented his proceeding on the road; and I could neither retreat nor turn round, to give him room to pass. Seeing it was a Frank who stopped his way, he gave me a violent blow on my stomach. ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 2, No. 12, May, 1851. • Various

... deceived, and are you but a genius of the second order—a subaltern spirit, an intermediate power? Diable! this would take away a little of my consideration ...
— The Conspirators - The Chevalier d'Harmental • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)

... impossible," continued this gentleman, "that I should assist in procuring Mr Arnott such a renovation? Is there no subaltern part I can perform to facilitate the project? for I will either hide or seek with any boy in the parish; and for a Q in the corner, there ...
— Cecilia Volume 1 • Frances Burney

... he proudly retorted, "there is an officer in the fort who should dare to taunt me with my feelings as you have done? I came here, sir, in the expectation I should be alone. At a fitting hour I shall be found where Captain Blessington's subaltern ...
— Wacousta: A Tale of the Pontiac Conspiracy (Complete) • John Richardson

... for order in their military organization, as in other things. The troops were divided into bodies corresponding with our battalions and companies, led by officers, that rose, in regular gradation, from the lowest subaltern to the Inca noble, who was intrusted with ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott

... think. How came it that the side of the book which showed my takings was so clear and easily to be understood, but the side which showed their takings wrapt in mystery and hieroglyphics such as not even the world's leading financiers and mathematicians could hope to unravel? My subaltern, being consulted, agreed with me; I would have had him carpeted by the C.O. at once if ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, February 25th, 1920 • Various

... the road at the little body of brown men. They were nearer now, and I could see the face of the officer leading them—a boy subaltern, rather pale though the sun was hot. He halted and ...
— Now It Can Be Told • Philip Gibbs

... Denham sourly. "I'm only a subaltern—a bit of machinery that is wound up sometimes by my superior officers, and then I turn round till I'm stopped. Subalterns are not expected to have any brains, or to ...
— Charge! - A Story of Briton and Boer • George Manville Fenn

... your troop is ordered out to Spain. No doubt, just at the moment, you will be sorry that you are not going with it, but I can assure you that this business will be vastly more useful to you in your profession, than anything you would be likely to meet with as a cavalry subaltern ...
— Through Russian Snows - A Story of Napoleon's Retreat from Moscow • G. A Henty

... crowd, some well mounted, some ill, but all flying along as best they might, the subaltern as good as the general, jostling and pushing, spurring and driving, with every thought thrown to the winds save that they should have the blood of this absurd fox! Truly, they are an ...
— The Adventures of Gerard • Arthur Conan Doyle

... exclusively of l'Opera Buffa introduced in 1788. These were l'Opera les Francais, and les Italiens, which, with six inferior ones, called petits spectacles, brought the whole of the theatres to ten in number. The subaltern houses were incessantly checked in their career by the privileges granted to the Comedie Francaise, which company alone enjoyed the right to play first-rate productions: it also possessed that of censorship, and sometimes exercised it in ...
— Paris As It Was and As It Is • Francis W. Blagdon

... chiefly with my personal experiences as subaltern and Captain in the Sixty-first N. Y. Volunteers during the first and last days of June, 1862, in ...
— Personal Recollections of the War of 1861 • Charles Augustus Fuller

... Horse-Guards is to be moved by nothing but an invasion; and it would be almost as rational to wait the growth of an oak, as to wait the signing of your commission; but it shall be done in my own way. I have means which can make the tardy quick, and open the eyes of the blind. You shall be a subaltern in the Guards, unless you are in too much haste to be a general, and get yourself shot by some Parisian cobbler in the purloined uniform of a rifleman. But, let me tell you one fact, and I might indorse this piece of intelligence, 'Secret and ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXIX. January, 1844. Vol. LV. • Various

... with such a force, the young officer, aided by the one subaltern, made the best disposition possible for defence, trusting to hold the building until the fugitives should return with aid from Brunswick. Those who had their muskets were stationed at the few windows, while the dragoons with drawn ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford

... Reed. My personal acquaintance with him was limited. I shared in the deep dislike with which he was regarded, and his negotiations with the British commissioners, in the spring of 1778, made him obnoxious to the whole army, from the commander-in-chief to the lowest subaltern. You and I talked this matter over nearly fifty years since, and I have found nothing to change, but much to confirm, my opinions. It is a little too bad that this man should be reverenced by posterity as one of the purest of the men of the revolution, when you and I, and all ...
— Nuts for Future Historians to Crack • Various

... just as keen to escape as any one. I could not imagine a Sikh or subaltern stupid enough to believe me innocent. It was a military government. Soldiers have a drum-head method of leaving nothing to discuss except where the corpse is to ...
— Jimgrim and Allah's Peace • Talbot Mundy

... who sacrificed herself for a line lieutenant without a shilling to call his own," he soliloquized aloud. "Would have him, and did, by Jove! Three deaths made him Lord Farquhar later, but she married the penniless subaltern." ...
— The Highgrader • William MacLeod Raine

... C.B., was a subaltern in the 75th Regiment, and was doing duty at the hill station of Murree in the Punjaub. He lived in a house built recently by a Lieutenant B., who died, as researches at the War Office prove, at Peshawur on 2nd January, 1854. The ...
— The Book of Dreams and Ghosts • Andrew Lang

... soldier another; what delights the business man leaves the politician cold. But however much each section of society abuses the ambitions or the morals of the other, all worship equally at the same shrine. No man really wants to spend his whole life as a reporter, a clerk, a subaltern, a private Member, or a curate. Downing Street is as attractive as the oak-leaves of the field-marshal; York and Canterbury as pleasant as a dominance in Lombard ...
— Success (Second Edition) • Max Aitken Beaverbrook

... The news from B Battery aroused much more interest. An 8-inch shell had landed right on top of their dug-out mess. No one was inside at the time, but three officers, who were wont to sleep there, had had every article of kit destroyed. One subaltern who, in spite of the PREPARE FOR ATTACK notification, had put on pyjamas, was left with exactly what he stood up in—viz., pyjamas, British ...
— Pushed and the Return Push • George Herbert Fosdike Nichols, (AKA Quex)

... will agree to live on less than a fixed amount for each successive grade." They called him "Crank Cranston" in the Eleventh for quite a while, but without affecting in the faintest degree his sturdy stand. Margaret's gowns continued simple and inexpensive, and their mode of living modest as any subaltern's, and many women spoke of them as "close" and "mean," but many men wished openly they had Cranston's moral courage. At home, too, better times had come. There was the old homestead, and Mr. Cranston ...
— Under Fire • Charles King

... hundred years to-night since there was born, at Clonmel, in Ireland, a son to a subaltern in an English regiment just home from the Low Countries. "My birthday," Laurence Sterne tells us, "was ominous to my poor father, who was, the day after our arrival, with many other brave officers, broke and sent adrift into the wide world with a wife ...
— Some Diversions of a Man of Letters • Edmund William Gosse

... about them. We are all young—there is scarcely a man with the rank of captain in the British Army out here. We are all majors or colonels in the Egyptian Army, but most of us are subalterns in our own regiments. It is good training for us. At home a subaltern is merely a machine to carry out orders; he is told to do this, and he does it; for him to think for himself would be a heinous offence. He is altogether without responsibility, and without initiative and, by the time he becomes a field officer, he is hidebound. He has ...
— With Kitchener in the Soudan - A Story of Atbara and Omdurman • G. A. Henty

... inn, the only one in the city, situated near the port. There he met the customary patrons. In the vestibule a few youths dressed in peasant style, with military caps, soldiers of the garrison who served as orderlies; within the dining-room, subaltern officers of a batallion of light infantry, young lieutenants who were smoking with a bored mien and gazing through the windows at the immense blue expanse like prisoners of the sea. During the meal they lamented their bad luck at having their ...
— The Dead Command - From the Spanish Los Muertos Mandan • Vicente Blasco Ibanez

... book to its very last page. The subtle distinction of religious worship into latria, dulia, and hyperdulia, the refined classification of prayer under the two heads of direct, absolute, final, sovereign, on the one hand, and of oblique, relative, transitory, subaltern, on the other, swell indeed many elaborate works of casuistry, but are not discoverable in the remains of primitive Christians, nor in the writings of God's word have they any place. I cannot find in the inspired ...
— Primitive Christian Worship • James Endell Tyler

... surcharged with gossip. There was danger of an explosion any moment. Madame Dunoyer gave it out that the brilliant subaltern was to marry the girl. The Madame was going to capture the youth, either with her own charms or those of her daughter—or combined. Rumblings were heard on the horizon. The Ambassador, fearing entanglement, bundled young Arouet ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great Philosophers, Volume 8 • Elbert Hubbard

... words with the chief quartermaster of the department. Dozens in the crowd pushed forward instantly, newspaper men as a matter of business, others from curiosity, as Kenyon opened his despatch. A burly, gray-haired major was quickly at his side, and a tall young subaltern, the adjutant of the regiment. One brief glance over the paper, and the commander turned to his right. "Clear the station," was all he said. Major Cross touched his hat, an eager light shooting across his frank, soldierly face, and strode quickly back to the ...
— A Tame Surrender, A Story of The Chicago Strike • Charles King

... Letter have come for you by that Steamer; for I wrote one duly, and posted it in good time myself: I will hope therefore it was but some delay of some subaltern official, such as I am told occasionally chances, and that you got the Letter after all in a day or two. It would give you notice, more or less, up to its date, of all the points you had inquired about there ...
— The Correspondence of Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1834-1872, Vol II. • Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson

... thought the Colonel was too old a man for climbing trees. He recommended that a subaltern, a Second Lieutenant whom nobody would miss much if he fell, should be sent up the tree. The suggestion, as the Adjutant might have guessed, made the Colonel more ...
— Our Casualty And Other Stories - 1918 • James Owen Hannay, AKA George A. Birmingham

... ignorant Africans ducked, and bowed, and threw their hands into the air, as though in the presence of a creature half divine. Apparently the officer with the whiskers had instantly come round to the opinion of his subaltern; for he now addressed me ...
— The Dynamiter • Robert Louis Stevenson and Fanny van de Grift Stevenson

... than that which is derived from the object, as stated above (A. 6). Therefore the species derived from the end is contained under the species derived from the object, as the most specific species is contained under the subaltern genus. ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I-II (Pars Prima Secundae) - From the Complete American Edition • Saint Thomas Aquinas

... brutal mess,' the subaltern repeated. 'A bullet now is more or less decent, but those shells of theirs, they don't give a man a chance to ...
— Between the Lines • Boyd Cable

... nothing if not thoroughbred, and the voice of his master was, despite all considerations of sleep and sunshine, to him as the voice of the commanding officer to a subaltern. He was off like a shot at a tearing pace, nose down and tail erect, and in less than a minute had scented Walden in the shrubbery, which led by devious windings down from the orchard to the banks of the river Rest, and there finding him, started frantically gambolling round and round him, ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli

... me—I hope it is not indiscreet to mention it—that the first thing you did, on joining your regiment in India as a young subaltern, was to gather all the European children in cantonments together and march them through the place, playing 'The Girl I Left Behind ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves

... the law. Had the opposite course been pursued, the lieutenants serving in the Department must either have outranked some of the captains selected or else the selections must have been confined altogether to the subaltern officers of the Army. It will appear, therefore, that the relative rank of these officers has been properly settled, both by a fair construction of the law and the long-established regulation of the service which requires ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 2) of Volume 3: Martin Van Buren • James D. Richardson

... swarms, ranging from the spider-wheel gig of a British subaltern to the four-in-hand of Rajput nobility—kept pretty carefully apart, though. The conquerors of India don't mix with the conquered, as a rule, except officially. And there were half a dozen shuttered carriages that might have ...
— Guns of the Gods • Talbot Mundy

... standing talking to the commandant of one of the great French army supply depots one morning. He was a man of forty; a colonel in the regular French army. An erect, sturdy-looking man with white hair and mustache, and who wore the single star of a subaltern on his sleeve, came up, saluted, delivered ...
— The Americanization of Edward Bok - The Autobiography of a Dutch Boy Fifty Years After • Edward William Bok

... that it punishes them severely when they are convicted. He proves it by a decree issued in 1601 against some inhabitants of Campagne accused of witchcraft. The decree wills that they shall be sent to the Conciergerie by the subaltern judges on pain of being deprived of their charge. It supposes that they must be rigorously punished, but it desires that the proceedings against them for their discovery and punishment may be exact ...
— The Phantom World - or, The philosophy of spirits, apparitions, &c, &c. • Augustin Calmet

... leash. "Out with them!" said their irate colonel, pointing with his thumb over his shoulder to the carriages in which these blood-thirsty British officers sat. The colonel, however, did not wait to see his behest carried out, and a very gentlemanly German subaltern quietly urged his men to get back to their train and leave us alone. The only daggers that pierced us were the eyes of a couple of priests, a few women and boys, who appeared to be shocked beyond words that even a clergyman ...
— The Better Germany in War Time - Being some Facts towards Fellowship • Harold Picton

... liveliness and all social qualities, either in their own room or at the wine-party of a friend. Many young men in the army, I believe, adopt this system, from motives both of moral and of economical prudence. A pint, or even half a pint, of wine per day, makes a considerable hole in the pay of a subaltern, or in the stipend of a country curate, or in the allowance of a briefless barrister. Avoid acquiring factitious wants. Do not by habit make wine necessary to your comfort. It is wise, when young, not to indulge in luxuries which ...
— Advice to a Young Man upon First Going to Oxford - In Ten Letters, From an Uncle to His Nephew • Edward Berens

... traitor!" exclaimed the subaltern, who was evidently the kinder spirit of the two. ...
— International Weekly Miscellany, Vol. 1, No. 2, July 8, 1850 • Various

... Ha! what a crash was there! 210 Heaven seems to claim a mightier criminal Than yon vile subaltern. ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge

... re-unite. They touch, they feel themselves tallied; confidence is established without an assignable cause. Reason and reflection following, and fixing the seal of their approval on the union, think they have done it all, as subaltern ministers regard the transactions of their masters nothing until they have been permitted to sign their names at the bottom. I fear no misunderstanding with you; and my gratitude alone can equal the perfect security with which you inspire me." "I must show myself to you ...
— The Friendships of Women • William Rounseville Alger

... care," said the officer, laughing, as he and his subaltern rose, bade their charge good-night, and ...
— The Hot Swamp • R.M. Ballantyne

... application: the first is, the clamour against his giving all commands to young or improper officers is extreme; Holmes, appointed admiral of the blue but six weeks ago, has writ a warm letter on the chapter of subaltern commanders: the second, and possibly connected in his mind with the former, may be this; he would like to refuse you, and then say, you had asked when it was too late; and at the same time would have to say that he would have employed you if you had asked sooner. This leads ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole

... general recognized that alarm had led him too far. He welcomed the whole party with hearty commendation, and chose quite to forget the fact that Major Putnam was guilty of a flagrant disregard of orders, in view of the fact, of more immediate importance to himself, that his daring subaltern had saved him from public reprobation for exposing a brave party ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 1 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris

... before. Bob, our Camp Commandant, swears that a battalion of his regiment, while garrisoning some ocean isle, got mislaid for years and years, and they would have been there to this day, chatting to the crabs and watering the palm-trees with their tears, if some junior subaltern had not sent his birthday-book to KITCHENER with the request that the Field-Marshal ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, June 18, 1919 • Various

... one of these extraordinary fellows to about a score of the smaller class. None of them carried anything in their mouths, but all trotted along empty- handed and outside the column, at pretty regular intervals from each other, like subaltern officers in a marching regiment of soldiers. It was easy to be tolerably exact in this observation, for their shining white heads made them very conspicuous amongst the rest, bobbing up and down as the column passed over the inequalities ...
— The Naturalist on the River Amazons • Henry Walter Bates

... relighting his cigarette at every instant; there was always a litter where he stood, for he wasted dozens of matches, lighting one cigarette. "Listen, my life now is the nastiest possible. The worst of it is any subaltern can shout: 'Hi, there, guard!' I have overheard all sorts of things in the train, my boy, and do you know, I have learned that life's a beastly thing! My mother has been the ruin of me! A doctor in the train told me that if parents are immoral, ...
— The Chorus Girl and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov

... classical education. He left a private day-school in London to go straight to Chatham, where he was prepared for entry into the artillery. And at Chatham they did not teach Greek. Therefore when, as a gunner subaltern, he went to the Ionian Islands on the staff of Sir Henry Storks, he was without any knowledge of Greek. He wanted, however, as he told me, to know modern Greek, as the language of the islands. Also, ...
— The Adventure of Living • John St. Loe Strachey

... leave of absence, after experiences not every officer would care to encounter in getting back to his regiment, that Captain Hull should have induced the general to detail him in place of the invalided field quartermaster when the command was divided. Hayne would have been a junior subaltern in Rayner's little battalion but for that detail, and it annoyed the captain more seriously ...
— The Deserter • Charles King

... Church matters, repartition of the Land-dues, Army matters,—in fact they are an effective non-haranguing Parliament, to the King's Deputy in every such Province; well calculated to illuminate and forward his subaltern AMTmen and him. Nay, we observe it is oftenest in the way of gifts and solacements that the King articulately communicates with these Committees or their Ritterschafts. Projects for Draining of Bogs, for improved Highways, for better Husbandry; loans ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle

... for arming and drilling, and then adds: "Capt. Lewis was ordered with his company of Rangers to Greenbrier river, there to build two stockade forts, in one of which he was to remain himself and to detach to the other a subaltern and fifteen men. These forts were to cover the western settlers of Virginia from any inroads of ...
— Chronicles of Border Warfare • Alexander Scott Withers

... two miles to run, but the navigation was delicate, the entrance to this northern anchorage was not only narrow and shoal, but lay east and west, so that the schooner must be nicely handled to be got in. I think I was a good, prompt subaltern, and I am very sure that Hands was an excellent pilot; for we went about and about, and dodged in, shaving the banks, with a certainty and a neatness that ...
— Treasure Island • Robert Louis Stevenson

... will drive nigh desperate. 'Barrel-Mirabeau,' says a biographer of his, 'went indignantly across the Rhine, and drilled Emigrant Regiments. But as he sat one morning in his tent, sour of stomach doubtless and of heart, meditating in Tartarean humour on the turn things took, a certain Captain or Subaltern demanded admittance on business. Such Captain is refused; he again demands, with refusal; and then again, till Colonel Viscount Barrel-Mirabeau, blazing up into a mere burning brandy barrel, clutches his sword, and tumbles out on this ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle

... these lapses the enemy, turning to account the difficult terrain, was able to secure the maximum of profit from the advantages which the superiority of his subaltern ...
— World's War Events, Vol. I • Various

... duonesvenigi. Stupefy malspritigi. Stupefaction mirego. Stupendous mireginda. Stupid malsprita. Stupidity malspriteco. Stupor letargio. Sturdy harda. Sturgeon sturgo, huzo. Stutter balbuti. Stye (pig) porkejo. Style stilo. Style (fashion) fasono. Stylish stila. Subaltern subulo. Subcutaneous subhauxta. Subdivide redividi. Subdue submeti, venki. Subject (gram.) subjekto. Subject regato, regnano. Subject objekto. Subject (lit.) temo. Subject submeti, subigi. Subjection regateco, submeteco. Subjugate submeti. Subjunctive (gram.) relata modo. ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes

... diminished head, retire into the shade, yield the palm, play second fiddle, be upstaged, take a back seat. Adj. inferior, smaller; small &c. 32; minor, less, lesser, deficient, minus, lower, subordinate, secondary; secondrate &c. (imperfect) 651; sub, subaltern; thrown into the shade; weighed in the balance and found wanting; not fit to hold a candle to, can't hold a candle to. least, smallest &c. (see little, small &c. 193); lowest. diminished &c. (decreased) 36; reduced &c. (contracted) 195; unimportant ...
— Roget's Thesaurus

... a subaltern, who had called on Fernandez to carry a report to headquarters, set off alone in the direction of the city. When half a mile on his way a man suddenly confronted him and asked him for a light. He promptly offered his cigar. Puffing fiercely the stranger ...
— Myths & Legends of our New Possessions & Protectorate • Charles M. Skinner

... a fellow-subaltern attempted to leave the Castle grounds by way of the private gate in the western wall, only to be driven back by careful watchers on the outside. A second attempt was made at two o'clock. This time ...
— Truxton King - A Story of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon

... their management. Many volumes of this singular correspondence are still preserved in the royal library at Berlin. The business of this fortunate adept increased so rapidly, that he found it necessary to employ a number of subaltern assistants, who, together with their master, realized considerable fortunes. He died in high reputation and favour with ...
— Thaumaturgia • An Oxonian

... little last Monday, when I had to petition Mons. de Calonne for the restoration of some trifles detained in the custom-house at Calais. His politeness, indeed, and the sight of others performing like acts of humiliation, reconciled me in some measure to the drudgery of running from subaltern to subaltern, intreating, in pathetic terms, the remission of a law which is at last either just or unjust; if just, no felicitation should, methinks, be permitted to change it; if unjust, what can be so grating as the ...
— Observations and Reflections Made in the Course of a Journey through France, Italy, and Germany, Vol. I • Hester Lynch Piozzi

... married three months. I've always thought it was rather poor-spirited of her to die too; for of course she never cared for him. She must have married him only to pique Kersley. By the way, Major Hunt-Goring met them in his subaltern days. He said everyone fell in love with her. I supposed that included himself, and he smiled and said, 'Calf-love, senorita!' Allegro, I wonder if I really like ...
— The Keeper of the Door • Ethel M. Dell

... had now one Ripperda for Minister; a surprising Dutch adventurer, once secretary of some Dutch embassy at Madrid; who, discerning how the land lay, had broken loose from that subaltern career, had changed his religion, insinuated himself into Elizabeth's royal favor; and was now "Duke de Ripperda," and a diplomatic bull-dog of the first quality, full of mighty schemes and hopes; in brief, a new Alberoni to the Termagant Queen. This Ripperda had persuaded ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Volume V. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle

... Ordnance-Master, as an Imperial General of rank, is needed now for War-Service, if he has any skill that way. In those late months, he was duly in attendance at Philipsburg and the Rhine-Campaign, in a subaltern torpid capacity, like Brunswick-Bevern and the others; ready for work, had there been any: but next season, he expects to have a Division of his own, and to do something considerable.—In regard to Berlin and the Diplomacies, he has appointed ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. IX. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle

... the haunted midnight hours, When star-shells droop through the shattered trees, Steal they back to their ancient bowers, Beau Brocade and his Belle Marquise? Greatly loving and greatly daring— Fancy, perhaps, but the fancy grips, For a junior subaltern woke up swearing That a gracious lady ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, May 16, 1917. • Various

... the kindest master that ever was, but with his lady absolute. She abdicated without a word or a struggle. "Go to Mr. Moore, ask Mr. Moore," was her answer when applied to for orders. Never was wooer of wealthy bride so thoroughly absolved from the subaltern part, so inevitably compelled ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte

... the Minister of Militia, sat in the seat beside Earl Roberts. Age had dealt very kindly with the veteran of Kandahar and South Africa. Although a consistent water drinker, Lord Roberts had a very florid complexion, which was just as bright and ruddy as that of a subaltern of twenty, despite his extreme age. This kind of complexion makes it difficult for a man to gain admission to ...
— The Red Watch - With the First Canadian Division in Flanders • J. A. Currie

... at night I was sent under a strong guard, up three pair of stairs in Scotland Yard, into a very small chamber. Two king's messengers were placed for the whole night at one door, and a subaltern's guard of soldiers at the other. As I was, and had been for some days, so ill as to be incapable of getting into or out of a carriage, or up or down stairs, without help, I looked upon all this parade to be calculated for intimidation. My spirits were good and ...
— Southern Literature From 1579-1895 • Louise Manly

... him; so it became evident that the enemy were between Laspur and Mastuj. We knew that they had not crossed the pass, or we should have seen them before this, so we were pretty hopeful of a fight soon after crossing the pass, and we were not disappointed. At Ghizr we also found Oldham, a Sapper subaltern, who had preceded us by a few days. He had with him a party of Kashmir Sappers and Miners, who were now armed with Snider carbines. The post, which consisted of a block of isolated houses, had been fortified and surrounded with ...
— With Kelly to Chitral • William George Laurence Beynon

... who carries the colours belonging to a cavalry troop, equivalent to an ensign in the infantry; the junior subaltern ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth

... gentlemen, I thank you," said the general. He did not again look at the prisoner, but turned to a lieutenant who stood near-by. "You may remove the prisoner," he directed. "He will be destroyed with the others—here is the order," and he handed the subaltern a printed form upon which many names were filled in and at the bottom of which the general had just signed his own. It had evidently been waiting the outcome of the examination of ...
— The Mad King • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... and buried yourself in a howling wilderness because of him, he ought to belong more to you than to his sacred Frontier Force! But Theo seems to be the private property of half the regiment! There's his chief friend Major Wyndham, and the Boy, his subaltern, he thinks the world of them; and they seem to live in the house. Then there's a tiresome old Ressaldar always coming over to do Persian with him for his Higher Proficiency exam; and I don't find it half amusing to be one of a mixed ...
— Captain Desmond, V.C. • Maud Diver

... long-winded, pompous, and contemptuous persons; but if their company is unavoidable, I have at least learnt to hold my tongue. The other day I was at a country-house where an old and extremely tiresome General laid down the law on the subject of the Mutiny, where he had fought as a youthful subaltern. I was pretty sure that he was making the most grotesque misstatements, but I was not in a position to contradict them. Next the General was a courteous, weary old gentleman, who sate with his finger-tips pressed ...
— From a College Window • Arthur Christopher Benson

... different beings exhibited in the Sanctuary. It resulted from that belief in the providence and superintendence of the Gods, which was one of the primary bases of initiation. The administration of the Universe by Subaltern Genii, to whom it is confided, and by whom good and evil are dispensed in the world, was a consequence of this dogma, taught in the Mysteries of Mithras, where was shown that famous egg, shared between Ormuzd and Ahriman, each of whom commissioned twenty-four ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike

... among the lightning flashers, otherwise he appeared perfectly satisfied, and all went off well. After his review he invited himself to our dinner-party, and honoured our repast with the further addition of a kid stew. He turned out to be one of the ex-Company's officers, a subaltern of eighteen years' service, FIFTEEN of which had been spent away from his regiment on the staff. He was with his corps, however, when it mutinied, and escaped without much difficulty. The unfortunate ...
— Diary of a Pedestrian in Cashmere and Thibet • by William Henry Knight

... so—merely mercenary. No; touch me upon family, or fashion—any of my aristocratic prejudices as your father calls them—and I might, perhaps, be a little peremptory. But John Clay is a man just risen from the ranks, lately promoted from being a manufacturer's son, to be a subaltern in good company, looking to rise another step by purchase: no, no—a Percy could not accept such an offer—no loss of fortune could justify such a mesalliance. Such was my first feeling, and I am sure yours, when you read at the ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. VII - Patronage • Maria Edgeworth

... men entered this kitchen: they were the cook, or coquus, and his subaltern, the slave of the slave, focarius. The meal is ready, and now come other slaves assigned to the table,—the tricliniarches, or foreman of all the rest; the lectisterniator, who makes the beds; the praegustator, who tastes the viands beforehand to reassure his master; the structor, ...
— The Wonders of Pompeii • Marc Monnier

... the conclusion that he had had enough of military life in the West. He applied for his discharge, as the compulsory term of service was at an end. When his papers came he was able to get about with the aid of a crutch. One morning his colonel entered his subaltern's bachelor quarters. ...
— The Man on the Box • Harold MacGrath

... low. We all remember what powerful sensations those literary wonders at first created, and what a crowd of imitators followed in their train. The Magazines soon caught up the tone, and became doubly interesting, with the lives of private soldiers, "Two or Three Years in the Peninsula," and the "Subaltern." The camp and the man-of-war now poured forth their vast stories of anecdote and adventure, in all shapes and sizes—octavo and article—sketches of character, local customs and antiquities, filled up the other attractions ...
— Sinks of London Laid Open • Unknown

... Prussian subaltern advancing within cry of the Schweidnitz Gate, requests of the Town-guard there, To send him out a Town-Officer. Town-Officer appears; is informed, 'That Colonels Posadowsky and Borck, Commissioners or plenipotentiary Messengers from his Prussian Majesty, desire admittance to ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XII. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle

... it to be expected that the duty would seem a disgrace, when the Prior of the Knights of Saint John was superintendent of the operations, when the Captain-General of the Netherlands had arranged the whole plan, and when all, from subaltern to viceroy, had received minute instructions as to the contemplated treachery from the great chief of the Spanish police, who sat on the ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... intelligence with feelings of the most profound sorrow. The long, arduous, and faithful military services in which President Harrison has been engaged since the first settlement of the Western country, from the rank of a subaltern to that of a commander in chief, are too well known to require a recital of them here. It is sufficient to point to the fields of Tippecanoe, the banks of the Miami, and the Thames, in Upper Canada, to ...
— Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Harrison • James D. Richardson

... early enough to have got tired of it; for he had now been for some time on half-pay, and a brevet-major, after doing good service in the Indian wars, and was not yet thirty-four. Molyneux had served in the same light cavalry regiment as his subaltern, and there the foundation was laid of their close alliance. It was not a very fair or well-balanced one, being made up of implicit obedience, reliance, and reverence on the one side, and a sort of protecting condescension on the other—much ...
— Sword and Gown - A Novel • George A. Lawrence

... condition of those, who were but last week their equals, probably their companions or their friends, and possibly, as reasonable expectants. There is a known story of Colonel Tidcomb, who, while he continued a subaltern officer, was every day complaining against the pride, oppression, and hard treatment of colonels toward their officers; yet in a very few minutes after he had received his commission for a regiment, walking with a friend on the Mall, ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. III.: Swift's Writings on Religion and the Church, Vol. I. • Jonathan Swift

... not sit in the carriage with their masters. The two descendants, as they call themselves, of the house of Chatillon, insist that this Chatillon, who married an attorney's daughter, is descended from the illegitimate branches of that family. His son was a subaltern in the Body Guard. In the summer time, when the young officers went to bathe, they used to take young Chatillon with them to guard their clothes, and for this office they gave him a crown for his supper. Monsieur having taken this poor person into his service, gave him a cordon bleu, ...
— The Memoirs of the Louis XIV. and The Regency, Complete • Elizabeth-Charlotte, Duchesse d'Orleans

... they can move in an instant. The country houses are of the same description. There is little distinction among the people. The only difference between them consists in the possession of a little more or less property, and, perhaps, the rank of a subaltern officer in the militia." ...
— The History of Puerto Rico - From the Spanish Discovery to the American Occupation • R.A. Van Middeldyk

... was prepared at the stadthouse in honor of the conquerors, where were assembled, in one glorious constellation, the great and little luminaries of New Amsterdam. There were the lordly Schout and his obsequious deputy, the burgomasters with their officious schepens at their elbows, the subaltern officers at the elbows of the schepens, and so on, down to the lowest hanger-on of police; every tag having his rag at his side, to finish his pipe, drink off his heel-taps, and laugh at his flights of immortal ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving

... and with no point of passion in his regard: the Eskdales, Villebecques, Ormsbys, Bessos, Marneys, Meltons, and Mirabels, the Bohuns and St. Aldegondes and Grandisons, the Tadpoles and the Tapers, the dominant and subaltern humanity of the world. All these are drawn with peculiar boldness of line, precision of touch, and clearness of intention. And as with his men so is it with his women: the finest are not those he likes best but those who interested him most. Male and female, his eccentrics surpass ...
— Views and Reviews - Essays in appreciation • William Ernest Henley

... terrible young wife. He perished on the field, critically admiring the stroke to which he owed his death. A week after Harry's burial his widow was asked in marriage by his colonel. Captains, and a giddy subaltern likewise, disputed claims to possess her. She, however, decided to arrest further bloodshed by quitting the regiment. She always said that she left India to save her complexion; "and people don't know how very candid I am," she ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... unfortunately set in soon after we commenced our march, which rendered the fire of many of our muskets useless, and by obscuring the sun, led to several unlucky mistakes. As an instance of this, a body of 50 prisoners who had surrendered, were ordered to the fort in charge of a subaltern and 14 volunteers; the officer mistaking the direction, conducted them towards the British camp in the route by which we had advanced, and they were re-taken with the whole of the guard, excepting the officer and one man, who fought their way back. Several of our stragglers were made prisoners ...
— The Medallic History of the United States of America 1776-1876 • J. F. Loubat

... "Colonel!" cried the subaltern, as his senior smoothed the gloves and placed them carefully in his left hand, closing his ...
— The Lure of the Mask • Harold MacGrath

... major's household was not entirely harmonious. While a young infantry subaltern at a Gulf station, he had been attracted by the piquant foreign accent and dramatic gestures of a French Creole widow, and—believing them, in the first flush of his youthful passion more than an offset to the encumbrance of her two children who, with the memory of various ...
— A Sappho of Green Springs • Bret Harte

... the garrison were killed, including two officers. The prisoners amounted to five hundred and forty-three, among whom were one lieutenant colonel, four captains, and twenty subaltern officers. The military stores taken in the fort ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 3 (of 5) • John Marshall

... for the good of one's country is, first of all, to be a good man. All springs from there. For my part, although you are right in thinking that I have to do with politics, I am unfit by intellect and temper for a leading role. I was intended, I fear, for a subaltern. Yet we have all something to command, Mr. Fritz, if it be only our own temper; and a man about to marry must look closely to himself. The husband's, like the prince's, is a very artificial standing; and it is hard to be kind in either. Do ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... and I would come in at the same instant and point out the women he had to arrest. In England all judicial proceedings are conducted with the utmost punctuality, and everything went off as I had arranged. The bailiff and his subaltern stepped into the parlour and I followed in their footsteps. I pointed out the mother and the two sisters and then made haste to escape, for the sight of the Charpillon, dressed in black, standing by the hearth, made me shudder. ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt

... the wealthier ranks in this country that they are not idlers; for they do their fair share of the work of the state, and usually take more than their fair share of its dangers. It was a fine thing said of a subaltern officer in the Peninsular campaigns, observed trudging alone through mud and mire by the side of his regiment, "There goes 15,000l. a year!" and in our own day, the bleak slopes of Sebastopol and the burning soil of India have borne witness to the ...
— Self Help • Samuel Smiles

... visited the quartermaster-general of his division, received the report of his chief of staff, and gave necessary orders. It was at this place, and never at the General's own dwelling, that the captains or subaltern officers presented themselves when they had occasion to speak ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet

... delights to follow the windings of wickedness when burrowing in the dark. But if not a Fouche or a Vidocq, he is certainly an able man; for, in a section where able men are as plenty as apple-blossoms in June, he was chosen to represent his district in the State Senate, and, entering the army a subaltern officer, rose, before the Battle of Perryville, to the command of a regiment. At that battle a Rebel bullet entered his shoulder, and crushed the bones of his right elbow. This disabled him for field duty, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 93, July, 1865 • Various

... Magnus came out on the porch, erect, grave, freshly shaven. Without realising what he was doing, Annixter instinctively rose to his feet. It was as though Magnus was a commander-in-chief of an unseen army, and he a subaltern. There was some little conversation as to the proposed dance, and then Annixter found an excuse for drawing the Governor aside. Mrs. Derrick watched the two with eyes full of poignant anxiety, as they slowly paced the length of the gravel driveway ...
— The Octopus • Frank Norris

... when the Party whip slips from confabulation with the Front Bench to congratulate him, smiling, on his really admirable little speech; to the youthful dramatist, reading in his bed-sitting-room the managerial note asking him to call that morning at eleven; to the subaltern, beckoned to the stirrup of his chief—the moment when the sun breaks through the morning mists, and the world lies stretched before ...
— Paul Kelver • Jerome Klapka, AKA Jerome K. Jerome

... education by their father at her death, after which, beyond providing them with a home—the ramshackle inheritance that had come to him from his father—he had made little further provision for them. His eldest son, Rupert, was a subaltern in a line regiment. No one knew whether he lived on his pay or not, and no one inquired. The second son, who possessed undeniable brilliance, had earned a scholarship, and was studying medicine. And Noel, now aged sixteen, was still at school, distinguishing himself ...
— The Rocks of Valpre • Ethel May Dell

... grasped his hand warmly. "I am glad indeed to see you," he said; "Skinner is my subaltern, and has often spoken to me of what he considered your hopeless journey to try to find your brother, and said that if you did get through it alive you were as likely as not to turn up here. I congratulate you indeed. Have you been successful?" and he looked doubtfully ...
— The Dash for Khartoum - A Tale of Nile Expedition • George Alfred Henty

... on, 'you could not marry her without her parents' consent, and if they know your purposes they would close their doors against you. Fancy Sir Thomas Bolivick allowing his daughter to marry a man with only a subaltern's pay!' ...
— "The Pomp of Yesterday" • Joseph Hocking

... the Front. "The enemy are continuing to fortify the coast, Sir," said the subaltern. "I don't care if they fiftify it," roared his commanding officer; "it'll make no difference." This shows ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, December 30, 1914 • Various



Words linked to "Subaltern" :   military, armed services, military machine, commissioned military officer, junior, lower-ranking, war machine, armed forces



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