Diccionario ingles.comDiccionario ingles.com
Synonyms, antonyms, pronunciation

  Home
English Dictionary      examples: 'day', 'get rid of', 'New York Bay'




Contumacious   Listen
Contumacious

adjective
1.
Wilfully obstinate; stubbornly disobedient.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








Advanced search
     Find words:
Starting with
Ending with
Containing
Matching a pattern  

Synonyms
Antonyms
Quotes
Words linked to  

only single words



Share |





"Contumacious" Quotes from Famous Books



... neighborhood, where he had displayed uncommon taste and talents for exorcism;—in fact, this was the good Father's forte, and he piqued himself on it accordingly. The devil never fell into worse hands than Father Olavida's, for when he was so contumacious as to resist Latin, and even the first verses of the Gospel of St. John in Greek, which the good Father never had recourse to but in cases of extreme stubbornness and difficulty,— (here Stanton recollected the English story of the Boy of Bilson, and blushed even in Spain for his countrymen),—then ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.

... The contumacious attitude of the Protestants after so many reports had reached Louis XIV. of their entire "conversion," induced him to take more active measures for their suppression. He appointed Marshal Saint-Ruth commander of the ...
— The Huguenots in France • Samuel Smiles

... never was there such a funny curiosity; for although Mr Punch himself was but a timber idol, he was as droll as a true living thing, and napped with his head so comical; but oh! he was a sorrowful contumacious captain, and it was just a sport to see how he rampaged, and triumphed, and sang. For months after, the laddie weans did nothing but squeak and sing like Punch. In short, a blithe spirit was among us throughout this year, and the briefness of the chronicle bears witness to the innocency ...
— The Annals of the Parish • John Galt

... of his victory, but there were no grounds on which he could demand from Henry any great concession. One thing he did insist upon, and that was for him probably the most important advantage which he gained. Henry must acknowledge himself entirely at his mercy, as a contumacious vassal, and accept any sentence imposed on him. In the great task which Philip Augustus had before him, already so successfully begun, of building up in France a strong monarchy and of forcing many powerful and independent vassals ...
— The History of England From the Norman Conquest - to the Death of John (1066-1216) • George Burton Adams

... Arbroath flatly refused to obey, and there ensued a fierce polemical correspondence, during which the Church remained, as has been stated, empty of worshippers altogether. Casting about for reasons which should prove some contumacious spirit to be the leader of this rebellion, Arbroath attacked Mary Deane among others, and asked her if she was "a regular Communicant." To which she ...
— The Treasure of Heaven - A Romance of Riches • Marie Corelli

... familiar scenes; she would be apt to blush, too, under the eyes that knew her secret; her heart might throb uncomfortably; she would mortify herself, I suppose, with foolish notions of having sacrificed the honor of her sex at the foot of proud, contumacious man. Poor womanhood, with its rights and wrongs! Here will be new matter for my course of lectures, at the idea of which you smiled, Mr. Coverdale, a month or two ago. But, as you have really a heart and sympathies, as far as they go, and as I shall depart without ...
— The Blithedale Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... stipulations of the Treaty of Barcelona, it will be remembered, had been that the Emperor should restore Emilia—that is to say, the cities and territories of Modena, Reggio, and Rubbiera—to the Papacy. Clement regarded Alfonso as a contumacious vassal, although his own right to that province only rested on the force of arms by which Julius II. had detached it from the Duchy of Ferrara. It was therefore somewhat difficult for Charles to accept the duke's hospitality. But when he had once done so, Alfonso knew how to ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds

... idle. One made glass, another papyrus, another linen; and each of these restless mortals, said he, is busied in some handiwork. Even the lame, the blind and the maimed here sought and found employment. Nevertheless he calls the Alexandrians a contumacious and good-for-nothing community, with sharp and evil tongues that had spared neither Verus nor Antinous. Jews, Christians, and the votaries of Serapis, he adds in the same letter, serve but one God instead of the divinities of Olympus, and when he asserts of ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... quarrelled about their boundaries. Nor were they without a bountiful share of jealousy, gossip, and backbiting, to relieve the monotony of their lives; and every village had its turbulent spirits, sometimes by fits, though rarely long, contumacious even toward the cure, the guide, counsellor, and ruler of his flock. Enfeebled by hereditary mental subjection, and too long kept in leading-strings to walk alone, they needed him, not for the next world ...
— Montcalm and Wolfe • Francis Parkman

... success of this organ induced Ha-Meliz and Ha-Zefirah to change into dailies. A Hebrew political press thus came into being, and it has contributed tremendously to the spread of Zionism and culture. Even the Hasidim, who had until then remained contumacious toward modern ideas, were reached by its influence. It was, however, the Hebrew language that profited most by the development of journalism in it. The demands of daily life enriched its vocabulary and its resources, completing the ...
— The Renascence of Hebrew Literature (1743-1885) • Nahum Slouschz

... you contumacious young rascal! how are you? I hear you've kicked over the traces and set the governor and his sovereigns at defiance! Well, you've shown yourself a Mainwaring, that's all I have to say! Here is a young lady, however, who is waiting to give you a piece of her mind; ...
— That Mainwaring Affair • Maynard Barbour

... to the ceiling. To these a heavy wooden apparatus was attached, which could be raised or lowered at pleasure by pullies. In the floor were set four ring-bolts, about nine feet apart. When the prisoner was brought into this room, he was again questioned; but, continuing contumacious, preparations were made for inflicting the torture. His great personal strength being so well known, it was deemed prudent by Marvel to have all the four partners, together with Caliban, in attendance. The prisoner, however, submitted more quietly than was anticipated. ...
— Jack Sheppard - A Romance • William Harrison Ainsworth

... the great indignation of the Italian monopolist. The culture of vineyards, the laying of military roads, the draining of marshes, and similar labors, perpetually employed the hands of his stubborn and contumacious troops. On some work of this nature the army happened to be employed near Sirmium, and Probus was looking on from a tower, when a sudden frenzy of disobedience seized upon the men: a party of the mutineers ran up to the emperor, and with a hundred wounds laid him instantly dead. We are told by ...
— The Caesars • Thomas de Quincey

... of the Three Worlds, and am pure of all faiths contrary to that of Al-Islam in this world and in the next world. Wherefore, if thou wilt become a Moslem, well and good; if not, thy death were better than thy life." Ala al-Din also exhorted him to embrace the True Faith; but he refused and was contumacious; so Ala al-Din drew a dagger and cut his throat from ear to ear.[FN126] Then he wrote a scroll, setting forth what had happened and laid it on the brow of the dead, after which they took what was light of load and weighty of worth and turned from the palace and returned to the church. Here ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 4 • Richard F. Burton

... to return to their native provinces. This measure increased the exasperation of the military, and it did not diminish the danger. The reduced officers, instead of conforming to the order, encouraged each other in disobedience. According to the regulations of the war department, their contumacious residence at Paris would subject them to the loss of their half-pay; and many of them, though in poverty, preferred independence to submission. The ministers were irritated by this resistance, and they determined to make an example. It happened that a letter of congratulation which ...
— Memoirs of the Private Life, Return, and Reign of Napoleon in 1815, Vol. I • Pierre Antoine Edouard Fleury de Chaboulon

... ransomed himself. They prosecuted the mayors and other magistrates of the city of London, for pretended or trivial neglects of duty, long after the time of the alleged offences; subservient judges imposed enormous fines, and the king imprisoned during his own life some of the contumacious offenders. Alderman Hawes is said to have died heartbroken by the terror and anguish of these proceedings. [6] They imprisoned and fined juries who hesitated to lend their aid when it was deemed convenient to ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 17, - Issue 495, June 25, 1831 • Various

... seems to me bad, if I find in it one troublesome, wicked, slanderous, envious, or perfidious person." Now, taking into consideration that St. Pierre sometimes imagined persons who were really good, to be deserving of these strong and very contumacious epithets, it would have been difficult indeed to find a society in which he could have been happy. He was, therefore, wise, in seeking retirement, and indulging in solitude. His mistakes,—for they were mistakes,—arose from a too quick perception of evil, united to an exquisite and diffuse ...
— Paul and Virginia • Bernardin de Saint Pierre

... shall now humbly move your lordship for speedy Judgment against him. My lord, I might press your lordship upon the whole, that according to the known rules of the law of the land, That if a Prisoner shall stand as contumacious in contempt, and shall not put in an issuable plea, Guilty or not Guilty of the Charge given against him, whereby he may come to a fair trial; that, as by an implicit confession, it may be taken pro confesso, as it hath been done to those who have deserved more favour than the Prisoner ...
— State Trials, Political and Social - Volume 1 (of 2) • Various

... after this magnanimous statement he and Paul and a few others proceeded summarily to eject Bramble, Padger, and others who showed signs of opposition; and then, locking the door, proceeded to an immediate vote, which, amid loud Guinea-pig cheers, was declared to be unanimous, one contumacious Tadpole, who had escaped notice, having his hands held down by his sides during the ceremony. As soon as the doors were open, Bramble, who had meanwhile collected a large muster of adherents, rushed in, and, turning ...
— The Fifth Form at Saint Dominic's - A School Story • Talbot Baines Reed

... best to succeed, and contented himself with pointing out, quietly and courteously, how failure might have been avoided. "But if he believed," says his chief of the staff, "that his subordinates were self-indulgent or contumacious, he became a stern and exacting master; ...and during his career a causeless friction was produced in the working of his government over several gallant and meritorious officers who served under him. This was almost the sole fault of his military ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson

... answer will prove sufficient. No one should call me contumacious, if I insist on what your father, of blessed memory, not only sanctioned by word of mouth, but even by a law:—That in cases of faith, or of ecclesiastics, the judges should be neither inferior in function nor separate in jurisdiction—thus the rescript runs; in other words, he would ...
— Historical Sketches, Volume I (of 3) • John Henry Newman

... you know what frivolous reasons serve to make the vulgar, contumacious and indisposed to hearken, you would not wonder at the paucity of converts. The number of thick skulls is infinite, and we need neither record their follies nor endeavour to interest them in subtle and sublime ideas. No demonstrations ...
— The World's Greatest Books - Volume 15 - Science • Various

... was an ardent Catholic—so ardent that she professed great pain at her stepbrother's alien leanings and had taken considerable trouble to convert him to her own way of thinking. She used to say, in her flowery language, that his contumacious attitude towards the true Faith gnawed at her vitals—meaning, presumably, that it annoyed her. Often she pointed out how many social and other advantages they would gain—living in a Catholic country—if he, too, could bring himself to enter the field of believers. In vain! The Commissioner ...
— South Wind • Norman Douglas

... one civilly acceded to; whereupon, drinking their good healths, he returned to his ship. In the instance where he had been uncivilly treated, to show his forbearance, he saluted them with twenty one guns; but by some accident the shot had not been withdrawn, so that unfortunately the contumacious ill bred craft sank, and as Blackbeard's own vessel was very crowded, he was unable to save any of the crew. He was a great admirer of fine air, and accordingly established himself on the island of New Providence, and invited a number of elegant young men, ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott

... appeared for Dr. Huss before cardinal Colonna. They endeavoured to excuse his absence, and said, they were ready to answer in his behalf. But, the cardinal declared Huss contumacious, and excommunicated him accordingly. The proctors appealed to the pope, and appointed four cardinals to examine the process: these commissioners confirmed the former sentence, and extended the excommunication not only to Huss but to all his friends ...
— Fox's Book of Martyrs - Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant - Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs • John Fox

... sending before him from Norham to Dieppe his wife and her mother. Scotland was not yet ripe. The lay professors of the Evangel indeed were not seriously molested after his departure. But on the other hand Knox himself was at once cited to appear in Edinburgh, condemned in absence as a contumacious heretic, and burned at the Cross in the High Street—in effigy. Neither this, nor his daily work in Geneva, had the effect of withdrawing him for a day from his solicitude for his native country. On leaving it he wrote an admirable 'Letter of Wholesome ...
— John Knox • A. Taylor Innes

... queen anew, declared her contumacious, notwithstanding her appeal to Rome; and then proceeded to the examination of the cause. The first point which came before them was, the proof of Prince Arthur's consummation of his marriage with Catharine; and it must be confessed, that ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part C. - From Henry VII. to Mary • David Hume

... terrors for Perry. With one hand thrust between the first and second buttons of his coat, and the other raised in that gesture with which the orator stills the sea of discontent, he stepped forward, and turning slowly about, brought his eyes to bear on the contumacious Bolum. He indicated the target. Every optic gun in the room was levelled at it. The upraised hand, the potent silence, the solemn gaze of a hundred eyes was too much for the old man to bear. Slowly he ...
— The Soldier of the Valley • Nelson Lloyd

... occasioned a thorough consideration by the Senate of the basis of this power. After a protracted debate, which cut sharply across sectional and party lines, the Senate voted overwhelmingly to imprison the contumacious witness.[90] Notwithstanding this firmly established legislative practice the Supreme Court took a narrow view of the power in the case of Kilbourn v. Thompson.[91] It held that the House of Representatives had overstepped its jurisdiction when it instituted an investigation ...
— The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation • Edward Corwin

... deeply scandalized by the contumacious heresy of Emery de Caen, who not only assembled his Huguenot sailors at prayers, but forced Catholics to join them. He was ordered thenceforth to prohibit his crews from all praying and psalm-singing on the river St. ...
— Pioneers Of France In The New World • Francis Parkman, Jr.

... ministerial and lay delegates from such churches, and their duty was to confer and advise upon matters of general interest or upon special problems. In cases where their decisions were unheeded, they could enforce their displeasure at the contumacious church only by cutting it off from fellowship. Consequently, though there was some opposition to the Court's calling of synods and a resultant general restlessness, there was none when the Court confined its supervision and commands ...
— The Development of Religious Liberty in Connecticut • M. Louise Greene, Ph. D.

... who seest me shamed And sore confounded, have I not enough Been humbled? How can cruelty be stretch'd Farther? Thy shafts have all gone home, and thou Hast triumph'd. Would'st thou win a new renown? Attack an enemy more contumacious: Hippolytus neglects thee, braves thy wrath, Nor ever at thine altars bow'd the knee. Thy name offends his proud, disdainful ears. Our interests are alike: avenge thyself, Force him to love— But what ...
— Phaedra • Jean Baptiste Racine

... days. The arrival was retarded six hours, and the four found themselves in Genova la superba somewhere about midnight. However, this was only the commencement of the pouring visitation; and the roads had been rendered merely so "heavy" as to make the horses contumacious when dragging the ponderous vehicle up hill, which contumacy had occasioned the delay in question. Despite the hopes entertained that the weather would clear, the rain set in; and during no interval did it hold up, with the exception ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 107, September, 1866 • Various

... winged son Cupid, mischievous enough in his own nature, and rouses and provokes him yet more by her complaints. She points out Psyche to him and says, "My dear son, punish that contumacious beauty; give thy mother a revenge as sweet as her injuries are great; infuse into the bosom of that haughty girl a passion for some low, mean, unworthy being, so that she may reap a mortification as great as her ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch

... high priest, and Caiaphas, and John, and Alexander, and as many as were of the kindred of the high priest,' were very much astonished that their united wisdom and dignity did not produce a greater impression on these two contumacious prisoners. They were 'unlearned,' knowing nothing about Rabbinical wisdom; they were 'ignorant,' or, as the word ought rather to be rendered, 'persons in a private station,' without any kind of official dignity. And yet there ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: The Acts • Alexander Maclaren

... to be preparatory to some coming event. The people around her were gracious on the presumption that she was going to do as they wished, and would be quite prepared to withdraw their smiles should she prove to be contumacious. Mary, as she crept down in the morning, understood all this perfectly. She found her stepmother alone in the parlour and was at once attacked with the all important question. "My dear, I hope you have made up ...
— The American Senator • Anthony Trollope

... Americans. He pronounced the idea of their successfully resisting the power of Great Britain, as utterly absurd. His measures became so atrocious, as to excite the indignation of the people of New Jersey. The Assembly finally arrested him and sent him, under guard, to Burlington. As he continued contumacious and menacing, Congress ordered him to be removed to Connecticut. The Constitutional Gazette of July 13th, 1776, contains the ...
— Benjamin Franklin, A Picture of the Struggles of Our Infant Nation One Hundred Years Ago - American Pioneers and Patriots Series • John S. C. Abbott

... anything that comes handy. There the matter ends; or, if the offender declines to settle, the case may be referred to the ish-u-mat-tah, who will probably insist that payment be made. And yet should the delinquent still prove contumacious and refuse to pay, the matter rests there—there is no punishment for his offence. The well-behaved will talk to the refractory one and say, "ma-muk-poo-now" (no good), but that is all. Should he be hungry or his family unprovided ...
— Schwatka's Search • William H. Gilder

... power in these northern districts, he appears to have been in habits of constant and regular communication - rewarding them by presents, in the shape either of money or of grants or land, and securing their services in reducing to obedience such of their fellow chieftains as proved contumacious, or actually rose in rebellion." [Tytler, vol. iv., ...
— History Of The Mackenzies • Alexander Mackenzie

... been granted by the king for a record office. The palace must have been detestable enough to the monks, for it was to his palace of Bridewell that Henry VIII. summoned the abbots and other heads of religious societies, and succeeded in squeezing out of them L100,000, the contumacious Cistercians alone yielding ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury

... the unusual character of these incidents revived again the old complaints—those who were parties in this affair uniting with those who were angry at what had previously occurred. All joined in clamors against the archbishop, treating him as turbulent, seditious, prejudiced, contumacious, and the like; and from various speeches and conversations this opinion steadily grew—all regarding as already certain and evident what originated only in their mistaken prejudices, and with this basis ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898—Volume 39 of 55 • Various

... emerging everywhere from the thick boughs of the spruce, now devising an airy settlement for some gossamer-robed doll, now adjusting far back on a stiff branch Tom's new little skates, now balancing bags of sugar-plums and candy, and now combating desperately with some contumacious taper that would turn slantwise or crosswise, or anywise but upward as a Christian taper should,—regardless of Mrs. Crowfield's gentle admonitions and suggestions, sitting up to most dissipated hours, springing out of bed suddenly to change some arrangement ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 89, March, 1865 • Various

... of whom one hates to think, was bent on forcing Katherine to concede her rights, and illegitimize her daughter, in favor of the offspring of Anna Bullen: she steadily refused, was declared contumacious, and the sentence of divorce pronounced in 1533. Such of her attendants as persisted in paying her the honors due to a queen were driven from her household; those who consented to serve her as princess-dowager, she refused ...
— Characteristics of Women - Moral, Poetical, and Historical • Anna Jameson

... occasion. And where master and man were equally bad, we have known cases in which it was really hard to say which contrived to inflict most misery: the one might get used to blows and curses so as not much to mind them, but the other could never escape the agonies of rage into which his contumacious chattel was able to throw him ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 48, October, 1861 • Various

... disposed of, and that being a consummation devoutly to be wished, he said no more, salving his lust of power with the reflection that, by deciding the question for herself, she had removed all responsibility from his shoulders, and proved herself to be a contumacious woman and blameworthy. So long as there is no risk of publicity the domestic tyrannies of respectable elderly gentlemen of irascible disposition may be carried to any length, but once there is a threat of ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand

... me, she was pleased to say, how much in earnest my father was. They might be taken off, whenever I thought fit, and no harm done, nor disgrace received. But if I were to be contumacious, I might thank myself for all that ...
— Clarissa, Volume 1 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson

... that he feared, and uttering various ejaculations of disgust, at finding several suspicious-looking holes close to the cart. I sat leaning against the wheel in a scanty strip of shade, making a pair of hobbles to replace those which my contumacious steed Pontiac had broken the night before. The camp of our friends, a rod or two distant, presented the same scene of ...
— The Oregon Trail • Francis Parkman, Jr.

... unheeded and went back to the library. He would have liked to put Beaton out of his house, and in his heart he burned against him as a contumacious hand; he would have liked to discharge him from the art department of 'Every Other Week' at once. But he was aware of not having treated Beaton with much ceremony, and if the young man had returned his behavior ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... came the news that Grouchy had escaped from the Prussians; and that the relics of Napoleon's host were rallying at Laon. But would not this encouragement embolden the Emperor to crush the contumacious Chambers? Evidently the case was urgent. He must abdicate, or they would dethrone him—such was the purport of their message to the Elysee; but, as an act of grace, they allowed him an hour in which to forestall their ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose

... time, and if he failed so to depart he was liable to be imprisoned until he could be formally tried at the general jail delivery. If found guilty, upon trial, he was to be adjudged by the court to quit the Province, and if he still proved contumacious he was to be deemed guilty of felony, and to suffer death as a felon, without benefit of clergy. This statute, be it observed, was not passed at Westminster during the supremacy of the Plantagenets or the Tudors, but at York, Upper Canada, during the forty-fourth ...
— The Story of the Upper Canada Rebellion, Volume 1 • John Charles Dent

... hopeful, even to a man of such desperate fortunes as the bold Tennessean. The house was surrounded by rebel soldiers, and a report of the case would probably be made to the provost-marshal; therefore it was not at all likely that the doughty doctor could long remain contumacious. ...
— The Young Lieutenant - or, The Adventures of an Army Officer • Oliver Optic

... mastery, they elected as their representatives, not the most able men, not the most orderly men, not the men of some training and education, not the men who had some stake in the country, but the most violent men, the glibbest men, the most factious, the most contumacious, the most pragmatical men were the men they elected. Look at the Poor-Law Boards. See the set sent there. Those are the men who will be sent to the Dublin Parliament. Are they men to be trusted with the affairs of State? Look up ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)

... would help them in their needs; and the procuration or maintenance from all countries which they not only visited, but merely passed through, was arbitrarily assessed. Innocent III enforces it by directing against ecclesiastics who were contumacious a sentence of distraint of goods without any right of appeal. The burden was no light one. Wichmann, Archbishop of Magdeburg, writing on behalf of Frederick I, tells the Pope that the whole Church of the Empire is subject ...
— The Church and the Empire - Being an Outline of the History of the Church - from A.D. 1003 to A.D. 1304 • D. J. Medley

... a time as he desires. If, indeed, he find fault with anything, or expose it, reasonably, and with the humility of charity, the Abbot shall discuss it prudently, lest perchance God had sent for this very thing. But, if he have been found gossipy and contumacious in the time of his sojourn as guest, not only ought he not to be joined to the body of the monastery, but also it shall be said to him, honestly, that he must depart. If he does not go, let two stout monks, in the name of God, explain ...
— Little Journeys To The Homes Of Great Teachers • Elbert Hubbard

... replied with a quotation from the Bible with reference to the time coming when "all shall know the Lord from the least even to the greatest," and then who will make the spectacles? But he still objected to my reading that book, called me a contumacious quibbler too fond of disputation, and ordered me to return it to the accommodating owner. I managed, however, ...
— The Story of My Boyhood and Youth • John Muir

... March 23.—Easter Holidays begin to-morrow; to-night last rally round RAIKES; Postmaster harried from both sides of House; the Contumacious COBB begins it; comments on Coroner's conduct beginning to pall on accustomed appetite; references to delicate investigation in judicial circles falling flat; so turns upon POSTMASTER-GENERAL. Wants to know about the Boy Messengers? Pack in full cry; RAIKES pelted ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100, April 4, 1891 • Various

... permanently settling the fundamental question of the constitutional right of nullification was extremely distasteful to him. He was utterly opposed to the concessions which were made while South Carolina still remained contumacious. He was for compelling her to retire altogether from her rebellious position and to repeal her unconstitutional enactments wholly and unconditionally, before one jot should be abated from the obnoxious duties. When the bill for the modification of the tariff was under debate, he moved to ...
— John Quincy Adams - American Statesmen Series • John. T. Morse

... national faith and feeling as regards the inevitable righteousness of England, the Almighty's consequent respect and partiality for that redoubtable little island, and His presumed readiness to strengthen its defence against the contumacious wickedness and knavery of all other principalities or republics. Tennyson himself, though evidently English to the very last prejudice, could not write half so good a song for the purpose. Finding that the entire dinner-table struck in, with voices of every pitch ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, August, 1863, No. 70 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various

... punishment for the contumacious was expressed by the words onere, frigore, et fame. By the first was meant, that the culprit should be extended on his back on the ground, and weights placed over his body, gradually increased, until he expired. Sometimes the punishment was not extended to this length, and the victim ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay

... and swerved in their impatience; one or two over-contumacious bolted incontinently, others put their heads between their knees in the endeavour to draw their riders over their withers; Wild Geranium reared straight upright, fidgeted all over with longing to be off, passaged with the prettiest, wickedest grace in the world, and would have given the world ...
— Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida - Selected from the Works of Ouida • Ouida

... especially, to give extreme scandal to the deputies and to all other serious men. She said, that it was unreasonable in the Dutch to have stirred up so great a commotion merely on account of the celebration of mass; and that so contumacious a resistance to their king could never redound to their honor, since they were not compelled to believe in the divinity of the mass, but only to be spectators of its performance,—as at a public spectacle. "What!" said she, "if I were to begin to act some scene in a dress like this," (for ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin

... you!—how dare you be so contumacious, after all the trouble we have taken to set your dear fidgety mind at rest? Just look what you have done, Mr. Drummond," turning upon him. "Now I am not going to forgive you, and we will not trust the mother out of our sight, unless you ...
— Not Like Other Girls • Rosa N. Carey

... company, denounced the contract as in nowise valid, and peremptorily ordered the agents of the contracting party to abandon the work. The agents refused. Affairs now assumed the aspect of war. Hallet procured a company of United States dragoons from Fort Leavenworth, and rode down upon the contumacious contractors. The result of this cavalry dash is rather picturesquely described in a letter of this novel railroad ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 122, December, 1867 • Various

... Catholic authorities and Catholic orders, and so enforced as, after long and acrimonious controversy, to result in the expulsion of the society from almost every nation of Catholic Europe, in its being stigmatized by Pope Benedict XIV., in 1741, as made up of "disobedient, contumacious, captious, and reprobate persons," and at last in its being suppressed and abolished by Pope Clement XIV., in 1773, as a nuisance to Christendom. We need, indeed, to make allowance for the intense animosity of sectarian strife among the various Catholic orders in which the ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon

... having been shown, the Keepers closed the two gates, and at the same time locked the east and western avenues; thus interdicting from egress above three hundred contumacious individuals, including the Hon. Tom Dashall and ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan

... thee to partake of their merited sufferings; thou art moved to pity for these unhappy people, to whom consecrated errors renders vice necessary; whose fatal habits make them familiar with crime. Yes; thou shunnest them without hating them; thou wouldst succour them, if their contumacious perversity had left thee the means. When thou comparest thine own condition, when thou examinest thine own soul, thou wilt have just cause to felicitate thyself, if thou shalt find that peace has taken up her abode ...
— The System of Nature, Vol. 2 • Baron D'Holbach

... bear such a burden of cares. No time had they for their wonted jocosity. To those who would fain have speered the news, they shook their heads in a Solomon-like manner, and hastened by. And such a battle and tribulation as they had with their vassals, the magistrates of Leith! who, in the most contumacious manner, insisted that their chief bailie should be the first to welcome the Sovereign on the shore. This pretence was thought little short of rebellion, and the provost and the bailies, and all the wise men that sat in council with them, together with the help of their learned assessors, continued ...
— Ringan Gilhaize - or The Covenanters • John Galt

... &c 150; inexorable &c (determined) 604; mulish, obstinate as a mule, pig-headed. dogged; sullen, sulky; unmoved, uninfluenced unaffected. willful, self-willed, perverse; resty^, restive, restiff^; pervicacious^, wayward, refractory, unruly; heady, headstrong; entete [Fr.]; contumacious; crossgrained^. arbitrary, dogmatic, positive, bigoted; prejudiced &c 481; creed- bound; prepossessed, infatuated; stiff-backed, stiff necked, stiff hearted; hard-mouthed, hidebound; unyielding; impervious, impracticable, inpersuasible^; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget

... Basil's identity. He could now see the spiteful face that confronted him on a memorable morning in the shades of Dean Forest. He listened intently. The harangue was long and tedious, and endeavoured to prove that the tallest prisoner was a contumacious heretic, who had fought against the Holy Church, frustrated her lawful efforts at the conversion of England, and had slain two noble and saintly missionaries and servants of King Philip—to wit, a certain Jesuit father, Jerome, and a monk named John. The prisoner had also repeatedly attempted ...
— Sea-Dogs All! - A Tale of Forest and Sea • Tom Bevan

... "They are a contumacious generation," replied the gardener; "they hae sax days in the week to hive on, and yet it's a common observe that they will aye swarm on the Sabbath-day, and keep folk at hame frae hearing the word—But there's nae preaching at Graneagain chapel the ...
— Rob Roy, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott

... came, hobbling and stumbling out to the door, pale with rage, and called on Talbot to come and bring his men to tear down the rag of vanity in which this contumacious woman put ...
— Unknown to History - A Story of the Captivity of Mary of Scotland • Charlotte M. Yonge

... little contumacious, and very much indisposed to stir. She was flushed with the fire. Her dark hair had been more than once dishevelled by the morning wind that day. Her attire was a light, neatly fitting, but amply flowing dress of muslin; the shawl she had worn in the garden was still draped ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte

... Singh, raja of Benares, neglected to perform the demands made upon him, and showed a dangerously independent spirit. In 1781 Hastings imposed an enormous fine upon him; he revolted and was defeated, and his estates were confiscated and given to a kinsman. Though the raja's conduct was contumacious, Hastings seems to have acted with undue severity. He was pressed for money, and left the raja no choice between paying a very large sum and losing his estates. Difficulties increased, and he called on Asaf-ud-Daula, then nawab wazir of Oudh, to pay his heavy arrears of debt to the company. ...
— The Political History of England - Vol. X. • William Hunt

... after dinner, as Sir Bryan still labored at that contumacious grave, his hostess came and seated herself upon the rock, whence he, in the first flush of triumph, had surveyed the dead bear. Sir Bryan could not but feel flattered by this kind attention, and, being particularly anxious ...
— Peak and Prairie - From a Colorado Sketch-book • Anna Fuller

... London, and the merchant was glad to find himself among his acquaintance. He was so full of the story which had brought him thither, that he had scarce sat down when he began to complain of his hard fate, in having an only child who was so mean, stubborn, and contumacious; and every sentence was concluded with an apostrophe of ...
— The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom, Complete • Tobias Smollett

... see a well set-up human figure quite well," said the Barbel. "She was called 'contumacious lady,' or something of that kind. She had a mouth and staring eyes, like ours, and a great balloon at the back of her head, and something like a shut-up umbrella in front; there were a lot of dangling bits of seaweed hanging about her. She ought to take all the rubbish off, ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen

... protects. It is an encouragement to the innocent and meritorious, that they at least shall enjoy those advantages which they patiently expected rather from the benignity of Parliament than their own efforts. Persons more contumacious may also see that they are resisting terms of perhaps greater freedom and happiness than they are now in arms to obtain. The glory and propriety of offered mercy is neither tarnished nor weakened by the folly of those who refuse to ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VI. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... altogether consistent in this, but—no matter. Saturday wound up the unlucky thirteenth week of our sorrows. It saw us emaciated, thirsty, and filled to satiety with the romance of isolation. It found us irascible, contumacious, with an aptitude for fluent swearing at the tales (of how light we had grown) unfolded by the weighing-machine. It found us in lucid intervals conjuring up visions of a beer saturnalia when—alas! when the barrels were full again. It heard us howling against horseflesh ...
— The Siege of Kimberley • T. Phelan

... and not wishing to employ violent means to dispossess them if it could possibly be done otherwise, I passed the night in the hall. Having, however, obtained possession of the outworks, I was determined to carry the citadel; and, summoning the contumacious occupants into my presence next morning, I demanded, in a peremptory tone, the ...
— Service in the Hudson's Bay Territory • John M'lean

... doctrines, he said, had emptied the temples of the gods, and exasperated their worshippers. Trajan in reply had ordered that the Christians should not be sought for, but that, if they were brought before the governor, and proved to be contumacious in refusing to adjure their religion, they were then to be put to death. Hadrian and Antoninus Pius had continued the same policy, and Marcus Aurilius saw no reason to alter it. But this law, which in quiet times might become a mere ...
— Seekers after God • Frederic William Farrar

... prisoner, but to no effect; on the contrary, that very day the gallows was erected in front of the Augustinian convent, so that the execution would be in sight of the house. When the archbishop saw this contumacious act, he sent to notify the judge again, at seven o'clock at night, to send back the prisoner under penalty of major excommunication, latae sententiae. Seeing that he would not do so, at eleven o'clock at night the ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 • Various

... bit of it, my dear Augustus. I am in most deadly earnest, as you'll find if you are contumacious when I make my little proposition. What I say is this. I have grown to take an interest in you, Augustus. I have been very kind to you and tried to make a better man of you. I have been a sort of mother to you, and you have sworn devotion and gratitude to me. I have reformed ...
— Driftwood Spars - The Stories of a Man, a Boy, a Woman, and Certain Other People Who - Strangely Met Upon the Sea of Life • Percival Christopher Wren

... that he had acted as Justiciar, not as Metropolitan, and suspended Richard, who again went off to Hubert and got the sentence relaxed, and boasted that he was free from Lincoln jurisdiction. Hugh simply added excommunication to the contumacious deacon. Again the archbishop loosed, and Hugh bound. "If a hundred times you get absolved by the lord archbishop, know that we re-excommunicate you a hundred times or more, as long as we see you so all too hardened in your mad presumption. It is evident what you ...
— Hugh, Bishop of Lincoln - A Short Story of One of the Makers of Mediaeval England • Charles L. Marson

... which to thank me,' he said, in quite a repellent tone. 'I am glad you obeyed orders and stopped at home; I was afraid you might be contumacious, as usual,'—which was rather ungracious of him, after the promise he had ...
— Uncle Max • Rosa Nouchette Carey

... tradition remained that all Trevlyns must of necessity be rank Papists, and Nicholas had certainly done all he could to encourage this idea, and had ruined himself by his contumacious resistance to the laws. Both his brother and his nephew had suffered through their close relationship to such an unruly subject, and there had been dark days enough for the family during the Armada scare, when every Papist became a mark for ...
— The Lost Treasure of Trevlyn - A Story of the Days of the Gunpowder Plot • Evelyn Everett-Green

... regiment, the circumstances of his capture, and such other particulars as their Northern inquisitiveness prompted them to ask. I liked the manliness of his deportment; he was neither ashamed, nor afraid, nor in the slightest degree sullen, peppery, or contumacious, but bore himself as if whatever animosity he had felt towards his enemies was left upon the battle-field, and would not be resumed till he had again a weapon ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 57, July, 1862 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... of sending them off the country. At the same time the Chihaw king complained of the cruel treatment he had received from John Palmer who had barbarously beat and cut him with his broad-sword. In answer to which charge Palmer was insolent and contumacious, and protested, in defiance and contempt of both governor and council, he would again treat him in like manner upon the same provocation; for which he was ordered into custody, until he asked pardon of the house, and ...
— An Historical Account Of The Rise And Progress Of The Colonies Of South Carolina And Georgia, Volume 1 • Alexander Hewatt

... all the flogging I might give him could not make him tell that of which he had no knowledge. But somehow I had a conviction that he could tell me a great deal that I should be glad to know, if he only chose; so I finally decided that if he continued contumacious I would risk giving him a stroke or two, being guided in my after conduct by his ...
— A Pirate of the Caribbees • Harry Collingwood

... courts to this digital form of signature, "finger form." Without a confession no criminal can be legally executed, and the confession to be valid must be attested by the thumb-print of the prisoner. No direct coercion is employed to secure this; a contumacious culprit may, however, be tortured until he performs the act which is a prerequisite to his execution. Digital signatures are sometimes required in the army to prevent personation; the general in command at Wenchow enforces ...
— Scientific American Supplement No. 360, November 25, 1882 • Various

... Grayson would be angered; and then she left him to reflect on the results of a displeasure that to her simple mind teemed with all the danger that could attend the anger of a monarch. Provoked by his contumacious disregard of her remonstrances, the negress, forgetting all her respect, in blindness in behalf of her whom she not only loved, but had been taught to reverence, seized the boat-hook, and, unperceived by Wilder, fastened to it, with ...
— The Red Rover • James Fenimore Cooper

... rubbed the palm of his hand on one of his head ornaments, as though he were somewhat perplexed at the contumacious conduct of the barber; then rising, he gracefully led the ladies out. As he stood with one foot on the step of the door, he turned his head scornfully over his shoulder, and said, "Hans, you are nothing but—a barber; but before I eat, you ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, October 16, 1841 • Various

... take upon himself the education of his sons, uniformly considering him, at the same time, more in the light of a friend than of a dependent. Count Porro himself subsequently fell under the suspicions of the Austrian Government, and having betaken himself to flight, was twice condemned to death (as contumacious), the first time under the charge of Carbonarism, and the second time for a pretended conspiracy. The sons of Count Porro are more than once alluded to by their friend and tutor, as the ...
— My Ten Years' Imprisonment • Silvio Pellico

... despoiling his loyal subjects—and the plundering and breaking down of the Church of God. But then he wiped all this handsomely up again, with the observation, that since it was the will of their gracious and newly-restored Sovereign, and the pleasure of the worshipful Lady Peveril, that this contumacious and rebellious race should be, for a time, forborne by their faithful subjects, it would be highly proper that all the loyal liegemen should, for the present, eschew subjects of dissension or quarrel with these sons of Shimei; which lesson ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott

... thyself! Go, madman, go. I know too well the contumacious obstinacy of the class to which I suspect thou belongest, to waste further words. Diable! but ye grow so accustomed to look on death, that ye forget the respect ye owe to it. Since thou offerest ...
— Zanoni • Edward Bulwer Lytton

... fall, and England with them. The proud islanders, who had dared to rebel against St. Peter, and to cast off the worship of "Mary," should bow their necks once more under the yoke of the Gospel. Their so-called queen, illegitimate, excommunicate, contumacious, the abettor of free-trade, the defender of the Netherlands, the pillar of false doctrine throughout Europe, should be sent in chains across the Alps, to sue for her life at the feet of the injured and long-suffering father of mankind, while his nominee took her place upon the ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley

... and refine the hard Roman character, represented the party of conservatism. Now, thought he, is an opportunity for me to stand against the corrupting influence of Magna Grcia. He therefore rose and made a long speech in opposition to the petition of the matrons. He thought they had become thus contumacious, he said, because the men had not individually exercised their rightful authority over their own wives. "The privileges of men are now spurned, trodden under foot," he exclaimed, "and we, who have shown that we are unable to stand against the women ...
— The Story of Rome From the Earliest Times to the End of the Republic • Arthur Gilman

... his promise to the Dewil, which having confessed, they resolve to procede iudicially against him. Since the Dewil loves not iustic, they send a messenger to the place wheir they made the pact to cite him to compeir and answer. He not compairing they declaire him contumacious; and as they procede to condemn him as guilty, behold a horrid bruit about the hous and the obligation the lad had given him droops of the rigging[211] amongs the mids of the auditors. We fand the story called funeste ...
— Publications of the Scottish History Society, Vol. 36 • Sir John Lauder

... Scriptures affirm it, and all the fathers unanimously accept the scriptural words in their naked and literal sense. But it was necessary to assign motion to the sun and rest to the earth lest the shallow minds of the vulgar should be confounded, amused, and rendered obstinate and contumacious with regard to doctrines of faith. St. Jerome writes: "It is the custom for the pen-men of Scripture to deliver their judgments in many things according to the common received opinion that their times had of them." Even Copernicus ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books, Volume XIII. - Religion and Philosophy • Various

... payment of certain dues, and of a rent which, never, as they allege, exceeded one penny an acre; and they quote edicts of the French monarchs to show that the governor and intendant, when the seignior was contumacious, could seize the land, and make the concession in spite of him, taking the rent for the Crown. The seigniors, on the other hand, plead the decisions of the courts since the conquest in vindication of their claim to receive ...
— Letters and Journals of James, Eighth Earl of Elgin • James, Eighth Earl of Elgin

... behind the table, looking his haughtiest. He was unsure of a welcome from the contumacious Vigo; I read in his eyes a stern determination to set this insolent servant in ...
— Helmet of Navarre • Bertha Runkle

... authorities of the State; they bound themselves to deliver up all negroes, horses, cattle and other property of which they had dispossessed the people of this or any other State—to demean themselves as peaceable citizens, and submit to the laws of the State—to deliver up all contumacious and rebellious persons within their district—to deliver up all deserters from the regular service—to sign a declaration of allegiance to the United States, and to South Carolina in particular, and to abjure the British crown, and to ...
— The Life of Francis Marion • William Gilmore Simms

... if she should prove contumacious, I cannot rescue her from punishment. If you persist in your accusation, remember that the law must ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach

... the plan suggested by the government in accordance with English constitutional forms, the assembly would have every opportunity of criticising all the public expenditures, and even reducing the gross sum in cases of extravagance. But the same contumacious spirit, which several times expelled Mr. Christie, member for Gaspe, on purely vexatious and frivolous charges, and constantly impeached judges without the least legal justification, simply to satisfy personal spite or political malice, would ...
— Canada under British Rule 1760-1900 • John G. Bourinot

... followed him to the managingeditor's office. We were not greeted directly. Instead, a question was thrown furiously over our heads. "Where is he? What bristling and baseless egomania sways him to affront the Daily Intelligencer with his contumacious and indecent unpunctuality?" ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore

... 'conversion' in prison. It is written by one "who was both a seer and hearer of what was spoken [by the Lady Warriston].'' The editor of the Pitcairn Trials believes, from internal evidence, that it was written by Mr James Balfour, colleague of Mr Robert Bruce, that minister of the Kirk who was so contumacious about preaching what was practically a plea of the King's innocence in the matter of the Gowrie mystery. It tells how Jean, from being completely apathetic and callous with regard to religion or to the dreadful situation in which she found ...
— She Stands Accused • Victor MacClure

... farther, it will be well to inquire what is intended by the "precinct of the University." There appears to have been some amount of uncertainty as to the radius included. In 1444 Henry VI. granted authority to the Chancellor to banish any contumacious person from the precinct of the University, which was taken to mean a circuit of twelve miles. On the other hand, on March 17, 1458, David Ap-Thomas swore on the Holy Gospels that he would keep the peace towards the members of the ...
— The Customs of Old England • F. J. Snell

... fever."—Murray's Key, p. 167. "Smalness; littleness, minuteness, weakness."—Rhyming Dict. "Gall-less, a. free from gall or bitterness."—Webster's Dict. "Talness; height of stature, upright length with comparative slenderness."—See Johnson et al. "Wilful; stubborn, contumacious, perverse, inflexible."—Id. "He guided them by the skilfulness of his hands."—Psal. lxxviii, 72. "The earth is the Lord's and the fulness thereof."—Murray's Key, p. 172. "What is now, is but an amasment ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown

... completion of her abbeys on his lands; she cannot even manage her Sisterhood, since we find her wandering in search of a protector or an assistant; they are torn by divisions, and their insubordination is such that at length she is compelled to return in hot haste, and, with many tears, expel the contumacious sisters from the cloister. ...
— The Cathedral • Joris-Karl Huysmans

... justify his non-action by the excuse that contumacious speeches and illegal resolves of parliamentary bodies might be tolerated under the American theory of free assemblage and free speech. Almost from the beginning of the secession movement, it was accompanied ...
— A Short Life of Abraham Lincoln - Condensed from Nicolay & Hay's Abraham Lincoln: A History • John G. Nicolay

... inexorable &c. (determined) 604; mulish, obstinate as a mule, pig-headed. dogged; sullen, sulky; unmoved, uninfluenced unaffected. willful, self-willed, perverse; resty[obs3], restive, restiff|; pervicacious[obs3], wayward, refractory, unruly; heady, headstrong; entete[Fr]; contumacious; crossgrained[obs3]. arbitrary, dogmatic, positive, bigoted; prejudiced &c. 481; creed- bound; prepossessed, infatuated; stiff-backed, stiff necked, stiff hearted; hard-mouthed, hidebound; unyielding; impervious, impracticable, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus

... a great temptation and a contumacious husband might bring one to; but I'm afraid I'm a stubborn creature, and have not the feminine gift of flattery. If, indeed, he felt his inferiority and owned his dependence, I think I might, perhaps, ...
— Wylder's Hand • J. Sheridan Le Fanu

... unenlightened, contumacious, litigious, petulant, opprobrious, proditorious, misanthropic mortal I ever confabulated a colloquy with; by the dignity of my profession ...
— The Politician Out-Witted • Samuel Low

... spiritual illumination, and so perplexed his mind by reading the scurrilous libels of the day, as to be firmly persuaded that the King was the Devil's bairn, and Archbishop Laud the personal antichrist. A description of church ceremonies thrilled him with horror, and in every prosecution of a contumacious minister his ardent fancy saw a revival of the flames of Smithfield, while his confused notions of right and justice convinced him, that if the arm of the spirit failed, that of the flesh must be exerted, to throw down these strong holds. He had long believed ...
— The Loyalists, Vol. 1-3 - An Historical Novel • Jane West

... liable in expenses. The other seven completed the settlement in the usual form. Here was plain rebellion; and rebellion triumphant. If this were allowed, all was gone. What should the Assembly do for the vindication of their authority? Upon deliberation, they deposed the contumacious presbytery from their functions as clergymen, and declared their churches vacant. But this sentence was found to be a brutum fulmen; the crime was no crime, the punishment turned out no punishment: and a minority, even in this very Assembly, declared ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 55, No. 340, February, 1844 • Various

... a contumacious rogue! Roll up a couple of those puncheons, Mr. Avery; and now light half a dozen links. Have you got your spigot-heels—and rummers? Very good; Lieutenant Donovan, Mr. Avery, and Senior Volunteer Brett, oblige me by standing by to verify. Gentlemen, we will endeavor to hold what is ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore

... fatigue, to replace the Host on the altar. Then they immediately arrested him, conducted him to a boat under a guard of five men, and landed him on the desert Island of Corregidor. The churches were at once reopened; the Jesuits preached where they chose; terms were dictated to the contumacious Archbishop, who accepted everything unconditionally, and was thereupon permitted to resume his office. The acts of Corcuera were inquired into by his successor, who caused him to be imprisoned for five years; but it is to ...
— The Philippine Islands • John Foreman



Words linked to "Contumacious" :   insubordinate, contumacy



Copyright © 2024 Diccionario ingles.com