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

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




Dissemble   /dɪsˈɛmbəl/   Listen
Dissemble

verb
(past & past part. dissembled; pres. part. dissembling)
1.
Make believe with the intent to deceive.  Synonyms: affect, feign, pretend, sham.  "He shammed a headache"
2.
Hide under a false appearance.  Synonyms: cloak, mask.
3.
Behave unnaturally or affectedly.  Synonyms: act, pretend.



Related search:



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 |





"Dissemble" Quotes from Famous Books



... to josh now," she promised, with a quick change of manner. "You haven't—I know you haven't, but I'll give you a chance to dissemble—you haven't a partner for ...
— The Long Shadow • B. M. Bower

... to despair. All saw their inevitable destruction, and expressed by their moans the dark thoughts which brooded in their minds. Our words were at first unavailing to quiet their fears, which we participated with them, but which a greater strength of mind enabled us to dissemble. At last an unmoved countenance, and our proffered consolations, quieted them by degrees, but could not entirely dissipate the terror ...
— Thrilling Narratives of Mutiny, Murder and Piracy • Anonymous

... least."—"What men," said I to him jocularly, "you diplomatists are! why are not you as open with me, as I am with you? have I left one of your desires unsatisfied? have I avoided answering one of your questions?"—"I am not endeavouring to dissemble, I assure you: but, as the question you have put to me was not foreseen, I cannot, and ought not, to allow myself to answer it."—"Well, we will say no more of it. As to a federal government, this ...
— Memoirs of the Private Life, Return, and Reign of Napoleon in 1815, Vol. II • Pierre Antoine Edouard Fleury de Chaboulon

... has to dissemble. That's what she says. She can't go with me all the time, and when I see her with anybody else it seems as though it would kill me. I know she does not smile at anybody else the way she does at me, but the condum fools might think she did, and love her. I know if one of those ...
— Peck's Uncle Ike and The Red Headed Boy - 1899 • George W. Peck

... to defend the doctrine of his Church, and, as was his habit, soon warmed with conflict, lost his temper, and asked with great vehemence whether it was expected that he should change his religion on such frivolous grounds. Then he remembered how much he was risking, began again to dissemble, complimented the disputants on their skill and learning, and asked time to consider ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 2 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... because all men shew to him in their plainest and worst, as a man they have no plot on, by appearing good to; whereas rich men are entertained with a more holy-day behaviour, and see only the best we can dissemble. He is the only he that tries the true strength of wisdom, what it can do of itself without the help of fortune; that with a great deal of virtue conquers extremities, and with a great deal more his own impatience, and obtains of himself ...
— Microcosmography - or, a Piece of the World Discovered; in Essays and Characters • John Earle

... useless, between us, to dissemble, and I'm not going to try it. I want to know whether Geoffrey Croyden is coming back to Northumberland? You are with him, and should know. You can tell his inclination. You can ask him, if necessary. If he is not coming and there is no one else—won't you tell me where ...
— In Her Own Right • John Reed Scott

... blush, you felt me tremble, In vain would formal art dissemble All we then looked and thought; 'Twas more than tongue could dare reveal, 'Twas every thing that young hearts feel, ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al

... distinguishing as it would have been in an age of less transatlantic travel, but still, as we say, it was evident, and it lent him a superiority which he could not wholly conceal. His superiority, so involuntary, would, if he had wished to dissemble, have affirmed itself in the English cut of his clothes and in the habit of his top-hat, which was so newly from a London shop as not yet to have lost the whiteness of its sweat-band. But his difference from ourselves appeared most in a certain consciousness of novel impressions, which presently ...
— Imaginary Interviews • W. D. Howells

... Though Louis XVI. was in cordial sympathy with the emigrants, and, by his secret agents, was urging the Emperor of Austria to lend him troops to aid in crushing the revolution in France, still he was compelled not only to dissemble, but on the 20th of April, 1792, publicly to declare war against the Emperor of Austria, who was brother of his queen, ...
— Louis Philippe - Makers of History Series • John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott

... saying to himself: "This is the reverse of the scene at Churwalden. It is now I who wear a long face, and she cannot dissemble her joy. Just requital of things ...
— Samuel Brohl & Company • Victor Cherbuliez

... another. Would it not be wise to keep Merriman in ignorance of what he had learned at least for the present? Merriman was an open, straightforward chap, transparently honest in all his dealings. Could he dissemble sufficiently to hide his knowledge from his hosts? In particular could he deceive Madeleine? Hilliard doubted it. He felt that under the special circumstances his friend's discretion could not be relied on. At all events Merriman's appearance ...
— The Pit Prop Syndicate • Freeman Wills Crofts

... last flame happening to be blown out by a whiff of jealousy on the sudden turn of a corner, I had lighted it up afresh at the pure taper of Eliza but about three months before,—swearing, as I did it, that it should last me through the whole journey.—Why should I dissemble the matter? I had sworn to her eternal fidelity;—she had a right to my whole heart: —to divide my affections was to lessen them;—to expose them was to risk them: where there is risk there may be loss: —and what wilt thou have, Yorick, to answer to a heart so full of trust ...
— A Sentimental Journey • Laurence Sterne

... and thanked Heaven again that he had let his beard grow. Almost mechanically he decided to wear the mask—in short, to dissemble. ...
— The Holiday Round • A. A. Milne

... the most beautiful rosebud I had yet seen in England. But I endeavored to dissemble my ardent admiration; and in order to do away at once with any unfavorable impressions arising from the close scrutiny of my miserable shooting-jacket, which was now taking place, I declared myself a Yankee sailor from Liverpool, who was spending a ...
— Redburn. His First Voyage • Herman Melville

... you dissemble? sure you do not well To fright me thus: you never look thus pale, But when you are most angry. I do charge you, Upon my blessing—nay, I 'll call the duke, And he ...
— The White Devil • John Webster

... hesitated. Ought he to dissemble with her as the doctors had done? A strong feeling was upon him that ...
— East Lynne • Mrs. Henry Wood

... as competent as either Miss Hawtry or Miss Lindsey had been to judge of the home-made color under the gray eyes. Also he was as much, perhaps more, affected by it, though in the presence of Mr. Vandeford he was wise enough to dissemble his delight. ...
— Blue-grass and Broadway • Maria Thompson Daviess

... revived phrenzy, to me most terrible, and to every other Spectator astonishing. She then declares that she plainly sees I hate her, that I am leagued with her bitter enemies, viz. Yourself, L'd C[arlisle] and Mr. H[anson], and, as I never Dissemble or contradict her, we are all honoured with a multiplicity of epithets, too numerous, and some of them too gross, to be repeated. In this society, and in this amusing and instructive manner, have I dragged out a weary fortnight, and ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Letters and Journals, Vol. 1 • Lord Byron, Edited by Rowland E. Prothero

... prisoner. As a boy he had been violent and impetuous, yet always loyal: but before he was twenty he became suspicious and mistrustful; in his weakness he made craft and perfidy his weapons, practising to compose his face, to feign forgetfulness of injury till the moment of vengeance; he learned to dissemble so that none could tell his mind, and treated no courtiers with greater favour than those upon whose death he had ...
— The Land of The Blessed Virgin; Sketches and Impressions in Andalusia • William Somerset Maugham

... stop and congratulate him, or even thank him. Discreetly I followed the dark windings of the hall and left the hotel by a private entrance. In the street I looked up into the sunshine. I was free. I could not dissemble with myself any longer, and I turned to the avenue with a quick and joyous step. A new life had opened to me and I was stepping into it unburdened, and with a prize to fight for. In those few moments Gladys Todd had gone into the past. She was hardly more than a shadow to me now, ...
— David Malcolm • Nelson Lloyd

... their language and their signs, so that, at an age when they cannot dissemble, we may judge which of their desires spring from nature itself, and which of ...
— Emile - or, Concerning Education; Extracts • Jean Jacques Rousseau

... attempted to pet him he appeared to be planning to devour the caressing hand, and when rebuked by his mistress retired beneath a davenport, growling ominously. Even when ignominiously expelled from the room he growled and cast longing backward glances at the Speranza ankles. No, Googoo did not dissemble; Albert was perfectly sure of his ...
— The Portygee • Joseph Crosby Lincoln

... in spirit should tremble With heed of the God-given Word; That we cease from our boast, nor dissemble, But follow where ...
— Dreams and Days: Poems • George Parsons Lathrop

... deed is by the action itself contracted. He who puts off impurity thereby puts on purity. If a man is at heart just, then in so far is he God; the safety of God, the immortality of God, the majesty of God, do enter into that man with justice. If a man dissemble, deceive, he deceives himself, and goes out of acquaintance with his own being. Character is always known. Thefts never enrich; alms never impoverish; murder will speak out of stone walls. The least admixture of a lie—for example, the taint of ...
— The Varieties of Religious Experience • William James

... bewildered. I want desperately to be bluff and outspoken, but I suppose I must dissemble. I long painfully to be like 'truthful James,' but I must follow in the footsteps of the sneaky little boy who came to a bad end because he told a lie. The question is: Shall my mother be sacrificed to this passionate love ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird

... was able at all to dissemble this sense of dashed expectations was thanks in the main to a third party, a stranger whose presence she overlooked on entering, when Prince Victor met her near the door, while the other remained aside, half hidden in the recess of ...
— Red Masquerade • Louis Joseph Vance

... knew how to dissemble the feeling of humiliation mixed with indignation which flashed up in him, and which, he was afterwards afraid, must have made him seem rather curt in his response to the head waiter's civilities. Miss Axewright left the dining-room first, ...
— A Pair of Patient Lovers • William Dean Howells

... of arrogance and submission only merited indignation, but it suited Kursheed to dissemble. He replied that, assenting to such propositions being beyond his powers, he would transmit them to Constantinople, and that hostilities might be suspended, if Ali wished, until ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... assisting her. Not that she made the mistake of ascribing to me any knowledge on that subject; but I could learn; and, whatsoever I had learned, she knew, by experience, that I could make abundantly plain to her understanding. Wherever I did not understand, I was far too sincere to dissemble that fact. Where I did understand, I could enable her ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey

... He should be told this; and be bid dissemble With fools and blind men: we that know the evil, Should hunt the palace-rats or give them bane; Fright hence these worse than ravens, that devour T he quick, where they but prey upon the dead: He shall be ...
— Sejanus: His Fall • Ben Jonson

... the faithful and a logical necessity for the initiate of the absolute and true sciences" (Ibid., p. 138). And the witnesses of Lucifer have the effrontery to represent Levi as a dualist! I will not discredit their understanding by supposing that they could misread so plain a principle, nor dissemble my full conviction that they acted with intentional bad faith. Fourthly, Eliphas Levi regarded Lucifer as a conception of transcendental mythology, and the devil as an impossible fiction, or an inverted and blasphemous conception of God—divinity ...
— Devil-Worship in France - or The Question of Lucifer • Arthur Edward Waite

... infection of idolatry, their conscience forbade them to contribute to the honor of that daemon who had assumed the character of the Capitoline Jupiter. As a very numerous though declining party among the Christians still adhered to the law of Moses, their efforts to dissemble their Jewish origin were detected by the decisive test of circumcision; nor were the Roman magistrates at leisure to inquire into the difference of their religious tenets. Among the Christians who were brought before ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon

... stayed there two {46} months nevertheless, fearlessly keeping his resolution, not indeed to introduce or invite religious controversy but, if questioned, then, as he says, "whatsoever I should suffer to dissemble nothing." By February he was again in Florence; and after visits to Bologna, Ferrara and Venice, whence he characteristically shipped "a chest or two of choice music books" for England, he crossed the Alps, spent ...
— Milton • John Bailey

... the Queen, and had acquired such immense riches by his trade, that his house seemed rather fit for a Prince than a merchant; while she was there, the Prince of Cleves came in, and was so touched with her beauty, that he could not dissemble his surprise, nor could Mademoiselle de Chartres forbear blushing upon observing the astonishment he was in; nevertheless, she recollected herself, without taking any further notice of him than she was obliged to do in civility to a person of his seeming rank; the Prince of ...
— The Princess of Cleves • Madame de La Fayette

... consist with sincerity, to be so convinced, in matters so nearly relating to the glory of God and lives of innocents, and, at the same time, so much to fear disparagement among men, as to trifle with conscience and dissemble an approving of former sentiments. You know that word, 'He that honoreth me I will honor, and he that despiseth me shall be lightly esteemed.' But, if you think that, in these matters, you have done your duty, and taught the people theirs; and that the doctrines ...
— Salem Witchcraft and Cotton Mather - A Reply • Charles W. Upham

... advantage to us? You perhaps Have heard from some officious busy-body, That they have seen him going to his mistress, Or coming from her house: and what of that, So it were done discreetly, and but seldom? Were it not better that we should dissemble Our knowledge of it, than pry into things Which to appear to know would make him hate us? For could he tear her from his heart at once, To whom he'd been so many years attach'd, I should not ...
— The Comedies of Terence • Publius Terentius Afer

... loyall Subjects doe owe not onely themselves, but allso their landes, livinges, goodes, and what soever they call theirs, to the good of the Commonwealth, and estate under which they peaceably enjoy all, It is further enacted that no man dissemble his estate, or hide his abilitye, but be willinge at all times to pay such duetyes, taxes, and subsidies, as shall be lawfully demaunded & thought reasonable without the hinderance of his owne estate, upon payne of forfettinge himself ...
— Christmas: Its Origin and Associations - Together with Its Historical Events and Festive Celebrations During Nineteen Centuries • William Francis Dawson

... proposed getting the prigany of Surat transferred to himself, which the prince would have to resign, as he had been made governor of Ahmedabad, Cambay, and that territory. To satisfy me that he did not dissemble, he desired me to come at night to court, bringing the king my master's letter and the translation, as the time was favourable for its delivery; desiring me at the same time to persist in my complaint, and to offer taking leave, when I should see what he would say for us. Accordingly, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume IX. • Robert Kerr

... what he had come to tell her, of feeling her hands on his shoulders, and holding her in his arms, as their lips met for the first time. If on that Saturday afternoon there was a happier man than Horace Ventimore, he would have done well to dissemble his felicity, for fear of incurring the ...
— The Brass Bottle • F. Anstey

... cottages, one shop, and a yard where they sold coal and fresh eggs. So that meant a cottage each, and the stores thrown in. Our orders were to knock on each door and stand close so as to have a good view of the interior when it was opened. If it was a dirty interior we were to dissemble, and ask the way; if it was clean, we were to say, 'Oh, if you please, we are stranded motorists, and do you supply plain teas?' In case of two being clean, the choice was to be left with the scout-master, who would decide between them with tact ...
— The Love Affairs of Pixie • Mrs George de Horne Vaizey

... I fear; Love's surest darts, Those which so seldom fail him, are Headed with hearts: Their very shadows make us yield; Dissemble well, and win ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 2 (of 4) • Various

... I cannot dissemble the joy I felt on the first view of this striking and venerable edifice. It is situated on a considerable eminence—and seems to be built upon a foundation of rock. Its mosque-fashioned towers, the long range of its windows, and height of its walls, cannot fail to arrest the attention very forcibly. ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume Three • Thomas Frognall Dibdin

... this the King gave consent, and calling the bear before him, he said, "Sir Bruin, it is our pleasure that you deliver this message; yet in the delivery thereof have great regard to yourself; for Reynard is full of policy, and knoweth how to dissemble, flatter, and betray; he hath a world of snares to entangle you withal, and without great exercise of judgment, will make a scorn and mock of the best ...
— The Comical Creatures from Wurtemberg - Second Edition • Unknown

... rejected manuscripts, but in the case of those which show promise I think it is quite possible; and if I were to sin my sins over again, I think I should sin a little more on the side of candid severity. I am sure I should do more good in that way, and I am sure that when I used to dissemble my real mind I did harm to those whose feelings I wished to spare. There ought not, in fact, to be question of ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... no deference for the opinions or feelings of her subjects compelled Elizabeth to hesitate or to dissemble in ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin

... was every eye, And thousands poured to heaven the pitying sigh Devout; Say how a King, unable to dissemble, Ordered Dame Siddons to his house, and Kemble, ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton

... and therefore we should walk before him in sincerity and singleness of heart, without guile, hypocrisy, or falsehood, that we may look like children of the truth; and of the day, and of light, and children that will not lie or dissemble, Isaiah lxiii. 8; not like these that lied unto him, Psalm lxxviii. ...
— Christ The Way, The Truth, and The Life • John Brown (of Wamphray)

... her, her mother was the fairest woman that lived. Elizabeth spurned her from her presence, and conveyed threat as to the manners of my son when she left the hall. 'Ods life, my lord! to what pass hath England come when children must be taught to dissemble and fawn else they be subjected to discipline by the queen? Had she not enough courtiers to hail her as 'Diana,' and 'The Miracle of Time,' and other things of like ilk that she must needs try to subvert my child ...
— In Doublet and Hose - A Story for Girls • Lucy Foster Madison

... was acting? Impossible! Why, she was as sound asleep as she ever was in all her life, and there was not the least sign that she was conscious of my touch when I took hold of her arm to lead her from the pantry. Do you suppose it would have been possible for her to dissemble to that extent? Never!" ...
— Caps and Capers - A Story of Boarding-School Life • Gabrielle E. Jackson

... within wheels, you cannot match Fortune. After all, she has made trochilics her hobby through all the ages. Look at her handiwork here. Jill knows Jack for a flunkey and seeks to dissemble her knowledge, for fear of bruising his heart. As for Jack, when Jill stumbles upon his secret, he curses his luck: now that he believes it inviolate, he is ...
— Anthony Lyveden • Dornford Yates

... so thoroughly animated my feelings, and excited my curiosity, in regard to BIBLIOGRAPHY, that I can no longer dissemble the eagerness which I feel to make myself master of the several ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin

... can for ever crush the heart, Restrain its throbbing, curb its life? Dissemble truth with ceaseless art, With outward calm mask ...
— Poems • (AKA Charlotte, Emily and Anne Bronte) Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell

... Oriana, but Despis'd by her, and jealous grown of you. I try'd by Flatt'ry and by Craft T'inspire you in Melissa's Love; Your Flight I soon disclos'd; yet all in vain: Now that my Ills are come to an Extream No longer I'll dissemble; and to be plain, Since I'm your Rival and declared Foe We'll try which is most worthy of ...
— Amadigi di Gaula - Amadis of Gaul • Nicola Francesco Haym

... the frosty Caucasus? To suffer without feeling is not in human nature; and when I consider that to me alone, of all the candidates before the nation, failure of success would be equivalent to a vote of censure by the nation upon my past services, I cannot dissemble to myself that I have more at stake in the result than any other individual. Yet a man qualified for the duties of chief magistrate of ten millions of people should be a man proof alike to prosperous and adverse fortune. If I am able to bear success, ...
— Memoir of the Life of John Quincy Adams. • Josiah Quincy

... the advantage of women; art can conceal the imperfections of the face, and even make it appear beautiful, but no cosmetic can dissemble an ugly breast, stomach, or any other part of ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt

... The husband, with a sorrowful and dejected countenance, replied: "You deliver, indeed, an oracle supported by too much truth, which I have so much more reason to lament, as the ignominy you have published redounds to my own injury." The woman, thus detected, and unable to dissemble her confusion, betrayed the inward feelings of her mind by external signs; shame and sorrow urging her by turns, and manifesting themselves, now by blushes, now by paleness, and lastly (according to the custom of women), by tears. The shoulder of a goat was ...
— The Itinerary of Archibishop Baldwin through Wales • Giraldus Cambrensis

... is a by-way to hell, a way that hypocrites go in at; namely, such as sell their birthright, with Esau; such as sell their Master, with Judas; such as blaspheme the gospel, with Alexander; and that lie and dissemble, with Ananias and ...
— Bible Stories and Religious Classics • Philip P. Wells

... these maxims, either to honours or offices, nor employ them in any public trust, but despise them, as men of base and sordid minds. Yet they do not punish them, because they lay this down as a maxim, that a man cannot make himself believe anything he pleases; nor do they drive any to dissemble their thoughts by threatenings, so that men are not tempted to lie or disguise their opinions; which being a sort of fraud, is abhorred by the Utopians: they take care indeed to prevent their disputing in defence of these ...
— Utopia • Thomas More

... that you do not comprehend that I share your secret?' asked Lee Fu sternly. 'You were observed, Captain, that night in the forepeak of the "Speedwell;" and those details, also, are known to me. It is needless to dissemble.' ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various

... cause the Holy One of Israel to cease from before us' (Isa 30:8-11). If they be followed still, and conscience and guilt shall, like blood-hounds, find them out in their secret places, and roar against them for their wicked lives, then they will flatter, cogg, dissemble, and lie against their soul, promising to mend, to turn, to repent, and grow better shortly; and all to daff[13] off convictions and molestations in their wicked ways, that they may yet pursue their lusts, their pleasures, and sinful delights, ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... him. In the Department Z days, he had been known at Scotland Yard as "Sage & Onions." What the phrase lacked in wit was compensated for by the feeling with which it was frequently uttered. The police officers made no effort to dissemble the contempt they felt for a department in which they saw a direct rebuke to themselves. Later, however, their attitude changed, and Malcolm Sage was brought into close personal touch with many of the best-known officers of ...
— Malcolm Sage, Detective • Herbert George Jenkins

... metamorphisd me. Would I were in my native Citty ayre agen, within the wholesome smell of seacole: the vapor[s] rising from the lands new dunged are more infectious to me then the common sewer ith sicknes time. Ime certaine of my selfe Ime impudent enough and can dissemble as well as ere my Father did to gett his wealth, but this country has tane my edge of quite; but I begin to sound the ...
— A Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. II • Various

... would suffer him to be in such wise defrauded of his fathers inheritance, by his brother, through their vntruth and negligence) yet although he meant to delaie the matter, [Sidenote: Wil. Malm. Simon Dun.] and thought it rather better to dissemble with them for a time, than to commit the successe of his affaires and person to their inconstancie; shortlie after being set on fire, and still incouraged by the persuasion of Rafe bishop of Durham (who by a woonderfull wilie shift, ...
— Chronicles of England, Scotland and Ireland (2 of 6): England (3 of 12) - Henrie I. • Raphael Holinshed

... unable to dissemble their anxiety; they were too pale for that. The crowd which waited for them at the gates escorted them to their palaces in order to obtain some news from them. As in times of pestilence, all the houses were shut; the streets would fill and suddenly clear again; people ascended the Acropolis ...
— Salammbo • Gustave Flaubert

... can never forget last winter watching you dissemble your good healthy appetite and pretend you didn't want beefsteak, while you fed your father and me on a juicy tenderloin. Brave little housekeeper on ...
— Under the Country Sky • Grace S. Richmond

... and forced an answer by the energy of her sharply whispered question. He saw that it was vain to dissemble, yet replied with averted head, "I did and ...
— Pauline's Passion and Punishment • Louisa May Alcott

... alarming nervous attack. Partly this arose from the conflict between herself in the character of hostess, and herself as a loyal daughter of Christian faith; she shuddered, in a degree almost incontrollable and beyond her power to dissemble, at the unfeminine intrepidity with which "the leopardess" conducted her assaults upon the sheepfolds of orthodoxy; and partly, also, this internal conflict arose from concern on behalf of her own servants, ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey

... us not dissemble, but acknowledge to ourselves how things are: there is in our family a sad difference of sentiment, and ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 358, August 1845 • Various

... hard to dissemble still, to tempt him to say something that would madden me! "No, no," I answered, after considering his words. "She feared to return; she went away to hide herself in the great mountains beyond Riolama. ...
— Green Mansions - A Romance of the Tropical Forest • W. H. Hudson

... English Ladies are weak enough to attach themselves to, and to love, one man. The gay part of the French women love none, but receive all, pour passer le tems.—The English, unlike the Parisian Ladies, take pains to discover who they love; the French women to dissemble with those ...
— A Year's Journey through France and Part of Spain, Volume II (of 2) • Philip Thicknesse

... then asked whether the innkeeper had seen a youth dressed like a muleteer. He replied that he had not; but just then one of the men exclaimed that the youth must be there, since the Judge's coach—which he had suddenly observed—was there. They then decided to dissemble, each one going to a different entrance of the inn, so there would be no chance ...
— The Story of Don Quixote • Arvid Paulson, Clayton Edwards, and Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

... as evidence of his saint-like humility in condescending, though a Bishop, to officiate as a mere priest. The Archbishop had a different opinion, but, as Don Bernardino had a great following, he thought it best to dissemble his resentment. Cardenas himself, by his imprudence, furnished the Archbishop with an excuse to get him ...
— A Vanished Arcadia, • R. B. Cunninghame Graham

... account we got out of them, after we had taught them to speak English, and to understand the names and use of the things belonging to the ship which they had occasion to speak of; and we observed that the fellows were too innocent to dissemble in their relation, and that they all agreed in the particulars, and were always in the same story, which confirmed very much the ...
— The Life, Adventures & Piracies of the Famous Captain Singleton • Daniel Defoe

... prevent any question from her. He even joked and told stories, but with a seeming effort and not in accord with his feelings. Liddy watched him quietly, feeling sure he was acting a part and for a purpose. The more he tried to dissemble, the deeper became her dread. At last, when the chance came, she said in ...
— Pocket Island - A Story of Country Life in New England • Charles Clark Munn

... recuperate in the dug-out until they came to the first rapid. Later, the policeman bent to the tracking-line with a good will. This was better luck than he had hoped for. His principal fear was that he might not be able to dissemble sufficiently to keep their suspicions lulled. He knew, of course, that if they should guess of what he was thinking his life would not be worth a copper penny. His intuition told him that even though he was a prisoner, Clare was safe ...
— The Woman from Outside - [on Swan River] • Hulbert Footner

... Well, I had my own periods of indisposition going over; and if it had been seasickness I should not hesitate a moment about coming right out and saying so. In these matters I believe in being absolutely frank and aboveboard. For the life of me I cannot understand why people will dissemble and lie about this thing of being seasick. To me their attitude is a source ...
— Europe Revised • Irvin S. Cobb

... last miracle. He says of the healed man, "The man's infirmity was more laziness than lameness; and Jesus only shamed him out of his pretended idleness by bidding him to take up his stool and walk off, and not lie any longer like a lubbard and dissemble among the diseased." It will be perceived, that if the coarseness be omitted, the system of interpretation is the naturalist system afterwards adopted by the old rationalism (rationalismus vulgaris). In Discourse IV. he selects the healing with eye-salve of the blind ...
— History of Free Thought in Reference to The Christian Religion • Adam Storey Farrar

... embraced the opportunity of ridiculing the Quietists who placed the soul in the naval; of accusing the monks of Mount Athos of heresy and blasphemy. His attack compelled the more learned to renounce or dissemble the simple devotion of their brethren; and Gregory Palamas introduced a scholastic distinction between the essence ...
— The International Monthly Magazine - Volume V - No II • Various

... been wishful to ask thy advice. But why should not I tell thee outright that which troubles me? I am not used, at least for these many years, to dissemble. I can but trust thee in all; and lean on thy man's mercy to ...
— The Man • Bram Stoker

... her chamber, and being arrived there, lifted couch and all in his arms, with an ease born of long apprenticeship to the forehammer. The girl regarded him with admiration which she was careful not to dissemble. ...
— The Black Douglas • S. R. Crockett

... perfidious traitor, I am grown The abject of thy breast, not to be known In that false closet more; nay, thou wilt not So much as let me know I am forgot. If thou wilt say thou didst not love me, then Thou didst dissemble: or if love again, Why now inconstant? Came the crime from me That wrought this change? Sure, if no justice be Of my side, thine must have it. Why dost hide Thy reasons then? For me, I did so guide Myself and actions, that I cannot see What could offend ...
— Poems of Henry Vaughan, Silurist, Volume II • Henry Vaughan

... not encourage his followers to martyrdom. On the contrary, he allowed them to dissemble to save themselves. He found one of his disciples sobbing bitterly because he had been compelled by ill-treatment to abuse his master and worship the idols. "But how dost thou find thy heart?" said the prophet. "Steadfast in the faith," said he. "Then," ...
— Ten Great Religions - An Essay in Comparative Theology • James Freeman Clarke

... the unsuspicious Mr. Tupman, fervently grasping his 'friend's' hand—'carry my best love—say how hard I find it to dissemble—say anything that's kind: but add how sensible I am of the necessity of the suggestion she made to me, through you, this morning. Say I applaud her wisdom and admire her ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens

... It is an art, indeed, that I would recommend to the encouragement of both the Universities, as it affords the easiest and shortest method of conveying some of the most useful principles of logic. It was the maxim of a very wise prince that 'he who knows not how to dissemble knows not how to reign'; and I desire you to receive it as mine, that 'he who knows not how to riddle ...
— The Canterbury Puzzles - And Other Curious Problems • Henry Ernest Dudeney

... Fortune, "little remembering the inconstancy of human fame," and flattered himself that he would always be able to govern the affairs of Italy, "with his industrie to turn and winde the minds of every one. This fond persuasion he could not dissemble, neither in himself, nor in his peoples, in so much that Milan day and night was replenished with voices vaine and glorious, celebrating with verses Latine and vulgar and with publicke orations full of flatterie, the wonderfull wisedom of Lodowike Sforce, on the which they made to depend the ...
— Beatrice d'Este, Duchess of Milan, 1475-1497 • Julia Mary Cartwright

... attempt to dissemble his emotion under the studied air of coolness with which he received the letter, which he permitted ...
— The Tiger Hunter • Mayne Reid

... he seemed to become aware of their presence, and making a pitiful attempt to dissemble his condition and assume a smart, erect military carriage he waved his riding-crop at them by way of salutation. Something in his action, its graceful, airy mockery, trivial though it was, impressed the gestures firmly in Redmond's mind. He became cognizant of a flushed, undeniably handsome ...
— The Luck of the Mounted - A Tale of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police • Ralph S. Kendall

... is smiling and gay, But the groan may dissemble the laugh; E'en now from the meadow is wafted the sound Of a ...
— Mountain idylls, and Other Poems • Alfred Castner King

... brow of a fallen archangel, The lips of a beautiful fiend, And locks that are snake-like to strangle, And eyes from whose depths may be glean'd The presence of passions, that tremble Unbidden, yet shine as they may Through features too proud to dissemble, Too cold and too calm to betray Their secrets ...
— Poems • Adam Lindsay Gordon

... not dissemble. He stammered, stopped, wiped his forehead, and stretched out his hands as though in appeal to the mercy of ...
— The Golden Shoemaker - or 'Cobbler' Horn • J. W. Keyworth

... gives remoteness to questions which have clung as close as the flesh to the bone; and if Mrs. Peyton did not find such complete release, she at least interposed between herself and her anxiety the obligation to dissemble it. But the relief was only momentary, and when the first bars of the overture turned from her the smiles of recognition among which she had tried to lose herself, she felt a deeper sense of isolation. The music, which at another time would have swept her away on some rich current of emotion, ...
— Sanctuary • Edith Wharton

... there was a cruel sense of disappointment: instead of meeting as two spirits whose interests were inseparable, you denied any previous knowledge of me, and even manifested a sort of terrified aversion at my approach. I saw you shrink away from my side; then nothing remained for me but to temporarily dissemble my purpose and try first to win your confidence by the exercise of my poor woman's wits. In this at least I ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 1, January, 1891 • Various

... world, and which others are continually trying to wrest from me, and which I must keep by all means, fair or foul. Competition is the battle of the strongest, the quickest, the meanest! I must know tricks. I must get in with people, get hold of some sort of pull, learn to dissemble, to flatter, manipulate, hedge, dodge. Success is a matter of being sly. Anything is allowable which comes out ahead, which adds to the dollar-pile, or which makes the loudest ...
— The Warriors • Lindsay, Anna Robertson Brown

... Although she had always looked down upon this audience from her own loftier intellectual heights, she could not help trembling for Lucien. Her face was troubled, there was a sort of mute appeal for indulgence in her glances, and while the verses were recited she was obliged to lower her eyes and dissemble her pleasure as stanza ...
— Two Poets - Lost Illusions Part I • Honore de Balzac

... inexhaustibly, for instance, to be made up to by all the people who had always disapproved of him, and to unite at the same table persons who had to dissemble their annoyance at being invited together lest they should not be invited at all. Equally exhilarating was the capricious favouring of the dull and dowdy on occasions when the brilliant and disreputable expected his notice. ...
— The Glimpses of the Moon • Edith Wharton

... braved the affair with perfect ease and indifference, but for the information conveyed by Dalton's letter, and the consequent dread of Zillah's appearing before him, perhaps at the very moment that the often-asserted, and sworn to, lie passed his lips. It was now more difficult to dissemble than he had ever yet found it; he saw clearly that his oaths and protestations made but little impression upon the mind of Ben Israel, who filled up every pause either by lamentations for his daughter, execrations on her seducer, or touching appeals to one whose feelings were centred in self, ...
— The Buccaneer - A Tale • Mrs. S. C. Hall

... brethren to continue, during the term of a year, the care and service of the sick. In these acts of mercy the virtue of Saladin deserves our admiration and love: he was above the necessity of dissimulation, and his stern fanaticism would have prompted him to dissemble, rather than to affect, this profane compassion for the enemies of the Koran. After Jerusalem had been delivered from the presence of the strangers, the sultan made his triumphal entry, his banners waving in the wind, and to the harmony of ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 6 • Edward Gibbon

... of course. The beast's vanity was strong enough to be content with marking, as he believed, the signs of her gradual conversion. She would fence with him and provoke him with a seeming disintegration of purpose. She would dissemble her abhorrence and aversion, refashioning them first into indulgent toleration, then into the grudging admission that she had misjudged him. She would measure her wit against his wit—but she would make Kentucky seem to him too alluring a place ...
— The Roof Tree • Charles Neville Buck

... of soul, the wicked Socratic assurance of the old physician and plebeian, who cut ruthlessly into his own flesh, as into the flesh and heart of the "noble," with a look that said plainly enough "Do not dissemble before me! here—we are equal!" At present, on the contrary, when throughout Europe the herding-animal alone attains to honours, and dispenses honours, when "equality of right" can too readily be transformed into equality in wrong—I mean to say into general war ...
— Beyond Good and Evil • Friedrich Nietzsche

... in a berceau, or covered walk of acacias, which commands a prospect of the country, the lake, and the mountains. The air was temperate, the sky was serene, the silver orb of the moon was reflected from the waters, and all nature was silent. I will not dissemble the first emotions of joy on the recovery of my freedom, and perhaps, the establishment of my fame. But my pride was soon humbled, and a sober melancholy was spread over my mind, by the idea that I had taken an everlasting leave of an ...
— The Glory of English Prose - Letters to My Grandson • Stephen Coleridge

... then made it froth with the curved stream of hot milk that dropped from the height of his raised arm; but the two looked across at each other through the whole play of French pleasantness with a gravity that had now ceased to dissemble. Sir Claude sent the waiter off again for something and then took up her answer. "Hasn't she tried to ...
— What Maisie Knew • Henry James

... must dissemble love to Diomede still: False Diomede, bred in Ulysses' school, Can never be deceived, But by strong arts and blandishments of love. Put them in practice all; seem lost and won, And draw him on, and give him line again. This Argus then may close his hundred eyes, And leave our flight ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. 6 (of 18) - Limberham; Oedipus; Troilus and Cressida; The Spanish Friar • John Dryden

... the hours of eleven and twelve, that I wrote the last lines of the last page in a summer-house in my garden. After laying down my pen, I took several turns in a covered walk of acacias. I will not dissemble the first emotions of joy on the recovery of my freedom, and perhaps the establishment of my fame. But my pride was soon humbled, and a sober melancholy was spread over my mind by the idea that I had taken an everlasting leave of an old ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 121, November, 1867 • Various

... which I wish especially to retain. When I see her coming across the hill I feel like running and hiding, and if I were as bold as a boy, I should do it, but being a grown-up coward I remain and dissemble. ...
— Adventures In Contentment • David Grayson

... to sensibility; above all, if we sat down with some propensities toward evil, and walk away with much stronger toward good, in the midst of a world which we never had entered and of which we never had dreamed before—shall we perversely put on again the old man of criticism, and dissemble that we have been conducted by a most beneficent and most potent genius? Nothing proves to me so manifestly in what a pestiferous condition are its lazarettos, as when I observe how little hath been objected against those who have substituted words for things, and how much against ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor

... all the advantages of appearance, and many more. If the show of any thing be good for any thing, I am sure sincerity is better: for why does any man dissemble, or seem to be that which he is not, but because he thinks it good to have such a quality as he pretends to? for to counterfeit and dissemble, is to put on the ...
— The Young Gentleman and Lady's Monitor, and English Teacher's Assistant • John Hamilton Moore

... prudent Gascon; 'Foedora has all the sagacity natural to a profoundly selfish woman; perhaps she may have taken your measure while you still coveted only her money and her splendor; in spite of all your care, she could have read you through and through. She can dissemble far too well to let any dissimulation pass undetected. I fear,' he went on, 'that I have brought you into a bad way. In spite of her cleverness and her tact, she seems to me a domineering sort of person, like every woman who can only feel pleasure through her brain. Happiness for her lies entirely ...
— The Magic Skin • Honore de Balzac

... sorrows, & besides hir, I desire no other request but only this, that she may be drawne to my feruent loue, that it may be with vs alike, or that I may be at liberty, for I am no longer able to dissemble my griefe, or hide the extremity of my smart, I die liuing, & liuing am as dead: I delight in that which is my griefe: I go mourning: I consume my self in the flame, & yet the flame doth norish me, & burning like gold in the strong cement, yet I find my self like ...
— Hypnerotomachia - The Strife of Loue in a Dreame • Francesco Colonna

... the first education, and the sentiments worthy those of the highest figure. It was a most exquisite pleasure to me, to observe real tears drop from the eyes of those who had long made it their profession to dissemble affliction; and the player, who read, frequently threw down the book, until he had given vent to the humanity which rose in him at some irresistible touches of the ...
— The Palmy Days of Nance Oldfield • Edward Robins

... desire to conduct my life as I see most other people conducting theirs? I simply haven't the knack. If I am to be frank, madam—the deepest yearning of all within me is just to be a rogue: a fellow who can dissemble, seduce, sneer, make his way over dead bodies. But thanks to a certain shortcoming in my temperament, I am condemned to remain a decent man—and what is still more painful perhaps: to hear everybody say that I ...
— The Lonely Way—Intermezzo—Countess Mizzie - Three Plays • Arthur Schnitzler

... he flung back. "Mad with love—so mad that I have forgot that you are a queen and I an ambassador. Under the ambassador there is a man, under the queen a woman—our real selves, not the titles with which Fate seeks to dissemble our true natures. And with the whole strength of my true nature do I love you, so potently, so overwhelmingly that I will not believe you sensible ...
— The Historical Nights Entertainment, Second Series • Rafael Sabatini

... friend burst out into a loud laugh. "Well, Sir, I must say that your frankness enchants me. I can no longer dissemble with you; indeed, I perceive, it would be useless; besides, I always adored candour—it is my favourite virtue. Tell me how I can help you, and you may command ...
— Pelham, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... Cromwell waited upon Broghill, and reproached him gently for his intention, which his lordship denied; but Cromwell producing letters of his writing to several Royalists, in whom he confided, he found it was in vain to dissemble any longer. The General then told him, that he was no stranger to his merit, tho' he had never before seen him; and that as the reduction of Ireland was intrusted to him, he had authority from the Committee to offer his lordship ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Volume II • Theophilus Cibber

... been walking with me. Col. Town. He has! Ber. Upon my word I think he is a very agreeable man; and there is certainly something particularly insinuating in his address. Col. Town. [Aside.] So, so! she hasn't even the modesty to dissemble! [Aloud.] Pray, madam, may I, without impertinence, trouble you with a few serious questions? Ber. As many as you please; but pray let them be as little serious as possible. Col. Town. Is it not near two years since I have presumed to ...
— Scarborough and the Critic • Sheridan

... Before I had gone a half-mile I was overtaken by "That Jim Peasley," as he was called in Swan Creek, an incurable practical joker, loved and shunned by all who knew him. He asked me as he came up if I were "going to the show." Thinking it was best to dissemble, I told him I was, but said nothing of my intention to stop the performance; I thought it would be a lesson to That Jim to let him walk fifteen miles for nothing, for it was clear that he was going, too. Still, I wished he would go on ahead or drop behind. But he could not ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Volume 8 - Epigrams, On With the Dance, Negligible Tales • Ambrose Bierce

... all that I know myself, and all that I could reveal to the most intimate friend. The motives of action or silence are now equally balanced; nor can I pronounce, in my most secret thoughts, on which side the scale will preponderate. I cannot dissemble that six quartos must have tried, and may have exhausted, the indulgence of the Public; that, in the repetition of similar attempts, a successful Author has much more to lose than he can hope to gain; that I am now descending into the vale of years; and that the most respectable of my countrymen, ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 • Edward Gibbon

... word for the good of one's country"; "cruelty which tends to a beneficial end is not blamable and that which profits is praiseworthy"; or in his work entitled "The Prince",—"it is quite enough for a Prince to be virtuous in show, and not in fact"; he should "dissemble to reign well," and "the justice of war is ...
— Tacitus and Bracciolini - The Annals Forged in the XVth Century • John Wilson Ross

... how an idea enters the soul and remakes it, and when he left Maynooth he used his influence with his cousin, the Bishop, to get himself appointed to the poorest parish in Connaught. Eliza had to dissemble, but he knew that in her heart she was furious with him. We are all extraordinarily different one from another, and if we seem most different from those whom we are most like, it is because we know nothing at all about ...
— The Lake • George Moore

... could scarce dissemble The woe I felt when thunder crashed anew, For I remembered how you used to tremble At thunder, seeking arms that longed ...
— Translations of Shakuntala and Other Works • Kaalidaasa

... firmly fixed in the young king's mind, began to pervade his court from the time that he disgraced Fouquet and ceased to dissemble his affection for Mdlle. de La Valliere. She was young, charming, and modest. Of all the king's favorites she alone loved him sincerely. "What a pity he is a king!" she would say. Louis XIV. made her a duchess; but all she cared ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume VI. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot

... their hearts in the freedom of festivity. The minds of all being thus displayed without reserve, the subjects of their deliberation are again canvassed the next day; [133] and each time has its advantages. They consult when unable to dissemble; they determine when not ...
— The Germany and the Agricola of Tacitus • Tacitus

... these expressions, did all he could to get out of the vessel again, but it was not possible for him to do it; for the impression of Solomon's seal prevented him; so, perceiving that the fisherman had got the advantage of him, he thought fit to dissemble his anger. Fisherman, says he, in a pleasant tone, take heed you do not what you say; for what I spoke before was only by way of jest, and you are to take it no otherwise. O genie! replies the fisherman, thou who wast but a moment ago the greatest ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Volume 1 • Anonymous

... than I am, my dear much, much better than I am, John. The curse of my poverty has been that I have had to flatter and to dissemble, and hide the faults of those I wanted to help, and to smile when I was hurt, and laugh when I was sad, and to coax, and to tack, and to bide my time,—not with Mr. Milliken: he is all honor, and ...
— The Wolves and the Lamb • William Makepeace Thackeray

... it is too much to espouse his quarrel You ought to dissemble a little better when you pretend that you were ignorant he was coming here. You defend him so warmly and so quickly, that it is no very convincing proof of his ...
— Don Garcia of Navarre • Moliere

... time againe, That can dissemble so against your heart, Wishing that I should earnestly refraine, From that which thou thy selfe embracer art: This is braue doing, I commend you Grace, But ile nere trust you ...
— The Bride • Samuel Rowlands et al

... sunshine of summer I ne'er lament, Because the winter it cannot prevent; And when the white snow-flakes fall around, I don my skates, and am off with a bound. Though I dissemble as I will, The sun for me will ne'er stand still; The old and wonted course is run, Until the whole of life is done; Each day the servant like the lord, In turns comes home, and goes abroad; If proud or humble the line they take, They all must eat, drink, sleep, and wake. So nothing ever vexes ...
— The Poems of Goethe • Goethe

... each of these two men had the same end in view; each desired to dissemble his own character. And each of them succeeded with the many, but failed as between themselves. Selpdorf posed as the suave, sympathetic, good-natured friend of those with whom he came in contact; Counsellor, ...
— A Modern Mercenary • Kate Prichard and Hesketh Vernon Hesketh-Prichard

... particularly abjured and a clause inserted (because of these dispensations) by which the subscribers did call God to witness that in their minds and hearts they did fully agree to the said confession, and did not feign or dissemble in any sort. This confession [or covenant] the king, for an example to others, did publicly swear and subscribe; the like was done by the whole council and court." (Hist. of Ch. of Scotland, pp. 308, 309). By an ordinance of council and at the desire of ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning

... pleaded the ambition of Russia, and the force of circumstances, which dragged him into the war in spite of himself. With superficial and inexperienced individuals, to whom he neither wished to explain nor dissemble, he cut matters short, by saying, "You understand nothing of all this; you are ignorant of its ...
— History of the Expedition to Russia - Undertaken by the Emperor Napoleon in the Year 1812 • Count Philip de Segur

... submission is worth!" said Arctura. "I should be everything till we were married, and then nothing! You dissemble, you hide even from yourself, but you are ...
— Donal Grant • George MacDonald

... then, soberly and earnestly in love? Hast thou that feeling which the poets describe—a feeling which makes us neglect our suppers, forswear the theatre, and write elegies? I should never have thought it. You dissemble well." ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VI. • Various

... yon Premier youth, The honest, open, naked truth: Tell him o' mine an' Scotland's drouth, His servants humble: The muckie devil blaw ye south, If ye dissemble! ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham

... tickled by a well-seasoned dish or a fine wine; I have a heart and eyes, and I like to see a handsome woman. Sometimes with my friends, a gay party, even if it waxes somewhat tumultuous, does not displease me. But I will not dissemble from you that it is infinitely pleasanter to me to have succoured the unfortunate, to have ended some thorny business, to have given wholesome counsel, done some pleasant reading, taken a walk with some man or woman dear to me, passed instructive ...
— Diderot and the Encyclopaedists - Volume II. • John Morley

... crafty Leonela, who knew her part, "what is it you want to do with this dagger? Can it be that you mean to take your own life, or Lothario's? for whichever you mean to do, it will lead to the loss of your reputation and good name. It is better to dissemble your wrong and not give this wicked man the chance of entering the house now and finding us alone; consider, senora, we are weak women and he is a man, and determined, and as he comes with such a base purpose, blind and urged by passion, perhaps ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

... had practically ignored the Chief Constable in the course of the day's investigations, and it was desirable to remove any feeling that treatment may have caused. Superintendent Merrington had the greatest contempt for the county police, but there were times when it was judicious to dissemble that feeling. The present moment was ...
— The Hand in the Dark • Arthur J. Rees

... it can be seen what correspondence is. In a face that has not been taught to dissemble, all the affections of the mind present themselves to view in a natural form, as in their type. This is why the face is called the index of the mind; that is, it is man's spiritual world presented in his natural world. So, too, what pertains to the understanding is presented in speech, and what pertains ...
— Heaven and its Wonders and Hell • Emanuel Swedenborg

... 'I don't dissemble; I don't care to speak; but if you will have me say so, I do suspect—I think it must have originated in jealousy ...
— Wylder's Hand • J. Sheridan Le Fanu

... boldness of her character; and, to do her justice, it was not by the ordinary arts of courtiers that she established and long maintained her despotic empire over the feeblest of minds, She had little of that tact which is the characteristic talent of her sex; she was far too violent to flatter or to dissemble: but, by a rare chance, she had fallen in with a nature on which dictation and contradiction acted as philtres. In this grotesque friendship all the loyalty, the patience, the selfdevotion, was on the side of the mistress. The whims, the haughty airs, ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 3 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... eyes, and a mouth whose candour and sweetness a moustache could not hide. Henry of Navarre, before the white lilies of France had dazzled his eyes with their fatal splendour, before the court of the Medici had taught the Bearnois to dissemble, before the sometime Protestant champion had put on that apparel of stainless white in which he went forth to stain his soul with the sin of a ...
— Charlotte's Inheritance • M. E. Braddon

... heaven, had married a street car conductor and wired for congratulations. He had pulled himself together and staggered to the meeting where, though still with the sinking sensation of a man who has inadvertently stepped through the plastering of the ceiling, he was able to dissemble successfully. ...
— The Fighting Shepherdess • Caroline Lockhart

... would he obey the voice, and go as the Gods commanded. But how should he tell this purpose to the queen? But at the last it seemed good to him to call certain of the chiefs, as Mnestheus, and Sergestus, and Antheus, and bid them make ready the ships in silence, and gather together the people, but dissemble the cause, and he himself would watch a fitting time to speak and unfold the matter ...
— The Children's Hour, Volume 3 (of 10) • Various

... taken an opportunity to whisper to Roland, "Methinks, from the information of the threadbare velvet cloak and the solemn beard, there would be little trouble in haltering yonder ass. But thy grandmother, Roland—thy grandmother's zeal will ruin us, if she get not a hint to dissemble." ...
— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott

... people. And the ground itself of the contention, the substance of the matters in contest, would be gradually diminished, by the concessions of the higher classes to the claims of the lower; for there is no affecting to dissemble, that a great mental and moral improvement of the people would necessitate, though there were not a single movement of rude force in the case, important concessions to them, on the part of the superior orders. ...
— An Essay on the Evils of Popular Ignorance • John Foster

... heart, strong to bear this night's Unspeakable affliction of mute love That crazes lesser things. The rocks and clods Dissemble, feign a busy intercourse; The bushes deal in shadowy subterfuge, Lurk dull, dart spiteful out, make heartless signs, Utter awestricken purpose of no sense,— But I walk quiet, crush aside the hands Stretched furtively ...
— Gloucester Moors and Other Poems • William Vaughn Moody

... Mightinesses, having taken a resolution so agreeable to all true patriots, will not neglect to employ means to carry it to an efficacious conclusion among the other confederates, and to procure to the good citizens the real enjoyment of the commerce with United America, they cannot, nevertheless, dissemble that, lately, some new reasons have arisen, which make them conceive some fears respecting the prompt consummation ...
— A Collection of State-Papers, Relative to the First Acknowledgment of the Sovereignty of the United States of America • John Adams

... to look indignant but he was a bad actor, he could only look drunk. On this occasion he could not dissemble. His effort to do so only made him ...
— Watch Yourself Go By • Al. G. Field

... celebrated in history may serve us for models in the conduct of our lives; their vices and failings, on the other hand, are no less proper to caution and instruct us; and the strict regard which an historian is obliged to pay to truth will not allow him to dissemble the latter, through fear of eclipsing the lustre of the former. Nor does what I here advance contradict the rule laid down by Plutarch, on the same subject, in his preface to the life of Cimon.(223) He requires, that the illustrious actions ...
— The Ancient History of the Egyptians, Carthaginians, Assyrians, • Charles Rollin

... is perfectly truthful and does not dissemble, is perhaps an impossibility. In a court of justice women are more often found guilty of perjury than men.... Women are directly adapted to act as the nurses and educators of our early childhood, for the simple reason that they themselves are childish, foolish, and shortsighted.... ...
— A Short History of Women's Rights • Eugene A. Hecker

... place, ready to say his prayers. Everything here but congregation. House, it is well known, thrilled with excitement over Parnell Commission Report. Throbbing with anxiety to debate it. Manages somehow to dissemble its feelings, smother its aspirations. Presently two Members drop in; ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, March 15, 1890 • Various

... Your words and voice dissemble well, but your pale and rigid features in vain struggle to assume the generous glow of a noble enthusiasm, ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 6, No 5, November 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... Petersburgh and Stockholm, that the empress of Russia thought proper to own herself satisfied, and all those clouds of trouble were immediately dispersed. Yet, in all probability, her real aim was disappointed; and, however she might dissemble her sentiments, she never heartily forgave the king of Prussia for the share he had in this transaction. That monarch, without relaxing in his attention to the support of a very formidable military power, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett

... none would believe them; they advised such a man from the beginning, and told him the consequences, just as they happened; but he would have his own way. Others make a vanity of telling their faults; they are the strangest men in the world; they cannot dissemble; they own it is a folly; they have lost abundance of advantages by it; but, if you would give them the world, they cannot help it; there is something in their nature that abhors insincerity and constraint; with many other insufferable topics of ...
— A Book of English Prose - Part II, Arranged for Secondary and High Schools • Percy Lubbock

... put an end to this crisis was commonplace enough. The thought of troubling the peace of a household has always been repugnant to me; and not only so, I could not dissemble my feelings, the instinct of sincerity was too strong in me; I should have found it a physical impossibility to lead a life of glaring falsity. There is for me but little attraction in pleasures that must be snatched. I wish for full consciousness of my happiness. I led a life of solitude, ...
— The Country Doctor • Honore de Balzac

... side, Our Local Parliament's since then Have seldom witnessed two such men Paymaster Rudyerd, too, I scan, A most important gentleman, Who carried in the days of old The Governmental bags of gold; Yet never did one less resemble He, of the twelve who did dissemble, And for the thirty pieces paid, His master cruelly betrayed. And John McCarthy, who can say That he's a man of yesterday? Through the dim maze of vanished year His name to memory appears, A dealer in strong leather ware That stood the worst of wear and tear Since paths ...
— Recollections of Bytown and Its Old Inhabitants • William Pittman Lett

... Having accidently thrown a ball beyond the prison bounds in playing at tennis, or some such game, Sir Sidney was surprised to observe that the ball thrown back was not the same. Fortunately, he had the presence of mind to dissemble his sudden surprise. He retired, examined the ball, found it stuffed with letters; and, in the same way, he subsequently conducted a long correspondence, and arranged the whole circumstances of his escape; which, remarkably enough, ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey



Words linked to "Dissemble" :   belie, simulate, take a dive, assume, fake, make, bull, dissembling, play possum, bullshit, make believe, talk through one's hat, misrepresent, do, disguise, mouth, behave



Copyright © 2024 Diccionario ingles.com