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Ignominious   /ˌɪgnəmˈɪniəs/   Listen
Ignominious

adjective
1.
(used of conduct or character) deserving or bringing disgrace or shame.  Synonyms: black, disgraceful, inglorious, opprobrious, shameful.  "An ignominious retreat" , "Inglorious defeat" , "An opprobrious monument to human greed" , "A shameful display of cowardice"



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"Ignominious" Quotes from Famous Books



... large sloop to be got ready to convey secretly "an officer of rank and consideration" (probably Pichegru) to the French coast. Wright carried over the conspirators in several parties, until chance threw him into Napoleon's power and consigned him to an ignominious death, probably suicide. ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose

... go down in a struggle for better things was not so ignominious an end as to allow one's powers to rust out, held back only through fear ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 4 (of 14) - Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Painters • Elbert Hubbard

... finally an interview with the artist himself, from which the English youth emerged no nearer to his end than before, and crushed under the humiliation of the great man's advice. He could vaguely recall the long pacings of the Louvre; the fixed scrutiny of face after face; vain chases; ignominious retreats; and all the wretched stages of that slow descent into a bottomless despair! At last there was a letter—the long-expected letter to Madame Merichat, directing the removal of Mademoiselle Delaunay's possessions from the Rue Chantal. It was written by a certain M. Pimodan, who did not ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... others was that he would rest content with what he had. Spain would no longer be a danger in the rear, Austria and Russia would be his allies, sharing in the mastery of the world, and England, the irreconcilable enemy of them all, would be finally reduced to ignominious surrender by the loss of her ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. III. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane

... so easy that it was said to be "by the kiss of God." Elijah, instead of removal by death, ascended to his rest in a chariot of fire. Was it not possible that as easy an exodus might befit Him? Might not this ignominious death He looked forward to make it impossible for the people to believe in Him? How could they rank Him with those old prophets whom God had dealt with so differently and so plainly honoured? Would people not almost necessarily accept the death of the cross as proof ...
— How to become like Christ • Marcus Dods

... ride by with their Snider carbines by their sides, looking at every tame black with such a savage, supercilious hatred! And their white officers—oh, how can any man who pretends to be a gentleman, and calls himself a Christian, descend to such an ignominious position as to lead a party of black troopers? If I were a man, and had to become a sub-inspector of Native Police, I would at least blacken my face so as to hide my shame when I rode out ...
— Tom Gerrard - 1904 • Louis Becke

... that You are back in Germany. In this serious moment I ask You earnestly to help me. An ignominious war has been declared against a weak country, and in Russia the indignation, which I fully share, is tremendous. I fear that very soon I shall be unable to resist the pressure exercised upon me and that I shall be forced to take ...
— The Evidence in the Case • James M. Beck

... impossible, and for a second she felt as if she could only drop down where she stood, and break her heart with crying. A bitter sense of wrong and the thought of Jenny Snow helped her to bear it, and, taking the ignominious place, she fixed her eyes on the stove funnel above what now seemed a sea of faces, and stood there, so motionless and white that the girls found it hard to study with ...
— Little Women • Louisa May Alcott

... under an arrest, and bring him before him; but Patarbemis not being able to carry off Amasis from the midst of the rebel army, by which he was surrounded, was treated by Apries, at his return, in the most ignominious and inhuman manner; for his nose and ears were cut off by the command of that prince, who never considered, that only his want of power had prevented his executing his commission. So barbarous an outrage, committed upon ...
— The Ancient History of the Egyptians, Carthaginians, Assyrians, • Charles Rollin

... no such ignominious possibility hangs over any boy in this audience? I tell you it is not always the first, but sometimes the fairest born. I know a man who in his youth drove his father's fine horses, romped and rested on the richest blue-grass lawn, ate from spotless linen and ...
— Wit, Humor, Reason, Rhetoric, Prose, Poetry and Story Woven into Eight Popular Lectures • George W. Bain

... desire remaining except the wish to lie down and be at rest forever, and with no moral feeling in my consciousness except that of shame,—which will forever rise uppermost in me when I think of that ignominious day,—to be suddenly accosted by the man whom I held in the most peculiar veneration and who, I had believed, was never again to enter into my life—accosted by him on the verge of the lost battlefield—in the midst of darkness and the debris of the rout, while ...
— Who Goes There? • Blackwood Ketcham Benson

... this humble stone it records The fall of unguarded youth by the allurements of vice and the treacherous snares of seduction. SARAH LLOYD. On the 23rd April, 1800, in the 22nd year of her age, Suffered a just and ignominious death. For admitting her abandoned seducer in the dwelling-house of her mistress, on the 3rd of October, 1799, and becoming the instrument in his hands of the crime of robbery and housebreaking. These were her last words: "May my example be ...
— Bygone Punishments • William Andrews

... is that Browning must have intended "Sludge" for an attack on spiritual phenomena, because the medium in that poem is made a vulgar and contemptible mountebank, because his cheats are quite openly confessed, and he himself put into every ignominious situation, detected, exposed, throttled, horsewhipped, and forgiven. To regard this deduction as sound is to misunderstand Browning at the very start of every poem that he ever wrote. There is nothing that ...
— Robert Browning • G. K. Chesterton

... retraced in this ignominious manner the road he had so eagerly traversed under the veil of night; and at length, towards sunset, they came in sight of the priory, the bridge, and the ...
— The Rival Heirs being the Third and Last Chronicle of Aescendune • A. D. Crake

... clasp his flame-colored fingers around that hand, but let it drop with ignominious looseness, while he drew a handkerchief from his pocket and buried his ...
— The Old Countess; or, The Two Proposals • Ann S. Stephens

... should fail; If—if he must go over to the Swedes, An empty-handed fugitive, and not As an ally, a covenanted equal, A proud commander with his army following, If we must wander on from land to land, Like the Count Palatine, of fallen greatness An ignominious monument. But no! That day I will not see! And could himself Endure to sink so low, I would not bear To see him so ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller

... a sense of disloyalty and unreality. What right had he to permit the girl who was to be his wife, the mother of his children, to be relegated to so ignominious a position? Had she not proved herself to him in faithfulness and understanding? Had she not, setting aside her own rights, looked well ...
— At the Crossroads • Harriet T. Comstock

... message sent to young Macdonald, and immediately after its despatch, Kenneth sent away Lady Margaret, in the most ignominious manner, to Balcony House. The lady was blind of an eye, and, to insult her cousin to the utmost, he sent her back to him mounted on a one-eyed horse, accompanied by a one-eyed servant, followed by a one-eyed dog. She was in a delicate state of health, ...
— History Of The Mackenzies • Alexander Mackenzie

... submission or a watery grave. Uruj lowered his sail, and he and his little company were ironed and flung into the depths of the galley until such time as they should be wanted to take their turn at the oars. In this ignominious fashion ended his ...
— Sea-Wolves of the Mediterranean • E. Hamilton Currey

... and it does not allow her to depict the violence of physical passion and the delirium of the senses. She is an artist of the peaks, whose feet may not descend into the plain and follow its ignominious route,' And then here: 'He who has seen her as the spotless spouse of the son of Parsifal, standing by the window, has assisted at the mystery of the chaste soul awaiting the coming of her predestined ...
— Sister Teresa • George Moore

... what fidelity, what honesty should there be amid so great cruelty and tyranny? Virginity and purity were ignominious, which is the general vice of idolaters. Whether married or single, the woman who had no lover could not be safe; and by regarding that as an honor, they considered it a dishonor to give their persons free. When men ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume 40 of 55 • Francisco Colin

... prisoner." He immediately issued the necessary orders for suspending the execution of the sentence, which M. de Mandeville lost no time in communicating to the poor girl, who, a very few days afterwards, received a full pardon, and was thus, in a manner, snatched from an unmerited and ignominious death. The musketeer requested permission to present my to my notice. She really was a very pretty girl, her feelings overpowered her, and she fainted in her attempt to throw herself at my feet; I soon revived her by the aid of those restoratives which my ...
— "Written by Herself" • Baron Etienne Leon Lamothe-Langon

... o'erwhelm with shame! But Heaven forsakes not thee: o'er yonder sands Soon shall thou view the scattered Trojan bands Fly diverse; while proud kings, and chiefs renown'd, Driven heaps on heaps, with clouds involved around Of rolling dust, their winged wheels employ To hide their ignominious heads in Troy." ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer

... from its being designated by the native chroniclers "The warlike period." At last, after what seemed an interminable old age, marked by weakness and vice, the Chow dynasty came to an end in the person of Nan Wang, who, although he reigned for nearly sixty years, was deposed in ignominious fashion by one of his great vassals, and reduced to a humble position. His conqueror became the founder of the ...
— China • Demetrius Charles Boulger

... resembled a howl. The dog had evidently been attacked by some animal that had put him to flight; and his masters knew that it must be a formidable creature that was causing the variant Fritz to behave in such an ignominious manner. ...
— The Cliff Climbers - A Sequel to "The Plant Hunters" • Captain Mayne Reid

... seemed that both her liberty and her independence were no more. Her liberty she had vindicated by a just and necessary revolution. Her independence she had reconquered by a not less just and necessary war. All dangers were over. There was peace abroad and at home. The kingdom, after many years of ignominious vassalage, had resumed its ancient place in the first rank of European powers. Many signs justified the hope that the Revolution of 1688 would be our last Revolution. Public credit had been re-established; trade had ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol XII. - Modern History • Arthur Mee

... scarlet robe and that crown of thorns! O, has earth ever witnessed such a spectacle as that? And then that cowardly Roman governor, though he knew he was innocent, yielded him up to the hands of a vociferous, noisy, and infuriated mob; and he was by him condemned to an ignominious death. In the service of such a Master, who of his followers would talk of sacrifice? And then the consummation upon the cross, when all the powers of darkness on earth and hell were defeated! Three days, and ...
— Daughters of the Cross: or Woman's Mission • Daniel C. Eddy

... the remarkable circumstance that Popham, afterwards Lord Chief Justice in the reign of Elizabeth, took to the road in early life, and robbed travellers on Gad's Hill. Highway robbery could not, however, have been considered a very ignominious pursuit at that time, as during Popham's youth a statute was made by which, on a first conviction for robbery, a peer of the realm or lord of parliament was entitled to have benefit of clergy, "though he cannot read!" What is still more extraordinary ...
— The Life of Thomas Telford by Smiles • Samuel Smiles

... must play one faction against another, and become absolute by the mutual jealousy of the females. To divide and to govern is an universal maxim; and by neglecting it, the Europeans undergo a more grievous and a more ignominious slavery than the Turks or Persians, who are subjected indeed to a sovereign that lies at a distance from them, but in their domestic affairs rules with an uncontrollable sway. On the other hand, it may be urged with better reason, that this sovereignty of the ...
— Ancient and Modern Celebrated Freethinkers - Reprinted From an English Work, Entitled "Half-Hours With - The Freethinkers." • Charles Bradlaugh, A. Collins, and J. Watts

... out of me. An untrained man isn't worth much in any line, least of all in the firing line. Still, it would be very ignominious to go ...
— On the Firing Line • Anna Chapin Ray and Hamilton Brock Fuller

... cricket-field is the only level piece of ground in the district, the cricket committee began to lose its grip upon the situation, and were only saved from ignominious failure by the enterprise of the British Army, in this case represented by Sergeant-Major Kippy, D.C.M., who was recovering in the best of spirits from his ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Sept. 5, 1917 • Various

... the mother's anguish in seeing her son suffer this cruel and ignominious death. He had lived only to do good, and now he was dying an innocent sacrifice to his enemies. At such a moment the mother might truly feel that a sword was piercing her soul, as the old man Simeon[15] had once prophesied of ...
— Michelangelo - A Collection Of Fifteen Pictures And A Portrait Of The - Master, With Introduction And Interpretation • Estelle M. Hurll

... Pereira. That man, although we made every possible effort for peace with him, would agree to nothing except that, in any case, we must leave these islands, or else go with him. The first could not be done, because we had no ships; nor the second, because that was very ignominious for us. Therefore as we came to no agreement, he determined to begin hostilities, and make war on us, trusting to his numerous ships—although afterward it did not turn out as happily as he thought, as your Majesty will see by ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803 - Volume III, 1569-1576 • E.H. Blair

... now, and resulted in the return of Mr. Cecil Burleigh as the representative of Norminster in the Conservative interest, and the ignominious defeat of Mr. Bradley. Once more the blue party held up its head in the ancient city, and Mr. Fairfax, Mr. Chiverton, and others, their Tory contemporaries, were at ease again for the safety of the country. Mr. ...
— The Vicissitudes of Bessie Fairfax • Harriet Parr

... ignominiously into its mouse-hole. There in its nasty, stinking, underground home our insulted, crushed and ridiculed mouse promptly becomes absorbed in cold, malignant and, above all, everlasting spite. For forty years together it will remember its injury down to the smallest, most ignominious details, and every time will add, of itself, details still more ignominious, spitefully teasing and tormenting itself with its own imagination. It will itself be ashamed of its imaginings, but yet it will recall it all, it will go ...
— Notes from the Underground • Feodor Dostoevsky

... the whole earth. God created of one blood all the nations that dwell upon the whole earth; and when the Savior left his abode with the Father, to dwell a season upon our earthly ball, to suffer and die the ignominious death of the cross, he shed his precious blood for the whole human family, irrespective of nation or color. We believe all are alike objects of redeeming love. We believe our Heavenly Father gave the power ...
— A Woman's Life-Work - Labors and Experiences • Laura S. Haviland

... solemn voice, "I cannot survive the disgrace of being taken prisoner by the French. I will not adorn, as a modern Cleopatra, the triumphal entry of the modern Augustus. To live and to die honorably is my motto. I prefer death to ignominious captivity. Tell it to my husband and my children. And now to the will of God I commit myself. The moment that a French soldier extends his hand toward me, this ...
— Napoleon and the Queen of Prussia • L. Muhlbach

... royal family, a button with the royal arms, a letter from a suspected person, or containing a sentiment against the "Reign of Terror," the father was instantly and rudely torn from his home, his wife, his children, and hurried with ignominious violence, as a traitor unfit to live, through the streets, to the prison. It was a ...
— Madame Roland, Makers of History • John S. C. Abbott

... general hospitals; and the idea that our men were ever in other than the most sound and robust condition at the time of their becoming prisoners has no foundation. Language fails to describe them on their return from the most cruel of captivities. Ignominious insults, bitter and galling threats, exposure to scorching heat by day and to frosty cold at night, torturing pangs of hunger,—these were the methods by which stalwart men had been transformed into ghastly beings with sunken eyes and sepulchral voices. They were clothed ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 118, August, 1867 • Various

... frequently making smooth his surfaces would yield an amount of gold enough to suffice for his own needs, but a brief consideration of the matter convinced him that this source would be inadequate to maintain an entire household even if he continually denuded himself to an almost ignominious extent. As he fully weighed these varying chances the certainty became more clear to him with every thought that for the virtuous enjoyment of Mian's society one great sacrifice was required of him. This act, it seemed to be intimated, would without delay provide for an affluent and lengthy ...
— The Wallet of Kai Lung • Ernest Bramah

... rises, recovers itself, relapses into faithlessness to its higher powers, yet sees the wrong and aims to retrieve it; gropes through darkness to light; and though "tried, troubled, tempted," never yields to alien forces and ignominious failure. The soul, being divine, must achieve divinity at last. That is the crystallization ...
— The Brownings - Their Life and Art • Lilian Whiting

... substitute. When, however, there were others far more blameworthy, it seems almost unjust to a gallant officer to say that by a desperate effort he might at the very last moment have snatched the chestnuts out of the fire, and converted the most ignominious failure in the military annals of this country into ...
— The Life of Gordon, Volume II • Demetrius Charles Boulger

... on the stepping-stones; the apparition was so sudden that it almost took away her breath, and the commands were so peremptory that she did not dare to disregard them by going forward; but it seemed very hard to beat an ignominious retreat, for here seemed to be just what she was in search of—a boy as neglected-looking as any that were to be seen in the courts and alleys of Edinburgh; of the very type which old Adam declared there was not one to be found in all the lands of Kirklands. His head was bare, ...
— Geordie's Tryst - A Tale of Scottish Life • Mrs. Milne Rae

... who was thus tried on a capital charge, and narrowly escaped a sentence that would have consigned him to an ignominious death, resumed his practice in the law courts, sat in the House of Commons and rose to be a judge in the Court of Common Pleas. It is said that he "presided on many trials for murder; ever cautious and mercifully ...
— A Book About Lawyers • John Cordy Jeaffreson

... that came over his temper after his supper, how he pecked at everybody who came near him; how he stood sentinel at the foot of the stairs; how my wife and I made fruitless attempts to get past, followed by ignominious retreats; how at last we outmanoeuvred him by throwing a tablecloth over his head, and then rushing by him, gained the top of the stairs before he could ...
— Successful Recitations • Various

... power of punishing for "seditious libel," for example, been allowed to the Federal court, Gentlemen, you know too well what would follow. But this monstrous assumption was presently brought to an ignominious end; and strange as it may appear, by one of the judges of the court itself. Samuel Chase of Maryland, one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence, had been an Anti-Federalist and a strong State-Right's man, as such insisting on a strict construction ...
— The Trial of Theodore Parker • Theodore Parker

... of valour in the soul. Men may seem detestable as joint stock-companies and nations; knaves, fools, and murderers there may be; men may have mean and meagre faces; but man, in the ideal, is so noble and so sparkling, such a grand and glowing creature, that over any ignominious blemish in him all his fellows should run to throw their costliest robes. That immaculate manliness we feel within ourselves, so far within us, that it remains intact though all the outer character seem gone; ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville

... free governments, where, the laws being made by all for the good of all, a fraud is committed on every individual as well as on the state, attains its utmost guilt when it blends with a pursuit of ignominious gain a treacherous subserviency, in the transgressors, to a foreign policy adverse to that of their own country. It is then that the virtuous indignation of the public should be enabled to manifest itself through the regular animadversions ...
— State of the Union Addresses of James Madison • James Madison

... struck me so powerfully that I felt as if a chink had suddenly opened, and given me a glimpse into another world. There was quietness and confidence and strength, in the midst of torture, agony, and despair. The mother, who had lost all her sons, and that by an ignominious death, sat upon the rock days and nights, and she spread sackcloth upon it, and she slept not by night, and she rested not by day, but drove away the birds of the air and the beasts of the field, and verily she had her reward; their bones were gathered together by the King's command, and they buried ...
— Ellen Middleton—A Tale • Georgiana Fullerton

... want to fight. He wanted to belong—to be one of the herd—and he knew dimly that he would first have to learn its laws and submit to its tortures. He tried to grin back when the titter, which seemed endemic, broke out afresh as he stumbled on his ignominious pilgrimage, but the unasked-for partition in their amusement seemed to exasperate them. They whispered things to one another. They commented on his clothes. He realized suddenly how poorly dressed he was. There was a patch on the knee of his trousers ...
— The Dark House • I. A. R. Wylie

... and therefore to eschew the danger of laws, he fled into Scotland, where he died at a town or village called Moravie." But, Mr. Walker, after observing, that "poor Little John's great practical skill in archery could not save him from an ignominious fall," says "it appeared from some records in the Southwell family, that he was publicly executed for robbery on ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 20. No. 568 - 29 Sept 1832 • Various

... are speaking of the natural state of man, without taking Christianity into question) have for a while appeared almost to have escaped from their confinement; but none are altogether free; all without exception, in a greater or less degree bear about them, more visible or more concealed, the ignominious ...
— A Practical View of the Prevailing Religious System of Professed Christians, in the Middle and Higher Classes in this Country, Contrasted with Real Christianity. • William Wilberforce

... two kings on the left of the royalist lines could not withstand the weight of the squadrons of Leicester and Gloucester. The King of the Romans was driven to take refuge in a mill, where he soon made an ignominious surrender. Henry himself lost his horse under him and was forced to yield himself prisoner to Gilbert of Gloucester. The mass of the army was forced back on to the town and priory, which were occupied by the victors. Scarcely was their victory assured when Edward and the marchers came back ...
— The History of England - From the Accession of Henry III. to the Death of Edward III. (1216-1377) • T.F. Tout

... wild-flowers along the pretty, secluded valley of the Liane, through which no iron road then bore its thundering freight. Or, better still, clambering, straying, playing hide-and-seek, or sitting telling and hearing fairy tales among the great carved blocks of stone, which lay, in ignominious purposelessness, around the site on the high, grassy cliff where Napoleon the First—the Only—had decreed that his triumphal pillar should point its finger of scorn at our conquered, "pale-faced shores." Best of all, however, was the distant ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble

... next—an attempt to capture a sandalwooding barque bound to China—he was leader, with Corton as his associate. The sandalwooder, however, carried a large and well-armed crew, and the treacherous surprise so elaborately planned came to ignominious failure. Deschard accused his fellow-beachcomber of cowardice at a critical moment. The two men became bitter enemies, and for years never spoke ...
— The Ebbing Of The Tide - South Sea Stories - 1896 • Louis Becke

... fine and sensitive and most essentially noble, is woman. This, in their productive and religious souls, they believe. And however much they may react against the belief, loathing their women, running to prostitutes, or beer or anything, out of reaction against this great and ignominious dogma of the sacred priority of women, still they do but profane the god they worship. Profaning woman, ...
— Aaron's Rod • D. H. Lawrence

... changes of their opinion snug to themselves, never showing the items of the account on either side, and let you see nothing but their balance.—This is very grand, and, if their balance be right, very glorious.—But ignominious as my mode of proceeding may seem, exposing me to the rebukes, derision, uplifted hands and eyes of my auditors, yet exactly because I am checked at every little mistake I make in my accounts, the chance is in ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. VII - Patronage • Maria Edgeworth

... him but once a year. They understood each other perfectly. He was a peace-loving animal, but he was a fighter at times—like his master. He had a beautiful head, broad punishing jaws, and, for all his age, he had not run to fat, which is the ignominious end of all athletes, ...
— Half a Rogue • Harold MacGrath

... represents this one to have done? What young gentleman would have listened to such a communication as he supposes, and especially the reserved and modest Hawthorne? One can even imagine the aspect of horror on his face at such an unlady-like proceeding. The story would be an ignominious one for Hawthorne, if it were credible, but there is no occasion for our believing it until some tangible evidence is adduced in its support. There was no element of Quixotism in his composition, and it is quite as impossible to locate the identity ...
— The Life and Genius of Nathaniel Hawthorne • Frank Preston Stearns

... sort of repetition of that experience. Some government (probably Germany) will see bankruptcy staring it in the face and the easiest way out will seem a great war. Bankruptcy before a war would be ignominious; after a war, it could be charged to "Glory." It'll take a long time to bankrupt England. It's unspeakably rich; they pay enormous taxes, but they pay them out of their incomes, not out of their principal, except their inheritance tax. That looks to me as if it came out of ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume I • Burton J. Hendrick

... this resemblance and likeness to God an unspeakably high dignity and glory for man? We are reminded of this by the sign of the Cross. The Son of God redeemed us through the Cross. After sin had reduced the human race to a state of ignominious bondage the Son of God, moved by infinite love, became incarnate for us, in order to make satisfaction for our sins and to remove from us their awful consequences. From slaves of sin and of the devil, ...
— The Excellence of the Rosary - Conferences for Devotions in Honor of the Blessed Virgin • M. J. Frings

... curse, that urges me to an ignominious death," exclaimed he, weeping; "and thou, too, art lost, sweet sister, ...
— The Oriental Story Book - A Collection of Tales • Wilhelm Hauff

... occupants of the quarter are accounted for by the existence there of many houses of the same character, for which trade has no use, and which can only be rented by the poorer kinds of industry, of a precarious or ignominious nature. ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac

... came to the paragraph which urged the utmost punishment that law could inflict upon the desperadoes. The outraged populace could be appeased with nothing save death in its most ignominious, inglorious form. The trials would be short, the punishment swift and sure. The people demanded ...
— Castle Craneycrow • George Barr McCutcheon

... promised for the whole course of lessons. So he had not done badly after all. And leaving Lucky Star City, which had no oil nor milk of human kindness for him, he drifted on somewhere else, as he will continue to drift until he stumbles into an ignominious grave. ...
— The Port of Adventure • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson

... Parade. It was a lively scene, that would have gladdened the heart of an Irishman homesick for the excitement of Donnybrook Fair. There were at least one hundred boys engaged, the sides being pretty evenly matched, and the battle ground was the centre of the Parade. To drive the other school in ignominious flight from this spot was the object of each boyish regiment, and locked in hostile embrace, like the players in a football match when a "maul" has been formed, they swayed to and fro, now one side gaining, now ...
— Bert Lloyd's Boyhood - A Story from Nova Scotia • J. McDonald Oxley

... the free burgher admitted with joy the light which oppressed and miserable slaves shut out. A spirit of independence, which is the ordinary companion of prosperity and freedom, lured this people on to examine the authority of antiquated opinions and to break an ignominious chain. But the stern rod of despotism was held suspended over them; arbitrary power threatened to tear away the foundation of their happiness; the guardian of their laws became their tyrant. Simple in their statecraft ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller

... folly in the world to have my secret access known, and perhaps a fatal barrier placed between Lorna and myself, and I knew not what trouble brought upon her, all for the sake of a few eggs and fishes. It was better to bear this trifling loss, however ignominious and goading to the spirit, than to risk my love and Lorna's welfare, and perhaps be shot into the bargain. And I think that all will agree with me, that I acted for the wisest, in withdrawing to my shelter, though ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore

... interior of her fortress; and one overventurous Spahi, scaling the ramparts, had been rewarded with so hot a deluge of lentil soup from a boiling casserole poured on his head from above, that he had beaten a hasty and ignominious retreat—which was more than a whole tribe of the most warlike of his countrymen could ever have made ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]

... with our brethren in England, and whatever grace a good prince can bestow on the most loyal subjects, we have reason to expect it: Neither hath this kingdom any way deserved to be sacrificed to one "single, rapacious, obscure, ignominious projector." ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. VI; The Drapier's Letters • Jonathan Swift

... discussion and of individual action never before known; how, from the auspicious union of order and freedom, sprang a prosperity of which the annals of human affairs had furnished no example; how our country, from a state of ignominious vassalage, rapidly rose to the place of umpire among European powers; how her opulence and her martial glory grew together; how, by wise and resolute good faith, was gradually established a public credit fruitful of marvels which to the statesmen of any former age would have seemed incredible; ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... just horror at the atrocious legislation which is generally practised by your honourable house, and your petitioners beg your honourable house to stamp this infamous measure with condemnation, by its unanimous and ignominious rejection." ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan

... is "fear of disgrace" [*Ethic. iv, 9]. Now virtuous people may happen to be ignominious, for instance if they are slandered, or if they suffer reproach undeservedly. Therefore a virtuous man can ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas

... upper storeys, and who were talking to each other across the wynd. On our approach we heard one of them call to the other in a mischievous tone of voice, "See! there's twa mair comin'!" We were rather nervous already, so we beat an ignominious retreat, not knowing what might be coming on our devoted heads if we proceeded farther. In the event of hostilities the two ladies were so high up in the buildings, which were probably let in flats, that we should never have been able to find them, and, like the ...
— From John O'Groats to Land's End • Robert Naylor and John Naylor

... . . . We admit it! But you know men do shoot themselves by candle-light! And it would be ignominious indeed for the heroes of your novels if such a trifling thing as a candle were to change the course of the drama so abruptly. All this nonsense can be explained perhaps, but not by us. It's useless to ask questions or give explanations of what one does ...
— Love and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov

... are tossed to the flames. His speech to the workingmen of Manchester; his toast to the King at Buckingham Palace: "We have used great words, all of us. We have used the words 'right' and 'justice' and now we are to prove whether or not we understand these words;" his speech at Brest; all turn into ignominious brown ashes. ...
— Jailed for Freedom • Doris Stevens

... Martha held that he was the last man in the world who would do anything rash. Miss Conway's Marianne, who was left behind, treated Charlotte as something ignominious, but looked so ill, miserable, and pining, that Miss Mercy was persuaded she was going into a decline, and treated her with greater kindness than she had met ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. I) - or, The Clue of Life • Charlotte M. Yonge

... quarrel with Pope Innocent III, the famous enemy of the Hohenstaufens. The Pope had excommunicated John (as Gregory VII had excommunicated the Emperor Henry IV two centuries before). In the year 1213 John had been obliged to make an ignominious peace just as Henry IV had been obliged to do in the ...
— The Story of Mankind • Hendrik van Loon

... other and taking off each other's gestures for the amusement of the King. The Peers at a conference begin to pommel each other and to tear collars and periwigs. A speaker in the House of Commons gives offence to the Court. He is waylaid by a gang of bullies, and his nose is cut to the bone. This ignominious dissoluteness, or rather, if we may venture to designate it by the only proper word, blackguardism of feeling and manners, could not but spread from private to public life. The cynical sneers, and epicurean sophistry, which had driven honour and virtue ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... was almost equal to abetting James in his theft. He reflected that pictures had been whitewashed, or hidden in the crypts of churches, or under the floors of palaces from meaner motives, and to save them from a fate less ignominious. But presently, with a sigh, he ...
— The Troll Garden and Selected Stories • Willa Cather

... advanced less boldly, and had not to beat so ignominious a retreat. She was near enough to Mr. Danby to clutch his hand, and holding by that she was hardly at ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 5 • Various

... less to think of the breach of morality which has brought him to such a deplorable end. Consequently executions, far from being useful examples to the survivors, have, I am persuaded, a quite contrary effect, by hardening the heart they ought to terrify. Besides the fear of an ignominious death, I believe, never deferred anyone from the commission of a crime, because, in committing it, the mind is roused to activity about present circumstances. It is a game at hazard, at which all expect the turn of the die in their own favour, never reflecting on the chance ...
— Letters written during a short residence in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark • Mary Wollstonecraft

... mended! Tommy is on his feet again in no time, and has picked up Mabel before you could say Jack Robinson, and once again, nothing daunted by their ignominious entry, they rush up the room and precipitate themselves upon their mother. This pious act being performed, Tommy sees fit to show some small attention to ...
— April's Lady - A Novel • Margaret Wolfe Hungerford

... but very much improved in the Petition, wherein we pray to the Supreme Being that his Will may be done: which is of the same Force with that Form which our Saviour used, when he prayed against the most painful and most ignominious of Deaths, Nevertheless not my Will, but thine be done. This comprehensive Petition is the most humble, as well as the most prudent, that can be offered up from the Creature to his Creator, as it supposes the Supreme Being wills nothing but what is for our Good, and that ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele

... faces; I note the swelling bosom of the cantatrice, the rapt anxiety of the leader, and the dread silence of the whole assembly, and I speculate on the surprise and confusion a loud war-whoop yell would create; and though I foresee an ignominious expulsion, perhaps broken limbs and disgraceful exposure in the public prints, I can not resist the strange impulse; and throwing myself back in my stall, I raise a wild cry, such as a circus clown gives when he vaults into the arena, and ties himself up into a knot ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 3, July, 1851 • Various

... then...of course...it is a small community. We live on the doorsteps of the rich and important, as it were. It would be hard for us not to know. It just comes to us. We are magnets. I suppose all this seems to you—born on the inside—quite ignominious." ...
— The Sisters-In-Law • Gertrude Atherton

... of affairs. I did not want to be caught there by a lot of truculent Sikhs under one of those jocularly incredulous young British subalterns that Sikhs adore. In the first place, I had nothing whatever in writing to prove my innocence. The least that was likely to happen would be an ignominious return to Jerusalem, after a night in a guard-house, should there be a guard-house; failing that, a night in the open within easy reach of Sikh's bayonets. In Jerusalem, no doubt, Sir Louis would order me released immediately. But it began to look as if the whole ...
— Jimgrim and Allah's Peace • Talbot Mundy

... he laughed loudly. "I s'pose he's some old widower!" he said, the object thus described seeming ignominious enough to a person of eighteen, without additional characterization. ...
— The Magnificent Ambersons • Booth Tarkington

... man, and of that policy which will be the creed of your disciples. Permit men then, my dear Sir, again to entreat your great powers of mind and influence, and to employ some of your present leisure, in devising a mode to liberate one-half of our fellow beings from an ignominious bondage to the other, either by making an immediate attempt to put in train a plan to commence this goodly work, or to leave human nature the invaluable Testament—which you are so capable of doing—how best to establish ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 3, 1918 • Various

... and then there came a lady, very sad, very quiet, who wept bitterly in the stillness of that attic chamber where Gustave Lenoble lay; and who afterwards, with a gentle calmness of manner that was very sweet to see, made all necessary arrangements for a humble, but not a mean or ignominious, funeral. ...
— Charlotte's Inheritance • M. E. Braddon

... climbed the grade, once again he skidded downward, once again he went sprawling. Nor were his subsequent attempts more successful. After a final ignominious failure he sat where he had fetched up and ruefully took stock of the damage he had done ...
— The Winds of Chance • Rex Beach

... I had composed it myself) to save her, I soon resolved, like a second Astolpho,[2] to penetrate into Krespel's house, as if into another Alcina's magic castle, and deliver the queen of song from her ignominious fetters. ...
— Weird Tales. Vol. I • E. T. A. Hoffmann

... than one fellow went down under its stinging cut, and heads and faces were bleeding. The younger portion of the crowd speedily took to their heels, and soon even the most stubborn fled; the farmer vigorously assisting their ignominious retreat with tremendous downward blows on any within reach. Tim Weeks had managed to keep out of the way till they entered the lane; then, taking a small stone from the fence, he hurled it at their pursuer and attempted to jump over the wall. This was old, and gave way under him in such a way that ...
— He Fell in Love with His Wife • Edward P. Roe

... shared his prison, but I believe that a decree of release has arrived from my heavenly judge, and for my soul's health and for my ward's sake I make this declaration, that he may know what measures to take in order to put an end to his ignominious estate should the king die without children. Can any oath imposed under threats oblige one to be silent about such incredible events, which it is nevertheless ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... even this small lingering of confidence in Monk is forced, and that Milton is too sadly convinced of the probable predetermination of all now in power to fulfil the general expectation and bring in Charles. In the following passage there is a half-veiled intimation that, rather than see that ignominious conclusion, Milton would reconcile himself to Monk's ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson

... the [Roman] name and gown, and of eternal Vesta, grown old in the lands of hostile fathers-in-law, Jupiter and the city being in safety? The prudent mind of Regulus had provided against this, dissenting from ignominious terms, and inferring from such a precedent destruction to the succeeding age, if the captive youth were not to perish unpitied. I have beheld, said he, the Roman standards affixed to the Carthaginian temples, and their arms taken ...
— The Works of Horace • Horace

... the body, which were more and more regarded as frequent and natural things to which each of us might be exposed. But these prejudices persisted with respect to some sexual diseases that were still considered ignominious and chiefly with respect to diseases of the mind. No doubt some intelligent and charitable physicians took interest in the lunatic, endeavored to spare him many sufferings, to defend him, to take care of him. But the people feared the lunatic and despised him as if he had been struck ...
— A Psychiatric Milestone - Bloomingdale Hospital Centenary, 1821-1921 • Various

... elaborate directions to Sally how to guard the premises from serious injury in the course of removing the dirt. Meantime tea was to be brought in by the cook, and the two naughty children were to have theirs in an ignominious manner in the kitchen. Mrs. Tulliver went out to speak to these naughty children, supposing them to be close at hand; but it was not until after some search that she found Tom leaning with a careless air against the white paling of the poultry yard, and ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 7 • Charles H. Sylvester

... be ignominious to charge the repairs to his father but that would be the only course left him. Fortunately Mr. Tolman, who was a railroad official, was well known in the locality and therefore there would be no trouble about obtaining credit; but to ask his father to pay ...
— Steve and the Steam Engine • Sara Ware Bassett

... of Electoral and Ducal Saxony was, apparently, an accomplished fact. But the very next year marked the ignominious downfall and the unmasking of the dishonest Philippists. For in this year appeared the infamous Exegesis, which finally opened the eyes of Elector August. Its complete title ran: "Exegesis Perspicua et ferme Integra Controversiae de Sacra Coena—Perspicuous and Almost ...
— Historical Introductions to the Symbolical Books of the Evangelical Lutheran Church • Friedrich Bente

... Mr. Isidore screeching upon him through the megaphone. Brother Copas turned about, uplifting his face to it for a moment with a dazed stare. . . . It seemed that, this time, everyone in the Grand Stand must have heard. He fled: he made the most ignominious exit ...
— Brother Copas • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... they would resort to the same means, taking care to provide against a second ignominious defeat at the ...
— The Great Cattle Trail • Edward S. Ellis

... exception: when modern drama, instead of merely smuggling us, as by an ignominious King Candaules' ring called a theatre ticket, to witness what we shouldn't, gives us the spectacle of delightful personality, of individual power of soul, in its more intimate and perfect strength. I feel this sometimes in the case of Mme. Duse; and principally ...
— Hortus Vitae - Essays on the Gardening of Life • Violet Paget, AKA Vernon Lee

... anti-slavery instrument its survival may be said from that proceeding to have become a necessity. To allow the Liberator to die at this juncture would have been such a confession of having been put down, such an ignominious surrender to the mobocrats as the Abolitionists of Boston would have scorned to make. "I trust," wrote Samuel E. Sewall, "there will not be even one week's interruption in the publication of the Liberator." ...
— William Lloyd Garrison - The Abolitionist • Archibald H. Grimke

... against the bully, the Thackerayan notion to the contrary being one of the illusions of literary masculinity. Besides, the husband is not necessarily the stronger man: an appeal to force has resulted in the ignominious defeat of the husband quite as often as in poetic justice as conceived in the conventional novelet. What an honorable and sensible man does when his household is invaded is what the Reverend James Mavor Morell does in my play. He recognizes that ...
— Getting Married • George Bernard Shaw

... understanding and general intelligence; for it may truly be said, that no kind of learning awakens the dormant powers of the intellect, or quickens the growth of the mind so effectually, as the knowledge of the one true God, who created the spirit, and of his Son who died to redeem it from the ignominious and degrading bondage, of sin and Satan. Henrich had, at first, imagined that it would be utterly impossible for him to find an intelligent companion among the savage race into whose hands he bad fallen and he had deeply felt that sense of loneliness which a cultivated mind, ...
— The Pilgrims of New England - A Tale Of The Early American Settlers • Mrs. J. B. Webb

... ignominious ending to the campaign, Nelson's own reputation issued from it not only unscathed, but heightened; and this is saying much, for, although due public recognition of his services had scarcely been extended,—except in conferring the Marines upon him,—he ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. I (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan

... disciplined Johnny this way, it would have saved them both a deal of worry. Perhaps not a day passed, that summer, without Grumpy getting into trouble on Johnny's account. But of all these numerous occasions the most ignominious was shortly after the ...
— Johnny Bear - And Other Stories From Lives of the Hunted • E. T. Seton

... have a cruiser drop in at Mogador, to look into the looting of the Methodist Missionary stores at Fruga. There was a remote chance that this cruiser might call at the Rock, on the homeward journey. But it was problematical. . . . And that had been the end of it all, the ignominious end. And still again the despairing Durkin was being confronted and challenged and mocked by this call to him from half way round the world. It maddened and sickened him, the very thought of his helplessness, so Aeschylean in its torturing complications, so ironic in its refinement ...
— Phantom Wires - A Novel • Arthur Stringer

... to duck down out of the reptile's reach, and his next idea was to lower himself the ten feet or so to the bottom; but he shrank from doing this, for it seemed ignominious to retreat, so he raised his head sharply again till his eyes were about level with the terrace platform, and there, a dozen feet away, was the tail part of the snake, disappearing in a ...
— Old Gold - The Cruise of the "Jason" Brig • George Manville Fenn

... a month, and Jonah had not paid expenses. He could hold out for three months according to his calculation, but he saw the end rapidly approaching, when he must retire covered with ignominious defeat. He would have thrown up the sponge there and then, but for the thought of the straight-limbed child in Cardigan Street, for whom he wanted money—money to feed and clothe him for the ...
— Jonah • Louis Stone

... hopelessly into the very position against which her nobler instincts most heartily rebelled. She refused to remain in a relation of tacit, covert, and ill-concealed rivalry to one whom the whole world, including her mother, expected her to love. It was ignominious; it was intolerable. It poisoned her to the very marrow. It made her ache at night when she ought to have been sleeping. Had she been less like Leonetta than she was, had she possessed less passion, less beauty, and less desire than her sister, she could have endured it. As it was the position ...
— Too Old for Dolls - A Novel • Anthony Mario Ludovici

... is an inclination to set an example in my person, to confront me with my best friends, to torture me, afterwards to convict me of contradictions and falsehoods as they say, and then to found an ignominious sentence upon points and trifles, for this it will be necessary to do in order to justify the arrest and imprisonment. To escape all this I am going to God by the shortest road. Against a dead man there can be pronounced no sentence of confiscation ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley



Words linked to "Ignominious" :   dishonorable, dishonourable, ignominy



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