"Mealy-mouthed" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... and commission. They evince a desire to sail with the wind, and as near the water as possible without getting wet. The Democracy everywhere believe that the constitution was altered by fraud and force, and do not intend to be mealy-mouthed in their expression of the outrage, whatever they may agree upon as to how the amendments should be treated in the future, for the sake of saving, if possible, what is left ...
— The Life, Public Services and Select Speeches of Rutherford B. Hayes • James Quay Howard
... surplices—Tempest is a more pretentious church than ours—and a brace of clergy enter. All through the Confession I gape about with vacant inattention—at the grimy whiteness of the choir; at the back of the organist's head; at the parson, a mealy-mouthed fledgling, who, with his finger on his place in the prayer to prevent his losing it, is taking a stealthy ...
— Nancy - A Novel • Rhoda Broughton
... a mealy-mouthed little snip Lois could be, sometimes. You'd think to hear her that she was better than any of them, and luckier too, with her Joe and the kids. What a laugh! Joe was probably the only guy who'd ever looked at her, and she'd hooked him right out of school, and now with three kids ...
— The Very Secret Agent • Mari Wolf
... honour attached to the station, and far less objectionable than "most religious," which Charles II. was the first sovereign who assumed, and which produces little sensation even when used as an epithet to some of his successors. Still, if they were mealy-mouthed, they might have inserted "Her Majesty Queen Caroline." I should also have wished to have sent a yacht, or suitable conveyance, to bring her over to her trial,—just as, if she had been found guilty on an ...
— Memoirs of the Court of George IV. 1820-1830 (Vol 1) - From the Original Family Documents • Duke of Buckingham and Chandos
... anything. But he had come forth again suddenly as a working man; and now they who professed to know, declared that he was by no means poor. He was in the City every day; and during the last two years had earned the character of a shrewd fellow who knew what he was about, who might not perhaps be very mealy-mouthed in affairs of business, but who was fairly and decently honourable in his money transactions. In fact, he ...
— Can You Forgive Her? • Anthony Trollope
... I do feel that there must be something. Think of your brother's position and standing,—of his past life and his present character! This is no time now for being mealy-mouthed. When such a man as he appears suddenly with a foreign woman and a foreign child, and announces one as his wife and the other as his heir, having never reported the existence of one or of the other, it is time that some enquiry should be made. I, at any rate, shall make enquiry. ...
— Is He Popenjoy? • Anthony Trollope |
