"Opprobrious" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... to the officers, she started up, and stood erect, face to face with the husband: "the opprobrious blur against all peace and joy and light and life"—for he was standing against the window a-flame with morning. But in her terror, that seemed to her the flame from hell, since he was in it—and she cried to him to stand away, she chose hell rather than ...
— Browning's Heroines • Ethel Colburn Mayne
... little awfulness, for when the lieges saw him, they feared him; but the Sultan of these days hath need of the most accomplished polity and the utmost majesty, because men are not as men of by-gone time and this our age is one of folk opprobrious, and is greatly calamitous, noted for folly and hardness of heart and inclined to hate and enmity. If, therefore, the Sultan (which Almighty Allah forfend!) be weak or wanting in polity and majesty, this will be the assured cause of his country's ruin. ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... terms opprobrious they mouth Anent our noble elevating sport Where our illustrious citizens do meet And in the ...
— 'A Comedy of Errors' in Seven Acts • Spokeshave (AKA Old Fogy)
... lips checked the opprobrious word, as Babie, true woman through it all, whispered with a broken sob, "Spare him, for I loved ...
— Pauline's Passion and Punishment • Louisa May Alcott
... this amazin' an' stupenjus fraud committed by the man Dearsley, I hild a council av war; he thryin' all the time to sejuce me into a fight wid opprobrious language. That sedan-chair niver belonged by right to any foreman av coolies. 'Tis a king's chair or a quane's. There's gold on ut an' silk an' all manner av trapesemints. Bhoys, 'tis not for me to countenance any sort av wrong-doin'—me bein' the ould man—but—anyway ...
— Soldier Stories • Rudyard Kipling
... taking his wife and daughter and all his household, abandoned the country he meant to betray; embarking at Malaga for Ceuta. The gate in the wall of that city, through which they went forth, continued for ages to bear the name of Puerta de la Cava, or the gate of the harlot; for such was the opprobrious and unmerited appellation bestowed by the Moors ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, April 1844 - Volume 23, Number 4 • Various
... the utmost contempt and made the greatest mockery that was possible for them to do at me, giving me all the opprobrious, insolent scoffs that they could think of for preaching to them, as they called it, which, indeed, grieved me rather than angered me. I went away, however, blessing God in my mind that I had not spared them though they had insulted me ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 12 • Editor-In-Chief Rossiter Johnson
... the opprobrious sense of the word," said Sir George. "It is only when we are extremely young that we indulge in such ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand
... Each group nourishes its own pride and vanity, boasts itself superior, exalts its own divinities, and looks with contempt on outsiders. Each group thinks its own folkways the only right ones, and if it observes that other groups have other folkways, these excite its scorn. Opprobrious epithets are derived from these differences. "Pig-eater," "cow-eater," "uncircumcised," "jabberers," are epithets of contempt and abomination. The Tupis called the Portuguese by a derisive epithet descriptive of ...
— Folkways - A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals • William Graham Sumner
... his straw hat, or to offer a tardy apology. A more wanton, unprovoked, and flagrant outrage than that of which this man was guilty I never witnessed. It is customary for "the old dogs", as the experienced convicts are called, to use the most opprobrious language to their officers, and to this a deaf ear is usually turned, but I never before saw a man wantonly strike a constable. I fancy that the act was done out of bravado. Troke informed me that the man's name is Rufus ...
— For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke
... opprobrious name of Christ amongst the Jews is Jesus son of Sadta, which Gozani may have mistaken for Sirach; indeed,—the Chinese pronunciation of Hebrew is quite peculiar, as they cannot pronounce, for instance, the letters b, r, th, naming ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 217, December 24, 1853 • Various
... transportation. Nevertheless, if the clause be thoroughly considered, we shall find no reason to commend the mercy of the legislature; for it only proves, that the Jamaica law-makers will not scruple to charge the slightest and most natural offences with the most opprobrious epithets; and that a poor slave, who perhaps has no otherwise incurred his master's displeasure than by endeavouring (upon the just and warrantable principles of self-preservation,) to escape from his master's tyranny, without any criminal intention whatsoever, is liable to be deemed rebellious, ...
— Some Historical Account of Guinea, Its Situation, Produce, and the General Disposition of Its Inhabitants • Anthony Benezet
... Jackum drew his attention with a touch, and began making hideous grimaces at the creature, while the others began to shout and were apparently calling it every opprobrious name that their ...
— King o' the Beach - A Tropic Tale • George Manville Fenn
... the world. The King of France, having driven John from all he held on the continent, gladly saw religion itself invite him to farther conquests. He summoned all his vassals, under the penalty of felony, and the opprobrious name of culvertage,[82] (a name of all things dreaded by both nations,) to attend in this expedition; and such force had this threat, and the hope of plunder in England, that a very great army was in a short time assembled. A fleet also rendezvoused ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VII. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... which such a chieftain was actually called by the people themselves, in those days, was tyrannus, the name from which our word tyrant is derived. As, however, the word tyrannus had none of that opprobrious import which is associated with its English derivative, the latter is not now a suitable substitute for the former. Historians, therefore, commonly use the word king instead, though that word does ...
— Xerxes - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... this letter, she swooned. When she came to her senses, she awoke as from a trance. But when she beheld the letter again, she read again the opprobrious word "faithlessness" in her husband's handwriting. She did not know what act of disloyalty she had committed. She moved about in her room by fits and starts. At last a thought came to her mind: she sent for the best goldsmith in town, and told him to ...
— Filipino Popular Tales • Dean S. Fansler
... morality, and policy, then this criminal, then his counsel, then his accomplices and hirelings, posted in newspapers and dispersed in circles through every part of the kingdom, represent him as an object of great compassion, because he is treated, say they, with, nothing but opprobrious ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. XI. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... honor of Valenciennes, it must be stated, upon the same incontestable authority, that not a Catholic in the city was injured or insulted. The priests who had remained there were not allowed to say mass, but they never met with an opprobrious word or look from ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... re-opened them we found all the tails carefully preserved in oil and sawdust. He made disgraceful caricatures of our physiognomies by falsely representing that he wished us to sit for our portraits. He perpetrated drawings upon the backs of our college exercises, mixing them with opprobrious remarks concerning our preceptors, which we did not observe till our attention was called to them upon their return by the preceptors themselves. We bore these things meekly on the whole, for that was ...
— Bog-Myrtle and Peat - Tales Chiefly Of Galloway Gathered From The Years 1889 To 1895 • S.R. Crockett
... caught the utterance "and whosoever after this enactment," then they must wake up, for some new fetter of law was being forged to bind their limbs.[825] A man of this unconventional type was not likely to be popular in the senate, and the opprobrious name, which he subsequently bore in the Curia,[826] is a proof of the liveliness which he imparted ...
— A History of Rome, Vol 1 - During the late Republic and early Principate • A H.J. Greenidge
... Mohturia or caste headman. The ordinary Hindu names of deities for men and sacred rivers or pious and faithful wives for women are employed; instances of the latter being Ganga, Godavari, Jamuna, Sita, Laxmi and Radha. Opprobrious names are sometimes given to avert ill-luck, as Damdya (purchased for eight cowries), Kauria (a cowrie), Bhikaria (a beggar), Ghusia (from ghus, a mallet for stamping earth), Harchatt (refuse), Akali (born in famine-time), Langra (lame), Lula (having an arm useless); ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume IV of IV - Kumhar-Yemkala • R.V. Russell
... her, and strengthen her too late on that Wednesday afternoon, they thrust another 'witch' into her cell, bidding the two, with opprobrious words, keep company together. The new comer fell prostrate with the push given her from without; and Lois, not recognizing anything but an old ragged woman lying helpless on her face on the ground, lifted her up; ...
— Curious, if True - Strange Tales • Elizabeth Gaskell
... it is stated, "was set a post hard by the Standard in Cheap, and a young fellow tied to the post with a collar of iron about his neck, and another to the post with a chain, and two men with two whips whipping them about the post, for pretended visions and opprobrious and seditious words." We have ...
— Bygone Punishments • William Andrews
... also followed the sea, and, it was said, obtained his large wealth through means not sanctioned by laws human or divine. Men and women of the past generation, and therefore contemporaries, did not hesitate to designate him an "old pirate," though always the opprobrious words were spoken in an undertone, for people were half afraid of the dark, reserved, evil-looking man, who had evidently passed a large portion of his life among scenes of peril and violence. There were more pleasing traditions of the beautiful wife he brought home to grace the luxurious ...
— The Allen House - or Twenty Years Ago and Now • T. S. Arthur
... in ev'ry vein; Wide is the range of language; and such words As one may speak, another may return. What need that we should insults interchange? Like women, who some paltry quarrel wage, Scolding and brawling in the public street, And in opprobrious terms their anger vent, Some true, some false; for so their rage suggests. With words thou shalt not turn me from the field, Till we have met in arms; then try we now Each other's prowess ...
— The Iliad • Homer
... stand aloof, even from the respectable, because they are poor, and instead of visiting those, who indulge in dissipation and vice, and trying to lead them to the paths of virtue and peace, are heaping upon them the most opprobrious epithets. By esteeming the rich and associating with them, they practice a course of conduct, which has rooted the impression deep in every mind, that to be esteemed, and to rank with them in the social circle, they must be rich. This has driven many a virtuous man into crime, ...
— Twenty-Four Short Sermons On The Doctrine Of Universal Salvation • John Bovee Dods
... "the people of the law" has often been applied to the Jews in the opprobrious sense that they are a people who deal according to hard and strict rules, untouched by the qualities of ...
— The Menorah Journal, Volume 1, 1915 • Various
... propositions respecting which our contemporary ecclesiastical "gnostics" profess entire certainty. And, in so far as these ecclesiastical persons can be justified in their old-established custom (which many nowadays think more honoured in the breach than the observance) of using opprobrious names to those who differ from them, I fully admit their right to call me and those who think with me "Infidels"; all I have ventured to urge is that they must not expect us to speak of ourselves ...
— Collected Essays, Volume V - Science and Christian Tradition: Essays • T. H. Huxley
... Spaniard (and such was the boatman) more than another, it is that one; and the fellow no sooner heard it applied to himself, than with eyes sparkling with fury, he put his fist to the hadji's nose, and repaid the one opprobrious name by at least ten others equally bad or worse. He would perhaps have proceeded to acts of violence had he not been pulled away by the other Moors, who led him aside, and I suppose either said or gave him something ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... anecdote of him which is quite credible. The regent (it is said) wanted him to use the Sikhs to catch a female runaway slave, and on his refusing, the Rajah made use of a very opprobrious epithet, on which he drew himself up, saying: "You are a man of high birth in your country, but I'm a man of high birth in mine, and, so long as I bear Queen Victoria's commission, I refuse to accept insult. I take no future orders from your ...
— The Golden Chersonese and the Way Thither • Isabella L. Bird (Mrs. Bishop)
... the other side, and were waiting for the others, a colonel offended one of the men of Company A, ordering him away from a fire by which the colonel was standing. This called forth some of the liveliest sort of vituperation. Such combinations of opprobrious epithets are rarely exhibited. That man's relatives, near and remote, male and female, were brought into requisition to define the exquisite meanness of his nature and origin. The discomfited nabob appealed to Colonel Pattee for redress, who sent Adjutant Wright back to quiet ...
— In The Ranks - From the Wilderness to Appomattox Court House • R. E. McBride
... them were severely punished.[858] But the Assembly expressed an earnest desire to bring about a reconciliation between the hostile factions in the colony, and prescribed a heavy penalty for the use of such opprobrious epithets as "traytor, Rebell ...
— Virginia under the Stuarts 1607-1688 • Thomas J. Wertenbaker
... call me 'grandma' again, Felix," protested the worthy woman quite warmly; for the Milesian had twice applied the opprobrious appellation to her. "If you ever do it again, I will never hug ...
— Asiatic Breezes - Students on The Wing • Oliver Optic
... maintained over his language. "Charles of Burgundy is unworthy of your attachment. He who can insult and strike his councillors—he who can distinguish the wisest and most faithful among them by the opprobrious name of Booted Head!" ...
— Quentin Durward • Sir Walter Scott
... subalterns, and, after what was called "a very patient trial" of four or five hours, sentenced to be hanged. Not one insult was spared. When he was marched up from the wharf, the sailors were permitted to heap upon him every opprobrious epithet. Before his execution "his black coat and vest were taken from him as a prize by one soldier, his spectacles by another; so," as an officer boasts, "he was treated not differently from the common herd." The accusation was, that he had plotted a wide-spread and ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 • Various
... of a kind to receive opprobrious epithets meekly, Aristides slowly, and with an evident effort, lifted the shovel in a ...
— The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Tales • Bret Harte
... elevated the idea of free contract almost to an industrial ideal; while, in somewhat the same spirit, the gutter journalists of to-day, when they are at a loss for a popular watchword, call for a business government. Such theories and battle-cries may serve for a 'nation of shopkeepers'; but that opprobrious phrase has never been true of the great mass of the English people, and it was never less true ...
— Progress and History • Various
... shovel gang, a quiet, inoffensive man, sat limply on the veranda, with the blood trickling from his shoulder, and there was the insult to the girl to be avenged; while, if more were needed, somebody hurled opprobrious epithets at us from an upper window. I wrenched the axe from its owner—and he resisted stubbornly—whirled it round my shoulder, and there was another roar when after a shower of splinters the stout post yielded. It was torn loose from the rafters, swung backward by sinewy arms, and ...
— Lorimer of the Northwest • Harold Bindloss
... ruinous had not the presence of mind of No. 7 in the boat rescued us from the very jaws of defeat. The scene is one which never can fade from my remembrance and will be connected always with the gentlemanly conduct of the crew in neither using opprobrious language nor gesture towards your unfortunate son but treating him with the most graceful forbearance; for in most cases when an accident happens which in itself is but slight, but is visited with serious consequences, ...
— Samuel Butler: A Sketch • Henry Festing Jones
... last moment he had put his vengeance from him and behaved like a weak fool, throwing away the acid, cleaning the bottle and filling it with pure water. He had intended to give Ibrahim a fright (and also the opprobrious title of the Weeper), to teach him a lesson and to let him go—provided he swore on the Q'ran never to return to Mekran Kot when he left for England.... Such a man was my poor brother. But the hand ...
— Driftwood Spars - The Stories of a Man, a Boy, a Woman, and Certain Other People Who - Strangely Met Upon the Sea of Life • Percival Christopher Wren
... chosen for the punishment of these saintly innocents Nero gave one more proof of the close connection between effeminate aestheticism and sanguinary callousness. As in old days, "on that opprobrious hill," the temple of Chemosh had stood close by that of Moloch, so now we find the spoliarium beside the fornices—Lust hard by Hate. The carnificina of Tiberius, at Capreae, adjoined the sellariae. History has given many proofs that no man is more systematically heartless than ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 03 • Various
... the preposterous arrogance of mankind more apparent than in the violence of their national antipathies. Did not the history of all ages and countries furnish an ample catalogue of opprobrious epithets, which they have not scrupled to bestow upon each other, we might wonder that the Jews should have accustomed themselves to speak so contemptuously of others as to call them dogs. Owing to the ...
— Female Scripture Biographies, Vol. II • Francis Augustus Cox
... 36. From B.'s 'Lurdane, lordane, a dull heavy fellow, derived by some from Lord and Dane'. So the word becomes for C. an opprobrious equivalent for Dane.] ...
— The Rowley Poems • Thomas Chatterton
... picture of the insubordination and indifference from which he had suffered.[141] 'I have borne immeasurable indignities from the continued insolence of these students, who interrupt me with cries, whistlings, hisses, insults, and such opprobrious remarks that I sometimes scarcely know whether I am standing on my head or heels.' 'They come to the lecture-room armed with poignards, and when I reprove them for their indecencies, they threaten over and over again to cut my face open if ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds
... Browne with all her old severity, rejuvenated apparently by this opportunity to put me in my place, "would do well to consult her dictionary, before applying opprobrious terms to persons of respectability. A pirate is one who commits robbery upon the high seas. If such a crime lies at the door of any member of this expedition ...
— Spanish Doubloons • Camilla Kenyon
... I have but one choice left: It will be best for me to 'scape by death, By self-inflicted death, this dangerous inquest. I save my honor thus; and free myself From an opprobrious end. I hither came To give thee my last warning: and to take My last farewell... Oh, live; and may thy fame Live with thee, unimpeached! All thoughts of pity For me now lay aside; if I'm allowed By my own hand, for thy sake, to expire, I ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... this next-door room," said his garrulous attendant that afternoon, and Stuyvesant thought opprobrious things. "They'll be giggling and talking all night, I suppose," said he disgustedly when the "medico" came in late that afternoon. "I wish you'd move me, ...
— Ray's Daughter - A Story of Manila • Charles King
... had at that time of serving my country, without the least suspicion that my only reward would be contempt and opprobrious names! To refuse the offer of the Spanish nation was the act of a blockhead of which I should ...
— American Merchant Ships and Sailors • Willis J. Abbot
... similar to the Christian, and special attention on the part of the priesthood to morality and to public works of mercy.(228) His bitter contempt for Christianity manifested itself in a public edict, which commanded that Christians should be denominated by the opprobrious epithet "Galilaeans;" and in some of his extant letters(229) he evinces a bitterness against it which finds its parallel in ...
— History of Free Thought in Reference to The Christian Religion • Adam Storey Farrar
... piece of taffeta, which he always wore over one of his eyes, when his sister discovered immediately who he was, yet had so much presence of mind as not to give the least sign of mistrust; nay, she gave him some very opprobrious language, but was very eager at snatching the papers he threw into her coach. Among them was a packet of letters, which she had no sooner got but she went forward, the duke, at the head of the mob, attending and hallooing her a good way ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 1 • Grace Wharton and Philip Wharton
... I may benefit by the example." The king laughed at his wit, and spared his life.—Nor is this tale without a spice of humour: An astrologer entered his house and finding a stranger in company with his wife abused him, and called him such opprobrious names that a quarrel and strife ensued. A shrewd man, being informed of this, said to the astrologer: "What do you know of the heavenly bodies, when you cannot tell what goes on in your own house?"[10]—Last, and perhaps best of all, is this one: I was hesitating about ...
— Flowers from a Persian Garden and Other Papers • W. A. Clouston
... these men Musilongo or Sonhese. The word appears to me opprobrious, as if each tribe termed itself Mushi-Congo (Congo people), and its neighbours Musulungus: Barbot writes as a Frenchman Moutsie, the Portuguese Muxi (Mushi). Mushi-Longo would perhaps mean Loango-people; but my ear could not detect any approach ...
— Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... or rather gone, to rack; all his family had abandoned the place, and were in London. I called upon the only person in Botley that used to be intimate with him, from whom I received such an account as made me form a worse opinion of mankind than I had ever before entertained. He spoke in opprobrious terms of his former acquaintance, saying that he, Cobbett, had run away in every one's debt, and, with an oath, (most brutally, as I felt it) he declared "hanging was too good for him." I never spoke to this man afterwards; neither was I deterred by ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 3 • Henry Hunt
... sentence, with its opprobrious epithet (coined on the spot), was addressed with sudden asperity to the driver of the clumsy vehicle, who was seated on his box, with mouth expanded ...
— The Big Otter • R.M. Ballantyne
... make use of some expression that might seem to justify their murder. They fired muskets close to their ears, pointed others loaded and cocked close to their breasts and faces, flourished swords close to their noses, called them all kinds of opprobrious names, but all in vain. The Resident, in the midst of all this confusion, pointed out to the Begum the impossibility of her ultimately succeeding in her attempt to secure the throne for the pretender, since he was acting under the orders of his Government, who had declared the right to be another's; ...
— A Journey through the Kingdom of Oude, Volumes I & II • William Sleeman
... modes of expressing it, providing it be done with decorum and with a proper respect for the opinions of their adversaries? Why then do we or they employ, through the press and in rhetorical bombast, opprobrious epithets, fit only for the pot-house or the shambles? Shall we men and citizens, each of us a pillar upholding the crowning dome of our nationality, be taught, like vexed and querulous children, ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No IV, April 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... which had been devoted friends of the Tokugawa shoguns were especially outraged by this conciliatory spirit shown to the Choshu troops. They claimed that this clan by resisting the imperial commands had merited the opprobrious title of rebels (chotoki), and were no longer fit for the association of loyal clans. But the Choshu daimyo had been restored to the favor of his emperor, and moreover was allied with the clans whose power was paramount at Kyoto, so that the ...
— Japan • David Murray
... with the greatest respect and civility from all classes of the natives, but now even the peasantry ran out of their houses, as we passed, and bawled after us Queitze-fan-quei, which, in their language, are opprobrious and contemptuous expressions, signifying foreign devils, imps; epithets that are bestowed by the enlightened Chinese on all foreigners. It was obvious, that the haughty and insolent manner in which all Europeans ...
— Travels in China, Containing Descriptions, Observations, and Comparisons, Made and Collected in the Course of a Short Residence at the Imperial Palace of Yuen-Min-Yuen, and on a Subsequent Journey thr • John Barrow
... Christian hearts O for a pagan zeal! A needful, but opprobrious prayer!"—Young, ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... by priuiledge of loue: But should that man of men (Dido except) Haue taunted me in these opprobrious termes, I would haue either drunke his dying bloud, Or els I would haue giuen ...
— The Tragedy of Dido Queene of Carthage • Christopher Marlowe
... of the skirmishing between Tom and Ben. The latter was a little disposed to be bully; and from the time the company left Pinchbrook, he had been in the habit of calling Tom a baby, and other opprobrious terms, till the subject of his sneers could endure them no longer. Tom had come to the conclusion that he could obtain respectful treatment only by the course he had adopted. Perhaps, if he had possessed the requisite patience, he might have ...
— The Soldier Boy; or, Tom Somers in the Army - A Story of the Great Rebellion • Oliver Optic
... angry with him for having been the agent of Jasper's final destruction, which involved him in a severe loss, had expressed himself in no measured terms—had, in fact, lashed him with most bitter and opprobrious words. ...
— True Riches - Or, Wealth Without Wings • T.S. Arthur
... crowd of men come together to make merry on so great a festival. It chanced that a light-brained swaggering young fellow passed by; he was a soldier of Rienzo da Ceri, who, when he heard the noise that we were making, gave vent to a string of opprobrious sarcasms upon the folk of Florence. [2] I, who was the host of those great artists and men of worth, taking the insult to myself, slipped out quietly without being observed, and went up to him. I ought to say that he had a punk of his there, and was going on with his stupid ...
— The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini • Benvenuto Cellini
... again the people refused to sell anything to those whom they considered their enemies, and some even denied them the common courtesy of a drink of water. The chief amusement of the children along the route was to shout opprobrious or derisive epithets as they passed, not infrequently accompanied with stones, rotten apples, and now and then the still more objectionable egg. The squire's opinion of Whiggism went to an even lower pitch, but his womenkind bore it unflinchingly and uncomplainingly, ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... it is only by the rarest conjunction of circumstances, that the movements and plans which such a state of things gives rise to, can get any other than the most opprobrious name and place in history. Success is their only certificate of legitimacy. To attempt to overthrow a government still so strongly planted in the endurance and passivity of the people, might seem, ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon
... the Parses, better known by the opprobrious name of Gaures or Guebres, another word for infidels. They are in Asia what the Jews are in Europe. The name of their pope ...
— The Ruins • C. F. [Constantin Francois de] Volney
... same time attacking the parentage of the object of their resentment. This is decidedly an orientalism; and I have observed in another place that sailors resemble the Orientals in their fondness for tropes and figures. The most opprobrious epithet that a Persian can make use of, when in a passion, is to call his antagonist "a dog's uncle." No other degree of canine consanguinity is considered ...
— An Old Sailor's Yarns • Nathaniel Ames
... The opprobrious proverb already mentioned is not the only permanent mark of unpopularity that the Tinkers have earned for themselves at Lisconnel. Their very name has become a term of reproach among us, so that "an ould tinker" is ...
— Strangers at Lisconnel • Barlow Jane
... erected when they had first fixed their station there, but now it was too late, and Hudson had refused to have it done at first. The carpenter's refusal to perform the work excited the anger of the master to such a degree, that he drove him violently from the cabin, using the most opprobrious language, and finally threatening ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 5 • Charles Sylvester
... Virginia, and stopped because words failed her. Had Jenny been born in any family except her own, she would probably have described her as "dangerous," but it was impossible to brand her daughter with so opprobrious an epithet. The word, owing to the metaphorical yet specific definition of it which she had derived from the rector's sermons in her childhood, invariably suggested fire and ...
— Virginia • Ellen Glasgow
... Moorish places or individuals should be inviolably observed. These regulations were enforced by severe penalties, and had such salutary effect that, though a vast host of various people was collected together, not an opprobrious epithet was heard nor a ...
— Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada • Washington Irving
... her knees before him, conjured him, with many pathetic supplications, to hear and grant her request, which was no sooner signified, than he bellowed in such an outrageous manner that the whole court re-echoed the opprobrious term b—, and the word damnation, which he repeated with surprising volubility, without any sort of propriety or connection; and retreated into his penetralia, leaving the baffled devotee in the humble posture she had so unsuccessfully chosen ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... evil of any person either in or out of his hearing. One should abstain from injuring any creature, and conduct oneself observing the course of the Sun.[1333] Having come into this life, one should not behave with unfriendliness towards any creature. One should disregard opprobrious speeches, and never in arrogance deem oneself as superior to another. When sought to be angered by another, one should still utter agreeable speeches. Even when calumniated, one should not calumniate in return. One should ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... seven miles from Nottingham, has been rendered noted by the common proverb of "The Wise Men of Gotham." It is observable that a custom has prevailed among many nations of stigmatizing the inhabitants of some particular spot as remarkable for stupidity. This opprobrious district among the Asiatics was Phrygia. Among the Thracians, Abdera; among the Greeks, Boeotia; in England it is Gotham. Of the Gothamites ironically called The Wise Men of Gotham, many ridiculous stories are traditionally told, particularly, that often having heard the cuckoo but never seen her, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 345, December 6, 1828 • Various
... places in Brittany, the trade of cooper was looked upon with contempt, and the opprobrious name of caqueux was given to them because they were thought to belong to a race of Jews dispersed after the ruin of Jerusalem, and who were considered leprous ...
— Barn and the Pyrenees - A Legendary Tour to the Country of Henri Quatre • Louisa Stuart Costello
... arose, drowning these protestations, and the most opprobrious epithets could be heard ...
— Baron Trigault's Vengeance - Volume 2 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau
... four or five ages, according to the average term of human life, since the earlier grand display of mind, what had been effected toward such an advancement of intelligence in the community, that when this next tribe of highly endowed spirits should appear, they would stand in much loss opprobrious contrast to the main body of the nation, and find a much larger portion of it qualified to receive their intellectual effusions. By this time, the class of persons who sought knowledge on a wider scale than what sufficed for the ordinary ...
— An Essay on the Evils of Popular Ignorance • John Foster
... Sagamees, or principal women, and more frequently by some celebrated Juggler of the village, that they may obtain the blessing of fruitfulness. For it is with them, as amongst the Jews, that barrenness is accounted opprobrious. A woman is not looked upon as a woman, till she has proved it, by her fulfilling what they consider as one of the great ends of her creation. Failing in that, she is divorced from her husband, and may then prostitute herself without any scandal. If she has no inclination ...
— An Account Of The Customs And Manners Of The Micmakis And Maricheets Savage Nations, Now Dependent On The Government Of Cape-Breton • Antoine Simon Maillard
... Miss Spotted Snake!" the girls from Roselawn heard the children shrieking, and without doubt this opprobrious epithet referred to ...
— The Campfire Girls of Roselawn - A Strange Message from the Air • Margaret Penrose
... neighborhood of such dangerous commotions, resolved to go by water to the Castle of Windsor; but as she approached the bridge, the populace assembled against her: the cry ran, "Drown the witch;" and besides abusing her with the most opprobrious language, and pelting her with rotten eggs and dirt, they had prepared large stones to sink her barge, when she should attempt to shoot the bridge; and she was so frightened, that ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part B. - From Henry III. to Richard III. • David Hume
... far, before my little strength again failed me, and I laid down. The blood was still oozing from the wound in my head; and, for a time, I suffered more than I can describe. There I was, in the deep woods, sick and emaciated, pursued by a wretch whose character for revolting cruelty beggars all opprobrious speech—bleeding, and almost bloodless. I was not without the fear of bleeding to death. The thought of dying in the woods, all alone, and of being torn to pieces by the buzzards, had not yet been rendered tolerable ...
— My Bondage and My Freedom • Frederick Douglass
... having seen him, upbraided him with opprobrious words: "Cursed Paris,[146] most excellent in form, thou woman-raving seducer, would that thou hadst either not been born, or that thou hadst perished unmarried. This, indeed, I would wish, and indeed it would be much better, than that thou shouldst thus be a disgrace ...
— The Iliad of Homer (1873) • Homer
... you deny him the common courtesy which no gentleman refuses to another, he will proclaim your name with the most opprobrious adjuncts to all the world, and in place of his former regard he will hold you in the most unlimited contempt, which he will have no scruple about shewing on ...
— Queechy • Susan Warner
... from a boy, and treated him with much kindness and confidence. Yet he headed the murderers; and when they broke into the captain's cabin, and that officer, perceiving their intention, called for his coxswain to protect him, he replied with an opprobrious epithet, "Here I am to despatch you!" He had been entrusted with the captain's keys; and when the work of blood was over, the officers, even to unoffending midshipmen, being slaughtered, and the murderers ...
— The Life of Admiral Viscount Exmouth • Edward Osler
... with laughter. They had missed her for so long that they had imagined her ill, perhaps dead. Seeing her turn up again, they were full of greedy ardour for her news. They put to her searching and opprobrious questions. She did not hear them. Soon she was in the midst of the crowd. Yet she scarcely realized that she was not alone. No mechanical smile came to her face. It seemed as if she had forgotten the old wiles ...
— Flames • Robert Smythe Hichens
... the fashion of his class, that all that could have been said of her was true, and that she was as unfit for the society of the respectable as any wretched creature could be. "That foreign madam" was what he called her, in the privacy of the housekeeper's room, with many opprobrious epithets. Mrs. Freshwater, who was, perhaps, more good-natured than was advantageous to the housekeeper and manager of a large establishment, was melted whenever she saw her, by the Contessa's gracious looks ...
— Sir Tom • Mrs. Oliphant
... had been taken, and made no scruple of prostituting their wives to their embraces. The children that sprung from this unlawful intercourse were called Partheniae, a name given them to denote the infamy of their birth. As soon as they were grown up, not being able to endure such an opprobrious distinction, they banished themselves from Sparta with one consent, and, under the conduct of Phalantus, went and settled at Tarentum in Italy, after driving out the ...
— The Ancient History of the Egyptians, Carthaginians, Assyrians, • Charles Rollin
... however, that he is sure he is happier, even in this situation, than are some of his cousins at this instant, who are struggling in poverty to be genteel, or to keep up a family name, and he would not change places with those who are in a state of idle and opprobrious dependence. I understand (remember, this is a secret between ourselves)—I understand that Secretary Cunningham Falconer has found him out, and makes good use of his pen, but pays him shabbily. Temple is too ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. VII - Patronage • Maria Edgeworth
... historians has earned a brilliant reputation in the conclusive proof that oceans are the world's highways, while its continents are its barriers. To the term "militarism" we attach an opprobrious meaning; militarism is the more infamous in exact proportion to its efficiency. We have been at little pains to define it, and as to certain of ...
— The New York Times Current History of the European War, Vol. 1, January 9, 1915 - What Americans Say to Europe • Various
... the effect of nursing prejudice by using foolish opprobrious nicknames. Henderson was a good officer, he has shown himself an excellent son, always sacrificing his own predilections for the sake of duty. He is a right-minded, religious, sensible man, his own master, and with no connections to take umbrage at Miss White's ...
— Beechcroft at Rockstone • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Pistol, whom he avows to be a man of so fiery a temper, and so impatient of an injury, even from Sir John Falstaff his captain, and a knight, that he not only disobeyed his commands about carrying a letter to Mrs. Page, but returned him an answer as full of contumely, and in as opprobrious terms, ...
— The Dramatic Works of John Dryden Vol. I. - With a Life of the Author • Sir Walter Scott
... feelings. Being mere data, neither good nor evil in themselves, he may pervert them or lull them to sleep by any means at his command. Truckling, compromise, time-serving, capitulations of conscience, are conventionally opprobrious names for what, if successfully carried out, {105} would be on his principles by far the easiest and most praiseworthy mode of bringing about that harmony between inner and outer relations which is all that he means by good. The absolute moralist, on the other hand, when his interests ...
— The Will to Believe - and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy • William James
... himself specifically addressed, and Penny was left in possession of the floor. But Stanley's curt treatment rankled in his heart. So, placing his feet wide apart and his hands in his waistcoat pockets, he respectfully drew attention to the opprobrious epithet "gas-bag" which had been employed in requesting him to retire from this Chamber of Horrors, and asked that the ...
— Tell England - A Study in a Generation • Ernest Raymond
... office. The Advocate had been the mark of unceasing and infamous calumnies. He had incurred the deadly hatred of the highest placed, the most powerful, and the most popular man in the commonwealth. He had more than once been obliged to listen to opprobrious language from the prince, and it was even whispered that he had been threatened with personal violence. That Maurice was perpetually denouncing him in public and private, as a traitor, a papist, a Spanish partisan, ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... Paul's opprobrious epithet, which Adelle was beginning to comprehend. She winced, but ...
— Clark's Field • Robert Herrick
... tell lies for peace. He is ready to be lost for his fellow-men. In the name of God he rebukes the flames of hell. The fugitives pause on the top, look back, call him lying prophet, and shout evil opprobrious names at the man who counts not his own life dear to him, who has forgotten his own soul in his sacred devotion to men, who fills up what is left behind of the sufferings of Christ, for his body's sake — for ...
— David Elginbrod • George MacDonald
... hotel, but did not stay there long himself. I can detect a slight acrimony in his manner on the subject, and deduce from it that he was not perhaps encouraged by Dr. Chang or his hosts to linger. I flatter myself I know Wilbraham's mentality fairly well—if one may be permitted that rather opprobrious word." ...
— Mystery at Geneva - An Improbable Tale of Singular Happenings • Rose Macaulay
... some further talk, but for so jovial a specimen he was surprisingly uncommunicative. Indeed, I think he soon decided that I somehow did not belong to the fraternity, that I was a "farmer"—in the most opprobrious sense—and he soon began to drowse, rousing himself once or twice to roll another cigarette, but finally dropping (apparently, at least) ...
— The Friendly Road - New Adventures in Contentment • (AKA David Grayson) Ray Stannard Baker
... In general we may observe, that as our assent to all probable reasonings is founded on the vivacity of ideas, It resembles many of those whimsies and prejudices, which are rejected under the opprobrious character of being the offspring of the imagination. By this expression it appears that the word, imagination, is commonly usd in two different senses; and tho nothing be more contrary to true philosophy, than this inaccuracy, yet in the ...
— A Treatise of Human Nature • David Hume
... way before the superior discipline of the enemy, when I was brought to the ground by a blow from a musket. At the same moment the enemy discovered my rank, exulted in their having taken the rebel general, as they termed me, and bid me ask for quarters. I felt that I deserved not so opprobrious an epithet, and determined to die, as I had lived, an honored soldier in a just and righteous cause; and without begging my life or making reply, I lunged with my sword at the nearest man. They then bayoneted ...
— From Farm House to the White House • William M. Thayer
... let fall the opprobrious epithet, ere the decanter flew, with furious force, from Whitaker's hand, and, narrowly missing Frank's head, was shivered ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume 2 - Historical, Traditional, and Imaginative • Alexander Leighton
... replied: "Not unless he happens to belong to a savage beast." Is it really otherwise anywhere? Instead of the reindeer eliminating the dog, there is far greater likelihood of the dog eliminating the reindeer; and the professed dog lover, indignant at the opprobrious term applied to a whole race of dogs, may be disposed to echo Lady Macbeth's wish: "May good digestion wait ...
— Ten Thousand Miles with a Dog Sled - A Narrative of Winter Travel in Interior Alaska • Hudson Stuck
... certain idle complaints made by them against our mariners. I found him and the president of their factory very impatient, calling us insolent English, threatening that our pride would have a fall, with many other disgraceful and opprobrious words.[134] Such was the entertainment we received from that boorish general, named Garrat Reynes, in his own house. He had formerly shewn the like or worse to Mr Ball, on going aboard his ship at Banda: And four of our men, who took passage ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume IX. • Robert Kerr
... appears to all, though few regard it. This the traditional Christian, conceited of himself, and strong in his own will and righteousness, overcome with blind zeal and passion, either despised as a low and common thing, or opposed as a novelty, under many hard names and opprobrious terms; denying, in his ignorant and angry mind, any fresh manifestations of God's power and spirit in man, in these days, though never more needed to make true Christians. Not unlike those Jews of old, that rejected ...
— A Brief Account of the Rise and Progress of the People Called Quakers • William Penn
... time fatally. The Sixth Ward, "the Bloody Sixth," as it was called, was the point of greatest danger, and thither the Mayor repaired in person, accompanied by the sheriff and a large posse, and remained the greater part of the day. Threats and opprobrious epithets were freely used, and occasionally a paving-stone would be hurled from some one on the outskirts of the crowd; but the passage to the polls was kept open, and by one o'clock the citizens could deposit their votes without ...
— The Great Riots of New York 1712 to 1873 • J.T. Headley |
