"Derisive" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... all the dome, they quaff, they feast, Derisive taunts were spread from guest to guest, And each in jovial mood ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer, translated by Alexander Pope
... them to mount guard together with the French. But the people and the national guard did not accompany the French soldiers quietly; on the contrary, the bewildered prince distinctly heard the sneers, the derisive laughter, and jeers of the crowd; even the boys in the tree-tops were casting down their abusive epithets. When the procession drew nearer, and the people surrounded the prince, he discovered the meaning of these outbursts ...
— Napoleon and the Queen of Prussia • L. Muhlbach
... in the instances of the Vendomes and La Rochefoucauld, were so many artifices of the Cardinal, and that she was his dupe. This conviction put the spirited partisan upon her mettle. She began to titter, to mock, and to expostulate by turns, and sometimes twitted the minister in pert and derisive terms. This, however, betrayed a want of her ordinary precaution, and only served to fill Mazarin's quiver with shafts to be used against herself. He made the Queen believe that Madame de Chevreuse sought to rule her with a rod of iron; that ...
— Political Women (Vol. 1 of 2) • Sutherland Menzies
... us," I answered; and then, for the first time, realized how incredible the explanation sounded. The derisive gleam passed through his eyes again. But he drew his poniard and ...
— The Moon Pool • A. Merritt
... preserving a decent gravity, except Lord North. On the other hand, Franklin is said to have heard it all with composure, standing erect in one corner of the room, and not suffering the slightest alteration of his countenance to be visible. The words of Wedderburne, however, coupled with the derisive and exulting laugh of the council, sank deep into the soul of Franklin. He appeared in a full dress of spotted Manchester velvet, and it is said that, when he returned to his lodgings he took off this dress, and vowed he would never wear it again until he should sign the degradation of England ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... Barnacles exclaim, obeying orders,'Hear, Hear, Hear!' and 'Read!' Then would the noble or right honourable Barnacle perceive, sir, from this little document, which he thought might carry conviction even to the perversest mind (Derisive laughter and cheering from the Barnacle fry), that within the short compass of the last financial half-year, this much-maligned Department (Cheers) had written and received fifteen thousand letters (Loud cheers), had written twenty-four thousand minutes ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... still in astonished surprise. Could that really be the aristocratic old place of her memory? Max could hardly be blamed for his derisive comments. ...
— Strawberry Acres • Grace S. Richmond
... ball hung to another limb and this time the derisive Jake succeeded in the shake-down and the bagging amid the most breathless excitement. It was a sight to see the sophisticated little animal lie like dead and be picked up and handled in a state of seeming lifeless rigidity—a display ...
— Andrew the Glad • Maria Thompson Daviess
... A derisive laugh followed, and when Grant turned a little Breckenridge saw his face. The bronze in it had faded, and left paler patches, that seemed almost grey, while the lad, who knew his comrade's pride and uprightness, fancied he could guess how that taunt, ...
— The Cattle-Baron's Daughter • Harold Bindloss
... your idle words. Can good destroy? Can love persecute? I was a worm that turned. What then? Why not have crushed me to annihilation? Oh, no, not that! He took me up and shook me before the world, clipped me, and let me fall. A derisive Deity,—why, the words ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 11, Issue 67, May, 1863 • Various
... far outdistanced the bees that Willie had courage to face about and shout back defiance to all threats and to show his contempt for the whole race of gravediggers by pointing his thumb to his nose and wriggling his fingers in that same derisive and, it must be conceded, effective manner already mentioned. Although still at a considerable distance, the young gravedigger caught the full meaning of the insult and ...
— A Little Question in Ladies' Rights • Parker Fillmore
... expect me to carry out such a crazy scheme?" was the derisive retort. "Maybe you've a plan to suggest whereby, entirely without a cent, I am to purchase a toy like that. It can't be done without Aladdin's lamp—at least I can't do it any other way. A motorcycle indeed! Why, I have not a cent to spend for such a thing. I couldn't even buy one ...
— The Story of Leather • Sara Ware Bassett
... A faint, derisive smile flickered across Diana's lips. "How could I? Do you suppose that—that having failed him when he asked me to believe in him, I could go back to him now—now that I know everything? . . . Oh, no, I couldn't ...
— The Splendid Folly • Margaret Pedler
... rice. Drinking this, the poor boy, was deceived into the belief that he had taken milk, and began to dance in joy, saying, 'O, I have taken milk. I have taken milk!' Beholding him dance with joy amid these playmates smiling at his simplicity, I was exceedingly touched. Hearing also the derisive speeches of busy-bodies who said, 'Fie upon the indigent Drona, who strives not to earn wealth, whose son drinking water mixed with powdered rice mistaketh it for milk and danceth with joy, saying, ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa - Translated into English Prose - Adi Parva (First Parva, or First Book) • Kisari Mohan Ganguli (Translator)
... himself. Only when he thought of Miss Mackenzie there fell upon his mind a shadow of regret; that young lady was worthy of better things than plain John Nicholson, still known among schoolmates by the derisive name of 'Fatty'; and he felt, if he could chalk a cue, or stand at ease, with such a careless grace as Alan, he could approach the object of his sentiments with a less ...
— Tales and Fantasies • Robert Louis Stevenson
... brutal, derisive. The submarine glided away. Thomson's face as he looked after it, was black with anger. The next moment he recovered himself, however. He had need of ...
— The Kingdom of the Blind • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... hereafter to hear Mass from there with us. But I suppose, in view of your 'lesson,' that is an invitation which you will decline?" The glint of laughter shone brighter in her eyes, and her mouth had a tiny pucker, amiably derisive. ...
— My Friend Prospero • Henry Harland
... "Ah," Brierly's derisive smile faded. "That girl, eh? Say, I saw her make the ninth hole in three. That girl! Say, look here, Grove," he struck the open paper with his palm, "does she ...
— Little Lost Sister • Virginia Brooks
... again, on his promenade, his head bent low as he spoke to the clinging little lady on his arm. Passing Eloise, as he raised his face, their eyes met. She was doing, he thought, the very thing that he had disadvised, and, as if to warn her afresh, he looked long, a derisive smile curling his proud lip. That was enough. "He knows it!" exclaimed Eloise to herself. "He believes it! He thinks I love him! He never shall be sure of it!" And turning once more, her face hung down and away, she laid her hand in Marlboro's, without a word or a glance. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 80, June, 1864 • Various
... back into the fort. At the same instant the side of the hill below them appeared covered with black forms, who kept flitting in and out among the trees, making their way upwards. Bendigo shouted to them, but they only replied with loud and derisive cries and shrieks. They had evidently made up their minds to destroy the white men. Flourishing their spears, they leaped from behind their cover, and came springing ...
— The Young Berringtons - The Boy Explorers • W.H.G. Kingston
... her whole heart, and with that frankness and confidence that a guest inspires who has been so long an inmate of the house. Of a Jesus of Nazareth bearing the cross upon his shoulders, and crowned with thorns; of an Ecce Homo, insulted and scourged, with a reed for derisive scepter, and his hands bound with a rough cord; of a Christ crucified, bleeding and moribund, Pepita would not have dared to ask what she now asked of a Saviour, still a child, smiling, beautiful, untouched by suffering, and pleasing to the eye. Pepita asked him to leave her Don Luis; ...
— Pepita Ximenez • Juan Valera
... This statement excited a derisive snort from Mr. Quirk. "Alkali! My God! Ever taste alkali?" Jerry had an irritating way of asserting himself in regard to matters of which he knew less than nothing; his was the ...
— The Winds of Chance • Rex Beach
... sunken. She seemed to have but half as much hair as Babbitt remembered, and that half was stringy. She sat in a rocker amid a debris of candy-boxes and cheap magazines, and she sounded dolorous when she did not sound derisive. But ...
— Babbitt • Sinclair Lewis
... foreigner, who gave information concerning this or any similar crime. At first nothing was disclosed as to the mutilation of the Hermae, but other recent acts of profanation were brought to light, and among these was mentioned a derisive parody of the great Eleusinian Mysteries, alleged to have been performed in the house of Alcibiades, and elsewhere. The enemies of Alcibiades, who were both numerous and powerful, eagerly seized this handle against him; but when the matter was debated ...
— Stories From Thucydides • H. L. Havell
... their perilous reconnaissance. Perhaps they had gone to sleep. He squinted at their hammocks. Yes, they were occupied. Stepping softly to the hammock of Pedro, he lifted the net to whisper to the occupant. Then he stared, dropped the net, and lifted Lourenco's curtain. A soft, self-derisive chuckle sounded in his throat as he stole ...
— The Pathless Trail • Arthur O. (Arthur Olney) Friel
... secretary with a derisive appreciation which bowed her once proud head upon her shamed breast, "you are all I thought you when I took you from Crabbe's back-pantry in Boone to make you the honor and glory of a life which I knew then, as well as I do now, would not ...
— The Mayor's Wife • Anna Katharine Green
... stations, and escorting him with bands and banners, music and song from train to theatre, Town Hall, or whatever the meeting-place might be for the day. When he was received, however, not as in later years with universal acclamations, but with derisive shouts and groans and sometimes with showers of stones and mud, he smiled to see the commotion, and took every opportunity to show his enemies how much he loved them. Already more than fifty years old, and looking decidedly older, when ...
— The Authoritative Life of General William Booth • George Scott Railton
... Chantel, from a derisive dumb-show near the window, had turned to waddle solemnly down the room. At sight of ...
— Dragon's blood • Henry Milner Rideout
... horses reared, and drew the others round; the tilting of the pole tilted the chariot; Messala barely escaped a fall, while his complacent Myrtilus rolled back like a clod to the ground. Seeing the peril past, all the bystanders burst into derisive laughter. ...
— Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ • Lew Wallace
... the water, toes well tucked into the turf, deeply intent upon tickling. Then I would run by a short cut, hide in the hazels, and watch while my father stalked up through the meadow, caught and belaboured the poachers. My derisive young laughter seemed now to howl and shriek through the rigging. So I vowed that if the storm abated and we came safe to port, the monks should be given that meadow. Upon which the storm did abate, and to port we ...
— The White Ladies of Worcester - A Romance of the Twelfth Century • Florence L. Barclay
... to shore, so that, drawing my knife, I must needs sit there awhile to watch if this were so indeed. At last I arose, but being come to Deliverance Sands, whirled suddenly about, expectant to behold that dead thing uprising from the surge to flap derisive arms at me. And this did I many times, being haunted thus all that day, and for many weary hours thereafter, by this dead man Humphrey. Presently, as I went heedless of all direction and the sun very hot, I began ...
— Black Bartlemy's Treasure • Jeffrey Farnol
... the tree where the crown of the warrior's head had showed for an instant, but a shriek of derisive laughter told that no further harm was done. Standish, with a grim smile, reloaded his snaphance, while two more arrows vigorously flew, one piercing the right sleeve of his doublet, the other aimed at his face, which he avoided by moving his head. Then ...
— Standish of Standish - A story of the Pilgrims • Jane G. Austin
... boats returned two days later from their useless passage down the river, they were astonished and enraged by outbursts of mocking laughter from the tangle of bushes fringing the river. Not a foe was to be seen, but for miles these sounds of derisive laughter assailed them from both sides of the stream. The veterans ground their teeth with rage, and would have rowed towards the banks had not their officers, believing that it was the intention of the Britons to induce them to land, and then to lead them ...
— Beric the Briton - A Story of the Roman Invasion • G. A. Henty
... been exchanged in a desultory fashion over the bars at Mustang Kate's and Dutch Lena's; and derisive comments made as to Mrs. Huzzard and her late charge, the girl in the Indian dress. Some of the boys, who owned musical instruments—a banjo and a mouth organ—were openly approached by bribery to ...
— That Girl Montana • Marah Ellis Ryan
... a very derisive laugh: "why, Moufflou can do anything! He can walk on two legs ever so long; make ready, present, and fire; die; waltz; beg, of course; shut a door; make a wheelbarrow of himself; there is nothing he will not do. Would you like ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... grumbled. He could not or would not take the trouble to characterise for me the appearance of that man now officially a criminal (we had gone across the road for a drink) but told me with a sourly, derisive snigger that, after the sentence had been pronounced the fellow clung to the dock long enough to make a sort of protest. 'You haven't given me time. If I had been given time I would have ended by being made a peer like some ...
— Chance - A Tale in Two Parts • Joseph Conrad
... it and had thus become the most grotesque fowl it is possible to imagine. He then began to visit his friends of both sexes, in that strange costume. At first he had been followed through astonishment, then with derisive shouts, then the porters had insulted him, then children had thrown stones at him, and finally he was obliged to run, to escape the missiles. As soon as he took to flight every one pursued him, until, pressed on all sides, Scarron found no way of escaping his escort, except ...
— Twenty Years After • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... certain sights—the one indistinct, the other vaguely conjecturable—which, nevertheless, we know, by an instinct, bode some diabolical agency at work in our affairs. And if any man gives an entertainment, and hears afar a general, ill-suppressed, derisive titter, and sees all his guests hurrying towards one spot, I defy him to remain unmoved and uninquisitive. I defy him still more to take that precise occasion (however much he may have before designed it) to drop gracefully on his right knee ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... when I came home and related the amazing tales to Boggley he received them with derisive shouts of laughter, and said they had been spinning us ...
— Olivia in India • O. Douglas
... and his Council were not allowed to tax England were reasons why George III. and his Parliament should not tax America. The dispute involved a principle, namely, the right of controlling government. Furthermore, it involved the conclusion that the Parliament brought together by a derisive election had no just right over the unrepresented nation, and it called on the people of England to take back its power. Our best statesmen saw that whatever might be the law, the rights of the nation were at stake. Chatham, in speeches better remembered than any that have been ...
— The History of Freedom • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton
... you keep putting the wrong end up! I wish Eleanor was well enough to do it," he said—and then burst into self-derisive chuckles: "Imagine Eleanor straddling that ridgepole! It would scare ...
— The Vehement Flame • Margaret Wade Campbell Deland
... Oh, indeed,—Meaow! [Sudden chorus of derisive animal noises from the Ark, delighting PEOPLE ...
— The Piper • Josephine Preston Peabody
... only express the feelings to which this incredible statement gave rise in his breast, by a prodigiously long derisive sniff. ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... consternation and dismay on the other. At last, when Russell read the list of boroughs which were doomed to extinction, the Tories hoped that the completeness of the measure would insure its defeat. Forgetting their fears, they began to be amused and burst into peals of derisive laughter" (III, 208). ...
— Historical Essays • James Ford Rhodes
... of that derisive title which has drawn upon you the full force of the king's resentment, lord abbot," ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... this information about, but no angle emitted light. Basically a kindly man but made cynical and derisive by sordid contacts, O'Higgins had almost forgotten that there was such a thing as unselfishness. The man or woman who did something for nothing always excited his suspicions; they were playing some kind of a game. "You mean you were just sorry ...
— The Ragged Edge • Harold MacGrath
... Toulouche, from the back of her store, was watching with a derisive air the good-natured Cranajour fasten up the Academician's robe in a prominent position on the front of her nondescript emporium, someone stepped inside, and warmly ...
— Messengers of Evil - Being a Further Account of the Lures and Devices of Fantomas • Pierre Souvestre
... little shelf for the rats," jeers the tall one. "Little like the smooth quoit that runs the full course," responds the short one, and retorts "Long and lanky, he will go down in the gale like a banana tree." "Like the ea banana that takes long to ripen," is the quick reply. Compare also the derisive chants with which Kuapakaa drives home the chiefs of the six districts of Hawaii who have got his father out of favor, and Lono's taunts against the revolting ...
— The Hawaiian Romance Of Laieikawai • Anonymous
... case was apparent, and their consciences were well satisfied that the said witches were guilty, and deserved death.' When sentence of death was pronounced, the old woman, sixty years of age, pleaded, in arrest of judgment, that she was with child—a pleading which produced only a derisive shout of laughter in court. Husband and daughter asserted their innocence to the last. All three were hanged. From the moment of execution, we are assured, Robert Throgmorton's children were permanently freed from all their sufferings. Such, briefly, are the circumstances of a ...
— The Superstitions of Witchcraft • Howard Williams
... there by him for this very purpose. If the guard made HIM bristle with rage, how would the sight of the man and his club affect the strikers? He was a challenge and an insult, an invitation to violence. Bonbright turned and walked away, followed by a derisive guffaw ...
— Youth Challenges • Clarence B Kelland
... American ship (surprised in one of her ports by the declaration of war) to depart unharmed, the fact was magnified into an act of almost ideal generosity; on the other hand, when we decided not to permit privateering, that announcement was received with derisive laughter as a pretentious pose to cover hidden interests. There is reason to believe, however, that this feeling in favor of Spain goes little further than the press and the aristocratic circles so dear to the American “climber”; the real heart of the French nation is as true to us as when a century ...
— The Ways of Men • Eliot Gregory
... with derisive laughter, "sure there's a shield. I didn't make it. I wouldn't know how. No, I don't know what's causing it. But I'll tell you what I think. I think They've caught the specimen They want. There's an E ...
— Eight Keys to Eden • Mark Irvin Clifton
... pay for those consols? Come, tell me; was he liberal? It is evident that you are not a man of business. I should have been willing to pay as much as a hundred thousand crowns. Come; acknowledge that you have made a bad stroke." She bent her head to one side, and a derisive smile lifted the corners ...
— The Puppet Crown • Harold MacGrath
... drink—more especially the drink. Later, gradually, a change came over him. Only Cake did not notice this change. She was too set on being taught so she could become famous. At first the lodger was all oaths and blows with shouts of fierce, derisive ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1921 • Various
... period. Here, in this green corner of rural England on a workaday afternoon (a Wednesday, to be precise), in full sunlight, I saw this company of the early gods sitting, naked and unabashed, and piping, while twelve British navvies danced to their music. . . . I saw it; and a derisive whistle from the engine told me that driver and stoker saw it too. I was not dreaming, then. But what on earth could it mean? For fifteen seconds or so I stared at the Vision . . . and so the train joggled past it and rapt it from ...
— News from the Duchy • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... conduct was known. He perceived this in the allusions of Dunning, the pith of which he had affected not to understand. He had seen it, he had felt it, in the significant and knowing glances that had been exchanged on every side around him, and especially in the bitter derisive laugh that had assailed his tingling ears. He had also been taught a new lesson in the interview! He had seen, in the firm manner and determined looks of those he had been confronting—he had seen that which told him of a spirit at work among the people, that the loyal party, with all their ...
— The Rangers - [Subtitle: The Tory's Daughter] • D. P. Thompson
... Only the quick roll of her eyes indicated how observant she was. If, however, she met Chunk in the hall, or anywhere away from observation, she never lost the opportunity to torment him. A queer grimace, a surprised stare, an exasperating derisive giggle, were her only acknowledgments of his amorous attentions. "Ef I doesn't git eben wid dat niggah, den I eat a mule," he muttered more ...
— Miss Lou • E. P. Roe
... had suddenly evoked. She picked up the cabbage leaf with the fruit and flung them over the railings into a flower bed, where the butcher-birds and the bower-birds quarrelled over them, and the big, grey bird in the gum tree on the other side of the fence cachinnated in derisive chorus to Bridget's burst of ...
— Lady Bridget in the Never-Never Land • Rosa Praed
... those persons whom, according to your character, you cannot think of without derisive laughter or an embarrassed shrug of the shoulders. Nature had made him a buffoon. He was a painter, but a very bad one, whom I had met in Rome, and I still remembered his pictures. He had a genuine enthusiasm for the commonplace. His soul palpitating with love of art, he painted the models who ...
— The Moon and Sixpence • W. Somerset Maugham
... did he alight to draw breath and take a pinch of snuff, and she was upon him like a flail. With a terror-stricken cry he leapt once more upon his horse and fled, but not without leaving his snuff-box in the hands of the derisive enemy. Meggy has long gone to the kirkyard, but the snuff-mull ...
— Auld Licht Idylls • J. M. Barrie
... on her right] No, Ecrasia: I cannot. What has that to do with it? [He is half derisive, half impatient, wholly resolved not to take her seriously in spite of her beauty and ...
— Back to Methuselah • George Bernard Shaw
... also chewed on the savage realization that he had nothing sensible to say in public on the situation, considering his uncompromising declarations of the day before; there were those declarations thrusting up at him from the newspaper page like derisive fingers; by the reports in parallel columns he was represented as saying one thing and doing another! And a bumptious, blundering, bull-headed Scotchman had put the Governor of a state in that tongue-tied, skulking position on the ...
— All-Wool Morrison • Holman Day
... Julian's Symposium. The gods prepare for the Roman emperors a banquet, in the air, below the moon. The good emperors are admitted to the table with honors; but the bad ones are hurled headlong down into Tartarus, amidst the derisive shouts ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... of Cobbens's horse was just in a line with Emmet's shoulder as they passed the goal. The mayor turned while the other began to drop behind and shouted a derisive farewell, with a parting flourish of the whip. The victory was as sweet to his heart as the taste of honey to the lips. The race had changed his mood completely, filling him with a joyous truculence. He would gladly ...
— The Mayor of Warwick • Herbert M. Hopkins
... was heard a sound of laughter, as it were the crackling of light flame, for there was no mirth in the sound, and Aldobrandino stood before them regarding the pair with a derisive leer. "There is an old proverb which it were well you should both remember," he said. "If I mistake not it runneth in this wise, 'There is many a slip 'twixt the cup and the lip.' It were meet that the cup you blazon should be a ...
— Romance of Roman Villas - (The Renaissance) • Elizabeth W. (Elizbeth Williams) Champney
... a derisive laugh. "Oh, no! Not when I have a suitcase in my right hand and you have the drop on me. I can't help ...
— The Sheriff's Son • William MacLeod Raine
... lawsuit have the privilege of challenging peremptorily a certain number of jurymen, so every man should be allowed to enjoy a reasonable number of whims and prejudices without being called upon to give reasons for them. Then let us hear no more derisive laughter when it is hinted that an unfortunate brother has resorted to the sour-grape remedy. We all, at times, would be glad to find relief in a similar way, but are deterred sometimes by ignorance of the true principles of therapeutics, but oftener by a false pride of consistency. Let us rather ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol. 5, No. 6, June, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... hand, and going out of the kitchen door with it, he showed himself within a few feet of the kennel. The dog recognised him instantly, and went nearly mad with fury, making the most desperate efforts to break its chain and get at him. For some moments he stood exciting the animal by derisive gestures and pelting it with stones, till at last, fearing that the clamour would attract attention, he suddenly transfixed it with his spear, and then, thinking he was quite unobserved, sat down, snuffed and enjoyed the luxury of watching ...
— Jess • H. Rider Haggard
... divided, and we were outnumbered ten to one. One of the sailors in dislodging a boulder lost his footing and went crashing down with it amid the derisive yells of the pirates. Suddenly the conflict ceased and the pirates withdrew. In a short time we could see them building a number of small fires along the beach, and the aroma of rice curry came up to us with the breeze. The captain, I could see, was anxious, although ...
— Tales of the Malayan Coast - From Penang to the Philippines • Rounsevelle Wildman
... the church of her youth: "After awhile there was a bass-viol Introduced and brought into meeting and did not suit the Old people; one Old Gentleman got up, took his hat off the peg and marched off. Said they had begun fiddling and there would be dancing soon." Another church-member, in derisive opposition to a clarinet which had been "voted into the choir," brought into meeting a fish-horn, which he blew loud and long to the complete rout of the clarinet-player and the singers. When reproved for this astounding behavior he answered stoutly that "if one man ...
— Sabbath in Puritan New England • Alice Morse Earle
... loud and derisive laugh, which had the effect he had anticipated for, directly afterwards, a man in a loose dressing gown ran ...
— Saint Bartholomew's Eve - A Tale of the Huguenot WarS • G. A. Henty
... provided it be a wealthy one; nor is it essential that he should have made his mark at school as a scholar, an athlete, or a social success. Indeed, nothing is more common than to hear a former school-fellow express himself in terms of derisive amazement when he is informed that So-and-So is now in the Guards. "What, that scug?" he will observe with immeasurable contempt, and will proceed to express his surprise how one who neither played cricket, nor football, nor rowed to any purpose can possibly add distinction to Her Majesty's Brigade ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, 1890.05.10 • Various
... A derisive shout came back from the fugitive. He was now out of range of the officer's revolver, and knew it. The constable, too, realized the fact. He started in pursuit as rapidly as he could make it, calling to his deputy ...
— The Grammar School Boys Snowbound - or, Dick & Co. at Winter Sports • H. Irving Hancock
... the Warden had disappeared into his house I heard a bellow of derisive laughter at a window above me, and looking up I saw Dennison standing there; but at that moment I hated him even more than I did usually, and I walked off to see Jack Ward without even saying what I ...
— Godfrey Marten, Undergraduate • Charles Turley
... of himse'f to the Colonel ain't none discreet of Peets. The Colonel has many excellencies, but keepin' secrets ain't among 'em; none whatever. The Colonel is deevoid of talents for secrets, an' so the next day he prints this yere outrage onder a derisive headline ...
— Wolfville Days • Alfred Henry Lewis
... were quite wrong," burst out Mrs. Agar, with a derisive laugh. "For I knew it all along. Arthur told me ...
— From One Generation to Another • Henry Seton Merriman
... hopeless to soften this hardened old man. I had thought of a dozen phrases wherewith to soap the ways, so to speak, down which might be launched my petition. I forgot them all, confronted by those malicious, sneering eyes, by the derisive, snarling grin. ...
— Bunch Grass - A Chronicle of Life on a Cattle Ranch • Horace Annesley Vachell
... bluffed. Said Kwaiba in lowered voice—"Kakusuke could see nothing of her. She disappeared into the waters of Warigesui. Suppose O'Iwa appears as a ghost, to take vengeance on Kwaiba...." He straightened up in astonishment and some anger at the derisive smile playing over the face of Iemon. Indeed Iemon was more than amused. Not at the circumstances, but at finding at last this weak spot in the man who had dominated him. Conditions, however, controlled him. It was fact that ...
— The Yotsuya Kwaidan or O'Iwa Inari - Tales of the Tokugawa, Volume 1 (of 2) • James S. De Benneville
... Faith saw the sweet graciousness of Miss Rosemary West's smile and the amusement of Miss Ellen's. But none of these helped her. It was Bertie Shakespeare Drew who saved the situation. Bertie Shakespeare sat in the front seat of the gallery and he made a derisive face at Faith. Faith promptly made a dreadful one back at him, and, in her anger over being grimaced at by Bertie Shakespeare, forgot her stage fright. She found her voice and spoke ...
— Rainbow Valley • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... passed away, society will still be largely indebted to it for the impulse, yet unspent, which it has imparted to the cause of civilization and progress,—all this is admitted and even maintained by M. Comte, in direct and often derisive opposition to the theorists who once ascribed its origin to fraud, and its prevalence to priestcraft; nay, he elevates it to the rank of a primordial and indispensable element of human progress, a necessary and ...
— Modern Atheism under its forms of Pantheism, Materialism, Secularism, Development, and Natural Laws • James Buchanan
... the Mississippi, but made no report and made no claim, having failed to reach the great river." It was on his return from these mysterious wanderings, that his seigniory is said to have received the name of La Chine as a derisive comment on his failure to find a road to China. In the course of years the name was very commonly given, not only to the lake but to the rapids of ...
— Canada • J. G. Bourinot
... the marionette nods assent, and the hoopaa asks again, "Do you wish him to come to you?" The marionette expresses its delight and approval by nods and gestures, to the immense satisfaction of the audience, who join in derisive laughter at the expense of the person held up ...
— Unwritten Literature of Hawaii - The Sacred Songs of the Hula • Nathaniel Bright Emerson
... a few shrieks would sometimes break the silence of a summer day, followed by the derisive laughter of youthful voices. Yet these martyrs might have saved themselves by apostasy at any moment—save, perhaps, at the last, when the appetite of the cruel Mussulmen had been whetted for blood, and must be satiated—yet they would not deny ...
— The House of Walderne - A Tale of the Cloister and the Forest in the Days of the Barons' Wars • A. D. Crake
... minutes was taken to allow Mrs. Fry to address the House in support of the petition, which she did in a speech put in very telling phrases. At its conclusion, some of the members opposed to temperance legislation, signalized their ill-breeding, to say the least, by derisive yells for Mr. Herrington and others to answer Mrs. Fry. Presently the hall was resonant with yells and cheers, converting it into a a very babel, and the hubbub was kept up until, at the expiration of the half-hour recess, Speaker ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... vanished far away in a point with a suggestion of intolerable length. The other vehicle was becoming so small that Stimson could no longer see the derisive eye. ...
— Men, Women, and Boats • Stephen Crane
... short legs fairly buzzed in the terror of their owner. Thus they ran, mounting the slight rise before the general store, then descending into the heart of the settlement, with Pedro whipping along frantically, and Felipe still one whole leap behind, until a derisive shout, a feminine exclamation of shrieking glee, awoke Felipe to the spectacle he was making of himself before the eyes of the community. He stopped; growled disappointed rage; darted back along the trail. Once in the privacy of his house, ...
— Bred of the Desert - A Horse and a Romance • Marcus Horton
... morning the disturbance without waxed more terrible. A vain attempt was made to address the populace by the three cardinal priors; they were driven from the windows with loud derisive shouts, "A Roman! A Roman!" For now the alternative of an Italian had been abandoned; a Roman, none but a Roman, would content the people. The madness of intoxication was added to the madness of popular fury. The rabble had broken open the Pope's cellar and drunk his rich ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... moment one of the missing shells was rolled with great violence into the middle of the group of adventurers. Before they had recovered from their astonishment a strange sharp scream filled the forest. There was a derisive note in ...
— The Boy Aviators' Polar Dash - Or - Facing Death in the Antarctic • Captain Wilbur Lawton
... and derisive finger into Lisa's eyes. And in truth the tears were there. Lisa was in heart and person that which is comprehensively called motherly. She saw perhaps some pathos in the sight of this rugged man—worn by travel, bent with hardship and many wounds, past his work—shouldering ...
— Barlasch of the Guard • H. S. Merriman
... catch on a ball field is that of a ball hit high to the in-field, because of the great "twist" to the ball. The slightest failure to get the ball fairly in the hands will result in a miss, and yet this is always greeted by derisive howls from certain among the spectators. There are various styles of catching these hits, but the position of the hands shown in the accompanying cut is believed ...
— Base-Ball - How to Become a Player • John M. Ward
... of murdered virtue, brooding over its grave in that most dark and dismal of all sepulchres, the human heart. And if we cry aloud, as did Margaret Cooper, with vain prayer for the recall of a single day, with what a yell of derisive mockery it ...
— Charlemont • W. Gilmore Simms
... that they understood the words of the shiftless one, but certainly the derisive gestures that he made as he sat down were not ...
— The Border Watch - A Story of the Great Chief's Last Stand • Joseph A. Altsheler
... tearing at their tin-plated roofs. Then there was the desolate little station, having, it seemed, no connection with any kind of traffic-and behind all this the woods howled and creaked and whistled, derisive, provocative, the only creatures alive in ...
— The Captives • Hugh Walpole
... with troubled and lack-lustre eye. Every lorgnette in the boxes was levelled at my miserable countenance; a sea of upturned and derisive faces grinned at me from the pit, and the gods in Olympus thundered from on high—"Turn him out; ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, November 20, 1841 • Various
... the whirling belaying-pin sent by the mate, which, rebounding, only smashed a window in the pilot-house. Then, amid an exchange of blasphemous disapproval between Mr. Jackson and the tug captain, and derisive jeers from the shipping-master,—who also averred that Mr. Jackson ought to be shot, but was not worth hanging for,—the tug gathered in her lines and ...
— "Where Angels Fear to Tread" and Other Stories of the Sea • Morgan Robertson
... darkness, and learned what is in all their abysses. I tried at first to hide, to fling myself on the floor, to cover my face, to burrow in a dark corner. Useless attempts! The eyes that looked in upon me had powers beyond my powers. I felt sometimes conscious of the derisive smile with which my miserable subterfuges were regarded. ...
— The Little Pilgrim: Further Experiences. - Stories of the Seen and the Unseen. • Margaret O. (Wilson) Oliphant
... being quoted. Criticism is made null and void when such seemingly plain indications as this are discarded in favour of entirely unknown quantities like the 'Gospel according to the Hebrews.' If the author of 'Supernatural Religion' were to turn his own powers of derisive statement against his own hypotheses they would present a ...
— The Gospels in the Second Century - An Examination of the Critical Part of a Work - Entitled 'Supernatural Religion' • William Sanday
... is generally recognized in the realm of high finance as carrying weight. It is not derisive or contemptuous; it is dismissive. The subject of it simply ceases to exist. In the present instance, it was so mild as scarcely to stir the smoke from his after-dinner cigar, yet it had all the intent, if not the effect, of finality. The reason why it hadn't the effect was that it was directed ...
— The Unspeakable Perk • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... scruples, which this man either affected to feel, or really felt. The man's answers were given in a gruff and loud tone of voice, but from the Maltese dialect of his Italian, Sir Henry could not understand what was said. His countenance was very peculiar. It was of that derisive character rarely met with in one of his class of life, except when called forth by peculiar habits, or extraordinary circumstances. His eyes were very small, but bright and deeply set. His lips wore a constant sarcastic smile, which gave him the air of a bold but cunning man. ...
— A Love Story • A Bushman
... he climbed into his seat and started the car with a sudden bound. As he did so a revolver shot rang out and one of the front tires, pierced by the bullet, ripped itself nearly in two as it crumpled up. A shout of derisive laughter came from the cowboys. Algy was astride his pony again, and as Wampus brought the damaged car to a stop the remittance men dashed by and along the path, taking the same direction Uncle John's party was following". Tobey held back a ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces and Uncle John • Edith Van Dyne
... tie still linked me to my fellow-men, that of charity, the dressing, relieving, and perhaps, in the long run, healing, of wounds and sores; but that last cable has now been severed. Charity, to my mind, appears futile and derisive by the side of justice, to whom all supremacy belongs, and whose advent has become a necessity and can be stayed by none. And so it is all over, I am mere ashes, an empty grave as it were. I no longer believe in anything, anything, ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... the red-haired scout. Tim caught his eye and made a derisive face, and then turned his back and began to whistle as though he was having ...
— Don Strong, Patrol Leader • William Heyliger
... shower of water. As he stepped back to look up and see whence it came, and who made the attack, a stream of milk hit him on the forehead, his heels struck a plank, and he fell backward, to all appearance knocked down with a stream of milk. His humiliation was received with shouts of derisive laughter, and even the carpenters at work laid down their hammers and joined in the chorus; but his revenge was swift and capped the climax. Cold and wet as we all were, and completely tired out, we commenced to disrobe and get ready for the tea party. Unfortunately ...
— Eighty Years And More; Reminiscences 1815-1897 • Elizabeth Cady Stanton
... can only kill wan thing, an' thot's me body, but me soul'll go on cussin' 'im till the ind av doom." He shook his fist again, becoming more derisive: "Look at his head, now! If 'tain't the shape av a rotten pear may I be shot for a spy!—mind ye how it slopes up to a p'int, both fore-and-aft, and ...
— Where the Souls of Men are Calling • Credo Harris
... The air thrills with the "ping" of unsuccessful shots: I take a gun, and by aiming at a ball dancing on a fountain jet, hit a bull's-eye two yards to the left. I throw flat rings at a sort of ninepins, five shots for a halfpenny: the first four leave the pins stolid and the public derisive. I throw the last at random, bring down half the pins, and stalk off: nonchalantly, the pet of the fickle French populace. I buy pancakes fried on the stall while you wait—they are selling like hot cakes—and but for the difficulty of finding one with my name picked out in pink on the gingerbread, ...
— Without Prejudice • Israel Zangwill
... shout, the boys dashed pell-mell to meet the pack train, and, falling in behind the slow-moving burros, urged them on with derisive shouts and sundry resounding slaps on ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in the Rockies • Frank Gee Patchin
... gentlemen bowed, and I bowed, and oh! how I gripped Harold's arm as I heard the reply; not openly derisive to a lady, but with a sneer in the voice, "Oh! ah! yes! But you'll come when you've seen her home. We'll send on ...
— My Young Alcides - A Faded Photograph • Charlotte M. Yonge
... his modelling and modify his tendency to a certain hardness—was willing to trust to time for the verdict of his rare art. He associated daily with Manet, Monet, Pissarro, Whistler, Duranty, Fantin-Latour, and the crowd that first went to the Cafe Guerbois in the Batignolles—hence the derisive nickname, "The Batignolles School"; later to the Nouvelle Athenes, finally to the Cafe de la Rochefoucauld. A hermit he was during the dozen hours a day he toiled, but he was a sociable man, nevertheless, a ...
— Promenades of an Impressionist • James Huneker
... Calumet hesitated on the threshold she looked at him with a scornful half smile. Yielding to the satanic humor which had received its birth the night before when he had made his decision to remain at the Lazy Y, he returned Betty's smile with a derisive grin, walked to the table, pulled out a ...
— The Boss of the Lazy Y • Charles Alden Seltzer
... Being answered with derisive civility, he became confirmed in his sudden conviction of their desperate character. The way Mr. Jones turned his hollow eyes on one, like an incurious spectre, and the way the other, when addressed, suddenly ...
— Victory • Joseph Conrad
... ghost beside me, whispering With lips derisive: "Thou that wouldst forego— What god assured thee that the cup I bring Globes not in every drop the cosmic show, All that the insatiate heart of man can wring From life's long vintage?—Now ...
— Artemis to Actaeon and Other Worlds • Edith Wharton
... but derisive jeer concealed in that smooth assent? Bromfield did not know, but he took away with him an unease that ...
— The Big-Town Round-Up • William MacLeod Raine
... spring, but fountain and pitcher were no loner there. In their stead a hoarse laugh greeted her; and in the next instant she perceived the tiny butler, astride upon a cork, galloping before her across the courtyard, and addressing his pupil with another snatch of his derisive song. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLV. July, 1844. Vol. LVI. • Various
... grey rocks of the grim old mountains that so stubbornly held their secret of what lay beyond, we had a good supper of trout and were happy, though through the gulch the creek roared defiance at us, and off in the night somewhere a loon would break out at intervals in derisive laughter. At the base of the mountains the narrow lake reflected a million stars, and in their kindly light the snow and ice patches on the slopes above ...
— The Lure of the Labrador Wild • Dillon Wallace
... was thy name To earth's derisive echoes given; Some pitying spirit downward came. And took the Lyre and ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... est-ce que je suis sa bonne—moi?" demanded Mdlle. Henri; then smiling, with that same bitter, derisive smile I had seen on her lips once before, she hastily rose and made ...
— The Professor • (AKA Charlotte Bronte) Currer Bell
... conversation with Mr. Ezra. The latter gave a keen glance at his subjects and withdrew into the back office, a disappearance which was hailed by ten pens being thrown into the air and deftly caught again, while as many derisive and triumphant young men mocked at the imploring efforts of old Gilray in the interests of law ...
— The Firm of Girdlestone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... he's come for,' said Emmie, churlishly. Matilda looked a long time at the neat khaki figure. It had something of the charity-boy about it still; but now it was a man's figure, laconic, charged with plebeian energy. She thought of the derisive passion in his voice as he had declaimed against the propertied classes, ...
— England, My England • D.H. Lawrence
... saw him look round quickly, and in an instant his pony was at the gallop and he was lying low on its neck. A shot rang out, and another, but without checking his flight. He turned in the saddle and waved a derisive hand at the shooters, then plunged ...
— Mavericks • William MacLeod Raine
... supply of the nuts in the half-ripe state, when filled with milk. I held Fritz's arm, who was preparing to shoot at them, to his great vexation, as he was irritated against the poor monkeys for their derisive gestures; but I told him, that though no patron of monkeys myself, I could not allow it. We had no right to kill any animal except in defence, or as a means of supporting life. Besides, the monkeys would be of more use to us living than dead, as I would show him. I began to throw stones at the ...
— The Swiss Family Robinson; or Adventures in a Desert Island • Johann David Wyss
... of Justice Goodrich of Pittsfield, was knocked off with a stone. His honor did not apparently think it expedient to stop just then to pick it up, and Obadiah Weeks, leaping forward, made it a prey, and instantly elevated it on a pole, amid roars of derisive laughter. The retreat of the justices had indeed so emboldened the more ruffianly and irresponsible element of the crowd, many of whom were drunk, that it was just as well for the bodily safety of their honors that the distance ...
— The Duke of Stockbridge • Edward Bellamy
... away with white, wretched face, and strode back toward the tent. He must get away from them for a little, he must try to think, he must find something to do. And as he turned a yell of derisive triumph from two hundred throats went booming and thundering ...
— Under Handicap - A Novel • Jackson Gregory
... this had provoked a sharp encounter with the waiting depositors on the bank steps. The crowd yelled as it surged in sympathy with the effort to hold the doors open. Some one threw a stone that struck the window in the middle of "National" in the sign, and this caused an outbreak of derisive cheers. An intoxicated man on the steps turned round with ...
— Otherwise Phyllis • Meredith Nicholson
... laugh that sounded faintly derisive. "You'll have to make the best of the second best for once, my dear chap," he said. "You can't always ...
— Greatheart • Ethel M. Dell
... Bob, as he rowed he was constantly uttering derisive and defiant remarks; but all the same his grubby face was rather ashy, and he too grew tremendously hot as he worked away at his scull for quite an hour, during which time they had not seen anything more formidable than half a dozen red oxen standing ...
— Quicksilver - The Boy With No Skid To His Wheel • George Manville Fenn
... this casual detraction of a being who had so deeply impressed her. And moreover she was convinced that her mother, secretly very flattered and delighted by the visit, was adopting a derisive attitude in order to 'show off' before her daughter. Parents are thus ingenuous! But she was so shocked and sneaped that she found it more convenient ...
— Hilda Lessways • Arnold Bennett
... pausing there, Doltaire turned round and made a motion of his hand to Gabord. I was at once surrounded by the squad of men, and the order to march was given. A drum in front of me began to play a well-known derisive air of the French army, The Fox and ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... the face, and the palm directed toward the person of whom the inquiry is made; then rotated upon the wrist two or three times edgewise, to denote uncertainty. (Long; Comanche I; Wichita I.) The motion might be mistaken for the derisive, vulgar gesture called "taking a sight," "donner un pied de nez," descending to our small boys from antiquity. The separate motion of the fingers in the vulgar gesture as used in our eastern cities is, however, more nearly correlated with some of the Indian signs for fool, one of which ...
— Sign Language Among North American Indians Compared With That Among Other Peoples And Deaf-Mutes • Garrick Mallery
... received by the young ladies with cries of derisive welcome. "Oh, for shame! for shame! here are the potatoes already cut, and nobody to ...
— I Say No • Wilkie Collins
... was attended by peculiar circumstances. A number of the ruder members of the opposition were determined that he should not be heard, and they drowned every sentence in derisive cheers and mocking yells. Disraeli bore it with dignity, but as it was impossible to proceed in the noisy and barbarous din, he closed by saying that he had begun several times many things, and had succeeded at last; and then in a tone that resounded even above the clamor, for he had at ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 4 of 8 • Various
... among the mountains, that the old Highland people thought that their dead were about them. All night long, after Hadria returned to her room in the keep, the wind kept up its cannonade against the walls, hooting in the chimneys with derisive voices, and flinging itself, in mad revolt, against the old-established hills and the stable earth, which changed its forms only in slow obedience to the persuadings of the elements, in the passing of centuries. It cared nothing for the passion of ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird
... the excited scouts, rushing hither and thither; together with some derisive laughter and cat calls from dark corners in the immediate vicinity, the scene certainly took ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts on a Tour - The Mystery of Rattlesnake Mountain • George A. Warren
... and just as the Angelus bell rang, we heard the hootings and derisive shouts of the villagers after the new hands that had been taken on at the factory. In a few minutes these poor girls came to the door to explain that they could not return to work. It was the last straw. For a moment his anger flamed up in a torrent of rage against these miscreants whom ...
— My New Curate • P.A. Sheehan
... low whistle, and then a shout of derisive laughter, as he turned and went out of the house. Clemence feared that her cause was being irreparably ruined, instead of helped along, as she so ardently desired, by ...
— Clemence - The Schoolmistress of Waveland • Retta Babcock
... accomplished except by a charge, they commenced a retreat. The trappers, though only sixty strong, were filled with disappointment and chagrin at the course taken by their wary foes. They began to shout to their enemies in derisive terms, hoping the taunts would exasperate and draw them into an attack. Nothing, however, would tempt them to face the danger, for they withdrew to a spot about one mile from the little fort and sat down in council. ...
— The Life and Adventures of Kit Carson, the Nestor of the Rocky Mountains, from Facts Narrated by Himself • De Witt C. Peters
... mutterings angry words could be heard, "That's him," "That's two-hundred-thousand-dollar Cargan," "How's the weather on Baldpate?" and other sarcastic flings. Then a fashion of derisive cat-calls came and went. After which, here and there, voices spoke of ropes, of tar and feathers. And still the mayor smiled as one for whom the orchard gate swung ...
— Seven Keys to Baldpate • Earl Derr Biggers
... then as he never dared to laugh afterward, and the derisive Scott smiled involuntarily as he heard the hearty peal, which put the finishing stroke to ...
— Little Women • Louisa May Alcott
... slipped by and finally Lee himself became impatient to know what his adversary was doing. He, accordingly, again summoned Stuart and ordered him to repeat the experiment of riding around the opposing army. News of this second, almost derisive defiance of McClellan soon reached the North, for Stuart, swiftly circling his right flank, suddenly appeared with 1,800 men at Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, terrorizing the country and destroying vast quantities ...
— On the Trail of Grant and Lee • Frederick Trevor Hill |
