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Affront   Listen
verb
Affront  v. t.  (past & past part. affronted; pres. part. affronting)  
1.
To front; to face in position; to meet or encounter face to face. (Obs.) "All the sea-coasts do affront the Levant." "That he, as 't were by accident, may here Affront Ophelia."
2.
To face in defiance; to confront; as, to affront death; hence, to meet in hostile encounter. (Archaic)
3.
To offend by some manifestation of disrespect; to insult to the face by demeanor or language; to treat with marked incivility. "How can any one imagine that the fathers would have dared to affront the wife of Aurelius?"
Synonyms: To insult; abuse; outrage; wound; illtreat; slight; defy; offend; provoke; pique; nettle.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Affront" Quotes from Famous Books



... anybody who did know us," I retorted. "If an affront before all this company, purposely offered, be a joke, then laugh at this one. But a man of ...
— Philip Winwood • Robert Neilson Stephens

... manners. They laugh when they should cry, are loud when they should be silent, and are silent when their conversation is desirable. If a man in a select company was thus to laugh or whisper me out of countenance, I should be apt to construe it as an affront, and demand ...
— The Young Gentleman and Lady's Monitor, and English Teacher's Assistant • John Hamilton Moore

... trembling, and shocked at this affront. But Guy rose like a tower. "I've noticed this trait in all tradespeople," said he grimly. "They are obsequious to a gentleman so long as they hope to get the better of him; but, the moment they find it is impossible to overreach ...
— Put Yourself in His Place • Charles Reade

... confidential. In her fancy she endowed their conversations with the inexplicable attractiveness of masculinity, as masculinity is understood by women alone. She had an intense desire to overhear such a conversation, and she felt that she would affront the unguessed perils of it with delight, drinking it up eagerly, every drop, even were the draught deadly. Meanwhile, the mere inarticulate sound of those distant voices pleased her, and she was glad that she was listening and that ...
— Hilda Lessways • Arnold Bennett

... being over, and the troops returned to their camps, the captain with whom we drank the day before meeting me told me I must come and sup with him in his tent, where he would ask my pardon for the affront he gave me before. I told him he needed not put himself to the trouble, I was not affronted at all; that I would do myself the honour to wait on him, provided he would give me his word not to speak any more of it as ...
— Memoirs of a Cavalier • Daniel Defoe

... spoiling for a fight The natives regarded him with a sullen but assumed indifference, and drew back, looking at me inquiringly. The matter might have ended seriously, but for two things—Marchmont was at heart a gentleman, and in response to my urgent request to him to apologise for the gross affront he had put upon our host—did so frankly by first extending his hand to the man who had knocked him down. And then, as he never did things by halves, he came with me to Asi and said, as he ...
— The Call Of The South - 1908 • Louis Becke

... to know who they all were; for he imagined she would not put him to death, when informed of his quality; therefore he spoke with a low voice to the vizier, who was near him, to declare it speedily: but the vizier, more prudent, resolved to save his master's honour, and not let the world know the affront he had brought upon himself by his own imprudence; and therefore answered, "We have what we deserve." But if he had intended to speak as the caliph commanded him, Zobeide would not have allowed him time: for having turned to the calenders, and seeing them all blind with ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments vol. 1 • Anon.

... arch he laughs, and pretends not to take the hint: anger galled my liver. "Certainly," [said I, "Fuscus,] you said that you wanted to communicate something to me in private." "I remember it very well; but will tell it you at a better opportunity: to-day is the thirtieth sabbath. Would you affront the circumcised Jews?" I reply, "I have no scruple [on that account]." "But I have: I am something weaker, one of the multitude. You must forgive me: I will speak with you on another occasion." And has this sun arisen so disastrous upon me! The wicked rogue ...
— The Works of Horace • Horace

... the mean while affairs had been growing critical between Massachusetts and the mother country, and, though some members of the General Court assured them of protection, others thought it more prudent that they should have a hint to provide for their safety in some way which would not imply an affront to the royal government on the part of the Colony. The Governor called a Court of Assistants, in February, and without secrecy asked their advice respecting his obligation to secure the refugees. The Court refused to recommend that measure, and four days more passed, at the end of which time—whether ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 6, No. 33, July, 1860 • Various

... might have suggested a funeral march of hopes and fears. There was a stillness about it that was unpleasant; a certain sickness in the air. I think the crowd must have wondered what we were going to do next. You may punch an Englishman's nose, and heal the affront with apologies and a drink. You may call him a liar, and smooth over the incident by the same means. You may take bread out of his mouth, and still he may be pacified. But when you touch his home and the bread of the missus and ...
— Nights in London • Thomas Burke

... and has turned right inside out! All its whalebones are aspiring heavenward. It is transformed into a melancholy cup—like a great ugly flower, on a bare stalk. I lay the remains calmly down beside me, and affront the blast and the tempest alone! I have a brown hat on—at least it was brown when we set off—I am just wondering, therefore, with a sort of stupid curiosity, why the rill that so plenteously distills from its brim, and so madly races down my cold nose, should ...
— Nancy - A Novel • Rhoda Broughton

... wait," said the father; "but I'm sure, John, you'd not do anything unbecomin' a man. For my part, I'm not unasy on your account, for except to take an affront from a Neil, there's nothing you would do ...
— The Dead Boxer - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton

... butterflies, in gauzy dresses, hats, and feathers, according to the custom of their country; one gentleman takes four little daughters with him for a holiday. We ask ourselves whether they know what an ugly beast the Gulf-Stream is, that they affront him in such light armor. "Good heavens! how sick they will be!" we exclaim; while they eye us askance, in our winter trim, and pronounce us slow, and old fogies. With all the rashness of youth, they attack the luncheon-table. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 19, May, 1859 • Various

... which we receive with so much Reluctance as Advice. We look upon the Man who gives it us as offering an Affront to our Understanding, and treating us like Children or Ideots. We consider the Instruction as an implicit Censure, and the Zeal which any one shews for our Good on such an Occasion as a Piece of Presumption or Impertinence. The Truth of it is, the Person who pretends to advise, does, in that ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele

... the vast educated majority of the English-speaking race. The most valiant will fly at the mere utterance of that word. The most broad-minded will put their backs up against it. The most rash will not dare to affront it. I myself have seen it empty buildings that had been full; and I know that it will scatter a crowd more quickly than a hose-pipe, hornets, or the rumour of plague. Even to murmur it is to incur solitude, probably disdain, and possibly starvation, as historical examples show. ...
— Literary Taste: How to Form It • Arnold Bennett

... distinguish the true warrior! whose hearts have always vibrated with those of your companions in arms! consult them to-day to know what they experience; recollect at the same time, that if magnanimous souls with liveliness resent an affront, they also know how to forget one. Let your government return to itself, and you will still find in Frenchmen faithful ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 5 (of 5) • John Marshall

... the relation of mistress and maid. The punctilious Gorringe was plainly horrified at the proximity to her mistress of these canaille, and the mistress was not so absorbed it would seem but what she felt the affront to seemliness in a servant's seeing her pushed and shoved aside—treated with slight regard or none. Necessary either to leave the scene with lofty disapproval, or else make light ...
— The Convert • Elizabeth Robins

... indeed, my passion did not long struggle for thee against my father and myself; judge of its power—under such an insult, I was able to deliberate whether I should take vengeance for it! Compelled to displease thee or to endure an affront, I thought that in its turn my arm was too prompt [to strike]; I accused myself of too much impetuosity, and thy loveliness, without doubt, would have turned the scale [or, prevailed overall] had I not opposed to thy strongest attractions the [thought] that a man without honor would not ...
— The Cid • Pierre Corneille

... of some affront which he had received from them, Yezonkai made war upon a powerful tribe of Tartars that lived in his neighborhood. He invaded their territories at the head of an immense horde of Mongul troops, and began seizing ...
— Genghis Khan, Makers of History Series • Jacob Abbott

... Ancona, early in 1797, Bonaparte had intercepted a Russian envoy bearing offers of alliance to the Knights of the Order of St. John; and their expulsion by the French at Midsummer 1798 seemed to Paul a personal affront. Some of the Knights proceeded to St. Petersburg and claimed his protection. The affairs of the Order became his most cherished concern; and on 24th July Sir Charles Whitworth, British ambassador at that Court, reported that Russia would now become a principal in the war against ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose

... full well that, if he had presumed to offer us such an affront as to give you his name where your father could see it, the insult would never have been permitted to reach your eyes! Where is the letter, ...
— Her Mother's Secret • Emma D. E. N. Southworth

... either gone away or were leaving them very much to themselves. Laura was unable to guess any particular motive on her sister's part, but the conviction grew within her that she had not put such an affront on Mr. Wendover simply in order to have a little chat with Lady Ringrose. There was something else, there was some one else, in the affair; and when once the girl's idea had become as definite as that it took but little longer to associate itself with the image of Captain Crispin. ...
— A London Life; The Patagonia; The Liar; Mrs. Temperly • Henry James

... in, but if I call on them so soon I might perhaps affront them, and cause them to take their work away; and that I don't want to do. However, I think I shall have to do it, let the consequence be what ...
— Friends and Neighbors - or Two Ways of Living in the World • Anonymous

... mark of concealed tenderness. His reply had been most excellent had it been delivered with smiles instead of frowns; but to have recourse to his sword, was acting like a novice in the art of love; and resenting an affront, when he should ...
— The Earl of Essex • Henry Jones

... Nganching, the capital of the province of Aganhoci—the last station (so we are assured) in the hands of the Rebels. As we neared a pagoda, surrounded by a crenelated wall, we were fired upon two or three times. We thought it necessary to resent this affront by peppering the place for about ten minutes. We then moved slowly past the town, unassaulted till we reached the farther corner, when the idiots had the temerity to fire again. This brought us a second time into action. It is a ...
— Letters and Journals of James, Eighth Earl of Elgin • James, Eighth Earl of Elgin

... man, of himself commander high, Whom want, nor death, nor bands can terrify, Resolved t'affront desires, honours to scorn, All in himself, close, round, and neatly borne, Against whose front externals idly play, And even fortune makes a ...
— The World's Greatest Books—Volume 14—Philosophy and Economics • Various

... the free baron, who for reasons of his own chose not to challenge the affront, "in those two instances you were not worsted. And as for the trooper who attacked you—I know not whether your lance or the doctor's lancet is responsible for his taking off. But you met him with true attaint. You would have made a good soldier. It is to be regretted you did not place your fortune ...
— Under the Rose • Frederic Stewart Isham

... Sir Joshua Reynolds and recorded by his biographer, Junes Northcote. Reynolds remarks "that if any drew [Johnson] into a state of obligation without his own consent, that man was the first he would affront, by way of clearing off the account" (see Boswell's Life, III, 345, n.l). Johnson's note may nov be looked upon as a possible personal confession. Other conjectures are justified, I believe, by still other notes, but it may be preferable to list, without comment, some of the ...
— Johnson's Notes to Shakespeare Vol. I Comedies • Samuel Johnson

... always asked favours of this kind without the least submission or apparent consciousness of dependence, and that he did not seem to look upon a compliance with his requst, as an obligation that deserved any extraordinary acknowledgments; but a refusal was resented by him as an affront, or complained of as an injury; nor did he readily reconcile himself to those who either denied to lend, or gave him afterwards any intimation that they expected to ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. in Nine Volumes - Volume the Eighth: The Lives of the Poets, Volume II • Samuel Johnson

... the affront lies in Don Flix's insolent manner and the masterful way in which he forces them to accept his terms without question. Indignant as the Fourth Gambler is, he dares ...
— El Estudiante de Salamanca and Other Selections • George Tyler Northup

... last they went so far that one of their bands meeting the Abbe de Saint Gilles on the road, ordered him to deliver up to them one of his servants, a new convert, in order to put him to death. It was in vain that the abbe remonstrated with them, telling them it was a shame to put such an affront on a man of his birth and rank; they persisted none the less in their determination, till at last the abbe threw his arms round his servant and presented his own body to the blows ...
— Massacres Of The South (1551-1815) - Celebrated Crimes • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... who sought an explanation; and it was no sooner given, than the mock bride, rising with an air of offended dignity, informed the Red Head that after receiving so gross an affront from his relatives she could not think of remaining with him as his wife, but should forthwith return to her ...
— The Indian Fairy Book - From the Original Legends • Cornelius Mathews

... otherwise than mixed, and only the neglect of this mixture could have brought about the decadence of the Italian teaching of song. In Germany no attention is paid to it. The ah, as sung generally by most Italians of the present day, quite flat, sounds commonplace, almost like an affront. It can range itself, that is connect itself, with no other vowel, makes all vocal connection impossible, evolves very ugly registers; and, lying low in the throat, summons forth no palatal resonance. The power of contraction of ...
— How to Sing - [Meine Gesangskunst] • Lilli Lehmann

... then some fool is sure to come up and say,—'You had no business to have parted at that fence, Dutton; the horse took it well enough!' Then I have no 'hands,' I am told. Certainly, whenever I take up the rudder-lines to put his head for any particular course the brute takes it as a personal affront, and begins to fret, go sideways, and bore and all but tell me what a duffer he thinks me. There's my cousin Kate, who will spoon with me by the hour in a greenhouse, and dance as often as I like to ask ...
— Bluebell - A Novel • Mrs. George Croft Huddleston

... had disappeared in various directions, puzzled and exceedingly uncertain what to do. Indeed, to congratulate Billy in the Colonel's presence would have been tactless; and, on the other hand, to condole with the Colonel without seeming to affront the wealthy Mr. Woods was almost impossible. So they temporised and fled—all save ...
— The Eagle's Shadow • James Branch Cabell

... a gleam On many circling things!—the courtesies Which graced his bearing toward our officer Amid the tumults of the late campaign, His wish for peace with England, his affront At Alexander's tedious-timed reply... Well, it will thrust a thorn in Russia's side, If I err ...
— The Dynasts - An Epic-Drama Of The War With Napoleon, In Three Parts, - Nineteen Acts, And One Hundred And Thirty Scenes • Thomas Hardy

... the Point of Honour from Man to Man, is giving the Lie. One may tell another he Whores, Drinks, Blasphemes, and it may pass unresented; but to say he Lies, tho' but in Jest, is an Affront that nothing but Blood can expiate. The Reason perhaps may be, because no other Vice implies a want of Courage so much as the making of a Lie; and therefore telling a man he Lies, is touching him in the most sensible Part of Honour, ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele

... fearful to offend her new friend, yet horrified at this affront to the minister, "I ken you mean weel, but Mr. Dishart'll think you're putting yoursel' on an equality wi' him." She added in a whisper, "Dinna be so free; he's the Auld ...
— The Little Minister • J.M. Barrie

... nothing. It went on in three shifts, day and night; for half the world was clamouring for the means to blow itself up, and the other half must work like the devil to furnish the means. At least that was the way the matter presented itself to Jimmie Higgins, who took it as a personal affront the way this diabolical war kept pursuing him. He had fled into the country from it, bringing his little family to a tenant-house on an obscure, worn-out farm, several miles from the nearest town; but here all of a sudden came a gang of Dagoes with picks and shovels. They lifted up ...
— Jimmie Higgins • Upton Sinclair

... given to move off, and the snake begins to writhe. Progress is steady, but not exhilarating. We have several battalions of the Division in front of us (which Bobby Little resents as a personal affront), but have been assured that we shall see all the fighting we want. The situation appears to be that owing to the terrific artillery bombardment the attacking force will meet with little or no opposition in the German front-line trenches; or second ...
— The First Hundred Thousand • Ian Hay

... eyes from the moment when my head had touched the pillow. I had no nerves, and I had done nothing which I regretted. I fancy, therefore, that my general appearance and reception of him somewhat astonished my early visitor. He seemed, indeed, to take my nonchalance almost as an affront, and he proceeded at once to try and ...
— The Lost Ambassador - The Search For The Missing Delora • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... confirmed by the colossal raids, victories, and annexations of Napoleon I. A Germany which should escape from French control and reverse, by its own energetic action, the policy of Henry IV., Richelieu, Louis XIV., his degenerate grandson, Louis XV., and of the great Napoleon himself, was an affront to French pride, and could not be patiently endured. The opposing forces which had grown up were so strong that the wit of man was unable to keep them asunder; and all the control over the issue left to kings and statesmen was restricted to the fabrication of means wherewith ...
— Germany from the Earliest Period Vol. 4 • Wolfgang Menzel, Trans. Mrs. George Horrocks

... had once been entertained was deserted even by its waiters; the garden, with its ostentatious out-of-door tables, looked bleak and bare. Mr. Clinch was not artistic in his tastes; but even he was quick to detect the affront put upon Nature by this continental, theatrical gardening, and turned disgustedly away. Born near a "lake" larger than the German Ocean, he resented a pool of water twenty-five feet in diameter under that alluring title; and, a frequenter of the ...
— The Twins of Table Mountain and Other Stories • Bret Harte

... go from one house to another in their praws. The inhabitants all go constantly armed, from the noble down to the fisherman; and even the women are of so martial a disposition, that on receiving an affront, they instantly revenge it, either with a dagger or a javelin. This a Dutchman had nearly proved to his cost; for having offended one of these viragoes, she set upon him with a javelin, and had surely dispatched him, if she had not been prevented by main force. They are Mahometans, and so ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume X • Robert Kerr

... obtain legal Satisfaction if he had receivd Injury, which required the extraordinary Interposition of Government; for Stanhope was the same Day abroad in the Town without the least Molestation or appearing to be apprehensive of any Affront. Perhaps this Gentleman's Ideas of Propriety of Conduct in the Governor might have led him to expect he would take the Part of a Grand Juryman or a Justice of the Peace, to enquire into Misdemeanours, or decide ...
— The Original Writings of Samuel Adams, Volume 4 • Samuel Adams

... these commands. If no answer has been received at the end of the calculated time the Overlord will know that you have defied him, and your entire race shall perish utterly. Well he knows that your very existence is an affront to all real civilization, but he holds that even such vileness incarnate, as are the Fenachrone, may perchance have some obscure place in the Great Scheme of Things, and he will not destroy you if you are ...
— Skylark Three • Edward Elmer Smith

... butler to himself with a grin. It was a matter of personal pride with him when strangers seemed duly impressed by the grandeur of this aristocratic old manor-house, now used as a boarding-school. It was a personal affront when they were not. Needless to say his dignity had suffered much at the hands of American school-girls, and although this one seemed impressed by her surroundings almost to the point of panic, ...
— The Little Colonel's Chum: Mary Ware • Annie Fellows Johnston

... mutual regard, and even affection—the Bailie at the last saying to Rob Roy that if ever he was in need of a hundred "or even twa hundred pounds sterling," he had only to send a line to the Salt Market. While the chief answered that if ever anybody should affront his kinsman, the Bailie had only to let him ken, and he would pull the ears out of his head if he were the ...
— Red Cap Tales - Stolen from the Treasure Chest of the Wizard of the North • Samuel Rutherford Crockett

... as Bice said; it would have been far more amusing if there had been a great deal more tr-rouble. The Contessa dropped down in the corner of the sofa from which she had risen. She closed her eyes for the moment, and swallowed the affront that had been put upon her, and what was worse than the affront, the blow at her heart which this trifling little lord had delivered without flinching. This was to be the end of her schemes, that she was to be separated summarily and remorselessly from the child she had brought up. The Contessa ...
— Sir Tom • Mrs. Oliphant

... were killed. So shaken was the English line, that, had the Macdonald regiments, well-known to yield in valour to none of the clans, come up, the fortune of the day might have been altered. But they never made an onset. Smarting and sullen at the affront which they conceived to have been put upon their name, they bore the fire of the English regiments without flinching, and gave way to their rage by hewing at the heather with their swords. In vain their chiefs exhorted them ...
— Lays of the Scottish Cavaliers and Other Poems • W.E. Aytoun

... Virtue or goodness or whatever has the least "relish of salvation in it," is, to his depraved appetite, sickly and insipid: and he even resents the good opinion entertained of his own integrity, as if it were an affront cast on the masculine sense and spirit of his character. Thus at the meeting between Othello and Desdemona, he exclaims—"Oh, you are well tuned now: but I'll set down the pegs that make this music, as honest as I am"—his character of bonhommie not sitting at all ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin

... the seats of politeness and good-breeding; were they not so, they would be the seats of slaughter and desolation. Those who now smile upon and embrace, would affront and stab each other, if manners did not interpose; but ambition and avarice, the two prevailing passions at courts, found dissimulation more effectual than violence; and dissimulation introduced that ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield

... dolts reckon it shall please us to know that they take us for such fools! Verily, I would give a pretty penny but to make them conceive that the scrap of flattery which they do offer to my particular is utterly swamped in the vast affront which they give to my sex in the general. But you shall rarely see a man to guess that. Moreover, there be two other points. Mark you how a man shall serve a woman, if he come to know that she hath the tongues [knows the classical languages]. ...
— Joyce Morrell's Harvest - The Annals of Selwick Hall • Emily Sarah Holt

... of memory which saved him in those later years from so much bother. Clemens must have dragged his joke to the climax and left it there, but I cannot say this from any sense of the fact. Of what happened afterward at the table where the immense, the wholly innocent, the truly unimagined affront was offered, I have no longer the least remembrance. I next remember being in a room of the hotel, where Clemens was not to sleep, but to toss in despair, and Charles Dudley Warner's saying, in the gloom, "Well, Mark, you're a funny fellow." It was as well as ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... here,' remarked Arthur, when young Holt joined them. 'I had a mind to turn round and close the shutters again, but was afraid I might affront your father.' ...
— Cedar Creek - From the Shanty to the Settlement • Elizabeth Hely Walshe

... his fidelity and love to his royal master: for Goneril's steward that same day behaving in a disrespectful manner to Lear, and giving him saucy looks and language, as no doubt he was secretly encouraged to do by his mistress, Caius, not enduring to hear so open an affront put upon his majesty, made no more ado but presently tripped up his heels, and laid the unmannerly slave in the kennel; for which friendly service Lear became more and more attached ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb

... and she had almost laughed at the incongruity of the two of them in modern clothes in this fit setting for an old tale. Dickon of Glenavelin, the sworn foe of the Lord of Etterick, on such nights as this had ridden up the water with his bands to affront the quiet moonlight. And now his descendant was pointing out dim shapes in the park which he ...
— The Half-Hearted • John Buchan

... was that, and what such delusive thrift as drives about the land (with a fearful account for flys from the inn) to leave cards on the country magnates? This solicitude for Limbert's subject-matter was the specious colour with which, deeply determined not to affront mere tolerance in a cottage, Mrs. Stannace overlaid her indisposition to place herself under the heel of Cecil Highmore. She knew that he ruled Upstairs as well as down, and she clung to the fable of the association of interests in the north of London. The Highmores had a better address—they ...
— Embarrassments • Henry James

... Lord Randolph had undertaken to second it. Before the motion could be reached a debate sprang up, in which Lord Randolph interposed, and delivered a speech which, in Mr. Jennings's view, entirely cut the ground from under his feet. He regarded this as more than an affront—as a breach of faith, a blow dealt by his own familiar friend. At that moment, in the House, he broke with Lord Randolph, tore up his amendment and the notes of his speech, and declined thereafter to hold any ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 28, April 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various

... argument Banks used in overcoming John's reluctance to carry the astounding message that the chauffeur had "called" and wished to see Mr. Jervaise. But, no doubt, John's diplomacy was equal to the occasion. Banks's fine effort in self-assertion was probably wasted. John would not mention the affront to the family's prestige. He would imply that Banks had come in the manner proper to his condition. "Banks wishes to know if he might speak to you a minute, sir," was all the warning poor old Jervaise would get of this ...
— The Jervaise Comedy • J. D. Beresford

... who had been asked months before, but scarcely expected, caused great commotion. My aunts went about wringing their hands distractedly. Lady Speldhurst was a personage of some consequence; she was a distant cousin, and had been for years on cool terms with us all, on account of some fancied affront or slight when she had paid her LAST visit, about the time of my christening. She was seventy years old; she was infirm, rich, and testy; moreover, she was my godmother, though I had forgotten the fact; but it seems that though I had formed ...
— Stories by Modern American Authors • Julian Hawthorne

... fine polish may be easily hurt. Before men arrive at this artificial refinement, if one tells his neighbour he lies, his neighbour tells him he lies; if one gives his neighbour a blow, his neighbour gives him a blow: but in a state of highly polished society, an affront is held to be a serious injury. It must therefore be resented, or rather a duel must be fought upon it; as men have agreed to banish from their society one who puts up with an affront without fighting a duel. Now, Sir, it is never unlawful to fight in self-defence. He, then, who fights a duel, ...
— Life of Johnson - Abridged and Edited, with an Introduction by Charles Grosvenor Osgood • James Boswell

... annual Fast, & I was at meeting all day. Mr Hunt preach'd A.M. from Zac. vii. 4, 5, 6, 7. He said, that if we did not mean as we said in pray's it was only a compliment put upon God, which was a high affront to his divine Majesty. Mr Bacon, P.M. from James v. 17. He said, "pray's, effectual & fervent, might be, where there were no words, but there might be elegant words where there is no prayr's. The essence ...
— Diary of Anna Green Winslow - A Boston School Girl of 1771 • Anna Green Winslow

... made reply, "Thou hast after kindly guise and friendly fashion advised me with the best of advice; and I, having heard all thou hast to day, do thank thee gratefully. But I reck not one jot or tittle of what dangers affront me, nor shall thy threats however fatal deter me from my purpose: moreover, if thieves or foemen haply fall upon me, I am armed at point and can and will protect myself, for I am certified that none can outvie me in strength and stowre." To this the Fakir made reply, ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton

... To begin with, suppose you ask pardon of Senor Don Miguel de Mendoza for the affront ...
— The Golden Fleece • Julian Hawthorne

... little fiend who would shoot you on the slightest provocation. The girl had been thrust into the background, and the hero had been made into a coward and a paltry villain; they were all desperadoes upon the screen. Never in his life had Bently Brown been made to suffer such an affront. Never had he dreamed that his work would be made a ...
— The Phantom Herd • B. M. Bower

... the same sin," pursued he; "the same affront unto the Majesty of Him that will not give His glory ...
— Robin Tremain - A Story of the Marian Persecution • Emily Sarah Holt

... bonfires which all the Roman Catholics lighted for it all through the countship of Foix, and, later on, by a despatch from the Duke of Soubise, who exhorted him not to lose courage, saying that he hoped to come back next spring in condition to efface the affront received." This latter prince had not covered himself with glory in the expedition. "As recompense and consolation for all their losses," says the cardinal, "they carried off Soubise to England. He has not been mentioned all ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume V. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot

... compassion upon all those who believed a God, "not to revive the fires in Smithfield," that he must either forfeit his bishopric, or not marry a fourth wife;[25] I ask whether he would not think I intended him the highest injury and affront? ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. III.: Swift's Writings on Religion and the Church, Vol. I. • Jonathan Swift

... his son as he began to speak. When he realised Jamie's meaning, tears filled his eyes and streamed down his cheeks—tears of happiness and gratitude. All recollection of the affront quickly vanished, and he felt an ecstatic joy such as he had never known before. The idea came to him in his weakness: "Now I can die happy!" He was too overcome to be ashamed of his emotion, and taking out his handkerchief, quite unaffectedly ...
— The Hero • William Somerset Maugham

... came on board, and passed a merry evening. There's nothing passes time more agreeably away than champagne, and if you do not affront this regal wine by mixing him with any other, he never punishes ...
— Mr. Midshipman Easy • Frederick Marryat

... waxed rebellious. I refused to answer the question. He had no right to ask it, and his presence was an affront upon the landscape. And a dignity entered into me, and my neck was stiffened, my head poised. I gathered together certain certificates of goods and chattels, pointed my heel towards him and his cabbages, and journeyed townward. I was yet ...
— Revolution and Other Essays • Jack London

... had refused it. I have rarely been more wretched than to see him sitting there, so old, so grey, so poor, so hardly fortuned, of so rueful a countenance, and to appreciate, with growing keenness, the affront which I had so innocently dealt him; but it was one of those cases ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... and sleek, eager and cold as ice—an odd combination, but not more odd than the blend of Norman dog and Angevin cat which had made him so. Furtive he was not, yet seeming to crouch for a spring; not savage, yet primed for savagery; not cruel, yet quick on the affront, and on the watch for it. He was neither a rogue nor a madman; and yet he was as cunning as the one and as heedless as the other, if that is a possible thing. He was arrogant, but his smile veiled ...
— The Life and Death of Richard Yea-and-Nay • Maurice Hewlett

... put out against our Profession and bespattering of us for using only our own; but since it is the Way of the World for most Men to be inclinable to love Lac'd Mutton, I think it is their Duty to resent the Affront with us so much, as to Satyrize the Author of the Fifteen Comforts of Whoring, who without is some young bashful Effeminate Fool or another, that knows not how to say Boh to a Goose; or some old suffocated old Wretch so far pass'd his Labour, that he scolds for Madness ...
— The Fifteen Comforts of Matrimony: Responses From Women • Various

... was to Ali the greatest, noblest, mightiest man among men. That he should fall was incredible, and that any man should say he had fallen was an affront and an outrage. So, stripling as he was, the lad faced the rascals with the courage of a lion. "Liars and thieves!" he cried; "tell that story to another soul in Tetuan, and I will go straight to the Kaid at the Kasbah, and have every black dog of ...
— The Scapegoat • Hall Caine

... are you an offycer? The captayne of the guard, I thynke. Come on: Be not affrayd, arest me, Ile submytt. Nor doe reproatche my vallor; I have darrd As much as he that durst affront the gods, But greife ...
— A Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. III • Various

... small piece when we entered; and although the grains were not ripe, and it was half-baked and coarse grains, we nevertheless had to eat it, or at least not throw it away before them, which they would have regarded as a great sin, or a great affront. We chewed a little of it with long teeth, and managed to hide it so that they did ...
— Peter Stuyvesant, the Last Dutch Governor of New Amsterdam • John S. C. Abbott

... new affront was carried to the King in his chamber, his passion was so furious that he tore his clothes, and rolled like a madman on his bed of straw and rushes. But he was soon up and doing. He ordered all the ports and coasts of England to be narrowly watched, that no letters of Interdict ...
— A Child's History of England • Charles Dickens

... as I have said, in a very bad humor. She had by no means recovered from what she conceived to be the affront put upon her by the brilliant display made by Count Nobili, at the festival of the Holy Countenance, nor, indeed, from the ...
— The Italians • Frances Elliot

... of that individual lurked in the back of his mind. Phelps certainly had made a very bad impression upon me with his antagonistic attitude, with his readiness to transform every question into a personal affront. ...
— The Film Mystery • Arthur B. Reeve

... be counted a fool to slight a judge, before whom he is to have a trial of his whole estate.[25] The trial we have before God is of otherguise importance,[26] it concerns our eternal happiness or misery; and yet dare we affront him? ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... sympathy and respect, was received with the utmost coolness by Monsieur de la Bourdonnais; and when she painted to him her own situation, and that of her child, he replied, 'We will see what can be done—there are so many to relieve—why did you affront so respectable a relation?—You have ...
— Paul and Virginia • Bernardin de Saint Pierre

... Sassi answered that he should of course get a closed carriage from a livery stable, and an argument followed which took some time. In the opinion of the excellent old agent, it would be almost an affront to fetch the very noble Donna Sabina in a vehicle so plebeian as a cab, and it was with the greatest difficulty that Malipieri made him understand that a cab was much safer ...
— The Heart of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford

... hate in the affront that he had offered; there was calculation—to an even greater extent than we have seen. It happened that through his own fault young Richard was all but penniless. The pious, nonconformist soul of Sir Geoffrey Lupton—the wealthy uncle from whom he had had great expectations—had been so ...
— Mistress Wilding • Rafael Sabatini

... intolerable son-in-law. He'd grow almost tearful as he described his affection for Hoddan—how he loved his daughter—as he observed grievedly that they were asking him to betray the man who had saved for him the solace of his old age. He would mention also that the price they offered was an affront to his paternal affection and his dignity as prince of this, baron of that, lord of the other thing and claimant to the dukedom of something-or-other. Either they'd come up or ...
— The Pirates of Ersatz • Murray Leinster

... four. As for the enrolment in colleges between 1859 and 1860, and the incomes of the higher institutions, that is all bosh. Francis Lieber was a German by birth, found his service in South Carolina very uncongenial, and stood by the union. To compare slavery to apprenticeship is an affront. The day's work set down by Murat (whose history of the United States is a very obscure work) is contrary to evidence North or South. Regular nurseries were built only on a few large plantations. ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 7, 1922 • Various

... hundreds of white children of the best families are in closer personal contact with little Negroes than were the white children who took part in the Cleveland spelling bee. The "intense feeling" can be explained on one ground only: the Negro girl's victory was an affront to the tradition of the Negro's inferiority; it suggested—perhaps indicated—that, given equal opportunities, all Negroes are not necessarily the intellectual inferiors of all white people. What ...
— The Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, 1995, Memorial Issue • Various

... said he, 'I have need of the comfort of your presence and your friendship, but I would not blot out with thoughts of religion the memory of the honor that has come upon my house. God has been good to me. To me has been given the privilege of siring a man, and I shall not affront him with requests for further favors. To-morrow, in El Toro, a general will pin on my breast the medal for gallantry that belongs to my dead son. As for this trembling, it is but a palsy that comes to many ...
— The Pride of Palomar • Peter B. Kyne

... if any man should fancy he cared to kiss me, he could do so under the pretext that I had pulled my dress from under his feet! That will justify them! And if we decline their visits, they can insult us under the plea of a prior affront. Oh! Gibbes! George! Jimmy! never did we need your protection as sorely as now. And not to know even whether you are alive! When Charlie joins the army, we will be defenseless, indeed. Come to my bosom, O my discarded carving-knife, laid ...
— A Confederate Girl's Diary • Sarah Morgan Dawson

... pervades all their actions and habits, from the greatest to the least. They eat in quiet, move in quiet, live in quiet, and lose their wife, or even their money in quiet; while others cannot take up either a spoon, or an affront, without making such ...
— Life and Literature - Over two thousand extracts from ancient and modern writers, - and classified in alphabetical order • J. Purver Richardson

... eternal sacrifice of humanity, blasted for the sins of the people." But evils so old that they are imbedded in man's earliest history have been known to sway before an enlightened public opinion and in the end to give way to a growing conscience, which regards them first as a moral affront and at length as an utter impossibility. Thus the generation just before us, our own fathers, uprooted the enormous upas of slavery, "the tree that was literally as old as the race of man," although slavery doubtless had its beginnings in the captives ...
— A New Conscience And An Ancient Evil • Jane Addams

... knew he attached intense importance: it was an article of his complicated social creed that a man of his class should appear to live on good terms with his wife. For different reasons it was scarcely less important to Undine: she had no wish to affront again the social reprobation that had so nearly wrecked her. But she could not keep up the life she was leading without more money, a great deal more money; and the thought of contracting her ...
— The Custom of the Country • Edith Wharton

... said Don Luis, "I am very much afraid that, from what Don Juan Singleton has told me, there has been a most serious mistake somewhere, and that we have thus been betrayed into unwittingly inflicting a most unprovoked affront upon an English gentleman. Senor Singleton has, however," with a bow to Jack, "been good enough to accept my explanation and apologies, and I therefore venture to hope that we may now consider the incident as closed. ...
— The Cruise of the Thetis - A Tale of the Cuban Insurrection • Harry Collingwood

... games." Swords and daggers were prohibited "but in time of war for the defence of the realm of England"—a wise measure when the country was infested with vagrants and there were so many liveried retainers prompt to resent a real or imaginary affront. ...
— The Customs of Old England • F. J. Snell

... not satisfied. The more she thought of the pastor's explanation the more she resented it as an affront to ...
— The Tides of Barnegat • F. Hopkinson Smith

... precedents, the clergy would not allow the rites of sepulture to the actress in question. The populace, who followed the funeral out of curiosity, learnt the affront which was thus offered to her remains. Transported by sudden indignation, they rushed to the hearse, and dragged it onwards. The doors of the interdicted church were burst open in a moment. They called for a priest; no priest appeared. The tumult augmented. The church and the neighbouring ...
— Memoirs of the Private Life, Return, and Reign of Napoleon in 1815, Vol. I • Pierre Antoine Edouard Fleury de Chaboulon

... her head down and kissed it. Her duty of courtesy now done, she was preparing to rise, when he put his hand into his pocket, and, pulling out a sovereign, offered it to her. His valet moved his hand forward, as if to pull back his arm, but it was too late. I am sure, Your Honour, that no affront was intended. He doubtless thought that he was doing a kindness of the sort usual in England when one "tips" a housekeeper. But all the same, to one in her position, it was an affront, an insult, open and unmistakable. So it was ...
— The Lady of the Shroud • Bram Stoker

... immediately put a stop to any further intercourse or negotiation with her, and on no pretext renew it. If she disappoints or trifles with me, after I have subjected my duan to the disgrace of returning ineffectually, and of course myself to discredit, I shall consider it as a wanton affront and indignity which I can never forgive, nor will I grant her any conditions whatever, but leave her exposed to those dangers which she has chosen to risk rather than trust to the clemency and generosity of our government. I think she cannot be ignorant of these ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VIII. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... brink of the brook. In a trice I was up the bank, hot with a mad rage to come to grips with the fellow. But he had anticipated the movement, and setting spurs to his horse was beyond my reach. I disdained to pursue him; indeed it would have been vain; I could but stomach the affront. But I was not yet seasoned to petty slights, and in my bitterness of spirit I sat down on the grassy bank and for a while gave the rein to my feelings, brooding moodily on my wrongs. Then I chanced to spy the coin which he had flung to me as a man might ...
— Humphrey Bold - A Story of the Times of Benbow • Herbert Strang

... disgorged by the serpent, and have been petrified by the waters of the lake. [Footnote: The author remembers well that in conversation with a Seneca Indian on this point, he seemed to take it as quite an affront that doubts should be expressed by the white people as to ...
— An account of Sa-Go-Ye-Wat-Ha - Red Jacket and his people, 1750-1830 • John Niles Hubbard

... to recollect that the woman was so notorious for excessive ill-breeding, that no particular affront was intended, and hoped she would not continue coy, as I long to hear something of this Lioness from one who ...
— Before and after Waterloo - Letters from Edward Stanley, sometime Bishop of Norwich (1802;1814;1814) • Edward Stanley

... the affront. "I'm sorry you should think so," said he, "and still more sorry you should ...
— The Wrecker • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne

... to the "last arbitrament" for this slight to her house. Gusty was too young, she considered, for the duty; therefore she, in her fantastic way of looking at the matter, looked upon herself as the head of the family, and, as such, determined to resent the affront ...
— Handy Andy, Vol. 2 - A Tale of Irish Life • Samuel Lover

... went he! He always knew where the plump sister was. He wouldn't catch anybody else. If you had fallen up against him (as some of them did) on purpose, he would have made a feint of endeavouring to seize you, which would have been an affront to your understanding, and would instantly have sidled off in the direction of the plump sister. She often cried out that it wasn't fair; and it really was not. But when, at last, he caught her; when, in spite of all her silken ...
— A Christmas Carol • Charles Dickens

... mortals with disdain. Each man, too, maintained not only this lofty air as befitting one of the court, but also an aspect of individual preciousness as towards his fellow divinities. There was, in many a face or bearing, an expressed resentment, in advance, of any affront that might be offered. The soldiers swaggered, the gentlemen showed self-esteem in every motion. Nevertheless, there was much good nature and courtesy in the salutations, fragments of conversation, and exchanges of gossip. Leaving the sunlit courtyard behind, ...
— An Enemy To The King • Robert Neilson Stephens

... on the children a perpetual obligation of honouring their parents, which containing in it an inward esteem and reverence to be shewn by all outward expressions, ties up the child from any thing that may ever injure or affront, disturb or endanger, the happiness or life of those from whom he received his; and engages him in all actions of defence, relief, assistance and comfort of those, by whose means he entered into being, and has been made capable of any enjoyments of life: ...
— Two Treatises of Government • John Locke

... The affront of a threat and the alluring promises of riches were alike forgotten, and the star that led his exultant steps shone with the twofold ...
— Atma - A Romance • Caroline Augusta Frazer

... me," replied Don Carlos abruptly. "It is a compliment, and should be proof to you that my men know the marriage ceremony was no farce. They will take it as an affront if you ...
— Bandit Love • Juanita Savage

... a few days, or, if possible, for a few weeks. It is also natural that the host, under the circumstances, should wish to know something of the birth, parentage, and education of his guest, of which, though an old acquaintance; he is, as yet, entirely ignorant. Now, if it be possible to affront a real sponge (but there is nothing more difficult), such inquiries are likely to produce that happy consummation. Tarradiddle, however, gets over the difficulty with the tact peculiar to his class, and is fortunately ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, October 2, 1841 • Various

... This final affront was as the last straw to the camel. Deigning no answer, which she felt would be an angry one, Blanche marched away like an offended queen, and sat down on a chair in the hall as if she were enthroning herself upon a pedestal. Mrs Tremayne was in the hall, and the door into the parlour being open, ...
— Clare Avery - A Story of the Spanish Armada • Emily Sarah Holt

... Investigation Department, he can hardly be accused of undue optimism. Speaking as one of his readers, I found no difficulty at all in being patient. I have always had a weakness for official detectives, and have resented the term "Scotland Yard bungler" almost as if it were a personal affront; and now I feel that my resentment is justified. Scotland Yard does not bungle; and the advice I shall give for the future to any eager-eyed, enthusiastic young murderer burning to embark on his professional career is, don't practise ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, December 16, 1914 • Various

... persons he could depend upon, whose valor he had proved, and who had the faith rooted in their hearts. One Cathib, happening to be called after his brother Sahal, and looking upon himself to be the better man, resented it as a high affront, and roundly abused Kaled. The latter, however, gave him very gentle and modest answers, to the great satisfaction of all, especially of Abu Obeidah, who, after a short contention, made them shake hands. Kaled, indeed, was admirable in this respect, that he knew no less ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 4 • Various

... possible be equally exerted, and the blessings of Providence be equally enjoyed by all? Away, then, with those absurd systems which to gratify the pride of a few debase the greater part of our species below the order of men. What an affront to the King of the universe, to maintain that the happiness of a monster, sunk in debauchery and spreading desolation and murder among men, of a Caligula, a Nero, or a Charles, is more precious in his sight than that of millions of his suppliant creatures, ...
— The World's Best Orations, Vol. 1 (of 10) • Various

... apartment was so small that there was no room for them. I was next conducted to the boudoir, where coffee, pomegranates, melons, and sweetmeats were served. To decline taking any thing that is offered is regarded as an affront by the Mohammedans, so I was compelled to receive in my bare hand an immensely large slice of some kind of sweet cake, spread over with ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, July, 1850. • Various

... above. All that she knew was, mamma dead was the same as mamma living, only to be more tenderly dealt with, as she could not defend herself; and that she wondered how papa could be so wicked as to affront her now that she was not able to punish him and let him know what she ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 17, - No. 97, January, 1876 • Various

... secret witness to the rejection, which took place in an orchard; and as he walked away with rage in his heart, he heard echoing behind him the merry laugh of the two thoughtless young people. Proud and revengeful by nature, this affront seems to have rankled dreadfully in the mind of Gaspar; although, in accordance with that pride, he endeavoured to conceal his feelings under a show of indifference. Those who knew the parties well, however, were not deceived; ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 419, New Series, January 10, 1852 • Various

... this audacious address?—Reject it as a libel? Treat it as an affront to Government? Spurn it as a derogation from the rights of legislature? Did they toss it over the table? Did they burn it by the hands of the common hangman?—They took the petition of grievance, all rugged as it was, without softening or temperament, unpurged ...
— Burke's Speech on Conciliation with America • Edmund Burke

... situation in which they were held, were often not unjustly imputed to them. These circumstances combined to attach to the term villain ideas of crime and guilt, in so forcible a manner that the application of the epithet even to those to whom it legally belonged became an affront, and was abstained from whenever no affront was intended. From that time guilt was part of the connotation; and soon became the whole of it, since mankind were not prompted by any urgent motive ...
— A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive • John Stuart Mill

... opinions, "is fully qualified for membership, but I fear he may have a deleterious effect on JOHN MILTON and THOMAS GRAY. Did he not roughly criticise them in his Lives of the Poets, and do you think that MILTON is one who will sit down tamely under the affront? MILTON has been for years and is still one of our most distinguished members. Indeed, he has almost the standing amongst us of a highly-respected Bishop. He uses the Club a great deal, and I fear his comfort will be much reduced by the admission ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, April 16, 1919 • Various

... expressions must be avoided and not so much as even insinuated to the defamation of any particular person or rank, much less against those to whom an affront would alienate the minds of the judges. To be so imprudent as to attack judges themselves, not openly, but in any indirect manner, would be ...
— The Training of a Public Speaker • Grenville Kleiser

... work in Affrica."[112] A few days later he advised that everything on the African coast should be done "so as (the) king of England may not appeare in it, but only (the) Rll Company, & they takeing occasion from our affront."[113] Still later he asserted that even in Holland everyone believed that since the king and the Royal Company had gone so far, they would seize the entire African coast so that the whole affair might be ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 4, 1919 • Various



Words linked to "Affront" :   offend, wound, insult, spite, scandalisation, diss, bruise, injure



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