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Disfigure   Listen
verb
Disfigure  v. t.  (past & past part. disfigured; pres. part. disfiguring)  To mar the figure of; to render less complete, perfect, or beautiful in appearance; to deface; to deform. "Disfiguring not God's likeness, but their own."
Synonyms: To deface; deform; mar; injure.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Disfigure" Quotes from Famous Books



... me." cried she, indignantly. "You are trying your best to disfigure me, and to make me look old before my time. Who ever saw such a ridiculous structure as this headdress, that makes me look like a perambulating castle on a chessboard? Come, another coiffure, and let it not be such ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach

... of the rocket has passed from our sky, and its stick has fallen quietly enough among the pines of New Jersey, citizens have opportunity for calm reflection. We are not justified, perhaps, in attributing to McClellan all the evils and errors that disfigure his tenure of office. Intellect equal to the position he could not create for himself, and ninety-nine out of one hundred men of average ability would not have descended from his balloon-like elevation with any better grace. It is in the last degree unjust to brand ...
— Red-Tape and Pigeon-Hole Generals - As Seen From the Ranks During a Campaign in the Army of the Potomac • William H. Armstrong

... precious wherein you can still lop off useless branches which absorb a portion of the sap, depriving the others of that strength which they need in order to produce an abundance of savory fruit. You should attack not only those gross and manifest defects which disfigure the soul, but also those imperfections which are slight in appearance, but which, if left alone, will in time become pernicious inclinations. You should even watch over certain natural dispositions, which, though good in ...
— Serious Hours of a Young Lady • Charles Sainte-Foi

... as carnival farces, and have always been very successful. The plot of the Jodelle, which belongs to Don Francisco de Roxas, is excellent; the style and the additions of Scarron have not been able altogether to disfigure it. All that is coarse, nauseous, and repugnant to taste, belongs to the French writer of the age of Louis XIV., who in his day was not without celebrity; for the Spanish work is throughout characterized by a spirit of tenderness. The burlesque tone, which in many languages ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art - and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel trans John Black

... exceptional want and misery, might claim a certain pre-eminence in the long list of hapless victims, who made up the literary hecatomb of the Johnsonian era. Without the grosser elements, which enter into their methods of living and disfigure their character, the abject squalor of vulgar surroundings, the love for pot-houses and low companionships, the utter disregard for personal respect, he otherwise underwent all the pain, the want and uncertainty ...
— Donahoe's Magazine, Volume 15, No. 1, January 1886 • Various

... all, but a real and very terrible threat. What is to prevent these people, whoever they are, from attacking me—sending me some infernal machine in the disguise of a box or package, which, as soon as I open it, might burn or blind or otherwise disfigure me so that my life would be ruined?" She rose and glanced at herself in the mirror which hung over the mantel. Already there were deep circles of anxiety beneath her eyes, while the lines of her face, usually sweet and placid, were now those of an anxious and frightened woman. The first threat ...
— The Film of Fear • Arnold Fredericks

... ut accensi malleoli. I have used the literal sense of real torches or beacons; but I almost suspect, that it is only one of those turgid metaphors, those false ornaments, that perpetually disfigure to ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon

... we are washed and clothed by Him, and the more our garments are fitted for our future station, the fairer are our inward persons; the more do we feel annoyed and grieved by any foul spot, which could sully their purity and disfigure their beauty. My young readers remember this, and smile no more at sin; aye, and shun carefully its stains that would pollute you, and when they do alight upon you, remember whose blood alone it is can purge away ...
— Brotherly Love - Shewing That As Merely Human It May Not Always Be Depended Upon • Mrs. Sherwood

... propositions of Augustine to the dogmas handed down to him? Who could further call in question that, in consequence of the reforming impulse in Protestantism, the way was opened up for a conception which does not identify Gospel and dogma, which does not disfigure the latter by changing or paring down its meaning while failing to come up to the former? But the historian who has to describe the formation and changes of dogma can take no part in these developments. It is a task by itself more rich and comprehensive ...
— History of Dogma, Volume 1 (of 7) • Adolph Harnack

... suspenders, and hanged himself with them to the top of the door-jamb. So Holdria found him in the morning, and the imbecile's cry of horror soon brought the manager. Huerlin's face was just a little bluer than usual, but it was impossible to disfigure it ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries - Masterpieces of German Literature Vol. 19 • Various

... guardian of social, political, and religious morality. The greatest as well as the most trifling affairs which conduce to the well-being and comfort of the multitude are eagerly canvassed. The faults and vices which disfigure and disgrace even the most advanced forms of civilization are unshrinkingly laid bare, and the proper remedies prescribed. The political conduct of nations and of public men is carefully scrutinized, and every false step that they may make is ...
— The Continental Monthly, Volume V. Issue I • Various

... taking in their canoes their wives and children, cooking-pots, and sleeping-mats. When they reach a good game district, they erect temporary huts on the bank, and there dry the meat they have killed. They are rather a comely-looking race, with very black smooth skins, and never disfigure themselves with the frightful ornaments of some of the other tribes. The chief declined to sell a harpoon, because they could not now get the milola bark from the coast on account of Mariano's war. He expressed some doubts about our being children of the same Almighty Father, remarking ...
— A Popular Account of Dr. Livingstone's Expedition to the Zambesi and Its Tributaries • David Livingstone

... leach that brawn, rear that goose, lift that swan, sauce that capon, spoil that hen, frust that chicken, unbrace that mallard, unlace that coney, dismember that hern, display that crane, disfigure that peacock, unjoynt that bittern, untach that curlew, allay that pheasant, wing that partridge, wing that quail, mince that plover, thigh that pidgeon, border that pasty, thigh that woodcock; thigh all ...
— The accomplisht cook - or, The art & mystery of cookery • Robert May

... not put on your corset; a cold in the head wouldn't oblige you to disfigure your waist and wear half a dozen petticoats, nor hide your hands in these old gloves, and your pretty feet in those hideous shoes, nor dress yourself ...
— Modeste Mignon • Honore de Balzac

... two hours hence to throw yourself out of the window or upon the pikes of my retainers. Two hours of life are always two hours. A great many things may turn up in even as little a while as that. And, besides, if I understand her appearance, my niece has still something to say to you. You will not disfigure your last hours by a want of politeness ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 4 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... mother-in-law's machinations he owed the loss of his position and his wife, he bided his time, like a sensible fellow, and one day he called upon the old lady at her flat. Without a word, he proceeded to pull out much of her hair and otherwise to disfigure her permanently, which, as she was a vain woman, made her miserable the rest of her days. Then he disappeared, and has not been heard of since. It seems strange the thing never got into the newspapers. By the way, ...
— Tales From Bohemia • Robert Neilson Stephens

... and he vindicates the "flesh" from the attacks made on human character by certain forms of Christianity. The body, according to Nachmanides, is, with all its functions, the work of God, and therefore perfect. "It is only sin and neglect that disfigure God's creatures." In another of his books, "The Law of Man," Nachmanides writes of suffering and death. He offers an antidote to pessimism, for he boldly asserts that pain and suffering in themselves are "a service of God, leading man to ponder on his end and reflect about ...
— Chapters on Jewish Literature • Israel Abrahams

... speculative curiosity, and that it wants nothing to excite admiration but a skilful spectator'; and 'Nature seems desirous of hiding her real charms from the sight of men, because they are too little sensible of them, and disfigure them when within their reach; she flies from public places; it is on the tops of mountains, in the midst of forests, on desert islands, that she displays her most ...
— The Development of the Feeling for Nature in the Middle Ages and - Modern Times • Alfred Biese

... rob, pillage, ravage, depredate, despoil devastate, sack; corrupt, vitiate, debase, mar, demoralize, deprave, sophisticate, infect, defile, contaminate; disfigure, deface, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming

... promised in a calmer season to demand judges himself, and to give an account of his designs and of his conduct. The commissioners tried to induce him to submit, quoting the example of the ancient Roman generals. "We are always mistaken in our quotations," he replied; "and we disfigure Roman history by taking as an excuse for our crimes the example of their virtues. The Romans did not kill Tarquin; the Romans had a well ordered republic and good laws; they had neither a Jacobin club nor a revolutionary tribunal. We live in a time of anarchy. Tigers ...
— History of the French Revolution from 1789 to 1814 • F. A. M. Mignet

... proportion, Pythagorean symmetry or music, and bold as they could be in their exercises (it was a Lacedaemonian who, at Olympia, for the first time threw aside the heavy girdle and ran naked to the goal) forbade all that was likely to disfigure the body. Though we must not suppose all ties of nature rent asunder, nor all connexion between parents and children in those genial, retired houses at an end in very early life, it was yet a strictly public education ...
— Plato and Platonism • Walter Horatio Pater

... the high church, in fact, steeple Tory journal, tells its readers, "if we strike out the first person of Robert's speeches, ay, out of his whole career, they become a rope untwisted," &c. &c. &c. This excited old lady is evidently anxious to disfigure the head of the government, by scratching Sir Robert ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, October 2, 1841 • Various

... result of that despondency which was figured under the natural idea of a broken heart. The incoherences are gone; the contradictions have vanished; and the gross physical absurdities, which under mistranslation had perplexed the reverential student, no longer disfigure the Scriptures. ...
— Theological Essays and Other Papers v1 • Thomas de Quincey

... case when three days had elapsed, the patient (a young lady) was delirious and speechless, the whole face was so swollen as to entirely disfigure her features, raising the cheeks to a level with the nose, and closing the eyes. Her life was almost despaired of. The surface of a freshly cut onion was applied to the point where the sting entered, and changed about once an hour for a fresh piece. In a few hours consciousness ...
— An Epitome of Homeopathic Healing Art - Containing the New Discoveries and Improvements to the Present Time • B. L. Hill

... of the common road. I once desired Lord Bolingbroke to observe that the clerks used an ivory knife, with a blunt edge, to divide paper, which cut it even, only requiring a strong hand; whereas a sharp penknife would go out of the crease, and disfigure the paper. ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, - Issue 572, October 20, 1832 • Various

... more simply designed, but cannot be fairly judged now, on account of the retouching and frequent varnishing which disfigure it. ...
— Fra Angelico • J. B. Supino

... employed there is progress to be noted. The brick-making machine and the Hoffmann kiln have economized labor and fuel, while attempts have been made, which I trust may prove successful, for utilizing the clay which is to be found in the form of slate in those enormous mounds of waste which disfigure the landscape in the neighborhood of slate quarries. Certain artificial stones, moreover, appear at last to be made with a uniformity and a power of endurance, and in respect of these qualities compare favorably with the best natural stone, and still more favorably ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 488, May 9, 1885 • Various

... American anomaly. Judged by his rights on paper his citizenship is indisputable, but judged by his rights in fact it is full of mutilations and amputations which disfigure it almost beyond recognition. One-half of it appears in the light clothed with fragments of his rights, and the other half is in eclipse, exposed naked to biting cold and bitter wrong. He appeals to good men and true in the South and in the North and in the Government too, to give him ...
— The Ballotless Victim of One-Party Governments - The American Negro Academy, Occasional Papers No. 16 • Archibald H. Grimke

... and the new means of conveyance crowded out the old-fashioned saddle and pillion, and the trotting horse superseded the once fashionable but quickly despised pacer, that the great stretches of horse-sheds were built which now surround and disfigure all our country churches. These sheds protect, of course, both horse and carriage from wind and rain. Few churches had horse-sheds until after the War of the Revolution, and some not until after the War of 1812. In 1796 the Longmeadow Church had "liberty to ...
— Sabbath in Puritan New England • Alice Morse Earle

... extraordinary look of fear disfigure his face," he continued, "and following the direction of his eyes I saw a lean brown arm with a thin hand as delicate as a woman's wriggle forward from beneath the wall of ...
— Witness For The Defense • A.E.W. Mason

... useless, and perhaps invidious, to enumerate the evils of which, in the opinion of many of our fellow-citizens, this error of the sages who framed the Constitution may have been the source and the bitter fruits which we are still to gather from it if it continues to disfigure our system. It may be observed, however, as a general remark, that republics can commit no greater error than to adopt or continue any feature in their systems of government which may be calculated to create or increase the lover ...
— U.S. Presidential Inaugural Addresses • Various

... has this advantage, considered as the material of future improvement; it is entirely homogeneous, and admits of philosophical principles being carried out, with very few, if any, of those exceptions which so disfigure English grammar, and present such appalling obstacles to foreigners ...
— Personal Memoirs Of A Residence Of Thirty Years With The Indian Tribes On The American Frontiers • Henry Rowe Schoolcraft

... village school, in the planning of the railway siding of the market town, in the mixing of the mortar at the building of the workman's house. It means that ultimately no effigy of intrusive king or emperor is to disfigure our coins and stamps any more; God himself and no delegate is to be represented wherever men buy or sell, on our letters and our receipts, a perpetual witness, a perpetual reminder. There is no act altogether without significance, no power so humble that ...
— God The Invisible King • Herbert George Wells

... spoken of the artificial splendour of Eaton. The natural beauties with which it is environed will, however, present equal, if not superior, attraction for the tourist. The stiff, formal walks of Vanbrugh no longer disfigure the grounds, which are now made to harmonize with the contiguous landscape, and are enlivened by an inlet of the Dee, which intervenes between the eastern front of the mansion, and the opposite plantations. These alterations have, however, been made with great judgment, and a few ...
— The Mirror, 1828.07.05, Issue No. 321 - The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction • Various

... woman killed by the Mercians in their revolt. This could not be Elgiva, for she was not divorced till the rebellion was over; and even the sad tale that she was seized by the officers of Odo, and branded to disfigure her beauty, rests on no good authority. In spite of the reluctance with which men relinquish a touching tragedy, the calumny should be banished from the pages of historians; and it is painful to see it repeated, as if of undoubted authenticity, in a recent popular history for children by ...
— Edwy the Fair or the First Chronicle of Aescendune • A. D. Crake

... and used up 150 cookies in a short time. Part of these cookies was devoured and the balance was trod into our all-wool carpet. Several of the young people got to playing Copenhagen in the setting-room and stepped on the old cat in such a way as to disfigure him for life. They also had a disturbance in the front room and knocked ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye

... the English vessel. Then, by the time that Nucingen might flatter himself that he was on the track of his late cashier, the said cashier, as the Conte Ferraro, hoped to be safe in Naples. He had determined to disfigure his face in order to disguise himself the more completely, and by means of an acid to imitate the scars of smallpox. Yet, in spite of all these precautions, which surely seemed as if they must secure him complete ...
— Melmoth Reconciled • Honore de Balzac

... mamma's name. 'Mrs. Furnival's compliments, and hopes Mr. Staveley will recover the use of his legs.' And the man would bring back word: 'The doctor hopes he may, miss; but his left eye is gone for ever.' It is not everybody that can tumble discreetly. Now you, I fancy, would only disfigure yourself." ...
— Orley Farm • Anthony Trollope

... bombasted according to the mode. A silk stocking will bring out the nice proportions of his leg; though, as I am a true gentleman, the youth has so well formed a limb that even his own villainous yarn coverings cannot disfigure it. His hair is of a good brown colour, which the king affects much, and seems to curl naturally; but it wants trimming to the mode, for he is rough as a young colt fresh from pasture; and though he hath not much beard ...
— The Star-Chamber, Volume 1 - An Historical Romance • W. Harrison Ainsworth

... nearly two centuries ago, by Carlencas, the writer says: "It is to no great purpose to speak of the Gothick sculptures: for everybody knows that they are the works of a rude art, formed in spite of nature and rules: sad productions of barbrous and dull spirits, which disfigure our old churches." Fie on a Frenchman who could so express himself! We recall the story of how Viollet le Duc made the people of Paris appreciate the wonderful carvings on Notre Dame. All the rage in France was for Greek and Roman remains, ...
— Arts and Crafts in the Middle Ages • Julia De Wolf Addison

... passionate disorder below. Nothing comparable to this state of affairs had been known in the previous history of warfare, unless we take such a case as that of a nineteenth century warship attacking some large savage or barbaric settlement, or one of those naval bombardments that disfigure the history of Great Britain in the late eighteenth century. Then, indeed, there had been cruelties and destruction that faintly foreshadowed the horrors of the aerial war. Moreover, before the twentieth ...
— The War in the Air • Herbert George Wells

... were on everybody's lips at the time of which we are writing. His true name was Henry W. Shaw, and he was a genuine, smiling philosopher, who might have built up a more permanent and serious reputation had he not been induced to disfigure his maxims with ridiculous spelling in order to popularize them and make them bring a living price. It did not matter much with Nasby's work. An assumed illiteracy belonged with the side of life which he presented; but it is pathetic now to consider some of the really ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine

... and you can bet on getting your money's worth every time. That's the sort of hairpins we are—all wool and a yard wide. Now, ladies and gents, while it is not designed that the pleasure of this evening be marred by any special formalities, any such unnatural restrictions as disfigure such functions in the effete East [applause], and while I am only too anxious to exclaim with the poet, 'On with the dance, let joy be unconfined' [great applause], yet it must be remembered that this high-toned outfit has been got up for a special, definite purpose, as ...
— Bob Hampton of Placer • Randall Parrish

... he should anger his captors into doing him some injury that might lessen his powers of thought or action, and the girl, seeing that no immediate gain could be had from speech, dreaded to be smitten on the mouth in a way that might disfigure her in her lover's eyes. Only at times, when a wind would blow the smoke and flame aside, she looked across the camp-fire into the young man's face, and in the look and in the smile of the steady lips he read not only ...
— Earth's Enigmas - A Volume of Stories • Charles G. D. Roberts

... he really must make the lawn smooth. Emilia called to Adela, who came, and hearing the case, said: "Now this is nice of you. I like you to love daisies and wish to protect them. They disfigure a lawn, you know." And Adela stooped, and picked one, and called it a ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... treats of the outcome of that great wrong. "Yet the wound will be healed," wrote Dante; "(though it cannot be otherwise than that the scar and brand of infamy will have burned with fire upon the Apostolic See and will disfigure her for whom heaven and earth had been reserved)—if ye who were the authors of this transgression will all with one accord fight manfully for the Bride of Christ, for the Throne of the Bride which ...
— Letters of Catherine Benincasa • Catherine Benincasa

... recommendation of ours to bring them into notice. This Volume, her History of Greece, is written with great clearness and fluency, the fabulous tales which disfigure so many professedly authentic histories of the Greeks are discarded. We cordially recommend this work for the ...
— The World's Fair • Anonymous

... is not your fault at all, Mr. Bathurst; I put a great deal more on than you said, but I was so anxious to disfigure myself that I was determined to do it thoroughly; but it is nothing to what it was. As you see, my lips are getting all right again, and the sores are a good deal better than they were; I suppose they will leave scars, but that ...
— Rujub, the Juggler • G. A. Henty

... very excellent dish. Pare off all the skin as neatly as possible; lard the leg with the best lard, and stick a few cloves here and there, with half a clove of garlic, laid in the shank. When half roasted, cut off three or four thin pieces, so as not to disfigure it, about the shank bone; mince these very fine with sage, thyme, mint, and any other sweet garden herbs; add a little beaten ginger, very little, three or four grains; as much cayenne pepper, two spoonfuls of lemon juice, ...
— The Lady's Own Cookery Book, and New Dinner-Table Directory; • Charlotte Campbell Bury

... were drawn together to behold that glorious model of the age. Men sailed no longer to Paphos, to Cnidus or Cythera, to the presence of the goddess Venus: her sacred rites were neglected, her images stood uncrowned, the cold ashes were left to disfigure her forsaken altars. It was to a maiden that men's prayers were offered, to a human countenance they looked, in propitiating so great a godhead: when the girl went forth in the morning they strewed flowers on her way, and the victims proper ...
— Marius the Epicurean, Volume One • Walter Horatio Pater

... infancy, he had been imbued with the judgments of the party of 1814, on Bonaparte. Now, all the prejudices of the Restoration, all its interests, all its instincts tended to disfigure Napoleon. It execrated him even more than it did Robespierre. It had very cleverly turned to sufficiently good account the fatigue of the nation, and the hatred of mothers. Bonaparte had become an almost fabulous monster, and in order to paint him to the imagination ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo

... possession of me. Wasn't it enough to maim and disfigure poor Tamplin, why cook him to death—I'd shut off that cock. I fought with it, but it wouldn't close, and I called Dennis to ...
— Danger Signals • John A. Hill and Jasper Ewing Brady

... important ecclesiastical buildings in London. But we are concerned now with this gateway, the beauty of which is partially concealed by the neighbouring shops and dwellings that surround it, as a poor and vulgar frame may disfigure some matchless gem of artistic painting. Its old stones know more about fairs than do most things. It shall tell its own history. You can still admire the work of the Early English builders, the receding orders with exquisite mouldings and ...
— Vanishing England • P. H. Ditchfield

... which they no doubt had in mind from the first. Mournful and desolate indeed seemed the straggling little village where three centuries ago "a thousand witcheries lay felled at one stroke," one of the cruelest and most pitiful of the numberless tragedies which disfigure ...
— British Highways And Byways From A Motor Car - Being A Record Of A Five Thousand Mile Tour In England, - Wales And Scotland • Thomas D. Murphy

... severities which by evil masters or overseers, may be used towards their Christian servants, that from and after the publication hereof, if any man smite out the eye or tooth of his man servant or maid servant, or otherwise maim or disfigure them much, unless it be by mere casualty, he shall let him or her go free from his service, and shall allow such further recompense as the court of quarter sessions shall adjudge him. 2. That if any person ...
— History of the Negro Race in America From 1619 to 1880. Vol 1 - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George W. Williams

... fancy or inspiration might supply must be restrained by this severe law, that they should be such as to aid the reader's imagination to conceive how the event took place. They must by no means be suffered to alter, disfigure, traduce the substance or the letter of the revelation. This is what Milton has done. He has told the story of creation in the very words of Scripture. The whole of the seventh book, is little more than a paraphrase ...
— Milton • Mark Pattison

... and it was very kind in you to take it off their hands; but now it is paid for, it can't make much difference whether you disfigure yourself with ...
— The Clever Woman of the Family • Charlotte M. Yonge

... from him. When closely questioned or otherwise interfered with, then old Con-stair Lo-vair would show that his long cruel penance had not yet banished the devil from his heart. A terrible wrath would disfigure his countenance and kindle his eyes with demoniac fire; and in sharp ringing tones, that wounded like strokes, he would pour forth a torrent of words in his unknown language, doubtless invoking every ...
— Far Away and Long Ago • W. H. Hudson

... bulb into a uniform cylinder, as shown in b, Fig. 10. Otherwise the result will be a series of bulbs, as in c, Fig. 10, separated by thickened ridges which will be almost impossible of removal later and will disfigure the final bulb. This operation of heating, blowing and pushing together is repeated several times, until the cylinder becomes as long as can be conveniently handled (about 1-1/4 inches to 1-1/2 inches). If more glass is needed than is then contained ...
— Laboratory Manual of Glass-Blowing • Francis C. Frary

... to be a man who had known both drawing-room and nature; who must have turned quietly and deliberately to nature as the better part. The wrinkles on his face were not those of the social smile, which so disfigure the faces of women when the smile is no longer wanted. They ...
— The Velvet Glove • Henry Seton Merriman

... landscape loses its oppressiveness, the hills assume more rounded forms, and from the general obscurity, the palms, a tree made for moonlight, stand out in soft distinctness. At such a time we forget the foul crimes which disfigure the past, and the vices which degrade the present of this fair land, and can easily imagine ourselves in the garden where the yet unfallen progenitors of mankind walked under a firmament 'glowing with living sapphires,' and together hymned the praises of their Creator. Daylight chases ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. IV. October, 1863, No. IV. - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various

... wicked London town; nor import, as they tell me thou art doing fast, the ugly fashions of that London town, clumsy copies of Parisian cockneydom, into thy Highland home; nor give up the healthful and graceful, free and modest dress of thy mother and thy mother's mother, to disfigure the little kirk on Sabbath days with crinoline and corset, high-heeled boots, and ...
— Sanitary and Social Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley

... pawn tickets, and was of a most quarrelsome disposition. As a duelist he was feared because of his specialty. This was the ability, and the inclination, through a trick in the use of the foils, to disfigure his opponent's face badly, without at all endangering his life. In this manner he had already sadly mutilated several brave officers and students, who had had the bad luck to stand up against him. He himself was anything but pleasant to ...
— The Continental Classics, Volume XVIII., Mystery Tales • Various

... even that merit which they undoubtedly possess. "They are ingenious, but puerile; flowing, but not sufficiently correct." ——The best way of convincing the antiquarian reader of the merit of these compositions, would be to disfigure them with old spelling; as perhaps the most complete confutation of the advocates for the authenticity of what are called Rowley's poems would be to exhibit an edition of them in modern orthography. —Let us only apply this very simple ...
— Cursory Observations on the Poems Attributed to Thomas Rowley (1782) • Edmond Malone

... recalled his words to her, uttered years ago, half in jest and half in earnest; he had horrified her beyond expression by telling her how he would punish a wife if he were the husband she deceived. With a grim, lurid smile he remembered the penalty. He had said he would not kill; he would disfigure the woman frightfully and permit her to live as a moral example to other wives. Slitting her mouth from ear to ear or cutting off her nose—these were two of the penalties he would inflict. He now felt ...
— Jane Cable • George Barr McCutcheon

... on this subject; but, to the wise, a word is sufficient. And it would ill become one who is endeavouring to recommend conciseness, to disfigure that very ...
— Gifts of Genius - A Miscellany of Prose and Poetry by American Authors • Various

... bulbous-rooted fumitory," said the young man, pulling a piece at random in the reckless way in which men do disfigure forest flower-beds. "It isn't strictly indigenous, but it is naturalized in many places, and you must have seen it before, though you ...
— Brothers of Pity and Other Tales of Beasts and Men • Juliana Horatia Gatty Ewing

... be kept alive by these neglected attentions; yet if men and women took half as much pains to dress habitually neat, as they do to ornament, or rather to disfigure their persons, much would be done towards the attainment of purity of mind. But women only dress to gratify men of gallantry; for the lover is always best pleased with the simple garb that sits close ...
— A Vindication of the Rights of Woman - Title: Vindication of the Rights of Women • Mary Wollstonecraft [Godwin]

... minister so much that, though she resolved to speak to him strongly on the subject, she would not do so till she could discuss the question with him "in the presence of the king, that he might not be able to disfigure or to exaggerate what she said." Yet she did not always find her precautions effectual. Louis's judgment was always at the mercy of the last speaker. She assured her brother that "he had abundant reason to be contented with the king's personal feelings ...
— The Life of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France • Charles Duke Yonge

... sacred by the Druids, and therefore, he supposed, might be appropriately placed there. The whole plantation, however, has been so miserably storm-stricken that the poor stunted trees are not even worth the trouble of cutting them down for fuel, and so they continue to disfigure the spot. In all other respects this impressive monument of former times is carefully preserved; the soil within the enclosure is not broken, a path from the road is left, and in latter times a stepping-stile has been placed ...
— Colloquies on Society • Robert Southey

... of black smoke, their uglinesses of brick-work, and their heaps of refuse matter from the furnace, which seems to be the only kind of stuff which Nature cannot take back to herself and resolve into the elements, when man has thrown it aside. These hillocks of waste and effete mineral always disfigure the neighborhood of ironmongering towns, and, even after a considerable antiquity, are hardly made decent with a ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 51, January, 1862 • Various

... his chin," he ended, "he's got a little scar, sort of scar you see on German students' faces, only quite small—doesn't disfigure him ...
— The Four Faces - A Mystery • William le Queux

... fast, be not as the hypocrites, of a sad countenance: for they disfigure their faces, that they may appear unto men to fast. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward. But thou, when thou fastest, anoint thine head, and wash thy face, that thou appear not unto men to fast, but unto thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father, which seeth in secret, shall ...
— The Book of Common Prayer - and The Scottish Liturgy • Church of England

... sure they may; and egad, serve your best thoughts as gypsies do stolen children,—disfigure them to make them ...
— The Redemption of David Corson • Charles Frederic Goss

... the skin, characterised by the tuberculous eruptions which eat into the skin, particularly of the face, and disfigure it. ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood

... trunk, and disposing in an orderly manner of the branches. He also took great pains to cut his trees as close to the ground as possible, so as not to sacrifice the good timber at the butt, or leave a tall or ragged stump to disfigure the ground afterwards. ...
— The Life of Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, Bart., K.C.S.I. - A Judge of the High Court of Justice • Sir Leslie Stephen

... contentious; can they make him wise? They exhaust the mind by a certain jejune and barren subtlety, without fertilizing or inspiring it. By their stammering and by the stains of their impure style they disfigure theology which had been enriched and adorned by the eloquence of the ancients. They involve everything whilst trying to resolve everything.' 'Scotist', with Erasmus, became a handy epithet for all schoolmen, nay, for everything superannuated and antiquated. He would rather lose the ...
— Erasmus and the Age of Reformation • Johan Huizinga

... the irrepressible effluence of his secret being on every thing in sympathy with it,—a kind of flowering of the soul amid the warmth and the light of nature. I am no poet, I exclaimed, and I will not disfigure Mr. ...
— Lectures on Art • Washington Allston

... fast, be not like the hypocrites, of a sad countenance; for they disfigure their faces that they may appear to men to fast. I tell you truly, they have their reward. [6:17]But when you fast, anoint your head, and wash your face, [6:18]that you may not appear to men to fast, but to your Father ...
— The New Testament • Various

... outside the city barriers in order to prevent their affording shelter to the enemy. My friend had once visited Paris, and had been struck by the beauty of these woods. Apparently he thought that, even for their own salvation, the French had no right to disfigure scenes of beauty that had delighted the ...
— Memoirs of Sir Wemyss Reid 1842-1885 • Stuart J. Reid, ed.

... single combat, and had eagerly risked his life in resisting the desperate raids made against his tribe, or in pushing invasions among others of his own race. Unlike many of his own people, he never was vain enough to wear the scalp-lock, nor did he disfigure his face with paint. When he went upon the warpath his enemies speedily found it out, without any such ...
— Deerfoot in The Mountains • Edward S. Ellis

... the later members of the Ennead, there is a change in the character and in the form of these tales. Doubtless Osiris and Sit did not escape unscathed out of the hands of the theologians; but even if sacerdotal interference spoiled the legend concerning them, it did not altogether disfigure it. Here and there in it is still noticeable a sincerity of feeling and liveliness of imagination such as are never found in those of Shu and of Sibu. This arises from the fact that the functions of these gods left them strangers, or all but strangers, to the current affairs of the world. Shu was ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 1 (of 12) • G. Maspero

... doctrine, which cannot be too often or too strongly urged, although it is not new,—indeed, it is old as the universe,—you will, I think, be puzzled to find an excuse for yourself if you disfigure a charming landscape or a village street by an uncouth building. Build plainly if you will, cheaply if you must, but, by all that is fair to look upon or pleasant to the thought, be honest. It will require some study and much ...
— Homes And How To Make Them • Eugene Gardner

... for a moment that some one has overridden your will and obliterated your true self. It is inconceivable that this can be your real, your abiding determination. You cannot have thrown aside all shame, all love, all fidelity, all truth. If you did, you would dishonour and disfigure humanity. There can be no truth left in the world if you are false, if you are capable of descending to this depth of abandonment, of breaking such holy oaths, of crushing my heart. Then there is nothing more under the sun in which ...
— Immortal Memories • Clement Shorter

... possession, not unworthy of that beautiful name, "The Lady of the Lake," or that direct, romantic opening—one of the most spirited and poetical in literature—"The stag at eve had drunk his fill." The same strength and the same weaknesses adorn and disfigure the novels. In that ill-written, ragged book, "The Pirate," the figure of Cleveland—cast up by the sea on the resounding foreland of Dunrossness—moving, with the blood on his hands and the Spanish words on his tongue, among ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume 9 • Robert Louis Stevenson

... distinguished by a force and vivacity of satire which she has rarely surpassed. it is true that in both "The Wanderer" and "Camilla" we meet with occasional touches of that peculiar extravagance of style which disfigure, the "Memoirs of Dr. Burney," but these passages, in the novels, are SO comparatively inoffensive, and so nearly forgotten in the general power and charm of the story that we scarcely care to instance them ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 1 • Madame D'Arblay

... thoughts intruded themselves on me at once, passing hastily through my brain, intercepting and overshadowing each other, and resembling those fogs which in mountainous countries are wont to descend in obscure volumes, and disfigure or obliterate the usual marks by which the traveller steers his course through the wilds. The dark and undefined idea of danger arising to my father from the machinations of such a man as Rashleigh Osbaldistone—the half declaration of love that I had offered to Miss Vernon's acceptance—the ...
— Rob Roy, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott

... cannot be imagined that I all this while neglected to peruse the defence of the articles published in the bishop's name. No: it was my very first employment, on my arrival in town; and though considerable trouble had been bestowed to disfigure the work, as written by me, yet in substance I found it to be the same. The wrongs of Miss Wilmot quickened my feelings, and, angry as I was with Wakefield, I felt emotions of ten fold bitterness against ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft

... of "the mathematical infinite" into metaphysical speculation, especially by Kant and Hamilton, with the design, it would seem, of transforming the idea of infinity into a sensuous conception, has generated innumerable paralogisms which disfigure the pages of their philosophical writings. This procedure is grounded in the common fallacy of supposing that infinity and quantity are compatible attributes, and susceptible of mathematical ...
— Christianity and Greek Philosophy • Benjamin Franklin Cocker

... critic who helps me is the critic whose humility keeps pace with his acuteness, who leads me gently where he has himself trodden patiently and observantly, and does not attempt to disfigure and ravage the regions which he has not been able to desire to explore. The man who will show me unsuspected connections, secret paths of thought, who will teach me how to extend my view, how I may pass quietly from the known to the unknown; who will show me that stars ...
— The Silent Isle • Arthur Christopher Benson

... forget the King hath a tender heart for distress, and now I think on it, 'tis possible, if thou didst so disfigure thyself, thou wouldst gain his reply the quicker. We will mottle thy face with leprous spots and cover thee with old woman's clothes, placing a hump upon thy shoulder. And no one shall be privy to our scheme but his Grace, and my lord of Buckingham, ...
— Mistress Penwick • Dutton Payne

... the left lies below you a sweet secluded dell of evergreens, cedar, hemlock, and pine, enlivened by a few deciduous trees. Through this dell there is a road-track leading to a fine cleared farm, the green pastures of which were rendered more pleasing by the absence of the odious stumps that disfigure the clearings in this part of the country. A pretty bright stream flows through the low meadow that lies at the foot of the hill, which you descend suddenly close by a small grist-mill that is worked by the waters, just where they meet the rapids of ...
— The Backwoods of Canada • Catharine Parr Traill

... to Professor Tyler's class of "wisest, truest and best." He thus selects for compliment on one page the very women whom he has traduced on another. His own witnesses testify against him. It is a pity that such phrases of discourtesy and unfairness should disfigure an essay which in many respects says good words for women, recommends that they should study Greek, and says, in closing, that their elevation "is at once the measure and the means of the elevation ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various

... remark refers to several blots of ink which disfigure the page of his Journal on ...
— The Military Journals of Two Private Soldiers, 1758-1775 - With Numerous Illustrative Notes • Abraham Tomlinson

... of his own compositions, such as the more effective fragments from the Romeo and Juliet Symphony, again made a particular impression on me, it is true; but I was now more consciously awake to the curious weaknesses which disfigure even the finest conceptions of this extraordinary musician than on those earlier occasions, when I only had a sense of general discomfort adequate to the ...
— My Life, Volume II • Richard Wagner

... which must soon take place even if there be no change in the character of business, conducted with a little system and uniformity. The streets themselves have been made so fine that it will require some moral courage—a thing for which Washington is not noted—to disfigure them by the hideous jumbles that accorded so well with the old ways. Such splendid monstrosities as the Treasury—as a whole, the worst public building in the city, although good in parts, so situated ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 11, No. 24, March, 1873 • Various

... of it to a man void of taste, who has built a hideous erection on the quay in what he is pleased to call Byzantine style. I am quite sure any Byzantine architect would cheerfully have jumped into the Bosphorus rather than disfigure a city with such a ...
— In Troubadour-Land - A Ramble in Provence and Languedoc • S. Baring-Gould

... wants to abolish sex. He believes in spirit. He is timid and womanly, his mind is pure and inexpressibly shocked at the carnal desires which disfigure the otherwise fair picture of humanity. Love, marriage, procreation, cannot these be purged from the base and degrading obsessions of sex? By abstinence, by concentration, we may eliminate them. Surely the story of the Fall makes it quite clear that we were ...
— Mountain Meditations - and some subjects of the day and the war • L. Lind-af-Hageby

... did not disfigure her exquisite face. On the contrary, grief decked her with a new, graver and more touching beauty. And she ended, ...
— The Frontier • Maurice LeBlanc

... a volley of peculiarly southern oaths, with which we cannot disfigure our page, even in deference to the necessity of painting a correct picture of the scene we have described. Tom had a vein of humor in his composition, which has already displayed itself in some of the rough experiences of ...
— The Soldier Boy; or, Tom Somers in the Army - A Story of the Great Rebellion • Oliver Optic

... same coulours in our art of Poesie (as well as in those other mechanicall artes) be not well tempered, or not well layd, or be vused in excesse, or neuer so litle disordered or misplaced, they not onely giue it no maner of grace at all, but rather do disfigure that stuffe and spill the whole workmanship taking away all bewtie and good liking from it, no lesse then if the crimson tainte, which should be laid vpon a Ladies lips, or right in the center of her cheekes should by some ouersight or mishap be applied to her forhead or chinne, ...
— The Arte of English Poesie • George Puttenham

... thought or admiration than the subtlety of the robber, the rage of the soldier, or the joy of the Sybarite. It seems strange, when thus definitely stated, that such a school should exist. Yet consider a little what gaps and blanks would disfigure our gallery and chamber walls, in places that we have long approached with reverence, if every picture, every statue, were removed from them, of which the subject was either the vice or the misery of mankind, portrayed without any moral purpose: consider the innumerable groups ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume II (of 3) • John Ruskin

... if represented as a poet, capable of furnishing a proper entertainment to a refined or intelligent audience, we must abate much of this eulogy. In his compositions, we regret that many irregularities, and even absurdities, should so frequently disfigure the animated and passionate scenes intermixed with them; and at the same time, we perhaps admire the more those beauties, on account of their being surrounded with such deformities. A striking peculiarity of sentiment adapted to a singular character, he frequently hits, as ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part D. - From Elizabeth to James I. • David Hume

... restorations for faded writing, but these should be avoided as far as possible, as they are liable to stain, disfigure the paper, and in the end make matters materially worse. Familiarity with particular handwritings after some practice will enable the reader to make out otherwise unintelligible words without any other assistant ...
— Disputed Handwriting • Jerome B. Lavay

... short, which they shave into several forms, and dye it also of divers colours, namely red, white and yellow. They have broad round faces with great bottle noses, yet agreeable enough, till they disfigure them by painting, and by wearing great things through their noses as big as a man's thumb and about four inches long; these are run clear through both nostrils, one end coming out by one cheek-bone, and the other end against the other; and their noses so stretched that only ...
— A Continuation of a Voyage to New Holland • William Dampier

... and he substituted a good piece for it. Satan, however, knowing that the servant had not executed his master's errand, told him so to his face, and he fetched the burnt bread and handed it to him, repeating the words of Job. Thereupon Satan returned this answer, "As the bread is burnt, so I will disfigure thy body." Job replied: "Do as thou desirest, and execute thy plan. As for me, I am ready to suffer whatever thou ...
— The Legends of the Jews Volume 1 • Louis Ginzberg

... see No trace of passion on my face?—No sign Of ugly humours, doubts, or fears, or aught That may disfigure God's intelligence? I have a grievous charge against you, sir, That may involve your life; and if you doubt The candour of my judgment, choose your time: Shall I arraign ...
— Representative Plays by American Dramatists: 1856-1911: Francesca da Rimini • George Henry Boker

... essentially aristocratic place be so ill-kept, not to say dirty? The town is no centre of industry. Tall factory chimneys do not disfigure its silhouette or blacken its walls. Handsome equipages enliven the streets. But the municipality, like certain saints of old, seem to have taken vows of perpetual uncleanliness. Alike the scavenger's broom and the dust-cart appear ...
— East of Paris - Sketches in the Gatinais, Bourbonnais, and Champagne • Matilda Betham-Edwards

... small fingers trembling as they held the cards; he saw the delicate little shoulders and the poor frail neck and chest bedizened with tawdry mock jewelry and spangles; he saw the innocent young face, whose pure beauty no soil of stage paint could disfigure, with the smile still on the parted lips, but with a patient forlornness in the sad blue eyes, as if the seeing-sense that was left, mourned always for the hearing and speaking senses that were gone—he marked ...
— Hide and Seek • Wilkie Collins

... melancholy and strikingly wary and timid. In spite of his homeless nomadic life he generally appears well nourished and clean, and he seems less subject to sores and to the skin diseases which so often disfigure the other peoples, especially the Muruts, Kayans, and ...
— The Pagan Tribes of Borneo • Charles Hose and William McDougall

... circle again was a rude square, traced out in bits of red brick alternating with fragments of broken china; the whole bounded by a little bank of dust. The water-man from the well-curb put in a plea for the small architect, saying that it was only the play of a baby and did not much disfigure my garden. ...
— Short Stories and Selections for Use in the Secondary Schools • Emilie Kip Baker

... lend me this preface, that there was much truth in it and that truth is nowhere more rare than in prefaces, but it was not possible to adopt it for two reasons: one, that my proof-reader can not abide so many capitals, maintaining that they disfigure the page, and what is a preface of the high philosophical sort worth without a profusion of capitals? Even Carlyle's columns would lose their greatest ornament if their capitals were gone. The second ...
— The End Of The World - A Love Story • Edward Eggleston

... The mark would disfigure you much less than the swelling. They would take care to draw the skin together again neatly, and you could easily arrange your hair a little. But you ought to get ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... through France's "black country," the coal-fields of the north, and the gaunt scaffolds of the mine-pits dotted the landscape here and there, as they do in Pennsylvania or the Midlands of England. They did not especially disfigure the landscape, but gave a modern note of industry and prosperity which was as marked as that of the farmyards of the peasants and high-farmers of Normandy or La Beance. France is an exceedingly wealthy, and, what is ...
— The Automobilist Abroad • M. F. (Milburg Francisco) Mansfield

... lowered, as to sink every other qualification in the single one of turning faultless periods; and a gentleman possessing this, has been adjudged fully capable of purging the annals of Spain and her quondam colonies, from the mass of modern fable and forgery which now disfigure them. Incapable of submitting Cortez' statement to the test, he assumes it to be true, even in those parts where it is impossible. Unable to detect the counterfeit in Diaz—he pronounces him the 'child of nature,' ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 18, April, 1859 - [Date last updated: August 7, 2005] • Various

... the minarets and terraces, all are crumbling: the hand of death is upon them all. But down there, in the far distance, near to that silver streak which meanders through the plains, and which is the old Nile, the advent of new times is proclaimed by the chimneys of factories, impudently high, that disfigure everything, and spout forth into the twilight thick ...
— Egypt (La Mort De Philae) • Pierre Loti

... may reasonably be apprehended that he may again abuse the marvellous likeness to Bartja, the noble son of Cyrus, in which the gods have been pleased in their mercy to fashion his form and face, and thereby bring prejudice upon the pure and righteous, we have determined to disfigure him in such wise, that in the time to come it will be a light matter to discern between this, the most worthless subject of the realm, and him who is most worthy. We therefore, by the royal Will and command, pronounce sentence, that both the ears of Gaumata be cut off, for the honor of the righteous ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... copula, concrete, and such-like logical terms are all very well from a professor to his students in a lecture room, but introduced into ordinary conversation in company they are altogether out of place. No one with good taste, unless he has fearfully forgotten it, will disfigure his talk with them, however pure and efficient a logician he may be ...
— Talkers - With Illustrations • John Bate

... relieved by the sight of the young people returning across the lawn—Fitzjocelyn with his ash stick, but owing a good deal of support to Mary's firm, well-knit arm. They showed well together: even lameness could not disfigure the grace of his leisurely movements; and the bright changefulness and delicacy of his face contrasted well with the placid nobleness of her composed expression, while her complexion was heightened and her eyes lighted by exercise, so that she was almost handsome. She certainly ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. I) - or, The Clue of Life • Charlotte M. Yonge

... end." Yet, pleasant it is for memory to treasure up in her choicest depository, a few such scenes, (these sunny spots in existence!) on which the spirit may repose, when the rough, adverse winds shake and disfigure all besides. ...
— Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey • Joseph Cottle

... went only 2-1/2 miles to the village of Marenga, a very large one, situated at the eastern edge of the bottom of the heel of the Lake. The chief is ill of a loathsome disease derived direct from the Arabs. Raised patches of scab of circular form disfigure the face and neck as well as other parts. His brother begged me to see him and administer some remedy for the same complaint. He is at a village a little way off, and though sent for, was too ill to come or to be carried. The tribe ...
— The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume I (of 2), 1866-1868 • David Livingstone

... any thing could arrest the folly of innovators and dabbling reformers, it would be the history of former attempts to effect improvements similar to theirs. With this sort of history every one would do well to acquaint himself, before he proceeds to disfigure words by placing their written elements in any new predicament. If the orthography of the English language is ever reduced to greater regularity than it now exhibits, the reformation must be wrought by those who have no disposition either to ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown

... Manning had written, on February 24, 1801, of the second volume of Lyrical Ballads: "I think 'tis utterly absurd from one end to the other. You tell me 'tis good poetry—if you mean that there is nothing puerile, nothing bombast or conceited, everything else that is so often found to disfigure poetry, I agree, but will you read it over and over again? Answer me that, Master Lamb." The three letters containing the northern ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas

... chief object of the imperial choice, they first pleaded their poverty—and then, relying on her extraordinary beauty, rejected my offers altogether. I therefore left them. [Considers awhile.] But no!——I have a better plan. [He knits his brows and matures his scheme.] I will disfigure her portrait in such a manner that when it reaches the Emperor it shall secure her being doomed to neglected seclusion. Thus I shall contrive to make her unhappy for life—Base is the man who delights not ...
— Chinese Literature • Anonymous

... from the fishing line; but both were too closely entangled for it to be done. So the Maiden pulled out her scissors again and cut off another piece of the beard. When the Dwarf saw this done he was in a great rage, and exclaimed: "You donkey! that is the way to disfigure my face. Was it not enough to cut it once, but you must now take away the best part of my fine beard? I dare not show myself again now to my own people. I wish you had run the soles off your boots before you had come here!" So saying, he took up a bag of pearls which lay among the rushes, and without ...
— The Junior Classics, Volume 1 • Willam Patten

... on his guard before several. Among the new-comers was a man who particularly interested me: his name was Jung, the same who afterwards became known under the name of Stilling. In spite of an antiquated dress, his form had something delicate about it, with a certain sturdiness. A bag-wig did not disfigure his significant and pleasing countenance. His voice was mild, without being soft and weak: it became even melodious and powerful as soon as his ardor was roused, which was very easily done. On becoming better acquainted with ...
— Autobiography • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

... you as a pattern of what a woman of your age should be. I looked up to you. I would have come to you for counsel, for advice. You were my book of wisdom. I thought you were far above all the pettinesses that disfigure other women, the women who hate us girls, who want to snatch everything from us. And now you are trying to do me more harm than any other woman has ...
— December Love • Robert Hichens

... a degree. Nothing in the world can disfigure a woman more successfully than an unbecoming hat and a cheap black veil, which imparts a dingy, leaden tint to the complexion. I had every reason to be satisfied with my disguise that afternoon, but I wasn't. Not a bit! I felt cross, and ...
— The Lady of the Basement Flat • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey

... the house of Venus. The natives of Libra are tall and well made, elegant in person, round-faced and ruddy, but plain-featured and 'inclined to eruptions that disfigure the face when old; they' (the natives) 'are of sweet disposition, just and upright in dealing.' It governs the lumbar regions, and reigns over Austria, Alsace, Savoy, Portugal, Livonia, India, Ethiopia, Lisbon, Vienna, Frankfort, Antwerp, ...
— Myths and Marvels of Astronomy • Richard A. Proctor

... New England; prefers a deep, rich, loamy soil near water, but grows in almost any situation; of more rapid growth than almost any other native tree, and formerly planted freely in ornamental grounds and on streets, but fungous diseases disfigure it so seriously, and the late frosts so often kill the young leaves that it is now seldom obtainable in nurseries; usually propagated from seed. The European plane, now largely grown in some nurseries, is a ...
— Handbook of the Trees of New England • Lorin Low Dame

... much overdone, for nature. The usual amount of common-place remarks were made, too, on the lucky diversity that was to be found in tastes, and on the happy necessity there existed of all being able to find the means to please themselves. But these were no more than the moral blotches that usually disfigure human commendation. The sentiment and the sympathies of the mass were powerfully and irresistibly enlisted in favor of the unknown maiden—feelings that were very unequivocally manifested as she drew nearer the estrade, walking timidly through a dense ...
— The Headsman - The Abbaye des Vignerons • James Fenimore Cooper

... flushed, and his keen blue eyes shone with a half angry, half impatient light. With a curious gesture of suppressed feeling he passed a hand over his clean-shaven mouth, as though to smooth the whiskers that had never been permitted to disfigure it. "It makes me feel a darn selfish, useless hulk of a man. And I'm not," he cried. "I'm neither those things. Say An-ina," he went on, more calmly, and with a light of humour in his eyes, "Don't you dare to laff at me. Don't you dare deny the things I'm saying. I won't stand for it. For ...
— The Heart of Unaga • Ridgwell Cullum

... bleach her up with sour cream and softening lotions that will not hurt the skin. There, child, go with Patty, who will get thee into something proper. But she is like her mother in this respect, common garb does not disfigure her." ...
— A Little Girl in Old Philadelphia • Amanda Minnie Douglas

... forces itself upon our mind so long as sophistry has not warped it. It follows from this, that religions vary, are changed, and may be falsified until the primitive meaning is lost. But whatever may be the faith and the rites of religions—whether fanaticism disfigure them or fetichism make a caricature of them, whether politicians use them as an ally, or the traces of the apostolate fade beneath the materialism of speculation,—there will always remain at the bottom, religion: ...
— Delsarte System of Oratory • Various

... themselves with scars, and likewise filed their teeth very sharp. They wanted sometimes to ornament me in the same manner, but I would not suffer them; hoping that I might some time be among a people who did not thus disfigure themselves, as I thought they did. At last I came to the banks of a large river, which was covered with canoes, in which the people appeared to live with their household utensils and provisions of all kinds. I was beyond measure astonished at this, as I had never before seen ...
— The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, Or Gustavus Vassa, The African - Written By Himself • Olaudah Equiano

... aggravate. injure, impair, labefy[obs3], damage, harm, hurt, shend|, scath|, scathe, spoil, mar, despoil, dilapidate, waste; overrun; ravage; pillage &c. 791. wound, stab, pierce, maim, lame, surbate|, cripple, hough[obs3], hamstring, hit between wind and water, scotch, mangle, mutilate, disfigure, blemish, deface, warp. blight, rot; corrode, erode; wear away, wear out; gnaw, gnaw at the root of; sap, mine, undermine, shake, sap the foundations of, break up; disorganize, dismantle, dismast; destroy &c. 162. ...
— Roget's Thesaurus

... that saw it were terrified, and, crying out, ran to assist Alcibiades. When he began to study, he obeyed all his other masters fairly well, but refused to learn upon the flute, as a thing unbecoming a free citizen; saying that to play upon the lute or the harp does not in any way disfigure a man's body or face, but one is hardly to be known by his most intimate friends, when playing on the flute. Besides, one who plays on the harp may speak or sing at the same time; but the use of the flute stops the mouth, intercepts ...
— The Boys' and Girls' Plutarch - Being Parts of The "Lives" of Plutarch • Plutarch

... famous lyrics, though they are free from the faults and immaturities which disfigure this, yet do not, to my mind at least, show a command over such various sources of imaginative and musical effect, or touch so thrillingly so many chords of the spirit. A mood of tender irony and wistful pathos like that of the best Elizabethan love-songs; ...
— From a Cornish Window - A New Edition • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... mind must not astonish us; it has been the growth of centuries of church ascendancy; and though some fungi now disfigure the tree, though there be much dead wood, for how much good fruit have not we to be thankful? Who, without remorse, can batter down the dead branches of an old oak, now useless, but, ah! still so beautiful, or drag out ...
— The Warden • Anthony Trollope

... since the world was created than the system of carrying wires overhead through the magnificent streets and cities in America. They spend thousands upon thousands of pounds in beautifying their cities with very fine buildings, and then they disfigure them all by carrying down the pavements the most villainous-looking telegraph posts that ever were constructed. The practice is carried to such an extent, that down Broadway in New York there are no less than six distinct lines of poles; and ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 481, March 21, 1885 • Various

... living and protracted martyrdom, and in some cases even the degradation of our common humanity. Christianity nowhere enjoins the eradication of passions and appetites, but the control of them. It would not mutilate and disfigure the body, for it is a sacred temple, to be made beautiful and attractive. On the other hand the Middle Ages strove to make the body appear repulsive, and the most loathsome forms of misery and disease to be hailed as favorite modes of penance. ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VII • John Lord

... carved, and a profile so exact that it was frequently exposed in photographers' windows, to the envy of gentlemen gazers. While Thor had once tried to mitigate his features by a beard that had been unsuccessful and had now disappeared, Claude wouldn't disfigure himself by a hair. He was as clean-shaven as a marble Apollo, ...
— The Side Of The Angels - A Novel • Basil King

... whatsoever method they are propagated, whether by seeds, suckers, layers, cuttings, &c. they commonly still continue their natural tendency in this respect. When it is, therefore, required to have any sorts to produce as few suckers as possible, not to over-run the ground, or disfigure the plants, it is proper, both at the time of separating the suckers, or planting them off from the main plants, and at the time of their final removal from the nursery, to observe if at the bottom part they shew any tendency to emit suckers, ...
— The Cook and Housekeeper's Complete and Universal Dictionary; Including a System of Modern Cookery, in all Its Various Branches, • Mary Eaton

... which is probably the effect of this custom, but I do not think that it affects the soundness of the teeth themselves. Children begin to chew betel very young, and yet their teeth are always beautifully white till pains are taken to disfigure them by filing and staining them black. To persons who are not habituated to the composition it causes a strong giddiness, astringes and excoriates the tongue and fauces, and deadens for a time the faculty of taste. During the puasa, or fast of ramadan, the Mahometans among them abstain from ...
— The History of Sumatra - Containing An Account Of The Government, Laws, Customs And - Manners Of The Native Inhabitants • William Marsden

... which were refractory or in the way, were dismembered; when a descent was cut short; when heirs were suddenly suppressed. At times one branch was defrauded to the profit of another. The Comprachicos had a genius for disfiguration which recommended them to state policy. To disfigure is better than to kill. There was, indeed, the Iron Mask, but that was a mighty measure. Europe could not be peopled with iron masks, while deformed tumblers ran about the streets without creating any surprise. Besides, ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo

... I state it, who (you please subjoin) Disfigure such a life and call it names. While, to your mind, remains another way For simple men: knowledge and power have rights, But ignorance and weakness have rights too. There needs no crucial effort to find truth If here or there or anywhere about: We ought to turn each side, try hard and see, 860 ...
— Men and Women • Robert Browning

... symmetry of form of their men; but like all the race, they made slaves of their women, imposing every burden from the cultivation of their fields to the duties of the household—the carrying of heavy burdens and the securing of fuel for winter. These labors served to disfigure and make their women to appear prematurely aged and worn, and they seemed an inferior race when ...
— The Memories of Fifty Years • William H. Sparks

... accidental or designed, are at least curious, and the following is another of somewhat a different kind:—"Steal! (says Sir Fretful) to be sure they may; and egad, serve your best thoughts as gipsies do stolen children, disfigure them, to make 'em pass for their own." [Footnote: This simile was again made use of by him in a speech upon Mr. Pitt's India Bill, which he declared to be "nothing more than a bad plagiarism on ...
— Memoirs of the Life of the Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan V1 • Thomas Moore

... the authority of the sheriffs; and to hold the court of aldermen as nought; but not on any account, in case the fulness of time should bring a general rising of 'prentices, to damage or in any way disfigure Temple Bar, which was strictly constitutional and always to be approached with reverence. Having gone over these several heads with great eloquence and force, and having further informed the novice that this society had its origin in his own teeming brain, stimulated by a swelling ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens

... Scind the evil is greater and more general from the smaller quantity of rain that falls. Egypt would, no doubt, suffer still more from the same cause, inasmuch as it has still less rain than Scind, but for the annual overflowing of the Nile. The greater part of the deserts which now disfigure the face of the globe in hot climates arise chiefly from the same causes, and they may become covered by tillage and population as man becomes wiser, more social, ...
— A Journey through the Kingdom of Oude, Volumes I & II • William Sleeman

... able to effront or enharden me; yet I have one part of modesty, which I have seldom discovered in another, that is (to speak truly), I am not so much afraid of death as ashamed thereof; 'tis the very disgrace and ignominy of our natures, that in a moment can so disfigure us, that our nearest friends, wife, and children, stand afraid, and start at us. The birds and beasts of the field, that before, in a natural fear, obeyed us, forgetting all allegiance, begin to prey upon us. This very ...
— Religio Medici, Hydriotaphia, and the Letter to a Friend • Sir Thomas Browne

... Cathedral; any more than the Duke of Norfolk thinks the lions on a tabard are like the lions at the Zoo. These things are denaturalised because they are symbols; because the extraordinary occasion must hide or even disfigure the ordinary people. Black faces were to mediaeval mummeries what carved masks were to Greek plays: it was called being "vizarded." My Rat-catcher is not sufficiently arrogant to suppose for a moment that he looks like St. George. But he is sufficiently humble to ...
— A Miscellany of Men • G. K. Chesterton

... unlawful (i.e. a military) basis. As a usurper, and one who had diverted the current of a grand national movement to selfish and personal objects, Cromwell was and will be called a tyrant; but not in the more obvious sense of the word. Such are the misleading statements which disfigure the History of England in its most important chapter. They mislead by more than a simple error of fact: those, which I have noticed last, involve a moral anachronism; for they convey images of cruelty and barbarism such as ...
— The Notebook of an English Opium-Eater • Thomas de Quincey

... the exhibition of indecent or other objectionable advertisements. The Societe pour la protection des paysages, founded in 1901, has for one of its objects the prevention of advertisements which disfigure the scenery or are otherwise ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia



Words linked to "Disfigure" :   mark, spoil, deflower, pock, disfiguration, disfigurement, pit, blemish, impair, mangle, mar, maul, vitiate, deface



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