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Effeminate   Listen
verb
Effeminate  v. t.  (past & past part. effeminated; pres. part. effeminating)  To make womanish; to make soft and delicate; to weaken. "It will not corrupt or effeminate children's minds."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Effeminate" Quotes from Famous Books



... or sloppy day, Silius will decide to go in his litter, or Roman form of the palanquin. Being a senator he may use this conveyance, otherwise at this date he could not. There are also sedan chairs, but as yet there exists a prejudice against these as being somewhat effeminate. At this decision four, six, or eight tall fellows, slaves from Cappadocia or Germany by preference, clad in crimson liveries, thrust two long poles through the rings or the coloured leather straps which are to be found on the sides of the litter, and place ...
— Life in the Roman World of Nero and St. Paul • T. G. Tucker

... the corvette. He had a smooth face with pink cheeks, whiskers curled to a nicety, and hair carefully brushed. His figure was slight and refined, and he wore lilac kid gloves, his appearance being certainly somewhat effeminate; indeed, he looked as if he had just come ...
— The Three Commanders • W.H.G. Kingston

... that the use of the Parasol passed to Rome, where it seems to have been commonly used by women, while it was the custom even for effeminate men to defend themselves from the heat by means of the Umbraculum, formed of skin or leather, and capable of being lowered at will. We find frequent reference to the Umbrella in the Roman Classics, and it appears that it was, not unlikely, a post of honour among maid-servants ...
— Umbrellas and their History • William Sangster

... person according to the fashion, if it be one that is not troublesome and uneasy for men of heroic exercises and actions. He is neat and cleanly; which makes him to be somewhat long in dressing, though not so long as many effeminate persons are. He shifts ordinarily once a day, and every time when he uses exercise, or his temper ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli

... considered the 121st Mikado of the race of Jimmu Tenno, the members of which have reigned uninterruptedly in Japan for nearly two thousand years, with varying fates and with varying power—now as wise lawgivers and mighty warriors, now for long periods as weak and effeminate rulers, emperors only in seeming, to whom almost divine homage was paid, but who were carefully freed from the burden of government and from all actual power. In comparison with this race, whose first ancestor lived ...
— The Voyage of the Vega round Asia and Europe, Volume I and Volume II • A.E. Nordenskieold

... to the spirit of it, do assume the name of 'pretty fellows'; nay, and even get new names, as you very well hint. Some of them I have heard calling to one another, as I have sat at White's and St. James's, by the names of Betty, Nelly, and so forth. You see them accost each other with effeminate airs: they have their signs and tokens like freemasons: they rail at women-kind; receive visits on their beds in gowns, and do a thousand other unintelligible prettinesses that I cannot tell what to ...
— The Tatler, Volume 1, 1899 • George A. Aitken

... had chapped hands, and nearly every one had the skin worn off the knuckle of his middle finger from resting it on the ground when he shot. You could use a knuckle-dabster of fur or cloth to rest your hand on, but it was considered effeminate, and in the excitement you were apt to forget it, anyway. Marbles were always very exciting, and were played with a clamor as incessant as that of a blackbird roost. A great many points were always coming up: whether a boy took-up or edged beyond the very place where ...
— A Boy's Town • W. D. Howells

... nations of Europe followed the standards of his brothers, Constantius, at the head of the effeminate troops of Asia, was left to sustain the weight of the Persian war. At the decease of Constantine, the throne of the East was filled by Sapor, son of Hormouz, or Hormisdas, and grandson of Narses, who, after the ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon

... Halfdan to the people as his chosen successors. The young heirs were very coldly received on this occasion, for Helge was of a somber and taciturn disposition, and inclined to the life of a priest, and Halfdan was of a weak, effeminate nature, and noted for his cowardice. Frithiof, who was present, and stood beside them, cast them both in the shade, and won many ...
— Legends of the Middle Ages - Narrated with Special Reference to Literature and Art • H.A. Guerber

... dark effeminate face—of its rare smile! The girl forgot all pride, all discretion. 'Try,' she whispered, and as his hand, stretching along the keyboard, instinctively felt for hers, for one instant—and another, and another—she ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... from a frying pan to a drawing-room suite, but where you cannot get a certain delicacy called "gundy," which Mrs. McWhae alone could make as it ought to be made, and at the remembrance thereof the very teeth begin to water. Mrs. McWhae did not sell books nor clothes, nor any other effeminate luxury of life, but she kept in stock everything that was really necessary to the life of a well-living and high-minded boy. There he could obtain marbles from the common clay, six for a halfpenny, on to the finer "streakies," six for a penny, till you came to large marbles ...
— Young Barbarians • Ian Maclaren

... admission to this hospital the patient was in poor physical health and very anaemic. He was quite slender in stature and somewhat effeminate in manners and speech. He walked with a very marked limp of the right leg, stating that he had been afflicted in this manner ever since his first attack of mental trouble at the age of nineteen. Patellar reflexes were ...
— Studies in Forensic Psychiatry • Bernard Glueck

... Beautiful girls from all parts of Asia, black-eyed Armenians, dazzlingly fair maidens from the Caucasus, delicate girls from the shores of the Ganges, luxurious Babylonian women, golden-haired Persians and the effeminate daughters of the Median plains; indeed many of the noblest Achaemenidae had given him their ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... man, Besso?' exclaimed the Invisible, starting up, and himself exhibiting a youthful countenance; fair, almost effeminate, no beard, a slight moustache, his features too delicate, but his brow finely arched, and his ...
— Tancred - Or, The New Crusade • Benjamin Disraeli

... my youth. His form, his bearing, his countenance, manifest self-confidence and happiness. Health glows in his face; his firm step is a sign of bodily vigor. His complexion, still delicate, but not insipid, has in it no effeminate softness, for air and sun have already given him the honorable stamp of his sex. His still rounded muscles are beginning to show signs of growing expressiveness. His eyes, not yet lighted with the fire of feeling, have all their natural serenity. Years of sorrow have ...
— Emile - or, Concerning Education; Extracts • Jean Jacques Rousseau

... after the same tenor as he did for the nations which had shown themselves courageous, and in addition he drew upon them the hidden parts of a woman, desiring to signify by this that the people were cowards and effeminate. ...
— The History Of Herodotus - Volume 1(of 2) • Herodotus

... of this lady who had so unkindly treated him, the noble Orsino, forsaking the sports of the field and all manly exercises in which he used to delight, passed his hours in ignoble sloth, listening to the effeminate sounds of soft music, gentle airs, and passionate love-songs; and neglecting the company of the wise and learned lords with whom he used to associate, he was now all day long conversing with young Cesario. Unmeet companion no doubt his ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles Lamb and Mary Lamb

... gracefulness that at times there seems to be undue mannerism, though every hand has its particular expression, each varying expression of the enjoyment or pain which the sense of touch can bring. And yet there was nothing effeminate or false about the painter's work: on all sides a sort of virile pride was apparent, an atmosphere of superb passionate motion, absolute concern for truth, direct study from life, conscientiousness, veritable realism, corrected and elevated by a genial strangeness of feeling and character that ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola

... tenderest youth Prince Louis Napoleon has despised the habits of an effeminate life. Although his mother allowed him a considerable sum for his amusements, these were the last things he thought of. All this money was spent in acts of beneficence, in founding schools or houses of refuge, in printing his military or political works, or in making scientific experiments. ...
— Hortense, Makers of History Series • John S. C. Abbott

... occupied the entire pavement, so that it was impossible to precede them without getting into the carriage-way, thus greatly obstructing and inconveniencing all other passengers. Lounging at a funeral pace, and leaving not the smallest opening, it was evident that 325 these effeminate animals had purposely united themselves for public annoyance. Sir Felix, irritated by this palpable outrage on decorum, stepped forward, with hasty determined stride, and coming unexpectedly and irresistibly in contact, broke at once the concatenated barrier, to the great amusement as well ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan

... which still disappointed me, because from Raphael I asked and expected more. I wished to feel his hand on my soul with a stronger grasp; these were too passionless in their serenity, and almost effeminate ...
— Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands V2 • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... between the new and the old faith in the North; how kings and queens became the foster-fathers and nursing- mothers of the Church; how the great chiefs, each a little king in himself, scorned and derided the whole scheme as altogether weak and effeminate; how the bulk of the people were sullen and suspicious, and often broke out into heathen mutiny; how kings rose and kings fell, just as they took one or the other side; and how, finally, after a contest which had lasted ...
— Popular Tales from the Norse • Sir George Webbe Dasent

... and never fell out with me in his Life but once, upon the over-roasting of a Dish of Wild-Fowl: At the same time I must own I would rather he was a Man of a rough Temper, that would treat me harshly sometimes, than of such an effeminate busy Nature in a Province that does not belong to him. Since you have given us the Character of a Wife who wears the Breeches, pray say something of a Husband that wears the Petticoat. Why should not a Female Character be as ridiculous in a Man, as a Male Character ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele

... that his foreign antagonist was an effeminate youth, who would be swept from before him at the first flourish of his tremendous weapon. But the firm and watchful attitude assumed by the young man, reminded the Swiss of the deficiency of his own unwieldy implement, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 13, - Issue 373, Supplementary Number • Various

... life, and I know the nature of the recoil in which our present impoverishment began. "Let us hear less about the mansions of the blest and more about the housing of the poor!" Men revolted against an effeminate contemplation, which had run to seed, in favor of an active philanthropy which sought the enrichment of the common life. But, my brethren, pulling a plant up is not the only way of saving it from running ...
— The World's Great Sermons, Volume 10 (of 10) • Various

... as a cold-blooded, highly schooled person, absolutely devoid of sentiment. His face was stony, his eyes were cool, even his linen partook of his own unruffled calm. He seemed by no means effeminate, yet he was one of those immaculate beings upon whom one can scarcely imagine a speck of dust or a bead of perspiration. His hair—what was left of it—was parted to a nicety, his clothes were faultless, and he had an air ...
— The Ne'er-Do-Well • Rex Beach

... moat where a carriage road connected the domain of Wyndfell Hall with the outside world, and, as he stood there in the gathering twilight, he looked a romantic figure. Tall and well-built, he took, perhaps, an almost excessive care over his dress. Yet there was nothing effeminate or foppish about ...
— From Out the Vasty Deep • Mrs. Belloc Lowndes

... weight, Amber on pipes from Stamboul glows, And, joy of souls effeminate, Phials of crystal scents enclose. Combs of all sizes, files of steel, Scissors both straight and curved as well, Of thirty different sorts, lo! brushes Both for the nails and for the tushes. Rousseau, I would remark in passing,(12) Could not conceive how serious Grimm Dared ...
— Eugene Oneguine [Onegin] - A Romance of Russian Life in Verse • Aleksandr Sergeevich Pushkin

... on silently, biting out his orders and invitations and awing the barkeeper, an effeminate country youngster with watery blue eyes and hair parted in ...
— Martin Eden • Jack London

... deprive them of the haughty charm, the ceremonious and magisterial dignity, the natural yet elaborate majesty, which are essential parts of their character. The cadences are marked by chords, which fall upon the ear like the rattling of swords drawn from their scabbards. The soft, warm, effeminate pleadings of love give place to the murmuring of deep, fall, bass voices, proceeding from manly breasts used to command; we may almost hear, in reply, the wild and distant neighings of the steeds of the desert, as they toss the long manes ...
— Life of Chopin • Franz Liszt

... fortified island of Corregidor at its entrance without a shot being fired to prevent them. And the same effects caused but a feeble resistance to be opposed to their arms, and the speedy surrender of Manilla by its priest-ridden and effeminate defenders. ...
— Recollections of Manilla and the Philippines - During 1848, 1849 and 1850 • Robert Mac Micking

... of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries were but weak and effeminate counterparts of the rude and hazardous ...
— An Introduction to the History of Western Europe • James Harvey Robinson

... scratchbrushes (Kratzbuersten) of the West do an important work. They discipline thousands of Germans ecclesiastically, as otherwise only Catholic priests are able to do. Most of them lead a rough, self-denying life. They defy effeminate, sentimental, hazy ecclesiastical Americanism. There is a firm character here. They will not always remain as rugged as they are now. The coming generation will be English and milder in many respects. The Missourians are a power in the West, where the Germans ...
— American Lutheranism - Volume 2: The United Lutheran Church (General Synod, General - Council, United Synod in the South) • Friedrich Bente

... complications, many an offshoot can be followed up directly to the parent stock. Taking, for example, the mediaeval architecture of Spain, the brilliant 'Moresco,' we find it to be a combination of the vigorous Gothic of the North with the beautiful though effeminate Saracenic—the exotic of the South. And of these latter, each is traceable, though by different lines, to the same great prototype, the Roman. For when Rome was divided, the Dome fell to the inheritance of the Eastern Empire, and the Basilica (which was only a Greek temple turned ...
— Continental Monthly, Volume 5, Issue 4 • Various

... this: that could the Sakai look into some of our houses and palaces he would make haste to return to his own forest and if he were obliged or knew how to write his impressions he would certainly commence: "The men of the West are effeminate, lazy ...
— My Friends the Savages - Notes and Observations of a Perak settler (Malay Peninsula) • Giovanni Battista Cerruti

... they had despised always!—the luxurious life of the dwellers in the plains, and the effeminate customs of the Medes—a branch of their own race who had conquered and intermarried with the Turanian, or Finnish tribes; and adopted much of their creed, as well as of their morals, throughout their vast but short-lived Median Empire. 'Soft countries,' ...
— Lectures Delivered in America in 1874 • Charles Kingsley

... suppose the man who really and truly loved me. I would like to have him come, as the breeze comes, with the odor of flowers, as the spring comes, with music and song, with all sweet and gentle influences, with beauty and grace; but he must not be effeminate." ...
— Bart Ridgeley - A Story of Northern Ohio • A. G. Riddle

... are most of them? Heroes in the fields of Venus. Heroes at a drinking-bout. Effeminate striplings, relaxed both in mind and body. But how am I running on, forgetful. Ah, when one is grown old, and conversing with an Andreas, it is easy to forget everything else. My lord, I sought you with a request, ...
— The Bravo of Venice - A Romance • M. G. Lewis

... lovers. And no boy used in those days to anoint himself below the navel; so that their bodies wore the appearance of blooming health. Nor used he to go to his lover, having made up his voice in an effeminate tone, prostituting himself with his eyes. Nor used it to be allowed when one was dining to take the head of the radish, or to snatch from their seniors dill or parsley, or to eat fish, or to giggle, or to keep the ...
— The Clouds • Aristophanes

... days of household economies, the days of the ox-chain, the sickle, and the leach-tub. All of these, some happily and some unhappily, have been swept away by the besom of Progress. But in any case life was too serious in those days for effeminate luxury, or for aught but proper pride in defending the country, and in work well done. And it is just this stern life which must be lived, sooner or later, not only in the wilds of Athabasca, but in facing everywhere the great problems of race-stability—the spectres of retribution—which ...
— Through the Mackenzie Basin - A Narrative of the Athabasca and Peace River Treaty Expedition of 1899 • Charles Mair

... "As it is," continued he, "I will carry my plans into effect, but you shall not have the honor of accompanying me. You shall remain at Susa with the women and children of the palace, and spend your time in the effeminate and ignoble pleasures suited to a spirit so mean. As for myself, I must and will carry my designs into execution. I could not, in fact, long avoid a contest with the Greeks, even if I were to adopt the cowardly ...
— Xerxes - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott

... in the same way, will rival the turkey. Rabbits are divided into four kinds, distinguished as warreners, parkers, hedgehogs, and sweethearts. The warrener, as his name implies, is a member of a subterranean community, and is less effeminate than his kindred who dwell upon the earth and have "the world at their will," and his fur is the most esteemed. After him, comes the parker, whose favourite resort is a gentleman's pleasure-ground, where he usually breeds in great numbers, and from which he frequently drives away ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton

... effeminate debauchees from the school of Aristippus, cynics from that of Zeno." —Cicero, De Natura Deor., ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne

... the Shanbâh banditti. The people, however, enjoy complete liberty. The Touaricks, though a nation of chiefs and princes, are in every sense and view a nation of freemen, and have none of those odious and effeminate vices which so darkly stain the Mahometans of the North Coast, or the Negro countries of Negroland. Every man is a tower of strength for himself, and his desert hut or tent, situate in vast solitudes, is his own inviolable ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson

... happened in this neighbourhood, one of the most sensational perhaps being the death of King Edward I, "The Hammer of the Scots," also nicknamed "Longshanks," from the length of his lower limbs, who died in 1307 on these marshes, requesting his effeminate son, the Prince of Wales, as he bade him farewell, not to bury his body until the Scots were utterly subdued, but this wish was prevented by the defeat ...
— From John O'Groats to Land's End • Robert Naylor and John Naylor

... sat down to a luxurious meal with Swerting's sons; and his wife did all she could to appease Starkad, who was also present. But Starkad could not forget the insult he had suffered, and became more and more angry with the effeminate way of living that Ingjald and his wife had introduced from Germany. In burning words, which are reproduced in the Ingjald lay, he condemned Ingjald's neglect of duty, his luxurious mode of life, and his living in friendship with those on whom he should ...
— The Relation of the Hrolfs Saga Kraka and the Bjarkarimur to Beowulf • Oscar Ludvig Olson

... watched me with a melancholy tenderness, no doubt contributed to save a life which in boyhood, and indeed to a mature age, was at the best a precarious one. My parents were respectable people, in easy circumstances. I grew up selfish and effeminate, in consequence of being so much indulged. I exhibited early a studious disposition, and it was decided to give me an accomplished education, with reference to my occupying, could I attain it at a future day, a chair ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 7, Issue 41, March, 1861 • Various

... stripling, tall for his years, was yet in the blossom of his youth. His face, which was so like his loving mother's, would have been effeminate, but for the savor of old Joe Robertson the pilot, which told in the marked nose and strong chin of the boy, but had no part in his great, clear, soul-lit eyes, or the flexible lines of his changing mouth. That mouth was now parted as if he would say more, but ...
— The Boy Patriot • Edward Sylvester Ellis

... find in John a reposeful spirit. He was content to be lowly. He knew how to trust. His spirit was gentle. He was of a deeply spiritual nature. Yet we must not think of him as weak or effeminate. Perhaps painters have helped to give this impression of him; but it is one that is not only untrue, but dishonoring. John was a man of noble strength. In his soul, under his quietness and sweetness of spirit, dwelt a mighty energy. But he was a man of love, and had learned the lesson of divine ...
— Personal Friendships of Jesus • J. R. Miller

... various aspersions of an infamous character were heaped upon him. Sextus Pompey reproached him with being an effeminate fellow; and M. Antony, with earning his adoption from his uncle by prostitution. Lucius Antony, likewise Mark's brother, charges him with pollution by Caesar; and that, for a gratification of three hundred thousand sesterces, he had submitted to ...
— The Lives Of The Twelve Caesars, Complete - To Which Are Added, His Lives Of The Grammarians, Rhetoricians, And Poets • C. Suetonius Tranquillus

... could neither rise to his feet nor lie down. Never have these wandering eyes of mine looked upon a figure more pathetic. For an instant I stood there, swaying upon my feet as though from sickness, staring at him incredulously. His thin, pale, effeminate face was rendered wonderfully piteous by the depth of suffering so plainly revealed within the great, black, appealing eyes. So peculiarly delicate were the features, so slender the fragile form, about which a frayed and rusty robe clung loosely, that for a ...
— Prisoners of Chance - The Story of What Befell Geoffrey Benteen, Borderman, - through His Love for a Lady of France • Randall Parrish

... or constructor to design coloured patterns in stone and brick, and your china-ware merchant to keep a separate body of workwomen who can paint china, but nothing else. By this division of labour, you ruin all the arts at once. The work of the Academician becomes mean and effeminate, because he is not used to treat colour on a grand scale and in rough materials; and your manufactures become base because no well educated person sets hand to them. And therefore it is necessary to understand, not merely ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin

... rehabilitate the reputation of Asurbanipal, the second-last King of Assyria, whom the Greeks called "Sardanapalus," who reigned in Nineveh six hundred years before Christ, over Ethiopia, Babylon and Egypt, and whom Lord Byron, accepting the Greek story, represented as the most effeminate and debauched monarch the ...
— William of Germany • Stanley Shaw

... equal of the Le Grande family?' I mildly suggested that I could not love such a 'scrap of a woman as Belle Upton was; and if she was in love with me, it was without a cause.' I have paid her some attention, but only to please mother and Helen. She's too effeminate, if she is so very aristocratic-not half so handsome as 'ma belle Juive.' Oh! those dreamy eyes! They haunt me day and night. I believe ...
— Leah Mordecai • Mrs. Belle Kendrick Abbott

... the East, while the first illuminators were the monks of Ireland. Ladies were the spinners, weavers, surgeons, and readers of the day; they were great at interpreting dreams, and dearly loved flowers. The gentlemen looked upon reading as an occupation quite as effeminate as sewing, war and hunting being the two main employments of the lords of creation, and gambling the chief amusement. Priests and monks were the exceptions to this rule, until Henry First introduced a taste for somewhat more liberal education. Even more respectful to letters was his ...
— One Snowy Night - Long ago at Oxford • Emily Sarah Holt

... wrestling-ground and of the stage are sometimes odious; but let us see the actor or the wrestler walking simple and upright, and we praise him. Let him use a befitting neatness, not verging toward the effeminate, but just avoiding a rustic harshness. The same measure is to be taken with your clothes as with other matters in which a ...
— The Life of Cicero - Volume II. • Anthony Trollope

... considerable portion of Sunday morning. They might then be seen in groups, combing and brushing each other's hair, which hung down very long behind, and then tying up the tails with a bit of blue cotton tape. The captain was a young man, tall and slight, with a very effeminate air, and as unlike his first lieutenant as he well could be. Still his countenance was not bad, and he smiled in a pleasant way ...
— Paddy Finn • W. H. G. Kingston

... the commission of crime as severely as if they possessed the knowledge of angels, he must suppose are too lenient. Their allowance of corn is too liberal; they ought not to wear any raiment; to sleep in their wretched huts is calculated to make them effeminate—the open field is a more suitable place for cattle; no religious instruction should be granted even orally to them! The slaves, as a body, too kindly treated! The Lord have compassion upon any of their number who shall come under the control of ...
— Thoughts on African Colonization • William Lloyd Garrison

... this for various reasons" replied Zeppa, in a soft musical voice, that one scarcely expected to issue from such a capacious chest. There was about the man an air of gentle urbanity and tenderness which might have induced a stranger to suppose him effeminate, had not his manly looks and commanding stature rendered the idea absurd. "In the first place," he continued, "my wife and I had hoped to show you some hospitality. You know we seldom have visitors to this out-of-the-way island. Then we wanted ...
— The Madman and the Pirate • R.M. Ballantyne

... always—'Well, I must write to-morrow—well, I must write when this is settled—well, I must write when I arrive at such a place;'—and, meanwhile, time slips on, till perhaps we get ashamed of writing at all. I heard a great man say once, that 'Men must have something effeminate about them to be good correspondents;' and 'faith, I think it's true ...
— Eugene Aram, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... the stakes, so soon as a t'gallant breeze enables her to strike into a canter. Thus fared it with us. First, the Englishman glided ahead, and bluffly passed on; then the Frenchman politely bade us adieu, while the old Neversink lingered behind, railing at the effeminate breeze. At one time, all three frigates were irregularly abreast, forming a diagonal line; and so near were all three, that the stately officers on the poops stiffly saluted by touching their caps, though refraining from any further civilities. At this juncture, it was a noble sight to behold those ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville

... might be less, or no cause," said Corisande. "But, when I hear of young nobles, the natural leaders of the land, going over to the Roman Catholic Church, I confess I lose heart and patience. It seems so unpatriotic, so effeminate." ...
— Lothair • Benjamin Disraeli

... me these tremendous questions with an effeminate lisp, and harangued on them with small feeble gesticulations of pale dirty ...
— The Parisians, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... now the most powerful state in the ancient world. Her legions had been trained to war by long struggles with Gauls, Spaniards, and Africans, and were superior to all other troops in discipline, experience, and valor. She now naturally turned her eyes toward the East, whose effeminate nations seemed ...
— A Smaller History of Rome • William Smith and Eugene Lawrence

... conversation; it is even considered a rather prudish thing to object to this word. Now, men, especially feeble men, hate doing things that women do. As a consequence, men who go about saying 'damn' are now regarded by their fellow-men as only a shade less effeminate than those who go about saying 'nasty' and 'horrid.' The subtler sex will not be long in noticing what has happened to this objectionable word. When they do they will, of course, forthwith take up all the others. It will be a little startling ...
— Certain Personal Matters • H. G. Wells

... left, bound for Mars, some ten days away. Suspicious interplanetary passengers were aboard: Miko and Moa, a brother and a sister of Mars; Sir Arthur Coniston, a mysterious Englishman; Ob Hahn, a Venus mystic. And small, effeminate George Prince and his sister, Anita. Love, I think, was born instantly between Anita and me. I found all too soon that Miko, the sinister giant from Mars, ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science April 1930 • Various

... is true, and a little effeminate also, that is, lacking energy, letting himself be carried away by goodness and tenderness. This weakness made him commit a fault before his departure for America. I have kept it from you until this moment, but you must know ...
— Conscience, Complete • Hector Malot

... to read "sins" but it is unclear] and excesses of their parents, especially their fathers, whilst the great majority are reaping the fruits of their own immorality in a dwarfed and ill-formed body, and effeminate appearance, weak ...
— Searchlights on Health - The Science of Eugenics • B. G. Jefferis and J. L. Nichols

... examined in their presence. While they were under examination, Zeuxippus, with his usual composure, came into the assembly, for the purpose of averting the charge from himself; yet said, that people were mistaken in supposing that so daring a murder was the act of such effeminate wretches as those who were charged with it, urging many plausible arguments to the same purpose. By which behaviour he led several to believe, that, if he were conscious of guilt, he would never have presented ...
— History of Rome, Vol III • Titus Livius

... the corner of the seat and looked into the far distance, while his face lost its changing expressions of cynicism, severity, gracious courtesy and keen scrutiny, and showed a nobility which Jean had never seen before. She noticed how it invested his somewhat effeminate ...
— Graham of Claverhouse • Ian Maclaren

... before galled with the yoke of foreign dominion, nor having ever had experience of that most miserable and detested condition of living in slavery; no long descent having as yet invested the Assyrian with a right, nor any other title being for him pretended than a strong hand; the foolish and effeminate son of a tyrannous and hated mother could very ill hold so many great princes and nations his vassals, with a power less mastering, and a mind less industrious, than his father and mother had used ...
— Raleigh • Edmund Gosse

... said, looked like a horse. The poet De Musset, one of Sand's later lovers, said her dark complexion gave reflections like bronze; therefore De Musset found her very beautiful. Chopin was—well, some say he was not effeminate; and he could break chairs when he was angry at a pupil. But they also speak of his frail, fairylike, ethereal manner, and those qualities I, for one, have never known in any non-effeminate ...
— The Love Affairs of Great Musicians, Volume 1 • Rupert Hughes

... method chosen for the punishment of these saintly innocents Nero gave one more proof of the close connection between effeminate aestheticism and sanguinary callousness. As in old days, "on that opprobrious hill," the temple of Chemosh had stood close by that of Moloch, so now we find the spoliarium beside the fornices—Lust ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 03 • Various

... resembled the very jaws of death. It was never a thought of his to show any tender feelings. His susceptibilities would have been much offended could he have been presented with the idea that he had a soft place anywhere in his heart. This reluctance to be supposed effeminate was a characteristic of the age which caused many acts of injustice to be committed in order that the reputation for stern, slashing, devil-may-careness should be established, and many a fine fellow did violence to his whole nature by the desire to ...
— The Shellback's Progress - In the Nineteenth Century • Walter Runciman

... of training; the same courage and military instinct are inherent in English, Scotch, and Irish alike, but no comparison can be made between the martial value of a regiment recruited amongst the Gurkhas of Nepal or the warlike races of northern India, and of one recruited from the effeminate peoples ...
— Forty-one years in India - From Subaltern To Commander-In-Chief • Frederick Sleigh Roberts

... respects a contrast to his contemporaries Ghiberti and Donatello, and still more to their immediate followers. He made his art as true to life as it is possible to be, without the rugged realism of Donatello or the somewhat effeminate graces of Ghiberti. The charm of his work is never impaired by scientific mannerism—that stumbling-block to critics like De Stendhal in the art of Florence; nor does it suffer from the picturesqueness of a sentimental style. How to render the beauty of nature in her most delightful moments—taking ...
— Renaissance in Italy Vol. 3 - The Fine Arts • John Addington Symonds

... finished, a gipsy youth with a chocolate complexion got up and executed a tango and a negro dance; he twisted himself in and out, thrust his abdomen forward and his arms back. He wound up with effeminate undulations of his hips and a most complicated intertwining ...
— The Quest • Pio Baroja

... convention was in fact his self-proclaimed mission. In his versification he discards rhyme almost entirely, and metre as generally understood. And in his treatment of certain passions and appetites, and of unadulterated human nature, he is at war with what he considered the conventions of an effeminate society, in which, however, he adopts a mode of utterance which many people consider equally objectionable, overlooking, as he does, the existence through all the processes of nature of a principle of reserve and concealment. Amid much that is prosaic ...
— A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature • John W. Cousin

... his most popular works are to be found. Nay, the most widely-prevailing idea of his character as a man and musician seems to have been derived from them. But the idea thus formed is an erroneous one; these dulcet, effeminate compositions illustrate only one side of the master's character, and by no means the best or most interesting. Notwithstanding such precious pearls as the two Nocturnes, Op. 37, and a few others, Chopin shows himself greater both as a man and a musician in every other class of pieces ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks

... institution of the Janizaries—a guard of soldiers, to whom was intrusted the guardianship of the sultan, and the protection of his capital. When warlike and able princes were seated on the throne, this institution proved a great support to the government; but when the reins were held by effeminate princes, the Janizaries, like the Praetorian Guards of Rome, acquired an undue ascendency, and even deposed the monarchs whom they were bound to obey. They were insolent, extortionate, and extravagant, and became a great burden to the state. At first ...
— A Modern History, From the Time of Luther to the Fall of Napoleon - For the Use of Schools and Colleges • John Lord

... while smooth on the backs and well cared for, showed when he exposed the palms the callouses of ax handling. And his face was likable, she decided, full of character, intensely masculine. In her heart every woman despises any hint of the effeminate in man. Even though she may decry what she is pleased to term the brute in man, whenever he discards the dominant, overmastering characteristics of the male she will have none of him. Miss Hazel Weir was no exception ...
— North of Fifty-Three • Bertrand W. Sinclair

... special friend; a man of excellent principles, thoroughly reliable, and held in high respect by all though not possessed of popular manners. On the other side was Lawrence Peabody, a young Boston clerk, who had spent several years behind a dry-goods counter. He was soft and effeminate, with no talent for "roughing it," and wholly unfitted for the hard work which he had undertaken. He was deeply disappointed in his first work at gold-hunting, having come out with the vague idea that he should pick up a big nugget within ...
— The Young Miner - or Tom Nelson in California • Horatio Alger, Jr.

... soldiers, and an American woman who was carefully avoiding the war office and trying to look like a buyer crossing the Channel for hats, the whistle for starting sounded rather inadequate. It was not martial. It was thin, effeminate, absurd. And so we were off, moving slowly past that line on the platform, where no one smiled; where grief and tragedy, in that one revealing moment, were written deep. I shall never forget the faces of the women as the ...
— Kings, Queens And Pawns - An American Woman at the Front • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... inefficient—failures. There was Miss Livingstone, the fiery, emotional old maid who couldn't tell the truth; old Mr. Smith, a lawyer without clients, who read Shakespeare and Dryden all day long in his dusty office; Bobbie Jones, the effeminate drug clerk, who wrote free verse and "movie" scenarios, and tended the ...
— One of Ours • Willa Cather

... betray in every page, which they stuff full of Marquess and My Lady, that their own manners are as gross as they make it their boast to show their morals. Hence, some two or three pegs higher, and not more, are such very very fine scoundrels as the Pelhams, &c.; shallow, watery-brained, ill-taught, effeminate dandies—animals destitute apparently of one touch of real manhood, or of real passion—cold, systematic, deliberate debauchees, withal—seducers, God wot! and duellists, and, above all, philosophers! How could any human being be gulled by such flimsy ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 14, No. 397, Saturday, November 7, 1829. • Various

... eyes, the handsome, clear-cut features, above all, that slow and alluring smile, appealed to the husband of the wilful Pat rather as evidences of Oriental, half-effeminate devilry than as passports to decent society. Oxford had veneered him, but scratch the veneer and one found the sandal-wood of the East, perfumed, seductive, appealing, but something to be shunned ...
— Tales of Chinatown • Sax Rohmer

... a frivolous effeminacy was become the national character. Nothing could be more popular than that work. It was thought a great consolation to us, the light people of this country (who were and are light, but who were not and are not effeminate), that we had found the causes of our misfortunes in our vices. Pythagoras could not be more pleased with his leading discovery. But whilst in that splenetic mood we amused ourselves in a sour, critical speculation, ...
— Selections from the Speeches and Writings of Edmund Burke. • Edmund Burke

... Platonic philosophy. The land is too pure to admit the sordid and the base. The road which conducts to it is too intricate to be discovered by the unskillful and stupid, and the journey is too long and laborious to be accomplished by the effeminate and the timid, by the slave of passion and the dupe of opinion, by the lover of sense and the despiser of truth. The dangers and difficulties in the undertaking are such as can be sustained by ...
— Introduction to the Philosophy and Writings of Plato • Thomas Taylor

... IV., King of Bohemia, was now emperor. It will be remembered that by marrying Mary, the eldest daughter of Louis, King of Hungary and Poland, he received Hungary as the dower of his bride. By intrigue he also succeeded in deposing his effeminate and dissolute brother, Wenceslaus, from the throne of Bohemia, and succeeded, by a new election, in placing the crown upon his own brow. Thus Sigismond wielded a three-fold scepter. He was Emperor of Germany, and King of Hungary ...
— The Empire of Austria; Its Rise and Present Power • John S. C. Abbott

... June, 1817, "Lalla Rookh" was just from the press, and Irving writes to Brevoort: "Moore's new poem is just out. I have not sent it to you, for it is dear and worthless. It is written in the most effeminate taste, and fit only to delight boarding-school girls and lads of nineteen just in their first loves. Moore should have kept to songs and epigrammatic conceits. His stream of intellect is too small to bear expansion—it spreads into mere ...
— Washington Irving • Charles Dudley Warner

... are effeminate would be incorrect. In some things, from our point of view, they undoubtedly are; in others they ...
— Life and sport in China - Second Edition • Oliver G. Ready

... of these effeminate men. That is probably where one finds the most, but it is also where they are most needed. The Journal des Debats and the Gazette de ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant

... addressing Miss Dalton?" said the stranger, as he reached her. He spoke in a very pleasant but somewhat effeminate voice, lifting his hat, ...
— The Living Link • James De Mille

... face," Ideala answered, dreamily—"a face for a bust in white marble; a face from out of the long ago—not Greek, but Roman —of the time when men were passing from a strong, simple, manly, into a luxuriously effeminate, self-indulgent stage; the face of a man who is midway between the two extremes, and a prey to the desires of both. I wish I had ...
— Ideala • Sarah Grand

... preference to the manly virtues that give dignity to human nature, a craving desire for luxurious enjoyment and sudden wealth, which renders those who seek them dependent on those who supply them; to substitute for republican simplicity and economical habits a sickly appetite for effeminate indulgence and an imitation of that reckless extravagance which impoverished and enslaved the industrious people of foreign lands, and at last to fix upon us, instead of those equal political rights the acquisition ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Martin van Buren • Martin van Buren

... forced his entrance into a vanquished city, discovered, however, some regard for the laws of humanity and religion. He encouraged his troops boldly to seize the rewards of valor, and to enrich themselves with the spoils of a wealthy and effeminate people; but he exhorted them at the same time to spare the lives of the unresisting citizens, and to respect the churches of the apostles St. Peter and St. Paul as holy and inviolable sanctuaries. Amidst the horrors of a nocturnal tumult, ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. IV (of X)—Great Britain and Ireland II • Various

... Victoria Street. There the Stores by night made him smile at the contrast, but in Ashley Gardens Westminster Cathedral made him frown. If he hated anything, it was that for which it stood. Romanism meant to him something effeminate, sneaking, monstrous.... That there should be Englishmen to build such a place positively angered him. He was not exactly a bigot or a fanatic; he would not have repealed the Emancipation Acts; and he would have said ...
— Simon Called Peter • Robert Keable

... His countenance was effeminate, fervent, and artful. The elegance of his manner was nearly Oriental. The rough soldiers grinned in amusement, or frowned in disgust. Madonna Gemma, confronted by his strangeness and complexity, neither frowned nor smiled, but looked more wan ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1920 • Various

... between glib unwisdom and coarse mockery, between violence and a pretence of moral austerity, he understands only the sorriest motives; thinks the whole thing feigned, and fancies the stranger, so effeminate, so attractive of women with whom he remains day and night, but a poor sensual creature, and the real motive of the Bacchic women the indulgence of their lust; his ridiculous old grandfather he is ready to renounce, and accuses ...
— Greek Studies: A Series of Essays • Walter Horatio Pater

... blankets and knapsacks are at night used to eke out the appointments for sleep,—the first to soften the floor to the bones of the sleepers, the second to serve for pillows. These, especially the former, are looked upon by the genuine soldier as effeminate; while the greenhorn bitterly complains of them as a very satire on ...
— Our campaign around Gettysburg • John Lockwood

... furniture were as simple as those of a common man, and his daughter the princess, when she went to and fro to Amyclae, went simply in the public omnibus. He reared chargers and hunting dogs; the rearing of chariot horses he thought effeminate. But he advised his sister Cynisca about hers, and she won the chariot race at Olympia. 'Have a king like that', says Xenophon, 'and all will be well. He will govern right; he will beat your enemies; and he will set an example of good life. If you want Virtue ...
— Five Stages of Greek Religion • Gilbert Murray

... meant foolish, ignorant, weak, effeminate. It has now come to mean exact, fine, finished, exciting admiration on account of skill or exactness; as nice proportions, nice workmanship, a nice distinction in philosophy. It is loosely and colloquially used in application to what is pleasing, ...
— Slips of Speech • John H. Bechtel

... in deference to Ralph's foolish, effeminate sentiments, he would give it up. One more heart in action, the conclusion of his brilliant paper, and then—why, he would be willing to devote the rest of his life, in company with Ralph, to ...
— A Spinner in the Sun • Myrtle Reed

... Henry mingled grovelling piety with debauchery, and made of the court at Paris a veritable Alsatia, where paid assassins who stabbed from behind and mignons who struck to the face, were part of the train of every prince. The king's minions with their insolent bearing, their extravagant and effeminate dress, their hair powdered and curled, their neck-ruffles so broad that their heads resembled the head of John the Baptist on a charger,—gambling, blaspheming swashbucklers—were hateful alike to Huguenot and Catholic. On 29th April 1578 ...
— The Story of Paris • Thomas Okey

... things; above all, taking care of their purity, and to restrain themselves from all evil. For it is good to be cut off from the lusts that are in the world; because every such lust warreth against the spirit: and neither fornicators, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, shall inherit the kingdom of God; nor they who do such things ...
— The Forbidden Gospels and Epistles, Complete • Archbishop Wake

... Greek satire is mainly derived from its surpassing distinction in two domains—in the comico-satiric drama of Aristophanes, and in the Beast Fables of 'AEsop'. In later Greek literature it lost its robustness and became trivial and effeminate through expending ...
— English Satires • Various

... owes to it? What more would they have him do? Must he practice it himself? He has no part to play, he is not a comedian."—The sciences, the fine arts, the arts of luxury, philosophy, literature, all this serve only to effeminate and distract the mind; all that is only made for the small crowd of brilliant and noisy insects buzzing around the summits of society and sucking away all public substance.—As regards the sciences, but one is important, that of our duties, ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 1 (of 6) - The Ancient Regime • Hippolyte A. Taine

... lingered upon the other's features, seeking some resemblance in them, also. To his surprise he found absolutely none, the high, blue-veined forehead beneath the chestnut hair, the straight, delicate nose; the sensitive, almost effeminate curve of the mouth, must have descended from the "worthless drab" whom he had beheld in the severe white light of Fletcher's scorn. For the first time it occurred to Carraway that the illumination had ...
— The Deliverance; A Romance of the Virginia Tobacco Fields • Ellen Glasgow

... Cambridge as a pensioner of Peterhouse, and the two students went through their terms together, though the poet at the time took no degree. There was probably little enough in common between the shy, fastidious, slightly effeminate pensioner of Peterhouse, and a scholar of Jesus, whose chief friend and comrade was a man like Hall; and no close intimacy between the two men, if they had come across each other, would have been very likely to arise. But it does not appear ...
— Sterne • H.D. Traill

... conjecture, many an attempt at reasoning as he sought sleep that was far away. Again and again there rose before him the vision of two men in an open buggy, with a singing, apparently maudlin person between them whom Ohadi believed to be an effeminate-voiced Swede; in reality, only a woman. And why had they adopted the expedient? Why had not Larsen been with them in reality? Fairchild avoided the obvious conclusion and turned to other thoughts, to Rodaine with his squint eyes, to Crazy ...
— The Cross-Cut • Courtney Ryley Cooper

... Tea are not all the Mischiefs it occasions. Did it cause none of them, but were it entirely wholesome, as Balm or Mint, it were yet Mischief enough to have our whole Populace used to sip warm Water in a mincing, effeminate Manner, once or twice every Day; which hot Water must be supped out of a nice Tea-Cup, sweatened with Sugar, biting a Bit of nice thin Bread and Butter between Whiles. This mocks the strong Appetite, relaxes ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 30, April, 1860 • Various

... utter uselessness of the Bashi-Bazouks. The very sight of them excites my ire. I never saw such a useless, expensive set. I hate (there is no other word for it) these Arabs; and I like the Blacks—patient, enduring, and friendly, as much as the Arab is cowardly, cruel, and effeminate. All the misery is due to these Arab and Circassian Pashas and authorities. I would not stay a day here for these wretched creatures, but I would give my life ...
— General Gordon - A Christian Hero • Seton Churchill

... of their wealth from the rapacious hands of the King. This led to a strict and severe investigation of their property. At this investigation was present a wicked and merciless Jew, who rebuked the Christians for their tenderness to his brethren, and reproached the King's officers as gentle and effeminate. He gnashed his teeth, and, as each Jew appeared, declared that he could afford to pay twice as much as was exacted. Though he lied, he was useful in betraying their secret ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume VI. • Various

... man for a boss; small of frame, with features almost effeminate, and with anything but a robust constitution, he did a prodigious amount ...
— Philip Dru: Administrator • Edward Mandell House

... reasonable profit on your investment. Besides, keeping the books and attending to the correspondence would supply you with a proper occupation. What might develop later on, we'll not discuss at present. But you would have to change, for I hate effeminate men.' I had jumped up and seized my hat. 'What's the matter? Where are you going?' she asked. 'To countermand everything!' I said breathlessly. 'Countermand what?' I then told her of my plan for the establishment of a copying and ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VI. • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke

... was presently forgot. A young Roman, wonderfully beautiful, Dion says, yet singularly effeminate; a youth who could barely carry a shield; who slept between rose-leaves and lilies; who was an artist withal; a poet who had written lines that Martial might have mistaken for his own, Cejonius Verus by name, succeeded the ...
— Imperial Purple • Edgar Saltus

... forgiveness, were called to wrestle with a race whose religion was one of blood, and whose beatitude was to be in proportion to the slaughter they made while on earth. The Northman hated Christianity as a rival religion, and despised it as an effeminate one. He was the soldier of Odin, the elect of Valhalla; and he felt that the offering most acceptable to his sanguinary gods was the blood of those religionists who denied their existence and execrated their revelation. The points of attack, ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee

... that is at all kindred to the spirit of a perfect woman?—any thing suited to her nature? Has it ever seemed as if woman were in any respect the care of the gods? In this, Christianity differs from all former religions and philosophies. It is feminine. I do not mean by that, weak or effeminate. But in its gentleness, in the suavity of its tone, in the humanity of its doctrines, in the deep love it breathes toward all of human kind, in the high rank it assigns to the virtues which are peculiarly those of woman, in these things ...
— Zenobia - or, The Fall of Palmyra • William Ware

... to a man of apprehensive conscience, would mingle the misery of an atrocious criminality with the misery of a bloody calamity. You are called upon, by the case supposed, possibly to die, but to die at the very moment when, by any even partial failure or effeminate collapse of your energies, you will be self-denounced as a murderer. You had but the twinkling of an eye for your effort, and that effort might have been unavailing; but to have risen to the level of such an effort would have rescued you, though not from dying, yet from dying as a traitor to your ...
— The English Mail-Coach and Joan of Arc • Thomas de Quincey

... Anita was being made ready for burial. George Prince was still in his stateroom. Glutz, effeminate little hairdresser, who waxed rich acting as beauty doctor for the women passengers, and who, in his youth, had been an undertaker, had gone with Dr. Frank to prepare ...
— Brigands of the Moon • Ray Cummings

... step into it. But something within him, something that seemed obscure, hesitated, was perhaps afraid. In his restless mood, in his strong excitement, he wanted to crush that thing down, to stifle its voice. Caution seemed to him almost effeminate just then. He remembered how one day Charmian had said to him, after an argument about psychology: "Really, Mr. Heath, whatever you may say, your strongest instinct is a selfish one, the ...
— The Way of Ambition • Robert Hichens

... our cities. For they spoil the bodies of workers and superintendents alike, compelling them to live sedentary indoor lives, and in some cases even to pass their days by the fire. And as their bodies become effeminate, so do their souls also grow less robust. Besides this, in such trades one has no leisure to devote to the care of one's friends or of one's city. So that those who engage in them are thought to be bad backers of their friends ...
— The Greek View of Life • Goldsworthy Lowes Dickinson

... those who are wealthy enough to purchase and maintain such precious merchandise. These maidens are very honourably and virtuously instructed to fondle and caress men; are taught dances of a very polite and effeminate kind; and how to heighten by the most voluptuous artifices the pleasures of their disdainful masters for whom they are designed. These unhappy creatures repeat their lesson to their mothers, in the same manner as little girls among ...
— Letters on England • Voltaire

... distaste for her position, and trifles with the ring, which she has strung upon her handkerchief, while a brisk and well-built young lawyer, who trims a pen, bends towards her with a whispered compliment. Meantime the Viscount—a frail, effeminate-looking figure, holding an open snuff-box, from which he affectedly lifts a pinch—turns from his fiancee with a smirk of complacent foppery towards a pier-glass at his side. His wide-cuffed coat is light blue, his vest is loaded with embroidery. He wears an enormous solitaire, and ...
— Great Pictures, As Seen and Described by Famous Writers • Esther Singleton

... perturbation: and a mind free from these feelings renders men completely happy: whereas a mind disordered and drawn off from right and unerring reason, loses at once, not only its resolution, but its health.—Therefore the thoughts and declarations of the Peripatetics are soft and effeminate, for they say that the mind must necessarily be agitated, but at the same time they lay down certain bounds beyond which that agitation is not to proceed. And do you set bounds to vice? or is it novice to disobey reason? does not reason sufficiently declare, that there is no real good ...
— The Academic Questions • M. T. Cicero

... The most famous incidents of his life are the visit that Ben Jonson paid to him, and the much discussed notes of that visit which Drummond left in manuscript. It would appear, on the whole, that Drummond was an example of a well-known type of cultivated dilettante, rather effeminate, equally unable to appreciate Jonson's boisterous ways and to show open offence at them, and in the same way equally disinclined to take the popular side and to endure risk and loss in defending his principles. He shows better in his verse. His sonnets are of the true ...
— A History of English Literature - Elizabethan Literature • George Saintsbury

... the privilege to eat at home, and so to come without appetite to the public repast: they made a point of it to observe any one that did not eat and drink with them, and to reproach him as an intemperate and effeminate person that was sick of the ...
— Ideal Commonwealths • Various

... the exterior graces of his person were such, that nature perhaps never formed anything more complete: His face was extremely handsome; and yet it was a manly face, neither inanimate nor effeminate; each feature having its beauty and peculiar delicacy: He had a wonderful genius for every sort of exercise, an engaging aspect, and an air of grandeur: in a word, he possessed every personal advantage; but then he was greatly deficient in mental accomplishments. He had no sentiments but such ...
— The Memoirs of Count Grammont, Complete • Anthony Hamilton

... steamer numbered thirty-five people, and besides these there were some twenty-five other passengers, among them being Prof. Wm. Miller, the wrestler, whose name and fame are well known to athletes the world over, and who in company with his wife was bound for Australia. Sir Jas. Willoughby, an effeminate-looking Englishman of the dude variety, whose weakness for cigarettes and champagne soon became known to us, and who was doing a bit of a tour for his own pleasure; Major General Strange, of the English army, a tall, awkward-looking man, with eagle eyes, gray beard ...
— A Ball Player's Career - Being the Personal Experiences and Reminiscensces of Adrian C. Anson • Adrian C. Anson

... the latter were ignorant of music. But the Quakers would argue, that if music had any effect in the civilization, this effect would be seen in the manners, and not in the morals of mankind. Musical Italians are esteemed a soft and effeminate, but they are generally reputed a depraved people. Music, in short, though it breathes soft influences, cannot yet breathe morality into the mind. It may do to soften savages, but a christian community, in the opinion of the Quakers, can admit of no better civilization, than ...
— A Portraiture of Quakerism, Volume I (of 3) • Thomas Clarkson

... discovery of the false position assumed by this young man, Louise seemed to like his attentions and to approve his evident admiration for her. His ways might be affected and effeminate and his conversational powers indifferent; but his bandaged wrist was a constant reminder to all the nieces that he possessed courage and ready wit, and it was but natural that he became more interesting to them because just now he was to an extent helpless, and his crippled hand had been acquired ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces Abroad • Edith Van Dyne

... emasculating influences of the city, until the superior virility, stamina and sturdy qualities entirely disappear in two or three generations of city life. Our city civilization is always in a process of decay, and would, in a few generations, become emasculated and effeminate were it not for the pure, crystal stream of country youth flowing steadily into and purifying the muddy, devitalized stream of city life. It would soon become so foul and degenerate as to threaten the physical and moral health of ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden

... finely cut, their bases at the same time running together in strange complexity and their capitals diminishing and disappearing. Some of their conditions, which, in their rich striation, resemble crystals of beryl, are very massy and grand; others, meagre, harsh, or effeminate in themselves, are redeemed by richness and boldness of decoration; and I have long had it in my mind to reason out the entire harmony of this French Flamboyant system, and fix its types and possible power. But this inquiry ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume I (of 3) • John Ruskin

... smallish man, with a suggestion of something dapper about him even in his present unkempt disorder; he might have been handsome, in a weakly effeminate way, had not Nature or some mishap given his face a twist that skewed it all to one side, drawing all of his features out of focus, like a reflection viewed in a flawed mirror. He was no heavier than the woman and hardly as tall. ...
— The Escape of Mr. Trimm - His Plight and other Plights • Irvin S. Cobb

... to death. Albinos are valued, though their colour is not admired. If death occurs in a natural manner, the body is usually either buried in the village or outside. A large portion of the negro races affect nudity, despising clothing as effeminate; but these are chiefly the more boisterous roving pastorals, who are too lazy either to grow cotton or strip the trees of their bark. Their young women go naked; but the mothers suspend a little tail both before and behind. As the hair of the negro will not grow long, a barber might be ...
— The Discovery of the Source of the Nile • John Hanning Speke

... at the temptations of selfishness, effeminate indulgence, and sordid gain! He feels within himself that he was born for better things. His elders, and those who have already been tamed down and emasculated by the corrupt commerce of the world, tell him, "All this is the rhapsody of youth, fostered by inexperience; ...
— Thoughts on Man - His Nature, Productions and Discoveries, Interspersed with - Some Particulars Respecting the Author • William Godwin

... to embark on a correspondence with him," Uncle Henry exclaimed petulantly. "I know the man by reputation. A bigoted Ritualist. A Romanizer of the worst type. He'll only fill your head with a lot of effeminate nonsense, and that at a time when it's particularly necessary for you to concentrate upon your work. Don't forget that this is your last year of school. I advise you to make the most ...
— The Altar Steps • Compton MacKenzie

... it was rather bald," he replied. "You see, few people really understand Bones. I thought, the first time I saw him, that he was a fool. I was wrong. Then I thought he was effeminate. I was wrong again, for he has played the man whenever he was called upon to do so. Bones is one of those rare creatures—a man with all the moral equipment of ...
— The Keepers of the King's Peace • Edgar Wallace

... There are, however, about forty words ending in ate, which, without difference of form, are either verbs or adjectives; as, aggregate, animate, appropriate, articulate, aspirate, associate, complicate, confederate, consummate, deliberate, desolate, effeminate, elate, incarnate, intimate, legitimate, moderate, ordinate, precipitate, prostrate, regenerate, reprobate, separate, sophisticate, subordinate. This class of adjectives seems to be lessening. The participials in ed, are superseding some ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown

... avoiding her gaze. There could be no doubt that the two faces thus confronting one another belonged to brother and sister, yet of the two his was the more effeminate, and its very beauty (he was an excessively handsome lad, albeit diminutively built) seemed to oppose itself to hers and caricature it, being so like yet ...
— Sir John Constantine • Prosper Paleologus Constantine

... people that shall have a tangible, separate existence of its own; and where am I to look for it? Not in Hayti; for in Hayti they had nothing to start with. A stream cannot rise above its fountain. The race that formed the character of the Haytiens was a worn-out, effeminate one; and, of course, the subject race will be centuries ...
— Uncle Tom's Cabin • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... the smell of the room. The sight of drunken people upsets him; and as to beating anyone before him, you musn't dare to do it. Then he won't enter the service; his health is delicate, forsooth! Bah! What an effeminate creature!—and all because his head is full of Voltaire!" The old man particularly disliked Voltaire, and also the "infidel" Diderot, although he had never read a word of their works. Reading was not ...
— Liza - "A nest of nobles" • Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev

... quality of which, as well as quantity, depend upon the wealth of the wearer. The sleeves of their dresses are wide and long. In spite of their thick mustachios and long flowing beards, they have the appearance of a very effeminate people. ...
— Borneo and the Indian Archipelago - with drawings of costume and scenery • Frank S. Marryat

... at once," said the more handsomely dressed visitor in a thin and effeminate voice. "What can a man do when the boys pelt him with dirt from a safe hiding-place, ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... more serious view of the affair, and, having sandbagged the cellar windows, posted notices stating that, in the event of shelling, customers could continue business in the cellar. And this was in a nation that we have always looked upon as effeminate ...
— From the St. Lawrence to the Yser with the 1st Canadian brigade • Frederic C. Curry

... condemnation:—"Of these three principal writers of amorous tales. Heliodorus has treated the subject with due gravity and decorum. Iamblichus is not so unexceptionable on these points; and Achilles Tatius is still worse, in his eight books of Clitophon and Leucippe, the very diction of which is soft and effeminate, as if intended to relax the vigour of the reader's mind." This last denunciation of the patriarch, however, is somewhat too sweeping and indiscriminate, since, though some passages are certainly ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXIX. January, 1844. Vol. LV. • Various

... I could not! But wherefore waste I precious hours with thee! Thou art her darling mischief, her chief engine, Antony's other fate. Go, tell thy queen, Ventidius is arrived, to end her charms. Let your Egyptian timbrels play alone, Nor mix effeminate sounds with Roman trumpets, You dare not fight for Antony; go pray And keep your cowards' holiday in ...
— All for Love • John Dryden

... led him to suppose that they were brothers. The other two were considerably younger—they seemed to Nehal Singh almost boys, though in all probability they were his own age. One especially interested him. He was a good-looking young fellow, with pleasant if somewhat effeminate features and a healthy skin bronzed with the Indian sun. He sat directly opposite where Nehal Singh stood in the shadow, and when he shifted his cards, as he often did in a restless, uneasy way, he gave the unseen watcher an opportunity to study every ...
— The Native Born - or, The Rajah's People • I. A. R. Wylie

... and receive therefrom the reward of their unrighteousness. Unreasonable brutes, Peter calls them, as though they had within them not a spark of anything that smacked of spirit, performed no spiritual duty that they should do, but lived like the fool, and became effeminate through a carnal life. But in that he says they are naturally born to be taken and destroyed, it may be understood in a two-fold manner: first, as of those that take and destroy, such as the wolf, ...
— The Epistles of St. Peter and St. Jude Preached and Explained • Martin Luther

... of the world, a courtier, more or less a man of affairs, employed by Edward III. in foreign business of state: you cannot mistake him for an effeminate or sentimental man! He does not anywhere, so far as I remember, say that ever he cried over a flower, but he shows a delight in some flowers so delicate and deep that it must have a source profounder than that ...
— What's Mine's Mine • George MacDonald

... mistake me," pleaded Clym. "All this was very depressing. But not so depressing as something I next perceived—that my business was the idlest, vainest, most effeminate business that ever a man could be put to. That decided me: I would give it up and try to follow some rational occupation among the people I knew best, and to whom I could be of most use. I have come home; and this is how I mean to carry out my plan. I shall keep a school as near ...
— The Return of the Native • Thomas Hardy

... bold Diomede began. Atrides! foremost of the Chiefs I rise To contravert thy purpose ill-conceived, And with such freedom as the laws, O King! Of consultation and debate allow. 40 Hear patient. Thou hast been thyself the first Who e'er reproach'd me in the public ear As one effeminate and slow to fight; How truly, let both young and old decide. The son of wily Saturn hath to thee 45 Given, and refused; he placed thee high in power, Gave thee to sway the sceptre o'er us all, But courage gave thee not, his noblest gift.[2] Art thou in truth ...
— The Iliad of Homer - Translated into English Blank Verse • Homer

... this that music was considered rather a beautiful plaything or a mere colour. By itself it was considered effeminate; therefore the early Greeks always had the flute player accompanied by a singer, and the voice was always used with the lyre to prevent the latter appealing directly to the senses. The dance was corrected in the same manner; for when we speak of Greek dances, we always mean choric dances. Perhaps ...
— Critical & Historical Essays - Lectures delivered at Columbia University • Edward MacDowell

... that Donohue," a rangy scout of the high school was saying to a companion wearing glasses, and looking a bit effeminate, though evidently quite fond of sport; "he acts as though he might be as cool as a cucumber. Those Harmony fellows in the crowd will do their level best to faze him, if ever he gets in a tight corner, and lots of things are liable to happen ...
— Jack Winters' Baseball Team - Or, The Rivals of the Diamond • Mark Overton



Words linked to "Effeminate" :   unmanful, epicene, unmanly, sissyish, sissified, cissy, sissy, effeminateness, unmanlike



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