"Opprobrious" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... day. They could not well endure that one of so humble and even ignominious birth, on the mother's side, should be the heir of so illustrious a line as the great dukes of Normandy. William's enemies were accustomed to designate him by opprobrious epithets, derived from the circumstances of his birth. Though he was patient and enduring, and often very generous in forgiving other injuries, these insults to the memory of his mother always stung him very deeply, and awakened the ...
— William the Conqueror - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
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... intelligent and attentive hearers, Miller's name was seldom mentioned by the religious press except by way of ridicule or denunciation. The careless and ungodly, emboldened by the position of religious teachers, resorted to opprobrious epithets, to base and blasphemous witticisms, in their efforts to heap contumely upon him and his work. The gray-headed man who had left a comfortable home to travel at his own expense from city to city, from town to town, toiling ...
— The Great Controversy Between Christ and Satan • Ellen G. White
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... concerning certain idle complaints made by them against our mariners. I found him and the president of their factory very impatient, calling us insolent English, threatening that our pride would have a fall, with many other disgraceful and opprobrious words.[134] Such was the entertainment we received from that boorish general, named Garrat Reynes, in his own house. He had formerly shewn the like or worse to Mr Ball, on going aboard his ship at Banda: And four of our men, who took passage with him from thence to Cambello, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume IX. • Robert Kerr
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... a refuge from the crassness of his times, Freiligrath usually chose exotic themes for his poems, frequently African in nature, as, for instance, in his "Loewenritt." The allusion to the mule (in German "camel," which bears the same opprobrious meaning as "ass") gives us reason to believe that Heine's preface must not be taken too seriously and that his opinion of the poet Freiligrath was by no means ...
— Atta Troll • Heinrich Heine
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... Irene Paul's opprobrious epithet, which Adelle was beginning to comprehend. She winced, but ...
— Clark's Field • Robert Herrick
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... representations of solitary happiness, however opprobrious to human nature, have so far spread their influence over the world, that almost every man delights his imagination with the hopes of obtaining some time an opportunity of retreat. Many, indeed, who enjoy retreat ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume IV: The Adventurer; The Idler • Samuel Johnson
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... was his equal, they were again ready to proceed with the business of the enterprise. Richard was not content with the homage which his companions could render without any sacrifice of self-respect, but he exacted the right not only to command them, but also to be indulged in the use of opprobrious epithets. ...
— In School and Out - or, The Conquest of Richard Grant. • Oliver Optic
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... opposed to respect, is a sin that is never anything but mortal. It refuses honor, belittles dignity and considers parents beneath esteem. It is contempt to laugh at, to mock, to gibe and insult parents; it is contempt to call them vile, opprobrious names, to tell of their faults; it is contempt, and the height of contempt, to defy them, to curse them or to strike them. It is bad enough when this sort of thing is directed against an equal; but when ...
— Explanation of Catholic Morals - A Concise, Reasoned, and Popular Exposition of Catholic Morals • John H. Stapleton
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... entire certainty. And, in so far as these ecclesiastical persons can be justified in their old-established custom (which many nowadays think more honoured in the breach than the observance) of using opprobrious names to those who differ from them, I fully admit their right to call me and those who think with me "Infidels"; all I have ventured to urge is that they must not expect us to speak of ...
— Collected Essays, Volume V - Science and Christian Tradition: Essays • T. H. Huxley
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... and strengthen her too late on that Wednesday afternoon, they thrust another 'witch' into her cell, bidding the two, with opprobrious words, keep company together. The new comer fell prostrate with the push given her from without; and Lois, not recognizing anything but an old ragged woman lying helpless on her face on the ground, lifted her up; and lo! it was Nattee—dirty, filthy indeed, mud-pelted, stone-bruised, ...
— Curious, if True - Strange Tales • Elizabeth Gaskell
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... where be yer? Come right in here, you loafin' niggah." This was Nan's most affectionate nickname for her husband; it was always accompanied with a glance of proud admiration, which was the key to the seemingly opprobrious epithet, and revealed that all it really meant was a complacent satisfaction in her breast that her husband was in a position to loaf if he liked to,—a gentleman of leisure and dignity, so to speak, subject to no orders ...
— Hetty's Strange History • Helen Jackson
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... desperation I told him that I was not sure as yet that I had a soul to save; when I had, I would consider his propositions. Whereupon he went his way and reported that I was a Universalist, that being in Bellingham the most opprobrious of names, in consequence of an ancient feud between the Baptist and Universalist churches. The Baptists had come off conquerers; the name, however, remained; and an indefinable name of reproach is a convenient thing to ...
— Confessions of Boyhood • John Albee
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... inclined to regard weakness with sympathy, instead of with the contempt that it generally deserves. In the language of the prize ring, the pugilist who lies down while he can yet stand and see is called a "quitter." It would be harsh and unjust to apply to all suicides this opprobrious name; but there can be little doubt, I think, that the majority of them are weaklings who give up and lie down while they ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol 31, No 2, June 1908 • Various
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... Christians. But the Gentile riffraff, attracted by the gracious promises of enjoying in the world to come the felicities denied them in this, eagerly attached themselves to the new sect, which rapidly increased in numbers, and its votaries, glorying in the opprobrious epithet of Ebionites, or needy ones, made themselves so obnoxious by their aggression and turbulent dispositions that, barely tolerated by the Government and condemned by the cultured adherents to the established religion, many ...
— Astral Worship • J. H. Hill
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... bricks, clubs, and bullets, the selfish laborer finds it necessary to express his feelings in speech. Just as the peaceful country-dweller calls the sea-rover a "pirate," and the stout burgher calls the man who breaks into his strong-box a "robber," so the selfish laborer applies the opprobrious epithet a "scab" to the laborer who takes from him food and shelter by being more generous in the disposal of his labor power. The sentimental connotation of "scab" is as terrific as that of "traitor" or "Judas," and a sentimental definition would be as deep and varied ...
— War of the Classes • Jack London
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... finger. A crowd of libellers assailed him with much more than political hatred. Boundless rapacity and corruption were laid to his charge. He was represented as selling all the places in the revenue department for three years' purchase. The opprobrious nickname of Filcher was fastened on him. His luxury, it was said, was not less inordinate than his avarice. There was indeed an attempt made at this time to raise against the leading Whig politicians and their allies, the great moneyed ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 5 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
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... Act Matthew is sent to reconnoitre, when he learns that the lady's hand is already engaged, and that she has not even read Ralph's letter. Returning, he tells Ralph she will have nothing to do with him, and how she abuses him with opprobrious terms; which puts him to dying for love right on the spot; and Matthew, to help on the joke, calls in the parish clerk and others to sing a mock requiem. As Ralph does not succeed in dying, Matthew counsels ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson
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... Rome, and effected no more than what his own pre- decessors desired and essayed in ages past, and it was conceived the state of Venice would have attempted in our days. It is as uncharitable a point in us to fall upon those popular scurrilities and opprobrious scoffs of the Bishop of Rome, to whom, as a temporal prince, we owe the duty of good language. I confess there is a cause of passion between us: by his sentence I stand excommunicated; heretic ...
— Religio Medici, Hydriotaphia, and the Letter to a Friend • Sir Thomas Browne
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... precipitate some one else, in order that I may benefit by the example." The king laughed at his wit, and spared his life.—Nor is this tale without a spice of humour: An astrologer entered his house and finding a stranger in company with his wife abused him, and called him such opprobrious names that a quarrel and strife ensued. A shrewd man, being informed of this, said to the astrologer: "What do you know of the heavenly bodies, when you cannot tell what goes on in your own house?"[10]—Last, and perhaps best of all, is this one: ...
— Flowers from a Persian Garden and Other Papers • W. A. Clouston
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... dirt-pie manufacturers were presently succeeded by followers of a larger growth, and a number of lads and girls from the factory being let loose at this hour, joined the mob, and began laughing, jeering, hooting, and calling opprobrious names at the Frenchman. Some cried out "Frenchy! Frenchy!" some exclaimed "Frogs!" one asked for a lock of his hair, which was long and in richly-flowing ringlets; and at length the poor artist began to perceive that he was an object of derision rather than ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
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... temper, and so impatient of an injury, even from Sir John Falstaff his captain, and a knight, that he not only disobeyed his commands about carrying a letter to Mrs. Page, but returned him an answer as full of contumely, and in as opprobrious terms, as he ...
— The Dramatic Works of John Dryden Vol. I. - With a Life of the Author • Sir Walter Scott
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... astonish the world. The King of France, having driven John from all he held on the continent, gladly saw religion itself invite him to farther conquests. He summoned all his vassals, under the penalty of felony, and the opprobrious name of culvertage,[82] (a name of all things dreaded by both nations,) to attend in this expedition; and such force had this threat, and the hope of plunder in England, that a very great army was in a short time assembled. A ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VII. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
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... noon into wordy conflict with his engineer. The quarrel, suppressed for the time, flamed out afresh in the afternoon, and, unfortunately, at a moment when Sir Elphinstone, as chairman, was introducing the star orator from London. Opprobrious words had reached the ears of the company gathered on the platform, and Sir Elphinstone had interrupted his remarks about Bucking Up and Thinking Imperially to send a policeman through the crowd with instructions ...
— True Tilda • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
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... consummate hypocrite!" said Old Hurricane, passing on to the examination of his favorite horses, one of which, the swiftest in the stud, he found galled on the shoulders. Whereupon he flew into a towering passion, abusing his unfortunate groom by every opprobrious epithet blind fury could suggest, ordering him, as he valued whole bones, to vacate the stable instantly, and never dare to set foot on his premises again as he valued his life, an order which the man meekly accepted and immediately disobeyed, ...
— Capitola's Peril - A Sequel to 'The Hidden Hand' • Mrs. E.D.E.N. Southworth
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... of July 1673 Forbes of Tolquhon was fined by the Lords in 40 lib. Scots for opprobrious speaches to Mr. David Thoires, advocat, ...
— Publications of the Scottish History Society, Vol. 36 • Sir John Lauder
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... chooses to have a feast of disgrace, (if I may say so,) to have a riot of infamy, served up to him day by day for a course of years, in every species of reproach that could be given by his colleagues, and by the Court of Directors, "from whom," he says, "I received nothing but opprobrious and disgraceful epithets," and he says "that his predecessors possessed more of their confidence than he had." Yet for years he lay down in that sty of disgrace, fattening in it, feeding upon that offal of disgrace and excrement, upon everything that could be disgustful to the ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. X. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
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... and to the bishop of Rome, mayntenour of those enormities, to procure the abrogation of the sayd lawes, whereby arose moch trouble in this said realme, and that his dethe, which they untruely called martyrdome, happened upon a reskewe by him made, and that, as it is written, he gave opprobrious wordes to the gentyllmen, whiche than counsayled hym to leave his stubbernesse, and to avoyde the commocion of the people, rysen up for that rescue. And he not only callyd the one of them bawde, but also toke Tracy ...
— Primitive Christian Worship • James Endell Tyler
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... left!" singsonged Racey from the corner of the building, and set the thumb of one hand to his nose and twiddled opprobrious fingers at his comrade. "You wanna be a li'l bit quicker when you go to souse me, Swing. Yo're too slow, a lot too slow. Yep. Now I wouldn't go for to fling that pail at me, Swing. You might bust it, and yore ...
— The Heart of the Range • William Patterson White
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... inflamed them to fury. Their houses, their purses, their pikes, were at the command of the representatives of the nation. London was in arms all night. The next day the shops were closed; the streets were filled with immense crowds; the multitude pressed round the King's coach, and insulted him with opprobrious cries. The House of Commons, in the meantime, appointed a committee to sit in the city, for the purpose of inquiring into the circumstances of ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
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... heaven well-pleased return'd, And in the mansion of Jove AEgis[20]-armed Arriving, mingled with her kindred Gods. But though from violence, yet not from words 275 Abstained Achilles, but with bitter taunt Opprobrious, his antagonist reproached. Oh charged with wine, in steadfastness of face Dog unabashed, and yet at heart a deer! Thou never, when the troops have taken arms, 280 Hast dared to take thine also; never thou Associate with Achaia's Chiefs, ...
— The Iliad of Homer - Translated into English Blank Verse • Homer
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... had at that time of serving my country, without the least suspicion that my only reward would be contempt and opprobrious names! To refuse the offer of the Spanish nation was the act of a blockhead of which I should not ...
— American Merchant Ships and Sailors • Willis J. Abbot
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... is an overstatement. A few usually persist in thinking as they did before; or in altering their convictions in obedience to reason instead of authority, as our own people do; but they are at once assailed with the most opprobrious names, accused of treason and all manner of crimes, pelted with mud and stones and in some instances deprived of their noses and ears by the public executioner. Yet in no country is independence of thought so vaunted as a virtue, and in none is freedom ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce • Ambrose Bierce
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... unless he happens to belong to a savage beast." Is it really otherwise anywhere? Instead of the reindeer eliminating the dog, there is far greater likelihood of the dog eliminating the reindeer; and the professed dog lover, indignant at the opprobrious term applied to a whole race of dogs, may be disposed to echo Lady Macbeth's wish: "May ...
— Ten Thousand Miles with a Dog Sled - A Narrative of Winter Travel in Interior Alaska • Hudson Stuck
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... Dost Mahomed's surrender as 'evincing a strange pusillanimity.' This opprobrious judgment appears unjustified. No doubt he was weary of the fugitive life he had been leading, but to pronounce him afraid that the Kohistanees or any other Afghans would betray him is to ignore the fact that he had been for ...
— The Afghan Wars 1839-42 and 1878-80 • Archibald Forbes
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... for a bid. Every seat was put up to auction separately; for some were much more run after than others, and the men were instructed by their wives what to bid for. Often the women joined in, and as they bid excitedly against each other the church rang with opprobrious epithets. A man would come to the roup late, and learn that the seat he wanted had been knocked down. He maintained that he had been unfairly treated, or denounced the local laird to whom the seat-rents ...
— Auld Licht Idylls • J. M. Barrie
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... "you are driving me upon delicate ground. Would you have your husband appear in public with that most opprobrious badge of the domestic furies, a dishcloth, pinned to his coat-tail? It is coming to exactly the point I have always predicted, Mrs. Crowfield: you must write yourself. I always told you that you could ...
— Household Papers and Stories • Harriet Beecher Stowe
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... war Remsen came back to his polo and shad. One day a well set up, affable, cool young man disturbed him at his club, and he and O'Roon were soon pounding each other and exchanging opprobrious epithets after the manner of long-lost friends. O'Roon looked seedy and out of luck and perfectly contented. But it seemed that his content was ...
— The Trimmed Lamp • O. Henry
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... normal sexual aim or it may be placed near it. In no normal person does the normal sexual aim lack some designable perverse element, and this universality suffices in itself to prove the inexpediency of an opprobrious application of the name perversion. In the realm of the sexual life one is sure to meet with exceptional difficulties which are at present really unsolvable, if one wishes to draw a sharp line between the mere variations within ...
— Three Contributions to the Theory of Sex • Sigmund Freud
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... Manitoo dictated to them by some of their oldest Sagamees, or principal women, and more frequently by some celebrated Juggler of the village, that they may obtain the blessing of fruitfulness. For it is with them, as amongst the Jews, that barrenness is accounted opprobrious. A woman is not looked upon as a woman, till she has proved it, by her fulfilling what they consider as one of the great ends of her creation. Failing in that, she is divorced from her husband, and may then prostitute herself without any scandal. If she has no ...
— An Account Of The Customs And Manners Of The Micmakis And Maricheets Savage Nations, Now Dependent On The Government Of Cape-Breton • Antoine Simon Maillard
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... opprobrious epithets with which some of our philosophers and gloomy sectarians have branded our nature—the principle of universal selfishness, the proneness to all evil, they have given us; still the detestation in which inhumanity to the distressed, or insolence to the fallen, ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
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... they drove the others out of the house. My friend, in French, requested the Dutchman to follow his men; but he refused, and challenged him to single combat, for the insult he said he had received at his hands—adding some opprobrious epithets, which roused the choler of the brave Englishman. In an instant, they were engaged hand to hand; but short was the strife—the Dutchman fell dead on the scene of his violence, and his men returned to the camp, and made ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland Volume 17 • Alexander Leighton
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... world will say that you are over-delicate; and particular people will call you—TAPETZON TINEMAXOCH!' What those words precisely mean," added my father, modestly, "I cannot say, since I never had the opportunity to acquire the ancient Aztec language,—but something very opprobrious and horrible, no doubt." ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
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... condemned to no greater punishment than transportation. Nevertheless, if the clause be thoroughly considered, we shall find no reason to commend the mercy of the legislature; for it only proves, that the Jamaica law-makers will not scruple to charge the slightest and most natural offences with the most opprobrious epithets; and that a poor slave, who perhaps has no otherwise incurred his master's displeasure than by endeavouring (upon the just and warrantable principles of self-preservation,) to escape from his master's tyranny, without any criminal intention whatsoever, is liable to be deemed rebellious, ...
— Some Historical Account of Guinea, Its Situation, Produce, and the General Disposition of Its Inhabitants • Anthony Benezet
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... clans which had been devoted friends of the Tokugawa shoguns were especially outraged by this conciliatory spirit shown to the Choshu troops. They claimed that this clan by resisting the imperial commands had merited the opprobrious title of rebels (chotoki), and were no longer fit for the association of loyal clans. But the Choshu daimyo had been restored to the favor of his emperor, and moreover was allied with the clans whose power was paramount at Kyoto, so that the disapprobation of the Tokugawa adherents ...
— Japan • David Murray
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... Philosophy has always been regarded by them as antagonistic to Christian faith. They are inspired by a commendable zeal for the honor of dogmatic theology. Every essay towards a profounder conviction, a broader faith in the unity of all truth, is branded with the opprobrious name of "rationalism." Let us not be terrified by a harmless word. Surely religion and right reason must be found in harmony. The author believes, with Bacon, that "the foundation of all religion is right reason." The abnegation of reason is not the evidence ...
— Christianity and Greek Philosophy • Benjamin Franklin Cocker
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... ev'ry vein; Wide is the range of language; and such words As one may speak, another may return. What need that we should insults interchange? Like women, who some paltry quarrel wage, Scolding and brawling in the public street, And in opprobrious terms their anger vent, Some true, some false; for so their rage suggests. With words thou shalt not turn me from the field, Till we have met in arms; then try we now Each other's prowess with our ...
— The Iliad • Homer
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... Another opprobrious epithet is "paternalism." This is the most familiar of the titles of reproach. It suggests an idea of government made pestiferous by old abuse. The most atrocious despotisms both of king and church have planted themselves in loco parentis. The welfare of ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 20, July, 1891 • Various
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... Mr. Moore rose to reply to me, he first ostentatiously opened his drawer, took out his revolvers, cocked them, and laid them in the open drawer before him. He then launched out into a speech of the most opprobrious language, applying to me offensive epithets, and frequently interspersing his remarks with the declaration that he was responsible for what he said, both there and elsewhere. It is difficult for me to describe the indignation ...
— Personal Reminiscences of Early Days in California with Other Sketches; To Which Is Added the Story of His Attempted Assassination by a Former Associate on the Supreme Bench of the State • Stephen Field; George C. Gorham
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... Blood. So one wants never to forget so great a blessing, but always to hold it before one's eyes, in holy and sweet gratitude, seeing how immeasurably God loves us: who did not shrink from giving His only begotten Son to the opprobrious death of the Cross, to give us ...
— Letters of Catherine Benincasa • Catherine Benincasa
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... deserve a chain;' and, though constantly abusing them, are still unable to believe in the reality of such persons. These, among all the opponents of Atheism and Atheists, may fairly claim to be considered most mysterious; for, while lavishing on deniers of their Gods every kind of sharp invective and opprobrious epithet, they cannot assure themselves the 'monsters' did, or do actually exist. With characteristic humour, David Hume observed 'There are not a greater number of philosophical reasonings displayed upon any subject than ...
— An Apology for Atheism - Addressed to Religious Investigators of Every Denomination - by One of Its Apostles • Charles Southwell
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... at his lips checked the opprobrious word, as Babie, true woman through it all, whispered with a broken sob, "Spare him, ...
— Pauline's Passion and Punishment • Louisa May Alcott
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... and true, as the British had believed, or false, as the Germans planned and hoped. That was a night of nights—one of very few such, for the mounted actions in this war have not been many. Hah! I have been envied! I have been called opprobrious names by a sergeant of British lancers, out of great jealousy! But that is the way of the British. It happened later, when the trench fighting had settled down in earnest and my regiment and his were waiting our turn behind the lines. He and I sat together on a bench in a great tent, ...
— Hira Singh - When India came to fight in Flanders • Talbot Mundy
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... the universities, on account of insufficiency. The three first books of Euclid, and as far as Quadratic Equations in Algebra, will save a man from being plucked. These unfortunate fellows are designated by many opprobrious appellations, such as the twelve apostles, the legion of honor, wise men ...
— 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue • Captain Grose et al.
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... consider, the Woman as the faithful companion of their life and as the mother of their children. They have never imputed to her the sin committed by Eve, which in other countries, where ever so little of Sacred History is known, has made her the butt of every insulting, sarcastic and opprobrious term. They have never discussed, as at the Macon council, the probability of a woman having a soul or not; what little is necessary to harmonize with their own they have recognized without any argument and they have found it in the care and affection ...
— My Friends the Savages - Notes and Observations of a Perak settler (Malay Peninsula) • Giovanni Battista Cerruti
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... could do, for, although they were more sober than their master, they also had had a pull at the bottles. Fortunately the king did not appeal to us, but again and again asked them what we had said. At length starting up he called them all by the most opprobrious names, insisting that they should interpret, then seizing a cane, which he probably thought was a sword, he ordered them to go about their business, bestowing a kick on the rear of first one, and then on another, sending them all flying ...
— The Two Supercargoes - Adventures in Savage Africa • W.H.G. Kingston
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... in the tenth and eleventh centuries. Of course the Church refused to sanction the marriage of its officials and called the wife of a clergyman, however virtuous and faithful she might be, by the opprobrious ...
— An Introduction to the History of Western Europe • James Harvey Robinson
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... is the son of Joseph Pandira before his marriage with Mary. His miracles are attributed to sorcery, the secret of which He brought in a slit in His flesh out of Egypt. He is said to have been first stoned and then hanged on the eve of the Passover. His disciples are called heretics and opprobrious names. They are accused of immoral practices, and the New Testament is called a sinful book. The references to these subjects manifest the most bitter aversion ...
— Secret Societies And Subversive Movements • Nesta H. Webster
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... insinuating that I, as agent of the society in the distribution of their charity in Antigua, had fraudulently duped them out of their money by a fabricated tale of distress, Mr. M'Queen proceeded to libel me in the most opprobrious terms, as "a man of the most worthless and abandoned character."[20] Now I know from good authority that it was upon Dr. Coull's information that Mr. M'Queen founded this impudent contradiction of notorious facts, and this audacious libel of my personal ...
— The History of Mary Prince - A West Indian Slave • Mary Prince
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... curious proclivity to neglect, and by degrees to forget, what has been certainly known. An instance or two will explain my idea. The most popular English writer relates how it happened in his presence that the title of Tory was conferred upon the Conservative party. For it was an opprobrious name at the time, applied to men for whom the Irish Government offered head-money; so that if I have made too sure of progress, I may at least complacently point to this instance of our mended manners. One day, Titus Oates lost his temper ...
— Lectures on Modern history • Baron John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton
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... deserve the wrong, Should I not punish that opprobrious tongue. Irreverent to the great, and uncontroll'd, Art thou from wine, or innate folly, bold? Perhaps these outrages from Irus flow, A worthless triumph o'er ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer, translated by Alexander Pope
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... out, "A shark! a shark!" Away started all the bathers for the beach, puffing and blowing, from their dreaded enemy; nor did they stop to look for him until they were high and dry out of his reach. Then, when we all laughed, they called us "all the hangman tiefs," and every other opprobrious name which they could select from their vocabulary. I was very much amused with this scene, and as much afterwards with the negroes who crowded round us when we landed. They appeared such merry fellows, always laughing, chattering, singing, and showing their white teeth. One fellow ...
— Peter Simple and The Three Cutters, Vol. 1-2 • Frederick Marryat
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... is so—so——" murmured Virginia, and stopped because words failed her. Had Jenny been born in any family except her own, she would probably have described her as "dangerous," but it was impossible to brand her daughter with so opprobrious an epithet. The word, owing to the metaphorical yet specific definition of it which she had derived from the rector's sermons in her childhood, invariably suggested fire and brimstone ...
— Virginia • Ellen Glasgow
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... thou think, Friar John, by thy faith, that he is in the state of salvation? He goeth, before God, as surely damned to thirty thousand basketsful of devils as a pruning-bill to the lopping of a vine-branch. To revile with opprobrious speeches the good and courageous props and pillars of the Church,—is that to be called a poetical fury? I cannot rest satisfied with him; he sinneth grossly, and blasphemeth against the true religion. I am very much offended at his scandalizing words and contumelious ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
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... rejected by the Burgesses as false and scandalous, and the persons presenting them were severely punished.[858] But the Assembly expressed an earnest desire to bring about a reconciliation between the hostile factions in the colony, and prescribed a heavy penalty for the use of such opprobrious epithets as ...
— Virginia under the Stuarts 1607-1688 • Thomas J. Wertenbaker
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... all reproof with the utmost contempt, and made the greatest mockery that was possible for them to do at me, giving me all the opprobrious, insolent scoffs that they could think of for preaching to them, as they called it, which indeed grieved me, rather than angered me; and I went away, blessing God, however, in my mind that I had not spared them, though they had ...
— A Journal of the Plague Year • Daniel Defoe
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... not, in our dislocated, hoodwinked, and indeed delirious condition of Society, equivalent to defying his perpetual fellest enmity? The epithet schneidermassig (tailor-like) betokens an otherwise unapproachable degree of pusillanimity; we introduce a Tailor's-Melancholy, more opprobrious than any Leprosy, into our Books of Medicine; and fable I know not what of his generating it by living on Cabbage. Why should I speak of Hans Sachs (himself a Shoemaker, or kind of Leather-Tailor), with his Schneider mit dem Panier? Why ...
— Sartor Resartus - The Life and Opinions of Herr Teufelsdrockh • Thomas Carlyle
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... was almost everywhere overwhelmed with injurious accusations. On no fewer than four occasions the police were called in to receive denunciations of Mr Meagles as a Knight of Industry, a good-for-nothing, and a thief, all of which opprobrious language he bore with the best temper (having no idea what it meant), and was in the most ignominious manner escorted to steam-boats and public carriages, to be got rid of, talking all the while, like a cheerful and fluent ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
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... uncontrollably. She accused her niece of the vilest ingratitude in having seduced her son from the obedience he owed his mother; of having plotted to ally her base Scotch blood to the noble blood of the Audleys; and, having exhausted every opprobrious epithet, she was forced to stop from want of breath to proceed. As Alicia listened to the cruel, unfounded reproaches of her aunt, her spirit rose under the unmerited ill-usage, but her conscience absolved her from all intention of injuring or deceiving a human being; and she ...
— Marriage • Susan Edmonstone Ferrier
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... will observe in the foregoing letter and in all medical literature Mesmer is spoken of as a "charlatan" and "empiric." Charlatan is an opprobrious term, but "empiric" literally means one who follows experience instead of dogma, and should therefore be an honorable designation; but as the medical profession has always been dogmatic, and therefore hostile to empiricism, or fidelity ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, November 1887 - Volume 1, Number 10 • Various
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... to apply to a minister of any religion the opprobrious epithet of a "Surpliced Ruffian." It would seem, however, that Archdeacon Laffan aspires to the "bad eminence" of the apologist of assassins. What would my readers say, were I to report the Ministers of Islamism in ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson
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... the Arabs have given the name of Kafraria, naming the inhabitants Kafrs or unbelievers; an appellation bestowed by the Mahometans on all who are not of their religion, but chiefly those who worship images, whence they call most of the Christians by the opprobrious name of Kafrs. To the north of this line on the east coast of Africa is the maritime country of Zanguebar, or more properly Zenjibar, so named from a Negro nation called the Zenji, who had formerly conquered all that coast before the settlement of the Arabs. From Zanguebar ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VI - Early English Voyages Of Discovery To America • Robert Kerr
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... by the natives Oranserrne, or Nazareen men (Oran, being Man in the language of the country,) to distinguish them from other Europeans; yet they are included in the general appellation of Caper, or Cafir, an opprobrious term, applied by Mahometans to all who do not profess their faith. These people, however, are Portuguese only in name; they have renounced the religion of Rome, and become Lutherans: Neither have they the least communication with ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 13 • Robert Kerr
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... question. I recognized that I was defeated. If I answered no, he would cut the matter short and wave me to the door without the grace of a word—I saw it in his uncompromising eye; if I said I was a lecturer, he would despise me, and dismiss me with opprobrious words; if I said I was a dramatist, he would throw me out of the window. I saw that my case was hopeless, so I chose the course which seemed least humiliating: I would pocket my shame and glide out without answering. The silence ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
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... boat suddenly turned round and started off at a smart pace down stream, where it was soon out of reach of the parting taunts and opprobrious noises which Parson, for the credit of his house, continued to hurl at its crew till ...
— The Willoughby Captains • Talbot Baines Reed
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... elevated the idea of free contract almost to an industrial ideal; while, in somewhat the same spirit, the gutter journalists of to-day, when they are at a loss for a popular watchword, call for a business government. Such theories and battle-cries may serve for a 'nation of shopkeepers'; but that opprobrious phrase has never been true of the great mass of the English people, and it was never less true ...
— Progress and History • Various
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... which had made her a leader of society in the best sense of the word both in Benham and in New York. A few of the articles stated in judicious terms that she had been twice a widow. Only one of them set this forth in conspicuous and opprobrious terms: "Her Third Husband! Our Chief Magistrate's Wife's Many Marriages!" Such was the unsympathetic, alliterative heading of the malicious statement which appeared in an opposition organ. It did no more than recall the fact that she had obtained a divorce from her first husband, who ...
— Unleavened Bread • Robert Grant
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... 1. 36. From B.'s 'Lurdane, lordane, a dull heavy fellow, derived by some from Lord and Dane'. So the word becomes for C. an opprobrious equivalent ...
— The Rowley Poems • Thomas Chatterton
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... people. The Saint, when describing it in a letter home, said it was "a big, wooden barn with a floor to it." However, we voted this statement to be libellous, and cautioned the Saint on the misuse of terms. The Pahi Town Hall is not to be rashly designated with opprobrious epithets. Such as it is, it serves us well, by turns as chapel, court-house, ...
— Brighter Britain! (Volume 1 of 2) - or Settler and Maori in Northern New Zealand • William Delisle Hay
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... to denote the dominion of the Turks. A conquest in the civilized world is generally no more than an acquisition of a new dominion to the conquering country. It does not imply a never-ending bondage imposed upon the conquered, a perpetual mark,—an opprobrious distinction between them and their masters; a bitter and unending persecution of their religion; an habitual violation of their rights of person and property, and the unrestrained indulgence towards them of every passion which belongs to the character of a barbarous soldiery. Yet such ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster
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... stoical nor Christian, though he so far coquetted with Christianity as to build temples dedicated to no Pagan deity, which passed in after times for unfinished churches. He was a Graeculus. In that contemptuous epithet, stripping it of its opprobrious significance, we find the real key to his character. In a failing age he lived a restless-minded, many-sided soldier-prince, whose inner hopes and highest aspirations were for Hellas. Hellas, her art, her history, her myths, her literature, her lovers, ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
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... fire. I come after him with a bucket of water." It was said by Atterbury's enemies that he was made a bishop because he was so bad a dean. Under his administration Christchurch was in confusion, scandalous altercations took place, opprobrious words were exchanged; and there was reason to fear that the great Tory college would be ruined by the tyranny of the great Tory doctor. He was soon removed to the bishopric of Rochester, which was ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 3. (of 4) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
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... greatest historians has earned a brilliant reputation in the conclusive proof that oceans are the world's highways, while its continents are its barriers. To the term "militarism" we attach an opprobrious meaning; militarism is the more infamous in exact proportion to its efficiency. We have been at little pains to define it, and as to certain of its ...
— The New York Times Current History of the European War, Vol. 1, January 9, 1915 - What Americans Say to Europe • Various
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... compass the elimination of the blacks from the farms, was not at all popular with landowners, who made huge profits out of the renting of their farms to Natives. Platform speakers and newspaper writers coined an opprobrious phrase which designated this letting of farms to Natives as "Kafir-farming", and attempted to prove that it was almost as immoral as "baby-farming". But landowners pocketed the annual rents, and showed no inclination ...
— Native Life in South Africa, Before and Since • Solomon Tshekisho Plaatje
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... and opprobrious more To France than all her losses and defeats, Old or of later date, by sea or land, Her house of bondage worse than that of old Which God avenged on Pharaoh—the Bastille! Ye horrid towers, the abode of broken hearts, Ye dungeons and ye ...
— The Task and Other Poems • William Cowper
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... these men Musilongo or Sonhese. The word appears to me opprobrious, as if each tribe termed itself Mushi-Congo (Congo people), and its neighbours Musulungus: Barbot writes as a Frenchman Moutsie, the Portuguese Muxi (Mushi). Mushi-Longo would perhaps mean Loango-people; but my ear ...
— Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
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... This opprobrious illustration raised a considerable clamor of abuse from the ruder women; but the Judge's and Burgomaster's ladies silenced them, and repeated their resolution never to give up their faith against their conscience. Seeing that no impression ...
— A Book of Golden Deeds • Charlotte M. Yonge
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... What men of humble rank would blush to name; Whilst Honour's placed in highest point of view, Worshipp'd by those who Justice never knew; 190 Whilst bubbles of distinction waste in play The hours of rest, and blunder through the day; With dice and cards opprobrious vigils keep, Then turn to ruin empires in their sleep; Whilst fathers[125], by relentless passion led, Doom worthy injured sons to beg their bread, Merely with ill-got, ill-saved, wealth to grace, An alien, abject, poor, proud, upstart race! Whilst Martin[126] flatters ...
— Poetical Works • Charles Churchill
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... so that no access could be had, and though the magistrates would have broke them open, yet the mob (urged on as was supposed by the earl's mother) pressed so hard upon the good man, not only by opprobrious speeches, but also threw stones at him as if he had been a malefactor, that he was forced to fly to Glasgow, and afterwards, seeing no prospect of a peaceable settlement at Paisley, he returned to his own house at Trochrig ...
— Biographia Scoticana (Scots Worthies) • John Howie
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... anecdote of him which is quite credible. The regent (it is said) wanted him to use the Sikhs to catch a female runaway slave, and on his refusing, the Rajah made use of a very opprobrious epithet, on which he drew himself up, saying: "You are a man of high birth in your country, but I'm a man of high birth in mine, and, so long as I bear Queen Victoria's commission, I refuse to accept insult. I take no future ...
— The Golden Chersonese and the Way Thither • Isabella L. Bird (Mrs. Bishop)
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... appeared a play called The Northern Lass, by Richard Brome. In this occurs an opprobrious sentence of Cornish, put into the mouth of a Cornishman bearing the absurd name of “Nonsence,” and addressed to a Spaniard who had no English, on the argument that Cornwall being the nearest point of Britain to Spain, Cornish ...
— A Handbook of the Cornish Language - chiefly in its latest stages with some account of its history and literature • Henry Jenner
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... other than Red Rody Duncan, to whom our friend Jemmy Branigan made such opprobrious allusion in the character of the Black Prophet to Dick-o'-the-Grange. This man, who was generally known by the sobriquet of Red Body, had been for some time looking after the situation of bailiff ...
— The Black Prophet: A Tale Of Irish Famine • William Carleton
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... who witnessed the advent of this Asiatic people called them by the general term Amuu, Asiatics, or Monatiu, the men of the desert.* They had already given the Bedouin the opprobrious epithet of Shausu—pillagers or robbers—which aptly described them;** and they subsequently applied the same name to the intruders—Hiq Shausu—from which the Greeks derived their word Hyksos, ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 4 (of 12) • G. Maspero
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... Venizelists were depicted as a wanton hunt of harmless and law-abiding citizens. Day by day the stream of calumny, assiduously fed from the fountain-head at Salonica, grew in volume and virulence; and King Constantine was branded with every opprobrious epithet of ...
— Greece and the Allies 1914-1922 • G. F. Abbott
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... rather in terms of contrition, as it appeared, did not at all mollify Mrs Deborah, who now pronounced a second judgment against her, in more opprobrious language than before; nor had it any better success with the bystanders, who were now grown very numerous. Many of them cried out, "They thought what madam's silk gown would end in;" others spoke sarcastically of her learning. ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding
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... greeted her with excited comments and with laughter. They had missed her for so long that they had imagined her ill, perhaps dead. Seeing her turn up again, they were full of greedy ardour for her news. They put to her searching and opprobrious questions. She did not hear them. Soon she was in the midst of the crowd. Yet she scarcely realized that she was not alone. No mechanical smile came to her face. It seemed as if she had forgotten the old wiles of the streets, put off forever the frigid mask ...
— Flames • Robert Smythe Hichens
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... city. His son came to his assistance and seized the money and jewels lying at the Temple (29th June). The citizens were so exasperated at this high-handed proceeding on the part of the prince that they vented their spleen on the queen, and pelted her with mud and stones, calling her all kinds of opprobrious names, as she attempted to pass in her barge under London Bridge on her way from the ...
— London and the Kingdom - Volume I • Reginald R. Sharpe
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... judge for himself in matters of religion, he ought not, on account of the exercise of that right, to incur any punishment, or be branded with any marks of infamy; and that the exclusion from military service and civil trusts was both a punishment and an opprobrious distinction. The house, however, was not disposed to take a liberal view of this great question. Lord North and Pitt, who took the lead in opposing the motion, argued, that the acts in question were meant to include both Papist and Protestant dissenters, and that the Corporation Act in particular ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
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... A very opprobrious epithet was now hurled at the latter. He, without more ado, knocked down the speaker at a blow, capsized the table, which put out the lights, and, in the next instant, darted out of the window, while a bullet, fired from a pistol, ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 8, January, 1851 • Various
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... order to the officers, she started up, and stood erect, face to face with the husband: "the opprobrious blur against all peace and joy and light and life"—for he was standing against the window a-flame with morning. But in her terror, that seemed to her the flame from hell, since he was in it—and she cried ...
— Browning's Heroines • Ethel Colburn Mayne
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... heart, though even always denied a participation in its honors. You may insist that the true patriot seeks no personal ends in acts of patriotism. All this is true, but, Mr. Speaker, men are but men everywhere, and you ought not to expect of those whom you daily call by opprobrious epithets, whom you daily remind of their political sins, whom you persistently exclude from places of the smallest trust in the government you have created, to be very earnest to cooperate with you in the work of ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 7, 1922 • Various
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... George, in nowise ruffled by the Don's reiteration of the term "pirate," which in those days carried nothing like the opprobrious signification that it bears to-day. "It matters not; for I shall cause your ship to be thoroughly searched from stem to stern before I destroy her. But as you seem to be imbued with so very strong an animus against me, I must put you in confinement while your ship is being searched, ...
— The Cruise of the Nonsuch Buccaneer • Harry Collingwood
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... Songs without Words[205] contain a genuinely poetic message, flawlessly expressed. As for the pianoforte music, when the Songs without Words are called "hackneyed" we must remember that only compositions of truly popular appeal ever have sufficient vogue to warrant the application of this opprobrious term. In the pianoforte Scherzos and in the Rondo Capriccioso in E major there is without doubt a vitality and a play of fancy easier to criticize than to create. The prevalent mood in Mendelssohn's music is one of sunny-hearted lightness and emotional satisfaction; ...
— Music: An Art and a Language • Walter Raymond Spalding
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... teach thee ordinance. But no, the emperor felt no touch of conscience; What served him pleased him, and without a murmur He stamped his broad seal on these lawless deeds. What at that time was right, because thou didst it For him, to-day is all at once become Opprobrious, foul, because it is directed Against him. ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
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... Havin' onearthed this amazin' an' stupenjus fraud committed by the man Dearsley, I hild a council av war; he thryin' all the time to sejuce me into a fight with opprobrious language. That sedan-chair niver belonged by right to any foreman av coolies. 'Tis a king's chair or a quane's. There's gold on ut an' silk an' all manner av trapesemints. Bhoys, 'tis not for me to countenance any sort av wrong-doin'—me bein' the ould man—but—anyway ...
— Life's Handicap • Rudyard Kipling
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... emergency. They would make up sham parcels of waste-paper, and send them out with an ostentatious show of secrecy. The officers—simple fellows enough, though they were called 'Government spies,' 'Somerset House myrmidons,' and other opprobrious names, in the unstamped papers—duly took possession of the parcels, after a decent show of resistance by their bearers, while the real newspapers intended for sale to the public were sent flying by thousands down a shoot ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
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... though few regard it. This the traditional Christian, conceited of himself, and strong in his own will and righteousness, overcome with blind zeal and passion, either despised as a low and common thing, or opposed as a novelty, under many hard names and opprobrious terms; denying, in his ignorant and angry mind, any fresh manifestations of God's power and spirit in man, in these days, though never more needed to make true Christians. Not unlike those Jews of old, that rejected ...
— A Brief Account of the Rise and Progress of the People Called Quakers • William Penn
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... called the boatman thief. If there be any term of reproach which stings a Spaniard (and such was the boatman) more than another, it is that one; and the fellow no sooner heard it applied to himself, than with eyes sparkling with fury, he put his fist to the hadji's nose, and repaid the one opprobrious name by at least ten others equally bad or worse. He would perhaps have proceeded to acts of violence had he not been pulled away by the other Moors, who led him aside, and I suppose either said or gave him something which pacified him, as he soon ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
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... position of his straw hat, or to offer a tardy apology. A more wanton, unprovoked, and flagrant outrage than that of which this man was guilty I never witnessed. It is customary for "the old dogs", as the experienced convicts are called, to use the most opprobrious language to their officers, and to this a deaf ear is usually turned, but I never before saw a man wantonly strike a constable. I fancy that the act was done out of bravado. Troke informed me that the man's name is Rufus Dawes, and that he is the leader of the ...
— For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke
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... ages, according to the average term of human life, since the earlier grand display of mind, what had been effected toward such an advancement of intelligence in the community, that when this next tribe of highly endowed spirits should appear, they would stand in much loss opprobrious contrast to the main body of the nation, and find a much larger portion of it qualified to receive their intellectual effusions. By this time, the class of persons who sought knowledge on a wider scale than what sufficed for the ordinary affairs of life, who took an interest in literature, ...
— An Essay on the Evils of Popular Ignorance • John Foster
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... last moment he had put his vengeance from him and behaved like a weak fool, throwing away the acid, cleaning the bottle and filling it with pure water. He had intended to give Ibrahim a fright (and also the opprobrious title of the Weeper), to teach him a lesson and to let him go—provided he swore on the Q'ran never to return to Mekran Kot when he left for England.... Such a man was my poor brother. But the hand of Allah intervened and ...
— Driftwood Spars - The Stories of a Man, a Boy, a Woman, and Certain Other People Who - Strangely Met Upon the Sea of Life • Percival Christopher Wren
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... Beaumont, near Quebec, in January, 1761, he sent one of his men to cut wood on the property of a certain habitant, the man himself consenting. But Madame, his wife, was not pleased. She abused Fraser, called him opprobrious names, and, in a war of words, remained, he admits, mistress of the field. The wrathful virago carried her appeal to Murray in Quebec, who, she said, had passed many officers under the rod and Fraser found himself called upon to ...
— A Canadian Manor and Its Seigneurs - The Story of a Hundred Years, 1761-1861 • George M. Wrong
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... Parses, better known by the opprobrious name of Gaures or Guebres, another word for infidels. They are in Asia what the Jews are in Europe. The name of their pope or high ...
— The Ruins • C. F. [Constantin Francois de] Volney
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... your doing, Sir Marmaduke de Chavasse," he said, looking his triumphant enemy boldly in the face, even whilst compelling silent attention from those who were heaping opprobrious epithets upon him. "You enticed me here.... You persuaded me to play, ... Then you tried to rob me of mine honor, of my good name, the only valuable assets which I possess.... Hell and all its devils alone know why you did ...
— The Nest of the Sparrowhawk • Baroness Orczy
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... awakened from their slumber on the boards, called out, too, 'Goo-luksh!' There was an attempt at a cheer, but before McKeith had got out his answering, 'Thank ye—Good day, mates,' a shower of opprobrious epithets rained upon him from a little band of discontented bush rowdies—the advance guard of that same Union delegate who had come up with them in the train ...
— Lady Bridget in the Never-Never Land • Rosa Praed
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... surpassed the rest of the Grecian army; but, withal, of so fiery a temper, so impatient of an injury, even from his king and general, that when his mistress was to be forced from him by the command of Agamemnon, he not only disobeyed it, but returned him an answer full of contumely, and in the most opprobrious terms he could imagine; they are Homer's words which follow, and I have cited but ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Volume 4 (of 18) - Almanzor And Almahide, Marriage-a-la-Mode, The Assignation • John Dryden
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... of himself as an Old Public Functionary he was a good deal laughed at by some of the newspapers, and the phrase has since been frequently used in an opprobrious or satirical sense. This is to be regretted, for there is no character more respectable, and there are few so useful, as an intelligent and patriotic man of long standing in the public service. What one such man can do is shown by the example of Sir Henry Cole, who died a few months ago ...
— Captains of Industry - or, Men of Business Who Did Something Besides Making Money • James Parton
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... had also followed the sea, and, it was said, obtained his large wealth through means not sanctioned by laws human or divine. Men and women of the past generation, and therefore contemporaries, did not hesitate to designate him an "old pirate," though always the opprobrious words were spoken in an undertone, for people were half afraid of the dark, reserved, evil-looking man, who had evidently passed a large portion of his life among scenes of peril and violence. There were ...
— The Allen House - or Twenty Years Ago and Now • T. S. Arthur
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... spirit and temper of the religious press with reference to science and scientific men, there is much to criticize and condemn. It is often snappish, petulant, ill-humored, unfair, and sometimes malicious in the extreme. Such opprobrious terms as infidelity, irreligion, rationalizing tendencies, naturalism, contempt for the Scriptures, etc., are freely used. Scientific men are called infidel pretenders, and are charged with a secret conspiracy to overthrow the faith of the ...
— Continental Monthly, Volume 5, Issue 4 • Various
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... felt the less compunction in so doing, from the fact that Grind, angry with him for having been the agent of Jasper's final destruction, which involved him in a severe loss, had expressed himself in no measured terms—had, in fact, lashed him with most bitter and opprobrious words. ...
— True Riches - Or, Wealth Without Wings • T.S. Arthur
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... weak dislike to that which is painful. On neither side will he tell lies for peace. He is ready to be lost for his fellow-men. In the name of God he rebukes the flames of hell. The fugitives pause on the top, look back, call him lying prophet, and shout evil opprobrious names at the man who counts not his own life dear to him, who has forgotten his own soul in his sacred devotion to men, who fills up what is left behind of the sufferings of Christ, for his body's sake — for the human ...
— David Elginbrod • George MacDonald
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... of Ireland, which MR. WILLIAM BATES guesses to be Lord Castlereagh, was Lord Clare, Chancellor of Ireland, who used also to call men {64} with three names by a term opprobrious among the ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 194, July 16, 1853 • Various
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... not with opprobrious words, in Oegir's hall. Bragi I soothe, by beer excited. I desire not ...
— The Elder Eddas of Saemund Sigfusson; and the Younger Eddas of Snorre Sturleson • Saemund Sigfusson and Snorre Sturleson
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... many, and such conflicting statements, respecting public measures, I believe never were before made by a body of persons dwelling within limits so confined as those of Harmony. Some of the ci-devant "communicants" call Robert Owen a fool, whilst others brand him with still more opprobrious epithets: and I never could get two of them to agree as to the primary causes of the failure of ...
— A Ramble of Six Thousand Miles through the United States of America • S. A. Ferrall
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... free himself from the hands of Latour and Darmont. "Not content with the laurels he has won as the ringleader of a mob, he has aspired to achieve renown by defaming women. He has incited the populace to asperse the good name of my honored mother, and by Heaven, he shall suffer for every opprobrious word that has fallen from the tongue of every base-born ...
— Prince Eugene and His Times • L. Muhlbach
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... often the representatives of the Southern division of the country have amused themselves in Congress by applying the opprobrious name of "slave" to the free Northern laborer. And how familiar have the significant epithets of "white ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
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... they were now to obey the viceroy and not him. The viceroy expressed his entire satisfaction at this conduct in Alvarez, and took the command accordingly; yet in a very short time he treated Alvarez very ill, often calling him villain, traitor, mutineer, and other opprobrious names, and threatening that, though he spared his life for the present because he had occasion for his service, he would certainly have him hanged in the sequel. Yet they continued together till their arrival at Truxillo, as shall be ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 5 • Robert Kerr
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... I overheard, seemed to me of a very puerile and captious description, and some of an opprobrious personality, e.g., as when a certain oarman was taunted with being short—as though he were capable of adding the cubic inch ...
— Baboo Jabberjee, B.A. • F. Anstey
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... sarcasms the two boys departed. Okoya walked along at a steady gait; but Shyuote, as soon as he considered the distance safe enough, turned around, making grimaces at the belligerent damsels, vowing vengeance, and uttering opprobrious epithets of the choicest kind. He noticed that the two returned his compliments without reserve, whereas Mitsha stood in silence leaning against the house-wall. One single look, one earnest almost sad glance, she sent after the disappearing form of ...
— The Delight Makers • Adolf Bandelier
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... commonest vulture of the Himalayas is that very familiar fowl—the small white scavenger vulture (Neophron ginginianus), often called Pharaoh's chicken and other opprobrious names that I will not mention. This bird eats everything that is filthy and unclean. The natural consequence is that it looks untidy and disreputable. It is, without exception, the ugliest bird in the world. It is about the size ...
— Birds of the Indian Hills • Douglas Dewar
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... disaffected!" thought the lord-lieutenant, imagining that the last opprobrious term was applied to the respectable personages specified in the parenthesis. Bowing with a polished smile to the squire, Mauleverer replied aloud, that he was extremely sorry that their conduct (meaning the ministers) did not meet with ...
— Paul Clifford, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
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... which a single religious captain may do can hardly be calculated. In the first place, as I have said, a kinder state of feeling exists on board the ship. There is no profanity allowed; and the men are not called by any opprobrious names, which is a great thing with sailors. The Sabbath is observed. This gives the men a day of rest, even if they pass it in no other way. Such a captain, too, will not allow a sailor on board ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
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... interrupted Alexius. "Do they call that noble metal, equally respected by Roman and barbarian, by rich and poor, by great and mean, by churchmen and laymen, which all mankind are fighting for, plotting for, planning for, intriguing for, and damning themselves for, both soul and body—by the opprobrious name of yellow dross? They are mad, Agelastes, utterly mad. Perils and dangers, penalties and scourges, are the arguments to which men who are above the universal influence which moves all others, ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
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... of a kind to receive opprobrious epithets meekly, Aristides slowly, and with an evident effort, lifted the shovel in ...
— The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Tales • Bret Harte
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... world from the earliest ages; and his craft has been to mislead the thoughtless, by fixing upon the humble followers of the Lamb his own opprobrious proper name. The mass of professed Christians, whose creed and mode of worship have been provided by human laws, has ever been opposed to the sincere disciples of Christ. To imbibe every principle from investigation and conviction of the holy oracles—to ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
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... sound of the great rusty key in the lock, which yielded with groaning reluctance; the door was thrown back, the light rushed in, and with it came the voice of the city marshal, calling upon Curdie, by many legal epithets opprobrious, to come forth and be tried for his life, inasmuch as he had raised a tumult in His Majesty's city of Gwyntystorm, troubled the hearts of the king's baker and barber, and slain the faithful dogs of ...
— The Princess and the Curdie • George MacDonald
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... after what was called "a very patient trial" of four or five hours, sentenced to be hanged. Not one insult was spared. When he was marched up from the wharf, the sailors were permitted to heap upon him every opprobrious epithet. Before his execution "his black coat and vest were taken from him as a prize by one soldier, his spectacles by another; so," as an officer boasts, "he was treated not differently from the common herd." The accusation ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 • Various
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... him."[8] He scorned to ask quarter, and was taken alive with difficulty. Rymer says, "The Scotch king, though he had two spears hanging in his body, his leg desperately wounded, and being disarmed, his sword having been beaten out of his hand, disdained captivity, and provoked the English by opprobrious language to kill him. When John Copeland, who was governor of Roxborough Castle, advised him to yield, he struck him on the face with his gauntlet so fiercely, that he knocked out two of his teeth. Copeland conveyed him out of the field as his ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 578 - Vol. XX, No. 578. Saturday, December 1, 1832 • Various
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... traditionally related, that though accused as an accomplice in the designs of the other noble delinquents, the real offence for which he died, was the having retorted, with more spirit than prudence, some opprobrious language with which his royal master had insulted him as they were playing at bowls together[6]. The family of Carew was however allied in blood to that of Courtney, of which the marquis ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
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... profession was honorable; but it would not all do. He called you rebel; that I was used to. He said you were a traitor; that, in his vocabulary, amounts to the same thing. He even hinted that you were a coward; and that I knew to be false, and did not hesitate to tell him so. He used fifty opprobrious terms that I cannot remember; but among others were the beautiful epithets of 'disorganizer,' 'leveller, 'democrat,' and 'jacobin' (I hope he did not mean a monk!). In short, he acted Colonel Howard in a rage. But as his ...
— The Pilot • J. Fenimore Cooper
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... avoid quarrelling, which conduct, instead of gaining (as it justly deserved) the approbation of his companions, drew upon him the insult and abuse of the whole school; and they were perpetually teasing him with the opprobrious title of coward. For some time he bore it with great good-humour, and endeavoured to laugh it off; but, finding that had no effect, he one day thus addressed us:—"If you suppose that I like to be called a coward, you are all very much mistaken; or if you think me one, I assure ...
— The Life and Perambulations of a Mouse • Dorothy Kilner
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... is unknown in the tropics—appeared to make its devotees merely gay and boisterous. The adults were friendly, even to an American, and the children shouted greetings to me as "Senor Gringo," which here is merely a term of nationality and no such opprobrious title as it has grown to ...
— Tramping Through Mexico, Guatemala and Honduras - Being the Random Notes of an Incurable Vagabond • Harry A. Franck
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... liberty, my friend. Thou shalt be freed from base Priuli's tyranny, And thy sequester'd fortunes heal'd again: I shall be free from those opprobrious wrongs That press me now, and bend my spirit downward; All Venice free, and every growing merit Succeed to its just right: fools shall be pull'd From wisdom's seat; those baleful, unclean birds, Those lazy owls, who, perch'd near ...
— Venice Preserved - A Tragedy • Thomas Otway
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... disavow the primitive Christians, who had taken their principles from the mouth of Jesus himself, of his Apostles, and the Fathers cotemporary with them. They excommunicated their followers as heretics, branding them with the opprobrious name of Ebionites and Beggars. For a comparison of the Grecian philosophy with that of Jesus, materials might be largely drawn from the same source. Enfield gives a history and detailed account of ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
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... the boy's ears. What did it mean? What was the sneer in it? "Brat!" "cry-baby," "tell-tale," "story-teller," these were opprobrious words, to be resented in their degree; and all but the first covered accusations which not only must never be deserved, but obliged a gentleman, however young, to show ...
— Lady Good-for-Nothing • A. T. Quiller-Couch
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... approached, they threw a light on their faces, calling out their names with scornful and opprobrious words. In order to enter, the Haugians were obliged to take a circuitous route, and when they reached the door, a couple of the Brethren opened it when the voice was recognized, shutting it ...
— Skipper Worse • Alexander Lange Kielland
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... shows the effect of nursing prejudice by using foolish opprobrious nicknames. Henderson was a good officer, he has shown himself an excellent son, always sacrificing his own predilections for the sake of duty. He is a right-minded, religious, sensible man, his own master, and with no connections ...
— Beechcroft at Rockstone • Charlotte M. Yonge
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... Brittany, the trade of cooper was looked upon with contempt, and the opprobrious name of caqueux was given to them because they were thought to belong to a race of Jews dispersed after the ruin of Jerusalem, and who were considered leprous ...
— Barn and the Pyrenees - A Legendary Tour to the Country of Henri Quatre • Louisa Stuart Costello
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... that the American name had become opprobrious among all the nations of Europe; that the flag of the United States was everywhere exposed to insults and annoyance; the husbandman, no longer able to export his produce freely, would soon be reduced to want; ...
— The Fathers of the Constitution - Volume 13 in The Chronicles Of America Series • Max Farrand
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... seven miles from Nottingham, has been rendered noted by the common proverb of "The Wise Men of Gotham." It is observable that a custom has prevailed among many nations of stigmatizing the inhabitants of some particular spot as remarkable for stupidity. This opprobrious district among the Asiatics was Phrygia. Among the Thracians, Abdera; among the Greeks, Boeotia; in England it is Gotham. Of the Gothamites ironically called The Wise Men of Gotham, many ridiculous stories are traditionally ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 345, December 6, 1828 • Various
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... his career by gratuitously placing himself in Charles the Bold's power,[98] was received by the Parisians with many gibes. The royal herald proclaimed at sound of trumpet by the crossways of Paris: "Let none be bold or daring enough to say anything opprobrious against the Duke of Burgundy, either by word of mouth, by writing, by signs, paintings, roundelays, ballads, songs or gestures." On the same day a commission seized all the magpies and jackdaws in Paris, whether caged or otherwise, which were to be registered according ...
— The Story of Paris • Thomas Okey
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... ever actually applied that term to Garth in her hearing. They had skirted delicately round it, or wrapped up its meaning in some less harsh-sounding tangle of phrases, and although she had bitterly used the word herself, now that the opprobrious expression publicly confronted her, writ large by some unfriendly hand, she was swept by a sheer fury of indignant denial. It roused in her the immediate instinct to defend, to range herself unmistakably on Garth's side against a ...
— The Hermit of Far End • Margaret Pedler
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... terms opprobrious they mouth Anent our noble elevating sport Where our illustrious citizens do meet And in the cockpit spend a ...
— 'A Comedy of Errors' in Seven Acts • Spokeshave (AKA Old Fogy)
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... some determined constable, who will seize your worship as a vagrant, according to the statute." "Heaven and earth!" cried the stranger, starting up, and laying his hand on his sword, "do I live to hear myself insulted with such an opprobrious epithet, and refrain from trampling into dust the ...
— The Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves • Tobias Smollett
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... people of the law" has often been applied to the Jews in the opprobrious sense that they are a people who deal according to hard and strict rules, untouched by the ...
— The Menorah Journal, Volume 1, 1915 • Various
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... hearing. One should abstain from injuring any creature, and conduct oneself observing the course of the Sun.[1333] Having come into this life, one should not behave with unfriendliness towards any creature. One should disregard opprobrious speeches, and never in arrogance deem oneself as superior to another. When sought to be angered by another, one should still utter agreeable speeches. Even when calumniated, one should not calumniate in return. One should ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
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... The most sullen of his parishioners touched their hats to him as he passed, and mothers of families, who never could be induced to leave their cooking to attend morning service, and were deeply offended at being called "after-dinner Christians" in consequence, forgot the opprobrious term, and brought little offerings of new-laid eggs and rosy apples ...
— Red Pottage • Mary Cholmondeley
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... be observed that all these opprobrious terms applied to Lauder are copied from Foxe, or rather from the black-letter tract, printed by John Daye, of which Dr. M'Crie has given a description in his Life of Knox, ...
— The Works of John Knox, Vol. 1 (of 6) • John Knox
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... volume, and you would think all that readers had to do was to read what they liked in it, if anything, and leave out the rest and be grateful. Instead, it would be slated by reviewers, and compared to the Royal Academy, and to a literary signpost pointing the wrong way, and other opprobrious things; as if an anthology could point to anything but the taste of the compiler, which of course could not be expected to agree with any one else's; tastes never do. The thing was, thought Jane, to hit the public taste with the right thing ...
— Potterism - A Tragi-Farcical Tract • Rose Macaulay
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... how pleasing it would be to God Almighty that they should be expelled from it. This intolerant discourse, more worthy of a raving Jesuit than of a Protestant minister, was deservedly scouted by the inhabitants of Lausanne; but this did not hinder poor Mlle Michaud from being much affected at the opprobrious tirade directed against a set of men, among whom her father bore a conspicuous part, and who acted from patriotic motives. I must not omit to state that in this discourse M. Levade interwove some hyperbolical compliments towards the young Prince of Sweden, who attended the service that morning. ...
— After Waterloo: Reminiscences of European Travel 1815-1819 • Major W. E Frye
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... earned an opprobrious nickname by the effeminacy of his dress and manner." Does Mr Mitford know that Demosthenes denied this charge, and explained the nickname in a perfectly different manner? (See the speech of Aeschines against Timarchus.) And, if he knew it, should he not have stated it? He proceeds thus: "On ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 1 (of 4) - Contibutions to Knight's Quarterly Magazine] • Thomas Babington Macaulay
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... heretofore labored to maintain. The repeal, if we can effect it, will produce much stir and commotion in the free States of the Union for a season. I shall be assailed by demagogues and fanatics there without stint or moderation. Every opprobrious epithet will be applied to me. I shall be probably hung in effigy in many places. It is more than probable that I may become permanently odious among those whose friendship and esteem I have heretofore possessed. This proceeding may end my political career. But, acting under the sense of the duty ...
— Abraham Lincoln: A History V1 • John G. Nicolay and John Hay
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... names bestowed upon those poor creatures is long and curious;—and, as is, alas! too natural, most of the opprobrious appellations are drawn from circumstances into which they were forced by their persecutors, who even consolidated their miseries into one reproachful term, calling them Patarenians, or Paturins, from pati, ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
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