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Priest-ridden   Listen
adjective
Priest-ridden  adj.  Controlled or oppressed by priests; as, a priest-ridden people.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Priest-ridden" Quotes from Famous Books



... considered unmanly qualities. Some of the best men, some of the bravest soldiers, have not been ashamed of using this means of grace. Knights of old were accustomed to confess before they went into battle. Read the life of Henry V. of England. He was no milksop, or, as people would say now-a- days, priest-ridden king, but he did not look upon it as an unmanly thing. You are free to choose, or free to refuse it; only pray to be guided aright by God's Holy Spirit to do that which shall be most to His glory ...
— Boys - their Work and Influence • Anonymous

... I was ugly, sour-faced, and malformed; that I was priest-ridden and a fool; unlike my brother, who, she assured me, is a mirror of chivalry and manly perfections. She promised me that Heaven should never receive my soul, though I told my beads from now till Doomsday, and ...
— Bardelys the Magnificent • Rafael Sabatini

... heard—and as instantly prayed he To "God and his King"—that a Popish young Lady (For tho' you've bright eyes and twelve thousand a year, It is still but too true you're a Papist, my dear,) Had insidiously sent, by a tall Irish groom, Two priest-ridden ponies just landed from Rome, And so full, little rogues, of pontifical tricks That the dome of St. Paul was scarce safe ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al

... country like swarms of devouring locusts. According to the well-known facts of history, "they overran Arabia, Palestine, Persia, Egypt, and the northern shores of Africa, from which they passed to the conquest of Portugal and Spain." These were the countries that had been the most oppressed by a priest-ridden church and where especially were to be found those "men which have not the seal of God in their foreheads." Europe was trembling and filled with apprehension at what her fate might be at the hands of these fanatic warriors who ...
— The Revelation Explained • F. Smith

... a good deal, and lamented himself still more, when these facts became known to him. Dora had become a superstitious, priest-ridden dolt, of no good to him or anyone else any more. What, indeed, was to become of him? Natural affection cannot stand against the priest. A daughter cannot love her father and go to confession. Down with the ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... Saratoga. Since then, as you say, the land has become a waste of widows, beggars and orphans. Then came the French Alliance, a sacrifice of the great interests, as well as the religion of this country to the biased views of a proud, ancient, crafty and priest-ridden nation. I always thought this a defensive war until the French joined in the combination. Now I look with disfavor upon this peril to our dominion, this ...
— The Loyalist - A Story of the American Revolution • James Francis Barrett

... religion—as to obtain a loftier position for his nation. If the Magi occupied really the position at the Median Court which Herodotus assigns to them—if they "were held in high honor by the king, and shared in his sovereignty"—if the priest-ridden monarch was perpetually dreaming and perpetually referring his dreams to the Magian seers for exposition, and then guiding his actions by the advice they tendered him, the religious zeal of the young Zoroastrian may very naturally have been aroused, ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 3. (of 7): Media • George Rawlinson

... peasant, science as already known and faith in one God, Creator and Father of all things, must go hand in hand. Education and civilization will do much for the ignorant inaka or boors, but for the cultured whose minds waver and whose feet flounder, as well as for the unlearned and priest-ridden, there is no surer help and healing than that faith in the Heavenly Father which gives the unifying thought to him who ...
— The Religions of Japan - From the Dawn of History to the Era of Meiji • William Elliot Griffis

... fiction the circumstances of a compact community in a way that illustrates the various oppressions which such communities put upon individual vagaries, whether viewed as sin, or ignorance, or folly, or merely as social impossibility. She has, of course, studied other communities than New York: the priest-ridden Italy of the eighteenth century in The Valley of Decision; modern France in Madame de Treymes and The Reef; provincial New England in The Fruit of the Tree. What characterizes the New York ...
— Contemporary American Novelists (1900-1920) • Carl Van Doren

... bored of the business, as, the joinings between head and neck having partially given way, the former drooped over and nodded to the crowd as the image was moved along. This nodding, however, which would have been laughed at as supremely ridiculous in any other than a priest-ridden country, was here regarded in a different light. The padres did not fail to put their interpretation upon it, pointing it out to their devout followers as a mark of condescension on the part of the Saint, who, in thus bowing ...
— The White Chief - A Legend of Northern Mexico • Mayne Reid

... "Old Bontems' widow is a frenzied bigot. 'When the devil is old—' you know! I see that the place goes against the grain. Well, this is the whole truth; the old woman is priest-ridden; they have persuaded her that it was high time to make sure of heaven, and the better to secure Saint Peter and his keys she pays before-hand. She goes to Mass every day, attends every service, takes the communion every Sunday God has made, and amuses herself by restoring chapels. ...
— A Second Home • Honore de Balzac

... California, the most distant of the old American settlements of Spain, has felt already the bald eagle's claw; Texas is annexed; and unless European interests prevent it, which they must do, Mexico, Guatemala, Yucatan, and all the petty priest-ridden republics of the Isthmus, must follow, ...
— Canada and the Canadians - Volume I • Sir Richard Henry Bonnycastle

... Venice are priest-ridden!" the young Senator cried angrily, breaking away from her. "If there is trouble, it is the priests who have brought it. They cannot be ...
— A Golden Book of Venice • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull

... a man with whom any soldier might be proud to pick a quarrel. The present man is afraid of his own shadow on the wall—divided between love for the treasure-chests he dare not broach and fear of a brother whom he dare not kill. He is priest-ridden, priest-taught, and fit to be nothing but a priest. Who knows how young Cunnigan will shape? Where is he? Overseas yet! He must prove himself, as his father did, before he can hope to lead a ...
— Rung Ho! • Talbot Mundy

... the pulpit generally has to take what is left after the army, navy, politics, law, and golf have had the pick. It was a fatal error to permit the escape of knowledge in that way; and when southern Europe, now priest-ridden and pauperized, learns to read and write, the sleek blood-suckers will eat plainer food and the poor will not ...
— Comic History of England • Bill Nye

... Latin prayers, crossed himself, and so "made an end of his wicked days in this world,"—an example for all time how little education and accomplishments can do to keep man from sin, a martyr to a priest-ridden conscience unenlightened by the Word ...
— It Might Have Been - The Story of the Gunpowder Plot • Emily Sarah Holt

... Therefore he carried on the policy of excluding the Huguenots — the only colonizing element among his subjects, — and drove them into the English plantations. A small handful of obedient peasants, priest-ridden and over-administered, formed the basis of the colony. On this narrow foundation was raised a vast super- structure, ecclesiastical, administrative and military. His priests, and his officials civil and military, gave ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... deserted palace, he had stood for a moment fighting with his back to the wall. Here he had fallen. From that corner had come aid in the person—Sarrion was sure—of a friar. It was an odd coincidence, for the Church had never been the friend of the exiled man, and it was in the days of a priest-ridden Queen that ...
— The Velvet Glove • Henry Seton Merriman

... never tamely submit to be priest-ridden, and well do Ireland's enslavers know it. The most stupid of her priests, equally with the shrewdest of her 'patriots,' are quite alive to the expediency of teaching as facts, the fraudulent fables of the 'dark ages.' To keep the people ignorant, ...
— An Apology for Atheism - Addressed to Religious Investigators of Every Denomination - by One of Its Apostles • Charles Southwell

... greater improvement. Thus the Rev. R. S. Hawker—a man of such mediaeval tastes that he was claimed, falsely, I believe, as a Roman Catholic—made an apt reply to a nobleman who had told him in the heat of religious controversy that he would not be priest-ridden...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange

... greenbacks hardly worth the paper they were printed on, her Parliament ventured upon a 'coup de main' that would have appalled the stoutest of her statesmen under less desperate circumstances. They, in a manner, confiscated the domains of the Church! This in priest-ridden Italy! This in a land which has groped in the midnight of priestly superstition for sixteen hundred years! It was a rare good fortune for Italy, the stress of weather that drove her ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... half an hour has elapsed, the other could credit that centuries had flown during his agony. Thus, the life of a man of virtue and talent, who should die in his thirtieth year, is, with regard to his own feelings, longer than that of a miserable priest-ridden slave, who dreams out a century of dulness. The one has perpetually cultivated his mental faculties, has rendered himself master of his thoughts, can abstract and generalize amid the lethargy of every-day ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley

... contest might have been attended with the horrors incidental to a religious civil war, and calamities might have been felt in England similar to those under Henry the Great in France, whom queen Elizabeth assisted in opposing his priest-ridden catholic subjects. As if Providence had the perpetual establishment of the protestant faith in view, the difference of the durations of the two reigns is worthy of notice. Mary might have reigned many years in the course of nature, ...
— Fox's Book of Martyrs - Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant - Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs • John Fox

... the countries in the world, the most priest-ridden; the Lamas forming, it is said, one-third of the entire population. In most families, with the exception of the eldest son, who remains "a black man," all the sons are Lamas. Their future destiny is decided from the very cradle, by the fact of their parents causing ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 5, No. 3, March, 1852 • Various

... I knew of the poor in Europe. I told him some things I knew of that hopeless land, that priest-ridden, king-ridden country—my own land. Then he went on to tell me of America and its hope of a free democracy of the people. Believe me, I listened to Mr. Calhoun. Never mind what we said of Mr. Van Zandt and Sir Richard Pakenham. ...
— 54-40 or Fight • Emerson Hough

... extremely trying climate prevails on these highlands, the hermit-like, priest-ridden people know no better home and are contented with their lot. Of its three and one-half million inhabitants, one in seven belongs to the priestly ...
— Wealth of the World's Waste Places and Oceania • Jewett Castello Gilson

... of the game, I can tell myself stories about it. That it was invented by a woman is obvious, for why else should the queen be the most powerful piece of them all? She lived, this woman, in a priest-ridden land, but she had no love for the Church. Neither bland white bishop nor crooked-smiling black bishop did she love; that is why she made them move sideways. Yet she could not deny them their power. They were as powerful as the gallant young knight ...
— If I May • A. A. Milne

... in the college of Cagliari. Of late years, there seems to have been a considerable reaction in the temper of the Sardes as regards religion, at least, in the towns. No people were more bigoted, more priest-ridden, more credulous of the absurdest superstitions. But in a conversation I recently had on the subject with a very intelligent and well-informed friend in the island, he assured me that the utmost laxity now prevails in the religious sentiments of the people. They have lost all ...
— Rambles in the Islands of Corsica and Sardinia - with Notices of their History, Antiquities, and Present Condition. • Thomas Forester

... ever succeeded in twisting the whole British Parliament sharply out of its path. The Irish peasants are the only poor men in these islands who have forced their masters to disgorge. These people, whom we call priest-ridden, are the only Britons who will not be squire-ridden. And when I came to look at the actual Irish character, the case was the same. Irishmen are best at the specially HARD professions—the trades of iron, the lawyer, and the soldier. In all ...
— Orthodoxy • G. K. Chesterton

... he said. It is true for them. We are an unfortunate priest-ridden race and always were and always will be till the end of ...
— A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man • James Joyce

... welcomed her to his diocese, and at first received her doctrines with appreciative favour. But he was a man easily persuaded, swayed by the last person who talked to him, and as her opinions became more pronounced, he began to perceive that they were dangerous to the stability of the corrupt, priest-ridden Church of which he was an "overseer." He had appointed Father La Combe as Madame Guyon's "director," her spiritual guide and instructor. But in practice the position was reversed, and it was she who led La Combe into higher regions of thought ...
— Excellent Women • Various

... was pronounced in a more lugubrious note: he shook his head, and after a pause, he recommenced. "England is no longer priest-ridden, sir; but she is worse, she is law-ridden. Litigation and law expenses have, like locusts, devoured up the produce of industry. No man is safe without a lawyer at his elbow, making over to him a part of his annual income to secure the remainder. And then there's Brougham. But, ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)

... to listen to him—either now, or in the morning. For all her scorn, she should know, before they parted, something of this misery that burnt in him. And he would say, too, all that it pleased him to say of that priest-ridden fool at Bannisdale. ...
— Helbeck of Bannisdale, Vol. II • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... time, talents and resources to the good of her subjects and is highly esteemed and much regretted by them. The present Duchess of Lucca has no other character but that which seems common to the Royal families of France, Spain and Naples; viz., of being very weak and priest-ridden. Lucca furnishes excellent female servants who are remarkable for their industry and probity. Their only solace is their lover or amoroso, as they term him; and when they enter into the service of any family, they always stipulate for one day in the week on ...
— After Waterloo: Reminiscences of European Travel 1815-1819 • Major W. E Frye

... dreaming of the devilish scheme which, instigated from Potsdam, and paid for by German gold, was about to be worked. Already Germany had decided to conquer Russia, and already the far-seeing Kaiser had watched and recognised that he could use Rasputin's undoubted influence in our priest-ridden country ...
— The Minister of Evil - The Secret History of Rasputin's Betrayal of Russia • William Le Queux

... the hypocritical tribes of eavesdropping dissemblers, superstitious pope-mongers, and priest-ridden bigots, the frantic Pistolets, (the demoniacal Calvins, impostors of Geneva,) the scrapers of benefices, apparitors with the devil in them, and other grinders and squeezers of livings, herb-stinking hermits, ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais

... valley above 70 miles in length watered by the Swat river above its junction with the Panjkora. Rice is extensively grown, and a malarious environment has affected the physique and the character of the people. The Swati is priest-ridden and treacherous. Even his courage has been denied, probably unjustly. Swati fanaticism has been a source of much trouble on the Peshawar border. The last serious outbreak was in 1897, when a determined, but unsuccessful, attack was made on our posts at Chakdarra and the Malakand ...
— The Panjab, North-West Frontier Province, and Kashmir • Sir James McCrone Douie

... to see what he could find, as every good corporal does under such circumstances, taking with him Pache, who was a favorite on account of his quiet manner, although he considered him rather too priest-ridden. ...
— The Downfall • Emile Zola

... their effects and to learn how they may best be applied to the relief of our own unhappy people; and as a private person, independent of party and patronage, could I not do more than as the nominal head of a narrow priest-ridden government, where every act and word would be used by my enemies to injure me and the cause ...
— The Valley of Decision • Edith Wharton

... mistaken. Shortly afterwards I received also a brief epistle from my uncle; it was as kind as usual, and it mentioned Aubrey's return to Devereux Court. "That unhappy boy," said Sir William, "is more than ever devoted to his religious duties; nor do I believe that any priest-ridden poor devil in the dark ages ever made such use of ...
— Devereux, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... was part and parcel of his grandfather's creed: he thought that it was only the priest-ridden prigs who believed in an eternal life. He knew that his friend was not such a one: and he wondered if Olivier could be speaking seriously. But Olivier held his hand and expounded at length his idealistic faith, and the unity of boundless ...
— Jean-Christophe Journey's End • Romain Rolland

... thoroughfares, and strangers seldom visit more than one or two of the principal towns on the coast. Bari and Brindisi are known to tourists, as they are in the line of travel to and from Greece, but the inland towns are isolated in a barren priest-ridden country in which strangers are not welcome. The hardships which it is necessary to face deter all but the most adventurous even of the Italians, familiar with the language and manners of the people. Architects seldom visit this neighborhood, and little is known ...
— The Brochure Series of Architectural Illustration, Volume 01, No. 04, April 1895 - Byzantine-Romanesque Windows in Southern Italy • Various

... atheism that is getting so frightfully common, but really it seems to me such extravagant notions about religion as you have been brought up in must have not a little to do with the present sad state of affairs—must in fact go far to make atheists. Civilization will never endure to be priest-ridden." ...
— Weighed and Wanting • George MacDonald

... uttered, in regard to French women. I am not a French woman, but if there is no other here to vindicate them, I will do it. The French women are as moral as any other people in any country; and when they have not been as moral, it has been because they have been priest-ridden. I love to vindicate the rights of those who are not ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage

... the probability of his capture. Amongst them there was an aged man of grayish beard, who was particularly loud and zealous in his condemnation of the dishonest banker. He railed against the Government, which, he said, was priest-ridden under the whip of Mazarin; the imbecility of the police; and the apathy of the citizens, who bore so peaceably such glaring acts of injustice and imposition. He poured out a volume of calumny against the priesthood, and blasphemed so as to ...
— Alvira: the Heroine of Vesuvius • A. J. O'Reilly

... un-sanctified, un-regenerate; hardened, perverted, reprobate. hypocritical &c (false) 544; canting, pietistical^, sanctimonious, unctuous, pharisaical, overrighteous^, righteous over much. bigoted, fanatical; priest-ridden. Adv. under the mask of religion, under the cloak of religion, under the pretense of religion, under the form of religion, under the guise of religion. Phr. giovane ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget

... in the jails; to poor Giles Corey, tortured with planks upon his breast, which forced the tongue from his mouth and his life from his old, palsied body; to bereaved and quaking families; to a whole community, priest-ridden and spectresmitten, gasping in the sick dream of a spiritual nightmare and given over to believe a lie. We may laugh, for the grotesque is blended with the horrible; but we must also pity and shudder. The clear-sighted men who confronted that delusion in its own age, disenchanting, ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier

... the members of the council of state were dreaming of recreation and enjoyment, rather than of the duties of office, while, too, preparations were being made for the approaching auto-da-fe—that terrible spectacle which the inquisition annually offered to the morbid tastes of a priest-ridden people—while, in a word, Florence seemed wrapped up in security and peace—at such a moment the astounding intelligence arrived, that a mighty army was within a few hours' march of the ...
— Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf • George W. M. Reynolds

... be raised only upon the arm of a doubtful and treacherous friend? Was it an hour when the protection of Protestantism and of European liberty against Spain was to be entrusted to the hand of a feeble and priest-ridden Valois? Was it wise to indulge any longer in doubtings and dreamings, and in yet a little more folding of the arms to sleep, while that insatiable malice, so terrible to be thought of, so miserable to feel, ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley



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