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Sinecure   Listen
noun
Sinecure  n.  
1.
An ecclesiastical benefice without the care of souls.
2.
Any office or position which requires or involves little or no responsibility, labor, or active service. "A lucrative sinecure in the Excise."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Sinecure" Quotes from Famous Books



... when the mare was brought out, and he was going to mount her where she stood, something seemed to wake in the marquis's heart, or conscience, or wherever the pigmy Duty slept that occupied the all but sinecure of his moral economy: he looked at Malcolm for a moment, then at the ears of the mare hugging her neck, and last at the stones ...
— Malcolm • George MacDonald

... two, for form's sake, in public once a year, yet to you, sir, we shall not stand on these things,' I cannot say I should jump at it; nay, if they would drop the very name of the office, and call me Sinecure to the King's Majesty, I should feel a little awkward, and think everybody I saw smelt a rat about me; but I do not pretend to blame any one else that has not the same sensations; for my part, I would rather be serjeant trumpeter or pinmaker to the palace. Nevertheless I ...
— Selected English Letters (XV - XIX Centuries) • Various

... The only sinecure which the poet is now supposed to have retained, was a grant of twenty-five crowns every four months on the episcopal chancery of Milan: so, to help out his petty income, he proceeded to enter into the service of ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Vol. 2 • Leigh Hunt

... band funds, not only because it was detrimental to the interests of the institution, but also because it might give offence to those who were acting as conductors at a lower salary, if they knew another man had been appointed to a sinecure. From these circumstances Mendelssohn derived not only the advantage of having the grant kept a secret, but also the satisfaction of allowing his friends to applaud him as a model of self-sacrificing zeal for going to Leipzig; which they could easily do, ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner

... These are usually interspersed with solos on the flageolet, to contrast with obligati for the ophecleido; the drummers—side, long, and double—are seldom inactive; the trombones and trumpets have no sinecure, and there is always a great mortality amongst the fiddle-strings. Eight bars of impossible variation is sure to be succeeded by sixteen of the deafening fanfare of trumpets, combined with ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, September 5, 1841 • Various

... in intruding the religious demerit of Romanism into a parliamentary discussion. If this measure had been thrown out, I fear Ireland would have been awfully embittered. Yet I hope the fierce opposition will stop any future scheme of keeping the sinecure church untouched and endowing the priests with imperial money.... Thus I halt between ...
— Memoir and Letters of Francis W. Newman • Giberne Sieveking

... of the schooner, under which the men composing the watch on deck lolled in sleepy indolence, overcome with excessive heat. Bloody Bill, as the men invariably called him, was standing at the tiller, but his post for the present was a sinecure, and he whiled away the time by alternately gazing in dreamy abstraction at the compass in the binnacle, and by walking to the taffrail in order to spit into the sea. In one of these turns he came near to where I was standing, ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne

... new Government of the Wallingford-House Interruption had no objection to retaining Mr. Milton in the Latin Secretaryship if he cared to keep it. That he had held the post throughout the whole of the Government of the Restored Rump (though all but in sinecure, as we must conclude from the cessation of the series of his Latin Letters in the preceding May) appears from a very interesting document in the Record Office. The Council of State of the Rump, it is to be remembered, had not vanished with the Rump itself on Oct. 13, but had sat on for twelve ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson

... benefit of a class, and leading, especially in legal matters, to endless abuses and chicanery. The abuses everywhere imply 'inequality' in some sense; for they arise from monopoly. The man who holds a sinecure, or enjoys a privilege, uses it for his own private interest. The 'matter of corruption,' as Bentham called it, was provided by the privilege and the sinecure. The Jacobin might denounce privileges simply ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume I. • Leslie Stephen

... you know. And even if his health does give out, his college pals will always find him some sort of sinecure. So jolly ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... Enos assumed the office of peace-maker for the village, Uncle Jaw's efficiency rendered it no sinecure. The deacon always followed the steps of Uncle Jaw, smoothing, hushing up, and putting matters aright with an assiduity that was ...
— The May Flower, and Miscellaneous Writings • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... they might at a new piece of furniture, or a labor-saving machine, and then coolly finished their duties, and followed their employer. Mr. Schwartz showed him about closing the store, taking care of the furnace, etc., and Dennis saw that his place was no sinecure. Still it was not work, but its lack, that he dreaded, and his movements were so eager and earnest that a faint expression of surprise and curiosity tinged the broad, stolid face of Mr. Schwartz; but he only buttoned his coat to the chin and muttered, "New broom," and went his way homeward, ...
— Barriers Burned Away • E. P. Roe

... creator christened her) would have had a no more responsible duty, except for the size of it, than that of an electrician or a Standard Oil magnate. But to "enlighten" the world (as our learned civic guardians "Englished" it) requires abler qualities. And so poor Liberty, instead of having a sinecure as a mere illuminator, must be converted into a Chautauqua schoolma'am, with the oceans for her field instead of the placid, classic lake. With a fireless torch and an empty head must she dispel the shadows of the world and teach ...
— Sixes and Sevens • O. Henry

... the royal invitation that is a command, only death positive or threatening could excuse non-attendance; and though his friendship was in truth a liberal education, the position of even the humblest confidant was no sinecure, for the plans he loved to describe and discuss were not confined to that day and season, but were long, daring looks ahead; great coups for ...
— [19th Century Actor] Autobiographies • George Iles

... which has a mound-like character, is daubed over with mud, the tail of the alligator being used as a trowel. The first duties of maternity being over, the female alligator acts as policeman until the eggs are hatched. Her office is not a sinecure, for the fowls of the air, and the creeping things upon earth, are attracted to the entombed delicacies secreted in this oven-like structure in the swamp. Many a luckless coon and cracker's pig searching ...
— Four Months in a Sneak-Box • Nathaniel H. Bishop

... afraid, not only of falling myself, but of involving my royal master in my ruin. It is time for me to retire." Bute retired as proudly as he had exercised his office, for he neither asked for pension nor sinecure, and his retirement was followed by that of Sir Francis Dashwood, chancellor of the exchequer, and of Fox, who were elevated to the peerage: the former as Baron le Despencer, and the latter as Baron Holland. Mr. George Grenville succeeded to the premiership, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan

... upon his colleagues, and towards Franklin he cherished an envious hatred which developed into a monomania. Perhaps Franklin was correct in charitably saying that at times he was "insane." He began by asserting that Franklin was old, idle, and useless, fit only to be shelved in some respectable sinecure mission; but he rapidly advanced from such moderate condemnation until he charged Franklin with being a party to the abstraction of his dispatches from a sealed parcel, which was rifled in some unexplained way on its passage home;[61] and finally he even reached the extremity of alleging ...
— Benjamin Franklin • John Torrey Morse, Jr.

... ladder. They have the health, energy and assertiveness necessary to keep climbing. They accept their assignments and carry them out with modest success. They are the lesser executives who work themselves out by the time they are fifty and find some sinecure or safe position near the top of ...
— Civilization and Beyond - Learning From History • Scott Nearing

... Majesty King William the Fourth, still announces to a heedless world the tolls to be paid for entry by the ships that never arrive; and a superannuated official in a wooden leg and a gold cap-band retains the honourable sinecure of a harbour-mastership, with a hypothetical salary nominally payable from the non-existent fees and port dues. The little river Cale, at the bottom of whose combe the wee town nestles snugly, has cut itself a deep valley in the soft sandstone hills; and the gap in the ...
— Philistia • Grant Allen

... army of girl and women workers in this great metropolis is, indeed, a vast one, and work for them is no sinecure. If they cannot work so thoroughly or efficiently as men, at least it is for them greater toil than for the sterner sex. Of a more delicate organisation, of less robust frame, of smaller powers of endurance, the "buffets of fortune" meet with less resistance, and are more readily yielded to. ...
— The Girl's Own Paper, Vol. VIII, No. 357, October 30, 1886 • Various

... allegiance to the Emperor, and the long line of petty tyrants did not come to an end until Pope Eugenius the Fourth beheaded the last of the race for his misdeeds in the fifteenth century; after him the office was seized upon by the Barons and finally drifted into the hands of the Barberini, a mere sinecure bringing rich ...
— Ave Roma Immortalis, Vol. 2 - Studies from the Chronicles of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford

... Era. It taking over the publication of this sheet he had remarked that life was altogether too short to permit of attempting anything worth while; and so he forthwith made no further assaults upon fame—assuming that he had ever done so—but settled comfortably down to the enjoyment of his sinecure. He had never married. And as justification for his self-imposed celibacy he pompously quoted Kant: "I am a bachelor, and I could not cease to be a bachelor without a disturbance that would be intolerable to me." Yet he was not a misogynist. He simply ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking

... in shoeing the horses, a job of no little tedium and difficulty, they being the only farriers of the party. There were 42 head to shoe, many of which had never been shod before, and as the thermometer stood at 100 degrees in the shade most of the day, their office was no sinecure; they had at first some difficulty in getting a sufficient heat, but after a little experimenting found a wood of great value in that particular. This was the apple-gum, by using which, they could if necessary get a white heat in the iron. At the end of the third day the ...
— The Overland Expedition of The Messrs. Jardine • Frank Jardine and Alexander Jardine

... minutes as they would have taken years in Europe. The subject of the causes was frequently very trivial, yet the patience of the sovereign was by no means exhausted. I thought, in general, that the pleaders were satisfied with the Bey's decision. One sees, by this, that the Bey's place is no sinecure; and I am told that few monarchs in Christian countries have so much personally to do. The Bey sits every day in the court, from eight in summer, and from nine in winter, till mid-day; and illness, or absence ...
— Notes in North Africa - Being a Guide to the Sportsman and Tourist in Algeria and Tunisia • W. G. Windham

... try their bayonets against those expert handlers of the sword; and the event was, that the whole train of fifty or sixty waggons, of which about a tenth remained full, were hurried away at full gallop down to the Boulevard, leaving the scaffold a sinecure. At the barrier a new arrangement took place; the wounded were piled into the carriages along with us, and the whole were marched under escort to the grand depot of the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 343, May 1844 • Various

... beginning the acquaintance turned out wonderfully well. The Primate loved him, Erasmus wrote home, as if he were his father or his brother, and his generosity surpassed that of all his friends. He offered him a sinecure, and when he declined it he bestowed on him a pension of a hundred crowns a year. When Erasmus wandered to Paris it was Warham's invitation which recalled him to England. When the rest of his patrons left him to ...
— History of the English People, Volume III (of 8) - The Parliament, 1399-1461; The Monarchy 1461-1540 • John Richard Green

... do some chaperoning at last, am I?" queried her father. "The job has ceased to be a sinecure. I suppose I'll have to do all the talking, since young girls, of course, may only speak when spoken to and then must answer with a yes or no. Really, my dear, you're setting yourself ...
— Affairs of State • Burton E. Stevenson

... every Sabbath morning. Long before the church-going bell rings out the general invitation, he is on the spot, sweeping a series of paths all radiating from the church or chapel door to the different points of the compass. The business he has cut out for himself is no sinecure; he does his work so effectually, that you marvel at the achievement, and doubt if the floor of your dwelling be cleaner. Then he is himself as clean as a new pin, and wears a flower in his button-hole, and a smile on his face, ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 437 - Volume 17, New Series, May 15, 1852 • Various

... above it will readily be seen, as Schindler plaintively asserts, that the office of friend to Beethoven was no sinecure. But he appreciated the advantage of living in the reflected glory of the great master, and such tact as he possessed was brought to bear, to continue the relations of friend, counsellor and general factotum, which were ...
— Beethoven • George Alexander Fischer

... and I ride about again. My office here is no sinecure, so many parties and difficulties of every kind; but I will do what I can. Prince Mavrocordato is an excellent person, and does all in his power; but his situation is perplexing in the extreme. ...
— A Publisher and His Friends • Samuel Smiles

... Constant at routs, familiar with a round Of ladyships, a stranger to the poor; Ambitions of preferment for its gold, And well prepared by ignorance and sloth, By infidelity and love o' the world, To make God's work a sinecure; a slave To his own pleasures and his patron's pride.— From such apostles, O ye mitred heads, Preserve the Church! and lay not careless hands On skulls that cannot teach, and will ...
— The Task and Other Poems • William Cowper

... since I had planted a signal staff upon its parapet to angle upon; being then engaged, as chief of a hydrographic surveying party, in surveying the approaches to Boston Harbor. Then its garrison consisted of a superannuated sergeant whose office was a sinecure; now it held an armed garrison, who drilled and paraded every day, with all the "pomp and circumstance" of war, to the patriotic tune of "John Brown's body lies a-moulding in the grave, but his spirit is marching on;" and it was crowded ...
— The Narrative of a Blockade-Runner • John Wilkinson

... of that farce, wanting F.'s part therein! Having himself an excellent old man in it already, and a quite admirable part in the other farce." From which it will appear that my friend's office was not a sinecure, and that he was not, as few amateur-managers have ever been, without the experiences of Peter Quince. Fewer still, I suspect, have fought through them with such perfect success, for the company turned out at last would have ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster

... in the course of travelling through his grammar and prosody. Under the stern rule, indeed, of George Buchanan, who did not approve of the vicarious mode of punishment, James bore the penance of his own faults, and Mungo Malagrowther enjoyed a sinecure; but James's other pedagogue, Master Patrick Young, went more ceremoniously to work, and appalled the very soul of the youthful king by the floggings which he bestowed on the whipping-boy, when the royal task was ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott

... battle?" it is so strange a thing, that numbers imagine you may go and see it at Charing Cross. Indeed, our officers, who are going to Flanders, don't quite like it; they are afraid it should grow the fashion to fight, and that a pair of colours should no longer be a sinecure. I am quite unhappy about poor Mr. Chute: besides, it is cruel to find that abstinence is not a drug. If mortification ever ceases to be a medicine, or virtue to be a passport to carnivals in the other world, who will be ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume I • Horace Walpole

... secretary, and the place was no sinecure. Besides manuscripts and letters which his master signed, Pilorge copied everything. The illustrious author, attentive to the demands of posterity, preserved with religious care copies of his most trifling notes. The ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 11, No. 24, March, 1873 • Various

... jeweled snuffbox in all fashionable companies. He was the cadet of a patrician family (when not the ambitious son of a low family), with a polite taste for idleness and intrigue, for whom no secular sinecure could be found in the State, and who obliged the Church by accepting orders. Whether in the palace on the Grand Canal, or the villa on the Brenta, this gentle and engaging priest was surely the most agreeable person to be met, and the most dangerous to ladies' hearts,—with ...
— Venetian Life • W. D. Howells

... sold by government had not to pay a percentage for the lead raised from them, those who worked upon the government lands refused to pay any longer, asserting that it was not legal. The superintendent of government soon found that his office was a sinecure, as all attempt at coercion in that half-civilised country would have been not only useless but dangerous. The government have gone to law with their tenants, but that is of no avail, for a verdict against the latter would not induce them to pay. The cause was not attempted to be tried ...
— Diary in America, Series One • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)

... Godwin's life had not ended, as he had so bitterly apprehended, in penury; as his friends in power had obtained for him the post of Yeoman Usher of the Exchequer, with residence in New Palace Yard, in 1833. The office was in fact a sinecure, and was soon abolished; but it was arranged that no change should be made in the old philosopher's position. His old friends had died, but his work had its reward for him, as well as its place in the thought of the world, for ...
— Mrs. Shelley • Lucy M. Rossetti

... maturity met there. He would make a pattern colonel if he lived. Under the simple lines of his uniform one apprehended the ripple and play of unclogged muscles. If all men were like Stonor the tailor's task would be a sinecure. ...
— The Woman from Outside - [on Swan River] • Hulbert Footner

... tired out that afternoon; for she had been on her feet all day, busied in her loving cares to make our simple home as pleasant and as welcome as home could be. But yet she stopped to dress us in our Sunday clothes,—and no sinecure was it to dress three persistently undressable children; Winthrop was a host in himself. "Auntie must see us look ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 106, August, 1866 • Various

... of a sort of policeman or beadle, called a Lord Warden. Holding the office directly from the crown, I believe, all the royal emoluments incident to the Cinque Port territories become by assignment his. By some writers this office is called a sinecure. But not so. Because the Lord Warden is busily employed at times in fobbing his perquisites; which are his chiefly by virtue of ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville

... duties of kings are thus laid down in the Rajtarangini. It is evident, as Professor H. H. Wilson says, that the royal status was by no means a sinecure. But the rules are evidently the closet work of some pedantic, dogmatic Brahman, teaching kingcraft to kings. He directs his instructions, not to subordinate judges, but to the Raja as the chief magistrate, and through him to all appointed for the ...
— Vikram and the Vampire • Sir Richard F. Burton

... thousands do, choose to throw him upon the public compassion; he may ride into a good business upon the back of a borrowed capital, for which he pays but a nominal interest; and if he fail to realise a competence by his own endeavours, he may perchance revel in some corporation sinecure, or, at the worst, luxuriate in an alms-house, and be finally deposited in the church-yard—and all at other people's expense. On the other hand, if he be made of the right metal, he may carve his way to fortune and to civic fame, and may die full of years and honours—in ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 436 - Volume 17, New Series, May 8, 1852 • Various

... the appointment of librarian to the king at the chateau de Choisy, where she built him, at her own expense, a little cottage ornee, named by the poets of the time, the Parnassus of the French Anacreon. This appointment was a complete sinecure, for we know that the king never opened a book, and we are equally assured that Bernard never put ...
— International Miscellany of Literature, Art and Science, Vol. 1, - No. 3, Oct. 1, 1850 • Various

... some cure or sinecure; To feed from the superfluous taxes A friend of ours—a poet—fewer 660 Have fluttered tamer to the lure Than he.' His ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley

... the new Hospital at Marlborough was filled to its utmost capacity and Evadne found her work no sinecure. The force of nurses was inadequate to the demand. Often she would be called from her rest to minister to the critical cases which were her special care, and she would go down to the ward saying softly, "The Master is come and calleth for thee," and bending tenderly over ...
— A Beautiful Possibility • Edith Ferguson Black

... and under such proper restrictions as said trustees may prescribe, the right and privilege of access to the same, that thereby the memory and love for the poet and the man may be cherished and perpetuated." Mr. Ordway was made president of the board, and in his hands the office has been no sinecure. His unflagging zeal and his unerring good taste have resulted not only in putting the ancient house into the perfect order of the olden time, but in fertilizing the wornout fields, and preserving for future ages one of the finest specimens ...
— Whittier-land - A Handbook of North Essex • Samuel T. Pickard

... and the people are very much overtaxed. The nizam's taste for splendor and his desire to outdo all the other native princes in display have caused the government of India considerable anxiety, and the British resident at his capital, whose duty is to keep him straight, enjoys no sinecure. ...
— Modern India • William Eleroy Curtis

... of the castle is at present altogether a sinecure; formerly this was the regular seat of the insular government; but now it is quite deserted, save by the individual who has the privilege of showing the place to strangers, and ...
— Brannon's Picture of The Isle of Wight • George Brannon

... house-place, where the only chance of collecting a few grains of dust would be to climb on the salt-coffer, and put your finger on the high mantel-shelf on which the glittering brass candlesticks are enjoying their summer sinecure; for at this time of year, of course, every one goes to bed while it is yet light, or at least light enough to discern the outline of objects after you have bruised your shins against them. Surely nowhere else could an oak clock-case and an oak table have got to such a polish by the ...
— Adam Bede • George Eliot

... no credit. But I am sincerely glad you are the man. The office is no sinecure. The state of feeling in regard to the Spanish boundary is ominous. Shall you be able to adjust the matter amicably or will the dispute ...
— A Dream of Empire - Or, The House of Blennerhassett • William Henry Venable

... Commissary Passauf asked himself in terror. "How could these furious savages be arrested? How check these goaded temperaments? My office would be no longer a sinecure, and the council would be obliged to double my salary— unless it should arrest me myself, ...
— A Winter Amid the Ice - and Other Thrilling Stories • Jules Verne

... monopolised by the cottage and the drawing-room, has been the aim and the achievement of many recent authors of distinction. How they have succeeded, let the populous state of the public jails attest. The office of 'dubsman' [hangman] has ceased to be a sinecure, and the public and Mr Joseph Hume have the satisfaction of knowing that these useful functionaries have now got something to do for their salaries. The number of their pupils has increased, is increasing, and is not likely to be diminished. ...
— The Bon Gaultier Ballads • William Edmonstoune Aytoun

... without working? Mr. Lush had passed for a scholar once, and had still a sense of scholarship when he was not trying to remember much of it; but the bachelor's and other arts which soften manners are a time-honored preparation for sinecures; and Lush's present comfortable provision was as good a sinecure in not requiring more than the odor of departed learning. He was not unconscious of being held kickable, but he preferred counting that estimate among the peculiarities of Grandcourt's character, ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot

... corpse undergoes a slight noviciate and preparatory training for damnation. If the answers are none of the clearest, he is hauled up with a scythe and thumped down with a red-hot mace till properly seasoned, with a variety of subsidiary probations. The office of these angels is no sinecure; there are but two, and the number of orthodox deceased being in a small proportion to the remainder, their hands are always full.—See Relig. Ceremon., v. 290; vii. 59,68, 118, and Sale's Preliminary Discourse ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Vol. 3 (of 7) • Lord Byron

... rich in ink and poor in will, has ended by capitulating entirely, and has settled down into a sinecure, like any other commonplace man. After lending his pen to all disorganizing efforts, he now lives in peace under the protecting shade of a ministerial organ. The cross of the Legion of honor, formerly the ...
— A Daughter of Eve • Honore de Balzac

... A goodly sinecure, no doubt! but made More easy by the absence of all men— Except his Majesty,—who, with her aid, And guards, and bolts, and walls, and now and then A slight example, just to cast a shade Along the rest, contrived to keep this den Of beauties cool as an Italian ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron

... scattered "panel" connection, had but recently entered the Navy as a surgical probationer R.N.V.R. He joined purely through patriotic motives, having sacrificed a fairly substantial income in order to do so. Up to the present his work had been almost a sinecure. The Yealm had not had the faintest chance of taking part in an engagement. Her crew—to use Fanshawe's own words—were "that beastly healthy, don't you know", that, out of sheer anxiety to do something, he was learning navigation from ...
— The Submarine Hunters - A Story of the Naval Patrol Work in the Great War • Percy F. Westerman

... officials would have no sinecure. Crime would perhaps be less, for some of the motives of crime we may suppose would pass away. But if Socialism were carried out with any fulness, there would be more contraventions. We see already new sins ...
— Lay Morals • Robert Louis Stevenson

... Now it was no sinecure, teaching Rhoda, but she won the dress,—a lilac print, delicate and pretty enough for any one. I undertook to make the dress, but she accomplished a good part of it herself. She said Miss Reeny used to show her about sewing. Whatever was to be done ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 109, November, 1866 • Various

... you want a day's shooting, and you shall have it." Under this system the yeomen became keen sportsmen; they and all their labourers took a keen interest in preserving, and the whole district would have risen on a poacher. The keeper's place became a sinecure, and the squire had as much game as he wanted without expense, and was, moreover, the most popular man in the county. Even after the new man came, and all was changed, the mere revocation of their sporting liberties, and ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes

... counts as triumphantly as the charms of Adonis. Ever since I read certain passages of Faust, part II, Eduard von Hartmann's "Philosophy of the Unconscious," and Lermontoff's "Hero of our Times," I am convinced that to love a man very good-looking, or, on the contrary, a perfect horror, is no sinecure. ...
— Secret Memoirs: The Story of Louise, Crown Princess • Henry W. Fischer

... died. In January, 1774, he took his seat in the House of Lords. In November, 1779, Lyttelton went into Opposition. On Thursday, 25th November, he denounced Government in a magnificent speech. As to a sinecure which he held, he said, "Perhaps I shall not ...
— The Book of Dreams and Ghosts • Andrew Lang

... make it more difficult to secure as candidates those who are prepared to devote the necessary time to the study of London's problems, for it is generally admitted that the position of a London County Councillor is no sinecure. The effective discharge of his duties demands unremitting attention to details. The new Council was remarkable for the number of members who had yet to win their spurs in public work, and London was the poorer for the ...
— Proportional Representation - A Study in Methods of Election • John H. Humphreys

... stream for some time, Sabine expressed a wish to rest. Instantly benches were set, the table got ready, and an ubiquitous waiter brought a giant coffee-pot and the number of cups required. Sabine's office was no sinecure. She chose Anton for her adjutant, and it was a pretty sight to see how kindly she gave each one his cup, how watchful she was lest the sugar-bowl and the cream-jug should be interrupted in their ...
— Debit and Credit - Translated from the German of Gustav Freytag • Gustav Freytag

... that fellow stop? He saw three men whom he knew were armed, besides that young man who's pretending to sail the boat—why don't you do it, Kit?" and Waldo laughed good-humoredly at the lad whose office had become a sinecure. "When you get used to them, Mr. Harwin," he added, "they ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume II. No. 2, November, 1884 • Various

... sinecure—the life of the logging camp. A hundred times you will be called upon to face battle, murder, and sudden death, and it will be up to you to ...
— The Promise - A Tale of the Great Northwest • James B. Hendryx

... Law of Nature and Nations was one of the best endowed in the College, having a revenue of L150 a year independently of fees, but it had been founded as a job, and continued ever since to be treated as a sinecure. Not a single lecture had ever been delivered by any of its incumbents, in spite of repeated remonstrances on the part of the Faculty of Advocates, and Hume believed that if the Town Council, as administrators ...
— Life of Adam Smith • John Rae

... from his dream, Monsieur de Maurillac, without considering that he was leaving his wife and daughter behind him almost penniless, but not being able to make up his mind to come down in the world, to vegetate, to fight against his creditors, to accept the derisive alms of some sinecure, poisoned himself, like a shop girl who is forsaken by ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume III (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant

... Chile was no sinecure. He had not only to attend to the organization of the new State, but also to employ to the utmost his judgment, tact, and diplomacy, with which qualities he was so well endowed, in allaying the disputes and jealousies between the patriot leaders. There is no doubt, for instance, ...
— South America • W. H. Koebel

... the Sceptic in these party days Who wafts to neither shrine his puffs of praise! For him no pension pours its annual fruits, No fertile sinecure spontaneous shoots; Not his the meed that crowned Don Hookham's rhyme, Nor sees he e'er in dreams of future time Those shadowy forms of sleek reversions rise, So dear to Scotchmen's second-sighted eyes. Yet who that looks to History's damning leaf, Where Whig and ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al

... proved a little too much for him, he urbanely said so. Thereupon, at Fyfe's suggestion, he imported a fellow countryman, another bland, silent-footed model of efficiency in personal service. Thereafter Stella's task of supervision proved a sinecure. ...
— Big Timber - A Story of the Northwest • Bertrand W. Sinclair

... secretary, madame. We were at work as you came. I was on the point of inditing a letter to Her Majesty. The office of Seneschal in a province such as Dauphiny is helas!—no sinecure." He sighed like one whose brain is weary. "It leaves a man little time even to ...
— St. Martin's Summer • Rafael Sabatini

... this criticism was true; also that Miss Betsy's task was no sinecure, and she therefore thought it best to ...
— The Story Of Kennett • Bayard Taylor

... defence of P.N. Fitzgerald, the leader who beat Parnell and Archbishop Croke so badly at Thurles the other day; and he is in a fair way now to be denounced with equal fervour by the Nationalists as a County Court judge in Donegal. He finds this post no sinecure. "I do as much work in five days," he said to-night, "as the Superior Judges ...
— Ireland Under Coercion (2nd ed.) (1 of 2) (1888) • William Henry Hurlbert

... during the hard winter months, when, seated almost immovably in the boat during the best portion of the day, he would find his fingers so completely dead, that he could not hold his pen. But there is no situation, under any of the powers that be, that has not some drawback. People may say that a sinecure is one that has not its disadvantages; but such is not the case—there is the disgrace of holding it. At all events, Joey's place was no sinecure, for he was up early, and was employed the ...
— The Poacher - Joseph Rushbrook • Frederick Marryat

... Everett! You'll be getting into some precious scrape or other. You're not the fellow for a merchant's office, trust me. Now something in the way of a government appointment is much more like it. A pleasant, poetical sort of sinecure,—there are lots of them to be had. You just trundle down for an hour or two every day, write letters, or poems, or whatever you like, with the official stationery, and receive your salary quarterly. You can't do any mischief in a ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 5, No. 28, February, 1860 • Various

... by granting the valuable sinecure office of clerk of the pells to Barre in exchange for the pension secured to him by the whigs. His private means were only L300 a year, and, as such matters were then regarded, he might have taken the office himself without scandal; but uncertain as his position seemed to be, he preferred ...
— The Political History of England - Vol. X. • William Hunt

... depredations of the robbers. The same reason led at an early period to the appointment of a steward of the Chiltern Hundreds, and this office being continued long after the necessity for it had ceased to exist, gradually became the sinecure it is to-day. The district was not finally disforested until ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 3 - "Brescia" to "Bulgaria" • Various

... public feeling was somewhat unreasonable, for Pitt's health seems now to have been beyond doubt so shattered by his hereditary malady, that he was already in old age though only fifty-eight. It was natural, therefore, that he should choose a sinecure office, and the ease of the Lords. But a popular idol nearly always suffers by removal from immediate contact with the popular sympathy, be the motives for ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 1 - "Chtelet" to "Chicago" • Various

... the Lower Fifth into a premature grave, needed a firm hand. Indeed, they generally needed not only a firm hand, but a firm hand grasping a serviceable walking-stick. Add to these Harrison himself, and others of a similar calibre, and it will be seen that Graham's post was no sinecure. It was Harrison's custom to throw off his mask at night with his other garments, and appear in his true character of an abandoned villain, willing to stick at nothing as long as he could do it strictly ...
— Tales of St. Austin's • P. G. Wodehouse

... of large acquirements and sterling rectitude. Nearly as much may be said of Dubois, more than half a century ago the editor of a then popular magazine, "The Monthly Mirror." Dubois, in his latter days, enjoyed a snug sinecure, and lived in Sloane Street. He was a pleasant man in face and in manners, and retained to the last much of the humor that characterized the productions of his earlier years. To the admirable actor and estimable gentleman, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 90, April, 1865 • Various

... across the breakfast cup was also denied them; the duty had to be performed In town, lest the wind should blow the local journal into the hands of the enemy and reveal—nothing at all. The position of the barrier guard ceased to be—if it ever were—a sinecure, and he was kept busy picking pockets, examining bills, perusing love-letters, written in all sorts of prose, and in verse which was ...
— The Siege of Kimberley • T. Phelan

... This was the age of pamphleteering. Every sage who could, or could not, write, flung his pamphlet in the teeth of the party whose existence he conceived to be ruinous to his country, or perhaps prejudicial to his own prospect of a sinecure. The journals printed their columns in gall; the satirists dipped their pens in concentrated acid; the popular haranguers dashed the oil of vitriol of contempt in each other's faces. The confusion, the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 57, No. 351, January 1845 • Various

... the energetic admiral, no sinecure. He was kept constantly moving from one point to the other, to see that all was going on well, and to report the progress made. The work never ceased, night or day, and for the first week neither Francis, nor his commander, ever went to bed, contenting ...
— The Lion of Saint Mark - A Story of Venice in the Fourteenth Century • G. A. Henty

... the mess cabin as Ah Sing rang the bell, and during the meal Mart revised his opinion of the mate to some extent. He saw that Swanson did not like him because he considered the wireless job a sinecure, and wanted to keep all the crew hard at work all the time. It was the usage of the sea, and the big mate himself was blunt and well-meaning. But Mart Judson had no mind to be ordered about by anyone, ...
— The Pirate Shark • Elliott Whitney

... having now established his former foe under the roof once more, agreed so perfectly well with him ever after, that he even protected him against the insults of other dogs (a task which the quarrelsomeness of the little terrier rendered no sinecure), and, if he but heard Gilpin's voice in distress, would fly instantly to ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. I. (of VI.) - With his Letters and Journals. • Thomas Moore

... force would have no sinecure and would have no room for "misfits or failures," Butler tells us in 1870 in that clause of his report in which he says, "As matters at present rest, the region of the Saskatchewan is without law, order or security for life or property; robbery and murder for years have ...
— Policing the Plains - Being the Real-Life Record of the Famous North-West Mounted Police • R.G. MacBeth

... next year, adding, "It would be highly gratifying to us who have thrown aside our former occupations and the prospects that were fair for increasing our fortunes, with a view of serving our country, and who have no desire of being mere sinecure officers if we could at this moment embark and obey the commands of our country, in going in pursuit of a barbarous enemy, who now holds in chains and slavery so many of our unfortunate fellow-citizens; the relieving and restoring ...
— The Story of Commodore John Barry • Martin Griffin

... it," exclaimed Ferrers, whose eyes sparkled at the thought of a sinecure—for sinecures ...
— Ernest Maltravers, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... I have been daily expecting some communication on the subject from de Volaski: but as yet he has made none. After coming to Paris for the purpose, (for of course his office in the embassy is a mere sinecure and a plausible excuse,) he betrays the bashfulness of a girl in pressing his suit; but some men, some of the best and purest of men, are just that way—in love affairs as ...
— The Lost Lady of Lone • E.D.E.N. Southworth

... doing what he could to salvage something out of the wreckage—if not for the Company, then for Victor Grego. But if Zarathustra were reclassified, Nick would be finished. His title, his social position, his sinecure, his grafts and perquisites, his alias-shrouded Company expense account—all out the airlock. Nick would be counted upon to do anything he could—however ...
— Little Fuzzy • Henry Beam Piper

... on the Costume Committee was no sinecure. Coveted Saturday afternoon and evening leisure had to be given up to the stitching of long seams. Mathilde LeBrun, who was another Josephine in that her brain seemed to be in her fingers, was convener of the committee, and under her direction Judith sewed and cut ...
— Judy of York Hill • Ethel Hume Patterson Bennett

... was well enough, but he had never even dreamed that the first step of these new-born divinities would be to discard the ancient ceremonial without which his office would become a sinecure and his power a myth, and even to declare an ...
— The People Of The Mist • H. Rider Haggard

... things to make a little disturbance, and it gives her something to do to pick them up. I must at once learn some Hindustani words such as pink, blue, and green, and then I shall be able to tell Bella what dress to lay out, and her place won't be such a sinecure. I call her Bella because it is the nearest I can get to her name and it has a ...
— Olivia in India • O. Douglas

... never leave it. They often look out from their perches upon wandering flocks of vagrant rooks, but are never tempted to new adventures. The old fellow is very wise. Like a fat old office-holder, he knows enough to appreciate a sinecure in which the rewards are liberal and the service nominal. His devoted follower never falters in his dutiful imitation ...
— The Junior Classics Volume 8 - Animal and Nature Stories • Selected and arranged by William Patten

... rector was in the annual receipt of forty-three pounds, out of which he had to pay me, but with the aid of a little simony, this was easily avoided, and as I took no fees, I can hardly call it a lucrative appointment, and certainly not a sinecure. ...
— Confessions of an Etonian • I. E. M.

... had been reckoning on. For, if it had been Gwenda she had been thinking of, she would have kept her instead of handing her over to Lady Frances. The companion secretaries of that distinguished philanthropist had no sinecure even ...
— The Three Sisters • May Sinclair

... "A very pretty sinecure," thinks I to myself, "just as if I had not my hands full already." However, as I never wanted small talk for pretty faces, I began with Jemima. They were all pretty, but she was a love—yet there was ...
— Frank Mildmay • Captain Frederick Marryat

... no sinecure; for this was the favourite stall with the purchasers of better style, since the articles were, in general, tasteful, and fairly worth the moderate price set on them. At Miss Cleveland's counter there was much noisy laughter— many jocular cheats—tricks ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge

... unscaleable, thy thought too deep for undermining; that notion is at the head of the poll, a candidate approved of Truth's most open borough; for, in spite of secretary-birds with pens stuck clerk-like behind their ears (as useless an emblem of sinecure office as gold keys, silver, and coronation armour)—in spite of whole flights of geese, capable enough of saving capitols, but impotent to wield one of their own all-conquering quills—in spite, also, ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper

... said the Liberal tutor with emphasis. 'No one can say a living with 1200 souls, and no curate, is a sinecure. As for hard town work, it is absurd—you couldn't stand it. And after all, I imagine, there are some souls worth saving out of ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... waterworks for the purpose of increasing, slackening, or otherwise altering their movements. But this rational soul is a very needless appendage to either the Cartesian or the Huxleian system, wherein, if its post be not a literal sinecure, there is, at any rate, little or nothing for it to do which might not quite as well be done without it. The hydraulic engineer, sitting in his central office, has to wind up the whole machinery from time to time, and to turn now this tap, now that, when he wishes ...
— Old-Fashioned Ethics and Common-Sense Metaphysics - With Some of Their Applications • William Thomas Thornton

... salts, chafing my hands. "I am sure we are all willing to yield our executorships if Miriam desires it," she said. "I, for one, should be glad to lift such a yoke from my shoulders, unaccustomed to such a burden. Mr. Stanbury, desirable as you seem to think it, this post of mine is no sinecure. But spare Miriam this scene, I beg of you; she is much overcome—much exhausted; excitement in her case is very injurious, Dr. Pemberton says. Let me beg you, my dear sir, to retire. All shall be done properly and in order. Her interest is our ...
— Miriam Monfort - A Novel • Catherine A. Warfield

... or hare, or rabbit, or eel, and I would have to be in the last stage of starvation before I could eat cold lamb or cold veal; so it will be seen by these confessions that my cook's berth is not a sinecure, and that these complimentary dinners, as dinners, are to a great extent wasted upon me. I once, in fact, was asked to a dinner at a club, and I could not touch one single dish! But my friends kindly provided some impromptu dishes without ...
— The Confessions of a Caricaturist, Vol 2 (of 2) • Harry Furniss

... sinecure. Bricks without straw were a child's pastime to the cures aunt Polly and the Springs effected without a pretense to the comforts of life in health, to say nothing of sickness. Modern conveniences are costly, and how are you to get the facilities for "pay patients" when you have no ...
— The Desert and The Sown • Mary Hallock Foote

... a sprinkling of the determined playgoers who never miss a first night if they can help it, and a very few people of fashion who care for this sort of sensation. The first box was occupied by the head of a department, to whom du Bruel, maker of vaudevilles, owed a snug little sinecure in ...
— A Distinguished Provincial at Paris • Honore de Balzac

... exercise. They passed a short and merry time at the University, fashioned as nearly as might be on the mode of life of a man about town. In 1740 he was appointed to the vague-sounding office of Clerk of the Irons and Surveyor of the Meltings in the Mint, a sinecure which, after the manner of the time, required no personal attention from the holder. Even in those early days Selwyn, who went by the sobriquet of "Bosky," had many friends—not only among college boys, but in London society. "You must judge ...
— George Selwyn: His Letters and His Life • E. S. Roscoe and Helen Clergue

... I'm going to have trouble with her," said Anna-Rose, not heeding his consolations. "It isn't a sinecure, I assure you, being left sole guardian and protector of somebody as pretty as all that. And the worst of it is she's going on getting prettier. She hasn't nearly come to the end of what she can do in that direction. I see it growing on her. Every Sunday she's ...
— Christopher and Columbus • Countess Elizabeth Von Arnim

... mes poches?"), have it put by their valets, to replace what was lost overnight, these proud and often honourable nobles would ante-chamber and cringe for sinecures, pensions, indemnities, privileges, importune and supplicate the King, the King's mistress, pandar or lacquey. And the sinecure, pension, indemnity or privilege was always deducted out of the bread—rye-bread, straw-bread, grass-bread—which those parched, prone human animals described by La Bruyere were extracting "with desperate obstinacy"—out of the ever more ...
— Laurus Nobilis - Chapters on Art and Life • Vernon Lee

... connected with them was by law a Venetian, and, in fact, a spy of the Republic. All transactions of buying and selling were carried out by Venetian brokers, of whom some thirty were appointed. As time went on, some of these brokerships must have resolved themselves into sinecure offices, for we find Bellini holding one, and certainly without discharging any of the original duties, and they seem to have become some sort of State retainerships. In 1505 the old Fondaco had been burnt to the ground, and the present building was rising when Giorgione ...
— The Venetian School of Painting • Evelyn March Phillipps

... cannot be struck, nor a cooly engaged, nor can a departure or an arrival take place, without his sign manual. In fact he comprises within himself the whole of the ministry, besides doing the entire duty of the several departments, and the office of premier in Nepaul can be no more a sinecure than it is in England. One can only wonder that a position fraught with such imminent danger to its possessor, and bringing upon him such incessant trouble and responsibility, should be so eagerly sought, when it entails the almost absolute certainty of a violent death. With ...
— A Journey to Katmandu • Laurence Oliphant

... establishment. Royal mistresses, a host of needy Germans, a Danish Queen banished for adultery, lived in England or abroad upon incomes drawn from the impoverished Irish Exchequer. Nor was it only a question of pensions. Quantities of valuable sinecure offices were habitually given to Englishmen who never came near the shores of Ireland. In short, the English policy towards Ireland was similar to Spain's policy towards her South American Colonies, ...
— The Framework of Home Rule • Erskine Childers

... statesmen lately said, 'It is easy for my Lord C. or Earl G. or Marquis B. or Lord H. with thousands upon thousands a year, some of it either presently derived or inherited in sinecure acquisitions from the public money to boast of their patriotism, and keep aloof from temptation, but they do not know from what temptation those have kept aloof who had equal pride, at least equal talents, and not unequal passions, and nevertheless knew not in the course of their lives what it was ...
— Young Lion of the Woods - A Story of Early Colonial Days • Thomas Barlow Smith

... speech of self-defence the orator wound up by declaring himself the guardian of his own honour. "What a sinecure!" ...
— The Bed-Book of Happiness • Harold Begbie

... return from the trenches, we saw them again, we knew they were to be greatly envied. Between standing waist-high in mud in a trench and being drowned in it, buried in it, blown up or asphyxiated, the post of crossing-sweeper becomes a sinecure. ...
— With the French in France and Salonika • Richard Harding Davis

... our oldest sister and tea-maker general. She had no sinecure office of it; but, in spite often of the most remarkable demands, she dispensed the beverage with the most perfect justice and good humour. Not unsatisfactory were the visits paid to the sideboard, covered as it was with ...
— Marmaduke Merry - A Tale of Naval Adventures in Bygone Days • William H. G. Kingston

... strength. He very properly remained at One Ton Camp and made his depot on 10th March, and after satisfying himself that over a month's travelling rations were in the depot, Cherry-Garrard started homeward, but he had by no means a sinecure in this journey back—his dogs went wild at the start, smashed the sledge-meter adrift, fought, and would keep no definite direction, thick weather set in, and they had a ...
— South with Scott • Edward R. G. R. Evans

... or Voivoda, to give him his proper Montenegrin title, corresponding to our word Duke, is therefore no sinecure. His position calls for more diplomacy and acumen than any other in the country. A false move, a thoughtless action or word could plunge the tribes of Northern Albania and Montenegro in a fierce warfare. But a few weeks after our departure, war very nearly did break ...
— The Land of the Black Mountain - The Adventures of Two Englishmen in Montenegro • Reginald Wyon

... and man-slayers, thieves and prostitutes, skulkers and secret rebels, on the one hand, and with Governor God's-peace and his so unaccountable and so autocratic ways, on the other hand, the Recorder's office was no sinecure. All the misdemeanours and malpractices of the town,—and they were happening every day and every night,—were all reported to the Recorder; they were all, so to say, charged home upon the Recorder, ...
— Bunyan Characters - Third Series - The Holy War • Alexander Whyte

... The minas were many in Tahiti, and, like the English sparrow in American cities and towns, had driven almost all other birds to flight or local extinction. The sparrow's urban doom might be read in the increasing number of automobiles, but the mina in Tahiti, as in Hawaii, had a sinecure. ...
— Mystic Isles of the South Seas. • Frederick O'Brien

... seem to thrive as might have been expected. The larger orders he drew, the thinner and the more transparent he became; and at last, when the shadow of his person had become to him a vague and unreal memory, he repented, and applied to be reinstated in his comfortable sinecure at the ...
— Cobwebs From an Empty Skull • Ambrose Bierce (AKA: Dod Grile)

... every thing that is wise, and good, and proper, and sublime, and that you deserve to be called the best of friends; you shall enjoy the office of censor to Lady Delacour, and welcome; but remember, it is a sinecure place, though I will pay you with my love and esteem to any extent you please. You sigh—for my folly. Alas! my dear, 'tis hardly worth while—my follies will soon be at an end. Of what use could even the wisdom of Solomon be to me now? If you have any humanity, you will ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. III - Belinda • Maria Edgeworth

... these reflections. It would, indeed, be absurd to press against Presidential government AS SUCH the singular defect by which Vice-President Johnson has become President—by which a man elected to a sinecure is fixed in what is for the moment the most important administrative part in the political world. This defect, though most characteristic of the expectations[4] of the framers of the Constitution and of its ...
— The English Constitution • Walter Bagehot

... blooming cheeks. Ventilation, sea baths, and suitable diet were her three watchwords, and thanks to them the sanatorium at the farther side of the shrubbery scarcely ever opened its doors to receive a patient, while the hospital nurse who was retained in case of emergencies found her position a sinecure. ...
— The New Girl at St. Chad's - A Story of School Life • Angela Brazil

... of a young woman, who was also the custodian of an invisible lady, who was to be seen for a penny each person, children half-price. This appeared to be a contradiction in terms, but public apathy accepted it without cavil. The taking of this phenomenon's gate-money seemed to be almost a sinecure. Not so the galvanic battery, which never disappointed any one. It might disgust, or repel, those who had had no occasion to study this branch of science, but it always acted up to its professions. ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan

... of a husband out of a mere man is not a sinecure; it's one of the highest plastic ...
— A Guide to Men - Being Encore Reflections of a Bachelor Girl • Helen Rowland

... on the Dollar Sign road there had been little but tradition for White Lodge to feed on. The sheriff's job had come to be looked upon as a sinecure. But now all was changed. Not only White Lodge, but the whole countryside, had something live to discuss. Even old Ed Halsey, who had not been down from his cabin in the mountains for at least five years, ambled in on his ancient ...
— Mystery Ranch • Arthur Chapman

... the remainder of the hands being directed to place themselves under the orders of the carpenter until their services should be required to relieve the look-out men at the end of their watch. The duty of these latter, however, was for some time a sinecure, as the breakers were still breaking angrily against the cliffs and keeping up the hoarse diapason in which they expressed their impotent rage; while the wind, though blowing with less force than during the night time, was yet strong enough to sweep ...
— The Wreck of the Nancy Bell - Cast Away on Kerguelen Land • J. C. Hutcheson

... office as a sinecure that day; looked on admiringly, forgot half her regular work, felt as if she had somehow done wonders without realizing the process, and pronounced that it was "no throuble ...
— We Girls: A Home Story • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney

... per saltum from cure to bishop. The Duchesse's widowed aunt was made happy by a pension of six thousand livres a year; and her son-in-law, de Guiche, in addition to his dukedom, was rewarded further for his fortunate nuptials by valuable sinecure offices at Court. ...
— Love affairs of the Courts of Europe • Thornton Hall

... Rossitur was seated in the breakfast-room at her usual employment, mending and patching no sinecure now. Fleda opened the kitchen door and came in, folding up a calico apron she had just ...
— Queechy, Volume I • Elizabeth Wetherell

... as your absence made my position a sinecure, I thought I would try to make some little use of my time; so I took some books and a sword to a little room which I hired at the corner of the Rue St. Antoine, from whence I could see the ...
— Chicot the Jester - [An abridged translation of "La dame de Monsoreau"] • Alexandre Dumas

... out. The presidency of the Salamander, involving as it did occasional interviews of a nature similar to this with Mr. Murch, was no sinecure. Mr. Wellwood frequently debated whether it would not be better to listen to the siren voices of the agricultural weeklies with their alluring refrain of "back to the soil"; but the facilities for his favorite dissipations ...
— White Ashes • Sidney R. Kennedy and Alden C. Noble

... this to say, further, gentlemen," he concluded. "It is no sinecure to hold public office and administer a public trust and I am moved to protest most earnestly against the public tendency to discredit politics and the men who are devoting their energies—frequently at great personal inconvenience and loss—to the government of the country. There are those who ...
— Every Man for Himself • Hopkins Moorhouse

... obstacles more than enough to the calm fruition of his triumphs. He had succeeded, in appearance at least, in the great object of his ambition, this appointment to the Netherlands; but the appointment was no sinecure, and least of all a promising pecuniary speculation. Elizabeth had told the envoys, with reason, that she was not sending forth that man—whom she loved as a brother—in order that he might make ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... broad sweeps of the Scottish moors, combined with its novelty, gave it great success, and Thomson went on to write also of Summer, Spring and Autumn, publishing the whole work as 'The Seasons' in 1730. He was rewarded by the gift of sinecure offices from the government and did some further writing, including, probably, the patriotic lyric, 'Rule, Britannia,' and also pseudo-classical tragedies; but his only other poem of much importance is 'The Castle of Indolence' (a subject appropriate to his own good-natured, ...
— A History of English Literature • Robert Huntington Fletcher

... at Tyburn. In such visionary glances through the centuries we have always the advantage of selecting our own position in life, and perhaps there are few that for such purposes we should prefer to Walpole's. We should lap ourselves against eating cares in the warm folds of a sinecure of 6,000l. a year bestowed because our father was a Prime Minister. There are many immaculate persons at the present day to whom truth would be truth even when seen through such a medium. There are—we have their own authority for believing it—men who would be republicans, though their ...
— Hours in a Library, Volume I. (of III.) • Leslie Stephen

... honourable employment in the army, the navy, or the church. But their numbers cannot all be provided for by these channels, and it is the country at large which is taxed to supply the means of sustenance to the younger scions of nobility; taxed directly in the shape of place and sinecure, indirectly in various ways, but in no way so heavily as by the monopoly of the East India Company, which has so long been permitted to oppress the nation, that these detrimentals (as they have named themselves) may be provided for. It is a well-known fact, that ...
— Newton Forster - The Merchant Service • Captain Frederick Marryat

... step to the coveted rank of marquess. Thereafter the public life of the family was characterized by honour and integrity; and the Garter, re-bestowed as soon as surrendered, became a habit. The second marquess held a sinecure under Lord Aberdeen; another flitted to and fro in shadowy retirement as a Lord-in-Waiting; a third, exploring the United States for the broadening of his ...
— The Education of Eric Lane • Stephen McKenna

... I would give you to think that a Chief Officer's life is one of toil. Indeed, on a steamship, while at sea, he has little to do. His "watch" is a sinecure save in thick weather, and is usually occupied by day with sundry odd jobs, by night with thoughts of home. In port he is busy like everybody else; but at sea, in fine weather, his greatest grievance is the short hours "off" and "on." Our steamer carries but two ...
— An Ocean Tramp • William McFee

... consulted Herbert "before he would expose any of his books to be printed, and dedicated a version of the Psalms to him as the best judge of divine poetry." Herbert was patronized by James I. who, for an elegant Latin oration, gave him a sinecure of 120l. a-year, for in those days the only Royal Society of Literature was in the palace; it is now among subjects, and too little in the Court. Upon the death of James, Herbert's Court hopes died also, and he betook himself to a retreat from London. In this retirement, "he had many conflicts ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 19, No. 533, Saturday, February 11, 1832. • Various

... been safely deposited in an empty dog-kennel in the back yard. It was very hard on Rachel that Fanny giggled like a school-girl, and even though ashamed of herself and her sons, could not find voice to scold them respectably. No wonder, after such encouragement, that Rachel found her mission no sinecure, and felt at the end of her morning's work much as if she had been driving pigs to market, though the repetition was imposing on the boys a sort of sense of fate and obedience, and there was less active resistance, though learning it was not, only letting teaching be thrown at ...
— The Clever Woman of the Family • Charlotte M. Yonge

... on, down and down. He begins to confide all his maudlin woes to Evan, and that young man is ever ready with sympathy and advice that is not calculated to make Jasper Lamotte's position, as bear trainer, a sinecure. ...
— The Diamond Coterie • Lawrence L. Lynch

... quieting the Committee for the time. Lincoln turned again to his political scheme, but not until he had made another military appointment from which at the moment no one could have guessed that trouble would ever come. He gave to Burnside what might be called the sinecure position of Commander of the Department of the Ohio with ...
— Lincoln • Nathaniel Wright Stephenson

... time of much business and excitement set in, and the lengthening spring evenings were no sinecure to Wilmet, as the flitting day approached, being rather hurried on by the old bookseller, who wanted to be at Marshlands in time to admire his hyacinths and sow his annuals. Mr. Audley would take rooms at the Fortinbras Arms for the remainder of his stay at ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge

... of Monsieur Horace, though she often, often thought of him, and wondered what he was doing. He was very busy, very hard-worked; an army-surgeon had no sinecure in the Crimea in those days, as we know, and it was perhaps well for the child, who cared more for him than for any one else in the world, that she knew nothing of his life at this time, of wintry battle-fields and hospital tents, of camps and trenches, where, day and ...
— My Little Lady • Eleanor Frances Poynter

... dignities; while the Chevalier de la Rochederrien had become no less a personage than the Marquis de Ploermel, with a captaincy of the mousquetaires, and heaven knows what beside of honorary title and highly gilded sinecure, whereby to reconcile him to such depth of sordid infamy as the meanest galley-slave could have scarce undertaken as the price of exchange between his fetters and his oar, and the ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 2 August 1848 • Various

... of war to a state of peace, and to state the cause to be an enormous debt, and a lavish expenditure. He had come there with the expectation of seeing the Duke of Rutland in the chair; and with some hopes, as he took the lead upon this occasion, that it was his intention to surrender that sinecure of 9,000l. a-year which he was now in the habit of putting in his pocket. He still trusted that all who were present and were also holders of sinecures had it in their intention to sacrifice them to their liberality and their ...
— The Life of Thomas, Lord Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald, G.C.B., Admiral of the Red, Rear-Admiral of the Fleet, Etc., Etc. • Thomas Cochrane, Earl of Dundonald

... a delicate complexion, pearly teeth, and a face that would have been Grecian but for a slight upward tilt of the nose and traces of a square, heavy type in the jaw. Her father was a retired admiral, with sufficient influence to have had a sinecure made by a Conservative government expressly for the maintenance of his son pending alliance with some heiress. Yet Gertrude remained single, and the admiral, who had formerly spent more money than he could comfortably afford on her education, ...
— An Unsocial Socialist • George Bernard Shaw

... present sovereign, on whose prudence and exalted virtues he seemed to think it rested. He said he thought his little kingdom had aped the style of the great monarchies too much, and that he should like to abolish a good many high sounding titles, sinecure offices, the household troops, and some of the "imitation pomp" of his court. He said he had never enjoyed anything so much since his accession as the hookupu of the morning, and asked me what I thought of it. I was glad to be able to answer truthfully that I had never seen a state pageant ...
— The Hawaiian Archipelago • Isabella L. Bird

... temptation of bouncing from L100 a year at Sligo, to L300 in Tipperary? This is the miserable sum of money for which the merchants and landowners and nobility of England are exposing themselves to the tremendous peril of losing Ireland. The sinecure places of the Roses and the Percevals, and the 'dear and near relations,' put up to auction at thirty years' purchase, would almost amount ...
— Political Pamphlets • George Saintsbury

... constant war against it, and it was finally cut down to five hundred dollars. A smile of fortune,—one of the fairest perhaps, that had ever shone on our hero,—just then relieved him from the mortifying necessity of holding a sinecure which his fellow citizens pronounced an encumbrance. It had been observed by his friends that there was a lady of good family and considerable wealth, who appeared to take a more than ordinary interest in hearing ...
— The Life of Francis Marion • William Gilmore Simms

... who hold sinecure offices are held in more or less respect, and as the belfry—man of Vondervotteimittiss has the most perfect of sinecures, he is the most perfectly respected of any man in the world. He is the chief dignitary of the borough, and the very pigs ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 4 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe

... the most delicate manner, placed at the disposal of his former employer, the Marquess Moustache, the important office of Agent for the Indemnity Claims of the original Inhabitants of the Island; the post being a sinecure, the income being considerable, and local attendance being unnecessary, the noble Lord, in a ...
— The Voyage of Captain Popanilla • Benjamin Disraeli

... doubt, and their bodies committed to the dust in Christian fashion. In parishes like these of the Lizard, and on the north Cornwall coast at places like Morwenstow, this duty of giving Christian sepulture has been no sinecure. ...
— The Cornwall Coast • Arthur L. Salmon

... policy of concession is that it would only lead to further demands in the future. In reply to this Peter makes vigorous use of Spencer Perceval's official career. Perceval had held a sinecure for several years; at the time of writing he was Chancellor of the Exchequer; and he had just attempted, and been defeated in attempting, a most nefarious job, by which the revenues of the Duchy of Lancaster were to have been secured ...
— Sydney Smith • George W. E. Russell

... not, for instance, have told his readers that, in addition to the $200,000 above referred to, and wholly as acknowledgment of his literary services, the eminent recipient had for many years enjoyed a diplomatic sinecure of the highest order, by means of which he had been enabled to give his time to the collection of materials for his most important works? Might he not have further told us how other of the distinguished men he had named, as well as many others ...
— Letters on International Copyright; Second Edition • Henry C. Carey

... Roberts allowed no games at cards or dice to be played for money, as he strongly disapproved of gambling. He was a strict Sabbatarian, and allowed the musicians to have a rest on the seventh day. This was as well, for the post of musician on a pirate ship was no sinecure, as every pirate had the right to demand a tune at any hour of the day or night. He used to place a guard to protect all his women prisoners, and it is sadly suspicious that there was always the greatest competition amongst the worst characters in the ship to be appointed sentinel over a good-looking ...
— The Pirates' Who's Who - Giving Particulars Of The Lives and Deaths Of The Pirates And Buccaneers • Philip Gosse

... than ever severe and hard; yet probably there never was a time when every pulse of her heart was beating more warmly for the child, and every thought of the future was more entirely regulated with reference to her welfare. It is no sinecure to have the entire devotion of a strong, enterprising, self-willed friend, as Agnes had all her life found. One cannot gather grapes of thorns or figs of thistles, and the affection of thorny and thistly natures has often as sharp an acid and as long ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IX., March, 1862., No. LIII. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics, • Various

... had no nearer concern than with any other piece of news—any other Accident or Offence—in the English papers. Some laughed; some said, by way of complete excuse, that the post was virtually a sinecure, and any fool who could spell his name was good enough for it; some, and these the more solemn political oracles, said that Decimus did wisely to strengthen himself, and that the sole constitutional purpose ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens

... idyllic, like the lives of the Tahitian shepherds in the Anti-Jacobin—the shepherds whose occupation was a sinecure, as there were no sheep ...
— Essays in Little • Andrew Lang

... by the foregoing sketch that a clerkship in the Railway Mail Service is far from being a sinecure, either mentally or physically. As the country increases in population and the system becomes more complex, it is found to be important to the public that the clerks should be insured against removal except for the following reasons: "Intemperance, inattention to or neglect of duty, ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Vol. 1, Issue 1. - A Massachusetts Magazine of Literature, History, - Biography, And State Progress • Various

... stirring and characteristic. Always the "stunt" involved a lot of pretty girls and often it demanded the services of the mayor. I shall regret to the end of my days that I did not keep a scrapbook devoted to Mayor Rolph's activities. For being mayor of San Francisco is no sinecure. But as most of his public duties seemed to involve floods of pretty girls—well, if I were a man it would be my ambition to be mayor of San Francisco for the ...
— The Californiacs • Inez Haynes Irwin

... that I am to be Commander-in-Chief, and the post is by no means a sinecure, for we are not what Major Sturgeon calls 'a set of the most amicable officers.' Whether we shall have 'a boxing bout between Captain Sheers and the Colonel,' I cannot tell; but, between Suliote chiefs, German barons, English volunteers, and adventurers of all nations, we are likely to ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. 6 (of 6) - With his Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore

... darkness had not expired, but was only reposing from its labors, all at once the chief jailer of the city was missing. He had been in the habit of taking long rides in the forest, his present situation being much of a sinecure. It was on the first of July that he was missed. In riding through the city gates that morning, he had mentioned the direction which he meant to pursue; and the last time he was seen alive was in one of the forest avenues, about eight miles from ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.

... upon mine; so that my time was taken only with being, for them, some remarkable person or thing that the game of the moment required and that was merely, thanks to my superior, my exalted stamp, a happy and highly distinguished sinecure. I forget what I was on the present occasion; I only remember that I was something very important and very quiet and that Flora was playing very hard. We were on the edge of the lake, and, as we had lately begun geography, the lake was the Sea ...
— The Turn of the Screw • Henry James

... they generally needed not only a firm hand, but a firm hand grasping a serviceable walking-stick. Add to these Harrison himself, and others of a similar calibre, and it will be seen that Graham's post was no sinecure. It was Harrison's custom to throw off his mask at night with his other garments, and appear in his true character of an abandoned villain, willing to stick at nothing as long as he could do it strictly incog. In this capacity ...
— Tales of St. Austin's • P. G. Wodehouse

... Desert is no sinecure. When I go under the shade from the sun the wind blows unpityingly, when in the sun the flies torment me. Our grand slave-driver Haj Essnousee, is most determinedly bent on showing himself a perfect master in his profession. ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson

... Cardinal Sanguinetti. Santobono his name is, and he's a curious character, such as you wouldn't find in France, I fancy. He lives all alone in that falling hovel, and officiates at that old chapel of St. Mary in the Fields, where people don't go to hear mass three times in a year. Yes, it's a perfect sinecure, which with its stipend of a thousand francs enables him to live there like a peasant philosopher, cultivating the somewhat extensive garden whose big ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola



Words linked to "Sinecure" :   benefice, post, place, position, billet, ecclesiastical benefice, berth, spot



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