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Blemish   /blˈɛmɪʃ/   Listen
Blemish

verb
(past & past part. blemished; pres. part. blemishing)
1.
Mar or spoil the appearance of.  Synonyms: deface, disfigure.  "The vandals disfigured the statue"
2.
Mar or impair with a flaw.  Synonym: spot.
3.
Add a flaw or blemish to; make imperfect or defective.  Synonym: flaw.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Blemish" Quotes from Famous Books



... will be knowne, And to be tauerne guest she euer hates, Shee scornes to be a streete-wife (Idle one,) Or field vvife ranging vvith her vvalking mates: She knows how wise men censure of such dames, And how with blottes they blemish their good names. ...
— The Bride • Samuel Rowlands et al

... of gentlemen, the latter, for the most part, fiery chiefs who slash off men's heads as if they were tops of thistles. Yet here are you, sir, keeping two of them all to yourself. And such a two! Lady Ogilvie, whose charms are without blemish—" ...
— The Yeoman Adventurer • George W. Gough

... If she had only an Intrigue with the Fellow, why the very best Families have excus'd and huddled up a Frailty of that sort. 'Tis Marriage, Husband, that makes it a Blemish. ...
— The Beggar's Opera • John Gay

... himself,[208] and in no other of his dramas has he presented a less attractive character. Weislingen, Clavigo, and Werther have all their redeeming qualities, but Fernando is an emotional egotist incapable of any worthy motive, and it is the most serious blemish in the play, even in view of the factitious world in which it moves, that he is made the adored idol of two such different women as Caecilie and Stella. The situation, as Goethe himself tells us, was suggested by the relations of Swift to Stella and Vanessa, but he did not need ...
— The Youth of Goethe • Peter Hume Brown

... in her form, that she was often called the little fairy. She had the misfortune to be lame in one of her hips; but by good management, and a briskness and alacrity in carrying herself, it was a very small blemish to her, and looked more like an idle childish ...
— The Governess - The Little Female Academy • Sarah Fielding

... man, no matter how noble or gifted, having given birth to striking ideas, coddles and pets them until they become the full-grown, spoiled children of his brain. He can at last see neither spot nor blemish in them, and comes virtually to believe himself infallible. This characteristic I found in several other Russians of marked ability. Each had developed his theories for himself until he had become infatuated with them, and ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Dickson White Volume II • Andrew Dickson White

... Arians and other Christian heretics. I cannot be hard on them so long as they cling faithfully to the One Lord who is necessary to all. If we are in the right—and I firmly believe that we are—and the Son is of one substance of the Father, he is without spot or blemish; and what can be more divine than to overlook the error of another if it concerns ourselves, or what more meanly human than to take such an error amiss and indulge in a cruel or sanguinary revenge on the erring soul? Do not misunderstand ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... distinguished himself as the friend of the whites during the Sauk war. He was called by the French "le Borgne," from having lost an eye; and the black silk handkerchief which he wore drooping over the left side of his face to disguise the blemish, taken with his native costume, gave him a ...
— Wau-bun - The Early Day in the Northwest • Juliette Augusta Magill Kinzie

... corset which forced her breast and back into the humps of a punchinello; her legs hanging just short of the floor. Her daughter paced up and down the long room like a colt snorting impatiently to be put through its paces. She had the beauty of a classic type, without spot or blemish, but her joints looked too heavy and her neck was thrust without grace between her large shoulders. Anyone who looked into the future would have been able to predict for her, with some certainty, an honourable career as ...
— The Idol of Paris • Sarah Bernhardt

... uncovered a pair of bright, deeply fringed eyes, and a straight, well-cut nose, while a fourth and last showed a sweet, full, sensitive mouth, and a beautifully curved chin. The whole face was one of extraordinary loveliness, save for the one blemish that in the centre of the forehead there was a single irregular, coffee-coloured splotch. It was a triumph of the embalmer's art. Vansittart Smith's eyes grew larger and larger as he gazed upon it, and he chirruped in his ...
— The Captain of the Pole-Star and Other Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle

... maleza f. underbrush, thicket. malo, a bad, wicked, evil, obnoxious, poor; mal caballero! scoundrel! malvado, -a criminal, wicked, insolent. manantial m. spring, source. manar flow, trickle. mancebo m. young man, youth. mancilla f. spot, blemish. mancha f. spot, stain. manchar stain. mandato m. command. mana f. madness, whim. mano f. hand. mansamente adv. gently. mansin f. mansion, abode. manto m. mantle, ...
— El Estudiante de Salamanca and Other Selections • George Tyler Northup

... chitons. Behind them, their sisters, unveiled, the maidens of Athens, walking in rhythmic beauty, and with them their attendants, daughters of resident foreigners. Following upon these was the long line of bleating victims, black bulls with gilded horns and ribbon-decked rams without blemish. And next—but here the people leaned from parapet, house-roof, portico, and shouted louder ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis

... the fair face of Beauty is not regarded as a blemish, but the very contrary, by Asiatics—or by Europeans either, else why did the ladies of the last century patch their faces, if not (originally) to set off the clearness of their complexion by contrast with the little black wafer?—though (afterwards) often to hide a pimple! ...
— Flowers from a Persian Garden and Other Papers • W. A. Clouston

... got a mark on me," said Mr. Gibbs with a satisfied air, "or a blemish. My skin is ...
— Ship's Company, The Entire Collection • W.W. Jacobs

... ventures, during the earlier chapters of his story, to represent a heroine without beauty and without wealth, or a hero with some mortal blemish. But after a time his resolution fails;—each new chapter gives a new charm to the ordinary face; the eyes grow "liquid" and "lustrous," always having been "large"; the nose, "naturally delicate," exhibits its "fine-cut lines"; the mouth acquires an indescribable expression of ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 7, May, 1858 • Various

... and inspiring teacher should possess? In the first place he should be physically sound. It may seem like a lack of charity to say, and yet it is true, that any serious physical defect should militate against, if not bar, one from the schoolroom. Any serious blemish or noticeable defect becomes to pupils an ever-present suggestive picture, and to some extent must work against, rather than for, education. Other things being equal, those who are personally attractive and have the most agreeable manners should be chosen. ...
— Rural Life and the Rural School • Joseph Kennedy

... Select seven pears of the best quality, without blemish, and of equal size; pare them with great care; stand them close together in a saucepan, with weak acidulated syrup to cover them; simmer slowly till quite tender, but yet firm to the touch; take them up, leaving the syrup to boil down. When cold, cut the stalk end off each pear about ...
— Choice Cookery • Catherine Owen

... close colouring; but they want that effect which the proper application of light and shade never fails to produce. The coloured prints of Europe that are carried out to Canton are copied there with wonderful fidelity. But in doing this, they exercise no judgment of their own. Every defect and blemish, original or accidental, they are sure to copy, being mere servile imitators, and not in the least feeling the force or the beauty of any specimen of the arts that may come before them; for the same person who is one day employed in copying a beautiful ...
— Travels in China, Containing Descriptions, Observations, and Comparisons, Made and Collected in the Course of a Short Residence at the Imperial Palace of Yuen-Min-Yuen, and on a Subsequent Journey thr • John Barrow

... sesame, milk, flesh, palm wine, Brazil wood, the best rubies in the world, sapphires, topazes, amethysts, and other gems. The king of the island is said to have the finest ruby that ever was seen, as long as the hand, and as thick as a mans wrist, without spot or blemish, and glowing like a fire. Cublai-Khan once sent to purchase this ruby, offering the value of a city for it; but the king answered that he would not part with it for all the treasure in the world, because it had belonged to his ancestors. The men of this island are unfit for soldiers, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 1 • Robert Kerr

... her bed turns out not to have been well made; they have had to put her in a new place to-day. Observe, she made that bed herself, no servants being up, and had found a blemish or DEFAUT of"—word wanting: who knows what?—"in the mattresses; which I believe hurt her exact mind, more than her not very delicate body. She has got, in the interim, an apartment promised to somebody else; and she will have to leave it again on Friday or Saturday, and go into that of Marechal ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XVI. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—The Ten Years of Peace.—1746-1756. • Thomas Carlyle

... back the telephone, and lay back with a whimsical smile, twisting his mouth. "The frosted ones are mine," he said to himself, "there will be no blight or spot or blemish ...
— Purple Springs • Nellie L. McClung

... seem detestable as joint stock-companies and nations; knaves, .. fools, and murderers there may be; men may have mean and meagre faces; but man, in the ideal, is so noble and so sparkling, such a grand and glowing creature, that over any ignominious blemish in him all his fellows should run to throw their costliest robes. That immaculate manliness we feel within ourselves, so far within us, that it remains intact though all the outer character seem gone; bleeds with keenest anguish ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville

... her hull recently painted, every spar in its place, and adjusted there to a nicety, her rigging in perfect order, and her white sails—the new look just worn off them, and barely stretched into their proper shape— without a blemish or fault to mar their perfect appearance. Now, she passed out to sea with her fore and main-topgallant-masts and mizen- topmast hanging over the side, the fore-topsail-yard down on the cap, the spankerboom shot away in the jaws, ...
— Under the Meteor Flag - Log of a Midshipman during the French Revolutionary War • Harry Collingwood

... critical and distressful situation, it shall be my hourly prayers that you may be delivered without blemish to that fair fame which has hitherto, ...
— Clarissa, Volume 2 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson

... matchless might and fearless soul, with powers of song sublime, I spread afar my name and fame in every Gothic clime; Those godlike gifts were treasured long from blot and blemish clear, But one dark act of fraudful ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 361, November, 1845. • Various

... slavery in a prison—this obscurity in solitude—these straitened circumstances in concealment, he was fain to bear all these miseries, humiliations, and distresses, in full daylight, under the pitiless sun of royalty; or an elevation so flooded with light, where every stain appears a miserable blemish, and every glory a stain. The king has suffered; it rankles in his mind: and he will avenge himself. He will be a bad king. I say not that he will pour out blood, like Louis XI., or Charles IX.; for he has no mortal injuries to avenge; but he will devour the means and substance of ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas

... above the low roof of the nave; so that at night the moon, rising above the southern aisle, shines through its topmost window, and casts the shadow of its tracery upon the pavement of the square. This is a constructive blemish to which the Italians in no part of the peninsula were sensitive. They seem to have regarded their church fronts as independent of the edifice, capable of separate treatment, and worthy in themselves of being made ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds

... son-in-law has a hare-lip?" Now a hare-lip in Korea is not merely such an undesirable addition to one's countenance as to make a Mrs. Wiggs happy because of being without it, but under the old dispensation no one with a harelip, or other like facial blemish, could be presented at court and thereby introduced into the Four Hundred of this capital city. Therefore the father waxed thoughtful from his topknot to the end of his long-stem pipe. "I tell you what ...
— Where Half The World Is Waking Up • Clarence Poe

... that Elsie April would somehow reach that little office. But Elsie April was absent, indisposed. Her absence made the one blemish on the affair's perfection. Elsie April, it appeared, had been struck down by a cold which had entirely deprived her of her voice, so that the performance of the Azure Society's Dramatic Club, so eagerly anticipated by all London, had had to be postponed. ...
— The Regent • E. Arnold Bennett

... done in support of an old theory, long since exploded, that the Negro has no capacity for the solution of mathematical problems. We know this to be the case. But the charming nature and natural pluck of young Greener brought him out at last without a blemish ...
— History of the Negro Race in America from 1619 to 1880. Vol. 2 (of 2) - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George Washington Williams

... high-actioned mare, the down foot slipped, and t'other was too high to be back in time for her to recover, and over both of us went kerlash in the mud. I was skeered more about her than myself, lest she should git the skin of her knee cut, for to a knowing one's eye that's an awful blemish. It's a long story to tell how such a blemish warn't the hoss's fault, for I'd rather praise than apologize for a critter any time. And there is one thing few-people knows. Let the cut come which way it will, the animal is never so safe afterwards. ...
— Nature and Human Nature • Thomas Chandler Haliburton

... me not a blemish to my Sex, In that I strove to cure a desperate evil With a more violent remedy: your lives, Your honours ...
— The Laws of Candy - Beaumont & Fletcher's Works (3 of 10) • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher

... looking-glass; the fire in it was proportionately small, but large enough for the place it had to warm. A crumb or speck of dust could scarce have been found on the floor with a microscope,—and no wonder, for whenever John Welton beheld the smallest symptom of such a blemish he seized a brush and shovel and swept it away. The books in the little library at the stern were neatly arranged, and so were the cups, plates, glasses, salt-cellars, spoons, and saucers, in the little recess that did duty as a cupboard. In short, ...
— The Floating Light of the Goodwin Sands • R.M. Ballantyne

... made on English land. Especially must we feel this when we contrast the high military genius of the Prince of Parma, who would have headed the Spaniards, with the imbecility of the Earl of Leicester, to whom the deplorable spirit of favoritism, which formed the great blemish on Elizabeth's character, had then committed the chief command of the ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1-20 • Various

... interests. The constitution of the United States was "one of the most skilful works which human intelligence ever created; one of the most perfect organizations that ever governed a free people." Experience had shown that its main defect was the doctrine of State sovereignty. This blemish was avoided in the Canadian constitution by vesting all residuary powers in the central government and legislature. The Canadian system would also be distinguished from the American by the recognition of monarchy and of the principle of responsible government. The ...
— George Brown • John Lewis

... village, as she was expecting to become a mother and I was desirous of looking early upon my first-born child; and for six weeks she dwelt contentedly with me in the house which I have rented near the ghat. And then the child was born—a child without blemish; and Afiza and I were happy. But, Saheb, the shadow of evil was even then drawing nigh unto us. For on the sixth day after birth, when the midwife was about to light the four-wicked lamp for the 'chatti' ceremony, Afiza suddenly cast the child from her, ...
— By-Ways of Bombay • S. M. Edwardes, C.V.O.

... shining like the sun, From taint and blemish free— Great William Stow was there for one, And ...
— Black Beetles in Amber • Ambrose Bierce

... from every other, and in every one the diversity is lovable. God gives in his children an analysis of himself, an analysis that will never be exhausted. It is the original God-idea of the individual man that will at length be given, without spot or blemish, into the ...
— Hope of the Gospel • George MacDonald

... peculiarity of vision, which I am at a loss to describe. It was, if the reader can idealise the thing, an absolute "beauty," which, unfortunately, can only be written about by the appliances of some term conveying the notion of a blemish. The glances from his bright eyes seemed to steal out from under their long fringe, the most reckless truants of exulting mirth. No matter what he said, he looked a joke. Now ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various

... by the applause that the public gave to an acquisition so beautiful and so unique. This diamond was called the "Regent." It is of the size of a greengage plum, nearly round, of a thickness which corresponds with its volume, perfectly white, free from all spot, speck, or blemish, of admirable water, and weighs more than 500 grains. I much applauded myself for having induced the Regent to make so ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon

... Toby. There appears to have been in Sterne a vein of dry, sarcastic humour, and of extreme tenderness of feeling; the latter sometimes carried to affectation, as in the tale of Maria, and the apostrophe to the recording angel; but at other times pure, and without blemish. The story of Le Fevre is perhaps the finest in the English language. My Father's restlessness, both of body and mind, is inimitable. It is the model from which all those despicable performances against modern philosophy ought to have been copied, if their authors ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin

... body, and within Achilles' tent 520 Neglected lies. Twelve days he so hath lain; Yet neither worm which diets on the brave In battle fallen, hath eaten him, or taint Invaded. He around Patroclus' tomb Drags him indeed pitiless, oft as day 525 Reddens the east, yet safe from blemish still His corse remains. Thou wouldst, thyself, admire Seeing how fresh the dew-drops, as he lies, Rest on him, and his blood is cleansed away That not a stain is left. Even his wounds 530 (For many a wound they gave him) all are closed, Such care the blessed Gods ...
— The Iliad of Homer - Translated into English Blank Verse • Homer

... the blush. The propriety, therefore, of making Mabel perceive the blush, rather than Sir Hubert, is undeniable. The writer must either have left out the hushing altogether, which would have been a great blemish in the picture, or he must have written as he has done. How profoundly versed in the physiology of blushing he must be! We are doubtful, however, whether the costume of the picture is altogether appropriate; ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 347, September, 1844 • Various

... find there should be Twixt man and man such an antipathy, That though he can show no just reason why For any former wrong or injury, Can neither find a blemish in his fame, Nor aught in face or feature justly blame, Can challenge or accuse him of no evil, Yet notwithstanding hates ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb

... more than the mere loss of money, being keenly sensitive to the fact that Selina now, just as Mrs. Hackbutt had done before, avoided noticing what she said about her husband, as they would have avoided noticing a personal blemish. ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot

... affectation of the latter, would take from the dignity of Raffaelle; and yet Rubens had great harmony, and Rembrant understood light and shadow: but what may be an excellence in a lower class of painting, becomes a blemish in a higher; as the quick, sprightly turn, which is the life and beauty of epigrammatick compositions, would but ill suit with the majesty ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume IV: The Adventurer; The Idler • Samuel Johnson

... lies, But Mabel Lee's voice told one tale, while her eyes Told another. Large, liquid, and peaceful as lakes Where the azure dawn rests, ere the loud world awakes, Were the beautiful eyes of the maiden. "A saint, Without mortal blemish or weak human taint," Said Maurice to himself. To himself Roger said: "The touch of her soft little hands on my head Would convert me. What peace for a world weary breast To just sit by her side and be soothed ...
— Three Women • Ella Wheeler Wilcox

... Zola borrowed more, but mainly the unwholesome parts, truncating these further to suit his theory of the novel as a slice of life seen through a temperament, and travestying in the Rougon-Macquart scheme, with its burden of heredity and physiological blemish, Balzac's cumbrous and plausible doctrine of the Comedy. Both novelists made a mistake in arrogating to themselves the role of the savant. Neither of them seemed to understand that there are limits imposed on each profession by the mode of its operation. For Zola the novel was not only ...
— Balzac • Frederick Lawton

... up in the Netherland a rich king's child, whose father hight Siegmund and his mother Sieglind, in a castle high and famous called Xanten, down by the Rhine's side. Goodly was this knight, by my troth, his body without blemish, a strong and valiant man of great worship; abroad, through the whole earth, went his fame. The hero hight Siegfried, and he rode boldly into many lands. Ha! in Burgundy, I trow, he found warriors to his liking. Or he was a man grown he had done marvels with his hand, as is said and sung, ...
— The Fall of the Niebelungs • Unknown

... been often vaguely asserted, a secret agreement existed between himself and James, Duke of Atholl, that the Castle should be saved, can only be determined by a far closer insight into motives than human power can obtain. We may accord to Lord George Murray, without a blemish on his fidelity, a pardonable reluctance to level to the dust the pride of his family; that every effort was made to subdue Blair, except the last, is evident from the ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745 - Volume III. • Mrs. Thomson

... blemish was that this retired Adonis had nothing manly about him; he seemed to be employing this toilet varnish to hide the ruins occasioned by the military service of gallantry only. But we must hasten to ...
— An Old Maid • Honore de Balzac

... prelate since the Reformation had so extensive a correspondence with the Protestants abroad, and none could have a more friendly one.'[311] His behaviour towards Nonconformists at home was in his later years less conciliatory, and the inconsistency is a blemish in his character. The case would probably have been different if any schemes for union or comprehension had still been under consideration. In the absence of some such incentive, his mind, liberal as it was by nature and general habit, was overborne ...
— The English Church in the Eighteenth Century • Charles J. Abbey and John H. Overton

... trifling thing. It is easy to disdain them from a distance, but difficult to deal with them face to face, and either to quit them when we possess them, or to refuse them when they are offered. Blessed is the rich man that is found without blemish, and that hath not gone after gold nor put his trust in money, nor in treasures. Who is he? and we will praise him, for he hath done ...
— The Spirit of St. Francis de Sales • Jean Pierre Camus

... begetting—a little alter ego in which he took much delight. It was his umbrella. Look at the delicate finish of its lower extremity; look at the long, narrow, and well-made coat in which it is enveloped from its neck downwards, without speck, or blemish, or wrinkle; look at the little wooden head, nicely polished, with the effigy of a human face on one side of it—little eyes it has, and a sort of nose; look closer at it, and you will perceive a mouth, not expressive ...
— The Three Clerks • Anthony Trollope

... with the Act of Congress, approved March 2, 1899, he will retain that rank until July 1, 1901. He was brevetted several times during the War of the Rebellion, and his whole military career, covering a period of forty-two years, is absolutely devoid of blemish. ...
— From Yauco to Las Marias • Karl Stephen Herrman

... with that most modest demand. Then the sword came out and struck at our life. "Was it matter of choice with us whether we would fight? Not unless it were also matter of choice whether we would become the very sweepings and blemish ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 11, Issue 67, May, 1863 • Various

... Henry Savile remarked in 1621, there were only two blemishes in Euclid, the theory of parallels and the theory of proportion. It is now known that these are almost the only points in which Euclid is free from blemish. Countless errors are involved in his first eight propositions. That is to say, not only is it doubtful whether his axioms are true, which is a comparatively trivial matter, but it is certain that his propositions do not follow from the ...
— Mysticism and Logic and Other Essays • Bertrand Russell

... a dignity without blemish, O my Lord as far as Heaven, O King of the white angels, wilt Thou stay for me ...
— The Latin & Irish Lives of Ciaran - Translations Of Christian Literature. Series V. Lives Of - The Celtic Saints • Anonymous

... was occupied in spreading out the folds of her skirt to counteract any possible injury from the dampness. "He does not doubt her sincerity in the least," thought Aunt Faith; "perhaps, after all, his influence will be strong enough to cure her one fault, the one blemish of her character, the tendency towards worldliness which I have noticed in her since ...
— The Old Stone House • Anne March

... madmen, as there are of tame, All humor'd not alike. We have here some So apish and fantastic, play with a feather; And though 'twould grieve a soul to see God's image So blemish'd and defac'd, yet do they act Such antick and such pretty lunacies, That, spite of sorrow, they will make you smile. Others again we have, like angry lions, Fierce as wild bulls, untameable as flies." ...
— The Works of Charles Lamb in Four Volumes, Volume 4 • Charles Lamb

... life ever after on this side the water; that Russia's ill-treatment of the serf and general barbaric conditions are to be overlooked on account of the friendliness she displayed toward us in our hour of need, barbarism being on the whole a less crucial blemish than the above-mentioned peculiarities of our other ally; and that everyone should hitch ...
— The Opinions of a Philosopher • Robert Grant

... blemish. Sarmiento's book was written, not only or mainly to supply interesting information, but with an object. Bishop Las Casas had made Europe ring with the cruelties of the Spaniards in the Indies, and with the injustice and iniquity of their conquests. Don ...
— History of the Incas • Pedro Sarmiento de Gamboa

... peculiar manner in which the markets in Mizora are conducted. Everything, as usual, was fastidiously neat and clean. The fruit and vegetables were fresh and perfect. I examined quantities of them to satisfy myself, and not a blemish or imperfection could be found on any. None but buyers were attending market. Baskets of fruit, bunches of vegetables and, in fact, everything exhibited for sale, had the quality and the price labeled upon it. Small wicker baskets were near to receive the change. When a buyer had selected ...
— Mizora: A Prophecy - A MSS. Found Among the Private Papers of the Princess Vera Zarovitch • Mary E. Bradley

... and that was saying much. Iemon watched her movements in the room with curiosity, mixed with a little pain and admiration. He was quick to note the skill with which she concealed the slight limp, due to the shrinking of the sinews of one leg and causing an unevenness of gait. It was a blemish in the little quick movements of a woman of surpassing grace; who by art had conquered disease ...
— The Yotsuya Kwaidan or O'Iwa Inari - Tales of the Tokugawa, Volume 1 (of 2) • James S. De Benneville

... tasked to discover extraordinary beauty, where there is nothing but extraordinary blemish. Where the shrewd translator had veiled some absurdity or rashness of his author, the more profound reader has been known to detect a meaning and a charm, which "the English language had failed adequately to convey;" and he has, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 62, No. 384, October 1847 • Various

... they came with a desirable animal, the price was far beyond his modest figure; but generally they seemed to think that he did not want a desirable animal. In most cases, the pony-horse pronounced sentence upon himself by some gross and ridiculous blemish; but sometimes my friend failed to hit upon any tenable excuse for refusing him. In such an event, he would say, with an air of easy and candid comradery, "Well, now, what's the matter with him?" And then the dealer, ...
— Buying a Horse • William Dean Howells

... of Colonel Cowen's hound of the name—was owned by the Hon. Grantley Berkeley. This typical dog was unsurpassed in his time, and his talent in following a line of scent was astonishing. His only blemish was one of character; for, although usually as good-tempered as most of the breed are, he was easily aroused to uncontrollable fits ...
— Dogs and All About Them • Robert Leighton

... we regard as exaltation of the landscape may be really such, as respects only the moral or human point of view. Each alteration of the natural scenery may possibly effect a blemish in the picture, if we can suppose this picture viewed at large—in mass—from some point distant from the earth's surface, although not beyond the limits of its atmosphere. It is easily understood that what might improve a closely scrutinized ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 2 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe

... leg. The prize was indeed one to be proud of; his length from tip of nose to tip of tail was nine feet eight inches, he stood three feet nine inches high, and it took eight men to carry him back to camp. The only blemish was that the skin was much scored by the boma thorns through which he had so often forced his way in ...
— The Man-eaters of Tsavo and Other East African Adventures • J. H. Patterson

... drenched with pomatum and plastered close to his head. His white cravat was tied with mathematical precision, and his shirt-collar was like a wall of white enamel from his shoulders to his ears. He wore white kid gloves, which he secured from spot or blemish as much as possible by keeping the tips of the fingers pressed against each other. His speech was quicker than is customary with Western people, but he had their flat monotone and their uncompromising treatment of ...
— The Bread-winners - A Social Study • John Hay

... one of the rare examples (particularly rare in the days of the dandies, who were generally sour and spiteful) of a man combining brilliant wit and repartee with the most perfect good-nature. His manner, above all, was irresistible; and the slight lisp, which might have been considered as a blemish, only added piquancy and zest ...
— The Bed-Book of Happiness • Harold Begbie

... came peace and joy. No moth nor rust nor thief had appeared, and the lustrous lengths of shimmering silk defied the sun itself to find spot or blemish. ...
— Across the Years • Eleanor H. Porter

... action. That he, like most great men, felt keenly the value of health, is evidenced not only by his own practice, but by his oft repeated warnings to his nephew when choosing a wife to see that whatever other qualities she might have she be healthy. The blemish of nearsight he considered a no small defect and sufficient to render a young woman unworthy of entry into the proud family of the Buonarroti. To his own father he wrote: "Look to your life and health, for a man does not come back again to ...
— Popular Science Monthly Volume 86

... June 22, 1527, leaving his family in the greatest poverty, a sterling tribute to his honesty, when one considers the many opportunities he doubtless had to enrich himself. Machiavelli's life was not without blemish—few lives are. We must bear in mind the atmosphere of craft, hypocrisy, and poison in which he lived,—his was the age of Caesar Borgia and of Popes like the monster Alexander VI. and Julius II. Whatever his faults may have been, Machiavelli was always an ardent patriot ...
— History Of Florence And Of The Affairs Of Italy - From The Earliest Times To The Death Of Lorenzo The Magnificent • Niccolo Machiavelli

... absolutely bought her a parure of diamonds, I was obliged to say to him that I had studied to preserve her simplicity of taste, and that he must not corrupt her with too much luxury. But I was rather disappointed at their going off without a maid. It was the one blemish in the arrangements, the spot in the sun. Dear Cynthia, when I think of her, I do assure you, Molly, I make it my nightly prayer that I may be able to find you just such another husband. And all this time you have never told me who you met at ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

... instance, ambition—which makes him unfit to be trusted with government; therefore the same corruption is in all other men's hearts; even as the face in the water answereth the face out of the water so just, that there is not a spot or blemish in the one but it is in the other. I am sure Paul taught us not so when he said, "In lowliness of mind let each esteem other better than themselves," Phil. ii. 3. Nay, the brother himself hath taken off the edge of his ...
— The Works of Mr. George Gillespie (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Gillespie

... been considered but the benefit of the contractor, and for this purpose the solicitude shown in all the provisions could not be exceeded. One of the first things that struck Mr. Hastings as a blemish on his gift was the largeness of the penalty which he had on former occasions settled as the sanction of the contract: this he now discovered to be so great as to be likely to frustrate its end by the impossibility of recovering so large a sum. How a large penalty can prevent the recovery ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VIII. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... The most patent blemish, however, is the unwarranted coarseness of expression to which the Author sometimes stoops. It is true that he must be judged according to the times he lived in; his chief object was to reach the ignorant masses of his countrymen, and to attain this object ...
— The Visions of the Sleeping Bard • Ellis Wynne

... party, but even (astounding as it may seem) to a few high-minded men upon the other side, who admitted, in moments of expansion which they probably regretted afterwards, that he might, after all, be as devoted to his country as they were. For years now his life had been without blemish. It was impossible to believe that even in his youth he could have sown any wild oats; terrible to think that these wild oats might now ...
— Once a Week • Alan Alexander Milne

... which the like might be found if the craftsman were but deft enough to make a perfect thing, but in such a way that there was none like to her for those that had eyes to behold her as she was; and none could ever be made like to her, even by such a master-craftsman as could fashion a body without a blemish. ...
— The Roots of the Mountains • William Morris

... shine with an unclouded light, just like the eyes of one whose vision is perfect. This is the only point in which I am, against my will, a hypocrite." The vindication appears again in Sonnet xix. "These eyes, though clear To outward view of blemish or of spot." In later years, when the exordium of Book iii. of Paradise Lost was composed, in the pathetic story of his blindness, this little touch of vanity has disappeared, as incompatible with the solemn ...
— Milton • Mark Pattison

... and girl should usurp so many pages which might better have been filled with exciting incidents. But this very elaboration, tardy and idle though it may seem, was necessary to the completion of the author's plan, and—in our eyes—instead of being a blemish upon a fair story, is one of its principal charms. On this very account, however, the book will be less popular, and fewer persons will admire it wholly; but, as thoughtful readers draw near to the end of the narrative, and ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 32, June, 1860 • Various

... another, or even of himself in another mood. How much more when that other is distinguished from his fellows by the greatness and singularity of his thoughts, and by the extreme subtilty of their connecting links. Obscurity is not a blemish but an excellence, if the pains of seeking are more than compensated by the pleasures of finding, the luxury of [Greek: mathesis], where the concentrated energy of a passage, when once understood, gives it a hold on the imagination and memory such as were ill sacrificed ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 78, April 26, 1851 • Various

... heads, of an ethereal beauty-portraits in the manner of Sully. The tone of each picture is warm, but dark. There are no "brilliant effects." Repose speaks in all. Not one is of small size. Diminutive paintings give that spotty look to a room, which is the blemish of so many a fine work of Art overtouched. The frames are broad but not deep, and richly carved, without being dulled or filagreed. They have the whole lustre of burnished gold. They lie flat on the walls, and do not hang off with cords. The designs ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 5 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe

... him we owe, not to an admiring disciple, but to a clergyman to whom his theories were detestable; and his biographer allows that the most malignant scrutiny had failed to detect a blemish in his character—that, except so far as his opinions were blameable, he had lived to outward appearance free from fault. We desire, in what we are going to say of him, to avoid offensive collision with popular prejudices; still less shall we ...
— Short Studies on Great Subjects • James Anthony Froude

... this three years day these eys, though clear To outward view, of blemish or of spot; Bereft of light thir seeing have forgot, Nor to thir idle orbs doth sight appear Of Sun or Moon or Starre throughout the year, Or man or woman. Yet I argue not Against heavns hand or will, nor bate a jot Of heart or hope; but still bear up and ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton

... seems a more likely explanation than any other in view of the deep veneration shown for the pickaxe. Maimed persons would probably not be acceptable victims to the goddess, according to the rule that the sacrifice must be without spot or blemish. The other classes have already been discussed under the exemption of first victims. Among the Deccan Thugs if a man strangled any victim of a class whom it was forbidden to kill, he was expelled from the community and never readmitted ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume IV of IV - Kumhar-Yemkala • R.V. Russell

... quickly, to find a tall, stalwart man standing behind him. His features were strong but very grave, and the prince caught a look of compassion in his eye as their gaze met. His skin was fair and without blemish, a robe of silver cloth fell from his shoulders, and in his right hand he bore ...
— The Enchanted Island of Yew • L. Frank Baum

... Woman, eternal woman, she is the communicant. She receives the sacramental body and spirit of the man. And when she's got it, according to her passionate and all-too-sacred desire, completely, when she possesses her man at last finally and ultimately, without blemish or reservation in the perfection of the sacrament: then, also, poor woman, the blood and the body of which she has partaken become insipid or nauseous to her, she is driven mad by the endless meal of the marriage sacrament, poisoned by the sacred communion which was ...
— Aaron's Rod • D. H. Lawrence

... been but rumour, was now made clear to sight, That nought had yet been witness'd so beautiful and bright As those two lovely damsels; 't was plain to every eye; None the slightest blemish in ...
— National Epics • Kate Milner Rabb

... nor doth a necessity yet, nor occasion of discontent, force me to these endeavors; nor am I ignorant that small thank I shall have for my pains; or that many would have the world imagine them to be of great judgment, that can but blemish these my designs, by their witty objections and detractions; yet (I hope) my reasons and my deeds will so prevail with some, that I shall not want employment in these affairs to make the most blind see his own senselessness and incredulity; ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner

... summaries, words are often divided. A subheading of two lines should never be divided in the first line when it is possible to turn the full word over on to the next line. The shortening of the first line is never a blemish, but a too short second line following a hyphened first line is always ...
— Division of Words • Frederick W. Hamilton

... reminiscences, that "elle se souvenait avec gout." Still, pleasant as her recollections were, she often looked back self-reproachfully upon passages of her youth; and Sainte-Beuve, though he calls her coquetry "une coquetterie angelique," recognizes it as a blemish. "She, who was so good, brought sorrow to many hearts, not only to indignant and soured men, but to poor feminine rivals, whom she sacrificed and wounded without knowing it. It is the dark side of her life, which she lived ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 84, October, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... construction in the narrative, and little or no progress in the events. Yet it is very daintily told. The mind of the author wells out in the purest streams. Having to deal with one foul incident, the tale is nevertheless without speck or blemish. A virgin nymph, born of a lily, could not have unfolded her thoughts more delicately. And, in spite of its improbability, Rosamond Gray is very pathetic. It touches the sensitive points in young hearts; and it was by no means without success—the author's first success. It ...
— Charles Lamb • Barry Cornwall

... according as the worshipper is a farmer, a shepherd, or a goatherd; sometimes it is only frankincense or a honey cake; nay, a poor man may conciliate the God by merely kissing his hand. But it is with the priests that we are concerned. They first make sure that the victim is without blemish, and worthy of the sacrificial knife; then they crown him with garlands and lead him to the altar, where he is slaughtered before the God's eyes, to the broken accompaniment of his own sanctimonious bellowings, most musical, most melancholy. The delight of the ...
— Works, V1 • Lucian of Samosata

... parish, who are not polite enough to see anything ridiculous in his behaviour; besides that, the general good sense and worthiness of his character makes his friends observe these little singularities as foils, that rather set off than blemish his good qualities. ...
— The De Coverley Papers - From 'The Spectator' • Joseph Addison and Others

... of the Siena tondo, is so pronounced that, when standing close to the wall on which the relief is fixed, one can see the Virgin's second eye—unduly prominent and much too near to the nose. This is a needless and distracting mannerism, though, of course, the blemish is only noticeable from one point of view, being quite invisible as one sees the relief from the front, or in a photograph. The Berlin Museum has another large Madonna comparable for its scale and rich colouring to the Courajod relief. ...
— Donatello • David Lindsay, Earl of Crawford

... imagination full of spirit, of great compass, and stored with refined ideas. He is a critic of the first rank and, what is his peculiar ornament, he is delivered from the ostentation, malevolence, and supercilious temper, that so often blemish men of that character. His remarks result from the nature and reason of things, and are formed by a judgment free and unbiassed by the authority of those who have lazily followed each other in the same beaten track of thinking, and are arrived only at the reputation of acute grammarians and commentators; ...
— Lives of the English Poets: Prior, Congreve, Blackmore, Pope • Samuel Johnson

... as John Stuart Mill, whose ideas were formed in the pre-Darwinian epoch, and whose works must now be accepted with great reserve. Darwin was quite right in saying, "The ignoring of all transmitted mental qualities will, as it seems to me, be hereafter judged as a most serious blemish in the works of Mr. Mill." (Descent of Man, p. 98.) A quotation from the Principles of Political Economy (Vol. 1, p. 389) will give an idea of Mr. Mill's point of view: "Of all the vulgar methods of escaping from the effects of social and moral ...
— Applied Eugenics • Paul Popenoe and Roswell Hill Johnson

... showing how full of loving-kindness and mercy God is; at the same time, being just, He can by no means overlook iniquity. On this account it was that He gave us the inestimable gift of His Son, the Lamb without spot or blemish, to die instead of sinful man. And He requires now that men should believe that Christ thus died for their sakes, that His blood atones for all their sins, that God receives them, rebels though they have hitherto been, as His dear children, and makes them holy by His own good Spirit, fitted to ...
— The Voyage of the "Steadfast" - The Young Missionaries in the Pacific • W.H.G. Kingston

... all the charms of mind, united to personal beauty, to so high a degree, that it seemed as though nature had taken pleasure in forming in her person a perfectly finished work. But those fine qualities were rendered less brilliant through a blemish rarely seen in one so highly endowed, which was that, far from giving the law to those who had a particular admiration for her, she transfused herself so thoroughly into their sentiments that she ...
— Political Women (Vol. 1 of 2) • Sutherland Menzies

... make his way steadfastly through the manifold storms. But in many the eye of pure intention waxeth dim; for it quickly resteth itself upon anything pleasant which occurreth, and rarely is any man found altogether free from the blemish of self-seeking. So the Jews of old came to Bethany, to the house of Martha and Mary, that they might see not Jesus, but Lazarus, whom he had raised from the dead.(1) Therefore must the eye of the intention be cleansed, that it may be single ...
— The Imitation of Christ • Thomas a Kempis

... gentiles. In the case of the latter the lust of concupiscence holds sway; no restraints are exercised and the reins are given to lust, so that its nature and passion are given free expression, just as if this were a provision of nature, when the fact is it is a pest to be healed, a blemish to be removed. But there is none to heal and deliver, so the gentiles decay and go to ruin through evil lust. "Lust of concupiscence" would be, with us, "evil lust." ...
— Epistle Sermons, Vol. II - Epiphany, Easter and Pentecost • Martin Luther

... to observe that his immediate scholars, Raffaello da Montelupo, and Gian Angelo Montorsoli, caught little from their master but the mannerism of contorted form and agitated action. This mannerism, a blemish even in the strong work of Buonarroti, became ridiculous when adopted by men of feeble powers and passionless imagination. By straining the art of sculpture to its utmost limits, Michael Angelo expressed vehement emotions in marble; and the forced attitudes affected in his work had their ...
— Renaissance in Italy Vol. 3 - The Fine Arts • John Addington Symonds

... sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word, that he might present it to himself a glorious Church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish." Since the Church, then, is a body, her standing is independent of the individual members who may be in her communion; as a responsible agent, even as an individual, she may come under obligation and fulfil it; and through every age of her existence, be held bound to duty by her engagements. ...
— The Ordinance of Covenanting • John Cunningham

... this becomes him, (As his composure must be rare, indeed, Whom these things cannot blemish] This ...
— Notes to Shakespeare, Volume III: The Tragedies • Samuel Johnson

... we faults can spy, And blame the mote that dims their eye; Each little speck and blemish find: To our ...
— Favourite Fables in Prose and Verse • Various

... good freend, I wil requite thy love. Goe then, present them to the Queene Navarre: For she is that huge blemish in our eye, That makes these upstart heresies in Fraunce: Be gone my freend, present them ...
— Massacre at Paris • Christopher Marlowe

... only an exceptional blemish in the legislation of a people, and in this case, the best thing that can be done is, without so many speeches and lamentations, to do away with it as soon as possible, notwithstanding the clamours of interested parties. But how is it to ...
— Essays on Political Economy • Frederic Bastiat

... delicate shades by the graphic pen of the Duke de Saint-Simon when at a more advanced period of her life, but on which beauty, by a miracle of art and nature, the wasting hand of time had as yet scarcely brought a blemish. ...
— Political Women, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Sutherland Menzies

... Poitou, instantly recalled to himself, "believe me, I meant no ill. But true it is that I only can recover him. I have often seen him taken thus. But I must be left alone. My master hath a blemish upon him, and one great gentleman does not humiliate another in the presence of underlings. My Lord Douglas, as you love honour, bid all to leave me alone ...
— The Black Douglas • S. R. Crockett

... man after an anxious period of indecision finally made his choice. After having satisfied himself that there was no concealed blemish in his apple he proffered a nickel in payment and extended a trembling hand for the change. The Syrian dropped a penny in it, and turned away with a suspiciously ...
— The Deaves Affair • Hulbert Footner

... may'st see How much thy gifts my care engage, I've sent the cherish'd flow'r to thee Without a blemish, but from age. ...
— Poems • Sir John Carr

... they find Some stain or blemish in a name of note, Not grieving that their greatest are so small, Inflate themselves with some ...
— Ideala • Sarah Grand

... achievements restores him to himself. As examples of patriotic thinking and action he invites into his world Samuel Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and Alexander Hamilton. They remind him that he is a product of the past and that it devolves upon him to pass on to posterity without spot or blemish the heritage that has come to him through the patriotic service and sacrifice ...
— The Vitalized School • Francis B. Pearson

... approached she saw something else about this unlovely woman. On her neck was a great, livid scar, of a hand's breadth, and which looked like a scald, or burn. No attempt was made to conceal this unsightly blemish. ...
— Nan Sherwood at Pine Camp - or, The Old Lumberman's Secret • Annie Roe Carr



Words linked to "Blemish" :   crack, burn mark, deflower, daub, scrape, dirty, milium, nick, wart, begrime, soil, whitehead, birthmark, bemire, blackhead, impair, smirch, scratch, gouge, verruca, chatter mark, chip, blot, mole, mangle, spoil, spot, pock, damage, pit, nevus, scar, vitiate, check, grime, comedo, smudge, stigma, dent, mark, appearance, slur, smear, visual aspect, burn, maul, ding, colly



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