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Decent   /dˈisənt/   Listen
Decent

adverb
1.
In the right manner.  Synonyms: decently, in good order, properly, right, the right way.  "Can't you carry me decent?"






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Decent" Quotes from Famous Books



... Warwick bridge there stretches a flat meadow, along the brink of which on a summer evening you may often count a score of anglers seated and watching their floats; decent citizens of Warwick, with a sprinkling of redcoats from the garrison. They say that two-thirds of the Trappist brotherhood are ex-soldiers; and perhaps if we knew the reason we might also know why angling has a peculiar fascination ...
— Shining Ferry • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... Despair was written all over it in characters impossible to be mistaken. I had fixed my resolution to go through the whole scene, if not with heroism, at least with that decent firmness which becomes a man; yet the sound of the words which consigned me to the scaffold struck me with a general chill. Momentary as the period was, the question passed through my mind, are those paralysed limbs the same which bore me ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLII. Vol. LV. April, 1844 • Various

... mean nor underhanded about it," he retorted. "I had a perfect right to ask Colonel Butler for a subscription. And if he chose to give the whole flag, that was his lookout. And," turning to Pen, "if you'd been half way decent last night, you'd have known all about this thing then, and maybe ...
— The Flag • Homer Greene

... exterior. Doubtless you observe that all the swindlers, whose adventures enliven your journals, are dressed 'in the height of fashion,' and enjoy 'a mild prepossessing demeanour.' Even the Cholera does not menace 'a gentleman of the better ranks;' and no bodies are burked with a decent suit of clothes on their backs. Wealth in all countries is the highest possible morality; but you carry the doctrine to so great an excess, that you scarcely suffer the poor man to exist at all. If he take a walk ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19, Issue 529, January 14, 1832 • Various

... Westerfelt. The corners of his mouth were drawn down and his chin was puckered. "I have fought some in my life, and sometimes I get as mad as the next one, but I still try to be decent before ladies. This is no place ...
— Westerfelt • Will N. Harben

... Girondins, by Insurrection; and became extinct as a Party: not without a sigh from most Historians. The men were men of parts, of Philosophic culture, decent behaviour; not condemnable in that they were Pedants and had not better parts; not condemnable, but most unfortunate. They wanted a Republic of the Virtues, wherein themselves should be head; and they ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle

... a brown study to hear. Presently she spoke. "I believe that love is best founded upon a degree of respect and veneration which it is decent in youth to render unto ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various

... might learn the extent of their conviction, by applying at the commissary's office. Such as might appear to have been sent out for life were told they need not despair of being, in due time, again the masters of their own labours; as every one must have seen, that a decent, orderly, industrious and obedient conduct, had frequently recommended many of ...
— An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. 2 • David Collins

... fourteen pence;[180] and the same printer's book of Common Prayer for four shillings. Yet if you wanted a superbly bound Prymer, it would have cost you (even five and twenty years before) nearly half a guinea.[181] Nor could you have purchased a decent Ballad much under sixpence; and Hall's Chronicle would have drawn from your purse twelve shillings;[182] so that, considering the then value of specie, there is not much ground of complaint against the ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin

... ought to be provided with a decent fairy godmother," she gulped. "If mine did her duty she'd come to rescue me now. Yes, she would, and ...
— The Jolliest School of All • Angela Brazil

... may, the trade unions are the only form of working-class organisation to-day which can secure for the workers a decent standard of existence under capitalist conditions of industry. Anything which tends to weaken them and reduce their influence, whether in the interests of the employers or for the supposed advancement of r-r-r-revolutionary proletarian ...
— Bolshevism: A Curse & Danger to the Workers • Henry William Lee

... indecency is this!" she cries commandingly. "How many times must it be repeated to you, that you must not jump out on the street during the day, and also—pfui!—only in your underwear. I can't understand how you have no conscience yourselves. Decent girls, who respect themselves, must not demean themselves that way in public. It seems, thank God, that you are not in an establishment catering to soldiers, but in a respectable house. ...
— Yama (The Pit) • Alexandra Kuprin

... the cloth to lie upon the Mensa, or upper surface of the Table, but do not require the whole Table to be covered or enveloped therewith. The linen cloth is to be laid upon the covering described in Canon 82 as 'a carpet of silk or other decent stuff.' ...
— Ritual Conformity - Interpretations of the Rubrics of the Prayer-Book • Unknown

... cold-blooded suggestion, yet I did not utter one word of refusal, and must have led Gottlieb to believe that I was of a mind with him, for he slapped me on the shoulder and bade me good luck. Good luck! Was ever a man of decent birth and education forced upon such an errand? The convoying of a drunken criminal to—where? I knew not—somewhere ...
— The Confessions of Artemas Quibble • Arthur Train

... wait there." Then she went on with her judgment. Yes, she went on, although her eyes were blind, and the blood beating in her ears sounded like the roll of drums. She finished it, and after a decent interval, bowed her head in acknowledgement of the customary salutes, and made the sign which intimated that the Court ...
— The Ghost Kings • H. Rider Haggard

... surprised me, for under other governments I had seen that foreigners were considered anything but necessary to the colony and after having opposed, more or less openly, the intruder's initiative, the Authority seized the slightest pretext, that offered itself under a decent aspect, to send the new-comer back over the frontier for fear that their digestion might ...
— My Friends the Savages - Notes and Observations of a Perak settler (Malay Peninsula) • Giovanni Battista Cerruti

... turning round; "I am a bad, ungrateful man, but I'm not utterly wanting in decent feeling. You touch me on a ...
— Jack Harkaway and his son's Escape From the Brigand's of Greece • Bracebridge Hemyng

... ten pieces in a frugal manner, and Aladdin, though used to an idle life, had left off playing with young lads of his own age ever since his adventure with the African magician. He spent his time in walking about, and conversing with decent people, with whom he gradually got acquainted. Sometimes he would stop at the principal merchants' shops, where people of distinction met, and listen to their discourse, by which he gained some little knowledge ...
— Types of Children's Literature • Edited by Walter Barnes

... great cat, with Nick Barry, now his song was done, lolling against her, and two white women, one young and well favoured, and the other harshly handsome, both with their husbands present, and I doubt not decent women enough, though something violent of temper. As I entered, Mistress Allgood, one of them, begun a harangue at the top of a shrill voice, with her husband plucking vainly at her sleeve to temper her vehemence. Mistress ...
— The Heart's Highway - A Romance of Virginia in the Seventeeth Century • Mary E. Wilkins

... poisoned by that pestiferous river and bad living! Bowles said he was sure he was not eating meat enough. I dare say that greasy woman gives him nothing fit to eat! Albinia, you must talk to him—find out whether old Goldsmith gives him a decent salary!' ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge

... the house. The door was opened by Lucy and he entered unperceived by the domestics. The first operation was to cut off the whole of his hair close to his head. He was then attired in Herbert's clothes, and looked, as Lucy told him, a quiet and decent young gentleman. Then he took his place on a couch in the sitting-room, and Herbert rung for supper, which he had ordered to be prepared for a guest as well as ...
— Friends, though divided - A Tale of the Civil War • G. A. Henty

... number of decent cottages had been put up, I offered them to the tenants at the same rents that they had paid for the ruinous ones, which I then had pulled down, as I found they were utterly unfit to be repaired. On their sites, after the ground had been drained, I erected others; and in the ...
— In the Eastern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston

... is where any worke is learnedly compiled in measurable speech, and framed in wordes conteyning number or proportion of just syllables, delighting the readers or hearers as well by the apt and decent framing of wordes in equal resemblance of quantity—commonly called verse, as by the skylfull handling ...
— Rhetoric and Poetry in the Renaissance - A Study of Rhetorical Terms in English Renaissance Literary Criticism • Donald Lemen Clark

... undisturbed in its patient backwater. It recks as little of sky-scrapers as of transportation. Its towns are not ashamed of being villages, and the vanity which it guards is not the vanity of shapeless size, but the rarer vanity of a quiet and decent life. ...
— American Sketches - 1908 • Charles Whibley

... trembling with the effort, restrained himself to a more decent bearing before the woman, the lady, the friend's wife. His arms fell by his side, and he repeated in lower tones, though the flame of his gaze ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle

... old maidens, the younger one—Sophia Ivanovna—was the kindlier, while the older one—Maria Ivanovna—was of austere disposition. Sophia Ivanovna kept the girl in decent clothes, taught her to read and intended to give her an education. Maria Ivanovna said that the girl ought to be taught to work that she might become a useful servant, was exacting, punished, and even beat her when in bad humor. Under ...
— The Awakening - The Resurrection • Leo Nikoleyevich Tolstoy

... resumed Mr. Hardcastle, "it stands to reason children should learn to like what their elders have liked before them. That's the only decent and Christian way of living. And as I said to my son,—to my Dick, you know" (Mr. Hardcastle had a son of whom he always spoke as if sole owner of him, and indeed solely responsible for his being),—"'Dick,' I said, when he spoke disrespectfully ...
— Only an Incident • Grace Denio Litchfield

... rules by heart. It means turning Latin and Greek into English, for the mere sake of being able to do it, and without the smallest regard to the worth, or worthlessness, of the author read. It means the learning of innumerable, not always decent, fables in such a shape that the meaning they once had is dried up into utter trash; and the only impression left upon a boy's mind is, that the people who believed such things must have been the greatest idiots the world ever saw. And it means, finally, ...
— Lay Sermons, Addresses and Reviews • Thomas Henry Huxley

... but little change was visible in the family arrangements, for though a sensitive she was a spirited woman. Her garden, which had been the pride and delight of her husband, still flourished in perfect neatness. After the usual time of decent seclusion, she again interchanged visits with her friends and neighbors, and continued to maintain the stand in the village society which had always been conceded to her. But this state of things did not long continue, for alas! the gathering as well as the ...
— Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, March 1844 - Volume 23, Number 3 • Various

... still prefer to any such violent means is that you reason with him privately, and compel him to bring me home to your parish in a decent and careful manner, in the way that would be adopted by any respectable man, whose wife had been living away from him for some time, by reason, say, of peculiar family circumstances which had caused disunion, but not enmity, and ...
— Desperate Remedies • Thomas Hardy

... Jacobins. I replied, and informed him that his notions about jacobinism were thoroughly ridiculous, and that if he ever heard any sentiments delivered of which he disapproved, and, in answer to which he could not find arguments, stated in decent language, the only way for him to act was, to walk out of the room; for he might depend upon it, if he ever insulted any one of the company in future, by giving them the lie, or calling them Jacobins and enemies to their country, ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 2 • Henry Hunt

... more," "If my husband should be out of the way." [is only] for petit-maitres: and for himself, Philodemus says, he chooses her, who neither stands for a great price, nor delays to come when she is ordered. Let her be fair, and straight, and so far decent as not to appear desirous of seeming fairer than nature has made her. When I am in the company of such an one, she is my Ilia and Aegeria; I give her any name. Nor am I apprehensive, while I am in her company, lest her ...
— The Works of Horace • Horace

... Kensington wrote a respectful letter to the King, explaining that upon State occasions it would, of course, be his duty to observe what formalities the King thought proper, but that it was really awkward for a decent householder not to be allowed to go out and put a post-card in a pillar-box without being escorted by five heralds, who announced, with formal cries and blasts of a trumpet, that the Lord High Provost desired ...
— The Napoleon of Notting Hill • Gilbert K. Chesterton

... a foreign guest proposed to wash himself in water, though by the joyous custom of that house there was no other liquid on the premises but wine? If there is in both countries, in Serbia and Bulgaria, a movement against the cynicism which does not clothe its corruption with a decent Western drapery, that is something; if there is a further movement in the direction of probity, that is something more. And, whatever some Serbs may tell you, it is undeniable that honesty has made important strides in ...
— The Birth of Yugoslavia, Volume 2 • Henry Baerlein

... ain't particular, sir, provided it's sharp, like that poor girl, who, now that she's gone, I am sorry to have spoke hard on, though I don't approve of her morals in getting married, which I consider too quick to be decent. Still, sir," and poor Job turned a shade paler as he said it, "I do hope it ...
— She • H. Rider Haggard

... would treat a young traitor, I tell you that I take it as a sign of an awakening public conscience when reputable lawyers refuse to defend a man who has done what your father has done. And, finally, I predict that, try as you may, you will not be able to find a decent lawyer who will dare to take his case. And I glory in it, and consider it the result of my work!" He bowed to her. "And now, Miss West, ...
— Counsel for the Defense • Leroy Scott

... Soon Mary and I had nothing left. There was no work for us. We had sold everything that anyone would buy. The rent was overdue. They turned us out—on the streets.... I was too young; but Mary.... She found a place where I could stay. They were decent people, but hard.... ...
— Out of the Depths - A Romance of Reclamation • Robert Ames Bennet

... disclaims all classic lore; Else I should here, in cunning phrase, display, How forth THE MINSTREL fared in days of yore, Right glad of heart, though homely in array; His waving locks and beard all hoary grey: And, from his bending shoulder, decent hung His harp, the sole companion of his way, Which to the whistling wind responsive rung: And ever as he went ...
— The Minstrel; or the Progress of Genius - with some other poems • James Beattie

... Schiller on his release from the academy, in December, 1780, turned out a wretched mockery of his hopes. He had, or supposed he had, the right to expect a decent position in the public service and a measure of liberty befitting a man who had served his time under tutelage. What his august master saw fit to mete out to him, however, was neither the one nor the other: he was stationed ...
— The Life and Works of Friedrich Schiller • Calvin Thomas

... reasonable, and Fosdick made no objection. The boys succeeded in getting two decent trunks at three dollars apiece, and ordered them sent to their room in Mott Street. It must be remembered by my readers, who may regard the prices given as too low, that the events here recorded took place several ...
— Fame and Fortune - or, The Progress of Richard Hunter • Horatio Alger, Jr.

... said, wiping the tear-drop from the end of her nose, "I do think as we ought not to leave it a-lying here, cramped up onto this sofy, where we can't stretch it straight. We ought to have it taken to her room and laid out on her bed, decent ...
— Cruel As The Grave • Mrs. Emma D. E. N. Southworth

... her death as long as was decent, I took possession of all her property, a particular account of which she gave me before she died; and the corn you sold for me was ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments vol. 2 • Anon.

... ungracious demand on life; not bad in any way, oh no; nor actively repulsive, but trite, empty, everyday, in the sense of what everyday often, alas! really is, but certainly no day or hour or minute, in a decent universe, should ever be. And suddenly a new traveller gets in; and, turning round, you realize that things are changed, that something from another planet, and yet something quite right and so familiar, has entered. ...
— Hortus Vitae - Essays on the Gardening of Life • Violet Paget, AKA Vernon Lee

... sandalwood, porcelains, sonnets, pearls, Sunsets gay as Joseph's coat and seas like milky jade, Dancing at your birthday like a mermaid's dancing curls —If my father'd only brought me up to half a decent trade! ...
— Young People's Pride • Stephen Vincent Benet

... may exist among this odd fragment of our motley population. It is for the sake of their children, who ought to be, at least equally with those of the English labouring classes, since they cannot get it from their parents, provided with means of decent Christian education, that Mr. George Smith has brought this subject under public notice. The Gipsies, so long as they refrain from picking and stealing, and do not obstruct the highways, should not be persecuted; for they are a less active nuisance than the Italian organ-grinders in our city streets, ...
— Gipsy Life - being an account of our Gipsies and their children • George Smith

... and we were still some thirty miles from Ajaccio. It was Saturday, and we wished to get to the end of our journey in order to enjoy a quiet Sunday. There was nothing on the road to tempt us to linger, and no probability of finding decent accommodations; while at Ajaccio, we should be in clover, and get a fresh outfit, our baggage having been forwarded there. On the other hand, it was a long pull, and Filippi remonstrated on behalf of the mules and himself. The first objection was overruled, and the other removed by ...
— Rambles in the Islands of Corsica and Sardinia - with Notices of their History, Antiquities, and Present Condition. • Thomas Forester

... jungle, he soon gets to think that these nice books he reads may be true; and if new books describe the jungle the way it is, he says they're unhealthy. "There are aspects of life in the jungle," he says, getting hot, "that no decent tiger should ever be aware of, ...
— The Crow's Nest • Clarence Day, Jr.

... we chatted for quite all of an hour. The lady did, as I have intimated, a bit of charring, a bit of plain sewing, and also derived no small revenue from her vegetables and fruit, thus managing, as she owned the free-hold of the premises, to make a decent living for herself and child. I have said that she was cheerful and competent, and these epithets kept returning to me as we talked. Her husband—she spoke of him as "poor Judson"—had been a carter and odd-job fellow, decent enough, I dare say, but hardly the man for her, I thought, after studying ...
— Ruggles of Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson

... mutatis mutandis, that of the Bethunes, and many a noble young Scotsman more. Parents holding a farm between Perth and Dunkeld, they and theirs before them for generations inhabitants of the neighbourhood, "decent, honest, God-fearing people." The farm is lost by reverses, and manfully Robert Nicoll's father becomes a day- labourer on the fields which he lately rented: and there begins, for the boy, from his earliest recollections, ...
— Literary and General Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley

... have come to receive your confession. We gave you credit for being a quiet, decent boy, and now it seems that you and that man of yours have been engaged in some disreputable riot, out all night, and coming in on two strange horses, which, for aught we know, have been carried off ...
— In the Irish Brigade - A Tale of War in Flanders and Spain • G. A. Henty

... Professor's dictation, and he usually spent the evening in hunting up references and passages which bore upon the next day's work. This Willoughby Smith has nothing against him either as a boy at Uppingham or as a young man at Cambridge. I have seen his testimonials, and from the first he was a decent, quiet, hardworking fellow, with no weak spot in him at all. And yet this is the lad who has met his death this morning in the Professor's study under circumstances which ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes - Magazine Edition • Arthur Conan Doyle

... mother's heart and her father's heart, and when she do find it in her own heart to leave that sinful place—the the-a-tre—and dress herself like a decent wife and a good woman, and sing for God and not for the devil, and sing for love and not for money, aw, then, who will love her as quick and as warm as I will? But if you do want a message, tell her she have broken her good father's life ...
— A Singer from the Sea • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr

... friends," said Sir James. "It's Grayson's whim, of course, and really, my dear, this seems to be a decent sort of boy. Very rough, of course, but Eddy will give him polish. This class of boy is very quick at picking up things; and if, after a few weeks, Grayson is disappointed and finds out his mistake, why, then, we have behaved in a neighbourly way to ...
— Quicksilver - The Boy With No Skid To His Wheel • George Manville Fenn

... he said again; 'they've never been in any decent society, never been acquainted with a single decent woman, while I have here,' he cried, hurriedly pulling a pocket-book out of his side-pocket and tapping it with his hand, 'a whole pack of letters from a girl whom you wouldn't find the equal of in ...
— The Diary of a Superfluous Man and Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev

... to it as a preposterous requirement that, remaining under strict guard and wholly cut off from communication with the outside world, we should sign such a pledge as the only condition on which we could receive decent shelter. I asked Major Gee if the rigor of our confinement would be in any way relaxed. He answered bluntly, "No."—"Well, where's the reciprocity?" I demanded; "what are you giving up?"—"Well," he replied, "if you don't choose to sign the parole, you can't have the buildings. Other Federal ...
— Lights and Shadows in Confederate Prisons - A Personal Experience, 1864-5 • Homer B. Sprague

... faces, all looking so miserable and showing the discomfort and fatigue they were enduring so plainly! I call it positive suffering, and I never want to see another Drawing Room. My soul desires nothing now but decent clothing and hot tea.' And that is all she has ever said about the Drawing Room in my hearing. But wasn't it a very curious view for a girl to take? Of course the arrangements are detestable, and one does suffer a great ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand

... are irregularly lozenge-shaped, like the notes or "pricks" in Queen Elizabeth's "Virginal-Book," and are placed on the staff without bars. Ainsworth, in his preface, says, "Tunes for the Psalms I find none set of God: so that ech people is to use the most grave decent and comfortable manner that they know how, according to the general rule. The singing notes I have most taken from our Englished psalms when they will fit the mesure of the verse: and for the other long verses I have also taken (for the most part) ...
— Sabbath in Puritan New England • Alice Morse Earle

... felt as if I should not much like to undertake such another expedition as the last, and that it would be pleasanter to remain content with the roast beef and very decent bread our men contrived to make in the old furnace after it had been a bit modified, or with the "cookies" that were readily made on an iron plate over a fire of glowing embers. Oh no! I don't mean damper, that stodgy cake of flour and water ...
— Charge! - A Story of Briton and Boer • George Manville Fenn

... the money for a week or so, then put it back, and have a nice little scoop, at no one's cost. I thought it was a dead-sure thing—and I was hard up, and Kathleen wouldn't lend me any more. If Kathleen had only done the decent thing—" ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... You persistently talked to me when you didn't know me—you're doing it now for that matter!—and you began by telling me that I was fool-hardy, not really courageous in the decent sense of the word, and that I was a self-conscious stick and a horribly inhuman and unnatural object generally—and all because I wouldn't flirt ...
— The Firing Line • Robert W. Chambers

... of a Swede cur—he'll do more dirt than a Portugee. I know what yer thinkin' 'bout. I had them notions too when I fu'st come aboard—gettin' all the decent sort tergether, and takin' the vessel. 'Twon't work; thar ain't 'nough who wud risk it, and if thar wus, yer couldn't get 'em tergether. Sanchez is too damn smart fer thet. Every damn rat is a spy. I ain't hed no such talk ...
— Wolves of the Sea • Randall Parrish

... other, angry in an instant. "Do you insinuate that I'm not worthy to have a decent, well-brought-up girl for ...
— The White Lie • William Le Queux

... "Very decent of you, Miss Field!" breathed Mrs. Jay, in a voice like that of a horn. "You girls run along now—people will be comin' at any minute. I'm going to take Miss Field to the table. Three hundred people comin'," she confided as Harriet followed her across the lawn, ...
— Harriet and the Piper - (Norris Volume XI) • Kathleen Norris

... moral standard of honesty in the face of all deflections of inclination and particular situations. It makes no iota of difference what the result of telling the truth in a particular instance may be. It makes no difference what urgent and plausible and practically decent reason one has for not telling the truth. The truth must be told, as justice must be done, though the heavens fall. We have a case, let us suppose, where telling bad news to a very sick man may ...
— Human Traits and their Social Significance • Irwin Edman

... them did it appear. They were all, as Donald himself said, Fouros, and Beuros, and Lebranos, and Dranos, and other outlandish and unchristian-like names. Not a heeland or lowland shopkeeper amongst them. No such a decent and civilized name to be met with as Gorm, or Brolachan, or M'Fadyen, or Macharuarich, ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume 2 - Historical, Traditional, and Imaginative • Alexander Leighton

... thought," said he. "No chance to give a decent burial to this or any other human remains we may come across here. The slightest disturbance totally disintegrates them. ...
— Darkness and Dawn • George Allan England

... plainly was that you cannot eat flowers. Their spirits required no refreshment, but their bodies needed much, and therefore radishes were more precious than wallflowers. Nor was my youth wholly destitute of radishes, but they were grown in the decent obscurity of odd kitchen garden corners and old cucumber frames, and would never have been allowed to come among the flowers. And only because I was not a boy here they were profaning the ground that used to be so beautiful. Oh, it was a terrible misfortune not to have been a boy! And how sad and ...
— Elizabeth and her German Garden • "Elizabeth", AKA Marie Annette Beauchamp

... thanks for that, or he would have owed them thanks if he considered his life to be worth anything. But he owed them nothing because they had spoiled the life they had given him, had spoiled it by depriving him of everything he had a right to expect from them—love, sympathy, decent treatment. They had given him instead, blows, kicks, ...
— The Boss of the Lazy Y • Charles Alden Seltzer

... throughout this landscape of manifest life. Where are they—all the dying, all the dead, of the populous woods? Where do they hide their little last hours, where are they buried? Where is the violence concealed? Under what gay custom and decent habit? You may see, it is true, an earth-worm in a robin's beak, and may hear a thrush breaking a snail's shell; but these little things are, as it were, passed by with a kind of twinkle for apology, ...
— The Colour of Life • Alice Meynell

... seeing that the pair were likely to make friends; and before ten minutes had elapsed each was in possession of the other's history. Kate's, indeed, was simple enough; her seventeen years in the infirmary being preceded by a quiet life in a very uninteresting neighbourhood; but she "came of decent people," being connected with "the rale ould O'Rorkes," and her father had been "in business"; two circumstances which impressed Mrs. Brady very much, and caused her to unbend towards "Miss Mahony," ...
— North, South and Over the Sea • M.E. Francis (Mrs. Francis Blundell)

... Dumouriez with Pache. In truth, both Powers began the war very badly; but France repaired her faults far more quickly, chiefly because the young democracy soon came to award the guillotine for incompetent conduct over which the nepotism of Whitehall spread a decent cloak. The discovery by the Jacobins of the law of the survival of the fittest served to array the military genius of France against Court favourites or the dull products of ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose

... but they were too brave to be killed in this way. Some proposed making them run the gauntlet. At last it was decided (in pity for the girls, it is said) that the parents should be killed in a more decent and quiet way. They were to be tomahawked and scalped, and the girls were still to be kept prisoners. With the morning's light they started out to execute the sentence. That the poor girls might not see their parents murdered the ...
— The Adventures of Daniel Boone: the Kentucky rifleman • Uncle Philip

... Generally am. This air makes one feel queer after that stinking hole, doesn't it? If you can call this air. I've seen you there a lot lately and often thought I'd like to talk to you. You're the only decent- looking fellow in the whole of this town, if you'll forgive my saying so. Isn't it a bloody hole? But of course you think so too. I can see it in your face. I suppose you go to that pub after that girl. ...
— The Cathedral • Hugh Walpole

... what to do, I guess. The moment he starts in to make those houses decent, the articles ...
— Psmith, Journalist • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse

... of these special gentlemen and of Mexicans in general. He knew Mexicans and knew where he could hit hardest. He wound up with gentle intimation that the town would have made a respectable pigsty, but that a decent pig would have a hard time keeping his self-respect among so many descendants of the canine tribe. It was a beautiful, an eloquent piece of work, and even as he delivered it he felt rather proud of his command of the Mexican idiom. Then he made ...
— The Ridin' Kid from Powder River • Henry Herbert Knibbs

... indignantly, "that after all these years I do not know you as well as I do the contents of my linen chest? I have never before known you open your purse strings one inch wider than was necessary. Have I not always had to ask, until I am verily ashamed, before I can get a new gown for myself, or a decent cloak for the girls? You have ever been hard fisted with your money, and never disposed to spend a groat, save on good occasion. There is not the wife of a trader of your standing in Plymouth but makes a braver show than I do, when we ...
— By Right of Conquest - Or, With Cortez in Mexico • G. A. Henty

... when he drew up level with her. "Put yourself through your mangle, washerwoman," she called out, "and iron your face and crimp it, and you'll pass for quite a decent-looking Toad!" ...
— The Wind in the Willows • Kenneth Grahame

... capture vibrations that radiate from private and secret actions and discover them to others who have no business to know them? This would be a fine world if every body could peep into every one else's affairs, wouldn't it? And here is your Character Marker. Nice thing for a decent person to own, isn't it? Any one who would take advantage of such a sneaking invention as that would be worse than a thief! Oh, I've used them, of course, and I ought to be spanked for having been so mean and underhanded; but I'll never be guilty ...
— The Master Key - An Electrical Fairy Tale • L. Frank Baum

... no more to be said for justifying the imposition of the ceremonies by law established than what is contained in the beginning—of this Section.... Inasmuch as lawful authority hath already determined the ceremonies in question to be decent and orderly, and to serve to edification: and consequently to be agreeable to the general rules of ...
— Coleridge's Literary Remains, Volume 4. • Samuel Taylor Coleridge

... said Tanno. "Horse-training is, at least, and always, an activity fit for a gentleman and wholly decent and respectable." ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White

... hint, and watch the somersaulting pair. What an editor the elder brother would make! He could turn as sudden and perfect a somersault as did Mr. DANA, when he transformed the Sun in a single night from a decent daily to what it now is. Or what a politician the younger brother might become, were he to exhibit in the arena of public life the agility in turning flip-flaps, and reversing himself by unexpectedly standing on his head, which ...
— Punchinello, Vol. II., No. 35, November 26, 1870 • Various

... about. So would Graveairs here have made something out of our name if he had represented it. My Lord Graveairs would have done very well. Yes, you have a very pretty way, and would have made a very decent, grave speaker." And here she began to imitate Esmond's way of carrying himself and speaking to his face, and so ludicrously that his mistress burst out a-laughing, and even he himself could see there was some likeness in the ...
— The History of Henry Esmond, Esq. • W. M. Thackeray

... senate found itself in a difficulty, not wishing to put him in military command, or daring to offend him by an open refusal (Dio, xxxix. 12). The tribune C. Cato found up a Sibylline oracle forbidding the employment of an army for the purpose, which served the senate as a decent excuse. The commission to Lentulus was eventually withdrawn by an auctoritas senatus, and Lentulus did not venture to do it. Ptolemy, finding that he could not succeed in getting Pompey commissioned, retired to Ephesus, ...
— The Letters of Cicero, Volume 1 - The Whole Extant Correspodence in Chronological Order • Marcus Tullius Cicero

... requested it. Yet the man was no worse than his fellows, and had an element of unselfish kindness in him, which was shown by his giving them the old sack to sit upon. Under happier auspices he would probably have been a very decent sort of person, but the hopeless hardship of his existence had gradually wiped out every ambition and hope, till at last he had sunk into something ...
— Little Folks (November 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various

... it—"E-lizabeth says they couldn't do without her. I guess between 'em those girls will make E-lizabeth House School go right. That investment will be a dividend payer. And there's Morton Bassett, that I never took much stock in, why, he's settled down to being a decent and useful citizen. There ain't a better newspaper in the country than the 'Courier,' and that first editorial, up at the top of the page every morning, he writes himself, and it's got a smack to it—a ...
— A Hoosier Chronicle • Meredith Nicholson

... yacht up to Fiume to meet me. I hear you have all sorts of craft at Vissarion. The MacSkelpie, I hear, said you received her as a Queen; so I hope you will do the decent by one of your own flesh and blood, and the future Head of the House at that. I shan't bring much of a retinue with me. I wasn't made a billionaire by old Roger, so can only take my modest "man Friday"—whose name is Jenkinson, and a Cockney at that. So don't have too much ...
— The Lady of the Shroud • Bram Stoker

... opposition? But a cherry-garden isn't grown in a day. Mrs. Furnace had dropped into it (so to speak) when the trees that William John had planted were already on the way to yield good profit. Also she was a woman who knew how to keep a pleasure-garden decent, however near it might lie to a great town and a naval port. Simple woman though she seemed, ...
— Merry-Garden and Other Stories • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... just to content myself, as the working man always must in such circumstances, with the shelter I could get. My bed was situated in the one end of the room, and my landlady's and her husband's in the other, with the passage by which we entered between; but decent old Peggy Russel had been accustomed to such arrangements all her life long, and seemed never once to think of the matter; and—as she had reached that period of life at which women of the humbler class assume the characteristics of the other sex, somewhat, I ...
— My Schools and Schoolmasters - or The Story of my Education. • Hugh Miller

... luxury of that first dinner at the castle!—the only decent meal of which we had partaken since our landing—with the quiet evening which followed it, spent in a large, lofty, well-furnished apartment, lighted up by a massive silver lamp of elaborate workmanship, and cooled by the ...
— The Rover's Secret - A Tale of the Pirate Cays and Lagoons of Cuba • Harry Collingwood

... separate me from your ideal unless I marry Margot Lorenzi, then divide me from that cold perfection forever. I'm not cold, and I'm far from perfect. But I can't feel it a decent thing for a man to marry one woman, promising to love and cherish her, if his whole being belongs to ...
— The Golden Silence • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson

... isn't decent to leave you here alone, when you've got folks that can take care of you. What will people think? It places us in an awfully ...
— Cloudy Jewel • Grace Livingston Hill

... of an hour. Then came another cross-examination of that unhappy man; then a series of cross-questions, after we had all gone into the hat again. "And then," I said to myself with chagrin and disgust, "they will gather up all that remains of us from the floor and send us home for decent interment." Here is one little trifle, that would easily fill up a half-year's study in ...
— My New Curate • P.A. Sheehan

... what you propose is nothing else, is no more an occupation than playing at the public lottery and much less one than playing at baccarat. There at least you are responsible for your own mistakes and in decent society you are safe from the machinations of dishonest people. That would matter less if the chances were in your favour, as they might have been a year ago and as they were in mine from the beginning. They are against you now, because ...
— Don Orsino • F. Marion Crawford

... Forcellini's Lexicon]. Now we ought to be guided by the measure in all things appertaining to us: for it is written (Titus 2:12): "We should live soberly and justly and godly," where a gloss remarks: "Soberly, in ourselves"; and (1 Tim. 2:9): "Women . . . in decent apparel, adorning themselves with modesty and sobriety." Consequently it would seem that sobriety regards not only the interior man, but also things appertaining to external apparel. Therefore drink is not ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas

... announced Bernice. "There aren't any decent shops in Berwick, and I'm going to get lots of things ...
— Two Little Women on a Holiday • Carolyn Wells

... distinction gay: But true expression, like th' unchanging Sun, 315 Clears and improves whate'er it shines upon, It gilds all objects, but it alters none. Expression is the dress of thought, and still Appears more decent, as more suitable; A vile conceit in pompous words express'd, 320 Is like a clown in regal purple dress'd: For diff'rent styles with diff'rent subjects sort, As several garbs with country, town, ...
— The Rape of the Lock and Other Poems • Alexander Pope

... at Sunday school and church was to be inexpressibly weary of them. What I learned at home I can perhaps define but little better. I gained no important result from any direct instruction. I gained something of good-boy behavior and decent manners, diligently trained into me. But what was most valuable in my home education was unconscious infiltration from a good home-atmosphere. This is an influence of incalculable importance, a thousand times outweighing all the schools. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 108, October, 1866 • Various

... with the sundry divinations of poets, might in fact be kept suspended with advantage over human passion and ignorance, to furnish them with decent expression. But once indulged, divination is apt to grow arrogant and dogmatic. When its oracles have become traditional they are almost inevitably mistaken for sober truths. Hence the second kind of supplement offered to science, so that revelations with which moral life has been intertwined ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana

... returning unexpectedly to the subject—"therefore it is no reason to suppose that Dr. Riccabocca is averse to cleanliness and decent care of the person, because he is a philosopher; and, all things considered, he never showed himself more a philosopher than when he left off his ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1, April, 1851 • Various

... they did, and appointed certain persons to oversee the work, and expended several summs thus in repairs, mending the leads, securing the roof, glazing several windows, and then fitting up the quire, and making it pretty decent for the congregation to meet in. And this they did, by taking the painted boards that came off from the roof of the ladies chapel, and placing them all along at the back of the quire, in such manner as they continue ...
— The New Guide to Peterborough Cathedral • George S. Phillips

... the chambers being overhead. She was gone home long before he put out the store lights and turned out the last lingering idler, for Cap'n Abe preferred to cook for himself. He declared the Widow Gallup did not know how to make a decent chowder, anyway; and as for lobscouse, or the proper frying of a mess of "blood-ends," she was all at sea. He intimated that there were digestive reasons for her husband's death at the ...
— Cap'n Abe, Storekeeper • James A. Cooper

... the inhabitants of easternmost Asia ("like such individuals, who are not wanting in clean, decent, and comfortable dwellings, clothing, and surroundings; but who never feel the necessity for a higher enlightenment") with the Greeks ("in the case of the Greeks, even among the most educated inhabitants of Attica, the contrary often happens to ...
— We Philologists, Volume 8 (of 18) • Friedrich Nietzsche

... throughout a victim. It does not absolve Violante, but it allows something for honest parental feeling in the old couple's desire for a child; and something for the good done to this human waif by its adoption into a decent home. According to this version, it is the Count and his brother who lay the matrimonial trap, and the Comparini parents and child who fall into it. "The grim Guido is at first kept in the background. Abate Paolo makes the proposal. ...
— A Handbook to the Works of Browning (6th ed.) • Mrs. Sutherland Orr

... to—privations which often bordered on starvation—Cephyse, young, pretty, of warm temperament, and surrounded by brilliant offers and seductions—brilliant, indeed, for her, since they offered food to satisfy her hunger, shelter from the cold, and decent raiment, without being obliged to work fifteen hours a day in an obscure and unwholesome hovel—Cephyse listened to the vows of a young lawyer's clerk, who forsook her soon after. She formed a connection with another clerk, whom she (instructed by the examples set her), forsook ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue

... I am going to try to do, though it may be too late. As soon as definite news was received, our church held a meeting, raised a fund, and decided to send me off to find Mr. and Mrs. Illingway, if alive, or give them decent burial, if I could locate their bones. The reason they selected me was because I had been in Africa, and knew ...
— Tom Swift and his Electric Rifle • Victor Appleton

... to die, it shall be a decent death—not stung by some horrible reptile. I'll risk losing my way going ...
— The Peril Finders • George Manville Fenn

... exclaimed the other, and then shook his head. "No, it's impossible. You see the poor chap could hardly talk halfway decent English, and I'm sure he never could write my name like this. Besides, Tom," Jack went on triumphantly, "I never bothered to mention to him that I had a name. To him I was simply an American ...
— Air Service Boys Over The Enemy's Lines - The German Spy's Secret • Charles Amory Beach

... to that simple people who had desired to live in peace and had no quarrel with any Power. It was in a kind of stupor that I saw the vanguard of this nation in retreat, a legion of poor old women whose white hairs were wild in this whirl of human derelicts, whose decent black clothes were rumpled and torn and fouled in the struggle for life; with Flemish mothers clasping babies at their breasts and fierce-eyed as wild animals because of the terror in their hearts for those tiny buds of life; with small children scared out of the divine security of childhood ...
— The Soul of the War • Philip Gibbs

... that's sure," snapped Cora. "She's a nobody, I believe. I don't believe she belongs in this school with decent girls." ...
— A Little Miss Nobody - Or, With the Girls of Pinewood Hall • Amy Bell Marlowe

... receive the visits of men whose acquaintance they have made on the street or at some place of amusement. Very often the proprietor of the house is simply victimized by such people, and several respectable houses have been so far overrun by them that decent persons have avoided them altogether. One or two of the smaller hotels of the city bear a most unenviable reputation of this kind. Even the first-class hotels cannot keep themselves entirely free from the presence of courtezans of the better class. Rich men keep their mistresses at ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe

... not decent," he says, "that it should sit in the Governor's antechamber any longer. His guards and valets make such a noise, that we cannot hear each other speak. I have continually to tell them to keep quiet, which causes them to make ...
— Picturesque Quebec • James MacPherson Le Moine

... Lawless, "the row and bother, 128and the whole kick-up altogether, has made me alarmingly hungry; the only decent bit of chicken I managed to lay hands on at supper Di Clapperton ate: precious twist that girl has, to be sure; even after all the ground she's been over to-night, going a topping pace the whole time too, she ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley

... told him that I worked a little in the same trade as his own. This worthy man bade me come into his shop, and at once gave me work to do, and spoke as follows: "Your good appearance makes me believe you are a decent honest youth." Then he told me out gold, silver, and gems; and when the first day's work was finished, he took me in the evening to his house, where he dwelt respectably with his handsome wife and children. Thinking of the grief which my good father might be feeling for me, I wrote ...
— The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini • Benvenuto Cellini

... fact that the Protestant members of the Chamber outnumber the Catholics is in no respect due to religious intolerance, which in this body is totally unknown. Anybody who pays a guinea a year may be elected a member, whatever his religion, whatever his circumstances, providing he is a decent member of society, which is the only qualification required. Members are certainly elected by ballot, but during the many years I have belonged to the Chamber not a single person has been black-balled. If the Protestants ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)

... a favourite, she came to me pretty often. But she had inordinate self-love, and was not tolerant of other women. At the 'Cavalchina,' the masked ball on the last night of the carnival, where all the world goes, she snatched off the mask of Madame Contarini, a lady noble by birth, and decent in conduct, for no other reason, but because she happened to be leaning on my arm. You may suppose what a cursed noise this made; but this is ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. IV - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore

... to think about it, Stanley," she said gently. "I want to do the decent thing by you ...
— The Price She Paid • David Graham Phillips

... you could wink, An', come to look, they each on 'em hed gut behin' a tree, An' Pomp poked out the leg a piece, jest so ez I could see, An' yelled to me to throw away my pistils an' my gun, Or else thet they 'd cair off the leg an' fairly cut the run. I vow I did n't b'lieve there wuz a decent alligatur Thet hed a heart so destitoot o' common human natur; However, ez there worn't no help, I finally gev in An' heft my arms away to git my leg safe back agin. Pomp gethered all the weapins up, an' then he come ...
— The Biglow Papers • James Russell Lowell

... in the slums of the village, where the doorways were greasy, and women flitted about in the hottest weather with thick woolen shawls over their heads. Yet his finances did not permit him to aspire to lodgings much more decent. If he could only secure a small room somewhere in a quiet neighborhood. Possibly Mrs. Durgin would let him have a chamber in her cottage. He was beginning life over again, and it struck him as nearly an ideal plan to begin it on the identical spot where he had, in a manner, made his first start. ...
— The Stillwater Tragedy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich

... capita income is found which must provide for all other expenses, that is, for each person's share of food, clothing, light, fuel, medicine, and all incidentals. It was estimated that a family could not maintain a decent standard of living on a per capita income of less than $1.50 a week. Although each case is considered on its merits, aid is almost always given when the per capita income is less than $1.50; in some special cases it is granted when the income exceeds this amount. The following table shows ...
— The Making of a Trade School • Mary Schenck Woolman

... visitation of the monasteries, and again exhorted a reform; but his efforts were even slighter than Morton's, and in their results equally without fruit. The maintenance of his order in its political supremacy was of greater moment to him than its moral purity: a decent veil was cast over the clerical infirmities, and their vices were forgotten as soon as they ceased to be proclaimed.[95] Henry VIII., a mere boy on his accession, was borne away with the prevailing stream; and trained from his childhood by theologians, ...
— The Reign of Henry the Eighth, Volume 1 (of 3) • James Anthony Froude

... and Miss Gaines, thank you for the opportunity of playing in the sand in pleasant company. Mrs. Haile, Miss Hopkins, I go to attend some home-grown niggers who of course don't need a hospital, nor even a decent school, in our Christian midst. Ladies, good afternoon!" He made a fleering motion of the hand and was gone. Mrs. Haile and Miss Hopkins smiled indulgently. Evidently, Doctor Geddes was one brother they were willing to forgive though he offended ...
— A Woman Named Smith • Marie Conway Oemler

... our plans," he went on, pleased with our discomfiture and our despising of him. "Next day some chap came to see me, pretending he was my brother. And I carried out my part of it by cursing him at first and then begging him to give me decent burial. So he went away, and, I suppose, received permission to get me right after ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science April 1930 • Various

... items certainly, and if we had difficulty about it here in a decent sort of country, what might be expected on farther? Well, we have had our outing; I only hope they won't give us up at Irkutsk. I suppose it depends where their grazing-grounds are. There are another two months of summer; I wish we could have ...
— Condemned as a Nihilist - A Story of Escape from Siberia • George Alfred Henty

... railway drove up as I reached the lodge; and out got a grizzled, elderly man, so miserably lean that he looked as if he had not got an ounce of flesh on his bones in any part of him. He was dressed all in decent black, with a white cravat round his neck. His face was as sharp as a hatchet, and the skin of it was as yellow and dry and withered as an autumn leaf. His eyes, of a steely light grey, had a very disconcerting trick, when they encountered your eyes, of looking as if they expected something more ...
— The Moonstone • Wilkie Collins

... "Decent or not," said Captain Glenn, "a pirate's a pirate, and if we can manage to get out of his clutches it's up to us to ...
— The Boy Allies with Uncle Sams Cruisers • Ensign Robert L. Drake

... theatre of upright hills, St. Julien in the Limousin, Aubusson-in-the-hole, Puy (who does not connect beauty with the word?), Mansle in the Charente country—they had all been half dead for over a century when the railway came to them and made them jolly, little, trim, decent, self-contained, worthy, satisfactory, genial, comforting and human [Greek: politeiae], with clergy, upper class, middle class, poor, soldiers, yesterday's news, a college, anti-Congo men, fools, strong riders, old maids, and all that makes a state. In England the railway brought in that beneficent ...
— On Nothing & Kindred Subjects • Hilaire Belloc

... that which the world holds good. The rich and worldly wore handsome garments, they would wear rags; those of the world were careful of their personal appearance, they would despise it; those of the world were cleanly, the hermits were filthy; those of the world were decent, and had a care for outward observances, and so hermits had no care for either decency or modesty. The world was evil, surely, and therefore all that the world held good was surely evil too. Wisdom was to be sought in the very opposites of ...
— The Soul of a People • H. Fielding

... reasonable regard for cleanliness in the stable and dairy room, with a prompt cooling of the milk, will limit the bacterial growth to this standard, and the requirement, meaning, as it does, only a decent regard for such cleanliness as a self-respecting dairyman would recognize as essential, works no hardship on any one. New York City prints its dairy rules on linen and has them tacked up in every cow barn concerned in the city milk supply, and while they have merely ...
— Rural Hygiene • Henry N. Ogden

... way, I rather thought you'd be living at this hotel," said Bateman, as he strolled out of the garden with Edward. "I understand it's the only decent one here." ...
— The Trembling of a Leaf - Little Stories of the South Sea Islands • William Somerset Maugham

... woman heartily. "My daughter and son-in-law have been looking for a decent cottage for I don't know how long. It's all the war. Upset things terribly, it has. But excuse me, sir, it'll be too dark for you to see much of the house. Hadn't you better ...
— The Secret Adversary • Agatha Christie

... don't work decent," observed Step Hen. "It misses an explosion every third one, and acts like it might go out of business any minute on us, that's ...
— The, Boy Scouts on Sturgeon Island - or Marooned Among the Game-fish Poachers • Herbert Carter



Words linked to "Decent" :   improperly, unobjectionable, nice, clean, becoming, indecent, decency, proper, sufficient, respectable, modest, colloquialism



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