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Disconcert   /dˌɪskənsˈərt/   Listen
Disconcert

verb
(past & past part. disconcerted; pres. part. disconcerting)
1.
Cause to feel embarrassment.  Synonyms: confuse, flurry, put off.
2.
Cause to lose one's composure.  Synonyms: discomfit, discompose, untune, upset.



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"Disconcert" Quotes from Famous Books



... stronger terms, and with additions equally detestable, which Cheynel attacked with the vehemence which, in so warm a temper, such horrid assertions might naturally excite. The dispute, frequently interrupted by the clamours of the audience, and tumults raised to disconcert Cheynel, who was very unpopular, continued about four hours, and then both the controvertists grew weary, and retired. The presbyterians afterwards thought they should more speedily put an end to the heresies of Earbury by power than by argument; and, by soliciting general ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 6 - Reviews, Political Tracts, and Lives of Eminent Persons • Samuel Johnson

... flock down cellar the moment he alights from the Gorham train. I should be very sorry to divert the stream of travel into Mr. Hitchcock's dairy, for I am sure any great influx of visitors would sorely disconcert the good genius who presides there, and would be an ill requital for her kindness to us; but it was so novel and pleasant a sight that I am sure she will pardon me for speaking of it ...
— Gala-days • Gail Hamilton

... all women were like you, we poor civilians would not be relegated to the background! I wish, though, I had worn some other costume. This—ahem, dress!—has a tendency to get between my legs and disconcert my philosophical dignity. I can understand why Diogenes didn't care about walking abroad. My only wonder is that everybody didn't stay in his tub in those days. Don't talk to me about the 'noble ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham

... admitted. The presence of the British Ambassador did not disconcert her. She went to ...
— Princess Maritza • Percy Brebner

... into the darkness in the direction of the advancing masses, thereby making known to all and sundry that the surprise, as a surprise, had failed. This with undisciplined troops was alone enough to disconcert the whole operation; the enemy, instead of advancing, halted, and, taking refuge in the villages, awaited the ...
— The Story of the Guides • G. J. Younghusband

... confuse, v. disconcert, perplex, abash, fluster, embarrass, chagrin, pose, nonplus, bewilder, obfuscate, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming

... stupidity, we conceive these symptoms may be easily recognised in the conduct of this country upon the Catholic question. A man has a wound in his great toe, and a violent and perilous fever at the same time; and he refuses to take the medicines for the fever because it will disconcert the toe! The mournful and folly-stricken blockhead forgets that his toe cannot survive him; that if he dies, there can be no digital life apart from him: yet he lingers and fondles over this last part of his body, soothing it madly ...
— Peter Plymley's Letters and Selected Essays • Sydney Smith

... the commons; and that even he himself could not, according to the usage of their ancestors, by virtue of his authority remove any person, because the words were as follows: "If ye think proper, depart, Quirites." He was easily able to disconcert Laetorius by discussing his right thus contemptuously. The tribune, therefore, burning with rage, sent his officer to the consul; the consul sent his lictor to the tribune, exclaiming that he was a private individual, without ...
— Roman History, Books I-III • Titus Livius

... not disconcert Delarey. He retired with Kemp to a position close to his lair in the Zwartruggens, where, however, he did not long remain. At the same time, he sent Smuts to the Hartebeestfontein district, out of which he had just been driven. The audacity of the act was justified, for Smuts maintained himself ...
— A Handbook of the Boer War • Gale and Polden, Limited

... It is only when you get close to the bust of Astor, observing the strength of each feature and its perfect proportion to the rest,—force everywhere, superfluity nowhere,—that you recognize the monarch of the counting-room; the brain which nothing could confuse or disconcert; the purpose that nothing could divert or defeat; the man who could with ease and pleasure grasp and control the multitudinous concerns of a business that embraced the habited and unhabited globe,—that employed ships in every sea, ...
— Famous Americans of Recent Times • James Parton

... With a face motionless he drew backward his gun and turning quietly, spat out a quid of tobacco as if it were all that interfered with his aim. He again slowly raised his rifle and fired, despite continued efforts to disconcert him. ...
— Sergeant York And His People • Sam Cowan

... wondering whether it would be wiser to return home. Her resolve, however, had been taken, and it seemed vacillating even to childishness to abandon it now, unless for graver reasons. How could she face her parents, get back her box, and disconcert the whole scheme for the rehabilitation of her family on ...
— Tess of the d'Urbervilles - A Pure Woman • Thomas Hardy

... scarce a pretty face or a striking figure that I daily saw, about which I had not thus gradually framed a dramatic story, though some of my characters would occasionally act in direct opposition to the part assigned them, and disconcert the whole drama. Reconnoitring one day with my glass the streets of the Albaycin, I beheld the procession of a novice about to take the veil; and remarked several circumstances which excited the strongest sympathy in the fate of the youthful being thus ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner

... genial sap of humanity has been pressed by accumulated injuries. With as much elasticity of mind as stiffness of neck, every step he takes but the last is as firm as the earth he treads upon. Nothing can daunt, nothing disconcert him; remonstrance cannot move, ridicule cannot touch, obloquy cannot exasperate him: when he has not provoked them, he has been forced to bear them; and now that he does provoke them, he is hardened against them. In a word, ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson

... oddity of these phenomena should disconcert you, I will venture to read you a couple of similar narratives, much shorter, merely to show that we are dealing with a well-marked natural kind of fact. In the first case, which I {61} take from the Journal ...
— The Varieties of Religious Experience • William James

... creature was returning to its lair, when, with the cry of "Now for the fray!" Bearwarden aimed beneath the body and blew off one of the farther armoured legs, from the inside. "Shoot off the legs on the same side," he counselled Ayrault, while he himself kept up a rapid fire. Cortlandt tried to disconcert the enemy by raining duck-shot on its scale- protected eyes, while the two rifles tore off great masses of the horn that covered the enormously powerful legs. The men separated as they retreated, knowing that one slash of the great shears would cut their three bodies in halves if they were ...
— A Journey in Other Worlds • J. J. Astor

... quick pattering sounds, as of small unshod hoofs: he turned, and saw the Welchmen at the distance of some fifty yards. But at that moment there passed, along the road in front, several persons bustling into London to share in the festivities of the day. This seemed to disconcert the Welch in the rear, and, after a few whispered words, they left the high road and entered the forest land. Various groups from time to time continued to pass along the thoroughfare. But still, ever through the glades, Harold caught glimpses of the riders; ...
— Harold, Complete - The Last Of The Saxon Kings • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... forward on the slant, pulling itself up, then sliding again—always he maintained his air of importance, giving his cough, twisting the ends of his moustache, staring, fiercely, at some one suddenly that he might disconcert him, patting, with his plump little ...
— The Dark Forest • Hugh Walpole

... too little occupied with herself to feel any of Josiah's humiliation. This society was hers by right of birth, and did not disconcert her; only no one could help being lonely when quite neglected, ...
— Beyond The Rocks - A Love Story • Elinor Glyn

... used to all this, and therefore it did not disconcert him in the least. He went off and brought his own target, and set it up with his ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume IV. (of X.) • Various

... and lost 70 pieces of artillery and 10,000 men. Although Frederick the Great had at this time adopted the principle of moving backwards and forwards in order to make a battle impossible, or at least to disconcert the enemy's plans, still the alteration of position on the night of the 14-15 was not made exactly with that intention, but as the King himself says, because the position of the 14th did not please him. Here, therefore, ...
— On War • Carl von Clausewitz

... Pullman and sat down to think it all over. It had but one other occupant, a huge man with heavy shoulders who lowered the paper he had been reading and looked at Jimmy through a pair of clear, gray, appraising eyes that conveyed such a sense of directness as to slightly disconcert one with ...
— Mixed Faces • Roy Norton

... as if the Shawanoe had the other at his mercy, yet he refrained from discharging the arrow. In fact, his whole action was designed rather to disconcert the Pawnee than to injure him. Not only had Deerfoot's confidence in his bow and arrow weakened, but the two escapes of the Pawnee gave him a half-superstitious belief that it was intended the latter should not be injured. He, therefore, relaxed the ...
— Footprints in the Forest • Edward Sylvester Ellis

... except civilization between a very old woman and an ape." Some time after its publication, when he was the guest of Mr. and Mrs. Disraeli, Mrs. Disraeli, herself both elderly and very plain, laid a plan to disconcert him. She seated herself close to a low mirror, in the hopes that Burton would presently join her. He soon fell into the trap and was observed a few minutes later leaning over her ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright

... counsel is not to pause, rather to gallop still on steadily, as though we saw them not. But let us be ready; and if they dare to molest us, let us with one accord discharge our pieces in their faces. That will disconcert them for a moment, and we may perchance outride them. We are but three miles and a half from Cross Way House. I trow we can make shift to reach its friendly shelter; and once ...
— The Lost Treasure of Trevlyn - A Story of the Days of the Gunpowder Plot • Evelyn Everett-Green

... I preferred an Indian and the packer. Once, you know, you dropped me; but nothing seemed to disconcert that young man. He must have been horribly worn out, for he had been up twice, but he was so steady and reassuringly quiet. I suppose a man of his kind would appreciate twenty ...
— The Gold Trail • Harold Bindloss

... say, always seems to work after a certain military necessity. Every nation punishes the general who is not victorious. It is a rule in games of chance that "the cards beat all the players," and revolutions disconcert and outwit all the insurgents. The revolutions carry their own points, sometimes to the ruin of those who set them on foot. The proof that war also is within the highest right, is a marked benefactor in the hands of Divine Providence, is its morale. The war gave back ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol II, After-Dinner Speeches E-O • Various

... the midst of his speech falling into some confusion, was for awhile silent; but, recovering himself, observed, "how reasonable it was to allow counsel to men called as criminals before a court of justice, when it appeared how much the presence of that assembly could disconcert one of ...
— Lives of the Poets, Vol. 1 • Samuel Johnson

... less embarrassed, in spite of his excitement. His followers entered after him, and all paused a moment at sight of the ladies. Of course their modesty was not fated to be long-lived, but for a moment they were abashed. Once let them begin to shout, however, and nothing on earth should disconcert them. ...
— The Idiot • (AKA Feodor Dostoevsky) Fyodor Dostoyevsky

... Adelaide was thus using her eyes and her mind—her own eyes and her own mind—in observing what was going on around her, she did not disconcert the others, not even Janet, by expressing her thoughts. Common sense—absolute common sense—always sounds incongruous in a conventional atmosphere. In its milder forms it produces the effect of wit; in stronger doses it is a violent irritant; in large quantity, ...
— The Second Generation • David Graham Phillips

... in her wickedness, to utterly disconcert her middle-aged admirer, she could not have adopted a surer plan. For fully five minutes he ...
— The Unseen Bridgegroom - or, Wedded For a Week • May Agnes Fleming

... the blunt old knight would readily excuse ceremony; and I had such a belief in the extent and decided character of Rashleigh's machinations, that I had some apprehension of his having provided means to intercept a journey which was undertaken with a view to disconcert them, if my departure were ...
— Rob Roy, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott

... shudder at doing anything unusual, and even hear by anticipation the laugh of your particular friends. You are especially ashamed at appearing to care for what those about you do not care for. A laugh at your humanity, or your "theories," would disconcert you. You are fearfully anxious that any project of benevolence you undertake should succeed, not altogether on its own account, but because your sagacity is embarked in it, and plentiful will be the gibes at its failure, ...
— The Claims of Labour - an essay on the duties of the employers to the employed • Arthur Helps

... and the beams torn away from the roofs, or the glorious army massacring those who defend themselves, taking away the others as prisoners, pillaging in the name of the sword and offering thanks to God to the thunder of the guns, are as many appalling scourges which disconcert any belief in eternal justice, all the trust we were taught to place in the protection of heaven and the ...
— Mademoiselle Fifi • Guy de Maupassant

... the man's feet made him appear clumsy-footed, but he swung down from the giddy height as lightly and airily as a mountain goat. A rock, turning under his foot on the edge of the precipice, did not disconcert him. He seemed to know the precise time required for the turn to culminate in disaster, and in the meantime he utilized the false footing itself for the momentary earth-contact necessary to carry him on into safety. ...
— Brown Wolf and Other Jack London Stories - Chosen and Edited By Franklin K. Mathiews • Jack London

... you give her a sudden shock; nor must you let it be known that you have seen her, for that might disconcert the plan I ...
— The Exemplary Novels of Cervantes • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

... though it was of Mrs Varden's extraordinary sweetness and amiability, had so strong a tendency to check the conversation and to disconcert all parties but that excellent lady, that only a few monosyllables were uttered until Edward withdrew; which he presently did, thanking the lady of the house a great many times for her condescension, and whispering in Dolly's ear that he would call on the morrow, in case there ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens

... his breath, but again checked himself just in time to prevent the words "and wives," that rose to his lips. "And friends," he substituted, with evident constraint and as awkwardly as before. It was not often that a woman had been able to disconcert Edgar Harrowby so strangely as did this ignorant and innocent ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. XVII, No. 99, March, 1876 • Various

... followed a strangely zigzag course. It was evident that, in trying to baffle pursuit, they had tried to avoid places which they thought might be dangerous to them. This may have been simply a method to disconcert pursuit. If so, it was, in a measure, excellent, for none of those immediately following could possibly tell in what direction they were heading. It was only when we worked the course on the great map in the signaller's room (which was the old guard room ...
— The Lady of the Shroud • Bram Stoker

... consequential and prophetic of the rest. The calm places in life are filled with power and its spasms with resource. No emotion can overwhelm the mind, for of none is the basis or issue wholly hidden; no event can disconcert it altogether, because it sees beyond. Means can be looked for to escape from the worst predicament; and whereas each moment had been formerly filled with nothing but its own adventure and surprised emotion, each ...
— Pragmatism - A New Name for Some Old Ways of Thinking • William James

... passed half of the intervening distance, he seemed to fancy that he was not making satisfactory time for the Shawanoe, who, he doubtless imagined, was standing with leveled gun, finger on the trigger. He therefore began leaping from side to side, so as to disconcert the aim of the dreaded Deerfoot. In the hope also of further confusing him, he emitted several frenzied whoops, which added such grotesqueness to the scene that Terry Clark threw back his head and made the ...
— The Hunters of the Ozark • Edward S. Ellis

... of them having gone about; the idea, of course, being to separate and widen their distance as much as possible in the hope that by so doing one of them at least might escape, even if the other were captured. Captain Vavassour, however, did not allow these tactics to disconcert him in the least; he fixed upon one of them as the object of his pursuit—altogether disregarding the movements of the other, meanwhile—and devoted all his efforts to close with her, with the result that by two bells in the ...
— A Middy of the King - A Romance of the Old British Navy • Harry Collingwood

... from our state of animal spirits, want of confidence in the justice of our cause, or any other motive, our own courage happens to be in a wavering condition, nothing tends so much altogether to disconcert us, as a great appearance of promptitude on the part of our antagonist. Halbert Glendinning, both morally and constitutionally intrepid, was nevertheless somewhat troubled at seeing the stranger, whose resentment he had provoked, appear at once ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott

... assuming because he was asked in church and lawfully married; and she wore a handsome lilac silk gown and a white wreath and veil, and very well she looked in them. She had a child of two years old, which did not at all disconcert Bill; but he continues to be dignified, and won't let her go and wash clothes in the river, because the hot sun makes her ill, and it is not fit work ...
— Letters from the Cape • Lady Duff Gordon

... Evidently it did, for she smiled brightly and graciously and bent her ruddy head. But she was pale, I noticed critically; there was apprehension in her eyes. Wasn't it odd that the prospect of a few simple questions from an officer should disconcert her when she had possessed the courage, or the foolhardiness, to sail on this line at ...
— The Firefly Of France • Marion Polk Angellotti

... circumstance occurred of a disagreeable nature, which however did not much disconcert me. Mr Ivory, who had a good many years before made himself favourably known as a mathematician, especially by his acquaintance with Laplace's peculiar analysis, had adopted (as not unfrequently happens) some singular hydrostatical theories. In my last Paper on the ...
— Autobiography of Sir George Biddell Airy • George Biddell Airy

... moment she was intent upon something beyond the picture. She was preparing for a little scene, and was going to give him some advice. He understood it all, but as he was really desirous of working at his canvas, and was rather averse to having a scene at the moment, he made a little attempt to disconcert her. "It is the heart that gives success," she said, while he was considering how he might best put an extinguisher upon her romance for ...
— The Last Chronicle of Barset • Anthony Trollope

... could induce the gentleman to think the same." This was a point that seemed rather to disconcert our candidate for equality, who commenced whistling and kicking ...
— The Backwoods of Canada • Catharine Parr Traill

... that, by order of time, was regularly to precede this latter design; with such regularity did this our hero conduct all his schemes, and so truly superior was he to all the efforts of passion, which so often disconcert and disappoint the ...
— The History of the Life of the Late Mr. Jonathan Wild the Great • Henry Fielding

... then explained the method of this peculiar stratagem of Indian warfare. The twenty picked men were about to ride around us in a circle, at top speed, delivering flights of arrows as they passed, their object being to disconcert us and draw our fire; our guns once empty, the main body whom we observed held themselves in readiness, would ride in, and by a sudden dash, end the skirmish by our ...
— Seven and Nine years Among the Camanches and Apaches - An Autobiography • Edwin Eastman

... existence of another, steel is your only arbiter, and charitable allowances for the dead make the one rational peroration. So we crossed blades; and, pursuing my usual tactics, I began upon a flow of words, which course, as I have learned by old experience, is apt to disconcert an adversary far more than any trick of ...
— Gallantry - Dizain des Fetes Galantes • James Branch Cabell

... between us," Porfiry Petrovitch went on, turning his head away and dropping his eyes, as though unwilling to disconcert his former victim and as though disdaining his former wiles. "Yes, such suspicions and such scenes cannot continue for long. Nikolay put a stop to it, or I don't know what we might not have come to. That damned workman was sitting at the time in the next room—can ...
— Crime and Punishment • Fyodor Dostoyevsky

... sent him, cursing the government in his heart, stigmatizing "Madame Royale" as an unnatural sister, and considering the king no better than other royal uncles who had occupied thrones which belonged to their imprisoned nephews. The news of his discomfiture did not disconcert or dishearten the plotters, and, although their first attempt to approach the daughter of Louis XVI. had resulted in failure, they resolved to make another attempt. Madame de Jacquieres, in particular, was very hopeful, and, with a wisdom and modesty ...
— Celebrated Claimants from Perkin Warbeck to Arthur Orton • Anonymous

... vigor from the singing. Teachers who enjoy hearty singing will get nervous; they will doubt the value of the innovation. In those grades where children range in age from twelve to fourteen years, the apparent loss in vocal power will disconcert the pupils even. Never mind; the use of the thin register will demonstrate its excellences, and it will, if slowly yet surely, increase in brilliance and ...
— The Child-Voice in Singing • Francis E. Howard

... this, she is as a profitable field to her master." To analyse such a work in detail is impossible: it is still more impossible to translate the whole of it. The nature of the subject, the strangeness of certain precepts, the character of the style, all tend to disconcert the reader and to mislead him in his interpretations. From the very earliest times ethics has been considered as a healthy and praiseworthy subject in itself, but so hackneyed was it, that a change in the mode of expressing it could alone give it freshness. Phtahhotpu ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 2 (of 12) • G. Maspero

... to that point of polish which meets the New England necessity for thoroughness, are "bright," and the near observer blinks as he suddenly comes upon them in the sun. A bit of looking-glass handled judiciously by the small boy, has the same quality, and is warranted to disconcert the most placid temperament; and so the New England woman is apt to have jagged edges and a sense of too much light for the situation. "Sweetness and light" is the desirable combination, and may come in the new union of North and South. The wise woman is she who best unites the two. ...
— Anne Bradstreet and Her Time • Helen Campbell

... not answer; she only looked a little doubtfully at her aunt, with a gaze of deep, uneasy enquiry. That sort of insinuation seemed to disconcert her. But she did not challenge her aunt to define her meaning, and the attack was soon ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu

... sorts of people—folks making inquiries, paying bills, ordering goods, and the like. I've had an idea from the first that some prominent person—no ordinary man—is responsible for the circulars. They're well worded, grammatical, and the malicious insinuations are cleverly contrived to disconcert the loyal but weak brethren. However, these envelopes haven't helped me a bit. Neither of the two persons who addressed the envelopes of the circulars addressed any of these business envelopes. Of ...
— Mary Louise and the Liberty Girls • Edith Van Dyne (AKA L. Frank Baum)

... who could guess a portion of her story, did not disconcert her. To Lady Pennon and Lady Singleby, she was the brilliant Diana of her nominal luminary issuing from cloud. Face and tongue, she was the same; and once in the stream, she soon gathered its current topics and scattered her arrowy ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... which are often made in handling figures are just as annoying. It is a trifling error to call eight and four thirteen, but it often may disconcert an immense calculation. Like the pebble in the shoe, small in itself, it may do great injury. Some years ago there traveled through the country a genuine "lightning calculator." You could put down any number, big or little, while ...
— The Golden Censer - The duties of to-day, the hopes of the future • John McGovern

... and others have actually held that Ashmole made Masonry—as if any one man made Masonry! 'Tis surely strange, if this be true, that only two entries in his Diary refer to the order; but that does not disconcert the theorists who are so wedded to their idols as to have scant regard for facts. No, the circumstance that Ashmole was a Rosicrucian, an Alchemist, a delver into occult lore, is enough, the absence of any allusion to him thereafter only serving to confirm the fancy—the theory being ...
— The Builders - A Story and Study of Masonry • Joseph Fort Newton

... the queen and her throne, by taking upon him to declare the pretended prince of Wales king of England, Scotland, and Ireland. The three declarations of the emperor, England, and the states-general, which were published in one day, did not fail to disconcert, as well as to provoke the French monarch. When his minister De Torcy recited them in his hearing, he spoke of the queen with some acrimony; but with respect to the states-general, he declared with great emotion, that "Messieurs the Dutch merchants should one day repent of their ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett

... even at the early period plots were being contrived against the young princess, which, if successful, would have been wholly destructive of her happiness, and which, though she was fully aware of them, she had not means by herself to disconcert or defeat. They were the more formidable because they were partly political, embracing a scheme for the removal of a minister, and consequently conciliated more supporters and insured greater perseverance than if they had merely aimed at securing a preponderance of court favor ...
— The Life of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France • Charles Duke Yonge

... in Galicia, doubtless with a view to its reaction upon the attitude of Rumania; and here Bothmer was menaced by Sakharoff in the north and Lechitsky in the south. To disconcert the northern attack the Germans had planned a counter-offensive on the 18th, but Sakharoff got his blow in first three days before. Forcing the Austrians across the Styr in front of Dubno, he advanced along ...
— A Short History of the Great War • A.F. Pollard

... together, but to date later than that picture.[18] The tonality of the picture is of an exquisite silveriness—that of clear, moderate daylight, though this relative paleness may have been somewhat increased by time. It may a little disconcert at first sight those who have known the lovely pastoral only from hot, brown copies, such as the one which, under the name of Giorgione, was formerly in the Dudley House Collection, and now belongs to Sir William Farrer. ...
— The Earlier Work of Titian • Claude Phillips

... for the moment, seemed to disconcert the two men. Then Mayer laughed, "Nothing but bluff, young man—American bluff. I know who you are. You followed Seltz here from London, and got the snuff box from him by a trick. Now tell ...
— The Ivory Snuff Box • Arnold Fredericks

... of the eyes which told how ill "Coventry" was agreeing with his spirits. The cheers, with which he was greeted, due quite as much to his pluck in coming to-day as to his exploit at the match last Saturday, appeared to disconcert rather than please him, and he took a corner seat as far as possible from the Classic seniors present. When, however, Percy and Co. entered the Hall, a much livelier demonstration ensued. Cheers and compliments and pats on the back showered fast on the youthful "blacklegs," and ...
— The Cock-House at Fellsgarth • Talbot Baines Reed

... Mansfield saw, but it did not disconcert him. He was glad to see a clear line being drawn, which made it impossible for any but the practised hypocrites to hang out false colours and pretend to be what they were not. It was half the battle to the ...
— Follow My leader - The Boys of Templeton • Talbot Baines Reed

... emphasis that, at each lapse of an hour, the musicians of the orchestra were constrained to pause, momentarily, in their performance, to hearken to the sound; and thus the waltzers perforce ceased their evolutions; and there was a brief disconcert of the whole gay company; and, while the chimes of the clock yet rang, it was observed that the giddiest grew pale, and the more aged and sedate passed their hands over their brows, as if in confused revery or meditation. But when the echoes had fully ceased, a light ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin

... for strong feelings disconcert the mind, and produce confusion of ideas. On every occasion that requires attention, learn to concentrate your thoughts with quickness and comprehension. These two rules reduced into habits, if steadily practiced, will induce decision of resolve ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 8, January, 1851 • Various

... says this enfant terrible, still fixing him with a glance of calm and searching scrutiny that is well calculated to disconcert even a bolder man. Then all at once her mind seems made up, and, coming forward, she holds out her hand, and says, "How d'ye do?" to him, with a sudden, rare sweet smile that convinces him at once of ...
— Rossmoyne • Unknown

... he became aware that Sam Marlowe was moving towards him with outstretched hand. It took a lot to disconcert Sam, and he was the calmest person present. He gave evidence of this in a neat speech. He did not in so many words congratulate Mr. Bennett on the piece of luck which had befallen him, but he tried to make him understand by his manner that he was distinctly to be ...
— The Girl on the Boat • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse

... with his own hands that he consented. Ojeda bore the frightful agony without a murmur or a quiver, such was his extraordinary endurance. It was the custom in that day to bind patients who were operated upon surgically, that their involuntary movements might not disconcert the doctors and cause them to wound where they hoped to cure. Ojeda refused even to be bound. The remedy was efficacious, although the heat of the iron, in the language of the ancient chronicler, so entered his system that they used a barrel of ...
— South American Fights and Fighters - And Other Tales of Adventure • Cyrus Townsend Brady

... than ever when he came into the cabin. He had a certain triumphant air that consorted ill with his trick of evading one's eyes. He came nervously, I thought; but to my surprise Roger's caustic accusal seemed rather to put him at ease than to disconcert him further. ...
— The Mutineers • Charles Boardman Hawes

... the place and song, and respect for the singer alike failed to control the irrepressible start of amazement and smile of amusement with which we greeted the weird and apparently demented shriek which rose high over the voices of the choir, but which did not at all disconcert their accustomed ears. Words, however chosen, would fail in attempting to describe the grotesque ...
— Sabbath in Puritan New England • Alice Morse Earle

... Mrs. Gallosh was one of those good ladies who are fond of asking their friends to take "pot luck," and then providing them with fourteen courses; or suggesting a "quiet little evening together," when they have previously removed the drawing-room carpet. It is an affectation of modesty apt to disconcert the retiring guest who takes them at their word. In the drawing-room of Mrs. Gallosh the startled Baron found assembled—firstly, the Gallosh family, consisting of all those whose acquaintance we have already made, and in addition two stalwart school-boy ...
— Count Bunker • J. Storer Clouston

... the commons; for that even he himself could not, according to the usage of their ancestors, by virtue of his authority remove any person; because the words run thus, if ye think proper, depart, Romans." He was able to disconcert Laetorius by arguing fluently and contemptuously concerning the right. The tribune therefore, burning with rage, sends his beadle to the consul; the consul sends his lictor to the tribune, exclaiming that he was a private individual, without ...
— The History of Rome, Books 01 to 08 • Titus Livius

... disconcert her. She coloured, and then grew suddenly pale. Her eyes no longer looked into his; they were fixed steadfastly ...
— A Monk of Cruta • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... and indeed for the best of motives, men and women suppress, exalt, refine the presentment of themselves, because they desire to be loved, and think that they must therefore be careful to be admired, just as the lover adorns himself and puts his best foot forward, and hides all that may disconcert interest or sympathy. So that it happens in life that often when we most desire to be real, we ...
— Escape and Other Essays • Arthur Christopher Benson

... work. The dismayed blank faces of all the conspirators, with the exception of the arch traitor only, whom it would seem that nothing could disconcert or dismay, confirmed the impression made upon all minds by that strong appeal. For, though he had mentioned no man's name save Catiline's and Laeca's only, suspicion was called instantly to those who were their known associates in riot and debauchery; and many eyes were scrutinizing ...
— The Roman Traitor (Vol. 1 of 2) • Henry William Herbert

... searching mouth. The free gesture, the bent head, the unconscious doing, made the act as lovely as the person. Fulke murmured his joy, and Jehane looking presently up saw the Old Man's solemn eyes blinking at her. This did not disconcert her very much, for she thought, 'If he is correctly reported he has seen ...
— The Life and Death of Richard Yea-and-Nay • Maurice Hewlett

... the alacrity of one who had mentally discussed and decided every point in anticipation. There was no cause for haste, and hence there was no confusion. He could not foretell the number of his guests, but this did in no way disconcert him. He had already decided that no matter how many might come there should be enough. In Wild Bill he had an able and willing assistant, and all through the afternoon and well into the evening the two men pushed on the preparation ...
— Holiday Tales - Christmas in the Adirondacks • W. H. H. Murray

... Fairly farms, known as the Three-Tree Farm, subsisting there, men fancied, by the aid of his housekeeper's money. For he was of those evil fellows who disconcert all righteous prophecy, and it was vain for Mrs. Boulby and Warbeach village to declare that no good could come to him, when Fortune manifestly ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... of this, and the cloakroom move did not disconcert him. He seized on one of the most reverend of the Senate walruses, one festooned with the very seaweed of Senate tradition, and, casting him, as it were, on the coals of his hot rhetoric, proceeded to roast ...
— The President - A novel • Alfred Henry Lewis

... above the timberline, no matter the weather, they were always there, contentedly feeding on the sweet, early-cured tufts of grass that the raging alpine gales kept uncovered. It was fascinating to watch them; neither wild winds nor blinding snow seemed to disconcert them; their thick wool coats were impervious to the keenest, most penetrating blasts. True, on terribly stormy days they sought the shelter of giant upthrusts of rock, towering cliffs or sky-piercing spires that faced eastward, away from the prevailing winds. There they ...
— A Mountain Boyhood • Joe Mills

... nearly all the peasantry are by their daily labor, burned by the sun, and powdered by the dust, old Sale yet retained a little life in her sharp eyes. She spoke of her good man, who had been sick for months,—who could not work, and yet had to eat. She said two or three things calculated to disconcert a young girl, and looked Cecile directly in the face with malicious delight. Two or three times Jack felt a strong inclination to put the wretch out of the door; but he restrained himself when he saw the cold dignity with which ...
— Jack - 1877 • Alphonse Daudet

... turned towards Robin, but made no reply; it is sometimes given to the simple to disconcert the wise, and that alone ...
— The Buccaneer - A Tale • Mrs. S. C. Hall

... saying as many unpleasant things as he could. In this, however, his benevolent views were materially frustrated by Henderson, who made his contemptuous comments in a tone sufficiently loud to be heard by many, and quite distinctly enough to disconcert ...
— St. Winifred's - The World of School • Frederic W. Farrar

... Adams nor Franklin wrote one word which either directly or indirectly had a personal bearing. Arthur Lee was more frank; in the days of Deane he had begun to write that to continue himself at Paris would "disconcert effectually the wicked measures" of Franklin, Deane, and Williams, and that it was "the one way of redressing" the "neglect, dissipation, and private schemes" prevalent in the department, and of "remedying the public evil." He said that the French court was the place of ...
— Benjamin Franklin • John Torrey Morse, Jr.

... dignity of this assembly, nor with those rules which ought to be ever venerable, the great rules of reason and humanity. Yet being now arrived at a time of life in which the passions grow calm, and patience easily prevails over any sudden disgust or perturbation, I forbore to disconcert him, though I have known interruption produced ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 11. - Parlimentary Debates II. • Samuel Johnson

... he takes part in, behind it will be the reality, a private understanding with the biggest man in sight; for this reason the fall of Lloyd George and the succession of a Labor government in England will disconcert him terribly. The democratic passion for equality, which dogs the tracks of the great, he mollifies by reminding the nation always that he is "just folks," by opening the White House lawn gates, by calling everyone by his first name. So constant is his aim to appease it that I wonder if he is ...
— The Mirrors of Washington • Anonymous

... tried to disconcert a mummy with my facetiousness. Said Rogers: "I get all my coats there—they're the only coats fit to ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... a secret sting in this speech that seemed quite to disconcert Master Simon. He jerked away his hand in a pet, smacked his whip, whistled to his dogs, and intimated that it was high time to go home. The girl, however, was determined not to lose her harvest. She now turned upon me, and, as I have a weakness of spirit where there is a pretty ...
— Bracebridge Hall • Washington Irving

... wearisome, and his audience grew gradually less, until it was reduced to twenty passengers. But this did not disconcert the enthusiast, who proceeded with the story of Joseph Smith's bankruptcy in 1837, and how his ruined creditors gave him a coat of tar and feathers; his reappearance some years afterwards, more honourable and honoured than ever, at Independence, Missouri, the chief ...
— Around the World in 80 Days • Jules Verne

... confuses our judgment, as a Paula in real life might, and leaves us attracted and repelled, and, above all, interested. But Duse has no resources outside simple human nature. If she cannot convince you by the thing in itself, she cannot disconcert you by a paradox about it. Well, this passionately sincere acting, this one real person moving about among the dolls of the piece, shows up all that is mechanical, forced, and unnatural in the construction of a play never meant to withstand the searchlight of this woman's creative intelligence. ...
— Plays, Acting and Music - A Book Of Theory • Arthur Symons

... face of the building as easily as he would have dropped from limb to limb of a jungle tree. The sixteen stories under him did not disconcert him at all. Bentley had a suspicion about this particular ape, but he wouldn't know for a time yet whether his suspicion had a basis in fact. He couldn't think of a man—especially an old man like Harold ...
— The Mind Master • Arthur J. Burks

... a tumult by the receipt of a mysterious package from the custom-house containing an intaglio ring. The ring came from Italy, and her ship had touched at Genoa. The fact that it was addressed in an unknown handwriting did not disconcert him, for he argued that to make the test more difficult she might disguise the handwriting. He at once carried the intaglio to an expert at the Metropolitan Museum, and when he was told that it represented Cupid feeding a fire upon an altar, he reserved ...
— Once Upon A Time • Richard Harding Davis

... with his face turned up to the raindrops, sure-footed, with the gait of a panther. He did not speak a word to the girl beside him, but his silence, did not disconcert her. There was even something in it that ...
— The Knave of Diamonds • Ethel May Dell

... prepared for the day's journey. Girths and bridles, the horse furniture, and the shoes of the horses themselves, were carefully inspected with his own eyes, that there might be as little chance as possible of the occurrence of any of those casualties, which, petty as they seem, often interrupt or disconcert travelling. The horses were also, under his own inspection, carefully fed, so as to render them fit for a long day's journey, or, if that should be necessary, for ...
— Quentin Durward • Sir Walter Scott

... the people. James Moore proclaimed Governor. The declaration of the Convention. The Governor transmits an account of the whole proceedings to the Proprietors. The Revolutioners appoint new officers, and establish their authority. In vain the Governor attempts to disconcert them. Rhett refuses obedience to his orders. And preserves the confidence of the Proprietors. Further attempts of the Governor to recal the people. The invasion from Spain defeated. The Governor's ...
— An Historical Account Of The Rise And Progress Of The Colonies Of South Carolina And Georgia, Volume 1 • Alexander Hewatt

... are, you are. You're a regular sphinx sometimes. Peter says that you even disconcert him at times, when you take to remembering things out of your ...
— Turn About Eleanor • Ethel M. Kelley

... of the Polar regions, I found myself one fine morning down to my last few dollars, walking the streets with an imminent prospect of speedy starvation. The fact of death, as an alternative to the apparently actual, did not disconcert me. I shouldn't have minded dying in the least, were it not for the fact that I had hoped before that event to have expounded for modern consumption certain theories of mine upon the dialectics of Hegel. As my money dwindled I was reduced to quite necessary economies, ...
— Paradise Garden - The Satirical Narrative of a Great Experiment • George Gibbs

... not exactly a showy figure; his shoulders were high, his stature but middling—one leg slightly more bandy than the other. He shook hands, looking vaguely around. A spiritless tenacity was his main characteristic, I judged. I behaved with a politeness which seemed to disconcert him. Perhaps he was shy. He mumbled to me as if he were ashamed of what he was saying; gave his name (it was something like Archbold—but at this distance of years I hardly am sure), his ship's name, and a few other ...
— 'Twixt Land & Sea • Joseph Conrad

... the Citizen, whom nothing could disconcert. HOME SECRETARY having no fear of the lamppost before his eyes, formally moved that the Citizen be suspended. GRAHAM snapped his fingers at HOME SECRETARY. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 102, May 14, 1892 • Various

... altogether—a tall, stalwart man whose face was full of the serenity that comes from breadth and poise, but whose mind, as she herself knew well enough, was too habituated to the broad treatment of big matters to have any aptitude for repartee and chatter. She liked to disconcert him, and it was usually an easy thing to do. "And I wish, while you have your hand in, you would just come up and nail some weather-strips ...
— With the Procession • Henry B. Fuller

... or playing sweet old melodies at the piano. The young officers were rather afraid of her. She was "a somewhat superior old maid," said a youngster whom she had found it expedient to repress. Some women declared her a trifle unapproachable, unsympathetic perhaps, but even that did not seem to disconcert her. Something happened ere long that did, however, for a few months after adjournment of the court Davies reappeared at Laramie. He had actually taken a leave of absence, and now he was at Cranston's six evenings out of seven, and garrison gossip began in good earnest. ...
— Under Fire • Charles King

... Stevens, of course, was always the central figure in the House. No possible emergency could disconcert him. Whether the attack came from friend or foe, or in whatever form, he was ready, on the instant, to repel it and turn the tables completely upon his assailant. He exercised the most absolute freedom of speech, making his thrusts with the ...
— Political Recollections - 1840 to 1872 • George W. Julian

... approach until the reading of the papers was finished. Suddenly the Pasha appeared to get weary of his papers. He tossed them aside, ordered his carriage, rose hastily, and left the room. But this uncourteous behaviour did not appear to disconcert those who awaited his pleasure. Probably, like eels, they had got used to rough treatment. Some of them ran after the Pasha and tried to urge their suits in a few rapid sentences, others went off with a sigh ...
— In the Track of the Troops • R.M. Ballantyne

... away from me for a moment. My question seemed to disconcert her, perhaps by reason ...
— The Lost Ambassador - The Search For The Missing Delora • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... did not appear to disconcert the other boy. He was a slippery sort of customer, who always seemed able to find some sort of ready excuse, or a way to "climb down a tree" ...
— The Chums of Scranton High on the Cinder Path • Donald Ferguson

... "lively to severe" certainly took Maguire by surprise, and he seemed for an instant as much disconcerted as it is possible to disconcert an Irish ...
— Humorous Ghost Stories • Dorothy Scarborough

... selection, to things as they are, they will never be reconciled with them, and an eternal war will ensue between what the animal needs, loves, and can understand and what the outer reality offers. So long as such a creature lives—and his life will be difficult and short—events will continually disconcert and puzzle him; everything will seem to him unaccountable, inexplicable, unnatural. He will not be able to conceive the real order and connection of things sympathetically, by assimilating his habits of thought to their habits of evolution. His ...
— Winds Of Doctrine - Studies in Contemporary Opinion • George Santayana

... death—this time by the distinct and awful sentence of God Almighty. He stooped to disconcert for a moment the puny plans of men who had set themselves in array against the Lord and His Christ. On the chief of all the persecutors, Sir Thomas de Arundel himself, the angel of God's vengeance laid his irresistible hand. Cut ...
— The White Rose of Langley - A Story of the Olden Time • Emily Sarah Holt

... the indulgence lavished upon Bulgaria and the severity displayed toward Rumania is calculated to disconcert the stanchest friends of the Supreme Council. The Rumanian government, in a dignified note to the Conference, explained its refusal to sign the Treaty with Austria by enumerating a series of facts which amount to a scathing condemnation of the work of the Supreme Council. On the ...
— The Inside Story Of The Peace Conference • Emile Joseph Dillon

... certain, that the repeated losses suffered by the States, in little more than two months after they had withdrawn themselves from the Queen's assistance, did wholly disconcert their counsels;[20] and their prudence (as it is usual) began to forsake them with their good fortune. They were so weak as to be still deluded by their friends in England, who continued to give them hopes of some mighty and immediate resource from hence; for when the Duke ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. X. • Jonathan Swift

... canon of naval tactics is to maintain formation. Another is to keep moving, at the full speed of the slowest ship, not only to disconcert the enemy's fire, but to obtain and hold the most advantageous position—if possible, to flank him. As these rules apply equally well to both sides, it is obvious that two fleets, passing in opposite directions, ...
— "Where Angels Fear to Tread" and Other Stories of the Sea • Morgan Robertson

... man of about twenty-two. He and his sister and mother were frequent visitors to this little household of three. But the young Mexican was the most frequent, and the husband's being home or not did not disconcert him. Men of affairs must need spend morning hours, and sometimes afternoon hours, too, inside of offices, but wealthy and aristocratic young Mexicans ride horses all day, decked out with silver, leather, and velvet trappings, both horse and rider. It was this lady's custom ...
— Woman - Her Sex and Love Life • William J. Robinson

... set his jaw firmly. Somehow, somewhere, something must be wrought that would place Amoyah at a disadvantage and bring ridicule upon him. No great matter, it might be said, to compass the change of a fickle woman's mind, to disconcert a giddy young man. But how? Cheesto was aweary of his own incantations and his ineffectual spells. He would fain lend Fate a ...
— The Frontiersmen • Charles Egbert Craddock

... when one doubts oneself ones art even. That is the moment when it must be happiness to find a faithful and loving heart, ever ready to sympathize with one's depression, to which one may appeal without fearing to disconcert a confidence and enthusiasm that are, in fact, unalterable. And then the child. That sweet unconscious baby smile, is not that the best moral rejuvenescence one can have? Ah! I have often thought over that. For ...
— Artists' Wives • Alphonse Daudet

... he said hoarsely, "that the probability of your name being coupled with mine and dragged through the public mire does not disconcert you?" ...
— Athalie • Robert W. Chambers

... sons or daughters. The young officers who visited at our house would try to make themselves agreeable; but their conduct appeared so insipid, so ridiculous, that I only mocked them, and gave such biting replies as to disconcert the most ...
— Major Frank • A. L. G. Bosboom-Toussaint

... depends the success of military expeditions. The reader will admire the surprising courage and intrepidity of the great men at the head of the Grecian affairs, whom neither all the world in motion against them could deject, nor the greatest misfortunes disconcert; who undertook, with an handful of men, to make head against innumerable armies; who, notwithstanding such a prodigious inequality of forces, dared to hope for success; who even compelled victory to declare on the side of merit and virtue; and taught all succeeding generations what infinite resources ...
— The Ancient History of the Egyptians, Carthaginians, Assyrians, • Charles Rollin

... which seems to rule the world of spirits may cause these lower beings to be attracted by uncultured mediums, while the great spirits are repelled by them. It would be these larvae of the other world who give the messages which disconcert when they do not scandalise us. But the man of science should not be rebuffed by these messages which, in spite of their contents, are important, if they result in irresistible proof of the fact that there exist outside ...
— Mrs. Piper & the Society for Psychical Research • Michael Sage

... kettles hung upon cranes and "Dutch ovens" were ranged before the coals, each filled with savory food for hungry people. It was a spot Mrs. Hungerford found vastly interesting, but where she rarely lingered; for her presence seemed to disconcert the shy French maids who served their mistress there and whose own homes were isolated cottages here and there. So she was even now leaving the kitchen when she chanced to notice ...
— Dorothy's Travels • Evelyn Raymond

... ranked; and, in general, by the extrication of their best self as the self to develope, and by the simplicity of the ends fixed by them as paramount, they hinder the unchecked predominance of that class-life which is the affirmation of our ordinary self, and seasonably disconcert mankind in ...
— Culture and Anarchy • Matthew Arnold

... him he gave not only strength, but an abundance of sweetness and light, illuminating mind and spirit, and inspiring an affection that was both unselfish and uplifting. But his enemies hated him so frantically that their characters measurably deteriorated; to ruin or even disconcert him they stooped and intrigued and lied; they were betrayed into public acts which lowered them in their own eyes and in those of all students of history. Other hatreds were healthy and stimulating by comparison; but there is no doubt that Adams, ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton

... within depender (de), to depend (upon) dependiente, clerk deplorar, to deplore deposito, deposit, depot, store deprimir, to depress derecho, right, straight, customs, duty desanimado, lifeless, stagnant (market) desanimar (se), to disconcert, to feel discouraged desarme, disarmament desarrollar, to develop descarga, discharge, unloading descomponer, to put out of gear desconcertar, to put out, to upset descuidar, to neglect ...
— Pitman's Commercial Spanish Grammar (2nd ed.) • C. A. Toledano

... can be so accurately projected, but some little Circumstance intervening may spoil it. He, who directs the Heart of Man at his Pleasure, and understands the Thoughts long before, may by ten thousand Accidents, or an immediate Change in the Inclinations of Men, disconcert the most subtle Project, and turn it to the Benefit of ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele

... blind, and her eyes fixed on Mr. Joseph, she did wish with all her might that he would turn his head and see her at the window and wave his hand gallantly as he had done on one or two previous occasions. Then she would beckon and he would run across and entering the room disconcert this odious Mr. Lyman B. Rattray and put an end to his stony wooing. But alas! for Miss Maria and her mesmeric powers! The harder she tried, the less she succeeded. On came Mr. Joseph, supremely unconscious of the injured heart beating behind the windowpane. At one moment it seemed as if he were ...
— Crowded Out! and Other Sketches • Susie F. Harrison

... our entire moral being, our mind no less than our character, is incapable of living and acting except in justice. Leaving that, we leave our natural element; we are carried, as it were, into a planet of which we know nothing, where the ground slips from under our feet, and all things disconcert us; for while the humblest intellect feels itself at home in justice, and can readily foretell the consequences of every just act, the most profound and penetrating mind loses its way hopelessly in the injustice ...
— The Buried Temple • Maurice Maeterlinck

... house in Princes Gate he found it shut up. This, however, did not disconcert him, it was no more than he expected. After a considerable amount of ringing at both bells, there was a grating sound within as of the unfastening of bolts and chains, and an elderly woman, evidently fresh from her labours over ...
— Vera Nevill - Poor Wisdom's Chance • Mrs. H. Lovett Cameron



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