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Disdain   /dɪsdˈeɪn/   Listen
Disdain

noun
1.
Lack of respect accompanied by a feeling of intense dislike.  Synonyms: contempt, despite, scorn.  "The despite in which outsiders were held is legendary"
2.
A communication that indicates lack of respect by patronizing the recipient.  Synonyms: condescension, patronage.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Disdain" Quotes from Famous Books



... hundred years ago, they took a personal part in the higher branches of cookery, as well as in the concoction of home-made wines, and distilling of herbs for domestic medicines, which are nearly allied to the same art. Ladies did not disdain to spin the thread of which the household linen was woven. Some ladies liked to wash with their own hands their choice china after breakfast or tea. In one of my earliest child's books, a little girl, the daughter of a gentleman, is taught ...
— Memoir of Jane Austen • James Edward Austen-Leigh

... were nearly all sons of wealthy parents, and some of them were dunces enough to look with disdain on a student who had to drive a cow. With admirable good nature Watson bore all their attempts to ...
— Stories Worth Rereading • Various

... piper charms Each drowsy malady and coiling vice With dreams of ease whereof the soul pays price! No home is here for peace while evil breeds, While error governs, none; and must the seeds You sow, you that for long have reaped disdain, Lie barren at the doorway of the brain, Let stout contention drive deep furrows, blood Moisten, and make ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... nature, and you cannot err." But nature is as broad as the universe, as high as the heavens, and as deep as the seas. It is but a small portion we can condense even on hundreds of pages of foolscap paper. If that portion be of love, the cold philosopher turns away in disdain and talks of romantic maids and moonstruck boys, as if the subject were fit alone for them. And yet love is the great motive principle of nature, the burning sun of the social system. Blot it out, and every other feeling and passion ...
— Ernest Linwood - or, The Inner Life of the Author • Caroline Lee Hentz

... protest and let us be angry, let us be indignant, or let us be enthusiastic, Schopenhauer has marked humanity with the seal of his disdain ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant

... looked at the portrait for the first time; the impression had not left him. It was partly the fact of her marvellous beauty that struck him, and partly something else. There was a suggestion of immense pride and disdain in the face almost of hatred, and at the same time something confiding and very full of simplicity. The contrast aroused a deep sympathy in his heart as he looked at the lovely face. The blinding loveliness of it was almost intolerable, this ...
— The Idiot • (AKA Feodor Dostoevsky) Fyodor Dostoyevsky

... congress be held in Denmark to settle all matters of dispute, the Swedish army in the mean time to withdraw from Gotland, and Norby to be given safe-conduct from the isle. These terms Gustavus rejected with disdain, declaring that he had striven for the good of all to scatter Norby with his "nest of robbers," and would consent to a meeting with Fredrik only on condition that in the interval Norby should receive no aid of any shape or kind. Fredrik, finding ...
— The Swedish Revolution Under Gustavus Vasa • Paul Barron Watson

... addition of one or two of his own to connect them, he has formed the above-mentioned ballad; the subject of which is, a lady comes to a convent to inquire for her love who had been driven there by her disdain. She is answered by a ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • Washington Irving

... gave us another exhibition of that repression of feeling, of that disdain of hysteria, that is a national characteristic, and is what Mr. Kipling meant when he wrote: "But oh, beware my country, when ...
— With the Allies • Richard Harding Davis

... likely to be disturbed in the calmness of his retirement, he willingly descended, from the hero, to the private gentleman. Nor did he even disdain to cultivate a few acres of glebe land annexed to the rectory. Known, and beloved, by all the gentry in the neighbourhood, he joined frequently in their field diversions, and was particularly fond of coursing. Though one of the best gunners in the world, he ...
— The Life of the Right Honourable Horatio Lord Viscount Nelson, Vol. I (of 2) • James Harrison

... buffet, but if it were Sir Dagonet. Ah, fair damosel, I am not the worse to take a fall of Sir Palomides, and yet great disworship have I none, for neither Bleoberis nor yet Palomides would not fight with me on foot. As for that, said the damosel, wit thou well they have disdain and scorn to light off their horses to fight with such a lewd knight as thou art. So in the meanwhile there came Sir Mordred, Sir Gawaine's brother, and so he fell in the fellowship with the damosel Maledisant. And then they came afore the Castle ...
— Le Morte D'Arthur, Volume I (of II) - King Arthur and of his Noble Knights of the Round Table • Thomas Malory

... an inarticulate response and wondered. Disdain of the commonalty was implicit in that speech; it was contact with the herd, subjection to its stares, that Mrs. Standish found so trying. How, then, had she brought herself so readily to accept association on almost equal terms with ...
— Nobody • Louis Joseph Vance

... satirist. Judging by the fragments of his work which have come down to us, he was a very acute and penetrating political satirist. Horace, despite his sovereign disdain for all that preceded his own century, did not fail to value him and agreed that there was something to be drawn and ...
— Initiation into Literature • Emile Faguet

... whose more candid opinions the writer of this is more frequently favored nowadays than of old has said: "Every time I hear of somebody who has wanted one of these books without being able to get it, or who, having got it, has conceded it nothing better than the disdain of an ignoramus, I feel as if I must forthwith get out the copy and read it through again and again, until I have read it once for every person who has rejected it or been denied it." One may feel reasonably sure that it is this kind of solicitude, rather than ...
— The Cords of Vanity • James Branch Cabell et al

... the hillsides to our left. Great was my amazement to find the unconquerable Mr. Sim thaw immediately on the accost of this strange gentleman, who hailed him with a ready familiarity, proceeded at once to discuss with him the trade of droving and the prices of cattle, and did not disdain to take a pinch from the inevitable ram's horn. Presently I was aware that the stranger's eye was directed on myself; and there ensued a conversation, some of which I could not help overhearing at the time, and the rest have pieced together more or ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 20 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... her for his own sake. Leave her to him!" Warden spoke with a hint of disdain. "She'll get nothing worse than a fright," he said, "possibly not even that—if he gets her to the ...
— The Odds - And Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell

... occasional attention to the subject—and was liable to frequent interruptions; will, he flatters himself, give him a claim to the candour and kindness of his readers. And if Coleridge's "glorious spirit, now in heaven, could look down upon him, he would not disdain this well meant sacrifice to his memory—for whilst his conversation made him, and many others happy below, his humility and gentleness were also pre-eminent;—and divines have said, those virtues that were but sparks upon earth, become great and ...
— The Life of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - 1838 • James Gillman

... his name, cast a look of malignant hatred at Bud Harper, the successful hackman and muttered something under his breath. He also scowled at the young woman whose utter disdain of him had cut ...
— The Hindered Hand - or, The Reign of the Repressionist • Sutton E. Griggs

... black lace gown, clinging, and becoming her slender figure and delicately charming face. Her features were exquisite, her eyes lustrous black pools of passion, her mouth a scarlet line of pride and disdain. A large leghorn hat of fine black straw, with chiffon, was on her graceful head, and her tiny feet were in silk stockings and patent leather. She held a gold and ivory prayer-book in gloved hands, and a jeweled watch hung ...
— White Shadows in the South Seas • Frederick O'Brien

... more than misers wealth, Or dying men an hour of added life; If softest wishes, and a heart more true Than ever suffer'd yet for love disdain'd, Speak an ill nature; you accuse ...
— The Orphan - or, The Unhappy Marriage • Thomas Otway

... serried band, proud in their panoply, confident of easy victory, their voices ringing out in laughter and disdain as they spoke of the swift vengeance that was about to fall on the heads of the horde of rebel mountaineers. The duke was as gay and confidant as any of his followers, as he proudly bestrode his noble war-horse, and led the way up the mountain slopes ...
— Historical Tales, Vol 5 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality, German • Charles Morris

... encouraged Fitzgerald by a kind look. I was so pleased at his return, that I could not keep up the farce of disdain I had projected: in love affairs, I am afraid, we are ...
— The History of Emily Montague • Frances Brooke

... hand-to-hand struggle with his captor, but the power of the grip on the back of his neck induced him to abandon that idea in despair. Then he thought of a sudden wrench and a desperate flight, but as that implied the leaving of Snorro to his fate, he abandoned that idea too in disdain. Suddenly, however, he recurred to it, reflecting that, if he could only manage to make his own escape, he might perhaps find his way back to the settlement, give the alarm, and lead his friends to Snorro's rescue. The power of this thought was so strong upon him, that he suddenly stooped ...
— The Norsemen in the West • R.M. Ballantyne

... Clemens was a man to enjoy such a distinction; he knew how to take it as a delegated recognition from the German people; but as coming from a rather cockahoop sovereign who had as yet only his sovereignty to value himself upon, he was not very proud of it. He expressed a quiet disdain of the event as between the imperiality and himself, on whom it was supposed to confer such glory, crowning his life with the topmost leaf of laurel. He was in the same mood in his account of an English dinner many years before, where there was a "little Scotch ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... by his text, just touched upon the unhappy step that was the cause of her untimely fate. He attributed it to the state of things below, in which there could not be absolute perfection. He very politely touched upon the noble disdain she showed (though earnestly solicited by a whole splendid family) to join interests with a man whom she found unworthy of her esteem and confidence: and who courted her with the utmost earnestness to accept ...
— Clarissa Harlowe, Volume 9 (of 9) - The History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson

... writers—from Horace Walpole to Captain Harver—have their sneer at the Morris. Its rusticity did not appeal to the polite Georgian mind; and its Moorishness, which would have appealed strongly, was overlooked. Still, the Morris managed to survive urban disdain—was still dear to the carles whose fathers ...
— Yet Again • Max Beerbohm

... shall be ready," replied Manners. "I am as well born as he, and can give him a lesson or two in good breeding, besides showing him a trick or two with the sword that I learned in the Netherlands. In the meantime I disdain him as a dog;" and boiling over with rage the maligned esquire left the little group and stalked across the terrace to rejoin the ladies ...
— Heiress of Haddon • William E. Doubleday

... angered him! All the pent-up gall of years against the supercilia of the class from which she sprang surged in that moment to his lips. He bethought him now of the thousand humiliations his proud spirit had suffered at their hands when he noted the disdain with which they addressed him, speaking to him—because he was compelled to carve his living with a quill—as though he were less than mire. It was not so much against her scorn of him that he voiced his bitter grievance, but against the entire noblesse of France, which denied him ...
— The Trampling of the Lilies • Rafael Sabatini

... came forward under an imaginary guard of the enemy's soldiers, produced my paper, and read it through. For answer, Clarence struck the paper out of my hand, pursed up a scornful lip and said with lofty disdain: ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... in that special attitude towards the universe which is now loosely called "mystical," find themselves beset by a multitude of persons who are constantly asking—some with real fervour, some with curiosity, and some with disdain— "What is mysticism?" When referred to the writings of the mystics themselves, and to other works in which this question appears to be answered, these people reply that such books ...
— Practical Mysticism - A Little Book for Normal People • Evelyn Underhill

... raising her eyes to me. It exasperated me. In sheer chagrin I took to silence and smoking. But she would not let me rest long this way, though I was slowly lulling myself into a state of semi-coma, of indifference to her and calm disdain. ...
— The Soldier of the Valley • Nelson Lloyd

... felt on account of the Dauphin augmented. He himself did not conceal his belief that he would never rise again, and that the plot Pondin had warned him of had been executed. He explained himself to this effect more than once and always with a disdain of earthly grandeur and an incomparable submission and love of God. It is impossible to describe the general consternation. On Monday the 15th the King was bled. The Dauphin was no better than before. The King and Madame de Maintenon saw him separately several times during the day, which ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VII (of X)—Continental Europe I • Various

... way during the night. It is no easy matter at any time, even for the Arabs, to find the way in a direct line across the boundless Desert; and when clouds obscure the stars, it is almost impossible without a compass. The old recluse, on seeing white strangers, cast a look of disgust and disdain at us, expressing his surprise that any true believers should allow infidel Nazarenes to remain in their company. But our leader only laughed, and answered that, as we had not eaten pork for a year, we had become almost as clean as Arabs. Considering that we had had ...
— Saved from the Sea - The Loss of the Viper, and her Crew's Saharan Adventures • W.H.G. Kingston

... demanded the other, and despite my resentment of the treatment which I had received at his hands, I could only admire the lofty disdain of his manner. ...
— Bat Wing • Sax Rohmer

... technical terms that he does not know the use of them. He was a smatterer of that most dangerous kind, who feel certain they have arrived at truth. Like so many other children of the eighteenth century, he rejected the past with disdain, but was blindly credulous of the future; and was ready to embrace an absurdity if it came in a new and scientific shape. The marquises and abbes he met in France had dreamed over elementary principles of society and government, until they had lost themselves in wandering mazes like ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. 5, Issue 2, February, 1864 • Various

... the contrary, expressed the most liberal views, refuted Kollomietzev's arguments politely, though with a certain amount of disdain, and ...
— Virgin Soil • Ivan S. Turgenev

... I disdain to have any parents. I am like to Ovid's flea; I can creep into every corner of a wench; sometimes, like a perriwig, I sit upon her brow; or, like a fan of feathers, I kiss her lips; indeed, I do—what do I not? But, fie, what a scent is here! I'll not speak another ...
— The Tragical History of Dr. Faustus • Christopher Marlowe

... truly, "There's hope for thee yet." This earth may look dull, old friends may forsake thee; Sorrows that never before thou hast met May roll o'er thy head; yet that bright star before thee Shines to remind thee "there's hope for thee yet." 'T is but folly to mourn, though fortune disdain thee, Though never so darkly thy sun may have set; 'T is wisdom to gaze at the bright star before thee, And shout, as you gaze, "There's ...
— Town and Country, or, Life at Home and Abroad • John S. Adams

... bewildered and hurt at her reception in that household—envied for her past while delivered defenceless to the tender mercies of people without any fineness either of feeling or mind, unable to understand her misery, grossly curious, mistaking her manner for disdain, her silent shrinking for pride. The wife of the "odious person" was witless and fatuously conceited. Of the two girls of the house one was pious and the other a romp; both were coarse-minded—if they may be credited ...
— Chance • Joseph Conrad

... learned to walk light as an Injun before he took to outlawin'," said the borderman in disdain. Then he returned to the gorge and entered the inclosure. At the foot of the little rise of ground where Wetzel had leaped upon his quarry, was one of the dead Indians. Another lay partly ...
— The Last Trail • Zane Grey

... they discover at the distance of fourteen[G] or of forty years[H] an action for which the law ordains that his life shall be the forfeit, though the interval should have been spent with the purity of a saint and the devotedness of a patriot, they disdain to enquire into it. What then can I do? Am I not compelled to go on in ...
— Caleb Williams - Things As They Are • William Godwin

... quaint custom of comparing Dickens and Thackeray existed in their own time, and no one will dismiss it with entire disdain who remembers that the Victorian tradition was domestic and genuine, even when it was hoodwinked and unworldly. There must have been some reason for making this imaginary duel between two quite separate and quite amiable acquaintances. And ...
— The Victorian Age in Literature • G. K. Chesterton

... in a subdued and rapid voice, apparently only talking to himself—the only man worthy of learning the most secret thoughts of his soul—and still with proud disdain toward him who could overhear every word he said. He felt as though he were alone, and he only spoke and consulted with himself, notwithstanding ...
— LOUISA OF PRUSSIA AND HER TIMES • Louise Muhlbach

... left alone. Why did she tremble? Why did her pulse sink, slower and slower? She asked herself this question, even in self-disdain. But ...
— Olive - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik, (AKA Dinah Maria Mulock)

... have been cultivated with the greatest success. In those countries where the beautiful was felt, where the arts were objects of national importance, where a people assembled to award the palm between rival sculptors; and also, in comparatively modern times, when a reigning monarch did not disdain to pick up a painter's pencil, and a whole city mourned an artist's death, and paid honours to his remains; all the rank, wealth, genius, talent, taste, and intelligence of the people were concentrated in one grand focus. Among the states of ancient ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various

... himself, and did not want to be any one else. All he wanted now was to be better than before. In the first place he resolved that from that day he would give up hoping for any extraordinary happiness, such as marriage must have given him, and consequently he would not so disdain what he really had. Secondly, he would never again let himself give way to low passion, the memory of which had so tortured him when he had been making up his mind to make an offer. Then remembering his brother Nikolay, he resolved to himself that he ...
— Anna Karenina • Leo Tolstoy

... into the next room and presently Miss Catherwood came forth alone. She held her head as haughtily as ever, and regarded him with a look in which he saw much defiance, and he fancied, too, a little disdain. ...
— Before the Dawn - A Story of the Fall of Richmond • Joseph Alexander Altsheler

... a listener go to stay, a single shape that has no obligation, a light idea that mixes all disdain, all this together shows the effect, it shows that there is no use in ...
— Matisse Picasso and Gertrude Stein - With Two Shorter Stories • Gertrude Stein

... rigid silence, and went through the steps of the quadrille without so much as a look at the talker, Ratman was sober enough to be annoyed at this chilly disdain. ...
— Roger Ingleton, Minor • Talbot Baines Reed

... of seeing in all this only the angry disdain of a noble character, which she was incapable of appreciating, thought it all pique against M. de Rohan, hiding another feeling for him, and therefore began to defend him ...
— The Queen's Necklace • Alexandre Dumas pere

... so With us all. 'Tis the sinner that best knew the world At Twenty, whose lip is, at sixty, most curl'd With disdain of its follies. ...
— Lucile • Owen Meredith

... of the Naya of Mo," my companion answered, folding his arms resolutely, and regarding the potentate with supreme disdain. "Princes do not make obeisance to any but ...
— The Great White Queen - A Tale of Treasure and Treason • William Le Queux

... banished without pity from the realm of aesthetics. Why should the natural, which is the expression of truth, have so great an attraction if affectation—its enemy and incumbrance—aroused not our impatience or disdain? ...
— Delsarte System of Oratory • Various

... channel, drew incredibly close to the bank, the Germans leaned on their hoes and watched us pass, all save one, who continued to hoe industriously round the roots of the vines, ignoring us with a Roman's disdain. "Comme ils sont laids" (How ugly they are), said a voice. There was no surprise in the tone, which expressed the expected confirmation of a past judgment. It was the pastry cook's voluble wife who had spoken. The land through which we were passing, up to that time simply the pleasant ...
— A Volunteer Poilu • Henry Sheahan

... upon those, therefore, who profess themselves advocates of free inquiry—who disdain to be carried along with the stream of popular opinion, and who will listen to no testimony that runs counter to experience,—to follow up their own principles fairly and consistently. Let the same mode of argument be adopted in all cases alike; ...
— Historic Doubts Relative To Napoleon Buonaparte • Richard Whately

... beseechingly, "I hope, will not disdain my divan? Rest there a little, Andy, until the ...
— Andreas Hofer • Lousia Muhlbach

... "Work! But I—I'd have you, Denny, wouldn't I?" Again she laughed in soft disdain. "Clothes!" she scoffed. And then, more serious even than before: "Denny, is—is ...
— Once to Every Man • Larry Evans

... became a world idea when all non-Christian peoples were called uncivilized. It is a fatal error for an individual, neighborhood, tribe, or nation to assume superiority to the extent that it fails to recognize good qualities in others. One should not look with disdain upon a tribe of American Indians, calling them uncivilized because their material life is simple, when in reality in point of honor, faithfulness, and courage they excel a large proportion of the races assuming a ...
— History of Human Society • Frank W. Blackmar

... genius was equal to that of Collins. Gray had the critical acumen to discern the difference; but still he in no degree does justice to Collins. He accuses him of want of taste and selection, which is a surprising charge; and the more so, because Gray did not disdain to borrow from him. Gray's fault was an affected fastidiousness, as appears by the slighting manner in which he speaks of Thomson's Castle of Indolence on its first appearance, as well as of Akenside's Pleasures of Imagination, and Shenstone's Elegies. That Gray had exquisite taste, and was a ...
— The Poetical Works of William Collins - With a Memoir • William Collins

... Discouragement senkuragxeco. Discourse parolado. Discourteous malgxentila. Discover eltrovi. Discovery eltrovo. Discredit senkreditigi. Discreet diskreta. Discretion singardemo, diskreto. Discriminate distingi. Discursive tro skribema. Discuss diskuti. Discussion diskutado. Disdain malsxati. Disease malsano—ego. Disembark elsxipigxi. Disengage liberigi. Disentangle liberigi. Disfavour malfavoro. Disgrace malhonori. Disguise alivesti. Disgust nauxzi. Dish plado. Dishcloth telertuko. ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes

... days, men of first-class ability, such as Alexander Hamilton, Samuel Adams, and James Madison, did not disdain membership in the state legislatures. But the development of party spirit and machine politics brought with it a great change. Then came the legislative caucus; and party politics soon reigned in every capital. ...
— The Boss and the Machine • Samuel P. Orth

... Pompadour's inventory disclosed a "gold coffee mill, carved in colored gold to represent the branches of a coffee tree." The art of gold, which sought to embellish everything, did not disdain these homely utensils; and one may see at the Cluny Museum in Paris, among many mills of graceful form, a coffee mill of engraved iron dating from the eighteenth century, upon which are represented the four seasons. We are ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers

... if these I disdain, I abandon my gain, And by fortune at once am refused: Then pardon their use, And accept my excuse, Nor of guilt ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner

... extravagance in size and color, there ran immense bare open slopes of smooth turf that led to the foot of the eternal snowfields, with, far below, valleys of prodigious scale and steepness that touched somehow with disdain all memory of other mountain ...
— The Centaur • Algernon Blackwood

... (with disdain). SPRING! My dear, I haven't sprung for a quarter of a century. I shall require every fibre in the man's body. His hand, indeed! ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... Raleigh asked pardon, and begged to say but a few words more. He had been vexed to find that the Dean of Westminster believed a story which was in general circulation to the effect that Raleigh behaved insolently at the execution of Essex, 'puffing out tobacco in disdain of him;' this he solemnly denied. ...
— Raleigh • Edmund Gosse

... It was an angry motion, one that showed her disdain for her own tears and her own weakness. "Your ...
— Highways in Hiding • George Oliver Smith

... A modest little purling rill Shone like a mirror in the sun,— Flashing and sparkling as it run. The lofty oak scarce deigned to look Upon the little murm'ring brook, But tossed his head in proud disdain, And thus began his boasting strain:— "I've lived almost since time began, The friend and favorite of man; Since I became a stately tree, Cradled within my branches, lay The young pappoose, who gayly smiled, ...
— The Snow-Drop • Sarah S. Mower

... understand how the customary disdain of the Englishman for the Yankee turned to hatred in the heart of Hatteras; he made up his mind, at any price, to beat his bold rival, and to reach ...
— The Voyages and Adventures of Captain Hatteras • Jules Verne

... and looked at him with such a proud disdain that he turned his eyes away. No doubt lest he should be offended with her in spite of his ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens

... occasion she had tickets sent her for the theatre. She worked till the carriage was announced. "Je suis prete," said Rosa, and went to the play in her working dress. A daintily gloved man in the box next to hers looked over in disdain, and finally went into the vestibule and ...
— Lives of Girls Who Became Famous • Sarah Knowles Bolton

... though he had been their conqueror on the field. We had confined his body, but there was no humbling of his spirit. I heard so much of him, that I took an interest in the haughty Briton. But he treated me with the same sullen disdain that he showed towards my inferiors. I had a daughter, who was as dear to me as life itself, for she had had five brothers, and they had all fallen in the cause of the great emperor, with the tricolor ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland Volume 17 • Alexander Leighton

... eyes grew tearful at this tart disdain. "I love it, and papa has money enough to let me paint 'daubs' as long as I like. Please, please let me go on ...
— Literary Love-Letters and Other Stories • Robert Herrick

... means, each of them would have taken quite a different aspect in your eyes. The sum of their faults was their inability to earn money; but, indeed, that inability does not call for unmingled disdain. ...
— New Grub Street • George Gissing

... of fourteen, behaving precisely as she had seen her mother do on like occasions; stationed, to receive her company, at the door of the salon, and marking by her manner the proper grades of welcome, from eager cordiality to a coldness that verged on disdain. To her best friends she gave her hand in truly English style; for the rest she had smiles, apportioned to the degrees of intimacy,—simple inclination of the head for unknown guests or those of less account; with little speeches ...
— The Deputy of Arcis • Honore de Balzac

... on their tradition. Rubens showed his contemporaries that art was a mistress who could be served in many ways that were yet unthought of, and that she did not by any means disdain the tribute of other than religious votaries. Beginning, as we have pointed out, with sacred subjects, Rubens soon turned to the study of the classics, and found in them not so much the classical severity that Mantegna had sought for as the pagan spirit of ...
— Six Centuries of Painting • Randall Davies

... at his ease: he saw nobody. Like most of the children of their class, the little Jeannins were kept apart from the common children: the children of servants and farmers, who inspired them with fear and disgust. They inherited from their mother an aristocratic—or, rather, essentially middle-class—disdain for all who worked with their hands. Olivier would spend the day perched up in the branches of an ash reading marvelous stories: delightful folklore, the Tales of Musaeus, or Madame d'Aulnoy, or the Arabian ...
— Jean Christophe: In Paris - The Market-Place, Antoinette, The House • Romain Rolland

... recognize the multitudes of slaves, who were considered not worthy to take part in {233} government affairs, the numbers of the freedmen and non-citizens, and realize that the few who had power or privilege of government looked with disdain upon all others, it gives us no great enthusiasm for Greek democracy when compared with the modern ...
— History of Human Society • Frank W. Blackmar

... harsh disdain Endured, I ne'er repented. 'T is not of these I would complain: With ...
— Rose and Roof-Tree - Poems • George Parsons Lathrop

... said Gertrude, with calm disdain. "You do not understand me in the least. I am particularly ...
— An Unsocial Socialist • George Bernard Shaw

... very skilful in avoiding the pitfalls that beset his path as statesman. He had many spies in his service, paid to bring him reports of his enemies' speech and actions. Great ladies of the court did not disdain to betray their friends, and priests even advised penitents in the Confessional to act as the Cardinal wished them. When any treachery was discovered, it was punished swiftly. The Cardinal refused to spare men of the highest rank who plotted against ...
— Heroes of Modern Europe • Alice Birkhead

... the credit of it. The council was held in the camp within sight of the fort, by the light of torches; after she had been persuaded to withdraw, on account of a slight wound in her foot from a calthrop, it is said. This message was sent after her into Orleans. She heard it with quiet disdain. "You have held your council, and I have had mine," she said calmly to the messengers; then turning to her chaplain, "Come to me to-morrow at dawn," she said, "and do not leave me; I shall have much to do. My ...
— Jeanne d'Arc - Her Life And Death • Mrs.(Margaret) Oliphant

... he had been a layman, we have no doubt he would have treated the pretensions of the priesthood as he treated the persons of all priests who were opposed to him, with the most bitter and irreverent disdain."—Ed. Rev., ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 197, August 6, 1853 • Various

... arraignment, thought but as a fiction of envy, and was soon after exploded by the priest's own confession. But that which most exasperated the Queen and gave advantage to his enemies was, as Sir Walter Raleigh takes into observation, words of disdain, for the Queen, by sharp and reprehensive letters, had nettled him; and thereupon, sending others of approbation, commending his service, and intimating an invasion from Spain; which was no sooner proposed but he said publicly, in the great chamber at Dublin: —"Lo, ...
— Travels in England and Fragmenta Regalia • Paul Hentzner and Sir Robert Naunton

... minutes every shred of the carcase that could claim acquaintance with the fire had been eaten, and all were clamoring for more. Fully three-parts of the carcase remained, indeed, but it was all raw flesh. A-ya looked down upon it with disdain. ...
— In the Morning of Time • Charles G. D. Roberts

... an existence completely broke down the spirits of Kate. She had no pride to sustain her. Thousands, as unloved as she, seek refuge in pride, pleasure, and a heartless worship at the gilded shrine of fashion. They meet coldness with a sharp disdain; and, finding nothing to love at home, turn to what the world has to offer, and become mere bubbles on the surface of society—prominent, brilliant, and useless. Nay, worse than useless; for they reflect the light of heaven falsely, ...
— Married Life; Its Shadows and Sunshine • T. S. Arthur

... shadow and the eight bubble-shod feet formed a brooch-like ornament on the yellow sand—a grey jewel surrounded by diamonds, for every bubble acted as a lens concentrating the light. When the frail creatures darted hither and thither—the majestic sun does not disdain to lend his brilliance to the most prosaic of happenings—the shadows of the bubbles became jewels or daylight lightnings. The hour was so restful, the light so searching, that many of the spiders, long of leg and pearly-grey of body, gathered about the boat, the shade of which ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield

... shall my lungs Coin words till their decay against those measles, Which we disdain should tetter us, yet sought The very way to ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson

... the Paladin, breaking in with an air of disdain; "the way you people talk, a person would think there's something heroic about standing up and facing down that poor remnant of a man. Why, it's nothing! There's small glory to be got in facing him down, I should ...
— Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc - Volume 1 (of 2) • Mark Twain

... surroundings of the craftsman of a time when the line which is now-a-days supposed to divide the artist from the artisan did not exist or was ignored. We have followed the patient investigations which Leonardo, while his brain was teeming with forms of beauty and new creations, did not disdain to expend on matters which we in these days deem the province of the colorman. We have been delighted by Cellini's simple accounts of his methods of subjecting matter to the conceptions of his brain, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Volume 15, No. 89, May, 1875 • Various

... a long, low whistle. "May I ask," he inquired at length, "whether you expect to work entirely by yourself; or whether, if a suitable coadjutor were provided, you would disdain his assistance and ...
— The Leavenworth Case • Anna Katharine Green

... happiness, for they are not only disposed but able to enjoy most things within their reach. With what trifles at that period are we content; the things from which in after- life we should turn away in disdain please us then, for we are in the midst of a golden cloud, and everything seems decked with a golden hue. Never during any portion of my life did time flow on more speedily than during the two or three years immediately ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow

... ordered out the brown mare, which Captain Smith did not seem much to approve of; and, after glancing round the stables with great disdain of the collection, he sauntered out of the yard without saying more to Philip, though he stopped and spoke a few sentences to Mr. Stubmore. Philip hoped he had no design of purchasing, and that he was rid, for the present, of so awkward a customer. Mr. Stubmore ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 2 • Edward Bulwer Lytton

... her innovation trunk, the drawers in her bureau, and the closet in which her choicest gowns were hanging. He did it very thoroughly. The floor was strewn with lingerie, hats, shoes, slippers, gloves, stockings, furs, frocks,—over which he trod with professional disdain; he broke open her smart little jewel case and took therefrom a glittering assortment of rings, bracelets, and earrings; a horseshoe pin, a gorgeous crescent, and a string of pearls; a platinum and diamond wrist watch, an acorn watch, a diamond collar, several bars of diamonds, rubies ...
— Yollop • George Barr McCutcheon

... in the comely mien Of friendship fancies to be seen; Soon again he shifts his dress, And wears disdain and rancour's face. ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume I • Horace Walpole

... mountain, followed by a dozen of his foes, sprang to the edge of the dizzy height, and stood for a moment confronting his enemies. The sun was just setting; the valley was flooded with a golden light, and he stood there with the Antelope in his arms at bay for a moment, gazing in disdain upon his pursuers. As one of the Sioux was foremost in his attempt to seize the Crouching Panther, the latter hurled his hatchet with terrible, unerring force, and buried it deep into the presumptuous savage's brain. At the same moment crying out "The spirits of ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman

... descendants of Hugh Capet. For the success of Henry the Second, or of Richard the First, would have made England a province of France. The effect of the successes of Edward the Third and Henry the Fifth was to make France, for a time, a province of England. The disdain with which, in the twelfth century, the conquerors from the Continent had regarded the islanders, was now retorted by the islanders on the people of the Continent. Every yeoman from Kent to Northumberland valued himself as one of a race born ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... a very pretty place. As its opening fronted the west, he found that even here there might be sunshine. The golden light which blesses the high and low places of the earth did not disdain to cheer and adorn even this humble chamber, which, at the bidding of nature, the waters had patiently scooped out of the hard rock. Some hours after darkness had settled down on the lands of the tropics, and long after the stars had come out in the skies over English heads, this ...
— Feats on the Fiord - The third book in "The Playfellow" • Harriet Martineau

... may loom in sight, (if further improvements should be effected in the telescope,) that may puzzle even Lord Rosse. And when he tells his famulus—'Fire a shot at that strange fellow, and make him show his colors,' possibly the mighty stranger may disdain the summons. That would be vexatious: we should all be incensed at that. But no matter. What's a nebula, what's a world, more or less? In the spiritual heavens are many mansions: in the starry heavens, ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey

... The generous disdain you so coolly and deliberately express of a reliance on foreign protection, wanting no foreign guaranty of our liberties, resolving to maintain our national independence against every attempt to despoil us of this inestimable ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 4) of Volume 1: John Adams • Edited by James D. Richardson

... eight hundred thousand Italian warriors sprung to arms at the rumour of a Gallic invasion. He breathes all the spirit of those intrepid and haughty senators who forgot the dearest ties of nature in the claims of public duty, who looked with disdain on the elephants and on the gold of Pyrrhus, and listened with unaltered composure to the tremendous tidings of Cannae. Like an ancient temple deformed by the barbarous architecture of a later age, his character acquires an ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... necessities of life so easily supplied, or are men so delicately nurtured. And yet to our Northern eye these Monteros seemed rather a forlorn sort of people, forming a class by themselves, and regarded with disdain by the Spaniards and most Creoles, as our Southern slaveholders used to regard the poor whites of the South. If one may judge by appearances they are nearly as poor in purse as they can be. Their home, rude and lowly, ...
— Due South or Cuba Past and Present • Maturin M. Ballou

... himself, as is shown later on. Because there is nothing proportionate between the armed and the unarmed; and it is not reasonable that he who is armed should yield obedience willingly to him who is unarmed, or that the unarmed man should be secure among armed servants. Because, there being in the one disdain and in the other suspicion, it is not possible for them to work well together. And therefore a prince who does not understand the art of war, over and above the other misfortunes already mentioned, cannot be respected ...
— The Prince • Niccolo Machiavelli

... Christopher, and stopped short, impatiently desisting before the admiration illumining her eyes. >From her former disdain he had evidently risen to a height in her regard that was romantic in its ardour. It was in vain that he told himself he cared for one emotion as little as for the other—in spite of his words, the innocent fervour in her face swept over the barrier ...
— The Deliverance; A Romance of the Virginia Tobacco Fields • Ellen Glasgow

... he [Burke] forewarns, denounces, launches forth, Against all systems built on abstract rights, Keen ridicule; the majesty proclaims Of institutes and laws hallowed by time; Declares the vital power of social ties Endeared by custom; and with high disdain, Exploding upstart theory, insists Upon the allegiance to which men are born. .... Could a youth, and one In ancient story versed, whose breast hath heaved Under the weight of classic eloquence, Sit, see, and hear, ...
— Among My Books • James Russell Lowell

... Ladakians are peaceable, very desirous of learning, of an incarnated laziness, and are never known to tell untruth; the Tchampas, on the contrary, are very irascible, extremely lively, great liars and profess a great disdain ...
— The Unknown Life of Jesus Christ - The Original Text of Nicolas Notovitch's 1887 Discovery • Nicolas Notovitch

... to brave deathful Oceans surging high, Or fell Disease's fever'd rage to mourn, How blest to them wou'd seem my destiny! How dear the comforts my rash sorrows scorn!— Affection is repaid by causeless hate! A plighted love is chang'd to cold disdain! Yet suffer not thy wrongs to shroud thy fate, But turn, my Soul, to blessings which remain; And let this truth the wise resolve create, THE HEART ESTRANGED NO ANGUISH ...
— Original sonnets on various subjects; and odes paraphrased from Horace • Anna Seward

... were active in introducing Mr. Bunce to the republicans of this county, after finding him too independent to bend to their "particular" views, and after he had rejected with disdain their proffers to surrender to them his rights as an editor, they formed themselves into a court of Inquisition, and ushered forth their courtly mandates "Bunce must be sacrificed" "the Journal shall go down," even this proscription extended to his family, and to his fireside; and so eager ...
— A Review and Exposition, of the Falsehoods and Misrepresentations, of a Pamphlet Addressed to the Republicans of the County of Saratoga, Signed, "A Citizen" • An Elector

... chief good, and to consider the want of it as something like a crime. Julia had been reared in a somewhat different atmosphere, but she had adopted the tone of her school-fellows, and even surpassed them in scorn and disdain for those ...
— Ruth Arnold - or, the Country Cousin • Lucy Byerley

... meet them, serene and smiling and unafraid. And let your smile be no formal distortion of your lips, but a bright ray from the sunshine in your heart. Take not acquiescently, but joyfully, the spoiling of your goods. Not only look poverty in the face with high disdain, but embrace it with gladness and welcome. The loss is but for a moment; the gain is for all time. Go farther than this. Consecrate to a holy cause not only the incidentals of life, but life itself. Father, husband, child,—-I do not say, Give them up to toil, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 65, March, 1863 • Various

... indulgence, as it was called, made a great schism among the presbyterians, and those who accepted of it were severely censured by the more rigid sectaries, who refused the proffered terms. The stranger, therefore, answered with great disdain to Morton's ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott

... hot, and grim the infuriate columns press Where terror simulates disdain and danger is largess, Where greedy youth claims death for bride and agony seems bliss. It is the cause, the cause, my soul! which sanctifies ...
— A Treasury of War Poetry - British and American Poems of the World War 1914-1917 • Edited, with Introduction and Notes, by George Herbert Clarke

... 'scape espy. The doubled night, the sun's restrained course, His secret stealths, the slander to eschew, In shape transform'd,[27] we[28] list not to discourse. All that and more we forced him to do. The warlike Mars hath not subdu'd our[29] might, We fear'd him not, his fury nor disdain, That can the gods record, before whose sight He lay fast wrapp'd in Vulcan's subtle chain. He that on earth yet hath not felt our power, Let him behold the fall and cruel spoil Of thee, fair Troy, of Asia the flower, So foul defac'd, and levell'd[30] with the soil Who forc'd Leander ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VII (4th edition) • Various

... were advanced in years. Some of the gentlemen, however, belonging to the Discovery, as our commander was informed, paid their addresses and made liberal offers of presents, which were rejected with great disdain. It is certain that this gallantry was not very agreeable to the men: for an elderly man, as soon as he observed it, ordered the women to retire. The order was obeyed; but, on the part of some of the females, with the appearance ...
— Narrative of the Voyages Round The World, • A. Kippis

... defiance, and continued to insist on his begging Miss Morley's pardon; but the more she ordered, the more determined he grew. There he stood, his proud, dark eye fixed on a picture on the wall, his lip curled with a sort of disdain, and an expression in his whole motionless figure that, had his cause but been good, would have been resolution, whereas it now was only ...
— The Two Guardians • Charlotte Mary Yonge

... history of any other single character. David was the great hero of the Jews; the greatest, in spite of great sins and follies, that has ever been among them; in every point the king after God's own heart. Our Lord Jesus Christ Himself did not disdain to be called especially the Son of David. David was the author, too, of those wonderful psalms which are now in the mouths and the hearts of Christian people all over the world; and will last, ...
— Sermons on National Subjects • Charles Kingsley

... cheek against her lightly-clasped hands and sighed deeply to provoke a continuation of her brother's growling disdain. ...
— The Port of Missing Men • Meredith Nicholson

... beautiful girl, about twenty years of age. No wonder Lieutenant Haines felt his heart beat faster when he looked upon her. When he met her the week before, she treated him with the utmost disdain; now she greeted him with a smile, and said, "I trust you have not come to carry papa away in captivity. If ...
— Raiding with Morgan • Byron A. Dunn

... not disdain to talk of fashions; it is one way of pleasing, and he admired aloud the elegant cut of the waist, the twig of lilac fastened to the body of her dress, and the graceful art which had twined her long jetty plaits. She smiled and said: "What, ...
— The Grip of Desire • Hector France

... their heroism? Chains and slavery. Their good deeds have been consecrated only in their own memories. Who rallied with more alacrity in response to the summons of danger? If in that hazardous hour, when our homes were menaced with the horrors of war, we did not disdain to call upon the Negro to assist in repelling invasion, why should we, now that the danger is past, deny him a home in his native land?" "I see," said Carlton, "you are right, but I fear you will have difficulty in persuading others to adopt your views." ...
— Clotel; or, The President's Daughter • William Wells Brown

... such blear illusion waits The trav'ller bound for Fame's receding gates, Delusive splendours gild the proud abode, But lurking demons haunt th' alluring road; There gaunt-eyed Want asserts her iron reign, There, as in vengeance of the world's disdain, This half-flesh'd hag midst Wit's bright blossoms stalks, And, breathing winter, withers where she walks; Though there, long outlaw'd, desp'rate with disgrace, Invidious Dulness wields the critic mace, And sworn in hate, exerts his ruffian might Where'er young genius meditates his flight. ...
— Poems (1828) • Thomas Gent

... terrible, the result not having justified the apprehensions which they had suffered, when they first landed in slavish dismay at the idea of attacking Lacedaemonians; and accordingly their fear changing to disdain, they now rushed all together with loud shouts upon them, and pelted them with stones, darts, and arrows, whichever came first to hand. The shouting accompanying their onset confounded the Lacedaemonians, unaccustomed to this mode of fighting; ...
— The History of the Peloponnesian War • Thucydides

... History would disdain even an allusion to such figments—quite as disgraceful, certainly to Maurice as to Barneveld—did they not point the moral and foreshadow some of the vast but distant results of events which had already taken place, and had they not been so generally repeated that it is a duty for the lover ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... him as a portent and a terror; but he had no fear of Time. Indeed he was the foster-brother of Time, and so disdainful of the bitter god that he did not even disdain him; he leaped over the scythe, he dodged under it, and the sole occasions on which Time laughs is when he chances on Tuan, the son of Cairill, ...
— Irish Fairy Tales • James Stephens

... archbishop of Canterbury, born at Reading, son of a clothier; studied at and became a Fellow of St. John's College, Oxford, was ordained in 1601; early gave evidence of his High-Church proclivities and his hostility to the Puritans, whom for their disdain of forms he regarded as the subverters of the Church; he rose by a succession of preferments, archdeaconship of Huntingdon one of them, to the Primacy, but declined the offer of a cardinal's hat at the hands of the Pope, and became along ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood

... voiceless mountains, And feeds her grief with his remembered lay, And will no more reply to winds or fountains, Or amorous birds perched on the young green spray, Or herdsman's horn, or bell at closing day; 5 Since she can mimic not his lips, more dear Than those for whose disdain she pined away Into a shadow of all sounds:—a drear Murmur, between their songs, ...
— Adonais • Shelley

... instead of perching by night upon a high branch of a tall tree, rocked by the wind, I now prefer to return to my cavern, to drink a glass, to pick a bone of venison, and dry my plumage before a warm fire. The Count of Nideck does not disdain Sperver, the old hawk, the true man of the woods. One evening, meeting me by moonlight, he frankly said to me, 'Old comrade, you hunt only by night. Come and hunt by day with me. You have a sharp beak and strong claws. Well, hunt away, if such is your nature; but hunt ...
— The Man-Wolf and Other Tales • Emile Erckmann and Alexandre Chatrian

... my sphere; a mighty stirring song Requires another man, a different art; But though so much prevails that's sad and wrong. One may not quite disdain a merry heart. Go forth, my song, then, as thou didst before, A cheerful memory of life's fresh spring; Cheer up those hearts, which grief made sad and sore, And to friends far and near my greeting bring. Whenever men to nobler aims aspire, Then higher too ...
— The Trumpeter of Saekkingen - A Song from the Upper Rhine. • Joseph Victor von Scheffel

... may do what heinous offence soever and it is dispensed withal.' Trollope said they had no religion. Wallop said they had too much religion. But their nationality was worse than their creed. Wallop adds, 'They also much hate our nation, partly through the general mislike or disdain one nation hath to be governed by another; partly that we are contrary to them in religion; and lastly, they seek to have the government ...
— The Land-War In Ireland (1870) - A History For The Times • James Godkin

... as mistress hold The finest wit of Grecian mould, Disdain not me; but come, And make my house thy home. Thou shalt not be without employ: In play, love, music, books, I joy, In town and country; and, indeed, there's nought, E'en to the luxury of sober thought,— The sombre, ...
— The Fables of La Fontaine - A New Edition, With Notes • Jean de La Fontaine

... recognize that "Christianity aims at saving the soul—the personality, the nature, of man, not his body or his environment. According to Christianity, a man is saved, not by what he has, or knows, or does, but by what he is. It treats all the apparatus of life with a disdain as great as that of the biologist; so long as a man is inwardly healthy, it cares very little whether he is rich or poor, learned or simple, and even whether he is happy, or unhappy. It attaches no importance to quantitative measurements of any kind. The Christian does not gloat over ...
— The Pivot of Civilization • Margaret Sanger



Words linked to "Disdain" :   pass up, repel, hate, turn away, rebuff, derogation, detest, depreciation, dislike, disparagement, look down on, refuse, decline, snub



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