"Ill-bred" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... cause to regret my course; for passing a door ajar, I looked through the crack, hearing voices, and found Mrs Pratt conversing very much at her ease with my prodigal—a thing which, though well enough in Congreve's comedies, is what I will not have in my family. I am so ill-bred as to be quite insensible to the romantic nights that are now the vogue and, walking into the room, spoke my mind, desiring Mrs Pratt to be so good as pack her boxes and depart within the hour, which was accordingly done, I having her boxes looked through ...
— The Ladies - A Shining Constellation of Wit and Beauty • E. Barrington
... clergyman—beauty, of the eagle-beaked kind; wealth, her share of the family plate; high birth, a sister to the Hon. Theodore Atkinson. But if the exemplary man had cast his eyes lower, peradventure he had found more happiness, though ill-bred persons without family plate are not necessarily amiable. Like Socrates, this long-suffering divine had always with him an object on which to cultivate heavenly patience, and patience, says the Eastern proverb, is the key to content. The spirit of Xantippe seems to have taken possession ...
— An Old Town By The Sea • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... often told him, How one has jilted him, the other sold him: How that affects to laugh, how this to weep; 70 But who can rail so long as he can sleep? Was ever prince by two at once misled, False, foolish, old, ill-natured, and ill-bred? Earnely[54] and Aylesbury[55] with all that race Of busy blockheads, shall have here no place; At council set as foils on Danby's[56] score, To make that great false jewel shine the more; Who all that while was thought exceeding wise, Only for taking pains and telling ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol I - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden
... the ill-bred is only conceded to them that one may realize the great demands made upon the tact and the good feeling of a hostess. She must have a quick apprehension; she may and will remember, however, that it is very easily forgiven, this kind-heartedness—that it is better ...
— Manners and Social Usages • Mrs. John M. E. W. Sherwood
... inches, extend his blue bill in a horizontal line, and at the same time emit a low, coarse squawk that I could barely hear. Oddly enough, all the females, staid as they were, imitated their liege lord's deportment. It was their way of protesting against my ill-bred intrusion into ...
— Birds of the Rockies • Leander Sylvester Keyser
... had touched her on the shoulder—the left shoulder. It was an ill-bred and thoughtless act, but as I knew, when I had pondered the matter more calmly, Miss Harding has too much sense and poise to exhibit such anger at what at its worst was merely a boorish indiscretion. It was the only straw on which I could float an ...
— John Henry Smith - A Humorous Romance of Outdoor Life • Frederick Upham Adams
... of manner and an insinuating fascination which he most absolutely lacked. The ultra-civility which repelled May Gaston was less a device than an exhibition; he embarked on it more because he thought he did it well than (as she supposed) from a desire to curry favour. He was ill-bred, but he was not mean; he was a vaunter but not a coward; he demanded adherence and did not beg alms. This was the attitude of his mind, but unhappily it was often apparently contradicted by the cringing of his body and the wheedling of his tongue. In attempting smoothness ...
— Quisante • Anthony Hope
... you, you are a very ill-bred young man to have saluted me," she said in French. "But I think ...
— The Beloved Vagabond • William J. Locke
... these four persons. I was, just at that epoch, in one of those moody frames of mind which make a man abnormally inquisitive about trifles: and I confess with shame that I busied myself in a variety of ill-bred and preposterous conjectures about this matter of the supernumerary stateroom. It was no business of mine, to be sure; but with none the less pertinacity did I occupy myself in attempts to resolve the enigma. At last I reached a conclusion which wrought in me great wonder why I had not ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery - Riddle Stories • Various
... of China to lay waste a large district that separates their two empires, lest it should, as it has been on the point of doing, produce war between them; the two empires being at the two extremities of the world, not being distance enough to keep the peace. The ill-bred Tartar sent no answer to so humane a project. On the contrary, he dispersed a letter to the Russian people, in which he tells them that a woman—he might have said the Minerva of the French literati—had proposed to him to extirpate all the inhabitants of a certain region belonging ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume II • Horace Walpole
... the use of the interrogatives who? and what? however justifiable in grammar, is very impertinent in conversation. What, for example, can be more ill-bred than to say, Who are you? Indeed, most questions are ill mannered. We do not speak of such expressions as, Has your mother sold her mangle? and the like, used only by persons who have never asked themselves where they expect to go to? but of all unnecessary ...
— The Comic Latin Grammar - A new and facetious introduction to the Latin tongue • Percival Leigh
... room, with slouchy, ill-bred carriage, a young man whose sole reputation was that of being the greatest rake in Paris, the Duc de Richelieu, half-gamin, half-nobleman, who counted more victims among titled ladies than he had fingers on ...
— The Mississippi Bubble • Emerson Hough
... irksome caste rules on this side of the water; no hint of condescension in the friendly attitude of young Oxford. Nothing to jar the over-sensibility of young India—prone to suspect slight where no thought of it exists; too often, also, treated to exhibitions of ill-bred arrogance that undo in an hour the harmonising work ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver
... the servants with composure, and committed no solecisms. Unable to take part in the conversation, as she knew little of literature and nothing of politics, which were the staple of Lucian's discourse, she sat silent, and reconsidered an old opinion of hers that it was ridiculous and ill-bred in a lady to discuss anything that was in the newspapers. She was impressed by Lucian's cautious and somewhat dogmatic style of conversation, and concluded that he knew everything. Lydia seemed interested in his information, but quite indifferent to ...
— Cashel Byron's Profession • George Bernard Shaw
... order to be able to teach it—Greek and Latin, German and French, mathematics and physical sciences. During the so-called play-hours, I even gave music lessons. In the course of the whole day there were few moments of liberty for me. I was perpetually surrounded by a crowd of rough, ill-bred boys, whose only object during lessons was to catch me making a fault in English. When evening came, I was quite worn out; still, I could always find time to dream for half an hour or so with my ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: German • Various
... his way grumbling, and insensibly slackened his pace as he drew near home. A remnant of conscience which had stuck to him without encouragement for thirty-five years persisted in suggesting that he had behaved badly. It also made a few ill-bred inquiries as to how his wife and children had subsisted for the last three months. He stood outside the house for a short space, and then, opening the door softly, ...
— Odd Craft, Complete • W.W. Jacobs
... conveyed on deck at noon with limp ladies, who lay there in their wrappers until the stars shone; it waited at table with the stewards; nobody could put it out with the lights. It was considered (as on shore) ill-bred to acknowledge the voice of conscience. It was not polite to mention it. One squally day an amiable gentleman in love gave much offence to a surrounding circle, including the object of his attachment, by saying of it, after it ...
— The Uncommercial Traveller • Charles Dickens
... sigh about my veracity," interrupted Miss Egerton; "I do assure you I should have been more correct had I been more severe; for her Indian ladyship is as ill-natured as she is ill-bred, and is as presumptuous as ignorant; in short she is a fit mamma for the delectable Miss Dundas, whose description you shall have in two questions. Can you imagine Socrates in his wife's petticoats? Can you imagine a pedant, a scold, and a coquette in one woman? If you can, you have a foretaste ...
— Thaddeus of Warsaw • Jane Porter
... de la petite Dame," repeated Madame, testily. "That is a title of new Paris—the Paris of your Americans and English. It is villainously ill-bred." ...
— "Le Monsieur De La Petite Dame" • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... He hath neither father, mother, sister, nor brother, but demands L600 down, and L100 on the birth of first child, which I had some inclination to stretch to. He is kinsman to, and lives with, Mr. Phillips, but my wife tells me he is a drunken, ill-favoured, ill-bred country fellow, which sets me off of it again, and I will go on with Harman. So after ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... bryghte, burnyste with sylver, Alle with taghte mene and towne in togers fulle ryche."—(p. 15.) The word towne (well-behaved) still exists in wan-ton, the original meaning of which was ill-mannered, ill-bred. ...
— Sir Gawayne and the Green Knight - An Alliterative Romance-Poem (c. 1360 A.D.) • Anonymous
... Madame——, who had just given her name to him: 'Good God, they told me you were pretty!' To some old persons: 'You haven't long to live! To another lady: 'It is a fine time for you, now your husband is on his campaigns!' In general, the tone of Bonaparte was that of an ill-bred lieutenant. He often invited a dozen or fifteen persons to dinner and rose from the table before the soup was finished... The court was a regular galley where each ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 5 (of 6) - The Modern Regime, Volume 1 (of 2)(Napoleon I.) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... Our blacks keep up pretty well. There are now nine of them; five men, three women, and a boy. They eat barley-meal and oil, and now and then get a cup of coffee. I also feed the Fezzanee marabout, besides those specially attached to the expedition. As to the camel-drivers, they are an ill-bred, disobliging set, and I give them nothing extra. How different are our negroes! They are most cheerful. As we proceed, they run hither and thither collecting edible herbs; and, like children, making the way more long in ...
— Narrative of a Mission to Central Africa Performed in the Years 1850-51, Volume 1 • James Richardson
... in the baby, which was a very ordinary one. She created quite a vulgar scene when it was brought to her, though she had given me her word not to do so; what irritated me, even more than her tears, being her ill-bred apology that she "had been 'feared baby wouldn't know her again." I would have told her they didn't know anyone for years had I not been afraid of the girl Jenny, who dandled the infant on her knees and talked to it as if it understood. ...
— Short Stories of Various Types • Various
... A fellow who's years older than you, who thinks of nothing but money, who stood out of the war and made a fortune while men of his own age were doing the fighting for him! It's unthinkable ... it's ... it's damnable to think of a gross, ill-bred creature like ...
— The Yellow Streak • Williams, Valentine
... marquis, who lived like a prince in expenditure, attendance, and ceremony. She knew little of the fashions of the day, and, like many modest young people, was afraid she might be guilty of some solecism which would make her appear ill-bred, or at least awkward. Since her mother left her, she had become aware of a timidity to which she had hitherto been a stranger. 'Ah!' she said to herself, 'if only my mother ...
— St. George and St. Michael • George MacDonald
... give Harriet credit for what she does, but he gets awfully cross if she makes any mistakes. Harriet is upstairs, in her own sitting-room, talking to a great friend of hers. He is a man Uncle hates, although he has known Charlie Meyers since childhood. He is immensely rich, but he is very ill-bred, and that is why Uncle dislikes him. I don't think Harriet cares a bit more for this young man than she does for half a dozen others. But if Uncle doesn't look out Harriet will marry him for spite. Harriet ...
— The Automobile Girls At Washington • Laura Dent Crane
... portion of the house represents the work of my own unaccustomed hands. I have found how laborious an occupation fencing is, and how very exasperating if barbed wire is used; that the keeping in order of even a small plantation in which ill-bred and riotous plants grow with the rapidity of the prophet's gourd, and which if unattended would lapse in a very brief space of time into the primitive condition of tangled jungle, involves incessant labour of the most sweatful kind. ...
— The Confessions of a Beachcomber • E J Banfield
... everything that was artistic or tasteful, who explored the rooms and looked at everything, and were so interested? I suppose that Herbert's country relations, many of whom live in the city, would have thought it very ill-bred. ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... is an interesting notice of her in Fanny's "Early Diary" for the month of April, 1773. "Can I speak of music, and not mention Miss Linley? The town has rung of no other name this month. Miss Linley is daughter to a musician of Bath, a very sour, ill-bred, severe, and selfish man. She is believed to be very romantic; she has long been very celebrated for her singing, though never, till within this month, has she ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 1 • Madame D'Arblay
... serve to prove, by the flagitiousness of government in general, the necessity of revolutions, France ought not to let slip so precious an opportunity. Seeing no longer in Louis XVI. but a weakminded and narrow-spirited individual, ill-bred, like all his colleagues, given, as it is said, to frequent excesses of drunkenness, and whom the National Assembly raised again imprudently to a throne which was not made for him,—if we show him hereafter ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 26, December, 1859 • Various
... smile, but never heard to laugh while you live. Frequent and loud laughter is the characteristic of folly and ill-manners; it is the manner in which the mob express their silly joy at silly things; and they call it being merry. In my mind there is nothing so illiberal, and so ill-bred, as audible laughter. I am neither of a melancholy nor a cynical disposition, and am as willing and as apt to be pleased as anybody; but I am sure that since I have had the full use of my reason nobody has ever heard me laugh. ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IX. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... count. "But our good fortune was, indeed, marvellous,—so extraordinary that a Sicilian (the Sicilians are all ill-bred, bad-tempered fellows) grew angry and insolent. 'Sir,' said he, turning to my new friend, 'you have no business to stand so near to the table. I do not understand this; you have not acted fairly.' Zanoni replied, with great composure, that ...
— Zanoni • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... I have heard my daughter talk of her. An insolent, ill-bred girl. I have been taught to consider her somewhat a disgrace to your excellent and ...
— The Golden Calf • M. E. Braddon
... every-day life vanished completely bit by bit. If his niece related to him some scrap of news which a neighbour had run in to tell her, he would answer her with a story of the giant Morgante, who alone among his ill-bred race had manners that befitted a Spanish knight. If the housekeeper lamented that the flour in her storehouse would not last out the winter, he turned a deaf ear to all her complaints, and declared that he would give ...
— The Red Romance Book • Various
... by menials and strangers! The more children he has, the less he can afford to have servants! The maintenance of his children will greatly diminish his property! Another alarming object in marriage is that, by affinity, you become connected with the relations of the wife. The envious and ill-bred insinuations of the mother, the family quarrels, their poverty or their pride, all disturb the unhappy sage who falls into the trap of connubial felicity! But if a sage has resolved to marry, he impresses on him the prudential principle of increasing his fortune by it, and to remember his ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... Town rats are lean, persecuted and vicious; nobody loves them. But those who hobnob with us here are fed, like our Army, on Army rations, together with more than their share of private luxuries, and consequently are stout and contented-looking, and display none of the ill-bred and disconcerting haste of the hereditary fugitive of our drains and cellars. If you happen to stand still and silent for a few moments, you will hear some cheery old rascal come sniffing and grunting along the parapet, not so much in search ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 150, February 2, 1916 • Various
... sate and discuss'd the magnificent fare Which the glutton had superintended with care. The monkeys in helping were very officious, The bears suck'd their paws, and pronounced it delicious. Of the noise-dreading Mr. Raccoon it was said, That he sopp'd all his food, which was voted ill-bred; And that, puff'd with conceit, he declared he look'd wise, A distinction he owed to his spectacled eyes. 'Twas observed too (you know how the gossips will talk,) Master guinea-pig stuff'd till he hardly could walk, Though ...
— The Quadrupeds' Pic-Nic • F. B. C.
... were in no good-humor with him. Ill Margraf rounded things into the Crown-Prince's ear, in an unmannerly way, with glances at my Husband;—who understood it well enough; and promptly coerced such ill-bred procedures, intimating, in a polite impressive way, that they would be dangerous if persisted in. Which reduced the Ill Margraf to a spiteful but silent condition. No other harm was done at that time; the French bullets all went awry, or "even fell short, being sucked ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. IX. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... the old New York way of taking life "without effusion of blood": the way of people who dreaded scandal more than disease, who placed decency above courage, and who considered that nothing was more ill-bred than "scenes," except the behaviour of those who ...
— The Age of Innocence • Edith Wharton
... "You ill-bred ——" Smith choked, and reached for a tent prop. The next moment his hand was at the Indian's throat. With a quick twist of his collar band he shut off the Siwash's wind, choking ...
— The Last Spike - And Other Railroad Stories • Cy Warman
... seen it verified. If mem'ries of the people were not short, Disaster to us patriots would befall. When like a parson one can slip the tongue And speed it like a race-horse on its course, 'Tis well; but let some ill-bred boor Bold interruption make, in query's form, The discourse of its symmetry is shorn, While bond of sympathy 'twixt him who speaks And those who list receives a brutral shock, Which doth demand dexterity to soothe. Thus, when I wisdom spouted at the club, A man ...
— 'A Comedy of Errors' in Seven Acts • Spokeshave (AKA Old Fogy)
... graveworm too you shine. When on the virtues of the quick you've dwelt, The pride of residence was all you felt (What vain vulgarian the wish ne'er knew To paint his lodging a flamboyant hue?) And when the praises of the dead you've sung, 'Twas appetite, not truth, inspired your tongue; As ill-bred men when warming to their wine Boast of its merit though it be but brine. Nor gratitude incites your song, nor should— Even charity would shun you if she could. You share, 'tis true, the rich man's daily dole, But what you get you ...
— Shapes of Clay • Ambrose Bierce
... a taste of my blackthorn all round. 'Whist! be aisy now, MICKY,' says the Ambassador to me, in what is, betune ourselves, his own native tongue; and with that he picks up the loaf, sniffs at it, makes a wry face ('it's a rye loaf,' says I), and then says he, out loud, with a supercilious look, 'Ill-bred!' Begorra, there was a whoop o' delight went up all round, which same was a sign of their purliteness, as divil a one of the ignoramuses could onderstand a wurrd the Court said in English or German, let alone Irish. 'Goot,' says MUNSTER to me, dropping into ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100, April 11, 1891 • Various
... a "tough" in his audience—an ill-bred ruffian who scoffed when he gave out his text, called "Three cheers for Ingersoll!" when he was half through with his discourse, and interjected imitations of the fife and big drum at the end of each paragraph. It may be said on his behalf that he had just come ...
— Bog-Myrtle and Peat - Tales Chiefly Of Galloway Gathered From The Years 1889 To 1895 • S.R. Crockett
... devil in a very different and a very stupid way. They would have begun by scolding the idiotic cabman; and next they would make his wife angry by saying it must be her fault as well as his, and by leaving ill-bred though well-meant shabby little books for them to read, which they were sure to hate the sight of; while all the time they would not have put out a finger to touch the wailing baby. But Diamond had him out of the cradle in a moment, set him up on his knee, and told him ...
— At the Back of the North Wind • George MacDonald
... to show me that you are an ill-bred man!' I answered, choler getting the better of ...
— A Gentleman of France • Stanley Weyman
... theatrical; but, behold, we meet, and my bourgeois grunts and stammers, and seems to beg us to believe that he means nothing whatever by his behaviour. Can you convey to his City-intelligence that he is just a trifle ill-bred?" ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... threw himself upon his goat-skin, and Peppino, reclosing the door, again began eating his pease and bacon. Though Danglars could not see Peppino, the noise of his teeth allowed no doubt as to his occupation. He was certainly eating, and noisily too, like an ill-bred man. "Brute!" said Danglars. Peppino pretended not to hear him, and without even turning his head continued to eat slowly. Danglars' stomach felt so empty, that it seemed as if it would be impossible ever to fill it again; still he had patience for ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... you are determin'd, Madam, to raise a Disturbance in the Prison, I shall be obliged to send for the Turnkey to shew you the Door. I am sorry, Madam, you force me to be so ill-bred. ...
— The Beggar's Opera - to which is prefixed the Musick to each Song • John Gay
... Mr. Ward," she began abruptly, in a whisper, "is the rudest, most ill-bred person I ever met. When I talked to him the other day I thought he was nice. He was nice, But he has behaved abominably—like a boor—like a sulky child. Has he no sense of humor? Because I played a joke on him, is that any reason why he should ...
— The Red Cross Girl • Richard Harding Davis
... his presence, could still tolerate it and keep cool. Yet, as might be expected, he rather underrated his antagonist. Seeing him only in this one unfavorable light, he regarded him simply as a rather ill-bred, or, at least, aggressively inclined individual, whose temper and tone of mind might reasonably be objected to. Once or twice he had even felt his own blood rise at some implied ignoring of himself; but he was ...
— Vagabondia - 1884 • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... of character and a nurse of virtue, must be formally shut up and discharged by all the belligerents when this war is over. It is quite true that ill-bred and swinish nations can be roused to a serious consideration of their position and their destiny only by earthquakes, pestilences, famines, comets' tails, Titanic shipwrecks, and devastating wars, just as it is true that African chiefs cannot make themselves ...
— New York Times, Current History, Vol 1, Issue 1 - From the Beginning to March, 1915 With Index • Various
... moments of your time that I may give you two messages?" he inquired, and Arlee felt suddenly ill-bred before his gentle courtesy and she sat down abruptly upon the edge of ...
— The Palace of Darkened Windows • Mary Hastings Bradley
... flea in the ear. lose one's temper &c. (resentment) 900; sulk &c. 90la; frown, scowl, glower, pout; snap, snarl, growl. render rude &c. ad .; brutalize, brutify[obs3]. Adj. discourteous, uncourteous[obs3]; uncourtly[obs3]; ill-bred, ill- mannered, ill-behaved, ill-conditioned; unbred; unmannerly, unmannered; impolite, unpolite[obs3]; unpolished, uncivilized, ungenteel; ungentleman- like, ungentlemanly; unladylike; blackguard; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... abashed and made up his mind that the people of Iolchos were exceedingly ill-bred to take such public notice of an accidental deficiency in his dress. Meanwhile, whether it were that they hustled him forward or that Jason of his own accord thrust a passage through the crowd, it so happened that he soon ...
— Famous Tales of Fact and Fancy - Myths and Legends of the Nations of the World Retold for Boys and Girls • Various
... another unfortunate way of looking, which is peculiar to that amiable sex we do not like to find fault with. There are some very pretty, but, unhappily, very ill-bred women, who don't understand the law of the road with regard to handsome faces. Nature and custom would, no doubt, agree in conceding to all males the right of at least two distinct looks at every comely female ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... wagonette to a stand. The artillery is practising in the Quadrilateral, it appears; passage along the Route Ronde formally interdicted for the moment. There is nothing for it but to draw up at the glaring cross-roads and get down to make fun with the notorious Cocardon, the most ungainly and ill-bred dog of all the ungainly and ill-bred dogs of Barbizon, or clamber about the sandy banks. And meanwhile the doctor, with sun umbrella, wide Panama, and patriarchal beard, is busy wheedling and (for ...
— Essays of Travel • Robert Louis Stevenson
... overruled Lorry's objections, and they proceeded toward the entrance. The guards of the Princess saluted profoundly, while the minions of Lorenz stared with ill-bred wonder upon these two tall men from another world. It could be seen that the castle was astir with excitement, subdued and pregnant with thriving hopes and fears. The nobility of Graustark was there; the visitors of Axphain were ...
— Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... and well-bred people there certainly were, but these were precisely the ones who never forced themselves upon his notice, leaving him to be struck and stunned by fast and hoydenish young ladies, ungrammatical and ill-bred old ones, and men of all shades of boorishness and swagger, such as make themselves conspicuous in every crowd. Unluckily, both Koenigin and I have English blood in our veins, and the Jook could not be convinced that we did not eagerly snatch ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, October, 1877, Vol. XX. No. 118 • Various
... is nothing, in my estimate of things, meaner than courting society where, if admitted, it is only to be despised." He himself happily combined extensive acquirements, excellent ability, diplomatic and courtly experience, and natural independence of character without ill-bred self-assertion, and never failed to create a good impression in the many circles into which ...
— John Quincy Adams - American Statesmen Series • John. T. Morse
... been so ill-bred as to say to her: "Excuse me, young lady, would you not like to come with me to a different point of view, and look at the matter from the other side? How if it should turn out to be a ...
— Tales of Two Countries • Alexander Kielland
... Morris. Further that she and the said Morris were seen embracing at night on the Rectory road, which I don't believe, as the witnesses are Layard, who is prejudiced, and his sister, who is the most ill-bred, bitter, and disappointed woman in the county. Lastly, and this is no doubt true, that they are generally on terms of great intimacy, and we all know where that leads to between a man and woman—'Plato, thy confounded fantasies,' etc. You see, when ...
— Stella Fregelius • H. Rider Haggard
... at the crossroads or on any route you chanced to be traveling, and its value was accordingly slight. Lewd meant belonging to the laity; it came to mean ignorant, and then morally reprehensible. Common may be used to signify ill-bred; vulgar may be and frequently is used to signify indecent. Sabotage, from a French term meaning wooden shoe, has come to be applied to the deliberate and systematic scamping of one's work in order to injure ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... one of them, a gentleman who looked well, as I thought, at first sight, thanks to his tailor, was dainty enough to take off his boots in order to put on a pair of old shoes! Another, an old man, who was probably some wealthy upstart (these are the most ill-bred), while sitting opposite to me, had the delicacy to place his two feet on the seat quite close to me. This is a ...
— The works of Guy de Maupassant, Vol. 5 (of 8) - Une Vie and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant 1850-1893
... in such a disgraceful manner," said one of her listeners; "and yet Mr. Lington used to be so respected by everybody. He seems to have behaved like a little ill-bred schoolboy." ...
— The Chronicles of Clovis • Saki
... 'Wh-a-t?' in a most feeble manner, an' she asked him it right over again. Then she said he was more nervous an' made very queer noises an' finally asked her what in Noah's ark she wanted to know for. She says she could n't but think that very ill-bred, considerin' her age, but she was in a situation where she had to overlook anythin', so she told him as she knowed an' he knowed, too, as any one could take a canary-bird an' travel anywhere an' never know what it was to be put off for nothin'. She said he shook the wire a little ...
— Susan Clegg and a Man in the House • Anne Warner
... hija, qu criado el tuyo tan mal criado!: What an ill-bred fellow, that servant of yours, my dear! Note the untranslatable play on criado, an example of a sort of punning in which ...
— Ms vale maa que fuerza • Manuel Tamayo y Baus
... could not now be dull, with the acquisition it had received since he was there before; and he bowed gracefully toward the young lady, who acknowledged the compliment with a faint blush, and then turned toward the group of "noisy, ill-bred children," as Dr. Richards thought, ...
— Bad Hugh • Mary Jane Holmes
... in the fourth and fifth acts, than it was by Fletcher in the three former. I have always acknowledged the wit of our predecessors, with all the veneration which becomes me; but, I am sure, their wit was not that of gentlemen; there was ever somewhat that was ill-bred and clownish in it, and which confessed the conversation of ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Volume 4 (of 18) - Almanzor And Almahide, Marriage-a-la-Mode, The Assignation • John Dryden
... improve you. There, cheer up, Alice, honey! Why, it's the best of friends I want to be with you; but you don't like me, not a bit. I'll win you yet, Alice, aroon! But at the present moment you're saying in your heart: 'What a nasty, forward, ill-bred girl that is, and I am ashamed, that I am, that my schoolfellows should see me with the likes ...
— Wild Kitty • L. T. Meade
... favor of Cameron. In worldly advantages he was her superior; yet with the instinct of a gentleman he seemed unconscious of any such difference and did not exhibit the least trace of condescension, as many ill-bred persons might have. ...
— Herbert Carter's Legacy • Horatio Alger
... that time they put no women into nunneries but such as were either one-eyed, lame, humpbacked, ill-favored, misshapen, foolish, senseless, spoiled, or corrupt; nor encloistered any men but those that were either sickly, ill-bred, clownish, and ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VII (of X)—Continental Europe I • Various
... five friends sometimes, of an evening. Totski often came. Lately, too, General Epanchin had been enabled with great difficulty to introduce himself into her circle. Gania made her acquaintance also, and others were Ferdishenko, an ill-bred, and would-be witty, young clerk, and Ptitsin, a money-lender of modest and polished manners, who had risen from poverty. In fact, Nastasia Philipovna's beauty became a thing known to all the town; but not a single man could boast of anything more than his own admiration for her; and this reputation ...
— The Idiot • (AKA Feodor Dostoevsky) Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... conscience, while the strife between the desire for display and style, and the love of money, makes many women at once fastidious and unscrupulous. To Brandon, Harriett Phillips's conduct appeared ill-bred and mean; he could not help contrasting her with Elsie Melvlle, and acknowledging that the latter was the real gentlewoman. He began also to observe a certain imperiousness in Harriett's manner to Elsie herself, which struck him as being particularly ungraceful, ...
— Mr. Hogarth's Will • Catherine Helen Spence
... they put no women into nunneries but such as were either purblind, blinkards, lame, crooked, ill-favoured, misshapen, fools, senseless, spoiled, or corrupt; nor encloistered any men but those that were either sickly, subject to defluxions, ill-bred louts, simple sots, or peevish trouble-houses. But to the purpose, said the monk. A woman that is neither fair nor good, to what use serves she? To make a nun of, said Gargantua. Yea, said the monk, and to make shirts and smocks. Therefore was it ordained that into this religious order should ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... at her. Something snapped in Darya Alexandrovna's heart when she saw this. It was as if darkness had swooped down upon her life; she felt that these children of hers, that she was so proud of, were not merely most ordinary, but positively bad, ill-bred children, with coarse, brutal ...
— Anna Karenina • Leo Tolstoy
... down her one sheaf of corn to an old watermill, itself mossy and rent, scarcely able to get its stones to turn. An ill-bred dog stands, joyless, by the unfenced stream; two country boys lean, joyless, against a wall that is half broken down; and all about the steps down which the girl is bringing her sheaf, the bank of earth, ...
— Lectures on Landscape - Delivered at Oxford in Lent Term, 1871 • John Ruskin
... quadrangle and turned up the narrow, picturesque High Street. It would soon be dusk; a wintry light was over everything. Rosalind Merton and Miss Day followed behind. Maggie, who was always absorbed with the present interest, did not heed or notice them, but Priscilla heard one or two ill-bred giggles. ...
— A Sweet Girl Graduate • Mrs. L.T. Meade
... the church which was only broken by the tittering and whispering of the choir in the gallery. The choir always tittered and whispered all through service. There was once a church choir that was not ill-bred, but I have forgotten where it was, now. It was a great many years ago, and I can scarcely remember anything about it, but I think it was ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... any gentleman to have to notice the lucubrations of so ill-bred and ignorant a person as Mr. Whistler, but your publication of his insolent letter left me no option in the matter.—I remain, ...
— Miscellanies • Oscar Wilde
... young men, for they are all older than Fred, of lower social rank than himself. I don't attach any special importance to that, nor do I object to them on that ground; but they are, I have reason to think, ill-bred and disreputable. They know Fred to be richer than themselves, and induce him to drink and play, in the hope of getting some of his money. I have sent for you to go in search of my son. If you find him you must do your best to ...
— The Telegraph Boy • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... and chats of the same sort as those the father vicar now holds with her. At present, however, as I am but a young man, I see but little of Pepita; I hardly speak to her. I prefer to be thought bashful, shy, ill-bred, and rude, rather than give the least occasion—not that I should be thought to feel for her in reality what I ought not to feel—but even for ...
— Pepita Ximenez • Juan Valera
... not find out only now that the old dealer and his sister hated her enemies, Sarah Brandon and Maxime de Brevan, mortally; but she had never seen that hatred break out so terribly as to-night. What had brought it about? This she could not fathom. Papa Ravinet, it was evident, was not a nobody. Ill-bred and coarse in Water Street, amid the thousand articles of his trade, he became a very different man as soon as he reached his sister's house. As to the Widow Bertolle, she was evidently a woman of ...
— The Clique of Gold • Emile Gaboriau
... at him in undisguised wonder. 'You may think me ill-bred to say it, sir,' she remarked, 'but I cannot but marvel where you have been, or what you have done all your life. Why, the very children in the street ...
— Micah Clarke - His Statement as made to his three Grandchildren Joseph, - Gervas and Reuben During the Hard Winter of 1734 • Arthur Conan Doyle
... a deeply interesting piece of portraiture, and probably substantially accurate. The painful fact is that Byron was a very ill-bred person. He had drawn a prize in the lottery of life, and had obtained, so to speak, by accident of birth, a position that gave him fortuitously the consequence which numbers of ambitious men spend their ...
— The Silent Isle • Arthur Christopher Benson
... give you joy. And you also, sir. (MISS PHOEBE sends her sister a glance of unutterable woe, and escapes from the room. It is most ill-bred of her.) Miss Susan, I do ...
— Quality Street - A Comedy • J. M. Barrie
... than gracefulness is the mere learning of any kind of physical exercise. The gentleman apparently, as the Christian really, looks not on his own things, but on the things of others; and the selfish person is always both unchristian and ill-bred." ...
— The Farringdons • Ellen Thorneycroft Fowler
... you," said Miss Lindsay sharply; "but it is not very creditable to me, as Miss Wilson said just now, to take a prize in moral science and then have to write down that I don't know how to behave myself. Besides, I do not like to be told that I am ill-bred!" ...
— An Unsocial Socialist • George Bernard Shaw
... Religious Toleration. I own I like their notions quite, They are so Persian and so right! You know our Sunnites,[2] hateful dogs! Whom every pious Shiite flogs Or longs to flog—'tis true, they pray To God, but in an ill-bred way; With neither arms nor legs nor faces Stuck in their right, canonic places.[3] 'Tis true, they worship Ali's name— Their heaven and ours are just the same— (A Persian's Heaven is easily made, 'Tis but black eyes and lemonade.) Yet tho' we've tried for centuries back— We can't persuade ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... that instant offering her rose to his companions in turns to smell, he uttered very distinctly in French, 'What you have just done, sir, is conduct unworthy of an honest man, unworthy of the uniform you wear, and I have come to tell you you are an ill-bred cur!' The young man leaped on to his feet, but another officer, rather older, checked him with a gesture, made him sit down, and turning to Sanin asked him also in French, 'Was he a relation, brother, or betrothed ...
— The Torrents of Spring • Ivan Turgenev
... village at the edge of a great forest, where the people were excited and uproarious, but not ill-bred, they ran alongside the path with us shouting and making energetic remarks to each other about us. A newly-married couple stood in a village where we stopped to inquire the way, with arms around each other very lovingly, and no one joked or poked fun at them. We marched ...
— The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume II (of 2), 1869-1873 • David Livingstone
... thinks I must love the man I'm going to marry? The most unpleasant thing in the world. I should quarrel with him; I should be jealous of him; our menage would be conducted in a very ill-bred manner. A little quiet contempt contributes greatly to the ...
— The Lifted Veil • George Eliot
... Is that a reason for living as fools do? If my fellow-townsmen are stupid and ill-bred, need I follow their example? A woman does not misconduct herself because her ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume VIII. • Guy de Maupassant
... mistake, and so I said to him, perfectly pleasant, 'Were you speaking to me?' and he went on and bellowed at me, 'Yes, I was! You're keeping the whole car from starting!' he said, and then I saw he was one of these dirty ill-bred hogs that kindness is wasted on, and so I stopped and looked right at him, and I said, 'I—beg—your—pardon, I am not doing anything of the kind,' I said, 'it's the people ahead of me, who won't move ...
— Babbitt • Sinclair Lewis
... Callender struck her clenched fist on the open side of her left hand, in the impressive way peculiar to some ladies when under the influence of passion. "And, since ye come to that o't, let me tell ye ye're a very insultin, ill-bred woman, to tell me that it wasna muckle worth, ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume III • Various
... between a well-bred and an ill-bred man is this: 'One immediately attracts your liking, the other your aversion. You love the one till you find reason to hate him; you hate the other till you ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 4 (of 6) • Boswell
... once to fetch his wife, she is dead now. She was the daughter of the king of the chalk-hills at Moen. They say he took his wife from chalk; I shall be delighted to see him again. It is said that the boys are ill-bred, forward lads, but perhaps that is not quite correct, and they will become better as they grow older. Let me see that you know how to teach ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen
... Confederate Consul. By dint of a brazen assurance, a most obliging manner, and the lavish expenditure of money, "profusus sui alieni appetens"—he ingratiated himself with nearly every southerner who visited Halifax although he was a coarse, ill-bred vulgarian, of no social standing in the community. It is true that a worthy member of the same family had risen from obscurity to high honors, but Sandy was a black sheep of the flock. He was employed at first by many of our people to purchase for them on commission, ...
— The Narrative of a Blockade-Runner • John Wilkinson
... questions should be given in the direct affirmative or the direct negative. "All right" is not, to say the least, civil, and is ill-bred. ...
— The Complete Bachelor - Manners for Men • Walter Germain
... yet nineteen. What was that odious word? Flapper! Dreadful young creatures—squealing and squawking and showing their legs! The worst of them bad dreams, the best of them powdered angels! Fleur was not a flapper, not one of those slangy, ill-bred young females. And yet she was frighteningly self-willed, and full of life, and determined to enjoy it. Enjoy! The word brought no puritan terror to Soames; but it brought the terror suited to his temperament. He had always been afraid to enjoy to-day for fear he might ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... "Ill-bred and pushing as ever," quoth Mr. Marston, angrily, as he thrust the unwelcome letter into his pocket. "This fellow, wallowing in wealth, without one nearer relative on earth than I, and associated more nearly still with me the—pshaw! not affection—the ...
— The Evil Guest • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... but she felt that if Lloyd knew how she had played stork, she would consider her ill-bred. The ...
— The Little Colonel: Maid of Honor • Annie Fellows Johnston
... departure from Mansfield was so near. Then she began to blame herself. She wished she had not spoken so warmly in their last conversation. She was afraid she had used some strong, some contemptuous expressions in speaking of the clergy, and that should not have been. It was ill-bred; it was wrong. She wished such words unsaid with all ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... cold, stately Dr. Pell, Toole was ceremonious and deliberate, and oppressively polite. On the other hand, when he had been shut up with brusque, half-savage, energetic Doctor Rogerson, Tom was laconic, decisive, and insupportably ill-bred, till, as we have said, the mirage melted away, and he gradually acquiesced in his identity. Then, little by little, the irrepressible gossip, jocularity, and ballad minstrelsy were heard again, his little eyes danced, and his waggish smiles glowed once ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... so. I was silent. Saccharissa gave me a glance expressive of continued devotion. So long as I kept her and her hundred thousand dollars, ($100,000,) I little cared for the assaults of these noisy and ill-bred persons. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 47, September, 1861 • Various
... be thrust out. The instant the Anarchist's narrowed eyes rested on Mrs. Elwood her belligerent manner changed. She swung the door wide, remarking in cold apology; "Pray, pardon me, Mrs. Elwood. I believed that a number of rude, ill-bred young women whom I had the misfortune to encounter earlier in the day were renewing their attempts ...
— Grace Harlowe's Second Year at Overton College • Jessie Graham Flower
... friends. He ought to have sympathized with the girl's loneliness; he might have asked her how she could possibly endure life without companionship, but he did not; he only felt that other friends might have been rough and ill-bred; this girl derived her refinement, not only from nature, but also from separation from the other girls who might in the ordinary course have been her friends and associates. And if no other friends, then no lover. Arnold was only going to visit the young lady as her ...
— In Luck at Last • Walter Besant
... bright russet of his back, the clear white of his breast, with the distinct heart-shaped spots! It may be objected to Robin that he is noisy and demonstrative; he hurries away or rises to a branch with an angry note, and flirts his wings in ill-bred suspicion. The thrasher, or red thrush, sneaks and skulks like a culprit, hiding in the densest alders; the catbird is a coquette and a flirt, as well as a sort of female Paul Pry; and the chewink shows his inhospitality by espying your movements like a detective. The wood thrush has none ...
— Bird Stories from Burroughs - Sketches of Bird Life Taken from the Works of John Burroughs • John Burroughs
... just such an ill-bred utterance as he had looked for from Byron Polder; and he made no effort to mitigate it. He was conscious of, and resolutely ignored, Mariana's veiled entreaty. "You don't know my girls," Mrs. Polder continued rapidly. ...
— The Three Black Pennys - A Novel • Joseph Hergesheimer
... brightens as we leave it shimmering in the distance. But even under conditions which have the disadvantage of existing, the American is not without gentleness of speech and spirit. He is not always in a hurry. He is not always elbowing his way, or quivering with ill-bred impatience. Turn to him for help in a crowd, and feel the bright sureness of his response. Watch him under ordinary conditions, and observe his large measure of forbearance with the social deficiencies of his neighbour. ...
— Americans and Others • Agnes Repplier
... ever he had known a happier man than he. And when Solon answered that he had known one Tellus, a fellow-citizen of his own, and told him that this Tellus had been an honest man, had had good children, a competent estate, and died bravely in battle for his country, Croesus took him for an ill-bred fellow and a fool, for not measuring happiness by the abundance of gold and silver, and preferring the life and death of a private and mean man before so much power and empire. He asked him, however, again, if, besides Tellus, he ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... shapeless arms crossed upon his breast; whilst others worshipped an image which, having no likeness either in heaven or on earth, could hardly be called an idol. As the islanders always maintained a discreet reserve with regard to my own peculiar views on religion, I thought it would be excessively ill-bred of me to pry ...
— Typee - A Romance of the South Sea • Herman Melville
... genius of Mr. Carlo prevailed; and the truth of the adage, "'tis an ill wind that blows nobody good," was confirmed in his mind as he found himself busily employed in the ingenious operation of separating pigeon from porcelain. It was, doubtless, extremely ill-bred in one dog not to invite another, and Cupid expressed his sense of the slight by a long-continued yell, which drew down upon him, from the equally disappointed bipeds of the company, sundry wishes, ...
— Stories of Comedy • Various
... islanders must have forsaken for a time the road to nobleness when we are able to exalt the saying "A full purse is the only true friend" into a representative English proverb! We do not rage and foam as Timon did—that would be ill-bred and ludicrous; we simply smile and utter delicate mockeries. In the plays that best please our golden youth nothing is so certain to win applause and laughter as a sentence about the treachery or greed of friends. Do those grinning, superlatively insolent cynics ...
— The Ethics of Drink and Other Social Questions - Joints In Our Social Armour • James Runciman
... could that young Tony have been after? And dared Miles call at Wren's End that evening, in the hope of a glimpse of Meg, or would it look inquisitive and ill-bred? ...
— Jan and Her Job • L. Allen Harker
... any other child uncouth and ill-bred, if she did any one of the many outrageous things that Gwen was always doing. In Gwen she thought it bright and smart, and Gwen held the same opinion, but a young sailor, happening along just in time to hear her say something about a Jack Tar, that was not quite ...
— Princess Polly At Play • Amy Brooks
... me? How much goodness! This good Monsieur de Blackball is not very well bred; but, for an Englishman, he is not too bad. I have met with people who are more ill-bred ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... him in undisguised wonder. 'You may think me ill-bred to say it, sir,' she remarked, 'but I cannot but marvel where you have been, or what you have done all your life. Why, the very children in the street have read ...
— Micah Clarke - His Statement as made to his three Grandchildren Joseph, - Gervas and Reuben During the Hard Winter of 1734 • Arthur Conan Doyle
... who indulges his ill-nature or vanity at the expense of others, and in introducing uneasiness, vexation, and confusion into society, however exalted or high-titled he may be, is thoroughly ill-bred. ...
— Miscellanies, Volume 2 (from Works, Volume 12) • Henry Fielding
... to them. Even the marquis, with his ironical politeness, was beginning to displease her. To triumph alone, therefore, to keep the cake for themselves, as she expressed it, was a revenge which she fondly cherished. Later on, when all those ill-bred persons presented themselves, hats off, before Monsieur Rougon the receiver of taxes, she would crush them in her turn. She was busy with these thoughts all night; and on the morrow, as she opened the shutters, she instinctively cast her first glance across the street ...
— The Fortune of the Rougons • Emile Zola
... her place at once among the elite; he or she who had come to dance was henceforth considered worthy of a bow in Grafton Street. For Dublin is a city without a conviction, without an opinion. Things are right and wrong according to the dictum of the nearest official. If it be not absolutely ill-bred to say you think this, or are inclined to take such or such a view, it is certainly more advisable to say that the Attorney-General thinks so, or that on one occasion you heard the State Steward, the Chamberlain, or any other equally distinguished ...
— Muslin • George Moore
... a bad scholar, a dull fellow, and ill-bred to boot. George knew much more Latin and Greek than his master, and caught him in perpetual blunders and false quantities. Harry, who could take much greater liberties than were allowed to his elder brother, mimicked Ward's manner of eating ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray |
