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Insolent   /ˈɪnsələnt/   Listen
Insolent

adjective
1.
Marked by casual disrespect.  Synonyms: flip, impudent, snotty-nosed.  "The student was kept in for impudent behavior"
2.
Unrestrained by convention or propriety.  Synonyms: audacious, bald-faced, barefaced, bodacious, brassy, brazen, brazen-faced.  "A barefaced hypocrite" , "The most bodacious display of tourism this side of Anaheim" , "Bald-faced lies" , "Brazen arrogance" , "The modern world with its quick material successes and insolent belief in the boundless possibilities of progress"






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Insolent" Quotes from Famous Books



... thought he was looking very distrait; however, things went off quietly enough for some time, till on some trifling question arising concerning the rules of the game, the young man suddenly and quite gratuitously insulted me most grossly, ending his insolent conduct by throwing his cards in my face. This was more than I could put up with, so I called him out, and the next morning put a ball into his ankle, which prevented him dancing for a long time to come. He, being the best dancer in the colony, was rather severely punished; ...
— Sketches From My Life - By The Late Admiral Hobart Pasha • Hobart Pasha

... loving little foster-mother; but, from sheer ignorance and riotous good living, he gave her a good deal of pain. Some dog-mothers would have warned him about this pretty sharply; but not so the little sheep-dog. She never even growled when, after feeding till he could feed no more, the insolent grey whelp would pound and paw at her soft dugs, and tug at them with his sharp teeth in sheer wantonness, till they were a network of red scars and scratches. The most the gentle, plebeian little mother would do would be to ...
— Finn The Wolfhound • A. J. Dawson

... a very polite letter, in order that I might consent to see him; he did not present himself quite as he had written. His manner at first was so stiff, insolent, and even threatening, that I had to make him understand that I was in my own house, and that I had no need to render him an account of my life, except because of the sincere affection which I had ...
— Camille (La Dame aux Camilias) • Alexandre Dumas, fils

... must go, Miss Rowan, or we shall be late for luncheon," he drawled. The insolent tone of him was like having one's face slapped, and it didn't pass over Lyn's head by any means. I thought to myself that if he had set out to entrench himself in her good graces, he was taking the poorest of all methods to accomplish ...
— Raw Gold - A Novel • Bertrand W. Sinclair

... him a glance, insolent and piercing. Then she laughed, but neither hysterically nor mirthfully. It was the laughter of one in deadly anger. "I had believed you to be a man of some reason, Mr. Worth. Do you suppose, even had I entertained some ...
— The Lure of the Mask • Harold MacGrath

... from the dual jaw-bombardment, bored back at his foe, taking the heaviest and most scientific punishment, in a raging attempt to gather Brice once more into the trap of his terrible arms. But Gavin kept just out of reach, moving with an almost insolent carelessness, and ever flashing some painful blow to face or to ...
— Black Caesar's Clan • Albert Payson Terhune

... old father turned red, and said, haughtily: "We take you at your word, and leave you, you insolent vagabond! Follow ...
— Foul Play • Charles Reade

... wring this information from the sodden wretch was his first purpose. "Say, fellow," Joe almost pleasantly asked the beggar, "who told you that my name is McDonald?" "Did you think I did not recognize you?" replied the bum in a most insolent tone while at the same time he pointed his hand at Joe's birthmark. "When you bent forward to pick up your cap I remembered you the moment I put my eyes on that streak of white hair," and then, sure that he had before him a victim whom he could blackmail with perfect impunity, he inquired, ...
— The Trail of the Tramp • A-No. 1 (AKA Leon Ray Livingston)

... Goose's tales. His passion carried him so far as to breed a reaction in those who listened to him. "I think," wrote Mason from Yorkshire, where Burke had been on a visit to Lord Fitzwilliam in the autumn of 1782, "that Burke's mad obloquy against Lord Shelburne, and these insolent pamphlets in which he must have had a hand, will do more to fix him (Shelburne) in his ...
— Burke • John Morley

... Again his voice held an insolent irony that lashed her like a whip. "Haven't you yet plumbed the full ...
— The Hermit of Far End • Margaret Pedler

... This open and insolent growth of the spirit of slavery in the South was slowly rousing the rest of the great nation from its slumber. Statesmen had been silent too long, politicians and preachers had apologised for the evil, and the people as a whole had given no sign, until provoked by those flagrant attempts to carry ...
— The Story of Garfield - Farm-boy, Soldier, and President • William G. Rutherford

... said, and upon my acknowledging the name, he placed a paper in my hands and went away. I was so relieved because he said nothing about wanting "a little money on account;" he wasn't even coarsely insolent, like so many of them. He did look surprised at my appearance; so surprised that his explanation of his errand died away into an unintelligible murmur. But I wasn't curious ...
— The Bacillus of Beauty - A Romance of To-day • Harriet Stark

... a dwarf who drank the sea dry. As he was walking one day with Vishnoo, the insolent ocean asked the god who the pigmy was that strutted by his side. Vishnoo replied it was the patriarch Agastya, who was going to restore earth to its true balance. Ocean, in contempt, spat its spray in the pigmy's face, and the sage, in revenge of this affront, drank the waters ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol 1 - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook • The Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D.

... was a rapid descent of a hundred yards or more to this terrace-like passage; and the guides paused for a moment of consultation, cooly oblivious, alike to the terrified questioning of Mrs. Rightbody, or the half-insolent independence of the daughter. The elder guide was russet-bearded, stout, and humorous: the younger was dark-bearded, slight, ...
— The Twins of Table Mountain and Other Stories • Bret Harte

... Queen returned in triumph to Brussels, November 21, 1918, just a little over four years after the bodeful day when they left it, in 1914. Belgium, the first martyr to German ferocity, had come back to its own—had justified the historic words of its King to the insolent Germans, "Belgium is a country, not a road," and stood firm, a David of the Nations, against the onslaught of the most awful and bloody hordes the world has seen since Attila, the other Hun, drove with his swarming savages over Europe, centuries ago, roaring ...
— America's War for Humanity • Thomas Herbert Russell

... in a trap, and when he found that this slip of a girl was more than his match he started to give vent to his rage in vile, insolent language. ...
— Glen of the High North • H. A. Cody

... was elegant opulence and refined splendor, and by whose cradle Fortune herself stood godmother. She seems like a perfect rose, blooming in a precious vase of gold and gems and exquisite workmanship. Camiola's contemptuous rebuff of her insolent courtier lover; her merciless ridicule of her fantastical, half-witted suitor; her bitter and harsh rebuke of Adorni when he draws his sword upon the man who had insulted her; above all, her hard and cold insensibility ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble

... very foolish thing for him to try to inflict personal punishment on such a lusty young fellow as Abner Briggs, Junior, one of the "hardest customers" in the way of a rough-and-tumble fight that there were anywhere round. No doubt he had been insolent, but it would have been better to overlook it. It pains me to report the events which took place when the master made his rash attempt to maintain his authority. Abner Briggs, Junior, was a great, hulking fellow, who had been bred to butchering, but urged by his parents to attend school, ...
— Elsie Venner • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... And what, think you, does my father feel at this moment? He, whose fears are not for himself alone, but for us all, for his wife, and for his children." [26] And Cyrus said, "To-day and at this time, it may be with him as you say: but I still think that the same man may well be insolent in good fortune and cringing in defeat: let such an one go free again, and he will return to his arrogance and trouble us once more." [27] "I do not deny it, Cyrus," said the prince. "Our offences are such that you may well mistrust us: but you have it in your power to set garrisons in our ...
— Cyropaedia - The Education Of Cyrus • Xenophon

... was clear as sun in cloudless noonday sky that there could be but one result of this insolent and despotic denial of my rights and the rights of the people, this public confession of the truth of my charges. I turned everything salable or mortgageable into cash, locked the cash up in my private vaults, and ...
— The Deluge • David Graham Phillips

... Commons about Grenadier Guards. HANBURY hitherto said nothing in public on the matter; has been in communication with DARTMOUTH by post and telegram; has boldly vindicated privileges of Commons; has brought the insolent Lord Lieutenant to his knees; but till this moment has made no public reference to the part he played. Has borne, unsoothed by companionship, the sorrow of ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, August 16, 1890 • Various

... artist open his lips. And at last the girl, to break the uncomfortable silence, said, "Where shall we hang it, mother?" and the lady replied, "Just where you like, my dear, so long as you hang it with the face to the wall." It was an insolent, a cruel thing to say, but the artist did not answer her bitterly; he said gently that she need not take the portrait as it failed to please her, and that in any case he would decline to take the money she had agreed to pay him for the work. She ...
— Afoot in England • W.H. Hudson

... (in the same Quarterly, but twenty-seven years later than Croker's attack) of the statesman's generous tribute. "Macaulay," says Gladstone, "was singularly free of vices ... one point only we reserve, a certain tinge of occasional vindictiveness. Was he envious? Never. Was he servile? No. Was he insolent? No.... Was he idle? The question is ridiculous. Was he false? No; but true as steel and transparent as crystal. Was he vain? We hold that he was not. At every point in the ugly ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson

... His physiognomy was not that of a fool, but indicated rather that low order of intelligence, cunning and intriguing, which goes to make a good swindler. The low forehead, wide awake, shifty little eyes, the nose of his forefathers, and insolent lock of black hair plastered low on his brow—all these characteristics may frequently be met with in the dock of the "Old Bailey" when some case of petty ...
— A Girl Among the Anarchists • Isabel Meredith

... occurs in the account of the healing of a man with a withered arm, which took place in the synagogue of Capernaum (iii. 1-5). In the vivid narrative, we can see the scribes and Pharisees, who had already questioned Him with insolent airs of authority about His breach of the Rabbinical Sabbatic rules, sitting in the synagogue, with their gleaming eyes 'watching Him' with hostile purpose. They hope that He will heal on the Sabbath day. Possibly they had even brought the powerless-handed man ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Mark • Alexander Maclaren

... and an upper lip slightly underhung. His straight fair hair straggled loose over his brow. He carried his head and shoulders well, and was altogether a finely built, rather magnificent young fellow, marred by a general expression that was half clumsy, half insolent. ...
— Helbeck of Bannisdale, Vol. I. • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... the words or sense of an author, or in the language and actions of men, is awry or depraved, does strongly stir mean affections, and provoke for the most part to laughter. And therefore it was clear that all insolent and obscene speeches, jests upon the best men, injuries to particular persons, perverse and sinister sayings (and the rather, unexpected) in the old comedy did move laughter, especially where it did imitate any dishonesty, and scurrility came forth in the place of wit; which, who understands ...
— The Function Of The Poet And Other Essays • James Russell Lowell

... under the peristyle as he spoke. A chasseur, in a livery which Lucien did not recognize, let down the step, and two women in evening dress came out of the brougham. Lucien had no mind to lay himself open to an insolent order to get out of the way from the official. He stepped aside to ...
— A Distinguished Provincial at Paris • Honore de Balzac

... not for edification. Even Sarah Maitland flinched before it. She left him with a bang. She saw the Dean again, and her recommendations of espionage were so extreme and so unwise that he found himself taking Blair's part in his effort to save the young man from the most insolent intrusion upon his privacy. She went back to Mercer in a whirl of anger but in somber silence. She had scorched and stung under the truths her son told her about herself; she had bled under the lies she had told him as to her feeling for him. She looked ten years older for that hour in his room. ...
— The Iron Woman • Margaret Deland

... It is impossible to describe the injury which they did at this place, by burning or sinking the ships, destroying the plantations, and pillaging the houses. Power in the hands of mean and ignorant men renders them wanton, insolent and cruel. They are literally like madmen, who cast firebrands, arrows and death, and say, "Are not we ...
— The Pirates Own Book • Charles Ellms

... for the meet. The cause of the quarrel was soon apparent. The Prince de Loudon, afflicted with anglomania, had brought out his own hunting establishment, which was exclusively Britannic, and placed it under orders of the Master of the Hunt. Now, one of his men, a little Englishman,—fair, pale, insolent, and phlegmatic, scarcely able to speak a word of French, and dressed with a neatness which distinguishes all Britons, even those of the lower classes,—had posted himself on one side of this open space. John Barry ...
— Modeste Mignon • Honore de Balzac

... Italian dared to mock her thus? And in the old days she had not noted the insolent meaning underlying the beautiful designs! How she would have revenged herself ...
— A German Pompadour - Being the Extraordinary History of Wilhelmine van Graevenitz, - Landhofmeisterin of Wirtemberg • Marie Hay

... restaurant. Michael in his well-made clothing and with his strikingly handsome face and gold hair attracting at once every eye in the place: Sam with an insolent air of assurance to cover a sudden embarrassment of pride at ...
— Lo, Michael! • Grace Livingston Hill

... De Cunna found a tolerable fort, not ill manned, and decently provided for defence. He sent a friendly message to the sheikh, but receiving an insolent answer he resolved to attack the place, though the attempt seemed dangerous. He and Albuquerque went towards the shore with the troops, but Don Alfonso de Noronha, nephew to De Cunna, leapt first on shore, determining to shew himself worthy ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VI - Early English Voyages Of Discovery To America • Robert Kerr

... has happened to-day to your usually so charming temper," returns she, laughingly uplifting her face to his, and letting her eyes rest on him with almost insolent inquiry. ...
— Rossmoyne • Unknown

... saying to himself, "By all the saints, but this is admirable!" stepped briskly forward and did the small insolent's bidding; then stood by, in a sort of stupefaction, until the command, "Come—the towel!" woke him sharply up. He took up a towel, from under the boy's nose, and handed it to him without comment. He now proceeded to comfort his own face with a wash, and while ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... the penalty of being marked. This punishment is said to produce considerable effect on the culprits, as well as on the spectators. Previously to its being revived, persons convicted of thieving were insolent beyond ...
— Paris As It Was and As It Is • Francis W. Blagdon

... it, I am biding my time. When General Laurance sent his agent first to attempt to buy me off, and, finding that impossible, to browbeat and terrify me into silence, one of his insolent demands was the restoration of this ring, which he said was an heirloom of untold value in his family, and must belong to none but a Laurance. He offered five hundred dollars for the delivery of it into his ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson

... question be made by the directory of the Morris and Essex Railroad, however, PUNCHINELLO will then meet contingencies by condensing the machine, reducing it so much in size that a commuter may easily carry one in his waistcoat pocket, to be ready, when necessary, for extracting an insolent conductor out of his boots; or, should the occasion arise, for the immediate evulsion from office of the autocratic President ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 16, July 16, 1870 • Various

... no one in the world to whom Bradlaugh's special opinions could have been more abhorrent; but he felt—and we who followed him felt the same—that the cause of God and morality can never be served by the insolent refusal of ...
— Fifteen Chapters of Autobiography • George William Erskine Russell

... insolent scoundrel, how dare you use such language to my father?" said the other. "I tell you, that if it were not from a reluctance to create an unbecoming quarrel so near the house of God, and so soon after his worship, ...
— The Tithe-Proctor - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton

... appreciate the bitter humor of the situation, tells[77] with gravity that he expected that the emperor would hear the two contending parties in all proper judicial form, but that in fact he behaved like an insolent, overbearing tyrant. The audience—if it can be so called—took place in the gardens of the palace, and the emperor dragged the unfortunate deputation after him about the place, while he gave orders to his gardeners, builders, and workmen. Whenever they tried to put forward their arguments, ...
— Philo-Judaeus of Alexandria • Norman Bentwich

... began, contemptuously. "Bah," he exclaimed, "you're a fool; I should have sent a servant to talk with you. You are a child—but you are an insolent child," he cried, suddenly, his anger breaking out, "and I shall punish you. You dare to call me names! You shall fight me, you shall fight me to-morrow. You have insulted an officer, and you shall ...
— Soldiers of Fortune • Richard Harding Davis

... said dully. "And me so pairfectly miserable!" As soon as the words were out of her mouth she was frozen with horror. In the presence of one who was both a man and English she had admitted the disgraceful fact that she was not an imperial creature insolent with success and well pleased with the earth her footstool. She scrambled to her feet and ran coltishly past him and over the bridge, hiding her face and calling gaily, "Come on! I want to get up on the hills!" And he followed slowly, ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West

... shrinking with a trepidation which she could not conceal at sight of his strange massiveness, with his rust-gold hair coming down toward his thick yellow brows and mocking blue eyes in a dense bang, and his jaw squaring itself under the rather insolent smile of his full mouth. The matron felt that her victim teas perhaps going to fail her, when a voice at her ear said, as if the question were extorted, "Who ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... women smile at everybody who has any intercourse with them. "I think perhaps Mrs. Morton will let us go up-stairs," said Lady Augustus. Mrs. Morton immediately rang the bell and prepared to precede the ladies to their chambers. Let them be as insolent as they would she would do what she conceived to be her duty. Then Lady Augustus stalked out of the room and her daughter swum after her. "They don't seem to be quite the same as they were ...
— The American Senator • Anthony Trollope

... The air of insolent authority which our 'hipperkritical' middy assumed was so effective that even Sommers was slightly overawed. While the irons were being removed, the unhappy Frenchman, Edouard ...
— The Middy and the Moors - An Algerine Story • R.M. Ballantyne

... brains than other people, his neighbours saved him the trouble of talking about them. Only the fools and the parvenus trumpeted themselves; a process in any case not worth while, since it defeated its own ends. You might of course be as insolent or arrogant as you pleased; but only an idiot tried ...
— Lady Connie • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... was well on his way to his mountain home, and about the same time the Emperor, having received the Chaplet of Olympia for the incomparable excellence of his performance, was making inquiries with a frowning brow as to who the insolent person might be who had dared to ...
— The Last Galley Impressions and Tales - Impressions and Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle

... these places made a painful impression on the entire English community, and created deep anxiety. That anxiety was increased by the reports received from day to day of the mutinous spirit shown by the Sepoys all over the country. We were told of midnight meetings, insolent conduct, and incendiary fires. The most sanguine could not but fear that we were entering a calamitous period. The most hopeful were those officers who had been long with native regiments, and were sure that whatever others might do, ...
— Life and Work in Benares and Kumaon, 1839-1877 • James Kennedy

... insinuated that often enough," returned West, at last fully aroused by the insolent words and manner of the other. "Perhaps it may be well for us to have a plain understanding without further delay, Mr. Percival Coolidge. My engagement to Miss Natalie may be sudden and unexpected—perhaps not altogether pleasant from ...
— The Case and The Girl • Randall Parrish

... reason for staying, I won't put it in the power of the Marquis of Trowbridge to say that he has turned me out of my parish, and so punished me because I have not submitted myself to him. I have not sought the quarrel. He has been overbearing and insolent, and now is meanly desirous to injure me because I will not suffer his insolence. No doubt, placed as he is, he can do much; but he cannot turn me out ...
— The Vicar of Bullhampton • Anthony Trollope

... Respect and deference are perhaps justly demandable of the obliged, and may be, with some reason at least, from expectation, paid to the rich and liberal from the necessitous; but that men should be allured by the glittering of wealth only to feed the insolent pride of those who will not in return feed their hunger—that the sordid niggard should find any sacrifices on the altar of his vanity—seems to arise from a blinder idolatry, and a more bigoted and senseless superstition, than any which ...
— Miscellanies, Volume 2 (from Works, Volume 12) • Henry Fielding

... yet troubled themselves about such things; it strove little to impress people either by pomp or ingenuity: not unseldom it fell into commonplace, rarely it rose into majesty; yet was it never oppressive, never a slave's nightmare nor an insolent boast: and at its best it had an inventiveness, an individuality that grander styles have never overpassed: its best too, and that was in its very heart, was given as freely to the yeoman's house, and the humble village church, as to ...
— Hopes and Fears for Art • William Morris

... the veins swelled on his neck, but he kept silent. He looked the cowboy in the eye and was met by a gaze as steady as his own; an aggressive and insolent gaze that had for its backing sheer physical courage and nothing more. It became a battle of mental endurance and ...
— Sundown Slim • Henry Hubert Knibbs

... patroness of artists, philosophers, and poets; but she liked those best who were distinguished for their infidel or licentious speculations. She was the friend of those economists and philosophers who sapped the foundations of the social system. An imperious and insolent hauteur and reckless prodigality were her most marked peculiarities,—just such as were to be expected in an unprincipled woman raised suddenly to high position. In spite of her power, she did not escape the malignant ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VIII • John Lord

... whose Burgundians carried the place, to proclaim quarter. For these fellows of Hainaulters, (who, to do them justice, had fought like dragons,) having lost their head, were powerless; and of what use hacking to pieces an exhausted carcass?—But our troops were too much exasperated by the insolent resistance and defiance they had experienced, to hear of mercy; and soon the conduits ran blood, and shrieks and groans rent the air more cruelly than the previous roar of the artillery. In accordance, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLV. July, 1844. Vol. LVI. • Various

... Golden Dog!" exclaimed Bigot, passionately. "Why do you utter his name, Varin, to sour our wine? I hope one day to pull down the Dog, as well as the whole kennel of the insolent Bourgeois." Then, as was his wont, concealing his feelings under a mocking gibe, "Varin," said he, "they say that it is your marrow bone the Golden Dog ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby

... by the giant forefinger. There was little consolation in the thought that a mile lay between him and shelter, but it was a relief to know that he would have the wind at his back. Darkness was settling over the land. The lofty hills seemed to be closing in as if to smother the breath out of this insolent adventurer who walked alone among them. He was an outsider. He did not belong there. He came from the lowlands and he ...
— Green Fancy • George Barr McCutcheon

... I should be ashamed to make use of the word, it sounds so much like a certain other word," and then I made a face as if I were unwell. "Perhaps it's Scotch also for that?" "What do ye mean by speaking in that guise to a gentleman?" said he, "you insolent vagabond, without a name or a country." "There you are mistaken," said I, "my country is Egypt, but we 'Gyptians, like you Scotch, are rather fond of travelling, and as for name—my name is Jasper Petulengro, perhaps you have a better; what is it?" "Sandy Macraw." At that, brother, the gentlemen ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow

... inflict: that thou, O Azure-eyed, mayest know when thou art fighting with thy sire. But with Juno he is neither so indignant nor so angry; for she is always accustomed to counteract him in whatever he devises. But thou, most insolent and audacious hound! if thou in reality shalt dare to raise thy ...
— The Iliad of Homer (1873) • Homer

... in a tone that frightened even insolent Lulu. "I overheard you speaking in an extremely impertinent manner to some one. Who ...
— Grandmother Elsie • Martha Finley

... in feature resembled. At his side, with gold cymbals in her hands, went a figure in floating robes of daffodil gauze, a dancer from one of the frescoes of Pompeii, wearing a mask—four inches of black velvet—only for the form. Her bare shoulders and arms, of an insolent beauty, forbade any mistake as to her identity. Gerald knew, like the rest, that ...
— Aurora the Magnificent • Gertrude Hall

... thought Lionel would have been glad," said Bubbles, and there came into her voice the touch of slight, almost insolent, contempt with which she generally ...
— From Out the Vasty Deep • Mrs. Belloc Lowndes

... to terms as insolent as these, and the rebels even added a stipulation, that if he should fail in fulfilling either of these articles, they might compel him to comply, by force or any other means. Thus was he hampered in the very position where, by the king's orders, and indeed, one would ...
— The Life of Christopher Columbus from his own Letters and Journals • Edward Everett Hale

... eyes narrowed, and hatred of this insolent countryman blazed there. The countryman glared back with just ...
— The Skipper and the Skipped - Being the Shore Log of Cap'n Aaron Sproul • Holman Day

... done a fault, be always pert and insolent, and behave yourself as if you were the injured person; this will immediately put your master ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange

... give to everyone, high or low, who follows Jeremiah's example, who boldly and faithfully warns the sinner of his way, who rebukes the wickedness which he sees around him: only he must do it in the spirit of Jeremiah. He must not be insolent to the insolent, or proud to the proud. He must not be puffed up, and fancy that because he sees the evil of sin, and the certain ruin which is the fruit of it, that he is therefore to keep apart from his fellow- countrymen, and despise them in Pharisaic pride. No. ...
— Sermons on National Subjects • Charles Kingsley

... Ay! and it will yet be maintained. The time will come, when repudiation will be repudiated by Mississippi—when her wretched secession leaders, the true authors of her disgrace and ruin, will be discarded—when her insolent slaveholding oligarchy will be overthrown, when the people will break the chains of their imperious masters, and labor, without regard to color, will be emancipated. Secession, repudiation, and slavery are the same in principle and had the same ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 2, August, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... Fear on Achilleus fell, and he turn'd to her, instantly knowing Pallas Athena, for awful the eyes of the goddess apparent— And he address'd her, and these were the air-wing'd words that he utter'd. "Why hast thou come, O child of the AEgis-bearing Kronion? Is it to see me contemn'd by the insolent pride of Atreides? This do I promise beside, and thine eyes shall behold it accomplish'd, Here where he sits Agamemnon shall pay for his scorn with his life-blood." This was the answer to him of the blue-eyed Pallas Athena:— "Willing ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 367, May 1846 • Various

... the man to surrender at once the whole awning. At other times the star-sapphire which Burton carried on his person proved a valuable auxiliary—and convinced where words failed. But the mercenaries, mistaking Burton's forbearance for weakness, became daily bolder and more insolent, and they now only awaited a convenient opportunity to kill him. One day as he was marching along, gun over shoulder and dagger in hand, he became conscious that two of his men were unpleasantly ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright

... I went somewhat early to the gap; and lo! who should be standing in the gap, talking to the Lady Mirdath; but a very clever-drest man, that had a look of the Court about him; and he, when I approached, made no way for me through the gap; but stood firm, and eyed me very insolent; so that I put out my hand, and ...
— The Night Land • William Hope Hodgson

... arrived in Amalfi will run like wild-fire through the whole place, and your life in consequence will become an absolute burden for the remainder of your sojourn in this spot. Refuse, and the wretches who have hitherto been wheedling and cringing at your heels, will at once grow insolent and threatening, especially in the case of unprotected ladies. It is in fact a choice of two evils, and the only remedy that we ourselves can suggest is for the persecuted traveller to select a good stout larrikin and pay him freely to keep at arm's ...
— The Naples Riviera • Herbert M. Vaughan

... come out of the house determined to seek out Marguerite. She found the Swiss girl beside the powder magazine, for Marguerite had brought out a stool, and seemed trying to cure her sick spirit in the sun. The dwarf stood still and looked at her with insolent eyes. Soldiers' wives hid themselves within their doors, cautiously watching, or thrusting out their heads to shake at one another or to squall at any child venturing too near the encounter. They did not like the strange girl, and besides, she was in their way. But they liked ...
— The Lady of Fort St. John • Mary Hartwell Catherwood

... affairs, and more especially as shown in removing "Americans" (by designation) and conservatives in principle, from office, and placing foreigners and ultraists in their places: as shown in a truckling subserviency to the stronger, and an insolent and cowardly bravado toward the weaker powers: as shown in reoepening sectional agitation, by the repeal of the Missouri Compromise: as shown in granting to unnaturalized foreigners the right of suffrage in Kansas and ...
— Americanism Contrasted with Foreignism, Romanism, and Bogus Democracy in the Light of Reason, History, and Scripture; • William Gannaway Brownlow

... of Mascarille reading his extempore verses is something like Trissotin in Les Femmes savantes (see vol. III.) reading his sonnet for the Princess Uranie. But Mascarille comments on the beauties of his verses with the insolent vanity of a man who does not pretend to have even one atom of modesty; Trissotin, a professional wit, listens in silence, but with secret pride, to the ridiculous exclamations of the admirers of ...
— The Pretentious Young Ladies • Moliere

... in his encounters with prisoners singly, a man of this type may show more of his real nature, especially if the prisoner be one of the inoffensive sort. He will be bland, insolent, indifferent or cruel, as suits his mood of the moment. "For God's sake, won't you let me write her just one letter?" implored a prisoner who had just got news of the fatal illness of his wife. Picture the situation—two human beings ...
— The Subterranean Brotherhood • Julian Hawthorne

... soon, shook her dry, withered fist at the porter, and cried, "Ha! thou insolent churl, I will pray thee ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V2 • William Mienhold

... to say I am over fifty," replied my father, as I stood chafing at the man's insolent, ...
— Charge! - A Story of Briton and Boer • George Manville Fenn

... ship does give when coming out of overdrive, at a third place a hundred seventy-five thousand miles from the planet. At a fourth place barely eighty thousand miles short of collision with the Huk world. At a fifth place. A sixth. Each time it appeared, it seemed to remain in plain, challenging, insolent view, without ceasing to exist at the spots where it had appeared previously. In much less than a minute, the seeming of a sizable squadron of small human ships had popped out of emptiness and lay off ...
— A Matter of Importance • William Fitzgerald Jenkins

... Hammerfield's judgment of Ernest, which was to the effect that he was "an insolent young puppy, made bumptious by a little and very inadequate learning." Also, Dr. Hammerfield declined ...
— The Iron Heel • Jack London

... still clasped over her father's eyes, and McNally took the opportunity this afforded him to accompany his words with a meaning look that was insolent in its intentness. In spite of herself Katherine felt the blood mounting into her cheeks and forehead, and McNally, seeing the blush, made no effort to conceal his smile. Katherine did not flinch from his gaze, but returned ...
— The Short Line War • Merwin-Webster

... jack and white nose ain't the smallest part of a circumstance to it. On such an occasion as this, minister, when a body is leavin' the greatest nation atween the poles, to go among benighted, ignorant, insolent foreigners, you wouldn't object to a night-cap, now ...
— The Attache - or, Sam Slick in England, Complete • Thomas Chandler Haliburton

... find A virgin of superior mind, With wit and virtue to discover, And pay the merit of her lover? This character shall Ca'endish claim, Born to retrieve her sex's fame. The chief among the glittering crowd, Of titles, birth, and fortune proud, (As fools are insolent and vain) Madly aspired to wear her chain; But Pallas, guardian of the maid, Descending to her charge's aid, Held out Medusa's snaky locks, Which stupified them all to stocks. The nymph with indignation ...
— The Poems of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Volume I (of 2) • Jonathan Swift

... Maiesties Chappell for Comedy and Enterlude. For Eglogue and pastorall Poesie, Sir Philip Sydney and Maister Challenner, and that other Gentleman who wrate the late shepheardes Callender. For dittie and amourous Ode I finde Sir Walter Rawleyghs vayne most loftie, insolent, and passionate. Maister Edward Dyar, for Elegie most sweete, solempne and of high conceit. Gascon for a good meeter and for a plentifull vayne. Phaer and Golding for a learned and well corrected verse, specially in translation ...
— The Arte of English Poesie • George Puttenham

... spared some trips to market, for the sale of vegetables to pay, as would then be necessary, for the work done by others. Besides, the tailor who was most convenient to them, and who, it was admitted, was a very good one, was insolent and capricious; would sometimes extort extravagant prices, or turn them into ridicule; and occasionally went so far as to set his water-dogs upon them, of which he kept a great number. He declared, that for his part he would incur a little more expense, rather than he would be so imposed upon, ...
— A Voyage to the Moon • George Tucker

... or less correct, kept them from visiting at La Baudraye. Dinah, attainted and convicted of pedantry, because she spoke grammatically, was nicknamed the Sappho of Saint-Satur. At last everybody made insolent game of the great qualities of the woman who had thus roused the enmity of the ladies of Sancerre. And they ended by denying a superiority—after all, merely comparative!—which emphasized their ignorance, and did not forgive it. Where the ...
— The Muse of the Department • Honore de Balzac

... might probably be the plundering and burning of the city, he immediately summoned the most influential Mohammedan nobles and others to meet him in council. They arrived fully armed, many of them assuming a bold and insolent air, and evidently ready to dispute his authority. As soon as they were seated, he addressed them in gracious tones; reminding them that he had not sought the position he now held, and that his sole aim since assuming the reins of government had been to ...
— The Young Rajah • W.H.G. Kingston

... the temper of the man, nor the sudden gusts of passion to which, at a word that chanced to touch him, he was subject. Such a storm caught him now, and he bounded up from where he sat, cursing me for an insolent fellow who dared to put him under terms—for a fool who flattered himself that all women loved him—and for many other things which it is not well to repeat. So that at last ...
— The Indiscretion of the Duchess • Anthony Hope

... "You insolent rascal," said the Master, raising his cane, and making a grasp at the Captain's bridle, "if you do not depart without uttering another syllable, I will batoon ...
— Bride of Lammermoor • Sir Walter Scott

... crowd than the rooters from the Limerock city could not be found. They guyed every Camdenite they knew. They declared that Camden was a snap for Rockland, and always would be a snap. They were insolent ...
— Frank Merriwell's Cruise • Burt L. Standish

... interrupted Henry, while a shade of displeasure crossed his countenance at what he deemed the insolent familiarity with ...
— Gascoyne, The Sandal Wood Trader - A Tale of the Pacific • R. M. Ballantyne

... the car, struck him one open-handed slap that was like an earnest cluff from a sizable bear, lifted again and banged the man's face down on the controls on his wheels, then pushed him back into his seat, limp and disheveled, all the insolent defiance knocked ...
— Burned Bridges • Bertrand W. Sinclair

... directly through Winchester, from the Logan residence, where Edwards was quartered, to the Valley pike, I noticed that there were many women at the windows and doors of the houses, who kept shaking their skirts at us and who were otherwise markedly insolent in their demeanor, but supposing this conduct to be instigated by their well-known and perhaps natural prejudices, I ascribed to it no unusual significance. On reaching the edge of the town I halted a moment, and there heard quite distinctly the sound of artillery firing ...
— The Memoirs of General P. H. Sheridan, Complete • General Philip Henry Sheridan

... "Insolent creature," was the sharp retort, which might have been followed by other comments had not Peggy at that moment advanced to meet her aunt. When the negro saw that the new arrival was a friend of the little lady of Severndale ...
— Peggy Stewart: Navy Girl at Home • Gabrielle E. Jackson

... excessive interests paid in former reigns upon anticipations of the revenue; landed men might be supplied with moneys upon securities on easier terms, which would prevent the loss of multitudes of estates, now ruined and devoured by insolent and merciless mortgagees, and the like. But now we unhappily see a Royal Bank established by Act of Parliament, and another with a large fund upon the Orphans' stock; and yet these advantages, or others, which we expected, not answered, though the pretensions in both ...
— An Essay Upon Projects • Daniel Defoe

... leer, half cunning half insolent, "if I have hid my rifle near the Sandusky swamp, the ...
— The Canadian Brothers - or The Prophecy Fulfilled • John Richardson

... troops would "inflict an ever-memorable vengeance by delivering over the city of Paris to military execution and complete destruction, and the rebels guilty of such outrages to the punishment that they merit." This foolish and insolent manifesto sealed the fate of the French monarchy. It was the clearest proof that French royalty and foreign armies were in formal alliance not only to prevent the further development of the Revolution ...
— A Political and Social History of Modern Europe V.1. • Carlton J. H. Hayes

... engage him first to read it through, and afterwards to recommend Mr. Johnson and his writings to the publick. After this they were profess'd friends; tho' I don't know whether the other ever made him an equal return of gentleness and sincerity. Ben was naturally proud and insolent, and in the days of his reputation did so far take upon him the supremacy in wit, that he could not but look with an evil eye upon any one that seem'd to stand in competition with him. And if at times he has affected to commend him, it has always been ...
— Eighteenth Century Essays on Shakespeare • D. Nichol Smith

... they were playing. The loss of dividends to them was poorly compensated by reflections upon the development of the country, and the advantage to trade of great consolidations, which inured to the benefit of half a dozen insolent men. ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner

... hot cheeks, and a knitted brow. As the letter went on, and as the woman's sense of wrong grew hot from her own telling of her own story, her words became stronger and still stronger, till at last they were almost insolent in their strength. Were it not that they came from one who did think herself to have been wronged, then certainly they would be insolent. A sense of injury, a burning conviction of wrong sustained, will justify language which otherwise would be unbearable. ...
— The Duke's Children • Anthony Trollope

... solitude to choose as her comrade the least repulsive among a host of inferiors. Alas! How clearly he remembered and could again foresee the sceptical, cold smile with which his words were always received, though he was sure he had crammed them with burning passion! What a laugh she had given,—as insolent and as cutting as a lash,—the day he had dared ...
— The Torrent - Entre Naranjos • Vicente Blasco Ibanez

... at the frontier station on the Polish-Russian line at about three o'clock in the morning, when the grim and insolent officials discovered that our passports had only the police vise from Breslau! I was asked why I had not in my native country secured the vise of a Russian minister; to which I replied that in America the very existence of such a country as Russia was utterly unknown, ...
— Memoirs • Charles Godfrey Leland

... ebullitions were so frequent as to have involved him in two very disagreeable affairs at Bordeaux. Four years before, the Duc d'Epernon, then governor of Guyenne, followed by all his train and by his troops, meeting him among his clergy in a procession, had called him an insolent fellow, and given him two smart blows with his cane; whereupon the Archbishop had excommunicated him. And again, recently, despite this lesson, he had quarrelled with the Marechal de Vitry, from whom he had received "twenty blows with a cane or stick, which you please," wrote the Cardinal Duke ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet

... was the result of these calamities, but what struck terror to the hearts of the entire community, more than any other scourge of God, was the insolent demand made by some British officers, for the land on which Bon-Secours, or rather its ruins, stood. They then thought seriously of repairing their fault, and a general assembly of the citizens of Montreal was called in June, 1771, at which it was ...
— The Life of Venerable Sister Margaret Bourgeois • Anon.

... Wood, acting upon Terry's caution, was most unwilling to do; but, finding he had no alternative, he reluctantly made known his errand and the bolts were undrawn. Once in, the constable's manner appeared totally changed. He was now as civil as he had just been insolent. Apologizing for their detention, he answered the questions put to him respecting the boys, by positively denying that any such prisoners had been entrusted to his charge, but offered to conduct him to every cell in the building to prove the truth of his assertion. ...
— Jack Sheppard - A Romance • William Harrison Ainsworth

... too hot to hold him in those tortuous intrigues of the Army of the Faith and Bourbon troops and Italian legions. From what I could understand, he must have played fast and loose in an insolent manner. And there was some woman offended. There was a gayness and gallantry in that part of it. He had known the very spirit of romance, and now he was sailing gallantly out to take up his inheritance from an ...
— Romance • Joseph Conrad and F.M. Hueffer

... men; the other time they marched out four or five miles, had a fight with our troops, and again killed many. These things have angered the king and the people. Of course it is nothing, for our troops are only beginning to assemble; but it is considered insolent in the extreme, and the king's face is darkened against your countrymen. Four of the prisoners have been taken out this morning and publicly executed and, if the news of another defeat comes, I fear that it will be very ...
— On the Irrawaddy - A Story of the First Burmese War • G. A. Henty

... tho' every old Man has been [Young [1]], and every young one hopes to be old, there seems to be a most unnatural Misunderstanding between those two Stages of Life. The unhappy Want of Commerce arises from the insolent Arrogance or Exultation in Youth, and the irrational Despondence or Self-pity in Age. A young Man whose Passion and Ambition is to be good and wise, and an old one who has no Inclination to be lewd or debauched, ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele

... re-establish myself,' said Siegmund as he closed behind him the dining-room door and went upstairs in the dark. 'I am a family criminal. Beatrice might come round, but the children's insolent judgement is too much. And I am like a dog that creeps round the house from which it escaped with joy. I have nowhere else to go. Why did I come back? But I am sleepy. I ...
— The Trespasser • D.H. Lawrence

... remember that I have six hundred thousand armed Frenchmen, qui marcheront avec moi, pour moi, et comme moi." And this is the legacy of the revolution, the advancement of freedom! A hundred volumes of imperial special pleading will not avail against such a speech as this—one so insolent, and at the same time so humiliating, which gives unwittingly the whole of the Emperor's progress, strength, and weakness. The six hundred thousand armed Frenchmen were used up, and the whole fabric falls; the ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray

... wouldn't so much as have been born without Germany," said the lady whose hair came off, with difficulty controlling a desire to shake this insolent and perverted Junker who could repeat the infamous English lie as to who began the war. "You owe your very existence to Germany. You should be giving thanks to her on your knees for her gift to you of life, instead of jeering at this representative—" ...
— Christopher and Columbus • Countess Elizabeth Von Arnim

... a writer needs who would show the proud how great is the virtue of humility. For the law of our King and Founder is this: "God is against the proud but gives grace to the humble"; but the swollen and insolent soul loves herein to usurp the divine Majesty, and itself "to spare the subject and subdue the proud." Wherefore I may not pass over in silence that earthly city also, enslaved by its lust ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books, Volume XIII. - Religion and Philosophy • Various

... than to escape from intreaties that were become in the highest degree disagreeable to her. She was addressed no longer upon a topic, of which she wished never to hear. Her eye was no longer wounded with the sight of her insolent admirer. This had an immediate and a favourable effect upon her. The conversation of Miss Fletcher was lively and unflagging, and the simplicity of her remarks proved an inexhaustible source of entertainment ...
— Damon and Delia - A Tale • William Godwin

... silent creature," remarked Amelys. And Clarimond added in loud and insolent tones, "He knows little enough of kissings, ...
— Martin Pippin in the Apple Orchard • Eleanor Farjeon

... these abuses could long escape the observation of a prince endowed with so much spirit and judgment as young Edward, who, being now in his eighteenth year, and feeling himself capable of governing, repined at being held in fetters by this insolent minister. But so much was he surrounded by the emissaries of Mortimer, that it behoved him to conduct the project for subverting him with the same secrecy and precaution as if he had been forming a conspiracy against his sovereign. ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part B. - From Henry III. to Richard III. • David Hume

... lankness, showed the beginnings of well-proportioned vigour. But the shape of his head, which was covered with hair of the lightest hue, did not encourage hope of mental or moral qualities. It was not quite fair to judge his face as seen at present; the vacant grin of half timid, half insolent, resentment made him considerably more simian of visage than was the case under ordinary circumstances. But the features were unpleasant to look upon; it was Richard's face, distorted and enfeebled with ...
— Demos • George Gissing

... and many of those present appeared intimidated, as if asking in what they were to blame. Anna Pavlovna whispered the next words in advance, like an old woman muttering the prayer at Communion: "Let the bold and insolent ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy

... counterblasts, but though their vision of the "general situation" thus coincided, their conclusions were diametrically different. For Nietzsche the hope of humanity is found in the strong; for Dostoievsky it is found in the weak. Their only ground of agreement is that they both refute the insolent claims of mediocrity ...
— Visions and Revisions - A Book of Literary Devotions • John Cowper Powys

... by a discharge of fifty arrows and a few fusees, and, on the part of several braves, there was a plain manifestation of a desire to plunge into the water, in order to punish the temerity of their insolent foe. But a call and a mandate, from Mahtoree, checked the rising, and nearly ungovernable, temper of his band. So far from allowing a single foot to be wet, or a repetition of the fruitless efforts of his people to drive away their foe with missiles, the whole of the party ...
— The Prairie • J. Fenimore Cooper

... required with civility what you have proudly commanded me, I should not have esteemed your valour lessened by your courtesy: For with men of wisdom and power there is no need for insolent vaunts. I have not as yet so sinned against God, that I should humble myself to vain boasting, or think that he should grant you the victory over me and those brave men who fight on my side. In spite of all your ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. II • Robert Kerr

... who could drive a plough very well, and help me to thrash the corn. A novel-writer might, perhaps, have viewed these scenes with some satisfaction, but so did not I; my indignation yet boils at the recollection of the scoundrel factor's insolent threatening letters, which used to ...
— The Letters of Robert Burns • Robert Burns

... ashes I will not disturb, has given you all the commendation which his self- sufficiency could afford to any man—"The best good man, with the worst-natured muse." In that character, methinks, I am reading Jonson's verses to the memory of Shakespeare; an insolent, sparing, and invidious panegyric: where good nature—the most godlike commendation of a man—is only attributed to your person, and denied to your writings; for they are everywhere so full of candour, that, like Horace, you ...
— Discourses on Satire and Epic Poetry • John Dryden

... 1611, February 28. Sir Thos. Roe to Salisbury. Port d'Espaigne, Trinidad.—He has seen more of the coast from the River Amazon to the Orinoco than any other Englishman alive. The Spaniards here are proud and insolent, yet needy and weak, their force is reputation, their safety is opinion. The Spaniards treat the English worse than Moors. The government is lazy and has more skill in planting and selling tobacco than in erecting colonies and marching armies. Extract, C.S.P. ...
— The Buccaneers in the West Indies in the XVII Century • Clarence Henry Haring

... perjurers and traitors. In truth, they are always the first to corrupt, and the first to betray. You may hear these men denouncing government this week, and see them strutting about the Castle, its pampered instruments, and insolent with its patronage, the next. If there be a strike, conspiracy, or cabal of any kind, these "patriots" are at the bottom of it; and wherever ribbonism and other secret societies do not exist, there they are ...
— The Black Prophet: A Tale Of Irish Famine • William Carleton

... disgraceful action Baronius has highly praised. Jortin observes on this great cardinal, and advocate of the Roman see, that he breathes nothing but fire and brimstone; and accounts kings and emperors to be mere catchpolls and constables, bound to execute with implicit faith all the commands of insolent ecclesiastics. Bellarmin was made a cardinal for his efforts and devotion to the papal cause, and maintaining this monstrous paradox,—that if the pope forbid the exercise of virtue, and command that of vice, the Roman church, under pain of a sin, was obliged ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli

... With this insolent speech, Dexter contrived to show his impatience of the parley, and that brutal thirst which invariably prompted him to provoke and seek for extremities. The eye of the Georgian flashed out indignant ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms

... of the story-teller—I think him an insolent, and had I my way, Your Majesty, he should have a plunge in ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 1 • Lew. Wallace

... going to his task, left the conversation to Danglars, who now came towards the owner. He was a man of twenty-five or twenty-six years of age, of unprepossessing countenance, obsequious to his superiors, insolent to his subordinates; and this, in addition to his position as responsible agent on board, which is always obnoxious to the sailors, made him as much disliked by the crew as Edmond Dantes was ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... the word, it sounds so much like a certain other word;' and then I made a face as if I were unwell. 'Perhaps it's Scotch also for that?' 'What do you mean by speaking in that guise to a gentleman?' said he, 'you insolent vagabond without a name or a country.' 'There you are mistaken,' said I, 'my country is Egypt, but we 'Gyptians, like you Scotch, are rather fond of travelling; and as for name—my name is Jasper Petulengro, perhaps you have a better; ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow

... miseries. She was obliged, while hardly able to walk, to carry a heavy burden, over hills, and through rivers, swamps, and marshes; and in the most inclement seasons. These evils were repeated daily; and, to crown them all, she was daily saluted with the most barbarous and insolent accounts of the burning and slaughter, the tortures and agonies, inflicted by them upon her countrymen. It is to be remembered that Mrs. Rowlandson was tenderly and delicately educated, and ill fitted ...
— Woman on the American Frontier • William Worthington Fowler

... morning), An inopportune joke is enough to provoke Him to give you, at once, a month's warning. Then if you refrain, he is at you again, For he likes to get value for money: He'll ask then and there, with an insolent stare, "If you know that you're paid to be funny?" It adds to the tasks Of a merryman's place, When your principal asks, With a scowl on his face, If you know that you're paid ...
— Songs of a Savoyard • W. S. Gilbert

... the subject of eating, I would say that for all their notorious freedoms Americans have a better sense of order than we. Their policemen may carry their batons drawn, and even swing them with a certain insolent defiance or even provocation, but New York goes on its way with more precision and less disturbance than London, and every one is smarter, more alert. The suggestion of a living wage for all is constant. It is indeed on this sense of orderliness that the ...
— Roving East and Roving West • E.V. Lucas

... entreated, almost forced him to take it at first at a very low rate of interest. For a few weeks he had let it lie idle; then he had appropriated it, and step by step his creditor had increased his demands up to a bill of exchange and a usurious rate of interest. And now the vagabond grew insolent. Was he like the rat who foresees the sinking of the ship, and tries to escape from it? The baron laughed so as to make Lenore shudder; why, he was not the man to fall resistless into the hands of his adversary; the ...
— Debit and Credit - Translated from the German of Gustav Freytag • Gustav Freytag

... choose," she said, raising her voice with abrupt violence. "I know very well your position in this house. You are absolutely dependent, and—unless you marry—you will remain so, being quite unqualified to earn your own living. Therefore the whip-hand is mine, and if I find you insolent or intractable I shall use it without mercy. How dare you set yourself against me in this way?" She stamped with sudden fury upon the ground. "No, not a word! Leave the room instantly—I will have no more of it! Do you hear me, Sylvia? ...
— The Top of the World • Ethel M. Dell

... his descent from a monkey?" ("Reminiscences of a Grandmother," "Macmillan's Magazine," October 1898. Professor Farrar thinks this version of what the Bishop said is slightly inaccurate. His impression is that the words actually used seemed at the moment flippant and unscientific rather than insolent, vulgar, or personal. The Bishop, he writes, "had been talking of the perpetuity of species of Birds; and then, denying a fortiori the derivation of the species Man from Ape, he rhetorically invoked the aid of FEELING, and said, 'If any one were to be willing ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 1 • Leonard Huxley

... revealed the split that was now full-grown in the party. For the United States to lie down before that insolent declaration of the German government would be to imperil everything which a lover of liberty held dear. It would mean that Britain would be starved out of the war, and British sea-power shattered—that British ...
— Jimmie Higgins • Upton Sinclair

... you as a self-conceited, bullying, contemptuous person, with brains in the inverse proportion to his body, which was large and apparently strong. His manner, when addressing the Senators, had indeed much of an overbearing and insolent spirit; but the impression, in regard to his character, after hearing him speak, was much better than before. There was an indication of strength behind the bullying, blustering air which he put on, which raised one's respect for his attainments. One of the most rabid and uncompromising ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. II. July, 1862. No. 1. • Various

... circumstances the Italian cavalier would certainly have called the unknown men to account for their insolent curiosity; but fear deprived him of ...
— The Amulet • Hendrik Conscience

... being attended with some unusual circumstances, caused considerable talk. The principals were a French gentleman and a lieutenant in the navy of the United States. A dispute occurred in a billiard room; the Frenchman used some insolent and irritating language, and, instead of being soundly drubbed on the spot, was challenged by the naval officer. The challenged party selected the small sword as the medium of satisfaction, a weapon in the use of which he was well skilled. The American officer was remonstrated ...
— Jack in the Forecastle • John Sherburne Sleeper

... that Sir Francis Varney, after the fearful race he had had, got home again across the fields, free from all danger, and back to his own house, from whence he sent so cool and insolent a message, ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest

... cheek. Such accidents increased her early-formed asperity of thought; chilled the gushing flood of her young affections; and sharpened, with a relentless edge, her bitter and caustic hatred to a society she deemed at once insolent and worthless. To a taste intuitively fine and noble the essential vulgarities—the fierceness to-day, the cringing to-morrow; the veneration for power; the indifference to virtue, which characterised ...
— Godolphin, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... "Here, my insolent sir, you have come all the way to our castle and have omitted to send greeting to our captain Ilia Muromec, or to inform ...
— Myths and Legends of All Nations • Various

... wished to Heaven I had stayed at home. I got insolent glances from the youths, and the cold shoulder from the ladies. Elspeth smiled when she saw me, but turned the next second to gossip with her little court. She was a devout lover of horses, and had eyes for nothing but the racing. Her cheeks were flushed, ...
— Salute to Adventurers • John Buchan

... of the Billings Expedition, some excuse is given for the conduct of Billings on the ground that Ledyard had been insolent to the Russians. ...
— Vikings of the Pacific - The Adventures of the Explorers who Came from the West, Eastward • Agnes C. Laut

... for any occupation which saved him the necessity of replying; and one by one the solemn, unmoved faces came under Nehal Singh's eager gaze, bowed, and passed on. Each resented in turn the intense scrutiny of their host, and none guessed its cause. For them it was the insolent stare of a colored man who had ventured to place himself on an equality with themselves. They could not have known that he was seeking familiar features, nor that, as one after another passed on, a cold chill of disappointment was settling on a heart warm with preconceived admiration and respect. ...
— The Native Born - or, The Rajah's People • I. A. R. Wylie

... power seemed to them a 'Colossus stuffed with clouts.' They were Protestants all of them, but their theology was rather practical than speculative. If Italians and Spaniards chose to believe in the Mass, it was not any affair of theirs. Their quarrel was with the insolent pretence of Catholics to force their creed on others with sword and cannon. The spirit which was working in them was the genius of freedom. On their own element they felt that they could be the ...
— English Seamen in the Sixteenth Century - Lectures Delivered at Oxford Easter Terms 1893-4 • James Anthony Froude

... will receive a tchetvertak apiece, and the rest will go to the Government." Upon that the disillusioned suitor would fly out upon the new order of things brought about by the inquiry into illicit fees, and curse both the tchinovniks and their uppish, insolent behaviour. "Once upon a time," would the suitor lament, "one DID know what to do. Once one had tipped the Director a bank-note, one's affair was, so to speak, in the hat. But now one has to pay a rouble per copyist after waiting a week because otherwise it was ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol

... although it has never failed to cast a popular odium on their names, exciting even the envy of their equals—in the erection of palaces for themselves, which outvied those of their sovereign; and which, to the eyes of the populace, appeared as a perpetual and insolent exhibition of what they deemed the ill-earned wages of peculation, oppression, and court-favour. We discover the seduction of this passion for ostentation, this haughty sense of their power, and this self-idolatry, even among the most prudent and the ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli



Words linked to "Insolent" :   insolence, unashamed, disrespectful



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