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Rabble   Listen
noun
Rabble  n.  
1.
A tumultuous crowd of vulgar, noisy people; a mob; a confused, disorderly throng. "I saw, I say, come out of London, even unto the presence of the prince, a great rabble of mean and light persons." "Jupiter, Mercury, Bacchus, Venus, Mars, and the whole rabble of licentious deities."
2.
A confused, incoherent discourse; a medley of voices; a chatter.
The rabble, the lowest class of people, without reference to an assembly; the dregs of the people. "The rabble call him 'lord.'"






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Rabble" Quotes from Famous Books



... near approach caused more excitement in the "Quaker City" than had been witnessed there since the preceding Presidential election. The party-leaders began to lay their plans early, and the wire-pullers on both sides were unusually busy in their vocation. At the head of the rabble upon which one of the parties depended for many votes, was a drunken and profane fellow, whom we will call Tom Simmons. Tom was great at electioneering and stump-spouting in bar-rooms and rum-caucuses, and his party always looked to him, at each ...
— The Humbugs of the World • P. T. Barnum

... many dangers that day, the princess Otomie and I, but one more awaited us before ever we found shelter for awhile. After we had reached the foot of the pyramid and turned to mingle with the terrified rabble that surged and flowed through the courtyard of the temple, bearing away the dead and wounded as the sea at flood reclaims its waste and wreckage, a noise like thunder caught my ear. I looked up, for the sound came from above, and saw a huge mass bounding down the steep side of the ...
— Montezuma's Daughter • H. Rider Haggard

... words he himself uses of a book by one of his opponents, as calculated "to gain a short, contemptible, and soon-fading reward, not to stir the constancy and solid firmness of any wise man ... but to catch the worthless approbation of an inconstant, irrational, and image-doting rabble." ...
— Milton • Mark Pattison

... instant, at the crack of his rifle, there was no movement ahead; then something rolled from the sledge and lay doubled up in the snow. A hundred yards beyond it, the huskies stopped in a rabble and turned to look at ...
— The Honor of the Big Snows • James Oliver Curwood

... and winter. For some months messages came to her at about nine-day intervals, all of the same tenure. Towards mid-winter, on a mild fair day, she risked a third expostulation with her hirelings. On an apologetic and humiliated rabble she poured her scorn. ...
— The Unwilling Vestal • Edward Lucas White

... poor whites, in whom hatred of the dominant whites and vengeful malice against the negro burned like slow fires. When almost everywhere the countryside was stripped of its fighting men, these wretches emerged from their swamps and forests, like the Paris rabble emerging from its dens at the opening of the Revolution. But unlike the Frenchmen, they were too sodden to be capable of ideas. Like predatory wild beasts they revenged themselves upon the society that had cast them off, and with utter ...
— The Day of the Confederacy - A Chronicle of the Embattled South, Volume 30 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Nathaniel W. Stephenson

... day the tide was full about noon, and with the tide came in the English ships. Knowing the anchorage, they came right into the river's mouth, in a long, ominously silent line. The mixed rabble of Le Loutre crowded low behind their breastworks; and hundreds of eager eyes on Beausejour strained their sight to catch the first flash of ...
— The Raid From Beausejour; And How The Carter Boys Lifted The Mortgage • Charles G. D. Roberts

... Alexander be compared with his? They were effected over a rabble of effeminate, undisciplined barbarians; else his progress would hardly have been so rapid: witness his father Philip, who was much longer occupied in subduing the comparatively insignificant territory of the warlike and civilized Greeks, ...
— Historic Doubts Relative To Napoleon Buonaparte • Richard Whately

... All the sources of supply, save one, were sealed. This one source of supply was the cavern in which we stood. These were members of the ruling class, and outside was the rabble, starved and unhappy, living on the faint seepage of the vital fumes, without which they became almost bodiless, and the helpless slaves ...
— Astounding Stories, April, 1931 • Various

... good lady," exclaimed Bon, "that I can altogether assimilate with your's my ideas of pleasure; if it consists in being pressed nearly to death by a promiscuous rabble, in attempts on your pocket, shoes trod off your feet by the formidable iron-cased soles of a drayman's ponderous sandals, to say nothing of the pleasing effect thus produced upon your toes, and ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan

... rendezvous in front of the caffè, we found some twenty horsemen, carrying guns,—rough and ready fellows, looking as if a dash into the forest, whether against hogs or gendarmes, would equally suit them. We were followed by a rabble on foot, attended by dogs of a variety of species, some of them strong and fierce. After winding through the narrow lanes among the vineyards, our cavalcade was joined by one of the gentlemen on whom we had called with a letter of introduction, ...
— Rambles in the Islands of Corsica and Sardinia - with Notices of their History, Antiquities, and Present Condition. • Thomas Forester

... the stately Oxford of to-day, but a rabble of roystering, revelling youths, English, Welsh, and Scotch, who fiercely fought ...
— The Evolution of an Empire • Mary Parmele

... was completed a few trusses of straw were thrown in and distributed thinly over the ground. Then ensued a wild stampede to secure a place beneath the canvas, a rabble of several hundreds fighting frantically among themselves to seek a couch in the absurdly inadequate temporary canvas dwelling. The men stowed themselves in so tightly in close serried rows that ...
— Sixteen Months in Four German Prisons - Wesel, Sennelager, Klingelputz, Ruhleben • Henry Charles Mahoney

... its claim on Mexico. This left but two factions in the Congress, and their quarrel had a sudden termination, for the moment, in the elevation of Iturbide to the imperial throne, May 18th, 1822. This was the work of a handful of the lowest rabble of the capital, the select few of a vagabondage compared with whom the inhabitants of the Five Points may be counted grave constitutional politicians. The legislature went through the farce of approval, and the people acquiesced,—as they would have ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 5, No. 28, February, 1860 • Various

... the nations of the World. He dreamed (alas, 'twas but a dream!) Of Liberty: but as he strove To clutch that idol, treachery Sundered him from the thing he loved. Shame on the coward, caitiff hands That smote their Lord or with a kiss Betrayed him to the rabble-rout Of fawning priests—no friends of his. May everlasting shame consume The memory of those who tried To befoul and smear the exalted name Of one who spurned them in his pride. He fell as fall the mighty ones, Nobly undaunted to the last, And death has now united him With Erin's heroes ...
— Dubliners • James Joyce

... muttered the Commander, leaning upon a window-bar, as though bending over the velvet-covered hand-rest of a box at a theatre: "To think that there isn't a battery or two to make a clean sweep of all that rabble!" ...
— The Fortune of the Rougons • Emile Zola

... of the Sabines to the ravages of the Caesars. If their people indeed had been, like ourselves, enlightened, peaceable, and really free, the answer would be obvious. 'Restore independence to all your foreign conquests, relieve Italy from the government of the rabble of Rome, consult it as a nation entitled to self-government, and do its will.' But steeped in corruption, vice, and venality, as the whole nation was, (and nobody had done more than Caesar to corrupt it,) what could even Cicero, Cato, ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson

... sis, but ye muss git aout o' the way," said a burly fellow to Eliza, who, with her mother, had thrown herself between the mob and Justice Dwight, his undaunted aspect appearing to excite the special animosity of the rabble. The other three justices were huddled in ...
— The Duke of Stockbridge • Edward Bellamy

... which, being in the power of the Calvinists, had assumed a most determined attitude of resistance. He vainly summoned the place to submission, and to admit a royalist garrison; and on receiving an obstinate refusal, he commenced the siege in form. An undisciplined rabble of between three thousand and four thousand Gueux, under the direction of John de Soreas, gathered together in the neighborhood of Lille and Tournay, with a show of attacking these places. But the governor of the former town dispersed one party of them; and Noircarmes surprised and almost destroyed ...
— Holland - The History of the Netherlands • Thomas Colley Grattan

... directly and indirectly by American sympathizers; that same party sympathized and even leagued with Napoleon against England while she was defending the liberties of Europe and of mankind; it was the same party that in subsequent years aided the rebel Mackenzie and the rabble Fenians to invade Canada, allowing the United States to be the base of their organizations, and opening to them the American arsenals of arms and ammunition; it was the same party that, in conspiracy with the Tyrant of France and the enemy of human freedom, declared war against Great Britain in ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 2 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Edgerton Ryerson

... a certain number of officers to serve under him. The emperor was overjoyed—much more so than Gordon, who was promptly created a mandarin. He foresaw many difficulties in store before he could get his 'rabble' of four thousand men into order, and at the outset he had much trouble with Burgevine, Ward's successor in command of the Ever-Victorious Army, but a very different man from Ward himself. However, by the help of the famous ...
— The Red Book of Heroes • Leonora Blanche Lang

... war strain, of which he himself had acute experience. "Under such conditions," he wrote, "marksmen may achieve no more than the most erratic shots; the smartest corps may quickly degenerate into a rabble; the easiest tasks will often appear impossible. An army can weather trials such as those just depicted only if it be collectively considered in that healthy state of mind which the term moral implies." ...
— Tommy Atkins at War - As Told in His Own Letters • James Alexander Kilpatrick

... this new settlement grew many of the charges which were preferred against Smith. According to the "General Historie" the company of Ratcliffe and Archer was a disorderly rabble, constantly tormenting the Indians, stealing their corn, robbing their gardens, beating them, and breaking into their houses and taking them prisoners. The Indians daily complained to the President that these "protectors" he had given them ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner

... After examining this rabble of women and children, the ridiculous flag which led them, and the rude disguises of the men: "It is some popular fete or some carnival comedy," said he; and again returning to the corner of the fire, he placed a large almanac upon the table, and carefully sought in it what saint was ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet

... A rabble of dusky shapes headed by a torch-bearer who had doubtless lighted his fat-stick at the burning temple, pressed forward to force a way through ...
— The King Of Beaver, and Beaver Lights - From "Mackinac And Lake Stories", 1899 • Mary Hartwell Catherwood

... another procession, not wholly unlike the rabble rout of the morning, moved from the dining-room to the great front parlor, where the tree was lighted, and parcels of gray and white and brown lay round on mantel, on piano, on chairs, on tables, and ...
— The Brick Moon, et. al. • Edward Everett Hale

... the news from Varennes. As we shall presently see, it was with shouts of "Long live the King," "Church and State," "Down with the Dissenters," "No Olivers," "Down with the Rump," "No false Rights of Man," that the rabble of Birmingham wrecked and burnt the houses of Dr. Priestley and other prominent Nonconformists of that town. Only by slow degrees did this loyal enthusiasm give place to opinions which in course of time came to be called Radical. It may be well to trace briefly the fluctuations of public ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose

... to build cities, introduce the useful arts, subject everything to the control of law, order, and religion, and thus to found regular and prosperous empires. That he failed in this was the fault of the dissolute rabble which it was his misfortune to command, with whom all law was tyranny ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey

... healthful leaven which had been introduced into the theological circles by the apologetic antagonists of Strauss and his compeers. The wisest statesman could not foresee one day's deeds of that skeptical, revolutionary rabble, which had already lost its self-control. Blood had actually been shed. Barricades had been reared in the streets of the larger cities. The universities were pouring forth their hundreds of students and professors, to take part in the conflict. The revolutionary ...
— History of Rationalism Embracing a Survey of the Present State of Protestant Theology • John F. Hurst

... to see the plain thus suddenly fill'd with rabble, all running from the south, and the silly startled sheep rushing helter-skelter, and huddling together on the tors above, that I forgot my own likely danger if any of this revengeful crew should come upon me lying there: and ...
— The Splendid Spur • Arthur T. Quiller Couch

... iron war. All wandering minstrels, sharping peddlers, sturdy trulls, and other camp trumpery were ordered to pack up their baggage, and were drummed out of the gates of Alhama. In place of such lewd rabble he introduced a train of holy friars to inspirit his people by exhortation and prayer and choral chanting, and to spur them on to fight the good fight of faith. All games of chance were prohibited except the game of war, and this he labored, by vigilance and vigor, to reduce to a game of ...
— Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada • Washington Irving

... enforcement had seized him, and the four men, who were continually running round him and speaking all at once, and each pulling him in a different direction, gave him the impression that he was surrounded by a great rabble of people, but he could not discover what they wanted. After a time he found that there were only four men, and gathered from their remarks that he was being arrested for murder—this precipitated him into another and a deeper gulf of bewilderment. ...
— The Crock of Gold • James Stephens

... ourselves of the effect of my harangue; 'but do not press me so hard, for I really believe that my right arm is broken; only for that, I should ask you to return me my sword that I might show this rabble that they can not kill a Bergenheim ...
— Gerfaut, Complete • Charles de Bernard

... the white children here also resounded unfriendly cries, but at least the rabble did not threaten with death. It may be that they did not dare to, being so close to the prophet's side, and perhaps because they were more accustomed to the sight of prisoners who were all transported to Omdurman immediately after the capture of Khartum. Stas ...
— In Desert and Wilderness • Henryk Sienkiewicz

... the victim of a drunken rabble, was buried at St. Paul's (1014), as was Ethelred the Unready (1017), and nearly fifty years later Edward the outlaw, the representative of the house of ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of St. Paul - An Account of the Old and New Buildings with a Short Historical Sketch • Arthur Dimock

... messenger to Forde, urging him to return; and he himself, with his frightened army, hurried towards Condore. Forde had, indeed, retraced his steps immediately he heard the fire of the guns, and soon met the rajah's rabble in full flight; and, uniting with them, marched back ...
— With Clive in India - Or, The Beginnings of an Empire • G. A. Henty

... People have even lost their lives in the fray; and I think the government should interfere, and put down these riotous meetings. Surely, it is very hard, that an old man cannot marry a young gal, if she is willing to take him, without asking the leave of such a rabble as that. What right have they to ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie

... of [g]Witches, and defend th[e] as innocent. And because this is a dangerous example, and doth draw those who are euill affected to offend, hoping for patronage of their impiety, I adde for conclusion this last proposition: Wisards, Witches, and the whole rabble of Sorcerers (no kinde excepted) are iustly liable[h] to extreame punishment. The arguments alleaged for proofe hereof, are many: I will make choyce of a few (with reference to such authors in whose writings more may bee found) and those ...
— A Treatise of Witchcraft • Alexander Roberts

... the dark alleyway of the inn. The guards drove back the rabble, and the door was closed and barred. The eager crowd remained outside, standing ankle-deep in slush, with their noses flattened against the panes. A profound silence settled upon the house. Having by this time got into my clothes, I opened the door part way to listen, and ...
— The Dean's Watch - 1897 • Erckmann-Chatrian

... of a Castle, which for seven years was beset by a rabble rout. Arthur and sir Guyon were conducted by Alma over this castle, which though not named is intended to represent the human body.—Spenser, The Faerie Queene, ...
— 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.

... soul appeared to him undimmed, even though he knew now that she had expected this awful thing all along, and that she was no stranger to this monstrous barter of her person for the attainment of a crazy Emperor's whim, or to make holiday for the rabble of Rome. In his sight her pride remained unshaken; only her loyalty and allegiance had been given to the Caesar in the same way as his own had been. She, in her simple, womanly way, was rendering unto Caesar that which was Caesar's, and Taurus Antinor, whilst tenderly pitying her, felt that he had ...
— "Unto Caesar" • Baroness Emmuska Orczy

... of Aug. 4th, a paper of the Old School—"In spite of all the endeavours of a clique of self-interested agitators, clerical humbug and radical rabble, to excite the bad passions of the sable populace against those who have been the true friends of Colonial freedom, and the conservators of the public peace and prosperity of the country, the bonfire, bull-roast, and malignant ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society

... foremost man at Rome. He was well-meaning and more than ordinarily able, strict and austere as a general, and as a citizen uniting Greek culture with the old Roman simplicity of life. He was full of scorn of the rabble, and did not scruple to express it. 'Silence,' he cried, when he was hissed for what he said about his brother-in-law's death, 'you step-children of Italy!' and when this enraged them still more, he went on: 'Do ...
— The Gracchi Marius and Sulla - Epochs Of Ancient History • A.H. Beesley

... seldom passed along the streets without hearing some remark about 'les negres,' or 'les noirs.' But they were invariably treated with the greatest respect, and, in fact, were never once annoyed by a rabble in the streets, as they frequently are elsewhere, gathering around with a ...
— Music and Some Highly Musical People • James M. Trotter

... hoped, as I pushed open the door, "that I hadna forgotten my bawbees." Weddings were celebrated among the Auld Lichts by showers of ha'pence, and the guests on their way to the bride's house had to scatter to the hungry rabble like housewives feeding poultry. Willie Todd, the best man, who had never come out so strong in his life before, slipped through the back window, while the crowd, led on by Kitty McQueen, seethed in front, and making a ...
— Auld Licht Idylls • J. M. Barrie

... harmless happiness lay in seeing the wild-fowl splashing where nothing splashes now except beer and the bathing rabble. If progress is happiness—where is mine? Gone with the curlew and the wild duck! Therefore, there is no progress. Quod erat, ...
— The Younger Set • Robert W. Chambers

... how Jernyngham had driven a truculent rabble out of Sebastian, he could imagine the scene in the shed; but it was evident that the boiler-makers bore ...
— Prescott of Saskatchewan • Harold Bindloss

... passably. But only in three years will an Egyptian march in some fashion. It is true that he grows accustomed to a sword and a spear in two years, but to cast missiles four years are too short a time for him. So in the course of a few months ye could put out not an army, but half a million of a rabble which the Assyrians would break to pieces in the twinkle of an eye. For, though the Assyrian regiments are poor and badly trained, an Assyrian knows how to hurl stones and shoot arrows; he knows how to cut and thrust, and, above all, he has the onrush of a wild ...
— The Pharaoh and the Priest - An Historical Novel of Ancient Egypt • Boleslaw Prus

... thou hast said. Yester eve comes a cloud of dust over the hill by the marshes, and in the cloud as strange a sight as man may see. Chariots, with horses smoking in the traces, lords on horseback, slaves and rabble, all flying from the gods know what. A tall man, very pale, with a mouth set like the jaws of a trap; a younger one, to whom all turned for command and advice; a woman lovely as—er, that is to say, fair enough ...
— Nicanor - Teller of Tales - A Story of Roman Britain • C. Bryson Taylor

... expanded or contracted, vie in exertions of energy. Yet in this scene of tumult, one motive animates the whole—eagerness to engage, with subordination to command. This preserves the dignity of the action, and from a strangling rabble, changes the figures to men, whose legitimate contest interests our wishes." Another example is given—Raffaelle's "Incendio del Borgo"—a good description follows: "the enraged elements of wind and fire," ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 54, No. 338, December 1843 • Various

... of San Bernardo, contributed to the funds for church festivals, and danced attendance on the alcalde, whoever that "mayor" might be. In his eyes now, the only people in Alcira were such as collected thousands of duros, whenever harvest time came around. The rest were rabble, ...
— The Torrent - Entre Naranjos • Vicente Blasco Ibanez

... go through. It would seem as though the repeated conspiracies against his life, the repeated imprisonments in vile dungeons dangerous to health and life, and the shame of being put in the public stocks before the rabble, would have been much for God to ask, and for a man to give. But there is something that goes much farther and deeper into the very marrow of his life than these. He is bidden not to marry, not to have a family life of his own.[118] And he obeyed. This ...
— Quiet Talks on Following the Christ • S. D. Gordon

... it as condescension to notice a man of condition!" said the marquis, violently. "When my king was driven away by the rabble the ocean was not too broad to separate me from a swinish civilization. I will never go back; I will live ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham

... greeting. "Abroad like the rabble, and carrying a burden." She filliped the wallet ...
— The Yoke - A Romance of the Days when the Lord Redeemed the Children - of Israel from the Bondage of Egypt • Elizabeth Miller

... galleot grounded upon the sand, the impatient rabble rushed into the surf to capture and make spoil; but were awed into admiration and respect by the appearance of the illustrious company on board. There were Moors of both sexes sumptuously arrayed, and adorned with precious jewels, bearing the demeanor ...
— Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, March 1844 - Volume 23, Number 3 • Various

... beastly office and work at potatoes and beef and army-forms. I can't nurse, though I daresay I could if I tried; but I hate amateurs. No amateurs in my show, I assure you. For my job I flatter myself I'm trained. A woman can't knock about the waste spaces of the earth by herself, head a rabble of pack-carrying savages, without gaining some experience in organization. In fact, when I'm not at my own hospital, which now runs on wheels, I'm employed as a sort of organizing expert—any old where they choose to send me. Do you think I'm ...
— The Mountebank • William J. Locke

... morning of the 29th,' he says, 'was ushered in by the dismal ringing of bells, the groans of distant guns, and the savage shouts of the populace; and I arose from a long train of dreams, which defied recollection as well as interpretation. The rabble, headed by a few beardless boys just let loose from the Polytechnic School and other seminaries, had been pleased to fix their head-quarters in our street. About half-past eleven, however, those of them who were collected here having heard that the popular forces who were fighting ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. XIX. No. 532. Saturday, February 4, 1832 • Various

... neighborhood of Amersfoot, the weather was very rainy, and the crops suffered accordingly. On the tobacco growing round the town the blame of the calamity was thrown; and it was resolved to punish tobacco, the sottish rain-drinker and wicked rain-bringer. A rabble, consisting chiefly of boys and youths, rushed to the tobacco fields, and scattered havoc with the ferocity of stupidity. The mad creatures pulled up the stalks, tore off the leaves, and trampled leaves and stalks under foot. Before they had done the work of destruction ...
— Tobacco; Its History, Varieties, Culture, Manufacture and Commerce • E. R. Billings

... Sevres, and carried their cruelty to the length of forcing an unfortunate hairdresser to dress the gory heads; the bulk of the Parisian army followed them closely. The King's carriage was preceded by the 'poissardes', who had arrived the day before from Paris, and a rabble of prostitutes, the vile refuse of their sex, still drunk with fury and wine. Several of them rode astride upon cannons, boasting, in the most horrible songs, of the crimes they had committed themselves, or seen others commit. Those who were ...
— Memoirs Of The Court Of Marie Antoinette, Queen Of France, Complete • Madame Campan

... delivered the message with which he had been intrusted. "Up, gallants," exclaimed the martial monarch, "don your harness, and ride as lightly as you may to the relief of the Countess of Clare, she lies in peril of her life and honour, beleaguered by a rabble of unnurtured Welsh savages, who, lacking respect for beauty, have directed their arms against a woman. Swollen with vain pride at their late victory, (the fiend hang the coward loons who fled before them,) they ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 10, No. 274, Saturday, September 22, 1827 • Various

... He has the qualities that impress the bourgeoisie. He is a success. Henry VI does not conform to type. He has the qualities of the Christian mystic. He is stabbed in the Tower. Edward IV conforms to type. He has the qualities that impress the rabble. He is a success. Richard II does not conform to type. He is a man of ideas. He is done to death at Pomfret. King John does not conform to type. His intellect is bigger than his capacity for affairs. He is poisoned ...
— William Shakespeare • John Masefield

... deep-voiced women. Had he not read in the Talmud that Lilith, Adam's first wife, was low of voice? And this beggar-maid? Maybe a masquerading singer with a crazy father! What else could mean such art wasted on the roads, thrown in the faces of a rabble! Ferval kindled with emotion. Here was romance. Brahms and his dark song under the bowl of the troubled blue sky strongly affected him. He took the lean, brown hand of the singer and kissed it fervently. She drew back nervously, but her father ...
— Visionaries • James Huneker

... serious resistance, we did not wait for the artillery to come up and dislodge them, but deploying a brigade we rode on, jesting and gay, expecting to see them disperse when we came within range and join the rabble beyond. We were mistaken. Just when we got within easy charging distance, down they came, pell-mell, as dashing a body of dirty veterans as I ever saw. The attack was so unexpected that for a time we were swept off our feet and fairly carried backward ...
— Bricks Without Straw • Albion W. Tourgee

... Kory-Kory, wading up to his hips in the water, carried me half way across, and deposited me on a smooth black stone which rose a few inches above the surface. The amphibious rabble at our heels plunged in after us, and climbing to the summit of the grass-grown rocks with which the bed of the brook was here and there broken, waited curiously to witness ...
— Typee - A Romance of the South Sea • Herman Melville

... constable. Now that assistance was near at hand, he dreaded to lose it out of sight or hearing. He knew there was no necessity for procuring any rope, and feared that if Primus put his threatened plan into execution, he would bring along with him a rabble of men and boys, to jeer at and ridicule his sufferings. This now seemed worse than all he had already endured; he was, therefore, willing to make any compromise ...
— The Lost Hunter - A Tale of Early Times • John Turvill Adams

... place of importance; a confused crowd of camels, donkeys, and their drivers, congregated amidst heaps of rubbish, awaited us upon reaching the shore. We had been told that we should be almost torn to pieces by this rabble, in their eagerness to induce us to engage the services of themselves or their animals. Accustomed as we had been to the attacks of French waiters, we were astonished by the indifference of the people, who very contentedly permitted us to walk to the ...
— Notes of an Overland Journey Through France and Egypt to Bombay • Miss Emma Roberts

... But at the same time he depicted the energy, ability, and determination of the South in high colours, and was a bit doubtful of similar virtues in the North. The battle of Bull Run itself he did not see, but he rode out from Washington to meet the defeated army, and his description of the routed rabble, jostling and pushing, in frenzy toward the Capitol, so ridiculed Northern fighting spirit as to leave a permanent sting behind it. At the same time it convinced the British pro-Southern reader that the Northern effort was doomed ...
— Great Britain and the American Civil War • Ephraim Douglass Adams

... the examination of this peasant. The moment I heard of the errand which had brought this rabble of visitors, a sudden thought struck me. I conceived the possibility of rendering the incident subordinate to the great enquiry which drank up all the currents of my soul. I said, this man is arraigned of murder, and murder is the master-key that wakes distemper in the mind of Mr. Falkland. I will ...
— Caleb Williams - Things As They Are • William Godwin

... the valley, toward Dan, as much as half the land is solid and fertile, and watered by Jordan's sources. There is enough of it to make a farm. It almost warrants the enthusiasm of the spies of that rabble of adventurers who captured Dan. They said: "We have seen the land, and behold it is very good. * * * A place where there is no want of any thing ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... meeting was not only the most respectable and the most numerous that they ever witnessed, but was composed of much the most intelligent, enlightened, and patriotic citizens in the world; now, forsooth, they were a despicable rabble, deluded and led away by that abominable demagogue, Hunt! The fact is, that the multitude are often taken by surprise, and an English political assemblage is not only the most peaceable, but the best natured body in the ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 3 • Henry Hunt

... as well. For Bell's light on Shakespeare would be but a sulphur match the more at carnival time. Indeed, Shakespeare criticism has been such a pageantry of spluttering candle-ends and sniffing wicks that it is well that one or two tallow dips leave the rabble and illuminate the adjacent alleys. It is down such an alley that Bell's ...
— Journeys to Bagdad • Charles S. Brooks

... task of reviling the gods and cursing Julian. A yell of execration ran all along the Christian line, from the extreme Apollinarian right to the furthest Anomoean left. Basil of Caesarea renounced the apostate's friendship; the rabble of Antioch assailed him with scurrilous lampoons and anti-pagan riots. Nor were the Arians behind in hate. Blind old Maris of Chalcedon came and cursed him to his face. The heathens laughed, the Christians cursed, and Israel alone remembered Julian ...
— The Arian Controversy • H. M. Gwatkin

... words to a man in civilian attire, evidently his overseer, a dark, heavy West India Spaniard who carried a pistol in his sash, and then advanced through the rabble, which quickly fell back on either side to ...
— The Free Rangers - A Story of the Early Days Along the Mississippi • Joseph A. Altsheler

... one's daughter. One's daughter should be fresh and fair; she should be innocent and gentle. With the manners of the present time she is liable to become so dusty and crumpled. Pansy's a little dusty, a little dishevelled; she has knocked about too much. This bustling, pushing rabble that calls itself society—one should take her out of it occasionally. Convents are very quiet, very convenient, very salutary. I like to think of her there, in the old garden, under the arcade, among those tranquil virtuous women. Many of them are gentlewomen born; several of them are noble. ...
— The Portrait of a Lady - Volume 2 (of 2) • Henry James

... the Temple. Stifle not the suggestions of your better nature with the pretext, that an indiscriminate admission would expose the Tombs to violation. Remember your boy-days. Did you ever see, or hear, of a mob in the Abbey, while it was free to all? Do the rabble come there, or trouble their heads about such speculations? It is all that you can do to drive them into your churches; they do not voluntarily offer themselves. They have, alas! no passion for antiquities; for tomb of ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb

... where he had breathed an air of truth and heaven for near half a century, into a paltry Chreistomathic School, and to make Milton's house (the cradle of Paradise Lost) a thoroughfare, like a three-stalled stable, for the idle rabble of Westminster to pass backwards and forwards to it with their ...
— Flowers and Flower-Gardens • David Lester Richardson

... opportunity could supply. Such a force, if it had joined the main army, or could have been otherwise directed by any leader of judgment and authority, might have proved very serviceable; but in its present state it was a mere rabble, and upon the first appearance of the Earl of Pembroke, who entered the town with a hundred and sixty horse and forty musketeers, fell, as might be expected, into total confusion. The rout was complete; all the arms of the insurgents were seized; and the constable, after having been compelled ...
— A History of the Early Part of the Reign of James the Second • Charles James Fox

... embalmed by the genius of Shakespeare and many a minor bard, and I promised myself a day of unclouded felicity—but the captain was ordered to be on duty,—and the crowd was so rude and riotous, that I had no enjoyment whatever; but, pining with chagrin at the little respect paid by the rabble to the virtues of the departed monarch, I would fainly have retired into some solemn and sequestered grove, and breathed my sorrows to the listening waste. Nor was the loss of the captain, to explain and illuminate the different baronial circumstances around the Castle, the only thing I had ...
— The Ayrshire Legatees • John Galt

... modern minstrel inveighs loudly against this charity of his ancestors, who devoted their "cantos de cigarra," to the glorification of this "Moorish rabble," instead of celebrating the prowess of the Cid, Bernardo, and other worthies of their own nation. His discourtesy, however, is well rebuked by a more generous brother ...
— History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella V1 • William H. Prescott

... strength. He used to speak with aversion of a Parliamentary career, and told Hogg that though this had been suggested to him, as befitting his position, by the Duke of Norfolk, he could never bring himself to mix with the rabble of the House. It is none the less true, however, that he entertained some vague notion of eventually succeeding to ...
— Percy Bysshe Shelley • John Addington Symonds

... out at their windows, some came to their doors, and others joined with those that were about him, calling out as they did, "A madman;" but not knowing for what. In this perplexity the affrighted young man happened to come before a pastry-cook's shop, and went into it to avoid the rabble. ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments vol. 1 • Anon.

... be plenty to do, but I would not mind wagering that we should not wait for him; and after all, I am not sure if it would not be the best thing to do, for these Germans with us are little better than a rabble." ...
— With Frederick the Great - A Story of the Seven Years' War • G. A. Henty

... against the rood Your devils and your swine; A colder scorn of womanhood, A baser fear of wine, And lust without the harem, And Doom without the God, Go. It is not this rabble Sayeth to you "Ichabod." ...
— G. K. Chesterton, A Critical Study • Julius West

... and must Be laugh'd aright, and cheated into trust; Whilst a black piece of phlegm, that lays about Dull menaces, and terrifies the rout, And cajoles it, with all its peevish strength Piteously stretch'd and botch'd up into length, Whilst the tired rabble sleepily obey Such opiate talk, and snore away the day, By all his noise as much their minds relieves, As caterwauling of wild cats frights thieves. But Rabelais was another thing, a man Made up of all that art and nature ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais

... draft came aboard, in fact, just as the anchor was weighed and the Chesapeake stood out to meet her doom. Even most of her officers were new to the ship. They had no chance whatever to train or handle the rabble between decks. Now Captain Broke had been anxious to fight this American frigate as matching the Shannon in size and power. He had already addressed to Captain Lawrence a challenge whose wording was a model of courtesy but which was provocative ...
— The Fight for a Free Sea: A Chronicle of the War of 1812 - The Chronicles of America Series, Volume 17 • Ralph D. Paine

... was not then so much need of it; he governed then with an absolute Sway; he had his Oracles, where he gave Audience to his Votaries like a Deity, and he had his Sub-Gods, who under his several Dispositions receiv'd the Homage of Mankind in their Names; such were all the Rabble of the Heathen Deities, from Jupiter the Supreme, to the Lares or Houshold Gods of every Family; these, I say, like Residents, received the Prostrations, but the Homage was all Satan's; the Devil had the Substance of it ...
— The History of the Devil - As Well Ancient as Modern: In Two Parts • Daniel Defoe

... affirmation: "Did not we straitly command you that ye should not teach in this name? and, behold, ye have filled Jerusalem with your doctrine, and intend to bring this man's blood upon us." Yet, how recently had those same rulers led the rabble in the awful imprecation, "His blood be on us, and on ...
— Jesus the Christ - A Study of the Messiah and His Mission According to Holy - Scriptures Both Ancient and Modern • James Edward Talmage

... to mind. Short, thick-set fellow, who whined something about hunger, children, and the cold. Ugh! What concern have I with the rabble? But how do you know ...
— The Black Wolf's Breed - A Story of France in the Old World and the New, happening - in the Reign of Louis XIV • Harris Dickson

... There were a score of Helens driving wagons—reasons in plenty for the futility of all attempts to enforce an arbitrary rule of march. Human equations, human elements would shake themselves down into place, willy-nilly. The great caravan therefore was scantily less than a rabble for the first three or four days out. The four columns were abandoned the first half day. The loosely knit organization rolled on in a broken-crested wave, ten, fifteen, twenty miles a day, the horse-and-mule men now at the front. ...
— The Covered Wagon • Emerson Hough

... possibly get away from them. They yelled in the most ghastly manner, jumped upon his fire, scattered it all, and tried to put it out. He looked on quietly for a time, but when it got beyond a joke he seized his carving-knife and called out: "Be off, you rabble rout!" and let fly at them. Some of them fled away, and the others he struck dead and threw them out into the pond below. When he returned he blew up the sparks of the fire once more, and warmed himself. And as he sat thus his eyes refused to keep open any longer, ...
— The Blue Fairy Book • Various

... shopkeepers in the City had hurried down into Devonshire to try and gather up a few of the golden crumbs. Raleigh, meanwhile, was ready to burst his heart with fretting in the Tower, until it suddenly appeared that this very concourse and rabble at Dartmouth would render his release imperative. No one but he could cope with Devonshire in its excitement, and Lord Burghley determined on sending him to Dartmouth. Robert Cecil, writing from Exeter to his father on September 19, reported that for seven miles everybody ...
— Raleigh • Edmund Gosse

... forage-caps, staring vacantly at novel sights, and quick to salute any officer on the side-walk. Turks in closed carriages passed, and Turks on good Arab horses, and Turks who looked as if they had come out of the Ark. But it was the rabble that caught the eye—very wild, pinched, miserable rabble. I never in my life saw such swarms of beggars, and you walked down that street to the accompaniment of entreaties for alms in all the tongues of the Tower of Babel. Blenkiron ...
— Greenmantle • John Buchan

... in Yerba Buena. A gringo engineer named Fremont with a rabble of adventurers had overthrown the valiant Vallejo at Sonora and declared a California Republic. He had spiked the cannon at the Presidio. And now a gringo sloop-of-war was in the bay, some said with orders to reduce the port. Almost simultaneously an English frigate came and there were rumors of ...
— Port O' Gold • Louis John Stellman

... smattering of, which were High and Low Dutch, Latin, French, Spanish, Italian, and Lingua Franca, but all to no purpose. After about two hours the court retired, and I was left with a strong guard, to prevent the impertinence, and probably the malice of the rabble, who were very impatient to crowd about me as near as they durst; and some of them had the impudence to shoot their arrows at me, as I sat on the ground by the door of my house, whereof one very narrowly ...
— Gulliver's Travels - into several remote nations of the world • Jonathan Swift

... the prisoners was a respectable old colored minister. They had found a few parcels of shot in his house, which his wife had for years used to balance her scales. For this they were going to shoot him on Court House Green. What a spectacle was that for a civilized country! A rabble, staggering under intoxication, assuming to be the administrators ...
— Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl - Written by Herself • Harriet Jacobs (AKA Linda Brent)

... Palazzo Vecchio, is memorable as the scene of virtue triumphing over its enemies and over evil, when it seemed to be conquered. That day, also, will never be forgotten, when he and his two companions walked through the furious rabble to their death, calm as if to a marriage feast. Savonarola was so absorbed in the thought of the life to come, says his biographer, that he appeared already to have left the earth. He was put to death by the order of Alexander Sixth, the worst pope and worst man of modern times; ...
— Orthodoxy: Its Truths And Errors • James Freeman Clarke

... popularity it would be more advisable to rely on the nobility and the higher classes of society. "Gentlemen," replied he, "you may say what you please, but in the situation in which I stand my only nobility is the rabble of the faubourgs, and I know of no rabble but the nobility whom I have created." This was a strange compliment to all ranks, for it was only saying that they were all ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne

... leaders to agree to wait upon the admiral and endeavour to come to an agreement: But this being disliked by the rest, when Roldan and three others were getting on horseback to go along with Caravajal to the admiral, the rabble surrounded them, declaring they would not allow them to go, and that if any agreement was to be made it should be drawn up in writing, that all might know what was proposed ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. III. • Robert Kerr

... enfants de la patrie— Electric... piercing... shrill as a fife the voice of a little Russian breaks out of the shivered circle. Another voice rises... another and another leaps like flame to flame. And life—surging, clamorous, swarming like a rabble crazily fluttering ragged petticoats— comes rushing back into torpid eyes like ...
— Sun-Up and Other Poems • Lola Ridge

... mastiffs, nearly or quite as big as you are, but not so slender, silky-haired, and sharp-nosed, and without your refined expression of keenness without cunning. And after these canine noblemen of the old regime, whither has vanished the countless rabble of mongrels, curs, and pariah dogs; and last of all—being more degenerate—the corpulent, blear-eyed, wheezy pet dogs of a hundred breeds? They are all dead, no doubt: they have been dead so long that I daresay nature extracted all the valuable salts that were contained in their flesh ...
— A Crystal Age • W. H. Hudson

... certain about that, Topenebe," retorted Wells, shortly. "But we cannot stop longer here; make way, that we may pass along, Jordan, push on with your advance through that rabble there." ...
— When Wilderness Was King - A Tale of the Illinois Country • Randall Parrish

... "lumina" are "the peepers;" "turbatum fugere" is "to scower off in a mighty bustle;" "confundor" is "to be jumbled;" and "squalidus" is "in a sorry pickle." "Importuna" is "a plaguy baggage;" "adulterium" is rendered "her pranks;" "ambages" becomes either "a long rabble of words," "a long-winded detail," or "a tale of a tub;" "miserabile carmen" is "a dismal ditty;" "increpare hos" is "to rattle these blades;" "penetralia" means "the parlour;" while "accingere," more literally than elegantly, is translated "buckle to." "Situs" is "nasty stuff;" "oscula ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Vol. I, Books I-VII • Publius Ovidius Naso

... the rank and fashion, you see, and we are country cousins doing the sights. You visit the real people, and we stare at the images at Madame Tussaud's. You attend private views, and we go in with the rabble. You go to luncheon parties at The Star and Garter, and we have buns and tea in an ABC shop, and pay an extra penny for cream. We move in different circles, Major Darcy," cried Peggy, with a toss of the head which contradicted the humility of her ...
— More About Peggy • Mrs G. de Horne Vaizey

... we possess—which we must teach ourselves to regard as altogether different from that which Cicero had been able to pronounce among Pompey's soldiers and the Clodian rabble—the reader is astonished by the magnificence of the language in which a case so bad in itself could be enveloped, and is made to feel that had he been on the jury, and had such an address been made to him, he would certainly have voted for an acquittal. The guilt ...
— The Life of Cicero - Volume II. • Anthony Trollope

... shrugged his shoulders. "I crave pardon, your excellency; that is no punishment for the rabble in these days. They are glad when they are put away at Oxenhead, or here in the castle prison, receiving food and lodgings free of cost, and many a one, who formerly lived in honor and affluence, would to-day be gladly found guilty of some fault, for the sake of being arrested and ...
— The Youth of the Great Elector • L. Muhlbach

... Columbus. The rabble nicknamed him the "Admiral of Mosquito Land." They pointed at him as the man who had promised everything, and ended by discovering nothing but "a wilderness peopled ...
— Christopher Columbus and His Monument Columbia • Various

... to a still larger audience, while perfect order prevailed. So far our success seemed gratifying, and Mr. Fee was delighted; and we proceeded the following morning to our next appointment at Brooksville, in Bracken county. Here we found assembled a large crowd of that brutalized rabble element which formed the background of slavery everywhere. The aboriginal creatures gazed at us like so many wild animals, but showed not the slightest disposition to enter the house in which we were to speak. Mr. Clay remarked that they must be Whigs, since they did not seemed ...
— Political Recollections - 1840 to 1872 • George W. Julian

... names, or shews of proxy, Is served, who'll have the thing and not the symbol, 160 Ever seeks out the greatest and the best, And at the rudder places him, e'en though She had been forced to take him from the rabble— She, this Necessity, it was that placed thee In this high office, it was she that gave thee 165 Thy letters patent of inauguration. For, to the uttermost moment that they can. This race still help ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge

... admiration of the women; but at heart the mildest of quadrupeds, though passing, like an impostor as he was, for a devil incarnate; the band thundering melodiously that dashing plaintive march, and exhilarating and firing the souls of all Chapelizod. Up went the windows all along the street, the rabble-rout of boys yelled and huzzaed like mad. The maids popped their mob-caps out of the attics, and giggled, and hung out at the risk of their necks. The serving men ran out on the hall-door steps. The village roues emerged in haste ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu

... his fellow scramblers a cuff or two, he was set upon by the boys and country fellows, and compelled to make an inglorious retreat with his table, which had been flung down in the scuffle, and had one of its legs broken. As he retired, the rabble hooted, and Jack, holding up in derision the pea with which he had out-manoeuvred him, exclaimed, 'I always carry this in my pocket in order to be a match for vagabonds ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow

... the conclave. At that instant (inauspicious omen!) a terrible flash of lightning, followed by a stunning peal of thunder, struck through the hall, burning and splitting some of the furniture. The hall of conclave was crowded by a fierce rabble, who refused to retire. After about an hour's strife, the Bishop of Marseilles, by threats, by persuasion, or by entreaty, had expelled all but about forty wild men, armed to the teeth. These ruffians ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various

... had written to Walpole,—"Poor France! though I am sorry that the lawless rabble are so triumphant, I cannot help hoping that some good will arise from the sum of human misery having been so considerably lessened at one blow by the destruction of the Bastille. The utter extinction ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole

... a hereditary trait? the son of a celebrity? then his essays in design were unworthy of his name. Abashed, inclined to despair, having a glimpse of a tumultuous rabble shouting: "At last he is here!" before the ruddy guillotine on a raw morning, a pale, prim man between the executioner's aids, the young Clemenceau listened to the girl, who probably resembled the Lovely Iza, but looked at the ...
— The Son of Clemenceau • Alexandre (fils) Dumas

... in the crowd before loud cries announced the king's arrival. A carriage had been sent to meet him, and the gigantic Porthos, who stood a head above the entire rabble, soon announced that he saw the royal equipage approaching. D'Artagnan raised himself on tiptoe, and as the carriage passed, saw Harrison at one window and Mordaunt ...
— Twenty Years After • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... battle drove the Confederate forces out of their intrenchments into headlong flight. The Union cavalry thundered upon their heels with remorseless energy. The infantry followed closely behind. The entire Confederate army, except the rear-guard, which fought bravely to the last, was dissolved into a rabble of demoralized fugitives, who at last escaped ...
— A Brief History of the United States • Barnes & Co.

... as the wedding was going to be solemnized, old Mr. Fox stirred under the bench, and cudgelled all the rabble, and drove them and Mrs. Fox out ...
— Household Tales by Brothers Grimm • Grimm Brothers

... off amid a whirl of cheering through the narrow streets, over the cobbles, beneath arches and strings of flags and flag-bedecked windows, from which the women leaned and showered rice upon him, with a band playing ahead and a rabble shouting astern, up the hill to the battery, where willing hands had wreathed Looe's four eighteen-pounders with trusses of laurel. The very mark moored off for a target had been decorated with an enormous bunch of holly and a motto—decipherable, ...
— Merry-Garden and Other Stories • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... loved at once the fine old chateau with its lichen-covered walls, its fine portcullis and crenelated towers, she had wept over the torn tapestries, the broken furniture, the family portraits which a rough and impious rabble had wilfully damaged, she had loved the wide sweep of the terrace walls, the views over the Isere and across the mountain range to the peaks of the Grande Chartreuse, but above all she had loved this sombre row of ilex trees, ...
— The Bronze Eagle - A Story of the Hundred Days • Emmuska Orczy, Baroness Orczy

... is happy, and has escaped the power of men and gods, the strokes of chance, and the slippery paths of our dark life: fate cannot touch him: he did not ask, nor fear, nor deserve to die. But we poor anxious rabble, we miserable men, know not whence our last day shall come, what shall be the end of life, for whom the thunderbolt shall bring death from the starry sky, nor what cloud ...
— Post-Augustan Poetry - From Seneca to Juvenal • H.E. Butler

... still at it. It is evident that the forts have not surrendered. I don't see how we can possibly get along past those forts on the beach to the west as long as they hold out, besides it is not likely that there has been a landing from the ships yet, and the rabble of Alexandria will be plundering and killing. We shall be ...
— A Chapter of Adventures • G. A. Henty

... a rabble? Motley's the only wear in Maximilian's court. He might succeed in running this country if so many people hadn't come along to help him do it. You ask a French question and you get a Dutch answer. You give an order in Prussian ...
— Semiramis and Other Plays - Semiramis, Carlotta And The Poet • Olive Tilford Dargan

... encampment. campana bell. campanada sound of a bell. campana campaign. campar to encamp. campear to excel, be eminent. campeon champion. campesino-a rustic, peasant. campina arable land, campaign. campo country, field. canas f. pl. gray hair. canalla f. rabble, m. rogue. cancer m. cancer. cancion f. song. candil m. hanging kitchen lamp. cansar to weary. cantar to sing. cantico canticle, hymn. cantidad f. quantity, number. canto singing, song. cana ...
— Novelas Cortas • Pedro Antonio de Alarcon

... round to Bennington to enlist David Redding, and a friend or two more; as I did, after I arrived, last night, though I was compelled to leave them my sleigh and horses to bring them over, which accounts for my begging a passage with you. So, you see, that if this beggarly rabble offer to make any disturbance, I shall be prepared to teach them the cost of attempting to put down the ...
— The Rangers - [Subtitle: The Tory's Daughter] • D. P. Thompson

... represented Southey as an author, all whose poetry was not worth five shillings. You and I both know that Wordsworth would not deign to notice such an accusation. Through good and evil report, the brave man persevered in his ascent to the mountain-top, without ever even turning round to look upon the rabble that was hooting him from its base; and he is not likely now to heed such a charge as this. But his friends may now ask, on what authority it is published? Was it to you, Mr. Walter Landor, whom Southey (in his strange affection for the name of Wat) had honoured with so much kindness—to ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - April 1843 • Various

... Tiberias, a city which he had built in a minute, whose colonnades and porticoes he had bought ready-made in Rome, and had erected by means of that magic which only the Romans possessed—in this capital of a parvenu was a mongrel rabble of Greeks, Cypriotes, Egyptians, Cappadocians, Syrians, and Jews, whose temper was uncertain, and whose rebellion to ...
— Mary Magdalen • Edgar Saltus

... opposing conditions and rabble protest and doleful prophecy and the assurance of certain perils, we turned our faces toward the unfriendly land of the sunset skies, the open West of my ...
— Vanguards of the Plains • Margaret McCarter

... was a piece of satire, which hits all tastes and degrees of men, from those of the highest quality to the very rabble. "That verse of Horace ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Vol. IV • Theophilus Cibber

... them. At the sight of them a sentry reporter on the corner shouted a warning which was instantly caught up and passed on by another picket stationed half-way down the block; and around the wall of the Tombs came pelting a flying mob of newspaper photographers and reporters, with a choice rabble behind them. Foot passengers took up the chase, not knowing what it was about, but sensing a free show. Truckmen halted their teams, jumped down from their wagon seats and joined in. A man-chase is one of ...
— The Escape of Mr. Trimm - His Plight and other Plights • Irvin S. Cobb

... which renders them impatient under any merited personal castigation. They take a blow with great sang froid. Whether from good humour, or cowardice; whether that they thought they deserved it, or that they feared to resent it, the single arm of our Captain chastised a whole rabble of them, and they made a lane for as many of us as chose to land, accompanied by such porters as we had ourselves selected. Three or four of them, however, were still importuning us to permit them to show us to an inn; ...
— Travels through the South of France and the Interior of Provinces of Provence and Languedoc in the Years 1807 and 1808 • Lt-Col. Pinkney

... proof remains to be mentioned. The Saracens did not burn the library, because there was no library there for them to burn! It had been destroyed just two hundred and fifty years before by a rabble of monks, incited by the patriarch Theophilus, who saw in such a vast collection of pagan literature a perpetual insult and menace to religion. In the year 390 this turbulent bigot sacked the temple of Serapis, where the books were kept, and drove out ...
— The Unseen World and Other Essays • John Fiske

... bare idea of a Space Platform, for instance, from the moment it was first proposed. Every dictator protested bitterly. Even politicians out of office found it a subject for rabble-rousing harangues. The nationalistic political parties, the peddlers of hate, the entrepreneurs of discord—every crank in the world had something to say against the Platform from the first. When they did not roundly denounce ...
— Space Platform • Murray Leinster

... sense Hits the false judgment of an audience Of clapping fools assembling, a vast crowd, Till the thronged playhouse cracked with the dull load; Though even that talent merits, in some sort, That can divert the rabble and the court; Which blundering Settle never could obtain, And puzzling Otway labours ...
— The Dramatic Works of John Dryden Vol. I. - With a Life of the Author • Sir Walter Scott

... As we passed down the street my friend went into a shop to buy some chocolates. While I was waiting, I heard the stirring notes of the Marseillaise, and looking round saw a band coming up the street followed by three Italian flags, a number of soldiers, and a rabble of men, women and children. I called to my companion to come out quickly and salute the Italian colours. As they passed, we stood on the curb and saluted with strict military precision. In fact we saluted ...
— The Great War As I Saw It • Frederick George Scott

... the mob at their heels, as soon as the seeming adversaries were got into Lincoln's Inn Fields, they both fell a running as fast as they could, with their swords drawn, up towards Lord Powis's house, which was then building, and leaped into a saw-pit. The rabble presently ran after them, to part them again, and feared mischief would be done before they could get up to them, but when they arrived at the saw-pit, they saw Chevalier at one side of it and Ogle at the other, sitting together as lovingly as if they had never fallen out at all. And then ...
— The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims - Volume I (of II) • Andrew Steinmetz

... all sides; as if he were fighting many people at once.) No quarter; lay on. Thrust. Firm. Again. Eye and foot. Ah! knaves! ah! rascals! ah! you shall have a taste of it. I'll give you your fill. Come on, you rabble! come on. That's what you want, you there. You shall have your fill of it, I say. Stick to it, you brutes; stick to it. Now, then, parry; now, then, you. (Turning towards ARGANTE and SCAPIN.) Parry this; parry. You draw back? Stand ...
— The Impostures of Scapin • Moliere

... Art, Shakespear has introduced things into his Tragedies, which are against the Dignity of that noble Poem, as the Rabble in Julius Caesar, and that in Coriolanus; tho' that in Coriolanus offends not only against the Dignity of Tragedy, but against the Truth of History likewise, and the Customs of Ancient Rome, and the ...
— Eighteenth Century Essays on Shakespeare • D. Nichol Smith

... of the expedition and of confidence in the Union Government. Not all the supporters of the Backvelders' cause could gain admission to the hall, which was packed almost to suffocation before the hour of meeting. Several prominent "Free" Staters were on the platform with General De Wet. A rabble of roughs had been brought from the outskirts of the town by opponents of the cause, so the paper says, to interrupt the proceedings and to create disturbance. They waited outside and were "responsible for a state of things ...
— Native Life in South Africa, Before and Since • Solomon Tshekisho Plaatje

... The rabble of men and boys, more inclined to hoot at the soldier and torment him than to receive or inflict any serious wounds, gave way at the approach of signori with drawn swords, and the French soldier ...
— Romola • George Eliot

... you reply affirmatively. Well, since the only object now is to maintain this religion for which you thus declare your preference, how could you have, I do not say the stupidity, but the cruelty, to turn it into a democracy, and to place this precious deposit in the hands of the rabble? ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 2 of 3) - Essay 4: Joseph de Maistre • John Morley

... and rein, The felon crowns, and all our work is vain. My sceptre trembles, and all insecure Totters my crown,—a prey for every boor. Then, swift, Severus hears the welcome news, The jaundiced mind of Decius to abuse. Shall I, the rabble's lord, obey ...
— Polyuecte • Pierre Corneille

... than with Him,—who asserted His right to assign to mankind their eternal destinies according to the relationship in which each man stood to Him,—who, when standing before an earthly judge, crowned with thorns, insulted by the rabble, with every sign of weakness, and as if literally forsaken by God and man, did not abate one jot or tittle of His claims, but asserted them in all their magnitude, announcing His return to the world in glory as its mighty Judge; and much ...
— Parish Papers • Norman Macleod

... iesting maner, for they are much giuen to trifling talke, might saye: Giue me this, or sell me that: and when the stranger should aske, What will you giue me for it? the beggar might answere: I haue ten or foureteene children, I will giue you some one or more of them, &c. For this rabble of beggars vseth thus fondly to prate with strangers. Now if there be any well-disposed man, who pitying the need and folly of these beggers, releaseth them of one sonne, and doth for Gods sake by some meanes prouide for him in ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques and Discoveries - of the English Nation, v. 1, Northern Europe • Richard Hakluyt

... fascination over sovereigns and ministers more widely extended than has perhaps been possessed by any other member of the demi-monde. She ruled a kingdom; and ruled it, moreover, with dignity and wisdom and ability. The political Hypatia, however, was sacrificed to the rabble. Her power was gone, and she could hope no more from the flattery of statesmen. She became an adventuress of an inferior class. Her intrigues, her duels, and her horse-whippings made her for a time a notoriety ...
— The Magnificent Montez - From Courtesan to Convert • Horace Wyndham

... plaza with the Captain and Dick Yankton and had witnessed the dances beneath the great alamos or poplar trees that surrounded the square, braving the risk of contamination which Mrs. Forest had vainly protested would be sure to ensue should they mingle with the populace—the Mexican-Indian rabble of which it was composed—a distinction which only she and the Colonel seemed able to divine, for had it been a garlic-tainted Egyptian or Neapolitan mob, little objection would have been raised to their going. The sights amused ...
— When Dreams Come True • Ritter Brown

... we shall be unmolested for a while," replied Osterberg. "The place was visited early by the rabble soldiery and they took all that was worth taking, so now I don't suppose ...
— Under the Rebel's Reign • Charles Neufeld

... or regarding it as an impertinence, the temper of the rabble grew threatening. They shouted vulgar insults; and there was talk of battering in the doors and setting the house on fire. This might have happened, had not Ludwig himself, who never lacked personal courage, plunged into the throng and, offering Lola his arm, escorted ...
— The Magnificent Montez - From Courtesan to Convert • Horace Wyndham

... remnants of the routed army had passed through the town. There was no question of organized troops, it was simply a disjointed rabble, the men unshaven and dirty, their uniforms in tatters, slouching along without regimental colors, without order—worn out, broken down, incapable of thought or resolution, marching from pure habit and dropping with fatigue the moment they stopped. The majority belonged ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Vol. 1 (of 8) - Boule de Suif and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant

... Save yourself, my lord: The young Laertes, in a riotous head,[16] O'erbears your officers. The rabble call him lord; They cry, Choose we: Laertes shall be king! Caps, hands, and tongues, applaud it to the clouds, Laertes shall be ...
— Hamlet • William Shakespeare



Words linked to "Rabble" :   folks, mob, ragtag, rabble-rousing, crowd, ragtag and bobtail, rout, folk, trash, riffraff, lynch mob, common people, rabble-rouser, scum



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