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Ungracious   Listen
adjective
Ungracious  adj.  
1.
Not gracious; showing no grace or kindness; being without good will; unfeeling.
2.
Having no grace; graceless; wicked. (Obs.)
3.
Not well received; offensive; unpleasing; unacceptable; not favored. "Anything of grace toward the Irish rebels was as ungracious at Oxford as at London."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Ungracious" Quotes from Famous Books



... pleased to behold at least one member of the lost family come back amongst them. Thus it was with sincere demonstrations of delight that the dependents and menials welcomed Donna Nisida at Riverola; and she was not ungracious enough to receive their civilities with coldness. But she speedily escaped from the ceremonies of this reception: and, intimating by signs to the female minions who were about to escort her to her apartments that she was anxious to ...
— Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf • George W. M. Reynolds

... of this good lesson keep As watchman to my heart. But, good my brother, Do not, as some ungracious pastors do, Show me the steep and thorny way to heaven; Whilst, like the puff'd and reckless libertine, Himself the primrose path of dalliance treads, And recks not ...
— Characteristics of Women - Moral, Poetical, and Historical • Anna Jameson

... that shall adorn his Head, And still the Throne that waited for his Foot, Trampled from Memory by a Base Desire, Of which the Soul was still unsatisfied— Then from the Sorrow of The Shah fell Fire; To Gracelessness Ungracious he became, And, quite to shatter his rebellious Lust, Upon Salaman all his Will discharged. And Lo! Salaman to his Mistress turn'd, But could not reach her—look'd and look'd again, And palpitated tow'rd her—but in Vain! Oh Misery! what to the Bankrupt worse ...
— Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam and Salaman and Absal • Omar Khayyam and Ralph Waldo Emerson

... "Humph!" was the ungracious answer. "He's come to say good-by, I s'pose, and to find out where I'm goin' and how much pay I'm goin' to get and if my rent's settled, and a few other little things that ain't any of his business. Laviny put him up to it, you see. She'll be along ...
— Keziah Coffin • Joseph C. Lincoln

... some unpleasant consequences of too much mental disturbance," said Mr. Casaubon. In fact, he had it in his thought to tell her that she ought not to have received young Ladislaw in his absence: but he abstained, partly from the sense that it would be ungracious to bring a new complaint in the moment of her penitent acknowledgment, partly because he wanted to avoid further agitation of himself by speech, and partly because he was too proud to betray that jealousy of disposition which was not so exhausted on his scholarly compeers that there was ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot

... profiles of each petal laterally and across it. Which I may not find time to draw for any poppy whatever, because they none of them have well-becomingness enough to make it worth my while, being all more or less weedy, and ungracious, and mingled of good and evil. Whereupon rises before me, ghostly and untenable, the general question, 'What is a weed?' and, impatient for answer, the particular question, What is a poppy? I choose, for ...
— Proserpina, Volume 1 - Studies Of Wayside Flowers • John Ruskin

... but somehow his manner was so friendly, so frank and honest, that she felt it would be ungracious of her. Finally he won the day, and she broke into a little laugh ...
— The Golden Woman - A Story of the Montana Hills • Ridgwell Cullum

... think we could expect to, just yet," said Tommy pondering. "And if they have helped us, Bobby, you can see they have loved doing it. It would be ungracious for us not to take such ...
— Back To Billabong • Mary Grant Bruce

... them not to tell the Foreys of their hopeful relative's ungracious behaviour. Clare had left them. When Mrs. Doria went to her room her daughter was there, gazing down at something in her hand, which ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... hastily, "that you people—" and he stopped suddenly, realizing the ungracious ending to ...
— The Boy With the U.S. Census • Francis Rolt-Wheeler

... ever added a sorrow to the soul, or a furrow to the silvered brow of an affectionate parent; if thou art a friend and hast ever wronged in thought, or word, or deed, the spirit that generously confided in thee, then be sure that every unkind look, every ungracious word, every ungentle action, will come thronging back ...
— St. Nicholas, Vol. 5, No. 5, March, 1878 • Various

... at the same time extorted the ungracious approbation of those who most detested him. The Cavaliers could scarcely refrain from wishing that one who had done so much to raise the fame of the nation had been a legitimate king; and the Republicans were forced to own that the tyrant suffered none but himself to wrong his country, and ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 3 of 8 • Various

... It is an ungracious task to sift truth from fables. One man is displeased at seeing held up as a fiction a narrative which he has been accustomed to read with pleasure, and to take for truth, because it was elegantly written; and he requires an accumulation of proofs ...
— Mexico and its Religion • Robert A. Wilson

... a bow and air of maudlin humility, "I have to apologise for requiring you to start out on a journey at such a late hour. Duty is often an ungracious master. Luckily, your drive is not to be a very extended one—only to the city; and you'll have company in the carriage. The Dona Luisa will find her father ...
— The Free Lances - A Romance of the Mexican Valley • Mayne Reid

... the unkind remark of Stella Latham but felt sorry that one of their mates should be so rude and ungracious. ...
— Janice Day, The Young Homemaker • Helen Beecher Long

... fit to follow my advice, I hope you will remain close at The Mitre until my return, which, I trust, will be within three weeks. Danger will attend you if you do not follow my suggestion. In any case, Sir Max, I hope you will not visit my house. My words may seem ungracious, but they are for your good and mine. When I return to Peronne, I shall be happy if you will honor my poor house; but until my return, untold trouble to many persons may follow your disregard ...
— Yolanda: Maid of Burgundy • Charles Major

... all, but I imagine Miss Longworth would be rather disappointed if you did not put in an appearance. Besides, as we are partners with Longworth in this, and as he is going away on account of the mine. I think it would be a little ungracious of ...
— A Woman Intervenes • Robert Barr

... arrest bore date of November 3. Roane, the man to whom the ungracious task was assigned, was well suited to it. He had been adjudged by Holmes himself as absolutely worthless as a commander and, being so, had been sent to take care of the Indians,[540] a severe commentary upon Holmes's own fitness for the supreme control ...
— The American Indian as Participant in the Civil War • Annie Heloise Abel

... seem rather ungracious, as it would certainly be redundant to discuss these "occasional" works in detail. For one thing, the material necessary to enable us to form a correct estimate of Haydn's powers as a dramatic composer is wanting. The original autograph of "Armida," ...
— Haydn • J. Cuthbert Hadden

... cried the Yookoohoo, examining her work with critical approval. "You are much better and more interesting than fishes, and this ungracious Skeezer would scarcely allow me to do the transformations. You surely have nothing to thank him for. But now let us dine in honor ...
— Glinda of Oz • L. Frank Baum

... of the 'niggers' take a turn with the end of the whip round the chap's neck," said Marble, too dignified to turn Jack Ketch in person, and unwilling to set any of the white seamen at so ungracious an office. The cook, Joe, and another black, soon performed this revolting duty, from the odium of which a sailor seldom ...
— Afloat And Ashore • James Fenimore Cooper

... Crittenden went on. "It is the first time in my life, almost, I have known what it was to wish to do something—to have a purpose—that was not inspired by you." It was an unconscious and rather ungracious declaration of independence—it was unnecessary—and Judith was ...
— Crittenden - A Kentucky Story of Love and War • John Fox, Jr.

... tables followed these words, but the face of Perolla lost but little of its stubborn hostility. Hannibal turned away, and Calavius and Ninius sought to cover by eager talking the young man's ungracious reception of such signal favour. The faces of the Carthaginians remained for the most part impassive; only their dark eyes seemed to sparkle, either with wine or suppressed passion. Marcia still felt that ...
— The Lion's Brood • Duffield Osborne

... by this ungracious reception, poor De Vlierbeck was seized with a chill and became slightly pale; still, he managed to rally his nerves, as he remarked, affably,—"Pray excuse me, sir; but, pressed by imperious necessity, I have come once more to appeal to your ...
— The Poor Gentleman • Hendrik Conscience

... at this ungracious reception by her brother; but she quickly remembered, as if by intuition, that misfortune in its first shock often makes people harsh, unkind, and quarrelsome. So ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VIII • Various

... your watch," was Master Halliday's somewhat ungracious reply. "Let's have a look at ...
— The Adventures of a Three-Guinea Watch • Talbot Baines Reed

... principle was long wanted here before the revolution, when the independent spirit of dramatic authors was fettered by the procrastinations of a set of privileged comedians, who discouraged them by ungracious refusals, or disgusted them by unjust preferences. Hence, the old adage in France that, when an author had composed a good piece, he had performed but half his task; this was true, as the more difficult half, ...
— Paris As It Was and As It Is • Francis W. Blagdon

... would it not excite the general indignation, and tend to bring down upon the authors of such measures the aggravated vengeance of Heaven? If, after all, a spirit of disunion, or a temper of obstinacy and perverseness should manifest itself in any of the States; if such an ungracious disposition should attempt to frustrate all the happy effects that might be expected to flow from the union; if there should be a refusal to comply with requisitions for funds to discharge the annual interest of the public debts; and if that refusal should revive all those jealousies, and ...
— Life And Times Of Washington, Volume 2 • John Frederick Schroeder and Benson John Lossing

... whether to laugh or be angry; she compromised by crying. People were not so bad, after all, nor the fates so hard to her. It was only a little April shower of tears, and soon she was smiling and running upstairs to give the half-sovereign to the Greeners. It would have been ungracious to return it to Malka, and she purchased all the luxury of doing good, including the effusive benedictions of the whole family, on terms usually ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill

... piano, and M. Fumiere invited me to join his friends at an excellent dinner. In furnishing this celebrated house, the idea had apparently been to place in it the things one would least expect to find in the jungle, or, without wishing to be ungracious, anywhere. So, although there are no women at Dima, there are great mirrors in brass frames, chandeliers of glass with festoons and pendants of glass, metal lamps with shades of every color, painted plaster statuettes and carved silk-covered chairs. In the red glow of the lamps, surrounded ...
— The Congo and Coasts of Africa • Richard Harding Davis

... up a parrot in the same cage with a crow. The parrot was affronted at his ugly look, and said: "What an odious visage is this, a hideous figure; what an accursed appearance, and ungracious demeanor!—Would to God, O raven of the desert! we were wide apart as the east is from the west:—The serenity of his peaceful day would change into the gloom of night, who on issuing forth in the morning might cross thy aspect. An ill-conditioned wretch like thyself should be ...
— Persian Literature, Volume 2, Comprising The Shah Nameh, The - Rubaiyat, The Divan, and The Gulistan • Anonymous

... conference, as the lady called it, immediately after his arrival at nine o'clock, and Miss Murray, who sat next to Miss Thornton, suspected that it had had something to do with her neighbor's ill-temper. But Miss Thornton, delicately approached, had proved so ungracious and so uncommunicative, that Miss Murray had retired into herself, and attacked ...
— Saturday's Child • Kathleen Norris

... parties of miscellaneous folks who turned up on Sundays, bringing their own food, as is the way in the Bush where the nearest store is often fifty miles away, worried him at first. He stammered and was awkward and ungracious with them, but Marcella, dimly realizing that it must be bad for him to be drawn in so much upon their egoisme a deux, tried to make him more sociable. When he forgot himself and was effortlessly ...
— Captivity • M. Leonora Eyles

... going on very well," she informed her benefactor. "I thank you again for your kindness in attending to it. But I don't think it was kind to order me to keep a secret, and then give it away yourself. You made me seem an—ungracious pig and a fool. I shouldn't mind that, if it did you good, in return for the good you've done me. But ...
— Everyman's Land • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson

... "It was an ungracious way of doing it," O'Sullivan said, "but, in your circumstances, I should have taken the money had it come from the old one himself. It is, perhaps, as well that it should have been done in such a manner that you may well feel you owe no great ...
— In the Irish Brigade - A Tale of War in Flanders and Spain • G. A. Henty

... perplexed how to explain what seemed ungracious and ungrateful, and spoke with hesitating lip and flushed cheek of the widow's natural timidity and sense of her own homely station. "And so overpowered is she," added Leonard, "by the recollection of all that we owe to you, that ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 5, No. 3, March, 1852 • Various

... over Lydia with a shock that he did not know she had been away. She felt hurt. It seemed ungracious for anyone in Endbury not to have missed her, not to share in the joyful excitement of her final return. "I've been in Europe for a year," she told him, with a dignity ...
— The Squirrel-Cage • Dorothy Canfield

... shan't be under the ungracious necessity of shaking him off. I can't tell you how sick I am, Harry, at the loss ...
— The Hunt Ball Mystery • Magnay, William

... books of prints and their foreign photographs, to light up the walks in the garden and the greenhouse, and to provide a delicious supper for my entertainment, and then ask, I will say, only one person whom I want to see, is it not very ungracious, very selfish, and very snobbish for me to refuse to take what is, because of something which is not,—because Ellen is not there or George is not? What Act of Parliament is there that I should have everything in ...
— How To Do It • Edward Everett Hale

... with a little sigh. It seemed so ungracious to get what they wanted, and then turn their backs directly. She hinted ...
— A Perilous Secret • Charles Reade

... her stone and works on it in solitude. She is an ungracious landowner and guards her site jealously, driving away any Mason who even looks as though she might alight on it. The inhabitants of the same nest are therefore always brothers and sisters; they are the family ...
— Bramble-bees and Others • J. Henri Fabre

... after the girls' break-up, if you please,' said Felix, still not perfectly happy, but unable to help himself; and manifesting quite enough reluctance to make his father ask, as soon as they had parted, what made him so ungracious. ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge

... her ungracious silence, but her attention was attracted by the way in which her aunt spoke of the Tenor in regard to herself, apparently as if she had known of their intimacy. Lady Fulda resumed, however, before Angelica had asked herself how ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand

... claims assumed no very definite form; and, at the termination of a century after the days of Paul and Peter, they amounted simply to the recognition of something like an honorary precedence. At that period it was, perhaps, deemed equally imprudent and ungracious to quarrel with its pretensions, more especially as the community by which they were advanced was distributing its bounty all around, and was itself nobly sustaining the brunt of almost every persecution. In the course of time, the ...
— The Ancient Church - Its History, Doctrine, Worship, and Constitution • W.D. [William Dool] Killen

... and running back through the long list of their illustrious ancestry whose notable badge was a white skin! No wonder they cannot stop to bow to the passing stranger. These sprouts of the Caucasian race are known among the Barbadians by the rather ungracious name of Red Shanks. They are considered the pest of the island, and are far more troublesome to the police, in proportion to their members, than the apprentices. They are ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society

... if you like," returned Mrs. Adair, with an ungracious shrug of the shoulders. "But there is a reason, I suppose. I don't understand why you ...
— The Four Feathers • A. E. W. Mason

... down the address, but I was most ungracious to Eilert. Why couldn't he have kept the ...
— Look Back on Happiness • Knut Hamsun

... my nature; and, besides, I had seen many sad examples, while overlooking my father's business, that the utmost exertions, and the best meant services, do not secure the man of business, as he is called, from great loss, and most ungracious treatment on the part of his employers. The Bar, though I was conscious of my deficiencies as a public speaker, was the line of ambition and liberty; it was that also for which most of my contemporary ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume I (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart

... effect of this good lesson keep, As watchman to my heart. But, good my brother Do not as some ungracious pastors do, Show me the steep and thorny way to heaven, Whilst, like a puffed and wreckless libertine, Himself the primrose path of dalliance treads And recks ...
— Shakspere, Personal Recollections • John A. Joyce

... perfection were stupidity and canting. 'Prose they only know in graces, prayers, etc., and the value of these they estimate, as they do their plaiding webs, by the ell. As for the Muses, they have as much an idea of a rhinoceros as of a poet.' He was, in fact, ungracious towards his neighbours, not that they were boorish or uninformed folk, but simply because, though living at Ellisland in body, his mind was in Ayrshire with his darling Jean, and he was looking to the future when he should have a home and a wife of his ...
— Robert Burns - Famous Scots Series • Gabriel Setoun

... generous and admirable army, and my sole concern is to take part, however modestly, in the work of the nation. True, a thousand memories and reflections crowd my mind; the notion of pausing to express them in writing had not occurred to me, but it would be ungracious in me to decline your kind invitation. Please omit from the ideas I throw on paper whatever seems to you to be ...
— New York Times, Current History, Vol 1, Issue 1 - From the Beginning to March, 1915 With Index • Various

... dominated. Lord Hermiston was coarse and cruel; and yet the son was aware of a bloomless nobility, an ungracious abnegation of the man's self in the man's office. At every word, this sense of the greatness of Lord Hermiston's spirit struck more home; and along with it that of his own impotence, who had struck—and perhaps basely struck—at his ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XIX (of 25) - The Ebb-Tide; Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson

... the interests of the sovereign whom he was most anxious to serve. Even Hutchinson, as we learn from the third volume of his History, though he was attached to the same policy, and favored the same measures, censures the tone of Bernard's messages as ungracious, impolitic, and offensive." ...
— James Otis The Pre-Revolutionist • John Clark Ridpath

... as she rang for the house-maid to remove the tea-things, indulged in a few speculations on her side. "He was evidently disappointed with Katherine. I am not surprised. She is looking ill, and she has such ungracious manners! Of course she will come to this Richmond party when I ask her, and I must ask her. Ormonde is a good deal smitten with me, but he'll not lose his head. It is an awful thing to be poor and to have two boys. Oh, how ...
— A Crooked Path - A Novel • Mrs. Alexander

... those who were congenial to me, and had no pleasure in the company of the common and the ignorant. I liked clever people. I gave them my best, but I had nothing to bestow upon the dull and stupid. How many times have I borne the society of inferior people with ungracious tolerance, and hastened from them with undisguised relief? How often when dealing with the poor and ignorant in the exercise of conventional philanthropy, have I been careful to preserve the sense of a great gulf that yawned between me and them? And what was my daily life after all ...
— The Empire of Love • W. J. Dawson

... honor. Come out o' this, b'y, till I show ye the bastes," responded Pat; and, with a hasty good-bye to Mrs. Moss, Ben followed his new leader, sorely tempted to play some naughty trick upon him in return for his ungracious reception. ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, January 1878, No. 3 • Various

... they reached the Grange, where the first person they met was Jemmy Branigan, who addressed his old enemy, the pedlar, in that peculiarly dry and ironical tone which he was often in the habit of using when he wished to disguise a friendly act in an ungracious garb—a method of granting favors, by the way, to which he was proverbially addicted. In fact, a surly answer from Jemmy was as frequently indicative of his intention to serve you with his master as it was otherwise; but so adroitly did he ...
— The Black Prophet: A Tale Of Irish Famine • William Carleton

... It may seem ungracious in one who has received a hundred favors from his patron to speak in any but a reverential manner of his elders; but the present writer has had descendants of his own, whom he has brought up with as little as possible of the servility at present exacted by parents from children ...
— The History of Henry Esmond, Esq. • W. M. Thackeray

... at least, or scalps to hang at my belt. No? You ungracious little thing! There is a good-by kiss to show you that I always hold out ...
— Hope Mills - or Between Friend and Sweetheart • Amanda M. Douglas

... home slowly, brooding on the lovely marvel, that out of such a rough ungracious stem as the Oldcastle family, should have sprung such a delicate, pale, winter-braved flower, as Ethelwyn. And I prayed that I might be honoured to rescue her from the ungenial soil and atmosphere to which the machinations ...
— Annals of a Quiet Neighbourhood • George MacDonald

... rule. He was, at the best, but an idle student; and his zeal for science never carried him beyond a little desultory study of Astronomy and Botany and some absurd experiments in Chemistry. His figure was awkward, his manners were ungracious, and he was so near-sighted that he used to take a servant hunting with him, to show him the game. His credulity and want of worldly knowledge exposed him to the practices of the shrewd frontiers-men among whom he lived. He soon became involved in debt, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 5, March, 1858 • Various

... welcome here, no ungracious remembrances of the past, no need ever to doubt Trixy's warm heart, and, ...
— A Terrible Secret • May Agnes Fleming

... see you," she said, her tone as ungracious as her look. "But you will say nothing of lodging here, if it please you. Do you hear?" she added, her voice rising to ...
— The Long Night • Stanley Weyman

... malignant feeling which had been excited in England against everything Irish. The importation of Irish cattle had long been considered an English grievance, it was now declared by law "a nuisance." The occasion taken to pass this statute was as ungracious as the act itself was despicable. In consequence of "the great fire," which still glows for us in the immortal verse of Dryden, the Irish had sent over to the distressed, a contribution of 15,000 bullocks. This was considered by the generous ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee

... be the less perceived." Chapman, in his comedies generally, shows a kind of philosophical contempt for woman, as a frailer and flimsier, if fairer, creature than man, and he sustains his bad judgment with infinite ingenuity of wilful wit and penetration of ungracious analysis. In "The Widow's Tears" this unpoetic infidelity to the sex pervades the whole plot and incidents, as well as gives edge to many an incisive sarcasm. My sense, says Tharsalio, "tells me how short-lived widows' tears are, that their weeping is in truth but laughing under ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 122, December, 1867 • Various

... descended awkwardly over the wheel. She stumbled in reaching the ground, and the girl with a kindly movement turned to help her. "I hope you aren't hurt," she said in crisp, clearcut tones; but the elder woman, recovering herself with an effort, passed on after an ungracious bow. When she reached Christopher he was still standing motionless beside the wagon, and at her first words he started like one awaking from a pleasant daydream. "So you came, after all," he remarked in ...
— The Deliverance; A Romance of the Virginia Tobacco Fields • Ellen Glasgow

... at the half monastic, half military appearance of the swarthy stranger, and at the uncouth dress and arms of his Eastern attendants. It is probable, too, that the language in which the benediction was conferred, and the information asked, sounded ungracious, though not probably unintelligible, in the ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott

... Barouche at the meeting, she realized how sincere yet insincere he was; how gifted and yet how ungracious was his mind. Her youth was over; long pain and regret had chastened her. She was as lonely a creature as ever the world knew; violence was no part of her equipment; and yet terrible memories made her assent to this new phase of Carnac's life. She wondered what Barouche would ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... slur on her husband which the recall involved more acutely than he. Burton, though stung to the quick at the treatment the Foreign Office meted out to him for doing what he conceived to be his duty (and certainly the manner of his recall was ungracious almost to the point of brutality), was not a man given to show his feelings to the world, and he possessed a philosophy which enabled him to present a calm and unmoved front to the reverses of fortune. With his wife it was different. She was not of a nature to suffer in silence, nor to ...
— The Romance of Isabel Lady Burton Volume II • Isabel Lady Burton & W. H. Wilkins

... this ungracious earth have a fancy that there must be huge confusion and a mighty bobbery in nature, corresponding with that which is for ever going on in their own little spheres. If we have a toothache, we look for a change of weather; our rheumatism is a sure ...
— Charlemont • W. Gilmore Simms

... see it," Julian said, "and I feel that it would be not only ungrateful but wrong for me to refuse this noble gift. But you will admit that it is natural that I should for a time be overwhelmed by it. I am not so ungracious as to refuse so magnificent a present, although I feel that it is altogether disproportionate, not to the service I was fortunate enough to render, but to my action in rendering it. Well, Mr. Linton, I can only thank you for the part ...
— Through Russian Snows - A Story of Napoleon's Retreat from Moscow • G. A Henty

... own judgment Katherine Moore had agreed finally to represent Athena; in spite of the difficulties to be surmounted not to have accepted would have been too ungracious. ...
— The Girl Scouts in Beechwood Forest • Margaret Vandercook

... circumstance from without; some reprimand for neglect—some threat of withdrawal of business which his employer had received; but of this he could not be certain; all he knew was, that Mr. Wilkins proposed the partnership to him in about as ungracious a way as such an offer could be made; an ungraciousness which, after all, had so little effect on the real matter in hand, that Mr. Dunster could pass over it with a private sneer, while taking all possible advantage of the tangible benefit it was now ...
— A Dark Night's Work • Elizabeth Gaskell

... the nature and consequences of my attempt, and I advance to it with a tremor that shakes me to the inmost fibre of my frame. I feel that I engage in a business, in itself most ungracious, totally wide of the course of prudent conduct, and, I really think, the most completely adverse that can be imagined to the natural turn and temper of my own mind. I know that all parsimony is of a quality approaching to ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. II. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... Wilkinson, and no certain accounts of his approach. The grand jury, the witnesses, and the country grow impatient. It is an ungracious thing, and so deemed, after having for six months been branded as a traitor; after directing that Burr and his followers should be attacked, put to death, and their property seized; after all the violations of law and ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis

... impression. A lady dislikes to receive from a man with whom she has but a slight acquaintance a bow accompanied by a broad smile, as though he were on the most familiar terms with her. It is far better to err on the other side, and to give one of those stiff, ungracious bows which some men indulge in. Those gentlemen who smile with their eyes instead of their mouths give the most charming bows. As for men who bow charmingly at one time, and with excessive hauteur at others, according as they feel in a good or bad ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 11, No. 24, March, 1873 • Various

... know anything about it, and I don't want to hear anything more about it either," was the ungracious reply. ...
— The Wind Before the Dawn • Dell H. Munger

... Broecklyn bowed. He could not refuse a request so urged, but his step was slow and his manner next to ungracious as he led the way to the door of the adjoining room and ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery In Four Volumes - Detective Stories • Various

... Johnny was not so old then—none of us were; it was a short time after the death of that old harpy, the Duchess of Wrexe, and some wag said that the dinner was in celebration of that happy occasion. Johnny was not so ungracious as that, but he gave us a very merry evening and he did undoubtedly feel a kind of lightness in ...
— The Best British Short Stories of 1922 • Various

... his own person, the last-quoted observation, but he would have known better than to go back, even if himself, and not his father, had been the first comer of his line from the north. He had married an English Christian, and, having none of the Scotch accent, was ungracious enough to be ashamed of his blood. He was desirous to obliterate alike the Hebrew and Caledonian vestiges in his name, and signed himself E. M. Crotchet, which by degrees induced the majority of his neighbours ...
— Crotchet Castle • Thomas Love Peacock

... said she. She felt that he would think this curtness ungracious, but more she could ...
— The Conflict • David Graham Phillips

... when through blameless paths to righteous ends Those keener passions urge the awaken'd soul, 600 I would not, as ungracious violence, Their sway describe, nor from their free career The fellowship of Pleasure quite exclude. For what can render, to the self-approved, Their temper void of comfort, though in pain? Who knows not with what majesty divine The forms of Truth and Justice to the mind Appear, ennobling ...
— Poetical Works of Akenside - [Edited by George Gilfillan] • Mark Akenside

... the Speaker's chair. Peter has a certificate of being "a bould speaker," from old Richardson, in whose company he was engaged as parade-clown and check-taker. The gallant Colonel, however, is decidedly the favourite, notwithstanding his very ungracious summary of the Whigs some time ago. We would give one of the buttons ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, August 7, 1841 • Various

... saw one of your brethren, another of the allied sovereigns of Grub Street, the other day, Mawman the Great, by whom I sent due homage to your imperial self. To-morrow's post may perhaps bring a letter from you, but you are the most ungrateful and ungracious of correspondents. But there is some excuse for you, with your perpetual levee of politicians, parsons, scribblers, and loungers. Some day I will give you a poetical catalogue ...
— Life of Lord Byron, With His Letters And Journals, Vol. 5 (of 6) • (Lord Byron) George Gordon Byron

... zigzagging with her friends over Thought and Art, was conscious of a personality that transcended their own and dwarfed their activities. There was no bitterness in Mrs. Wilcox; there was not even criticism; she was lovable, and no ungracious or uncharitable word had passed her lips. Yet she and daily life were out of focus: one or the other must show blurred. And at lunch she seemed more out of focus than usual, and nearer the line that divides life from a life that may ...
— Howards End • E. M. Forster

... my eyes I see the faces of my kind friends, who shake hands cordially, delighted that I should have had some rest. My mind is then tranquil, and I am ready to listen to all the beautiful ideas proposed to me, or to decline the absurdities submitted to me without being ungracious. ...
— My Double Life - The Memoirs of Sarah Bernhardt • Sarah Bernhardt

... of the favor bestowed upon the author's previous story, both by the Public who Criticise and the Public who Buy, it seems a little ungracious to present so soon, another, the scene of which is also laid in the valley of the Ohio. But the picture of Western country life in "The Hoosier School-Master" would not have been complete without this companion-piece, which presents a different phase of it. And indeed there is no provincial life ...
— The End Of The World - A Love Story • Edward Eggleston

... if not the healthiest city in Europe; in spite of the solvency which she preserves amid expenses to which the vast scale of antiquity obliges her in all her public enterprises (a thing to be hereafter studied), we, the ungracious offspring of her youth, come from our North and West and censure and criticise and carp. I have seldom conversed with any fellow-visitor in Rome who could not improve her in some phase or other, who could not usefully advise her, who, at the best, ...
— Roman Holidays and Others • W. D. Howells

... brass, Himself an ass, And his power is fiddle-dee-dee. Prankily, crankily prating of naught, Silly old quilly old Monarch of Thought. Public opinion's camp-follower he, Thundering, blundering, plundering free. Affected, Ungracious, Suspected, Mendacious, ...
— The Devil's Dictionary • Ambrose Bierce

... present day, are they who make an outward display of devotion to Liberty, but few, methinks, are her real worshippers. "We are fighting for Freedom" is a cry which rises from the most unexpected quarters; and, though 'twere ungracious to question its sincerity, we must admit that this generous enthusiasm ...
— Prime Ministers and Some Others - A Book of Reminiscences • George W. E. Russell

... child, he would have taken her in his arms,—as is his habit with most children, being a special favorite in every nursery; but this little dame, drawing back from him, repels him coldly. Then, as though fearing herself ungracious, she slowly extends to him a tiny, friendly hand, which he accepts. The likeness between this grave baby and her graver mother is so remarkable ...
— Rossmoyne • Unknown

... has a little sister, whom it would be unjust, as well as ungracious, not to introduce in passing, namely, the SHIPWRECKED MARINERS' SOCIETY. They do their blessed work hand in hand. Their relative position may be simply stated thus:—The Lifeboat Institution saves life. Having dragged the shipwrecked ...
— Saved by the Lifeboat • R.M. Ballantyne

... is Volumnia herself who searches to the quick the principle of this boyish sovereignty, in her satire on the undivine passion she wishes to unseat. It is thus that she upbraids the hero with his unmanly, ungracious, ignoble purpose:— ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon

... more than once spoken of the disgusting air of patronage which he assumed toward me, and of his frequent officious interference withy my will. This interference often took the ungracious character of advice; advice not openly given, but hinted or insinuated. I received it with a repugnance which gained strength as I grew in years. Yet, at this distant day, let me do him the simple justice to acknowledge that I can ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 2 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe

... out of use is loss; there are words which it is gain to be rid of; which it would be folly to wish to revive; of which Dryden, setting himself against an extravagant zeal in this direction, says in an ungracious comparison—they do "not deserve this redemption, any more than the crowds of men who daily die, or are slain for sixpence in a battle, merit to be restored to life, if a wish could revive them"{84}. There are others, however, which it is a real gain to ...
— English Past and Present • Richard Chenevix Trench

... to measure him with others, and let us not quarrel as to whether he was greater or less than Washington, as to whether either of them set to perform the other's task would have succeeded in it, or, perchance would have failed. Not only is the competition itself an ungracious one, but to make Lincoln a competitor is foolish and useless. He was the most individual man who ever lived; let us be content with this fact. Let us take him simply as Abraham Lincoln, singular and solitary, as we all see that he was; let ...
— Our American Holidays: Lincoln's Birthday • Various

... we had the honour of being the first to abolish the unhospitable, troublesome, and ungracious custom of giving vails to servants[228]. JOHNSON. 'Sir, you abolished vails, because you were too poor to ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell

... Hind, how many sons have you, Who call you mother, whom you never knew! But most of them who that relation plead, Are such ungracious youths as wish you dead. They gape at rich revenues which you hold, And fain would nibble at your grandame Gold; Inquire into your years, and laugh to find 150 Your crazy temper shows you much declined. Were you not dim and doted, ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol I - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden

... person in your community who could be beguiled to touch a penny not his own—see to it that you abide in this grace. ["We will! we will!"] This is not the place to make comparisons between ourselves and other communities—some of them ungracious towards us; they have their ways, we have ours; let us be content. [Applause.] I am done. Under my hand, my friends, rests a stranger's eloquent recognition of what we are; through him the world will always henceforth know what we are. We do not know who he is, but in your name I utter ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... reverse,—a horrible stimulant! Caxton, do you know that, ungracious as it will sound to you, I am growing impatient of this 'honorable independence'? What does it lead to? Board, clothes, and lodging,—can it ever bring me ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... Harrowby complained that Lord Grey was always beating about the bush of compromise, but never would commit himself fairly to concession. Melbourne complained last night that what was done was done in such an ungracious manner, so niggardly, that he hated the man (Harrowby) who did it. The ultra-Tories are outrageous 'that he gave up everything without reason or cause;' the ultra-Whigs equally furious 'that he had shown how little way he was disposed ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. II • Charles C. F. Greville

... partly through pressure of business and partly from idleness and procrastination, but it would be very ungracious to delay returning my thanks for your kindness in transmitting the very flattering particulars of the Prince Regent's conversation with Lord Byron. I trouble you with a few lines to his Lordship expressive of my thanks for his very handsome and gratifying communication, and I hope he will ...
— A Publisher and His Friends • Samuel Smiles

... gave him tokens of her royal munificence. Her Majesty feared that her acting otherwise to a Minister, who had been honoured by her confidence, would operate as a check to prevent all men of celebrity from exposing their fortunes to so ungracious a return for lending their best services to the State, which now stood in need of the most skilful pilots. Such were the motives assigned by Her Majesty herself to me, when I took the liberty, of expostulating with her ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XV. and XVI., Volume 5 • Madame du Hausset, and of an Unknown English Girl and the Princess Lamballe

... years after her birth, and no other child followed me. Caroline, from her earliest days, was the perfection of beauty and health. I was small, weakly, and, if the truth must be told, almost as plain-featured as Uncle George himself. It would be ungracious and undutiful in me to presume to decide whether there was any foundation or not for the dislike that my father's family always felt for my mother. All I can venture to say is, that her children never had any cause to ...
— The Queen of Hearts • Wilkie Collins

... an interest in and were kind to the little motherless girl, but were too busy to have any time to spend in teaching her, or enlarging her ideas; and indeed all the world conspired to carry out M. Linders' plan; for who would have cared, even had it been possible, to undertake the ungracious task of opening the eyes of a child to the real character of a father whom she loved and believed in so implicitly? And she was so happy, too! Setting aside any possible injury he might be doing her, M. Linders was the most devoted of fathers, ...
— My Little Lady • Eleanor Frances Poynter

... he consented to place within his reach all the dried meat that had been left of his Indian foes, together with a pail of water—the latter by way of punishment for having swilled away at his Wabash in the ungracious manner he had. ...
— The Canadian Brothers - or The Prophecy Fulfilled • John Richardson

... of that, sir. That is your most ungracious trait. It is true that you yourself have introduced into our house young men of every class of society. It is true that you have never guarded me against them:—but then in a short time, when you began to remark that I felt some affection towards some of them, you discovered ...
— Debts of Honor • Maurus Jokai

... Swearest thou, ungracious boy? Henceforth ne'er look on me. Thou art violently carried away from grace. There is a devil haunts thee, in the likeness of a fat old man; a tun of man is thy companion. Why dost thou converse with that trunk of humours, that bolting hutch of beastliness, that swoln parcel of dropsies, that ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury

... think it was time! I should think it was TIME!" Now and then we have thought it would be pleasant to have a little motor-car that could be tucked away at any roadside, without reference to a good hitching-place, but if we had it, I am sure we should miss that ungracious welcoming whinny. We should miss, too, the exasperated violence of Kit's pace on the first bit of the home road—a violence expressing in the most ostentatious manner her opinion of folks who keep a respectable ...
— More Jonathan Papers • Elisabeth Woodbridge

... plates of olives, grapes, and oranges. The necessary was there and there was no lack of the superfluous. The host and hostess were so pleasant, and the big table, with its abundant fare, looked so inviting, that it would have been ungracious not to have seated themselves. The farm servants, on equal footing with their master, were already in their places to take their share of the meal. Paddy O'Moore pointed to the seats reserved for the strangers, and said ...
— In Search of the Castaways • Jules Verne

... only by the roughest and poorest classes, entirely unmolested; and that we trusted much on many occasions to the honesty of the people, and never found cause to repent our trust—I cannot but feel that it would be an ungracious act to ransack newspapers and Reports to furnish materials for recording in detail, the vices of a population whom I have only personally known by their virtues. Let you and I, reader, leave off with the same pleasant impressions of the ...
— Rambles Beyond Railways; - or, Notes in Cornwall taken A-foot • Wilkie Collins

... latter nuisance seems, according to French novelists, to be more active with their country folk than it is with ours[540]—a thing, in a way, convenient for fiction. Of the descriptive part the only unfavourable criticism (and that a rather ungracious one) that could be made is that it is almost too elaborate. Of two fateful scenes of Sauvageonne, that where Francis Pommeret, the unheroic hero, comes across Denise (the girl's proper name) sitting in a crab-tree in the forest ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 - To the Close of the 19th Century • George Saintsbury

... going to ask a great deal of you, and remind you of a promise you once made." There was a little tremor in her voice. "You will not think it ungracious if I say there is no one else who can do what seems so necessary, and ask you if you do not consider that you owe something to my father. It is hard for me, not because I doubt ...
— Thurston of Orchard Valley • Harold Bindloss

... one of our American ideals, even of a, young girl's character! Now it is most ungracious, and it may seem to some persons unpatriotic, to criticise in public the physical peculiarities of one's own people, of one's own family, so to speak. Besides, it may be said, and said with justice, that there are plenty of bottled-lightning temperaments in other ...
— A Book of Exposition • Homer Heath Nugent

... says to his mother when the sound of wheels has subsided, "this luggage may as well go to the tower room. I wish——" Will he not seem ungracious to declare his preferences ...
— Floyd Grandon's Honor • Amanda Minnie Douglas

... is ungracious, however," he says, "even to find so slight a fault with these admirable volumes. Mr. Motley has written without haste, with the leisurely composure of a master. . . . We now take our leave of Mr. Motley, desiring him only to accept our hearty thanks for these volumes, which ...
— Memoir of John Lothrop Motley, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... if our ultimate condition must be that of entire subjection and surrender to and harmony with the Divine Will, how sad it is that our consecration is so slow, so protracted, so ungracious; that we take so much time to reach the point where we are altogether the Lord's. People can read the mystery of conversion in the parable of the dry bones in Ezekiel; but there is consecration in the story, too. Little by little we see the dead ...
— Memoranda Sacra • J. Rendel Harris

... Lady Price had alienated his brother clergy, and his fellow-curate allowed himself to be kept aloof by his mother, in a manner that became ungenerous. Half petulant, and wholly ungracious, as Mr. Smith's manner was in receiving assistance, only strong principle could lead any one to befriend him; and his few advisers found it difficult to hinder him from making a public exposure of 'my Lady,' or from throwing up his work suddenly and leaving the town, which would ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge

... as quickly ended in a Pullman. Men's ways lie in such diverse directions, and the hours of contact are often so short, that no one can afford to be either ungracious or exclusive. The "buttoned-up" misses the best part of travelling. He is like a camera with the cap on—he never gets a new impression. The man with the shutters of his ears thrown wide and the lids of his eyes tied back gets ...
— The Underdog • F. Hopkinson Smith

... expedition to capture British posts in the Lake country. An arduous winter march brought the avengers and their Indian allies to Fort St. Joseph, a mile or two west of the present city of Niles, Michigan. It would be ungracious to say that this post was selected for attack because it was without a garrison. At all events, the place was duly seized, the Spanish standard was set up, and possession of "the fort and its dependencies" ...
— The Old Northwest - A Chronicle of the Ohio Valley and Beyond, Volume 19 In - The Chronicles Of America Series • Frederic Austin Ogg

... constrained to bleed decorously. Making shift to lean heavily on Penelope, Kent came through without doing or saying anything unseemly. Mrs. Brentwood, who had been sleeping with one eye open, and that eye upon Elinor and Ormsby, made sure that she had now no special reason to be ungracious to David Kent. For the others, Ormsby was good-naturedly suave; Elinor was by turns unwontedly kind and curiously silent; and Penelope—but, as we say, it was to Penelope that ...
— The Grafters • Francis Lynde

... defended the exorbitant grants obtained by others. He had not, indeed, been able, in the late debates, to raise his own voice against the just demands of the nation. But it might well be suspected that he had in secret prompted the ungracious answer of the King and encouraged the pertinacious resistance of the Lords. Sir John Levison Gower, a noisy and acrimonious Tory, called for impeachment. But Musgrave, an abler and more experienced politician, ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 5 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... flamed in the cressets on both sides of the entrance. The hall was filled with servants and members of the household, and in the bustle that ensued when the ladies in their brocades and hoops had entered the house, Desmond saw an opportunity of slipping away. He felt that it was perhaps a little ungracious to go without a word to the ladies; but he was tired; he was unaccustomed to town society, and the service he had been able to render seemed to him so slight that he was modestly eager to efface himself. Leaving the carriage in the hands of one of the lackeys, with a few words of ...
— In Clive's Command - A Story of the Fight for India • Herbert Strang

... dramatic incident which followed, must have produced on her mind eccentric and erroneous impressions. The effect would naturally be to falsify, not only the protestations of her lover, but my own testimony borne in his behalf, and indeed all else she had been told. It was not difficult to predict an ungracious reception. As I approached, she gave over caressing the dog; and once more leaped to the back of her horse. I was in fear that she would ride off, and shun me. I knew I could easily overtake her; but a chase of this nature would scarcely have been ...
— The Wild Huntress - Love in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid

... with the fumes from a thousand venal censers of a flattery which intoxicates and makes giddy. A king in Egypt, very near our Lord's time, had borne the title 'benefactor,' the very word that is employed here; even as many a most ungracious sovereign has been ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren

... "Alas, sir, I can never have lord Martin. Do not mention him. I am in no hurry. I will live single as long as you please." "Yes, and when you have persuaded me to that, you will jump out at window the next day to this ungracious rascal." "Oh pray sir do not speak so. He is good and gentle." "Why, hussey, am I not master in my own house? I shall have a fine time of it indeed, if I must give you an account of my words." "Sir," said Delia, ...
— Damon and Delia - A Tale • William Godwin

... reads the sacred page, How Abram was the friend of God on high; Or Moses bade eternal warfare wage With Amalek's ungracious progeny; Or how the royal bard did groaning lie Beneath the stroke of Heaven's avenging ire; Or Job's pathetic plaint, and wailing cry; Or rapt Isaiah's wild, seraphic fire; Or other holy seers that tune the ...
— Poems And Songs Of Robert Burns • Robert Burns

... Salvation Army has propounded, if I thought it worthy of support. The responsibility of advising my benevolent correspondent has weighed heavily upon me, but I felt that it would be cowardly, as well as ungracious, to refuse to accept it. I have therefore studied Mr. Booth's book with some care, for the purpose of separating the essential from the accessory features of his project, and I have based my judgment—I am sorry to say an unfavourable one—upon ...
— Evolution and Ethics and Other Essays • Thomas H. Huxley

... what, we be growing old women!" saith Aunt Joyce. "Ned and Edith, ye ungracious loons, ...
— Joyce Morrell's Harvest - The Annals of Selwick Hall • Emily Sarah Holt

... women had brought out with them from the examination. Hence, also (without reckoning the influence of the tea-pot), their readiness to let their tongues run to any length on the subject of the Sergeant's ungracious behaviour to them. ...
— The Moonstone • Wilkie Collins

... outskirts; for the desert is hungry and yet patient; it has devoured sundry oases by simply waiting till man is preoccupied with other matters. And how rare they are, these specks of green, these fountains in the sand—rare as the smiles in a lifetime of woe! Beyond and all around lies a grave and ungracious land, the land ...
— Fountains In The Sand - Rambles Among The Oases Of Tunisia • Norman Douglas

... don't want you, William," cried the young man's aunt. "Why do not you offer, and where are your American manners, you ungracious Harry Warrington? Don't swear, Will, Harry is much better company than you are, and much better ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray

... said to herself that she did not love Jim her mind recoiled a little. He was such a good sort, so kind, so reliable. It was just as if she had said that she did not love her brothers. It was ungracious, and ungrateful. She did love him. Dear old Jim! And she would be sorry to cause him pain. But, if she did not want him to make love to her—and certainly she didn't—she couldn't possibly love him as a girl ought to love her prospective husband—as Beatrice, for instance, loved her young ...
— The Squire's Daughter - Being the First Book in the Chronicles of the Clintons • Archibald Marshall

... crouched and launched its huge body through the air swift and resistless as a ball from a cannon. The beast struck Jim full on his shoulder and sent the astonished cab-horse rolling over and over, amid shouts of delight from the spectators, who had been horrified by the ungracious act he ...
— Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz • L. Frank Baum.

... she knew his proud temper so well, yet she had prayed that there would have been some kindly relentings towards her; but there seemed none. So she answered him sadly, and the two sat down to their gloomy, silent breakfast. And thus it was all that day. Mr. Greylston still mute and ungracious; his sister shrank away from him. In that mood she scarcely knew him; and her face was grave, and her voice so sad, even the servants wondered what was the matter. Margaret Greylston had fully overcome all angry, ...
— Friends and Neighbors - or Two Ways of Living in the World • Anonymous

... is preached to the poor." He lectures them on economy, on morality, the regulation of their passions (which, he says, at other times, are amenable to no restraint) and on the ungracious topic, that "the laws of nature, which are the laws of God, have doomed them and their families to starve for want of a right to the smallest portion of food beyond what their labour will supply, or some ...
— The Spirit of the Age - Contemporary Portraits • William Hazlitt

... a considerable wager (though by no means a positive man) that some such mitigated description would lead the beagles of the law into a much surer track for finding this ungracious varlet, than to set them upon a false scent after fictitious ugliness and fictitious shabbiness; though, to do those gentlemen justice, I have no doubt their experience has taught them in all such cases to abate ...
— The Works of Charles Lamb in Four Volumes, Volume 4 • Charles Lamb



Words linked to "Ungracious" :   graceless, discourteous, impolite, ungraciousness, churlish



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