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Deprecation   Listen
noun
Deprecation  n.  
1.
The act of deprecating; a praying against evil; prayer that an evil may be removed or prevented. (archaic) "Humble deprecation."
2.
Entreaty for pardon; petitioning.
3.
An imprecation or curse. (Obs.)
4.
A strong expression of disapprobation; an expression of a low opinion.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Deprecation" Quotes from Famous Books



... you despise me, Mr. Gigadibs. No deprecation—nay, I beg you, sir! Beside 't is our engagement: don't you know, I promised, if you'd watch a dinner out, We'd see truth dawn together?—truth that peeps Over the glasses' edge when dinner's done, And body gets its sop and holds its noise And leaves soul free a little. Now's the time: 20 ...
— Men and Women • Robert Browning

... declared the thief in deprecation. "I went to him discouraged and out of money, and he told me I must learn to take things ...
— More Toasts • Marion Dix Mosher

... the transparent disguise. The presence of the two stranger captains was still a restraint upon him. At length he cast his eyes upon Captain Reud, and putting into his countenance the drollest look of deprecation mingled with fun, said plaintively, "Are we ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard

... Dissuasion. — N. dissuasion, dehortation[obs3], expostulation, remonstrance; deprecation &c. 766. discouragement, damper, wet blanket; disillusionment, disenchantment. cohibition &c. (restraint) 751[obs3]; curb &c. (means of restraint) 752; check &c. (hindrance) 706. reluctance &c. (unwillingness) 603; contraindication. V. dissuade, dehort[obs3], cry out against, remonstrate, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus

... him earnestly. "But I hope," she said with an air of deprecation, pulling a rose to pieces, petal by petal, nervously, as she spoke, "you don't put us on quite the same level as Mohammedans. We're so much more civilised. So much better in every way. Do you know, Mr. Ingledew," and she hesitated for a minute, "I can't bear to differ from you or blame you ...
— The British Barbarians • Grant Allen

... Miss Luttrell chimed on vacantly, wagging her wrinkled old head in solemn deprecation of tke evil omen. She knew it as well as Mrs. Oswald herself did, having heard the fact at least a thousand times before; but she made it a matter of principle never to encourage these upstart pretensions on the part of the lower orders, and just to keep them rigorously ...
— Philistia • Grant Allen

... was alone. Anne, bright-eyed and anxious, came in upon him and brought him to his feet. Anne had learned this year that you should not knock at the door of business offices, but she still half believed you ought, and it gave her entrance something of deprecation and a ...
— The Prisoner • Alice Brown

... his head in burlesque deprecation of her too obvious appreciation, and then brought his attention ...
— With the Procession • Henry B. Fuller

... the door opened and there came in a youth of seventeen, tall and well-built, with clothing that testified to an encounter alike with brier and bog. The hound Bran followed him. He blinked at the lights and the fire, then with a gesture of deprecation crossed the hall to the stairway. ...
— Foes • Mary Johnston

... the countess, raising her hand in deprecation. "Why will you vilify a people who are in ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach

... malediction, which by the way neither the young lady nor her mother would repeat to me afterwards, was certainly remarkable. Those men who heard it, among them the would-be slayers of Stephen, stayed their hands and even inclined their heads towards the young priestess, as though in reverence or deprecation, and thus remained for sufficient time for her to lead the wounded Stephen out of danger. This she did wading backwards by his side and keeping her eyes fixed full upon the Pongo. It was perhaps the most curious rescue ...
— Allan and the Holy Flower • H. Rider Haggard

... say to-day. What I said before was wrung from me by words on your part, while you know far too well how to speak so as to make them go deepest, and which sometimes it becomes impossible, or over-hard to bear without deprecation:—as when, for instance, you talk of being 'grateful' to me!!—Well! I will try that there shall be no more of it—no more provocation of generosities—and so, (this once) as you express it, I 'will not have the heart to blame' you—except for reading my books against my ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett

... use, Peak,' said Sir John, raising his hand in deprecation of his delivering any message; 'I am not at home. I cannot possibly hear you. I told you I was not at home, and my word is sacred. Will you never do as ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens

... his simple visitors had no answer, and they simply looked at each other in decent deprecation; but their confusion was speedily covered by the return of the young girl with two large bunches of roses—one of them all white, the ...
— The Portrait of a Lady - Volume 1 (of 2) • Henry James

... confession, I may seem to some of you to throw our compass overboard, and to adopt caprice as our pilot. Skepticism or wayward choice, you may think, can be the only results of such a formless method as I have taken up. A few remarks in deprecation of such an opinion, and in farther explanation of the empiricist principles which I profess, may therefore appear at this point ...
— The Varieties of Religious Experience • William James

... and clucking with his tongue in deprecation of this painful episode, moves to the chair just vacated by the Archbishop and stands behind it with folded palms, looking at the President. The Accountant General shakes his fist after the departed visitors, and bursts ...
— Back to Methuselah • George Bernard Shaw

... however small; but even if he had not become bankrupt immediately after its publication, it is unlikely that Crabbe would have profited by a single penny. It was indeed a very ill-advised attempt, even as regards the reviewers addressed. The very tone adopted, that of deprecation of criticism, would be in their view a proof of weakness, and as such they accepted it. Nor had the poem any better chance with the general reader. Its rhetoric and versification were only one more of the interminable echoes ...
— Crabbe, (George) - English Men of Letters Series • Alfred Ainger

... enough and not too fast, leaning a little to talk with Miriam as he went. Their pace was regulated by her mother's, who advanced on the arm of Gabriel Nash (Nick Dormer was on her other side) in refined deprecation. Her sloping back was before them, exempt from retentive stillness in spite of her rigid principles, with the little drama of her lost and recovered shawl perpetually ...
— The Tragic Muse • Henry James

... and saw the familiar walls. Ezra, contrary to his habit, was standing at the side door and looking out upon the street. She was aware of his presence, but walked stiffly past, disregarding him, and he coughed behind his wasted hand. She thought the cough had a sound of embarrassed appeal or deprecation, as perhaps it had, but she refused to take notice of it, except by an added ...
— Aunt Rachel • David Christie Murray

... married woman, Mrs. Daney," The Laird began, with old-fashioned deprecation for the blunt language he was about to employ, "you'll admit that the child wasn't found behind one of old Brent's cabbages. This is the ...
— Kindred of the Dust • Peter B. Kyne

... to speak flippantly, at which Squire Boatfield frowned deprecation. Lambert, without a word, had brought a chair near to Lady Sue, and with a certain gentle authority, he forced her ...
— The Nest of the Sparrowhawk • Baroness Orczy

... shut up. Good night, Miss Murrell;' and therewith he turned back to his garden, where the freakish sprite, feigning flight, took refuge in the boat, cowering down, and playfully hiding her face in deprecation of rebuke, but all she received was a meekly melancholy, ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge

... both hands, in polite deprecation, and looked as if he was beginning to recover his ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins

... became decidedly less radical in his advocacy of abolition, contenting himself with the utterances of the nature of an academic deprecation of the evil, expressing the hope that in some way it might be eradicated, but at the same time despairing of it. Writing to ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 3, 1918 • Various

... the book on her finger. "My dear Virginia!" she protested in mild deprecation; and Adams laughed and shook hands with the Reverend William Calvert and made Virginia's peace all in the ...
— A Fool For Love • Francis Lynde

... and Bentley stood aside to give place to him. He stooped, felt the pulse, examined the lips of the wound, estimating the locality and direction of the bullet, and his mouth made a clucking sound as of deprecation. ...
— The Lion's Skin • Rafael Sabatini

... deprecation of the Kaiser's return suggests the possibility that the German Foreign Office, which had already made substantial progress in precipitating the crisis, did not wish the Kaiser's return for fear that he might again exert, as in the Moroccan crisis, ...
— The Evidence in the Case • James M. Beck

... lachrymose deprecation of this treatment). Is that becomin' language for a clergyman, James?—and you ...
— Candida • George Bernard Shaw

... town, nor kept the intimacy of Swift, nor avoided the fault-finding of Dennis. It is quite unnecessary to suppose that Congreve's famous remark to Voltaire, that he wished to be visited as a plain gentleman, was the remark (if it was made) of a snob: it was clearly a legitimate deprecation, spoken by a man who had written nothing notable for twenty-six years, which Voltaire misunderstood in a moment of stupidity, or in one of forgetfulness misrepresented. His superiority and his irony came from a just sense of the perspective of things, and, not preventing affection for his ...
— The Comedies of William Congreve - Volume 1 [of 2] • William Congreve

... Italian Marshal answered, in accents of deprecation. There were times when the young King would show his impatience of the Italian ring, the Retzs and Biragues, the Strozzis and Gondys, with whom his ...
— Count Hannibal - A Romance of the Court of France • Stanley J. Weyman

... which the waiter took part, suggesting various solutions. At last Gino triumphed. The bill came to eightpence-halfpenny, and a halfpenny for the waiter brought it up to ninepence. Then there was a shower of gratitude on one side and of deprecation on the other, and when courtesies were at their height they suddenly linked arms and swung down the street, tickling each other with lemonade straws as ...
— Where Angels Fear to Tread • E. M. Forster

... up her hands and eyes in holy horror and deprecation. "A rocking-horse, Mr. Coventry," said she; "what an injudicious selection! (Aunt Deborah likes to round her periods, as the book-people say.) The child is a sad tomboy already, and if you are going to teach her to ride, I ...
— Kate Coventry - An Autobiography • G. J. Whyte-Melville

... a task for the imagination to comprehend the reserve in all personal matters that characterized the mid-nineteenth century as it would be to enter into absolute comprehension of the medieval mind; but Mrs. Browning's own pathetic deprecation of her feelings regarding this is its own passport to the sympathy of the reader. To Miss Mitford's reply, full of sympathetic comprehension and regret, Mrs. Browning replied that she understood, "and I thank you," she added, "and love you, which is ...
— The Brownings - Their Life and Art • Lilian Whiting

... gentleman. And yet—you won't misunderstand me, Mr Humphreys, I feel confident, when I say that in my opinion there would have been but little congeniality betwixt yourself and him. Not that I have a word to say in deprecation—not a single word. I can tell you what he was,' said Mr Cooper, pulling up suddenly and fixing Humphreys with his eye. 'Can tell you what he was in a nutshell, as the saying goes. He was a complete, thorough valentudinarian. That describes him to a T. That's what he was, sir, a complete valentudinarian. ...
— Ghost Stories of an Antiquary - Part 2: More Ghost Stories • Montague Rhodes James

... want to lose a real friend, I write in deprecation of the tone of your letter. Death only has made me neglectful of your kindness, and I have lately had so much experience with him, that your sister would not now blame me for indulging in gloomy visions either of this world or ...
— Emily Bront • A. Mary F. (Agnes Mary Frances) Robinson

... Speech implor'd And humble Deprecation, thus reply d: Let not my Words offend thee, Heavnly Power, My Maker, be ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele

... Mrs. Houghton, in a tone like threatening deprecation, but with a little of her strange banter in it besides. Alice's mind had been made up to do the thing, and she had not felt it honest not to give due warning of her intentions. Even now she was not certain of the lady's surname, but she trusted to her husband's knowledge ...
— Nuttie's Father • Charlotte M. Yonge

... name, one hand made swift movement of deprecation. "Pardon if I mistake, but I take ...
— A Breath of Prairie and other stories • Will Lillibridge

... own child!" Mrs. Stringham pleadingly murmured; yet showing as she did so that she feared the effect even of deprecation. ...
— The Wings of the Dove, Volume II • Henry James

... younger voice and more experience in such matters will make it a good thing for us all if he will take the family prayers whenever he is at home." As he concluded with faltering voice, Amos began to remonstrate in words of earnest deprecation; but his father stopped him, and, laying his hand on his shoulder, kindly said, "Do it to please me, and to please us all, dear boy." Then, turning to Walter, with every shade removed from his countenance, he asked, "And ...
— Amos Huntingdon • T.P. Wilson

... with a gesture of general deprecation, and did not ask WHY Mainwaring's young brother should contemplate his death with satisfaction. Nevertheless, some time afterwards Miss Macy remarked that it seemed hard that the happiness of one member of a family should depend upon a calamity to another. "As for instance?" asked Mainwaring, who ...
— A Phyllis of the Sierras • Bret Harte

... GIRL [quite overwhelmed, and looking up at him in mingled wonder and deprecation without daring to raise her ...
— Pygmalion • George Bernard Shaw

... time to Nina. "Will you dance? I don't dance as well as di Valdo." Nina looked up at him, suspicious and displeased, but there was no conscious deprecation in his manner, which indeed proclaimed that whether he danced well or badly was a matter ...
— The Title Market • Emily Post

... gentleman who was present was so careless as to refer to Queen Victoria's proclamation against all who aided the enemy, which was clearly leveled at Mr. Baird and his iron-works. There was a scene at once. The ladies almost went into hysterics in deprecation of the position in which the proclamation had placed them. But Mr. Baird himself was quite equal to the occasion: in a very up-and-down way he said that he of course regretted being regarded as a traitor to his ...
— Volume I • Andrew Dickson White

... rude tyranny on one side and mean servility on the other which one too often sees, but pressed upon them with true knightly chivalry, and received, not carelessly as due and usual, but with affectionate deprecation and reluctance. Yet there was not the slightest affectation of affection, than which no affectation is more nauseous. True affection, undoubtedly, does often exist where its expression is caricatured, but the caricature is not less despicable. The pride of the father in his ...
— Gala-days • Gail Hamilton

... Sidwell's hands made a downward motion of deprecation. "He did not. We made the circuit of the earth together in pursuit of it—but all was useless. It seemed as though the more he searched the more he was baffled in ...
— Ben Blair - The Story of a Plainsman • Will Lillibridge

... more than she had hoped for. An unfamiliar bashfulness made her look away from the gray eyes and stammer in rough deprecation: ...
— Treasure and Trouble Therewith - A Tale of California • Geraldine Bonner

... deprecation, when every other reason for it was finally removed by her assiduous son she once more sought out and firmly laid hold of the departed Twist, and hung her cherished unhappiness up on him again as if he were a peg. When the novelty of having a great many bedrooms instead of six, and ...
— Christopher and Columbus • Countess Elizabeth Von Arnim

... expressman," returned the driver in scornful deprecation of his interlocutor's ignorance. "He only took Hill's place from Montezuma. He's the new kid reviver and polisher for that University you're runnin' here. I say—you fellers oughter get him to tell you that story of Sam Barstow and the Chinaman. ...
— Colonel Starbottle's Client and Other Stories • Bret Harte

... his eyes on the two in question. His wife lifted her hands in deprecation at the idea that she should have a secret: Mirrable ...
— Elster's Folly • Mrs. Henry Wood

... honest—he would not even let anyone praise him. When some one called him "good Master," he answered, quickly, "Why callest thou me good? There is none good save one, that is, God." But this simplicity has been taken with deprecation by his church, which persists in heaping compliments upon him in ...
— The Profits of Religion, Fifth Edition • Upton Sinclair

... raising her beautiful shoulders in polite deprecation. "The mescal religion, we found, has spread very largely in New Mexico and Arizona among the Indians, and with the removal of the Kiowas to the Indian reservation it has been adopted by other tribes even, I have heard, as far north as the ...
— The Silent Bullet • Arthur B. Reeve

... the Grundy woman raise an eyebrow of deprecation at the informal introduction of Jack and Mary, or we shall refute her with her own precepts, which make the steps to a throne the steps of the social pyramid. If she wishes a sponsor, we name an impeccable majesty of the very oldest dynasty of all, ...
— Over the Pass • Frederick Palmer

... beautiful grave deprecation. "You oughtn't to make me say too much. But I'm glad ...
— The Wings of the Dove, Volume II • Henry James

... of a higher cast. These pretensions I will explain hereafter. All the rest I resign to the reader's unbiased judgment, adding here, with respect to four of them, a few prefatory words—not of propitiation or deprecation, but simply in explanation as to points that would ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey

... of the tabernacle, with its startling voice, in which God opened the heart of Samuel to take in the purpose of life; and from the wonderfully instructive scene in which the shrinking spirit of Jeremiah met the Divine summons with the humble cry of deprecation, "Behold, I cannot speak; for I am a child," till the Divine sympathy and wisdom answered his arguments and lifted him above his fears. But we have agreed to take Isaiah as the representative of ...
— The Preacher and His Models - The Yale Lectures on Preaching 1891 • James Stalker

... outlet in unselfish aims. His life has not been wholly misspent; he is a poet and a student; he has had dreams of human good; he has reverenced great men: and never quite lost the faith in God, and the sense of nearness to Him; and he alleges some of these facts in deprecation of his too harsh verdict upon himself. But his ultimate object has been always the gratification of Self—the ministering to its pleasures and to its powers; and this egotism has become narrower and more ...
— A Handbook to the Works of Browning (6th ed.) • Mrs. Sutherland Orr

... public worship." Yes, in a sense, but not such as to supersede the Church service. We never designed it should! If it were designed to be instead of the Church service it would be essentially defective, for it seldom has the four grand parts of public prayer—deprecation, petition, intercession, and thanksgiving. Neither is it, even on the Lord's Day, concluded with the Lord's Supper. If the people put ours in the place of the Church service, we hurt them that stay with us and ruin ...
— The English Church in the Eighteenth Century • Charles J. Abbey and John H. Overton

... in which surprise was tempered by a feeling almost tender, crossed her lips and immediately vanished. She shook her head as if in deprecation of the passion my words evinced, and was about to dismiss me, when she suddenly changed her mind and seized upon the aid I had offered, with a fervor that roused my sense of chivalry and deepened what might have been but a passing fancy into ...
— The Bronze Hand - 1897 • Anna Katharine Green (Mrs. Charles Rohlfs)

... — N. dissuasion, dehortation^, expostulation, remonstrance; deprecation &c 766. discouragement, damper, wet blanket; disillusionment, disenchantment. cohibition &c (restraint) 751 [Obs.]; curb &c (means of restraint) 752; check &c (hindrance) 706. reluctance &c (unwillingness) 603; contraindication. V. dissuade, dehort^, cry out against, remonstrate, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget

... in the face, and seeing I was sorry for him, took a pinch of snuff (every Cicerone takes snuff), and made a little bow; partly in deprecation of his having alluded to such a subject, and partly in memory of the children and of his favourite saint. It was as unaffected and as perfectly natural a little bow, as ever man made. Immediately afterwards, he took his hat ...
— Pictures from Italy • Charles Dickens

... him. "He is a fine little fellow," he added, and was almost surprised at the expression of positive gratitude which came into Carroll's eyes in response. He spoke, however, with a kind of proud deprecation. ...
— The Debtor - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman

... the arms of his great chair, and he half rose, as if to command silence; and Don John, suddenly pale, had half risen, too, stretching out his open hand in a gesture of deprecation, while the Queen watched him with timidly admiring eyes, and the dark Princess of Eboli's dusky lids drooped to hide her own, for she was watching him also, but with other thoughts. For a few seconds longer, the cheers followed each other, and ...
— In The Palace Of The King - A Love Story Of Old Madrid • F. Marion Crawford

... got out of sight when Hannah had another visitor, Reuben Gray, who entered the hut with looks of deprecation and words ...
— Ishmael - In the Depths • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth

... more was coming, and at what directed. Her tone and attitude and deprecation of self were new to him. He had never seen her so; always she was the embodification of calm, self-reliance, poise, never flustered, never disturbed. A weak woman! It was so absurd as to be ridiculous, and she was aware of it. So what was the play with ...
— The Cab of the Sleeping Horse • John Reed Scott

... all deprecation, I insisted on the explanation she had evaded in public. "I guess," I said, "as much as you can tell me about 'the four.' I have borne too long with those who have made your life that of a hunted therne, and rendered myself anxious and restless ...
— Across the Zodiac • Percy Greg

... man feebly waved a deprecation with his maimed hand, and even smiled faintly. "I knew you'd say that. I knew what you'd think about it, but it's all the same now. I did it for you and Safie! I knew I was in the way; I knew you was the man she orter had; I knew you was the man who had dragged her outer the mire and clay where ...
— The Bell-Ringer of Angel's and Other Stories • Bret Harte

... were raised in deprecation. "I have no politics," Messire Heleigh began, and altered it, gallantly enough, to, "I am the ...
— Chivalry • James Branch Cabell

... sisters echoed "Compliment!" in various tones of deprecation, and Josephine added a meaning little laugh for her own share, for which Edgar gave her a kiss, and said in a bantering kind of voice, "Now, Joseph! mind ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - February, 1876, Vol. XVII, No. 98. • Various

... Squire, with a look of comic deprecation,—"don't speak in that way to your old uncle! He's blunt and rough-spoken, but he means kindly, and does kindly, in his ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 21, July, 1859 • Various

... white, and blazing with rubies and diamonds; slowly it advanced amidst kneeling crowds and strains of heavenly music; and so it compassed about the altar of God, to perform the great commemorative rite of Christ's resurrection. Expect from me no sectarian deprecation; it was a goodly rite, and fitly performed. But, amidst solemn utterances, and lowly prostrations, and pealing anthems, and rising incense, and all the surrounding magnificence of the scene, shall I tell you what was my thought? One sigh of contrition, one tear of repentance, one humble ...
— Gifts of Genius - A Miscellany of Prose and Poetry by American Authors • Various

... me! Mam'selle, I cannot help it—" with a deprecation in his voice that was an apology and begged for condonation. "You were pretty before, but you have grown wonderfully beautiful. You will allow an old friend to ...
— A Little Girl in Old Detroit • Amanda Minnie Douglas

... it surlily, but sadly, and with a gentle deprecation of their insistence. While the several monuments that testified to his cousin's wealth and munificence rose in the village beyond the brook, he continued in the old homestead without change, except that when his housekeeper died he began to do for himself the ...
— A Pair of Patient Lovers • William Dean Howells

... Dominion House of Commons. The ground had never been more completely covered, every inch of advantage more stubbornly held, by either side, in the political history of the riding. There was no doubt of the hope that sat behind the deprecation in Walter Winter's eye, nor of the anxiety that showed through the confidence freely expressed by the Liberal leaders. The issue would be no foregone conclusion, as it had been practically any time within the last eleven years; and ...
— The Imperialist • (a.k.a. Mrs. Everard Cotes) Sara Jeannette Duncan

... to my waist in the stream. As soon as Kory-Kory comprehended from my motions that this was to be the extent of my performance, he appeared perfectly aghast with astonishment, and rushing towards me, poured out a torrent of words in eager deprecation of so limited an operation, enjoining me by unmistakable signs to immerse my whole body. To this I was forced to consent; and the honest fellow regarding me as a froward, inexperienced child, whom it was his duty to serve at the risk of offending, lifted me from ...
— Typee - A Romance of the South Sea • Herman Melville

... slavery was wrong but he never did much to curb its growing power, contenting himself with a deprecation much like this expressed in the letter to Lafayette, ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 2, 1917 • Various

... prose? I confess to a certain shame for my not employing frankly that shade of indication, a finer shade still than the dash.... But what on earth are we talking about?" And the Chairman of the Corps Committee pulled himself up in deprecation of our frivolity, which I recognized by acknowledging that we might indeed hear more about the work done and doing at the front by Richard Norton and his energetic and devoted co-workers. Then I plunged recklessly ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 2, May, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various

... of the people from Montepoole, that know me, should come by? What are you thinking of?" said he, in a tone that certainly justified Fleda's deprecation. ...
— Queechy, Volume I • Elizabeth Wetherell

... doelen-stuk of Rembrandt van Rijn were as well painted as Van Ravosteyn's. In the Jewish quarter, though Rembrandt lived in it, interest had been limited to the guldens earned by dirty old men in sitting to him. What ardor, too, for the newest science, what worship of Descartes and deprecation of the philosophers before him! And then the flavor of romance—as of their own spices—wafted from the talk about the new Colonies in the Indies! Good God! had it been so wise to quench the glow of youth, to slip so silently to forty year? He had allowed her to drop out of his life—this child ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill

... his eyes—a gleam of positive joy, she was sure, though he banished it at once and shook his head in deprecation. ...
— Black Jack • Max Brand

... the corner by the door with his eyes on Dolly's, and made a conscience-stricken attempt to sit up and wave one paw in deprecation, doubtless prepared with a plausible explanation of his singular appearance, which much resembled that of 'Mr. Dolls' returning to Jenny Wren after a long course ...
— The Giant's Robe • F. Anstey

... charming unconsciousness of his own attentions, and a frankness that seemed inconsistent with any insidious approach. In fact, Mr. Hamlin seldom made love to anybody, but permitted it to be made to him with good-humored deprecation and cheerful skepticism. He had once, quite accidentally, while riding, come upon her when she had strayed from her own riding party, and had behaved with such unexpected circumspection and propriety, not ...
— A Protegee of Jack Hamlin's and Other Stories • Bret Harte

... grumbled to the last moment, but could not refuse to bend down from his saddle and kiss the fair, pale face that looked at him in piteous deprecation at ...
— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon

... myself the difficulty of explaining your position here!" said the old lady, raising both hands and arms in an elaborate gesture of deprecation, and smiling kindly. "You put me in a ...
— Harriet and the Piper - (Norris Volume XI) • Kathleen Norris

... must stay, you know," he went on in deprecation of the epithets hurled at him; "and why not our regiment as ...
— The Queen's Cup • G. A. Henty

... mason-work. Husbands, at least when of high rank, had the power of life and death; even whites seem to have possessed it; and their wives, when they had transgressed beyond forgiveness, made haste to pronounce the formula of deprecation—I Kana Kim. This form of words had so much virtue that a condemned criminal, repeating it on a particular day to the king who had condemned him, must be instantly released. It is an offer of abasement, and, strangely enough, the reverse—the imitation—is ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... noiselessly into the dining-room and took his place at the table. He always moved quietly, a look of gentle deprecation on his face as much as to say: "Really, you know, I can't help being here: if you will just overlook me this time, by and by you won't notice I'm there at all!" That was how he went through life, a shy, retiring little man, quiet as a mouse, gentle ...
— Okewood of the Secret Service • Valentine Williams

... Dourx, I agree with you, I think we have some in very good taste. I know not in what dramatic work the facetious frenchman has discovered the introduction of his satanic majesty under the influence of a cold, and receiving, as he enters, the usual deprecation on such occasions. I rather suspect that the adventures of Punch, and his fickle lady, who are always attended by a dancing demon, have afforded the materials for ...
— The Stranger in France • John Carr

... upon his breast (a slender white staff with which he journey'd being in his right)—when I had got close up to him, he introduced himself with the little story of the wants of his convent, and the poverty of his order;—and did it with so simple a grace,—and such an air of deprecation was there in the whole cast of his look and figure,—I was bewitch'd not to have been struck ...
— A Sentimental Journey • Laurence Sterne

... here from Letherington,' his father would say, in a tone of deprecation and appeal. 'Don't you think the poor fellow might keep on a little longer. I always fancied he did ...
— Women in Love • D. H. Lawrence

... by ramparts of adequate elevation, and strength in proportion. With such elements of defence as these its capture cannot be effected without a sacrifice of human lives, which none but the flint-hearted can contemplate or foresee without deprecation and horror. ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, No. - 581, Saturday, December 15, 1832 • Various

... deprecation, but she went on speaking in her clear, even voice, still questioning: "Thou knowest well the history ...
— The Royal Pawn of Venice - A Romance of Cyprus • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull

... his hand in deprecation, but seemed unable to reply. Mirande, gazing pitilessly at him, presently read his silence aright, and an expression of cruel joy altered ...
— In Kings' Byways • Stanley J. Weyman

... depend upon her to be the eventual guardian of his shrine; and it was in the name of what had so passed between them that he appealed to her not to forsake him in his age. She listened at present with shining coldness and all her habitual forbearance to insist on her terms; her deprecation was even still tenderer, for it expressed the compassion of her own sense that he was abandoned. Her terms, however, remained the same, and scarcely the less audible for not being uttered; though he was sure that secretly even more than ...
— The Altar of the Dead • Henry James

... In deprecation of this mode of proceeding, and in behalf of men who I believe are every day wronged by it, I would urge a few considerations which seem ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana

... Now, when the little girl called to him as if it were the simplest thing in the world, he could not go. And then she stabbed him by falsely kissing the complacent Allan standing by, who thereupon smirked in sickening deprecation and promptly ...
— The Seeker • Harry Leon Wilson

... ye learn to call it superstition, son? Not at your mammy's knee, leastwise," he said, in sober deprecation. ...
— The Quickening • Francis Lynde

... nervous, involuntary deprecation. "Why should you suppose I would touch it roughly?" There was that in her voice which cried put that she would rather not touch it at all; but Lindsay, on the brink of his confidence, could not suppose it—did not hear it. He knew her ...
— Hilda - A Story of Calcutta • Sara Jeannette Duncan

... thought her ingratitude and intractability. He had admitted to himself bitterly enough that he should have let young hearts have their way, or rather should have helped on her affection for Winterborne, and given her to him according to his original plan; but he was not prepared for her deprecation of those attainments whose completion had been a labor of years, and a ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy

... vexed about anything? What have I done?" she asked, in a tone of anxious deprecation which no other person but Harrison Cordis had ever ...
— Dr. Heidenhoff's Process • Edward Bellamy

... she; cried, with a vivid gesture of deprecation. "No, signore, I am not copying. I am a poor, ignorant thing, signore, not an artist. There was once a kind foreigner who lodged with us; he was an artist, a most famous artist, and he amused himself ...
— Ilka on the Hill-Top and Other Stories • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen

... a becoming show of deprecation. He said he did not think the story would bear immediate repetition, or was even worth telling once, but, if we had nothing better to do, perhaps we might do worse than hear it; the most he could say ...
— Between The Dark And The Daylight • William Dean Howells

... accident to be absent from the room, of speaking upon the subject nearest to his heart. He made the governess, in a few but solemn words, an offer of his hand. There was something almost touching in the manner and tone in which he spoke to her—half in deprecation, knowing that he could hardly expect to be the choice of a beautiful young girl, and praying rather that she would reject him, even though she broke his heart by doing so, than that she should accept his offer if she did ...
— Lady Audley's Secret • Mary Elizabeth Braddon

... raising his hand. But as The McMurrough and the others hesitated, he whipped out his sword and stepped two paces to one side with an agility no one had foreseen. He now had the table behind him and Uncle Ulick on his left hand. "One moment!" he repeated, raising his hand in deprecation and keeping his point lowered. "Do ...
— The Wild Geese • Stanley John Weyman



Words linked to "Deprecation" :   denigration, orison, deprecate, petition, prayer, dispraise



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