Free TranslationFree Translation
Synonyms, antonyms, pronunciation

  Home
English Dictionary      examples: 'day', 'get rid of', 'New York Bay'




Ill-favoured   Listen
adjective
Ill-favoured, Ill-favored  adj.  Wanting beauty or attractiveness; unattractive; deformed; ugly; ill-looking; usually used of a face; as, an ill-favored countenance. "Ill-favored and lean-fleshed."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








Advanced search
     Find words:
Starting with
Ending with
Containing
Matching a pattern  

Synonyms
Antonyms
Quotes
Words linked to  

only single words



Share |





"Ill-favoured" Quotes from Famous Books



... that it had not been by so ill-favoured a person, at all events, Tim," replied I; "I ...
— Japhet, In Search Of A Father • Frederick Marryat

... house in the centre of the village, and to this I rode. It was the house of the priest—a snuffy and ill-favoured old man who had not a civil answer to any of our questions. An uglier fellow I never met, but, my faith, it was very different with his only daughter, who kept house for him. She was a brunette, a rare thing in Russia, with creamy skin, raven hair, and a pair of the most glorious ...
— The Adventures of Gerard • Arthur Conan Doyle

... college we proceeded to the slave market, which was well furnished, and chiefly supplied from the ever victimized Huzarehs; the women were generally ill-favoured, but all appeared contented with their lot so that somebody purchased them. After making the tour of the city in search of wonders, we returned home, hot, wearied, and disappointed, for we had found nothing to repay us for the annoyances we had been subjected to from the impertinent curiosity ...
— A Peep into Toorkisthhan • Rollo Burslem

... are by no means a free man, as I observe that the religious congress in Chicago impressed you very much.(35) I was present when the gayly dressed idolators from Cardinal Gibbons down to the stupid Shinto priest and the ill-favoured Baptist woman preacher sat together on the platform. It was very pretty and refreshing to look upon. They all talked nonsense and thought themselves very wise. There was but one exception which interested me: a yellow Buddhist monk inquired, what they thought of ...
— The Silesian Horseherd - Questions of the Hour • Friedrich Max Mueller

... after a moment's silence, the swinging peal rings out, taken up and answered from end to end of the half-wasted city. A troop of men-at-arms ride up to the great closed gate 'in rusty armour marvellous ill-favoured,' as Shakespeare's stage direction has it, mud-splashed, their brown cloaks half concealing their dark and war-worn mail, their long swords hanging down and clanking against their huge stirrups, their beasts jaded and worn and filthy from the night raid in the Campagna, ...
— Ave Roma Immortalis, Vol. 1 - Studies from the Chronicles of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford

... countries, and at all dates, extreme finish compassed by hidden means must needs, from the beginning, prepare the abolition of dignity. This is easy to understand, but it is less easy to explain the ill-fortune that presses upon the expert workman, in search of easy ways to live, all the ill-favoured materials, makes them cheap for him, makes them serviceable and effectual, urges him to use them, seal them, and inter them, turning the trim and dull completeness out to the view of the daily world. It is an added ...
— Essays • Alice Meynell

... rubbing his hands and stroking his soft round chin, for be it understood, gentle reader, the youth was of a tender and fair complexion, with little beard, save a slight blush on his upper lip. He was not ill-favoured, but there was altogether something boyish and effeminate throughout his appearance, which seemed not of the hue to win a lady's love. He could twang the guitar, and had at times made scraps of verse, which he trolled to many a damsel's ear, ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby

... and home. Frau Haydn was a shrew, and he finally gave up trying to live at home, seeking his consolation at court with a young and beautiful Neapolitan singer, who was unhappily married to a poor fiddler, named Polzelli. The two lovers made little secret of their hope that one or both of their ill-favoured spouses would pass away. But they both declined to "die by request," as ...
— The Love Affairs of Great Musicians, Volume 2 • Rupert Hughes

... manifest sign of wisdom is a continual cheerfulness; her state is like that of things in the regions above the moon, always clear and serene. 'Tis Baroco and Baralipton—[Two terms of the ancient scholastic logic.]—that render their disciples so dirty and ill-favoured, and not she; they do not so much as know her but by hearsay. What! It is she that calms and appeases the storms and tempests of the soul, and who teaches famine and fevers to laugh and sing; and that, not ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne

... was, that there was little enough danger of her seeing in the ill-favoured Bolsover cad anything which need make him—Scarfe— jealous. Doubtless she took a romantic interest in this librarian; many girls have whims of that sort. But the idea of her preferring him to the smart Oxford ...
— A Dog with a Bad Name • Talbot Baines Reed

... general appearance. He has six short legs, which he well knows how to use; he is a gad-about, a trot-about. In the adult state the male is correctly garbed in wing-cases, like the true Beetle that he is. The female is an ill-favoured thing who knows naught of the delights of flying: all her life long she retains the larval shape, which, for the rest, is similar to that of the male, who himself is imperfect so long as he has not achieved the maturity that comes with ...
— The Wonders of Instinct • J. H. Fabre

... Nobody's face is without features, because we could not put Anybody's face upon Nobody's head. This is the head of Somebody. [Takes the head.] It has two faces, for Somebody is supposed to carry two faces. One of these faces is handsome, the other rather ill-favoured. The handsome face is exhibited as a hint to that part {71}of mankind who are always whispering among their acquaintance, how well they are with Somebody, and that Somebody is a very fine woman. One of those boasters of beauty, one night at a tavern, relating his amazing amours, the toast-master ...
— A Lecture On Heads • Geo. Alex. Stevens

... foot; and one eye in the middle of his forehead. And he has a club of iron, and it is certain that there are no two men in the world who would not find their burden in that club. And he is not a comely man, but on the contrary he is exceedingly ill-favoured; and he is the woodward of that wood. And thou wilt see a thousand wild animals grazing around him. Inquire of him the way out of the glade, and he will reply to thee briefly, and will point out the road by which thou shalt find that which thou art ...
— The Mabinogion • Lady Charlotte Guest

... knocks at the door of my memory. I bid him enter, and I see a tall slim youth, not ill-favoured, wearing well-cut clothes, and carrying a most beautiful, gold-topped Malacca cane delicately in his hand. He is smoking a cigar, and complains to me that his life is a succession of aimless days, ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, July 18, 1891 • Various

... is the time for the pretty who can have many chances, and for the ill-favoured who have few. Matrimony to be had— hot, eaten, and done with as easily as berlingozzi! And see!" here the conjuror held up a cluster of tiny bags. "To every bride I give a Breve with a secret in it—the secret alone worth the money you pay for the matrimony. The secret how to—no, ...
— Romola • George Eliot

... to squander the money once again, and this time for a private, if a generous end. And the man whom he had reproved for stealing corn he was now to set stealing treasure. And then there was Madame von Rosen, upon whom he looked down with some of that ill-favoured contempt of the chaste male for the imperfect woman. Because he thought of her as one degraded below scruples, he had picked her out to be still more degraded, and to risk her whole irregular establishment in life by complicity in this dishonourable ...
— Prince Otto • Robert Louis Stevenson

... device was a lowe kinde of carre with a couple of wheeles, and the frunt armed with sharpe syckles, whiche, forced by the beaste through the corne, did cut down al before it. This tricke," says Googe, "might be used in levell and champion countreys; but with us it wolde make but ill-favoured woorke." [7] The Thames Tunnel was thought an entirely new manifestation of engineering genius; but the tunnel under the Euphrates at ancient Babylon, and that under the wide mouth of the harbour ...
— Industrial Biography - Iron Workers and Tool Makers • Samuel Smiles

... character-drawing in it, especially in Jamie, who from a worldly point of view is the failure of the group, making no money, and drifting through journalism to emigration; and in the finely suggested figure of Tibby, the ill-favoured kitchen drudge, who is his real centre of inspiration. But first and last it remains a dull business, partly from an entire lack of humour, partly from the absence of any settled plan that might help one to endure the dreariness of the setting. Mr. CANNAN certainly knows his subject, and few novels ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, February 16, 1916 • Various

... journey, all the forms which cross or overtake the pilgrims, giants, and hobgoblins, ill-favoured ones, and shining ones, the tall, comely, swarthy Madam Bubble, with her great purse by her side, and her fingers playing with the money, the black man in the bright vesture, Mr. Wordly-Wise-man and my Lord Hategood, Mr. Talkative, and Mrs. ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... the same colour, and a blue riband over all. So entirely was he my object that I do not believe I once looked at the duchess; but as I could not avoid seeing her on entering the room, I remember that just beyond his Majesty stood a very tall, lean, ill-favoured old lady but I did not retain the least idea of her features, nor know what the ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole

... flattered her feebleness. She betrayed signs of hesitation; and in hesitating, she looked away from a look at Willoughby, thinking (so much against her nature was it to resign herself to him) that it would not have been so difficult with an ill-favoured man. With one horribly ugly, it would have been a horrible exultation to cast off her youth and take ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... funning, he would not eat escargots himself." She smiled at Sally, the smile that opens confidence and invites you within; no grudging of it between the teeth, ill-favoured and starved, as we do the ...
— Sally Bishop - A Romance • E. Temple Thurston

... protect her from a fate worse than death. A message brought Dan, who first disdained to take Duckbill seriously. Told how Soosie had been wooed with gifts, and that her maternal uncle had officiously bestowed her upon the gaunt, ill-favoured king of the camp in accordance with tribal law, which regarded her as a mere chattel at the disposal of the whim and fancy of the nearest relative or at the demand of the most authoritative man, he became concerned and installed himself as ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield

... him waiting for his prey, with a dark sardonic smile on his ill-favoured countenance, and return to Marguerite, who is waiting in the granary for her lover, confident that "all is well," and having no thoughts but pleasant ones concerning the coming meeting. Even the remembrance of Hirzel's absence brings no disquietude with it. Her thoughts ...
— Legend of Moulin Huet • Lizzie A. Freeth

... "Any one who wants to meddle with me will get the worst of it." There was a brief pause; suddenly a man staggered out of the gin-shop, smearing the back of his hand across his mouth as he came—a massively built, ill-favoured brute, with a shock of uncombed red hair and small ferret-like eyes. He stared stupidly at the weeping Liz, then at Mother Mawks, finally from one to the other of the loafers who stood by. "Wot's the row?" he demanded, quickly. ...
— Stories By English Authors: London • Various

... never expected to find the Grand Inquisitor of Madrid a kindly and intelligent, though ill-favoured, prelate; but so it was, and he did nothing but laugh from the beginning to the end of my story, for he would not let me call ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt

... the Baron and Tina reach the castle of Jauioz. The old man seats himself near the fire. He is black and ill-favoured as a carrion crow. His beard and his hair are white, and his eyes ...
— Legends & Romances of Brittany • Lewis Spence

... present station, so gentle and gentleman-like he always appeared. Even on this occasion, when disfigured by paint, pitch, and tar, copiously daubed over his delicate person, to render him fit company for his papa old Neptune, he still looked as if his ill-favoured parents had stolen him, and were trying in vain to disguise their roguery by rigging him up in their own ...
— The Lieutenant and Commander - Being Autobigraphical Sketches of His Own Career, from - Fragments of Voyages and Travels • Basil Hall

... one got more than his share. Of course there were underhand attempts in plenty, and, at least once, open violence—a sudden rush from opposite sides, a growling and spitting like sparks from a smithy; and then, with ears laid flat, two ill-favoured beasts clawed blindly at each other, and a sly and tigerish brindle made away with the morsel. My woman took the thing very coolly I thought, served them all alike, and didn't resent (as I should have done) the unfortunate want of delicacy there was about these vagrants. ...
— Earthwork Out Of Tuscany • Maurice Hewlett

... unspeakable mortification, that Peregil, in his abundant care, had taken the key. Time being precious, Don Rodrigo, afraid of causing a disturbance, was fain to avail himself of the benefit of an ill-favoured looking mule that stood ready saddled in an outhouse. He doubted not that Peregil would bring his horse after him, and render compensation for the mule, which indeed, from the miserable appearance of the beast, would ...
— Gomez Arias - The Moors of the Alpujarras, A Spanish Historical Romance. • Joaquin Telesforo de Trueba y Cosio

... How this ill-favoured, more than middle-aged spinster came to be an authority on affairs of the heart she would have found it difficult to explain; but she had ever an opinion to offer on such matters, and she gave it with a weightiness and a conclusiveness which ...
— Mrs. Day's Daughters • Mary E. Mann

... true genuine Irish footmen. Whereas they can be proved to be no better than common toupees,[182] as a judicious eye may soon discover by their awkward, clumsy, ungenteel gait and behaviour, by their unskilfulness in dress, even with the advantage of wearing our habits, by their ill-favoured countenances, with an air of impudence and dulness peculiar to the rest of their brethren; who have not yet arrived at that transcendent pitch of assurance. Although, it may be justly apprehended, that they will do so in time, if these counterfeits shall happen to succeed in their ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Vol. VII - Historical and Political Tracts—Irish • Jonathan Swift

... one of its finest aspects, as winter began to close in. They had started from Geneva the previous morning at four, and in their day's travel Dickens had again noticed what he spoke of formerly, the ill-favoured look of the people in the valleys owing to their hard and stern climate. "All the women were like used-up men, and all the men like a sort of fagged dogs. But the good, genuine, grateful Swiss recognition of the commonest kind word—not too often thrown to them by our ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster

... worn with the wrong side foremost, to hide a hole in the brim. The breast of his coat was ornamented with an outside pocket from which there peeped forth the cleanest end of a very large and very ill-favoured handkerchief; his dirty wristbands were pulled on as far as possible and ostentatiously folded back over his cuffs; he displayed no gloves, and carried a yellow cane having at the top a bone hand with the ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens

... does? No. He sits in his shop and sends a servant. Not so Gopal. He is one of my children, and I am his father and mother. And I am forced to admit there is some truth in this view of the case. The ill-favoured man who haunts my house of a morning, with a large basket of loaves poised slantwise on his head, and converses in a strange nasal brogue with the cook, is not Mr. de Souza, "baker of superior first and second sort bread, and manufacturer of ...
— Behind the Bungalow • EHA

... twinkling of an eye the quarter-breed realized the extreme danger of his position. His wrath knew no bounds. Up and down he raged in his fury, cursing like a madman, while all about him—blaming, reviling, advising—cursed the men of his ill-favoured crew. For not a man among them but knew that somewhere someone had blundered. And for some inexplicable reason their situation had suddenly shifted from comparative security to extreme hazard. They needed not to be told that with MacNair at large in the Northland their lives hung by a slender thread. ...
— The Gun-Brand • James B. Hendryx

... figure. As it is, they have not a church fit to say mass in." "A great pity, too, that they cannot remove our hospital," would another exclaim; "as it is, they are obliged to send us their sick, poor wretches. I always think that the sick of Coruna have more ill-favoured countenances than those from other places; but what ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow

... see no reason why you should interrupt us thus with your hooting, you ill-favoured owl," he ...
— The Buccaneer - A Tale • Mrs. S. C. Hall

... whilst he seemed to solicit it. In various other ways he enlivened and recommended his doctrines by humorous illustration. It is said that he even went to the theatre to see himself caricatured, laughed as heartily as any, and stood up to show the audience how correctly his ill-favoured countenance had been reproduced. This story may be questioned, and it has been observed that he was not insensible to ridicule, for he said shortly before his death that no one would deride him any longer. We are told that he spent some ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 1 (of 2) - With an Introduction upon Ancient Humour • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange

... apparently unoccupied; so that at length he returned to the staircase, and resolved to make his way down to the lower part of the house, where he supposed he must at least find the old gentleman, and his ill-favoured daughter. With this purpose he first made his entrance into a little low, dark parlour, containing a well-worn leathern easy-chair, before which stood a pair of slippers, while on the left side rested ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott

... of that race (such, for example, as M. Lapoulis, the Greek delegate), and only remembered that here did indeed seem to be a very Unprotected Minority (towards which persons his heart was always soft), and that the Minority was a woman, poor, ill-favoured, and malarial, talking a Greek more ancient than was customary with her race, and persecuted by Turks, which nation Professor Inglis, in spite of his League mind, could not induce himself to like. ...
— Mystery at Geneva - An Improbable Tale of Singular Happenings • Rose Macaulay

... young man was as happy, we may not venture to say; but this we might surmise, even at this stage of our story, and in reference to the classical proverb, that the bastard might be the beautiful Nisa, and the lawful heir the ill-favoured Mopsus. ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, XXII • various

... tongue, Madge!" angrily exclaimed Giles. "Good father, heed not a woman; they are caught by the lip and the fist, like my lord's trencher-man. This Sir Osmund is both lean and ill-favoured. I wonder what the Lady Mabel saw above his shoe to wed with an ugly toad spawned i' the Welsh marshes. Had ye seen her first husband, Sir William Bradshaigh—rest his soul! he was killed in the wars—you would have marvelled that she drunk the ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby

... held their peace; but there was among the Trojans a certain man named Dolon, son of Eumedes, the famous herald—a man rich in gold and bronze. He was ill-favoured, but a good runner, and was an only son among five sisters. He it was that now addressed the Trojans. "I, Hector," said he, "Will to the ships and will exploit them. But first hold up your sceptre and swear that you will give me ...
— The Iliad • Homer

... colonel's death-bed. The unvarying meanness and selfishness of Mrs. Mackenzie, and of Sir Barnes Newcome, fatigue the reader; for whereas in the delineation of his amiable and high-principled characters Thackeray is careful to shade off their bright qualities by a mixture of natural weakness, these ill-favoured portraits stand out in the full glare of ...
— Studies in Literature and History • Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall

... either this last or No. 5 have been called bitter; and Gerarde's five kinds are distinguished only by colour—blue, red, white, purple, and "the dark, of an overworn ill-favoured colour, which maketh it to differ from all others of his kind." I find no account of this ill-favoured one elsewhere. The white is my Soror Reginae; the red must be the Austriaca; but the purple and overworn ones are perhaps now overworn indeed. All of them must have been more common ...
— Proserpina, Volume 2 - Studies Of Wayside Flowers • John Ruskin

... nice-looking, even kind-looking, with an habitual expression of inquiry in his face, just as if he never quite got used to seeing or being seen. The most expert tailor haberdasher could not have provided him with apparel that really belonged to him. Not that he was awkward or ill-favoured in the matter of figure, but that he lacked individuality. He always seemed to be a long way ...
— What's-His-Name • George Barr McCutcheon

... at bottom,' said Mr. Crummles, turning to Nicholas. He might have been at bottom, but he certainly was not at top, seeing that his coat was of the roughest, and most ill-favoured kind. So Nicholas merely observed that he shouldn't wonder if he was. 'Many and many is the circuit this pony has gone,' said Mr. Crummles, flicking him skilfully on the eyelid, for old acquaintance sake. 'He is quite one of us. His mother ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange

... with part of the cargo of the small canoe, had left it in charge of Darkeye,—so named because of her large and lustrous eyes, which, however, were the only good points about her, for she was ill-favoured and clumsy, though strong of frame and a diligent worker. While she was moving from one point of rock to another that appeared to her more convenient for landing, the canoe was caught by an eddy and swept in a moment out into the strong ...
— The Pioneers • R.M. Ballantyne

... common-lands, where the smooth, white stems and glossy foliage of the self-sown hollies spring up between the roots of the beech trees, where plovers cry, and stoat and weazel lurk and scamper, while the old poacher's lean, ill-favoured, rusty-coloured lurcher picks up a shrieking hare, and where wandering bands of gypsies—those lithe, onyx-eyed children of the magic East—still pitch their dirty, little, fungus-like tents around the camp-fire,—as ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet

... petitions of the poor, but actually dispensing charms in return for presents. First an old wrinkled reprobate with no life left in him but the life of lust: "A charm to make my young wife love me!" Then an ill-favoured hag behind a blanket: "A charm to wither the face of the woman that my husband has taken instead of me!" Again, a young wife with a tearful voice: "A charm to make me bear children!" A greasy smile from the fat Sultan, a scrap of writing to every supplicant, chinking coins ...
— The Scapegoat • Hall Caine

... and saw an ill-favoured man, closely cropped, with a broad-faced, pock-marked woman on his arm, ruddy with liquor and the satisfaction of being on the brink of a gratified desire. They jocosely saluted the outgoing couple, and went forward in front of Jude and Sue, whose diffidence ...
— Jude the Obscure • Thomas Hardy

... stood in a dreamy mood, and rubbed my eyes as if I were not wholly awake, and half expected to see the gay-clad company of beautiful men and women change to two or three spindle-legged back-bowed men and haggard, hollow-eyed, ill-favoured women, who once wore down the soil of this land with their heavy hopeless feet, from day to day, and season to season, and year to year. But no change came as yet, and my heart swelled with joy as I thought of all the beautiful ...
— News from Nowhere - or An Epoch of Rest, being some chapters from A Utopian Romance • William Morris

... to smile among the neighbours, and speaks of her boy's likeness to its father; nor, when the conversation turns on bygone times, does she fear to let his name escape her white lips, "My Robert; the bairn's not ill-favoured, but he will never look like his father,"—and such sayings, uttered in a calm, sweet voice. Nay, I remember once how her pale countenance reddened with a sudden flush of pride, when a gossiping crone alluded to their wedding; and the widow's eye brightened ...
— Lady Byron Vindicated • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... now breathed, he gradually, and at last rapidly, planted himself in a world which to the uninitiated figures as the very realm of nobility and fashion, and where doubtless is found a great fund of splendour, refinement, and amusement. Seymour Hicks was not ill-favoured, and was always well dressed, and he was very civil, but what he really owed his social advancement to was his indomitable will. That quality governs all things, and though the will of Seymour Hicks was directed to what many may deem a petty or a contracted purpose, life is always interesting ...
— Endymion • Benjamin Disraeli

... right to be thus distinguished in having a house all to himself. He was of a sober grey colour, somewhat of the wagtail shape, with long black legs, and claws of a dirty hue; and was altogether an ill-favoured bird, not any better-looking than a common house-sparrow. Had you known nothing more about him than his outward appearance, you would hardly have deigned to waste a second look upon him. The moment, however, his ...
— The Desert Home - The Adventures of a Lost Family in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid

... and the plaster casts: he looked at the work of the last term and he looked at Teacher. As he looked he swayed gently on his rubber heels and decided that he was going to enjoy the coming quarter of an hour. Teacher pleased him from the first. She was neither old nor ill-favoured, and she was most evidently nervous. The combination appealed both to his love of power and his peculiar sense of humour. Settling deliberately in the chair of ...
— Little Citizens • Myra Kelly

... woman,' interrupted the Sultan eagerly, 'desiring to see me? Nay, then, the boon is of thy giving, not of mine. Tell me more! Yet it matters not. Were she beauteous as the crescent at even, or ill-favoured as a bird of prey, she shall yet be welcome for thy sake, O faithful Servant, be she a slave or a queen. Tell me only her name ...
— A Book of Quaker Saints • Lucy Violet Hodgkin

... him from head to foot: "Now but for that little tuft on your chin I should take you for a girl; and by the finger-nails of St. Luke, no ill-favoured one neither." ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade

... their lives, and even at this hour, robberies and murder were of no uncommon occurrence. The shops upon the bridge were all closed; the low wooden arches thrown across the way were like so many black pits, in every one of which ill-favoured fellows lurked in knots of three or four; some standing upright against the wall, lying in wait; others skulking in gateways, and thrusting out their uncombed heads and scowling eyes: others crossing and recrossing, and constantly jostling both horse ...
— Master Humphrey's Clock • Charles Dickens

... lips are set To bitter themes and words that spite the gods; For, seeing how the son of Saturn sways With eyes and ears for all, this one shall halt As on hard, hurtful hills; his days shall know The plaintive front of sorrow; level looks With cries ill-favoured shall be dealt to him; And this shall be that he may think of peace As one might think of alienated lips Of sweetness touched for once in kind, warm dreams. Yea, fathers of the high and holy face, This soul thus sinning shall have cause to sob "Ah, ah," for sleep, and space ...
— The Poems of Henry Kendall • Henry Kendall

... was tall and ill-favoured, the other, short and well-favoured. Both were square-built, powerful fellows, like most men of the class ...
— The Lighthouse • Robert Ballantyne

... Beaton, the Master of the Household, Arthur Erskine, the Captain of the Guard, and one other—that, David Rizzio, who from an errant minstrel had risen to this perilous eminence, a man of a swarthy, ill-favoured countenance redeemed by the intelligence that glowed in his dark eyes, and of a body so slight and fragile as to seem almost misshapen. His age was not above thirty, yet indifferent health, early privation, and misfortune had so set their mark ...
— The Historical Nights' Entertainment • Rafael Sabatini

... same ill-favoured, hard-looking man as ever. The ostensible business which had brought him up to Verner's Pride, proved to be of a very trivial nature, and was soon settled. It is well to say "ostensible," because a conviction ...
— Verner's Pride • Mrs. Henry Wood

... midst of the water; and she fell asleep in the boat ere the night had grown very old, and woke up in the morning, not exceeding early, maybe about six o'clock; then she looked ahead and thought presently to see the ill-favoured blotch of the Isle of Nothing on the bosom of the blue waters, whereas it was a fair and cloudless morning of latter May. Sure enough she saw land ahead, and it lay low down on the water, but she deemed from the first that it was green of hue, and as she neared ...
— The Water of the Wondrous Isles • William Morris

... looked sadly into his sweetheart's face, and when he saw her wet eyes and quivering lips his heart was stirred. He took her hand and kissed it, but suddenly an ill-favoured face was thrust ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books - Vol. II: Fiction • Arthur Mee, J. A. Hammerton, Eds.

... courteous,' replied Tiresias. 'How know I that the Titans may not yet regain their lost heritage? They are terrible fellows; and ugly or not, I have no doubt that even your Majesty would not find them so ill-favoured were they seated ...
— The Infernal Marriage • Benjamin Disraeli

... Asse, I had the sence and knowledge of a man, and curiously endeavoured to know out such injuries as were done to my master. About noone there came a woman into the Milhouse, very sorrowfull, raggedly attired, with bare feete, meigre, ill-favoured, and her hayre scattering upon her face: This woman tooke the Baker by the hand, and faining that she had some secret matter to tell him, went into a chamber, where they remained a good space, till all the corne was ground, ...
— The Golden Asse • Lucius Apuleius

... aunt, as puttin' the poker in his hand, she keeked by his shouther, and sid the ill-favoured thing, 'hae a care, sir, what ye're doin'. Back wi' ye, and shut to ...
— Madam Crowl's Ghost and The Dead Sexton • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu

... dost thou feare? Th'ill-favoured lake they tell thee thou must passe, And the[92] blacke frogs ...
— Old English Plays, Vol. I - A Collection of Old English Plays • Various

... natives I had yet seen in Borneo, but were of far less pleasing countenance and more ferocious aspect than our friends the Kanowits, scarcely deigning to look at the launch as we passed them, but sweeping along down stream with a scowl on their ill-favoured features. ...
— On the Equator • Harry de Windt

... they are afterwards set upon by the men, and strangled. The women take care of the children. Such of them as are beautiful are sold at a high price to the brothels of Delhi, or other large cities; while the boys and ill-favoured girls are sold for servants at a more moderate rate. These murders are perpetrated perhaps five hundred miles from the homes of the unfortunate victims; and the children thus obtained, deprived of all their relatives, ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay

... at length slowly opened, and a most ill-favoured and inhospitable-looking dame demanded, in a ...
— Vivian Grey • The Earl of Beaconsfield

... with great composure; "he has been a wild roving fellow all his life, but—but there is little real harm in him. He is certainly ill-favoured enough to—" here, interrupting himself, and breaking into a new sentence, Aram added: "but at all events he will frighten your nieces no more—he has proceeded on his journey northward. And now, yonder lies my way home. Good evening." ...
— Eugene Aram, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... figure, if not absolutely deformed, was yet marvellously ill-favoured; his shoulders high and square; his chest flattened, as if crushed in; his gloveless hands were knotted at the joints, and, large, bony, and muscular, dangled from lean, emaciated wrists, as if not belonging to them. His features had the painful distortion ...
— Zanoni • Edward Bulwer Lytton

... indefinite number of young ladies, of whom it is commonly remarked that some may have been pretty, and others may, hereafter, be pretty. But they never are so; and, consequently, they are very fearful of being eclipsed by their dependents, and take care to engage only ill-favoured governesses, and (but 'tis an old pun) very plain cooks. The great business of their lives is fascination, and in its pursuit they are unremitting. It is divided in distinct departments, among the sisters; each of whom is characterised ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, October 2, 1841 • Various

... a giant, who was strolling along by the edge of the wood, knocking the cones off the tops of the fir-trees with his finger-nails. He was an ill-favoured-looking monster, but he said, civilly enough, "You look in want of employment, comrade. Will you take service ...
— Old-Fashioned Fairy Tales • Juliana Horatia Gatty Ewing

... worked the gag out of his mouth, and lay as still as a corpse. But soon I saw that he was sleeping quietly, and in his slumbers the madness had died out of his face. He looked like any other sailorman, a trifle ill-favoured of countenance, and dirty ...
— Salute to Adventurers • John Buchan

... presume, meant to include the sex in his compliment—were moving through their metropolis. Amusement and business walk hand-in-hand—you hardly know, from their cheerful countenances, which is which; for the Scots, though a high-cheeked, are not an ill-favoured folk in their features—and though their mouths are somewhat of the widest, their teeth are white as well as sharp, and on the opening of their ruddy lips, their ivory-cases are still further brightened by hearty smiles. 'Twould be false to say that their figures are distinguished by an ...
— Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson

... placed the whole kingdom at the foot of the conqueror; and few towns suffered more, comparatively, than the little burgh which, by the decree of a very doubtful sort of justice, had mulcted me in penalties for calling a very ill-favoured rogue by ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 435 - Volume 17, New Series, May 1, 1852 • Various

... show a triangle of chest over which the horizontal bones lay like the bars of a gridiron, a mature specimen of a type that Ellen had met in her school-days. There had been several girls at John Thompson's, usually bleached and ill-favoured victims of anaemia or spinal curvature, who had seemed to be compelled by something within themselves to spend their whole energies in trying, by extravagances of hair-ribbon and sidecombs and patent leather belts, the collection of actresses' postcards, and the completest abstention from study, ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West

... an answer, Leonard looked hard at the newcomer, and thought he had never beheld so ill-favoured a person before. Every feature in his face was distorted. His mouth was twisted on one side, his nose on the other, while his right eyebrow was elevated more than an inch above the left; added to which he squinted intolerably, had a long fell of straight sandy hair, ...
— Old Saint Paul's - A Tale of the Plague and the Fire • William Harrison Ainsworth

... Vesuvius, and sought Baiae, and made, in fact, all the excursions. As there were three, and sometimes half-a-dozen of our friends on these trips, we had, naturally, with us quite a cortege. Among these was an ill-favoured rascal called "John," who always received a dollar a day. One evening some one raised the question as to what the devil it was that John did. He did not carry anything, or work to any account, or guide, or inform, yet he was always there, and always ...
— Memoirs • Charles Godfrey Leland

... day the captain of the brig, followed by his ill-favoured son, came forward and looked at us as we sat in irons, upon ...
— The Privateer's-Man - One hundred Years Ago • Frederick Marryat

... Thankee, Mrs. Mouser, ma'am, for the honour of the meetin', and more particular for the pleasure of making your young lady's acquaintance—niece, ma'am? daughter, ma'am? granddaughter, by Jove, is it? Hallo! there, mild 'n, I say, stop packin'.' This was to the ill-favoured person with the broken nose. 'Bring us a couple o' glasses and a bottle o' curacoa; what are you fear'd on, my dear? this is Lord Lollipop, here, a reg'lar charmer, wouldn't hurt a fly, hey Lolly? Isn't he pretty, Miss? and I'm Sir Simon Sugarstick—so called after old Sir Simon, ma'am; and ...
— Uncle Silas - A Tale of Bartram-Haugh • J.S. Le Fanu

... of place, I think, to describe his personal appearance. He was neither tall nor too short, but of a medium height, not thin, but inclined to be fat. His face was round and not ill-favoured, and showed colour, even after a two days' fast. In a word, he greatly resembled Domitian, Vespasian's son, more than anybody else. This was the Emperor whom the Romans detested so much that they could not slake their hatred for him, even when they had torn him to pieces, but a decree of the Senate ...
— The Secret History of the Court of Justinian • Procopius

... or even attractive; rarely correct in drawing, and seldom satisfactory in colour; in types, ill-favoured; in feeling acutely intense and even dolorous—what is it then that makes Sandro Botticelli so irresistible that nowadays we may have no alternative but to worship or abhor him? The secret is this, that ...
— The Florentine Painters of the Renaissance - With An Index To Their Works • Bernhard Berenson

... materials collected and arranged by a literary hack or "devil." The term "printer's devil" for the errand boy in a printing office probably combines this idea with that of his being black with ink. The common notions of the devil as black, ill-favoured, malicious, destructive and the like, have occasioned the application of the term to certain animals (the Tasmanian devil, the devil-fish, the coot), to mechanical contrivances (for tearing up cloth or separating wool), to pungent, highly seasoned dishes, broiled or fried. In this article we are ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 8, Slice 3 - "Destructors" to "Diameter" • Various

... lonely or loveless than the ill-starred and ill-favoured Queen Mary. She had no near relatives in England except Elizabeth, and Elizabeth, by the irony of fate, was worse than a stranger to her. The awful solitude of a throne excluded her, even more than her own ill-health and brooding temper, from ...
— The Reign of Mary Tudor • James Anthony Froude

... nightingale's a melancholy song?' It is heard by night, 'whilst our spirits are attentive,' and the solemn gloom of the hour influences the judgment of the ear; for another false impression, which like the monster Error of Spenser, has bred a thousand young ones as ill-favoured as herself, ascribes melancholy to night. There is no good reason why we should think thus of the night, still less that the impression should influence our judgment in other matters; and we owe no small thanks to those who have endeavoured to reclaim to their proper uses these misdirected associations, ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 442 - Volume 17, New Series, June 19, 1852 • Various

... viewed as far from being a beauty. The taste of the day was altogether for light, sandy-haired, small-featured women, like Queen Elizabeth or her namesake of Hardwicke, so that Cis was looked on as a sort of crow, and her supposed parents were pitied for having so ill-favoured a daughter, so unlike all their families, except one black-a-vised Talbot grandmother, whose portrait had ...
— Unknown to History - A Story of the Captivity of Mary of Scotland • Charlotte M. Yonge

... hideous and filthy crowd stood round, and not one of them moved a muscle. Finally, we burst into a bare little inn, and had such a desolate breakfast of sour wine, bread, and bully. We finished as soon as we could to leave the nightmare place. Even the houses were gaunt and ill-favoured. ...
— Adventures of a Despatch Rider • W. H. L. Watson

... the ill-favoured tramp had once or twice come into my head while I ate my eggs and bacon, but, perhaps as one result of the meal, I felt very little doubt that he had by this time got some distance ahead, while the rest which I had determined to ...
— Chatterbox, 1905. • Various

... which had suffered severely in a recent gale which had driven her far out of her course to the northward. She was obliged to run to Liverpool for repairs. The captain, whose name was Graddy, and who was one of the most ill-favoured and ill-mannered men that Gaff had ever set eyes on, agreed to take the newcomer to England on condition that he should work his way besides paying for ...
— Shifting Winds - A Tough Yarn • R.M. Ballantyne

... suggestion Loki could scarcely keep from laughing, for the idea of sending the beautiful Freya, the joy and delight of Asgard, to be the wife of this ill-favoured Frost Giant was ...
— Told by the Northmen: - Stories from the Eddas and Sagas • E. M. [Ethel Mary] Wilmot-Buxton

... father told me of an odd passage the other night in bed between my mother and him, and she would not let him come to bed to her out of jealousy of him and an ugly wench that lived there lately, the most ill-favoured slut that ever I saw in my life, which I was ashamed to hear that my mother should be become such a fool, and my father bid me to take notice of it to my mother, and to make peace between him and her. All which do trouble me very much. So to bed ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys

... gave to that worthy full power to do anything he wished to break the will of his prospective patroness. Cassandra had been taken away from Cornelia—she could not learn so much as whether the woman had been scourged to death for arranging the interview with Drusus, or no. Two ill-favoured slatternly Gallic maids, the scourings of the Puteoli slave-market, had been forced upon Cornelia as her attendants—creatures who stood in abject fear of the whip of Phaon, and who obeyed his mandates to the letter. Cornelia was never out of sight ...
— A Friend of Caesar - A Tale of the Fall of the Roman Republic. Time, 50-47 B.C. • William Stearns Davis

... his sight as it has transfigured him in hers. Their positions might even have been reversed. If one touch of such a love as hers could ever come to her in a thought of his, he might turn into a being as ill-favoured as herself. She would neither know nor care, since joy would ...
— A Handbook to the Works of Browning (6th ed.) • Mrs. Sutherland Orr

... had been prevented by the noise he heard inside from advancing beyond the middle of the ante-chamber, a spectacle that must have indeed amazed him. I saw a man extremely well dressed, but with a particularly ill-favoured countenance. ...
— Manon Lescaut • Abbe Prevost

... a street corner. Number one is a shirking fellow of five-and-twenty, in an ill-favoured and ill-savoured suit, his trousers of corduroy, his coat of some indiscernible groundwork for the deposition of grease, his neckerchief like an eel, his complexion like dirty dough, his mangy fur cap pulled low upon his beetle brows to hide the prison cut of his hair. His hands are in his ...
— The Uncommercial Traveller • Charles Dickens

... to hear that you know nothing of yourself, how could you submit to that? How could you stand your ground and suffer that to be proved? Clearly not at all. You instantly turn away in wrath. Yet what harm have I done to you? Unless indeed the mirror harms the ill-favoured man by showing him to himself just as he is; unless the physician can be thought to insult his patient, when he tells him:—"Friend, do you suppose there is nothing wrong with you? why, you have a fever. Eat nothing to-day, and drink only water." Yet no one says, "What an insufferable ...
— The Golden Sayings of Epictetus • Epictetus

... devilkins harbouring close under the bank to work the springes, Christian himself pausing and pricking with his sword's point at the nearest noose, and pale discomfortable mountains rising on the farther side; or yet again, the two ill-favoured ones that beset the first of Christian's journey, with the frog-like structure of the skull, the frog-like limberness of limbs—crafty, slippery, lustful-looking devils, drawn always in outline as though possessed of a dim, infernal luminosity. ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XXII (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... why shouldn't she? you're young and wouldn't be ill-favoured either, had God or thy mother given thee another face. Aren't you one of Prince Maraloffski's gamekeepers; and haven't you got a good grass farm, and the best cow in the village? What ...
— Vera - or, The Nihilists • Oscar Wilde

... thought; but because he didna like to part wi' my gudesire aff the grund. Dougal was glad to see Steenie, and brought him into the great oak parlour, and there sat the Laird his leesome lane, excepting that he had beside him a great, ill-favoured jackanape, that was a special pet of his; a cankered beast it was, and mony an ill-natured trick it played—ill to please it was, and easily angered—ran about the haill castle, chattering and yowling, and pinching, and biting folk, especially before ill-weather, ...
— The Haunters & The Haunted - Ghost Stories And Tales Of The Supernatural • Various

... an ill-favoured thing," I said, "and does more harm than good, but Madre Moreno, I scarcely think will thank me for destroying it, for she always gathered its leaves for some of ...
— The Beautiful Eyes of Ysidria • Charles A. Gunnison

... missing children. Copsley Wood had been scoured by a band of beaters from end to end, with no better success than had attended the efforts of the two men the night before. Mr. Grey's thoughts had reverted again and again to the ill-favoured man and black-browed woman—gipsies they were said to be, but more likely they were only ordinary vagrants—who had been seen lately loitering about the neighbourhood, and whose appearance had given rise ...
— Two Little Travellers - A Story for Girls • Frances Browne Arthur

... make in the human constitution. The captain went forth a good-looking, good-tempered man, destitute neither of kind feelings nor masculine beauty: the general returned bloated, bilious, irascible, entirely selfish, and decidedly ill-favoured. Such affections as he ever had seemed to have been left behind in India—that new world, around which now all his associations and remembrances revolved; and the reserve (clearly reproduced in Charles), the habit of silence whereof we took ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper

... sorrow of the boy, and knowing that his father was still more sorrowful, rejoiced in her revenge. She had numerous attendants to do her will. Among them was a dwarf, a misshapen, ill-favoured creature. To his care the boy was confided, with directions to beat and teaze him whenever he had nothing else to do. The noble child bore every indignity with equanimity and good humour, and, instead of harbouring revenge, took every opportunity of doing a kindness to the poor dwarf, who ...
— The Seven Champions of Christendom • W. H. G. Kingston

... he got into a dispute with a fellow student, Torregiano, who broke his nose. This deformity alone was a tragedy to one like Michael Angelo who loved everything beautiful, yet must go through life knowing himself to be ill-favoured. ...
— Pictures Every Child Should Know • Dolores Bacon

... can only refer them to the first word of my title and remind them that we are primarily out to be amused—not, it is true, without some hope of picking up morsels of knowledge by the way. If the manner is light, I can only say, in the words of Touchstone, that it is "an ill-favoured thing, sir, but my own; a poor ...
— Amusements in Mathematics • Henry Ernest Dudeney

... picture, which I have, she is likewise sitting; in the picture, she is on her legs, but leaning forward. It appears extraordinary that Rembrandt should have taken so much pains, and have made at last so very ugly and ill-favoured a figure; but his attention was principally directed to the colouring and effect, in which it must be acknowledged he has attained the highest degree of excellence." The small picture in the National Gallery is a study of the same figure. Colour ...
— Rembrandt and His Works • John Burnet

... passed near the old mill. Miles Gaffin was standing at the door, while behind him, tugging at a sack, was his man, whose countenance appeared to Harry, as he caught sight of it for a moment, one of the most surly and ill-favoured he had ever set eyes on. "No wonder the farmers prefer sending their corn to a distance to having it ground by such a couple," he thought. The miller took off his hat as he saw the lads. Algernon scarcely ...
— Won from the Waves • W.H.G. Kingston

... cup, my own, shall pay the price of it. Bear me no ill-will, I pray you, learned scribe, and above all tell me no falsehood as the message of the stars you serve. It is the truth I seek, the truth. If only she may be seen, and clasped, I care not how ill-favoured is ...
— Morning Star • H. Rider Haggard

... them to me by the flint and the fire; rather, unless they be baleful unto you, and worthy of an evil death, ye shall suffer them to abide with you; ye shall make them become children of the Bears, if they be goodly enough and worthy, and they shall be my children as ye be; otherwise, if they be ill-favoured and weakling, let them live and be thralls to you, but not join with you, man to woman. Now depart ye with ...
— The Wood Beyond the World • William Morris

... upon the other. At every repetition of the horrid contact each instinctively repelled it with the greater haste; and the process, natural although it was, began to tell upon the nerves of the companions. Macfarlane made some ill-favoured jest about the farmer's wife, but it came hollowly from his lips, and was allowed to drop in silence. Still their unnatural burden bumped from side to side; and now the head would be laid, as if in ...
— Tales and Fantasies • Robert Louis Stevenson

... clock upon its centre was a variety of old glass, Eighteenth Century rum and whiskey flasks recently collected by Mrs. Norris. There were, additionally, a porcelain image of two farmers, dos a dos, one with rosy cheeks and flashing eye labelled "water," and the other, haggard and ill-favoured, labelled "gin"; also a brace of saturnine china cats. Above the mantel stretched an expanse of oak panelling which supported the portrait of Mrs. Norris's great-great-grandfather in a heavy gilt frame. The old gentleman, ...
— Tutors' Lane • Wilmarth Lewis

... cares how riches to increase; I wish nor seek for vain and fruitless pleasures; No riches are, but what the mind intreasures. Thus am I solitary, live alone, Yet better loved, the more that I am known; And though my face ill-favoured at first sight, After acquaintance, it will give delight. Refuse me not, for I shall constant be; Maintain your credit and ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan

... She is not ill-favoured, but she is poor and thin. Nevertheless say one dollar more," says ...
— Morocco • S.L. Bensusan

... especially on the life—if there was such a thing—beyond the grave. He was not a superstitious man, but, saturated with tradition, he was a scrupulous observer of religious feast, custom, and ritual. He had lately been disturbed by what he considered to be an ill-favoured omen. One night—it was twelve nights ago he reckoned—the statues of Pan and Apollo, standing in his dining-room, which was at the end of the portico, had fallen to the ground without any apparent cause and had been shattered into fragments. ...
— Orpheus in Mayfair and Other Stories and Sketches • Maurice Baring

... passed to the galley, I noticed the stranger talking to the carpenter by the main-rigging. They gave me a meaning look, which I did not at all relish. Then, as I stood in the galley, while the cook dished up, I noticed that the stranger raised his hand to a tall, lanky, ill-favoured man who was loafing about on the wharf, carrying a large black package. This man came right up to the edge of the wharf, directly he saw the stranger's signal. It made me uneasy somehow. I was in a thoroughly anxious ...
— Martin Hyde, The Duke's Messenger • John Masefield

... sir," said Doggott. "I carn't s'y anything, I know. But, mark my words, sir—beggin' your pardon—there'll be trouble come of this. That driver's as ill-favoured a scoundrel as ever I see. And as for this 'ere ape, if 'e smiles at me just once more, I'll give 'im what-for." And he scowled so blackly upon the Eurasian that that individual hastily sought the seclusion which the ...
— The Bronze Bell • Louis Joseph Vance

... pots of broth boiling over fires. A few braves were standing about, and others looking after the horses of the tribe, which they had apparently just driven in from pasture; while a pack of dogs, the most ill-favoured of mongrels ever seen, were squatted about, watching for the offal which might be thrown to them, or ready to rush in and seize any of the meat which might for a ...
— In the Rocky Mountains - A Tale of Adventure • W. H. G. Kingston

... drink to me, now. I have seen Sackerson loose twenty times, and have taken him by the chain; but, I warrant you, the women have so cried and 270 shrieked at it, that it passed: but women, indeed, cannot abide 'em; they are very ill-favoured rough things. ...
— The Merry Wives of Windsor - The Works of William Shakespeare [Cambridge Edition] [9 vols.] • William Shakespeare

... faculties, Horace opened the door and called in Sylvia and her mother, who were, as was only to be expected, overcome with joy on seeing the head of the family released from his ignoble condition of a singularly ill-favoured quadruped. ...
— The Brass Bottle • F. Anstey

... not take this answer for a refusal, and continued to press his suit with great energy until mid-Lent. But he found her still firm in her declaration that she would love neither himself nor another, which he could not believe, however, seeing how ill-favoured was her husband, and how great her own beauty. Convinced that she was practising dissimulation, he resolved, on his own side, to have recourse to deception, and accordingly he ceased to urge his suit, and inquired so closely concerning her manner of life ...
— The Tales Of The Heptameron, Vol. II. (of V.) • Margaret, Queen Of Navarre

... moment, but in a tone of ripe reflection which deprived the remark of all brutal abruptness. "It's as if you had taken the trouble to pick out the people in the world that I have least in common with. Your cousin I have always thought a conceited ass—besides his being the most ill-favoured animal I know. Then it's insufferably tiresome that one can't tell him so; one must spare him on account of his health. His health seems to me the best part of him; it gives him privileges enjoyed by no ...
— The Portrait of a Lady - Volume 2 (of 2) • Henry James

... that its use made a plain face presentable. There is a good election story of Daniel O'Connell. It is related during a fierce debate on the hustings, O'Connell with his biting witty tongue, attacked his opponent on account of his ill-favoured countenance. But, not to be outdone, and thinking to turn the gathering against O'Connell, his adversary called out, "Take off your wig, and I'll warrant that you'll prove the uglier." The witty Irishman immediately responded, amidst ...
— At the Sign of the Barber's Pole - Studies In Hirsute History • William Andrews

... sober me or ony ane," said the matron, "Aweel, Tibb, a lass like me wasna to lack wooers, for I wasna sae ill-favoured that the ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott

... afraid my poor mother thought me a sad rogue, for I would slip away from the shop for a whole afternoon together, on the plea of needing a walk; but my walk always led me to that terrible inn. I soon became a familiar figure to its ill-favoured master and his beautiful niece. The landlord of the Skull and Spectacles had been a seaman in his youth, and told tales of the sea to guests who paid their score. He had a cadet brother who was a seaman still, and who drifted out of longshore knowledge for ...
— Marjorie • Justin Huntly McCarthy

... desire was to remain in Bohemia with Count Rosenberg, who treated him well, and reposed much confidence in him. Neither had Kelly any great objection to remain; but a new passion had taken possession of his breast, and he was laying deep schemes to gratify it. His own wife was ill-favoured and ill-natured; Dee's was comely and agreeable; and he longed to make an exchange of partners without exciting the jealousy or shocking the morality of Dee. This was a difficult matter; but to a man like Kelly, who was as deficient ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay

... James's—opening into the garden; and here Horace Walpole describes his seeing George I., in the rooms appropriated to the Duchess of Kendal, next to those of Melusina Schulemberg, or, as she was then called, the Countess of Walsingham. The Duchess of Kendal was then very 'lean and ill-favoured.' 'Just before her,' says Horace, 'stood a tall, elderly man, rather pale, of an aspect rather good-natured than august: in a dark tie-wig, a plain coat, waistcoat, and breeches of snuff-coloured cloth, with stockings of the same colour, ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 1 • Grace Wharton and Philip Wharton

... how little is in their power; for what, indeed, truly desirable, can they bestow on us? Can they give beauty to the deformed, strength to the weak, or health to the infirm? Surely if they could we should not see so many ill-favoured faces haunting the assemblies of the great, nor would such numbers of feeble wretches languish in their coaches and palaces. No, not the wealth of a kingdom can purchase any paint to dress pale Ugliness in the bloom of that young maiden, nor any ...
— Joseph Andrews, Vol. 2 • Henry Fielding

... and wind would now serve for taking out the ship. "Hands shorten in cable!" shouted Ben Snatchblock, his pipe sounding shrilly along the decks. Pango remained forward, concealing himself behind the foremast, though he every now and then took a glance at the ill-favoured pilot, a big, cut-throat, piratical-looking individual, who was standing aft near the master, while his boat hung on ...
— The Three Commanders • W.H.G. Kingston

... in the revolt, even joining in the massacre of our people. The 60th Rifles and some Goorkhas formed the firing party, and took, strange to say, such bad aim that the provost-sergeant had to finish the work by shooting each culprit with a pistol. Nothing could have been more ill-favoured and dirty than the wretched victims; but they met their fate in silence and with the most ...
— A Narrative Of The Siege Of Delhi - With An Account Of The Mutiny At Ferozepore In 1857 • Charles John Griffiths

... spellum" (lying stories). Trow and ween are often found; the "champaign over against Gilgal" (Deut. xi. 30) means the plain; and a publican in the New Testament is a tax-gatherer, who sent to the Roman Treasury or Publicum the taxes he had collected from the Jews. An "ill-favoured person" is an ill-looking person; and "bravery" (Isa. iii. 18) is used in the sense of finery in dress. —Some of the oldest grammar, too, remains, as in Esther viii. 8, "Write ye, as it liketh you," where the you is a dative. Again, in Ezek. xxx. 2, we find "Howl ...
— A Brief History of the English Language and Literature, Vol. 2 (of 2) • John Miller Dow Meiklejohn



Words linked to "Ill-favoured" :   ill-favored



Copyright © 2024 e-Free Translation.com