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Slur   Listen
verb
Slur  v. t.  (past & past part. slurred; pres. part. slurring)  
1.
To soil; to sully; to contaminate; to disgrace.
2.
To disparage; to traduce.
3.
To cover over; to disguise; to conceal; to pass over lightly or with little notice. "With periods, points, and tropes, he slurs his crimes."
4.
To cheat, as by sliding a die; to trick. (R.) "To slur men of what they fought for."
5.
To pronounce indistinctly; as, to slur syllables; to slur one's words.
6.
(Mus.) To sing or perform in a smooth, gliding style; to connect smoothly in performing, as several notes or tones.
7.
(Print.) To blur or double, as an impression from type; to mackle.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Slur" Quotes from Famous Books



... of highest caste, English and Indian. I admit no slur in the conjunction; and I take no insults from any man...." He made another forward move, purely for the pleasure of seeing Chandranath jerk backward. "If my cousin was in danger, we are grateful to you. But I told you, she wishes to be alone. So ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver

... from habit—but this was different. And it had been so, he reflected, from that night at the Prouty House when he would gladly have fought those who had slighted and hurt her, when he would have shed blood, had his judgment not restrained him. Ever since then the least insinuation or slur against Kate had set his blood tingling, and Beth's ridicule had been one of the hardest things he had found to overlook in her. And, too, the curious serenity, the sense of completeness which came to him when she sat quietly beside him, puzzled ...
— The Fighting Shepherdess • Caroline Lockhart

... right) you think me bound In some sort, I can give you letters to her; And yet, to speak the truth, I rate your chance Almost at naked nothing.' Thus the king; And I, though nettled that he seemed to slur With garrulous ease and oily courtesies Our formal compact, yet, not less (all frets But chafing me on fire to find my bride) Went forth again with both my friends. We rode Many a long league back to the North. At last ...
— The Princess • Alfred Lord Tennyson

... order of the English Parliament; for though the results of that commission thoroughly exculpated Sir James Brooke from any blame, there was never any amende honourable made for subjecting him to such an indignity. It was never understood by the natives as anything but a slur on the Rajah's character, and was a terrible injury to his prestige for a time. Indeed, it was the seed of the Malay plot; and if we had all been killed, our own English Government would have been ...
— Sketches of Our Life at Sarawak • Harriette McDougall

... whited sepulchre, but at any rate, the whitewash is laid on very thick, and the plaster looks uncommonly like stone. From various motives, this feature is, I think, but seldom brought prominently forward in descriptions of the Papal city. Protestant and liberal writers slur over the facts, because, however erroneously, they are deemed inconsistent with the assumed iniquity of the Government and the corruptions of the Papacy. Catholic narrators know perhaps too much of what goes on behind the scenes to relish calling too close an attention ...
— Rome in 1860 • Edward Dicey

... faltered and stopped. He was going to have made a remark that would have cast a slur on the character of his late partner, so he checked ...
— The Lifeboat • R.M. Ballantyne

... confirm by the following anecdote, which is going the round of the Brigade, what I recently told you about our friend Boyce. I shouldn't worry you, but I feel that if one has cast an unjustifiable slur on a brother-officer's honour—and I can't tell you how the thing has lain on my conscience—one shouldn't leave a stone unturned to rehabilitate him, even in the eyes of ...
— The Red Planet • William J. Locke

... the test of time. He contradicted Wesley's evidence flatly. "I cannot but observe," he wrote to his friend Jacob Rogers, curate at St. Paul's, Bedford, "what a slur you cast upon the Moravians about stillness. Do you think, my brother, that they don't pray? I wish you prayed as much, and as well. They do not neglect prayers, either in public or in private; but they do not perform them merely as things that must be done; they are inwardly moved to pray by ...
— History of the Moravian Church • J. E. Hutton

... midnight. Among the latest, when Dan had lost himself far from Boston in talk with a young lady from Richmond, who spoke with a slur of her vowels that fascinated him, came Mr. and Mrs. Brinkley. He felt himself grow pale and inattentive to his pretty Virginian. That accent of Mrs. Brinkley's recalled him to his history. He hoped that she would not see him; but in another moment he was greeting her with a warmth ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... all. The kindnesse, and inclination I ought to have for my own Country, had almost perswaded me to rest my self there, and to make my native tongue the basis of this universall reduction but then the rest of the Europaean world (which I have no reason to slur or contemne) would have as ill resented the project, as we did it in the Germans, who would long agoe have challenged this honour to themselves. I had in the end no other course to take, but to throw myselfe upon the Latine, in which I luckily met with all the necessary conditions ...
— A Philosophicall Essay for the Reunion of the Languages - Or, The Art of Knowing All by the Mastery of One • Pierre Besnier

... that old sinner I don't care a copper damn whether he recognizes me or not. What I can't stand and won't stand is the slur he's ...
— The Belfry • May Sinclair

... CORRESPONDENTS.—A Correspondent, who writes himself Peter Ball, or Bell,—for his hand-writing is as ragged as his manners—admonishes me of the old saying, that some people (under a courteous periphrasis I slur his less ceremonious epithet) had need have good memories. In my 'Old Benchers of the Inner Temple,' I have delivered myself, and truly, a Templar born. Bell clamours upon this, and thinketh that he hath caught ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb

... into a poisonous libel And on the honor of—oh God!—his wife, The nearest, dearest part of all men's honor, Left a base slur to pass from month to mouth, Of loose mechanics with all foul comments, Of villainous jests and blasphemies obscene; While sneering nobles in more polished guise Whispered the tale and ...
— Self-Raised • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth

... with his stepmother, hanging is awarded to the man. In the same case Swanwhite, the woman, is punished, by treading to death with horses. A woman accomplice in adultery is treated to what Homer calls a "stone coat." Incestuous adultery is a foul slur. ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")

... of course not the purpose of Binet to cast a slur upon the good sense and judgment of teachers. The teachers who took part in the little experiment described above were Binet's personal friends. The errors he points out in his entertaining and good-humored account of the ...
— The Measurement of Intelligence • Lewis Madison Terman

... here," said Charles, his hot blood all aflame in an instant at the implied slur on Marguerite, "to call you to account for the death of Claude de Pontbriand, and for the foul wrong ...
— Marguerite De Roberval - A Romance of the Days of Jacques Cartier • T. G. Marquis

... This slur is ill-deserved; at best, it simply means that the advantages of the "Zollverein" were economic as well as political; and, in later years, the necessity for a common system of doing business played a deservedly important part in ...
— Blood and Iron - Origin of German Empire As Revealed by Character of Its - Founder, Bismarck • John Hubert Greusel

... everybody thinks I am a Liberal. Lady Moyne was the first who mentioned to me this slur on my character. Babberly evidently believed it. Then, shortly after the Belfast meeting, I had a letter, marked "Private and Confidential," from Sir Samuel Clithering. Although Clithering is not a member of the Government, he is in close touch with several very ...
— The Red Hand of Ulster • George A. Birmingham

... will be to drop, or slur, the final syllables of the words; to leave off the sound of final ed; to lose the sharpness of the s; to blur the l; and sometimes to lose the sound of k and c. But, if he has learned to read, by pointing to these ...
— What the Mother of a Deaf Child Ought to Know • John Dutton Wright

... health; had all that the world could give; was fond of books, pictures, architecture, and china; had various tastes, and the means of indulging them, and was one of those few men on whom it seems that every pleasant thing has been lavished. There was that little slur on his good name to which allusion has been made; but those who knew Colonel Osborne best were generally willing to declare that no harm was intended, and that the evils which arose were always to be attributed to mistaken jealousy. He had, his friends said, a free and pleasant way with women ...
— He Knew He Was Right • Anthony Trollope

... which wuz keerful wouldn't trust you wid a shoe buttoner—dat's how high I reguards yore gift fur machinery," commented Bill Tilghman acidly. Red Hoss chose to ignore the slur. Anyhow, at the moment he could put his tongue to no appropriate sentence of counter repartee. He continued as though there ...
— Sundry Accounts • Irvin S. Cobb

... he had been deceived, that people were scandalised at his appearing to cast a slur upon his mother, and that the opposition in the commons would move to include her name. In great agitation he appealed to Grenville to help him by announcing a message from the crown to the commons recommending ...
— The Political History of England - Vol. X. • William Hunt

... criminal but to prove the crime against him, and offered to subscribe a couple of sovereigns on the spot to a common fund to be raised for the purpose. "I don't know what is to be done with a country like this," said Captain Glomax, who, as an itinerant, was not averse to cast a slur upon the land of ...
— The American Senator • Anthony Trollope

... people." Never hill-billies! A hill-billy, the true mountain man or woman would have you know, is one born of the mountains who has got above his raising, ashamed to own his origin, one who holds his own mountain people up for scorn and ridicule. To mountain folk the word hill-billy is a slur of the worst sort. A slur that has ...
— Blue Ridge Country • Jean Thomas

... be imagined for a moment that the Tiger is not an utterly respectable hotel. It is, always was, always will be. Not the faintest slur had ever been cast upon its licence. Still, it had a bar and a barmaid, and indubitably people drank at the bar. When a prominent man took to drink (as prominent men sometimes did), people would say, "He's ...
— The Matador of the Five Towns and Other Stories • Arnold Bennett

... fixedly at the table while his host was absent. His conscience was not pricking him with regard to an unmerited slur on the country chemists of Great Britain. All is fair in love and the detection of crime, and he simply had to get hold of those bottles by some daring ...
— The Postmaster's Daughter • Louis Tracy

... great joy and delight, married Swaha in the guise of Siva, and that lady joyfully cohabiting with him, held the semen virile in her hands. And then she thought within herself that those who would observe her in that disguise in the forest, would cast an unmerited slur upon the conduct of those Brahmana ladies in connection with Agni. Therefore, to prevent this, she should assume the disguise of a bird, and in that state she should more easily get ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli

... come by fits and starts, and as it were, in clusters. To some extent this may be because they draw one another by links more or less subtle. But there is more in it than that. It happens so. Life is an intermittent fever. Now all narrators, whether of history or fiction, are compelled to slur these barren portions of time or else line trunks. The practice, however, tends to give the unguarded reader a wrong arithmetical impression, which there is a particular reason for avoiding in these pages as far as possible. I invite ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade

... dog there was, Petronius by name— A cur of no degree, yet which the same Rejoiced him; because so worthless he That in his worthlessness remarkably He shone, th' example de luxe of how a cur May be the very limit of a slur Upon the honored name of dog; a joke He was, a satire blasphemous; he broke The records all for sheer insulting "bunk;" No dog had ever breathed ...
— The Dog's Book of Verse • Various

... the squire said, "I am heartily glad he has got off being tried. Even if I had got a free pardon for him, it would have been a serious slur upon him that he had been imprisoned, and would have been awkward for us all in the future. I think, Wilks, I will leave it to you to ...
— With Wolfe in Canada - The Winning of a Continent • G. A. Henty

... mother of thunderbolts. Ashby and Ashby's men were alike smarting from a late rebuke, administered in General Orders. They felt it stingingly. The Confederate soldier enthroned on high his personal honour, and a slur there was a slur indeed. Now the memory of the reprimand was a strong spur to endeavour. The cavalry meant to distinguish itself, and pined for ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston

... comic story does not slur the nub; he shouts it at you—every time. And when he prints it, in England, France, Germany, and Italy, he italicizes it, puts some whopping exclamation-points after it, and sometimes explains it in a parenthesis. All of which is very depressing, and makes one ...
— The $30,000 Bequest and Other Stories • Mark Twain

... "let us thresh out the matter ourselves. We will save Sir Frank's name from a police court slur at all events." ...
— The Green Mummy • Fergus Hume

... course this was a deed of wonderful courage, and no man denied it, but it is curious that so stern a supporter of discipline as Havelock did not see that his son had put himself in a position where he had no right to be, and in so doing had thrown a slur on the bravery of the major, who except for the accident of his horse being shot would have led the men himself. But Havelock, full of pride in his son's action, insisted, to the great mortification of the 64th, on recommending him for ...
— The Red Book of Heroes • Leonora Blanche Lang

... flute, by commencing with D octave and running down by semitones to a fifth below, and frequently repeating the notes, for the space of a minute, with occasional pauses and slight variations, sometimes ascending as well as descending the scale. The bird does not slur the passages, but utters them with a sort of trembling staccato. The separate notes may be distinctly perceived, with ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various

... not from native lack of fur That his demise was such. We did not see the end occur, But, though it be to cast a slur Upon humanity, infer (And you will catch our meaning, Sir) He had a coat ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, January 28, 1914 • Various

... over; take no note of, take no thought of, take no account of, take no notice of; pay no regard to; laisser aller [Fr.]. scamp; trifle, fribble^; do by halves; cut; slight &c (despise) 930; play with, trifle with; slur, skim, skim the surface; effleurer [Fr.]; take a cursory view of &c 457. slur over, skip over, jump over, slip over; pretermit^, miss, skip, jump, omit, give the go-by to, push aside, pigeonhole, shelve, sink; table [Parl.]; ignore, shut ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget

... impossible for men to live in the world without poetry of some sort or other. If they cannot get the best they will get some substitute for it, and thus seem to verify Saint Augustine's slur that it is wine of devils. The mind bound down too closely to what is practical either becomes inert, or revenges itself by rushing into the savage wilderness of "isms." The insincerity of our civilization has disgusted some persons so much that they have sought refuge in ...
— The Function Of The Poet And Other Essays • James Russell Lowell

... crime was authoritatively proved to me. But to satisfy your doubt by producing testimony, that, verily, would ill become my pride. Here I stand! Here is my sword! Who among you will fight with me, casting slur upon my honour?"—"None of us!" comes promptly from the Brabantians, "We only fight for you!" The high-tempered gentleman turns somewhat violently upon the King: "And you, King, do you forget my services, my victories in battle over the wild Dane?" The King answers ...
— The Wagnerian Romances • Gertrude Hall

... 1773; died 1841 He distinguished himself during the war of 1812, especially in the battle of the Thames. His military reputation made him available as a Presidential candidate. His character was unimpeachable, and the chief slur cast upon him by his opponent was that he had lived in a "log cabin" with nothing to drink but "hard cider." His friends turned this to good account. The campaign was noted for immense mass-meetings, long processions, song-singing, and great enthusiasm. "Hard cider" ...
— A Brief History of the United States • Barnes & Co.

... could, slept. Braxton Wyatt and his friends again impeached the credit of Henry Ware, insinuating with sly smiles that he must be a renegade, as he had taken no part in the defense and must now be with his savage friends. To the slur Paul Cotter fiercely replied that he had warned them of the attack; without him the station would have been taken by surprise, and that surely proved ...
— The Young Trailers - A Story of Early Kentucky • Joseph A. Altsheler

... soon reached. At this point I happened to look up, and saw the operators all looking over my shoulder, with their faces shining with fun and excitement. I knew then that they were trying to put up a job on me, but kept my own counsel. The New York man then commenced to slur over his words, running them together and sticking the signals; but I had been used to this style of telegraphy in taking report, and was not in the least discomfited. Finally, when I thought the fun had gone far enough, and having ...
— Edison, His Life and Inventions • Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin

... and pleasantly modulated, and he spoke English with the faintest slur—perceptible, perhaps, only to the keenest ear—of a French accent. To ears less keen it would merely seem that he articulated with a precision so singular as to ...
— The Lion's Skin • Rafael Sabatini

... a baritone, soprano, and a bass and tenor, too. I can thrill and slur and frill and whirr and shake you through and through. I'm a Jews' harp—I'm an organ—I'm a fiddle and a flute. Every kind of touching sound is ...
— Wild Animals at Home • Ernest Thompson Seton

... much for Peter Blood that the argument should have left him unmoved. It is a little thing, perhaps, but in a narrative in which there is so much that tells against him, I cannot—since my story is in the nature of a brief for the defence—afford to slur a circumstance that is so strongly in his favour, a circumstance revealing that the cynicism attributed to him proceeded from his reason and from a brooding over wrongs rather than from any natural instincts. "I care nothing ...
— Captain Blood • Rafael Sabatini

... but offered no comment. In fact, he treated the affair so lightly that Mr. Harley felt relieved; that latter speculator had been somewhat disturbed in his mind concerning Storri's opinion of what, to give it a best description, evinced niggard distrust of Storri, and cast in negative fashion a slur upon ...
— The President - A novel • Alfred Henry Lewis

... much nearer to insanity than the affected apathy she had assumed before Hermione discovered the imposition; but, nevertheless, the young girl felt that, sane or not sane, she could allow no one to cast a slur on the name of the man she loved. She was glad, indeed, that Madame Patoff did not make her hatred and her suspicion topics for conversation with the rest of the family, and she was willing to suffer much in order that her ...
— Paul Patoff • F. Marion Crawford

... carried away by his subject, and spoke so loudly, that he quite alarmed the order-bedecked general. Nejdanov was a strong admirer of Ostrovsky, but could not help feeling, in spite of the author's great genius, his evident desire to throw a slur on modern civilisation in the burlesqued character of Veherov, in "Never ...
— Virgin Soil • Ivan S. Turgenev

... not, however, on the Secretary's misconception of the situation that Jackson's request for relief was based. Nor was it the slur on his judgment that led him to resign. The injury that had been inflicted by Mr. Benjamin's unfortunate letter was not personal to himself. It affected the whole army. It was a direct blow to discipline, and struck at the very heart of military efficiency. Not only would ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson

... slur on your fair name?" he demanded next, as airily as though he were inquiring if she was worrying about the trimming of a new hat. "My revered aunt has told me all the ...
— The Vision of Desire • Margaret Pedler

... of spirit, I see," he said. "Well, I am glad. It's a pleasure to meet with wit and perception in the wilderness. One prefers to talk with gentlemen. 'Tis said that the English are heavy, but I do not always find them so. Perhaps it's merely a slur that one nation wishes to ...
— The Hunters of the Hills • Joseph Altsheler

... the shame of dreams for deeds, The scandal of unnatural strife, The slur upon immortal needs, The treason done ...
— Poems by William Ernest Henley • William Ernest Henley

... Savage Science, he would only raise the doctor in his mother's estimation. If, on the other hand, he described what had passed between them when they met in the Zoological Gardens, Mrs. Gallilee might summon Benjulia to explain the slur which he had indirectly cast on the memory of Carmina's mother—and might find, in the reply, some plausible reason for objecting to her son's marriage. Having rashly placed himself in this dilemma, Ovid unwisely escaped from it ...
— Heart and Science - A Story of the Present Time • Wilkie Collins

... Look close at that engraving—imagine it to be a drawing in pen and ink, and yourself required similarly to produce its parallel! True, the steel point has the one advantage of not blotting, but it has tenfold or twentyfold disadvantage, in that you cannot slur, nor efface, except in a very resolute and laborious way, nor play with it, nor even see what you are doing with it at the moment, far less the effect that is to be. You must feel what you are doing with it, and know precisely what ...
— On the Old Road Vol. 1 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin

... ring, you know you did," roared out the hook-nosed man, incensed at this slur upon his calling, and now seemingly bent on damaging the young man's character for life. "I'm a good mind to call a. constable; we don't take stolen goods here, I ...
— Redburn. His First Voyage • Herman Melville

... revolution, taking the earthly paradise by violence. They believe that if every worker dropped his tools and absolutely refused to work under the old system, it would be impossible to continue it. That is true, but those who advocate this policy slur over many difficulties, and the relative power of endurance of both parties. They do not, I think, take into account the immense power in the hands of those who uphold the present system. Those who might be expected to strike are not—at least ...
— National Being - Some Thoughts on an Irish Polity • (A.E.)George William Russell

... felt a little concern at an imputation, which was once faintly attempted to be made, he scarcely now remembers by whom, that in the character of Nathan Slaughter he intended to throw a slur upon the peaceful Society of Friends, of which Nathan is described as having been an unworthy member. This notion is undeserving of serious challenge. The whole object was here to portray the peculiar characteristics of a class of men, very limited, of course, in number, but found, ...
— Nick of the Woods • Robert M. Bird

... said she, raising herself to her full height, her slender fingers clenched together, every nerve 'roused to action,—"if you would not insult me, never again call the woman who has had the heart to cast such a slur upon the character of her whom we know is innocent, my mother! It is not to injure your feelings that she has invented such a vile scheme, but it is by injuring Natalie's character in your eyes, she may banish from her heart all future happiness. Nay, do not start at such a strange declaration ...
— Natalie - A Gem Among the Sea-Weeds • Ferna Vale

... world,—whispers unthinkable and tragic possibilities to the poetic and self-searching mind of Ernesto. He resolves to seek release in Argentina. But before he can sail away, he overhears, in a fashionable cafe, a remark which casts a slur on Teodora, and strikes the speaker of the insult in the face. A duel is forthwith arranged, to take place in a vacant studio adjacent to Ernesto's. When Don Julian learns about it, he is troubled by the idea ...
— The Theory of the Theatre • Clayton Hamilton

... never to acknowledge this compact, or to cast any slur upon the father whose reasons for this apparently unnatural conduct were quite disconnected with any fault of his or any desire ...
— Dark Hollow • Anna Katharine Green

... Of course; why not? Streckmann has cast a slur upon her conduct and old Bernd won't suffer that! 'Tis folly, to be sure, to bring suit in such a matter.—Because it is the woman who has to bear the brunt of it in ...
— The Dramatic Works of Gerhart Hauptmann - Volume II • Gerhart Hauptmann

... a horse laugh and the cost of that hatchet became a standing joke and a slur on my "business ability." What aggravated me most was, that the rascals were not so far out in their calculation. And was I so far wrong? That hatchet was my favorite for nearly thirty years. It has been "upset" twice by skilled workmen; and, if my friend ...
— Woodcraft • George W. Sears

... admirers—were indignant at the contrast which the new King seemed deliberately to draw between himself and his grandfather. In accentuating the fact that he was born and bred in England, George the Third appeared by imputation to be casting a slur upon the German nature and German prejudices of George the Second. This boast, however much it might offend the feelings of the friends of the late King, was not at all calculated to affect the mass of the public, who had little love for George the Second, ...
— A History of the Four Georges and of William IV, Volume III (of 4) • Justin McCarthy and Justin Huntly McCarthy

... somewhere! Otherwise, a child's box of tin soldiers sent by post would have been just the thing for the Dardanelles landing! No; it's not the advice that riles me: it's the fact that people who have made a mistake, and should be sorry, slur over my appeal for the stuff advances are made of and yet continue to urge us on as ...
— Gallipoli Diary, Volume I • Ian Hamilton

... buildup continued. Early in 1982, South Africa claimed the Belderkan Army exceeded the size agreed to in the Disarmament Treaty. The European countries and some African nations joined in the accusation. China called the uproar a vicious slur on a new African nation. The United States and Russia, trying not to get entangled, asked for more investigation ...
— The Green Beret • Thomas Edward Purdom

... Kettle's meal, and his guest for some fastidious reason refused to eat. He pointed angrily to the figured bowl. "Dug chop," said he. "Too-much-good. You chop him." This rejection of excellent food was a distinct slur on his menage, and he was working himself up into passion. "You chop dem dug ...
— A Master of Fortune • Cutcliffe Hyne

... Then she began to ask herself various questions. Would the Queen refuse to accept her in her new rank? Refuse! How could any Queen refuse to accept her? She had not done aught amiss in life. There was no slur on her name; no stain on her character. What though her father had been a small attorney, and her first husband a Jew banker! She had broken no law of God or man, had been accused of breaking no law, which breaking or which accusation need stand in the way of her being as good a duchess as ...
— Phineas Finn - The Irish Member • Anthony Trollope

... to go at once to Strahan's room and tell him of the loss sustained. A deposit had been confided to me, and I felt as if there were a slur on my honour every moment in which I kept its abstraction concealed from him to whom I was responsible for the trust. I hastily ascended the great staircase, grim with faded portraits, and found myself in a long corridor opening on my own ...
— A Strange Story, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... which had so long really embittered his existence. Those were truly happy holidays, and he looked forward eagerly to the time when he might return to school, and lift up his head among his companions without a sense of shame, or the slightest slur attached to ...
— Ernest Bracebridge - School Days • William H. G. Kingston

... charming in every look and motion, uttered his notes in a free sweep or crescendo, which began low, gathered force as he went on, and then gradually died out; all in one long slur, without a defined or staccato note, making a wonderful resemblance to wind sounds, as ...
— In Nesting Time • Olive Thorne Miller

... At least she was no longer the self-conscious schoolgirl, paid for at a lower rate than her companions, stinted in dress, pocket-money, and education, and fiercely resentful at every turn of some real or fancied slur; she was no longer even the half-Bohemian student of these past two years, enjoying herself in London so far as the iron necessity of keeping her boarding-house expenses down to the lowest possible figure would allow. She was something altogether different. ...
— Marcella • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... a new thought to Pearl, and she pondered it deeply. The charge against her family—the slur which could be thrown on them was not that of dishonor, dishonesty, immorality or intemperance—none of these—but that they had worked at poorly paid, hard jobs, thereby giving evidence that they were not capable ...
— Purple Springs • Nellie L. McClung

... last Bernard Shaw has been nothing but a conversationalist. It is not a slur to say so; Socrates was one, and even Christ Himself. He differs from that divine and that human prototype in the fact that, like most modern people, he does to some extent talk in order to find out what he thinks; whereas they knew it beforehand. But he has the virtues that ...
— George Bernard Shaw • Gilbert K. Chesterton

... slur that had been cast on one of his best bedchambers, the manager took occasion to ask the travellers the next morning how they liked their room. They left him to judge for himself how well they were satisfied, by remaining a day longer ...
— The Haunted Hotel - A Mystery of Modern Venice • Wilkie Collins

... regard to the sinking of the Lusitania had brought no apology, much less any suggestion of redress, Roosevelt said: Apparently President Wilson has believed that the American people would permanently forget their dead and would slur over the dishonor and disgrace to the United States by that basest of all the base pleas of cowardly souls which finds expression in the statement: "Oh, well, anyhow the President kept us out of war!" The people who make this plea assert with quavering voices that they "are behind the President." ...
— Theodore Roosevelt; An Intimate Biography, • William Roscoe Thayer

... satisfaction. At least part of his mission had been successfully accomplished. He could afford to overlook the slur on Pittsburgh which, as it happened, was his home as well as that of Mr. ...
— The Story of Glass • Sara Ware Bassett

... with some spirit, for the implied slur upon Our Square stung me. "In fact, I was reading one of our local publications when you inter—when you arrived. It contains some very ...
— From a Bench in Our Square • Samuel Hopkins Adams

... a single note these represent a note in the extract which was bracketed or otherwise highlighted. When around two or more notes, they represent a slur or beam. ...
— Critical & Historical Essays - Lectures delivered at Columbia University • Edward MacDowell

... Frankfort, so soon as they learned his departure, had forwarded their accounts to the care of the Amsterdam firm; and, although his father had not the remotest intention of paying them, he was incensed in the extreme at the slur thus cast upon his house and name. In short, the unlucky artilleryman at once saw he had no chance of a single kreuzer, or of the slightest countenance from his father. His applications to his brothers, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 62, No. 384, October 1847 • Various

... literature, which were flatteringly received. Great men who followed the profession of letters, having nothing to fear from me, belauded me, not so much on account of my merits as to cast a slur ...
— The Magic Skin • Honore de Balzac

... Fanny greatly; but subsequently it tickled her fancy all the more. Who could this man be who wished to make her happy without ever appearing to have a hand in it, and who was so anxious, so fearful, lest his honest gifts should cast the slightest slur on her reputation that he would not so much as allow his name ...
— A Hungarian Nabob • Maurus Jokai

... called The Request, so pathetic, playful and persuasive is it. It is in E minor and has a plaintive, appealing quality. The G major part is very pretty. In the last lines the passion mounts, but is never shrill. Kullak notes that in the fifth and sixth bars there is no slur in certain editions. Klindworth employs it, but marks the B sforzando. A slur on two notes of the same pitch with Chopin does not always mean a tie. The A flat Mazurka, No. 3, is pessimistic, threatening and ...
— Chopin: The Man and His Music • James Huneker

... says, "Never do anything that you need be ashamed of, Algernon, and then you never need be ashamed of anything you do," and, beaming mildly at him, seems surprised at the clearness of her own logic. The boys tell him that he's "worse than a girl," and the girls repudiate the implied slur upon their sex by indignantly exclaiming that they are sure no girl would ...
— Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow • Jerome K. Jerome

... is the use of asking what I mean when you know quite well, Noel? Hubert insulted me in his will, and cast a slur on my character by forbidding me to marry you. Freddy—although he did not fire the second shot—certainly lured Hubert to his death by forging that letter. I don't intend to consider my husband's memory any more, nor my brother's position. I ...
— Red Money • Fergus Hume

... Miss Bibby, exigent Miss Bibby, had said the piece was perfect. But Pauline herself had a lurking, miserable doubt in her mind; she seemed to recollect just one mistake, just one tiresome finger jumping up to a black note, when it should have played a white one with a slur. She stared wretchedly at the written statement before her. Suppose it were not true—think of writing a lie, an actual lie to mother! But, indeed, if she really knew for certain that she had played D flat she would not dream of writing so. It was the doubt that tormented. She had better not write ...
— In the Mist of the Mountains • Ethel Turner

... that such a narrow, cowardly life is what we, fellow-handicraftsmen, aim at. I see this taken for granted continually, even by many who, to say truth, ought to know better, and I long to put the slur from off us; to make people understand that we, least of all men, wish to widen the gulf between the classes, nay, worse still, to make new classes of elevation, and new classes of degradation—new lords and new slaves; that we, least of all men, want ...
— Hopes and Fears for Art • William Morris

... here yet, why don't they come out of the crowd and receive us?" inquired Martin rather pompously. His insinuation that Dick's fellows might be mixed with the crowd was a slur on the Central boys not ...
— The Grammar School Boys in Summer Athletics • H. Irving Hancock

... of that work may well be the despair of Macaulay's biographer. It would be inexcusable to slur over what in many important respects was the most honourable chapter of his life; while, on the other hand, the task of interesting Englishmen in the details of Indian administration is an undertaking which has baffled every pen except his own. In such a dilemma ...
— Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay • George Otto Trevelyan

... at him suspiciously. Did he mean to cast some slur upon his conduct? He was sorry he could not see the Secretary's face more clearly, and he was anxious also to be gone. But the great man seemed to have ...
— Before the Dawn - A Story of the Fall of Richmond • Joseph Alexander Altsheler

... other question ever caused him quite such keen irritation, for he felt that it was a slur at his reliability. ...
— Once to Every Man • Larry Evans

... not regard "missions" so complacently as they do now. The very idea of preaching night after night, not for some Missionary Society, or for collections, but simply for the conversion of souls and the salvation of sinners, seemed to cast a slur upon ordinary preachers, as if they did not aim at such a thing; and upon people generally, as if we meant to imply that they needed it. ...
— From Death into Life - or, twenty years of my ministry • William Haslam

... emphasis on that feminine, personal pronoun which was all the bitterer slur on the rest of womankind in that neighborhood, that he was so unconscious of the reflection it conveyed. The cook and the stable-boy also came running to the kitchen door, on hearing the hostler's exclamation; and they, too, stood gazing at the unconscious Mercy, ...
— Mercy Philbrick's Choice • Helen Hunt Jackson

... the slur cast upon the pipe band, the only band, in his opinion, worthy of any real man's attention, was intensified by his lapse into his habit of profanity, which, out of deference to the Pilot, he for some weeks had been earnestly striving to hold ...
— The Sky Pilot in No Man's Land • Ralph Connor

... called "intoning." It is a plaintive, rhythmical chant, with as strong an unction of the nasal as ever prevailed in a Quaker or Methodist meeting. I cannot exactly understand why Episcopacy threw out the slur of "nasal twang" as one of the peculiarities of the conventicle, when it is in full force in the most approved seats of church orthodoxy. I listened to all in as uncritical and sympathetic a spirit as possible, ...
— Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands V2 • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... the turn in the road bore out his slur on the village of Tecumseh. It wasn't much of a place—scarcely more than the village part of Hedgeville, as Bessie saw. The station was there, and two or three stores and a post office. But Bessie and Dolly were more interested ...
— The Camp Fire Girls on the Farm - Or, Bessie King's New Chum • Jane L. Stewart

... them. It is interesting to remember that Pepys was sent to prison just when Bunyan came out of it, in the year 1678. The charge against the diarist was indeed a false one, and his imprisonment cast no slur upon his public record: while Bunyan's charge was so true that he neither denied it nor would give any promise not to repeat the offence. Pepys, had he known of Bunyan, would probably have approved of him, for he enthusiastically ...
— Among Famous Books • John Kelman

... common at that time. So it seems that Shakespeare already had friends in London, some of them "worshipful," too, who were strongly commending him as a poet, and who were prompt to remonstrate with Chettle against the mean slur cast upon him. ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson

... want," he said. "You want to get hold of little stories of heroism, and so forth, and to write them up in a bright way to make good reading for Mary Ann in the kitchen, and the Man in the Street." The quiet passion with which those words were resented by us, the quick repudiation of this slur upon our purpose by a charming man perfectly ignorant at that time of the new psychology of nations in a war which was no longer a professional adventure, surprised him. We took occasion to point out to him that the British Empire, which had sent its men into this war, yearned to ...
— Now It Can Be Told • Philip Gibbs

... mention this, my lord," said the counsel, "had not a certain magistrate, in another place, at an earlier stage of this inquiry, used language—in my humble opinion harsh and unwarranted— calculated to cast a slur on that gentleman's character, if not to interfere seriously with his future prospects. I merely wish to say, my lord, that my clients, and those of us who have gone fully into the case, and may be expected to know as much about it even as a north- country magistrate, ...
— Reginald Cruden - A Tale of City Life • Talbot Baines Reed

... closed the doors of all his family against him, my lady (then just married) taking the lead, and declaring (with Sir John's approval, of course) that her brother should never enter any house of hers. There was more than one slur on the Colonel that made people shy of him; but the blot of the Diamond is ...
— The Moonstone • Wilkie Collins

... denial of God. Moreover, supposing man can will and act of himself in spite of physics, to shut up this great truth, though one, is to put our whole encyclopaedia of knowledge out of joint; and supposing God can will and act of Himself in this world which He has made, and we deny or slur it over, then we are throwing the circle of universal science into a like, or a ...
— The Idea of a University Defined and Illustrated: In Nine - Discourses Delivered to the Catholics of Dublin • John Henry Newman

... projecting. It is difficult, however, to understand why the tract was not included in later editions of Swift's complete works. Sir Walter Scott puts forward an explanation suggested by Dr. Barrett, who believed the reason to have been, that this "jeu d'esprit might be interpreted as casting a slur on an hospital erected upon Lazors-Hill, now on the Donny-Brook road near Dublin, for the reception of persons afflicted with incurable maladies." The reason seems a poor one, though it may have been as Dr. Barrett states. A better argument might be found from ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Vol. VII - Historical and Political Tracts—Irish • Jonathan Swift

... dealings with proud European States. Yet it was borne in upon them from every side that the nation approved what had been done; and the politically ambitious might well think twice before casting any slur upon the acts of the people's hero. Moreover the irascibility of the conqueror himself was known and feared. Calhoun, the Secretary of War, who was specially annoyed because his instructions had not been followed, ...
— The Reign of Andrew Jackson • Frederic Austin Ogg

... the habits of his grandfather; not one of that purse-proud and haughty kind of men. That is why I have written to him and made the request on your behalf. Were he different to what he really is, not only would he cast a slur upon your honest purpose, honourable brother, but I myself likewise would not have been as ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin



Words linked to "Slur" :   efface, smear, musical notation, verbalize, mar, obliterate, weaken, mouth, smirch, fingermark, smudge, defect, speak, disparagement, splotch, inkblot, dim, ethnic slur, talk, refer, focus, blemish, daub, play, aspersion, spiel, blot, music, fingerprint, utter, depreciation, splodge, slur over



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