Free TranslationFree Translation
Synonyms, antonyms, pronunciation

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




Subterfuge   Listen
noun
Subterfuge  n.  That to which one resorts for escape or concealment; an artifice employed to escape censure or the force of an argument, or to justify opinions or conduct; a shift; an evasion. "Affect not little shifts and subterfuges, to avoid the force of an argument." "By a miserable subterfuge, they hope to render this position safe by rendering it nugatory."






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 |





"Subterfuge" Quotes from Famous Books



... cried Morton, rising and clenching his hands. "And who else but you or yours would have parted brother and brother? Answer me where he is. No subterfuge, madam: I ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 2 • Edward Bulwer Lytton

... seemed futile to him. He felt that imagination could easily be substituted for the vulgar realities of things. It was possible, in his opinion, to gratify the most extravagant, absurd desires by a subtle subterfuge, by a slight modification of the object of one's wishes. Every epicure nowadays enjoys, in restaurants celebrated for the excellence of their cellars, wines of capital taste manufactured from inferior ...
— Against The Grain • Joris-Karl Huysmans

... he was more successful than upon former occasions. If ever an act was studiously and carefully framed to prevent bribery, it is that law of the 13th of the King, which he well observes admits no latitudes of construction, no subterfuge, no escape, no evasion. Yet has he found a defence of his crimes even in the very provisions which were made for their prevention and their punishment. Besides the penalty which belongs to every informer, ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. X. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... be observed that in his first letters the Duke had not affected to deny his agency in the outrage—an agency so flagrant that all subterfuge seemed superfluous. He in fact avowed that the attempt had been made by his command, but sought to palliate the crime on the ground that it had been the result of the ill-treatment which he had experienced ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... Destiny has made a football of the most precious hope that ever gladdened a woman's heart, and when the end comes, I rather think Erle Palma will not curl his granite lips, and taunt me. My assent to the Congreve purchase is but a ruse; in other words, honest words, a disgraceful subterfuge, fraud, to gain time. I can bear the life I lead no longer, and ere many days I shall burst my fetters, and snatch freedom, no matter what cost I ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson

... his body. The inhabitants of Bordeaux, as a rule, testified a friendly respect and a deference that was full of esteem for him. The old man's voice went to their hearts and sounded there with the eloquence of uprightness. His craft consisted in going straight to the fact, overturning all subterfuge and evil devices by plain questionings. His quick perception, his long training in his profession gave him that divining sense which goes to the depths of conscience and reads its secret thoughts. Though grave and deliberate in business, the ...
— The Marriage Contract • Honore de Balzac

... good-breeding which leads us to avoid friction with another's nervous system. It must, however, be an avoidance inside as well as outside. The subterfuge of holding one's tongue never works in the end. There is a subtle communication from one nervous system to another which is more insinuating than any verbal intercourse. Those nearest us, and whom we really love best, ...
— As a Matter of Course • Annie Payson Call

... all were devoted to their social order, or seemed to be so; all gave good examples, if all did not follow them. Some felt the gravity of their position cruelly; but they endured it either from pride or from duty. Some attempted, in secret and by subterfuge, to escape from it for a moment. One of these, Edward Martin, the President, of the Steel Trust, sometimes dressed himself as a poor man, went: forth to beg his bread, and allowed himself to be jostled by the passers-by. One day, as he ...
— Penguin Island • Anatole France

... could not carry all his baggage at once, and having first filled his coffers and bags with stones, he decamped with all his followers for the Senegal, leaving his tents pitched and his fires alight. His path was strewn with bales, arms, and animals. Thanks to this subterfuge, and the rapidity of their march, the English reached Bakel in safety, where the French welcomed the remnant of the ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part III. The Great Explorers of the Nineteenth Century • Jules Verne

... Samson, gravely, "I have scored a point. If, when I am through, you find that I have been employing a subterfuge, I, fancy a touch of that bell under your finger will give you the means of summoning an officer. I am ready ...
— The Call of the Cumberlands • Charles Neville Buck

... work itself; to shelter behind a false quirk of law instead of nestling in the eternal heart of the unchangeable and righteous Father, who is merciful in that he renders to every man according to his work, and compels their obedience, nor admits judicial quibble or subterfuge. God will never let a man off with any fault. He must have him clean. He will excuse him to the very uttermost of truth, but not a hair's-breadth beyond it; he is his true father, and will have his child true as his son Jesus Christ is true. ...
— Unspoken Sermons - Series I., II., and II. • George MacDonald

... the sky. Subterfuge could not avail her now. He had learned the truth. Neither mockery, scorn nor any other pretence could divert the genial current of his soul. She loved him. And, whatever he had shown of mastery in her presence, his precious ...
— Madcap • George Gibbs

... the qualities to win material success did not hurt as did the knowledge that he was not too brave to lie, too proud to borrow from those he considered his social inferiors and with no notion of repaying the obligation, nor too honest to obtain money by any subterfuge that ...
— The Fighting Shepherdess • Caroline Lockhart

... over the emptying aisles; and, even as she pinned on her velveteen poke-bonnet at a too-swagger angle, and fluffed out a few carefully provided curls across her brow, she kept watch and with obvious subterfuge slid into her little unlined silk coat with ...
— Every Soul Hath Its Song • Fannie Hurst

... that scuffling by the bars a time back?" he asked, eyeing Priscilla with the old look of suspicious antagonism. Every nerve in the girl's body twitched with resentment and her spirit flared forth. She shielded herself behind the one flimsy subterfuge that Glenn ...
— The Place Beyond the Winds • Harriet T. Comstock

... you allow your cousin to die the victim of a stupid piece of subterfuge on my part? Pray prevent her from being virgin eleven ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant

... "Dreadful old man, he would sell his daughter for a settlement of a few hundred pounds a year. I never knew he was so bad, my eyes are opened," thought Frank. Both were equally angry, and without secrecy or subterfuge they sought consolation in different parts of the garden. Mr. Brookes resumed his walk on the tennis ground with Berkins, and stopping frequently to point to his glass-houses, he described his misfortunes with profuse ...
— Spring Days • George Moore

... with a jerk, and went to knitting as though she had been doing nothing else the whole evening—a harmless subterfuge peculiar to old people. ...
— Daisy's Necklace - And What Came of It • Thomas Bailey Aldrich

... go; we all want our share of the good things, and the pleasure of seeing and being seen," answered Enna, scorning Louise's subterfuge; "and if you and Dick will promise to make me no trouble, I'll take you along. But Bob and Betty may stay at home, I'm not going to be bothered with them,—babies of five and three. But what shall we wear, Lu? I do say ...
— Elsie's Motherhood • Martha Finley

... this?" I asked. "Your financial digression is merely a subterfuge. Why were you marching in the ranks ...
— Roads of Destiny • O. Henry

... put up a fence above the covered way to prevent the township from taking possession of it. Michu seeing the important part which the state of his clothes was likely to play, invented this subterfuge. If, in law, truth is often like falsehood, falsehood on the other hand has a very great resemblance to truth. The defence and the prosecution both attached much importance to this testimony, which became one of the leading points of the trial ...
— An Historical Mystery • Honore de Balzac

... of the scene degenerating into something mid-Victorian. Fortunately a chivalrous man is present to lift it to a higher plane. JOHN PURDIE is one to whom subterfuge of any kind is abhorrent; if he has not spoken out before it is because of his reluctance to give MABEL pain. He speaks out now, and seldom probably has he proved ...
— Dear Brutus • J. M. Barrie

... all this (we seem to see), she will not be able to act upon it. Always she will watch too long, and wait too well. Hers is a nature as simple as it is intense. No sort of subterfuge is within her means—neither the gay deception nor the grave. What she knows that he resents, she still must do immutably—bound upon the wheel of her true self. For only one "self" she has, and ...
— Browning's Heroines • Ethel Colburn Mayne

... not allow so mere a trifle to stop me, and you will not do me the injustice to suppose that I think you have no interest in this affair. Therefore, without subterfuge or hesitation, ...
— The Man in the Iron Mask • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... Jennifer stock and its fine scorn of subterfuge, I feared it would go hard with Richard; and so, indeed, it had gone, lacking a word in season from an enemy. When Tarleton would have made him choose between the taking of the king's oath and captivity in the hulks at Charleston, ...
— The Master of Appleby • Francis Lynde

... of the infected offer the only rational and effective antidote for these disorders. Away, then, with the abominable and filthy subterfuge! Give us health instead of disease. ...
— The Healthy Life, Vol. V, Nos. 24-28 - The Independent Health Magazine • Various

... that. We must procure the key from the prelate by some subterfuge. Let us first possess our swords and armor, then we will get the ...
— Chit-Chat; Nirvana; The Searchlight • Mathew Joseph Holt

... familiar picture of which the Chancellor was already tired, of a King whose experience had taught him that Government was a thing of subterfuge, and of balancing between professed adherents whose loyalty was to be valued according to the estimate which trickery could place upon it. These new adherents vied with one another in promoting measures for restoring the bishops, and the laws of the Episcopalian Church, of which they had lately ...
— The Life of Edward Earl of Clarendon V2 • Henry Craik

... it tolerated it at all Vice no doubt is powerful even without a pulpit; but that is no excuse for erecting a pulpit to proclaim it. To debar the Hellenic comedy from immediate contact with the persons and institutions of Rome, was a subterfuge rather than a serious means of defence. In fact, comedy would probably have been much less injurious morally, had they allowed it to have a more free course, so that the calling of the poet might have been ennobled and a Roman poetry in some measure independent might have been developed; for ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen

... the captain, cordially seizing his visitor's reluctant hand, "I know what you have come for. Mrs. Lecount has told you of her visit here, and has no doubt declared that my niece's illness is a mere subterfuge. You feel surprised—you feel hurt—you suspect me of trifling with your kind sympathies—in short, you require an explanation. That explanation you shall have. Take a seat. Mr. Vanstone. I am about to throw myself on your sense and judgment as a man of ...
— No Name • Wilkie Collins

... in the beginning that the word prohibition in Russia must be taken literally. Its use does not imply a partially successful attempt to curtail the consumption of liquor resulting in drinking in secret places, the abuse of medical licenses and general evasion and subterfuge. It does mean that a vast population who consumed $1,000,000,000 worth of vodka a year; whose ordinary condition has been described by Russians themselves as ranging from a slight degree of stimulation ...
— The New York Times Current History: the European War, February, 1915 • Various

... Four were at that time tenantless and closed, like pillars of salt, commemorating the corruption of the age and the decline of private virtue. Three were occupied by persons who had wearied me by every conceivable unjust demand and legal subterfuge—persons whom, at that very hour, I was moving heaven and earth to turn into the streets. This was perhaps the sadder spectacle of the two; and my heart grew hot within me to behold them occupying, in my very teeth, and with an insolent ostentation, these handsome ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 5 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... the plea of defensive preparation advanced by the statesmen, Prussian and others, in apology for competitive armaments is a diplomatic subterfuge,—there are indications that such has commonly been the case; but even if it commonly is visibly disingenuous, the need of making such a plea to cover more sinister designs is itself an evidence that an avowedly predatory enterprise no longer meets ...
— An Inquiry Into The Nature Of Peace And The Terms Of Its Perpetuation • Thorstein Veblen

... of particular politics into the great field of general policy. He meant, of course, that he was thereby virtually holding in check not merely Prussia, but Russia and Austria as well. The limitation set by him to the active military force of the captive state was easily evaded by the subterfuge of substituting new recruits for those who had completed their training in the ranks; but the French occupation seemed ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. III. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane

... walls of the sitting-room reposed coloured portraits of the late Queen and King Edward, while, as the Intelligence officer stepped into the room, a strapping daughter sat down to the piano and played the first bars of the National Anthem. Poor subterfuge, since the damsel had overlooked the Free State favour pinned upon ...
— On the Heels of De Wet • The Intelligence Officer

... again interrupted Whately, dropping his hand on the hilt of his sabre. "Let me also add that a Southern gentleman would not have made Southern hospitality a subterfuge for an opportunity to press a suit repugnant to the family concerned. We have never failed in hospitality ...
— Miss Lou • E. P. Roe

... aims at a common organized body of knowledge to which all its servants contribute and in which they share, so Socialism insists upon its ideal of an organized social order which every man serves and by which every man benefits. Their common enemy is the secret-thinking, self-seeking man. Secrecy, subterfuge and the private gain; these are the enemies of Socialism and the adversaries of Science. At times, I will admit, both Socialist and scientific man forget this essential sympathy. You will find specialized ...
— New Worlds For Old - A Plain Account of Modern Socialism • Herbert George Wells

... very well as food for their guns," whispered Ivan. "If the people in the castle hear a noise, and guess our subterfuge, they will shoot Mekipiros, for we will send him on in front. Why, even with a couple of bullets in his body the fellow will be able to scramble up the ...
— The Day of Wrath • Maurus Jokai

... and lied to man: that to save his miserable life he had perilled his soul. When the oath of supremacy was required of the nation, Sir Thomas More, Bishop Fisher, and the monks of the Charterhouse, mistaken, as we believe, in judgment, but true to their consciences, and disdaining evasion or subterfuge, chose, with deliberate nobleness, rather to die than to perjure themselves. This is no place to enter on the great question of the justice or necessity of those executions; but the story of the so-called martyrdoms convulsed the Catholic world. The Pope shook upon his throne; the shuttle ...
— Froude's Essays in Literature and History - With Introduction by Hilaire Belloc • James Froude

... the faculty of being able to think her own thoughts—and the courage. She could take no action of any kind till her husband's return. Lingard's warnings were not what had impressed her most. This man had presented his innermost self unclothed by any subterfuge. There were in plain sight his desires, his perplexities, affections, doubts, his violence, his folly; and the existence they made up was lawless but not vile. She had too much elevation of mind to look upon him from any ...
— The Rescue • Joseph Conrad

... he is Jones, of Jesus. Vain subterfuge! Though there be many Welshmen at Jesus College, and many of its alumni bear the name of Jones, yet are you not of their number. So says the Proctor, a don of Jesus; and the pseudo Jones wishes that he ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 4, April, 1891 • Various

... national judiciary ought to preside in all cases in which one State or its citizens are opposed to another State or its citizens. To secure the full effect of so fundamental a provision against all evasion and subterfuge, it is necessary that its construction should be committed to that tribunal which, having no local attachments, will be likely to be impartial between the different States and their citizens, and which, owing its official ...
— The Federalist Papers • Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison

... to threaten me!" he shouted, angrily. "You resort to subterfuge after subterfuge. Then you are determined to have war? Very well, you ...
— LOUISA OF PRUSSIA AND HER TIMES • Louise Muhlbach

... voice, Farwell gave a startled glance toward his friend, and Jemima suddenly put an arm around her sister, further rising to the occasion with polite murmurings of regret. But Jacqueline with one gesture brushed aside tact and subterfuge. She ran to Channing ...
— Kildares of Storm • Eleanor Mercein Kelly

... exclaimed Bascomb, when this was recognised. "Now, what a plague do they mean by sending off the boat without him? Are they going to beg for more time, I wonder? And, if so, why? For I will never believe but that they know where he is, but are determined to exhaust every artifice and subterfuge in the endeavour to ...
— Two Gallant Sons of Devon - A Tale of the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood

... Perhaps beneath the guise of Hampden, who bought antique furniture on commission, those cunning old eyes beneath the horn-rimmed spectacles had perceived the detective hidden, or at least had marked subterfuge. ...
— Tales of Chinatown • Sax Rohmer

... according to the form prescribed by the States, and already adopted by the archdukes, the United Provinces were described as free countries over which no authority was claimed had been calmly omitted, as if, by such a subterfuge, the independence of the republic could be winked out of existence. Furthermore, it was objected that the document was in Spanish, that it was upon paper instead of parchment, that it was not sealed with the great, but with the little seal, and that ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... the colonies, gaining knighthood and other honours, he had the manners and speech of "a man of the people." Bucklaw understood men: he knew that his only game was that of bluntness. This was why he boarded Phips in Cheapside without subterfuge ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... give the lie to his present confession of powerlessness. She would not believe him, and disbelieving him, she would seek a motive for the words that she would deem untrue. And that motive she would not find far to seek. She would account his present attitude the consummation of a miserable subterfuge by which he sought to win her confidence and esteem. She would—she must—believe that he had but made a semblance of befriending her so disinterestedly only that he might enlist her kindness and regard, and turn them presently to his own purposes. She would infer ...
— The Trampling of the Lilies • Rafael Sabatini

... He denounces the whole Colony of Massachusetts—men of his own national stock—as the pestilent offspring of an "irreconcilable faction," which had originally left England deeply imbued with the doctrines of Republicanism. Having gained, and by lying and subterfuge retained, some measure of independence, they sank from depth to depth of meanness and turpitude. They struggled for no high principle, and refused to be taxed from England, simply because they were too ...
— The Framework of Home Rule • Erskine Childers

... subterfuge. Now, look here, ask her again, and be more debonair and dashing this time. What you want is to endue her with the spirit of revelry. Perhaps you'd better go to the bar first and have a dry ginger-ale, and then you'll feel more in ...
— The Holiday Round • A. A. Milne

... in the dogma of his Godhead, which is accepted even by Blake as a historical fact beyond question. It was not the character of so much as can be perceived of the universe which daunted Luther and Duerer, as it daunts the serious man to-day. They accepted what appears to us a cheap and easy subterfuge, because they believed it to have been prescribed by God; the ambiguous inferences which such a prescription must logically cast on the Divine character did not arrest their attention. What they gained was a free conscience, a conscience in ...
— Albert Durer • T. Sturge Moore

... crime. But I know full well that it may be said of London to-day 'Thou art full of stirs, a joyous city: thy slain men are not slain with the sword, nor dead in battle.' No. Our young men are slain by the poison of Beelzebub, the prince of the devils. Nor is the crafty old subterfuge lacking here. There are lost ones in this town who say, 'It is by our means that virtue is preserved to the rich: it is we who appease the wicked rage which would otherwise wreck society.' There are men who boast that they have brought their ...
— The Irrational Knot - Being the Second Novel of His Nonage • George Bernard Shaw

... were still young, and had got left behind somehow. He seems to be on the other side of some impassable barrier, and you want to get over there and help him to our side, but you can't do it. I suppose his talking in that light way is merely a subterfuge to hide his feeling, to ...
— Indian Summer • William D. Howells

... honestly faced and squarely answered, it is modified by other desires, chooses another way of discharge, and ceases to be desire. When a desire is repressed, it is still desire, unsatisfied, insistent, unmodifiable by mature points of view, untouched by time, automatic, and capable of almost any subterfuge in order to get satisfaction. A repressed desire is buried, shut away from the disintegrating effects of sunlight and air. While the rest of the personality is constantly changing under the influence of new ideas, ...
— Outwitting Our Nerves - A Primer of Psychotherapy • Josephine A. Jackson and Helen M. Salisbury

... of baseness cannot authorize another. To bear about me a sense of self-degradation, a certainty that I was sheltering myself from the power of my late patron by a privilege which I considered as highly vicious, a subterfuge such as every man who deserves the name ought to despise and spurn at, this was insufferable. I had lost much: for I had lost hopes that had been extravagant and unbounded in promise: but I had ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft

... naturalization thus granted be intended by Mexico to shield Spanish subjects from the guilt and punishment of pirates under our treaty with Spain, they will certainly prove unavailing. Such a subterfuge would be but a weak device to defeat the provisions of ...
— State of the Union Addresses of James Polk • James Polk

... averse to letting slip any chance to secure a larger sum. It flashed in upon him that Murrell had uncovered the real purpose of his visit to North Carolina; his interest in land had been merely a subterfuge. ...
— The Prodigal Judge • Vaughan Kester

... threw his overcoat, the deception was complete. Chuckling at the subterfuge, Jack lost no time in slipping forth for the next ...
— The Young Railroaders - Tales of Adventure and Ingenuity • Francis Lovell Coombs

... Flamby. At one moment she felt that she could never again suffer the presence of Sir Jacques, at another that if she must remain in Lower Charleswood and not die of shame she must pretend that she did not suspect him to have been the intruder. The subterfuge, ostrich-like, woman-like, finally was adopted; and meeting Sir Jacques in Babylon Lane she managed to greet him civilly, employing her mother's poor state of health as an excuse for discontinuing her visits to Hatton Towers. But if Flamby's passionate ...
— The Orchard of Tears • Sax Rohmer

... themselves for a while. When Weston at Brussels complained of this conduct he was actually told that the League must have everything in their hands first, in order to restore everything hereafter. He was astounded at this subterfuge, and asked ...
— A History of England Principally in the Seventeenth Century, Volume I (of 6) • Leopold von Ranke

... However, I expect that time will reinstate her in her former health, in which case I shall look for your company. I shall not take any excuse from your own state of health, which I suppose only a subterfuge invented by indolence and love of solitude. Indeed, my dear Smith, if you continue to hearken to complaints of this nature, you will cut yourself out entirely from human society, to the great ...
— Life of Adam Smith • John Rae

... to get him to exercise Dillingham once took him for a stroll and pretended to be lost. The second time he tried this, however, Frohman discovered the subterfuge and ...
— Charles Frohman: Manager and Man • Isaac Frederick Marcosson and Daniel Frohman

... and having given them both to the trusty Polton, returned somewhat feverishly to my professional duties. To my profound relief, the influx of patients ceased, and the practice sank into its accustomed torpor; whereby I was able, without base and mendacious subterfuge, to escape in good ...
— The Vanishing Man • R. Austin Freeman

... complete subservience of herself, the sublime transparency without subterfuge of her surrender, appealed to everything of ...
— Halcyone • Elinor Glyn

... to split compound tenses, and carried this fad somewhat remorselessly through a series of republished articles; but the result has not pleased me. Boswell tells us that Johnson would have none of "former" and "latter;" that he would rather repeat the noun than resort to this subterfuge. I see no good reason for rejecting these convenient alternatives; but nevertheless I have obsequiously bowed to the autocrat and taken a skunner to the words—the only literary snobbishness of which I am conscious. I can stand out ...
— From Sail to Steam, Recollections of Naval Life • Captain A. T. Mahan

... in helpless awe, the more so as he had recognized her at once. Leadership might be extinct, but Mrs. Oglethorpe was still a power in New York Society, with her terrible outspokenness, her uncompromising standards, her sardonic humor, her great wealth, and her eagle eye for subterfuge. How could a mere servant hope to oppose that formidable will when his betters trembled ...
— Black Oxen • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton

... clearly recognized by people in Oldenburg, though, as might be expected, they do not now carry out the principle to its logical conclusion by burning the bewitched animal or person alive; instead they resort to a feeble and, it must be added, perfectly futile subterfuge dictated by a mistaken humanity or a fear of the police. "When anything living is bewitched in a house, for example, children or animals, they burn or boil the nobler inwards of animals, especially the hearts, but also the ...
— Balder The Beautiful, Vol. I. • Sir James George Frazer

... test his neighbors, what they knew and were: this is such account of his life as he himself can give at its close. His contemporaries generally saw in him an imperturbable and troublesome questioner, fatally sure to come at the secret of every man's character and credence, whom no subterfuge could elude, no compliments flatter, no menaces appall,—suspected also of some emancipation from the popular superstitions: this is the account of him which they are able to give. At twenty-three centuries' distance ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 12, October, 1858 • Various

... once that he was taking this subterfuge as a way of securing information which might otherwise have been withheld if asked for directly. Maude Schofield also saw it, I fancied, but this time said nothing. "They had a grandfather who was a manic depressive on the Atherton side," said Crafts slowly. "Now, ...
— The War Terror • Arthur B. Reeve

... a wisdom born of fifty years' experience of that particular tone of voice, dropped her paper and her subterfuge, and said gently: ...
— Across the Years • Eleanor H. Porter

... of the structure set aside for his individual use, he hurried, with expectant, lithe agility, through an opening in the wall concealed hitherto by silken hangings, and entered upon a narrow passageway, which terminated in another undulating subterfuge of drapery. ...
— The Flaw in the Sapphire • Charles M. Snyder

... he had meant to do seemed all at once contemptible, selfish, and weak. He had meant to leave and take Jack with him, because it hurt him mightily to see those two falling in love with each other. The trouble his staying might bring to Don Andres was nothing more nor less than a subterfuge. If Teresita's smiles had continued to be given to him as they had been before Jack came, he told himself bitterly, he would never have thought of going. And Jack thought he hesitated from pure unselfishness! The fingers that groped mechanically for his tobacco, though ...
— The Gringos • B. M. Bower

... believe there are. It is a necessary part of our belief. Who does not think well of mother or sister? But who believes entirely in a mother or a sister? Absolutely and unconditionally? Who has never caught mother or sister in a falsehood or a subterfuge? Who has not sometimes seen in the heart of mother or sister, as by a lightning flash, an abyss which the profoundest ...
— The Dangerous Age • Karin Michaelis

... not go. A polite message by Stanley, or a call as he rode past perhaps, already starting on some convenient engagement. Yet as he sat on he knew it was not entirely his wish to resort to either subterfuge. Why, after all, should he not go with her just once, and no doubt Diana also, and tell them a little about ...
— The Rhodesian • Gertrude Page

... and drew forth a photograph. She carried the photograph to the light of the candles on the mantelpiece, and gazed at it attentively, puckering her brows. It was a portrait of Lionel Woolley. Heaven knows by what subterfuge or lucky accident she had obtained it, for Lionel certainly had not given it to her. She loved Lionel. She had loved him for five years, with a love silent, blind, intense, irrational, and too elemental to be ...
— Tales of the Five Towns • Arnold Bennett

... poor woman, who had at once noticed her son's gloomy look, could no longer restrain her curiosity and began to ask questions. His first explanations Cabesang Andang regarded as some subterfuge, so she smiled and soothed her son, reminding him of their sacrifices and privations. She spoke of Capitana Simona's son, who, having entered the seminary, now carried himself in the town like a bishop, and Capitana Simona already considered herself a Mother of God, clearly ...
— The Reign of Greed - Complete English Version of 'El Filibusterismo' • Jose Rizal

... from a gathering of the Clan Kennedy," repeated the older man. "I defy anybody to produce a more successfully predatory family than mine. The fortunes of the present generation of Kennedys don't come from any white-livered subterfuge, like the rise in the value of real estate, as my own ill-owned money does. No, sir; the good, old, well-recognized, red-blooded method of going out and taking it away from people not so smart as they are, is good enough for them, if you please. And my woman relatives—" ...
— The Bent Twig • Dorothy Canfield

... subterfuge, Mr. Prosecutor," observed the judge, as with apparent fierceness his eyes were fixed upon the offender. "This prisoner cannot be permitted, sir, to interpose his conscience as a barrier against the enforcement of this salutary provision of our most excellent Constitution. He must ...
— Something of Men I Have Known - With Some Papers of a General Nature, Political, Historical, and Retrospective • Adlai E. Stevenson

... a flood of insight he knew that Merritt must despise him, that even Nancy's kiss in the dawn would have awakened not jealousy but only a contempt for Nancy's so lowering herself. And on his part the Jelly-bean had used for her a dingy subterfuge learned from the garage. He had been her moral laundry; the stains ...
— Tales of the Jazz Age • F. Scott Fitzgerald

... before the lawless chief. Though the love of life was strong and active in his breast, it was not, even in that fearful moment, exhibited in any deprecating or unmanly form. Not for an instant did his mind waver, or his thoughts wander to any subterfuge, that might prove unworthy of his profession or his former character. One anxious, inquiring look was fastened on the eye of him whose power alone might save him. He witnessed the short, severe struggle of regret that softened the ...
— The Red Rover • James Fenimore Cooper

... had come for an emotional attack. "Jessie," he said, with a sudden change of voice, "I know all this is mean, isvillanous. But do you think that I have done all this scheming, all this subterfuge, for any other object—" ...
— The Wheels of Chance - A Bicycling Idyll • H. G. Wells

... the two significations which the question may have. Whether it is prudent, or whether it is right, to make a false promise. The former may undoubtedly often be the case. I see clearly indeed that it is not enough to extricate myself from a present difficulty by means of this subterfuge, but it must be well considered whether there may not hereafter spring from this lie much greater inconvenience than that from which I now free myself, and as, with all my supposed CUNNING, the consequences cannot be so easily foreseen but that credit once ...
— Literary and Philosophical Essays • Various

... for schooling was past. She had already entered upon the maiden's land of dreams—of romance. The men who had hitherto courted her, half-laughingly, half-guiltily, knowing that she was a child, had at last dropped all subterfuge. To them she was a "girl," with all that this word means to males not too scrupulous of the ...
— Money Magic - A Novel • Hamlin Garland

... 1773).—The government, alarmed by the turn events had taken, rescinded the taxes, except that on tea—which was left to maintain the principle. An arrangement was made whereby tea was furnished at so low a price that with the tax included it was cheaper in America than in England. This subterfuge exasperated the patriots. They were fighting for a great principle, not a paltry tax. At Charleston the tea was stored in damp cellars where it soon spoiled. The tea-ships at New York and Philadelphia were sent home. The British ...
— A Brief History of the United States • Barnes & Co.

... his original destination, and to avoid unwelcome discovery and comment he took the sleeper and immediately ordered his berth made up, that he might pass through Dry Lake behind the sheltering folds of the berth curtains. Not that there was need of this elaborate subterfuge. He was simply mad clear through and did not want to see or hear the voice of any man he knew. Besides, the days when he had danced in spangled tights upon the broad, gray rump of a galloping horse while a sober-clothed man in the middle of the ring cracked ...
— The Happy Family • Bertha Muzzy Bower

... the time she came back I had the flame crackling merrily. And now as she sat over against me on the stone, I saw she had been weeping. And she, knowing I saw this, nodded her head, scorning all subterfuge. ...
— Black Bartlemy's Treasure • Jeffrey Farnol

... weeks then," said Morcerf; "but remember, at the expiration of that time no delay or subterfuge will justify you in"— ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... ghost, his thoughts becoming more and more clear and logical. He was in a bad situation. Every word that Father Beret had spoken was true and went home with force. There was no time for parley or subterfuge; the sword looked as if, eager to find his heart, it could not be held back another moment. But the wan, cold face of the girl had more power than the rapier's hungry point. It made an abject coward ...
— Alice of Old Vincennes • Maurice Thompson

... Franz perceived that she had deceived him when she spoke of expecting company; on the contrary, her own return before the appointed hour seemed greatly to astonish the servants. "Excuse my little subterfuge," said the countess, in reply to her companion's half-reproachful observation on the subject; "but that horrid man had made me feel quite uncomfortable, and I longed to be alone, that I might compose my startled mind." Franz essayed to smile. "Nay," said she, ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... ashamed of my thoughts even as they came to me. Lillian Gale seemed too big a woman, too frank and honest of countenance for such a subterfuge. But I could not help feeling all my old distrust and dislike of the woman rush over me. I had a struggle to keep my voice from being tinged with the dislike I felt as I ...
— Revelations of a Wife - The Story of a Honeymoon • Adele Garrison

... subterfuge, there was no deep and double subterfuge in all this. De Stancy took no particular interest in his ancestral portraits; but he was enamoured of Paula to weakness. Perhaps the composition of his love would hardly bear looking into, ...
— A Laodicean • Thomas Hardy

... of those demonstrations, Vizcarra turned white with terror. He now comprehended what was meant. The asking for the troop had been but a subterfuge to get near his own person! The cibolero had tracked him; his guilt was known, and the brother was now come to demand redress or have vengeance! The horrors of his night-dream returned, now mingling with the horrors of the fearful ...
— The White Chief - A Legend of Northern Mexico • Mayne Reid

... Edward's vanity would not permit him to acknowledge himself that. Still, he did not call on his heart to play inspiriting music. His ideas turned to subterfuge. His aim was to keep the good opinion of Mrs. Lovell while he quieted Robert; and he entered straightway upon that very perilous course, the attempt, for the sake of winning her, to bewilder ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... called upon to administer is in many respects ill adapted to present-day conditions. Its intricate and involved rules of procedure have become the refuge of both big and little criminals. There is a belief abroad that by invoking technicalities, subterfuge, and delay, the ends of justice may be thwarted by those who ...
— United States Presidents' Inaugural Speeches - From Washington to George W. Bush • Various

... of Bainrothe on shipboard instead of into those of Gregory in New York; this was the only difference, for subterfuge could have done its work as well, if not as daringly, on land as on sea; and the league of iniquity was made ...
— Miriam Monfort - A Novel • Catherine A. Warfield

... eliminate from the Ennead many feudal divinities, so the Chaldaeans had left out of account many of their sovereign deities, especially goddesses, Bau of Uru, Nana of Uruk, and Allat; or if they did introduce them into their calculations, it was by a subterfuge, by identifying them with other goddesses, to whom places had been already assigned; Bau being thus coupled with Ohila, Nana with Ishtar, and Allat with Ninhl-Beltis. If figures had been assigned to the latter proportionate to the importance of the parts they played, and the ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 3 (of 12) • G. Maspero

... breezes flowing continually round Doom were privileged to kiss her hair. Positively there seems no great reason, after all, why he should be so precipitate in his removal to the town! Indeed (he told himself with the smile of his subconscious self at the subterfuge) there was a risk of miscarriage for his mission among tattling aubergistes, lawyers, and merchants. He was positively vexed when he encountered Mungo, and that functionary informed him that, though he was ...
— Doom Castle • Neil Munro

... tendency at least, and she continued without well knowing what she was going to say next: "Yes, I think that the real reason why Cornelia wouldn't go in costume was that she felt that it was a kind of subterfuge. She keeps me in a perfect twitter of self-reproach. I tell her I would rather have the conscience of the worst kind of person than hers; I could get along with it a great deal easier. Don't you think you could, ...
— The Coast of Bohemia • William Dean Howells

... exultation that he had returned unharmed, a thing unplanned in the soul of the woman, leaping from her before she could stop it. Then had come shame, and she had run away from him so swiftly he had not seen her face again after the touch of her lips. If it had been a subterfuge, a lie, she would not ...
— The Flaming Forest • James Oliver Curwood

... trust Herodotus, was careful to avoid debt. He had a keen sense of the difficulty with which a debtor escapes subterfuge and equivocation—forms, slightly disguised, of lying. To buy and sell wares in a market place, to chaffer and haggle over prices, was distasteful to him, as apt to involve falsity and unfairness. He was free and open in speech, bold in act, generous, warm-hearted, hospitable. His chief faults ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 5. (of 7): Persia • George Rawlinson

... last twelve months Georgia disfranchised her colored citizens by a constitutional subterfuge and Florida attempted the same crime. And within the same period almost every white secular newspaper, and many of the religious journals, of the South contained in every issue of their publications abusive and malicious articles concerning the Negro in which they inflamed the whites ...
— Masterpieces of Negro Eloquence - The Best Speeches Delivered by the Negro from the days of - Slavery to the Present Time • Various

... imputation of untruthfulness was one to which she was particularly sensitive. Her fear of her grandmother had taught her early in life to take refuge in subterfuge, a shelter that she heartily despised but which she still clung to. In her desire to meet Rose's imperative need, she had passed her gift on to her, with the intention of saving enough from her own allowance to get the mesh bag later. The fact that the canceled check would be returned ...
— Quin • Alice Hegan Rice

... over Mrs. Barrington's delicate face as she cast about her for the usual subterfuge and failed to find it. In that moment Kate realized that it had been a long programme of subterfuges with her mother—subterfuges designed to protect her from the onslaughts of the irritable man who ...
— The Precipice • Elia Wilkinson Peattie

... his subject-matter, and as the tour came to extend farther east, these objections began to assume a jocular and satirical cast, until the seaboard itself was reached, when newspapers ceased altogether and letters began to take their place. These were addressed, with complete absence of subterfuge, to Medora, and they displayed an increasing tendency toward the drawing of comparisons between the East and the West, with the difference more and more in favour of the latter. Abner felt with growing keenness the formality ...
— Under the Skylights • Henry Blake Fuller

... a moment staggered; I sought a subterfuge and found none. All eyes were fixed upon me, and a reply ...
— The Lock and Key Library/Real Life #2 • Julian Hawthorne



Words linked to "Subterfuge" :   deceit, blind



Copyright © 2024 e-Free Translation.com