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adjective
Upstart  adj.  Suddenly raised to prominence or consequence. "A race of upstart creatures."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Upstart" Quotes from Famous Books



... short, Monsieur de Trailles was sent to Arcis to put an end to the candidacy of an upstart of the Left centre, a certain Simon Giguet; and having brought forward the mayor of the town as the ministerial candidate, he finds the said mayor, named Beauvisage, possessed of an only daughter, rather pretty, and able to ...
— The Deputy of Arcis • Honore de Balzac

... should have the extreme aristocratical audacity to shut the door, where he continued pouring into the greedy ears of his companions his own history of the recent dialogue, in which, according to his own account of the matter, he had completely gotten the better of that "young upstart, Blunt," a man of whom he knew positively nothing, divers anecdotes of the Effingham family, that came of the lowest and most idle gossip of rustic malignancy, and his own vague and confused notions of the rights of ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper

... it behoves every lover of literature to declare himself, and to furnish his quota of facts or arguments corrective of this upstart paradox. It is under the influence of that sentiment that I submit, for consideration in the proper quarter, some short extracts from ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 67, February 8, 1851 • Various

... agreed heartily. "It seemed to us that his trying to make us put aside the respect due to his rank was a sort of affectation, and really impressed it more disagreeably upon us. We took him for an upstart favourite; though we might have known, had we thought of it, that the king never promotes unduly. Who could possibly have believed that a young fellow, not yet twenty, I should say, could have so distinguished himself? It will be a lesson ...
— With Frederick the Great - A Story of the Seven Years' War • G. A. Henty

... Miss Brag has much to say To the rich little lady from over the way; And yet who knows but from her heart Often the bitter sighs upstart— Uprise to lose their burn and sting In the grace of the tongue that loves to sing Praise of the treasures all its own! So I've come to love ...
— Love-Songs of Childhood • Eugene Field

... infamous conduct under the mask of charity; I therefore proceeded at once to menaces, telling him that you bad so many advantages over his wife, that you scorned to consider her your rival: but that, nevertheless, you did not choose that any upstart pretender should dare ask to share his majesty's heart. To all this he made no reply; and as the sight of him only increased my indignation, I at length desired him to quit me. I trust you will pardon me for having spoken in ...
— "Written by Herself" • Baron Etienne Leon Lamothe-Langon

... be a good christian but I'se got disgusted wid dese young upstart niggers what dances in de chu'ch. Dey says dat dey am truckin' an' dat de Bible ain't forbid hit, but I reckin dat I knows dancin' whar I ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States • Various

... fortune—so the Mains, sir, has been uninhabited for a good many years." But he had been speaking to one who knew far more about the Mains than he could do—and who was not sorry that the Old Place was allowed to stand, undisturbed by any rich upstart, in the venerable silence of its own decay. And this is the moss-house that we helped to build with our own hands, at least to hang the lichen tapestry, and stud the cornice with shells! We were one of the paviers of that pebbled ...
— Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson

... circle. Possibly there was mingled with this feeling something too of the nature of envy—of a shy and obscure person from Moscow towards a brilliant officer from Petersburg. 'The prince,' I mused, 'is an upstart from the capital; he'll look down upon us....' I had not seen him for more than an instant, but I had had time to perceive that he was good-looking, clever, and at his ease. After pacing the room for some time, I stopped at last before a looking-glass, pulled a comb out of my pocket, ...
— The Diary of a Superfluous Man and Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev

... own name and serving her with suitable rites. In the Prometheus of Aeschylus the hero addresses his appeal as follows to the beings he regards as gods of old race who will sympathise with him against the upstart Zeus:— ...
— History of Religion - A Sketch of Primitive Religious Beliefs and Practices, and of the Origin and Character of the Great Systems • Allan Menzies

... frankness that furnished it, which overcame Mrs. Hanway-Harley. She sat down with an emphasis so sudden that it was as though her knees were glass and the blow had broken them. Once in the chair, she waggled her head dolorously, and moaned out against upstart vulgarians who, without a name or a shilling, insinuated themselves like vipers into households of honor, and, coiling themselves upon the very hearthstones, ...
— The President - A novel • Alfred Henry Lewis

... medicine during the continuance of the treatment, and the disposal of what remains after the treatment is at an end. In the arrangement of details the shaman frequently employs the services of a lay assistant. In these degenerate days a number of upstart pretenders to the healing art have arisen in the tribe and endeavor to impose upon the ignorance of their fellows by posing as doctors, although knowing next to nothing of the prayers and ceremonies, without ...
— The Sacred Formulas of the Cherokees • James Mooney

... you must stick to your hoss like a monkey, and do your best to win de money and down that upstart, George LeMonde." ...
— The Kentucky Ranger • Edward T. Curnick

... Tartars henceforward played an important part in the Bulgarian welter. Then Constantine married, as his second wife, the daughter of the Greek emperor, and thus again gave Constantinople a voice in his country's affairs. Constantine was followed by a series of upstart rulers, whose activities were cut short by the victories of King Uro[)s] II of Serbia (1282-1321), who conquered all Macedonia and wrested it from the Bulgars. In 1285 the Tartars of the Golden Horde swept over Hungary and Bulgaria, but it was from the south that the ...
— The Balkans - A History Of Bulgaria—Serbia—Greece—Rumania—Turkey • Nevill Forbes, Arnold J. Toynbee, D. Mitrany, D.G. Hogarth

... enfin n'est qu'une policonnerie qui n'a ete bon a rien. It was on this occasion also that the deputies received from the imperial ruffian one of those insults which are so common with him, and which might indeed be naturally expected from such an upstart; for, when they assured him of the submission of the city, he dismissed them with these remarkable words: Allez vous en! than which nothing more contemptuous could be addressed to the ...
— Frederic Shoberl Narrative of the Most Remarkable Events Which Occurred In and Near Leipzig • Frederic Shoberl (1775-1853)

... the air of ignoring its existence, and mine as well. Had he been a horse, he would at least have deigned to exchange glances with me, friendly or otherwise; but being what he was, he looked everywhere except at me, as if he had been some haughty aristocrat conscientiously snubbing an offensive upstart. Joseph appeared to be the one human being of more importance for Finois than the moving bough of an inedible tree, bush, or shrub, and even Molly could win him to no change of facial expression, though he ate her ...
— The Princess Passes • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson

... fatal to a woman's success in the world as an early connection with a scoundrel. I have odd accounts of Mrs. Parflete from Madrid—the Marquis of Castrillon and an upstart called Bodava fought a duel about her in Baron Zeuill's gymnasium. A man called William Caffle, who attended to their wounds, has given me fullest particulars of the affair. I don't wish to injure the lady, but on account of eventualities which might arise, ...
— Robert Orange - Being a Continuation of the History of Robert Orange • John Oliver Hobbes

... from their native shore, they seemed to feel themselves released from the constraints of all law. They harbored jealousy and distrust of the admiral as a foreigner. The cavaliers and hidalgos, of whom there were too many in the expedition, contemned him as an upstart, whom it was derogatory to obey. From the first moment of their landing in Hispaniola, they indulged the most wanton license in regard to the unoffending natives, who, in the simplicity of their hearts, had received the white men as messengers from Heaven. Their ...
— The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella The Catholic, V2 • William H. Prescott

... Against all systems built on abstract rights, Keen ridicule; the majesty proclaims 525 Of Institutes and Laws, hallowed by time; Declares the vital power of social ties Endeared by Custom; and with high disdain, Exploding upstart Theory, insists Upon the allegiance to which men are born—530 Some—say at once a froward multitude— Murmur (for truth is hated, where not loved) As the winds fret within the AEolian cave, Galled by their monarch's chain. The times ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. III • William Wordsworth

... Upright (erect) vertikala, rekta. Upright (honest) honesta. Upright (post) fosto. Uprightly rekte, honeste. Uprightness rekteco, honesteco. Uproar bruego, tumulto. Uproot elradikigi. Upset renversi, renversigxi. Upshot rezultato. Upside down renversite. Upstairs supre. Upstart elsaltulo. Up to (until) gxis. Up to now gxis nun. Urban urba. Urbane gxentila. Urchin bubo. Urge urgxi. Urgent urgxa. Urine urino. Urinal urinejo. Urn urno. Us nin. Usage uzo—ado. Use uzi. Use (employment) uzo. Use (custom) kutimo. Use, to ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes

... desirous to be served, or waited on, by persons above them by ancestry and honour, they should pay liberally for such sacrifices. She was not therefore idle, but wishing to profit herself by the pride of upstart vanity, she had at first merely reconnoitred the ground, or made distant overtures to those families of the ancient French nobility who had been ruined by the Revolution, and whose minds she expected to have found on a level ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre

... reading his nephew's rapturous encomiums of him, one goes back to the days when we ourselves were as loud and mad in his dispraise. Who does not remember his own personal hatred and horror, twenty-five years ago, for the man whom we used to call the "bloody Corsican upstart and assassin?" What stories did we not believe of him?—what murders, rapes, robberies, not lay to his charge?—we who were living within a few miles of his territory, and might, by books and newspapers, be made as well acquainted with his merits or demerits ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray

... Empress Anna, to me, as the mother of Ivan, chosen as emperor by Anna, to me alone belongs the regency, and by Heaven I will reconquer that of which I have been nefariously robbed! I will punish this insolent upstart whose shameful tyranny we have endured long enough, and I hope you, my friends, will stand by me and obey the commands ...
— The Daughter of an Empress • Louise Muhlbach

... twice a day, at dawn and at night, as the train tore a noisy tunnel in the quiet air, like the plebeian upstart it was, he sprinkled every grave, rising sometimes from a bed of pain, at other times defying wind and rain and hail. And for a while he believed that his holy device had deepened the sleep of his dead, locked them beyond the power of man to awake. But ...
— The Bell in the Fog and Other Stories • Gertrude Atherton

... little upstart!' cried the dog, as soon as his rage allowed him to speak, 'do you think I shall submit to such ...
— Tales From Catland, for Little Kittens • Tabitha Grimalkin

... not having a single inducement to stay longer in this place, weighed anchor in the morning of the 31st and put to sea. In the prosecution of the voyage, when the Endeavour was close under Cape Upstart, the variation of the needle, at sunset, on the 4th of June, was 9 east, and at sunrise the next day, it was no more that 5 35'. Hence the lieutenant concluded, that it had been influenced by iron ore, or by some other magnetical matter contained under the ...
— Narrative of the Voyages Round The World, • A. Kippis

... irrecognizably disguised itself, and it is the spirit in which Robert Louis Stevenson tries to free his old-world conscience from the old-world forms. To take a more recent parallel, it is the manner, somewhat exaggerated, in which Mr. G. K. Chesterton examines the upstart heresies of our own agitated day. There would be nothing fanciful in suggesting that all these men owed a direct debt to Hazlitt—Stevenson on many occasions acknowledged it.[13] Hazlitt was as honest ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin

... dinner. Just think! A poet, an actor, a journalist, a painter, a wit, and a new beauty. I'll tell you how I found her. She really belongs at present to Lady Islington and myself; but of course, now we have started her, all the other people will snap her up. We found that we both owed that vulgar upstart, Mrs Houndsley, a visit, and went there together—because I always think two people are less easily bored than one—when suddenly the most perfect apparition you ever beheld stood before us;—an old master dress, an immense pattern, a large hat rim encircling ...
— Fashionable Philosophy - and Other Sketches • Laurence Oliphant

... deliberate scene shifting of mountains and mesas, showed them up for the brittle, dry hills they were, and left them behind. It was pitiful! It was as though a revered tragedian should overnight find that his vogue had departed; that he was no longer getting over; that an irreverent upstart, breaking in on his most sonorous periods, was getting laughs with slang. We had lots of water; the dust we left behind; it wasn't even hot in the ...
— The Killer • Stewart Edward White

... playing the game on a scale too big for the fellow's limited resources, and yet—it might be well to study the maps. Yes, and it was like Gray's effrontery to pay deliberate court to "Bob" Parker, knowing his rival's feelings toward the girl. Another insult! The upstart certainly possessed an uncanny dexterity in pricking armor joints. But what if Gray were in earnest? "Bob" had become a wonderfully desirable creature, she was the most attractive girl ...
— Flowing Gold • Rex Beach

... Cruise. Arrive at Moreton Bay. Proceedings there. Natives at Moreton Island. Arrive at Port Curtis. Settlement of North Australia. Excursions made in Neighbourhood. Natural Productions. Call at the Percy Isles. Port Molle and Cape Upstart. Unable to find Fresh Water. Return to Sydney. Recent Occurrences there. Sail for Bass Strait. Visit Port Phillip and Port Dalrymple. Inspect ...
— Narrative Of The Voyage Of H.M.S. Rattlesnake, Commanded By The Late Captain Owen Stanley, R.N., F.R.S. Etc. During The Years 1846-1850. Including Discoveries And Surveys In New Guinea, The Louisiade • John MacGillivray

... condition are not allowed to carry arms. What would a lord say—yes, or any other person of whatever condition —if he caught an upstart peasant with ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... the standard of terror against the nobles. In a few days he sacked and burned their strongholds, and the high and mighty lords who had made the reigning Pope, and had fought to an issue for the Crown of the Holy Roman Empire, were conquered, humiliated and imprisoned by an upstart plebeian of Trastevere. The portcullis of Monte Giordano was lifted, and the mysterious gates were thrown wide to the curiosity of a populace drunk with victory; Giovanni degli Stefaneschi issued ...
— Ave Roma Immortalis, Vol. 1 - Studies from the Chronicles of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford

... be the partner of his soul. Yet is Marzak passed over for this foreign upstart; yet does this Nasrani of yesterday hold the place in thy heart and at thy side that ...
— The Sea-Hawk • Raphael Sabatini

... against the players, alleging that they have all been beholden to him, yet have now forsaken him; and from thence inferring that the three worthies whom he is exhorting will fare no better at their hands. After which he goes on thus: "Yes, trust them not; for there is an upstart crow beautified with our feathers, that, with his 'tiger's heart wrapt in a player's hide,' supposes he is as well able to bombast out a blank-verse as the best of you; and, being an absolute Johannes Fac-totum, ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson

... Saffron rises bare from the earth, and is, therefore, called "Upstart" and "Naked Lady." This plant owes its botanical name Colchicum, to Colchis, in Natalia, which abounded in poisonous vegetables, and gave rise to the fiction about the enchantress Medea. She renewed the vitality of her ...
— Herbal Simples Approved for Modern Uses of Cure • William Thomas Fernie

... motive of the science of medicine, is the one who appreciates least that it is due to the skill and intelligence of the medical men of to-day that he owes his comfort, his health, and his freedom from pestilence, plague and disease. Unthinking people laud and praise some upstart whose ability lies in his faculty to fool the gullible, or they will rush to seek the false aid of some nondescript science, because it is popular and well advertised, while they pass by or ignore the men whose labors have made the world what it is, and who alone possess the ability ...
— The Eugenic Marriage, Volume IV. (of IV.) - A Personal Guide to the New Science of Better Living and Better Babies • Grant Hague

... had everything come his way ever since he entered High School," growled Phin. "And now the mucker is going off to West Point, and the government is going to stamp him 'gentleman.' A gentleman? Pooh! I'd like to show him up, as a bumptious upstart. Phin scowled fiercely for a ...
— The High School Captain of the Team - Dick & Co. Leading the Athletic Vanguard • H. Irving Hancock

... Enderbys. The King is the source of all estate and honour, and I am loyal to the King. He is a traitor who spurns the King's honour and defies it. He is a traitor who links his fortunes with that vile, murderous upstart, that blethering hypocrite, Oliver Cromwell. I go to Scotland to join King Charles, and before three months are over his Majesty will have come into his own again and I also into my ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... knowledge that she was seeking him in her extremity, such a mighty wave of anger swept the Cardinal that he appeared twice his real size. Like a flaming brand of vengeance he struck that Limberlost upstart, and sent him rolling to earth, a mass of battered feathers. With beak and claw he made his attack, and when he so utterly demolished his rival that he hopped away trembling, with dishevelled plumage stained with his own blood, the ...
— The Song of the Cardinal • Gene Stratton-Porter

... Johnny's son know about business? What was the world coming to? To hear him setting up his face there, and asking the best merchant in the town whether business was brisk! It was high time to put him in his place, the conceited upstart, shoving ...
— The House with the Green Shutters • George Douglas Brown

... on the subject of old county families in general, and poured out all the vials of his wrath on "that confounded upstart of a Newbroom, Lord Minchampstead," supplanting all the fine old blood in the country—"Why, sir, that Pentremochyn, and Carcarrow moors too (—good shooting there, there used to be), they ought to be mine, sir, if ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume I • Charles Kingsley

... Methodist when he was in business in Manchester, but had become ostentatiously Anglican when he retired into the country. The village blacksmith, whose ancestors had worked at the same forge since the days of Queen Elizabeth, was a fearless gentleman, and hated the mill-owner as an upstart. He therefore made reply that 'other people changed their religion because they wanted to be respectable and get folk like the Radcliffes to visit them—which they won't,' the last words being spoken ...
— More Pages from a Journal • Mark Rutherford

... bear me out, Mr. Cludde, when I remind you that the owner of the estate had fled from her lawfully-appointed guardian, aided and abetted in her flight, I doubt not, by this upstart himself. I am ready to account for my administration of the property to Sir Richard Cludde, and to no one else, and I say you have no right to call in question anything I may have ...
— Humphrey Bold - A Story of the Times of Benbow • Herbert Strang

... load lying here,' he answered, touching his chest, 'which presses down to the grave. If they can't do something to remove that, I'm a dead man. No word of that young upstart doctor yet?' ...
— The Guinea Stamp - A Tale of Modern Glasgow • Annie S. Swan

... tang of homesickness and autumn. The afternoon was quietly waning, up—stairs the hat-makers, and here the printers, were toiling in a crowded, satisfying present, and Joe stood there musing, a tall, gaunt man, the upstart tufts of his tousled hair glistening in the light overhead. His face was the homeliest that ever happened. The mouth was big and big-lipped, the eyes large, dark, melancholy and slightly sunken, and the mask was a network of wrinkles. ...
— The Nine-Tenths • James Oppenheim

... Paris was three o'clock, or at latest four: public places then began early; the curtain at the grand French opera drew up at a quarter past five. At the present day, the workman dines at two; the tradesman, at three; the clerk in a public office, at four; the rich upstart, the money-broker, the stock-jobber, the contractor, at five; the banker, the legislator, the counsellor of state, at six; and the ministers, in general, at seven, nay ...
— Paris As It Was and As It Is • Francis W. Blagdon

... through their own official channels. And why should he waste time on these obscure people? Why should he undertake to upset their racial happiness? Nobody, least of all he, could change their attitude about the upstart Yankee and his upstart dollars. The Buchers held themselves too far above mere ...
— Villa Elsa - A Story of German Family Life • Stuart Henry

... as values were falling, was always renewed for a lesser amount and was always demanding ready money to meet the difference. In later years Raymond, with this formidable weight still pressing upon him, received finally an offer of relief and liberation; some prosperous upstart, with plans of his own, said he would chance the property, mortgage and all, if paid a substantial bonus for ...
— On the Stairs • Henry B. Fuller

... regarded her with wonder as well as affection, and she was the object of the boyish devotion of Charley, who often defended her from his cousin Sedley's endeavours to put down what he considered upstart airs in a little nobody from London. Sedley teased and baited every weak thing in his way, and Lucy had been his chief butt till Anne Woodford's unconscious dignity and more cultivated manners excited ...
— A Reputed Changeling • Charlotte M. Yonge

... your poor father had been alive," wound up Mrs. O'Keeffe, "the dirty upstart would never have dared to put such an insult on his orphaned daughter, that he wouldn't, and if Dan O'Leary should hear of it—which the saints forbid—it's not the jig that his foot would be teaching ...
— The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes • Israel Zangwill

... heart Angie despised her as an upstart and bitterly resented her small success in the social world, beside blaming her for the episode with Starr Wiley. She remembered, too, how Angie had betrayed her to him. In her maddening anxiety for Tia Juana's safety, Willa had given no thought to the means Wiley must have ...
— The Fifth Ace • Douglas Grant

... she heard; and 'he was before the justices for poaching, but they could make nothing of it.' And the Governor said 'it was all through spite of him—for they hate us for being better blood than they.' And 'all but the squires and those upstart folk loves Dudley, he is so handsome and gay—though he be a bit cross at home.' And, 'Governor says, he'll be a Parliament man yet, ...
— Uncle Silas - A Tale of Bartram-Haugh • J.S. Le Fanu

... in the drama of Attila's invasion. To enjoy the luxury of humbling the great Empire, and of trampling on the pride of her statesmen, seems to have been the sweetest pleasure of his life. This mere gratification of his pride, the pride of an upstart barbarian, at the expense of the inheritors of a mighty name and the representatives of venerable traditions, was the object which took him into Italy, rather than any carefully prepared scheme of worldwide ...
— Theodoric the Goth - Barbarian Champion of Civilisation • Thomas Hodgkin

... upstart continents, werent they? I am not speaking sarcastically, my point is not a chauvinistic one, not even hemispherically prideful. And the Old World the womb of culture? But how much culture has that womb borne since the Americas disappeared? Without a doubt there are exactly the same number of ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore

... rather irrational form of Anti-Semitism. In the controversies of Palestine and Syria, for instance, it is very common to hear the answer that the Jew is no worse than the Armenian. The Armenian also is said to be unpopular as a money-lender and a mercantile upstart; yet the Armenian figures as a martyr for the Christian faith and a victim of the Moslem fury. But this is one of those arguments which really carry their own answer. It is like the sceptical saying that man is only an animal, which of itself provokes the retort, "What an animal!" ...
— The New Jerusalem • G. K. Chesterton

... king and court. From its peculiar position, moreover, it was regarded as the last stronghold of the Juam monarchy: in remote times having twice withstood the most desperate assaults from without. And when Roonoonoo, a famous upstart, sought to subdue all the isles in this part of the Archipelago, it was to Willamilla that the banded kings had repaired to take counsel together; and while there conferring, were surprised at the sudden onslaught ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. I (of 2) • Herman Melville

... I said to the portly, well-fed, swaggering cockney upstart; but there was so much in it uncomplimentary to himself and his driving, that the crowd already assembled cheered, as all crowds will cheer profane and personal language; and he was glad enough to gather up his reins and touch his horses, ...
— The Uninhabited House • Mrs. J. H. Riddell

... vacantly, wagging her wrinkled old head in solemn deprecation of tke evil omen. She knew it as well as Mrs. Oswald herself did, having heard the fact at least a thousand times before; but she made it a matter of principle never to encourage these upstart pretensions on the part of the lower orders, and just to keep them rigorously at their proper level she always made a feint of forgetting any steps in advance which they might have been bold enough to take, without ...
— Philistia • Grant Allen

... common fact to us that the metal gold was present in a dissolved state in all sea water, but of plans for dragging it forth into yellow hardness, none had ever been discussed. But here this field-reared upstart of an Empress had stumbled upon the trick as though it had ...
— The Lost Continent • C. J. Cutcliffe Hyne

... use of gold and gilding that astonished the visitor. Originally indigent, Rome became noted for its greed of gold. When the gold of conquered nations began to come into its hands, it spread it all over with the rather indiscreet display of the upstart. When Nero built the Golden House he realized its dream. The Capitol had golden doors. Statues, bronzes, the roofs of temples, were all gilded. All this gold, spread over the brilliant surfaces and angles of the architecture, dazzled and ...
— Saint Augustin • Louis Bertrand

... forty years younger than himself, frequently the case here,) I gave some pills, brought me a melon, and said he should bring also some dates. I was conversing with a group at the time, and I took the opportunity of observing that doctors were paid amongst us. An upstart man angrily replied:—"Yes, but we are the chosen people of God! you Infidels are bound to serve us in every way, and ought to be thankful that you are so honoured as to be the servants and slaves of The Moumeneen. You think you are clever, but your talents are not your own; ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson

... Carter. At any rate, he will forget all about him, now he is away. The beggarly upstart will have to draw in his horns now. He won't put on ...
— Herbert Carter's Legacy • Horatio Alger

... on herself," said Dame Scratchard. "Why didn't she come to me before she set? She was always an upstart, self-conceited thing, but I'm sure I ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf (Vol 2 of 17) - Folk-Lore, Fables, And Fairy Tales • Various

... dignified, his gait is slow; If upstart strangers try to catch his eye He kicks the dust behind with scornful toe, Averts his lifted nose ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, October 7, 1914 • Various

... Now and then, when I have the honour to be called to the tables of the great, if I happen to meet with any mortification from the stately stupidity of self-sufficient squires, or the luxurious insolence of upstart nabobs, I get above the creatures by calling to remembrance that I am patronized by the noble house of Glencairn; and at gala-times, such as new-year's day, a christening, or the kirn-night, when my punch-bowl is ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham

... good man wished, And garner'd up their wisdom in my heart. Hear then, and mark me well; for thou wilt see, I long have known the grief that weighs thee down. The Viceroy hates thee, fain would injure thee, For thou hast cross'd his wish to bend the Swiss In homage to this upstart house of princes, And kept them staunch, like their good sires of old, In true allegiance to the Empire. Say, Is't not so, Werner? Tell me, ...
— Wilhelm Tell - Title: William Tell • Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller

... denounces, launches forth, Against all systems built on abstract rights, Keen ridicule; the majesty proclaims Of institutes and laws hallowed by time; Declares the vital power of social ties Endeared by custom; and with high disdain, Exploding upstart theory, insists Upon the allegiance to which men are born. .... Could a youth, and one In ancient story versed, whose breast hath heaved Under the weight of classic eloquence, Sit, ...
— Among My Books • James Russell Lowell

... to leave the ministry. He was quite sure now that the preacher, recognizing at last the power that had thrust him from his position and place in the church, wished to sue for peace, that the same power might help him to another position. So this big upstart was tamed at ...
— The Calling Of Dan Matthews • Harold Bell Wright

... which aspires to be a public instructor. But he was not alone in his scurrility. Some of the persons attacked in the Advocate retorted upon the editor through the official press in language far less defensible than his own. He was denounced as an upstart and a demagogue, whose low origin placed him far beneath the notice of gentlemen. This language, be it understood, was used by at least one wealthy and influential personage whose own origin was such that Mr. Mackenzie's might have been pronounced aristocratic by comparison. To all ...
— The Story of the Upper Canada Rebellion, Volume 1 • John Charles Dent

... promise of a schism. A second Round Robin was drafted to the Englishman, beginning: 'O Scoffer,' and ending with a selection of curses from the Rites of Mizraim and Memphis and the Commination of Jugana, who was a 'fifth-rounder,' upon whose name an upstart 'third-rounder' once traded. A papal excommunication is a billet-doux compared to the Commination of Jugana. The Englishman had been proved, under the hand and seal of the Old Man of the Mountains, to have appropriated Virtue and pretended to ...
— Soldiers Three • Rudyard Kipling

... should have committed to me the melodies of the world, I would care very little about my right to sing those subordinate parts that gather around them in obedient harmonies. At least, I think I would, unless some upstart man should deny my right to sing any thing but melodies. If it were committed to me to sing like a bird, I would not care, I think, to exercise my right to roar like a bull. If I can witch the ears and win the hearts of men and women by doing that which I can do easily and naturally and well, ...
— Lessons in Life - A Series of Familiar Essays • Timothy Titcomb

... Skewton, who was thinking of anything rather than of such sentiments—for, like many genteel persons who have existed at various times, she set her face against death altogether, and objected to the mention of any such low and levelling upstart—had borrowed a house in Brook Street, Grosvenor Square, from a stately relative (one of the Feenix brood), who was out of town, and who did not object to lending it, in the handsomest manner, for nuptial purposes, ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens

... Paul had behaved in a most exemplary manner, affording thereby the strongest proof that though he had risen he was no upstart. The numerous members of his family and the men who had married into it nearly all had to thank him for their advancement or actual support. Some were employed on his estate, others he had trained in his particular branch of agriculture, ...
— The Malady of the Century • Max Nordau

... mass of men, in order to prevent the discovery of his individuality. He had no insulting egotism, and no pompous pride; no haughtiness, and no aristocracy. He was not indifferent, however, to approbation and public opinion. He was not an upstart, and had no insolence. He was a meek, quiet, unobtrusive gentleman.... Read Mr. Lincoln's speeches, letters, messages and proclamations, read his whole record in his actual life, and you cannot fail ...
— Our American Holidays: Lincoln's Birthday • Various

... what an unsparing way Shakspere could recast even the finest products of his genius. Five years after the supposed date of his arrival in London he was already famous as a dramatist. Greene speaks bitterly of him under the name of "Shakescene" as an "upstart crow beautified with our feathers," a sneer which points either to his celebrity as an actor or to his preparation for loftier flights by fitting pieces of his predecessors for the stage. He was soon partner in the theatre, actor, and playwright; and another nickname, that ...
— History of the English People, Volume V (of 8) - Puritan England, 1603-1660 • John Richard Green

... mentioned. He was doubtless present at the investment and occupation of Ying, and witnessed Wu's sudden collapse in the following year. Yueh's attack at this critical juncture, when her rival was embarrassed on every side, seems to have convinced him that this upstart kingdom was the great enemy against whom every effort would henceforth have to be directed. Sun Wu was thus a well-seasoned warrior when he sat down to write his famous book, which according to my reckoning must have ...
— The Art of War • Sun Tzu

... and numberless other ways did the British officers seem to rack their inventions to insult, terrify, and vex the poor prisoners. The meanest, upstart officers among them would insult and abuse ...
— American Prisoners of the Revolution • Danske Dandridge

... If courtesy and valour, as they wont, Dwell in our city, or have vanish'd clean? For one amidst us late condemn'd to wail, Borsiere, yonder walking with his peers, Grieves us no little by the news he brings." "An upstart multitude and sudden gains, Pride and excess, O Florence! have in thee Engender'd, so that now in tears thou mourn'st!" Thus cried I with my face uprais'd, and they All three, who for an answer took my words, Look'd ...
— The Divine Comedy • Dante

... quarrels with old Kent occupy much of the diary. Old Kent, it seems, used to enter the school house and vilify the master, not, I imagine, without cause. Thus:—"He again called me upstart, runagate, beggarly dog, clinched his fist in my face, and made a motion to strike me, and declared he would break my head. He did not strike me, but withdrew in a wonderful heat, and ended all with his general maxim, 'The greater scholler, ...
— Highways & Byways in Sussex • E.V. Lucas

... my anger grows, A mighty spirit fills my nose, My inward feelings all revolt. A creature such as thou! a dolt! Pipi, a squirrel able nuts to crack! I bristle up my shaggy back Unused a slave to be. I'm laughed at by each trim and upstart tree To scorn. The ...
— The Poems of Goethe • Goethe

... broad, if given room to grow, it is a fine object, and I have had some thrills of joy at finding this splendid common thing planted in well-placed groups on the grounds of wealthy men, instead of some Japanese upstart with a name a yard long and a truly crooked Oriental disposition! In age the white pine dominates any landscape, wearing even the scars of its long battle with the elements with stately dignity. A noble pair of white pines ...
— Getting Acquainted with the Trees • J. Horace McFarland

... upstart, Jacobinical fellow, gentlemen', continued Mr. Dempster. 'I was determined to be rid of him. What does he mean by thrusting himself into our company? A man with about as much principle as he has property, which, to my knowledge, is considerably less than none. An insolvent ...
— Scenes of Clerical Life • George Eliot

... old and fine. For many years undressed and neglected, they had come at last to a rather rampant state of anarchy and misrule. Feebler, though perhaps not less promising members were oppressed by the overtopping growth of the stronger; there was an upstart crowd of young wood; and the best intentioned trees were hurting each other's efforts, because of want of room. It was a lovely wilderness into which the party plunged, and the June morning sat in the tops of the trees and laughed down at them. Human nature could hardly help laughing ...
— Wych Hazel • Susan and Anna Warner

... this stoical thought of the half-pagan Christianity of the Renaissance, and does it satisfy religious souls? The upstart, the rogue, the tyrant, the rake, and all those haughty sinners who make an ill use of life, and whose steps are dogged by Death, will be surely punished; but can the reflection that death is no evil make amends for the long hardships of the blind man, ...
— The Devil's Pool • George Sand

... hardly real exceptions; they were indeed commercial cities, but they were ruling cities also, and, as ruling cities, they reared monuments which could hardly pass away. What are we to say to the modern rival of Venice, the upstart rebel, one is tempted to say, against the supremacy of the Hadriatic Queen? Trieste, at the head of her gulf, with the hills looking down to her haven, with the snowy mountains which seem to guard the approach from the other side of her inland sea, with her harbor full of the ships of every ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume VI • Various

... as if they had been on the stage, especially the one to whom you were talking. I will do him the justice to say he is a handsome wretch, but like all those foreign adventurers he has a dissipated air. As for the other, he is simply commonplace and vulgar, with little upstart radical notions." ...
— A Romantic Young Lady • Robert Grant

... that he was making more money than was Carl, and asked Carl, in her presence, if he'd like a loan, then she hated Martin, and would give no reason. She became unable to see him as anything but a boor, an upstart servant, whose friendship with Carl indicated that her husband, too, was an "outsider." Believing that she was superbly holding herself in, she asked Carl if there was not some way of tactfully suggesting to ...
— The Trail of the Hawk - A Comedy of the Seriousness of Life • Sinclair Lewis

... only a source of weakness. Yet they could enlist powerful allies in the cause of reaction. Heathenism was still a living power in the world. It was strong in numbers even in the East, and even stronger in the imposing memories of history. Christianity was still an upstart on Caesar's throne. The favour of the gods had built up the Empire, and men's hearts misgave them that their wrath might overthrow it. Heathenism was still an established religion, the Emperor still ...
— The Arian Controversy • H. M. Gwatkin

... at the Bower. Mr Wegg took this arrangement in great dudgeon, because the appointed hours were evening hours, and those he considered precious to the progress of the friendly move. But it was quite in character, he bitterly remarked to Mr Venus, that the upstart who had trampled on those eminent creatures, Miss Elizabeth, Master George, Aunt Jane, and Uncle Parker, ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens

... the revolution induced Madame de la F———— to apply to this democratic parvenu, [Upstart.] whose office at present gives him the power, and whose former obligations to her family (by whom he was brought up) she hoped would add the disposition, to serve her.—The gratitude she expected has, however, ended only in delays and disappointments, and the sole object of my commission ...
— A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, • An English Lady

... clergy hold on to their prerogative as banishers of epidemics. Who knows what day the Lord may see fit to rebuke the upstart teachers of impious and atheistical inoculation, and scourge the people back into His fold as in the good old days of Moses and Aaron? Viscount Amberley, in his immensely learned and half-suppressed work, "The Analysis of Religious Belief", quotes some missionaries to the Fiji islanders, concerning ...
— The Profits of Religion, Fifth Edition • Upton Sinclair

... marriage between Joseph and Rebecca, and was not over well pleased that a member of a family into which he, George Osborne, was going to marry, should make a mesalliance with a little nobody—a little upstart governess. "Hang it, the family's low enough already without her," Osborne said to his friend Captain Dobbin. "A governess is all very well, but I'd rather have a lady for my sister-in-law. I'm a liberal man; but I've proper ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VIII • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.

... confederacy against the minister were actuated by a great variety of motives. The duchess of Parma hated him, as a domestic spy robbing her of all real authority; the royalist nobles, as an insolent upstart at every instant mortifying their pride. The counts Egmont and Horn, with nobler sentiments, opposed him as the author of their country's growing misfortunes. But it is doubtful if any of the confederates except the Prince of Orange clearly saw that they were putting ...
— Holland - The History of the Netherlands • Thomas Colley Grattan

... on the Tuesday following the boy's visit to his great-aunt that Mrs. Tapping had words with her daughter Alethea. They arose out of Alethea's young man, an upstart. At least, he was so designated by Mrs. Tapping, for aspiring to the hand of this young lady; who, though plain by comparison with her mother at the same age, and no more figure than what you see, was that sharp with her tongue when provoked, it made your flesh curdle within ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan

... abundance of detail than I could; nor from others whom I understand already to have that task in hand. More wicked and more abominable is the crime that I am now prosecuting, that there have been found upstart Doctors who have made a drunken onslaught on the handwriting that is of heaven; who have given judgment against it as being in many places defiled, defective, false, surreptitious; who have corrected some passages, tampered with others; torn ...
— Ten Reasons Proposed to His Adversaries for Disputation in the Name • Edmund Campion

... boundaries. New Zealand. Hunter River. Midnight alarm. Ludicrous scene. Changes in Officers of ship. Leave Sydney. Port Stephens. Corrobory. Gale at Cape Upstart. Magnetical Island. Halifax Bay. Astonish a Native. Description of country. Correct chart. Restoration Island. Picturesque arrival. Interview with the Natives from Torres Strait. Their weapons. Shoal near Endeavour River. Discover good passage ...
— Discoveries in Australia, Volume 2 • John Lort Stokes

... it became the vocation of the aristocracies of France and England to write pamphlets against modern bourgeois society. In the French revolution of July, 1830, and in the English reform agitation, these aristocracies again succumbed to the hateful upstart. Thenceforth, a serious political contest was altogether out of question. A literary battle alone remained possible. But even in the domain of literature the old cries of the restoration period(a) had ...
— Manifesto of the Communist Party • Karl Marx

... must always be remembered, had entered Italy not ostensibly as an invader but as a deliverer. He came in pursuance of a compact with the legitimate Emperor of the New Rome, to deliver the Elder Rome and the land of Italy from the dominion of 'the upstart King of Rugians and Turcilingians[28],' Odovacar. The compact, it is true, was loose and indefinite, and contained within itself the germs of that misunderstanding which, forty-seven years later, was developed into a terrible war. Still, ...
— The Letters of Cassiodorus - Being A Condensed Translation Of The Variae Epistolae Of - Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator • Cassiodorus (AKA Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator)

... and caught at her throat. The hand which held her dainty parasol of lace shook, and an indescribable thrill ran through her veins. She could no more think of this man as a clodhopper, a coarse upstart without manners or imagination. In many ways he fell short of all the usual standards by which the men of her class were judged, yet she suddenly realised that he possessed a touch of that quality which lifted him at ...
— A Millionaire of Yesterday • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... dead. Good Cook, I love thee well, and thou shalt have a good pottle of our master's best wine every day, for thou art an old and faithful servant. Also, good Cook, I have ten shillings that I mean to give as a gift to thee. But hatest thou not to see a vile upstart like this Reynold Greenleaf taking it ...
— The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood • Howard Pyle

... from the commencement of his political career, the very embodiment of what had gradually become the most objectionable type of Teuton existence—the unmitigated squireen or Junker, with his poverty and arrogance, with his hunger and thirst after position and good living, with his hatred for the upstart liberal burgher class. "Away with the cities! I hope I may yet live to see them levelled to the ground." Is there not a ring of many centuries of social strife, so laboriously kept down by the reigning dynasty, in these stupendous words, which were pronounced by Bismarck ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 4 of 8 • Various

... finishing it the night after he brought it home, indeed; and now the little upstart will be trying his hand ...
— The Silver Maple • Marian Keith

... others did not. Moreover he was willing to run some risk by helping Drysdale, whom he liked, and he signed to the auctioneer. The farmers stopped, but Osborn went on. He had not liked Peter Askew and liked Kit worse. Father and son had opposed him, and now the young upstart was proud of the money he had, no doubt, got by doubtful means. He would not let the fellow balk him, and his face got red as he answered the auctioneer's inquiring glance. Presently he turned with a frown ...
— The Buccaneer Farmer - Published In England Under The Title "Askew's Victory" • Harold Bindloss

... going on. The second lieutenant would be voted for next, and Tom Randolph, whose father had done so much for the company, had had the impudence to bring himself forward as a candidate. It couldn't be possible, Rodney thought, that such an ignorant upstart stood any chance of election when his opponent was so popular a young man as Albert Percy. He stood where he could see Tom's face, and there was not a particle of color in it. If he could have looked into the ballot Tom held in his hand, he would have found that the name written upon ...
— Rodney The Partisan • Harry Castlemon

... to his demands regarding everything except the Torah; that he refused peremptorily to surrender. (34) In the war that followed between himself and the Syrians, he was so indignant at the presumptuousness of the Aramean upstart that he himself saddled his warhorse for the battle. His zeal was rewarded by God; he gained a brilliant victory in a battle in which no less than a hundred thousand of the Syrians were slain, as the prophet Micaiah had foretold ...
— THE LEGENDS OF THE JEWS VOLUME IV BIBLE TIMES AND CHARACTERS - FROM THE EXODUS TO THE DEATH OF MOSES • BY LOUIS GINZBERG

... their father put no restraint upon his passions. Why should they put restraint on theirs? How can he command them when he has not commanded himself? And yet self- restraint is what they, above all men, need. Upstart princes—the sons of a shepherd boy—intoxicated with honours to which they were not born; they need the severest discipline; they break out into the most frantic licence. What is there that they may not do, and dare not do? Nothing is sacred in their eyes. Luxury, ambition, ...
— David • Charles Kingsley

... taste; and he had no more notion of disturbing his ancestors' work than of disturbing their graves. For now the house looked like a real live house, that had a history, and had grown and grown as the world grew; and that it was only an upstart fellow who did not know who his own grandfather was, who would change it for some spick and span new Gothic or Elizabethan thing, which looked as if it had been all spawned in a night, as mushrooms are. From which you may collect ...
— The Water-Babies - A Fairy Tale for a Land-Baby • Charles Kingsley

... there is the Cornish coast, then often most exquisite, with soft nights, magical skies, and bays star-illuminated with fishers' lights, fire-flies of the sea. And before November is over I would be in Rome to end the year, not Rome the new-fangled capital of an upstart kingdom, but that Rome, if we may still detect it, which is the greatest and most inspiring city in ...
— Impressions And Comments • Havelock Ellis

... discovery that she had played the waiting-maid in the town of which he was Mayor to rankle in his mind yet more poisonously. He had learnt by personal inquiry at the time that it was to Donald Farfrae—that treacherous upstart—that she had thus humiliated herself. And though Mrs. Stannidge seemed to attach no great importance to the incident—the cheerful souls at the Three Mariners having exhausted its aspects long ago—such was Henchard's haughty spirit that the simple thrifty ...
— The Mayor of Casterbridge • Thomas Hardy

... you happen to be both," said Fenton; "that's a fact as well known, my good fellow, as the public stocks there below; and if Madam Fame reports aright, it's a pity you should be long out of them. Avaunt, you upstart! Before the close of your life, you will die with as many aliases as e'er a thief that ever swung from a gallows, and will deserve the swing, ...
— The Black Baronet; or, The Chronicles Of Ballytrain - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton

... Unbounded ambition and jealousy smouldered within him; he took pleasure in the pain of others, and fomented strife to turn it to his own account. His abilities were but slender, and he had little force of character, but the natural instinct which draws the upstart towards money and power served him as well as fixity of purpose. Lucien and Merlin at once took a dislike to one another, for reasons not far to seek. Merlin, unfortunately, proclaimed aloud the thoughts that ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac

... of Monte Carlo, and secondly of Maura White, had done much to prepare the way with Lady Rotherwood. If she had first heard of her son's attachment to the pretty child who acted Mona, daughter to the upstart Vanderkists, and with a ruined father of no good repute, she would have held it a foolish delusion to be crushed without delay; but when this same attachment had lasted eight or nine months, and had only found avowal on the removal of ...
— The Long Vacation • Charlotte M. Yonge

... his own volumes; and victual shops where you could almost feed yourself for two or three sous; and people sitting outdoors drinking wine, as if at a general festival. I thought Paris had comfort and prosperity—with hereditary kings overthrown and an upstart in their place. Yet the streets were dirty, with a smell of ancientness that ...
— Lazarre • Mary Hartwell Catherwood

... have it that the Baron should be buried from the Rue des Palmiers, which Alphonse Giraud recognised as in some sort an honour, for it proclaimed to the world the esteem in which the upstart nobleman was held ...
— Dross • Henry Seton Merriman

... audacity and insolence. He was created count of Oliva, a knight of Santiago, commendador of Ocana in the order, secretary to the king (secretario de camara), was loaded with plunder, and made an advantageous marriage with Ines de Vargas. As an insolent upstart he was peculiarly odious to the enemies of Lerma. Two religious persons, Juan de Santa Maria, a Franciscan, and Mariana de San Jose, prioress of La Encarnacion, worked on the queen Margarita, by whose influence Calderon was removed from the secretaryship in 1611. He, however, ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various

... his brother Thomas, who came full of descriptions of the princely courtesy and sweetness of manner of the royal Edward, which contrasted so strongly with the presumption of his upstart cousins that the young Earl was brought over to concert measures with the Prince's ...
— Cameos from English History, from Rollo to Edward II • Charlotte Mary Yonge

... efficient tool for his purpose in the Captain of the company to which Traverse Rocke belonged. This man, Captain Zuten, was a vulgar upstart thrown into his command by the turbulence of war, as the scum is cast up to the surface by ...
— Capitola the Madcap • Emma D. E. N. Southworth

... quickly deceived. He saw the Baron de Chipotier, the Comte de Boisflottant, and the son of Pillardin, the lucky millionaire, successively come into the regiment, and these sprigs of lofty lineage, full of brilliancy and loquacity, naturally eclipsed the modest qualities of the obscure upstart soldier. Spending their life in cafes, overwhelmed with debt, loved by the women, they laughed among themselves at all the minutiae of the service, which they treated as beneath their notice, ridiculed their superiors, and especially the serious-minded officers. Everything ...
— The Grip of Desire • Hector France

... wonderment how the apples get inside the dumplings. How can a critic criticise a creator? The man who looks on writing things about the man who does things. But he criticises and artists owe him much. Neither in "ink-horn terms" nor in an "upstart Asiatic style" need the critic voice his opinions. He must be an artist in temperament and he must have a credo. He need not be a painter to write of painting, for his primary appeal is to the public. He is the ...
— Promenades of an Impressionist • James Huneker

... us, at Little Missouri, are now being made happy by the presence among them of that rare bird, a political reformer. By his enemies he is called a dude, an aristocrat, a theorist, an upstart, and the rest, but it would seem, after all, that Mr. Roosevelt has something in him, or he would never have succeeded in stirring up the politicians of the Empire State. Mr. Roosevelt finds, doubtless, the work of a ...
— Roosevelt in the Bad Lands • Hermann Hagedorn



Words linked to "Upstart" :   junior, nouveau-riche, unpleasant person, wisenheimer, smart aleck, gymnastic exercise, pretentious, wise guy, weisenheimer, kip, parvenue, wiseacre



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