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Vilify   Listen
verb
Vilify  v. t.  (past & past part. vilified; pres. part. vilifying)  
1.
To make vile; to debase; to degrade; to disgrace. (R.) "When themselves they vilified To serve ungoverned appetite."
2.
To degrade or debase by report; to defame; to traduce; to calumniate. "Many passions dispose us to depress and vilify the merit of one rising in the esteem of mankind."
3.
To treat as vile; to despise. (Obs.) "I do vilify your censure."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Vilify" Quotes from Famous Books



... this notice Champlin came to the Commercial office and demanded the authority the editor had for charging his wife with stealing from their servant. For whether it was he or any one else, it would prove a dear job to vilify his wife like this, for he'd have their life or $3,000; and swore nothing short would settle it. He told the editor he would give him till ten o'clock the next morning, when he should come prepared for the settlement (referring to his pistols, which he knew how ...
— A Woman's Life-Work - Labors and Experiences • Laura S. Haviland

... his eyes hot with tears that would not fall. "She must surrender herself to me—finally and now—to-day, I will wait no longer. She must leave this house at once—but she must go as my wife! She is right. Pratt is a beast—a savage. He will rage—he will vilify us both, but we will defy him. Our 'guides' will confound him. We are, after all, not dependent upon him. We can go on—" The maid, returning, handed him Viola's answer and went hastily out. He read it and reread it till its finality burned ...
— The Tyranny of the Dark • Hamlin Garland

... beyond caring about. God forbid!—but because your form of vice must ever be so distasteful to a woman. And then you are all wrong about your surroundings. You are, you have been, at least, a man of education, and yet you call this a hut and a hole. It is you who make it so! You vilify, where you might ennoble. You defile where you should enrich and keep pure. You are set here, in the midst of the most beautiful scenes of Nature, scenes that cannot be matched anywhere in the world, and yet you despise ...
— Ringfield - A Novel • Susie Frances Harrison

... to-day but Meredith! My washerwoman, Ellen Blount, is ill, So ill I fear she never will be well. 'Tis the old story, every day renewed: A little humble, tender-hearted woman, Tied to a husband whom to call a brute Would be to vilify the quadrupeds! A fellow, who must have his pipe, his whiskey, And his good dinner, let what may befall His wife and children. He could take the pittance She got from her hard toil, and spend it on Himself and ...
— The Woman Who Dared • Epes Sargent

... observation of the vulgar, and very often find out reasons for palliating and excusing such little slips and oversights as were committed in the writings of eminent authors. On the contrary, most of the smatterers in criticism, who appear among us, make it their business to vilify and depreciate every new production that gains applause, to descry imaginary blemishes, and to prove, by farfetched arguments, that what pass for beauties in any celebrated piece are faults and errors. In short, the writings of these critics, ...
— The Palmy Days of Nance Oldfield • Edward Robins

... and the papacy will collapse as if blown aside by the breath of the Almighty, as Scripture says it shall happen to Antichrist. To start a riot against the papists would never improve them, and would only cause them to vilify the cause of their opponents. In times of tumult, people lose their reason and do more harm to innocent people than to the guilty. Public wrongs should be redressed by the magistrates, who are vested with authority for that purpose. No matter how just ...
— Luther Examined and Reexamined - A Review of Catholic Criticism and a Plea for Revaluation • W. H. T. Dau

... that he was merely pursuing his grudge against me. He even stoops to vilify my poor fellows in order to justify himself. I hear that he said it was impossible to entrust such an important capture to an officer not under his authority, and to troops which had probably been bribed already to let ...
— The Path to Honour • Sydney C. Grier

... to the vengeance of political adversaries and to the enmity of the vulgar. Whilst the passions roused by the prosecution were at their height, the fallen Chancellor was treated with much harshness by Parliament, and with actual brutality by the mob. Ever ready to vilify lawyers, the rabble seized on so favorable an occasion for giving expression to one of their strongest prejudices. Amongst the crowds who followed the Earl to the Tower with curses, voices were heard to exclaim that "Staffordshire had produced the three greatest scoundrels of England—Jack ...
— A Book About Lawyers • John Cordy Jeaffreson

... I said, "that, after to-day's experience, Home Rule has a new terror? You remember how, seven or eight years ago, the Irish Members used to stand up in the House and personally vilify you. Then, when you came round to their side, the very same men beslabbered you with fulsome adulation. Now, when there is another parting of the ways, when you pit yourself, your authority, and your character, against their chosen Leader, they rudely ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., December 6, 1890 • Various

... way of reasoning, and a perfect confusion of ideas, to take the theories which learned and speculative men have made from that government, and then, supposing it made on those theories which were made from it, to accuse the government as not corresponding with them. I do not vilify theory and speculation: no, because that would be to vilify reason itself, Neque decipitur ratio, neque decipit unquam. No,—whenever I speak against theory, I mean always a weak, erroneous, fallacious, unfounded, or ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VII. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... humility became natural to him, as well as poverty, and thus it is justly that he is called the humble St. Francis. He was in the eyes of all a mirror of holiness, but in his own eyes he was but a sinner; on all occasions he sought to vilify himself, not only in his own mind, but ...
— The Life and Legends of Saint Francis of Assisi • Father Candide Chalippe

... 3. Any member who shall unjustly aggrieve or vilify the Pastor Emeritus or another member, or who does not live in Christian fellowship with members who are in good and regular standing with this Church, shall either withdraw from the Church ...
— Manual of the Mother Church - The First Church of Christ Scientist in Boston, Massachusetts • Mary Baker Eddy

... book, a poem if you choose to call it so. Now, what a fine triumph it would have been for those who wished to vilify the book and its author, provided they could have detected the latter tripping in his philology—they might have instantly said that he was an ignorant pretender to philology—they laughed at the idea of his ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow

... is. All timid women are conventional: we must be conventional, Jack, or we are so cruelly, so vilely misunderstood. Even you, who are a man, cannot say what you think without being misunderstood and vilified—yes: I admit it: I have had to vilify you. Do you want to have poor Rhoda misunderstood and vilified to the same way? Would it be right for mother to let her expose herself to such treatment before she is old enough ...
— Man And Superman • George Bernard Shaw

... conveniences from cheaper companions. Should not the society of my friend be to me poetic, pure, universal and great as nature itself? Ought I to feel that our tie is profane in comparison with yonder bar of cloud that sleeps on the horizon, or that clump of waving grass that divides the brook? Let us not vilify, but raise it to that standard. That great defying eye, that scornful beauty of his mien and action, do not pique yourself on reducing, but rather fortify and enhance. Worship his superiorities; wish him not less by a thought, but hoard and tell them all. ...
— Essays, First Series • Ralph Waldo Emerson

... is interesting and valuable although the author sometimes goes astray in paying too much attention to biased writers like W. H. Thomas and H. W. Odum who have taken it upon themselves to vilify ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 4, 1919 • Various

... "I refuse to vilify happy chance in the name of black despair. But—here is Marcelle, and slaves bearing packages. I hear ...
— One Wonderful Night - A Romance of New York • Louis Tracy

... corruption, and foreign influence, in the United States. The Romish publications, although greatly reduced in number within a few years, will probably pour out much of their unexhausted virulence, as it is their vocation to misrepresent, deny, and vilify. They will be ready to pronounce a general anathema on all who dare to reprint, or even to read or believe, such strong accusations against the "holy retreats" of those whom they pretend are "devoted to lives of piety." But we will challenge them to do ...
— Awful Disclosures - Containing, Also, Many Incidents Never before Published • Maria Monk

... make me lose my temper again, Little-wife-to-be," he mocked her; "you may call me Hun or Heinz or Fritz or any of the barbarous and vulgar names which the outside world employ to vilify my countrymen, but nothing you say will distress or annoy me. To-morrow you and I will be ...
— The Green Rust • Edgar Wallace

... denouncing her conduct. Reports of his comments and discourses speedily reached Lady Shrewsbury's ears; and he was privately warned that if he did not desist means would be taken to silence him effectually. Not being wise enough to accept this hint he continued to vilify her. The result was, one night when returning from the Duke of York's apartments he was suddenly waylaid in St. James's Park, and three passes of a sword made at him through his chair, one of which pierced his arm. Not doubting they had despatched him to a better world, ...
— Royalty Restored - or, London under Charles II. • J. Fitzgerald Molloy

... port.' And thus every ragged dog mangles me for his own wicked purposes. Some call me Friend—'I was informed by a friend,' says one, 'that so and so has no intention of leaving a farthing to his wife, and that there is no affection between them.' Some others vilify me yet more, and call me Bird—'A bird whistled in my ear, that there are bad practices going on there,' say they. It is true, some call me by the more respectable name of Old Person; yet, not half the omens, prophecies, and counsels, which ...
— The Sleeping Bard - or, Visions of the World, Death, and Hell • Ellis Wynne

... boy, who thinks the auld gnarled oak can be twisted as easily as the young sapling. Can I forget that I have been branded as an outlaw—stigmatised as a traitor—a price set on my head as if I had been a wolf—my family treated as the dam and cubs of the hill-fox, whom all may torment, vilify, degrade, and insult—the very name which came to me from a long and noble line of martial ancestors, denounced, as if it were a spell to conjure up the ...
— Rob Roy, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott

... political wickedness: they have made the king tell his people that they were deprived of their rights, and, by direct and necessary implication, that they and their ancestors for a century past had been slaves: they have made the king vilify the memory of his own brother and father. Rights! There are no rights whatever without corresponding duties. Look at the history of the growth of our constitution, and you will see that our ancestors never upon any occasion stated, as a ground for claiming any of their privileges, ...
— Specimens of the Table Talk of S.T.Coleridge • Coleridge

... while even the cook was called upon the scene to give her evidence as to the domestic ethics of this family circle. The letter of von Donniges to Dr. Haenle was clearly meant to be shown to the Foreign Minister, and the wily diplomatist naturally took the opportunity both to justify himself and to vilify Lassalle. Then began a painful dispute as to whether Herr von Donniges had ill-used his daughter; the overwhelming evidence, which includes the testimony of that daughter, written long after her father's ...
— Immortal Memories • Clement Shorter

... casting blame upon it, think thereby to excuse themselves. Against such as these, Tullius exclaims in the beginning of his book, which he names the book "De Finibus," because in his time they blamed the Roman Latin and praised the Greek grammar. And thus I say, for like reasons, that these men vilify the Italian tongue, and glorify ...
— The Banquet (Il Convito) • Dante Alighieri

... now been fashionable, for near half a century, to defame and vilify the house of Stuart, and to exalt and magnify the reign of Elizabeth. The Stuarts have found few apologists, for the dead cannot pay for praise; and who will, without reward, oppose the tide of popularity? yet there remains, still, among us, not wholly extinguished, ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 6 - Reviews, Political Tracts, and Lives of Eminent Persons • Samuel Johnson

... for the author's purpose to give this false and discouraging picture of the state of his own country. It did not fully answer his end, to exaggerate her burdens, to depreciate her successes, and to vilify her character. Nothing had been done, unless the situation of France were exalted in proportion as that of England had been abased. The reader will excuse the citation I make at length from his book; he outdoes himself upon this occasion. ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. I. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... the colony to an unlimited importation of all sorts of merchandize. But he has not effected these radical and salutary changes in the colonial policy without having encountered a long and inveterate hostility. Many have been the attempts which this faction have made to vilify his motives and misrepresent his actions; but to every charge of his enemies his unshaken integrity and unwearied zeal for the conscientious discharge of his duties have proved a sufficient refutation. The opinion of this gentleman with respect ...
— Statistical, Historical and Political Description of the Colony of New South Wales and its Dependent Settlements in Van Diemen's Land • William Charles Wentworth

... of their labours, the whole vile character of the populations of the Pacific has been changed, and where wickedness runs riot to-day, it is due largely to the hindrances placed in the way of the noble efforts of the missionaries by the unmitigated scoundrels who vilify them. The task of spreading Christianity would not, after all, be so difficult were it not for the efforts of those apostles of the devil to keep the islands as they would like them to be—places where lust runs riot day and night, murder may be done with impunity, slavery flourishes, and ...
— The Cruise of the Cachalot - Round the World After Sperm Whales • Frank T. Bullen

... trotted back to their firm friends the Highlanders, and with many grins confided to them: "That dam white regiment no dam use. Sulky - ugh! Dirty - ugh! Hya, any tot for Johnny?" Whereat the Highlanders smote the Goorkhas as to the head, and told them not to vilify a British Regiment, and the Goorkhas grinned cavernously, for the Highlanders were their elder brothers and entitled to the privileges of kinship. The common soldier who touches a Goorkha is more than likely to have his head ...
— This is "Part II" of Soldiers Three, we don't have "Part I" • Rudyard Kipling

... the first of men, in rank and genius, hating one another, and becoming slanderers and liars in order to lower and vilify an opponent; when I hear the God of mercy invoked to massacres, and thanked for furthering what He reprobates and condemns—I look back in vain on any barbarous people for worse barbarism. I have expressed my admiration of our forefathers, who, not being Christians, ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor

... possible exception of President Washington, whose political opponents did not hesitate to rob the vocabulary of vulgarity and wickedness whenever they desired to vilify the Chief Magistrate, Lincoln was the most and "best" abused man who ever held office in the United States. During the first half of his initial term there was no epithet which was ...
— Our American Holidays: Lincoln's Birthday • Various

... inconvenient presence. This was, it is true, rather the tone of English society in his time, but Americans were largely responsible for changing it, and Mr. Adams had every possible reason for affecting the manner of a courtier even if he did not feel the sentiment. Never did his son see him flatter or vilify, or show a sign of envy or jealousy; never a shade of vanity or self-conceit. Never a tone of arrogance! Never a ...
— The Education of Henry Adams • Henry Adams

... to prevent the manufacture or the transport of munitions to the Allies. In Greece vast sums were cheerfully disbursed by Baron Schenk to work the elections and defeat Venizelos. Roumania was overrun by bands of Germans whose functions were to calumniate, vilify, corrupt and threaten. Spain has been wrought upon in like manner by a small army of Teutons abundantly supplied with the same weapons. Persia was scoured by German agitators who deployed all their talents and acquirements, their knowledge of the language and acquaintance ...
— England and Germany • Emile Joseph Dillon

... the psychological interest their imaginations draw from it. But imaginative interpretation should not be confused with bald illustration. The Academicians cannot understand why, if we praise "Dante seeing Beatrice in a Dream", we should vilify Mr. Fildes' "Doctor". In both cases a story is told, in neither case is the execution excellent. Why then should one be a picture and the other no more than a bald illustration? The question is a vexed ...
— Modern Painting • George Moore

... he described "not men but manners"; his solemn protest, in the preface to this very book, that "I have no Intention to vilify or asperse anyone: for tho' everything is copied from the Book of Nature, and scarce a Character or Action produced which I have not taken from my own Observations and Experience, yet I have used the utmost Care to obscure the Persons by such different Circumstances, Degrees, and Colours, that ...
— Henry Fielding: A Memoir • G. M. Godden

... of the hint about giving an occasional lead, and in starting new topics of discussion entered with zest into the task of creating and upholding imaginary partisans with one hand, whilst with the other hand bringing forth caustic opponents to vilify and belittle them. As a fact, I believe I made its correspondence the most amusing and interesting feature in the paper. But, as his way was, Arncliffe lost his enthusiasm for it after a time, and, delegating the care ...
— The Record of Nicholas Freydon - An Autobiography • A. J. (Alec John) Dawson

... made for their own security, for the cowardly whelps have not the courage otherwise to defend what they get by their knavery. But damn ye altogether for a pack of crafty rascals, and you, who serve them, for a parcel of hen-hearted numbskulls! They vilify us, the scoundrels do, when there is the only difference that they rob the poor under cover of the law, forsooth, and we plunder the rich under the protection of our own courage. Had you not better make one of us than sneak after these villains ...
— The Pirates' Who's Who - Giving Particulars Of The Lives and Deaths Of The Pirates And Buccaneers • Philip Gosse

... very nose."30 The progress marked by the contrast of the scientific spirit of the present time with the ravenous credulity of even two centuries back must continue and spread into every province. Some may vilify it; but in vain. Some may sophisticate against it; but in vain. Some may invoke authority and social persecution to stop it; but in vain. Some may appeal to the prejudices and fears of the timid; but ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger

... piety of paganised Christianity. No tender fairy-tales are attached to his cult; he remains for us what he was in the flesh. It is even possible to feel an active dislike for him. Lagarde ('Deutsche Schriften,' p. 71) abuses him as a politician might vilify an opponent. 'It is monstrous' (says he) 'that men of any historical training should attach any importance to this Paul. This outsider was a Pharisee from top to toe even after he became a Christian'—and much more to the same effect. ...
— Outspoken Essays • William Ralph Inge

... obstacle to preferment; in which the chief situations are open to competition, and for which the only qualifications are integrity and information. Our laws are here stigmatized as partial and corrupt. If they were not impartial, this man would never have dared to vilify them. The very accusation proves that the charge is false; for if it were true, this libeler must have suddenly suffered for this assertion. It is because that they are administered in a spirit of mercy unknown to the laws of any other country—it is because they are administered ...
— A Sketch of the Life of the late Henry Cooper - Barrister-at-Law, of the Norfolk Circuit; as also, of his Father • William Cooper

... head, naturally expect nothing but the foulest scurrility and derision. But when a comparative stranger, whom, with characteristic generosity, I have made free of my heart, seizes a moment which should have been devoted to the mastication of one of my peaches to vilify her host, then indeed I feel almost unsexed—I mean unmanned. Are my veins ...
— Berry And Co. • Dornford Yates

... there could be no ground to raise a faction. But I would ask you one civil question: What right has any man among you, or any association of men (to come nearer to you) who, out of Parliament cannot be consider'd in a public capacity, to meet, as you daily do, in factious clubs, to vilify the Government in your discourses, and to libel it in all your writings? Who made you judges in Israel? Or how is it consistent with your zeal for the public welfare, to promote sedition? Does your definition ...
— English Satires • Various

... shame to, brand, post, stigmatize, vilify, defame, slur, cast a slur upon, hold up to shame, send to Coventry; tread under foot, trample under foot; show up, drag through the mire, heap dirt upon; reprehend &c. 932. bring low, put down, snub; take down a peg, take down a peg lower, take down a peg or two. obscure. ...
— Roget's Thesaurus

... you will," interrupted her indignant daughter, "but do not vilify the generous man who has never hindered you from throwing away his property on your son's debts and your own ambition. Since the day before yesterday I have learned that we are not rich; and I have reflected, ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... drink, In city or in town, They vilify the bishops And they cry the Stuarts down: Still they cry they love the King, But their baseness I'll discover; Charles the First they murdered, And so they would ...
— Cavalier Songs and Ballads of England from 1642 to 1684 • Charles Mackay

... avenge the wrong suffered by the master whom he loved, was to launch his terrible epigrams against Alexander, Cesare, and Lucrezia, and by means of those surviving verses enable the enemies of the House of Borgia to vilify their memories ...
— The Life of Cesare Borgia • Raphael Sabatini

... Dunkeld without delay. Mingling with these as a countryman of the more northern counties, eager to obtain every species of intelligence respecting the movements of the English and the hunted Bruce, whom he pretended to condemn and vilify after the fashion of the Anglo-Scots, and feeling perfectly secure not only in the disguise he had assumed, but in the peculiar accent and intonation of the north-country peasant, which he could assume at pleasure, he ...
— The Days of Bruce Vol 1 - A Story from Scottish History • Grace Aguilar

... madwomen; bored them with the poisoned gimlet, and made their hearts bleeding pin-cushions. But minute cruelty and wild caprice were not enough for them, though these never tired nor rested; they must vilify them too with degrading and savage names. Billingsgate might have gone to school to Drayton House. Inter alia, they seemed in love with a term that Othello hit upon; only they used it not once, but fifty times a day, and struck decent women with ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade

... men! We can do anything we like with them. We can ruin them—and they bear their shame in silence. We can laugh away their reputations over a game at billiards, and they are too pure and proud to even attempt to defend themselves. We can vilify whatever work they do, and they endure the slander,—we can murder them—" he paused," Yes, we can murder them, and they die, without so much as leaving a curse behind them! Extraordinary!- -angelic—superb!—and a wise Fate has ordained that ...
— The Master-Christian • Marie Corelli

... recently seen men eager to vilify their own nation. France has produced similar monsters. One of them wrote ...
— Three Frenchmen in Bengal - The Commercial Ruin of the French Settlements in 1757 • S.C. Hill

... retarded the advancement of learning than the disposition of vulgar minds to ridicule and vilify what they cannot comprehend. All industry must be excited by hope; and as the student often proposes no other reward to himself than praise, he is easily discouraged by contempt and insult. He who brings with him into a clamorous multitude the timidity of recluse speculation, and ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D, In Nine Volumes - Volume the Third: The Rambler, Vol. II • Samuel Johnson

... flatter agreeably, to encourage warmly, to counsel wisely: to sing with, to drink with, and to kiss with: and that they should turn them into mouths of adders, bears, wolves, hyenas, and whistle like tempests, and emit breath through them like distillations of aspic poison, to asperse and vilify the innocent labours of their fellow-creatures who are desirous to please them! God be pleased to make the breath stink and the teeth rot out of them all therefore! Make them a reproach, and all that pass ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas

... party in Madrid, in the meantime, spared no effort to vilify me. They started a publication called The Friend of the Christian Religion, in which a stupid but furious attack upon me appeared, which I, however, treated with the contempt it deserved. But not satisfied with this, they endeavoured to incite the ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow

... and uproar. The mutual animosity of the parties seemed every day to increase during the election, and a great number of unqualified votes were presented on both sides; all the powers of insinuation, obloquy, and ridicule, were employed to vilify and depreciate both candidates. At length the poll being closed, a majority of votes appeared in behalf of lord Trentham; but a scrutiny being demanded by the other side, the returning officer complied with their request. The speaker of the lower house had issued ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett

... his star, believing in him, following him. If I were not a Frenchman on a day like this, if my nationality or my patriotism demanded that I should fight against Napoleon, that I should hate him, or vilify him, I firmly believe that I would turn my sword against myself, so shamed should I feel ...
— The Bronze Eagle - A Story of the Hundred Days • Emmuska Orczy, Baroness Orczy

... editor's absence from home, and without his knowledge. It animadverted pretty sharply on the Administration of the day. In the jingling and jangling phraseology of the indictment, it was calculated to "detract, scandalize, and vilify His Grace Charles Duke of Richmond, Lennox and Aubigny, Captain-General and Governor in and over the Provinces of Lower and Upper Canada, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick and their dependencies; and to scandalize and vilify Sir Peregrine Maitland, Knight Commander ...
— The Story of the Upper Canada Rebellion, Volume 1 • John Charles Dent

... of apostacy, the hero's spirit took fire. He answered with the highest indignation, that nothing could make him forsake his Heavenly Master to follow an "imposter," and continued in the severest terms to vilify the "false Prophet," till Mahommed struck off his head. [17] The body was divided into quarters and sent to different places [18], but the Catholics gathered their martyr's remains and interred them. Every Moor who passed by threw ...
— First footsteps in East Africa • Richard F. Burton

... worked for a man, I would work for him. I would not work for him a part of his time, but all of his time. I would give an undivided service or none. If put to the pinch, an ounce of loyalty is worth a pound of cleverness. If you must vilify, condemn, and eternally disparage, why, resign your position, and when you are outside, damn to your heart's content. But, I pray you, so long as you are a part of an institution, do not condemn it. Not that you will injure the institution—not ...
— A Message to Garcia - Being a Preachment • Elbert Hubbard

... so much as a matter of course that it ceases to be objectionable. The caricaturist, who draws only caricatures, is held to be justifiable, let him take what liberties he may with a man's face and person. It is his trade, and his business calls upon him to vilify all that he touches. But were an artist to publish a series of portraits, in which two out of a dozen were made to be hideous, he would certainly make two enemies, if not more. Mr Alf never made enemies, for he praised no one, and, as far as the expression of his newspaper went, was ...
— The Way We Live Now • Anthony Trollope

... nobler error of holding an opinion strongly and earnestly. We must never be betrayed into making the same mistake; we may try to persuade, and it is better done by example than by argument, but we must never allow ourselves to scoff and deride, and still less to abuse and vilify. We must rather do our best to understand the other point of view, and to acquiesce in the possibility of its being held, even if we cannot understand it. We must take for granted that every one whose life shows evidence of energy, unselfishness, ...
— Joyous Gard • Arthur Christopher Benson

... and feeble band we once were, the public mind would not have revised its judgments much, if at all. It is easy to enlist prejudice against a small body of men and women when they have no powerful influence, and to misrepresent and vilify them. ...
— Socialism - A Summary and Interpretation of Socialist Principles • John Spargo

... You may say what you will in print about him, he brings no rebutting evidence. I have heard that ghosts do a great many things, but I never heard of one as printing a book or editing a newspaper to vindicate himself. Look out how you vilify a living man, for he may respond with pen, or tongue, or cowhide; but only get a man thoroughly dead (that is, so certified by the coroner) and have a good, heavy tombstone put on the top of him, and then you may say ...
— Around The Tea-Table • T. De Witt Talmage

... law made to prevent it. It is impossible, I venture to say, that your Lordships should act thus. The conduct of the criminal is not half so abhorrent as the justification is affronting to justice, whilst it tends to vilify and degrade the dignity of the Peerage and the character of the Commons of Great Britain, before the former and against the latter of which such a justification is produced in ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. XII. (of XII.) • Edmund Burke

... in the street, his conversation is not courted, his opinions are not asked, he is at the head of no cabal, he belongs to no party in the State, he has no train of admirers, no one thinks it worth his while even to traduce and vilify him, he has scarcely friend or foe, the world make a point (as Goldsmith used to say) of taking no more notice of him than if such an individual had never existed; he is to all ordinary intents and purposes dead and buried; but the author of ...
— The Spirit of the Age - Contemporary Portraits • William Hazlitt

... in their hearts, he doubts, which is not to be easily removed; for these men do suffer only for their constancy to the Chancellor, or at least from the King's ill-will against him: that they do now all they can to vilify the clergy, and do accuse Rochester [Dolben]... and so do raise scandals, all that is possible, against other of the Bishops. He do suggest that something is intended for the Duke of Monmouth, and it may be, against the Queene also: that we are in no manner sure against an invasion the next ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys

... more potent than thine, and my husband has performed more valorous deeds, and ridden through the blazing fire. Thy husband was King Hialprek's thrall." Gudrun answered angrily: "Thou shouldst be wiser than to venture to vilify my husband, as it is the talk of all that no one like to him in every respect has ever come into the world; nor does it become thee to vilify him, as he was thy former husband, and slew Fafnir, and rode through the fire, whom thou thoughtest was King Gunnar; ...
— The Elder Eddas of Saemund Sigfusson; and the Younger Eddas of Snorre Sturleson • Saemund Sigfusson and Snorre Sturleson

... and secretly admired, but longed for an opportunity to vilify it to some ardent native. His point of attack would be, that it furnished dangerous opportunities for crime, as illustrated in the case he had recently been discussing. He looked around for some one to accost, and felt aggrieved at finding no available ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 32, June, 1860 • Various

... more efficient instruction, than what was practised on them for grammar in the school-room. No disciple of an able grammarian can ever speak ill of grammar, unless he belong to that class of knaves who vilify what they despair ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown

... when dissensions sleep, When sleep the wrought-up rancours of the age We shall again inscribe, and yet again, On History's glowing page The story of the flag,— For 'twas our Nelson's flag Which none in all the world shall put to shame, Or vilify, or blame,— The story of the glory of the flag Which waved at Waterloo, And was, from first to last, the symbol true Of Wellington's ...
— The Song of the Flag - A National Ode • Eric Mackay

... single knight who is able to keep his seat, and he gives the horses he wins to those who want them. Then those who had been making game of him said: "Now we are disgraced and mortified. It was a great mistake for us to deride and vilify this man, for he is surely worth a thousand such as we are on this field; for he has defeated and outdone all the knights in the world, so that there is no one now that opposes him." And the damsels, who amazed ...
— Four Arthurian Romances - "Erec et Enide", "Cliges", "Yvain", and "Lancelot" • Chretien de Troyes

... monsters (heretofore in a certain trading company), who have endeavoured to vilify and sully one of the brightest ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 201, September 3, 1853 • Various

... to criticise your utterance from several points of view, divine and human, in the course of which I shall attempt to draw again, and with more specification, the character of the dead saint whom it has pleased you to vilify: so much being done, I shall say farewell to you ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 16 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... the generous donor of high estate. For asking the noble honours man * And asking the churl entails bane and bate: When abasement is not to be 'scaped by wight * Meet it asking boons of the good and great. Of Grandee to sue ne'er shall vilify man, * But tis vile on the ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 9 • Richard F. Burton

... made it a life-long object to vilify and defame his wife. He had used for that one particular purpose every talent that he possessed. He had left it as a last charge to Moore to pursue the warfare after death, which Moore had done to some purpose; and Christopher ...
— Lady Byron Vindicated • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... constrained to modify them, and had become a Tariff Reformer some years before the subject attained its present prominence in public discussion, it would ill become me to treat as foolish arguments which I once found so convincing or to vilify opinions ...
— Constructive Imperialism • Viscount Milner

... bold blaspheming band Thee vilify on every hand, O God of wonders! and Thy name Despise and ...
— Paul Gerhardt's Spiritual Songs - Translated by John Kelly • Paul Gerhardt

... without them there could be no ground to raise a faction. But I would ask you one civil question, what right has any man among you, or any association of men (to come nearer to you), who, out of parliament, cannot be considered in a public capacity, to meet as you daily do in factious clubs, to vilify the government in your discourses, and to libel it in all your writings? Who made you judges in Israel? Or how is it consistent with your zeal for the public welfare, to promote sedition? Does your ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol I - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden

... can certainly not be accused of cowardice if he comes to vilify your friends," said one man. ...
— The Brown Mask • Percy J. Brebner

... not changed their minds; but as they could no longer imprison or publicly revile "these enthusiasts, deceivers, and hypocrites," they preferred to scheme against and vilify them in private. ...
— Skipper Worse • Alexander Lange Kielland

... listens anxiously to Paul's preaching. 5 Thamyris, her admirer, concerts with Theoclia her mother to dissuade her, 12 in vain. 14 Demas and Hermogenes vilify Paul to Thamyris. ...
— The Forbidden Gospels and Epistles, Complete • Archbishop Wake

... a villain, More than yourself; but if you thus proceed, If every heated breath can puff away, On each surmise, the lives of free-born people, What need that awful general convocation, The assembly of the states?—nay, let me urge,— If thus they vilify the Holy League, What may ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Vol. 7 (of 18) - The Duke of Guise; Albion and Albanius; Don Sebastian • John Dryden

... in the assembly as soon as he presumed to vindicate his conduct, and to applaud the victories of his reign. He defined the duties of a king, and the Persian nobles listened with a smile of contempt; they were fired with indignation when he dared to vilify the character of Chosroes; and by the indiscreet offer of resigning the sceptre to the second of his sons, he subscribed his own condemnation, and sacrificed the life of his own innocent favorite. The mangled bodies of the boy and his mother were ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 4 • Edward Gibbon

... the propaganda stage with the full force of the editorial virulence of the trust-controlled newspapers directed against labor in favor of "law and order," i.e., the lumber interests. All the machinery of newspaper publicity was used to vilify the lumber worker and to discredit his Union. Nothing was left unsaid that would tend to produce intolerance and hatred or to incite mob violence. This is not only true of Centralia, but of all the cities and towns located in the ...
— The Centralia Conspiracy • Ralph Chaplin

... England.[459] The governor, however, although he had enjoyed the confidence of most of the inhabitants, who looked upon him as the saviour of the island, left behind in the persons of Morgan, Elletson and their roystering companions, a group of implacable enemies, who did all in their power to vilify his memory to the authorities in England. Several of these men, with Elletson at their head, accused the dead governor of embezzling piratical goods which had been confiscated to the use of the king; but when inquiry was made ...
— The Buccaneers in the West Indies in the XVII Century • Clarence Henry Haring

... forbearance of the considerate crowd in not carrying their coercive measures to extremes, because, the humbug being exploded, all that is necessary now is to laugh, hiss, and vociferously applaud. When men make up their minds to vilify the Bible, denounce the Constitution, and defame their country (although this is a free country), they should go down in some obscure cellar, remote from mortal ken, and, even there, whisper their hideous treason against God ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage

... departed, keep an eye upon the coach, and to follow it on foot at some distance: which she did, because if she had suffered him to have rode in the coach with her, it might have subjected her to some misconstructions of the common people, who are always ready to vilify and censure their betters, and to suspect that charity is not always pure charity, but that love or some sinister intention lies hid under its disguise. So discreet and attentive to appearance in all her actions was this ...
— Books for Children - The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 3 • Charles and Mary Lamb

... Grandsir Hightower triumphantly. "I thes natchally 'lowed you didn't. That's what riled 'im. An' now he'll go off an' vilify you. Well, well, well! he's missed his dinner! The fust time in many's the long day. Watch 'im, Babe! Watch 'im, honey! The Ole Boy's in 'im. I know 'im; I've kep' my two eyes on 'im. For a mess er turnip-greens an' dumperlin's that man 'u'd do murder." The ...
— Free Joe and Other Georgian Sketches • Joel Chandler Harris

... and silver to have been the causes of all the calamities of the republic. "I know not," says he, "by what weak compliance those metals are suffered to remain in the hands of suspected persons. Let us degrade and vilify gold and silver, let us fling those deities of monarchy in the dirt, and establish the worship of the austere virtues of the republic," adding, by way of exemplification of his virtuous abhorrence, "I send you seventeen ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 366, April, 1846 • Various

... The colonists often treated them like beasts of the forest, and the author has endeavored to justify him in his outrages. The former found it easier to exterminate than to civilize; the latter to vilify than to discriminate. The appellations of savage and pagan were deemed sufficient to sanction the hostilities of both; and thus the poor wanderers of the forest were persecuted and defamed, not because they were guilty, but because they ...
— The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. • Washington Irving

... Nantucket! you train-oil man! you sea-tallow strainer! you bobber after carrion! do you pretend to vilify a man-of-war? Why, you lean rogue, you, a man-of-war is to whalemen, as a metropolis to shire-towns, and sequestered hamlets. Here's the place for life and commotion; here's the place to be gentlemanly and jolly. And what did you know, you bumpkin! before ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville

... invented. I have thought it better to trust to the justice of my countrymen, that they would judge me by what they see of my conduct on the stage where they have placed me, and what they knew of me before the epoch, since which a particular party has supposed it might answer some view of theirs to vilify me in the public eye. Some, I know, will not reflect how apocryphal is the testimony of enemies so palpably betraying the views with which they give it. But this is an injury to which duty requires every one to submit whom the public think proper to call into its councils. I thank ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson

... or full fraught with grand titles, though never so well qualified, he is a dunce; but, as [118]Baronius hath it of Cardinal Caraffa's works, he is a mere hog that rejects any man for his poverty. Some are too partial, as friends to overween, others come with a prejudice to carp, vilify, detract, and scoff; (qui de me forsan, quicquid est, omni contemptu contemptius judicant) some as bees for honey, some as spiders to gather poison. What shall I do in this case? As a Dutch host, if you come to an inn in. Germany, and dislike your ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior

... a certain Great Man who hath been most grosly affronted and vilify'd by certain Papers from Week to Week, Month to Month, and from Year to Year, for a very long Series of Time; and who hath publickly declar'd, that nothing shall provoke him to depart from a Maxim which he has long ...
— The Tricks of the Town: or, Ways and Means of getting Money • John Thomson

... desecrate, violate, profane; maltreat, mistreat; revile, reproach, vilify, vituperate, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming



Words linked to "Vilify" :   abuse, clapperclaw, vilifier, shout, vituperate, revile, blackguard, vilification, rail



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