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Affront   /əfrˈənt/   Listen
Affront

noun
1.
A deliberately offensive act or something producing the effect of deliberate disrespect.  Synonym: insult.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Affront" Quotes from Famous Books



... Monroe endeavored to put his successor into touch with the French Foreign Office, he was told that the Directory was not prepared to receive another American representative until their grievances had been redressed. This affront left Pinckney in an embarrassing position, for until his credentials were accepted, he was liable, like all foreigners at that time, to arrest as a spy. It was not until February, after many months of waiting, that he was given his passport. He at once crossed the border and ...
— Union and Democracy • Allen Johnson

... to offer a visit to Sultan Churrum,[197] the third son of the Great Mogul, but first in favour. Hearing that he was an enemy to all Christians, I therefore feared some affront; yet he sent me word that I should be received with all due respect, and should have as much content as I had already from his father. This prince is lord of Surat, our chief residence in the empire, and his favour, therefore, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume IX. • Robert Kerr

... conquering business faculty, to whom the practical world of affairs seems so supremely rational that he would never vote to change the type of it even if he could. The man of social enthusiasm is to him an annoyance and an affront. He does not like to hear him talk and considers him per se "unsafe." Such a business man would admit, as an abstract proposition, that society is susceptible of modification and would even agree that all human institutions imply progressive development, but at the same time he deeply distrusts ...
— Twenty Years At Hull House • Jane Addams

... about wringing their hands distractedly. Lady Speldhurst was a personage of some consequence; she was a distant cousin, and had been for years on cool terms with us all, on account of some fancied affront or slight when she had paid her LAST visit, about the time of my christening. She was seventy years old; she was infirm, rich, and testy; moreover, she was my godmother, though I had forgotten the fact; but it seems that though I had formed no expectations ...
— Stories by Modern American Authors • Julian Hawthorne

... and said, "You to affront our mistress like that! Why, if I had heard you, I'd have twisted your neck ...
— A Simpleton • Charles Reade

... proceed from the no good it can do, to the manifest hurt it causes, in being first the greatest discouragement and affront that can be offered to ...
— Areopagitica - A Speech For The Liberty Of Unlicensed Printing To The - Parliament Of England • John Milton

... recall the reason for our fighting," I replied, "and a good one it was. You offered affront to the name of Sir George Vernon, and insultingly refused me the courtesy of your name after I had done you the honor to tell ...
— Dorothy Vernon of Haddon Hall • Charles Major

... cooked; but some of the poor people took a great objection against it on account of the yellow color, which they thought came from having sulphur mixed with it—and they said, Indeed it was putting a great affront on the decent Irish to mix up their food as if 'twas for mangy dogs. Glad enough, poor creatures, they were to get it afterward, when sea-weed and nettles, and the very grass by the roadside, was all that many of them had to put into ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, September, 1850 • Various

... To that semblance she knew he attached intense importance: it was an article of his complicated social creed that a man of his class should appear to live on good terms with his wife. For different reasons it was scarcely less important to Undine: she had no wish to affront again the social reprobation that had so nearly wrecked her. But she could not keep up the life she was leading without more money, a great deal more money; and the thought of contracting her expenditure was no ...
— The Custom of the Country • Edith Wharton

... attack is a discredited manoeuvre. It is considered an affront to the Blessed Virgin, who first invented sleep. And those officers who that night guarded Pecachua being acquainted with Garcia's plot, were not expecting us until two nights later, when we were to walk into their parlor, ...
— Captain Macklin • Richard Harding Davis

... may in fact have been a sheet of water less remarkable than it appeared to my untraveled eyes. My acquaintance with sheets of water was small, and the pool of Bly, at all events on the few occasions of my consenting, under the protection of my pupils, to affront its surface in the old flat-bottomed boat moored there for our use, had impressed me both with its extent and its agitation. The usual place of embarkation was half a mile from the house, but I had an intimate conviction that, wherever Flora might be, she was not near ...
— The Turn of the Screw • Henry James

... think not to say within yourselves, We have Abraham to our father: for I say unto you, that God is able of these stones to raise up children unto Abraham."[282] The ignoring of their claims to preferment as the children of Abraham was a strong rebuke, and a cause of sore affront alike to aristocratic Sadducee and rule-bound Pharisee. Judaism held that the posterity of Abraham had an assured place in the kingdom of the expected Messiah, and that no proselyte from among the Gentiles could possibly attain ...
— Jesus the Christ - A Study of the Messiah and His Mission According to Holy - Scriptures Both Ancient and Modern • James Edward Talmage

... brigadier in counsel. General Johnston subsequently remarked that Toombs was the biggest brained man in the Confederacy. The boldness and clearness of the impetuous Georgian had captured the grim hero of Manassas, who forgave the affront in the face of the overmastering ...
— Robert Toombs - Statesman, Speaker, Soldier, Sage • Pleasant A. Stovall

... better," said he, "to avoid the possibility of a public affront. Anything that shook my credit might hamper us in ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... was idiotic enough to repeat the affront, on which, and as though a perfect understanding as to what was to be done subsisted among the three sailors, old Joe, Plum, and Robins fell upon Sloper, and, lifting him up in their arms, ran with him to the boat, into which they flung him, paying ...
— The Honour of the Flag • W. Clark Russell

... cat!' cried Maurice, still smarting under the supposed affront. 'You should see how I served one the other day, when she came prowling about the house to steal anything ...
— Aunt Mary • Mrs. Perring

... attitude was defensive in the extreme. He was consumed with indignation at disbelievers: "They oppose their simple ipse dixit against the most unquestionable Testimonies"; they even dare to "affront that relation of the Daemon of Tedworth." He was indeed cast down over the situation. He himself relates a very patent instance of witchcraft in Somerset; yet, despite the fact that numerous physicians agreed ...
— A History of Witchcraft in England from 1558 to 1718 • Wallace Notestein

... she. "I leave you to consider whether you have done well to affront me in your own house." And she was moving to the door with great dignity, when Nancy ...
— Foul Play • Charles Reade

... pleasures are a long time coming," I sighed. It was lust that made this separation so hasty, for I had, for a long time, wished to be rid of a troublesome chaperon, so that I could resume my old relations with my Giton. (Bearing this affront with difficulty, Ascyltos rushed from the room, without uttering a word. Such a headlong outburst augured badly, for I well knew his ungovernable temper and his unbridled passion. On this account, I followed him out, desirous of fathoming his designs and of preventing their consequences, but he ...
— The Satyricon, Complete • Petronius Arbiter

... set off home next morning for my native town. I was actually engaged in packing my things together when Teresina came into my room. Observing what I was about, she exclaimed, astonished, 'Are you going to leave us?' I gave her to understand that after the affront which had been put upon me by Lauretta I could not think of remaining any longer in her society. 'And so,' replied Teresina, 'you're going to let yourself be driven away by the extravagant conduct of a little fool, who is now heartily sorry for what she has done and ...
— Weird Tales. Vol. I • E. T. A. Hoffmann

... courtesy to his hostess accept thankfully whatever she places before him. Any other course of conduct would be an affront. It now however becomes his personal property and he can adopt whichever of the following courses is ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, July 29, 1914 • Various

... excuse for Eddie's Don Juanity with the common clay of Delia, especially as she never quite believed her own beliefs in that affair; but Luella was different. Luella had been a rival. The merest courtesy to Luella was an unpardonable affront to every ...
— In a Little Town • Rupert Hughes

... as her husband, came by where she was, and as the present princess always hath precedency of the relict of the dead, so she put by my Lady Ireton, who, notwithstanding her piety and humility, was a little grieved at the affront.' ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 1 • Grace Wharton and Philip Wharton

... but one cold mention of Tischbein's name. Mr. Oscar Browning, in the 'Encyclopaedia Britannica,' names Tischbein as Goethe's 'constant companion' in the early days at Rome—and says nothing else about him! In fact, the hero-worshippers have evidently conspired to hush up the affront to their hero. Even the 'Penny Cyclopaedia' (1842), which devotes a column to little Tischbein himself, and goes into various details of his career, is silent about the portrait of Goethe. I learn from that column that Tischbein became director of the Neapolitan Academy, at a salary of 600 ducats, ...
— And Even Now - Essays • Max Beerbohm

... behaviour to Donal, and at the same time specially pleased with the calm, unconsciously dignified way in which Donal took it, casting it from him as the rock throws aside the sea-wave: it did not concern him! The dull world has got the wrong phrase: it is he who resents an affront who pockets it! he who takes no notice, lets it lie in ...
— Donal Grant • George MacDonald

... misjudged him? If she had not, she had at least been brutal. But he had dared to kiss her! Every time she thought of that a tingling, a confusion, a hot shame went over her. And at length Joan marveled to find that out of the affront to her pride, and the quarrel, and the fact of his going and of her following, and especially out of this increasing remorseful dread, there had flourished up a strange and reluctant respect ...
— The Border Legion • Zane Grey

... hears of it, Mr. Finn," put in Thaddeus. "I am told that he is wondering yet what hit him, and having put the affront upon you, and through that inexcusable act lost the election, he ought to know that you were ...
— The Booming of Acre Hill - And Other Reminiscences of Urban and Suburban Life • John Kendrick Bangs

... to love. Does that not suffice? Monsieur, you are a Polish adventurer, and I have as much admiration for your social talents as I have little esteem for yourself. Does that not suffice yet? I would not, however, lift my hand to you. I entreat you to consider the affront received." ...
— Samuel Brohl & Company • Victor Cherbuliez

... turn the other cheek; avaler les couleuvres [Fr.], gulp down. obey &c 743; kneel to, bow to, pay homage to, cringe to, truckle to; bend the neck, bend the knee; kneel, fall on one's knees, bow submission, courtesy, curtsy, kowtow. pocket the affront; make the best of, make a virtue of necessity; grin and abide, grin and bear it, shrug the shoulders, resign oneself; submit with a good grace &c (bear with) 826. Adj. surrendering &c v.; submissive, resigned, crouching; downtrodden; down ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget

... World was turn'd top-side turvy; for the ladies look'd like undaunted heroes, fit for government or battle, and the gentlemen like a parcel of fawning, flattering fops, that could bear cuckoldom with patience, make a jest of an affront, and swear themselves very faithful and humble servants to the petticoat; creeping and cringing in dishonor to themselves, to what was decreed by Heaven their inferiours; as if their education had been amongst monkeys, who (as it is said) in all cases give the preeminence to ...
— The Palmy Days of Nance Oldfield • Edward Robins

... certainly had a forlorn look and an empty ring. Pete sat on his perch grim and curious. He seemed to regard the bustle and hammering as a personal affront. ...
— Chicken Little Jane • Lily Munsell Ritchie

... with this audacious address?—Reject it as a libel? Treat it as an affront to government? Spurn it as a derogation from the rights of legislature? Did they toss it over the table? Did they burn it by the hands of the common hangman?—They took the petition of grievance, all rugged as it was, ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. II. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... affront to the sovereign in the persecution or oppression of members of the Church of England, there were graver causes of offense such as the Crown regarded as mistakes, or even misdemeanors. For many years Connecticut had been virtually an independent and sovereign ...
— The Development of Religious Liberty in Connecticut • M. Louise Greene, Ph. D.

... frightened her—something that recalled an incident in the history of his house. He had learned from his gentle mother to forgive affronts to himself; she had seen him do it many times, overlooking what another man would have resented, but an affront to herself or any other woman was a different matter: that he would never forgive. She knew, too, that he had just cause to be offended, for in all her life no one had ever been so rude to her. That she herself was partly to blame ...
— Kennedy Square • F. Hopkinson Smith

... class in the kingdom. If a poor man lodges a complaint against a gentleman, or any animal that chooses to call itself a gentleman, and the justice issues out a summons for his appearance, it is a fixed affront, and he will infallibly be called out. Where manners are in conspiracy against law, to whom are the oppressed people to have recourse? It is a fact, that a poor man having a contest with a gentleman, must—but ...
— A Tour in Ireland - 1776-1779 • Arthur Young

... to understand, Mr. Le Noir, what act of levity on my part has given you the assurance to offer me this affront!" ...
— Capitola the Madcap • Emma D. E. N. Southworth

... other member of the Cabinet must of course subordinate his judgment to that of the President, for the President is the final court of appeal. But Mr. Wilson went further than that; he heaped almost unparalleled affront upon Mr. Lansing; he made the great office of Secretary of State ridiculous, and he invested its incumbent with no greater authority than ...
— The Mirrors of Washington • Anonymous

... was so evidently divided between anxiety to blurt out his mind while it was yet hot from the making up, and desire not to affront a guest and a man of rank, that the Count could scarcely restrain ...
— Count Bunker • J. Storer Clouston

... reverence for his superiors held him back from promotion—and another thing was his imperious temper. He could not bear contradiction. The orator's habit of exaggeration was upon him, and occasionally he would affront his best friends in a way that tested their patience to the breaking-point. "You might become an Abbot, and even a Bishop, were it not for your lack of courtesy," wrote his Superior to him ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 7 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Orators • Elbert Hubbard

... inconceivable to me that she should not either withdraw absolutely from all society (which is what I should have done in her place), or submit silently to an injury against which all protest was vain, which renewed itself, in some shape or other, daily, and which really involved no personal affront to her or injustice to the character of her mother. I thought she made a great mistake, which did not prevent my being attracted by her; and while we were at Belvoir, and immediately afterwards at Lord Willoughby's together, and subsequently on our return to London, we had a good deal ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble

... Rectory to Huxtable?" cried Mr Wentworth. He was almost more impatient about this new variety in the family circumstances than he had been of more serious family distresses. "God bless me, sir," said the Squire, "what do you mean by it? You take means to affront your aunts and lose Skelmersdale; and then you put it into my head to have Mary at Wentworth; and then you quarrel with the Rector, and get into hot water in Carlingford; and, to make an end of all, you coolly propose to an innocent young woman, and tell me you are going to marry—what ...
— The Perpetual Curate • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant

... yourself and me ridiculous in public. If you think I am what you seem to suspect, you had better let papa have me back again,—though that is so horrible that I can hardly bring myself to think of it. If you do not think so, surely you should beg my pardon for the affront you put on me ...
— Is He Popenjoy? • Anthony Trollope

... augmentation of her shipping and ammunition, and I know not whether by a foresight of policy, or any instinct, it came about, or whether it was an act of her compassion, but it is most certain she sent no small troops to the revolted States of Holland, before she had received any affront from the King of Spain, that might deserve to tend to a breach of hostility, which the Papists maintain to this day was the provocation to the after-wars; but, omitting what might be said to this point, these ...
— Travels in England and Fragmenta Regalia • Paul Hentzner and Sir Robert Naunton

... motives with your wife's is blasphemy," cried the other. "Her deed held the glory of self-sacrifice, that you might gain enlightenment; while you, railing impotently here, giving out affront against the gods, are as the wild beast on the mountain that cannot bear the arrow in ...
— The Dragon Painter • Mary McNeil Fenollosa

... added, too, that the colonel, in his general outward bearing and jauntiness, gave no indication of his internal irritation. Yet he was undoubtedly in one of his "spells," suffering from a moody cynicism which made him as susceptible of affront as ...
— Trent's Trust and Other Stories • Bret Harte

... judged it better not to present these demands point blank, but gradually to reveal their substance. This course, he judged, would be less damaging to the friends of peace at the Tuileries, and less likely to affront Napoleon. But it was all one and the same. The First Consul, in his present state of highly wrought tension, practically ignored the suggestion of an equivalent security, and declaimed against the perfidy of England for daring to infringe the treaty, though he had offered no opposition to the ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose

... "I should affront your penetration did I not suppose you now see the drift of this letter. It is to appropriate to another use the sum with which you destined to bring me into Parliament; to employ it, not in making me great, but in rendering me happy. I have often heard you say yourself that the allowance ...
— Gibbon • James Cotter Morison

... shall bear thee into Paradise. And shouldst thou die, natheless even so will I send my Angels to carry thee back into Paradise." So he caused them to believe; and thus there was no order of his that they would not affront any peril to execute, for the great desire they had to get back into that Paradise of his. And in this manner the Old One got his people to murder any one whom he desired to get rid of. Thus, too, the great ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa

... Every affront or grievance, real or imaginary, since the day she and Willoughby had first met, she poured forth with a fluency due to frequent repetition, for, with the exception of today's added injuries, Willoughby had heard the ...
— Victorian Short Stories of Troubled Marriages • Rudyard Kipling, Ella D'Arcy, Arthur Morrison, Arthur Conan Doyle,

... Fast, & I was at meeting all day. Mr Hunt preach'd A.M. from Zac. vii. 4, 5, 6, 7. He said, that if we did not mean as we said in pray's it was only a compliment put upon God, which was a high affront to his divine Majesty. Mr Bacon, P.M. from James v. 17. He said, "pray's, effectual & fervent, might be, where there were no words, but there might be elegant words where there is no prayr's. The essence of pray's consists ...
— Diary of Anna Green Winslow - A Boston School Girl of 1771 • Anna Green Winslow

... I, "Fuscus,] you said that you wanted to communicate something to me in private." "I remember it very well; but will tell it you at a better opportunity: to-day is the thirtieth sabbath. Would you affront the circumcised Jews?" I reply, "I have no scruple [on that account]." "But I have: I am something weaker, one of the multitude. You must forgive me: I will speak with you on another occasion." And has this sun arisen so disastrous upon me! The wicked rogue runs away, and leaves ...
— The Works of Horace • Horace

... 23, when 'the serving-maids began such a tumult as was never heard of since the Reformation.' This 'tumult' was no sudden burst of feeling, but 'the result of a consultation in the Cowgate of Edinburgh, when several gentlemen recommended to various matrons that they should give their first affront to the [prayer] book, assuring them that the men should afterwards take the business out ...
— The Red Book of Heroes • Leonora Blanche Lang

... better than we pretended to do. And at last they gave such a loose to their passions, all of a sudden* as I may say, that instead of withdrawing, as they used to do when he came, they threw themselves in his way purposely to affront him. ...
— Clarissa, Volume 1 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson

... the armory of Westminster Palace lay the gardens, and here, on the third day following the King's affront to De Vac, might have been a seen a black-haired woman gowned in a violet cyclas, richly embroidered with gold about the yoke and at the bottom of the loose-pointed sleeves, which reached almost to the similar bordering on the lower hem of the ...
— The Outlaw of Torn • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... of a different opinion. He takes away the gates from a Mahometan mosque, and solemnly offers them as a gift to a Pagan temple. Morally, this is a crime. Politically, it is a blunder. Nobody who knows anything of the Mahometans of India can doubt that this affront to their faith will excite their fiercest indignation. Their susceptibility on such points is extreme. Some of the most serious disasters that have ever befallen us in India have been caused by that susceptibility. ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 4 (of 4) - Lord Macaulay's Speeches • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... of his great wealth, so great an authority in his parish, that they all lived in the utmost fear and apprehension of him. It was therefore no wonder that the hostess, who knew it was in his option whether she should ever sell another mug of drink, did not dare to affront his supposed brother by denying ...
— Joseph Andrews, Vol. 2 • Henry Fielding

... still in use in some parts of the world. In Germany, on receiving an affront, to send a glove to the offending party is ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli

... coming and slandered and calumniated me already in that year. And when I met four or five years after that personally with him in his Printing Office about our business, he appeared as the most stubborn infallible Pope, affirming with the most impudent affront, that what he published against me, was true. But some bystanders commenced to cry: "Snake! snake! snake!" pointing out of the door of the Printing Office in a distance from the door to see what it was. There was a very large snake marching from ...
— Secret Enemies of True Republicanism • Andrew B. Smolnikar

... themselves, though in all likelihood it was the mere turn of a feather which side they should take in the argument. It is the being baulked or thwarted in anything that constitutes the grievance, the unpardonable affront, not the value of the thing to which we had made up our minds. Is it that we despise little things; that we are not prepared for them; that they take us in our careless, unguarded moments, and tease us out of our ordinary patience by ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt

... account of the demand and refusal was given in such a way in the German newspapers that it appeared as if the French ambassador had insulted King William. The Parisians, on the other hand, thought that their ambassador had received an affront, and demanded an immediate ...
— An Introduction to the History of Western Europe • James Harvey Robinson

... evoke a volume of thirty-six elegies in various languages, but not enough to inspire any of the contributors, except Milton, with a poetical thought, while many are so ridiculous that quotation would be an affront to King's memory. But the thirty-sixth is "Lycidas." The original manuscript remains, and is dated in November. Of the elegy's relation to Milton's biography it may be said that it sums up the two influences which had been chiefly moulding his mind of late years, the natural influences of which ...
— Life of John Milton • Richard Garnett

... to reject the popular religion—a wickedness of which Christ and Socrates and Buddha are all represented to have been guilty—thrives in the belief that the Scriptures are the actual words of God, and that to deny the truth of the Scriptures is to deny and to affront God. ...
— God and my Neighbour • Robert Blatchford

... language which to many persons seem to be of established respectability, but the right of which to be at all is not fully admitted, stands out the form of speech is being done, or rather, is being, which, about seventy or eighty years ago, began to affront the eye, torment the ear, and assault the common sense of the speaker of plain and idiomatic English." Mr. White devotes thirty pages of his book to the discussion of the subject, and adduces evidence ...
— The Verbalist • Thomas Embly Osmun, (AKA Alfred Ayres)

... was a generous emulation, And then there was a general competition, To undertake the orphan's education: As Juan was a person of condition, It had been an affront on this occasion To talk of a subscription or petition; But sixteen dowagers, ten unwed she sages Whose tale belongs to "Hallam's ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron

... encounter. However, as I never heard the trial complained of by any but foreigners, I suppose it is not regarded by Italians as intolerable; and it is certain that an audible compliment, upon the street, to a pretty girl of the poor, is by no means an affront. ...
— Venetian Life • W. D. Howells

... with hoots and hisses. They surrounded him and insulted him to his face. Never did man suffer such cruel mortifications. He lost his patience; with his saber he dispersed such of the populace as dared to affront him; but he knew not what course to take. He could not see the queen; he could not claim the white armor she had sent him without exposing her; and thus, while she was plunged in grief, he was filled with fury and distraction. He walked on the banks of the Euphrates, fully persuaded that ...
— International Short Stories: French • Various

... three, always holds itself to be justifiable, but looks less certainly to action than grudge or revenge. Simple goodness may arouse the hatred of the wicked; they will be moved to revenge only by what they deem an injury or affront. Compare ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald

... back. Then I waxed rebellious. I refused to answer the question. He had no right to ask it, and his presence was an affront upon the landscape. And a dignity entered into me, and my neck was stiffened, my head poised. I gathered together certain certificates of goods and chattels, pointed my heel towards him and his cabbages, and journeyed townward. I was yet a man. There was naught ...
— Revolution and Other Essays • Jack London

... victory or affront, gained over Knut in Lymfjord, was among the last successes of Olaf against that mighty man. Olaf, the skilful captain he was, need not have despaired to defend his Norway against Knut and all the world. But he ...
— Early Kings of Norway • Thomas Carlyle

... dirty crooked model of a spear, so shabbily constructed that it had probably been already refused as an article of barter by many of the ship’s company. On my accepting this, from an unwillingness to affront them, they were uneasy and dissatisfied till I had given them something in return, though their hands were full of the presents which I had just made them. Selfishness is, in fact, almost without exception their universal characteristic, and the main-spring ...
— Journal of the Third Voyage for the Discovery of a North-West Passage • William Edward Parry

... was good. He was large of stature, and, like his brother Francis, had on the whole an imposing presence.8 In his character, he combined some of the worst defects incident to the Castilian. He was jealous in the extreme; impatient not merely of affront, but of the least slight, and implacable in his resentment. He was decisive in his measures, and unscrupulous in their execution. No touch of pity had power to arrest his arm. His arrogance was such, that he was constantly wounding the self-love of those with whom he acted; thus begetting ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott

... than an Army, and better qualify'd to break a Jest than look in upon an Enemy. This General, however, was according to King James's own liking, though contrary to the Chief Minister's Design, who wanted that Post for a Relation of his own. This undesign'd Affront of King James in preferring C.L. to the Minister's Favourite, lost the Battle of the Boyne, and perhaps all Ireland; for the Chief Minister would neither send Arms nor Money to supply that brave Body of Men, ...
— Memoirs of Major Alexander Ramkins (1718) • Daniel Defoe

... come in by the back-door, he might have as good a right upon the premises as themselves. Their pacific attitude, however, was but of short duration; something occurred to ruffle their temper—some silent affront, no doubt, for the bark-hunters heard nothing. Perhaps the tatou had run against the legs of one, and scraped it with the sharp edge of his corslet. Whether this was the cause or no, a scuffle commenced, and the beast in armour was attacked by all ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid

... the moment when my head had touched the pillow. I had no nerves, and I had done nothing which I regretted. I fancy, therefore, that my general appearance and reception of him somewhat astonished my early visitor. He seemed, indeed, to take my nonchalance almost as an affront, and he proceeded at once to ...
— The Lost Ambassador - The Search For The Missing Delora • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... only the help of a Razor, and the Stretcher of a Chair, he broke open the Top of the Round house, and tying together a Sheet and Blanket, by them descended into the Church-yard and Escap'd, leaving the Parish to Repair the Damage, and Repent of the Affront put ...
— The History of the Remarkable Life of John Sheppard • Daniel Defoe

... the stairs, Radbourn called his attention to the paintings, hanging here and there, which he called "hideous daubs" with the reckless presumption of a born realist to whom allegory was a personal affront. Radbourn showed him about the city as much as he could spare time to do, and when he released him, Bradley went back to the capitol, which exercised the ...
— A Spoil of Office - A Story of the Modern West • Hamlin Garland

... valleys, they were more favourable places for prayer. The practice of worship on these spots, though from the first forbidden, became frequent among the Jews, and was with difficulty abolished, though denounced time after time by the prophets as an affront ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood

... at a woman's anger; which experience must have told him, was the certain mark of concealed tenderness. His reply had been most excellent had it been delivered with smiles instead of frowns; but to have recourse to his sword, was acting like a novice in the art of love; and resenting an affront, when he should have ...
— The Earl of Essex • Henry Jones

... from most they received it. At the outset a certain impassivity on the part of this wild mountaineer excited their astonishment, then, quickly, their dissatisfaction. They were moved to a caprice against his calm, against this indifference that was an affront. They had no wish to work him serious harm, but his disregard was intolerable. Since the heart of neither was engaged, there was no jealousy between them in the affair. Since each was secretly ashamed of her motives, there was ...
— Heart of the Blue Ridge • Waldron Baily

... subject phrases connected by or or nor, require a singular verb; and, if a nominative come after the verb, that must be singular also: as, "That a drunkard should be poor, or that a fop should be ignorant, is not strange."—"To give an affront, or to take one tamely, is no mark of a great mind." So, when the phrases are unconnected: as, "To spread suspicion, to invent calumnies, to propagate scandal, requires neither ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown

... are far from allowing it to be supposed that they wish to decline the conflict. It is held infamous to avoid it, even by a voluntary death; and the greatest affront which can be offered to a prisoner, is to refuse him the honours of a man, in the manner of his execution. "Withhold," says an old man, in the midst of his torture, "the stabs of your knife; rather let me die by fire, that those dogs, your allies, from beyond the seas, may learn to suffer like ...
— An Essay on the History of Civil Society, Eighth Edition • Adam Ferguson, L.L.D.

... wine and sea stock, a most exuberant assortment unquestionably, belonging to my Jamaica friends, ashore; but, to my surprise, the boat was sent back, with Mr Bang's card, on which was written in pencil, "Don't affront us, Captain Cringle." Thereupon I got the schooner under weigh, and no event worth narrating turned up until we anchored close to the post office at Crooked Island, ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott

... this reason, besides certain insults aimed at him by the craftsmen, he had only himself to blame when Michelagnolo told him in public that he was a clumsy fool at his art. But Pietro being unable to swallow such an affront, they both appeared before the Tribunal of Eight, where Pietro came off with little honour. Meanwhile the Servite Friars of Florence, wishing to have the altar-piece of their high-altar painted by some famous master, had handed it over, by reason of the departure ...
— Lives of the Most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects - Vol. 04 (of 10), Filippino Lippi to Domenico Puligo • Giorgio Vasari

... provincial officer, whom he deemed an improper judge of military operations, and claimed the chief glory of having restored peace to the province. Colonel Middleton was equally warm and proud, and considering such neglect as an affront, resented it, and while some reflections were cast upon the provincial troops, being the chief in command, he thought himself bound to stand forth as a champion for the honour of the province. This ill-humour, which appeared between ...
— An Historical Account Of The Rise And Progress Of The Colonies Of South Carolina And Georgia, Volume 2 • Alexander Hewatt

... The average share of that knowledge which is power is undoubtedly in favour of the tan boot; but the preponderant moiety is just as surely held by the blucher. In our democracy, the sum of cultivated intelligence, and corresponding sensitiveness to affront, is dangerously high, and becoming higher. On the other hand, the squatter, even if pliant by disposition, cannot spring to the strain; social usage being territorial rather than personal; so here, you see, ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy

... the king's sister, demanded quarters for his train in Dover. Strife arose, and many both of the burghers and foreigners were slain. All Godwine's better nature withstood Eadward when the king angrily bade him exact vengeance from the town for the affront to his kinsman; and he claimed a fair trial for the townsmen. But Eadward looked on his refusal as an outrage, and the quarrel widened into open strife. Godwine at once gathered his forces and marched upon Gloucester, demanding the expulsion of the foreign favourites. But even in a just quarrel ...
— History of the English People, Volume I (of 8) - Early England, 449-1071; Foreign Kings, 1071-1204; The Charter, 1204-1216 • John Richard Green

... their terms as they went along, yet being careless and contemptuous of a science in which they have no training, they would bombast out our dictionaries with monstrously invented words that not only would have made Quintilian stare and gasp, but would affront the ...
— On the Art of Writing - Lectures delivered in the University of Cambridge 1913-1914 • Arthur Quiller-Couch

... commission," replied Butzow, quietly, "I swore to protect the person of the king with my life, and while I live no man shall affront Leopold of Lutha in my presence, or threaten his safety else he accounts to me for his act. Return your sword, Captain Maenck, nor ever again draw it against the king while ...
— The Mad King • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... fear of insulting his Britannic Majesty? Is the rod of British power to be forever suspended over our heads? Does the President refuse to continue a correspondence with a minister, who violates the decorum belonging to his diplomatic character, by giving and deliberately repeating an affront to the whole nation? We are instantly menaced with the chastisement which English pride will not fail to inflict. Whether we assert our rights by sea, or attempt their maintenance by land—whithersoever we turn ourselves, this phantom incessantly pursues us. Already has it had too ...
— Jefferson and his Colleagues - A Chronicle of the Virginia Dynasty, Volume 15 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Allen Johnson

... not members of any other society of artists established in London. Under this rule, it will be noted, that engravers could not aspire to the honours of the Academy. Sir Robert Strange regarded this as a direct affront to the members of his profession, and attributed it to his well-known attachment to the Incorporated Society and hostility to the designs of the ex-Directors of that body. The provision that members of other societies were to be disqualified ...
— Art in England - Notes and Studies • Dutton Cook

... institution published their "Statutes and Rules relating to the Inspection and Use of the British Museum." This instructive document may now serve to illustrate the darkness from which, even now, we are struggling. Those visitors who now consider it rather an affront to be required to give up their cane or umbrella at the entrance to our museums and galleries, will be astonished to learn, that in the early days of the museum, those persons who wished to inspect the national collection, were required to make previous ...
— How to See the British Museum in Four Visits • W. Blanchard Jerrold

... he had seen all the baseness which he had done; and then he understood that for this cause he would not let him sit at board with the other knights who were precious in arms, but had seated him with himself, more to affront him than to do him honour, for there were other knights there better than he, and he did not show them that honour. Then resolved he in his heart to do better than he had ...
— Journeys Through Bookland - Volume Four • Charles H. Sylvester

... she was sorry to report that the authorities of Everdean, after investigation, had concluded not to engage the services of Miss Bailey as instructor. When Selma read the note her cheeks burned with resentment. She regarded the decision as an affront. Pauline dined with them on the evening of that day, and at table Selma was cold and formal. When the two women were alone, Selma said at once, ...
— Unleavened Bread • Robert Grant

... delight, when he heard that his wife was the daughter of the King of England; but greater still was the wonder of the two knights, and such their wrath that, had they been anywhere else than in the Pope's presence, they would not have spared to affront Alessandro, and perhaps the lady too. The Pope, on his part, found matter enough for wonder as well in the lady's habit as in her choice; but, knowing that he could not refuse, he consented to ...
— The Decameron, Volume I • Giovanni Boccaccio

... with this audacious address?—Reject it as a libel? Treat it as an affront to Government? Spurn it as a derogation from the rights of legislature? Did they toss it over the table? Did they burn it by the hands of the common hangman?—They took the petition of grievance, all rugged as it was, without softening or ...
— Burke's Speech on Conciliation with America • Edmund Burke

... not by the vagaries of political expediency but by the firmest principles and convictions. Slanted partisan appeals to American workers, spoken as if they were a group apart, necessitating a special language and treatment, are an affront to the fullness of ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various

... calm, imperturbable quiet, which pervades all their actions and habits, from the greatest to the least. They eat in quiet, move in quiet, live in quiet, and lose their wife, or even their money in quiet; while others cannot take up either a spoon, or an affront, without making such an amazing ...
— Life and Literature - Over two thousand extracts from ancient and modern writers, - and classified in alphabetical order • J. Purver Richardson

... chases her or holds at bay, Smites her and venges many a foul affront, Counsels the paladin, without delay, To take the road which scales the neighbouring mount: He took that proffered counsel and that way, And without stop, or turning back his front, Pricked furiously till he was ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto

... I not have met a dozen of them on my road from Tapah? And besides, who could say that the one I had seen was really gone towards my home? It would indeed have proved a curious predilection, especially after the affront just received! ...
— My Friends the Savages - Notes and Observations of a Perak settler (Malay Peninsula) • Giovanni Battista Cerruti

... with food, and informs his daughter, that she must, that night, receive him as her husband. The stranger, however, must not offer to express the least dislike, though the bed-fellow allotted to him should be ever so disagreeable; for this is considered as an unpardonable affront, and is punished with death. Forty men of Bolabola, who, incited by curiosity, had roamed as far as Mataeeva in a canoe, were treated in this manner; one of them having incautiously mentioned his dislike of the woman ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 16 • Robert Kerr

... mixes his constructions, which, though it may delight his lovers, compels some little caution in introducing him, haply, to new readers, whom such a paragraph as that which begins 'When I remember' on page 213 might easily affront. But he certainly improved his style by constant practice, and the handful of his prefaces and epilogues here printed do not lack literary charm, while the information they give of the man, his character, his enthusiasms, ...
— Fifteenth Century Prose and Verse • Various

... warrior! whose hearts have always vibrated with those of your companions in arms! consult them to-day to know what they experience; recollect at the same time, that if magnanimous souls with liveliness resent an affront, they also know how to forget one. Let your government return to itself, and you will still find in Frenchmen faithful ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 5 (of 5) • John Marshall

... should I refer, Master Jocelyn," Wolfe rejoined, "but to my lord of Buckingham, whom you wantonly insulted? For the latter indiscretion there can be no excuse, whatever there may be for the former; and it was simple madness to affront a nobleman of his exalted rank, second only in authority to ...
— The Star-Chamber, Volume 1 - An Historical Romance • W. Harrison Ainsworth

... that Mrs. Polwhele didn't understand his insolence. Being a woman that wouldn't hurt a fly if she could help it, and coming from a parish where every man, her husband included, took pleasure in treating her respectfully, she never dreamed that an affront was meant. From the moment she heard Bligh's lingo, she firmly believed that here were two Frenchies on the coach; and first she went white to the lips and shivered all over, and then she caught at the seat to steady herself, and then she flung back a look at Jim the Guard, to make ...
— News from the Duchy • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... prolong thy continuance, have patience till I acquaint my lord her parent, and thou shalt wed her in the way of consent, for it befitteth thee not, neither is it seemly for thee, to seize her on this wise, seeing that it will be an affront to her father an if thou take her without his knowledge." Quoth Azadbakht, I have not patience to wait till thou repair to her sire and return, and no shame will betide him, if I marry her." And quoth the eunuch, "O my lord, naught that in haste is done long endureth nor doth the heart rejoice ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton

... the quick at so unprovoked and unpremeditated an affront, I accosted him severely through the bars of the wicket, demanding sarcastically, "Is this your ...
— Baboo Jabberjee, B.A. • F. Anstey



Words linked to "Affront" :   scandalization, discourtesy, outrage, bruise, hurt, diss, offense, spite, scandalisation, indignity, injure, wound, offence, offensive activity, offend, insult



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