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Askance   /əskˈæns/   Listen
Askance

adjective
1.
(used especially of glances) directed to one side with or as if with doubt or suspicion or envy.  Synonyms: askant, asquint, sidelong, squint, squint-eyed, squinty.  "Sidelong glances"






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Askance" Quotes from Famous Books



... so heavy that he would have preferred for the time being a complete solitude to the best of company. But any company would have been preferable to the doctor's, at whom he had always looked askance as a sort of beachcomber of superior intelligence partly reclaimed from his abased state. That feeling led him ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad

... not without its disadvantage. Vaguely he felt that in some subtle way he was gaining the disapproval of his fellows. Men were apt to look at him askance, half doubtful, half-indignant. They tread on his toes in the Elevated. His work, too, was going to pot; he could not stick to his figures. His chief, an old fragile-necked book-keeper, had spoken to ...
— The Trimming of Goosie • James Hopper

... askance at him. If he was upon one side of the street the respectable part of the world made it convenient to pass by on the other side. He even found his relations with his philosophical acquaintance 'much restricted.' 'Most of the members of the Royal Society shunned ...
— The Bibliotaph - and Other People • Leon H. Vincent

... son, looking askance, as if dodging the bailiffs. "No, mother; I wanted nothing but what was fair. Mr. Denbigh would have had an equal chance to blow out my brains; I am sure everything would have ...
— Precaution • James Fenimore Cooper

... lunch counter. It was clear that he was not favorably impressed with these new customers, who were muddy, wet and bedraggled, from their long chase of the afternoon and evening. But do not make a mistake; it was not their character, which Fritz Scheff viewed askance; they might be cutthroats and villains of the deepest dye, and it would not worry him any in the least. But could they pay? that was ...
— Frontier Boys in Frisco • Wyn Roosevelt

... shingles on his roof, had bleached the crude blue of his jumper and overalls. His sombrero might have belonged to a veteran cowboy. Jim wore it with a rakish list to port, and round his neck fluttered a small, white silk handkerchief. He looked askance at our English breeches and saddles. Then he said pleasantly, "I've taken out my ...
— Bunch Grass - A Chronicle of Life on a Cattle Ranch • Horace Annesley Vachell

... Note replied (Lying crumpled by his side), "Shame, shame, it is yourself that roam, Sir— "One cannot look askance, "But, whip! you're off to France, "Leaving nothing but ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al

... looks askance at teas in these days, but in hot weather, when luncheon is reduced to the lowest common denominator and dinner resolves itself into a cold collation in the cool of the evening, some refreshment between our second and third meals is indispensable. I accordingly give two recipes ...
— Punch, 1917.07.04, Vol. 153, Issue No. 1 • Various

... unbind, Sends all her handmaid armies back to spin, And bids her navies, that so lately hurled Their crashing battle, hold their thunders in, Swimming like birds of calm along the unharmful shore. 400 No challenge sends she to the elder world, That looked askance and hated; a light scorn Plays o'er her mouth, as round her mighty knees She calls her children back, and waits the morn Of nobler day, enthroned between her ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell

... he made poor point dance on his nimble young pins, As a ball flew askance and came full on his shins; How he kept the two scorers both working like niggers At putting down runs and at adding up figures; How he kept all the field in profuse perspiration With rushing and racing and wild agitation,— Why, Diana and Nimrod, or both rolled together, Never hunted the stag ...
— Successful Recitations • Various

... true I have gone here and there, And made myself a motley to the view; Gor'd mine own thoughts, sold cheap what is most dear, Made old offences of affections new: Most true it is, that I have look'd on truth Askance and strangely. ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson

... breaking off from time to time to compliment me on my labours, the sum of which appeared to affect him with a degree of wonder not far short of awe. "But why are you doing it? Perche? perche?" he broke off once or twice to ask, eyeing me askance with a ...
— Sir John Constantine • Prosper Paleologus Constantine

... to look askance on S.S. Never suspected him of being a man of that kind. Glad when painful discussion came to end. Bill read Second Time; but jubilation of promoters suddenly chilled by TIM HEALY, of whom no one was thinking at the moment, stepping in and adroitly putting spoke in wheel ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 102, May 21, 1892 • Various

... low head and crest, just one sharp ear bent back For my voice, and the other pricked out on his track; And one eye's black intelligence,—ever that glance O'er its white edge at me, his own master, askance! And the thick, heavy spume-flakes which aye and anon His fierce lips ...
— Poems Every Child Should Know - The What-Every-Child-Should-Know-Library • Various

... close were confidently connected with them. The most learned scientists observed the stars and cast horoscopes: Cardan, for instance, published a collection of the horoscopes of great men. The Church looked askance on astrology, suspecting it of connexion with forbidden arts; but it could not check the observance of lucky days and the warnings of the heavens. Even a Pope himself, Julius II, deferred his coronation until the stars were ...
— The Age of Erasmus - Lectures Delivered in the Universities of Oxford and London • P. S. Allen

... note, tend to be perpetuated in the female line. The sovereign profession among bees and ants is always female, and publicans also descend on the distaff side. You will have noticed that every publican has three daughters of extraordinary charms. Lacking these signs we would do well to look askance at such a man's liquor, divining that in his brew there will be an undue percentage of water, for if his primogeniture is infected how ...
— The Crock of Gold • James Stephens

... the past is now marriage, with discreet hints about the birth-rate. The praiser of the past is going to have a magnificent time with the subject of marriage. The first moanings of the tempest have already been heard. Bishops have looked askance at the birth-rate, and have mentioned their displeasure. The matter is serious. As the phrase goes, "it strikes at the root." We are marrying later, my friends. Some of us, in the hurry and pre-occupation of business, are quite forgetting to marry. It is the duty of the ...
— Mental Efficiency - And Other Hints to Men and Women • Arnold Bennett

... in, and endless lives to try with, produce all the varieties of vertebrate animals out of one single common ancestor? It was a bold idea of the Lichfield doctor—bold, at least, for the times he lived in—when Sam Johnson was held a mighty sage, and physical speculation was regarded askance as having in it a dangerous touch of the devil. But the Darwins were always a bold folk, and had the courage of their opinions more than most men. So even in Lichfield, cathedral city as it was, and in the politely ...
— Falling in Love - With Other Essays on More Exact Branches of Science • Grant Allen

... we said, "how goes it?" but the Sergeant looked askance; Not for him the mazy phalanx or the military dance; He could only sit and suffer, with a most portentous frown, While a crowd of little gipsies turned the whole thing ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Apr 2, 1919 • Various

... at him askance as he munched the last morsel and drained the last drops—"this boor probably understood the biting taunt in my words... and no doubt he has read the manuscript with eagerness; he is simply lying with some object. But possibly he is not lying and ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky

... mair," said Cluny, and pointed me to a bed of heather in a corner of the Cage. For all that he was displeased enough, looked at me askance, and grumbled when he looked. And indeed it must be owned that both my scruples and the words in which I declared them, smacked somewhat of the Covenanter, and were little in their place ...
— Kidnapped • Robert Louis Stevenson

... askance at me. Nobody ever did that to me before and lived to tell the tale. But her sex made me overlook it. Had she been any other sex that I can think of, I would have resented it. But I would not strike a woman, especially ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye

... by some mischance Davy Junk was fitted out with red hair, a bony face, lean, gray lips, an' sharp an' shifty little eyes. He'd a sly way, too, o' smoothin' his restless lips, an' a mean habit o' lookin' askance an' talkin' in whispers. But 'twas his eyes that startled a stranger. Ah-ha, they was queer little eyes, sot deep in a cramped face, an' close as evil company, each peekin' out in distrust o' the world; as though, ecod, the world ...
— Harbor Tales Down North - With an Appreciation by Wilfred T. Grenfell, M.D. • Norman Duncan

... difficult for her. Opening her eyes wide she looked at her son, and he seemed to her new, as if a stranger. His voice was different, lower, deeper, more sonorous. He pinched his thin, downy mustache, and looked oddly askance into the corner. She grew anxious for her son and ...
— Mother • Maxim Gorky

... I've forgotten," replied Uncle Dozie, taking a look askance at the title, as it half-projected from his pocket. "It's Coleridge's Ancient Mariner," ...
— Elinor Wyllys - Vol. I • Susan Fenimore Cooper

... whole is, and ever has been eminently conservative, and this fact, in connection with its traditional predilection for drugs causes its members to resolutely set their faces against any remedial process that runs counter to the theories they imbibed at college. They look askance at all such things and regard them as dangerous experiments, and assert that their dignity will not permit them to recognize any irregular practice, or any form ...
— The Royal Road to Health • Chas. A. Tyrrell

... in the pockets of the coat like an amateur pickpocket, and found some letters. He gazed at them askance, turning them over and over, wondering if he ought to peep at their contents. Then he put them back, and went into the smoking-room, where, finding himself alone, he turned up his vest as if it had ...
— Double Trouble - Or, Every Hero His Own Villain • Herbert Quick

... claret, I glanced askance at my neighbors; on my left sat my cousin Dorothy Varick, frankly absorbed in a roasted pigeon, yet wielding knife and fork with much grace and address; on my right Magdalen Brant, step-cousin to Sir John, a lovely, soft-voiced girl, with velvety eyes and the faintest dusky ...
— The Maid-At-Arms • Robert W. Chambers

... Smiled with superiour love, as Jupiter On Juno smiles, when he impregns the clouds That shed Mayflowers; and pressed her matron lip With kisses pure: Aside the Devil turned For envy; yet with jealous leer malign Eyed them askance, and to himself thus plained. Sight hateful, sight tormenting! thus these two, Imparadised in one another's arms, The happier Eden, shall enjoy their fill Of bliss on bliss; while I to Hell am thrust, ...
— Paradise Lost • John Milton

... vagueness, and begun to lead us in a perfectly definite direction, let us examine the statements of Hester Dyett. Now, it is immediately comprehensible to me that the evidence of this woman at the public examinations was looked at askance. There can be no doubt that she is a poor specimen of humanity, an undesirable servant, a peering, hysterical caricature of a woman. Her statements, if formally recorded, were not believed; or if believed, were believed with only half the mind. No attempt was made to deduce anything from them. ...
— Prince Zaleski • M.P. Shiel

... chambered depths of the Great Pyramid I had known something of such silence—but never such intensity as this. Larry felt it and I saw him look at me askance. If Olaf, sitting in the bow, felt it, too, he gave no sign; his blue eyes, with again the glint of ice within them, watched the ...
— The Moon Pool • A. Merritt

... to woo, Ha, ha, the wooing o't, On blythe Yule night when we were fou, [drunk] Ha, ha, the wooing o't. Maggie coost her head fu' heigh, [cast, high] Look'd asklent and unco skeigh, [askance, very skittish] Gart poor Duncan stand abeigh; [Made, aloof] Ha, ha, ...
— Robert Burns - How To Know Him • William Allan Neilson

... erotic appeal to the senses is the chief reason why the church has generally taken a hostile attitude. For a long while the dance was denounced as irreligious and sinful on account of Salome's blasphemous dancing. Certainly the rigid guardians of morality always look askance on the contact of the sexes in the ballroom. To be sure, the standards are relative. What appeared to one period the climax of immorality may be considered quite natural and harmless in another. ...
— Psychology and Social Sanity • Hugo Muensterberg

... can really have no notion how delightful it will be When they take us up and throw us, with the lobsters, out to sea!" But the snail replied, "Too far, too far!" and gave a look askance— Said he thanked the whiting kindly, but he would not join the dance. Would not, could not, would not, could not, would not join the dance, Would not, could not, would not, could not, ...
— Childhood's Favorites and Fairy Stories - The Young Folks Treasury, Volume 1 • Various

... were suppressed and Fichte himself looked upon askance. The Schlegels spent a lifetime in giving Germany a translation of Shakespeare. Hegel wrote the last words of his philosophy to the sound of the guns at the battle of Jena. Goethe writes a paragraph about ...
— Germany and the Germans - From an American Point of View (1913) • Price Collier

... odds I will stand, A hundred to one is the odds you command; Here's a handful of goldfinches ready to fly! May I venture a foot in my stirrup to try?" As he carelessly spoke, Dick directed a glance At his courser, and motioned her slyly askance:— You might tell by the singular toss of her head, And the prick of her ears, that his ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth

... that little affair is settled forever?" he said, working both hands about the head of his cane, while he eyed the girl askance. ...
— The Old Countess; or, The Two Proposals • Ann S. Stephens

... white men (now no longer white!) to the hut of the chief. Bukawanga was received somewhat coldly at first. The chief, a large, fine-looking old man, named Thackombau, with an enormous head of frizzled hair, looked askance at the newcomers, and was evidently disposed to be unfriendly. Observing this, and that the warriors around him scowled on them in a peculiarly savage manner, most of the prisoners felt that their lives ...
— Sunk at Sea • R.M. Ballantyne

... bid his Angels turn askance The poles of Earth twice ten degrees and more From the Sun's axle; they with labour pushed Oblique the centric globe: some say the Sun Was bid turn reins from the equinoctial road Like distant breadth—to Taurus with the seven Atlantic Sisters, and the Spartan Twins, Up to the ...
— The Astronomy of Milton's 'Paradise Lost' • Thomas Orchard

... anxious to persuade everybody that he had received from her a kind of bloom of youth. Accordingly he used also to carry about a carven image of her in full armor and he made her name his watchword in almost all the greatest dangers. The looseness of his girdle[103] Sulla had looked askance at, insomuch that he wished to kill him, and declared to those who begged him off: "Well, I will grant him to you, but do you be on your guard, without fail, against this ill-girt fellow." Cicero could not comprehend it, but even in the moment of defeat said: "I should never ...
— Dio's Rome • Cassius Dio

... fast upon him, the magister, clasping his gown upon his shins, looked askance at the floor. Whilst they made ready the bride, with great lights and laughter, ...
— Privy Seal - His Last Venture • Ford Madox Ford

... Mr. Gladstone, 'with observing yesterday the differences of countenance and manner in the ministers whom I met on my ride. Ellice (their friend) would not look at me at all. Charles Wood looked but askance and with the hat over the brow. Grey shouted, "Wish you joy!" Lord Howick gave a remarkably civil and smiling nod; and Morpeth a hand salute with all his might, as we crossed in riding. On Monday night after the division, Peel said ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley

... to calm: They see the green trees wave On the heights o'erlooking Greve. Hearts that bled are stanched with balm. "Just our rapture to enhance, Let the English rake the bay, Gnash their teeth and glare askance, As they cannonade away! 'Neath rampired Solidor pleasant riding on the Rance!" How hope succeeds despair on each captain's countenance! Out burst all with one accord, "This is Paradise for Hell! Let France, let France's King Thank the man that did the thing!" What a shout, and all one word, "Herve ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 8 • Charles H. Sylvester

... the triumph of all the various modes of the power of the pipe, tamed, ruled, united. Only, on the painted shutters of the organ-case Apollo with his lyre in his hand, as lord of the strings, seemed to look askance on the music of the reed, in all the jealousy with which he put Marsyas to death ...
— Imaginary Portraits • Walter Horatio Pater

... Can there ever be any progress in this world to amount to anything until we have liberty? The thoughts of a man who is not free are not worth much. A man who thinks with the club of a creed above his head—a man who thinks casting his eye askance at the flames of hell, is not apt to have very good thoughts. And for my part, I would not care to have any status or social position even in heaven if I had to admit that I never would have been there only I got scared. When we are frightened we do not think ...
— Lectures of Col. R. G. Ingersoll - Latest • Robert Green Ingersoll

... debtor who stays away is but the more remarked, and the boarder who misses a meal is sure to be accused of infidelity. On the fourth day, therefore, I returned, inwardly quaking. The proprietor looked askance upon my entrance; the waitresses (who were his daughters) neglected my wants and sniffed at the affected joviality of my salutations; last and most plain, when I called for a suisse (such as was being served to all the other diners) I was bluntly told there ...
— The Wrecker • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne

... two disciples of the Muse is Jonson's 'gally ink' directed. Let us give a few instances of the lampoons and calumnious squibs by which Horace pretends having been insulted on the part of envious colleagues who, he maintains, look askance at him because 'he keeps more worthy gallants' company' than they can get into. In act iv. ...
— Shakspere And Montaigne • Jacob Feis

... but lifted their heads and stared appealingly. He raised each in turn. As they once more looked upon his full magnificence, they were about to prostrate themselves again when they caught sight of the Indians. Those dark stolid faces, even that gay attire, they could understand. Glancing askance at the priest, they drew near to their fellow-beings, touched their hands to the strangers' breasts, and ...
— The Splendid Idle Forties - Stories of Old California • Gertrude Atherton

... bridge on to firm land again. At that instant, as it seemed to him, the air was chilled and, looking askance towards the water, he saw a flying squall darkening and crisping suddenly the tide. A faint click at his heart, a faint throb in his throat told him once more of how his flesh dreaded the cold infrahuman odour of the sea; yet he did not strike across the downs on his left ...
— A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man • James Joyce

... festival used to be celebrated as follows. A quantity of straw was collected on the top of the steep Stromberg Hill. Every inhabitant, or at least every householder, had to contribute his share of straw to the pile; a recusant was looked at askance, and if in the course of the year he happened to break a leg or lose a child, there was not a gossip in the village but knew the reason why. At nightfall the whole male population, men and boys, ...
— Balder The Beautiful, Vol. I. • Sir James George Frazer

... could not with any show of decency be kept in my office, nor could I be dismissed without some more valid excuse, I could neither continue to reside in Milan with safety, nor could I depart therefrom. As I walked about the city men looked askance at me; and whenever I might be forced to exchange words with any one, I felt that I was a disgraced man. Thus, being conscious that my company was unacceptable, I shunned my friends. I had no notion what I should do, or whither I should go. I cannot say ...
— Jerome Cardan - A Biographical Study • William George Waters

... reputation was confined to New Jersey, his home state, was nominated for the vice-presidency. The platform and the candidate were generally hailed with favor in the East. To be sure, critical newspapers were inclined to look askance upon McKinley's past. The New York Evening Post, for example, favored a gold standard but decried the candidate's "absence of settled convictions about leading questions of the day, and his want of clear knowledge ...
— The United States Since The Civil War • Charles Ramsdell Lingley

... the others to fail to take the initiative. President Woodruff blinked, somewhat bewildered, looking at my hand as if the sight of its emptiness and the assumption of what it held, confused him. Joseph F. Smith, frowning, eyed it askance with a darting glance, apparently annoyed by the mute insolence of its demand for a decision which he was not prepared ...
— Under the Prophet in Utah - The National Menace of a Political Priestcraft • Frank J. Cannon and Harvey J. O'Higgins

... vessels rated A1 at Lloyd's. 'Lloyd's,' as every one knows, is the central controlling body for most of the marine insurance of the world, and its headquarters are in London. There were very few foreign 'Lloyd's' then, and no colonial; so it was a serious matter when the {78} English Lloyd's looked askance at anything not built of oak. Canada tried her own oak; but it was outclassed by the more slowly growing and sounder English oak. Canada then fell back on tamarac, or 'hackmatac,' as builders called it. This was much more buoyant ...
— All Afloat - A Chronicle of Craft and Waterways • William Wood

... frightened, for such a thing as a footstep approaching their door at so late an hour was seldom heard, for at Garthowen they all retired early, and the cottagers in the village below avoided Sara as something uncanny, and looked askance even at Morva, who seemed not to have much in common with the ...
— Garthowen - A Story of a Welsh Homestead • Allen Raine

... Salvation looked askance at Buck and then at the others. "Mebby," he began, "Mebby we kin git a job on th' Bar-20." Then turning to Buck again he bluntly asked, "Are yu short ...
— Hopalong Cassidy's Rustler Round-Up - Bar-20 • Clarence Edward Mulford

... his well-meant advice had been met. After crossing the river and leaving Fort Ontario behind them, they plunged into the apparently trackless forest, and for some time neither of them spoke a word. Boulanger strode on, eyeing his companion askance, and possibly speculating whether the fine gentleman who had treated him so superciliously would not very soon be forced to give in, and perhaps commit to him the task of proceeding alone to their intended destination. Isidore ...
— The King's Warrant - A Story of Old and New France • Alfred H. Engelbach

... Nina Putnam, her great-granddaughter; the unbroken succession of matriarchs continued, but times the old woman thought that in Simone it was weakened, and she looked at the four-year-old Nina askance, waiting, ...
— The Putnam Tradition • Sonya Hess Dorman

... bright eyes, With blushing cheek and courtesy fine 575 She turned her from Sir Leoline; Softly gathering up her train, That o'er her right arm fell again; And folded her arms across her chest, And couched her head upon her breast, 580 And looked askance at Christabel— Jesu, Maria, ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge

... set down his tumbler, and looked at me askance, while you might count seven, without ...
— A Stable for Nightmares - or Weird Tales • J. Sheridan Le Fanu

... after vainly attitudinising in front of a chained watch-dog, which was lazily gnawing a bone, and after fruitlessly endeavouring to divert his attention by dancing before him, with head awry and eye askance, at length flew away for a moment, and returned bringing with it a companion who perched itself on a branch a few yards in the rear. The crow's grimaces were now actively renewed, but with no better result, till its confederate, poising himself on his wings, ...
— Ceylon; an Account of the Island Physical, Historical, and • James Emerson Tennent

... She did pass by me; She looked another way And would not spy me: I wooed her for to dine, But could not get her; Will had her to the wine— He might entreat her. With Daniel she did dance, On me she looked askance: O thrice unhappy chance! Phillada ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 2 (of 4) • Various

... meeting askance, as it were, another disintegrating force was called into operation: the moment Letty knew she could not tell Godfrey, and that therefore a wall had arisen between him and her, that moment woke in her the desire, as she had never felt it ...
— Mary Marston • George MacDonald

... storm subsides to calm: They see the green trees wave On the heights o'erlooking Greve. Hearts that bled are stanch'd with balm. "Just our rapture to enhance, Let the English rake the bay, Gnash their teeth and glare askance As they cannonade away! 'Neath rampired Solidor pleasant riding on the Rance!" Now hope succeeds despair on each captain's countenance! Out burst all with one accord, "This is Paradise for Hell! Let France, let France's king, Thank the man that did the thing!" What ...
— The Ontario Readers: The High School Reader, 1886 • Ministry of Education

... forefathers. It was called Lycopersicum— a compound term meaning wolf and peach; indicating that, notwithstanding its beauty, it was regarded as a sort of "Dead Sea fruit." The Italians first dared to use it freely; the French followed; and after eying it askance as a novelty for unknown years, John Bull ventured to taste, and having survived, began to eat with increasing gusto. To our grandmothers in this land the ruby fruit was given as "love-apples," which, adorning quaint ...
— The Home Acre • E. P. Roe

... to be chiefly a source of difficulties and discomforts. The Duke, declaring that he was still too poor to live in England, moved about with uneasy precision through Belgium and Germany, attending parades and inspecting barracks in a neat military cap, while the English notabilities looked askance, and the Duke of Wellington dubbed him the Corporal. "God damme!" he exclaimed to Mr. Creevey, "d'ye know what his sisters call him? By God! they call him Joseph Surface!" At Valenciennes, where there was a review and a great dinner, the Duchess arrived with an old and ugly lady-in-waiting, ...
— Queen Victoria • Lytton Strachey

... showed the whites of their eyes in a way I've never seen before. I actually had to whistle to them sharply several times before they came, and then it was in a slinking manner, taking good care to put Ethne and me between themselves and Moeran, and looking askance at him the ...
— Uncanny Tales • Various

... the mere possession of a pipe might be looked at askance. Robertson's comedy "Society" was produced in 1865, and in it, Tom Stylus, a somewhat Bohemian journalist, has the misfortune, in a fashionable ball-room, when pulling out his handkerchief to bring out his pipe with it from his pocket. ...
— The Social History of Smoking • G. L. Apperson

... Both of her Beauty and submissive Charms Smil'd with superior Love, as Jupiter On Juno smiles, when he impregns the Clouds 500 That shed May Flowers; and press'd her Matron lip With kisses pure: aside the Devil turnd For envie, yet with jealous leer maligne Ey'd them askance, and to himself thus plaind. Sight hateful, sight tormenting! thus these two Imparadis't in one anothers arms The happier Eden, shall enjoy thir fill Of bliss on bliss, while I to Hell am thrust, Where neither joy nor ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton

... extinct, had it not been for fresh supplies of Saxon, Teuton, Spanish, and Italian blood. It is, in fact, the inter-marriages that have kept the falsely so-called pure races of these human parasites alive. The mixing is continually going on. The gipsies who still stay in their tents, however, look askance upon those who desert them for the roof. Two gipsy women, thorough-bred, came into a village shop and bought a variety of groceries, ending with a pound of biscuits and a Guy Fawkes mask for a boy. ...
— Field and Hedgerow • Richard Jefferies

... Bhimasena, that prince who is our leader, who is the foremost in fight,—even like the wielder of the thunder-bolt—the one enemy of the Danavas,—the high-souled one with leonine neck and arched eye-brows and eyes looking askance, who is incapable of putting up with an insult, who hath no equal in might in the world, who is the foremost of all wielders of the mace, and ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Part 2 • Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa

... this darned old bar fer ten years, an' I guess for five of 'em I've listened to talk like yours—from fellers like you." He removed the bottle from which the three men had helped themselves to liberal "four fingers," and eyed their glasses askance. "Now, you're worritin' over this lousy Lightfoot gang. So was the others. So's everybody bin fer five years. An' fer five years this same lousy Lightfoot gang has just been helpin' 'emselves to the cattle on the ranches around here—liberal. ...
— The Forfeit • Ridgwell Cullum

... often determined the proper time for bleeding and notations have been found in an early American Bible recommending the days to, and not to, bleed. Although medicine today looks askance at astrological medicine and bloodletting, it remains difficult to explain the widespread popularity of such practices unless the patients enjoyed some beneficial ...
— Medicine in Virginia, 1607-1699 • Thomas P. Hughes

... have done before, the proprietor of a small department store on upper Third Avenue let me show him my samples. My prices made an impression on him. My cloaks were five dollars apiece lower than he was in the habit of paying. He looked askance at me, as though my figures seemed too good to be true, until I found it the best policy to tell him ...
— The Rise of David Levinsky • Abraham Cahan

... terms. The grantees in their turn settled these holdings in fee tail on the oldest son in accordance with the law of primogeniture. This produced a class described by Jefferson who said: "There were then aristocrats, half-breeds, pretenders, a solid independent yeomanry, looking askance at those above, yet not venturing to jostle them, and last and lowest, a seculum of beings called overseers, the most abject, degraded and unprincipled race, always cap in hand to the Dons who employed them for furnishing material for ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Vol. I. Jan. 1916 • Various

... of art, what significance has this? None. There is no reason why it should not have been in nine or eleven parts; no reason why, having been demonstrated in twelve, it should not have been expanded through fifteen or twenty. Poetry ever looks askance at that ...
— Life of Robert Browning • William Sharp

... his mouth half open, wrapped in a shabby overcoat. He looked very mean; and when he awoke it was only one long wail on his hard luck. He couldn't get any work. People had a prejudice against him; they looked at him askance. He had a great desire ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various

... as the most extraordinary thing that had happened in his day.[5] There is abundant evidence that the people of the eighteenth century were extremely credulous, yet, in literature, there is a tendency to look askance at the supernatural as at something wild and barbaric. Such ghosts as presume to steal into poetry are amazingly tame, and even elegant, in their speech and deportment. In Mallet's William and Margaret (1759). which was founded on a scrap of an old ballad out of The Knight of the Burning Pestle, ...
— The Tale of Terror • Edith Birkhead

... necessities of life so that he might not starve. In London, where he spent his latest days, he was secure from danger, yet still a sort of persecution seemed to follow him. For some time, nothing that he wrote could find a printer. Wherever he went, people looked at him askance. He and his six children lived upon the sum of five dollars a week, which was paid him by the New York Tribune, through the influence of the late Charles A. Dana. When his last child was born, and the mother's life was in serious ...
— Famous Affinities of History, Vol 1-4, Complete - The Romance of Devotion • Lyndon Orr

... roan was not chosen in any of the strings, but was left always circling in the corral after a loop had settled. That is why the Flying U boys looked at him askance as they passed him by. That is why, when a certain Mr. Coleman, sent by the board of directors to rake northern Montana for bad horses, looked with favor upon the blue roan when he came to the Flying U ranch ...
— The Happy Family • Bertha Muzzy Bower

... understand the hidden meaning of the order, Adrian looks at his lady askance, to find that, with eyes closed upon the sight of the grinning faces, she is whispering prayers and fervently crossing herself. When she turns to him again her face is ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle

... till he had carved three trees, a plesiosaurus, four kinds of fish, a star-shaped rock, eleven different varieties of flowering shrub, and a more or less lifelike representation of a mammoth surprised while bathing. It is little wonder that the youth of the period, ever impetuous, looked askance at this method of revealing their passion, and preferred to give proof of their sincerity and fervour by waiting for the lady of their affections behind a rock and stunning ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, January 7, 1914 • Various

... museum which seemed to help her. She liked the perfect stillness, she liked the presence of all the books. Above all, too, she liked the consciousness of possession. There was no narrow exclusiveness about this place, no one could look askance at her here. The place belonged to the people, and therefore belonged to her; she heretic and atheist as she was had as much share in the ownership as the highest in the land. She had her own peculiar nook over by the encyclopedias, and, being always an early ...
— We Two • Edna Lyall

... never look askance at me for the matter; I'll tell you of it, I, sir; you and your companions mend yourselves ...
— Every Man In His Humor - (The Anglicized Edition) • Ben Jonson

... friendly Power; with our pro forma despatches still being despatched while our real messages are frightened; attempting to weather a storm which the Chinese Government is powerless to arrest. The very passers-by are becoming sheep-eyed and are looking at us askance. ...
— Indiscreet Letters From Peking • B. L. Putman Weale

... mass, moved hither and thither without reference to my desires or efforts; and I resented the restoration of independence. Strange contradiction! We crave and struggle for individuality; here was mine restored to me, and I looked at it askance. The tail of the column disappeared round a bend in the road. Was this indeed the ...
— The Relief of Mafeking • Filson Young

... peaceful, Sunday street we went—small boys following in a curious horde, and Sunday worshippers with their women's gloved hands tucked in timidly under their arms as we passed by. They gave us prim, askance glances, as if we belonged to a different species of ...
— Tramping on Life - An Autobiographical Narrative • Harry Kemp

... replied that Koerner was an ardent German poet whose songs inspired his countrymen to resist the aggressions of Napoleon, and that his bound poems were found in the most respectable libraries, he looked at me rather askance and I then and there had my first intimation that to treat a Chicago man, who is called an anarchist, as you would treat any other citizen, is to lay yourself open ...
— Twenty Years At Hull House • Jane Addams

... attribute trickiness to others. Massin therefore looked askance at Monsieur Bongrand, the justice of the peace, who was at that moment talking near the door of the church with the Marquis du Rouvre, ...
— Ursula • Honore de Balzac

... the name of Virasaiva Brahmans, Kshatriyas, etc., and did not admit that caste distinctions are obliterated among them. Similarly though the remarriage of widows is not forbidden there is a growing tendency to look at it askance. ...
— Hinduism And Buddhism, Volume II. (of 3) - An Historical Sketch • Charles Eliot

... talking with the sexton as he hesitatingly mounted the granite steps, and he saw that dignified functionary, who seemed in some way made to order with the church over which he presided, eye him askance while he lent an ear to what was evidently a bit of his history. Walking quietly but firmly up to the official, ...
— A Knight Of The Nineteenth Century • E. P. Roe

... one of his contemporaries, he had "avoided the snares of infidelity" hitherto, but his religion had been of a conventional type. During the child's illness he underwent an old-fashioned religious conversion. The miracle has happened before, to greater men, and the world has always looked askance. Boston in 1863, and later, ...
— The Story of Wellesley • Florence Converse

... flashed. "If it wasn't for the prospecting!" she exclaimed, in sudden anger. "My father was a prospector—and there was never a better man lived than he! Why is it that everyone looks askance at a prospector? You talk like the people back home! But, I'll show you all. My father made a strike. He told me of it on his death-bed, and he gave me the map, and the photographs and his samples. Maybe when I locate ...
— The Gold Girl • James B. Hendryx

... sunbright lie whose name was France Arose against the sun of truth, whose glance Laughed large from the eyes of England, fierce as fire Whence eyes wax blind that gaze on truth askance. ...
— A Channel Passage and Other Poems - Taken from The Collected Poetical Works of Algernon Charles - Swinburne—Vol VI • Algernon Charles Swinburne

... gobbled aloud, Till he gathered around him a babbling crowd; When each proud neck in the whole doomed group Was poked with a condescending stoop, And a pointed beak, at the prostrate Bat, Which they eyed askance, as to ask, "What's that?" But none could tell; and the poults moved off, In their select circle to ...
— The Youth's Coronal • Hannah Flagg Gould

... miles and miles away. The river, more muddy than ever, moves languidly in its deep channel. There is a Boer laager some miles above the camp, the scourings of which—horrid thought!—are constantly brought down to us. The soldiers eye the infected current askance and call it Boervril. Its effect is seen in the ...
— With Rimington • L. March Phillipps

... man pointed to another corner of the room; whither Chichikov and Manilov next directed their steps. As they advanced, Ivan Antonovitch cast an eye backwards and viewed them askance. Then, with renewed ardour, he resumed his ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol

... and sure enough, there is the little object in a nook of warm bronze light, with his paws to his whiskered face, cracking nuts, one after another, as fast as possible. But he stops, with his paws still uplifted, looks askance for a moment, and away he shoots then through the "brush-fence" at our side like ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 3 September 1848 • Various

... this is "a very dangerous man;" and with a heart on which brooding has written with its biting stylus the story of what he believes to be his wrongs, Jean Valjean, bitter as gall against society, has his hands ready, aye, eager, to strike, no matter whom. Looked at askance, turned from the hostel, denied courtesy, food, and shelter, the criminal in him rushes to the ascendant, and he thrusts the door of the bishop's house open. Listen, he is speaking now, look at him! The bishop deals with him tenderly, ...
— A Hero and Some Other Folks • William A. Quayle

... tolerate them," said she. "Sometimes they look askance at them when they meet, and try to show their superiority as being obedient, full-blooded, genuine slaves, while the others are only lukewarm servants of ...
— Dickey Downy - The Autobiography of a Bird • Virginia Sharpe Patterson

... was shown her, without turning her head she looked askance at the onlookers and rather enjoyed it. She also enjoyed the comparatively pure spring air, but the walking on the cobblestones was painful to her feet, unused as they were to walking, and shod in clumsy prison shoes. She looked at her feet ...
— The Awakening - The Resurrection • Leo Nikoleyevich Tolstoy

... wife live in a house which they built on the shore of the lake. It is a settled thing that David and his sister dine with them every Sunday. Mrs. Bixbee at first looked a little askance at the wine on the table, but she does not object to it now. Being a "son o' temp'rence," she has never been induced to taste any champagne, but on one occasion she was persuaded to take the smallest sip of claret. "Wa'al," she remarked with a wry face, "I guess the' can't ...
— David Harum - A Story of American Life • Edward Noyes Westcott

... noble-looking young fellow with the vindictive ferocity of an enraged bull, who feels a disposition to injure you, but is restrained by terror; or, which is quite as appropriate, a cowardly but vindictive mastiff, who eyes you askance, growls, shows his teeth, but has not the courage to ...
— Willy Reilly - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton

... is a Levantine) that she would never have a child, and was forbidden the house accordingly, and the prophecy has 'come true.' Superstition is wonderfully infectious here. The fact is that the Arabs are so intensely impressionable, and so cowardly about inspiring any ill-will, that if a man looks askance at them it is enough to make them ill, and as calamities are not infrequent, there is always some mishap ready to be laid to the charge of somebody's 'eye.' Omar would fain have had me say nothing about the theft of my purse, for ...
— Letters from Egypt • Lucie Duff Gordon

... enthusiast for learning. It was before the days of women's colleges; they were established, but frequented only by pioneers, in whose ranks no Henriettas are to be found. But courses of lectures were so ordinary that not even the most timid could look askance at them. As philanthropy had failed, and no one could pretend that art could be a resource for Henrietta,—her career of sketches and two part-songs had been phenomenally short (invaluable as it has proved itself for many Englishwomen suffering from her complaint)—everything pointed to ...
— The Third Miss Symons • Flora Macdonald Mayor

... is dishonest. Letters of the alphabet can be filched, like a purse or a watch. To be a false signature in flesh and blood, to be a living false key, to enter the house of honest people by picking their lock, never more to look straightforward, to forever eye askance, to be infamous within the I, no! no! no! no! no! It is better to suffer, to bleed, to weep, to tear one's skin from the flesh with one's nails, to pass nights writhing in anguish, to devour oneself body and soul. That is why I have just told you all ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo

... of the neighbours at first. The women looked rather askance at her, and thought her little better than a fool, even if she had contrived to make one of Jacques De Arthenay. She never seemed to understand their talk, and had a way of looking past them, as if unaware of their presence, that was disconcerting, ...
— Marie • Laura E. Richards

... tackle, and incidentally tuna under one hundred pounds. He was ridiculed, scorned, scoffed at, made a butt of by this particular heavy tackle angler, and cordially hated for his ambitions. Most anglers and boatmen repudiated his claims and looked askance at him. Personally I believed Jump might catch some swordfish or tuna on light tackle, but only one out of many, and that one not the fighting kind. I was wrong. It was Lone Angler who first drew my attention to Jump's achievements ...
— Tales of Fishes • Zane Grey

... that rose to my lips, and we proceeded in silence down the street. The boy, whom I had espied loitering in a doorway a little way ahead, as if the great bell above us which had just tolled eleven had drawn him out, peered at us a moment askance; and then, coming forward, accosted us. But I need not detail the particulars of a conversation which was almost word for word the same as that which had passed in the Rue de la Pourpointerie; suffice it that he made the ...
— From the Memoirs of a Minister of France • Stanley Weyman

... friar, whom we must not call "of the funnels." That Peacock was a Pantagruelist to the heart's core is evident in all his work; but his following of Master Francis is nowhere clearer than in Maid Marian, and it no doubt helps us to understand why those who cannot relish Rabelais should look askance at Peacock. For the rest, no book of Peacock's requires such brief comment as this charming pastoral, which was probably little less in Thackeray's mind than Ivanhoe itself when he wrote Rebecca and Rowena. The author draws in (it would ...
— Essays in English Literature, 1780-1860 • George Saintsbury

... match him with the Syrian?' 'These chilly mornings will do harm, If one don't mind to wrap up warm;' Such nothings as without a fear One drops into the chinkiest ear. Yet all this tune hath envy's glance On me looked more and more askance. From mouth to mouth such comments run: 'Our friend indeed is Fortune's son. Why, there he was, the other day, Beside Maecenas at the play; And at the Campus, just before, They had a bout at battledore.' Some chilling ...
— Horace • Theodore Martin

... torments of our everyday life are unknown? Indeed, though Cowper, as an orthodox Protestant, held that ascetic practices ministered simply to spiritual conceit, was he not bound to a sufficiently galling form of asceticism? His friends habitually looked askance upon all those pleasures of the intellect and the imagination which are not directly subservient to the religious emotions. They had grave doubts of the expediency of his studies of the pagan Homer. They looked ...
— Hours in a Library - New Edition, with Additions. Vol. II (of 3) • Leslie Stephen

... him now; the sheep-dogs walking round him on their toes, stiff and short like cats on coals; their hacks a little humped; heads averted; yet eying him askance. ...
— Bob, Son of Battle • Alfred Ollivant

... that they may have the credit of throwing out ropes, and sending out lifeboats to you, without ever bringing you ashore. Your successes, your reputation, which you think would please them, as justifying their good opinion, are coldly received, and looked at askance, because they remove your dependence on them: if you are under a cloud, they do all they can to keep you there by their goodwill: they are so sensible of your gratitude that they wish your obligations never to cease, and take care you shall owe no one else a good turn; and provided ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt

... carried into the church, and stacked artistically in the deep window-sills, where they gave somewhat the effect of a harvest festival. The girls were eager to lay bundles of them in the particular pews occupied by the school, but the verger, who looked askance at the whole business, and whose wife was hovering about with a broom to sweep up bits, vetoed the suggestion so emphatically that the Vicar, wavering with a strong balance towards ancient custom, hastily and ...
— A harum-scarum schoolgirl • Angela Brazil

... though the railings were between us. And I wiped my blade carefully, standing a little apart. For—well, I could understand it—it was one of those moments when a man is not popular. Those who had come with me from the eating-house eyed me askance, and turned their backs when I drew nearer; and those who had joined us and obtained admission were ...
— Under the Red Robe • Stanley Weyman

... was she who found these people. Indeed, we might say that both you and I owe her something also. [Comes around behind table to MADAME DE CHAMPIGNY.] Even a less captious respectability than Lady Creech's might have looked askance at the long friendship [kisses her hand] which has existed between us. Yet she has always countenanced us, though she must have guessed—a great many things. And she will help us to urge an immediate marriage. You know as well as I do that unless it is immediate, there'll ...
— The Man from Home • Booth Tarkington and Harry Leon Wilson



Words linked to "Askance" :   indirect



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