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Discountenance

verb
(past & past part. discountenanced; pres. part. discountenancing)
1.
Look with disfavor on.
2.
Show disapproval by discouraging.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Discountenance" Quotes from Famous Books



... amounting to a heavy infliction upon the people, were levied on all sides, and under all pretences; and the evil at length became so serious that the prudent minister found it necessary to expostulate respectfully with his royal master upon the danger of such a system, and to entreat of him to discountenance any further imposts which had no tendency to increase the revenues of the state, but merely served to encourage the ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe

... call your attention to certain occult teachings, widely disseminated, which the highest Yogi teachers discountenance, and contradict. We allude to the teaching that in the process of Involution there was a "degeneration" or "devolution" from higher to lower forms of life, until the gross state of Matter was reached. Such a teaching is horrible, when considered ...
— A Series of Lessons in Gnani Yoga • Yogi Ramacharaka

... redress. This right has been frequently exercised by his Majesty's subjects within the realm; and, we do not recollect an instance, since the happy revolution, when the two Houses of Parliament have been called upon to discountenance, or bear their testimony against it, in ...
— The Writings of Samuel Adams, volume II (1770 - 1773) - collected and edited by Harry Alonso Cushing • Samuel Adams

... talk among the partisans of Fetters, and an ominous gathering upon the streets the day after the arrest, but Judge Miller, of the Beaver County circuit, who was in Clarendon that day, used his influence to discountenance any disorder, and promised a speedy trial of the prisoner. The crime was not the worst of crimes, and there was no excuse for riot or lynch law. The accused could not escape ...
— The Colonel's Dream • Charles W. Chesnutt

... retardation; embarrassment, oppilation|!; coarctation[obs3], stricture, restriction; restraint &c. 751; inhibition &c. 761; blockade &c. (closure) 261. interference, interposition; obtrusion; discouragement, discountenance. impediment, let, obstacle, obstruction, knot, knag[obs3]; check, hitch, contretemps, screw loose, grit in the oil. bar, stile, barrier; [barrier to vehicles] turnstile, turnpike; gate, portcullis. beaver ...
— Roget's Thesaurus

... time gained such popularity that chemists were disposed to round out the observed atomic weights of all elements into whole numbers. But presently renewed determinations of the atomic weights seemed to discountenance this practice, and Prout's alleged law fell into disrepute. It was revived, however, about 1840, by Dumas, whose great authority secured it a respectful hearing, and whose careful redetermination ...
— A History of Science, Volume 4(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams

... transmission, I could never be a proficient? No, but by a civilised handy breech-loader, which these ingenious mechanicians could not only make, but no doubt improve; nay, surely I saw one in the Museum. Indeed, as absolute king, I should discountenance vril altogether, except in cases of war. Apropos of war, it is perfectly absurd to stint a people so intelligent, so rich, so well armed, to a petty limit of territory sufficing for 10,000 or 12,000 families. Is not this restriction a mere philosophical crotchet, at variance with the aspiring element ...
— The Coming Race • Edward Bulwer Lytton

... philosophical pursuits was to promote the cause of religion, and to discountenance atheism and infidelity. His intimate friend Bishop Burnet makes the following observations on this point:—"It appeared to those who conversed with him on his inquiries into nature, that his main design (on which as he had his own eye constantly ...
— The Book of Religions • John Hayward

... Do not despair! The interests of the French crown, endangered at this moment, are to discountenance rebellion in a neighboring nation. Mazarin, as a statesman, ...
— Twenty Years After • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... me," said Gerard. "Our council is of importance. We must take some immediate steps for the aid of our brethren in distress at Birmingham, and to discountenance similar scenes of outbreak as this affair: but the moment this is over, I will come back to you; and for the rest, it shall be as you desire; to-morrow ...
— Sybil - or the Two Nations • Benjamin Disraeli

... of Mr. Cass, the Envoy. It is most unfortunate that we should have an envoy here for the first time, just to offend and disappoint the Romans. When all the other ambassadors are at Gaeta, ours is in Rome, as if by his presence to discountenance the republican government, which he does not recognize. Mr. Cass, it seems, is required by his instructions not to recognize the government till sure it can be sustained. Now it seems to me that the only ...
— At Home And Abroad - Or, Things And Thoughts In America and Europe • Margaret Fuller Ossoli

... now, with one general Babel of information about deceased—nobody offering to read the riot act or seeming to discountenance the insurrection or disapprove of it in any way—but the head twin drowned all the turmoil and held ...
— The Gilded Age, Complete • Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner

... gentleman, but neither did he return one; he went to college an ass, and returned a prig; to his original folly was superadded a vast quantity of conceit. He told his father that he had adopted high principles, and was determined to discountenance everything low and mean; advised him to eschew trade, and to purchase him a living. The old man retired from business, purchased his son a living, and shortly after died, leaving him what remained of his fortune. The first thing the Reverend Mr. Platitude did ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow

... promise with the Divine assistance and in honor of the Sacred Thirst and the Agony of our Saviour, to abstain from all intoxicating drinks and to prevent as much as possible by advice and example the sin of intemperance in others and to discountenance the drinking customs of society." A general convention of the Union has been ...
— Youth: Its Education, Regimen, and Hygiene • G. Stanley Hall

... supplication of the General Assembly of Virginia ... which you had refused to recommend as being unfit to be presented.... Wee cannot but approve of your proceedings.... And wee doe further direct you to discountenance such undue practices for the future as alsoe the Contrivers and Promoters thereof."[967] For their activity in this matter Sherwood and Milner "in ye following year were both turned out of all imployments to ...
— Virginia under the Stuarts 1607-1688 • Thomas J. Wertenbaker

... Mr. De Crespigny[14] that such a claim would not be allowed by the Rajah, he submitted without complaint. We may hope that such will be the universal acceptance of the new law, but it is easy to see that forty years of past repression and discountenance, and the strong influence of English opinion on the subject of slavery, has effected what would doubtless have caused strong opposition and estrangement ...
— Sketches of Our Life at Sarawak • Harriette McDougall

... touched in the course of these papers, which discountenance the supposition that the operation of the federal government will by degrees prove fatal to the State governments. The more I revolve the subject, the more fully I am persuaded that the balance is much more ...
— The Federalist Papers • Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison

... dilemma we have mentioned before, namely, the want of a shilling, and could not relieve it by borrowing as before. He therefore walked boldly on after the chair in which his lady rode, pursued by a grand huzza, from all the chairmen present, who wisely take the best care they can to discountenance all walking afoot by their betters. Luckily, however, the gentry who attend at the Opera-house were too busy to quit their stations, and as the lateness of the hour prevented him from meeting many of their brethren ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding

... thus add fuel to the fire of anger already kindled, in a master and mistress's bosom; remember their extreme ignorance, and consider them as your Heavenly Father does the less culpable on this account, even when they do wrong things. Discountenance all cruelty to them, all starvation, all corporal chastisement; these may brutalize and break their spirits, but will never bend them to willing, cheerful obedience. If possible, see that they are comfortably and seasonably fed, whether in ...
— An Appeal to the Christian Women of the South • Angelina Emily Grimke

... it is called) on the minds of men, and the national value of its teaching, but I wish shortly to reply to that objection which might be urged to the real moral dignity of the faculty, that many Christian men seem to be in themselves without it, and even to discountenance it in others. ...
— Modern Painters Volume II (of V) • John Ruskin

... Privately he had encouraged his son's candidacy, the more so as a Bonapartist rival, the son of Eugene Beauharnais, was in the field. The conference at London determined not to permit Belgium thus to become a dependency of France. The British Government decided that it would no longer discountenance armed intervention in Belgium against French schemes of aggrandizement. Talleyrand obtained the best terms open to his sovereign by insisting on the withdrawal of the Bonapartist pretender. The selection of Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg, who had just been disappointed in his aspirations ...
— A History of the Nineteenth Century, Year by Year - Volume Two (of Three) • Edwin Emerson

... has seldom been roused against abuses without exertions to which the name of agitation may be given. I altogether deny the assertion which we have repeatedly heard in the course of this debate, that a government which does not discountenance agitation cannot be trusted to suppress rebellion. Agitation and rebellion, you say, are in kind the same thing: they differ only in degree. Sir, they are the same thing in the sense in which to breathe a vein and to cut a ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 4 (of 4) - Lord Macaulay's Speeches • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... poisoned. He had the fever on him severely. He would not allow stone-flinging, because it was a habit of his to discountenance it. Mere gentlemanly considerations has scarce shielded Farmer Blaize, and certain very ungentlemanly schemes were coming to ghastly heads in the tumult of his brain; rejected solely from their glaring impracticability even to his young intelligence. A sweeping and consummate vengeance for ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... master of the rudiments. For it may be laid down as a maxim, that he who begins by presuming on his own sense, has ended his studies as soon as he has commenced them. Every opportunity, therefore, should be taken to discountenance that false and vulgar opinion, that rules are the fetters of genius. They are fetters only to men of no genius; as that armor, which upon the strong becomes an ornament and a defence, upon the weak and misshapen ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 8 (of 8) • Various

... professed himself deeply enamoured of me, in a style so different from that of my other admirers, that I heard his protestations without disgust; and, though my inclinations were still free, could not find in my heart to discountenance his addresses, which were preferred with the most engaging modesty, disinterestedness, ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett

... say:[65] 'The sons of the boyards come to complete their education with us.... The danger for these young minds, which are exposed without control to so great a fascination, is that even our vices appear to them to be sanctioned' (consacres). It is true he does not discountenance a system which brings grist to the mill of the French academical institutions, but warning them against the pitfalls of Paris life he says: 'Let them continue to visit us.' Well, they have continued to visit them for ...
— Roumania Past and Present • James Samuelson

... shocking to us; but our objection to it is quite a recent development: no longer ago than Shakespear's time it was thought quite natural that litigants should give presents to human judges; and the buying off of divine wrath by actual money payments to priests, or, in the reformed churches which discountenance this, by subscriptions to charities and church building and the like, is still in full swing. Its practical disadvantage is that though it makes matters very easy for the rich, it cuts off the poor from all hope ...
— Preface to Androcles and the Lion - On the Prospects of Christianity • George Bernard Shaw

... minds lie visibly entombed, Have often stirred the heart of youth, and bred A fervent love of rigorous discipline.— Alas! such high emotion touched not me. 345 Look was there none within these walls to shame My easy spirits, and discountenance Their light composure, far less to instil A calm resolve of mind, firmly addressed To puissant efforts. Nor was this the blame 350 Of others, but my own; I should, in truth, As far as doth concern my single self, Misdeem most widely, lodging it elsewhere: For ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. III • William Wordsworth

... society should discountenance a woman who behaves as Julianna has done," said she one day, to Mrs. Hubbard, on returning home; "but, oh, mother, her own family surely, should never give her up while there is breath in ...
— Elinor Wyllys - Vol. I • Susan Fenimore Cooper

... a patrician, and fairly entitled to patrician manners. As every one sees, people in high station, especially if they chance to possess attractive social qualities, are of necessity compelled to discountenance everything like careless familiarity, even from those with whom they may formerly have been most intimate. They must always stand more or less upon ceremony, and never be handled without gloves. So it is with the queen of flowers. Its thorns not only ...
— The Foot-path Way • Bradford Torrey

... state of the American mind twenty-two years, when Dr. Alexander Crummell gathered his colored friends around him and formed the Academy. The same reason that led the American mind to discountenance the Negro's higher aspirations and strivings and longings caused Dr. Crummell to encourage them. He realized that living in the same country with the American white man, facing the same problems and conditions, the Negro needed the same ...
— Alexander Crummell: An Apostle of Negro Culture - The American Negro Academy. Occasional Papers No. 20 • William H. Ferris

... gives no uncertain sound on the subject. To his mind the duty of the Church, first and last, is to preserve spirituality of worship, and to discountenance everything that may tend to interfere with the same. But, while this spirit pervades his work, his method is historical, and thus preeminently fair and impartial in statement. The presentation of the ...
— Presbyterian Worship - Its Spirit, Method and History • Robert Johnston

... proceeding by or under the Commission of examiners shall call for the expression or disclosure of any political or religious opinion or affiliation, nor shall any discrimination be made by reason thereof if known; and the Commission and its examiners shall discountenance all disclosure before either of them of such opinion by or concerning any applicants for examination or by or concerning anyone whose name is on any ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 2) of Volume 8: Chester A. Arthur • James D. Richardson

... respected nothing else respected her name. God, she said, knew where her weakness lay. She was too sensitive to abuse and calumny; He had mercifully spared her a trial which was beyond her strength; and the best return which she could make to Him was to discountenance all malicious reflections on the characters of others. Assured that she possessed her husband's entire confidence and affection, she turned the edge of his sharp speeches sometimes by soft and sometimes by playful answers, ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 3 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... the house of Hanover. The lords, in their address, promised to concur in all reasonable measures towards procuring an honourable peace. The commons were more warm and hearty in their assurances, exhorting her majesty to discountenance all such principles and measures as had lately threatened her royal crown and dignity—measures which, whenever they might prevail, would prove fatal to the whole constitution, both in church and state. After ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett

... honor of this nation; and therefore I exhort all good citizens, as they regard our national reputation, as they respect their own laws and the laws of nations, as they value the blessings of peace and the welfare of their country, to discountenance and prevent by all lawful means any such enterprise; and I call upon every officer of this Government, civil or military, to use all efforts in his power to arrest for trial and punishment every such offender against the laws providing for the performance of our sacred obligations ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents, Volume - V, Part 1; Presidents Taylor and Fillmore • James D. Richardson

... concurrence before giving your consent. I appreciate your delicacy; and it is with considerable regret I now write to inform you this match is out of the question. I have thought it due to you to communicate this to yourself and without delay, and feel sure that you will, under the circumstances, discountenance my son's further visits at your house—I am, Madam, with sincere respect, your ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade

... your government and the permanency of your present happy state, it is requisite not only that you steadily discountenance irregular oppositions to its acknowledged authority, but also that you resist with care the spirit of innovation upon its principles, however specious the pretexts. One method of assault may be to effect ...
— Life And Times Of Washington, Volume 2 • John Frederick Schroeder and Benson John Lossing

... combat, resist, confront, withstand, oppugn, impugn, contend, antagonize, contravene, discountenance, gainsay, contradict. Antonyms: yield, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming

... factious opposition the measures of 1850 had been accepted by the people as a finality of the slavery question. Around this alleged settlement, distasteful as it was to many, public opinion gradually crystallized. Both the National Conventions of 1852 solemnly resolved that they would discountenance and resist, in Congress or out of it, whenever, wherever, or however, or under whatever color or shape, any further renewal of the slavery agitation. This determination was echoed and reechoed, ...
— Abraham Lincoln: A History V1 • John G. Nicolay and John Hay

... house he was taken, and with whom he passed the remaining part of his life. The Duke, considering his want of economy, undertook the management of his money, and gave it to him as he wanted it. But it is supposed that the discountenance of the Court sunk deep into his heart, and gave him more discontent than the applauses or tenderness of his friends could overpower. He soon fell into his old distemper, an habitual colic, and languished, though with many ...
— Lives of the Poets: Gay, Thomson, Young, and Others • Samuel Johnson

... do not aver having had at the outset any definitive inclination. The instinct so freshly evolved remained for a while obscure. Its primary expression was a feebly sensuous interest in the physical character of boys—in their feminine resemblances especially. To this interest I opposed no discountenance; for wantonness with women under many and diverse conditions having long ago medicined my sexual conscience to lethargy, no access of reasons came to me now for its refreshment. On the other hand, intellectual ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 2 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis

... community, committed by noisy assemblages of young men at the public corners—and even females have been seen to exhibit a demeanor in the streets disreputable to the town, and disgraceful in the highest degree to themselves. This conduct should receive not only the discountenance, but the decided reprehension of the respectable part of the community. Every citizen is interested, and is moreover bound to manifest his interest by his acts, in bringing every offender to prompt and condign punishment. The stake ...
— The Olden Time Series, Vol. 3: New-England Sunday - Gleanings Chiefly From Old Newspapers Of Boston And Salem, Massachusetts • Henry M. Brooks

... opposed to this nonsense about independence, were glad to buy tea and to drink it whenever they got the chance; but it was expected that those who called themselves Whigs and patriots would stand by their party, and discountenance tea drinking. There is a story told of a man who lived in Bridgetown, who was a member of one of the Committees of Safety which were formed for the purpose of promoting the cause of American liberty. It was found out that this ...
— Stories of New Jersey • Frank Richard Stockton

... one of the first to present himself at Court, and it is creditable to his heart rather than his judgment and discrimination that he seized the occasion to offer a long address to the King, expressive of his expectation that his Majesty would discountenance all sin and promote godliness, support the true exercise of Church discipline and cherish and hold up the hands of the faithful ministers of the Church. To all which Charles II. "made as gracious an answer as we could expect," says Baxter, "insomuch that old Mr. Ash burst out into tears of joy." ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier

... inuendo,—poisoning the more surely and deeply, by its very obscureness,—where are these tolerated? Where woman maintains the high rank of her sex? No! for she has but to frown on such improprieties, and steadily, and on all occasions, to discountenance them, and they are banished from the social circle. Let her influence, in this regard, be correct, let it be mild and gentle, yet always decided, and there is no passion so rude, nor any proneness to an outbreaking of temper, ...
— The Young Maiden • A. B. (Artemas Bowers) Muzzey

... of the scheme which we have endeavoured to discountenance, the charge against its opponents of being selfishly regardless of the poor, ought to cease. The cry has been raised and kept up by three classes of persons—they who wish to bring into discredit all such as stand in the way of their gains or gambling speculations; ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth

... writers generally discountenance the use of indorse in the sense of sanction, approve, applaud. In this signification it is on the list of prohibited words in some of our newspaper offices. "The following rules are indorsed ...
— The Verbalist • Thomas Embly Osmun, (AKA Alfred Ayres)

... Bentinck's term of office education in India was reformed. Macaulay, afterwards Lord Macaulay, was an Indian official at the time, and he penned a notable report on education in India, in which he belittled vernacular learning and asserted that the Government of India would do well to discountenance it altogether, and to introduce western learning and the study of English literature into all schools under Government control, and to make it a rule that the English language was to be the only medium of instruction. Whether or not Macaulay's views were correct, they were adopted ...
— The Story of Madras • Glyn Barlow

... duty; or the average person's feelings are considerately soothed by {142} the pronouncement that "the mass of a Christian congregation are about as innocent as men and women can well be in a world where natural temptations are so rife, and so many social adjustments discountenance heroic saintliness" [3]—the latter a truly admirable feat of circumlocution. And sometimes, as we have seen, sin and evil are themselves in essence negated—generally in virtue of some pseudo-philosophic or pseudo-scientific "doctrine ...
— Problems of Immanence - Studies Critical and Constructive • J. Warschauer

... ruinous excess of the use of tobacco, many consumed three or four hundred pounds a year. James, who perceived the inconveniences of this sudden luxury in the nation, tried to discountenance it, although the purpose went to diminish his own scanty revenue. Nor was this attack on the abuse of tobacco peculiar to his majesty, although he has been so ridiculed for it; a contemporary publication has well described the mania and its consequences: "The smoak of fashion hath quite blown ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli

... important though not the sole factor in the result. So again the period of impregnation relatively to the state of the female has been thought by some to be the efficient cause; but recent observations discountenance this belief. According to Dr. Stockton Hough (56. 'Social Science Association of Philadelphia,' 1874.), the season of the year, the poverty or wealth of the parents, residence in the country or in cities, the crossing ...
— The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex • Charles Darwin

... which the emperor of the K'ang-hsi period, in one of his famous Sixteen Precepts, exhorted his people to "discountenance and put away, in order to exalt the correct doctrine," Buddhism and Taoism were both included. If, as stated in the note quoted from Professor Mueller, the emperor countenances both the Taoist worship ...
— Chinese Literature • Anonymous

... overthrow of institutions. We ask not a single court to adjourn; we ask not a single officer to vacate his position; we demand only the enforcement of the law— which, after all, we have made!" He extended his strong fist and laid it on the table. "If you deem it the conscientious duty of your office to discountenance these proceedings—as perhaps you well may—then let your opposition be in appearance only. In your heart you must know the necessity of this measure; you know the standing of the men managing it, You know that this is no mob, no distempered ...
— The Gray Dawn • Stewart Edward White

... Union to our collective and individual happiness; that we cherish a cordial, habitual, and immovable attachment to it; that we will speak of it as the palladium of our political safety and prosperity; that we will watch its preservation with jealous anxiety; that we will discountenance whatever may suggest even a suspicion that it can, in any event, be abandoned, and indignantly frown upon the first dawning of every attempt to alienate any portion of our Country from the rest, or enfeeble ...
— The Great Conspiracy, Complete • John Alexander Logan

... Jefferson on their lips, young, earnest, and enthusiastic men called the attention of the community to the moral wrong and political reproach of slavery. In the name and spirit of democracy, the moral and political powers of the people were invoked to limit, discountenance, and put an end to a system so manifestly subversive of its foundation principles. It was a revival of the language of Jefferson and Page and Randolph, an echo of the voice of him who penned the Declaration of Independence and originated ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier

... pre-judgment, that the charges were malicious and false, notwithstanding the scores of names appended as witnesses;—and that no Volunteer Captain had a right to prefer charges against one of his Staff; and that it was the duty of the Brigadier to discountenance any charges of the kind. They were again forwarded, with the statement of the Brigadier, that the charges were eminently proper, and that he himself would prefer them, should objection be taken to the rank of the officer whose signature was attached. But pigeon-holing was a favorite smothering ...
— Red-Tape and Pigeon-Hole Generals - As Seen From the Ranks During a Campaign in the Army of the Potomac • William H. Armstrong

... found in some Buddhistic sects in China. Mahayana Buddhism, on the other hand, developed into a true popular religion of salvation. It did not interfere with the indigenous deities and did not discountenance life in human society; it did not recommend Nirvana at once, but placed before it a here-after with all the joys worth striving for. In this form Buddhism was certain of success in Asia. On its way from India to China it divided into countless ...
— A history of China., [3d ed. rev. and enl.] • Wolfram Eberhard

... keep him and a few of his hangers-on from 'going after the parson,' who was down there praying with old Jennie Neil as she died. He doesn't know his danger from Jacob and I think Billy ought to tell him. All Goodloets has admired and aped you since your birth, and now that you discountenance him they are again following you. There were only ten people at prayer meeting last night in the chapel, and the Wednesday before you turned him out of the Club which had offered him its hospitality, there were one hundred and thirty, Settlement and Town about ...
— The Heart's Kingdom • Maria Thompson Daviess

... the beginning and the burden of his theology, and in the light of that truth all the earth became holy to him. His followers abjured idolatry and sought to know only the invisible things of the spirit. He did not seek to establish a church; the truths which he knew, in their essence discountenance a visible semblance of divine authority, and Nanuk simply spoke them to him who would hear,—emperor or beggar,—until in 1540 he went into that spiritual world, which even here had been ...
— Atma - A Romance • Caroline Augusta Frazer

... The Station I am in furnishes me with daily Opportunities of this kind: and the Noble Principle with which you have inspired me, of Benevolence to all I have to deal with, quickens my Application in every thing I undertake. When I relieve Merit from Discountenance, when I assist a Friendless Person, when I produce conceal'd Worth, I am displeas'd with my self, for having design'd to leave the World in order to be Virtuous. I am sorry you decline the Occasions ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele

... reason: nor did he by any petulant dislike quash another's arguments; and he offered his exception by this civill introduction, By your favour, Sir, I think otherwise on this or that ground: yet he would discountenance any bold or forward addresse unto him. And in suits or discourse of busines he would give way to none abruptly to enter into them, but lookt, that the greatest Persons should in affairs of this nature addresse to him by his proper Ministers, or by some solemn desire of speaking to him ...
— Characters from 17th Century Histories and Chronicles • Various

... February to the King. He expressed both regret at the King's resolve on this question, and a desire to consult his convenience, though continuance in office even for a short time became very difficult in view of the King's refusal to undertake to discountenance the use of his name during the interval. In every respect the accession of another Minister was to be desired. Pitt closed this painful correspondence with a letter, also of 3rd February, requesting a pension of L1,500 a year for Long, one of the secretaries of the Treasury, ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose

... her Beauchester blood, had a good deal of sympathy for the girl who was defying her family in receiving the attentions of a man of no antecedents, although, having done the same thing herself, she was the more strongly bound outwardly to discountenance ...
— The Philistines • Arlo Bates

... Buddhahood and secondly into complete Nirvana at his death. He was superhuman only in the sense that he had intuitive knowledge and no need to learn. Their contempt for sutras may have been due to the fact that many of them discountenance the Vaibhashika views and also to a knowledge that new ones were continually ...
— Hinduism And Buddhism, Volume II. (of 3) - An Historical Sketch • Charles Eliot

... traced by their neighbours to such successful excursions. This, however, was a more inexplicable crime in the eyes of the Abbot and Community of Saint Mary's, than the borrowing one of the "gude king's deer;" and they failed not to discountenance and punish, by every means in their power, offences which were sure to lead to severe retaliation upon the property of the church, and which tended to alter the character of their ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott

... talk about a man named Henderson, who had bought a great part of Kentucky from the Indians, and had gone out with Boone to found Boonesboro some two years before. They spoke of much that I did not understand concerning the discountenance by Virginia of these claims, speculating as to whether Henderson's grants were good. For some of them held these grants, and others Virginia grants—a fruitful source of quarrel between them. Some spoke, too, of Washington and his ragged soldiers going up and down the old colonies and fighting ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... want to deal in fur!" objected the girl. "I—since you have told me of the terrible cruelty of the trappers, I hate fur! I want nothing to do with it. In fact, I shall do everything in my power to discountenance and discourage the trapping." Lapierre cleared his throat sharply—coughed—cleared it again. Discourage trapping—north of sixty! Had he heard aright? He swallowed hard, mumbled an apology anent the inhalation of a gnat, and answered in ...
— The Gun-Brand • James B. Hendryx

... themselves to obsequious and implicit submission, and were the furthest in the world from being encouraged to the independent exercise of their own understandings. There was nothing that Pythagoras was more fixed to discountenance, than the communication of the truths upon which he placed the highest value, to the uninitiated. It is not probable therefore that he wrote any thing: all was communicated orally, by such gradations, and with such discretion, as he might think fit ...
— Lives of the Necromancers • William Godwin

... where population is great, and the means of subsistence not to be had without labour, or without defrauding others of the fruits of their industry, idleness becomes a crime of the most fatal tendency, and consequently of the most heinous nature; and every means should be used to discountenance, punish, and prevent it. ...
— ESSAYS, Political, Economical and Philosophical. Volume 1. • Benjamin Rumford

... depraved state of society in this city," said Guly, earnestly, "when woman, who should be the first to frown upon and discountenance such practices, not only is the tempter, but the hearty partaker of them. I am certain if the other sex were more strict—would positively refuse to attend places of amusement on Sabbath evenings, would refrain utterly from drinking wine themselves, and ...
— The Brother Clerks - A Tale of New-Orleans • Xariffa

... horses, food and shelter. The Hutuktu asked for help because the ferocious conqueror of Kobdo, Hun Boldon, could very easily pillage the unprotected isolated monastery. We strongly urged Colonel Michailoff not to violate the sealed treaty and discountenance all the foreigners and Russians who had taken part in making it, for this would but be to imitate the Bolshevik principle of making deceit the leading rule in all acts of state. This touched Michailoff and he answered Domojiroff that Uliassutai was already in his hands without a fight; that ...
— Beasts, Men and Gods • Ferdinand Ossendowski

... of time, revelling, and immorality connected with the custom have led many to discountenance it; and it is, to a considerable extent, given up. But the gay youth still thinks it manly and respectable to be tattooed; parental pride says the same thing; and so the custom still obtains. It is not likely, however, ...
— Samoa, A Hundred Years Ago And Long Before • George Turner

... they expressed it, their chief and father. They soon put themselves in motion, and began murdering, plundering, and destroying more furiously than ever. The violence which they displayed led to a reaction. A party was formed, even among the Guards, of persons that were disposed to discountenance these excesses, and even to submit to the government. The minister Galitzin took advantage of these dissensions to open a communication with those who were disposed to return to their duty. He managed the affair so well that, in the end, the great body of the soldiers were brought over, ...
— Peter the Great • Jacob Abbott

... to force is not to be justified in a state of real weakness. Such attempts bring on disgrace, and in their failure discountenance and discourage more rational endeavors. But reason is to be hazarded, though it may be perverted by craft and sophistry; for reason can suffer no loss nor shame, nor can it impede any useful plan of future policy. In the unavoidable uncertainty as to the effect, ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. IV. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... parents not possessing the P. C. There are always eccentric spirits who would defy the dearest and most sacred institutions organised by society for its own protection. We are gradually creating a public opinion to discountenance such breaches of the law, and such perils to the commonweal, subversive as they are of all our efforts to promote the general happiness and holiness. Even in your uncivilised communities," continued the ...
— Without Prejudice • Israel Zangwill

... attitude between the modern leisure class and that of the quasi-peaceable stage. At the earlier stage, as was said above, the all-dominating institution of slavery and status acted resistlessly to discountenance exertion directed to other than naively predatory ends. It was still possible to find some habitual employment for the inclination to action in the way of forcible aggression or repression directed against hostile groups or ...
— The Theory of the Leisure Class • Thorstein Veblen

... become scoffers, and to attempt to turn religion and its sanctions into ridicule. Avoid the society and conversation of such men, as you would avoid the plague. If unhappily thrown among them, discountenance ...
— Advice to a Young Man upon First Going to Oxford - In Ten Letters, From an Uncle to His Nephew • Edward Berens

... character as that (accidents apart) it should have continued to shed the same felicity, or one not distinguishably less, on many years together. To the happiest lustrum, however, or even to the happiest year, it may be allowed to any man to point without discountenance from wisdom. This year, in my case, reader, was the one which we have now reached; though it stood, I confess, as a parenthesis between years of a gloomier character. It was a year of brilliant water (to speak ...
— Confessions of an English Opium-Eater • Thomas De Quincey

... inquisitive respecting her character, adventures, and particularly her relation to me. The consciousness how much the truth redounded to my dishonour made me solicitous to lead conjecture astray. For this purpose I did not discountenance the conclusion that was adopted by some,—that she was my daughter. I reflected that all dangerous surmises would be effectually ...
— Arthur Mervyn - Or, Memoirs of the Year 1793 • Charles Brockden Brown

... supposing that, if there be any kind of facetiousness innocent and reasonable, conformable to good manners (regulated by common sense, and consistent with the tenor of Christian duty, that is, not transgressing the bounds of piety, charity, and sobriety), St. Paul did not intend to discountenance or ...
— Sermons on Evil-Speaking • Isaac Barrow

... reasons, we should discountenance schemes like those proposed not long ago in England, and sanctioned by the British government, for the encouragement of spontaneous emigration from Africa under the charge of contractors. The plan was viewed with fear by the colonial authorities, and President Roberts at once issued ...
— Captain Canot - or, Twenty Years of an African Slaver • Brantz Mayer

... writer you refer to. . . . There cannot be many men, I believe, who have a more humble veneration for the New Testament, or a more profound conviction of its all-sufficiency, than I have. If I am ever (as you tell me I am) mistaken on this subject, it is because I discountenance all obtrusive professions of and tradings in religion, as one of the main causes why real Christianity has been retarded in this world; and because my observation of life induces me to hold in unspeakable dread and horror, those unseemly squabbles about the letter ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster

... susceptibility? It is not because boys and girls are always to fall in love when they meet. Every girl has a work to do for the boys,—some traits in their characters to discountenance, some features to encourage. How can she do this, if she is always thinking, Maybe he loves me? Work with the boys she must: join in merry-making and in whimsical enjoyments, why should she not? but in her gayest moment let her be mindful, not of a difference ...
— Hold Up Your Heads, Girls! • Annie H. Ryder

... Powers, which extended to American conditions, colonial and commercial. While united against Napoleon, they viewed with distrust the aggrandizement of Great Britain. Ross was ordered, therefore, to discountenance any overture of the inhabitants to place themselves under British dominion; but should he find a general and decided disposition to withdraw from their recent connection with the United States, with the view of establishing themselves as an independent people, or of returning ...
— Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812 - Volume 2 • Alfred Thayer Mahan

... confident, As sitting queen adored on Beauty's throne, Descend with all her winning charms begirt To enamour, as the zone of Venus once Wrought that effect on Jove (so fables tell), How would one look from his majestic brow, Seated as on the top of Virtue's hill, Discountenance her despised, and put to rout All her array, her female pride deject, Or turn to reverent awe! For Beauty stands 220 In the admiration only of weak minds Led captive; cease to admire, and all her ...
— Paradise Regained • John Milton

... rightly to discountenance sin, and to reprove thy neighbour for the same (Lev 19:17), denying thyself in some things, for the preventing an injury to thy neighbour, that thou mayest please him for ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... favoured by the graces," has been described by Sir Henry Wotton, who knew him well; while Clarendon, another living witness, tells us that "he was the most rarely accomplished the court had ever beheld; while some that found inconvenience in his nearness, intending by some affront to discountenance him, perceived he had masked under this gentleness a terrible courage, as could safely ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli

... enslaved Negro's condition remained almost constant until 1742. A few sporadic attempts, to be sure, were made to discountenance slavery, but popular opinion, incited by greed, favored the institution. In 1671, for example, George Fox, during his visit to Barbadoes, admonished slaveholders to train their slaves in the fear of God; and further admonished the overseers "to deal gently and mildly with their Negroes, ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 2, 1917 • Various

... that Friends were favorably inclined toward the abolition of slavery. But many of their members are highly respectable merchants, extensively engaged in Southern trade. We are informed that they are determined to discountenance all pragmatic interference with the legal and constitutional rights of their brethren at the South. The Quakers have always been distinguished for minding their own business, and permitting others to attend to theirs. They would ...
— Isaac T. Hopper • L. Maria Child

... assure you, my Lord, that in my own humble way, I did everything I reasonably could to discountenance the education system. I even went so far as to prevent several of the tenants from sending their children to these schools; but, as usual, I experienced but little gratitude at their hands, or at those of their parents. This, however, ...
— Valentine M'Clutchy, The Irish Agent - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton

... ambushed him? and he was facing it. But presently he raised his right hand, the hand that had touched Carigny's, looked at it thoughtfully, and brushed it with his left. If he had any virtue, he was exhibiting it now. One could defeat him but not discountenance him. ...
— Those Who Smiled - And Eleven Other Stories • Perceval Gibbon

... which Average Jones had cultivated to the point of a fad. Hence it was with some discountenance that his clerk was obliged to apologize for his lateness, first, at 4 P. M. Of July 23, to a very dapper and spruce young gentleman in pale mauve spats, who wouldn't give his name; then at 4:05 P. m. of the same day to Professor ...
— Average Jones • Samuel Hopkins Adams



Words linked to "Discountenance" :   disapprove, shame



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