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Execrable   /ˌɛgzˈɛkrəbəl/   Listen
Execrable

adjective
1.
Of very poor quality or condition.  Synonyms: deplorable, miserable, woeful, wretched.  "Woeful treatment of the accused" , "Woeful errors of judgment"
2.
Unequivocally detestable.  Synonyms: abominable, detestable, odious.  "Detestable vices" , "Execrable crimes" , "Consequences odious to those you govern"
3.
Deserving a curse.  Synonym: damnable.






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"Execrable" Quotes from Famous Books



... The system, a part only of the crimes of which, most of the nations of Christendom have declared to be piracy;—against which, the common sense, the philosophy, the humanity, the conscience of the world, are arrayed;—this system, so execrable and infamous, you have had the presumption to attempt to vindicate by that blessed book, whose Author "is of purer eyes than to behold evil, and (who) cannot look upon iniquity"—and who "has magnified his word ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society

... passer-by, are draped with cheap lace curtains. The broad expanse of cotton wadding between the double windows is decorated, in middle-class taste, with tufts of dyed grasses, colored paper, and other execrable ornaments. Here, as everywhere else in Moscow, one can never get out of eye-shot of several churches; white with brilliant external frescoes, or the favorite mixture of crushed strawberry and white, all with green roofs and surmounted ...
— Russian Rambles • Isabel F. Hapgood

... pardoned after the term of punishment; their names were branded: the horned elect butted at them; he who alluded to them offered them up, wittingly or not, to be damned in the nose of the public for an execrable ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... for the sake of its own character would explode these doctrines with all the marks of odium they deserved; and that all parties would join in giving a death-blow to this execrable trade. The royal family would, he expected, from their known benevolence, patronize the measure. Both Houses of Parliament were now engaged in the prosecution of a gentleman accused of cruelty and oppression in the East. But what were these cruelties, even ...
— The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the Abolition of the African Slave Trade by the British Parliament (1808) • Thomas Clarkson

... violent thunder storm came, but brought no relief. Desperate, we thought we might at least see the ponds and the falls, and early one hazy morning started off with strong wagon, stout horses, and careful driver. The distance to the Lower Pond is seven miles—three excellent, and four so execrable that nearly all our party preferred walking to the jolting over rocks and stumps and ploughing through rich, deep forest mould, dignified by the name of driving. This is a new road, just opened, and the intention is, we believe, to work it into better shape as rapidly as possible. The intervale ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No. 6, December 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... of the partisans of slavery, or of its lukewarm opponents. Let this idea be trampled out, and there will be no sympathy with the rebellion; and there will be no such abomination as slave-hunting, which is beyond question the most execrable feature of slavery itself. Accept my ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage

... which has been so often the seat of the most destructive wars, after a respite of a few years, has appeared always as fruitful and as populous as ever. Even the Palatinate lifted up its head again after the execrable ravages of Louis the Fourteenth. The effects of the dreadful plague in London in 1666 were not perceptible fifteen or twenty years afterwards. The traces of the most destructive famines in China and Indostan are by all accounts very soon obliterated. It ...
— An Essay on the Principle of Population • Thomas Malthus

... though my trunk contained only clothing and three or four books. Small business this for a Railroad, though it will do in stage transportation. Our passports were scrutinized—mine not very thoroughly—we (the green ones) obtained an execrable dinner for 37 1/2 cents, and changed some sovereigns for French silver at a shave which was not atrocious. Finally, we were all ...
— Glances at Europe - In a Series of Letters from Great Britain, France, Italy, - Switzerland, &c. During the Summer of 1851. • Horace Greeley

... in the Lords was not lively, and the Duke, they say, made a most execrable speech. The fact is that he is not up to a great speech on a great question; he wants the information and preparation, the discipline of mind, that is necessary, and accordingly he exposes himself dreadfully, and entirely lost all the advantages he had gained by the excellent speeches ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William - IV, Volume 1 (of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville

... very certain, monsieur; I should think not, indeed; his accent is execrable;" and the good woman lifted her hands with ...
— Marie Gourdon - A Romance of the Lower St. Lawrence • Maud Ogilvy

... in the transportation thither, . . . determined to keep open a market where white men should be bought and sold; he has prostituted his negative for suppressing every legislative attempt to prohibit or restrain this execrable commerce." ...
— Slavery and Four Years of War, Vol. 1-2 • Joseph Warren Keifer

... heights; or whether the cool Praeneste, or the sloping Tibur, or the watery Baiae have delighted me. Me, who am attached to your fountains and dances, not the army put to flight at Philippi, not the execrable tree, nor a Palinurus in the Sicilian Sea has destroyed. While you shall be with me with pleasure will I, a sailor, dare the raging Bosphorus; or, a traveler, the burning sands of the Assyrian shore: I will visit the Britons ...
— The Works of Horace • Horace

... was playing his game, too. He was "freezing" to induce the quarry to move and give himself away, because, since the vole was motionless, he had no idea where the little fellow was, although he seemed to be looking straight at him—in that execrable way snakes have of seeming to ...
— The Way of the Wild • F. St. Mars

... Butter is 3s. a pound; fruit and vegetables only to be had by chance. I miss the oranges and lemons sadly. Poultry and milk uncertain. The bread is good everywhere, from the fine wheat: in the country it is brownish and sweet. The wine here is execrable; this is owing to the prevailing indolence, for there is excellent wine made from the Rhenish grape, rather like Sauterne, with a soupcon of Manzanilla flavour. The sweet Constantia is also very good indeed; not the expensive sort, ...
— Letters from the Cape • Lady Duff Gordon

... passage, while, according to others, he did so from revenge against the king of Aracan, for the Portuguese who had been slain by that king in Bangael of Dianga[429]. However this may have been, Gonzalez was guilty of a most execrable treachery, as, by leaving open the mouth of the river Dangatiar, he left a free passage to the Moguls. After this he went with his fleet into a creek of the island Desierta[430], and assembling all the captains of the Aracan vessels on board ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VI - Early English Voyages Of Discovery To America • Robert Kerr

... the Romans do," thought the artist, looking at the table, and beginning to eat,—like a man who had breakfasted at Vierzon, at six o'clock in the morning, on an execrable cup of coffee. When Joseph had eaten up all his bread and asked for more, Monsieur Hochon rose, slowly searched in the pocket of his surtout for a key, unlocked a cupboard behind him, broke off a section of a twelve-pound loaf, carefully cut a round of it, then divided the round ...
— The Celibates - Includes: Pierrette, The Vicar of Tours, and The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac

... friend.' He calls Johnson 'the best of friends, to whom I stand indebted for all the little virtue and knowledge that I have.' 'Nothing,' he continues, 'I think, but absolute want can force me to continue where I am.' Jamaica he calls 'this execrable region.' Hawkins (Life, p. 235) says that 'Bathurst, before leaving England, confessed to Johnson that in the course of ten years' exercise of his faculty he had never opened his hand to more than one guinea.' Johnson perhaps had Bathurst in mind when, many years later, he wrote:—'A ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell

... given Luther in which to recant therefore expired two months later. Instead of doing so he published several answers to "the execrable bull of Anti-christ," and on December 10 publicly and solemnly burnt it, together with the whole Canon Law. This he had come to detest, partly as containing the "forged decretals," partly as the sanction for a vast mechanism of ecclesiastical use ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith

... you Gods! By heaven, I would rather Embrue my arms, up to my very shoulders, In the dear entrails of the best of fathers, Than offer at the execrable act Of damned incest: ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. 6 (of 18) - Limberham; Oedipus; Troilus and Cressida; The Spanish Friar • John Dryden

... girl relented, and even offered to assist him in his search, but he waved her away, and going upstairs sat down and looked drearily round the shabby little room. An execrable ornament of green and pink paper in the fireplace had fallen down, together with a little soot; there was dust on the table, and other signs of neglect. He crossed over to the window and secured two or three ...
— A Master Of Craft • W. W. Jacobs

... it will therefore be supposed the officers passed nearly all their leisure hours; Molineux and Villiers flirting with the fair American sisters, until they had nearly been held fast by the chains with which they dallied, and Middlemore uttering his execrable puns with a coolness of premeditation that excited the laughter of the fair part of his auditors, while his companions, on the contrary, expressed their unmitigated abhorrence in a variety of ways. As for the somewhat staid Captain Granville, he sought to carry his homage to the feet of Miss ...
— The Canadian Brothers - or The Prophecy Fulfilled • John Richardson

... no one, unacquainted with the ecclesiastical history of those ages, could imagine the height of zeal and violence with which it was then inculcated. The decree of the Lateran council calls the Monothelites impious, execrable, wicked, abominable, and even diabolical, and curses and anathematizes ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 4 • Various

... successive augmentations of its force an energy, as necessity might prompt, we shall finally accumulate, in a single body, all the most important prerogatives of sovereignty, and thus entail upon our posterity one of the most execrable forms of government that human infatuation ever contrived. Thus, we should create in reality that very tyranny which the adversaries of the new Constitution either are, or affect ...
— The Federalist Papers • Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison

... road! whose execrable way Was darkly shadow'd out in Milton's lay, When the sad fiends thro' Hell's sulphureous roads Took the first survey of their new abodes; 10 Or when the fall'n Archangel fierce Dar'd through the realms of Night to pierce, What time the Bloodhound lur'd by ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge

... happily, between high walls and hedges, past trim gardens and fields and meadows, and I marvelled at the regular, park-like look of the country, as though stamped from one design continually recurring, like our butter at Carvel Hall. The roads were sometimes good, and sometimes as execrable as a colonial byway in winter, with mud up to the axles. And yet, my heart went out to this country, the home of my ancestors. Spring was at hand; the ploughboys whistled between the furrows, the larks circled overhead, and the lilacs were cautiously pushing forth their noses. The ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... revengeful sentiment, and took part in all the excesses and all the aberrations of the human passions; thus it was, in fine, that the national spirit became predisposed to the persecution of the Jews, Mahometans, and Protestants, by means of that execrable tribunal, ...
— Roman Catholicism in Spain • Anonymous

... the front, and we chose a tall Swahili because he grinned better than the others. "Although," as Fred remarked, "what the devil grinning has to do with cooking is more than anybody knows." The man, whose name was Juma, turned out to be an execrable cook, but as he never left off grinning under any circumstances (and it would have been impossible to imagine circumstances worse than those we warred with later on) we never had the ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy

... opera was excellently done, and the price of the stalls one and threepence English. At Milan, on the other hand, the Scala was fallen from its old estate, dirty, gloomy, dull, and the performance execrable. ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster

... Sybaris having tasted it, declared it was no longer a matter of astonishment with him, why the Spartans were so fearless of death, since any one in his senses would much rather die, than exist on such execrable food.—Vide Athenaeum, lib. iv. c. 3. When Dionysius the tyrant had tasted the black broth, he exclaimed against it as miserable stuff; the cook replied—"It was no wonder, for the sauce was wanting." "What sauce?" says Dionysius. ...
— The Cook's Oracle; and Housekeeper's Manual • William Kitchiner

... that the Circassian wrote, Perish his fame, contempt be all his lot, Who basely durst in execrable strains, Turn holy mysteries ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753),Vol. V. • Theophilus Cibber

... execrable humor: he was tired and worried, and his boots were muddy. And what was the use of being still contumacious, unless his obstinacy were to be a spectacle to men and gods,—unless he were to flaunt his ill humor in ...
— Not Like Other Girls • Rosa N. Carey

... last improvements made by the author, was published in 1682, the ninth in 1684, the tenth in 1685. The help of the engraver had early been called in, and tens of thousands of children looked with terror and delight on execrable copperplates, which represented Christian thrusting his sword into Apollyon or writhing in the grasp of Giant Despair. In Scotland and in some of the colonies, the Pilgrim was even more popular than in his native country. Bunyan has ...
— Brave Men and Women - Their Struggles, Failures, And Triumphs • O.E. Fuller

... people who surrounded that strange host as he told the story of his evil days were a curious spectacle. Some seemed disgusted, especially Monpavon. That display of old rags seemed to him in execrable taste, and to denote utter lack of breeding. Cardailhac, that sceptic and man of refined taste, a foe to all emotional scenes, sat with staring eyes and as if hypnotized, cutting a piece of fruit with the end of his fork into strips as thin as ...
— The Nabob, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet

... low, it becomes disagreeable even to myself; give me leave, therefore, to propose a way to clear the streets of these vermin, and to substitute as many honest industrious persons in their stead, who are now starving for want of bread, while these execrable villains live, though in rags and nastiness, yet ...
— Everybody's Business is Nobody's Business • Daniel Defoe

... me:—I'll ev'ry ill prevent, For which the rascal hither has been sent. As on they moved, a wood was in the way, Where robbers often waited for their prey; The villain whom the husband had employed, Sent forward those whose company annoyed, And would prevent his execrable plan; The last of horrid crimes.—disgrace to man! No sooner had the wretch his orders told, But Argia vanished—none could her behold; The beauteous belle was quickly lost to view: A cloud, the fairy Manto o'er ...
— The Tales and Novels, Complete • Jean de La Fontaine

... the people derived from this execrable amusement, induced the candidates for office to gratify, them frequently with this spectacle. The exhibitions were no longer confined to funerals; they formed an integrant part of every election, and were found more powerful than merit in opening a way to office. ...
— Pinnock's Improved Edition of Dr. Goldsmith's History of Rome • Oliver Goldsmith

... that theory. To kill, without the necessity demonstrated a score of times of legitimate defence, to kill women, children, prisoners, unarmed men, was a crime,—a crime, look at it how you will, that was execrable; those who ordered it, those who consented to it, those who executed it are, to my mind, deserving ...
— The Deputy of Arcis • Honore de Balzac

... execrable wretches, because they wear pepper and salt pantaloons; Lady Morgan improves upon him, declaring the man who wears a white waistcoat in the morning, or the woman who curtsies at a drawing-room door, out of the pale of society. It is surprising that people will ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 14, No. 396, Saturday, October 31, 1829. • Various

... yourself to that execrable man, Williamson; the man who but the other day murdered such a number of Moravian Indians, knowing them to be friends; knowing that he ran no risk in murdering a people who would not fight, and whose only ...
— Stories Of Ohio - 1897 • William Dean Howells

... coach lumbered and strained along by the aid of six lean horses, and many elaborate springs, chains and straps, from Brittany towards Paris. The autumn roads were execrable, for the rains had been heavy, and the ruts made by the harvest-waggons were deep. The lateness of the season intensified the deserted look of rural France. Little else was to be seen along most of the route than ...
— The False Chevalier - or, The Lifeguard of Marie Antoinette • William Douw Lighthall

... (February 1st, 1650); and Coppe was imprisoned, but was released on his recantation of his opinions. His book was the cause of that curious ordinance of August 9th, 1650, for the "punishment of atheistical, blasphemous, and execrable opinions," which is the best summary and proof of the intense religious fanaticism then prevalent, and so curiously similar in all its details to that of the primitive Christian Church. At both periods ...
— Books Condemned to be Burnt • James Anson Farrer

... leaped, while a joyous warmth spread all over him. And though the execrable lummox immediately propelled Miss Pratt forward—by her elbow—to hear the descriptive remarks of the Swedish lady named Anna, William's soul remained uplifted and entranced. She had not said "like"; she had said, "Flopit LOVE ole friends best"! ...
— Seventeen - A Tale Of Youth And Summer Time And The Baxter Family Especially William • Booth Tarkington

... of the United States mail swung back and forth across the continent and the oceans beyond, and in unnumbered cities and towns the letter-carriers came and went; but nothing they brought into Bienville or Royal Street bore tidings from that execrable editor in New York who in salaried ease sat "holding up" the manuscript once the impressionable Dora's, now the gentle Aline's. The holiday—"everything shut up"—had arrived. No carrier was abroad. Neither reason ...
— The Flower of the Chapdelaines • George W. Cable

... midst of it a voice—a high, jolly, schoolboy voice—called out from the gateway demanding, in execrable Portuguese, to be shown Lady Vyell's tent. She dropped the raking-iron with a clatter and stood ...
— Lady Good-for-Nothing • A. T. Quiller-Couch

... and court of France were at this time subjected to the guidance of the execrable Catherine dei Medici. To this woman the religious differences which then agitated Europe were in themselves perfectly indifferent, and on more than one occasion she had allowed it to be perceived that they were so: but a close ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin

... wish a thousand times I were dead; and from day to day I grow wearier of dwelling in a body worn out and condemned to suffer. I am writing to you in the first moment of my grief. Astonishment, sorrow, indignation, scorn, all blended together, lacerate my soul. Let us get to the end, then, of this execrable Campaign; I will then write to you what is to become of me; and we will arrange the rest. Pity me;—ad make no noise about me; bad news go fast enough of themselves. Adieu, dear Marquis." [OEuvres de Frederic, ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XIX. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle

... the president, now turning his attention to the worthy Hugh, "profane and execrable wretch!—we have said, that in consideration of those rights which, even in thy filthy person, we feel no inclination to violate, we have condescended to make reply to thy rude and unseasonable inquiries. We nevertheless, for your unhallowed intrusion upon our councils, believe it ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 3 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe

... with which the foreign slave trade is contemplated. That trade has long since been denounced by this government as piracy. It has been denounced with burning words, from the high places of the nation, as an execrable traffic. To arrest it, to put an end to it, this nation keeps a squadron, at immense cost, on the coast of Africa. Everywhere in this country, it is safe to speak of this foreign slave trade as a most ...
— My Bondage and My Freedom • Frederick Douglass

... language, and assurances that God's "people have been fasting and praying before him for your direction," he proceeds to urge upon him his favorite Swedish case, wherein the "endeavours of the Judges to discover and extirpate the authors of that execrable witchcraft," were "immediately followed with a remarkable smile of God." Then comes the paragraph, which the Reviewer defiantly cites, to prove that Cotton Mather agreed with him, in the opinion that spectre evidence ought not ...
— Salem Witchcraft and Cotton Mather - A Reply • Charles W. Upham

... be admitted that Punch's dialect has not always pleased up there, where "the execrable attempts at broad Scotch which appear weekly in our old friend Punch" have before now been authoritatively denounced. Under the heading of "Probable Deduction" Punch had the following paragraph:—"A pertinacious Salvation Army captain was worrying a ...
— The History of "Punch" • M. H. Spielmann

... it had several wives. They were as unfeeling as brutes. If a wife displeased her lord and master, he would mercilessly cut off her nose; and with apparently as little concern as a dog-fancier trims the ears of a terrier. United with these execrable traits of character, there were others, to which we have already alluded, which were alluring. In the summer, the men often went without any clothing, except moccasins made ...
— The Adventures of the Chevalier De La Salle and His Companions, in Their Explorations of the Prairies, Forests, Lakes, and Rivers, of the New World, and Their Interviews with the Savage Tribes, Two Hu • John S. C. Abbott

... he fortified himself with carts and other things as well as he could, in hopes that, if the Duke of Burgundy were routed, he might have an opportunity of coming in for a share of the plunder, as he did afterward. Nor was this practice with the Duke of Lorraine the most execrable action that Campobasso was guilty of; but, before he left the army, he conspired with several other officers—finding it was impracticable to attempt anything against the Duke of Burgundy's person—to leave him just as they came to the charge; for at that time he supposed it would put the army ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 8 - The Later Renaissance: From Gutenberg To The Reformation • Editor-in-Chief: Rossiter Johnson

... decently disposing the remains of some of the dead and celebrated divine service in memory of all, amidst the tears and utter grief of their relatives and connections, suspended the holy sacrifice of the mass, in order to deliver a discourse, touching those execrable institutions of communes, whereby we see serfs, contrary to all right and justice, withdrawing themselves by force from the lawful authority of ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume II. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot

... 'Correggio.' The whole collection, including 'a divine picture by Murillo,' and Titian's Daughter (hitherto supposed to be in the Louvre)—the whole I would, I think, have cheerfully given a pound or two for the privilege of not possessing—so execrable as sign-paintings even! 'Are there worse poets in their way than painters?' Yet the melancholy business is here—that the bad poet goes out of his way, writes his verses in the language he learned ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett

... shoulder and broke into a cold perspiration at beholding an execrable three-quarters length cut of my darling son superscribed by his name ...
— The Opinions of a Philosopher • Robert Grant

... Cognette," who lost her husband about 1835, opened a little cafe at Issoudun during the first years of her widowhood. Balzac was an intermittent and impecunious client of hers; he would enter her shop, quaff a cup of coffee, execrable to the palate of a connoisseur like him, and "chat a bit" with the good old woman who probably unconsciously furnished ...
— Women in the Life of Balzac • Juanita Helm Floyd

... assembled to adjudge the prize. The first vessel was unsealed. Its odour was such that the judges, without tasting it, pronounced unanimous condemnation. The next was opened: it had a villainous taste of clay. The third was sour and vapid. They proceeded from one cask of execrable liquor to another, till at length, in absolute nausea, they gave ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 1 (of 4) - Contibutions to Knight's Quarterly Magazine] • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... between two lengthy hilly ridges, thickly dotted with the giant forms of the baobab. Kididimo is exceedingly bleak in aspect. Even the faces of the Wagogo seemed to have contracted a bleak hue from the general bleakness around. The water of the pits obtained in the neighbourhood had an execrable flavor, and two donkeys sickened and died in less than an hour from its effects. Man suffered nausea and a general irritability of the system, and accordingly revenged himself by cursing the country and its imbecile ruler most ...
— How I Found Livingstone • Sir Henry M. Stanley

... committed. In a new months his administration had become universally odious. It had been swept away by an irresistible outbreak of popular fury; and its memory was still held in abhorrence by the whole city. The immediate cause of the downfall of this execrable government was said to have been an attempt made by Appius Claudius upon the chastity of a beautiful young girl of humble birth. The story ran that the Decemvir, unable to succeed by bribes and ...
— Lays of Ancient Rome • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... Counter! stay ye, what are these then? O execrable Jugler! O dama'd Jugler! Look in your hose, hoa, this ...
— Beggars Bush - From the Works of Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher (Vol. 2 of 10) • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher

... years and a half Wenceslas had produced a statue and a son. The child was a picture of beauty; the statue was execrable. ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac

... tell you," replied the count "that I gave him the same advice. Look," added he. "I am finishing the most execrable morning's work." ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... German, or Italian, but he said emphatically, 'Make a fire in Mrs. Hawthorne's room.' Worn out with his efforts, he turned to me and said, 'Do, Miss Mitchell, tell the servant what I want; your French is excellent! Englishmen and Frenchmen understand it equally well.' So I said in execrable French, 'Make a fire,' and pointed to the grate; of course the ...
— Maria Mitchell: Life, Letters, and Journals • Maria Mitchell

... have in mind may have all the public and private virtues. One knows the severe probity of Ninon, her generosity, her taste for the arts, her attachment to her friends. Epicharis, the soul of the conspiracy of Piso against the execrable Nero, was a courtesan, and the severe Tacitus, who cannot be taxed with a partiality for gallantry, has borne witness to the constancy with which she resisted the most seductive promises and endured the most terrible tortures, without revealing any of the details of the conspiracy ...
— The Satyricon, Complete • Petronius Arbiter

... company mustered. The weather was execrable—fog that you might cut with an axe; and the Duke rode out "in a perfect sulkiness." But suddenly, as he looked round, the sun ploughed up the woolly mass, and drove it in all directions, and looking through the courtyard arch, he saw a troop of Gipsies on their march, coming with ...
— Browning's Heroines • Ethel Colburn Mayne

... in the ranks than the four months of his actual service. As it was, however, his military experiences, unlike those of Gibbon, were of no subsequent advantage to him. He was, as he tells us, an execrable rider, a negligent groom of his horse, and, generally, a slack and slovenly trooper; but before drill and discipline had had time to make a smart soldier of him, he chanced to attract the attention of his captain by ...
— English Men of Letters: Coleridge • H. D. Traill

... Government; the causes of the rebellion were not to be laid at the door of England at all. They were these, 'the great affection they generally bear to the Popish religion, which agreeth with their humour, that having committed murder, incest, thefts, with all other execrable offences, by hearing a mass, confessing themselves to a priest, or obtaining the Pope's pardon, they persuade themselves that they are forgiven, and, hearing mass on Sunday or holyday, they think all the week after they may do what heinous offence ...
— The Land-War In Ireland (1870) - A History For The Times • James Godkin

... Frere at daybreak on January 11th, and, covered by the 'Royals,' took the Springfield road. It had been raining heavily, and the road, never good, soon became execrable. The column was followed by a long line of waggons carrying baggage, supplies, ammunition, pontoons, &c. On arriving at Pretorius' Farm, the brigade halted and pitched camp. The battalion found the outposts, which were especially ordered to protect ...
— The Second Battalion Royal Dublin Fusiliers in the South African War - With a Description of the Operations in the Aden Hinterland • Cecil Francis Romer and Arthur Edward Mainwaring

... Antonio to the City of Mexico our train ran into one of the sand-storms, for which the Mexican country is famous at certain times of the year; and we were at a standstill on a side track at a small station for twenty-four hours. The food was execrable, the wind and sand were choking, and the whole experience trying in the extreme. We were warned against thieves of the neighbourhood, and, during the night we were locked in the cars to ensure the safety of our belongings. In spite of these precautions a shawl which the Doctor valued, because ...
— T. De Witt Talmage - As I Knew Him • T. De Witt Talmage

... that Sarsfield accompanied James. The battle of the Boyne had scarcely been fought when it was made the subject of a drama, the Royal Flight, or the Conquest of Ireland, a Farce, 1690. Nothing more execrable was ever written. But it deserves to be remarked that, in this wretched piece, though the Irish generally are represented as poltroons, an exception is made in favour of Sarsfield. "This fellow," says James, aside, "I will make ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 3 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... Annixter, in execrable temper, appeared from time to time, hatless, his stiff yellow hair in wild disorder. He hurried between the barn and the ranch house, carrying now a wickered demijohn, now a case of wine, now a basket of lemons and pineapples. Besides general supervision, he had elected to assume the responsibility ...
— The Octopus • Frank Norris

... admirable, good, learned, honest, and most severe sermon, yet comicall.... He railed bitterly ever and anon against John Calvin and his brood, the Presbyterians, and against the present terme, now in use, of "tender consciences." He ripped up Hugh Peters (calling him the execrable skellum), his preaching and stirring up the mayds of the city to bring in their bodkins and thimbles. Thence going out of White Hall, I met Captain Grove, who did give me a letter directed to myself from ...
— English Literature - Its History and Its Significance for the Life of the English Speaking World • William J. Long

... evidently borrowed from their uncultivated neighbors beyond the Dasht-i-na-oomid, is the execrable practice of chewing snuff. Almost every man carries a supply of coarse snuff in a little sheepskin wallet or dried bladder; at short intervals he rubs a pinch of this villainous stuff all over his teeth and gums and deposits a second pinch away ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens

... to ancient animosities, nor with rash hand attempt to hurl the brand of discord between the nations." In the same connection he attacks Gallic philosophy and the equality of man, the latter of which he styles an "execrable delusion of hair-brained philosophy." Others might speak of "the Republic of letters;" with Dennie it was the Monarchy of letters. Several articles ran through the Port Folio of 1801 on the sentiment and style of the Declaration of Independence, characterizing ...
— The Philadelphia Magazines and their Contributors 1741-1850 • Albert Smyth

... scarcely speak for tears, for wherever I travelled throughout Pomerania, as the faithful servant of your Highness, nothing was heard but lamentations from old and young, rich and poor, that this execrable Sorceress, out of Satanic wickedness, had destroyed this illustrious race, who had held their lands from no emperor, in feudal tenure, like other German princes, but in their own right, as absolute lords, since ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V1 • William Mienhold

... answered the purpose of a market-place, and facing Lablache's store. Inside, it was gloomy, and the air invariably reeked of stale tobacco and drink. The bar was large, and at one end stood a piano kept for the purpose of "sing-songs"—nightly occurrences when the execrable whisky had done its work. Passing through the bar one finds a large dining-room on one side of a passage, and, on the other, a number of smaller rooms devoted to the use of those who wished ...
— The Story of the Foss River Ranch • Ridgwell Cullum

... cried out that it wasn't fair; and it really was not. But when at last he caught her; when, in spite of all her silken rustlings, and her rapid flutterings past him, he got her into a corner whence there was no escape; then his conduct was most execrable. For his pretending not to know her; his pretending that it was necessary to touch her head-dress, and further to assure himself of her identity by pressing a certain ring upon her finger, and a certain chain about her neck; was vile, monstrous! No doubt ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 6 • Charles H. Sylvester

... and banner thus displayed, the tyrant Charles II erected his opposite standard for the utter destruction of CHRIST'S true servants and subjects. And having declared their lawful meetings for the worship of GOD, according to his word, execrable rendezvouses of rebellion; a convention of estates, anno 1678, was called and met, by which a large cess was imposed to maintain an additional army, for the suppression of the true religion and liberty, and ...
— Act, Declaration, & Testimony for the Whole of our Covenanted Reformation, as Attained to, and Established in Britain and Ireland; Particularly Betwixt the Years 1638 and 1649, Inclusive • The Reformed Presbytery

... things as it has best pleased Him; but I have in my time seen three of the most execrable persons that ever I knew in all manners of abominable living, and the most infamous to boot, who all dy'd a very regular death, and in all circumstances compos'd even to perfection. There are brave, and fortunate deaths. I have seen death cut the thread of the progress of a prodigious ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VII (of X)—Continental Europe I • Various

... and supplemented these by gleanings from his own commonplace book. The result is a curious medley, which testifies clearly to learning and wit, and also to the turning over of musty old books of facetiae written in execrable Latin. ...
— The Surprising Adventures of Baron Munchausen • Rudolph Erich Raspe

... lady is usually prodigiously careful of her little self: she regards men as her natural enemies. Poor innocent!—This absurdity is the fault of her education. They have made her believe that love is the most abominable, execrable, infernal thing in existence. They have taught her to lie and to dissimulate her most innocent emotions. But the time is not far distant when the natural impulses of her heart will break down the barriers that hypocrisy has placed around her. Woman was formed to love: ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, December 11, 1841 • Various

... of their pulpit oratory, its artificial cadences and flowery verbiage, its theatrical appeals to gross sensations, wrought miracles and converted thousands. Their sickly Ciceronian style, their sentimental books of piety, 'the worse for being warm,' the execrable taste of their poetry, their flimsy philosophy and disingenuous history, infected the taste of Catholic Europe like a slow seductive poison, flattering and accelerating the diseases of mental decadence. Sound learning died down beneath the tyranny of the Inquisition, the Index, ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds

... the scale this consideration, that the principle of the whole is unmitigated abominable evil, as by your own acknowledgement you hold it to be, and add, moreover, that the principle being invariably bad beyond the power of the best man acting under it to alter its execrable injustice, the goodness of the detail is a matter absolutely dependent upon the will of each individual slaveholder, so that though the best cannot make the system in the smallest particular better, the bad can make every practical detail ...
— Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation - 1838-1839 • Frances Anne Kemble

... history affords numberless instances of the fallacy and folly of dogmatic decisions, and premature judgments. It were endless to relate the cases of dramatic performances, which, previous to their being acted, were regarded by managers and actors as execrable, and certain of condemnation—and yet have lived a century beyond the existence of their judges. And the instances are at least as numerous of managers forming the most flattering anticipations of the success, and the consequent emoluments of performances which were, to ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 4, April 1810 • Various

... more execrable than Republicans. Westerners of that faith were jealous of Sewall as an Eastern man and rich. Too close union with Democracy threatened Populism with extinction. Rightly divining that their leaders ...
— History of the United States, Volume 5 • E. Benjamin Andrews

... only two dissenting voices. One was that of an impertinent cur which, after sniffing at the heels of the glistening figure, put its tail between its legs and skulked into its master's backyard, vociferating an execrable howl. The other dissentient was a young child who squalled at the fullest stretch of his lungs and babbled some unintelligible nonsense about ...
— Short Stories of Various Types • Various

... Irene wearied of her gay, heedless chit-chat. As the latter anticipated, the day proved very tiresome; the usual complement of music was contributed by Grace, the expected quantity of flattering nothings gracefully uttered by her brother, the customary amount of execrable puns handed around the circle for patronage and Irene gave the signal for dinner. Mr. Huntingdon prided himself on his fine wines, and, after the decanters had circulated freely, the ...
— Macaria • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson

... one of the finest houses in Arlington Street, a gentleman paced restlessly to and fro, stopping before one of the windows every now and then, to look, with a fretful glance, at the dull sky. "What weather!" he muttered: "what execrable weather!" ...
— Run to Earth - A Novel • M. E. Braddon

... which he had no power to quell. The mob, headed by the Jacobins, had now the complete ascendency, and he was minister but in name. He urged upon the Assembly the adoption of immediate and energetic measures to arrest these execrable deeds of lawless violence. Many of the Girondists in the Assembly gave vehement but unavailing utterance to their execration of the massacres. Others were intimidated by the weapon which the Jacobins were now so effectually ...
— Madame Roland, Makers of History • John S. C. Abbott

... former of which are worn chiefly, of Buenos Ayres make; and ready-made garments of linen and poor cloths. The imported liquors and articles of food are principally a small quantity of sugar, lard, wine of an execrable quality, and Hamburg gin, together with a few boxes of candles and some oil and soap. To this list of imports must be added the inevitable Chinese fire-crackers, without which noisy accessories no Paraguayan ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 90, June, 1875 • Various

... unhappy creature might not be hit, for if he were, it would bring the pursuit to an end in the precise spot where Jim could not possibly avoid being discovered; but he need not have been alarmed; the shooting was execrable, and the bullets flew everywhere but near the fugitive. Several of them flattened themselves against the face of the boulder behind which Douglas was lying, and one nearly blinded him with the dust which it threw up as it plugged into ...
— Under the Chilian Flag - A Tale of War between Chili and Peru • Harry Collingwood

... have never heard the cry of "Vive Louis XVIII.!" and then it was done, I shrewdly suspect, as an acceptable cry for the Anglois, and followed immediately by "un pauvre petit liard, s'il vous plait, Mons." We went to the play last night; the house was filthy beyond description, and the company execrable as far as dress went; few women, and those in their morning dress and Oldenburg Bonnets—the men almost all officers, and a horrid-looking set they were. I would give them credit for military talents; they all looked like chiefs of banditti—swarthy ...
— Before and after Waterloo - Letters from Edward Stanley, sometime Bishop of Norwich (1802;1814;1814) • Edward Stanley

... Tuileries, they coupled the name of Napoleon with Jacobin curses and revolutionary songs. The airs and the words that had made Paris tremble to her very centre during the Reign of Terror—the "Marseillaise," the "Carmagnole," the "Jour du depart," the execrable ditty, the burden of which is, "And with the entrails of the last of the priests let us strangle the last of the kings," were all roared out in fearful chorus by a drunken, filthy, and furious mob. Many a day had elapsed since they had dared to sing ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne

... wickedness shall we every day abandon ourselves? I do not find what Sextus Peduceus did, in faithfully restoring the treasure that C. Plotius had committed to his sole secrecy and trust, a thing that I have often done myself, so commendable, as I should think it an execrable baseness, had we done otherwise; and I think it of good use in our days to recall the example of P. Sextilius Rufus, whom Cicero accuses to have entered upon an inheritance contrary to his conscience, not only not against law, but even by the determination ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne

... this woman, who knew not how to show my affection for her, who, for her sake, sacrificed my youth! How she must have laughed at me! Her infamy dates from the moment when for the first time she took me on her knees; and, until these few days past, she has sustained without faltering her execrable role. Her love for me was nothing but hypocrisy! her devotion, falsehood! her caresses, lies! And I adored her! Ah! why can I not take back all the embraces I bestowed on her in exchange for her Judas kisses? And for what was all this heroism of deception, this caution, ...
— The Widow Lerouge - The Lerouge Case • Emile Gaboriau

... claims the clearest dictates of humanity and religion; being at all times ready to bind themselves by an oath that they would neither eat nor drink until they had slain the enemy of their nation or of their God. This was the school which supplied that execrable faction, who added tenfold to the miseries of Jerusalem in the day of her visitation, and who contributed more than all the legions of Rome to realize the bitterness of the curse which was poured upon ...
— Palestine or the Holy Land - From the Earliest Period to the Present Time • Michael Russell

... in the hair of Ulysses, yet knew it not, and he chid the ram for being last, and spoke to it as if it understood him, and asked it whether it did not wish that its master had his eye again, which that abominable Noman with his execrable rout had put out, when they had got him down with wine; and he willed the ram to tell him whereabouts in the cave his enemy lurked, that he might dash his brains and strew them about, to ease his heart of that tormenting revenge which rankled ...
— THE ADVENTURES OF ULYSSES • CHARLES LAMB

... make a tour in Scotland with Mrs. W—— and her sister, Miss Hutchinson. I congratulate you on the overthrow of the execrable despot, and the complete triumph of the war faction, of which noble body I have the honour to be as active a member as my abilities and industry would allow. Best remembrances to yourself ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth

... (Mexico), Tucson (Arizona), and other places. The least offensive features of the churches of this period were the towers, usually in pairs at the west end, some of them showing excellent proportions and good composition in spite of their execrable details. ...
— A Text-Book of the History of Architecture - Seventh Edition, revised • Alfred D. F. Hamlin

... wild gestures, "is enough to appall me! Yes, I have bitter enemies, envious rivals who would give their right hand for this execrable letter. Ah! if they obtain it they will demand an investigation, and then farewell to the rewards due to ...
— The Honor of the Name • Emile Gaboriau

... louder than the others, and although, from the execrable endeavors he made to express himself in French, his natural voice was much altered, there was yet something in his accents which seemed perfectly ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 2 (of 2) • Charles Lever

... utterly selfish, dissolute, heartless; and her lover, who is easily recognized as Musset himself, is described as having almost all of the heroic virtues." Both books were thoroughly French,—thoroughly execrable. ...
— Home Life of Great Authors • Hattie Tyng Griswold

... did not mince matters when their opportunity came. They, too, regarded them as vermin, and treated them according to the unrestrained edicts of the Reign of Terror, organized and administered by their late compatriots Sardanapalus, Danton, Maximilian Robespierre, and their literary colleague, the execrable Marat, who, by the way, was expeditiously dispatched ...
— Drake, Nelson and Napoleon • Walter Runciman

... established, not to defend property, but to destroy it. The State, through the proportional tax, becomes the chief of robbers; the State sets the example of systematic pillage: the State should be brought to the bar of justice at the head of those hideous brigands, that execrable mob which it now kills from motives ...
— What is Property? - An Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of Government • P. J. Proudhon

... was driven forward by the wind. That upon a quarrel among us, I was set on shore on this coast, where I walked forward, without knowing whither, till he delivered me from the persecution of those execrable Yahoos." He asked me, "who made the ship, and how it was possible that the Houyhnhnms of my country would leave it to the management of brutes?" My answer was, "that I durst proceed no further in my relation, unless ...
— Gulliver's Travels - into several remote nations of the world • Jonathan Swift

... similar abhorrence, the reality of that infernal art, which was able to control the eternal order of the planets, and the voluntary operations of the human mind. They dreaded the mysterious power of spells and incantations, of potent herbs, and execrable rites; which could extinguish or recall life, inflame the passions of the soul, blast the works of creation, and extort from the reluctant daemons the secrets of futurity. They believed, with the wildest inconsistency, that this preternatural dominion of the air, of ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon

... my judgment, highly creditable to his head and heart. He who can peruse it without a tearful eye, a heaving breast, an afflicted spirit,—without being filled with an unutterable abhorrence of slavery and all its abettors, and animated with a determination to seek the immediate overthrow of that execrable system,—without trembling for the fate of this country in the hands of a righteous God, who is ever on the side of the oppressed, and whose arm is not shortened that it cannot save,—must have a flinty heart, and be qualified to act the part of a trafficker "in slaves and the souls ...
— The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass - An American Slave • Frederick Douglass

... charming country-house YOU CAN IMAGINE: it is QUITE SHUT IN by trees, and so retired that, though only thirty miles from London, the post comes to us but once a week. The roads, it must be confessed, are execrable; it is winter now, and we are up to our knees in mud and snow. But oh, Eliza! how happy we are: with Thomas (he has had a sad attack of rheumatism, dear man!) and little Bobby, and our kind friend Dr. Bates, who comes so far to see us, I leave you to fancy that we have a charming merry party, ...
— The Fatal Boots • William Makepeace Thackeray

... shared the Brabanter's execrable news. Already Northumberland, Westmoreland, and Durham were the ...
— Chivalry • James Branch Cabell

... politeness (I suppose he thought I had not caught the drift of his previous uncivil mutterings), and in a jargon the most execrable that ever was heard, "Meess——, play you must: I am ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte

... kittens, and tell her that George's brandy is just what smuggled spirits might be expected to be, execrable! The smack of it remains in my mouth, and I believe will keep me most horribly temperate for half a century. He (Burnet) was bit, but I caught the Brandiphobia.[36] [obliterations ...]—scratched out, well knowing that you never allow such things to pass, ...
— Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey • Joseph Cottle

... Magi, the Evil Principle. Was there ever received into a human creed, a being so mean—almost so ridiculous—as the Christian Satan? A goatish figure and limbs, with grotesque features, formed to express the most execrable passions; a degree of power scarce inferior to that of the Deity; and a talent at the same time scarce equal to that of the stupidest of the lowest order! What is he, this being, who is at least the second arbiter of the human race, save an immortal spirit, with the petty spleen and ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott

... Many of his comrades had a lot of suffering from cold. But aside from the execrable boot that Sir Shakleton had dreamed into existence, he himself possessed more warm clothing than he liked to carry around with him. But not a few soldiers forgot to look around and take sober stock of their actual situation and fell prey ...
— The History of the American Expedition Fighting the Bolsheviki - Campaigning in North Russia 1918-1919 • Joel R. Moore

... But a wonderful ideal Why should I not be the fried-fish queen? Issue new shares. I buy them all up. We establish fish palaces all over the world? But why not? I am in trade already. Only yesterday my homme d'affaires sent me for signature a dirty piece of blue paper all covered with execrable writing and imitation red seals all the way down, and when I signed it I saw I was interested in Messrs. Jarrods Limited, and was engaged in selling hams and petticoats and notepaper and furniture and butter and—remark this—and fish. But raw fish. Now what the difference is between ...
— The Fortunate Youth • William J. Locke

... epistolary, epitome, equestrian, equilibrium, equinoctial, equity, equivocate, eradicate, erosion, erotic, erudition, eruptive, eschew, esoteric, espousal, estrange, ethereal, eulogistic, euphonious, evanescent, evangelical, evict, exacerbate, excerpt, excommunicate, excoriate, excruciate, execrable, exegesis, exemplary, exhalation, exhilarate, exigency, exodus, exonerate, exorbitant, exotic, expectorate, expeditious, explicable, explicit, expunge, extant, ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor

... what art thou, execrable shape! That dar'st, though grim and terrible, advance Thy miscreated front athwart my way To yonder gates? Through them, I mean to pass— That be assured—without leave asked of thee! Retire, or taste thy folly; and learn by proof, Hell-born! not to ...
— The Canadian Elocutionist • Anna Kelsey Howard

... John Wilson, and William Mertens as Roger Chillingworth. The greater part of the music had been performed at concerts of the Oratorio Society on January 4 and 5, 1895. The book of the opera proved to be undramatic in the extreme, a defect which was emphasized by the execrable pronunciation of nearly all the singers at the performance on the stage at the Academy. In the music Mr. Damrosch essayed the style of Wagner, and did it so well, indeed, as to deserve hearty admiration. He was helped, it is true, ...
— Chapters of Opera • Henry Edward Krehbiel

... their sphere—are doomed to extermination, while at the same time they are encouraged to a general assassination of their masters by the insidious recommendation to abstain from violence unless in necessary self-defense. Our own detestation of those who have attempted the most execrable measures recorded in the history of guilty man is tempered by profound contempt for the impotent rage which it discloses. So far as regards the action of this Government on such criminals as may attempt its execution, I confine myself to informing ...
— History of the Negro Race in America from 1619 to 1880. Vol. 2 (of 2) - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George Washington Williams

... Hecuba, one can endure recitative: but when Heracles himself comes upon the stage, and so far forgets himself, and the respect due to the lion-skin and club that he carries, as to deliver a solo, no reasonable person can deny that such a performance is in execrable taste. Then again, your objection to dancing—that men act women's parts—is equally applicable to tragedy and comedy, in which indeed there ...
— Works, V2 • Lucian of Samosata

... officer of the boat, to receive him on board, and had his arms already out to catch him, when M. Laperere instantly let go the rope which attached us to the other boats, and tugged off with all his force. At the same instant every boat imitated our execrable example; and wishing to shun the approach of the shallop, which sought for assistance, stood off from the raft, abandoning, in the midst of the ocean, and to the fury of the waves, the miserable mortals whom they had sworn to land on the shores of ...
— Thrilling Narratives of Mutiny, Murder and Piracy • Anonymous

... learned about women the farther out of mental reach they seemed to go. Why on earth did she want this execrable daub? "You may have it; but all the same, I'm going to call an oculist and have him examine ...
— The Place of Honeymoons • Harold MacGrath

... a kind of collateral test of poetical excellence may be found by extracting the philosophy from the poetry. The test is, of course, inadequate. A good philosopher may be an execrable poet. Even stupidity is happily not inconsistent with sound doctrine, though inconsistent with a firm grasp of ultimate principles. But the vigour with which a man grasps and assimilates a deep moral doctrine is a test of the ...
— Hours in a Library - New Edition, with Additions. Vol. II (of 3) • Leslie Stephen

... state line, in 1773; his son, Joseph Doddridge, was the author of Notes on the Settlements and Indian Wars of the Western Parts of Virginia and Pennsylvania, 1763-83, a valuable antiquarian work. The names of Greathouse and Baker became execrable through their connection with the massacre of Chief Logan's family, in 1774. Leffler and Biggs attained prominence in border warfare.—R. ...
— Chronicles of Border Warfare • Alexander Scott Withers

... of The Rolling Stone, which flourished, or at least wavered, in Austin during the years 1894 and 1895. Years before, Porter's strong instinct to write had been gratified in letters. He wrote, in his twenties, long imaginative letters, occasionally stuffed with execrable puns, but more than often buoyant, truly humorous, keenly incisive into the unreal, especially in fiction. I have included a number of these letters to Doctor Beall of Greensboro, N. C., and to his early friend in Texas, Mr. ...
— Rolling Stones • O. Henry

... orator could do justice to the scene which Moses depicts in one word: "Cain rose up against his brother?" Many descriptions of cruelty are to be found on every hand, but could any be painted as more atrocious and execrable than is the case here? "He rose up against his brother," Moses writes. It is as if he had said, Cain rose up against Abel, the only brother he had, with whom he had been brought up and with whom he had lived to that day. But not only the relationship ...
— Commentary on Genesis, Vol. II - Luther on Sin and the Flood • Martin Luther

... delight in doing evil. These defences could not consist in rational measures dictated by a knowledge of the laws of physical nature, since they had no notion of such laws; nor in prayers and propitiatory offerings, since one of the demons' most execrable qualities was, as we have seen, that they "knew not beneficence" and "heard not prayer and supplication." Then, if they cannot be coaxed, they must be compelled. This seems a very presumptuous ...
— Chaldea - From the Earliest Times to the Rise of Assyria • Znade A. Ragozin

... getting a ship on which I might work my passage to Europe. Accordingly I proceeded to Melbourne as soon as I could, and the only noteworthy incident there was my humorous interview with the French Consul. I addressed that dignified functionary in execrable French, telling him that I was a French subject and wanted to be sent back to Europe. I bungled a great deal, and when my French failed I helped myself out with English. The Consul waited patiently till I had ...
— The Adventures of Louis de Rougemont - as told by Himself • Louis de Rougemont

... OF DRUNKENKESS.—To what are we to ascribe the prevalence of this detestable vice amongst us! Many causes might be plausibly assigned for it, and one of them is our execrable cookery. The demon of drunkenness inhabits the stomach. From that "vasty deep" it calls for its appropriate offerings. But the demon may be appeased by other agents than alcohol. A well-cooked, warmed, nutritious meal allays the craving quite as effectually ...
— International Weekly Miscellany Vol. I. No. 3, July 15, 1850 • Various



Words linked to "Execrable" :   inferior, cursed, damnable, hateful, curst, odious



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