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Unconscionable   /ənkˈɑnʃənəbəl/   Listen
Unconscionable

adjective
1.
Lacking a conscience.  Synonym: conscienceless.  "Brash, unprincipled, and conscienceless" , "An unconscionable liar"
2.
Greatly exceeding bounds of reason or moderation.  Synonyms: exorbitant, extortionate, outrageous, steep, usurious.  "Extortionate prices" , "Spends an outrageous amount on entertainment" , "Usurious interest rate" , "Unconscionable spending"






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"Unconscionable" Quotes from Famous Books



... action of the story, and produces a constant alternation of hope and foreboding. The last volumes, indeed, are dragged out in a way which is injurious in several respects. Clarissa, to use Charles II.'s expression about himself, takes an unconscionable time about dying. But until the climax is reached, we see the clouds steadily gathering, and yet with an increasing hope that they may be suddenly cleared up. The only English novel which produces a similar effect, and impresses us with the sense of an inexorable fate, slowly but steadily ...
— Hours in a Library, Volume I. (of III.) • Leslie Stephen

... admirers of Sterne's genius who would not gladly incline, whenever they find it possible, to Mr. Fitzgerald's very indulgent estimate of his disposition. But this is only one of many instances in which the charity of the biographer appears to me to be, if the expression may be permitted, unconscionable. I can, at any rate, find no warrant whatever in the above passage for the too kindly suggestion that "Sterne was actually negotiating a journey to Paris as 'bear-leader' to a young nobleman (an odious office, to which he had special aversion), in order ...
— Sterne • H.D. Traill

... sacrifice their moral sense, both become idle; the bad in both is ripened into rankness, and makes itself villainously manifest at all seasons; the good is atrophied, and finally dies. Goodness may take an unconscionable time a-dying, but it is sentenced to death by the fates from the moment when alcoholism sets in, and the execution is only a ...
— The Ethics of Drink and Other Social Questions - Joints In Our Social Armour • James Runciman

... regiments of neurotic wives have been convinced that their children are monuments, not to a co-operation in which their own share was innocent and cordial, but to the solitary libidinousness of their swinish and unconscionable husbands. ...
— In Defense of Women • H. L. Mencken

... been expending their share of the power. It is high time they were enjoying their share of the glory. What an unconscionable leveling up and down there will presently be when it dawns upon humanity what a large though inglorious share it has been having in the spiritually creative work of the world! In that day the seats of ...
— The Joyful Heart • Robert Haven Schauffler

... "What an unconscionable time it takes her! Don't you think so, Mrs. Sloman?" I said at last, after I had gone through three several ...
— On the Church Steps • Sarah C. Hallowell

... a self-satisfied swagger that indicated elation, though his visage expressed nothing but stolidity, slightly tinged with surprise. On the fourth day the cradles were made, and a very large portion of their gains thereby swept away in consequence of the unconscionable prices charged for every article used in their construction. However, this mattered little, Maxton said, as the increased profits of their labour would soon repay the outlay. And he was right. On the fifth day their returns were more than trebled, and ...
— The Golden Dream - Adventures in the Far West • R.M. Ballantyne

... did not lead to statues, but it was none the less a safe one. He wrote frequent long letters to Miss Garland; when Rowland went with him to post them he thought wistfully of the fortune of the great loosely-written missives, which cost Roderick unconscionable sums in postage. He received punctual answers of a more frugal form, written in a clear, minute hand, on paper vexatiously thin. If Rowland was present when they came, he turned away and thought of other things—or tried to. ...
— Roderick Hudson • Henry James

... chair, convicted once more of unconscionable staring; and at the same moment a group of hotel people, returning from a dance, passed through the hall and nodded him good-night. The scent of the women reached him; and with it the sound of their voices discussing personalities just left behind. A London ...
— Four Weird Tales • Algernon Blackwood

... a mighty spinner of yarns, but no sooner does he set about the telling than I, knowing him of old, and accounting him not an uncommon but an unconscionable liar, begin (as Bacon hath it) "to droop and languish." Nor does the languishing end with the story if I am compelled to sit it out, for in that state I continue for some hours after. But oh! the difference when someone ...
— A Traveller in Little Things • W. H. Hudson

... Unconscionable as you may have deemed the length of this epistle, I must nevertheless extend it by the mention of what I conceive to be a very essential feature both of beauty and utility in the street scenery of Paris. It is of the FOUNTAINS that ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume Two • Thomas Frognall Dibdin

... installed by the mistress, a shrewish person, who, making pretensions to gentility, receives her guests under protest that she does not keep a hotel, but is willing to accommodate strangers,—a phrase repeated a hundred times while we were under her roof, and emphatically when presenting a rather unconscionable bill on our departure. And this was the only refuge in a city of from six to eight thousand inhabitants, many of them boasting nobility, the capital of a province, the seat of a governor and a bishop, and head-quarters of a military district. I may be pardoned for being circumstantial ...
— Rambles in the Islands of Corsica and Sardinia - with Notices of their History, Antiquities, and Present Condition. • Thomas Forester

... some little impatience at the unconscionable chatter of her attendant; but the giddy maid, heedless of every thing, continued in a ...
— Gomez Arias - The Moors of the Alpujarras, A Spanish Historical Romance. • Joaquin Telesforo de Trueba y Cosio

... the man demanded an unconscionable amount, which made the pair exchange glances. But Ingleborough nodded as much as to say: "Pay the thief!" and the money was handed over and taken with a grunt. After this the Boer passed into the next room, closing the door after him; but ...
— A Dash from Diamond City • George Manville Fenn

... satisfactory parting from his charmer. His cousin had continued writing to Marya Alexandrovna for nearly two years longer ... but he too perceived at last that he was deceiving her and himself in an unconscionable way, and ...
— The Diary of a Superfluous Man and Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev

... Jews whose ancestors came from Spain, gipsies and Kutzo-Vlachs. A French observer said some years ago that Macedonia was a school of brigandage and ethnology. He said it was the prey of the Albanians and the professors—that is, of unconscionable savages and of laborious agents of all kinds of foreign propaganda. Even the Kutzo-Vlachs, which in Greek signifies "Limping Roumanians," made their propaganda, or had it made for them. Gustav Weigand, ...
— The Birth of Yugoslavia, Volume 1 • Henry Baerlein

... for a husband. But he was a good shepherd and had been many years on the farm, and it was altogether a terrible business. Forthwith the farmer got out his horse and rode to the downs to have it out with the unconscionable wretch who had brought that shame and trouble on them. He found him sitting on the turf eating his midday bread and bacon, with a can of cold tea at his side, and getting off his horse he went up to him and damned ...
— A Shepherd's Life • W. H. Hudson

... next make the further complaint that, even when making every effort to do the civil, the result is apt to kill with kindness; and—as King CHARLES THE FIRST, when they were shuffling off his mortal coil, politely apologised for the unconscionable long time that his head took to decapitate—so I, too, must draw attention to the fact that the duration of formal ceremonious visits, is far too ...
— Baboo Jabberjee, B.A. • F. Anstey

... he protested. "It is so long, Miss Masters, since I have seen you alone. That is my excuse for having remained such an unconscionable time. I ...
— A Comedy of Masks - A Novel • Ernest Dowson and Arthur Moore

... suppose I could do anything. I want to make you happy, Madge. I feel just like taking the idiot by the ear, bringing him to you, and saying, 'There, you unconscionable fool, look at that girl—' You know what I mean. I'm suggesting the spirit, not the letter of my action. But, Madge, believe me, if I could help you ...
— A Young Girl's Wooing • E. P. Roe

... will. It is really bad for her art to be neglected like this. She has been here an unconscionable time,—it must be ...
— Elizabeth and her German Garden • "Elizabeth", AKA Marie Annette Beauchamp

... "I think you would admire it, and I am afraid my grandfather will be a few minutes yet. He hoped to get home earlier than this, but his Board meeting was very long and important, and has kept him an unconscionable time." ...
— Marcella • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... April 1661 Marvell was returned for the third and last time for Hull, for Charles the Second's first Parliament was of unconscionable long duration, not being dissolved till January 1679, after Marvell's death. It is known in history as the Pensionary or Long Parliament. The ...
— Andrew Marvell • Augustine Birrell

... the house, and where he hid his little chambermaids, with a hundred other impertinences of that nature; none of your free-and-easy companions, who would scrape their boots upon the firedogs in the common room, and be not at all particular on the subject of spittoons; none of your unconscionable blades, requiring impossible chops, and taking unheard-of pickles for granted. He was a staid, grave, placid gentleman, something past the prime of life, yet upright in his carriage, for all that, and slim as a greyhound. He was well-mounted upon a sturdy chestnut ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens

... fervor, of chivalrous enthusiasm, of philistine sentimentalism, in the icy water of egotistical calculation. It has resolved personal worth into exchange value, and in place of the numberless indefeasible chartered freedoms, has set up that single, unconscionable freedom—Free Trade. In one word, for exploitation, veiled by religious and political illusions, it has substituted naked, ...
— Manifesto of the Communist Party • Karl Marx

... about proceedings of which, for obvious reasons, the details are best left unrecorded. It was not an unconscionable while before they seemed to be aware of unusual phenomena. But as Sir Thomas always pointed out, in subsequent discussions, these were quite possibly the fruitage ...
— The Certain Hour • James Branch Cabell

... sent you a good long Vienna despatch, must hasten to take leave—not only of yourself, but of this metropolis. Whether I shall again write to you before I cross the Rhine on my return home—is quite uncertain. Let me therefore make the most of the present: which indeed is of a most unconscionable length. Turn, for one moment, to the opening of it—and note, there, some mention made of certain monasteries—one of which is situated at CLOSTERNEUBURG, the other in the suburbs. I will first ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume Three • Thomas Frognall Dibdin

... another time, did he not call himself Maximin? Was riot Lyndaraxa once called Almeira? I mean under Montezuma the Indian Emperor. I protest and vow they are either the same, or so alike that I cannot, for my heart, distinguish one from the other. You are, therefore, a strange unconscionable thief; thou art not content to steal from others, but dost rob thy poor wretched ...
— Lives of the Poets, Vol. 1 • Samuel Johnson

... quality than your old muffs that thought much of doubling Cape Horn, here gives us nine great discoveries, far more surprising than the pretended discoveries of Sinbad (which are known to be fabulous), averaging quam proxime, forty- seven small 16mo pages each. Oh you unconscionable German, built round in your own country with circumvallations of impregnable 4tos, oftentimes dark and dull as Avernus—that you will have the face to describe dear excellent Captain Lemuel Gulliver of Redriff, and subsequently of Newark, that 'darling of children and men,' as ...
— The Notebook of an English Opium-Eater • Thomas de Quincey

... Maxwell turned the screws which moved the bellows, and tried in vain to understand their working; Robert peered through the lenses, and Oswald alternately raved, chided, and jeered at their efforts. With so many cooks at work, it took an unconscionable time to get ready, and even when the camera was perched securely on its spidery legs, it still remained to choose the site of the picture, and to pose the victims. After much wandering about the garden, it ...
— About Peggy Saville • Mrs. G. de Horne Vaizey

... used, after our English interjections, in stead of finding a "perfect accordance" between that syntax and the rule for which such accordance has been claimed, we see at once an utter repugnance, and that the pretence of their agreement is only a sample of Kirkham's unconscionable pedantry. The rule, in all its modifications, is based on the principle, that the choice of cases depends on the distinction of persons—a principle plainly contrary to the usage of the Latin classics, and ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown

... There is an ale-house in Sea-coal Lane—the same where lady-like George Peele was found by the barber, who had subscribed an hour before for his decent burial, "all alone with a peck of oysters"—and here Ned is detained an unconscionable time. Just as he is leaving with Kempe and Cowley, Armin and Will Shakespeare burst in with a cry for wine. It is Armin who gives the orders, but his companion pays. They spy Alleyn, and Armin must tell his news. He is the bearer of a challenge ...
— My Lady Nicotine - A Study in Smoke • J. M. Barrie

... miser, has such an opinion of B, the wanter, that he would rather lend it to him, than to any mortal living; but yet, though he has no other use in the world for it, insists upon very unconscionable terms. ...
— Clarissa Harlowe, Volume 9 (of 9) - The History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson

... myself, with my watch in my hands, one day last winter, at a certain drawing-room door. Behind me two gentlemen were also waiting without showing any readiness to lose their temper, like me. The reason was that they had long grown accustomed to our unconscionable insolence. ...
— A Comedy of Marriage & Other Tales • Guy De Maupassant

... expect to be treated as public property: what would be an intrusion on a domiciled gentlewoman is a tribute to me. You cannot have celebrity and sex-privilege both.' Thus Ethelberta laughed off the awkward conjuncture, inwardly deploring the unconscionable maternal meddling which had led to this, though not resentfully, for she had too much staunchness of heart to decry a parent's misdirected zeal. Had the clanship feeling been universally as strong as in the Chickerel family, the fable ...
— The Hand of Ethelberta • Thomas Hardy

... was banished to the mountains, and died. Bekt[a]sh Kh[o]ja, the next Dey, was murdered on his judgment-seat in the third year of his reign. A fifth Dey, Ibrah[i]m Deli, or "the Fool," made himself so hated by his unconscionable licentiousness that he was assassinated, and his mutilated body exposed in the street, within a few months, and 'Ali, who succeeded in 1710, by murdering some three thousand Turks, contrived to reign eight years, and by some mistake ...
— The Story of the Barbary Corsairs • Stanley Lane-Poole

... years old when he published the "Hesperides." It was, I repeat, no heavy message, and the bearer was left an unconscionable time to cool his heels in the antechamber. Though his pieces had been set to music by such composers as Lawes, Ramsay, and Laniers, and his court poems had naturally won favor with the Cavalier ...
— Ponkapog Papers • Thomas Bailey Aldrich

... must be going,' he said; 'I have paid you an unconscionable visit. If you are going past the vicarage, Miss Leyburn, may I ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... eating up of I do not know how many hundreds of men, women and children whom he had promised to protect; allowed himself to be publicly insulted a dozen times over without resenting it; and in the end when even an angel could stand it no longer he shilly-shallied and temporised an unconscionable time before he would fix the day and hour for the encounter. As for the actual combat it was much such another wurra-wurra as Mrs Allaby had had with the young man who had in the end married her eldest daughter, till after a time behold, there was the dragon lying dead, while ...
— The Way of All Flesh • Samuel Butler

... far, far from the next to nothing which the old barber had led me to suppose I should have to pay, who perhaps after all had very extravagant ideas with respect to making out a bill for a Saxon. It was, however, not a very unconscionable bill, and merely amounted to a trifle more than I had paid at Beth Gelert for ...
— Wild Wales - Its People, Language and Scenery • George Borrow

... his most gentlemanly manner, was afraid he had disturbed her by unhappily presenting himself at such an unconscionable time. For which he had already offered his best apologies to Mr—he begged pardon—but by name had not the distinguished honour—'Mr Flintwinch has been connected with the ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens

... By the same token, no man wants to be arraigned in a criminal court, and displayed in the sensational newspapers, as a purveyor of indecency, however strong his assurance of innocence. Comstock made use of this fact in an adroit and characteristically unconscionable manner. He held the menace of prosecution over all who presumed to dispute his tyranny, and when he could not prevail by a mere threat, he did not hesitate to begin proceedings, and to carry them forward with the aid of florid proclamations to the newspapers and ...
— A Book of Prefaces • H. L. Mencken

... talking about all this unconscionable time," Joel was now exclaiming in the library, as he glanced up at the clock. "I could finish that Amy Loughead in the ...
— Five Little Peppers Grown Up • Margaret Sidney

... as follows: "This is an innovation; but every one paid his five shillings to try how a little fiddling would sit upon him. And, notwithstanding the barbarous and inhuman combination of such a parcel of unconscionable scamps, he [Handel] disposed of the most ...
— The Great German Composers • George T. Ferris

... gossip of the river, eating a robust meal, then pushing on to repeat the {290} experience elsewhere, and you will have a good picture of Father Louis Hennepin, a man whose books describing his travels, real or imaginary, had, in their day, the widest popularity in Europe. Though he was an unconscionable braggart, and though he had no scruples about falsifying facts, yet, as the first person to publish an account of the Falls of Niagara, and as the discoverer and namer of the Falls of St. Anthony, he is fairly entitled to a place in ...
— French Pathfinders in North America • William Henry Johnson

... complete regiment of bugs "marked me for their own." Thus I lay, at once both the seat of war and the victim of these detestable animals, till early in the morning (Sunday, July 9th), when Morpheus, compassionating my sufferings, opened the ivory gates of his empire, and freed his votary from the most unconscionable vermin that ever nastiness engendered. In humble prose, I fell fast asleep; and remained quiet, in defiance of my adversaries, till it was time to survey ...
— Dreams, Waking Thoughts, and Incidents • William Beckford

... censure, neither of which he would nor could revoke until Don Pedro Mexia had submitted himself to the Church and to a public absolution, and had satisfied the priests and the cloisters who suffered for him, and had disclaimed that unlawful and unconscionable monopoly wherewith he wronged the whole commonwealth, and especially the poorer ...
— Mexico and its Religion • Robert A. Wilson

... "If the men must be drilled," he urged, "with a view to their health and discipline, why not place them under the direction of the adjutant or the officer of the day, whoever he might chance to be, and not unnecessarily disturb a body of gentlemen from their comfortable slumbers at that unconscionable hour?" Poor Sir Everard! this was the only grievance of which he complained, and he complained bitterly. Scarcely a morning passed without his inveighing loudly against the barbarity of such a custom; threatening at the same time, amid the laughter of his companions, ...
— Wacousta: A Tale of the Pontiac Conspiracy (Complete) • John Richardson

... "July 22d.—At the unconscionable hour of 2 A.M., a mob of Pangerans came on board, in number not fewer than fifty, and with a multitude of followers. They awoke us out of our first sleep, and crowded the vessel above and below, so that ...
— The Expedition to Borneo of H.M.S. Dido - For the Suppression of Piracy • Henry Keppel

... spread out. The poor-master jerked the folds out of them impatiently, in a way that seemed to say, "You keep me an unconscionable long time about a ...
— Queer Stories for Boys and Girls • Edward Eggleston

... London, while Lord Saville, and the rest of his retinue, rode briskly off in an opposite direction, pursued by the benedictions of the host and his family, who stood bowing and courtesying at the door, in gratitude, doubtless, for the receipt of an unconscionable reckoning. ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott

... Hermione's eyes to droop so suddenly as she took the bottle from Ravenslee's hand, or her rounded cheek to flush so painfully as she stooped to meet the child's eager kiss, or, when she turned away to measure a dose of the medicine, to be such an unconscionable time over it? Observing all of which, Ravenslee forthwith saluted the small invalid with a grave bow, battered hat ...
— The Definite Object - A Romance of New York • Jeffery Farnol

... either too big or too little at their next coming, and yet not depart without a fee at the first so that what by their mending at one time, and impairing the same at another, the country is greatly charged, and few just measures to be had in any steed. It is oft found likewise that divers unconscionable dealers have one measure to sell by and another to buy withal; the like is also in weights, and yet all sealed and branded. Wherefore it were very good that these two were reduced unto one standard, that is, one bushel, one pound, ...
— Chronicle and Romance (The Harvard Classics Series) • Jean Froissart, Thomas Malory, Raphael Holinshed

... any more," interrupted the Grandmother energetically. "I understand the situation. I always thought we should get something like this from him, for I always looked upon him as a futile, frivolous fellow who gave himself unconscionable airs on the fact of his being a general (though he only became one because he retired as a colonel). Yes, I know all about the sending of the telegrams to inquire whether 'the old woman is likely to turn up her toes soon.' Ah, they were looking for the legacies! Without money that ...
— The Gambler • Fyodor Dostoyevsky

... however, he who had been so farseeing, so thrifty a business man, seemed to have made a mistake. His calculations as to the duration of the war all went wrong. It seemed to be lasting an unconscionable time, and every day it seemed to present new phases for which no immediate settlement offered itself. Thus a year dragged away, and Antoine's son turned eighteen, and his moustache grew to be so imposing that his father commanded him to shave it. At the end of another two months, ...
— The Backwash of War - The Human Wreckage of the Battlefield as Witnessed by an - American Hospital Nurse • Ellen N. La Motte

... clouds enveloped the whole Campagna. The mist dissolved into a drizzling rain; and when we entered the city, it poured in torrents. Since we left England, this is only the third time it has rained while we were on the road; it seems therefore unconscionable to murmur. But to lose the first view of Rome! the first view of the dome of St. Peter's! no—that lost moment will never be retrieved ...
— The Diary of an Ennuyee • Anna Brownell Jameson

... fails of comprehension. His heart rises against those who drink their curacoa in liqueur-glasses, when he himself can swill it in a brown John. He will not believe that the flavour is more delicate in the smaller dose. He will not believe that to walk this unconscionable distance is merely to stupefy and brutalise himself, and come to his inn, at night, with a sort of frost on his five wits, and a starless night of darkness in his spirit. Not for him the mild luminous evening of the temperate walker! He has nothing left of man but a physical need for bedtime ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... not know what it loses in allowing its judgment to be stampeded by unconscionable journalism. Lord Haldane is no political dilettante. Few men in modern times have brought to politics a mind so trained in right thinking, or a spirit so full of that impressive quality, as Morley calls it, the presentiment ...
— The Mirrors of Downing Street - Some Political Reflections by a Gentleman with a Duster • Harold Begbie

... be unconscionable in his dealing, and trades with lying words; or if bad commodities be avouched to be good, or if he seeks after unreasonable gain, or the like; his servant sees it, and it is enough to undo him. Eli's sons being bad before ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... for the marriage was not fixed, that it could not be definitively named till some business should be settled by the general. Law business they supposed, of course. Lady Cecilia "knew nothing about it. Lawyers are such provoking wretches, with their fast bind fast find. Such an unconscionable length of time as they do take for their parchment doings, heeding nought of that little ...
— Helen • Maria Edgeworth

... said, with genuine relief in her tone. "I have stayed an unconscionable time, and ...
— The Moving Finger • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... repealed in 1854, courts and juries have shown a certain astuteness in applying the rules of law as to fraud and undue influence—the latter with certain special features—to transactions with needy "expectant heirs" and other improvident persons which seem on the whole unconscionable. The Money Lenders Act of 1900 has fixed and (as finally interpreted by the House of Lords) also sharpened these developments. In the case of both fraud and undue influence, the person entitled to avoid a contract may, if so advised, ratify it afterwards; and ratification, if ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 7, Slice 2 - "Constantine Pavlovich" to "Convention" • Various

... town, willing to be shewn, and worthy to be seen. The other—I will not venture his description with you, till you come, because I would have you make hither with an appetite. If the worst of 'em be not worth your journey draw your bill of charges, as unconscionable as any Guildhall verdict will give it you, and you shall be allowed your viaticum. ...
— Every Man In His Humor - (The Anglicized Edition) • Ben Jonson

... Edgar warmly. "If the little puss were older she would understand you better. You unconscionable little sinner! what do you mean? hey?" good-humoredly taking Fina by ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, April, 1876. • Various

... much like a sister to me," he ventured again, "that I didn't stop to think; and only—only acted on the very same impulse I would if you actually were my sister!" (Oh, Brent, you unconscionable liar!) ...
— Sunlight Patch • Credo Fitch Harris

... come to such a pass in this so-called chivalrous country that sensitive women will submit to almost any wrong rather than seek redress in our courts of law, where they are liable to be subjected to studied insult by unconscionable shysters. It were well for the people to take this matter in hand and make it plain to all concerned that courts do not exist for the express purpose of enabling blackguard lawyers to pocket fat fees for aiding professional criminals to escape the legitimate consequence ...
— Volume 10 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann

... assented to this, adding some trite remark about the unconscionable wastefulness ...
— Trials and Confessions of a Housekeeper • T. S. Arthur

... staying up there an unconscionable time. Was he arguing, preaching, remonstrating? Had he discovered in himself a capacity and a taste for that sort of thing? Or was he perhaps, in an intense dislike for the job, beating about the bush and only ...
— Chance - A Tale in Two Parts • Joseph Conrad

... Dru, "did not constitute their sole offense, for, as you all know, they lobbied through legislatures the most unconscionable bills, giving them land, money and rights ...
— Philip Dru: Administrator • Edward Mandell House

... number, and twenty-five, in quantity. The moment I entered the coach, I stumbled on a huge projection, which might be called a belly, with the same propriety that you might name Mount Atlas a mole-hill. Heavens! that a man should be unconscionable enough to enter a stage coach, who would want elbow room if he were walking ...
— Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey • Joseph Cottle

... Silvia, dear," she answered, with a squeeze of the hand, "when on mischief bent about three blocks from here, and decided to come by this cheerful edifice on the chance that you might be here. I saw the car, introduced myself to your chauffeur and climbed in. I must say," she added, "that you were an unconscionable time. Now, what can ...
— An American Suffragette • Isaac N. Stevens

... the house of commons engaged, related to the contracts for victualling the forces in America, which were supposed by some patriots to be fraudulent and unconscionable. This suspicion arose from an ambiguous expression, on which the contractor being interrogated by the committee appointed to examine the particulars, he prudently interpreted it in such a manner, as to screen himself from the resentment of the legislature. The house, therefore, resolved that ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett

... part in a comedy, answered: No, by his leave, he would have nobody play the fool in his clothes but himself. Hence are his so austere reprehensions of drinking healths, lascivious talk, usury, and unconscionable dealing; whenas himself, hating the profane mixture of malt and water, will, by his good will, let nothing come within him but the purity of the grape, when he can get it of another's cost. But this must not be done neither without a preface ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various

... their hearers are numerous, and though often seasoned with dry and caustic humour, they never indicate appearance of bitterness or ill-feeling between the parties. As an example, a clergyman thought his people were making rather an unconscionable objection to his using a MS. in delivering his sermon. They urged, "What gars ye tak up your bit papers to the pu'pit?" He replied that it was best, for really he could not remember his sermon, and must have his ...
— Reminiscences of Scottish Life and Character • Edward Bannerman Ramsay

... unconscionable lot of letters there must be to keep him in there all this time! He was usually there about five minutes, but this morning he had been half an hour at the ...
— My Friend Smith - A Story of School and City Life • Talbot Baines Reed

... appropriating his philosophy, and pretending to invent his design and his method, he borrows all his most significant stories from him, and brings them in to illustrate the same points, and the points are borrowed also: he makes use, indeed, of his common-place book throughout in the most shameless and unconscionable manner. 'Rack his style, Madam, rack his style?' he said to Queen Elizabeth, as he tells us, when she consulted him—he being then of her counsel learned, in the case of Dr. Hayward, charged with having written 'the book of the deposing of Richard the ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon

... 10th of September the Squire was informed that Ralph Newton demanded another ten days for his decision, and that he had undertaken to communicate it by letter on the 20th. The Squire had growled, thinking that his nephew was unconscionable, and had threatened to withdraw his offer. The lawyer, with a smile, assured him that the matter really was progressing very quickly, that things of that kind could rarely be carried on so expeditiously; and that, in short, Mr. Newton had no fair ground of complaint. "When a man pays through ...
— Ralph the Heir • Anthony Trollope

... but he was selected because he was feeble and decrepit, and would show no fight even if attacked by a small boy with a kris. Raja Haji told me that he botched the killing a good deal, but that he hacked the life out of the Chinaman at last, though the poor wretch, like Charles II., took an unconscionable time adying. Death to this Chinaman must have only been one degree less unpleasant than it was ...
— In Court and Kampong - Being Tales and Sketches of Native Life in the Malay Peninsula • Hugh Clifford

... began to be gloomy and resentful. The crowded and factitious gaiety of the place actually annoyed him. If Elsie April had been and gone away again, he objected to such silly feminine conduct. If she was merely late, he equally objected to such unconscionable inexactitude. He blamed Mr. Marrier. He considered that he had the right to blame Mr. Marrier because he paid him three pounds a week. And he very badly wanted ...
— The Regent • E. Arnold Bennett

... residence in the island of Mytilene; his voyages to Sicily, to Ithaca, with the Countess Guiccioli, etc. But the most absurd, perhaps, of all these fabrications are the stories told by Pouqueville, of the poet's religious conferences in the cell of Father Paul, at Athens; and the still more unconscionable fiction in which Rizo has indulged, in giving the details of a pretended theatrical scene, got up (according to this poetical historian) between Lord Byron and the Archbishop of Arta, at the tomb of Botzaris, ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli

... faith we sought only concord of all our people in the tasks of American in the world. There was glory enough for all and we never advanced the claim that it was a partisan matter until the fact had been established through long and weary months of purposeful misunderstanding and unconscionable intrigue for party advantage by our opponents. There is in this no suggestion of unkind sentiments toward our leading adversaries. We can utter the sentiment voiced on the hill above Jerusalem and when America has come to understand we stand ready ...
— The Progressive Democracy of James M. Cox • Charles E. Morris

... Marcia consults her watch, and then she professes to be greatly surprised. What must poor Dolly think of her? "For I never make such unconscionable calls," she declares, and fancies that she blushes ...
— Floyd Grandon's Honor • Amanda Minnie Douglas

... correct the perspective of old Mettle's portrait. Certainly it was a villainous portrait, as he acknowledged to himself with a sigh. Parts of it must be rubbed out, and his right hand rummaged in his pocket and found a crust. But Johnny, among other afflictions, suffered from an unconscionable appetite. While he doubted where to begin, his teeth met in the bread, and he started guiltily, for it was more than half eaten when Hetty ...
— Hetty Wesley • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... to enable the people to haul wood and building-timber on their arabas. Arriving at a good-sized and comparatively well-to-do Mussulman village, I obtain an ample supper of eggs and pillau, and, after binning over and over again until the most unconscionable Turk among them all can bring himself to importune me no more, I obtain a little peace. Supper for two, together with the tough hill-climbing to-day, and insufficient sleep last night, produces its natural effect; I quietly doze off to sleep while sitting on the divan ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens

... said, "which in plain English, friend Job, means that we are dished—utterly, absolutely. I must go on my travels again. Well, such was my intention; the only difference is, that I go with an empty purse instead of a full one. Who'd have thought the old dog would ha' been such an unconscionable ...
— In Clive's Command - A Story of the Fight for India • Herbert Strang

... all the cries this world can boast— A loud, unconscionable host— There's one that I detest the most— It haunts me o'er my morning toast, It scares my luncheon's calm and dinner's. It dogs my steps throughout the week, That cursed crescendo of a shriek; I cannot read, or write, or speak, Undeafened by its howl unique, ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Volume 102, January 23, 1892 • Various

... enough, till we were interrupted by a miserable-looking crowd, assembled round a dull, dingy, melancholy shop, from which gleamed a solitary candle, whose long, spinster-like wick was flirting away with an east wind, at a most unconscionable rate. Upon the haggard and worn countenances of the by-standers, was depicted one general and sympathizing expression of eager, envious, wistful anxiety, which predominated so far over the various characters of each, as to communicate something of a likeness to all. It was ...
— Pelham, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... my question," the unconscionable mother pursued. "Does he know—is it known that you are not the great heiress your name ...
— A Touch Of Sun And Other Stories • Mary Hallock Foote

... or is mores derogatory to her own majesty, more odious to the subject, more dangerous to the commonwealth, than the granting of these monopolies." Mr. Martin said, "I do speak for a town that grieves and pines, tor a country that groaneth and languisheth, under the burden of monstrous and unconscionable substitutes to the monopolitans of starch, tin, fish, cloth, oil, vinegar, salt, and I know not what; nay, what not? The principalest commodities, both of my town and country, are engrossed into the hands of these bloodsuckers of the commonwealth. If a body, Mr. Speaker, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part D. - From Elizabeth to James I. • David Hume

... is to watch the A.S.C. or play football, twenty a side, or sit about indoors, or stand in the doorway, or walk down to the Estaminet and wait five or six deep for the billiard-table. Ultimately one sits. And so you get these unconscionable letters." ...
— Mr. Britling Sees It Through • H. G. Wells

... Polynesian legend we read of a character who was satisfied with nothing, "even pudding would not content him," and this unconscionable fellow worried his family out of all heart with his new ways and ideas. He represents a progressive, inventive race. He was building a great house, but the days were too short; so, like Maui, he determined to catch the sun in nets and ropes; but the sun went on. At last he succeeded; ...
— Ragnarok: The Age of Fire and Gravel • Ignatius Donnelly

... to answer him. Even supposing that he forced me, by the wicked, and unconscionable exercise of what, I presumed, were the hypnotic powers with which nature had to such a dangerous degree endowed him, to carry the adventure to a certain stage, since he could hardly, at an instant's notice, endow me with the ...
— The Beetle - A Mystery • Richard Marsh

... Dewey with his ships is there, holding the town at the muzzles of his guns and waiting for the re-enforcements of troops, which were dispatched to his aid from San Francisco almost a month after his victory—an unconscionable delay. Some 25,000 troops will be sent to his aid, and with the insurgents, who were greatly encouraged and strengthened by the American victory, will forever destroy ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 2 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot

... your brother, too, and has been making all manner of ignominious inquiries. Those lawyers can never understand that there can be anything of friendly feeling about money. They can't put friendly feelings into their unconscionable bills. I believe the world would go on better if there was no such thing as an attorney in it. I wonder ...
— Miss Mackenzie • Anthony Trollope

... reclaimed after his decease, but fall to those good Samaritans, who were now nursing him, and intended to bury him respectably. The future being thus settled, this worthy couple became a little impatient; for Griffith, like Charles the Second, was "an unconscionable time dying." ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 104, June, 1866 • Various

... of the whole pack of you. And now, forsooth, that you have grown out of childhood, long petticoats, chicken-pox, small-pox, whooping-cough, scarlet fever, and the other delectable accidents of puerile life, what must that unconscionable woman propose but to arrange the south rooms as a nursery for possible grandchildren, and set up the Captain with a wife, and make him marry early because we did! He is too fond, she says, of Brookes's ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray

... you should return upon me that I affect to be thought more impartial than I am. But if men are not to be judged by their professions, God forgive you Commonwealth's-men for professing so plausibly for the government. You cannot be so unconscionable as to charge me for not subscribing my name; for that would reflect too grossly upon your own party, who never dare, though they have the advantage of a jury to secure them. If you like not my poem, the fault may possibly ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol I - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden

... Fairyland occupy an unconscionable length of time. Walter Map, writing in the latter half of the twelfth century, relates a legend concerning a mythical British king, Herla, who was on terms of friendship with the king of the pigmies. The latter appeared to him one day riding ...
— The Science of Fairy Tales - An Inquiry into Fairy Mythology • Edwin Sidney Hartland

... at Cowperwood with shrewd, calculating eyes. The man had some merit, but much unconscionable evil in him. Butler knew very well how he had taken the check, and a good many other things in connection with it. The manner in which he had played his cards to-night was on a par with the way he had run ...
— The Financier • Theodore Dreiser

... different subjects down for discussion on the paper would come up, and they would warn one accordingly. But they often were out in their estimate, and they had always to be on the safe side. Some quite simple and apparently straightforward subject would take a perfectly unconscionable time to dispose of, while, on the other hand, an apparently extremely knotty problem might be solved within a few minutes and so throw the time-table out of gear. The result was that in the course of months one spent a good many hours, off and on, ...
— Experiences of a Dug-out, 1914-1918 • Charles Edward Callwell

... hair and his well-shaped head, never, the latter, neatly smooth, and apt, into the bargain, at the time of quite other calls upon it, to throw itself suddenly back and, supported behind by his uplifted arms and interlocked hands, place him for unconscionable periods in communion with the ceiling, the tree-tops, the sky. He was in short visibly absent-minded, irregularly clever, liable to drop what was near and to take up what was far; he was more a respecter, in general, than a follower of custom. He suggested above all, however, that wondrous state ...
— The Wings of the Dove, Volume 1 of 2 • Henry James

... balance of gentlemanly deportment, and yet vivacity of manner, might possibly lie on the side of those who spoke the former tongue. Next to Arthur sat the sallow States'-man, bolting his breakfast with unconscionable speed, and between whiles, in a high treble voice, volunteering his opinion pretty freely on Canadian matters, as if he were endowed with a special commission to set them right. Badly as Hiram Holt thought of the seignorial system, he was perforce ...
— Cedar Creek - From the Shanty to the Settlement • Elizabeth Hely Walshe

... not a spark of sympathy for Harry—a callow, egotistical dealer in currants. He ought to have blown out his brains a year ago. He has behaved in a most unconscionable manner. How does he expect me to break the news to Carlotta? His selfishness is appalling. There he lies, comfortably dead in the South Western Hotel, while Carlotta has literally not a rag to her back, her horrific belongings having been dropped into the dust-bin. Who does he ...
— The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne • William J. Locke

... the bay, five miles from South Sydney. Slowly we dragged on, until we came to a sleepy little one-story inn, with supernatural dormer windows rising out of the roof, before which Boab stopped. We paid McGibbet's kirk-fine, wagon-fare, and his unconscionable charge for his conscience, without parleying with him; we were too sleepy to indulge in the luxury of a monetary skirmish. A pretty, red-cheeked chambermaid, with lovely drooping eyes, showed us to our rooms; it was yet very early in the morning; we were almost ashamed to ...
— Acadia - or, A Month with the Blue Noses • Frederic S. Cozzens

... eventually greatly incapacitates a man for the duties of an active life. Indeed, to study the nature of a 'big native swell' is to study the character of a consummate Oriental epicure, immersed in a ceaseless round of pleasures, and hedged in by a body of unconscionable fellows, distinguished only ...
— India, Its Life and Thought • John P. Jones

... of morning was now apparent above, yet the thick growth of the trees, whose clustering branches mingled in one dense mass overhead, made it still dark and sombre below; and Joe, to divert Sneak from his unconscionable gait, which, in his endeavours to keep up, often subjected him to the rude blows of elastic switches, and many twinges of overhanging grape vines, essayed to engage his ...
— Wild Western Scenes • John Beauchamp Jones

... bear the barbarity of it; how can that unconscionable coachman talk so much bawdy to that lean horse? don't you see, friend, the streets are so villanously narrow, that there is not room in all Paris to turn a wheelbarrow? In the grandest city of the whole world, it would not have ...
— The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman • Laurence Sterne

... said he, in the tranquil voice of business, to the clerks; "see there, the profits of the salt duty; department No.3—very well. Page 9, Vol. D.—what is the account rendered by Vescobaldi, the collector? What! twelve thousand florins?—no more?—unconscionable rascal!" (Here was a loud shout without of 'Pandulfo!—long live Pandulfo!') "Pastrucci, my friend, your head wanders; you are listening to the noise without—please to amuse yourself with the calculation I entrusted to you. Santi, what is the entry ...
— Rienzi • Edward Bulwer Lytton

... sentimentalist. Courage and laughter are old friends, and Heine's laughter—his later laughter, at least—was perhaps mostly courage. If for no other reason, one would hope for a hereafter—so that Charles II and Heine may have met and compared notes upon dying. Heine was indeed an "unconscionable long time a-dying," but then he died with such brilliant patience, with such good humour, and, in the meanwhile, contrived to write such haunting poetry, such ...
— Old Love Stories Retold • Richard Le Gallienne

... thorough-paced, thoroughgoing; roaring, thumping; extraordinary.; important &c 642; unsurpassed &c (supreme) 33; complete &c 52. august, grand, dignified, sublime, majestic &c (repute) 873. vast, immense, enormous, extreme; inordinate, excessive, extravagant, exorbitant, outrageous, preposterous, unconscionable, swinging, monstrous, overgrown; towering, stupendous, prodigious, astonishing, incredible; marvelous &c 870. unlimited &c (infinite) 105; unapproachable, unutterable, indescribable, ineffable, unspeakable, inexpressible, beyond expression, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget



Words linked to "Unconscionable" :   immoderate, unconscientious



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