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Unsavory   /ənsˈeɪvəri/   Listen
Unsavory

adjective
1.
Morally offensive.  Synonyms: offensive, unsavoury.  "An unsavory scandal"
2.
Not pleasing in odor or taste.  Synonyms: distasteful, unsavoury.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Unsavory" Quotes from Famous Books



... Kilkenny cats than to anything like universal brotherhood. He opened our lyceum as if it had been an oyster, without any regard for the feelings of those inside. He pitched into the world in general, and all his neighbors past and present in particular. Even the babe unborn did not escape some unsavory epithets in the way of vaticination. I sat down, meaning to write you an essay on "The Right of Private Judgment as distinguished from the Right of Public Vituperation"; but I forbear. It may be that I do not ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, No. 38, December, 1860 • Various

... generation, was confronted with the insidious, coarsely sensual animal worship of the Egyptians. The patriarchal customs of the Israelites were brought into marked contrast with the vices of a corrupt civilization. Sound in body and soul, the son of nature suddenly found himself in unsavory surroundings fashioned by culture, in which he was as much despised as the inoffensive nomad is by "civilized" man of settled habit. The scorn had a practical result in the enslavement of the Israelites by the Pharaohs. Association with the ...
— Jewish History • S. M. Dubnow

... wounded, in sight; it smelled of sour beef bones and stale bread and moldy hay and fresh horse dung; it smelled of the sweaty bodies of the soldiers; it smelled of everything that is fetid and rancid and unsavory and unwholesome. ...
— Paths of Glory - Impressions of War Written At and Near the Front • Irvin S. Cobb

... limited contingent, exceedingly well chosen to lay bare the superficiality and emptiness of the existence of that great personage, reduced to the companionship of a theatrical manager thrice insolvent, a picture-dealer enriched by usury, a nobleman of unsavory reputation and a few high-livers and boulevard idlers unknown to fame. Thus far everybody was on foot and bareheaded; in the parliamentary committee a few black silk skull caps had been timidly donned as they approached the populous quarters. ...
— The Nabob, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet

... consider us savages, despite Walter's unsavory remarks about the cuisine of his country, and noticing our interest he added with French exactness: "Of course, the chateau was not built for Diane, although much enlarged and beautified by her, and when Catherine came into possession she had the good sense to carry out some of Diane's plans. ...
— In Chteau Land • Anne Hollingsworth Wharton

... with sounds, mutterings, babblings, little cries, the heavy whirr of the sewing machines, the splintering clatter of Tony, who was chopping his wares by the basement door—it seemed impregnated with odors, smudgy, burning, unsavory, smoky smells. ...
— Little Miss By-The-Day • Lucille Van Slyke

... and indiscreetly, so it is esteemed no less an imperfection in man's utterance, to have none use of figure at all, specially in our writing and speeches public, making them but as our ordinary talk, than which nothing can be more unsavory and far from all civility:—'I remember,' says he, 'in the first year of queen Mary's reign a knight of Yorkshire was chosen speaker of the parliament, a good gentleman and wise, in the affairs of his shire, and not unlearned in the laws of the realm; but as well for lack of some of his teeth ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin

... him with the soot of the furnace or the odors of leather or soap factories, let not the wife be easily disgusted at the begrimed hands or unsavory aroma. Your gains are one, your interests are one, your losses are one; lay hold of the work of life with both hands. Four hands to fight the battles; four eyes to watch for the danger; four shoulders on which to carry the trials. ...
— The Wedding Ring - A Series of Discourses for Husbands and Wives and Those - Contemplating Matrimony • T. De Witt Talmage

... that this whole subject is unsavory, and I have not introduced it from choice. The Social Evil is a terrible fact here, and it is impossible to ignore it, and I believe that some good may be done by speaking of it plainly and stripping it of any romantic features. It is simply a disgusting and appalling ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe

... gamy, sharp, stinging, rough, piquant, racy; biting, mordant; spicy; seasoned &c v.; hot, hot as pepper; peppery, vellicating^, escharotic^, meracious^; acrid, acrimonious, bitter; rough &c (sour) 397; unsavory &c 395. ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget

... think this over. And tonight you can tell me what you've decided. And then I'll tell you whether I'm going to dissolve our partnership. Your temper's too bad to decide now. Maybe when you've done that she won't treat me like an unsavory stranger." ...
— The Sturdy Oak - A Composite Novel of American Politics by Fourteen American Authors • Samuel Merwin, et al.

... its beak the ordure of one of the helpless family. Flying away very slowly with head lowered and extended, as if anxious to hold the offensive object as far from its plumage as possible, the bird dropped the unsavory morsel in the course of a few yards, and, alighting on a tree, wiped its bill on the bark and moss. This seemed to be the order all day,—carrying in and carrying out. I watched the birds for an hour, while my companions ...
— A Book of Natural History - Young Folks' Library Volume XIV. • Various

... such a situation will be forced to the conclusion that for her to hear such tales is nothing compared to the child's hearing them, and that his coming to his mother is proof of his own innocence. It is surely her first duty, no matter how difficult or unsavory the task, to sift out the wrong from the right, to show the child wherein the story is absurd, wicked, and harmful. At such a crisis the mother should be very careful not to show any offence because the child has brought her the story. She may condemn the story as severely as she likes, ...
— The Renewal of Life; How and When to Tell the Story to the Young • Margaret Warner Morley

... generality of mankind, had to go through his period of youthful folly, and it was good fortune for him that the worst portion of this period fell within the eighteen months which he passed in England. Had this part of his career been run in Philadelphia its unsavory aroma might have kept him long in ill odor among his fellow townsmen, then little tolerant of profligacy. But the "errata" of a journeyman printer in London were quite beyond the ken of provincial gossips. He easily gained employment in his trade, at wages which left him a little surplus beyond ...
— Benjamin Franklin • John Torrey Morse, Jr.

... Sabor proved unsavory eating even to Tarzan of the Apes, but hunger served as a most efficacious disguise to toughness and rank taste, and ere long, with well-filled stomach, the ape-man was ready to sleep again. First, however, he must remove the ...
— Tarzan of the Apes • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... Aught unsavory or unclean Hath my insect never seen; But violets and bilberry bells, Maple-sap and daffodels, Grass with green flag half-mast high, Succory to match the sky, Columbine with horn of honey, Scented fern, ...
— The Golden Treasury of American Songs and Lyrics • Various

... ride," said Ben, in a tone by means cordial, and he halted his horse till his unsavory ...
— The Store Boy • Horatio Alger, Jr.

... would not take fire readily and sharpened one end to a point upon which he impaled a generous slice of steak. With flushed faces and singed fingers they kept turning the meat over and over before the blaze. It was an unsavory mess, burnt and ash covered, which they at last pronounced done and deposited upon a clean palmetto leaf. Hungry as wolves, each cut off a generous mouthful and began to chew. They chewed and chewed looking at each other with keen disappointment ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely

... most deare delight, Why doe I send this rustick Madrigale, That may thy tunefull eare unseason quite? Thou onely fit this argument to write In whose high thoughts Pleasure hath built her bowre, And dainty Love learnd sweetly to endite. My rimes I know unsavory and sowre, To taste the streames, that, like a golden showre, Flow from thy fruitfull head, of thy Loves praise; Fitter perhaps to thunder martiall stowre, When so thee list thy loftie Muse to raise: Yet, till that thou thy poeme wilt make knowne, Let ...
— Spenser's The Faerie Queene, Book I • Edmund Spenser

... dismal things compared to the brown discs Mike had turned out of the same oven. One was as bad as the other. Nothing seemed to work out right. Nothing ever tasted right. Only a healthy hunger enabled him to swallow the unsavory messes he concocted ...
— Burned Bridges • Bertrand W. Sinclair

... as something to do, has a long record. In a dull and dispirited world, girls and boys find the thrill of adventure in games, clubs, and play of all kinds, with sex in its most unsavory form as the central theme. A little nine-year-old who had been a frequent offender was asked what in all the world she would like most to do. Promptly she answered, "Go roller-skating." "Which would you rather do, go roller-skating or play 'father and mother?'" With ...
— The Good Housekeeping Marriage Book • Various

... full-flavored; high-tasted, high- seasoned; gamy, sharp, stinging, rough, piquant, racy; biting, mordant; spicy; seasoned &c. v.; hot, hot as pepper; peppery, vellicating[obs3], escharotic[obs3], meracious|; acrid, acrimonious, bitter; rough &c. (sour) 397; unsavory &c. 395. ...
— Roget's Thesaurus

... soda-water for days together, then, to allay the eternal hunger gnawing at his vitals, he would make up a horrid mess of cold potatoes, rice, fish, or greens, deluged in vinegar, and gobble it up like a famished dog. On either of these unsavory dishes, with a biscuit and a glass or two of Rhine wine, he cared not how sour, he called feasting sumptuously. Upon my observing he might as well have fresh fish and vegetables, instead of stale, he ...
— Stories of Authors, British and American • Edwin Watts Chubb

... good for him; eyes, wherewith to behold whatever was visible; and ears, to hear whatever was to be heard. For say, Aristodemus, to what purpose should odors be prepared, if the sense of smelling had been denied? Or why the distinctions of bitter and sweet, of savory and unsavory, unless a palate had been likewise given, conveniently placed, to arbitrate between them, and declare the difference? Is not that Providence, Aristodemus, in a most eminent manner conspicuous, which, because the eye of man is so delicate ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy

... had died at the time he sold out his steel business. To most people he would have left an unsavory memory, for though we should have considered him successful from the business standpoint, many of us would say that the means were not justified by the end. However, Mr. Carnegie has spent many years since in furthering the cause of the ...
— Maintaining Health • R. L. Alsaker

... shabby-genteel a cuisine and service of such excellence. Neither of them had ever been there before, and neither of them knew that the reputation of this establishment was in its own way wide—and unsavory. They had no way of knowing that, because of several thoroughly bruited scandals which had had origin here, it was a tabooed spot, except for persons who preferred a semi-shady retreat; and they passed over without suspicion ...
— The Call of the Cumberlands • Charles Neville Buck

... say I have intelligence regarding myself, that will be by no means unsavory to you all. Father Finnerty and I had, about an hour before dinner this day, a long and tedious conversation, the substance of which was my future celebrity in the church. He has a claim on the Bishop, which he stated to ...
— Going To Maynooth - Traits And Stories Of The Irish Peasantry, The Works of - William Carleton, Volume Three • William Carleton

... shut the door upon her and, mounting to the box, drove carefully away through the thronged streets, turning westward and leaving the neighborhood of legal offices to plunge into the somewhat unsavory precincts given over to markets and fruit venders, passing which, he gradually emerged into the less frequented lengths of avenue leading far out into the suburbs. It was a long and not too pleasant drive, but Joyce Lavillotte was too busy with her thoughts to mind, ...
— Joyce's Investments - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry

... removed from the mythological meadows could not possibly be conceived, even by the most sanguine temperament. True, there was a market garden or two, and odors redolent of decaying vegetables; but, on the whole, it was rather an unsavory region, and much frequented by ...
— Wee Wifie • Rosa Nouchette Carey

... with work and anxieties, his nervous system shattered, Garcia was subject to fits of petulance which were ludicrous. In these rages he called everybody who would bear it pigs, dogs, and other more unsavory nicknames. Coronado bore it because thus he got his living, and ...
— Overland • John William De Forest

... unthinking, unobserving person might pass over this sheep outfit as a mere unsavory incident; but Weary was neither unobserving nor unthinking—nor, for the matter of that, were the rest of the Happy Family. It needed no Happy Jack, with his foreboding nature, to point out the unpleasant possibilities that night when the committee of two made their informal ...
— Flying U Ranch • B. M. Bower

... stalls at night, many a 'lodger' often slumbered; and every Sunday morning it was the theatre of a lively and amusing scene, wherein was performed the renowned pastime of 'niggers dancing for eels.' All the unsavory fish that had been accumulated during the week, was thus disposed of, being given to such darkies as won the most applause in the science of the 'heel and toe.' The sport used to attract hundreds of spectators, and the rum shops in the vicinity did ...
— City Crimes - or Life in New York and Boston • Greenhorn

... startling as this. A man who established a religion in this age of free debate, who was and is today accepted by hundreds of thousands as a direct emissary from the Most High—such a rare human being is not to be disposed of by pelting his memory with unsavory epithets. * * * The most vital questions Americans are asking each other today, have to deal with this man and what he has left us. * * * Joseph Smith, claiming to be an inspired teacher, faced adversity such as few men have been called to meet, enjoyed a brief season of ...
— The Story of "Mormonism" • James E. Talmage

... The women went to the limit in childbearing, and the burden of rearing their large families was awful. The art of cooking was little understood. They had no stoves or table forks. The food was served in a very unsavory fashion, and was very indigestible. The people therefore had frightful dreams, and dyspepsia was very prevalent. No carpet was seen here for a hundred years after the settlement. Communication with the outer world was ...
— The Two Hundredth Anniversary of the Settlement of the Town of New Milford, Conn. June 17th, 1907 • Daniel Davenport

... Mrs. Hollis, as she briskly rubbed the sideboard with some unsavory furniture-polish, "if Mrs. Nelson does come here, you be sure to put on your white apron before you open the door; and for pity sake don't forget the card-tray! You ought to know better than to stick out your hand for a lady's calling-card. I told ...
— Sandy • Alice Hegan Rice

... the dove-cot and found a beggarly array of empty bottles and a good deal of discarded feminine gear scattered about on both floors. One room in which certain detectives were vastly interested contained the unsavory relics of a late supper. Three or four empty champagne-bottles, some shattered glasses, and, what seemed most to attract them, various stubs of partially-consumed cigarettes, lay about the tables and floor. Adjoining this was the chamber ...
— Waring's Peril • Charles King

... George H. Thomas was short, but it was long enough for certain newspapers of Chattanooga to give expression to their dislike to negro troops in general and to those in their proximity especially. The Washington Post, also, ever faithful to its unsavory trust, lent its influence to this work of defamation. The leading papers, however, both of Chattanooga and the South generally, spoke out in rather conciliatory and patronizing tones, and "sought to restrain the people of their section from compromising their brilliant display ...
— The Colored Regulars in the United States Army • T. G. Steward

... you have always oil in readiness for your lamps, or else you may not come to the wedding, but shall be shut out, and thrust into everlasting darkness. This oil is faith in Christ, which if you lack, then all things are unsavory before the face of God: but a great many people are much deceived, for they think themselves to have faith when indeed they have it not. Some peradventure will say, How shall I know whether I have faith or not? Truly you shall find this in you, if you have no mind to ...
— The Pulpit Of The Reformation, Nos. 1, 2 and 3. • John Welch, Bishop Latimer and John Knox

... anything; and yet he did learn, and used the talent in conning over travels, sea-voyages, and lives of heroes and naval commanders. Spite of father, mother, and brother, he seemed to possess the most extraordinary faculty of running up unsavory acquaintances. He was hail-fellow well-met with every Tom and Jack and Jim and Ben and Dick that strolled on the wharves, and astonished his father with minutest particulars of every ship, schooner, and brig in the harbor, together with biographical notes of the ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 3, No. 16, February, 1859 • Various

... Mulched with unsavory death, Grow, Soul! unto such white estate, Strong art and virginal prayer shall be thy breath, Thy work, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XVII. No. 101. May, 1876. • Various

... difference of conceptions between the Anglo-Saxon and continental peoples is contained in the following unsavory document, which the historian, whose business it is to flash the light of criticism upon the dark nooks of civilization, can neither ignore nor render into English. It embodies a significant decision taken by the General Staff of the 256th Brigade of the Army of Occupation[40] and was issued ...
— The Inside Story Of The Peace Conference • Emile Joseph Dillon

... and with a wonderful air of pinched and faded gentility. She wears an old shawl upon her head, but it is as nicely folded as an aristocratic mantilla; her feet are cased in the linen slippers worn by the poorer classes, but there are no unsavory rags and dirt about her. "That good walk of yours, friend," I thought, "does not look like starvation." Yet, if over there were a moment when one's heart should soften towards an imposing fellow-creature, it is when one is in the midst of the orange granizada. The beggar circles slowly and ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 23, September, 1859 • Various

... neighbors, who abstained from buying fish at Autun because it was too dear, she said; but who used to bring a full hamper when she came back yearly from Hyeres, where it was cheap, enough to last for a week after the journey, and who considered the unsavory hamper an ample compensation for the absence of fish from her menus during the remainder ...
— Philip Gilbert Hamerton • Philip Gilbert Hamerton et al

... animals, except, perhaps, some of the more intelligent species of monkeys, will learn lessons from isolated experiences. In this regard they are indeed quite as apt as the lower kinds of men. Thus a dog who has had an unsavory or painful experience with a skunk or a porcupine is apt to keep away from these creatures for a long time thereafter. Where, as is not infrequently the case, a cur takes to eating eggs, a single dose of tartar emetic concealed in an egg which is ...
— Domesticated Animals - Their Relation to Man and to his Advancement in Civilization • Nathaniel Southgate Shaler

... the 'Ayit Zabua' (The Painted Vulture). His Rabbi Zadok, the miracle-worker, who exploits superstition for his own aggrandizement; Rabbi Gaddiel, the honest but mistaken henchman of Rabbi Zadok; Ga'al, the parvenu, who seeks to obliterate an unsavory past by fawning upon both; the Shadkan, or marriage-broker, who pretends to be the ambassador of Heaven, to unite men and women on earth,—in these and similar types drawn from life and depicted vividly, Mapu held up to the execration of the world the hypocrites ...
— The Haskalah Movement in Russia • Jacob S. Raisin

... theatrical costumes, blown glass, painted porcelain—all the various fancy goods known as l'article Paris are made here. Dirty and productive like commerce, always full of traffic—foot-passengers, vans, and drays—the Cite Bourdin is an unsavory-looking neighborhood, with a seething population in keeping with the squalid surroundings. It is a not unintelligent artisan population, though the whole power of the intellect is absorbed by the day's manual ...
— Cousin Pons • Honore de Balzac

... exchanges the Lycaean mountain for the pleasant Lucretilis, and always defends my she-goats from the scorching summer, and the rainy winds. The wandering wives of the unsavory husband seek the hidden strawberry-trees and thyme with security through the safe grove: nor do the kids dread the green lizards, or the wolves sacred to Mars; whenever, my Tyndaris, the vales and the smooth ...
— The Works of Horace • Horace

... delay involved, and lastly, if not chiefly, the realization that as a witness in a court of justice the informer as a professional criminal would have little or no standing or credence, and in addition would, under cross-examination, be compelled to lay bare the secrets of his unsavory past, perhaps resulting indirectly in a term in prison for himself.* Thus may be accounted for much of the supposed "romantic, if misguided, chivalry" of the south Italian. It is common both to him and to the Bowery tough. The ...
— Courts and Criminals • Arthur Train

... decapitation of saplings, might be added the debris and ruins of half-civilized occupancy. The ground before the cabin was covered with broken boxes, tin cans, the staves and broken hoops of casks, and the cast-off rags of blankets and clothing. The whole claim in its unsavory, unpicturesque details, and its vulgar story of sordid, reckless, and selfish occupancy and abandonment, was a foul blot on the landscape, which the first rosy dawn only made the more offending. Surely the last ...
— The Three Partners • Bret Harte

... inspection of the cakes and buns that beam upon you from a show-case—your nose meanwhile being pressed close against the glass for any slight blemish that might deflect your decision (for a currant in the dough often raises an unsavory suspicion and you'll squint to make the matter sure)—there will appear through a back door a little old man to minister unto you. You will give no great time to the naming of your drink—for the fires are hot in you—but will take your bottle to a table. The braver spirits among you will scorn ...
— Journeys to Bagdad • Charles S. Brooks

... for like occasions. I shrugged the shoulders of my spirit, but said nothing. So, hand in hand, though at arms' length, we passed from the shade of the cedars into the open meadow, where we presently met Hamor and his party. They would have barred the way, laughing and making unsavory jests, but I drew her closer to me and laid my hand upon my sword. They stood aside, for I was the ...
— To Have and To Hold • Mary Johnston

... had said all he thought necessary, and had no pressing business to call him up. Julius opened the door and went out, down the rickety stairs and out through a narrow covered alleyway to the street, for the room which Jack Morgan and he occupied was in a rear tenement house. Several dirty and unsavory-looking children—they could not well be otherwise in such a locality—barefooted and bareheaded, were playing in the court. Julius passed them by, and sauntered along toward the City Hall Park. He met several acquaintances, newsboys and bootblacks, ...
— Slow and Sure - The Story of Paul Hoffman the Young Street-Merchant • Horatio Alger

... reversing this program, the General as a rule avoided them. But not always, and when the little lad Derry had followed his strange quests, he had come now and then upon his father, telling stories to an unsavory circle, lord for the moment of ...
— The Tin Soldier • Temple Bailey

... slices of meat on the coals. There was soon a johnny-cake baked on a board set up before the flames, but the pork was evidently a new proposition to the small captive, and although he eyed it greedily he could make no compact with it. Now and again he licked with a grimace of distaste the unsavory chunk given him, and desisted, to watch with averse curiosity the working jaws of the men and the motion of the muscles in their temples as they hastily gobbled the coarse fare which they cut with their clasp-knives. The fire duplicated their number ...
— The Ordeal - A Mountain Romance of Tennessee • Charles Egbert Craddock

... rejoice in its prosperity. I am distressed when calamity overtakes it—I never lose faith in its ultimate success. The heart of the city is sound. It has always been sound, even in the early days when a ring of corrupt adventurers would have salted the city of the blessed herb with an unsavory reputation, but for the care of staunch and courageous protectors at ...
— The California Birthday Book • Various

... turned abruptly off the main highway and began twisting through a section of the city shunned by the average Venusian citizen. Spaceman's Row had a long and unsavory history. For ten square blocks it was the hide-out and refuge of the underworld of space. The grimy stores and shadowy buildings supplied the needs of the countless shadowy figures who lived beyond the law and moved as silently ...
— The Revolt on Venus • Carey Rockwell

... of constables, some of whom Hulda knew, leaned forward together to hear the witness, while others removed the unsavory remains. Mr. Clayton continued: ...
— The Entailed Hat - Or, Patty Cannon's Times • George Alfred Townsend

... outcome of the strange plight she was in. It was a far cry from pounding a typewriter in a city office to jogging through the wilderness, lost beyond peradventure, her only company a stranger of unsavory reputation. Yet she was not frightened, for all the element of unreality. Under other circumstances she could have relished the adventure, taken pleasure in faring gypsy fashion over the wide reaches where man had left no ...
— North of Fifty-Three • Bertrand W. Sinclair

... helplessly and agonizingly as the poor whiskey-drinker before his snakes. But it would be a cruel misplacement of punishment. All the while the true guilty would be placidly sitting down at still further unsavory banquets, which equally helpless ...
— Bits About Home Matters • Helen Hunt Jackson

... ceilings; even this will not be necessary. You may make a holocaust of the contents of any room in the house, and, if the doors, finish, etc., happen to be of iron, as they may be, no one in the house will suspect your bonfire, until the heap of charcoal and ashes is found. Dampness and decay, unsavory odors and impure air, chilly bedrooms and cold floors, will be unknown. The ears in the walls will be stopped, there will be no settlement from shrinking timbers, no jelly-like trembling of the whole fabric when the master puts his foot down. Finally, the dear old ...
— Homes And How To Make Them • Eugene Gardner

... on this point. It was beyond her to appeal to the artistic sense, so she appealed to the lower nature, and therein lay her fascination. Just consider who the men are to whom she appealed. A millionaire with an unsavory reputation. To two or three peers who, even by the wildest stretch of imagination, cannot be considered ornaments of their order. To some younger sons of the Nut description who are ready to pay anything to be seen with ...
— The Master Detective - Being Some Further Investigations of Christopher Quarles • Percy James Brebner

... "Ananias" keeps still and winks to "Shimei," and "Shimei" comes out in the paper which they take in your neighbor's kitchen, ten times worse than t'other fellow. If you meddle with "Shimei," he steps out, and next week appears "Rab-shakeh," an unsavory wretch; and now, at any rate, you find out what good sense there was in Hezekiah's "Answer him not."—No, no,—keep your temper.—So saying, the Little Gentleman doubled his left fist and looked at ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)

... disliking him, Nina," her father said. "He is a man more than twice your age; he has a certain sort of unsavory reputation in his affairs with women. He has no income, no profession, no home; all those things tell against him. But the most serious of all, to me, is his mental attitude. The man has no wholesome, decent code. He dabbles in the occult, in Oriental ...
— Harriet and the Piper - (Norris Volume XI) • Kathleen Norris

... day, an evil place by night, an unsavory place at all times is Giles's Rents, down by ...
— The Amateur Gentleman • Jeffery Farnol et al

... Said to me, that no woman in this land Could hold fast that which was not in her hand. Now, sirs, in that whole pitch and fire-brand Of that bag so fusty, So stale and so musty, So cankered and so rusty, So stinking and so dusty, God send her as much joy, As my nose hath alway Of her unsavory spice. If that I be not wise, And stop my nose quickly, When she letteth go merrily. But let all this go. I had almost forgot The knave that here erewhile did jet, Before that Telemachus did come in. I will go seech him; ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Volume I. • R. Dodsley

... Oskaloosa Kid were hustled into the single cell of the Payson jail. A bench ran along two sides of the room. A single barred window let out upon the yard behind the structure. The floor was littered with papers, and a single electric light bulb relieved the gloom of the unsavory place. ...
— The Oakdale Affair • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... would venture near enough To run the risk of catching lumps of lead, And this well dressed was no unsavory stuff With which to help a meal of wheaten bread. Of bears and wolves they were at first in dread, But soon found out there was no cause for fear; For if such came and mortal showed his head, They soon ran off with a true coward's leer, Which made it ...
— The Emigrant Mechanic and Other Tales In Verse - Together With Numerous Songs Upon Canadian Subjects • Thomas Cowherd

... armed with a big stick and conducted by Master Maloney, made his way to Broster Street. To reach it, it was necessary to pass through a section of the enemy's country, but the perilous passage was safely negotiated. The expedition reached its unsavory goal intact. ...
— The Prince and Betty - (American edition) • P. G. Wodehouse

... something for her self-complacency and feeling of consequence; it certainly does nothing for her comfort or her children's improvement nor for the cleanliness of anyone concerned. Another thing that prevents better houses in Chicago is the tentative attitude of the real estate men. Many unsavory conditions are allowed to continue which would be regarded with horror if they were considered permanent. Meanwhile, the wretched conditions persist until at least two generations of children have been born and reared in them. In every neighborhood where poorer people live, because rents ...
— Twenty Years At Hull House • Jane Addams

... my everlasting rest; And shake the yoke of inauspicious stars From this world-wearied flesh; eyes, look your last! Arms, take your last embrace! and lips, O, you, The doors of breath, seal with a righteous kiss A dateless bargain to engrossing death! Come, bitter conductor, come, unsavory guide! Thou desperate pilot, now and at once run on The dashing rocks thy sea-sick, weary bark! Here's to my love! (Drinks poison.) O, true apothecary! Thy drugs are quick; thus ...
— Shakspere, Personal Recollections • John A. Joyce

... frequent. Debtors were shut up in prison, and left to beg from passers-by or starve; and ordinary offenders were fastened in a wooden frame called the "pillory" and exposed on a high platform, where they were pelted by the mob with mud, rotten eggs, and other unsavory missiles. In some cases their bones were broken with clubs and brickbats. The pillory continued in use until the ...
— The Leading Facts of English History • D.H. Montgomery

... sincerity, is endured without a side-glance toward its capabilities for being written about. The world, in short, inclines to appear an ill-lit mine, wherein one quarries gingerly amidst an abiding loneliness (as with Pope and Ufford and Sire Raimbaut)—and wherein one very often is allured into unsavory alleys (as with Herrick and Alessandro de Medici)—in search of that raw material which loving ...
— The Certain Hour • James Branch Cabell

... library door is blocked up with unsightly mounds of earth, sewer-pipes, and certain workmen's implements. The fact is, the vicarage has been greatly disturbed of late, owing to a defect in the drainage—an unsavory circumstance which receives further and regretful explication in the ...
— The Servant in the House • Charles Rann Kennedy

... first magnitude, I took a morning's holiday to drive down to Newhaven, in search of my old ally, Mistress Sandie Flockhart. She no longer inhabited the little detached cottage, and divers and sundry were the Flockhart "wives" that I "speired at" through the unsavory street of Newhaven, before I found the right one at last, on the third flat of a filthy house, where noise and stench combined almost to knock me down, and where I could hardly knock loud enough to make myself heard above the din within and without. She opened the ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble

... and his friends anticipated they would be recognized and he rewarded by a seat in the Cabinet. But he had given offence to the great Whig leader of that day by his preference of Harrison for President, and had moreover an unsavory reputation, which, with the declared opposition of Clay and Webster, caused his exclusion. It was a sore disappointment, from which he never fully recovered. Eight years later, with the advent of General Taylor and ...
— The Galaxy, Volume 23, No. 2, February, 1877 • Various

... bad temper of the stock; for such things are as secure from thunder as the skin of a sea calf or hyena. Then said the old man: It is no wonder that when all the sweetness is separated and employed in making the fruit, that which is left should be bitter and unsavory. For as the liver, all the gall being gathered in its proper place, is itself very sweet; so the fig-tree having parted with its oil and sweet particles to the fruit, reserves no portion for itself. For that this ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch

... demoralizing. We can never purify society until we have good men as well as good women. We have too many men in our race who delight to speak disreputably of nearly every woman when they themselves have a very unsavory reputation, and should be regarded with great diffidence. There are many women in our race who are just as pure, and whose characters are just as irreproachable as the women of any race, and our men owe it to these women ...
— Sparkling Gems of Race Knowledge Worth Reading • Various

... forbidden fruit, but they longed to inhale the full perfume of the scandal that they felt was in the air. That stout officer of cuirassiers, of whom some people spoke as "The Chatterbox," took advantage of his profession to tell many an unsavory story which he had picked up or invented at his club. He had come to Madame de Nailles's reception with a brand-new concoction of falsehood and truth, a story likely to be hawked round Paris with great success for several weeks to come, though ladies on first hearing it would ...
— Jacqueline, Complete • (Mme. Blanc) Th. Bentzon

... Richmond; and as a consequence the wearied troops had been allowed to pass the night without disturbance, and they had even overhauled the remains of rations remaining in their haversacks and made their scanty and unsavory breakfasts, long before the expected hostile cloud burst ...
— Shoulder-Straps - A Novel of New York and the Army, 1862 • Henry Morford

... business. They seemed to have no idea of dispatch, but would talk for hours without coming to the point. In general their reception was cordial, and, in some instances, more than that. Land was offered them in five different places. Their greatest obstacle was the unsavory reputation of the white men who had preceded them,—the slave-traders and merchants,—men who had been gross, violent and rapacious. One of the natives who saw Mr. Mills and Mr. Burgess in prayer, said he "never knew ...
— A Story of One Short Life, 1783 to 1818 - [Samuel John Mills] • Elisabeth G. Stryker

... noonday quest for food, if the day is fine, it is my habit to shun the nearer places of refreshment. I take the air and stretch myself. Like Eve's serpent I go upright for a bit. Yet if time presses, there may be had next door a not unsavory stowage. A drinking bar is nearest to the street where its polished brasses catch the eye. It holds a gilded mirror to such red-faced nature as consorts within. Yet you pass the bar and come upon a range of tables ...
— There's Pippins And Cheese To Come • Charles S. Brooks

... safe to say," says John Burroughs, "that there is a species of smilax with an unsavory name, that the bee does not visit, herbacea. The production of this plant is a curious freak of nature.... It would be a cruel joke to offer it to any person not acquainted with it, to smell. It is like the vent of a charnel-house." (Thoreau compared its odor to that of ...
— Wild Flowers Worth Knowing • Neltje Blanchan et al

... and perhaps sarcastically ascribed to Lallemand, Sanctae Theologiae Doctor, "are six in number (all on various forms of vice); and show great knowledge, classical and sociological, of unsavory subjects. Now that the book is too rare to do us any harm, we may admit that the pastiche was not only highly amusing, but showed a perverse cleverness amounting ...
— The Satyricon, Complete • Petronius Arbiter

... and obsequious as if they were sitting near Society ladies, did slightly intimidate their neighbors; but Baron von Kelweingstein, let loose in his vice, was beaming; he cracked unsavory jokes, and with his crown of red hair, seemed to be on fire. He paid gallant compliments in his defective French of the Rhine, and his lewd nonsense, smacking of taverns, expectorated through the hole between ...
— Mademoiselle Fifi • Guy de Maupassant

... Peyronie, who voiced the sentiment of all of us, "'twould take two weeks or more to bring Dunbar up, and what are we to do meantime? Sit here and eat this carrion?" and he looked disgustedly at the mess of unsavory beef on the table, which was, to tell the truth, most odoriferous. "'Tis rank folly to even think of ...
— A Soldier of Virginia • Burton Egbert Stevenson

... their vain minds the issue of the contest, and rioted in mirth at the expense of poor Irus, who they vowed should be forthwith embarked, and sent to king Echetus; and they bestowed thanks on Ulysses for ridding the court of that unsavory morsel, as they called him; but in their inward souls they would not have cared if Irus had been victor, and Ulysses had taken the foil, but it was mirth to them to see the beggars fight. In such pastimes and light ...
— Books for Children - The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 3 • Charles and Mary Lamb

... as horse's foam, woman's milk, laying a serpent on the afflicted part, urine of cows, bear fat, still recommended as a hair restorative, juice of boiled buck horn, etc. For colic, powdered horse's teeth, dung of swine, asses' kidneys, mice excretion made into a plaster, and other equally vile and unsavory compounds. Colds in the head were cured by kissing the nose of a mule. For sore throat, snail slime was a favorite prescription, and mouse flesh was considered excellent for disease of the lungs. Boiled snails and powdered bats were prescribed ...
— Life in a Thousand Worlds • William Shuler Harris

... against Patsy. I even told myself that had I come back with profits derived from peddling rum to the Indians, I might have found her more susceptible to my approach. Altogether I made rather a wicked game of viewing the poor girl in an unsavory light. ...
— A Virginia Scout • Hugh Pendexter

... no second bidding. She carefully measured out half a pint of the unsavory fluid—the dregs of the casks and the scourings of ...
— The Wings of the Morning • Louis Tracy

... English magazine sent that evening from Bishop's Lodge. The bad blood in the son had not affected Dr. Methuen's keen but tactful interest in the mother. She looked up in tolerant consternation as her Oswald pushed an unsavory bushman before him into the room; but even through her gentle horror the mother's love shone with that steady humor which raised it above the sphere of ...
— Stingaree • E. W. (Ernest William) Hornung

... them for an even chance between weak and strong over the grazing lands, and to himself when no other object presented. He swore with force and piquancy, and original embellishments for old-time oaths which was like a sharp sauce to an unsavory dish. ...
— The Flockmaster of Poison Creek • George W. Ogden

... Holmes in debate, hammered the point that, although Holmes may have done something shady and unsavory during the three-year period in the late 1940's when he was out of government service, there was no evidence that he had ever misbehaved while he was in ...
— The Invisible Government • Dan Smoot

... he exclaimed softly. "What a sleep!" He jumped to his feet and began to gather wood for his fire. He was stiff and his unaccustomed fingers made awkward work of cooking, but he managed, after an hour's endeavor, to produce an unsavory meal, which he devoured hungrily. He wiped out the frying pan with dried grass, repacked his outfit, and ...
— The Enchanted Canyon • Honore Willsie Morrow

... An unsavory locality known as "Irish Row," about half a mile off, soon attracted her attention. The slatternliness, suffering, shiftlessness, dirt and raggedness, were inducements to one of her charitable temperament to visit its inhabitants, having their relief and improvement ...
— Elizabeth Fry • Mrs. E. R. Pitman

... Catholic Church. Over the screen of the movies and the proscenium of the stage could we not very often write what the author of the play "Enjoy Life," Max Hermann Neisse, said lately to a Berlin sensation-seeking audience that was underlying with frantic applause the unsavory remarks and filthy inuendos of the closing act: "Pardon me, I did not write this act.—You ...
— Catholic Problems in Western Canada • George Thomas Daly

... the class of books you keep, father," she said, lowering her voice: "I'm sure of it. They are as unsavory in his nostrils as to the reformers in the village. They'd all excommunicate you if ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - April, 1873, Vol. XI, No. 25. • Various

... imperceptible degrees until the denominations of the cards were visible, then hurriedly closed them from sight; often he didn't look at his draw until all the hands were exposed. He wrinkled his face in painful efforts of concentration, protruded a thick and unsavory tongue. At the loose corners of Jake's mouth flecks of saliva gathered whitely; in the fleering light of the kerosene the shadows on his face were cobalt. The woman's face shone with drops of perspiration that formed slowly and rolled like a ...
— Mountain Blood - A Novel • Joseph Hergesheimer

... arrive at a clear understanding as to the whole Ploszow episode. At times I feel inclined to think that I was not worthy of her; at others, that I made an ass of myself over a girl like dozens of others. This irritates my vanity, and makes me feel angry with Aniela. One moment I feel an unsavory consciousness of guilt in regard to her, in another the offence appears to me futile and childish. Taken altogether, I do not approve of the part I played at Ploszow, nor do I approve of the part I am playing here. The division between ...
— Without Dogma • Henryk Sienkiewicz

... breath when there was another interruption. This time it was at the outside door. A burly Italian made his appearance there—very brown, very bearded, very dirty, and very unsavory. For some time he stood without saying one word, staring into the room, and fixing his eyes now on the goat as it was held down by the boys, again on the broken furniture, and finally on the long, and somewhat ...
— Among the Brigands • James de Mille

... Street, then, Orme prepared to go. Much as he longed to see the girl again, he was glad that they were not to make this adventure together, for the reputation of North Parker Street was unsavory. ...
— The Girl and The Bill - An American Story of Mystery, Romance and Adventure • Bannister Merwin

... nearly all the excited men that the house had been set on fire purposely; and, if they could have but laid their hands on the miscreant, there would have been as speedy a hanging as the one had been that had given the town its unsavory name. ...
— The Cave of Gold - A Tale of California in '49 • Everett McNeil

... Mrs. Chatterton, her eyes sparkling. She had forgotten to play with her rings, being perfectly absorbed in the delicious morsels of exceedingly unsavory gossip she ...
— Five Little Peppers at School • Margaret Sidney

... an unseemly sight, or a foul smell near thee, and thou hast only to turn thy eyes, or hold thy nose, to be rid of it; but I could never find the means to lessen a prejudice that was once fairly seated in the mind. Thou mayest look whither thou wilt, and shut out the unsavory odors of the imagination by all the means thou canst invent, but if a man is, in truth, condemned of opinion, he might as well make his appeal to God at once for justice, as to any mercy he is likely to receive from ...
— The Headsman - The Abbaye des Vignerons • James Fenimore Cooper

... crockery—there was no human trace that he could detect. Nor was there any suggestion of the original condition and quality of the house, except its size: whether the ordinary unsightly cabin of frontier "partners," or some sylvan cottage—there was nothing left but the usual ignoble and unsavory ruins of burnt-out ...
— In a Hollow of the Hills • Bret Harte

... locality. There was no trace of human cultivation in the surroundings of the cabin; the wilderness still trod sharply on the heels of the pioneer's fresh footprints, and even seemed to obliterate them. For a few yards around the actual dwelling there was an unsavory fringe of civilization in the shape of cast-off clothes, empty bottles, and tin cans, and the adjacent thorn and elder bushes blossomed unwholesomely with bits of torn white paper and bleaching dish-cloths. This hideous circle never widened; ...
— Colonel Starbottle's Client and Other Stories • Bret Harte

... those born with the devil in them it came hard. It was all a matter of heredity and influence. One's vices as well as one's virtues are handed down to us ready made. He had no doubt that in the Jeffries family somewhere in the unsavory past there had been a weak, vicious ancestor from whom he had inherited all the traits which ...
— The Third Degree - A Narrative of Metropolitan Life • Charles Klein and Arthur Hornblow

... been rashly left with doors open for a few minutes in the street, while its responsible guardian was gossiping in an adjacent kitchen. Mademoiselle Julie meanwhile was wrestling with Nero, the younger, who had dived to the very heart of a peculiarly unsavory dust-box, standing near ...
— Lady Rose's Daughter • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... squatted on benches, and with large kettles full of evil-smelling messes. The crowds in the streets vie with the crowds in the stores in the noise that they make; the air reeks with the odors of sweating men, the smell of unsavory food, the stench of open gutters. This panorama of naked bodies, of wild-eyed yellow faces drawn with fatigue and heat passes before ones' eyes for an hour. Then the senses begin to reel and it is time to leave this scene of Oriental ...
— The Critic in the Orient • George Hamlin Fitch

... cot-bed in the corner, with an unsavory heap of bed-clothing upon it, and a couple of chairs, both with wooden seats, and ...
— The Young Musician - or, Fighting His Way • Horatio Alger

... of statesmanship," many of which, on analysis, are found to be imaginary and supposititious. Yes, and it would be better for the country if our literary men would describe the healthful life of the Nation's plain people, than tell unsavory stories of artificial careers and abnormal affections, and all that ...
— The Young Man and the World • Albert J. Beveridge

... caked, forgotten crevices of years before. It will break up sometimes blue-hot and bubbling, in the midst of a clear creek, or make a sucking, scalding quicksand at the ford. These outbreaks had the kind of morbid interest for the Pocket Hunter that a house of unsavory reputation has in a respectable neighborhood, but I always found the accounts he brought me more interesting than his explanations, which were compounded of fag ends of miner's talk and superstition. He was a perfect gossip of the woods, ...
— The Land Of Little Rain • Mary Hunter Austin

... said and written thoughtlessly or in a momentary pet, giving to a fleeting whim the printed permanence of a settled opinion, and robbing the grave of what is sometimes its only consoling attribute, the dignity of reserve. We know of no more unsavory calling than this, unless it be that of the Egyptian dealers in mummy, peddling out their grandfathers to be ground into pigment. Obsequious to the last moment, the jackal makes haste to fill his belly from the ribs of his late lion almost before he ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, Issue 35, September, 1860 • Various

... trip down into Jersey the reporter had plenty of time to consider his unsavory task. Some one had to do this kind of thing, so long as the public snooped and peeped and eavesdropped through the keyhole of print at the pageant of the socially great: this he appreciated and accepted. But he felt that it ought to be some one other than himself—and, at the same ...
— Success - A Novel • Samuel Hopkins Adams

... unknown: the audiences see what the play contains and what the actor can do, not what the papers have told them to expect. Success under such circumstances had a value both for Mr Daly and myself which did something to console us for the very unsavory mobbing which the New York press organized for us, and which was not the less disgusting because we suffered in a good cause and in the very ...
— How He Lied to Her Husband • George Bernard Shaw

... offices, was not slow to manifest its contempt for "the man of the people" and his "hungry" followers. But there was still another trouble. Secretary Eaton had married the daughter of a tavern-keeper; her reputation was unsavory and notorious. She now proposed to enter Washington social life as a leader, and Jackson gave her his blessing. The wives of the members of the Cabinet refused to recognize Mrs. Eaton, and a social war followed, in which ...
— Expansion and Conflict • William E. Dodd

... toward Samal, its little sail glaring white in the actinic sunlight: the morning air was hot and filled with the heavy odors of sea and shore. It was a fair spot, Davao, productive, peaceful.... He looked up the coast toward the north where Malababan had settled with his unsavory crew. ...
— Terry - A Tale of the Hill People • Charles Goff Thomson

... Somehow, despite the unsavory reputation of the prisoner, Dick Prescott found himself feeling more than ordinary sympathy for this dejected prisoner. Could it be possible that Tag really was innocent of this last and most serious charge against him? ...
— The High School Boys in Summer Camp • H. Irving Hancock

... has given you so poor an appetite," said the settler, with a look expressive of the savage delight he felt in annoying his visitor. "I reckon that's rather unsavory stuff you've got there, that you can't eat it without bread. I say young man"—addressing Grantham, "can't you find no appetite neither, that you sit there snorin', as if you never meant to ...
— The Canadian Brothers - or The Prophecy Fulfilled • John Richardson

... most unpleasant day's ride I had in the Alps. We stopped to take dinner in the little wretched village of Liddes. You have no idea what a disagreeable, unsavory concern one of these villages is. Houses, none of which look much better than the log barns in our Western States, set close together on either side of a street paved with round stones; coarse, sunburnt women, with their necks ...
— Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands V2 • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... Sefton. He had brought an unsavory reputation with him from the States, and there would be other charges against him from that quarter. He had mixed with a bad crowd in Vancouver, had gotten into a gambling concern, "on the right side of the table," and had "slit his own pardner's throat, both figuratively and literally, ...
— Wolf Breed • Jackson Gregory

... should you suppose this lady to be?" I asked, leaning idly against the table whereon Madame Bouisse was preparing an unsavory dish ...
— In the Days of My Youth • Amelia Ann Blandford Edwards

... our poet's worth have been as diversified as they have been in the main unfair. Alternately lauded as a master dramatic craftsman and vilified as a scurrilous purveyor of unsavory humor, he has been buffeted from the top to the bottom of the dramatic scale. More recent writers have been approaching a saner evaluation of his true worth, but never, we believe, has his real position in that dramatic scale been definitely and finally fixed; because heretofore no ...
— The Dramatic Values in Plautus • William Wallace Blancke

... of the Reformed religion" in Maryland; and in 1683 an appeal from them to the Irish presbytery of Laggan had brought over to their aid that sturdy and fearless man of God, Francis Makemie, whose successful defense in 1707, when unlawfully imprisoned in New York by that unsavory defender of the Anglican faith, Lord Cornbury, gave assurance of religious liberty to his communion throughout the colonies. In 1705 he was moderator of the first presbytery in America, numbering six ministers. At the end of twelve years the number of ministers, ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon

... gratuitous service of the legislators. It is well known that politicians find their way into the Senate and into the chamber of Representatives solely with a view to the loaves and fishes. The very word "politician" is foul and unsavory throughout the States, and means rather a political blackleg than a political patriot. It is useless to blink this matter in speaking of the politics and policy of the United States. The corruption of the venal politicians of the nation stinks aloud in the nostrils of all men. It ...
— Volume 2 • Anthony Trollope

... "Slippery," was the possessor of a biased conscience, if any at all. Tall, gaunt and weather-beaten and with coal-black eyes set deep beneath hairless eyebrows, he was sinister and forbidding. Into his forty-five years of existence he had crowded a century of experience, and unsavory rumors about him existed in all parts of the great West. From Canada to Mexico and from Sacramento to Westport his name stood for brigandage. His operations had been conducted with such consummate cleverness that in all the ...
— Hopalong Cassidy's Rustler Round-Up - Bar-20 • Clarence Edward Mulford

... read on the unsavory subject. It was exceedingly unpleasant reading, but for two years Bok persisted, only to find that Doctor Abbott was right. The root of the evil lay in the reticence of parents with children as to the mystery of life; boys and girls were going out into the world ...
— The Americanization of Edward Bok - The Autobiography of a Dutch Boy Fifty Years After • Edward William Bok

... far more likely to fill the house with bad smells and a subtile poison. Plaster to ceilings and walls is quickly damaged by wet, and if improper materials, such as road drift, be used in its composition, it may become most unsavory and injurious to health. The materials for plaster cannot be too carefully selected, for if organic matter be present, the result is the formation of nitrates and the like, which combine with lime and produce ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 384, May 12, 1883 • Various

... common gossip in her home, of the talk of the people on the steamer, of pages in that volume of Famous Trials she had studied on the voyage with such a close and unsavory curiosity danced through the girl's consciousness. Well, he knew! No good pretending there. And he came to see Diana—and still Diana knew nothing! Mrs. Colwood must simply be telling lies—silly lies! Fanny glanced at ...
— The Testing of Diana Mallory • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... to eat heartily of the unsavory food, however—partly that he might not seem to his employer over-fastidious in taste, and partly because the morning's work had taught him that he would need all the strength he could obtain ere his day's task was over. Stormy though it was, ...
— Golden Days for Boys and Girls - Volume XIII, No. 51: November 12, 1892 • Various

... To add to the unsavory tale we have only to say that there was much scandal on account of the openly expressed statements that the desirable values were, in many instances, cornered by postal employes who had, of course, "first option" on the supplies reaching their respective ...
— The Stamps of Canada • Bertram Poole

... the desert, with dust and desolation spreading far on every hand, the long train had stopped to douse those foul-smelling fires, and, while train-hands pried off the red-hot caps and dumped buckets of water into the blazing cavities, changing malodorous smoke to dense clouds of equally unsavory steam, and the recruits in the afflicted car found consolation in "joshing" the hard-sweating, hard-swearing workers, the young officer who had boarded the second sleeper at Ogden, together with half a dozen bipeds in dusters or frazzled shirt-sleeves, ...
— Ray's Daughter - A Story of Manila • Charles King

... as hard nigh upon as chips of wood, and which, although hungry, I could feel no stomach for; but I bought of one of the squaws two great cakes of sugar, made from the sap of the maples which abound there, very pure and sweet, and which served me instead of their unsavory meat and cakes of pounded corn, of which Mr. Easton and his sister did not scruple to partake. Leaving them, we had a long and hard ride to a place called Winnicinnit, where, to my great joy, we found a comfortable house and Christian people, with whom we tarried. The next day we got to ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier

... well-known Bostonian, the descendant of an honored family, began the ancestral quest with expert assistance. All went merry as a marriage bell for a time, when suddenly he unearthed an unsavory scandal that concerned one of his progenitors. Feeling a responsibility for the misdeeds of his great-grandfather, he ordered all investigation stopped, and the disagreeable data destroyed; but he had delved too far. His genealogist had ...
— Life and Literature - Over two thousand extracts from ancient and modern writers, - and classified in alphabetical order • J. Purver Richardson

... the root of institutions, when he has done. What troubles us is rather why Locke should have wasted the resources of his intelligence upon so feeble an opponent. The book of Hobbes lay ready to his hand; yet he almost ostentatiously refused to grapple with it. The answer doubtless lies in Hobbes' unsavory fame. The man who made the Church a mere department of the State and justified not less the title of Cromwell than of the Stuarts was not the opponent for one who had a very practical problem in hand. And Locke could answer that he was answering Hobbes implicitly ...
— Political Thought in England from Locke to Bentham • Harold J. Laski

... tipsy—on the beauty of temperance? That is dreary work for a pretty young girl. No," Felix continued; "Clifford ought to frequent some agreeable woman, who, without ever mentioning such unsavory subjects, would give him a sense of its being very ridiculous to be fuddled. If he could fall in love with her a little, so much the better. The thing ...
— The Europeans • Henry James

... the places of the desert waste in search of a band of marauders to the sin-stained account of which were charged innumerable thefts of camels, horses, and goats, as well as murders enough to have sent the whole unsavory gang to ...
— The Son of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... enjoying a social gossip, or interchanging their various products and wares, and strawberries from Amak and fish from the Skager-Rack mingle their odors. In the second story of a dingy and dilapidated house, fronting one of these unsavory canals, a confused pile of dirty, shambling old tenements in the rear, and a curious medley of fish and fishermen, sloops and schooners, mud-scows and skiffs in front, lives the world-renowned author, Hans Christian Andersen. I say he lives there, but, properly speaking, he only ...
— The Land of Thor • J. Ross Browne

... every-day, garden skunk. He treed this unexpected visitor on the wood-pile one famous moonlight night in Onteora. And he acknowledged his defeat at once, and like a man. He realized fully his own unsavory condition. He retired to a far corner of the small estate, and for a week, prompted only by his own instinct, he kept to the leeward ...
— A Boy I Knew and Four Dogs • Laurence Hutton

... be a rather unsavory one. I could hear boisterous men singing, and on finding myself alone I grew alarmed. From windows frowzy heads were thrust out and rude women mocked at me. I feared insult, injury. I was ready to fly for my life when a hand touched my arm, and a ...
— Miss Caprice • St. George Rathborne

... applied by dabbing with inking balls of wool-stuffed leather nailed to wooden forms. The leather was still kept soft by removing it and soaking it in urine, after which it was trampled for some time to complete the unsavory operation. Paper still had to be dampened overnight before printing, and freshly inked sheets were still hung to dry over ...
— Why Bewick Succeeded - A Note in the History of Wood Engraving • Jacob Kainen

... uprisings. Small partial payments were made for two years and then ceased. As the Improvement Company's bond holdings became the subject of a special arrangement, the bonded debt of the Republic was considered to be that held by the French and Belgian creditors. However unsavory the debts which gave origin to the bond issues, and however imprudent most of the bond issues themselves, the great majority of bonds had passed into the hands of small holders, innocent third parties who sustained great loss by the continued suspension ...
— Santo Domingo - A Country With A Future • Otto Schoenrich

... his information they had followed a devious trail, apparently quite clean at first, but showing undoubted befoulment as they neared its source. And finally they had traced it to its beginnings in an unsavory local politician, Flaherty by name, who was powerful in his own district and therefore had influence in his party organization. And Flaherty, they had discovered, had been well rewarded for efficient work in engineering the matter and inspiring those ...
— The Fate of Felix Brand • Florence Finch Kelly

... of the performance, Tavernake made his way to the stage-door and waited. The neighborhood was an unsavory one, and the building itself seemed crowded in among a row of shops of the worst order, fish stalls, and a glaring gin palace. Long before Beatrice came out, Tavernake could hear the professor's voice down the covered passage, the professor's voice ...
— The Tempting of Tavernake • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... "That is true," he said. "Yes; it has an unsavory odor, as M. de Treville used to say." And he fixed on M. Fouquet his intelligent ...
— The Man in the Iron Mask • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... the liberty of having a private investigator check into your background. It proved to be unsavory in some respects, as I implied before, but unlike the backgrounds of the other real-estate agents I had checked, it contained not the slightest hint of dishonesty. The nature of my business is such that I need someone of maximum integrity to contract it with. I had to go ...
— The Servant Problem • Robert F. Young

... the old man is chawing on?" It was the forward deck of the Sea Eagle, and the speaker, Old Pete, the sailor, of unsavory memory. "He's been as savage as a bear with a sore head two days past, and that means he's ...
— Frontier Boys in Frisco • Wyn Roosevelt

... downpour, half snow, half rain, about the most disheartening combination which the worst climate in the world—that of central New York—can furnish. He passed rather a busy day in the office in an atmosphere redolent of the unsavory odors raised by the proximity of wet boots and garments to the big cylinder stove outside the counter, a compound of stale smells ...
— David Harum - A Story of American Life • Edward Noyes Westcott

... of a few mouthfuls of the unsavory flesh of Ska, the vulture, the ape-man arose with something of his old force and set out with steady gait toward the hills of promise rising alluringly ahead. Darkness fell before he reached them; but he kept on until he felt the steeply rising ground that proclaimed ...
— Tarzan the Untamed • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... a compromise and built what is called a modern house with bath-room and furnace (after the air-tight-stove craze passed), with jigsaw ornamentation outside and in, pretentious-looking dwellings with no proper kitchen accompaniments, and an unsavory garbage-barrel in the small back yard, under the next neighbor's windows. These houses are so close together that sounds and smells mingle; there is so little land that there is no satisfaction in caring for it. Houses of this sort are altogether too frequently ...
— The Cost of Shelter • Ellen H. Richards

... community where unsavory reputations were the rule, Mick Kennedy's saloon was of evil repute. In a land new and wild, his establishment was the wildest, partook most of the unsubdued, unevolved character of its surroundings. There, as irresistibly as gravitation calls the falling apple, came from ...
— Ben Blair - The Story of a Plainsman • Will Lillibridge

... was nineteen. Her father had kept a small, unprosperous corner store, and she had graduated from high school in the lowest fourth of her class two days before he died. At high school she had enjoyed a rather unsavory reputation. As a matter of fact her behavior at the class picnic, where the rumors started, had been merely indiscreet—she had retained her technical purity until over a year later. The boy had been a clerk in a store on Jackson Street, and on the day after the incident he departed unexpectedly ...
— The Beautiful and Damned • F. Scott Fitzgerald

... women in the solitude of remote chateaux who began to cultivate a love for literature. "The very women and maidens aspired to this praise and celestial manna of good learning," said Rabelais. But their reading was mainly limited to his own unsavory satires, to Spanish pastorals, licentious poems, and their books of devotion. It was on such a foundation that Mme. De Rambouillet began to rear the social structure upon which her reputation rests. She was eminently fitted for this role by her pure character and fine intelligence; but ...
— The Women of the French Salons • Amelia Gere Mason

... this charge, I can only say that I am mistaken in my own estimate of myself. In politics, every man must skin his own skunk. These fellows are welcome to the hide of this one. Its body has already given forth its unsavory odor." ...
— Lincoln's Yarns and Stories • Alexander K. McClure

... appeared in Berlin a series of novels entitled "Biarritz—Rome" purporting to have been written by "Sir John Retcliffe," the pseudonym of Herman Goedsche, a German novelist with an unsavory past. To conceal his identity and to convey the impression that the antisemitism with which his writings abounded emanated from English sources, he selected "Sir ...
— The History of a Lie - 'The Protocols of the Wise Men of Zion' • Herman Bernstein

... thawy weather. He has very little discretion or cunning, and holds a trap in utter contempt, stepping into it as soon as beside it, relying implicitly for defence against all forms of danger upon the unsavory punishment he is capable of inflicting. He is quite indifferent to both man and beast, and will not hurry himself to get out of the way of either. Walking through the summer fields at twilight, I have come near stepping upon him, and was much the more disturbed of the two. When ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 101, March, 1866 • Various

... of this rather long chapter is devoted to the number and character of mixed marriages, with the conclusion that the number is on the decrease and the character of one or both of the contracting parties is usually unsavory, and that such unions can form no determining factor in the ultimate ...
— A Review of Hoffman's Race Traits and Tendencies of the American Negro - The American Negro Academy. Occasional Papers No. 1 • Kelly Miller

... asked for my opinion of the people of this country," she said. "I am going to express that opinion now. It is that, in spite of his unsavory reputation, Dakota appears to ...
— The Trail to Yesterday • Charles Alden Seltzer

... wouldn't take any other sort of payment—and there had been more gold changing hands in order to secure the real thieves. And because he loved the gold Alaric had thus assisted both sides and received double pay. Also, he had left an unsavory memory of himself at San Leon as well as offended his Ute relatives; and White Feather not only prevented harm being done to his Mexican brother-in-law, but also used the occasion to make Alaric subject to himself. Thus it was that he had made ...
— Dorothy on a Ranch • Evelyn Raymond

... jeans trousers, and a soft hat, green from long use. Beneath the shading brim showed a loutish face, the coarse features swollen from dissipation, the small black eyes bleared, yet alert and penetrating in their darting, furtive glances. It was Dan Hodges, a man of unsavory repute. The girl, though unafraid, blessed the instinct that had guided her ...
— Heart of the Blue Ridge • Waldron Baily

... the evidence, although it is of a purely circumstantial nature, points to an innocent man as the culprit. I feel very keenly annoyed with Coverly, for not only is he involving both of you in a most unsavory case but he is also hindering the work of justice. In fact by his inexplicable silence he is, although no doubt unconsciously, affording the murderer ...
— The Green Eyes of Bast • Sax Rohmer

... office. They were no richer than others; indeed, they were often poorer, spending their substance in largesses and bribes to strengthen their influence. They hunted and fished for subsistence; they were as foul, greasy, and unsavory as the rest; yet in them, withal, was often seen a native dignity of bearing, which ochre and bear's grease could not hide, and which comported well with their strong, symmetrical, ...
— The Jesuits in North America in the Seventeenth Century • Francis Parkman

... steamer's captain agreed to let him "work his passage" to Cairo. That is to say, he was to pay no fare, receive no wages, and do double work in return for his passage down the river and for the coarse and unsavory food necessary for ...
— A Captain in the Ranks - A Romance of Affairs • George Cary Eggleston

... consisted of the individuals comprehended in the title of "Bowery Boy"—a term which included that certain, or rather uncertain, element of New Yorker residing in the streets running into the Bowery and adjacent to it, below Canal street, and the other, a rival gang, called "Dead Rabbits," which unsavory distinction was adopted by an equally questionable portion of humanity dwelling in the Fourth and Sixth wards and streets in the vicinity of Catherine and Roosevelt. There were among these two gangs of the ...
— Danger! A True History of a Great City's Wiles and Temptations • William Howe

... days when mortgaged farmers prostituted their barns by selling advertising rights to Hood's Sarsaparilla and Carter's Little Liver Pills and to Lydia Pinkham, and when Bull Durham marred every green meadow from Boston to Washington. Billboards were an unsavory addition to the landscape then. But the modern art of bill posting is quite a different thing and in California it has reached its highest development. Segregated spots of color in the dun cities, surrounded by ...
— Vignettes of San Francisco • Almira Bailey

... while compounding medicaments. Some of the prescriptions given here are accompanied by exorcisms which were to be used at the same time. Many of the prescriptions could have had little but mental influence because the remedies recommended consisted of horrible mixtures of unsavory ingredients, the theory, if we can judge by the medicines, being that the more disgusting the dose the more efficacious the remedy; this is true ...
— Three Thousand Years of Mental Healing • George Barton Cutten

... shall not teache his schollers any unsavory and popishe aucthours which may eyther infecte the yonge wittes of his schollers with heriesies, or corrupte there lyfes ...
— A History of Giggleswick School - From its Foundation 1499 to 1912 • Edward Allen Bell

... some outside pressure had been brought to bear during the night, very antagonistic to the post commander, who was now more determined than ever to accept none but the best for their next year's meat supply. A well-known congressman, of unsavory reputation as a lobbyist in aiding and securing government contracts for his friends, was the latest addition to the legal forces of the opposition. He constantly mentioned his acquaintances in the War Department and maintained an air of assurance which was very disconcerting. The younger ...
— The Outlet • Andy Adams



Words linked to "Unsavory" :   offensive, unsavoriness, unsavoury, unpalatable, savory, distasteful, odoriferous



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