IMPERTINENCE • FREE TRANSLATOR.ORG • Definition of Impertinence

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noun

Impertinence n.

The condition or quality of being impertinent; absence of pertinence, or of adaptedness; irrelevance; unfitness.

Conduct or language unbecoming the person, the society, or the circumstances; rudeness; incivility. "We should avoid the vexation and impertinence of pedants who affect to talk in a language not to be understood."

That which is impertinent; a thing out of place, or of no value. "There are many subtile impertinences learned in schools."

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Etymology of 'Impertinence'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Impertinence" Quotes from Famous Books

... society, he grew saucy in a moment. I did not mind him, but he was vinegar and brimstone to a young student from Tennessee, a slight, weakly lad, but as brave a little chap as you ever saw, named Thorne. Well, one day, for some impertinence, Thorne struck him. Deering was an athlete; he weighed twenty pounds more than I did, fifty more than Thorne, I guess; he was quick as lightning, was most handy with his props, and in an instant he smashed ...

— The Wedge of Gold • C. C. Goodwin

... Spaniard was stabbed by an American. It seems that the presumptuous foreigner had the impertinence to ask very humbly and meekly that most noble representative of the Stars and Stripes if the latter would pay him a few dollars which he had owed him for some time. His high mightiness the Yankee was ...

— The Shirley Letters from California Mines in 1851-52 • Louise Amelia Knapp Smith Clappe

... way they move us about in those horrid jungle stations, without a decent bungalow to set one's foot in, I consider I've got a hearthless child, rather than a childless hearth. Thank you for your sympathy all the same. I dare say it was well meant. Impertinence often is. ...

— Reginald in Russia and Other Sketches • Saki (H.H. Munro)

... the magnet; my heart, I say, replied to me, 'Reassure yourself, master; tender and valiant as you are, the love that you feel shall cause the birth of a love which you shall share.' But pardon me madame, the language of my heart makes me outrageously impertinent—it is doubtless this impertinence ...

— A Romance of the West Indies • Eugene Sue

... recoiling at this fresh impertinence, while the Lieutenant's eyes almost jumped out ...

— Under the Red Robe • Stanley Weyman

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