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Inhospitable   Listen
adjective
Inhospitable  adj.  
1.
Not hospitable; not disposed to show hospitality to strangers or guests; as, an inhospitable person or people. "Have you no touch of pity, that the poor Stand starved at your inhospitable door?"
2.
Affording no shelter or sustenance; barren; desert; bleak; cheerless; wild. "Inhospitable wastes."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Inhospitable" Quotes from Famous Books



... applied, in later years, to the long distances and the inhospitable regions of Russia, they were not so successful as in Germany: however, it must be remembered that, if this kind of war is not suitable to all capacities, regions, or circumstances, its chances of success ...
— The Art of War • Baron Henri de Jomini

... paused. "Queer, isn't it—as if Mother Nature were carrying on two experiments, one at home and one on Mars. On earth it's trial of an emotional, highly competitive race in a world of plenty; here it's the trial of a quiet, friendly race on a desert, unproductive, and inhospitable world. Everything here makes for cooperation. Why, there isn't even the factor that causes so ...
— Valley of Dreams • Stanley Grauman Weinbaum

... himself to the bone in the acquisition of material gain is not pretty. But what else can he do in lands adapted only for wolves and bears? Without a degree of comfort which would be superfluous hereabouts, he would feel humiliated. He must become strenuous if he wishes to rise superior to his inhospitable surroundings." ...
— South Wind • Norman Douglas

... deserting him. "If he had only given them warning. Not but that she was delighted; and even now, if the Major would make use of her ticket . . . And to leave him alone in the house—for the 'maid' lived two streets away, and slept at home—it sounded so inhospitable, did it not? But she hoped the Major would find his room comfortable; there was a table for writing; and supper would be laid in the parlour, if he should feel tired after his journey and wish to retire to bed before ...
— The Mayor of Troy • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... admirable romantic instinct had not peopled it for them with harmonious figures, and brought them thither with minds rightly prepared for the impression. There is half the battle in this preparation. For instance: I have rarely been able to visit, in the proper spirit, the wild and inhospitable places of our own Highlands. I am happier where it is tame and fertile, and not readily pleased without trees. I understand that there are some phases of mental trouble that harmonise well with such surroundings, and that some persons, by the dispensing ...
— Essays of Travel • Robert Louis Stevenson

... that the neglected and roadless Spanish zone intervened between the French possessions and Tangier, which is the natural port of Morocco, one of the first preoccupations of General Lyautey was to make ports along the inhospitable Atlantic coast, where there are no ...
— In Morocco • Edith Wharton

... A whole party of folks—two sleigh-loads—right on us. I don't know who they be, or where they're from. But I know where I wish they was. Well, of course, it's natural they should want to see a loggin'-camp," added Kinney, taking himself to task for his inhospitable mind, "and there ain't any harm in it. But I wish they'd give a fellow a ...
— A Modern Instance • William Dean Howells

... clearly displayed the deathless name which was to be mine, my life of heavy and ceaseless work, my imprisonment, my seasons of grievous terror and sadness, and my abiding-place foreshadowed as inhospitable, by the sharp stones I beheld: barren, by the want of trees and of all serviceable plants; but destined to be, nevertheless, in the end happy, and righteous, and easy. This dream told also of my lasting fame in the future, seeing that the vine yields a harvest every year. As to the boy, if ...
— Jerome Cardan - A Biographical Study • William George Waters

... auspices less benign we might have found the former mistaken and the latter irrelevant; but it so happens that when Sir Sidney shows us over the garden every goose is a swan. Like travellers who at the end of a long day's journey among an inhospitable peasantry are, against their expectation received in a kindly farm, and find themselves talking glibly to their host of matters which are unimportant and unknown to them—the price of land, and the points of a pedigree bull—so ...
— Aspects of Literature • J. Middleton Murry

... two from the door in order to point the way for me, and then turned upon his heel. I had already taken a stride or two away from him and his inhospitable hut, when he ...
— Uncle Bernac - A Memory of the Empire • Arthur Conan Doyle

... stood fixed with surprise, but Heimbert's true-hearted words and Antonia's lovely blushes soon revealed the happy enigma to him. He sank down before the longed-for form with a sense of exquisite delight, and in the midst of the inhospitable desert the flowers of love and gratitude and confidence sent their ...
— The Two Captains • Friedrich de La Motte-Fouque

... this country on which we drove, no record of it ever having been visited by navigators. Its coast-line was only hinted at in our chart. From all of which we could argue that the inhabitants were as inhospitable as the little of ...
— The Jacket (The Star-Rover) • Jack London

... A.M. Soon fell on a large lake, on which we travelled till three, P.M., when we encamped. Thus far the lake extends S.E. and N.W., being about two miles in width. As Mr. Erlandson was the first European who had traversed these inhospitable wilds, I had the gratification of giving his name to the lake. It is reported by the natives to abound in fish of the best quality; rein-deer are also said to be numerous at certain seasons of the year. ...
— Notes of a Twenty-Five Years' Service in the Hudson's Bay Territory - Volume II. (of 2) • John M'lean

... impressionable than Sime. In all of his twenty-five years he had not seen a woman so lovely. Her complexion was the delicate coral pink of the Martian colonials—descendants of the original human settlers who had struggled with, and at last bent to their will, this harsh and inhospitable planet. She was little over five feet tall, although the average Martian is perhaps slightly bigger than his terrestrial cousin. Her hair was dark, like that of most Martians, drawn back from her forehead and fastened at the nape of her neck, ...
— The Martian Cabal • Roman Frederick Starzl

... close Grandison Place in the summer season," said Mrs. Linwood; "it looks so inhospitable. Besides, I have many friends who anticipate passing the sultry ...
— Ernest Linwood - or, The Inner Life of the Author • Caroline Lee Hentz

... and we must do without him." The Anarchist in me revolted at such red-tapeism. "Well, here's for another plunge," I said to myself; "let us try a B this time. C. Bardolph sounds promising." And I ascended another staircase and knocked at another inhospitable door. ...
— A Girl Among the Anarchists • Isabel Meredith

... clicked like a girlish heel; but in the hall she paused, wondering nervously if Katy had put a match to the fire. The autumn air was cold and she had the reproachful vision of a visitor with elderly ailments shivering by her inhospitable hearth. She thought instinctively of the stranger as a survivor of the days when such a visit was a part of ...
— Crucial Instances • Edith Wharton

... sum of fifteen purses from this district. The Emir Djahdjah resides at Baalbec, and keeps there about 200 Metaweli horsemen, whom he equips and feeds out of his own purse. He is well remembered by several Europeans, especially English travellers, for his rapacity, and inhospitable behaviour. ...
— Travels in Syria and the Holy Land • John Burckhardt

... the Hanois and the shore, but that the tower appeared to be intact. On an April morning Haco and the young couple sailed across Rocquaine Bay, and landed close to the tower, which now stood on a rugged and inhospitable island. The door was opened by Tita, who smiled, and prattled, and caressed her young mistress like a lap-dog. She recognised Jean with indifference, but a start, followed by a shudder, seized her when she observed Haco; her terror, ...
— The Forest of Vazon - A Guernsey Legend Of The Eighth Century • Anonymous

... every heart, with all the cares and troubles of life pushed into the background—at least for a while. These things are a glimpse of life to us poor folk who spend all our years in the endless chores of an inhospitable country. You can smile, Steve. You can sneer at Abe's saloon. But I tell you you haven't a right to just because these things don't mean a thing to you. There's nothing means anything to you but ...
— The Heart of Unaga • Ridgwell Cullum

... several populations within either one of these subspecies; in south-central Arizona and western Texas the animals are said to occur only in the higher parts of the mountains. Consequently a given population is separated from another by low-lying territory inhospitable to the species Sylvilagus floridanus. This low-lying territory is inhabited by another species, Sylvilagus audubonii. More intensive collecting in the region concerned may, however, show a continuous distribution of the species Sylvilagus floridanus in several areas where it seems now ...
— Comments on the Taxonomy and Geographic Distribution of Some North American Rabbits • E. Raymond Hall

... they should anywhere enjoy ease and contentment, and dreading, perhaps, the dangerous consequences of so disaffected a colony, prevailed on the king to issue a proclamation, debarring those devotees access, even into those inhospitable deserts. Eight ships, lying in the Thames, and ready to sail, were detained by order of the council; and in there were embarked Sir Arthur Hazelrig, John Hampden, John Pym, and Oliver Cromwell, who had resolved, forever, to abandon their native country, and ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman

... unpleasant itching sensation roused me from my first nap. As soon as I realized its nature, I rose to my feet, feeling convinced I should do far better to spend the rest of the night in the open air than beneath that inhospitable roof. Walking tiptoe I reached the door, stepped over Don Jose, who was sleeping the sleep of the just, and managed so well that I got outside the building without waking him. Just beside the door there was a wide wooden bench. I lay down upon it, and settled ...
— Carmen • Prosper Merimee

... speak. Whether to speak Or whether to be silent is all one; Whether to sleep and in my dreaming front Her small scared face forlorn; whether to wake And muse upon her small soft feet that paced The hated, hard, inhospitable stone— I say all's one. But you would have me speak, And change one sorrow for the other. Ay, Right reverend father, comfortable father, Old, long in thrall, and wearied of the cell, So will I here—here staring through the grate, Whence, sheer beneath us lying ...
— Poems by Jean Ingelow, In Two Volumes, Volume II. • Jean Ingelow

... after Serrano and Antonio had reported to the archduke, it was decided, notwithstanding the very inhospitable treatment which they had received, that those commissioners should return to their labours. Ogle and Fairfax still remained as hostages in camp, and of course professed entire ignorance of these extraordinary proceedings, attributing them to some inexplicable misunderstanding. ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... lowering himself with some care among the projections of the inhospitable rock. "I'm sure you both patronize mirrors for the pure pleasure of it. In the minute I stood waiting and watching up there I expected to see you turn into—who was ...
— The Opened Shutters • Clara Louise Burnham

... for many years on that inhospitable shore, And day by day they learned to love each other more and more. At last, to their astonishment, on getting up one day, They saw a frigate anchored in the ...
— More Bab Ballads • W. S. Gilbert

... wife, "you shall not refuse! It's inhuman, it's inhospitable, when Lily wants you to, so! Why, I never ...
— A Fearful Responsibility and Other Stories • William D. Howells

... disposition to take things simply, it was obliged to perceive that some things were not so simple as others. He felt as one does in missing a step, in an ascent, where one expected to find it. This strange, pretty woman, sitting in fire-side talk with her brother, in the gray depths of her inhospitable-looking house—what had he to say to her? She seemed enveloped in a sort of fantastic privacy; on what grounds had he pulled away the curtain? For a moment he felt as if he had plunged into some medium as deep as the ocean, and as if he must exert himself to keep from ...
— The American • Henry James

... air and harbouring legions of rabbits; and then, seeking tenants of enterprise and capital, more than doubled his original yearly rental, and perhaps more than tripled the market value of his property. Simultaneously with this acquisition of fortune, he emerged from the inhospitable and unsocial obscurity which his previous poverty had compelled, took an active part in county business, proved himself an excellent speaker at public meetings, subscribed liberally to the hunt, and occasionally joined in it,—a less ...
— Kenelm Chillingly, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... Sandwich Islands, where he remained some ten days, and then set sail for Behring Strait and the Arctic Ocean. His instructions were to skirt along the North American coast as far as the state of the ice would permit. The Blossom made a halt in Kotzebue Bay, a desolate, forbidding, and inhospitable spot, where the English had several interviews with the natives without obtaining any information about Franklin and his people. At last Beechey sent forward one of the ship's boats, under command of Lieutenant Elson, to seek ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part III. The Great Explorers of the Nineteenth Century • Jules Verne

... that no man is naturally indebted to another; that he is not, therefore, obliged to bear with any imposition, or unequal treatment. [Footnote: Charlevoix] Thus, in a principle apparently sullen and inhospitable, they have discovered the foundation of justice, and observe its rules, with a steadiness and candour which no cultivation has been found to improve. The freedom which they give in what relates to the supposed duties of kindness and friendship, serves only to engage the heart more entirely, where ...
— An Essay on the History of Civil Society, Eighth Edition • Adam Ferguson, L.L.D.

... walk, but were obliged to slide along them; and as for the stove, it was too bright and polished to be polluted with sea-coal, or stained by the smoke of any gross material fire — When we had remained above half an hour sacrificing to the inhospitable powers in the temple of cold reception, my friend Baynard arrived, and understanding we were in the house, made his appearance, so meagre, yellow, and dejected, that I really should not have known him, had I met with him in any other place. Running ...
— The Expedition of Humphry Clinker • Tobias Smollett

... can't stay sweltering here," he decided; "let's try somewhere else—" and with a sense of relief Charity followed him from that scene of inhospitable splendour. ...
— Summer • Edith Wharton

... eternal sufferings can make adequate retribution!—Equally iniquitous is the practice of robbing that country of its inhabitants; and equally tremendous will be the punishment. The voice of injured thousands, who have been violently torn from their native country, and carried to distant and inhospitable climes—the bitter lamentations of the wretched, helpless female—the cruel agonizing sensations of the husband, the father and the friend—will ascend to the throne of Omnipotence, and, from the elevated heights of heaven, cause him, with the whole force ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Vol. I. Jan. 1916 • Various

... After all allowances for vermin that waken you before your time, or assassins that send you to sleep before your time, no single Greek nuisance can be placed on the same scale with the dogs attached to every menage, whether household or pastoral. Surely as a stranger approaches to any inhospitable door of the peasantry, often before he knows of such a door as in rerum natura, out bounds upon him by huge careering leaps a horrid infuriated ruffian of a dog—oftentimes a huge moloss, big as an English cow—active as a leopard, fierce as a hyena but more powerful ...
— Theological Essays and Other Papers v2 • Thomas de Quincey

... missionary traveller, Livingstone, makes of his thirty-seventh attack of fever, and Du Chaillu of his fiftieth, and the exhaustion of the last of fourteen ounces of quinine which he had taken on his journey, are ominous of the inhospitable reception which the country gives. But as soon as the traveller passes inland he comes into an entirely different region. Towering mountains, snow-capped and forest-crowned rise before him, and down through their passes healthful and bracing winds ...
— The Future of the Colored Race in America • William Aikman

... left me a prey to famine at last in a foreign country, where I had not one friend or acquaintance to close my eyes, and do the last offices of humanity to my miserable carcass. A thousand times I wished myself a bear, that I might retreat to woods and deserts, far from the inhospitable haunts of man, where I could live by my own talents, independent of treacherous friends ...
— The Adventures of Roderick Random • Tobias Smollett

... theoretical side of his labours—labours from which the youngest and least impressionable planeur might well have shrunk. He had traced through cold and heat, across the deeps of the oceans, with instruments of his own invention, over the inhospitable heart of the polar ice and the sterile visage of the deserts, league by league, patiently, unweariedly, remorselessly, from their ever-shifting cradle under the magnetic pole to their exalted death-bed in the utmost ...
— With The Night Mail - A Story of 2000 A.D. (Together with extracts from the - comtemporary magazine in which it appeared) • Rudyard Kipling

... the margin of which are three clusters of reeds. Dark clouds scud across the sky, and the moon only shows itself at intervals. It is an intensely wild and lonely spot, and the cold, dank air blowing across the barren wastes renders it all the more inhospitable. No one, no living thing, no object is visible save the ash. Suddenly it moves its livid trunk, sways violently, unnaturally, backwards and forwards—once, twice, thrice; and there comes from it a cry, a most piercing, agonising cry, ...
— Byways of Ghost-Land • Elliott O'Donnell

... in the military school at Stuttgart, but in secret he produced his first play, "The Robbers," the first performance of which he had to witness in disguise. The irksomeness of his prison-like school so galled him, and his longing for authorship so allured him, that he ventured, penniless, into the inhospitable world of letters. A kind lady aided him, and soon he produced the two splendid dramas which ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden

... railway-station here, I waited whilst the terribly slow business of ticket-taking and registration was got over, thankful enough that I had breakfasted overnight—that is to say, had made tea at three o'clock in the morning. Not a cup of milk, not a crust of bread, would that inhospitable inn offer its over-charged guests before setting out. As I have nothing but praise to bestow upon the hostelries of the Lozere and the Cantal, I must give vent ...
— The Roof of France • Matilda Betham-Edwards

... straw, small willows and the southern wood. they use the silk grass in manufacturing their fishing nets and bags, the bear grass and cedar bark are employed in forming a variety of articles. they are poor, dirty, proud, haughty, inhospitable, parsimonious and faithless in every rispect, nothing but our numbers I beleive prevents their attempting to murder us at ...
— The Journals of Lewis and Clark • Meriwether Lewis et al

... making a dive for the nearest doorway. "Keep away from that house!" shouted a Belgian soldier who suddenly appeared from around a corner. "The man who owns it has gone insane from fright. He's upstairs with a rifle and he's shooting at every one who passes." "Well, I call that damned inhospitable," said Thompson, and Roos and I heartily agreed with him. There was nothing else for it, therefore, but to make a dash for the car. We had left it standing in front of a convent over which a Red Cross flag was flying on the assumption that ...
— Fighting in Flanders • E. Alexander Powell

... natives came on board, whom they kept to shew in New Spain. Continuing their course to the N. E. for four months, they came into lat. 42 deg. N. where they saw numbers of seals, and tunnies; and the climate appeared to them so cold and inhospitable, that partly on that account, and partly owing to contrary winds, they returned towards Tidore, having been the first Spaniards who had been in so high a northern latitude in these seas. On their return to Tidore, they found one ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. II • Robert Kerr

... concord among themselves and strict exclusiveness could the Hanses for centuries maintain their position upon that inhospitable and thinly peopled shore. The novice, who usually entered the service of the Hansa at the age of twelve, was compelled to serve an apprenticeship of seven years, during which his duties consisted also in cooking, cleaning, ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume VI. • Various

... fence, showing a dark blot in the white drifts, stood a small house. Upon this house descended—or rather ascended—Judge Menefee and his cohorts with boyish whoops born of the snow and stress. They called; they pounded at window and door. At the inhospitable silence they waxed restive; they assaulted and forced the pregnable barriers, ...
— Heart of the West • O. Henry

... all, never travel alone, if your heart is sad! How hostile and inhospitable the first sensation is that one feels then when entering an unknown city! Amedee was obliged to submit to the tiresome delay of looking after his baggage in a commonplace station; the hasty packing into an omnibus of tired-out travellers, darting glances of bad humor and ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet

... signs, marking his impatience that I should be gone. I attempted in vain to sooth him by presents, but though he did not refuse them, they did not alter his behaviour. Some of the young women, better pleased with us than was their inhospitable chief, dressed themselves expeditiously in their best apparel, and, assembling in a body, welcomed us to their village, by joining in a song, which was far ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 16 • Robert Kerr

... requiring some mechanical assistance. Asked if the visitor required any other assistance, the innkeeper said shortly that the old gentleman had filled his flask and taken a packet of sandwiches. And with these words the somewhat inhospitable host had walked hastily out of the bar, and they heard him banging ...
— The Man Who Knew Too Much • G.K. Chesterton

... to relax the rigid claims Of mute submission? Call thyself useless! Thou, Thou, from whose being o'er a thousand hearts, A healing balsam flows? when to a race. To whom a god consign'd thee, thou dost prove A fountain of perpetual happiness, And from this dire inhospitable shore Dost to the ...
— Iphigenia in Tauris • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

... six weeks after its inception, Mr. Emerson wrote: "The sun and the evening sky do not look calmer than Alcott and his family at Fruitlands. They seem to have arrived at the fact,—to have got rid of the show, and so to be serene. They look well in July; we will see them in December." An inhospitable December came upon the promising experiment, as it generally has upon all similar enterprises. Under the title Transcendental Wild Oats, in "Silver Pitchers," Miss Alcott gives a lively account of the varying ...
— Daughters of the Puritans - A Group of Brief Biographies • Seth Curtis Beach

... "An inhospitable reception England affords us, after an absence of so many years. Methinks I like Gascony the better in regard ...
— The House of Walderne - A Tale of the Cloister and the Forest in the Days of the Barons' Wars • A. D. Crake

... return from Marsden Vale, our savage friends laughed heartily at us. They had warned us of the reception we should meet with; and their delight at seeing us again formed a strange contrast to that of their Christian teachers, whose inhospitable dwellings we determined never ...
— A Narrative of a Nine Months' Residence in New Zealand in 1827 • Augustus Earle

... end, and the land will become drier, and therefore better fitted for Europeans, the nearer it approaches Mossamedes Bay. South of "Little Fish," again, a barren tract of white sand will show the "Last Tree," an inhospitable region, waterless, and bulwarked ...
— Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton

... are lively, and may be easily and aptly applied on many occasions by those whose wit is not so perfect as their memory. This Diogenes (as every one will recollect) was citizen of a little bleak town situated on the coast of the Euxine, and exposed to all the buffets of that inhospitable sea. He lived at a great distance from those weather-beaten walls, in ease and indolence, and in the midst of literary leisure, when he was informed that his townsmen had condemned him to be banished from Sinope; he answered coolly, "And I condemn ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. IV. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... since the painful business in front of the Louis Quinze. Where he had been and what doing no one asked, for he was mysterious in his movements, and always uncommunicative, and people did not care to tempt his inhospitable tongue. When Pomfrette was so far recovered that he might be left alone, Parpon said to ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... Mason stop for lunch?" said he. "It is past half-past one. I never knew anything so inhospitable as turning her out ...
— Orley Farm • Anthony Trollope

... and there by the bleeding flower of the buckwheat; that these roads, bordered with stones placed one on top of the other, without cement or plaster; that these paths, bordered with impenetrable hedges; that these grudging plants; these inhospitable fields; these crippled beggars, eaten with vermin, plastered with filth; that even the flocks, undersized and wasted, the dumpy little cows, the black sheep whose blue eyes had the cold, pale gleam that is in the eyes of the Slav or ...
— La-bas • J. K. Huysmans

... use of the term abnormal, I do not mean unusual in any sense. I am far from any intention to speak disrespectfully or disloyally of those stanch old soldiers of the faith who landed upon our inhospitable shores and laid the foundation, as on a very rock of spirit, for the New England of to-day; but I am not sure, in spite of their godliness, and their noble adherence, in the face of obstacles, to the dictates of ...
— Pembroke - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman

... the Loscheks looked grim and inhospitable when she reached it that, night. Built during the years when the unbeliever overran southern Europe, it stood in a commanding position over a valley, and a steep, walled road led up to it. The narrow windows of its turrets were built, ...
— Long Live the King • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... Saint Paul's cupola and Cape Victory in one, N. distant seven leagues, and Cape Pillar E. distant six leagues. Our latitude, by observation, was 52 deg. 33', and we computed our longitude to be 76 deg. W. Thus we quitted a dreary and inhospitable region, where we were in almost perpetual danger of shipwreck for near four months, having entered the streight on the 17th of December 1766, and quitted it on the 11th of April 1767; a region where, in the midst of summer, the weather was cold, gloomy, and tempestuous, where ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 12 • Robert Kerr

... was across a barren, inhospitable track for twenty miles to a place called Yarghati. On the way we passed Ahmedkhel, where Sir Donald Stewart won his victory; the name had been changed by the Natives to 'the Resting-place of Martyrs,' and the numerous ...
— Forty-one years in India - From Subaltern To Commander-In-Chief • Frederick Sleigh Roberts

... granite, back from which are scattered groups of modest buildings and huts which form the aboriginal settlement. The choice of the site for the settlement was influenced by the character of the country. Although but a short distance by sea from the port, it is isolated by its background of hard and inhospitable hills patched with almost impenetrable jungle. Few consigned there ever leave of their own motive, however earnest the longing may be. The home-sick realise that escape is difficult and, if successful, futile, for are not ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield

... prevent slipping; but wood in any shape has a homely friendly feeling, as different from any the polisher can impart to a piece of cold stone as the forests, where it once stood, upright and lofty, are from the inhospitable rocks on the ...
— The Ashiel mystery - A Detective Story • Mrs. Charles Bryce

... passed a stone house with wide lawns and an inhospitable air of wealth and importunate rank; over the sward two peacocks swung, ambulating like caravals in a green sea; and one expected a fine lady to come smiling and glittering from the door. Oddly enough, though he had never seen ...
— The Gentleman From Indiana • Booth Tarkington

... anger, but incapable of speech, Innes shouldered his rod, made a gesture of farewell, and strode off down the burn-side. Archie watched him go without moving. He was sorry, but quite unashamed. He hated to be inhospitable, but in one thing he was his father's son. He had a strong sense that his house was his own and no man else's; and to, lie at a guest's mercy was what he refused. He hated to seem harsh. But that was Frank's look-out. If Frank had ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XIX (of 25) - The Ebb-Tide; Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson

... and though my poor servants would gladly have returned with me sooner than see me perish in the storm; yet rather would I have been found dead on the road, a reproach to the kings who have betrayed me, than have taken an hour's shelter in that inhospitable city." ...
— The Scottish Chiefs • Miss Jane Porter

... The story of the Samaritan woman in John's Gospel, the parable of the good Samaritan, the incident of the grateful leper, who was a Samaritan, the refusal to allow the eager Apostles to bring down fire from heaven to consume inhospitable churls in a Samaritan village, were but outstanding specimens of what must have been a characteristic of His whole career not unknown to His enemies. So they argued, 'If you love our enemies you must hate us; and you must be one of them,' thereby ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. John Chapters I to XIV • Alexander Maclaren

... enemy, he spent the winter at sea, expecting every hour the return of a messenger from his son, whom he had sent to solicit protection from the African prince, Mandras'tal. 9. After long expectation, instead of the messenger, his son himself arrived, having escaped from the inhospitable court of that monarch, where he had been kept, not as a friend, but as a prisoner, and had returned just time enough to prevent his father from sharing the same fate. 10. In this situation they were informed that Cinna, one of their party who had remained at Rome, had put himself at the ...
— Pinnock's Improved Edition of Dr. Goldsmith's History of Rome • Oliver Goldsmith

... years, Ocean of Time, whose waters of deep woe Are brackish with the salt of human tears! Thou shoreless flood, which in thy ebb and flow Claspest the limits of mortality, 5 And sick of prey, yet howling on for more, Vomitest thy wrecks on its inhospitable shore; Treacherous in calm, and terrible in storm, Who shall put forth ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley

... can only be our ancient fatherland, Palestine, which belongs to us by the right of history. "We must undertake the colonization of Palestine on so comprehensive a scale that in the course of one century the Jews may be able to leave inhospitable Europe almost entirely and settle in the land of our forefathers to which we are ...
— History of the Jews in Russia and Poland. Volume II • S.M. Dubnow

... some good luck to give them a lift. But success is the child of drudgery and perseverance. It cannot be coaxed or bribed; pay the price, and it is yours. A constant struggle, a ceaseless battle to bring success from inhospitable surroundings, is the price of ...
— An Iron Will • Orison Swett Marden

... well-explored region. It had proved otherwise, only too well endorsing the scanty information supplied by D'Urville and Wilkes of the coastline seen by them. A glance at the austere plateau and the ice-fettered coast was evidence of a rigid, inhospitable climate. It was apparent, too, that only a short summer could be expected in these latitudes, thus ...
— The Home of the Blizzard • Douglas Mawson

... incessantly at us, wagging their tails at the same time, however, as if they had some doubts of the correctness of their judgment in the matter. One very small, very white, and very fluffy toy-dog, with a dove-coloured ribbon, was—no doubt—incurably ill-tempered and inhospitable; but a large brindled bull-dog, trying politely but vainly to hide his teeth and tongue, wagged what the fancier had left him of a tail, and dribbled with the pleasure of making our acquaintance, after the wont of his benevolent and much-maligned ...
— A Great Emergency and Other Tales - A Great Emergency; A Very Ill-Tempered Family; Our Field; Madam Liberality • Juliana Horatia Gatty Ewing

... duty was faithfully performed, under constant hardships and discouragement,' relates his mother. 'But a few miles of road remained to be cut, when, at the end of June, 1863, after personally rescuing other pioneers and wanderers from drowning and starvation in that watery, inhospitable forest region, Charlton, with two of his men, went down in the deep waters of Lake Brunner; a fatal accident which deprived the Government of a valued servant, and saddened the hearts of all ...
— Little Memoirs of the Nineteenth Century • George Paston

... the story of Blue Beard and that unpleasant locked-up room of his, where the poor little wives hung all of a row? Well, I'm sorry to say, Dick, most men when they come to my age have a room of that sort. It's an inhospitable place. One doesn't invite one's friends to dine and smoke there. At least no gentleman does. I've met one or two persons who set the door open and rather gloried in inviting inspection—but they were blackguards and cads. They don't count. Still each of us is obliged to go in there sometimes ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet

... stated that "Mrs. Thorne took tea at Sam Cotting's last evening," (the Cottings being notoriously inhospitable) and the picture showed Mrs. Thorne, a sour-faced woman, departing from the store with a package of tea. Then came the announcement that "Eph Hildreth got shot at West's hardware store," and there was a picture of West weighing out a pound of buckshot for his customer. ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces on Vacation • Edith Van Dyne

... highly civilized North American continent had relapsed, within the brief period of ninety years, into its primeval estate. In every direction stretched an inhospitable wilderness of morass and forest, with a few feeble settlements of the Stockade people fringing the principal waterways, and here and there the smoke of an encampment of the Painted Men rising in a thin spiral from out of the vast ocean of green ...
— The Doomsman • Van Tassel Sutphen

... shrub, to resume in the morning the weary march toward their supposed goal of safety—Monastir. But by the time this dispatch is printed Monastir, too, may be in the hands of the enemy. This will leave them to the mercy of the inhospitable mountain fastnesses, where for the past two days a terrific blizzard has been raging, or to ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume IV (of 8) • Francis J. (Francis Joseph) Reynolds, Allen L. (Allen Leon)

... never fallen on the summits of Pelion[14] under the Thessalian axe! and that Argus had never, with the aid of Pallas, invented a way boldly to meet certain death, {in the} ship which, to the destruction of Greeks and Barbarians, first laid open the bays of the inhospitable Euxine. For both had the house of the proud Aeetes to lament it, and the realms of Pelias[15] fell by the guilt of Medea, who, after concealing by various methods the cruelty of her disposition, there effected her escape, by means of the limbs[16] of her brother, ...
— The Fables of Phdrus - Literally translated into English prose with notes • Phaedrus

... shall graciously permit us to exist in the torrid deserts of Arabia, or the frozen regions of Lapland, there to enjoy the blessings of civilization and the charms of lunar philosophy, in much the same manner as the reformed and enlightened savages of this country are kindly suffered to inhabit the inhospitable forests of the north, or the impenetrable wilderness of ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving

... of his supper. With two or three blows of his ponderous paw the grizzly smashed the door to splinters, but as he poked his head in he met a volley from two rifles and a shotgun. He looked at Jeff reproachfully for the inhospitable reception, turned about and went away, more ...
— Bears I Have Met—and Others • Allen Kelly

... to the grass-lands and water,' they said, 'and let us live there, else we shall die, forgotten of God, in this inhospitable wilderness.' But Piet Naude wrought with them, saying, 'Let us keep good hearts and hold on. In time we shall surely come to the best place of all, where we shall gain cattle and sheep and prosper all our lives.' ...
— Vrouw Grobelaar and Her Leading Cases - Seventeen Short Stories • Perceval Gibbon

... have it all, in parvo. But, Dios y diablo! that trip up the river has nearly done for me! We traveled by night and hid in the brush by day, where millions of gnats and mosquitoes literally devoured me! Caramba! and you so inhospitable as to have ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking

... Forks of the Yadkin of Boone's removal to the waters of the upper Yadkin. At Boone's rustic home, in the winter of 1768-9, Findlay visited his old comrade-in-arms of Braddock's campaign. On learning of Boone's failure during the preceding year to reach the Kentucky levels by way of the inhospitable Sandy region, Findlay again described to him the route through the Ouasioto Gap traversed sixteen years before by Pennsylvania traders in their traffic with the Catawbas. Boone, as we have seen, knew that Christopher Gist, who had formerly lived near him on the upper Yadkin, had found some passage ...
— The Conquest of the Old Southwest • Archibald Henderson

... urge you to be inhospitable, Bert, let him finish his dinner in peace. After dinner, however, the sooner young Bayliss returns to his home, or at least, goes away from here, the better I shall be pleased. As for you, young man, I have had enough of your actions. I have ...
— The High School Boys' Fishing Trip • H. Irving Hancock

... was to murder them both and throw their bodies into the sea; but this cruel proposal was thwarted both, by compassion and by policy, and it was resolved to set my brother ashore on the first inhospitable land they should meet, and retain Montford to assist them in the navigation of the vessel, designing to destroy him when his services should no longer ...
— Jane Talbot • Charles Brockden Brown

... walls of rock to one hundred and fifty yards in width, and there the rapids were most agitated. Large masses of ice twelve or fourteen feet thick, were still adhering to many parts of the bank, indicating the tardy departure of winter from this inhospitable land, but the earth around them was rich with vegetation. In the evening two musk-oxen being seen on the beach, were pursued and killed by our men. Whilst we were waiting to embark the meat, the Indians rejoined us, and reported they ...
— Narrative of a Journey to the Shores of the Polar Sea, in the years 1819-20-21-22, Volume 2 • John Franklin

... slacker eddies along the bank. What mattered more was that the portages were frequent, and carrying the canoe over rock coated with frozen spray became dangerous as well as difficult, and Nasmyth working on short rations began to feel the strain. It was only since he had entered that inhospitable region that he had ever been compelled to go without his dinner; and now breakfast and supper were sternly curtailed. When they were stopped for two days by a blinding snowstorm he grew anxious, and his uneasiness had increased ...
— The Long Portage • Harold Bindloss

... and in the soft whir in his face of a leatherwing bat as it wheeled low in the twilight. There was no smoke in the chimneys, and the square old house, with its hooded roof and its vacant windows, assumed a sinister and inhospitable look against the background of oaks. His mother and his aunt, he concluded, were doubtless away for their winter's shopping, so lifting his horse's head from the grass, he passed between the marble urns and the clipped box, and ...
— The Miller Of Old Church • Ellen Glasgow

... not be inhospitable, now called out the neglected pair in the oak parlour. She convoyed Donne past his dread enemy Tartar, who, with his nose on his fore paws, lay snoring under the meridian sun. Donne was not grateful—he ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte

... magnificence. Madame and her mother alighted at the Louvre, where, during their exile, they had so gloomily submitted to obscurity, misery, and privations of every description. That palace, which had been so inhospitable a residence for the unhappy daughter of Henry IV., the naked walls, the uneven floorings, the ceilings matted with cobwebs, the vast dilapidated chimney-places, the cold hearths on which the charity extended to them by parliament hardly permitted a fire to glow, ...
— Ten Years Later - Chapters 1-104 • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... neighbours dread my example. I have closed the whole world against me, that Crete alone might be open {to me}. And dost thou thus forbid me that as well? Is it thus, ungrateful one, that thou dost desert me? Europa was not thy mother, but the inhospitable Syrtis,[8] or Armenian[9] tigresses, or Charybdis disturbed by the South wind. Nor wast thou the son of Jupiter; nor was thy mother beguiled by the {assumed} form of a bull. That story of thy birth is false. He was both a fierce bull, and one charmed with the love of no heifer, ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Copious Notes - and Explanations • Publius Ovidius Naso

... said he; "drink by all means so long as it amuses you. I had far rather you exceeded than that I should appear inhospitable." ...
— Sir John Constantine • Prosper Paleologus Constantine

... afternoon the squire tried to steer clear of Molly, to whom he felt himself to have been an inhospitable traitor. But she was so perfectly unconscious of his shyness of her, and so merry and sweet in her behaviour as a welcome guest, never distrusting him for a moment, however gruff he might be, that by ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

... of the neighbouring Banks Island are described by Giaom as evincing the same hostility towards Europeans. Only a few years ago the Italegas, one of the two tribes inhabiting that island, murdered two white men and a boy, who had reached their inhospitable shores in a small boat, probably from a wreck. Such savage outrages committed by the inhabitants of the north-western islands would probably be completely prevented were they oftener visited by Europeans; such was the case ...
— Narrative Of The Voyage Of H.M.S. Rattlesnake, Commanded By The Late Captain Owen Stanley, R.N., F.R.S. Etc. During The Years 1846-1850. Including Discoveries And Surveys In New Guinea, The Louisiade • John MacGillivray

... her, and in the inhospitable region where her brother had been surprised at his prayers, how could a lonely woman travel without protection? Doubt, apprehension flitted as ill-boding birds of night, flapping dusky wings to hide the ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson

... brother, and the pleasure he felt at his return, shielded Malcolm from comment or rebuke; but after the very first day the bailie's wife had declared to herself that it was impossible that Malcolm could long remain an inmate of the house. She was not inhospitable, and would have made great sacrifices in some directions for the long missing brother of her husband; but his conduct outraged all the best feelings of ...
— Bonnie Prince Charlie - A Tale of Fontenoy and Culloden • G. A. Henty

... with horror at the idea of our removal from our ships in the river Medway, which runs through a beautiful country. It is "the untried scene," that fills us with dread, "for clouds and darkness rest upon it." Last year we were transported from inhospitable Nova Scotia, over the boisterous Atlantic; and suffered incredible hardships in a rough winter passage; and now we are to be launched again on the same tumultuous ocean, to go four hundred miles coast-wise, to the most ...
— A Journal of a Young Man of Massachusetts, 2nd ed. • Benjamin Waterhouse

... likely to forget it; and I fear I have seldom enjoyed anything so much as the consternation of the woman (whom I heartily hated) when she saw a truck arrive to remove my uncle's few personal possessions from her inhospitable roof. I believe she took her revenge by giving her cronies to understand that she had turned my uncle away at a week's warning for bringing home improper companions to her respectable house.—But to return to Little Christmas. She fared all the better ...
— Adela Cathcart - Volume II • George MacDonald

... livery coats, with large sleeves, and still shorter waists. After he had eat a dinner, enough to poison a pack of hounds, he sat off in great pomp for Barcelona, a city I passed the next day with infinite pleasure, without entering its inhospitable gates; which I could not have done, had not Mons. Anglois saved me that mortification by getting my passa porte refreshed. I confess, Sir, that while I passed under the fortifications of that city, which the high road made necessary, I felt, I knew ...
— A Year's Journey through France and Part of Spain, 1777 - Volume 1 (of 2) • Philip Thicknesse

... the storm, dying when the bullet comes, but living like a hero the while. Look, for instance, at the whole-hearted cheerfulness of Raleigh, when with his small English ships he cast himself against the navies of Spain; or at Xenophon, conducting back from an inhospitable and hostile country, and through unknown paths, his ten thousand Greeks; or Caesar, riding up and down the banks of the Rubicon, sad enough belike when alone, but at the head of his men cheerful, joyous, well ...
— Brave Men and Women - Their Struggles, Failures, And Triumphs • O.E. Fuller

... once established, he left the inhospitable house where he had been so misunderstood, and was taken into the family of an old musician, "Father Bambini," as Delsarte loved ...
— Delsarte System of Oratory • Various

... for Nova Scotia what is claimed for it or not, their success in the new country as farmers and settlers forever removed from the English mind the belief that Nova Scotia was a cold, barren and inhospitable country, "fit only as a home for convicts and Indians." And thus it opened the way for future settlers. It is not claiming too much to say these northern Englishmen were a superior class of men. Industrious, hardy, resourceful and God-fearing, they were made of the right material to form the ...
— The Chignecto Isthmus And Its First Settlers • Howard Trueman

... had hoped that some of the sealing schooners that rendezvous about the neighbourhood of Cape Horn, in search of the blubber and skins of the marine animals frequenting the shoals there, would have put in ere this and taken us off the inhospitable shore on which we had been forced to take refuge, or else that some passing ship homeward bound or sailing west into the Pacific would have picked us up; but, never a sail hove in sight, and, as our provisions daily ...
— On Board the Esmeralda - Martin Leigh's Log - A Sea Story • John Conroy Hutcheson



Words linked to "Inhospitable" :   wild, inhospitality, godforsaken, stark, windswept, uncongenial, unfriendly, bare, barren, hostile, bleak, inhospitableness, hospitable, water-washed, waste



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