Free translatorFree translator
Synonyms, antonyms, pronunciation

  Home
English Dictionary      examples: 'day', 'get rid of', 'New York Bay'




Lawless   Listen
adjective
Lawless  adj.  
1.
Contrary to, or unauthorized by, law; illegal; as, a lawless claim. "He needs no indirect nor lawless course."
2.
Not subject to, or restrained by, the law of morality or of society; as, lawless men or behavior.
3.
Not subject to the laws of nature; uncontrolled. "Or, meteorlike, flame lawless through the void."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








Advanced search
     Find words:
Starting with
Ending with
Containing
Matching a pattern  

Synonyms
Antonyms
Quotes
Words linked to  

only single words



Share |





"Lawless" Quotes from Famous Books



... obvious form is the legal limitation of suffrage. The irregular and indirect suppression of the negro vote which had prevailed since the close of the Reconstruction period, was not thorough and sure enough to satisfy the white politicians. And the lawless habit which it fostered, and whose effects could by no means be confined to one race, alarmed the better classes. So from two directions there was a pressure toward some restriction of the negro vote which ...
— The Negro and the Nation - A History of American Slavery and Enfranchisement • George S. Merriam

... that he chafed under the restraints imposed by usage and even by enacted laws if they interfered with his acting in a way which seemed to him right or justified by conditions. I do not say that he was lawless. He was not that, but he conformed grudgingly and with manifest displeasure to legal limitations. It was a thankless task to question a proposed course of action on the ground of illegality, because he appeared to be irritated by such an obstacle to his will and to transfer his irritation against ...
— The Peace Negotiations • Robert Lansing

... they were able to do it? But should this be really the case, every corner of the globe would reverberate with the sound of African oppression; so loud would be our complaint, and so "feeling our appeal" to the inhabitants of the world at large. We should represent them as a lawless, piratical set of unprincipled robbers, plunderers and villains, who basely prostituted the superior power and information, which God had given them for worthy purposes to the vilest of all ends. We should not hesitate to say that they made use of those advantages ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Vol. I. Jan. 1916 • Various

... go across the ocean-foam, Swift skating to my Iceland home Upon the ocean-skates, fast driven By gales by Thurse's witch fire given. For from the falcon-bearing hand Harald has plucked the gold snake band My father wore—by lawless might Has taken what ...
— Heimskringla - The Chronicle of the Kings of Norway • Snorri Sturluson

... expostulation was useless, so he resigned himself to his fate, believing that Herring, though a daring smuggler and utterly lawless, would do him no personal harm. He felt the cart go up and down several rough places, and he was certain that it doubled several times, and had made a full circuit more than once. The object of the smugglers, it was evident, ...
— Washed Ashore - The Tower of Stormount Bay • W.H.G. Kingston

... easier to realize, had I taken more than one stroke!" he answered irritably, still blocking the way on his great horse, still twisting at his mustache point, still looking down at her through eyes that blazed a dozen accumulated centuries' store of lawless ambition. He was proud of that back-handed swipe of his that would cleave a man each time at one blow from shoulder-joint to ribs, severing the backbone. A woman of his own race would have been singing songs in praise of him and his skill in swordsman-ship already; but ...
— Rung Ho! • Talbot Mundy

... should be told in the face of the world, by their own Government, that they have been giving public thanks, presents of swords, freedom of cities, all manner of heroic honors to the author of an act which, though not so intended, was lawless and wrong, and for which the proper remedy is confession and atonement; that this should be the accepted policy (supposing it to be nothing higher) of a Democratic Republic, shows even unlimited democracy to be a better thing than ...
— The Contest in America • John Stuart Mill

... and stalking through the land—the law-maker with his spoils, the rioter with his rock, the anarchist with his bomb, the assassin thrusting out his black hand, the lyncher with his battering ram, his rope and his rifle; these are some of the outside lawless who conspire with the inside lawless to make a scarecrow of American law, making it the perch and not the terror of the birds of prey. And who knows how soon all of these lawless ones may stand up together and, with a monarch's voice cry, Havoc in ...
— Masterpieces of Negro Eloquence - The Best Speeches Delivered by the Negro from the days of - Slavery to the Present Time • Various

... again. Why not go back to the South where she had gone? He shuddered as one who sees before him a cold black pool whither his path leads. To face the proscription, the insult, the lawless hate of the South again—never! And yet he went home and sat down and wrote a long letter to ...
— The Quest of the Silver Fleece - A Novel • W. E. B. Du Bois

... thought in the mind of both was the same. From the first the most imprudent carelessness had been shown, and they could not understand how Jeff ever allowed the valuable store to remain unguarded. It is true, as has already been stated, that the section, despite the rush of lawless characters that have flocked thither, is one of the best governed in the world, and no officers could be more watchful and effective than the mounted police of the Northwest; but the course of our friends had much the appearance ...
— Klondike Nuggets - and How Two Boys Secured Them • E. S. Ellis

... daughter, so near to her father's heart that she seemed an incarnation of his most intimate wish, his very will embodied; so part of himself she knew his unspoken thought. This was Bruennhilde (from Bruenne, corslet). With eight other daughters,—born to Wotan from "the tie of lawless love," as we learn from Fricka in her tale of wrongs—Bruennhilde, the dearest to him of all, followed her father to battle, serving him as Valkyrie. These warlike maidens hovered over the battle-field, directing the fortune of the day according to Wotan's determination, protecting this combatant ...
— The Wagnerian Romances • Gertrude Hall

... escape the arm of the law. The privilege of sanctuary had its uses in those troublous times; for it enabled the innocent to take refuge where the tyrant dared not molest them; but it also gave shelter to crowds of the lawless ...
— Little Folks (November 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various

... have in my time told some stories which are (I hate false modesty) both true and lovely. Yet no little girl ever wrote to me in kindly terms. And why? Simply because I am not enough of a Vagabond. The dear despots of the fireside have a weakness for lawless characters. This is amiable, but ...
— Notes on Life and Letters • Joseph Conrad

... the Just; a title which has never been emulated by kings and despots, who delight in being called the City-taker, the Thunderbolt, or the Victorious, while some are known as the Eagle or the Hawk, because apparently they prefer strength and lawless violence to justice and goodness. Yet for all this, the gods, to whom they so presumptuously liken themselves, excel mankind chiefly in three attributes, namely in immortality, in power, and in goodness, whereof goodness ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume II • Aubrey Stewart & George Long

... the course of events during the first month of the war was to prove their general correctness—it was highly desirable that detachments of British troops should remain in the northern districts of the colony, and thus carry out the double function of encouraging the loyal while checking lawless spirits, and of retaining possession of those lines of railways, the use of which would be a matter of vital importance to the field army in its subsequent advance from the coast. It was obvious that these isolated posts of a few hundred men would run serious risks. Thrust ...
— History of the War in South Africa 1899-1902 v. 1 (of 4) - Compiled by Direction of His Majesty's Government • Frederick Maurice

... of John's lawless practices had already appeared in the general demand made by the barons of a restoration of their privileges; and after he had reconciled himself to the Pope, by abandoning the independence of ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume VI. • Various

... considerable for the Animadversions of our Society. I mean, Sir, the Midnight Masque, which has of late been frequently held in one of the most conspicuous Parts of the Town, and which I hear will be continued with Additions and Improvements. As all the Persons who compose this lawless Assembly are masqued, we dare not attack any of them in our Way, lest we should send a Woman of Quality to Bridewell, or a Peer of Great-Britain to the Counter: Besides, that their Numbers are so very great, that I am afraid they would be able to rout ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele

... apprehend from those in their immediate neighborhood; but they had every reason to fear the many lawless bands that were now scouring that region of country, ostensibly attracted there by the fair that was to be held at Beaucaire in the month of July—bands of armed and desperate men, who plundered and pillaged and lived by rapine. The Bohemians, too, who passed the Pont du Gard each spring and autumn, ...
— Which? - or, Between Two Women • Ernest Daudet

... to another part of the room, little thinking that what he had spoken in jest would afterward prove true. At a late hour the company began to disperse, Miss Warner keeping a watchful eye upon her pupils, lest some lawless collegiate should relieve her from the trouble of seeing them safely home. This perpendicular maiden had lived forty years on this mundane sphere without ever having had an offer, and she had come to think ...
— Tempest and Sunshine • Mary J. Holmes

... me; to him it will seem to be a crime. But the sons of AEolus[51] did not shun the embraces of their sisters. But whence have I known of these? Why have I furnished myself with these precedents? Whither am I hurried onward? Far hence begone, ye lawless flames! and let not my brother be loved by me, but as it is lawful for a sister {to love him}. But yet, if he had been first seized with a passion for me, perhaps I might have indulged his desires. Am I then, myself, to court him, whom I would not have rejected, had he courted me? And canst ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Copious Notes - and Explanations • Publius Ovidius Naso

... childless woman, and to learn from her a little of the art of contentment and happiness. Strong men, of rude dress and speech, whose lives were as rough as the hills in which they were reared, and whose thoughts were often as crude as their half-savage and sometimes lawless customs, came to sit at the feet of this gentle one, who received them all with such kindly interest and instinctive understanding. And young men and girls came, drawn by the magic that was hers, to confide in this woman who listened with such rare tact and loving sympathy to their ...
— The Re-Creation of Brian Kent • Harold Bell Wright

... evils would be the result of its absence. Selfishness, avarice, sensuality, cruelty, would flourish tenfold; and the power of Satan would be well established ere some children had begun to choose. Those who would quell the apparently lawless tossing of the spirit, called the youthful imagination, would suppress all that is to grow out of it. They fear the enthusiasm they never felt; and instead of cherishing this divine thing, instead of giving it room and air for healthful growth, they would crush and confine it—with ...
— A Dish Of Orts • George MacDonald

... Millie could desire. It is a tract of country, several miles long, in the south-east part of Dalmatia. Its western side slopes down to, or overhangs, the beautiful Adriatic Sea; the eastern, unhappily for its peace, borders on Turkey, and between its gallant but lawless Christian inhabitants and their Mahometan oppressors there has been, for centuries, war, the most merciless you can imagine. We, who lived some years in the neighbouring seaport-town of Cattaro, heard enough, and sadly too much, ...
— The Grateful Indian - And other Stories • W.H.G. Kingston

... have weighed the slender means which the times afforded for resisting the efforts of a combined government, which had, in its less compact and established authority, been unable to put down the ravages of such lawless caterans as MacTavish Mhor, was unknown to a solitary woman whose ideas still dwelt upon her own early times. She imagined that her son had only to proclaim himself his father's successor in adventure and enterprise, and that a force of men, as gallant as those who had followed his father's ...
— Chronicles of the Canongate • Sir Walter Scott

... Lorenzo, it is the princes who have undermined the happiness of the world with their ideas of absolute power; they are the robbers of all mankind; for freedom, which is the common property of all men, that have they, like regular lawless highwaymen, appropriated for themselves alone. They plundered the luck-pennies of all mankind, and coined them into money adorned with their likenesses, and now all mankind run after this money, thinking: 'If I gain that, then ...
— The Daughter of an Empress • Louise Muhlbach

... they cannot be supposed to be throughly acquainted with the Condition of the more remote Cities or Provinces; and being debauched by the Luxury of a Court life, are easily depraved, and acquire a lawless Appetite of Domineering; are wholly intent upon their own ambitious and covetous Designs; so that at last they are no longer to be consider'd as Counsellors for the Good of the Kingdom and Commonwealth, but Flatterers of a single ...
— Franco-Gallia • Francis Hotoman

... delicately lovely that one could not but be glad of the cold that made the water able to please itself by taking such graceful forms. And I wondered over again for the hundredth time what could be the principle which, in the wildest, most lawless, fantastically chaotic, apparently capricious work of nature, always kept it beautiful. The beauty of holiness must be at the heart of it somehow, I thought. Because our God is so free from stain, so loving, so unselfish, so good, so altogether ...
— Annals of a Quiet Neighbourhood • George MacDonald

... because this hand rocks the cradle and that caresses the unequal heads of children, is this rhythm the law; and grace and strength are inflections thereof. All human movement is a variation upon symmetry, and without symmetry it would not be variation; it would be lawless, fortuitous, and as dull and broadcast as lawless art. The order of inflection that is not infraction has been explained in a most authoritative sentence of criticism of literature, a sentence that should save the world ...
— The Colour of Life • Alice Meynell

... only as a lyric poet. For spirit and perfection of form what could be more perfect than the "Cancin del Pirata"? Like Byron in the "Corsair," he extols the lawless liberty of the buccaneer. Byron was here his inspiration rather than Hugo. The "Chanson de Pirates" cannot stand comparison with either work. But Espronceda's indebtedness to Byron was in this case very slight. He has made the theme completely his own. "El Mendigo" ...
— El Estudiante de Salamanca and Other Selections • George Tyler Northup

... the Resident, had a very uncomfortable post, being in the midst of lawless, cattle-lifting and slave-dealing Bajaus and Illanuns. He, with the able assistance of Mr. F. X. WITTI, an ex-Naval officer of the Austrian Service, who subsequently lost his life while exploring in the interior, ...
— British Borneo - Sketches of Brunai, Sarawak, Labuan, and North Borneo • W. H. Treacher

... that Elijah P. Lovejoy had his printing-office destroyed in St. Louis and was forced to remove to Alton, Ill., where his press was three times destroyed and where he finally met death at the hands of a mob while trying to protect his property November 7, 1837. Judge Lawless defended the lynching and even William Ellery Channing took a compromising view. Abraham Lincoln, however, then a very young man, in an address on "The Perpetuation of Our Political Institutions" at Springfield, January 27, 1837, ...
— A Social History of the American Negro • Benjamin Brawley

... rough rude stock this saddle sprite Is grosser grown with savage things. Inured to storms, his fierce delight Is lawless as the beasts he swings His swift rope over.—Libidinous, obscene, Careless of dust and dirt, serene, He faces snows in calm disdain, Or makes his bed down ...
— The Trail of the Goldseekers - A Record of Travel in Prose and Verse • Hamlin Garland

... but was the consequence of Necessity and Prudence. This Prince, however dull and sottish, might have sense enough to see that be could no where be in a worse condition than he was in his Native Country. There he could not live in safety, being always surrounded by a lawless Banditti, who sacrificed their Friends, Relations, and even their Parents, to inherit their Dominions or Possessions, which after all, for the most part, were only a small beggarly, wild, and uncultivated District; ragged Rocks ...
— An Enquiry into the Truth of the Tradition, Concerning the - Discovery of America, by Prince Madog ab Owen Gwynedd, about the Year, 1170 • John Williams

... same party, in surrounding States, exulting over the murder of Protestant Americans! And in the next breath, as it were, we find these sons of Belial, falsely called Democrats, after reaching the power they lusted after in Philadelphia, sending up shouts over the lawless deeds of a Foreign Catholic riot, which made the ears of every American ...
— Americanism Contrasted with Foreignism, Romanism, and Bogus Democracy in the Light of Reason, History, and Scripture; • William Gannaway Brownlow

... Archie," he said, earnestly, "there are some things that I can't permit, you know. My office must not be made a starting-place for one of your lawless adventures. You met Miss Fern here. Now, I protest against your going to her house, pretending that you are interested in that novel, when your real purpose is of a much more ...
— A Black Adonis • Linn Boyd Porter

... man's cry, and the sound of clashing arms aroused from their deep slumbers the robber crew within the cavern, and with the alertness that comes of such a lawless life, every man of them sprang to his feet and seized his weapon ...
— In the Days of Chivalry • Evelyn Everett-Green

... cases of persons rescued from the wreck, saved amongst rocks, or when found washed by the breakers on shore, particularly on remote coasts, but too often exposed to scenes of lawless depredation, the parties should equally ...
— An Appeal to the British Nation on the Humanity and Policy of Forming a National Institution for the Preservation of Lives and Property from Shipwreck (1825) • William Hillary

... you do remember that much," said Peyton dryly, "it is only just to him that I should tell you that it appears that he was not an impostor. His story was TRUE. I have just learned that Colonel Brant WAS actually his father, but had concealed his lawless life here, as well as his identity, from the boy. He was really that vague relative to whom Clarence was confided, and under that disguise he afterwards protected the boy, had him carefully educated ...
— Susy, A Story of the Plains • Bret Harte

... sought up the book which had so captivated me in my infancy, and I read it through; and I sought up others of a similar character, and in seeking for them I met books also of adventure, but by no means of a harmless description, lives of wicked and lawless men, Murray and Latroon—books of singular power, but of coarse and prurient imagination—books at one time highly in vogue; now deservedly forgotten, and most difficult ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow

... would have been to the world if Carthage had overcome Rome. For Carthage was possessed of almost every bad quality which could work ill to the human race. Greed for money was her passion, and in order to obtain wealth she proved herself fickle, short-sighted, lawless, and boundlessly cruel. The government of Rome, which the Eternal City handed on to the countries she conquered, was founded not only on law, but on common-sense. Considering the customs of the world during the thousand ...
— The Red Book of Heroes • Leonora Blanche Lang

... continued the Sheriff; 'the caves are remarkably fine; interesting, too, as in former times they are said to have been used for smuggling purposes, and as hiding-places for pirates and other lawless characters——' ...
— The Adventure League • Hilda T. Skae

... the very uncertain personage named Lycurgus, we are told by Herodotus, the Greek historian, that when he was born the Spartans were the most lawless of the Greeks. Every man was a law unto himself, and confusion, tumult, and injustice everywhere prevailed. Lycurgus, a noble Spartan, sad at heart for the misery of his country, applied to the oracle at Delphi, and received instructions as to how he should act to bring about ...
— Historic Tales, vol 10 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris

... at that little creature, doctor. She seems as soft as a dove, as gentle as a lamb; but she is perfectly lawless. She defies me, abuses me, and upon occasion thrashes me. Would you believe it of her?" demanded Mr. Fabian, gazing with pride and delight ...
— For Woman's Love • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth

... prohibition, and hanging if you were caught bringing so much as a metre of Bradford cloth or half a dozen Sheffield files into the country. But you know how it is, Sir: the more strict the law the more ready are certain lawless human creatures to break it. Never was smuggling so rife as it was in those days—I am speaking now of 1810 or 11—never was it so daring or ...
— Castles in the Air • Baroness Emmuska Orczy

... perpetrating flagrant injustice in such a suggestion, and he tried to hide it by using a gentle word. 'Chastise' sounds almost beneficent, but it would not make the scourging less cruel, nor its infliction less lawless. Compromises are always ticklish to engineer, but a compromise between justice and injustice is least likely of all to answer. This one signally failed. The fierce accusers of Jesus were quick to see the sign of weakness, both in the proposal itself and in their being ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren

... that with great justice to suffer an ignominious death. Having been thus particular on the circumstances of each malefactor distinctly, let us return to the thread of our story, and observe to what period their wicked designs and lawless courses ...
— Lives Of The Most Remarkable Criminals Who have been Condemned and Executed for Murder, the Highway, Housebreaking, Street Robberies, Coining or other offences • Arthur L. Hayward

... her now. She cannot go back to her goats. Yet who can tell? She may find something in life. She may! It won't be love. She has sacrificed that chance to the integrity of your life—heroically. Do you remember telling her once that you meant to live your life integrally—oh, you lawless young pedant! Well, she is gone; but you may be sure that whatever she finds now in life it will not be peace. You understand me? ...
— The Arrow of Gold - a story between two notes • Joseph Conrad

... despised the Pope, the Emperor, and the Oecumenical Council already assembled at Trent. He set his own authority above all councils, although they had been instituted by the common consent of Christendom, and he appealed to a lawless, headless council which might only meet at Bonn or at Schmalkald, in order that it might be unrestrained by any authority whatever. There was, continued the Carmelite, no end to the archbishop's innovations. In defiance of all justice and precedent he had transferred the Chapter to Bonn, ...
— Studies from Court and Cloister • J.M. Stone

... were surprised to find a comfortable hotel-omnibus in waiting, and most of the concomitants of a metropolis, notwithstanding the oft-expressed surprise and fear of friends at the daring venture of two unprotected women in going alone to this lawless and God-forsaken country. ...
— The World As I Have Found It - Sequel to Incidents in the Life of a Blind Girl • Mary L. Day Arms

... of battle was hush'd for awhile,— Turgesius was monarch of Erin's fair isle, The sword of the conqueror slept in its sheath, His triumphs were honour'd with trophy and wreath; The princes of Erin despair'd of relief, And knelt to the lawless Norwegian chief. ...
— Successful Recitations • Various

... modern colivers and petronils (in King Charles I.'s time) turned into muskets and pistols. Then were entails in fashion, (a good prop for monarchy). Destroying of manors began temp. Henry VIII., but now common; whereby the mean people live lawless, nobody to govern them, they care for nobody, having no dependance on anybody. By this method, and by the selling of the church-lands, is the ballance of the Government quite altered, and put into the hands of the common people. No ale-houses, nor yet inns ...
— Miscellanies upon Various Subjects • John Aubrey

... populated; and if the islanders do not practise piracy as a profession, they are always ready to aid, assist, and protect those who do. The town of Sooloo is well known to be the principal rendezvous of pirates, who, whenever they have made a capture, resort there to dispose of their lawless booty. The ministers, and even the sultan himself, are not able to resist the temptation of being able to purchase European goods, and articles of value, for less than half their real value. If not the stealers, they are the receivers, and thus they patronise piracy ...
— Borneo and the Indian Archipelago - with drawings of costume and scenery • Frank S. Marryat

... stricken boughs She heaped o'er the fallen form— Wolf nor hawk nor lawless storm Him from his rest should rouse; But first, with solemn vows, Took rifle, pouch, and horn, And the belt that he had worn. Then, onward pressing fast Through the forest rude and vast, Hunger-wasted, ...
— Dreams and Days: Poems • George Parsons Lathrop

... biting their ears. Wilful run away, and came to a most untimely death.—He invaded, one night, a bee-hive, and made great havoc in the stores of honey, eating the honey-combs, and destroying the work of the poor bees—but at last he was punished severely, for the bees, enraged at his lawless conduct, came in a body, and stung their enemy in a thousand different places, so that, unable to escape, he ...
— Little Downy - The History of A Field-Mouse • Catharine Parr Traill

... considering their origin, to be particularly friendly to men who should enter the navy of the Secessionists. England has in advance provided places for the transaction of all the business that shall be necessary to render privateering profitable to the "lawless brood" of the whole world. Into all of her thousand seaports could the lucky Confederates go, and dispose of their captures, just as the old Buccaneers used to sell their prizes in the ports of the English colonies. Nor could all ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, Issue 45, July, 1861 • Various

... very fond of my own father, but in many ways Tom Taylor was more of a father to me than my father in blood. Father was charming, but Irish and irresponsible. I think he loved my sister Floss and me most because we were the lawless ones of the family! It was not in his temperament to give wise advice and counsel. Having bequeathed to me light-heartedness and a sanguine disposition, and trained me splendidly for my profession in childhood, he became in after years a very cormorant ...
— The Story of My Life - Recollections and Reflections • Ellen Terry

... solitary amid a multitude, buried by day in the cloister-like recesses of mighty libraries, and stealing away by night to some obscure lodging. Long indulgence in seclusion, and in habits of study the most lawless possible in respect of regular hours or any considerations of health or comfort,—the habit of working as pleased himself without regard to the divisions of night or day, of times of sleeping or waking, even of the slow procession ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 8, Slice 2 - "Demijohn" to "Destructor" • Various

... the fifteenth century, will be presently considered. Let me first quote those passages in which the character is best set forth. The first is that in which Hayraddin, in reply to the queries of Quentin Durward, asserts that he has no country, is not a Christian, and is altogether lawless: ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No IV, April 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... Cat, in Paris, and see before him, dressed like the valet of a Spanish grandee, a coal-black negro who had once been his especial and particular slave and drudge, a fellow whom he had kicked and beaten and sworn at, and whom he no doubt would have shot had he stayed much longer with his lawless companions, the Rackbirds. There was no mistaking this black man. He well remembered his face, and even the tones of his voice. He had never heard him sing, but he had heard him howl, and it seemed almost impossible ...
— The Adventures of Captain Horn • Frank Richard Stockton

... prevent its being settled by those who, by the increase of population in the middle colonies, are continually emigrating to the Westward, and forming themselves into colonies in that country, without the intervention or controul of government, and who, if suffered to continue in that lawless state of anarchy and confusion, will commit such abuses as cannot fail of involving us in quarrel and dispute with the Indians, and thereby endangering the ...
— Report of the Lords Commissioners for Trade and Plantations on the Petition of the Honourable Thomas Walpole, Benjamin Franklin, John Sargent, and Samuel Wharton, Esquires, and their Associates • Great Britain Board of Trade

... of those boisterous days. Should the account here set down be questioned, I appeal for confirmation to that missionary among northern tribes, the famous priest, who is the son of the ill-fated girl stolen by the wandering Iroquois. Lord Selkirk's narration of lawless conflict with the Nor'-Westers and the verbal testimony of Red River settlers, who are still living, will also substantiate what I have stated; though allowance must be made for the violent partisan leaning of witnesses, and from that, I—as a Nor'-Wester—do not claim ...
— Lords of the North • A. C. Laut

... th' autumnal season, when the earth With weight of rain is saturate; when Jove Pours down his fiercest storms in wrath to men, Who in their courts unrighteous judgments pass, And justice yield to lawless violence, The wrath of Heav'n despising; ev'ry stream Is brimming o'er: the hills in gullies deep Are by the torrents seam'd, which, rushing down From the high mountains to the dark-blue sea, With groans and tumult ...
— The Iliad • Homer

... a debt? Scarcely that. In the lawless circle of backwoods' Society, the screw of the creditor has but little power over the victim of debt—certainly not enough to enslave such a free fearless spirit as that of Hickman Holt. The girl knows this, and hence her painful suspicion that points ...
— The Wild Huntress - Love in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid

... whole policy has been isolation and independence that with us she can bear safely the White Man's Burden of universal empire. We tell a continent crowded with Irishmen to thank God that the Saxon can always rule the Celt. We tell a populace whose very virtues are lawless that together we uphold the Reign of Law. We recognise our own law-abiding character in people who make laws that neither they nor anybody else can abide. We congratulate them on clinging to all they have ...
— What I Saw in America • G. K. Chesterton

... Europe into her hands. For her own purposes she encouraged neutral trade with herself to the great profit of those who engaged in it, but she placed rigorous restrictions on the trade of neutrals with her enemy. France, in a more lawless fashion, had attempted to destroy neutral trade with England, but had only succeeded in driving the ships of neutral states from her own ports.[312] England could enforce her system in every sea. She refused to allow that an enemy's ...
— The Political History of England - Vol. X. • William Hunt

... the very name of liberty. This dreadful situation," he added, "has alarmed every man of principle and property in New England. They start as from a dream, and ask—what has been the cause of our delusion? What is to afford us security against the violence of lawless men? Our government must be braced, changed, or altered, to secure our lives and our property. We imagined that the mildness of the government, and the virtue of the people were so correspondent, ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 4 (of 5) • John Marshall

... the white feather and faced him coolly. After all, in these enlightened days a man couldn't very well carry you off by force and compel you to marry him! Though she reluctantly conceded that if any man in the world were likely to attempt such a thing it would be some primitive, lawless male of ...
— The Vision of Desire • Margaret Pedler

... perfect picture of the Paris wastrel, and what was more, he wore on his head a cap of the Apaches, the most dangerous band of cut-throats that have ever cursed a civilised city. I could understand that even among lawless anarchists this badge of membership of the Apache band might well strike tenor. I felt that before the meeting adjourned I must speak with him, and I determined to begin our conversation by asking him why he stared so fixedly at me. Yet even then I should have made little progress. ...
— The Triumphs of Eugene Valmont • Robert Barr

... thoughts unhinge! The Slave of Vice must thy companion move; If still he burns with thirst of dire Revenge, Lawless Ambition, or ...
— An Essay on War, in Blank Verse; Honington Green, a Ballad; The - Culprit, an Elegy; and Other Poems, on Various Subjects • Nathaniel Bloomfield

... of a lawless race, and the Law it standeth thus: He comes of a race that have never a Law, and he never has ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling

... left within were fiercely quarrelling among themselves, and fought with one another as savagely as they fought with the enemy. Titus threw trenches round and blockaded the city; and the famine within grew to be most horrible. Some died in their houses, but the fierce lawless zealots rushed up and down the streets, breaking into the houses where they thought food was to be found. When they smelt roasting in one grand dwelling belonging to a lady, they rushed in and asked for the meat, but even they turned away in horror when she uncovered the ...
— Young Folks' History of Rome • Charlotte Mary Yonge

... of public opinion. That influence is comparatively ineffectual because it is narrowed to the small sphere of domestic life. No one can suppose that an opinion unsupported by authority can have weight enough to grapple with evils which have their root in the lawless part of man's uneducated, undeveloped nature. The most that such a sentiment can do is to enlarge itself by discussion, and every other available method, until it is strong enough to incorporate itself into legislative enactments, from whence it may ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage

... like a great whirlwind; and the hearts of men died within their persons with fear and trembling. The accounts that came from abroad were just dreadful beyond all power of description. Death stalked about from place to place, like a lawless tyrant, and human blood was spilt like water; while the heads of crowned kings were cut off; and great dukes and lords were thrown into dark dungeons, or obligated to flee for their lives into foreign lands, and to seek out hiding-places of safety ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - tailor in Dalkeith • D. M. Moir

... and looking at life, this life of war and this life in Amiens, with frank, curious eyes, and a kind of humorous contempt for death, and disease, and English Tommies, and French girls, and "the whole damned show," as they called it. They were lawless except for the laws to which their souls gave allegiance. They behaved as the equals of all men, giving no respect to generals or staff-officers or the devils of hell. There was a primitive spirit of manhood in them, and they took what they wanted, and were ready to pay for it in ...
— Now It Can Be Told • Philip Gibbs

... prairiedom had the appearance of being little more than a great jollification, a lawless country fair, in reality it was with the majority of the people a profoundly serious matter. With every discussion it became more vital. Indeed, in the first debate, which was opened and closed by Douglas, the relation of the two speakers became dramatic. It was here that Douglas hoping to fasten ...
— Our American Holidays: Lincoln's Birthday • Various

... look back at this period of my life, though it must be with a feeling of disapprobation—and when I coldly say disapprobation, I insinuate remorse—let me confess that I still do so with an undeniable leaven of envy; envy at the lawless liberty I enjoyed, not only with regard to my actions, but to my conscience; revelling in a deficiency of forethought and blindness of consequences, as truly delightful for the present, as overwhelming and deplorable for ...
— Confessions of an Etonian • I. E. M.

... like some of the corporations, have taken advantage of the infirmities of local and state governments to become arrogant and lawless. On the occasion of a great strike the strikers are often just as disorderly as they are permitted to be by the local police. When the police prevent them from resisting the employment of strike-breakers by force, they apparently believe that the political system of the country ...
— The Promise Of American Life • Herbert David Croly

... the driver use one as a stick to belabor the lazy animal with, and then leave it, with two or three other loaves, at the opposite house, where a pretty Armenian, that I afterward saw taking the air on the roof with her bright-eyed little girl, perhaps had it for her breakfast!); the fierce, lawless Turkish soldiers stalking along, their officers mounted, and looking much better in their baggy trousers and frock-coats on their fine horses than on foot; Greek and Armenian ladies in gay European costumes; veiled Turkish ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - Vol. XVII, No. 102. June, 1876. • Various

... well. He knew what he was carrying in his pocket, and had faith to believe that it would win for him a welcome entirely the opposite of the rough greeting Tony predicted. But then Phil had never met the lawless McGees, who snapped their impudent fingers at the sheriff of the county, and did just about as they liked; owning allegiance only to their terrible leader, whose name was the most hated one known along the upper ...
— Chums in Dixie - or The Strange Cruise of a Motorboat • St. George Rathborne

... added to the difficulties of the situation by causing unjust opprobrium and suspicion to rest upon officers engaged in the faithful discharge of their duties. Agents,... frequently received or collected property, and sent it forward which the law did not authorize them to take.... Lawless men, singly and in organized bands, engaged in general plunder; every species of intrigue and peculation and ...
— The Sequel of Appomattox - A Chronicle of the Reunion of the States, Volume 32 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Walter Lynwood Fleming

... The place was rat-haunted and full of strange holes and corners. Even by day, with the frank sunshine breaking through boarded windows and broken roof, it spoke of incident and adventure; by night it was eloquent of the past—of smugglers, of lawless deeds, of ...
— The Spinners • Eden Phillpotts

... makes life worth living. I would have given you love as true and as deep as ever man gave to woman. All that would have been wanting would have been the legality of the tie: and as law never yet made a marriage happy which lacked the elements of bliss, our lawless union need not have missed happiness. Lesbia, you said that you would hold by me, come what might. The worst has come, love; but it leaves me not the less your ...
— Phantom Fortune, A Novel • M. E. Braddon

... paced their various rounds, while we in peace and safety rested without one thought of danger; now I was in the far West, away from the society and comforts of other days, on the boundless plains where dangers lurk, and lawless, thievish vagabonds abound. Not long ago I was in my own pulpit preaching to large congregations; now, during the quiet hours of this night, I was sitting on a bundle of dried prairie grass in an old barn, defending a lot of horses from horse thieves. ...
— On the Indian Trail - Stories of Missionary Work among Cree and Salteaux Indians • Egerton Ryerson Young

... on the prairies of the far west, are descended from the noble Spanish steeds that were brought over by the wealthy cavaliers who accompanied Fernando Cortez, the conqueror of Mexico, in his expedition to the new world in 1518. These bold, and, we may add, lawless cavaliers, were mounted on the finest horses that could be procured from Barbary and the deserts of the Old World. The poor Indians of the New World were struck with amazement and terror at these awful beings, for, never having seen horses before, ...
— The Dog Crusoe and his Master • R.M. Ballantyne

... forest from the soil to the sky; and then the fierce struggle for survival, with the stronger life persisting over the deformity, the mutilation, the destruction, the decay of the weaker. The whole at moments seemed to him lawless, godless; the absence of intelligent, comprehensive purpose in the huge disorder, and the violent struggle to subordinate the result to the greater good, penetrated with its dumb appeal the consciousness of a man who had always been too self-enwrapped ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... rejoice in the Democratic victories which result therefrom. So long as they shall continue thus to accept the fruits of crime, the criminals will have but little fear of punishment or restraint, and the lawless conduct which is depopulating some sections of their laboring classes will go on. There is another unfortunate feature of this matter. So long as crimes against American citizenship shall continue to suppress Republican majorities, and to give a "solid South" to the Democracy, there ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 4, 1919 • Various

... standing incongruously purse in hand; while his manlier rivals were stretching out their hands for the sword, the only possible resort of men who cannot be bought and refuse to be sold. A rebellion broke out and was repressed; and the government that repressed it was ten times more lawless than the rebellion. Fate for once seemed to pick out a situation in plain black and white like an allegory; a tragedy of appalling platitudes. The heroes were really heroes; and the villains were nothing but villains. The common tangle of life, in which good men do evil by mistake ...
— The Crimes of England • G.K. Chesterton

... population of Cua had entirely deserted the city and encamped upon the river-side, and as large sums of money and other valuables were known to be buried beneath the ruins, some heartless, lawless wretches took advantage of the unprotected state of things, under pretence of assisting in the work of extricating the victims, to appropriate everything that they could secrete without being discovered. Only one of the public officials, General E——, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, December 1878 • Various

... warrant has my signature It is illegal, and, as now applied, Rebellious. Hast thou weighed well thy life's worth, That thus you dare assume a lawless function?[ew] ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron

... my country from desolation at the hands of thy lawless bands," exclaimed my friend, "I can at least preserve from thee the treasure accumulated by my ancestors to be used only for the emancipation of our country should evil befall it. Until the present, Mo hath been held against all invaders ...
— The Great White Queen - A Tale of Treasure and Treason • William Le Queux

... which Diana did not hesitate to contradict Gervase, and persisted in contradicting him. She would not suffer him, if she could help it, to frequent Newton-le-Moor, or to consort with Mr. Baring. For to go to Newton-le-Moor was to go among the Philistines; and lawless as Gervase was in his own person, it should never be with his wife's consent that he should go and be plundered by her own flesh and blood—his errors rendering him but a safer ...
— Girlhood and Womanhood - The Story of some Fortunes and Misfortunes • Sarah Tytler

... Scarcely shall I have power to endure the clamors of the world, scarcely shall I have power to sustain the burthen of that odium, if thou wilt but go into voluntary banishment, now, at the consul's bidding. If, on the contrary, thou wouldst advance my glory and my reputation, then go forth with thy lawless band of ruffians! Betake thyself to Manlius! stir up the desperate citizens to arms! withdraw thyself from all good men! levy war on thy country! exult in unhallowed schemes of robbery and murder, so that thou shalt not pass for one driven ...
— The Roman Traitor (Vol. 2 of 2) • Henry William Herbert

... the Arab and Swahili element had brought with it the commercial instinct of cupidity. It speaks volumes, therefore, for the ascendency which these two resolute white men had set up over their wild and lawless following, that the latter should have contented ...
— The Sign of the Spider • Bertram Mitford

... was first aroused. He sprang up and found a gang of lawless negroes on deck, evidently looking for plunder, and thinking so many of them could easily cow or ...
— The Story of Young Abraham Lincoln • Wayne Whipple

... sorry place, with bush above the door. This evil place they straightway entered in, Where riot reigned, the wild, unlovely din Of archers, men-at-arms, and rogues yet worse, Who drank and sang, whiles some did fight and curse. An evil place indeed, a lawless crew, And landlord, like his inn, looked evil too: Small was his nose, small were his pig-like eyes, But ears had he of most prodigious size, A brawny rogue, thick-jowled and beetle-browed, Who, spying out our strangers ...
— The Geste of Duke Jocelyn • Jeffery Farnol

... back and forth. They rocked and swayed, muscles straining. It was deadlock again. Denver was youth and fury. Caltis had experience and the training of a fighter. It was savage, lawless, the sculptured stance of embattled champions. Almost motionless, as forces canceled out. The ...
— Master of the Moondog • Stanley Mullen

... ever a lawless race," continued Mrs Massey; "they were leaders among the Rapparees in Cromwell's and James's times, and lived by robbing their countrymen and neighbours, till William of Orange established a firm government. They then exercised their cunning by means of the ...
— The Missing Ship - The Log of the "Ouzel" Galley • W. H. G. Kingston

... But these lawless adventurers were as improvident as they were vicious and idle. By the month of February they were again destitute and starving. They had borrowed all they could, and had stolen all they could, and were now in a state of extreme misery, many of them having already perished from exposure and want. ...
— King Philip - Makers of History • John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott

... stubbornly through Tupper's 'Proverbial Philosophy.' But it was the rampant fiction that influenced him most directly. He took his romance very seriously; his vivid sympathies were always with the poor persecuted pirate driven to lawless courses by systematic oppression at school, or by a cold proud father's failure to appreciate the humour of his youthful villainies. The bushranger, too, urged from milder courses of crime by the persecutions of the police, found in Dick a devoted friend. It never occurred to the boy that the excuses ...
— The Gold-Stealers - A Story of Waddy • Edward Dyson

... dissatisfied with the treatment they were receiving from the State, which on the plea of poverty had refused to establish a Superior Court for them and to appoint a prosecutor. As a result, crime was on the increase, and the law-abiding were deprived of the proper legal means to check the lawless. In 1784 when the western soldiers' claims began to reach the Assembly, there to be scrutinized by unkindly eyes, the dissatisfaction increased. The breasts of the mountain men—the men who had made ...
— Pioneers of the Old Southwest - A Chronicle of the Dark and Bloody Ground • Constance Lindsay Skinner

... conditions, and from modern frames of mind, is essential to an adequate appreciation of what has been said. Looking at these events through the distorting medium of an altogether different social atmosphere, one is apt to attribute them to the operation of lawless desire, and so have done with it. This, however, is to overlook the fact that we are dealing with a society in which sexual symbols were common in religious worship, and in which theories of the religious life were propounded and accepted which to-day ...
— Religion & Sex - Studies in the Pathology of Religious Development • Chapman Cohen

... fifteen songs, difficult to read, yet simple enough in general outline. Arnljot Gelline was a sort of freebooter of the eleventh century, whose fierce deeds were preserved in popular tradition. The 'Heimskringla' tells us how, grown weary of his lawless life, he joined himself to Olaf the Holy, accepted baptism, and fell at Stiklestad righting for Christianity and the King. From this suggestion, the imagination of the poet has worked out a series ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 5 • Various

... of the workings of this dreaded court, of whose sessions and secrets the common people of the land had exaggerated conceptions, but whose sudden and silent deeds in the interest of justice went far to repress crime in that lawless age. We have seen the completion of the sentence, let us attend a session of this ...
— Historical Tales, Vol 5 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality, German • Charles Morris

... revealed harmoniously correlated and fashioned like works of art—eloquent monuments of the ancient ice-rivers that brought them into relief from the general mass of the range. The canons, too, some of them a mile deep, mazing wildly through the mighty host of mountains, however lawless and ungovernable at first sight they appear, are at length recognized as the necessary effects of causes which followed each other in harmonious sequence—Nature's poems carved on tables of stone—the simplest and most ...
— The Mountains of California • John Muir

... the Countess; "I must learn to endure the evil report which my folly has brought upon me. They think, I suppose, that I have left my father's house to follow lawless pleasure. It is an error which will soon be removed—indeed it shall, for I will live with spotless fame, or I shall cease to live.—I am accounted, then, the paramour ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott

... attracted the attention of the boatmen to the clump of bushes, some one would steal the Whitewing while her crew were absent. They had already seen enough of the "canalers" to know that they were a wild and lawless set of men, and they were not anxious to put the temptation of stealing a nice ...
— Harper's Young People, August 10, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various



Words linked to "Lawless" :   outlaw, anarchic, anarchical, wide-open, uncontrolled, unlawful, lawlessness



Copyright © 2024 Free Translator.org