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noun
Rant  n.  High-sounding language, without importance or dignity of thought; boisterous, empty declamation; bombast; as, the rant of fanatics. "This is a stoical rant, without any foundation in the nature of man or reason of things."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Rant" Quotes from Famous Books



... in one moment, as if to insult his sorrow, a creature that seemed the goddess of gayety, impervious to a care. She swept in with a bold, free step, for she was rehearsing a man's part, and thundered without rant, but with a spirit and fire, and pace, beyond the conception of our poor tame actresses ...
— Peg Woffington • Charles Reade

... orator would in our day rant like the lawyer, and no clergyman would use such language as that of the Reverend Moses Welch. The clergy have been pretty well republicanized within that last two or three generations, and are not likely to provoke quarrels by assertion of their special dignities or privileges. The ...
— Pages From an Old Volume of Life - A Collection Of Essays • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... of exaggerated passion—almost rant—in these last words, that certainly did not impress them with reality; and either Lady Maude was right in doubting their sincerity, or cruelly unjust, for she smiled ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever

... kindled, as if the whole satire had been The oppression of virtue, not wages of sin: He began, as he bragg'd, with a rant and a roar; He bragg'd how he bounced, and he swore how he swore.[5] Knock ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IV: - Swift's Writings on Religion and the Church, Volume II • Jonathan Swift

... thought himself beloved," said the maiden; "but by what slight creatures!—things whose heads could be rendered giddy by a playhouse rant—whose brains were only filled with red-heeled shoes and satin buskins—and who run altogether mad on the argument of a George ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott

... at his versemaking. Perhaps, indeed, it may be regarded as a bad symptom that he is reduced to distracting his mind by making an analysis of a dull sermon. 'There is nothing particular in it,' he admits, but at least it is better, he thinks, to listen to a bad sermon than to the blasphemous rant of deistical societies. Indeed, Crabbe's spirit was totally unlike the desperate pride of Chatterton. He was of the patient enduring tribe, and comforts himself by religious meditations, which are, perhaps, rather commonplace in expression, but when read by the light of the distresses he was enduring, ...
— Hours in a Library - New Edition, with Additions. Vol. II (of 3) • Leslie Stephen

... then!" he exclaimed. "Yez do be a high-grade liar, and ign'rant as well. Willyum th' Conq'ror was Irish on his mother's side, an' he bate th' heads off iv th' bloody Sassenach, an' soaked their king wan in th' eye wid a bow 'n' arry at a fight I disremimber th' ...
— Desert Conquest - or, Precious Waters • A. M. Chisholm

... mention the fanciful vein of the whole passage, which might lead any one unacquainted with Milton to look for this quotation among the dramas of the prime. The great hyperbolical strain of the Elizabethans, which so often broke into rant, is caught and nobly echoed in ...
— Milton • Sir Walter Alexander Raleigh

... hat and bowing, and the author of "Ruy Blas" quite convinced that he has been treating with him d'egal en egal. I can hardly bring my mind to fancy that anything is serious in France—it seems to be all rant, tinsel, and stage-play. Sham liberty, sham monarchy, sham glory, sham justice,—ou diable donc ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray

... caricaturing those great men, not only because they were heathens, but also because they were kings; for when Christian princes and lords appear on the stage, the satire is often continued. Thus Lancelot of the Lake appears unexpectedly at the Court of king Herod, and after much rant the lover of queen Guinevere draws his invincible sword and massacres the Innocents ...
— A Literary History of the English People - From the Origins to the Renaissance • Jean Jules Jusserand

... Erasmus, and from Erasmus to Butler and Swift. Ridicule is more efficacious than argument; when that keen instrument cuts what cannot be untied. "The Rehearsal" wrote down the unnatural taste for the rhyming heroic tragedies, and brought the nation back from sound to sense, from rant to passion. More important events may be traced in the history of Ridicule. When a certain set of intemperate Puritans, in the reign of Elizabeth, the ridiculous reformists of abuses in Church and State, congregated themselves under the literary nom de guerre of Martin Mar-prelate, ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli

... me less than justice, Miss Faith. You can hear me rant about philosophical niceties,—and yet think that I would not have patience to listen to a lecture from ...
— Say and Seal, Volume II • Susan Warner

... ap ply' ty'rant pyre dy'nas ty de ny' hy'dra type an'ti type re ly' ty'phus fyke a sy'lum re ply' ty'ro chyme ...
— McGuffey's Eclectic Spelling Book • W. H. McGuffey

... promptes et nergiques que vous avez adoptes pour prvenir la mise en libert des forats, dtenus dans le bagne, que les rvolts voulaient armer, a pris la dtermination de vous donner, Milord, un tmoignage clatant de Sa satisfaction Royale, en vous confrant la croix de Commandeur de Son Ordre religieux et militaire des Saints ...
— Charles Philip Yorke, Fourth Earl of Hardwicke, Vice-Admiral R.N. - A Memoir • Lady Biddulph of Ledbury

... are also prone to a histrionic, prancing gait and to an elaborate exaggeration of the motions, whether of stealth or of onslaught, involved in their deeds of exploit. Similarly in athletic sports there is almost invariably present a good share of rant and swagger and ostensible mystification—features which mark the histrionic nature of these employments. In all this, of course, the reminder of boyish make-believe is plain enough. The slang of athletics, by the ...
— The Theory of the Leisure Class • Thorstein Veblen

... the Wanderoo[A] should rant In wild, unmeaning rhymes, Whereas the Indian Elephant Will only read ...
— More Beasts (For Worse Children) • Hilaire Belloc

... Guiscard's answer, when first reproached by Tancred, is noble in Boccace, nothing but this: Amor pua molto piu che ne roi ne io possiamo. This, Dryden has spoiled. He says first very well, 'The faults of love by love are justified,' and then come four lines of miserable rant, quite a la Maximin. Farewell, ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth

... speak one's opinion and to hope, if it be wrong, for a better mind—I do not find poetry of any high order either in "Scots wha hae" or "A man's a man for a' that." The former seems to me to be very fine rant—inspired rant, if you will—hovering on the borders of poetry. The latter, to be frank, strikes me as rather poor rant, neither inspired nor even quite genuine, and in no proper sense poetry at all. And "J.B." simply bewilders my Southron intelligence when he quotes ...
— Adventures in Criticism • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... the evening at a tavern with him and old Giffard[489]. Johnson, who was ever depreciating stage-players, after censuring some mistakes in emphasis which Garrick had committed in the course of that night's acting, said, 'the players, Sir, have got a kind of rant, with which they run on, without any regard either to accent or emphasis[490].' Both Garrick and Giffard were offended at this sarcasm, and endeavoured to refute it; upon which Johnson rejoined, 'Well now, I'll give you something to speak, with which you are little acquainted, and ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell

... house, said Hiram, summoning all the dignity he could muster to his assistance, in the name of the people; and by virtue of this war rant, and of my office, and with this ...
— The Pioneers • James Fenimore Cooper

... flash of the lightning of her soul, and finished her rant, she found herself much easier in the resolves on revenge she had fixed there: she scorned by any vain endeavour to recall him from his passion; she had wit enough to have made those eternal observations, that love once gone is never to ...
— Love-Letters Between a Nobleman and His Sister • Aphra Behn

... Mrs. G[rant] of L. intimates that she will take her pudding—her pension, I mean (see 30th November), and is contrite, as H[enry] M[ackenzie] vouches. I am glad the stout old girl is not foreclosed; faith, cabbing a pension in these times is like hunting a pig with a soap'd tail, monstrous ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott

... William Morris his place amongst the poets. Mr. Clutton Brock feels this surely enough, because he possesses, besides intellect, that other and rarer critical faculty, that spiritual tuning-fork by which a fine critic distinguishes between emotion and sentimentality, between rhetoric and rant. It is because Mr. Brock possesses this peculiar sensibility—part aesthetic, part ethical, and part intellectual, it seems—that he can be trusted to detect and dislike even the subtlest manifestations of that quality which most distinguishes Tennyson from ...
— Pot-Boilers • Clive Bell

... the note and concurred because with the completion and approval of the Grudge Report, Project Grudge folded. People could rant and rave, see flying saucers, pink elephants, sea serpents, or Harvey, but it was no concern ...
— The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects • Edward Ruppelt

... different degrees it is combined with other elements, and in each combination altered and modified. The combination which more immediately arrests attention is that with the ludicrous. In this the genius of Hood seemed to hold a very festival of antics, oddity, and mirth; all his faculties seemed to rant and riot in the Saturnalia of comic incongruity. And it is difficult to say whether, in provoking laughter, his pen or his pencil is the more effective instrument. The mere illustrations of the subject-matter ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 37, November, 1860 • Various

... The arrangements are all made. Van Slyke can handle the last stages of the thing far better than I can. I loathe hanging round and hearing the fools rant about my stuff and wonder what the devil I meant by this or that or if I didn't mean anything. I am infinitely better off three ...
— Wild Wings - A Romance of Youth • Margaret Rebecca Piper

... may rant and talk about British gold, And opinions that are bought and sold, But facts, no matter how hard to face, Are facts, and the horrors taking place In that little land, pledged to honor's creed, Make your cause a luckless one to plead. There are two sides? True. But ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 2, May, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various

... fire down by the shore, and left them alone. They sat by it until nearly ten o'clock, he talking incessantly; her overtures had roused in him the desire to please, and, instead of the usual monologue of egotism and rant, he poured out poetry, eloquence, sense and humorous shrewdness. Had he been far less the unusual, the great man, she would still have listened with a sense of delight, for in her mood that night his penetrating voice, ...
— The Fashionable Adventures of Joshua Craig • David Graham Phillips

... Blackwood, who assured me of it.] "Then there was 'The Involuntary Experimentalist,' all about a gentleman who got baked in an oven, and came out alive and well, although certainly done to a turn. And then there was 'The Diary of a Late Physician,' where the merit lay in good rant, and indifferent Greek—both of them taking things with the public. And then there was 'The Man in the Bell,' a paper by-the-by, Miss Zenobia, which I cannot sufficiently recommend to your attention. It is the history of a young person who goes to sleep under the ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 4 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe

... of "Again! 'Ay bor'! again!" the blackeyed lover, hypnotizing himself into an ecstasy, poured out race and passion and war with the law, in the true Gipsy rant which is sung from Transylvania to Yetholm or Carnarvon ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... gate. But wait a little! He shall soon lie in Abraham's bosom, while you shall roast on the devil's great gridiron, and be seasoned just to his tooth!—Will the prophets say, "Come here gamester, and teach us the long odds?"—'Tis odds if they do!—Will the martyrs rant, and swear, and shuffle, and cut with you? No! The martyrs are no shufflers! You will be cut so as you little expect: you are a field of tares, and Lucifer is your head farmer. He will come with his reapers and his sickles and his forks, and you will be cut down and bound and pitched ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft

... Review for December 1785 there is the following notice: "Baron Munchausen's Narrative of his Marvellous Travels and Campaigns in Russia. Small 8vo, IS. (Smith). This is a satirical production calculated to throw ridicule on the bold assertions of some parliamentary declaimers. If rant may be best foiled at its own weapons, the author's design is not ill-founded; for the marvellous has never been carried to a more whimsical and ludicrous extent." The reviewer had probably read the work through from ...
— The Surprising Adventures of Baron Munchausen • Rudolph Erich Raspe

... in this city, talk as fluently of the Bible and God's teachings in their speeches as if they could draw an argument from inspiration in maintenance of their woman's rights stuff.... The poor creatures who take part in the silly rant of "brawling women" and Aunt Nancy men are most of them "ismizers" of the rankest stamp, Abolitionists of the most frantic and contemptible kind and Christian (?) sympathizers with such heretics as ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 1 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper

... on earth, nay, is denied all admittance into the court of princes, where notwithstanding my handmaid Flattery finds a most encouraging welcome: but this petulant monitor being thrust out of doors, the gods can now more freely rant and revel, and take their ...
— In Praise of Folly - Illustrated with Many Curious Cuts • Desiderius Erasmus

... here, Percival," said Rupert, in a slightly wearied tone, "if you are going to rant and rave, I'll go out. My room is quite at your disposal, but I am not. I've got a headache. Why don't you go to a theatre or a music hall, and work off your superfluous energy there ...
— Under False Pretences - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant

... character; but it would be hard to point out a passage indicating that exuberant confidence in his own prowess, and contempt of every one else, so liberally exhibited by Almanzor. Instances of this defect are but too thickly sown through the piece; for example the following rant. ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Volume 4 (of 18) - Almanzor And Almahide, Marriage-a-la-Mode, The Assignation • John Dryden

... specious form, dread Queen! appear; Let falsehood fill the dreary waste; Thy democratic rant be here, To fire the brain, corrupt the taste. The fair, by vicious love misled, Teach me to cherish and to wed, To low-born arrogance to bend, Establish'd order spurn, ...
— Translations of German Poetry in American Magazines 1741-1810 • Edward Ziegler Davis

... too hot for him, and his brother Advocates have cast him out, can emit his hoarse wailings, and Bastille Devoilee (Bastille unveiled). Loquacious Abbe Raynal, at length, has his wish; sees the Histoire Philosophique, with its 'lubricity,' unveracity, loose loud eleutheromaniac rant (contributed, they say, by Philosophedom at large, though in the Abbe's name, and to his glory), burnt by the common hangman;—and sets out on his travels as a martyr. It was the edition of 1781; perhaps the last notable book that had such fire-beatitude,—the hangman discovering ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle

... and for all," cried Mr. Cumberland Vane, rapping his knuckles angrily on the table, "I tell you, once and for all, my man, that I will not have you turning on any religious rant or cant here. Don't imagine that it will impress me. The most religious people are not those who talk about it. (Applause.) You answer the ...
— The Ball and The Cross • G.K. Chesterton

... hundred bars of symphony, such as you understand how to write, would have a decidedly good effect there. Think the matter over, and then go fresh to your desk. Ahriman can stand some polyphonic phrases, and this is an occasion where one may rant and ...
— Letters of Franz Liszt, Volume 1, "From Paris to Rome: - Years of Travel as a Virtuoso" • Franz Liszt; Letters assembled by La Mara and translated

... rant. Don't prate. Don't fidget. Don't flatter. Don't declaim. Don't be glib. Don't hesitate. Don't be nasal. Don't apologize. Don't dogmatize. Don't be slangy. Don't antagonize. Don't be awkward. Don't be violent. Don't be personal. Don't be "funny." Don't attitudinize. ...
— Talks on Talking • Grenville Kleiser

... instrument going and face the hill at the same time. He strode up and down in the deadliest part of the valley where a well-sent musket ball would never lose him, and played a tune they call "The Galley of the Waves," a Stewart rant with a hint of the zest of the sea in it Nobody thought of firing at him, though his work was an encouragement to our foes, and anon the hill-tops rang with a duel of pibrochs between him and a lad of our garrison, who got round on the top of the wall near the governor's house and strutted ...
— John Splendid - The Tale of a Poor Gentleman, and the Little Wars of Lorn • Neil Munro

... will be great. Of course I know too little, I've seen too little. But I've always liked it; I've never liked anything else. I used to learn things and do scenes and rant about the room when I was but five years old." She went on, communicative, persuasive, familiar, egotistical (as was necessary), and slightly common, or perhaps only natural; with reminiscences, reasons, and anecdotes, an unexpected profusion, and with an air of comradeship, of ...
— The Tragic Muse • Henry James

... deliberately dodged my question. I asked you what you thought of my father's power with the Indians. You rant about his wickedness in bringing me here. For the last time I ask you to answer my question and finish your list of my ...
— A Virginia Scout • Hugh Pendexter

... eagerly read. The Journal announced them the day before publication, the newsboys cried them, and papers called attention to them, some by daring to indorse, but more by abusing Mr. Riddle for publishing such unpatriotic and "incendiary rant." In quoting the strong points, a venal press was constrained to "scatter the living coals of truth." The name was held to be a nom de plume, for in print it looked so unlike the common pronunciation of that of one of ...
— Half a Century • Jane Grey Cannon Swisshelm

... that Shakespeare should have gone out of his way to select such a subject. It leaves a disagreeable taste in the mouth. The aristocrat is overdone. No true aristocrat would talk such rant as Coriolanus talks in Act i. Sc. I. Shakespeare omits Plutarch's account of the oppression of the plebeians, or only slightly alludes to it. Volumnia's contempt for the people is worse than that of Coriolanus. To her they are ...
— More Pages from a Journal • Mark Rutherford

... and to my office, where we sat all the morning, and a great rant I did give to Mr. Davis, of Deptford, and others about their usage of Michell, in his Bewpers,—[Bewpers is the old name for bunting.]—which he serves in for flaggs, which did trouble me, but yet it was in defence of what was truth. So home ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys

... manner of speaking, which these teachers seem so much to dread, have as Dr. Johnson calls it, a frigid equality, a stupid languor, and a torpid apathy. These must be roused by something strong and excessive, or they will never rise even to mediocrity; while the few who have a tendency to rant, are very easily reclaimed; and ought to be treated in pronunciation and action, as Quintillion advises to do in composition; that is, we should rather allow of an exuberance, than, by too much correctness, check the ...
— The Young Gentleman and Lady's Monitor, and English Teacher's Assistant • John Hamilton Moore

... your uncle's follies and your cousin's fliskies, were nothing to this! Drink clean cap-out, like Sir Hildebrand; begin the blessed morning with brandy-taps like Squire Percy; rin wud among the lasses like Squire John; gamble like Richard; win souls to the Pope and the deevil, like Rashleigh; rive, rant, break the Sabbath, and do the Pope's bidding, like them a' put thegither—but merciful Providence! tak' care o' your young bluid, and ...
— On the Old Road, Vol. 2 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin

... left long in doubt. Proceeding, Andre-Louis spoke as he conceived that Philippe de Vilmorin would have spoken. He had so often argued with him, so often attended the discussions of the Literary Chamber, that he had all the rant of the reformers—that was yet true in substance—at ...
— Scaramouche - A Romance of the French Revolution • Rafael Sabatini

... young one in the world," Mrs. Foley confessed, referring to "Spotted Snake, the Witch." "Sometimes I rant at her like a good one. But she saves me a good bit, and if ever a child earned ...
— The Campfire Girls of Roselawn - A Strange Message from the Air • Margaret Penrose

... of the glancing helm: "Ajax, brave leader, son of Telamon, Deal not with me as with a feeble child, Or woman, ign'rant of the ways of war; Of war and carnage every point I know; And well I know to wield, now right, now left, The tough bull's-hide that forms my stubborn targe: Well know I too my fiery steeds to urge, And raise the war-cry in the standing fight. But not in secret ...
— The Iliad • Homer

... himself, Set forth her nuptial rites, and shall endow His daughter sumptuously, and as he ought. For this expensive wooing, as I judge, Till then shall never cease; since we regard No man—no—not Telemachus, although In words exub'rant; neither fear we aught Thy vain prognostics, venerable sir! But only hate thee for their sake the more. 270 Waste will continue and disorder foul Unremedied, so long as she shall hold The suitors in suspense, for, day by day, Our emulation goads us to the strife, Nor shall we, going hence, ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer

... Sometimes by evil counsellors, 'tis said, Like earth-born potentates have been misled. In those gay days of wickedness and wit, When Villiers criticised what Dryden writ, The tragic queen, to please a tasteless crowd, Had learn'd to bellow, rant, and roar so loud, That frighten'd Nature, her best friend before, The blustering beldam's company foreswore; Her comic sister, who had wit 'tis true, With all her merits, had her failings too: And would sometimes ...
— Scarborough and the Critic • Sheridan

... growing materialism of the age, would fain persuade this generation to walk blindfold through the superb temple a loving God has placed us in. While every sane and earnest mind must turn, disgusted and humiliated, from the senseless rant which resolves all divinity into materialistic elements, it may safely be proclaimed that genuine aesthetics is a mighty channel through which the love and adoration of Almighty God enters the human soul. It were ...
— Beulah • Augusta J. Evans

... hardly in a body's power, To keep at times frae being sour, To see how things are shared; How best o' chiels are whiles in want, While coofs on countless thousands rant, And ...
— Capitola the Madcap • Emma D. E. N. Southworth

... be the sufferer by misplaced affection, and commencing, "Stay, my Willie, yet believe me," though published, remain likewise in obscurity. "Roy's Wife" was originally written to an old tune called the "Ruffian's Rant," but this melody is now known by the name of its favourite words. The sentiment of the song is peculiarly pleasing. The rejected lover begins by loudly complaining of his wrongs, and the broken assurances ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various

... pant, puff, gasp; spout; inflate, puff up, distend; explode, shatter; (Colloq.) boast, brag, bluster, vaunt, gasconade; rant, scold, censure. ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming

... gables, the splendour of its fretted roofs, the expanse of its tiers of seats; we need not call to mind that this place is sometimes the scene for the foolery of the mime, the dialogue of comedy, the sonorous rant of tragedy, the perilous antics of the rope-walker, the juggler's sleight of hand, the gesticulation of the dancer, with all the tricks of their respective arts that are displayed before the people by other artists. ...
— The Apologia and Florida of Apuleius of Madaura • Lucius Apuleius

... Siddhattha, spare thy monkish rant, Far better than thy cowardly submission, Far nobler and befitting it would be, To draw the sword ...
— The Buddha - A Drama in Five Acts and Four Interludes • Paul Carus

... not time, they say, to transcribe all that was worthy of my resentment in this letter: so I must find an opportunity to come at it myself. Noble rant, they say, it contains—But I am a seducer, and a hundred vile fellows, in it.—'And the devil, it seems, took possession of my heart, and of the hearts of all her friends, in the same dark hour, in order to provoke her to meet me.' Again, 'There ...
— Clarissa, Volume 4 (of 9) - History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson

... at heart of craft and cant, Sick of the crazed enthusiast's rant, Profession's smooth hypocrisies, And creeds of iron, ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier

... deleite m. pleasure, delight. delicado, -a delicate, sweet. delicia f. delight. delicioso, -a delicious, delightful. delirante adj. delirious, raving. delirar rave, dote. delirio m. delirium, madness, rapture, rant, idle talk. delito m. crime. demasa f. excess. demasiado, -a too much, too great. demonio m. devil, demon. denso, -a dense, thick. dentro adv. within; —— de prep. within. denuesto m. insult, abuse. derecho m. right. derramar shed. derredor m. circuit; ...
— El Estudiante de Salamanca and Other Selections • George Tyler Northup

... the Red Bull, and the actors there had no right to throw stones. Apparently the large numbers that could be accommodated in the great public theatres, and the quality of the audience attracted by the low price of admission, made noise and rant inevitable.[473] As chief sinners in this respect the Fortune and the Red Bull are ...
— Shakespearean Playhouses - A History of English Theatres from the Beginnings to the Restoration • Joseph Quincy Adams

... well as myself," says George (with a bow to his guest, General Lambert), "I think we were not inclined to weep, like the ladies, because we stood behind the author's scenes of the play, as it were. Looking close up to the young hero, we saw how much of him was rant and tinsel; and as for the pale, tragical mother, that her pallor was white chalk, and her grief her pocket-handkerchief. Own now, Theo, you ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray

... politicians of lying, cheating, and stealing, he estimates them by his knowledge of himself as a politician. He supposes that they would not hesitate to do what, without compunction, he does himself. They are all players together, and this is a kind of stage rant designed to impress the groundlings, who, after all, compose the larger ...
— From the Easy Chair, vol. 1 • George William Curtis

... rant was serious, they would allow you no leadership in their revolution. Have they not already rejected your overtures? Therefore this deputation to you of the Leipzig working-men (whom they practically rejected by offering them honorary membership) is simply providential. The conception of a new ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill

... we should return to earth that it would have to be consecrated by a human being, as any man or woman of intelligence knows full well that what the Lord our God has made cannot be improved upon by the idiotic chant and superstitious rant ...
— Thirty Years In Hell - Or, From Darkness to Light • Bernard Fresenborg

... idealist. He felt keenly the growing complexity of the relation between employer and worker, the seeming hopelessness of permanently harmonizing their claims, the recurring necessity of fresh compromises and adjustments. He hated rant, demagogy, the rash formulating of emotional theories; and his contempt for bad logic and subjective judgments led him to regard with distrust the panaceas offered for the cure of economic evils. But his heart ached for the bitter throes with which ...
— The Fruit of the Tree • Edith Wharton

... good is, that when a man hears evil words, he be able to overlook the wickedness and injustice. Seek thus after peace, so shall you find it; when your enemy has wasted his breath and done all that he can, if you hear him, but rail and rant not back, he must subdue himself by his own violence. For thus Christ also on the cross subdued his enemies, not by the sword or by violence. Therefore is it a saying, which should be written with gold, where it says, "Striking back again makes hatred, and whoever strikes back again ...
— The Epistles of St. Peter and St. Jude Preached and Explained • Martin Luther

... indeed, incompatible—if the love of freedom and active enterprise necessarily exclude the grace and softness which lessen, or at least teach us to forget, the burden of existence, let us be what we are; and, indeed, it is the opinion of many, that the rant of social pleasure is the price we pay for the excellence of our political institutions. It is because before the law all men are equal, that in the world so much care is taken to show that they are different. If to this we add the mercantile habits of our countrymen, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 54, No. 335, September 1843 • Various

... great doctrine: La carriere ouverte aux talens; 'The Tools to him that can handle them.' . . . Madly enough he preached, it is true, as Enthusiasts and first Missionaries are wont, with imperfect utterance, amid much frothy rant, yet as articulately perhaps as the case admitted. Or call him, if you will, an American Backwoodsman, who had to fell unpenetrated forests, and battle with innumerable wolves, and did not entirely forbear strong liquor, ...
— Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, March 1844 - Volume 23, Number 3 • Various

... If the state of society in Westmoreland be as corrupt as they describe, what, in the name of wonder, has preserved their purity? Away then with hypocrisy and hollow pretext; let us be no longer deafened with a rant about throwing off intolerable burthens, and repelling injuries, and avenging insults! Say at once that you disapprove of the present Members, and would have others more to your own liking; you have named your Man, or rather necessity has named him ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth

... many to encounter," said I; "but they are not absolutely insuperable; and where is firmness of mind shown but in exertion? mere declamation is bombast rant." Besides, wherever I am, or in whatever situation ...
— The Letters of Robert Burns • Robert Burns

... converse with the same number of men in society on the merits of the case; and his gestures were those which might be used without serious remark in animated conversation. His postures were sometimes negligent enough; he had a contempt for rant, and hated show and pomp. His voice was pleasant, and of ample compass for an ordinary court-room, and he never dealt in vociferations; indeed, his style of argument to the jury, as well as to the bench, ...
— Discourse of the Life and Character of the Hon. Littleton Waller Tazewell • Hugh Blair Grigsby

... Philippina began to rage and rant: "Daniel's a dunderhead. He could live like a Kaiser if he'd mix with the right people. I know a woman who is lousy with money, and she's going to git a lot more; but Daniel, the poor bloke, ain't got a ghost of an idea as ...
— The Goose Man • Jacob Wassermann

... Boston Coliseum, That he may drill the Members in a chorus to make speeches? Then shall stop the fierce rencontre—shall cease the idle rating; Then debates shall he no longer without a head or tail; And while the power of song every soul is demonstrating, Each member cherubimical will scorn to rant or rail. Rap! rap! rap! To quell the rising clamor; Order! ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 8, May 21, 1870 • Various

... my Lord Jesus, nor Dr. Luther, for we believe that the Gospel will and must continue. Let a layman ask such Romanists, and let them give answer, why they despoil and mock all of God's commandments, and rant so violently about this power, whereas they cannot show at all why it is necessary, or what it is good for. For ever since it has arisen, it has accomplished nothing but the devastation of Christendom, and no one is able ...
— Works of Martin Luther - With Introductions and Notes (Volume I) • Martin Luther

... inspired, as it felt, the vigorous life, the rapid transitions, the passionate energy, the reality, the lifelike medley and confusion, the racy dialogue, the chat, the wit, the pathos, the sublimity, the rant and buffoonery, the coarse horrors and vulgar bloodshedding, the immense range over all classes of society, the intimacy with the foulest as well as the fairest developements of human temper, which ...
— History of the English People, Volume V (of 8) - Puritan England, 1603-1660 • John Richard Green

... curate was just as confident and uncompromising in the discharge of his office as he was yielding and diffident when only himself was in question. He was so honest, and straightforward, and true—so free from rant or cant—so strong in his simple theology, that Guy soon trusted him implicitly when he spoke of the past and of the future that was so near. The repentance that was begun by Constance's dying bed was completed, I am sure, on ...
— Guy Livingstone; - or, 'Thorough' • George A. Lawrence

... equally romantic, equally passionate; but more than that, real, actual, modern, a thing in the very heart of the very life in which she moved. And here he sat, this Jadwin, quiet, in evening dress, listening good-naturedly to this beautiful music, for which he did not care, to this rant and fustian, watching quietly all this posing and attitudinising. How small and petty it ...
— The Pit • Frank Norris

... it, we'll be A1 friends an' have no squalls atwane us," said my friend the boatswain as the Chinaman passed along the deck to the forward deck-house, entering the galley as if he knew the way well, Tim adding as he got out of hearing: "The ig'rant haythin, he nivir can spake me name roight; allers callin' me 'looney,' jist as if I wor a blissid ...
— Afloat at Last - A Sailor Boy's Log of his Life at Sea • John Conroy Hutcheson

... very violence of the emotion produces perfect simplicity, as the hurricane blows the sea smooth. But where fanciful language is employed to express the extreme of passion, it is felt to be absurd, and is accordingly called rant and bombast: and where it is not used to express passion at all, but merely the quiet and normal state of the poet's mind, or of his characters, with regard to external nature; when it is considered, as it is by most of our modern ...
— Literary and General Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley

... and sedate bearing, are henceforth characteristic of all her literary attitudes. It is almost a case of running from one to the other extreme. The force of style which even adverse critics acknowledged in Frankenstein was sometimes perilously akin to the most disputable kinds of romantic rant. But in the historical or society novels which followed, in the contributions which graced the 'Keepsakes' of the thirties, and even—alas—in the various prefaces and commentaries which accompanied the publication of so many ...
— Proserpine and Midas • Mary Shelley

... rant and write letters or poetry, or marry some one else to spite himself, or take the first steamer for Burraga, or Equatorial Africa, as rejected lovers in stories do. It hurt, and he didn't enjoy it, but he bore up all right, and went about his business, just as hundreds of other sensible ...
— Danger Signals • John A. Hill and Jasper Ewing Brady

... the title of MASCAGNI'S new Opera. The title, anglicised, would be suitable for an old-fashioned transpontine melodramatic tragedian, who could certainly say of himself, "I rant so!" ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 103, November 19, 1892 • Various

... Jennison[32] declar'd As how, he'd been completely scar'd; Last night, quoth he, as I came home, I heard a noise in Prescott's[33] room. I went and listen'd at the door, As I had often done before; I found the Juniors in a high rant, They call'd the President a tyrant; And said as how I was a fool, A long ear'd ass, a sottish mule, Without the smallest grain of spunk; So I concluded they were drunk. At length I knock'd, and Prescott came: I told him 't was a burning shame, That he should give his classmates ...
— A Collection of College Words and Customs • Benjamin Homer Hall

... her grave? Be buried quick with her, and so will I: And, if thou prate of mountains, let them throw Millions of acres on us, till our ground,[42] Singeing his pate against the burning zone, Make Ossa[43] like a wart! Nay, an thou'lt mouth, I'll rant as ...
— Hamlet • William Shakespeare

... wits who all sharply vie, To try what odd creature they best can belie, 50 A thousand are prudes who for CHARITY write, And fill up their sheets with spleen, envy, and spite[,] One million are bards, who to Heaven aspire, And stuff their works full of bombast, rant, and fire, T'other million are wags who in Grubstreet attend, 55 And just like a cobbler the old writings mend, The twenty are those who for pulpits indite, And pore over sermons all Saturday night. And now my good friends—who come after I mean, As I ne'er wore a cassock, ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley

... delivery of heroic conceptions, the emotions consequent upon the presentment of a great idea to the fancy. He had the true poetical enthusiasm—the rarest faculty among players. None that I remember possessed even a portion of that fine madness which he threw out in Hotspur's famous rant about glory, or the transports of the Venetian incendiary at the vision of the fired city. His voice had the dissonance, and at times the inspiriting effect of the trumpet. His gait was uncouth and stiff, but no way embarrassed by affectation; and the thorough-bred gentleman was uppermost ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb

... the father a chance to vent his vexation with himself upon his son. "I wish you wouldn't talk that walking-delegate's rant with me, Matt. If I let you alone in your nonsense, I think you may fitly take it as a sign that I wish to be ...
— The Quality of Mercy • W. D. Howells

... Boys and you shall see, We every one shall Captains be, To Whore and rant as well as they, When o'er the Hills and far away: Over ...
— Wit and Mirth: or Pills to Purge Melancholy, Vol. 5 of 6 • Various

... observed; "I begin to fear these heroics are contagious. Possibly I, too, shall begin to rant in a moment. Meanwhile, as I understand it, you decline to perform the ceremony. I have had to warn you before this, Simon, that you mustn't take too much gin when I am apt to need you. You are very pitifully drunk, man. So you defy me and my evil courses! You defy me!" Rokesle laughed, ...
— Gallantry - Dizain des Fetes Galantes • James Branch Cabell

... all. There will be a storm—a newspaper storm. The embassies will be busy; in the English Parliament some pompous fool will ask a question, and be snubbed for his pains. In the Chambre the newspaper men will rant and challenge each other in the corridors; and it will blow over. In the meantime we have got what we want, and we can hide it till we have need of it. Your Reverence and I have met ...
— The Slave Of The Lamp • Henry Seton Merriman

... used to rehearse the whole time he was in the boat; but he was a lively, noisy personage, full of humour, and perfectly indifferent as to appearances. He had a quiz and a quirk for everybody that passed in another boat, and would stand up and rant at them until they considered him insane. We were on very intimate terms, and I was never more pleased than when he made his appearance, as it was invariably the signal for mirth. The first time I certainly considered him to be a lunatic, for playhouse phraseology ...
— Jacob Faithful • Captain Frederick Marryat

... Parisian dainties. Against such a petticoat insurrection the governor is helpless. Bah! it sickens me. I wonder not that our men prefer the Indian maidens, for they at least have common sense. But by my soul, Captain, here I stand and rant like some schoolboy mouthing his speech. Tush, it ...
— The Black Wolf's Breed - A Story of France in the Old World and the New, happening - in the Reign of Louis XIV • Harris Dickson

... parted, and the fiddlers strove for warlike music. Tamerlane, surrounded by the Tartar host, received his prisoners, and the defiant rant of Bajazet shook the rafters. All the sound and fury of the stage could not drown the noise of the audience. Idle talk and laughter, loud comment upon the players, went on,—went on until there entered Darden's Audrey, dressed in red ...
— Audrey • Mary Johnston

... "fire the first gun," would have been as unwise as it would be to hesitate to strike down the arm of the assailant, who levels a deadly weapon at one's breast, until he has actually fired. The disingenuous rant of demagogues about "firing on the flag" might serve to rouse the passions of insensate mobs in times of general excitement, but will be impotent in impartial history to relieve the Federal Government from the responsibility of the assault made by sending a hostile fleet against ...
— The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government • Jefferson Davis

... sacred time when 'Adam delved and Eve span,' and who, forsaking holy home haunts, wage war against nature on account of the mistake made in their sex, and clamour for the 'hallowed inalienable right' to jostle and be jostled at the polls; to brawl in the market place, and to rant on the rostrum, like a bevy of bedlamities. Now when I begin to read, listen, and tell me frankly, whether when you both make up your minds to present me, one a sister, the other a daughter, you will select your wives from among quaint ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson

... There was indeed something rather incongruous in Lucy's moral outburst over Mr. Eager. It was as if one should see the Leonardo on the ceiling of the Sistine. He longed to hint to her that not here lay her vocation; that a woman's power and charm reside in mystery, not in muscular rant. But possibly rant is a sign of vitality: it mars the beautiful creature, but shows that she is alive. After a moment, he contemplated her flushed face and excited gestures with a certain approval. He forebore to repress the sources ...
— A Room With A View • E. M. Forster

... the part, was excellent in his quiet moods, and when he was obliged to rant was no worse than other ranters. The superb solidity of Mr. SASS as the Russian officer served as an admirable foil to the mercurial methods of Quixano. Miss PHYLLIS RELPH as the heroine mitigated the effect of her obvious sincerity by a bad trick of showing her nice teeth. Mr. PERCEVAL ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, February 18, 1914 • Various

... yo'!" said Uncle Rufus, kindly. "Dar's a do' shet 'twixt dat leetle fice an' dem crazy cats. Dar's sho' nuff wot de papahs calls er armerstice 'twixt de berlig'rant pahties—ya-as'm! De berry wust has happen' already, so yo' folkses ...
— The Corner House Girls at School • Grace Brooks Hill

... long black gown; a black hood completely concealed his face; a clergyman, and two or three of the Vigilance officers or guards followed. A strong guard under arms was stationed about the foot of the gallows. Permission was given the two to say anything they wished. Brace broke forth in a loud rant, profane and obscene, and danced about like one demented. The clergyman felt obliged to stop his blasphemous harangue by cramming his handkerchief over his mouth. He broke away, nevertheless, and again poured ...
— The Vigilance Committee of '56 • James O'Meara

... serve for a copy to a charity boy." So the very moral and the very true are not for the statesman but for the charity-boy. This perhaps may be defended as irony; hardly, but even so, in such irony the character appears as plainly as in volumes of solemn rant. To us it stands out clearly as the characteristic attitude of the English Government. The English people are used to it, practise it, and will put up with it; but the Irish people never were, are not now, and never will be used to it; and we won't put up with it. ...
— Principles of Freedom • Terence J. MacSwiney

... Lord Macaulay, in his most scornful strain, "was to declaim in praise of poverty, with two millions sterling out at usury; to meditate epigrammatic conceits about the evils of luxury in gardens which moved the envy of sovereigns; to rant about liberty while fawning on the insolent and pampered freedmen of a tyrant; to celebrate the divine beauty of virtue with the same pen which had just before written a defence of the murder of a mother by a son." "Seneca," says Niebuhr, "was an accomplished man of the world, ...
— Seekers after God • Frederic William Farrar

... going to do?' she repeated vehemently. 'What does all this amount to? or is it anything but dissenting rant?' ...
— A Red Wallflower • Susan Warner

... to rant too much, even in thy service; and though we do set up for prophets and the like, let us not forget occasionally to laugh at our ...
— The Hero • William Somerset Maugham

... stronger, and more urgent and thrilling cry, Repent! Repent! We want more fearless plain speaking, more personal appeal. It is not refined to preach of the grave and death, judgment and hell,—it is 'ranting:' but nevertheless let us 'rant;' let us be faithful; let us tell the sinner that he must die; and that he will die in his sins and perish for ever, except he repent and be converted that his sins may be blotted out. Let us tell him that he 'is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the Name of the only-begotten ...
— From Death into Life - or, twenty years of my ministry • William Haslam

... light o' heart an' light o' heel, Young lads and lasses trip thegither; The native Norlan rant and reel Amang the halesome Hielan' heather! Hey ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume IV. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various

... is, in general, very well written, and contains less rant than he usually puts in the mouths ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Vol. 7 (of 18) - The Duke of Guise; Albion and Albanius; Don Sebastian • John Dryden



Words linked to "Rant" :   verbalise, mouth, grandiosity, jabber, harangue, claptrap, grandiloquence, rave, verbalize, bombast, talk, screed, ranter



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