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Vilify   Listen
verb
Vilify  v. t.  (past & past part. vilified; pres. part. vilifying)  
1.
To make vile; to debase; to degrade; to disgrace. (R.) "When themselves they vilified To serve ungoverned appetite."
2.
To degrade or debase by report; to defame; to traduce; to calumniate. "Many passions dispose us to depress and vilify the merit of one rising in the esteem of mankind."
3.
To treat as vile; to despise. (Obs.) "I do vilify your censure."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Vilify" Quotes from Famous Books



... style, and their curious manners. Many a Homer lies hid among them; but a celebrated Italian critic suggested to me that many of the fables of Homer are only disguised and degraded in the romances of chivalry. Those who vilify them as only barbarous imitations of classical fancy condemn them as some do Gothic architecture, as mere corruptions of a purer style: such critics form their decision by preconceived notions; they are but indifferent philosophers, ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli

... supremacy of the Kings, vigilance augmented with insecurity; and almost everybody who was not an opposer, who refused being an accomplice, or feared to be a victim, was obliged to serve as an informer and vilify himself by becoming a spy. The rapidity with which parties followed and destroyed each other made the criminals as numerous as the sufferings of honour and loyalty innumerable; and I am sorry to say few persons exist in my degraded ...
— Memoirs of the Court of St. Cloud, Complete - Being Secret Letters from a Gentleman at Paris to a Nobleman in London • Lewis Goldsmith

... to, brand, post, stigmatize, vilify, defame, slur, cast a slur upon, hold up to shame, send to Coventry; tread under foot, trample under foot; show up, drag through the mire, heap dirt upon; reprehend &c. 932. bring low, put down, snub; take down a peg, take down a peg lower, take ...
— Roget's Thesaurus

... had not made them odious, detestable. It was the means they adopted to perpetuate their influence, after early virtues had passed away, which caused enlightened Catholic Europe to mistrust them, and the Protestants absolutely to hate and vilify them. ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VI • John Lord

... for that thereby, beside the happy issue which is to mark this day's discourses, you may understand how holy, how puissant and how full of all good is the power of Love, which many, unknowing what they say, condemn and vilify with great unright; and this, an I err not, must needs be exceeding pleasing to you, for that I believe you all ...
— The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio • Giovanni Boccaccio

... win his favor, all her insinuations could gain nothing on his obdurate heart. She promised him access to her whenever he demanded it; and she even desired him, if he found her blamable in any thing, to reprehend her freely in private, rather than vilify her in the pulpit before the whole people: but he plainly told her, that he had a public ministry intrusted to him; that if she would come to church, she should there hear the gospel of truth, and that it was not his business to apply to every ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part D. - From Elizabeth to James I. • David Hume

... then proceed to criticise your utterance from several points of view, divine and human, in the course of which I shall attempt to draw again, and with more specification, the character of the dead saint whom it has pleased you to vilify: so much being done, I shall say ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 16 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... the man had continued, "is to destroy the truth, to lie, to pervert, to vilify, to fawn at the feet of Mammon, to sell his soul for his daily bread. We are the tools and vassals of rich men behind the scenes. We are the jumping-jacks. They pull the strings and we dance. Our talents, our possibilities, our lives are the property ...
— All Roads Lead to Calvary • Jerome K. Jerome

... of this family circle. The letter of von Donniges to Dr. Haenle was clearly meant to be shown to the Foreign Minister, and the wily diplomatist naturally took the opportunity both to justify himself and to vilify Lassalle. Then began a painful dispute as to whether Herr von Donniges had ill-used his daughter; the overwhelming evidence, which includes the testimony of that daughter, written long after her father's death, tending to prove the truth of Lassalle's allegation. Lassalle ...
— Immortal Memories • Clement Shorter

... confessed to him the marriage, had asked and with difficulty obtained his forgiveness, and that he meditated a departure along with his wife, to some distant place, beyond the reach of his enemies. There was no direct evidence, however, that Catherine had persuaded him to desert, or to vilify the service which he had left; and the court were about to dismiss her simpliciter from the bar, when, to the amazement of all, Catherine rose in her place, and addressed the court to the following ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland Volume 17 • Alexander Leighton

... think if I worked for a man, I would work for him. I would not work for him a part of his time, but all of his time. I would give an undivided service or none. If put to the pinch, an ounce of loyalty is worth a pound of cleverness. If you must vilify, condemn, and eternally disparage, why, resign your position, and when you are outside, damn to your heart's content. But, I pray you, so long as you are a part of an institution, do not condemn ...
— A Message to Garcia - Being a Preachment • Elbert Hubbard

... I cannot but take notice, that whereas the great Argument which the Chymists are wont to employ to vilify Earth and Water, and make them be look'd upon as useless and unworthy to be reckon'd among the Principles of Mixt Bodies, is, that they are not endow'd with Specifick Properties, but only with Elementary qualities; of which they use ...
— The Sceptical Chymist • Robert Boyle

... many Passions and Tempers of Mind which naturally dispose us to depress and vilify the Merit of one rising in the Esteem of Mankind. All those who made their Entrance into the World with the same Advantages, and were once looked on as his Equals, are apt to think the Fame of his Merits a Reflection on their own Indeserts; and ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele

... their minds; but as they could no longer imprison or publicly revile "these enthusiasts, deceivers, and hypocrites," they preferred to scheme against and vilify ...
— Skipper Worse • Alexander Lange Kielland

... To vilify and abuse "the most amiable and respectable characters," I detest from the bottom of my heart: At the same time, I leave it to Philanthrop, or any one who pleases, to write Panegyricks, on the ...
— The Writings of Samuel Adams, volume II (1770 - 1773) - collected and edited by Harry Alonso Cushing • Samuel Adams

... Bishop Butler, "with caution, lest I should be mistaken to vilify reason, which is, indeed, the only faculty which we have to judge concerning anything, even revelation itself; or be misunderstood to assert that a supposed revelation cannot be proved false from internal characters." "The ...
— The Religious Situation • Goldwin Smith

... by publishing a satirical and scandalous poem reflecting upon, and distorting, his private affairs, entitled Willobie his Avisa. From this time onward until the year 1609-10, Chapman, Roydon, and John Florio—who in the meantime had joined issue with them—continue to attack and vilify Shakespeare. Every reissue, or attempted reissue, of Willobie his Avisa was intended as an attack upon Shakespeare. Such reissues were made or attempted in 1596-1599-1605 and 1609, though some of them were prevented by the action of the public censor who, we have record, ...
— Shakespeare's Lost Years in London, 1586-1592 • Arthur Acheson

... civil question: What right has any man among you, or any association of men (to come nearer to you) who, out of Parliament cannot be consider'd in a public capacity, to meet, as you daily do, in factious clubs, to vilify the Government in your discourses, and to libel it in all your writings? Who made you judges in Israel? Or how is it consistent with your zeal for the public welfare, to promote sedition? Does your definition of loyal, which is to serve the King according to the laws, allow you the licence ...
— English Satires • Various

... objects offered to them, to ascertain how far they are capable of arriving at these objects, and by what means they can best be trained towards them—is the aim which Spinoza assigns to philosophy. 'Most people,' he adds, 'deride or vilify their nature; it is a better thing to endeavour to understand it; and however extravagant my proceeding may be thought, I propose to analyse the properties of that nature as if it were a mathematical figure.' ...
— Short Studies on Great Subjects • James Anthony Froude

... corn, to the neighbouring port.' And thus every ragged dog mangles me for his own wicked purposes. Some call me Friend—'I was informed by a friend,' says one, 'that so and so has no intention of leaving a farthing to his wife, and that there is no affection between them.' Some others vilify me yet more, and call me Bird—'A bird whistled in my ear, that there are bad practices going on there,' say they. It is true, some call me by the more respectable name of Old Person; yet, not half the omens, ...
— The Sleeping Bard - or, Visions of the World, Death, and Hell • Ellis Wynne

... sublime fools!—and so useful to men! We can do anything we like with them. We can ruin them—and they bear their shame in silence. We can laugh away their reputations over a game at billiards, and they are too pure and proud to even attempt to defend themselves. We can vilify whatever work they do, and they endure the slander,—we can murder them—" he paused," Yes, we can murder them, and they die, without so much as leaving a curse behind them! Extraordinary!- -angelic—superb!—and a wise Fate has ordained that we men shall never sacrifice ...
— The Master-Christian • Marie Corelli

... the upper jaw, the palate, and upper lip to the very nose."30 The progress marked by the contrast of the scientific spirit of the present time with the ravenous credulity of even two centuries back must continue and spread into every province. Some may vilify it; but in vain. Some may sophisticate against it; but in vain. Some may invoke authority and social persecution to stop it; but in vain. Some may appeal to the prejudices and fears of the timid; but in vain. Some may close ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger

... women! I knew a young lady who, against her father's consent, was married to a brother officer of mine; and, as I often used to walk with her (for I knew her father intimately well), she would of her own accord take frequent occasions to ridicule and vilify her husband (for so he was at the time), and exprest great wonder and indignation at the report which she allowed to prevail that she should condescend ever to look at such a fellow with any other design than of laughing at and despising him. The marriage ...
— Amelia (Complete) • Henry Fielding

... will in print about him, he brings no rebutting evidence. I have heard that ghosts do a great many things, but I never heard of one as printing a book or editing a newspaper to vindicate himself. Look out how you vilify a living man, for he may respond with pen, or tongue, or cowhide; but only get a man thoroughly dead (that is, so certified by the coroner) and have a good, heavy tombstone put on the top of him, and then you may say what you ...
— Around The Tea-Table • T. De Witt Talmage

... Christianity. This rather puzzled and distressed him; but notwithstanding his disappointment, he would have me lecture. The meeting was out of doors. I soon had a large audience. I quickly undeceived such as had come expecting to hear me vilify the Bible, the churches, or religion. I spoke in the highest terms of Christ and His teachings. I showed that many of them were the perfection of wisdom and goodness. I spoke of the causes of human wretchedness, and showed that obedience to the teachings of Christ and His Apostles would remove ...
— Modern Skepticism: A Journey Through the Land of Doubt and Back Again - A Life Story • Joseph Barker

... have not fallen into the hands of the leading men. The word politician has come to bear the meaning of political adventurer and almost of political blackleg. If A calls B a politician, A intends to vilify B by so calling him. Whether or no the best citizens of a State will ever be induced to serve in the State legislature by a nobler consideration than that of pay, or by a higher tone of political morals than that now existing, I cannot say. It seems to me that some great ...
— Volume 1 • Anthony Trollope

... was passed on the first of May, 1795, a short time after this letter was written, making it transportation to vilify the National Representation, either by words or writing; and if the offence were committed publicly, or among a certain number of people, it ...
— A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, • An English Lady

... perfect confusion of ideas, to take the theories which learned and speculative men have made from that government, and then, supposing it made on those theories which were made from it, to accuse the government as not corresponding with them. I do not vilify theory and speculation: no, because that would be to vilify reason itself, Neque decipitur ratio, neque decipit unquam. No,—whenever I speak against theory, I mean always a weak, erroneous, fallacious, unfounded, or imperfect theory; and one of the ways of discovering that it is a false theory ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VII. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... has scarcely been heard and hushed, when from another direction there comes another sharp cry of oppression. Another form of inhumanity [15] lifts its hydra head to forge anew the old fetters; to shackle conscience, stop free speech, slander, vilify; to invite its prey, then turn and refuse the victim a solitary vindication in this most ...
— Miscellaneous Writings, 1883-1896 • Mary Baker Eddy

... have thought it better to trust to the justice of my countrymen, that they would judge me by what they see of my conduct on the stage where they have placed me, and what they knew of me before the epoch, since which a particular party has supposed it might answer some view of theirs to vilify me in the public eye. Some, I know, will not reflect how apocryphal is the testimony of enemies so palpably betraying the views with which they give it. But this is an injury to which duty requires every one to submit whom the public think proper to call into its councils. I thank ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson

... sent this vile volume to London to be published, and the book is printed; and the impression is, this day week, arrived here. The books that I have sent over into England, with a design to glorify the Lord Jesus Christ, are not published, but strangely delayed; and the books that are sent over to vilify me, and render me incapable to glorify the Lord Jesus Christ,—these are published." Calef's writings gave a shock to Mather's influence, ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham

... possible exception of President Washington, whose political opponents did not hesitate to rob the vocabulary of vulgarity and wickedness whenever they desired to vilify the Chief Magistrate, Lincoln was the most and "best" abused man who ever held office in the United States. During the first half of his initial term there was no epithet which ...
— Our American Holidays: Lincoln's Birthday • Various

... dreadful book of yours. You know how timid mother is. All timid women are conventional: we must be conventional, Jack, or we are so cruelly, so vilely misunderstood. Even you, who are a man, cannot say what you think without being misunderstood and vilified—yes: I admit it: I have had to vilify you. Do you want to have poor Rhoda misunderstood and vilified to the same way? Would it be right for mother to let her expose herself to such treatment before she is old enough to ...
— Man And Superman • George Bernard Shaw

... an eye upon the coach, and to follow it on foot at some distance: which she did, because if she had suffered him to have rode in the coach with her, it might have subjected her to some misconstructions of the common people, who are always ready to vilify and censure their betters, and to suspect that charity is not always pure charity, but that love or some sinister intention lies hid under its disguise. So discreet and attentive to appearance in all her actions ...
— THE ADVENTURES OF ULYSSES • CHARLES LAMB

... because your form of vice must ever be so distasteful to a woman. And then you are all wrong about your surroundings. You are, you have been, at least, a man of education, and yet you call this a hut and a hole. It is you who make it so! You vilify, where you might ennoble. You defile where you should enrich and keep pure. You are set here, in the midst of the most beautiful scenes of Nature, scenes that cannot be matched anywhere in the world, and yet you despise them and use them for your own undoing ...
— Ringfield - A Novel • Susie Frances Harrison

... propaganda stage with the full force of the editorial virulence of the trust-controlled newspapers directed against labor in favor of "law and order," i.e., the lumber interests. All the machinery of newspaper publicity was used to vilify the lumber worker and to discredit his Union. Nothing was left unsaid that would tend to produce intolerance and hatred or to incite mob violence. This is not only true of Centralia, but of all the cities and towns located in the ...
— The Centralia Conspiracy • Ralph Chaplin

... the transport of munitions to the Allies. In Greece vast sums were cheerfully disbursed by Baron Schenk to work the elections and defeat Venizelos. Roumania was overrun by bands of Germans whose functions were to calumniate, vilify, corrupt and threaten. Spain has been wrought upon in like manner by a small army of Teutons abundantly supplied with the same weapons. Persia was scoured by German agitators who deployed all their talents and acquirements, their knowledge of the ...
— England and Germany • Emile Joseph Dillon

... have not the courage otherwise to defend what they get by their knavery. But damn ye altogether for a pack of crafty rascals, and you, who serve them, for a parcel of hen-hearted numbskulls! They vilify us, the scoundrels do, when there is the only difference that they rob the poor under cover of the law, forsooth, and we plunder the rich under the protection of our own courage. Had you not better make one of us than sneak after these ...
— The Pirates' Who's Who - Giving Particulars Of The Lives and Deaths Of The Pirates And Buccaneers • Philip Gosse

... never be betrayed into making the same mistake; we may try to persuade, and it is better done by example than by argument, but we must never allow ourselves to scoff and deride, and still less to abuse and vilify. We must rather do our best to understand the other point of view, and to acquiesce in the possibility of its being held, even if we cannot understand it. We must take for granted that every one whose life shows evidence of energy, unselfishness, joyfulness, ...
— Joyous Gard • Arthur Christopher Benson

... the face of all this should any British Masons take up the cudgels for the Illuminati and vilify Robison and Barruel for exposing them? The American Mackey, as a consistent Freemason, shows scant sympathy for this traitor in the masonic camp. "Weishaupt," he writes, "was a radical in politics and an infidel in religion, and he organized ...
— Secret Societies And Subversive Movements • Nesta H. Webster

... credulous people in the universe, were made drunk with their own ignorance and folly. Mr. Paine had now written and published his wonderful book, his "Rights of Man," and to put down, to prevent the people from reading, to prejudice the public feeling, and to misrepresent and to vilify the author and his work, the whole power of this powerful government was put in motion. I was myself at this time too young to take any active part in the proceedings; I knew nothing of politics; I loved my ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 1 • Henry Hunt

... for near half a century, to defame and vilify the house of Stuart, and to exalt and magnify the reign of Elizabeth. The Stuarts have found few apologists, for the dead cannot pay for praise; and who will, without reward, oppose the tide of popularity? yet there remains, still, among ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 6 - Reviews, Political Tracts, and Lives of Eminent Persons • Samuel Johnson

... in spirit, the devout a hypocrite, the honest man is artful, the hero is a barbarian, the ascetic is a fool, the unreserved a chatterbox, the prudent a waverer. Tell me, which is the virtue among all the virtues that human malice cannot vilify?" ...
— Initiation into Literature • Emile Faguet

... definitions of their qualities, their separate powers.] For Merlin plumed their airy flight, and then in watery moonbeam dyed his rod eccentric. At the touch ten thousand frogs, strange metamorphosed, croaked even thus: And here they come, on high behest, to vilify the knight that erst defended famed virginity, and matrons all bewronged, and pilgrims hoar, and courteous guise of all! But the age of chivalry is gone, and the glory of ...
— The Surprising Adventures of Baron Munchausen • Rudolph Erich Raspe

... and her state, How she was lost, took captive, made a slave, And how against him set that should her save, Yea, how by hostile ways she did oppose Her Lord and with his enemy did close, For they are true; he that will them deny Must needs the best of records vilify. ...
— Bunyan • James Anthony Froude

... an illustration of the method of the discussion, we mention the title of a book written in favor of Cocceius: "Satan's Defense of himself, on being questioned why he had instigated some persons to distort and vilify the orthodox, wise, and edifying Writings of the Blessed Professor Cocceius, &c., &c." In this work Satan, on being questioned whom he fears most, replies that "no one has done more harm to the power of darkness than Cocceius,—not ...
— History of Rationalism Embracing a Survey of the Present State of Protestant Theology • John F. Hurst

... vilify and victimize Mr. Duffian, and strip him of the honours of his birth, but, like the Martyrs, he will still continue the perfect nobleman. Stoned, I assure you that Mr. Duffian would preserve his breeding. In character he is exquisite; ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... and Mr. Eckels are the two men designated by the "System" to attend public gatherings and vilify Thomas W. Lawson. They ...
— Frenzied Finance - Vol. 1: The Crime of Amalgamated • Thomas W. Lawson

... free-quarters! But no: the days pass, and are reckoned up, and done with; and ever more pressing cares engage. Those fellows on the leeward benches are having an easier time than we poor dogs on the weather side? Then, let us abuse, pelt, vilify then: let us steal their grub, and have at them generally for a set of shirking, malingering brutes! What matter that to-morrow they may be to windward, we to lee? We never can look ahead. And they know this well, the gods our ...
— Pagan Papers • Kenneth Grahame

... these same unprincipled agents, with their hired accomplices and subsidised press, in order to hide the enormity of their crimes, and to divert attention from themselves and their crookedness, systematically and incessantly misrepresent and vilify the ...
— By Canoe and Dog-Train • Egerton Ryerson Young

... retarded the advancement of learning than the disposition of vulgar minds to ridicule and vilify what they cannot comprehend. All industry must be excited by hope; and as the student often proposes no other reward to himself than praise, he is easily discouraged by contempt and insult. He who brings with him into a clamorous multitude the timidity of recluse speculation, and has never ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D, In Nine Volumes - Volume the Third: The Rambler, Vol. II • Samuel Johnson

... and secretly admired, but longed for an opportunity to vilify it to some ardent native. His point of attack would be, that it furnished dangerous opportunities for crime, as illustrated in the case he had recently been discussing. He looked around for some one to accost, and felt aggrieved at finding no available victim. Finally, in great ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 32, June, 1860 • Various

... scurrility and derision. But when a comparative stranger, whom, with characteristic generosity, I have made free of my heart, seizes a moment which should have been devoted to the mastication of one of my peaches to vilify her host, then indeed I feel almost unsexed—I mean unmanned. Are my veins standing ...
— Berry And Co. • Dornford Yates

... the author's purpose to give this false and discouraging picture of the state of his own country. It did not fully answer his end, to exaggerate her burdens, to depreciate her successes, and to vilify her character. Nothing had been done, unless the situation of France were exalted in proportion as that of England had been abased. The reader will excuse the citation I make at length from his book; he outdoes himself upon this occasion. His confidence is indeed ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. I. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... some of it will stick. Perhaps, since the invention of printing, no man had ever been so grossly attacked and belied as I was, by the whole of the public press; with the exception of Mr. Cobbett, who stood manfully by me. I do not know a single public newspaper in the kingdom that did not vilify me, and labour in all ways to sully my character, and to depreciate my exertions. The liberal and enlightened editor of the Examiner, took the lead in making these attacks upon me, and professed to be desperately alarmed, lest the public should imagine that he was the vulgar candidate ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 3 • Henry Hunt

... without his knowledge. It animadverted pretty sharply on the Administration of the day. In the jingling and jangling phraseology of the indictment, it was calculated to "detract, scandalize, and vilify His Grace Charles Duke of Richmond, Lennox and Aubigny, Captain-General and Governor in and over the Provinces of Lower and Upper Canada, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick and their dependencies; and to scandalize ...
— The Story of the Upper Canada Rebellion, Volume 1 • John Charles Dent

... their seats in serious protesting silence when the health of the Queen has been drunk at public banquets, and have found in private converse that hundreds approve their action but do not follow it because they dislike to be thought singular. The out-and-out journalistic supporters of the country vilify the mother country as a whole. They belittle its history and besmirch its rulers. Loyal Australians pooh-pooh these prints and entreat the stranger within their gates to believe that they are despised and without influence. The stranger has only to travel to learn ...
— Recollections • David Christie Murray

... their hearts, he doubts, which is not to be easily removed; for these men do suffer only for their constancy to the Chancellor, or at least from the King's ill-will against him: that they do now all they can to vilify the clergy, and do accuse Rochester [Dolben]... and so do raise scandals, all that is possible, against other of the Bishops. He do suggest that something is intended for the Duke of Monmouth, and it may be, against the Queene also: that we are in no manner sure against an ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys

... applaud the times behind us, and to vilify the present; for the concurrent of her fame carries it to this day, how loyally and victoriously she lived and died, without the grudge and grievance of her people; yet the truth may appear without detraction from the honour of so great a princess. It is manifest she left more ...
— Travels in England and Fragmenta Regalia • Paul Hentzner and Sir Robert Naunton

... political wickedness: they have made the king tell his people that they were deprived of their rights, and, by direct and necessary implication, that they and their ancestors for a century past had been slaves: they have made the king vilify the memory of his own brother and father. Rights! There are no rights whatever without corresponding duties. Look at the history of the growth of our constitution, and you will see that our ancestors never upon any occasion stated, as a ground for claiming ...
— Specimens of the Table Talk of S.T.Coleridge • Coleridge

... in Madrid, in the meantime, spared no effort to vilify me. They started a publication called The Friend of the Christian Religion, in which a stupid but furious attack upon me appeared, which I, however, treated with the contempt it deserved. But not satisfied with this, they ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow

... and we commend the forbearance of the considerate crowd in not carrying their coercive measures to extremes, because, the humbug being exploded, all that is necessary now is to laugh, hiss, and vociferously applaud. When men make up their minds to vilify the Bible, denounce the Constitution, and defame their country (although this is a free country), they should go down in some obscure cellar, remote from mortal ken, and, even there, whisper their hideous ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage

... But he has not effected these radical and salutary changes in the colonial policy without having encountered a long and inveterate hostility. Many have been the attempts which this faction have made to vilify his motives and misrepresent his actions; but to every charge of his enemies his unshaken integrity and unwearied zeal for the conscientious discharge of his duties have proved a sufficient refutation. The opinion ...
— Statistical, Historical and Political Description of the Colony of New South Wales and its Dependent Settlements in Van Diemen's Land • William Charles Wentworth

... notwithstanding the slight at which she at one time had reason to feel piqued, is one of the strongest evidences against the slanderers of Her Majesty. The moral conduct of the Princess has never been called in question. Amid the millions of infamous falsehoods invented to vilify and degrade every other individual connected with the Court, no imputation, from the moment of her arrival in France, up to the fatal one of her massacre, ever tarnished her character. To her opinion, then, the most prejudiced ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XV. and XVI., Volume 7 • Madame du Hausset, and of an Unknown English Girl and the Princess Lamballe

... an efficient administrator, a strategist of inspired audacity, a tactician of endless resources, an engineer of infinite inventiveness, an unerring judge of men. But he never boasts, except in speeches to hearten discouraged troops. He does not vilify or underrate his enemies. ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 7 • Various

... Rich was a golden blonde, with nothing dark about her but her black eyes. To make out this complicated story, Mr. Massey arranges the Sonnets in groups to suit his fancy, baptizes them as he chooses, and does not scruple to vilify the fair name of man or woman in order to make out his argument and to defend the spotless purity of Shakespeare's ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, April 1875, Vol. XV., No. 88 • Various

... de Pancorvo[5], in whose house the Viceroy resided while he was at Cuzco. Mancio Serra de Leguisano married Beatriz Nusta, an Inca princess, daughter of Huayna Ccapac. The Viceroy then made some final interpolations to vilify the Incas, which would not have been approved by some of those who had attested, certainly not by Polo de Ondegardo ...
— History of the Incas • Pedro Sarmiento de Gamboa

... apostate; or did he simply give way to weakness? There is an essential difference between the two cases, and they ought to be judged accordingly. There are men who through sheer perversity renounce their faith, and are not ashamed to vilify the religion which they once professed. They are generally embodiments of irreverence, who glory in their atheism, and talk of infidelity as if it were a cardinal virtue. Whenever there is foul work to be done, they are almost always to the fore; whenever holy things are to be held up to ridicule, ...
— Men of the Bible; Some Lesser-Known Characters • George Milligan, J. G. Greenhough, Alfred Rowland, Walter F.

... commanding another directly adverse thereto, but also as decreeing and bringing to pass opposite and contradictory events. He ordained that one man should believe the Holy Scriptures, and reverence them, and that another man should, at the same time, deny, and hate, and vilify them. He ordained that men should at one period of their lives preach the gospel, and write in favor of Christianity, and at another period become infidel lecturers and disputants. He decreed that some should believe the Calvinistic doctrine ...
— The Calvinistic Doctrine of Predestination Examined and Refuted • Francis Hodgson

... in public without especial permission from one of her representatives. He must not be a "leader" in the church and must never be called one. He may read only the Bible and Mrs. Eddy for religious instruction. He shall not "vilify" the Pastor Emeritus. He is in duty bound to go to Mrs. Eddy's home and serve her in person for one year if she requires it of him. He may not permit his children to believe in Santa Claus—Mrs. Eddy abolished Santa ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. 31, No. 1, May 1908 • Various

... inconvenient presence. This was, it is true, rather the tone of English society in his time, but Americans were largely responsible for changing it, and Mr. Adams had every possible reason for affecting the manner of a courtier even if he did not feel the sentiment. Never did his son see him flatter or vilify, or show a sign of envy or jealousy; never a shade of vanity or self-conceit. Never a tone of arrogance! Never ...
— The Education of Henry Adams • Henry Adams

... started in 1820, to advocate the cause of George IV., and to vilify the Queen and her friends, male and female. The first number was published on December 17th, and "told at once from the convulsed centre to the extremity of the Kingdom. There was talent of every sort in the paper that could have been desired or devised for ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott

... trotted back to their firm friends the Highlanders, and with many grins confided to them: "That dam white regiment no dam use. Sulky - ugh! Dirty - ugh! Hya, any tot for Johnny?" Whereat the Highlanders smote the Goorkhas as to the head, and told them not to vilify a British Regiment, and the Goorkhas grinned cavernously, for the Highlanders were their elder brothers and entitled to the privileges of kinship. The common soldier who touches a Goorkha is more than likely to ...
— This is "Part II" of Soldiers Three, we don't have "Part I" • Rudyard Kipling

... Madrid have, in the meantime, spared no effort to vilify me. They have started a publication called 'The friend of the Christian religion,' in which has appeared a furious attack upon me, which I have however treated with the contempt it deserves. But not satisfied with this, they have endeavoured to incite the ignorant ...
— Letters of George Borrow - to the British and Foreign Bible Society • George Borrow

... listens anxiously to Paul's preaching. 5 Thamyris, her admirer, concerts with Theoclia her mother to dissuade her, 12 in vain. 14 Demas and Hermogenes vilify ...
— The Forbidden Gospels and Epistles, Complete • Archbishop Wake

... imprudence which had exposed him to the vengeance of political adversaries and to the enmity of the vulgar. Whilst the passions roused by the prosecution were at their height, the fallen Chancellor was treated with much harshness by Parliament, and with actual brutality by the mob. Ever ready to vilify lawyers, the rabble seized on so favorable an occasion for giving expression to one of their strongest prejudices. Amongst the crowds who followed the Earl to the Tower with curses, voices were heard to exclaim that "Staffordshire had produced the three greatest scoundrels of England—Jack ...
— A Book About Lawyers • John Cordy Jeaffreson

... a Protestant renegade, born in the Palatinate; turned Catholic on a visit to Rome, and devoted his life to vilify his former co-religionists, and to invoke the Catholic powers to combine to their extermination; he was a man of learning, but of most ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood

... off to Bristol pretty suddenly, leaving the odious and ungrateful wretches at Hackton to vilify us, no doubt, in our absence. My stud and hounds were sold off immediately; the harpies would have been glad to pounce upon my person; but that was out of their power. I had raised, by cleverness and management, to the full as much on my mines and private ...
— Barry Lyndon • William Makepeace Thackeray

... philological book, a poem if you choose to call it so. Now, what a fine triumph it would have been for those who wished to vilify the book and its author, provided they could have detected the latter tripping in his philology—they might have instantly said that he was an ignorant pretender to philology—they laughed at the idea of his taking up a viper ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow

... combat with such vehement individuality as enables us at a glance to detect the offence and the offender. He says, "Let Aristophanes and his comedians make plays and scour their mouths on Socrates, these very mouths they make to vilify shall be the means to amplify his virtues," etc. "And here," says Doctor Warburton, "Shakspeare is so clearly marked out as not to be mistaken." This opinion is fortified by the concurrence of Farmer, Steevens, Reid, Malone, Knight, Collier, and ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II., November, 1858., No. XIII. • Various

... their own; and, on the other, more or less ignorant laymen attributed to the drink such virtues as its real champions among the physicians never dreamed of. It was the favorite pastime of its friends to exaggerate coffee's merits; and of its enemies, to vilify its users. All this furnished good "copy" for and against the coffee house, which became the central figure ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers

... the way, and become as they. Besides, they brought up an ill report of your Lord, persuading others that He was a taskmaster. They also brought up an evil report of the good land, saying it was not half so good as some pretend it was. They also began to vilify His servants, and to count the very best of them meddlesome, troublesome, busybodies. Further, they could call the bread of God husks; the comforts of His children, fancies; the travel and labour of ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... under some other name, better models and more efficient instruction, than what was practised on them for grammar in the school-room. No disciple of an able grammarian can ever speak ill of grammar, unless he belong to that class of knaves who vilify what they despair ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown

... supplied the Caffres with the firearms and ammunition to maintain their savage and deplorable wars? Assuredly they are not military.... Cease then, if thou would'st be counted among the just, to vilify soldiers."—W. Napier, Lieut. ...
— Jackanapes, Daddy Darwin's Dovecot and Other Stories • Juliana Horatio Ewing



Words linked to "Vilify" :   clapperclaw, revile, abuse, vituperate



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