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Affront   /əfrˈənt/   Listen
Affront

noun
1.
A deliberately offensive act or something producing the effect of deliberate disrespect.  Synonym: insult.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Affront" Quotes from Famous Books



... angry at what he considered an intolerable affront, Durham had placed the reins of government in the firm hands of that fine old soldier, Sir John Colborne, and had gone to speak with his enemies in the gate. Not only was the cause of Canada left bleeding; but as soon as Durham's back was turned, rebellion broke out once more. This second outbreak ...
— The Winning of Popular Government - A Chronicle of the Union of 1841 • Archibald Macmechan

... dare, if thus they dare Be impudent to Heaven, and play with prayer, Play with that fear, with that religious awe, Which keeps men free, and yet is man's great law! What can they but the worst of Atheists be Who, while they word it 'gainst impiety, Affront the throne of God with their false deeds? Alas! this wonder in the Atheist breeds. Are these the men that would the age reform, That Down with Superstition cry, and swarm This painted glass, that sculpture, to deface, But worship pride and avarice in their place? Religion ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson

... entree of the house comes when he feels inclined. Introductions are not indispensable as with us: any gentleman may ask a lady to dance with him, whether he has been formally presented or not, and it would be an affront to decline except for a previous engagement. The company assemble about ten, and often dance till three or four in the morning. In any one house we see nearly the same people once a week for the whole winter, and ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 86, February, 1875 • Various

... minutes and I saw on his desk a German newspaper with a leading article signed by his name. I read it and was amazed to find that it was a violent attack upon England, demanding unforgetfulness and unforgiveness of the affront which we had put upon Germany in the Morocco crisis. When the man came back I ventured to question him about this article, and he declared that his old friendship for England had undergone a change. He could give me no expression ...
— The Soul of the War • Philip Gibbs

... who had been asked months before, but scarcely expected, caused great commotion. My aunts went about wringing their hands distractedly. Lady Speldhurst was a personage of some consequence; she was a distant cousin, and had been for years on cool terms with us all, on account of some fancied affront or slight when she had paid her LAST visit, about the time of my christening. She was seventy years old; she was infirm, rich, and testy; moreover, she was my godmother, though I had forgotten the fact; but ...
— Stories by Modern American Authors • Julian Hawthorne

... business, I've forgotten what, You mentioned, that you wished with me To talk about, and privately?" "Oh, I remember! Never mind! Some more convenient time I'll find. The Thirtieth Sabbath this! Would you Affront the circumcised Jew?" "Religious scruples I have none." "Ah, but I have. I am but one Of the canaille—a feeble brother. Your pardon. Some fine day or other I'll tell you what it was." Oh, day Of woeful doom to me! Away The ...
— Horace • Theodore Martin

... sergeant, risen from the ranks and cocky about it, came in and turned himself out of a dripping greatcoat, dapper and dry in his red tunic, pipe-clayed belt, and winking buttons. He ordered tea and toast and Dundee marmalade with an air of gay well-being that was no less than a personal affront to a man in Mr. Traill's frame of mind. Trouble brewed with the tea that Ailie Lindsey, a tall lassie of fifteen, but shy and elfish as of old, brought in on ...
— Greyfriars Bobby • Eleanor Atkinson

... part of heaven stars but lately {thus} honored to my affliction; there, where the last and most limited circle surrounds the extreme part of the axis {of the world}. Is there, then, {any ground} why one should hesitate to affront Juno, and dread my being offended, who only benefit them by my resentment? See what a great thing I have done! How vast is my power! I forbade her to be of human shape; she has been made a Goddess; 'tis thus ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Vol. I, Books I-VII • Publius Ovidius Naso

... wait to hear the end of this gratuitous observation. It was very rude of me, but in another minute I should have been guilty of a worse affront. My annoyance had deepened into something like dismay. It was not only Bob Evers who was misconstruing my little attentions to Mrs. Lascelles. I was more or less prepared for that. But here were outsiders talking about us—the three of us! So far from putting a stop to the talk, I had ...
— No Hero • E.W. Hornung

... legs. They always did. This is a sort of thing that readily begets a personal feeling against nature. There seems no reason why the shower should not come five minutes before or five minutes after, unless you suppose an intention to affront you. The Cigarette had a mackintosh which put him more or less above these contrarieties. But I had to bear the brunt uncovered. I began to remember that nature was a woman. My companion, in a rosier temper, listened with great satisfaction to my Jeremiads, and ironically concurred. ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 1 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... Every poem is a train of thought and every essay is the record of sensation. This 'romantic' had something classic in his moderation, a moderation which becomes at times as terrifying as Poe's logic. To 'cultivate one's hysteria' so calmly, and to affront the reader (Hypocrite lecteur, mon semblable, mon frere) as a judge rather than as a penitent; to be a casuist in confession; to be so much a moralist, with so keen a sense of the ecstasy of evil: that has always bewildered the world, ...
— Figures of Several Centuries • Arthur Symons

... to understand, sir, that you are intimating disparagement of the moon? If a certain female has been graciously pleased to signify approval of that orb, any slight cast upon the moon, sir, I shall regard as a personal affront. ...
— Quality Street - A Comedy • J. M. Barrie

... had you raised her hand above her head and then dropped it, it would have meant that you did not wish her for a mate and that you released her from all obligation to you. By doing neither you have put upon her the greatest affront that a man may put upon a woman. Now she is your slave. No man will take her as mate, or may take her honorably, until he shall have overcome you in combat, and men do not choose slave women as their mates—at least not ...
— At the Earth's Core • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... the absurd idea from me, and brought the crucifix aboard along with the rest of the gold. I shall be glad when I know that the vines have again covered that lonely-looking gravestone from sight. I can't help feeling my own glorious good fortune to be somehow an affront ...
— Spanish Doubloons • Camilla Kenyon

... feared in fact among the soldiery those outrages to her honour, to guard against which she had from the first assumed the dress of a man. In the eyes of the Church her dress was a crime and she abandoned it; but a renewed affront forced her to resume the one safeguard left her, and the return to it was treated as a relapse into heresy which doomed her to death. At the close of May, 1431, a great pile was raised in the market-place of Rouen where her statue stands now. Even the brutal soldiers who snatched ...
— History of the English People, Volume III (of 8) - The Parliament, 1399-1461; The Monarchy 1461-1540 • John Richard Green

... have tricks played on them; least of all by strangers. Bruce seemed to take the nurse-disguise as a personal affront to himself. Then, too, the man was not of his own army. On the contrary, the scent proclaimed him one of the horde whom Bruce's friends so manifestly hated—one of the breed that had more than once fired ...
— Bruce • Albert Payson Terhune

... never before seen the ladylike Lavinia Dorman so completely and ungovernably angry. I could do nothing with her, and last evening it took the united efforts of Martin, father, and Evan to convince her that it was not a real affront. Poor Mr. Latham, he has not yet gotten beyond money valuation of friendship; but then it is probably because he has had no chance. Perhaps—but no, life is too serious just now in that quarter for me to allow ...
— People of the Whirlpool • Mabel Osgood Wright

... head of his column and shouted, "Boys, McClellan is in command again; three cheers!" The cheers were given with wild delight, and were taken up and passed toward the rear of the column. Warm friend of McClellan as I was, I felt my flesh cringe at the unnecessary affront to the unfortunate commander of that army. But no word was spoken. Pope lifted his hat in a parting salute to McClellan and rode quietly on with his escort. [Footnote: General Hatch had been in ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V1 • Jacob Dolson Cox

... rose also, the one indignant and aggrieved at this wanton affront to her lover, the other gloomily resigned to what seemed ...
— Through the Wall • Cleveland Moffett

... Tidore, had caused the death of a Chinese sow belonging to him, he imprisoned that nobleman, after which he set him free, having first anointed his face with bacon, which among that people is reckoned a most heinous affront. Not contented with this violence, he sent to rob the houses of the Moors of their provisions, and became suddenly most outrageous and tyrannical. The Moors stood upon their defence, and treated some of ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VI - Early English Voyages Of Discovery To America • Robert Kerr

... gathered himself to await Achilles, and within him his stout heart was set to strive and fight. As a leopardess goeth forth from a deep thicket to affront a huntsman, nor is afraid at heart, nor fleeth when she heareth the bay of hounds; for albeit the man first smite her with thrust or throw, yet even pierced through with the spear she ceaseth not ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer (Lang, Leaf, Myers trans.)

... the decadence of the Italian teaching of song. In Germany no attention is paid to it. The ah, as sung generally by most Italians of the present day, quite flat, sounds commonplace, almost like an affront. It can range itself, that is connect itself, with no other vowel, makes all vocal connection impossible, evolves very ugly registers; and, lying low in the throat, summons forth no palatal resonance. ...
— How to Sing - [Meine Gesangskunst] • Lilli Lehmann

... of the sort of affront to little Virginia for which the public thought him responsible, I do not see how the girl could ever have told it to grandma. I do not see how grandma could ever have been made to understand it. I suspect that the worst that grandma ever believed, ...
— Vandemark's Folly • Herbert Quick

... Johnson's Works, v. 431.] but also at the view which found "human life to be a state where much is to be endured and little to be enjoyed". It would be hard to say whether Johnson found more in Fielding to affront him, as pessimist or as critic. And it would be equally hard to say in which of the two characters lay the greater barrier to literary insight. Even Richardson—no less revolutionary, though in a different way, than Fielding—was ...
— English literary criticism • Various

... because she doubts her control of herself; she turns the one against the other. If she had more confidence in herself she would be much less haughty. With this exception is there anywhere on earth a gentler, sweeter girl? Is there any who endures an affront with greater patience, any who is more afraid of annoying others? Is there any with less pretension, except in the matter of virtue? Moreover, she is not proud of her virtue, she is only proud in order to preserve her virtue, and if she can follow the ...
— Emile • Jean-Jacques Rousseau

... expression, and her hair was of the loveliest Titian red. She had a figure which was the envy of all modellers of dress-stands,—and as she was wont to say of herself, it would have been difficult to find fault with the 'chic' of her outward appearance. Painters and sculptors would have found her an affront to nature—but then Mrs. Bludlip Courtenay had no acquaintance with painters and sculptors. She thought them 'queer' people, with very improper ideas. She was exceedingly put out by Walden's abrupt pause in his reading of the 'Dearly ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli

... lured roamers to India by saying, "It is good for every man to see some little of the great Indian Empire and the strange folk who move about it," obligingly prepares those entering by the gateway of Calcutta for an olfactory affront. The stenches of Calcutta are numerous and pervading, surely; but the tourist who has crawled up the Bay of Bengal in a caravel of the Peninsular & Oriental Company cheerfully accepts them. The "P. & O." line is one of Britain's venerated institutions; consequently ...
— East of Suez - Ceylon, India, China and Japan • Frederic Courtland Penfield

... had in it something of the primitive barbarian ardour of pursuit. He cared nothing—less than nothing—for Laura Wilde herself, yet it was not in his nature that he should suffer in silence before a sudden and unreasonable affront. ...
— The Wheel of Life • Ellen Anderson Gholson Glasgow

... Lambert, as proud as her husband, came by where she was, and as the present princess always hath precedency of the relict of the dead, so she put by my Lady Ireton, who, notwithstanding her piety and humility, was a little grieved at the affront.' ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 1 • Grace Wharton and Philip Wharton

... as were natural for one of Mr. Benfield's habits and education to employ. Amongst the rest he is made to complain of his Lordship's endeavoring to prevent an intercourse of politeness and sentiment between him and Mr. Benfield; and to aggravate the affront, he expressly declares Mr. Benfield's visits to be only on account of respect and of gratitude, as no pecuniary ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. III. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... he to do? If he demanded an explanation from him, the Bohemian would protest that he was innocent, and nothing would be gained by doing this. The best course was to swallow the affront in silence. Nobody, after ...
— Sentimental Education, Volume II - The History of a Young Man • Gustave Flaubert

... sir," continued Murray, "who acts upon your principles, must know himself to be a slave;-and to resent being called so, is to affront his conscience. A name is nothing, the fact ought to knock upon your heart, and there arouse the indignation of a Scot and a Murray. See you not the villages of your country burning around you? the castles ...
— The Scottish Chiefs • Miss Jane Porter

... had come to take it as a personal affront that these radicals should go on denouncing the cause which Peter had espoused. They all thought of Peter as a comrade, they were most friendly to him; but Peter had the knowledge of how they would regard him when they knew the real truth, and this ...
— 100%: The Story of a Patriot • Upton Sinclair

... certainly had a forlorn look and an empty ring. Pete sat on his perch grim and curious. He seemed to regard the bustle and hammering as a personal affront. ...
— Chicken Little Jane • Lily Munsell Ritchie

... tr-rouble, as Bice said; it would have been far more amusing if there had been a great deal more tr-rouble. The Contessa dropped down in the corner of the sofa from which she had risen. She closed her eyes for the moment, and swallowed the affront that had been put upon her, and what was worse than the affront, the blow at her heart which this trifling little lord had delivered without flinching. This was to be the end of her schemes, that she was to be separated summarily and remorselessly from the child she had brought ...
— Sir Tom • Mrs. Oliphant

... received a blow from the revolver on his chest at the same time that the lieutenant slapped him in the face. The old man doubled over, longing to weep, longing to perish; but no tears came, nor did life escape from his body under this affront, as he wished. . . . With the two buckets in his hands, he found himself dipping up water from the canal, carrying it the length of the file, giving it to men who, each in his turn, dropped his gun to gulp the liquid with ...
— The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse • Vicente Blasco Ibanez

... and when these interests began to revive, sudden gusts of rage would tear her, and she would fall into abrupt reveries, declaring to herself that she would tell Lloyd how she had been insulted! But she reminded herself that she must choose just the right moment to enlist his sympathy for the affront; she must decide with just what caress she would tell him that she meant to leave Old Chester, and come, with David, to live in Philadelphia. (Oh, would Frederick ever die?)... But, little by little, she put the miserable matter behind her, and filled the days before Lloyd's arrival with ...
— The Awakening of Helena Richie • Margaret Deland

... some say of five thousand and some of thirty thousand, and founded the rival University of Leipsic, leaving no more than two thousand students at Prague. Full of indignation against Huss, whom they regarded as the prime author of this affront and wrong, they spread throughout Germany the most unfavorable reports of him ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various

... by or or nor, require a singular verb; and, if a nominative come after the verb, that must be singular also: as, "That a drunkard should be poor, or that a fop should be ignorant, is not strange."—"To give an affront, or to take one tamely, is no mark of a great mind." So, when the phrases are unconnected: as, "To spread suspicion, to invent calumnies, to propagate scandal, requires neither ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown

... his designs, looking upon him as already fixed in the kingdom. There was also a company of women in the court, which excited new disturbances; for Pheroras's wife, together with her mother and sister, as also Antipater's mother, grew very impudent in the palace. She also was so insolent as to affront the king's two daughters, [44] on which account the king hated her to a great degree; yet although these women were hated by him, they domineered over others: there was only Salome who opposed their good agreement, and informed the king of their meetings, as not being for the advantage of ...
— The Wars of the Jews or History of the Destruction of Jerusalem • Flavius Josephus

... his story Beorn exclaimed, "I will go at once, and will put such an affront upon this Walter Fitz-Urse that he must needs meet me in ...
— Wulf the Saxon - A Story of the Norman Conquest • G. A. Henty

... blows over. It would be bad enough to kill the man right out, but a thousand times worse to leave him to bleed to death. I'm not so sure what Jarvis might say to save his skin. You see, he was paid to bring his man to Spring Gardens, so that you might affront him and get him to fight you," added Rofflash ...
— Madame Flirt - A Romance of 'The Beggar's Opera' • Charles E. Pearce

... Carford cried out, his sword dropped from his hand, and he fell heavily on the gravel of the terrace. The servants rushed forward and knelt down beside him. M. de Fontelles did not leave his place, but stood, with the point of his naked sword on the ground, looking at the man who had put an affront on him and whom he had now chastised. The sudden change that took me from love's pastimes to a scene so stern deprived me of speech for a moment. I ran to Fontelles and faced him, panting but saying nothing. He turned his eyes on me: they were calm, but shone still ...
— Simon Dale • Anthony Hope

... the honor to profess; which, as it is one of the noblest inventions of men, and as I had been always in the highest degree proud of my excellence in it, I suffered so much from the ill-treatment my fiddle received, that I would have given all my remainder of skin to have preserved it from this affront. ...
— From This World to the Next • Henry Fielding

... up at that affront, but his wife, the mild Iduna, quieted his anger. Freya turned to Loki and reproved him for speaking ...
— The Children of Odin - The Book of Northern Myths • Padraic Colum

... notwithstanding the strict rigor with which he preserved the dignity of his stations and the hasty impatience with which he resented any affront to his person or orders, disobedience to which he could in no instance brook in any person on board, he was one of the best natured fellows alive. He acted the part of a father to his sailors; he expressed great tenderness ...
— Journal of A Voyage to Lisbon • Henry Fielding

... has said in effect that no man would dare to affront the ears of his fellows—men much worse than himself perhaps—with the true details of his hidden history. Knowing all the truth, they would shrink from him. How much more then at such sights and sounds would a pure spirit, washed clean of every taint of ...
— Stella Fregelius • H. Rider Haggard

... fiend who would shoot you on the slightest provocation. The girl had been thrust into the background, and the hero had been made into a coward and a paltry villain; they were all desperadoes upon the screen. Never in his life had Bently Brown been made to suffer such an affront. Never had he dreamed that his work would be made a thing ...
— The Phantom Herd • B. M. Bower

... seeking, have for some years past thrown me so closely into intercourse with your family that now to be cast off, and to be put on one side as a disgraced person,—and that so quickly after the death of her who loved me so dearly and who was so dear to me,—is such an affront as I cannot bear and hold up my head afterwards. I have come to be known as her whom your uncle trusted and loved, as her whom your wife trusted and loved,—obscure as I was before;—and as her whom, may I not say, you ...
— The Duke's Children • Anthony Trollope

... abandon the faith; and in order not to stain their catans, as they said, with such people, they left them alive and exiled them to the Philipinas. Here they were very kindly received—as was required by Christian piety, and by the cause for which they had been exiled—without considering the affront which the Japanese thought to put upon us by sending the dregs ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XXIV, 1630-34 • Various

... as I have said, in a very bad humor. She had by no means recovered from what she conceived to be the affront put upon her by the brilliant display made by Count Nobili, at the festival of the Holy Countenance, nor, indeed, from the ...
— The Italians • Frances Elliot

... gentle reproof of importunacy. If the jewelled hand had struck Robert brutally in the face it could not more have staggered him. All the air seemed to glow red around him; his reason surrendered itself to fury at this unmeaning, indecent affront. ...
— The Proud Prince • Justin Huntly McCarthy

... in a storm, and vowed no one should have my room, and I should not stir a foot for a hundred of them. And here had she kept him in the dark, as if he were a babe, instead of the head of the house. It was an affront never to be forgiven. If the vicomte had not been the friend of his father, he would break off the match, and forbid him the house. As it was, he was powerless, tied ...
— Rosin the Beau • Laura Elizabeth Howe Richards

... become a coward, for I as much abhor a dastardly spirit as any boy in your school can possibly do; but I would wish you to convince them that you merited not that appellation, by showing through the whole of your behaviour, a resolution that despised accidental pain, and avoided revenging an affront for no other reason than because you were convinced it shewed a much nobler spirit to pardon than to resent. And you may be assured, my dear, few are the days that pass without affording us some opportunity of exerting our patience, and showing that, although we disdain quarrelling, still ...
— The Life and Perambulations of a Mouse • Dorothy Kilner

... natives regarded him with a sullen but assumed indifference, and drew back, looking at me inquiringly. The matter might have ended seriously, but for two things—Marchmont was at heart a gentleman, and in response to my urgent request to him to apologise for the gross affront he had put upon our host—did so frankly by first extending his hand to the man who had knocked him down. And then, as he never did things by halves, he came with me to Asi and said, as he shook ...
— The Call Of The South - 1908 • Louis Becke

... this negligently, as though conscious of the absurdity of presenting his credentials to a subordinate; but his manner no longer incensed Amherst: it merely strengthened his resolve to sink all sense of affront in the supreme effort of obtaining ...
— The Fruit of the Tree • Edith Wharton

... dear little angel, how can I assist you? I'm very sorry that I can't help it—I'm cursed drunk, and not proper company for a lady of your dignity,—but I won't affront you,—I mean to make myself agreeable, and if I do not—it is the fault of that place, [Pointing to his head.] and not of this, ...
— The Dramatist; or Stop Him Who Can! - A Comedy, in Five Acts • Frederick Reynolds

... make clear work in Affrica."[112] A few days later he advised that everything on the African coast should be done "so as (the) king of England may not appeare in it, but only (the) Rll Company, & they takeing occasion from our affront."[113] Still later he asserted that even in Holland everyone believed that since the king and the Royal Company had gone so far, they would seize the entire African coast so that the whole affair ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 4, 1919 • Various

... inconvenience and disturbance to have perpetual regidores. The regidores in this city from its foundation discharged their duties little more than a year, during which time there were among them parties and factions; as a result of this, the governor, seeing certain of them maltreat or affront one of the alcaldes-in-ordinary in the town-hall, sent two of the said regidores with the record of their trial, referred to your royal Audiencia in Nueva Espana. I removed the said cabildo, and appointed new regidores, as in ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803 - Volume III, 1569-1576 • E.H. Blair

... than King Frederick how many measures of cloth it took to make a jacket. In fact," continued he laughing, "I was nobody in comparison with them. They continually tormented me about matters belonging to tailors, of which I was entirely ignorant, although, in order not to affront them, I answered just as gravely as if the fate of an army depended upon the cut of a jacket. When I went to see the King of Prussia, instead of a library, I found that he had a large room, like an arsenal, furnished with shelves and pegs; ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton

... set the club upon him," cried Windham; "Miss Burney has some very true admirers there, and I am sure they will eagerly assist." Indeed, the Burney family seem to have been apprehensive that some public affront, such as the doctor's unpardonable folly, to use the mildest term had richly deserved, would be put upon'him. The medical men spoke out, and plainly told him that his daughter must resign ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 1 • Madame D'Arblay

... value mental ability, and eagerly seek for it, will generally succeed in obtaining men beyond mediocrity, and often men whom they can trust to carry on public affairs according to their unfettered judgment; to whom it would be an affront to require that they should give up that judgment at the behest of their inferiors in knowledge. If such persons, honestly sought, are not to be found, then indeed the electors are justified in taking other precautions, for they can not be expected to ...
— Considerations on Representative Government • John Stuart Mill

... position as a neutral oasis encircled by belligerents is fraught with difficulty, has long been treated as hardly more than an adjunct of the German empire, and many of the best Swiss writers, far from resenting this affront, welcome it as a compliment. Just as Americans occasionally write about "the King" when alluding to the British Sovereign, so the Swiss often fall into the way of describing the operations of "our army," "our cause," ...
— England and Germany • Emile Joseph Dillon

... from the highest stratum of society to the one in which I am to-day. We cannot, and do not desire to pose as contented men, or as men who are looking for mild solutions of the problems that are now pressing for settlement. I cannot, therefore, affront you when I say that by being among you I prove that I ...
— The Transgressors - Story of a Great Sin • Francis A. Adams

... This is a sort of thing that readily begets a personal feeling against nature. There seems no reason why the shower should not come five minutes before or five minutes after, unless you suppose an intention to affront you. The Cigarette had a mackintosh which put him more or less above these contrarieties. But I had to bear the brunt uncovered. I began to remember that nature was a woman. My companion, in a rosier temper, listened with great ...
— An Inland Voyage • Robert Louis Stevenson

... pitiful plight spend at best the remainder of their time with tears and weeping for those their children, of and from whom they expected, (and, with good reason, should have obtained and reaped,) in these latter days of theirs, joy and comfort. Other parents there have been, so impatient of that affront and indignity put upon them and their families, that, transported with the extremity of passion, in a mad and frantic mood, through the vehemency of a grievous fury and raging sorrow, have drowned, hanged, killed, and otherwise put violent hands on themselves. Others, ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais

... punched the bag with the college boys, and taught Bobby Boynton to dance the tango. So obnoxious was the sight of him to the Honorable Percival that he turned his chair to the wall and buried himself in "Guillim's Display of Heraldry." He considered it as a personal affront on the part of Fate that just as he was beginning to find the voyage endurable this prancing young montebank should appear to ...
— The Honorable Percival • Alice Hegan Rice

... Kami, although burning with rage at the affront, still thought that as he was on duty he was bound to obey, and tied up the ribbon of the sock. Then Kotsuke no Suke, turning from him, petulantly exclaimed: "Why, how clumsy you are! You cannot so much as tie up the ribbon of a sock properly! Any one can see that you are a boor ...
— Tales of Old Japan • Algernon Bertram Freeman-Mitford

... order is given to move off, and the snake begins to writhe. Progress is steady, but not exhilarating. We have several battalions of the Division in front of us (which Bobby Little resents as a personal affront), but have been assured that we shall see all the fighting we want. The situation appears to be that owing to the terrific artillery bombardment the attacking force will meet with little or no opposition in the German front-line trenches; or second ...
— The First Hundred Thousand • Ian Hay

... still is childish folly, Going backward is a crime: None should patiently endure Any ill that he can cure; Onward! keep the march of Time, Onward! while a wrong remains To be conquer'd by the right; While Oppression lifts a finger To affront us by his might; While an error clouds the reason Of the universal heart, Or a slave awaits his freedom Action is the ...
— Successful Recitations • Various

... wherever she went there went he! He always knew where the plump sister was. He wouldn't catch anybody else. If you had fallen up against him, as some of them did, and stood there, he would have made a feint of endeavoring to seize you, which would have been an affront to your understanding, and would instantly have sidled off in the direction ...
— Short Stories Old and New • Selected and Edited by C. Alphonso Smith

... "Go thou and slay So and So; and when thou returnest my Angels shall bear thee into Paradise. And shouldst thou die, natheless even so will I send my Angels to carry thee back into Paradise." So he caused them to believe; and thus there was no order of his that they would not affront any peril to execute, for the great desire they had to get back into that Paradise of his. And in this manner the Old One got his people to murder any one whom he desired to get rid of. Thus, too, the great dread that he inspired all Princes withal, made them become his tributaries ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa

... a gleam On many circling things!—the courtesies Which graced his bearing toward our officer Amid the tumults of the late campaign, His wish for peace with England, his affront At Alexander's tedious-timed reply... Well, it will thrust a thorn in Russia's side, If I err ...
— The Dynasts - An Epic-Drama Of The War With Napoleon, In Three Parts, - Nineteen Acts, And One Hundred And Thirty Scenes • Thomas Hardy

... Hussars, getting good plunder, had by no means demolished the Saxons; but had left them time to draw up in firm order, with a hedge in front, a little west of the Village;—from which post, unassailable by Ziethen, they would have got safe off to the main body, with little but an affront and some loss of goods. The new force—a rapid Katzler with light horse in the van, cuirassiers and foot rapidly following him—sweeps past the long Village, "through a thin wood and a defile;" finds the enemy firmly ranked as ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XV. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle

... in the picture the exact feeling which he has described in the text. I have a little sketch of his, in which a cannon-ball is supposed to have just carried off the head of an aide-de-camp,—messenger I had perhaps better say, lest I might affront military feelings,—who is kneeling on the field of battle and delivering a despatch to Marlborough on horseback. The graceful ease with which the duke receives the message though the messenger's head be gone, and the soldierlike precision with which the headless hero finishes his last ...
— English Caricaturists and Graphic Humourists of the Nineteenth Century. - How they Illustrated and Interpreted their Times. • Graham Everitt

... "Louis," said he, "I will not hear any one speak disrespectfully of Miss Leicester. I consider any insult offered to her as a personal affront; therefore, if we are to remain friends, you must say no more on that subject now ...
— Isabel Leicester - A Romance • Clotilda Jennings

... little apart from the rest. The thing, she felt, admitted of only one explanation. Sproatly's diplomacy had had a most unfortunate result, and she was sensible of an intolerable disgust. She had kept faith with Gregory, at least as far as it was possible, and he had utterly humiliated her. The affront he had put upon her ...
— Masters of the Wheat-Lands • Harold Bindloss

... of Sion, throned Between the Cherubim; yea, often placed Within his sanctuary itself their shrines, Abominations; and with cursed things His holy rites and solemn feasts profaned, And with their darkness durst affront his light. First, Moloch, horrid king, besmeared with blood Of human sacrifice, and parents' tears; Though, for the noise of drums and timbrels loud, Their children's cries unheard that passed through ...
— Paradise Lost • John Milton

... the minds of descendants also has a certain influence — young men in quarrels sometimes brag of the number of heads taken by their ancestors, and the prowess or success of an ancestor seems to redound to the courage of the descendants; and it is an affront to purposely and seriously belittle the head-hunting results of ...
— The Bontoc Igorot • Albert Ernest Jenks

... described to him as a duty! And now he had turned upon her and rebuked her,—rebuked her as he was again endeavouring to perform the same duty,—rebuked her as it was so natural that a man should do who had been subjected to so gross an affront! ...
— Cousin Henry • Anthony Trollope

... nymph of Sadler's Wells or Covent Garden. For I was out of England. And so he capped his knavery with insolence. It is an additional reason why Pevensey should not live to scratch a gray head. It is, however, an affront to me that Umfraville should have believed him. I doubt if ...
— The Certain Hour • James Branch Cabell

... seigneur de Valse. Messire Jacques Trousset, averti de sa venue, annonca qu'il alloit le faire pendre a une aubepine qui etoit dans le jardin. Mondit seigneur accourut aussitot, et le pria de ne point lui faire chez lui un pareil affront. S'il vient jusqu'a moi, repondit messire, il ne peut l'echapper, et sera pendu. Ledit seigneur courut donc au devant du gentilhomme; il lui fit un signe, et celui-ci se retira. La raison de cette colere est que messire Jacques, ainsi que la plupart des gens qu'il avoit avec ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, - and Discoveries of The English Nation, Volume 10 - Asia, Part III • Richard Hakluyt

... my elegances are within. I do not prank myself out, puppy-like; My toilet is more thorough, if less gay; I would not sally forth—a half-washed-out Affront upon my cheek—a conscience Yellow-eyed, bilious, from its sodden sleep, A ruffled honor,. . .scruples grimed and dull! I show no bravery of shining gems. Truth, Independence, are my fluttering plumes. 'Tis not my form I lace to make me slim, But brace my soul with efforts as with stays, Covered ...
— Cyrano de Bergerac • Edmond Rostand

... felt ere long the talons of the bird. But first, the beetle, interceding, cried, 'Great queen of birds, it cannot be denied, That, maugre my protection, you can bear My trembling guest, John Rabbit, through the air. But do not give me such affront, I pray; And since he craves your grace, In pity of his case, Grant him his life, or take us both away; For he's my gossip, friend, and neighbour.' In vain the beetle's friendly labour; The eagle clutch'd her prey without reply, And as she flapp'd her ...
— The Fables of La Fontaine - A New Edition, With Notes • Jean de La Fontaine

... said she, on the stairs-head, don't give yourself all this trouble. God knows my heart, I meant no affront: but, since you seem to take my freedom amiss, I beg you will not acquaint Mr. Lovelace with it; for he perhaps will think ...
— Clarissa, Volume 4 (of 9) - History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson

... retaliatory act; resentment, the best word of the three, always holds itself to be justifiable, but looks less certainly to action than grudge or revenge. Simple goodness may arouse the hatred of the wicked; they will be moved to revenge only by what they deem an injury or affront. Compare ABOMINATION; ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald

... ventures upon it. One would offend him far less by arguing that his wife is an idiot. One would relatively speaking, almost caress him by spitting into his eye. The ego of the male is simply unable to stomach such an affront. It is a weapon as discreditable as the ...
— In Defense of Women • H. L. Mencken

... vain! by my Appointment, and for so leud a purpose; guard me, ye good Angels. If after an Affront so gross as this, I ever suffer you to see me more, Then think me what your Carriage calls me, An impudent, an open Prostitute, Lost to all sense ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. II • Aphra Behn

... the high-handed men of Sciarra Colonna's age into the effeminate fops of 1800, when a gentleman of noble lineage, having received a box on the ear from another at high noon in the Corso, willingly followed the advice of his confessor, who counselled him to bear the affront with Christian meekness and present his other cheek to the smiter. Customs have remained, fashions have altogether changed; the outward forms of early living have survived, the spirit of life is quite another; and though some families still follow the patriarchal mode of existence, the patriarchs ...
— Ave Roma Immortalis, Vol. 1 - Studies from the Chronicles of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford

... can do nothing, with its aid we can do everything; a reed in the hand of grace becomes a mighty staff that cannot be broken. If we are told to be willing to give our life itself in defence of our faith, how much more does it behove us to endure some small affront for the maintenance of charity! Moreover, were I to be such a recreant to the grace of God as not to bear an insult of this kind patiently, let me remind you that the same Gospel which reproves those who preach but do not practise, warns us against following the example of such teachers, ...
— The Spirit of St. Francis de Sales • Jean Pierre Camus

... of rules and recipes. So, wherever she went, she was welcome, albeit not a few stood in fear of her; for though, when well treated, she was as good-humored as a kitten, when provoked, especially by a slight or affront, her wrath was dangerous. Her tongue was sharper than her needle, and her pickles were not more piquant than her sarcastic wit. Tira, the older people used to remark, was Tommy Blake's own daughter; and truly, she did inherit ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 2, December, 1857 • Various

... to press Taylor hard or to hasten his movements in any way until time should have been allowed for the light-draught gunboats to re-enter Berwick Bay and thus gain control of Taylor's line of retreat. In thus refraining from any attempt to avenge promptly what must be regarded as a military affront, the depleted ranks and the wearied condition of the troops were perhaps taken into account, and, moreover, it must have been considered to the last degree inadvisable to entangle the command in the dense swamps that would have to be crossed, after pushing Taylor ...
— History of the Nineteenth Army Corps • Richard Biddle Irwin

... the blood-bay's flank and rode straight for the Great House. The boy stood staring after him; he did not notice the trickle of blood from the cut in his ear; he was not even conscious that he was still in life. He remembered only the unforgivable affront which this man had put upon him, the mark which was the infamous badge of the bondman, the slave. Quinton Edge! Ah, yes; he would remember that face ...
— The Doomsman • Van Tassel Sutphen

... so fully approve of his master's admonition as to let it pass without saying in reply, "Senor, I am a man of peace, meek and quiet, and I can put up with any affront because I have a wife and children to support and bring up; so let it be likewise a hint to your worship, as it cannot be a mandate, that on no account will I draw sword either against clown or against knight, and that here before God ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

... longest journeys by railroad can be made alone by self-possessed ladies with perfect safety and but little annoyance. Then, too, a lady who deports herself as such may travel from the Atlantic to the Pacific, from Maine to the Gulf of Mexico, and meet with no affront or insult, but on the contrary receive polite attentions at every point, from men who may chance to be her fellow-travelers. This may be accounted for from the fact that, as a rule in America, all men show a deferential regard for women, and are especially ...
— Our Deportment - Or the Manners, Conduct and Dress of the Most Refined Society • John H. Young

... sovereign as Becket did with Henry II. He had to deal with the most capricious and jealous of tyrants; cruel and unscrupulous when crossed; a man who rarely retained a friendship or remembered a service; who never forgave an injury or forgot an affront; a glutton and a sensualist; although prodigal with his gifts, social in his temper, enlightened in his government, and with very respectable abilities and very considerable theological knowledge. This hard and exacting master Cranmer had to serve, ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VI • John Lord

... surroundings pressed upon their ears unnoticed. They did not feel the need of taking a bath constantly, and Philip often heard them speak with indignation of the necessity to do so with which they were faced on entering the hospital: it was both an affront and a discomfort. They wanted chiefly to be left alone; then if the man was in regular work life went easily and was not without its pleasures: there was plenty of time for gossip, after the day's work a glass of beer was very good to drink, the streets were a constant ...
— Of Human Bondage • W. Somerset Maugham

... and, what was a singular felicity, his affability did not impair his authority, nor his severity render him less beloved. To mention integrity and freedom from corruption in such a man, would be an affront to his virtues. He did not even court reputation, an object to which men of worth frequently sacrifice, by ostentation or artifice: equally avoiding competition with, his colleagues, [33] and contention with the procurators. To overcome in such a contest he thought inglorious; and to ...
— The Germany and the Agricola of Tacitus • Tacitus

... not common among us to make valuable gifts: we do not care enough for any but ourselves to give except with the idea of getting something valuable in return. Our princes are, however, so wealthy that they can give without sacrifice, and it is considered a grave affront to refuse any present from a superior. Whatever, then, our Suzerain may offer you—and he is almost sure, unless he should take offence, to give you whatever he thinks will induce you to settle permanently in the ...
— Across the Zodiac • Percy Greg

... to Dr. Glynn. I Can never suspect you, who are giving me fresh proofs of your friendship, and solicitude for my reputation, of doing any thing unkind. It is true I do not think I shall publish any thing about Chatterton. IS not it an affront to innocence, not to be perfectly satisfied in her? My pamphlet, for such it would be, is four times as large as the narrative in your hands, and I think Would not discredit me—but, in truth, I am grown much fonder of truth than fame; and scribblers ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole

... across the bay. The journey over was one long agony to McTeague. He shook with a formless, uncertain dread; a dozen times he would have turned back had not Marcus been with him. The stolid giant was as nervous as a schoolboy. He fancied that his call upon Miss Sieppe was an outrageous affront. She would freeze him with a stare; he would be shown the door, would ...
— McTeague • Frank Norris

... to have a "committee" to raise money for him, when other poor devils had to raise it for themselves, or do without? He was not well-beloved. On the contrary, he bored all whom he did not affront. He was not grateful. On the contrary, he held gratitude to be a vice, as tending to make men "grossly partial" to those who have befriended them. His condescension kept pace with his demands. After his ...
— Americans and Others • Agnes Repplier

... beneath his words, a certain coldness in his eyes which made his proposal nothing short of a threat. It made all the resentful indignation which Lambert had mastered and chained down in himself rise up and bristle. He took it as a personal affront, as a threat against his own safety, and the answer that he gave to it was ...
— The Duke Of Chimney Butte • G. W. Ogden

... an action. After such a pose, to see a pilgrim escape! To see him pass by, unmoved by that smile, turning his feelingless back on the true shrine! It was enough to melt the stoutest heart. Madame's welcome of the captured, after such an affront, was set in the minor key; and her smile was the smile ...
— In and Out of Three Normady Inns • Anna Bowman Dodd

... THUeRINGIA, a proud, quick, fiery-tempered magnate, seized the archbishop of Mainz once, swung him round, and threatened to cut him in two; stormed, plundered, and set fire to an imperial free town for an affront offered him; but admonished of his sins became penitent, and reconciled himself by monastic vow to the Pope and mankind ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood

... saw no such thing; but I see how it is, you wish to affront the poor person's child. I shall go to ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow

... chagrined way. Annoyed as she was with Diva, she was almost more annoyed with Susan. After all she had done for Susan, Susan ought to have told her long ago, pledging her to secrecy. But to be told like this by that common Diva, without any secrecy at all, was an affront that she would find it hard to forgive Susan for. She mentally reduced by a half the sum that she had determined to squander on Susan's wedding-present. It should be plated, not silver, and if Susan was not careful, it shouldn't be ...
— Miss Mapp • Edward Frederic Benson

... hesitate two days more, but she found answers more valid than any objections. The many-voiced answer to everything—it was like the autumn wind round the house—was the affront that fell back on her mother. Her mother was dead but it killed her again. So one morning at eleven o'clock, when she knew her father was writing letters, she went out quietly and, stopping the first hansom she met, drove to Prince's Gate. Mrs. Churchley was at home, ...
— The Marriages • Henry James

... non-combatant travelers, citizens of a neutral state, had been callously premeditated and ruthlessly executed in cold blood. The German Government had given frigid warning, in a newspaper advertisement, of its intention to affront the custom of nations and the laws of humanity. A wave of the bitterest anti-German feeling swept down the Atlantic coast and out to the Mississippi; for the first time there became apparent a definite ...
— Woodrow Wilson and the World War - A Chronicle of Our Own Times. • Charles Seymour

... rendered more indignant by these proceedings than Mr Sampson Brass, who, as he could by no means afford to lose so profitable an inmate, deemed it prudent to pocket his lodger's affront along with his cash, and to annoy the audiences who clustered round his door by such imperfect means of retaliation as were open to him, and which were confined to the trickling down of foul water on their heads from unseen watering pots, pelting them with fragments of tile and mortar from ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens

... too much, and Nature resented the affront. After he had packed the statues, and sent them on their way to the other side of the globe, he set out for Melbourne himself, intending to take England by the way for medical advice. At Paris he visited ...
— Captains of Industry - or, Men of Business Who Did Something Besides Making Money • James Parton

... Government with an eloquence which electrified his audience, who had never before been addressed in the language of independence. He was returned for both towns, and hastened to Versailles, eager to avenge on the Nobles, the body which, as he felt, he had a right to have represented, the affront which had driven him, against his will, to seek the votes of a class with which he had scarcely a feeling in common; for in the whole Assembly there was no man less of a democrat in his heart, or prouder of his ancestry ...
— The Life of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France • Charles Duke Yonge

... the girl, had induced him to postpone his purpose, not a little to the relief of the offender, who in insulting him had only intended to insult an inoffensive elderly person, who could not resent the affront. ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, June 1844 - Volume 23, Number 6 • Various



Words linked to "Affront" :   offend, spite, bruise, injure, offensive activity, offense, diss, offence, outrage, scandalization, wound, indignity, hurt, discourtesy, scandalisation



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