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Contumacious   Listen
Contumacious

adjective
1.
Wilfully obstinate; stubbornly disobedient.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Contumacious" Quotes from Famous Books



... "Well, well, Hugh, you contumacious young rascal! how are you? I hear you've kicked over the traces and set the governor and his sovereigns at defiance! Well, you've shown yourself a Mainwaring, that's all I have to say! Here is a young lady, however, who is waiting to give you a piece of her mind; you'll ...
— That Mainwaring Affair • Maynard Barbour

... that was done to the faith, and fearing dangerous developments, called the church together,[721] publicly censured the erring one, publicly admonished him to repent, the bishops and the whole clergy urging him to the same effect. When he did not submit, they pronounced an anathema upon him as contumacious and proclaimed him a heretic. But not aroused from sleep by this he said, "You all favour the man, not the truth; I do not accept persons so that I should forsake the truth."[722] To this word the saint made answer with some heat, "The Lord make you confess the truth even of necessity;" and ...
— St. Bernard of Clairvaux's Life of St. Malachy of Armagh • H. J. Lawlor

... but one course before it—she was pronounced contumacious, and the trial went forward. None of her household were tempted even by curiosity to be present. "There came not so much as a servant of hers to Dunstable, save such as were brought in as witnesses;" some of them having been required ...
— The Reign of Henry the Eighth, Volume 1 (of 3) • James Anthony Froude

... number of persons spending half an hour a day breathing poison from each other's lungs. There is not only no need of this, but, on the contrary, a good supply of pure air would make the daily prayer-meeting far more enjoyable. The body, if allowed the slightest degree of fair play, so far from being a contumacious infidel and opposer, becomes a very fair Christian helper, and, instead of throttling the soul, gives it wings to rise ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 105, July 1866 • Various

... This was clear, for both he and Wellesley were waiting for the report of the Committee of the House of Commons, though Brougham affected to hold it cheap, and talked very big of what he should do and should have done had it been unfavourable to his authority. The fact is that Long Wellesley was contumacious, but after a short confinement he knocked under and yielded to the Chancellor on all points, and ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. II • Charles C. F. Greville

... formally recognized as from an independent nation. Meantime Vergennes intrigued with all his might to have Adams recalled, and actually succeeded in so tying his hands that half the advantages of independence would have been lost but for his contumacious persistence. In the final negotiations for peace, he persisted against his instructions in making the New England fisheries an ultimatum, and saved them. In 1783 he was commissioned to negotiate a commercial treaty ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner

... And elsewhere, "The best society seems to me bad, if I find in it one troublesome, wicked, slanderous, envious, or perfidious person." Now, taking into consideration that St. Pierre sometimes imagined persons who were really good, to be deserving of these strong and very contumacious epithets, it would have been difficult indeed to find a society in which he could have been happy. He was, therefore, wise, in seeking retirement, and indulging in solitude. His mistakes,—for they ...
— Paul and Virginia • Bernardin de Saint Pierre

... (alone) Venus implacable, who seest me shamed And sore confounded, have I not enough Been humbled? How can cruelty be stretch'd Farther? Thy shafts have all gone home, and thou Hast triumph'd. Would'st thou win a new renown? Attack an enemy more contumacious: Hippolytus neglects thee, braves thy wrath, Nor ever at thine altars bow'd the knee. Thy name offends his proud, disdainful ears. Our interests are alike: avenge thyself, Force him to love— But what is this? Oenone Return'd already? He ...
— Phaedra • Jean Baptiste Racine

... marriage, and it was rumoured that the blooming Magnolia actually chastised the gigantic delinquent with her own fair hand. That, however, I don't believe. But unquestionably she did, in other ways, lead the contumacious warrior so miserable a life for some months after that, as he averred to the major, with tears in his eyes, it would have been 'more to his teeste to have been shot on the occasion.' At first, of course, the fireworker showed fight, and sometimes broke loose altogether; but ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu

... chair which she had mechanically sunk into while waiting for him to speak, and ceased to be the kindly, generous soul she was, in asserting herself as a gentlewoman who had a contumacious servant to treat with. "You will wait ...
— The Minister's Charge • William D. Howells

... couple; and Charlotte praised her husband as the most brilliant and admirable of men; after which pleasing flattery she favoured him with a little interesting information about the baby's last tooth, and the contumacious behaviour of the new housemaid, between whom and Mrs. Woolper there had been a species of disagreement, which the Yorkshirewoman ...
— Charlotte's Inheritance • M. E. Braddon

... his late adherents, some personal offences were skilfully detected; his rash and illegal excommunication of the pope, and his contumacious refusal (while he was detained a prisoner) to attend to the summons of the synod. Witnesses were introduced to prove the special facts of his pride, avarice, and cruelty; and the fathers heard with abhorrence, that the alms of the church were lavished ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 4 • Edward Gibbon

... of John Brown's raid upon the arsenal at Harper's Ferry occasioned a thorough consideration by the Senate of the basis of this power. After a protracted debate, which cut sharply across sectional and party lines, the Senate voted overwhelmingly to imprison the contumacious witness.[90] Notwithstanding this firmly established legislative practice the Supreme Court took a narrow view of the power in the case of Kilbourn v. Thompson.[91] It held that the House of Representatives had overstepped its jurisdiction when it instituted an investigation of ...
— The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation • Edward Corwin

... nothing worse was charged than that he had enforced what he considered his palatinate rights in the old, high-handed, time-immemorial fashion. His father, however, had been in league with Spain, and he himself was held to be contumacious, and had never been on good terms with any of ...
— The Story Of Ireland • Emily Lawless

... Baliol formally to renounce and cancel not only the Treaty of Brigham, but every stipulation of the kind "known to exist, or which might be thereafter discovered." Another appeal followed, and Baliol was cited to appear personally, but refused; he was thereupon declared contumacious by the English parliament, and a resolution was passed that three of the principal towns of Scotland should be "seized," until he gave satisfaction. All this was a manifest usurpation, even allowing Edward's claims to ...
— In Freedom's Cause • G. A. Henty

... garden, Lord Lick-my-loof sought to renew the conversation, but Cosmo maintained a stern silence, and his lordship went home incensed more than ever with the contumacious paupers. ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald

... whatever he tried to insist on doing. Mr. Holland thought it had something to say to the twirling of his thumbs at a certain part of the service for the day, but if anyone had said that his memory was at fault—that the contumacious curate only wanted to make some gestures at the psychological, or, perhaps, the spiritual, moment, he would not have been surprised. He had always thought that curate a very silly person. He thanked his God ...
— Phyllis of Philistia • Frank Frankfort Moore

... conducted him to a boat under a guard of five men, and landed him on the desert Island of Corregidor. The churches were at once reopened; the Jesuits preached where they chose; terms were dictated to the contumacious Archbishop, who accepted everything unconditionally, and was thereupon permitted to resume his office. The acts of Corcuera were inquired into by his successor, who caused him to be imprisoned for five years; but it is to be presumed that Corcuera was ...
— The Philippine Islands • John Foreman

... contumacious deportment of the British colonel, Sitgreaves, after once more tendering services that were again rejected, withdrew to the chamber of young Singleton, whither Lawton had already ...
— The Spy • James Fenimore Cooper

... the Ritters. Duke still declines obeying Kaiser; asserts that "he is himself in such matter the sovereign:" Kaiser fulminates what of rusty thunder he has about him; to which the Duke, flung on his back by it, still continues contumacious in mind and tongue: and so between thunder and contumacy, as between hammer and stithy, the poor Country writhes painfully ever since, and is an affliction to everybody ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. VI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle



Words linked to "Contumacious" :   insubordinate, contumacy



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