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Distrust   /dɪstrˈəst/   Listen
Distrust

noun
1.
Doubt about someone's honesty.  Synonyms: misgiving, mistrust, suspicion.
2.
The trait of not trusting others.  Synonyms: distrustfulness, mistrust.



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"Distrust" Quotes from Famous Books



... his deep instinct to evade and hers to show him. He must not take a step towards her, she seemed to tell him, until he had proved to her that he had seen what she did. And nothing she could say would, he felt sure of it, alter his fundamental distrust of Madame von Marwitz. ...
— Tante • Anne Douglas Sedgwick

... expression of asceticism, almost of spirituality to the intellectual face were it not in a measure contradicted by the craft in the close-set, slanting eyes, which with the pointed, fulvous beard suggest a possibility of foxy cunning, and inspire in the beholder an uncomfortable, haunting feeling of distrust even when the Cardinal's manner is most condescending ...
— Romance of Roman Villas - (The Renaissance) • Elizabeth W. (Elizbeth Williams) Champney

... that same feeling of discouragement that Maurice had arrived at by a process of reasoning settled down upon the denser intellects of the troops who lay there inactive, anxiously awaiting to see what the end would be. Distrust, as a result of their truer perception of the position they were in, was obscurely burrowing in those darkened minds, and there was no man so ignorant as not to feel a sense of injury at the ignorance and irresolution of their leaders, although he might not have been able ...
— The Downfall • Emile Zola

... of blood-letting, when he had come here to safeguard against that danger. In some fashion, he must make amends. He realized, too, and it rankled deeply, that his men were not being genuinely used to serve the State, but as instruments of the Hollmans, and he had seen enough to distrust the Hollmans. Here, in Hixon, he was seeing things from only one angle. He meant to ...
— The Call of the Cumberlands • Charles Neville Buck

... the archdeacon of Wells and the chancellor of the Bishop of Bath and Wells. The book was, indeed, a truly remarkable patchwork. All shades of opinion from that of the earnestly disbelieving Scot to that of the earnestly believing Roberts were embodied. Nevertheless Bernard had a wholesome distrust of possessions and followed Cotta in thinking that catalepsy and other related diseases accounted for many of them.[26] He thought, too, that the Devil very often acted as his own agent without any intermediary.[27] Like Cotta, he was skeptical as to ...
— A History of Witchcraft in England from 1558 to 1718 • Wallace Notestein

... century before, and expressed it in words of such gentleness, gravity, and self-respecting strength, as may touch even those whom his books leave unmoved, and who view his character with deepest distrust. "For the six-and-twenty years, dearest, that our union has lasted, I have never sought my happiness except in yours, and have never ceased to try to make you happy; and you saw by what I did lately,[134] that your honour and happiness were one as dear to me as the other. I see with pain ...
— Rousseau - Volumes I. and II. • John Morley

... thing is to become the counsel of his Majesty," he wrote to him on the death of the grand dauphin, "the father of the people, the comfort of the afflicted, the defender of the church; the right thing is to keep flatterers aloof and distrust them, to distinguish merit, seek it out and anticipate it, to listen to everything, believe nothing without proof, and, being placed above all, to rise superior to every one. The right thing is to desire to be father and not master. The right thing is not that ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume V. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot

... of Mrs Merton had made it an indispensable condition with her son, that he should never presume to ride with spurs; and she had strictly enjoined all the servants never to supply him with those dangerous accoutrements. Tommy had long murmured in secret at this prohibition, which seemed to imply a distrust of his abilities in horsemanship, which sensibly wounded his pride. But since he had taken it into his head to emulate the Arabs themselves, and perhaps excel them in their own art, he considered it as no longer possible to endure the disgrace. But, as he was no stranger to the strict injunction ...
— The History of Sandford and Merton • Thomas Day

... and a spirit of confidence in the air. This can only be secured by increased reliability, reduction of charges and keeping the public informed of the progress made. It is the nature of man to distrust new departures. He disliked the introduction of mechanical devices into the Lancashire weaving mills. He scoffed at the steamship and railway. To-day he is inclined to treat as premature the serious exploitation of the air. In spite of the great decrease of accidents, in spite of the increased ...
— Aviation in Peace and War • Sir Frederick Hugh Sykes

... It is certain that such utterances did not lessen the feeling of nervousness that filled the international atmosphere. But the true ground of such nervousness was the policy of the balance of power, which had split Europe into two armed camps full of distrust of each other. The Ambassadors of the Great Powers knew the Kaiser intimately enough to realize what his intentions, in spite of everything, were, and it required an untruthfulness only explicable by the psychological effect of war to permit the suggestion of a hateful ...
— Before the War • Viscount Richard Burton Haldane

... was something lacking. The mask he was wearing had not deceived her, and she would have liked him far better without it. This she said to Alice, adding gently: "He may be all he seems, but I doubt it. I distrust him greatly. I think he fancies you and loves ...
— Bad Hugh • Mary Jane Holmes

... intentions of marrying. But as we jogged along, she informed me that after spending a few weeks with her sister in Oakville, it was her intention to return to the San Miguel for the summer. To allay her mother's distrust, it would be better for me not to call at the ranch. But this was easily compensated for when she suggested making several visits during the season with the Vaux girls, chums of hers, who lived on the ...
— A Texas Matchmaker • Andy Adams

... tumult to conciliation, quarreling to friendliness, hostility to good will, dissent must give way to assent, distrust to faith, denial to admission, misgiving to conviction, political atheism to ...
— Blood and Iron - Origin of German Empire As Revealed by Character of Its - Founder, Bismarck • John Hubert Greusel

... earth?... But see William Penn, with weaponless hand, sitting down peaceably with his followers, in the midst of savage nations whose only occupation was shedding the blood of their fellow-men, disarming them by his justice, and teaching them, for the first time, to view a stranger without distrust. See them bury their tomahawks in his presence, so deep that man shall never be able to find them again. See them, under the shade of the thick groves of Coaquannock, extend the bright chain of friendship, and solemnly promise to preserve it as long as the sun and moon shall endure. ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin

... does leave out. He is a God spun out of the fertile brain of the materialist. Critics of Socialism assume and herald their own patriotism, their devotion to law and order, but they are usually men who distrust any extension of the functions of the state not directly beneficial to their ...
— From the Bottom Up - The Life Story of Alexander Irvine • Alexander Irvine

... seduced immortal deities against me; for the Zephyrs have concealed her from me; for thee, Apollo himself, by an oracle cleverly turned, had snatched her from my power so well that, but for the curiosity which by a blind distrust restored her to my vengeance, she escaped for ever my angry passion. See to what thy love has reduced her, thine own Psyche! See! her soul is even now departing; and if thine is still smitten, receive now her last breath. Threaten and brave me if thou wilt, ...
— Psyche • Moliere

... for a castle occupied by the troops of Philip's candidate, Charles of Blois. The fate of Clisson was not yet known there; it was supposed that his wife was on a hunting excursion; and she was admitted without distrust. As soon as she was inside, the blast of a horn gave notice to her followers, whom she had left concealed in the neighboring woods. They rushed up, and took possession of the castle, and Joan de Clisson had all the inhabitants—but one—put to the sword. But this was too little for her ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume II. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot

... angry expression flashed across his countenance. Elise did not perceive it, for, in her noble forgetfulness of self, she had leaned her head on his breast, and all doubt and distrust were alien to her free and confiding love. The love of a woman is of divine nature; it forgives all, it suffers all; it is as strong in giving as in forgiving. Every woman when she loves is an inspired poetess; the ...
— The Merchant of Berlin - An Historical Novel • L. Muhlbach

... to stay that way?" demanded his aunt, peremptorily. Bertie's own face was overcast, with an expression of plaintive distrust. ...
— With the Procession • Henry B. Fuller

... almost exceeding all hope of human attainment; and having, by excessive praises, been confirmed in great confidence of himself, though he probably had not much considered the principles of society, or the rights of government, undertook the employment without distrust of his own qualifications; and, as his expedition in writing was wonderful, in 1649, published ...
— Lives of the Poets, Vol. 1 • Samuel Johnson

... The night was a restless one to her: like all impulsive natures, the season of reflection, and perhaps distrust, came to her upon acts that were already committed, and when reason seemed to light the way only to despair. She saw the folly of her intrusion at the headquarters, as she thought, only when it was too late ...
— Thankful Blossom • Bret Harte

... before decisive and positive official intelligence was given of these facts by Broca, Follin, Velpeau, and Guerinau. But these accounts, as well as the excellent little book by Dr. Azam, shared the fate of their predecessors. They were looked upon by students with distrust, and by the disciples of Mesmer ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 613, October 1, 1887 • Various

... which he wished to invest them. Without money, without credit, without authority even in his own camp, he yielded to the pressure of necessity. The Houses were convoked; and the elections proved that, since the spring, the distrust and hatred with which the government was regarded had made ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... visit—for his poor health did not permit him to do more. It is not to be believed that a well-informed lawyer would try to obstruct the service of your Majesty, for nearly all his ordinances are directed to and reflect distrust of the fidelity of the royal officials, to whom your Majesty has hitherto entrusted your revenues. From the good disposition that I observe in them and the work that they do, I judge them to be your very good and ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XXIV, 1630-34 • Various

... on her armor again for the hardest fight of all in the world's arena—the woman's fight. She ejected from her thought all doubting and distrust. She forgave nothing, for there was nothing requiring forgiveness. She pledged herself to an absoluteness of belief that her love and Billy's was unsullied, unperturbed—severe as it had always been, as it would be when it came back again after the world settled down ...
— The Valley of the Moon • Jack London

... not be overlooked) with his utter perplexity as to the nature of his restoration, if any were by accident in reserve, whether in a condition tending downwards or upwards, it was the natural resource to consult the general feeling of anxiety and distrust, by throwing a thick curtain and a veil of beauty over the whole too painful subject. To place the horrors in high relief, could here have answered no purpose but that of wanton cruelty; whereas, with the Christian hopes, the very saddest memorials of the havocs made by death are antagonist ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey

... will be seen his life is one of daily trial and trust, and he says, "Our desire therefore, is, not that we may be without trials of faith, but that the Lord graciously would be pleased to support us in the trial, that we may not dishonor him by distrust." ...
— The Wonders of Prayer - A Record of Well Authenticated and Wonderful Answers to Prayer • Various

... distrust our obscurest misgivings, for we are strangely constituted; and though the evidence for such conclusions often be in a manner unknown to ourselves, they are not the less veritable and just. Exhausted by the wearing excitement and anxiety of my situation, ...
— Tales from Blackwood, Volume 7 • Various

... the roots of flowers that thrust Upwards from thee to the sky, With no more distrust, When they ...
— Poems • Alice Meynell

... for this purpose has been unwearied, and will not cease till they have succeeded, I have not a doubt. But, like all other large bodies where there is a variety of different interests to reconcile, their determinations are slow. Why, then, should we distrust them, and, in consequence of that distrust, adopt measures which may cast a shade over that glory which has been so justly acquired, and tarnish the reputation of an army which is celebrated through all Europe for its fortitude and patriotism? ...
— Life And Times Of Washington, Volume 2 • John Frederick Schroeder and Benson John Lossing

... that which one of the more cunning and ferocious beasts of prey makes previous to its death-spring upon its victim. The old man's countenance instantly fell. He looked with surprise, not unmingled with sorrow and distrust, at Reilly, a circumstance which did not escape his daughter, who could not, for the life of her, avoid fixing her eyes, lovelier even in the disdain they expressed, with an indignant ...
— Willy Reilly - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton

... allowed to have something in him; for he seemed to possess the indescribable diffidence, the early timidity that artists are bound to lose in the course of a great career, even as pretty women lose it as they make progress in the arts of coquetry. Self-distrust vanishes as triumph succeeds to triumph, and modesty is, perhaps, ...
— The Unknown Masterpiece - 1845 • Honore De Balzac

... is cowardly and treacherous. When it wants to be on the right side, it preaches revolution, it is democratic in order to escape being beaten, and royalist so that it may not have to fight. The republicans are beasts with feathers. Distrust the republicans, citizens ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo

... mutiny, but no neglect, no arguing, no asking why. If he said Go, a man must go; if he said Come, a man must come; and make no words about it. Otherwise the Emperor's service would go to ruin, through laziness, distrust, and mutinous talk. By subordination, by discipline, by mutual trust and strict obedience, that empire of Rome was conquering the old world; because every Roman knew his place, and every Roman did what ...
— True Words for Brave Men • Charles Kingsley

... General Senechal, had been stopped at the advanced posts, when going over to the Bourbons. Others had openly declared themselves in favour of Louis. The greater number appeared inflexible: but this difference of opinion had brought on distrust and dissensions; and in political wars all is lost, when there is a divergency of wills and opinions. Besides it would have been necessary, since the committee persisted in rejecting Napoleon, to place at the head ...
— Memoirs of the Private Life, Return, and Reign of Napoleon in 1815, Vol. II • Pierre Antoine Edouard Fleury de Chaboulon

... day of distrust, sorrow, and retreat; the Arabs accused one another for urging war without expending all peaceful means first. There were stormy councils of war held, wherein were some who proposed to return at once to Unyanyembe, and keep within their own houses; and Khamis bin Abdullah ...
— How I Found Livingstone • Sir Henry M. Stanley

... sisters on the first day of her arrival. It was all misery; and the two poor girls could find no solace in the morning, save in talking to Magdalen, though that involved the confession of all the murmurs against her, the distrust of her kindness, and the explanation of the interviews, which, as far as Paula had ever witnessed them, were absolutely harmless, the only pity being ...
— Modern Broods • Charlotte Mary Yonge

... plumb easy. While you fill the boy up, I'll cut out his other legs for you to baste right this time. Take a peep around the garden before you come back to see if Spangles have got her chickens in the wet weeds. I hadn't oughter let her pretty feathers make me distrust her, but it do." And Mother went placidly on with her sewing as she watched the girl and the tot go hand-in-hand down the path to the spring-house under the hill. She had just placed in her sleeve and was regarding it with entire satisfaction, ...
— The Road to Providence • Maria Thompson Daviess

... he seeks to bury up our hearts in the cares of life. In old age, he persuades to the indulgence of self-will and obstinacy. In prosperity, he puffs up the heart with pride, and persuades to self-confidence and forgetfulness of God. In poverty and affliction, he excites feelings of discontent, distrust, and repining. If we are of a melancholy temperament, he seeks to sour our tempers, and promote habitual sullenness and despondency. If naturally cheerful, he prompts to the indulgence of levity. In private ...
— A Practical Directory for Young Christian Females - Being a Series of Letters from a Brother to a Younger Sister • Harvey Newcomb

... rather amused by this mental hesitation. I never took it for anything else. I was sure it was not distrust. She appreciated men and things and events solely in relation to Dona Rita's welfare and safety. And as to that I believed myself above ...
— The Arrow of Gold - a story between two notes • Joseph Conrad

... that favored me was Tausig's distrust of everybody connected with him. He hates his partners only a bit less than he hates the men outside the Trust. The bigger and richer the Syndicate grows, the more power and prosperity it has, the more he begrudges them their share of it; the more ...
— In the Bishop's Carriage • Miriam Michelson

... so cruel as jealousy; none that so quickly deteriorates a character; it brings so many evils in its train—suspicion, envy, hatred of life, distrust in every one and in everything; it is the most fatal passion that ever takes hold of a human heart, and turns the kindest nature to gall. There was no moment during the day in which Lady Chandos did not picture her husband with her rival; she drove herself almost mad with the pictures ...
— A Mad Love • Bertha M. Clay

... not attain of myself, but which are made possible to me as my Father's son. I accept the unearned privilege of my descent; I claim the great inheritance of the kinship of God, and out of my self-distrust and weakness I turn to self-respect and strength, when I pray: ...
— Mornings in the College Chapel - Short Addresses to Young Men on Personal Religion • Francis Greenwood Peabody

... about for some suitable opening for his farming operations, and here in the midst of my newly-found happiness, with hope and love shedding their beams around me, I allowed the first insidious entrance of the serpent of distrust and jealousy of my wife into my heart. My brother Lewis was very unlike me in appearance and disposition, being of a frank and genial manner, and trustful to a fault. I think you inherit that trait from him; be careful of it, Caradoc, or you will be cheated by every man you meet. Not that ...
— By Berwen Banks • Allen Raine

... the reasons for this change in their relations. He himself when he first noticed that Arnold was taking the first place with Minette had spoken to him half-jestingly, half-seriously, on the subject. He had never made any secret of his own distrust of the model, and in the early days of their intercourse had spoken freely to Arnold on the subject. He could understand that if the American, as it appeared, had become really attached to her, he would ...
— A Girl of the Commune • George Alfred Henty

... my saying it," he said, "your attitude is just a little womanlike. You put away reason for something vaguely intuitive. I always distrust intuition myself." ...
— Jason • Justus Miles Forman

... reach of the British guns, decided the fate of the campaign. The Indians after this were dispirited and unable to make a general rally. The distrust awakened by the coolness of their supposed friends, the gates of whose fort remained unopened while they were fleeing thither for a covert, served not less than the victory to dishearten them, and incline their ...
— An account of Sa-Go-Ye-Wat-Ha - Red Jacket and his people, 1750-1830 • John Niles Hubbard

... glint of the eye? And his experiences to which he referred so lightly, how wonderful the life must have been which had put him in the way of them! He had been kind to us, and gracious of speech, but still I could not quite shake myself clear of the distrust with which I had regarded him. Perhaps, after all, Jim Horscroft had been right and I had been wrong about ...
— The Great Shadow and Other Napoleonic Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle

... party of scouts left the camp and came in our direction, riding slowly, and eyeing every little rise or depression in the ground with the utmost distrust. They reached a farmhouse lying between their camp and ourselves, and after a while we saw a cart leave the farm and drive towards the camp. Another Boer laying down his arms, beguiled by Buller's blarney! ...
— With Steyn and De Wet • Philip Pienaar

... you will come before the elected representatives of the people, openly, and say what you want and why you want it.' By such a course you would have, in a day, the affection of the people instead of their distrust. They would rally to your defence. And, more than that, you would have done a service for American government the value of which ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... elocution and music, but it would be useful if singers and composers would take advantage of it to familiarize themselves with the principles of diction, which, in my opinion, are indispensable to both. Instead, they distrust melody. Declamation is no longer wanted in operas, and the singers make the works incomprehensible by not articulating the words. The composers tend along the same lines, for they give no indication or direction ...
— Musical Memories • Camille Saint-Saens

... saving our cities from the occupation and ravages of the Austrians. They hinder our going from place to place, our provisioning the city, our sending couriers. They keep minds in a state of excitement and distrust which might, if our population were less good and devoted, lead to sinister results. They do not engender anarchy nor reaction, for both are impossible at Rome; but they sow the seed of irritation against France, and it is a misfortune for us who were accustomed ...
— At Home And Abroad - Or, Things And Thoughts In America and Europe • Margaret Fuller Ossoli

... our park, my brother and Bertha were engaged to each other, and it was understood that their marriage was to take place early in the next spring. In spite of the certainty I had felt from that moment on the bridge at Prague, that Bertha would one day be my wife, my constitutional timidity and distrust had continued to benumb me, and the words in which I had sometimes premeditated a confession of my love, had died away unuttered. The same conflict had gone on within me as before—the longing for an assurance of love from Bertha's ...
— The Lifted Veil • George Eliot

... people, who looked at him without any distrust, for he came single-handed, though they thought he came with the intention of learning what they knew of each other, and so stroll about with the intention of getting up accusations against them. But this was not the case, the officer ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest

... conclusions may he drawn into some sort of living accord with these results of experience, let us probe a little more minutely into these latter, and try to learn what reasons there may be for this very general distrust of self-consciousness as a guide. Hitherto I have exhibited that distrust as a fact. We always find it so; our neighbors find it so, the ages have found it so. But why? I have not pointed out precisely the reasons for the continual fact. Let me devote ...
— The Nature of Goodness • George Herbert Palmer

... was a question of money, and in that the peasant wished to be precise, and demanded the same exactness from his employer. His distrust ...
— Creatures That Once Were Men • Maxim Gorky

... Street reviewers, saw both Pope's Iliad and Homer's Iliad through the medium of eighteenth-century taste. Even Dennis's onslaught, which begins with a violent contradiction of the hackneyed tribute quoted above, leaves the impression that its vigor comes rather from personal animus than from distrust of existing literary standards or from any new ...
— Early Theories of Translation • Flora Ross Amos

... without the keen sarcasm, which it is so difficult for the best regulated mind to bear unmoved. The mild and gentle seemed to shrink from her, and thus she, who might have been the bright and beloved ornament of the circle in which she moved, was regarded with distrust, fear, and even hatred. This dangerous habit of making satirical remarks was evinced in childhood; it was cherished; 'it grew with her growth and strengthened with her strength,' until she became ...
— The Teacher - Or, Moral Influences Employed in the Instruction and - Government of the Young • Jacob Abbott

... Divine arm for deliverance from their sorrows; and this new confidence developed itself particularly in benefactions for the impoverished and young. But as the war progressed and peace seemed farther off with every new year, the heart of the people relaxed into coldness, distrust, and desperation. Thus, dark as was the picture of religious life before the outbreak of hostilities, it was darker still during their progress and at their close. So literally was this the case that Kahnis declares its termination to have ...
— History of Rationalism Embracing a Survey of the Present State of Protestant Theology • John F. Hurst

... garlic-venders—may be as illustrious as you choose, but to me they are as irritating as the product of the country. This is a town ruled by people who teach distrust, superstition, and hatred of the whole human race. When we have leisure I will relate to you an occurrence—an adventure, half-comic, half-tragic—that happened to me here last year. When I tell it to you, you will laugh and I shall ...
— Dona Perfecta • B. Perez Galdos

... him, if not to reject, at all events to regard with profound distrust all assumptions of any gift of spiritual discernment distinguishable from ordinary powers of understanding. Tillotson's view was that the Spirit of God enlightens the human mind only through the reason, so that the faith of Abraham, for example, 'was ...
— The English Church in the Eighteenth Century • Charles J. Abbey and John H. Overton

... in this Commandment it can be dearly seen how all good works must be done in faith; for here every one most surely feels that the cause of covetousness is distrust and the cause of liberality is faith. For because a man trusts God, he is generous and does not doubt that he will always have enough; on the other hand, a man is covetous and worries because he does ...
— Works of Martin Luther - With Introductions and Notes (Volume I) • Martin Luther

... arms shall be our toast, sir!' he said. I answered, as I raised my glass to my lips: 'To France!' His eyes flashed with joy. These words had evidently conquered his distrust. ...
— The Son of Monte Cristo • Jules Lermina

... that drawback. She fancied herself as cold, hard, analytical, and ruthless; actually she was waspish, arrogant, overbearing, and treacherous. What she considered in herself to be scientific detachment was really an isolation born of fear and distrust of the ...
— The Foreign Hand Tie • Gordon Randall Garrett

... faults, promise unfulfilled, men and women bound in narrow, petty, uncongenial spheres, the whole matter in a sad disorder. One sees one man's influence spoilt by over-confidence, by too strong a sense of his own significance, and another man made ineffective by diffidence and self-distrust. The best things of life, the most gracious opportunities, such as love and marriage, cannot be entered upon from a sense of duty, but only from an ...
— The Altar Fire • Arthur Christopher Benson

... legislative and judiciary off against one another by a series of checks and counterpoises, which Newton might readily have recognized as suggestive of the mechanism of the heavens." No doubt this automatic and balanced theory of government suited admirably that distrust of the people which seems to have been a dominant feeling among the Fathers. For they were the conservatives of their day: between '76 and '89 they had gone the usual way of opportunist radicals. But had they written the Constitution in the fire of their youth, they might ...
— A Preface to Politics • Walter Lippmann

... the foot of the market, as he called it, beside a great drove of paulies, a species of stock that I never heard of before. They were small sheep, striped on the backs with red chalk. Mr. L—t introduced me to him as a great wool-stapler, come to raise the price of that article; but he eyed me with distrust, and, turning his back on us, answered: ...
— The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner • James Hogg

... seated, with his head resting on his hands, and apparently buried in thought. The noisy greeting of the spaniels as La Vallee entered caused him to start, and he turned towards the door an anxious unquiet look, bespeaking distrust and apprehension, which, however, quickly changed to one of pleasure as he heard the name and recognised the features ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 19, No. - 537, March 10, 1832 • Various

... feeling—uninfluenced by those baser distractions which occupied Brace, Crosby, and Winslow. This phase passed into a settled conviction that some woman was at the root of his trouble, and responsible for it. With an instinctive distrust of her own sex, she was satisfied that it must be either a misplaced or unworthy attachment, and that the unknown woman was to blame. This second phase—which hovered between compassion and resentment—suddenly changed to the latter—the third phase ...
— The Crusade of the Excelsior • Bret Harte

... doubted his ability to make a good bargain, and that he was willing to pay his new acquaintance a commission on the proceeds. This last offer Mr. Hall had magnanimously refused, but out of mere good-nature he went forth to do the stranger's bidding. The pawnbroker, however, with a distrust in human nature which stamped him as having an evil mind, called in a passing policeman, and gave this victim of his own kindly disposition into custody. The sequel was inevitable. The constable was ...
— The Queen Against Owen • Allen Upward

... only in the phenomenon of decadence. We have ceased from the making of monsters to be appeased by sacrifice;—it is well,—if indeed we have also ceased from making them in our thoughts. We have learned to distrust the adorning of fair fantasms, to which we once sought for succor;—it is well, if we learn to distrust also the adorning of those to which we seek, for temptation; but the verity of gains like these can only be known by our confession of the divine seal of ...
— Aratra Pentelici, Seven Lectures on the Elements of Sculpture - Given before the University of Oxford in Michaelmas Term, 1870 • John Ruskin

... do?" And he accused himself of distrust, called to his aid once more the memory of benefits received, how scales had fallen from his eyes, his insensible progress towards Faith, his encounter with that singular priest, perhaps the only one who could ...
— En Route • J.-K. (Joris-Karl) Huysmans

... hear the exact particulars of Stanton's behavior during the crisis in the cabinet. It is so very, very painful to be rudely awakened to distrust of those whom once we have too implicitly, too fondly believed. Lincoln has now become accustomed to Seward, as the hunchback is to his protuberance. What man who has an ugly excrescence on his face does not dread the surgeon's knife, although he knows that momentary pain ...
— Diary from November 12, 1862, to October 18, 1863 • Adam Gurowski

... that in Rosmersholm, or may feed the brain on some air unbreathable by the body, as in When we Dead Awaken. It is the old idea of self-sacrifice creeping back under cover of a new idea of self-intensification; and it comes, like asceticism, from a contempt of nature, a distrust of nature, an abstract intellectual criticism ...
— Figures of Several Centuries • Arthur Symons

... the subject further, going into an excited account of Ireland's grievances. He was flushed and loquacious. He quoted Lloyd George's "quagmire of distrust" in tones raised over the noise of the band. And Clayton was conscious of a growing uneasiness. How much of it was real, how much a pose? Was Nolan representative of the cultured Irishman in America? And if he was, what would be the effect of their anti-English ...
— Dangerous Days • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... be praised!" said Janet, in a rapture of devout thankfulness; "though I never really doubted it," she added, as though asking pardon for a moment's distrust. "But I tried to write these poems to the glory of God and not to my own praise, and He will accept them and keep me humble under the praise of men as well as ...
— Stories by English Authors: Scotland • Various

... in surprise and with some distrust. The offer was so generous and reckless, that he could not help asking himself what was its motive. He looked so long and so stupidly at Offitt, that the latter at last divined his feeling. He thought that, ...
— The Bread-winners - A Social Study • John Hay

... a word of blame? I come to ask for work to do with thee. Do I not know Prince Kaid? He had come to distrust us all. As stale water were we in his taste. He had no pleasure in us, and in our deeds he found only stones of stumbling. He knew not whom to trust. One by one we all had yielded to ceaseless intrigue and common distrust of each other, until ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... hearing its mother's voice, but hesitated a little, until she made a gesture of withdrawing her handkerchief from her bosom, and said, coaxingly, 'Come its ways, then, and get its patten.' Until that reconciling word was uttered, there had been a shadow of distrust on the baby's face, as if treachery might be in the wind. But the magic of that one word patten wrought an instant revolution. Back the little truant ran, and the young mother's manner made it evident that she would not on her part forget what had passed between ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey—Vol. 1 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey

... that this is more serious, and goes deeper, than I had any suspicion of. None of them understand it that way, Alfred least of all. He is only hurt—distressed and hurt at the thought that you could distrust him. ...
— Three Comedies • Bjornstjerne M. Bjornson

... Lancaster, threw an obscurity over that part of our annals, which it is almost impossible to dispel. We have scarce any authentic monuments of the reign of Edward the Fourth; and ought to read his history with much distrust, from the boundless partiality of the succeeding writers to the opposite cause. That diffidence should increase as we proceed to ...
— Historic Doubts on the Life and Reign of King Richard the Third • Horace Walpole

... have sunk to dulness and decrepitude; he would have been merely a pitiful and lonely old man. He had neither wife nor children, all for the hoard's sake; but while the hoard was there, to be handled any hour, he regretted nothing. Besides, there was the peasant's rooted distrust of offices, and paper transactions, of any routine that checks his free will and frightens his inexperience. He was still eagerly thinking when the light began to flood into his room, and before he could compose himself to ...
— Bessie Costrell • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... for my child," she would often say, "the prospect of death would not be unpleasant to me, for I have a comforting hope of a life beyond the grave; but who will care for my orphan boy when I am no more? I must not distrust the ...
— The Path of Duty, and Other Stories • H. S. Caswell

... quite confident. If it had been Maria Muller who had thus set herself to tamper with a man's life, she would have done it trembling, with fear and self-distrust. She had brains which could feel and react against the passions she evoked, and were competent to warn her of the peril of her ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - Vol. XI, No. 27, June, 1873 • Various

... to the situation, grew easier in her mind, and by degrees lost much of her distrust. About a month later, toward the middle of March, she had so far regained her equanimity as to allow herself, after a steady resistance, to be persuaded by a friend to attend her house-warming ball—"pendre la cremaillere," as they call it in Paris. ...
— The Malady of the Century • Max Nordau

... looks round with a sensation of doubt and distrust, such as a city dame, the daughter of numberless generations of citizens, might experience if suddenly transported to the garden of Eden. At length her downcast eye discovers a small tuft of grass, just beginning ...
— The New Adam and Eve (From "Mosses From An Old Manse") • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... citizen of whatever corner of the world he happens at the moment to be in. In the dim future all moral needs and moral standards may change; but at present, if a man can view his own country and all other countries from the same level with tepid indifference, it is wise to distrust him, just as it is wise to distrust the man who can take the same dispassionate view of his wife and his mother. However broad and deep a man's sympathies, however intense his activities, he need have no fear that they will be cramped by love of his ...
— African and European Addresses • Theodore Roosevelt

... degree of sympathy not to be expected from our constant rivals and competitors the English. It was with painful surprise therefore that we shortly perceived that the French Government was, of all others, the most hostile to our cause, and the one to be regarded with the most suspicion and distrust. ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. 5, Issue 2, February, 1864 • Various

... progress, be content to seem foolish and void of understanding with respect to outward things. Care not to be thought to know anything. If any should make account of thee, distrust thyself. ...
— The Golden Sayings of Epictetus • Epictetus

... letter to Dr. Ryerson, dated Cobourg, 16th November, 1837, Rev. Anson Green gives expression to a general feeling of uneasiness and distrust which prevailed everywhere in the country ...
— The Story of My Life - Being Reminiscences of Sixty Years' Public Service in Canada • Egerton Ryerson

... potatoes, passed through kitchen sieve, Unwonted softness to the salad give; Of mordant mustard add a single spoon— Distrust the condiment which bites so soon; But deem it not, thou man of herbs, a fault To add a double quantity of salt; Three times the spoon with oil of Lucca crown, And once with vinegar procured from town. True flavour needs it, and your poet begs The ...
— Enquire Within Upon Everything - The Great Victorian Domestic Standby • Anonymous

... a kind of withdrawal into herself, she went on. "Andrea was loyal to you to the last. He went away without a word to anyone except, it seems, to you. I always liked him, but I see now that I never did him justice. I did not know with his Italian hereditary distrust of woman's honour that he could have risen to such a height as that. Think of it, Fay. What grovelling and sordid suspicions he might have had of you, must inevitably have had of you and Michael if he had not followed a very noble instinct, that of entire trust ...
— Prisoners - Fast Bound In Misery And Iron • Mary Cholmondeley

... see," he continued, "if I am to be cut off from the rich by my own tastes, and from those who are not rich by my distrust of their motives, my situation is an isolated one. Not that I mind isolation: I am used to it. But it limits my field of usefulness. I have no trustworthy means of informing myself when and where I may do good. I have already, I am glad to say, met a man to-day, your vicar, who appears to be thoroughly ...
— The Doings Of Raffles Haw • Arthur Conan Doyle

... press Special pleas of selfishness, Coolly mounting into heaven On my neighbor unforgiven? Ne'er to me, howe'er disguised, Comes a saint unrecognized; Never fails my heart to greet Noble deed with warmer beat; Halt and maimed, I own not less All the grace of holiness; Nor, through shame or self-distrust, Less I love the pure and just. Lord, forgive these words of mine What have I that is not Thine? Whatsoe'er I fain would boast Needs Thy pitying pardon most. Thou, O Elder Brother! who In Thy flesh our trial knew, Thou, who hast been touched by these Our most sad infirmities, Thou alone the ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier

... did, and contriving murder and vengeance. Now this God would be drowning everybody in the world, now he would be burning Sodom and Gomorrah, now he would be inciting his congenial Israelites to the most terrific pogroms. This divine "frightfulness" is of course the natural human dislike and distrust for queer practices or for too sunny a carelessness, a dislike reinforced by the latent fierceness of the ape in us, liberating the latent fierceness of the ape in us, giving it an excuse and pressing permission upon it, ...
— God The Invisible King • Herbert George Wells

... statesmanship controlled the Hungarian Government in the first months of its activity, a union between the Magyars and the subordinate races against Viennese centralisation might perhaps even now have been effected. But distrust and animosity had risen too high for the mediators between Slav and Magyar to attain any real success, nor was any distinct promise of self-government even now to be drawn from the offers of concession ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe

... dim light, graving it deep on her inner vision, seeking to formulate some conception of the strange being so still and placid before her. How had she ever thought him ridiculous and uncouth? How had she ever dared to insult him by distrust? What did it matter what other men, estimating him by their own sordid standards, said of him? As if her thought had established a connection with his, he opened his eyes and ...
— The Unspeakable Perk • Samuel Hopkins Adams

... upstairs to the drawing-room. Morris was altogether unlike himself; this discovery of Mills's treachery seemed to have changed his nature. Violent and quick he always was, but to-night he was suspicious, he seemed to distrust Mr. Taynton himself. And, a thing which his host had never known him do before, he had drunk in that half hour when they sat waiting, close ...
— The Blotting Book • E. F. Benson

... possible. Mechanical defects or other unforeseen troubles in any part of the plant or underground system might arise and cause temporary stoppages of operation, thus giving grounds for uncertainty which would create a feeling of public distrust in the permanence ...
— Edison, His Life and Inventions • Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin

... entered his office,—self-possession too apparent not to be forced,—her way of seating herself, her uneasy laugh, and above all, the overwhelming flood of words with which she sought to conceal a certain embarrassment, all created in the mind of the priest a vague distrust. Unhappily, in Paris the circles are so mixed, the community of pleasures and similarity of toilets have so narrowed the line of demarcation between fashionable women of good and bad society, that the ...
— Jack - 1877 • Alphonse Daudet

... There is no doubt that Edinburgh helped to form him. His mind was one naturally open to influences which are summed up as "the academic spirit"; dislike of exaggeration, impatience with brilliancy which does not illuminate, and distrust of enthusiasm which is not prepared to show its credentials at every step. His own style is marked by these qualities, and in addition by a reminiscence of eighteenth-century formality, more likely to please perhaps future than present readers; accurate, a little distant, it pleases ...
— Lady John Russell • Desmond MacCarthy and Agatha Russell

... first seen the Chevalier, and as it became more and more impossible for her to continue to meet him upon the old affectionate, confidential footing upon which they had hitherto lived, so exactly in the same degree distrust of Angela crept into the Chevalier's mind, since he ascribed her constraint to the secret which had once disturbed her peace of mind and which had not been revealed to him. From this distrust were born displeasure and ...
— Weird Tales, Vol. II. • E. T. A. Hoffmann

... and employee, and every impropriety of conduct on the part of the freedmen of Horsford. Eliab was regarded as a wicked spirit who devised evil continually, and Nimbus as his willing familiar, who executed his purpose with ceaseless diligence. So Red Wing was looked upon with distrust, and its two leading characters, unconsciously to themselves, became marked men, upon whom rested the suspicion and aversion of a ...
— Bricks Without Straw • Albion W. Tourgee

... countries, where German propaganda, ever resourceful and many-sided, was facilitated by kinship of race, language, folklore and literature. Of the three kingdoms Sweden, the strongest, was also the most impressible owing to the further bond of fellowship supplied by a common object of distrust—the Russian empire. Suspicion and dislike of the Tsardom had been long and successfully inculcated by the German Press, from which Sweden received her supply of daily news, and also, as is usual in such cases, by prominent natives who, in obedience to motives to which history is indifferent, ...
— England and Germany • Emile Joseph Dillon

... caused by distrust of his master, Cadmus began edging to one side. A few steps were enough to take him out of range of that dreaded weapon, and then his ...
— Cowmen and Rustlers • Edward S. Ellis

... of mingled hope and wary suspicion transfixed Gray's heart. Ward's dark face grinned briefly into his, with a flash of secretive black eyes, and Gray was conscious of distrust. ...
— A World is Born • Leigh Douglass Brackett

... other purpose than to fulfil the old prophecies. The impression is more unpleasant, because, as John, unlike Matthew, is educated, subtle, and obsessed with artificial intellectual mystifications, the discovery that he is stupid or superficial in so simple a matter strikes one with distrust and dislike, in spite of his great literary charm, a good example of which is his transfiguration of the harsh episode of the Syrophenician woman into the pleasant story of the woman of Samaria. This perhaps ...
— Preface to Androcles and the Lion - On the Prospects of Christianity • George Bernard Shaw

... for battle that the march of events until the day of Antietam resounded like an epic. The failure of the triple offensive which closed this period was followed in very many minds by the appearance of a new temper, often as valiant as the old but far more grim and deeply seamed with distrust. And how is this distrust, of which the Confederate Administration was the ...
— The Day of the Confederacy - A Chronicle of the Embattled South, Volume 30 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Nathaniel W. Stephenson

... that the Russians had established themselves at Sarakhs on the direct road to Herat and just over the Persian boundary of Afghanistan. These later movements again aroused the distrust of England, and a joint commission of Russian and English officials was appointed early in ...
— Afghanistan and the Anglo-Russian Dispute • Theo. F. Rodenbough

... time of the New Testament writers. Before we do so, however, let me call your attention to a few of the specimens of very careless reasoning in that part of your book, which we have now gone over. They may serve to inspire you with a modest distrust of the soundness of other ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society

... string to your bow of distrust? Fie, Mary Louise! When you were selling Liberty Bonds, did you ...
— Mary Louise and the Liberty Girls • Edith Van Dyne (AKA L. Frank Baum)

... such a cleaver contryvance to have this Letter delivered into the hands of the Landlord, that he had not the least distrust of a cheat; but away he rides immediately. In the mean while, these Students committed much sauciness and wantonness with the Mistriss and the Maid; till at last locking them both up in a Chamber, ...
— The Ten Pleasures of Marriage and The Confession of the New-married Couple (1682) • A. Marsh

... the desk by the window, a slim figure in a clinging silk gown, which alone explained Mrs. Dolan's distrust. The gaslight was turned very low, and her hat shadowed her face, but could not hide its startling beauty, could not mar the brilliancy of the skin, nor dim the wonderful eyes of this modern ...
— The Insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu • Sax Rohmer

... the empire the apprehensive distrust in which the worship of Cybele and Attis had been held gave way to marked favor and the original restrictions were withdrawn. Thereafter Roman citizens were chosen for archigalli, and the holidays of ...
— The Oriental Religions in Roman Paganism • Franz Cumont

... their subsequent intimacy was coloured by the scenes which they had once shared together. Bennet was the natural product of an exiled Court, forced to have recourse to shifts of no dignified kind, and breathing an atmosphere of cynicism and distrust. He knew nothing of, and cared, if possible, still less for, the Constitution or the laws of England. He was one of those who cultivated the friendship of Spain, with whose leading statesmen he had close relations, and who ...
— The Life of Edward Earl of Clarendon V2 • Henry Craik

... down the Hellespont, and had landed in Italy before it was known that he had left Pontus. During his absence from the capital there had been some minor disturbances; but the mass of the citizens were firmly attached to him. Few could distrust the genius and fortune of the irresistible conqueror. In October of 48 he had been made Dictator a second time, and appointed ...
— History of Rome from the Earliest times down to 476 AD • Robert F. Pennell

... terms [in certain cliques]. Cares nothing about those who helped him as Prince Royal, say some; others complain of his avarice [meaning steady vigilance in outlay] as surpassing the late King's; this one complained of his violences of temper (EMPORTEMENS); that one of his suspicions, of his distrust, his haughtinesses, his dissimulation" (meaning polite impenetrability when he saw good). Several circumstances, known to Wilhelmina's own experience, compel Wilhelmina's assent on those points. "I would have spoken ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle

... Mark's distrust of his sincerity, and for the rest of lunch he laid himself out to entertain his less important guest, talking with a slight excess of charm about the lack of vitality, loss of influence, and oriental ...
— The Altar Steps • Compton MacKenzie

... created great distrust and produced strong suspicions in the public mind derogatory to the ...
— Brook Farm • John Thomas Codman

... country. Then if Stormont knew much about mining and was accustomed to negotiate the sale of claims, his curiosity implied that her father's belief in the lode was well grounded. This was encouraging, but the man was a stranger and she felt a vague distrust. ...
— The Lure of the North • Harold Bindloss

... runaways had enduced him to make that disposition. He at first seemed resolved to make them return, but when he reflected that their march, if discovered by the enemy, might induce them to believe it was the whole army, and occasion them to alter their disposition or occasion any confusion or distrust amongst his own people, he judged it safer and better to put up with the disappointment and continue the rest of his plan, tho he could not help complaining that his orders had been neglected in so ...
— The Jacobite Rebellions (1689-1746) - (Bell's Scottish History Source Books.) • James Pringle Thomson

... any respect I am almost prepared to say. I have not the honor of the man's acquaintance; but whatever I hear about him, or see in him, I dislike and distrust. Just at present his ways are specially disturbing. You noticed him this afternoon, I think! The young girl in his company belongs to my Sabbath-school. I have a deep interest in her, partly because she is the sort of girl who is always more or less in danger ...
— Ester Ried Yet Speaking • Isabella Alden

... he was running away," remarked Nat, who had not lost the sudden distrust he felt on the ...
— Jack Ranger's Western Trip - From Boarding School to Ranch and Range • Clarence Young

... countrymen for this mark of their confidence; with a distrust of my own ability to perform the duty required under the most favorable circumstances, and now rendered doubly difficult by existing national perils; yet with a firm reliance on the strength of our free Government, and the eventual loyalty of the people to the just principles upon which it is founded, ...
— Fifty Years of Public Service • Shelby M. Cullom

... After thy good,* and hath done many a day." inherit your property* This sentence, and a hundred times worse, Writeth this man, there God his bones curse. But take no keep* of all such vanity, *notice Defy* Theophrast, and hearken to me. *distrust ...
— The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems • Geoffrey Chaucer

... a growing distrust of hierarchies. Who decides who is to become a monk and who remain a member ...
— Ultima Thule • Dallas McCord Reynolds

... opposed confederation were all influenced by sinister motives. Many honest and good men, whose attachment to British institutions could not be questioned, were opposed to it because their minds were of a conservative turn, and because they looked with distrust upon such a radical change that would alter the relations which existed between the province and the mother country. Many, for reasons which it is not easy to understand, were distrustful of the politicians of Canada, whom they looked upon as of less sterling honesty than ...
— Wilmot and Tilley • James Hannay

... stout Siegfried: "That rueth me in truth. I'll do you this to wit; and ye allow me without distrust, I'll contrive that she lie by you so near this night, that she'll nevermore withhold ...
— The Nibelungenlied • Unknown



Words linked to "Distrust" :   disbelieve, suspiciousness, dubiety, trait, self-distrust, doubt, uncertainty, incertitude, doubtfulness, trust, discredit, dubiousness



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