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Graceless   /grˈeɪsləs/   Listen
Graceless

adjective
1.
Lacking graciousness.  Synonym: unpleasing.
2.
Lacking grace; clumsy.  Synonym: ungraceful.  "His stature low...his bearing ungraceful"
3.
Lacking social polish.  Synonyms: gauche, unpolished.  "Their excellent manners always made me feel gauche"



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"Graceless" Quotes from Famous Books



... superfluous person, a small black insignificant but none the less oppressive stranger. It was odd how, on the instant, the little lady engaged with her did affect him as comparatively black—very much as if that had absolutely, in such a medium, to be the graceless appearance of any item not positively of some fresh shade of a light colour or of some pretty pretension to a charming twist. Any witness of their meeting, his hostess should surely have felt, would have been a false note in the whole rosy glow; but what note so false ...
— The Finer Grain • Henry James

... graceless task to suggest spots in so excellent a sun, and we feminists who worked with her and loved her can never be glad enough or proud enough that the world now knows the greatness of ...
— Elsie Inglis - The Woman with the Torch • Eva Shaw McLaren

... (and perhaps it has been done already) to borrow for these luckless, and, if you will, somewhat graceless persons, the words of the mighty colophon of Matthew Arnold's most unequal but in parts almost finest poem, at least ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury

... him, if there's law to be found in Rhode Island, or in the Providence Plantations! Let him dare to keep his pitiful image out of my sight the lawful time, and then, when he returns, he shall find himself, as many a vagabond has been before him, without wife, as he will be without house to lay his graceless head in."[1] Then, catching a glimpse of the inquiring face of the old seaman, who by this time had worked his way to her very side, she abruptly added, "Here is a stranger in the place, and one who has ...
— The Red Rover • James Fenimore Cooper

... measure mayst thou mete our love; For how should I be loved as I love thee?— I, graceless, joyless, lacking absolutely All gifts that with thy queenship best behove;— Thou, throned in every heart's elect alcove, And crowned with garlands culled from every tree, Which for no head but thine, by Love's decree, All beauties ...
— The House of Life • Dante Gabriel Rossetti

... lay the heart of the worry, proving him only too likely a graceless jealous middle-age curmudgeon, a senile sentimentalist, thus did he upbraidingly mock himself—were there not signs of Damaris developing into a rather thorough paced coquette? She accepted the homage offered her with avidity, with many small ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet

... thought higher and his moral standards better than those of his successors. So they were. He could not be convinced that moral standards had nothing to do with it, and that utilitarian morality was good enough for him, as it was for the graceless. Nature had given to the boy Henry a character that, in any previous century, would have led him into the Church; he inherited dogma and a priori thought from the beginning of time; and he scarcely needed a violent reaction ...
— The Education of Henry Adams • Henry Adams

... spirited, After the graceless insults to the Court The Paris journals flaunt—not voluntarily, But by his ordering. Magician-like He holds them in his fist, and at his squeeze They bubble what he wills!... Yes, she's a girl Of patriotic ...
— The Dynasts - An Epic-Drama Of The War With Napoleon, In Three Parts, - Nineteen Acts, And One Hundred And Thirty Scenes • Thomas Hardy

... was the best possible reason for declining to lay eyes on them for the rest of our natural lives. 'Mamma has such strong prejudices,' Cecily remarked, as she reluctantly gave up the idea; and I waited to see whether the graceless Tottenham would unmurmuringly take down the Bakewells. How strong must be the sentiment that turns a man into a boa-constrictor without a pang of transmigration! But no, this time he was faithful to the principles of his pre-Cecilian existence. 'They are rather ...
— The Pool in the Desert • Sara Jeannette Duncan

... in his handkerchief; so was my friend's in his; and so was mine in mine, as even now my pen drops and I reach for it again. I half regret joining the mad party that had gathered an hour later in the old law office where these two graceless characters held almost nightly revel, the instigators and conniving hosts of a reputed banquet whose MENU'S range confined itself to herrings, or "blind robins," dried beef, and cheese, with crackers, gingerbread, and sometimes pie; the whole washed ...
— Complete Works of James Whitcomb Riley • James Whitcomb Riley

... obstinate cousin that she wished to be friends. The intimacy ripened rapidly, and, Mr. Lockwood, on their wedding day there won't be a happier woman in England than myself. Joseph was the only objector, and he appealed to Heathcliff against 'yon flaysome graceless quean, that's witched our lad wi' her bold een and her forrad ways.' But after a burst of passion at the news, Mr. Heathcliff suddenly calmed down and said to me, 'Nelly, there is a strange change approaching; I'm ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books - Vol. II: Fiction • Arthur Mee, J. A. Hammerton, Eds.

... its companion. The scene is laid in an inn, and the characters are four in number: the Host, whose leading trait is insatiable curiosity; his daughter Sophia, represented as of easy virtue; Soeller, her husband, a graceless scamp; and Alcestes, a former lover of Sophia, and for the time a guest in the inn. In the central scene of the play there come in succession to Alcestes' room in the course of one night Soeller, who steals Alcestes' gold; the Host, to possess himself of ...
— The Youth of Goethe • Peter Hume Brown

... Trunk, and what was in it, which at first her Reverence deny'd to return, 'till Mr. Constable produc'd the Emblem of his Authority, upon which it was deliver'd, without so much as re-minding Gracelove of his Bargain; who then pretended he would search the House for Sir William Wilding; but her graceless Reverence swore most devoutly that he had never been there, and that she had neither seen nor heard from him since the Day he left Philadelphia with her. With these Things, and this Account he return'd to Counsellor Fairlaw's, ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume V • Aphra Behn

... sets its face against the old customs with which the Christmas season was associated, denouncing the "fiendish songs," and "devilish games," the "graceless talk," the "nocturnal gambols," and the various kinds of divination in which the faithful persisted in indulging. But, although repressed, they were not to be destroyed, and at various seasons of the year, but especially those of the summer and winter solstice, the "orthodox," ...
— Christmas: Its Origin and Associations - Together with Its Historical Events and Festive Celebrations During Nineteen Centuries • William Francis Dawson

... across the table. There was something forced and graceless about the act. Blackie eyed Von Gerhard through a misty curtain of cigarette smoke. Von Gerhard gazed at Blackie through narrowed lids as he lighted his cigar. "I'm th' gink you killed off two or three ...
— Dawn O'Hara, The Girl Who Laughed • Edna Ferber

... vain man, who fared on costly food, Whose life was too luxurious to be good; Who made his ivory stands with goblets shine, 210 And forced his guests to morning draughts of wine, Has, with the cup, the graceless custom lost, And still he welcomes, but with less ...
— Poetical Works of Johnson, Parnell, Gray, and Smollett - With Memoirs, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Samuel Johnson, Thomas Parnell, Thomas Gray, and Tobias Smollett

... similar to the present fashion; so that the shoemaker, in a doubtful case, would ask his customer whether he would have square-toed or peaked-toed. The distinction between young and old in this fashion was so general, that sometimes a graceless youth, who had been crossed by his father or guardian in some of his unreasonable humors, would speak of him with the ...
— A Collection of College Words and Customs • Benjamin Homer Hall

... that grandly roll. Hence some have questioned if the Muse we call The Comic Muse be really one at all: Her subject ne'er aspires, her style ne'er glows, And, save that she talks metre, she talks prose. "Aye, but the angry father shakes the stage, When on his graceless son he pours his rage, Who, smitten with the mistress of the hour, Rejects a well-born wife with ample dower, Gets drunk, and (worst of all) in public sight Keels with a blazing flambeau while 'tis light." Well, could ...
— The Satires, Epistles, and Art of Poetry • Horace

... so great a debt. Such duty as the Subject owes the Prince, Even such a woman oweth to her husband; And when she is froward, peevish, sullen, sour, And not obedient to his honest will, What is she but a foul contending Rebel And graceless traitor to her loving Lord? I am ashamed that women are so simple To offer war, where they should ...
— The Wife of Sir Isaac Harman • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells

... that. David was that rare builder, a man who can work with his hands and see all the time inside his soul the completed work. He could no more endure slipshod work or graceless lines in his building than the knight himself could do a cowardly or dishonest thing. David would have done his task faithfully in any case, but it rejoiced his soul to find that the knight and his lady would know not ...
— Masters of the Guild • L. Lamprey

... Thy fate and mine the queen will know, And broken-hearted die of woe. For my unworthy sake, for mine, Rama, the glory of his line, Who bridged his way across the main, Is basely in a puddle slain; And I, the graceless wife he wed, Have brought this ruin on his head. Me, too, on him, O Ravan, slay: The wife beside her husband lay. By his dear body let me rest, Cheek close to cheek and breast to breast, My happy eyes I then will close, ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI

... Jews in some newly-acquired regions had no surnames, but were mostly named Abraham and Moses, and therefore the tax-gatherer could tell t'other from which, and was likely to lose his reason over the matter. The renaming was put into the hands of the War Department, and a charming mess the graceless young lieutenants made of it. To them a Jew was of no sort of consequence, and they labelled the race in a way to make the angels weep. As an example, take these two: Abraham Bellyache and Schmul Godbedamned—Culled from 'Namens Studien,' by ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... grave and formal cat, and, in his way, a personage. He was decorous to a degree, unbended in no confidences with strangers, and hated Mr. Fopling, whom he regarded as either a graceless profligate or a domestic animal of unsettled species who, through no merit and by rank favoritism, had been granted a place in the household superior to his own. At sight of Mr. Fopling, Ajax would bottle-brush ...
— The President - A novel • Alfred Henry Lewis

... how thoroughly instructed Friedrich Wilhelm shows himself in such matters; and how paternally delighted to receive such proposals of improvement introducible at the said Carzig and Himmelstadt, and to find young Graceless so diligent, and his ideas even good. [Forster, ii. 390, 387, 391.] Perhaps a momentary glance into those affairs may ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. VIII. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle

... and hungry, children begging in the black slush, and starving loungers outside a soup kitchen; and on the other, Westbourne Grove, two streets further, a blazing array of crowded shops, a stirring traffic of cabs and carriages, and such a spate of spending that a tired student in leaky boots and graceless clothes hurrying home was continually impeded in the whirl of skirts and parcels and sweetly pretty womanliness. No doubt the tired student's own inglorious sensations pointed the moral. But that was only one of a perpetually recurring ...
— Love and Mr. Lewisham • H. G. Wells

... mumbled metre, leaden pun, For slipshod rhyme, and lazy word, Have pity on this graceless one— Thy mercy ...
— Songs for a Little House • Christopher Morley

... in a joking tone that Lord Dunstable was depressed because the graceless Herbert had promised his parents a visit—a whole week—in August, and had now cried off on some excuse or other. Meadows inquired if Lady Dunstable minded ...
— A Great Success • Mrs Humphry Ward

... His features were angular and somewhat irregular, and upon every one of these individualities the graceless artist enlarged at will. He turned up the nose, and set the stray bits of whiskers, and dotted the cheeks, at war one with another. He even went further, and with a few clever strokes sketched a dwarfed body for the life-sized head. He worked rapidly and ...
— The Evolution of Dodd • William Hawley Smith

... and a perpetual stream of yellow cars; enjoying in its main thoroughfares the luxury of grass-grown "front gardens," untrodden by the foot of man save as to the path from the gate to the hall door; but blighted by an intolerable monotony of miles and miles of graceless, characterless brick houses, black iron railings, stony pavements, slaty roofs, and respectably ill dressed or disreputably poorly dressed people, quite accustomed to the place, and mostly plodding about somebody else's work, which they would not do if they themselves could help it. ...
— Candida • George Bernard Shaw

... five or six times, but could not place those pagan words in the correct order, and as the mischievous girl shook her head each time he made a mistake, he finally became so confused that he could not even begin; then he reddened with anger, and, gnashing his teeth, tore the graceless book out of Fanny's hand, threw it down upon the table and commenced an assault upon the heathen words, and with glaring eyes read the million-times repeated incantation: "His abacem, panacem, phylacem, coracem ...
— Debts of Honor • Maurus Jokai

... complain of an ungrateful child. He may think he did his duty; oh yes, good easy man! and say so too, very, very bitterly; and the world may echo his most partial verdict, crying shame on the unnatural Goneril and Regan, bad daughters who despise the Lear in old age, or on the dissolute and graceless youth, whose education cost so much, and yields so very little. But money cannot compensate that maiden or that youth for early and habitual injustice done to their budding minds, their sensitive hearts, their craving souls, ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper

... were lacerated, swollen, and almost in a state of putrefaction. The savages saw this, and took him back by water, but only to experience new torments. The young ones imitated their elders, and these graceless little rascals pulled out his beard and whiskers, and eyebrows and eyelashes. In order to save himself some part of the pain of this wretched process of their amusement, he was permitted to perform a part of this work with his own hands. He was indeed a pitiable object, but one ...
— The Call Of The South - 1908 • Louis Becke

... call herself her own? That is her cry, and thence her spits Of fury, thence her graceless tone At justice given in bits and bits. The limbs once raw with gnawing chains Will fret at silken when God's beams Of Freedom beckon o'er the plains From mounts that show it more ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... conditions or with different treatment, could only be imagined. Slowly climbing the stairs to the little room Kenneth inhabited, Mr. Watson was forced to conclude, with a sigh of regret, that he could not blame Miss Jane for wishing to find a more desirable heir to her estate than this graceless, sullen youth who had been thrust upon her by a thoughtless request contained in the will of her dead lover—a request that she seemed determined to fulfil literally, as it only required her to "look after" Tom's relatives and did not oblige ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces • Edith Van Dyne

... damned corsair," he cried, thickly, banging his ham-like fist upon the table. "A corsair! First you sail in and plunder me of half my legitimate gains; and now you want to carry off my daughter. But I'll be damned if I'll give her to a graceless, nameless scoundrel like you, for whom the ...
— Scaramouche - A Romance of the French Revolution • Rafael Sabatini

... however, to convince him that she had been weeping. One forgotten tear hung tremulously on her lashes as though too reluctant to part with her grief. A fierce resentment seized him. He turned to leave the car, determined to drag back the graceless King ...
— Trusia - A Princess of Krovitch • Davis Brinton

... friend, unsay that graceless word! I am a mother crowned with joy, And yet I feel a bosom pang To ...
— Gifts of Genius - A Miscellany of Prose and Poetry by American Authors • Various

... how to be as wrong-headed and as graceless as women. We have already mentioned the name of Landois in connection with Diderot's article on Liberty. Landois seems to have been a marvel of unreasonableness, but he was a needy man of letters, and that was enough to make Diderot ready to bear with ...
— Diderot and the Encyclopaedists (Vol 1 of 2) • John Morley

... and ornament it became her perfectly, and set off the beauties of a face which I had never before thought was more than pleasing and intelligent. Perhaps the anger which was excusable after Toddie's graceless caper had something to do with putting unusual color into her cheeks, and a brighter sparkle than usual in her eyes. Whatever was the cause, she looked queenly, and I half imagined that I detected in her ...
— Helen's Babies • John Habberton

... comfort, and beauty of the habitations; and many a house which looked so very picturesque at a distance was found, on a nearer inspection, to be a very dirty domicile. Still the views from them were beautiful. Nature has done everything; it is graceless man who is in fault that all is not in accordance with it. At the corner of one of the streets we saw a number of horses, and mules, and donkeys, standing ...
— A Voyage round the World - A book for boys • W.H.G. Kingston

... Thornton was a villain, by his own confession. My uncle had declared that he had stained his soul with crime for his son's sake. Whichever was the greater villain, it was clear that the son was the more obdurate, graceless, and unrepentant of the two. I had no patience with him. I had no respect for him, and I certainly had no fear of him. Even policy would not permit me to treat him with a consideration ...
— Seek and Find - or The Adventures of a Smart Boy • Oliver Optic

... Thus, graceless, holds he disputation 'Tween frozen conscience and hot-burning will, And with good thoughts makes dispensation, Urging the worser sense for vantage still; Which in a moment doth confound and kill All pure effects, and doth so far proceed, That what ...
— The Rape of Lucrece • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]

... abandoned by Prosper; she believed that she deserved it. She must be graceless, would die disgraced, having served her turn, she supposed. If, nevertheless, she persisted in loving, who was hurt? Besides, she could not help it any more than she could help being a scorn and a shame. Fatalist! So it was ...
— The Forest Lovers • Maurice Hewlett

... out of his reach, he thought of it as a paradise upon earth. And then he considered what sort of a paradise Lady Alexandrina would make for him. It was astonishing how ugly was the Lady Alexandrina, how old, how graceless, how destitute of all pleasant charm, seen through the spectacles which he ...
— The Small House at Allington • Anthony Trollope

... joy which it would give there. There are some natures, and perhaps, as we have said, Pendennis's was one, which are improved and softened by prosperity and kindness, as there are men of other dispositions, who become arrogant and graceless under good fortune. Happy he who can endure one or the other with modesty and good-humor! Lucky he who has been educated to bear his fate, whatsoever it may be, by an early example of uprightness, and a childish training ...
— The History of Pendennis, Vol. 2 - His Fortunes and Misfortunes, His Friends and His Greatest Enemy • William Makepeace Thackeray

... often to the worthy Sire Succeeds th' unworthy son! Extinguished is the ancient fire, Books were the idols of the Squire, The graceless heir has none. ...
— English Book Collectors • William Younger Fletcher

... a palace in the sun-lit hills if you will but let him bask forever in the glory of your smile." All this was uttered in a mixture of tongues so atrocious that "Subway" Smith afterward described it as a salad. The retinue bowed impressively and two or three graceless Americans applauded as vigorously as if they were approving the actions of a well-drilled comic opera chorus. Sailors were hanging in the rigging, on the davits and over the ...
— Brewster's Millions • George Barr McCutcheon

... ballad measure, from all sizes of poets.—The Castle of Otranto was the father of that marvellous, which once over-stocked the circulating library and closed with Mrs. Radcliffe.—Lord Byron has been the father of hundreds of graceless sons!—Travels and voyages have long been a class of literature so fashionable, that we begin to prepare for, or to dread, the arrival of certain ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli

... the disposition of graceless "skeletons" to hang themselves on "foolish" pitchers, bureau-knobs, rockers, cobble-stones, splinters, nails, and, indeed, any projection a tenth of a line ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 83, September, 1864 • Various

... murmuring or repining: as a badge of distinction for their new king, they made a general subscription, and bought him a fine cap ornamented with a white feather, and round it was engraved in letters of gold, "Peter Pippin, King of the Good Boys." A few days after Peter was chosen King, as George Graceless, Neddy Neverpray, and two or three other boys, as naughty as themselves, were playing at marbles in the church-yard, George Graceless's brother Jack, who was a very good-natured little boy, happened to stop his brother George's marble by accident, upon which he flew ...
— The History of Little King Pippin • Thomas Bewick

... him for what he was— a man passionate and revengeful, the leader of that side of the valley's life which she deplored. She did not trust him. Nevertheless, she felt his fascination. He made that appeal to her which a graceless young villain often does to a good woman who lets herself become interested in trying to understand the sinner and his sins. There was another reason why just now she showed him special favor. She ...
— A Texas Ranger • William MacLeod Raine

... green foliage of the north. The natural canals which intersect Stockholm are of great depth, and ships of large burden are enabled to penetrate into the very heart of the town. The general style of building offers little to admire; the houses being for the most part flat-fronted, monotonous, and graceless, without any species of architectural decoration to relieve their inelegant uniformity. It is the position of the city, the air of lightness given to it by the water, which traverses it in every direction, and the life and movement of the port, that form ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol 58, No. 357, July 1845 • Various

... journeyed on through Poland and through Warsaw, Famous for mines of salt and yokes of iron: Through Courland also, which that famous farce saw Which gave her dukes the graceless name of "Biron."[547] 'T is the same landscape which the modern Mars saw, Who marched to Moscow, led by Fame, the Siren! To lose by one month's frost some twenty years Of conquest, and ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron

... Lebanon, that we may celebrate with apt libations the monks of the Holy Land, and though the poor fellows be theoretically “dead to the world,” we will drink to every man of them a good long life, and a merry one! Graceless is the traveller who forgets his obligations to these saints upon earth; little love has he for merry Christendom if he has not rejoiced with great joy to find in the very midst of water-drinking infidels those lowly monasteries, ...
— Eothen • A. W. Kinglake

... have long been cultivated as a source of profit; whence arose the saying that a graceless fellow is not worth a "kurse" or cress—in German, kers. Thus Chaucer speaks about a character in the Canterbury Tales, "Of paramours ne fraught he not a kers." But some writers have referred this saying rather to the wild cherry or kerse, making it of the same significance as our common phrase, ...
— Herbal Simples Approved for Modern Uses of Cure • William Thomas Fernie

... was what my mother meant, that very day when I came back, that Ephraim was happier where he was! The dear old fellow; thrown to the street by his graceless Stiffleg; picked up with a leg full of broken bones; a prisoner in a hospital all these weeks; giving all his savings of years to us; and the 'boys' he's lived with since before I was born accusing him of—theft! Aunt Sally, it's too ...
— Jessica, the Heiress • Evelyn Raymond

... courtiers, were laughing amongst themselves as they followed him: and I was left with the two queens, one of whom was making ruffles for the man she loved, and the other slopping tea for the good of her country. They renewed their generous endeavours to set me right, and I (graceless beast that I am) take up the smoked card which lay before me, and with the corner of ...
— Lady Mary Wortley Montague - Her Life and Letters (1689-1762) • Lewis Melville

... each other, the lifeboats of Walmer and Kingsdown, and faced the sea and the storm. Think of the deed, and its hardships, and its heroism; of the brave hearts who 'darkling faced the billows,' and the anxious women left behind, ye who live to kill time in graceless self-indulgence, and ere it be too late, learn to ...
— Heroes of the Goodwin Sands • Thomas Stanley Treanor

... whole mass, since, in the last analysis, any considerable burden of taxation will distribute itself over the mass. The principle is therefore consonant with justice. What is not less important, the principle, systematically developed, would go far toward freeing the legislature from the graceless function of arbitrating between selfish interests, and the administration from the necessity of putting down powerful interests outlawed by legislative act. It would give us a State working smoothly, and therefore an efficient ...
— The Unpopular Review, Volume II Number 3 • Various

... receptacles, to contrast, with grotesque strangeness, the neat handiwork of Gillow and Seddon. It had a physiognomy and character of its own—this fantastic foreigner! Inlaid with mosaics, depicting landscapes and animals; graceless in form and fashion, but still picturesque, and winning admiration, when more closely observed, from the patient defiance of all rules of taste which had formed its cumbrous parts into one profusely ornamented and eccentric whole. It was the more ...
— Night and Morning, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... a nice little stroll," continued the graceless Mr. Green, "and then I s'pose she found it was later than she thought, and she ...
— A Master Of Craft • W. W. Jacobs

... "The little, graceless, abominable wretch!" exclaimed Mr Percival with anger, "he must be expelled. But can't you recommence ...
— St. Winifred's - The World of School • Frederic W. Farrar

... there is in the thought of a Soul in each of us. In the first place, it robs death of its terrors by making dying a change for the better, and burial but the planting of a seed from which there will spring a new life. In the next place, behold me as I am—weak, weary, old, shrunken in body, and graceless; look at my wrinkled face, think of my failing senses, listen to my shrilled voice. Ah! what happiness to me in the promise that when the tomb opens, as soon it will, to receive the worn-out husk I call myself, the ...
— Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ • Lew Wallace

... awful provocation, and the victim of that crime has little of our sympathy. But there is no sign of penitence or of sorrow in the mind of Absalom for this deep offence, by which he has violated God's most holy law. His course runs on; it is a selfish, wilful, violent, and graceless course, unredeemed, as far as we can see, by any trace of better things. And it ends in base rebellion against the throne and life of the father who had shown to this son more favour and affection than to any of the rest. And the king fled before Absalom and went over Jordan, ...
— Is The Young Man Absalom Safe? • David Wright

... of the village. But there the Squire, falling into the department, and under the benigner influence of his Harry, was as yet not properly hardened. When it came to a question that affected the absolute quantity of loaves to be consumed by the graceless mouths that fed upon him, the milk of human kindness—with which Providence has so bountifully supplied that class of the mammalia called the "Bucolic," and of which our Squire had an extra "yield"—burst forth, and washed away all the ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 2, No. 4, March, 1851 • Various

... he gae a gledge wi' his ee that I kend he took up what I said. And a' his distress is about Miss Edith's marriage; and I ne'er saw a man mair taen down wi' true love in my days,—I might say man or woman, only I mind how ill Miss Edith was when she first gat word that him and you (ye muckle graceless loon) were coming against Tillietudlem wi' the rebels.—But what's the matter wi' ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott

... she broke down, and sat down, and, graceless hussy as she was, laughed as if she was mad. The truth was, that 'vying with Israel' was a byword with us. We were always teasing Sally about her vying with Israel, as she certainly did, while they sung out of the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 110, December, 1866 - A Magazine of Literature, Science, Art, and Politics • Various

... now, graceless pack: Get you gone, lost children mine: Your release is earned in fine: The Chimaera lends ...
— Poems of Paul Verlaine • Paul Verlaine

... that I cared for the gibe; but because I disliked that one there should hear me called by so graceless a name. ...
— Sir Ludar - A Story of the Days of the Great Queen Bess • Talbot Baines Reed

... parish are in tears, and say they will certainly be hanged; for nobody knows what it is for"—"I suppose they deserve it," says the lady. "What! dost thou mention such wretches to me?"—"O dear madam," answered Slipslop, "is it not a pity such a graceless young man should die a virulent death? I hope the judge will take commensuration on his youth. As for Fanny, I don't think it signifies much what becomes of her; and if poor Joseph hath done anything, I could venture to swear she traduced him to it: few ...
— Joseph Andrews, Vol. 2 • Henry Fielding

... handsomely, as he had broken them in London handsomely once before, when, mad with jealousy, he had fled like a thief in the night, burned his boats behind him, and, as he thought, obliterated every trace by which that loved and graceless woman could discover his real name or family holding; and now had come home prepared to do his duty to society and himself. That is, prepared to marry a nice girl of his own kind, keep the estate well in hand, and set an example of respectability and orthodoxy, family ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - February, 1876, Vol. XVII, No. 98. • Various

... of the cactus family, as native to America as is Ashley's peculiar sense of beauty which you won't acknowledge. It is as ugly to look at, the plant is, all spines and thick, graceless, fleshy pads; as ugly as Ashley life looks to you. And this crabbed, ungainly plant-creature is faithfully, religiously tended all the year around by the wife of a farmer, because once a year, just once, it puts forth a wonderful exotic flower of extreme beauty. When the ...
— The Brimming Cup • Dorothy Canfield Fisher

... "I should be graceless indeed were I to find fault with anything to- day," she said impulsively, and raising her head she looked away into the west as if her thoughts had ...
— His Sombre Rivals • E. P. Roe

... were not the same delight to him, and were studied rather as a duty and as a step to the ministry of the Church, the desire of his heart from the first. At school, his companions respected him heartily, and loved him for his unselfish kindness and sweetness, while a few of the more graceless were inclined to brand him as soft or slow, because he never consented to join in anything blameable, and was not devoted to boyish sports, though at times he would join in them with great vigour, ...
— Pioneers and Founders - or, Recent Workers in the Mission field • Charlotte Mary Yonge

... of Austerlitz and Jena than it was on the reappearance of Talma; and not satisfied with this, they insisted on his coming forth again. At length, amidst hurras and cries of "Talma! Talma!" the curtain was closed up, and my last impression rendered unfavourable by a vulgar, graceless figure in nankeen breeches and top-boots hurrying in from a side scene, dropping a swing bow in the centre of the stage, and ...
— Before and after Waterloo - Letters from Edward Stanley, sometime Bishop of Norwich (1802;1814;1814) • Edward Stanley

... O intemperate king! Wilt thou not see me? Come, come, show your face, Your grace's graceless, king's unkingly face. What, mute? hands folded, eyes fix'd on the earth? Whose turn is next now to be murdered? The famish'd Bruces are on yonder side, On this, another I will name anon; One for whose head this garland I do bear, And this fair, milk-white, spotless pendant too. ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VIII (4th edition) • Various

... you not feel alone all day, and lonelier still all night, though the whole world pressed upon you, even at your rising and your lying down, to call you beautiful and gifted beyond compare, and a divine being on earth, and in return to beg a benefice for a graceless younger son, or a curacy for a starving cousin of a priest, or the privilege of providing the oil for the lamps in the Vatican? That is my life, if you call it a life! It is all I have, except my love for you—my honouring, ...
— Stradella • F(rancis) Marion Crawford

... of scattered rice, through all the wedding whirl A laughing fellow hurries out a certain graceless girl, Unless my hand have lost its strength, unless my eye be dim, I'll lift the shoe, the contract too, and fling the ...
— The Vagabond and Other Poems from Punch • R. C. Lehmann

... the two-shilling piece which appeared in 1849. "This piece," says Miss G.B. Rawlings in Coins and How to Know Them, a book rich in information, "was unfavourably received, owing to the omission of 'Dei Gratia' after the Queen's name, and was stigmatised as the godless or graceless florin." The florin, however, so called after a Florentine coin, had come to stay, but since 1851 it has been as godly in inscription as any of the other money in one's pocket. The coin has survived, but hardly the name. One can with an effort ...
— The Pleasures of Ignorance • Robert Lynd

... mankind. The Holy Empire which so ingeniously combined the worst characteristics of despotism and republicanism kept all Germany and half Europe in the turmoil of a perpetual presidential election. A theatre where trivial personages and graceless actors performed a tragi-comedy of mingled folly, intrigue, and crime, and where earnestness and vigour were destined to be constantly baffled, now offered the principal stage for the ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... port" is still cited in these days of boasted advancement in culture, religion, morals; and it is the same old world to-day as that which lauded and bowed down to him whom it called "his Grace" (despite what we consider his graceless actions); the same world, alas! ignoring the open and evident fact when he steps aside from the narrow path of honor and rectitude; while, should she swerve in the least, pouring out mercilessly its harshest taunts, or overwhelming her with pitiless scorn. This, because woman should hold ...
— Over the Border: Acadia • Eliza Chase

... common-belief of the truth of the things of religion, that persons may have from education or otherwise, may help forward their affection. We read in Scripture of many that were greatly affected with things of a religious nature, who yet are there presented as wholly graceless, and many of them very ill men. A person therefore may have affecting views of religion, and yet be very destitute of spiritual light. Flesh and blood may be the author of this; one man may give another an affecting view of divine things but ...
— The world's great sermons, Volume 3 - Massillon to Mason • Grenville Kleiser

... these graceless people thought to humbug the hard-headed man from the North, he succeeded on one occasion in completely silencing his chief enemy, O'Halloran. That lover of paradox and idle speculation was tracing the decline of ...
— Sunrise • William Black

... wounds, and looks carelessly upon all these terrors of guiltiness. When he casts his eye back upon himself, he wonders where he was and how he came there; and grants that if there were not some witchcraft in sin, he could not have been so sottishly graceless. And now, in the issue, Satan finds (not without indignation and repentance) that he hath done him a good turn in tempting him: for he had never been so good if he had not sinned; he had never fought with such courage, if he had not seen his blood and been ashamed of his folly. Now he is ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various

... with among Western lads of the same age,—is destined to undergo the strangest of transformations long before becoming a baccalaureus. You may meet with him a few years later, in the uniform of some Higher School, and find it difficult to recognize your former pupil,—now graceless, taciturn, secretive, and inclined to demand as a right what could scarcely, with propriety, be requested as a favour. You may find [432] him patronizing,—possibly something worse. Later on, at the University, he becomes more formally ...
— Japan: An Attempt at Interpretation • Lafcadio Hearn

... defensive verandah, which seems to have very stoutly and completely surrounded us, play more or less the part of a raft of rescue in too high a tide—too high a tide there beneath us, as I recover it, of the ugly and the graceless. My particular perspective may magnify a little wildly—when it doesn't even more weirdly diminish; but I read into the great hooded and guarded resource in question an evidential force: as if it must really have played for us, so far as its narrowness and its exposure permitted, the part of ...
— A Small Boy and Others • Henry James

... how high he goes,' The Bat exclaimed with glee, 'But yet he never says he owes His rise in life to me. No, no, that's not his way at all; And though I do my best, His graceless growls at every fall Are ...
— Chatterbox, 1905. • Various

... my lad,' he said kindly. 'I ask ye not to tarry in what ye must deem a graceless household;' and he looked sadly across at his two sons, boys in age, but seniors in excess. 'I would we had mair lads like you. I fear me a heavy reckoning ...
— The Caged Lion • Charlotte M. Yonge

... much fault on both sides, but, in spite of the brilliant advocate who has pleaded Thorn's cause, I cannot but admit that he was decidedly the more to blame. He carried things with a high hand, indeed, treating the partners as he might a graceless ...
— South American Fights and Fighters - And Other Tales of Adventure • Cyrus Townsend Brady

... an arm around his charmer's waist. To his astonishment, however, she lifted up her skirts and began to dance a "can-can" in the road. It then became apparent that her legs were clothed in trousers. The lady was at home in bed; she had been personated by a graceless young cub whose stature was about the same ...
— Reminiscences of a South African Pioneer • W. C. Scully

... kind she looks as she does it; still there is something strange, deserted, and graceless in this large bare room. I should not like to ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... round the world, exemplifying the truth of the saying, that 'a rolling stone gathers no moss.' My father did not much fancy my giving up his business; and indeed I had to take French leave at last, and then write and ask his forgiveness. He told me, in reply, that I was a graceless vagabond; but that I might follow my own devices, if I was so minded, without opposition, though without help from him. I fancied that my own devices were full of wisdom, so resolved to follow them. I had fallen in with a man bound for the Cape of Good Hope Colony, ...
— The Gilpins and their Fortunes - A Story of Early Days in Australia • William H. G. Kingston

... ate up romance, and hundreds of acres of wretched, cheaply built, hideous, unsafe buildings sprang up like the unhealthy growth of a foul disease, between the Lateran gate and the old inhabited districts. They are destined to a graceless and ignoble ruin. Ugly cracks in the miserable stucco show where the masonry is already parting, as the hollow foundations subside, and walls on which the paint is still almost fresh are shored up with dusty beams lest they should fall and crush the few paupers ...
— Ave Roma Immortalis, Vol. 1 - Studies from the Chronicles of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford

... be to unlatch for every graceless unthrift that chooses to pummel at Giles Dauber's wicket, I shall have but sorry ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby

... that the way ye talk?" said Brother Bart, who had a spirit of his own. "And it's only what I might look for, ye graceless young reprobate! God knows it was sore against my will that I brought ye with me, Dan Dolan; for I knew ye'd be a sore trial first to last. But I had to obey them that are above me. Stay, then, if you will against ...
— Killykinick • Mary T. Waggaman

... the effort to decide. Only one thing was clear—that he could not give her up. The future grew black at the very thought of it. With her he could make things go, but alone it was another matter. He would take the plunge and he would justify it. His mind went traveling back over the graceless year, and he suddenly realized that he had forfeited the confidence of men who were worth while. His course in profligacy would not be considered the best training for business. The thought nerved him to action. ...
— Brewster's Millions • George Barr McCutcheon

... measuring out his words and measuring off at the same time the span of a murderer's life; for when the crown attorney said to the judge that he had concluded his examination there was no one in the room—not even the graceless Burlingame—who did not think ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... prosperous, nor his end so happy. You will learn, a little further on, what scurvy tricks Fortune played him, and how at last his poor little brains succumbed to the rough toasting of that graceless jade. I had always thought him Mad, and Mad, indeed, as a March hare he proved to be ...
— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 2 of 3 • George Augustus Sala

... moss, that whitens all the hill, Shall live a beauty by thy matchless skill; Gale from the bog shall yield Arabian balm, And the gray willow give a golden palm. "I see thee smiling in the pictured room, Now breathing beauty, now reviving bloom; There, each immortal name 'tis thine to give, To graceless forms, and bid the lumber live. Should'st thou coarse boors or gloomy martyrs see, These shall thy Guidos, these thy Teniers be; There shalt thou Raphael's saints and angels trace, There make for Rubens ...
— Miscellaneous Poems • George Crabbe

... ought to be. It is something of a reminder and a rebuke to them: and it is just as well that mankind at large should not know too much of the actual fact as to those above them. I should never object to calling a graceless duke Tour Grace: nor to praying for a villariously bad monarch as our most religious and gracious King (I know quite well, small critic, that religious is an absurd mistranslation: but let us take the liturgy in the sense in which ninety-nine out of every hundred who hear it understand ...
— The Recreations of A Country Parson • A. K. H. Boyd

... Peeksniff," as commentators of the day among the graceless subs were won't to call Colonel Stevens, was having his bad quarter of an hour. Leaving his team with the orderly, John Folsom had stamped into his presence unannounced, and after his own vigorous fashion opened the ...
— Warrior Gap - A Story of the Sioux Outbreak of '68. • Charles King

... De Stancy had been an easy, melancholy, unaspiring officer, enervated and depressed by a parental affection quite beyond his control for the graceless lad Dare—the obtrusive memento of a shadowy period in De Stancy's youth, who threatened to be the curse of his old age. Throughout a long space he had persevered in his system of rigidly incarcerating within himself all instincts towards the opposite sex, with a resolution that would not ...
— A Laodicean • Thomas Hardy

... she held him under a calculating glance which he withstood with graceless fortitude. Then, realizing that he was determined not by any means to be won to her cause, she gave him her hand, with a commonplace wish that he might find his affairs in better order than seemed probable; and ...
— The Black Bag • Louis Joseph Vance

... by the Squire lived a graceless old infidel named MYERS, who was wont to entangle his simple neighbors in arguments sadly vexing to their orthodoxy. On one occasion he devoted an hour to prove to BULLARD that there was no future ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol I, Issue I, January 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... mystery is explained; the key of conceptualism has opened the tabernacle, and Saint Bernard was right in saying that, thanks to Abelard, every one can penetrate it and contemplate it at his ease; 'even the graceless, even the uncircumcised.' Yes! the Trinity is explained, but after the manner of the Sabellians. For to identify the Persons in the terms of human concepts is, in the same stroke, to destroy their ...
— Mont-Saint-Michel and Chartres • Henry Adams

... and scarred the private pride of his father? And how was it possible for Mr. Britling, disfigured by heedless misadventures, embarrassed by complications and concealments, to help this honest youngster out of his perplexities? He imagined possible forms of these perplexities. Graceless forms. Ugly forms. Such forms as only the nocturnal imagination ...
— Mr. Britling Sees It Through • H. G. Wells

... lion roared, "He sitteth here acknowledged, thou graceless animal! and he's before ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... office with respect of its personnel as a business man would, that is, by making appointments and promotions for merit rather than for political influence. This was intolerable to the spoilsmen in politics; and within two years he was summarily dismissed in a manner as graceless and cruel as any President, no matter how unfortunately bred, was ever guilty of. Jewell was succeeded by James N. Tyner, an entirely complaisant official. In 1875 Congress neglected to make any appropriation for the civil service reform commission, ...
— Ulysses S. Grant • Walter Allen

... no peril, neither with poison 450 Nor with treacherous token in time of evil. There God's warrior works him a nest, With doughty deeds dangers avoids, He distributes alms to the stricken and needy, He tells graceless men of the mercy of God, 455 Of the Father's help; he hastens forth, Lessening the perils of this passing life, Its darksome deeds, and does God's will With bravery in his breast. His bidding he seeks In prayer, with pure heart and pliant knee 460 Bent to ...
— Old English Poems - Translated into the Original Meter Together with Short Selections from Old English Prose • Various

... both end not in i, retain their primitive parts entire; as, millstone, changeable, graceless; except always, also, deplorable, although, ...
— Enquire Within Upon Everything - The Great Victorian Domestic Standby • Anonymous

... Henry, and burned the magnificent Cathedral at Hartzburg. Here again the Pope secured to the king the powerful assistance of Rodolph, Duke of Suabia, in conjunction with whom the royal army obtains a decisive victory at Hohenburg. But once in security and crowned with success, the graceless monarch forgets his submission, and exclaims, "It does not befit a hero, who has vanquished a warlike people, struggling in defence of what they hold most sacred, to bow humbly down before a priest, whose only weapon is his tongue!" Faithless to his recorded vow in the hour of ...
— The Truce of God - A Tale of the Eleventh Century • George Henry Miles

... indulgent and easy to be entreated of all mothers, still her boys had a very reverent remembrance of a most vehement chastisement she once bestowed on them, because she found them leagued with several graceless boys of the neighborhood, stoning ...
— Uncle Tom's Cabin • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... this deal and close it quickly. Naturally Hayes isn't fool enough to toss away two thousand dollars, and something seems to tell me he'll urge his principals to take the boats at our figure, Matthew!" And the graceless old villain chuckled and dug his youngest skipper in the short ribs. "Let this be a lesson to you, my boy," he warned him. "Remember the old Persian proverb: 'A shut mouth catches ...
— Cappy Ricks • Peter B. Kyne

... interest waned in politics the greater became his interest in Mrs. Bounderby. And he cultivated the whelp, cultivated him earnestly, and by so doing learnt from the graceless youth that "Loo never cared anything for old Bounderby," and had married him to ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol III • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.

... facades which give such scope to the sculptor and architect, conferring, as at Pisa, distinction on a whole town. The churches of the Carmine, Santo Spirito and San Lorenzo are without facades at all, presenting graceless and unfinished masonry in place of what was intended by their founders. Elsewhere there are late and florid facades alien to the spirit of the main building, while it has been left to our own generation to complete ...
— Donatello • David Lindsay, Earl of Crawford

... her to the mercy of the herd of children, who would like to rend her as a weaker representative of authority. A great dread of her task possessed her. She saw Mr. Brunt, Miss Harby, Miss Schofield, all the school-teachers, drudging unwillingly at the graceless task of compelling many children into one disciplined, mechanical set, reducing the whole set to an automatic state of obedience and attention, and then of commanding their acceptance of various pieces ...
— The Rainbow • D. H. (David Herbert) Lawrence

... ill-made, ill- shaped, ill-proportioned; crooked &c (distorted) 243; hard featured, hard visaged; ill-favored, hard-favored, evil-favored; ill-looking; unprepossessing, unattractive, uninviting, unpleasing. graceless, inelegant; ungraceful, ungainly, uncouth, stiff; rugged, rough, gross, rude, awkward, clumsy, slouching, rickety; gawky; lumping, lumpish^; lumbering; hulky^, hulking; unwieldy. squalid, haggard; grim, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget

... last, full of years and honour; and I was summoned from school to attend her funeral. My uncle was much affected, for she had been an excellent mother. She might have been so; but I, graceless boy, could not perceive her merits as a grandmother, and showed a great deal of fortitude upon the occasion. I recollect a circumstance attendant upon her funeral which, connected as it was with a subsequent ...
— The King's Own • Captain Frederick Marryat

... about 5 knots an hour; three ships in sight; read before breakfast one of Cobbett's sermons "On hypocrisy." In the forenoon two sermons from Chalmers's "Discourses on Commercial Integrity." One of the steerage passengers read from the Scriptures and commented sensibly, but he was laughed at by some graceless Irishmen. In the afternoon Mr. Hopkins proposed to address the passengers. After reading about the talents he proceeded to speak of the Bible as the oldest and best Book. Paine, he said, had denounced it as ...
— A Journey to America in 1834 • Robert Heywood

... that would really be richer in duty in some new position, are precisely those who borrow no excuses from the old one; who even esteem it full of privileges, plenteous in occasions of good, frequent in divine appeals, which they chide their graceless and unloving temper for not heeding more. Wretched and barren is the discontent that quarrels with its tools instead of with its skill; and, by criticising Providence, manages to keep up complacency with self. How gentle should we be, if we ...
— Daily Strength for Daily Needs • Mary W. Tileston

... who rules the Church of God. How is it possible for him to admit any to the Lord's table, when he is but a judge himself?" How is it possible to excommunicate, when he ought to be excommunicated himself? So, brethren, a graceless elder is a curse instead ...
— Gathering Jewels - The Secret of a Beautiful Life: In Memoriam of Mr. & Mrs. James Knowles. Selected from Their Diaries. • James Knowles and Matilda Darroch Knowles

... Ross to him; and as he became aware that she was a pleasant-looking lady of middle age, who regarded him with very friendly and truthful eyes, he vowed to himself that he would bring Mr. Ogilvie to task for representing this decent and respectable woman as a graceless and dangerous coquette. No doubt she was the mother of children. At her time of life she was better employed in the nursery or in the kitchen than in flirting with young men; and could he doubt that she was a good house-mistress when he saw ...
— Macleod of Dare • William Black

... to be named in these pages; he drove with him to the races; he took him to lunch at suburban hotels, frequented by fast men who drove fast horses; he ministered to every coarse taste and vulgar desire possessed by the man whose nature and graceless caprices he so carefully studied. He did all this at his own expense, and at the same time he kept his principal out of the clutches of gamblers and sharpers. It was for his interest to be of actual ...
— Sevenoaks • J. G. Holland

... tender mother will own no other of all her num'rous brood But such as stand at Christ's right hand, acquitted through his Blood. The pious father had now much rather his graceless son should lie In hell with devils, for all ...
— Woman's Life in Colonial Days • Carl Holliday

... Coming back by Cananor, he lodged in the house of a Christian, who himself was religious, but his son debauched, and subject to all sorts of vices. The good man, sensibly afflicted at the ill conduct of his graceless son, wept day and night; and Xavier began at first to comfort him, saying, those vices were ordinary in youth, and riper age would reclaim him from them. Having done speaking, he stood mute awhile, and recollected himself; then, suddenly lifting up ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume XVI. (of 18) - The Life of St. Francis Xavier • John Dryden

... Edith, that same graceless youth was in the habit of calling 'The Sentimental.' She was the darkest of the family, and the most beautiful also, where every one was more or less good-looking. She had soft brown hair, dark blue-gray eyes of the tenderest ...
— The Beautiful Wretch; The Pupil of Aurelius; and The Four Macnicols • William Black

... month the energy of other men of law was very keenly at work on a widely different subject. Could Messrs. Block and Curling assure Captain Marrable that a portion of his inheritance would be saved for him, or had that graceless father of his in very truth seized upon it all? There was no shadow of doubt but that if aught was spared, it had not been spared through any delicacy on the part of the Colonel. The Colonel had gone to work, ...
— The Vicar of Bullhampton • Anthony Trollope

... battle, so riddled has it been by lances, spears, darts, arrows, and I know not what besides. Don't be ashamed of it, Baron!—these holes are honourable to you. Many a shirt of fine linen, ruffled and embroidered, according to the latest fashion, disguises the graceless person of some rascally parvenu—and usurer as well perhaps—who usurps the place of his betters. Several of the great heroes, of immortal fame, had not a shirt to their backs—Ulysses, for example, that wise and valiant man, who presented himself before the beautiful Princess Nausicaa, with no ...
— Captain Fracasse • Theophile Gautier

... terror, and which the opposition roared at as if the administration could have helped it. The State-Houses were two mere deformities of patched plaster and leprous whitewash; they were such shapeless, graceless, dilapidated wigwams, that no sensitive patriot could look at them without wanting to fly to the uttermost parts of the earth; and yet it was not possible to build new ones, and hardly possible to obtain appropriations enough to shingle out the weather; for Fastburg would vote ...
— Stories by American Authors (Volume 4) • Constance Fenimore Woolson

... "Ah, graceless wretch, I knew that thou wouldst soon spoil all, and bring thyself to poverty. So, to hide thy shame, and bring thy sorrows to an end, I left this rope, which will prove ...
— Tales From Scottish Ballads • Elizabeth W. Grierson

... Muse" [Gray]; barbarism; slang &c. 563; solecism &c. 568; mannerism &c. (affectation) 855; euphuism[obs3]; fustian &c. 577; cacophony; words that break the teeth, words that dislocate the jaw; marinism[obs3]. V. be inelegant &c. adj. Adj. inelegant, graceless, ungraceful; harsh, abrupt; dry, stiff, cramped, formal, guinde[Fr]; forced, labored; artificial, mannered, ponderous; awkward, uncourtly[obs3], unpolished; turgid &c. 577; affected, euphuistic[obs3]; barbarous, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus

... be a beast, To pit some havins in his breast! [put, behavior] An' warn him, what I winna name, [will not] To stay content wi' yowes at hame; [ewes] An' no to rin an' wear his cloots, [hoofs] Like ither menseless graceless brutes. [unmannerly] 'An neist my yowie, silly thing, [next] Gude keep thee frae a tether string! O may thou ne'er forgather up [make friends] Wi' ony blastit moorland tup; But ay keep mind to moop an' mell, [nibble, meddle] Wi' sheep o' credit like thysel! 'And ...
— Robert Burns - How To Know Him • William Allan Neilson

... bless you! Shame on my graceless heart! How dared I fear, 295 Lady Sarolta could ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge

... golden hair and silvery voice become an actress of genuine mettle as well as gentle grace, is ESTELLE, the heroine; Miss EMILY MESTAYER is the Commanding Sister of Col. EPEE who is personated by Mr. FISHER; Mr. WYNDHAM is the Graceless Private, who, having spent his last penny, enlists in the Lancers and spends vast sums in beneficiary beer in company with his comrades; Mr. WILLIAMSON is the Kindly Sergeant; Mr. RINGGOLD is the Genial Artist, whose velvet coat suggests that he has recently managed a Starr ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 9, May 28, 1870 • Various

... gloomy creed, Inspiring fear and boding wretchedness. Her figure has recurr'd; for she did love The sabbath-day, and many a time has cross'd These fields in rain and thro' the winter snows. When I, a graceless boy, wishing myself By the fire-side, have wondered why 'she' came Who might have sate at home. One only care Hung on her aged spirit. For herself, Her path was plain before her, and the close Of her long journey near. But then ...
— Poems, 1799 • Robert Southey

... this, Dame Dorothy had no idea of parting with the graceless brute, but continued to pet and pamper him. She was even secretly proud of Nero, because he was the biggest dog in the village, and by far the most terrible. Once she told the neighbours over the palings that he was a great protection to her, especially ...
— Fifty-Two Stories For Girls • Various

... life he led poor Juno, we often wondered why she did not turn grayer than ever, having to deal with this graceless young reprobate. If he found her trying to sleep a little, he would bite her ears and pull at her tail, bracing himself back on all four of his absurd little feet, and sometimes tumbling over in his excitement; and he rolled over her and growled ...
— The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1, No. 20, March 25, 1897 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various

... the graceless grass of town They rake the rows of red and brown— Dead leaves, unlike the rows of hay Delicate, touched with gold and grey, Raked long ago ...
— Poems of To-Day: an Anthology • Various

... Leah Einstein's heart once more, for she now knew that her graceless son was probably safe ...
— The Midnight Passenger • Richard Henry Savage

... It occurred to him to question what the lovely time that she had been having in that dreary office could possibly be. And into the pretty print of the scene on his mind, like a humped marine beast rising through a summer sea, there obtruded the recollection of the little solicitor, the graceless embarrassment that he had shown at the beginning of the interview by purposeless rubbings of his hands and twisting of the ankles, the revelation of ugly sexual quality which he had given by his shame at the story of the bed that was ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West

... Graceless faces, Loveless graces, Are but motes in light that quicken, Sands that run down Ere the sundown, Roseleaves dead ere ...
— Poems & Ballads (Second Series) - Swinburne's Poems Volume III • Algernon Charles Swinburne

... the road I must be an armed knight again: forsooth I unbound my hair e'en now and let my surcoat hang loose about me in token that thou wottest my secret. Soothly, my friend, it irks me that now we have met after a long while, I must needs be clad thus graceless. But need drave me to it, and withal the occasion that was given to me to steal this gay armour from a lad at Utterbol, the nephew of the lord; who like his eme was half my lover, half my tyrant. Of all which I will tell ...
— The Well at the World's End • William Morris

... the Friar, fanning himself with a frond of bracken, "'tis a hot day, a day reminiscent of the ultimate fate of graceless sinners, and I am like the day and languish for breath, yet, to thy so pertinent question I will, straightly and in few words, pronounce and answer thee, as followeth: Our Lady Benedicta hath run away firstly, brethren, for that being formed woman after Nature's ...
— The Geste of Duke Jocelyn • Jeffery Farnol

... conceits Measures with one Anthony Lamb, an Apprentice to Mr. Carter a Mathematical Instrument-maker, for Robbing of Mr. Barton a Master Taylor; a Man of Worth and Reputation, who Lodg'd in Mr. Carter's House. Charles Grace, a graceless Cooper was let into the Secret, and consented, and resolved to Act his Part. The 16th of June last was appointed, Lamb accordingly lets Grace and Sheppard into the House at Mid-Night; and ...
— The History of the Remarkable Life of John Sheppard • Daniel Defoe

... strap of black leather. In truth, face, figure, and all included, he was as harsh and ill-favoured a person as could have been encountered even at that day,—one whose lips would have seemed to taint the blessing to which he might have given utterance; and graceless as Burrell undoubtedly was, there was excuse for the impatience he felt ...
— The Buccaneer - A Tale • Mrs. S. C. Hall

... decadence, as also in a tetragonal aspect to Saturn, associated with Mercury. Thou wilt be soundly peppered, my good, honest fellow, I warrant thee. I will be? answered Panurge. A plague rot thee, thou old fool and doting sot, how graceless and unpleasant thou art! When all cuckolds shall be at a general rendezvous, thou shouldst be their standard-bearer. But whence comes this ciron-worm betwixt these two fingers? This Panurge said, putting the forefinger of his left hand betwixt ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais



Words linked to "Graceless" :   gracelessness, unpleasing, ungracious, unpolished, inelegant, ungraceful, awkward



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