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Effeminate   Listen
adjective
Effeminate  adj.  
1.
Having some characteristic of a woman, as delicacy, luxuriousness, etc.; soft or delicate to an unmanly degree; womanish; weak. "The king, by his voluptuous life and mean marriage, became effeminate, and less sensible of honor." "An effeminate and unmanly foppery."
2.
Womanlike; womanly; tender; in a good sense. "Gentle, kind, effeminate remorse." Note: Effeminate and womanish are generally used in a reproachful sense; feminine and womanly, applied to women, are epithets of propriety or commendation.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Effeminate" Quotes from Famous Books



... therein; but although some of them were very zealous to put his advice in practice, and were in a manner filled with pleasure at it, and thought death to be a good thing, yet had those that were most effeminate a commiseration for their wives and families; and when these men were especially moved by the prospect of their own certain death, they looked wistfully at one another, and by the tears that were in their eyes declared their dissent from his opinion. When Eleazar saw these people in such fear, and ...
— The Wars of the Jews or History of the Destruction of Jerusalem • Flavius Josephus

... l. 30, squall.]—probably, poor effeminate creature. Taylor, the water-poet, describes the rich foolish ...
— Kemps Nine Daies Wonder - Performed in a Daunce from London to Norwich • William Kemp

... was always exquisitely clean and orderly, both about his person and the books and things that belonged to him in his rooms, where there was an atmosphere of almost feminine refinement, though their occupant was by no means effeminate in his thoughts or bearing. We understood that he had left Italy in consequence of some political difficulty, and we knew that he had still relations there. One day, as we were engaged with our lesson at his lodgings, he took some leaves ...
— Philip Gilbert Hamerton • Philip Gilbert Hamerton et al

... well as she did this evening, moved by one of the thousand vagrant impulses that lent such varying colour to her character. Her humour was more subdued, her gaiety was restrained within the limits of an almost conventional decorum. She helped the men with a graciousness that was wholly effeminate, and the diggers responded ...
— In the Roaring Fifties • Edward Dyson

... not prone to indulge in effeminate demonstration, but I am not ashamed to confess that when I gazed on the weather-beaten though ruddy countenance of my old companion, and observed the eager glance of his bright blue eyes, I was quite overcome, and rushed violently ...
— The Gorilla Hunters • R.M. Ballantyne

... peasant is, from necessity, industrious, the upper classes, particularly the nobles, are effeminate, indolent, decadent, and servile. Their amusements are cock-fighting, dancing, shadow plays, and gambling, and they lead an utterly worthless existence which the Dutch do nothing to discourage. Their Mohammedanism is decadent and has none of the ...
— Where the Strange Trails Go Down • E. Alexander Powell

... "You are too effeminate," she said, leaning against the fence, and shading her eyes with her fan, as she glanced around in the staring moonlight. "Civilization has taken away your legs. A man ought to be able to trust to his feet all day, and ...
— Maruja • Bret Harte

... make-up. As for Roswell Palmer and Frank Mansley, their excellent home training, not denying credit to the grim old miner for his wise counsel, had held them free from the bad habits which too often make boys effeminate and weak and old before their time. Gifted by nature with the best of constitutions, they had strengthened rather than undermined them. Neither had known an hour's illness throughout the long, laborious journey, ...
— Klondike Nuggets - and How Two Boys Secured Them • E. S. Ellis

... bronze the tables weight, Amber on pipes from Stamboul glows, And, joy of souls effeminate, Phials of crystal scents enclose. Combs of all sizes, files of steel, Scissors both straight and curved as well, Of thirty different sorts, lo! brushes Both for the nails and for the tushes. Rousseau, I would remark in passing,(12) ...
— Eugene Oneguine [Onegin] - A Romance of Russian Life in Verse • Aleksandr Sergeevich Pushkin

... him a cup in silence. He refused it with a wave of the arm and a smile which seemed to say, "That is rather for your effeminate generation." ...
— Mauprat • George Sand

... nearer. Behind him came four or five supporters, in cloth white as his. Behind them came a ruck of Syrian youths, effeminate, vicious. Came a croud of donkey-boys, impish, black. The wrestler walked more slowly as he approached to pass the iron doors. And Shane was startled into a sudden smile at the sight of his face—a girl's face, with a girl's eyes. And in his hand was a rose. ...
— The Wind Bloweth • Brian Oswald Donn-Byrne

... hands at the new washstand with the elegant fittings, that had all made their appearance with her. Levin smiled at his own thoughts, and shook his head disapprovingly at those thoughts; a feeling akin to remorse fretted him. There was something shameful, effeminate, Capuan, as he called it to himself, in his present mode of life. "It's not right to go on like this," he thought. "It'll soon be three months, and I'm doing next to nothing. Today, almost for the first time, I set to work seriously, and what happened? I did nothing but begin and throw ...
— Anna Karenina • Leo Tolstoy

... utensils into working order before turning out to the warehouse. Pate Brown used to make fun of me about my scanty hirsute appendages, and many a time caused me to blush before sundry members of the Druids when he emphatically declared that I was one of those effeminate individuals who shaved, not because they had whiskers, but because they hadn't. This was in September, and a more open year for the respective chances of the clubs in the Cup had, ...
— Scottish Football Reminiscences and Sketches • David Drummond Bone

... of this lady who had so unkindly treated him, the noble Orsino, forsaking the sports of the field, and all manly exercises in which he used to delight, passed his hours in ignoble sloth, listening to the effeminate sounds of soft music, gentle airs, and passionate love-songs; and neglecting the company of the wise and learned lords with whom he used to associate, he was now all day long conversing with young Cesario. Unmeet companion no doubt his grave courtiers thought Cesario was for their once noble master, ...
— Books for Children - The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 3 • Charles and Mary Lamb

... temptations by the way that I fear you will be led astray and forget your errand. For the people whom you will see in the country through which you have to pass, do nothing but amuse themselves. They are very idle, gay and effeminate, and I fear that they will lead you astray. Your path is beset with dangers. I will mention one or two things which you must be ...
— The Indian Fairy Book - From the Original Legends • Cornelius Mathews

... observation, that the more solicitous any people are about dress, the more effeminate they are. I attribute it entirely to this idle adventitious passion for finery, that these people are become so over and above careful of their persons; they are for ever, and on every occasion, putting one another on their guard against catching ...
— Travels in England in 1782 • Charles P. Moritz

... stuff full of Marquess and My Lady, that their own manners are as gross as they make it their boast to show their morals. Hence, some two or three pegs higher, and not more, are such very very fine scoundrels as the Pelhams, &c.; shallow, watery-brained, ill-taught, effeminate dandies—animals destitute apparently of one touch of real manhood, or of real passion—cold, systematic, deliberate debauchees, withal—seducers, God wot! and duellists, and, above all, philosophers! ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 14, No. 397, Saturday, November 7, 1829. • Various

... how the apostle words it: 'Nay, ye do wrong, and defraud, and that your brethren. Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived, neither fornicators, nor idolators, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God' (1 Cor 6:8-10; ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... Parliament were the shopkeepers, small farmers and landowners, with a considerable number of men of high rank; as a rule they were Puritans (S378). The King's party nicknamed them "Roundheads," because, despising the long locks and effeminate ringlets worn by the Cavaliers, they cut their hair short so that it showed the shape of the head.[2] Essex and Fairfax were the first leaders of the "Roundheads"; ...
— The Leading Facts of English History • D.H. Montgomery

... excuses for the old contempt of the study of Natural History. I have said, too, it may be hoped, enough to show that contempt to be now ill-founded. But still, there are those who regard it as a mere amusement, and that as a somewhat effeminate one; and think that it can at best help to while away a leisure hour harmlessly, and perhaps usefully, as a substitute for coarser sports, or for the reading of novels. Those, however, who have followed it out, especially on the sea- shore, know better. They can tell from experience, that over and ...
— Glaucus; or The Wonders of the Shore • Charles Kingsley

... point of some interest to ascertain from whence the Burmah nation originally came: that they are not aborigines, I think most certain. They are surrounded by the Cochin Chinese, the Chinese, and the Hindoos, all races of inferior stature and effeminate in person, with little or no beard. Now the Burmahs are a very powerful race, very muscular in their limbs, possessing great strength and energy: generally speaking, I should say, that they are rather taller than Europeans. They have the high cheek bones of the Tatar, but not the small ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)

... urchins of natives, whom they teach to read and write their own language—the English tongue being forbidden; and when these children return to their families, they are despised by them, as being effeminate ...
— A Narrative of a Nine Months' Residence in New Zealand in 1827 • Augustus Earle

... sparkling, changing from blue to brown—that the lawyer's glance lingered upon the other's features, seeking some resemblance in them, also. To his surprise he found absolutely none, the high, blue-veined forehead beneath the chestnut hair, the straight, delicate nose; the sensitive, almost effeminate curve of the mouth, must have descended from the "worthless drab" whom he had beheld in the severe white light of Fletcher's scorn. For the first time it occurred to Carraway that the illumination had ...
— The Deliverance; A Romance of the Virginia Tobacco Fields • Ellen Glasgow

... not spy me afar off. No! He would rather I kept my distance; And if to the front I again should go, 'Twon't be with his assistance. He deems me a troublesome GRANDY, oh' In political harness not handy, oh! I am out of a job, while BALFOUR is a nob, That lank and effeminate dandy, oh! Well, a prodigal son may be "sandy." oh! I am off for a soda-and-brandy, oh! And a "tub" at my Club, where I'm sure of a snub From the ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Volume 102, January 16, 1892 • Various

... objects as to prevent them prosecuting their voyage. Thus, what the powers of oratory could not effect, nor the arguments of sound and deliberate reason accomplish, was achieved in a moment by the administration of a small quantity of spirituous liquid, giving bravery to the coward, and daring to the effeminate. ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish

... glaringly, what would have been the result of giving all human affairs into female hands. Such an extraordinary and deplorable situation would have "feminized" the world. We should have all become "effeminate." ...
— The Forerunner, Volume 1 (1909-1910) • Charlotte Perkins Gilman

... not a fierce countenance, being smooth, large-eyed, and disposed to be effeminate and plump, while when my uncle busied himself over the terrible wound with the knife, and must have given the man excruciating pain, he did not even wince, but kept gazing hard at his surgeon who tortured him, as if proud ...
— Through Forest and Stream - The Quest of the Quetzal • George Manville Fenn

... intelligence: to the body belong sensations, to the soul appetites, to the intelligence principles." To be impressed by the senses is peculiar to animals; to be pulled by the strings of desire belongs to effeminate men, and to men like Phalaris or Nero; to be guided only by intelligence belongs to atheists and traitors, and "men who do their impure deeds when they have shut the doors.... There remains that which is peculiar to the good man, ...
— Seekers after God • Frederic William Farrar

... human nature; elevating and enervating the mind at the same time; flattering alternately the noblest sentiments and the most grovelling propensities; intoxicating with exalted hopes, and nursing with effeminate concessions. Thus it has produced, in pellmell confusion, utopians and egotists, sceptics and fanatics, enthusiasts and incredulous scoffers, different offspring of the same period, but all enraptured with the age and with themselves, indulging together ...
— Memoirs To Illustrate The History Of My Time - Volume 1 • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot

... side, was conscious of one point of superiority. Beside this rather dismal, rather effeminate man, who recoiled from a worm, who grew giddy on the castle wall, who bore so helplessly the weight of his misfortunes, she felt herself a head and shoulders taller in cheerful and sterling courage. She could walk head in air along the most precarious rafter; her hand feared ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume XXI • Robert Louis Stevenson

... to Temple on July 28, 1763:—'My departure fills me with a kind of gloom that quite overshadows my mind. I could almost weep to think of leaving dear London, and the calm retirement of the Inner Temple. This is very effeminate and very young, but I cannot help it.' Letters ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell

... them before? Somebody wrote a vile review of them once, and gave the idea of a very puerile, ridiculous, apron-stringy attempt at poetry. Whoever wrote that notice ought to be shot, for the books are charming pure and homely and householdy, yet not effeminate. Critics may sneer as much as they choose: it is such love as Vaughan's that Honorias value. Because a woman's nature is not proof against deterioration, because a large and long-continued infusion of gross blood, and perhaps even the monotonous pressure of rough, pitiless, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 11, Issue 67, May, 1863 • Various

... more would they have him do? Must he practice it himself? He has no part to play, he is not a comedian."—The sciences, the fine arts, the arts of luxury, philosophy, literature, all this serve only to effeminate and distract the mind; all that is only made for the small crowd of brilliant and noisy insects buzzing around the summits of society and sucking away all public substance.—As regards the sciences, but one is important, that of our duties, and, ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 1 (of 6) - The Ancient Regime • Hippolyte A. Taine

... desired. The wise Solomon, too, delighted in this kind of fare; for we learn that, at his table, every day were served the wild ox, the roebuck, and the stag. Xenophon informs us, in his History, that Cyrus, king of Persia, ordered that venison should never be wanting at his repasts; and of the effeminate Greeks it was the delight. The Romans, also, were devoted admirers of the flesh of the deer; and our own kings and princes, from the Great Alfred down to the Prince Consort, have hunted, although, it must be confessed, under vastly different circumstances, ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton

... Even the Egyptian Alexas acquires some respectability, from his patriotic attachment to the interests of his country, and from his skill as a wily courtier. He expresses, by a beautiful image, the effeminate attachment to life, appropriated ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume 5 (of 18) - Amboyna; The state of Innocence; Aureng-Zebe; All for Love • John Dryden

... damned Radical' like my father. Cyril had very little affection for him, and was only too glad to spend most of his holidays with us in Scotland. They never really got on together at all. Cyril thought him a bear, and he thought Cyril effeminate. He was effeminate, I suppose, in some things, though he was a very good rider and a capital fencer. In fact he got the foils before he left Eton. But he was very languid in his manner, and not a little vain of his good looks, and had a strong objection to football. The two things that really gave ...
— Selected Prose of Oscar Wilde - with a Preface by Robert Ross • Oscar Wilde

... and Stapleton and Major Gascoigne, in a room above-stairs. There were at least a dozen others present, some also at play, others merely lounging. Of the latter was his Grace of Wharton. He was a slender, graceful gentleman, whose face, if slightly effeminate and markedly dissipated, was nevertheless of considerable beauty. He was very splendid in a suit of green camlett and silver lace, and he wore ...
— The Lion's Skin • Rafael Sabatini

... heedless gayety, which contrasted so horribly with his position. For the rest, he was unanimously conceded to be kind, generous, humane, lenient toward the weak, while with the strong he loved to display a vigor truly athletic which his somewhat effeminate features were far from indicating. He boasted that he had never been without money, and had no enemies. That was his sole reply to the charges of theft and assassination. ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas

... persisted in justifying 'naughtiness' upon general principles. He was rather inclined to be indolent, and his mother regrets that he is not so persevering as Frederick (Gibbs). His great temptation, he says himself, in his childhood was to be 'effeminate and lazy,' and 'to justify these vices by intellectual and religious excuses.' A great deal of this, he adds, has been 'knocked out of him'; he cannot call himself a sluggard or a hypocrite, nor has he acted like a coward. 'Indeed,' ...
— The Life of Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, Bart., K.C.S.I. - A Judge of the High Court of Justice • Sir Leslie Stephen

... "Five or six of the men you met to-night were loath to come. When I pinned them down to their reason, it was I thought: they regard you as an effeminate being, ...
— The Americanization of Edward Bok - The Autobiography of a Dutch Boy Fifty Years After • Edward William Bok (1863-1930)

... before; and this I charge thee, on thy duty as a wife, Whatever happens, not to speak to me, No, not a word!" and Enid was aghast; And forth they rode, but scarce three paces on, When crying out, "Effeminate as I am, I will not fight my way with gilded arms All shall be iron;" he loosed a mighty purse, Hung at his belt, and hurl'd it toward the squire. So the last sight that Enid had of home Was all the marble threshold ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 5 • Charles Sylvester

... city a delicate, sickly lad, so feeble in frame that, at his mother's wish, he kept away from the gymnasium, lest the severe exercises there required should do him more harm than good. His delicate clothing and effeminate habits were derided by his playmates, who nicknamed him Batalus, after, we are told, a spindle-shanked flute-player. We do not know, however, just ...
— Historic Tales, vol 10 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris

... gluttony. So scandalously debauched a people as that of Venice is to be met with nowhere else. High, low, men, women, clergy, and laity, are all alike. The ruling nobility are no less afraid of one another than they are of the people; and, for that reason, politically enervate their own body by the same effeminate luxury by which they corrupt their subjects. They are impoverished by every means which can be invented; and they are kept in a perpetual terror by the horrors of a state inquisition. Here you see a people deprived of all rational freedom, and tyrannized over by ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. I. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... a humour which cannot last. It breeds weakness, anarchy, and at last ruin to society. And then the effeminate and luxurious, terrified for their money and their comfort, fly from an unwholesome tenderness to an unwholesome indignation; break out into a panic of selfish rage; and become, as cowards are apt to do, blindly and wantonly cruel; and those who fancied God too indulgent ...
— Westminster Sermons - with a Preface • Charles Kingsley

... Fiorsen made her take cover beneath her sunshade. She could see his patent-leathered feet, and well-turned, peg-top-trousered legs go by with the gait of a man whose waist is corseted. The certainty that he wore those prerogatives of womanhood increased her dislike. How dare men be so effeminate? Yet someone had told her that he was a good rider, a good fencer, and very strong. She drew a breath of relief when he was past, and, for fear he might turn and come back, closed her little book and slipped away. But her figure and her ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... in festivity at Carlsruhe, among all our new fashionable friends there, I bade good-by for ever to my dear old father. I had begged my husband to take me by way of Heidelberg to his old castle in the Vosges; but I found an amount of determination, under that effeminate appearance and manner, for which I was not prepared, and he refused my first request so decidedly that I dared not urge it. 'Henceforth, Anna,' said he, 'you will move in a different sphere of life; and ...
— Curious, if True - Strange Tales • Elizabeth Gaskell

... is still cheap, and comfortable. If I might be so bold as to criticise what you, my Elder Brother, may be responsible for, I'd suggest that the place to sleep on might be made a shade softer.—Yes, we are becoming effeminate, I know—we were becoming so alas, as far back as "the 45," when The M'Lean found his son with a snowball for a pillow; still, we must go with the times, and even if the berths must be hard, at least let them be level. Please ...
— From Edinburgh to India & Burmah • William G. Burn Murdoch

... this effeminate cant about maintaining order and decorum, by the suppression of the public exhibitions of manly exercises. To them the individual Englishman owes his superiority to the individual of every other country, in courage, strength, and ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Volume I, Number 1 • Stephen Cullen Carpenter

... extraordinary. Luxurious as he was to the root, and effeminate; hating as he did cold water, cold food, the cold shoulder; one and all of these shuddering things he had schooled himself to bear without a blink. He grew even to take a stern pleasure in the bitterness they cost him, as he turned ...
— Little Novels of Italy • Maurice Henry Hewlett

... much accounted of. It was reckoned effeminate to require more than two meals a day, though, just as in the verdurer's lodge at home, there was a barrel of ale on tap with drinking horns beside it in the hall, and on a small round table in the window a loaf of bread, to which city luxury added a cheese, and a jug containing sack, with ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte M. Yonge

... took a great fancy to me, used to carry me off to her little nest on Hampstead Heath, and lend me all her books. At Hampstead, too, I foregathered with Sydney Dobell, a strangely beautiful soul, with (what seemed to me then) very effeminate manners. Dobell's mouth was ever full of very pretty Latinity, for the most part Virgilian. He was fond of quoting, as an example of perfect expression, sound conveying absolute sense of the thing described, the ...
— The Idler Magazine, Vol III. May 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various

... his Knowledge, 'twould his Love. As to his Person, 'tis not to advise; All Women see not with the self-same Eyes. In that you might your own Opinion use, Your Heart wou'd teach you; but were I to chuse, He shou'd not be Effeminate or Proud, (I hate the Man that is by Pride subdu'd). In us I Grant a little Pride may be, Much less a Crime (and may with Sense agree) A Gift alone for our own Sex design'd, To awe the loose Opinions of Mankind; Who ...
— The Pleasures of a Single Life, or, The Miseries Of Matrimony • Anonymous

... case, you can imagine the astonishment and gratification I have experienced here this evening at the intelligence and forwardness manifested by so many effeminate intellects. (A flattered ...
— Baboo Jabberjee, B.A. • F. Anstey

... counsels of Mme. Campan. Mistress of Charles Grandet before his father's death. Towards the close of 1819, a prey to suspicion, she must needs sacrifice her happiness for the time being, so she made a weary journey with her husband into Scotland. She made her lover effeminate and materialistic, advising with him about everything. He returned from the Indies in 1827, when she quickly brought about his engagement with Mlle. d'Aubrion. ...
— Repertory Of The Comedie Humaine, Complete, A — Z • Anatole Cerfberr and Jules Franois Christophe

... marsh; I shivered on the brink of a river while the sportsmen crossed it, and trembled at the sight of a five-bar gate. When the sport and danger were over, I was still equally disconcerted; for I was effeminate, though not delicate, and could only join a feeble whispering voice in ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D, In Nine Volumes - Volume the Third: The Rambler, Vol. II • Samuel Johnson

... now that they speak. The merchant, elaborately dressed, varnished pumps upon his effeminate feet, every hair taught its curve and direction, the lunette perched upon no nose to speak of, and the wavering, vacillating eye, which has no higher regard than his own miniature figure. Above rises the vagabond, straight, athletic and courageous, ...
— Bohemian Days - Three American Tales • Geo. Alfred Townsend

... them? Heroes in the fields of Venus. Heroes at a drinking-bout. Effeminate striplings, relaxed both in mind and body. But how am I running on, forgetful. Ah, when one is grown old, and conversing with an Andreas, it is easy to forget everything else. My lord, I sought you with a request, a ...
— The Bravo of Venice - A Romance • M. G. Lewis

... heroes are apt to be loud and aggressive, the quiet man who thinks more than he talks is adjudged effeminate. Harte was always modest, and boasting was foreign to his nature; so he was thought devoid of spirit and strength. But occasion brought out the unsuspected. There had been a long and trying Indian ...
— A Backward Glance at Eighty • Charles A. Murdock

... it as the most severe punishment that could have been inflicted on him, and would willingly have given a part of his wages rather than this disgrace had happened; for there is a pride amongst "Old Voyagers," which makes them consider the state of being frost-bitten as effeminate, and only excusable in a "Pork-eater," or one newly come into the country. I was greatly fatigued, and suffered acute pains in the knees and legs, both of which were much swollen when we halted a little ...
— Narrative of a Journey to the Shores of the Polar Sea, in the years 1819-20-21-22, Volume 2 • John Franklin

... me from being on any intimate terms with young people of the other sex, I had several little girl-friends one of whom more particularly has left a profound impression upon me. From an early age I preferred the society of girls to boys, and the latter did not like me, as I was too effeminate for them. We could not play together, as they called me "Mademoiselle," and teased me in a variety of ways. On the other hand, I got on very well with girls of my own age, and they found me very sensible and steady. ...
— Recollections of My Youth • Ernest Renan

... occur, nevertheless they are exercised in military tactics and in hunting, lest perchance they should become effeminate and unprepared for any emergency. Besides, there are four kingdoms in the island, which are very envious of their prosperity, for this reason that the people desire to live after the manner of the inhabitants of the City of ...
— The City of the Sun • Tommaso Campanells

... [Footnote: China, about which we have heard a great deal of late years, has been several times invaded by the warrior hordes of Tartary. But at each time, unto the second and third generations, the vanquishers have taken the effeminate manners, the costume and the usages of the vanquished, and so many conquests have only resulted in converting millions of Tartars ...
— The History of a Mouthful of Bread - And its effect on the organization of men and animals • Jean Mace

... famished-looking oxen, some swine of singularly active habits, and plenty of poultry. The old saddles are tied on with twine; one side of the bridle is a worn-out strap and the other a rope. They wear boots, but never two of one pair, and never blacked, of course, but no stockings. They think it quite effeminate to sleep under a roof, except during the severest months of the year. There is a married daughter across the river, just the same hard, loveless, moral, hard-working being as her mother. Each morning, ...
— A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains • Isabella L. Bird

... no longer mention that we walked back in a single day, it makes me so furious to see doubt in the face of the hearer. Men were men in those old times. Think of one of the puerile organisms in this effeminate age attempting ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... excluded two or three Englishmen who spoke with an accent suggestive of an effeminate character, and had a fearsome habit of walking on the Sabbath, and poor "Moossy," the French master at the Seminary, who was a quantity not worth considering, the foreign element in Muirtown during the classical days consisted of the Count. ...
— Young Barbarians • Ian Maclaren

... apartments, lay the queen-mother, dying, but listening eagerly for the rush of footsteps overhead, hoping and praying that Henri—the hitherto effeminate Henri who played with his sword as he would with a battledore, and who painted himself like a woman, and put rings in his ears—would not prejudice himself at this time in the eyes of Rome by slaying the leader of ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 4 (of 10) • Various

... "This effeminate son would know," replied Gosford, a sneer in the epithet, "but no other. Marshall wrote the testament in his own hand, without witnesses, as he had the legal right to do under the laws of Virginia. The lawyer," ...
— The Sleuth of St. James's Square • Melville Davisson Post

... folio by Pope's publisher, Lawton Gilliver of Fleet Street, and has a frontispiece engraved by Gerard Vandergucht. This depicts a wide-skirted, effeminate-looking personage, carrying a long cane with a head fantastically carved, and surrounded by various objects of art. In the background rises what is apparently intended for the temple of a formal garden; and behind this again, a winged ass capers skittishly upon the ...
— De Libris: Prose and Verse • Austin Dobson

... youthful years, been able to show the measure, not the tendency of his genius, as well as his aversion for all that is artificial, superficial, insipid, and effeminate; and he had proved that the two great characteristics of his ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli

... disgraceful defeat. In any case that sequence of second prizes must have filled him with chagrin, but to be beaten thus repeatedly by such a fellow as Bruno Chilvers was humiliation intolerable. A fopling, a mincer of effeminate English, a rote-repeater of academic catchwords—bah! The by-examinations of the year had whispered presage, but Peak always felt that he was not putting forth his strength; when the serious trial came he would ...
— Born in Exile • George Gissing

... from being effeminate. He was found of aesthetics and anaesthetics, and his chief interests in life were ...
— Ptomaine Street • Carolyn Wells

... and shame, that they, who to live well Entered so fair, should turn aside to tread Paths indirect, or in the mid way faint! But still I see the tenour of Man's woe Holds on the same, from Woman to begin. From Man's effeminate slackness it begins, Said the Angel, who should better hold his place By wisdom, and superiour gifts received. But now prepare thee for another scene. He looked, and saw wide territory spread Before him, towns, ...
— Paradise Lost • John Milton

... down their arms and remained quiet, and they observed peace in this way for a space of three years. But the people themselves, being exceedingly vexed, began to abuse their leader Rodolphus without restraint, and going to him constantly they called him cowardly and effeminate, and railed at him in a most unruly manner, taunting him with certain other names besides. And Rodolphus, being quite unable to bear the insult, marched against the Lombards, who were doing no wrong, without charging against them any fault ...
— Procopius - History of the Wars, Books V. and VI. • Procopius

... brought him up, and with many tears tried to prevent his going there. Again, it often happens that important business makes it necessary to part from friends: the man who tries to baulk it, because he thinks that he cannot endure the separation, is of a weak and effeminate nature, and on that very account makes but a poor friend. There are, of course, limits to what you ought to expect from a friend and to what you should allow him to demand of you. And these you must take into calculation in ...
— Treatises on Friendship and Old Age • Marcus Tullius Cicero

... abominable filthiness, as they do. Again, a man might ask out of what commonwealth Plato did banish them? in sooth, thence where he himself alloweth community of women: so as, belike, this banishment grew not for effeminate wantonness, sith little should poetical sonnets be hurtful, when a man might have what woman he listed. But I honour philosophical instructions, and bless the wits which bred them: so as they be not abused, which is likewise ...
— English literary criticism • Various

... up, and saw a small, effeminate personage, magnificently attired, and wearing the broad, blue band of the order of St. Louis. He recognized the king's brother, the ...
— Prince Eugene and His Times • L. Muhlbach

... cared for, showed when he exposed the palms the callouses of ax handling. And his face was likable, she decided, full of character, intensely masculine. In her heart every woman despises any hint of the effeminate in man. Even though she may decry what she is pleased to term the brute in man, whenever he discards the dominant, overmastering characteristics of the male she will have none of him. Miss Hazel Weir was ...
— North of Fifty-Three • Bertrand W. Sinclair

... filled with admiration, and yet you know the Rebu several times drove back their forces, and man for man are more than a match for their soldiers. Our people are taller than they by half a head. We have not so much luxury, nor did we want it. All this must make people effeminate." ...
— The Cat of Bubastes - A Tale of Ancient Egypt • G. A. Henty

... once meant foolish, ignorant, weak, effeminate. It has now come to mean exact, fine, finished, exciting admiration on account of skill or exactness; as nice proportions, nice workmanship, a nice distinction in philosophy. It is loosely and colloquially used in application to what ...
— Slips of Speech • John H. Bechtel

... of the house" was seesawing himself backward and forward in his squeaky boots, speaking in a pompous manner, and with an effort to swell an effeminate voice to a bass key, resulting in something between a croak and a squeal. Julia sat down and cried in mortification and disgust. Mr. Anderson understood this to be acquiescence, and turned and went ...
— The End Of The World - A Love Story • Edward Eggleston

... tall slim fellow, about 5 Feet 7 inches high, wears a blue Surtout Coat with metal Buttons, and his Hat commonly flopt before, and an old laced Waistcoat, has short curled black Hair; when he speaks he seems jaw-fallen and very effeminate, is about 35 Years of Age, walks much like a Foot-pad, and has a comely Woman with him whom he calls his Wife.——John Cassady, a middling siz'd Fellow much pock-broken, square-shoulder'd, wears a Wig upon the yellow ...
— The Olden Time Series, Vol. 5: Some Strange and Curious Punishments • Henry M. Brooks

... before him, he would have been less appalled: with supernatural beings he was in constant though not direct communication. He studied them—their nature and their functions. But this tall, stately man, in his abominable garment which reached barely to his knees, with the white, effeminate forehead and unintelligible language, who was he? Was he a Philistine? a cruel Roman, or perhaps a Spaniard—one of those that murdered the famous Abrabanel family, and drove his ancestor Todros out ...
— An Obscure Apostle - A Dramatic Story • Eliza Orzeszko

... consistency. She was reported as calling a hat a "hot," a rat a "rot," of teaching her little sister to read from the primer, "Is the cot on the mot?" Pronunciation became a test of character. The soft "r" and the hard "a" were taken as proofs of effeminate hypocrisy. ...
— In a Little Town • Rupert Hughes

... a few observations on these curious people. Generally, the Tanelkums are reckoned amongst the most effeminate and civilised of the Tuaricks of the north; and, indeed, such appears to be their character, as developed in our transactions with them. Some of them have more the manners of merchants than camel-drivers; and the mercantile character always tames men in the desert. Throughout their ...
— Narrative of a Mission to Central Africa Performed in the Years 1850-51, Volume 1 • James Richardson

... emerged from the elevator, below, he paused before leaving the hotel to mop his perspiring brow with a large, soiled handkerchief. The perfume of hyacinths seemed to have pursued him, bringing with it a memory of the handsome, effeminate ivory face of the man above. He was recalled to his senses by the voice ...
— Fire-Tongue • Sax Rohmer

... from the glass of later centuries, the first impression from the thirteenth-century windows ought to be disappointment. You should find them too effeminate, too soft, too small, and above all not particularly religious. Indeed, except for the nominal subjects of the legends, one sees nothing religious about them; the medallions, when studied with the binocle, turn out to ...
— Mont-Saint-Michel and Chartres • Henry Adams

... into that fatal conversation? I hardly remember. We talked first of the neighbourhood, then swayed away to books, then to people. Yes, that was how it came about. The Professor was speaking of a man whom we both knew in town, a curiously effeminate man, whose every thought and feeling seemed that of a woman. I said I disliked him, and condemned him for his woman's demeanour, his woman's mind; but the Professor thereupon joined issue ...
— The Return Of The Soul - 1896 • Robert S. Hichens

... facing the enemies of my country. These are my statues; these are the honours I boast of. Not left me by inheritance as theirs; but earned by toil, by abstinence, by valour; amidst clouds of dust, and seas of blood: scenes of action, where those effeminate Patricians, who endeavour, by indirect means, to depreciate me in your esteem, have never ...
— The Young Gentleman and Lady's Monitor, and English Teacher's Assistant • John Hamilton Moore

... in the East, while the first illuminators were the monks of Ireland. Ladies were the spinners, weavers, surgeons, and readers of the day; they were great at interpreting dreams, and dearly loved flowers. The gentlemen looked upon reading as an occupation quite as effeminate as sewing, war and hunting being the two main employments of the lords of creation, and gambling the chief amusement. Priests and monks were the exceptions to this rule, until Henry First introduced a taste for somewhat more liberal education. Even more respectful ...
— One Snowy Night - Long ago at Oxford • Emily Sarah Holt

... wrestle with a race whose religion was one of blood, and whose beatitude was to be in proportion to the slaughter they made while on earth. The Northman hated Christianity as a rival religion, and despised it as an effeminate one. He was the soldier of Odin, the elect of Valhalla; and he felt that the offering most acceptable to his sanguinary gods was the blood of those religionists who denied their existence and execrated their revelation. The points of attack, therefore, ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee

... peace it had been selfish and stern. The lust of rule became stronger as its arm became weaker. The degradation of slavery and the heavy hand of the tax-gatherer were extending even to Wales. The barbarian invader found the effeminate, luxurious empire an easy prey. In 410 Alaric and his host of Goths appeared before the city of Rome itself; and a horde of barbarians, thirsting for blood and spoil, surged into it. The fall of the great city was a shock to the whole world; the end of the world must ...
— A Short History of Wales • Owen M. Edwards

... apocryphal ring to it. The statement (first made in The Poetical Register, 1719) that he was "Son of an Eminent Attorney of the City of London" sounds like something manufactured out of whole cloth by a compiler who in fact had no idea whose son Baker was. The Biographia Dramatica had "heard" that the effeminate Maiden in Tunbridge-Walks ...
— The Fine Lady's Airs (1709) • Thomas Baker

... necessarily effected in a situation, where a scanty subsistence could only be earned by a life of extreme temperance and toil, and where it was often to be sought, sword in hand, from an enemy far superior in numbers. Whatever may have been the vices of the Spaniards, they cannot have been those of effeminate sloth. Thus a sober, hardy, and independent race was gradually formed, prepared to assert their ancient inheritance, and to lay the foundations of far more liberal and equitable forms of government, than were known ...
— History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella V1 • William H. Prescott

... equally indistinct belief that "the Professor" has very little furniture in his upper story. How far either of them is wrong our space does not permit us to say. Both have a supreme contempt for students, regarding them as effeminate cumberers of the ground. In the presence of Bill, "the Professor" does not appear to advantage. Being entirely unable to compete with him in a war of words, he is usually forced to betake himself to dancing; which, compared with ...
— A Williams Anthology - A Collection of the Verse and Prose of Williams College, 1798-1910 • Compiled by Edwin Partridge Lehman and Julian Park

... dear father, that Parysatis told me her brother Xerxes was effeminate and capricious, and had a new idol with every change of the moon. Some fairer face would soon find favour in his sight; and I should perhaps be shut up with hundreds of forgotten favourites, in the old harem, among silly women ...
— Philothea - A Grecian Romance • Lydia Maria Child

... to call Stevenson effeminate, even if he was feminine. He had a courage that outmatched his physique. Once in a cafe in France, a Frenchman made the remark that the English were a ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 13 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Lovers • Elbert Hubbard

... none but those whose courage is unquestionable, can venture to be effeminate. It was only in the field that the Lacedemonians were accustomed to use perfumes and curl ...
— Pelham, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... in these somewhat fragmentary observations, was to protest against the reasoning which would divest punishment of its proper and distinctive character, which, spreading about weak and effeminate scruples, would paralyse the arm which bears the sword of justice. One writer would impugn the right of society to put its arch-criminals to death; another controverts its right to inflict any penalty whatever, which has not for its direct object the reformation ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 358, August 1845 • Various

... sun; and as she came up the slope she leapt from rock to rock in a heavy pair of boys' high boots. There was nothing of the singer about her now, nor of the filmy-clad barefooted dancer; the jagged edge of old Pinal would permit of nothing so effeminate. Yet, over the rocks as on the smooth trails, she had a grace that was all her own, for those hillsides ...
— Silver and Gold - A Story of Luck and Love in a Western Mining Camp • Dane Coolidge

... sewing-silk—may be an expression of their patriotism and their religion. A noble-hearted woman puts a noble meaning into even the commonplace details of life. The women of America can, if they choose, hold back their country from following in the wake of old, corrupt, worn-out, effeminate European society, and make America the leader of the world in all ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 • Various

... pink, girlish cheeks, gratified vanity danced in her violet eyes, and as she piquantly bowed her acknowledgments, this great breath of praise seemed to transfigure and possess her. A very young actor who represented the giddy world in a straw hat and with an effeminate manner was alternately petted and girded at by her during the opening exposition of the plot, until the statement that a "dark destiny" obliged her to follow her uncle in an emigrant train across the plains closed the act, apparently extinguished him, and left ...
— Susy, A Story of the Plains • Bret Harte

... Yonson, a man of the heavy Scandinavian type, ceased chafing me, and arose awkwardly to his feet. The man who had spoken to him was clearly a Cockney, with the clean lines and weakly pretty, almost effeminate, face of the man who has absorbed the sound of Bow Bells with his mother's milk. A draggled muslin cap on his head and a dirty gunny-sack about his slim hips proclaimed him cook of the decidedly dirty ship's galley in which I ...
— The Sea-Wolf • Jack London

... A very conceited, effeminate, and absurd man coming into a room where she was one evening, and beginning to comb his hair, she exclaimed, "La! what's that! Look there! There's ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble

... for gain but merely for the sexual appetite, puts up with a peevish and unsympathetic wife, as Philippides, the comic poet, ridiculed the orator, Stratocles, 'You scarce can kiss her if she turns her back on you.' If, however, we ought to give the name of love to this passion, then is it an effeminate and bastard love, and like at Cynosarges,[67] taking us to the woman's side of the house: or rather as they say there is a genuine mountain eagle, which Homer called 'black, and a bird of prey,' and there are other kinds of spurious eagles, which catch fish and lazy birds in marshes, ...
— Plutarch's Morals • Plutarch

... danger, had tended to prolong the state of weakness into which it had sunk. If the hero of the dynasty who had conquered Egypt had not ventured to measure his strength with the Median princes, and if he had courted the friendship not only of the warlike Cyaxares but of the effeminate Astyages, it would not be prudent for Nabonidus to come into collision with the victorious new-comers from the heart of Iran. Chaldsea doubtless was right in avoiding hostilities, at all events so long as she had to bear the brunt of them ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 9 (of 12) • G. Maspero

... jardiniere, saying: "You are fond of hyacinths and tuberoses; their perfume overpowered me for a moment. I fear you think me very effeminate." ...
— Samuel Brohl & Company • Victor Cherbuliez

... wages shel be sich ez they and the employers shel mutually agree; but that the negroes may not become luxurious and effeminate, wich two things is vices wich goes to sap the simplicity and strength uv a people, the sum shel never exceed $5 per month, but not less than enuff in all cases to buy him one soot uv close per annum, wich the employer ...
— "Swingin Round the Cirkle." • Petroleum V. Nasby

... Everybody, however, knows that, at the Papal Court, the time and money of the public are not frittered away in parties and fetes and dances. Everybody knows too that women are not admitted to the Vatican, and therefore the habits of the court are not effeminate, while the whole of its time is spent in transacting state affairs; and the due course of justice is not disturbed by certain feminine passions." After this statement, startling to any one with ...
— Rome in 1860 • Edward Dicey

... rottennesse, whose course of life cannot by any meanes, by counsell, restraint of Lawes, or punishment, nor hope of praise, profet, or eturnall glory, be kept within any bounds, who is degenerate cleane from his naturall feeding, to effeminate nicenesse, and cloying his body with excesse of meate, drinke, sleepe &c. and to whom nothing is so pleasant and so much desired as the causes of his owne death, as idlenesse, lust, &c. may liue to that ...
— A New Orchard And Garden • William Lawson

... going at once," said the more handsomely dressed visitor in a thin and effeminate voice. "What can a man do when the boys pelt him with dirt from a safe hiding-place, but take ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... is true, and a little effeminate also, that is, lacking energy, letting himself be carried away by goodness and tenderness. This weakness made him commit a fault before his departure for America. I have kept it from you until this moment, but you ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet

... not think they were. The vast continent then thrown open to the advance of civilisation, may be divided into two portions,—the south and the north. The former was inhabited by a harmless effeminate race, who enjoyed many of the refinements of civilisation; their knowledge of the arts, for instance, as shown to us in the ruins of their cities, was considerable; they possessed extensive buildings in a bold and ornate style of architecture; they ...
— The Little Savage • Captain Frederick Marryat

... this challenge, it must be remembered that red blood is a traditionary sign of courage: Thus Macbeth calls one of his frighted soldiers, a lilly liver'd Lown; again in this play, Cowards are said to have livers as white as milk; and an effeminate and timorous man is termed ...
— Johnson's Notes to Shakespeare Vol. I Comedies • Samuel Johnson

... their centres. The mediaeval architects often put another square abacus above all, as represented by the shaded portion of Fig. LXVII., and some massy conditions of this form, elaborately ornamented, are very beautiful; but it is apt to become rigid and effeminate, as assuredly it is in the original Corinthian, which is thoroughly mean and meagre in its upper ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume I (of 3) • John Ruskin

... after having washed himself leisurely, proceeded to discharges his devotions, looking around all the while with a certain self-satisfied composure, before returning to his cell. His appearance was puny, undergrown, and effeminate, and his small, narrow, and elongated head markedly prognathous, but he exercised over some of his companions a passionate, if unnatural, fascination which, I have been told by one who was present at the trial, betrayed itself ...
— Indian Unrest • Valentine Chirol

... five o'clock on the evening of the day of Sheil's speech, Lord Ballindine and his friend, Walter Blake, were lounging on different sofas in a room at Morrison's Hotel, before they went up to dress for dinner. Walter Blake was an effeminate-looking, slight-made man, about thirty or thirty-three years of age; good looking, and gentlemanlike, but presenting quite a contrast in his appearance to his friend Lord Ballindine. He had a cold quiet grey ...
— The Kellys and the O'Kellys • Anthony Trollope

... Would I could not! But wherefore waste I precious hours with thee! Thou art her darling mischief, her chief engine, Antony's other fate. Go, tell thy queen, Ventidius is arrived, to end her charms. Let your Egyptian timbrels play alone, Nor mix effeminate sounds with Roman trumpets, You dare not fight for Antony; go pray And keep your cowards' holiday ...
— All for Love • John Dryden

... read much; but, nevertheless, such great men are sometimes more likely to imitate some predecessor at a critical moment, or to adopt some bold yet inefficient suggestion from another, than to originate an adequate one themselves. He is a scholar, an invalid, refined and philosophical—but effeminate. ...
— A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital • John Beauchamp Jones

... "We effeminate women of the nineteenth century are afraid of broken heads," said Fanny. "But Mary Damer seems quite to enjoy your accident, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 52, February, 1862 • Various

... no luxury—they lived in houses built of rough materials—they lived at public tables—fed on black broth, and despised every thing effeminate or luxurious."—Whelpley's Lectures, p. 167. "Government is the agent. Society is the principal."—Wayland's Moral Science, 1st Ed., p. 377. "The essentials of speech were anciently supposed to be sufficiently designated by the Noun and the Verb, to which was subsequently added, the Conjunction"—Bullions, ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown

... want to embark on a correspondence with him," Uncle Henry exclaimed petulantly. "I know the man by reputation. A bigoted Ritualist. A Romanizer of the worst type. He'll only fill your head with a lot of effeminate nonsense, and that at a time when it's particularly necessary for you to concentrate upon your work. Don't forget that this is your last year of school. I advise you to make the most ...
— The Altar Steps • Compton MacKenzie

... and in motion which is like to it. The manners of the wrestling-ground and of the stage are sometimes odious; but let us see the actor or the wrestler walking simple and upright, and we praise him. Let him use a befitting neatness, not verging toward the effeminate, but just avoiding a rustic harshness. The same measure is to be taken with your clothes as with other matters in which a middle course ...
— The Life of Cicero - Volume II. • Anthony Trollope

... traveler, worker, is "well girded,"—his chiton is drawn high, but the deliberate old gentleman who parades the Agora, discussing poetry or statecraft, has his chiton falling almost to a trailing length. Only occasionally short sleeves were added to this very simple garment; they are considered effeminate, and are not esteemed. If one's arms get cold, one can protect them by pulling up the skirt, and wrapping the arms in ...
— A Day In Old Athens • William Stearns Davis

... pallid, slender man of about thirty-five or seven years of age, with delicate, effeminate features, and hair thickly sprinkled with gray. His fingers, white and taper as a woman's, were covered with rings. His dress was careless, but that of a gentleman. Glancing at him even thus furtively, I could not help observing the worn lines about his temples, the ...
— In the Days of My Youth • Amelia Ann Blandford Edwards

... stream. Much time was given to sports, rough, hearty, manly sports, with a spice of danger, and these, with an occasional adventurous dash into the wilderness, kept them sound and strong and brave, both in body and mind. There was nothing languid or effeminate about the Virginian planter. He was a robust man, quite ready to fight or work when the time came, and well fitted to deal with affairs when he was needed. He was a free-handed, hospitable, generous being, ...
— George Washington, Vol. I • Henry Cabot Lodge

... honor, was revolted by such a state of things. As he looked around the company, there was not a man or woman to be seen of whom he had not already heard some risque story or covert insinuation, and, though he was no strait-laced Puritan, a sort of disdain for these effeminate courtiers and a horror of these beautiful ...
— Calvert of Strathore • Carter Goodloe

... was there seen a more brilliant chivalry than that collected round the gallant Prince Henry! There was not a man in his army but had lacquered boots and fresh white kid-gloves at morning and evening parade. The fantastic and effeminate but brave and faithful troops were numbered off into different legions: there was the Fleur-d'Orange regiment; the Eau-de-Rose battalion; the Violet-Pomatum volunteers; the Eau-de-Cologne cavalry—according to the different scents which they affected. Most ...
— Burlesques • William Makepeace Thackeray

... You're effeminate; you're a boulevardier. It would do you good to be pitched in a gale about the coast of Skye. A fellow of your temperament has no business in these ...
— The Emancipated • George Gissing

... anything, below the ordinary height; but then, he was all compact, and under his swart, tattooed skin, the muscles worked like steel rods. Hair, crisp and coal-black, curled over shaggy brows, and ambushed small, intense eyes, always on the glare. In short, he was none of your effeminate barbarians. ...
— Omoo: Adventures in the South Seas • Herman Melville

... Schehati again: and had Jane overheard the remark it would not have offended her; for, though she held a masculine woman only one degree less in abhorrence than an effeminate man, she would have taken Schehati's compound noun as a tribute to the fact that she was well-groomed and independent, knowing her own mind, and, when she started out to go to a place, reaching it in the shortest possible time, without fidget, fuss, or flurry. ...
— The Rosary • Florence L. Barclay

... knew that he was looking upon one of the most dangerous men in all the West. Quade was a villain. Culver Rann, quiet and cool and suave, was a devil. Behind his depravity worked the brain which Quade lacked, and a nerve which, in spite of that almost effeminate immaculateness, had been ...
— The Hunted Woman • James Oliver Curwood

... at her house in Mount Street, and frequently met Lord Drumone's fair-haired and rather effeminate son there, Peggy's mother never dreamed they were in love. Both were extremely careful to conceal it, and in their ...
— The Golden Face - A Great 'Crook' Romance • William Le Queux

... friendship that every one owes to himself is to be found; not a false friendship, that makes us embrace glory, knowledge, riches, and the like, with a principal and immoderate affection, as members of our being; nor an indiscreet and effeminate friendship, wherein it happens, as with ivy, that it decays and ruins the walls it embraces; but a sound and regular friendship, equally useful and pleasant. He who knows the duties of this friendship ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne

... Madame Guillotine. There was fever in the air, fever in the blood, and the passions held high carnival. In solitude, danger depresses all save the very strongest, but the mob (ever the symbol of weakness) is made up of women—it is an effeminate thing. It laughs hysterically at death and cries, "On with the dance!" Women represent the ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 2 of 14 - Little Journeys To the Homes of Famous Women • Elbert Hubbard

... comparison in China and in Hindostan. Notice, in particular, the puny Chinese, who live in southern China, on quite a large proportion of shell-fish, compared with the Chinese of the interior. Extend your observations to Hindostan. Do not talk of the effeminate habits and weak constitutions of the rice and curry eaters there—bad as the admixture of rice and curry may be—for that is to compare the Hindoo with other nations; but compare Hindoo with Hindoo, which is the only fair way. Compare the porters ...
— Vegetable Diet: As Sanctioned by Medical Men, and by Experience in All Ages • William Andrus Alcott

... by the utter uselessness of the Bashi-Bazouks. The very sight of them excites my ire. I never saw such a useless, expensive set. I hate (there is no other word for it) these Arabs; and I like the Blacks—patient, enduring, and friendly, as much as the Arab is cowardly, cruel, and effeminate. All the misery is due to these Arab and Circassian Pashas and authorities. I would not stay a day here for these wretched creatures, but I would give my life for ...
— General Gordon - A Christian Hero • Seton Churchill

... in favour of German opera; my choice was determined by the tremendous impression made on me by the two figures of Sassaroli and Weber. The Italian male-soprano, a huge pot-bellied giant, horrified me with his high effeminate voice, his astonishing volubility, and his incessant screeching laughter. In spite of his boundless good-nature and amiability, particularly to my family, I took an uncanny dislike to him. On account of this dreadful person, the sound of Italian, either spoken or sung, seemed ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner

... of Wales, the late Duke of Argyll, the Marquis of Lorn, and the other chief fashionable people of the day. This fete was memorable, for it was said to have cost L.60,000. Brummell was not altogether effeminate; he could both shoot and ride, but he liked neither: he was never a Melton man. He said that he could not bear to have his tops and leathers splashed by the greasy galloping farmers. The Duke of Rutland raised a corps of volunteers on the renewal ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 344, June, 1844 • Various



Words linked to "Effeminate" :   sissy, unmanly, unmanful, epicene, sissified, unmanlike, sissyish, cissy, emasculate



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