"Termagant" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... its best to place the peccant husband above the suffering wife. Some called her a poor spiritless thing, and declared, that, with a little of her sister's spirit, she might have brought to reason any Sir Philip whatsoever, were it the termagant Falconbridge himself. But the greater part of their acquaintance affected candour, and saw faults on both sides; though, in fact, there only existed the oppressor and the oppressed. The tone of such critics was—"To be sure, no one will ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... woman! You mustn't leave the poor child to her tender mercies. What can she turn out, brought up under such a termagant? Suppose I try and bring the old lady round with ...
— Lucy Raymond - Or, The Children's Watchword • Agnes Maule Machar
... less. I consider it my duty as a gentleman to say that his bearing through the ordeal did credit to his noble family and his personal character. The Archduchess, who is foolhardy and insolent, does not deserve such a lover, and it is grievous to think that such a termagant should have so much power over such a man. I regard her as I would some poisonous reptile. Piety—which improves most women—only seems to render her the more defiant, and love—which softens most wills—makes hers the more ...
— Robert Orange - Being a Continuation of the History of Robert Orange • John Oliver Hobbes
... down to the fortunate circumstance that the evening papers had published rough wood-cuts which professed to be my portrait, and which naturally led the public to look out for a brazen-faced, raw-boned, hard-featured termagant. ...
— Miss Cayley's Adventures • Grant Allen
... good kind-hearted Dr. David Dickson was fond of telling a story of a Scottish termagant of the days before kirk-session discipline had passed away. A couple were brought before the court, and Janet, the wife, was charged with violent and undutiful conduct, and with wounding her husband by throwing a three-legged stool at his head. The minister rebuked her conduct, and ...
— Reminiscences of Scottish Life and Character • Edward Bannerman Ramsay
... she married Philip V. of Spain, when her bold and energetic nature soon made itself felt in the councils of Europe, where she carried on schemes for territorial and political aggrandisement; was an accomplished linguist; is called by Carlyle "the Termagant of Spain"; her Memoirs are published in four ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... Lady Castlemaine, since he had made no love to her, which was not a thing to be lightly forgiven to any handsome and stalwart gentleman. Besides this, he had been so moved by the piteous case of the poor Queen, during her one hopeless battle for her rights when this termagant beauty was first thrust upon her as lady of her bedchamber, that on those cruel days during the struggle when the poor Catherine had found herself sitting alone, deserted, while her husband and her courtiers gathered in laughing, worshipping ...
— His Grace of Osmonde • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... from his wound, and spoke piteously, saying, "Father Jove, are you not angered by such doings? We gods are continually suffering in the most cruel manner at one another's hands while helping mortals; and we all owe you a grudge for having begotten that mad termagant of a daughter, who is always committing outrage of some kind. We other gods must all do as you bid us, but her you neither scold nor punish; you encourage her because the pestilent creature is your daughter. See how she ...
— The Iliad • Homer
... stared at the ceiling, studied the glowing tip of his cigar, peered through the grimy window at the uninspiring view of Hambleton and generally comported himself with discretion and savoir faire. Inwardly, he was wondering if he had any right to inflict this termagant tanner on his unsuspecting friend, the detective. Not by a jugful, unless the mutt had a mighty ...
— The Monk of Hambleton • Armstrong Livingston
... simultaneously swept her with one comprehensive glance and turned away. Students of women, experienced adventurers in matrimony, these plumbers, bird merchants "delicatessens" and the rest looked, perceived and comprehended that here was the very devil of a woman—a virago, a shrew, a termagant, a natural-born trouble-maker; and they shivered and thanked God that she was Tunnygate's and not theirs; their unformulated sentiment best expressed ...
— Tutt and Mr. Tutt • Arthur Train
... termagant woman, if she happens also to be a very artful one, will be conscious she has so much to conceal, that the dread of betraying her real temper will make her put on an over-acted softness, which, from its very excess, may be distinguished ...
— Essays on Various Subjects - Principally Designed for Young Ladies • Hannah More
... good many plays. We find this even in primitive farce. Lawyer Pathelin tells his client of a trick to outwit the magistrate; the client employs the self-same trick to avoid paying the lawyer. A termagant of a wife insists upon her husband doing all the housework; she has put down each separate item on a "rota." Now let her fall into a copper, her husband will refuse to drag her out, for "that is not down on his 'rota.'" In modern ...
— Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic • Henri Bergson
... little lieutenant knew that kind-hearted termagant, Aunt Becky, too well, to be long cast down or even flurried by her onset. When the same little Puddock, about a year ago, had that ugly attack of pleurisy, and was so low and so long about recovering, and so puny and fastidious in appetite, she treated him as kindly as if he were her ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... Embowell'd! if thou embowel me to-day, I'll give you leave to powder me and eat me too to-morrow. 'Sblood, 'twas time to counterfeit, or that hot termagant Scot had paid me scot and lot too. Counterfeit! I lie; I am no counterfeit: to die, is to be a counterfeit; for he is but the counterfeit of a man who hath not the life of a man: but to counterfeit dying, when a man thereby liveth, ...
— King Henry IV, The First Part • William Shakespeare [Hudson edition]
... very well to talk of the pleasures of the milkmaid going out in the balmy freshness of the purple dawn; but imagine a poor fellow pulled out of bed on a drizzly, rainy morning, and equipping himself for a scamper through a wet pasture lot, rope in hand, at the heels of such a termagant as mine! In fact, madam established a regular series of exercises, which had all to be gone through before she would suffer herself to be captured; as, first, she would station herself plump in the middle of a marsh, which lay at the ...
— Household Papers and Stories • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... superintendence of the Duke, she became the torment of that warrior's life. The terrible Governor, who could almost crush the heart out of a nation of three millions, was unable to curb this single termagant. Philip had expressly forbidden her to marry again, but Alva informed him that she was surrounded by suitors. Philip had insisted that she should go into a convent, but Alva, who, with great difficulty, had established ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... could not be beautiful; one asks one's self what maiden in her teens, a pretty face, would have done in the midst of these good, plain folk, stunted and elderly, with faces like wrinkled apples. A simple accessory most of the time, woman is for him merely a termagant or a blue-stocking who has turned ...
— Picture and Text - 1893 • Henry James
... my Johnsonian History, has furnished me with a droll illustration about this question. An honest carpenter, after giving some anecdote in his presence of the ill-treatment which he had received from a clergyman's wife, who was a noted termagant, and whom he accused of unjust dealing in some transaction with him, added, 'I took care to let her know what I thought of her.' And being asked, 'What did you say?' answered, 'I told her she ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell
... to talk about it, for each knew that the other understood. What still disturbs me, though, is something not in my boy's make-up, but in my own. During the long and silent drive home I noticed a mark on my husband's neck. And I was the termagant who must have put it there, though I have no memory of doing so. But from it I realize that I haven't the control over myself every civilized and self-respecting woman should have. I begin to see that I can't altogether ...
— The Prairie Child • Arthur Stringer
... as Falstaff's ragged regiment, already hi hand. I observed with delight the good demeanor of my men towards these forlorn Anglo-Saxons, and towards the more tumultuous women. Even one soldier, who threatened to throw an old termagant into the river, took care to ...
— Army Life in a Black Regiment • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... is vulgar and vicious, despotic, reckless, so as to have no devotion for the august prizes and incorruptible pleasures of existence; if she is an unappeasable termagant, or a petty worrier, so taken up with trifling annoyances, that, wherever she looks, "the blue rotunda of the universe shrinks into a housewifery room;" if the presence of each acts as a morbid irritant on the ...
— The Friendships of Women • William Rounseville Alger
... perfect and as delightful as any in the English language. Any one who cannot enjoy this has no perception of human nature, and no love of humor in his composition. In time Rip discovered that his only escape from his termagant wife was to take his gun, and stroll off into the woods with his dog. "Here he would sometimes seat himself at the foot of a tree, and share the contents of his wallet with Wolf, with whom he sympathized as a fellow sufferer in persecution. 'Poor Wolf,' he would say, 'thy mistress leads thee ...
— Four Famous American Writers: Washington Irving, Edgar Allan Poe, • Sherwin Cody
... by which Sophie went about the job of persuading her old lover do not read pleasantly. She was a termagant. The Prince was stubborn. He hated the very idea of making a will—it made him think of death. He was old, ill, friendless. Sophie made his life a hell, but he had become dependent upon her. She ill-used him, subjecting him to physical violence, ...
— She Stands Accused • Victor MacClure
... points—Mas' Daniel at the great house, and Miss Lucretia at home. From Mas' Daniel I got protection from the bigger boys; and from Miss Lucretia I got bread, by singing when I was hungry, and sympathy when I was abused by that termagant, who had the reins of government in the kitchen. For such friendship I felt deeply grateful, and bitter as are my recollections of slavery, I love to recall any instances of kindness, any sunbeams of humane treatment, which found way to my soul through the iron grating of my house of bondage. ...
— My Bondage and My Freedom • Frederick Douglass
... fingers, and red gems hanging round her neck, and yellow gems pendent from her ears, and white gems shining in her black hair. She was hardly nineteen when her father died and she was taken home by that dreadful old termagant, her aunt, Lady Linlithgow. Lizzie would have sooner gone to any other friend or relative, had there been any other friend or relative to take her possessed of a house in town. Her uncle, Dean Greystock, of Bobsborough, would have had her, and a more good-natured old soul than the dean's wife did ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope
... do,—a very great difference. It seems to me that he's altogether under the control of that hideous old termagant. Arabella, I think you'd better make up your mind that ...
— The American Senator • Anthony Trollope
... However, since my mother's return from Bath, where the compact with Lady Aresfield was fully determined, the persecution has been fiercer. I may have aroused suspicion by failing to act my part when she triumphantly announced my uncle's marriage to me, or else by my unabated resistance to the little termagant who is to be forced on me. At any rate, I have been so intolerably watched whenever I was not on duty, that my hours of bliss became rarer than ever. Well, sir, my uncle charges me with indiscretion, and says my ardour aroused unreasonable ...
— Love and Life • Charlotte M. Yonge
... is said of one who has a termagant for his wife, that he has married the Devil's daughter, and lives ...
— 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue • Captain Grose et al.
... smoothness. Oh, it offends me to the soul, to hear a robustious, periwig-pated fellow tear a passion to tatters, to very rags, to split the ears of the groundlings; who, for the most part, are capable of nothing but inexplicable dumb shows, and noise! I would have such a fellow whipped for o'erdoing Termagant; it out-herods Herod pray ...
— The Canadian Elocutionist • Anna Kelsey Howard
... father was very willing to leave me with my grandmother, who promised to leave her property to me; but this offer in my favour enraged my mother still more; she declared that I should not remain; and my father had long succumbed to her termagant disposition, and yielded implicit obedience to her authority. It was lamentable to see such a fine soldierlike man afraid even to speak before this woman; but he was completely under her thraldom, ...
— Valerie • Frederick Marryat
... not whether it was the effect of the old port, but, strange to say, I could not for some time view Miss Snooks in her former capacity, but simply as Judy. She was magnified in size, it is true, from the pert, termagant puppet of the fairs, and was an authoress—a writer of tragedies and novels—in which character, to the best of my knowledge, the spouse of Punchinello had never made her appearance, but then the similitude between them, in other respects, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction No. 485 - Vol. 17, No. 485, Saturday, April 16, 1831 • Various
... first day of her engagement, Laura knew why. "You saved her," said Helbeck. "Since that evening when you denounced me for selling her—little termagant!—I have racked my ...
— Helbeck of Bannisdale, Vol. II • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... and smacked his thick lips. Then indeed, would he be very rich, for all the villages would pay tribute to him and he could even have as many as a dozen wives. With that thought, however, came a mental picture of Naratu, the black termagant, who ruled him with an iron hand. Usanga made a wry face and tried to forget the extra dozen wives, but the lure of the idea remained and appealed so strongly to him that he presently found himself reasoning ...
— Tarzan the Untamed • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... the proceedings had been opened, and in place of some dark-browed and termagant sorceress, with the mark of every evil passion in her face, there appeared before the spectators crowding into every available corner, the slim, youthful figure—was it boy or girl?—the serene and luminous countenance of the Maid, the flower of youth raising its whiteness and innocence ...
— Jeanne d'Arc - Her Life And Death • Mrs.(Margaret) Oliphant
... waxed wroth, And vowed, by his troth,— While the beggar slunk into a corner,— If his termagant wife Did not end her ill strife, He would change words ...
— The Baron's Yule Feast: A Christmas Rhyme • Thomas Cooper
... indeed must be the soul of a man who could stoop to such deception! As the days went on the public became more excited and the attacks more ferocious. It was rumored that his fiancee had married him against his will, that she was a virago and a termagant. Would the country be contented to see the Executive Mansion ruled by petticoats, and by those of a hussy at that? What sort of a hero was the man who could be ordered about by a woman and could not call his soul his own? Then they began to overhaul his record. Was he really ...
— Captain Jinks, Hero • Ernest Crosby
... and bad and mad enough while it lasted; and when Clothilde was (figuratively) dragged from my arms I cursed and swore and out-Heroded Herod, played Termagant, and summoned the heavens to fall down and crush me miserable beneath their weight. And then her brother challenged me to fight a duel, whereupon, as the most worshipped of all She's had not received ...
— Simon the Jester • William J. Locke
... now Lady Mary's turn to show confusion at the old termagant's talk, and she coloured as red as a sunset on the coast of Kerry. I forgave the old hag her discourteous appellation of "baboon" because of the joyful intimation she gave me through the door that Lady Mary was not to be ...
— The O'Ruddy - A Romance • Stephen Crane
... the pith of the theme of the story, very briefly put, for, as she is introduced to us in the opening chapters, she is, with all her beauty, as hopeless a termagant as can well be conceived, and when she bids us farewell at the end of the book, the transformation has ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 6, July 1905 • Various
... The old termagant traversed the waiting-room, got her ticket punched—it was a return ticket—and stepped on to the platform at the precise moment a porter was crying in ...
— A Nest of Spies • Pierre Souvestre
... the country played the very vengeance with me. I could not mount my fancy into the termagant vein. I could not conceive, amidst the smiling landscape, a scene of blood and murder; and the smug citizens in breeches and gaiters, put all ideas of heroes and bandits out of my brain. I could think of ...
— Tales of a Traveller • Washington Irving
... shadow as if lifted by indignation but there was the flicker of a smile on his lips. "You say I don't know women. Maybe. It's just as well not to come too close to the shrine. But I have a clear notion of woman. In all of them, termagant, flirt, crank, washerwoman, blue-stocking, outcast and even in the ordinary fool of the ordinary commerce there is something left, if only a spark. And when there is a spark there can always be ...
— Chance - A Tale in Two Parts • Joseph Conrad
... a little termagant. Her big blue eyes seemed to flash with anger, and as she danced about, shaking her fist at Marjorie and pointing her forefinger at her, she cried, ...
— Marjorie at Seacote • Carolyn Wells
... handled too many serious situations in France to be browbeaten by a termagant like Miss Susan Timmins. He went down to the kitchen, ordered a good breakfast for all of his party, and threatened to have recourse to the law if the meal was not ...
— Ruth Fielding Down East - Or, The Hermit of Beach Plum Point • Alice B. Emerson
... ignoramus has taken the rest of the caboodle and gone off to town, leaving Annette all alone in the house until the father gets home tonight. The child's fever has been soaring sky-high for days, and I was just beginning to think I had it in control and could pull her through when that old termagant-gossip of a mother, who doesn't deserve to have chick or child, hikes off to spend the afternoon with relatives in the city for a chance to look up bargains at The Martindale. What are embroideries and dress goods compared with the life of a child? Won't she get a piece of my mind the next ...
— At the Little Brown House • Ruth Alberta Brown
... Athanasius Pastoureau, a native of Flanders, lay there buried, aged 87 years. The old man's cottage, which Esmond perfectly recollected, and the garden (where in his childhood he had passed many hours of play and reverie, and had many a beating from his termagant of a foster-mother), were now in the occupation of quite a different family; and it was with difficulty that he could learn in the village what had come of Pastoureau's widow and children. The clerk of the parish recollected her—the old man was scarce altered in the ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... unfortunate for the grocer, caught them in the corridor. She was beside herself, but the only outward symptoms were a white face and a cold steely voice that grated like a rasp on the susceptibilities of the adherents of Aphrodite. At this period Sophia had certainly developed into a termagant—without knowing it! ...
— The Old Wives' Tale • Arnold Bennett
... the late Marquis had appended in pencil. "Of course Rochebriant never denies the claim of a kinswoman, even though a drawing-master's daughter. Beautiful creature, Louise, but a termagant. I could not love Venus if she were a termagant. L.'s head turned by the unlucky discovery that her mother was noble. In one form or other, every woman has the same disease—vanity. Name of her intended ...
— The Parisians, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... it offends me to the soul, to hear a robustious perrywig-pated fellow[44] tear a passion to tatters, to very rags, to split the ears of the groundlings,[45] who, for the most part, are capable of nothing but inexplicable dumb shows and noise: I would have such a fellow whipped for o'erdoing Termagant;[46] it out-herods Herod:[47] Pray you, ...
— Hamlet • William Shakespeare
... also a sort of winter kitchen; and side by side with relics of Kilquhanity's soldier-life were clean, bright tins, black saucepans, strings of dried fruit, and well- cured hams. Certainly the place had the air of home; it spoke for the absent termagant. ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... of that land, Their way of worship viewed he, But to Mahound or Termagant Would Beichan ...
— Ballad Book • Katherine Lee Bates (ed.)
... I caught some termagant ones in a club, undervaluing our new translation of Virgil, I've known both what opinion I ought to harbour, and what use to make of them; and since the opportunity of a digression so luckily presents itself, I shall make bold to ask the gentlemen their sentiments of ...
— The Dramatic Works of John Dryden Vol. I. - With a Life of the Author • Sir Walter Scott
... Mitchell, D'Iraeli, Moncton Milnes and the rest, are classed under the common term of boyocracy, a very good phrase to denote the ridiculous portions of the young creed. Though the author has no view of this class of sentimental or termagant politicians except on their ludicrous side, he exposes that side with a brilliant remorselessness which is refreshing in this age of universal cant. Though something of a coxcomb himself, he has no mercy on the fop turned politician and theologian. The mistake of ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 2 August 1848 • Various
... just around the corner. The big stores. State Street. The el took you downtown in no time. Something going on all the while. Bella Westerveld, after one of those letters, was more than a chronic shrew; she became a terrible termagant. ...
— One Basket • Edna Ferber
... in front of the house of the person who had charge of it, as a warning to scolding or swearing women. Dr. Heginbotham states that: "There is no evidence of its having been actually used for many years, but there is testimony to the fact, that within the last forty years the brank was brought to a termagant market woman, who was effectually silenced ...
— Bygone Punishments • William Andrews
... over in his mind whether it would be well for him to tell this termagant at once that he should call on whom he liked and do what he liked, but he remembered that his footing in Barchester was not yet sufficiently firm, and that it would be better ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... He was fond of the child, but knowing what a termagant his wife was, he thought that silence like discretion was the better part of valor, and hastily beat ...
— Minnie's Sacrifice • Frances Ellen Watkins Harper
... implacably. Among the objects of her hatred were all who were related to her mistress either on the paternal or on the maternal side. No person who had a natural interest in the Princess could observe without uneasiness the strange infatuation which made her the slave of an imperious and reckless termagant. This the Countess well knew. In her view the Royal Family and the family of Hyde, however they might differ as to other matters, were leagued against her; and she detested them all, James, William and Mary, Clarendon ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 3 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... rich, costs me one pound—perhaps five pounds; if I am poor, sends me to the treadmill. If I break the hearts of five hundred old fathers, by buying with gold or flattery the embraces of five hundred young daughters, that's vice,—your servant, Mr. World! If one termagant wench scratches my face, makes a noise, and goes brazen-faced to the Old Bailey to swear to her shame, why that's crime, and my friend, Mr. World, pulls a hemp-rope out of his pocket.' Now, do you understand? Yes, I repeat," he ...
— Night and Morning, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... I may venture to say that I know you well, for there's a termagant of an Irish woman down at the camp going about wringing her hands, shouting out your good qualities in the most pathetic tones, and giving nobody a moment's peace because she does not know what has become of you. Having ...
— The Island Queen • R.M. Ballantyne
... it; why should we endanger our Men against a desperate Termagant; If he love Wounds and Scars so well, let him exercise on our Enemies—but if he will needs fall upon us, 'tis then time enough for us to ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume IV. • Aphra Behn
... massive in proportion. She was handsome too, in a swarthy way, though near at hand her face was sensuous and bold. Yet she had a suave, flattering manner and a coarse wit that captured the crowd. Dangerous, unscrupulous and cruel, I thought; a man-woman, a shrew, a termagant! ...
— The Trail of '98 - A Northland Romance • Robert W. Service
... women, however, Darkey by name, shortly became a pestilent source of trouble. Cain wrote in 1833 that her termagant outbreaks among her fellows had led him to apply a "moderate correction," whereupon she had further terrorized her housemates by threats of poison. Cain could then only unbosom himself to Telfair: "I will give you a full history of my belief of Darkey, to wit: I believe ...
— American Negro Slavery - A Survey of the Supply, Employment and Control of Negro Labor as Determined by the Plantation Regime • Ulrich Bonnell Phillips
... of the play thus speaks with two voices: in one Jeanne acts and talks as she might have done (had she been given to oratory); in the other she is the termagant of Anglo-Burgundian ...
— The Valet's Tragedy and Other Stories • Andrew Lang
... hangman's notion!" thought the Chamberlain to himself, with a swift side glance at this termagant, and a single ...
— Doom Castle • Neil Munro
... years younger than Milton. "A genteel person, a peaceful and agreeable woman," says Aubrey, who knew her, and refutes by anticipation Richardson's anonymous informant, perhaps Deborah Clarke, who libelled her as "a termagant." She was pretty, and had golden hair, which one connects pleasantly with the late sunshine she brought into Milton's life. She sang to his accompaniment on the organ and bass-viol, but is not recorded ...
— Life of John Milton • Richard Garnett
... termagant as Bessie Hatch looked at that moment, with her black eyes flashing, her hands clinched, and her cheeks like two flaming poppies! Half irritated, half amused, Annie, the Irish nurse, ...
— Harper's Young People, January 6, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... you'll not desert me, Judith. Old friends are best: and I—I always liked you. The other lass was a lamb to woo, but wed, A termagant: and I'm well shot of her. I'd have wrung the pullet's neck for her one day, If she'd—and the devil to pay! So it's good riddance ... Yet, she'd a way with her, she had, the filly! And I'd have relished breaking her in. But you Were ...
— Krindlesyke • Wilfrid Wilson Gibson
... with the destroyers Termagant, Truculent and Manly, were stationed at a position suitable for the long range bombardment of Zeebrugge in ...
— The Boy Allies with the Victorious Fleets - The Fall of the German Navy • Robert L. Drake
... Vanessa being the elder; but the younger girl with her greater keenness of vision, more exuberant health and spirits, and more resolute unscrupulosity, had so carried the heart of the other by storm that it was Vanessa, the provincial termagant, who looked up to and worshipped her sister dare-devil of the Metropolis, and who watched ...
— Too Old for Dolls - A Novel • Anthony Mario Ludovici
... WINKLE, a Dutch colonist of New York who, driven from home by a termagant wife strolls into a ravine of the Katskill Mountains, falls in with a strange man whom he assists in carrying a keg, and comes upon a company of odd-looking creatures playing at ninepins, but never uttering a word, when, seizing an opportunity that offered, he took up one ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... grinding all out of time the vulgarest and most threadbare tunes. Henceforth, applying the name of a character in Dickens, she spoke of Hollingford's representative as Robb the Grinder; which, when Mr. Robb heard of it, as of course he did very soon, by no means sweetened his disposition towards "the termagant of Rivenoak"—a phrase he was supposed to have himself invented. "I'll grind her!" remarked the honourable gentleman, in the bosom of his family, and before long he found his opportunity. In the next ...
— Our Friend the Charlatan • George Gissing
... his friend; "do we not all know to what a termagant you are united? and her temper and high rank combined must no doubt make her a sweet companion." Here he burst into a loud laugh, and the little man actually strutted with a feeling of superiority over ...
— Eastern Tales by Many Story Tellers • Various
... the personal expression out of even such a canvas as his "Triumph of Chastity" in the Rospigliosi Gallery. His delightful Venus, one of the loveliest nudes in painting, flies from the attacking termagant, whose virtue is proclaimed by the ermine on her breast, and sweeps her little cupid with her with a well-bred, surprised air, suggestive of the manners of ...
— The Venetian School of Painting • Evelyn March Phillipps
... rising. At this juncture his brother officer slipped out some languid words in his ear, indicative of his astonishment that he should be championing a termagant, and horror at the idea of such a thing being publicly imagined, tamed Wilfrid quickly. He recovered himself with his usual cleverness. Seeing the signs of hostility vanish, Mr. Pericles said, "You are on ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... ye see such a little termagant, such a persuasive, commanding little queen of a termagant?" asked the priest ...
— Lords of the North • A. C. Laut
... but never bends. I believe in my soul if I was to carry her off to sea to-morrow she would leap overboard and end it all the day after. I wish I had never listened to Blanche's tempting. I wish I had left the little termagant in peace. The game ...
— The Unseen Bridgegroom - or, Wedded For a Week • May Agnes Fleming
... without considerable deflection. He cannot say exactly what he would. His words do not hold the same meaning for him as for others. "Mother" to him is a dear woman with a gentle voice, always dressed in black, sitting by the window of home; to another she is a shrieking termagant, whose phrases are punctuated by blows. There is not a word that means exactly the same to two persons; yet with words men must express their thoughts, their feelings, their hopes, their purposes,—always changing, ever new,—and for all this shall ...
— English: Composition and Literature • W. F. (William Franklin) Webster
... dogmatist and hypochondriac of the eighteenth century, how one would like to sit at some ghastly Club, between you and the bony, "mighty-mouthed," harsh-toned termagant and dyspeptic of the nineteenth! The growl of the English mastiff and the snarl of the Scotch terrier would make a duet which would enliven the shores of Lethe. I wish I could find our "spiritualist's" paper in the Portfolio, in which the two are brought together, but I hardly know what I ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... it all now," observed Henderson, in a fit of passion, aggravated by the bitterness of his disappointment—"I see your trick; an' so, you old scoundrel, you thought to impose your termagant daughter upon me instead of Miss Sullivan, and she reeking with typhus fever, too, by your own account. For this piece of villany I shall settle with you, however, never fear. Typhus fever! Good God!—and I so dreadfully afraid of it all along, that I couldn't bear to look near a house in ...
— The Black Prophet: A Tale Of Irish Famine • William Carleton
... have children; "and you know," she exclaimed, "my prayers have been answered!" The woman professed to believe her unholy prayers had hindered the subjects of her wrath from having offspring. The man quailed under the termagant's piercing eye, and trembled at the ...
— The Mysteries of All Nations • James Grant
... tendeno. Tenement logxejo, apartamento. Tenet dogmo, kredo. Tenor tenoro. Tension strecxo. Tent tendo. Tentative prova. Tepid varmeta. Term (time) templimo. Term (expression) termino. Termagant kriegulino. Terminate fini. Terminology terminaro. Termite termito. Terrace teraso. Terrestrial tera. Terrible, terrific terura. Terrify timegigi. Territory teritorio. Terror teruro. Terrorise terurigi. Test provi. Testament testamento. Testator testamentanto. Testify ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... a moment, met and sympathised together. Mr. O'Connor, however, bore up somewhat better than Neal. The latter was subdued in heart and in spirit, thoroughly, completely, and intensely vanquished. His features became sharpened by misery, for a termagant wife is the whetstone on which all the calamities of a henpecked husband are painted by the devil. He no longer strutted as he was wont to do, he no longer carried a cudgel as if he wished to wage a universal battle with mankind. He was now a married ...
— Stories by English Authors: Ireland • Various
... Beaumarchais, dimly as the Giant Smuggler becomes visible,—filling his own lank pocket withal. But surely, in any case, France should have a Navy. For which great object were not now the time: now when that proud Termagant of the Seas has her hands full? It is true, an impoverished Treasury cannot build ships; but the hint once given (which Beaumarchais says he gave), this and the other loyal Seaport, Chamber of Commerce, will build and offer ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... Gray's Inn, some years ago was prevailed upon by his friends to dismiss a mistress, by whom he had a child, but who was so great a termagant and scold, that she was believed to use him very ill, and even to beat him. He became melancholy in two days from the want of his usual stimulus to action, and cut his throat on the third so ...
— Zoonomia, Vol. II - Or, the Laws of Organic Life • Erasmus Darwin
... yourself shaper; If at the world you're a green-gosling gaper, Or of old "JUNIUS," juvenile aper; Bumptious Scotch Duke, or irate Irish Draper, Crammed with conceit, which must publicly caper; Angry old woman, or frivolous japer; Thraso or termagant, Tadpole or Taper, To blow off your steam, or your gas, or your vapour, There's one fool-loved fashion—'tis write ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 104, April 15, 1893 • Various
... "The Disobedient Child" concludes unhappily, though without any attempt at a highly wrought tragical catastrophe; the Rich man persists in his unrelenting conduct, and we are left to imagine that his son returns to live and die in misery with his termagant wife.] ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. II • Robert Dodsley
... of the spoils, the termagant succeeded in carrying the day; also, to her quarters, bale after bale of goods, together with numerous odds and ends, sundry and divers. Moreover, she laid in a fine stock of edibles, so as, in all respects possible, to ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. I (of 2) • Herman Melville
... affectation." But one historian not only says this, he adds: "She was the protector of her country, and the prudent executor of its will." She was nothing of the sort; on the contrary, she was a cold, greedy, heartless termagant, who risked the loss of her country by her parsimony, and it was only saved by the dauntless courage of the famishing seamen. I think that is one of the most gruesome and humiliating pieces of British history: for the monarch of a great empire to exhibit herself in the light of a sailor's boarding-housekeeper; ...
— The Shellback's Progress - In the Nineteenth Century • Walter Runciman
... do," cried the Baron, beginning to ascend the companion-ladder. "Captain Jan Dunck, keep the Count down here below; don't let him show himself on any account. I will settle the matter. This female, this termagant, will carry off one of your passengers, and, as an honest man, you are bound to ...
— Voyages and Travels of Count Funnibos and Baron Stilkin • William H. G. Kingston
... * * * Oh, it offends me to the soul, to hear a robustious, periwig-pated fellow (like yourself) tear a passion to tatters, &c.—I would have such a fellow whipped (give it him, he deserves it) for o'erdoing Termagant. * * * Oh, there be players that I have seen play, (no, we see him,) and heard others praise, and that highly, (oh! oh! oh!) not to speak it profanely, that, having neither the accent of Christians, (ha! ha! ha!) nor the gait of Christian, Pagan, nor man, have ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 366 - Vol. XIII, No. 366., Saturday, April 18, 1829 • Various
... lady's will Brea's wife, the second daughter of the house (there were no sons), was down in the very first paragraph for the magnificent sum of "one dollar lawful currency," and her name nowhere else appeared in the lengthy document. The old lady was such a termagant and so implacable in her hatreds that it was a moral certainty she would never relent and change her purpose toward her daughter. But James had also drawn up a second will of his own and Brea's concoction, ...
— Bidwell's Travels, from Wall Street to London Prison - Fifteen Years in Solitude • Austin Biron Bidwell
... error? when he described Vittoria's attitude as one of 'innocence-resembling boldness.' In the trial scene, no less than in the scenes of altercation with Brachiano and Flamineo, Webster clearly intended her to pass for a magnificent vixen, a beautiful and queenly termagant. Her boldness is the audacity of impudence, which does not condescend to entertain the thought of guilt. Her egotism is so hard and so profound that the very victims whom she sacrifices to ambition seem in her sight justly punished. ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... their youngest and disagreeablest children, so it happened with Liberty, who doted on this daughter to such a degree, that by her good will she would never suffer the girl to be out of her sight. As Miss Faction grew up, she became so termagant and froward, that there was no enduring her any longer in Heaven. Jupiter gave her warning to be gone; and her mother rather than forsake her, took the whole family down to earth. She landed at first in Greece, was expelled by degrees through ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IX; • Jonathan Swift
... offends me to the soul to hear a robustious periwig-pated fellow tear a passion to tatters, to very rags, to split the ears of the groundlings, who for the most part are capable of nothing but inexplicable dumb-shows and noise. I would have such a fellow whipped for o'erdoing Termagant. It out-herods Herod. Pray you, ...
— Public Speaking • Clarence Stratton
... is another prose passage of hers, which seems less the careful thought of a philosopher than the screeching of a termagant. It is odd that the first two sentences recall ...
— Famous Affinities of History, Vol 1-4, Complete - The Romance of Devotion • Lyndon Orr
... dhrop taken' just before the affair; that soft impeachment they could not deny. One of them explained, however, that she had taken it to help her over a hard job of work, and through a little miscalculation of quantity it had 'overaided her.' The other termagant was asked flatly by the magistrate if she had ever seen the inside of a jail before, but evaded the point with much grace and ingenuity by telling his Honour that he couldn't expect to meet a woman anywhere who had not suffered ...
— Penelope's Irish Experiences • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... whispered narrative. The mountain was generally shunned. It is true that Senor Joaquin Pedrillo afterward located a grant near the base of the mountain; but as the Senora Pedrillo was known to be a termagant, half-breed, the Senor was not ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 72, October, 1863 • Various
... encounter formed the theme of thrilling and whispered narrative. The mountain was generally shunned. It is true that Senor Joaquin Pedrillo afterward located a grant near the base of the mountain; but as Senora Pedrillo was known to be a termagant half-breed, the Senor was not ...
— Legends and Tales • Bret Harte
... the meek cook, Abd el-Kader, whom I took while the Frenchman was here. I had not the heart to send him away; he is such a meskeen. He was a smart travelling waiter, but his brother died, leaving a termagant widow with four children, and poor Abd el-Kader felt it his duty to bend his neck to the yoke, married her, and has two more children. He is a most ...
— Letters from Egypt • Lucie Duff Gordon
... motionless figure of the stranger. The effect of his indifference began to extend itself to the other spectators, and a youngster who was just quitting the condition of a boy to enter the state of manhood, attempted to assist the termagant by flourishing his tomahawk before their victim and adding his empty boasts to the taunts of the woman. Then, indeed, the captive turned his face toward the light, and looked down on the stripling with an expression that was superior to contempt. At the next moment he resumed his ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. IX (of X) - America - I • Various
... fault. Van Goyen, who was a kindly creature, as became the father-in-law of Jan Steen, called out to his other pupils—"Berg hem" (Hide him!) and the phrase stuck, and became his best-known name. Nicolas married a termagant, but never allowed her ...
— A Wanderer in Holland • E. V. Lucas
... revelations of human nature a real man in such a position could give me: 'Hand me the shovel. You stop a bit,—you're out of breath. Sit down on that stone there, and light your pipe; here's some tobacco. Now tell me the rest of the story. How did the old fellow get on after he had buried his termagant wife?' That's how I should treat him; and I should get, in return, such a succession of peeps into human life and intent and aspirations, as, in the course of a few years, would send me to the next vicarage that turned up a sadder and ...
— The Vicar's Daughter • George MacDonald
... say, Bark, Bawtie, and be dune wi't!—I tell ye," raising her termagant voice, "I want my bairn! ...
— The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... hot blood. ill humor &c (sullenness) 901.1; asperity &c; churlishness &c (discourtesy) 895. huff &c (resentment) 900; a word and a blow. Sir Fretful Plagiary; brabbler^, Tartar; shrew, vixen, virago, termagant, dragon, scold, Xantippe; porcupine; spitfire; fire eater &c (blusterer) 887; fury &c (violent person) 173. V. be irascible &c adj.; have a temper &c n., have a devil in one; fire up &c (be angry) 900. Adj. irascible; bad-tempered, ill-tempered; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... Strange that the termagant winds should scold The Christmas Eve so bitterly! But Wife, and Harry the four-year-old, Big ...
— The Poems of Sidney Lanier • Sidney Lanier
... you drink, devil take you? If you wakened me, then drink with me! It is an interesting tale, brother, that of the boot! I didn't want to go with Olga. I don't like to be bossed. She came under the window and began to abuse me. She always was a termagant. You know what women are like, all of them. I was a bit drunk, so I took a boot and heaved it at her. Ha-ha- ha! Teach her not to scold another time! But it didn't! Not a bit of it! She climbed in at the window, lit the lamp, and began to hammer poor tipsy me. She thrashed ...
— The Most Interesting Stories of All Nations • Julian Hawthorne
... defiantly upon the officiating bishop, and refusing, by look, or word, or gesture, to express the slightest assent, remained as immovable as a statue. Embarrassment and delay ensued. Her royal brother, Charles IX., fully aware of his sister's indomitable resolution, coolly walked up to the termagant at bay, and placing one hand upon her chest and the other upon the back of her head, compelled an involuntary nod. The bishop smiled and bowed, and acting upon the principle that small favors were gratefully ...
— Henry IV, Makers of History • John S. C. Abbott
... feel remorseful about. It must just be, generally, because they were so wicked, and because they did not sufficiently believe the infallibility and impeccability of their ancestors. I am reminded of the woman mentioned by Sam Weller, whose husband disappeared. The woman had been a fearful termagant; the husband, a very inoffensive man. After his disappearance, the woman issued an advertisement, assuring him, that, if he returned, he would be fully forgiven; which, as Mr. Weller justly remarked, was ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IX., March, 1862., No. LIII. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics, • Various
... A hen-pecked husband's lament: he woos and marries the termagant within three days—then follows trouble. She "mashes his mouth with a shovel," bundles up her "duds", and leaves him ...
— A Syllabus of Kentucky Folk-Songs • Hubert G. Shearin
... conscience, or as an unbearably henpecked husband. The probabilities, when reckoned up, certainly pointed to the last idea; but, still, the impression conveyed was that of a more formidable persecutor even than a termagant wife. ...
— Ghost Stories of an Antiquary • Montague Rhodes James
... absence, riot away on the remnant of his broken fortunes. As to their mother, (who was once so tender, so submissive, so studious to oblige, that we all pronounced him happy, and his course of life the eligible,) she is now so termagant, so insolent, that he cannot contend with her, without doing infinite prejudice to his health. A broken-spirited defensive, hardly a defensive, therefore, reduced to: and this to a heart, for so many years waging offensive war, (not valuing whom the opponent,) ...
— Clarissa, Volume 7 • Samuel Richardson
... capturing Crop-eared Jose here in Colina, so run along, run along. The girl's too pretty to be hurt with a frisky horse. My Lord!" striding down the hall again, "you fools stop scrapping with that termagant and put her out, put her out, ...
— The Black Pearl • Mrs. Wilson Woodrow
... a gentleman, named Petruchio, came to Padua, purposely to look out for a wife, who, nothing discouraged by these reports of Katherine's temper, and hearing she was rich and handsome, resolved upon marrying this famous termagant, and taming her into a meek and manageable wife. And truly none was so fit to set about this herculean labour as Petruchio, whose spirit was as high as Katherine's, and he was a witty and most happy-tempered humourist, and withal so wise, and of such ...
— Books for Children - The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 3 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... you a cynic; who speak of "the withered world of Thackerayan satire;" who think your eyes were ever turned to the sordid aspects of life—to the mother-in-law who threatens to "take away her silver bread-basket;" to the intriguer, the sneak, the termagant; to the Beckys, and Barnes Newcomes, and Mrs. Mackenzies of this world. The quarrel of these sentimentalists is really with life, not with you; they might as wisely blame Monsieur Buffon because there are snakes in his Natural History. ...
— Letters to Dead Authors • Andrew Lang
... daughter of Don Caesar. She fixed her heart on having Julio de Melessina for her husband, and so behaved to all other suitors as to drive them away. Thus to Don Garcia, she pretended to be a termagant; to Don Vincentio, who was music-mad, she professed to love a Jew's-harp above every other instrument. At last Julio appeared, and her "bold stroke" obtained as its reward "the husband of her choice."—Mrs. Cowley, A Bold Stroke ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... papa laughed at her, quizzed her, joked at her, in a way which the Miss Brownings called 'really cruel' to each other when they were quite alone, Molly took her little griefs and pleasures, and poured them into her papa's ears, sooner even than into Betty's, that kind-hearted termagant. The child grew to understand her father well, and the two had the most delightful intercourse together—half banter, half seriousness, but altogether confidential friendship. Mr. Gibson kept three servants; Betty, a cook, and a girl who was supposed ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... say that headlong marriages—marriages contracted in purblind passion—always end in misery. No marriage can bring a spark of happiness unless cool reason guides the choice of the contracting parties. A hot-headed stripling marries a handsome termagant—her brilliant face, her grace, and rude health attract him, and he does not quietly notice the ebullitions of her temper. She is divine to him; and, though she snarls at her younger brother, insults her mother, and to outsiders ...
— Side Lights • James Runciman
... of desolation lay around about me. I might have prated to her of my needs, wrung her heart with the piteousness of my appeal. Cui bono? I can't whine to women—or to men either, for the matter of that. When I am by myself I can curse and swear, play Termagant and rehearse an extravaganza out-Heroding all the Herods that ever Heroded. But before others—no. I believe my great-grandfather, before he qualified for his ...
— The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne • William J. Locke
... complication in the life of the girl he was beginning to love, stared at his companion in dismay. Was it not enough that Virginia's mother should be a slattern and a termagant? At last he spoke: "Where have you been ...
— Cavanaugh: Forest Ranger - A Romance of the Mountain West • Hamlin Garland
... moment. But ere we had talked much more, we saw two other passengers approach us, who, by their often turning to one another, and their laying down arguments with their hands, seemed to be in warm debate together; which was as we conjectured; for when they drew nearer to us, they proved to be a termagant High-Flyer, and a puritanical Scripturian, a fiery Scotchman: Occasional Conformity was their subject; for I heard the Scot tell him 'twas all popery, downright popery, and that the inquisition in Spain ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Vol. III • Theophilus Cibber
... a fair chance of being wholly spoiled, and growing up to one of those termagant, mammythrept romps we used to laugh at in Mr. Colley Cibber's plays. The schoolmistress fawned upon her, for, although untitled, Esquire Greenville (from whom my descent is plain), and he was so much respected in the West, that the innkeepers were used to beseech ...
— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 1 of 3 • George Augustus Sala
... a gallop now and then; and whenever in this vicious mood, is pretty sure to take up with Puff, and the two are apt to make wild work of it when they scamper abroad together. The worst of it is, that nobody knows which is which of these two termagant tramplers: both are thoroughly protean creatures, changing shapes and characters, and assuming a thousand different forms every day; so that it is a task all but impossible to distinguish one from the other. Hence a man may got upon the back of either without well knowing whither ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 434 - Volume 17, New Series, April 24, 1852 • Various
... wildly on their favorite; but when the pippin's ripe it will be pulled. There's not the slightest reason for the existence of any personal ill will between these pugs—it's all in the play, and being bad actors they overdo the part of Termagant, do protest too much. It is quite noticeable that in the "big fights" nowadays nobody gets seriously bruised. It's easy enough to start the claret, and an ounce o' blood well smeared satisfies the crowd as well ...
— Volume 10 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... would-be husband to despair. She squanders his money, visits the theatre on the very day of their marriage ignoring the presence of her husband in such a manner, that he wishes himself in his grave, or rid of the termagant, who has destroyed the peace of his life.—The climax is reached on his discovery among the accounts, all giving proof of his wife's reckless extravagance, a billet-doux, pleading for a clandestine meeting in his own garden. Malatesta is summoned and cannot ...
— The Standard Operaglass - Detailed Plots of One Hundred and Fifty-one Celebrated Operas • Charles Annesley
... key-note of a valued song of trust, seems to illustrate the Providence that will never let a good thing be lost. It is related of the Rev. David Williams, of Llandilo, an obscure but not entirely forgotten preacher, that he had a termagant wife, and one stormy night, when her bickerings became intolerable, he went out in the rain and standing by the river composed in his mind these ...
— The Story of the Hymns and Tunes • Theron Brown and Hezekiah Butterworth
... the respectability or usefulness of that publication during its long and almost exclusive enjoyment of the public favour, yet the style of criticism adopted in it is such as to appear slight and unsatisfactory to a modern reader. The writers, instead of 'outdoing termagant or out-Heroding Herod,' were somewhat precise and prudish, gentle almost to a fault, ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt
... same ungovernable termagant as ever—conceited little puss! But she always amuses me—that's one consolation!" He laughed, and taking out his cigar-case, opened it. "Will you have one?" Longford accepted the favour. "Who is this old ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli
... life abroad. The Duchess had parted with her offices with great reluctance. Even when the Queen sent for the golden keys, which were the badge of her office, she refused to surrender them. No one could do anything with the infuriated termagant, and all were afraid of her. She threatened to print the private correspondence of the Queen as Mrs. Morley. The ministers dared not go into her presence, so fierce was her character when offended. To take from her the badge of office ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VII • John Lord
... for ten dinars redeemed me from captivity with the Franks, carried me along with him to Aleppo. Here he had a daughter, and her he gave me in marriage, with a dower of a hundred dinars. Soon after this damsel turned out a termagant and vixen, and discovered such a perverse spirit and virulent tongue as quite unhinged all my domestic comfort.—A scolding wife in the dwelling of a peaceful man is his hell, even in this world. Protect and guard us against a wicked ...
— Persian Literature, Volume 2, Comprising The Shah Nameh, The - Rubaiyat, The Divan, and The Gulistan • Anonymous
... indignation, ire, frenzy; virago, termagant, shrew, vixen, beldame, Xantippe; agitation, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... on the Grecian side are Juno, Minerva, and Neptune. Juno, as you will shortly see, is a scolding wife, who in spite of all Jove's bluster wears the breeches, or tries exceedingly hard to do so. Minerva is an angry termagant—mean, mischief-making, and vindictive. She begins by pulling Achilles' hair, and later on she knocks the helmet from off the head of Mars. She hates Venus, and tells the Grecian hero Diomede that he had better not ...
— The Humour of Homer and Other Essays • Samuel Butler
... complicity in Darnley's murder. At that stage the investigations were stopped; but the Duke of Norfolk, the head of the commission, was not deterred from pressing the design of marrying Mary himself. Mary was placed in the charge of Shrewsbury and his termagant spouse, Bess ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol X • Various
... Aristotle were most exemplary. The unseemly wrangles of Philip and his wife were never repeated in the home of Aristotle. Yet we will have to offer this fact in the interests of stirpiculture: the inconstant Philip and the termagant Olympias brought into the world Alexander; whereas the sons of Aristotle lived their day and died, without making a ripple ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great Philosophers, Volume 8 • Elbert Hubbard
... shall not have them," screamed the termagant. "I have no use for your gold, but I want my dinner. So be off with you. You will get nothing from me if ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... parties, and in this object I am happy to say I was successful. 'Here,' said I, 'is a wife remarkable for putting as much good-nature into her six or eight hours of day-life as most women put into twice the time. No one can tell what she is in her sleep: perhaps the veriest termagant on earth. Suppose her sleep could be abridged, might not some of this termagantism overflow into and be diffused over her waking existence? I can well imagine this, and you, my friend, reduced to such straits by it that you might wish she would never ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 450 - Volume 18, New Series, August 14, 1852 • Various
... in the motionless figure of the stranger. The effect of his indifference began to extend itself to the other spectators; and a youngster, who was just quitting the condition of a boy to enter the state of manhood, attempted to assist the termagant, by flourishing his tomahawk before their victim, and adding his empty boasts to the taunts of the women. Then, indeed, the captive turned his face toward the light, and looked down on the stripling with ...
— The Last of the Mohicans • James Fenimore Cooper
... in the city, at reasonable charges. When we remember this splendid pile—voted by acclamation, but paid for by grudging and insufficient instalments by the English Parliament—was finished under the superintendence of that beautiful fiery termagant, Sarah Duchess of Marlborough, who was at once the plague and the delight of the great Duke's life, every stone and every tree must be viewed with interest. We should advise you, before passing a day at Blenheim, to refresh your memory with the correspondence ...
— Rides on Railways • Samuel Sidney
... it? heere's some of us knowes how to runne away and they be put to it. Though wee have left our brave Generall, the Earle of Pembrooke, yet here's Cavaliero Bowyer, Core and Nod, by Jesu, sound cards: and Mahound and Termagant[148] come against us, weele fight with them. Couragio, my hearts! S. George for the honour ...
— A Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. III • Various
... conciliating abroad, who are under the discipline of shrews at home. Their tempers, doubtless, are rendered pliant and malleable in the fiery furnace of domestic tribulation; and a curtain lecture is worth all the sermons in the world for teaching the virtues of patience and long-suffering. A termagant wife may, therefore, in some respects be considered a tolerable blessing, and if so, Rip Van Winkle ...
— Legends That Every Child Should Know • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... the Whore bends Hereticks With flames of fire, like crooked sticks, Our Schismaticks so vastly differ, Th' hotter th' are, they grow the stiffer; Still setting off their spiritual goods 675 With fierce and pertinacious feuds. For zeal's a dreadful termagant, That teaches Saints to tear and rant, And Independents to profess The doctrine of dependences: 680 Turns meek, and secret, sneaking ones, To raw-heads fierce and bloody-bones: And, not content with endless quarrels Against the wicked, ...
— Hudibras • Samuel Butler |
