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More "Combativeness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Combativeness, to use the language of phrenology, is one of the most lively instincts of humanity. The Bible tells us of the struggle between the sons of Adam, and shows us might making right ever since the days of primeval man. History is but one long account of wars and conquests, victories ...
— Manners and Monuments of Prehistoric Peoples • The Marquis de Nadaillac
... M'Fadden, who seems preparing for a display of his combativeness, he adds, "Ye see, Mack, ye will lie, and lie crooked too! and ye will steal, and steal dishonourably; and I can lick a dozen on ye quicker nor chain lightnin? I can send the hol batch on ye-rubbish as it is-to take supper t'other side of sundown." ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams
... here, have a definite sex-excitation effect. This series of six chords, which occur in some of the Wagnerian stuff; effect, a combined feeling of godlike isolation and despair. And these consecutive fifths—a sense of danger, anger, combativeness. You know, we could work out a whole range of emotional stimuli to fit ...
— Hunter Patrol • Henry Beam Piper and John J. McGuire
... doctrines when I had to do with the transmutationists, and stood up for the possibility of transmutation among the orthodox—thereby, no doubt, increasing an already current, but quite undeserved, reputation for needless combativeness." ...
— Thomas Henry Huxley; A Sketch Of His Life And Work • P. Chalmers Mitchell
... good idea of this every-day strife with the foes of error and sin that crossed his path. It was a practical conception, but it was truly expressed under the similitude of a battle. There was to be resistance, and he could comprehend that, for his bump of combativeness took cognizance of the suggestion. He was to fight; and that was an idea that stood him in better stead than a whole ...
— Now or Never - The Adventures of Bobby Bright • Oliver Optic
... and that if we embark upon the crusade of joy, we must do it expecting to find many kinds of joy at work in the world, and some which we cannot understand. We may of course mistrust destructive joy, the joy of selfish pleasure, rough combativeness, foolish wastefulness, ugly riot—all the joys that are evidently dogged by sorrow and pain; but if we see any joy that leads to self-restraint and energy and usefulness and activity, we must ...
— Joyous Gard • Arthur Christopher Benson
... unsuspicious of guile in others; a disinterested, humble, patient, and generous person. He had suffered much wrong, and endured great hardships in life; but they had not impaired his readiness to labor and suffer for others. There was no combativeness or vindictiveness in his disposition. Even in the midst of the unspeakable outrages he was experiencing on this occasion, he does not appear to be incensed or irritated, but simply "amazed." To have such horrid crimes laid to him, instead ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham
... training, too, combined with their turn for combativeness, makes them eminently quixotic. They can't let anything alone which they think going wrong. They must speak their mind about it, annoying all easy-going folk, and spend their time and money in having a tinker at it, however ...
— Tom Brown's Schooldays • Thomas Hughes
... struggle, encounter, fray, affray, melee, scrimmage (Colloq.); pugnacity, belligerence. Associated words: militant, combative, combativeness, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... argue at great length. This helps him as a lawyer or speaker but it hurts him in business. Curbing his combativeness in business should be one ...
— How to Analyze People on Sight - Through the Science of Human Analysis: The Five Human Types • Elsie Lincoln Benedict and Ralph Paine Benedict
... and emotions of an individual soldier may perhaps be interesting to the reader. I have never been a lover of war or of strife, and have never been disposed to seek a fight or quarrel. But when once engaged in or challenged to battle all the combativeness in human nature is at once aroused. It is then difficult, if not morally impossible, to decline the challenge. At all events, that question is not even thought of at times. One of the most difficult lessons a commander has to learn is when to offer or accept battle, and when to refrain ...
— Forty-Six Years in the Army • John M. Schofield
... only on fruits and roots, which, like the hippopotamus, he tears up with his tusks, those safeguards of his, amid the many perils of his life in the woods. In the service of man, on the contrary, he becomes lazy, cowardly, and greedy; unlearns his energy and combativeness, eats all that is offered to him in the trough, even meat, when it happens to be thrown in; and, in order to do this moreeasily, has recalled toward his mouth those formidable war-tusks of his, so tremendous as weapons, so useless as teeth; has, in fact, turned ...
— The History of a Mouthful of Bread - And its effect on the organization of men and animals • Jean Mace
... military classes, since they inherit the blood and habits of conquerors, naturally love war and their irrational combativeness is reinforced by interest; for in war officers can shine and rise, while the danger of death, to a brave man, is rather a spur and a pleasing excitement than a terror. A military class is therefore always recalling, foretelling, and meditating war; it fosters artificial and senseless jealousies ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... duplicity. These were so combined as really to form but one. Had he been a man and termed Jesuitical, in the Protestant sense, that term would have aptly described him. Now Hubert was not perfect more than other children, but, compared to Thornton Rush, he was a little saint. His organ of combativeness frequently waged stern conflicts with his bump of reverence. His sense of right was keen as his sensitiveness against wrong and falsehood. He was, like his mother, frank and open as the day, generous, disinterested, ...
— Hubert's Wife - A Story for You • Minnie Mary Lee
... the interpretation of my dream is this. Deeply implanted in the organism are certain co-ordinated responses such as courage and fear, or such as love, hate, combativeness, pity, and emulation. They may owe their present form to habit, but they are all rooted in instinct, and so call the body into play as a unit.[4] Primarily they are plans of action, through which the organism promptly deals with ...
— The Moral Economy • Ralph Barton Perry
... first thing and the most needful. An ugly, envious, irritable disposition is not fitted for talk. The occasions for offence are too numerous, and the way into strife is too short and easy. A touch of good-natured combativeness, a fondness for brisk argument, a readiness to try a friendly bout with any comer, on any ground, is a decided advantage in a talker. It breaks up the offensive monotony of polite concurrence, and makes things lively. ...
— Fisherman's Luck • Henry van Dyke
... "Ambition, combativeness, and destructiveness are all on a colossal scale. Happily they are balanced by gigantic caution, else you would be in imminent danger of subverting the ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 2, No. 29, October 15, 1870 • Various
... unreasonable reasons. Cynthia and Molly had both spoken of the brothers with familiar regard, implying considerable intimacy; their flowers had been preferred to his on the occasion of the ball; most people spoke well of them; and Mr. Preston had an animal's instinctive jealousy and combativeness against all popular young men. Their 'position'—poor as the Hamleys might be—was far higher than his own in the county; and, moreover, he was agent to the great Whig lord, whose political interests were diametrically opposed to those ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... wherever he went the people demanded a speech of him, and his words never failed to cheer, while they conquered for him a wide popularity. Indeed, Gambetta so deluded himself while diffusing hope and combativeness into others, that when, after a five months' siege, Paris capitulated, he still persisted in thinking that resistance was possible, and rather than take any part in the national surrender he gave in his resignation. He was ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 4 of 8 • Various
... highest steps of Kultur have not been mounted by peaceable nations in long periods of peace, but by warlike peoples in the time of their greatest combativeness.—R. ...
— Gems (?) of German Thought • Various
... which We are sent Ourselves, or send those other sons of Ours. The training to be got here, as elsewhere, developed primarily, indeed, and all unconsciously, the first and greatest of requisites in life, whether for dog or man. And if, in some instances, evil characteristics, such as combativeness, selfishness, and the habit of bad language, became accentuated, in spite of the stern discipline of the place, their opposites—good temper, a light and happy disposition, and a civil tongue—received their meed of recognition even from ...
— 'Murphy' - A Message to Dog Lovers • Major Gambier-Parry
... murtherin' thafe!" exclaimed Kitty, her organ of combativeness, which was very large, becoming terribly excited. "Get into mistress's bed, and the leddy there herself, the omadhoun! The black, murtherin' thafe ...
— The Lights and Shadows of Real Life • T.S. Arthur
... conclusions of the observers. A somewhat famous but unscientific practitioner of phrenology gave a good illustration of this by mistaking a rugged development of the lambdoid suture for an enormous organ of combativeness, and ascribing to the gentleman a terrific, pugnacious energy which was the very opposite ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, February 1887 - Volume 1, Number 1 • Various
... audacious Caucasian has the bravado to interfere with our clique," tauntingly shrieked the indisputable little ruffian, exhibiting combativeness. ...
— 1001 Questions and Answers on Orthography and Reading • B. A. Hathaway
... mind the whole thing only seems to mean that you are seeking another outlet for your combativeness. You want to pick a quarrel with your superiors—an old habit of yours. You cannot put up with any authority over you. You look askance at anyone who occupies a superior official position; you regard him as a personal ...
— An Enemy of the People • Henrik Ibsen
... means to defend their stores, and provided them with combativeness sufficient to use them when necessary. This could not be bettered. If they were powerless to repel an enemy, there are a thousand lazy depredators, man not excepted, who would prey upon the fruits of their industry, leaving them to starve. ...
— Mysteries of Bee-keeping Explained • M. Quinby
... great-aunt at Hammersmith was not discountenanced or neutralised by his family in Sapps Court, but rather the reverse: in fact, his visits to her received as much indirect encouragement as his parents considered might be safely given without rousing his natural combativeness, and predisposing him against the ounce of influence which she alone exercised over his rebellious instincts. Any suspicion of moral culture might have been fatal, holy influences of every sort being eschewed by Michael ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... the Rev. J. Llewelyn Davies, I have some characteristic recollections of the time. Mr. Davies was a college friend, and remembers his combativeness and his real underlying warmth of feeling. He remembers how, in 1848, Fitzjames was confident that the 'haves' could beat the 'have nots,' 'set his teeth' and exclaimed, 'Let them come on.' Mr. Davies was now engaged in clerical work at the ...
— The Life of Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, Bart., K.C.S.I. - A Judge of the High Court of Justice • Sir Leslie Stephen
... mistaken in supposing me familiar with the early history of Poland. I am ashamed to say I know nothing about it, and my zeal for the cause of its people is an ignorant sentimentalism—partly, perhaps, mere innate combativeness that longs to strike on the weaker side, and partly, too, resentful indignation at the cold-blooded neutrality observed by all the powers of Europe while that handful of men were making so brave a stand ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... this period. In the Uffizi and Berlin pictures Titian looks about sixty years old, but may be a little more or a little less. The latter is a half-length, showing him seated and gazing obliquely out of the picture with a majestic air, but also with something of combativeness and disquietude, an element, this last, which is traceable even in some of the earlier portraits, but not in the mythological poesie or any sacred work. More and more as we advance through the final period of old age do ...
— The Later works of Titian • Claude Phillips
... devotion to a vision had weakened his combativeness; still, he would have yielded less readily to a man who had once been a slave, but that the invitation to Melissa released him of ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... to see her? Constance was asking herself. The very insolence of the man seemed to arouse all the combativeness of her nature. The detective had thought to "throw a scare into" her. She turned suddenly and swept out ...
— Constance Dunlap • Arthur B. Reeve
... disinterested listener, however, is seldom taken into camp by such well intended argument. He knows that "friend husband" or "friend brother" as the case may be, needs some sort of swift kick that will stir his combativeness into action—that will cause him to turn upon his mental inferior and have it out with him then and there—once and for all. As a courage builder fighting for justice is ...
— Laugh and Live • Douglas Fairbanks
... was the one commonly employed for the encouragement, and consequent demoralization of, a primary class. Andy realized that he was being talked down to, and his combativeness awoke. "Well, away back in my home town, a woman's club has been thinking of all you lonely fellows, and have felt their hearts swell with a desire to help you—so far from home and mother's influence, with only the coarse pleasures of the West, ...
— The Happy Family • Bertha Muzzy Bower
... of the scouts the night he had received his wound. Once more he pressed her into service, and Robert Toombs, for the first time in his life, was a fugitive. This man, who commanded men and had gained his own way by sheer brain and combativeness, fled by stealth from a dreaded enemy. It was a new role for Toombs. His plucky young guide was resolved to accompany him in his flight—it might be to his death; it was all the same to Lieutenant Irvin. Riding swiftly into Elbert County, ...
— Robert Toombs - Statesman, Speaker, Soldier, Sage • Pleasant A. Stovall
... hung by his side. The Doctor looked at him with a kind of smile,—not a very pleasant one; for it was an unamiable characteristic of his temper that a display of spirit, even in a child, was apt to arouse his immense combativeness, and make him aim a blow without much consideration how heavily it might fall, or on how ...
— Doctor Grimshawe's Secret - A Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... objected, in my old spirit of combativeness, "isn't there any room for doubt? This paper is of the commonest kind. Every family on the block might easily have specimens of ...
— The Leavenworth Case • Anna Katharine Green
... Turkey rose to his feet and threw his arms into a pugilistic position. He was hurrying away to make good his promise, when I detained him, alarmed at the effect of incautiously rousing Turkey's combativeness after dinner. ...
— Bartleby, The Scrivener - A Story of Wall-Street • Herman Melville
... things to all men, I usually defended the tenability of the received doctrines, when I had to do with the transmutationists; and stood up for the possibility of transmutation among the orthodox—thereby, no doubt, increasing an already current, but quite undeserved, reputation for needless combativeness. ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume I • Francis Darwin
... of Kultur have not been mounted by peaceable nations in long periods of peace, but by warlike peoples in the time of their greatest combativeness.—R. THEUDEN, W.M.K.B., ...
— Gems (?) of German Thought • Various
... man and termed Jesuitical, in the Protestant sense, that term would have aptly described him. Now Hubert was not perfect more than other children, but, compared to Thornton Rush, he was a little saint. His organ of combativeness frequently waged stern conflicts with his bump of reverence. His sense of right was keen as his sensitiveness against wrong and falsehood. He was, like his mother, frank and open as the day, generous, disinterested, ...
— Hubert's Wife - A Story for You • Minnie Mary Lee
... your post on the treasury bench—to you, calm dignitary of a learned church—or to you, my lord judge, who may often have sent from your bar to the dire Orcus of Norfolk's Isle the ghosts of men whom that rubbish, falling simultaneously on the bumps of acquisitiveness and combativeness, hath untimely slain. Sad rubbish to you! But seems it such rubbish to the poor man, to whom it promises a paradise on the easy terms of upsetting a world! For ye see, these "Appeals to Operatives" represent that same world-upsetting ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1, April, 1851 • Various
... think, doctor," remarked the captain, who was somewhat sceptical, "that their bumps of combativeness must be very large." ...
— The Red Eric • R.M. Ballantyne
... going into the schools in May; for Hardy had a way of throwing life into what he was talking about, and, like many men with strong opinions, and passionate natures, either carried his hearers off their legs and away with him altogether, or aroused every spark of combativeness in them. The latter was the effect which his lecture on the Punic Wars had on Tom. He made several protests as Hardy went on; but Grey's anxious looks kept him from going fairly into action, till Hardy stuck the black pin, which represented Scipio, triumphantly ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... goodness of heart to make allowance for our shortcomings. A disinterested listener, however, is seldom taken into camp by such well intended argument. He knows that "friend husband" or "friend brother" as the case may be, needs some sort of swift kick that will stir his combativeness into action—that will cause him to turn upon his mental inferior and have it out with him then and there—once and for all. As a courage builder fighting for justice is not to be ...
— Laugh and Live • Douglas Fairbanks
... calculated in a remarkable degree to reassure and animate his fellow Catholics and their friends, and it is for them in reality, rather than for the Lords of the Council, that the message is composed. If the composition has a fault it is its combativeness; and in effect, though this drawback was not felt at the time, it was later. Subsequent missionaries found it best to adopt a policy of far greater secrecy and silence. If, however, we remember that Campion intended ...
— Ten Reasons Proposed to His Adversaries for Disputation in the Name • Edmund Campion
... quarrels, in his humble opinion, stirring up bad blood, from some bump of combativeness or gland of some kind, erroneously supposed to be about a punctilio of honour and a flag, were very largely a question of the money question which was at the back of everything greed and jealousy, people never knowing when ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... Washington declared. "I always did want a diamond ring, an' I knows a little colored gal that wants one, too. I'm goin' all right! This suttenly am th' most kloslosterous conjunctivity of combativeness that I ever sagaciated!" and he began to do a sort ...
— Five Thousand Miles Underground • Roy Rockwood
... naturally ate. It was a pleasant relief from a purely vegetable diet, and he became a proficient egg-thief; then the birds built their nests beyond his reach. Once he was savagely pecked by an angry brush-turkey and forced to defend himself. It aroused a combativeness and destructiveness that had ...
— "Where Angels Fear to Tread" and Other Stories of the Sea • Morgan Robertson
... sufficiently near to converse with him, I watched his face. By the heavy look upon his brow I knew that trouble was brewing. It was the same look his face wore when we had been held captive at Kumassi, an expression of resolution and fierce combativeness. ...
— The Great White Queen - A Tale of Treasure and Treason • William Le Queux
... been occupied, sir, in taking the lad's moral measurement: and have pumped him as successfully as ever I cross-examined a rogue in my court. I place his qualities thus:—Love of approbation sixteen. Benevolence fourteen. Combativeness fourteen. Adhesiveness two. Amativeness is not yet of course fully developed, but I expect will be prodeegiously strong. The imaginative and reflective organs are very large—those, of calculation weak. He may make a poet or a painter, or ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... out of a chaos of vain, sick regrets, his combativeness, his deep-lying, indomitable determination, asserted itself—he would not fall like an over ripe apple into Simmons' complacent, waiting grasp. But to get, without resources, two hundred and fifty dollars by Saturday, was a preposterous task. Outside his, Clare's, home, he had nothing to sell; and ...
— Mountain Blood - A Novel • Joseph Hergesheimer
... the schoolboy imagination. The Confederates were, after all, Americans, though misguided Americans; and the fostering, the brooding upon, intestine rancours was felt by teachers and pupils alike to be impossible. But there is in the juvenile mind at any given moment a certain amount of abstract combativeness, let us call it, which must find an outlet somewhere. Hatred is a natural function of the human mind, just as much as love; and the healthy boy instinctively exercises it under the guise of patriotism, without clearly ...
— America To-day, Observations and Reflections • William Archer
... are mistaken in supposing me familiar with the early history of Poland. I am ashamed to say I know nothing about it, and my zeal for the cause of its people is an ignorant sentimentalism—partly, perhaps, mere innate combativeness that longs to strike on the weaker side, and partly, too, resentful indignation at the cold-blooded neutrality observed by all the powers of Europe while that handful of men were making so brave a stand against the ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... combativeness she had, but it was combativeness with the edge taken off. It served to direct her choice of topics, but not to give asperity or polemical form to her discourses. Suddenly introduced to the very heart of Vanity Fair, she had caught her ...
— The Faith Doctor - A Story of New York • Edward Eggleston
... Drummond come to see her? Constance was asking herself. The very insolence of the man seemed to arouse all the combativeness of her nature. The detective had thought to "throw a scare into" her. She turned suddenly and swept out of ...
— Constance Dunlap • Arthur B. Reeve
... But, in one matter, he had a peculiarity about which there could be no mistake. That was in the matter of music. So, after questioning the Professor about various indifferent points, moral and intellectual, such as reverence, combativeness, secretiveness, language, ideality, etc., I asked incidentally something also about tune and music. The answer was such as might be safely given in regard to ninety-nine out of every hundred persons—some vague, indefinite epithet that would apply to almost any one. But, seeing a little ...
— In the School-Room - Chapters in the Philosophy of Education • John S. Hart
... staff, but his own example was a stimulus to exertion in others and he was well served. One who knew him well, and for many years was closely associated with him in railway work, tells me that his most striking characteristics were reticence, combativeness, concentration and tenacity of purpose, and that his memory and mastery of detail were remarkable. Deficient perhaps in sentiment, though in such silent men deep wells of feeling often unsuspectedly exist, ...
— Fifty Years of Railway Life in England, Scotland and Ireland • Joseph Tatlow
... three days' duration, and the brunt of it had fallen by right of seniority on the captain and his second officer. Luke FitzHenry was indefatigable, and, better still, he was without enthusiasm. Here was the steady, unflinching combativeness which alone can master the elements. Here was the true ...
— The Grey Lady • Henry Seton Merriman
... and honourably. If he flatters his countrymen, it is the unconscious and spontaneous effect of his participation in their weaknesses. He never knowingly calls black white, or panders to an ungenerous sentiment. He is combative to a fault, but his combativeness is allied to a genuine love of fair-play. When he hates a man, he calls him knave or fool with unflinching frankness, but he never uses a base weapon. The wounds which he inflicts may hurt, but they do not fester. His patriotism may be narrow, but it implies faith in the really good ...
— Hours in a Library - New Edition, with Additions. Vol. II (of 3) • Leslie Stephen
... of man at birth is positively evil. He supports this view by the following arguments. From his earliest years, man is actuated by a love of gain for his own personal enjoyment. His conduct is distinguished by selfishness and combativeness. He becomes a slave to envy, hatred, and other passions. The restraint of law, and the influence and guidance of teachers, are absolutely necessary to good government and the well-being of social life. Just as wood ...
— The Civilization Of China • Herbert A. Giles
... Vicar and Mr Wilmot."—"This, as may be expected, produced a dispute, attended with some acrimony." Old Wilmot is capital; there is acrimony in his face, and combativeness in his fists—both clenching confidently his own argument, and ready for action; the very drawing back of one leg, and protrusion of the other, is indicative of testy impatience. The vicar is a little too loose and slovenly, both in attitude and attire; the uniting of the figures (artistically ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXII. - June, 1843.,Vol. LIII. • Various
... had made a great change in the sentiment of the Capitol. "During my short absence," he wrote, "many thousands of volunteers had arrived from the North. There was not only a feeling of security noticeable, but even of combativeness." He found Seward not at all disposed to pursue the matter, and was not given an opportunity to talk to Lincoln; therefore, he merely submitted copies of the letters that had passed between him and Stephens, adding for himself that the South was arming because ...
— Great Britain and the American Civil War • Ephraim Douglass Adams
... curb-stones; wherever he went the people demanded a speech of him, and his words never failed to cheer, while they conquered for him a wide popularity. Indeed, Gambetta so deluded himself while diffusing hope and combativeness into others, that when, after a five months' siege, Paris capitulated, he still persisted in thinking that resistance was possible, and rather than take any part in the national surrender he gave in his resignation. He was by that time fairly worn out, and had to go to St. Sebastian ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 4 of 8 • Various
... instant Will hesitated. The sight of Peter John roused every instinct of combativeness which he possessed, and that was by no means small, but a laugh from Hawley restored a measure of self-possession, and quietly and without a word he seated himself on the table by the ...
— Winning His "W" - A Story of Freshman Year at College • Everett Titsworth Tomlinson
... sooner brought into contact one with another, than they plainly showed by look, voice, and manner, the contempt they entertained for each other's work,—that men of science were never so happy as when trying to upset each other's theories;—that men of religious combativeness were always on the alert to destroy each other's creeds,—and that, in short, there was a very general tendency to mean jealousies, miserable heart-burnings and utter ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli
... self-expression in an artistic guise. The boldness and energy with which "he gave voice to his hidden self" were so novel, so surprising, that his melodies at once awoke an echo. This subjectivity is his Jewish birthright. It is Israel's ingrained combativeness, for more than a thousand years the genius of its literature, which throughout reveals a predilection for abrupt contrasts, and is studded with unmistakable expressions of strong individuality. By virtue of his subjectivity, which never permits ...
— Jewish Literature and Other Essays • Gustav Karpeles
... point gained in the doctor's tactics was that the psychological moment of combat in the student had been reached and could not be kept up for a day, and when on the next evening the interview took place, his combativeness had given place to perplexity and complete demoralization. In this state the doctor gave him a paternal lesson on the consequences to his future life of the rebellion against necessary discipline and of persistent disorderly conduct, but without any actual reproof or mention of his ...
— The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume I • Stillman, William James
... chanced to enter, nor could she quite accept the plausible explanation of them which the baroness had so readily invented. For jealousy is the forerunner of love, and sometimes its awakener. She felt a rival and an enemy, and all the hereditary combativeness of her ...
— A Roman Singer • F. Marion Crawford
... uncompromising non- conformity, abhorring Prelacy and Popery, and entertaining no very orthodox notions with respect to the divine right of Kings. From them the Quakers drew their most zealous champions; men who, in renouncing the "carnal weapons" of their old service, found employment for habitual combativeness in hot and wordy sectarian warfare. To this day the vocabulary of Quakerism abounds in the military phrases and figures which were in use in the Commonwealth's time. Their old force and significance ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... the first thing and the most needful. An ugly, envious, irritable disposition is not fitted for talk. The occasions for offence are too numerous, and the way into strife is too short and easy. A touch of good-natured combativeness, a fondness for brisk argument, a readiness to try a friendly bout with any comer, on any ground, is a decided advantage in a talker. It breaks up the offensive monotony of polite concurrence, and makes things lively. But quarrelsomeness is ...
— Fisherman's Luck • Henry van Dyke
... duello[It]; single combat, monomachy[obs3], satisfaction, passage d'armes[Fr], passage of arms, affair of honor; triangular duel; hostile meeting, digladiation[obs3]; deeds of arms, feats of arms; appeal to arms &c. (warfare) 722. pugnacity; combativeness &c. adj.; bone of contention &c. 713. V. contend; contest, strive, struggle, scramble, wrestle; spar, square; exchange blows, exchange fisticuffs; fib|!, justle[obs3], tussle, tilt, box, stave, fence; skirmish; pickeer[obs3]; fight &c. (war) 722; wrangle &c. (quarrel) 713. contend &c. with, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... irregularities of the cranium would vitiate the conclusions of the observers. A somewhat famous but unscientific practitioner of phrenology gave a good illustration of this by mistaking a rugged development of the lambdoid suture for an enormous organ of combativeness, and ascribing to the gentleman a terrific, pugnacious energy which was the very opposite of ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, February 1887 - Volume 1, Number 1 • Various
... child himself, and sensitive through the clashing of gentle instincts with rough and inferior surroundings; brought up in that depressed God-fearing attitude in which a widow not strong, and earning her bread, would do her duty by an only son. Not a natural fighter, she took what little combativeness he had out of him, and made his school-days miserable—a record of humiliations that sunk deep and drove him from his kind. He was a big, clumsy, sagacious boy, grave as an old man, always snubbed and condescended to, yet always trusted. Little Emmy made him her bondslave at ...
— The Desert and The Sown • Mary Hallock Foote
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