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Deference   Listen
noun
Deference  n.  A yielding of judgment or preference from respect to the wishes or opinion of another; submission in opinion; regard; respect; complaisance. "Deference to the authority of thoughtful and sagacious men." "Deference is the most complicate, the most indirect, and the most elegant of all compliments."
Synonyms: Deference, Reverence, Respect. Deference marks an inclination to yield one's opinion, and to acquiesce in the sentiments of another in preference to one's own. Respect marks the estimation that we have for another, which makes us look to him as worthy of high confidence for the qualities of his mind and heart. Reverence denotes a mingling of fear with a high degree of respect and esteem. Age, rank, dignity, and personal merit call for deference; respect should be paid to the wise and good; reverence is due to God, to the authors of our being, and to the sanctity of the laws.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Deference" Quotes from Famous Books



... all possible deference and humility, and wishing as little as any man living to impair the smallest particle of our supreme authority, I answer, that the words are the words of Parliament, and not mine, and that all false and inconclusive inferences drawn from them are not mine, for ...
— Burke's Speech on Conciliation with America • Edmund Burke

... entitled to interment beneath the floor of the church, a privilege accorded only to men of worldly distinction and unblemished lives. All this recognition impressed the habitants, and they in turn gave their seigneur polite deference. Along the line of travel his carriage or carriole had the right of way, and the habitant doffed his cap in salute as the seigneur drove by. Catalogne mentioned that, despite all this, the Canadian seigneurs were not as ostentatiously given tokens of the habitants' respect as were the ...
— The Seigneurs of Old Canada: - A Chronicle of New-World Feudalism • William Bennett Munro

... younger man's deference and persuasiveness, Strawn obeyed the suggestion, to return within five minutes, his grey brows ...
— Murder at Bridge • Anne Austin

... the management of the world's affairs, so as to have received something from his equals of that which was due to age. Habit had given him that ease of manners which enabled him to take from those who should have been his compeers the deference which was due not to his age but to his experience. When Cicero was entering the world, taking up the cudgels to fight against Sulla, Pompey had already won his spurs, in spite of Sulla but by means of Sulla. Men in these modern days learn, as they grow old in public ...
— The Life of Cicero - Volume II. • Anthony Trollope

... grim realities of life, and it is only from those whom that befalls that one can expect the wide sympathy which springs from comprehension. Nasmyth, lounging at Bonavista with amusing speeches on his lips and his air of easy deference, had been a somewhat romantic figure, and the glimpses of the struggle in the Bush that he had given her had appealed to her imagination. She could feel the thrill of it when she saw it through his eyes with all the ...
— The Greater Power • Harold Bindloss

... evident that he could not tell stories, except with an effort. In his goings and comings, ever asking pleasant questions and passing compliments, he was usually accompanied by the Doge, and his attitude toward the old man was the admiring deference ...
— Over the Pass • Frederick Palmer

... prisoners being confided to the judgment of the governor, Lord Stanley deemed the chief cause of its many changes, and its subservience to colonial prosperity. The deference of the ministers to this discretion he attributed to the unwillingness of the home office to interfere with a functionary in correspondence with the colonial office, and the reluctance of the secretary for the colonies to guide a penal system designed for interests exclusively imperial. ...
— The History of Tasmania, Volume I (of 2) • John West

... It was summer time; and in passing through the township of Hanover, in Plymouth County, he approached a plain wooden structure by the roadside, in which, as he could see by the assemblage within, the door and windows being open, that it was a time of religious service. Alighting, out of deference to the character of the day, he hitched his horse and quietly entered the building. It proved to be a Quaker meeting, and perfect silence prevailed. At length tiring of this state of things, Mr. ...
— Old New England Traits • Anonymous

... foster-parents and their sons. Yet, with tact and right feeling, she had contrived not to let the young men feel how fully alive she was to the difference between them. They, however, gradually became aware of it, and treated her with that deference which they considered to be her due, as superior to themselves. To the elder ones this was easy, but it caused Jacob no small exercise of self restraint not to behave towards Maiden May as he had been accustomed to do, when under his charge she was allowed ...
— Won from the Waves • W.H.G. Kingston

... and muttered threats of an earthquake, rather than the loud thunder-bolt)—and soon after came out a criticism on it in The Monthly Review, doing justice to the author and the style, and combating the inferences with force and at much length; but with candour and with respect, amounting to deference. It was new to Mr. Burke not to be called names by persons of the opposite party; it was an additional triumph to him to be spoken well of, to be loaded with well-earned praise by the author of the Vindiciae Gallicae. It was a testimony from an ...
— The Spirit of the Age - Contemporary Portraits • William Hazlitt

... bears the name of the venerable Fray Antonio Agapida, it is rather a superstructure reared upon the fragments which remain of his work. It may be asked, Who is this same Agapida, who is cited with such deference, yet whose name is not to be found in any of the catalogues of Spanish authors? The question is hard to answer. He appears to have been one of the many indefatigable authors of Spain who have filled the libraries of convents ...
— Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada • Washington Irving

... was restricted to the subject of the production of pictures and their subsequent disposal; Madame showed great deference to the arguments of her husband, occasionally interposing a mild suggestion which he had no difficulty in knocking down. At moments of excited contention Madame's husband became inarticulate, and had to fall ...
— Love at Paddington • W. Pett Ridge

... insult, the story of which shows its perpetrator to have been as weak as he was offensive. It was customary for Roman armies to carry an image of the emperor on their standards; but previous governors of Judaea had relaxed this rule when entering Jerusalem, in deference to the strong objection of the Jews to admit "the likeness of anything." Nevertheless Pilate ordered the usual images to be introduced at night. When they were discovered, the citizens protested vehemently. Pilate had the crowd that he had admitted to his presence surrounded ...
— Men of the Bible; Some Lesser-Known Characters • George Milligan, J. G. Greenhough, Alfred Rowland, Walter F.

... Welshman, hailing from Cardiff but brought up in London; and, as he was a close ally of the first mate, I need hardly say he was no favourite either of my friend Jorrocks, or with the crew generally—all the hands thinking that he skimped the provisions when serving them out, in deference to Mr Macdougall's prejudices ...
— On Board the Esmeralda - Martin Leigh's Log - A Sea Story • John Conroy Hutcheson

... still chivalrous to every woman, but to his wife he pays the gentler deference which was the sweetheart's due. He loves her, and is not ashamed to show it. He brings her flowers and books, just as he used to do when he was teaching her to love him. He is broad-minded, and far-seeing—he believes in "a white life ...
— Threads of Grey and Gold • Myrtle Reed

... any such project. To him it appeared that the Wychecombe estate ought to go with the principles that usually governed such matters; and, although he submitted to the dictum of the common law, as regarded the provision which excluded the half-blood from inheriting, with the deference of an English common-law lawyer, he saw and felt, that, failing the direct line, Wychecombe ought to revert to the descendants of Sir Michael by his second son, for the plain reason that they were just as much derived from the person who had ...
— The Two Admirals • J. Fenimore Cooper

... to have great respect for his authority as a chief, and show a proper deference towards him. He is a mild and gentle ruler, and not overcome by the pride and dignity of his position. He is always ready to assist in dragging our boat on to the beach, and does not disdain the dime offered him in compensation for ...
— Life at Puget Sound: With Sketches of Travel in Washington Territory, British Columbia, Oregon and California • Caroline C. Leighton

... and years would pass by, in all probability, before the controversy could be ended. So great a delay in this case is to be avoided if possible. Such delay would be every way inconvenient, and might be the occasion of disturbances and collisions. For the same reason I would, with the utmost deference to the wisdom of Congress, express a doubt of the expediency of the appointment of commissioners, and of an examination, estimate, and an award of indemnity to be made by them. This would be but a species of arbitration, which might last as long ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents, Volume - V, Part 1; Presidents Taylor and Fillmore • James D. Richardson

... Hilliard assumed their most staid and dignified airs for the important interview, referred to "my sister Patricia" with a deference worthy of a royal princess, and would have Stanor's guardian to understand that the man was not born who was worthy to be her spouse; all the same, as mortal young men went, they had nothing to say against Stanor Vaughan, and if time proved him to be in earnest, both in love ...
— The Love Affairs of Pixie • Mrs George de Horne Vaizey

... up to the noble ideals of womanhood preached by the Christian religion, they have received honor, respect, deference and almost worship ...
— Defenders of Democracy • Militia of Mercy

... down to those of the digging of the Panama Canal the chasm between the two social orders remained open. The abolition of slavery changed but little in the arrangement—was, indeed, effected more in the interests of the old economics than in deference to any strong religious or moral sentiment. In substance the traditional ordering continued to exist in a form better adapted to the modified conditions. But the filling up of that chasm, which is now going forward, involves the overthrow ...
— The Inside Story Of The Peace Conference • Emile Joseph Dillon

... remarkable verbal and figurative power in conversation are forcible in the extreme. It is said, with what truth we know not, that on one occasion the venerable head of this institution ventured to "tackle" him in a religious argument. Bill, after listening with a deference which was evidently a tribute of respect to the Doctor's position rather than an acknowledgment of the cogency of his reasoning, settled the question by an interrogatory: "Dr. Hopkins, do you suppose I'm goin' to believe that when I die I'll go up and sit on one ...
— A Williams Anthology - A Collection of the Verse and Prose of Williams College, 1798-1910 • Compiled by Edwin Partridge Lehman and Julian Park

... hand, we hang back in deference to local economic pressures, we will find ourselves cut off from our major allies. Industries—and I believe this is most vital—industries will move their plants and jobs and capital inside the walls of the Common Market, ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various

... "and studied mien, and superfluous show of deference—of such things Tso-k'iu Ming was ashamed, I too am ashamed of such things. Also of hiding resentment felt towards an opponent and treating him as a friend—of this kind of thing he was ashamed, and so too ...
— Chinese Literature • Anonymous

... one class is a moderated arrogance; the submission of the other a limited deference. The first must be careful, by concealing the invidious part of their distinction, to palliate what is grievous in the public arrangement, and by their education, their cultivated manners, and improved talents, to appear qualified for the stations they occupy. The other, must be taught to yield, ...
— An Essay on the History of Civil Society, Eighth Edition • Adam Ferguson, L.L.D.

... came to Suka of their own accord, yet he was in deference to the universal custom, obliged to formally acquire them ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown

... worth while to criticize too severely the plumed knights who took the heroes of Corneille as models, played the harmless lover, and paid the tribute of chivalric deference to women. The strained politeness may have been artificial, and the forms of chivalry very likely outran the feeling, but they served at least to keep it alive, while the false platonism and ultra-refined sentiment were simply moral protests against the coarse vices ...
— The Women of the French Salons • Amelia Gere Mason

... candidate, who was holding the mayor by the arm and whispering in his ear. Beauvisage meantime was bowing right and left to the inhabitants, who gazed at him with the deference which provincials always testify to the richest ...
— The Deputy of Arcis • Honore de Balzac

... question, you will discover that the person insulted is not yourself, or any one of your "Connections." On Mr. B.'s apology, I have expressed my opinion in a Letter to your Son, if any Misrepresentation has taken place, it must be those "Connections" to whom I am to pay such Deference, & whose conduct to me has deserved such ample respect. I must now beg leave to observe in turn, that I am by no means disposed to bear Insult, &, be the consequences what they may, I will always declare, in plain and explicit Terms, my Grievance, nor will I overlook the ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Letters and Journals, Vol. 1 • Lord Byron, Edited by Rowland E. Prothero

... basswood table. Mr. Vane still sat by the window. The senator turned and closed the door, and read from a paper in his hand; so used was he to formality that he read it formally, yet with a feeling of intense relief, of deference, of apology. ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... seeing his carriage to the individual affects only the man who is the object of it, and is seldom observed by the other; like a man, and you will judge him with more or less fairness; dislike him, fairly or unfairly, and you cannot fail to judge him unjustly. All deference and humility towards Hester and her parents, Vavasor without ceasing for a moment to be conventionally polite, allowed major Marvel to see unmistakably that his society was not welcome to the man ...
— Weighed and Wanting • George MacDonald

... but worthy of the country and of the beauty that occasioned it. Not so Cleaenetus, the son of Cleomedon, who, to obtain from Demetrius a letter of intercession to the people in behalf of his father, lately condemned in a fine of fifty talents, disgraced himself, and got the city into trouble. In deference to the letter, they remitted the fine, yet they made an edict prohibiting any citizen for the future to bring letters from Demetrius. But being informed that Demetrius resented this as a great indignity, they not only rescinded in alarm the former order, but put some ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough

... deference shown him by his scout, whom we had encountered while visiting his old rooms overlooking the Deer Park, my brother-in-law had in some measure succeeded—so far as Jill and Agatha were concerned—in investing his sojourn at Magdalen with an ill-merited dignity; and Daphne, Jonah and I were ...
— Berry And Co. • Dornford Yates

... very bald on paper, but he paid them with such a gracious, gentle deference of tone and look that the woman upon whom they were bestowed felt that she was being offered a queen's tribute in ...
— Anne's House of Dreams • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... this letter,—when he had only partially read it, and had not at all digested it, was disposed to yield the point. He was a silly man, thinking much too highly of his own position, believing himself entitled to unlimited deference from all those who in any way came within the rays of his magnificence, and easily made angry by opposition; but he was not naturally prone to inflict evil, and did in some degree recognise it as a duty attached to his splendour that he should be ...
— The Vicar of Bullhampton • Anthony Trollope

... position, the victim was torn asunder, limb by limb), was punished by the same death he had devised for others; and here occurs one of those anecdotes illustrative of the romance of the period, and singularly analogous to the chivalry of Northern fable, which taught deference to women, and rewarded by the smiles of the fair the exploits of the bold. Sinnis, "the pine bender," had a daughter remarkable for beauty, who concealed herself amid the shrubs and rushes in terror of the victor. Theseus discovered ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... long seclusions in his convent and enforced abstinence from writing and study. In his war against the Aristotelians, the intrepid friar upheld recourse to experiment and observation as superior to deference to authority, in language which stands in strange contrast to the traditions of the thirteenth century. Grosseteste, who also had preferred the teachings of experience to the appeal to the sages of the past, ...
— The History of England - From the Accession of Henry III. to the Death of Edward III. (1216-1377) • T.F. Tout

... to arrive was Jack Pennington. Being a graceful mannered boy he acknowledged his introduction to Mrs. Hastings with just the correct blending of deference and cordiality. "Isn't it warm?" he said, and as this required no answer save, "It is, indeed," Susan acquitted herself creditably, and even refrained from saying "indade." Then the others came, and being a merry crowd of young people, they merely paused for a word or two with the elderly stranger, ...
— Patty's Butterfly Days • Carolyn Wells

... belongs to the natural family of man, and is planted deeper in nature and has more root than the inhabitants of towns. Go to him, ask what luck, and you will learn that he too is a worshipper of the unseen. Hear with what sincere deference and waving gesture in his tone, he speaks of the lake pickerel, which he has never seen, his primitive and ideal race of pickerel. He is connected with the shore still, as by a fish-line, and yet remembers the season when he took fish through the ice on the pond, ...
— Excursions • Henry D. Thoreau

... supper, and the passenger noted the deference of the crew toward him. Not one who found himself in his way but hopped swiftly ...
— Wide Courses • James Brendan Connolly

... their voices, so it was impossible to follow what was being said, but I have no doubt that their opinions were all sufficiently "enlightened" and "advanced." "The Liberator" sat apart in an arm-chair, his patriarchal white beard streaming over his chest, and was treated with immense deference by every one present. At intervals during the evening glasses of Guinness' bottled stout were offered to the Liberator (and to no one else), this being a beverage of which most South Americans are inordinately fond. I was duly introduced to the Liberator, who received my advances ...
— Here, There And Everywhere • Lord Frederic Hamilton

... relationship, of a fundamental antagonism of interests and beliefs, resolutely maintained on both sides. George Sand, with her lifelong passion for propaganda and reformation, labors earnestly to bring Flaubert to her point of view, to remould him nearer to her heart's desire. He, with a playful deference to the sex and years of his friend, addresses her in his letters as "Dear Master." Yet in the essentials of the conflict, though she never gives over her effort, he never budges a jot; he has taken his ground, and in his last unfinished work, Bouvard and ...
— The George Sand-Gustave Flaubert Letters • George Sand, Gustave Flaubert

... scarcely arrived before Don Ambrosio made his appearance, less stately in his manner, but still treating her with the utmost delicacy and deference. Inez was too much agitated and alarmed to be baffled by his courtesy, and became vehement in her demand to ...
— Bracebridge Hall, or The Humorists • Washington Irving

... community of Christians popularly known as Quakers, founded in 1648 by GEORGE FOX (q. v.), distinguished for their plainness of speech and manners, and differing from other sects chiefly in the exclusive deference they pay to the "inner light," and their rejection of both clergy and sacrament as media of grace; they refuse to take oath, are averse to war, and have always been opposed ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood

... Piercie Shafton, "I pray you in the first place to observe, that if I offer peaceful and civil justification of that which I have already averred to be true, I do so only in devout deference to your dress and to your order, protesting, that to any other opposite, saving a man of religion, a lady or my liege prince, I would not deign to support that which I had once attested, otherwise than with the point of my good sword. And so much being ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott

... civil rank, the right to salutes at official visits, and similar ceremonial privileges, upon Roman Catholic archbishops, bishops, and priests of the missionary body in China. The Catholic view was that the missionaries would gain in the eyes of the people if treated with more deference than the majority of Chinese officials cared to display towards what was to them an objectionable class; in practice, however, the system was found to be unworkable, ...
— China and the Manchus • Herbert A. Giles

... straightens her arms and legs, rubs her joints, and otherwise simulates remoulding and beautifying her body. The girl then sits up, and those assembled dance and sing in a circle about her. An eagle feather and a white-shell bead are tied in her hair, and sacred pollen is rubbed on her face, in deference respectively to the bird of war and the god and goddess of health and fructification—Hadintin Skhin and ...
— The North American Indian • Edward S. Curtis

... Catholic Hierarchy, September 29th, 1850, brought on what appeared to us one of John Bull's periodical fits of lunacy. I witnessed many scenes of mob violence at the time, when, in deference to the prevailing bigotry in opposing what they termed "Papal Aggression" a part of the Penal Laws were revived in Lord John Russell's Ecclesiastical Titles Act. In due course John got over his paroxysm, ...
— The Life Story of an Old Rebel • John Denvir

... first time in his life, the Earl of Fairholme realized his limitations; he was actually cowed for a few fleeting seconds. But the arrogant training of the county bench, the seignory of a vast estate, the unquestioning deference accorded to his views by thousands of men who tacitly admitted that what he said must be right because he was a lord—these excellent stays of self-conceit came to his ...
— Cynthia's Chauffeur • Louis Tracy

... nearly forty years, of medium height and muscular frame. His hair was dark; his mustache very slightly tinged with gray. His manner indicated an extremely nervous sense of responsibility, and the attitude of deference, which the others observed in his regard, was very noticeable. His face reminded me vaguely of some portrait—I ...
— Who Goes There? • Blackwood Ketcham Benson

... hope that Narses would soon be informed on what conditions he might obtain, from the clemency of the emperors, a lasting peace, and the restoration of his wives and children. In this conference we may discover the fierce passions of Galerius, as well as his deference to the superior wisdom and authority of Diocletian. The ambition of the former grasped at the conquest of the East, and had proposed to reduce Persia into the state of a province. The prudence of the latter, who adhered to the moderate policy of Augustus and the Antonines, embraced ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 • Edward Gibbon

... a beautiful autumnal day, and the modest little lakeside village, which, in deference to its shy ways, we shall call Nestletown, did its best to show its appreciation of the weather. Its windows lighted up brilliantly in the slanting sunlight, and its two spires, Baptist and Methodist, reaching up through the yellow foliage, piously ...
— Donald and Dorothy • Mary Mapes Dodge

... The more I watched them, the more I perceived a lack of deference to her opinions and respect for her judgment—an irritating assumption of superior wisdom, as if he had worn the visible inscription, "I will accept homage, but not suggestions. Offer incense and be content." Would the little princess be content? I ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 86, February, 1875 • Various

... shutters were removed to let the daylight into those vast apartments, I sneaked through them, cursing the dishonest curiosity which had brought me into a place where I had no business. But I was treated with such deference, and so plainly regarded as a possible purchaser, that I soon began to believe in the opulence imputed to me. From all the novels describing the mysterious and glittering life of the Great which I had read (and I had read many), there ...
— Trivia • Logan Pearsall Smith

... rather get me. He called me 'sir,' with a touch of deference; yet somehow I felt as if I were standing too ...
— Bertram Cope's Year • Henry Blake Fuller

... emotions excited in the heart of an exile by a song which recalls his fatherland. The contempt which the old man affected to pour upon the noblest efforts of art, his wealth, his manners, the respectful deference shown to him by Porbus, his work guarded so secretly,—a work of patient toil, a work no doubt of genius, judging by the head of the Virgin which Poussin had so naively admired, and which, beautiful beside even the Adam of Mabuse, betrayed the imperial ...
— The Hidden Masterpiece • Honore de Balzac

... name, though it no longer brings the quickened pulse and keen anticipation of happiness to the hearts of any, not even my own. For what deference can be given to a name, though not in itself a thing of dishonor, which represents the failure to derail the evitable fate which wrecks the race of man again and again. Not that I myself embody such a failure, nor even that I gave birth to the dreaded fate's ...
— The Revolutions of Time • Jonathan Dunn

... daughter. Carlotta was then twenty-two, had abundant, noticeably nice brown hair, an indifferent skin, pettish lips, and restless eyes, a little too close together,—a spoiled wilful young woman, taking to herself the deference that had been paid chiefly to her wealth. She treated me as if I were a candidate for her favor whom she was testing so that she might decide whether she would be ...
— The Plum Tree • David Graham Phillips

... England he was eleven years old, having been allowed the pleasure of having far more of his own way than he could have obtained in England. Perhaps the ceremony of his coronations, the homage, smiles, and deference shown him, the young companions whose acquaintance could not then be refused, had some exciting influence on his naturally meek and quiet temper. Certain, however, it is that he began at this time to rebel, and ...
— Harper's Young People, March 23, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various

... different families. There were three or four mourners belonging to each party. Both the bodies were brought in the same horse-cart, and they were buried by the same service. The coffins were of coarse wood, stained with black, in a way to betray poverty. It was literally le convoi du pauvre. Deference to their superiors, and the struggle to maintain appearances—for there was a semblance of the pomp of woe, even in these extraordinary groups, of which all were in deep mourning—contrasted strangely with the extreme poverty of the parties, the niggardly administration of the sacred ...
— Recollections of Europe • J. Fenimore Cooper

... 1634, Sanson and the priests arrived at Algiers. A full divan was being held, and the Pasha received them courteously, despite their obstinate refusal to dip the French flag to his crescent. They were forced, in deference to the universal custom at Algiers, to surrender their rudder and oars, not so much to prevent their own unauthorized departure, as to remove the temptation of Christian captives making their escape ...
— The Story of the Barbary Corsairs • Stanley Lane-Poole

... only just twenty-one!" said Mrs. Kirby, rolling herself and her chair back into action to the support of her friend. "With all deference to you, Mr. Cotton, I don't believe a word of it! Of course, Larry would have told you, Frederica! I can well believe that those Gaelic League people would like to have him if they can get him! Depend upon it, the wish ...
— Mount Music • E. Oe. Somerville and Martin Ross

... took her seat at the table she perceived that a stranger was present, who sat on the right hand of Mrs Lane, and to whom so much deference was paid that she guessed he must be somebody of note. He was dressed in a suit of black plush, slashed with yellow satin, and a black beaver hat; for gentlemen then always wore their hats at dinner. His manners charmed Jenny exceedingly. Whenever he spoke ...
— The Gold that Glitters - The Mistakes of Jenny Lavender • Emily Sarah Holt

... man" is an ancient aphorism that has a very wide application. While the forms and standards of what constitute good manners change with the times, their essential basis is always the same—a deference to, and consideration for, those with whom one is thrown in contact. Courtesy, politeness, helpfulness, and other evidences of good breeding and careful training, are the outgrowth of a desire for eliminating selfish instincts. The rude man or woman is an egotist, ...
— The Art of Stage Dancing - The Story of a Beautiful and Profitable Profession • Ned Wayburn

... well supported by her mother, and by the precedence which the Duchess of Kent took as her Majesty's guardian. But the guardianship was over and the reign begun. There could be no more sheltering from responsibility, or becoming deference to, and reliance on, the wisdom of another and a much older person. In one sense the stay was of necessity removed. The Duchess of Kent, from this day "treated her daughter with respectful observance as well as affection." The time was past ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen V.1. • Sarah Tytler

... nor less." "And get others to see it, too," I insinuated, with a glance at the bowed back by his side. Chester snorted at me. "His eyes are right enough—don't you worry. He ain't a puppy." "Oh, dear, no!" I said. "Come along, Captain Robinson," he shouted, with a sort of bullying deference under the rim of the old man's hat; the Holy Terror gave a submissive little jump. The ghost of a steamer was waiting for them, Fortune on that fair isle! They made a curious pair of Argonauts. Chester strode on ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad

... contrary to a demonstration. But as in reasonings from causation, and concerning matters of fact, this absolute necessity cannot take place, and the imagination is free to conceive both sides of the question, I still ask, Wherein consists the deference betwixt incredulity and belief? since in both cases the conception of the idea ...
— A Treatise of Human Nature • David Hume

... hastened up with all possible deference, a bottle of brandy in each hand; for he knew that when Ivan summoned him he gained in two ways, as innkeeper and as boon companion. Ivan did not disappoint these hopes, and Gregory was invited to share in the entertainment. The conversation turned on slavery, ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - VANINKA • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE

... achieved, the deportment of these disappointed men toward him would have fully satisfied him. No longer regarded as a ruthless invader of the privacy of honest homes, and guilty of outraging the finer feelings of humanity, he was everywhere received with the utmost respect and deference, and many apologies were offered for their inconsiderate conduct of a few hours before. And yet it must be recorded, that with this indisputable evidence of Eugene Pearson's guilty participation in the robbery, there yet remained many, who, ...
— The Burglar's Fate And The Detectives • Allan Pinkerton

... rigidity that had no illiberal meaning. Mr. Wentworth's manner was pregnant, on the contrary, with a sense of grand responsibility, of the solemnity of the occasion, of its being difficult to show sufficient deference to a lady at once so distinguished and so unhappy. Felix had observed on the day before his characteristic pallor; and now he perceived that there was something almost cadaverous in his uncle's high-featured white face. But so clever were this young man's quick sympathies and perceptions ...
— The Europeans • Henry James

... were two well-attired forestieri with their packs on their backs and their hats upon their heads. But we stood up, and in due form saluted the father, keeping our hats in our hands till he, pleased at this recognition and deference before his flock, signed to us courteously to put them ...
— Bog-Myrtle and Peat - Tales Chiefly Of Galloway Gathered From The Years 1889 To 1895 • S.R. Crockett

... classes. Where before this, the politicians had contemptuously treated the worker's petitions, certain that he could always be led blindly to vote the usual partisan tickets, it now dawned upon them that it would be wiser to make an appearance of deference and to give some concessions which, although of a slight character, could be made to appear important. The Workingmen's party of 1829 had shown a glimmer of what the worker could do when ...
— Great Fortunes from Railroads • Gustavus Myers

... formidably armed, approached the merchant vessel and dropped into the sea a boat which directed its course to the ladder. This boat contained an officer, a mate, and eight rowers. The officer alone went on board, where he was received with all the deference inspired ...
— The Three Musketeers • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... the liquidation and reconstruction of death. It is only on the relinquishing of further effort that this death ensues; as long as effort endures, organisms go on from change to change, altering and being altered—that is to say, either killing themselves piecemeal in deference to the surroundings or killing the surroundings piecemeal to suit themselves. There is a ceaseless higgling and haggling, or rather a life-and-death struggle between these two things as long as life lasts, and one or other or both have in no small part to re-enter into the womb from whence they ...
— Luck or Cunning? • Samuel Butler

... rightly informed, was punished for an act of manifest treason. It is even more noticeable that Professor Hilty, a distinguished and respected Swiss publicist, vindicates or palliates the admitted breach of law, in deference to the principle or sentiment, which if true has wide application, that 'human nature is not revolutionary, and that no revolution ever arises without a heavy share of guilt (Mitschuld) on the part of the government against which the revolution is directed.'[120] The instructiveness ...
— A Leap in the Dark - A Criticism of the Principles of Home Rule as Illustrated by the - Bill of 1893 • A.V. Dicey

... Olga, Regina could not refrain from looking at her, while Mrs. Carew spoke, and marvelled at the calm deference, the smiling insouciance with which her hazel eyes rested on the speaker. Then they wandered as if accidentally to the countenance of Mr. Palma, and a lambent flame seemed to kindle in ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson

... those calculated to meet the case of Tancred. The interview was long, for Tan-cred listened with apparent respect and deference to the individual under whose auspices he had entered the Church of Christ; but the replies to his inquiries, though more adroit than the duke's, were in reality not more satisfactory, and could not, in any way, meet the inexorable logic of Lord Montacute. The bishop was as little able as the duke ...
— Tancred - Or, The New Crusade • Benjamin Disraeli

... having probably tired herself into something like unconsciousness; and the first sound of which she was thoroughly sensible was her own name. The speaker was standing near her when she looked up, with his hat in his hand, and an air of grave deference. He expressed a fear that she ...
— Wych Hazel • Susan and Anna Warner

... receives it, rather than be disgraced in the eyes of their countrymen, will go out, and quietly shoot at each other with firearms, till one of them is killed or wounded; and this too, in many cases, when the injury has been merely nominal. If you show such a contempt of death, in deference to a custom founded in mere caprice, can it be wondered that a woman should show it, in the first paroxysms of her grief for the loss of him to whom was devoted every thought, word, and action of her life, and who, next to her God, was the object of her idolatry? ...
— A Voyage to the Moon • George Tucker

... between the former musketeers was not so formal and threatening as the first. Athos, with his superior understanding, wisely deemed that the supper table would be the most complete and satisfactory point of reunion, and at the moment when his friends, in deference to his deportment and sobriety, dared scarcely speak of some of their former good dinners, he was the first to propose that they should all assemble around some well spread table and abandon themselves unreservedly to their own natural character and manners—a freedom which had formerly ...
— Twenty Years After • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... as Abbe Judaine, who felt deeply moved, beckoned to her to approach, two of the bearers, in deference to his compassion, drew apart, despite all the danger of opening a breach, and the woman then rushed forward with her burden, and fell in a heap before the priest. For a moment he rested the foot of the monstrance on the child's head, and the mother herself pressed her eager, longing ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola

... Clerk of the Weather, who had been invited out of deference to his official station, although the host was well aware that his conversation was likely to contribute but little to the general enjoyment. He soon, indeed, got into a corner with his acquaintance of long ago, the Oldest Inhabitant, ...
— A Select Party (From "Mosses From An Old Manse") • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... discussion Flannigan had argued his point with a gentlemanly deference and a quiet power for which I had not given him credit. I could not help admiring a man who, on the eve of a desperate enterprise, could courteously argue upon a point which must touch him so nearly. He had, ...
— The Captain of the Pole-Star and Other Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle

... developed a growing love for the orator's dominion. He hungered to lead men. Notwithstanding his fits of disgust and bitterness he loved to be a part of the political life of his time. It had a powerful fascination for him. The deference which his old friends and neighbors paid him as things due a ...
— A Spoil of Office - A Story of the Modern West • Hamlin Garland

... early age, in all the bloom of her youthful beauty, arose, according to the simple and impressive New England rite, to consecrate herself publicly to a religious life, and to join the company of professing Christians, she was regarded with a species of deference amounting even to awe. Had it not been for the childlike, unconscious simplicity of her manners, the young people of her age would have shrunk away from her, as from one entirely out of their line of thought and ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 3, No. 16, February, 1859 • Various

... commonplace announcement contained in the line of writing, she was not quite satisfied. Was it claiming a deference toward herself, to which she was not entitled, to expect a letter either from Sir Jervis, or from Miss Redwood; giving her some information as to the journey which she was about to undertake, and expressing with some ...
— I Say No • Wilkie Collins

... with fur. A flexible coat of mail, so cunningly wrought as to offer no more opposition to the movements of the wearer than a greatcoat might nowadays, was covered with a thick cloak or mantle, in deference to the severity of the weather; the thighs were similarly protected by linked mail, and the hose and boots defended by unworked plates of thin steel. In his girdle was a dagger, and from the saddle depended, on one side, a huge two-handed sword, ...
— The House of Walderne - A Tale of the Cloister and the Forest in the Days of the Barons' Wars • A. D. Crake

... animated, her colour mounted, she clenched her little hand, and stamping on the ground with her tiny foot, seemed to listen with a mixture of contempt and indignation to the apologies, which, from his look of civil deference, his composed and respectful smile, his body rather drawing back than advanced, and other signs of look and person, I concluded him to be pouring out at her feet. At length she flung away from him, with "I ...
— Rob Roy, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott

... her as one on equal terms with themselves. She was a sensible girl, by far too sensible to nurse on second thoughts a conceit that she was their superior simply because she spoke better English. Yet habit had taught her to expect some degree of deference from those who spoke incorrectly; and we are all touchier upon our vaguely reasoned claims than upon those of which we ...
— Shining Ferry • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... by afternoon it had departed. Sidwell's carriage came promptly, creating something of a stir behind the drawn shades of the adjoining residences—for the Bakers were not located in a fashionable quarter. Sidwell himself, immaculate, smiling, greeted her with the deference which became him well, and in itself conveyed a delicate compliment. Neither made any reference to the incident of the night before. His manner gave no hint of the constraint which under the circumstances might have been expected. A few ...
— Ben Blair - The Story of a Plainsman • Will Lillibridge

... should say that I saw reasons for it. But depend upon it, my dear Father, that a man cannot communicate to another the whole of the grounds upon which he feels reluctant to accept an office. I believe that I ought to accept this in deference to you all, and I do so cheerfully, but I don't, say that my judgment agrees wholly with ...
— Life of John Coleridge Patteson • Charlotte M. Yonge

... her letters. The subjects of her more elaborate writings are all handled in her letters in a far easier, a far more natural, and a far more attractive manner. It is in her letters that we first see the size and the strength and the sweep of her mind, and discover the deserved deference that is paid to her on all hands. Burdened churchmen, inquiring students in the spiritual life, perplexed confessors, angry and remonstrating monks, husbands and wives, matrons and maidens, all find their way to Mother Teresa. Great bundles ...
— Santa Teresa - an Appreciation: with some of the best passages of the Saint's Writings • Alexander Whyte

... with the same deference that they had displayed on the previous day, and then departed; but before they were half over the space which divided the two camps, a party of five men were seen approaching, one of whom was mounted upon a cream-coloured horse, two others supporting him as he swayed to and fro, ...
— In the Mahdi's Grasp • George Manville Fenn

... tone of humorous extravagance which piqued my curiosity. Behind the ostentatious deference with which he had raised his hat to the sky, beneath the respectful awe with which he spoke the lady's name, I detected irony and a ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 • Various

... at Roger Sherman, who rose from a humble occupation to a seat in the first Congress of the United States, and whose judgment was received with great deference by that body of distinguished men. He made himself master of his temper, and cultivated it as a great business in life. There are one or two instances which show this part of his character in a ...
— McGuffey's Fifth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey

... professed the highest respect for Dion, and made him great acknowledgments for this favor, attending him with all deference, as ready to receive his commands; but underhand he kept up his dealings with the populace and the unrulier citizens, unsettling their minds and disturbing them with his complaints, and putting ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough

... sleep. He pronounced a professional remark in a voice harsh and dead, resembling the rasping sound of a wood-file on the edge of a plank; the fold of his double chin hung like a bag triced up close under the hinge of his jaw. Jim started, and his answer was full of deference; but the odious and fleshy figure, as though seen for the first time in a revealing moment, fixed itself in his memory for ever as the incarnation of everything vile and base that lurks in the world we love: in our own ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad

... turned to Colonel Belmont, and the night she had studied his profile. There was an indefinable resemblance between the two men. Then she realised how old-fashioned and worn Belmont was beside this trim elegant man, who, with no exaggeration of manner, treated her with a deference and attention which had no doubt been his habitual manner with the greatest ladies ...
— The Californians • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton

... weight of philosophy and literary culture to the dialogue. Michelangelo, expanding in the genial atmosphere, spoke frankly on the arts which he had mastered, not dictating ex cathedra rules, but maintaining a note of modesty and common-sense and deference to the opinion of others. Francis engaged on equal terms in the discussion. His veneration for Buonarroti, and the eagerness with which he noted all the great man's utterances, did not prevent him from delivering lectures at a somewhat superfluous length. In short, we may fairly accept ...
— The Life of Michelangelo Buonarroti • John Addington Symonds

... were already giving vent to their appreciation of the Tony generosity when Miss Carew and Miss Bonkowski arrived, Mary's bony face, in deference to the angelic prejudices now ruling her, red and smarting from an energetic application of the same soap as ministered to her room's needs, but beaming with a grim pride as she bore the radiant Angel, wild with delight at getting ...
— The Angel of the Tenement • George Madden Martin

... staircase in a room given up to lumber. A broken bicycle caught Luffe's eye. On the ledge of a window stood a photographic camera. Luffe mounted the stairs and was ushered into the Khan's presence. He bowed with deference and congratulated the Khan upon the birth of ...
— The Broken Road • A. E. W. Mason

... the same to me," Dan said, as he helped her on with her coat and adjusted the collar with gentle, painstaking deference. ...
— Calvary Alley • Alice Hegan Rice

... are connected. In aristocracies, then, the father is not only the civil head of the family, but the oracle of its traditions, the expounder of its customs, the arbiter of its manners. He is listened to with deference, he is addressed with respect, and the love which is felt for him is always tempered with fear. When the condition of society becomes democratic, and men adopt as their general principle that it is good ...
— Democracy In America, Volume 2 (of 2) • Alexis de Tocqueville

... an innate delicacy and refinement about Parsee women which commands respect, and their value is known and acknowledged by their male relatives, who treat them with a degree of deference and consideration which is highly creditable to both parties. Though the men are found in service in every European family, they do not allow their wives and daughters to become domestics to foreigners, and they are only permitted to become servants ...
— Notes of an Overland Journey Through France and Egypt to Bombay • Miss Emma Roberts

... herself with grace and dignity. One sometimes heard the remark that as Hayes was ruled in political matters by John Sherman, so in social affairs he was ruled by his wife. The sole foundation for this lay in his deference to her total abstinence principles, which she held so strongly as to exclude wine from the White House table except, I believe, at one official dinner, that ...
— Historical Essays • James Ford Rhodes

... which you men sacrifice everything? For me, who am a woman, love is sufficient. Oh! my Ratcliffe, why do you not feel like your Constance? What if these estates be sold, still we are Armines! and still our dear Ferdinand is spared to us! Believe me, love, that if deference to your feelings has prompted my silence, I have long felt that it would be wiser for us at once to meet a necessary evil. For God's sake, put an end to the torture of this life, which is destroying us both. Poverty, absolute poverty, with you and with your ...
— Henrietta Temple - A Love Story • Benjamin Disraeli

... the brilliant rooms of Mrs. Goldsborough that night with an elated spirit, seeing in herself the future hostess of the fashionable throng there assembled. Instead of standing in a corner, listening with unctuous deference or sympathy to any who chanced to come against her, as was her wont, proffering her fan, or her essence-bottle, or in some quiet way ministering to their egotism, she now stepped freely forth upon the field of action, nodding and smiling at the young men to whom she might have been ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various

... "lion's cub" to the old frog, as he fell on all fours and bowed his head to the ground three times, squinting up over his left eye, to see if the other frog was paying equal deference ...
— Japanese Fairy World - Stories from the Wonder-Lore of Japan • William Elliot Griffis

... The truth then flashed before the challenged party—it was the challenger's intention to make three bites at this cherry—three separate affairs out of this unwarrantable frolic! The challenge was accepted, and the challenged party, in deference to the challenger's reputed skill with the pistol, had half decided upon the small sword; but his friends, who were on the alert, soon discovered that the captain, who had risen by his merit, had, in the earlier days of his necessity, gained ...
— Successful Recitations • Various

... the fact that he could rule others. The letter shows wise diplomacy, frankness, kindliness, wit, tact and infinite patience. Hooker had harshly and unjustly criticised Lincoln, his commander in chief. But Lincoln waives all this in deference to the virtues he believes Hooker possesses, and promotes him to succeed Burnside. In other words, the man who had been wronged promotes the man who had wronged him, over the head of a man whom the promotee had wronged and for whom the promoter ...
— Love, Life & Work • Elbert Hubbard

... desire took possession of the guardian to visit his dear ward in the sick-chamber. Rosalind, who had clung to her post, defiant of fatigue and sleep, had been prevailed upon in deference to her father's peremptory command to seize an hour's ...
— Roger Ingleton, Minor • Talbot Baines Reed

... character of a man who was at one time the glory, and at another the terror, of all Greece. Yet in comparing the summary proceedings taken against Leotychides with the extreme, and seemingly pusillanimous, deference paid to Pausanias by the Ephors long after they possessed the most alarming proofs of his treason, Mr. Grote observes, without attempting to account for the fact, that Pausanias, though only Regent, was far more powerful than any Spartan King. Why so powerful? Obviously, because ...
— Pausanias, the Spartan - The Haunted and the Haunters, An Unfinished Historical Romance • Lord Lytton

... backbone still bent in a sweeping curve had not relaxed his attitude of uttermost deference. The Prince of Wales and his friends were viewing the scene with slightly ...
— The Elusive Pimpernel • Baroness Emmuska Orczy

... day following Bob's accident was Sunday. This day was always observed as a holiday by the pirates; not, it need scarcely be said, in deference to the Fourth Commandment, but simply because the men insisted upon having one day of rest from work—a day on which the more sober and steady members of the band were wont to devote some little attention to the toilet and ...
— The Pirate Island - A Story of the South Pacific • Harry Collingwood

... herself. So he was thought to be a good man to have to look after the stake and judges' boats. It was Gloucester's Anniversary celebration, with a lot of strangers in town—the Governor and a whole holdful of national characters—and in deference to them the race was to be managed so that spectators might have a chance to ...
— The Seiners • James B. (James Brendan) Connolly

... it happens, his memory seems to have been excellent. No doubt it failed him now and then; but seldom did it mislead him on any essential point.[83] It is conceivable that Luis de Leon's judges at Valladolid thought him lacking in deference. Though perfectly respectful, his attitude to them was anything but subservient. The judges were accustomed to see prisoners who were brought before them crushed with awe and a sense of impending ...
— Fray Luis de Leon - A Biographical Fragment • James Fitzmaurice-Kelly

... they must have been all that Miss Armacost had on hand and so she gave them to you. These I'm not giving; I'm simply advancing. Men like us don't care to accept what we can't pay for, you know. Anything that Miss Lucy will offer you, you'll have a chance to repay: by love, and attention, and the deference that a son of her own house would render a gentlewoman who befriended him. But you'll have no further use for me, and so I'm merely lending you this suit. If you should ever be able, as you may, to collect what I've spent on it—about five dollars—you just remember the wandering ...
— Divided Skates • Evelyn Raymond

... never had occasion to kill anybody, nor ever felt a desire to do so, but had worn the thing in deference to popular sentiment, and in order that I might not, by its absence, be offensively conspicuous, and a subject of remark. But the other editors, and all the printers, carried revolvers. I asked the chief editor and proprietor ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... saluted cavalierly, jocularly, yet with a deference one could not doubt, showing tobacco-darkened teeth in a smile of almost ...
— Guns of the Gods • Talbot Mundy

... forages, and fatiguing them by alarming their picquets with militia, without committing our regulars. Whatever readiness the Marquis de St. Simon has been pleased to express to Colonel Gimat, respecting his being under me, I shall do nothing without paying that deference which is due to age, talents, and experience; but would rather incline to the cautious line of conduct I have of late adopted. General Portail must be now with Count de Grasse. He knows your intentions, and our course will be consulted in ...
— Memoirs, Correspondence and Manuscripts of General Lafayette • Lafayette

... town and by his tenantry he was always addressed as 'My lord,' and treated with all the deference that pertained to such difference of station. By the gentry, however, when at rare occasions he met them, he was known as Mr. Kearney; and in the village post-office, the letters with the name Mathew Kearney, Esq., were perpetual reminders of what rank was accorded him by that wider ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever

... cheerfulness, Fanny would stroll out to the front porch again to watch for the familiar figure to appear around the corner of Norris Street. She would wear her blue-and-white checked gingham apron deftly twisted over one hip, and tucked in, in deference to the passers-by. And the town would go by—Hen Cody's drays, rattling and thundering; the high school boys thudding down the road, dog-tired and sweaty in their football suits, or their track pants and jersies, on their way from the athletic field to the ...
— Fanny Herself • Edna Ferber

... animated dialogue. Mr. Bruce, at the end of the table, was abstracted, and ate his supper with great diligence, except when Mrs. Tascher, being his nearest neighbor, addressed a remark to him: then he turned to her with the utmost deference and replied as elaborately ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 26, August, 1880 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various

... of Pocahontas's captivity. She had suffered no restraint further than that necessary to keep her from jumping overboard. Argall and the sailors treated her with all deference, both from policy and inclination. Yet she was very unhappy and lonely: she had always been so free to go and come that it was almost a physical pain to be imprisoned within the narrow limits of the pinnace. Several times she had ...
— The Princess Pocahontas • Virginia Watson

... double-barrelled rifle, No. 10 or 12, the third should be a magazine-rifle, for defence. For the fowling-piece I would suggest No. 12 bore, with barrels at least four feet in length. For the rifle for larger game, I would point out, with due deference to old sportsmen, of course, that the best guns for African game are the English Lancaster and Reilly rifles; and for a fighting weapon, I maintain that the best yet invented is the American Winchester repeating rifle, or the "sixteen, shooter" as it is called, ...
— How I Found Livingstone • Sir Henry M. Stanley

... Edmonstone; 'that old-school deference and attention is very chivalrous, and sits prettily and quaintly on his high spirits and animation; I hope ...
— The Heir of Redclyffe • Charlotte M. Yonge

... than in strength. Lupus had, from the first day of the Britons' arrival at the ludus, viewed them with aversion, his hostility to Beric being especially marked, and he particularly objected to the slight deference shown to him by his companions, in spite of the protests of Beric himself, who in vain pointed out to them that he was now no longer their chief, and that they were in all respects comrades ...
— Beric the Briton - A Story of the Roman Invasion • G. A. Henty

... I see what you're at; and it's all right, I guess," observed Matthew, with affected deference of tone. "I know the varmint's pretty slick, but I never should ha' thought of her crawling over ninety miles in four hours:"—it was at this time about midnight. "You ask me what I'd do; why now I'll tell you, if I was you, I'd say, Mat. here take the stick,—it wouldn't be the first ...
— Impressions of America - During The Years 1833, 1834, and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume II. • Tyrone Power

... cheque book. As they left the bank, he asked the minister whether he would allow him to keep his place in his house till the next session, and was almost startled at finding how his manner to him was changed. He assured Sir Gilbert, with a deference and respect both painful and amusing, that he hoped he would always regard his house as one home, however many besides he might now ...
— Sir Gibbie • George MacDonald

... occurs in the relation between age and respectability. All of us, as soon as we get to reasonable maturity, lay great stress on the importance of deference to "elders." It follows naturally that many titles of more or less dignity should be evolved from this idea of seniority. The Eng. alderman is obvious. Priest, Old Fr. prestre[69] (pretre), from Gk. {presbyteros}, comparative of {presbys}, old, is not so obvious. In ...
— The Romance of Words (4th ed.) • Ernest Weekley

... is a chief Christian duty. We look to the future indeed with hope; yet this need not stand in the way of our dwelling on the past days of the Church with affection and deference. This is the feeling of our own Church, as continually expressed in the Prayer Book;—not to slight what has gone before, not to seek after some new thing, not to attempt discoveries in religion, but to keep what has once for all been committed to ...
— Parochial and Plain Sermons, Vol. VII (of 8) • John Henry Newman

... composed, and her pleasant face had a quiet and almost masculine strength and assurance. In her grey flannel jacket and short skirt and felt hat, with a sun-umbrella carried like a walking-stick, she looked adequate and worthy. Hers was a presence that earned respect and deference in the highways of travel; she had the ...
— The Second Class Passenger • Perceval Gibbon

... on the ground of the abnormal virtue of the man, which made him appear pre-eminently qualified to execute so delicate a commission, as was the confiscation of the considerable crown treasure of Cyprus, without embezzlement. Both proposals bear generally the same character of respectful deference and cool irony, which marks throughout the bearing of Caesar in reference to the senate. They met with no resistance. It was naturally of no avail, that the majority of the senate, with the view of ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen

... moments the door was opened by a woman with a candle in her hand—a stout countrywoman of forty, with a curved nose, prominent teeth, and hair screwed up in a tight knob at the back of her head. Her small grey eyes, scanning the visitor at the door, showed both surprise and deference. The butler of the moat-house was not in the habit of mixing with the villagers, and by them he was accounted something of a personage. He not only shone with the reflected glory of the big house, but was respected on his own merit as a "snug" man, who had ...
— The Hand in the Dark • Arthur J. Rees

... which we now present is the result of a spirit of amity and of that mutual deference and concession which the peculiarity of ...
— The World's Best Orations, Vol. 1 (of 10) • Various

... fellow-travellers and I should part company. But I have been requested by a great many persons to give some account of the subsequent history of the vessels and their crews, with which I had made them acquainted. I attempt the following sketches in deference to these suggestions, and not, I trust, with any undue estimate of the general interest my narrative may ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana

... movement in morals and in politics, is that conduct, and conduct alone, entitles to respect: that not what men are, but what they do constitutes their claim to deference; that, above all, merit and not birth is the only rightful claim to ...
— Men, Women, and Gods - And Other Lectures • Helen H. Gardener

... lawyer, she had consented to join the party. The dinner passed off as most dinners do when the viands and wines are good, and everybody is inclined to be happy. Isabel was placed next to Mr Forster, who, without knowing who she was, felt much pleased with the deference and attention of so ...
— Newton Forster • Frederick Marryat

... his wife welcomed the twain with affection, and all the house with deference. They went up to explore their rooms, that opened from a passage on the left hand of the staircase, the entrance to which could be shut off on the landing by a door that Melbury had hung for the purpose. A friendly fire was burning in the grate, although it was not cold. Fitzpiers ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy

... to MR. THORPE'S note (No. 15. p. 232.), I beg leave, with all possible respect and deference, to suggest that his joke is not quite ad rem.—What would do for a beefsteak does not help his mistake; for it is quite evident that sprote applies to fish-swimming and not to fish-catching; and I presume that "useful and sagacious" auxiliary, Dr. Kitchener himself, ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 16, February 16, 1850 • Various

... year that Tiberius died and Gaius entered upon office in his stead he first began to show great deference to the senators on an occasion when knights were present at the meeting and also some of the populace. He promised to share his power with them and do whatever would please them, calling himself meanwhile their son and nursling. He was then twenty-five years old, lacking five months, four ...
— Dio's Rome, Vol. 4 • Cassius Dio

... Manly deference to superiors, which in military life is merely recognition of constituted authority, does not imply admission of inferiority any more than respect ...
— Manual of Military Training - Second, Revised Edition • James A. Moss

... silence was not the sweet, winsome one we were listening for, but it instantly arrested the attention of the company. It was the grave, manly voice of one used to speaking, and accustomed to be listened to with deference. This was the first time that the company as a whole had heard it, for the speaker was the new-comer who has been repeatedly alluded to,—the one of whom I spoke as ...
— Over the Teacups • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... fish, you murder your father, or your brother, or some other deceased friend or relation, whose soul may inhabit the body of the animal you so wantonly destroy?" An officer in the service of the Eastindia Company, and a particular friend of mine, had like to have lost his life by not paying a proper deference to this whimsical notion; for being some time in that part of the country, and happening to shoot a heron, he was immediately arrested and prosecuted for it by one of the natives. The man insisted that the heron was inhabited ...
— Vice in its Proper Shape • Anonymous

... any attempt on the part of the governing classes to lay upon them loads greater than they can or will bear. The Chinese are withal an exceptionally law-abiding people, and entertain a deep-seated respect for authority. But their obedience and their deference have ...
— China and the Chinese • Herbert Allen Giles

... boyhood ideal which he had developed at college. For twenty years he led a varied life—driven from home and whipped by his father for consorting with the schismatic; sometimes in deference to his father's wishes taking his place in the gay world at Court; even, for a time, becoming a soldier, and again traveling in France with some of the people of the Court. In the end, as he grew older, religious feeling completely ...
— The Quaker Colonies - A Chronicle of the Proprietors of the Delaware, Volume 8 - in The Chronicles Of America Series • Sydney G. Fisher

... Gladstone, either at Westminster or at the polls, insisted upon holding a great convention of the Irish in America at Chicago in August 1886. A proposition to do this had been made in the spring of 1885, and put off, in judicious deference to the disgust which many independent Americans of both parties then felt at the course pursued by Mr. Parnell's friends, Mr. Egan and Mr. Sullivan in 1884, when these leaders openly led the Irish with drums beating and green flags flying out of the ...
— Ireland Under Coercion (2nd ed.) (1 of 2) (1888) • William Henry Hurlbert

... the Elizabethans. His slippers were incredibly shabby, like boats burnt to the water's rim. Then there were photographs from the Greeks, and a mezzotint from Sir Joshua—all very English. The works of Jane Austen, too, in deference, perhaps, to some one else's standard. Carlyle was a prize. There were books upon the Italian painters of the Renaissance, a Manual of the Diseases of the Horse, and all the usual text-books. Listless is the air in an empty room, just swelling the curtain; the flowers in the jar shift. ...
— Jacob's Room • Virginia Woolf

... her. Some of the men approved of the suggestion, remarking that they had never thought of it themselves; but the old negress, who, being the only representative of the fair sex present, was always listened to with all the deference due to her position, threw herself with immense zeal into the opposition. She affirmed that no cow had been milked at that establishment since its owner had paid it a visit with his young wife twelve years before. A milch-cow was then kept, and on the senora partaking of a large ...
— The Purple Land • W. H. Hudson

... he asked of August, the head waiter. "Has she been properly served? His Highness, Prince Karl of Auersperg, will not forget it if a lady of his family does not receive the deference due to her." ...
— The Hosts of the Air • Joseph A. Altsheler

... due to rank in Norway was little more than the proud Norseman chose to pay, and it was with small deference to his prince ...
— Vandrad the Viking - The Feud and the Spell • J. Storer Clouston

... reveals simple, charming, and often boyish manners. Clinton had such an armour, but he never put it off, except with intimates, and not then with any revelation of warmth. He was cold and arrogant, showing no deference even to seniors, since he denied the existence of superiors. Nobody loved him; few really liked him; and, except for his canal policy, his public career must have ended with his dismissal from the New York mayoralty. It seemed a question whether he ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander

... building where the apprentices all slept in one large chamber under the roof, explains the enormous population of Paris then agglomerated on one-tenth of the surface of the present city; also the queer details of private life in the middle ages; also, the contrivances of love which, with all due deference to historians, are found only in the pages of the romance-writers, without whom they would be lost to the world. At this period very great seigneurs, such, for instance, as Admiral de Coligny, occupied three rooms, and their suites lived at some neighboring inn. There were not, in those ...
— Catherine de' Medici • Honore de Balzac

... which the praise of our friends brings us, yet without going on to seek the good of the next world; that we should deny ourselves, yet not deny ourselves for a reality, but for a shadow. It is natural, I say, to love to have deference and respect paid us by our acquaintance; but I am speaking of the desire of glory, that is, the praise of a vast multitude of persons we never saw, or shall see, or care about; and this, I say, is a depraved appetite, the artificial produce of a falsely enlightened intellect; as unmeaning as ...
— Parochial and Plain Sermons, Vol. VIII (of 8) • John Henry Newman

... notwithstanding, that, throughout most of their writings which I have seen, there runs a prevailing tone of great deference to Hahnemann's opinions, a constant reference to his authority, a general agreement with the minor points of his belief, and a pretence of harmonious union in a common faith. [Those who will take the trouble to look over Hull's Translation of Jahr's Manual ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)

... good-by, and we to call the roll and take an inventory. Our leader was Isiro, a bright, intelligent, finely-featured, stalwart Indian. He could speak Spanish, and his comrades acknowledged his superiority with marked deference. Ten women and children followed us for two days, to relieve the men of their burdens. Their assistance was not needed in the latter part of the journey, for our keen appetites rapidly lightened the provision cans. Starting again, we plunged at once into the forest, taking a northeasterly ...
— The Andes and the Amazon - Across the Continent of South America • James Orton

... the nature and laws of steam, electricity, galvanism, or light, to be careful that their discoveries impinge not on the teachings of religion or the creed of orthodoxy, as to demand of Lyell to investigate the antiquity of man in humble deference to the well-established belief of the whole Christian world that he has no such antiquity. Not a bitter thing is said in the whole book against any traditional belief; the Scriptures are scarcely more than alluded to; he seems scarcely conscious that he is attempting to establish conclusions ...
— Continental Monthly, Volume 5, Issue 4 • Various

... Jones. An interesting side light is thrown upon the character of that hero by the fact that, with all his supreme confidence in his ability, he applied to Congress only for a first lieutenancy. This was in deference to the older men before that body. "I hoped," said he, "in that rank to gain much useful knowledge from those of more experience than myself." His lack of assertion for once cost him dear. He sailed on the New Providence expedition ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... astonishment when he caught the, to him, familiar words, and must have seen at once the open door for his preaching. His abrupt question wastes no time with apologies or polite, gradual approaches to his object. Probably the very absence of the signs of deference to which he was accustomed impressed the eunuch with a dim sense of the stranger's authority, which would be deepened by the home-thrust ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: The Acts • Alexander Maclaren

... was his bank. Elegant gentlemen behind the counter shovelled gold to and fro with the same casual indifference as I had seen grocers' assistants shovel tea. One of them, a gorgeous fellow wearing a white pique tie and a horse-shoe pin, paid such deference to Paragot that I went out prodigiously impressed by my master's importance. I was convinced that he owned the establishment, and during the next quarter of an hour I could not speak to him ...
— The Beloved Vagabond • William J. Locke

... about to pick up the bill. She caused in all the Langborough males an unaccustomed quivering and warmth, the same in each, physical, perhaps, but salutary, for the monotony of life was relieved thereby and a deference and even a grace were begotten which did not usually distinguish Langborough manners. Not one of Mrs. Fairfax's admirers, however, could say that she showed any desire for conversation with him, nor could any direct evidence be obtained as to what she thought of things in general. There was, ...
— Pages from a Journal with Other Papers • Mark Rutherford

... implanted in the children. In this picture a large space is tacitly given to an authorized version of what each set is called upon inwardly to accept as the social standing of the others. The more vulgar press for an outward expression of the deference due, the others are decently and sensitively silent about their own knowledge that such deference invisibly exists. But that knowledge, becoming overt when there is a marriage, a war, or a social upheaval, is the nexus of a large bundle of dispositions classified ...
— Public Opinion • Walter Lippmann

... rented by the Doctor, and in the playground he restricted them to "chevy," which he considered, rightly enough, both gave them abundant exercise and kept them out of mischief. Accordingly, if any adventurous spirit started a rival game, it was usually abandoned sooner or later in deference to suggestions from headquarters which were not intended to ...
— Vice Versa - or A Lesson to Fathers • F. Anstey



Words linked to "Deference" :   politeness, agreeableness, deferent, court, civility, obligingness, last respects, complaisance, props, homage, agreeability, good manners, respectfulness, compliancy, respect



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