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Discredit   Listen
noun
Discredit  n.  
1.
The act of discrediting or disbelieving, or the state of being discredited or disbelieved; as, later accounts have brought the story into discredit.
2.
Hence, some degree of dishonor or disesteem; ill repute; reproach; applied to persons or things. "It is the duty of every Christian to be concerned for the reputation or discredit his life may bring on his profession."
Synonyms: Disesteem; disrepute; dishonor; disgrace; ignominy; scandal; disbelief; distrust.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Discredit" Quotes from Famous Books



... greatly astonished at the absence of liqueurs in England. The excellence of French digestions generally would not seem to discredit the habit. In the fabrication of gin here only the corn of rye is used, and in small quantities, the juniper berry; it is ready for drinking in six months, although improved by keeping. I saw also curaoa in its various stages. The orange peel used in the manufacture of this liqueur is soaked ...
— In the Heart of the Vosges - And Other Sketches by a "Devious Traveller" • Matilda Betham-Edwards

... the Collegio [note: Not a college in the American sense, but a private school of a high grade.] of Sant' Anastasia, in Verona, according to the Italian system, now fallen into disuse, of fitting a boy for the world by giving him the training of a cloister. It is not greatly to Aleardi's discredit that he seemed to learn nothing there, and that he drove his reverend preceptors to the desperate course of advising his removal. They told his father he would make a good farmer, but a scholar, never. They nicknamed him the mole, for his dullness; ...
— Modern Italian Poets • W. D. Howells

... is as great as ever. We are told that "France is rising, and that in a few weeks three armies will throw themselves on the Prussians, who are already utterly disorganised." In vain I ask, "But what if these three armies do not make their appearance?" I am regarded as an idiot for venturing to discredit a notorious fact. If I dared, I would venture to suggest to some of my warlike friends that a town which simply defends itself by shutting its gates, firing into space, and waiting for apocryphal armies, is not ...
— Diary of the Besieged Resident in Paris • Henry Labouchere

... everywhere at local noon, then the equilibrium theory of the tides, as it is called, would be beautifully simple. But this is not the case. Even around our own coasts the discrepancies are such as to utterly discredit the theory as offering any practical guide. At Aberdeen the high tide does not appear till an hour later than the doctrine would suggest. It is two hours late at London, three at Tynemouth, four at Tralee, five at Sligo, ...
— Time and Tide - A Romance of the Moon • Robert S. (Robert Stawell) Ball

... no denying the fact that a pretty face has a very unfair advantage over a plain one. And, much to the discredit of Kenelm's philanthropy, it may be reasonably doubted whether, had Jessie Wiles been endowed by nature with a snub nose and a squint, Kenelm would have volunteered his friendly services, or meditated battle with ...
— Kenelm Chillingly, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... companies of men called Rangers. The citizens' posse soon gave way to this organized service. The companies, few in number at first, were gradually increased until the State had over a dozen companies in the field. These companies numbered anywhere from ten to sixty men. It can be said with no discredit to the State that there were never half enough companies of men ...
— Cattle Brands - A Collection of Western Camp-fire Stories • Andy Adams

... made a great impression at home and abroad, in spite of the attacks and ridicule with which the Spaniards tried to discredit it. On that eventful day Bolvar saw his dream of a great nation, Colombia, take shape, even though it were in danger of dying shortly ...
— Simon Bolivar, the Liberator • Guillermo A. Sherwell

... and is written with such a Spirit of Chearfulness, Religion, and good Sense, as are the natural Concomitants of Temperance and Sobriety. The Mixture of the old Man in it is rather a Recommendation than a Discredit to it. ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele

... power. Everyone had need of one's power, whereas one's own need, at the best, would have seemed to be but some trick for not communicating it. The effect of a reserve so merely, so meanly defensive would in most cases, beyond question, sufficiently discredit the cause; wherefore, though it was complicating to be perpetually treated as an infinite agent, the outrage was not the greatest of which a brave man might complain. Complaint, besides, was a luxury, ...
— The Golden Bowl • Henry James

... valet to a couple of very fine Holstein cows while he was in college, and he attributed much of his success to this fact. He would of course pay Keg's expenses while he had to, but he would hold it to his discredit. He must at once ...
— At Good Old Siwash • George Fitch

... excused if he was proud of his boy, for he was a noble little fellow,—a "braw chiel," as he was pronounced to be by his grand-aunt, Mistress Tibbie Mactavish, who had presided at his birth,—and likely to do no discredit ...
— The Three Commanders • W.H.G. Kingston

... at the work of framing a constitution, to cast a glance from the misty heights of their ideal republic down upon the profane world in order to realize how the arrogance of the royalists, of the Bonapartists, of the democrats, of the Communists, rose daily, together with their own discredit, and in the same measure as they approached the completion of their legislative work of art, without Thetis having for this purpose to leave the sea and impart the secret to them. They ought to outwit fate by means of constitutional artifice, through Section 111 of the Constitution, according ...
— The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte • Karl Marx

... beginning see what it meant, and it will, I believe, come to high terms between us, which I am sorry for, to have any blemish laid upon me or mine, at this time, though never so unduly, for fear of giving occasion to my real discredit: and therefore I was not only all the rest of the morning vexed, but so went home to dinner, where my wife tells me of my Lord Orrery's new play "Tryphon," at the Duke of York's house, which, however, I would ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys

... Rome, at the expense of the Church of England. He cannot mean by the expression merely a person who in fact is benefiting the Church of Rome, while he is intending to benefit the Church of England, for that is no discredit to him morally, and he (your uncle) evidently means to ...
— Apologia Pro Vita Sua • John Henry Cardinal Newman

... and ideas of the time, without any attempt to paraphrase them into the language or thoughts of subsequent ages. The world had had enough of the flippant persiflage with which Voltaire had treated the most heroic efforts and tragic disasters of the human race. Philosophic historians had got into discredit from the rash conclusions and unfounded pretensions of the greater part of their number; though the philosophy of history can never cease to be one of the noblest subjects of human thought. To guard against the error into which they had fallen, the romantic ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 366, April, 1846 • Various

... in matter and in phrase. Among the dramatic monologues of the fifteenth century is found at least one little masterpiece, which has been ascribed on insufficient grounds to Villon, and which would do no discredit to that poet's genius—the Franc-Archer de Bagnolet. The francs-archers of Charles VII.—a rural militia—were not beloved of the people; the miles gloriosus of Bagnolet village, boasting largely of his valour, encounters a stuffed scarecrow, ...
— A History of French Literature - Short Histories of the Literatures of the World: II. • Edward Dowden

... half instructed in the social usages and the distinctive features of their own country, I hope I shall be just as far removed from such a weakness, in any passing remark that may flow from my pen, as from the crime of confounding principles and denying facts in a way to do discredit to the land of my birth and that of my ancestors. I have lived long enough in the "world," not meaning thereby the south-east corner of the north-west township of Connecticut, to understand that we are a vast way behind older nations, in thought as well as ...
— The Redskins; or, Indian and Injin, Volume 1. - Being the Conclusion of the Littlepage Manuscripts • James Fenimore Cooper

... College Register was to contain the names of all those who were qualified to conduct schools, and admission to the Register was controlled by the College itself in order to provide a means of excluding all who were likely to bring discredit upon the calling of a teacher by reason of their inefficiency or misconduct. The scheme thus launched was, however, not comprehensive, since it concerned chiefly the teachers who conducted private schools and did not contemplate the inclusion of those who were engaged in universities, ...
— Cambridge Essays on Education • Various

... magnates would be alike indifferent to him. There has been more than enough of discussion among the biographers of Burns, as to how far he really deteriorated in himself during those Dumfries years, as to the extent and the causes of the social discredit into which he fell, and as to the charge that he took to low company. His early biographers, Currie, Walker, Heron drew the picture somewhat darkly; Lockhart and Cunningham have endeavoured to lighten the depth of the shadows. ...
— Robert Burns • Principal Shairp

... case is, I repeat, of a kind to throw discredit on the spiritualist hypothesis. If it and analogous cases alone were considered, it would be needful to ask why earnest men, after long hesitation, have finally given the preference to this hypothesis. But psychic phenomena, and mediumistic ...
— Mrs. Piper & the Society for Psychical Research • Michael Sage

... tidings of the massacres at Batak and elsewhere began to be fully known. Despite the efforts of Ministers to discredit them, they aroused growing excitement; and when the whole truth was known, a storm of indignation swept over the country as over the whole of Europe. Efforts were made by the Turcophil Press to represent the new trend of popular ...
— The Development of the European Nations, 1870-1914 (5th ed.) • John Holland Rose

... by this discovery, and it was beyond his power to explain the presence of the hat so far away from where the owner had been abandoned. It would be supposed that the discovery would throw discredit on the story told by Lone Bear, inasmuch as the two seemed irreconcilable; but such was not the case. Deerfoot did not doubt Lone Bear's words, and I make free to say just here, that subsequent discoveries proved that the vanquished ...
— Footprints in the Forest • Edward Sylvester Ellis

... to move; between the power that so worked in delft as to stir the universal heart, and the commonness that could not meddle with porcelain or aspire to any noble clay; the pitiful see-saw is continued up to the final sentence, where, in the impartial critic's eagerness to discredit even the value of the emotion awakened in such men as Jeffrey by such creations as Little Nell, he reverses all he has been saying about the cultivated and uncultivated, and presents to us a cultivated philosopher, in his ignorance of the stage, applauding an actor whom every uncultivated playgoing ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster

... Puseyites. I can scarcely believe that I have been the means of attracting one person here so utterly devoid of one remnant of brain as to believe the doctrine of baptismal regeneration." The doctrine, indeed, is so nonsensical to him, that, after some caricatures of it, he asserts that it would discredit Scripture with all sensible men, if it were taught in Scripture. God himself could not make Mr. Spurgeon believe it; and doubtless there are many High Churchmen who would retort, that nothing short of a miracle could make them assent to ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I., No. 3, January 1858 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various

... short hole, cop a two, But his putts are straight and deadly, and he doesn't even frown When he's tried to hole a long one and just fails to get it down. On the fourteenth green I faded; there he put me on the shelf, And it's not to his discredit when I say I ...
— The Path to Home • Edgar A. Guest

... and no real publicity to be obtained. The romance which Derues had invented by way of defence, and which became known as well as Monsieur de Lamotte's accusation, obtained no credence whatever; on the contrary, all the reports to his discredit were eagerly adopted. As yet, no crime could be traced, but the public presentiment divined an atrocious one. Have we not often seen similar agitations? The names of Bastide, of Castaing, of Papavoine, had hardly been pronounced ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... difficulty, made their escape from the mob. Many were killed, and a great destruction of property took place, before Marlborough and Wirtemberg entered the town and put a stop to the disorder, which inflicted great discredit upon them, as they had made no arrangements, whatever, to ensure the safety of the inhabitants, which they ...
— Orange and Green - A Tale of the Boyne and Limerick • G. A. Henty

... of it? That's not only to my discredit, but to theirs too. They feed me and take off their caps to me, so it seems they have not the intelligence and honesty to do otherwise. I don't blame or praise any one: I only mean that the upper class and the lower are as bad as one another. My feelings and my intelligence ...
— The Lady with the Dog and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov

... avow their faith so whole-heartedly. The statement was made as propaganda, and propaganda is merely advertising in its most insidious and dangerous form. The thing revealed its possibilities during the war, but the black discredit that was then very justly attached to it could not prevail against its manifest potency, and it is now universally used after the most comprehensive and frequently unscrupulous fashion, with results that can only be perilous ...
— Towards the Great Peace • Ralph Adams Cram

... the practice being one of her few small privileges. But she felt that Miss Sandys' confidence was honourable alike to giver and receiver, and that the terms on which she lived with her employer did no discredit to either. The fact was that Miss West returned thanks for these same terms in the middle of her confession of errors every day ...
— Girlhood and Womanhood - The Story of some Fortunes and Misfortunes • Sarah Tytler

... weeping girl prostrates herself before the smiling goddess, and, raising brown arms in earnest supplication, kisses the stone slab at the feet of the beautiful statue, popularly endowed with some occult virtue which the loosely-held Mohammedanism of a later day has failed to discredit or deny. The temples of Brambanam were erected shortly after the completion of that upper terrace in the great sanctuary of Boro-Boedoer which marks the traditional epoch between Buddhism and the later Hinduism, including Sakya Munyi among the ...
— Through the Malay Archipelago • Emily Richings

... no attention to any statement of the patient which flatly contradicts the evidence of your own senses. But even where patients, through some preconceived notion, or from false ideas of shame or discredit attaching to some particular disease, are trying to mislead you, the very vigor of their efforts will often reveal their secret, just as the piteous broken-winged utterings of the mother partridge reveal instantly to the ...
— Preventable Diseases • Woods Hutchinson

... ancestors. Lady Beaulyon was perhaps the most remarkable 'revelation' of the whole company. Maryllia had always admired Eva Beaulyon with quite an extravagant admiration, on account of her physical charm and grace,- -and had also liked her sufficiently well to entirely discredit the stories that were rife about the number of her unlawful amours. That she was an open flirt could not be denied,—but that she ever carried a flirtation beyond bounds, Maryllia would never have believed. Now, however, a new light seemed thrown ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli

... much pleasanter to have to record that the mules proved too much for the monsoon, but truth will prevail, and before we reach Karachi the monsoon has scored fourteen mules dead and pretty much all the others more or less wounded. But this is no discredit to the mules; in fact, I have greater respect for the staying qualities of a mule than ever before, since the monsoon only secures ten per cent of them for the ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens

... occasions contributes nothing towards remedying the evils committed, I have long employed my thoughts in devising some plan which might lessen the number of punishments at sea, and thus, perhaps, save others from the remorse I have felt, while it might tend to relieve the service from the discredit of an improper degree of severity ...
— The Lieutenant and Commander - Being Autobigraphical Sketches of His Own Career, from - Fragments of Voyages and Travels • Basil Hall

... meaning better) even alter words? If He tells thee that the prophetic allusion of Isaiah to "our griefs" and "our sorrows" comprehends "our infirmities" and "our sicknesses" in its span[573],—is it for thee to discredit His assertion? If He is pleased to intimate that the providential arrangement whereby CHRIST, though born at Bethlehem, grew up at Nazareth,—had for its object the fulfilment of many a detached and seemingly ...
— Inspiration and Interpretation - Seven Sermons Preached Before the University of Oxford • John Burgon

... omnipotence and omnipresence, or, at any rate, the power "to do anything and to go anywhere.... To his direct ordinances are attributed the social and moral laws of the community."(4) This is not "an evil spirit"! When Mr. Hartland goes for scandals to a remote tribe of a different creed that he may discredit the creed of the Coast Murring, he might as well attribute to the Free Kirk "the errors of Rome". But Mr. Hartland does it!(5) Being "cunning of fence" he may reply that I also spoke loosely of Wiraijuri and Coast Murring as, indifferently, Daramulunites. I did, and I was wrong, ...
— Myth, Ritual, and Religion, Vol. 1 • Andrew Lang

... did not really know anything about that part of his old friend's history; it was hardly to his discredit. The black wife, as he called her, was the daughter of an English merchant by a Hindoo wife, a young creature when he first made her acquaintance, unaware of her own power, and kept almost in slavery by the relatives ...
— Weighed and Wanting • George MacDonald

... boots, and all) was sitting in it with his legs out of one end and his head groaning and bellowing from the other. This was his specific for sea-sickness, and for three days he behaved about as well as a fractious child who sadly wants a good whipping. It is no discredit to a man to be sea-sick. Nelson, we are told, was so far human. But it is somewhat unmanly for an officer to whine and blubber like a baby, and yet we have several times seen this phenomenon abroad. When we came into Naples this lachrymose hero was again in full feather, ...
— The Voyage Alone in the Yawl "Rob Roy" • John MacGregor

... had suddenly stopped, and without any apparent reason. The wheels were in a good condition and firmly fixed, but the springs had lost all elasticity. Vainly did the watchmaker try to replace them; the wheels remained motionless. These unaccountable derangements were greatly to the old man's discredit. His noble inventions had many times brought upon him suspicions of sorcery, which now seemed confirmed. These rumours reached Gerande, and she often trembled for her father, when she saw ...
— A Winter Amid the Ice - and Other Thrilling Stories • Jules Verne

... the area of biology—the knowledge of living things—that the enemies of science make their most audacious attempts to discredit well-ascertained facts and conclusions. They tell their readers that those greater problems of the science (as they erroneously term them), such as the nature of variation among individuals, the laws of heredity, the nature of growth and reproduction, the peculiarities of sex, the characteristics ...
— More Science From an Easy Chair • Sir E. Ray (Edwin Ray) Lankester

... shut herself up in her closet to indulge her sorrow and vexation. She was deceived, however, in her prognostic. The boy, instead of declining in point of health, seemed to acquire fresh vigour from every plunge, as if he had been resolved to discredit the wisdom and foresight of his aunt, who in all probability could never forgive him for this want of reverence and respect. This conjecture is founded upon her behaviour to him in the sequel of his infancy, during which ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett

... in the American Magazine of History attempts to discredit the statement that the party were in Indian dress, intimating that it was an afterthought, intended to deceive the authorities, and lead them to the belief that the disguise was too complete to allow of identification for arrest or punishment. Cavils like this are superfluous ...
— Tea Leaves • Various

... was {retcon}ned by the expanding these initials as 'Joke Ethnic/Denomination/Race'.) After much sound and fury JEDR faded away; this term appears to be doing likewise. JEDR's only permanent effect on the net.culture was to discredit 'sensitivity' arguments for censorship so thoroughly that more recent attempts to raise them have met with immediate ...
— The Jargon File, Version 4.0.0

... Recalling to his daughters, in order to teach them modesty, that "the deluge in the time of Noah happened for the pride and disguises of men, and mostly of women, who remodelled their shapes by means of gowns and attire," the Knight de la Tour Landry gives the English ladies the credit, or rather the discredit, of having invented the immeasurable head-dresses worn at that day. It is an evil sign; in that country people amuse themselves too much: "In England many there are that have been blamed, the report goes, I know not whether it ...
— A Literary History of the English People - From the Origins to the Renaissance • Jean Jules Jusserand

... and tardy imagination, ought rather to surrender something of the fullness which his own faith perceives, than expose the fabric of his vision, too finely woven, to the hard handling of the materialist; and we sincerely regret that discredit is likely to accrue to portions of our author's well-grounded statement of real significances, once of all men understood, because these are rashly blended with his own accidental perceptions of disputable analogy. He perpetually associates the present imaginative influence of ...
— On the Old Road Vol. 1 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin

... preceding letter, February 21, the following appeared in the "Congressional Globe," and its very curtness and flippancy is indicative of the indifference of the public in general to this great invention, and the proceedings which are summarized cast discredit on the intelligence ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume II • Samuel F. B. Morse

... are still in existence, and Frank is still their captain. They have already done escort duty on several occasions, and once they visited Boston, and marched up State Street with a precision of step which would have done no discredit ...
— Frank's Campaign - or the Farm and the Camp • Horatio Alger, Jr.

... reckless extravagance satisfied the nobles; it brought bankruptcy stalking to the doors of the king's palace. The distress and sufferings of the people became unbearable. The miserable scandal of the diamond necklace added to the discredit of the queen. The Royal family and the Court sank further in ...
— Vigee Le Brun • Haldane MacFall

... fundamental constitution of men's modes of thought must precede any marked improvement in their lot. He perceived that society is now passing through a transitional period 'of weak convictions, paralysed intellects, and growing laxity of principle,' the consequence of the discredit in the more reflective minds of the old opinions on the cardinal subjects of religion, morals, and politics, which have now lost most of their efficacy for good, though still possessed of life enough to present formidable ...
— Critical Miscellanies, Vol. 3 (of 3) - Essay 2: The Death of Mr Mill - Essay 3: Mr Mill's Autobiography • John Morley

... of a historical fact, and the point is that it is not subject to empirical verification. It cannot be stated, in other words, in the form of a hypothesis, which further observation of other men of the same type will either verify or discredit. ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park

... From the discredit attached to the vulgar and more common modes in which the Scottish superstition displays itself, the author was induced to have recourse to the beautiful, though almost forgotten, theory of astral spirits, or creatures of the elements, surpassing human beings in knowledge ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott

... infirm, when so heavily afflicted as to be in danger of death, piously assuming the tonsure and the penitential habit, and engaging to continue both through life, if God raised them up. As the use of this penance became common enough to throw discredit on the piety of all who did not thus undertake it, if the sick or dying man was unable to demand the habit, his relations or friends could invest him with it, and his obligation to a penitential life thenceforward was as great as if that obligation had been imposed, not by others, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 19, - Issue 552, June 16, 1832 • Various

... would be restrained from attempting a change in favor of a person more agreeable to him, by the apprehension that a discountenance of the Senate might frustrate the attempt, and bring some degree of discredit upon himself. Those who can best estimate the value of a steady administration, will be most disposed to prize a provision which connects the official existence of public men with the approbation or disapprobation of that body which, from the greater permanency ...
— The Federalist Papers

... for the most common public services, and of wholesale public gratuities, Pericles had introduced or encouraged practices that had the same demoralizing effects upon the Athenians that the free distribution of grain at Rome had upon the Roman populace. These pernicious customs cast discredit upon labor, destroyed frugality, and fostered idleness, thus sapping the virtues and ...
— A General History for Colleges and High Schools • P. V. N. Myers

... You Never Can Tell, written by the infamous author of Mrs Warren's Profession, and acted by the monster who produced it. What made this harder to bear was that though no fact is better established in theatrical business than the financial disastrousness of moral discredit, the journalists who had done all the mischief kept paying vice the homage of assuming that it is enormously popular and lucrative, and that I and Mr Daly, being exploiters of vice, must therefore be making colossal fortunes out of ...
— How He Lied to Her Husband • George Bernard Shaw

... which have a superficial resemblance to it. Eckhart really regards the Catholic doctrine of good works much as St. Paul treated the Pharisaic legalism; but he is as unconscious of the widening gulf which had already opened between Teutonic and Latin Christianity, as of the discredit which his own writings were to help to bring upon the ...
— Christian Mysticism • William Ralph Inge

... and Irene looked very well; there was suitability of stature, harmony of years. Arnold's clean-cut visage, manly yet refined, did no discredit to the choice of a girl even so striking in countenance as Irene. They drew the eyes of passers-by. Conscious of this, Irene now and then flinched imperceptibly; but her smile held good, and its happiness flattered the ...
— The Crown of Life • George Gissing

... also the boast of which was its open-handed hospitality, it was necessary to take care that hospitality was not brought to discredit by abuse; and when every door was freely opened to a request for a meal or a night's lodging, there was an imperative duty to keep a strict eye on whatever persons were on the move. We shall therefore be prepared to find "sturdy and valiant beggars" treated with summary ...
— The Reign of Henry the Eighth, Volume 1 (of 3) • James Anthony Froude

... discredit on that possibility, but she knew perfectly well what she meant. "Not of getting at them directly, not, as mother says, of nosing round himself; but of listening—and small blame to him!—to the horrible things other people say ...
— The Great English Short-Story Writers, Vol. 1 • Various

... the affairs of the embassy. I found out afterwards that I had reason to attribute to Madame de Maintenon and M. du Maine the change in the King's intention towards me. Madame de Saint-Simon was delighted. It seemed as though she foresaw the strange discredit in which the affairs of the King were going to fall in Italy, the embarrassment and the disorder that public misfortunes would cause the finances, and the cruel situation to which all things would have reduced us at Rome. As for me, I had had so much leisure to console myself beforehand, ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre

... higher considerations. Moreover, in his own material sphere his narrow prejudices were ever a jarring element that often exasperated Webb, who had been known to mutter, "Such clods of earth bring discredit on our calling." ...
— Nature's Serial Story • E. P. Roe

... fear and trembling. Somewhere in the Cave of the Winds you have your home. The ancient Authors, to their discredit, make no mention of your existence there, but the fact is as I have stated it. The East wind blows into your gaping mouth, and forth you go, puffing and swelling with an alien importance, to do your hateful work. You hover over a second-rate Statesman, who has ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 103, September 17, 1892 • Various

... Our readers are well aware of all the exciting episodes of that first garrison life, including the life and death fight that Hal Overton had with thieves while he was on sentry duty in officers' row, and of the efforts of one worthless character in the battalion to discredit and disgrace the service of both splendid but new ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys as Sergeants - or, Handling Their First Real Commands • H. Irving Hancock

... my natur', Gar'ner," was the answer. "I stuck by you when you was dismasted under Hatteras, and I stick by everything that I undertake. This is what I call Vineyard natur'; and I'm not about to discredit ...
— The Sea Lions - The Lost Sealers • James Fenimore Cooper

... They were gone, and whatever damage they may have done to the character of poor Rene de Lesperon ere they departed, they were not there, at all events, to denounce me for an impostor. With a mental apology to the shade of the departed Lesperon for all the discredit I was bringing down upon his name, I broke the seal of that momentous epistle, which enclosed a length of some ...
— Bardelys the Magnificent • Rafael Sabatini

... "Here is certainly news of Dan Baxter that is very much to his discredit. I hope I and Dora and the rest never hear ...
— The Rover Boys at School • Arthur M. Winfield

... Pennsylvania entertained great hopes of this proposal to turn the proprietary colonies into royal provinces. Under such a change, while the Quakers might still have an influence in the Legislature, the Crown would probably give the executive offices to Churchmen. They therefore labored hard to discredit the Quakers. They kept harping on the absurdity of a set of fanatics attempting to govern a colony without a militia and without administering oaths of office or using oaths in judicial proceedings. How could any one's life be safe from foreign ...
— The Quaker Colonies - A Chronicle of the Proprietors of the Delaware, Volume 8 - in The Chronicles Of America Series • Sydney G. Fisher

... Lord Raymond endeavored to cast discredit on the proposal to abolish Law-Latin, was recalled after the lapse of many years by Sergeant Heywood, who forthwith acted upon it as though it originated in serious thought. Whilst acting as Chief Justice of the Carmarthen ...
— A Book About Lawyers • John Cordy Jeaffreson

... now dead, were deluded by these flattering but fate representations of those white men, and inasmuch as the removing Agent appeared on the ground, with the money in his hand, these simple people were made to discredit the orders received from the department, relative to the council of the 2d of June. Justice would indeed seem to require that these white men should repair the injury they have done to us, and not to us alone, but also to ...
— Legends, Traditions, and Laws of the Iroquois, or Six Nations, and History of the Tuscarora Indians • Elias Johnson

... the world, and adds an elaborate dissertation on witchcraft in general. This book was published at Boston, Massachusetts, in the month of October, 1692. Other circumstances, however, contributed to throw discredit on the proceedings of the court, though the witch mania was at the same time spreading throughout the whole colony. In this same month of October, the wife of Mr. Hale, minister of Beverley, was accused, although no person of sense and respectability had the slightest ...
— The Wonders of the Invisible World • Cotton Mather

... was, her mother, only, denying herself the indulgence of being her subject. Mother, however, was lovingly tactful, and exercised the discipline she believed necessary for her child's good most wisely. And Mother's memory has ever remained a hallowed one. Mammy Lou did much to discredit all of the mother's conscientious care. For so long the poor child "couldn't eat no thin'," and when at last Minta's appetite returned, her loving black nurse would give her anything she wanted, and if the fever hadn't hopelessly damaged the little one's digestive glands, Mammy ...
— Our Nervous Friends - Illustrating the Mastery of Nervousness • Robert S. Carroll

... that the limit!" she exploded. "The little monkey! Why, Gibbie would slay her if she knew! Such an atrociously cheeky, unladylike thing to do, and putting her address here at the Grange! Bringing discredit on the school! I don't suppose whoever finds ...
— The Madcap of the School • Angela Brazil

... the dignified response. "I shall pass my time surveying the beauties of Nature to which, to my discredit, I have been so long oblivious; then, I shall commune with the great minds in literature, and read the ...
— The Further Adventures of Quincy Adams Sawyer and Mason's Corner Folks • Charles Felton Pidgin

... attached to its profession. Odin himself, we are expressly told, was a great adept, and always found himself very much exhausted at the end of his performance; which leads me to think that perhaps he dabbled in electro-biology. At last the advent of Christianity threw discredit on the practice; severe punishments were denounced against all who indulged in it; and, in the end, its mysteries became the monopoly of ...
— Letters From High Latitudes • The Marquess of Dufferin (Lord Dufferin)

... of you. It is our established custom; but there is another reason besides. Just imagine, while washing and dusting the ceilings and walls, Madam Magloire has made some discoveries; now our two chambers hung with antique paper whitewashed over, would not discredit a chateau in the style of yours. Madam Magloire has pulled off all the paper. There were things beneath. My drawing-room, which contains no furniture, and which we use for spreading out the linen after washing, is fifteen feet in height, eighteen square, with a ceiling which ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo

... permitted to outweigh the testimony of his senses? I had no witnesses to prove my existence in another place. The real events of that night are marvellous. Few, to whom they should be related, would scruple to discredit them. Pleyel is sceptical in a transcendant degree. I cannot summon Carwin to my bar, and make him the attestor of my innocence, and ...
— Wieland; or The Transformation - An American Tale • Charles Brockden Brown

... asking, especially as her father, to my knowledge, doth greatly favor him. And, indeed, by reason of her gracious manner, witty and pleasant discoursing, excellent breeding, and dignity, she would do no discredit to the choice of one far higher than this young gentleman in ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier

... upon Aunt Plenty that she turned a deaf ear to the benevolent emotions native to her breast and, taking refuge behind "our blessed ancestress, Lady Marget," refused to sanction any engagement which could bring discredit upon the stainless name which ...
— Rose in Bloom - A Sequel to "Eight Cousins" • Louisa May Alcott

... without a word of warning—without the faintest hint of her intention—to go to a father of whom she knew nothing, or nothing that was not eminently to his discredit!" ...
— Fenton's Quest • M. E. Braddon

... Badang, "know that this man is a powerful athlete, of extraordinary strength, famous in all countries. If your slave is vanquished will it not cast some discredit on the sovereign? If your Majesty thinks it wise, let us both be called into your presence together, so that I may test him; and if I feel myself capable of competing with him, we will have the contest; but if he is too strong for me, then your Majesty ...
— Malayan Literature • Various Authors

... get rich in ten years. You couldn't do it honestly, my lads. All I ask is that you support yourselves honourably and be as respectable as possible in this day and age. Don't try to be too respectable. People will discredit you. They always do. Be square." He had said this to them in the ...
— Her Weight in Gold • George Barr McCutcheon

... almost uniform tendency toward longevity. It is a robust race, presenting an extraordinary number of large families. The divine injunction to increase and multiply has been obeyed with religious fidelity. Upon the whole, the stock is good, and bids fair to become better. As men suffer discredit from disreputable progenitors, they ought to enjoy credit ...
— The Life, Public Services and Select Speeches of Rutherford B. Hayes • James Quay Howard

... summer, who have brought an army of seventy thousand men in magnificent condition across a country hitherto deemed impassable, and placed it just where it was wanted, on the day appointed, have brought discredit on our Government! I do not wish to boast of this, but I do say that it entitled me to the courtesy of being consulted, before publishing to the world a proposition rightfully submitted to higher authority for adjudication, and then accompanied by statements ...
— The Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman, Complete • William T. Sherman

... they repeat it, they dwell upon it as if it were a cardinal virtue. Now you have never expressed or entertained the remotest suspicion that they would not carry you to any part of the city. You have not the slightest intention or desire to discredit their assertion. The only trouble is, as I said before, you do not wish to go to any part of the city. Very few people have time to drive about in that general way; and surely, when you have once distinctly informed them that you do not design ...
— Gala-days • Gail Hamilton

... not to be used on any account, as they often get reversed and create confusion, and a collection thus treated is brought into grave discredit. Eggs, when being sent any distance, should be separately wrapped in cotton wool, and packed in a strong box, any interstices being lightly filled with wool also. Sawdust or bran should never be used as a packing medium, ...
— Practical Taxidermy • Montagu Browne

... in his power to discredit the rumor. To turn attention from himself, he accused the Christians of having conspired to destroy the city, in order to help out their prophecies. The doctrine which was taught by some of the new sect respecting the ...
— A General History for Colleges and High Schools • P. V. N. Myers

... all barbarous tribes are in the stage of mother-right; on the contrary many reckon descent through the father. But even where the latter is the case, vestiges of the former system are frequently to be found. There seems to be a common tendency to discredit a system of relationship, which suggests even as a bare possibility the mother, and not the father, being the head of the family. Yet, I believe I can assign some, at least plausible, reasons for believing that descent through women has ...
— The Position of Woman in Primitive Society - A Study of the Matriarchy • C. Gasquoine Hartley

... council, and in this position he so grew in public favor that, two years afterward (1780), he was chosen as a delegate to the Continental Congress. He was still under thirty, and had he been even a more brilliant young man than he really was, it would not have been to his discredit had he only been seen for the next year or two, if seen at all, in the background. He had taken his seat among men, every one of whom, probably, was his senior, and among whom were many of the wisest men in the country, not ...
— James Madison • Sydney Howard Gay

... waters, purgatives and emetics, and hemlock as a sedative, were in use. If a cure was not effected, the faith of the patient was impugned, and not the power of the god or the skill of the Asclepiades, so that neither religion nor the practice of physic was exposed to discredit. Great was the wisdom of the Greeks! These temples were the famous medical schools of ancient Greece. A spirit of emulation prevailed, and a high ethical standard was attained, as is shown by the oath prescribed for students when they ...
— Outlines of Greek and Roman Medicine • James Sands Elliott

... heart,—our slender appetite for Divine things, which makes us yearn back after Earth, at the very open gate of Heaven;—in one way or other, I repeat, we contrive to evacuate our own admission that the Bible is an inspired Book: we fasten discredit on its every page: we become profane men, like Esau: we ...
— Inspiration and Interpretation - Seven Sermons Preached Before the University of Oxford • John Burgon

... used this book to damage him with those who knew nothing at first-hand of his views. What his enemies feared were not his views on marriage—which, as I have said, was conservative—but his Radicalism and his Atheism. To discredit him as politician they maligned him socially, and the idea that a man desires "to abolish marriage and the home," is a most convenient poniard, and the one most certain to wound. This was the origin of his worst ...
— Annie Besant - An Autobiography • Annie Besant

... Mainwaring can have told you to occasion so extraordinary a change in your sentiments. Have I not explained everything to you with respect to myself which could bear a doubtful meaning, and which the ill-nature of the world had interpreted to my discredit? What can you now have heard to stagger your esteem for me? Have I ever had a concealment from you? Reginald, you agitate me beyond expression, I cannot suppose that the old story of Mrs. Mainwaring's jealousy can be revived again, or at least be LISTENED to again. Come to me immediately, and explain ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen

... place, to tell you that his name is neither Tom, nor Dick, nor Harry. And in the second place, I would remind you that the gentleman honors me with his friendship. And in the third place, that I suffer no one to cast discredit upon my friends. D'you ...
— The Amateur Gentleman • Jeffery Farnol et al

... for the defendant was calm and guarded. It threw, or rather attempted to throw, discredit on the death-bed "fiction," got up, Mr. P —— said, simply with a view to effect; and he concluded by averring that he should be able to establish the genuineness of the will of Ellen Thorndyke, now produced, by irresistible ...
— The Experiences of a Barrister, and Confessions of an Attorney • Samuel Warren

... critical day for the Allies: certainly it was a most critical day in the history of the British Army. For on that day an answer had to be given to a very big question indeed. Hitherto we had been fighting on the defensive—unready, uphill, against odds. It would have been no particular discredit to us had we failed to hold our line. But we had held it, and more. Now, at last, we were ready—as ready as we were ever likely to be. We had the men, the guns, and the munitions. We were in a position to engage the enemy on equal, and more than equal, terms. And the question that the ...
— All In It K(1) Carries On - A Continuation of the First Hundred Thousand • John Hay Beith (AKA: Ian Hay)

... way. It was absolutely unworthy of a convention of any party, a disgrace to decency, and a blot upon the reputation of our country. I am not alone in this opinion. More than once during my official life in Europe I have heard the whole thing lamented by leading liberal statesmen as bringing discredit on all democratic government. ...
— Volume I • Andrew Dickson White

... big hulking men of your stripe, and they'd sock it to you to the full extent of the law. Even if it wasn't tried at court, take it as a hint from me, the men of these mountains would get together in a body and lynch you. Reports have already been going round to your eternal discredit about this child, and one more act of yours will simply settle your hash. This is ...
— Dixie Hart • Will N. Harben

... armed men dashed alongside the Nouvelle Bretagne, and in another five minutes Captain Henry was a prisoner, handcuffed, and on his way to the warship. What he had done at Manila was a daring deed enough, and is a story in itself, and nothing much to his discredit. His ship had been prevented from putting to sea by the Spanish authorities, and Henry, who had many sick on board, and was greatly harassed in mind, suddenly slipped his cable and steamed off, although there ...
— Ridan The Devil And Other Stories - 1899 • Louis Becke

... and it is necessary I should command the fortune of Letitia. As to Maria!—I doubt not by my sang-froid behaviour I shall compel her to decline the match; but the blame must not fall upon me. A prudent man, as my lord says, should take all the credit of a good action to himself, and throw the discredit of a bad one upon others. I must break with Maria, marry Letitia, and as for Charlotte—why, Charlotte must be a ...
— The Contrast • Royall Tyler

... crab, and I'll let you go. For why art thou so eager to catch him, if thou wilt let him go when he is caught? Thus you first accuse, then apologize; and you write calumnies against illustrious men, which again you refute. And you discredit yourself; for you heard no one else but yourself say that the Alcmaeonidae lifted up a shield to the vanquished and flying barbarians. And in those very things which you allege for the Alcmaeonidae, you show yourself a sycophant. For if, as here ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch

... going to say the very same thing," said Mrs. Norris. "If every play is to be objected to, you will act nothing, and the preparations will be all so much money thrown away, and I am sure that would be a discredit to us all. I do not know the play; but, as Maria says, if there is anything a little too warm (and it is so with most of them) it can be easily left out. We must not be over-precise, Edmund. As Mr. Rushworth is to act too, there can be no harm. I only wish Tom had known his own mind when the ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen

... full force of the editorial virulence of the trust-controlled newspapers directed against labor in favor of "law and order," i.e., the lumber interests. All the machinery of newspaper publicity was used to vilify the lumber worker and to discredit his Union. Nothing was left unsaid that would tend to produce intolerance and hatred or to incite mob violence. This is not only true of Centralia, but of all the cities and towns located in the lumber district. Centralia happened to be the ...
— The Centralia Conspiracy • Ralph Chaplin

... against their knees, and continue to bow at each other long after they have passed. In feature and general appearance the Swedes are handsomer than the southern races of Europe, and for that reason wear a nearer resemblance to the Americans. I saw several men in Stockholm who would not have done discredit to California, in point of fine faces and commanding figures. The Swedish ladies are proverbially beautiful. It was really refreshing, after my visit to Russia, to see so many pretty women as I met here. Light hair, oval features, sparkling blue ...
— The Land of Thor • J. Ross Browne

... declared that they are opposed to the extension of the Franchise. Upon reference to the Report he will find that there are only 1564 opposed to the extension. Members appear afraid to touch upon the real question at issue, but try to discredit the memorials by vague statements that some of the signatures are not genuine, and the former member for Johannesburg, Mr. J. Meyer, seems just as anxious to discredit the people of Johannesburg as formerly he was ...
— South Africa and the Transvaal War, Vol. 1 (of 6) - From the Foundation of Cape Colony to the Boer Ultimatum - of 9th Oct. 1899 • Louis Creswicke

... consent of the upper class to the sacred laws and the restoration of the tribuneship. It is a plausible theory that Appius Claudius favored the plebeian claims, and that the tale told above is a later invention to his discredit. ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher

... lie among christians; he therefore erected a mausoleum in his own grounds for his remains, and died without issue, in 1775, at the age of 69.—Many efforts were used after his death, to dispose of the types; but, to the lading discredit of the British nation, no purchaser could be found in the whole commonwealth of letters. The universities coldly rejected the offer. The London booksellers understood no science like that of profit. The valuable property, therefore, ...
— An History of Birmingham (1783) • William Hutton

... hitherto flourished from its abundant supply of convict labour, at the expense of those higher interests which constitute the true strength and security of a state. Western Australia was planted with a sound of trumpets and drums, as if another El Dorado were expected. But the sudden disaster and discredit into which it fell, linked the name of Swan River with associations as obnoxious as those which were once inspired by the South Sea or Missisippi. South Australia, again, planned on principles which are ...
— The Economist - Volume 1, No. 3 • Various

... in this quiet way, Michael replied, "Well, this was another man, madam," and fearing Leah might discredit his fabricated story, he added, "I swear by Erin it ...
— Leah Mordecai • Mrs. Belle Kendrick Abbott

... the popular mind an exacting and ancient tribunal, and began a play that had for spectators men and women that loved the high wasteful virtues. I do not think that their own mixed blood or the habit of their time need take all, or nearly all, credit or discredit for the impulse that made our modern gentlemen fight duels over pocket-handkerchiefs, and set out to play ball against the gates of Jerusalem for a wager, and scatter money before the public eye; and at last, ...
— Gods and Fighting Men • Lady I. A. Gregory

... of Fletcher has expressed his opinion that Licia "sparkles with brilliants of the first water." A more temperate judgment is that of another, who says that he "took part without discredit in the choir of singers who were men of action too." Licia is what a typical sonnet-cycle ought to be, a delicate and almost intangible thread of story on which are strung the separate sonnet-pearls. In this case ...
— Elizabethan Sonnet Cycles - Phillis - Licia • Thomas Lodge and Giles Fletcher

... and do battle with for the honour of that greatest of all Epic Poets to whom he fearlessly said that all the Greeks and Latins must give place. In so doing he might suggest here and there cautiously, and without bringing upon himself the discredit of much heresy,—indeed, without being much of a heretic,—that even the Divine Aristotle sometimes fell short of perfection. The conventional critics who believed they kept the gates of Fame would neither understand ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele

... celestially commissioned to Barnum the spirits in their Foxden exhibitions. Two years previously this gentleman was to be seen at the head of a fanatical and tumultuary offshoot from a cause the most humane and noble. He had done whatever his slender abilities permitted to bring into discredit large-hearted and devoted men and women whom history will honorably remember as New-England Reformers. But to lead anything on a large scale, without a continual winding-up by his companion, the fibrous Mrs. Romulus, was beyond the crassitude of Stellato's pursy nature. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 80, June, 1864 • Various

... everything gay and dashing and out-doory and adventuresome, with insatiable curiosity and the gift of song. Of course, Shakespeare, Drake, Raleigh, ought to have the credit—but they don't get it, any more than Tennyson comes in on the Victorian discredit. The head that wears a ...
— Penguin Persons & Peppermints • Walter Prichard Eaton

... discredit the value of experience, and attach a terrible reality to the conclusion of Coleridge, that "it is like the stern-light of a vessel—illuminating only the path ...
— The Redemption of David Corson • Charles Frederic Goss

... Madame du Maine hates Bienville because she can not use him in her dealings with Spain. She has duped the Bretons by the promise of an independent provincial government, but Bienville stands true to his King. So they seek by every means to discredit him. You may surmise from this how unfortunately our affairs here are complicated in the affairs of great personages, where lesser men lose their lives at ...
— The Black Wolf's Breed - A Story of France in the Old World and the New, happening - in the Reign of Louis XIV • Harris Dickson

... been charged, with a view to discredit missionary effort in India, that the converts gathered into the Christian fold have been from the lowest social stratum, and not from the higher and ruling classes of society. Even if this charge were entirely true, I can see in it nothing reflecting ...
— India's Problem Krishna or Christ • John P. Jones

... the victims of a great deal of cheap slander in the press. The men who have seen most of the Boers in the field are the most generous in estimating their character. That the white flag was hoisted by the Boers as a cold-blooded device for luring our men into the open, is an absolute calumny. To discredit their valour is to discredit our victory.' My own opinion would have been worthless, but this was, as I say, the result of considerable inquiry. General Porter said: 'On a few occasions the white flag was abused, but in what large community would you not find ...
— The War in South Africa - Its Cause and Conduct • Arthur Conan Doyle

... battle-field. It is well observed, that such an act of wilful provocation must have convinced both parties of the hopelessness of any attempts towards a pacific arrangement; and, since the negociations were carried on to the very last, some discredit has thence been attempted to be thrown on the story altogether. But it must be remembered (as the author of the Abrege Historique justly remarks) that these negociations were continued, on the part of France, merely to gain time, ...
— Henry of Monmouth, Volume 2 - Memoirs of Henry the Fifth • J. Endell Tyler

... frankly that an England governed as she is at present is a country I loathe. If I raise my hand against her—not in war, mind, but in diplomacy—if I strive to humble her to-day, it is because I would cover if I could the political party who are in power at this moment with disrepute and discredit. Why should you yourself shrink from aiding me in this task? They are the party in whose ranks—high in whose ranks, I might say—are those who stooped with baseness, with deceit unmentionable, to rid themselves ...
— The Mischief Maker • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... any demand is made on her sympathies; and when she is not studying, she and her school friends are running in and out of each other's houses, so that her mother might as well have no daughter at all." I do beg that none of you will bring this discredit on school life, for the system gets blamed when it is really your individual shortcoming which is in fault; you ought to be big enough to hold both school and home interests! But, setting aside this form of term-time ...
— Stray Thoughts for Girls • Lucy H. M. Soulsby

... not required to say anything distinctly to the discredit or disadvantage of Mr. Dodge, but you are required, Mr. Anstey, to give any information that will aid the authorities in running down this outrage and its perpetrators. Again, sir, why did you imagine that Mr. Dodge would ...
— Dick Prescott's First Year at West Point • H. Irving Hancock

... school of that day he had no antipathy even to the mythological portions of the Christian religion, no desire to discredit it, nor ambition to distinguish himself in a crusade against it. On the contrary, he was always resolute to live well with it. His mind was too broad, his habit of thought too tolerant, to admit ...
— Benjamin Franklin • John Torrey Morse, Jr.

... literary beginner, every small literary adventurer who came to his court and went away charmed from the great king's audience, and cuddling to his heart the compliment which his literary majesty had paid him—each of the two good-natured potentates of letters brought their star and ribbon into discredit. Everybody had his majesty's orders. Everybody had his Majesty's cheap portrait, on a box surrounded with diamonds worth twopence a-piece. A very great and just and wise man ought not to praise indiscriminately, but give his idea of the truth. Addison praises the ingenious Mr. Pinkethman: ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray



Words linked to "Discredit" :   infamy, doubt, dishonor, believe, disregard, suspect, pick at, push aside, distrust, disgrace, ignore, dismiss, discount, brush aside, disparage, repute



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