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Disown   Listen
verb
Disown  v. t.  (past & past part. disowned; pres. part. disowning)  
1.
To refuse to own or acknowledge as belonging to one's self; to disavow or deny, as connected with one's self personally; as, a parent can hardly disown his child; an author will sometimes disown his writings.
2.
To refuse to acknowledge or allow; to deny. "Then they, who brother's better claim disown, Expel their parents, and usurp the throne."
Synonyms: To disavow; disclaim; deny; abnegate; renounce; disallow.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Disown" Quotes from Famous Books



... which is at once jocund and keen, is one of Pound's qualities. Ovid, Catullus—he does not disown them. He only uses these accents for his familiars; with the others he is on the edge of paradox, pamphleteering, ...
— Ezra Pound: His Metric and Poetry • T.S. Eliot

... sheets beyond the privilege of franking; that privilege, sir, of which you take an undue advantage over a too susceptible senator, by forwarding your lucubrations to every one but himself. I won't frank from you, or for you, or to you—may I be curst if I do, unless you mend your manners. I disown you—I disclaim you—and by all the powers of Eulogy, I will write a panegyric upon you—or dedicate a quarto—if you ...
— The Works of Lord Byron: Letters and Journals, Volume 2. • Lord Byron

... right in that way. But in the end I did neither, and I have since survived my mortal shame some forty years or more. But at the time it did not seem possible that I should live through the day with it, and I thought that I ought at least to go and confess it to Hawthorne, and let, him disown the wretch who had so poorly repaid the kindness of his introduction by such misbehavior. I did indeed walk down by the Wayside, in the cool of the evening, and there I saw Hawthorne for the last time. He was sitting on one of the timbers beside his ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... comfort, that they might marry exactly as they pleased—I would never thwart them. I should be too happy to get them out of my way. If they married well, one would have all the credit; if ill, one would have an excuse to disown them. As I said before, I dislike poor relations. Though if Camilla lives at the Lakes when she is married, it is but a letter now and then; and that's your wife's trouble, not yours. But, Spencer—what ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 4 • Edward Bulwer Lytton

... would not have permitted him to accept. What boys, and even what men, think, when stimulated by ambition, would be too ridiculous to put upon paper. If their thoughts could be disclosed to the impertinent eye of the world, the proprietors would blushingly disown ...
— The Young Lieutenant - or, The Adventures of an Army Officer • Oliver Optic

... these facts are so notorious that even Infidels disown allegiance or attachment to Paine, if they wish to be considered respectable. Some of the severest denunciations against him, which we ever heard, have been from Infidels. Indeed this is more than plain from the very fact of all the Infidels having forsaken Paine on his ...
— Fables of Infidelity and Facts of Faith - Being an Examination of the Evidences of Infidelity • Robert Patterson

... a great sensation in the business world. Madame Desvarennes's son-in-law was on the board. It was a good speculation, then? People consulted the mistress, who found herself somewhat in a dilemma; either she must disown her son-in-law, or speak well of the affair. Still she did not hesitate, for she was loyal and honest above all things. She declared the speculation was a poor one, and did all she could to prevent any of ...
— Serge Panine, Complete • Georges Ohnet

... and governors such as the Word of God and our Covenant allows, yet we for ourselves, and all that will adhere to us, do, by thir presents, disown Charles Stuart, that has been reigning (or rather tyrannizing as we may say) on the throne of Britain these years bygone, as having any right or title to, or interest in, the crown of Scotland for government, he having forfeited the ...
— Ringan Gilhaize - or The Covenanters • John Galt

... Cousin Agnes! if you had been by to hear the foul slanders which Sir Fulk has been telling the Prince—oh, Agnes! you would disown him for ...
— The Lances of Lynwood • Charlotte M. Yonge

... disown my kindred," said Alizon. "Still, I must confess that some notions of the sort have crossed me, arising, probably, from my mother's extraordinary treatment, and from many other circumstances, which, though trifling in themselves, ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth

... for God's sake, no, Miss Mary! He has never seen him from his birth: he does not know him. He will disown him. He will curse him,—will ...
— Two Men of Sandy Bar - A Drama • Bret Harte

... female race—she don't slop over worth a cent." He invariably spoke of her as "my Mexican girl," and often asked my opinion about white men intermarrying with that mongrel race. Sometimes he said that his mother would go crazy if he married a Mexican, his father would disown him, and his brother Henry—well, Billy did not like to think just what revenge Henry would take. Billy's father was manager of an Eastern road, and his brother was assistant to the first vice-president, and Billy looked up to the latter ...
— Danger Signals • John A. Hill and Jasper Ewing Brady

... it very wrong—hideously wrong—if, after all that has passed between you, there should now be any doubt as to your affection for each other. If such doubt were now to arise with her, I should almost disown my sister." ...
— The Claverings • Anthony Trollope

... deny inwardly our sympathy with nature. We own and disown our relation to it, by turns. We are, like Nebuchadnezzar, dethroned, bereft of reason, and eating grass like an ox. But who can set limits to the remedial force ...
— Nature • Ralph Waldo Emerson

... that. However badly he may have behaved to you in the past he is still your brother. You couldn't be so heartless as to disown him. I'll tell him to come out. And you will shake hands with him, won't you, Uncle Jack? [Runs back into ...
— The Importance of Being Earnest - A Trivial Comedy for Serious People • Oscar Wilde

... closest intimacy we knew was when together we shared one moment of the same beauty; no other intimacy approaches the reality of that; it is now strengthened to a degree unrealized before. For me that is enough. I have that faith, that certainty, that knowledge. Should you come to me otherwise I must disown you. Should you stammer through another's earthly lips that you now enjoy a mere idealized repetition of your physical limitations, I should know my love, my memory, my hope degraded, ...
— The Garden of Survival • Algernon Blackwood

... would have completely won my love. The rivalry between the two brothers led to bitter estrangement, which soon became known to their father, who lost no time in ascertaining its cause. His anger on learning the facts in the case was extreme; he wrote me an insulting letter, and threatened to disown either or both of his sons unless they discontinued their attentions to a 'disreputable adventuress,' as he chose to style me. Hugh Mainwaring at once deserted me, without even a word of explanation or of farewell, and, as if that were not enough, on more than one occasion he openly insulted me ...
— That Mainwaring Affair • Maynard Barbour

... for a shuffler long I've known thee, But come—for once I'll not disown thee, And since with patriot zeal thou burnest, With thee I'll live—or ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange

... my dear, and James Batty never misses a chance of improving his position. Good as it is, it would be all the better for an alliance with our family, but I shall disown you at once if you marry one of those hobbledehoys. The Batty's, ...
— THE MISSES MALLETT • E. H. YOUNG

... father, in a fury, "you WILL leave it, sir, and this very day too! I disown you from this time. I'll have no atheist for my son! Change your views or leave ...
— We Two • Edna Lyall

... the last silver crown of my pension. But to buy a doll for you—a thousand thunders!—to disgrace you! Never in the world! Why, if I were even to see you playing with a puppet rigged out like that, monsieur, my sister's son, I would disown you for ...
— The Bed-Book of Happiness • Harold Begbie

... time is now coming when Love must be gone, Tho' he never abandoned me yet. Acknowledge our friendship, our passion disown, Our follies (ah can ...
— Victorian Songs - Lyrics of the Affections and Nature • Various

... interest of his difference—yes. And as I didn't disown him, as I knew him—which you at last, confronted with him in his difference, so cruelly didn't, my dear,—well, he must have been, you see, less dreadful to me. And it may have pleased ...
— The Jolly Corner • Henry James

... refused me to the last. It was no news; but, on the other hand, it could not be contorted into good news. I was now certain that during my temporary absence in France, all irons would be put into the fire, and the world turned upside down, to make Flora disown the obtrusive Frenchman and accept Chevenix. Without doubt she would resist these instances: but the thought of them did not please me, and I felt she should be warned and ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 20 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... darter!—Don't disown the old fellow in his last moments, Judith, for that's a sin the Lord will never overlook. If you're not Thomas Hutter's darter, whose darter ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper

... Silurian from Upper, in the one region, are of the same dates as the like partings in the other region; does it not seem that he believes geologic "systems" to be universal, in the sense that their separations were in all places contemporaneous? Though he would, doubtless, disown this as an article of faith, is not his thinking unconsciously influenced by it? Must we not say that, though the onion-coat hypothesis is dead, its spirit is traceable, under a transcendental form, even in the conclusions of ...
— Essays: Scientific, Political, & Speculative, Vol. I • Herbert Spencer

... on all occasions, as ability allows, to provide honestly for them and their children; and to oblige the women to the same or like conditions, on their side. Now, sir," says he, "these men may, when they please, or when occasion presents, abandon these women, disown their children, leave them to perish, and take other women, and marry them while these are living;" and here he added, with some warmth, "How, sir, is God honoured in this unlawful liberty? And how shall a blessing succeed your endeavours ...
— The Further Adventures of Robinson Crusoe • Daniel Defoe

... "My great-grandfather would disown me! Winning a fight and no scalp to show! Not even ...
— Space Tug • Murray Leinster

... pride disown'd me, A' views were dark around me, And sad and laigh she found me, As friendless worth could be; When ither hope gaed frae me, Her pity kind did stay me, And love for love she ga'e me; And that 's the ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume II. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various

... objected, that it is no argument that the rule is not known, because it is broken. I grant the objection good where men, though they transgress, yet disown not the law; where fear of shame, censure, or punishment, carries the mark of some awe it has upon them. But it is impossible to conceive that a whole nation of men should all publicly reject and renounce what every ...
— An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding, Volume I. - MDCXC, Based on the 2nd Edition, Books I. and II. (of 4) • John Locke

... 'squire till lately he had claimed; Now scarcely was he even mister named; Of wealth by Cupid's stratagems bereft, A single farm was all the man had left; Friends very few, and such as God alone, Could tell if friendship they might not disown; The best were led their pity to express; 'Twas all he got: it could not well be less; To lend without security was wrong, And former favours they'd forgotten long; With all that Frederick could or say or do, His liberal conduct ...
— The Tales and Novels, Complete • Jean de La Fontaine

... past two weeks (for 'last two weeks,' and all similar expressions relating to a definite time); poetess; portion (for 'part'); posted (for 'informed'); progress (for 'advance'); reliable (for 'trustworthy'); rendition (for 'performance'); repudiate (for 'reject' or 'disown'); retire (as an active verb); Rev. (for 'the Rev.'); rôle (for 'part'); roughs; rowdies; secesh; sensation (for 'noteworthy event'); standpoint (for 'point of view'); start, in the sense of setting out; state (for 'say'); taboo; talent (for 'talents' ...
— The Verbalist • Thomas Embly Osmun, (AKA Alfred Ayres)

... and traders that formed the body-guard of the President, and were using the Republican party as the instrument of wholesale schemes of jobbery and pelf? To charge the Liberal Republicans with apostasy because they had the moral courage to disown and denounce these men was to invent a definition of the term which would have made all the great apostates of ...
— Political Recollections - 1840 to 1872 • George W. Julian

... have been dead some time," he argued humorously. "They'd probably disown their descendants if they'd survived until now. But here's a Frenchman's work. They're on our side, and his stuff is pretty good, ...
— Brandon of the Engineers • Harold Bindloss

... youth, because everything smiled on you, your country had done you no injustice; you loved it as we love anything that makes us happy. But the day in which you see yourself poor and hungry, persecuted, betrayed, and sold by your own countrymen, on that day you will disown yourself, ...
— The Social Cancer - A Complete English Version of Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal

... the lack of them as a misfortune: but a perpetual exclusion, and the motives of that exclusion, appeared to him to be an injury. He saw the minister, and explained that though he did not acknowledge the 'Persian Letters,' he would not disown a work for which he had no reason to blush; and that he ought to be judged upon its contents, and not upon mere hearsay. At last the minister read the book, loved the author, and learned wisdom as to his advisers. The French Academy obtained one of its greatest ornaments, and France had the happiness ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner

... work (referring to his Historia de las ideas esteticas de Espana) suffers from a certain uncertainty, from the theoretical point of view of its author, Menendez de Pelayo, which was that of a perfervid Spanish humanist, who, not wishing to disown the Renaissance, invented what he called Vivism, the philosophy of Luis Vives, and perhaps for no other reason than because he himself, like Vives, was an eclectic Spaniard of the Renaissance. And it is true that Menendez ...
— Tragic Sense Of Life • Miguel de Unamuno

... and instincts drawing us, with infinite further possibilities suggesting themselves to reflection; the more developed our natures the more frequently do our desires conflict. Why is any one better than another? How can we decide between them? Or shall we perhaps disown them all for some other and ...
— Problems of Conduct • Durant Drake

... roused Henry's bile. "What, am I a criminal to deny my name? And how shall I look, if I go and give her a false name, and then she comes to Bayne and learns my right one? No, I'll keep my name back, if I can; but I'll never disown it. I'm not ashamed of it, ...
— Put Yourself in His Place • Charles Reade

... of all men,—it was at this time that I fell in with the writings of Newman, and that he began to exercise a charm over me, which, amid all my subsequent changes of thought, I have never been willing to disown. ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 22, September, 1891 • Various

... us," with more to the like effect. Upon such an occasion the interference of government became necessary. The government did indeed interfere, and by a vote of council ordered, that whoever owned, or refused to disown, the declaration on oath, should be put to death in the presence of two witnesses, though unarmed when taken. The execution of this massacre in the welvet counties which were principally concerned, was committed to the military, and exceeded, if possible, the order ...
— A History of the Early Part of the Reign of James the Second • Charles James Fox

... gets you," his mother answered, with a sneer, "I guess she'll forget it. I want to inform you," she added, and she had reserved this broadside for her final effort, "if you marry that low creature I'll disown you, and I know your father will cut you off with a shilling, and let you go to her and her low, drunken sot of a ...
— From Wealth to Poverty • Austin Potter

... to me a good deal on the increase. Lucy, has he not rather the air of an incipient John Bull? He used to be slender as an eel, and now I fancy in him a sort of heavy dragoon bent—a beef-eater tendency. Graham, take notice! If you grow fat I disown you." ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte

... activity, founded on a wide and eager observation of the world, and make them direct their ways by a superior prudence, which has little or nothing in common with the maxims of the copy-book. That many of us lead such lives as they would heartily disown after two hours' serious reflection on the subject is, I am afraid, a true, and, I am sure, a very galling thought. The Enchanted Ground of dead- alive respectability is next, upon the map, to the Beulah of considerate virtue. But there ...
— Familiar Studies of Men & Books • Robert Louis Stevenson

... kind, my ever beloved mother, deign to receive a letter from her guilty, but repentant child? or has she, justly incensed at my ingratitude, driven the unhappy Charlotte from her remembrance? Alas! thou much injured mother! shouldst thou even disown me, I dare not complain, because I know I have deserved it: but yet, believe me, guilty as I am, and cruelly as I have disappointed the hopes of the fondest parents, that ever girl had, even in the moment when, forgetful of my duty, I fled from you and happiness, ...
— Charlotte Temple • Susanna Rowson

... another glass. "What?" he screamed. "You deny the universal kinship of man? You disown your starving brothers? Proud tyrant, remember the Bastille!" He burst into tears and began to ...
— The Valley of Decision • Edith Wharton

... a mother that never prayed in her life!" returned John; "—of a woman that never had an anxiety but for herself!—I don't believe you are my mother. If I was born of you, there must have been some juggling with my soul in antenatal regions! I disown you!" cried John with indignation that grew ...
— The Flight of the Shadow • George MacDonald

... ground, the writer suddenly raises us aloft on wings of air, and will carry us we know not where, and to we know not what. 3. The paragraphs thus presented, and which constitute Chu Hsi's first chapter, contain the sum of the whole Work. This is acknowledged by all;— by the critics who disown Chu Hsi's interpretations of it, as freely as by him [1]. Revolving them in my own mind often and long, I collect from them the following as the ideas of the author:— Firstly, Man has received from Heaven a moral nature by which he is constituted ...
— THE CHINESE CLASSICS (PROLEGOMENA) Unicode Version • James Legge

... your gallantry? On my honour, I disown you,' exclaimed my uncle, with more energy than ...
— Uncle Silas - A Tale of Bartram-Haugh • J.S. Le Fanu

... though not Shetland born, as far as we know, married to young Bertha Eswick, daughter to our good cousin Dame Eswick, at present governess, manager, or housekeeper of Lunnasting Castle. Thus, you understand, Rolf Morton is our cousin by marriage; and who would disown him because he is at present but an humble pilot! A finer fellow or a truer seaman does not step, though I say ...
— Ronald Morton, or the Fire Ships - A Story of the Last Naval War • W.H.G. Kingston

... a marshal of France, a baron of the duchy, should be sheltered from the slanders of small folk, whom I disown as my servants if they are untrue to ...
— The Book of Were-Wolves • Sabine Baring-Gould

... each other; the former are the results of our own limited wisdom, the latter, those of that wisdom which endures. The providential event appears after the human event. God rises up behind men. Deny, if you will, the supreme counsel; disown its action; dispute about words; designate, by the term, force of circumstances, or reason, what the vulgar call Providence; but look to the end of an accomplished fact, and you will see that it has always ...
— Essays on Political Economy • Frederic Bastiat

... wert so fair and dear That death would fain disown thee, grief made wise With prophecy thy husband's widowed eyes And bade him call the master's art to rear Thy perfect image on the sculptured bier, With dreaming lids, hands laid in peaceful guise Beneath the breast that seems to fall and rise, And ...
— The Early Short Fiction of Edith Wharton, Part 2 (of 10) • Edith Wharton

... misfortune, except to those who lack the wit to see or sense to appreciate the service, or the nobility of soul to thank and reward with eulogy, the benefactor of his kind. His influences live, and the great Future will obey; whether it recognize or disown ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike

... fear greatly the permanent influence of these fundamental errors. The great heart of the civilised world still beats true, and is healthy enough to disown so maimed an account of human nature. Yet there is danger in any such element in literature as this. Mr. Shaw's biographer has virtually told us that in these matters he is but a child in whom "Irish innocence is peculiar and fundamental." The pleadings of the nurse for the precocious ...
— Among Famous Books • John Kelman

... we are so sure of the ultimate result, that it pleases us to linger in pathetic sympathy over these reverses of the early campaign, just as we do over the troubles that environ the heroine of a novel on her way to the happy ending. Again, people are very ready to disown the pleasure they take in a thing merely because it is big, as an Alp, or merely because it is little, as a little child; and yet this pleasure is surely as legitimate as another. There is much of it here; we have an irrational indulgence for small folk; we ask but little where there is so little ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XXII (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... journey on the following day, Such brief possession mortals hold In sire and mother, house and gold, And never will the good and wise The brief uncertain lodging prize. Nor, best of men, shouldst thou disown Thy sire's hereditary throne, And tread the rough and stony ground Where hardship, danger, woes abound. Come, let Ayodhya rich and bright See thee enthroned with every rite: Her tresses bound in single braid(387) She waits thy coming long delayed. O come, thou royal Prince, ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI

... generation has shown itself acrimoniously critical. It slaps tradition and names its novels and poetry as Adam named the animals in the garden, out of its own imagination. The war shook it loose from convention, and like a boy sent away to college, its first impulse is to disown the Main Street that bore it. Youth of the 90's admired its elders and imitated them unsuccessfully. Youth of the nineteen twenties imitates France and Russia of the 70's, and contemporary England. It may eventually do more than the 90's did with America; in the meantime, while it flounders in ...
— Definitions • Henry Seidel Canby

... Swift having in a political pamphlet passed some sarcasms on the Scottish nation, as a poor and fierce people, the Scythians of Britain,—the Scottish peers, headed by the Duke of Argyll, went in a body to the ministers, and compelled them to disown the sentiments which had been expressed by their partisan, and offer a reward of three hundred pounds for the author of the libel, well known to be the best advocate and most intimate friend of the existing administration. They demanded ...
— Political Pamphlets • George Saintsbury

... private. I do not meet in private because I am afraid to have meetings in public. I bless the Lord that my heart is at that point, that if any man can lay anything to my charge, either in doctrine or practice, in this particular, that can be proved error or heresy, I am willing to disown it, even in the very market place; but if it be truth, then to stand to it to the last drop of my blood. And, Sir, said I, you ought to commend me for so doing. To err and to be a heretic are two things; I am no heretic, ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... say when he hears the Meeting means to disown us? It troubles me deeply. My father is trembling too, for since a month he is all for resisting oppression, and who has been talking to him I do not know. Miss Wynne called him a decrepit weathercock to me last month, and then ...
— Hugh Wynne, Free Quaker • S. Weir Mitchell

... forward, you can tow me after you if it comes to that. So far from envying you, I will dedicate my life to yours. The thing that you have just done for me, when you risked the loss of your benefactress, your love it may be, rather than forsake or disown me, that little thing, so great as it was—ah, well, Lucien, that in itself would bind me to you forever if we were not brothers already. Have no remorse, no concern over seeming to take the larger share. This one-sided bargain is exactly to my taste. And, after all, suppose that you should ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac

... darkest. The imperfect, that is everywhere. That is all that you can see or work at. That is the warp and woof of all your occupations and institutions, your politics, your science, your religion. They are all nearly as bad as they are good. Your science has forever to disown its past. Your politics demands that you shall be particeps criminis in its evil as the price of a position in which you can exert any influence. Your historic church is almost as full of Satan as ...
— Modern American Prose Selections • Various

... high, and have each a dormer-window, curtained with white dimity, so that they look like five elderly dames in caps; and the court has gotten the name of Five-Sisters Court, to the despair of Every Lane, which felt its sole chance for respectability slip away when the court came to disown its patronymic. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 87, January, 1865 • Various

... judging from my own observations, I do not believe there is any of the much-talked-of temporizing spirit about all this compliance, but that in most of the cases in which the agents of the government disown the distinguishing principles of the institutions (and these cases have got to be so numerous as to attract general attention, and to become the subject of sneering newspaper comments) it is "out of the fulness of the heart that the mouth speaketh." ...
— A Residence in France - With An Excursion Up The Rhine, And A Second Visit To Switzerland • J. Fenimore Cooper

... Burlingame with the look of a woman of the Commune and said: "If I had a son I would disown him if he didn't mangle you till your wife would never know you again, you loathesome thing. There isn't a man or woman in Askatoon who'd believe your sickening slanders, for every one knows what you are. How dare you enter this house? If the ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... now, as well as his son understood him. She knew that, if she were to yield to Bob Worthington, his father would disown and disinherit him. She looked ahead into the years as a woman will, and allowed herself for the briefest of moments to wonder whether any happiness could thrive in spite of the violence of that schism—any ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... gave her hand to him, and called herself his wife. Therefore, she was his wife: and is his widow. She owes him everything; the house you are all living in among the rest. She ought to be proud of her brief connection with that pure, heroic spirit, and, when she is so little noble as to disown him, then say that gratitude and justice have no ...
— White Lies • Charles Reade

... from La Guayra to Cadiz, with a general cargo and—two large boxes of silver bricks, which we found stowed away down in the run. Her papers are all perfectly correct, and she is evidently a prize to the brigantine. The rascals on board her profess to be her regular crew, and disown all acquaintance with the crew of the 'Juanita,' but there are twice as many men on board as are entered in the ship's books, and altogether their tale is far too flimsy to hold water. I have no doubt they are a prize ...
— Under the Meteor Flag - Log of a Midshipman during the French Revolutionary War • Harry Collingwood

... began again, five minutes later. "I don't understand Turgenev. That Bazarov of his is a fictitious figure, it does not exist anywhere. The fellows themselves were the first to disown him as unlike anyone. That Bazarov is a sort of indistinct mixture of Nozdryov and Byron, c'est le mot. Look at them attentively: they caper about and squeal with joy like puppies in the sun. They are happy, they are victorious! What is there of Byron in them!... and with that, ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky

... same law, so we see the positive and negative poles of North and South again reflected in the rapidly increasing divisions among us of Conservatives, who, by a singular fatality, still indicate the plebeian origin which they would now so gladly disown by the term Democrats; and, on the other hand, of Republicans, nick-named at present Radicals—somewhat unjustly; since the term is strictly applicable only to a very limited ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. II. July, 1862. No. 1. • Various

... he to himself, "is my legitimate son. I am sure of his birth, at any rate. Besides I should be foolish to disown him, for I find him the exact picture of myself at thirty. He is a handsome fellow, Noel, very handsome. His features are decidedly in his favour. He is intelligent and acute. He knows how to be humble without lowering himself, and firm without arrogance. His unexpected good fortune does not turn ...
— The Widow Lerouge - The Lerouge Case • Emile Gaboriau

... same air, or use the same light, with me; but get an atmosphere and a sun of your own! I'll strip you of your commission; I'll lodge a five-and-threepence in the hands of trustees, and you shall live on the interest! I'll disown you, I'll disinherit you! I'll never call you ...
— Standard Selections • Various

... it!" was Falconer's caution, serious beneath its air of banter, and on the other hand Billy perceived in the cautioner a latent uneasiness considered so irrational that he was doing his sensible best to disown it. ...
— The Palace of Darkened Windows • Mary Hastings Bradley

... Verna demeans itself to you at Brantwood—I'll disown it and be dreadfully ashamed for it! The other little things if they'll condescend to come shall be thanked and honored with my best. Only please now don't ...
— Hortus Inclusus - Messages from the Wood to the Garden, Sent in Happy Days - to the Sister Ladies of the Thwaite, Coniston • John Ruskin

... Church matters, and tyrannised in matters civil, that the people of Scotland do no longer owe him allegiance; and although I stand up for governments and governors, such as God's Word and our covenants allow, I will surely—with all who choose to join me— disown Charles Stuart as ...
— Hunted and Harried • R.M. Ballantyne

... shadows to fulfill Of the less volume which conceal'd his will, Took John and Peter from their homely care, And made them pillars of his temple fair. Nor in imperial Rome would He be born, Whom servile Judah yet received with scorn: E'en Bethlehem could her infant King disown, And the rude manger was his early throne. Victorious sufferings did his pomp display, Nor other chariot or triumphal way. At once by Heaven's example and decree, Such ...
— The Sonnets, Triumphs, and Other Poems of Petrarch • Petrarch

... by the religious manners of Mary; partly by the cold and unsocial temper of William, who shunned excess, not perhaps because it was criminal, but because it was derogatory; partly by the political fashion of the day, which was to disown the profligacy that marked the partisans of the Stuarts; but, most of all, by the general increase of good taste, and the improvement of education. All these contributed to the encouragement of Dryden's great undertaking, which promised to rescue Virgil from ...
— The Dramatic Works of John Dryden Vol. I. - With a Life of the Author • Sir Walter Scott

... have painted pictures for the blind, And sung my sweetest songs to ears of stone. What matter if the dust of ages drift Five fathoms deep above my grave unknown, For I have sung and loved the songs I sung. Who sings for fame the Muses may disown; Who sings for gold will sing an idle song; But he who sings because sweet music springs Unbidden from his heart and warbles long, May haply touch another heart unknown. There is sweeter poetry in the hearts of men Than ever poet wrote or minstrel sung; For words are clumsy ...
— The Feast of the Virgins and Other Poems • H. L. Gordon

... Continental politics will be found only in the columns of the Pall Mall Gazette, The Statesman and the Capitalist, the Country Gentleman and the Divine, will be amongst our readers, because our writers are amongst them. We address ourselves to the higher circles of society: we care not to disown it—the Pall Mall Gazette is written by gentlemen for gentlemen; its conductors speak to the classes in which they live and were born. The field-preacher has his journal, the radical free-thinker has his journal: why should the ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray

... never understand thee, and those nearest to thee will most thoroughly disown and betray thee; I look into the future, and I hear them cry, "Stone him!" Now, when thine own inspiration, like a lion, stands beside thee and guards thee, vulgarity ventures not to approach thee. Thy mother said recently, "The ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various

... legal council, representing the Proprietors as their deputies, which being now altered, we do not look on the gentlemen present to be a legal council; so I am ordered to tell you, that the representatives of the people do disown them as such, and will not act ...
— An Historical Account Of The Rise And Progress Of The Colonies Of South Carolina And Georgia, Volume 1 • Alexander Hewatt

... already revoked the exequatur of a Russian consul who had enlisted in the military service of the insurgents, and we shall dismiss or demand the recall of every foreign agent, consular or diplomatic, who shall either disobey the Federal laws or disown the ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln

... my friend, thou sage mysterious, What Nymph, what Muse disown'd the strain Which bade our heedless mirth be serious, And woke ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 341, March, 1844, Vol. 55 • Various

... III 2 Thine arrows Lycian King! O Phoebus, let thy fiery lances fly Resistless, as they rove Through Xanthus' mountain-grove! O Thoeban Bacchus of the lustrous eye, With torch and trooping Maenads and bright crown Blaze on thee god whom all in Heaven disown. [OEDIPUS has entered during ...
— The Seven Plays in English Verse • Sophocles

... of a Divine Providence renders a man incapable of holding any public station; for, since kings avow themselves to be the deputies of Providence, the Lilliputians think nothing can be more absurd than for a prince to employ such men as disown the ...
— Gulliver's Travels - into several remote nations of the world • Jonathan Swift

... in earthy dull durations I Mine heirdom of Eternity implore. Give one star-drunken moment ere I die, Then doom me dreadless to the implacable Door. That mystical Assumption shall disown Time's haughtiest lieges. Grey mortality Will disenchant the jewel-breded throne Of Cassiopeia when more burningly My deed exults with angels. I will borrow From continuity no larva-lease: Through sworded crises and great compts of sorrow I seek the splendour ...
— The Hours of Fiammetta - A Sonnet Sequence • Rachel Annand Taylor

... the world unfeeling frown, Must I fond Nature's claim disown? Ah, no—though moralists reprove, I hail thee, dearest child of love, Fair cherub, pledge of youth and joy— A Father guards thy birth, ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. I. (of VI.) - With his Letters and Journals. • Thomas Moore

... you know that we are all descended from her, and it would hardly be polite not to go wish her a good-day, when my grandnephew, who has come from such a distance, has perhaps never before had a good look at her. I'll not disown her, may the devil take me if I do. To be sure she is mad, but all the same, old mothers who have passed their hundredth year are not often to be seen, and she well deserves that we should show ourselves ...
— Doctor Pascal • Emile Zola

... Fom did disown each other and adopt a chum from the outside world. One Beulah, known as "Bombey," Forrest was always ready obligingly to serve either or both of them in the capacity of dearest friend. But other playmates were tame after being accustomed to ...
— The Madigans • Miriam Michelson

... different kind: for, observing how little good effect he had found by his liberality and indulgence, he would needs try the other extreme, which was not his talent. He began to infringe the articles of his charter; to recall or disown the promises he had made; and to repulse petitioners with rough treatment, which was the more unacceptable by being ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. X. • Jonathan Swift

... fear my father's violence," he said, "but I do fear his anger. When it came to the point he would not imprison me. I would marry Margaret to-morrow if that was my only fear. No; he would disown me. I should take Margaret from her father, and give her a poor husband, who would never thrive, weighed down by his parent's curse. Madam! I sometimes think if I could marry her secretly, and then ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade

... not have been better to have denied Him at the first than to have waited till the light had grown as clear as it has been, and to have deserted Him when He needed thee most? Better to have denied Him then, when evidence was feeble, than to disown Him, known as thou hast ...
— Memoranda Sacra • J. Rendel Harris

... though not more formal, than the heresiarch himself, so here too, in like manner, I may be describing a school of thought in its fully developed proportions, which at present every one, to whom membership with it is imputed, will at once begin to disown, and I may be pointing to teachers whom no one will be able to descry. Still, it is not less true that I may be speaking of tendencies and elements which exist, and he may come in person at last, who comes at first to us merely in his spirit and ...
— The Idea of a University Defined and Illustrated: In Nine - Discourses Delivered to the Catholics of Dublin • John Henry Newman

... shook her head. "Bless yo' heart, honey, it's mean to deny it now; but, disown her or not, she'll stick to you and pester you; and you'll find it out if ever you try to drive her off. You'll have as hard a time ...
— Jewel's Story Book • Clara Louise Burnham

... the exact answer to any of these questions. They are points for us to work out together now you are a man. Jean is in some way bound to Le Claire. If by blood ties, why does the priest not own, or entirely disown him? If not, why does ...
— The Price of the Prairie - A Story of Kansas • Margaret Hill McCarter

... a convent, Jansoulet felt permeated with that provincial and Catholic atmosphere wherein the memories of his Southern past revived, childish impressions still fresh and intact, thanks to his long exile, impressions which the son of Francoise had had neither time nor occasion to disown since his arrival in Paris. Worldly hypocrisy had assumed all its different shapes before him, tried all its masks, except that of religious integrity. So that he refused in his own mind to believe in the venality of a man who lived in such ...
— The Nabob, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet

... your bishops. Deride the spiritual authority of your priests. Then shall we know that you are men and masters of your own consciences. Elect a Unionist Council in every county, a Unionist Corporation in Dublin, then shall we know that you are brothers. Disown your dead leaders. Spit on the grave of Emmet. Teach your children that every Fenian was a murderer. Erase from your chronicles the name of Parnell. Then shall we know ...
— The Open Secret of Ireland • T. M. Kettle

... Who holds the marriage torch—august, divine, Bids me to her sweet voice my will resign. She fears my death—tho' baseless this her fright, Pauline is wrung with fear—by day—by night; My road to duty hampered by her fears, How can I go when all undried her tears? Her terror I disown—and all alarms, Yet pity holds me in her loving arms: No bolts or bars imprison,—yet her sighs My fetters are—my conquerors, her eyes! Say, kind Nearchus, is the cause you press Such as to make me deaf to her distress? The bonds ...
— Polyuecte • Pierre Corneille

... displaying a huge, rounded face, very kindly about the eyes, and set atop of the oddest body in the world: for under a trunk extraordinary broad and strong, straddled & pair of legs that a baby would have disown'd—so thin and stunted were they, and (to make it the queerer) ended in feet the ...
— The Splendid Spur • Arthur T. Quiller Couch

... knowledge of himself, and by consequence love and embrace his memory. In so doing, you will accomplish what he exceedingly longed for whilst he lived.' But here he continues thus, 'I have, indeed, in my time known some, who, by a knack of writing, have got both title and fortune, yet disown their apprenticeship, purposely corrupt their style, and affect ignorance of so vulgar a quality (which also our nation observes, rarely to be seen in very learned hands), carefully seeking a reputation ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon

... the combat, and led on his beloved Spaniards to victory. It is very curious to observe the Castilian cavalier's internal conviction that the rumour arose out of a mistake, the cause of which he explains from his own observation; whilst, at the same time, he does not venture to disown the miracle. The honest Conquestador owns that he himself did not see this animating vision; nay, that he beheld an individual cavalier, named Francisco de Morla, mounted on a chestnut horse, and fighting strenuously in the very place where ...
— Letters On Demonology And Witchcraft • Sir Walter Scott

... and affection which you owed to me to another. Go to him who has pampered your appetites, clothed you with soft raiment, and brought you up daintily to lead the idle life of a gentleman. I disown all ...
— Mark Hurdlestone - Or, The Two Brothers • Susanna Moodie

... doctrine of the Holy Trinity, and Arians and semi-Arians would be telling us how these things could be, the unity of GOD in three Persons; to come round to the simplicity of the Athanasian doctrine, and to disown the several explanatory statements which, offering to explain, explained away, was the Church's work. I am not sure that since the clays of the Arian dispute, a more important question has arisen than that which seems likely to be ere long forcing itself upon us, of ...
— Inspiration and Interpretation - Seven Sermons Preached Before the University of Oxford • John Burgon

... he added, repeating the gesture with his hand, "disown Dr. Fu-Manchu and his servants; do with them what you will. In this envelope"—he held up a sealed package—"is information which should prove helpful to Mr. Smith. I have now a request to make. You were conveyed here ...
— The Hand Of Fu-Manchu - Being a New Phase in the Activities of Fu-Manchu, the Devil Doctor • Sax Rohmer

... mistaken, as he is in perverting my meaning, in attributing to me designs I know not, principles I disown. ...
— Charlotte Bronte and Her Circle • Clement K. Shorter

... temperature already too low,"[177:1] and weakened the moral influence of the church, and the value of its testimony to important principles which there were few besides efficiently to represent—the duty of the church not to disown or shut out those of little faith, and the church's duty toward its children. Never in the history of the church have the Lord's husbandmen shown a fiercer zeal for rooting up tares, regardless of damage to the wheat, than was shown by the preachers ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon

... jaws on men they try, The people clap to see their fellows die. But oh! who can without a blush relate The horrid scene of their approaching fate? When Persian customs, fashionable grown, Made nature start, and her best work disown, Male infants are divorc'd from all that can, By timely progress ripen into man. Thus circling nature dampt, a while restrain Her hasty course, and a pause remains; Till working a return t'her wonted post, She seeks ...
— The Satyricon • Petronius Arbiter

... said the sheep, "what a queer-looking piece! This never was parcel or part of a fleece! Our flock would disown it!—but take it, I pray, To Brindle, the cow, she's ...
— St. Nicholas, Vol. 5, No. 4, February 1878 • Various

... James's army. Still, I was not to be beaten, and with a dozen shillings in my pocket I set off for Galway, where I heard that some of my family resided. I was not disowned—for the reason that I could find no one to disown me—and with my last shilling gone, I returned, footsore and weary, ...
— The Missing Ship - The Log of the "Ouzel" Galley • W. H. G. Kingston

... I say anything against lodging you? Do you think to throw shame upon my hospitality before my guests? I will have none of your religion,—I spit upon it. You are no longer my son,—I disown you. But you shall sleep under my roof and eat at my board so long as you remain in Greenland, you and your following. No man shall breathe a word against the hospitality of Eric of Brattahlid. Thorhall, light ...
— The Thrall of Leif the Lucky • Ottilie A. Liljencrantz

... Duke for an allowance extra as one of the Clerks of the Navy, which he desired me to join with him in the furthering of, which I promised to do so that it did not reflect upon me or to my damage to have any other added, as if I was not able to perform my place; which he did wholly disown to be any of his intention, but far from it. I took Mr. Hater home with me to dinner, with whom I did advise, who did give me the same counsel. After dinner he and I to the office about doing something more as to the debts of the Navy than I had done yesterday, and so to Whitehall to the ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys

... the time is close upon you when the madness of the season Having howled itself to silence, like a Minnesota 'clone, Will at last be superseded by the still, small voice of reason, When the whelpage of your folly you would willingly disown. ...
— Shapes of Clay • Ambrose Bierce

... Rome "as the chief head and matron above all pretended Churches throughout the whole earth," and to "further her interests more than his own earthly good." The oath of the Jesuit binds him to the Pope, as "Christ's Vicar-General," by "all the saints and hosts of heaven," and to "denounce and disown any allegiance as due to Protestants, or obedience to any of their inferior magistrates or officers." The oath of the San Fedisti, a secret Order established by the Papal government in 1821, binds them to sustain "the Papal altar and throne, and to exterminate heretics, without pity for the ...
— Americanism Contrasted with Foreignism, Romanism, and Bogus Democracy in the Light of Reason, History, and Scripture; • William Gannaway Brownlow

... doth recommend it earnestly to the care of Friends everywhere, to discourage, as much as in them lies, a practice so repugnant to our Christian profession; and to deal with all such as shall persevere in a conduct so reproachful to Christianity; and to disown them, if ...
— The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the - Abolition of the African Slave-Trade, by the British Parliament (1839) • Thomas Clarkson

... to habits of propriety, even more strict than those which were imposed upon them by the authority of their Mahometan brethren.” Bah! thus you might chant, if you chose; but loving the truth, you will not so disown sweet Bethlehem; you will not disown or dissemble your right good hearty delight when you find, as though in a desert, this gushing spring of ...
— Eothen • A. W. Kinglake

... high-born Howard died, Blackmore alone his place supplied; And lest a chasm should intervene, When death had finished Blackmore's reign, The leaden crown devolved to thee, Great poet of the Hollow Tree. But ah! how unsecure thy throne! A thousand bards thy right disown; They plot to turn, in factious zeal, Duncenia to a commonweal; And with rebellious arms pretend An equal ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan

... editors would, if they dared, blow up the Capitol of the nation if they could only successfully carry off the frieze of one of the corridors. There are enough falsehoods told at any one of our autumnal elections to make the "Father of Lies" disown his monstrous progeny. Now it is the Mayor, then the Governor, now the Secretary of State, and then the President, until the air is so full of misrepresentation that truth is hidden from the view, as beautiful ...
— The Abominations of Modern Society • Rev. T. De Witt Talmage

... open rapine and violence so often practised by the nobles. These motives had induced Edward, as well as many of his predecessors, to intrust the chief departments of government in the hands of ecclesiastics; at the hazard of seeing them disown his authority as soon as ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part B. - From Henry III. to Richard III. • David Hume

... for a moment. "I do not disown you for a brother," she said, "in refusing your majesty ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas

... whom monarchs must bow? Ah! no: for his empire is known, And here there are trophies enow; Beneath the cold dead, and around the dark stone, Are the signs of a sceptre that none may disown. ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1, April, 1851 • Various

... Seoul, the capital. The first clause of the first article of the treaty was in itself a warning of future trouble. "Chosen (Korea) being an independent state enjoys the same sovereign rights as does Japan." In other words Korea was virtually made to disown the slight Chinese protectorate which had been ...
— Korea's Fight for Freedom • F.A. McKenzie

... gifts are great and high, Thy gen'rous sons, thy senate, and thy sky, Thy genius and thy grace shall Mem'ry well Above all cities, to thy glory, tell. And shall I coldly from thy arms remove, Blush for my birth-place, and disown my love? As tho' thy son, in Scythian climes forlorn, Beneath the Bear with all its snows was born. No, thy Ausonius, Bordeaux! hails thee yet; Nor, as his cradle, can thy claims forget. Dear to the gods thou art, who freely gave Their blessings to thy meads, ...
— Barn and the Pyrenees - A Legendary Tour to the Country of Henri Quatre • Louisa Stuart Costello

... belongs to Florence," he said. "I know the girl so well, and I know that her horrified fear of being in any way connected with the tragedy might easily lead her to, disown her own property, thinking the occasion justified the untruth. That girl has no more guilty knowledge of Joseph's death than I have, and that is absolutely none. I tell you frankly, Mr. Burroughs, I haven't even a glimmer of a suspicion ...
— The Gold Bag • Carolyn Wells

... all your actions, so that you may grow up to be an honest, a brave, and a good man; but remember well what I now say: you must fight your own battles amongst your schoolfellows as well as you can. If I ever hear that you are quarrelsome I shall detest you, but if I find that you are a coward I will disown and disinherit you." This was the language of one of the best of fathers to his son, a child of five years and a half old, and it speaks volumes as to the character of the man and the parent. This school, which was situated in a healthy village ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 1 • Henry Hunt

... as "Two of Them," "An Auld Licht Manse," "A Tillyloss Scandal," and some of them announce themselves as author's editions, or published by arrangement with the author. They consist of scraps collected and published without my knowledge, and I entirely disown them. I have written no books save those that appear in ...
— Better Dead • J. M. Barrie

... world, which everywhere was the forerunner of the great systems. This is the jungle, as it were, overspreading all the early world, out of which like giant trees the great religions arose, and from which they derived and still derive a nourishment they cannot disown. Indeed, we may go much farther. In some of their leading doctrines, the great religions show the most striking affinity with one another. China and Egypt have some doctrines in common which are also found in the religion ...
— History of Religion - A Sketch of Primitive Religious Beliefs and Practices, and of the Origin and Character of the Great Systems • Allan Menzies

... no such brother," exclaimed Isabel fervently, "for I should feel very much inclined to disown him if I had. Friends we can never be Dr. Taschereau, as I told you before, whenever and wherever we meet, it must ...
— Isabel Leicester - A Romance • Clotilda Jennings

... equal and remove the more cruel injustices of fortune, might be drying up that milk of human kindness which had fed his own enthusiasm; for the foundlings which he decreed were to people the earth might at once disown all socialism and prove a brood of inhuman egoists. Or, as not wholly contemptible theories have maintained, it might happen that if fathers were relieved of care for their children and children of all paternal suasion, human virtue would ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana



Words linked to "Disown" :   retract, disownment, resile, apostatize, deprive, deny, rebut, abjure, take back, disowning, refute, bequeath, disinherit, repudiate, recant



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