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Indifferent   Listen
adjective
Indifferent  adj.  
1.
Not making a difference; having no influence or preponderating weight; involving no preference, concern, or attention; of no account; without significance or importance. "Dangers are to me indifferent." "Everything in the world is indifferent but sin." "His slightest and most indifferent acts... were odious in the clergyman's sight."
2.
Neither particularly good, not very bad; of a middle state or quality; passable; mediocre. "The staterooms are in indifferent order."
3.
Not inclined to one side, party, or choice more than to another; neutral; impartial. "Indifferent in his choice to sleep or die."
4.
Feeling no interest, anxiety, or care, respecting anything; unconcerned; inattentive; apathetic; heedless; as, to be indifferent to the welfare of one's family. "It was a law of Solon, that any person who, in the civil commotions of the republic, remained neuter, or an indifferent spectator of the contending parties, should be condemned to perpetual banishment."
5.
(Law) Free from bias or prejudice; impartial; unbiased; disinterested. "In choice of committees for ripening business for the counsel, it is better to choose indifferent persons than to make an indifferency by putting in those that are strong on both sides."
Indifferent tissue (Anat.), the primitive, embryonic, undifferentiated tissue, before conversion into connective, muscular, nervous, or other definite tissue.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Indifferent" Quotes from Famous Books



... scandal of the children, he lay on his back on the grass and did nothing at all but look up at Bobby until the little dog moved. Then he set the wee Highlander up on an altar-topped shaft just above the level of the human eye. Indifferent at the moment as to what was done to him, Bobby continued to gaze up and out, wistfully and patiently, upon this masterless world. As plainly as a little dog could speak, ...
— Greyfriars Bobby • Eleanor Atkinson

... her. Let them give her time, and treat with forbearance her hesitation, qualms of conscience, and wounded pride. Her people, indeed, are awkward in the work of slave-catching, and, it would seem, rendered but indifferent service in a late hunt in Boston. Whether they would do better under the surveillance of the army and navy of the United States is a question which we leave with the President and his Secretary of State. General Putnam once undertook ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier

... equal that in the gorgeous dress of those who watched. There had been many, many more in former years, so I heard people say. This was the only sign that a war was in progress,—the scanty number of gentry present,—for all save the indifferent were gone to Charlestown or elsewhere. I recall it dimly, as a blaze of color passing: merrymaking, jesting, feasting,—a rare contrast, I thought, to the sight I had beheld in Charlestown Bay but a while before. ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... settled there. She invented strange stories about M. Daveau; and it surprised her that M. Daveau took no notice of her calumnies. She desired above all things to annoy the large mysterious Southerner who had resisted her attractions, who had preferred another, and who now seemed indifferent to anything she might say about him. But M. Daveau was only biding his time; and when Mildred came to renew her subscription to the studio, he told her that he was very sorry, but that he could not accept her any longer as a pupil. Mildred ...
— Celibates • George Moore

... trainer elects. Usually about five lessons, carefully observed, will afford a good index of the pupil's mental capabilities. Some chimpanzees are too nervous to be taught, some are too obstinate, and others are too impatient of restraint. Some orang-utans are hopelessly indifferent to the business in hand, and refuse to become interested in it. I think that no orang is too dull to learn to sit at a table, and eat with the utensils that are usually considered sacred to man's use, but the majority of them care only for the food, and take no interest in the function. On the other ...
— The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals • William T. Hornaday

... brown hair amazed me—I feared it was not all my own, and it required several convincing pulls to give assurance to the contrary. I then acknowledged in the coiffeur a first-rate artist—one who certainly made the most of indifferent materials. ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte

... ten thousand worlds! O Edith, how lightly you talk of parting, of giving me up. Am I then so utterly indifferent to you? No; I will never resign you; to call you wife is the one hope of my life. My darling, if you knew how I love you, how empty and worthless the whole world seems without you! But one day you will, you must—one day you will be able ...
— A Terrible Secret • May Agnes Fleming

... say be an angel, if he deserved it, or a devil if he appreciated it. Then—now and then—be non-existent, charming and indifferent, when you wanted to hedge—when there was no particular response. You'll go with me to the Hilliers' party, won't you, as Charlie ...
— Bird of Paradise • Ada Leverson

... the Indians, although they are ignorant and poor, are equal and free. At the period when Europeans first came among them the natives of North America were ignorant of the value of riches, and indifferent to the enjoyments which civilized man procures to himself by their means. Nevertheless there was nothing coarse in their demeanor; they practised an habitual reserve and a kind of aristocratic politeness. Mild and hospitable when at peace, though merciless in war beyond any known ...
— Democracy In America, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alexis de Tocqueville

... Ralph, joining in the laugh, although in a way that did not seem to be very genuine. The fact was that he felt just a little piqued at being thought so indifferent to the charms of the other sex, and looked at his wife for a moment or two in a curious sort of way, trying to think how he should express himself. At last ...
— A Mummer's Wife • George Moore

... The sentence and execution so quickly following each other, and apparently falling upon the poor victim at once, the shock paralyzing their faculties, while pride concealing their softer feelings, transforms them so suddenly into what appears beings indifferent and insensible to the suffering and distress of death and separation or to the expectation of enjoyment and happiness here on earth ...
— Birch Bark Legends of Niagara • Owahyah

... have given much to feel equally indifferent. Something like a pang shot through him as he reflected that for him the battle must be against wind and tide—a fierce struggle, more and more hopeless, to grasp at something drifting visibly out of reach. He was not a man, however, to be beat while it was possible to persist. Believing Dick ...
— M. or N. "Similia similibus curantur." • G.J. Whyte-Melville

... nothing for us; the hill I visited so often in days gone by has not missed me. . . . There is nothing human in the whole round of nature. All nature, all the universe that we can see, is absolutely indifferent to us, and except to us human life is of ...
— Nature Mysticism • J. Edward Mercer

... you tell when a baby is poorly nourished? It neither gains nor loses weight; it is listless, tired, indifferent, cross, fretful, irritable and sleeps poorly. It looks pale, anemic, and it becomes soft and flabby. If the milk is scanty, it nurses long; at other times it tries the breast and turns ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter

... They waited, talking about indifferent matters, until Curtis arrived. At Cyril's request he made a rough diagram of the tracks he had discovered in the neighborhood of the muskeg and stated his theory of what ...
— Prescott of Saskatchewan • Harold Bindloss

... way of preface, lest we might seem cold to the very remarkable merits of "Sir Rohan's Ghost," if we treated it as a book worth finding fault with, instead of condemning it to the indifferent limbo of general eulogy. It is our deliberate judgment that no first volume by any author has ever been published in America showing more undoubtful symptoms of genuine poetic power than this. There are passages in it where imagination and language combine in ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 5, No. 28, February, 1860 • Various

... will tell you when he comes," was the indifferent retort. "Have you a place to keep him tight ...
— Dave Dashaway and his Hydroplane • Roy Rockwood

... table again and sat down trembling with spent rage. Serina was so crushed under the crumbled wall of her air-castles that she could not protest. Olive and Horace felt that since Prue was so indifferent to their happiness they need not consider hers. There was a long, ...
— In a Little Town • Rupert Hughes

... possible, and in it took shelter from the wind and cold. The pungent smoke of the lignum vitae kept us weeping, as long as the cooking went on; and between the annoyance of it, the cold, and fatigue, we all dropped off to sleep, indifferent to a falling temperature, prowling bears, or a violent gale, which threatened to blow us from the beach on which we had pitched ...
— Stray Leaves from an Arctic Journal; • Sherard Osborn

... not help but know it—not as a matter of vanity, but as a matter of fact—yet love had blinded her where Brandon was concerned, and that knowledge failed to give her light as to his motives, however brightly it might illumine the conduct of other men toward whom she was indifferent. ...
— When Knighthood Was in Flower • Charles Major

... then cast them out to die of hunger.[1025] The people of the Arctic regions generally put the aged to death on account of the hard life conditions. The aged of the Chuckches demand, as a right, to be put to death.[1026] Life is so hard and food so scarce that they are indifferent to death, and the acquiescence of the victim is described as complete and willing.[1027] A case is also described[1028] of an old man of that tribe who was put to death at his own request by relatives, who thought ...
— Folkways - A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals • William Graham Sumner

... had to suffer a variety of discordant and ear-splitting noises) he recovered something of his former skill. An old drum with a very loose membrane was found in the lumber room of the keep, and this the bosun appropriated, though being quite destitute of a sense of rhythm he made but an indifferent performer. Some of the men fashioned original instruments for themselves, one of these, a mouth organ, being ...
— Humphrey Bold - A Story of the Times of Benbow • Herbert Strang

... bear, and the body was of thicker and stouter make. The Englishman had learnt something of its habits too. The Arabs said it was rarely met with near Tetuan; that it fed on roots, acorns, and fruits, but was only an indifferent climber. Indeed it would be very improbable," continued Alexis, "that the great ranges of the Atlas and Abyssinian mountains should be without these mammalia, since they exist in nearly all the other mountains of the globe. Moreover, it should be remembered ...
— Bruin - The Grand Bear Hunt • Mayne Reid

... the Beagle touched once more at Brazil, returning home to England in 1836, after an absence of five years. Charles Darwin himself believed this trip to have been both his education and his opportunity. He had started on it a rather careless and indifferent student. He returned from it the most painstaking and patient naturalist the world has ever known. His father, who had hardly consented to his going because he believed him not stable enough to be intrusted to his own devices for so long ...
— The Meaning of Evolution • Samuel Christian Schmucker

... linen, or diaper; and the cloths used in cleaning lamps, &c., must be of flannel, linen, or silk. All these articles are to be made in the same manner, that is, hemmed neatly at the ends; or if there be no selvages, or but indifferent ones, all round. Nothing looks more slovenly than ragged or unhemmed cloths, which are for domestic use. Little girls of the humbler classes might be employed by the more affluent, in making up those articles and a suitable remuneration ...
— The Ladies' Work-Table Book • Anonymous

... in all three denounced the curse of Allah on every soul that differed from them a tittle. They were children of perdition, children of darkness, children of the devil, one and all. It seemed a matter of wonder to me, that, in such numerous families and of such indifferent parentage, so many slippers were kept under the heel. Mine, in an evil hour, escaped me: but I quite forgive thee. After this free pardon I will indulge thee with a short specimen of my preaching. I will call none of you a generation of ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor

... and felt quite revived as he inhaled the fresh breeze, and watched the coast as the vessel rapidly passed each headland in her course. All around him were strangers, and no one appeared inclined to be communicative; even the most indifferent, the most stoical, expressed their ideas in disjointed sentences; they could not but feel that their projects and speculations had been overthrown by a captivity so anomalous with ...
— Newton Forster • Frederick Marryat

... they often discussed music together, and the Prince lamented that Handel was unacquainted with the music and musical life of Italy. "Handel confessed that he could see nothing in Italian music which answered the high character His Highness had given it. On the contrary, he thought it so very indifferent, that the singers, he said, must be angels to recommend it." Gian Gastone urged him to come to Italy and hear for himself, intimating "that if he chose to return with him, no conveniences should be wanting." Handel declined the invitation, but ...
— Handel • Edward J. Dent

... part!) had, just at that time, rashly placed her reputation at the mercy of the world. It rested with me to silence the scandalous tongues that reviled her. With Helena lost to me, happiness was not to be expected. All women were equally indifferent to me. A generous action would be the salvation of this woman. Why not perform it? I married her on that impulse—married her just as I might have jumped into the water and saved her if she had been drowning; just as I might have knocked ...
— The Law and the Lady • Wilkie Collins

... but the largest cities—Seattle, Tacoma, Spokane and Olympia—with many country precincts, both east and west of the mountains, were very satisfactorily canvassed. It was found that over 88 per cent. of all the women asked to sign the petition did so. The rest were divided between the indifferent and those positively opposed. No one received a salary for services. Less than $500 was collected, and $5.47 remained in the treasury, after every bill was paid, the ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various

... speeches to be somewhat bitter in their tones, and, as a consequence, did not advance his interests—indeed, he felt as though his own supporters were growing half-hearted, if not indifferent, and he attributed it all to the persistent work of Mary Bolitho. Moreover, there were constant rumours about her being engaged to young Ned Wilson—and Ned Wilson, as he ...
— The Day of Judgment • Joseph Hocking

... constantly defended in all his after-life. Referring to this period, he said long afterward, "My familiar association with the slaves while a boy gave me great insight into their feelings and views. They spoke with freedom before a boy what they would have repressed before a man. They were far from indifferent to their condition; they felt wronged and sighed for freedom. They were attached to my father and loved me, yet they habitually spoke of the day when ...
— Oration on the Life and Character of Henry Winter Davis • John A. J. Creswell

... time of our visit there were few fruits ripe; but when we were about to sail the mango of delicious flavour began to be common; besides which there were coconuts, guavas, papaws, grapes, the letchy (or let-chis, a Chinese fruit) and some indifferent pineapples. The ship's company were supplied daily with fresh beef and vegetables. The latter were procured in abundance at the bazaar and were exceedingly fine, particularly carrots and cabbages of an unusually large size and fine flavour. Bullocks are imported into the island from Madagascar, ...
— Narrative of a Survey of the Intertropical and Western Coasts of Australia] [Volume 2 of 2] • Phillip Parker King

... Sleep, the certain knot of peace, The baiting-place of wit, the balm of woe, The poor man's wealth, the prisoner's release, The indifferent judge between the high and low! With shield of proof, shield me from out the press Of those fierce darts Despair at me doth throw: O make in me those civil wars to cease! I will good tribute pay if thou do so. Take thou of me, smooth ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 2 (of 4) • Various

... missed Brissac and both of the Bensons on the way over. But Kenneth confessed to being saddle-sore, and begged for another day's respite. Ford agreed without giving the matter a second thought. Upon such unconsidered trifles—an indifferent "yes" or "no"—turn the poised scales of life. For one other day the two Southwestern representatives put up at the Grand Union, Copah's tar-paper-covered simulacrum of a hotel; and during that day Ford contrived to sell ...
— Empire Builders • Francis Lynde

... mobilization. Threatening weather with overcast sky. Northwesterly wind. Temperature at five P.M. 19 degrees centigrade. No clouds prevented the eclipse of the sun from being seen in Paris. Most people however were profoundly indifferent to the celestial phenomena. ...
— Paris War Days - Diary of an American • Charles Inman Barnard

... father's presence during the afternoon Clara had remained calm and apparently indifferent to his tirade. In town in the presence of the men she was sure were attacking her character, she had been angry, ready to fight. Now she wanted to put her head on Hugh's ...
— Poor White • Sherwood Anderson

... and the girls of the theatre, vied with one another in grieving over the fatal curse inflicted by Alcuine upon the innocent Princess. The lords of the Court, on the contrary, and the princes of the blood royal, appeared very indifferent to it. And there were on all hands men of business and students of science who did not believe in the award of the fairies, for the very good reason that they did ...
— The Story Of The Duchess Of Cicogne And Of Monsieur De Boulingrin - 1920 • Anatole France

... more you join in with people in their joys and their sorrows, the more nearer and dearer they come to be to you. Now we warn't cold and indifferent, the way most travelers is, we was right down friendly and sociable, and took a chance in everything that was going, and the caravan could depend on us to be on hand every time, it didn't make no ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... and then began some indifferent conversation with Mrs. Pennant, in which Lady Cecilia forced herself to join; she dreaded even Miss Clarendon's silence—that grim ...
— Helen • Maria Edgeworth

... Allie sensed a different note in it. The gambler Hough now faced her in his position at the table; and behind every card he played there seemed to be intense purpose and tremendous force. Ancliffe soon left the game. But he appeared fascinated where formerly he had been indifferent. Soon it developed that Hough, by his spirit and skill, was driving his opponents, inciting their passion for play, working upon their feelings. Durade seemed the weakest gambler, though he had the best luck. Good luck ...
— The U.P. Trail • Zane Grey

... by the Church nor by anyone else. At that time the whole work of foreign missions was regarded as the duty, not of the Churches, but of "Kings, Princes, and States." In England, Anglicans, Independents and Baptists were all more or less indifferent. In Scotland the subject was never mentioned; and even sixty years later a resolution to inquire into the matter was rejected by the General Assembly {1796.}. In Germany the Lutherans were either indifferent or hostile. In Denmark and Holland the whole subject was treated ...
— History of the Moravian Church • J. E. Hutton

... Instances of this kind come constantly within our notice, although we are not always able to give the exact reasons for success or failure. We only know that we feel the charm of one instance and are indifferent to, or totally unimpressed by, ...
— Principles of Home Decoration - With Practical Examples • Candace Wheeler

... time to vent our love: Listen to me, and if you speak me fair, I'll tell you news indifferent good for either. Here is a gentleman whom by chance I met, Upon agreement from us to his liking, Will undertake to woo curst Katherine; Yea, and to marry her, if ...
— The Taming of the Shrew • William Shakespeare [Craig, Oxford edition]

... from being so much tempted by the grosser forms of transgression. I believe that very largely you will empty your gaols in proportion as you fill your schools. And let no man say that I am an obscurantist, or that I am indifferent to the value of education and the benefits of intellectual culture, when I declare that all these may be attained, and the nature of the tree remain exactly what it was. You may prune, you may train along the wall, you may get bigger fruit, you will not get ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Matthew Chaps. IX to XXVIII • Alexander Maclaren

... was an egoist, supremely interested in himself. He was poor, but at his country seat in France, near Blois, he kept open house in the style of a great noble. Always he bore himself as one to whom much was due. His guests were expected to admire his indifferent horses as the finest to be seen, his gardens as the most beautiful, his clothes as of the most effective cut and finish, the plate on his table as of the best workmanship, and the food as having superior flavor. He scolded his equals as if they ...
— The Conquest of New France - A Chronicle of the Colonial Wars, Volume 10 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • George M. Wrong

... would prefer to be drowned rather than to be denied the relief of plunging her draggled life into the slumber that might restore it. At this instant, I know not to what degree from the North Pole she stands, whether at Spitzberg or in Greenland. Cold and indifferent she goes to bed thinking, as Mistress Walter Shandy might have thought, that the morrow would be a day of sickness, that her husband is coming home very late, that the beaten eggs which she has just eaten were not sufficiently sweetened, that she owes more than five hundred francs to her dressmaker; ...
— Analytical Studies • Honore de Balzac

... there is nothing which a race will not more willingly surrender than its religion. The race which changes its religion is either very young, quick to reverence a greater race, and ardent for all experiment, or very old, made indifferent by experience or ...
— The Origins and Destiny of Imperial Britain - Nineteenth Century Europe • J. A. Cramb

... a young man of an unconscious abstracted expression, which was due probably to a squint of superior intensity rather than to any mental characteristic; for he was not indifferent to Ben's invitation, but blushed and laughed and rubbed his sleeve over his mouth in a way that was regarded as a symptom of yielding. And for some time the company appeared to be much in earnest about the desire to hear David's song. But in ...
— Good Cheer Stories Every Child Should Know • Various

... that the renewal of war was probable, by his majesty saying, "that notwithstanding his desire for peace, it was impossible for him to lose sight of that system of policy by which the interests of other states were connected with our own welfare; and by which he was obliged not to be indifferent to any material change in the relative condition and strength of the European powers." His majesty also recommended the adoption of all those means of security which were best calculated to preserve the blessings of peace. The responsive addresses, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan

... maid helped her into the soft gray coat trimmed with blue fox. Ordeal! That would come on Saturday night. No wonder she was merely amused and totally indifferent today! ...
— Black Oxen • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton

... ballot is in her hand, with all those activities to which you, yourself, have dedicated your life. Those tasks which this nation has set itself to do are her tasks as well as man's. We women who are here to-day are close to this desire of women. We cannot believe that you are our enemy or indifferent to the fundamental righteousness of ...
— Jailed for Freedom • Doris Stevens

... themselves on their outlandish apparel. They boast of being out of the fashion. They wear a queer hat. They ride in an odd carriage. By dint of perpetual application they would persuade the world that they are perfectly indifferent to public opinion. They are more proud of being "out of fashion" than others are of being in. They are utterly and universally disagreeable. Their rough corners have never been worn off. They prefer ...
— The Abominations of Modern Society • Rev. T. De Witt Talmage

... Lucy Knox. She swung her hat on her knee, and loose, moist rings of dark hair curled around her dark, alert face. There was a sparkle in her grey eyes that boded ill to the men who were peaceably pursuing their avocations, rashly indifferent to what the women might be saying in the ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1902 to 1903 • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... and literature,—he had made many friends; but after all said and done, the bonde's cutting observations had described him correctly enough. The do-nothing, care-nothing tendency, common to the very wealthy in this age, had crept upon him unconsciously; the easy, cool, indifferent nonchalance common to men of his class and breeding was habitual with him, and he had never thought it worth while to exert his dormant abilities. Why then, should he now begin to think it was time to reform all this,—to rouse himself ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli

... courage. Frequently, not wishing to show her real feeling for the young man; too well poised to be carried off into the wrong channel, defended and excused by many over-sentimental and light-headed novelists of the day, she sometimes appeared almost indifferent to the impetuous youth with warm, red blood leaping in his veins, who desired ...
— Mary at the Farm and Book of Recipes Compiled during Her Visit - among the "Pennsylvania Germans" • Edith M. Thomas

... concerned much sympathised with Ironsyde in his painful ordeal. Those who did not openly assert that he was reaping what he had sown, were indifferent. Some, like Mr. Motyer, held the incident a joke; one only possessed imagination sufficient to guess what these public events must mean to the father of Abel. Indeed, Estelle certainly suffered more for Raymond ...
— The Spinners • Eden Phillpotts

... and prosperity came to them, he had grown more and more indifferent, and finally, when they moved away from their early home and entered a new city, they had begun a new ...
— The Right Knock - A Story • Helen Van-Anderson

... can say is, Lily, that I can't make you out!" She leaned back, sighing, in the morning abandon of lace and muslin, turning an indifferent shoulder to the heaped-up importunities of her desk, while she considered, with the eye of a physician who has given up the case, the erect exterior of ...
— House of Mirth • Edith Wharton

... it is still; many are the faults which we have not; many are the good qualities which we have; but the life is wanting. What is so rare as to find one who is not indifferent to God? What so rare, even rarer than the other, as to find ...
— The Christian Life - Its Course, Its Hindrances, And Its Helps • Thomas Arnold

... want my hat, such as it is,' said Birkin, 'why, surely it is open to me to decide, which is a greater loss to me, my hat, or my liberty as a free and indifferent man. If I am compelled to offer fight, I lose the latter. It is a question which is worth more to me, my pleasant liberty of ...
— Women in Love • D. H. Lawrence

... brutal and grasping egotism of the father gave place to a cultured humanity of almost feminine tenderness and charm. All his life long he was passionately devoted to literature, to art, to children. He collected rare books and prints with avidity, but was no less generous in giving them away. Indifferent to money, he hated to see a scrap of paper wasted. He had a neat touch in epigrams, and a boyish delight in grotesque rhymes. But there was no lack of grit in this accomplished, fresh-minded, and lovable man. ...
— Robert Browning • C. H. Herford

... drowsily, "we pretended that yesterday; and it's not my turn to be a Roundhead, anyhow." The fact is, I was lazy, and the call to arms fell on indifferent ears. We three younger ones were stretched at length in the orchard. The sun was hot, the season merry June, and never (I thought) had there been such wealth and riot of buttercups throughout the lush grass. Green-and-gold ...
— The Golden Age • Kenneth Grahame

... smile, in which, and I am afraid it was really there, Vavasor read contempt, and liked her none the worse for it. Cornelius turned in offense, went back to the piano, and sang the song again—not one hair better—in just the same nerveless, indifferent fashion as before; for how shall one who has no soul, put ...
— Weighed and Wanting • George MacDonald

... resentment—love, she never had any; the politics, management, and pedantry of her mother, who will think to govern her son-in-law out of Froissart. Figure the instructions which she will give her daughter. Lincoln, (one of her admirers) is quite indifferent, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 62, No. 384, October 1847 • Various

... His discourses on indifferent subjects will divert, as well as instruct; and if either in these, or in the relation of father Lobo, any argument shall appear unconvincing, or description obscure, they are defects incident to all mankind, which, however, are not rashly to be imputed to the ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume V: Miscellaneous Pieces • Samuel Johnson

... looks which betrayed an immoderate admiration for women, rather than the respectful warmth of a dawning passion. The young girl grew more and more reserved, and gave all her attentions to Madame du Gua. The youth, angry with himself, tried, in his vexation, to turn the tables and seem indifferent. Mademoiselle de Verneuil appeared not to notice this manoeuvre; she continued to be simple without shyness ...
— The Chouans • Honore de Balzac

... indifferent to her, and she was insensible to the simplicity of true greatness. She idolized a Zuboff, but Kosciuszko was immured at St. Petersburg till the day of her death, and she never even learned his precise ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, v. 13 • Various

... for Mrs. Ingleton did not want to talk upon indifferent subjects. Her whole attitude was one of unconcealed triumph. It was obvious that she meant to enjoy her conquest to the utmost. She was not in the least tired after her journey; she was one of those people who never tire. And as soon as she had refreshed herself with tea she announced her ...
— The Top of the World • Ethel M. Dell

... tiny treasury. We have seen some of party colours, intended thereby to distinguish the separate depository of the gold and silver coin with which it is (presumed) to be stored. This arrangement we repudiate; for a true gentleman should always appear indifferent to the value of money, and affect at least an equal contempt for a sovereign as a shilling. We prefer having the meshes of the purse rather large than otherwise, as whenever it is necessary—mind, we say necessary—to exhibit it, the glittering contents ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, November 13, 1841 • Various

... throats of unwilling drinkers! Where the bodies and souls of thousands of girls are annually destroyed, because the young are irresistibly drawn toward joy, and because we, all of us, good people, busy people, indifferent people, unseeing people, have permitted joy to become commercialized, have turned it into a commodity to be used for money profit by the worst elements in society. Could a more inverted scheme of things have been devised in ...
— What eight million women want • Rheta Childe Dorr

... An indifferent swimmer, Donald Ware had avoided the afternoon sport in the tank; but after dinner, somewhat to the irritation of Graham, the violinist monopolized Paula at the piano. New guests, with the casual expectedness ...
— The Little Lady of the Big House • Jack London

... as calm, as unconsciously regal, as she had been on the train. I knew, however, that she was not as indifferent to Dicky's open admiration as she appeared. The slightest heightening of the color in her cheek, a quickly-veiled flash of her eyes in his direction—these things I noticed in the short time she was in the ...
— Revelations of a Wife - The Story of a Honeymoon • Adele Garrison

... and spectators from chamber to chamber and cabinet to cabinet, without falling into errors of rapture and inspiration. We were led slowly and moderately through the large rooms, containing the portraits of painters, good, bad, and indifferent, from Raffaelle to Liotard; then into a museum of bronzes, which would afford both amusement ...
— Dreams, Waking Thoughts, and Incidents • William Beckford

... many instances. We could scarcely expect in any community that individuals like the Jukes would take the initiative in movements for the eugenic development of the race, but it makes much difference whether such families exist in an environment like our own which is indifferent to the future of the race, or whether they are surrounded by influences of a more wholesome character which can scarcely fail to some extent to affect, and even to control, the reckless and anti-social elements ...
— The Task of Social Hygiene • Havelock Ellis

... with greater truth than to the subject of this sketch. A faithful servant of her Lord, she was always ready to say a good word for Him, and took advantage of any and all opportunities to bring back to Him some friend whom she thought had become careless, thoughtless, or indifferent ...
— Some Reminiscences of old Victoria • Edgar Fawcett

... man who now took charge of the situation. Cassidy, from Headquarters, spoke in a rough, indifferent voice, well suited to ...
— Within the Law - From the Play of Bayard Veiller • Marvin Dana

... in silence, she would raise her eyes and meet his gaze steadily, seeming to search for something. Waymark could not face this look; it drove him to break the suspense by any kind of remark on an indifferent subject. He remembered now that she had gazed at him in that way persistently on the last evening that they were together. When he was saying good-bye, and as he bent to kiss her, she held him back for a moment, and seemed to wish to say something. ...
— The Unclassed • George Gissing

... says Mr. Trelawney, "that he thought he should not live many years, and said that he would die in Greece." This he told me at Cephalonia. He always seemed unmoved on these occasions, perfectly indifferent as to when he died, only saying that he could not bear pain. On our voyage we had been reading with great attention the life and letters of Swift, edited by Scott, and we almost daily, or rather nightly, talked ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. 6 (of 6) - With his Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore

... are good, some indifferent, and some again still worse; Such, Avitus, you will find is a common case ...
— The Lives Of The Twelve Caesars, Complete - To Which Are Added, His Lives Of The Grammarians, Rhetoricians, And Poets • C. Suetonius Tranquillus

... and Cromwell, again in the first ministry of the elder Pitt, and once again in the ministry of Shelburne. Not that there have not at all times been just men among the peers of Britain—like Halifax in the days of James the Second, or a Granville, an Argyll, or a Houghton in ours; and we cannot be indifferent to a country that produces statesmen like Cobden and Bright; but the best bower anchor of peace was the working class of England, who suffered most from our civil war, but who, while they broke their diminished bread in sorrow, always encouraged ...
— Our American Holidays: Lincoln's Birthday • Various

... America, in the great enlightened nation so long held up to him as a model, demagogues and others in many states on one pretext or another have defeated every effort for effective compulsory education laws, so that if a boy's parents are indifferent to his future, the state does not compel them to give him a fighting chance in life—for the state's own sake and for ...
— Where Half The World Is Waking Up • Clarence Poe

... this quest of the holy grail of ancient knowledge. Waifs and strays of pagan authors were valued like precious gems, revelled in like odoriferous and gorgeous flowers, consulted like oracles of God, gazed on like the eyes of a beloved mistress. The good, the bad, and the indifferent received an almost equal homage. Criticism had not yet begun. The world was bent on gathering up its treasures, frantically bewailing the lost books of Livy, the lost songs of Sappho—absorbing to intoxication the strong wine of multitudinous thoughts and ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various

... and all indifferent, however. While she looked so stoical and heavy she was patiently working out an idea, and was nerving herself for an ...
— Polly - A New-Fashioned Girl • L. T. Meade

... on my way, my mind was full of bitterness. Whenever I had done wrong myself, I always began to imagine that others had injured me; and now I tried to persuade myself that Louisa was indifferent to my welfare, and had only sent me money for fear that I should disgrace her by appearing again at home. 'Proud girl!' I exclaimed, 'you need not fear that such a miserable wretch will claim your relationship, or disturb your ...
— Hurrah for New England! - The Virginia Boy's Vacation • Louisa C. Tuthill

... indifferent whether Daisy has my eyes or not," said mamma; "what I desire is, that she should have ...
— Daisy in the Field • Elizabeth Wetherell

... a long, brown cigarette and he carried a bundle of newspapers. Behind him came a youth with a pale, sensitive face and dark eyes, ill-dressed, with the grip of poverty upon him, from his patched shoes to his frayed collar and well-worn cap. Nevertheless, he carried himself as though indifferent to these things. His companion stopped short as he neared the table at which the two men were sitting, and took off his hat, greeting Selingman ...
— The Double Traitor • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... said Mrs. Hardy to the doctor one evening when their daughter had been particularly indifferent to a theatre invitation. "She hasn't been the same since she came home. I should not have let ...
— The Cow Puncher • Robert J. C. Stead

... "Gentlemen, the mere expression of feeling may afford a sort of satisfaction but the question is, What is to be done? That the situation is grave for all of us we know too well. Not many of us are in a position to be indifferent to a strike. Let us get down to ...
— To Him That Hath - A Novel Of The West Of Today • Ralph Connor

... could only pay her out—only let her see how utterly indifferent he was. If only there was some other woman who would be nice to him, and let him be nice to her, to make ...
— The Second Honeymoon • Ruby M. Ayres

... are about to act a very important part in our history, one only was probably a native of Britain,—we say probably, because the individual in question was himself quite uncertain, and, it must be added, entirely indifferent about his birthplace; but speaking the English language, and having been during the course of his life pretty generally engaged in the British service, he had a tolerably fair claim to the majestic title of Briton. His name was Peter Brock, otherwise Corporal Brock, of Lord Cutts's regiment of dragoons; ...
— Catherine: A Story • William Makepeace Thackeray

... trouble, that so great a matter required more days of contemplation than I could afford to give. Provisions were very dear when purchased with white beads, for they were not the fashion, and the people were indifferent to them. I paid him one loin-cloth for four fowls and nine eggs, though, had I had coloured beads, I might have purchased one hen per khete (or necklace). Had this been a cloth-wearing instead of a bead-decorating nation, I should have obtained forty fowls for one shukka (or loin-cloth), ...
— What Led To The Discovery of the Source Of The Nile • John Hanning Speke

... scornful piastres to the Turkish door-keeper; and gazes round easily at the place, in which people of every other nation in the world are in tears, or in rapture, or wonder. He has never seen the place until now, and looks as indifferent as the Turkish guardian who sits in the doorway, and swears at the people ...
— Notes on a Journey from Cornhill to Grand Cairo • William Makepeace Thackeray

... the Platform.—"The principal effect of the Definite Platform," says Dr. Spaeth, "was to open the eyes even of the indifferent and undecided ones, and to cause them to reflect and to realize the ultimate designs of the men at the helm of the General Synod. A storm of indignation burst against the perpetrators of this attack on the venerable ...
— American Lutheranism - Volume 2: The United Lutheran Church (General Synod, General - Council, United Synod in the South) • Friedrich Bente

... friendly understanding with each other, although she refused his hand; and it is a noble characteristic of my Ernst, and one which, in his sex, is not often found, that this rejection did not make him indifferent to the person who gave it. On the contrary, he professes the most warm admiration of this Emilie, and has not ceased to correspond with her; and I, for I read all their letters, cannot but confess her extraordinary knowledge and acuteness. But to know all this near ...
— The Home • Fredrika Bremer

... leave her severely alone after a battle. He would not come in! Surely he would not come in. And then the handle of the intervening door turned, and she sank back in her chair with a sick effort to appear indifferent. ...
— The Obstacle Race • Ethel M. Dell

... profound obeisance, which the lady-mother scarcely recognised, he addressed himself to his vocation. A mighty indifferent prelude succeeded the arrangement of the strings, then a sort of jig, accented by the toe and head of the performer. Afterwards he broke into a wild and singular extempore, which gradually shaped itself into measure and rhythm, at times beautifully varied, and accompanied by the voice. ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby

... palace; to put Leo Narychkine and other partisans of Peter to death; to arrest his mother, and to expel the patriarch. They trusted that Peter and Natalia would perish in the tumult. The streltsi remained indifferent when Sophia, affecting to think her life threatened, fled to the Dievitchi monastery, and sent them letters of entreaty. "If thy days are in peril," tranquilly replied the streltsi, "there must be an ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 12 • Editor-In-Chief Rossiter Johnson

... among pubs, old lady? Well—I am armed so strong in honesty that dangers are to me indifferent! I can't help swanking bits from 'Julius Caesar,' you know—my only Shakespeare play! But it'll be great to go to Sydney. Only—what are we ...
— Captivity • M. Leonora Eyles

... necessity of concessions, and the cause might be settled in one of two ways, to either of which he was himself ready to consent. Catherine had appealed against judgment being passed in England, as a place which was not indifferent. Henry had refused to allow his cause to be heard anywhere but in his own realm; pleading first his privilege as a sovereign prince; and secondly, his exemption as an Englishman.[401] The pope, with appearance of openness, now suggested that Henry should either ...
— The Reign of Henry the Eighth, Volume 1 (of 3) • James Anthony Froude

... the long sittings at the theatre, and the changes to be made from day to day, were a useful and powerful distraction for Amedee Violette's grief. L'Atelier, when played the first week in April, did not obtain more than a respectful greeting from the public; it was an indifferent success. This vulgar society, these simple, plain, sentiments, the sweetheart in a calico gown, the respectable old man in short frock and overalls, the sharp lines where here and there boldly rang out a slang word of the ...
— A Romance of Youth, Complete • Francois Coppee

... that the American people, especially the descendants of the Puritans, do not do themselves justice. For, while those who are near enough to learn their real character and feelings can discern the most generous impulses, and the most kindly sympathies, they are often so veiled behind a composed and indifferent demeanor, as to be almost entirely ...
— The American Woman's Home • Catherine E. Beecher and Harriet Beecher Stowe

... showed any thing but marked hauteur toward him. I was indifferent—she took trouble ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille

... he was a solitary guest augment his credit or diminish it? Were they ashamed to show him to other people, or did they wish to give him a sign of sudden adoption into their last reserve of favor? Newman was on his guard; he was watchful and conjectural; and yet at the same time he was vaguely indifferent. Whether they gave him a long rope or a short one he was there now, and Madame de Cintre was opposite to him. She had a tall candlestick on each side of her; she would sit there for the next hour, and that was enough. The dinner was extremely solemn and measured; he wondered ...
— The American • Henry James

... manifest, that that lesson of patient resignation, which the sages were never able to learn from the slight and infrequent mishaps which occur in the natural course of events, was now brought home even to the minds of the simple by the magnitude of their disasters, so that they became indifferent ...
— The Decameron, Volume I • Giovanni Boccaccio

... circumstances, were for a long time unsuspected by the world at large. She had pride— pride of birth, pride of rank—though never did that feeling show itself more nobly or more beneficially. It never led her to think herself above the very meanest of her subjects. It never made her indifferent to the interests, to the joys or sorrows, of a single individual. The idea with which it inspired her was, that a princess of her race was never to commit an unworthy act, was never to fail in purity ...
— The Life of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France • Charles Duke Yonge

... indifferent, the sleeper had to be awakened. He dressed hastily, with a smile at the transparent sky, and soon reached Vauciennes by automobile, where he called for his machine, mounted, ascended, flew, hunted the enemy, and returned ...
— Georges Guynemer - Knight of the Air • Henry Bordeaux

... uncertain yet whether it were one of the big fevers or pneumonia or just a bilious attack. Blood-tests would show; and he scraped the lobe of the ear of the unresisting, indifferent old man, and took a drop of thin pink fluid on a bit of glass. The doctor tried to reassure the panicky family, but his ...
— In a Little Town • Rupert Hughes

... little better than mud tracks, except in the immediate vicinity of the few large towns. The keeping of the roads in repair, one part of the trinoda necessitas was imposed on all lands; but the results often seem to have been very indifferent, and they appear largely to have depended on chance, or the goodwill or devotion of neighbouring landowners.[61] Perhaps they would, except in the case of the Roman roads, have been impassable but for the fact that the great lords and abbots were constantly ...
— A Short History of English Agriculture • W. H. R. Curtler

... Their knapsacks, which they hastened according to established usage to unbuckle, contained a plentiful supply of knives, forks, scissors, and razors; but the poor fellows were not successful in driving a bargain, for their charges were exorbitantly high, and their goods of an indifferent quality. Even the host himself bid but one-half their demand, and neither he nor we could bring ...
— Germany, Bohemia, and Hungary, Visited in 1837. Vol. II • G. R. Gleig

... British Government, who have not shown a particular alacrity to accept this ponderous present. The huge shaft lies on the ground, prostrate, and desecrated by all sorts of abominations. Children were sprawling about, attracted by the dirt there. Arabs, negroes, and donkey-boys were passing, quite indifferent, by the fallen monster of a stone—as indifferent as the British Government, who don't care for recording the glorious termination of their Egyptian campaign of 1801. If our country takes the compliment so coolly, surely it would be disloyal upon our ...
— Notes on a Journey from Cornhill to Grand Cairo • William Makepeace Thackeray

... had become so unhinged by the maddening monotony of life, that he would, in civilisation, have been placed under restraint. I met also a once famous professor of anatomy (who had been here for seven years), and who, although completely indifferent to the latest discoveries of surgical science, displayed an eager interest as to what was going on at the Paris music-halls. Indeed, I can safely state that, with three exceptions, there was not a perfectly sane man or woman amongst all ...
— From Paris to New York by Land • Harry de Windt

... captain, pilot, sailor, and soldier all in one," exclaimed the English. Cornelius van Witt in the capacity of commissioner of the Estates had remained seated on the deck of the admiral's vessel during the fight, indifferent to the bullets that rained around him. The issue of the battle was indecisive; Count d'Estrees, at the head of the French flotilla, had taken little ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume V. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot

... further and harder. So Windle Bent was one of those chaps who have what folk call family pride, was he? Actually proud of the fact that he had a pedigree, and could say who his grandfather and grandmother were?—things on which most people were as hazy as they were indifferent. In that case, if he was really family-proud, all the more reason why Kitely should be made to keep his tongue still. For if Windle Bent was going on the game of making out that he was a man of family, he certainly would not ...
— The Borough Treasurer • Joseph Smith Fletcher

... Tancred met hers. His vision was not unconscious of her presence; he stared at her with intentness. The change in her dress, however, would, in all probability, have prevented his recognising her even under indifferent circumstances. She was habited as a Bedouin girl; a leathern girdle encircled her blue robe, a few gold coins were braided in her hair, and her head was covered ...
— Tancred - Or, The New Crusade • Benjamin Disraeli

... of eye-glasses, and held out his hand for the envelope. His manner was almost indifferent. Mr. Woodbridge withheld the packet, and spoke with decision: "I cannot allow you to look at the instructions until I have your word of honor that you ...
— Stories Worth Rereading • Various

... they were, on the whole, resigned to it,' said Traddles, doubtfully. 'The fact is, we avoid mentioning the subject; and my unsettled prospects and indifferent circumstances are a great consolation to them. There will be a deplorable scene, whenever we are married. It will be much more like a funeral, than a wedding. And they'll all hate me ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens

... figured in the glorious contest for freedom? "Do political axioms on the Atlantic become problems when transferred to the shores of the Mississippi?" To such arguments Congress could not remain wholly indifferent. The outcome was a third act (March 2, 1805) which established the usual form of territorial government, an elective legislature, a delegate in Congress, and a Governor appointed by the President. To a ...
— Jefferson and his Colleagues - A Chronicle of the Virginia Dynasty, Volume 15 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Allen Johnson

... heartless of them all, Carmen. Before they appear, Michaela, a village girl, enters the square, bearing a message to Don Jose from his mother, but not finding him departs. The cigar-girls at last pass by on their way to work, and with them Carmen, who observes Don Jose sitting in an indifferent manner and throws him the rose she wears in her bosom. As they disappear, Michaela returns and delivers her message. The sight of the gentle girl and the thought of home dispel Don Jose's sudden passion for Carmen. He is about to throw away her rose, when a sudden ...
— The Standard Operas (12th edition) • George P. Upton

... your looks," said Mrs Bancroft with a laugh, as she raised her eyes from her knitting and looked at her sister Flo, who sat opposite, also knitting, and who took a smiling but comparatively indifferent view of the matter. ...
— Philosopher Jack • R.M. Ballantyne

... banqueting halls with rich and sumptuous stuffs, and that in the sight of Melville, Bourgoin, and the others, whom they had brought thither, less to be present at the interment of Queen Mary than to bear witness to the magnificence of Queen Elizabeth. But, as one may suppose, the unhappy prisoners were indifferent to this splendour, great ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... palpitation of the heart, with trembling of the limbs, and floods of tears. Then her tale had been received with harsh sternness. Now she could tell her story without any trembling, with no tears; but it was almost indifferent to her whether her mother was harsh ...
— Castle Richmond • Anthony Trollope

... rearing, leaping madly from side to side, practising every known equine trick to dislodge the grim rider in the saddle. The man fought out the battle silently, immovable as a rock, and apparently as indifferent. Twice his spurs brought blood, and once he struck the rearing head with clenched fist. The light of the stars revealed the faint lines of the trail, and he was content to permit the maddened brute to race forward, until, finally mastered, the animal settled down into a swift gallop, but with ears ...
— Molly McDonald - A Tale of the Old Frontier • Randall Parrish

... their honour. To outlive such husbands is, in my judgment, a harder effort of virtue than to die for them or with them. But Mark Antony, to whom my brother Octavius, for reasons of state, gave my hand, was indifferent to me, and loved another. Yet he has told me himself I was handsomer than his mistress Cleopatra. Younger I certainly was, and to men that is generally a charm sufficient to turn the scale in one's favour. I had been loved by Marcellus. Antony said he loved me when he pledged ...
— Dialogues of the Dead • Lord Lyttelton

... black "cut away" coat, of the fashion of his younger time; he wore the same cool-looking trousers, chequered in black and white—the proper harmony with which, he inveterately considered, was a sprigged blue satin necktie; and, over his concave little stomach, quaintly indifferent to climates and seasons, a white duck waistcoat. "Should you really," he now asked, "like me to marry?" He spoke as if, coming from his daughter herself, it MIGHT be an idea; which, for that matter, he would be ready to carry out should ...
— The Golden Bowl • Henry James



Words linked to "Indifferent" :   unbiassed, inert, unheeding, ordinary, heedless, chemical science, so-so, inferior, deaf, chemistry, unconcerned, immaterial, unreactive, unbiased, uninterested, indifference, apathetic, unimportant, neutral, impartial



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