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Mockery   Listen
noun
Mockery  n.  (pl. mockeries)  
1.
The act of mocking, deriding, and exposing to contempt, by mimicry, by insincere imitation, or by a false show of earnestness; a counterfeit appearance. "It is, as the air, invulnerable, And our vain blows malicious mockery." "Grace at meals is now generally so performed as to look more like a mockery upon devotion than any solemn application of the mind to God." "And bear about the mockery of woe."
2.
Insulting or contemptuous action or speech; contemptuous merriment; derision; ridicule. "The laughingstock of fortune's mockeries."
3.
Subject of laughter, derision, or sport. "The cruel handling of the city whereof they made a mockery."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Mockery" Quotes from Famous Books



... windiest of fictions, to a nation, is not a man pledged to respectful language? speaking, though it is but by a chimera as wild as Repeal to a question of national welfare, a man is pledged to sincerity. Had he seven devils of mockery and banter within him, for that hour he must silence them all. The foul fiend must be rebuked, though it were Mahu and Bohu who should prompt him to buffoonery, when standing at the bar ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. 1 (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey

... steal. Ben Kirby is a great man on the 5th of November. All the savings of a month, the hoarded halfpence, the new farthings, the very luck-penny, go off in fumo on that night. For my part, I like this daylight mockery better. There is no gunpowder—odious gunpowder! no noise but the merry shouts of the small fry, so shrill and happy, and the cawing of the rooks, who are wheeling in large circles overhead, and wondering what is going forward in their territory—seeming in their loud clamour to ...
— Our Village • Mary Russell Mitford

... the while. When he had finished, he gave it back to me with great politeness. It contained another request to have the door left open; and this has been the ruin of us all. My uncle kept me strictly in my room until evening, and then ordered me to dress myself as you see me - a hard mockery for a young girl, do you not think so? I suppose, when he could not prevail with me to tell him the young captain's name, he must have laid a trap for him: into which, alas! you have fallen in the ...
— New Arabian Nights • Robert Louis Stevenson

... that Mabel should be arrayed in her bridal robes, but with a shudder at the idle mockery, John Jr. answered, "No," and in a plain white muslin, her shining hair arrayed as she was wont to wear it, they placed her in her coffin, and on a sunny slope where the golden sunlight and the pale moonbeams latest fell, and where in ...
— 'Lena Rivers • Mary J. Holmes

... of her sins is full, The scarlet-vested whore! Thy murderous and lecherous race Have sat too long i' the holy place; The knife shall lop what no drug cures, Nor Heaven permits, nor earth endures, The monstrous mockery more. Behold! I swear it, saith the Lord: Mine elect warrior girds the sword— A nameless man, a miner's son, Shall tame thy pride, thou haughty one, And ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLV. July, 1844. Vol. LVI. • Various

... certain perfunctory quality in such attentions as he showed me, there was with it all a curious subtle something, so intangible that I found it utterly impossible to define or describe it, which yet impressed me with the feeling that it was all unreal, assumed, a mockery and a pretence; though why it should be so, I could not for the life ...
— A Pirate of the Caribbees • Harry Collingwood

... had ever by great ill-fortune lived to be made Deemster, he would have found himself out, and the island would have found him out, and you yourself would have found him out, and all the world would have been undeceived. As a poet he might have been a great man, but as a Deemster he must have been a mockery, a hypocrite, an ...
— The Manxman - A Novel - 1895 • Hall Caine

... exercises a special providence, which reaches to the minutest affairs of the most insignificant man, or we are all in a condition of essential orphanage. A special Providence denied, and prayer becomes a mockery, devotion a deceit, and the sense of individual responsibility slavery to a superstitious idea. Now I do not pretend to address myself to men who do not believe in prayer. I know men well enough to know that there are very few of them who do not believe in prayer, and that there are very few ...
— Lessons in Life - A Series of Familiar Essays • Timothy Titcomb

... All flying furious, grinning deep despair, Shaped dismal shadows on the troubled air: Red lightning shot its flashes as they came, And passing clouds seem'd kindling into flame; And strong and stronger came the sulphury smell, With demons following in the breath of hell, Laughing in mockery as the doom'd complain'd, Losing their pains in ...
— Life and Remains of John Clare - "The Northamptonshire Peasant Poet" • J. L. Cherry

... few counterparts in his life. His clemency was not matched by his piety. The priests who were present at his dying bed exhorted him to repentance and restitution, but he drove them away with bitter mockery, and died as hardened a sinner as he had lived. It should, however, be said that this statement of the character of Richard's death, given by the historian Green, does not accord with that of Lingard, who says that Richard ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 4 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris

... Cornwallis". It is rather difficult to say for which of his qualities this dulcet epithet was bestowed. The preceding may well justify us in the doubt we venture to express, whether it was not given as much in mockery as compliment. But, lest his commands should not be understood, as not sufficiently explicit, his Lordship proceeded to furnish examples of his meaning, which left his desires beyond reasonable question. Immediately after his return to ...
— The Life of Francis Marion • William Gilmore Simms

... confidence in her truth and integrity that drew me to her. What her resources are, I know not; I fear they exist only in her own imagination; but if she should befriend me in this, mine extremity, may the holy angels guard and bless her. Alas! it is mockery for me ...
— Helen and Arthur - or, Miss Thusa's Spinning Wheel • Caroline Lee Hentz

... mourn beneath a crown, Where born slaves only could rejoice. How should the Nation keep it down? What would a despot's fortunes be, After his days of strength had flown, Amidst this people, proud and free, Whose histories from such sources run? The thought is its own mockery. I pity the audacious one Who may ascend that thorny throne, And bide a single setting sun. Day dies; my shadow's length has grown; The sun is sliding down the west. That trumpet in my camp was blown. From yonder high and wooded crest ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 84, October, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... impossible while the evil exists—the cure and the cessation of the disease are one. How could the heart of ice be melted till tender feelings warm it, and how can tender feelings find entrance into a feelingless heart? Alas! alas! I can but predict what sounds like a mockery of your trouble," she went on, turning to the King, though indeed by this time she might have included the Queen in her sympathy, for Claribel stood, horrified at the result of her mad resentment, as pale as Brave-Heart himself. "Hearken!" and her expressive face, over which sunshine ...
— A Budget of Christmas Tales by Charles Dickens and Others • Various

... them and their employers were alike groundless; that they deserved the worst;—what inefficiency, what imbecility has been evinced in the method chosen to reduce them! Why were the military called out to be made a mockery of, if they were to be called out at all? As far as the difference of seasons would permit, they have merely parodied the summer campaign of Major Sturgeon; and, indeed, the whole proceedings, civil and military, seemed on the model of those of the mayor and corporation ...
— The Works of Lord Byron: Letters and Journals, Volume 2. • Lord Byron

... Helena Powyss' party came—a terrible ordeal for Ethel. She had grown miserably nervous under the life she had led the past two weeks—the ceaseless mockery of Miss Catheron's soft, scornful tones, the silent contempt and derision of her hard black eyes. What should she wear? how should she act? What if she made some absurd blunder, betraying her plebeian birth and breeding? What if she mortified her thin-skinned husband? ...
— A Terrible Secret • May Agnes Fleming

... out Abner, and the sound of his shout was echoed back from the closeness of the shore in faint dangerous mockery. "Reef-ho!" ...
— Mr. Wicker's Window • Carley Dawson

... any or all of these points, nothing consoles and softens me so much as the affection of a dumb animal, more particularly a horse. His honest grave face seems to sympathize in one's grief, without obtruding the impertinence of curiosity or the mockery of consolation. He gives freely the affection one has been disappointed in finding elsewhere, and seems to stand by one in his brute vigour and generous unreasoning nature like a true friend. I always feel inclined to pour my griefs into poor Brilliant's unintelligent ears, and ...
— Kate Coventry - An Autobiography • G. J. Whyte-Melville

... a shrine of a deity who is supposed to have the power of melting the wicked into contrition, and to this accursed mockery, on his birthday, the prisoners are compelled to give a feast, which is provided by the jailer out of his peculations from their daily allowances. No water is allowed for washing, and the tubs containing the allowance of foul ...
— The Golden Chersonese and the Way Thither • Isabella L. Bird (Mrs. Bishop)

... another without quailing. Dionysius looked on more struck than ever. He felt that neither of such men must die. He reversed the sentence of Pythias, and calling the two to his judgment seat, he entreated them to admit him as a third in their friendship. Yet all the time he must have known it was a mockery that he should ever be such as they were to each other—he who had lost the very power of trusting, and constantly sacrificed others to secure his own life, whilst they counted not their lives dear to them in comparison with ...
— A Book of Golden Deeds • Charlotte M. Yonge

... how? I had left the carpenter and his family in suspense. Must I talk of favours which I could not confer? or mention remuneration that would but seem like mockery? This was painful: but not so ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft

... the hall prevented my rebuking him as I wished. I told myself that, of course, his persistent reference to that kiss was simply one of mockery and I also admitted to myself that as much as I loved Lillian I was glad that her husband was to be no longer ...
— Revelations of a Wife - The Story of a Honeymoon • Adele Garrison

... She had mockery in her look, gleams of it shot with happiness to be there. "Is that what you've done at Martley? I shan't praise you when I ...
— Love and Lucy • Maurice Henry Hewlett

... us, Thy children: our faces dark with doubt are made a mockery in Thy Sanctuary. With uplifted hands we front ...
— Darkwater - Voices From Within The Veil • W. E. B. Du Bois

... if not a mockery, but it was the first time I had heard the words in Ireland. The tune is almost unknown, and the current issue of United Ireland ridicules the notion that the Irish are going to learn it. The band of the Royal Irish Constabulary, playing in front of their barracks in the Phoenix Park, Dublin, ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)

... the atrocious mockery of the young woman, who pretended she perceived expressions of mercy in her eyes, when she would have liked to have brought down fire from heaven on the head of the criminal. She frequently made supreme ...
— Therese Raquin • Emile Zola

... the tragic part of a most pathetic story enacted out at a time when the name civilization, applied to the French and English, is a mockery. "In December she was carried to Rouen, the headquarters of the English, heavily fettered, and flung into a gloomy prison, and at length, arraigned before the spiritual tribunal of the Bishop of Beauvais, a wretched creature of ...
— Skookum Chuck Fables - Bits of History, Through the Microscope • Skookum Chuck (pseud for R.D. Cumming)

... risk was not the old life, but the new one which he had bought so dearly; the new one for which he had given his soul, his country, and his friends. And he dared not risk that! He dared not let the winds of heaven blow too roughly on that! If aught befel him this night, the irony of it! The mockery of it! The deadly, ...
— The Long Night • Stanley Weyman

... times during the brief and very summary proceedings." For most of the time he was unable to converse with his counsel, and "sat dozing, with the blood slowly oozing out of his mouth and nostrils." After a very hurried form, and mockery of a trial, Daniel was ordered to be delivered to Rust, the Agent of George H. Moore, of Louisville, Kentucky. By a writ of Habeas Corpus, Daniel was brought before Judge Coakling, of the United States Court, at Auburn, who gave ...
— The Fugitive Slave Law and Its Victims - Anti-Slavery Tracts No. 18 • American Anti-Slavery Society

... Lloyd's stifled grief there was no sound. Bennett—leaning heavily against the door, his great shoulders stooping and bent, his face ashen, his eyes fixed—did not move. He did not speak to Lloyd. There was no word of comfort he could address to her—that would have seemed the last mockery. He had prevailed, as he knew he should, as he knew he must, when once his resolve was taken. The force that, once it was unleashed, was beyond him to control, had accomplished its purpose. His will remained unbroken; but at what ...
— A Man's Woman • Frank Norris

... his room and sulked," said Peggy. "That's his way! I do declare, he's like—" Here she stopped suddenly, for a vision appeared in the doorway. Pale and scornful, with her great dark eyes full of cold mockery, Rita stood gazing at them both, her rose-coloured ...
— Three Margarets • Laura E. Richards

... again after they became married women. To me, as one of those who had known and loved Miss Smith, Lady Carbery always turned the more sunny side of her nature; but to the world generally she presented a chilling and somewhat severe aspect—as to a vast illusion that rested upon pillars of mockery and frauds. Honors, beauty of the first order, wealth, and the power which follows wealth as its shadow—what could these do? what had they done? In proportion as they had settled heavily upon herself, she had found them ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey

... gone. Chill and dark, the heavens spread out above me without a twinkle or a smile. The full-moon was there, and there was no cloud or haze to obscure her light; but she did not shine. Her white, rayless face was a mockery to the night. The same was true of the stars. The dazzling canopy was faded out, and Cygnus and the Great Bear were subdued to pallid points, like patches of white-gray ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various

... Mediaevalism, nothing but an unfinished group of ecclesiastical buildings. Long gone is the lordly "Narbo" dedicated to Mars, gone the city of the Latin poet, whose words repeated to-day in her streets are a bitter mockery, and gone the stronghold of mediaeval times. There remains a rare phenomenon for cleanly France,—a dirty city, whose older sections are reminiscent of unbeautiful old age, decrepit and unwashed; and whose newly projected boulevards ...
— Cathedrals and Cloisters of the South of France, Volume 1 • Elise Whitlock Rose

... not the sucking (which he did before) but the swallowing of the apple, by which the contrary elements begun to work in him, and to stir up these passions, and a great deal of such fooleries, which the King made mighty mockery at. Thence my Lord Brouncker and I into the Park in his coach, and there took a great deal of ayre, saving that it was mighty dusty, and so a little unpleasant. Thence to Common Garden with my Lord, and there I took a hackney and ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys

... was asserted at the Wilhelmstrasse, ought to be satisfied with the assurance that Austria would not impair the territorial integrity of Serbia or mar her future existence as an independent State. What a hollow mockery such a promise would seem, when the whole country had been ravaged by fire and sword! Surely it was decreed that, after this "exemplary punishment," Serbia should become the lowly vassal of her redoubtable neighbour, living a life that ...
— World's War Events, Vol. I • Various

... hitherto unknown to me, and periodicals of all kinds from every section of the Union (not even excepting the South), all uniting to give me a triumphant acquittal—all severely reprehending the conduct of Mr. Todd—and all regarding my trial as a mockery of justice." This unexpected result was one of those accidents of history, which "have laws as fixed ...
— William Lloyd Garrison - The Abolitionist • Archibald H. Grimke

... which claws the breast with a savage little rapacity, and an incipient masterfulness of which every mother is aware. This incipient mastery, this sheer joy of a young thing in its own single existence, the marvelous playfulness of early youth, and the roguish mockery of the mother's love, as well as the bursts of temper and rage, all belong to infancy. And all this flashes spontaneously, must flash spontaneously from the first great center of independence, the powerful lumbar ganglion, great dynamic center of all the voluntary ...
— Fantasia of the Unconscious • D. H. Lawrence

... Sir Oliver soberly. "There is no mockery in my heart. There is, believe me, nothing but regret—regret that I should not have done the thing more thoroughly. I will send assistance from the house as I go. Give you good day, ...
— The Sea-Hawk • Raphael Sabatini

... only a hollow blackness, and the snow lay new and white upon the pavements; but I wore green leaves in my hair and a red Southern rose on my breast to remind you of a brown forest maid and summer-time far away—and you would not see me! I faced you in gay mockery and swept a bow, but the blue silence in your eyes terrified me. I held out my hands beseechingly, touched my cheek to yours, and you did not feel the pressure. Then I slipped down upon the snow and wept, and you did ...
— The Jessica Letters: An Editor's Romance • Paul Elmer More

... mud all around it. They drained that water dry and struck on. Since then the water famine had gained a hold on them; another water hole had not a drop in it. Now they could only aim at the cool, blue mockery of the mountains before them, praying that the ponies would last ...
— The Rangeland Avenger • Max Brand

... the door of Dan Harwood's new office in the Law Building, the sight of Miss Farrell at the typewriter moved him to characteristic demonstrations. Carefully closing the door and advancing, hat in hand, with every appearance of deepest humility, he gazed upon the young woman with a mockery of astonishment. ...
— A Hoosier Chronicle • Meredith Nicholson

... settlers and their new allies,—these furtive and for the most part futile indications of malignity, were, however, always easily repelled by a single shot from a four or six-pounder, which usually put the assailants for the time being to an immediate flight. But it was not to this mockery of warfare with King George's warriors that the annoyance of the settlers was limited. Many and various were the vexations to which the hostility of the Deys subjected the unhappy adventurers; in the mere act of obtaining ...
— A Voyage Round the World, Vol. I (of ?) • James Holman

... several hours exposed to the mockery and insults of the mob; he was then, according to his sentence, marched on to Paris, where it is probable that he would have escaped death, but for his own fault. He was left for some time in prison, quite unnoticed, perhaps forgotten: day by day fresh victims were carried ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray

... desires Him;' this likewise He foretold should happen to Him. For they that saw Him crucified shook their heads each one of them, and distorted their lips, and, twisting their noses to each other, they spake in mockery the words which are recorded in the Memoirs of His Apostles, 'He said He was the Son of God: let Him come down; let God save Him.'" ...
— The Lost Gospel and Its Contents - Or, The Author of "Supernatural Religion" Refuted by Himself • Michael F. Sadler

... the habitual veil of mockery was snatched aside and the tortured soul of the man leaped from ...
— A Daughter of Raasay - A Tale of the '45 • William MacLeod Raine

... "Friend, mutual mockery, masked as mutual praise, Is a great social bond in these strange days. ROCHEFOUCAULD here might gather Material for new maxims keen and cold. They meet, these convives, if the truth be told, For ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, January 25th, 1890 • Various

... What a mockery that sunshine! Somewhere out on one of those lonely marshes it was shining perhaps on the stark bodies of the two men who were eating and drinking and laughing the day before. What did Nature care for man's joys or sorrows, hopes or fears? Beneath that treacherous ice the tide was ebbing ...
— The Root of Evil • Thomas Dixon

... heart of the madhouse, where they chain those at once cureless and dangerous,—who have but sense enough left them to smite and to throttle and to murder. Your guide opens that door, massive as a wall; you see (as we, who narrate, have seen her) Lucretia Dalibard,—a grisly, squalid, ferocious mockery of a human being, more appalling and more fallen than Dante ever fabled in his spectres, than Swift ever scoffed in his Yahoos! Only, where all other feature seems to have lost its stamp of humanity, still burns with unquenchable ...
— Lucretia, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... causes the sadness I may not be able to suppress with uniform heroism. You pained me deeply yesterday, when you advised me to go out a little 'to distract my thoughts.' To distract my thoughts from you, Edmee! What bitter mockery! Do not be cruel, sister; for then you become my haughty betrothed of evil days again . . . and, in spite of myself, I again become the brigand whom you used to hate. . . . Ah, if you knew how unhappy I am! In me ...
— Mauprat • George Sand

... with him. Why could not Jacqueline have let him know more plainly what it was that troubled her, and why could she not have shown a little tenderness toward him, instead of assuming, even when she said the kindest things to him, her air of mockery? And then, though she might pretend not to find Lizerolles stupid, he could see that she was bored there. Yet why had she chosen to stay at Lizerolles rather ...
— Jacqueline, Complete • (Mme. Blanc) Th. Bentzon

... there. The houses were decorated with flowers and garlands, dense crowds lined the streets, processions came out to meet him; banquets were given in his honor, and everything seemed gay and joyous. But Roger was low and depressed. To him the whole thing appeared a mockery. He seemed to see blood everywhere, and the fact that, as he learned from the casual remark of one of the envoys, numbers of victims were offered upon the altars on the evening before his arrival at each town, ...
— By Right of Conquest - Or, With Cortez in Mexico • G. A. Henty

... they were again laid bare and exposed to our curious and admiring eyes. Yet we behold them, stamped upon the rock, distinct as the track of the passing animal upon the recent snow; as if to shew that thousands of years are but as nothing amidst eternity—and, as it were, in mockery of the fleeting, perishable course of the mightiest potentates ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 459 - Volume 18, New Series, October 16, 1852 • Various

... worn down, wan, haggard, with sunken cheeks, and features rigid and colorless, as if cut from wax, and with an eye of fire. But wrecked as he was, there was still that strange sneering smile on his lip, which seemed as if only parting to utter sarcasm and mockery. But now he was serious in his mood, ...
— Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, March 1844 - Volume 23, Number 3 • Various

... a taint of mockery, for I cared little what might follow; then, with head erect and the firm tread of defiance, I stalked out of his apartment, along the corridor, down the great staircase, across the courtyard, past the guard,—which, ignorant of my disgrace, ...
— The Suitors of Yvonne • Raphael Sabatini

... I was indulged. I went to Florence, to Rome, to Naples; thence I passed to Toulon, and at length reached what had long been the bourne of my wishes, Paris. There was wild work in Paris then. The poor king, Charles the Sixth, now sane, now mad, now a monarch, now an abject slave, was the very mockery of humanity. The queen, the dauphin, the Duke of Burgundy, alternately friends and foes—now meeting in prodigal feasts, now shedding blood in rivalry—were blind to the miserable state of their country, and the dangers ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1, April, 1851 • Various

... put to Chane, in mockery, of course, for it was impossible for him to answer it; and yet he did answer it, for his look spoke a curse as plainly as if it had been uttered through a trumpet. The Jarochos did not heed that, but ...
— The Rifle Rangers • Captain Mayne Reid

... Many a family wept the loss of a beloved member, they knew not, guessed not how—for those who once entered those fatal walls were never permitted to depart; so secret were their measures, that even the existence of this fearful mockery of justice and Religion was not known, or at that time it would have been wholly eradicated. Superstition had not then gained the ascendency which in after years so tarnished the glory of Spain, and opened the wide ...
— The Vale of Cedars • Grace Aguilar

... India, was thin and haggard. Her skin, fair and beautiful on that day when she sat so proudly by her husband and daughter in the Circus, watching the gladiatorial contest, was yellow and drawn. The jewels were a mockery in the shadow ...
— Virgilia - or, Out of the Lion's Mouth • Felicia Buttz Clark

... death, in its common shape, would not have inspired. This savage pageant on the part, of the Dead Boxer, besides being calculated to daunt the heart of any man who might accept his challenge, was a cruel mockery of the solemnities of death. In this instance it produced such a sensation as never had been felt in that part of the country. An uneasy feeling of wild romance, mingled with apprehension, curiosity, fear, and amazement, all conspired to work upon the imaginations ...
— The Dead Boxer - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton

... was gone, and, though the tune was the same, the voices were harsh, and there was a dreadful mockery of woe in the stave ...
— Berry And Co. • Dornford Yates

... fears, were ready enough to enjoy the national fete ordained for them by the Committee of Public Safety, in honour of the capture of the Scarlet Pimpernel. They were even willing to accept this new religion which Robespierre had invented: a religion which was only a mockery, with an actress to represent ...
— The Elusive Pimpernel • Baroness Emmuska Orczy

... things that tower, that shine; whose smile Makes glad—whose frown is terrible; whose forms, Robed or unrobed, do all the impress wear Of awe divine; whose subject never kneels In mockery, because it is your boast To keep ...
— The Evolution of Expression Vol. I • Charles Wesley Emerson

... are none pure; no, not one." Now, if the claim of Catholicism that the Pope of Rome is infallible, is true, then the Bible is a myth and a mockery. ...
— Thirty Years In Hell - Or, From Darkness to Light • Bernard Fresenborg

... Guido Cavalcanti was well aware of the mockery they made of him in the Companies by reason of the careful heed he had of eternal things; and this was why he shunned the society of living men and sought rather to ...
— The Well of Saint Clare • Anatole France

... trash, the carcass of some animal. It was horrible, horrible! His wife might be dying, his baby might be starving, his whole family might be perishing in the cold—and all the while they were ringing their Christmas chimes! And the bitter mockery of it—all this was punishment for him! They put him in a place where the snow could not beat in, where the cold could not eat through his bones; they brought him food and drink—why, in the name of heaven, if they must ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair

... a long time, with cruel mockery of justice, for no witnesses were ever in this court confronted with the accused, and the latter had continually to defend himself in the dark. Some unknown and powerful enemy had alleged charges against the unfortunate alchymist, but who he could not imagine. Stranger and sojourner as he was ...
— Bracebridge Hall, or The Humorists • Washington Irving

... add an undesired note to the chorus of rejected appeal? How dare I lift up my voice in the Wilderness, when other voices, far stronger and sweeter, are drowned in the laughter of fools and the mockery of the profane? Truly, I do not know. But I am sure that I am not moved by egotism or arrogance. It is simply out of love and pity for suffering human kind that I venture to become another Voice discarded—a voice which, if heard at all, ...
— The Life Everlasting: A Reality of Romance • Marie Corelli

... lost to them as slave territory, wherein the Southern slave-breeder can dispose of his own flesh to the highest bidder! Hear them talk as they do, in their pious moments, with upturned faces, in solemn mockery, of returning the negro to his native Africa! How many pure Africans, think you, can be found in the whole slave population of the South, to say nothing of their nativity? Native Africa, indeed! Who does not know, that in three-fourths of the colored race, there runs the blood of the ...
— Twenty-Two Years a Slave, and Forty Years a Freeman • Austin Steward

... being on the terrestrial globe whom I loved. At this moment, just before going away, when I knew that I should no longer see her even through the window, she seemed to me fascinating even as she was, cold and forbidding, answering me with a proud and contemptuous mockery. I was proud of her, and confessed to myself that to go away from her was terrible ...
— The Wife and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov

... and mine to you, Marquis, would seem but a mockery. Your devotion to my son is beyond human thanks. I'll not detain ...
— I Will Repay • Baroness Emmuska Orczy

... our Father! that, like him, Thy tender love I see, In radiant hill and woodland dim, And tinted sunset sea. For not in mockery dost Thou fill Our earth with light and grace; Thou hid'st no dark and cruel will Behind ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier

... Street, expecting him every moment to join them. Perhaps he was detained, he might come yet at twelve, they said, trying to comfort Katy, who, with a sad foreboding, went back into the parlor, and tried to join in the laugh and jest which seemed almost like mockery. Something had happened to Wilford she was sure when the night train did not bring him; and all the next day, while the Sunday bells pealed their music in her ears, and the sounds of thoughtless mirth came up from the room below, where the elaborate dinner was in progress, ...
— Family Pride - Or, Purified by Suffering • Mary J. Holmes

... wild bursts of rage on the mother's part, stubborn mockery on the other, followed up once by a poker flung with almost fatal precision ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 5 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard

... slipped from between his parted lips, and in his hands lay the symbol of all the imaginings, all the pretty mockery wherewith he ...
— Max • Katherine Cecil Thurston

... within sound of the alarm, though all the more vulgar cries had ceased, as men would deem it mockery to cry murder in a battle, Sir George Templemore met his friends, on the margin of this sea of fire. It was now drawing towards morning, and the conflagration was at its height, having already laid waste ...
— Home as Found • James Fenimore Cooper

... bitterly. "What shall be my experience then? If I continue to fail in health as I have of late I shall know cursedly soon. That must be Miss Walton singing. Though she does not realize it, to me this is almost as cruel mockery as if an angel sang ...
— Opening a Chestnut Burr • Edward Payson Roe

... thought. 'What merit can there be in such a poor caitiff as man? The better a man is—the more clearly he sees how little he is good for, the greater mockery it seems to attribute to him the ...
— Short Studies on Great Subjects • James Anthony Froude

... tried to speak gently, aware through all her mockery of something piteous, tragic ...
— The Making of a Soul • Kathlyn Rhodes

... forthwith drive thee from thy country, for all that I have suffered through thy cruelty! These curses will not be allowed to fall unaccomplished to the ground. A mighty oath hast thou transgressed, ruthless one; but not long shalt thou and thy comrades sit at ease casting eyes of mockery upon me, for all ...
— The Argonautica • Apollonius Rhodius

... "Friend, I advise thee to mix a goblet of wine and drink, crowning thy head with flowers. Earth and fire consume all that remains at death." "Pilgrim, stop and listen. In Hades is no boat and no Charon; no Eacus and no Cerberus. Once dead, we are all alike." Another says: "Hold all a mockery, ...
— Ten Great Religions - An Essay in Comparative Theology • James Freeman Clarke

... and affecting words of John Calvin, of Richard Watson, and of the British Conference, but a mockery and a snare, if the baptized children are not to be acknowledged and treated as members of the visible church of Christ? Ought not then children baptised by the Wesleyan ministry to be recognized and cared for as members of the Wesleyan Church? ...
— The Story of My Life - Being Reminiscences of Sixty Years' Public Service in Canada • Egerton Ryerson

... seat; a black, angular table and a red, angular shade over a green angular lamp sat where the sawdust box had been. True—a green angular smoker's set also was upon the table—the only masculine appurtenance in the corner; but it was clearly a sop thrown out to offended and exiled mankind—a mere mockery of the solid comfort of the sawdust box, filled with cigar stubs and ashes that had made the corner a haven for weary man for nearly a score of years. Above the black-stained seat ran a red dado and upon that in ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White

... he puts alms for oblivion, A great-siz'd monster of ingratitudes: These scraps are good deeds past; which are devour'd As fast as they are made, forgot as soon As done: Perseverance, dear my lord, Keeps honour bright: To have done, is to hang Quite out of fashion, like a rusty mail In monumental mockery. Take the instant way; For honour travels in a strait so narrow, Where one but goes abreast: keep then the path; For emulation hath a thousand sons, That one by one pursue: If you give way, Or hedge aside from the direct forthright, Like to an enter'd tide, they all rush ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. 6 (of 18) - Limberham; Oedipus; Troilus and Cressida; The Spanish Friar • John Dryden

... didn't even see her. Under the pink shaded candles to my blind eyes it seemed that there was seated the coolest, quietest, whitest little thing, with eyes that were as indifferent as my velvety Liane's were kind, and mockery in her smile. Oh, little masquerader! If I could get my arms about you even for a minute—if I could kiss so much as the tips of your lashes—would you be cool and quiet and mocking then? Janie, Janie, rosy-red as flowers on the terrace and sweeter—sweeter—they're ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1920 • Various

... anxiety, to fly from England, from the Duke of Hereward, and all the horrors connected with him. She felt that she was not his wife, could never have been his wife, and that the mockery of a marriage ceremony, which had been performed for them by the Bishop of London that morning, at St. George's Hanover Square, had made the duke a ...
— The Lost Lady of Lone • E.D.E.N. Southworth

... minister will be the mere tool of the multitude; the faction in the streets will have its mouthpiece in the faction of the legislature. Property will be at the mercy of the idle, the desperate, and the rapacious—Law will be a dead letter—Religion a mockery—Right superseded by violence—and the only title to possession will be the ruffian heart and the ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 366, April, 1846 • Various

... both from Antony and from his friends, to summon her, but she took no account of these orders; and at last, as if in mockery of them, she came sailing up the river Cydnus, in a barge with gilded stern and outspread sails of purple, while oars of silver beat time to the music of flutes and fifes and harps. She herself lay all along, under a canopy of cloth ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 2 • Various

... daily lives could not be affected. Left to themselves, and assisted by their own methods, they knew that blows struck across the immense roadless spaces were so diminished in strength, by the time they reached the spot aimed at, that they became a mere mockery of force; and, just because they were so valueless, paved the way to effective compromises. Being adepts in the art which modern surgeons have adopted, of leaving wounds as far as possible to heal ...
— The Fight For The Republic In China • B.L. Putnam Weale

... at him under her lowered brows; and in her look there was that strange tolerance, and mockery, and a feigned surprise. And with it all a sort of triumph, as if she were rich in some secret and insolent satisfaction and could afford ...
— The Combined Maze • May Sinclair

... and romance. Conceived a high ideal of faithfulness and constancy. What a mockery all this loyalty is, I said to myself, if a man has stultified it beforehand. That was no mere castle-building. I had not understood what I was about in expecting to whore. The critical feelings were now awakening, and what they produced was revulsion against ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 3 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis

... sweet and thrilling, which disturbed Leam's whole being; Edgar's unfathomable eyes, which seemed almost to burn as she looked at them; his altered voice, scarcely recognizable it was so changed—all a mere phantasy born of a dream—all, what is so much in this life of ours, a mockery, a mistake, a vague hope without roots, a shadowy heaven that had no place in fact, the cold residuum of enthralling and bewitching myths—all ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, April, 1876. • Various

... quitted her uncle's court in regal splendour to ascend the throne of France; and now—how did the heartless minister urge her to return? Hopeless, friendless, and powerless; with a name which had become a mockery, to a family wherein she would be a stranger. At Florence her existence was a mere tradition. All who had once loved her were dispersed or dead; no personal interest bound her to their survivors; and where long years previously she might have claimed ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe

... for all the world seeming to make such derisive remarks as, "Oh, what a fine fellow! Quite stuck-up, ain't he? Isn't that a stylish topknot, though? He! he! he! Look! he wears a rose on his shirt bosom! Isn't he a dandy? Ge! ge! gah! gah!" By and by the visitor can stand the racket and the mockery no longer; and so he steals away, resolved never again to go to that place to be insulted. I have repeatedly been ...
— Our Bird Comrades • Leander S. (Leander Sylvester) Keyser

... End is one of those converted farms. They don't really do, spend what you will on them. We messed away with a garage all among the wych-elm roots, and last year we enclosed a bit of the meadow and attempted a mockery. Evie got rather keen on Alpine plants. But it didn't do—no, it didn't do. You remember, or your sister will remember, the farm with those abominable guinea-fowls, and the hedge that the old woman never would cut properly, so that it ...
— Howards End • E. M. Forster

... population the Roman and the Vlach died out, but the latter's name was retained. It had lost its ethnic meaning and among the Ragusan poets of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries the word was used to signify a shepherd. The Venetians employed the word Morlacchi as a term of mockery, because it indicated people of the mountains, backward people. And this derogatory connotation has clung to it, so that to-day the Morlaks, who after all are Croats and Serbs, do not like to be called ...
— The Birth of Yugoslavia, Volume 1 • Henry Baerlein

... indeed nothing to do with it; and it is part of his higher significance that he has really nothing to do with the story, or with any such stories. The boy went like a bullet through the tangle of this tale of crooked politics and crazy mockery and came out on the other side, pursuing his own unspoiled purposes. From the top of the chimney he climbed he had caught sight of a new omnibus, whose color and name he had never known, as a naturalist might ...
— The Man Who Knew Too Much • G.K. Chesterton

... council took the side of Telemachus and Halitherses and Mentor—so powerful were the wooers and so fearful of them were the men of the council. The wooers looked at Telemachus and his friends with mockery. Then for the last time Telemachus rose up ...
— The Adventures of Odysseus and The Tales of Troy • Padriac Colum

... and been recognized, and then had been deliberately put out beyond recall. He has gone steadily down into slimiest slush since that. Now, with studied insolence, he treats this silent man with utmost contempt. His soldiers and retainers mock and deride, dressing Him in gorgeous apparel in mockery of His kingly claims. When they weary of the sport He is again dismissed to Pilate, acquitted. It is the second mocking and ...
— Quiet Talks about Jesus • S. D. Gordon

... irresoluteness of armed force, with the awkwardness of a vaguely understood purpose, the soldiers seized Him and dragged Him off—mistaking their irresoluteness for resistance, their fear for derision and mockery. Like a flock of frightened lambs, the disciples stood huddled together, not interfering, yet disturbing everybody, even themselves. Only a few of them resolved to walk and act separately. Jostled from all sides, Peter drew out the sword from its sheath with difficulty, as though he had lost ...
— The Crushed Flower and Other Stories • Leonid Andreyev

... To complete the mockery of his last days, fashion declined to interest itself in his concert, and, to keep even the common public away, the skies poured down floods of rain. The house was almost empty. The enthusiasm of the few good hearts ...
— The Love Affairs of Great Musicians, Volume 1 • Rupert Hughes



Words linked to "Mockery" :   sendup, mimicry, lampoon, burlesque, scoffing, jeering, takeoff, mock, impersonation, travesty, scoff, caricature, spoof



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