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Indignity   /ɪndˈɪgnəti/   Listen
Indignity

noun
(pl. indignities)
1.
An affront to one's dignity or self-esteem.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Indignity" Quotes from Famous Books



... of the indignity offered him came home to him. The hat masked the upper sinister quarter of his face, and he spoke with a wrathful eye regarding his wife from under the brim. In a voice thick with fury he said: "I s'pose you'd like me to wear that silly Mud Pie for ever, eh? I tell you I won't. I'm sick of it. ...
— The History of Mr. Polly • H. G. Wells

... Plumbian professor! Leaden professor! Was it meant to insinuate that there was any thing of a leaden quality in his lectures or writings! While thus irate, a friend of the professor happened to drop in. He showed him the letter, and expatiated upon the indignity of the superscription. His friend endeavoured to convince him that it must be merely a slip of the pen. In vain. The professor would not be pacified. "Well," said his friend, "at any rate, it is evident the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 14, No. 379, Saturday, July 4, 1829. • Various

... breath, not only drowning each other's voices, but effectually contradicting all that was said in the way of explanation. One maintained that Conrad had not been content with attacking Maso's dog, but that he had followed up the blow by offering a personal indignity to the master himself; this was the publican in whose house the mariner had taken up his abode, and in which he had been sufficiently liberal in his expenditure fairly to entitle him to the hospitable support of its landlord. Another professed his readiness to ...
— The Headsman - The Abbaye des Vignerons • James Fenimore Cooper

... crisis in our postwar history. In the seventies were years of rising problems and falling confidence. There was a feeling government had grown beyond the consent of the governed. Families felt helpless in the face of mounting inflation and the indignity of taxes that reduced reward for hard work, thrift, and risktaking. All this was overlaid by an evergrowing web of ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various

... this evil principle would arise up to the throne of God, and sit down in his stead. Pride hath atheism in it; to deny the true God, and yet would be a god itself! For the footstool to lift up itself thus, what an indignity was it! And indeed this wretched aim at so high an estate hath thrown us down as low as hell. You see then how injurious this transgression was to God. There was disobedience and rebellion in it, which denies his dominion and supremacy; there was unthankfulness ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning

... stands the old manor-house, partly preserved as a curiosity, partly as an addition to a garden. The house was not improved by an experience for some years as a tenement dwelling, crowded with more families than it should have held. It was rescued from that indignity by its present possessor, Mr. Lowther Bridger. Heavy beams, oak panels, and a fine chimney-piece remain, relics of the Stuart days when John Bradshaw, President of the Council, had the house. Tradition, certainly wrongly, says that Bradshaw signed Charles's death-warrant in the hall. Bradshaw, ...
— Highways and Byways in Surrey • Eric Parker

... silence was maintained, and neither insult nor indignity offered the fallen foe. Other columns are on the way—and how they are to be subsisted is a ...
— A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital • John Beauchamp Jones

... under the counter and made up his bundle, snivelling and sobbing louder, as if he were cut to the heart by old associations; then he whined, 'Good-night, Captain. I leave you without malice!' and then, going out upon the door-step, pulled the little Midshipman's nose as a parting indignity, and went away down the street ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens

... were members of Christ's body. He dwelt in them; and therefore every indignity and injury done to them was done to him in their person. To enslave, buy, and sell them was to enslave, buy, and sell Christ himself. "Inasmuch as ye have done it unto the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto ...
— Is Slavery Sanctioned by the Bible? • Isaac Allen

... word she allowed him to draw off the great boots and quietly watched him as he turned them upside down, receiving them back gravely. Her longing to see Daddy Skinner, to be in his arms, to hug the grizzled head, overshadowed even this indignity. So long had it been since Tess had nestled in the shaggy chin hair, that her heart was sore and wildly impatient. Faith in Frederick's God had been forgotten—no other thought occupied her mind save that they were going ...
— Tess of the Storm Country • Grace Miller White

... passion. He could not endure any liberties to be taken with him, even by his employer or his equals on these two points. The boys of his own and other ships knew this so well that they planned an indignity that should lacerate his vanity. They knew he was very partial to what are known by sailors as "two-eyed steaks," and that never by any chance was he known to allow even his mate, much less any of the ...
— The Shellback's Progress - In the Nineteenth Century • Walter Runciman

... Prudence's invitation, feeling some contempt for a man who would permit such an indignity and advancing to the picture regarded it with keen and inquisitive glances. He refused, however, to touch the figure, until Prudence, taking his hand in hers, placed it on the canvas. But no sooner did he feel the flat surface, than, uttering a cry of astonishment, he leaped backward, ...
— The Knight of the Golden Melice - A Historical Romance • John Turvill Adams

... for the community! Only four passenger trains daily pass through Mount Mark,—not including the expresses, which rush haughtily by with no more than a scornful whistle for the sleepy town, and in return for this indignity, Mount Mark cherishes a most unchristian antipathy toward those ...
— Prudence of the Parsonage • Ethel Hueston

... of Remuneration and Reward did they make this so Clement and Benign Monarch, can you imagine, no other but this? They put the greatest Indignity upon him imaginable in the person of his Consort who was violated by a Spanish Captain altogether unworthy of the Name of Christian. He might indeed probably expect to meet with a convenient time and opportunity of revenging this Ingominy so unjuriously thrown upon him by preparing Military ...
— A Brief Account of the Destruction of the Indies • Bartolome de las Casas

... boat, manned by armed men, put off from the frigate, and steer for the American merchantman. The movement was quickly reported to Capt. Porter, who was too old a seaman not to know what it portended, and too plucky an American to submit willingly to any indignity. His preparations were quickly made; and by the time the frigate's boat came alongside, the crew of the "Eliza" were armed and ready to rush to the deck at the first alarm. Capt. Porter with his officers and son ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 1 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot

... grinned and grimaced while they walked around the lad, as if desirous of surveying him from different points. Jack dashed the tears from his eyes, and, compressing his lips, braved it out. He expected some indignity would be offered him, but there was none. This curious scene lasted only a few minutes, when the Indians gave the youth to understand that the journey westward was to be resumed. He was motioned to go forward, and was glad enough to obey, for his saturated clothes and ...
— Camp-fire and Wigwam • Edward Sylvester Ellis

... of arrogance they placed their shoes upon the books; and the other Manas, not brooking this insolence, burnt the books. The gravity of such an act may be realised when it is stated that if anybody even threatens to hit a Mana with a shoe, the indignity put upon him is so great that he is temporarily excluded from caste and penalised for readmission. Since this incident the Bhats have to address the Manas as 'Brahma,' to show their respect, the Mana replying ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume IV of IV - Kumhar-Yemkala • R.V. Russell

... of handicraft and petty trade this right of property and free contract served the interest of the common man, at least in much of its incidence, and acted in its degree to shelter industrious and economical persons from hardship and indignity at the hands of their betters. There seems reason to believe, as is commonly believed, that so long as that relatively direct and simple scheme of industry and trade lasted, the right of ownership and contract was a salutary custom, in its bearing on the fortunes of the common man. It appears ...
— An Inquiry Into The Nature Of Peace And The Terms Of Its Perpetuation • Thorstein Veblen

... of tranquillity with courage? It affected his cutting out! It produced what Burton calls "a windie melancholie," which was nothing else than an accumulation of courage that had no means of escaping, if courage can without indignity be ever said to escape. He sat uneasy on his lap-board. Instead of cutting out soberly, he nourished his scissors as if he were heading a faction; he wasted much chalk by scoring his cloth in wrong places, and even caught his hot goose without a holder. These ...
— Phelim O'toole's Courtship and Other Stories • William Carleton

... shape, and taller than the usual size; and that none but those who were wise and good, as well as vigilant, could discover his littleness or deformity. That the true Merit had been often forced to the indignity of applying to the false, for his credit with those in power, and to keep himself from starving. That he filled the antechambers with a crew of his dependants and creatures, such as projectors, schematises, occasional converts to a party, prostitute flatterers, starveling writers, ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IX; • Jonathan Swift

... impelled by his sense of honor as a gentleman to write a letter of apology for the indignity she had been exposed to while in his house. When it had gone he considered it insufficient, and only the reflection that he ought to have business in town next day kept him from following it ...
— The Inner Shrine • Basil King

... to Titanic proportions for a short time; but as a lion's powers of endurance are in no way proportionate to his size and strength he soon tired and lay quietly. Amid renewed growling and another futile attempt to free himself, Numa was finally forced to submit to the further indignity of having a rope secured about his neck; but this time it was no noose that might tighten and strangle him; but a bowline knot, which does not tighten or ...
— Tarzan the Untamed • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... 857.] Sherman insisted, with good reason, that Hooker had no real grievance, as he was left in command of his corps, and Howard's promotion was in another and independent organization, the Army of the Tennessee. He also declared that no indignity was intended or offered, and that he simply performed his own duty of selection in accordance with what he believed to be sound reasons. As to Logan, he took pains to praise his handling of the Army ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V2 • Jacob Dolson Cox

... the war-steamers of England and France, and feeling the liability of their interference in our affairs, he could not appreciate the wisdom of building new vessels according to old ideas. The blockade of the Potomac by Rebel batteries, in the very face of our navy, seemed to him an indignity which need not be endured, if the inventive genius of the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 57, July, 1862 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... clerk gave admittance to Lady Mason. Crabwitz, since the affair of that mission down at Hamworth, had so far carried a point of his, that a junior satellite was now permanently installed; and for the future the indignity of opening doors, and "just stepping out" into Chancery Lane, would not await him. Lady Mason was dressed all in black,—but this was usual with her when she left home. To-day, however, there was about her something blacker and more sombre than ...
— Orley Farm • Anthony Trollope

... stick is removed from his body, and he is driven from the ceremony by the waiting squaws, amidst a storm of feminine vituperation. He is the only one whose heart is faint. He will never be permitted to fight. He must live with the squaws all his days. He is considered a squaw-man, the greatest indignity that can be put ...
— The Watchers of the Plains - A Tale of the Western Prairies • Ridgewell Cullum

... kind and conciliatory messages to Olympias and Alexander, who had gone, it will be recollected, to Epirus, where her friends resided. The brother of Olympias was King of Epirus. He had been at first incensed at the indignity which had been put upon his sister by Philip's treatment of her; but Philip now tried to appease his anger, also, by friendly negotiations and messages. At last he arranged a marriage between this ...
— Alexander the Great - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott

... was still writhing under this new indignity, the unfortunate Leonora, who had been apprised of the murder of her husband, rushed into the apartment, and flinging herself at the feet of her royal foster-sister, implored her protection for herself and her young son; but sudden adversity ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 2 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe

... again, he kept an even way over the boulders and stones which cumbered it, with less care than hitherto, as though to protest against the previous indignity of his position. But, Kennedy though he might be, it had been fitter if he had remembered that he was on the No Man's Land of the Dungeon of Buchan, for here, about this time, was a perfect Adullam cave of all the broken and outlaw men south ...
— Bog-Myrtle and Peat - Tales Chiefly Of Galloway Gathered From The Years 1889 To 1895 • S.R. Crockett

... express regret for what had happened, ask her to try and realise that no indignity and no insult had ever been intended against her, and then he would offer her his hand, but certainly not his heart. If she felt the sting of her poverty so, then perhaps the thought of his eight thousand a year would act as balm to ...
— The Imaginary Marriage • Henry St. John Cooper

... the big man declaimed. "Already the shadow of the gaol was creeping over us, chilling us to the very marrow. For though we be poor, yet are we all honest folk and not one of us has ever suffered the indignity of prison. Nor is there one of us would survive it. But for you, my friend, it might have happened. ...
— Scaramouche - A Romance of the French Revolution • Rafael Sabatini

... put into it no evidence of the votes of superior power, exercised for no purpose but to wound the pride, whether a just and a rational pride, or an irrational pride, of the citizens of the Southern States. I have no such object, no such purpose. They would think it a taunt, an indignity; they would think it to be an act taking away from them what they regard as a proper equality of privilege. Whether they expect to realize any benefit from it or not, they would think it at least a plain theoretic wrong; ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster

... instigation of Naomi, in order that the possessions of the family might not be alienated. Kinsmen were required to intermarry, and in case of refusal the near relative was treated with the utmost public indignity. Boaz perfectly understood this legal claim; and, notwithstanding his evident partiality to Ruth, ingenuously informed her, "There is a kinsman nearer than I." If he performed the kinsman's part, law and piety required acquiescence; ...
— Female Scripture Biographies, Vol. I • Francis Augustus Cox

... "You cannot be expected to remember the days when";—a formality which, while it delighted Mrs. Delarayne, convinced her more and more that although Sir Joseph might make an excellent ancestor, it would have been an indignity for a woman of her years to accept ...
— Too Old for Dolls - A Novel • Anthony Mario Ludovici

... doubt that our country could, at a later period, have made reclamation on England for seizures, as she has done upon France, Naples, and Denmark; but the policy of our rulers had left us destitute of means either of offence or defence, and of the power to resent any indignity. Three courses were open to us. The first was to devote the funds in the Treasury at once to the creation of a navy; to commence ten or twelve ships of the line in our dock-yards, and twenty frigates in the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 44, June, 1861 • Various

... corroboration of what her brother had said; for though the Captain had certainly promised to marry her, he had never thought it necessary to ask her. She knew the matter did not rest on a proper footing; and though she was hardly aware of it, she felt the indignity of the probability of being jilted being talked over by such ...
— The Macdermots of Ballycloran • Anthony Trollope

... any moment, I have already instructed you how to act. To the Commander himself I should consider the mere suggestion an impertinence. Go, then, devoted spirits, where Glory leads, and endeavour to avoid the indignity of scalping—if only for the sake of appearances. Soldiers, I have done. May the God of Battles (I need hardly explain to scholars that I refer to Mars) keep ...
— The Talking Horse - And Other Tales • F. Anstey

... girls, non-combatants? They were George Harvey's daughters, and that in itself was enough to bring balm to his soul and well-nigh cause him to forget his physical ills. One or two of the band strove to point out that the faintest indignity offered to the sisters would array not only all Arizona, but all Mexico against them. Like dogs they would be hunted to their holes and no quarter be given. Returning hitherto with their spoils, Chihuahua or Sonora had welcomed them with open arms; but what outlaw could find refuge in Mexican soil ...
— Foes in Ambush • Charles King

... Sarah, beaming back at the chairwoman; "and I was saying that he had subjected the pure women of the hotel to the unspeakable indignity of having to sleep under the same roof with the woman he ...
— Mother Earth, Vol. 1 No. 3, May 1906 - Monthly Magazine Devoted to Social Science and Literature • Various

... must have passed away for ever under the terms of his uncle's will, for he knew that George had made none. Angela, too, tried, like a good girl as she was, to lash herself into enthusiasm about it, though in her heart she went as near hating her cousin, since his attempted indignity towards herself, as her gentle nature would allow. Arthur alone was cynically indifferent; he hated George without ...
— Dawn • H. Rider Haggard

... at once," said the Princess, rather pathetically. "My father will not overlook the indignity to—to my—to his future son-in-law. I am afraid he may take extreme measures. Believe me, I understand why you did it and I—again I thank you. I am not angry with you, yet you will understand that I cannot ...
— The Man From Brodney's • George Barr McCutcheon

... Mose Williams, has just made known to me a plot which some base men have devised to treat you with indignity and to bring the cause of religion into contempt. Mose was returning home late last night from Mr. St. Claire's plantation when, seeing a light in Simon Wiles' barn, he crept near and, looking through a chink in the wall, saw Sam Wiles, ...
— The Kentucky Ranger • Edward T. Curnick

... sudden disappearance. The country knows not yet, or in the least part, how great a son it has lost. It seems an injury that he should leave in the midst his broken task, which none else can finish,—a kind of indignity to so noble a soul, that it should depart out of Nature before yet he has been really shown to his peers for what he is. But he, at least, is content. His soul was made for the noblest society; he had in a short life ...
— Excursions • Henry D. Thoreau

... which was received with jeers by the crowd. There was no time, however, to discuss the question. Dumnoff had quietly submitted his two huge fists to the handcuffs and a second pair was produced, to fit the Count. At this indignity he ...
— A Cigarette-Maker's Romance • F. Marion Crawford

... sought an explanation from Just Trafford, for he left that night for London, and in two days was on his way to Australia. The day he left, however, he received a note from his banker saying that L8000 had been placed to his credit by Admiral Lawless. Feeling the indignity of what he believed was the cause of the gift, Lawless neither acknowledged it nor used it, not any penny of it. Five years have gone since then, and Lawless has wandered over two continents, a self-created exile. He has learned much that he didn't learn at Oxford; and not the least of all, ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... atmosphere of sighs, or a great whole of joy and gladness. It suffers with the suffering of millions; it rejoices with the joy of millions. What a vast crime does he commit,—private man or public man, agent or contractor, legislator or magistrate, secretary or president,—who dares, with indignity and wrong, to strike the bosom of the Public Welfare, to encourage venality and corruption, and shameful sale of the elective franchise, or of office; to sow dissension, and to weaken the bonds of amity that bind a Nation together! What a huge iniquity, he who, with vices like the daggers ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike

... secure his death. He was appropriately called the Target King, so constantly were the bullets of his foes aimed at his life. Even a brave man may be excused for being terrified when his wife and his children are exposed to every conceivable indignity and to a bloody death. Under these circumstances the king consented to place the command of the army in the hands of the energetic Marshal Bugeaud. It was now two o'clock in the morning. The veteran marshal, invested ...
— Louis Philippe - Makers of History Series • John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott

... abandoned for the present; but the bill for disabling catholics from sitting in either House of Parliament, having a clause which excepted the Duke of York from that indignity, passed on the 30th ...
— Royalty Restored - or, London under Charles II. • J. Fitzgerald Molloy

... No indignity could rouse him to more than the warfare of abuse, and the result was that long before dawn he found himself once more close to ...
— In the Track of the Troops • R.M. Ballantyne

... known in Ballarat as Slivers, and was equally as old and garrulous in his own way. He was one of those large white yellow-crested cockatoos who, in their captivity, pass their time like galley-slaves, chained by one leg. Billy, however, never submitted to the indignity of a chain—he mostly sat on Slivers' table or on his shoulder, scratching his poll with his black claw, or chattering to Slivers in a communicative manner. People said Billy was Slivers' evil spirit, and as a matter of fact, there was something uncanny in the ...
— Madame Midas • Fergus Hume

... d——!" was the only answer, and the door was shut on Cos's venerable red nose: and he went downstairs muttering threats at the indignity offered to him, and vowing that he would have satisfaction. In the meanwhile the reader, more lucky than Captain Costigan, will have the privilege of being made acquainted with the secret which ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray

... throwing the planks of the bridge into the water, and thus preventing the Duke's suite from following. At the same time, Charles de Penthievre, Margaret's second son, issued suddenly from a wood with an escort of lances and surrounded the Duke. There was no kind of indignity they did not make him suffer. He was tied upon his horse like a criminal, and conducted first to Clisson, Oliver leading him with a halter round his neck. The Penthievres, who would not let the place be guessed where they held their captive, conducted him at night, sometimes on foot, ...
— Brittany & Its Byways • Fanny Bury Palliser

... tempted to touch it. But, just to be doubly sure, he promised me, on his honor. He has never broken that promise; I know, because he told me so." She made the explanation scornfully, as if her pride and her belief in Manley almost forbade the indignity of explaining. "I don't know why you should come here and insult me," she added, with a lofty charity ...
— Lonesome Land • B. M. Bower

... London Courant, The Noon Gazette, The Gazetteer, The Whitehall Evening Journal, The St. James's Chronicle, and The Middlesex Journal received various sentences of fine and imprisonment, together with, in some cases, the indignity of the pillory. Prosecutions for libel abounded in those days. Horace Walpole says that, dating from Wilkes's famous No. 45, no less than two hundred informations had been laid, a much larger number than during the whole thirty-three years ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol. 6, No. 1, July, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various

... the cubicle where she had been forced to submit to the indignity of being searched by a wardress, the latter was now standing, waiting with characteristic stolidity. In her hand she held the steel files, the dagger and the purse which, as Marguerite passed, ...
— El Dorado • Baroness Orczy

... with a quick, involuntary gesture she threw her hand, palm outward, across her face to hide it from the sunlight. She went quickly from one mood to another. Now her anger grew suddenly hot against Ferriss. How had he dared? How had he dared to put this indignity, this outrageous insult, upon her? Now her wrath turned upon Bennett. What audacity had been his to believe that she would so forget herself? She set her teeth in her impotent anger, rising to her feet, her hands clenching, tears of sheer passion ...
— A Man's Woman • Frank Norris

... Cherokees (to name but an instance), the extortion of Indian agents, the outrages of the wicked, the ill-faith of all, nay, down to the ridicule of such poor beings as were here with me upon the train, make up a chapter of injustice and indignity such as a man must be in some ways base if his heart will suffer him to pardon or forget. These old, well-founded, historical hatreds have a savour of nobility for the independent. That the Jew should not love the Christian, nor the ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... secure as large a handful of the slippery and sticky stuff as he could, and this done he set off to come up with the big countryman who had done him so much indignity ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest

... God America would at this critical juncture exert herself agreeable to the indignity offered her by a tyrannical ministry. She might rise on eagle's wings and mount up to glory, freedom, and immortal honor if she did but know and exert her strength. Fame is now hovering over her head. A vast continent must now sink to slavery, poverty, and ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 5 of 8 • Various

... largest, his youngest brother was to sleep at the other end of it—foot to foot. True, by this means he got another pillow, for, of course, that little Hop-o'-my-Thumb could do without one, and so he took his; but, in spite of this, he determined that, sooner than submit to such an indignity, he would sit up all night. Accordingly, when all the rest were fast asleep, Melchior, with his boots off and his waistcoat easily unbuttoned, sat over the fire in the long lumber-room which served that night as 'barracks'. He had refused to eat any supper downstairs to mark his displeasure, and ...
— Melchior's Dream and Other Tales • Juliana Horatia Ewing

... given, it exhibited all the signs of a hurried and forced departure. The sullen soldiers shouldered their empty tubes and fell into their places, like men whose blood had been heated by the past contest, and who only desired the opportunity to revenge an indignity which was still wounding to their pride, concealed as it was under the ...
— The Last of the Mohicans • James Fenimore Cooper

... at the end of his career. For him to rise at the close of a dinner and return thanks for a piece of plate would have been out of keeping with his severe and lonely past, and for him to be a pensioner, even of the Town Council, would have been an indignity. He had reigned longer and more absolutely than any master in the annals of the Seminary, and to the last day he had held the sceptre without flinching. As a king, strong, uncompromising and invincible, he would lay aside ...
— Young Barbarians • Ian Maclaren

... Haviland listened to the springing bolt and her father's departing steps, a slight flush overspread her face at the thought of the indignity thus put upon her, and she rose, and, after putting her hand to the door to assure herself that she was not mistaken, proceeded, with a calm, determined air, to a table on one side of the room, on which stood the materials for writing; and here, taking ...
— The Rangers - [Subtitle: The Tory's Daughter] • D. P. Thompson

... was that his failure to get a better thing was a kind of indignity done her," Baird explained. "He comes of a race of men who have worshipped women and beauty in a romantic, troubadour fashion; only the higher professions, and those treated in a patrician, amateur style, were possible to them as work. And yet, as he said, a better man than himself had done ...
— In Connection with the De Willoughby Claim • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... meetings, where men of wit and learning are invited to pass an evening, this jester should be admitted to run over his circle of tricks, and make the whole company unfit for any other conversation, besides the indignity of confounding men's talents at so shameful ...
— The Battle of the Books - and Other Short Pieces • Jonathan Swift

... and cause a hearing. Under these circumstances all the powers of the man became braced, eager, alert, determined. It was many against one, but that one was a host in himself, aroused as he then was, not only by the grandeur of his cause, but also by a keen sense of personal indignity and persecution. Whoever else did, he would not submit to senatorial insult and bondage. His rising temper began to thrust like a rapier. Scorn he matched with scorn, and pride he pitted against pride. As a regiment bristles with bayonets, so bristled ...
— Charles Sumner Centenary - The American Negro Academy. Occasional Papers No. 14 • Archibald H. Grimke

... invariably cut in again in the unintelligible midst of some new topic. What struck me as extremely ominous, these misfortunes were allowed to pass without a laugh. Indeed, I was beginning to fear the worst, and even personal indignity, when all at once the humour of the thing broke upon me strongly. I could have laughed aloud; and being again summoned to speak up, I faced my patrons for the first time with a smile. "Very well," I said, "I will try, though ...
— The Wrecker • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne

... This indignity to the treasured emblem of their liberties gave renewed courage to the disordered band. Their ranks re-established, they charged upon the Germans with such furious valor as to drive them back in disorder, cut through ...
— Historical Tales, Vol 5 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality, German • Charles Morris

... this period accepted the presents and professions of regard sent to him by the Nizam Shah with an embassy, Sultan Ibrahim, roused to indignation, treated the Vijayanagar ambassadors at Bijapur with such indignity that they fled in fear of their lives, and Rama Rajah, offended in his turn, induced Burhan Nizam to attack Ibrahim. He did so successfully, and captured the fortress of Kallian; and on Ibrahim's retaliating by seizing ...
— A Forgotten Empire: Vijayanagar; A Contribution to the History of India • Robert Sewell

... advantage of my being a little late (I having been rather longer than usual dressing that morning) to circulate several questions involving a quibble or play upon words,—in short, containing that indignity to the human understanding, condemned in the passages from the distinguished moralist of the last century and the illustrious historian of the present, which I cited on a former occasion, and known as a pun. After breakfast, one of the boarders handed me a small roll ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 11, September, 1858 • Various

... overcome with a false shame that he had made terms with a woman, he violated his noble word, and condemned to death all the men, except one, who was spared on condition that he should be the executioner of the others. And the poltroon compelled the brave woman to witness the execution, with the added indignity of a rope round her neck,—or as De Charlevoix much more neatly expresses it, "obligea sa prisonniere d'assister a l'execution, ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner

... unable to help you," he replied. "And in case I have not made myself sufficiently clear upon the subject, let me tell you that I deeply resent the plot by which you endeavoured to foist such an indignity ...
— Nobody's Man • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... British soldiers, stormed the curb he had put on his impatient spirit. He realized that the colonies were not yet prepared to fight, and he had no thought of doing anything rash, but it was his propensity to do a thing at once if it were to be done at all, and this last indignity should result in something except talk. He was present at the meeting in the Exchange and listened carefully to all that was said, feeling that he could add to that whirlwind of ideas, but forbearing ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton

... out to Haydn for this offence was slight—a mere caning on the hand; but the indignity and disgrace of being caned before the whole school was not to be borne. He pleaded for forgiveness: 'Rather than submit to such a disgrace he would leave the school.' Reutter had for long been seeking ...
— Story-Lives of Great Musicians • Francis Jameson Rowbotham

... a number of times, that they were fast losing their wits. When, then, Bowles made his appearance in the room, to see if there was anything he could do for the gentlemen, he found them talking so strangely of his mistress, and making so free with her personal appearance, that he considered it an indignity he was bound to defend by putting on the severest look he was ...
— The Von Toodleburgs - Or, The History of a Very Distinguished Family • F. Colburn Adams

... every word spoken within his hearing, and his master declared that for his wisdom he ought to be named "Solomon." He never made an unprovoked assault upon a living creature, and would stand any amount of abuse from children or those weaker than himself. Let an indignity be offered to his beloved master in his presence, though, and his fury was as terrible as that of a young lion. Then woe to the unfortunate in whose flesh those gleaming teeth were once fastened. From the vise-like grip of the powerful jaws ...
— Raftmates - A Story of the Great River • Kirk Munroe

... encouraged the princes in their attitude of rebellion against Henry, for he had long treated her with great indignity. He neglected his wife for other fair ladies, and at last put her in prison, where she remained nearly sixteen years. This severe treatment of Eleanor served to enrage her sons and to alienate them still more from Henry; for they loved their mother dearly in spite of all her ...
— With Spurs of Gold - Heroes of Chivalry and their Deeds • Frances Nimmo Greene

... had happened, and he agreed to join me in time to escape, for there was no saying what fate might befall us in London; and, indeed, the very next morning severities commenced, the whole of the troops being obliged to suffer the indignity of having their arms tied behind them, and ...
— Bonnie Prince Charlie - A Tale of Fontenoy and Culloden • G. A. Henty

... writings, the article in which Rizal speaks of this indignity to the dead comes nearest to exhibiting personal feeling and rancor. Yet his main point is to indicate generally what monstrous conditions the Philippine mixture of religion and ...
— Lineage, Life, and Labors of Jose Rizal, Philippine Patriot • Austin Craig

... hideous indignity inflicted upon his old master, and allowing it to pass sub silentio, is one of the many occasions that stirred Mr. Grosart's wonder. Nerves were tough in those days. Pepys tells us unconcernedly enough how, after ...
— Andrew Marvell • Augustine Birrell

... the destruction of the republic, Florence has produced only one great man, Galileo, and abandoned him to every indignity that fanaticism and despotism could invent. Extraordinary men, like the stones that are formed in the higher regions of the air, fall upon the earth only to be broken and cast into the furnace. The precursor of Newton lived in the deserts of the moral world, drank water, and ate locusts ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor

... but very significant. A missionary from China told me how, thirty years ago or more, he was driven out of the town where he lived; how the gentlefolk egged on the mob, and they wrecked his house, and hounded him out of the place. He told me how it felt—the misery and the indignity of it. Jesus took it undisturbed. He taught a lesson in it which the ...
— The Jesus of History • T. R. Glover

... air of enthusiasm on the virtues of Sultan Mahmoud, all the cruelty, indignity, and outrage committed on her countrymen and relations, by his orders, seemed to vanish from the old lady's recollection, as though she had tasted ...
— Journal of a Visit to Constantinople and Some of the Greek Islands in the Spring and Summer of 1833 • John Auldjo

... this indignity; I'll not be called a king, but be a king. Allow me half the realm; give me the north, The provinces that lie beyond the seas: Wales and the Isles, ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VII (4th edition) • Various

... and impeccable than the others: the stern ring of the Englishmen outside keeping an eye upon the tedious suit and all its convolutions: these all appear before us, surrounding as with bands of iron the young lonely victim in the donjon, who submitting to every indignity, and deprived of every aid, feeling that all her friends had abandoned her, yet stood steadfast and strong in her absolute simplicity and honesty. It was but two years in that same spring weather since she had left Vaucouleurs to seek the fortune of France, ...
— Jeanne d'Arc - Her Life And Death • Mrs.(Margaret) Oliphant

... Englishmen stopped to do so in India, the Empire would never have been founded. With his rifle and the prestige of the white race behind him he would not have hesitated to face a hundred such opponents. His blood boiled at the thought of the indignity offered to the girl; though he was not seriously concerned for her safety, judging that she had been carried off for ransom. But he pictured the distress and terror of a delicately nurtured Englishwoman at finding herself in the hands of a band of savage outlaws dragging her away to an unknown ...
— The Elephant God • Gordon Casserly

... brook his eye: Percy hung his head like a boy in a scrape; Malcolm quailed with terror, but at the same time felt a keen sense of injury in being thus treated as a plunderer, and the blow under which his shoulder ached seemed an indignity to ...
— The Caged Lion • Charlotte M. Yonge

... said, with quivering lips. "I blush that relatives of mine can stoop to offer any one such indignity. Forgive me that I am powerless to ...
— His Heart's Queen • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon

... productive work, or employment in personal service, falls under the same odium for the same reason. An invidious distinction in this way arises between exploit and acquisition on the other hand. Labour acquires a character of irksomeness by virtue of the indignity imputed to it. ...
— The Theory of the Leisure Class • Thorstein Veblen

... quiet that she felt that she had missed him; he had already entered her room; but while she considered the awful indignity of surprising him there, the sound of a light tapping on the door's panel relieved her. She thanked God that she ...
— The Tragic Bride • Francis Brett Young

... to Vienna in 1781 with the Archbishop of Salzburg, by whom, however, he was treated with such indignity that he left his service. Whom should he find in Vienna but his old friends the Webers! Frau Weber was glad enough of the opportunity to let lodgings to Mozart, for, as in Mannheim and Munich, the family was in straitened circumstances. As soon as the composer's father heard of this arrangement, ...
— The Loves of Great Composers • Gustav Kobb

... been buried in the church of the Dominican friars at Arundel for three generations, and that he was sorry for the man who laid hands on the tomb of his grandfather—known as Uncle John—for the old man had been a desperate churchman in his day, and would undoubtedly revenge himself for any indignity offered ...
— The King's Achievement • Robert Hugh Benson

... his hearers, and consequently we have the king presented on the stage as meekly receiving the crown from the papal legate (Act 5, Sc. 1). England was freed from the Roman yoke in the reign of Henry VIII., and in the drama of that name Shakespeare might have balanced the indignity forced upon King John, but now he is silent. Nothing must be said against authority, even against that of the pope, and the play culminates in the pomp and parade of the christening of the infant ...
— Tolstoy on Shakespeare - A Critical Essay on Shakespeare • Leo Tolstoy

... to suffer the last petty indignity that man could heap upon him. Aged and infirm as he was, neither stool nor cushion had been provided to mitigate the sense of bodily weakness as he performed the last duties of mortal life; and kneeling down on the bare boards, he was supported by his servant, while the ...
— A Wanderer in Holland • E. V. Lucas

... not certainly known. It is said to have been taken by the Turks in 1453, and dragged through the mire; but others deny this as utterly derogatory to the majesty of the Queen of Heaven, who never would have suffered such an indignity to have been put on her sacred image. According to the Venetian legend, it was this identical effigy which was taken by the blind old Dandolo, when he besieged and took Constantinople in 1204, and brought in triumph to Venice, where it has ever since ...
— Legends of the Madonna • Mrs. Jameson

... of a stiff, moody, and violent temper; so much so that I remember going once into the attic of my grandfather's house at Penrith, upon some indignity having been put upon me, with an intention of destroying myself with one of the foils which I knew were kept there. I took the foil in my hand, but my ...
— Home Life of Great Authors • Hattie Tyng Griswold

... taken. But for the inscription such a transfer of the bones of Shakespeare would have been proposed, and possibly carried out. Kings and emperors have frequently been treated in this way after death, and the proposition is no more an indignity than was that of the exhumation of the remains of Napoleon, or of Andre, or of the author of "Home, Sweet Home." But sentiment, a tender regard for the supposed wishes of the dead poet, and a natural dread of the consequences of violating ...
— Our Hundred Days in Europe • Oliver Wendell Holmes

... The purpose was to split the People's party by compelling its members to revive their old antagonisms by taking sides for or against Clinton. Although the resolution was carried by a decisive majority, the indignity placed upon the champion of the Erie Canal aroused popular resentment and increased the revolt against the Regency. In September, 1824, the People's party met in a state convention at Utica and nominated Clinton for governor. [Footnote: On the New York campaign, see Rammelkamp, Am. Hist. Assoc., ...
— Rise of the New West, 1819-1829 - Volume 14 in the series American Nation: A History • Frederick Jackson Turner

... boy, who was so late naught save a dog of a Christian, ready to eat the dirt under our imperial feet,—was it to bestow thee on such an one as he, that I refused the offers of the Persian Shah! By the tomb of the prophet! this indignity shall cease!" ...
— Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf • George W. M. Reynolds

... stove, and hung bonnet and jacket on a nail and then sat down to the loaded desk; it was an ingenuous girl absurdly but fiercely anxious to shoulder the world's weight. She had passed a whole night in revolt against George Cannon's indignity; she had called it, furiously, an insult. She had said to herself: "Well, if I'm so useless as all that, I'll never go near his office again." But the next afternoon she had appeared as usual at the office, meek, modest, with a smile, ...
— Hilda Lessways • Arnold Bennett

... Charles, either by giving short answers, or by down cast eyes, which signified assent. With this Sir Charles acquainted Miss Melvyn, and insisted on her not thinking of exposing herself to the indignity of having the whole affair discussed in her presence. All the indignation that undeserved calumny can excite in an innocent mind could not have enabled Miss Melvyn to bear being charged before so low a creature, with a passion for him, ...
— A Description of Millenium Hall • Sarah Scott

... Among other holy places in those parts, Halfdene visits the Isle of Lindisfarne, hoping perhaps in his pagan soul not only to commit ordinary sacrilege in the holy places there, which is every-day work for the like of him, but even to lay impious hands on, and to treat with indignity, the remains of that holy man St. Cuthbert, who has become, in due course, patron and guardian saint of hunters, and of that scourge of pagans, Alfred the West Saxon. If such were his thoughts, he is disappointed of his sacrilege; ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 5 • Various

... of her lovely mouth, and the general air of simplicity and purity, of some old pictures of the girlhood of the Virgin. But Mrs. Scudder was thinking of no such Popish matter, I can assure you,—not she! I don't think you could have done her a greater indignity than to mention her daughter in any such connection. She had never seen a painting in her life, and therefore was not to be reminded of them; and furthermore, the dove was evidently, for some reason, no favorite,—for she said, in ...
— The Atlantic Monthly , Volume 2, No. 14, December 1858 • Various

... not," said he, "to look upon it as an indignity that you have been thus seized, for the object of the Romans in seizing you was not to dishonor you, or to do you any injury, but only to secure you for their wives in honorable marriage; and far from being displeased with the extraordinariness of the measures which they have adopted ...
— Romulus, Makers of History • Jacob Abbott

... the British vessel was badly weathered by the galliot. Barley's anger could not be appeased. It was an offence against national pride and justice! He forthwith called the attention of his chief officer to the indignity that had been thrust upon them. "Look," said he, in wrathful humiliation, "there's God Almighty given that adjective Dutchman a leading wind and allowed His own countryman to be jammed on a lee shore!" It was said that Barley never really forgave this unpatriotic ...
— Windjammers and Sea Tramps • Walter Runciman

... not afford to be turned off. His pride could not afford it, his care for young Gedge could not afford it, the slender family purse could not afford it. Why ever did he not think of it all before, and spare himself this double indignity? ...
— Reginald Cruden - A Tale of City Life • Talbot Baines Reed

... squinting, block-faced, chattering p— kitchen; and immediately after drank "Despair to all old maids." The toast Mr. Pickle pledged without the least hesitation, and next day intimated to his sister, who bore the indignity with surprising resignation, and did not therefore desist from her scheme, unpromising as it seemed to be, until her attention was called off, and engaged in another care, which for some time interrupted the progress of ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett

... was to be, if only for a short time, the master. To control men had ever been his ambition; submission of any kind, his greatest horror. His energy stirred within him, goaded by the lash of his anger, his sense of indignity, of insult. Oh for one moment to be able to strike back, to crush his enemy, to defeat the railroad, hold the Corporation in the grip of his fist, put down S. Behrman, rehabilitate himself, regain his self-respect. To be once more powerful, to command, to dominate. His thin lips pressed themselves ...
— The Octopus • Frank Norris

... persisted in the enterprise, but, under the pretext of securing the safe return of the Indian messengers, took them into the train of his army, where they were, in reality, confined as prisoners. To add to this indignity, they were, when arrived at the place of destination, shut up ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 1 (of 5) • John Marshall

... oldest boys of the school, resent the indignity of being still subject to woman rule by a concerted series of rebellious outbreaks. Some six or eight months after the arrival of Adele upon the scene, this rebel attitude culminates in an incident that occasions a change of programme. The rebels on their way to school espy a few ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 92, June, 1865 • Various

... not an indignity! Must a man be a scoundrel?" resumed this gentleman with the pretty voice. "Nothing in the world would have made me ...
— Mysteries of Paris, V3 • Eugene Sue

... old enough to be of any use he was put to work on the farm. The family was very poor, and his services were needed to help 'make both ends meet.' At school, as a little boy, he allowed no one to impose upon him. He is said to have never picked a quarrel, but was sure to resent any indignity with effect, no matter how large a boy the offender happened to be. He attended school during the cold months when it was impossible to be of value on the farm; summers he generally 'worked out,' at one time being a driver-boy on ...
— Hidden Treasures - Why Some Succeed While Others Fail • Harry A. Lewis

... cloth. 'That d——d woman' was the caretaker, a grey-haired person usually dressed in sackcloth, who washed herself, incidentally, while washing the stairs. At Powells, nothing but the stairs was ever put to the indignity of ...
— A Great Man - A Frolic • Arnold Bennett

... indignity now put upon him, also nourished a particular grievance against the meditative guard, and his was one not tempered either by prudence or calculation. His chance came one night when Elpaso had unwisely allowed himself to be drawn into a card game at Calabasas Inn. Elpaso was notoriously a stickler ...
— Nan of Music Mountain • Frank H. Spearman



Words linked to "Indignity" :   insult, affront



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