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Insolent   /ˈɪnsələnt/   Listen
Insolent

adjective
1.
Marked by casual disrespect.  Synonyms: flip, impudent, snotty-nosed.  "The student was kept in for impudent behavior"
2.
Unrestrained by convention or propriety.  Synonyms: audacious, bald-faced, barefaced, bodacious, brassy, brazen, brazen-faced.  "A barefaced hypocrite" , "The most bodacious display of tourism this side of Anaheim" , "Bald-faced lies" , "Brazen arrogance" , "The modern world with its quick material successes and insolent belief in the boundless possibilities of progress"






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"Insolent" Quotes from Famous Books



... gentleman cannot have a bed here. The proprietress is out at present. I regret...." He spat this all out in the offhand insolent manner of the ...
— The Man with the Clubfoot • Valentine Williams

... was in such a rage, that before he could speak he had time to cool, and to reflect that it would be great waste to kill the only man who was willing to be useful in the present emergency, seeing that, in the end, the insolent fellow would be as dead as if he had died ...
— Half-Hours with Great Story-Tellers • Various

... the look on her handsome, common face half frightened, half fierce. Mr. Havisham had noticed, during his interviews with her, that though she had a passionate temper, and a coarse, insolent manner, she was neither so clever nor so bold as she meant to be; she seemed sometimes to be almost overwhelmed by the position in which she had placed herself. It was as if she had not expected to meet with ...
— Little Lord Fauntleroy • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... Prophet of God. But if thou refuse, I will come to thee with forces that shall leave thee like yesterday that hath passed.' And when the messenger of Solomon came to him, the King of the Sea was insolent, and magnified himself and was proud. Then he said to his viziers: 'What say ye respecting the affair of Solomon? For he hath sent demanding my daughter, and commanding me to break my carnelian-idol, and to adopt his faith.' And they replied: 'O great King, can Solomon do aught unto thee, ...
— The Arabian Nights - Their Best-known Tales • Unknown

... yet you in me insulted The pious use of hospitality; Slighting in me the holy law of nations, Immur'd me in a dungeon—tore from me My friends and servants; to unseemly want I was exposed, and hurried to the bar Of a disgraceful, insolent tribunal. No more of this;—in everlasting silence Be buried all the cruelties I suffer'd! See—I will throw the blame of all on fate, 'Twas not your fault, no more than it was mine, An evil spirit rose from the abyss, To kindle in our ...
— The Canadian Elocutionist • Anna Kelsey Howard

... that state will one day lose her course And founder in the abysm. Let fear have place Still where it ought, say I, nor let men think To do their pleasure and not bide the pain. That wheel comes surely round. Once Aias flamed With insolent fierceness. Now I mount in pride, And loudly bid thee bury him not, lest burying Thy brother thou be burrowing ...
— The Seven Plays in English Verse • Sophocles

... independence was one thing; to favour the ambitious and grasping schemes of France was another; and the leaders of the Liberal party were not slow to denounce the Government, which—as they alleged—was ready to plunge the country into war for the sake of currying favour with the master of the insolent colonels ...
— Memoirs of the Life and Correspondence of Henry Reeve, C.B., D.C.L. - In Two Volumes. VOL. II. • John Knox Laughton

... had an insolent smile in those prominent eyes of his, and a sneer bared his tobacco-stained teeth. Slamming the door, he came sauntering toward the scoutmaster, who had risen; he halted without speaking, then deliberately, impudently, he stared Mr. ...
— The Rich Little Poor Boy • Eleanor Gates

... remarkable as his character of Sir Philip Sidney; he might have written both without any acquaintance with the works he has so maliciously criticised. In his account of Sidney he had silently passed over the "Defence of Poetry;" and in his second edition he makes this insolent avowal, that "he had forgotten it; a proof that I at least did not think it sufficient foundation for so high a character as he acquired." Every reader of taste knows the falseness of the criticism, and how ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli

... "The insolent rascal," cried Gomez Arias after a pause: "It was for this then that he appeared so anxious to quit my service; but I told you that his behaviour had become of late most impertinent, and even arrogant. ...
— Gomez Arias - The Moors of the Alpujarras, A Spanish Historical Romance. • Joaquin Telesforo de Trueba y Cosio

... added that if this offer was not accepted, the marechal would meet the same treatment from the English as might be meted out to him, Catinat, in France. The duke, full of the aristocratic ideas to which he was born, found the proposal insolent, and said, "If that is all you have to propose, I can assure you that your hours ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... him briefly I would ask no better, for I was transpierced with this display of fatherly emotion; but even as I said the words, the most insolent revolt surged through my arteries. I held him in horror, him, his portrait, and his son; and had there been any choice but death or a Mormon marriage, I declare before ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 5 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... with foreign troops, who behaved as if in a conquered country, swaggering along the streets, pushing the citizens out into the middle of the road, abusing the tradesmen who refused to part with their goods at nominal prices, making insolent remarks to any woman who hurried past them, and behaving with a freedom and license which showed how completely all ...
— Orange and Green - A Tale of the Boyne and Limerick • G. A. Henty

... coincided, their conclusions were diametrically different. For Nietzsche the hope of humanity is found in the strong; for Dostoievsky it is found in the weak. Their only ground of agreement is that they both refute the insolent claims of mediocrity ...
— Visions and Revisions - A Book of Literary Devotions • John Cowper Powys

... it has not a tree near it. It is inhabited in part by tribes of South African niggers, who have lost all the picturesqueness of niggerdom in working for the white man's wages. The white man himself is insolent, ill-dressed, and ugly. The weather is very hot, and from morning till night there is no occupation other than that of looking for diamonds, and the works attending it. Diamond-grubbers want food and ...
— An Old Man's Love • Anthony Trollope

... and the wood, which she had sawed and split for the kitchen stove, was of just the handy size. She was careful, now, not to take aim, but imagined herself anxious to establish a new wood-pile, in haste, just about where that sound of insolent gnawing was disturbing the night. In a moment a shower of sizable firewood was dropping all about ...
— The Backwoodsmen • Charles G. D. Roberts

... in itself, however, is not of much importance, for I believe he really likes you. But, after that, he told me of his love for me. Perhaps I was a little too insolent, too disdainful. I do not know exactly how far I went; but I found myself in such a perplexing, such a painful, such an extraordinary situation, that I dared ...
— A Comedy of Marriage & Other Tales • Guy De Maupassant

... translation of the Haik Esop, and, dissatisfied with my attempts, treating me as he had treated the Moldavian clerk; placing myself in a position which exposed me to such treatment would indeed be plunging into the fire after escaping from the frying-pan. The publisher, insolent and overbearing as he was, whatever he might have wished or thought, had never lifted his hand against me, or told me ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow

... read, as I glanced from him to my brother; and lifting his hat in a half-defiant, half-shamefaced manner, would have passed on, but Simon held him by the arm, and planting himself right in our path said, with an insolent stare: ...
— Orrain - A Romance • S. Levett-Yeats

... moment should arrive. Quiet had been everywhere restored, except in Buckingham's heart; he, in his impatience, addressed himself to the princess, in a low tone of voice: "For Heaven's sake, madame, I implore you to hasten your disembarkation. Do you not perceive how that insolent Duke of Norfolk is killing me with his ...
— Ten Years Later • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... children. You may believe it. There never was a chap that flung the things about as he did. And you may take my word for it, Klaus Stringstriker could do something too, if he chose. Why do you think he is so insolent and conceited, and presumes so much upon his playing and smoking? Why—just because these little earthmen are his familiars, and back him up in ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Vol. 56, No. 346, August, 1844 • Various

... again. Yet our ancient enemy remains enthroned in high places within our land and in insolent ships before our gates. We have not only become Colonials once again, but subjects,—for true subjects are known by the measure of their ...
— Germany, The Next Republic? • Carl W. Ackerman

... Eglogue and pastorall Poesie, Sir Philip Sydney and Maister Challenner, and that other Gentleman who wrate the late shepheardes Callender. For dittie and amourous Ode I finde Sir Walter Rawleyghs vayne most loftie, insolent, and passionate. Maister Edward Dyar, for Elegie most sweete, solempne and of high conceit. Gascon for a good meeter and for a plentifull vayne. Phaer and Golding for a learned and well corrected verse, specially in translation cleare and very faithfuly answering their authours ...
— The Arte of English Poesie • George Puttenham

... addressed to the Guelphs have been translated by Mr. Rossetti. In order to complete the list I have made free versions of two others in which he criticised the weakness of his own friends. The first is addressed, in the insolent impiety of rage, ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds

... means a wholesale admirer of our legal solemnities, many of which impress me as being exceedingly ludicrous. Strange as it may seem too, there is undoubtedly a degree of protection in the wig and gown - a dismissal of individual responsibility in dressing for the part - which encourages that insolent bearing and language, and that gross perversion of the office of a pleader for The Truth, so frequent in our courts of law. Still, I cannot help doubting whether America, in her desire to shake off the absurdities ...
— American Notes for General Circulation • Charles Dickens

... offers to attempt my life; nor dares he, if he had the inclination; therefore, although his manner is peculiarly repulsive to me, I shall not have my mind burdened with the reflection that my own mother's son yearned for a reconciliation with me and was repulsed by my haughty and insolent behaviour. The next time he comes to my hand, I am resolved that I will accost him as one brother ought to address another, whatever it may cost me; and, if I am still flouted with disdain, then shall the blame rest ...
— The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner • James Hogg

... assault. The sight of the splintered boat seemed to madden him, as the blood of grapes and mulberries cast before Antiochus's elephants in the book of Maccabees. Meanwhile Ahab half smothered in the foam of the whale's insolent tail, and too much of a cripple to swim, —though he could still keep afloat, even in the heart of such a whirlpool as that; helpless Ahab's head was seen, like a tossed bubble which the least chance shock might burst. From the boat's fragmentary .. stern, ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville

... himself after his practice in the garden and eager to have the longed for duel with the first man who should give him the slightest pretext. But as he was a courteous person, incapable of unjust provocation, with manners that inspired respect from the insolent, time passed and the duel did not take place. His exuberant vitality, his impulsive strength, were consumed in dark adventures, of which his fellow students afterward told ...
— The Dead Command - From the Spanish Los Muertos Mandan • Vicente Blasco Ibanez

... come up to London, mistress," he said, "no doubt," with a look at her dress that was not at all insolent, and yet very plain. And it was indeed a pretty good one; and I remember it very well. It was cut like a French sac—a fashion that had first come in about ten years before, and still lasted; and was a little lower at the throat than many that she wore. It was of a brownish kind of yellow, ...
— Oddsfish! • Robert Hugh Benson

... are pretty well known. I shall only observe now that lenient measures have had no other effect than to produce insult after insult; that the more we conceded, the higher America rose in her demands, and the more insolent she has grown. It is for this reason that I am now for the most effective and decisive measures; and am of opinion that no alternative is left us, but to relinquish America for ever, or finally determine to compel her to acknowledge ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine

... sake of both, an hour of sanity. If he slept for a short interval, she feared to hear him speak coherently on his waking; and the more because little or no chance of his recovery remained. The thought of his carrying forward into the hour of death the insolent temper of his life was terrible. She almost hoped that, if he were to die, it would be without having been aware that he and his nurse were no ...
— The Hour and the Man - An Historical Romance • Harriet Martineau

... by Altorf in Uri; for within the memory of men no lord had dwelt in Schwyz. They used their power wantonly;—unjust and weary imprisonments for slightest faults; haughty manners, and all the stings of insolent authority;—and no redress to be had at the King's hands. The peace and happy security of the men of Schwyz were gone, and they looked in one another's faces for the thing that was to be done. The honored families of their race were despised and called ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 7, Issue 41, March, 1861 • Various

... from his earliest recollection; the battles, sieges, and encounters, which he had passed through; the perils he had been exposed to by land and by water; his hair-breadth escapes, when he had entered a breach, or marched up to the mouth of a cannon; and how he had been taken prisoner by the insolent enemy, and sold to slavery; how he demeaned himself in that state, and how he escaped: all these accounts, added to the narration of the strange things he had seen in foreign countries, the vast wilderness and romantic caverns, the quarries, ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles Lamb and Mary Lamb

... a rage that before he could speak he had time to cool, and to reflect that it would be great waste to kill the only man who was willing to be useful in the present emergency, seeing that in the end the insolent fellow would be as dead as if he had died by his majesty's own hand. "Oh!" said he at last, putting up his sword with difficulty, it was so long; "I am obliged to you, you young fool! ...
— The Light Princess and Other Fairy Stories • George MacDonald

... terror its formidable neighbours, the wolf of the Pyrenees, and the bear of the stupendous mountains of Thibet. In the immediate vicinity of the sacred bull, whose consecrated life has heretofore been passed in luxurious freedom or insolent enjoyment on the banks of the Ganges or the Jumna—feeds the gaunt and shaggy bison, which crops with sullen tranquillity a herbage more nutritious but less grateful to him than he loved to cull among the stony pastures of the Alleghany range, or of the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 19, - Issue 552, June 16, 1832 • Various

... insolent eyes suddenly encountering a dangerous, steely glare from Kilbride's gray orbs he wilted and immediately dropped his belligerent attitude. "No use me hirin' a mouthpiece," he added, "as I'm a-goin' t' plead guilty t' ...
— The Luck of the Mounted - A Tale of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police • Ralph S. Kendall

... sunlight; he was in our world, but not of it. There was no possibility of evil for him, save in his own will, and that you could not touch. And as the sage was beyond harm, so also was he above insult. Men might disgrace themselves by their insolent attitude towards his mild majesty, but it was not in ...
— A Little Book of Stoicism • St George Stock

... the compassion, however, roused the goddess to a frenzy of passion. "Hold your peace!" she said fiercely, and strode down upon Leander until he beat an instinctive retreat. "Fallen as I am, I will not brook your mean vauntings or insolent pity! Shorn I may be of my ancient power, but something of my divinity clings to me still. Vengeance is not wholly denied to me! Why should I not deal with you even as with those profane wretches who laid impious hands upon ...
— The Tinted Venus - A Farcical Romance • F. Anstey

... her part, instead of the proud and insolent beauty she had expected to see, in all the pomp and pride of her bridal day and her new rank, beheld a fair and gentle girl, still clothed in the deepest ...
— The Lost Lady of Lone • E.D.E.N. Southworth

... drawn into an unseemly brawl, I must act; and meeting Maignan's eager eye fixed upon my face, I nodded. In a second he seized the unsuspecting Gringuet by the neck, snatched him up from the chair, and flung him half-a-dozen paces away. "Lie there," he cried, "you insolent rascal! Who told you to ...
— From the Memoirs of a Minister of France • Stanley Weyman

... that Ybarat was planning some treachery, seized him several days later, when he came with a sucking pig and four jars of rice. On this occasion the captain heard that the chiefs were waiting in the village of Buyguey in order to kill the Spaniards. Chief Ybarat was so insolent that he could not be induced to bring provisions either by requests or threats; and, as our men lacked food, it was determined to go out to obtain rice, by orderly means, among the Tanbobos; it ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XIV., 1606-1609 • Various

... do you mean by your customers and overcharges?" shrieked Major Brown, whose keen feminine nature, steady in pain or danger, became almost hysterical in the presence of a long and exasperating mystery. "Who are you? I've never seen you or your insolent tomfool bills. I know one of your cursed brutes tried ...
— The Club of Queer Trades • G. K. Chesterton

... with all possible despatch the mass of letters which lay piled up in front of her. Through the heavy plate-glass swinging doors, leading to the elevators and thence to the street, came and went an army of messengers and telegraph boys, noisy and insolent. ...
— The Lion and The Mouse - A Story Of American Life • Charles Klein

... in a tone that frightened even insolent Lulu. "I overheard you speaking in an extremely impertinent manner to some ...
— Grandmother Elsie • Martha Finley

... first crossing the Quorra. He soon arrived at Fabra, on the Mayarrow, the residence of the queen-mother of Nyffe, and then went to visit the king, in camp at a short distance from the town. This king, Clapperton tells us, was the most insolent rogue imaginable, asking for everything he saw, and quite unabashed by any refusal. His ambition and his calling in of the Fellatahs, who would throw him over as soon as he had answered their purpose, had been the ruin of his country. ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part III. The Great Explorers of the Nineteenth Century • Jules Verne

... him, Sir Giles Mompesson could play the courtier, and fawn and gloze like the rest. A consummate hypocrite, he easily assumed any part he might be called upon to enact; but the tone natural to him was one of insolent domination and bitter raillery. He sneered at all things human and divine; and there was mockery in his laughter, as well as venom in his jests. His manner, however, was not without a certain cold and grave dignity; and ...
— The Star-Chamber, Volume 1 - An Historical Romance • W. Harrison Ainsworth

... big round head and curly hair already grey, though he did not look more than forty; a full and fresh face, a low but white and smooth forehead and little bright blue eyes, out of which he looked in a very queer way from under his brows and yet with an insolent expression, a combination not often met with. He always held his head down and seemed to turn it with difficulty, perhaps because his neck was very short. He walked at a trot and did not swing his arms, but slowly moved them with his fists clenched as he walked. ...
— Knock, Knock, Knock and Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev

... procession—a tall, gaunt young man, whose copper-coloured skin and hawk-featured face proclaimed his Moorish blood. Instantly, maliciously, it flashed through the prince's boyish mind how he might make of this man an instrument to humble the pride of that insolent clergy. He raised his hand, and ...
— The Historical Nights Entertainment, Second Series • Rafael Sabatini

... mistress, and repeated twenty times a day: "If I were you, Monsieur, I should not allow myself to be led by the nose like that. Well, well... There, ... everyone according to his nature." And one day, she had even ventured to be insolent to Henriette, who, however, merely said to her husband, at night: "You know, the next time she speaks to me like that, I shall turn her out of doors." But she, who feared nothing; seemed to be afraid of the old ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume II (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant

... invaders found a different temper in the natives from what was encountered in Mexico and Peru, where the populations were miserably subjugated, or in the islands, where they were first enslaved and presently completely exterminated. The insolent invasion was met, as it deserved, by effective volleys of arrows, and its chivalrous leader was driven back to Cuba, to ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon

... making enemies, and in time became so insolent and overbearing that a conspiracy was formed for his overthrow. At the head of this was one of the royal princes, who engaged Yoritomo in the plot. The young exile sent out agents right and left to rouse the discontented. Many were won over, but one of them laughed the scheme to scorn, ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 12 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris

... remarkable," continued the despatch, "that these people, at the first, set up the mass in some places of the town that had been monasteries; but afterwards grew so insolent, that, the last Lord's day before the storm, the Protestants were thrust out of the great church called St Peter's, and they had public mass there; and in this very place near 1000 of them (the Catholics—a clear judgment) were put to the sword, fleeing ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 378, April, 1847 • Various

... again, she told herself that no harm could possibly befall her dear, good Gran'pa Jim or her faithful, loving mother. Yet why were they closeted in the library so long, and how could the meeting with that insolent stranger ...
— Mary Louise • Edith van Dyne (one of L. Frank Baum's pen names)

... eventually rose to be chief mate of a ship. Had he persevered in this good course, he would in all probability have succeeded well in the mercantile service; but events proved otherwise, and on his second voyage as mate he was, he said, wrongfully charged as being both insolent and insubordinate to his commander, and on the arrival of the vessel at the Cape of Good Hope he was discharged. Left with but small means, and, to him, almost on foreign soil, he bethought himself of some expedient for making money; so, getting hold of a sailor loafing at the port, he talked ...
— Prisoners Their Own Warders - A Record of the Convict Prison at Singapore in the Straits - Settlements Established 1825 • J. F. A. McNair

... me to find myself obliged to put up with this impudent ill-usage from people who ought to reflect that they are but the servants of the public, and little likely to recommend themselves to the high by being insolent to the low. They made me, however, pay them two shillings for my dinner and coffee, which I had just thrown down, and was preparing to shake off the dust from my shoes, and quit this inhospitable St. Christopher, when the green hills of Windsor smiled so friendly upon me, that they seemed to invite ...
— Travels in England in 1782 • Charles P. Moritz

... him so odd—some would have said, so insolent a look, that the Senator realised for the first time what he was to realise yet further in connection with this strange business, namely, that the many who go through life refusing to act the part of good Samaritans have at any rate excellent ...
— The End of Her Honeymoon • Marie Belloc Lowndes

... and regarding both from her soul. But come, cease from strife, nor draw the sword with thine hand. But reproach by words, as the occasion may suggest; for thus I declare, and it shall be accomplished, that thrice as many splendid gifts shall be presented to thee, because of this insolent act; only restrain thyself, ...
— The Iliad of Homer (1873) • Homer

... admirer of the tragedy of Douglas, and presented its authour with a gold medal. Some years ago, at a coffee-house in Oxford, I called to him, "Mr. Sheridan, Mr. Sheridan, how came you to give a gold medal to Home, for writing that foolish play[937]?" This, you see, was wanton and insolent; but I meant to be wanton and insolent. A medal has no value but as a stamp of merit. And was Sheridan to assume to himself the right of giving that stamp? If Sheridan was magnificent enough to bestow a gold medal as an honorary reward of dramatick ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell

... of duty!" said Zenobia, in a whisper so full of scorn that it penetrated me like the hiss of a serpent. "I have often heard it before, from those who sought to interfere with me, and I know precisely what it signifies. Bigotry; self-conceit; an insolent curiosity; a meddlesome temper; a cold-blooded criticism, founded on a shallow interpretation of half-perceptions; a monstrous scepticism in regard to any conscience or any wisdom, except one's own; a most irreverent propensity to thrust Providence aside, ...
— The Blithedale Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... But she assured herself that he was glad she had come, because he shouted to Vessons for tea. She was certain he was glad to see her. Yet there was something vaguely insolent in his manner. He was a man who must never be sure of a woman. The moment she committed herself for him and was at a disadvantage ...
— Gone to Earth • Mary Webb

... gifts I have bestowed upon her? Just before my end she throws you, the rewarded traitor, into my way! I must submit to have the hated foe, whose blinding was the sole pleasure in my ruined life, look me in the face with insolent joy." ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... authority. There was a belligerent gleam in his eyes as he looked Sanderson over, an inspection that caused Sanderson's face to redden, so insolent was it. Behind him the big man's companions watched, their ...
— Square Deal Sanderson • Charles Alden Seltzer

... one of the penalties one always has to pay for a woman's fame,' I said to myself, one day, as I sat sipping my chocolate, while I was forced to overhear from a neighboring alcove an insolent young dandy tell of various scenes, betraying passionate love on both sides, which he had probably manufactured to make himself of consequence. One story he told I felt sure was false, and yet I would rather it had been true ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 24, Oct. 1859 • Various

... brilliancy and the advantages of a high position, but they foreboded a speedy ruin. The authority of Somerset awakened discontent and secret counterplots. He was naturally turbulent, obstinate, and insolent, and had the presumption to behave in his usual manner even to the King whom he set right with an air of intellectual superiority which revived in the King's breast bitter recollection of the years of his childhood. James put up with this conduct for a while; he then, against the ...
— A History of England Principally in the Seventeenth Century, Volume I (of 6) • Leopold von Ranke

... slowly float around The silvery shadows of a world gone by, And temper meditation's sterner joy. O! nothing perfect is vouchsafed to man: I feel it now! Attendant on this bliss, Which brings me ever nearer to the Gods, Thou gav'st me the companion, whom I now No more can spare, though cold and insolent; He makes me hate, despise myself, and turns Thy gifts to nothing with a word—a breath. He kindles up a wild-fire in my breast, Of restless longing for that lovely form. Thus from desire I hurry to enjoyment, And in ...
— Faust • Goethe

... with one or two publicans who acted as "receivers" of the poached game of the neighbourhood. And it seemed to him that Westall pursued him into these low dens. The keeper—big, burly, prosperous—would speak to him with insolent patronage, watching him all the time, or with the old brutality, which Hurd dared not resent. Only in his excitable dwarf's sense hate grew and throve, very soon to monstrous proportions. Westall's menacing ...
— Marcella • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... man!" Edwin greeted the boy with that insolent familiarity which adults permit themselves to children who are ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett

... to see what was to be got, and found the inhabitants, who are Malays, a surly insolent set of people. As soon as they saw us approaching the shore, they came down to the beach in great numbers, having a long knife in one hand, a spear headed with iron in the other, and a cressit or dagger by their ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 12 • Robert Kerr

... Face?" he could hear, in anticipation, some insolent young buck demand, "Oh, Lost Face," would be the answer, "he who once was Makamuk in the days before he cut ...
— Lost Face • Jack London

... is not only a gross rudeness towards the main body of men, who justly reverence the name of God, and detest such an abuse thereof; not only, further, an insolent defiance of the common profession, the religion, the law of our country, which disalloweth and condemneth it; but it is very odious and offensive to any particular society or company, at least wherein there is any sober person, any who retaineth a sense of goodness, or is ...
— Talkers - With Illustrations • John Bate

... with his insolent and half-suppressed smile, 'let us hear—a philosopher is not sorry to encounter a prophet—let us hear!' Cazotte replied: 'You, Monsier de Condorcet—you will yield up your last breath on the floor of a dungeon; you will die from poison, which you will have taken in order to escape from execution—from ...
— Clairvoyance and Occult Powers • Swami Panchadasi

... knew him in another moment. He stared from one to the other, was conscious that she turned her horse's head sharply, so as to disengage the bridle from St. Cloud's hand, and of his insolent stare, and of the embarrassment of Mr. Porter, and then, setting his face straight before him, he passed on in a bewildered dream, never looking back till they were out of sight. The dream gave way to bitter and wild thoughts, upon which it will do none of us any good to dwell. ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes

... drearily theoretical, dry, axiomatic, platitudinal, showed themselves to be great generalizations from a torrent of human effort and mortal endeavour. And thus all the mass of detail and human relation that had been rudely set aside by the insolent prejudices of youth under the generic name of business, came slowly to have an intense and living significance. I cannot trace the process in detail; but I became aware of the fulness, the energy, the matchless interest of the world, ...
— From a College Window • Arthur Christopher Benson

... to jeer a group of enthusiasts that willingly forfeit all delights of the world in the hope of realising a new aestheticism; we went insolent with patent leather shoes and bright kid gloves and armed with all the jargon of the school. "Cette jambe ne porte pas;" "la nature ne se fait pas comme ca;" "on dessine par les masses; combien de tetes?" "Sept et ...
— Confessions of a Young Man • George Moore

... but at this last piece of audacity he took out his pocketbook, and throwing it in Van Klopen's face, said: 'Pay yourself, you insolent scoundrel, ...
— Caught In The Net • Emile Gaboriau

... insurrections of the Barons, with French, Scotch, and Welsh wars, family feuds, the rise and fall of royal favourites, and all those other incidents which naturally, befall in a state of society where the King is weak, the aristocracy strong and insolent, and the commons disunited and despised. During this period the fusion of Norman, Saxon, and Briton went slowly on, and the next age saw for the first time a population which could be properly called English. "Do you take me for an Englishman?" was the last ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee

... said, had brought the terrible Eyes-in-the-hands upon them; that the welfare of the tribe depended upon her sacrifice to the angered Unmentionable One even as she had been doomed; and threatening that they would take the insolent white man, whose magic was as water, and sacrifice him as well, as was desired ...
— Witch-Doctors • Charles Beadle

... forgive 'em! But for all hurt that Titian did him he might have been living, Greater than any living, and lord of renown and such glory As would have left you both dull as yon withered moon in the sunshine." Loud laughed the listening group at the insolent gibe of the poet, Stirring the gall to its depths in the bitter soul of their master, Who with his tremulous fingers tapped the hilt of his poniard, Answering naught as yet. Anon the glance of the ribald, ...
— Poems • William D. Howells

... "Insolent gallows'-rogue!" he panted, reaching for his sword-hilt, but as he freed it from scabbard I closed with him and, wrenching it from his hold, belaboured him soundly with the flat of it, and such of his companions as chanced within my reach, until hearing shouts, I espied Adam ...
— Black Bartlemy's Treasure • Jeffrey Farnol

... languor of soul now prevail in this respect; that the majesty of truth has been profaned, and the ancient regard in which she was held has been destroyed by religious sects, philosophical systems, the insolent attacks of the press, and by the revolution that has taken place in ideas as well as in deeds. Thence the general tendency to place truth and error on the same footing, in theory and in practice. Thence the equality of rights established between ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli

... sailor, the fighting man is but a fiend; and the staff and body-guard of the Devil musters many a baton. But war at times is inevitable. Must the national honour be trampled under foot by an insolent foe? ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville

... name was Nessy, and, having an instinctive sense of her dependent position, she was very humble and subservient and, as Tommy the Mate used to say, "as smooth as an old threepenny bit" to the ruling powers, which always meant my Aunt, but spiteful, insolent, and acrid to anybody who was outside my Aunt's favour, ...
— The Woman Thou Gavest Me - Being the Story of Mary O'Neill • Hall Caine

... boar. Here he found a Sannyasi, Ramanath Bharati, who, warned by a dream, had come from Surya kunda, and had taken up his residence in a hut near the place of worship, where he was assiduous in prayer. The Sannyasi having been insolent to the Raja, a circumstance not at all improbable, the prince had the audacity to kick him down the hill, and to burn his hut. The god then appeared to the saint in a human form, and gave him authority of speech, (Bakya Siddhi,) ...
— An Account of The Kingdom of Nepal • Fancis Buchanan Hamilton

... varlet, Wulf, and the Lord Bishop has been making serious complaint of you to the king. He says that you brawled with his page, Walter Fitz-Urse; that you used insolent words against his countrymen; and that you even withstood himself. What have you ...
— Wulf the Saxon - A Story of the Norman Conquest • G. A. Henty

... not to meddle in their affairs. When, however, the "lords of the sands" grew too insolent, the Pharaoh sent a column of light troops against them, and inflicted on them such a severe punishment, that the remembrance of it kept them within bounds for years. Offenders banished from Egypt sought refuge with the turbulent kinglets, who were in a perpetual state of unrest between ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 4 (of 12) • G. Maspero

... and Charley too careless to be prudent. Once I caught his glance as it crossed with Bruce's scowl. There was an expression on his pleasant face that few men had ever seen there, approaching nearly to an insolent defiance. Looking at those two, a child might have known that between them there was ...
— Guy Livingstone; - or, 'Thorough' • George A. Lawrence

... proof of her restored happiness; nor till sufferance had tempted her beyond her usual bounds, did he remonstrate. But she, who, as his ward, had been ever gentle, and (when he strenuously opposed) always obedient; became, as a mistress, sometimes haughty, and, to opposition, always insolent. He was surprised, but the novelty pleased him. And Miss Milner, whom he tenderly loved, could put on no change, or appear in no new character that did not, for the time she adopted it, ...
— A Simple Story • Mrs. Inchbald

... and fashion began flocking to the hotel, to drink a bottle of Maitre Bilot's wine, and question him about the beauty and charms of the actresses; curling up the points of their mustaches as they did so with such an absurdly conceited, insolent air of imaginary triumph, that the worthy landlord could not help laughing in his sleeve at them as he gave his discreet, mysterious answers, accompanied by significant gestures calculated to turn the silly heads of these dandified young calves, and make them wild with curiosity ...
— Captain Fracasse • Theophile Gautier

... now the most agitated of us all. At length eleven struck in the harsh tones of the prison-clock. A few minutes after, we heard the sound of bolts drawing, and bars unfastening. The jailer entered—drunk, and much disposed to be insolent. I thought it advisable to give him another bribe, and he resumed the fawning insinuation of his manner. He now directed us, by passages which he pointed out, to gain the other side of the prison. There we were to mix with the debtors and their mob of friends, and to await his joining ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey

... degree, formed an acquaintance with several young men of quality, and gained an entry into the best houses. He was received cordially everywhere: he was very good-looking, easy in his manners, amusing, always in good health, and ready for everything; respectful, when he ought to be; insolent, when he dared to be; excellent company, un charmant garcon. The promised land lay before him. Panshin quickly learnt the secret of getting on in the world; he knew how to yield with genuine respect to its decrees; he knew how to ...
— A House of Gentlefolk • Ivan Turgenev

... military and naval men. "Let the rejoicings be proper to our several stations—the manufacturer, because he will have more markets for his goods,—but seamen and soldiers ought to say, 'Well, as it is peace, we lay down our arms; and are ready again to take them up, if the French are insolent.' There is no person in the world rejoices more in the peace than I do, but I would burst sooner than let a d—d Frenchman know it. We have made peace with the French despotism, and we will, I hope, adhere ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. II. (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan

... profound impression throughout the country; and the greatest astonishment was felt that Montezuma did not, at once, put his armies in motion to crush these profane and insolent strangers. A still greater sensation had been caused by the news that the Spaniards had destroyed all their floating castles, and that it was therefore evident that they intended to remain, permanently, ...
— By Right of Conquest - Or, With Cortez in Mexico • G. A. Henty

... face expressing displeasure, and said not one word. Nor did the artist open his lips. And at last the girl, to break the uncomfortable silence, said, "Where shall we hang it, mother?" and the lady replied, "Just where you like, my dear, so long as you hang it with the face to the wall." It was an insolent, a cruel thing to say, but the artist did not answer her bitterly; he said gently that she need not take the portrait as it failed to please her, and that in any case he would decline to take the money she had agreed to pay ...
— Afoot in England • W.H. Hudson

... the old Latin maxim, Suaviter in modo, fortiter in re, treating all without hauteur, which some of the insolent half-caste Spanish creoles affected, and yet keeping my revolver ready, with "my powder dry," so as to be prepared for any emergency, I managed to get along very well with the mixed lot I was set ...
— The Ghost Ship - A Mystery of the Sea • John C. Hutcheson

... numerous communities are generally more exposed than others, chose not to live in the great monastery on the summit, but in a hermitage on the descent of the mountain, under the discipline of Martyrius, a holy ancient anchoret. By silence, he curbed the insolent itch of talking about every thing, an ordinary vice in learned men, but usually a mark of pride and self-sufficiency. By perfect humility and obedience, he banished the dangerous desire of self-complacency in his actions. He never ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler

... of jests," she cried, with angry vehemence. "A sorry jest he'll find it, on my word. Aie! I hate his insolent indifference. One would think I was a simple country fool to hear him talk. He—he—when I can have him hung just when it suits my good convenience! I'll not marry him at all! Ay, but I will, though. I'll make it worse for him by marrying him. And then I'll show him! Just wait, my ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 6, July 1905 • Various

... of New York more successfully developed than the use of electricity for transportation. The last night of the ten years found the city buried in stygian gloom, because the duty of lighting its streets is still a matter of private profit; and the insolent corporation which fattens upon this franchise surrendered the privilege of murdering its linemen unpunished, only when its poles were cut and its wires torn down. A more classic application of the Vanderbilt motto in action it would be hard to find, or a more thorough demonstration of the inadequacy ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 21, August, 1891 • Various

... with which Elisha cursed the insolent and mirthful children. Listen to the anathema Barak flung ...
— The Queen Pedauque • Anatole France

... us every assistance in provisioning and watering the ships, for which the commandant, Cevallos, shot two influential persons who had been foremost in aiding us, and severely punished others; at the same time seizing our water casks, and sending me an insolent letter of defiance, on which a party of seamen and marines was landed and put the garrison to flight; the officer commanding the party however withdrew from pursuit at hearing salutes fired on the arrival of Admiral Blanco with the Galvarino and Puyrredon, ...
— Narrative of Services in the Liberation of Chili, Peru and Brazil, - from Spanish and Portuguese Domination, Volume 1 • Thomas Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald

... poorest kind of literature is the hapless creature freezing at the street corner; second-rate literature is the kept-mistress picked out of the brothels of journalism, and I am her bully; lastly, there is lucky literature, the flaunting, insolent courtesan who has a house of her own and pays taxes, who receives great lords, treating or ill-treating them as she pleases, who has liveried servants and a carriage, and can afford to keep greedy creditors waiting. Ah! and for yet others, for me not so very long ago, for you to-day—she ...
— A Distinguished Provincial at Paris • Honore de Balzac

... Ormonde's description, she felt that he was even more at home at Castleford than herself, and she also came to the conclusion that he knew who she was. She had been prepared by Mrs. Ormonde's evident admiration to dislike De Burgh, having made up her mind that he would prove an empty-headed, insolent grandee, whose pretensions imposed upon her sister-in-law's somewhat slender experience, and whose life was probably given up to physical enjoyment. He had not, however, the aspect of a mere pleasure-seeker. His dark, ...
— A Crooked Path - A Novel • Mrs. Alexander

... mind departs from the likeness of the Deity, the nearer does the outward form seem to approach the animal, and always that animal which has a kindred proclivity. Thus, the mild expression of the philanthropist attracts the needy, whom the insolent look of the angry man repels. This is an indispensable guide in social life. It is astonishing what an accordance bodily appearance has with the passions; heroism and fearlessness pour life and strength ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller

... and ran an insolent eye over Martin's objective poverty, passing from the well-worn tie and the saw- edged collar to the shiny sleeves of the coat and on to the slight fray of one cuff, winding up and dwelling upon Martin's sunken cheeks. "On the contrary, hack-work is above you, so far above you that ...
— Martin Eden • Jack London

... those varying types of countenance, some uncivilized, passionate, unrefined, others over-civilized, faded, of the type that haunts the boulevards, over-ripe as it were, and observing the same varieties in the corps of servants, where "flunkeys," taken the day before from some office, insolent fellows, with the heads of dentists or bath-attendants, bustled about among the motionless Ethiopians, who shone like black marble torch-holders,—it was impossible to say exactly where you were; ...
— The Nabob, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet

... known to any honest man in England that the more intelligent part of the great masses were deeply dissatisfied with the state of representation, but were in a very moderate and patient condition, awaiting the better intellectual cultivation of numbers of their fellows. The old insolent resource of assailing them and making the most audaciously wicked statements that they are politically indifferent, has borne the inevitable fruit. The perpetual taunt, "Where are they?" has called them out with the answer: "Well then, ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 2 (of 3), 1857-1870 • Charles Dickens

... mine who was visiting a poor woman in bereavement and casting about for some phrase of consolation that should not be either insolent or weak, said at last, "I think one can live through these great sorrows and even be the better. What wears one is the little worries." "That's quite right, mum," answered the old woman with emphasis, "and I ought to know, seeing I've had ten ...
— Tremendous Trifles • G. K. Chesterton

... "The insolent, conceited idiot!" said the Colonel scornfully. "You need not go back to him with my answer; but if you come across him again and he asks what I said, you can tell him this: that at the first opportunity I shall hand ...
— Charge! - A Story of Briton and Boer • George Manville Fenn

... at the age of fifteen, intrusted with the command of a vessel, the compass and log of which were soon injured by Negoro's criminal actions. He again saw himself using his authority in the presence of this insolent cook, threatening to put him in irons, or to blow out his brains with a pistol shot. Ah, why had he hesitated to do it? Negoro's corpse would have been thrown overboard, and none of these catastrophes would ...
— Dick Sand - A Captain at Fifteen • Jules Verne

... insolent? For one light puffe of fortune proves it so? Nay, then our swords turn to ...
— A Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. III • Various

... presumption-tadpole he is not going to stay tadpole in their history-tank; no, they know how to develop him into the giant four-legged bullfrog of fact, and make him sit up on his hams, and puff out his chin, and look important and insolent and come-to-stay; and assert his genuine simon-pure authenticity with a thundering bellow that will convince everybody because it is so loud. The thug is aware that loudness convinces sixty persons where reasoning convinces but one. I wouldn't be a thug, ...
— Is Shakespeare Dead? - from my Autobiography • Mark Twain

... religious war, they fear lest they may act irreligiously, and so they have sent me here to say what they require: 'We have come, not for the sake of territory, much less for money's sake, nor on account of any insolent feeling, nor yet from any thought of hatred; but because we venerate the great Rishi, we have come on this account. You, noble sirs! know well our mind! Why should there be such sorrowful contention! You honor what we honor, both alike, then we are brothers as concerns religion. ...
— Sacred Books of the East • Various

... was delivered to the Kingis awin handis, and of many redd.[111] But what could greatlie[112] admonitionis availl, whare the pryde and corruptioun of prelattis commanded what thei pleased, and the flatterie of courteouris fostered the insolent Prince in ...
— The Works of John Knox, Vol. 1 (of 6) • John Knox

... and Sophocles to us, Pacuvius, Accius,{6} him of Cordova dead, To life again, to hear thy buskin tread, And shake a stage; or when thy socks{7} were on, Leave thee alone for a comparison Of all that insolent Greece or haughty Rome Sent forth, or since did from their ashes come. Triumph, my Britain, thou hast one to show, To whom all scenes of Europe homage owe. He was not of an age, but for all time! And all the Muses still were in their prime, When, like Apollo, he came ...
— Six Centuries of English Poetry - Tennyson to Chaucer • James Baldwin

... is Gide's and not Oscar's. In any case I am sure that my description of him before the trials as full of insolent self-assurance is the truer truth. Of course he must have had forebodings; he was warned as I've related, again and again; but he took character-colour from his associates and he met Queensberry's first attempts at attack with utter disdain. He did not realise his danger at ...
— Oscar Wilde, Volume 2 (of 2) - His Life and Confessions • Frank Harris

... delicate little darling, made for laughter and kisses, and sugar, and spice, and all that's nice, like you." This with an insolent, admiring look. "Not a woman to fall in love with, but useful as a wife to keep one's ...
— A Crooked Path - A Novel • Mrs. Alexander

... been translated from the German by the Rev. Dr. Henry Stebbing, of London, and we have the first of the two octavos of which it consists, from the press of Robert Carter & Brothers. So much inexcusable ignorance, so much perverse misrepresentation, so much insolent lying, may be found scattered through modern literature, respecting the great Genevan, that Dr. Henry deserves well the thanks of the christian world for exhibiting the chief facts of his history, so plainly that every partisan knave who would repeat the old ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various

... all. An American woman who is bound by her position to serve you—who is paid in some shape to supply your wants, whether to sell you a bit of soap or bring you a towel in your bed-room at a hotel—is, I think, of all human creatures, the most insolent. I certainly had a feeling of regret at parting with my colored friend— and some regret also as regards a few that ...
— Volume 2 • Anthony Trollope

... in the face; no stiff coats and unnatural gaits are seen anglicising up the melancholy streets. Vast hotels, with their gloomy frontals, and magnificent contempt of comfort; shops, such as shops might have been in the aristocratic days of Louis Quatorze, ere British vulgarities made them insolent and dear; public edifices, still redolent of the superb charities of le grand monarque—carriages with their huge bodies and ample decorations; horses, with their Norman dimensions and undocked honours; men, on whose more high though not less courteous demeanour, the revolution seems to have ...
— Pelham, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... momentary support had evidently been sufficient to pique his pride. God! what blind bats men are! With all their high capabilities and immortal destinies, with all the world before them to conquer, they can sink unnerved and beaten down to impotent weakness before the slighting word or insolent gesture of a frivolous feminine creature, whose best devotions are paid to the mirror that reflects her in the most becoming light! How easy would be my vengeance, I mused, as I watched Ferrari. I touched him on the shoulder; he started from his uncomfortable ...
— Vendetta - A Story of One Forgotten • Marie Corelli

... near them, and a big man, in a semi-military costume, presented himself abruptly before them. His dark, coarse race was flushed with anger, and his manner insolent and aggressive. Not deigning to notice the presence of the surgeon, he addressed himself to ...
— Rodman The Boatsteerer And Other Stories - 1898 • Louis Becke

... about Jocelyn's Rock idolized the young lord of the soil. The poor like happy people, if there is nothing insolent in their happiness. Philip was rich, and he distributed his wealth right royally: he was happy, and he shared his happiness as freely as he shared his wealth. He would divide a case of choice Manillas with a bedridden pensioner in the Union, or carry a bottle of the Jocelyn ...
— Henry Dunbar - A Novel • M. E. Braddon

... "Oh, shame! I hate a man who apologizes. Never apologize for what your friend called 'side.' Never! It's a man's business to be insolent and overbearing until he meets with a stronger. Now, you bad ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling

... pamphlet against Coray, he talks of "throwing the insolent Hellenist out of the windows." On this a French critic exclaims, "Ah, my God! throw an Hellenist out of the window! what sacrilege!" It certainly would be a serious business for those authors who dwell in the attics: but I have quoted ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 2 • George Gordon Byron

... said he; and I caught a glimpse of a bottle-green coat which told me who was his travelling companion. "Well," he continued, looking round him with an insolent stare, "I should vastly like to know who has had the insolence to give me so pressing an invitation to visit my own house, and what in the devil you mean by daring ...
— Rodney Stone • Arthur Conan Doyle

... looking out upon the long perspective of elms, where the avenue stretched away in the direction of Ripon House. As his eye wandered over the broad view of park and forest, a carriage, drawn by four horses, insolent in the splendor of its trappings, rolled toward him from the castle. In that moment it seemed to Ripon that he felt all the bitterness of hatred and envy that might have rankled in the hearts of all the poor wayfarers ...
— The King's Men - A Tale of To-morrow • Robert Grant, John Boyle O'Reilly, J. S. Dale, and John T.

... Lincoln school, he has driven around to the school twice this spring to take little Lila out riding, and even though her mother has told the teachers to let the child go if she cared to, the little girl would not go and he was mean to the principal and insolent, though Heaven knows it is not the principal's fault, and if the janitor hadn't been standing right there—but it really makes little difference what would have happened; for the janitor in every school ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White

... some irregularities for your son-in-law's benefit," with an insolent half smile, half sneer. "He was to explain them to you. There have been accommodations for the mills occasionally. You were away: what else could ...
— Hope Mills - or Between Friend and Sweetheart • Amanda M. Douglas

... "The insolent varlet!" Sir Ralph muttered, grasping the hilt of his sword; "see, he lifts not his cap to the king, but rides up as if ...
— A March on London • G. A. Henty

... like dough, leaving each impressed with a high opinion of his talent; his puppet again became a member of the Ministry, and then the paper was ministerial. The Ministry united the paper with another, solely to squeeze out Marcas, who in this fusion had to make way for a rich and insolent rival, whose name was well known, and who already had his ...
— Z. Marcas • Honore de Balzac

... shot him a glance, insolent and piercing. Then she laughed, but neither hysterically nor mirthfully. It was the laughter of one in deadly anger. "I had believed you to be a man of some reason, Mr. Worth. Do you suppose, even had I entertained ...
— The Lure of the Mask • Harold MacGrath

... was met by ——, who, being much attached to him,—a bit of a republican, too,—was anxious to learn the issue of the visit. 'I was received badly enough,' said Franklin. 'Your master, Lord Auckland, was very insolent. I am not quite sure that, among other things, he did not call me a rebel.' Then, taking off his court coat, which, after carefully folding and laying upon the sofa, he stroked, he muttered, 'Lie there now; you'll see ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 104, June, 1866 • Various

... pride is past enduring; This insolent, audacious man, forgets His honour and allegiance;—and refused To render up his staff of office, here, Beneath ...
— The Earl of Essex • Henry Jones

... a distribution of 1,800 pesos. The Tagalogs then broke out in much the same way, and were likewise restrained by a payment on account of arrears due. But thenceforth the insurgent troops became quite uncontrollable and insolent to their officers. The fact that white officers should have solicited their permission to come ashore unarmed could only be interpreted by the Oriental, soldier or civilian, in a way highly detrimental to ...
— The Philippine Islands • John Foreman

... No sooner had the operations commenced than agents from the Roman senate waited on Hannibal and begged him to abandon the siege. Hannibal treated their remonstrance with disdain, at the same time writing to Carthage to say that it was absolutely necessary that the people of Saguntum, who were insolent and hostile, relying on the protection of Rome, should be punished. The envoys then went to Carthage, where they made an animated protest against what they regarded as an unprovoked attack upon their allies. Rome, in fact, was anxious at this moment to postpone the struggle with Carthage for ...
— The Young Carthaginian - A Story of The Times of Hannibal • G.A. Henty

... man assumed did go against the grain with Mr. Harding, and yet he did not know how to resent it. The whole tendency of his mind and disposition was opposed to any contra-assumption of grandeur on his own part, and he hadn't the worldly spirit or quickness necessary to put down insolent pretensions by downright and open rebuke, as the archdeacon would have done. There was nothing for Mr. Harding but to submit, and he accordingly ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope

... return for James's bestowal on him of the title of king in his native dominions, and the ultimate succession to the same title in England. The indignation of the Peers raised their effusive loyalty to fever point, and they promptly voted this singular document "a false, insolent, and traitorous libel, the highest indignity to his most sacred Majesty King George, our lawful and undoubted sovereign, full of arrogance and presumption, in supposing the Pretender in a condition to offer terms to his Majesty; and injurious to the honour of the British nation, in imagining that ...
— Books Condemned to be Burnt • James Anson Farrer

... the hardened wretch, his accomplice, everyone was impatient to have him sent to gaol. He put on a bold, insolent countenance, till he heard Lawrence's confession; till the money was found upon him; and he heard the milk-woman declare that she would swear to the silver penny which he had dropped. Then he turned pale, and betrayed ...
— The Parent's Assistant • Maria Edgeworth

... my boy in my presence!" said Mrs. Brent, with a little spot of color mantling her high cheek-bones. "Philip Brent, I have too long endured your insolence. You think because I am a woman you can be insolent with impunity, but you will find yourself mistaken. It is time that you understood something that may lead you to lower your tone. Learn, then, that you have not a cent of your own. You are ...
— The Errand Boy • Horatio Alger

... in their graves, but wander, solicitous of the affairs of the world. But that those phantasms appear often, and do frequent cemeteries, charnel-houses, and churches, it is because those are the dormitories of the dead, where the devil, like an insolent champion, beholds with pride the spoils and trophies of his ...
— Religio Medici, Hydriotaphia, and the Letter to a Friend • Sir Thomas Browne

... with a low, rasping sound, as she climbed the terrace-steps. She lifted the ponderous bronze knocker, and let it fall from her shaking hand with a crash that startled herself, and brought a man, all glittering in silver gray and scarlet, to the door, where he stood, with his insolent lips ajar, waiting to know what miracle had brought that forlorn creature to the ...
— The Old Countess; or, The Two Proposals • Ann S. Stephens

... perhaps, to find so appreciative a listener. "I sent, of course, for the best advice to be had in London, and I went to the local doctor—a man who keeps a surgery and dispenses medicines—myself, to ask what he meant by returning such an insolent message in answer to my summons. And what do you suppose he said by way ...
— The Uninhabited House • Mrs. J. H. Riddell

... toying: we cannot pluck the least feather from the soft wing of time. Therefore, Lingua, go on, but in a less formal manner. You know an ingenious oration must neither swell above the banks with insolent words, nor creep too shallow in the ford with vulgar terms; but run equally, smooth and cheerful, through the clean current of ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. IX • Various

... all over, The vicious all their vices cover; The insolent their insolence, The proud their pride, the false their fraud, The thief his theft, her filth the bawd, The impudent, ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan

... and four more if he stayed to bring him back. This I thought to be such insufferable impudence that I ordered him to be immediately chased from the ship, without any answer. Indeed, there are few inconveniences that I would not rather encounter than encourage the insolent demands of these wretches, at the expense of my own indignation, of which I own they are not the only objects, but rather those who purchase a paltry convenience by encouraging them. But of this I have already spoken very ...
— Journal of A Voyage to Lisbon • Henry Fielding

... Frenchmen. Murmurs, mutual excitations, and finally, outcries, rapidly succeeded each other; the most violent speedily surrounded the carriage of the marshal, and were already about to unharness the horses, when Davoust made his appearance, rushed upon the most insolent of these insurgents, dragged him behind his carriage, and made his servants fasten him to it. Frightened at this action, the people stopped short, seized with motionless consternation, and then quietly and silently opened a passage for the marshal, who passed through the midst ...
— History of the Expedition to Russia - Undertaken by the Emperor Napoleon in the Year 1812 • Count Philip de Segur

... tried to check his career; for he was cultivating a loud tone of voice and a regal sweep to his arms. He always signed himself on hotel registers Senator Handy, and the help about the Topeka hotels began to mark him for their hate, for he was insolent to those whom he regarded as his inferiors. But Colonel Morrison used to say that he wore his vest-buttons off crawling to those in authority. He took little notice of the town. He referred to us as "his people" in a fine feudal way, and went about town with his cigar ...
— In Our Town • William Allen White

... permitted to wonder whether certain crimes are really set apart for punishment, when so many others apparently go scot-free. How many murders remain buried in the night of the tomb! how many outrageous and avowed crimes have slept peacefully in an insolent and audacious prosperity! We know the names of many criminals, but who can tell the number of unknown and forgotten victims? The history of humanity is twofold, and like that of the invisible world, which contains ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - DERUES • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE

... command of the detachment was ordered by Cook to draw upon the natives, if they persisted in throwing stones, or became insolent. Under these circumstances, a pirogue was fired into, and it was soon apparent that a robbery had been ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part 2. The Great Navigators of the Eighteenth Century • Jules Verne

... a way, when singing, which appeared almost insolent. Seated, or carelessly erect, her supple figure fell into lines of indolently provocative grace; and the warm, golden notes welling from her throat seemed to be flung broadcast and indifferently to her listeners, as alms are often flung, without interest, toward ...
— The Crimson Tide • Robert W. Chambers

... him quietly, did not seem to recognize him, and then slowly laid aside her wraps. She had that calm assurance of a woman who is sure of herself, the insolent audacity of a first awakening, knowing and feeling that she was in her full beauty ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Vol. 1 (of 8) - Boule de Suif and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant

... "repose." They would appear to have studied "attitude" from the pages of the London Journal, coquetry from barmaids—the commoner class of barmaids, I mean—wit from three-act farces, and manners from the servants'-hall. To be gushingly fawning to those above them, and vulgarly insolent to everyone they consider below them, is their idea of the way to hold and improve their position, whatever it may be, in society; and to be brutally indifferent to the rights and feelings of everybody else in the world is, in ...
— Diary of a Pilgrimage • Jerome K. Jerome

... the count. "But our good fortune was, indeed, marvellous,—so extraordinary that a Sicilian (the Sicilians are all ill-bred, bad-tempered fellows) grew angry and insolent. 'Sir,' said he, turning to my new friend, 'you have no business to stand so near to the table. I do not understand this; you have not acted fairly.' Zanoni replied, with great composure, that he had done nothing against the rules,—that he was very sorry that one man could ...
— Zanoni • Edward Bulwer Lytton

... also to threaten somebody else. Insolent wretch! But he hinted to me yesterday, that he was exceedingly pleased with the news, that a certain gentleman was gone abroad, in order to prosecute a former amour, was the light wretch's as light expression. If my indignant eyes could have killed him, he would ...
— The History of Sir Charles Grandison, Volume 4 (of 7) • Samuel Richardson

... tell you the result of the Dublin trials, but we have had no letters, and know nothing of Plunket's intentions. The report is that the Orangemen are quite triumphant and insolent. What line C——g intends to take I do not know, but I have observed that he never omits an opportunity of quizzing the Bottle Plot, and that all his friends ridicule ...
— Memoirs of the Court of George IV. 1820-1830 (Vol 1) - From the Original Family Documents • Duke of Buckingham and Chandos

... I'll attend to that little matter." His jaunty, almost insolent glance made the half-circle again. "Sorry you were too late for the party, gentlemen,—most of you. I see three or four of you who were 'among those present.' It was a strictly exclusive affair. And now, if you don't mind, I'll ...
— The Yukon Trail - A Tale of the North • William MacLeod Raine

... Preston could interfere, Yussuf gave Hamed the bridle of his horse to hold, and, making up to the man who seemed to be the head-man of the village, and who certainly had been the most insolent, he knocked off his turban, caught him by the beard, and thrashed him unmercifully with ...
— Yussuf the Guide - The Mountain Bandits; Strange Adventure in Asia Minor • George Manville Fenn

... conquest in all times, and has driven the conquerors back with trailing battle-flags. "So shall it be with yours!" he had declaimed. "You may carry them to the loftiest peaks of the Cordilleras; they may float in insolent triumph in the halls of Montezuma; but the weakest hand in Mexico, uplifted in prayer, can call down a power against you before which the iron hearts of your warriors shall be turned into ashes!" It must have been ...
— A Boy's Town • W. D. Howells

... dreary, the surroundings appalling in their solitude. No wonder Helen died! Andrew, I thought it but right to do my best for those poor children. I came, the house was in a state of riot, you have not an idea what Polly's conduct was. Disrespectful, insolent, impertinent. I consider her an almost ...
— Polly - A New-Fashioned Girl • L. T. Meade

... fellow-citizens, to refrain from all display of partisanship, and to receive popular congratulations with brief and cordial thanks. President Johnson, however, behaved as an ordinary political speaker in a heated canvass, receiving interruptions from the crowd, answering insolent remarks with undignified repartee, and lowering at every step of his progress the dignity which properly appertains to the great office. At Cleveland the meeting resembled occasions not unfamiliar to our people, where the speaker receives from his audience constant ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Volume 2 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine

... "You insolent old woman!" cried the marquis, losing his temper, discretion and manners all together. "Go and do your worst, and be ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Vol. XV., No. 85. January, 1875. • Various

... smelling of smoke like Sir Francis Clavering. That is how we girls are destined to end life. O Major Pendennis, I am sick of London, and of balls, and of young dandies with their chin-tips, and of the insolent great ladies who know us one day and cut us the next—and of the world altogether. I should like to leave it and to go into a convent, that I should. I shall never find any body to understand me. And I live here as much alone in my family and in the world, as if I were in a cell locked ...
— The History of Pendennis, Vol. 2 - His Fortunes and Misfortunes, His Friends and His Greatest Enemy • William Makepeace Thackeray

... with me then, The time draws on, I must remove so insolent a Suitor, And if he be so rich, make him pay ransome Ere he see Bruges Towers again. Thus wise men Repair the hurts they take by a disgrace, And piece the Lions ...
— Beggars Bush - From the Works of Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher (Vol. 2 of 10) • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher

... had any way to have come undiscovered within shot of them, that I might have secured the three men, for I saw no firearms they had among them; but it fell out to my mind another way. After I had observed the outrageous usage of the three men by the insolent seamen, I observed the fellows run scattering about the island, as if they wanted to see the country. I observed that the three other men had liberty to go also where they pleased; but they sat down all three upon the ground very pensive, and looked ...
— Journeys Through Bookland V3 • Charles H. Sylvester

... the first of his own dear legitimate feet,[1] (Modelled out so exactly, and—God bless the mark! 'Tis a foot, DOLLY, worthy so Grand a Monarque). He exclaimed, "Oh, mon Roi!" and, with tear-dropping eye, Stood to gaze on the spot—while some Jacobin, nigh, Muttered out with a shrug (what an insolent thing!) "Ma foi, he be right—'tis de Englishman's King; And dat gros pied de cochon—begar me vil say Dat de foot look mosh better, if turned toder way." There's the pillar, too—Lord! I had nearly forgot— What a charming idea!—raised close to the ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al

... would not have repeated the offence; and his fate might have served as a warning to his companion in suffering. In fact, the knowledge that the captain dislikes to proceed to this extremity, encourages the unruly to get drunk and be insolent. ...
— Journal of a Visit to Constantinople and Some of the Greek Islands in the Spring and Summer of 1833 • John Auldjo

... leader of the host, the lord of Babylon, when he perceived the miracle and God's clear token. And yet he wrought no whit the better; pride ruled the prince. His heart was insolent and the thoughts of his heart were thoughts of pride, more than was meet, until the Lord Almighty humbled him, as He humbleth ...
— Codex Junius 11 • Unknown



Words linked to "Insolent" :   unashamed, barefaced, disrespectful, impudent, insolence



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