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Peremptory   /pərˈɛmptəri/   Listen
Peremptory

adjective
1.
Offensively self-assured or given to exercising usually unwarranted power.  Synonyms: autocratic, bossy, dominating, high-and-mighty, magisterial.  "Autocratic behavior" , "A bossy way of ordering others around" , "A rather aggressive and dominating character" , "Managed the employees in an aloof magisterial way" , "A swaggering peremptory manner"
2.
Not allowing contradiction or refusal.  "Peremptory commands"
3.
Putting an end to all debate or action.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Peremptory" Quotes from Famous Books



... dreamer in a tree-top were interrupted by the peremptory notes of a tin horn from the farmhouse below. The boy recognized this not only as a signal of declining day and the withdrawal of the sun behind the mountains, but as a personal and urgent notification to him that a certain amount of disenchanting ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner

... all that, the Honorable Blake received the Old Man's letter, read it through slowly and afterwards stroked down his Vandyke beard and laughed quietly to himself. The letter itself was both peremptory and profane, and commanded the Honorable Blake to do exactly what he had already done, and what he intended to do when the time came for ...
— The Flying U's Last Stand • B. M. Bower

... out, running at the top of her speed, heedless even of the peremptory challenge of the sentries, who thought her mad or stricken with the plague, and made no attempt to molest her. She ran straight to Jones's quarters. He was writing, and started in surprise as she entered panting ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan

... to Mahamed and reported his defeat and losses; upon hearing which, Mahamed at once said to him, "What do you mean by returning to me empty-handed? go back at once and recover your things else how can I make my report at Gondokoro?" With these peremptory orders Bukhet went back to Panyoro, and commenced to attack it. The contest did not last long; for, after three of Bukhet's men had been wounded, he set fire to the villages, killed fifteen of the natives, and, besides recovering his own lost property, ...
— The Discovery of the Source of the Nile • John Hanning Speke

... arose first from its trade in salt. I remember reading in history, that when the king of Hungary opened certain productive salt mines in his dominions, the Venetians sent him a peremptory order to shut them up; and such was the power of the Republic at that time, that he was forced to obey this insolent command, to the great injury and impoverishment of his states. The tables are now turned; the ...
— The Diary of an Ennuyee • Anna Brownell Jameson

... times the whole revenue which the Stuarts derived from the kingdom of Scotland. A party of militia lay at Greenock: but Cochrane, who wanted provisions, was determined to land. Hume objected. Cochrane was peremptory, and ordered an officer, named Elphinstone, to take twenty men in a boat to the shore. But the wrangling spirit of the leaders had infected all ranks. Elphinstone answered that he was bound to obey only reasonable commands, that he considered ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... ended in the like uncertainty. He that travels in the Highlands may easily saturate his soul with intelligence, if he will acquiesce in the first account. The Highlander gives to every question an answer so prompt and peremptory, that skepticism itself is dared into silence, and the mind sinks before the bold reporter in unresisting credulity; but, if a second question be ventured, it breaks the enchantment; for it is immediately discovered, that what was told so confidently was ...
— A Journey to the Western Isles of Scotland • Samuel Johnson

... in Lu during his absence: threee great clan chieftains had stopped fighting among themselves to fight instead against their feudal superior, and Marquis Chao had been exiled to Ts'i. It touched Confucius directly; his teaching on such matters had been peremptory: he would 'rectify names': have the prince prince, and the people his subjects:—he would have law and order in the state, or the natural harmony of things was broken. As suggested above, he was very much a man of mark in Lu; and a protest from ...
— The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris

... brought a peremptory message from Mrs. Washington, and the feet on the mantel were reduced to six. When these came down, two hours later, ...
— The Californians • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton

... to judge by the movements of her hands, round the vegetable plot in front of the cottage. Mrs. Pascoe was his aunt. Both women surveyed a bush. Mrs. Durrant stooped and picked a sprig from it. Next she pointed (her movements were peremptory; she held herself very upright) at the potatoes. They had the blight. All potatoes that year had the blight. Mrs. Durrant showed Mrs. Pascoe how bad the blight was on her potatoes. Mrs. Durrant talked energetically; Mrs. Pascoe listened submissively. The boy Curnow ...
— Jacob's Room • Virginia Woolf

... the question of the former's right to demand Dudhope on the terms of twenty years' purchase Lauderdale had to give way; but on the other question of clearing the title he was so difficult to deal with that the King himself had to interfere; and not till a peremptory order had gone down from Whitehall, cancelling the royal pardon till all the terms of the original agreement had been satisfactorily settled, was the affair finally closed, the title cleared, and Claverhouse established as master of ...
— Claverhouse • Mowbray Morris

... a peremptory tone. "I said I would do it, and it must be done, and at once. Sooner than there should be delay, I would rather go into the street, as you suggest, and ask the first man I met to lend me the money. ...
— Lothair • Benjamin Disraeli

... be exaggerated. While the emperor's own Church and bishop are separated by a schism from the Pope, while the Pope recognises the emperor as the sole "Roman prince," and in that capacity speaks of him as "pre-eminent in dignity over the human race," he states at the head of a council, in the most peremptory terms, that the Principate of Rome is of divine institution, not the constitution of any council. The decree thus passed is a formal contradiction of the 28th canon which St. Leo had, ...
— The Formation of Christendom, Volume VI - The Holy See and the Wandering of the Nations, from St. Leo I to St. Gregory I • Thomas W. (Thomas William) Allies

... as he bent his head over the brazier. There was such an electric quickness in the gesture, such a dispassionate resumption of her former pose, that one involuntarily conceded to her a fierce and peremptory disposition. One felt that such a woman would listen with some impatience to complaints about predatory fowls, that she would stand no nonsense ...
— Aliens • William McFee

... been gone five minutes when a loud knocking was heard at the front door of the house, and, immediately after, the trampling of feet in the hall. A peremptory summons was followed by the bursting open of the kitchen door, when two flushed and heated American dragoons, one a comet and the other a private, stood ...
— Neville Trueman the Pioneer Preacher • William Henry Withrow

... a great effort must be made to exterminate this unequalled destroyer. It was high time this was done when the first drunkard entered eternity to receive the award of Him who has declared that no drunkard shall enter the kingdom of God. The demand for this effort has been growing in the peremptory tone of its call, as "the overflowing scourge" has passed with constantly extending sweep through the land. But a strange apathy has prevailed among us. As if the whole nation had been drinking the cup of delusion, we saw the enemy coming in like a flood, and we lifted up ...
— Select Temperance Tracts • American Tract Society

... General Hickie's divisional staff which made him specially responsible for the comforts of the men, in trenches and out of trenches. In the battles on the Somme he entreated hard to be let rejoin his battalion, but General Hickie issued peremptory orders which did not allow him to pass the first dressing-station. Here, indeed, he was under terrible shell fire and saw many of his comrades struck down; but he was not content. For this new battle he insisted that he must be in the actual advance. ...
— John Redmond's Last Years • Stephen Gwynn

... to THE COUNTRY; nor yet were they of that bustling sort, who quack and direct all their poor neighbours, for the mere love of managing, or the want of something to do. They were judiciously generous; and whilst they wished to diffuse happiness, they were not peremptory in requiring that people should be happy precisely their own way. With these dispositions, and with a well informed brother, who, though he never wished to direct, was always willing to assist in their efforts to do good, there were reasonable hopes that these ladies would ...
— The Parent's Assistant • Maria Edgeworth

... mother, whose every desire I have held sacred, whose wish has been my law, and whose commands I have implicitly, invariably obeyed! Oh generously save me from the dreadful alternative of wounding her maternal heart by a peremptory refusal, or of torturing my own with pangs to which it is unequal by an ...
— Cecilia vol. 2 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)

... slender, with fair complexion, blue eyes, an air of delicacy and refinement, and manners of great gentleness. My ideas of the "learned blacksmith" had been of something altogether more ponderous and peremptory. Elihu has been for some years operating, in England and on the Continent, in a movement which many in our half-Christianized times regard with as much incredulity as the grim, old warlike barons did the suspicious imbecilities of reading and writing. The sword now, as then, seems so much more ...
— The Life of Harriet Beecher Stowe • Charles Edward Stowe

... raised in a shudder, and an agonised and peremptory 'there, there, there,' moved out of hearing in dignified disgust, to the general's high entertainment, who enjoyed her assaults upon innocent Puddock, and indeed took her attacks upon himself, ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu

... them, the court delivered two opinions, in which these positions were sustained. They are reported under the titles of People, ex rel. Mulford et al., vs. Turner, 1 Cal., 143; and People, ex rel. Field vs. Turner, 1 Cal., 152. In the first case, a peremptory writ of mandamus was issued, directed to Judge Turner, ordering him to reinstate us as attorneys; in the second, a writ of certiorari was issued to bring up the order imposing a fine, which was subsequently reversed and vacated, as shown in Ex-parte Field, 1 ...
— Personal Reminiscences of Early Days in California with Other Sketches; To Which Is Added the Story of His Attempted Assassination by a Former Associate on the Supreme Bench of the State • Stephen Field; George C. Gorham

... took away the lame horse; another waited on Father Ambrose in his small room, which was simple as that of a monastery cell, and as meagerly furnished. After a slight refection, Father Ambrose received peremptory command to rest for three full hours, the lady of the Castle saying it was impossible for her to receive him until that time had elapsed. The order was welcome to the tired monk, although he knew how impatient Hildegunde must be to unpack his budget of news, and he fell asleep ...
— The Sword Maker • Robert Barr

... bon Gaston. He is your very willing slave in spite of the trick you played him. He has a beautiful nature, le pauvre diable. He is not an Arab, eh, little Diane?" The mocking smile was back in his eyes as he turned her face up to his in the usual peremptory way. Then he held out the revolver he had been cleaning with sudden seriousness. "I want you to carry this always now when you ride. Ibraheim Omair is still ...
— The Sheik - A Novel • E. M. Hull

... whatever the rank of its constituents, he regarded as 'dogs who always bark at those they know not.' He had never flattered a mob. He did not now cower before it. To manifestations of popular odium his nature rose, as to every peremptory call upon his powers. He foresaw that posterity would understand him, ...
— Sir Walter Ralegh - A Biography • William Stebbing

... of a young penniless widow, but without success. Just when it seems that within a few days I shall be the happy recipient of the congratulations of my friends who in their hearts feel certain I am about to fall victim to the wiles of a designing female person, cruel fate steps in and with peremptory halting gesture and commanding voice has always said;—thus far, but no father. You will doubtless live to see me at fifty struggle through a dance with the daughter of my old sweetheart while the son of another breaks us; and I, broken of wind and mopping ...
— Chit-Chat; Nirvana; The Searchlight • Mathew Joseph Holt

... chronicle of the present. The shadow of the fifth century was on the sixteenth. It was like a spirit rising from the troubled waters of the old world, with the shape and lineaments of the new. The Church then, as now, might be called peremptory and stern, resolute, overbearing, and relentless; and heretics were shifting, changeable, reserved, and deceitful, ever courting civil power, and never agreeing together, except by its aid; and the civil power was ever aiming at comprehensions, trying to put the invisible ...
— Apologia pro Vita Sua • John Henry Newman

... Slow and Bideawhile, which, of itself, certainly contained no comfort;—but there was comfort to be drawn even from that letter, by reason of what it did not contain. The letter was unfriendly in its tone and peremptory. It had come evidently from a hostile party. It had none of the feeling which had hitherto prevailed in the intercourse between these two well-known Conservative gentlemen, Mr Adolphus Longestaffe and Mr Augustus Melmotte. ...
— The Way We Live Now • Anthony Trollope

... interests of men should be determined, and an end put to strife by peremptory and satisfactory means, is plainly ...
— Sermons on Evil-Speaking • Isaac Barrow

... old paths and walk therein until they shall simplify their system and reduce their numerous revolutions to the two events or epochs only—the six days of Creation and the Deluge."(163) The geologists showed no disposition to yield to this peremptory summons; on the contrary, the President of the British Geological Society, and even so eminent a churchman and geologist as Dean Buckland, soon acknowledged that facts obliged them to give up the theory that the fossils of the ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White

... became to divide it. Accordingly a scheme for the government of Brazil was framed, by which each captaincy should be ruled by a junta, whose acts were to be totally independent on each other, and only recognisable by the authorities in Portugal; and the Prince was ordered home in a peremptory and indecent manner. I have mentioned in my Journal the reception those orders had met with, and the resolution His Royal Highness had adopted of staying in Brazil. As soon as this resolution became known to the provinces, addresses and deputations ...
— Journal of a Voyage to Brazil - And Residence There During Part of the Years 1821, 1822, 1823 • Maria Graham

... Northampton, and asked if he could accommodate them,—the old soldier, seeing the green sprigs in their hats, the badges of their treason, shouted to his son, "Fetch me my hanger, and I'll accommodate the scoundrels!" General Jackson, we suspect, would have accommodated rebel commissioners in the same peremptory style. ...
— The Writings of James Russell Lowell in Prose and Poetry, Volume V - Political Essays • James Russell Lowell

... I to be admitted to the presence of my angry fair-one; after three denials, nevertheless; and a peremptory from me, by Dorcas, that I must see her in her chamber, if I cannot see her in ...
— Clarissa, Volume 6 (of 9) - The History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson

... forward to the pleasing social aspects of college life, so she seemed slightly disappointed, did Katrina, and the end of her nose held certain high lights. But aside from this evidence of sorrow she made no protest against the peremptory masculine shaping of her future. Stricken to the heart, Jessica and I stormed, begged, implored, wept. Katrina opposed to our eloquence the impassive front of ...
— Many Kingdoms • Elizabeth Jordan

... who, on hearing motion denied, refuted the assertion simply by rising and walking, we had hitherto put the "Utopia" into practice; and the thing did march on, and proved a reality. The argument was peremptory. A principle can be discussed; a fact is undeniable. Although refracted by the organs of the foreign press, the light of truth still flashed at times upon the people in Europe, and taught it to reflect. When our troubles broke ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 91, May, 1865 • Various

... met his sister's somewhat peremptory eye with his bright, contented glance. "Yes, it certainly will be pleasanter," ...
— The Europeans • Henry James

... on killing men from such a position of safety, and to have urged him to close and make a more equal fight of it. Hillyar, so the story goes, replied that his reputation was established, and that as his orders were peremptory to capture the Essex, he was determined to take no risks. He might have added—probably did—that it was open to the Americans to save their lives by surrendering. The same view of the situation now impelled Porter, finding himself ...
— Admiral Farragut • A. T. Mahan

... face. There were a great many applicants, and few were chosen, but none of them had quite the air about him which this one had. Lieutenant Claflin thought Corporal Goddard was just a bit too callous in the way he handled the applicant, and too peremptory in his questions; but he could not tell why Corporal Goddard treated them all in that way. Then the young officer noticed that the applicant's white face was flushing, and that he bit his lips when Corporal Goddard pushed him towards the weighing-machine ...
— Van Bibber and Others • Richard Harding Davis

... easy it would have been, had he been more careful at the beginning of these troubles, to have bought these wretches off! He had been, he now acknowledged, too peremptory in his first refusal to refund a portion of the money to Crinkett. The application had, indeed, been made without those proofs as to the condition of the mine which had since reached him, and he had distrusted Crinkett. Crinkett he had known to be a ...
— John Caldigate • Anthony Trollope

... home." Was his imagination morbid, or was there something both peremptory and eager in Mrs. Thornton's tones? "I'm stopping at the Fairmont, of course, but Fordy and I often take a drive after a hot night and a ...
— The Avalanche • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton

... came from Mrs. O'Connor requesting, in a peremptory language customary to such communications, that Mrs. Makebelieve would please call on her the following morning before eight o'clock. Mrs. Makebelieve groaned as she read it. It meant work and food and the repurchase ...
— Mary, Mary • James Stephens

... to rob us of the weapon to which we pin the greatest hopes in the war on England," and indicates that the "pro-British troublemakers have finally won over the President." Count von Reventlow in the Tageszeitung complains of the note's "far too threatening and peremptory tone." The Kreuz-Zeitung says: "We are trying hard to resist the thought that the United States with its standpoint as expressed in the note, aims at supporting England," and Georg Bernhard of the Vossische Zeitung believes that yielding to President Wilson's ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 5, August, 1915 • Various

... give us your word to sell none of the teas in your charge, but return them to London in the same bottoms in which they were shipped. Will you comply?" "I shall have nothing to do with you," was the rough and peremptory reply, in which the other consignees, who were present, concurred. Molineux then read the resolve, passed at Liberty Tree, declaring that those who should refuse to comply with the request of the people, were "enemies to their country," and should ...
— Tea Leaves • Various

... directly," the voice said in peremptory tones. "As your daughter's medical attendant, I tell you in the plainest terms that you have seriously frightened her. In her critical condition, I decline to answer for her life, unless you make the attempt at least to undo the mischief you have done. Whether you mean it or ...
— The Fallen Leaves • Wilkie Collins

... Christians to be most severely punished; and at the end of the works of Justin Martyr is found a letter of similar purport, which is asserted to have been addressed by Marcus to the Senate of Rome. We may set aside these peremptory testimonies, we may believe that Tertullian and Eusebius were mistaken, and that the documents to which they referred were spurious; but this should make us also less certain about the prominent participation of the Emperor in these persecutions. My own belief is (and it is a belief which could ...
— Seekers after God • Frederic William Farrar

... more Lady Janet had got her temper under command. She began her answer to Grace by pointing with a peremptory ...
— The New Magdalen • Wilkie Collins

... deportment, and display the same powers of declamation, and ingenuity of argument, with a Roman emperor in his purple, or a feudal warrior in his armour; for the rule and decorum of this species of composition is too peremptory, to give way either to the current of human passions, or to the usages of nations. Gibbon has remarked, that the kings of the Gepidae, and the Ostrogoths in Corneille's tragedy of Attila, are profound ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. II • Edited by Walter Scott

... northermost boundary of the North Farm estates having died, the ushership became vacant, and John, as usual, appointed a successor in his room. Being warned this time by what had taken place on the last occasion, the Squire took care to apply beforehand to the Justices of the Peace—got a peremptory mandamus from them, directing Jack to proceed forthwith, and, after the usual trials, to put the usher in possession of the schoolhouse by legal form, and without re-regard to any protest or interruption ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXIX. - March, 1843, Vol. LIII. • Various

... his excitement, and presently began telling me in a peremptory manner that he had a very delicate piece of business for my hands. He did not seem to feel sure of his ground, and spoke with a bravado altogether unnecessary, as though he would say I should do his will whether it suited me ...
— The Touchstone of Fortune • Charles Major

... that Allan understood the need of haste; for as soon as he had made that peremptory signal, the second in command commenced going down the slope of the hill with the bald top, taking great leaps ...
— The Boy Scouts' First Camp Fire - or, Scouting with the Silver Fox Patrol • Herbert Carter

... Squire had been released from his imprisonment in Wittenberg, and after recovering from a dangerous attack of erysipelas which had caused inflammation of his foot, had been summoned by the Supreme Court in peremptory terms to present himself in Dresden to answer the suit instituted against him by the horse-dealer, Kohlhaas, with regard to a pair of black horses which had been unlawfully taken from him and worked to death. The Tronka brothers, ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IV • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke

... decision. The glow of the fire was cheerful and the singing of the kettle tempting, but the morrow was Sunday, there was no food, the children were naked, and she herself wet to the skin. She gave one of the lads who had arrived with Mr. Bishop a lantern, and despatched him to the beach with a peremptory message that the mea must come at once and bring what they could. But knowing their character she asked Mr. Bishop to collect some of the slaves who had been left to watch the farms, and send them after her as carriers, ...
— Mary Slessor of Calabar: Pioneer Missionary • W. P. Livingstone

... engaged by peremptory affairs in his study, Conscience drove to the station to meet him on a fine young Saturday morning at the beginning of June. She set out from the house which maintained a sort of lordly aloofness among pine-covered hills, ...
— The Tyranny of Weakness • Charles Neville Buck

... the wind. When his time at the helm had expired he took the rattle, (an instrument used by whalemen, to announce the expiration of the hour, the watch, &c.) and began to shake it, when Comstock came to him, and in the most peremptory manner, ordered him to desist, saying "if you make the least damn bit of noise I'll send you to hell!" He then lighted a lamp and went into the steerage. George becoming alarmed at this conduct of his unnatural brother, again took the rattle for the purpose of alarming some one; Comstock ...
— A Narrative of the Mutiny, on Board the Ship Globe, of Nantucket, in the Pacific Ocean, Jan. 1824 • William Lay

... a haughty refusal; enumerating all the offences of which, in the eyes of the "great pure dynasty," the British had been guilty; and declaring that, until the murderer of the Chinese was given up, there could be no intercourse allowed between the two nations. But notwithstanding this peremptory refusal, a temporary adjustment of the matters in difference so far took place, that Commissioner Lin permitted the commerce of Great Britain to be carried on below the Bocca Tigris until further instructions should be received from England. The high-commissioner still insisted ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan

... far, before the Jews, that is to say, some of the official class, for so the evangelist John employs the term, saw him carrying his bed; and it was the Sabbath day. To their peremptory reprimand he replied out of the gratitude and honest simplicity of his heart, that He who had healed him had told him to take up his bed and walk. The interest of the inquisitors was instantly turned from the man toward Him who had wrought the ...
— Jesus the Christ - A Study of the Messiah and His Mission According to Holy - Scriptures Both Ancient and Modern • James Edward Talmage

... but with a cursorary eye O'er-glanc'd the articles: pleaseth your grace To appoint some of your council presently To sit with us once more, with better heed To re-survey them, we will suddenly Pass our accept and peremptory answer.[10] ...
— King Henry the Fifth - Arranged for Representation at the Princess's Theatre • William Shakespeare

... bond between us, and throwing off all her usual reserve, she insisted upon having us leave the hotel and spend the remainder of the time of our stay with her. So pronounced was her character and so peremptory her demand, there was no room for refusal, and when in a succeeding conversation with her son I expressed some compunction at our stay, I was at once silenced by the remark that his mother was a woman of marked idiosyncracies, and when she so distinguished an individual ...
— The World As I Have Found It - Sequel to Incidents in the Life of a Blind Girl • Mary L. Day Arms

... medicine. To some he gave chlorodyne. He was forced to concentrate with all his will in order to remember which of them could stand ipecacuanha, and which of them were constitutionally unable to retain that powerful drug. One who lay dead he ordered to be carried out. He spoke in the sharp, peremptory manner of a man who would take no nonsense, and the well men who obeyed his orders scowled malignantly. One muttered deep in his chest as he took the corpse by the feet. The white man exploded in speech and action. It cost him a painful effort, but his arm shot out, landing a back-hand ...
— Adventure • Jack London

... crisis came. King Leopold determined to make a bold push, and to carry Victoria with him, this time, by a display of royal vigour and avuncular authority. In an abrupt, an almost peremptory letter, he laid his case, once more, before his niece. "You know from experience," he wrote, "that I NEVER ASK ANYTHING OF YOU... But, as I said before, if we are not careful we may see serious consequences which may affect more or less everybody, and THIS ought to be the object ...
— Queen Victoria • Lytton Strachey

... a few days later came to London, it was before the physicians and not the lawyers that he must present himself; and the result of an examination by Sir Andrew Clark was his prompt and peremptory despatch to Mentone for a winter's rest and sunshine at a distance from all causes of mental agitation. This episode of his life gave occasion to the essay Ordered South, the only one of his writings in which he took the invalid point of view or allowed his health troubles in any ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 23 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... that a Spanish steamer captured two vessels in the Mexican waters, laden with men whom they suspected of having intended to join the invading expedition, and took them into Havana. The President of the United States has made a peremptory demand for the release of these prisoners, and declares that a clear distinction must be made between those proved guilty of actual participation, and those suspected of an intention to join, in the invasion. The ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, July, 1850. • Various

... menacing face hung over him, Maggard saw it school itself slowly into a hard composure and read a peremptory warning for silence in the eyes. The outstretched hands had already touched him, and now they remained holding his ...
— The Roof Tree • Charles Neville Buck

... Stop. Come back. Come back, I order you. (She proudly disregards his savagely peremptory tone and continues on her way to the door. He rushes at her; seizes her by the wrist; and drags her back.) Now, what do you mean? Explain. Explain, I tell you, or—(Threatening her. She looks at him with unflinching defiance.) ...
— The Man of Destiny • George Bernard Shaw

... of this law was that it suspended the peremptory coinage of the silver purchased under it into silver dollars which could not be circulated, but were hoarded in the treasury at great cost and inconvenience. It required the monthly purchase of a greater amount of silver than before, but that could be held in ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman

... God. The proud pagan, who had no belief in a God, much less any respect for restraints or fidelities of what kind soever, forgot his assumed gravity when he heard this determination, and laughed outright at the simplicity of such a proceeding. He pronounced it, in his peremptory way, to be foolish and frivolous; compared it with the miser who, in burying a treasure, does good neither to himself nor any one else; and said, that lions and serpents might indeed be shut up in cages, but not ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Vol. 2 • Leigh Hunt

... directly: I order you, Phoebe," said her father, in his most peremptory tone. "I took a mortal dislike to that Mr. Brian O'Neill the first time I ever saw him. He's an Irishman, and that's enough, and too much for me. Off with the gloves, Phoebe! When I order a thing, ...
— Murad the Unlucky and Other Tales • Maria Edgeworth

... Augmentations the heavy silence of calamity, like the waiting at a bedside for death to come, seemed to fall upon them. He imagined that the Privy Seal hid himself in that shadow in order to conceal a pale face and shaking knees. But Cromwell's voice came harsh and peremptory to Throckmorton: ...
— The Fifth Queen • Ford Madox Ford

... more brusque and peremptory fashion: Gudinand to collect the sailors at Ravenna on the appointed day; and Avilf to collect timber along the banks of the Po, with as little injury to the Possessors as possible (not, however, apparently paying them anything for it), ...
— The Letters of Cassiodorus - Being A Condensed Translation Of The Variae Epistolae Of - Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator • Cassiodorus (AKA Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator)

... to take a little cruise to Lundy Island, away there on the starboard bow? And another little cruise about the Welsh coast, where the Dobbses had been before? To these cautious questions, we replied by rash and peremptory negatives; and the Brothers, thereupon, abandoned their view of the case, and accepted ours with ...
— Rambles Beyond Railways; - or, Notes in Cornwall taken A-foot • Wilkie Collins

... a peremptory order. A little private cabinet was opened. A curious bottle was produced, having a deadly label in red, white, and green. "Viskee!" cried the captain in exultation. (My God!) "Aha!" said the reader of my hidden desire, pouring out the tipple for which he imagines I am perishing in ...
— Old Junk • H. M. Tomlinson

... talking to Quenu of Florent. She habitually prided herself on her patience, and considered, too, that it would not be proper to cause any unpleasantness between the brothers, unless some peremptory reason for her interference should arise. As she said, she could put up with a good deal, but, of course, she must not be tried too far. She had now reached the period of courteous tolerance, wearing an expressionless face, affecting ...
— The Fat and the Thin • Emile Zola

... Pension Bureau are overruled in the most peremptory fashion by these special acts of Congress, since nearly all the beneficiaries named in these bills have unsuccessfully applied to that ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 3 (of 3) of Volume 8: Grover Cleveland, First Term. • Grover Cleveland

... they were not to receive their prize-money till their return to London. But Captain Cook, as he was now styled, gave quite a different account of this matter to the mandarin; on which a guard of soldiers was sent aboard the Success, with a peremptory order to Captain Clipperton immediately to settle the shares, and to pay them to the men, with which he was ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume X • Robert Kerr

... up a vibrant, peremptory hand. "Bah! What does that matter now! What does anything ...
— One Basket • Edna Ferber

... dignity. The justice of the peace was required not only to take cognisance of open offences, but to keep surveillance over all persons within his district, and over himself in his own turn there was a surveillance no less sharp, and penalties for neglect prompt and peremptory.[47] Four times a year he was to make proclamation of his duty, and exhort all persons to complain against ...
— The Reign of Henry the Eighth, Volume 1 (of 3) • James Anthony Froude

... [Fr.]; positive; certain &c 474; express, explicit &c (patent) 525; absolute, emphatic, flat, broad, round, pointed, marked, distinct, decided, confident, trenchant, dogmatic, definitive, formal, solemn, categorical, peremptory; unretracted^; predicable. Adv. affirmatively &c adj.; in the affirmative. with emphasis, ex-cathedra, without fear of contradiction. as God is my witness, I must say, indeed, i' faith, let me tell you, why, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget

... resolu'd, that thou shalt spend some time With Valentinus, in the Emperors Court: What maintenance he from his friends receiues, Like exhibition thou shalt haue from me, To morrow be in readinesse, to goe, Excuse it not: for I am peremptory ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare

... away for a few days after that in the country. When I got back I found a pile of telegrams waiting for me. They were all from Florence, and they all wanted me to go to Madison Avenue. The last of the batch, which had arrived that morning, was so peremptory that I felt as if something had bitten me ...
— A Wodehouse Miscellany - Articles & Stories • P. G. Wodehouse

... girl paused, and Master Wainwright, making a peremptory motion to Lady Stafford to leave ...
— In Doublet and Hose - A Story for Girls • Lucy Foster Madison

... been granted to French officers to take service in this legion. Recruits were also expected from Europe, and twelve hundred Austrians, on the eve of embarking at St. Nazaire, were stopped only by the peremptory interference of the United States.* Various army-corps had been formed, officered by foreigners, among whom were some good French and Austrian officers. Much interest had at first been shown in the scheme; and the new army, its recruits, ...
— Maximilian in Mexico - A Woman's Reminiscences of the French Intervention 1862-1867 • Sara Yorke Stevenson

... the introduction of cabs we hired all the sedan-chairs in Leipzig, with their yellow-coated porters, and went in procession through the streets, much to the astonishment of the good citizens, and annoyance also, as they were unable to hire any means of conveyance till a peremptory stop was put to our fun. Not content with this exploit, when the first cabs were introduced into Leipzig, thirty or forty being put on the street at first, I and my friends secured the use of all of them for the day, and proceeded out into the country. ...
— My Autobiography - A Fragment • F. Max Mueller

... advantage and comfort of both, a considerable amount of friction was inevitable until they got to understand each other. The occasional over-riding of local desires by the 'autocratic' Department, which in the first rush of its work had to act in a somewhat peremptory fashion, was, no doubt, irritating. Now, however, it is generally recognised that the central body, having not only the advice of its experts and access to information from similar Departments in other countries ...
— Ireland In The New Century • Horace Plunkett

... and reechoed with the cries of mothers and children, with the shrieks of violated virgins. The rich plunder that was abandoned to his soldiers might stimulate their avarice; but their cruelty was enforced by the peremptory command of producing an adequate number of heads, which, according to his custom, were curiously piled in columns and pyramids. The Mongols celebrated the feast of victory, while the surviving Moslems passed the night ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various

... your visit, do you mean? Really, Detective Barrant, may I constrain you to give me some explanation of all this? I want to help you all I can, but your actions savour too much of a peremptory jack-in-the-box, even in these bureaucratic days. What is the object of this visit? Why did you want ...
— The Moon Rock • Arthur J. Rees

... General Halleck to General Schenck, which the former probably intended as orders, but which the latter, in view of their peculiar phraseology, considered to be merely advisory, and not having the character of peremptory orders. General Halleck expressed the decided opinion, if he did not actually command, that the main body of General Milroy's forces should be withdrawn from Winchester, and a small force only left as an outpost to watch the enemy. General Schenck, on the other hand, ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 5, November, 1863 • Various

... weeping, and observed my shadow, which he could not mistake, attached to the figure of the extraordinary, grey, unknown one, and he endeavoured by force to put me in possession of my property; but not being able to lay firm hold on this subtle thing, he ordered the old man, in a peremptory tone, to abandon what did not belong to him. He, for a reply, turned his back upon my well-meaning servant, and marched away. Bendel followed him closely, and lifting up the stout black-thorn cudgel which he carried, required ...
— Peter Schlemihl • Adelbert von Chamisso

... noticed in Captain Hill. He became silent, reserved, morose. His orders were given in a quick, peremptory tone, and he seemed to cherish a grudge against all on board. Some captains add much to the pleasure of the passengers by their social and cheery manners, but whenever Captain Hill appeared, a wet blanket seemed to fall on the spirits of passengers and crew, ...
— Facing the World • Horatio Alger

... tame a word—they all rose from the table and came towards her, with many assurances of their delight and admiration; but she put all their compliments aside with a little gesture that was both incredulous and peremptory. ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli

... addressed to one of the prisoners, who took off his sombrero and scratched his head as if he were trying to stir up his ideas so that he could make some reply to these peremptory interrogations. ...
— George at the Fort - Life Among the Soldiers • Harry Castlemon

... o'clock we heard a horseman coming at full speed from the direction of Bolivar. We thereupon rose to a sitting posture, and awaited developments. The horseman, on nearing our post and being challenged, responded, "Friend, without the countersign!" and in a peremptory manner told the sentinel on duty that he wanted to see the officer of the guard. Lieut. Carrico and I walked up to the horseman, and, on getting close to him, saw that he was a Union officer of the rank of Captain. Addressing ...
— The Story of a Common Soldier of Army Life in the Civil War, 1861-1865 • Leander Stillwell

... ash forks arizona be at railroad station three forty five today to meet train arriving from phoenix prepared to immediately serve peremptory mandamus issued tonight by judge wilson sig ...
— The Great K. & A. Robbery • Paul Liechester Ford

... behooved him to delay that return until the time for hostile action should expire. Searching out a telegraph office, he ascertained the point at which a message would intercept the train, and wired Shelby a peremptory request for a meeting in New York on ...
— The Henchman • Mark Lee Luther

... that the Sons of Liberty, as an organisation, had agreed to head the populace in a peremptory demand for the removal of the troops, which was to be made on the following Monday; but Amos failed to learn that there was any good foundation for this rumour. It was known positively that the Sons of Liberty had laid the grievances of the people before the Governor and Council, ...
— Under the Liberty Tree - A Story of The 'Boston Massacre' • James Otis

... commanded as our supreme and universal aim, and wherein the honour due unto Him is declared to be that in which He will allow no competitor to participate. On this head indeed the Holy Scriptures are, if possible, more peremptory than on the former; and at the same time so full as to render particular citations unnecessary, in the case of any one who has ever so little acquaintance ...
— A Practical View of the Prevailing Religious System of Professed Christians, in the Middle and Higher Classes in this Country, Contrasted with Real Christianity. • William Wilberforce

... evacuation of the Soudan had been decreed. A peremptory mandate from the British Government was sent to Cherif Pasha, the Egyptian Prime Minister, who, as he had intimated that he would do, resigned rather than be responsible for giving up so vast a possession. On January 8th, Nubar took office to carry out ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke, Vol. 2 • Stephen Gwynn

... Wazir had made full confession and Harun had (they say) exclaimed, "Thou hast done well!" but was heard to mutter, "Allah slay me an I slay thee not."[FN271] The great house seems at times to have abused its powers by being too peremptory with Harun and Zubaydah, especially in money matters;[FN272] and its very greatness would have created for it many and powerful enemies and detractors who plied the Caliph with anonymous verse and prose. Nor was it forgotten that, before the spread of Al-Islam, they had presided over ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 10 • Richard F. Burton

... ranger spoke curtly, though he still tried to hold toward his comrade precisely the same attitude as he had before discovering her sex, he could not put into his words the same peremptory sting that, he had done before when he found that occasionally necessary. For no matter how severely he must seem to deal with her to avoid her own suspicions as to what he knew, as well as to keep from arousing those ...
— Bucky O'Connor • William MacLeod Raine

... other parts of the union, we felt greatly perplexed. On one hand strict critical justice with the pledge which is given in our motto, imperiously forbidding us to applaud him who does not deserve it, stared us in the face with a peremptory inhibition from sacrificing truth to ceremony, or prostrating our judgment before the feet of public prejudice: while, on the other we were aware that nothing is so obstinate as error—that fashionable idolatry ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Vol I, No. 2, February 1810 • Samuel James Arnold

... letters to his wife, he complained that the conferences in which it was necessary for him to bear a part heated his blood and accelerated his pulse. From other sources of information we learn, that his language, even to those whose co-operation he wished to engage, was strangely peremptory and despotic. Some of his notes written at this time have been preserved, and are in a style which Lewis the Fourteenth would have been too well bred to employ in addressing any ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... constitutional mandate is this which can thus be made to bend and truckle and compromise as if it were a simple rule of expediency that might admit of exceptions upon motives of countervailing expediency. There can be no such pliancy in the peremptory provisions of the Constitution. They cannot be obeyed by moieties and violated in the same ratio. They must be followed out to their full extent, or treated with that decent neglect which has at least the merit of forbearing to render contumacy obtrusive by an ostentatious ...
— American Eloquence, Volume II. (of 4) - Studies In American Political History (1896) • Various

... bed in one corner, a prie Dieu and crucifix, and one or two articles of bedchamber furniture. A woman was sitting in deshabille by the window; a man was smoking on a lounge against the wall. Blandford, in the same peremptory manner, addressed a command in Spanish to the inmates, who immediately abandoned the apartment to the ...
— The Argonauts of North Liberty • Bret Harte

... only echoed in the shops, in the streets, but also in the strongly organized clubs. The Mayor answered in a peremptory manner, but without entirely effacing the first impression. During several days after the king's flight, both Bailly and La Fayette were in personal danger. The National Assembly had often to look to ...
— Biographies of Distinguished Scientific Men • Francois Arago

... help himself. The fellow not suspecting any danger, set his gun up by the door, and while drinking, Mrs. Daviess picked up his gun, and placing herself in the door, had the gun cocked and levelled upon him by the time he turned around, and in a peremptory manner, ordered him to take a seat, or she would shoot him. Struck with terror and alarm, he asked what he had done. She told him, he had stolen her husband's property, and that she intended to take care of him herself. In that condition, she held him a prisoner, ...
— Heroes and Hunters of the West • Anonymous

... the favorable impression derived from this handsome and dignified exterior. Yet a skilful physiognomist would have been less satisfied with the countenance on the second than on the first view. The eyebrow and upper lip bespoke something of the habit of peremptory command and decisive superiority. Even his courtesy, though open, frank, and unconstrained, seemed to indicate a sense of personal importance; and, upon any check or accidental excitation, a sudden, though transient lour of the eye showed a hasty, ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott

... labyrinth of dark streets that twist and turn, cross and recross one another, in this ancient city, and after a quarter of an hour's walking, that was first slow, then very rapid, arrived at his ducal palace near the church of San Giovanni al Mare. He gave certain instructions in a harsh, peremptory tone to a page who took his sword and cloak. Then Charles shut himself into his room, without going up to see his poor mother, who was weeping, sad and solitary over her son's ingratitude, and like every other mother taking ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... and challenges the honour of beginning, and completing, this magnificent design solely to itself. I was going to overwhelm the patience of the reader with quotations from it, to this purpose; but being willing to spare him and myself, I will only produce one, which, as it is direct and peremptory to this effect, is as good as a hundred, to demonstrate that the Old Testament at least claims what I have said. Zech. viii. 20, "Thus saith the Eternal of Hosts: It shall yet come to pass, that there ...
— The Grounds of Christianity Examined by Comparing The New Testament with the Old • George Bethune English

... these resolves, the captain opposed his peremptory veto, as "contrary to instructions." Then would break forth an unavailing explosion of wrath on the part of certain of the partners, in the course of which they did not even spare Mr. Astor for his act of supererogation in furnishing orders for ...
— Astoria - Or, Anecdotes Of An Enterprise Beyond The Rocky Mountains • Washington Irving

... was speaking in the hall—Mr. Marsham giving the last directions for the day to the head keeper. The voice was sharp and peremptory—too peremptory, one might have thought, for democracy addressing a brother. But the keeper, a gray-haired, weather-beaten man of fifty, bowed himself out respectfully, and Marsham turned to greet Diana. Mrs. Colwood saw the kindling of his ...
— The Testing of Diana Mallory • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... to be distinct, and had been in opposition, at least, if they had not clashed. There had been objections on one side and inflexibility on the other. The abrupt advice: "Leave your house," hurled at Jean Valjean by a stranger, had alarmed him to the extent of rendering him peremptory. He thought that he had been traced and followed. Cosette had been obliged ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo

... an hour, I believe in a quarter of an hour; and having been sent off at this very early hour to Admiral Foley, who was called out of bed to receive it, it would have been in town early, and the stocks would have been up at the very moment, when under the peremptory order before given, L.50,000 would have been sold, as well as every other part of the stock, standing in the names ...
— The Trial of Charles Random de Berenger, Sir Thomas Cochrane, • William Brodie Gurney

... when she saw him coming, and walked beside him towards Mercy Farm, keeping step with him as they walked. When they got near Mercy, she turned and looked around her, expecting to see Oolanga or some sign of him. He was, however, not visible. He had received from his master peremptory orders to keep out of sight—an order for which the African scored a new offence up against her. They found Lilla and Mimi at home and seemingly glad to see them, though both the girls were surprised at the visit coming ...
— The Lair of the White Worm • Bram Stoker

... once more into position; the stage was cleared by a whispered peremptory order; the bell rung once, the tent trembling with some one whisking further out of sight behind it,—twice, and the ...
— Junior Classics, V6 • Various

... be exhausted before a jury in a great murder trial has been selected, for each side in addition to its challenges for "cause" or "bias" has thirty* peremptory ones which it may exercise arbitrarily. If the writer's recollection is not at fault, the large original panel drawn in the first Molineux trial was used up and several others had to be drawn until eight hundred talesmen had been interrogated before the jury was finally selected. ...
— Courts and Criminals • Arthur Train

... with difficulty but accident some time after put into the hands of Mr. Powell a document of undeniable credit, which, however, was unnecessary: for on Mr. Powell's representation of the case to Sir F. Haldimand the most peremptory orders to the Commandant at Detroit to find out the slaves of Mrs. La Force in whose ever possession they might be and transmit them to their mistress at Montreal. But Detroit was too far distant from headquarters and interests prompting to disobedience of such an order too prevalent ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 5, 1920 • Various

... arguments. 'Such as they were,' say you, 'I am willing to stand by them: What I have offered, I have offered modestly: according to the utmost light I had into those scriptures upon which they are bottomed; having not arrived unto such a peremptory way of dictatorship, as what I render must be taken for laws binding to others in faith and practice; and therefore express myself by suppositions, strong presumptions, and fair ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... we were thus engaged, as usual, in a kind of waking dream over the fire, a sudden knock at the door startled the whole house. It was a very small house, or cottage, and the sound ran all up the little stairs, and seemed to enter bodily every one of the little rooms. It was a peremptory and nervous knock. The circumstance was extraordinary in itself, particularly at that hour; and before the owner of the house, who occupied the rooms below, could make up his mind to open the door, he thought it necessary to take my opinion ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 3, July, 1851 • Various

... capias ad faciendums or ad withernam, and so forth. After vexatious interlocutors in which the Lord Ordinary has refused interim interdict, but passed the bill to try the question, reserving expenses; or has repelled the dilatory defences, and ordered the case to the roll for debate on the peremptory defences; or has taken to avizandum; or has ordered re-revised condescendence and answers on the conjoint probation; or has sisted diligence till caution be found judicio sisti; or has done nearly all these things together in one breath,—it is like the consolation ...
— The Book-Hunter - A New Edition, with a Memoir of the Author • John Hill Burton

... kissed the sick man, and drifted out of the room. She again went the round of the green-houses and the conservatory, informing the gardener, in her high, peremptory, simple fashion, of what she wanted, telling him all the ...
— Women in Love • D. H. Lawrence

... Isabella, unable longer to remain quiet at his repeated insults to the young officer, "you soldiers are so very peremptory, that ...
— The Heart's Secret - The Fortunes of a Soldier, A Story of Love and the Low Latitudes • Maturin Murray

... a peremptory hand; in the girl's presence he meant to have an end of the sergeant's easy manners. But now it was she who astonished ...
— Those Who Smiled - And Eleven Other Stories • Perceval Gibbon

... heavy and peremptory hand upon her arm and drew her over the threshold, across the tiny passage called the hall, into one of the two ...
— Mrs. Day's Daughters • Mary E. Mann

... historians have quickened it by feeding it; till, the more order and sequence we find in the facts of the past, the more we wish to find. So it should be (or why was man created a rational being?) and so it is; and the requirements of the more educated are becoming so peremptory, that many thinking men would be ready to say (I should be sorry to endorse their opinion), that if History is not studied according to exact scientific method, it need ...
— The Roman and the Teuton - A Series of Lectures delivered before the University of Cambridge • Charles Kingsley

... other places, had seized a moment when Elizabeth's fickle mind had inclined to warlike measures, and knowing that the mood might last but a day, had slipped out of Plymouth and sailed for Spain a few hours before a messenger arrived with a peremptory order from Elizabeth against entering any Spanish port or offering violence to any Spanish town or ships. Although caught in a gale in the Channel, Drake held on, and, reaching Gibraltar on the 16th April, ascertained that Cadiz was crowded ...
— By England's Aid • G. A. Henty

... I have said the batch was rather important. That is quite enough for you to know. It referred to some correspondence, two measures, a peremptory order to a native chief and two dozen other things. Mrs. Hauksbee gasped as she read, for the first glimpse of the naked machinery of the Great Indian Government, stripped of its casings, and lacquer, and paint, and guard-rails, ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling

... would make a clean breast if the King would pardon him. This important document was found at Simancas, and first published in 1868 by Mr. St. John. On the same day Philip III. sent a despatch to James I. desiring him in peremptory terms to save him the trouble of hanging Raleigh at Madrid by executing him promptly in London. As soon as this ultimatum arrived, James applied to the Commissioners to know how it would be best to deal with the prisoner judicially. Several lawyers assured him that Raleigh was under sentence of ...
— Raleigh • Edmund Gosse

... also we have the terrible earnestness of purpose and that strong prehensile mind which always obtains a complete grasp of a thing; in him, too, we have the hand's quick clutch and the grip as of iron. Like Demosthenes, he conceals his art or compels one to forget it by the peremptory way he calls attention to the subject he treats; and yet, like his great predecessor, he is the last and greatest of a whole line of artist-minds, and therefore has more to conceal than his forerunners: ...
— Thoughts out of Season (Part One) • Friedrich Nietzsche

... admiration of all men for his persistence, dexterity, and ability, did not lead the most important contest. In 1846, the popular desire for radical changes in the judiciary was not less peremptory than the expression in 1821. Up to this time, the courts of the State, in part, antedated the War of Independence. Now, in place of the ancient appointive system, the people demanded an elective judiciary which should be responsible to them and bring the courts to them. To make these changes, the ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander

... splendour of flame leaping from the dull fuel of gums and straw. In such images we see how the simple joy in abrupt changes of sensation which belonged to his riotous energy of nerve lent support to his peremptory way of imagining all change and especially all vital and significant becoming. For Browning's trenchant imagination things were not gradually evolved; a sudden touch loosed the springs of latent power, or ...
— Robert Browning • C. H. Herford

... in the village were attacked several times, but made a magnificent defence. We helped them with our guns as much as we could, but could render them very little assistance. At last we saw that an attack was to be made in earnest; peremptory orders were sent to the Turkish gun-boats to go in and take up their stations, and our boats all went in to the west side of the spit. Nothing could be worse than the arrangements of the Turks. They had sent very little provisions and next to no water on shore, and ...
— At Aboukir and Acre - A Story of Napoleon's Invasion of Egypt • George Alfred Henty

... labored hard over that important document, with the result that the royal desire to eliminate passion sufficiently to make a peaceable settlement possible was made unmistakably plain, and therefore the letter, as ultimately revised by Earl Russell, though still disagreeably peremptory in tone, left room for the United States to set itself right without loss of self-respect. The most annoying feature was that Great Britain insisted upon instant action; if Lord Lyons did not receive a favorable reply within seven ...
— Abraham Lincoln, Vol. I. • John T. Morse

... of each geniture inspected, gathering of herbs, of administering astrologically observed; in which Thurnesserus and some iatromathematical professors, are too superstitious in my judgment. [2849]"Hellebore will help, but not alway, not given by every physician," &c. but these men are too peremptory and self-conceited as I think. But what do I do, interposing in that which is beyond my reach? A blind man cannot judge of colours, nor I peradventure of these things. Only thus much I would require, honesty in every physician, ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior

... based. 'It makes no difference whether you are on duty or off duty, so far as this Company is concerned. They demand the whole and entire time of their men, and they are going to have it.' Short, sharp, peremptory this, but is also a high-handed proceeding—an infringement upon personal rights. It does not appear that this man had been derelict in duty to his employers, or that he took the time that belonged to them in promoting ...
— The Story of a Dark Plot - or Tyranny on the Frontier • A.L.O. C. and W.W. Smith

... Lady Tranmore, in despair, and she threw herself into arguments and appeals to which Kitty listened quite unmoved for some twenty minutes. Margaret French, feeling herself an uncomfortable third, tried several times to steal away. In vain. Kitty's peremptory hand retained her. She could not escape, much as she wished it, from the wrestle between the two women—on the one side the mother, noble, already touched with age, full of dignity and protesting affection; on the other the wife, still little ...
— The Marriage of William Ashe • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... couple of million of men into the field for the purpose of cutting one another's throats, except clearly as an act of self-defence. Man is the same war-making animal now that he was in the days of Marathon, but he readily admits the evils of war, and is peremptory in demanding that they shall not be incurred save for good and valid reasons. He is as ready to fight as ever he was, but he must fight for some definite cause,—for a cause that will bear examination: and it did not seem possible that a mere dispute concerning ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various

... brow cleared, even while her heart jumped into her throat. The gate clicked, and a lithe figure swung up the path. Persis took her time in answering the peremptory knock. ...
— Other People's Business - The Romantic Career of the Practical Miss Dale • Harriet L. Smith

... swearing by the right hand, is a sacred oath; and those who take it will not swerve from its obligation, which is peremptory.] ...
— An Account of Timbuctoo and Housa Territories in the Interior of Africa • Abd Salam Shabeeny

... it," objected Tavia, giving Dorothy a peremptory hug. "I'm simply dead and buried, without insurance. Frozen stiff, and disjointed in every limb. Why, I ...
— Dorothy Dale's Queer Holidays • Margaret Penrose

... the minute Ian Stafford entered Byng's mansion and was being taken to Jasmine's sitting-room, when Rudyard appeared on the staircase, and with a peremptory gesture waved the servant away. Ian was suddenly conscious of a terrible change in Rudyard's appearance. His face was haggard and his warm colour had given place to a strange blackish tinge which seemed to underlie the pallor—the deathly look to be found in the faces of those ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... Indian garrison escaped by night, and slaughtered promiscuously all whom they could surprise along the countryside. A force was raised to check them, and avenge the murders; but before it could come in contact with them, Berkeley sent out a peremptory ...
— The History of the United States from 1492 to 1910, Volume 1 • Julian Hawthorne

... nation, and took a number of prisoners. The governor immediately sent to warn these turbulent savages that if they did not desist from war, and return their prisoners, he would destroy their villages as he had those of the Agniers. This peremptory message raised the indignation of the Iroquois, they at first proudly disclaimed the right of the French to dictate to the free people of the forest, and vowed that they would perish rather than bow down to the strangers' will; but, finally, the wisdom of the old ...
— The Conquest of Canada (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Warburton

... "Are thy orders peremptory?" asked the monk, unconsciously fixing his eye again on the windows of the palace. "Is it certain that the prisoner is ...
— The Bravo • J. Fenimore Cooper

... Shenandoah Valley, it was his fate to meet at the outset the most formidable of adversaries, Stonewall Jackson. He was sorely hoodwinked and humiliated, but so were several of his successors. At Cedar Mountain, understanding that his orders were peremptory, he threw his corps upon double their numbers and fought with all the bravery in the world though with defective tactics. Another corps should have been at hand, but it failed to arrive. There was a moment when Banks, ...
— The Last Leaf - Observations, during Seventy-Five Years, of Men and Events in America - and Europe • James Kendall Hosmer

... disappeared, and she ends with an expressive movement of her hands, a long sigh, and a closing of her eyes. BUILDER'S peremptory voice is heard: "Julia!" ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... women had only yielded to the most peremptory authority, exercised by Ruth in the name of Jeffrey Whiting. Even to the end gentle Letitia Bascom had rebelled vigorously against the idea that Cassius Bascom, who was notoriously unable to look after himself in the most ordinary things of life, should now be left behind on the mere ...
— The Shepherd of the North • Richard Aumerle Maher

... some check was necessary grew more and more peremptory as the evils of the system were exposed. In fourteen years from the first issue of small notes, the number of convictions had been centupled. In the first ten years of the present century, L101,061 were ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury

... again there came to her straining ears the cry of a jackal from far away. Then at last she caught the sound of Baring's voice, curt and peremptory, and her heart stood still. But he was only speaking to the punkah-coolie round the corner, for almost instantly the great fan above ...
— Rosa Mundi and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell

... and scattering, strongly opposed. Discussion waxed bitter. "Mexico" sat silent, watchful, impassive. At length, "Peachy," in full swing of an impassioned and sulphurous denunciation of the doctor, his person and his ways, was called abruptly to order by a peremptory ...
— The Doctor - A Tale Of The Rockies • Ralph Connor

... dining-room, when the door had been boarded up and the inquisitive police satisfied and the street crowd dispersed; when a sympathetic waiter had partially cleansed Hawkins, and that gentleman had suggested that we might as well depart, he received a peremptory invitation to call upon the proprietor in his ...
— Mr. Hawkins' Humorous Adventures • Edgar Franklin

... a comic and peremptory manner; "go your rounds, I say; you know very well that I mane your behavior about the shawl, and not your great ...
— The Tithe-Proctor - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton

... want this man freed!" McKay snapped. At his peremptory tone the cannibal chieftain looked oddly at him, and when Lourenco translated the demand—though in a more diplomatic manner—he scowled. But he gave the clubman the word and the rope was lifted ...
— The Pathless Trail • Arthur O. (Arthur Olney) Friel

... steps of the dais, he looked up, and ordered them to halt in so peremptory a tone that even Queen ...
— In Brief Authority • F. Anstey



Words linked to "Peremptory" :   domineering, high-and-mighty, imperative, decisive, magisterial



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