Diccionario ingles.comDiccionario ingles.com
Synonyms, antonyms, pronunciation

  Home
English Dictionary      examples: 'day', 'get rid of', 'New York Bay'




Sneer   /snɪr/   Listen
Sneer

noun
1.
A facial expression of contempt or scorn; the upper lip curls.  Synonym: leer.
2.
A contemptuous or scornful remark.



Related search:



WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








Advanced search
     Find words:
Starting with
Ending with
Containing
Matching a pattern  

Synonyms
Antonyms
Quotes
Words linked to  

only single words



Share |





"Sneer" Quotes from Famous Books



... very State-Papers, George and his English Lords have a provoking slighting tone towards Friedrich Wilhelm; they answer his violent convictions, and thoroughgoing rapid proposals, by brief official negation, with an air of superiority,—traces of, a polite sneer perceptible, occasionally. A mere Clown of a King, thinks George; a mere gesticulating Coxcomb, thinks Friedrich Wilhelm. "MEIN BRUDER DER COMODIANT, My Brother the Play-actor" (parti-colored Merry-Andrew, ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. VI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle

... 'Cold Steel' Weir, our boss, four hundred of us, till ye can skate on hell," a huge Irishman, one of half a dozen standing at Vorse's bar on Saturday night, remarked when the saloon-man uttered a sneer at the manager. "Say that agin and we'll tear your rotten booze joint to pieces and make ye eat it! And if another stinkin' greaser tries to wing him from the dark, we'll come down here and wipe your dirty little town off the map! That goes both ways ...
— In the Shadow of the Hills • George C. Shedd

... but after Silence spake A Vessel of a more ungainly Make: "They sneer at me for leaning all awry; What? did the Hand then of ...
— Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam • Omar Khayyam

... the mist, as he thought it, with the light question, which summed up a Roman man of the world's indifference to ideas, and belief in solid facts like legions and swords. 'What is truth?' may be the cry of a seeking soul, or the sneer of a confirmed sceptic, or the shrug of indifference of ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: St. John Chaps. XV to XXI • Alexander Maclaren

... gazing with its set sneer, and moving but stiffly, she put forth another hand upon its side and thrust it farther backward until it lay stretched beneath the great broad seat, its glazed and open eyes seeming to stare upward blankly at the low roof of its strange prison; she thrust it farther backward still, ...
— A Lady of Quality • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... gravely: 'not even the gentlemen themselves, I imagine. I'll just tell you,' he continued, as if actuated by a sudden resolution, 'what was said last night in the dining-room, after you left us: perhaps you will not mind it, as you're so very philosophical on certain points,' he added with a slight sneer. 'They were talking about Lord Lowborough and his delectable lady, the cause of whose sudden departure is no secret amongst them; and her character is so well known to them all, that, nearly related to me as she is, I could not attempt ...
— The Tenant of Wildfell Hall • Anne Bronte

... a merciful interposition of Providence," muttered Marston, as he closed the letter, with a sneer. "Well, some men have odd notions of mercy and providence, to be sure; but if it pleases him, certainly I shall not ...
— The Evil Guest • J. Sheridan Le Fanu

... sneer, And sicken o'er luxury's dishes, And loathe the poor cottager's cheer, And melt in the heat of their wishes: But luxury's sons are unblest, A prey to each giddy desire, And hence, where they never know rest, ...
— Cottage Poems • Patrick Bronte

... with a sneer, for of all pitiable objects he regarded an unmanly man as the most despicable. He consented, however, to sit down on a grassy bank and watch the proceedings of this Indian dandy, who had just seated himself in front of his wigwam for the purpose of ...
— The Dog Crusoe and His Master - A Story of Adventure in the Western Prairies • Robert Michael Ballantyne

... emphatic fist did not thump the Scriptures the second time. He checked it in air; for a woman stood up straight and stared at him straight. Her thin mouth seemed to twist with a sneer. He thought he read on her lips words not quite uttered. ...
— In a Little Town • Rupert Hughes

... evil things had been prophesied, who were now growing into men and women, earnest, patient, aspiring—into such men and women as have made the name of Scotland known and honoured in all lands. They were not spared a sneer now and then. They were laughed at, or railed at, as "unco gude," or as "prood, upsettin' creatures, with their meetings, and classes, and library books," and the names which in the Scotch of that time and place stood for "prig" and "prude," were freely bestowed upon them. But, all ...
— Allison Bain - By a Way she knew not • Margaret Murray Robertson

... friends they had known at Gettysburg. This gentleman, in conversation with the medical director, told him he knew two of the ladies there. The reply illustrates the peculiar position in which they were placed. "Ladies!" he answered with a sneer, "We have no ladies here! A hospital is no place for a lady. We have some women ...
— Woman's Work in the Civil War - A Record of Heroism, Patriotism, and Patience • Linus Pierpont Brockett

... sunshine on them," said the old man, with a sneer; "so is a mirage in the desert; so are the apples on the shores of the Dead Sea. But she is yours. You'll find no trouble in winning her, even at the sacrifice of her creed. She is of the earth earthy, and will willingly escape from such ...
— May Brooke • Anna H. Dorsey

... would have converted Bishop Colenso from Christianity, if he had been a Christian, are importing steel plows by hundreds every year. It has captured the enemy's fortresses, and turned his guns. Lord Chesterfield's parlor, where an infidel club met to sneer at religion, is now a vestry, where the prayers of the penitent are offered to Christ. Gibbon's house, at Lake Lemon, is now a hotel; one room of which is devoted to the sale of Bibles. Voltaire's printing press, from which he issued his infidel tracts, has ...
— Fables of Infidelity and Facts of Faith - Being an Examination of the Evidences of Infidelity • Robert Patterson

... know the widow Custis had put on such airs with her second marriage. Presently we shall hear of Mount Vernon palace if Dunmore does not make short work of it. And some of the rebels sneer at good English titles, or think ...
— A Little Girl in Old Philadelphia • Amanda Minnie Douglas

... there was much malicious pleasure in it all. He was not indisposed to high-bred cruelty. Like Lamb, he "loved a fool," but it was in a mortar; and pleasant it was to see the spectacle when he really took a man in hand for the chastisement of irony. It is thus that "the seraphim illuminati sneer." And in all his controversial writing there was a brilliancy and unsparingness that will appeal to the deepest instincts of a fighting race, willy-nilly; and as one had only to read the words to feel himself among the children of light, so ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner

... knew how her mother's antiquated mode of speech shocked the captain. In fact, he began to sneer, and muttered between his teeth: "Porte Gibard! Porte Gibard! 'Tis enough to make King Charles ...
— Notre-Dame de Paris - The Hunchback of Notre Dame • Victor Hugo

... would ill become me to deprecate the character of my clientele. They may not be rich, they may not be influential, but they are the foundation of your kingdom's prosperity. And I must say for myself that for the one person that your Gazetteer serves, I serve many. You may sneer at my quality if you like, but I point to my circulation. I am the official Gazetteer of the Red-Horse Tavern, and scores of petty tradesmen, as well as clerks, bricklayers and truck drivers, depend upon me for their knowledge ...
— King Arthur's Socks and Other Village Plays • Floyd Dell

... thoughtfully examined the split table and the rusty old relic of Valley Forge, but Rockstone did not offer to stir. With what was almost a sneer on his face he met the challenging ...
— L. P. M. - The End of the Great War • J. Stewart Barney

... set to music by Robert Johnson, a lutenist in high repute. {255b} Like its predecessor 'A Winter's Tale,' 'The Tempest' long maintained its first popularity in the theatre, and the vogue of the two pieces drew a passing sneer from Ben Jonson. In the Induction to his 'Bartholomew Fair,' first acted in 1614, he wrote: 'If there be never a servant-monster in the Fair, who can help it he [i.e. the author] says? nor a ...
— A Life of William Shakespeare - with portraits and facsimiles • Sidney Lee

... while, in the summer, the latter stood but little chance in the competition, but were almost entirely deserted. To this result the comfortable cabins of the coasters, designed for passengers (spacious and satisfactory for those times, however the refined effeminacy of the present generation might sneer at them), and the good fare they furnished, not a little contributed. The Calypso was one of the finest of the line of packets to which she belonged, and provided with every convenience that could be desired. She was a sloop of some ninety or one hundred tons, ...
— The Lost Hunter - A Tale of Early Times • John Turvill Adams

... throne, View him with jealous yet with scornful eyes, Hate him for arts that caused himself to rise, Damn with faint praise, assent with civil leer, And, without sneering, teach the rest to sneer; Alike unused to blame or to commend, A timorous foe and a suspicious friend, Fearing e'en fools, by flatterers besieged, And so obliging that he ne'er obliged; Willing to wound, and yet ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner

... cannot be," he said. "Well, well, there it is, and must be swallowed with the rest. Pity, though," he added, with a sneer on his dark face, "since many a year has gone by since these walls have seen a bastard, and, as things are, that may pull them ...
— The Lady Of Blossholme • H. Rider Haggard

... boast of in arts or letters, and were given to bragging overmuch of our merely material prosperity, due quite as much to the virtue of our continent as to our own. There was some truth in Carlyle's sneer after all. Till we had succeeded in some higher way than this, we had only the success of physical growth. Our greatness, like that of enormous Russia, was greatness on the map—barbarian mass only; but had we gone down, like that other Atlantis, in some ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. X (of X) - America - II, Index • Various

... of the hexameter in modern poetry is due to Johann Heinrich Voss, a man of genius, an admirable metrist, and, Schlegel's sneer to the contrary notwithstanding, hitherto the best translator of Homer. His "Odyssey," (1783,) his "Iliad," (1791,) and his "Luise," (1795,) were confessedly Goethe's teachers in this kind of verse. The "Hermann and Dorothea" of the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 15, January, 1859 • Various

... heart out-worn, Or spirit whom life's brute-struggles have torn, Come, tired and broken and wounded feet, Where the walls are greening, the floors are sweet, The roofs are breathing and heaven's airs meet. 30 Come, wash earth's grievings from out of the face, The tear and the sneer and the warfare's trace, Come, where the bells of the forest are ringing, Come, where the oriole's nest is swinging, Where the brooks are foaming in amber pools, 35 The mornings are still and the noonday cools. Cast off earth's sorrows and know what ...
— The Ontario High School Reader • A.E. Marty

... Besides those who sneer at dream study, because they have never looked into the subject, there are those who do not dare to face the facts revealed by dream study. Dreams tell us many an unpleasant biological truth about ourselves and only very free ...
— Dream Psychology - Psychoanalysis for Beginners • Sigmund Freud

... abuse and of adulation. Daily, semi-weekly, or weekly did Fenno, Porcupine Cobbett, Dennie, Coleman, and the other Federal journalists, not content with proclaiming him an ambitious, cunning, and deceitful demagogue, ridicule his scientific theories, shudder at his irreligion, sneer at his courage, and allude coarsely to his private morals in a manner more discreditable to themselves than to him; crowning all their accusations and innuendoes with a reckless profusion of epithet. ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. 5, Issue 2, February, 1864 • Various

... and looked around him, a sneer in place of his smile. No man better than he knew those with whom ...
— Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ • Lew Wallace

... sneer, "you are come to fetch your loving bride, I suppose; but the beautiful bird has flown from the nest, and will never sing any more. The cat has fetched it away, and she intends also to scratch your eyes out. To thee is Lettice lost; thou ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf (Vol 2 of 17) - Folk-Lore, Fables, And Fairy Tales • Various

... big-wigs begin to sneer at the course of our studies, calling our darling romances foolish, trivial, noxious to the mind, enervators of intellect, fathers of idleness, and what not, let us at once take a high ground, and say,—Go you to your ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray

... friends may laugh and sneer at you. Temptations round you flow, But prove yourself both brave and true, And firmly tell ...
— Mother Truth's Melodies - Common Sense For Children • Mrs. E. P. Miller

... "Pay," muttered Jones, a sneer now curling his lip, "he'll have to pay, and roundly, too, unless more fortunate than ...
— Finger Posts on the Way of Life • T. S. Arthur

... you seek the general for some ulterior purpose," he said with a sneer, and, before Chester realized what he was about to do, the officer raised his hand and slapped him soundly across the face. "Take them ...
— The Boy Allies in the Trenches - Midst Shot and Shell Along the Aisne • Clair Wallace Hayes

... natural operation of natural causes, and may therefore confess the effects of Religion and morality in promoting the well being of the community; may yet, according to their humour, with a smile of complacent pity, or a sneer of supercilious contempt, read of the service which real Christians may render to their country, by conciliating the favour and calling down the blessing of Providence. It may appear in their eyes an instance of the same superstitious weakness, as that which prompts the terrified ...
— 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

... race flowed in the veins of the "new Antinous" who could sing Greek songs so well and with so pure an accent; every insult to his people was stamped deep in his heart, every sneer at his faith revived his memory of the day when the Melchites had slain his two brothers. And these bloody deeds, these innumerable acts of oppression by which the Greek; had provoked and offended the schismatic ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... man stood in the courtyard, while the Dark Master was seeing to horses being made ready for them. Drawing his cloak farther about his hunched shoulders, the latter turned to Brian with a mocking sneer. ...
— Nuala O'Malley • H. Bedford-Jones

... Eyo, a brother to King Eyo; when he asked for a present, and something to drink, the customary demand of the natives. We presented him with a few leaves of tobacco, which appeared to amuse him exceedingly: he held them up with a contemptuous sneer, and asked if that was a present? This man was as shrewd a fellow as any we met with, in Old Calabar, and had long been accustomed to trade, and receive presents, from captains of slavers, ...
— A Voyage Round the World, Vol. I (of ?) • James Holman

... to these events, as Natalya Urusova found, that the foreman of the Bruch factory had referred when he asked the girls, with a sneer, why they didn't join their "sisters." Going to the Union headquarters on Clinton Street, she learned all she could about the Union. Afterward, in the Bruch factory, whenever any complaints arose, she would say casually, in pretended helplessness, "But what ...
— Making Both Ends Meet • Sue Ainslie Clark and Edith Wyatt

... it's the easiest thing in the world to sit and sneer at eccentricities. But what a dead and uninteresting world it would be if we were all proper, and kept within the lines! Affairs would soon be reduced to mere machinery. There are moments, even days, when all interests and movements appear to be settled ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner

... no reason for the resolution, and her manner, without being sullen, aggravated her brother into wrath, the effusion of which was a withering sneer. ...
— At Last • Marion Harland

... difficult patient. It was not that he was exacting and querulous; on the contrary, he never complained, he asked for nothing, he was perfectly silent; but he seemed to resent the care that was taken of him; he received all inquiries about his feelings or his needs with a jibe, a sneer, or an oath. I found him detestable, and as soon as he was out of danger I had no hesitation in telling ...
— The Moon and Sixpence • W. Somerset Maugham

... congratulations, great stir and excitement prevailed during these few days in the two mansions of Ning and Jung, and every one was in high glee; but he alone looked upon everything as if it were nothing; taking not the least interest in anything; and as this reason led the whole family to sneer at him, the result was that he got more ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin

... through the village on a visit* to Tammas's slobbering grandson—it was shortly after Billy Thornton's advent into the world—that little M'Adam, standing in the door of the Sylvester Arms, with a twig in his mouth and a sneer fading from his lips, made ...
— Bob, Son of Battle • Alfred Ollivant

... we aim; it means entering into fellowship with Christ, (in a very feeble sense, it is true,) in His broad sympathy with humanity, in His sacrificing love; it means, many times, to have our names cast out as evil, to brave the sneer and ridicule of fashionable society, to be willing to be misunderstood by those nearest and dearest to us; to some it means all this and more; still, with a firm conviction of duty, of being called of God, we come ...
— Why and how: a hand-book for the use of the W.C.T. unions in Canada • Addie Chisholm

... a smile. "As the titled conductor of the Egypt tour," he explained to my dull intelligence, with a slight sneer. "So will you please be in the dining saloon just before the bugle blows the beasts in? I have to introduce you, in a short speech. It's all I can do, except say, God help you! But I don't see how He ...
— It Happened in Egypt • C. N. Williamson & A. M. Williamson

... What he himself did not think it apparently worth while to resent, Thorncliff resented for him. Swords were drawn, and we exchanged one or two passes, when the other brothers separated us by main force; and I shall never forget the diabolical sneer which writhed Rashleigh's wayward features, as I was forced from the apartment by the main strength of two of these youthful Titans. They secured me in my apartment by locking the door, and I heard them, to my inexpressible rage, laugh heartily as they descended the ...
— Rob Roy, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott

... not!" assented Miss Varnham; but her smile was so like a sneer, and her glance about the room so cold and contemptuous, that Peggy felt dislike hardening ...
— Peggy • Laura E. Richards

... of Thanksgiving, how manifest becomes the influence of this feathered sovereign. Observe yonder jaundiced youth pacing the street moodily, his lips set in a cynic sneer. His turkey was lean. I know it. He cannot hide that turkey. The gaunt fowl obtrudes himself from every part. On the other hand, none but the primest of prime turkeys could have set in motion this brisk old gentleman with the ruddy check and hale, clear eye, whom ...
— Punchinello, Vol. II. No. 38, Saturday, December 17, 1870. • Various

... duty!" he exclaimed, with a sneer. "It shall not be a light one, let me tell you. Now, as you can walk, find some food—shell-fish and water. I don't ask for impossibilities, but take care you do not touch any till ...
— Tales of the Sea - And of our Jack Tars • W.H.G. Kingston

... too, the lady of Castle Brady used to sneer, because on these occasions a certain Tim, who used to be called my valet, followed me and my mother to church, carrying a huge prayer-book and a cane, and dressed in the livery of one of our own fine footmen from Clarges Street, which, as Tim was a bandy-shanked little fellow, did not ...
— Barry Lyndon • William Makepeace Thackeray

... although it may be difficult for philosophy to explain the reason of it, that slight persecutions have often been as effectual as the heaviest in blasting the deceptive appearance of religion, which, under favouring circumstances, grew for a time in the life of an unrenewed man. In point of fact, a sneer from some leading spirit in a literary society, or a laugh raised by a gay circle of pleasure-seekers in a fashionable drawing-room, or the rude jest of scoffing artisans in a work-shop, may do as much as the fagot and ...
— The Parables of Our Lord • William Arnot

... only for the few. As the great majority of our fellow-creatures are denied it, the next best thing for them is to be able to read about these heroes, and thus endeavour to catch their spirit. Some are inclined to sneer at biographies, and to say that, speaking generally, they set forward only the good part of the character of their subjects, omitting all that is faulty. To a certain extent this is undoubtedly true, owing to the very nature of things; but, on the other hand, it must be remembered that ...
— General Gordon - A Christian Hero • Seton Churchill

... allow, for the very truth's sake:—If I have the most trifling claims upon your good will, for an hour's amusement to yourself, or benefit to your children, read it for my sake:—Read it, if it be merely to find fresh occasion to sneer at the vulgarity of the cause:—Read it, from sheer curiosity to see what a woman (who had much better attend to her household concerns) will say upon such a subject:—Read it, on any terms, and my ...
— An Appeal in Favor of that Class of Americans Called Africans • Lydia Maria Child

... Ben, with a sneer. "If he hadn't come up to the pasture the other day, you wouldn't thought anything 'bout him, an' he'd been out to the poor-farm where ...
— Mr. Stubbs's Brother - A Sequel to 'Toby Tyler' • James Otis

... and with dignity. "And make haste about it—the fellow here is waiting. But mark this," he added with a sneer, as confident of victory: "If you go, you go at once. And you take with you nothing—not a rag nor stitch that was my daughter's. You go ... dressed ...
— The Song Of The Blood-Red Flower • Johannes Linnankoski

... without, but dwells as a vital principle in the will of every citizen. Our enemies—and wherever a man is to be found bribed by an abuse, or who profits by a political superstition, we have a natural enemy—have striven to laugh and sneer and lie this apparition of royal manhood out of existence. They conspired our murder; but in this vision is the prophecy of a dominion which is to push them from their stools, and whose crown doth sear ...
— The Writings of James Russell Lowell in Prose and Poetry, Volume V - Political Essays • James Russell Lowell

... had put military discipline into the ranks of his mighty organization, rode his horse as the Kaiser would have liked to ride entering Paris. His small, bitter, fanatical face wore a deeply carved sneer. His great black beard flapped in the breeze, and he sang as he rode. Behind him came huge floats depicting in startling tableaux the hideous menace of the gooseberry. Bands blared and crashed. Then, rank on rank, as far as eye could see, followed the zealots ...
— In the Sweet Dry and Dry • Christopher Morley

... to fetch her. She is quite in demand, it seems," and he stretched his thin lips over his particularly fine teeth in something like a sneer. "I wish I had known you were coming out; I should have invited you to ride ...
— The Motor Girls on a Tour • Margaret Penrose

... to approve and smile at all he says in the gross. It is good Comedy enough to observe a Superior talking half Sentences, and playing an humble Admirer's Countenance from one thing to another, with such Perplexity that he knows not what to sneer in Approbation of. But this kind of Complaisance is peculiarly the Manner of Courts; in all other Places you must constantly go farther in Compliance with the Persons you have to do with, than a mere Conformity of Looks and Gestures. If you are ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele

... Oracle got to say about it?" he demanded, with something like a covert sneer. "You'll know all about it, Krevin, I reckon! ...
— In the Mayor's Parlour • J. S. (Joseph Smith) Fletcher

... meant as a sneer, but Harrison's good friends took it up. Log Cabin and Hard Cider became their war-cry, and the election was known as the Log Cabin and Hard Cider campaign. And soon many simple country people came ...
— This Country Of Ours • H. E. Marshall Author: Henrietta Elizabeth Marshall

... romantic story!" commented Mr. Pitkin, unable to repress a sneer. "So you were tracked by a rascal, lured into a den of thieves, robbed of your money, or, rather, Mr. Carter's, and only released by ...
— The Errand Boy • Horatio Alger

... cold logic, and declined to believe that any golden mine existed in Guiana "anywhere in nature," as he craftily said. When Raleigh returned after his last miserable failure in May 1617, the monarch spared no sneer and no reproof to the pirate of the seas. Of course, the King was right; there was no mine of diamonds, no golden city. But the immense treasures that haunted Raleigh's dreams were more real than reality; ...
— Some Diversions of a Man of Letters • Edmund William Gosse

... you can fancy a woman's rage and anguish! the figure lifts its nose by the extremist tip. Oh! it's degradation! What respect can a woman have for her husband after that sight? Imagine it! And I have implored him to spare me. It's useless. You sneer at our hbops and say that you are inconvenienced by them but you gentlemen are not degraded,—Oh! unutterably!—as I am every morning of my life by that ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... deportment, second son of a religious earl and no scandal to the parentage, he was less noticed by Nesta than the elderly and the commoners. Her father accused her of snubbing him. She reproduced her famous copy of the sugared acid of Mr. Dudley Sowerby's closed mouth: a sort of sneer in meekness, as of humility under legitimate compulsion; deploring Christianly a pride of race that stamped it for this cowled exhibition: the wonderful mimicry was a flash thrown out by a born mistress of the ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... Fessenden echoed my sneer, and went on: "He's a rotten hypocrite; but then, we can always pull the bung out of these Reform movements ...
— The Plum Tree • David Graham Phillips

... England, who only know their aristocracy by report, usually discuss with great unction. They appear to have the same pride in the superiority of their great families, that the American slave is known to feel in the importance of his master. I say this seriously, and not with a view to sneer, but to point out to you a state of feeling that, at first, struck me as very extraordinary. I suppose that the feelings of both castes depend on a very natural principle. The Englishman, however, as he is better educated, has one respectable feature in his deference. ...
— Recollections of Europe • J. Fenimore Cooper

... shrinking now," Jeb said, with something like a sneer at Tim's assurance. "Why, everybody says they're the finest ...
— Where the Souls of Men are Calling • Credo Harris

... Yes. Your brother it seems has made his mind to bestow upon her his hand, his few remaining acres, and," with a sneer, "his spotless reputation." ...
— A Little Rebel - A Novel • Margaret Wolfe Hungerford

... when it awoke no response from the hearts of a coward, profligate, and unbelieving generation. This is the background, the keynote of the man's whole life. If we lose the recollection of it, and content ourselves by slurring it over in the last pages of his biography with some half-sneer about his putting, like the rest of Elizabeth's old admirals, 'the Spaniard, the Pope, and the Devil' in the same category, then we shall understand very little about Raleigh; though, of course, we shall save ourselves ...
— Sir Walter Raleigh and his Time from - "Plays and Puritans and Other Historical Essays" • Charles Kingsley

... and then. He had obtained an open exhibition at Oxford, and one day I found that he had a Greek Euripides in his pocket, and that he needed little help from a dictionary. He sometimes brought with him a college friend, and well do I remember a sneer from this gentleman about the poor creatures whose acquaintance with AEschylus was derived from Potter. I did not look at a translation ...
— More Pages from a Journal • Mark Rutherford

... subject of sneers and ridicule. And what, then, is the rule of duty? "As ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them." With this rule before his eyes and in his mind, can a man retail his neighbour's faults, or sneer at his deficiencies, or ridicule his infirmities, with a clear conscience? There are cases when the safety of individuals, or public justice, demands that a man's defects of character, or crimes, be made public; but no man is justified in communicating to others ...
— An Essay on Slavery and Abolitionism - With reference to the duty of American females • Catharine E. Beecher

... everything else except tears, I suggested to Dodd that he reverse the respective positions of his head and feet, and try it—he would escape the smoke and sparks from the fire, and at the same time obtain a new and curious optical effect. With the sneer of contempt which always met even my most valuable suggestions, he replied that I might try my own experiments, and throwing himself down at full length on the ground, he engaged in the interesting diversion of making faces at a Korak baby. Viushin's time, as ...
— Tent Life in Siberia • George Kennan

... help feeling hurt and sorry at the half-sneer she saw in the look and manner of the others, as well as in William's words. She wished for no better than to go away; but as she did so, her bosom swelled, and the tears started, and her breath came quicker. She found Alice lying down and asleep, Miss ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Elizabeth Wetherell

... Cadogan Cavendish, sneer as you like. But I tell you that's love that I've been describing. That's all. It's love. It's the realest, purest, finest thing that can happen to a man. And I know what I'm talking about. It happened ...
— The Red One • Jack London

... him at any price," said the guide with a sneer. "I'll carry your goods to the diggings or I'll unstrap them, stranger, and let you carry them the best way you can, but I'm not bound to sell ...
— Digging for Gold - Adventures in California • R.M. Ballantyne

... and his assistants are alive to the fact that this is one of the few churches now left to the lower part of the city, and they strive to make it a great missionary centre. Their best efforts are for the poor. Those who sneer at the wealth of the parish, would do well to trouble themselves to see what a good ...
— The Secrets Of The Great City • Edward Winslow Martin

... next time," he promised, looking up between what seemed hope and contrition. But there was a mocking light in his sophisticated face, a greedy sneer in his lustful eyes, which Joan could feel and see, although she could not read to the ...
— The Flockmaster of Poison Creek • George W. Ogden

... who will sneer at the women of England. We who have to do the work and fight the battle of life know the inspiration which we derive from their virtue, their counsel, their tenderness—and, but too often, from their compassion and their forgiveness. There is, I doubt ...
— Daily Thoughts - selected from the writings of Charles Kingsley by his wife • Charles Kingsley

... there was a sort of sneer, deeply hidden under respect and obeisance, in the man's words and craftily respectful tone; deeply hidden, but conveying a more subtile power on that account. At all events, the master seemed aroused from his state of dull indifference, and writhed as with ...
— Doctor Grimshawe's Secret - A Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... its cause should not be entirely obliterated. But England did not choose to take that politic and Christian course. She found it much pleasanter to chuckle over the discomfiture of the Irish patriots, to ridicule the failure of their peaceable agitation, to sneer at their poor effort in arms, to nickname, and misrepresent, and libel the brave-hearted gentleman who led that unlucky endeavour; and above all to felicitate herself on the reduction that had taken place in the Irish population. That—from her point of view—was the glorious part of ...
— Speeches from the Dock, Part I • Various

... two knights more than ever. Of a slight frame was Mordred, but tall, with dark hair, sallow face, and deep-set grey eyes beside a thin long nose. Few loved him, for he was never cheery nor very friendly, and ever seemed to sneer with his thin lips and his cold ...
— King Arthur's Knights - The Tales Re-told for Boys & Girls • Henry Gilbert

... several inches taller than his opponent and at least fifteen pounds heavier. His nose was a bit swollen, and there was a sneer upon his ...
— The Rover Boys at School • Arthur M. Winfield

... and, with a helpless fall of the mouth, which was usually so firmly set and ready to sneer, he exclaimed, like a boy caught in mischief: "That, that—I can not imagine how I forgot it, but I did not mention it. What strange absence of mind! But I can remedy it at once on the spot. Argutis—nay, I ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... idealism that formed so large a part of the complex character of her husband. She wanted money and power, and she drove spurs into her husband that he might obtain for her more and more money, more and more power. Any other ambition in Clifford she tried to sneer down with the ruthlessness ...
— Swirling Waters • Max Rittenberg

... forbidden to do this under pain of prison and exile. The only interruption we meet with is bad words, and a few stones now and then; and I am become so marked, that I cannot go out without people crying after me, "Methodist! Parson!"—with a contemptuous sneer, and a thousand other things not fit to write, but which serve only to strengthen my faith in the promises of Him who is faithful; till last Sunday some foolish young women came to revile us; and on Tuesday evening, whilst reading, ...
— Fox's Book of Martyrs - Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant - Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs • John Fox

... nor fat; but what is most agreeable to the eye—between the two, with a most perfectly formed person. His features were manly, and strikingly beautiful; his blue eyes beaming with the hauteur of high breeding and ripe intelligence. These features were too often disfigured with the sneer of scorn, or the curled lip of expressive contempt. His early hopes, his manhood's ambition had been disappointed; and, soured and sore, he sneered at the world, and despised it. He had no confidence in man or woman, and had truly reached Hamlet's condition, when "Man delighted ...
— The Memories of Fifty Years • William H. Sparks

... their charge, we thought it better that they should go; for what would become of them, if any accident was to happen to Edward or to me? Now they will be provided for. After they have been taught, they will make very nice tire-women to some lady of quality," added Humphrey, with a sneer. "Don't you think they ...
— The Children of the New Forest • Captain Marryat

... hidden half That all things hold of Deity. So let the dull crowd sneer and laugh— Their eyes are blind, ...
— Maurine and Other Poems • Ella Wheeler Wilcox

... of the world will hold up their hands and squawk: 'How scandalously sudden! I suppose she did it to show she didn't mind Frederik's jilting her.' And for the sake of the people who would have approved a crime and who will sneer at a good and wise deed, you are going to throw away many days of bliss, and senselessly postpone the one perfect Event of your life. Is this my wise little girl or is it some one just as stubborn and foolish as her old uncle ...
— The Return of Peter Grimm - Novelised From the Play • David Belasco

... these delicate distinctions," Dr. Merrick interposed with a polite sneer. "I gather from what you said just now that the lady is shortly expecting her confinement; and as she isn't married, you tell me, I naturally infer that SOMEBODY must have seduced her—either you, or some ...
— The Woman Who Did • Grant Allen

... this speech the skipper had gradually recovered the control of his temper; the tremulous tones of anger in his voice were succeeded by those of bitter sarcasm; and the manifest sneer with which he concluded made my ...
— The Rover's Secret - A Tale of the Pirate Cays and Lagoons of Cuba • Harry Collingwood

... Antipater was on a sick bed, and Kassander, who was now at the head of affairs, had discovered a letter addressed by Demades to Antigonus in Asia, inviting him to cross over into Greece and Macedonia, and free them from their dependence on an old and rotten warp[648] -by which expression he meant to sneer at Antipater. As soon as Kassander saw Demades arrive in Macedonia he had him arrested, and first led his son close to him and then stabbed him, so that his robe was covered with his son's blood, and then, after bitterly upbraiding him ...
— Plutarch's Lives Volume III. • Plutarch

... the boys saw that there were two occupants on board her. One was a tall, well-dressed lad in yachting clothes, whose face, rather handsome otherwise, was marred by a supercilious sneer, as if he considered himself a great deal better than anyone else. The other was a somewhat elderly man whose hair appeared to be tinged with gray. His features were coarse, but he resembled the lad with him enough to make it certain ...
— The Ocean Wireless Boys And The Naval Code • John Henry Goldfrap, AKA Captain Wilbur Lawton

... surprise and a half-sneer, "extra train? why you can't have an extra train to Rugby for less than ...
— A Unique Story of a Marvellous Career. Life of Hon. Phineas T. • Joel Benton

... proceeding from start to finish had been conducted unfairly and with illegality, that the jury had been duped and deceived, and that the pretense that the guilty Angelo had been given an impartial trial was a farce. Every word of the court had been an accusation, a sneer, an acceptance of the defendant's guilt as a matter of course, an abuse far more subversive of our theory of government than the mere acquittal of a single criminal, for it struck at the very foundations of that liberty which the fathers had sought the shores of ...
— Tutt and Mr. Tutt • Arthur Train

... usual. It gets harder as the weather grows colder and the streets get more sloppy. When Lavinia laughed at my muddy skirt as I passed her in the hall, I thought of something to say all in a flash—and I only just stopped myself in time. You can't sneer back at people like that—if you are a princess. But you have to bite your tongue to hold yourself in. I bit mine. It was a cold afternoon, Melchisedec. And it's ...
— A Little Princess • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... devotion's highest flight sublime Exalt the mind, by tenderest pathos' art, Dissolve, in purifying tears, the heart, Or bid it, shuddering, recoil at crime; The fond illusions of the youth and maid, At which so many world-formed sages sneer, When by thy altar-lighted torch displayed, Our natural religion must appear. All things in thee tend to one polar star, Magnetic all ...
— Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, Vol. I • Margaret Fuller Ossoli

... On Monday. If it weren't for the journey, I should have been glad enough to be rid of the minx. I'm glad as it is, indeed; for a more insolent, upstanding, independent, answer-you-back-again young woman, with a sneer of her own, I never saw, Amelia—but I must get to Schlangenbad. Now, there the difficulty comes in. On the one hand, if I engage a maid in London, I have the choice of two evils. Either I must take a trapesing English girl—and I know by experience that an English girl ...
— Miss Cayley's Adventures • Grant Allen

... to Dorothy of her interview with Richard; she appeared to believe that Richard had saved her that labor. There was a kind of sneer in this. Feeling the sneer, Dorothy put no questions; she was willing, in her resentment, to have it understood that Richard had told her. Why should he not?—she who was to be his wife! Dorothy would have been proud to proclaim ...
— The President - A novel • Alfred Henry Lewis

... A sneer appeared on the face of the Very Young Husband. He had been known before he met Jen as a rather industrious sower of wild oats. He knew a thing or two, did the Very Young Husband, in spite of his youth! He always fussed when Jen wore even a V-necked ...
— One Basket • Edna Ferber

... marvel, too, at the versatility of the writer, who seems this moment to be looking at the scene with the eye of the melancholy Jacques; the next, with the philosophical aspect of the moralizing Hamlet; the next, with the rage of a misanthropical Timon; and the next, with the bitter sneer of a malignant Iago: and yet, who, amidst all these disguises, leaves on you the impression that he is throughout acting the part, and displaying the spirit, of a demon—a deep current of mockery at man's miseries, and at God's providence, running under all his moods and imitations. We read it once, ...
— The Poetical Works of Beattie, Blair, and Falconer - With Lives, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Rev. George Gilfillan [Ed.]

... not a dog," he replied. "I've met people before this, and I say good morning when I come and peace-be-with-you when I go. You shouldn't sneer at me, you know." ...
— Look Back on Happiness • Knut Hamsun

... closely to perceive why a book so searching, and even so cruel as his, has exercised on the genius of France a salutary and a lasting influence. His savage pessimism is not useless, it is not a mere scorn of humanity and a sneer at its weaknesses. It tends, by stripping off all the shams of conduct and digging to the root of action, to make people upright, candid and magnanimous on a new basis of truth. So we come at last to see the significance of Voltaire's ...
— Three French Moralists and The Gallantry of France • Edmund Gosse

... himself off a dock to rescue a perishing wretch, but there is a dearth of the kind of bravery that will enable either man or woman to face a laugh in defense of a principle, or succor a losing cause despite a sneer. How the best of us will retreat trailing our banner in the dust, when the hot shot of ridicule confronts us from the enemy's camp, or when some merry sentinel challenges us with the opprobrious epithet, "crank." Why, I believe there is hardly a man or woman to-day who would have the courage to ...
— A String of Amber Beads • Martha Everts Holden

... listen to the hasty sneer to which many of late have given way, that the Alexandrian divines were mere mystics, who corrupted Christianity by an admixture of Oriental and Greek thought. My own belief is that they expanded and corroborated Christianity, in spite of great ...
— Alexandria and her Schools • Charles Kingsley

... Gospel. It is Christianity's master-thought that to the Father from whom all fatherhood is named each one of His children is personally dear, and that His desire is for the salvation of each one. To the cheap and ugly sneer that God has a "queer way" of manifesting His concern for us as individuals, the Christian consciousness has its own answer; how, in any case, such a sneer could come from the same source from which we previously quoted the statement that "nothing can happen to any of God's children ...
— Problems of Immanence - Studies Critical and Constructive • J. Warschauer

... left Warfield's face and went beyond the staring group. His face darkened, a sneer ...
— The Quirt • B.M. Bower

... had better answer that question," suggested Barraclough with a little sneer. Day moved some papers with ...
— Hurricane Island • H. B. Marriott Watson

... that jibe an' sneer At spiritual guests an' a' sic gear, At the Glasnock mill hae swat wi' fear, An' ...
— Spare Hours • John Brown

... are you doing within our lines in civilian clothes, may I ask?" demanded the general, with a sneer. "Spying, eh?" he continued without waiting for a reply. "I thought so. Are ...
— The boy Allies at Liege • Clair W. Hayes

... praying as they went. Some of them had been saving up all their lives, I imagine, against the coming of this great day; but our guide—and we tried three different ones—never beheld this sight that he did not sneer at it; and not once did he fail to point out that most of the pilgrims were middle-aged or old, taking this as proof of his claim that the Church no longer kept its hold on the younger people, even among the peasant classes. The still more frequent spectacle ...
— Europe Revised • Irvin S. Cobb

... addressed the Count as his "heart's Papa," and Anna Nitschmann as his "Motherkin." He said he would kiss them a thousand times, and vowed he could never fondle them enough! And yet this man had the soul of a hero, and killed himself by overwork among the North American Indians!103 It is easy to sneer at saints like this as fools; but if fools they were, they were fools ...
— History of the Moravian Church • J. E. Hutton

... a bad lot is exactly, but if you mean that I've lived with women and been drunk, and lost jobs because I didn't do the work, and been generally on the loose, it's true, of course. But I meant to live decently when I came home. Yes, I did. You can sneer as much as you like. Why didn't you help me? You're my sister, aren't you? And now I don't care what I do. You've all given me up. Well, give me up, and I'll just go to bits as fast as I can go! If you don't want me there ...
— The Captives • Hugh Walpole

... very morning of thy death, the seven old men to whom obedience was commanded by the chieftain, curse thee because thou borest away with thee the soul of their hero. In their addresses to the people, with scorn and scoff upon their lips, they sneer and call thee 'WOMAN;' but the people weep, and pray: Lord Christ, Son of the Virgin, give to ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 5, May, 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... a sneer. 'Bohun, however, has some excuses for his folly: for he was an orphan, I believe, in ...
— Sketches • Benjamin Disraeli

... softens the plainest, had failed entirely to dissipate the impression of meanness in the face of the stricken man. The lips were set in a little sneer, the half-closed eyes were small, the clean-shaven jaw was long and underhung, the ears were large and ...
— The Man Who Knew • Edgar Wallace

... there was one who piqued and puzzled my curiosity. He had the face of a saint with the habits of a debauchee. His pale and student-like features were of the most classic mold, and their expression singularly winning, save when at times a cynical sneer would suddenly flash over them like a cloud-shadow over a quiet landscape. He was a lawyer, and stood at the head of the bar. He was an orator whose silver voice and magnetic qualities often kindled the largest audiences ...
— California Sketches, Second Series • O. P. Fitzgerald

... to give a present, but that pleasure the Banyai usually deny to strangers by making it a fine, and demanding it in such a supercilious way, that only a sorely cowed trader could bear it. They often refuse to touch what is offered—throw it down and leave it—sneer at the trader's slaves, and refuse a passage until the tribute is raised to the ...
— A Popular Account of Dr. Livingstone's Expedition to the Zambesi and Its Tributaries • David Livingstone

... upon the giant, perhaps. But after his doughty deed, Dandy Jack was to be excused if he improved the occasion, and revenged himself for the sneer that had previously ...
— Brighter Britain! (Volume 1 of 2) - or Settler and Maori in Northern New Zealand • William Delisle Hay

... they would have proceeded according to law," replied Perez, with a bitter sneer. "They have been proceeding according to law for the past six years here in Berkshire, and that's why the people are in rebellion. I'm no lawyer, but I know that Perez Hamlin is as good as Jahleel Woodbridge, whatever the parson ...
— The Duke of Stockbridge • Edward Bellamy

... Buckingham. By the end of that time I knew it fairly well, so I left it for a while and stealthily entered the old oak chamber—Act III, Scene I—by the secret door behind the arras. After bringing down the curtain with two ugly looks, four steps, and a sneer, I sat down on the fallen beech-tree, lighted a cigarette, and wondered why I had rejected the post of call-boy. Then I started on the ...
— The Brother of Daphne • Dornford Yates

... offer you a permanent position in his employ," said Haynes, with a sneer. "Spies ...
— The Telegraph Boy • Horatio Alger, Jr.

... of them once, and gave the idea of a very puerile, ridiculous, apron-stringy attempt at poetry. Whoever wrote that notice ought to be shot, for the books are charming pure and homely and householdy, yet not effeminate. Critics may sneer as much as they choose: it is such love as Vaughan's that Honorias value. Because a woman's nature is not proof against deterioration, because a large and long-continued infusion of gross blood, and perhaps even the monotonous pressure of rough, pitiless, degrading circumstances, may displace, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 11, Issue 67, May, 1863 • Various

... was swept, and Antoine was preparing to go, when the other, who had been eyeing the prisoner suspiciously, stopped and said with a sharp sneer, "Does the citizen always preserve ...
— Frances Kane's Fortune • L. T. Meade

... you become, nonna, more than an outcast?" she enquired. "What use to you is money, or a power that the world would sneer at, did the world even suspect that you exist? You are a failure in life, my nonna, and I ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces Abroad • Edith Van Dyne

... Then, with a sneer: "I now recollec' that once you have been a butcher in Madrid. ... Suit ...
— The Flaming Jewel • Robert Chambers

... their midst, feeling humble and contrite, and had been conscience-smitten at sight of her mamma's pale face; but the sneer on Betty's face, the cold, averted looks of Edward and Zoe, and then Rosie's taunt roused her quick temper ...
— Elsie at Nantucket • Martha Finley

... sneer on his astute face, Lawrence drawled: "I cannot see that you have accomplished anything by this rather extraordinary summoning of us to your laboratory. The evidence is just as black against Dr. Gregory as before. You may think you're clever, Kennedy, but on the very statement of ...
— The Silent Bullet • Arthur B. Reeve

... been inclined to sneer, nor was it until Fyles unfolded something of his scheme that he began to take it seriously. Finally, however, the younger man had had his way, and the necessary permission was granted. Then the superintendent ...
— The Law-Breakers • Ridgwell Cullum

... citizenship than the millions of Americans who to-day are toiling on the farms and in the workshops of the country and who demand from the laws they obey nothing but equity and justice. It was easier, and more pleasant to those who heard him, to wrong these men with a sneer than to answer them with an argument. He might possibly have done well to relinquish this task to one who sat near him, his ex-Secretary of the Treasury, who had himself, in 1878, discovered something that he thought a crime and had thus denounced it: ...
— The Arena - Volume 18, No. 92, July, 1897 • Various

... her fair arms, And at your old legs sneer and scoff, But let her laugh, for you have charms That ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood

... shamefully deviated in practice, but have ever loved and honoured Pope's poetry with my whole soul." There is ten times more poetry, he thinks, in the "Essay on Man" than in the "Excursion"; and if you want passion, where is to be found stronger than in the "Epistle of Eloisa to Abelard"? To the sneer that Pope is only the "poet of reason" Byron replies that he will undertake to find more lines teeming with imagination in Pope than in any two living poets. "In the mean time," he asks, "what have we got instead? . . . The Lake school," and "a deluge of flimsy and unintelligible ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Nineteenth Century • Henry A. Beers

... creature, who had so fondly hoped to have made a young man of genius and romance (as she supposed) happy! They had not been an hour in the carriage which conveyed them from the church, when, breaking into a malignant sneer, "Oh! what a dupe you have been to your imagination! How is it possible a woman of your sense could form the wild hope of reforming me? Many are the tears you will have to shed ere that plan is accomplished. It is enough for me that you are my wife for me to hate you! If you were ...
— Lady Byron Vindicated • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... taking her husband's aggressive tone, she started out almost with a sneer. Her remarks at first were disjointed and brief, but I told her I was writing the story of her husband's life, that I wanted her side of it from the start. I promised to show her what I wrote and let her cut anything she had told me if she did not want it in ...
— The Harbor • Ernest Poole

... She crumpled the beautiful parchment in her hands, walked over to the fire, and quietly placed the sacred instrument in the midst of the flames. Then she turned away with a sneer of contempt upon her face and—again I grieve to tell ...
— Dorothy Vernon of Haddon Hall • Charles Major

... your fellow-citizens; a highwayman, a thief, and a murderer," continued the lieutenant very severely. "This is the second time you have visited this mansion for plunder; but you don't come out of it so well as you expected," said Deck with a sneer, evident in his tones as well ...
— A Lieutenant at Eighteen • Oliver Optic

... to and fro on the shore, a black group forms and moves away. She is saved! It was a sand-hauler who fished her out. Policemen are carrying her, surrounded by boatmen and lightermen, and in the darkness a hoarse voice is heard saying with a sneer: "That water-hen gave me a lot of trouble. You ought to see how she slipped through my fingers! I believe she wanted to make me lose my reward." Gradually the tumult subsides, the bystanders disperse, and the black group moves away ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet

... sauntering a lad of sixteen years, although the chronic sneer of an ideal manhood already sat upon his lips. His hat was tipped with an air of challenge over his eye. Between his teeth, a cigar stump was tilted at the angle of defiance. He walked with a certain swing of the shoulders which appalled ...
— Maggie: A Girl of the Streets • Stephen Crane

... suppressed his real name, or have taken for granted that Golias was a bona fide surname. On the theory that he knew Golias to be a mere nickname, and was aware that Walter of Lille was the actual satirist, we should have to explain his paragraph by the hypothesis that he chose to sneer at him under his nom de guerre instead of stigmatising him ...
— Wine, Women, and Song - Mediaeval Latin Students' songs; Now first translated into English verse • Various

... a complacent dog with a waving tail of silver hair which flickered in the sunshine. As they started, the dog yelped, and leaped at the horses' heads, till Kennicott took him into the buggy, where he nuzzled Carol's knees and leaned out to sneer ...
— Main Street • Sinclair Lewis

... people, who know nothing of the facts, but consider it fashionable to sneer at the missionaries, declare that Hindus never are converted. The official census of the government of India, which is based upon inquiries made directly of the individuals themselves, by sworn agents, and is not compiled from the reports of the missionary societies, shows an increase ...
— Modern India • William Eleroy Curtis

... emollients, fireside novels, canned edibles, cigarettes, and chewing tobacco. The money was no doubt legitimately earned. The patent-medicine man and the millionaire tailor have my entire respect. I do not sneer at honest wealth acquired by these humble means. The rise—if it be a rise—of these and others like them is superficial evidence, perhaps, that ours is a democracy. Looking deeper, we see that it is, in fact, proof of our utter ...
— The "Goldfish" • Arthur Train

... after the ball you said you were prepared to carry out the suggestion, in order to save yourself," he remarked with a covert sneer. ...
— The House of Whispers • William Le Queux

... was clearly shown, for at the very moment when the Northerners of the democratic class were pressing one of their frequent schemes for free land, Southerners and their sympathetic Northern henchmen were furthering a scheme that aimed at the purchase of Cuba. From the impatient sneer of a Southerner that the Northerners sought to give "land to the landless" and the retort that the Southerners seemed equally anxious to supply "niggers to the niggerless," it can be seen that American history is sometimes better summed up by ...
— Abraham Lincoln and the Union - A Chronicle of the Embattled North, Volume 29 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Nathaniel W. Stephenson

... equestrian triumph. Let them, however, derive from the fate of Vauxhall a deep, a fearful lesson!—though we shudder as we write, it shall not be said that destruction came upon them unawares—that no warning voice had been raised—that even the squeak of Punch was silent! Let them not sneer, and call us superstitious—we do not give credence to supernatural agency as a fixed and general principle; but we did believe in Simpson, and stake our professional ...
— Gossip in the First Decade of Victoria's Reign • John Ashton

... not without a sneer, "And what would you prefer? Would you go back to the elegant early Victorian female, with ringlets and smelling-bottle, doing a little in water colors, dabbling a little in Italian, playing a little on the harp, writing in vulgar albums and painting on senseless screens? ...
— What's Wrong With The World • G.K. Chesterton

... year ago would have dropped his face into his hands and would have wept over this letter; now he laughed at it. And the laugh, this first one, was the laugh men came to know as Dave Drennen's laugh. It was like a sneer and a curse and a slap in ...
— Wolf Breed • Jackson Gregory



Words linked to "Sneer" :   scorn, smile, show, contempt, express, evince



Copyright © 2024 Diccionario ingles.com